*

Let there be--
here in the sweet sun
--a fiction, while I
breathe and
change pace.
--Denise Levertov, "The Third Dimension"

*

Lex has spent his life at war with the sun.

Admire it, and it blinds you.   Turn your back on it, and it burns you.   Lex learned this when he was eleven and the sun chased him through a cornfield and stole his hair, although it was a lesson he already knew in his bones.   It was sunny the day his brother died, sunny when his mother did, while a red sun in a Japanese print still hangs in his father's study; Lex would watch it over Lionel's shoulder during each lecture, and sometimes when he met his father's eyes, the sun was reflected there.

After his exile on the island, months in the sun's prison-camp, Lex's distrust upped to unrelenting hatred, and like a feverish vampire he returned to Smallville addicted to air conditioning, dimmer switches and tinted glass.   Sunblock works only as physical armor; psychologically, it's a greasy indignity, while sunglasses can't compensate for the disconcerting brightness, the world too sharp and not sharp enough.

Today as he sits by the lake, La Roche-Posay guarding his skin, Gucci his eyes, Lex admits that he's weakening.   Because the sun, while it views him with barely-concealed hostility, has, not unlike Lex himself, a serious hard-on for Clark.

Clark, for his part, doesn't just worship the carcinogenic yellow mass-- he mainlines it.   Lex is familiar with winter-Clark, who's careful and reserved, hiding behind flannel and long quiet looks, the ideal subject for distanced worship and masturbatory fantasy.   Summer-Clark, on the other hand, is boisterous and lewd, darting through the water, pausing to wave at Lex before diving off with a conspicuously-raised ass, like this is some kind of aquatic foreplay...

...Which, if today follows the new pattern, it probably is:  Clark will offer himself to Lex, and Lex will take him while the sun watches jealously.   It will be a great day, and Lex, in the best Luthor tradition, is ready for victory.

*

Once upon a time, driven by biological imperative like a wolf in a fairy tale, Lex had a two-part plan for seducing Clark.   Step one was easy:  be his friend, which meant granting Clark's odd requests, even if they involved harboring fugitives and kidnaped kids.   Step two was less a step than a Herculean labor: no touching beyond fraternal shoulder-squeezes and manly handshakes, hugs permitted only in the event of a return from the dead, at least until Clark hit eighteen, no matter how many looks he aimed at Lex, no matter how close he stood with that wide pink mouth silently begging.

It was an exercise in self-control if not worthy of Gandhi, then a minor Catholic saint, Lex's unvoiced tribute to Clark's goodness--with maybe some fear mixed in about soiled hands and the sins of his father.  So Lex patted himself on the back, ignored the ache, and marched stoically through three of the four seasons with Clark at his side.   Never the summers: Fate always stepped in and went Solomonic on their friendship, throwing Lex into the industrial lion's den of Metropolis, burying Clark on his parents' farm.   By their September reunion, summer was at half- mast, fall on the upswing, so Lex missed Clark's stint as the modern Ra.

This summer, though, mauled yet again by his father, Lex stayed in Smallville and witnessed, with eyebrows climbing steadily, Clark's solar-inspired transformation.  It started in June, this growing awareness that something was up:  Clark stood closer, looked longer, turned every conversation to sex, always with a mile-wide grin that rubberized Lex's legs.   He also ate enough food to send a football team to a vomitorium, moved with the kinetic energy of a speeding Porsche, and refused to stay indoors, challenging Lex to basketball matches, marathon walks, and personal revelations.

The other day, at an unshaded table outside the Talon, Clark leaned close to Lex, chin in hand, right knee brushing Lex's left one with suspicious regularity.   Unlike the other patrons who sat shriveled like pears left on a windowsill, Clark looked ripe, so brightly colored he seemed inked, a hero in a comic book.   His black hair, tame in winter, now curled disobediently around his face, and across from him Lex went very still, breathing in the smell of apples.

"Lex, if you could sum up in one line everything you know about sex, what would it be?"

He wanted to ask why, but didn't.   Sometimes questions provided ugly answers.   "Go slowly at first, whatever you're doing, whether it's with your tongue or your fingers or your cock."

"Is there anything you haven't done?  You know, with girls?   Or guys?   In bed?"

Lex, who spent every night with Clark in his fantasies, struggled to remember real couplings.   "One thing.  No, two," he finally said, and took a long swallow of his iced coffee, now warm and sluggish as the air.

"What things?"

"This is the age of safe sex, Clark.   I've never had anything else."

Clark drummed his fingers on the table, clearly pondering the implications.  Then his eyes went wide.   "Oh.  You mean you've never...without a rubber?   Not even with your wives?"

