Experimentation

Clark/Chloe, Lana
Season 5
Rating: Adult. If you're under eighteen, please go elsewhere now.
Disclaimer: These characters belong to the CW and DC Comics, not to me.

Celibacy sucked.

And okay, he was prepared to admit that squashing a girl to smithereens in the throes of passion would suck a whole lot worse. He knew that. That was the reason he'd been celibate so long. Still, that didn't mean he had to like it.

And he didn't like it. Not at all. Teenage guys weren't meant to be celibate. Anyone who'd ever been a teenage guy knew that.

Still, he could manage. It wasn't like there weren't plenty of other guys in the world forced into celibacy by circumstance. Heck, some guys even chose celibacy.

Though why, he couldn't begin to imagine.

Anyway, he could manage just like any other guy. Sex had been fun during that brief period when he hadn't had his powers, but now it was a big no-no, as far as he was concerned. So instead he looked at the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue (which he'd had to use superspeed to swipe before his mom confiscated it or his dad drooled all over it), a few minutes alone in his loft, and... voila. Problem solved.

At least for an hour or so.

That remedy had to be used quite often, but it worked. Sort of, anyway. The important thing was not to think about sex. At all. If he didn't think about it, then celibacy was a lot easier to deal with.

Which was why Chloe Sullivan's questions were making him uncomfortable. Really, really uncomfortable.

"What about kissing, Clark?" she was saying now. She was seated on the arm of his old ratty couch, wearing shorts, one bare leg swinging casually.

He swallowed, and tried not to let his eyes be drawn to the hypnotic sight of her slim calf moving back and forth. It wasn't easy to avoid looking. She had nice legs. "Um... what about it?"

"I mean, can you do it? Without crushing a girl?"

"Uh..." He thought about it. "Well, sure. You know I can. I mean, you and I have..."

He broke off, and went red. She smiled a little, used to his blushes, and went on.

"Okay, then. That's a starting place. You can kiss a girl with your powers intact and not turn her into mincemeat. What else? Can you put your hands on her?"

"Um..." He thought about it. "I guess it depends."

"Depends on what?"

"On how..." He blushed more furiously than before. "How, you know, interested I get. I'm worried that if I get carried away, I might... well..."

"Crush her. Right." She nodded, as if this was all perfectly normal, and people talked about squashing other people by accident on a regular basis. That was one of the things he liked most about Chloe Sullivan-- she'd found out his secret a while back, but she continued to treat him like a normal person. Not in the sense that she ignored his abilities and pretended he was just like anyone else, but more in the sense that she accepted them as a natural part of him.

He really appreciated that.

He didn't appreciate her tendency to nosiness quite as much. But she pressed on, oblivious to his discomfort. "So you think you can kiss a girl safely, but anything past that is risky."

"Yeah," he answered with a sigh. "That's pretty much the size of it."

"Well..." She smiled a little. "It seems to me the answer is obvious. You need to experiment."

He stared at her, feeling his cheeks grew redder. "Experiment?"

"Yes. Experiment. With a girl."

"The problem is..." He stammered to an awkward halt, then spat the words out in a rush. "See, the thing is Lanadoesn'tknowmysecret."

She shrugged. "So?"

"So... well, see, I don't really think she's interested in experimentation, Chlo. If I kiss her, then she's kind of going to, uh, expect..."

"I see," she said, a faint smile curving her mouth. "You don't want to start something you don't dare finish, huh?"

"Something like that, yeah."

She nodded, slowly and thoughtfully. "What about some other girl?" she said at last. "Like... me?"

He gaped at her, feeling his cheeks attain new and previously unimagined shades of red. "B-b-but..."

"Look," she said, a trifle impatiently, "we're both grownups, right? I figure we can kiss a little without our hormones taking over. I mean, a kiss is no big deal, right?"

"B-b-but..." He shut his mouth firmly, got it under control, and then tried again. "The problem is," he said, "that I need to go a little further than a kiss."

She made a no-big-deal gesture with her hands. "We can do that, too, Clark. I mean, we know where we stand, right? Friends. Platonic friends. A little bit of experimentation isn't going to change that. The point here is to figure out at what point you start losing control of yourself. Then you can learn to get past that point. Work your way up to the next level, so to speak."

