From part 8:
She was finding it very difficult to focus at the moment. She just couldn’t get over how different he looked without the tight suit and the hair gel. Then, in one of those intuitive leaps that she prided herself on, it came to her. ‘People see what they expect to see.’ At the same moment, her hand landed on the corkscrew. She stood up straight, looked Superman in the eye, brandished the corkscrew with a grin, and proclaimed triumphantly, “Clark Kent!”
********And now, Part 9********
“Excuse me?” It was the world’s lamest defense against the sudden collapse of what he had thought was a brilliant disguise, but it was all his brain could come up with over the clamor of mental alarm bells. By dint of sheer terror-induced paralysis, he did not, in fact, fly straight out the window, but stood rooted to the floor long enough to hear what Lois said next.
“Clark Kent,” she repeated casually, for all the world as if she had not just discovered his biggest secret, “You know, the writer ?” she clarified, twisting the corkscrew into the cork, “‘Northern Passage,’ ‘Many Hands,’ ‘Little David?’” She waved toward her coffee table, where Clark belatedly noticed a copy of his latest book. “All best-sellers with movie deals,” she went on, “He’s on Entertainment Tonight every other day lately. Different girl every time.” She rolled her eyes at her last description and looked to Clark for any sign of recognition. When Superman continued to stare blankly at her, she apparently assumed that he was the only person in North America who hadn’t seen a Clark Kent movie. “Anyway,” she continued undeterred, “I interviewed him a couple of weeks ago. Nothing ever came of it, but I just remembered something he said that night: People see what they expect to see. So that explains how we could have spent a couple of hours together this morning, and me still not recognize you when you turned up dressed completely differently tonight.” She smiled at her own epiphany .
“Well,” he replied as soon as he felt he could trust his voice again, “this is pretty much how I look when I’m at home.” Except for the glasses he usually wore out of habit, but he didn’t tell her that. “It’s the flashy hero suit and the hair gel that’s the disguise. But you knew that.”
By this time Lois had managed to get the cork halfway out of the bottle, but she was having some trouble. “Well, I didn’t think that you normally walked about with your hair plastered to your skull, if that’s what you mean,” she replied. She gave the corkscrew one final tug, and a good-size chunk of cork came loose, leaving the rest of the cork still firmly entrenched in the bottle and no clean surface with which to make another try. She looked up at Superman with a shrug and, rather sheepishly, added, “I’m sorry. I’ve made quite a mess of this. I’m afraid it’s going to be soda after all.”
“No trouble,” Superman replied easily. “Allow me.” With that, he gently took the bottle from her and popped the remains of the cork out with his thumb. Of course, Lois thought. Why not? He’s *Superman,* for goodness’ sake!
While he poured the wine into the glasses, Superman said, “I hope you don’t mind me dressing this way. I didn’t think it was a good idea for Superman to keep coming through your window. There’s a good chance that someone will notice, and you’ve had enough trouble on my account as it is.”
“Of course not,” she assured him, gesturing for him to take a seat at the table.
As Lois took her own seat, Superman said in a rueful tone, “I want you to know how terrible I feel about putting you in danger, Lois. First you nearly lose an eye in the Carlin building bombing, then that madman Trask throws you out of a plane; your connection with me has brought you nothing but trouble. It was never my intention, but I should have anticipated it. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she admonished him. “You saved my life at the shuttle launch, and that danger had nothing to do with you. I’ve been getting myself into trouble as long as I can remember. I always seem to jump in without testing the water level. My editor swears I’ll be the death of him, but it’s the only way I know to get the job done.
“Besides, the only reason I was in any danger at the Carlin building, or even when Trask decided to use me to test his crazy theory, was because I was doing my job. Superman is the biggest story since…ever, and I’m going to be the envy of every reporter in the world when that interview appears on tomorrow’s front page. If that story doesn’t get me a Pulitzer nomination, I don’t what could. That’s worth a little risk.”
He was looking at her with open admiration. Needing a distraction, Lois lifted the top off of the nearest container. A delicious aroma wafted up along with the steam. “This smells wonderful! And it’s still hot. Where did you get it?”
“Shanghai,” Superman answered, a smile still playing at the corners of his mouth. He handed Lois a pair of chopsticks, then helped himself to a dumpling with his own pair.
