The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Ball Buster was laying down on the couch at headquarters when it happened. She’d just finished a relatively quiet patrol, (the only thing of note was her by now standard fight with Ball Blaster, which ended with her escaping, but without her ill gotten gains), and was looking forward to just watching a movie before perhaps hitting the club. She hadn’t even taken off her uniform yet, which for her was a simple pair of blue jeans and a leather jacket with the letters BB in a large stylized pattern on the back, mostly because if she was going to get her costume wrecked in just about every fight, then she might as well make it easy to replace.

However all these plans ended as she got the goddesses message.

It all felt rather unreal. It wasn’t like she heard a voice in her head explaining things to her. Instead it was like information was just directly ed into her brain. She knew the new rule regarding powers intimately, she even somehow knew that she had 24 hours before the goddesses would reveal this information to the rest of the world.

“FUCK!!!!” she screamed as she bolted out the couch. She immediately began pacing as she debated what to do. Go into seclusion. Try to find the goddesses and rescue them from whoever fucked their brains over so badly that they’d make this insane rule. Whatever she was going to do, the one thing she wasn’t going to do was leash herself to some man.

Ball Buster was a proud lesbian and despite her size, she stood at a full 6′5″, and strength, which was evident in her musculature despite her powers forcing her body to be as curved and otherwise appealing as possible, she’d been forced to deal with all the worst parts of misogyne. She knew if she allowed any man to have complete control over her like this, she’d end up underneath him as he rutted with her like the pathetic bastard that he was.

It was then that she heard a voice over HQ’s loudspeakers. “Fire, Ice, Ball Buster. I’m ordering all of you to rendezvous at my location and collect me and Penny Pan immediately.”

FUCK!!!! THAT GOD DAMN MOTHER FUCKER!!!!

Ball Buster could do no more than begin an endless stream of profanities as her body immediately headed to the hanger in an effort to comply with the order she’d been given.

“I’m going to kill him,” Ball Buster repeated for perhaps the hundredth time. “You’re not going to kill him,” Jane replied, clearly annoyed at having to listen to this.

“I can kill him. No jury in the world would convict me.”

Not that she cared about that. What she cared about was immediately getting out from under James’ control.

Fortunately for her they were taking their flying car to James’ home. That meant that what would otherwise have been a half-hour drive ended up being done in just 5 minutes. As soon as they landed Ball Buster was on the ground heading straight towards James and his mother, murder in her eyes. Penny immediately stepped between them, as little good as it did her as Ball Buster simply pushed her out of the way as she grabbed James and roughly picked him up by the shirt, bringing him to look at her face to face.

It was a pretty face, despite her not wearing make-up, (Why should she make herself look good for the patriarchy). James could see all her pours and her short blue hair, (it was naturally blonde, but men like blonde bimbos and she refused to be anything of the sort). Less visible were the numerous tattoos she had put onto her body, which due to her near invulnerability, had cost quite a bit of money. “What’s your problem?” James asked, like he somehow didn’t know what he had done to her.

“Must feel great huh? I bet you were jumping for joy when you found out you could get your own little band of superslaves.”

James’ eyes widened for a moment, before narrowing in anger. “I made an emergency call. There was no way I was going to risk letting you four fall into the hands of who the fuck knew. Now put me down so we can all get out of here.”

Ball Buster wanted to hit him. Instead she found herself immediately lowering him gently down to the ground. Then following behind as he got into the vehicle. Shortly afterwards everyone else let out the breath they were holding and got into the vehicle as well.

“So what’s your plan now, master?” Ball Buster asked him as soon as they were in the air, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Simple,” he replied. “We get me to a nice hidden bunker, preferably one with a big screen TV and a netflix , then I lock myself up in there until either this whole thing is resolved and you tell me I come out again, or I run out of food and water and we need to resupply.”

That was.....actually a really good idea. “Don’t look so shocked, it’s simple logic. So long as I’m out here there’s a risk not just of me accidentally giving you bad orders that you’d be compelled to obey, but if anyone killed me you’d all be right back on the chopping block again. This avoids all of that.”

“I’m not sure you need to go that far,” Fire added from the driver’s seat.

“It’s public knowledge that I’m your sister and Penny’s son. I’m the most logical person to have been given your leash too. That means that anyone wanting to get at you four are going to go after me first. This is the best way to keep all of us safe.”