She made it sound like making love to girls was like a video game. The only problem was, it wasn't, and she only had one life to give. "What if I hurt you? What if I rip your arm off, or something?"

"Don't," she answered, a wry smile on her lips. "It's hard to type with only one arm."

"Anyway..." He waved his own hands, in an I-can't-begin-to-tell-you-how-freaked-out-I-am gesture. "I'm dating Lana, Chlo. I think there's an implied contract that I won't... practice... on other girls."

She lifted a golden eyebrow. "Even if it means you never get to kiss Lana? Even when you know she's not happy about that?"

She had a point, he grudgingly admitted. But then, she usually did.

She stood up and slowly approached him. He stood by the window of his loft, basking in the warm autumn sunlight, and as she walked toward him she stepped into the shaft of light. It lit her hair, gilding it, and her skin seemed to glow a fresh and lovely shade of peach that made his mouth water.

Oh, he thought, this was so not a good idea. When just the thought of kissing her made his mouth tingle and his hands itch to touch her, there was way too much potential for problems here. The possibility of him hurting her was very real, and it scared the hell out of him.

And the possibility of him liking this experiment a lot more than he ought to was pretty scary, too.

*****

Clark looked terrified, Chloe thought. Like he was the one risking his life here. But if he lost control, she was the one who'd be splattered.

The thought made her heart pound a little faster, but she steeled herself. She was determined to do this. She was tired of listening to Clark whine about how he wanted Lana so, soooo much, but how he just didn't dare because of his superstrength. She was tired of listening to Lana rhapsodize about the two glorious times she'd made love to Clark, and then moan about how he'd backed off and wouldn't do it again, no matter how much she threw herself at him.

If only Clark hadn't been such a typical guy, and taken advantage of his powerless state... but of course he hadn't known he was going to get his powers back. And now that he had them back, the thought of sex with a fragile human woman scared the crap out of him.

He couldn't reasonably practice on Lana, who didn't have a clue what she was getting into. But she, Chloe, did know, and she was willing to risk it. If this was what it took to make her friends happy, then she'd do it.

Sure, Sullivan, she thought wryly. It's all totally selfless on your part. Sure it is.

She looked at Clark, who was still standing there, looking wide-eyed, freaked out by the whole situation. He wore a blue t-shirt and old, worn jeans, and his dark tumble of hair, disheveled as usual, fell in an untidy fringe across his forehead, almost into his eyes. Despite the ratty clothing and the hair that was never really neat, he was an incredibly gorgeous guy.

And yeah, maybe if she was going to be honest about it, she was really just looking for an excuse to put her hands all over him.

But who wouldn't be?

*****

Chloe reached out and put her hands on his chest, and Clark jumped a little. Just the feel of her hands resting lightly on his pecs was enough to make him... well, not out of control. No. But he could feel something inside him awakening. Something that could be dangerous.

"Chlo," he said, his voice hoarse. "I'm not sure this is such a good idea..."

"This is okay, right?" She leaned forward, so that she was speaking almost against his throat. He could feel the warm puff of her breath with each word. "This doesn't make you lose control, does it?"

"Um... not exactly. But..."

"Okay." She began running her hands up and down his chest, and even through the blue fabric of his t-shirt, it felt great. To his embarrassment, he felt his nipples harden beneath her touch. His cheeks heated.

"How about that? Still in control?"

He wasn't sure. He could feel his cock beginning to stiffen in his jeans. Oh, beginning, hell-- it was already hard as a rock, if he was going to be honest about it. He focused on his reactions, and found that his fists were clenched tightly. If he'd been holding her, he would have smashed a bone or two, and not even realized it.

Or would he have? Would his hands have closed on her, or would a lifetime's worth of practice in not hurting humans have stopped him from injuring her? He honestly wasn't sure.

"Uh," he said. He was dismayed to note that his voice was a low rumble. He sounded, well, turned on. "I'm not sure."

"Put your hands on me," she directed.

"Chlo, I'm not sure that's such a good idea..."

"Clark." Her hands slid a little lower, across his abdomen, and she spoke firmly, with no hint of fear. "Put your hands on my waist."

He didn't seem able to say no to her for some reason. He unclenched his fists, very carefully, and placed his hands on her slim waist, just above the curve of her hips. He rested his hands there very lightly, wondering what would happen if he lost control and squeezed. At the last he'd shatter her hipbones. At the worst-- ugly images of blood and gore rose in his head, and he closed his eyes, trying to blot them out.

