Part 1 - A Friends Favour

Justin glanced down again at the clock on the dashboard of this SUV. A mixture of frustration and disbelief washing over him as the minutes ticked by. It was 10 minutes to midnight; he was going to be late.

Traffic had been a nightmare. A traffic jam, caused by some kind multiple-car pileup just had to occur during his drive. It seemed fate was determined to ruin his long-awaited reunion with Sarah.

Finally, as he pulled into the hospital's deserted parking lot at 12:07pm, it felt like landing on the moon. The hospital building loomed large and imposing in the night, its plate-glass windows casting eerie reflections of the sleeping city.

As Justin walked through the automatic sliding door and stepped into the sterile lobby, the silence was almost deafening. No after-hours emergency service here, apparently. The place was empty and completely quiet, save for the faint hum of the air conditioning. Had he missed her?

Suddenly, he heard the quiet sound of footsteps, behind a set of automatic double doors on one aside of the lobby. Written on them it said “Authorized Hospital Personnel Only”, in bold red letters. Justin’s heart pounded in his chest as he walked a little toward them, for some reason, the time and setting made him feel nervous.

The double doors opened and a figure emerged from the shadowy hallway beyond; relief washed over Justin instantly, as he recognized Sarah. "You made it, Justin," Sarah said, her voice soft and happy but pitched low in the lobby area.

She was a cute petite brunette about 5’6” with an impressive chest and butt. He smiled; she looked just like Justin remembered. Except now, she was dressed differently. She was clad in full dark green scrubs, with a bright white lab coat open at the front. Her pretty face was scrubbed clean, save for a tired but excited and welcoming smile.

"Please come in; this way," she said with a happy smile, gesturing for him to follow. With a mix of excitement and nervousness, Justin followed Sarah through the still open double doors and down the dimly lit the hallway. As they went through the doors, they slowly closed, finally closing with a boom that felt quite unsettling to Justin. But he dismissed the feeling, and quickened his pace to follow Sarah.

This hospital at night felt very different than he’d expected. It held a kind of allure; a calm sterile setting. But also was a place of unsettling fear, after all, all sorts of things can happen at a hospital. He hurried to keep up.

They arrived at a secluded, dead-end corner, and Sarah turned to face him. Her eyes sparkled with a mix of excitement and exhaustion.

Suddenly, she jumped forward, throwing her arms around his neck. “Thank you so much for meeting me here, Justin! I know it was a big ask, and it’s so late, but it’s really nice to see you,” she said, beaming as she pulled back.

Justin felt his face flush in the dim light. Sarah had always been very, well, busty, and her tight hug had highlighted just how perky and nicely filled out her breast were. He tried not to think about it, but… he had been thinking about it all night already. No, longer than all night; he’d had a big crush on her since college.

“Hey, we haven’t seen each other since that trivia night nine months ago at the Green Dragons Cauldron, right?” he said, hoping his face wasn’t too obviously red. “I wanted to catch up! Plus, your text was so vague about meeting at the hospital tonight. What’s this all about?”

Sarah smiled, a little mischievously. “Yeah, sorry about that, Justin. It’s just… I have a kind of strange favor to ask, and I didn’t want to ask over text.”

She hesitated, pretending to be nervous. “Can you be my practice patient tonight?”

“Your what?” Justin replied, taken aback.

“Practice patient, Justin,” Sarah said with mock nervousness. After how he’d reacted to the hug, she was certain Justin would agree. She clasped her hands behind her back, in a way that would stick out her ample chest. Justin tried not to stare at how incredible she looked.

“I’m a surgical nurse Justin, pretty new at it actually, and I need more practice prepping patients for surgery,” she said. “It’ll be just pretend, and I’d be very… grateful. Come on,” she said.

“I… I mean, sure,” he stammered, watching her ponytail swish as she turned and led him down another dim corridor. Her white lab coat billowed slightly behind her as she moved swiftly, and he found himself wondering what exactly she had in mind. But, of course, he had to go along with this for now. It might be odd, but he had an ulterior motive. He’d come for a chance to finally ask her out, and needed the right moment.

The hospital was a maze of halls, and Justin quickly lost track of the turns they took. Eventually, they arrived at a set of double doors with a keypad and card reader. Sarah swiped her badge and entered a code, and the doors swung open, to reveal a room marked “Surgical OR Prep Area #5”.

