The Psychoanalysis of Superwoman
by
Tom diCentauri
Professor Dr. Larraine Furbelova examined the note that she had got from her secretary, Emily Browning. She had a single patient, who was blocked in for the entire morning. Emily had written the name as Cah-RAH Zorelle (Zorro?). Emily had trouble understanding unusual names, so apparently this was one of Stanhope College's foreign students. Dr. Furbelova cringed a little inwardly: foreign students could speak English readily enough, but they usually didn't understand it deeply enough for what she needed to do.
She heard a knock on her door and when she opened it she found herself face to face with a young woman standing about five and a half feet tall, with shoulder-length blond hair and wide blue eyes and wearing an all-too-familiar red-and-blue costume.
"Superwoman?!" Dr. Furbelova said. "Um, whatever you want, it needs to be quick. I have a new patient arriving shortly."
"I'm your new patient," Superwoman said.
"You?" Dr. Furbelova looked at the note in her hand. "Your name is...?"
"My name is Kara Zor-El," Superwoman said and then she spelled it out.
"Somehow," Dr. Furbelova said, "I never imagined you having psychological problems. What's bothering you?"
"I've been having disturbing dreams," Kara said. "They seem harmless enough, but they're so consistent that I thought that I should discuss them with someone."
"Well, then," Dr. Furbelova said, "shall we get started?" She indicated the chaise longue with a high-backed armchair next to it.
Kara went to the chaise longue. She levitated several feet, tipped herself over on her back, and floated down onto the chaise. Dr. Furbelova, with a new notepad and a pen in hand, sat down in the armchair.
"What kind of dreams have you been having?" Dr. Furbelova asked.
"Basically they all involve some villain turning me into an inflated plastic doll," Kara said. "But they're not that simple. There are more things going on in them."
"Can you give me some examples?" Dr. Furbelova asked.
"Yes," Kara said. "In one I was with a group of women on a tropical island occupied by Amazons, who captured us and turned us into inflated plastic dolls. They put us up for auction and used us as slaves. And in one other I was visiting a Girl Scout camp when an imp from the 5th Dimension turned me into a plastic doll for a gang of girl crooks to play with. In another I had been captured by the witches of a sorority that doesn't exist and turned into an inflatable doll. The leader of the group made me her toy. She used my raincoat to turn me into a punching bag."
"You mean like those bounce-back inflatable dolls that they sell in toy stores?" Dr. Furbelova said.
"Yes," Kara said. "I suppose it doesn't help matters that they sell one with my picture on it."
"My niece has one of those," Dr. Furbelova said. "She uses it every morning for her karate exercises. I suppose there's something to said about working out with Supergirl."
A little shyly Kara admitted, "Sometimes I used to let Batgirl use me that way."
"Is the picture that showed up last month involved with this in any way?" Dr. Furbelova asked.
The previous month a framed painting, done in the style of a comic-strip panel, had appeared hanging in Stanhope College's Administration Building. It was clearly a prank, likely perpetrated by one of the fraternities, likely in response to someone posting a sign at the entrance to Fraternity Row, which sign read, "Fraternity Row am also being Bizarro Wurld Konsilutt". In the foreground on the right side of the picture stood an inflated plastic punching bag a little over five and half feet tall. Tilted slightly to the right, the bag bore a life-sized image of Superwoman standing straight with her hands on the fronts of her thighs and a startled expression on her face. She was crying out into a thought balloon, "Gods of Krypton, help me! I can't move!" On the left side of the picture, in the background, Lex Luthor lounged in a chair and said, "I love it! You've turned the mighty Girl of Steel into a helpless Bag of Plastic!" On his left, with arms akimbo, stood his niece, Nasthalthia, who was saying, "I can't wait to play with her!" It had been the real Nasthalthia who had filed the complaint to have the libelous picture removed and given to her. Some even suggested that Nasthalthia herself was responsible for the stunt.
"I wonder if it might be," Kara said. "I remember getting a little aroused by it, so it must have resonated with my sex dreams on an unconscious level."
