The Trek

“The masses of men live their lives in quiet desperation”, Thoreau observed a hundred and fifty years ago, and his words were certainly descriptive of me right after we started the company. None of us had any money to speak of, and we paid ourselves mostly with stock options. Four of us shared an unfurnished two-bedroom apartment and we’d sit around on the floor eating cheap frozen dinners and canned chili and talking about what we would do when we finally got rich. Dave wanted a big house and fancy car, Mark longed for a yacht with an all-female crew, while Kevin would be satisfied with a Lear jet and a ranch somewhere in Montana. I wanted to travel. All boys like National Geographic Magazine, but it was more than just looking at the boobs and jacking off for me; I read all of every article about the strange and unexplored countries and vowed that some day I would go to exotic places and discover things myself.

We finally went public with the company and when I retired at age thirty-one as a multimillionaire I immediately set out on a round-the-world trip. It was disappointing; I had anticipated some commercialization, but everywhere I went, no matter how remote, the kids were wearing Disney t-shirts and listening to radios.

I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy myself; I had been a stereotypical nerd in high school and college, and the girls didn’t want anything to do with me. After I became wealthy I was suspicious of the motives of any girl that suddenly wanted to have my baby, so the trip was a perfect opportunity to sample the most exotic women on Earth and I did so at every opportunity. I finally got pissed off enough at all of the commercialization in the so called wilderness areas that I cut my trip short and returned home to regroup and recover from a case of the clap.

I set out again the next year, this time with more focused itinerary and an adequate supply of condoms, in search of the ultimate adventure. I had already been to South America, and Africa scared the shit out of me with all of the AIDS and Ebola. I don’t particularly enjoy being around black people, and most of the former USSR was now assessable so I headed east. Same story: Everywhere I went they were talking about the last big foreign expedition that had been through. I had spent a lot of money and traveled thousands of miles and hadn’t really seen anything that I hadn’t already seen on television.

I was sitting in a tavern in Tashkent when I was approached by a man who had overheard me whining about how tame things were.

“What do you mean tame,” he asked in broken English.

I was about half fucked up on some local liquor and half stoned on another local product and I let him have it with both barrels. “I’ve been just damn near everywhere and seen just about everything. Men fucking boys, boys fucking sheep, and donkeys fucking girls. I don’t thing there’s anything that would shock me.” I slurred.

“You Yankees with your cigarette cocks and cigar mouths are all alike,” he retorted.

“For a thousand rupets I can show you something you have never seen in America or anywhere else in the world either.”

A thousand rupets would be a king’s ransom for this man, but only amounted to a couple of day’s interest on my investments.

“What can you show me that I haven’t already seen?” I challenged, confident that he was just blowing smoke.

“There is a ceremony that no westerner has ever witnessed. It is held in a secluded valley many days travel from here.”

I knew all about these ‘ceremonies’. They drag out a bunch of locals, dress them up, and they put on a pretty good show, but it is all staged and not real. “What kind of ceremony would I pay a thousand rupets to see?”

“Have you ever seen a boy held down and gelded like farm animal?”

I was hooked right there and then, and waited patiently for him to reel me in. This was exactly the type of thing I had been looking for, and video footage of such a ceremony would secure my place in history as a first class explorer. The man went on to explain that he was a merchant, and he made occasional trips to the valley to trade, and that I could go along as his assistant. He also pointed out that no cameras would be allowed, and that I must abandon the dress and mannerisms of a westerner or I would not be allowed to enter the valley, and there would be dire consequences if my real identity were discovered.

I hastily agreed, and figuring that these rubes would have no idea what a modern video recorder even looked like, I planned to take a miniature one along.

I sort of expected that we would be going on camels or horses or something like that, but instead we saddled up an old Mercedes Uni-mog, sort of a cross between a truck and tractor, and with extra fuel, spare parts, and trade goods in a trailer we set off to the east. It was a long journey across what I considered to be trackless wasteland, and to help pass the time my guide told me a little about the valley and it’s occupants.

The valley, he explained, is long and narrow and is located in a deep chasm between two impassable waterfalls on a large river. The river provides a constant source of firewood for the valley, and there is enough arable land to grow crops and tend herds to provide the basic necessities of life. The river also brings down some placer gold, which is mined and traded for medicine, spices, and other items needed from outside the valley. Access is carefully controlled, and all traders are strip-searched by armed guards posted at the top of the trail that is the only route into the valley.

‘Shit!’ I thought, as my plans for smuggling in a camera evaporated. Still, I was a pretty good artist and I was sure I could surreptitiously draw pictures illustrating whatever I saw.

