Part 1, narrated by Simon Scott, aged 15½, pupil at Southdown Hall School. Boy-eunuch since the age of 11½.

“M-mm” said Matron. “That looks nasty, Scott”.

“That” had happened the previous afternoon during athletics practice. The high jump was supposed to be one of my stronger events. But I’d made a bad landing, coming down hard on my left elbow, and the impact had been borne by my shoulder. On hard ground I’d have bust my collarbone. As it was, I could scarcely move without crying out.

Mr Carter, in charge that afternoon, produced a scarf from somewhere, contrived a sling for my arm,, told me to “take things easy” and said I’d probably be quite well by morning. But I wasn’t. In bed I could scarcely sleep, and in the morning I couldn’t move my left arm at all and there was a huge puffy area all round the point of my shoulder, which was red and discoloured. Reporting this to Mr Carter at breakfast, I was told to see Matron as soon as she opened for business at nine o’clock.

“M-mm” was her comment, as I’ve said. “You’d better go for an X-ray, Scott”.

At least she didn’t propose giving me an enema, her remedy for most complaints. It showed she could at least tell my ass from my elbow! Going for an X-ray sounded hopeful. I might miss quite a bit of time off school. “Will I have to go to London, Matron?” I asked hopefully. (Not long before, two other boys had been sent for some kind of scan, at University College Hospital, and had been away all day).

“London? Whatever for?” was the surprised reply. “No, you’ll get it done at the City Hospital. I’ll ring them immediately”.

She did so, and fixed an appointment for three o’clock that afternoon.

The old City Hospital was only a short walk away from school. I’d been on visits there more than once: to mention just two, to see Roddy after his gang-rape, and young Owen Roberts following his injuries on the old water tower – injuries to his private area that led to him having to lose his testicles. (Read “Simon’s Revenge” and “Simon Toes the Line” if you’re interested.) But that was months ago. Since then, the local NHS Trust, hard-up as always, had declared City Hospital surplus to requirements.

The greater part of it was already closed, awaiting the bulldozers. The remainder still housed a few facilities including X-ray. There was a general waiting area, which had once been one of the ground-floor wards. The beds and lockers had all been removed, but the curtain-rails and curtains remained. This was where consultations took place. Privacy, of a sort, could be achieved by drawing the curtains.

I gave my name to a receptionist and looked for somewhere to sit. Only two out of an original six bed-spaces seemed to be in use for consultations, and the first one was already occupied, so I took the one next to it. There was a dilapidated chair, and a former bedside table with a tattered assortment of magazines like “Good Housekeeping” and “Horse and Hound”. These didn’t interest me at all, so I gave a sidelong glance at my neighbours.

These were, firstly, a cheaply-smart woman in her thirties, and a sulky-looking kid aged about eleven, in a T-shirt, shabby jeans, scuffed trainers and a baseball cap worn wrong way round. Somehow I guessed that the woman wasn’t the kid’s mother. Presently a nurse bustled in. “Mrs Price?” she asked. The woman nodded. “And this must be Jason. Good! Dr Spicer is nearly ready. I’ll just draw the curtains round, then Jason can take his trousers and pants down, to save time – then we can get straight on”.

I didn’t have time to speculate why Jason had to take his trousers and pants down or what they were going to “get straight on” with, or why the kid looked so down-in-the-mouth. Another nurse came in and called my name and then took me up to X-ray. Where I waited, and waited………

Then an ambulance driver appeared. “Are you Mr Scott?” he demanded. I said I was.

“Gotter take you to East Hampshire Trust Hospital, then. Transport’s outside”.

“But I’m only here for an X-ray” I protested.

“Yeah, but the machine’s busted. All X-ray cases been transferred to East Hants. Are yer coming?”

I followed him down the stairs to the ambulance park. The driver opened the rear doors. “It’s all yours” he said. “Lie down if yer want. There’s a choice of seats if yer not bothered”.

East Hants Trust Hospital was almost in Southampton, so at least I was going to get my half-day off school, that I’d been hoping for. Before the driver closed the doors I thought of something. “Who’s Dr Spicer?” I asked.

“Dr Spicer? ‘E’s a- a genito-urologist.” (He drew the words out slowly). “Yer know, a waterworks specialist. Why, what do yer want to know for?”

“Oh, nothing. Just curious. I’d not heard of him before”.

“Because” the driver continued “a young boy that ‘ad bin seen to by Dr Spicer, wouldn’t ‘ave no use for girls afterwards”. He gave me a knowing wink.

He slammed the doors closed, and we were off. Well, it happened all the time. Nowadays it seemed an even chance whether a boy kept his balls past the age of twelve. I mean, look at me………

Part 2, told by Fenella Price, aunt and legal guardian of Jason, aged 11½.

In all my life I’d never wanted to bring up a little boy.

Six years ago my sister Francesca’s marriage broke up. I won’t bore you with the details, except to say that the legal processes wished her child Jason on us – myself and my husband Elwood – as legal guardians. I didn’t like the scruffy five-year-old that walked through my door and I didn’t like him any more by the time he was eleven.

My own daydream, of having a daughter of my own, had been snuffed out a long time before that. Elwood was the boyfriend of my teen years. We’d dated – and screwed- through High School and got married shortly after graduation. Ten months after our wedding day I still hadn’t got pregnant.

It had never once occurred to me that those steamy couplings in motels around the city limit had been no more than a nice feeling between my thighs. But that’s how it turned out. We went for a medical examination at a fertility clinic. My own insides were in good working order. Elwood was sterile.

In my desperation I began to explore some strange avenues in the dark labyrinths of sexual history. At one time, trawling though sex life in ancient Rome I chanced upon an account of Nero’s love life and how he’d fallen for a young slave boy, called Sporus. Even Emperors couldn’t marry boys, but nothing daunted, Nero had the boy castrated, and – the account said – actually tried to make a woman of him, dressing him in female garments with a bridal veil and ornaments.

Would it be possible, in this 21st century, to bring up a boy as a girl? There had been, I knew, one well-publicised incident in which a bungled circumcision had deprived an infant boy of his penis, and the doctors had subsequently advised the parents to have the remaining external genitals removed and raise the child as a girl. It hadn’t gone too well, but I put that down to bad planning and lack of will. Other accounts said that if a male baby was born with damaged or inadequate genitals, it was common practice to have them removed and bring the child up as a girl – he, or rather she, would never know the difference till puberty.

But Jason was a normal healthy boy. How would I set about getting him neutered? I trawled on, for several months, and finally my efforts were concentrated on the researches of one man, a Dr Spicer – Dr John Julius Spicer. Remarkably, Dr Spicer turned out to be a visiting consultant to a hospital not fifty miles away. I wrote to him. Some days later his secretary telephoned, proposing a date and time for a consultation. On that day I was shown into his consulting room.

“Do come in, Mrs Price” beamed Dr Spicer. “Make yourself comfortable”.

I sank into the big armchair and looked at Dr Spicer. A big guy, about fifty, rosy-faced, twinkling eyes behind gold-framed specs, a ring of thick grey hair around a bald dome. If you substituted a black robe for his white overall coat, he might have been a merry monk.

“Now” said the Doctor “I’ve read your letter and understand everything you say. But you must understand that bringing a little boy up as a little girl, when he’s got used to thinking of himself as a boy, is a complicated process. I can give you some useful contacts who can advise you about how to dress him, get him used to answering to a girl’s name, and so on. But first let’s deal with the preliminaries. You say you are bothered by his outbreaks of laddish behaviour. Would you like to elaborate?”

This was embarrassing. “What I mean, Doctor, is that, whenever I’ve come across Jason having a shower, or changing his clothes for games, he’s- he’s got a…. (I could hardly say a stiffie.) Fortunately the Doctor came to the rescue.

“He gets erections? Not at all uncommon with boys of his age. They get them all the time. All those male hormones waking up. Fortunately it’s very easily dealt with. Castration is, of course, the first priority, to get rid of the boy’s testosterone source and neutralise his penis so that there are no more erections. Some doctors favour a chemical process but I’m not one of them. It’s more effective psychologically to remove them – to cut the boy’s testicles right out. It shows him who’s the boss!” To emphasise this, the Doctor rapped sharply on the table. For a moment, he looked ruthless. “But” he continued “there’s more to it than a simple amputation”.

“Scientists don’t fully understand the reasons yet, why some boys’ sex drive survives castration – why, in short, they are able to raise erections and attempt, more or less successfully, to have sex. Fortunately for us medics, we have the knowledge of the Arab world to draw on. Young boys entering service as pages and so on, were always castrated – it was part of the culture. Arab doctors discovered that if they burned-out the cords that attach the testicles to the body, the little boy’s penis never went stiff again.” The doctor’s eyes twinkled behind his glasses.

“You said – burn them out? That sounds kind of scary”.

The Doctor chuckled. “Oh, of course, things have moved on, down the years. Forget about hot irons! I use a small laser now. The results are just the same”.

I said nothing.

“Well, then!” said Dr Spicer with another twinkle “let’s move on. If you want to go ahead, just ring my secretary and arrange to bring Jason in. If he’s a suitable case for treatment we’ll do it straightaway”.

Before I left the hospital that day, the Doctor recommended a website. Through this, I contacted the woman I only ever knew as Rebecca. We never spoke. I’m unsure if she really existed. But she was real enough for me.

Rebecca had two maxims, for rearing a boy as a girl. First, start at the very beginning, and, second, start as you mean to go on. In practice this translated into: Jessica (I’d already decided on this to replace “Jason”) not only as a girl but as a little girl – even a baby girl. I’ll come on to the details of this presently.

It was not enough for the boy just to look feminine; he had to feel feminine. Rebecca’s website, which represented a worldwide network, showed a variety of techniques. In France, for instance, there were groups in most major cities, where boys and girls lived together and dressed alike. Ballet costumes with tutus seemed very popular, and I must admit, looked very pretty. Hardly any had a bulge in the front of their ballet-tights, because their testicles had already been removed.

Some charming pictures from the Czech Republic showed children in 17th-century page-boy costume, with big feather hats and little brocaded jackets worn over tights. The text explained that the boys’ testicles were injected with a drug which made them dry up, and also shrank their penises, making it possible for their tights to be pulled right up.

Opinions differed over the best age for the boys to be neutered. In Russia they were “done” as young as five, and surgeons had perfected the use of the “emasculation band” which had been used on newborn lambs for many years. A very tight rubber ring was placed over the neck of the little boy’s scrotum, compressing the cords and cutting off the blood supply to the testicles, which shrivelled and dropped off after a time. At that age the boys would have no idea what was being done to them. But five was exceptional.

Returning to the French scenario, the boys were all said to be castrated between ten and eleven. After some years of living in close contact with girls and doing everything that girls did, the boys found it freakish to have male genitals still, and were eager to have them removed. Or so the website said. Most boys only had their testicles injected, or at the very most most taken out, although some doctors insisted that for the best results the boys should have their penises taken off, or injected with a drug that destroyed the erectile tissue…….

But this was all very well. I hadn’t got “years” to get Jason acclimatised to living and playing among little girls until he felt he was one of them. I’d got days – a fortnight at the outside. I was going to have to be single-minded, 100% of the time. Any wavering and Jason would revert – so far as this was possible- to what he’d been before; only now he’d be a mixed-up sexless creature, no good to himself or anyone else.

I put several things in motion at the same time. I gave the spare bedroom a makeover – it had been spare ever since I threw Elwood out, when he’d turned out to be infertile. I chose a pink floral wallpaper with matching curtains and drapes. In a store I found a large picture of “Flower Fairies of the Wayside” and another of “The Faerie Queene and the One She Loves”. This was to be Jason’s, or rather Jessica’s, new room. His old one would be a no-go area until I could get it dismantled.

Then there were his clothes. I reluctantly gave up the idea of ballet tights and a tutu, and bought him a pink dress, not too short, matching shoes, and white ankle-socks. Jessica didn’t need a bra yet, but I bought several pairs of lacy thongs – though he wouldn’t be wearing those until he was healed.

Healed? Yes: I’d made my mind up. I rang Dr Spicer’s secretary and made the appointment for Jason to be emasculated. Jason’s life as an intact boy was almost over. Nothing was going to save Jason’s testicles. He was going to have them cut out – cut right out – burned out. The thought of what was going to happen to him made me start shaking all over……

Part 3. The narrative continued by Simon Scott, boy-eunuch.

The morning had been mind-blowingly boring. Double advanced maths – which I’m useless at – followed by two hours – two solid hours- of French literature. “Le Malade Imaginaire”, if you please. There’s not much room for imagination in that.

In the lunch break I was kicking stones along the patio outside the dayroom and humming the introduction to “Jesu, joy of” – a futile occupation, but what the hell- when the burly form of Mr Carter hove into view. “Scott, it’s good you’re here. Much of the flags and bunting in the athletics arena has blown down in the night, and the Headmaster’s got a bunch of VIPs having a look round. I know it’s Gunner’s responsibility but I can’t find him. Oh, and don’t put any tatty bits back – we’ve got some new bunting I know”.

Gunner was the groundsman and a good mate of mine. He always let me use his gas ring and kettle to make myself a hot drink whenever I wanted.

I went to the sports store behind the pavilion. Or rather, I didn’t. Because the first thing I saw on approaching the building was that the changing-room door was ajar, and it shouldn’t have been. I was about to lock it – the sports store key fitted all the locks in the building, when I heard something that brought the blood rushing into my face. A voice – a very clear, high, unbroken voice, in a state of excitement.

It said “You’re making me want to pee!”

Very, very quietly I slipped inside the building – the trainers I had on made no sound on the concrete floor. The changing-room inner door was a bad fit, making it impossible to close properly. Though the gap didn’t show me everything, it showed me enough.

Obviously there were two people in there, but I could only see the face of one of them to match the voice. Paddy Wright. Paddy’s voice was unbroken – would never break. He’d had his balls pricked some months before, and the effect was complete.

Paddy had put on weight. Castration takes some boys that way. As his genitals had withered away, his thighs and buttocks had become chubbier – all to do with hormones. His face wasn’t the only part of him I could see. Paddy’s shorts and pants were round his ankles, and a hand was reaching round to his privates, fiddling with his tiny penis. I could also see two knees and legs, belonging to someone a good deal bigger. Paddy was standing between this pair of knees and from the way he was leaning forward, to spread his buttocks, I guessed that this second person had his penis between Paddy’s bum-cheeks and pushing it up his bottom.

This guess was supported by the rhythmic panting I could hear, accompanying Paddy’s giggles. The panting ended with a long-drawn-out groan, and a hoarse whisper “God, that was good! You’re better than any girl”.

More giggles from Paddy. “Oh, I like doing this!” I heard him say. “I felt it all go in. “If I’m like a girl, then I’ll have a baby!”. To which there was a mumbled reply that I couldn’t make out. I’d seen and heard enough, and made myself scarce.

I wasn’t too bothered about Paddy. A dirty-minded kid, ready for anything, he was like most young neutered boys. Unable to fuck girls or even jerk off, they enthusiastically flung themselves into the one remaining form of sex that they were still capable of. In time Paddy would grow out of it.

But Paddy’s partner? That was something else. Time had been when sex between senior boys and junior boys – members of the chapel choir being particular favourites – had been extremely common. The fact remained that it was highly illegal. When any particularly blatant affairs came to light, Dr Holroyd, the Headmaster, kept them out of the courts while reminding the culprits that under the law, both partners were liable for custodial sentences.

Who was Paddy’s partner?

I took out my mobile phone and keyed-in a number I hardly used. There was a bleep, I pressed the green button and was rewarded with a lot of loud music and then a deep voice saying “Hello! Who’s that?”

“Mark, it’s me – Simon” I replied.

I hadn’t spoken to Mark in months. In case you’ve forgotten, Mark had been undergoing stem-cell therapy at the extreme frontier of medical science. His own balls, lost at the age of twelve to further his singing career, had been replaced with two grown in a laboratory. After a shaky start they had “taken” and Mark entered on adolescence. Now, brown, hard and self-reliant, he was obviously right for a transfer to the Upper School, which is where he now was.

“Simon, it’s been a long while!” said Mark. “Can I help in some way?”

“Mark, in your opinion, would it be possible for someone from the Upper School to get to the Lower School campus unobserved, in daylight hours?”

The question was very relevant. Not so long ago, Upper School and Lower School had occupied two adjacent wings of the same building. But then the Governors, prompted by the Headmaster, who wanted separate premises for the Lower School, acquired “The Archdeaconry” – a redundant mansion within sight of the main building, but separated from it by almost half a mile of School rugby field, open, bare, with no “cover” of any sort.

“Out of the question, I’d say” said Mark. “At night, yes. But in daylight you’d see them as clearly as anything. Why do you ask? Are you plotting something?”

“No, it’s just an idea I had” I lied. “You’ve answered the question. Thanks all the same”. I pressed the red key and switched off.

So if it wasn’t a senior boy, who had his cock up Paddy’s butt, that left only one other possibility. It had to be a member of staff.

We had a resident paedophile on school premises. And if that was the case, he soon wouldn’t be content with Paddy alone.

What to do?

For the time being I kept the question to myself, and went to the stores, to sort out some flags.

Part 4. Narrative continued by Fenella Price

“What a waste of a morning!” moaned Jason, when I told him about his appointment. “I’d asked Marcus Moon to call round. We were going to try out his new skateboard over the speed-humps on the city bypass. Anyway, who’s this Doctor Spicer that wants to examine my privates? Some old perv, that’s for sure”.

“Jason, you are NOT to go on the city bypass!” I said. “And Dr Spicer is a specialist, who knows all about young boys starting to grow up. It's just a checkup to make certain everything is alright, that’s all”. This was not the first lie I was to tell Jason.

I got him into the car, still grumbling. At the City Hospital, fortunately, there was only a short time to wait before a staff nurse appeared, and made Jason take his shorts and underpants off. He didn’t make a fuss; I suppose by now he was used to the idea of having his “privates” examined. The nurse, a big woman, propelled Jason out of the room with a hand on his bare behind.

I sat and waited. Half an hour, Dr Spicer had indicated. Somewhere, through those swing doors, Jason was being anaesthetised. Then they would pop him up on to the operating table. Dr Spicer would be waiting with his instruments to open Jason’s scrotum, to take his balls out – burn them out – “to show him who’s the boss”. I got quite a tingle between my legs, at the thought that very soon – perhaps at that very minute, Jason would not be a boy, at least not completely – and could never be a man. That morning he’d pranced around his bedroom and bathroom with a stiffie. Not any more!

A sound of doors creaking in the distance, and then a woman in theatre overalls appeared, pushing a wheelchair in which Jason was sitting, or rather slumped, with a blanket over his legs. “I’m Dr Robinson, the paediatrician” said this woman. Jason’s eyelids were drooping and he appeared to be only semi-conscious. “What’s the matter with him?” I asked.

“Nothing to be concerned about” replied Dr Robinson. “Only we had to sedate him quite heavily. He became a bit excitable”.

I could believe that, and began to comment about Jason’s temperament. But Dr Robinson had to get on with other things. “A few post-operative things to attend to” she said “and then you can take him home, and I must hurry back. Dr Spicer has five other boys to be neutered this afternoon”.

Five more boys to have their balls taken out!

Dr Robinson led the way into a side room, where there was a bed, with a waterproof sheet and towel over it. “Now, Jason, up we go” said the doctor, and with practised arms lifted him on to the bed. She removed the blanket, so that I could see, for the first time, the gauze dressing between Jason’s thighs and the tip of his little penis showing over the top. “What’s that funny smell?” I asked. “Like liniment?”

“It’s mentholated Vaseline” she explained. “It’s to encourage shrinkage – to make the boy’s penis retract into the abdominal cavity. He doesn’t need a long penis anymore. When shrinkage is complete, Jason will find he can only urinate in a sitting position. It’s aimed at making him think about the things that girls do, differently from boys. In time, when the hormones have worked themselves out, he’ll forget all about being male”.

I silently hoped that this was so!

Dr Robinson went to a locker and took out two things. First a bottle of small yellow capsules. “One of these at night” she said. “That is to make him sleep through. And another first thing in the morning, with food. That will keep him calm during the day. There’s a week’s supply there, which should be more than enough. We’ve found that three days is generally long enough”.

The second was a big bulky package. Opening this, she showed me a pack of disposable nappies, and a pair of plastic pants – just the sort that new babies have, only bigger. With a quick deft movement Dr Robinson fitted one of the disposables between Jason’s legs and fastened the press-studs. The plastic pants followed. Dr Robinson showed me how the waistband was tightened by pulling on a tab at the back.

“It’s impossible for him to loosen that by himself” she explained. “He’ll have to wait till you change him. First thing in the morning and again before he goes to bed”.

She must have seen my puzzled look, because she went on “It’s most important that he can’t get to fiddle with his dressings” she said. “That’s why he has to keep these on till he’s healed. It helps if the sutures are kept moist. If he wants to wee – well, that’s what the nappy is for. And you can make him wait to do Number Twos until you change him. I think that’s everything. Now, he’ll never get his shorts on over those. Did you bring a skirt for him?

I hadn’t, but Dr Robinson was prepared. From another cupboard she took an old green plaid wrapover pleated skirt and buckled it round Jason’s waist. “You can drop it in when you’re passing” she said.

Dr Robinson summoned a porter to help me get Jason into the car, and said her goodbyes. Jason might now have been mistaken for a girl- a rather scruffy one but a girl nonetheless. I hoped it was a good omen! I so wanted to rear Jason as a girl!

At home, I had to help Jason up the stairs; his legs kept going from under him. Taking no notice of his new surroundings he flopped on the bed like a rag doll. I stripped him down to his plastic pants and nappy, and pulled the covers over him. “Try and sleep now, Jessica” I whispered. I pulled down the shades and left him, to watch TV movie shows all evening.

At half-eleven I went to bed myself. Looking in on Jason I found him awake, or at least with his eyes open. “You OK, honey?” I asked.

“Auntie Fenella, my privates are sore” he replied, in a whiny voice. “They did more than look at them, didn’t they? Did they take my balls out?”

