Bonus chapter: In which the author promises no more flashbacks for a while

Dave Sterling never really wanted to specialise in emergency medicine. He’s always been interested in surgery, and until midway through his internship, that’s what he thought he’d do. But surgical residencies are highly competitive, as it turned out, and there were other young doctors, with more advanced skills and better resumes, who beat him to the few available places.

It’s not so bad, his second-choice placement. He’s happy enough in emergency now, in his second year of residency, and expecting to start his specialist training next year as an emergency registrar. There’s not too much overtime, and once in a while he gets to perform minor procedures.

This morning he’s being given his first small group of medical students to supervise. They’re third-years, about a year and a half from graduation. Some of them will have spent time at this hospital already, but most have probably been placed elsewhere for their previous rotations. They will be assigned to Dave for two daytime shifts a week for the rest of the semester. He’s already decided he’ll call the students Doctor, like he’s heard some of the older specialists doing.

He meets the group for the first time at ten o’clock. Christ, he feels like a fraud; barely out of uni himself, really, and he’s supposed to teach these kids? He takes a few deep breaths to calm himself and hopes his nervousness doesn’t show.

He looks over the eight students and decides they don’t seem too threatening so far. They mostly look about his age, probably in their mid-twenties, except for one guy who might be a decade older.

“Well,” says Dave, “First things first: I’m Dave Sterling. I’m an emergency resident, and I’ll be supervising your rotation here. Who’s been placed in this hospital already?

Three hands go hesitantly up.

“Okay,” he nods. “Most of you don’t know the place, then, so let’s start with the cafeteria. Anyone not drink coffee?”

No hands go up. Exactly what you’d expect from students.

“Well, let’s all go and have a coffee together,” he says. “I need to learn all your names, and you guys can ask me any questions you have so far.”

Dave is still pretty nervous but thinks he’s hiding it decently. He has no idea how charming he actually is, with his outwardly easy manner and his lopsided grin. Five of the students already have the beginnings of a crush on him, including one straight guy, who will be mildly troubled when he realises it.

They take a long table in the cafeteria and chat over their coffees. Dave makes a note of all their names and vows to use a mnemonic trick he’s read about to remember them all. The bespectacled Indian woman is Linda, and the short pale one with red glasses is Lucinda; he must try not to mix them up.

“Call me Lucy,” says Lucinda.

“Okay,” says Dave, writing it down. He thinks she looks like she’s blushing lightly among her freckles. He guesses the students might be as nervous as he is after all.

After taking some time for introductions, Dave escorts his students to the emergency department. He leaves half of them with Kelly, the new triage nurse, to learn about admissions, and takes the rest with him to an exam room to observe some consults. In the afternoon they’ll swap over.

Their first patient is a man with abdominal pain. He’s already been medicated by the paramedics, so he doesn’t seem to be in serious pain, but needs to be assessed and possibly admitted.

“Hi, Trevor,” Dave greets him as he checks the chart. “I’m Dr Sterling. These guys are student doctors – is it all right if they observe while I check you over?”

Trevor nods. “Fine,” he says.

Dave asks him a couple of questions about the pain and his medical history, and shows the students the clinical measurements the nurses have noted on the chart. He looks to the one with the freckles – Lucy – and says, “What would you check next, Dr Proctor?”

Lucy blushes again and looks startled. “Um, I’d ask about recent diet and, um, bowel motions,” she manages.

“Good,” says Dave. He asks the patient and makes the relevant notes on his chart. “What now, Dr Benson?” he asks another student, shifting the focus from Lucy, who looks flustered.

“Visually examine and palpate the abdomen,” suggests Benson.

“Excellent,” says Dave. He asks Benson to do so, and talks him through it.

It’s a fairly straightforward case of probable appendicitis. Dave shows the group how to order an x-ray to confirm, while cautioning that an inflamed appendix might not show on a plain scan. “But unless we see something else,” he says, “the next step is a laparotomy to remove the appendix.”

Dave authorises the admission and tells the students to take a five minute break. He quietly asks Lucy to wait when the others go.

“Are you all right?” he asks. “You seemed upset in there.”

Lucy looks at her shoes. “Fine,” she replies. “I’m sorry about that.”

