Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!

Ack! Clark, if I could only whip some sense into your thick, darling skull. How could you ask Lois to trust you so completely - how could you make yourself appear so totally trustworthy to her - only to put yourself in a position where you had to transform yourself, before her eyes, into what to her would be a completely different person? And thus, into a double-crossing liar? A double-crossing liar who deserted her? How could you?

Ah, well. Rac, you explained so well why he could and would. You painted such a delicate portrait of Clark's incredible love for Lois. Given the circumstances, it is not hard to see why he couldn't resist becoming her lover. Moreover, we know that his lying about his powers and Kryptonian heritage has become second nature to him and so natural that he can't see a way around it. His conscience demands of him that he doesn't lie outright, so his lies aren't literal lies, only "lies of avoidance" or "de facto lies". And because Clark's lies aren't literal, he doesn't see himself as a liar, and therefore he is comfortable about projecting the image of himself to Lois as someone who is totally trustworthy. Lois senses the sincerity in the honest-guy image he projects and believes him. But when they had become lovers the truth about himself was revealed to her so mercilessly. And when a wonderfully trustworthy man has been exposed as a liar about himself, a person who was even lying to himself about his own sincerity, where does the rest of his trustworthiness go?

And yet Clark is so sincere. Which is, of course, why he never worried about having to tell Lois about himself. To him he was telling Lois about himself when he was showing her Clark. Superman is not himself, not in his own eyes, and it honestly didn't occur to him, not right then anyway, that the hero in blue spandex could come between himself and Lois.

Well, the whole thing was beautifully written as always. I loved how you showed us that Lois's desire for Clark that night had been a desire for reaffirming her own life - oh, but she was really lying to herself if she pretended that she didn't honestly want Clark, too! And I loved how you showed us how scared Lois was of Clark's rejection, so that her heart constricted with fear when Clark gave her a yellow rose. She was so scared of his rejection even though she was so ambivalent about wanting his love. Oh, but it was really the other way around, of course - she was so ambivalent about wanting his love because his love increased the risk of him ultimately rejecting her.

Ann

P.S. That was the other shoe dropping, you said? Let's hope the fourth part doesn't bring the dropping of the third shoe!

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