“Shanghai,” Lois repeated in amused wonder. “Of course. Where else would Superman go for Chinese food?” She popped a dumpling in her mouth. When she’d swallowed enough to be able to speak again, she exclaimed, “This is terrific! I wish I had your phone number. I’d be calling you every time I needed a tip from Bobby Bigmouth.”
“Who’s Bobby Bigmouth?” Superman asked, amusement evident in his voice.
“My best snitch,” Lois replied with her mouth half full. “Skinny as a rail, but eats like a horse. He gets paid in food, and he’s very particular about the quality. The better the food, the better the information.”
“Does he like Italian?”
“Are you kidding? His mother’s Italian. He’s a sucker for anything pasta. But it has to be fresh. He has too much taste for my own good.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Superman said, reaching for another dumpling, “the next time you need a tip from Bobby, you let me know. I’ll get you the best Fusilli Puttanesca known to man.”
“Mmm…” Lois swallowed and reached for another container. “I don’t even know what that is, but if it’s as good as this food, I’m sure Bobby will love it.” She paused long enough to take the top off the basket of noodles before asking, “But how would I get in touch with you? I don’t usually know in advance when I’m going to be fishing for information.”
“Hmm…I’ll have to think about that one. For now, why don’t you just open your window, or go up to the roof if you’re at work, and call for me? If I’m anywhere in Metropolis, I’ll hear you.”
“Are you serious?” Lois asked in surprise. “There are over ten million people just inside the city limits. How could you possibly make out my voice over all those other people?”
His face turned utterly serious for just a moment as he replied, “All those other people aren’t you.”
Lois could feel the blush rising up her cheeks. She covered by reaching for some kind of shrimp dish and asking, “Doesn’t it drive you crazy, being surrounded by so many people when you can hear every word they say?”
“It did at first, but I’ve learned to tune it out, just like you do.”
“I don’t have superhearing.”
“That doesn’t matter. It’s still the same principle. Both of our brains filter what we hear. Mine just has to work a little harder than yours.”
“You mean like how I can tune out other people’s conversations in the newsroom if I’m concentrating on an article.”
“Exactly.” He used his chopsticks to scoop a generous pile of steamed rice onto his plate and piled slices of beef in a tangy orange sauce on top. “The funny thing is, it works in reverse too.”
“What do you mean?” Lois couldn’t believe how much this man could eat. On the other hand, he must use up a lot of energy. He’d certainly brought enough food for four ordinary people.
“Let’s say that you live out in the country, not too far from a set of railroad tracks. Every night at 2:30 a.m. a train comes past your house. At first the noise might wake you up, but after a while you don’t even hear it any more. But actually, you do. There’s this little part of your brain whose job is to filter everything you hear. It decides which things your conscious mind needs to know about and which can be ignored. That’s why you can tune out all the conversations at a cocktail party, but if someone on the other side of the room says your name, you’ll hear it. Now, back to the train. You’ve gotten used to it now, and you don’t wake up when it comes rumbling by every night. But one night there’s some kind of problem farther up the line, and the train doesn’t come. You wake up at 2:30 with no idea of what woke you up. It was that little part of your brain. It was expecting the train and it didn’t come, so it woke you up to find out why.”
Superman took a sip of wine, then seemed to notice Lois’s slack-jawed stare.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m boring you. I’m afraid I’m a bit of a trivia nut.”
Lois came to and hurried to reassure him, “No, not at all. I was just thinking about how much your brain must have to filter.” The truth was, she was flabbergasted. She couldn’t believe she was sitting at her own table eating Chinese carry-out *from China* and listening to Superman explain the inner workings of the human brain. Her life was just so weird! It worked for her, though.
Meanwhile, Superman gave a little shrug and said, “I’m used to it. It’s really no big deal.”
Lois didn’t think the phrase ‘no big deal’ belonged anywhere in the vicinity of Superman, but she refrained from saying so.
“I was surprised how well you handled yourself in the interview this afternoon,” she said.
He raised one eyebrow in response, giving her a quizzical half-smile. “Is that a back-handed compliment? I don’t know whether to be happy that I did a good job or insulted that your expectations were low.”