He went on to explain that the government pretty much left the valley alone and let it rule itself. An old chieftain currently held sway, and by custom he kept the population stable and controlled the birth rate by limiting the number of breeding males, which was extremely important because by some fluke of nature there were always many more boys born than girls.

“How does he select who will be allowed to breed?” I wondered.

“By tradition only the most robust and virile men are allowed to reproduce,” he said cryptically. I had a lot more questions about this ceremony I was to witness, but he refused to elaborate.

The next day he gave me a few more details. A boy, or man, wishing to marry must pass a test that is only administered on the day of the summer solstice, which would be occurring soon. The individual can only take the test once and those who pass are free to marry while those who fail are immediately castrated.

“What kind of test?” I inquired, hungry for more knowledge.

“You will see for yourself, soon enough,” He replied, and added. “Not all men risk taking the test. Some chose to live alone, denying themselves the pleasures of life, while others consort with other men. Both are mocked and held in low esteem, but for them it is better than failing the test.”

I tried to get more details out of him, but instead he changed the subject, and I was left wondering about all of this for a few more days until we got to the edge of the chasm. Several armed guards packing modern semi-automatic weapons, which my host informed me was the only concession made to the modern era, met us there. There were also five men leading pack burros to transport the trade goods to the valley floor.

The guards were immediately suspicious of me, but my host informed them that I was his wife’s third cousin or something from far away and that he was grooming me to enter the business. Their language was one that I had never heard, but it wasn’t unusual strangers to not be able to speak it so that fact aroused no undue alarm with them.

The next morning we transferred the goods to the burros and made ready to complete our trip, but first we had to undergo a thorough search. I have never particularly liked to be naked in the company of strangers, and I could see they were somewhat amused at the size of my equipment.

I asked my host what they were saying, and he smiled a little and said they were making bets about rather or not I would return in the same condition with all of my parts! My ample endowments shrank slightly with that knowledge, but I kept my composure and we were soon on our way to the floor of the valley.

The trail was steep and rocky, and it was easy to see why the valley had been left alone, as it would take a major engineering effort to clear out a trail for any kind of vehicle.

We stopped at dark and camped for the night, at which time my host gave me another little hint about the mysterious test that would be administered in a couple of days.

“Because there are so few women it is important that they chose proper mates that can give them the satisfaction they deserve. Sex is important to the women, so it was decided years ago that only men who can demonstrate their potency and virility should be allowed to mate, and to do so a man must show that he can produce sperm twenty-four times on the day of the summer solstice, specifically once each hour. Those who can perform this feat are allowed to marry; those who can’t are gelded and will spend the rest of their lives working the field or mines. Some years none take the test and in some years several men do. This year is special because the chieftain’s only daughter has two suitors taking the test.”

“What if both pass the test?” I asked, assuming that only one man could marry her. “How do they decide who the lucky guy will be?”

“Oh, she gets to pick,” he said. “The other will marry someone else, or, having passed the test may leave the valley, of course very few do. She is nineteen, and has been trying to get a husband for three years, but none of her suitors have passed the test”

We settled in for the night, and by noon the next day we reached the valley floor.

Lush, green field lined the river, and well-fed, healthy looking men tended the crops. I could see a group of boys playing by the road, and when we got closer I was astounded to see that they all had their tunics pulled up and were masturbating!

I know a lot about masturbation, in fact for a few weeks I thought I had invented it and was the only one who ever did it. Later on I learned the truth, and although I had circle jerked with some buddies a time or two there was no way in hell that I would have ever let an adult see me do it. These kids just stopped for a minute, waved at us, and went back at it as soon as we passed.

“They are practicing,” my host explained. “They are too young to take the test but eventually they will want to marry, so they all get a pretty early start preparing for their tests.”

We spent the rest of that day and the next negotiating with the chieftain over the trade goods. All through the city there was a carnival like atmosphere as the populace got ready for the solstice. The younger boys masturbated openly and seemed unashamed to have their activity observed by women and girls. It was almost as if they were advertising their endowments and abilities! That evening my host enlightened me as to some of the finer points of the strategy.

“There are two methods of preparation,” he said. “Some of the contestants masturbate furiously for months before the test, hoping to condition their bodies into producing the required number of orgasms, while others take it easy, building their strength and storing up their seed until the day of the solstice. Some partake of so-called ‘herbal enhancements’ or aphrodisiacs to boost their performance, while others believe prayer or meditation will suffice. The only thing I can tell for sure is that none of the methods are foolproof. Another important factor is age. Moat want to take the test when they are seventeen or eighteen years old, when their rivers are in full flood, so as to speak, while others wait until they are older, stronger, and have more stamina. A few men wait until their mid thirties to try, but most of those fail.”