Dave is still a little concerned. “You’re sure?” he prompts.

Lucy looks sheepishly up at him. “I’d just never heard my name out loud like that before – Doctor Proctor! Ridiculous!”

Bonus chapter: In which girlfriends eat out

“You’ll never guess what I got to see in gynaecology.”

Kelly raises her eyebrows and draws on her cigarette. “You’ll see plenty of them before your rotation’s over, newbie,” she tells me.

I blush. “No, not a… not that,” I say. “Actually, it was amazing! This woman with a pelvic mass – it’s an ectopic pregnancy that calcified. Huge! They’re taking it out tomorrow. I might get to scrub in and assist.”

Kelly’s eyes widen a bit as she exhales smoke. “Oh, shit!” she says. “That’s awesome. Won’t see better than that, maybe ever.”

“I know,” I agree wryly, buttoning my jacket against the cool night air. Kelly finishes her cigarette and we walk away from the hospital building to the car park.

“Is your car near here?” I ask.

She snorts. “Yeah, in the special nurses’ parks, right next to the doctors. How long have you been here?”

I shrug. “All I know is there’s no reserved spots for interns,” I say. “I get the train, or I park three or four blocks away if I drive.”

“There you go,” she says.

The car is not too far: it’s three blocks. We’ve both just done a ten-hour shift on our feet anyway, so I’m not too upset about the walk. Kelly and I have chatted a few times since I started working on her floor a couple of weeks ago. I haven’t made many friends at the hospital yet, so I was pleased when she offered to give me a ride home tonight.

“So where are we going for dinner?” says Kelly as she starts the car.

“Dinner?”

“Yeah,” she says. “I’m not just driving you home this early.” She winks.

“It’s after one,” I mumble, blushing again. Stop it, I scold myself. I haven’t had a date in months, and my legs are unshaved, but I could stop acting like an idiot.

We go through a drive-through and get some burgers. Kelly suggests we go somewhere else to eat them. The streets are quiet this late on a weeknight. While we drive I pick at some fries from the paper sack.

“Oh, they smell great,” Kelly almost moans.

I feel a little thrill of excitement at her voice. Quickly, before I can change my mind, I grab a couple of fries and hold them up for her to eat as she drives.

“Thanks,” she says, eating the fries from my fingers.

“So what’s the place you wanted to show me?” I ask, trying to keep my voice even.

“It’s a lookout up near my place,” she says. “You can see all the way to the city.”

“Sounds pretty,” I say, eating another couple of fries.

It’s not far to the lookout, and it is pretty. We’re somewhere out near Mount Gravatt, I think. We stop in the parking area at the top of a hill. There’s another car parked at the other end; I can’t see if anyone’s inside.

“Isn’t this nice?” says Kelly. She takes a scrunchy from her pocket to tie back her blonde hair, before taking her chicken burger and one of the bags of fries from the sack on my lap.

“Yeah,” I agree softly. I unwrap my meatless cheeseburger and start eating. I’m glad they remembered to make it right.

“It’s a romantic spot,” I venture.

“I guess,” Kelly says indifferently, around a mouthful of food. “Ben brought me up here once. Might have been our first or second date.”

That’s a weird thing to mention on a date.

“Ex?” I ask.

“Current,” she says.

“Oh, sorry,” I say hastily.

“S’arright,” she says, finishing her burger and balling up the wrapper.

I pretend to be very interested in my remaining fries, hoping she can’t see my mortified expression in the dark.

Kelly belches. That confirms it: this is definitely not a date.

“This shitty greasy food always clogs me up the next day,” she says.

I laugh. “Get a fibre supplement,” I say.

“I will,” she says. “Let’s call it a night, yeah?”

We do.

Bonus chapter: In which bodies are uncovered

I usually feel self-conscious about how my complexion looks under fluorescent lights, but right now it’s not foremost in my mind. I’m still getting used to the smell of formaldehyde in here, and I’m a bit grossed out by the implications of the bug zapper lights.

“Welcome to your first lab session for Human Dissection,” says the professor, voice echoing off the tiled walls.

