“But you are so pretty, Edwin,” the forester’s daughter remarked. “You have the most beautiful eyelashes.”

Scintelle was about my age but she had gone through puberty.  No 14 year old boy wants to be pretty. Ruggedly handsome is much to be preferred but I had to admit to a degree of androgyny.  That was because of an overdue puberty, my voice hadn’t broken yet.  I had the smooth skin of boyhood, blue eyes with the long eyelashes that Scintelle liked and longish chestnut hair.  I was slender too.  Bulging biceps and other muscular development were still in the future for me. So I hoped.

“I can see why Princess Alucine would want you for a eunuch servant. In her position I’d choose you too.”

I was out of my depth with Scintelle. She seemed to enjoy teasing me and I couldn’t deal with it. I just blushed and said nothing.

Scintelle went on, “You would make a good eunuch servant. You should seriously think about it. And there are lots of advantages too. You’d have a life of cosseted luxury at the palace. The duties aren’t very onerous. All you’d have to do is give Princess Alucine her daily bath and pleasure her in a few ways.  I’d have thought a lot of guys would love a life like that.  I would if I were male.”

I was heartily wishing I hadn’t told Scintelle my plight. Princess Alucine was coming up to twelve and was due to have a eunuch servant.  The princess had a choice from any unwed male in the city and word was she had seen me a few times in the market and wanted me for the rôle.  She had to serve formal notice and to do so she had to find me.  On the advice of the older boys I’d done a runner from the orphanage as soon as I heard and was hiding out in the forest.  I’d no survival skills and had begun to starve when my food ran out.    Luckily, Axel the forester found me and took me in.

Axel had put me to work sharpening his set of felling axes, hand axes and his knives.

He showed me how to put an edge on a blade with a stone and I was glad to earn my keep. Some of Axel’s axes I could barely lift but Axel would wield them like they were fly swatters.  He was a giant of a man with immense strength. How I longed for the day when I would have such strength.

However, as Scintelle liked to point out, that day had yet to come and meanwhile I was just a boy. And having finished the axes for the day I could give her a hand with her chores: the weekly wash for a start.

I got a fire going under the copper and Scintelle piled in the washing.  She looked thoughtful for a moment then took off the dress she was wearing and put that in too. She stood there in just her drawers and I saw how pretty her tits were.

“Put your clothes in too,” she told me.

I was loath to do that. What I was wearing was all I had. There was nothing else for me to put on.

“Oh come on Edwin. You’ve been wearing those clothes since you got here and you stink like a pig sty.”

That was true enough. I’d even slept in my clothes.  But just the thought of undressing in front of Scintelle paralysed me.  Apart from my willie that is: just the thought had given me a hard.

“Look Edwin, if you were to become Princess Alucine’s servant all your duties would have to be carried out nude so it wouldn’t hurt to get used to it.”

So I undressed and put my clothes in the copper.  The water was quite hot by that time.

“Do you know,” Scintelle said, as she studied my willie,  “that is the prettiest, daintiest little wee-wee I’ve ever seen.”  She put her palm under it so that she could measure it against her hand.  It didn’t extend beyond her palm. It was three and a bit of her finger-widths long.  “Normally pricks are big and ugly. They’re even a bit scary when you think of where they have to go. But yours is lovely.”  She knelt and kissed it.

I was mortified but even so I enjoyed it in a funny kind of way.  Certainly no other girl had ever seen me down there, yet alone touched and kissed it.

She stroked it a bit and I was surprised at the pleasant sensations that produced.  I found myself just standing there, enjoying the feelings and the sight of her lovely tits bobbing before me.

“There’s work to be done.”  Scintelle got a dress from her wardrobe and put it on. Then she reached under her dress, took off her drawers and put them in the copper.  It was my job to stir the copper for the next few minutes.

“That’s enough stirring. Now we take ’em down to the river and rinse them”

“I can’t go like this.”