(“Start as you mean to go on” the woman had said. I’d told one lie to Jason already. What do they say – ‘As well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb?’? So I launched straight into another.)

“Yes, honey, they did” I said, trying to sound sincere. “You see, they were infected, and not developing properly and you could have become dangerously ill. So I gave my consent for you to have a little procedure. We’ll talk about it in the morning”.

“Oh” he said, in that tiny voice again (just “oh” – that’s all). I gave him one of the yellow pills and a drink of water. Presently his eyes closed and his breathing settled down. I kissed him (her, I should say) and left him/her to dreamland.

Jason remained in a zombie-like state all that week, lying on the bed or weakly sitting up. Twice a day I changed him, and helped him go to the bathroom for Number Twos. He didn’t say much at all.

The yellow pills ran out, and two days after that, the disposable nappies ran out also. This was the day when Jason’s wound could be expected to have healed up sufficiently to take the dressing off. At seven I looked in on him, to find him gazing round the room.

“Hi ya, Aunt Fenella” said Jason in response to my “Good morning, honey”. “What’s all this? Why aren’t I in my own room?” He sounded quite normal.

“Let me give you a nice shower” I said “then we’ll talk about it”.

Jason’s urine-sodden dressing came off easily. Underneath, his scrotum was a neatly-stitched, flat fold of skin, and his penis a little knob of flesh, that would never become hard and stiff as it had done before. I felt a real thrill as I looked at it: Jason was part-way to becoming a girl! I towelled him after his shower, and laid out the pink dress and new underwear – a lacy thong. Jason fingered it, then looked at me, uncomprehending.

“Hey, these are girls’ things!” he exclaimed. “Where are my jeans and under-shorts?”

I decided on a direct approach. That his genitals had been removed, as I’d explained already. He would never be able to get married or have children. All the experts agreed that in cases like his – that because he would never be able to have sex as a boy, then by far and away the kindest course was to bring him up as a girl.

“And I’ve always wanted a little girl of my own” I finished. “So you are to be my little girl. I’m going to call you Jessica, and dress you in pretty things like these!”

Jason stared at me as if I’d gone mad. For a moment I thought he was going to attack me – or start screaming – then all the fight seemed to go out of him. He slumped forwards with his head in his hands. “Oh lordy! he breathed. “Oh lordy, lordy, lordy!”

I left him there, coming to terms with himself and his new life.

Halfway through the morning I heard him moving about, and at length he came down, wearing the pink dress. “Well, that’s lovely!” I said. He didn’t reply – just glared at me and began to read a sci-fi magazine.

Later, I took him to a hairdressers’ in the downtown area and got his hair tidied-up. It had been rather long to begin with and wasn’t difficult to rearrange in a more feminine style.

Now, there were a lot of things to sort out – principally to arrange for his (I must start to say “her”) admission to South Sussex High School for Girls in September. I’d already written to Jason’s old school to say he’d left the district and wouldn’t be returning.

Jason – Jessica rather, became very withdrawn after his operation. His old friends had all been told that he’d gone away, and he never saw anybody. It bothered me that he/she had had so little contact with girls. This would make him awkward and selfconscious. Then I got to hear about a group, organised by a local woman, that aimed at bringing only children together and teaching them how to mix. They had residential weekends in a country house. All I had to do was take Jason/Jessica to the City Library on Saturday afternoons, and a mini-bus would pick him up, returning him after lunch on Sundays. It seemed a godsend.

The thing was, Jason returned from these sleepovers more withdrawn than ever. I tried to ask him whether or not he enjoyed them, and what the other children were like.

“It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” he replied, and in a more angry tone “Isn’t it?” That was all I could get out of him.

Days and weeks went by.

Part 5. The narrative continued by Simon Scott, boy-eunuch.

My use of the City library on several afternoons a week didn’t end with the death of Angie, in horrible circumstances, a few months ago (read ‘Simon Under Suspicion’). I continued to use the same bus as before, and it was usually infested with Angie’s former schoolmates, sprawling all over the seats, letting their skirts ride up to show off their fannies swelling beneath their knickers. And so it was, one Wednesday afternoon in October.

The back seat of the bus was fully taken up by a bunch of South Sussex High School girls, discussing one of their schoolmates, whom they referred to as “Cave Woman”. Clearly there was something strange about this girl – who wasn’t on the bus with them. The biggest and tallest of the girls had the most to say.

“You know about her, don’t you, Tamsin, how she certainly wasn’t born a girl?”

“You can tell at once” broke in another girl. “Just by the way she stomps about, and those great big hands and feet”.

“Well, the story is” continued the first girl “the story is, that when she – he, rather, was quite small, and it was Bonfire Night, you know, November 5th, someone put a lighted firecracker in the pocket of his jeans. It exploded and burned his cock and balls off”.

The second girl, the one called Tamsin, giggled. “So bang went his prospects – literally!”.

“That’s not quite right, Helen” said the third girl – the one who’d referred to ‘great big hands and feet’. “It was only his cock that got burned off, not his balls. But rather than let him grow up like that, his parents decided to bring him up as a girl. So they took him to a clinic and got his balls cut right out”.

“I haven’t heard that story” said a fourth girl. “Plenty of boys have their balls taken out. Either to make them sing better or prevent them being a nuisance with girls. I think he’s just one of those boys, and his parents dress him like a girl because it suits them to. I don’t believe there was any accident”.

All this was at quite a loud conversational pitch and presently an old woman turned round and told the girls that they shouldn’t discuss such things. So I heard no more about Cave Woman, who would have been much happier, I thought, among boy-eunuchs, which in reality she was, instead of being an unhappy freak among girls.

It took me a few more journeys to find out that Cave Woman used to get off the bus a few stops earlier and change to another route, one that ran out to suburbia. At the first opportunity I followed. With only the description of “great big hands and feet” there wasn’t much to go on, but it was enough. Only one person got down at the terminus – in a housing estate I didn’t know at all. She was dressed as a High School girl, sure enough – but you can always tell. Girls just don’t look like boys – or do I mean that the other way round. I got a good look at her face as she got down, and I knew where I’d seen her before.

After walking on a few paces the “girl” whipped round. I stopped.

“Don’t be frightened” I said. “I don’t mean to do you any harm”.

“Then why are you following me?”

“Because I think I know who you are. Because I’m sure I’ve seen you before – and because – unless I’ve got it round the back of my neck – you could do with some help”.

“Seen me before? Where?”

“At the City Hospital. About two months ago. You were waiting to see Dr Spicer”. (I remembered what the ambulance-man had said: ‘Any boy that’s been seen by Dr Spicer won’t have any use for girls afterwards”)

Her expression changed, and I knew I was right. I can safely say “He” from here on!

“Let’s go in here” he said. “Here” was a small memorial garden with an obelisk in the middle, and seats. The far end couldn’t be seen from the road. We sat on a bench. For a moment, neither of us spoke.

“My name’s really Jason” volunteered the boy.

“I’m called Simon” I replied. “Why do you go to the girls’ High School?”

“Because I’m not a boy – not completely. I’ve had the snip”. (The girls on the bus had been right about that, at least). He paused and then said, as if I’d not understood the first time, “I’ve had my balls taken out”.

“Well, that makes two of us” I confided. “So have I. At least, when I was twelve I had my balls pricked. It makes them dry up and the effect’s just the same.”

Jason stared at me but said nothing, so I went on. “But that doesn’t explain why you go to a girls’ school. I go to Southdown Hall and there are plenty of boys there, neutered, like me. We do everything that boys do – except that we can’t ever fuck girls”.

“I never got near fucking a girl” said Jason. “Though I thought about it often. I used to have a hard-on a lot of the time and I’d try to jerk off”.

“Every one thinks about it and jerks off” I said. “I don’t see what was your problem was. Boys don’t get to have their balls taken out without a reason”. (Though nowadays I no longer believed that. The “parental choice” lobby had grown a lot stronger in the last year or two, and it was quite usual now, for people who already had one son to carry on the family name, to get the younger boys neutered as soon as they began to get regular erections – often as young as ten.)

Jason didn’t say anything for a bit, but then he took a deep breath and embarked on an alarming and pitiful story, which I’ll let him tell you himself.

Part 6. The narrative continued by Jason Price, boy-eunuch, castrated two months earlier.

Life’s kinda lousy just now.

My Mom and Dad divorced when I was quite small and I went to live with Mom’s sister, Auntie Fenella. I cried for my Mom a lot, but I never saw her again, ever.

It was clear to me even at that age that my aunt didn’t want me. She never ill-treated me or anything, but clearly I wasn’t welcome.

Things went on year by year till I was nearly eleven. By that time I was like most boys of my age, noisy, scruffy, untidy – and usually bored out of my mind with not having enough to do. About this time Auntie Fenella began to spend more and more time surfing the Internet. What she was looking for I never found out – because whenever I appeared she used to switch the screen off.

Then one day when I’d arranged for a friend to call round, she said she’d fixed a hospital appointment to see a specialist “for a check-up, because I was growing up fast, and she needed to be certain that everything was alright. When I asked her what “everything” meant, she said “Your private area, dear”.

Now I was quite well aware of what was meant by “the snip”. Several boys at school – most of them the children of foster parents, and who had at one time been at the children’s home, had it done. “The snip” meant having your balls taken out. Boys who had this done had tiny penises that never went stiff, so they could never fuck girls. Apart from that, they did everything that other boys do. They seemed happy enough – I never heard any of them admit that, without your balls, life sucks!

I never suspected that I, too, was in line for the snip, although I might have guessed. Everyone knew that boys who had their balls taken out were supposed to become quieter and better behaved, cleaner, politer, and more attentive in school. Everything that Auntie Fenella might have expected me to be. Only I’d have been wrong if I’d supposed that was all..

Auntie Fenella was besotted – always had been – with the idea of having a little girl to raise. A pretty little girl who wore nice frocks. Instead she had a lumpy, moody 11-year-old boy.

Well, I was in for the snip after all. My aunt got me to the hospital and at once I had to take my trousers and pants down. It was alright till they got me into the actual place where they do the neutering, and I saw that doctor! He eyes fairly gleamed behind his glasses and I could tell he really loved castrating boys. “Well now, Jason!” he said in an oily voice “you and your testicles just don’t go together! Never mind, we’ll soon have those nasty balls out”. As he spoke he rubbed his hands together.

That – the very idea of this fat old man groping my privates, got to me, in a way that it hadn’t before. I suppose I went berserk. I shouted “You old perv!” or something like that – and went at him. But somebody got me by the arm and I felt the prick of a needle. Seconds later my legs went from under me and I became as limp as a rag doll……

I don’t recall much after that. I was more or less a vegetable for the following week. Auntie Fenella was given some pills for me to take, and those kept me under. Most of the time I lay on the bed, except when she helped me go to the bathroom. Oh, and I forgot to say. After the operation they made me wear a sort of nappy, and if I wanted to wee – well, I just wee’d. My aunt changed me twice a day, like a baby. At least no one suggested I did Number 2’s in the nappy as well!

When the pills ran out and I was allowed to recover my senses, I at once noticed that I hadn’t been in my own room all this time. I was in what had been the spare room, all got up with frills and flounces. And in place of my jeans and trainers there was a girl’s dress hanging up. As soon as my aunt appeared I asked her what the hell was going on. To my amazement she came clean. Auntie Fenella was obsessed with the idea of having a little girl to raise, and I was going to be the little girl.

I was to wear girls’ clothes, have a girl’s name – Jessica – go to a girls’ school, even. My aunt told my old school – and all my friends – that I’d gone away for good. Having my balls out was just the first step in altering my sex. They had put stuff on my penis that made it shrink, so I’d be forced to pee like a girl – sitting down.

I can’t begin to tell you how shattered I felt, or how depressed I began to feel from that moment on. Every day was like living in a nightmare from which there was no waking up. I should have cried, but I was too shocked and upset even to cry.

The new school wasn’t a success. The girls sensed there was something odd about me and didn’t want me to join in with them. It might have been embarrassing if they had, because more often than not, they talked about starting their periods and whether they could use tampons. At games – hockey and basketball, they found me too rough – after all I still had a boy’s muscles – and I collected the unattractive nickname “Cave Woman”. I found myself totally and completely alone.

“Why don’t you ever go visit some of the other girls?” Auntie Fenella used to complain. “Or have them visit you here? You’re getting to be a recluse!” But it was no good saying anything.

However, she was determined I should mix with other girls and spent her waking hours looking for ways to make this happen. I’ll tell you what the horrible results were.

Somewhere, somehow, she got to hear of organised sleepovers that were run by a woman in her country house not too far away. All she had to do was drop me off at the City library about teatime on Saturdays, and a mini-bus would take me to the place, and return me at the same time on Sundays – though some stayed over till early on Monday mornings. All I needed to take was my toothbrush and night things. I agreed to go – at least it got me out of the house.

On the first Saturday the mini-bus was waiting, and most of the seats were already taken by girls. Or at least they wore girls’ school uniforms and called each other Tina, Tracey, Donna, Gemma, Shelley, Kate and Jennifer. But I sensed that there was something strange about them. They ignored me, but by listening to them talking to each other I gathered they all came from the city orphanage just down the coast. The orphanage took in children of both sexes, and though the boys lived in a separate wing , they all used to be neutered on admission , usually by having their balls pricked, so they were no risk to the girls.

My fellow passengers were, all of them, not girls, any more than I was, but like me, neutered boys!

The bus was hardly clear of the city limit before the driver pressed a switch and blinds came down over all the windows and a shutter cut off the driving compartment too. I tried to work out where we were and where we were going. At first I was pretty certain that the driver was keeping to the main London road, but then he turned off, and I lost all sense of direction. The mini-bus was, clearly, right in the country and on very narrow roads. It laboured up hills and lumbered down the other side, and twigs lashed the windows on the outside.

You won’t believe the next bit. The driver slowed right down, then stopped. He got out and his feet sounded hollowly on wood. Then, the sound of water splashing and slopping, and a clanking noise. We were in a boat of some kind, crossing water.

It only lasted a few minutes, then there was a bump. The engine started again and I felt the mini-bus grind up a sort of ramp. Then the sound of a heavy gate being closed. The engine stopped for the last time and the blinds went up. We were in a courtyard, surrounded on all sides by buildings that might once have been stables. Everywhere was very smart and well painted.

“Here we are again!” declared one of the orphanage boys. And there She is – all ready and waiting!”

“Are you ready, Jennifer? asked one of the boys.

“My bum’s still tingling from last weekend” said the boy called Jennifer.

“Many more visits like this and I’ll be able to shit tree-trunks” said a third boy.

I didn’t know what they were talking about and there wasn’t time to ask, because the rear door opened and a big woman in nurse’s uniform appeared. “Right” she said in a loud authoritative voice. “Which of you is Jessica?”

I put my hand up. “Me, Nurse!” I said timidly. One of the other boys sniggered.

“You stay here with me. All you others, you know where to go and what to do. Off with you then”. The other boys all disappeared through a doorway.

The nurse, if she was one, propelled me into the house and into a small room fitted with pegs like a locker room. “Take all your clothes off and wait!” she commanded.

I waited, in my skin, for what seemed a very long time. From time to time there was a sound of flushing, quite nearby. Finally the nurse came back. “In here” she said abruptly.

“Here” looked like a doctor’s surgery. There was a couch, and a sink, and cabinets of jars, bottles and cartons. “Up on this chair” was the next order. I clambered up and the nurse took a long hard look at my private area: my penis that I’d once been so proud of, shrunk to a little acorn; the tiny fold of skin that had once held my balls. “Very neat. Perfect” she said, apparently to herself, and then to me “Down off that chair. Bend over and keep still”.

Her strong fingers parted my bum-cheeks and poked a syringe into my anus. With a practised hand she pumped soap-and-water up my behind. “Go through there and get rid of it! she directed.

I was only too pleased to do what she said – I was near bursting. I pulled the toilet chain and came back into the surgery to find myself face to face with – with that doctor! The one that had cut my balls out.

Once again the horrible smile that I’d never forget. Once again the silky voice. “And so we meet again, Jason – or to be correct, Jessica! Now I’ve something very important to tell you, so listen carefully”.

“The guests in this house are important, wealthy people. They pay a lot of money to come here. You on the other hand are here for one reason and one reason only – to show these men a good time. I’m sure I needn’t elaborate. No? (for I was staring at him dumbfounded) Good”.

“Now, these men may talk to you, but you will NOT, repeat NOT, talk to them. The most you are allowed to do is to say “Oh, that’s nice” or show how much you are enjoying it”.

(Enjoying – what? I wondered). The Doctor still hadn’t finished. “Now I come to the most important thing of all. You must NEVER, NEVER breathe a word about what you see here, or what you do. If you disobey me I shall find out – and you will be punished. I shall hurt you, in ways you never dreamed of in your worst nightmares – horrible ways! I shall do more than hurt you. I shall make you –UGLY”.

He paused, letting this sink in. I said nothing – I was too terrified. The Doctor rose, and pressed a bell. The nurse came back into the room. “I’ll leave him to you now, Nurse” said the Doctor and went out.

The nurse poured some red, syrupy liquid into a small glass and made me drink it. At once I began feeling drowsy and relaxed. She still hadn’t finished with my behind, though. From the table she took a large tube of ointment, and with her rubber-gloved fingers smeared a large dollop around my bum-hole, working it well inside. “Right, that’s all for now” she said briskly. “I’ll look in and see you during the night”.

(During the night?)

Returning to the room where I’d left my clothes I found another door open, on the far side. This opened on to another room, carpeted and heavily-curtained. There was a sideboard with bottles and glasses. There was a big easy-chair. There was also a bed, with a big bath towel spread over it. In the far wall there was another door.

Two things now happened very quickly. The door I’d come in by, closed with a click. I saw that on my side there was no handle. Then the door opposite flew open, and a Roman senator in a purple-striped

toga came in. At least, a tall slim man dressed like a Roman senator came in.

“Well now!” said this individual. “What have we here? A dear little boy-eunuch, no less. Recently gelded too, I’d guess. Well, they have the right idea in these modern times. Whenever they can get hold of any good-looking boys they should be gelded and made into cherubs with lovely round bottoms”.

I said nothing.

“Cat got your tongue?” asked the man, smiling. “Never mind. Let’s start having some fun.”.

Seating himself in the big chair he lifted me on to his lap and began to dandle me like a doll, at the same time kissing my face. He smelled of after-shave. After a few minutes of this his hand reached between my legs, to play with my penis. His breath began to quicken with excitement. Suddenly he carried me over to the bed, face-down, threw off his toga and got on top of me………

When at last he pulled his penis out, after shooting hard inside my bottom, I understood what that other boy meant when he’d said he’d soon be able to shit tree-trunks.

My next visitor wore 18th-century naval uniform, with an eyepatch. I guess he was meant to be Admiral Nelson even though he had two arms. He wanted to suck my penis, and then I had to suck his, until he came in my mouth.

The Sheikh of Araby – who might have been T E Lawrence – came next. He wanted me in my girls’ school uniform so that he could grope me up my skirt and inside my knickers. The fact that I wasn’t made like a girl didn’t put him off at all. He turned me over and had me all the same.

Napoleon just wanted a straight fuck with no foreplay. He was gone within five minutes.

And so the night went on, with one after the other. Twice in the night the nurse came and put more lubricant up my bottom. In the end I think I must have passed out, because a long time later I looked up and saw daylight through a barred window.

The nurse looked in and told me to get dressed. Then she called me into the consulting-room place; all the other boys were already there. We were given a small bowl of cornflakes each, and some milk. No one said much. Soon after that, we were all told to go out to the mini-bus.

Aunt Fenella asked me if I’d had a nice time and wanted to know what I’d done, and of course I couldn’t tell her – not with that Doctor’s words “I shall make you ugly” ringing in my ears. She was very angry and upset, saying things like “It’s always the same with you; nothing’s ever right for you – I don’t know why I bother”.

The next weekend was the same. And the next. And the next.

Part 7. Simon resumes.

Jason’s miserable story faltered to its close. Eyes wide, he stared into my face. “It’s hopeless, isn’t it?” he whimpered. “Quite hopeless. What’m I to do?” His chin began to wobble and I thought he was going to cry.

For a moment I couldn’t speak; inwardly I was boiling over with rage and disgust at these creatures, these perverts, who used their position and wealth to prey on young, vulnerable, castrated boys, and still more at those who organised these – these – I ran out of words. Swallowing my anger I said “No, it’s not hopeless at all. It’ll be stopped, and you’ll be free. And you can go back to being a boy. Trust me”.

Problem was, I hadn’t at that moment any idea what to do. As for going back to being a boy, no one could restore to Jason what he’d lost. Who knew that better than myself?

“Within a couple of weeks” I said, and again, fatuously “Trust me”.

I gave him my cellphone number. “Text me” I told him “just to say you’ll be there again this coming weekend. I’ll be there too only no one will know”. Already a vague idea was forming in my mind.

Jason nodded. I gently squeezed his hand, and he turned to go, clomping off on his over-large feet- the sure-fire giveaway that he hadn’t been born a girl. A moment later I left too, and went in search of a bus back to town.

Some time later, back at school, I retreated to my private sanctum in the sports store and did some savage thinking. No doubt about what needed to be done. Soon after we moved into the Archdeaconry a patch of dry-rot had appeared in the toilets: horrible-looking things sprouted on the wall, like patches of yellow tripe. “Got to get rid of that” said the man from the builders’. “Every last trace”.

But where was it going on, this filthy thing that had to be eradicated, every last trace?

Somewhere in the Weald – that much I could tell from Jason’s description. The Weald is a funny place: an area mostly covered in oak woods, seamed with deep valleys; few settlements and poor roads. No good for farming – the soil was clayey and cold – the Weald had become a prime target a hundred years ago, for rich people to build country houses and lead the life of landed gentry. I had to look for a country house with some kind of water-barrier in front. Not a big river, there weren’t any, but some sort of lake, perhaps……….