I quietly note that the class is actually now called Biomedical Anatomy, but the professor looks like she might have been teaching it for a long time. I recognise her as the same teacher who takes the lectures for this class. Her short, steely hair gives her a slightly stern appearance.

As she announces the mandatory health and safety stuff (here there be scalpels, so wear closed shoes) I glance around at my classmates. They are all wearing gloves and clean lab coats like mine. I know a couple of people from my other subjects, but most are new faces to me. This is a final-year undergraduate class, so I suppose everyone here is serious about studying anatomy; probably most are aiming for entry to graduate medical degrees.

I’ve registered to sit the admissions test myself. It’s in a few weeks, and lately I feel increasingly like my head might implode from the stress of studying for that as well as my exams. Assuming my scores are good enough, I’ll be applying for medical school here in Brisbane. The next closest graduate program is way out at the University of New England, which I guess will be my back-up school. I’d rather not have to move, though, so I’m studying as much as I can to try and get in at UQ.

“Has anyone not seen a cadaver before?” asks the professor. “A body?”

About half the people in the lab raise their hands. I hesitate for a moment before raising mine. I’ve seen, well, parts, preserved and displayed in the anatomy and pathology museums. But I’ve never actually seen a dead body as such.

We are shown to a steel table, covered with a sheet, at the back of the lab. There’s obviously a cadaver underneath. The professor talks about respecting the bodies, the donors, and I realise I feel just a little anxious. I’ve overcome my squeamishness before to dissect organs in other classes, but this is different.

“The bodies do have genitals,” the professor says. “Please be adults.” She repeats her earlier warning that anyone showing disrespect will be asked to leave the lab. She removes the sheet, and then we’re standing around the table looking at a naked dead man.

He’s sort of fat. Skin discoloured. I’m mildly surprised to notice there’s still hair on the body, although I suppose there’s no reason why there wouldn’t be.

I look around again at the rest of the student group. A few people have gone a bit pale, and I think one has left. I feel all right; maybe the butterflies in my stomach were just excitement. I am looking forward to seeing what I’ve learned from my anatomy books in a real body.

The professor answers a few questions from the class. Someone asks about how people come to donate their bodies to the university. I hadn’t even thought of that.

“The anatomy school has a register of people who have volunteered as potential donors,” she tells us. “Mostly alumni or other people closely involved with the school. Once they die, as long as it’s in Brisbane, we’re notified. The school can only use bodies under certain circumstances, of course. Sometimes the body is not in a condition to use for teaching, depending on the cause of death.”

Everyone looks very serious now. The lab tutors divide us into small groups and assign us to our tables.

“Four students to a table,” says the professor. “You’ll take turns dissecting. You may take off the sheets when you’re ready.”

We introduce ourselves and I try to commit to memory the names of the others in my group.

“Brisbane is a small city,” the professor says. “We have had the situation before where a student has known someone whose body was being used in this class. So, if you should happen to recognise your cadaver, please tell your tutor.”

A couple of quiet, uneasy giggles go around the lab.

I clear my throat softly. “Okay,” I say, picking up a corner of the sheet. “Let’s see who we’re working with this semester.”

Bonus chapter: In which that’s not how Lucy remembers it

Dave scratches Yoshimi behind the ear and pours her some more dry food. The little ginger cat face-plants into the bowl, crunching her food happily, as Dave leaves the apartment. Stepping out into the bright summer afternoon, he turns to look up and sees that she is now sitting in the kitchen window, peering down at the street.

“I wish she wouldn’t do that,” he says aloud. He’s not strictly allowed to have pets in the apartment. Yoshimi is meant to be a secret cat, but her favourite spots are the window sills, where she would be highly visible to anyone who cared to look.

He stops off at the liquor store on the corner, considering several options before settling on a six-pack of reasonable Dutch beer. It would be a nice afternoon for a bottle of white wine, but Klein invited him over for beers, and beers they shall have. He doesn’t want to send any wrong messages – aside from being her superior, he’s pretty sure that she’s dating Zhang.

He makes it about a block down the street, thinking about Klein and Zhang, before he stops again in front of one of the old heritage office buildings. He pointedly doesn’t think about the two of them for a minute, trying instead to be interested in some posters pasted to the brick wall, until his erection finally subsides and he can continue on his way.