My protest amused her. “Hmm. You don’t have very much to be modest about. But still…”   She fished out another of her dresses.  “Put this on.”

Well, it was either walk around the forest in the nude or wear the dress. I put it on.  Scintelle gave me a surprised look before we carried the basket of clothes down to the river.

“So why that surprised look?”

“The dress suits you. You should have been a girl.”

Oh heck! She was off on her teasing mode again.

“No. I mean it Edwin. I’m not teasing you. You look like a pretty young woman in that dress.  That’s why you got the surprised look.”

On the way to the river we heard the horses.  The thieves and robbers who lurked in the forest didn’t have horses. The king’s soldiers did.  The soldiers made occasional forays into the forest to round up the criminals.  The subsequent hangings in the town square made good entertainment after Sunday morning mass. “Leave this to me,” Scintelle warned.

The sight of two young women, as they thought, in the forest certainly interested the soldiers.  The lieutenant in charge dismounted and made a low bow. “Good day Scintelle. I see you have a companion today.”

“Good morning Lieutenant. This is my cousin, Edwina. She’s staying with us for a while.”

The smarmy greaseball took my hand and kissed it. “How very charming, my dear. I am so pleased to make your acquaintance. I’d like to see a lot more of you.”  And he gave my arse a pat.  It occurred to me that this was the sort of thing girls had to put up with. Then again if you really are a girl I suppose you don’t mind so much.

“Still looking for thieves and murderers, Lieutenant?”  Scintelle brought the lieutenant’s mind back to his duty.

“As always, but this time we’ve got something different. We’re also looking for the young man that Princess Alucine has chosen for her servant.”

“Oh?”

“We have to serve the summons on him and then take him back to the palace.”

“Why are you looking for him here?”

“He ran away before we could get him.  He must be hiding in the forest somewhere.”

“Well, if I’d seen a young man in the forest I’d certainly have remembered it.”

The Lieutenant grinned.  “I’m sure you would, Scintelle.”

“But why would he run away?  I’d have thought that being a palace servant would have been a nice comfortable job for a young man.”

“Because he has to be castrated before he starts his work.”

“Castrated?”

The lieutenant was enjoying this conversation. “He has to have his testicles removed.”

“What for?”

“So that he can’t fuck the princess.”

Scintelle was enjoying herself acting the naïve innocent. “Oh! Do they cut off his willie too?”

“Only if it’s full grown.  Usually they pick a youngster for the job and if he’s still a boy they let him keep it.”

“Pity to do that to him,” Scintelle said thoughtfully.  “Perhaps the Princess would want to be fucked.”

“Not by a servant though. The king wants her to marry Prince Merrywether of Hardonia. What if she got pregnant?  There’d be hell to pay.  Much safer to cut ’em off.”

“Seems a pity to me,” Scintelle replied.  What do you think Edwina?”

“I think it’s cruel. How do they actually do it?”

The lieutenant licked his lips. This was the interesting part. “They tie a cord around the whole cluster at the root and pull it so tight that it cuts off the blood flow.  They leave it like that for a day then slice it off.  They cauterise it to prevent infection and he has to go another three days without anything to drink while it scars over.  Then they give him as much to drink as he wants to see if he can pee. If he can’t pee they make a wee hole in the scar for him.”

“Doesn’t it hurt?” Scintelle asked.

“Only the chap being done,” the lieutenant said. “It doesn’t hurt anyone else.    Interesting to watch too.   As often as not they don’t survive you know.”

“I can see why a man would run away,” Scintelle said.

“Hmm yes.  But once he’s done and healed up it’s comfortable luxury for the rest of his life.  A few days of pain isn’t such a big price to pay.  The prisoners under torture have much worse than that and they have nothing to look forward to.”

“You make it sound so reasonable,” Scintelle told the lieutenant.

“It is. Well, we have work to do.”

As they rode away I clearly heard heard two troopers. One said “I wouldn’t mind shafting that Edwina bird.”

