Once somebody guessed. A shrink, if you can believe it. That's pretty clichd, isn't it? A terrible way to start any story. I don't know if I'd believe it.

It figures that my story would turn out the way it has. After all, I live in Smallville now, and you can't get much more clichd than that. Boring, pretty Smallville with its rotten core. I won't be leaving anytime soon.

I'm pretty happy here, although if you ask me, I'll tell you I'm not.

I was eighteen, maybe nineteen, and Margaret was my fifth shrink.

'Five?' you might be saying. 'Five shrinks?' Or maybe not. Maybe you know you can't avoid them nowadays. Everyone has one; everyone has been to one, two, thirty. Everyone walks around with their issues attached to them like luggage tags. Sometimes they get displayed proudly for everyone to see and sometimes they are buried, tucked away like they're almost forgotten.

I didn't mind the shrinks. What was there to mind? I learned early enough how to play the game. Go, sit and fidget just a little, have many innocuous sessions and then say something appropriately tragic in a cracking voice, have the big breakthrough. People hear what they want to hear, for the most part, so I was always diagnosed as--oh, who cares. It's not like anything that got said was accurate. Until Margaret, anyway.

I liked Margaret from the start. That had never happened before, and now that I think about it, it probably should have been a tip off. Shrinks are normally smug and most relationships--personal or otherwise--can only handle one smug person at a time. So naturally, I never got along with my shrinks. They thought they knew everything, I actually did know everything and so it inevitably turned into me telling them what they wanted to hear and waiting for the magic words, "You've made a lot of progress."

Margaret wasn't smug. She was old and wrinkly and listened to me patiently for eight sessions before she picked up her DSM-IV and said "Why, Lex, it's like you're the perfect textbook case of borderline depression."

Clever, clever Margaret.

After that we mostly just talked. In over a decade of therapy, I'd never actually really talked to a shrink. Margaret was nice about it. I probably should have guessed what she was playing at, but I was younger then. And maybe I wanted to talk.

Maybe.

Having friends is overrated. It's not that most people are out for themselves, although a lot of them are. It's that most people are boring. Predictable. You can see their next move four moves back. I'm very good at reading people. I'm bored almost all the time because of it, although Smallville and its seemingly endless store of dark corners is somewhat entertaining. And then there's Clark but that's a little different.

He's a little different.

With most people, people that I meet and want to call friend, I try too hard. I can't help it. I buy, I flatter, I push. I take up all the space I can and want more. I want everything sooner, faster. By the time I've pushed my way in, I'm usually ready to move on. I don't know any other way. I don't want to know any other way. I--I'm a Luthor. Taking over is what we do.

Clark is the first real friend I've ever had. The first real lasting friend. I don't get him--the earnestness, the concern, the simple acceptance. I'm not tired of him. I'm not sure that I will be anytime soon.

For example, with most people, you give them concert tickets and arrange for limo rides and they wonder what you want. They look at you and try to guess what your game is.

Clark just said thank you.

I can't decide if it's arrogance or something else.

He looks odd in my house, all red-cheeked and open-eyed. I like that. Clark is what Kansas is supposed to be, all innocent and happy and sure. But sometimes there's something in his eyes that I can't place, something that I want to understand and it's worth the wait until I learn what it is. Being in Smallville hasn't been the prison I thought it would be and I mostly have Clark to thank for that.

I've always been a non-entity to my father. When I was younger it bothered me but I'm smart and learned soon enough that it was what he wanted. No matter what I did, good or bad, I never got more than a cursory nod, a brief glance. After a while, I just gave up and did what I wanted to. That got me more notice than anything else, but it still wasn't much.

When I was seventeen, old enough to make my own choices and know what they meant, and home from school for the summer, he looked at me one night during dinner, a quick split-second glance, and said, "You have your mother's eyes."

I don't, of course. I have my father's eyes. But he always knows what to say, always knows the right way to say it.

I was home for the summer and I was seventeen and that night after dinner my father let me into his office and actually looked at me.

"You look like your mother," he said, and touched my face. I want to think he did it softly, gently, but in all honesty, he most likely didn't touch my face at all. He probably just smiled and waited, stared at me and let me stare back.

Clark has cocksucker lips. Gorgeous and full and the bottom one always pouts a little, like it's just waiting. I like to think it's waiting for me.

I could do a lot of things to that mouth. I could do a lot of things with that mouth. Clark is young--god, is he young--but I see the glimmer in his eyes. Clark is young, but he isn't stupid. I could teach him a lot, and I know he sees that.

Past Lana, perfect and insipid, past Smallville with its cornfields and pretty white houses and rotten core, past all of that is Clark and I sitting in my house on a Thursday afternoon, Clark smiling up at me as we sit in the study and talk about nothing. His feet are propped up and he's looking at me and he thinks he knows a lot and I could teach him more and it would be so easy to push him over, onto his back, down onto his knees.