As he walks, the plastic bag containing the beers seems to rapidly become heavier, and he realises he could just as easily have bought drinks closer to Klein’s building instead of carrying them all the way in the midday heat. He wipes at his brow and considers hailing a cab, then decides it’s too short a trip to bother. He can walk there in ten minutes anyway.

Klein buzzes him into the building. He’s glad there’s an elevator, grateful not to have to climb flights of stairs lugging the beers, which now feel like anvils in the carry bag. He notices the glass bottles are sweaty from being out in the heat. She opens the apartment door and takes the beers, which Dave suggests she put in the fridge to get cold again.

She looks gorgeous, even though she’s clearly just gotten out of bed. Her hair is tied up in a slightly dishevelled bun and there are traces of yesterday’s mascara smudged under her eyes, making her look kind of sultry. She’s wearing jeans and an old Nirvana shirt. The outfit hides her figure, which he forces himself to stop thinking about as she turns back around, handing him a cold beer from the fridge.

He takes a long sip and moves into the living room – which is pretty much the same room as the kitchen in Klein’s place – meaning to sit down on the sofa. She beats him to it and he awkwardly turns to the television instead, checking out the DVDs in the cabinet alongside it. He’s been here a few times, and they’ve sat together on the little two-seater couch before, but his thoughts have got him a bit flustered today. He hopes she doesn’t notice.

“By the way,” says Klein, “see these flowers?”

Dave turns and sees that she’s gesturing to a small bunch of roses in a glass vase on the table by the sofa. Not sure where she’s going with this, he nods.

Klein mumbles something that sounds like “good”.

He’s even less sure what she’s getting at. “Are you trying to tell me something?” he asks, at a loss. He wonders if it’s something about Zhang.

Klein looks upset. “I actually thought they might have been a hallucination,” she says, taking a nervous little sip of her beer.

Dave raises his eyebrows and waits for her to explain. He’s pretty sure she isn’t the type of doctor who would be using any kind of drugs. It occurs to him that if that is what’s going on, though, he’ll have to report her.

“I don’t know where the damn things came from,” she says with a tired little shrug. “I was afraid I might have… imagined them.”

He watches her, taking this in, and decides she doesn’t look guilty about it, as he would imagine she would if she had been using anything. She just looks exhausted. She was on the long shift this weekend, and probably tired as all hell when she came home – not to mention stressed over that patient she was getting so attached to. Zhang sent her flowers, or maybe she bought them herself, and she’s just gotten herself mixed up about it.

“It’s okay,” he says. “Did you find them in here?”

Klein blushes a bit and tells him the flowers were in her bedroom when she got home from the weekend shift.

“Well,” he says, “I guess unless… someone else” – he stops himself from mentioning Zhang by name – “has a key, maybe you brought them in yourself, and forgot.”

Klein tilts her head a tiny bit as she thinks about it. Dave smiles; it’s adorable.

“How tired were you after the weekend shift?” he asks gently.

She rubs her eyes, then takes a big drink of her beer. “I guess pretty tired,” she admits, running a hand over her hair, tucking a stray curl behind her ear.

He crosses the room and sits down next to her. Feeling a bit self-conscious, he tries to sit up against the sofa arm instead of pressing against her side. He tells her something about the long hours getting to everybody, something reassuring about being there for her, then he gets up again to fetch another beer before he can say anything stupid.

The beers he brought are cold enough now, so he grabs one for each of them before returning to the living room. He puts a DVD in the player without paying much attention to what it is, then sits back down next to Klein and opens his beer. He’s glad he brought the six-pack; her taste in beer is awful, though he’d never tell her that.

Bonus chapter: In which taking drugs is hard to do

I’m lying on my side on the big old sofa in my little apartment. My belly cramps again and I put a hand to my abdomen, wincing. I took an anti-emetic tablet a while ago but it still hasn’t kicked in yet. My stomach lurches sickly and I reach miserably for the bucket on the floor.

I called in sick this morning for the first time in more than a year. It’s not looked on kindly for students to take many sick days, but there was no way I could go in to the hospital like this. I should be all right again by tomorrow.