Lois could feel herself blushing. Again. “I’m sorry, that didn’t come out quite right. It’s just that you’ve only been Superman for less than three weeks, and this was your first interview. I didn’t expect you to handle it with such…aplomb. I didn’t exactly pull my punches.”
“No, you didn’t,” he agreed with a grin.
“Yet you didn’t let it get to you. That’s unusual for a novice.”
“I never said I was a novice.”
“No, you didn’t. But you’re not going to tell me where you learned to handle the press so well, are you?”
“Not tonight,” he smiled. Then his face turned serious and he paused for a moment, as if searching for the right words. “I don’t want to pretend with you, Lois. I want to be myself, which is a luxury I haven’t had in a long time outside of a very small circle of people. I won’t ever lie to you. And I fully intend to tell you my whole story…someday. But I’m afraid that if you know who I am too soon…or what my name is, anyway, which I’m not sure is the same thing…I’ll lose something precious. I feel like I’ve been given a clean slate.”
When she didn’t respond right away, he tried another tack. “Do you know what convinced me that Superman could have friends after all?”
“What?”
“The way you looked at me that night. You were looking past the disguise, like you could see me underneath. I didn’t realize until that moment how tired I was of people seeing the façade and never being able to show the man beneath it. So the last thing I want to do now is trade one disguise for another. And that’s what I’m afraid I’d be doing if I told you my name now.” He gave a frustrated sigh. “I’m not sure I’m explaining this very well. Can you understand what I’m trying to say? Can you accept that by not telling you everything yet I’m trying to be *more* honest with you, not less?”
Lois chewed thoughtfully for a moment before replying, “I’m not sure I understand completely. But I can tell that you’re trying to make some kind of break with your past, with whatever it is that your real name means to you. So, yeah, I guess I can wait. But I’m not sure how well we can really get to know each other if you feel you have to hide part of yourself from me, even if it’s a part you don’t like much.”
“You have a point,” Clark was forced to admit. “Maybe I just need a little time to get comfortable with the idea. It’s not just a matter of what *you’ll* see if I tell you my name. It’s also a matter of my own expectations, of who I feel like I have to be when I’m him. Without that burden, I feel like I can be anybody—like I’m discovering who I am all over again.”
“It must be confusing,” she put in, “you’ve got Superman, Whatever Your Name Is, and, somewhere underneath it all, this New Man that you’re trying to create, or find, or I don’t know what.”
“I don’t know what either, Lois. I’m kind of making this up as I go along. All I know now is that the guy with my name is no more me than Superman is. For one thing, he can’t fly, and I can.”
“Good point.” Lois took a bite of green beans with red peppers while she thought it over. “I guess there’s no reason I can’t start off getting to know the superpowered side of you just as easily as the other side. As long as we’re agreed that it’s just for now. And you can’t expect me not to be curious. I can’t just turn that off.”
He grinned in relief. “I wouldn’t dream of it, Lois. Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Speaking of which, you said in the interview that you were a refugee. Now that we’re off the record, do you want to tell me how that happened? It seems like it still bothers you.”
“Only from time to time, when I think about how I got here. It’s not something I dwell on most of the time.” He paused to gather his thoughts. “To be honest, I don’t know exactly what happened, why my parents sent me away, or even whether they had any choice in the matter. Maybe someone took me from them.”
“Your parents sent you to Earth from Krypton? And you don’t remember anything about it?” A new thought dawned on her. “Exactly how long ago was that? How old were you?”
He couldn’t help smiling at her insightfulness. “A very long time ago; I was only a few months old when my ship landed on Earth.”
“A few *months* old? You were a baby?” The logic gears were turning at full speed now. “So that ship I saw wasn’t a supply ship at all. I said it was too small to carry a person, but that would only be true for an adult. It was big enough to fit a baby.”
“You’ve got it exactly right,” he nodded. “My folks—my adoptive parents—found me in that ship over twenty years ago.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-seven. How old are you?”
Lois laughed at his what’s-good-for-the-goose-is-good-for-the-gander riposte. “Touche. I’m twenty-six.”
He’d distracted her momentarily, but he could practically see her rearranging her assumptions about Superman in her head. “So you grew up here on Earth. And you haven’t heard from anyone on Krypton since you were a baby?”