So easy.

I don't choose the easy way. I choose to look at Clark, happy and perfect, and to stay silent. He has secrets, Clark does, and I want them. I want willingness, I want it all. I want Clark pushing me down and one day he will. He will.

I'm a Luthor. I get my own way.

I'm Lex. I want him to have a choice.

Margaret was always into words. She said that talking was good. She said acknowledgement was helpful. She said a lot of things, Margaret did. I can still hear her now, that cracked old smoker's voice of hers rasping, "Just say it, Lex."

Fine. Just words.

I had an affair with my father.

I slept with my father.

I fucked my father.

More accurately, he fucked me.

I never said those last words to Margaret. Never. Not even the last time I saw her, which was after she'd lost her practice, her family, her home. She was living in a shelter in Metropolis but soon even that was closed to her.

I ruined her because I had to, because I could, because I wanted to. I don't think she was happy that I still came to see her. She didn't like me much by the end, wouldn't even take my money for our sessions. Tiresome, but predictable.

I saw her for the last time and told her I ended it but didn't tell her why. She laughed, dry and brittle, and asked me if I was happy.

"No," I said.

"I'm glad," she replied and coughed into her hands. Oh, how she hated me. Stupid. Hate is a wasted emotion. There are many more interesting ways to channel feeling. More practical ways. More lasting ways.

My father likes Clark. Or rather, he likes to let me know that he knows that I'm watching Clark. Clark is too boring for him to bother with. "Your miracle worker," he calls Clark when he's still willing to talk to me. "What passes for entertainment in Smallville," he says, almost chuckling, and that's usually a sign that he's finished with our conversation and will hang up soon. We talk on the phone quite a bit, my father and I.

I always call him.

The first time was in his office, that very night he asked me in his oblique way. So easy, the way he set it up. I looked like my mother, my adored mother. Didn't I want to take her place?

Of course that wasn't it. Not for him, not for me. She was gone, and had been for a long time. This was about him and me. I wanted him to love me. He didn't. He...doesn't. I thought he would. I thought--I thought that he wanted everything. I thought he wanted to own me, wanted to stamp me with himself everywhere.

Now I realize he was probably just bored.

I didn't want to come to Smallville. I came because I was told to. I came because if I didn't, I knew what my future would be and it wasn't pretty. I went from being my father's son to being his...whore. I hate that word. It's crass. It doesn't fit. It's not what I was. It's more like I went from being nothing to being almost nothing and back to nothing again.

I left because it became clear to me that perhaps I would do anything to become more than a nothing to him again. I am not that breakable. I refuse to be.

I came to Smallville and almost died. Typical. Stupid town. I came to Smallville and almost died and Clark breathed air into my lungs. Not my own breath, not Luthor air. Clark brought me back to life. He didn't want anything from me.

Clark and his pretty eyes and cocksucker lips and the way he slouches on my sofa and never puts his feet up on the coffee table even though I tell him he can. Clark and how he shows up breathless more than once in a while, his panicked face and voice telling me he's worried about me.

Better than I deserve?

Don't think I care about that. I want Clark. The caring, the breathlessness, all of it and more besides. I want it all. I want everything.

I suspect that's the real problem, my problem.

I suspect it's every Luthor's problem.

Circle around, back around, and I'm in Margaret's office, looking around, in the middle of bullshit visit number six or seven. There are her bookshelves; dusty and packed with books I've seen a million times before, in a million different offices. There's Margaret, leaning back in her chair and looking at the ceiling. Her face is as pasty and as wrinkly as ever. There's me, looking at the pile of toys she has in the corner.

What are they for? I ask.

My younger patients.

Ah, of course. Because nothing says a visit to the shrink like toys.

They're familiar, she replies. Comforting. People need comforting.

Please, I say. Comfort is overrated.

Hmmm, Margaret says. Maybe.

I can't remember everything. I remember every moment up to and past in vivid, startling detail. But as for the actual moments, the actual act, the definition, I go blank. It's like I can only get so far before my mind whites out, retreats into quiet. I always fall asleep.

I tried to remember a few weeks ago, got up and went into my office, sat down and remembered a time that's colored very vibrantly, a party going on, people everywhere, and my father raising an eyebrow as I walked across a room. He was wearing a pinstriped suit and his tie was an abstract print of browns and greens. He'd cut himself shaving. I remember looking at a faint red line on his throat. I remember glancing at the polished sheen of his shoes as they walked across his library floor towards me. I remembered all of that, remembered kneeling and the way my face felt cold and hot, clammy and dry. I remember the touch of my father's hand on the back of my neck, lightly, not even guiding me, just reminding he was there. All that and as I bent my head forward, heading down into the recesses of fabric and skin, it ended. I woke up three hours later, head resting on the desk, my hands cramped up because I'd squeezed them into tight fists that had stayed clenched even while I was sleeping.