I went to the library and took down the ordnance-survey map. Jason hadn’t mentioned the motorway so it was pretty certain the bus had used the old A 23. If they’d turned off at Handcross, now…….My finger traced some possible routes. Cowfold – no, too big. Mannings Heath, Monks Gate….Too far west, and too close to busy main roads.

Then I found it, staring me in the face.

The house had a name on the map, a name that was to become notorious. The present-day owners have given it a different one and they wouldn’t thank me for telling you what it is. It appeared to be all-but-surrounded by a horseshoe-shaped piece of water. The nearest road, a slender yellow thread on the map, ran ¾ of a mile to the south, following the contour lines. A drive, unmade-up apparently, led from the road down a closely-packed set of contours to the edge of the lake, and stopped opposite the black rectangle marking the house.

This had to be it. First hurdle over. But there was a second problem. I was quite certain that I couldn’t tackle this thing on my own. But who to take into my confidence? That was the point. Immediately I thought of Roddy and just as quickly ruled him out. Roddy with his long golden hair and ethereal good looks, that appeared on so many DVD’s, didn’t fit into the picture forming in my mind. The Roebuck twins? On the one hand they were up to the job, but Jon never did anything without Jamie, nor Jamie without Jon. Manchit, then? I rejected Manchit with some reluctance, because there was really only one person I needed. Making my mind up I hurried over to the gym, where from the upper gallery there came a rhythmic poom-poom-poom noise. I went up and found, as I’d hoped, Jack Elliott belting the shit out of a punch-bag.

Jack was the same age as I’d been – about 11½ - when he’d been neutered. Unlike me, he’d actually known what it felt like to put his penis into a girl and have an orgasm inside her – some little slut with hot pants, in his native North Shields - although on his own admission his climaxes were dry and therefore harmless. Castration left him as impotent as a four-year-old (“It’s no good, I’ve tried and tried but I just can’t” he’d once confided.)

Scorning him, now he was a eunuch, the girl had dropped out of his life. But from then on, just like a carthorse colt after being gelded, all Jack’s strength had gone into his legs, arms and shoulders. Rated a bantam-weight, he was lethal in the ring. He couldn’t have been more dangerous with his balls in, than he was without. Seeing me, he stopped bashing the punch-bag and held out his gloved hands. “Awee, the lads!” was his greeting – it always was. He was beaming with pleasure.

“That’s impressive, Jack!” I said. “I’d not like to run up against you on a dark night!”

“Never was your kind of sport, was it, kidder?” was Jack’s reply. This was unfortunately true. Though taller than he was, and with a longer reach, I had a fatal weakness where boxing was concerned. If a glove landed on my face I would begin to weep, copiously and helplessly.

Jack went for a shower, and I waited. Clean, dried and dressed, with his hair combed, he asked “And what can I do for you, kidder?”

“Let’s walk along” I said. “I want some advice”. In response, Jack affectionately laid one of his long arms across my shoulders.

“Jack” I said. “I suppose you know what a paedophile is?”

“Course I do” he retorted. “An old fella that likes doing it wi’ little lads – up their bums”.

“Have you ever – I mean – come across one personally?”

Jack paused, then took a deep breath. “There was this dirty old Vicar, see…….”

Jack had a fund of stories about dirty old Vicars but this one was different. It was true, and it involved himself. And it was all about sessions in a locked vestry with his trousers and pants down, bent over a chair……

“He could have had any boy he wanted; there were far better looking ones than me” Jack went on. (True: Jack was rather pug-nosed). “But he seemed obsessed, that old Vicar. Sometimes he’d just sit staring, staring at my private area – at IT.” (“It” meaning his tiny penis, with no balls or scrotum). He paused, then added “On the bright side, if you can call it that, he was willing to pay for it”.

(I haven’t attempted to reproduce Jack’s broad Tyneside dialect which not many readers would understand outside Newcastle. As a sample, “pay for it” emerged as “peeah furrit”.)

For a while neither of us spoke and my mind drifted back four years, to my old boarding school when I’d become the flower, i.e. bum-boy, of one of the prefects. Ramsay had been kind as well as gentle, and at times I had a sneaking suspicion that I was beginning to enjoy what he did to me – but those days were well-and-truly over.

“So you didn’t like it, then, Jack” I said.

The effect on Jack was immediate. He turned very red and his eyes nearly popped out of his head. “Like it?” he hissed, and his voice rose to a shout. “LIKE it? Get awee, man! Whaddo you take me for?"” He was shaking all over.

I knew in that moment that I’d made the right choice.

“Jack” I said, in as calm a voice as I could muster “let me tell you a story”. And leaving nothing out, I filled him in on Jason’s miserable weekly ordeal.

Jack’s usually good-humoured face had become rigid, his mouth set in a line. “The dorty old beggors! he breathed. “The dorty……..ould………beggors! And that woman - what’s she thinking of? Just an animal, that’s what she is!” He broke into a torrent of unprintable epithets.

“So what do we do, Jack?” I asked.

“Listen, Simon” he replied. “Listen carefully. This is what we’ll do”.

Jack’s quick brain had been forming the outline of a plan while I’d been talking. I was impressed by the simplicity of it. But what it was, I’ll leave you to find out.

Part 6. Simon continues.

Late tea-time on Saturday afternoon had found Jack and myself in a very good position among the trees, looking downwards. At the foot of the slope stretched the lake, a dark, still crescent of water surrounding the house on three sides. Just beyond the house the hillside rose up like a wall, almost vertical. The intervening ground couldn’t be seen, but at a guess it was marshy and boggy.

A fitful country bus service had deposited us within three miles of our objective. We looked a bit out-of-the-ordinary. School Uniform, in the summer andautumn, is basically a royal blue blazer and white shorts, altogether too conspicuous, so I’d roped Mark in on part of the conspiracy and persuaded him to raid the Cadet Force stores and find us a suit of combat fatigues each. These had been dropped off in the mail-hut, where Jack and I had done a quick change. Bush hats completed the ensemble.

Or not quite. On my feet I wore jungle boots – a relic of way-back-when; (see “Simon in the Orient”) Jack wore black trainers as he always did and the waterproof satchel over his shoulder held a cam-corder – Melanie’s. The darling had let me borrow it without asking any questions..

Below us, and to the left, the gravel drive to the house came to an end at the lake. Jason’s comments about the mini-bus crossing water were now explained. The regular means of crossing the lake – a chain ferry – was secured to a ramp on the far side. This, obviously, was useless to us. No doubt Jack and I, working together, could have turned the heavy crank-handle, but we should have been in full view of the house all the time, quite apart from the noise.

As the light began to drain away we worked our way down the slope. It was Jack who found the remains of a path; it was also Jack who found the boat-house, screened by trees and barely visible. There was no door on the landward side. Cautiously we peered in. The first things I saw were some contraptions resembling mountain bikes, but supported by floats.

“Water-bikes” murmured Jack. “Never seen one before?” No good to us though, too splashy”.

The bikes were no use, but searching about in the gloom we found two small kayaks. They looked alright although clearly they’d not been used for some time. A further search located some paddles.

All we needed to do now was wait till it was fully dark, in about an hour from now. Before launching the kayaks, Jack said we ought to try to camouflage our faces, which would show up white if any lights came on. All we had by way of camouflage paint was mud. But we used it just the same.

The water came right into the boathouse and the kayaks were soon launched – although almost at once Jack found that his kayak was leaking, though not too seriously. A few strokes took us to the far bank, with scarcely a ripple, and to an ideal landing place hidden by some large bushes.

All the medals went to Jack in the next few moments. It was Jack who located the gap in the hedge at exactly the right place; Jack who spotted the box-walk that led to the edge of the lawn, and to a sort of rose-arbour that was the ideal place to stay concealed. That is, unless our “hosts” took it into their heads to explore the garden.

From inside the rose-arbour we had a full view of the west front of the house. At ground floor level all windows were dark. On the floor above, lights were on, and more importantly there were no curtains drawn. But how to get up there with no ladder?

Amazing though it seemed at the time, one had been provided, in the shape of a very solidly-made rose trellis bolted to the side of the house. I suggested to Jack that we should “do” one window each, but he wasn’t having it. “I’m much lighter than you” he said “and I guess I’ve got stronger fingers. I’ll need to hold on with one hand and film with the other, see?”

The problem was, that once up on the trellis, Jack would be as conspicuous as a fly on a window-pane. We made an emergency plan that, if need be, Jack would throw the cam-corder to me and I would make my escape as silently as possible, while Jack created a diversion, leading any pursuers into the tangled boggy woodland behind the house.

Up there, beyond those lighted windows, unspeakable things were being done to young, frightened, castrated boys………….And it was up to us to provide the evidence that would get it stopped.

A distant clock struck eight, recalling us to our senses. “Well, it’s no good staring at it” muttered Jack. Cam-corder in hand he sprinted silently across the lawn and began to climb.

From the comparative safety of the rose-arbour I watched him, up there on the trellis. He would film for a few minutes, then traverse to another window and film there, repeating this at different windows and at different times. Again and again he traversed across the terrace….

It was only when I heard that clock strike eleven, that I realised he’d been at it three hours.

Jack must have heard it too, for he came quietly climbing down. “Got as much as we need” he said. “My joints are cracking. Look there, though – better see what’s going on there”.

A light had come on in a ground-floor window. But before Jack could get to it, the lawn was suddenly flooded with light. We both made for the box-walk and hidden by its shelter from the lawn, flung ourselves flat on the ground. There was the sound of a door opening.

“But I tell you I saw something at the window” said a high querulous voice, which somehow seemed a bit familiar. “Something brown and streaky, with staring eyes”.

(Percy?)

A rich confident voice replied. “What you saw, Percy, was a tawny owl. The woods are full of them. They’re attracted by the light”.

Jack now had a stroke of genius. He gave the well-known hunting call of a tawny owl, softly, as if it came from a distance.

“There, I told you so!” the rich voice said. “Stop worrying, Percy. Come inside and have a drink”.

PERCY!

For the moment I kept my suspicions to myself. It was time we made ourselves scarce, and we were afraid of setting off intruder-alarms, so we crawled all the way to the lakeside, using the box walk as cover. The leaks in Jack’s kayak had gained, so that he had to kneel in two inches of water.

When we were halfway back, something DID trigger one of the alarms, flooding the lawn with light. But we were beyond its range, out on the lake in inky blackness, and no one came out to see.

As we neared the boathouse, the bottom fell out of Jack’s kayak, leaving him standing waist deep in muddy, very cold water, and swearing under his breath. He waded the last bit. Since Jack’s boat was on the bottom of the lake I evened things up by sinking mine too, stamping the gunwale under, and got water over the tops of my boots for my trouble. The paddles I returned to where I’d found them.

For the time being it seemed best to stay where we were. It was far too dark to find our way back to the road, and little point in doing so at that time of night. Come the next morning we should have to find some means of getting back to school.

Jack’s teeth were chattering. “That water’s cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey” he said in a loud whisper. “You and me, we’ve got an advantage!” Which was gallows humour if you like.

“Did you get some good stuff, Jack?” I asked.

“There’s nothing good about what’s going on in there” retorted Jack. I wish I hadn’t asked.

In the end, despite being wet – in Jack’s case very wet – and cold, we dozed on and off. It was safe enough. Very clearly the boathouse was rarely visited, and if any of our unwitting hosts took a notion to cross the lake, they would be bound to use the chain ferry – and we in our turn – one of us at least - would be bound to hear it. I heard the distant bell chime three. When I heard it again it chimed six, and there were streaks of light in the sky.

Light enough to be able to pick up the path we’d come down by. Jack sneezed loudly, several times. After a short climb we were back on the road, and we got a bit warmer, tramping along. At the first crossroads I recognised the name of a place I seemed to recognise, 1½ miles further. On we went and were rewarded by some bungalows and a pub “The Four Magpies”. None of them showed a light.

A short distance more and we passed beneath a bridge that carried, or appeared to carry, a railway. Beyond the bridge the road bent round at right angles, keeping the railway embankment on its left. Railways, in theory, meant trains, and trains might get us back to school…….

Though in these days you couldn’t be sure, and to be honest, at first I had no great hopes of this railway line. There were no signs of life up on the embankment. A little further on there were two old Class 7 engines dumped on a siding, cold and rust-reddened. They hadn’t been rostered to a Class 7 freight train in years.

But just beyond the engines there was a station, with a light burning above the entrance. I went up the steps, with Jack following. The booking office and waiting room were made entirely of wood, and there was a strong smell of creosote. There was another light burning above the ticket window. The hatch was closed, but on the other side I could hear somebody whistling.

Unable to see anything resembling a timetable, I tapped on the hatch. It opened immediately, revealing the face of a cheerful-looking middle-aged guy in a cloth cap. “’Ullo!” said this individual. “What can I do for you? Want a cup o’ tea? Kettle’s just boiled”.

I accepted the tea gratefully, Jack even more so – his lower half must have been icy cold. I asked the man if there were any trains.

“Couldn’t have timed it better” was the reply. “First one of the day’s in ten minutes. Listen – ‘ere she comes now”.

As he spoke, a little diesel loco came puttering into the station, pulling two vans. It was the smallest, oddest passenger train I’d ever seen. But there was a board on the side of the first van, indicating that it

went all the way.

I asked how much the fare was. The man named a very small sum. I paid him and received two slips of green pasteboard. “S’posed to be freight-only, this ‘ere line” said the provider of the tea, who had now emerged from his ticket office. “But we take passengers as a bit o’ free enterprise. Know where yer get down? The old North station – not Central. Know where that is?”

As a matter of fact I did. It was in the oldest part of the town, dating from long before the place became a seaside resort – a warren of narrow cobbled streets and quaint old shops. “Better get on now” said our benefactor. “Charlie won’t ‘ang about once he gets the all clear”.

Some other passengers, who seemed to be factory workers or perhaps shop assistants, had begun to appear. Jack and I followed them into the first van, which was fitted with bench seats round the sides. Our new friend, who seemed to be general factotum in this remote place, now produced a green flag and waved it, at the same time blowing a whistle. A toot from the little diesel engine and we went puttering off, at a spine-shattering twenty miles an hour- thump-thump; thump-thump…….

By now it was properly light. After a while the trees gave way to bare downland; a short tunnel followed, and then, suburbia. With a final toot the little train puttered into the old North station, a place of ramshackle buildings in a sort of mock-Elizabethan style with bits of half timbering and twisty chimneys. An archway gave on to a cobbled yard, sloping steeply downwards. I set off, with Jack in tow, in search of a bus that would do us some good.

I almost bumped into the big burly figure before I recognised who it was. Mr Carter!

Interruption by Reginald Carter, housemaster at Southdown Hall School, age 40, married.

You might think that collecting Japanese ivories is a strange hobby for a schoolmaster. But there it is. It’s my hobby, and my wife doesn’t disapprove. It keeps me at home much of the time and doesn’t make a mess.

There was a strange little shop I’d heard about, in a part of the town noted for strange little shops. I’d also heard it opened seven days a week. So on Sunday morning I took Christine her breakfast in bed, with the Sunday paper, and said I was slipping out for a little while.

I found the street I wanted, and also somewhere to park: there was a train station there, which catered for some dim local trains. One of these had just drawn in, disgorging a crowd of people: surprising how many had jobs to go to on Sunday mornings, I thought.

The last four to leave the station comprised two pairs who couldn’t have been more different. First came two extremely pretty teenage girls in mini-skirts. They were followed by two boys whom I could put a name to immediately, for they were pupils of mine – Scott and Elliott.

I knew quite a lot about this pair. Firstly that as young boys they’d both been deprived of certain organs which most males consider essential for the enjoyment of a full life. They would never enter puberty, get married, or have children. It’s not for me to discuss the rights and wrongs of that treatment here. But if anyone supposed that this operation would turn them into shy, lifeless creatures – forget it. Sure enough they would have no use for the mini-skirted girls, nor the girls for them – but that was by the way. Our Headmaster, George Holroyd, never spoke a truer word when he said that what a boy has in his head is of far more importance than what he has in his underpants. What he can do is of far more significance than the one single physical act that he cannot.

Our neutered boys – and we had many more than just Scott and Elliott - included some of our most gifted pupils. As well as showing great talent both academically and in the world of sport, they had an aptitude for getting into anything and everything. I have to pick out Scott and Elliott, with a few others in a close-knit circle, for showing great enterprise and great initiative, not to say courage of a rare order, earning distinction for themselves and the school. They had uncovered crime waves and all kinds of improbable plots, some of national importance.

When dealing with Scott and his friends you had to be prepared for anything, any time. So it came as no great surprise to find them – when they should still have been tucked up in bed – dressed in filthy combat jackets and trousers, dishevelled, faces smeared with mud, in this obscure part of the town. As they got nearer I could see that both boys were, additionally, very wet: Elliott in particular was soaked from the waist down. I shelved the idea of a leisurely hour searching for rare netsuke. These two needed help, if they were to avoid pneumonia, and perhaps another kind of help.

Scott was nearly into me before he recognised who I was. Plainly he was out on his feet. “Mr Carter?” he said, enquiringly, in his high treble voice. “Mr Carter, is that you?” He sounded distressed.

“Steady, old chap” I said. “You’d both better come with me and get warm and dry. Anything else can wait”. For I’d noticed that Elliott was clutching a web-cam as if his life depended on it.

Then to my amazement, Scott dissolved into a storm of uncontrollable tears.

Part 8. Simon continues.

I’m sorry, I know I should have better self control. It was only a reaction after all – a reaction after twelve hours or more tension and fear of being caught. Besides which, we’d had nothing to eat since the previous afternoon and very little sleep; we were tired, cold, wet and exhausted. Tears were hardly surprising.

“Steady, old chap” said Mr Carter. He let my snuffles die away, then wiped my face with his handkerchief. Jack and I found ourselves getting into his old Volvo and being driven through familiar streets.

The Carters had a flat in the Archdeaconry; it had once been the servants’ quarters. Mrs Carter, a plump blonde, still pretty, met us at the door and looked us up and down. “Hot baths first of all” she declared. “At least, as there’s only one bathtub you’ll have to decide which of you has a bath and which has to make do with a shower”.

That was easy: Jack clearly needed to wallow in hot water more than I did. Mrs Carter took our wet combat-fatigues away, to be put through the Bendix. Jack was still gripping the cam-corder as if it was the crown jewels. Not until he got into the bathtub did he let go of it.

A few minutes under a hot shower and once again I felt human. Jack’s total immersion restored him totally and he climbed out, lobster-pink and with no traces of lake or woods remaining on his face or in his hair. Then something very strange happened.

I’d gone through several phases since getting neutered. At the very beginning I was in a permanent state of depression now that (as I thought) my sex life was over before it had even started. Then like a lot of neutered boys I went through a passive stage. That didn’t last too long; my first and last prostate orgasm was so scary that I decided I’d never risk having another. By this time Melanie had come on the scene; but the story of our mad sex-sessions (“riding the gelding” and the rest) have had enough space already. Never, never, never had I been attracted by another boy.

When I emerged from the shower my penis had been hanging limp, something that happened only occasionally: most of the time it was retracted right in. Jack came right up to me and took it between his finger and thumb. Moved by some emotion I took his, and rolled his foreskin back. For a short while we fondled each other and I kissed his cheek. Jack murmured something.

Then all of a sudden it all seemed wrong. We’d been castrated to prevent us having sex, and touching one another just made matters worse, adding to our frustration. My mind was going round and round………….Then the strange surge of feelings went away as quickly as they came.

Then we were brought down to earth by Mrs Carter’s cheerful voice outside the bathroom door. “Breakfast in ten minutes, you boys. Clothes are on the landing”. (How that had been managed I still have no idea since I’d last seen my school uniform, Jack’s too, in the mail shed.)

Breakfast was enormous. After the last slice of toast had been eaten, the last cup of coffee drunk, Mr Carter called a meeting in his study.

“Well” he said “I think one of you had better explain. How about making a start, Scott?”

Haltingly I stammered out my story; my meeting with Jason Price, my promise to help him, sharing my confidences with Jack, our expedition to the Weald and the night’s work – ending with our meeting outside the train station. Mr Carter nodded.

“So as I understand it” he re-capped “you learned from this boy – what school does he go to by the way?”

“South Sussex High School for Girls, sir”.

“For GIRLS?”

“Yes sir. His Aunt – his guardian – has made him dress like a girl ever since he was – he was…” I dried up with embarrassment. It didn’t embarrass Mr Carter.

“Since he was neutered. And now she makes him attend a girls’ school. Correct?”.

“Yes sir”.

“M-mmm. Now this boy – this Jason – who isn’t a pupil at Southdown Hall, put you on to these weekend – these weekend sex sessions at a country house on the far side of Haywards Heath. You and Elliott went there, and obtained – or say you’ve obtained, or hope you’ve obtained,, because you haven’t viewed it yet – a photographic dossier of boys being subjected to all kinds of sexual abuse. Are any of them Southdown Hall boys?”

“No, sir”.

“Is Southdown Hall connected in any way – any way at all – with what you saw or what you’ve been told?”

“Yes, sir”.

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

I looked across at Jack, who shook his head. “No, sir. It’s too serious for that”.

Mr Carter sighed. “In that case” he said “we’ll just have to report this to the Boss. I’ll see if he’s free”. He went to the phone. A moment later he was back. “He’ll see us now” he said. “We’ll drive round”.

Dr Holroyd was wearing the black silk gown that he usually wore on weekdays. At first it was very difficult to get across to him. He seemed preoccupied and worried. “I’m not sure I understand, Scott” he said, after hearing my account. “You learned from this boy you met, this Justin…”

“Jason, sir”

“Quite so. You learned from him that he’d been the victim of sexual abuse, together with other boys, for a long period. It’s very unfortunate of course, but it’s nothing to do with the school because none of the boys is a pupil here. So why do you and Elliott have to go rushing off into the Weald, steal a boat on a private lake, and…

“Sir, you’re wrong. Dead wrong”.

Jack had been bursting to say something and now it came out. “It’s not only boys, sir”. He stopped, uncertain how to go on.