Dr. Furbelova made a note and said," Perhaps you could describe one of your dreams in detail and we'll see what we can make of it?"
"OK," Kara said. "I had this one last week. It starts off....
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She had been searching for a witch who called herself The Enchantress. She wasn't certain whether Enchantress was one of the good gals or not and she wanted to find out. At last she found her, wandering deep in the forest near Stanhope. Supergirl landed near the woman, who turned around and raised her right hand as if fending off an attack. Supergirl recognized her as June Moone, one of the weirder students at Stanhope College. She wore a green minidress with a green-and-black checkered skirt, a dark green cape, and a green conical witch's hat. She also wore a transparent-green plastic raincoat.
("Green is not your favorite color, I take it," Dr. Furbelova commented.)
("No," Kara said. "But even though there was no kryptonite on her, the sight of her raincoat made me weak.")
She could barely stand up. She leaned against a tree and watched Enchantress come toward her, fascinated by the soft waxy highlights dancing across the plastic of her raincoat. She could feel Enchantress's body heat radiating off the plastic.
"Here, let me help you," the witch said. She took Supergirl's left arm, draped it over her shoulder, and supported the staggering woman as she took her to a small bungalow hidden under the trees. Supergirl felt a quivery sensation inside her when her hand touched the plastic of the witch's raincoat and she became aware of being pressed against it.
Supergirl was in a daze and could only watch helplessly as The Enchantress took her into the bathroom and stripped all of her clothes off her. Several times she felt the soft, warm plastic of the witch's raincoat brush smoothly across her naked skin and felt her clitoris start to swell up in response. Then the witch stood her up, gave her a Pert and Pretty™ "Sunshine" shower cap, and told her to put it on. Made of transparent-yellow plastic with a yellow rubber headband, it had tiny red-orange daisies printed on it in a tiara pattern, indicative of innocence. Supergirl took it and, with practiced ease, put it on.
"There," the witch said, "still blond. I'm going to keep you nice and pretty." She watched hungrily as Supergirl shook her head to settle her hair inside the shower cap. "Yes," the witch said approvingly, "feel the soft plastic caressing your hair. Imagine how sexy you look. You're getting hot over it!" She caressed Supergirl's breasts and belly. "When you approach climax, take a deep breath and puff out your belly, as if you are a little pregnant!"
Supergirl felt her heart beat faster and harder; felt her breathing deepen; felt her nipples and clitoris swell and stiffen; and felt a warm quivery sensation fill her body. She felt that she was just about to climax, took a deep breath, and distended her belly. She felt something touch the left side of her neck and then a jolt, as if something had exploded inside her.
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"I like my shower cap, but not that much," Kara said.
"What kind of shower cap do you wear?" Dr. Furbelova asked.
"Pert and Pretty's™ 'Fairy Princess'," Kara said.
"The one with the white starbursts in a tiara pattern," Dr. Furbelova commented. "I suppose it's the advertisement that's in all the women's magazines, but I had the impression that you would wear a 'Supergirl' shower cap."
"Well, I still have the one they gave me at the photo shoot," Kara said. "But I don't wear it. It just seems a little too egotistical."
"She suggested that the shower cap she gave you made you look sexy. Perhaps the suggestion is that it would make you look sexy to a man and that would create an association between the shower cap and sex?"
"But why do I find the plastic itself so sexy?" Kara asked.
"How would you describe it?" Dr. Furbelova asked.
"It's basically the plastic that Pert and Pretty™ uses," Kara said.
"Yes," Dr. Furbelova said. "Limp, soft as silk, I would say. Skin smooth. About as thick as a couple of sheets of paper. Warms readily to the touch. It's certainly very sensuous. In addition, your shower cap is what we might call intimate wear: you only wear it when your naked, so there might be a sexual suggestion there."
"It certainly is very feminine," Kara said. "They use it to make shower caps and aprons... and raincoats."
"Some men wear plastic raincoats," Dr. Furbelova commented.
"Oh, I know!" Kara exclaimed. "Sometimes I'll see a man in his raincoat and I want to wear the raincoat while he has his way with me."
