It Couldn't Hurt to Ask

I finally made up my mind to just go in; the shop was right there, I had the extra time, and it couldn't hurt to just ask.

I'd been thinking about getting one of those Oriental ideograph tattoos forever--so long that for all I knew they might have been passe' already. But I kept remembering that really sexy guy I'd seen with one, and I could always just get it done with henna, or something, just to try it out, maybe.

It couldn't hurt to ask.

It wouldn't be lame walking into a tattoo parlor and asking if they did henna, would it? Or would they just glare at me with derisive "get lost, you yuppie amateur" stares?

But even if they did, it couldn't really hurt to ask.

Which is what I kept telling myself before finally screwing up the resolve to walk in. The little bell on the door tinkled annoyingly, but I fought back a blush and walked on in.

The guy at the desk had a shaved head and more piercings than I could count. His skinny arms were so covered with random designs that from a distance they looked completely black. He was arguing with someone over the phone. He glanced up at me with narrowed eyes and then yelled into the receiver, "Hold on a sec." He clutched the phone to his chest--a stream of irate chatter was still issuing from the earpiece--and said, looking at the clock instead of me, "You got an appointment?"

"No, I--"

He started searching in the desk for something. "What're you here for?"

"Uh..."

He slammed the drawer, moved the phone to his ear long enough to yell into it--"I told you not to fucking start!"--exhaled impatiently, and started rifling through another drawer, still not looking up. "I ain't got all day, what is it? Tattoo, piercing, scarification, penectomy, castration?"

I stared. "Penectomy?"

"You have got to be fucking kidding me!"

I jumped back, but realized he was yelling into the receiver again.

"No--no, damn it, listen to me, I--will you just shut up for a second?" He dropped the phone from his ear again starting rifling through a pile of papers strewn across the desktop. "Look, dude, just have a seat over there," he said, gesturing vaguely. "Tom'll be done in a minute." And then he lifted the phone again, and was yelling into it at the top of his lungs.

Stunned, I shuffled back to the chair against the opposite wall and sat down. Part of me was wondering if I should just leave, and part of me was thinking I could probably just ask Tom--whoever he was--my questions, but most of me was still dealing with the word "penectomy."

Penectomy? Had he really said that? And castration? Was he just kidding? Did they really do that here? Was that even legal? Guys coming into to get their dicks chopped off? Who would want his dick chopped off?

The guy at the desk was still having a disjointed shouting match with the phone.

Was it just some sort of over-harassed-tattoo-parlor-receptionist's joke? Or were they really doing genital removal surgery in the back? Did guys like having their dicks cut off? How many guys had they done? Were there a lot of guys out there who'd had their cocks removed? Dickless guys? Dickless wonders? Had I ever seen one? Or even met one, not knowing?

"Fine, then!" yelled the guy at the desk, suddenly, and jammed the received back down on the cradle with a violent crash. He leaned back in his chair and shouted through the half-open door behind him, "Hey, Tom! You got a walk-in penectomy out here!"

I felt my face turn five shades of red. I tried to protest, managing only the beginnings of a weak stutter--"N-no, I..."--before the phone suddenly rang with a tintinnabulation worthy of an air-raid.

The guy ripped the receiver from the cradle. His "hello" sounded like an insult.

I wondered if it would be safe to just leave.

"You wouldn't believe what she said!... No, not even..."

I relaxed a bit, but the guy's new conversation, this time with an apparently sympathetic ear, was no less loud or agitated. Still, I'd made it this far, and there was no way I was going to go through this all again just to ask my damn henna-tattoo question.

My head was full of dickless guys: jogging, their dickless crotches working up a sweat hidden under athletic shorts; in the showers, their wet pubic hair slick and matted over their penisless balls; at the beach, naked, sunning themselves, dickless for all the world to see; at the clubs, a young shirtless guy's low-riding jeans finally sink low enough to reveal that the only thing he's got hanging over his balls is a neatly trimmed tuft of public hair. He smiles as I approach, taking my hand and rubbing it down his smooth abs to his dickless tuft. He's kissing me, undoing my belt, unzipping my jeans, as I'm cupping his lonely balls, and then suddenly he dives down to bury his nose in my pubic hair, his tongue lapping at my balls... and I've got no dick in between!

Suddenly, I felt a hand on my shoulder.

I shot up and spun around awkwardly.

"Hi, I'm Tom." Tom extended his hand. He was tall and muscular. Stylized barbed wire encircled one of his large biceps. His short hair was bleached but growing out, black at the roots.

"J-john," I said, returning the handshake. "I--"

Tom cut me off, glancing at the receptionist still expostulating through the phone. "Let's go in back."

I nodded, and followed Tom into a dark room filled with confusing, slightly-medical-looking equipment. He shut the door behind us, and the increasingly hoarse complaints of the guy at the desk were finally cut off. I nearly tripped over a canister lying on the floor

"Have a seat," said Tom, indicating something that looked kind of like a hospital bed.

I sat down, and turned to Tom, ready to finally ask my question--

"So are we taking the whole thing out, or leaving a stub?"

I felt the blood rush to my face again. They were still on this penectomy thing. And leaving a stub? That wasn't what I was imagining at all. At least I could finally explain what I was really here for. It was so embarrassing. Would it look like I just chickened out? Went in for a penectomy and came away with a temporary tattoo? No, I could explain the mistake. It would be okay. Hopefully Tom wouldn't think I was a complete moron. Tom was really hot. I could kind of imagine looming over the bed I was sitting on, working on some guy's crotch, removing the guy's dick. Did he really do that? How many penectomies had he done?

"How many penectomies have you done?" The question was out of my mouth before I realized I was verbalizing.

