"No you don’t," came the reply.

"Yes, I do. This is my best pair and they’re ripped and falling apart."

"I thought that was trendy. People these days pay extra money for new jeans that look worn-out."

"Those are distressed, Mom! These are just worn-out! Look at this hole! People can almost see my butt!"

"They’ll last another day."

"Why, what happens tomorrow?"

"You and your brother are going in. I made the appointments yesterday."

"Mom!"

* * * * *

So that was it. In twenty-four hours we were supposed to cruise into some clinic and pop out dickless, nutless and naked for the rest of our lives. Our own mother was turning us into nulls.

"Why, Mom? Why?"

"Well, you’re both getting older and you’ll probably want it or need it sometime anyway. I see lots of ex-boys and ex-men everywhere I go these days and I kinda like the way they look. Plus, it saves a lot of worry and a lot of buyin’ and washin’ and throwin’ away pants."

"Mom, this isn’t what I want! You know that!"

"Sorry, too late," she replied off-handedly.

"Which one?" I asked with dread.

"Fifth Street Clinic, nine o’clock," she replied while starting her morning power lifts.

"Maybe I could wear these jeans a while longer,"

"Don’t be silly. They’re worn-out," Mom gasped between lifts.

* * * * *

Upstairs I pulled off my clothes, sat on the edge of the bed, and checked myself out.

"Dude, I don’t think we have time," cautioned my brother Clayton.

"No, Mom put us in," I told him. "Tomorrow, Fifth Street Clinic, nine o’clock."

"How does this relate to your sitting there naked?"

"One, I’m saying goodbye to my package. Two, I’m trying to imagine how I’ll look. Three, I’m working on the concept of being naked all the time."

"You could still wear a shirt," Clayton observed. "But if nulls wore pants, how could anybody tell them apart from boys?".

"They could ask," I retorted. "Maybe there don’t need to be nulls. Everybody could just keep their stuff. What’s the matter with that? What’s the matter with you? Don’t you care? Or did Mom already tell you, and you’ve been keeping it secret? Was this your idea?"

"No, honest, I just heard it from you. I just don’t think it’s a big deal, that’s all. I have more null friends than boy friends now, and the nulls say it’s OK. It’s sleek and it’s trendy."

"Don’t talk to me about trendy," I mumbled darkly, then I put on my worst clothes for my last day of being dressed.

* * * * *

"Uh, Clint, that’s not the greatest pair of pants," my friend Waylon told me at school.

"It’s a protest, " I explained. "My Mom’s sending me in tomorrow."

"I hope it’s not a sit-in," Waylon chided. "You’ll get floor burns."

"Let’s say I’m getting used to the breeze and leave it at that."

"They got any more appointments at this place you’re going?"

"What! You’re not seriously…"

"I’ve been thinking about it. Got to do it sometime. Lots of guys like my butt. They tell me I should have it done. It’s trendy."

"Don’t talk to me about trendy," I mumbled. "Fifth Street Clinic, nine o’clock. Call them if that’s what you want."

* * * * *

Waylon wasn’t the only one to make a decision that day. I was gonna keep the whole thing a secret but then I told Waylon and he musta blabbed, or maybe it was Clayton, or maybe both. Every two minutes I had somebody telling me they were scheduled, or had just decided to do it, or that I was gonna love it. Some of ‘em wanted to know who else was thinking about it. I never intended to become information central for whack jobs.

I would’ve gone out that night but nobody wanted to come along. Saturday, they told me, or next week. I guess they were all curious about how I was gonna look. Then too, boys have curfew and nulls don’t. Boys can’t buy beer or grass but nulls can. Nobody trusts condoms anymore. Clayton had the same problem so we spent the evening fucking in our room and then cuddled ourselves to sleep naked. Mom tucked us in.

* * * * *

Missing our appointment wasn’t an option. After Mom went null a few years earlier she’d taken upsizing treatments and grown into seven feet of rock-hard muscle and bone. First she made us a great breakfast, then she told us how much she loved us, then she grabbed us by the collars and dragged us down to the clinic.

Waylon and a few other guys I knew were already there. So were some friends of Clayton’s, some guys I’d never seen before and five or six girls. At nine o’clock sharp they let us inside, took roll, separated the girls, made us take showers, didn’t let us dress, and then strapped us into some odd-looking stirrup chairs with wheels and handbrakes. I thought about running but then I felt a pinprick and everything went blank.