"I've never trusted anyone enough."

"Did you ever want to?"

"I save it for my fantasies," Lex said, as one played behind his eyes.  He might've lasted to the next question if Clark hadn't shifted in his seat, like he was hard, hard as Lex was, picturing himself on his back with Lex's bare cock inside him.   Lex's choice: leave or leap across the table, plan be damned, and take Clark right there with the whole town watching.   "I'll be back in a minute, Clark."

Blinded by the sudden gloom inside Lex knocked into a chair, which skittered across the floor.

"Are you all right?"

Lana stood at the counter laying flat pastry corpses on a tray, her face the same pale pink as her tee shirt, a rose left too long in water.   If she walked through the coffee house Lana would leave a wet trail of bloated petals.   Only Clark carried the heat as part of him.

"It's the sun."   Lex gave her someone else's smile.

In the empty washroom he locked himself into a stall, unzipped, and jerked off, eyes closed for a graphic-novel vision of Clark after a day of the unsafest sex ever, come on his thighs, his stomach, his lips.   Drowning in it and begging for more.   æFuck me, Lex, fuck me again,' and--

Six rough strokes before Lex's head went back, before his mouth, tight with quiet effort, betrayed him by softening for Clark's name.   Shaking, he licked his fingers, wiped up the rest, and moved to the sink, washing his hands and face, smoothing his clothes for the appearance of cool respectability.   Then, temporarily sated, Lex returned to the light.

Back at their table, Clark had appropriated Lex's cup, both hands closed around it, and watched as Lex settled back in his seat.   Looking down, Clark began to scrape the plastic with his thumbnail, then rubbed the mark with his fingertip.   "Do you trust me, Lex?"

"Yes," he said.

Clark made a sound Lex had never heard before, a throaty sigh, and rose abruptly.   "I'll be back."

Retrieving his cup, Lex saw that Clark had carved a small vertical line.   Like a scar.   Good intentions, Lex thought, licking his upper lip.   Hell.

*

"Let's go to the drive-in," Clark suggested during a phone call on a blistering Friday.   "I haven't been since I was a kid."

Lex eyed the stack of paper awaiting his attention and considered his remaining stack of good intentions while his father's voice blared on his internal loudspeaker, lecturing him about strength, manhood and the pursuit of cash.   "Anything you want, Clark."   He readjusted the phone in his slippery grasp.   "What's playing?"

"Does it matter?"

"No."  Lex's free hand drifted between his legs.

"I had this weird but great dream last night.   We were on a train, you and me, and there were horses outside.   Big ones, and they were tethered to these stakes.   We passed the ocean, and there were these dolphins poking their heads from the water.   We stopped to pet them, then it started to snow.   A lot.   What do you think it means, Lex?"
 
Clark knew exactly what the dream meant.   Clark didn't have a clue.   Clark was flirting with a sledgehammer.   Clark was innocent as a convent of nuns.

When Lex swivelled in his chair, his brain doing its own convolutions, the sun smirked at him through the pane of red glass.   "I think," he said slowly, "that it means you watch too many nature shows."

"Maybe I'll ask my mom.   She's been to college.   She knows about stuff like this."

Lex pictured Martha's face as her son shared his queer adventures in the Freudian wilds.  Then he pictured Jonathan's face when she told him, followed by a vision of his own balls dangling from the neck of the Kents' scarecrow.   "Don't tell your mother, Clark.   She might see things that aren't there."

"You mean because sometimes a dolphin isn't just a dolphin?"

"Clark..."

"Yeah, Lex?"

"I'll pick you up at seven-thirty."

If he lived that long.   Sometimes desire felt like a disease.

*

At sunset, armed with a bucket of popcorn and a cup of watered-down pop, they settled into Lex's Porsche.  Around them people sweated in rows of baking metal while hotdogs tangoed across the giant screen and cicadas sang from the trees.

"It's Tithonus," Lex said.

"English, Lex."

"It's a myth.  Eos, goddess of the dawn, became obsessed with the Trojan prince Tithonus and asked Zeus to make him immortal.   Only she forgot to ask that he stay young and handsome so her gift became a curse."

"Why does there always have to be a curse?   How come there's never a happy ending?"

"Because love is chaos."

"Only if you fight it," Clark said.   "So is that the end or is there more?"

"There's more.   When Tithonus was too old to move Eos locked him away in a room in her house.   He could see his body wasting away and called for her behind the locked door.   But she never came, and after a thousand years he wasn't a man anymore, but a cicada."