Ball Buster looked at him with an expression that seemed to imply that she was actually impressed with him. Upon realizing how she looked though, she immediately turned away. After all, she still didn’t like him.

Ball Buster watched as Fire flew away, taking James with her. It was decided that it was best if as few people as possible knew where he was, so only Fire knew where specifically she was taking him. In the meantime she looked over to see Penny Pan breaking down into tears as she cried onto Ice’s shoulder. Ice was holding onto her awkwardly, seemingly unsure exactly of how she was supposed to handle this. For her part Ball Buster didn’t seem to care. Instead she just growled and stomped off.

“Where are you going?” Ice asked her.

“To blow off some steam,” she replied as she headed out to find some criminals that she could vent her frustrations on.

Unfortunately for her, the rest of the night was incredibly quiet. It made sense, no powered person was going to risk going out and getting enslaved. All she’d found was a few street thugs, none of which were stupid enough to actually fight her. In the end she stormed back to HQ and collapsed into bed and slept restlessly, her dreams full of images of teammates and colleagues being paraded around naked before being sold at auction.

She stumbled out of bed the next day, still tired but unable to justify staying in bed any longer. When she came down to the rec room she found Fire and Ice sitting on the couch watching the news. “Any updates?”

“Well a large team of Supers descended on Metis’ home,” Ice informed her.

“How did that go?”

“Really great up until Venus showed up.”

Venus was the daughter of Metis and Omega making her the only powered individual who can claim superpowers from both her mother AND her father. This made her, outside of possibly the goddesses themselves, the most powerful being on the planet, not to mention the fact that most believed that it was only going to be a matter of time before she became the 8th goddess.

All of this meant that any group that ran into her likely didn’t stand much of a chance.

“How’s the media handling it?”

“About as well as expected. No one knows why they attacked so everyone’s freaking out. Metis has released a statement that she will address all of this in a press conference tonight.”

“Which is probably when she’s going to announce what they’ve done to the world.”

Ice sighed,” Yeah, so we’re going to need to plan our own response. We need to let everyone know we’re already off the market.”

Off the market. Such a nice way of saying that they’ve all become slaves to a man.

“I’ll do it,” Fire interjected. “I figure I’m the best person for this, seeing as Ball Buster here has never been quite good with the whole PR thing, not to mention I’m going to have to explain why Mom is at least temporarily a part of our team now.”

As if summoned Penny picked that moment to crawl her way into the room. “Could somebody please turn down the lights,” she complained before just lying down on the floor.

Ball Buster just looked at her before standing up. “Well that looks like your problem,” she said to Fire before walking out the room.

Another quiet day. Everyone was probably either hiding, or planning another assault on Metis, this time with enough numbers to handle Venus.

Venus. Had she been corrupted like the goddesses were, or had she been leashed like Ball Buster had been when the rules of the world had suddenly changed on her. If she had been, then by who.

Probably Pluto. It would make sense, since he was probably involved in whatever this was. He’d recently been part of an arranged marriage to Persephone, goddess of death. Seeing as that put him in close proximity to two of the goddesses, not to mention Persephone’s being the daughter of Demeter, goddess of life, well him being behind it made sense.

Or perhaps he was just in the right place at the wrong time. Wow, look at herself. She was actually giving a man the benefit of the doubt. She must really be rattled. Either way, the answer would probably come at Metis’ press conference. After all, Ball Buster knew how these types worked. It wasn’t just enough to win, they had to let everyone know they’d won too.

So naturally she found herself back at HQ just in time to see this press conference for herself.

The conference itself was surreal. It took place inside Metis’ stronghold. Reporters were everywhere, all speculating on what exactly had happened that had caused an attack to occur on not just a goddess, but the most visible and approachable of all of them. Then suddenly everyone quieted at once. As one they all turned to the podium, silent and motionless as the camera then panned up to show Metis, goddess of the mind and the world’s most powerful telepath descend from the ceiling.

Immediately everyone watching could tell something was wrong. Gone was the exquisitely tailored costume and in its place was nothing at all. Metis floated down completely naked for all the world to see. Her long golden hair floated in the nonexistent breeze, carefully obscuring absolutely nothing, not her pert pink nipples and definitely not her vagina, carefully shaved so that no hair down there was visible.