"I can't imagine that it would end well for the young man," Dr. Furbelova said.
"A tiny piece of kryptonite under the bed solves that problem," Kara said. "I've got one in a lead locket and I use it when I masturbate. Otherwise I'd tear the house up."
"Very good," Dr. Furbelova said. "So plastic makes you feel feminine and sexy. But you want to have it forced onto you. It's as though you crave what we call infantilization."
"I don't know," Kara said slowly. "How would we know it's not something else?"
"She calls you Supergirl, not Superwoman," Dr Furbelova said. "She was refusing to acknowledge your adulthood (just like certain other people did until they killed her off - TdC), which means that unconsciously you were doing the same. It may be a way in which you express a yearning for the carefree state of childhood. Now tell me more about the dream."
"So she had turned me into an inflated plastic doll...."
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Supergirl's mind cleared and she grabbed the witch's arm. Enchantress laughed and pushed her away. She did it so easily that Supergirl understood immediately that she had not only lost her superpowers, but also the strength that she would have had simply by virtue of being Kryptonese.
"Fool!" Enchantress taunted. "I've turned you into an air-filled blow-up slave-doll. I can play with you any way I want and there's nothing you can do to stop me!"
Enchantress had Supergirl's own raincoat, actually Linda Danvers's raincoat, ready and handed it to her hapless prisoner, telling her to put it on. It was a transparent-blue plastic Stormette™ with a pixie-style hood and Supergirl luxuriated in the sensation of the limp, skin-smooth plastic sliding over her naked body.
("She already had it there in her bungalow?" Dr. Furbelova asked.)
("Yes," Kara said. "I guess that's part of the dream imagery or her magic.")
Wielding a strange-looking rod that appeared to be made of transparent wood, the witch bent down and touched the tip of the rod to the lowest magnetic patch on the raincoat's placket. Supergirl heard a loud "poomp", like the sound of a giant champagne cork popping, and felt her feet lifted off the floor. The raincoat in some sense had become rigid, so that she was barely able to move. Grinning wickedly, Enchantress put her rod away and came back to Supergirl and punched her in the belly.
Supergirl bounced off the witch's fist as lightly as a beach ball, tipped over backward, and then bounced smartly back upright. Her raincoat, with her trapped inside, had been turned into a roly-poly inflated punching bag. The witch bopped her again and she felt her body pushed against the raincoat's plastic, her belly and breasts first, then her buttocks as the raincoat bounced her back upright.
("I can see what you mean by saying that plastic is sensuous," Kara said. "I was rubbing my breasts, belly, and fanny against the inside of the raincoat while she played with me and it got me hot.")
As Enchantress played with her, Supergirl heard what sounded like a song coming through the radio, but it wasn't any song that was played on the radio stations audible in Stanhope. She heard "The Thrust" by Pudgy Pecker. And, no, it wasn't about rocket science.
"Come on, love-doll, let's do the thrust.
Come on, love-doll, you know we must.
Push your hips at me and go like thus.
Ee-ooh, thrust, love-doll, love-doll, thrust.
Oooh-yeah just like thus
Fill yourself with lust and do the thrust.
You're my love-doll and no one is around.
Yeah, you're my love-doll and no one is around
We're gonna thrusta, thrusta, thrusta
'Til we burn the house down.
Come on and thrust, yeah, love-doll thrust.
Oooh-yeah just like thus.
Fill yourself with lust and do the thrust.
Yeah, my love-doll blows up hot.
My love-doll, she blows up hot.
She really knows how to buck.
She knows how to trot.
Come on and thrust, yeah, love-doll, thrust.
Oooh-yeah, just like thus.
Fill yourself with lust and do the thrust.
Yeah buck on now.
Yeah thrust on now.
Thrust."
Soft, rubbery thumps and the witch's grunts punctuated the song. The plastic of Enchantress's raincoat swished as she performed the boxer's dance with Supergirl. Bounced around inside her raincoat, Supergirl climaxed, bucking and squirming as she felt muscle spasms pull her clitoris into her body and then release it to pop back out again. Hot pressure within her faded, seemingly squirting out of her in heavy spurts, then it began to rise again.
