Chapter Text
Clark closed his laptop lid and leaned back in his chair, pressing his fingers into his stinging eyes.
“Babe, what is it?”
He glanced up, startled; he’d thought Lois too engrossed in her own work to notice him, but she’d moved from her desk in the opposite corner of the room halfway over to where he’d set up his laptop on her dining table. Standing in neutral space between the couch and TV, she gazed at him with limpid eyes and a gentle half-smile.
“You’ve been thinking so loudly the past hour I couldn’t ignore it,” she said softly, sitting down and patting the couch cushion beside her invitingly. He sighed and joined her, leaning back on the couch and throwing his arm over his eyes.
“We’re going to have to sell the farm,” he muttered into his elbow. It was the first time he’d said it out loud, and the admission carved a long path of pain down his esophagus into his stomach, where it settled like a lump of cold oatmeal.
“Shit. I thought the Patreon was helping? And the Willie Nelson thing?”
“They did,” Clark agreed, turning and meeting her eyes. “We couldn’t have paid the mortgage this past year without Farm Aid and the help from my blog readers. But I just went back over the year-end summaries, calculating what taxes and insurance are going to be due in April, and I just don’t see any way I can get the money. I’m already living on sunshine and prayers. Literally.”
Lois sighed and grimaced, nodding a little. Clark didn’t have to eat to survive, but much though he loved the feeling as sunlight filled him up with energy, it just didn’t provide the same satiety as actual food. Kind of like living on chocolate cake—no matter how much you liked it, a few days of nothing else would make for some very strong cravings for steak and potatoes.
“And we’ve sold and leased off everything we can,” Clark continued. “I’ve done as many asks for community support as I’m comfortable with. More, really, it’s not like most of my readers and supporters are any better off than I am.”
“You could ask Perry to contact some of his bigger donors?” Lois suggested half-heartedly. Clark grimaced.
“Maybe. If I could swallow my pride. But that would only take care of this year, and it’ll just be even more next spring, probably, with land prices continuing to skyrocket,” Clark finished bitterly.
“Clark… I’m so sorry.” Lois said, scooting closer and running her hand down his shoulder. “I know how hard this past year has been on you. I—you could move back in here—” Clark closed his eyes with a slight frown, and she stopped.
“You know how glad I am that we’ve stayed friends, Lo—I couldn’t do without you—but it wouldn’t be comfortable for me to live here when we’re not together anymore. It’s too small a space for us not to kill each other when we can’t fuck arguments out rather than fight!”
Lois laughed along with him at that, albeit a little ruefully. They really had remained close after the breakup—to the extent that Clark spent more time at Lois’ apartment more than he did the crappy studio that he now shared with Jimmy. However, they had found that keeping to separate “territories” within the combined kitchen, dining room, and living room that took up the lion’s share of Lois’ apartment was a necessity when they weren’t actively working or hanging out together.
“Besides,” Clark continued, running his hand through his dark brown hair, “you weren’t actually charging me any more in rent than what I’m paying now, and before you say it, I’m not living here and letting you pay all the expenses. Not as a long-term strategy, anyway, and there’s no point if it would just prolong the agony.”
Lois nodded in agreement, curling her legs up under herself and grabbing a throw blanket to ward off the omnipresent chill of the East Coast in January. Lois was a tiny fireball in human form, unlike Clark’s lanky six-foot frame, and her feet didn’t reach the ground from the comfortable oversized couch she’d insisted on.
Clark sighed. “I’ve been finding one stopgap solution after another for the past six months since Pa died, and it’s just stressed Ma and me to the breaking point—she never knows from month-to-month if this is the point where she’ll have to pack up and move. It’s time I accept that either I have to give up doing activism and blogging and get a second job—well, third—or I accept that retiring one day to the farmhouse is just not going to happen.”
Lois opened her mouth as if to say something, and then closed it, putting her hand over her mouth. Clark quirked his eyebrows.
“What?”
“Well…” she said, drawing out the sound and refusing to meet Clark’s eyes.
