I’d like to thank everyone who’s commented on this story, whether you liked all of it or not. I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank my beta readers (in alphabetical order) Chris, Ray, and Tricia, who gave me some excellent feedback and helped make this story what it is.
I’d also like to apologize to any of you who might have been offended by anything in this story. Please believe me when I say that being an offense to anyone was the farthest thing from my mind. I realize that one of the underlying themes of this narrative was sex, and that’s always a touchy subject to discuss when you have more than one person in a room. But it’s also a subject which many FOLCS have tackled in the past, so I really didn’t feel like I was breaking new ground.
“Oh, really? What about that kiss between Lois and Karen?” Well, I guess you have a valid point. In my defense, Lois didn’t really do any kissing in that scene. She was the kissee, not the kisser. If she’d responded to Karen’s advances, or later wished that she’d responded, that would have been a completely different kettle of fish. But she didn’t. And I don’t think that one moment of inappropriate action would destroy a budding friendship, assuming the other party agreed that the inappropriate behavior would not be repeated.
As far as my personal views on homosexuality, you would be justified in wondering what they were, given the characters of Karen and Andre. I do not believe that the gay lifestyle is a positive one, nor do I believe that it is an acceptable alternative lifestyle. But I also don’t believe in demonizing gays, or treating them as if they carry some sort of “gay virus” we straights might catch if we let them get too close to us. If I want to have an honest dialogue with a gay person about radically changing his or her lifestyle, my words won’t be heard if all I speak is condemnation. After all, nobody’s perfect.
To those of you who thought Karen should have known Lois was a reporter, the chain of events leading up to the “revelation” was intended to be a mirror to Lois learning that Clark was also Superman. Karen didn’t read Lois’s emails, she read a copy of a computerized scan of those emails which looked for key words like “Claude.” And in my own life, I’ve found that once I decide a certain thing is so, especially if I don’t bump up against it from moment to moment, it’s difficult for me to see that my first impression was mistaken. Besides, it made for some pretty interesting and intense situations when the truth finally came out.
To those of you who expressed a wish to see more of Clark, I tried to involve him, I really did! That’s why Dr. Billie Jo Parker, physicist from LSU, was introduced into the story via e-mail. I had originally intended to flip between Prometheus and the Planet newsroom, with intense investigation and personal activity going on in both places, and maybe have Billie Jo flirt with Clark a little. Her positive Cajun character would have balanced Monica’s. But Clark didn’t cooperate. He just smiled, stepped back, and said, “No, this is Lois’s story. You just focus on her this time. I’ll catch the next one.”
So this became a near-solo Lois adventure. Remember, neither Lois nor Clark will disappear into the other. They are stronger together than either one is alone, but they will still retain their individual identities despite being totally committed to each other. Lois was an award-winning investigator before Clark and before Superman, and there’s no reason to make her less than that simply because she’s in love with a really great guy.
I do find it interesting that the comments which protested the “lesbian love scene” didn’t voice any protests of Ben and Maria, or of Lana O’Meara’s casual attitude towards sex. (Doesn’t mean there weren’t any protests, just means no one wrote them down.) To my mind, Lana’s lifestyle is as inappropriate as Karen’s, and perhaps even more so because Lana attaches so little importance to it. Sex, in and of itself, isn’t evil. Our human perversions of sex, both straight and otherwise, are the evil. At least Karen isn’t into one-night stands and multiple casual partners.
I still hope you’ve enjoyed the story, at least for the most part. I don’t plan any sequels, and I certainly don’t plan to write any gay scenes for Clark. But if a gay man whom Clark respected made a pass at him, I’d hope that Clark would rebuff him gently and not reject him as a friend for one mistake.
Again, thanks for all the wonderful feedback. I treat all your comments as valid, and I assure you that I’ve read each and every one of them. I also hope that I haven’t scared anyone away from any future offerings I might post. I can’t make any rock-hard assurances, but I can tell you that the subject matter in this story won’t be a constant in my future writings.
And yes, Labrat, I’m sending it to the Archive!