* * * * *

I woke up in the same weird chair and noticed a few things right away. One, I was still strapped down. Two, I was naked. Three, I couldn’t feel anything between my legs! I tried twitching my dick but nothing seemed to happen,. Nothing soft, warm, sweaty or otherwise was pressing against my thighs. Nothing!

"Sorry about the straps," came a woman’s voice from one side. "They’re for your own protection. Some people jerk when they wake up or lose balance when they try to get down. Do you feel groggy or dizzy? You have to wait for the anesthetic to wear off."

"A little dizzy," I told the voice, which by then had moved around in front of me. She was a startlingly attractive null nurse, stark naked except for hat and slippers. I’d never seen such breasts. Outdoors, or anywhere boys or men might be, any ex-girls and ex-women with breasts had to keep them covered. That was the only dress code for people with nothing to hide.

"Let’s give you some time, then," she decided, and I had to lay there another ten minutes listening to people walk past and talk about me. Most of them seemed to like what they saw but I didn’t think I’d ever get used to it, let alone like it. I hadn’t even seen it yet, assuming there was anything to see. Shit!

When they did set me loose the awful truth presented itself. There was no sensation of anything flopping against my thighs, nothing when I looked down, and certainly nothing in a full-length mirror.

What have they done with my stuff, I wondered helplessly. The crotch in the mirror clearly wasn’t mine. It belonged to some null! The room was full of nulls! Maybe it belonged to one of them! They’d give back my stuff in a couple of minutes, right? It was all a big joke?

Then Clayton popped into view doing handsprings and cartwheels and standing on his hands. He was always good at that stuff, and certain things went great with him being so limber. But his regular crotch has been misfiled too! Like me, they’d make him look like a null. My mind couldn’t accept it.

Then Waylon cruised by grinning like a Cheshire Cat and flaunting his nullness. Then I spotted a couple of my other friends, and a couple of Waylon’s, and a some of Clayton’s, and the girls and the unfamiliar guys I’d seen on the way in. Every one of them was naked and null. Shit, I cursed to myself; this was for real!

"What happened to my clothes?" I asked an ex-male medic wearing only an ID badge.

"Recycled," he explained, then he asked me to hold any more questions until after orientation.

Even walking had a strange new feel to it. There was no bouncy-bouncy up front. They’d nuked all our hair and my skin felt so smooth…

"Are you, uh, numb?" I pressed Clayton while drawing the two of us into contact. My mind reacted, and my smooth skin against his, but the warm, familiar, lower tension and tightness were disturbingly absent.

"Yeah, so is everybody. Somebody said that’s normal at first and it wears off in a few weeks. Some null friends told him that."

"How can you stand this? Don’t you miss your stuff? I feel empty up front What if we have to pee? Where does it come out?"

"C’mon, I guess they’re gonna tell us," Clayton urged and sure enough, the hot null nurse was waving everyone into another room.

* * * * *

The orientation room was large, square, and tiled. Two rows of locker room benches ran around the walls, and that’s where they had us sit. The hot nurse and the other medic took charge of the center.

Sitting there knees apart, null spot fully exposed, and feeling the bench slats with my naked butt were all very weird. Everybody kept staring at the nulls across from them. An assistant returned bras to the ex-girls who’d them outside.

The medics had no big surprises. We’d all been glued together with pseudo skin that would dry out, turn to dust and disappear as our real skin grew back. The pseudo-skin also delivered anesthetic that blocked any pain or itching. That’s why our null spots would be numb for a while.

The ex-male medic sat on a clear toilet and showed us how to pee. At the moment, he explained, we all had catheter valves that would shape our new piss holes and keep us from leaking. Pressing a certain spot opened the valve. If we waited too long, the valve would open anyway. In a week or two the valves would dissolve and we’d be on our own.

There was more but I forgot it. I was too busy looking at others and avoiding myself.

* * * * *

After orientation the medics unceremoniously led us to an outside door and that was that. No clothes, nothing to hide, no problem, no clue.

"So now what?" I asked my equally naked and newly null brother.

"Life as usual," he replied with a shrug. A new line of victims was lining up in front.

"Not gonna go around flashing people, huh?" I suggested.

"I think they’re gonna notice anyway," he opined, then he drifted off with one of his friends.

"Hey man, thanks for turnin’ me on to this! I’m as sleek as my girlfriend now!," exclaimed Waylon, who kept swiveling around with his hands on his hips. "Hey look, a few of us are headin’ to a beer joint to try it out and practice pissin’. Are you in?"

"Why not?" I decided, and so did Clayton, but in the end we did a whole lot more pukin’ than anything else. They had to call Mom to hose us down and drag us home. Serves her right.