Ben Grimm

Something broke in Sue Storm as the name came out. Benjamin J. Grimm. The everlovin' blue-eyed Thing. Her husband's oldest friend. Their pilot on the space flight that had seen them inundated with cosmic rays. Ben, who had been best man at Sue and Reed's wedding. Godfather to their children. They called him Uncle Ben. He was as much part of the family as Sue's own brother. Had saved all their lives dozens of times older. That great craggy face, that deep Brooklyn accent...the sensitive heart beneath that thick, rocky exterior. They all loved Ben.

Yet Sue had never imagined her husband's asshole stretched around Ben's craggy cock until that night.

A tear ran down Sue's face. Dr. Stone found a box of tissues and offered it to Sue, who took one and dabbed at her face.

"I guess it all fell into place. Why he wanted to be penetrated. Why he kept wanting the invisible dildo bigger. Thicker. I just...I never thought...I never thought Reed Richards, my husband, would be gay!"

Sue sunk back into the chair, exhausted by that admission. Her gaze turned and fell out the window. At all the people, going about their lives. People who only saw the image the Fantastic Four projected, never their secret hearts. Intellectually, Sue knew that many gay men had married women to be their beards. To stay in the closet, to pretend to be normal. It just appalled her to find herself in that position. Unable to tell anyone, until today. To carry that secret suffering on her own.

"He might not be, you know," Dr. Stone said.

The Invisible Woman's head turned to regard the psychiatrist.

"What?" the heroine asked.

"He might not be gay," Dr. Stone explained. "Sexuality isn't a complete binary, Susan. It's a spectrum of attraction. Just because a man who is sexually attracted to women feels an occasional attraction to a man doesn't make him gay. Nor is a man gay automatically because he enjoys receptive anal sex. Many men—and women!—even those in long-lasting, committed relationships, have imagined themselves with someone other than their partner during sex. While I can see how Reed moaning Mr. Grimm's name during a moment of passion is jarring, I don't think you should leap so quickly to conclusions regarding your husband's sexuality."

The blonde heroine's brow furrowed. Dr. Stone's words made a certain terrible amount of sense. Yet Sue had lived with this secret so long, a part of her dared not hope.

"Have you never thought about anyone other than your husband?" Dr. Stone prompted. "Never touched yourself while thinking of...Mary Jane Watson, perhaps?"

"That's different!" Sue said, as the color flushed up her cheeks. "I didn't...I mean, no! I love my husband! I'm faithful to him!"

"Of course you are, Sue. But even if you're faithful in word and deed, and in your heart—it's natural for humans to be attracted to other people. It isn't cheating to appreciate the beauty of another, or even to be turned on by it. What matters is the action. In this case, what you do next."

"What I do next?" Sue Storm said quizzically. The Invisible Woman couldn't believe she was having this conversation. It almost seemed surreal, how quickly they had gotten to this point. During her first appointment! The time had seemed to fly by, and they had gotten into such lurid, intimate details of her married life as she had never dreamed about telling anyone, ever.

"That's right. Our session is almost over. But I have an assignment for you. Homework, if you'd like. Something we can't do here, but that you have to do on your own," Dr. Stone smiled, and beneath her skin, Doom's implants buzzed as she focused her microgravitic manipulations on the Invisible Woman's brain. "You might even enjoy it."