Made Safe, Part 1

Commuters sheltering from the wind and rain at the station entrance would have ignored the huge derelict hotel opposite. Gaunt, ugly and sooty, its rusty latticework grille shut fast, the garbage-filled front entrance hadn’t been used for years, No sound came from within, no light ever showed at the dirt-choked windows. Those huddling commuters might have supposed the place ripe for demolition.

They would have been wrong. I knew the secrets of that building. It was very much a going concern!

But what was I doing here, on a rainy November evening in the English Midlands? A few weeks before, I could never have anticipated this. I’d been living – very comfortably as it happened – in tropical South America. My business?

Months earlier, I’d been engaged by the Minister of Culture of one of the Gulf states, on a mission straight out of the Arabian Nights. It was to find a source of young boys and arrange for their transportation to the Middle East, having previously neutered them and made them boy-eunuchs. Provided with generous start-up funding it had all proved surprisingly easy. There was no shortage of young boys – the teeming hordes of street children in any South American city provided a limitless supply. And the means of turning boys into eunuchs had, in recent years, been simplified out of recognition. The gelding-irons and clamps of antiquity, together with the emasculators and rubber bands of more recent times, had been swept into the trash-can.

For this I had to thank science. The neutering of pre-pubescent boys had followed two paths – electronic and chemical. In some regions,delinquent boys had their genitals exposed to ultra-sound, a process that broke down the cellular structure of the testicles, preventing their further development and removing aggressive tendencies, while sometimes not entirely suppressing hormonal secretions or a limited ability to raise erections. Elsewhere, the authorities favoured a range of chemical compounds of which “Neutersol” was the first to be developed and the best known. In setting up my South American establishment I had gone for “Neutersol” which was far more thorough, the end-results identical to those of surgical castration, with no pain and no risk.

We’d worked on a four-weekly cycle. On Day 1 the boys would arrive and be cleaned –up and provided with new clothes. For the following week they would be given a high-protein diet, with plenty of healthy exercise during the day. On the seventh evening their bedtime hot drink would contain a sedative, and under the influence of this, they would be neutered by my resident doctor. The drug, injected by hypodermic into a boy’s testicles, operated first by closing off the blood supply, so that the organs withered away. Secondly it attacked the related nerve-endings so that the boy’s penis lost its power of erection and retracted into his body, all but two or three centimetres, making him permanently unable to “do it” with a girl.

On neutering night I used to assist my resident doctor by selecting the boys he wanted to “do” first. I would assist them, half-asleep, to the surgery, steady their shoulders and keep them distracted during the few seconds of their operation. He had a special interest in boys within a few months of starting puberty, with cheeky faces, sturdy penises and large lax scrotums. These showed the after-effects of the injection more quickly than boys who still had small hard testicles and “winkles”. By the time they were ready for their journey to the Middle East and a new life, their neutering was complete. They looked as they would always look in the future: good-looking, strong healthy youngsters with permanently high voices, and tiny penises that they could never put into a girl’s vagina (or a boy’s bottom) or even masturbate.

Now my part in all of this was wholly commercial. I’ve no particular interest in eunuchs as such, and even less in becoming one. Though this narrative wouldn’t be complete without mentioning a “near-miss” I had at the age of 12. The school summer game was cricket. At that tender age no one suggested that we needed to wear jock-straps or cricket-boxes – our genitals were supposed to be too small to matter. As a consequence, one afternoon I fielded a low, hard catch, right in the balls.

I was helped off the field, doubled-up, but the suffocating pain grew no less. After a sleepless night I was taken to the school doctor, who didn’t like what he saw. “They” were hideously swollen and dark red, my scrotum full of fluid. Antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs, then, were not what they are now. The doctor spoke kindly, but to the point. At the very first sign of septicaemia he would have to operate. It was a choice of giving up my balls or succumbing to blood poisoning. With my balls gone, unlike all my school-mates I should never need to shave, and my voice would never change. Later there was the possibility of hormone replacement, but the results were uncertain. I might go through life with a travesty of a child’s body, unable to get married or have children;

In fact I was spared becoming the school’s first and only castrato. The swelling began to subside. For about a week my pee was bloodstained and smelled of bad fish. Then normality returned. Later, with adolescence, came sexual curiosity and I experimented in both directions. Opportunities in the holidays made me admit to myself that above all things I loved fucking girls. There was one in particular, called Dawn……..but that’s another story. In term time there were no girls within reach. The alternative was to select some blue-eyed, blonde-haired cherub from the fourth form, take him to some secluded spot and pull his pants down….. But after a few such encounters I decided that a boy’s bottom was a poor substitute for the soft nest between Dawn’s thighs.

