"I must consider my options," Doctor Walker had told me, adding that he hoped I would, "think about the reputation of the hospital and do the gentlemanly thing."

He meant, of course, take my own life.

If I do not, he says, he will go to the authorities in the morning. I shall surely be arrested, face trial as a monster, and go to prison for a long while, during which time I shall be reviled by the other prisoners. Is not death by my own hand a better alternative?

But I must not forget I am a man of science, and I have turned to the pen to find another solution. It is not the first time when faced with a terrible dilemma that I have found that carefully writing down the facts allows me to dispassionately analyse them. So, I will now begin.

I have always been interested in the anatomy of living beings, from the time when I was only seven years old and wandered the grounds of my father's estate at Broughton Hall. I came across a dead rabbit caught in a poacher's trap. Other children may have cried over its plight, but I thrilled at the opportunity it afforded. I took the rabbit back to an outhouse, borrowed a knife from the kitchen and dissected it. It was the first time in my life I had experienced such excitement, akin almost to the sexual pleasure I was to learn many years later; at that moment, I had found something that was simply ecstatic.

Being brought up as the only child of Sir Charles Broughton, the Victorian mine owner and industrialist, meant I lived a lonely life. My mother had died when I was five, and I had since been in the care of a number of elderly nannies and governesses. None took any interest in me, other than to be thankful I did something to occupy myself — until Doctor Roberts became my governor. He delighted in my interests and helped me develop them. It was he who eventually secured a place for me at a school of medicine, where I quickly devoted myself to pathology — to the omission of healing the sick almost to the point where I only just qualified.

I had never been close to my father, so his death hardly moved me. It was inheriting Broughton Hall which changed my life forever. For a short while, I was horrified by the responsibilities it entailed; I surely would have to give up my profession and devote myself to estate management. But I did then as I do now; I wrote down the problems and the untenable solutions. Then an idea came to me. Britain had recently entered the Crimean War and the first horrendous casualties were arriving back in England. I had worked under Doctor Rupert Walker during my training as a doctor, and I had the greatest respect for him. I went to him and suggested that I would loan Broughton Hall for use as a military hospital; he would run the hospital and in return, I would become the pathologist.

It was an idea which benefitted us both, and worked admirably. There was certainly no shortage of bodies which I could dissect, and from which I could greatly learn. In those first years, I published several learned papers upon my findings, papers which helped to improve the treatment of others with similar terrible injuries, although it had to be said that dreadful Nightingale woman took credit for many of my discoveries.

Eventually, of course, the war ended, my supply of bodies gradually dried up, and Doctor Walker and I agreed we would open up the hospital to the surrounding area. Broughton Hall Infirmary was born. It was unfortunate that my flow of bodies never recovered to its previous level; without the war casualties, fewer people were dying and invariably they were dying from clearly observable natural causes, without need for a post mortem.

So I was delighted when a local doctor came to me and said he was unhappy about the cause of death of Mary Parker, the maid of one of his clients. She was young and healthy, and there seemed no reason why she should die. I happily agreed to perform the post mortem, and had her brought to my mortuary.

Until then, I'd had no young women brought to me and when I saw her laid out on the slab, she was so beautiful that she took away my breath. A pretty face, a slim waist well-trained by the corset, with small firm breasts pointing towards the ceiling.

My assistant, a man of about forty was also visibly moved by her beauty. "She's so like my daughter," he said, "it seems a crime to open her up."

"Then let us try a different approach," I replied, carefully concealing my own lust by showing consideration for him. "Turn her over and we'll open through her rear."

I made incisions beneath her buttocks, and lifted those upwards, and I was then able to remove her organs, albeit with some difficulty. A simple Marsh test confirmed arsenic poisoning. I reported this at the inquest, and coroner was delighted by my statement. Subsequently, it was discovered that Mary Parker was having an affair with the master of the house, and in a fit of jealousy, his wife had administered the arsenic and was later hanged for murder. But more important to me was that, with Mary being an orphan, the coroner allowed her body to be donated to medical research.

