Summary: CrossdressingTeenWhore!Lex and MorallyChallenged!Clark. You've been warned!

Warnings: Rated NC-17. m/m

Clark could have just stuck to the plan, scouring the streets of Suicide Slums looking for working girls who'd talk to him for a few bucks and a hot cup of coffee, research for his story on the mayor's new crackdown on quality-of-life crimes and how it was affecting the people who survived on the flesh trade.

He should have kept going when he spotted the boy and realized who he was, Lionel Luthor's only son, in a short, clingy black dress, makeup and stilettos, slinking up and down the trash-strewn boulevard, swaying his hips, whoring himself alongside the runaways and crack addicts.

Clark is sure he would have kept going if there hadn't been something in the boy's walk, a determined insolence that made him slow down the car for a closer look. When he caught the kid's gaze, shrewd blue eyes that cut with their intensity, he stopped and rolled down the window.

Could have. Would have. Should have. None of that matters now that the kid is ensconced in his passenger seat, so close Clark can feel his every breath.

The boy lounges with careless grace, his come-hither look shot through with more than a hint of sarcasm. "Whatever you want. A hundred dollars."

Clark takes a deep breath and nods. He'd expected to hand over twenty bucks at most to the hookers he interviewed, but this has to qualify as a special case.

The boy tucks the money into the bodice of his dress and slides across the seat. "Now, what can I do for you?" His hand skates teasingly over Clark's thigh.

Clark quickly pulls his leg away. "I'm a reporter," he says in a rush, his voice just a pitch higher than it ought to be. "Doing a story. I only want to talk."

The boy sighs, jerks the cash back out and throws it on the seat. Clark has to move a little faster than humanly possible to catch the door before he can bolt from the car.

The boy pins him with a look, eyes bright with outrage. "I have no interest in being the lead story on the gossip page. 'Luthor Heir Peddles Ass.' I can see it now."

If the boy can mention selling himself in such a blithe tone, Clark tells himself, he should be able to hear it without blushing like a schoolboy. But then, if Clark had a dollar for every should-be, he'd be as rich as the Luthors.

"I'm not that kind of reporter. This would be--" He feels the heat rise in his face. What exactly does he think this is? "I wouldn't use your real name. It would just be about your experience, the things you've seen out on the streets."

The stony skepticism in the kid's face doesn't flicker, much less fade.

"I'll pay you anything you want," Clark says desperately.

He tilts his head, giving Clark the once-over, eyes heavy-lidded as they travel over his body, making him shiver. "I'm not purely profit driven. But I do enjoy a challenge." He smiles. "I think maybe we can work something out." He reaches over and slides his hand into Clark's pants.

Clark sucks in his breath. "What--"

"You have until you come to ask me questions."

"But--" Talented fingers stroke the skin under his waistband, unraveling his thoughts.

"That's the deal. Take it or leave it." The fingers venture further, dipping inside his underwear.

Traitorous body, and Clark closes his eyes on the offhand chance it might help him focus. "Um. How long have you been doing this?"

"Couple of months."

The boy's hand closes around his cock, and it becomes significantly harder to formulate the next question. "Do you-- Um. Does your father know?"

"Probably. He likes to keep track of my failings."

"And you like to goad him?"

He shrugs, the hint of a smile on his lips. Clark wants to ask if that's why he's out walking the streets, but the kid's hand starts to move and everything else just melts away.

He digs his nails into his palms, trying to make himself concentrate. "Aren't you ever afraid?"

"Sometimes." The boy slides into his lap, straddling him, settling his weight against the growing bulge in Clark's pants. "Sometimes not."

Clark wants to say something--he really does--but his stubborn tongue refuses to cooperate. All he can manage is some rather urgent-sounding nonsense. He recognizes the perversity in everything that's happening, but somehow it just doesn't seem to matter. When the boy's hot, eager mouth finds that little spot behind his ear, he stops asking questions altogether.

The boy's skirt rides up whenever he moves, treating Clark to a glimpse of creamy white skin above the top of his sheer black stocking. He knows he shouldn't touch--shouldn't be doing any of this--but that skin, that beautiful skin, so pale and smooth and inviting that he can't help himself. He touches tentatively at first, then more eagerly, more possessively, stroking the boy's thigh.

"Don't stop there."

The boy holds his gaze like a dare, and Clark finds himself lifting the skirt, staring. The boy's panties are black silk, edged with lace. Clark rubs his thumb over the wispy fabric along his hip and lets his hand wander to the hard length straining beneath the silk, stroking it, feeling the boy's heat.

He smiles with the most sensual self-assurance Clark has ever seen. "You like that." It isn't a question. "You'll like this even better." He opens Clark's pants with a deft flick of his wrist.

The sensation of silk and hard boy-cock pressed against his erection is so intense he has to moan out loud, bucking up hard enough to lift them both from the seat.

"Mmm." The boy's arms tighten around his shoulders as he grinds down. He kisses Clark's neck, his breath a warm tickle on Clark's skin.

Clark's hands move of their own volition, over the lace of the panties, around to the back. His fingers caress the impossibly soft skin of the boy's ass, trace the silky sliver of fabric along his cleft. The boy makes a little sound in the back of his throat and pushes his hips more frantically into Clark's.

It is all the encouragement he needs, and his fingers dip under the silk, into the crease. The boy's hole is wet. He's already been used that night--who knows how many times--and it probably should make Clark think "poor kid" out of pity or "used goods" with disgust. But all that runs through his head is a resounding "God, yes!"

He pushes at the panties to get them out of the way, but the boy whispers, "Tear them." And Clark does, fingers ripping the silk like paper.