“Hello,” She greeted everyone with a smile, as though she wasn’t completely naked at the moment. “I know you’re curious as to what’s been going on, well allow me to explain.”

“Why isn’t the camera feed getting cut off?” Fire asked as they all watched, horrified as Metis began to explain their new status quo.

“Likely someone on the other end is being controlled just like reporters are,” Ice opinioned

Could Metis really do that? Ball Buster knew she was powerful, but to control someone from quite possibly the other side of the country?

“In conclusion I just want to say to all you girls out there that I know that soon you’ll all become perfect little slaves for your master, just like I’ve become the perfect slave for my Master.”

With that she was done and the feed immediately cut back to the studio, where the anchors sat there in stunned silence for several seconds before they realized they were currently being filmed.

Not that Ball Buster cared at that point. She walked back to the kitchen and grabbed some beers. “C’mon. Right now I think we all need this,” she said as she started ing the booze around.

Penny looked at the bottle with an expression of deep longing. However every time she started to move her arm back to drink it, she’d stop and put it back down instead. “Fuck! Now I really wish I hadn’t gotten James to order me to never drink again.”

Ball Buster side eyed her. “You actually got him to do that?”

“Yeah, I figured it was the only way I could stay sober.”

“I’m actually kind of impressed. Don’t get me wrong, this all totally fucked up, but way to go Penny for getting something positive out of all of this.”

At that moment Penny didn’t look proud. She looked like she would murder everyone here if it could get her just one drink.

“Enough,” FIre retorted. “Tomorrow’s going to be chaos, so I think we need to all get some sleep now, while we still can. That goes for you too mom. As of right now, you’re drafted.”

Ball Buster waved towards her in acknowledgement as she headed to her own room, prepping for another night of restless dreams.

The next day found her facing her first super battle. Appropriately enough, her opponent was her old nemesis Ball Blaster. The girl was a minor villain, her powers mainly devolving into being able to generate baseball sized balls from her hand that she could rapid fire at high speeds. Pretty devastating to most ordinary people, but little more than an annoyance to her. Still, Ball Buster was grateful to her in that her existence justified her name.

She’d argued to the committee that SInce nemesis had called herself Ball Blaster, then she would be the Ball Buster and somehow they’d bought it. It’s why she’d always gone a little easy on her.

Mind you she couldn’t exactly go easy on her this time. At the moment she was blasting up a bank, not too unusual from her normal m/o, except that now she was doing it completely naked as tears were streaming down her face. Looking at the mess of blonde hair at her vagina, Ball Buster internally noted that this was not the way she wanted to discover that the curtains matched the drapes.

“That’s it, give them a nice show!” shouted the fat pig behind her. He was so into masturbating to what was happening, he didn’t even notice as Ball Buster walked into the bank. Ball Blaster noticed of course, but pretended not to notice. She had to protect her master of course, but since Ball Buster was coming for her and there was no rule that said she HAD to defend herself, she simply ignored her and let what was about to happen, happen.

What happened of course was that Ball Buster grabbed Ball Blaster by the neck and threw her into the wall at high speed. Being a super she was more durable than a normal person but even that was a bit much for her. She bounced back on the wall and fell to the ground, temporarily unable to do anything.

WIth her taken care of, Ball Buster turned on the slob of a man that had dared to violate her like this. He simply sneered at her in response. “Suck my cock,” he ordered her, his voice filled with confidence.

As Ball Buster proceeded to kick his balls directly into his chest he learned exactly why she was really called Ball Buster. Although he didn’t have this knowledge for very long, as shortly after learning it, he expired due to trauma and of course, blood loss from having a foot kick it’s way halfway through his body.

Ball Buster’s only regret on that was getting blood on her shoes.

The others showed up not long after, to find Ball Blaster desperately clinging to Ball Buster while having Ball Buster’s jacket draped over her naked form. For her part Ball Buster was holding her in a shockingly for her gentle manner, softly consoling her as various authority figures dealt with the aftermath.

Seeing as she was in little condition to answer questions at the moment, said authority figures agreed to release her into the team’s custody with the promise that they would bring her in once she had recovered.

“So what are we going to do with her?” Ice asked, voicing the question that was on everyone’s mind.

They couldn’t exactly let her go. She was a wanted felon after all. Furthermore they couldn’t exactly turn her in, seeing as the moment someone gave her an order she’d be right back in her current situation.

