I rolled off of him sometime in the night and awake when Alex opens Jack’s door in the morning. “Time to get up,” he says. “You have a busy day ahead of you. Get cleaned up. I’ll be back in thirty minutes to take you to the mess hall for breakfast.”

Looking at me, he grins. “Looks like you took my advice.” I’m on my back, the dildo still strapped to the harness around my ass. “Did you get your fucking?”

I shake my head. “Oh, too bad,” he says. “Doesn’t look like you’ll get one, unless you can talk your friend into a quickie. You have orientation right after breakfast, and you’re scheduled to be cut right after orientation.”

I look at Jack. He’s still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. As much as I’d love a fucking, there’s no way I’ll be able to show him how to use the harness, get fucked, and get cleaned up by the time Alex returns for us.

“Are they going to cut off your dick and balls today?” Jack asks after Alex has shut the door.

“Yeah.”

“Aren’t you scared?”

I shrug. “A little, but he told me it wouldn’t hurt, and I can’t wait to be nullified. Don’t you think Alex and the other nullos are neat? They look so cool.”

“I don’t know,” says Jack. “They look weird to me. I mean…they’re boys, but they don’t have anything down there. Boys are supposed to have dicks and balls.”

“But they’re not boys,” I say. “I’m not one, and you’re not either, not since you had the shots. You still look like one. Your dick and your balls still look the same, but your balls are dying and your dick won’t get hard. We’re both nullos. We just haven’t had the operation yet.”

I grasp my dick and balls in my hand. “I hate these. They’re ugly and good for nothing. I can’t wait to get rid of them. I want to look like Alex. I think he’s beautiful.”

“Do you think mine is ugly?” He holds his dick with two fingers of his right hand.

I hesitate. I’m not sure what to say. I don’t want to hurt his feelings; he’s been through a lot since yesterday, but I decide to tell him the truth.

“Yes, I think it's ugly. I like a full grown dick as much as anyone, as long as it’s on someone else, someone who might fuck me, but a little boy’s dick isn’t good for anything. I – I didn’t think much about it before I had the shots. I guess that I just accepted that I was supposed to have a dick and balls; but after I was castrated by the shots, after my friend, Sam, was castrated, I realized that boys were better off without their balls. I like Sam much better, now he’s been castrated, and I like the boys at school that have been castrated much better now they no longer have balls.”

Looking at his circumcised dick, I say, “You were circumcised when you were a baby. I think, instead of circumcising baby boys, they should castrate them. The world would be a better place, if all boys were.”

“Who would fuck you, then?” he says.

“I’d stop taking the hormone, and I wouldn’t need it. For now, I like fucking and have to take it anyway, for the next four years, but I’m not sure what I’ll do, after my contract is up. Maybe it would be nice not to think about sex all the time. Maybe it would be nice not to need it. I think my friend, Sam, is happier now that he doesn’t need it.”

“Why wouldn’t it be enough for them that they’ve killed our balls? Why do they have to cut them and our dicks off?”

“Because they’re ugly,” I say. “Look how ugly mine are. They’re just useless flaps of skin. Don’t you think Alex looks cool?”

Jack shrugs. “I don’t know. Boys are supposed to have dicks. He looks like my sister down there, except she has a pussy.”

“With cloning, boys are no longer needed," I say. "Girls still are. Babies are grown inside them. Look how many boys have been castrated since the tax law passed. A bunch of boys at my school have been, and I bet a bunch of boys at your school have been, too?”

“Some,” he says.

“Some? I’ll bet it’s more than just some.”

“OK, a bunch. Ten or fifteen.”

“If your dad hadn’t sold you, I bet he would have had you castrated. If you’re going to lose your balls, you might as well be paid for them.”

“But, what if I don’t want to get fucked by a bunch of old guys?” he says.

“You liked it last night when I fucked you didn’t you?” He doesn’t say anything for a minute. “You did, didn’t you? You sure as hell seemed to enjoy it.”