"I didn't think I was going to like the story, but I do.   Eos must've loved Tithonus a lot.   As a goddess she could've had anyone, right?  But she picked him."

"You're missing the point, Clark:  she ruined his life.   If she hadn't interfered, he would've gotten married, had a family.   He would've been normal."

"Sure, there might've been times when he regretted it, when he wanted to be like everyone else, but I bet when she was around he didn't care.   The question you need to ask yourself, Lex, is:  would you rather live a boring life or be with a god?"

"He would've hated her in the end."

"But he didn't, Lex.   That's why he kept calling for her even when he shriveled into a bug.   He was as obsessed with her as she was with him.   Look, I'm right, so give up and enjoy your defeat with some popcorn."   Grinning, Clark shook the bucket on his lap then scooped up a handful.

"I'm not ready to concede--"

"You never are," Clark said.   "It's a little frustrating."

A flash of movement, and Lex found his mouth full of buttery corn, Clark's salty palm against his lips.   Any sucking kisses to that hand were entirely Clark's fault for keeping it there longer than necessary.

When he finally removed it, Lex asked, half-serious, "Am I that bad?"

"Sometimes.   Other times you're not bad enough.  Stay still," he added, wiping Lex's cheeks and chin with a napkin.   "You're a mess, and I know you don't like messes.   There.   Good as new."

"So you think you've figured me out?"

"Lex, I don't think even you've figured you out.   But, yeah, a few pieces are falling into place.   Stuff I didn't get even last winter."

"As long as part of the mystery's still there."

"You're a human Agatha Christie novel.   Hey, the movie's starting.   Have more popcorn or I'll resort to desperate measures again."

When Lex reached over, Clark was already diving in for more, and their fingers met.

"Sorry," Clark said, not looking sorry at all.   "I'm just really hungry."

It happened a second time, then a third, bumped knuckles and sliding fingertips, and Lex sat there thinking of trains, dolphins and tethered horses.   The car was too small and the air too hot: sweat stuck his shirt to his back and his back to the seat, and if Clark licked his fingers or his lips one more time Lex would have him arrested for public indecency.   A bathroom break for a different kind of relief was out: the jumbo drinks meant a steady stream of little kids in pyjamas and harried parents hopping from foot to foot in a line-up outside, so Lex folded his hands in his lap and concentrated on the screen where a helicopter exploded for unclear reasons.

"No more popcorn for me," Lex told Clark after another handful.

"It's pretty salty, isn't it?  You keep licking your lips."   He placed the bucket on the floor and picked up the drink.   "Have some of this."

Taking a sip, Lex wished for an iced glass of Absolut Citron, a snowstorm, perpetual winter.   The cup was waxy and sweating, and nearly fell between them as he passed it back to Clark, whose hand closed over his.   He wasn't sure what happened next, one of those flash-quick moves of Clark's that always happened just as Lex blinked, and suddenly the cup vanished but not Clark's hand, which stayed hot and steadying over Lex's.

He cursed himself for his reaction to simple hand-holding, like this was some epic event, a bite of the apple, midnight on the nuclear clock, but didn't pull away his hand.    For the next hour, as Clark fondled, stroked, and squeezed Lex's fingers, and Lex did the same in return, he reminded himself that this was hand-holding, not a hand-job, nothing to it, even as he caressed each pad of Clark's fingertips, even as he traced the lines on his palm, even as he squeezed the full curve of skin beneath Clark's thumb.

It was the feeling that doomed him, better than the best blow-job of his life, the first slide into a lover; to this day Lex has no idea what movie they saw, although he can remember every detail of Clark's hand, the exact length and breadth of every finger.

He knew the movie was over only when dozens of engines gunned in unison, and pulled his hand from Clark's without looking at him.   "Good movie."

"There was a movie?"   Clark sounded dazed as he dropped back against the seat.

"Great helicopter explosion."

They said nothing else until they turned onto the road leading to the Kent farm, then Clark touched Lex's hand on the wheel and said, "Pull over."

Lex did, and there was this sudden flare of quiet, deeper than before, until the cicadas went at it again.   Then Clark leaned over, threw his arms around Lex's neck, and kissed him.   He tasted of popcorn and Coke, and smelled like the sun, felt like it too, his tongue impossibly hot in Lex's mouth.   His tongue.   Clark's tongue.   Together, all slippery intent and rich current of history.

Like a gunned engine the kiss sped to frenetic, the two of them tangled around the gear shift, tangled around each other, rubbing and licking, Clark half in Lex's lap, heavy and solid and unavoidable, his palm blazing a path down Lex's back, pressing them closer while he sucked Lex's tongue and Lex sucked his.