“I hate to say this, but James might be the best option,” Fire replied.

“No!” Ball Buster called out, mostly on reflex.

“Do you have a better option? At least with James we know he isn’t going to be taking advantage of her.”

Ball Buster thought carefully. She needed a good excuse, and because he’s a man wouldn’t cut it with these two. After a brief moment though, inspiration struck. “We can’t be sure this isn’t some clever ploy by someone else to make us think she isn’t being controlled. If you take her to James she could suddenly attack and kill him and then we’re all in the deep end again.”

Fire growled in response to that, but she had no real counter. Now that Ball Buster had brought it up, her need to protect her Master automatically kicked in.

After a moment though, she smiled, giving Ball Buster a sinking feeling. “We don’t have to bring her to him. I can get in communication with him over the phone. Then all he has to do is just tell her to clap her hands together or something like that and she’ll be free from anyone’s control.”

And that was that. She didn’t have a real counter to that argument. Instead she insisted that they at least give her a chance to rest before they sprung this on her, something that both Fire and Ice agreed with wholeheartedly.

After securing her with a pair of power dampening bracelets, Ball Buster put her up in a room before sealing the door behind her. She then stormed out in search of a drink.

She found it in a lesbian club she liked to frequent. After grabbing a cocktail she sat herself down in a corner to nurse her drink in private.

“Feeling lonely?”

Ball Buster looked up to see the familiar face of Van smiling back at her.

Van was just an ordinary girl, at least in of powers. In of everything else though, she was spectacular. SHe stood at an even six feet, and was dressed up in a full black gothic dress, complete with an umbrella and a tiny hat that she had tied in slightly askew. Her medium black hair was tied up in two pigtails on either side of her and she wore the customary black lipstick that really made her soft kissable lips really stand out.

The two of them had met in this very club several months ago and they’d been circling each other ever since. Ball Buster was enchanted by her, but Van clearly didn’t want to seem like some superheroine groupie and had been playing hard to get this whole time. Sadly, this was not the time for them to continue their little dance.

“I’m not exactly going to be good company right now.”

Van giggled. “I’ve seen the news. Frankly, I’m surprised you even showed up here at all.”

“Yeah well, I’m already...leashed.”

Van’s eyes widened when she heard this. “You, let yourself be leashed?”

“Hey,” she retorted, almost in anger. “I didn’t LET myself get fucking leashed okay. It just....happened.”

Van sat down next to her and put her arms around her. “It’s okay. You’ll be okay,” she consoled her before hesitantly continuing. “Did he....?”

“No, thank the goddesses. For once in my fucking life a man actually did the right thing and just fucked off and left me with no one holding the leash.”

Van seemed conflicted when she heard this, as if she didn’t know exactly how to process it. But before she could respond any further the doors burst open and a gang of thugs with guns burst in,

Before anyone could do anything, Van immediately dived over the table and ran into the restroom. Ball Buster was a little shocked, as she’d always struck her as insanely brave, but she was glad she’d done it. No sense risking getting herself killed when she was here to take care of things.

“Sorry ladies, no supers here to save you now,” their leader mocked them.

Ball Buster simply stood up and walked slowly over to them, cracking each knuckle as she approached them. “Stay where you are,” the leader of these morons ordered her. She instantly stopped what she was doing, a look of shock on her face.

A look of relief crossed over the leader’s face for a brief moment before a sneering grin took its place. “Well look at that, Miss Ball Buster herself.” He slowly approached her as she stood there, unmoving. Eventually he reached her and leaned in toward her breasts. “I’ve wanted to do this to you for a long time. Let’s start by having you strip naked right now.”

Ball Buster proceeded to give him a right hook so hard it broke his jaw.

The others, seeing what had happened to their leader, immediately dropped their weapons. It was just too bad they were still clearly armed and dangerous, forcing her to roughly kick all of their asses. And if you didn’t believe her, you could just ask any of the girls at the club, they’d insist that the men had clearly resisted all the way to the bitter end.

Ball Buster was just getting into her car to go home after detailing everything to the police when a hand on her shoulder stopped her. She turned to find Van standing there. “Can you give a girl a ride?” she asked.

“What kind of hero would I be if I said no to a damsel in distress like this,” she responded with a knowing grin.

“My hero.”