But to return to South America, where things had settled down to a routine. I only heard from my employers in the Gulf once a month – when they paid for the last shipment. I had believed them to be morally bound to me, as I was to them – though nothing, naturally,had ever been signed. Then one day a cable was delivered requesting an immediate meeting in Asuncion.

My visitor was a suave young man who introduced himself as Mohammed bin Aziz, an attaché of the Minister who had once engaged me. His message was brief and to the point. He would take over my premises with immediate effect. My services were terminated as of that moment. As an afterthought he added that his masters wished to convey their appreciation for what I had achieved, and a suitable credit had been arranged……..

In other words I’d been thrown out. I had just enough time to shift my savings to an offshore account and arrange for my few belongings to be airfreighted. On the long flight to London I thought ruefully of what it would mean to return to the Foreign Office on a Principal’s salary, to a 9 – to- 5 timetable, to preparing reports on vegetable oils……..

Heathrow, seen on a stormy afternoon, was ominous. My pied-a-terre off Kensington High Street smelled of dust and stale air, after being unused for months.. I got a cleaner in, and aired the place, but London was claustrophobic and within a week I’d taken off for rural France, to the old mediaeval town of Tonnerre, a place I knew and liked. But within a few hours of arriving I got a feeling I was being watched. This was confirmed next afternoon. I was leaning on the parapet of the old bridge over the little brook that parallels the Canal de Bourgogne, when a man came up on my left, and also looked down at the water. Like me, he had on a Barbour jacket; unlike me he wore a tweed cap and had a small military-looking moustache.

“Clear, isn’t it?” he said pleasantly.

“It looks different in spate” I replied. (This was a very old, low-level recognition sign.)

The man turned to me and held out his hand. “Max Riche” he said. “We’ve heard you’ve been doing marvels in South America”.

I knew of Max Riche, who always kept his Army rank – Major. He belonged to an obscure section called “Development”, known to be involved in a range of things that were, if not outlawed, then at least extremely shady. I’d never met him till today, but clearly he knew all about me. So I played it by ear.

“I can’t think how you know” I said. “I was as careful as I could be”.

“Word gets around” Major Riche replied vaguely. “The thing is, what do you propose to do with yourself now – that’s what we have to decide. Let’s walk along for a bit”.

At the end of the bridge Riche made me follow him into a café. “It’s quite safe in here” he said. “All the staff are employed by the section.” He ordered Dubonnet-and-tonic for both of us – the afternoon was hot and sultry.

“Now first” he began “We’re sorry we had to pull you out of there”

“You?” I interrupted

“Oh, yes. The chappie who came to see you was just the messenger-boy. In the Middle East it’s not so much the “big picture” we worry about, as a kind of kaleidoscope that’s always shifting. One day it’s oil that’s the most prominent, next it’s military bases. Unfortunately we found one piece that had ceased to fit any of the patterns, and that was you. We just had to let them do their own thing. They’ll come unstuck of course- the police will close them down within a month”.

I sat and stared at him. “Anyway” he went on. “No need to be apologetic about anything. You’ve been neutering boys who might otherwise have starved to death. We both know there are thousands of boys who ought to be neutered. It’s tricky in the U K just now but we’re hoping to get the law changed. You know, in one of those Miscellaneous Provisions bills. The legal people will just slip another clause in, and a lot of young boys will get their balls taken out and be all the better for it, with no questions asked”. (Might not the boys have a few questions, I wondered.)

I listened, all ears. Riche went on. “Of course there will be a lot of flak from the usual quarters, the Human Rights brigade, the Right to Life shower, various god-botherers quoting from the book – God, how I hate the bloody lot of them!” He lit a cigarette and offered one to me, which I declined.

“Thousands of boys, I said. Presently we only manage a handful but the results speak for themselves. Some old friends of mine, against all advice, adopted an autistic boy. He turned out to be one of those who now and then go ballistic and smash the place up. They were recommended neutering and got him done somewhere, Channel Islands I think. Well, he’s as autistic as ever, but quiet with it- spends hours with a stamp-collection if you please. I’ve seen him in the bath – the neatest little castration scars you ever saw”.

