I laboriously washed the pig's blood from my hands; practical's were always a light relief after the terminal boredom of a week of medical lectures. Walking back to my table I glanced between the childish expressions's of glee on Tim and Doug's faces and my rucksack on top of the table. Irritably I opened it and retrieved the left ventricle they had hilariously stuffed under my books. Tim and Doug both cracked up, as usual, pleased with themselves despite the fact that their joke had been foiled by the sheer predictability of it. I had learnt the hard way; the first time this joke had been tried my bag had spent the weekend next to a radiator with a sheep's eyeball in it. Needless to say, the library had fined me for ruining their books.
We made our way through the throng and out into the wider corridor that linked the labs; three articulate, confident, second year students at one of the countries top ten universities.
"Sticking my fingers in that dirty sow, reminded me of last night, when I was shagging your Mum".
"Those stinking guts reminded me of tonguing your sister's growler"
"Your Mums so fucking dirty that your Dad has to cover his knob in dog food to get Fido to clean it up."
Real mature. I'm sure any of those gorgeous, tight, young freshman girls hanging around checking out the doctors would be weak at the knees if they could hear the content of our conversation as we strut out the main entrance and across campus. We are headed home for the weekend to our five bed house just five minutes walk from the leafy campus. I live with Tim and Doug; we have merciless banter which stems from us having very few boundaries left after the excesses of our freshman year in halls.
Tim is currently ripping me for my social networking profile picture; which shows me surrounded by Bolivian children from a village I passed through with the British Red Cross, while working over the summer.
"Why the fuck is that still your profile picture Benjamin? We all know your Florence fucking Nightingale, but do you really think any fanny is impressed by that shit?"
"Now, now, Tim." breaks in Doug, "We all know you're just jealous cos you wish it was you surrounded by little brown kids."
"Look." I say pointing, "There's that mess that mess that Si (another of our housemates) got with last weekend."
We all stare in horror at the monstrosity waddling along the other side of the road, Simon swears that it wasn't her he fucked, but we have photographic evidence of him sucking face with her in the student union nightclub. Plus the springs on his bed now seem shot to shit.
For a few brief moments Tim, Doug, and I are united in harmony as we slate Si; vowing to never let him live this one down.
Si is in the kitchen when we arrive home. George is there as well, our fifth housemate. George and Si are the business boys, but Si fits in with us docs better. Like us he loves the banter and football. George on the other hand is a bit straight. He went to private school and much prefers rugby, he has his own circle of pretentious friends and has proved to be a bit of a cunt to live with. I'm struggling to remember why George was invited to live with us in the first place; I'm going to blame Simon, whose judgement, as already demonstrated, is shit.
"Saw that friggin' whale you harpooned on the way back from campus" Tim informs Si.
"Sweet piece of ass" chimes in Doug.
"On a serious note," I say, pausing for effect, "How the fuck did she feel anything when you were giving her the old two thrusts one squirt, must have been like a needle in a haystack. No offence mate."
Si grimaced and took it. "Oh, none taken friend. Have I mentioned how much I like and respect you three and how I sincerely hope that none of your patients ever take out malpractice lawsuits against you? Eat my shit."
Tim, Doug and I all exchange grins, satisfied at having riled Si and knowing that it is only a matter of days before he does something equally humiliating which can be used against him once more for our merriment.
George is ironing his favourite preppy shirt with meticulous care, laboriously working over the collar so that it will stand up nice and straight.
"Going anywhere nice George?" I enquire.
"Polo social. We'll be at the SU later on I dare say, if you juveniles fancy it?"
George doesn't actually play polo; he is just part of the society because he considers it, "a nice way to mingle with people who would never confuse sparkling wine with champagne."
"Yeah, we'll probs be there G. Apart from Florence who's off to the big smoke tomorrow."
I curl my lip at Doug, who has recently taken to calling me Florence; I like to think in jealously. The reason for his jibe being that I was not going out with the others tonight, as I had a train to catch early tomorrow morning. I was giving a presentation in London for the British Red cross concerning the work I had done for them in my gap year; providing medical aid across South America.
"You shitting yourself yet Florence? Speaking in front of all those people?" Si kindly asked, attempting to shift the abuse onto someone else.
"Imagine them all naked." George interposed with the shitist most clichéd advice ever. "When I was speaking in front of the Duke of Kent at the Royal Institute, it worked a treat. Afterwards the Duke himself came up and told me that my reading was....."
I left the room before George got into full flow with his bullshit-heavy story, making for my room to start learning my speech.
* * *
A few hours later the house was silent. Everybody was off having fun and I was left to slap together some crude slides to illustrate my talk tomorrow. I had lots of nice shots of the Andes, which I hoped my audience would enjoy; I was less confident about some of the jokes I had tried to work in. Around 10:30 as I was winding down my phone flashed and a picture message came through from Doug. It was of George with his hand up some riding girls skirt and his tongue down her throat.
I shook my head. George had done it again. He was such a piece of shit. Beth, the girl he had been seeing for the past year, was the sweetest, cutest little thing you had ever seen, she deserved better then him. George was such a slut for a Home Counties accent, he got hard as soon as he heard it, and if a title was mentioned, he just jumped on them. We had lost count of the number of times George had now cheated on Beth; the poor girl seemed none the wiser, George would just spin her some yarn and that was that.
George cheating on Beth was one thing, but what really pissed me off was the way he treated her generally. George was aloof with us, but with Beth it was even more pronounced. He acted as though going out with him must be some sort of honour for her and constantly belittled and demeaned her, not in an obvious sort of way, but his general disregard for her feelings and self-absorbed antics all converged to give the impression of a thoroughly unhealthy relationship. We had all talked behind Georges back about his treatment of Beth; the thing we couldn't understand was why Beth stayed with him. Si had hypothesised George was either excessively well endowed, which seemed ludicrous, or that Beth felt some sort of obligation to him. We thought there must be some sinister, murky reason for her staying with him because she was such a popular, pretty girl and it wasn't as though her self esteem was low or anything like that. The clue seemed to be in the disparity of their backgrounds. Beth came from a poor one and George from a rich one; it was clear George held some power over Beth or she would have left him long ago. Every time I saw Beth with her sad eyes, I just wanted to comfort her.
