Her breasts, and the implants he believes they contain

A bright light burned into Courtney's brain. First one, then the other. No, not brains, she realized, eyes. Two stabs. Where...?

A confusion of thoughts went through her, but she was covered in heavy sand. It weighed down her eyelids, it pinned down her arms and legs, it even held down her head.

"Whereami?" she slurred, or thought she did.

"Oh, so you're awake. Good. I just barely finished. The way you started thrashing I was sure I wouldn't finish in time. Nonetheless, you're as good as new," the bitter-sounding voice said, then gave a nasty little laugh. "Or as good as you would've been before having surgery if you'd actually had surgery in the first place."

"Wha...?"

A snort, followed by a pair of snapping sounds, then something opening and claning shut, followed by running water.

"I don't know what game this is, Miss Battaglia. I don't make a habit of memorizing the faces of the patients I see, so even though I didn't recognize your face I went with what the file said." the voice paused, and paper rustled.

"Subject: Courtney Battaglia," he said, his voice becoming more of a drone, "Procedure: breast enhancement: D-cup implants, saline. Location of insertion: belly button."

The papers rustled again, followed by a sligh thump. "That's what it said. And more, but you wouldn't understand it. So you can imagine my puzzlement when I find that even though you have a scar in your belly button it isn't my usual style."

"Appendix," she muttered, remembering. "Doctor. Appendix. Tubes.

"Ah. Pain in the side so a doctor looked inside. How thoughtful of him to choose that location to insert his probe. By the look of it they didn't have to remove it. How nice for you. For me, however, I was **** to assume that the sloppy incision was done by an intern."

"Anyway," the voice became louder, the speaker apparently standing over her now. "I proceeded. I re-opened the scar, sent in the necessary tools, and when I come to the sight I find a surprise. Can you guess what surprise, Courtney?"

The repressed fury in the man's voice would've made Courtney shiver if she had that much control over her body, or if her mind was any less numbed to reality. Nonetheless she must have made some motion, for he leaned toward her ear and hissed.

"Nothing. I found nothing. Nothing here," he put his hand lightly on her breast, and she cried out at the pain before he moved to the other. "and here." His hands left her body, the memory of their touch remaining.

From the depths of her mind a thought drifted, hazy and slow. I still have breasts... The thought puzzled her, but it and the puzzlement slipped from her.

"Or rather," the man was continuing. Doctor, she realized. "nothing foreign to the body. Normal, healthy, rather fabulous breasts, to my utter amazement. You had truly amazing breasts, Courtney. I almost couldn't bring myself to do what I did next."

Coldness swept over Courtney; she had enough awareness, and more every second, to realize that he'd used the past tense. "What you do?" she whispered, or slurred. The words made their way out and he, perhaps drawing on a rich history of anaesthetised patients drooling and lisping and mumbling their responses to questions, understood perfectly.

"It must be my Greek heritage," the doctor mused, Courtney's eyes were clear enough to see his blur of a form leaning against the armrest she was still secured to. "I know I know, my last name is Willis. It's not very Greek. But my mother was a Dimitrious, if that sounds any better to you. But how is that relevant, you don't ask? Quite simply put, and evident if you read any of their plays, Greeks love ****."

Courtney squinted, the doctor was becoming clearer. She thought she could make out dark eyebrows drawn sharply together above eyes glaring down at her. "What you do?" she asked again softly.

"Do you know that I never do Saline implants? I hate them. They don't feel as good as silicone, and they have a tendency to look strange from some angles. Not always, it depends on the doctor, but I like silicone. So you see, when you didn't pay your bill and you ignored every follow-up request for payment I of course put in my claim to the collection agency. I of course sought restitution. Except it seems you have no money. Or at least," he chuckled. "You hid it very very well. Ah, poor Isaacson's feeling a little foolish right now. He can't find all the items you bought. He's so very convinced that you're hiding things from him and I wonder if he might be right."

The doctor straightened, picking up a tray of tools and walking away a short distance. "Without restitution, and with no real need for saline implants, given that I never use them anyway, me retrieving yours was me getting back my pound of flesh, so to speak. Though in this case it was more like four, I suppose. I haven't weighed it yet."

Courtney's hands fluttered, trying to yank against the straps. Her chest heaved, but she couldn't tell how it felt, or how it looked by the heaving of her breasts. they felt swaddled and numb. "You... cut?" she asked, a tremor in her slurred words.

"Oh, so to speak. You see, if you somehow bilked me out of five-thousand dollars for someone, and I don't care who, to go from A-cup to D-cup, and I, driven helplessly by my Greek need for ****, feel I must be compensated for my efforts and product, I have every legal right to undo what it is that I did before. Or rather, to retrieve my product. So I did, in a sense."

"What did you do?" she managed, less numb and more frightened.

"Oh my dear, I merely reversed the procedure. If I promoted you from A to D in cup size then it was my right to demote you from D to A. Which I did quite nicely. There should be no nerve or duct damage, and everything should work exactly as it did before. Although, well, you may have a more pancake like look now. And you'll need an A-cup bra."

Before Doctor Willis finished Courtney was keening, a pitiful little wail that the anaesthesia couldn't quite contain. It continued as he spoke, and ended only when he picked up the anaesthesia mask and turned it on again.