I glance up at the clock on the microwave in my kitchenette. It’s been almost twelve hours since my first dose; as soon as my stomach settles I’ll need to take the second. At least I’m just retching over the bucket now, and not bringing anything up.

This wouldn’t be happening if I could just remember to take the pills when I’m supposed to, but I have the worst goddamn memory. And of course on Friday night I didn’t remember to take additional precautions until it was too late.

I sit up and take the box of pills from the coffee table. I count out the six pills onto the table and take out another anti-emetic as well. I get to my feet and cross the room to grab a bottle of water from the little bar fridge. I sit heavily back down on the sofa and start taking the pills.

I set the box of contraceptive pills down on top of the anti-emetics. My mouth feels dry but I resist the urge to drink down the whole bottle of water, knowing my stomach is still a bit uneasy. I don’t want to lose the dose I’ve just taken.

This is a pretty horrible ordeal, and I’ll be happy if I never have to go through it again. It’s a necessary ordeal, though. I’m graduating in a couple of months, and next year I’ll be starting out as an intern. There’s no room for pregnancy in my immediate future.

I remember one of the older doctors at the hospital once mentioned that she had her son when she was in medical school, and he had to sleep in a suitcase or something. I can’t imagine keeping it together through a pregnancy, let alone actually raising a child. I couldn’t risk having to defer my internship – assuming that would even be an option. Once I finish university my student payments will stop, and I can barely pay the rent on this tiny place as it is.

No, this was definitely the only thing to do. And it’s not an abortion, not really, not this early.

I lean back against the thin sofa cushions, sipping my water and putting a hand across my belly as another strong cramp pulls at my insides. I’ll need to go to the bathroom and get a fresh pad soon.

One of the lecturers at uni has been calling all of us “doctor” since first year. Soon, though, I’ll actually be a doctor officially. A real doctor. Dr Klein, I think to myself with a little smile. It feels like forever since I started medical school, and finally graduation is so close. I just have to get through my final exams next month.

And today… today, I just have to get through this. I’ll be all right again by tomorrow.

Bonus chapter: In which the lead-up to Josie’s phone message is revealed

“Lye,” says Jo over the phone. “You can dissolve bodies with lye, right?” She laughs. “Yeah, I don’t know where to buy it anyway,” she adds. There’s a knock at the door. “I’ll call you back, Hayley,” she says.

Josie hangs up the cordless phone as the door opens and her mother stalks into her bedroom without waiting to be invited.

“I told you to clean up this pigsty, Josephine,” she says, glaring.

“I did,” frowns Josie. She feels her shoulders tense and knows another headache is coming. Just great.

Her mother runs a disapproving finger along the top edge of the light switch. “You haven’t dusted,” she says, holding up her fingertip as evidence.

“Fine,” says Jo. “I’ll dust.”

“And if you’re looking for something to do, you still haven’t taken out the recycling.”

“I’m really not looking for something to do,” she says, gritting her teeth. “I was hoping to relax for a couple of hours before I have to go to work tonight.”

“You can’t just sit around the house forever,” says her mother.

With great restraint, and hoping to avoid an argument, Josie just says, “Okay, Mum.”

Her mother strides across the room to Jo’s bookshelf and, with an air of finality, pushes the books and plastic globe from the top shelf onto the floor. “You clean up this mess before you do anything else,” she says. She leaves and closes the door behind her.

Josie stands alone again in her bedroom, eyes narrowed with anger. She realises her hands are balled up into fists and relaxes them with effort, revealing pale crescents where her fingernails have cut painfully into her palms.

Her head is already beginning to throb. She grabs her canvas shoulder bag and looks through it for some painkillers.

“I wish she’d keep taking the damn Zoloft,” Josie mutters to herself. She dry swallows a couple of ibuprofen capsules and makes a face.

While she sits on the bed rubbing her temples, she hears the car pull into the downstairs garage. Good, she thinks, at least he’s come home tonight. Maybe I can get a lift to work instead of riding the bus.

The front door slams. Josie winces as the shouting between her parents begins – or, perhaps more accurately, resumes.