"You won't hurt me," she said softly, as if she could read his thoughts. Maybe she could, just from his reaction. She'd known him a long time, after all. "I trust you not to hurt me."

The words made a little warm flame glow in his chest, but they didn't really reassure him. He didn't trust himself. He just didn't. If his hands could clench when they were empty, then they could clench when they were on her. And if they did...

Her palms began to stroke over his abdomen, moving lower. He could feel the heavy throbbing of his erection, responding to the soft brush of her fingers. He stiffened, and tried to pull away.

"It's all right," she whispered.

It wasn't all right. He was going to crush her any minute. It occurred to him vaguely that his concern was all for her, that Lana wasn't even a blip on his radar, that he wasn't worrying at all about the fact that he shouldn't be getting a massive hard-on from another girl's hands right above his jeans. He ought to be feeling a little guilty. No, he ought to be feeling a lot guilty.

But he didn't.

*****

Clark's abdomen was taut beneath her hands. She could feel the leashed power in his body. She let her hands explore him, pushing up beneath the hem of the t-shirt, feeling granite-hard muscles beneath satiny skin, letting her finger trace over the thin trail of hair that led from his navel down into his jeans. He stood stiffly beneath her explorations, but she thought it was a good kind of stiff. Not an I'm-terribly-uncomfortable-with-this-situation reaction, but an I-like-this-a-hell-of-a-lot one.

And maybe, she thought with a touch of guilt, he was enjoying it more than he really ought to. Maybe she was, too. After all, he was dating Lana, and Lana wouldn't be at all happy to walk up the loft stairs and find Chloe with her hands on Clark's bare abdomen, right above his old leather belt...

She reminded herself that Lana wasn't happy with the situation with Clark as it currently existed, either. Already she'd gotten Clark to loosen up more with her than he'd gotten with Lana, judging from Lana's monologues on the subject. And she was still in one piece.

But as much as she was enjoying touching him, she needed to push forward, to see where his control started to break. She considered the matter, trying to figure out what she should do next.

And then she shoved his shirt up, leaned forward, and kissed his chest.

*****

Chloe's lips brushed over his chest, so lightly that he could barely feel it. And yet the sensation send a shudder through him, and his hands spasmed. He managed to stop himself from clenching his fists only with a conscious effort.

"Chloe!"

"It's okay," she said softly, pressing more kisses to his bare chest. "It's just kissing, right?"

No. It was not just kissing, particularly not when her lips brushed dangerously close to his nipple. It was hard and aching, and he really wished she'd-- wait, no. No, he didn't. That was not something he should be wishing for.

But anyway, the point was that kissing wasn't the same as a gorgeous girl's mouth all over his bare chest. It just wasn't.

The aching throb in his cock grew sharper and more intense, and he had a bad feeling he might just come in his jeans. But he couldn't. That would be embarrassing as hell, and impossible to explain away. The two of them were just experimenting, and he shouldn't be that turned on.

But he was. Oh, God, he definitely was. And if her mouth moved just an inch to the right...

As if she'd read his mind, her mouth moved in precisely that direction, exactly that distance, and her lips lightly caressed his nipple. His head jerked back, and an unnnnnnhhhhh sound escaped him despite his best efforts. His hands were suddenly beyond his control, and he dropped them to his side, letting them clench.

"Ah-ha," she said softly. "There it is."

He wasn't sure what she was talking about. He let his eyes open a crack and gazed at her blearily. "What?"

"That, right there. That's the point where you lose control."

He couldn't exactly argue it. He took stock of his physical responses, noticing that his breathing was harsh, all his muscles tense, and his cock throbbing with a violent intensity. Yeah, he'd lost control of himself, all right.

"Okay," he answered. "So I guess this is where we better stop."

Are you crazy???! his body clamored at him. What the hell is wrong with you???

He ignored it. His body wasn't in charge. Really. It wasn't.

But she shook her head. "No," she said seriously. "The idea is to find out where you lose control, make you aware of it, and then get you to regain control so you can go further."

Further? Was she kidding? Because if they went any further, he was totally going to...

"But if I squash you..."

