Sylvia stared at the man's genitals.

"He wasn't that big after al," she said, and Mac laughed.

"Ready?" she asked, pul ing her hair up into a ponytail.

They took off their own clothes and folded them and put them as far away from the bed as possible.

Sylvia started with the man, not for any sexist reasons, just because he was the heavier of the two. She sat behind him and hauled him into her lap, his slack arms flopping by his sides. He grunted as though he were snoring.

Mac straightened the man's legs, crossed his arms over his stomach, and handed Sylvia the stiletto, which she took in her right hand.

She held the man's forehead in the crook of her left arm to keep his head up.

She felt with her fingertips for the man's pulse on his neck and estimated 5 the force of the flow.

Then she thrust the stiletto into the man's left jugular vein. She cut quickly through muscle and ligaments until she heard a soft hiss that told her that his windpipe had been cut.

Unconsciousness had lowered the brit's pulse and blood pressure, but the pressure in his jugular stil made the blood gush out in a fountain almost three feet from his body.

Sylvia checked that she hadn't been hit by the cascade.

"Bingo," Mac said. "You hit a geyser."

The force of the flow soon diminished to a rhythmic pulsing. The bubbling sound as the air and blood mixture seeped from the severed throat gradual y faded away until final y it stopped altogether.

"Nice work," Mac said. "Maybe you should have been a doctor."

"Too boring. Too many rules. You know me and rules."

Sylvia careful y moved away from Clive, propping him against the cheap headboard. She got blood on her arms when she arranged the man's hands on his stomach, right on top of left, but didn't bother to wash it off yet.

"Now it's your turn, darling," she said to the doped-up Englishwoman.