This is a miserable goddamn place to be stuck. At least university is starting in a couple of months, so between classes and work she should have an excuse to spend more time out of the house and away from all this.

Jo spent a large part of her childhood hoping she had been adopted, but a bit of research a few years ago put an end to that fantasy. Both she and her sister definitely somehow came from the psychos downstairs.

She sighs heavily. Her eyes start to fill with tears again and she swipes angrily at them with her palms. Don’t cry, don’t cry… the harsh voice echoes from her memory, Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.

Josie scowls and begins picking up her things from the floor, remembering to wipe the top of the bookshelf free of dust with a tissue before setting them down. By the time she’s done she feels a tiny bit better – more exhausted now than upset.

I just might kill them for real if I don’t get out of here, she thinks tiredly. She grabs the phone and dials a number from memory.

“Hey, Lucy…”

Bonus Chapter

In which western Queensland is the ninth circle of hell

I struggle out of the car with my suitcase and duffel bag, carefully checking my front pocket again to be sure the bus ticket is still there. Mum gets out of the driver’s seat and leans around my baggage to give me a sort of stiff, awkward hug about the shoulders.

The passenger side door flies open and my little sister hops out, dark braids flipping as she runs over to hug me tightly around the hips. I squat down a bit and kiss her on the top of the head. She sticks out her tongue at this, but she’s smiling.

The bus has arrived, but the driver has gotten out and is sitting in the shade of the open luggage compartment, lighting a cigarette, so there’s no hurry just yet.

“All ready for the big trip?” asks Mum. She’s totally dry-eyed and sounds as though she could be asking about the weather.

I nod, my mind elsewhere. Josie has taken my duffel bag and is lugging it double-handed toward the bus for me She’s the only thing I’ll miss when I’m at uni. Maybe she can come and stay with me sometimes, on her school holidays or something.

I squint against the bright morning sun and set my suitcase down to retrieve my sunglasses. I certainly won’t miss these stupid dry, dusty summers.

Mum gives me another, slightly more convincing, hug, and presses a couple of hundred dollar notes into my hand. “That’s for your textbooks,” she says. Muttering thanks, I tuck the money into the back pocket of my jeans I’m pretty sure textbooks for my first semester will cost more than that, but it’s about two hundred dollars more than I expected to get.

I’ll start receiving student payments now that I’m officially living away from my parents, and that will cover the cost of my accommodation and meals in the campus residential college. I’ve saved up a little extra money from working in the local supermarket over the summer, but I guess soon enough I’ll have to find some kind of part-time job near uni if I want to keep myself in books and stationery. It might be nice to have a budget for entertainment, too; according to the university web site, there’s even a cinema on campus! I’m not used to being able to see a movie without driving an hour to the nearest cinemas.

“Call me when you get there,” says Mum, getting back into the car and winding down a window. “Josephine!” she shouts with a tap of the horn.

Josie drops my bag by the bus and runs back over. She gives me another big hug, then takes a slightly crumpled piece of folded paper from the pocket of her overalls and hands it to me. “I made this for you,” she says quietly.

It’s a card, the type kids make. Two crayon figures on the front, one with black pigtails and the other with long reddish-brown hair, are holding hands under a big smiling sun. On the inside, Josie has written “I LOVE YOU” in big colourful letters.

It’s so adorable, it’s all I can do not to burst into tears. I catch her in a bear hug and kiss her on the head again. “I love you too, chicken,” I tell her, carefully tucking the card into an outer pocket of the suitcase. “I’ll call you from Brisbane tonight,” I add.

Josie gets back into the car, and I pick up my suitcase and take it over to be stowed under the bus, along with my duffel bag As I get onto the bus I hear my mother loudly saying, “No, we can’t have lunch! Twelve o’clock is lunch time, and it’s only eleven thirty!”

I frown as I take my seat near the front of the mostly-empty bus and unwind the headphones for my walkman, settling down for the three-hour ride ahead. My poor sister has another nine years before she’ll be able to escape this.

As the bus pulls away, I take one last look out the window and hope to God I never have to come back to this town again.

Bonus Chapter

In which we go back about eight years

I roll over in bed, stretching in the warm sun coming through the blinds, and lazily glance at my watch. It’s early afternoon, still giving me heaps of time until my lab this evening.