“Well, Elliott? Is the school involved in some other way? One of the domestic staff, perhaps? Of course, there was that labourer, Mulcahy, last year…”

“His name was Meggarty, sir” corrected Jack, now getting into his stride. (Meggarty, you might

remember, used to abduct boys in his van, drive off into the country and bugger them.) “And it wasn’t one of the domestic staff”.

“I’m listening, Elliott”.

Getting neutered had not robbed Jack of any of his native Geordie toughness. He faced the Headmaster squarely. “Scott’s contact, this kid Jason, told him that one of his – his – “

“Abusers?” suggested Mr Carter. Jack nodded gratefully.

“One of his abusers was dressed up like a Roman senator. Now I caught someone on camera, dressed like a senator and I think his face should come out clearly. And later, someone came out on the lawn, and his name was Percy”.

“Percy?” said Dr Holroyd in a faint voice. “I’m not sure I follow”.

It was time to cut through the nonsense. “It doesn’t only happen in that place, or only at weekends” I said. “He does it here, too. It’s Mr Hipkin. I’ve seen it – him, oh hell – seen it – myself. And I’ve another witness”.

“Good God!” exclaimed Dr Holroyd. Mr Carter muttered “Hipkin, of course!” under his breath, and pulled a face, as if he’d eaten a bad egg. There was a pause..

“I believe you, of course, Scott” said Dr Holroyd in a voice that suggested he’d much prefer not to believe a word. “You say you’ve another witness. Do you want to tell me who it is?”

“Sir, it’s P Wright Minor” I said – giving Paddy his official reference in the school list. “Of Lower Two Alpha. Usually known as Paddy”.

“I know him, do I?” asked Dr Holroyd. “Oh yes, of course I do. Paddy Wright. Rather a silly little boy as I recall”.

This was putting it kindly. Paddy Wright, as long as I’d known him, had been one of those boring dirty-minded little kids, for whom anything filthy was funny and anything funny was filthy. Being neutered had been “real cool” because it involved his private area and gave him an excuse for talking about it and showing off. It had taken away his ability to jerk off and fuck girls, but it hadn’t altered him in any other way at all.

Dr Holroyd seemed to have recovered his usual composure. “Well” he said. “I don’t think I’ll involve young Wright. Not just yet. As for the rest of us: Reg, you’ve already been a very timely Good Samaritan already, and I’ve kept you from your teaching long enough. You’ll no doubt want to get into school”.

Mr Carter took the hint and went out. “Now you two” the Head said (meaning Jack and myself) will do me a great service if you’ll just stay here a while longer. Would you sit in here, making as little noise as possible, and just listen”. He showed us into an alcove which we’d not noticed before, because it was behind a curtain.

We heard him pick up the phone and say “Headmaster’s compliments to Mr Hipkin and would he please spare him a few minutes of his time”. There was a pause, until we heard Hipkin being shown in by the impassive Croker.

To recount all that was said, word for word, would be boring – even if I could. Dr Holroyd’s level tones, asking question after question, were matched by Hipkin’s querulous replies. Finally a climax was reached when Hipkin said “I didn’t think I was doing any harm, Headmaster. Can you believe that?”

That did it. “Oh yes!” replied Dr Holroyd. “I can well believe it – that you are not only vicious and depraved, but stupid as well. Now listen carefully. It’s now ten o’clock. At twelve-thirty I shall have my lunch and then I shall contact the Vice Squad. That gives you two and a half hours to pack and get away from here. What you do after that, is entirely up to you. If the Police ask me where you are, I shall say I don’t know – which is no more than the truth. That is all. I never want to hear of you again.”

He pressed the bell. “Croker, please show Mr Hipkin out”.

As soon as the door closed, Dr Holroyd pulled back the heavy curtain. “Well” he said, striking the palms of his hands together as if dusting them “that’s that. Quite painless really. Glad I didn’t have to involve you at all”.

“Sir” ventured Jack. “Suppose he rings his friends, to warn them?”

Dr Holroyd smiled. “He won’t, dear boy. People like that have no friends. And I doubt very much that the people who share his tastes are so unwise that they share telephone numbers. Now, I think I’ll keep you both under wraps for a while longer. What would you normally be doing just now?”

“Advanced Maths, sir, with Mr Jackson”.

“M-mm” said Dr Holroyd, and went to the phone again. Quite a different tone this time. “Mr Jackson, please” then a pause, then “Sid? Oh, good morning, Sid”. (Jack and I could only just contain our laughter at the idea of the stuffy Mr Jackson being called Sid). “Listen Sid, I’ve got two of yours here, Scott and Elliott, something’s come up and I need them a while longer, alright? I’ll leave it to you how to fill in any grey areas. ‘Bye”. He rang off.

“Now, I’ll have to spend a little time re-scheduling Hipkin’s classes, so I suggest you go to my library and find something to amuse you. Croker will call you in time for lunch”.

The Headmaster’s private library was enormous. I soon discovered he was a subscriber to the “National Geographic Magazine” and there was a big pile of back numbers. Jack took something off the shelf, I didn’t see what, but I heard him chortling to himself so I guessed it was something spicy.

After a while he could contain himself no longer. “Hey, Simon” he called. “Have a read of this”.

He had a big, hand-set, beautiful copy of the “Thousand and One Nights” in a new translation. Leaning over his shoulder I saw that the book was open at the story of Bukhayt, the First Eunuch, near the end. I read:

“During daylight hours she made me wear an ivory ring on my penis, to prevent me getting erections at awkward times (it almost prevented me peeing also!) but at night she would slide it off and her soft gentle fingers would coax me into hardness, for the hours of bliss that lay ahead. Every night I used to make her come several times, and it would be daybreak before we could finally tear ourselves apart.”.

“Some people have all the luck, don’t they?” said Jack with a rueful smile.

Presently Croker came in. “Lunch will be served in ten minutes, gentlemen, if you would care to wash. And the Headmaster hopes you can eat jugged hare, and asks if you would care for wine?”

Answering for us both I said that we could, and that we would.

Lunch over, our next visitor arrived.

Inspector Banyard of the Vice Squad had a valuable gift. He was invisible. Oh, he was there alright, but he blended with his background so much that you wouldn’t notice him. He was the man who stands next to you in the crowded bus; who sits opposite you behind a newspaper on the train. Afterwards you can’t recall whether he was dark or fair, tall or short. I certainly can’t.

The Inspector sat in a corner at a small table, where he downloaded the camcorder on to his lap-top. He spent the next hour running through the images very slowly, taking notes. This done, he switched off his laptop and rose to go.

“Thank you for your time, gentlemen” he said. That would have been all, if Dr Holroyd hadn’t asked him whether the images were of any interest.

“The images” he replied “are prima facie evidence of offences committed by sundry persons against the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 and the Sexual Offences Act 1956”.

“So what happens now?” enquired Dr Holroyd.

“What happens now” replied the Inspector “is for my superiors to decide. I couldn’t possibly comment”.

And after that, it really was time for Advanced Maths with Mr Jackson.

A week passed by without event. Inspector Banyard played his hand so close to his chest, that the question “What happens now” would have remained unanswered if it had not been for a junior reporter on the local paper. This young guy, bored with reporting Church sales-of-work and Women’s Institute outings, decided to take a day off to indulge his favourite hobby, which was fishing. His explorations in the Weald had discovered a lake, inhabited by enormous carp. Here, he had repaired one Saturday afternoon, to spread ground bait and set some highly illegal night lines.

And here, after dark, he returned, to take up his lines, but instead got the fright of his life when an enormous figure rose out of the gloom and a deep husky voice warned him to “Keep quiet, sir, and don’t make a move”. He became aware of other dark figures nearby, and discovered he’d blundered into a strong police cordon. From where he stood, he had a good view of the lake and the house.

Then the sky overhead split open with a tremendous burst of noise. Powerful searchlights lit up the garden and a huge Chinook helicopter landed on the lawn. All the lights in the house came on; policemen poured out of the chopper and there was the sound of a door being battered down. Then there was a pop, followed by a glow of fire from inside the courtyard. (Afterwards it turned out that someone inside the house had fired a flare, but far from discouraging the police, the flare had only hit one of the parked cars, which caught alight and burned for some time, blocking any means of escape).

All went relatively quiet for a time. Then a convoy of police vans crawled down the slope, halting at the water’s edge, while on the other side, ten or a dozen figures were shepherded on to the chain-ferry raft. The floodlights were still blazing and the reporter saw to his surprise that these characters were very strangely dressed: his notes mentioned a Bishop, and also Socrates. The winch clanked, the ferry crossed the water, and all these characters were put aboard police vans and driven away. The last to be removed from the site, the reporter saw, was a party of girls in school uniform.

Girls? I knew better!

Our reporter friend clearly had a “scoop” but didn’t know what it was. It seemed unlikely that there would have been such a powerful police presence, just to raid a fancy-dress party. Risking getting fired for his illicit day off, he sought his Editor. That gentleman, intrigued, phoned County Police Headquarters. A “spokesman” – they always call them that, when what they mean is “stooge” – came across with the official story: the Police had identified and broken up a paedophile ring, and arrests had been made.

For the time being, that was all that anyone was going to know.

On my first free weekend I slipped across to Lymington to return Melanie’s camcorder.

I rang the front doorbell; the door opened and Melanie’s voice called “Come in, Simon darling” but at first I could’t see her.

Then she appeared from behind the curtains. She was wearing her “Miss Burdizzo 2005” calendar outfit: a cowboy hat, a bright yellow crop-top, a minute black thong, high boots and black hold-up stockings with lacy tops. The only thing lacking was the ball-cord snipper, that had made so many lambs into wethers and so many bull-calves into steers. “Mum and Dad are out for the day” she said by way of explanation. She bent forward and kissed me on the mouth. “Don’t let’s waste time” she urged

She led me upstairs to her bedroom, and made me undress. She looked me all over, half-closed eyes focussed on my hairless thimble of flesh. “How’s my gorgeous gelding?” she breathed.

“He’s all the better for seeing you” the gorgeous gelding replied.

“That’s good” said Melanie. “You can’t imagine how few clothes I’m going to wear in the next hour or two”. She stripped off her calendar outfit till she was nude. Her boobs had grown some, since I’d seen her last. “Would you like to have your nipples kissed?” I asked timidly.

The only reply was a nod. I took one of the swelling pink tits in my mouth and caressed it with my tongue, feeling it harden. Before I could tongue the other one, she bent, and took my penis in her mouth, sucking steadily, and moving her tongue round and round. Neutering destroys some of the sensation in a boy’s penis but it was still a wonderful feeling. I closed my eyes and enjoyed it. Doctors say that once a boy has had his balls pricked, he won’t have longings like I was having, but it’s not true.

“Now I’m going to let you kiss mine” said Melanie after she’d given my cock a good sucking. “And I promise I won’t pee in your mouth.”

Legs spread wide, she lay on the bed. As I knelt between her legs I saw that she was regularly shaving her bush, reducing it to a thin line above her love-lips.I bent down to kiss her sex, and her wonderful soft thighs closed around my face.

I moved my tongue to the top of her cleft and found the tiny knob of flesh. I began to lick it. Melanie’s hands pressed on my head, holding me there. She began to moan, and to flex her legs and bottom. Love-juices began to well from her slit, wetting my chin. She gave a sudden cry “Yes! Yes!” Her tummy-muscles became rigid, and of a sudden she pushed me away from her and went limp like a broken toy. “God, I needed that” she murmured.

Lying side by side on the bed, she stroked my hair. “Sometimes” she murmured “I’m sorry you were ever gelded”.

Boy, did I agree with that! To have been able to raise a 7-inch erection, roll a rubber on to prevent “accidents” and shaft her, shoving it right up……and up…and up….

“But then if your balls were still in” Melanie went on “I don’t suppose you’d have bothered to learn how to give me such a nice time”.

I didn’t have an answer to that.

Some time afterwards as we lay side by side on the bed, Melanie asked me to tell her all about what I’d been doing. I told her everything, and how it all started with meeting Jason. How his aunt was besotted with the idea of having a little girl of her own, how she’d taken Jason to have his balls cut out, and afterwards dressed him in girl’s clothes and even sent him to a girls’ school. I spared no details.

“Poor kid!” murmured Melanie. “Poor, unhappy little boy. It’s amazing, isn’t it, what NASTY things some people dream up. But it’s making me feel horny! Come on, let’s have another go”………

Part 9. Simon concludes.

Just what nasty things some people dream up, did not come to the public gaze for quite a few weeks. It took till New Year for the Crown Prosecution Service to put the Prosecution’s case together, and the trial opened on the raw cold day of January 7th in the County town, some twenty miles away. Presiding was Lord Justice Lorton. Sex crimes against children were known to be one of his pet hates, and the tabloid press expected some fireworks in Court.

And for whatever that performance might be, Jack Elliott and I were to have ringside seats. Why? Because the Clerk of the Court had written to Dr Holroyd saying that we – Jack and I – were to be available to give evidence “should it be deemed necessary”. Dr Holroyd sighed and said he had no choice. So for the next few mornings Jack and I took the first bus of the day, to spend the next few hours in the small, dark courtroom at Lewes.

What the Judge was made of , we were to find out very quickly. In the opening address for the Prosecution there were several references to “buggery”. It mattered, of course, to draw the distinction between buggery, which can attract a life sentence if aggravated or violent, and the less serious offence of indecent assault. Well, anyway, at the very first mention of “buggery” someone in the court sniggered. His Lordship immediately pounded on his desk with his gavel and said in icy tones that the subject was not in the least funny, and if there were any more interruptions then he would clear the Court. There were no more interruptions.

Across the court, in two rows, sat the defendants, wooden-faced and impassive. They included one Euro MP and two more politicians. The rest were businessmen of one sort or another, except for one woman in her 40’s: she was the “nurse” who had prepared Jason, and no doubt the other boys, for sodomy (she turned out to actually be a nurse, in fact). Two others who might have been there were conspicuous by their absence; more of them in a minute.

Prosecuting counsel got right down to it. The jury were led to a side room where they were shown the images captured on the camcorder. They returned, looking visibly shaken; one woman was crying softly. To his surprise, Jack was then called to the witness stand and asked whether he was the originator of the pictures. “Yes, sir” replied Jack in a firm voice. “No more questions” said Prosecuting counsel. But one of the defence barristers, who looked no more than twenty, asked Jack WHY he had taken the pictures. “Objection” said Prosecuting Counsel and the Judge upheld him, adding that if the court had to inquire into the witnesses’ motives, the case would last till Doomsday.

I wasn’t called at all, which suited me just fine.

The jury had to retire to their side room again, to hear the boys – presumably including Jason – give evidence over a video-link. After that, various policemen that had taken part in the raid came across with bits of evidence as to what they’d found on entering the house, but it was all secondary, really. That was Prosecution’s case. The Judge then proposed an adjournment, leaving Jack and me at a loose end. We spent a long time in a burger joint and in exploring round the town.

Defence’s case opened next morning. It was very slow and tedious, taking best part of a week, because all thirteen defendants were treated one at a time. For the most part the approach by the defence barristers was the same: mistaken identity. Time was wasted when one of these referred to a film-strip – meaning of course the camcorder images – and deciding what it was he was talking about. Of such stuff are trials made, so it seems!

When it came to establishing alibis the rejoinder was, invariably, “How can you expect a busy man like me to recollect where I was three months ago”. Quite obviously neither the Judge nor the jury were having any of it. The two exceptions were, first, the nurse who claimed that she had been there for the solely for medical reasons, and one oldish man who pleaded impotence as his defence. He had a nasty, dissipated-looking face and didn’t get much sympathy.

One surprise witness for the defence was Jason Price’s aunt Fenella. She testified that she had sent Jason on these weekends, believing them to be a forum where he could meet and mix with other boys who were being brought up as girls. She had no idea that there was any “sexual activity” involved. The Judge laid down his pen and gazed at her in disbelief.

After the two closing addresses Lord Lorton summed up, and the jury retired. They were back in under the hour. They found all defendants guilty of the major charge of “buggery with male persons below the age of consent”, barring the impotent old man who got off with indecent assault, and the nurse, who was found to have been “a party to acts of gross indecency”.

From all of this there were two absentees. The Police had sought, but not found, Percival Hipkin BA (Cantab). Dr Holroyd had told them quite truthfully that he didn’t know where he was. No one ever heard of him, or from him, ever again.

The second absentee was none other than – Doctor John Julius Spicer! For Dr Spicer had jumped police bail. The Police had uncovered a long convoluted trail. There was – as Jason’s aunt suspected- no such person as Rebecca. Dr Spicer had used his assistant Dr Robinson as a “front” for leasing the house in the wood, but the websites that Aunt Fenella had gazed at for so many hours were Dr Spicer’s own work. The little tableaux that were supposed to show neutered boys, dressed in ballet tutus and all the rest, in Prague, Berlin or wherever, had all been stage-managed in a children’s dance-and-drama school in Basingstoke, not exactly a thousand miles away.

Without doubt the Doctor was now out of the country, and where he was, we could only guess. A gross, deflated old man, he would probably eke out a living in one of the developing countries, where castrating boys, to be trained up as household eunuchs, was still part of the culture. If ever he came within range of the extradition process, he could expect the maximum sentence for creating obscene images on the Internet.

Summing up, the Judge described the case as the most revolting that had ever come before him. The defendants could all expect the maximum sentences that it was in his power to award, and this should send out a clear message that wealth and high position did not give carte blanche to perpetrate disgusting and unnatural perversions on defenceless young boys.

Speaking of whom, he went on, he was uneasy that the regulations permitting the neutering of boys for other than emergency medical reasons might be open to a too liberal interpretation. There might be very strong social reasons for castrating a boy in individual cases. But in this case he could find no motives other than caprice. He intended to speak to the Home Secretary about his misgivings. A bit late for me, I thought.

The Judge then made a surprise move. Jason’s Aunt was called back to the witness stand. The Judge said she could consider herself lucky that she, herself, had not faced any charges. He was not able to decide whether she was very selfish, very stupid, or both. But in either case she had shown herself unfitted to look after a young boy. Her guardianship of Jason was terminated from that minute.

He had similar comments about the Warden of Shoreham Children’s Home (where newly-arrived boys had their balls pricked on admission). The Warden had shown total lack of interest in what happened to his charges in their spare time……. And so on, till the Clerk of the Court called out “All rise!” and we could go home.

Reconvened next morning, we had to stay just long enough to hear the Judge hand down the sentences. He must have made his mind up over breakfast, we thought. All defendants received eight years’ imprisonment with a recommendation that they should serve the full term. The impotent old man turned out to be on the Sex Offenders’ Register already, and got six. The wretched nurse received two years’ community service. “Take them down!” ordered Lord Justice Lorton.

And that was that.

There was no point in hanging about in Lewes. Jack and I had explored every inch of that sedate, and rather dull, little town. An hour later we were both back at school, where Jack said he’d put in some more practice time in the gym.

I was on my way up to the dorm. to slip into some more casual gear when I heard voices from one of the rooms on the second floor level. One of the voices rang out clearly and I recognised it at once – it was the voice of Ricky Silva, and he seemed to be showing someone around. “This is the dorm. then, and the toilets and showers are just across the landing. And, Price, now that Raxworthy has moved upstairs, we all thought you’d like this corner. It’s nice and private and gives you a bit more room”.

Price? Jason, of course – but why was he here?

But Ricky was going on. “You can keep anything you like in the lockers except food. They’re very strict on that. The tartan bedspread on the bed is standard. You can replace it with anything you want. I’ve got the Stars and Stripes because I’m an American citizen. Shall I help you unpack?”

There was some inaudible murmuring, then Ricky’s voice again. “There’s a cross-country run at 2 o’clock. Shall we both go? We can talk on the way and you can tell me about yourself. We can change now: blue vest, white shorts and trainers. OK?”

Silence for a bit as the two got ready for their run. Then “When did you get the snip?” asked Ricky Silva of his new friend.

If this was going to get personal then I didn’t want to get involved – just yet. A short time later I stood at the window and watched Ricky and Jason setting off for their cross-country run. Jason was smiling- smiling and laughing – something I guess he’d not done in months. They trotted past my window, PE shorts pulled up tight, showing the shape of their round bottoms as they ran……….Jason had a loping stride that could prove useful on the athletics field, in the future.

Having nothing to do for the rest of the day I took the bus into town. Here to my great annoyance there was a notice on The Lemon Tree door which said “Closed for Staff Training”, so I had to fall back on “Betty’s Bun Shop” in the next street. The place was empty except for a middle-aged man sitting by himself at a table set for two. If I hadn’t recognised the queer hunched set of his shoulders, I should at least have spotted the green pork-pie hat on the chair beside him

The figure looked up. “Ah , Scott! How nice to see you. Come and sit down – have some coffee with me – here, try one of these pastries”.

Dr Holroyd, of course. He didn’t look angry or ask why I was bunking off school. I muttered some thanks. But Dr Holroyd had a lot that he wanted to say.

“You know, I’ve hardly sat down since eight this morning. Such a lot to do! Oh, of course, you couldn’t possibly know. The boys’ wing at Shoreham Children’s Home has been shut down and the Warden sacked. Because I have a seat on the Social Services Committee I got the job of sorting out the loose ends. Twenty-three boys to be placed, like this morning.

“I’ve had to ring round all over the place. St Anselme’s took a few, but besides them, I’ve been to Dover, Southampton, Winchester even. Yes, Winchester College took two, imagine! Anyway, it’s all done now”.

“Sir” I ventured. “I’ve seen Jason Price. Ricky Silva’s looking after him. And, sir, I’m so pleased that it was possible for Jason to come to us”.

It sounded lame, and a bit silly, but Dr Holroyd smiled. “I was thinking about you, Scott, when I put in a word for Jason Price. There’s a lot of damage to be repaired there, a lot of scars that will take time to heal, and I knew you were concerned about him.

“You see, I thought, no one can give Jason back his virility, but at least we can begin to restore his self respect”.

Now, where had I heard that before?