The next day, the eve of the solstice, was a holiday for the valley and it seemed like the entire population turned out for the festival. The games and amusements lasted all day and continued late into the evening, and as midnight approached all were gathered in the town square to watch the start of the tests.

Four pallets, or rough beds, were laid out in the center of the square, and a few minutes before midnight the contestants entered the square and went to the pallets.

One was young, in fact too young according to my host. He had just turned fifteen and was madly in love with a young girl and wished to marry her as soon as possible, and even though it was doubtful that he could even support a wife the girl’s father had given his permission. He looked as if he was having second thoughts about it now.

Two of the contestants were older youths, perhaps seventeen or eighteen, and they were both seeking the hand of the chieftain’s daughter. They both looked confident enough, and even though they were rivals they joked and bantered with each other as if they did this kind of thing all of the time. Their eagerness to compete was evidenced by the erections tenting out the front of their trousers.

The third man was much older; in fact he looked to be almost my age, which is considered too old for games such as these. He had avoided testing until this year, but he suddenly felt the urge and became engaged to a lady his own age, and according to my host he was committed to marry the woman anyway, although obviously there would be something lacking in their marriage if he failed his test. He looked bored and sleepy, and seemed to have a hard time staying awake.

A bell rang out signaling the start of the solstice and the action commenced. A timer inverted a large hourglass filled with sand and the three youngsters all pulled down their loose trousers and began stroking their cocks. The young boy, as expected, popped first followed quickly by the two older youths. I am no expert on other guy’s masturbatory habits but judging by the volume and strength of their ejaculations I would say that none of them had jerked off recently. The crowd gave their performance a round of applause and turned their attention to the fourth man, who had fallen asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

He was sound asleep and snoring loudly without a care in the world, and he continued to sleep for most of the remaining hour as the youngsters fidgeted and watched the sand flow through the hourglass. I figured he had about five more minutes of masculinity remaining when an old woman emerged from the crowd and quietly joined him on the pallet. She slowly worked his pants down, freed his penis, and gave him an exquisite hand job, finishing just before the time ran out. She followed that up by giving him a blowjob, and although his pelvis thrust with her rhythm he didn’t wake up even as she expertly withdrew her mouth so the official scorer could witness his orgasm.

“That is his mother,” my host explained. “She obviously wants grandchildren of her own to spoil and play with. Now he can sleep for almost two hours and wake up feeling refreshed. He is not only older than the boys but smarter too.”

The three youths went back to thrashing their meats while my host and I retired for the night. Watching boys masturbate is not how I intended to spend the rest of the night, and the mother-son scene I had just watched made me need a little privacy for a few minutes, and judging by the faces of most of the men in the crowd I wasn’t the only one.

I woke up the next morning, had a light breakfast, and joined my host in the town square just about the same time the oldest contestant awoke. He yawned, stretched, and unembarrassed by his morning erection rose and noisily relieved himself in a bucket before going back to his bed for his first blowjob of the morning. This time it was a young girl doing the honors. My host didn’t know if it was his sister, niece, or perhaps the sister of his intended wife, but whomever it was she knew her business well enough, and he only held out for a few minutes before dutifully depositing his sperm in a cup for the scorer to observe.

The youngsters were having a slightly tougher time with it. Being young and full of the pleasures of youth they had relied on their own wrist action and hadn’t yet resorted to help from others, and their cocks were showing the strain, as evidenced by the red chaffing. The youngest boy was having an especially hard time, and he had to bone himself for nearly a half an hour before finally becoming hard and spewing a few drops into the air. I doubted if he would last until noon unless he had some pretty good stimulation lined up. The older youths had stopped all of their friendly banter and was now jerking off with a vengeance, each trying to outdo the other. They were also working unassisted but were able climax after only about fifteen minutes of manipulation.

I left the naked man and boys in the square to their own devises and wandered around the town for a while, marveling at how unspoiled it all was and wishing like hell I had a camera.

I got back to the town square just before noon and just in time to witness the unmanning of the youngest contestant. All of the contestants were now naked, basking in the noonday sun. The older man was snoozing again and the two youths were slumped on their pads, panting and sweaty from their recent exertions, their slender cocks still glistening with wetness. The youngest boy was furiously pounding on his cock, trying in vain to achieve the erection and orgasm that would save his manhood, when the last of the sand ran out and the referee sounded the bell. He was still going at it even as four men whom I had not previously noticed materialized from the crowd and seized the hapless boy and held him spread eagle on his pad. Another man, this one carrying a charcoal brazier, appeared, and without discussion or ceremony knelt between the boy’s splayed legs, slit his scrotum with a small knife, excised his genitals, and cauterized the wound with a glowing piece of metal.

“Most of the young ones like him will live,” my host explained. “It is usually fatal for the older men.”