Riche finished his drink and ordered another round. “Then there’s a young relative of mine; he’s currently in boarding school near Eastbourne. He’s getting on for 15 just now. Up to three years ago he was, well, just horrible: vicious, lazy, dirty – the lot. A cousin of mine got him “done” by one of the new chemical methods, and it’s been the making of him. He’s good at all kinds of sports, buckles down to school work and seems universally popular. Good-looking kid too. Almost a pity that he’ll never screw a girl, but then…….” Riche shrugged his shoulders and looked intently into my face.

“What are your plans, Iain? I need to know”.

“I hadn’t thought” I said weakly. “Back to the Department I suppose”.

“Where you would be utterly wasted” Riche retorted. “and I don’t think they’d have you back anyway. “What you ought to do is find another gap in the market.”

“Any suggestions”

“Yes, and funnily enough, not a million miles from where we’re sitting.” He dropped his voice slightly. “I mean the old French aristocracy. They are far, far more exclusive than the British peerage. Many families were extinguished by the Revolution and the newer titles made by Napoleon are despised. The remaining ancient families are scared sick of getting their precious blue blood contaminated. And they still maintain massive domestic establishments including – wait for it – boys to attend the younger family members..

“Not long ago at a garden party I was introduced to a fearful old dragon called the Comtesse de something-or-other. She has since gone into print on the subject. Her theme is that in “happier times” as she calls pre-Revolutionary France, page boys recruited into a household would be “made safe” i.e. neutered, to remove any risk of the young daughters ever getting pregnant by them. It’s all quite true. She wrote about how some boys actually used to make a pilgrimage to Verdun, then a very important centre for eunuchs – knowing their career prospects were better without their balls. One of them seemingly kept a diary and writes “I was no more than thirteen when I resolved to have my codpiece sewn up”. Without a full set of genitals he wouldn’t have any use for one”.

I’d read about all this, the courts of medieval and Renaissance France, the pretty pages of both sexes with shining shoulder-length hair, dressed in silk jackets and tight hose . How they all slept in crowded attic bedrooms, and to prevent any juvenile sexual pranks, any boy aspiring to be a page had a quick visit to the barber to be suitably “pruned”. But this was centuries ago. “And you’re saying this is being revived – here – in France, in 2003? Good God!”

“It’s never totally died out. So long as France had her African colonies there was a supply of black boy-eunuchs from slave dealers. More recently there has been a clandestine trickle from Algeria, where there are village castrations in remote areas.”

I shuddered inwardly, knowing all about village castrations.

“So there’s your market. Not big-scale, but steady. I’ve got a few contact names which I’ll give you, nearer the time. Now, what about the supply? That’s easy, too”.

I listened while Max Riche talked. The supply, amazingly, was from the U K itself. I couldn’t fault his logic. During the Thatcher years the various institutions caring for children – Barnardo’s, NSPCC, local authority homes – had been subsumed into a vast “care industry”, measured in “bed-nights” and judged solely by the bottom line. The old charitable bodies had been augmented by a vast number of private “agencies”. Staffed by people who were hopelessly overworked and badly paid, the administration and record keeping creaked badly.

The “agencies” were subject to inspection but in practice it didn’t happen. In theory it was possible to find out the whereabouts of any child at any time, but a lot depended on manual records, and files often went missing. If in all of this, a few “problem units” i.e. children with behaviour problems, slipped through the net, no one minded very much, least of all the accountants to whom the “bottom line” was all that mattered.

“We’ve done a bit of hacking” Riche went on “and set you up as the Westward Ho Training Unit – damn silly name I know but I’ve seen worse. No need for you to contact anyone – they’ll come to you. And the fact of it being on M o D property will prevent anyone sniffing around too closely”.

My new premises, Max explained, despite the name, were not to be in the West Country but in the Midlands – the address suggested iron, steel, coalmining and changing trains. Originally a railway hotel it had been requisitioned in World War II and reinforced, with bunkers below street level. Then in the Cold War it became a command post, modernised and fitted out for senior people to live in, if need be, for weeks at a time. A leisure centre had been provided and one of the low level bunkers converted to a swimming pool. “Better get up there right away” Max said “get yourself settled in”.

This extraordinary man then went on to outline the arrangements he’d already made – everything he’d said up till then was just “softening-up”. His concerns stemmed from the fact that his blue-blooded French aristocrats had a hell of a pull – behind the scenes – on the Council of Europe, and the policy in the UK was “Keep the punters happy”. Acting on this, Max had requisitioned and refurbished the building and arranged for catering and cleaning by MoD people – at taxpayers’ expense. The layout of the place prevented any possible contact between the staff side and “my” side.

