Doctor Lena Novak received email notification that a fresh batch of rats had arrived. Good. You wouldn’t think that rats should be in such short supply. She arranged to meet Malcomb Felix, the grad student assisting her on the project, at the chem building that evening. The kid was good. Trustworthy. Tall, dark, and handsome, too. Lena had played with the idea of seducing him, but it didn’t seem the thing to do: Grad students who could follow instructions were almost rarer than rats. And anyway, he was clearly smitten with his girlfriend—one of those long distance relationships as far as Lena could determine from having stolen a look at Malcomb’s cellphone a few weeks ago. The girl was slender. Sylphish. Waiflike. Barely any breasts at all, not that the phone had any nude shots. From the text and the pictures, Lena was pretty sure the couple had yet to have sex. “I hope the hours I work you on the project are not an impediment to your social life,” Lena had asked Malcomb a few days ago, and from Malcomb’s blush Lena concluded there was a good chance the boy was a virgin.

The chemistry building is all but empty at this hour. Lena meets Malcomb on the top floor where he is examining a tabletop full of the desert plants, all blooming vigorously. The project requires oils to be extracted from the sexual parts of the flower. “Now that you’ve seen me do it, it’s time for you to give it a try,” Lena tells Malcomb, and she shows him how to manipulate the plant’s inner recesses. “The calyx is like the flower’s succulent cunt,” she says, smiling to herself at how her bold language brings color to his cheeks. “Press just right and the precious stuff oozes right up. Not so different from milking poison from a snake or cum from a cock.” Sure enough Malcomb blushes again, but he quickly learns the technique. “What about that off color one?” he asks, pointing to a plant whose petals have faded, and thereby almost managing to avoid staring into Lena’s cleavage. “Use your best judgment,” she tells him. “I’m going to don my lab coat and do the rats downstairs.”

The old elevator takes its time arriving. Lena wonders who could have called it away from the third floor. She’s tempted to use the stairs. But at last the elevator doors open. The descent is slow and silent. So quiet one might wonder if the elevator is even moving. And then the doors open again. Lower Level Two. Dim lights illuminate the hallway. Lena’s steps echo. She unlocks LL6, adjusts the lamps, takes her lab coat from the hook by the door and slips into it. Such an ugly smock.

The crates of rats are where they should be. Lena takes eight of the animals from the crate marked males and releases them into the freshly cleaned glass pen. She watches them settle down, then goes to the secure refrigerator and removes a vial of the oil she’d expressed yesterday. She fills a syringe. Based on her calculations, it should be twice the lethal dose. She’d decided to start high and work her way down. She places the syringe on the worktable not far from the glass pen, then goes to the crate labeled female and makes a selection.

“Lucky little lady,” she says to herself, not sure if she’s being ironic, and back at the worktable, holding the rat securely, she injects it with the oil.

The rat’s body contracts, a spasm that Lena decides to construe as pleasure. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” she says as she places the female rat into the glass cage and starts the timer.

Outhustling his energetic companions, one male rat mounts her immediately. The copulation is fast and furious. The other rats won’t be left out. They clamor crazily for sexual entry. What follows is a frenzy of voracious fucking.

Before two minutes have elapsed, all the rats have had a climactic churn inside the female, and all the rats are dead or dying, their gonads swollen, then shrinking as they expire. The female rat appears but slightly dazed. “Good job,” Lena says aloud, and she reaches into the pen to retrieve the female for the next step in the process, but before she can properly grip the creature, it springs up and sinks its fangs into the web of skin between Lena’s thumb and forefinger. Her hand jerks away, sending the rat flying.

Lena sucks the wound. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she mouths. “Fuck!” She eyes the room. No sign of the rat. She smears the droplets of blood from her hand against her smock. The wound seems to be staunched. She removes the soiled coat, carries it to the large refuse canister and dumps it in. A moment later all her clothes are in the drum, even her shoes, and on top of these she empties the glass case of dead rats. “I’m not going to wash this,” she half shouts, and goes to the intercom.

“Malcomb. Get your ass down here. It’s an emergency.”

She dims the lights. Naked, she waits by the door, listening for the rat. After what seems like much of an hour, she hears steps. There’s the knock.

“Is everything all right?” Malcomb’s voice through the closed door.

“No,” she says, her voice as smooth as she can make it, just a trace of squeak. “There’s been a little problem. Take off your clothes.”