FINIS

SIMON AND THE PAEDOPHILE RING

Part 1, narrated by Simon Scott, aged 15½, pupil at Southdown Hall School. Boy-eunuch since the age of 11½.

“M-mm” said Matron. “That looks nasty, Scott”.

“That” had happened the previous afternoon during athletics practice. The high jump was supposed to be one of my stronger events. But I’d made a bad landing, coming down hard on my left elbow, and the impact had been borne by my shoulder. On hard ground I’d have bust my collarbone. As it was, I could scarcely move without crying out.

Mr Carter, in charge that afternoon, produced a scarf from somewhere, contrived a sling for my arm,, told me to “take things easy” and said I’d probably be quite well by morning. But I wasn’t. In bed I could scarcely sleep, and in the morning I couldn’t move my left arm at all and there was a huge puffy area all round the point of my shoulder, which was red and discoloured. Reporting this to Mr Carter at breakfast, I was told to see Matron as soon as she opened for business at nine o’clock.

“M-mm” was her comment, as I’ve said. “You’d better go for an X-ray, Scott”.

At least she didn’t propose giving me an enema, her remedy for most complaints. It showed she could at least tell my ass from my elbow! Going for an X-ray sounded hopeful. I might miss quite a bit of time off school. “Will I have to go to London, Matron?” I asked hopefully. (Not long before, two other boys had been sent for some kind of scan, at University College Hospital, and had been away all day).

“London? Whatever for?” was the surprised reply. “No, you’ll get it done at the City Hospital. I’ll ring them immediately”.

She did so, and fixed an appointment for three o’clock that afternoon.

The old City Hospital was only a short walk away from school. I’d been on visits there more than once: to mention just two, to see Roddy after his gang-rape, and young Owen Roberts following his injuries on the old water tower – injuries to his private area that led to him having to lose his testicles. (Read “Simon’s Revenge” and “Simon Toes the Line” if you’re interested.) But that was months ago. Since then, the local NHS Trust, hard-up as always, had declared City Hospital surplus to requirements.

The greater part of it was already closed, awaiting the bulldozers. The remainder still housed a few facilities including X-ray. There was a general waiting area, which had once been one of the ground-floor wards. The beds and lockers had all been removed, but the curtain-rails and curtains remained. This was where consultations took place. Privacy, of a sort, could be achieved by drawing the curtains.

I gave my name to a receptionist and looked for somewhere to sit. Only two out of an original six bed-spaces seemed to be in use for consultations, and the first one was already occupied, so I took the one next to it. There was a dilapidated chair, and a former bedside table with a tattered assortment of magazines like “Good Housekeeping” and “Horse and Hound”. These didn’t interest me at all, so I gave a sidelong glance at my neighbours.

These were, firstly, a cheaply-smart woman in her thirties, and a sulky-looking kid aged about eleven, in a T-shirt, shabby jeans, scuffed trainers and a baseball cap worn wrong way round. Somehow I guessed that the woman wasn’t the kid’s mother. Presently a nurse bustled in. “Mrs Price?” she asked. The woman nodded. “And this must be Jason. Good! Dr Spicer is nearly ready. I’ll just draw the curtains round, then Jason can take his trousers and pants down, to save time – then we can get straight on”.

I didn’t have time to speculate why Jason had to take his trousers and pants down or what they were going to “get straight on” with, or why the kid looked so down-in-the-mouth. Another nurse came in and called my name and then took me up to X-ray. Where I waited, and waited………

Then an ambulance driver appeared. “Are you Mr Scott?” he demanded. I said I was.

“Gotter take you to East Hampshire Trust Hospital, then. Transport’s outside”.

“But I’m only here for an X-ray” I protested.

“Yeah, but the machine’s busted. All X-ray cases been transferred to East Hants. Are yer coming?”

I followed him down the stairs to the ambulance park. The driver opened the rear doors. “It’s all yours” he said. “Lie down if yer want. There’s a choice of seats if yer not bothered”.

East Hants Trust Hospital was almost in Southampton, so at least I was going to get my half-day off school, that I’d been hoping for. Before the driver closed the doors I thought of something. “Who’s Dr Spicer?” I asked.

“Dr Spicer? ‘E’s a- a genito-urologist.” (He drew the words out slowly). “Yer know, a waterworks specialist. Why, what do yer want to know for?”

“Oh, nothing. Just curious. I’d not heard of him before”.

“Because” the driver continued “a young boy that ‘ad bin seen to by Dr Spicer, wouldn’t ‘ave no use for girls afterwards”. He gave me a knowing wink.

He slammed the doors closed, and we were off. Well, it happened all the time. Nowadays it seemed an even chance whether a boy kept his balls past the age of twelve. I mean, look at me………

Part 2, told by Fenella Price, aunt and legal guardian of Jason, aged 11½.

In all my life I’d never wanted to bring up a little boy.

Six years ago my sister Francesca’s marriage broke up. I won’t bore you with the details, except to say that the legal processes wished her child Jason on us – myself and my husband Elwood – as legal guardians. I didn’t like the scruffy five-year-old that walked through my door and I didn’t like him any more by the time he was eleven.

My own daydream, of having a daughter of my own, had been snuffed out a long time before that. Elwood was the boyfriend of my teen years. We’d dated – and screwed- through High School and got married shortly after graduation. Ten months after our wedding day I still hadn’t got pregnant.

It had never once occurred to me that those steamy couplings in motels around the city limit had been no more than a nice feeling between my thighs. But that’s how it turned out. We went for a medical examination at a fertility clinic. My own insides were in good working order. Elwood was sterile.

In my desperation I began to explore some strange avenues in the dark labyrinths of sexual history. At one time, trawling though sex life in ancient Rome I chanced upon an account of Nero’s love life and how he’d fallen for a young slave boy, called Sporus. Even Emperors couldn’t marry boys, but nothing daunted, Nero had the boy castrated, and – the account said – actually tried to make a woman of him, dressing him in female garments with a bridal veil and ornaments.

Would it be possible, in this 21st century, to bring up a boy as a girl? There had been, I knew, one well-publicised incident in which a bungled circumcision had deprived an infant boy of his penis, and the doctors had subsequently advised the parents to have the remaining external genitals removed and raise the child as a girl. It hadn’t gone too well, but I put that down to bad planning and lack of will. Other accounts said that if a male baby was born with damaged or inadequate genitals, it was common practice to have them removed and bring the child up as a girl – he, or rather she, would never know the difference till puberty.

But Jason was a normal healthy boy. How would I set about getting him neutered? I trawled on, for several months, and finally my efforts were concentrated on the researches of one man, a Dr Spicer – Dr John Julius Spicer. Remarkably, Dr Spicer turned out to be a visiting consultant to a hospital not fifty miles away. I wrote to him. Some days later his secretary telephoned, proposing a date and time for a consultation. On that day I was shown into his consulting room.

“Do come in, Mrs Price” beamed Dr Spicer. “Make yourself comfortable”.

I sank into the big armchair and looked at Dr Spicer. A big guy, about fifty, rosy-faced, twinkling eyes behind gold-framed specs, a ring of thick grey hair around a bald dome. If you substituted a black robe for his white overall coat, he might have been a merry monk.

“Now” said the Doctor “I’ve read your letter and understand everything you say. But you must understand that bringing a little boy up as a little girl, when he’s got used to thinking of himself as a boy, is a complicated process. I can give you some useful contacts who can advise you about how to dress him, get him used to answering to a girl’s name, and so on. But first let’s deal with the preliminaries. You say you are bothered by his outbreaks of laddish behaviour. Would you like to elaborate?”

This was embarrassing. “What I mean, Doctor, is that, whenever I’ve come across Jason having a shower, or changing his clothes for games, he’s- he’s got a…. (I could hardly say a stiffie.) Fortunately the Doctor came to the rescue.

“He gets erections? Not at all uncommon with boys of his age. They get them all the time. All those male hormones waking up. Fortunately it’s very easily dealt with. Castration is, of course, the first priority, to get rid of the boy’s testosterone source and neutralise his penis so that there are no more erections. Some doctors favour a chemical process but I’m not one of them. It’s more effective psychologically to remove them – to cut the boy’s testicles right out. It shows him who’s the boss!” To emphasise this, the Doctor rapped sharply on the table. For a moment, he looked ruthless. “But” he continued “there’s more to it than a simple amputation”.

“Scientists don’t fully understand the reasons yet, why some boys’ sex drive survives castration – why, in short, they are able to raise erections and attempt, more or less successfully, to have sex. Fortunately for us medics, we have the knowledge of the Arab world to draw on. Young boys entering service as pages and so on, were always castrated – it was part of the culture. Arab doctors discovered that if they burned-out the cords that attach the testicles to the body, the little boy’s penis never went stiff again.” The doctor’s eyes twinkled behind his glasses.

“You said – burn them out? That sounds kind of scary”.

The Doctor chuckled. “Oh, of course, things have moved on, down the years. Forget about hot irons! I use a small laser now. The results are just the same”.

I said nothing.

“Well, then!” said Dr Spicer with another twinkle “let’s move on. If you want to go ahead, just ring my secretary and arrange to bring Jason in. If he’s a suitable case for treatment we’ll do it straightaway”.

Before I left the hospital that day, the Doctor recommended a website. Through this, I contacted the woman I only ever knew as Rebecca. We never spoke. I’m unsure if she really existed. But she was real enough for me.

Rebecca had two maxims, for rearing a boy as a girl. First, start at the very beginning, and, second, start as you mean to go on. In practice this translated into: Jessica (I’d already decided on this to replace “Jason”) not only as a girl but as a little girl – even a baby girl. I’ll come on to the details of this presently.

It was not enough for the boy just to look feminine; he had to feel feminine. Rebecca’s website, which represented a worldwide network, showed a variety of techniques. In France, for instance, there were groups in most major cities, where boys and girls lived together and dressed alike. Ballet costumes with tutus seemed very popular, and I must admit, looked very pretty. Hardly any had a bulge in the front of their ballet-tights, because their testicles had already been removed.

Some charming pictures from the Czech Republic showed children in 17th-century page-boy costume, with big feather hats and little brocaded jackets worn over tights. The text explained that the boys’ testicles were injected with a drug which made them dry up, and also shrank their penises, making it possible for their tights to be pulled right up.

Opinions differed over the best age for the boys to be neutered. In Russia they were “done” as young as five, and surgeons had perfected the use of the “emasculation band” which had been used on newborn lambs for many years. A very tight rubber ring was placed over the neck of the little boy’s scrotum, compressing the cords and cutting off the blood supply to the testicles, which shrivelled and dropped off after a time. At that age the boys would have no idea what was being done to them. But five was exceptional.

Returning to the French scenario, the boys were all said to be castrated between ten and eleven. After some years of living in close contact with girls and doing everything that girls did, the boys found it freakish to have male genitals still, and were eager to have them removed. Or so the website said. Most boys only had their testicles injected, or at the very most most taken out, although some doctors insisted that for the best results the boys should have their penises taken off, or injected with a drug that destroyed the erectile tissue…….

But this was all very well. I hadn’t got “years” to get Jason acclimatised to living and playing among little girls until he felt he was one of them. I’d got days – a fortnight at the outside. I was going to have to be single-minded, 100% of the time. Any wavering and Jason would revert – so far as this was possible- to what he’d been before; only now he’d be a mixed-up sexless creature, no good to himself or anyone else.

I put several things in motion at the same time. I gave the spare bedroom a makeover – it had been spare ever since I threw Elwood out, when he’d turned out to be infertile. I chose a pink floral wallpaper with matching curtains and drapes. In a store I found a large picture of “Flower Fairies of the Wayside” and another of “The Faerie Queene and the One She Loves”. This was to be Jason’s, or rather Jessica’s, new room. His old one would be a no-go area until I could get it dismantled.

Then there were his clothes. I reluctantly gave up the idea of ballet tights and a tutu, and bought him a pink dress, not too short, matching shoes, and white ankle-socks. Jessica didn’t need a bra yet, but I bought several pairs of lacy thongs – though he wouldn’t be wearing those until he was healed.

Healed? Yes: I’d made my mind up. I rang Dr Spicer’s secretary and made the appointment for Jason to be emasculated. Jason’s life as an intact boy was almost over. Nothing was going to save Jason’s testicles. He was going to have them cut out – cut right out – burned out. The thought of what was going to happen to him made me start shaking all over……

Part 3. The narrative continued by Simon Scott, boy-eunuch.

The morning had been mind-blowingly boring. Double advanced maths – which I’m useless at – followed by two hours – two solid hours- of French literature. “Le Malade Imaginaire”, if you please. There’s not much room for imagination in that.

In the lunch break I was kicking stones along the patio outside the dayroom and humming the introduction to “Jesu, joy of” – a futile occupation, but what the hell- when the burly form of Mr Carter hove into view. “Scott, it’s good you’re here. Much of the flags and bunting in the athletics arena has blown down in the night, and the Headmaster’s got a bunch of VIPs having a look round. I know it’s Gunner’s responsibility but I can’t find him. Oh, and don’t put any tatty bits back – we’ve got some new bunting I know”.

Gunner was the groundsman and a good mate of mine. He always let me use his gas ring and kettle to make myself a hot drink whenever I wanted.

I went to the sports store behind the pavilion. Or rather, I didn’t. Because the first thing I saw on approaching the building was that the changing-room door was ajar, and it shouldn’t have been. I was about to lock it – the sports store key fitted all the locks in the building, when I heard something that brought the blood rushing into my face. A voice – a very clear, high, unbroken voice, in a state of excitement.

It said “You’re making me want to pee!”

Very, very quietly I slipped inside the building – the trainers I had on made no sound on the concrete floor. The changing-room inner door was a bad fit, making it impossible to close properly. Though the gap didn’t show me everything, it showed me enough.

Obviously there were two people in there, but I could only see the face of one of them to match the voice. Paddy Wright. Paddy’s voice was unbroken – would never break. He’d had his balls pricked some months before, and the effect was complete.

Paddy had put on weight. Castration takes some boys that way. As his genitals had withered away, his thighs and buttocks had become chubbier – all to do with hormones. His face wasn’t the only part of him I could see. Paddy’s shorts and pants were round his ankles, and a hand was reaching round to his privates, fiddling with his tiny penis. I could also see two knees and legs, belonging to someone a good deal bigger. Paddy was standing between this pair of knees and from the way he was leaning forward, to spread his buttocks, I guessed that this second person had his penis between Paddy’s bum-cheeks and pushing it up his bottom.

This guess was supported by the rhythmic panting I could hear, accompanying Paddy’s giggles. The panting ended with a long-drawn-out groan, and a hoarse whisper “God, that was good! You’re better than any girl”.

More giggles from Paddy. “Oh, I like doing this!” I heard him say. “I felt it all go in. “If I’m like a girl, then I’ll have a baby!”. To which there was a mumbled reply that I couldn’t make out. I’d seen and heard enough, and made myself scarce.

I wasn’t too bothered about Paddy. A dirty-minded kid, ready for anything, he was like most young neutered boys. Unable to fuck girls or even jerk off, they enthusiastically flung themselves into the one remaining form of sex that they were still capable of. In time Paddy would grow out of it.

But Paddy’s partner? That was something else. Time had been when sex between senior boys and junior boys – members of the chapel choir being particular favourites – had been extremely common. The fact remained that it was highly illegal. When any particularly blatant affairs came to light, Dr Holroyd, the Headmaster, kept them out of the courts while reminding the culprits that under the law, both partners were liable for custodial sentences.

Who was Paddy’s partner?

I took out my mobile phone and keyed-in a number I hardly used. There was a bleep, I pressed the green button and was rewarded with a lot of loud music and then a deep voice saying “Hello! Who’s that?”

“Mark, it’s me – Simon” I replied.

I hadn’t spoken to Mark in months. In case you’ve forgotten, Mark had been undergoing stem-cell therapy at the extreme frontier of medical science. His own balls, lost at the age of twelve to further his singing career, had been replaced with two grown in a laboratory. After a shaky start they had “taken” and Mark entered on adolescence. Now, brown, hard and self-reliant, he was obviously right for a transfer to the Upper School, which is where he now was.

“Simon, it’s been a long while!” said Mark. “Can I help in some way?”

“Mark, in your opinion, would it be possible for someone from the Upper School to get to the Lower School campus unobserved, in daylight hours?”

The question was very relevant. Not so long ago, Upper School and Lower School had occupied two adjacent wings of the same building. But then the Governors, prompted by the Headmaster, who wanted separate premises for the Lower School, acquired “The Archdeaconry” – a redundant mansion within sight of the main building, but separated from it by almost half a mile of School rugby field, open, bare, with no “cover” of any sort.

“Out of the question, I’d say” said Mark. “At night, yes. But in daylight you’d see them as clearly as anything. Why do you ask? Are you plotting something?”

“No, it’s just an idea I had” I lied. “You’ve answered the question. Thanks all the same”. I pressed the red key and switched off.

So if it wasn’t a senior boy, who had his cock up Paddy’s butt, that left only one other possibility. It had to be a member of staff.

We had a resident paedophile on school premises. And if that was the case, he soon wouldn’t be content with Paddy alone.

What to do?

For the time being I kept the question to myself, and went to the stores, to sort out some flags.

Part 4. Narrative continued by Fenella Price

“What a waste of a morning!” moaned Jason, when I told him about his appointment. “I’d asked Marcus Moon to call round. We were going to try out his new skateboard over the speed-humps on the city bypass. Anyway, who’s this Doctor Spicer that wants to examine my privates? Some old perv, that’s for sure”.

“Jason, you are NOT to go on the city bypass!” I said. “And Dr Spicer is a specialist, who knows all about young boys starting to grow up. It's just a checkup to make certain everything is alright, that’s all”. This was not the first lie I was to tell Jason.

I got him into the car, still grumbling. At the City Hospital, fortunately, there was only a short time to wait before a staff nurse appeared, and made Jason take his shorts and underpants off. He didn’t make a fuss; I suppose by now he was used to the idea of having his “privates” examined. The nurse, a big woman, propelled Jason out of the room with a hand on his bare behind.

I sat and waited. Half an hour, Dr Spicer had indicated. Somewhere, through those swing doors, Jason was being anaesthetised. Then they would pop him up on to the operating table. Dr Spicer would be waiting with his instruments to open Jason’s scrotum, to take his balls out – burn them out – “to show him who’s the boss”. I got quite a tingle between my legs, at the thought that very soon – perhaps at that very minute, Jason would not be a boy, at least not completely – and could never be a man. That morning he’d pranced around his bedroom and bathroom with a stiffie. Not any more!

A sound of doors creaking in the distance, and then a woman in theatre overalls appeared, pushing a wheelchair in which Jason was sitting, or rather slumped, with a blanket over his legs. “I’m Dr Robinson, the paediatrician” said this woman. Jason’s eyelids were drooping and he appeared to be only semi-conscious. “What’s the matter with him?” I asked.

“Nothing to be concerned about” replied Dr Robinson. “Only we had to sedate him quite heavily. He became a bit excitable”.

I could believe that, and began to comment about Jason’s temperament. But Dr Robinson had to get on with other things. “A few post-operative things to attend to” she said “and then you can take him home, and I must hurry back. Dr Spicer has five other boys to be neutered this afternoon”.

Five more boys to have their balls taken out!

Dr Robinson led the way into a side room, where there was a bed, with a waterproof sheet and towel over it. “Now, Jason, up we go” said the doctor, and with practised arms lifted him on to the bed. She removed the blanket, so that I could see, for the first time, the gauze dressing between Jason’s thighs and the tip of his little penis showing over the top. “What’s that funny smell?” I asked. “Like liniment?”

“It’s mentholated Vaseline” she explained. “It’s to encourage shrinkage – to make the boy’s penis retract into the abdominal cavity. He doesn’t need a long penis anymore. When shrinkage is complete, Jason will find he can only urinate in a sitting position. It’s aimed at making him think about the things that girls do, differently from boys. In time, when the hormones have worked themselves out, he’ll forget all about being male”.

I silently hoped that this was so!

Dr Robinson went to a locker and took out two things. First a bottle of small yellow capsules. “One of these at night” she said. “That is to make him sleep through. And another first thing in the morning, with food. That will keep him calm during the day. There’s a week’s supply there, which should be more than enough. We’ve found that three days is generally long enough”.

The second was a big bulky package. Opening this, she showed me a pack of disposable nappies, and a pair of plastic pants – just the sort that new babies have, only bigger. With a quick deft movement Dr Robinson fitted one of the disposables between Jason’s legs and fastened the press-studs. The plastic pants followed. Dr Robinson showed me how the waistband was tightened by pulling on a tab at the back.

“It’s impossible for him to loosen that by himself” she explained. “He’ll have to wait till you change him. First thing in the morning and again before he goes to bed”.

She must have seen my puzzled look, because she went on “It’s most important that he can’t get to fiddle with his dressings” she said. “That’s why he has to keep these on till he’s healed. It helps if the sutures are kept moist. If he wants to wee – well, that’s what the nappy is for. And you can make him wait to do Number Twos until you change him. I think that’s everything. Now, he’ll never get his shorts on over those. Did you bring a skirt for him?

I hadn’t, but Dr Robinson was prepared. From another cupboard she took an old green plaid wrapover pleated skirt and buckled it round Jason’s waist. “You can drop it in when you’re passing” she said.

Dr Robinson summoned a porter to help me get Jason into the car, and said her goodbyes. Jason might now have been mistaken for a girl- a rather scruffy one but a girl nonetheless. I hoped it was a good omen! I so wanted to rear Jason as a girl!

At home, I had to help Jason up the stairs; his legs kept going from under him. Taking no notice of his new surroundings he flopped on the bed like a rag doll. I stripped him down to his plastic pants and nappy, and pulled the covers over him. “Try and sleep now, Jessica” I whispered. I pulled down the shades and left him, to watch TV movie shows all evening.

At half-eleven I went to bed myself. Looking in on Jason I found him awake, or at least with his eyes open. “You OK, honey?” I asked.

“Auntie Fenella, my privates are sore” he replied, in a whiny voice. “They did more than look at them, didn’t they? Did they take my balls out?”