There was a period of a couple weeks, right before it ended, right when I was getting Margaret's life into order and my father was smiling at me, broad and uninterested and like he couldn't remember my name, where I fell asleep constantly. Most of what I remember from that time is a revolving door of faces waking me up. At clubs, at parties, at home, sitting in the living room, in the car, an EMT guy peering down at me and saying "Have you been drinking?"

"Defense," Margaret told me. "That's what the sleeping is. It's a defense mechanism."

It was our last visit in her office. Right before she came to work one morning and got a whole bunch of papers that took her life away. Right before I looked at the floor one afternoon and told my father, "I can't do this anymore."

"The sleeping? What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean," she said.

"But I remember everything up to it. After. I remember before and after, every time. I remember how it started, what I said. I want to--"

"How often are you falling asleep?"

"All the time. "

"You want to remember everything?"

"Yes."

She nodded at me. "There are ways you can. We could try now. Why don't you tell me about one time? It doesn't matter which one."

"Lex?"

"I'm thinking," I told her.

"Lex," she said again, and her smoker's voice was a little more cracked than usual. "Your hour has been over for two. You fell asleep. I couldn't wake you up."

"Oh," I said.

His reply? When I told him I couldn't?

"Of course you can't."

Mockingly, with the slightest hint of disappointment. My head shot up, just like he knew it would. I looked for something in his eyes and only saw myself, shadowed and resting in the depths of his gaze. I looked disappointed and I suppose that will have to forever serve as enough of an ending for me.

--

This is some of what I remember:

The white of my father's shirts -- they were always white-- the crisp pleated cuffs, the clink of his cufflinks. He always left his clothes on. Just the bare minimum undone, creating a constant rasp of fabric against my skin. I always took off everything.

I remember looking at the pile of my clothes on the floor, never thrown, always placed. I remember looking at ceilings: my father's office, my father's bedroom, my father's car.

I remember his open eyes, his dry hands. I remembered that I asked why once.

"Why?" I said.

"Why not?" he replied.

I remember other things. I remember spreading my legs, I remember cold under me. I could never really get warm, even when I was sweating and covered with fluids, gasping for air. I once said something to Margaret about being born, a few sessions after she knew, and she glanced at me sharply, her eyes narrowed a little bit at the corners.

Hmmm, she said. You look tired. Are you tired?

Aren't you going to ask me if I like it? I said.

The body can function independently of the mind, she said.

I really hated her for that.

There are lines on my father's knuckles, but then there are lines on everyone's. Clark has them, little ones turned down like rows of frowns. Clark sits with his hands resting on his knees a lot, but sometimes he pats my shoulder or clasps it.

My father's knuckles were always braced on either side of me. Sometimes I could see them easily and I would watch them. Sometimes I would twist back to see them not touching me. They were always just there, they never looked strained.

I can't ever remember looking at my own hands. I can see them, if I think about it, if I try to remember. I picture them relaxed, waiting. But they always come into focus folded up, bunched, fisted so hard that all the lines on my knuckles become faint traces.

I started dating again, really dating, afterwards. I did, during, but I it was all very ritualistic and done mostly to prove that I could. That I needed my father as little as he needed me. I would meet a girl, ask her out, take her out, maybe have sex with her. I really don't remember the sex with any of them except that the girls always looked terrible afterwards, faces flushed or pale, eyes closed or open, arms clasping me or holding me so that I knew I could pull away. Different and always the same and not one of them ever touched me past skin.

I do remember dating afterwards. Three dates with oh, what was her name--Nell? Ellen? Something with an n. I remember her because we were in her apartment and she was staring at me with wide fierce eyes.

"Do you even like sex?" she asked, and her voice was really angry. I hadn't liked her all that much till then but I liked her a lot in that moment.

"Sure," I said, and reached out to touch her face. She moved so I could only reach the edge of her cheek.

"Well, I've got news for you," she said. "Being bent over a chair and fucked up the ass while you whimper like you're dying isn't my idea of great sex."

"You weren't complaining," I said and started thinking of ways to make sure that I would never see her around again.

"I think you were having a miserable enough time for both of us."

I made sure I didn't ever see her around again after that.

I like it, I told Margaret one day. I like having sex with my father.

Well, she said. What would you like me to say to that? What do you think I should say?

It's incest, I said.

It is indeed, she said. You think you're the first patient I've seen who has had sex with a parent?

But they hate it, I said. They don't keep doing it. I'll bet a lot of them don't choose to do it. I'll bet a lot of them feel they have to, or think that they have to or do it because--

They want to be loved, she said. Do you feel loved, Lex?

Oh please, I said. Next thing I know, you'll be wanting to put me on suicide watch. I already know my father doesn't love me.