The boys I should have to deal with - I could expect them in pairs - had already passed from one agency to another several times and were pretty mixed-up. Max felt that they should be introduced to some other boys who all shared the following characteristics: they were all outstanding at some sport or other, they had all been neutered, and most important of all, were ready to talk about it openly. Simon and his friends would outnumber the newcomers two-to-one. At no time would either of the newcomers be out of the company of one of Simon’s team, who would lead the conversation round to having his balls pricked, how easy and simple it was, and about life without testosterone.

After a short stay at the centre the newcomers would be brainwashed to the point that they were ready and willing for that visit to the doctor. His name, by the way, was Otto von Gosch, a naturalised American, though born an Austrian. I could expect him in a couple of days.

The boys had been selected already: Max’s young cousin Simon as leader, and four others. Simon had been instrumental in identifying boy-eunuchs among his schoolmates – something that he would know better than any housemaster. The Headmaster had readily agreed to release them for “work of national importance” with the assurance that their schooling would not suffer: they would get intensive teaching from an RAEC sergeant who would visit three mornings a week.. The newcomers would receive one-to-one tutoring in French to fit them for their new life.

“I think that’s it for the time being” said Max. “Get your stuff packed. There’s a TGV from here at half-four and a flight from Charles de Gaulle at eight. Be on it. I’ll be in touch again before the week’s out. Oh, and by the way, we’ve changed your cover slighly – you’ve used your Army rank to extinction, so you’re now Commander Donald, R.N. Don’t accept any invitations to Fleet garden parties, though.”.

My joining instructions led me to an innocent-looking doorway in a terrace of shops, with two brass plates on the wall. The top one said, improbably “Dr V E Mantraps MD and partners”. The second said “Westward Ho Training Unit”. A trained eye might have spotted the unusually heavy security locks, and a steel shutter that could be brought down over everything. I went up some stairs and was met at a reception desk by a young Guards subaltern to whom I showed my ID. His keen gaze took in the three gold stripes of my new rank. He saluted and I returned it. “Come this way, sir, please” he said, without further introduction.

A lift took us to a basement lobby and another door, with a digital lock. Then another lift, and a corridor. Two more doors, close together, formed an air-lock and were operated by voice-recognition. At each of these the subaltern paused to let me log-on. A third and final lift, upwards this time, brought us to a totally different world. The shell of the old hotel, already heavily reinforced from the inside in WW II, had been refurbished in the 60’s with no expense spared. The whole place was brilliantly lighted and air-conditioned. The windows appeared to look out on parkland – in fact very realistic 3-D simulations. On the lowest level there was a quarter-size swimming pool, already up-and-running after several years’ disuse. Further up, a refectory that could have held twenty. The serving hatch was covered by half-inch reinforced glass.

On the top level, sleeping accommodation for two grades. The boys would each have a curtained section in a dormitory – the “other ranks” barrack room of former years. For senior staff there were separate rooms. I chose one with a small office adjoining – an office that had two phones, a desktop PC, and the CCTV screens. The bedroom looked as if it might once been used by a Major-General or very senior MoD civilian official.

Everywhere was spotlessly clean and shining. “A fatigue party comes in daily, sir” explained the subaltern. “Different men every time, under the strictest instructions not to speak to anyone. They have a separate entrance from the one we used, which you don’t need to know about” (meaning he wasn’t going to tell me). “If that’s everything, I’ll leave you to settle in”.

It was less than an hour later that one of the phones rang, to say I had a visitor in Reception. Finding my way back through the labyrinth I came face to face with a tall man of indeterminate age – he might have been anywhere between fifty and seventy – with a worn, refined face. Like a character out of a 40’s film he wore an old raincoat and Trilby hat. “Doctor von Gosch?” I enquired.

“Professor von Gosch” he corrected.

I got the Professor settled in, then- no one having said I couldn’t, I went off into the town in search of some delicatessen and something to drink with it. (Later, the MoD provided a chef, and the chef provided the Professor and me with delicious meals of Egon Ronay standard). Over food and wine the Professor unwound. In his native Austria he had advocated that targeting selected groups of boys, such as serial troublemakers – arsonists and so on – for neutering, was the cure for a range of social problems. Unfortunately this brought him in conflict with conservative elements particularly the Church, and he had to leave the country.