She didn’t anything that happened in the car on the way to Van’s home. She just ed the scent of orchids that emanated from Van and the curve of her thighs as she occasionally sneaked a peak at them on the way back. Van for her part happily obliged, carefully revealing bits of her, but never everything. She knew the importance of teasing things out after all.

In an amount of time that seemed to be over both too soon and far too long, she’d arrived at Van’s apartment. “My lady, we have arrived,” Van informed her with exaggerated elegance. Van delicately took her hand as she got out of the car before walking away from her. Ball Buster had a brief moment of disappointment before Van turned around. “Are you coming?”

“Are you sure?” Ball Buster asked, uncharacteristically unsure of herself.

“Yes. I think it’s finally time to end our little game.

With that Van took her hand and guided her up to her room. She had just enough time to see that it was a small, almost one room affair, with little more than a couchbed before Van closed the door and pulled her in for a kiss.

Oh god those lips. They tasted just as good as she’d always dreamed they’d be. Her hands began to roam along her back, inching down towards her rear. Van for her part kept retreating backwards, but always holding her head, pulling her back with her, so they never released the kiss. Finally when she could go back no further, Van twisted, flipping their positions, before pushing Ball Buster onto the bed.

She could have resisted of course. Van may not have been weak by human standards, but Ball Buster was in a league of her own. Still she let her win and willingly fell backwards. Looking up at Van as she then climbed on top of her like some triumphant warrior woman. “No no no,” she warned her as she reached her hands up to grab ahold and pull her down into her embrace. “Just lie back and relax. You’ve had a hard enough day already my little hero. Let me do the work.”

Ball Buster chuckled at the idea of her being considered little by anyone, but she dutifully layed back and let Van do her thing. Van started by kneading her fingers across Ball Buster’s stomach, slowly pulling her shirt up as she then lay down to kiss her stomach. As she began to kiss upwards she pulled Ball Buster’s shirt higher and higher until it was pulled all the way to her head. Ball Buster then obliged by pulling the shirt the rest of the way off as Van then pulled her sports bra up, revealing her breasts. Van gave her a look of pure greed as she then leaned down and began to lick her nipple. Ball Buster moaned then as Van began to actively suck her nipple while her other hand pinched the other.

Ball Buster reached down to grab ahold of Van, only for her to gently take her arms and put them over her head. Before she could do anything else, Van pulled herself up and off of her. Standing in front of her. Ball Buster pulled herself up onto her elbows, but stopped as Van held her finger up with a sly grin. She then began to dance.

OH god what a dance it was. Van knew her body and what it could do to those watching her and she used it well. Ball Buster just laid there, entranced as Van slowly gave her a strip tease in front of her. First the boots, then the skirt, then the top. Van twisted and gyrated, keeping her guessing what was next before finally, slowly slipping her hands behind her back and unclasping her bra.

By the goddesses, if there was ever a perfect set of breasts, it was these. Van covered them for a brief moment, perhaps a little embarrassed by Ball Buster’s attention on them, before giving up and leaning forward to give her a good look as she lowered her panties to the ground.

Van stood still then for a moment, letting her take in the whole of her, from her cute face, to her quite adult and perky breasts with their light pink nipples, down to her shaved pussy, before moving forward and falling forward putting her right onto her crotch. Van gave her a naughty grin that made her burst into laughter before Van began to pull her pants down to her ankles. She began to regret that she’d decided to wear plain briefs instead of something more alluring as Van pulled her boots off and then pulled her pants completely off of her.

“I’m sorry,” she told her, embarrassed.

“Don’t be,” Van reassured her. “This is part of who you are, and I love all of you. Even these unsexy briefs.”

Nevertheless, Ball Buster quickly helped her in pulling them off her, leaving her just as naked as Van was. Van laid down, right at her crotch, her hands lingering slowly over her own shaved pussy, (it wasn’t shaved to make it look good for a man of course. She shaved it because she hated her natural blonde hair and didn’t want any reminders of it). She leaned in then and gave it a little kiss before diving in and eating her out in earnest.

Oh goddesses! Ball Buster had been with a few women before this, mostly some groupies who wanted to brag about bagging a superheroine, but Van blew them all away. Her tongue was a pure magic, just destroying her pussy. Before she could do more than scream Van had already begun to slip her finger inside, quietly finding her G spot before beginning to work it mercilessly. It wasn’t long before Ball Buster was desperately trying to hold on, afraid that if she lost control she’d start bucking and literally knock Van into the ceiling. Despite this it wasn’t long before she could feel an orgasm approaching. As she felt the pleasure peaking she screamed out.

