Sue Storm Rejects Malice

"No!" Sue Storm screamed in her own mind. With an effort of will, she wrenched herself away from that part of herself—and awoke in a cold sweat, shivering and gasping.

She called Dr. Stone with shaking fingers. The Invisible Woman recognized that she needed to talk with someone about this. Now.

To her relief, the reply came back immediately.

After breakfast, once the children were set up with the day's lessons at their computer consoles, Sue kissed Reed and headed off. She wore a jacket and sneakers over her Fantastic Four costume—her full costume, no cut-outs—and that would pass as athleisure wear to casual observation. Dr. Stone greeted her at the door, in a sweater so tight that the heroine could clearly see the woman wasn't wearing a bra underneath, and a pair of comfy pajama pants.

Well, it is her day off, Sue reminded herself.

"So," Dr. Stone said as she handed Sue a cup of tea. "Tell me."

The words tumbled out of Sue. About Malice. The dark part of her. The part that she had killed, or thought she had. The dream. The offer.

Dr. Stone listened. She was good at that. She sipped her tea calmly, nodded encouragingly, didn't interrupt. When Sue had finished, the psychiatrist set the cup down.

"Multiple personality disorder," Dr. Stone began. "Is an old diagnosis, based on a poor understanding of the underlying phenomena. Today, the preferred terminology is 'dissociative identity disorder.' It is important to understand that this 'Malice' is not, in fact, an alternate personality; not an alien part of yourself. It is an identity you have given to the parts of yourself that you have repressed, the ideas and desires that you have sought to distance yourself from, often as a result of trauma. At least, that's how Malice started."

Sue Storm blinked. Her brow furrowed. "Started?"

"Superheroes," Dr. Stone said. "Often have super-problems. Dissociative identity disorder is normally treated with medication and therapy, and there isn't a point of being 'cured'—it's an aspect of your neurological makeup. However, from what you've said, you've been subject to superhuman forms of therapy—psychic surgery, exorcism, or the equivalent. That makes things more complicated. I suspect that the results of the psychic manipulation resolved some of your symptoms without treating the underlying cause. Now, as you actually undergo therapy, your brain is reaching for Malice as a familiar response to re-visiting that trauma."

The Invisible Woman tried to parse that. Her mouth was a thin line. Her eyes kept going to Dr. Stone's sweater, the way the stretched fabric outlined the shape of her nipples and puffy areola. She bit her lip and dug her nails into her palms, trying to concentrate.

"If you want to reject Malice," Dr. Stone said, and her eyes began to glow as she sent a low-level gravimetric pulse across Sue Storm's frontal lobes. "Then you need to address that core trauma. The desires you've been repressing. You like my breasts, don't you Susan?"

Sue Storm nodded dumbly, her eyes locked on the sweater puppies, unable to look away.

"Normally, you wouldn't be able to see them. Touch them. But you want to, don't you?" Karla said, as she took the teacup from Sue's unresisting hand. The heroine's gaze followed the woman's breasts as Karla leaned forward. With deliberate care, Dr. Stone rolled up her sweater. Sue was on tenterhooks as the sizable breasts seemed to struggle for a moment, and then plopped into view.

They were magnificent. Larger than Sue's, but firmer, higher, with thick pink nipples. Sue's own breasts sagged just a little after childbirth and breastfeeding, the nipples dark and protuberant, but these breasts were like those of some ancient Playboy playmate, large on Dr. Stone's thin frame.

"Go on," Dr. Stone urged. "Do what you want with them. It's the only way to keep Malice at bay..."