Just the right age, concluded

by Touchstone

The story continued

The story so far

Simon is spending a day in a nursing home, where the Matron at his boarding school has sent him. Earlier his cricket captain had told him he was just the right age “to have his balls pricked” and his classmates had confirmed that there was, in fact, an operation to inject a drug into a boy’s testicles that caused them to wither away. Simon is convinced that he is about to undergo castration in some form or other. At the conclusion of the first episode he has just been given an enema.

Feeling I’d held it in long enough I went across the passage to the lav. Seconds later I experienced the curious feeling of hot water gushing from my bum as my bowels emptied. Did girls feel like this when they peed? Then a sudden thought - if they removed my penis as well as my balls, I should have to pee like that for the rest of my life - sitting on the lav seat.

The bedroom was empty; I climbed back on the bed, lay on my back and waited. Just suppose I ever met a girl, who was willing to let me try anything. I pictured her pulling her knickers down, whispering "Go on, Simon, I know you’d love to do it! Put yours in me, all the way- up my front or up my bottom- I don’t mind which”. Then my own voice, shrill with embarrassment: "I can't, Wendy! I've had this operation and I just can't! Then I imagined Wendy's voice, knowing, scornful: "I know - you've had your balls pricked. They prick a boy's balls to prevent him ever doing anything with a girl.". As she pulled her knickers up, she would begin chanting Simon's had his balls pricked, Simon's had his balls pricked. I expected she would want me to take my trousers and pants down to have a good look.

Presently the two nurses returned. Nurse Brown had a hypodermic in her hand. That seemed to confirm everything I’d ever heard - that doctors were trained to prick a boy’s balls and inject a drug that caused them to dry up. It seemed that nurses could do the same.

Nurse Brown pulled up my hospital gown. “Look” she said to Nurse Murphy. “Perfectly formed- it seems a pity to interfere, doesn’t it?” Nurse Murphy giggled.

“Now, young man” Nurse Brown went on. “This will feel very cold”. She swabbed the top of my leg with a hunk of cotton wool - and it did feel very cold - icy. Before I knew anything more, the hypodermic had gone into the top of my thigh. Not particularly near my balls but perhaps the drug could spread to there? Again the nurses went out, leaving me to my own thoughts. Rumours apart, did I know any other boys who had definitely had something done to them? What about Eadsforth, for a start. His penis was so short, he had difficulty pulling it clear of his trousers when having a pee. Or Lloyd? Lloyd was a bit of a mystery. A slim, rather pretty thirteen-year-old, he had a very small, tight-looking scrotum. Had his balls withered away? The other thing about Lloyd was that he used to be taken on bike-rides by the Head of his house, Ramsey, a red-headed bruiser in the First Fifteen. I didn’t connect these outings with the way Lloyd’s anus was sometimes visibly bleeding, in the shower.

These thoughts were interrupted by the return of Nurse Brown with a trolley. She gave me a pleasant smile. “Shall we go then? Doctor’s quite ready”. So there was more to come. She helped me roll on to the trolley, covered me with a sheet and trundled me out along the corridor to the theatre. Off the trolley, on to Doctor Hearn’s operating table.

Doctor Hearn was a heavily-built, grey-haired man, with tired kindly eyes. “Now then, soldier!” he began. “What can we do for you, eh?”

All of a sudden I’d had enough. Whatever was going to happen next I didn’t want to know. “I’d like chloroform, please” I stammered, on the point, I felt, of tears. “Please, chloroform!”

“Mmm” said Doctor Hearn. “Chloroform. Can you manage that, Doctor Metcalfe?”

“Of course” came a voice from the other end of the theatre, a place full of tubes and things. “Here we are, then”. A big cotton pad was pressed down over my mouth and nose. My world was filled with an overpowering sweetish smell, and my head swam. Round, and round, and round.....

How hot it seemed all of a sudden, and how hard the operating table had become - I was certain I could feel bare wood. Somehow without my noticing, they had taken off my hospital gown so that I was naked. And, what was this? My wrists and ankles were secured by straps to the table. How had they done that?

Doctor Hearn was not to be seen. There was another doctor, with his back to me. Perhaps it was Doctor Metcalfe, whom I hadn’t seen properly. He was talking to some people - I hadn’t noticed those either, when I was wheeled in. He was talking to them - apparently - about me.

“And here” he was saying “we have a boy - a nasty dirty-minded boy who has started to become a nuisance with girls. So I’m saying what’s wrong with castrating him? (Well, I’d never expected anything less. I strained to listen as he went on.) “I’m quite a specialist and I’ve done the operation many, many times. I’ve castrated dozens - hundreds - of boys. Youngsters who get above themselves like this one. The cause, just two little lumps between their legs.

“For a start, I get all juvenile delinquents sent to me, and feeble-minded children. Besides this, I’ve castrated choirboys to prevent their voices changing. I’ve castrated orphans so that they can’t inherit property under our laws. I’ve castrated others - I don’t know why, but my fee was paid so I did it all the same.

