Moment of Clarity

Morgan sat in his office reading a braille book. His fingers ran over the bumps at a leisurely pace. Margaret walked past and then looked back through the door. Morgan's head was tilted and would be looking up at the wall to his right if he were sighted. She stepped in and watched him. When Morgan got to the end of a paragraph he said abruptly, “Yes?”

Margaret startled. She hadn't imagined he'd heard her walk in. “I know someone's there. I can smell perfume.”

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bother you.”

“Margaret, while lilies and freesia. I'll have to remember that. Did you wish to talk?”

“Well, I hadn't expected to see you in here. But there is something I could ask you.”

Morgan slid a marker onto the page his hand was on and closed the book. “Go on.”

“Does Michael play around a lot?”

A look of confusion crossed Morgan's face. “You will have to speak more plainly.”

“Does he enjoy sleeping around with women?” she asked slowly.

“He does enjoy it. I am not sure how often he actually engages in sex when he is not home, but I know it happens.”

“Do you think he would give up casual sex for the right woman?”

Morgan hesitated. “No, I do not think he would, even for the right woman.”

He could hear her apprehension and a nascent infatuation. Since she wasn't aware of his ability to read thoughts, she wasn't muting them. He continued, “You may be the right woman, as you put it, but sex is recreational to him, divested entirely of emotional commitment. He is capable of love but it would not be expressed through sex.”

“It would be too much to hope to keep him to myself?”

“Yes, it would. Females have been offering him sex since we were twelve or thirteen. He lost his virginity at fourteen. He had fellatio before that. Sex is just a fun pasttime to him. And women are attracted to him at a frequency that scares him when he stops to think about it.”