It went faster and faster, this vortex that Lex couldn't stop, Clark grinding against his thigh, his tee shirt shoved up to his nipples, Lex's face buried there to lick and suck when he wasn't giving and getting hard endless kisses.   Lex pushed up into Clark's hip whenever he could, rode the line of bone exposed by Clark's jeans, and forgot about curses and unhappy endings.

Clark came first, his mouth against Lex's throat, whimpering softly as he clung to him, while Lex stroked Clark's hair and rocked back, following the rhythm of Clark's sounds until his own drowned them out.

Then a cow lowed, and Clark laughed, rubbing his cheek against Lex's chest.   They talked about nothing, Lex so warm and relaxed that his eyes started to shut, his breathing turn even and regular, before a light went on in the farmhouse, flaring like a match in the dark.

"I wish I could stay here all night," Clark said, "but I'd better go.   I'll see you tomorrow.   We can talk about happy endings."

Instead of speeding, Lex drove away slowly, kept driving slowly all the way back to the manor, the windows down for the cicadas' song.

*

"I hate air-conditioning."  Wearing only his jeans, the rest of his clothes bread-crumbed from Lex's den to his bedroom, Clark opened every window for the stream of sun.

"Air-conditioning is what separates us from animals."

"Maybe I don't want to be separate from the animals.   People are so complicated.   Now help me move the bed."

Together they dragged it into the light before standing quietly for a long moment, absorbing the summer heat while a lawnmower rumbled in the distance.   Then Clark tugged off his jeans and underwear, no self-consciousness, like they always got naked every afternoon in Lex's room, like it would be more unnatural to stay clothed, and climbed onto the bed.   Before Lex could move, the sun was all over Clark, kissing his pink mouth, his inner thighs, his stiff cock, and Clark reacted to it, his hips jumping a little, his arms spread wide and welcoming.

"The sun is in love with you," Lex said.   His hands began to shake, and as he undid his shirt one of his cufflinks fell to the floor.   The rest of his clothes followed, piece after piece, like a puzzle breaking apart.

Clark raised himself, palms flat on either side, and studied him from head to toe.   "Clothes are stupid.   You should give them up, Lex.    You know how some people's skin doesn't fit them?   Yours does.   Everywhere."

"Yours..."

Lex was on the bed and over Clark, blocking the sun with his back to venerate Clark's skin, the bones he felt underneath, the hollows and curves of muscle.   His mouth didn't miss an inch, shoulders to elbows to knees, nipples to hips to cock, though he spent the most time between Clark's legs, sucking hard, his fingers closed around Clark's balls while Clark's cock filled his mouth.

At the surge under the skin, Lex pulled back to kiss the swollen tip, like tasting wine at the first communion, then traced the thin blue vein that ran down the length.   When Clark insisted between moans that he was going to die, Lex laughed and said, "You're a survivor, Clark, just like me," then deep-throated him, Clark clutching fistfuls of the red sheet which bunched like cherries in his hands.   Still, Lex wouldn't let him come even when Clark started to tremble, not with so many places left to memorize.

"Roll over," Lex said, and Clark did, muttering, "Control-freak," but turned to grin over his shoulder as Lex climbed between his legs.

So much skin, and Lex just stared, light-headed with greed before bending to taste Clark's spine.   When his cock nudged Clark's ass, Lex shut his eyes, silently counting to ten while suns exploded behind them.   It didn't work, and he got to his feet.

"Don't stop now, Lex, or I'll..."

"You'll what?"

"I'll curse you.   Want to spend eternity as a bug?"

"I can think of better ways to spend my time."

His drink sat on the bedside table, poured before Clark arrived, watery mandarin now, and he gulped some, then opened the drawer for lube and, after a pause, a condom, carrying all three back to the bed.   As he placed the glass on the floor, the sun caught the crystal and drew a prism on the carpet, white light separated into colors.   Clark all over again, and as Lex returned to his place between Clark's legs, his dizziness returned.

He steadied himself with a hand on Clark's ass, but the sight of it, the jolt of possession, nearly knocked him straight to orgasm.   Breathless, he ran his thumb down the middle, and when Clark squirmed, burying his face in the pillow, Lex did it again.   All of that power under him, open for him, tied to the pressure of his thumb...

And Clark let him know what it did for him, not like Victoria, who brought the stage to their bed, Ophelia or Lady Macbeth depending on her mood, or Helen, who acted like sex was a return on his bad behavior, her touches grudging, his penitential.   He barely remembered the times with Desiree, his two-week wife with her poisoned kisses, just hazy couplings with a chemical aftertaste, post-coital hangovers, and this dreamy sense that she should be someone else:  Clark, who was noisy and natural in bed, who couldn't stop wriggling and glancing back, who kept reaching for Lex, saying, "Let me..."

