Chapter 3: Morning After
Dawn was a pale, grubby smear against the window, the promised rain now a steady, gray drizzle streaking the glass. The neon glow from the river had died, leaving the room in a monochrome haze. Lois woke to the weight of an arm across her ribs, the warm press of a body along her spine, and the faint, ever-present hum.
She didn’t move. She cataloged the sensations: the ache in her thighs, the pleasant soreness between her legs, the dry taste of last night’s beer and sex in her mouth. The smell was them—sweat, spent passion, cheap hotel linen. She listened to Lana’s breathing, slow and deep behind her. For a reporter who lived in a perpetual state of mental noise, the silence felt deafening.
She extracted herself carefully, the cool air hitting her skin like a shock. She stood naked by the bed, looking down at the woman tangled in the sheets. Lana slept on her stomach, one hand fisted near her face, her chestnut hair fanning across the pillow. In sleep, the lines of constant vigilance were gone. She looked young. She looked like the girl from the cornfields, not the walking chemical hazard who’d fucked her senseless on a communications tower.
Lois pulled on her discarded t-shirt and padded to the tiny kitchenette. She filled the electric kettle, the click of the switch loud in the quiet. As it hissed to life, she spoke to the room.
“So. What now?”
She didn’t turn. She heard the rustle of sheets, the shift of weight.
“You fly off and save more people,” Lois continued, staring at the kettle as if it held answers, “and I go back to filing copy about infrastructure damage and political posturing? Write a heart-warming sidebar about the mysterious ‘angel’ who keeps pulling kids from rubble?” Her voice was rough with sleep and something darker. “Or do we just pretend this was another one-time, circumstantial, not-gay anomaly?”
She turned then. Lana was sitting up, the sheet pooled at her waist, watching her. Her hazel eyes were clear, unguarded in a way they never were when awake.
“You tell me,” Lana said softly. “You’re the one who makes stories out of chaos.”
“I make truth out of chaos.” Lois leaned against the counter, crossing her arms. “The truth is, you’re here. The truth is, whatever this radiation is, it doesn’t burn me. The truth is, I can’t stop thinking about the way you fucking taste.” The words landed flat, factual, stripping the last of the denials from the tower air. “That’s my truth. What’s yours?”
Lana looked down at her own hands, flexed them. A faint emerald shimmer traveled from her wrists to her knuckles, then faded. “My truth is a locked room. You’re a window. It’s terrifying.”
The kettle boiled with a sharp click. Lois ignored it. She walked back to the bed, the marble floor cold under her feet. She stopped at the edge, looking down at Lana. “Open the door.”
“Lois—”
“Not for forever. Just for today.” Lois reached out, her fingers tracing a path down Lana’s sternum, over the flat plane of her stomach. The skin was warm, alive. “We have one day where we’re not a story. We’re not a threat. We’re just two people in a shitty hotel room in a broken city.” Her hand settled low on Lana’s belly. “Make the most of it with me.”
Lana’s breath hitched. She covered Lois’s hand with her own, pressing it tighter against her. Then, with a slow, deliberate pull, she drew Lois down on top of her.
The kiss was a surrender. It was slow, deep, and wet, a conversation without the defensive words. Lois melted into it, into the solid warmth of the body beneath her. She let her t-shirt be pulled over her head again. The morning light was kinder now, painting their skin in soft, gray-gold tones.
They made love differently this time. There was no rubble, no dizzying height, no frantic race to prove a point. It was a meticulous exploration. Lois kissed the pulse point at Lana’s throat, the curve of her shoulder, the faint, silvery scar along her ribcage—a souvenir from a life before kryptonite.
“Bullet?” Lois murmured against the mark.
“Rebar. Moscow, two years ago. Itched like hell while it healed.”
Lois smiled, a real one, and moved lower. She took her time with Lana’s breasts, suckling each nipple until it was a hard, slick peak, then soothing it with her tongue. She mapped the tensile strength of her abdomen with lips and teeth, feeling the muscle quiver under her mouth.
Lana’s hands were in her hair, not guiding, just anchoring. Her breathing had gone shallow, a series of soft, broken sighs. The green glow was a subtle undercurrent now, like light seen through deep water.
“Tell me what you want,” Lois whispered, her mouth hovering just above the thatch of chestnut hair between Lana’s thighs.
“You. Just you.”
It was enough. Lois hooked Lana’s legs over her shoulders and dove in.
She ate her with a languorous, consuming focus. This wasn’t the frantic claiming of the night before; this was study, worship, communion. She licked into her folds, savoring the unique, musky-sweet flavor that was uniquely Lana. She circled her clit with a rhythmic, relentless pressure, then flattened her tongue against it, drinking the soft, choked cries from above.
Lana’s hips lifted off the bed in a slow, undulating rhythm. Her hands fisted in the sheets. The glow intensified, casting jade patterns on the white ceiling. “Lois… God, right there…”
Lois slipped two fingers inside her, curling them up, finding a spot that made Lana’s entire body bow like a drawn wire. She worked her in a steady, deep rhythm, her mouth never leaving Lana’s clit. She felt the gathering tension, the internal clenching around her fingers, the coiling spring about to snap.
“Come for me,” Lois growled against her, the vibration tipping Lana over the edge.
The orgasm rolled through Lana in a long, shuddering wave. She came with a silent, open-mouthed gasp, her glow flaring bright enough to bleach the room green for a single, surreal second before receding like a tide. She pulsed around Lois’s fingers, her thighs trembling against Lois’s ears.
