In the morning, Matthew decided to go back to two tablets. That would give him enough for twenty-two days, and if he did wean himself off them, like he planned, he might stretch it out for a week or two longer. A week on one tablet, a week on half a tablet, he said to himself, and then he decided to work it out. He realised he could take three today, two for sixteen days, one a day for a week, and a half a tablet for eight days after that. He took the third tablet and decided he would stick to that, writing it out on his calendar so he would know where he was up to.

His mother hadn’t said anything about them lately. If she asked, he would just say he was off them.

The thing to do now was to get Lukas’ nuts done. They needed to be cut out. And then, after that, his cock could be done too, and Matthew might even get to use those crocodile shears on it, though it wasn’t going to be any good unless he got to cut it off afterwards. Then, Lukas would be right. He would be the way he should be.

Matthew went to visit Lukas, and though his balls hurt like hell, he stayed with him for an hour or more, suggesting to Lukas that he should get his balls cut off, particularly as they were so painful.

He didn’t want to drum the idea into Lukas’ head, like he had on Saturday, when he had told Lukas he couldn’t come until his balls were crushed. It was too much effort. And anyway, Matthew figured it would be easy to convince Lukas now.

At four o’clock, Lukas rang.

‘I though you might want to come over.’

‘Not really.’

And Lukas left it at that.

In the morning, Matthew checked on Lukas, and talked things over with him again.

You should just get them cut off, he said.

Lukas was standing in his bedroom, after showering, and he was feeling them before he put his jocks on. The swelling had gone down, after the mallet, and Lukas was trying to see if he could feel two whole testicles that were somehow still in there and fine.

They’re fucked, Matthew said.

Lukas frowned, feeling a little harder, though it was still tender. He decided he could feel two testicles, though he felt what Matthew had felt – that the left soggy, soft, limp thing came in two halves. He breathed in a deep breath when he felt it, and checked. Half of that testicle was gone.

You may as well get them cut out.

Lukas put his knees together and covered all of his gear with both hands.

Matthew would like you better if you didn’t have them.

Lukas bit his bottom lip, and wondered if Matthew would. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if he got them cut out.

It would be good, Matthew said.

Lukas rang again that afternoon, and Matthew decided to go over and see him. When they were upstairs, in Lukas’ sitting room, Lukas asked if he could suck Matthew’s cock again.

‘You’ve already done it three times,’ Matthew said, picking up the Playstation controller.

‘When did I?’

‘You did it twice the first time.’

Lukas stopped, but started with, ‘Do you want to fuck me again?’

‘Not really.’

‘How come?’

‘It’s gay,’ Matthew said, throwing Zangief into a spinning piledriver.

‘I thought you said you’d like me, if I was like this.’

‘You’ve still got balls. You’re still a boy. You need to get them cut out.’ He threw Abel to the ground. ‘And you need to get your dick cut off too.’

‘What?’

Matthew jumped, and Zangief was thrown to the floor. Lukas had practically shrieked the word.

‘There’s no way I’m getting my dick cut off,’ Lukas said, holding it with one hand.

‘Well you need to be castrated properly.’

‘Why do I?’

‘If you want me to like you,’ Matthew said, putting the controller down.

‘I don’t think I can just do that.’

‘Why can’t you?’

‘I don’t think a doctor would do that.’

‘Lukey, they’re already fucked. And anyway, you don’t need a doctor. I could do it.’ Matthew put his hand out and brushed Lukas’ hair away from his forehead.

‘Would you do stuff with me again, if I let you?’

‘Here,’ he said, bringing his face up close. ‘I’ll kiss you, if you think about it.’

Lukas nodded, his eyes locked on Matthew’s.

#

‘You know Lincoln?’ Matthew said. It was the following day, and they were back up at Whale together, lying side by side on the sand, their faces turned towards one another.

‘Yeah.’

‘I went to his place once, for the holidays. When we were in grade nine.’

Lukas nodded.

‘Anyway, he lives on a sheep farm, out near Kyagra, and it was lambing season.’

