Yes, she does

Morgan takes a deep breath. “OK,” she says.

I stroke her hair. “Take your time, baby,” I say gently. “I’m not going anywhere—obviously.” She giggles at that. “I have time for you.”

“Thank you,” Morgan says softly. “OK, John, you have to understand that not every Enhanced woman has a terrible story. Many of them, anyway, had perfectly fine lives—they just couldn’t pass up the opportunity. There are a lot of us, though, for whom it wasn’t a luxury.

“My biological father abandoned my mother when she got pregnant. How she ended up married to my stepfather is her story, not mine, but . . . it wasn’t exactly something she wanted to do. He was abusive.” My face darkens, and Morgan strokes my cheek. “Not sexually, but physically. He only beat my mother until I hit puberty, then he started abusing me as well. My senior year in high school I tried fighting back . . . I woke up in ICU a couple days later. I was permanently scarred from what he did to me; it had provoked my mother into attacking him to save my life, and she beat him to with a cast-iron skillet. She was in jail for manslaughter, though she was out of jail before I was out of the hospital.

“I was top of my class and aiming for med school, but even with academic and merit scholarships, we were still looking at a lot in student loans to get into really good school—unless I got in someplace like Swarthmore that covered everything, and I didn’t have that strong a record. Our story got a lot of publicity, though, and attracted someone who offered to cover whatever I couldn’t cover with scholarships and grants, plus give me a stipend.

“The one stipulation was that my benefactor wanted me to go into nursing rather than become a doctor. That wasn’t because he was sexist or anything,” she says quickly. “Quite the contrary. This man was concerned about the nursing shortage and looking for ways to encourage top students—both male and female—to go into nursing. I went along with it, figuring I could always work as a nurse for a while and then become a nurse practitioner or go to med school. By the time I finished my BSN, though, I had decided I liked being a nurse better than I would ever have liked being a doctor. It has its downsides, to be sure, but you can care for patients without them expecting you to fix them.

“I earned my BSN at Penn and graduated near the top of my class; my benefactor was so pleased, he offered to put me through a master’s program as well. I was accepted into the top nursing program in the country—Johns Hopkins.” I start in surprise and turn to look at her. She smiles and says, “Yeah, we overlapped by a couple years. I knew who you were, of course—you were talked about, a lot—and I saw you several times. I never called attention to myself, though. Everyone knew you were a real grind, and—well, so was I, though for different reasons. You were on a mission; I just had nothing else to do with my life. My face was scarred, and I didn’t believe any man would ever love me”—despite herself, Morgan’s voice quavers—“and my uterus was damaged as well, so I knew I would never have children. All I had to fill my life was nursing, so I gave it everything I had.

“I wanted to be an ICU or ER nurse, to try to pay forward some of what my nurses had given me; but even with a master’s degree, hospitals didn’t want to hire me to care for patients. They would never admit it was because I was disfigured, but I knew it was. So I ended up in research, which is how I ended up working for ETI. And what I saw . . .

“All of a sudden, I had hope—hope of having a boyfriend, marrying, having children. And it was you making it all happen! I wanted all of it so badly—to be Enhanced, to be beautiful—which I never would have been, even if I hadn’t been scarred—to have a body that worked properly . . . maybe even to have you. That’s why I lost my last boyfriend,” she says with an odd giggle. “I wanted a hall pass to fuck you if I ever got the chance. I even offered to give him one for the woman of his choice. He wasn’t willing to do it, so he eventually dumped me. To his credit, he was smart enough to dump me for a non-Enhanced woman.

“I wanted it all so badly, I was afraid it would turn out to be a mirage—that Enhancement wouldn’t work, or that I wouldn’t be able to have it for some reason, or . . . or, or, or. When it did, I felt like I’d been given a whole new life. I could get a regular hospital job now like I’d hoped to do, but I owe ETI so much, and you so much, all I wanted was to stay here and be a part of everything. And now my dream has come true . . .

“John, whatever you want from me, whatever you ask of me, the answer is yes. I know you’d never ask me to do something unethical or illegal, and there’s nothing else I would refuse you. I’m still not sure why you would choose me when there are so many other Enhanced women who are just as beautiful and sexy, but if you want me, whatever you want me for, I’m yours.”

“Isn’t that reason enough?” I ask Morgan softly, and kiss her.