Lex just swatted away his hands because there was an edge and he didn't want to fall.   He needed to feed his obsession, glut himself on it before the burn or betrayal.   Bringing his fingers to his mouth, Lex licked each one then drew five lines over the first two while a trail of sweat curved between his shoulder blades.   That amazing response came again, but wanting Clark wetter, more open, he bent to use his tongue.   Just deep enough to tease, make Clark needier-- which happened at once, the muscles in Clark's back and thighs tensing while he moaned.

"More," Clark said, his hips rising insistently.   "More."

With his thumbs hooked over bone Lex kept Clark kneeling immobile as a statue and licked again, ending so low that the tip of his tongue slid over Clark's balls.   As he kissed them, Lex tested the head of Clark's cock, found it wet, and rubbed the stickiness down the line of Clark's ass, following it with his tongue.   Dampening his fingers with Clark again, Lex brought them to his mouth; the taste of Clark made him even harder, his cock overfull, and when he crouched lower the silky glide against the sheet nearly finished him.

As Lex brought his hands around to spread him wide, Clark sighed, a deep, satisfied sound that turned even richer at the most intimate kiss in the world, his mouth to Clark's sweetly-clean skin, sensitive to even the lightest touch, the tiniest swirl of Lex's tongue.   Once you'd kissed someone there you owned them, your tongue a brand, and Lex reveled in it, licked, teased and finally penetrated Clark, his hand wrapped around Clark's cock to catch every reaction.

And Clark reacted: his cock jerked and swelled while he gasped broken words, tense then open, frozen and encouraging, like Clark was scared that Lex would stop if he stayed closed for too long.   Lex didn't, couldn't, not until Clark was slick and ready for anything.

Finding the lube, Lex wet his fingers, then pushed Clark flat against the snaked sheet, one finger pressed to him.  "If you want it--"

"If?   I feel empty, Lex.   I need it so much it hurts."

"--then take it, Clark."

There was no hesitation--there never had been--but nothing had prepared Lex for the sight of Clark slowly impaling himself, the hot enclosed pressure as Clark took his finger.   The upward slide pulled Lex's hand down the length of Clark's cock, and the head was secure in Lex's palm when Clark suddenly twisted and groaned.

"That's the best part," Lex said, and stroked him there.

"Lex, I'm going to...You have to...Please."

Withdrawing his finger, Lex picked up the condom, weighing it in his hand.   "Clark, you have a choice--"

The condom was snatched from Lex's hand, then thrown across the room.   "Done.   Now can we get on with it?"

"So much for moral dilemmas."

"They're emotional rubbers," Clark said, rolling onto his back, his arms open.   "Come here.   Now.   Before you think of another one."

Lex found his drink and took a sip.   Under the sun the taste had changed from mandarin to apple, and he drained his glass.   "It's a Luthor trait to complicate the simplest things."

"I hadn't noticed."

It was that look, the one Lex first saw a couple of years ago in the kitchen at the Kent farm when he burst in to explain a case of identity-theft and Clark teased him, ducking his head to hide the grin.   A turning point in his relationship with Clark because for once he wasn't an outsider, a freak, the spoiled copy of his father, but someone's friend.

Not just someone, but Clark, alien in his own way, this heroic, open-book cipher, and condom or no condom, summer or winter, hell or high river-water, Lex was going to fuck him right here, right now, the future be damned.   The glass soared through the air, crashing into a wall where it broke into a thousand rainbow pieces, and Lex was on Clark, body to body, tongue against tongue.

The bed seemed to disappear, the room, like they were floating in the summer sky, the only pressure Lex's cock against Clark's ass.

"Do it," Clark whispered between kisses, his legs wrapped around Lex.   "Stop waiting for the sky to fall."

And Lex did.   It was supposed to be a gentle thrust, a slow one for Clark who'd never done this before, but Clark was so slick and open for him that he slid deep, so deep that his balls pressed against Clark, who looked stunned, his eyes and his mouth matching circles.

Quick run of thoughts about ruin and pain under this incredible heat--

Then the lines of Clark's face rearranged, and he grinned, this huge, happy, blinding grin.   "Wow.   Lex.   Wow.    You're in me."   He squirmed and wriggled, obviously testing limits, then reached between them, exploring with his fingers.   "All the way.   You're all the way inside me.   You feel huge."

"Are you okay?"