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s when all the lambs are being born, and just after, when they’re really small.

‘Anyway,’ Matthew said, turning onto his side and propping his head up on his hand. ‘They castrate all the lambs when they’re a week old, and I helped Linny and his dad do it.’

Lukas swallowed.

‘I don’t suppose you want to hear it?’

‘You can tell me if you want.’

‘Okay. Well they get this knife. It’s curved, right, and it has these kind of teeth on the back of it. They push the lambs nuts up towards his body, and then they use the knife to cut about a third off the end of his sack.’

Lukas drew breath in threw his lips.

‘It’s not that bad,’ Matthew said, controlling his smile.

Lukas smiled back at him.

‘Anyway, they push his nuts down then, so they’re hanging out of the sack, and then they use the teeth on the back of the knife. They hold it up under so that the cords slip into the teeth, and then they rip.’

Lukas frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘They just pull his nuts out. The cords stretch out, like elastic, until they break, and then they snap back into his body.’

‘Ow.’

Matthew smiled. ‘It doesn’t hurt that much.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Well the lambs don’t seem to mind. They just bleat a bit. You shake this powder stuff onto the wound, and then you put them down on the ground.’

‘Don’t you seal it up or anything?’

‘No. The lambs just sit down on it, on the grass, and after a while, they get up and walk away.’

Lukas started biting his lips.

‘They’re a bit unsteady on their feet.’

Lukas nodded.

Matthew rolled over onto his stomach again and tucked his hands under his chest.

‘Do you want to know what his dad did?’

‘What?’

‘He used his teeth.’

Lukas frowned.

‘With this one lamb, after they’d cut his sack off, his dad put his mouth in there, and ripped the lambs nuts out with his teeth.’

Lukas said nothing.

‘I think he was showing off.’

Lukas nodded. ‘Did you do it?’

‘With my teeth?’

‘No. Did you do the lambs, when they were doing them?’

‘I couldn’t handle it,’ Matthew said. ‘I didn’t even want to be there.’

Lukas pressed his lips tightly together and smiled.

‘All I did was hold onto the lambs. Me and Linny. His dad did it all.’

Matthew felt like reaching out, and brushing Lukas’ hair away from his brow.

‘I had a really bad dream afterwards. Everyone at school, all of the boys in our year, we were back in grade school again. We were about eight years old, and we were all naked, in the sheep pen, getting around on our hands and knees in the mud.’

Lukas smiled.

‘And there were these sheep there. Grown up sheep, rams with horns who could stand on two legs, and they started taking us one by one and putting us up on the rail, holding our legs apart, cutting our sacks off, and ripping our balls out, just like we’d been doing to the lambs.’

‘Was I there?’

‘I think so. I think you were the first to get done.’

‘Did it hurt? In the dream.’

‘It gave me a really sick feeling, when I woke up. But not because my sack got cut off,’ Matthew said. ‘It was the feeling of having my cords ripped out of my stomach, like they snapped right back up in there.’

‘I don’t think I could handle it.’

‘You handled the vice.’

‘Yeah, but…’

‘Will you think about it? Because I know how to do it. I mean, I’d suture the wound up, and they are fucked, Lukey. They’re already fucked.’

Lukas studied him closely. And then he nodded, as if entranced.

Matthew closed his eyes.

‘Why don’t you get a pair of speedos?’ Lukas said, after ten minutes or so.

‘I’d feel embarrassed.’

‘Would you wear them? If I bought you a pair? I mean, if I think about…my nuts.’

‘Sure. You can buy me a pair. If you want. I mean, I’ll wear them…if you let me.’

‘Do you want to go up and get them now?’

‘Okay.’

‘You’ve got to let me choose them, though. Is that a deal?’

They had already seen that her shop was open today. They’d gone up to The Point Café to have some lunch, and then come back down to the beach. It was a Tuesday, but she had her shop open.