“No. Not a word.” That issue still touched a nerve, she could tell.
“Why would anyone send a little baby all alone to another solar system?”
“I have no idea. Until you showed me that globe I wasn’t even sure I was from another solar system. My parents thought I might have been some sort of Russian experiment.”
The implications of that statement registered quickly. “So you just recently found out for sure that you are the first visitor from another planet? That’s huge.”
“To find out that I’m an alien? Yeah. It’s pretty big. That’s one reason I was so relieved to see how you were looking at me that night. You didn’t look at me like I was some kind of freak.”
“Now, hold on there, bud.” Lois reached one hand across the table to cover one of his. “I don’t care where you come from or what you can do. You are the most amazing man I’ve ever met. You’re not an alien, or a freak.”
“I appreciate what you’re trying to do, Lois, but I am an alien. There’s no denying that. The globe you found talked to me, directly into my mind. It told me the name of its planet. That’s about as freaky as you can get.”
“You’ve never been to Mardi Gras, have you?” Lois asked in an obvious attempt to break the tension and lighten the mood.
“As a matter of fact, I have,” he laughed. “Point taken.”
The various bamboo containers were just about empty. Lois took one final sip of wine, then reached for a fortune cookie and cracked it open.
“It’s in Chinese,” she blurted out in surprise. Well, why wouldn’t it be?
“Let me see.” Superman was reaching for the fortune.
“Don’t tell me you read…never mind.”
Lois handed the slip of paper to him and he translated, “A good horse is like a member of the family.”
“See, I hate that! That is not a fortune!” Lois began. She stopped when she saw the look he was giving her. Smitten. That was the only word she could come up with to describe that look. She had a feeling that it was closely mirrored by her own. Neither of them moved.
A million thoughts were churning in her head, so it probably wasn’t surprising that one of them spilled out of her mouth.
“If you were any other man, I’d tell you not to fall for me .”
The corners of his mouth twitched, and a warm twinkle danced in his eyes. “It wouldn’t do you any good. As it is, you’re too late,” he returned, his voice deep and smooth.
“I’m nothing but trouble in that department,” she parried half-heartedly.
“Forewarned is forearmed; I’ll take my chances,” he insisted, his mouth stretching into a wide smile.
“Why?” she blurted.
He’d been leaning back in his chair, but at her question he sat forward and reached across the small table to grasp her hand in his. Every trace of teasing was gone. In all earnestness, he told her, “Because you’re brilliant.” Without letting go of her hand, he slid gracefully out of his seat and moved around the table to kneel next to her. “Because you were Superman’s first friend.” He reached up with his free hand and gently tucked her hair behind her left ear. “Because you saw right away that he wasn’t me.” He released her hand and cradled her face in his palms. “Because you are the most beautiful person I know.” His face leaned in towards hers, “There’s something special going on here, Lois. I felt it the first time I laid eyes on you. Please tell me I’m not the only one.”
“You’re not,” came out in a whisper. It was all she could manage, but it was all he needed to hear.
She’d seen it coming. He’d made his intentions clear with every move. But nothing could have prepared Lois for the impact of that first kiss. His lips were soft and yielding, but his hands were firm and sure. The first touch was brief, a testing of the waters, but at her willing response his hesitancy evaporated and he was back, kissing her in earnest. His kiss spoke of admiration, of affection, of desire, and a promise of even better things to come. It was a kiss that said, “This is wonderful, but you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
Lois brought her own hands to his head, idly playing with the soft curls at the back of his neck. When the kiss finally broke, Superman let out a breathless, “Lois…”
“Super…” she began, but the name was interrupted by the return of his lips to hers. He kissed her quickly and briefly, just to stop her from talking.
“Please, Lois, don’t call me that, not when it’s just us.” His forehead leaned against hers, and she could feel the breath of every word blowing gently across her own lips.
She kissed him again, tried to pour all the faith she had in him into that kiss. “I want you to be whoever you want to be. I don’t care what your name is. It’s you I care about.”
This time when she kissed him he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her out of her chair in the process. But they didn’t collapse in a heap on the floor. Instead, they rose smoothly up until they were both standing, arms around each other, six inches in the air. When the kiss broke, Lois rested her head on his chest. She’d loved flying in his arms, but floating like this, face to face, was even better.