“Naah,” replied his comrade. “She ain’t got no tits.”

“They fancied you,” Scintelle teased.

“They thought my tits were too small,” I protested.

It was as we were hanging out the washing to dry  Scintelle had a thought.  “Lucky you were wearing that dress when the soldiers found us.  You’d have been on your way back to the palace right now.”

A cold shiver ran down my spine.

“But those soldiers will eventually catch you, Edwin,” Scintelle said.  “You might as well face up to it.”

“No.”

“They’d probably let you keep your little willie.  It’s too small to break a hymen so it wouldn’t count as the princess losing her virginity.”

I said nothing.

“If you want I could train you in how to please a girl. Show you the sort of things the princess would expect from you.  It would give a flying start to your career as a eunuch servant.”

I could see that Scintelle was serious.  She was trying to be helpful, not teasing me.  There was nothing to lose by accepting her offer.  “All right, Scintelle.”

“Take off your dress and we’ll start.”

She slipped out of her dress and proceeded to teach me the duties of a eunuch servant.  I learnt a great deal that session, including things that I didn’t know that I didn’t know. I think we both enjoyed it.

Scintelle was a good teacher. She explained the feelings and sensations of female anatomy and how to give pleasure with gentle caresses of the fingers and tongue.

How satisfying it was when on the third session I got her to a climax.  She complimented me on my performance and said I was a natural.  She also taught me how to bath a woman and how to wash her hair.  I found that I enjoyed the work.  I had a feeling that I could make the princess happy.

The only thing was there was something terribly frustrating about it. My willie would come up hard when I was busy on Scintelle and I had the feeling that there ought to be some sort of climax for me too.  I had this indefinable longing.  Scintelle told me not to worry. That was part of why I’d have to be castrated for the work. Once I’d been fixed that longing would no longer bother me.

“You’ll have to get used to the luxury in the palace,” Scintelle mentioned a few days later.  “It will be quite an adjustment for you.  Remember this is just the simple one room home of a forester.  In the palace there are hundreds of rooms and they even have special rooms just for bathing.  There are all manner of perfumes and lotions.  The princess will have the finest silks and satins for her clothes.  They even have sheets and blankets on their beds and a mattress of down plucked from eider ducks to sleep on.  I’d love to see it all. It must be so wonderful.”  Scintelle cast a glance at the straw bedding that we slept on.  She sounded wistful as she tried to picture the wonders of the palace.

I didn’t anticipate any difficulty in adjusting to luxury.  All in all the life of being the princess’s eunuch servant had become increasingly attractive of late.  I enjoyed bringing Scintelle to a climax and bathing her. I liked to brush her beautiful long dark hair too.  I knew I would enjoy doing the same with the princess.

So why the hell was I still here?  Why didn’t I get myself off to the palace and get to work?

Because I’d miss Scintelle, that’s why. And Axel too. For all his gruff manner he was a kindly man who’d treated me well.

I told Scintelle I would miss her if I went to the palace.

“Don’t be silly.  You could invite me to the palace and show me around.  I would love to see the inside of it.  Perhaps I could even get to meet the princess.”

That seemed a nice idea.  I’d like to do something nice for Scintelle who had been so kind and had taught me so much.

“You know,” Scintelle said when I told her how much I’d enjoy showing her round the palace, “rather than go through that barbaric cutting at the palace, there’s an old woman who lives on the Hardonia side of the forest.  She knows about medicine and healing.  She has potions to stop it hurting. Perhaps we could get her to fix you. I’m sure she would do a much better job.”

The thought of avoiding the risk and pain of the cutting was attractive.  I agreed and the next day we set off through the forest.  Luckily Scintelle knew the way. I’d have been lost in minutes.

“Yes I’ve fixed dozens of men in my time,” the old woman told us in reply to my request.  “Whipped ‘em out in a few minutes and nary a cry of pain either.”

“So could you do me?”  I asked her.

