I was so, SO happy to see you return to this fic, Catheryne! All your fans have missed you with the passion of a hundred Chlexy smut scene, LOL! And this was one HECK of a chapter to return with. I’m glad to see that you decided to make an entrance with a ‘bang’
I had to finish re-reading through the whole fic again before reviewing this, so I apologise for the delay… but here’s my inadequate feedback for your amazing story.
I loved how the story started with Chloe looking at herself in the mirror and, for the first time, not being surprised to see ‘Lois’ staring back at her. At this point, even I’m confused about which is now this woman’s ‘true’ identity… Has Chloe finally died, so this new version of Lois has been born in her place? It seems like even Chloe is not certain about her sense of self anymore.Chloe applied the lipstick over her lips and took a deep breath. She stared at her reflection in the mirror and realized for the first time that she no longer frowned and took a second look to verify that she was looking at herself. Her fingers fluttered towards where the skin was fully healed at her hairline. There were no more traces of the procedure. Should she wake up one day with no memory of her surgery, she could live her whole life without anyone knowing.
It’s tragic, but I think the only thing that’s anchoring Chloe to her sense of former self is regret and grief. She misses her old life, her former friends, and her family… husband, child, cousin! The only thing Chloe CAN do is grieve for everything that she used to have.The knock on the door was brief. She walked over and opened the door to reveal Lex Luthor standing outside. Chloe was taken back to the first time that Lex stood outside her door like that, long ago before reality took away her innocence, before Lex, before Eric, before… life happened.
Chloe is asking herself whether she’s falling in love with Lex all over again? I think the truth is that she never fell OUT of love with him.“What’s the occasion?” she clarified again as she fell into step beside him on their way to the dining room.
He led her towards their table. When she looked up, she saw sadness flit quickly in his eyes. Chloe started, suddenly filled with shame. Her lips grew numb, and she clutched tightly at her napkin.
Had she lost her heart after everything?
I remember that… it was the day before she ran away from Lex. The day she made the DECISION to walk away from Lex… and she told him too. She had good reason at the time. Lex was too caught up in plans of ambitious, petty, vindictive vengeance to worry and care for his grieving, broken wife the way she needed. LEX was the one who pushed her away. That evening, Chloe had asked Lex to participate in a memorial that she was hoping to use to get some closure on Eric’s death… and Lex could only talk about killing Superman.Chloe slowly turned her eyes to meet his, then averted them. Once upon a time at a setting much like this, she stood while he knelt sobbing into her thighs and begging her not to leave him.
I understand that it was HIS way of grieving. But he was being selfish and unheeding of the pain his wife was going through.
Poor Chloe. She feels so horribly guilty about, not only running out on Lex, but cheating on him with the ONE man that he despised above all others. In her guilt, she seems to have forgotten everything that drove her away from Lex, and only remembers that she hurt her husband.And she had run to the man he hated, lay in his bed and let him fuck her.
It's all been a pack of lies
Poor Lex! I think he’s actually realized how he himself also failed Chloe. She might have run out and cheated on him… but I think Lex is acknowledging that he neglected his wife and lost ‘the most important business deal of his life’. I love the way he’s phrased that.“If I’m alone tonight, I’m going to sink to the same depths I used to sink into,” he admitted, albeit reluctantly. “Tonight I need your help.” She was lost in his pleading gaze. “Maybe tonight I’m not a childless father or a wifeless husband. Maybe tonight I’m not a successful man who lost the most important deal of his life.”
“But I’m still me,” she protested, “and you despise me. You can’t really want to choose me to spend tonight with.”
His lips curved. “It’s a choice between you and contemplating my black soul over scotch and a loaded gun, just like all the other years.”
It was chilling hearing about him talking about dividing his attention between drunkenness and suicide. The scariest part is how I COMPLETELY believe that he’s being serious about this too. Poor Lex is in a HORRIBLE state of mind, and he simply cannot be left alone.
heh, it was good to see that Chloe wasn’t dumb-struck with horror (like I was) over Lex’s confession.“At least I’m better than the prospect of shooting yourself in the head,” she teased lightly.
oh dear… this is not good. Chloe is letting herself fall under Lex’s spell all over again, in the guise of Lois. This can go wrong in SO many ways.And she wondered, what if—What if she let herself be taken by the warm sincerity in his eyes that told her as that he would not say? What if she forgot too, the way he seemed so intent to do? It seemed so easy. Slowly, her eyes drifted closed, and she felt his hand over hers tighten briefly then release.
oh dear… I can see how Chloe would have been drawn into this fantasy that everything was ‘normal’ between them while this truce was being affected. It would be SO easy to forget all the misunderstanding and underlying animosity between them while they were actively ‘trying’ to be civil.“It’s not the end of the world if we forget,” he told her. “Maybe tomorrow we can go back.”
To hating each other.
To cursing a woman he thought was dead.
To accepting that even now, despite what she had done, he was, and always will be obsessed.
“Alright,” she said.
LOL! I like Perry too. He hasn’t made much of an appearance in this fic, but from Chloe’s description he sounds very much like the canon-comic version of Perry, who I always adored.“Perry is wonderful,” she began. Then she remembered that Lex had met his editor-in-chief before, and saw the doubtful arch of his eyebrow. “He is,” she repeated, chuckling. “He’s temperamental, completely neurotic and downright obnoxious. I adore the old guy.”
“No wonder,” he returned.
“I’m gonna be like him someday,” she joked.
“He sounds like a dream,” he drawled.
ROTFLMAO! I was in hysterics imagining this ‘mini-battle’ of pranks that took place between Perry and Chloe. And it’s probably ‘just another one of those things’ that happens on a regular basis between the two of them, LOL!“This sounds evil.”
