In bed, his muscles a patchwork of one connecting soreness to another, Melvin couldn't get to sleep. His eyes stared up at the ceiling without seeing it, looking through it to the place where only one who is lonely and troubled peers during his deepest thoughts: into his own soul. If someone had questioned the integrity of Melvin's soul two days ago, Melvin would have no problem declaring it pure and untarnished. Tired and mistreated, maybe. But still pure. Melvin had never done a wrong thing in his life...

A muscle in his arm twitched fitfully.

But now? Melvin knew that enjoying himself with women was no crime, but he still felt sharp twinges of guilt course through him whenever he thought about the three women he had slept with today: his boss, a woman he had met on the elevator, and an unnamed pizza delivery girl. Last night a woman who had claimed to be a witch had given him a blow job and made him drink a potion that apparently was some kind of love juice. This was more physical satisfaction than he had gotten in a lifetime of unsatisfying female rejection and grief.

Melvin tried to flex his twitching muscle but couldn't.

The root of his guilt was that he didn't really care for any of the women; his boss was a monster bitch, and the other two women he barely knew. The witch still seemed like a figment of his imagination though she was a figment that kept calling his cell phone. He'd used them for his own personal fulfillment, like sex toys. Melvin MacMuffin did not feel comfortable using people, that's not who he was; he was just a mild-mannered accountant. He was Clark Kent without the Superman.

The twitch faded and left his muscle feeling comfortably numb.