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It was the end of my second year in medical school. The only thing separating me from third year was the dreaded synthskin assessment. Each student is expected to prepare a demonstration of their skills and is given a great deal of leeway, being allowed to select the animal and the synthskin graft. The only measure of success is being able to blend the two together in a way that impresses the judges.

Since the finer details were my strong suit, I went small. I'd spent weeks planning how to perfectly stitch a synthskin ear to the back of a mouse. Perhaps not as showy as the other student's projects, but when the mouse twitched and danced to the sound of music held up to the ear just a few minutes after the surgery, the judge nodded in approval. I'd passed!

Back at the apartment, a party was in full swing as medical students filtered in from the exam, some drinking to their success, others to commiserate. Perhaps I should have waited for my flatmate, David, to return before cracking open the beers. Whatever his project was, it must have been complex, as he was one of the last students to arrive. He was pale and shaky and blood splattered from the exam, and slightly blurry from the beers I'd consumed in his absence.

He let the tension hang for a second. "Nailed it!"

"I'll drink to that!" I grinned. And did.

A girl stood at his heel. I wobbled in wonder, taking a messy slurp as I admired her beauty. She was... flawless. There was a carefree innocence in the way she held herself, her wide eyes darting excitedly this way and that at the people all around, dripping tongue lolling from slack jaw, her loose top hanging off her shoulder. David tracked my unsteady gaze. "You remember Max..ine, right?" he said slyly.

I mumbled an introduction, extending a hand to shake. She cocked her head at it quizically, ignored it, and just when I thought I'd blown it, her wet tongue was in my ear.

"You two have fun," David smiled.

I took her hand and led her to the couch. We talked for hours. Well, I guess I did most of the talking. She was a fantastic listener, sitting and staying while I unloaded all the stresses of the last few weeks, trying to impress her with descriptions of my ear-mouse. She was... quirky, refreshingly unrestrained in the way she'd bury her entire face in a bowl of party snacks or start sniffing and drooling on my crotch whenever she felt like it. She was unlike any girl I'd ever known.The party had begun to wind down, and I leaned in to try my luck, delighted to find her eager tongue soon licking the inside of my mouth. Things got heated from there, and we fell into bed, the night became a haze of animal lust.

I was woken in the morning, hungover beyond all recognition, by David shouting in the corridor. "Max? Here, boy! Dangit, where has that flea-bitten mut gotten to?"

Max? David's toothless old golden retriever? That dumb dog whose favorite delicacy in the whole world was his own poop, followed closely by the taste of his own testicle.

"Arf!" said Maxine, hopping out of bed and padding to the door, her perfect rear waggling beneath the tail jutting from the back of her t-shirt.

"Oh, god," I groan through a mouth like sandpaper.

The animals are reverted the day after the assessment is over. David took Max away to be peeled out of his human suit. And I spent the rest of the day throwing up and taking a series of scalding hot showers, trying to feel clean again. Even to this day, I feel soiled. And yet...

And yet I still miss her...