Brilliant as usual, Carol. And shocking! And, still more shocking, it's not as unheard-of as it absolutely ought to be!
"Last night, I was assaulted and nearly raped by Professor Paul Smith," Lois said baldly.
He raised an eyebrow. "That's a very serious allegation. He's a respected member of this university faculty and of the journalistic community."
The man you accuse is a man of honour!!! He is beyond reproach! He can't be guilty!
I'm sure you have all heard of Joseph Fritzl, the Austrian man who held his daughter captive in his cellar for twenty-four years and fathered seven children with her, three of whom have spent all their lives in that tiny underground prison. I haven't been posting anything about Jospeh Fritzl because he didn't kill his daughter, and the outright killing of women is always what gets me going the most. But what interests me about the Fritzl case is how the surrounding society treated him. The man was convicted of rape at a time when he had been married for several years and already had four children. That is no small thing, and it wasn't as if Fritzl was a frustrated unmarried young man who couldn't get sex any other way. And yet the Austrian society treated Jospeh Fritzl with an incredible amount of deference and respect. When his young daughter Elizabeth started running away, it was immediately assumed that she was a misbehaving and perhaps slutty teenager who needed to be brought back to her strict but loving parents for her own good. When the girl disappeared at eighteen, society accepted her father's words that his daughter had joined a sect. When some of Elizabeth's children started appearing at Joseph and Rosemarie Fritzl's doorstep, one by one, society accepted the father's words that his daughter was a bad mother who left her children with her parents because she couldn't take care of them herself. Again and again, the Austrian society believed and respected Joseph Fritzl, the convicted rapist. Even after the horrible truth had been revealed, an Austrian police chief described Joseph Fritzl as - if I remember it correctly - a polite and elegant man.
When this Snodgrass person immediately sticks up for Paul Smith and scoffs at Lois, he is doing what Austrian authorities did for Joseph Fritzl, although the magnitude of Paul Smith's crimes can't be compared with Joseph Fritzl's, of course. Interestingly, however, Joseph Fritzl was a convicted rapist, and there had been many allegations of rape against Paul Smith. Snodgrass is just like the Austrian authorities: even though he
knows that women have complained about this man before, he supports the perpetrator, not the victim.
"Professor Smith has agreed not to press any charges on a couple of conditions. You and Mr. Kent will be given passing grades in journalism and allowed to graduate next month. However, neither one of you will be allowed to have any contact with him in the future and you will have to sign a confidentiality agreement."
Where is the barf gremlin?
"You should know my husband and I did go to the police later in the evening and reported the assault."
"The campus police would have called me as would the Metropolis PD substation, if they had received such a report."
"We didn't go to campus police or the police substation."
He frowned at that. "Where did you go?"
"To an officer we know and trust. One with an impeccable reputation for honesty."
"Who?"
"At the moment, sir, that is none of your business."
Disgusting! Disgusting! The campus police are in Snodgrass's pocket! And Lois is so right, it is none of Snodgrass's business what police officer she and Clark reported the crime to.
"Mrs. Kent, I need to tell you something completely off the record." The Vice President's secretary looked around nervously.
"Yes?"
She handed a slip of paper to Lois. "You didn't get that from me and I didn't tell you this."
"Okay." Lois put the paper into her pocket without looking at it.
"There have been other allegations of sexual misconduct by Professor Smith in the past. Because of his value to the university, they've been swept under the rug, but those women can corroborate your story," she whispered and walked towards the bathroom.
The secretary is terrified of talking about this, because it might presumably cost her her job! (By the way, and sorry to bring this up, but that reminds me of something else I read about Austria, probably in the late 1970s. Somebody had tried to find out how the former Austrian Nazis and the former Austrian resistance fighters were doing in then-present day Austria. According to the findings, the former Nazis generally thrived and were respected members of society, while the former resistance fighters were usually disliked, shunned and financially bad off. Yep, no wonder the poor secretary is afraid of becoming a "resistance fighter"!)
I'm so glad that Lois really had her own near-rape on tape, and I was moved by how Clark supported her and was there for her when she listened to it.
This surprised me:
Even if I didn't have that tape as evidence, I wouldn't let him get away with it."
"I'm with you, a thousand percent, but this won't be easy."
This won't be easy? With that unbelievably damning evidence of the near-rape on tape, coupled with the taped evidence how Snodgrass supported Paul and dismissed Lois, it should be a piece of cake to get Paul convicted and Snodgrass fired. Shouldn't it?
"It's a Kryptonian thing, but the second you bumped into me at journalism camp, I knew I'd met the woman I was going to marry and spend my life with. Remember the letter from my mom about the message Jor-El gave to them?"
Lois nodded.
"One thing I never told you was that Kryptonians are telepathic..."
"You told me that."
"I know, but apparently part of being telepathic means *knowing* when you meet your life mate, soul mate, whatever you want to call it.
This was absolutely incredibly beautiful. Wonderful! So that's why Clark has been so sure all the time that Lois is the woman for him!
Well, now I want to see Lois and Clark take down Professor Paul together!
Ann
