“Look down,” said the instructor, a short, jovial man with wide brown eyes. “The person on the table before you is both your patient and your teacher. These are all individuals who willed their bodies to medical science, many of them because they experienced great physical suffering in their lifetimes and they wished to spare others the same fate. They believed that because of you—the next generation of physicians—the world will achieve some alleviation of the misery stemming from our most profound maladies. To this noble aim, these human beings have sacrificed their earthly bodies. Treat them with reverence and respect and gratitude.” He relaxed his posture, and even from a distance, I could see a twinkle light his eye. “That being said, this is not a funeral. You are allowed to bond with your classmates and enjoy this learning experience. The practice of medicine is fraught with sorrow, yes, but also saturated with joie de vivre. Have some fun this year, y’all.”

I met the eyes of my tablemates. To my relief, I’d been paired with Vani, and also, to my consternation, with the two lithe blondes I’d noticed at the party. The four of us silently assessed one another and then, as instructed, looked down at our table. After a few moments, we became aware that everyone in our half of the room was also looking at our table. At first I thought it was because Zadie and Emma and Vani drew so much attention—from both males and females—but it was not anyone living who’d caught the eye of our classmates.

It was the dead.

Like all the other cadavers in the room, our cadaver was covered with a sheet. In the center of the mass—not quite midway between the round bulge of the forehead and the shelflike endpoint of the feet—a cylindrical protrusion rose under the sheet, looking for all the world like a foot-high tentpole. There was no mistaking what this was.

Our patient—a man, evidently—had died with a massive erection.

Which we’d have to dissect.

At the next table over, a freckled, redheaded woman leaned toward me. “Dude,” she said. “I gotta watch when you guys pull down your sheet. Respectfully, of course. That’s gotta be”—she gestured toward the tentpole—“some kind of world record.”

Her partner, a tiny guy with small round glasses, cleared his throat. I thought he was going to reprimand the redhead, but instead he bowed and genuflected toward our cadaver. “I am not worthy,” he said. The other guys at their table—two big football-player types—crossed their arms and nodded with faux solemnity. “He died the hard way,” one said.

It was respect, of a kind.