“Sorry Edwin but I can’t. Not any more. It’s the arthritis in my hands.”  She held out both her hands and I could see they were gnarled and clenched and quite useless.

“But you have potions that will stop the pain?”  Scintelle asked.

“Oh yes.”

“Then if you’d watch me I could do the cutting,” Scintelle suggested.

The old woman thought about that.  “Hmm well, everyone has to start somewhere I suppose.  And at least you’d have someone to teach you. I learnt how to do it by trial and error.  There are a few finer points to it you know. She paused, thinking.  “But there is a snag. My cutting knife is blunt and I can’t sharpen it any more.”

“I’ll sharpen it for you.” Sharpening blades was one of my skills, thanks to Axel.

The old woman painfully took a small box from a drawer. Inside it her cutting knife rested on a blue velvet cushion. It had a short blade with a long handle and it was held between finger and thumb like a quill pen.

“Before you sharpen it we ought to have a few trial sessions so that Scintelle knows what to do,” the old woman suggested. “Get your clothes off and lie on the table.”

By this time I was used to having females tell me to take off my clothes.  Even so my pecker was pointing skywards.  “Not a very big willie,” the old woman remarked. “I think that’s the smallest I’ve ever seen on one that age. Still it won’t matter once you’re fixed, will it?”

I wondered why both Scintelle and the old woman found occasion to remark on the size of my willie.  It was as if it were important to women in some way.  Personally I wasn’t bothered about it. I could pee okay with it and it got those nice feelings when it was hard.

I was getting those nice feelings as the old woman showed Scintelle how to cut out my balls:  incision on each side of the bag, pop the balls out, tie off, cut off and cauterise the ends of the cut-off cords.  Then sew up the incision using lots of very tiny stitches and silken thread. I was enjoying the attention I was getting down there.

Once Scintelle had the idea of what to do I honed the knife to perfect sharpness.  The old woman produced a bottle of paste and got Scintelle to apply it to the area to be cut.   “We leave it for a while to take effect. Meanwhile we have to boil the knife. I’ve found that boiling it seems to reduce complications after the cutting.”

It was time for me to get back on the table.  I was nervous but the old woman had assured me that it wouldn’t hurt. “You’ll just be a bit sore for a few days while the stitches heal up.”

Scintelle worked away with the old woman watching and offering occasional advice and comment. It didn’t hurt.  My balls were numbed by that pasty potion she’d applied. Even the cauterisation didn’t hurt. I didn’t know they’d done it until I smelt the burning. The sewing up took a while but Scintelle was skilled with needle and thread. Sewing human skin, or at least a scrotum, is like sewing chamois Scintelle told me when she’d finished.

Scintelle was pleased with her work and the old woman complimented her. “You have flair for this sort of thing, my dear. Why not learn my trade? I’ll teach you all I know and you can carry on after me.”

Scintelle’s eyes sparkled. She would love that.

After a week everything had healed up nicely and it was time for me to say farewell to Axel and Scintelle.  It was a tearful occasion and my heart was heavy as I trudged the path to the city. 

The next day I was back.  “What are you doing here?”  Scintelle asked, pleased but surprised to see me.

“I was too late. The princess had chosen someone else for the job.”

I was disappointed but Scintelle just fell about laughing.  “So you had ’em cut out for nothing. Never mind. You can be my eunuch servant instead.  What a lovely idea! I get to keep Princess Alucine’s first choice.”

* * *

We both learnt the healing arts from the old woman and stayed with her until she died a few years later.   Then Scintelle set up a practise in the city and took me with her. 

* * *

Exciting news: we have been summoned to the palace tomorrow to help Princess Alucine deliver her first baby. If it’s a boy he will be the crown prince.  Scintelle is thrilled about it.

*  *  *

I’m 24 now and I realise I’ll never ever be as big and strong as Scintelle’s dad but I can still get away with wearing her dresses, even in the city.