“Come on, Lo,” Clark said, not having the patience for her usual theatrics. “You know as well as I do you wouldn’t have let on there was anything to tell if you weren’t going to share it. I get the message that it’s something you’re not sure about, now spill.”
Lois sighed, twirling one of her short brown curls around her fingers. “I’m very not sure if it’s a good idea, okay? It’s an opportunity that came to my attention a week or so ago, but I was never going to bring it to you. If the alternative is losing the farm, though…”
“Got it. What is this very not-good idea?”
“Have you ever considered sex work?”
Clark laughed for a second, then immediately realized she wasn’t kidding and closed his mouth. “Not… really, not seriously. I’ve thought about it occasionally—I wouldn’t have the same risks that most people do, obviously, with abusers or disease. And I’ve always been pansexual in an ‘almost everyone is attractive to me’ kind of way, so the idea doesn’t disgust me.”
“And don’t I know your sex drive…” Lois put in, with a throaty chuckle and a conspiratorial wink.
“Thanks,” Clark said drily. “But as much as I don’t agree with the social stigma, it’s still there, and I don’t want to do anything that would jeopardize my career. Ss,” he added, emphasizing the plural.
“Right,” Lois agreed. “But what if no one would know?”
Clark raised an eyebrow. “And I’d accomplish this how? Everyone thinks they’ll never get caught, but…”
“I know a guy… No, I know, but really!” she exclaimed as Clark snorted. “I have a friend who worked as a sort of escort for him for a while, but I guarantee you, this isn’t the kind of thing that would ever get you a solicitation bust. He’s rich, handsome. Emotional baggage and commitment issues up the yin-yang—seriously, cannot stress that enough—so he doesn’t even try to date normally for the most part. Whenever he gets tired of one-night stands with models and starlets and wants something more intense, but without any unnecessary entanglements… he picks someone, young professionals mostly, to be his pretend girl or boy or bothfriend. From the public’s point of view, he’s kind of a… serial monogamist fuckboy slash sugar daddy? Like, everyone knows he’s generous to a fault to whomever catches his eye, so it doesn’t surprise anyone that someone is able to afford better things while—and after—dating him, but no one realizes he’s actually straight-up paying them, upfront, to be a guaranteed no-frills, no-strings, no-drama, sex-on-demand arm candy.”
“That is the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard of,” Clark said.
“Don’t be ridiculous, you work with a telepathic alien from Mars.”
“Well, okay. Yeah, that’s fair, but… seriously?”
“Clark, sugardaddy.com is an actual thing, this really isn’t that out of the box.”
“I—alright. Good point. But… you really think no one would find out, or think badly of me about it? I mean, I’d still look like a gold digger, wouldn’t I?”
“So, technically, I only know for certain about my friend and one other person who’ve done it, but I’m like ninety-nine percent sure that every person I’ve heard about this guy dating seriously in the past five years was paid off. And I’ve never seen them get shamed—at least not any more, than, say, Taylor Swift’s “boyfriends” do. People do tend to think—well, he comes off as kind of a horndog.”
“What a surprise.”
“But he’s a gorgeous, rich horndog who gives generously to charity and he’s a lot of fun, so… there’s a ‘who would say no to that’ attitude. You’re young, you’re allowed to make stupid mistakes in your love life. I honestly don’t think anyone who doesn’t already disapprove of you would say anything other than ‘hey, I’d tap that, too.’”
“Huh.”
“Anyway, long story short, I was chatting with my friend the other day and she mentioned—she’s stayed friends with him, you see—and she mentioned that he asked her to be on the lookout for a new prospect. So… I could recommend you. If you wanted to consider it as an option, obviously you wouldn’t have to commit right away.”
Clark pursed his lips in thought. He really had considered sex work, more seriously than he’d implied to Lois—he’d had a few friends that he’d met through activist circles and the queer community who had done that kind of thing, and more than one of them had mentioned that they thought he’d be good at it. He’d always enjoyed sex, once he’d figured out how to use blue kryptonite for safety, and the service aspect was his favorite part. He loved seeing someone come apart in pleasure because of him, helping them expiate their demons and stress and problems with his body.
