Cuddling and talking

“You probably need to get up, don’t you?” I ask Morgan.

“Why?” she asks, nuzzling my neck. “Do you want me to go?”

“No, definitely not,” I tell her. “I just figured you need to get on to your other patients.”

“I don’t have any other patients,” Morgan says. “I told you I’m your primary nurse this shift: I don’t have multiple patients to care for, you have multiple nurses to care for you. Given the attempt on your life, they’re occupied outside your room unless I call one or more of them in, but for all of us, you’re our only patient.”

“Wow . . .” I breathe, staggered by the level of care and attention being focused on me.

“You are the VIP patient. You’re the reason ETI built and runs this hospital. It’s primarily a research hospital to support ETI’s ongoing R&D program and to provide specialized medical expertise in caring for Enhanced women. The top floor, however, is dedicated to the service of ETI’s senior people—and above all, you. There’s always one room on this floor set aside for your use. It’s a different room each month, to make sure maintenance and the like are up to date, but we always have one. I think this is the first time in the couple years since this hospital opened that you’ve needed this room, but”—her face crumples, and she presses it into my neck; I can hear and feel her regaining her self-possession—“we’re—very glad—we had it.” She’s choked up. I stroke her hair, and gradually she relaxes into me.

“Why a dedicated room and all that?” I ask. “Why all the staff to have multiple nurses twiddling their thumbs just in case I need you?”

Morgan raises her head again. “I think Ms. Whyte—Nevaeh—was afraid of something like this happening. I don’t know—I work for the hospital, not for corporate intelligence, and obviously no one tells nurses anything—not just corporate intelligence, that’s enough of a problem within hospitals! But that’s the vibe I’ve picked up over the years as we’ve been briefed.”

“Did you work for—for ETI—before the hospital was built?” I ask.

“I did,” Morgan says. “I happened to be one of the very first medical personnel Enhanced—right place, right time; the company hired nurses to help with the various tests and trials required for government approval, then offered us free Enhancement as a bonus for good work—and you always insisted the company provide good medical care in-house for employees. It expanded as the company expanded, and there were all sorts of good reasons for hiring Enhanced doctors and nurses if at all possible. ETI knew from my work record that I’m a good nurse, so as soon as I was up and moving after my first procedure, they offered me a job. I’m no idiot; I took it.

“In the three-plus years I’ve been working for ETI, I’ve only had one regret: I never got to serve you directly.” Morgan looks me straight in the eyes and says, “I wish this had never happened to you, but I can’t tell you how glad I am that I finally got to fuck you. It’s been my biggest dream for over three years now, and it finally came true!”

“Well,” I say haltingly, “I have to figure out my life all over again”—Morgan’s face falls at the reminder—“and I guess there are expectations that I fulfill that dream for a lot of Enhanced women—”

Morgan giggles. “Including as many of your nurses as possible, and definitely Dr. Asbury. That’s another reason for a dedicated room for you, by the way: the hospital had a bed specially designed and built to accommodate and support threesomes—and specifically threesomes including her.”

My eyes go very, very wide. “Ohh . . .” I say, momentarily dumbfounded. I shake my head and recollect my scattered wits. “And listen to me talking about having to fuck lots and lots of sex goddesses, like it was some kind of duty to be endured . . . It may kill me, but I think I could live with that. Or something,” I add, realizing what I just said. Morgan was already laughing at me, but that sends her into a fit of giggles. I stroke her hair and say, “But—if you’re available—I’d like to keep fulfilling that dream for you, many times.”

Now it’s Morgan’s turn to have her eyes go wide. “You—you mean that?” she asks, looking stunned. “But—but there are so many . . .”

“I know, and it’s not like I can promise to be anything remotely like monogamous. But—whatever my life was like a week ago, I don’t remember that, and the pattern I remember living was one girlfriend at a time, when I even had that many. I obviously have a steady relationship of some sort with Nevaeh, but 1) that’s in part a business relationship, and 2) she obviously doesn’t mind sharing; and I’d like to have someone to be with me just to be with me, with the sex on more of a boyfriend-girlfriend basis—someone to be continuity for me in the midst of—well, of fucking all the other women. I’m not saying this well, and I know it sounds bad,” I admit; “I know I’m essentially saying I want to have a girlfriend and still fuck every woman in sight—but do you maybe understand anyway?”

“I think I do,” Morgan says slowly. “But—why me? What real, meaningful reason could you possibly have to choose me? I would be happy to stay with you—I don’t have a boyfriend at the moment; but if I let myself fall for you and you moved on to someone else because I wasn’t really what you were looking for, that would be devastating.”

Trying to project my sincerity as strongly as possible, I say, “I understand, Morgan; and I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right, that I’m reacting to one of the first half-dozen women I’ve met since waking up, and that’s obviously reason to question my judgment. But I’m not just reacting, I’m thinking, and here’s what I’m thinking: you’re obviously very bright, very determined, very dedicated, and a very caring and empathic person; if you weren’t all those things, you wouldn’t be here.

“I’m also thinking I need an ally of my own. —Yes, I know I have a lot of allies, and presumably I chose all of them. But those people were all chosen by myself as I became through a lot of time and experiences I no longer have. I trust them, but to do so I have to trust the person I became and no longer remember becoming. It would be illogical not to trust him, both because he was me and because the one major example I have of his judgment, Nevaeh, supports the idea that my judgment only got better over those six years. Still, though, for me as I am now, those aren’t choices I made. For my own psychic well-being, if nothing else, I need someone who’s my choice, my ally—and I need to find someone quickly.

“To do that, I need to trust my intuition to pick up the things that I need to know and lead me accordingly. Of the major mistakes I remember making, most of them have come when I haven’t done that. I won’t claim my intuition is infallible, but if I go with it, I’m usually right, and never too terribly wrong. It’s when I overthink things and talk myself into going against it that I get myself into trouble. Right now, intuitively, I feel the need to keep you around. Could that be skewed by the fact that I just had the best sex of my life? Could it be, like you’re afraid it is, that it’s just because I have almost no women to compare you to? Yes to both, but if either were really skewing my sense of things, past experience tells me it would feel different.

“It does seem to me, though, that there’s one thing that could either help confirm my gut feeling or else call it into question,” I say softly.

“Oh?” Morgan asks, looking .

“Yeah. Morgan, would you tell me your story?”