My own personal laboratory led straight off the mortuary, so I could move Mary's body there without the help of my assistant. When he later asked where her body had gone, I told him it had been taken for burial. Instead, I spent some time and a considerable amount of formaldehyde in preserving her beautiful body. During the day, I kept her in one of my tall glass jars purchased specifically for the purpose; in the evening, I would use the overhead winch to lift her out, and we would spend the night together."

"Those next few weeks were like being in paradise. I had never had success in making acquaintances with young ladies; I was clumsy in speech and I think the pervading smell of formaldehyde also discouraged them. But Mary had no inhibitions about either and she loved me as much as I loved her. Our coition was wonderful, and we would awaken several times in the night and reunite.

The problem was that she started to decay. The formaldehyde should have prevented it, but it did not, and it got to the point where her body was becoming most unpleasant. Reluctantly, I had to cut her into pieces and send her to the Infirmary's burial pit.

I was certain that, sooner or later, another woman would come along to join me, but knew that I must use the intervening time in developing a better embalming fluid. This was one piece of research I did not want the world to know of, and I started working more secretly in my laboratory than I had done previously. Obviously, I still undertook post mortem work — for how else would I know when my next companion came along — but I took little interest in it, and had stopped producing learned papers of any kind.

I called my invention Broughton Liquid, and most beneficially, it was a colourless, odourless liquid. I had fortunately just finalised the design when Charlotte Miller appeared on my slab. She had a much fuller figure than Mary, and had died from food poisoning. More importantly, she also was an orphan, and my friendly coroner had no hesitation in allowing her to enter my laboratory for research.

The things we were to research over the next few weeks! Being much heavier meant we had to use different techniques to those Mary and I had used, but what fun we had. The fun went even further when Jane White appeared. She was a prostitute who had died from syphilis, but after thorough immersion in Broughton Liquid, her little problem held no fears for me. For many months, the three of us got up to all kinds of things together.

However, at some stage, the fun started to fade. Of course, my friends still satisfied a sexual need, but without the excitement of earlier times. Just suppose, I thought, that I could bring back life to such beautiful women. Oh, I was not talking about some Frankenstein re-creation, but simply removing their innards so their outer body could be adopted by another.

My work with Broughton Liquid had already provided the means. Flesh impregnated with the liquid was impervious to most acids. I did some tests on the rate at which the liquid would be absorbed into flesh, and calculated the thickness of flesh I would want to remain on each part of the body. It had to be sufficient to give it strength against tearing, but not so thick that it made the end result appear overweight.

When Marjorie Baker, my next body, arrived, a pleasantly attractive thirty-year old, I only used the liquid on her skin rather than totally immersing her in it, as I normally did. I injected extra large doses directly into the breasts and buttocks, and filled her vagina with it. I waited the correct time for it to impregnate through the skin, then I popped her into a vat of nitric acid and left her to ferment.

Once I had thoroughly rinsed off the acid, the result was everything I had hoped - the carcass of a beautiful woman perfectly preserved for my delight, but with a void inside into which I could fit.

I had already decided how I would gain access, and I made a slit beneath her buttocks, similar to the slit I had first used on Mary Parker. I had thought carefully about this whole aspect, and I now made a series of small holes along both edges of the slit, and strengthened them with exactly the same kind of eyelet as used by corset manufacturers. I also made some small adjustments in the groin, to create space for my own genitals, and allowing me to urinate through Marjorie's own urethral opening.

It was then a matter of folding the carcass in half, inserting my legs into the legs of the carcass and pulling it up to my groin.

The next bit was quite difficult, as I had to bend over and insert my head into Marjorie's upper torso hanging before me. Fortunately, the Broughton Liquid made the skin wonderfully supple and flexible, and I managed to achieve that with only a little difficulty and I pushed my head right into her torso and through the neck until it was fully inside Marjorie's head.

At this point, I was still fully doubled up, and I had to now insert my own arms and shoulders inside hers. Only then, could I start to stand upright, which of course pulled the rest of her torso down my own so that eventually I was standing erect.