Cock to bare cock now, and Clark holds on to him like he's holding on to life itself. The boy practically hurls himself at Clark with every thrust, and Clark rubs at his hole, stroking and playing until he feels the boy's breath ragged with excitement, and then he breaches him, two fingers, hard, making him scream.

The boy's hand snakes between their bodies, curls around his cock, viciously, making the stars swim behind Clark's eyes. He is going to come--God, too soon--and there is one thing he really needs to know.

"Why?" he gasps.

The boy's fingers dig into his shoulders. "Because I can," he says through tightly clenched teeth.

The orgasm, when it hits, feels like falling, like dying, like the kind of pain it is hopeless to do anything about...like something he might never experience again. He wraps his arms tightly around the boy's shoulders and buries his face in the curve of his neck. He holds on even after it's over and the wet warmth from the boy's climax soaks through his shirt to his skin.

The boy twists out of his grasp, but, thankfully, only pulls away far enough to look at him, a long, hard appraisal, as if he is trying to figure something out. He must find an answer, because he takes Clark's face in his hands and kisses him, open-mouthed and dirty. Clark runs his hands up the boy's back, cups his neck and then moves to stroke the bare curve of his head, a caress too intimate for a purely commercial arrangement, but the boy doesn't pull away, doesn't stop kissing him, not for a long time.

When he does finally slip from his lap, Clark can't hold back his disappointment. "But-- the interview," he says, grasping at the first convenient excuse.

"Is finished for the night, I'm afraid." He pats Clark's spent cock and flashes him a wicked grin.

"I have more questions."

"I guess you'll have to come back then." He winks before slipping from the car.

Clark watches the lazy sway of his hips all the way down the street, not tearing his eyes away until he has disappeared out of sight. The tattered panties lie on the seat next to him, and he presses them to his face, breathing in the ripe smell of the boy's sex. There is so much more to know, and Clark prides himself on his journalistic perseverance.

***

Clark's commitment to the story doesn't waver, but sadly, determination does not equal progress. If anything, Clark becomes more vulnerable to the boy's sexual wiles, not less. He reminds himself repeatedly that he should be able to beat him at this game, super-human endurance and all that. But the kid seems to know where all his erotic tripwires are and how to trigger them for the most pyrotechnic effect.

The next time Clark goes to see him, he cuts right to the chase. Before Clark can manage even a single question, he looks him dead in the eye, his hand working miracles on his cock, and says with an air of command, "Come for me, Clark."

A minute later, when Clark is zipping up his pants, he asks, "How do you know my name?"

The boy smiles and, even though the interview is technically over, gives him an answer, "It's always good to know who you're doing business with."

There could not be a clearer reminder that this is Lionel Luthor's son, and it should help Clark be more prepared. Should. But the next time, it is a different ploy, same result. Clark is just as horny and discombobulated when the boy decides to sit on his lap, dangling his legs like a kid about to confide in Santa Claus, the firm, sweet curve of his ass pressed tantalizingly against Clark's delighted cock.

"What--" he starts to ask.

The boy begins to move, begins to fidget and wiggle and squirm.

"God!"

It's obscene. Clark is obscene for getting so hard from it his eyes actually water, but it doesn't stop him from wrapping his arms around the boy, fingers clenching in the soft fabric of his skirt, his cock surging at the mere thought of possession. He is so close, only a layer of twill and crepe de chine between him and what keeps him awake every night. He moves his hand to the boy's hard-on, stroking him through his dress. The boy makes a sound in the back of his throat and presses his ass down hard. There are questions that spring to mind, although not the kind that will make it into any article. How do you do this to me? and Why do you fuck all those other guys when I want you so much? and How can I show you I'm not just like everybody else?

For a moment, he has the unshakeable certainty that this time he will actually get some answers, that the boy is just as lost as he is. That he might actually be able to--

The boy lets his head fall back against Clark's shoulder. When he whispers, his lips brush Clark's cheek, "Do you think about fucking me when you jerk off?"

Clark's climax is seismic in its suddenness, its intensity, a good 8.9 on the Richter scale. Only a miracle keeps him from crushing the boy to death in his over-eager embrace. Even after the last, violent aftershock passes, he can't bring himself to let go, breathing in raggedy fits and starts against his shoulder. Finally, the boy pats him on the hand like a consolation prize and pulls out of his grasp.

"See you next time," he says, scrambling nimbly from the car.

Clark looks down at the wet spot spreading across his lap. He feels certain no one would believe that Superman just came in his pants.

***

Wisdom says that continuing to do the same thing expecting a different result is a form of insanity, and Clark can't afford to get any crazier. He decides to fall back, regroup, work on his stamina. Besides, he has to wait for payday before he can afford another interview. He's already cancelled cable, and he'll be eating Ramen noodles for the rest of the month. Billionaire callboys don't exactly figure into his junior reporter's shoestring budget.

Guilt, when it comes, takes the form of his parents arguing in his head. What do you think you're doing? his father says, He's a Luthor! His mom gives his dad a disapproving glare and says, He's seventeen!

Perhaps it should concern him that the single most erotic thrill he's ever had has come from a teenaged boy--wearing panty hose, no less--but after fire shooting from his eyes and icicles forming in his breath, the fact that he's obsessed with a cross-dressing teen prostitute comes as more of a garden-variety surprise. Even if it did disturb him, it wouldn't really matter, not in those vulnerable twilight moments as he is about to fall asleep, when his head starts to race with thoughts of the boy, things they've done, things he'd like to do, lighting the inevitable spark along his skin, going straight to his cock. Shame and prudence and every other sign of reason recede as he jerks off with the boy's panties pressed to his face.

