Deborah gave her boyfriend a lustful look as she took his hands from across the sink and started rubbing them with soap. He let her play with his digits as he pressed his groin up against the big metal basin in the hope of stopping his quickly emerging erection. She pulled his hands under the tap, and when she had washed off all the chemicals she quickly popped his middle finger in her mouth, groaning in illicit pleasure.
   The two medical students at the University of Edinburgh had a short glance to make sure they were alone in the scrubbing area, and quickly exchanged a kiss. Then Deborah handed Ewan two plastic robes and after he had put on his own he walked over to his girlfriend and slipped the gown over her head. He grabbed hold of her buttocks and gave them a firm squeeze before he tied the strings behind her back. They kissed again, more passionately this time, their hands running down one another.
   Ewan picked up their tools and two pairs of goggles before following Deborah to the double doors. She was seductively swinging her hips as she tied her long dark hair back into a ponytail. Theatrically she put her hands on the doors and flung them open to reveal the dark room on the other side. She felt along the wall and flicked on the lights. The theatre was completely empty save the gurney and the body on it.
   Both the second years pulled on their thick rubber gloves and inspected their subject. "He doesn't look very dead," observed Deborah, poking the ribcage. Her lover shrugged as he laid out their instruments. "We'll soon change that," he predicted. In front of them lay a young man, about their age, unwashed and without clothing, unless you counted the tag dangling from his left big toe. Ewan looked him up and down pensively. "So," he asked his girlfriend, "where do we start?"
   "I always have trouble with the intravenous injections," she replied, "so hand me that stuff over there." He passed her a wee bottle and she pricked the syringe through the foil. Slowly pulling back the plunger she cast a quick look at Ewan, who was watching her intently. She pulled the needle out, and grabbed hold of the man's wrist. Carefully she took aim, thrust, and missed. "That's muscle," Ewan pointed out, casually leaning on the body's chest. "I know," retorted his girlfriend, retracting the syringe before pushing it back into the arm. "Muscle again," she was informed.
   When she had managed to inject the subject on the table properly they focused their attention on the rest of their body. Ewan decided to remove his appendix, while Deborah chose to focus on the groin area. Carefully Ewan made the incision, and a trickle of blood ran down to the metal underneath. Very slowly it ran down the slope and into the small drain at the foot end of the table. Intrigued he poked around in the hole he had created, but he could see absolutely nothing. He put down the probe and instead thrust three of his fingers in. He used such force it seemed like the whole body twitched.
   After rummaging around for a while he could only conclude the reason he couldn't find what he was looking for was that this man's appendix had already been removed. "Bollocks," he exclaimed. His girlfriend giggled. "Bollocks indeed." Proudly she held up the scrotum, which she had removed with great accuracy. She dangled it up and down like she expected it to jingle. "Maybe I could use this as a purse," she suggested, looking down into the opening at the top and slipping in two fingers to remove the severed testicles one by one. Fascinated Ewan watched his girlfriend fumbling around in another man's ball bag and dropping the testes in a bucket. It looked strangely sexy.
   "It still feels a bit odd," said Deborah as she wiped the blood from the legs and began to inspect the penis. "We are supposed to practise on complete strangers aren't we?" Both of them stared at the face of the man that used to sit right behind them during lectures. Always the most dedicated student of all, and always top of the class, it was only fitting he would end up on the table himself, but hardly normal procedure.
   Deborah held up the penis with her left hand. "I don't care how clever; nobody was going to be impressed with that," she stated while pointing at the member with her bloody scalpel. "Let's dissect it." It took quite some effort to slice through it using only the small scalpel, but they felt using a bigger knife would ruin their chances of cutting it exactly along the urinary tract, as it always appeared on charts.
   When they had worked their way all the way down to the pubic bone they separated the two halves and let them rest on either thigh. "It looks a bit like a flower. One of those flesh eating ones, ready to pounce," thought Deborah. She smiled such a broad smile it stirred her boyfriend. He leaned forward over the body and touched her face to kiss her. As their lips touched he left a streak of blood on her cheek and chin.
   "You look like an Indian," he pointed out when he had leant back. She tried to wipe it off with her sleeve, but only smeared it out more. Ewan noted it didn't look bad on her at all. Then he looked back at the bloody crotch in front of him. "It's a good thing he doesn't feel anything," he said. Deborah agreed. "Well, nearly nothing anyway. I didn't want to give him too much drugs in case he would die on us."
   The two lovers stepped up towards the top end of the table. Deborah used her bloodied hands to smoothen out the grey duct tape across their fellow student's mouth. Terrified he stared from her to Ewan and back. Once again he tried to pull himself free from his restraints, but to no avail. A faint squeal emerged from his throat but was largely muffled by the rag and tape used as a gag. "Shush," ordered Deborah. A petrified whimper that could easily have been a plea for mercy had it not been stifled erupted. All of a sudden he didn't seem so big and clever any more. Tears were flowing down his face and ran down the table to join the blood down the sinkhole.
   Ewan stared at his watch. "We have about three quarters of an hour before people start coming in. What do you want to do?" Deborah looked her victim over, and tried to remember what he had last done better than she had in anatomy. She pointed at his chest. "I want to try some open heart surgery. Hand me that chisel over there."