Konserving the Species (Patreon)

Until the Conducts were caught, every Kryptonian on Earth was hiding at the Kent farm and Karen had learned more than she ever wanted to know about Limousin bulls.

Clark studied the pedigree of every cow he bought or sold; he kept meticulous records of every calf, when it was born, and who its parents were, and their parents, and their parents. He knew breeds, bloodlines, beef per pound, how much bone and gristle and fat in each stupid bovine. And all the talk of rearing cattle had her aware of her own lack of success in rearing Kryptonians.

It seemed like there were less of them every day, from Clark’s death to Kon’s, even if they had come back. Clark had successfully bred, but with a human woman. Karen hadn’t done any good on that account. And now Linda was old enough to have a kid.

Here she was, on a farm where every animal was raised to give birth and multiply—she alone wasn’t fruitful.

Karen walked past the willow and down to the fish pond. She looked at the gleaming goldfish that darted through the water… plucked a sun-warmed strawberry from a bush and popped it into her mouth. Even in that cool green water, those goldfish with no memory or attention span managed to spawn—she could see the babies swimming around, barely anything but tadpoles.

The gate squeaked and Karen looked over to see the boys coming through. She smiled and waved. They waved back halfheartedly. They weren’t used to farm work anymore than she was.

Not that it was hard, with Kon and Jon’s powers. But it took patience, control, commitment… nothing teenage boys were long on. Only Kon wasn’t a teenager anymore. He was as old as Linda. And he looked good, soaked in sweat, his almost prettyboy looks now weighted down by mud and dirt.

She followed after them. He was talking to Jon, the two of them laughing and making exaggerated voices as they told and commented on some story. It was like listening to bulls snort when they were hot and tired.

They went down into the cellar, which had become their hang-out, and plopped down into their matching easy chairs. Karen poked her head after them.

“How would you like me to bring you some beer, boys?”

They both nodded mutely, sprawled in the patched-up old chairs with their shirts off and their limbs falling everywhere haphazardly. Too tired to wash up, they were all sweat and musk. Kon especially.

Jon was just prissy, almost clean like he was a cat that tiptoed around puddles, while Kon was properly dirty, boyish until he was manly, with a shaggy head of hair and a gritty layer of stubble. So unlike Jon, who was still babyfaced with a neat trim like he was about to make a Tiktok video.

Whenever she saw him talking to Linda, Karen thought he must be on the verge of asking her if he could borrow her old red skirt, now that she’d switched to tights…

Karen went inside to the keg fridge, which would’ve been retro if it hadn’t been bought when it was new and chugged along until now. She filled two mugs from the spout on the pleasingly bright-hued Frigidaire door, then reached inside to get a wine cooler for herself.

They hardly looked at her when she came down, which she expected from Jon, but it was a surprise for Kon to be ignoring her. She wasn’t dressed to her usual standard, wearing overalls and a white T-shirt, but with the way the tight cotton outlined her full breasts, she would’ve thought he’d try for a little peek around the denim that was just barely in the way.

Especially with one of the straps on her overalls so frayed that it was about to give, making her would-be upright denim melt down the mountainous slopes of her cleavage.

“Have a drink, then shower up—you’ll be surprised how refreshed you feel.”

“Sure,” Kon said between drinks. “Jon-boy, you can have the shower first.”

“No, you take it first.”

“I wouldn’t want to use up all the hot water.”

“I like cold showers anyway.”

“Hey, is anybody home?” Linda called from up at sea level.

Karen was mildly pleased that Linda didn’t rouse Kon anymore than her tight white T-shirt. She went upstairs to find Linda bringing in groceries. Karen was surprised at how a girl who’d always seemed to simpatico with Clark now proved completely unsuited to farm life. She always blushed when someone forgot themselves and cursed up a storm.

“Just you?” Linda asked when she saw her, sounding a mite disappointed.

Who were you hoping to be here? Karen wondered, then leadingly said “Kon and Jon are here, they’re just too tired to budge at the moment.”