“Come on, Justin, don’t slow down. We’re almost there,” she said, gesturing for him to follow her inside.

The prep room looked like it hadn’t seen much use recently. Boxes of medical supplies were piled here and there, and the air held a faint, stale scent. They passed three dark alcoves, empty except for random loose medical equipment. Sarah led him to the last curtained alcove, near the back of the room. The lights above this section were on, above a white gurney, with a neatly folded blue hospital gown on top. Next to the gurney, a computer terminal glowed.

“Please put your clothes and belongings in this bag,” she ordered, handing him a clear plastic bag. “Then put the gown on and lie down on the gurney.”

“Wait, what? Seriously, Sarah?” he asked, eyeing her skeptically. “Is all this really necessary?”

Sarah turned to look at him, a playful glint in her eyes. “Obviously, Justin, you’ll need to take off everything. Be naked, even,” she added, with a sly smile and a wink. “You need to be exactly like a regular patient going into the OR. Trust me; it’ll be fun.”

Quickly bending down to remove his shoes to hide his flushed cheeks, Justin muttered, “Alright, alright.”

“I’ll get you in the system properly, while you do that,” she said, pulling the curtain halfway closed to give him a bit of privacy. He could hear her typing on the computer terminal.

Justin looked at the bag in his hands, and down at the gurney. Was he really doing this? Of course he was. He couldn’t tell Sarah to stop at this point. He couldn’t.

“Hey Justin, could you verify your birthday for me?” Sarah asked from the other side of the curtain. Justin told her, then took took a deep breath, and started to strip off his clothing. He was doing this he wanted to ask Sarah out, and maybe this would be a funny story later they would laugh about.

He took his phone, car keys & wallet from his pockets, then his pants, shirt, boxers… everything went into the plastic bag. He noticed a label on the bag; his name neatly printed on a label along with the birthday he’d just confirmed. It also had today’s date, a barcode and the name of a doctor he had never heard of. Justin did find that mildly odd, but he was standing here naked to ask a girl out.

He put the bag on the corner of the gurney. Justin picked up the folded blue paper gown from the gurney; it was the classic pale medical color that these gowns always were. “Same as the doctor’s office,” he mumbled to himself.

The flimsy paper gown almost ripped as Justin unfolded it, its formless long shape barely covering his manhood. It wasn’t easy to get his arms in it properly, and as he struggled, Sarah asked him more questions. When had he last eaten? Did he have any allergies? Any major medical problems? Finally, he got the gown on.

“Have you had any previous… have you had any major surgeries?” Sarah asked. “No, nothing,” Justin replied. He climbed awkwardly onto the gurney, putting the plastic bag with all his stuff at his feet. He tried his best to adjust the gown such that it provided at least some modesty as he lay back on the bed.

Just a few moments later, Sarah pulled the curtain fully open again. “Wonderful,” smiling warmly as she fastened a small, plastic ID bracelet around Justin’s left wrist. He could see it matched his belongs bag barcode but had no name “You look just like a real patient now.”

Sarah wheeled over a nearby medical supply cart, and quickly snapped on a pair of purple nitrile gloves. She grabbed a stethoscope from the cart.

“Okay, Justin,” she said sweetly. “Take a deep breath, please.”

Without warning, she slid her hand under the paper gown, and pressed the stethoscope to his chest. The cold bell made him shiver.

“Don’t worry, Justin,” she whispered into his ear with a soft, seductive tone as the stethoscope moved to several points on his chest. “You’re in safe hands. I’ll take very special care of you.”

He shivered again, hoping his face wasn’t too obviously red. Quickly, he shifted his legs to hide the swelling he could feel beginning below his waist.

Done with the stethoscope, she put it back on the cart, and retrieved a blood pressure cuff, which looked like it was connected to the computer.

“Now, left arm, please,” she requested.

She wrapped the cuff around his arm, and slid an oxygen sensor onto one of his fingers. She pushed a button on the computer, which began automatically taking his vitals, inflating and deflating the cuff.