Only to have the pleasure stop, just before the summit.

Van kept working her and she started twisting her hips in coordination with it, desperately trying to get that last little bit that would push her over the edge, but it wouldn’t come. She couldn’t cum.

As she realized in horror what was happening, she quickly pivoted. She screamed out one more time as her body began to shake violently before settling down. She faked and orgasm.

Van, satisfied with her work, crawled herself up to see Ball Buster face to face. Ball Buster pushed up then and kissed her before she could see her face and guess what happened. With a quick twist of her own, now Van was on her back with a little yelp of her own, as Ball Buster began to explore her body with just as much ion, if somewhat less skill then Van had done for her. It took a little bit but her persistence paid off and she was graced with the sight of Van cumming to her fingers flicking her clit.

Afterwards the two of them ed out in each other’s arms.

“Do you know what went wrong?”

Ball Buster was startled awake to sight of James sitting on the bed next to her. “WHAT THE FUCK!!! GET OUT!!!” she screamed at him.

James for his part merely put his fingers to his lips as he pointed next to her. She looked to the side to find Van still sleeping, lying on her stomach, her perfect ass visible to James’ lecherous eyes.

“Do you know what went wrong?” he asked again.

“Get. Out.” she told him again, furious that she couldn’t physically force him to leave.

“It’s because there wasn’t a cock involved. You know you can’t possibly be satisfied if you aren’t submitting to a strong man.”

She nearly decked him. Her hand was literally flying towards him before stopping mere inches from his face. James didn’t even flinch. “You’re being a bad bitch,” He told her. “And bitches need to be punished.”

As he said this he motioned her to lay down on his lap. She complied, lying stomach down with her ass in the air just above his crotch as she growled in impotent rage. James simply raised his hand and brought it down sharply on her ass.

SMACK!!

Ball Buster shouted out in pain. Before she could even comprehend what was happening his hand came down again.

SMACK!!!

She screamed again, but this time, there was something more. Behind the stinging, she somehow felt...good.

“Now apologize,” he told her as he brought his hand down again.

SMACK!!

“I’m sorry!” she screamed out, unable to disobey a direct order.

“Tell me what you are apologizing for.”

SMACK!!

“For being a bitch!”

“Now tell me you want to be a good girl.”

SMACK!!

“I want to be a good girl!” SHe screamed out again, her ass now red from his repeated spanks. Her pussy was also being affected, but in this case it was gushing as every spank brought her more and more pleasure.

“Now tell me what a good girl does.”

SMACK!!!

She didn’t know how she knew this, but somehow she already knew the answer to this. “A good girl obeys!”

“Again.”

SMACK!!

“A good girl obeys!”

“Louder.”

SMACK!!!

“A GOOD GIRL OBEYS!!!”

“Good girl,” he whispered to her as his hand came down one final time.

SMACK!!!

Ball Buster screamed as she orgasmed right there in front of him.

At that exact moment Ball Buster woke up.

As she literally jumped out of bed her hands immediately went down to her ass to discover...nothing. There was no redness, no handmarks, nothing.

Of course there was nothing. Now that she was awake she quickly realized that there was no way for James to hurt her anyway. He was more likely to break his hand on her ass then he was of causing even the slightest discomfort.

“What happened?” Van asked her, bleary eyed.

“Sorry, nothing. Just a bad dream.”

Van looked at her with understanding. “Come here,” she said.

Ball Buster sat down on the bed. A moment later Van hugged her from behind, her head leaning on Ball Buster’s shoulder. “It’s okay. WIth all the insanity going on right now you’d be crazy not to be having nightmares. It just means you’re human.”

“I’m supposed to be better than that.”

“Well I’m glad you’re not. If you were what you’re supposed to be, I’d never have a shot with you.”

Ball Buster snorted when she heard that. “Please, if anything I’m not good enough for you.”

“I’m going to remind you of that later when we have our first fight.”

Ball Buster smiled and gave her a little kiss before getting back into bed. Van dutifully held her tight, playing the role of protector from bad dreams. And that’s all it was after all, just a bad dream.

So why did she feel disappointed?