No, she said, and coughed. She had a smoker's cough, loose and rattling and she would raise an arm up over her head sometimes, like she was drowning. I could never figure out why she did that.

I don't think, she continued, that you want to die. If you did, your father wouldn't have to think about you at all, would he?

I mentioned I really hated Margaret sometimes, right?

Afterwards, every time afterwards, from the first time to the last, my father would leave first. He'd straighten himself up, which usually took about ten seconds; the zippering of pants, perhaps the straightening of a tie, and then he'd cast glance at me. I remember that his eyebrows always used to arch up a little bit, like he was surprised to see me there, surprised that I was still me.

I would get dressed then, pants, shirt, socks. I always put my shoes on last. My father was usually gone by the time I got my pants about mid-knee. One time, just one time, I didn't do anything; just lay there and listened to him leaving. I was in his office and once he was gone I slid off the sofa I was lying on, slid down onto the floor and looked at myself. My legs were twitching like I'd gone for a long run and had overdone it, all the muscles bunching and jumping under my skin, trembling. My stomach was covered with a drying sticky sheen and I was tired, so tired.

There was noise; someone out in the main office area, and whoever it was must have stapled a hand shut or something. I tried to tell whomever it was to shut up but my throat felt all closed up. It always felt like that, actually, when I was with my father. Like everything inside me had shrunk down to a whisper.

I got dressed and the noises continued. I started to think that maybe someone was really hurt. I tried clearing my throat but nothing happened. I still couldn't talk. I started to wonder how I was going to get in touch with emergency services. Perhaps I would just ask the dying person--and really, I hoped it wasn't someone who was wailing over their pen running out of ink or something like that--to screech into the phone.

There wasn't anyone out in the main office. It was dark and empty but the noise kept on coming. I was feeling pretty good--tired, but good, and the keening was starting to really irritate me. I started to walk down to the copy room when I got a glimpse of myself in the glass wall that separated the reception area from the rest of the office.

Pale, really pale, with eyes sunk into my head, dark circles ringing them. My mouth was open, wide open, like I'd forgotten how to breathe. Like I was making noise.

I put my fingers under my chin, pushed on my jaw so the lower half of it moved up, closed.

"Shut up," I said and there was my voice, a little raw, but there.

It struck me then that perhaps my father really wasn't worth it.

Clark likes floats. The ice cream kind, although I'm sure he likes the other kind too. I'll bet Clark loves parades, marching bands, holidays. All that sentimental stuff. I'll bet he'd tell me so, if I asked him about it. I won't ask.

Clark wanted to get floats the other day. I stared at him for a moment when he suggested it, thought about reminding him he wasn't five, but then saw the smile on his face and didn't say a word. Even with those cocksucker lips, he still manages to look innocent about ninety percent of the time. I like the other ten percent of the time more. Clark with a glint in his eyes and a knowing smile on his face, even if it isn't very knowing, is quite appealing.

I drove and felt a little stupid walking into the shop, which had a jingling bell perched over the entrance and tiny white tables and some gleaming scrub-faced kid working behind the counter. He was probably stealing money from the till.

I expected Clark to get root beer and vanilla. It's traditional, very floaty, very Kansas. Instead he got mint chocolate chip and cola, and I ended up getting root beer and vanilla.

This is fun, Clark said when we were sitting at a rickety table, its white edges tilting every time one of us put our cups down. It really wasn't, but I said "yes" and took another sip of my float.

Vanilla ice cream is bland and white and sweet but after a while the taste of it leaves a bitter film on the inside of your mouth.

Now, if I believed in reunions --which I don't -- I might close this with me sitting by a gravesite somewhere, stone under my hand and quiet all around me. That would be the perfect ending, one grand clichd gesture to tie back into the beginning. It would be perfect for Lex Luthor, resident of Smallville.

One catch though. I don't know where Margaret is buried.

In all honesty, I'm not even sure she's dead. Not that it matters, mind you. She's just as good as dead now.

I think about her once in a while. Margaret with her smoker's voice and cough and wrinkly old hands. I never saw her smoke, even when I went to see her at the shelter that one time when she wasn't even technically a doctor anymore. She coughed and wheezed and smelled like smoke, even had a pack of cigarettes resting beside her, but I never saw her touch them, never once saw her light up. I guess she didn't want to let her guard down in that way. Kind of a stupid thing to keep private.

She cleared her throat at the beginning of session number eleven and said, "You've told me that comfort is overrated. Why do you think that it is?"

"You can't get anywhere by being safe."

"But what happens when you take a chance and you fail?"

"That's what forgetting is for."

"Can you ever totally forget something?"

"I hope so."

She smiled at me, her yellow teeth tinted a slight greenish color under the fluorescent glow of her office lights, and coughed her smoker's cough. Then she sighed and said,

"What would you like to forget?"

I told her.