“OK, I liked it, but I like you. I don’t want some stranger’s dick in me, especially not some old guy’s dick. It wouldn’t be the same.”

“A dick’s a dick,” I say.

“Do you really believe that? Didn’t it make it special because you were fucking me?”

I don’t know what to say. It was special fucking him, but I didn’t get off. Only a dick up my ass gets me off, and he doesn’t have a dick. OK, so he still has one, but you really can’t call that limp hunk of flesh a dick. It doesn’t turn me on. I think it’s ugly. I think he’ll be hot as a nullo, much hotter than he is with those ugly things hanging from him.

“I liked it,” I say. “I loved getting you off, but I can’t get off that way. It’s like sucking cock. It’s fun, but it doesn’t get you off.”

He looks at the dildo; it’s lying on the bed where I threw it after taking it off. “I could put that on and fuck you,” he says.

“I want you to,” I say. “We don’t have time today; and I’m getting cut later on, but when I get back, I want you to. But it’s not the same as having someone cum with you. It’s not the same as having someone squirt into you while you’re cumming.”

I think for a minute; then I say, “I like turning guys on. I like turning men on. I like it, how they get hard with precum dripping from their cocks, how they can’t wait to get their dicks inside me. I like the control I have over them. They’ll do and say anything to fuck me. They’ll give me anything I want, if I’ll let them fuck me. I’m glad to be a slave on San Carlos Island. I plan to be the most popular nullo on the island. We get tips if we’re good. I’m going to be rich as hell by the time I leave this place.”

“You said you love me,” he says.

For a second, that catches me unawares. I’ve almost forgotten I had. Now, I recall that I said it after he said it to me.

I think it’s the first time I’ve ever told anyone I loved him. I don’t remember anyone ever saying it to me. I might have told my mom I loved her when I was a kid, but I don’t remember that she ever said it to me. I know damn well my dad never did.

“Did you mean it?” he asks. Tears, gathering in his eyes, begin running down his cheeks.

I put my arms around him, pull him close, and kiss his cheeks, tasting his salty tears. “I – I love you,” I say, although it comes out much harder than it did last night.

“Do you still want other guys to fuck you?” he asks.

“It’s not going to happen for a while,” I say, but it will happen. It’ll happen to you, too. Other guys will fuck you.”

“I only want you to fuck me,” he says.

“Even if I don’t have a dick?”

“I don’t care,” he says. “I love you.”

“I kiss him again, this time on the mouth. I feel his tongue slide past my teeth. I meet it with mine. I wish we had more time, even if it was only to fuck him with the fake dick. Maybe I do love him.

By the time we take a shower, Alex is back. He and a nullo I haven’t seen before gather us and the other boys and lead us to the cafeteria.

Alex stops us at the cafeteria door. “I got to warn you guys. Once we go in, you’re going to get razzed. You’re the new guys.” He glances down, looking from one boy’s dick to the other. “And you still have those things hanging from you. I know you might find it hard to believe, but we’re proud of being nullos, and we think that those things are ugly.” He points at our groins. “A lot of the nullos in there are going to let you know that. Until you get cut, you’re the freaks, not us. The only boys on San Carlos Island that have dicks are trainers – who have real dicks – and new guys like you, who haven’t had them cut off yet. Ben used to castrate some boys, letting them keep their dicks, but he hasn’t for years. Now, all slaves, except for trainers, are nullified, and none of you is going to be a trainer. Your balls are already toast.”

We go into the cafeteria. Catcalls, jeers, and laughter seem to be coming from every table in the room, “Wooee, fish, new boys, oh, how ugly, look at those tiny dicks, you’re not going to have those long…”

“Hey, look at this one,” a nullo says as I walk past him. “He’s ready to be cut. Were you born that way, kid, or did they shoot up your balls with some super Neut?”

I don’t answer, but among all these nullos, I feel out of place still having a dick and balls. I look around at the boys with me. Several of them cover their groins with their hands. Maybe they are, too.