He tells himself he's building up an immunity, robbing the boy of his power over him. He likes to think of it as "desensitization training." A quasi-scientific label always has such a comforting ring to it. And yet, his cock just doesn't seem to get the message. The mere thought of a black dress or a bare head is enough to send him scurrying to the men's room, hoping no one in the newsroom is paying any attention to him.

He comes back from one of these furtive timeouts to find Perry roaring his name. He freezes like a deer caught in the crosshairs, too many things racing through his head. What can Perry know? and How can I deny it? and God, maybe I should have washed my hands a few more times.

Lois smiles, enjoying herself at his expense, as she always does. "Boss wants to see you, Smallville."

Clark sticks out his tongue. Lois has a way of bringing out the brat in him.

He knocks at Perry's door and leans in. "You wanted to see me, Chief?"

"Where the hell have you been?"

A flashback to the last ten minutes makes him flush and stutter, "Um--"

"And why are you just standing there? Come in. Shut the door. Sit down. I want to talk to you."

Clark tries to swallow the panicky lump in his throat and fails. The Chief isn't exactly known for closing the door when he yells.

"It's about this article you're writing. On what's happening over in Suicide Slums," Perry says, as Clark settles nervously into the chair.

"I know I'm behind schedule--" he says as a diversion.

Perry holds up his hand. "That's not it. Although consider yourself officially kicked in the butt if that's going to get the copy on my desk any sooner. What I wanted to say is that you're not in Smallville anymore, Kent. Things are different in the city. People are different."

Clark fumes. "I know that."

Three years of working at the Planet, night after night scraping the bottom of humanity's barrel out playing Superman, and he is getting sick and tired of being treated like the turnip that just fell off the organic produce truck.

Perry gives him a long appraising look, and fear of what he might see fizzles Clark's righteousness indignation, leaving him fidgeting in his seat once more. "Look, son, you're a good reporter, one of the best I've got, but you're also the type of kid who gets kittens out of trees and walks little old ladies across the street."

"I only did that once! Fremont is a very dangerous intersection, you know."

"My point is that you've got good intentions, but you're not Superman, and you can't save people who don't want to be saved. So whatever you're doing out there in the name of research, just cut it out. Get the story. Write the story. And move on. Got it?"

Clark hangs his head. "Yes, sir."

Perry nods, and Clark gets messily to his feet, banging his knee on the desk. He's had a lot of thoughts about the Luthor kid, but heroic notions of salvation never once entered his head. His guilt is all the more powerful as a delayed reaction, and he nearly collides with Perry's much-prized replica of Graceland. "Sorry, Chief."

Perry fixes him with a mild look. "Don't call me Chief."

The way he says it is so much like a reassuring pat on the shoulder that Clark couldn't feel worse if he'd just gone on a RedK bender.

***

After a long afternoon stewing at his desk, Clark decides to pay one last visit to the boy, to apologize or just to let him know he's dropping the story or something to set things right. He practices his mantra all the way to Suicide Slums. I'm just going to talk to him. Just going to talk. When he gets to the usual corner, he finds it empty, and stalls there, shuffling his feet, eyes darting to every passerby, hoping the boy might still miraculously appear.

"He's working the Hole tonight," someone says.

He turns, and a tall woman with pale skin and the reddest lipstick he's ever seen is watching him with an expression of shrewd amusement. The heat rushes to his cheeks as he realizes that everybody on this block must know why he keeps coming back, but that doesn't stop him from asking, "The Hole?"

She points to a nearby alleyway.

"Thanks for your help, ma'am."

The woman smiles. "Glenda. And if you don't find what you're looking for down there, sweet thing, come right on back here. 'Cause I like a man with manners."

For whatever reason, this causes his blush to burn hotter, maybe because it makes him think of his mother. He hurries off down the alley, the mantra playing doubletime in his head. Just going to talk. Just going to talk.

He rounds the corner and there is the boy and, "Shit!"

He's taken a direct hit from a runaway ballistic missile and flown straight into the heart of a hurricane, but nothing has ever hit him the way it does seeing the kid lounging casually against the brick wall, dressed in a frilly pair of tap pants, pale stockings up to his thighs, high-heeled Mary Janes and nothing else. Clark's mantra gets knocked right out of his head.

The boy smiles. "I was beginning to think you'd given up on our story."

Clark stammers and blushes, proving you really can't take the farm out of the boy, and finally blurts out, "Are you allowed to dress like that in public?"

His smile grows wider. "Don't you like it?" He does a little pirouette.

Clark hears the rush of blood in his ears, feels the parch in the back of his throat.

"Then again, this isn't exactly public. The businesspeople who work the area take turns using this cul-de-sac, and they help each other keep out the non-commercial traffic. Tonight's my night."

The boy approaches, and Clark is frozen to the spot. He tries to turn up the volume on his mantra, but that tape has been hopelessly erased. He makes a feeble attempt to conjure up his mother, his dad, Perry, Lois, the Pope, pointing fingers in judgment, but all he can see is Lex. He presses closer, not quite touching, but Clark can feel the heat coming off his skin, can smell him, clean and young and thrillingly masculine.

"So--" He traces a finger up Clark's arm. Even with the shirt separating their skin, Clark still shivers. "Are you ready to question me?" He watches Clark with a teasing little smile.

Clark earnestly believes in things like truth and justice, the American way, none of which adds up to having sex in a dirty alley with a teenaged prostitute. He sweeps the boy into his arms anyway, pushing him back against the wall. He tells himself that it's just because he hasn't touched anyone in so long--relationships and secret identities don't exactly mix--that he's so turned on, that he needs the boy this much.