Linda’s eyes lit up at the mention of Kon. “Oh, poor things. Working without powers is no fun, is it? I had to drive all the way out to Smallville to get everything on the list…”

“Well, they had to ride horses. And I had to milk the cows.”

“The sooner J’onn figures out what to do about those Conducts, the better,” Linda said, her delicate eyebrows knitting together in consternation.

Her blonde hair was braided down her back and her fair skin showed elegantly in the scoop-necked cotton dress she wore. It seemed too dressy for a farm—more like something someone would wear for an Instagram video.

“No Clark?” Karen asked.

“He’s still off with Lois, haggling for that bull.”

“He’ll do anything with that woman. I don’t think he’ll ever leave her side. Which just leaves Jon and Kon.”

“Leaves them—?” Karen asked, but Linda had already started inside, arms laden with groceries.

Karen quickly picked up her own armful and went inside after Linda. She set the grocery bags down by Linda.

“Leaves them for what?” she reiterated.

“You know,” Linda said.

Suddenly there was music coming up through the floorboards, guitar music, lively music. So long as they were in the kitchen, Karen opened the door to the pantry and then the door on the floor that led to the root cellar, which was of course connected to the general basement that crisscrossed under the farmhouse like Vietcong tunnels.

She climbed down far enough to see Kon strumming on an old guitar, holding the instrument as though it were alive and needed to be soothed and comforted.

“Kon, that’s incredible!” Linda cried out behind Karen.

Looking over her shoulder, Karen could see from the look in her eyes that the guitar-playing was the least of what Linda found incredible about Kon. And as it turned out, she did know what Jon and Kon were left for.

Kon stopped playing and looked at them morosely. “I was just waiting for my turn in the shower.” He set the guitar down against the piano that had also migrated under the house. “I don’t really know how to play… I was trying it out, that’s all.”

“You were really good at it,” Linda insisted. “I bet you’d be good at almost anything you tried… don’t you think, Karen?”

Karen looked at her and felt oddly like Linda’s wingwoman. “Yeah, you’d… be as good as Clark, right?” she asked awkwardly.

“I wasn’t trying to be as good as Clark,” Kon said. “It’s not like I’m just his clone, you know. I have half his DNA. That’s as much as Jon has. You think Jon would be good at playing guitar, just because Clark is?”

“I don’t think Clark’s ever played guitar,” Karen said, but Kon was already on his way to the steps.

“I’m gonna wash up in the pond,” he said. “Jon takes too long showering.”

“It’s his skincare routine,” Linda observed. “He has all those bottles—"

“None of those are yours?” Karen asked.

“I know they’re not yours,” Linda said, glancing at Karen’s boyishly short hair. Then she looked after the cellar door where Kon had disappeared from view.

Karen put her hands on her waist. “You can’t have sex with him just to continue the Kryptonian species.”

“What about because he has a big dick?” Linda asked absently, still staring after Kon.

“How would you know?”

“He’s a clone of Clark, isn’t he?”

“And of Lex Luthor!”

“Yeah,” Linda sighed dreamily.

“You mean Lex has a—”

“I didn’t date him for his full head of hair. And as for Clark, we haven’t been hearing Lois screaming her head off at night because she’s happy he did the dishes. But don’t worry.” Linda patted Karen’s arm. “I hear Jon is bi, so I’m sure he’ll go out with you. Maybe you can even have a devil’s threesome.”

Karen made a face. That’d once been a fantasy of hers, until she realized that any guy who wanted to have a threesome with another guy was probably more interested in the ‘another guy’ part than the ‘threesome’ part.

And call her conceited, but Karen believed that anyone with a rack like hers should be the center of attention—threesome, foursome, or party at the Playboy Mansion.

“I’m not going out with Jon.”

“Don’t be picky.”

“I’m not picky! I just don’t want to date a guy who spent most of his teen years hanging out with some weird old guy.”

“Don’t be bigoted,” Linda told her.

