I was proud of Lois when she quietly, but firmly told Lana to keep her hands off of Clark that night. However, shame on you for not even giving us a hint of how the conversation between the two of them turned out. I couldn't tell; did Lana go right to bed after that?
I not only appreciated how Lois was rock-steady at the press conference, but even more than that I appreciated that she allowed herself to be weak and vulnerable when she got home.
I disagree with the feedback that says that there must be something physically wrong with Lois for not jumping all over him. Lois was a survivor long before Paul ever attempted to assault her. However survivor's inerrantly have to pay the consquences of other people's actions. Lois' behavior is not that untypical of someone who has survived an abusive childhood, although admittedly she behaves more like a woman who survived sexual trauma than the circumstances that are written here. One of the consequences of abuse is that a person sometimes learns to ignore their normal feelings, including sexual drives. The bottom line is that there is a wide continuum which encompasses normal.
Lois is taking a lot of steps in the right direction. Clark is coming along very well also. He's sharing just a touch but not a threatening amount of his fantasies with her, he's asked to date her, he's demonstrated that he is willing and able to forsake all others and he's asked her to come away with him. Looks like they've both grown a lot in the process.
As for the story length, I have found that it isn't the size of the story that makes a story good. Some stories that were long should have been 1/2 to 1/4 their size, but the author didn't know how to move a story along at a satisfying pace and/or didn't know how to cut out non-essential portions of the story. Other stories should have been longer, but the author didn't take the time or didn't have the ability to fill out the details of the story enough to draw readers in. What makes this story a winner isn't its size but its ability to paint a story well without lagging behind.
Elisabeth
