Dr. Stone Thinks Sue Storm Should Recapture Reed's Attention

The doctor steepled her fingers in front of her, elbows resting on the arms of her chair. She leaned back, so that the sunlight through the window caught her glossy blonde hair and seemed to make a kind of halo around her head. Dimly, Sue Storm wondered what kind of shampoo and conditioner she used to achieve that effect.

"Believe it or not," Dr. Stone said. "This is a good thing."

The Invisible Woman frowned. She wanted to disagree with the psychiatrist on instinct, but somehow she had no will to do so. If anything, the words seemed to make a weird kind of sense to her.

"Go on," Sue said, unaware of the gravimetric pulse that had just knocked her brain into a suggestible state.

"You see this as a failure because your husband didn't focus on you. However, what you've achieved is finding out what he does like. Men can be very embarrassed about their kinks; they struggle with emotional communication of wants and needs, even as they feel frustrated at having to ask for things. But now, you know what he wants. The only question is how to give it to him."

Sue found herself nodding, unusually rapt. The doctor's tone was conversational, yet to Sue it sounded important.

"Tess Tempest is the dream, the archetype of his desire," Dr. Stone said.

"She's a slut!" The words came out of Sue's mouth without conscious thought.

"And you can be that slut, for him," the psychiatrist said. "Play the role. Dress a little more revealingly. Get a push-up bra. Drop the coyness and start being bold in your demands. If you want his cock, pull off his pants and take it."

The Invisible Woman could easily imagine herself doing that. She had played such roles before, as Malice. Sue shivered as she remembered the confidence, the sexual aggression of her alter ego. It was a part of herself she had often been afraid to revisit.

Yet if Dr. Stone told her to do it...

"I'm afraid," Sue Storm said softly. "I've...had times before when I...wasn't myself."

"I'm not telling you to go right out and get a breast augmentation," Dr. Stone said, continuing as if she hadn't heard her. "But you need to play the part. Slut it up a little. At least around him. You can try that, can't you?"

"Yes," Sue said, the word slipping out.

"I'm going to give you some websites to visit," Dr. Stone said, fetching a pad of paper. Reading the print characters upside down, Sue could make out words like "slutifer" and "Stepford."

"Remember. It's all a game. You can stop any time you want," Dr. Stone said. "But I think, once you get into it, you won't want to."