He presses their bodies together, the one-two punch of dainty fabric and bare skin ramping up his desire almost unbearably. He buries his face against the boy's shoulder, darts out his tongue for a quick swipe along his salt-sweet throat. He's been desperate for another taste of him since those first startling kisses the night they met, but he's never been certain what the etiquette is, if he's allowed to just take what he wants or if he should wait until it's offered, and there's never been time anyway, given his sad lack of endurance.

All the frustrated longing comes pouring out of him. He cannot put his hands on the boy enough, trembling touches to his side, squeezing his shoulders, rubbing the lace and silk of the lingerie between finger and thumb, so soft he's never felt anything like it in his life.

The boy leans even closer, his hot breath in Clark's ear. "Do you want to pull down my panties?" It's a voice that could make Clark believe in original sin. "Or would you like me to do it for you?"

Clark doesn't answer, because he can't, so the boy settles the issue himself, slipping the filmy garment down over his hips. All their previous encounters have been in the car, prudently parked out of the glare of streetlights, so it adds another jolt to his runaway excitement that this time he can clearly see what he's touching. The boy's cock is long, purple with blood, wet at the tip, and it fits so naturally in Clark's hand it's as if they were both made just for this.

In the stories he's covered, Clark has often noticed a perverse need in people to sully what is beautiful--the pristine mountain lake turned to sludge by a nearby mine, the madman run amok in the museum, smashing a statue that is a love song to the human form. He has not only noticed this curious habit, but mourned it. And yet, here he is with this flawless young body beneath his hands, and everything he wants to do to the boy will only make him dirty.

What's wrong with me? he thinks.

What comes out of his mouth is, "Why does your father let this go on?"

The boy's fingers dig into his shoulders. "You can play with my cock. Or we can talk about my father. Your choice."

But Clark has already made that decision, made it that first night when he slowed down the car, didn't keep going like any sensible person would. The boy's cock is so alive in his hand, responding to every light brush of his fingers. He gently squeezes, just to hear him grunt, loving that he can make him sound like that.

Lex braces a hand against his chest. "Let's take care of business first." He flashes a sultry look through lowered lashes. "Then I'll take care of you."

It shouldn't come as the surprise it does. Hooker and john, and it's never been anything else. Clark digs the money out of his pocket, a messy wad of twenties that gets a little damp as it goes from his sweaty palm to the boy's cool grasp. The boy tucks it away in the little purse dangling from his shoulder. When he looks back up again, his smile is brighter by megawatts, like any good performer once the curtain has gone up.

Shouldn't be a surprise at all, but Clark shakes his head and takes a step back. "What am I doing?"

He's asking himself, but it's the boy who answers, "Let me remind you."

He pulls Clark to him by the lapel of his jacket, and the sudden shock of lips against his makes him squeeze his eyes shut the way people do in the full glare of the sun, balling his hands into helpless fists. He falls into the slick, wet heat of the boy's mouth, and the God-voice of conscience is silenced for good as he meets the boy's tongue, quest for quest. It's easy to get lost, and it never has been before, so he lets himself. For a few stolen moments, there is nobody crying out for Superman, no distant sounds of trouble, just the gritty pavement beneath his feet, the sweaty warmth of the boy in his arms, the sex scent rising between them, heavy and filled with possibility.

"Do you want to ask me something?" Lex asks, lips moving against the side of his face.

Clark can't answer, too carried away having him so near. He frames the boy's face in his hands and kisses him, as if he wants to kiss the words right off his lips. Talking has never seemed like a bigger waste of time. The boy smiles and turns his head, rubbing his mouth against Clark's fingers. Clark can't resist the urge, the temptation, to trace the shape, explore the little white scar that should be a flaw, but feels more like an invitation.

The boy opens his mouth, and it's the formula for every dirty movie ever made, even Clark knows this for all his small-town naiveté, and he does it anyway, slips a finger between those wet-dream lips. The kid gives him a preview of things to come, and Clark's throat goes so painfully tight and dry he can't even swallow, an irony that doesn't escape him as the boy makes promises with his lewd tongue.

"I'm glad you're finished asking questions," the boy tells him, although Clark has never said so, at least not in actual words. "There are much more interesting things we can do."

Clark takes a hard, rasping breath, and the boy starts to get to his knees, careful of his stockings. Clark whips his jacket off and lays it on the ground for him.

The boy grins with genuine amusement and says, "Thank you, that's very chivalrous." For once he looks as young as he is.

He presses his face to Clark's groin, rubbing his cheek against his erection, and Clark can feel the smile lingering on his lips, can feel it against his cock, even through the layers of white cotton and khaki. When the boy opens his pants, his expression goes serious again, all business. It is business he knows well, tracing patterns on Clark's cock with the tip of his tricky pink tongue, a message perhaps, if Clark could only decipher it.

Every touch is so practiced, so confident, that it makes Clark burn, makes him seethe too, reminded of all the other men the boy has gone down on. But this is all his now, and he holds the kid's head in his hands and thrusts into his mouth with proprietary force. Lex's eyes flick up to meet his, a hot blue challenge. He relaxes his jaw, as if to say, Go on. Do your worst.

There are degrees of depravity. That Clark is using this boy's mouth at all registers at one level. That he has a john's bitter need to try to control what he can buy but never own sets a whole new mark of pathetic distinction.

He closes his eyes and takes a shaky breath and goes still. He's not entirely sure it is possible to be a pervert without also being a cliché, but he's going to give it his best shot. After a few seconds, when he still hasn't moved, the boy looks up again, showing the first sign of surprise that Clark has seen so far. He lightly touches his cheek, not a demand, or even a request, just the only way he can think to say he's sorry.