After a few minutes Enchantress stopped punching her toy and took off her raincoat. Then she took off all of her clothes and embraced Supergirl, picking her up and carrying her into the bedroom. There she set Supergirl at the foot of a foam-rubber trough. She pushed Supergirl backwards into it, sat on her, her weight supported on the sides of the trough, and masturbated. She had her left hand on Supergirl's chest and her right hand on her vulva, stroking her clitoris. Soon she was thrusting with her hips, bouncing lightly on her inflated prisoner.
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"How does that make you feel when she does that?" Dr. Furbelova asked.
"Embarrassed. Humiliated. And...," Kara said more hesitantly, "a little aroused."
"Sexually?" Dr. Furbelova said.
"Yes," Kara said. "I know it sounds silly, but being her prisoner makes me feel like I want to have sex."
"Not silly at all," Dr. Furbelova said. "Both being humiliated and having sex involve submission to an aggressive other. And they involve many of the same physiological responses. In a sense, you could say that humiliation and sex rhyme with each other."
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Enchantress touched the butt of her plastifying rod to the valve stem near the bottom of Supergirl's raincoat and Supergirl felt her feet lightly hit the floor as the raincoat collapsed and draped normally over her body. The witch put her plastifying rod away and came back to Supergirl carrying a plastic apron. She told Supergirl to take off her raincoat and gave her the apron with a command to put it on.
Supergirl saw that the apron was a big, fat, transparent-blue plastic pinafore with her ess-on-a-shield emblem printed on the bib. She took off her raincoat and draped it over a chair, then she put on the apron. She slipped the halterneck yoke over her head and felt the limp plastic settle onto her neck. The wide, ruffled skirt hung almost to her ankles. She felt smooth, warm plastic caress her breasts and started to come aroused. She knotted the ties in a neat bow behind her back and stood waiting for June to tell her what to do next.
June beckoned to Supergirl. "Come," she said, "sit on my lap."
Reluctantly and warily, Supergirl complied, sitting down on June's thighs. June put her left arm around Supergirl's shoulders and pulled her closer. With her right hand she fondled Supergirl's breasts, rubbing the plastic of her apron over them. For long minutes she cuddled and caressed her toy. Tenderly she kissed Supergirl's cheek and nuzzled her.
"Now I get to let the air out of you." She held up what looked like a plastic drinking straw with a flange around its middle and wiggled it menacingly.
Supergirl struggled, but she was helpless to prevent June from deflating her. She felt the straw enter the valve stem on her neck, felt it come up against a resistance, and felt the resistance give way and the straw slide into her. She heard a soft p'whhh..., felt air blowing out of her neck, and sank into unconsciousness.
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"You know," Dr. Furbelova said, "neuroses are the unconscious mind's way of dealing with anxiety. In so many of these fantasies you imagine yourself turned into a punching bag or a doll for some woman to play with. You don't have to feel anxious about sex if someone else wants it and is quite forceful in insisting on it. So you give up your autonomy to the lusting other. That would be quite maladaptive if you were ever to do such a thing for real, so it would appear to indicate a neurosis." She paused for a moment and then said, "But it's primarily sexual."
"What does that mean?" Kara asked.
"It's a phenomenon called Bondage and Discipline and it's listed among the sexual perversions," Dr. Furbelova said.
"Does that make me a pervert?" Kara asked with a note of concern in her voice.
"No," Dr. Furbelova said. "No, not unless you prefer it to normal sexual behavior."
"Normal," Kara mused.
"Man on woman, belly to belly, cheek to cheek," Dr. Furbelova said. "It's more of a definition than a proper description, because everybody experiments with different ways of doing sex, and it certainly doesn't imply any judgement of your moral standing." As if lost in thought she stared at the picture of Sigmund Freud hanging on the wall behind her desk. "Sex can be a source of intense anxiety, so we cope through neurosis. Asking another person, even one you know loves you, for a sexual favor can evoke an inchoate fear of rejection. It is so much better if you can dominate another or be dominated by someone who wants to play with you."