"Okay?   You're in me, Lex.   It's amazing."   Clark took a deep breath, settling around Lex's cock.   "So what happens next?"

Lex, who'd been thinking defensively of timbals and curses, ungritted his teeth.   "I'm going to fuck you now, Clark."

He withdrew until only the head of his cock remained inside Clark, who wriggled again and said, "I want it back."

The second slide took longer, a smooth deliberate flow.   Too smooth, and with their eyes locked, Lex almost wished he'd taken Clark from behind: this was like double-fucking him, so intense that he kept forgetting to breathe.

"Do it again," Clark said.   "Just like that."

This time as Lex pulled out then pushed back in, an electric glide that he felt even in his fingertips, Clark made a sound between a moan and a growl, curling his fist around his cock while the other settled on Lex's ass, encouraging him even deeper.   But Clark let him draw back, arching as Lex thrust in harder, his hand beginning to move over his cock.

Lex found a rhythm, an old familiar one that the sun carried in through the window, the sound of cicadas in the trees, and rode it, fucked Clark so thoroughly that the room melted away, everything did except Clark writhing under him.

"Harder, Lex.   Do it harder.   You can't hurt me."

Nothing this good could last, and Lex tried to stop it, thought of death and loss and Clark gone forever, dry bones under the sun, but this only made him more desperate, his fingers digging into Clark's hips as he slammed into him.   He was glad for a dozen reasons when Clark came, hot splashes that caught Lex on the chest and thighs, Lex's name echoing through the room, because as Clark's cock softened and his hand dropped away, Lex could finally bend to kiss him.

It was the kiss that did him in, the perfect fit of his tongue in Clark's mouth, his cock in Clark's ass, not even air between them.   For one long instant they were suspended in time, caught in a gold net, then chemistry kicked Lex back to explosive reality as years of waiting and wanting mixed with Clark's body tight around his.   He came nuclear-hard, this fiery ripple behind his eyes, through his veins, out of his cock and into Clark, who stroked Lex's back and took it all.

"I can feel it," Clark said, sounding awed.   "Your come.   It's hot."

Lex, who couldn't speak, tried to touch Clark's cheek but ended up with his fingers tangled in Clark's mussed hair.

"You're not dying, are you, Lex?   I kind of need you to stay alive.   Not that I don't get it.   I thought I was dying.   Wow."

"Not dying.   I think."   Lex, only because he missed Clark's face, unglued himself, rolling onto his side.

Clark, being Clark, couldn't stay still, and moved onto his back, his knees raised.   "I want to keep it inside me," he explained.

"Stay like that."   Lex reached behind Clark's slippery right thigh to touch him where he was wettest.   "Mine," he said, proprietary and tender at the same time.   A shot of guilt followed--he was supposed to be Clark's friend, look out for him, help him, and now he'd fucked him bareback when Clark could be so incredibly naive and trusting, and...  "Clark, you know that you can't do this with other people.   It won't always be safe.   People will lie to get you into bed, and--"

"Other people?   Other people?"   Clark bolted up, looking so comically outraged that Lex touched his cheek.  Then the anger was gone, and Clark laughed.   "Sometimes I think you do that on purpose, Lex, just to test me.   The thing is, even if we had some massive blowout because sometimes you're totally mental, and I had to be with other people or go crazy with loneliness, it would still always be you.   And it's not just the sex or the love thing.   It's just...how it is."

"I'm not mental.   Just complicated."

"You liked it, didn't you?"

"You know I did, Clark."

"No regrets?"

"My only regret is that I can't do it again right now."  Lex used his finger instead of his cock, easing it into Clark.

"That feels good."   Clark spread his legs wider.   "There's always the day after tomorrow."

"What's wrong with tomorrow?   Your dad's not making you work on Sunday?"

"I thought we could do something else tomorrow."

"What did you have in mind?"

"We could go swimming.   In the lake at the back of your property.   Is that okay?"

"Anything you want, Clark."

"Remember that tomorrow."   His grin was two sizes too big.

*

Clark looks like a god as he walks from the lake to stand before Lex, then shakes his wet hair like a puppy.   "You've got your master-of-the-universe face on."

"It's a protective instinct."   Lex takes the bottle of water from the bag beside him for a long, nonchalant sip.

"You like your protection, don't you, Lex?   Give it up for today and come for a swim.   Have some fun.   Itæs summer."   Clark's already grabbing his hand, pulling him to his feet.

"Do you always get your way?"   It comes out sharper than he intended.

"Are you talking to me or you?"  Instead of grinning and running, Clark squeezed Lex's fingers.   "You spoke to your dad today, didn't you?"