“He’s supposed to be really good in bed, too.” Lois commented after he’d pondered silently for a while.
“Well, in that case, definitely sign me up,” Clark quipped. “Do you know how long it’s been? Oh wait, you do.”
Lois laughed. “You know you can come back to me if you’re ever feeling hard up. The bedroom was never where our problems were, and Diana wouldn’t mind.”
“Remind me why I introduced you to her in the first place?” Clark jibed half-seriously.
“Because you are an utterly unselfish, truly generous, and loving person,” Lois said, responding to his sardonic comment with utter sincerity. “And I wish I could have truly fallen in love with you.”
Clark felt his heart melt in his chest, and he leaned over and kissed her softly and briefly on the lips. “You don’t, because then you wouldn’t have Diana, and I wouldn’t change you if I could. Besides, it was me wanting to be your one and only that really broke us up, as that offer proves! And yes, if I ever get desperate, I will absolutely take you up on it,” Clark laughed. “But it’s easier for me to move on, right now at least, if we don’t sleep together.”
Lois leaned her head on Clark’s shoulder. “I do love Diana, and she loves me. But both of us have no problem with having more than one love. I just get sad, sometimes, seeing you alone. And maybe that’s both why I brought this to you, and also why I’m not sure you should take it. You’re not the kind of person who should be alone—or unlaid—and I hate to see you scraping to get by and not be able to help you more. But you also need and deserve someone who loves you romantically and sexually, with all their heart and soul, the way you want, and this certainly couldn’t be that.”
Clark sighed sadly. “I want that so much, Lo. But—I don’t know if finding someone like that would be possible while being Superman. There are too many lies I have to tell, and I don’t know if anyone who wants the kind of relationship I do would also be okay with my jetting off to play hero all the time.” He snorted a little, then gave a self-deprecatory chuckle. “Unless I finally got up my nerve to—uh. I mean…” he stopped short and groped for words, unsure of what he could say to fill the void. He hadn’t actually planned to share that particular situation with Lois, but as always, she inspired confidences people never meant to give…
“What?” Lois bounced on the couch excitedly. “There’s someone you want to ask out?” She fell into her investigator thinking pose, chin on hand, and Clark groaned, covering his eyes with his hand. “Let’s see. It can’t be someone at the Planet, I’d have noticed… and you’re not the type to fall for just a pretty face you met in passing, so… someone in the League?”
“Goddammit, Lois, you’re a witch.”
“Sorceress, thank you, and proud of it. Now it’s your turn, spill.”
“No! Seriously, Lo, I can’t,” Clark said in—he hoped—a firm, decisive tone. As with most issues he really needed to keep secret, his usual strategy with B’s identity—which B wasn’t even aware that Clark knew—was to compartmentalize and repress the knowledge as much as possible. Among other things, that meant not talking about it—especially around Lois—and thinking about it as little as possible.
“Diana doesn’t really care—if worst came to worst, she could disappear back to Themyscira for a decade and come back with a new name,” Clark continued. “But most of the League is really scary about how they protect their secret identities. For that matter, so am I, to protect you, and Jimmy, and Ma. I’m not going to say anything that could lead to you figuring out who my crush is. It’s impossible, anyway. They’re not interested.”
“Hmph. I don’t see how anyone could not be interested in you.” Clark gave her a jaundiced look. “You know what I mean!”
“I do. But they’re really not.”
“You’re seriously not going to tell me anything more?” Lois demanded. “Geez, what a tease.”
“I didn’t mean to tell you anything, you winkled it out of me with your superpowers!”
They both laughed. “Well, anyway. What do you think? About being an escort? I mean, if you have a crush on somebody else, maybe it’s not a good idea, but if you really don’t have any chance with them—”
Clark sighed again. “I don’t know. Let me think about it?”
“Take your time. I’ll mention to my friend that I might have a prospect so it’s on the burner, but I know this guy usually takes his time picking somebody out, so you can at least take a few days without worrying you’ll miss your chance. Ooh, and speaking of which, on the Manning article—”