Karla Can't Hypnotize Sue Storm

"It is important to realize," Dr. Stone said. "That hypnosis is not mind control."

Karla Stone's bedroom was darkened. Sue Storm sat in a chair, facing the bed. The psychiatrist sat on the edge of the bed, her broken legs in their casts swung over the side. Without her powers, Karla had no means to induce an artificial state of increased suggestibility in the Invisible Woman. She would have to do so solely through her words and charisma.

"Hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness," Dr. Stone said, her voice calm and level. "A way to trick your brain into a certain mode of functioning. Your attention increases; you ignore external stimuli. Focus on the sound of my voice."

Sue Storm said nothing. In the bathroom, a single candle burned. Karla held up coin that had been pierced at both ends so that it could be threaded on a string. Holding the string up in front of her, Karla twisted it back and forth, to make the coin spin. The light from the candle was reflected in Sue Storm's eyes.

"Nothing else exists except my voice," Karla said. "You hear only me. Let your body relax, but do not let your mind wander. My voice is all that you hear, my voice echoes in your mind. Put all your attention on my voice. Ignore the world outside your body. There is no chair, there is no darkness and no light, there is only . . ."

They went on, for half an hour. Sue Storm, bless her goody-two-shoes heart, was trying. Yet nothing was happening. Karla suspected that years of being subject to mind control, telepathy, and hypnotism by artificial means had hardened Sue Storm against the kind of hypnotherapy methods that were a part of contemporary psychology and psychiatry.

With a sigh, Karla let the string drop.

"This isn't working. Would you like a drink?"

In the darkened room, Sue shifted.

"Is that really a good idea? Your medication—" the Invisible Woman began.

"I haven't taken any pain meds today," Karla said as she fetched a bottle from beneath her nightstand. There were a pair of glasses already on top. "I'm fine as long as I don't get those mixed up. Come on, have a drink with me. It'll keep me from having too much."

Bourbon splashed into the glass. The smell of oak barrels, char, and caramel. In the darkness, the glasses clinked. They sipped, slowly, savoring the warmth and flavor.

"Do you drink a lot with other women?" Karla asked.

"No," Sue said after a while. "Jan—Janet van Dyne, the Wasp—invites me out to girl's nights, pitchers of margueritas, brunches with mimosas, that sort of thing. But I'm too much of the mom friend to do any heavy drinking."

"Smart," Karla said as, with a grunt, she raised her broken legs back onto the bed and leaned against the headboard. "Social drinking was always hard for me. Not because I couldn't hold my liquor, but because I have so few friends. Wasn't really good at making friends at university, and afterward it was just people from work, which could be awkward. Drinking with male coworkers and they all think they're going to fuck you at some point. Haven't had that problem with women, much."

"Much?" Sue said.

Karla sighed and reached for the bottle. In the darkness, she measured how much was in the glass by how heavy it got. She sat the half-empty bottle on the nightstand.

"The first couple of times, it was just an experiment. See if I liked girls, you know?" Karla said. "Pleasant. More relaxing than with men. I didn't have to pamper their ego, get them hard, pretend to climax, tell them how big they were or how sore I was after. It was more like—a very intimate game with an equal. That became a problem in itself."

"Oh?" Sue said.

"Emotional attachment. I wasn't looking for it, some of them were. I wasn't looking to identify myself as gay or bisexual either. Rainbow pins weren't exactly career-makers at that place and time. People had expectations. Men treated me better if they thought they could fuck me; women treated me better if they thought I wouldn't hit on them," Karla mused. "So it became sort of a Saturday-night thing. You know? Out for a date, none of the fish look appetizing, but maybe one of the other women on the prowl is open-minded. Why limit your options, right?"

Sue set her glass down on the nightstand.

"I guess I've never thought about it that way," the heroine said.

"And now my legs are broken," Karla said, a bit of bitterness creeping into her voice. "And the one thing I was good at, that I could make a living at, actually help people with, is gone—"

Karla reached for the bottle. Sue Storm's hand closed around hers in the darkness.

"Maybe," Sue Storm said softly. "I can...help."