"It shows?"

"You always get a little quiet and weird and world-dominating."

"Sorry.   You know my father:  he's not happy unless there are bodies on the battlefield.   Sometimes I forget that there's no war."

"No offense, Lex, but your dad could turn buying a loaf of bread into some big epic thing.  æWonderBread?  Only weak mortals would partake of that trash, young man.'"   Clark flipped his hair then gnashed his teeth.   "æYou need whole wheat if you want to conquer the world.   Bring me the baker's head!'"

"Sometimes I'm just like him."

"And sometimes you're not.   Sometimes you're just a guy who scarfs popcorn and reads comics and risks his butt to help a friend.   Plus, you're a lot hotter.   Now let's go swimming before the lake freezes over."

The lake isn't really a lake but a large L-shaped pond surrounded by a ring of silver maples, black walnuts and sycamores; a few statues that came with the house, the marble flecked with moss; and a narrow strip of sand that isn't really sand but a collection of fitted colored stones like a temple's mosaic floor.   The only fish are small and shy, scurrying along the mossy bottom; Lex can see them as he steps into the water, which is cooler than he expects, a clean, refreshing bite.

When Clark, still holding his hand, whoops and starts to run, Lex runs with him.   Water arcs around them, swallowing Lex's sunglasses, while overhead a startled jay flies squawking past the sun.   It's like being a kid again, someone else's kid, free from private school uniforms and the stern crackle of his father's Wall Street Journal, a whip, shield and Bible--

Suddenly he's underwater, a shock of cold everywhere except the places his skin connects with Clark's.   They've been here before, Lex thinks in his blue-green world, and when he breaks the surface Clark is there to kiss him.   Then Clark's leg hooks behind Lex's ankle, knocking them down again, and soon it's hard to tell the water from the air, Clark from the sun, a blur of cool, hot wetness.

It's not just the flow between elements that scrambles reality, since kissing Clark is enough, with Clark so hungry for his tongue and Lex almost embarrassingly frantic, tasting every line of Clark's mouth with this rising desperate need to close any gap between them.

His bathing suit's gone, and Clark's hard against him, bare skin to bare skin, then somehow the sun-warmed towel's under his back, Clark over him panting in his ear.

"Lex, when you said anything I want, did you mean it?"  Clark's eyes are the color of the water, and when he blinks, drops fall on Lex's face.   "Because I want yesterday, but backwards.   Me to you this time.   All of it."

Lex might've thought twice a year ago, or maybe not.   The truth is there's no way not to want Clark, and he nods.   "I meant it."

"Good."   Clark licks the scar on Lex's mouth, and says, "That's my favorite part of you.   For now."

With his thumb he tilts Lex's chin to lick up his throat, down it to Lex's right shoulder and over his collarbone while Lex closes his eyes.   Though he tangles his fingers in Clark's hair, already curling dry, Lex needs no reminder who's licking him like a cat, and effortlessly conjures Clark's face as Clark sucks his nipples, still stiff from the water.

Strangely, he finds himself relaxing, hard always but with all other tension drifting away.   Not a dream state--Clark's mouth is too firm as he kisses Lex's hips, his hands too strong on Lex's thighs--more like being a bird riding a summer breeze low over the ocean, spray over feathers.   Lex can hear the lake lap at the shore, and as Clark spreads his legs, under that the sound Clark's tongue on his inner thighs, his own satisfied sighs.

Memories wander past, all of Clark, from the bridge to the river to the farm, Clark's face yesterday when he came, open, happy and surprised, and something untwists inside Lex.   It untwists more as Clark begins slowly and sweetly to lick his cock, and Lex feels like he's changing, that the order of his bones is shifting, the density of his skin transforming, and rises on one elbow to see himself as much as Clark.

Lex is the same on the outside, long and pale, and Clark stops sucking Lex's cock long enough to smile.  Because it's obscenely beautiful Lex watches as long as he can:  Clark's tongue skimming over him, the incline of his jaw as he opens to accept Lex into his mouth, his fist as it closes around the shaft, decadent as bathing in champagne. Too indulgent, and Lex tries to draw Clark up, but Clark only shakes his head, sliding off Lex's cock

"You're mine now, Lex.   You said.   And look what it's doing to me."   Straightening, he kneels before Lex, his hand still on him, and his cock is stiff.

"That's supposed to encourage me to keep my hands to myself?"

"I want you to see how much this is getting me off.   I used to think about it all the time, what it would be like to have you in my mouth.   Now I know, and it's making me so hard.   Unless..."   There's a flash of winter-Clark in his eyes.   "I mean, I'm not exactly an expert, but if I'm not doing it right--"

"Clark," Lex says, thrusting into his hand, "just look what it's doing to me."