When he spoke, his voice emanated from this chest in a low rumble that she felt as much as heard. “Lois, you are amazing. I’ve never met another woman quite like you.”
“Well, I’m not your typical female,” she teased. “Anyone could tell you that.”
“I’ll just bet they could.” Lois could hear the grin in his voice. She pulled her head back so that she could see it as well. Just then, a thought that had been bothering her all evening pushed its way to the foreground.
“What?” he asked when a small frown of consternation creased her brow.
“I wasn’t kidding; I really don’t need you to tell me your real name yet. But I do need something to call you besides Superman or Hey Handsome.”
He landed them gently back on the floor and, taking her by the hand, led her to sit with him on her loveseat.
“Well, Hey Handsome works for me,” he said, pulling her feet up sideways to rest her legs across his lap, “but I suppose I could answer to something else if you insist. As long as it isn’t…”
“Norbert,” they said in unison, chuckling at the shared joke.
Lois leaned back against the arm of the sofa. Her left arm draped across the sofa back, her fingers once more toying with those adorable curls at the back of his head. His hands rubbed idly up and down the sides of her lower legs.
“Hmmm….,” she contemplated. “I think we should name you after Clark Kent. He is the master of the secret identity, you know.”
“You’re going to call me Clark?” he squeaked.
“No, that could get confusing. What if we wanted to go somewhere public? I couldn’t go around introducing you to my friends as Clark Kent. You’d never hear the end of it.”
“Good point,” he agreed. He removed her hand from his neck and placed a kiss on her knuckles before lacing their fingers together.
“No, I was thinking more along the lines of using the same initials,” she mused.
“I guess I could live with that. But please don’t call me Calvin Klein.”
Lois gave a little chuckle, then went back to her pondering. “How about Charlie King?” she asked.
“Definitely not,” was his emphatic reply. “I know a Charlie King, and he’s nobody you’d like to meet.” In point of fact, Charlie King was one of Clark’s least favorite aliases. Charlie had fallen in with some gun-runners in the Congo and gotten to know some very nasty people. In the process, he’d learned a few things about Metropolis’s favorite son, but he’d been forced out before he had anything tangible. One of these days, though…
“Too much baggage with Charlie. Got it.” Lois’s voice brought him back to the present. There was a long pause as she continued to meditate on the various permutations of CK.
“How do you feel about Caleb?” she asked at length.
He tried it out. “Caleb...Caleb…I knew a Caleb in college. He was a pretty cool guy. I guess I could be a Caleb.”
“Ah, so you’ve been to college. You’re dropping a lot of clues, you know.”
“I’m not going to censor everything I say around you, Lois. I want us to get to know each other. Besides, you’re the great Lois Lane. If you really want to know my name, I have no doubt you’ll find it out.”
“Well, I doubt your name would make any difference to me anyway. It’s not as if I’m likely to even meet you in your other guise. You could tell me your name was Joe Regular and it wouldn’t mean a thing to me. But, since it seems to mean something to you, I’m going to give you a new one anyway. A new name for the new you. So, are we settled on Caleb?”
“Sure,” Clark agreed, glad that he wouldn’t actually have to reply to her assumption that she’d never met him.
“Okay, then. And, since you don’t want to be the King, you can by my Knight in shining armor. Or spandex, as the case may be.”
“Caleb Knight…” Clark rolled the name around in his mind, then gave a satisfied little nod. “Why not? Caleb Knight it is. It might take me a while to get used to it, but I think I’ll like it.”
“I could help you learn to like it,” Lois offered, a mischievous smile playing at the corner of her mouth.”
“Oh? And how do you propose to do that?” Clar..Caleb asked, his smile mirroring hers.
“Like this.” She scooted her body forward so that she was almost sitting on his lap, her legs draped across his. Her arms wrapped themselves around his neck. He could feel her hair brush like silk against his cheek as she brought her mouth close to his ear and murmured, “Caleb…” She planted a soft, warm kiss on the tender skin beneath his ear. “Caleb…” She laid a trail of slow, deliberate kisses down the strong, firm line of his jaw. “Caleb…” she whispered against his lips, punctuating his new name with the melding of her supple mouth to his. After that, there was no need for names, or other words for that matter, for a very long time.
