Most men have a hard time remembering trivial bullshit, and things like their anniversary, their kids’ birth dates, and the maiden name of their wife’s mother just seems to escape them. Some things in life make lasting impressions though, and every guy will always remember important events such as the first time he jacked off, his first piece of ass, and the freedom associated with receiving his driver’s license, and no male ever forgets his Castration Day.

The day is officially known as Selective Service Selection Day, but since all those who will be inducted into the military must also be castrated, everyone calls it Castration Day. It always falls on a young man’s eighteenth birthday and all males born on that day participate. It makes no difference if it is a holiday of some sort like Christmas or Independence Day, and it doesn’t matter if the individual is sick or ailing, he must participate on the day he turns eighteen.

Years ago the males that would be allowed to breed as adults and those that would be castrated for military service were selected by lottery at birth. That proved to be a mistake, so national competitions were held at age twelve, when most of the kids were still prepubescent, but that provided an unfair advantage to kids who were early bloomers or whom had experienced rapid growth in childhood, so the age was finally changed to eighteen.

The preparations for a boy’s Castration Day usually begin early, with the parents making sure that the boy maintains an ideal body weight and by carefully monitoring their son’s educational development, although the boy himself usually doesn’t much give a shit about it all until he hits puberty and his nuts drop and his juices start flowing. About that time he and his classmates are given all of the details of the selection procedure, including an explanation of the handicap system that assigns penalty points for lack of educational development and excess body fat. That presentation usually kickstarts the boys into a regimen of rigorous physical training, and by the time they turn eighteen most are at the absolute peak of condition.

I still remember my own Castration Day vividly and even though it took place over twenty years ago I can still recall every detail. I didn’t get much sleep the night before, and even though my mom and dad tried to reassure me, I could tell that they were also worried. They were depending on me to produce a grandson for them to spoil, and should I fail the test they would likely never see me again, as I would immediately be inducted into the military and sent to the frontier, a place from which very few soldiers ever return. There was a Selective Service Center in my hometown, so they walked over with me the next morning to offer moral support and to try and cheer me up.

I got there a little early and spent the time checking out the other two-dozen guys that were standing around waiting for the center to open. I knew a few of them, of course, but most had been transported in from out of town and were absolute strangers to me. I was particularly interested in those guys who looked to be about the same weight as me, as one of them would be my combatant in the physical test. One guy had an arm and shoulder encased in a plaster cast. Poor kid. The weight of the cast would be considered as being part of his total body weight, and with one arm immobilized he would be penalized during the strength test, and coupled with his lack of mobility he was already as good as castrated unless his Personal Combat opponent was an absolute dolt, in which case their penalty points would cancel each other out. Another kid was extremely obese and had also probably shot his last wad.

Some of the guys’ girlfriends were there with them, both wishing them luck and scoping out other potential boyfriends in case theirs’ didn’t return. I already missed Martha. I had been told in the prep courses that I had taken and in the summer camps that I had attended that guys shouldn’t jack off or have sex for a week before their test and it had been that long since we’d been together. She wanted to be there with me but I couldn’t stand seeing her again if I lost.

The door finally opened and we a sort of filtered into the room. An Army guy took roll call, noting that one guy was absent. Tough shit. Whomever it was that was absent would be hunted down and summarily castrated without even getting a chance to test himself in personal combat. The identification numbers tattooed on our forearms were checked against our imbedded microchip identifiers and then were carefully compared to those on file before we all took our seats in front of the computers for the first part of our tests.

We were each given two hundred and fifty questions to answer, supposedly picked at random from a master list of over ten thousand questions, and no two of us had the same questions. The questions covered all areas of knowledge, including math, physics, chemistry, literature, art, history, and even covered subjects like folklore and common sense. There was a five-hour time limit imposed for the test, and I had been told during the prep classes to answer all the easy questions first and then spend the rest of the time on the tough ones. Each correct answer was worth four points, so a perfect score would be one thousand. Each wrong answer would literally weigh heavily against us when it came time for the personal combat test.