Abroad, he found commercial interests aimed at supplying neutered boys to Central America to work in fruit and coffee plantations. These employed juvenile labour in large amounts, and of both sexes. This was big business for pharmaceutical labs. He had worked on various local programs based on the burdizzo and elastrator methods. Both had serious drawbacks. With boys neutered by burdizzo, in a significant number of cases the spermatic cords were not fully crushed, and managed to partly regenerate. With elastration the boy’s testicles sometimes failed to atrophy fully, and full surgical removal had to be carried out to avoid septicaemia or worse, gangrene. More seriously, with neither of these methods was it certain that the boy would be fully impotent and unable to get erections. They would continue to be a nuisance with girls.

The Professor’s opportunity came with the introduction of “Neutersol”. He didn’t need to tell me much about how it was used. What I didn’t know was that the drug he’d brought with him – a substantial amount – was the very latest development, “Neutersol Rapid”. In principle this was applied in the same way, by direct injection into the centre of a boy’s testicles. (The Professor liked his patients to be fast asleep while this was done). There was a new side-effect: for about twelve hours after the injections. Because of stimulation of the nerve-endings, the boys experienced uncontrollable – and very stiff – erections – the last they would ever have. When these subsided, the new drug worked so much more quickly than the prototype, that shrinkage of the boy’s genitals would be complete in ten to twelve days, as opposed to four or five weeks.

Like my former assistant in Paraguay, Otto, as he now asked me to call him, was passionate about castrating boys, for the change in behaviour patterns which this produced, particularly the violently autistic and hyperactive. He could quote example after example of little horrors who behaved like lambs once the cause was removed. Instead of trashing the place they would take up quiet hobbies like stamp collecting or classifying wild flowers. On the fruit and coffee plantations, neutering the boys made them stronger for work, since none of their energies went into producing testosterone and semen.

Next afternoon, after a morning of paperwork, I needed to visit the Bank and was away some time. Returning, it was to find that my next lot of expected visitors had been delivered to the reception desk and that the duty officer – another Guards subaltern – had already taken them into the building to put their kit away. At basement-level a sound of splashing indicated that my expected visitors had not been slow to explore, and had discovered where the swimming pool was. I pushed the double doors open and went to see for myself.

There were six altogether, five European and one Asian. The boy on the diving platform, with his back to me , was taller than the others. His wet skin glistened from his last dive. His light-blonde hair was plastered to his scalp with water. Like all the others, he wore no bathing-costume. Before he plunged in again I noticed his well-made body, sturdy thighs and round bottom. This had to be Simon, whose story I’d heard from Max Riche.

Not far away stood a smaller boy with fair curly hair and brown eyes. He had a tiny penis drawn right into his groin, and the remains of a scrotum. This boy did a very neat back-somersault into the pool. I applauded, then called out “Will you all get dressed, please? You can come back here later”. The other four boys stood up; they too had minuscule penises and no other visible genitals.

I stopped the tall boy on his way to the shower-room. “You must be Simon Scott” I said. At age eleven and a half, Simon had been an impossibility: dirty, lazy, rude, moody – the lot. Max’s brother-in-law Carl, who stood in as an unofficial uncle to the boy, took him on one side and broke the news to him that he was to have his balls pricked. Being a dirty-minded kid Simon was fascinated by the idea of anything to do with his “privates”. That was three years ago, and he was now the boy-eunuch of classical tradition. He had a penis to speak of; no larger than a thimble and of much the same shape – and nothing else...if one didn't count the fact that he was possessed of the body of a lithe young god.

“Yes, that’s right” the boy replied. His voice was like that of a female mezzo-soprano: light but not shrill. “Are you Commander Donald, sir? I’ve heard about you from Uncle Max”.

“Right” I said. “I want a few minutes to tell you what you need to know, and then you can get properly settled in. Then it’ll be teatime. Burgers and chips, I expect – it’s all the kitchen seem to know how to do”.

“Sounds OK to me” the boy said. He smiled and hurried off to get dressed.

When I’d got them all round the table I told them my name and, feeling a terrible fraud, my rank. “I’m in charge” I said. “Now, let’s be clear why you are all here today. What have you all got in common?”

The boy called Graham spoke first, in a clear high voice, with a hint of a Geordie accent. “We’ve all had our balls pricked, so that we can’t fuck girls”.

A pretty-faced, fair-haired youngster added “We’re all healthy growing boys with tiny cocks”. He sniggered, till he caught Simon’s eye.

“Rather crude, Elliott! You too, Maitland. Why couldn’t you put it like this – “There were once two objections to our being here, but both have been removed” He turned to me. “Please excuse Elliott. He’s only been “done” a month. He’s still a bit self-conscious”.

