The Pornstar's Home

Sue Storm could see the headlines of the Daily Bugle now: "The Invisible Woman goes to porn studio!" She smiled grimly as she left the internet cafe, the address and the route set in her mind. In her civilian disguise, Sue could probably pass unnoticed from here to Brooklyn...but she had other, better options for making her way through town unseen.

Any cameras that were focused on the street would have seen the woman in the sunglasses and baseball cap step into the alley for a moment. They wouldn't see her leave. Once out of sight, the Invisible Woman became that in truth, not just in name. The transition was so sudden it often caught people by surprise. One moment she was there, the next...she wasn't.

Being invisible wasn't great for moving through the crowded New York streets, though. Too many people on the sidewalks, unable to see her, unable to avoid her. Sue would be jostled half to **** before she got six blocks. Fortunately, though, she knew a better way.

An invisible set of pillars formed steps that let Sue gain access to the roofs. Spider-Man had taken her webslinging, once or twice, and Sue had remembered the "high road," and how useful it was. New Yorkers very seldom looked up...and in her case, even if they did, they wouldn't see anything. She could, if she chose, simply ride a forcefield all the way there...but this way she could better follow the map in her mind, and the exercise did her good.

Running across rooftops at a comfortable jog, invisible bridges appearing beneath her feet, Sue soared over the bumper-to-bumper New York traffic. The wind in her hair, teeth bared in a smile no one could see. Although she had never told anyone, she loved this sense of freedom that invisibility gave her. To just move, without any fear of judgment, without any barriers that she couldn't go over, or around, or through. Sometimes it made her think about all the other things she could do...and she almost laughed, as she though of H. G. Wells and his Invisible Man, and the ethics of invisibility.

Half an hour later, she'd worked up a good sweat and found a good place to set down. The blonde emerged from behind a grocery store, just another housewife out for a jog. Sue dabbed at the sweat on her face as she walked nonchalantly through the neighborhood as though she belonged there. That was another kind of invisibility, one that had nothing to do with cosmic rays. To project that sense of belonging, as if this was where you were supposed to be. No cop would stop and frisk a white woman that looked like an upper middle-class soccer mom on her way back from a bit of exercise.

"Tess Tempest" lived in the second of a row of townhouses on 81st Street. An investment of several million dollars, and a testament to how well Mae had done as a businesswoman and a...the heroine didn't like to think of her friend as a whore. Sex worker, certainly.

Better a successful sex worker than a destitute one. Sue thought to herself, and frowned. She chided herself for her own preconceptions. Just because Mae had shot some videos didn't mean she was some kind of nymphomaniac or anything.

The house looked like all the others on the street, white paint and red brick, an old wrought-iron rail, curtains that hid the view inside the windows from the street. Instinctively, Sue looked for security.

There was a camera, up above the door. Because of course there was. For a moment, Sue thought about trying to disable it, non-destructively...turn the whole mechanism invisible, so it couldn't record her...but she needed Mae's help. She needed to let her old friend know who she was.

Sue felt her heart pound a little as she turned walked up the short flight of steps. A little metal panel with a grill for an intercom. So Sue Storm took off her sunglasses and mask, pressed the buzzer, and stared straight into the camera.

"Mae? It's Susan Storm. From university. I'm sorry to just drop in on your like this, but I was hoping we could talk."

Her finger fell from the button. The blonde waited, pensively. Stared at the camera. It was ridiculous how nervousness gripped her guts. The Invisible Woman had faced the armies of the Mole Man, stared into the impassive eyes of Galactus, torn Skrull starships apart with the power of her invisible forcefields. Had seen her costume shredded, half-naked before the cameras of a dozen news agencies while giving a press conference after the Baxter Building had blown up for the nth time. Yet the thought of meeting someone that knew her...knew her as Sue Storm, not the Invisible Woman, not Susan Storm-Richards, but just as a plain blonde who had taken her clothes off before a camera...made her feel as though he guts were full of ice water.

There was a buzz. The click of a bolt. The door opened...and Sue Storm stared into the face of her old friend Mae—or as she was known professionally, Tess Tempest.