As the computer finished its cursory vitals check, Sarah pulled the rolling metal cart to the other side of the gurney, turned and grabbed a few items he could not see from his prone position. A thin velcro tourniquet was fastened around his right arm, directly opposite the blood pressure cuff. Sarah quickly swabbed the inside of his elbow with alcohol; she was pleased to see his median cubital vein was big and juicy.

“You’ll feel a little pinch,” she said, purposefully giving him no time to question her, as she shoved a needle into his arm. “Hey!” he protested. “That’s a real needle, Sarah. Seriously?” Sarah quickly pushed the catheter into place, and pulled the needle out. “I told you this would be just like real OR prep,” she replied with a shrug. She taped the catheter in place with a large section of clear plastic from the cart.

Justin hadn’t expected this part to be real. “That hurt a little, Sarah. Why don’t you give people a little warning before you shove a giant needle into their arm?” he asked.

“We’re quick to keep patients from getting too anxious. And remember, I did tell you that I was going to prepare you just like I would for any other patient?”

“Yeah, you did, Sarah,” Justin replied, “but you didn’t give me any details! You just told me a few minutes ago, with no explanation of what that actually means, or what we’re doing. And it’s not like I’ve ever had surgery or studied medicine.”

He glanced down at the IV port taped to his arm. “I’ve never even had a catheter needle put in my arm before.”

“Hey, don’t worry. This is all part of the practice,” she reassured him. “And the hard part is already over.”

Then she giggled, looking amused. “Ohhh, so I’m your first? The first person to ever put a needle in your arm like that?”

Justin laughed despite the tension in the room, remembering why he was here. “Yes, Sarah. You’re the first cute nurse to ever do it.”

“Aww, you’re such a sweet talker, Justin,” she said with a grin. Standing up, she added, “Okay, I’ll be back in a few minutes. Don’t go anywhere!” Sarah stepped out of the alcove, and closed the curtain behind her.

Justin heard her foot steps echo and then disappear into the gloom, leaving Justin alone with his thoughts on the gurney, wearing nothing but his blue paper gown.

He stared up at the ceiling tiles. The whole situation felt surreal. Here he was, in the middle of the night, alone in a dimly lit hospital, wearing nothing but a flimsy gown, with an IV in his arm. Just waiting for a chance to finally ask out his long-time crush. Minutes passed, it was hard for Justin to say exactly how long.

Finally, Sarah returned! And she was transformed. Justin was momentarily stunned at her change; Sarah was now in full surgical attire. The white coat was gone. A dark green surgical mask now concealed her face. Her scrubs were hidden by a green surgical gown, and her hair was tucked into a dark green surgical cap Only the purple nitrile gloves and her eyes remained the same.

She wasted no time talking, as Justin looked on, still getting over her medical wardrobe change. She unlocked the gurney’s wheels and pulled up the metal rails up in preparation for moving the bed.

”I’m Nicole; I’ll be your anesthetist today,” Sarah said, with a thick fake British accent. Justin rolled his eyes at Sarah’s play acting; she always was great at the theatrical rolls in college.

“I’m going to give you something to help you relax, and then we’ll get you over to the operating room,” she continued, picking up a syringe from her cart.

“Wait, why are you giving me a shot?” Justin challenged, weary from the unexpected needle he’d gotten.

“It’s just saline Justin. It’s pretend. You’ll be fine,” she replied, dropping the accent and returning to her normal voice. “I already put the IV in your arm, there’s no more needles, so just go along with me on this, okay?” She inserted the syringe into the IV port and pushed the plunger all the way down.

“Just a couple more things,” she said, resuming her fake British accent. She pulled the oxygen sensor from his finger, and disconnected the blood pressure cuff from the computer, leaving the cuff itself velcroed around his arm. Finally, grabbing a blue bouffant cap from the rolling cart, she placed it over Justin’s hair.

“Alright, we’re all set. Let’s get you to the operating room.”

Pulling off her purple gloves, she gently pressed Justin’s shoulders back against the gurney’s crisp white pillow before slowly pushing the gurney out of the alcove, through the dark preparation room, and down the hallway. He watched as the automatic doors opened and as the white ceiling tiles slide by above him. Sarah pushed him down the dimly lit hallway, around a corner, and towards the first of several visible double automatic doors. Each time they reached a door, they stopped and Sarah opened them with a swipe of her security badge.