"So how does the apron fit in?" Kara asked. "It was a parody of my action costume, does it represent the downfall of Supergirl?"
"As an icon, the apron carries the connotation of protection and of service," Dr Furbelova said. "In this case it seems to emphasize your descent into slavery."
"But it also has to be made of plastic," Kara added.
"Yes, that makes it sexual for you," Dr. Furbelova said. "I've also noticed that the phrase 'plastic prisoner' seems to have some special potency in your fantasy."
"It does," Kara said. "For some reason it gets me hot when it's applied to me."
"Well, plastic connotes sex and in this case encodes your captor's sexual desire for you while instigating your own arousal. It also softens the connotations of prisoner, leaving only the feelings of helplessness. It may give you something of what a bride feels on her wedding night."
"I certainly felt bridal in this dream," Kara said.
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"We were in bed together when she re-inflated me," Kara said. "I was lying on my right side with my breasts and belly pressed against hers and she had her lips on my neck blowing air into me."
Supergirl came awake and felt soft, warm flesh pressed against her. She heard a soft whhhooof and felt air coming in to her body through the side of her neck. She felt the witch's lips nuzzling her and felt her breathing as she inflated her special toy.
The witch had her arms wrapped around Supergirl and was coming aroused from the sensations of inflating her plastic prisoner. She felt the plastic bag filling with air and becoming firmer and she felt her clitoris swelling and stiffening as if it were also being inflated. Slowly she moved her hips to and fro, rhythmically pushing her belly against Supergirl's warming body.
"Oh, you're so pneumatic," she sighed into Supergirl's ear. "So soft and warm!"
She rolled onto Supergirl, mounted her, and rode her like a pool float. Supergirl felt the witch's weight pressing her into the bed, felt the rubbery softness and smoothness of her flesh, and felt her body heat arousing her. June's clitoris rubbed Supergirl's right thigh while her right thigh rubbed Supergirl's vulva. Supergirl was trembling inside and trying to move to meet June's movements.
Then June climaxed long and hard, bringing Supergirl to an equally convulsive climax. She bucked and bounced on her toy while Supergirl squirmed desperately beneath her.
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"Her body heat acted like a drug, igniting my lust," Kara said, "the more so when she expressed it through her plastic. I wanted so much for her to wear her raincoat and let me hold her. I had to content myself with kissing her shower cap and rubbing my cheek on it while she played with me." She sighed. "I just don't get it."
"Oh, I think you got it," Dr. Furbelova said, then, seeing Kara's quizzical expression, added, "In a way sex is like a joke."
"I wasn't laughing," Kara said.
"No, I wouldn't think so," Dr. Furbelova said. "I meant that sex has a similar structure to a joke. Both phenomena start off by arousing anxiety; in humor this is called the feintline or the set-up. Your body tenses up in response and the set-up or the foreplay raises the tension. Then when the punchline collapses the anxiety you react with rhythmic muscular spasms, in your diaphragm in the case of a joke and in your vulva in the case of sex."
"But why is it always women who dominate me?" Kara asked.
"Hmmm," Dr. Furbelova mused. "Are you a lesbian?"
"No," Kara said. "I've always been boy-crazy. Wouldn't it be more exciting to imagine having a sexy man take me down?"
"I would think so on first thought," Dr. Furbelova said, "but on second thought I'm not so sure."
"Why not?"
Dr. Furbelova paused a moment and then said, "Carl Jung hypothesized that the important aspects of our psyches cast shadows in our minds. For example, you are a woman, so somewhere in your unconscious there is a man who is what you would be if you were male. You're a good person, so you have a shadow that comprehends evil. And you are, as you say, boy-crazy, so you must have a lesbian shadow within you."
"And that shadow is creating these dreams?" Kara asked.
"She wants gratification," Dr. Furbelova said. "As long as your dreams are sufficient for her, so long will you have no problem from her."