"Then lie back, shut off your brain, and enjoy it.   Um, please."

"Talk about master-of-the-universe faces."   He grins, but does what Clark orders.   If someone's going to rule the world in his place, no one's better suited than Clark.

When Clark returns to his cock, Lex gives himself over to it, extending his arms, spreading his thighs, like the sun has turned into a gold river and he's floating through it on his back.   This is the first time he's never guided someone through his body, never directed with words or touches, content in this reconfiguration of sex to follow Clark's tongue and fingers.

There's a new excitement in not knowing what Clark will do next, whether he'll suck hard or lick softly, whether he'll stroke or squeeze, whether he'll focus on the head of Lex's cock or the shaft, or move down to his balls as he's doing now, letting each one rest on his tongue.   Because it's Clark that matters most, the pleasure's democratic, every action equally good, just different.

As though to test this theory, Clark encourages Lex's knees back to his chest, then licks him somewhere new.   Tentative at first, the kiss soon deepens and Clark penetrates him with his tongue.   Lex loses his own balance after that, can't distinguish between the gestures any more, only vaguely aware that they keep changing, that Clark's mouth alternates between Lex's cock, his balls and his ass, just knows that he's wet and hot and moaning.

He misses Clark slicking his fingers with lube, only realizes that this must've happened when a stiffer pressure replaces the teasing softness of Clark's tongue, which moves again to Lex's cock while his finger slides deeper, and Lex starts calling for God as his thighs shake.   He's sweating now, can feel trickles down his chest, under his eyes, at the back of his skull, and if Clark doesn't fuck him soon he's going to break and beg for it, beg Clark to shove that big cock inside him, take him hard and fast here in the sand.

Then Clark's mouth leaves him, and Lex thinks, "Yes, now, do it," or maybe says it--he's past caring.   He opens his eyes, but sees nothing with the sun too bright, just hears Clark drinking from the water bottle before those strong hands are back on him, holding his thighs up and apart.

"I need you so much.   I can't wait anymore."

It's Clark who says it, his voice lower than it's ever been, and Lex's eyes adjust to the light just as Clark positions his cock against him.

"Do it.   Fuck me, Clark."

Lex hasn't been fucked in years, not since his club days, and Clark's cock is very thick, big as the rest of him, but there's no pain, only an incredible sense of being stretched wide, the satisfaction of being filled.   Clark goes slowly as he can, the effort apparent only in his bruising grip and clenched jaw, and Lex brushes the hair from Clark's eyes until Clark is close enough for Lex to slide his arms around his neck.   His cock is against Clark's chest, Clark's cock deep as it will go, stretching him to the limit, and it feels like the sun is inside him.

"Lex.   I'm...God.   This isn't going to last.   Feels too good."

"Just fuck me until you come, Clark.   That's all I want."

With the first thrust Lex realizes that he's going to come before Clark and tries to tell him, but can't form words, only moan as Clark rides him, reaching between them to jerk his cock.   He can't match Clark's rhythm, natural as everything Clark does, Lex's own body crosswired and chaotic, everything out of control, his heartbeat and breathing off-kilter as Clark slides in and out of him, faster now, Clark's eyes narrowed in concentration.

"Come, Lex.   Please come.   I need to see it."

The words slip under Lex's skin, mix with his racing blood, and go straight to his cock.   He's never been able to resist Clark, to turn him down, and this time is no different: Lex's back arcs, his hand stills, and when Clark sinks into him again, Lex comes, calling Clark's name, while Clark says, "Yes, God, Lex.   Come for me."

Lex is barely finished, his cock still pulsing, when Clark pushes into him one last time, and he gets the startled look that Lex remembers from yesterday, like Clark can't believe this is real, that they're finally together.   As Lex strokes his damp back, Clark cries out once, shaking, and Lex feels the hot flood inside him.   It moves him in a way he can't articulate, something beyond possession and friendship, something permanent and eternal, like Clark has written his name indelibly on Lex's bones.

There's a long, sweet kiss, then they untangle until they're lying side by side, Clark's hand splayed possessively over Lex's hip, sticky and drained.

"I think I'm melting," Clark says, and kisses Lex again.   "Or melted.   Can't tell."

"You're still here," Lex tells him as he puts his arm around Clark's waist.   "And I'm not letting you go."

"I love summer, but this is the best one ever, Lex.   I wish it could last forever."

It can't, but for now there's peace as they lie together under the sun and the cicadas sing in the trees.