Tom kind of chuckled as his eyes rolled upwards and sideways, thinking. "I lost count somewhere in the forties."

My eyes bulged.

"Don't worry. I've got the experience. And testimonials. Otherwise I wouldn't be in business."

I wasn't worrying about his experience or testimonials, I was trying to imagine the forty or fifty or sixty some-odd dickless guys out there. Where were they? Who were they? What did they look like? Why had they come in to have their dicks cut off? How long did it take them to recover?

"How long does it take to recover?" Damn it. Deeper and deeper.

"You'll have to keep the catheter in for about four, maybe five days, at least. And you'll be sore for a couple of weeks, probably, you'll have to be careful while you heal up. But I can give you some painkillers. Generally the guys don't have too much trouble. You'll be fine if you take it easy."

My lips parted, as they had done several times during Tom's answer, to protest that it wasn't me that we were talking about here, but I faltered. Tom was smiling at me. I couldn't stop blushing. Did he think I was cute? Or was he just laughing at me? If I told him now that I'd just come to ask about a temporary tattoo, he'd think I was a total idiot. Man, he was hot. Could I really give up my dick just to keep him from thinking I was stupid? Dickless guys were pretty hot, but was I ready for that? All I wanted was a dumb ideograph. Tom was still waiting for my answer. Still smiling patiently. Maybe he wasn't laug

hing at me after all. He had to know it was kind of a tough decision; he'd cut enough guys to know that. He was a pretty nice guy. And really hot. Damn. Didn't want him to think I was chicken. It'd be okay, just as long as I didn't end up with some little stub.

"The whole thing." I mean, if you're gonna do it, do it right.

Tom's smile broadened. "Get your clothes off."

I felt as if a great weight had been lifted from my chest. No more stupid mistakes to worry about. And now this really sexy guy was asking me to take off my clothes so he could cut my dick off. Pretty hot, actually.

I stripped off quickly and hopped back up on the bed. I had a raging erection and normally would have blushed to be naked and hard in front of Tom, but now that things were easy, I just played it cool.

Tom grabbed my dick and moved it back and forth, checking out my crotch. "I'll reroute your urethra behind your balls."

"Okay, cool. Sorry I didn't shave." I managed to keep my voice even, despite Tom's hand on my cock, and wondering what it would feel like to have my piss--or cum--spraying out from behind my nuts instead of through my dick.

"It's okay, I can do it here. I know most guys don't make up their mind till the last minute."

Ain't that the truth.

Then I suddenly remembered why I came in the first place. It'd be really lame if I got my dick chopped off and didn't even get the tattoo I came for. But I could I ask Tom about henna at this point? I was managing to play it pretty cool now. Since I was getting my cock removed anyway, I might as well get the real thing.

"I was wondering if I could get a tattoo, too." Great. Lame rhyme.

Tom chuckled. "Hoping we'd give a bulk discount?"

I felt a blush starting to return. "I just wanted one of those"--oh, damn, were these out of style already?--"little Chinese characters." Cool? Uncool?

"Cool," said Tom.

Phew.

"I can do it while you're out." He started searching through a shelf of books. "Where do you want it?"

"Um, inside forearm, just below the elbow... y'know..."

Tom nodded as he pulled down a book of designs and opened it up in front of me.

I stared blankly at the ideographs for a moment. "Uh, that one looks cool."

Tom turned the book back around to look at it. "Okay. 'Man.'" Tom grinned. "Guess if they have any questions after checking your crotch, they can just check your arm."

I smiled sheepishly back. I hadn't even noticed the meaning of the graph.

Without any preface, Tom shaved my crotch with surprising speed and efficiency, and then went over to a counter across the room to get his equipment ready to remove mine. I started down at my shorn crotch, wondering what it would look like after my dick was gone. My dick just kept getting harder. I wondered if I'd I miss it a lot.

Finally Tom came back with a little tray of surgical tools. "You wanna jerk off one last time?"

I was afraid that might get complicated. "Nah, it's cool."

"Okay, lie down, then."

As I complied, Tom started swabbing my crotch with some antiseptic, then started to fill a syringe.

"You don't want to be awake to watch, do you?"

At this point, unconsciousness was sounding like the second-best thing anyone had suggested all day.

"Nah."

I felt a slight prick. "Okay, say good night."

"Good..."

I don't remember anything after that until I woke up with a bunch of bandages on my crotch with a catheter sticking out and a little bandage on the inside of my forearm. I wasn't sure how to feel but I played it cool 'cause Tom was there, saying everything went just fine. I wondered where my dick was, but I didn't want to ask Tom in case it would seem like I wasn't sure about wanting it off.

I got my clothes on--slowly--and paid with my Visa and Tom sent me home in a cab with more bandages and some painkillers and a bunch of instructions. I remember sitting in the cab all the way home just starting at the little bandage on my arm.

I had to walk really slow for a long time after that, and the catheter was really annoying, but it actually didn't take that long to recover. I was worried at first because my crotch looked really bruised and messed up, but it healed really well and the scar's barely visible, and it's covered up by my hair anyway. Tom mentioned that bladder control might be a problem, but I haven't had any trouble, and I kinda like sitting down and pissing from behind my balls. It's kinda weird, I guess, but whatever.

Yeah, I miss my dick sometimes. I used to jerk off a lot, y'know, and I kinda can't anymore. I miss it a lot sometimes. But it's been totally worth it. Being dickless can be cooler than you'd think. And sometimes it's cool that it is so much harder to cum, y'know? I realize it's not for everyone, but I guess that's why you're born with a dick in the first place: it's your choice whether to get rid of it or not.

Well, mostly.