After breakfast, we’re sitting in a classroom. Alex and the other nullo escorting us – Eric is his name – are standing at the front. We’re seated at desks, similar to the ones at school. Sander, the nullo we met yesterday, comes in. “Hey, boys,” he says. “How was your first night on San Carlos Island?”

A boy raises his hand. He has tears running down his cheeks. “Are they really going to cut off our dicks?” he asks.

“Have you seen anyone here that has one?” Sander asks. The boy shakes his head. “Does that answer your question?”

The boy nods, but almost bawling now, says, “I don’t want it cut off. I don’t want to be a slave. I want to go home. I want my mom.”

“Stop it! Now!” says Sander. “You are a slave. You will be nullified. Few of us wanted to be nullified or wanted to be slaves, but we were sold by our dads just like you were. The sooner you accept it, the happier you’ll be.”

He beckons to me. “Kyle, isn’t it,” he says. I nod. “Come up here, Kyle. I walk up to the front of the class. He has me turn around facing the class.

“This is how your cocks and balls will look in a couple of months. They’re already toast. Do you want to keep yours, Kyle?” he asks. I shake my head. “Speak up, Kyle. Tell them.”

“I want them cut off,” I say. “I hate them. I want to be a nullo like them.” I gesture toward Sander, Alex, and Eric. “I think they’re beautiful.”

“What do you think about being a slave?” he asks.

I shrug. “It’s OK, I guess.”

“You don’t care that you’re going to get fucked by men?”

I shrug again. “No.” I repeat what I told Jack earlier, “A dick’s a dick, and I like dicks. I like to be fucked.” I glance at Jack. He has a frown on his face.

“OK, you can sit down,” Sander says.

“Forget about the home you had,” he continues. “San Carlos Island is your home, now, and Ben Toeber is your father. He owns San Carlos Island, and owning the island, owns all of you.

Until you’re seventeen or until your contract is up, you belong to him. He can do anything he wants with you; and if you can’t make it on San Carlos Island, your contract will be voided, and you will be sold, probably to a brothel, where you will remain until they decide to let you go.

Most brothels won’t care whether you’ve reach the age of emancipation or not. They’ll keep you as long as you make money for them, and you’ll be lucky to have fare back to the States when you’re freed. Most of the brothels we sell such boys to are in countries that don’t have an age of emancipation. You might be slaves for the rest of your lives.

Many of them have no love for the USA, but they love white American nullos.

I’m from America like all of you are. American nullos are our most popular merchandise, possibly because most of our clients aren’t American and like to see America humiliated. They like it that the once great America has become a third rate power and is selling her boys into slavery to become sex slaves for them.

How many of you have heard about the castration tax relief laws recently passed by the American Congress?”

Most of us raised our hands.

“China and the EU pressured your congress into passing that law. It was either that or have your economy tanked.”

I raise my hand, saying when he calls on me, “I thought it was because of cloning, that boys no longer needed their testicles.”

“Cloning of people is too expensive to be used by everyone,” Sander says. The whole thing’s a scheme to depopulate the United States to provide space for the Chinese and Europeans.”

“Doesn’t anyone know?” I ask.

“Of course,” says Sander. “The politicians and the people in power – the rich elite – know. You can bet they aren’t castrating their sons. They aren’t selling their sons into slavery. And the tax laws are only the first ones to be passed. Soon, any boy born to a family making less than 100,000 credits a year will be castrated. Do any of your fathers make more than 100,000 credits a year?”

No one raised his hand. “So, as you can see,” says Sander, “none of you would have kept his balls, even if you hadn’t been sold. We got a line on many of you because your fathers had already contacted a doctor to have you castrated.”

“That’s how they found me,” I say. “My dad was going to have me castrated.”

“My dad said he was going to have me castrated,” one of the boys says. “I was surprised when he told me he was taking me on this trip. I thought maybe he had changed his mind.”

“How do you know all this?” asks another boy.