The boy pulls back, and Clark thinks that this it, whatever unlikely spell binding them together has finally been broken. Maybe the boy will give his money back the way he tried to do that first night, or maybe he'll simply tell him to go. Instead, he leans in and presses a single, deliberate kiss to Clark's belly. It jolts him almost as much as the blowjob did.

When the boy goes down on him again, it is different, dirtier and less polished, more likely to make Clark's heart pound and pound away until it bursts in his invulnerable Kryptonian chest. The boy holds his gaze, the blue scorch of his eyes punctuating every flourish of his tongue, hand on his own cock, jerking off with impatient flicks of his wrist, as if this is not business at all, as if he wants it just as much. That idea hits Clark like a lightning strike, and he has to squeeze his eyes shut, strain every last fiber of will to keep from coming right then, just from that.

The boy's fingers dig into Clark's hips as he works him over, stroking himself more and more frantically, and everything, the world, rushes forward, as if the brakes have failed and time is a runaway train that is just going to accelerate wildly until there's some cosmic implosion. When Clark comes, there's a roar in his ears, and he thinks maybe he's the one making that noise, but if he is, he has no idea what he's saying, if it's language at all or just some deeply primitive gibberish.

By the time he can open his eyes again, the boy is wiping the come from his mouth with the back of his hand. He is breathing heavily, his own belly a splattered mess, and Clark could almost get hard again, knowing he made him look like that.

He holds out his hand and helps the boy to his feet, retrieves his jacket and offers the use of a sleeve.

"Such a gentleman," the boy says, wiping his stomach clean. He straightens his panties, and it occurs to Clark he really should zip up his pants.

When the boy hands back the jacket, the sharp scent soaking into the gabardine is almost enough to make him dizzy, and he feels like a fraud, playing the hero, knowing the jacket will join the black panties in his own personal masturbatory hall of fame.

The boy gives him a penetrating look. "You called out my name when you came."

Clark feels as caught as a thief. He paid for the boy's mouth, his body; taking his name is a form of stealing.

The boy isn't watching him like he's a criminal, though. In fact, he has an air of expectation. Clark blinks. He thinks he knows what that means, what he's being asked for, even if he has no idea why.

He clears his throat and says a little tentatively, "Lex?"

Lex curls his hand around the back of his neck and leans in. "Clark," he murmurs against his lips like a kiss.

Clark holds on, and Lex lets him, lets him embrace him, press his face against his throat and breathe him in, just for a moment.

When he pulls away, he says, "I'll be at Club Zero this weekend if you're looking for me."

Clark doesn't want to simply walk away and leave Lex here to his whoring. But he's already settling into his available-for-rent pose, and Clark can see he doesn't actually have a choice.

He stumbles back down the alley. Glenda is still standing on the street corner, apparently no luck that night. She gives him a speculative smile, but when she sees the expression on his face, she lets out a heavy sigh. "Why do the polite ones always have to be hung up on somebody else?"

***

Back in journalism school, one of Clark's professors, a squat little man with a wandering eye, liked to lecture them about focus. "If you're going to be any good in this business," he would say, "you need to have one thing on your mind and one thing only."

Clark goes through his day like a well-programmed machine. He drinks the usual too-many cups of coffee and answers his phone with the same brisk "Clark Kent" and pounds away at the keyboard with the clumsy determination of someone who never took typing in high school. In the empty chinks of time, the split second before the coffee hits the mug, that lost moment before the other person's voice pulses over the line, in the space between letters and words and sentences, he has one thunderous, overriding thought. Club Zero. Not exactly what his professor meant when he preached the value of single-mindedness.

In the background, there's a monotonous droning, remarkably like the teacher's voice on the Charlie Brown TV specials he used to watch as a kid. He does his best to block it out, head down, concentrating on his two-fingered typing. When the noise abruptly stops, he looks up, startled by the silence.

Lois is frowning at him. "You haven't heard a word I've said, have you?"

He blinks. "What?"

Her eyes narrow, and he expects to dodge a few bullets of sarcasm, but she leans in, looking interested, and that's much, much worse for him. "So who is it?" she asks.

"What who?" he asks in confusion.

She rolls her eyes. "Whoever is making you act like even more of a space cadet than usual."

The question and the way she's looking at him make him feel as if layers of his skin have been peeled back, his unsightly insides put on display, and he snaps, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

She shakes her head sadly. "You never do, Smallville. You never do."

***

The week goes by in daisy petal fashion. *Yes, he will. No, he won't.* Until Saturday rolls around, and he finally just does. He waits in line outside Club Zero for a good hour, quarantined on the loser side of the velvet rope with a few dozen other people whose coolness is also in question. At last he makes it up to the bouncer. The guy rakes his gaze mercilessly over his jeans and black v-neck sweater, the hippest outfit he could find in his closet. For some reason, he's allowed inside anyway.

He pushes through the heavy double doors and understands at once why he's never heard of the place before. It's not exactly his corner of the world. Everything is eye-piercingly modern, all hard surfaces, glass and tile and polished chrome. The bass line of the music throbs along the floor as if there's an impending earthquake. Strobe lights pulse in synchronized attack. Girls and boys float past him, shiny with glitter and sequins and more money than he can even begin to calculate.

He tries to find an out-of-the-way spot to wait for Lex, but enthusiastic couples on their way to the dance floor keep knocking into him anyway. He desperately casts around, trying to catch a glimpse of a bare head, the familiar sinuous body, but there is just the chaos of strangers. He's turning to go when he's waylaid by a blonde in the shortest, pinkest skirt he's ever seen.