"Focus, Clark." She stared into his eyes. "Put your hands back on my hips and pay very careful attention to what you're doing. Do not under any circumstances squash me. Understand?"

Panic rose up in him despite his undeniable arousal, but he nodded. "I understand," he croaked.

Slowly, reluctantly, he put his hands back on her hips. She felt good under his hands, soft and curvy, and he wanted to dig his fingers in just a bit and pull her toward him. But he didn't dare. He was finding it hard enough to concentrate already, without adding the distraction of a soft female form pressing up against him.

She leaned forward, and her lips brushed over his nipple, and he jerked, but somehow managed to hold his hands still.

"You like that," she said softly.

Oh God, he did like that, so very very much. Lana had never kissed him there when they'd... well, yeah, okay, she hadn't kissed him a lot, actually, or touched him, for that matter. She'd kind of acted like it was his job to do all the touching, and for her to just kind of lie back and close her eyes... not that he was criticizing. No. Making love to her had definitely been a great experience.

It was just that now that Chloe was running her hands and her mouth over him, he was kind of beginning to realize that he'd been missing something.

Anyway, the point was that Chloe's mouth on his nipple was like the best fucking thing ever, and he couldn't seem to stop himself from moaning. Which was embarrassing, but at least he wasn't squashing her, so he doubted she'd judge him too harshly.

Her mouth drifted across his chest and then kissed the other nipple, light, gentle caresses that practically sent him to his knees. He thought he might explode any minute now.

"Pay attention," she whispered against his chest. "No squashing."

He made a noise of acquiescence that was nothing more than an undignified little squeak, and carefully relaxed his hands again.

And then her mouth closed on his nipple and began to suck, and his cock throbbed so hard he heard himself crying out with pleasure.

God. Guys weren't supposed to like this. Were they? He didn't think they were, at least not this much. But oh God, he liked it, a hell of a lot. It was like there was a direct line from his nipple to his cock, as if she was actually sucking on his...

And there was an image that didn't help him calm down any. He panted frantically, trying to get himself back under control, but she didn't let up, kept sucking, and he had no idea if other guys liked it this much or if it was just a Kryptonian thing, but the pressure of her lips on the sensitive nub of flesh was so good, and he felt pleasure mounting in him, so intense and hot and desperate that it was a terrible strain to keep his hands relaxed.

"Chlo," he ground out. "Chloe please you have to stop or I'm going to... please I don't want to hurt you..."

She pulled back, just an inch, and whispered. "Focus, Clark. Focus."

And then her mouth was on him again, sucking his nipple, pulling relentlessly at something deep inside him, some dark primitive well of pleasure that had never before been drawn from. The throbbing in his jeans grew intolerable, so that he couldn't focus. He couldn't do anything except let the ecstasy rush up from its deep dark well and drown him in a long, delicious wave. He threw his head back and cried out as it pulsed through him and over him, hot and sweet and impossibly good.

When he came back to himself he found that he was on the floor. Apparently his knees had given out under the force of his orgasm. He blinked, focusing, and saw Chloe kneeling in front of him, rubbing ruefully at her hip.

"Chloe," he whispered, horrified. "Oh, my God. I hurt you."

"Not really." She offered him a reassuring smile. "I think it's just a bruise."

He squinted, activating his x-ray vision, and reassured himself that her hipbones were still in one piece. But he could also see the rapidly darkening purple blotches on her skin where his fingers had held her too hard.

"I'm so sorry," he mumbled, reaching out and putting a hand on her shoulder. Self-disgust washed over him in a sickening wave, and he lowered his eyes, ashamed even to look at her. "I never meant to... I would never..."

"It's my fault." She reached up and patted his hand gently. "I didn't let you stop and regroup, Clark. I kept pushing when I should have stopped and let you refocus."

"But I--"

"Actually," she said, her voice still very kind, "you did really well, Clark. We both know you could rip me to pieces very easily. The fact that you only gave me a little bruise is a good thing. You controlled yourself pretty well, even during... well..."

He was glad she hadn't said the throes of orgasm, because those were not words he was comfortable with hearing his best friend utter. He hadn't expected to come from her playing with his nipple, and he doubted she'd expected that, either. Apparently Kryptonians were a little easy. Either that, or they just had extra-sensitive erogenous zones.

Which was not necessarily a bad thing. It just made it hard to... focus.