“Ben Toeber told me,” Sander says. “He knows EVERYTHING. Besides, our clients are some of the most influential people in the world. We have prime ministers, presidents of countries, American senators, and congressmen among our clients. You’d be surprised what you hear, if you keep your ears open.”

“I want to be a nullo,” I say.

“See,” says Sander. “Most of you will by the time you’re cut, and after you’ve been a nullo for a while, all of you will, or you’ll probably end up in a brothel. We don’t sell many boys to one, but out of every new group, there’s usually one.” He looks around the room. “Don’t be that one.”

“If you’re an American,” a boy says, “why don’t you tell them back home what’s going on? Don’t you care that the Chinese and Euros plan to castrate American boys?”

“I’m no longer an American,” says Sander. “San Carlos Island is an independent country, and I’m a citizen of it. America allowed my father to sell me into slavery. I owe America nothing.

Besides, what makes you think I believe castrating boys is bad? I don’t. I think all boys should be castrated – all boys, not just American boys. It will never happen, of course, not even in America, but I think it should. Select cloning could be used to continue the human race. It would cure the overpopulation problem. The world can no longer sustain our current population.

All of you are fortunate you’re here. If you play your cards right, you’ll make a fortune during your time on San Carlos Island; then you can decide to go home, to other country, or to stay here. On the other side of the island we have a community of ex-slaves, who have decided to stay on the island.

Now, how many of you have been fucked?” Five other boys and I raise our hands. When Jack doesn’t, I gesture for him to raise his.

He still doesn’t. “Raise your hand,” I say.

Sander glances down at the seating chart I’d seen in his hand, when he called me to the front of the class. “Jack, right?” he says. “Have you been fucked, Jack?”

Jack shakes his head. “You have too,” I say. “I fucked you last night.”

“That doesn’t count,” Jack says.

“A fucking is a fucking,” Sander says. “I can see by looking at Kyle's dick, he didn’t use it, so I guess he used a dildo, right?”

Jack has his head down, and his face is red. “Yes,” he whispers.

“Did you like it?” asked Sander.

When Jack only shrugs, I feel not a little insulted and say, “You came twice. I thought you were going to pass out. I sure as hell thought you liked it.”

He looks at me and says angrily, “I liked it because it was you, OK? That doesn’t mean I want some old guy to fuck me.”

“Whoa! This is serious. Are you in love with Kyle?” Sander asks Jack.

Jack shrugs.

“Sounds like love to me,” says Sander. “It’s a mistake to fall in love with someone on San Carlos Island. Wait until you leave here to fall in love. It will only cause you heartache and unhappiness. I know. It almost ruined me. I fell in love with my trainer, and I can’t tell you how much unhappiness that caused me. It almost caused me to get sold to a brothel.

It’s OK to love. Love can free you of yourself, allowing you to break out of the shell each of you are in, but falling in love locks you in a prison of your own making. When you fall in love, you build a wall around yourself and the person you love, locking – or wanting to lock – everyone out. None of you are mature enough to fall in love.

Love Kyle, love your trainer, love some of your clients, but don’t fall in love with any of them. Don’t want them to the exclusion of all others.

None of your trainers are going to fall in love with any of you. They will love you while they’re training you, but once you’ve been trained, they will move on to another boy and love him. You will be just a fond memory, one they’ll soon confuse with all the other boys they’ve trained.

When my trainer told me he loved me, I didn’t realize he had told every boy he had trained that. I wanted to love him and no one else, and I wanted him to love me and no one else.

If I’m not mistaken, you feel that way about Kyle. You want him to yourself…right?”

My eyes are on Jack. He doesn’t even shrug this time. Sitting at his desk, his head is down, his face screwed up, his lower lip out.

“Get over it, Jack,” Sander says. “Kyle’s getting cut today. He’ll be away for a few days. Take the time to get to know some of the other boys. Let one of them fuck you. I think you’ll find it feels just as good when one of them does it.

If you can’t get over it, I might be looking at the boy that gets himself sold to a brothel, and you don’t want to be that boy.”