As they progressed, Justin began finding the light in the hallway start to look warmer and a little fuzzy around the edges. Slowly, he felt himself becoming warm and relaxed. His eyes were having a harder and harder time focusing on the ceiling tiles sliding by. He started to feel a little light headed as he tried to lift his head off the pillow. It’s was a pleasant feeling, like sitting beside a nice cozy fire.

“Why do I feel so weird, Sarah?” Justin asked. He tried to sit up more, as Sarah went through the last set of doors, rolling Justin into a modern-looking operating room.

Everything he saw was stainless steel and medical green. In his increasingly drugged state, everything had a dream-like quality to it. But Justin was able to see, with a little trepidation, the many machines and carts positioned around the green, padded operating table in the centre of the room.

Sarah stopped the gurney beside the operating table. “Okay, Justin, hop onto the operating table, please,” Sarah directed.

“Sarah… wait,” Justin mumbled, struggling to focus. “What did you give me? I feel so… drowsy.”

“Oh, that was just something to help you relax,” Sarah answered casually. “Lots of patients get nerves at this part, when they come here. The operating room can look intimidating, so we usually give them a small dose of sedative before bringing them in to keep them relaxed. Like I told you, it’s just like the real thing. Remember?”

But Justin didn’t remember, in fact, he thought she’d said it was pretend. Hadn’t she? But Sarah was acting like this was normal. With surprising strength, she lifted Justin and slid him from the gurney to the operating table.

Justin tried to look around more as Sarah moved the empty gurney out of the way. The machines around the table looked like what he might have expected. He didn’t know what they all were exactly, but sets of EKG monitors, IV pumps, an anesthesia machine, oxygen tanks… They all looked active, ready for use, and not at all pretend. Despite feeling relaxed now, everything around him looked awfully real. How far was this practice supposed to go? Justin couldn’t remember. When Sarah returned, he tried to speak to her, to protest, to ask for further reassurance, but the sedative made talking hard, and moving nearly impossible. His body felt heavy, unresponsive. He watched quietly as Sarah snapped on a new pair of sterile, extended-cuff surgical gloves.

“Alright, Justin, let’s get you ready,” she said.

He shivered, his speech slurred as he attempted to protest. “S-Sarah… w-wait… this is… too far… l-let me… go…” She simply ignored him.

Sarah gently positioned Justin’s head on a small gel pillow, which tipped his neck back, pointing his vision up at a large array of surgical lights above him. Sarah then disappeared from above his head, wasting no time preparing things. She reappeared on each side of the surgical table, taking each of Justin’s arms. His left arm got a new oxygen sensor clamped to his middle finger, and she reconnected the blood pressure cuff to a monitor nearby. On his right arm, she connected a hanging bag of saline and a 3-way stopcock to his IV. When she was done, soft velco straps securely affixed both arms to armrests that Sarah had extended out from the operating table at a 90 degree angle. Sarah ran another soft strap over his waist, and then his legs.

“The table moves and tilts, to get the best access when…” Sarah’s explanation trailed off. “That is, we can’t have you rolling off and falling.”

Justin slowly realized he had been restrained, but the drug he’d been given made it hard for him to really be worried about it. They were just soft Velcro, not handcuffs, after all. But with whatever Sarah had given him, they were plenty to prevent him from moving much.

His gown was suddenly pulled away, leaving him completely naked, except for a bouffant cap covering his hair. It might have been a startling moment, normally, but Justin just felt calm now. Sarah began attaching sticky electrodes to his chest. He saw her tap a few buttons on the monitors, and adjusted the machine until a steady beep-beep sound filled the room. Justin felt the blood pressure cuff inflate again.

All of Sarah’s movement in the operating room ran together. Justin felt the pre-operative drug she’d given him was making it harder and harder to focus on anything. He could tell she was moving carts and machines around the room.

The sound of wheels on the hard floor filled the room. Soon after, Sarah returned with a sleek-looking machine, which she pushed up to the side of the operating table. The machine was almost as tall as Sarah and made of glossy white plastic. The base was thin, but extended four long articulated arms from the top.