By degrees I learned the background of my new arrivals. Simon’s neutering I knew about already. The story of Graham Elliott, who had only been “done” a month before, was a bit similar. In the care of an aunt and uncle who took no notice of him, he had been allowed to run amok with the lads – and lasses – of the Northumberland village where he lived. All young boys are sexually curious but in Graham’s case it bordered on priapism- he was unable to see a girl without trying to get her knickers off. Faced with an ultimatum, Graham’s uncle arranged for him to be neutered. He had cried at first, finding himself sterile and impotent, but so quickly does Neutersol work that, after only a month Graham was starting to forget what it was like to have been a boy. He was brilliant at all kinds of gymnastics.

Manchit, the Indian boy, had been destined to become an acolyte in a strange sect that employed eunuch-priests, and had undergone a ritual castration from which he had been fortunate to recover. The priests had treated him badly, and hearing of this, relatives rescued him from the cult and brought him to Britain. Good at many sports, he fitted well into Simon’s school – he had a good sense of humour and everyone liked him. He was a very promising fast bowler and though hampered by his diminutive size, was useful in the boxing ring too as a fly-weight.

The Roebuck twins, ginger-headed, and freck.led – Jamie and Jon – had been brought up in the Middle East where their father had worked for an oil company. Tragically they lost both parents in a sailing accident when they were only five years old. State institutions looked after them for the next few years. It was the custom in that country that after seven years if no relatives had appeared, boys would be neutered routinely, and it was only after Jamie and Jon had had their balls pricked and made boy-eunuchs that friends of their late parents at last traced them and took them away. They were quiet boys and spoke little, except to each other. They were specialists in unarmed combat.

Mark Maitland, who had so upset Simon by his comment about “tiny cocks” had the look of a choirboy and in fact was: he had already released enough albums to rival Aled Jones. Before his operation he had a girlfriend and despite being so young, had even managed to have sex with her a few times. Mark’s neutering had been arranged by the aunt he lived with, as a sort of twelfth birthday present, to keep his voice high and prolong his singing career. Like Simon he was a good all-rounder but excelled in swimming.

When it came to discussion of how it felt to be neutered, Simon was the most down-to-earth: some boys kept their balls, some didn’t, he’d lost his – end of story. The twins, Jamie and Jon, were reticent. Manchit’s gruesome amputation was best left alone. But of all the boys, Mark was the most open about having had his balls pricked and the consequences. Now a boy-eunuch he still saw his girlfriend sometimes. Unable now to raise an erection or reach orgasm he had learned to do “oral” on her, and she was apparently never tired of seeing – and feeling – where his testicles had been. “I get very strong feelings sometimes” he confided “but nothing happens, down there”. He had the smallest penis of all the boys.

“Now we know each other” I went on “this is what’s going to happen. In the next day or two you’ll be joined by two or possibly three other boys. They have been selected for an assignment abroad, which I can’t tell you about; all you need to know is that they will be getting some intensive training for a few days, then they’ll get their inoculations and go overseas. They have a totally different background to you- they may be quite difficult at first. When they’re not training, I want you to make them feel at home – on a level with yourselves. Yes, Roebuck, what is it?”

“Did you mention inoculations, sir”? It was one of the twins, Jon. I could tell them apart: Jon had the softer features and lacked Jamie’s prominent cheekbones. His eyes had a knowing look – he’d cottoned on to something, for certain.

“Yes, I did”.

“Mind if we have a confab, sir?” I nodded and they all went into a huddle with a lot of loud whispering. After a few minutes of this, Simon, the appointed leader, looked up.

“Sir, it was Jon’s idea but we’re all agreed. All six of us have been neutered. We’ve got accustomed to being different from boys who haven’t been. We’re sort of in a world of our own. Jon quickly realised when you said “inoculations” that these two or three new boys are going to get neutered, and it’s our job to get them used to the idea.”.

Graham Elliott chipped in. “After all, it takes a bit of facing up to, that you’ll never have full sex with a girl, and all the rest. I remember how I howled my eyes out for days afterwards. If I’d known these lads at the time, though, and known more about it, no problem”.

“Are they going to have their balls pricked, sir?” asked Manchit. “Or done like me?” He looked worried.

“Not like you, Manchit” I assured him. His coffee-coloured features relaxed. “That’s alright then. Mark has told me. Two little pricks and they dry up”. ( Mark had apparently described to Manchit how, on a summer afternoon he had taken himself down to the clinic on his bicycle, to keep the appointment, and afterwards biked back, his balls tingling from the injections; how over the next week or two he’d watched them steadily shrink and lose sensation).

TO BE CONTINUED