Just a tiny update for now - hopefully more to come this evening :-)

Pt 8

“Nice to see you again, Dinah.” The brown-haired woman smiled as the small girl stepped further into the room. Dinah noticed that the three senior team members from her last visit were there but the young intern was not. She wondered if this was because he didn’t have the stomach to watch what was going to happen to her, whether he was too junior to be allowed access to the teams patented method or simply because he was not needed? “Excited?” The woman asked and Dinah replied with an enthusiastic nod and broad grin. “Great! Well, as you know, we weren’t able to explain the process to you before but, rather than boring you with all the details as I’m sure you’re as keen to get on with things as we are, I’ll explain what you need to know as we go along, is that okay?” Dinah nodded again.

“Is that my Millie?” she asked, pointing at the far more detailed mannequin stood on the same steel plate as the Victorian specimens, connected via a pole in one leg. Without waiting for an answer, she walked over to the strange figure and inspected it, glancing down from time to time at the curves and contours of her own body and comparing. It was a stunningly good reproduction, just slightly thinner and more gangly than her, presumably as it had to fit inside and fill out her skin and, if it was shaped exactly like her, it would not quite be able to do so.

“That’s right.” The woman smiled. “Beautiful isn’t she?” Dinah agreed. “You know, we need to fit her eyes before we put your skin over the top but we haven’t done it yet. We thought you might like to?”

“Can I really?” Dinah’s own eyes lit up. She loved the idea that she might help in some way to create the display, other than donating her skin and skeleton of course! “What if I mess it up and spoil her?”

“Don’t worry,” the woman smiled, picking up a small box, “You really can’t get it wrong.” She opened the box and showed Dinah the glass eyes that would be replacing her real ones. They were a little less than half the thickness of the real eyeball and had spikes with a screw-thread on the back. The mannequin’s head had the basic contours of a face without the fine details and recessed areas where the eyes should be. Dinah saw that in the middle of these recesses, small black dots had been marked.

“So I push them in where the dots are?” Dinah guessed correctly, “Then twist until they’re all the way in?”

“That’s right.” The woman nodded with an encouraging smile, handing the first eye to the excited little girl. Dinah carefully lined up the tip of the screw with the dot in the left socket and pushed it in so that it broke through the gel surface. She then twisted the eye clockwise, screwing it further into the head, until the back of the glass was flush with the surface. “Perfect!” The woman grinned as she handed Dinah the second eye. “You’re a natural!” Dinah beamed at the compliment, fitting the other eye then standing back to admire her work. She couldn’t help but giggle at the cartoonishly-wide eyes on the otherwise featureless face.

“Looks like she got a shock!” Dinah remarked cheekily. “Maybe she didn’t expect the first thing she saw to be someone in the nude?”

“Well a whole lot more people are going to be seeing you like that soon!” The woman chuckled guided Dinah over towards the frame with a hand on her shoulder.

“Have you ever done this before?” Dinah asked, a little nervously, “Or am I your first?”