Lois rode it out, gentling her mouth, slowing her fingers, until Lana collapsed back onto the mattress, spent and glowing faintly like a banked coal.
They switched positions without words. Lois lay on her stomach, her face turned to the window, the drizzle now a steady downpour. She felt Lana move behind her, felt the kiss placed between her shoulder blades, the hands smoothing over her hips.
Lana’s touch was different now—assured, possessive. She poured more of the cool lubricant, the sound obscene in the quiet room. She spread Lois open with her thumbs, then leaned down and licked a long, slow stripe from her entrance to her clit. Lois buried her moan in the pillow.
But Lana didn’t linger. She positioned herself, the blunt, slick head of the toy she’d retrieved from the floor pressing against Lois. Lois pushed back, impatient.
“Wait,” Lana whispered, her hand firm on Lois’s hip. She entered her slowly, an inexorable, breathtaking inch at a time, until she was fully sheathed. They both went still, absorbing the sheer, full feeling.
Then Lana began to move. Her thrusts were long, deep, and punishingly deliberate. Each one dragged against every sensitive nerve inside Lois. She set a rhythm that was less about speed and more about profound, grinding connection. Her hands gripped Lois’s hips hard, holding her in place, driving into her with a focused intensity that stole the air from Lois’s lungs.
“Is this what you want?” Lana’s voice was ragged, close to Lois’s ear. “The whole day? Just this?”
“Yes,” Lois hissed, the word torn from her. “Fuck, yes. Just this. Harder.”
Lana obliged. The thrusts became more forceful, the bedframe knocking a dull, steady beat against the wall. Lois matched her, meeting each drive backward, the friction building into a white-hot coil in her gut. Lana’s hand snaked under her, fingers finding her clit, rubbing tight, frantic circles.
It was too much. The dual assault, the raw possession in Lana’s movements, the way the world had narrowed to this room, this bed, this woman who was a walking tragedy fucking her like a revelation—it undid her completely. Lois’s orgasm crashed over her without warning, a brutal, seismic shock that ripped a raw, guttural scream from her throat. She clenched around Lana, her vision sparking white at the edges.
Lana followed her over, slamming home one last, deep time as her own release hit. Lois felt the hot spill inside her, felt the full-body shudder that ran through Lana before she collapsed heavily atop her, their sweat-slick backs merging.
The only sounds were the rain, their ragged breathing, and the distant, hollow thump of artillery from the eastern districts—a mundane reminder of the world outside their stolen day.
They lay like that for a long time, a sticky, spent heap. Eventually, Lana pulled out and rolled off. They faced each other on the ruined sheets. The question hung between them, fat and unavoidable.
Lois reached out, traced the line of Lana’s jaw. “Come to Metropolis.”
Lana’s eyes closed. “I can’t.”
“You can. You control the glow. You said it yourself—suppress it, like holding your breath. You could… visit. We could have this. Sometimes.”
“And when I slip?” Lana’s eyes opened, full of a weary sorrow. “When I get tired, or angry, or sad? When I glow in my sleep? He’s there, Lois. In the air. He hears everything. He’d know. And it would hurt him. Just knowing I’m near you would hurt him.”
“This isn’t about him!” Lois sat up, the sheet falling away. “This is about you using him as a shield. A reason to stay alone. It’s cowardice dressed up as nobility.”
“It’s love!” Lana’s shout was sudden, explosive. The green light flashed under her skin, then was violently suppressed. She looked horrified at her own outburst. “It’s love,” she repeated, quieter, defeated. “I loved him. I love him enough to stay away. And you… you’re becoming something I can’t walk away from cleanly. That’s the problem.”
The admission lay between them, more intimate than any sex act. Lois stared at her, her journalist’s mind scrambling to process the data. The source was confessing. The subject was vulnerable. The story was here, in the raw pain on this powerful woman’s face.
Her notebook was on the nightstand. Her fingers itched.
Lana saw the look, the fleeting, instinctive shift in Lois’s eyes. Her own expression shut down, the walls slamming back up with an almost audible finality. She slid out of bed and began to dress with swift, efficient movements.
“Lana, wait.”
“No.” Lana didn’t look at her. “You asked for my truth. That was it. The window’s closed.” She zipped her pants, pulled on her shirt. “The story about the angel in the rubble? Write it. It’ll be good for morale. Just leave the glow out of it.”
“That’s not what I—” Lois began, but it was a lie. The instinct had been there, sharp and professional.
Lana stood at the door, a fully reconstituted monument of isolation. She looked back at Lois, naked on the bed, and offered a ghost of a smile. “One day. We made the most of it.”
She opened the door and was gone.
Lois sat in the silent, sex-heavy room for a full hour. The artillery thumped its steady rhythm. She finally stood, showered in water so hot it scalded, scrubbing the smell of Lana from her skin. She dressed in clean clothes. She sat at the small desk, opened her laptop, and pulled up a fresh document.
Her fingers hovered over the keys. The headline almost wrote itself: The Kryptonite Guardian: The Woman Clark Kent Can’t Save.
It would win awards. It would change everything. It would burn the last bridge Lana had to her old life.
Outside, the rain finally eased. A weak sun broke through the clouds, glinting off the river. Lois Lane looked at the empty bed, then at the glowing screen. She deleted the few words she’d typed.
She opened a new document. She began to write about structural engineers and international aid. The angel of the rubble would remain a rumor, a sidebar in the myth of the city.
For now.