(“Start as you mean to go on” the woman had said. I’d told one lie to Jason already. What do they say – ‘As well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb?’? So I launched straight into another.)

“Yes, honey, they did” I said, trying to sound sincere. “You see, they were infected, and not developing properly and you could have become dangerously ill. So I gave my consent for you to have a little procedure. We’ll talk about it in the morning”.

“Oh” he said, in that tiny voice again (just “oh” – that’s all). I gave him one of the yellow pills and a drink of water. Presently his eyes closed and his breathing settled down. I kissed him (her, I should say) and left him/her to dreamland.

Jason remained in a zombie-like state all that week, lying on the bed or weakly sitting up. Twice a day I changed him, and helped him go to the bathroom for Number Twos. He didn’t say much at all.

The yellow pills ran out, and two days after that, the disposable nappies ran out also. This was the day when Jason’s wound could be expected to have healed up sufficiently to take the dressing off. At seven I looked in on him, to find him gazing round the room.

“Hi ya, Aunt Fenella” said Jason in response to my “Good morning, honey”. “What’s all this? Why aren’t I in my own room?” He sounded quite normal.

“Let me give you a nice shower” I said “then we’ll talk about it”.

Jason’s urine-sodden dressing came off easily. Underneath, his scrotum was a neatly-stitched, flat fold of skin, and his penis a little knob of flesh, that would never become hard and stiff as it had done before. I felt a real thrill as I looked at it: Jason was part-way to becoming a girl! I towelled him after his shower, and laid out the pink dress and new underwear – a lacy thong. Jason fingered it, then looked at me, uncomprehending.

“Hey, these are girls’ things!” he exclaimed. “Where are my jeans and under-shorts?”

I decided on a direct approach. That his genitals had been removed, as I’d explained already. He would never be able to get married or have children. All the experts agreed that in cases like his – that because he would never be able to have sex as a boy, then by far and away the kindest course was to bring him up as a girl.

“And I’ve always wanted a little girl of my own” I finished. “So you are to be my little girl. I’m going to call you Jessica, and dress you in pretty things like these!”

Jason stared at me as if I’d gone mad. For a moment I thought he was going to attack me – or start screaming – then all the fight seemed to go out of him. He slumped forwards with his head in his hands. “Oh lordy! he breathed. “Oh lordy, lordy, lordy!”

I left him there, coming to terms with himself and his new life.

Halfway through the morning I heard him moving about, and at length he came down, wearing the pink dress. “Well, that’s lovely!” I said. He didn’t reply – just glared at me and began to read a sci-fi magazine.

Later, I took him to a hairdressers’ in the downtown area and got his hair tidied-up. It had been rather long to begin with and wasn’t difficult to rearrange in a more feminine style.

Now, there were a lot of things to sort out – principally to arrange for his (I must start to say “her”) admission to South Sussex High School for Girls in September. I’d already written to Jason’s old school to say he’d left the district and wouldn’t be returning.

Jason – Jessica rather, became very withdrawn after his operation. His old friends had all been told that he’d gone away, and he never saw anybody. It bothered me that he/she had had so little contact with girls. This would make him awkward and selfconscious. Then I got to hear about a group, organised by a local woman, that aimed at bringing only children together and teaching them how to mix. They had residential weekends in a country house. All I had to do was take Jason/Jessica to the City Library on Saturday afternoons, and a mini-bus would pick him up, returning him after lunch on Sundays. It seemed a godsend.

The thing was, Jason returned from these sleepovers more withdrawn than ever. I tried to ask him whether or not he enjoyed them, and what the other children were like.

“It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” he replied, and in a more angry tone “Isn’t it?” That was all I could get out of him.

Days and weeks went by.

Part 5. The narrative continued by Simon Scott, boy-eunuch.

My use of the City library on several afternoons a week didn’t end with the death of Angie, in horrible circumstances, a few months ago (read ‘Simon Under Suspicion’). I continued to use the same bus as before, and it was usually infested with Angie’s former schoolmates, sprawling all over the seats, letting their skirts ride up to show off their fannies swelling beneath their knickers. And so it was, one Wednesday afternoon in October.

The back seat of the bus was fully taken up by a bunch of South Sussex High School girls, discussing one of their schoolmates, whom they referred to as “Cave Woman”. Clearly there was something strange about this girl – who wasn’t on the bus with them. The biggest and tallest of the girls had the most to say.

“You know about her, don’t you, Tamsin, how she certainly wasn’t born a girl?”

“You can tell at once” broke in another girl. “Just by the way she stomps about, and those great big hands and feet”.

“Well, the story is” continued the first girl “the story is, that when she – he, rather, was quite small, and it was Bonfire Night, you know, November 5th, someone put a lighted firecracker in the pocket of his jeans. It exploded and burned his cock and balls off”.

The second girl, the one called Tamsin, giggled. “So bang went his prospects – literally!”.

“That’s not quite right, Helen” said the third girl – the one who’d referred to ‘great big hands and feet’. “It was only his cock that got burned off, not his balls. But rather than let him grow up like that, his parents decided to bring him up as a girl. So they took him to a clinic and got his balls cut right out”.

“I haven’t heard that story” said a fourth girl. “Plenty of boys have their balls taken out. Either to make them sing better or prevent them being a nuisance with girls. I think he’s just one of those boys, and his parents dress him like a girl because it suits them to. I don’t believe there was any accident”.

All this was at quite a loud conversational pitch and presently an old woman turned round and told the girls that they shouldn’t discuss such things. So I heard no more about Cave Woman, who would have been much happier, I thought, among boy-eunuchs, which in reality she was, instead of being an unhappy freak among girls.

It took me a few more journeys to find out that Cave Woman used to get off the bus a few stops earlier and change to another route, one that ran out to suburbia. At the first opportunity I followed. With only the description of “great big hands and feet” there wasn’t much to go on, but it was enough. Only one person got down at the terminus – in a housing estate I didn’t know at all. She was dressed as a High School girl, sure enough – but you can always tell. Girls just don’t look like boys – or do I mean that the other way round. I got a good look at her face as she got down, and I knew where I’d seen her before.

After walking on a few paces the “girl” whipped round. I stopped.

“Don’t be frightened” I said. “I don’t mean to do you any harm”.

“Then why are you following me?”

“Because I think I know who you are. Because I’m sure I’ve seen you before – and because – unless I’ve got it round the back of my neck – you could do with some help”.

“Seen me before? Where?”

“At the City Hospital. About two months ago. You were waiting to see Dr Spicer”. (I remembered what the ambulance-man had said: ‘Any boy that’s been seen by Dr Spicer won’t have any use for girls afterwards”)

Her expression changed, and I knew I was right. I can safely say “He” from here on!

“Let’s go in here” he said. “Here” was a small memorial garden with an obelisk in the middle, and seats. The far end couldn’t be seen from the road. We sat on a bench. For a moment, neither of us spoke.

“My name’s really Jason” volunteered the boy.

“I’m called Simon” I replied. “Why do you go to the girls’ High School?”

“Because I’m not a boy – not completely. I’ve had the snip”. (The girls on the bus had been right about that, at least). He paused and then said, as if I’d not understood the first time, “I’ve had my balls taken out”.

“Well, that makes two of us” I confided. “So have I. At least, when I was twelve I had my balls pricked. It makes them dry up and the effect’s just the same.”

Jason stared at me but said nothing, so I went on. “But that doesn’t explain why you go to a girls’ school. I go to Southdown Hall and there are plenty of boys there, neutered, like me. We do everything that boys do – except that we can’t ever fuck girls”.

“I never got near fucking a girl” said Jason. “Though I thought about it often. I used to have a hard-on a lot of the time and I’d try to jerk off”.

“Every one thinks about it and jerks off” I said. “I don’t see what was your problem was. Boys don’t get to have their balls taken out without a reason”. (Though nowadays I no longer believed that. The “parental choice” lobby had grown a lot stronger in the last year or two, and it was quite usual now, for people who already had one son to carry on the family name, to get the younger boys neutered as soon as they began to get regular erections – often as young as ten.)

Jason didn’t say anything for a bit, but then he took a deep breath and embarked on an alarming and pitiful story, which I’ll let him tell you himself.

Part 6. The narrative continued by Jason Price, boy-eunuch, castrated two months earlier.

Life’s kinda lousy just now.

My Mom and Dad divorced when I was quite small and I went to live with Mom’s sister, Auntie Fenella. I cried for my Mom a lot, but I never saw her again, ever.

It was clear to me even at that age that my aunt didn’t want me. She never ill-treated me or anything, but clearly I wasn’t welcome.

Things went on year by year till I was nearly eleven. By that time I was like most boys of my age, noisy, scruffy, untidy – and usually bored out of my mind with not having enough to do. About this time Auntie Fenella began to spend more and more time surfing the Internet. What she was looking for I never found out – because whenever I appeared she used to switch the screen off.

Then one day when I’d arranged for a friend to call round, she said she’d fixed a hospital appointment to see a specialist “for a check-up, because I was growing up fast, and she needed to be certain that everything was alright. When I asked her what “everything” meant, she said “Your private area, dear”.

Now I was quite well aware of what was meant by “the snip”. Several boys at school – most of them the children of foster parents, and who had at one time been at the children’s home, had it done. “The snip” meant having your balls taken out. Boys who had this done had tiny penises that never went stiff, so they could never fuck girls. Apart from that, they did everything that other boys do. They seemed happy enough – I never heard any of them admit that, without your balls, life sucks!

I never suspected that I, too, was in line for the snip, although I might have guessed. Everyone knew that boys who had their balls taken out were supposed to become quieter and better behaved, cleaner, politer, and more attentive in school. Everything that Auntie Fenella might have expected me to be. Only I’d have been wrong if I’d supposed that was all..

Auntie Fenella was besotted – always had been – with the idea of having a little girl to raise. A pretty little girl who wore nice frocks. Instead she had a lumpy, moody 11-year-old boy.

Well, I was in for the snip after all. My aunt got me to the hospital and at once I had to take my trousers and pants down. It was alright till they got me into the actual place where they do the neutering, and I saw that doctor! He eyes fairly gleamed behind his glasses and I could tell he really loved castrating boys. “Well now, Jason!” he said in an oily voice “you and your testicles just don’t go together! Never mind, we’ll soon have those nasty balls out”. As he spoke he rubbed his hands together.

That – the very idea of this fat old man groping my privates, got to me, in a way that it hadn’t before. I suppose I went berserk. I shouted “You old perv!” or something like that – and went at him. But somebody got me by the arm and I felt the prick of a needle. Seconds later my legs went from under me and I became as limp as a rag doll……

I don’t recall much after that. I was more or less a vegetable for the following week. Auntie Fenella was given some pills for me to take, and those kept me under. Most of the time I lay on the bed, except when she helped me go to the bathroom. Oh, and I forgot to say. After the operation they made me wear a sort of nappy, and if I wanted to wee – well, I just wee’d. My aunt changed me twice a day, like a baby. At least no one suggested I did Number 2’s in the nappy as well!

When the pills ran out and I was allowed to recover my senses, I at once noticed that I hadn’t been in my own room all this time. I was in what had been the spare room, all got up with frills and flounces. And in place of my jeans and trainers there was a girl’s dress hanging up. As soon as my aunt appeared I asked her what the hell was going on. To my amazement she came clean. Auntie Fenella was obsessed with the idea of having a little girl to raise, and I was going to be the little girl.

I was to wear girls’ clothes, have a girl’s name – Jessica – go to a girls’ school, even. My aunt told my old school – and all my friends – that I’d gone away for good. Having my balls out was just the first step in altering my sex. They had put stuff on my penis that made it shrink, so I’d be forced to pee like a girl – sitting down.

I can’t begin to tell you how shattered I felt, or how depressed I began to feel from that moment on. Every day was like living in a nightmare from which there was no waking up. I should have cried, but I was too shocked and upset even to cry.

The new school wasn’t a success. The girls sensed there was something odd about me and didn’t want me to join in with them. It might have been embarrassing if they had, because more often than not, they talked about starting their periods and whether they could use tampons. At games – hockey and basketball, they found me too rough – after all I still had a boy’s muscles – and I collected the unattractive nickname “Cave Woman”. I found myself totally and completely alone.

“Why don’t you ever go visit some of the other girls?” Auntie Fenella used to complain. “Or have them visit you here? You’re getting to be a recluse!” But it was no good saying anything.

However, she was determined I should mix with other girls and spent her waking hours looking for ways to make this happen. I’ll tell you what the horrible results were.

Somewhere, somehow, she got to hear of organised sleepovers that were run by a woman in her country house not too far away. All she had to do was drop me off at the City library about teatime on Saturdays, and a mini-bus would take me to the place, and return me at the same time on Sundays – though some stayed over till early on Monday mornings. All I needed to take was my toothbrush and night things. I agreed to go – at least it got me out of the house.

On the first Saturday the mini-bus was waiting, and most of the seats were already taken by girls. Or at least they wore girls’ school uniforms and called each other Tina, Tracey, Donna, Gemma, Shelley, Kate and Jennifer. But I sensed that there was something strange about them. They ignored me, but by listening to them talking to each other I gathered they all came from the city orphanage just down the coast. The orphanage took in children of both sexes, and though the boys lived in a separate wing , they all used to be neutered on admission , usually by having their balls pricked, so they were no risk to the girls.

My fellow passengers were, all of them, not girls, any more than I was, but like me, neutered boys!

The bus was hardly clear of the city limit before the driver pressed a switch and blinds came down over all the windows and a shutter cut off the driving compartment too. I tried to work out where we were and where we were going. At first I was pretty certain that the driver was keeping to the main London road, but then he turned off, and I lost all sense of direction. The mini-bus was, clearly, right in the country and on very narrow roads. It laboured up hills and lumbered down the other side, and twigs lashed the windows on the outside.

You won’t believe the next bit. The driver slowed right down, then stopped. He got out and his feet sounded hollowly on wood. Then, the sound of water splashing and slopping, and a clanking noise. We were in a boat of some kind, crossing water.

It only lasted a few minutes, then there was a bump. The engine started again and I felt the mini-bus grind up a sort of ramp. Then the sound of a heavy gate being closed. The engine stopped for the last time and the blinds went up. We were in a courtyard, surrounded on all sides by buildings that might once have been stables. Everywhere was very smart and well painted.

“Here we are again!” declared one of the orphanage boys. And there She is – all ready and waiting!”

“Are you ready, Jennifer? asked one of the boys.

“My bum’s still tingling from last weekend” said the boy called Jennifer.

“Many more visits like this and I’ll be able to shit tree-trunks” said a third boy.

I didn’t know what they were talking about and there wasn’t time to ask, because the rear door opened and a big woman in nurse’s uniform appeared. “Right” she said in a loud authoritative voice. “Which of you is Jessica?”

I put my hand up. “Me, Nurse!” I said timidly. One of the other boys sniggered.

“You stay here with me. All you others, you know where to go and what to do. Off with you then”. The other boys all disappeared through a doorway.

The nurse, if she was one, propelled me into the house and into a small room fitted with pegs like a locker room. “Take all your clothes off and wait!” she commanded.

I waited, in my skin, for what seemed a very long time. From time to time there was a sound of flushing, quite nearby. Finally the nurse came back. “In here” she said abruptly.

“Here” looked like a doctor’s surgery. There was a couch, and a sink, and cabinets of jars, bottles and cartons. “Up on this chair” was the next order. I clambered up and the nurse took a long hard look at my private area: my penis that I’d once been so proud of, shrunk to a little acorn; the tiny fold of skin that had once held my balls. “Very neat. Perfect” she said, apparently to herself, and then to me “Down off that chair. Bend over and keep still”.

Her strong fingers parted my bum-cheeks and poked a syringe into my anus. With a practised hand she pumped soap-and-water up my behind. “Go through there and get rid of it! she directed.

I was only too pleased to do what she said – I was near bursting. I pulled the toilet chain and came back into the surgery to find myself face to face with – with that doctor! The one that had cut my balls out.

Once again the horrible smile that I’d never forget. Once again the silky voice. “And so we meet again, Jason – or to be correct, Jessica! Now I’ve something very important to tell you, so listen carefully”.

“The guests in this house are important, wealthy people. They pay a lot of money to come here. You on the other hand are here for one reason and one reason only – to show these men a good time. I’m sure I needn’t elaborate. No? (for I was staring at him dumbfounded) Good”.

“Now, these men may talk to you, but you will NOT, repeat NOT, talk to them. The most you are allowed to do is to say “Oh, that’s nice” or show how much you are enjoying it”.

(Enjoying – what? I wondered). The Doctor still hadn’t finished. “Now I come to the most important thing of all. You must NEVER, NEVER breathe a word about what you see here, or what you do. If you disobey me I shall find out – and you will be punished. I shall hurt you, in ways you never dreamed of in your worst nightmares – horrible ways! I shall do more than hurt you. I shall make you –UGLY”.

He paused, letting this sink in. I said nothing – I was too terrified. The Doctor rose, and pressed a bell. The nurse came back into the room. “I’ll leave him to you now, Nurse” said the Doctor and went out.

The nurse poured some red, syrupy liquid into a small glass and made me drink it. At once I began feeling drowsy and relaxed. She still hadn’t finished with my behind, though. From the table she took a large tube of ointment, and with her rubber-gloved fingers smeared a large dollop around my bum-hole, working it well inside. “Right, that’s all for now” she said briskly. “I’ll look in and see you during the night”.

(During the night?)

Returning to the room where I’d left my clothes I found another door open, on the far side. This opened on to another room, carpeted and heavily-curtained. There was a sideboard with bottles and glasses. There was a big easy-chair. There was also a bed, with a big bath towel spread over it. In the far wall there was another door.

Two things now happened very quickly. The door I’d come in by, closed with a click. I saw that on my side there was no handle. Then the door opposite flew open, and a Roman senator in a purple-striped

toga came in. At least, a tall slim man dressed like a Roman senator came in.

“Well now!” said this individual. “What have we here? A dear little boy-eunuch, no less. Recently gelded too, I’d guess. Well, they have the right idea in these modern times. Whenever they can get hold of any good-looking boys they should be gelded and made into cherubs with lovely round bottoms”.

I said nothing.

“Cat got your tongue?” asked the man, smiling. “Never mind. Let’s start having some fun.”.

Seating himself in the big chair he lifted me on to his lap and began to dandle me like a doll, at the same time kissing my face. He smelled of after-shave. After a few minutes of this his hand reached between my legs, to play with my penis. His breath began to quicken with excitement. Suddenly he carried me over to the bed, face-down, threw off his toga and got on top of me………

When at last he pulled his penis out, after shooting hard inside my bottom, I understood what that other boy meant when he’d said he’d soon be able to shit tree-trunks.

My next visitor wore 18th-century naval uniform, with an eyepatch. I guess he was meant to be Admiral Nelson even though he had two arms. He wanted to suck my penis, and then I had to suck his, until he came in my mouth.

The Sheikh of Araby – who might have been T E Lawrence – came next. He wanted me in my girls’ school uniform so that he could grope me up my skirt and inside my knickers. The fact that I wasn’t made like a girl didn’t put him off at all. He turned me over and had me all the same.

Napoleon just wanted a straight fuck with no foreplay. He was gone within five minutes.

And so the night went on, with one after the other. Twice in the night the nurse came and put more lubricant up my bottom. In the end I think I must have passed out, because a long time later I looked up and saw daylight through a barred window.

The nurse looked in and told me to get dressed. Then she called me into the consulting-room place; all the other boys were already there. We were given a small bowl of cornflakes each, and some milk. No one said much. Soon after that, we were all told to go out to the mini-bus.

Aunt Fenella asked me if I’d had a nice time and wanted to know what I’d done, and of course I couldn’t tell her – not with that Doctor’s words “I shall make you ugly” ringing in my ears. She was very angry and upset, saying things like “It’s always the same with you; nothing’s ever right for you – I don’t know why I bother”.

The next weekend was the same. And the next. And the next.

Part 7. Simon resumes.

Jason’s miserable story faltered to its close. Eyes wide, he stared into my face. “It’s hopeless, isn’t it?” he whimpered. “Quite hopeless. What’m I to do?” His chin began to wobble and I thought he was going to cry.

For a moment I couldn’t speak; inwardly I was boiling over with rage and disgust at these creatures, these perverts, who used their position and wealth to prey on young, vulnerable, castrated boys, and still more at those who organised these – these – I ran out of words. Swallowing my anger I said “No, it’s not hopeless at all. It’ll be stopped, and you’ll be free. And you can go back to being a boy. Trust me”.

Problem was, I hadn’t at that moment any idea what to do. As for going back to being a boy, no one could restore to Jason what he’d lost. Who knew that better than myself?

“Within a couple of weeks” I said, and again, fatuously “Trust me”.

I gave him my cellphone number. “Text me” I told him “just to say you’ll be there again this coming weekend. I’ll be there too only no one will know”. Already a vague idea was forming in my mind.

Jason nodded. I gently squeezed his hand, and he turned to go, clomping off on his over-large feet- the sure-fire giveaway that he hadn’t been born a girl. A moment later I left too, and went in search of a bus back to town.

Some time later, back at school, I retreated to my private sanctum in the sports store and did some savage thinking. No doubt about what needed to be done. Soon after we moved into the Archdeaconry a patch of dry-rot had appeared in the toilets: horrible-looking things sprouted on the wall, like patches of yellow tripe. “Got to get rid of that” said the man from the builders’. “Every last trace”.

But where was it going on, this filthy thing that had to be eradicated, every last trace?

Somewhere in the Weald – that much I could tell from Jason’s description. The Weald is a funny place: an area mostly covered in oak woods, seamed with deep valleys; few settlements and poor roads. No good for farming – the soil was clayey and cold – the Weald had become a prime target a hundred years ago, for rich people to build country houses and lead the life of landed gentry. I had to look for a country house with some kind of water-barrier in front. Not a big river, there weren’t any, but some sort of lake, perhaps……….