"OK," Kara said, "but why don't I dream about romancing a woman, maybe going out on a date in our raincoats? Why do I want to be a woman's prisoner and pleasure slave?"
"You apparently have a hidden craving for feelings of helplessness," Dr. Furbelova said. "Given the power that you wield, I would guess that you cast yet another shadow in your mind. This one... this one wants to avoid responsibility."
"That doesn't sound good," Kara commented.
"No, no," Dr. Furbelova said, "I think that what it means is that you associate responsibility with your power. So much so, I think, that you feel that you must give up your power in order to enjoy a lack of responsibility, to let yourself go, as it were."
"But then I get my power back," Kara said. "I always get out of the situation somehow."
"How did you do it in this case?" Dr. Furbelova asked.
"I had a little help," Kara said, smiling at the memory. "She had turned me into a punching bag again and was having too much fun...."
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The Enchantress was too busy gloating over her toy to notice a tall, robust woman coming up behind her with footsteps as light as a cat's. In her right hand she held a thick pad that looked like it was covered with terrycloth and it looked damp. Striking like a python, she wrapped her left arm around Enchantress, pinning her arms to her sides. At the same time she pressed the pad against the witch's face.
Startled, Enchantress gasped, huffing fumes from the pad deep into her lungs. She struggled against the bigger woman's embrace. She bucked and she heaved, all to no avail. She writhed and squirmed, but all her efforts simply made her breathe harder and draw more of the sweet-smelling fumes into her lungs. Soon she softened. Her eyes rolled up in their sockets and she went limp. Tenderly, Wonder Woman carried her to the sofa and laid her down.
At that point Supergirl saw a woman dressed as a stage magician come into the room, look her over, and giggle. "Oh, dear," she said gaily, "we must really do something about this." She poked Supergirl with a forefinger and set her rocking to and fro. Then she said, in a commanding voice, "Kizhdæm z'noozhD vuh lla muhrf l'rugrupooS eerF!"
Supergirl heard a firm "'pmoop" and felt her feet hit the floor with her full weight. Again her raincoat collapsed around her and she felt soft, warm plastic caress her naked skin. Thanking Zatanna, she took off her raincoat and the shower cap that Enchantress had given her and put on her costume.
"Where did you learn to do that?" Zatanna asked Wonder Woman. She pointed to The Enchantress lying unconscious on the sofa.
"I was taught by a master of the art," Wonder Woman said. "A charming fellow who calls himself Captain Chloroform. You might not want to meet him."
"Too late," Zatanna said.
Meanwhile, Supergirl had folded the shower cap and the blue apron into her raincoat, rolled up her raincoat into a plump, purse-sized package, and indicated that she was ready to leave.
Then the Amazon, the alien, and the magician walked out into the world (and that sounds like the set-up for a joke - TdC).
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"You always get rescued at the end, almost always with the help of friends. Your friends live within you and protect you. They help to protect you from your shadows." Dr. Furbelova thought a moment and then said, "You have tremendous confidence in your friends. As long as you can trust them, so long will you have nothing to fear from these dreams."
"So I'm not going nuts," Kara suggested.
"Well, that's not quite the terminology that we use," Dr. Furbelova said with a smile, "but, yes, you're not going nuts. You seem to be perfectly normal."
Kara sat up, put her feet on the floor, and said, "Should we meet again?"
"I would certainly like to talk with you again," Dr. Furbelova said, "but you have, as far as I can see, no further need of my professional services." She closed her notebook and got up from her chair.
Kara stood up and shook Dr. Furbelova's hand. "Thank you, Doctor. I may just stop in some time when you're not busy."
"I'd like that," Dr. Furbelova said.
Kara gestured at the window and said, "May I?"
"Certainly," Dr. Furbelova said.
Kara opened the window, levitated, and floated out the window. She straightened out and accelerated, zero to sixty in one second flat (only 2.7 gees - TdC). Dr. Furbelova heard a loud snap as Kara's cape was cracked like a wet towel by the acceleration.