"Hey, darlin', where do you think you're sneakin' off to?" she asks in a drawl so phony that if she's from Texas he's from the Klingon home world.

He gestures vaguely in the direction of the door. "I was just--"

She grabs his hand, not waiting for an answer, and whirls him onto the floor.

"I don't really dance," he tries to shout above the music, but she's holding the hair off the back of her neck, swaying her hips, not listening at all.

Clark shuffles his feet and glances longingly at the exit sign. His mother has always been vehement on the subject of abandoning a partner on the dance floor, recounting the sad story of her own junior prom and what a big jerk Billy Taylor was, declaring that no son of hers is ever going to treat a girl that way. Clark hopes to make his excuses as soon as the song is over.

Unfortunately, it doesn't actually end, just segues into the next long dance track, not even a long enough pause to babble a hurried, "gotta go." The blonde loses interest in him eventually, but he's immediately commandeered by a girl with an aqua mohawk and pierced everything. He gets passed along from one set of grabby hands to the next. By the time he finally manages to escape, the sweat is running down his back, and if he didn't have impervious skin, there would be finger marks all over his ass.

He retreats to a safe corner, searching for a path to the door. As he's looking around, he catches sight of Lex, and that knocks the wind right out of him. Lex is sitting at the bar, balanced gracefully on a stool, wearing a midnight blue halter dress, made of fabric so light and filmy it moves like a cloud around him. It's cut low everywhere, showing off his shoulders and the bare, beautiful curve of his back, giving him an unexpected air of vulnerability that makes Clark's throat clench.

It takes a moment to realize that the guy sitting next to him is not just some random lucky bastard, but an actual date, or possibly a trick, a hair-gelled impediment standing between Clark and what he's been dreaming about all week. The man leans close, whispering in Lex's ear, something that makes his lips twist into a smile, but when the man tries to kiss him, he turns his head, offering his neck instead. This gives Clark a spark of hope until he sees the boy's head fall back, his eyes close, fingers curl into the folds of the man's jacket.

He should just leave then, but some masochistic impulse sticks him to the spot, and he watches as the man's hand settles on Lex's knee, pushes up the hem of his dress, exposing blue silk stocking and creamy skin. The man strokes along the garter and watches the boy's face. What he sees must look like permission, because his hand disappears under the skirt. Lex's eyes fly open and his mouth goes soft and round, and then he closes his eyes again, hard, as the man's hand goes to work beneath his dress.

A sharp, hot prick behind Clark's eyes, and it scares the hell out of him. He hasn't had problems controlling his heat vision in years, and it was always lust, never jealousy, that set it off. A broken phrase of cartoon dialogues floats through his head, "Puny Earthling!" He's thought about human fragility before, often in fact, but never like this, never with arrogance, profoundly aware of how easy it would be to take what he wants and trample anyone who gets in his way.

There is a seed inside him of the thing Jor-El wanted him to be, and even though he's fought it at every turn, never allowed it to take root, the potential is still there and always will be. It's this part of him that wakes him up in the middle of the night, heart pounding, imagining worst-case what-ifs. It's this part of him that still puts a hint of fear in his father's eyes after all these years.

It has always been Clark's saving grace that he's never wanted anything badly enough to give in to his worst nature, but he feels his inner overlord rattling at its cage now, insistent with the desire to bend Lex over the bar, throw his filmy skirt up over his head, and fuck him and fuck him until everyone in the place gets the message. His. All his.

The sweat goes cold on the back of his neck, and he turns abruptly, pushes his way through the crowd, desperate to get the hell out of there. Outside, fresh air hits him in the face like an open hand, and he runs all the way home, not like a super-powered alien who could just take whatever he wants, but one heavy footfall after the other, like an ordinary man, as if that is some kind of reassurance.

***

For a week straight, Clark sets his VCR to tape Oprah and Dr. Phil and watches when he gets home in the evening, eating cold pizza on the couch, listening to weepy confessions of porn addiction and shop-aholism. He's sure other viewers must feel sorry for these poor dysfunctional wretches, but he can't help envying how confined their destructiveness is. The retired tractor salesman from Duluth can get off on wearing women's shoes all he wants, and the world isn't going to be in any danger.

His mood grows steadily darker with each passing day. By Friday he's yelling at telemarketers who happen to call his cell phone and cursing every time he spills his coffee. His rampaging prompts Lois to glance up from her notes and say with a grin, "It's nice to see you acting human for a change, Smallville."

At night, everything is worse. The desire for Lex doesn't go away just because he wishes it would. He jerks off viciously, heels digging into the bed, making holes in the mattress, the friction of his sex-blurred body leaving scorch marks on the sheets. He shoves into his clenched fist and imagines it's the boy. He tells himself this isn't cheating. That it's the equivalent of methadone if he were a different kind of addict. He tries to hold onto the image of a soft, pink mouth, pale, spread thighs, but no matter how hard he concentrates, something always intrudes, the guy from the bar, some faceless john, laying claim to what ought to be his. When he comes, he has the boy's taste in his mouth and a sick, cold feeling in the pit of his stomach.

After five days of miserable longing, he finally gives in and goes back to Suicide Slums, wondering if this is what people mean when they talk about the slippery slope.

The first night Lex isn't there it feels almost like a reprieve. But the pull is too strong to be denied for long, and he goes back again, once, then twice, then more and more, and still there is no Lex. When he finally runs into Glenda, he's nearly as relieved as if he'd found the boy himself.

He asks if she's seen him, but she only shrugs. "He stopped coming around."

"Did-- something happen to him?" His hands clench with worry.

