She had found her own food, homeless, scum cruising the parks, winos. It sufficed, but it often left her high, drunk, or nauseated. She preferred blood from a boy Oskar’s age, like that Hakan had obtained, but she had to keep to the shadows. She couldn’t have the police looking for a girl her age, especially since she had no one to look after her during the day, while she slept.

She was defenseless then. Someone could kill her before she awoke.

It was three more days before Oskar came home. When she tapped on his wall, he tapped back.

W.H.E.R.E W.E.R.E Y.O.U.

H.O.S.P.I.T.A.L.

W.H.Y.

T.O. H.A.R.D. T.O. S.A.Y. T.H.I.S. W.A.Y. C.O.M.E. O.V.E.R. L.A.T.E.R. I. C.A.N.T. G.O. O.U.T.

She waited until his mother was asleep and leapt from her window to his. She had on clothes. She tapped on his window. Awake, he waved her in.

“You have to say it.”

“Say what?”

“Say, ‘Come in.”

“Come in.”

Eli went through his window.

Standing at the end of his bed, she undressed, first pulling off her sweater, revealing a flat, boy’s chest.

“You kind of stink.”

She didn’t smell as bad as she did that first night, but she stank.

“I’m sorry. You weren’t around, so I forgot to bathe.”

“You only bathe for me?”

“Yes.”

She had washed blood off her face and hands, but she hadn’t bathed.

She only bathes for me. How strange…but he like it. In a way, what he had done was for her. It had been for him, too, but except for her, he wouldn’t have had Jonny cut off his balls. He might have had his dick cut off sometime, but probably not. If he hadn’t met Eli – if Eli didn’t have hers cut off – it probably would have remained a fantasy.

“Do you want me to leave?”

“No, but there’s something I should tell you, before you get in bed with me.”

While he spoke, she dropped her jeans, answering one of Oskar’s questions: she wore nothing under them.

“What?”

“I cut off my dick and my balls – well, I didn’t. I had someone cut them off.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to be like you.”

“Oskar. You don’t know what you’re asking. You don’t want to be like me.”

“I told you how I wanted to cut off my dick – it was too fucking small, anyway, and since you don’t have balls, I didn’t want any either.”

“Who did it, Oskar?”

“The boys at school. The ones that pick on me.”

“I’ll kill them.”

The way she said it, the tone of her voice, when she said it, he believed her.

“No. I wanted them to do it.”

“Did it hurt?”

“Yes – a lot, but it’s OK, now. I’m still a little sore down there, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.”

He grinned; then his smile faded.

“Does it matter to you that I don’t have a dick. You can’t jack me off anymore.”

“Oskar – I did that for you. I don’t care whether you have a dick or not. You cut off your balls, too?”

“Yeah.”

Did he do it for her? Eli felt an outpouring of love for him. He cut off his cock and balls for her. What other boy – what other male would have done that for her? The sex drive she induced in most males made them obsessed with their cocks. Hakan had jacked off several times a day, and he was no kid.

She had jacked Oskar off three times that night she had spent with him, and if he hadn’t fallen asleep, he probably would have wanted more, but instead of becoming obsessed with his cock – with jacking off – he had it cut off.

He had done it for her – to be like her. He would have never done it otherwise.

What would he be like without balls? She had loved her master, before he had changed her, even though he had taken her away from her family, even though he’d had her dick and balls cut off.

She loved him still.

“I don’t want to be a girl, though. Even though I don’t have a dick – or balls – I want to be a boy. Do you think I’ll come to look like a girl?”

“No, Oskar. You’ll never look like a girl.”

She remembered some of the neutered boys her lord had kept, some of them as long as a year or two after they were cut. Neutering changed them; their hips filled out; and some grew small breasts, but she didn’t think Oskar would, and if he did, it wouldn’t matter. Oh, his hips would certainly fill out some, but if he grew breasts, they would most likely not be much.

What if he did? In his mind, where it counted, he was a boy.

Eli wasn’t. She had forgotten what it was like to be a boy. Perhaps, if she had entered puberty before she was cut, perhaps, if her lord hadn’t dressed her as a girl, perhaps, if she hadn’t pretended all these years to be a girl…

She had been born a boy; but she looked like a girl; and in her mind, she was a girl. She would never think of herself as a boy. Hadn’t her mother, before the lord took her, dressed her in one of her sister’s old dresses and told her how pretty she looked? Hadn’t she thought of herself as a girl before he took her? If she had been a girl, he never would have. The lord had only taken boys.

