LOIS

He was the only man who could help her give up smoking.

Of course it would take a superman to help her quit. The resistance she felt in relinquishing her nicotine habit was so great, naturally it would be something of this order, something cosmic, to liberate her from this embedded addiction.

But having just had a passionate embrace and a hug with Superman on her apartment balcony roof (which seemed to be the only place they ever exchanged intimacy) she also felt a bit of a hypocrite.

"Hyprocisy is kryptonite to journalists. Or krypocrisy!" she said out loud to herself, pleased with her ingenious portmanteau.

Recently she'd written about toxic masculinity and superheroes and felt pleased with her insights into the problematic nature of caped crusaders and self appointed male saviour types on planet earth.

"The problem is the presumption that we all need to be saved. And besides, has anyone wondered who saves a superman from his own sense of male privilege. Ladies. It may have to be us I'm afraid. We are the Jiminy Crickets that have to prick the conscience of these antiquated gods amongst us."

But for all her astute observations and po-faced rhetoric, she was like putty when face to face with the man she had slyly tried to give feet of clay to.

"Would you rather I didn't try and help?" Superman had asked her earlier that evening as he speed read the article she had left out on the custard yellow oval table on her balcony roof.

"No. I think you're coming from a good place. I just wrote the article to make the point that nobody asked you to save humanity."

"You're right, Lois. Nobody asked me. I just thought it might be useful."

Flustered, the journalist desperately felt the need for a cigarette.

"Don't do it, Lois. If you think you're gonna pick up a cigarette, try something else to distract you just like we talked about."

The last time she'd found something to distract her, she'd ended up kissing Superman for almost half an hour without barely taking a breath.

"If you need to kiss me to stop yourself from killing yourself with those things then by all means."

"Okay. But you're not saving me. You're just helping me."

As their lips connected she was more convinced than ever that there was a greater frisson of electricity with Superman than she'd ever experienced kissing mere mortal men.

"I can hear you thinking, Lois. Your brain is whirring like a clock."

"I thought you could only see through things, not people's thoughts."

Superman smiled.

"Your brain is so noisy that it emits it own vibrational energy. Reminds me of the clacking of those old typewriters in newspaper offices they used to use."

"I remember. God, do I remember. I still have the remnants of callouses from those days."

She rested her head against his Kryptonian bodysuit and listened to his heart beat. It was now her favourite sound in the world.

She hadn't felt so secure since she was a child and had once cuddled her father, General Sam Lane, as a major hurricane prepared to bear down on the airbase where they lived back in the day.

"You can hear my brain and I can hear your heart. Between us we're quite the double act."

"We should join the circus," Superman said with a smirk.

"No smirking! Godamnit no-one smirks like you superman, do you know that? Must be that superhero arrogance I was writing about in my column."

"So, I'm not allowed to save the world anymore. And I'm not allowed to smirk."

But before Lois could answer, the sound of gun fire could be heard in the distance followed by the sound of several police sirens wailing in the night.

"What should I do? Stay? Or go?" Superman asked Lois who was still in her romantic reverie.

Deliberating, she mulled it over.

"If you didn't exist then they would have to sort it out themselves."

"But I do exist, Lois."

Looking for her packet of cigarettes again, Superman wagged his finger.

"Uh uh."

"Dammit. If you stay I won't smoke. If you leave I will."

Superman pondered her ultimatum.

"So your smoking habit is either gonna kill you or its gonna kill the people I'm not going to be able to save because I have to save you from yourself. This addiction of yours is affecting the entire city now, Lois."

With no way out of her moral conundrum, Lois blew out a sigh in frustration, sending her fringe up momentarily in the air.

"You go. I won't smoke. Go do your saving thing."

"I'll come back later?" he insisted.

Lois rolled her eyes knowing how busy he typically got with his saving the world antics.

"All men say that. Even Superman it seems."

Sensing her mild irritation, the superhero offered a caveat.

"If not tonight. Then definitely tomorrow."

Unconvinced but willing to give him the benefit of a doubt, Lois tied her auburn hair back.

"Okay. I'll leave a key out."

"I liked your article. It was well written."

Lois glanced dismissively at the magazine next to her.

"Nah. It's obsolete now."

"Why?"

"Because you're saving me. Yet again!"

Superman smirked for the second consecutive time in the space of five minutes. He couldn't help it.

"One cigarette at a time. We'll beat this thing, Lois. Together."

And with that he flew off in the the direction of where the cacophony of chaos was coming from and she was alone once more.

If ever she needed to smoke it was now, overthinking, overfeeling, totally wired.

She went to the upturned plant pot where she'd hidden her last pack of Lucky Strikes but found instead a necklace glistening with green sunstone crystals.

"Oh my God," she gasped, taken by complete surprise by this unexpected gift.

Fixing it around her neck in a state of wonder she suddenly began to feel completely relaxed and content (whatever the opposite of kryptonite was this was it) and free from the compulsion to smoke.

"Damn you, Superman. What am I gonna write about now?"

Slumping happily onto her father's old favourite garden swing chair, she watched the stars above the city as she clutched her newly gifted jewellery forged from Superman's very own fortress of solitude.

When she woke up the next morning in the very same garden chair with the sun warming her face, she wondered as she always did when she'd been with Superman if the whole evening before had just been a dream.

But then she remembered the sunstone necklace and felt satisfied it wasn't as she set about her day with a renewed sense of optimism for herself and for humanity in general.

"It won't last though!" she added cynically.

She may have given up smoking.

But she hadn't quite yet given up on being Lois Lane.