She notices and pats him on the arm. "I'm sure he's fine, sugar. He wasn't out here for the money, Lord knows. I expect the thrill just wore off."

He knows she's probably right. Teenagers do get bored, and if something had happened, he would have heard about it by now, the whole world would have. This was Lionel Luthor's son they were talking about, after all.

He finds comfort in this for about a day, but then niggling worry gets the best of him. He goes over everything he knows about Lionel Luthor, how averse he is to bad publicity, the iron-fisted control he exerts over the entire city. The truth is that Lex could turn up dead in some alley somewhere, and no one would ever know about it, not if Lionel Luthor didn't want them to. He could say that Lex had been sent off to boarding school in Europe, and later news would come of a tragic skiing accident or highway pileup. There would be footage of a dangerous-looking snow bank, smoking wreckage of a mangled sports car, interviews with so-called witnesses and weeping "classmates," the cover-up so perfectly engineered that no one would be the wiser. No one would ever know what really happened to Lex.

It spurs Clark on to make further inquiries. Even if Lex has grown bored with walking the streets, he is too young to have sworn off nightlife altogether. Clark makes the rounds of trendy clubs and discos and in-places to eat. He asks waitresses and bartenders and other club-goers. No one has seen Lex, and they all seem puzzled by his mysterious disappearance from the social scene.

At work, Clark scours the Internet, searching for clues about Lex's life. Of course, everyone knows where he lives. The family estate is a sprawling mansion in the heart of the city, a landmark building snapped up by the Luthors during the real estate downturn of the 90s, but the house is too much of a fortress to even think about going to look for Lex there. The more Clark searches, the more obvious it becomes how much Lionel Luthor must spend to keep details of his son's life out of the public record. Clark does find a blurb about a LuthorCorp donation to a local private school buried on a back page of the Metropolis Philanthropy Newsletter, and the hair prickles on the back of his neck. Gotcha, he thinks.

Still, it's just a hunch, and he needs some way to confirm that this is where Lex goes to school. He listens to Lois make up ridiculous stories at least five times a day, but lying has never come naturally to him. He makes notes to remind himself what to say and tries to channel his partner's shamelessness as he dials the prep school's number.

A woman answers, and Clark clears his throat. "Yes, hello, I'm calling on behalf of the Metropolis Secondary Education Association. I'd like to speak with one of your students, Alexander Luthor, in regards to a recent essay competition we sponsored."

The woman is clearly unimpressed. "I'm sorry. That's not possible."

"If we could just verify the student's enrollment--"

"I'm not at liberty to release any information," she says in a rehearsed monotone, as if she's repeated this same line a million times before.

"The student's entry form wasn't filled out properly. We'd hate to have to disqualify him just because--"

"I can't help you," she says with a note of finality. "Try sending a letter."

The line goes dead in his ear. Clark sighs heavily.

A few years ago Lois got into some rather serious legal trouble passing herself off as a guidance counselor at a Catholic girls school, trying to confirm rumors of a U.S. Senator's affair with a staff member by pumping his teenaged daughter for the details. Perry has made it clear ever since that schools and kids are strictly off limits. Clark lets this hold him back for about twenty minutes before giving in to his desperation and heading over to the Boyer Academy.

As a tribute to caution, he parks his car a few blocks away. He glances around to make sure no one is watching, uses his strength to bend the iron bars fencing off the school and slips onto the grounds. He lurks around the campus, hiding behind trees and among bushes, waiting and watching. For the better part of an hour, nothing happens.

Finally, a bell rings, and kids start to stream outside, groups gathering on the front lawn to chat, lolling casually on the grass. Clark looks and looks for Lex and is almost ready to give up when he comes strolling out at last, a girl with long dark hair close at his side. Clark's heart lurches when he spots him--alive and well--and he should just go, now that he's seen him, now that he knows. But his knees lock, as if something inside him is just too stubborn to reason with, and he stands there watching as Lex and the girl drift away from the other students, coming closer and closer to where he's hiding.

Clark has never seen Lex in anything but feminine clothes, and he stares at the gray flannels and navy blazer of the school uniform. Lex looks so different in it, so painfully young. Clark frowns when he notices a purplish smudge on his cheek. He squints and can picture the full-fledged bruise it must have been only a few days ago. He pushes his way through the shrubbery without stopping to consider strategy or even the consequences.

Lex looks startled at first, and then his expression freezes. "What do you want?"

The girl gives Clark a brazen look of appraisal, lingering so long on his crotch that it makes him blush. "Who's your friend?" she asks Lex.

Lex presses his mouth into a thin line. "No one, Victoria." He glares at Clark. "If you're looking for money, my father has people who handle that kind of thing. Embarrass me at school, and you won't get a dime."

This makes no sense to Clark--hasn't the cash always flowed the other way?--and he can't stop staring at the faded bruise. "Are you okay?" He lifts his fingers to Lex's face, but the boy flinches, so he drops his hand. "Who did that?"

Lex's eyes meet his, boring into him.

The girl, Victoria, leans in close. "No one, huh?"

"Don't you have a history exam to study for?" Lex asks in an expressionless voice. "Or has Sir Harry suddenly made peace with having a B-student for a daughter?"

Victoria throws him a dirty look. "Fine. I'll go. But if the two of you ever decide to branch out, you know where to find me." She winks at Clark and takes off across the grass.

Clark shuffles his feet. It's sad that high school girls can still make him feel so totally out of his depth. "She, uh, seems--" He grapples for a word. "Nice?"

"She's not," Lex says distractedly, all his attention focused on Clark. "What are you doing here?"