Was that why she had fallen so easily into the role of a girl? Her life would have been different, had she been born a one. She might have had kids, maybe even a boy like Oskar.

But…she would have died two hundred years ago, and she would have never met Oskar.

“You’re not bleeding are you?”

An open wound drove her mad with desire for the blood.

“No. I’m all stitched up, and I have bandages on it. It’s kind of gross right now, but the doctor says it should heal up OK and I’ll have a scar – something like yours I guess. For now, I have to wear this catheter that drains piss into a plastic bag.”

She still stood at the end of his bed. He nodded at her groin.

“Did a doctor cut yours off?”

“No.”

“Did it hurt?”

“Yes.”

“Which hurt worse, when they cut off your balls or your dick? It hurt worse when he cut off my balls.”

“Both were cut off at the same time. There was just one big hurt.”

“Fuck! It hurts, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Are you glad I did it?”

“It’s OK with me, Oskar, if that’s what you wanted. You didn’t have to do it for me, though.”

“I wanted to do it; I wanted to be like you.”

“Can I come to bed with you?”

Oskar pulled back the covers, inviting her in.

“We can’t do much, though.”

“We don’t have to do anything. I’ve missed you. I didn’t know how much I’d miss you, until you were gone, and I didn’t know what happened to you. I just want to lie next to you and feel you touching me. If I stink too much, I can go home and take a bath.”

He grinned:

“You stink; but you don’t stink THAT bad. I’ve missed you, too.”

She crawled in beside him, taking the side of the bed next to the wall. Turned onto her stomach, she raised up, leaning over his face.

“Can I kiss you?”

“Yes. I like kissing.”

“Since when?”

He looked down, not meeting her eyes.

“I kissed Juhan.”

“Who’s Juhan?”

“He’s my friend. He’s OK. I like him – not like you! But of the boys at school, he’s the best. He helped me; he called the ambulance.”

“Did he help those boys do this to you?”

“He was there; but he went along for me. I wanted him there.”

“When did you kiss him?”

“Over at his house – the day after you were here – after school. That morning I shaved off my hair down there –“

“Why’d you do that?”

Oskar shrugged. “To be smooth like you, I guess. It kinda turned me on to do it. I had to take a shower at school, though, and Jonny saw it. He said I was gay and tried to make me suck his cock.”

“Did you?”

“Not then.”

“What do you mean, not then? Did he make you suck his cock later on?”

“Kinda.”

“What does that mean?”

“I told him I’d suck his cock, if he cut off my stuff.”

“Don’t you think he would have done it anyway?”

“Yeah. I guess I wanted to suck his cock.”

“But you hate him. Have you changed your mind about that?”

“No, he’s a prick. He enjoyed doing it; he liked hurting me. I still hate him; but I figured I owed him. I wanted my stuff cut off, and he was the only one that would do it. Besides, I was so fucking turned on I would have blown all of them. I sucked Juhan’s cock earlier. That’s when I kissed him. He didn’t want to kiss me, but I told him I wouldn’t suck his cock again, unless he kissed me.”

“Again? You had already sucked it? Are you in love with Juhan?”

“No! I like him; but I’m in love with you. I would miss Juhan, if I couldn’t ever see him again, but I think I’d die, if I couldn’t see you again. I talked to one of my teachers about it. I asked her what love was, and she said it was when you didn’t feel like you could live without someone else, and that’s how I feel about you.”

Eli understood Oskar’s desire for her. Hakan and others had loved her, but while she had been fond of him, she hadn’t loved him. Did she love Oskar? She had thought about him – worried about him – every waking moment, while he was gone. She could live without him; she would someday have to live without him; he was human; but she wasn’t sure she wanted to live without him.

“I love you, too, Oskar. I want to show you something.”

“What?”

“I’m going to kiss you, and when I do, you’ll see what I am and how I got to be what I am.”

“I don’t understand; that’s not possible.”

“Oskar…you have no idea what’s possible and what’s not. Can I do it? Do you want to see?”