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Only after he’d walked in did Clark realize he’d smelled them before seeing them and had unconsciously increased his speed until he was standing in the doorway of the study. Tall. Short. Somewhere in between. Dull. Shiny. Plastic. Leather. Zippers, laces, buckles. Thick heels, thin heels, every increment of height available. Mostly black, a few red, occasionally a flash of white or silver. Everywhere he turned in the room, on the chairs, on the desk, on the pool table, on the shelves, posed almost in anticipation of his entrance, the curves of their—
“Clark?”
Clark suddenly realized there was someone else in the room and flushed guiltily, as if he’d been caught staring at the Playboy and FHM section of the magazine rack—by his mother. “Uh, Lex, hey,” he began, shifting uncomfortably. “How’s it going?”
Lex’s lips seemed to be struggling not to smirk. “Just fine, Clark. How are you?”
“Oh, I’m good, yeah,” Clark replied, with much distraction. “Yeah.”
Lex’s lips gave up their struggle. “You may be wondering about all the pairs of boots in the room, Clark,” he suggested, surveying them casually.
Clark actually turned and looked around him, as if there were any possibility that anyone would not have noticed the several dozen pairs of large footwear stacked around. “Oh, yeah,” he shrugged. “That’s a lot of... boots.” The word almost felt dirty coming out of Clark’s mouth.
Lex bit the inside of his cheek. This was really much easier than he’d expected. Although no less entertaining. He began wandering among the boots draped around his study, examining them critically. “I was looking for a present for Alice,” he explained, watching Clark discreetly try to tug the hem of his flannel shirt a little lower as Lex idly ran a hand over the curves of a black leather thigh-high with a six-inch platform heel. “Meg suggested she’d like a new pair of boots... but I just can’t decide which pair she’d like. That’s why I called you, Clark. Any thoughts?”
“Um...” Clark was clearly having trouble focusing on conversation. “Gosh, Lex,” he finally sputtered, “what’d you do, have a whole boot store shipped here?” He said the words ‘boot store’ the way his parents probably said ‘sex shop.’ Not that the Kents probably said that much.
“As a matter of fact, I did,” Lex admitted. “I just couldn’t take the time this weekend to drive up to Metropolis myself, so I made some calls and had the merchandise sent down to me.” Lex noticed that Clark had not taken one step further inside the study than the doorway. “So come on, Clark, help me out here,” he cajoled. “You’re probably more familiar with Alice’s boot collection than I am.”
Clark looked taken aback and slightly offended. “What makes you think I’m familiar with it?” he asked quickly.
“Because you see Alice more than I do, Clark,” Lex pointed out, with some confusion. “And her footwear is usually pretty noticeable.”
“What do you mean by that,” Clark said flatly. “There’s nothing wrong with the way Alice dresses.”
Lex adopted a placating tone as he mentally replaced the word ‘boots’ with ‘panties’ or ‘bra’ in all of his previous sentences. “Of course not, Clark,” he assured the teenager. “Now, do you want to help me pick out something she likes? Or not?”
Lex could see that the lure of the boots was too strong for Clark to consider leaving the room just yet, though he was still hesitant about looking at them too closely or, G-d forbid, touching them. Lex wandered back over to him and picked up a mid-calf black PVC platform with laces up the back. “Something like this, maybe?” He ran his hand over the top of the foot, closed his fingers around the four-inch heel and stroked it. Clark’s mouth was hanging open a little bit. Lex forcibly pushed the boot into Clark’s hands and turned towards another pair, which resembled more high-heeled white shoes with straps of leather binding the imaginary calf. Lex—fondled, for lack of a better word—one of the buckles and prodded, “Maybe white would be a nice change?” He dumped one of the boots into Clark’s arms, on top of the black one, and moved on.
“These are kind of cute,” he continued, picking up an ankle boot with a red flame design on a black background. He caressed the arch of the instep before adding it to the pile Clark carried, noticing that the teenager seemed to have been robbed of the power of speech, and independent mobility was fading fast. “Tell me, Clark,” Lex insisted, “do you think Alice would prefer a zipper up the side”—he slowly, oh so slowly, unzipped one silver and black thigh-high all the way from top to heel—“or up the back?” He repeated the motion with a bright red, shiny PVC boot. Clark’s eyes glazed over. “Clark,” Lex whispered, “would you like to be alone with the boots?”
The teenager snapped back to reality, his face turning as red as the boot Lex held. Lex couldn’t help starting to chuckle. “You did that on purpose,” Clark huffed accusingly, hoping Lex wouldn’t notice if he lowered the items he was carrying just a little bit.
Of course Lex noticed. “Clark,” he asked, in that tone reserved for teasing the s‑‑t out of your guy friends, “do you have a boot fetish, by any chance?”
“No!” Lex raised an eyebrow and glanced at the leather Clark was inadvertently stroking. Clark set all the boots he carried down on the couch quickly. “Not at all.”
“Did you have this boot fetish before you met Alice,” Lex persisted, “or did she inspire it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Clark really wished Lex would turn his back, just for a second, so Clark could make a few... adjustments that would ease his discomfort considerably.
“No? Perhaps you’ve got a shotgun in your pocket, then?”
Clark closed his eyes, defeated. There was no way he was escaping this one, it seemed. Lex finally took some pity on him and looked across the room filled with footwear, though he was still chuckling. “So come on, Clark,” he continued, “give me the benefit of your wisdom. What would you most like to see on Alice’s feet?”
Clark glared at his friend, but more in irritation at being caught than actual anger. Besides, Lex had presented him with an excellent opportunity—high quality freaky boots like Alice adored could get pretty expensive, after all.
“These,” he finally decided, after studying several pairs up close and personal. They were red patent leather, with laces up the front and five-and-a-half inch heels. Plus Alice didn’t have a lot of mid-calf boots. Clark licked his lips and didn’t notice until Lex snatched the boots out of his hands. “You don’t want to have to clean them before you give them to her, do you?” he chided, much to Clark’s continued mortification. He had a feeling Lex was going to remember this one for a long time.
“Me give them to her?” Clark asked, as Lex set the chosen pair on his desk and summoned his staff in to pack up the rest for return. “I thought they were your present.”
“Well, now they can be a present to both of you, can’t they?” Lex pointed out, smirk in full force. “Trust me, Clark, it was worth it just to see the look on your face when I unzipped that boot down the back. I felt like the MC at a strip club.”
Clark dropped into the chair before the desk, surprisingly tense and not nearly amused by Lex’s discovery as Lex was. Then something occurred to him. “Hey,” he began suspiciously, “doesn’t Ms. Wilson like those boots, too?” Lex choked a little bit on the water he was sipping and Clark grinned in triumph. “Did you pick out a pair for Alice’s mom, too?”
Lex glared at him over the water bottle. “As a matter of fact I did,” he conceded. “But I’m not showing them to you, leather fiend.”
“They don’t have to be leather,” Clark protested. “I like the shiny plastic ones, too, and the cloth and the rubber and—“ He shut up quickly.
“I think there’s hope for you yet, Clark,” Lex concluded.