Lukas chose a red pair that were the same as the blue pair he had bought here. He was wearing them today, and had walked up to the shop in them. All he had done was put his T-shirt on, pull his sandals onto his feet, and sling his bag over his shoulder. Matthew didn’t know how he could walk around like that, particularly with his balls crushed. You could see, if you looked closely, that there was something wrong about the shape of his package. There was his cock, which was still poking forward, and under this, something hanging that wasn’t wide enough to be balls. It had no shape to it.

Matthew went into the changing stall to try the speedos on but they were too small. ‘Can you get me a bigger pair?’ he said, sticking his head out of the curtain.

Lukas came back with a bigger pair.

‘Get one of those thongs. For yourself,’ he said.

While they were looking, they had seen these thongs, black ones, that looked like pieces of string, and Matthew had already said to Lukas that he should get one, whispering it into his ear so that the woman in the shop couldn’t hear him.

Lukas had shaken his head.

‘Go on,’ Matthew said, taking the larger speedos from him.

Matthew pulled them on and found that he still couldn’t get his gear to fit into them, though they fit him everywhere else. They weren’t stretchy speedos, like he had always worn, but were smooth and silky, and they would be see-through, he supposed, like Lukas’ were. He wasn’t going to wear them. Not unless he had to. And not these ones, anyway. His gear was pulling them away from his legs.

‘They’re still too small,’ Matthew said, poking his head out of the curtain and handing them back to Lukas.

The next pair fit, he supposed, and he stepped out of the changing stall as he had promised Lukas he would do, showing him how they looked before he bought them, because it was Lukas who was doing the choosing, and he might not like them.

‘Oo!’ the woman in the shop said when Matthew emerged, jumping a little, and getting a shock, obviously, about the size of his gear.

His dick was held loosely in a big U, wrapped around the groin of the speedos. He had decided on this, because when he had put it down under his sack, it had looked strange in the mirror. It wrapped right down underneath him and went back up again, into his arse crack. He couldn’t wear them like that, and he was doing all he could to stop himself getting an erection.

‘Turn around,’ Lukas said.

Matthew turned around.

There was nothing to them. They were so thin that he felt like he was wearing nothing. And there wasn’t any elastic around the waist, just a cord that he had done up in a bow, like Lukas did, but left hanging out.

‘Are they okay?’ Matthew said.

Lukas nodded, looking Matthew up and down, and then he looked up at his face, and smiled.

‘Get one of those thongs,’ Matthew said, leaning forward and whispering in his ear.

‘Can you wear these on the beach?’ Lukas said, after choosing the smallest thong from the rack and handing it to the woman.

‘Well of course you can, love. I wouldn’t sell them if you couldn’t.’

Lukas nodded.

He paid, and they walked out.

‘Are you going to put it on?’ Matthew said.

‘What? Now?’

‘Well there’s no point in buying it if you’re not going to wear it.’

The thong had cost him eighty-three dollars.

‘Come on,’ Matthew said, changing direction, and walking toward the change rooms.

When they were in there, Lukas hesitated, and then he sat down on the bench. He pulled the thong out of the bag and used his teeth to cut the price tag off it.

And then he held it up in front of his face and looked at it. It looked like string, except for the narrow triangle at the front, and that didn’t even look big enough to take Lukas’ gear. It looked like it was made for a woman.

‘I can’t really wear it.’

‘Why not?’

‘Are you going to wear your speedos?’

‘I’ll wear them next time, when your nuts are done.’

Lukas nodded like he wasn’t listening, and then he got up and pulled his speedos down, pulling them over his sandals and folding them before he put them in his bag. And then he stepped into the thong.

He pulled it up to his waist, though Matthew couldn’t see anything, from where he was sitting behind Lukas, on the bench. The string had gone up into his arse, and the string at the waist was under his T-shirt. From behind, he looked naked.

He turned around and showed Matthew, pulling his T-shirt up. It was like Matthew thought. There was hardly anything to the pocket at the front. It was only a couple of inches wide at the waistband, and it only just wrapped around Lukas’ sack. His cock, still cold, though not as shrivelled as it could get, was poking forward, making a little tent. If he had pubes, they would have been visible on either side of his cock.