I have to confess, there was something else extremely erect at this point, and it made sliding it into the space I had allowed completely impossible.

I have to confess that Marjorie's beautiful hands did something for me that no self-respecting lady could ever contemplate.

With that problem out of the way, I could now proceed, correctly locating my genitals in the space I had created and then reaching behind me to pull Marjorie's buttocks down so they met the top of her thighs.

I have already detailed the eyelets along both edges of the slit and, starting at the end, I inserted a cord through the eyelets, pulling the two parts together as I worked my way towards the centre. I loosely tied off those ends, and then did the same on the other side, until I could pull the two cords as tight as possible and tie them off to each other. Staring at my buttocks in a mirror, the join was almost unnoticeable.

It only remained then to adjust the face so that my own face fitted properly into it. I had carefully retained Marjorie's eyelids, which fitted over my own. The lower eyelids, I stretched and pulled until they married completely with the edge of my own eyes. Marjorie's lips fitted over my own. My nose was somewhat longer than hers, but her flexible skin coped with it.

I was highly delighted as I stared in the mirror, for facing me was Marjorie Baker!

I had retained the personal effects of most of my residents, so I was able to commence dressing. I have to confess, the thrill of corseting my waist was exquisite.

I had obtained several nurses' uniforms from the Infirmary store cupboard, so I now slipped on a dress and apron. So dressed, I was able to venture around the Infirmary building in the early hours of the morning, for such it was by the time I was ready. I met one or two other nurses, and I told them I had been engaged by Doctor Broughton for mortuary work, which they appeared to accept without suspicion.

My expeditions became a regular event. Sometimes, I would walk in the Infirmary grounds, safe in the knowledge that the outside gates were locked, with a night watchman who permitted only emergency access. Once, I met Doctor Walker, who occupied the Dowry House within the grounds, and he smiled nicely at me and bid me goodnight. His smile made me shiver with excitement.

In fact, I always found the expeditions enormously stimulating. Very often, I had to terminate my tours of the Infirmary in order to return to my laboratory, extract myself from Marjorie and then have coition with one or more of my other companions.

Susan Bennett, the milk maid, arrived a few months later, with the back of her head caved in with a blunt instrument. I selected her as one of my companions because of the truly outstanding size of her breasts, and repeated on her the procedure I had used on Marjorie. In honesty, I rapidly tired of walking out as Susan. Being of lowly origins, she did not have a proper corset to her name, and none of the other corsets I had collected could cope with the mammoth size of her breasts. So when I went out on my expeditions, their weight rapidly made my back and shoulders ache. How on earth the poor girl coped with them in life, I simply cannot imagine. After a few such expeditions, I returned to walking out as Marjorie and continued to gain tremendous excitement for several months to come.

I have already mentioned my desire for intimacy following my expeditions, and I was in just such a position earlier this evening with Charlotte and Jane when Doctor Walker entered my laboratory. Fortunately, Marjorie was out of sight, but there was no doubt in Doctor Walker's mind as to what he was observing.

He was totally appalled and called me many nasty words. Following the dressing down, came his command for me to consider my options or he would notify the authorities in the morning. In the meantime, he would instruct the night watchman that I was not to be let out of the Infirmary grounds.

So there is my stark choice: suicide; or disgrace and prison; or...

The thought came from nowhere, as I had hoped that it might. Suppose Nurse Marjorie Baker was to go to Doctor Walker's house this evening, and tell him that she feared for my safety; that I had told her to lock me in the laboratory and remove the key; that I would take care of everything; that the laboratory was to be sealed up and never opened again. Doctor Walker would imagine that I was preparing to take my own life, after tidying away the unfortunate evidence.

It was not only a way out of my predicament, but the idea filled me with excitement greater than any I had ever known.

***

Mr Smythe could hardly take his eyes off me when I arrived — the combination of tightly corseted waist and large breasts, with little to prevent their natural swing, was too much for most men, including him. I told him I was Tammy, Tim Dudley's sister.