I went to the library and took down the ordnance-survey map. Jason hadn’t mentioned the motorway so it was pretty certain the bus had used the old A 23. If they’d turned off at Handcross, now…….My finger traced some possible routes. Cowfold – no, too big. Mannings Heath, Monks Gate….Too far west, and too close to busy main roads.

Then I found it, staring me in the face.

The house had a name on the map, a name that was to become notorious. The present-day owners have given it a different one and they wouldn’t thank me for telling you what it is. It appeared to be all-but-surrounded by a horseshoe-shaped piece of water. The nearest road, a slender yellow thread on the map, ran ¾ of a mile to the south, following the contour lines. A drive, unmade-up apparently, led from the road down a closely-packed set of contours to the edge of the lake, and stopped opposite the black rectangle marking the house.

This had to be it. First hurdle over. But there was a second problem. I was quite certain that I couldn’t tackle this thing on my own. But who to take into my confidence? That was the point. Immediately I thought of Roddy and just as quickly ruled him out. Roddy with his long golden hair and ethereal good looks, that appeared on so many DVD’s, didn’t fit into the picture forming in my mind. The Roebuck twins? On the one hand they were up to the job, but Jon never did anything without Jamie, nor Jamie without Jon. Manchit, then? I rejected Manchit with some reluctance, because there was really only one person I needed. Making my mind up I hurried over to the gym, where from the upper gallery there came a rhythmic poom-poom-poom noise. I went up and found, as I’d hoped, Jack Elliott belting the shit out of a punch-bag.

Jack was the same age as I’d been – about 11½ - when he’d been neutered. Unlike me, he’d actually known what it felt like to put his penis into a girl and have an orgasm inside her – some little slut with hot pants, in his native North Shields - although on his own admission his climaxes were dry and therefore harmless. Castration left him as impotent as a four-year-old (“It’s no good, I’ve tried and tried but I just can’t” he’d once confided.)

Scorning him, now he was a eunuch, the girl had dropped out of his life. But from then on, just like a carthorse colt after being gelded, all Jack’s strength had gone into his legs, arms and shoulders. Rated a bantam-weight, he was lethal in the ring. He couldn’t have been more dangerous with his balls in, than he was without. Seeing me, he stopped bashing the punch-bag and held out his gloved hands. “Awee, the lads!” was his greeting – it always was. He was beaming with pleasure.

“That’s impressive, Jack!” I said. “I’d not like to run up against you on a dark night!”

“Never was your kind of sport, was it, kidder?” was Jack’s reply. This was unfortunately true. Though taller than he was, and with a longer reach, I had a fatal weakness where boxing was concerned. If a glove landed on my face I would begin to weep, copiously and helplessly.

Jack went for a shower, and I waited. Clean, dried and dressed, with his hair combed, he asked “And what can I do for you, kidder?”

“Let’s walk along” I said. “I want some advice”. In response, Jack affectionately laid one of his long arms across my shoulders.

“Jack” I said. “I suppose you know what a paedophile is?”

“Course I do” he retorted. “An old fella that likes doing it wi’ little lads – up their bums”.

“Have you ever – I mean – come across one personally?”

Jack paused, then took a deep breath. “There was this dirty old Vicar, see…….”

Jack had a fund of stories about dirty old Vicars but this one was different. It was true, and it involved himself. And it was all about sessions in a locked vestry with his trousers and pants down, bent over a chair……

“He could have had any boy he wanted; there were far better looking ones than me” Jack went on. (True: Jack was rather pug-nosed). “But he seemed obsessed, that old Vicar. Sometimes he’d just sit staring, staring at my private area – at IT.” (“It” meaning his tiny penis, with no balls or scrotum). He paused, then added “On the bright side, if you can call it that, he was willing to pay for it”.

(I haven’t attempted to reproduce Jack’s broad Tyneside dialect which not many readers would understand outside Newcastle. As a sample, “pay for it” emerged as “peeah furrit”.)

For a while neither of us spoke and my mind drifted back four years, to my old boarding school when I’d become the flower, i.e. bum-boy, of one of the prefects. Ramsay had been kind as well as gentle, and at times I had a sneaking suspicion that I was beginning to enjoy what he did to me – but those days were well-and-truly over.

“So you didn’t like it, then, Jack” I said.

The effect on Jack was immediate. He turned very red and his eyes nearly popped out of his head. “Like it?” he hissed, and his voice rose to a shout. “LIKE it? Get awee, man! Whaddo you take me for?"” He was shaking all over.

I knew in that moment that I’d made the right choice.

“Jack” I said, in as calm a voice as I could muster “let me tell you a story”. And leaving nothing out, I filled him in on Jason’s miserable weekly ordeal.

Jack’s usually good-humoured face had become rigid, his mouth set in a line. “The dorty old beggors! he breathed. “The dorty……..ould………beggors! And that woman - what’s she thinking of? Just an animal, that’s what she is!” He broke into a torrent of unprintable epithets.

“So what do we do, Jack?” I asked.

“Listen, Simon” he replied. “Listen carefully. This is what we’ll do”.

Jack’s quick brain had been forming the outline of a plan while I’d been talking. I was impressed by the simplicity of it. But what it was, I’ll leave you to find out.

Part 6. Simon continues.

Late tea-time on Saturday afternoon had found Jack and myself in a very good position among the trees, looking downwards. At the foot of the slope stretched the lake, a dark, still crescent of water surrounding the house on three sides. Just beyond the house the hillside rose up like a wall, almost vertical. The intervening ground couldn’t be seen, but at a guess it was marshy and boggy.

A fitful country bus service had deposited us within three miles of our objective. We looked a bit out-of-the-ordinary. School Uniform, in the summer andautumn, is basically a royal blue blazer and white shorts, altogether too conspicuous, so I’d roped Mark in on part of the conspiracy and persuaded him to raid the Cadet Force stores and find us a suit of combat fatigues each. These had been dropped off in the mail-hut, where Jack and I had done a quick change. Bush hats completed the ensemble.

Or not quite. On my feet I wore jungle boots – a relic of way-back-when; (see “Simon in the Orient”) Jack wore black trainers as he always did and the waterproof satchel over his shoulder held a cam-corder – Melanie’s. The darling had let me borrow it without asking any questions..

Below us, and to the left, the gravel drive to the house came to an end at the lake. Jason’s comments about the mini-bus crossing water were now explained. The regular means of crossing the lake – a chain ferry – was secured to a ramp on the far side. This, obviously, was useless to us. No doubt Jack and I, working together, could have turned the heavy crank-handle, but we should have been in full view of the house all the time, quite apart from the noise.

As the light began to drain away we worked our way down the slope. It was Jack who found the remains of a path; it was also Jack who found the boat-house, screened by trees and barely visible. There was no door on the landward side. Cautiously we peered in. The first things I saw were some contraptions resembling mountain bikes, but supported by floats.

“Water-bikes” murmured Jack. “Never seen one before?” No good to us though, too splashy”.

The bikes were no use, but searching about in the gloom we found two small kayaks. They looked alright although clearly they’d not been used for some time. A further search located some paddles.

All we needed to do now was wait till it was fully dark, in about an hour from now. Before launching the kayaks, Jack said we ought to try to camouflage our faces, which would show up white if any lights came on. All we had by way of camouflage paint was mud. But we used it just the same.

The water came right into the boathouse and the kayaks were soon launched – although almost at once Jack found that his kayak was leaking, though not too seriously. A few strokes took us to the far bank, with scarcely a ripple, and to an ideal landing place hidden by some large bushes.

All the medals went to Jack in the next few moments. It was Jack who located the gap in the hedge at exactly the right place; Jack who spotted the box-walk that led to the edge of the lawn, and to a sort of rose-arbour that was the ideal place to stay concealed. That is, unless our “hosts” took it into their heads to explore the garden.

From inside the rose-arbour we had a full view of the west front of the house. At ground floor level all windows were dark. On the floor above, lights were on, and more importantly there were no curtains drawn. But how to get up there with no ladder?

Amazing though it seemed at the time, one had been provided, in the shape of a very solidly-made rose trellis bolted to the side of the house. I suggested to Jack that we should “do” one window each, but he wasn’t having it. “I’m much lighter than you” he said “and I guess I’ve got stronger fingers. I’ll need to hold on with one hand and film with the other, see?”

The problem was, that once up on the trellis, Jack would be as conspicuous as a fly on a window-pane. We made an emergency plan that, if need be, Jack would throw the cam-corder to me and I would make my escape as silently as possible, while Jack created a diversion, leading any pursuers into the tangled boggy woodland behind the house.

Up there, beyond those lighted windows, unspeakable things were being done to young, frightened, castrated boys………….And it was up to us to provide the evidence that would get it stopped.

A distant clock struck eight, recalling us to our senses. “Well, it’s no good staring at it” muttered Jack. Cam-corder in hand he sprinted silently across the lawn and began to climb.

From the comparative safety of the rose-arbour I watched him, up there on the trellis. He would film for a few minutes, then traverse to another window and film there, repeating this at different windows and at different times. Again and again he traversed across the terrace….

It was only when I heard that clock strike eleven, that I realised he’d been at it three hours.

Jack must have heard it too, for he came quietly climbing down. “Got as much as we need” he said. “My joints are cracking. Look there, though – better see what’s going on there”.

A light had come on in a ground-floor window. But before Jack could get to it, the lawn was suddenly flooded with light. We both made for the box-walk and hidden by its shelter from the lawn, flung ourselves flat on the ground. There was the sound of a door opening.

“But I tell you I saw something at the window” said a high querulous voice, which somehow seemed a bit familiar. “Something brown and streaky, with staring eyes”.

(Percy?)

A rich confident voice replied. “What you saw, Percy, was a tawny owl. The woods are full of them. They’re attracted by the light”.

Jack now had a stroke of genius. He gave the well-known hunting call of a tawny owl, softly, as if it came from a distance.

“There, I told you so!” the rich voice said. “Stop worrying, Percy. Come inside and have a drink”.

PERCY!

For the moment I kept my suspicions to myself. It was time we made ourselves scarce, and we were afraid of setting off intruder-alarms, so we crawled all the way to the lakeside, using the box walk as cover. The leaks in Jack’s kayak had gained, so that he had to kneel in two inches of water.

When we were halfway back, something DID trigger one of the alarms, flooding the lawn with light. But we were beyond its range, out on the lake in inky blackness, and no one came out to see.

As we neared the boathouse, the bottom fell out of Jack’s kayak, leaving him standing waist deep in muddy, very cold water, and swearing under his breath. He waded the last bit. Since Jack’s boat was on the bottom of the lake I evened things up by sinking mine too, stamping the gunwale under, and got water over the tops of my boots for my trouble. The paddles I returned to where I’d found them.

For the time being it seemed best to stay where we were. It was far too dark to find our way back to the road, and little point in doing so at that time of night. Come the next morning we should have to find some means of getting back to school.

Jack’s teeth were chattering. “That water’s cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey” he said in a loud whisper. “You and me, we’ve got an advantage!” Which was gallows humour if you like.

“Did you get some good stuff, Jack?” I asked.

“There’s nothing good about what’s going on in there” retorted Jack. I wish I hadn’t asked.

In the end, despite being wet – in Jack’s case very wet – and cold, we dozed on and off. It was safe enough. Very clearly the boathouse was rarely visited, and if any of our unwitting hosts took a notion to cross the lake, they would be bound to use the chain ferry – and we in our turn – one of us at least - would be bound to hear it. I heard the distant bell chime three. When I heard it again it chimed six, and there were streaks of light in the sky.

Light enough to be able to pick up the path we’d come down by. Jack sneezed loudly, several times. After a short climb we were back on the road, and we got a bit warmer, tramping along. At the first crossroads I recognised the name of a place I seemed to recognise, 1½ miles further. On we went and were rewarded by some bungalows and a pub “The Four Magpies”. None of them showed a light.

A short distance more and we passed beneath a bridge that carried, or appeared to carry, a railway. Beyond the bridge the road bent round at right angles, keeping the railway embankment on its left. Railways, in theory, meant trains, and trains might get us back to school…….

Though in these days you couldn’t be sure, and to be honest, at first I had no great hopes of this railway line. There were no signs of life up on the embankment. A little further on there were two old Class 7 engines dumped on a siding, cold and rust-reddened. They hadn’t been rostered to a Class 7 freight train in years.

But just beyond the engines there was a station, with a light burning above the entrance. I went up the steps, with Jack following. The booking office and waiting room were made entirely of wood, and there was a strong smell of creosote. There was another light burning above the ticket window. The hatch was closed, but on the other side I could hear somebody whistling.

Unable to see anything resembling a timetable, I tapped on the hatch. It opened immediately, revealing the face of a cheerful-looking middle-aged guy in a cloth cap. “’Ullo!” said this individual. “What can I do for you? Want a cup o’ tea? Kettle’s just boiled”.

I accepted the tea gratefully, Jack even more so – his lower half must have been icy cold. I asked the man if there were any trains.

“Couldn’t have timed it better” was the reply. “First one of the day’s in ten minutes. Listen – ‘ere she comes now”.

As he spoke, a little diesel loco came puttering into the station, pulling two vans. It was the smallest, oddest passenger train I’d ever seen. But there was a board on the side of the first van, indicating that it

went all the way.

I asked how much the fare was. The man named a very small sum. I paid him and received two slips of green pasteboard. “S’posed to be freight-only, this ‘ere line” said the provider of the tea, who had now emerged from his ticket office. “But we take passengers as a bit o’ free enterprise. Know where yer get down? The old North station – not Central. Know where that is?”

As a matter of fact I did. It was in the oldest part of the town, dating from long before the place became a seaside resort – a warren of narrow cobbled streets and quaint old shops. “Better get on now” said our benefactor. “Charlie won’t ‘ang about once he gets the all clear”.

Some other passengers, who seemed to be factory workers or perhaps shop assistants, had begun to appear. Jack and I followed them into the first van, which was fitted with bench seats round the sides. Our new friend, who seemed to be general factotum in this remote place, now produced a green flag and waved it, at the same time blowing a whistle. A toot from the little diesel engine and we went puttering off, at a spine-shattering twenty miles an hour- thump-thump; thump-thump…….

By now it was properly light. After a while the trees gave way to bare downland; a short tunnel followed, and then, suburbia. With a final toot the little train puttered into the old North station, a place of ramshackle buildings in a sort of mock-Elizabethan style with bits of half timbering and twisty chimneys. An archway gave on to a cobbled yard, sloping steeply downwards. I set off, with Jack in tow, in search of a bus that would do us some good.

I almost bumped into the big burly figure before I recognised who it was. Mr Carter!

Interruption by Reginald Carter, housemaster at Southdown Hall School, age 40, married.

You might think that collecting Japanese ivories is a strange hobby for a schoolmaster. But there it is. It’s my hobby, and my wife doesn’t disapprove. It keeps me at home much of the time and doesn’t make a mess.

There was a strange little shop I’d heard about, in a part of the town noted for strange little shops. I’d also heard it opened seven days a week. So on Sunday morning I took Christine her breakfast in bed, with the Sunday paper, and said I was slipping out for a little while.

I found the street I wanted, and also somewhere to park: there was a train station there, which catered for some dim local trains. One of these had just drawn in, disgorging a crowd of people: surprising how many had jobs to go to on Sunday mornings, I thought.

The last four to leave the station comprised two pairs who couldn’t have been more different. First came two extremely pretty teenage girls in mini-skirts. They were followed by two boys whom I could put a name to immediately, for they were pupils of mine – Scott and Elliott.

I knew quite a lot about this pair. Firstly that as young boys they’d both been deprived of certain organs which most males consider essential for the enjoyment of a full life. They would never enter puberty, get married, or have children. It’s not for me to discuss the rights and wrongs of that treatment here. But if anyone supposed that this operation would turn them into shy, lifeless creatures – forget it. Sure enough they would have no use for the mini-skirted girls, nor the girls for them – but that was by the way. Our Headmaster, George Holroyd, never spoke a truer word when he said that what a boy has in his head is of far more importance than what he has in his underpants. What he can do is of far more significance than the one single physical act that he cannot.

Our neutered boys – and we had many more than just Scott and Elliott - included some of our most gifted pupils. As well as showing great talent both academically and in the world of sport, they had an aptitude for getting into anything and everything. I have to pick out Scott and Elliott, with a few others in a close-knit circle, for showing great enterprise and great initiative, not to say courage of a rare order, earning distinction for themselves and the school. They had uncovered crime waves and all kinds of improbable plots, some of national importance.

When dealing with Scott and his friends you had to be prepared for anything, any time. So it came as no great surprise to find them – when they should still have been tucked up in bed – dressed in filthy combat jackets and trousers, dishevelled, faces smeared with mud, in this obscure part of the town. As they got nearer I could see that both boys were, additionally, very wet: Elliott in particular was soaked from the waist down. I shelved the idea of a leisurely hour searching for rare netsuke. These two needed help, if they were to avoid pneumonia, and perhaps another kind of help.

Scott was nearly into me before he recognised who I was. Plainly he was out on his feet. “Mr Carter?” he said, enquiringly, in his high treble voice. “Mr Carter, is that you?” He sounded distressed.

“Steady, old chap” I said. “You’d both better come with me and get warm and dry. Anything else can wait”. For I’d noticed that Elliott was clutching a web-cam as if his life depended on it.

Then to my amazement, Scott dissolved into a storm of uncontrollable tears.

Part 8. Simon continues.

I’m sorry, I know I should have better self control. It was only a reaction after all – a reaction after twelve hours or more tension and fear of being caught. Besides which, we’d had nothing to eat since the previous afternoon and very little sleep; we were tired, cold, wet and exhausted. Tears were hardly surprising.

“Steady, old chap” said Mr Carter. He let my snuffles die away, then wiped my face with his handkerchief. Jack and I found ourselves getting into his old Volvo and being driven through familiar streets.

The Carters had a flat in the Archdeaconry; it had once been the servants’ quarters. Mrs Carter, a plump blonde, still pretty, met us at the door and looked us up and down. “Hot baths first of all” she declared. “At least, as there’s only one bathtub you’ll have to decide which of you has a bath and which has to make do with a shower”.

That was easy: Jack clearly needed to wallow in hot water more than I did. Mrs Carter took our wet combat-fatigues away, to be put through the Bendix. Jack was still gripping the cam-corder as if it was the crown jewels. Not until he got into the bathtub did he let go of it.

A few minutes under a hot shower and once again I felt human. Jack’s total immersion restored him totally and he climbed out, lobster-pink and with no traces of lake or woods remaining on his face or in his hair. Then something very strange happened.

I’d gone through several phases since getting neutered. At the very beginning I was in a permanent state of depression now that (as I thought) my sex life was over before it had even started. Then like a lot of neutered boys I went through a passive stage. That didn’t last too long; my first and last prostate orgasm was so scary that I decided I’d never risk having another. By this time Melanie had come on the scene; but the story of our mad sex-sessions (“riding the gelding” and the rest) have had enough space already. Never, never, never had I been attracted by another boy.

When I emerged from the shower my penis had been hanging limp, something that happened only occasionally: most of the time it was retracted right in. Jack came right up to me and took it between his finger and thumb. Moved by some emotion I took his, and rolled his foreskin back. For a short while we fondled each other and I kissed his cheek. Jack murmured something.

Then all of a sudden it all seemed wrong. We’d been castrated to prevent us having sex, and touching one another just made matters worse, adding to our frustration. My mind was going round and round………….Then the strange surge of feelings went away as quickly as they came.

Then we were brought down to earth by Mrs Carter’s cheerful voice outside the bathroom door. “Breakfast in ten minutes, you boys. Clothes are on the landing”. (How that had been managed I still have no idea since I’d last seen my school uniform, Jack’s too, in the mail shed.)

Breakfast was enormous. After the last slice of toast had been eaten, the last cup of coffee drunk, Mr Carter called a meeting in his study.

“Well” he said “I think one of you had better explain. How about making a start, Scott?”

Haltingly I stammered out my story; my meeting with Jason Price, my promise to help him, sharing my confidences with Jack, our expedition to the Weald and the night’s work – ending with our meeting outside the train station. Mr Carter nodded.

“So as I understand it” he re-capped “you learned from this boy – what school does he go to by the way?”

“South Sussex High School for Girls, sir”.

“For GIRLS?”

“Yes sir. His Aunt – his guardian – has made him dress like a girl ever since he was – he was…” I dried up with embarrassment. It didn’t embarrass Mr Carter.

“Since he was neutered. And now she makes him attend a girls’ school. Correct?”.

“Yes sir”.

“M-mmm. Now this boy – this Jason – who isn’t a pupil at Southdown Hall, put you on to these weekend – these weekend sex sessions at a country house on the far side of Haywards Heath. You and Elliott went there, and obtained – or say you’ve obtained, or hope you’ve obtained,, because you haven’t viewed it yet – a photographic dossier of boys being subjected to all kinds of sexual abuse. Are any of them Southdown Hall boys?”

“No, sir”.

“Is Southdown Hall connected in any way – any way at all – with what you saw or what you’ve been told?”

“Yes, sir”.

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

I looked across at Jack, who shook his head. “No, sir. It’s too serious for that”.

Mr Carter sighed. “In that case” he said “we’ll just have to report this to the Boss. I’ll see if he’s free”. He went to the phone. A moment later he was back. “He’ll see us now” he said. “We’ll drive round”.

Dr Holroyd was wearing the black silk gown that he usually wore on weekdays. At first it was very difficult to get across to him. He seemed preoccupied and worried. “I’m not sure I understand, Scott” he said, after hearing my account. “You learned from this boy you met, this Justin…”

“Jason, sir”

“Quite so. You learned from him that he’d been the victim of sexual abuse, together with other boys, for a long period. It’s very unfortunate of course, but it’s nothing to do with the school because none of the boys is a pupil here. So why do you and Elliott have to go rushing off into the Weald, steal a boat on a private lake, and…

“Sir, you’re wrong. Dead wrong”.

Jack had been bursting to say something and now it came out. “It’s not only boys, sir”. He stopped, uncertain how to go on.

