When he had finished suturing the wound, Matthew swabbed it with antiseptic. He stood up, and looked at it. It wasn’t as neat as he would have liked, and Lukas still had a sack. Hopefully, it would look better in a day or two, though he supposed there would be a scar.

He unhooked Lukas’ legs from the G-clamps and pushed his body backward so that he was sitting on the edge of the bench. Lukas’ legs fell together and he pushed down on his groin with his hands, tucking his cock between his legs and keeping his hands pressed there, with everything he had tucked down underneath him.

‘Does it feel clean?’ Matthew said.

Lukas nodded.

He was like a little boy again, like he had been after his nuts were crushed, as though he had regressed, and was ten years old again, though he didn’t seem to be feeling any pain this time.

‘What does it feel like?’

‘It feels kind of empty. Like I’ve got a sack of nothing.’

‘Like you’re a little boy again.’

Lukas nodded.

‘Can I feel it?’

Lukas shook his head.

‘Please?’

‘Kiss me.’

Matthew leaned forward and kissed him gently on the lips. He put his hands on Lukas’ knees and pulled his head back, opening Lukas’ knees apart gently.

‘Well are you going to take your hands away?’ Matthew said.

Lukas shook his head. He had what was left of his gear cupped in both hands.

‘Come on,’ Matthew said, brushing Lukas’ hair back over his head. He spat on his thumb and wiped the blood kiss off Lukas’ brow.

‘Hug me,’ Lukas said.

‘What?’

‘Hug me.’

Matthew wrapped his arms around him and held him. Lukas sighed.

‘Can I feel it now?’ he said, whispering in Lukas’ ear.

Lukas lifted his hands and put them on Matthew’s shoulders.

Matthew turned his head down and squeezed the sack gently with his fingertips. There was nothing in it.

Lukas sucked in a breath.

‘Does it hurt?’ he said, looking up at Lukas.

‘Not really.’ His voice was all boy-like again, fluty and sing-song.

But his cock had started to stand up.

‘Look at your little cock,’ Matthew said, taking it between his fingers. He tugged on it gently. ‘Can I cut that off too,’ he said, whispering into Lukas’ ear while he tugged gently on his cock.

Lukas shook his head.

‘Why not?’

Matthew put his other hand behind Lukas and ran his fingertips down Lukas’ spine.

‘I want it.’

‘What do you want it for?’

‘I like it,’ Lukas said, his voice becoming high as Matthew tugged.

‘I’ve got a scalpel here. I could just cut it off.’

Lukas pressed the side of his face against Matthew’s and shook his head a little.

‘I’ll give you sixty seconds. If you can’t come in sixty, I’m going to cut it off.’

‘Oo!’

Lukas blew something out of the end of his cock. It landed on Matthew’s hand. The last of his come, Matthew supposed, though he knew that there was liquid, aside from any semen that might have been stored, that Lukas would continue to blow.

Matthew pulled his head away from Lukas’ and looked down at his hand, where the ‘come’ had fallen. It was blood, or mostly blood, from the look of it. Matthew wiped it on the back of his jocks, only realising, as he did so, that he had the jockstrap on, and was wiping Lukas’ blood onto his bare arse.

‘Did that feel good?’

Lukas nodded.

‘You should still let me cut it off.’

Lukas pushed him away and looked down at his cock. It was drooping forward, and there wasn’t any sign of the load he’d just blown. Matthew had squeezed it, and wiped it away. He stepped back, and realised he’d covered Lukas in blood now. All the blood that was on his stomach and chest he had smeared onto Lukas, along with the come that was over both of them.

They couldn’t put their clothes on like this. And they couldn’t go upstairs to have a shower, because McCady was home, along with Mr Sorensen, who had returned on Thursday, and was upstairs in his study, most likely, writing another incomprehensible novel.

Matthew found a sponge. One that had caked paint all over it. He rinsed it as well as he could, and put in a little detergent into the ice-cream container with the boiled water in it. He wiped Lukas first, not wiping his sack, as that had been disinfected, but simply wiping his chest and stomach and groin, and the insides of his thighs. He peeled his jockstrap off and walked into the little bathroom. He flushed it down the toilet, and came out again, only to be confronted with the portrait of himself that Lukas had painted, facing him, while he was naked, and covered in blood and semen. He smiled at it.

He walked back over to the bench and sponged his own body while Lukas sat on the edge of the bench, again with his legs together. He was pushing down on his groin with one hand, but he was sucking the thumb on the other, as though he was a little boy ready for bed.

‘Are you okay?’

He nodded.

‘Do you like it?’

‘It does feel kind of good.’

‘It’d be better if you let me do your cock.’

Lukas frowned, and closed his eyes, sucking on his thumb.

He really wasn’t with it.

When he had finished sponging himself, Matthew lifted Lukas down, and led him into the music room.

‘Can you dress me?’ Lukas said, after Matthew had closed the door.

He was already sitting in a chair, flopped sideways, and sucking his thumb again.

‘I can’t move. I’m all sloppy.’

Matthew found Lukas’ jocks in his pile of clothes and threaded Lukas’ feet into them, and then he made Lukas stand as he pulled them over his thighs and his arse and up to his hips. They were tight. Really small ones like the ABC ones had been, and they had something written on the front. Matthew pulled them up, and then he stood back and looked.

They were meant for a little boy six years old, a little boy whose balls hadn’t dropped yet. On the front of them it said, ‘I’m too small to have balls,’ in big funny writing, the ‘balls’ in the shape of balls, where balls should be.

Matthew restrained his smile.

‘What?’ Lukas said.

‘Nothing.’

But it was something. It was the most perfect thing yet. Like it was meant to be. Matthew supposed Lukas could go back to wearing his little jocks all the time once his dick had been done. It wouldn’t be like it mattered then. He would fit into them perfectly.