I looked around the crowd, wondering how many of the men there had endured this same treatment before realizing that I, along with every other intact male present including the three remaining contestants, had the telltale erection that distinguished them from the eunuchs.

Another two hours, and two orgasms passed and both of the youths were starting to falter when their support teams stepped in to help them. The eager lips of the succulent young girls revived them instantly. The older man, having a seemingly endless throng of admirers willing to fellate him, showed no signs of tiring.

“How do girls so young learn to perform so expertly, since there are so few males around to practice on?” I asked my host as I watched a young girl engineer an orgasm from one of the youths.

“Sexuality is encouraged amongst the young,” He answered. “It is actual copulation and the resulting pregnancy that is forbidden. Any unmarried male caught in congress is immediately castrated and unwed pregnant girls are slain and thrown into the river. That is why these men are willing to risk their balls so that they may marry.”

“Aren’t there prostitutes here?” The world’s oldest profession flourished everywhere else.

“No! Absolutely not! That would mean instant death for any woman brazen enough to suggest it, and any man involved would also be castrated or killed.”

It was dusk, the beginning of the twenty-first hour of the solstice, when the next set of balls hit the dusty ground and was snapped up by one of the ever-present mongrel dogs. The boy looked like he fell asleep and went soft in the middle of a blowjob. The girl, his sister according to my host, tried her best to revive him, but the strain of the day’s activities, coupled with the fact that he probably hadn’t slept much in the last few days were just too much for his young body. He was groggily compliant as the four men seized him, and it was only when they stretched his legs apart that he finally became aware of what was about to happen, and by then it was too late for his struggles and screams to make any difference.

The castrator wasn’t as gentle this time as he had been with the first boy. He squeezed the hapless youths tender balls hard enough to where the veins in his muscular arms bulged tight, and when he finally did make the cut he did it slowly, as if savoring the act.

“Why is he taking so long?” I asked

“It is his right to do it however he wishes,” my host answered. He won the lottery this year that is held between all eunuchs for the honor of doing the cutting. Most likely the boy insulted him or showed him disrespect at sometime or another, and now he’s getting even.”

The last two hours, my host informed me, are always the hardest, and to help thing along the intended wives of the participants are allowed to help. The older man’s fiancé wasn’t anything special to look at, but she had an amazing effect on him, and she elicited and orgasm from him after only a few minutes of lip action, at which time he went back to sleep.

The remaining youth was not so fortunate. His intended bride, the chieftain’s daughter, remained fully clothed and kept her face demurely concealed behind a veil while she gave him a hand job. The boy took most of the hour to achieve his twenty-third orgasm, and I figured she had better have something pretty special lined up or she wasn’t going to get a husband this year.

The older man secured his right to marry early in the twenty-forth hour. His fiancé had talents that could have made her a very wealthy woman anywhere else in the world, regardless of what she looked like. She had the ability to make kind of a humming motion with her mouth, even though it was full, and she used it like a vibrator on her intended husband and brought him to orgasm after only about fifteen minutes. He obviously didn’t produce much semen, but it was enough for the referee to score, so he was home free and celebrated by going back to sleep.

It was also time for the chieftain’s daughter to bring out the big guns, so she pulled her veil back and went down on her intended husband. She was trying hard, but not getting results. It wasn’t her fault; the boy had simply petered out and couldn’t perform. She tried licking and sucking his balls in addition to every trick she knew but the boy refused to even get hard, let alone ejaculate. In desperation she looked over at the older woman who had just won her husband and asked for her help. The older woman, who was now practically already married, blushed a little at the suggestion and quickly left the square, refusing to participate.

I fully realize that what happened next is hard to believe, and any of you who have spent any time in the Eastern culture will most likely at this time call ‘bullshit’ to this story, but I swear on my mother’s grave and by my own balls that it is the truth. The young woman, with only a few minutes of sand left in the glass, did what was unthinkable to any unmarried Eastern woman: She removed her veil and robes and stood naked, in public, in front of her intended husband.

This had an immediate effect on the youth, and although his cock came to rigid attention it was too late: The last of the sand ran out and the bell sounded. The boy was still hard as the four men held him, and as his balls were cut from his body the wasted seed from his twenty-fourth orgasm shot onto his belly.

The chieftain’s daughter, still naked, turned to leave the square when she caught my eyes staring at her lush body. Everyone has heard of love at first sight, and maybe you even have experienced it, but I sure as hell hadn’t and I almost collapsed when she smiled at me. She was easily the most beautiful creature I had ever seen, and even today, as I condition my body for the next summer solstice, I get a boner just thinking about her.

When, or if, I return I’ll tell you the rest of the story.