Dr. Furbelova watched Superwoman disappear in the distance and then closed the window. She looked at the notebook still in her hand and thought about the paper that she could publish in the most prestigious journal she could find. But she realized that there was no way in which she could keep the patient's identity confidential. She heaved a sigh, put the notebook in her filing cabinet, and went to lunch.
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The Enchantress appeared in Superman Family #204 (Nov/Dec 1980) and Superman Family #205 (Jan/Feb 1981). At that time Linda Danvers was a student councilor at the New Athens Experimental School near Miami, where June Moone taught a class in sorcery.
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If you want to get a rough idea of what Supergirl might look like in her blue plastic Stormette raincoat, go to www.funplastic.de, click on Rainwear, click on Ladies Raincoats, and then click on style PA3C. I am especially fond of the picture of the young lady modeling the semi-transparent light blue raincoat. The girl in the semi-transparent red raincoat comes in second. I know these monitors don't emit a lot of infrared, but I could swear that I felt the women's body heat coming off the plastic. I'll also note here that Stormette was a brand of plastic raincoats sold around 1950.
If the idea of a Supergirl punching bag being sold in toy stores seems a little far-fetched, go to http://beachtoys.com.mx/index.html, click on beach toys on the top right of the main picture, click on novedades, scroll down to Code 502, and click on the picture of Cenicienta, Sirenita, or Frozen and see what comes up. Frozen actually looks a little bit like Linda Lee when she was living in the Midvale Orphanage. Now if we could just find out who sells these toys online (Beach Toys is the wholesaler). Disney princess slave auction, anyone?
As for aprons, go to Aprons on the Fun Plastic website, thence to Montcler Classics, and thence to Aprons of the Fifties (MC22). The semi-transparent floral apron (MC22FLL) will give you a fair idea of what Supergirl's apron looks like. But instead of the crossover straps described for the apron, her apron has a simple yoke, called a pull over strap on the description of the Sissy-Apron. If you want to see a more precise picture of what Supergirl looks like in an apron (as of 2014 Nov 20), copy the following URL, paste it into the address bar of your browser, and click the search icon:
Or go to www.rubberevashop.com, click on Plastic Clothing, then on Female Clothing, and then on Aprons. The Annabelle Apron comes closest to what I envisioned in this story, though the skirt should be longer.
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The picture described as appearing at Stanhope College the month before this story occurs was inspired by the image on the cover of Adventure Comics #401 (Jan 1971). It was a teaser for the story titled "The Frightened Supergirl" and it depicts Lex Luthor sitting in a chair in the left background saying, "You did it! You've got Supergirl absolutely terrified of a mouse!". His niece, Nasthalthia, stands on his left, gazing happily on Supergirl, who crouches inside a glass cage and cringes away from a mouse.
The story involved a nightmare that disturbed Linda Danvers's sleep. In that nightmare Nasthalthia has contrived to give Supergirl a "fear serum" that makes her afraid of even the tiniest of threats, including a toy car. Luther and Nasty gloat over the prospect of putting Supergirl on display, but they are both killed when Supergirl goes into total panic mode and destroys much of Stanhope. That's when Linda wakes up and understands that it was all a bad dream.
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These are the original lyrics of the song parodied above. The Twist was popular in 1959 and 1960.
The Twist, Chubby Checker, 1959
Come on baby let's do the twist
Come on baby let's do the twist
Take me by my little hand and go like this
Ee-oh twist baby baby twist
Oooh-yeah just like this
Come on little miss and do the twist
My daddy is sleepin' and mama ain't around
Yeah daddy is sleepin' and mama ain't around
We're gonna twisty twisty twisty
'Til we turn the house down
Come on and twist yeah baby twist
Oooh-yeah just like this
Come on little miss and do the twist
Yeah you should see my little Sis
You should see my my little Sis
She really knows how to rock
She knows how to twist
Come on and twist yeah baby twist
Oooh-yeah just like this
Come on little miss and do the twist
Yeah rock on now
Yeah twist on now
Twist.
-o-End-o-