“There was the time when at one of the children’s homes in the city, the nuns said, would I select all the good-looking boys and castrate them, to prevent them becoming a nuisance with the girls. I moved in for a day and did them all! Why should the ugly ones have the advantage?”

People began to laugh; clearly the doctor felt he had his audience with him. In a quiet voice he went on. “Now and then, there’s a trade-off. There was an urchin who used to hang around my hospital, scrounging food. I offered him a deal: a full belly for an empty scrotum. That boy was gelded when he was ten years old - very minor surgery at that age. He’s become very useful as a hospital messenger and if ever he’s cheeky to the nurses they soon remind him of what he can never do. Boys as young as that quickly become impotent after castration”

The crowd had become quiet. The doctor turned around and I saw him for the first time - a dark-eyed, thin-featured man. “So, here’s our patient. Let’s have a look. Yes, just as I thought- exactly the right age for cutting out. I’ll just check I’ve got everything I need, then I’ll castrate this young Romeo of ours. He’ll be a perfect little cherub once his balls have been removed. Won’t the girls love him? All that beautiful fair hair, a voice fit for an angel, and quite harmless between his legs”.

“Won’t he still have longings?” someone asked.

“It would make no difference” the doctor said. “Historically, the old surgeons used to cauterise the wound with a hot iron afterwards. Besides checking any post-operative bleeding, it destroyed the spermatic nerves which control erections. And they knew a thing or two. After castration, the stronger the sexual temptation, the more the penis used to shrink! I use a laser-gun for the same purpose. Now, nurse, if you wouldn’t mind.......”

Something cold and metallic was pushed up into my groin. My penis was not fully numb and I felt it being threaded through a ring. The doctor was explaining again. “I put this clamp on to keep his penis out of the way while I’m operating. We don’t want to hurt that, do we?” (Someone sniggered). “Then this part secures his scrotum and when I do up the screw, his testicles are securely held and the cords are tightly stretched, ready for cutting out. Like this”.

He bent over me. “I use a scalpel to open the scrotum, like this - (a pause) then I lift both testicles free, with as much cord as possible - swab, please, nurse. Thank you. Then I use this little instrument which crushes through the cords instead of cutting them: it’s a miniaturised version of the one developed by vets for horse-gelding, where post-operative bleeding was once a common problem. Now it’s rarely heard of. A young colt gets his balls cut off and goes straight out to grass as if nothing had happened. Anyway, to carry on. I carefully tighten up the ratchet and.......there we are. Saucer, please, nurse. Then the same on the other side. And, there! He’ll never make another drop of sperm. Now to destroy his capability to raise erections, which is really what all this is about”.

Again my head swam. The doctor’s thin face grew fuzzy, dissolving into a mist. Again the hot room seemed to spin round and round. When it ceased spinning, my vision cleared. Where the doctor’s head had been, there was a lampshade, and I was no longer on the operating table, but on a bed, in the side-room where I’d been put earlier. My hospital gown had been replaced and there was a sheet over me.

I felt desperately hot and headachy. There was a carafe of water on a side table and I drank from it thirstily. I looked around- surely there was never such a boring room. The window panes were of opaque glass so nothing could be seen outside. There were some tattered picture books under the bedside table on a stand. I took one but found it depressing and quickly put it back. However, it felt better - cooler - out of bed. Much better. I took the pillow and lay on the bare floor. I closed my eyes - not to sleep but to ease the pounding of my head.

I should have to return to school, where everyone would know. I would have to show them, in the shower, in the changing-hut. I’d had my balls taken out - right out. The question was, why? I remembered that thin-faced doctor again, who had castrated hundreds of boys and in some cases, he had not known either, but his fee had been paid so that was that. In a little while I would have a look at myself, but not yet.

Footsteps sounded outside and Nurse Brown came bustling in. “Well, that’s a funny place to be!” she exclaimed. “You can’t be comfortable down there. Anyway, I’ve brought your clothes because it’s time to get dressed and go home. Away and do a quick wee”.

I went across to the lav, lifted my hospital gown - and winced. I felt sore, and not in the place I expected. My penis looked altogether different. Before, it had been rather long, tapering to a point. Now, it ended in a sort of dark pink acorn. The bit behind that was too sore to touch. The rest of me seemed to be intact, somehow. I couldn’t understand it at all.

Back in the bedroom Nurse Brown was sorting out my things, shirt, socks, underpants. She smiled. “Alright now?” she asked.

“My penis feels sore” I said. (Well, you could say “penis” to a nurse; they know about such things),

“It will pass off soon” she said. “You’ve been circumcised. The school doctor recommends it for all boys who have not had it done. He thinks its healthier, and we don’t argue, so long as the fee is paid.”

Where had I heard that before? Circumcised - that was all. Oh, it was all too much altogether. Hot tears came pouring out and I rushed to Nurse Brown, holding out my arms. “I wish I’d known” I sobbed into her ample bosom. “Why didn’t they explain? Oh, I wish I’d known”.