“He never turns off his machine in case there’s a breaking story.”
Lex laughed. “You did not.”
She nodded. “I did. I know how to leave fake love messages and sound like I mean it.” She sipped her champagne. “I doubt he’d do it again.”
Poor Lex… Now… NOW he’s finally learned to mourn properly, without trying to distract himself with all the wrong things like trying to get ‘revenge’ for his personal losses and tragedy. It’s a good thing, because LOIS is the one who would have been the target for any vengeance he might have been planning. He’s finally learned that even the petty satisfaction from revenge is useless in the long run.She looked up at him, and saw the look of surprise in his face, as if he regretted having slipped. “It’s okay, you know. You can talk about her.”
“No.” He shook his head sharply. “I can’t.”
“Lex,” she began. But it was so easy to see that she had already lost him tonight.
Chloe placed down her glass and tossed her napkin back on the table. He seemed so young, so devastated. She stood up, and he looked up at her in question. She walked over to where he sat and closed her hand over his, then pulled him up.
I felt like crying for poor Lex. His son was taken away, but he managed to somehow keep himself from breaking… it was only after Chloe left that he got… lost. And I don’t think he even WANTS to find his way back to himself again.“I’m never going to escape her, Lois.”
She reached up her hand and cupped his face. She leaned up and pulled down his face for a brief kiss.
“I’m never going to want to,” he continued, looking down at her puzzled.
oh, this was a mistake on SO many levels!!! But I couldn’t help but grin at the added drama and excitement that this latest twist added to the plot line. Excellent plotting, Catheryne!!!“You don’t have to,” she whispered, her breath brushing against his moist lips. Chloe pulled him down again for another kiss, this time longer, deeper. Her hands slipped down to his belt and deftly undid it. “Let me do this.” She helped him get off his pants.
He took her hand and pulled. “Let’s go to the bedroom.”
“No,” she protested sharply. “Not the bedroom.” She reached up and unhooked the clasp at the back of her dress, and allowed it to fall to the dining room floor. Chloe stood in front of him in her panties and a simple gold necklace.
The smut was beautifully written. It was hot, and there was a strong thread of grief, desperation and deceit running throughout this entire scene. You did a WONDERFUL job in capturing so many emotions in these actions, Catheryne! I loved the tragedy of Chloe indulging herself by allowing herself to ‘forget’ about her new identity to sink into her old life again… just for a little while. You know that it’s going to end soon, and that she’s going to be worse off than when it started, but it IS wonderful during the moment it’s happening.As she arched her back to give him access to her aching breast, she worked her panties off. And then she was holding him in her hand. She felt him so strained and tensed. Chloe lifted one leg up and hooked it on his hips. She positioned him at her entrance.
“Lois.” He hesitated, and looked up into her eyes. And it was sick, because he was looking into Chloe, and sinking into someone else. She nodded, and it looked to his dazed mind that she was someone else, and that this would really be okay. He intertwined his fingers with hers and held on. He drove home. She gasped and he squeezed his eyes tightly, his hips moving in a frantic rhythm, searching and pounding and reaching.
This was just… woah! Oh dear heavens, WOW!!! It was beautiful, rough, desperate, intense, violent… and so very intimate. I loved seeing Lex and Chloe connecting with each other, and not fully understand the significance of what was happening between them. The poor confused kids… Lex is going to believe that anything he felt was an illusion born from having sex with Chloe’s cousin. And Chloe… Chloe won’t be able to tell him that the connection was real and genuine, not without revealing her secrets to him.“Lex, more.” She wanted to wrap her arms around him, rest her hands on his shoulders and rub the tension that she felt. Instead, his hands were tight as they clutched hers and pressed them against the moist glass. It was painful, and the most glorious experience she had ever had. He was inside her over and over and over, hitting the places she had never dreamed he would ever be again. The edges of her vision blacked and she released so violently she shuddered and screamed quietly, melting against the window, against his body, liquefied.
As she sagged against him, Lex released her hand and felt it come around his back, clutching at him, her nails sliding against the sweat. With his free hand he reached for her other thigh and placed her leg around his waist. With the new depth, he felt her grow tighter and even slicker. He rested his forehead against the cool window and pounded faster and heavier.
As elusive as it was, his climax shattered him when he finally found it. He pumped himself inside her continuously until he had nothing more. He was so sated that he melted onto his knees, taking her along with him. Breathing heavily, he lay down on the hardwood floor with Lois lying boneless against him.
Poor Chloe! I KNEW it was a mistake she and Lex were making. Chloe was trying to recapture her past, even though she knew she wouldn’t be able to hang onto it, and Lex believed Lois was offering him solace and comfort, which he took without thinking too much about it.He looked down at the dark head resting against his chest. He placed a kiss on the top of her head and closed his eyes. “I’m sorry for doing that,” he rasped.
Chloe heard the words and swallowed, then her eyes drifted closed and a tear slid down the edge of her eye and dropped onto his skin.
And I can’t imagine any other words that would have broken Chloe’s heart more than what Lex just said… ‘I’m sorry for doing that’… Perhaps he was apologising for using Lois like that, but I’m sure Chloe can also sense that he regrets what just took place. She thinks that he regrets the amazing, fulfilling, intense moment that they shared.
Hmmm, perhaps he regrets it, or perhaps he feels guilty about ‘betraying’ Chloe with her own cousin. I guess I’ll have to wait for a Lex POV chapter to find out what his thoughts were/are. I look forward to the upcoming chapter, Catheryne. Please update soon.
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