“Well, Elliott? Is the school involved in some other way? One of the domestic staff, perhaps? Of course, there was that labourer, Mulcahy, last year…”

“His name was Meggarty, sir” corrected Jack, now getting into his stride. (Meggarty, you might

remember, used to abduct boys in his van, drive off into the country and bugger them.) “And it wasn’t one of the domestic staff”.

“I’m listening, Elliott”.

Getting neutered had not robbed Jack of any of his native Geordie toughness. He faced the Headmaster squarely. “Scott’s contact, this kid Jason, told him that one of his – his – “

“Abusers?” suggested Mr Carter. Jack nodded gratefully.

“One of his abusers was dressed up like a Roman senator. Now I caught someone on camera, dressed like a senator and I think his face should come out clearly. And later, someone came out on the lawn, and his name was Percy”.

“Percy?” said Dr Holroyd in a faint voice. “I’m not sure I follow”.

It was time to cut through the nonsense. “It doesn’t only happen in that place, or only at weekends” I said. “He does it here, too. It’s Mr Hipkin. I’ve seen it – him, oh hell – seen it – myself. And I’ve another witness”.

“Good God!” exclaimed Dr Holroyd. Mr Carter muttered “Hipkin, of course!” under his breath, and pulled a face, as if he’d eaten a bad egg. There was a pause..

“I believe you, of course, Scott” said Dr Holroyd in a voice that suggested he’d much prefer not to believe a word. “You say you’ve another witness. Do you want to tell me who it is?”

“Sir, it’s P Wright Minor” I said – giving Paddy his official reference in the school list. “Of Lower Two Alpha. Usually known as Paddy”.

“I know him, do I?” asked Dr Holroyd. “Oh yes, of course I do. Paddy Wright. Rather a silly little boy as I recall”.

This was putting it kindly. Paddy Wright, as long as I’d known him, had been one of those boring dirty-minded little kids, for whom anything filthy was funny and anything funny was filthy. Being neutered had been “real cool” because it involved his private area and gave him an excuse for talking about it and showing off. It had taken away his ability to jerk off and fuck girls, but it hadn’t altered him in any other way at all.

Dr Holroyd seemed to have recovered his usual composure. “Well” he said. “I don’t think I’ll involve young Wright. Not just yet. As for the rest of us: Reg, you’ve already been a very timely Good Samaritan already, and I’ve kept you from your teaching long enough. You’ll no doubt want to get into school”.

Mr Carter took the hint and went out. “Now you two” the Head said (meaning Jack and myself) will do me a great service if you’ll just stay here a while longer. Would you sit in here, making as little noise as possible, and just listen”. He showed us into an alcove which we’d not noticed before, because it was behind a curtain.

We heard him pick up the phone and say “Headmaster’s compliments to Mr Hipkin and would he please spare him a few minutes of his time”. There was a pause, until we heard Hipkin being shown in by the impassive Croker.

To recount all that was said, word for word, would be boring – even if I could. Dr Holroyd’s level tones, asking question after question, were matched by Hipkin’s querulous replies. Finally a climax was reached when Hipkin said “I didn’t think I was doing any harm, Headmaster. Can you believe that?”

That did it. “Oh yes!” replied Dr Holroyd. “I can well believe it – that you are not only vicious and depraved, but stupid as well. Now listen carefully. It’s now ten o’clock. At twelve-thirty I shall have my lunch and then I shall contact the Vice Squad. That gives you two and a half hours to pack and get away from here. What you do after that, is entirely up to you. If the Police ask me where you are, I shall say I don’t know – which is no more than the truth. That is all. I never want to hear of you again.”

He pressed the bell. “Croker, please show Mr Hipkin out”.

As soon as the door closed, Dr Holroyd pulled back the heavy curtain. “Well” he said, striking the palms of his hands together as if dusting them “that’s that. Quite painless really. Glad I didn’t have to involve you at all”.

“Sir” ventured Jack. “Suppose he rings his friends, to warn them?”

Dr Holroyd smiled. “He won’t, dear boy. People like that have no friends. And I doubt very much that the people who share his tastes are so unwise that they share telephone numbers. Now, I think I’ll keep you both under wraps for a while longer. What would you normally be doing just now?”

“Advanced Maths, sir, with Mr Jackson”.

“M-mm” said Dr Holroyd, and went to the phone again. Quite a different tone this time. “Mr Jackson, please” then a pause, then “Sid? Oh, good morning, Sid”. (Jack and I could only just contain our laughter at the idea of the stuffy Mr Jackson being called Sid). “Listen Sid, I’ve got two of yours here, Scott and Elliott, something’s come up and I need them a while longer, alright? I’ll leave it to you how to fill in any grey areas. ‘Bye”. He rang off.

“Now, I’ll have to spend a little time re-scheduling Hipkin’s classes, so I suggest you go to my library and find something to amuse you. Croker will call you in time for lunch”.

The Headmaster’s private library was enormous. I soon discovered he was a subscriber to the “National Geographic Magazine” and there was a big pile of back numbers. Jack took something off the shelf, I didn’t see what, but I heard him chortling to himself so I guessed it was something spicy.

After a while he could contain himself no longer. “Hey, Simon” he called. “Have a read of this”.

He had a big, hand-set, beautiful copy of the “Thousand and One Nights” in a new translation. Leaning over his shoulder I saw that the book was open at the story of Bukhayt, the First Eunuch, near the end. I read:

“During daylight hours she made me wear an ivory ring on my penis, to prevent me getting erections at awkward times (it almost prevented me peeing also!) but at night she would slide it off and her soft gentle fingers would coax me into hardness, for the hours of bliss that lay ahead. Every night I used to make her come several times, and it would be daybreak before we could finally tear ourselves apart.”.

“Some people have all the luck, don’t they?” said Jack with a rueful smile.

Presently Croker came in. “Lunch will be served in ten minutes, gentlemen, if you would care to wash. And the Headmaster hopes you can eat jugged hare, and asks if you would care for wine?”

Answering for us both I said that we could, and that we would.

Lunch over, our next visitor arrived.

Inspector Banyard of the Vice Squad had a valuable gift. He was invisible. Oh, he was there alright, but he blended with his background so much that you wouldn’t notice him. He was the man who stands next to you in the crowded bus; who sits opposite you behind a newspaper on the train. Afterwards you can’t recall whether he was dark or fair, tall or short. I certainly can’t.

The Inspector sat in a corner at a small table, where he downloaded the camcorder on to his lap-top. He spent the next hour running through the images very slowly, taking notes. This done, he switched off his laptop and rose to go.

“Thank you for your time, gentlemen” he said. That would have been all, if Dr Holroyd hadn’t asked him whether the images were of any interest.

“The images” he replied “are prima facie evidence of offences committed by sundry persons against the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 and the Sexual Offences Act 1956”.

“So what happens now?” enquired Dr Holroyd.

“What happens now” replied the Inspector “is for my superiors to decide. I couldn’t possibly comment”.

And after that, it really was time for Advanced Maths with Mr Jackson.

A week passed by without event. Inspector Banyard played his hand so close to his chest, that the question “What happens now” would have remained unanswered if it had not been for a junior reporter on the local paper. This young guy, bored with reporting Church sales-of-work and Women’s Institute outings, decided to take a day off to indulge his favourite hobby, which was fishing. His explorations in the Weald had discovered a lake, inhabited by enormous carp. Here, he had repaired one Saturday afternoon, to spread ground bait and set some highly illegal night lines.

And here, after dark, he returned, to take up his lines, but instead got the fright of his life when an enormous figure rose out of the gloom and a deep husky voice warned him to “Keep quiet, sir, and don’t make a move”. He became aware of other dark figures nearby, and discovered he’d blundered into a strong police cordon. From where he stood, he had a good view of the lake and the house.

Then the sky overhead split open with a tremendous burst of noise. Powerful searchlights lit up the garden and a huge Chinook helicopter landed on the lawn. All the lights in the house came on; policemen poured out of the chopper and there was the sound of a door being battered down. Then there was a pop, followed by a glow of fire from inside the courtyard. (Afterwards it turned out that someone inside the house had fired a flare, but far from discouraging the police, the flare had only hit one of the parked cars, which caught alight and burned for some time, blocking any means of escape).

All went relatively quiet for a time. Then a convoy of police vans crawled down the slope, halting at the water’s edge, while on the other side, ten or a dozen figures were shepherded on to the chain-ferry raft. The floodlights were still blazing and the reporter saw to his surprise that these characters were very strangely dressed: his notes mentioned a Bishop, and also Socrates. The winch clanked, the ferry crossed the water, and all these characters were put aboard police vans and driven away. The last to be removed from the site, the reporter saw, was a party of girls in school uniform.

Girls? I knew better!

Our reporter friend clearly had a “scoop” but didn’t know what it was. It seemed unlikely that there would have been such a powerful police presence, just to raid a fancy-dress party. Risking getting fired for his illicit day off, he sought his Editor. That gentleman, intrigued, phoned County Police Headquarters. A “spokesman” – they always call them that, when what they mean is “stooge” – came across with the official story: the Police had identified and broken up a paedophile ring, and arrests had been made.

For the time being, that was all that anyone was going to know.

On my first free weekend I slipped across to Lymington to return Melanie’s camcorder.

I rang the front doorbell; the door opened and Melanie’s voice called “Come in, Simon darling” but at first I could’t see her.

Then she appeared from behind the curtains. She was wearing her “Miss Burdizzo 2005” calendar outfit: a cowboy hat, a bright yellow crop-top, a minute black thong, high boots and black hold-up stockings with lacy tops. The only thing lacking was the ball-cord snipper, that had made so many lambs into wethers and so many bull-calves into steers. “Mum and Dad are out for the day” she said by way of explanation. She bent forward and kissed me on the mouth. “Don’t let’s waste time” she urged

She led me upstairs to her bedroom, and made me undress. She looked me all over, half-closed eyes focussed on my hairless thimble of flesh. “How’s my gorgeous gelding?” she breathed.

“He’s all the better for seeing you” the gorgeous gelding replied.

“That’s good” said Melanie. “You can’t imagine how few clothes I’m going to wear in the next hour or two”. She stripped off her calendar outfit till she was nude. Her boobs had grown some, since I’d seen her last. “Would you like to have your nipples kissed?” I asked timidly.

The only reply was a nod. I took one of the swelling pink tits in my mouth and caressed it with my tongue, feeling it harden. Before I could tongue the other one, she bent, and took my penis in her mouth, sucking steadily, and moving her tongue round and round. Neutering destroys some of the sensation in a boy’s penis but it was still a wonderful feeling. I closed my eyes and enjoyed it. Doctors say that once a boy has had his balls pricked, he won’t have longings like I was having, but it’s not true.

“Now I’m going to let you kiss mine” said Melanie after she’d given my cock a good sucking. “And I promise I won’t pee in your mouth.”

Legs spread wide, she lay on the bed. As I knelt between her legs I saw that she was regularly shaving her bush, reducing it to a thin line above her love-lips.I bent down to kiss her sex, and her wonderful soft thighs closed around my face.

I moved my tongue to the top of her cleft and found the tiny knob of flesh. I began to lick it. Melanie’s hands pressed on my head, holding me there. She began to moan, and to flex her legs and bottom. Love-juices began to well from her slit, wetting my chin. She gave a sudden cry “Yes! Yes!” Her tummy-muscles became rigid, and of a sudden she pushed me away from her and went limp like a broken toy. “God, I needed that” she murmured.

Lying side by side on the bed, she stroked my hair. “Sometimes” she murmured “I’m sorry you were ever gelded”.

Boy, did I agree with that! To have been able to raise a 7-inch erection, roll a rubber on to prevent “accidents” and shaft her, shoving it right up……and up…and up….

“But then if your balls were still in” Melanie went on “I don’t suppose you’d have bothered to learn how to give me such a nice time”.

I didn’t have an answer to that.

Some time afterwards as we lay side by side on the bed, Melanie asked me to tell her all about what I’d been doing. I told her everything, and how it all started with meeting Jason. How his aunt was besotted with the idea of having a little girl of her own, how she’d taken Jason to have his balls cut out, and afterwards dressed him in girl’s clothes and even sent him to a girls’ school. I spared no details.

“Poor kid!” murmured Melanie. “Poor, unhappy little boy. It’s amazing, isn’t it, what NASTY things some people dream up. But it’s making me feel horny! Come on, let’s have another go”………

Part 9. Simon concludes.

Just what nasty things some people dream up, did not come to the public gaze for quite a few weeks. It took till New Year for the Crown Prosecution Service to put the Prosecution’s case together, and the trial opened on the raw cold day of January 7th in the County town, some twenty miles away. Presiding was Lord Justice Lorton. Sex crimes against children were known to be one of his pet hates, and the tabloid press expected some fireworks in Court.

And for whatever that performance might be, Jack Elliott and I were to have ringside seats. Why? Because the Clerk of the Court had written to Dr Holroyd saying that we – Jack and I – were to be available to give evidence “should it be deemed necessary”. Dr Holroyd sighed and said he had no choice. So for the next few mornings Jack and I took the first bus of the day, to spend the next few hours in the small, dark courtroom at Lewes.

What the Judge was made of , we were to find out very quickly. In the opening address for the Prosecution there were several references to “buggery”. It mattered, of course, to draw the distinction between buggery, which can attract a life sentence if aggravated or violent, and the less serious offence of indecent assault. Well, anyway, at the very first mention of “buggery” someone in the court sniggered. His Lordship immediately pounded on his desk with his gavel and said in icy tones that the subject was not in the least funny, and if there were any more interruptions then he would clear the Court. There were no more interruptions.

Across the court, in two rows, sat the defendants, wooden-faced and impassive. They included one Euro MP and two more politicians. The rest were businessmen of one sort or another, except for one woman in her 40’s: she was the “nurse” who had prepared Jason, and no doubt the other boys, for sodomy (she turned out to actually be a nurse, in fact). Two others who might have been there were conspicuous by their absence; more of them in a minute.

Prosecuting counsel got right down to it. The jury were led to a side room where they were shown the images captured on the camcorder. They returned, looking visibly shaken; one woman was crying softly. To his surprise, Jack was then called to the witness stand and asked whether he was the originator of the pictures. “Yes, sir” replied Jack in a firm voice. “No more questions” said Prosecuting counsel. But one of the defence barristers, who looked no more than twenty, asked Jack WHY he had taken the pictures. “Objection” said Prosecuting Counsel and the Judge upheld him, adding that if the court had to inquire into the witnesses’ motives, the case would last till Doomsday.

I wasn’t called at all, which suited me just fine.

The jury had to retire to their side room again, to hear the boys – presumably including Jason – give evidence over a video-link. After that, various policemen that had taken part in the raid came across with bits of evidence as to what they’d found on entering the house, but it was all secondary, really. That was Prosecution’s case. The Judge then proposed an adjournment, leaving Jack and me at a loose end. We spent a long time in a burger joint and in exploring round the town.

Defence’s case opened next morning. It was very slow and tedious, taking best part of a week, because all thirteen defendants were treated one at a time. For the most part the approach by the defence barristers was the same: mistaken identity. Time was wasted when one of these referred to a film-strip – meaning of course the camcorder images – and deciding what it was he was talking about. Of such stuff are trials made, so it seems!

When it came to establishing alibis the rejoinder was, invariably, “How can you expect a busy man like me to recollect where I was three months ago”. Quite obviously neither the Judge nor the jury were having any of it. The two exceptions were, first, the nurse who claimed that she had been there for the solely for medical reasons, and one oldish man who pleaded impotence as his defence. He had a nasty, dissipated-looking face and didn’t get much sympathy.

One surprise witness for the defence was Jason Price’s aunt Fenella. She testified that she had sent Jason on these weekends, believing them to be a forum where he could meet and mix with other boys who were being brought up as girls. She had no idea that there was any “sexual activity” involved. The Judge laid down his pen and gazed at her in disbelief.

After the two closing addresses Lord Lorton summed up, and the jury retired. They were back in under the hour. They found all defendants guilty of the major charge of “buggery with male persons below the age of consent”, barring the impotent old man who got off with indecent assault, and the nurse, who was found to have been “a party to acts of gross indecency”.

From all of this there were two absentees. The Police had sought, but not found, Percival Hipkin BA (Cantab). Dr Holroyd had told them quite truthfully that he didn’t know where he was. No one ever heard of him, or from him, ever again.

The second absentee was none other than – Doctor John Julius Spicer! For Dr Spicer had jumped police bail. The Police had uncovered a long convoluted trail. There was – as Jason’s aunt suspected- no such person as Rebecca. Dr Spicer had used his assistant Dr Robinson as a “front” for leasing the house in the wood, but the websites that Aunt Fenella had gazed at for so many hours were Dr Spicer’s own work. The little tableaux that were supposed to show neutered boys, dressed in ballet tutus and all the rest, in Prague, Berlin or wherever, had all been stage-managed in a children’s dance-and-drama school in Basingstoke, not exactly a thousand miles away.

Without doubt the Doctor was now out of the country, and where he was, we could only guess. A gross, deflated old man, he would probably eke out a living in one of the developing countries, where castrating boys, to be trained up as household eunuchs, was still part of the culture. If ever he came within range of the extradition process, he could expect the maximum sentence for creating obscene images on the Internet.

Summing up, the Judge described the case as the most revolting that had ever come before him. The defendants could all expect the maximum sentences that it was in his power to award, and this should send out a clear message that wealth and high position did not give carte blanche to perpetrate disgusting and unnatural perversions on defenceless young boys.

Speaking of whom, he went on, he was uneasy that the regulations permitting the neutering of boys for other than emergency medical reasons might be open to a too liberal interpretation. There might be very strong social reasons for castrating a boy in individual cases. But in this case he could find no motives other than caprice. He intended to speak to the Home Secretary about his misgivings. A bit late for me, I thought.

The Judge then made a surprise move. Jason’s Aunt was called back to the witness stand. The Judge said she could consider herself lucky that she, herself, had not faced any charges. He was not able to decide whether she was very selfish, very stupid, or both. But in either case she had shown herself unfitted to look after a young boy. Her guardianship of Jason was terminated from that minute.

He had similar comments about the Warden of Shoreham Children’s Home (where newly-arrived boys had their balls pricked on admission). The Warden had shown total lack of interest in what happened to his charges in their spare time……. And so on, till the Clerk of the Court called out “All rise!” and we could go home.

Reconvened next morning, we had to stay just long enough to hear the Judge hand down the sentences. He must have made his mind up over breakfast, we thought. All defendants received eight years’ imprisonment with a recommendation that they should serve the full term. The impotent old man turned out to be on the Sex Offenders’ Register already, and got six. The wretched nurse received two years’ community service. “Take them down!” ordered Lord Justice Lorton.

And that was that.

There was no point in hanging about in Lewes. Jack and I had explored every inch of that sedate, and rather dull, little town. An hour later we were both back at school, where Jack said he’d put in some more practice time in the gym.

I was on my way up to the dorm. to slip into some more casual gear when I heard voices from one of the rooms on the second floor level. One of the voices rang out clearly and I recognised it at once – it was the voice of Ricky Silva, and he seemed to be showing someone around. “This is the dorm. then, and the toilets and showers are just across the landing. And, Price, now that Raxworthy has moved upstairs, we all thought you’d like this corner. It’s nice and private and gives you a bit more room”.

Price? Jason, of course – but why was he here?

But Ricky was going on. “You can keep anything you like in the lockers except food. They’re very strict on that. The tartan bedspread on the bed is standard. You can replace it with anything you want. I’ve got the Stars and Stripes because I’m an American citizen. Shall I help you unpack?”

There was some inaudible murmuring, then Ricky’s voice again. “There’s a cross-country run at 2 o’clock. Shall we both go? We can talk on the way and you can tell me about yourself. We can change now: blue vest, white shorts and trainers. OK?”

Silence for a bit as the two got ready for their run. Then “When did you get the snip?” asked Ricky Silva of his new friend.

If this was going to get personal then I didn’t want to get involved – just yet. A short time later I stood at the window and watched Ricky and Jason setting off for their cross-country run. Jason was smiling- smiling and laughing – something I guess he’d not done in months. They trotted past my window, PE shorts pulled up tight, showing the shape of their round bottoms as they ran……….Jason had a loping stride that could prove useful on the athletics field, in the future.

Having nothing to do for the rest of the day I took the bus into town. Here to my great annoyance there was a notice on The Lemon Tree door which said “Closed for Staff Training”, so I had to fall back on “Betty’s Bun Shop” in the next street. The place was empty except for a middle-aged man sitting by himself at a table set for two. If I hadn’t recognised the queer hunched set of his shoulders, I should at least have spotted the green pork-pie hat on the chair beside him

The figure looked up. “Ah , Scott! How nice to see you. Come and sit down – have some coffee with me – here, try one of these pastries”.

Dr Holroyd, of course. He didn’t look angry or ask why I was bunking off school. I muttered some thanks. But Dr Holroyd had a lot that he wanted to say.

“You know, I’ve hardly sat down since eight this morning. Such a lot to do! Oh, of course, you couldn’t possibly know. The boys’ wing at Shoreham Children’s Home has been shut down and the Warden sacked. Because I have a seat on the Social Services Committee I got the job of sorting out the loose ends. Twenty-three boys to be placed, like this morning.

“I’ve had to ring round all over the place. St Anselme’s took a few, but besides them, I’ve been to Dover, Southampton, Winchester even. Yes, Winchester College took two, imagine! Anyway, it’s all done now”.

“Sir” I ventured. “I’ve seen Jason Price. Ricky Silva’s looking after him. And, sir, I’m so pleased that it was possible for Jason to come to us”.

It sounded lame, and a bit silly, but Dr Holroyd smiled. “I was thinking about you, Scott, when I put in a word for Jason Price. There’s a lot of damage to be repaired there, a lot of scars that will take time to heal, and I knew you were concerned about him.

“You see, I thought, no one can give Jason back his virility, but at least we can begin to restore his self respect”.

Now, where had I heard that before?

FINIS