"Oh, is Tim here?" Mr Smythe asked, wanting to know what fancy dress he was wearing. I told him Tim was close by, but not what his fancy dress was, and he spent a little time looking around for him. But he couldn't stop his eyes from frequently returning to me. It's strange that the thoughts of a male lusting after me tremendously excited me — but they did.

Of course, I had no intention of taking things further with any male, but I am afraid I had too much alcohol. So, when Mr Smythe suggested we go up to his room, I stupidly agreed. I don't know what I thought was going to happen — perhaps that he would simply kiss me and fondle my breasts — but as soon as we were through the door, he had pushed me onto the bed and had spread my legs.

Too late, I realised I was not wearing any drawers; most women did not in that period, and there were none in Doctor Broughton's wardrobe. But before I could even think about the delicacy of my position, he had forced himself into me, and was working in and out fit to burst. "By Gad, girl," he said, "you've got a tight little cunty."

I have to confess, I really enjoyed being rogered by him. It was very different from sex as a male, and very exciting. But when he had finished, he almost threw me out of his bedroom; I really should not have expected anything else from that chauvinist, but I still felt extremely disappointed. So, I went back to the fancy dress party and got picked up by three of my colleagues from the office. They took me back to one of their hotel rooms, and they all three rogered me! What fun!

I could never have envisaged that my plan would work out so efficiently. It turned out that Rupert - that is Doctor Walker, was totally besotted by me, having seen me once before and looked for me ever since. So when I turned up on his doorstep, he accepted my words without thought that I might be lying. After all, he was only really interested in having his wicked way with me!

Even now, I am not certain why I let him. I could state it was a scientific experiment; that I wanted to see whether it would be possible for me to have sex with him as a woman might, without him becoming aware that I was male. It was, of course, an exceptionally high risk, for if he realised, I would be immediately arrested. In honesty, I suspect that my sexual needs compelled me to do so, as they have compelled me to do so much.

When I left him next morning, it was with a promise I would see him again that evening, a promise I never intended to keep.

My plan was that I would recover the valise of clothes I had hurriedly packed and hidden in the hospital grounds. I would then take the omnibus into the town centre and check into the Station Hotel. There, I would remove Marjorie's body, and dress once more as Doctor Broughton. I would catch the next train to London and start a new life - perhaps journey onto one of the colonies where my skills would be welcomed.

The first part of my plan went well, and I checked into the hotel without problem. But the problem arose when I tried to remove Marjorie's body, which appeared to be bonded to my own skin. I had never had any problem on previous occasions and for a time I could not understand the cause.

Then the realisation rushed through me like a punch in the stomach — in my panic the previous evening to don Marjorie's body whilst it was still a respectable hour at which to call on Doctor Walker, I had paid scant attention to washing the Broughton's Liquid off her body. I had washed it from the outside, but had not cleansed the inside.

My researches with the liquid had already shown me the importance of keeping the liquid off living flesh. An accidental splash and, after a few hours, the skin would soften to the point where it fell apart, exposing the flesh beneath, which had turned a strange shade of deep purple. It all healed perfectly within a few days, but it was certainly an experience I made certain I never repeated. Now, I suspected the same had happened, the liquid had dissolved my skin and my engorged flesh had somehow bonded to the flesh of Marjorie's body.

I could hardly go to the local infirmary and explain the problem! I was not in any pain, so I resolved to wait and observe what happened. At some stage, my skin would grow again, and I would be able to remove Marjorie's body.

So it was that I kept my appointment with Rupert that evening, and every evening since. Surprisingly, it appears my own flesh has adopted Marjorie's flesh as its own. Quite quickly, I started to detect a feeling in Marjorie's skin, which has continued to grow more sensitive as the days progress. Last evening, Doctor Walker only had to breathe on my nipples to send the most exquisite feelings through my body.

I must add that the joy he gives me with his penis surpasses anything I enjoyed as a male. I have decided to accept my fate and live my life as Marjorie, especially as Rupert has asked me to marry him.