My discarded clothes are in a rough pile on the floor where I tossed them earlier, my khaki backpack slung over the back of the desk chair across the room. My second-hand chemistry textbook lies unopened on the desk.

Sitting at the desk, typing on a bulky laptop, is a tall, dark-skinned woman, naked but for a pair of tiny cotton boxer shorts. The light coloured fabric contrasts with her brown skin and somehow accentuates her nudity.

I rake my fingers through my short cropped hair and stretch again, arching my back with a big yawn.

She stops typing to twist around in the chair and face me. “Finally awake,” she says with a smile. “Did I wear you out that much?”

I return the smile and make a little contented sound. “Mm, that totally made up for the early morning start for class, Lani,” I say, my smile broadening into a slightly dopey grin.

Lani stands up from the desk and gets back into bed with me. I scoot over a little so we can both fit on the narrow single mattress.

“Getting up for an eight o’clock class is not a big deal for most people who live on campus,” she teases. She turns over and snuggles back into me, her butt softly pressing against my belly.

The room is quiet for a while. All I can hear, apart from our breathing, are a few muffled voices through the walls and carrying up from the courtyard below my window.

I wrap my free arm around Lani’s waist as we spoon. I idly remember a couple of hours ago when I came back up to my room after morning classes. Lani had been waiting for me, with flowers and a paper bag of “supplies” from a store off campus. I feel myself flush a bit at the memory, and without thinking about it I slide my hand upward to cup her breast again.

Her nipple hardens beneath my touch and I press myself closer, running my fingers over her breasts as I kiss the back of her neck. She moans gently, and I’m suddenly a lot more awake again.

I draw back a bit to allow Lani to roll onto her back as I reach for the little tube of strawberry lubricant on the shelf over the bed, before settling down between her thighs to practice some of the skills I was introduced to this morning.

We get a bus into the city to spend a little time before I have to be back at uni for my biology lab. Lani and I hold hands most of the way, and a couple of times I give her a shy look that I hope comes across as sexy.

Our destination is a tattoo and piercing parlour tucked away in a street behind the mall.

“I’m not sure what I want done,” I tell Lani. “I love body piercing, and I guess I can finally do it now that I’m living far away from the parental units.”

She snickers a bit at this, then rolls her eyes thoughtfully. “What about your boobs?” she suggests, grabbing me and squeezing my nipples through my T-shirt.

I gasp with equal parts pleasure and embarrassment, blushing furiously as I look around to make sure we aren’t horrifying any passers-by. “Yeah, maybe I could get a nipple ring,” I reply in an excited whisper.

Finally we enter the store to pick out jewellery. I select a plain silver hoop with a ball closure while Lani speaks to the heavily-tattooed blonde woman behind the counter.

Before I know it the three of us are in a curtained-off little room, and I’m up on what looks like a dentist’s chair while Lani holds my shirt. I’m a little self conscious about the bite mark visible on my right breast, but neither of them mention it.

The blonde woman begins cleaning my nipple with a sterile wipe, and to my mortification the action is massively arousing. Again, both women are polite enough not to say anything as I feel my cheeks get hot and my nipples become erect.

I try to maintain a calm façade while the woman wipes my nipple for what seems like an outrageously long time, excitement building inside me until I feel like I can’t take it any more. Eventually she stops and tosses the used wipe in the garbage bin. I’m just getting my breath back when her gloved hand returns with a small clamp and secures it firmly on my nipple.

I can’t help it… I give a shaky little moan and come in my pants, right there in the chair. I notice Lani is now blushing.

Just as I come, the needle slides through the clamp and into my flesh, making me gasp. In a matter of seconds the apparatus is removed and my new ring is in place.

I rather carefully put my shirt back on before following the piercer to the counter to pay. She gives me some aftercare instructions for the piercing, and otherwise we all avoid mentioning anything of what transpired.

As we leave the store, Lani leans in close to me so I can feel her breath hot in my ear. “That was quite a show,” she whispers.

We get the next bus back to uni. We sit alone near the back, with Lani’s hands surreptitiously inside my clothes all the way there.