He sighed.

"I'm glad I didn't seriously injure you," he said. "But the fact that I left you with bruises... Chlo, experimenting with me is dangerous. I tried to tell you."

"It's all right," she answered. "You did fine. With some more practice, you'll get the hang of it."

He blinked. "More... practice?"

She nodded, very seriously. "We need to experiment some more," she said. "So that you can learn how to control yourself even when you're..."

Coming like a rocket, he filled in mentally. But no. She couldn't have meant that. Because this had been sort of an accident. Experimenting was one thing, and deliberately making out until one or the other of them came was more like...

Well, sex. Or at least heavy petting. Either way, it couldn't be excused away as mere experimentation.

And he had a girlfriend. He did. Even if the orgasms he'd experienced with her had only been a pale shadow of the one he'd just experienced with...

He cut that thought off before it could go any further. Being with Lana had been great, damn it. She was the girl he loved, after all. Not that he didn't love Chloe. Just not quite in that way. And yeah, so Chloe had somehow managed to make him come so hard the top of his head blew off. So what? That didn't prove anything.

Did it?

He sighed again. God help him. He was confused.

"We can't," he said. "I mean, I bruised you... and if we... I mean, I wouldn't want to..."

"So what are you going to do, Clark? Are you never going to have sex again? Ever?"

He thought about a lifetime spent alone, imagined himself never able to truly be with a woman, and he closed his eyes. Deep down, he knew that wasn't an option. He liked girls and he liked sex and he liked orgasms. And he wasn't stupid enough to think he'd ever be able to have a real, genuine, close relationship with a woman if he couldn't have sex with her.

And he wanted that kind of relationship. He'd grown up with his parents' close, affectionate relationship as a model, and he wanted something like that for himself. He couldn't see himself spending his whole life alone. He just wasn't the loner type.

"No," he said at last, spurred to honesty. "I guess you're right. I need to learn how to do this, with someone who knows what they're getting into."

She flashed a wry grin. "And that makes me the logical crash test dummy."

He wanted to tell her that she was a lot more than that to him, that she was his best friend and he loved her and he really didn't want to use her that way. He wanted to tell her that he was confused, that he'd never had an experience that intense with Lana, that she'd somehow managed to make him feel things he'd never felt before. But he didn't know how to tell her any of that.

"Yeah," he said instead, gruffly. "You're the one I want to experiment with."

*****

Chloe felt her throat constrict at Clark's words. Deep down, she knew she wished he wanted more than experimentation from her. A lot more. But he didn't feel the way about her he felt about Lana, and he never would, and she'd come to terms with that a long time ago.

And if Clark was never going to love her, well, at least he liked what she'd done to him.

Not that there had been a lot of question in her mind about it, really. She'd heard his hoarse cries, felt him shuddering beneath her hands. It had been very clear that he was enjoying himself in a big way.

She wanted to make him shudder like that again.

And maybe that made her a bad girl, but she refused to feel guilty. The fact that she'd brought Clark to a sobbing, wailing climax with just her mouth on his chest... well, it gave her a little rush to the ego she hadn't expected. It made her feel like maybe she was a little more attractive to him than she'd ever imagined.

Anyway, there was something about making a big, strong guy so weak that his knees gave out and he sank to the floor.

"Okay," she said, trying to keep her voice brisk and businesslike. "So what's next?"

Clark looked at her. His green eyes were still heavy-lidded from his orgasm, but as he gazed at her, a little spark seemed to light in them.

"Next," he said, "I do the same thing to you."

*****

"Uh..." Chloe stammered, apparently thrown for a loop by Clark's words. He almost chuckled at the look of shock on her face. "We're trying to teach you control, Clark, not me. I don't think..."

"I have to learn how to touch women without losing it," he said, as reasonably as he could manage. "So the next step should be me touching you."

She stared at him with wide hazel eyes, and he grinned, and pulled her into his lap. One of his hands drifted down and rested on her breast, and she jolted.

"Clark!"

"Fair's fair," he said softly. "You got to touch me there. Quite a lot."

"It's not quite the same thing!"

Considering how sensitive his nipples were, he wasn't sure it was all that different. He pressed his palm against her breast and felt her nipple rise against his hand. Her nipples were bigger than his, and he was suddenly struck by the hungry desire to see them.

More to come...