“You don’t be bigoted. You save the Kryptonian race with him.”

Linda’s face fell. “Oh, I couldn’t! Not possibly! You know he’s part of the Legion of Superheroes—imagine what diseases he’s picked up from that lot!” She shuddered. “Well, I guess we’re at an impasse. We both want Kon; I’m just going to have to fight you over him.”

Karen burst out laughing. “You? Ms. Barely Legal turned legal? Yeah, right!”

“You think I can’t seduce Superboy? He’s a walking hard-on!”

“Exactly.” Karen smiled and thrust her chest out. “A walking hard-on that wants nothing more than to get between these.”

“I guess we’ll find out,” Linda said, and turned on her heel and walked to the front door.

“Where are you going?” Karen demanded.

“To seduce Kon.”

“He’s taking a bath.”

“Good,” Linda said. “That way only the sex will be dirty.”

Karen crossed her arms and watched Linda go. “She’s not going to go through with it. No way. Not happening.”

But as long minutes passed, she remained the only person in the house. Her and a showering Jon.

God, he took long showers.

***

Linda’s thoughts churned as she walked from the house into the midday heat. She wiped the sweat from her dripping brow and looked through the shimmering heat the embraced the grounds like a blanket. She could see Kon on the rim of the swimming hole. It was too far to see much of him, only that he was naked, his long easy stride carrying him to a collection of fresh clothes parked in the shade of a cedar.

Was it over? Her fun gone before it started? No. He’d just forgotten to bring a bar of soap into the water with him. Just like him, the chowderhead. He turned around; the sight of his shockingly white buttocks on an otherwise toned, tanned body struck Linda. She was suddenly very aware of his nudity. She tightened inwardly, pure desire rocking her body.

Karen had been right; she wasn’t much of a seductress. But Linda was sure she was right too. It didn’t take much to seduce Kon. Especially with how he’d been eying her in her new costume.

Cheating a little, Linda put it on at superspeed, then made her way down to the swimming hole. It was just out of sight of the house.

***

The sun had made the water soupy and warm on top, but it was cool and clean underneath. Kon swam and dove and scrubbed himself until he’d both exhausted and refreshed himself. It made no sense except to an athlete—maybe it was lactic acid—but tiredness could build up in you, a physical presence, and when you tricked it out of your body, you didn’t have energy, exactly, but you didn’t not have energy. He was comfortable, like he could feel his body resting, gathering energy from the golden sunshine.

At last he climbed, emptied but satisfied, up onto the little pier that held onto the pond’s little rowboat. He lay on top of its planks, basking in the sunlight and the freedom to be nude. He hadn’t gone all nudist since Hawaii; hadn’t been comfortable enough when he’d lived in Smallville before.

But now he felt both confident and hidden. The only ones around were the geese lazily patrolling the other end of the pond, gathering up lettuce leaves from the shore where Linda had scattered them after they’d refused to eat from her hand. Kon laughed at the memory.

Then he saw Linda walking towards him. She was in costume. The zipped-up jacket covered her as readily as ever, which just made her lower body—attired in skintight leggings—seem more naked.

He could see every inch of her long, luscious legs… every curve of her supple thighs… and when she turned halfway there to look back at the house, her ass was ridiculously outlined by her tights, showing him all but the very bottom of the crevice between her buttocks.

Then she started walking towards him again and he saw that her tights were ripped, a rent just above her knee throwing off some of the tightness and spreading an iota with each step.

“Hi, Kon,” Linda said, stopping beside the water to kick off her boots. “My costume ripped again, but I’m soooo tirrred. Think you can help me get it off? It’s really uncomfortable.” She pouted.

“You want me to rip your stockings off?”

Linda nodded. “Could you? It was such a hassle getting into them and the material is so tough, but you’re big and strong. I bet you could tear it right off, even if you had to use your teeth. And besides, you’re such a sweetheart. I bet you won’t get any ideas about me, just because you’ll be getting me naked. Will you, Kon?”