Sarah positioned the robot precisely next to the table, and locked the base in place. Justin watched her with a strange detachment as she gently adjusted the robot's arms, unfolding and extending them next to his body. Each arm was wrapped in disposable plastic, which crinkled loudly as she touched them. The machine made a small humming noise, powering up, and as she moved the arms, each one seemed to vibrate a little, as if in anticipation of getting to work on him.

Sarah looked down at Justin; a smile was visible in her eyes, above her surgical mask. "This surgical robot is really amazing. But… it takes a lot of extra practice to master the controls. This is why I needed you here tonight, Justin," she explained. Justin wasn’t really sure what she meant, or what a surgical robot even was. And he was quite detached now, as the sedatives made this whole situation fuzzy.

She disappeared off to the side again, he groggily and slowly turned his head, trying to watch her. He saw Sarah, in her full surgical attire, pull over a large green table. On it was a neatly arranged collection of tools and supplies. Coiled hoses and wires of different lengths and thicknesses were lined up on one side. Some were clear and flexible, others colored blue or green. Justin had no idea what they were for, but there were a lot of them.

Next to the coiled hoses were metal instruments, with sleek white connectors, which looked like they might attach to the surgical robot. Long metal tubes of different lengths and widths, ending with tiny scissors and clamps. Finally, Justin saw a whole row of metal devices which looked like giant needles, each more than 6” long and with razor-sharp tips. The needle Sarah had put in his arm was a millimeter wide, at most. These looked to be 10 times as big.

All of this looked like it’d taken a lot of work to setup ahead of time; far too much effort for a prop, to not actually use. This was way more than Justin had bargained for; all he’d wanted was a chance to ask Sarah out. She was cute and sexy and he wanted a date.

He tried to speak, to ask her.. something, but his tongue felt thick and clumsy in his mouth, the words slurred. And he was having trouble thinking clearly. Sarah ignored him, and moved on to more preparations. The surgical lights above him blazed to life and Justin, who would normally be blinded by the intense light, barely noticed it.

With no warning, the woman suddenly reappeared above Justin’s head. “Just breathe normally, Justin,” she murmured, lowering a clear mask over his nose and mouth. Even through the drug, Justin didn’t like this, and began trying to struggle.

“Sarah, this is no longer funny!” he wanted to say… but what he actually did was moan and move his head slightly to the side. If he turned his head a little, he could see the anesthesia machine, and that was about as much as he could do. The green bag on the machine began to inflate and deflate slightly as he breathed.

“Justin, please relax. This is all part of the practice; It’s just oxygen, don’t worry.” Sarah gently pulled his head back upright, holding his head firmly in one gloved hand, while reaching under his head with the other. Justin could feel straps being attached to the mask; the anesthesia mask stayed on this face when she was done.

From the top of the anesthesia machine, Sarah laid out a couple of syringes she’s prepared earlier.

Just keep breathing normally," Sarah said gently. She reached for the first; a small one, filled with a clear liquid: lidocaine to numb Justin’s vein. She twisted the syringe into the 3-way stopcock on Justin's IV line. Quickly, she pressed the plunger, watching the clear liquid flow down the thin tube and into Justin's vein. Justin might have felt a cold tingling spreading up his arm. He barely noticed.

Next, she picked up a much larger syringe, filled with a milky white liquid. The anesthetic that would put Justin completely to sleep. Not pretend at all. She paused, looking down at Justin's face, his eyes already glazed over from the drug she’d given him in preop. She connected the syringe to the IV, and slowly began to inject the anesthetic.

“You’re being such a good patient,” she purred at him, as the white drug slowly ran down the IV and into his arm. Her words didn’t reassure him, but the sedative kept him from resisting. He felt a mild burn start in his arm, running up to his shoulder.

““I’m so happy I get to practice on you.” Sarah cooed sweetly. “Soon it’ll all be fine and I have a surprise coming as well.” The syringe of anesthetic was almost empty. Justin started to feel dizzy, and the room around him seems to be getting dimmer. He saw Sarah standing over him, her beautiful masked face looking down at him. She was saying something but Justin was no longer able to understand. “Surprised what did that mean”

He felt warm, calm, fuzzy… All that now replaced with a warm darkness. Justin lay helpless, restrained to an operating table, in an unknown part of the hospital with a brand new surgical robot, and a nurse who was going to do god only knows what with it. He slipped into a black nothingness with these thoughts swirling in his head.

End