Clark feels rather stupid as he says, "I went to the usual corner. A couple of times." More like twenty, but he doesn't have to admit every pathetic fact. "And you were never there. No one had seen you. I thought-- maybe something had happened to you."

Lex narrows his eyes, a shrewd light shining in them, and then he seems to relax. "I'm afraid I've been out of circulation lately. One of my father's business associates got his hands on some rather-- colorful pictures of me. Used them as leverage to renegotiate a deal. Needless to say, my father wasn't pleased."

Clark lightly brushes his fingers along Lex's cheek, and this time Lex doesn't pull away. "Is that how you got this?"

"Business always comes first in my family," Lex tells him bleakly. "When I saw you here today, I thought--" He shakes his head. "Never mind. It doesn't matter." He tugs at Clark's sleeve. "Come on."

He follows Lex down a path, around a bend, and they come to a little building tucked away amidst the trees. "What's this?" he asks.

"Gardener's shed." Lex unlocks the door with what looks like a skeleton key. When Clark doesn't go right in, he says impatiently, "Or would you rather explain to the Head Master what you're doing lurking around in the lilac bushes?"

It's low-ceilinged and cramped inside, and Clark concentrates on navigating the exposed beams while Lex scoots a heavy sack of fertilizer in front of the door.

"What are you--"

Lex is on him in an instant, looping his arms around his neck, kissing his questions away. The unexpectedness of it knocks Clark off balance, and only his super-charged reflexes keep them from tumbling into a nearby bin of grass seed. It has been so long, and Clark's focus is perfectly singled-minded now that he's stringing kisses along Lex's jaw, grappling with his jacket, trying to get his hands underneath it, trying to get closer to skin. It's been a day to lose all sight of reason, and he's not going to change that now.

"I can't get caught in here again," Lex tells him between kisses. "So let's not waste any time."

The notion of someone finding them should send a cold shock through Clark, should give him visions of mugshots and lawsuits and the look of where-did-I-go-wrong on his father's face when his son the superhero is accused of child molestation. None of that keeps him from pushing the boy back against a wooden pillar and pulling his starched white shirt from his waistband.

Lex smiles, eyes simmering, as if to say, "Anything you want."

Clark sinks to his knees and opens Lex's pants with shaking hands. The boy is wearing simple cotton briefs, which comes as something of a surprise.

"Disappointed?" Lex asks with a smirk.

Clark presses his face against his underwear and breathes him in. Lex makes a strangled little noise, and Clark can feel his erection stir against his cheek. He wants very badly to make this good, and he's not sure who he's trying to measure up against, Lex himself with his nimble-tongued skill or everyone who's gotten here before him and had their mouths on the boy's big, beautiful cock.

He starts off slowly, breathing across the head, nibbling along the shaft. Lex sinks his fingers into his hair and urges him on, not gently. He tastes of heat and salt, like everything Clark has ever wanted, and that doesn't make him any paragon of patience, either. He opens his mouth wider and closes eager lips around the straining cock, the vein pulsing hotly against his tongue, and Lex cries out, "Fuck, yes! Suck me!"

Clark has lines in the sand carefully drawn all over his life--secret identities don't come without an advanced degree in compartmentalization--and he's always been scrupulous about not using his powers during sex. All that sensible caution goes right out the window, and he opens up the way no human with a gag reflex ever could, and hears Lex moan as his cock slides into the greedy grip of Clark's throat.

Lex has always been so cool, so in control, and Clark gets a dark satisfaction out of seeing him lose it now, hands locked in a death grip on Clark's shoulders, body flailing as he wildly fucks Clark's mouth. When he comes, he bites his lip hard enough to draw blood, just to keep from shouting.

Clark rests his head on Lex's belly when it's over. The muscles jerk beneath his cheek, and he can feel the skittery rasp of his labored breathing.

Lex strokes his hair, all the rough urgency gone now, his touch light, almost affectionate. "You're pretty good at that," he says dryly.

Clark smiles up at him, gets to his feet and helps Lex straighten his clothes, just to have a reason to keep his hands on him.

Lex pulls him close and kisses him, his hand snaking between their bodies, cupping Clark's cock through his pants. "Now, what can I do for you?"

A rustling noise outside interrupts the answer, and they dart to the door. Through a chink in the rough wooden planks, Clark can see a man in a weathered John Deere cap headed straight toward them.

"Shit! It's Mr. Worley. The gardener. I'm not exactly his favorite person around here."

Clark can easily imagine the things Lex has done to get on the man's bad side, all the inventive ways he's debauched the gardening shed, but he tries not to dwell on it. Blind, stabbing jealousy isn't exactly conducive to clear thinking, and he really needs to get them out of this mess.

Happily, dumb luck takes care of that. Mr. Worley appears to have forgotten something, turns on his heel and heads back the same way he came.

Lex gives Clark a hasty kiss. "I'm sorry about this." His fingers glide along the front of Clark's pants, tracing his still-hard cock. "I'll make it up to you tonight. Your place. And you can fuck me if you want."

There is an instant parade of pictures in Clark's head, and the mental drooling makes him a little slow to ask, "Um-- don't you need the address?'

Lex is already out the door. He flashes an amused grin over his shoulder as he runs back toward the school.

It should be unsettling, knowing he's been investigated, something he can hardly afford with all his secrets, but that's the thing about Lex. He has a knack for making the most unlikely things seem unbearably hot. Clark blurs past Mr. Worley on his way out, slips through the hole in the fence and straightens the bars behind him. He gets in his car and heads back to the office. It's going to be a long day of tide-me-over trips to the bathroom, he can tell, but at least at the end of it, there will be something to look forward to. There will be Lex.