‘I can’t really wear it,’ Lukas said, looking down at it, and then he looked at Matthew’s face. ‘Can I?’

‘It looks okay to me.’

Lukas pulled the T-shirt down and then he felt his arse with both hands. It was bare, obviously. Lukas put his hands on the insides of his thighs and ran them up to his groin. His cock started to poke out, getting stiff.

‘I’m getting a stiff,’ he said.

‘Don’t worry about it.’ Matthew put his hand out and touched Lukas’ cock, pushing it up against his body. If it got any longer, it would poke out of the top of the pouch.

‘I’ll pull you off, if you wear them,’ he said.

‘Really?’

‘Here,’ Matthew said, grabbing Lukas with one hand and turning him around. He pulled him onto his lap, feeling his hard cock up against Lukas’ arse crack. He reached around and pulled the pouch to one side, releasing Lukas’ cock, and then he pulled him, knowing at any minute that someone could walk through the door. He came before Lukas did, coming into his shorts, and then he slowed his tugging on Lukas’ cock until Lukas came, blowing his little load of cherry cream onto his white thigh.

Lukas stood up and pulled the pouch back over his cock. He went into a stall and wiped his thigh with some paper, and then he came back again.

‘I can’t really wear them,’ he said, coming out again, his hands feeling his arse cheeks.

‘Show me from the back.’

Lukas turned around and lifted his T-shirt up.

Man, that was so good. Lukas was perfect everywhere, apart from his gear, but his arse was the best. It was so perky and rounded, and it poked out so much. There was a black piece of elasticised string poking out of the top of his crack, attached to another piece running around his hips.

‘They’re fine,’ Matthew said. ‘Here. I’ll carry your bag for you.’

Matthew slung Lukas’ bag over his shoulder and walked out.

Lukas had no option now, unless he was going to wrap his T-shirt around himself. The only other thing he had was his sandals.

Matthew waited outside the change room and Lukas came out after ten seconds or so. They walked down to the beach, side by side and found their towels where they had left them. Lukas stepped out of his sandals, his arse bare underneath the T-shirt. There were people with their heads turned, looking, but Matthew didn’t care. He lay down, and Lukas lay down beside him, on his back. He didn’t take his T-shirt off.

‘Do you want to go in?’ Matthew said, after ten minutes or so.

‘Do you think I really can?’

‘Take your T-shirt off, and turn over. Get used to it. No one’s going to care.’

Lukas sat up and peeled his T-shirt off. He folded it, sitting, and put it into his bag. And then he lay down again and turned over.

Matthew felt his heart pumping. It was pretty funny, he thought. They had gone up to the shop to get a pair of speedos for him, and Lukas had come back wearing a thong. And now he was practically naked – again.

He just couldn’t win.

Matthew waited five minutes or so, and then he sat up. Lukas’ arse was poking up in the air, naked, but for the string.

‘So you want to go in now?’

‘I spose.’

‘Come on.’

They got up and walked down to the water together, Matthew carrying the board. When they were out beyond the breakers, Lukas got up on the board, and they rode some waves in, Lukas’ arse naked.

After the third run in, Matthew said,

‘I’ll push you back out.’

And then he did what he had done that last time, when Lukas had had balls, putting his hand up underneath him, and gripping, with his thumb in Lukas’ crack, though this time there were no balls underneath Matthew’s fingers, just mush. Matthew gave it some pretty rough punishment.

After they had ridden some waves for half an hour or so, they went up and lay in the sun again. And Matthew was thinking that it was about time to go home when he heard some footsteps in the sand beside his head. He was lying on his stomach, with his head turned away from Lukas, and toward the steps, when he heard them, right up close to his face. He opened his eyes.

Black shoes. Shiny shoes. Dark pants. Navy blue.

He looked up.

It was a policeman.

And behind him a policewoman.

Both in full uniform.

And wearing sunglasses.