I was on the way back from taking a piss when I happened to notice the kid in the cast. He was staring at his monitor forlornly. He would never finish the test on time using only his left hand to type in the answers. He would be just as well off walking away right now and spending the last few hours of his term as a male either jacking off or getting a blowjob from his girl friend. There was no way that he would be leaving the induction center as a man.

I had completed the test and was rechecking my answers when the warning bell sounded, followed by the computers shutting down five minutes later. I felt that I had done all right. I knew I hadn’t aced it; I didn’t have a clue what the maiden name was of the second wife of former President Jeb Bush, and the chemical composition of Amoxcillan eluded me, although I was sure that I would recognize it if I saw it. I was able to at least answer the other questions, and I had studied enough to where I was pretty confident that most of my answers were correct.

Next came the all-important weigh-in, which would determine who would be my opponent in the Personal Combat portion of the test, then the body fat analysis and strength tests, which were combined with scores from the just completed test to determine how many penalty points would be assessed. Looking at me now you wouldn’t believe it, but I was in good condition back then and wasn’t worried about either the weigh-in or the strength test.

We were escorted to a large open room that held several long benches, some weight lifting equipment, and a half a dozen doors along one wall. We then all stripped down naked and placed our clothes in bags labeled with our identification numbers. We would spend the rest of the day naked. The staff was notorious for looting these bags, so most guys wore only simple shorts and tee shirts and cheap shoes to the center. Those selected for military service would have no further need of their civilian clothing, and the others would have theirs’ returned to them at the end of the day.

I looked around the room at the other two-dozen naked guys and tried to estimate who might be closest to my weight. Most of us were actually about the same size. There were a couple of guys who were on the small side, and they would no doubt be pitted against each other. The fat guy was trying unsuccessfully to keep is massive gut sucked sucked in while at the same time shielding his diminutive genitals from view with his hands. The other heavyweight, a huge guy almost seven feet tall, was eyeing him scornfully, not even bothering to conceal his growing erection. He was certain that the fat kid would be his combatant and that it would be a quick and easy victory. A victor can take certain liberties with the person he has subdued, and this guy appeared to be looking forward to something special.

One by one we all stepped up to the scale, bare-assed naked, for the weigh-in. I tipped the scales at one hundred sixty-two pounds, which was duly noted on my paperwork. Next a special machine that measures body fat scanned me. I came in a six and one-half percent. Excellent. Finally I was shown to a weight bench, where I demonstrated the ability to press one and a half times my own weight. No Problem. I was clear of that important step without accumulating any penalty points.

I couldn’t see how much the guy with the cast weighed, but I could see that he wasn’t happy about it. The device used to determine body fat regarded any excess weight as being fat, rather it really was fat or plaster from a cast made no difference in the calculations. He accumulated even more penalty points in the strength test, as working one handed there was no way that he could ever have pressed the required one and a half times his body weight. I overheard him telling another guy that he’d wrecked his flyer a month ago, and that in another month he could probably ace the test. Tough shit. Flyers are a lot of fun, but also dangerous, and if a guy is dumb enough to risk getting injured anywhere near his induction test day he deserves whatever the outcome might be.

At last the weigh-ins were completed and the results calculated. “One hundred and sixty two pounds,” the Army guy finally announced, “1062587, Miller, step forward.” I stood up, anxious to me my opponent. “Test score, nine sixty, physical penalty points, none. Total penalty points, forty.” Not bad. My opponent would have to be pretty sharp or lucky to beat that, and if he had many penalty points at all I was home free. “1063261, Jackson, step forward.” I craned my neck to see who it was, and after a long delay the guy with the cast on his arm stepped forward. “Test score six sixteen, physical penalty points, one hundred forty four. Total penalty points, five hundred twenty eight, net difference four hundred eighty eight, forty-nine pound penalty!”

I was so happy that I damn near pissed on the floor! They subtracted the forty points that I had missed on the test from the total points that he had missed, added his penalty points, and then divided the result by ten. Not only would he have to fight me with one arm useless, but he would also be saddled with having forty-nine pounds of lead weight tied to his nuts! I was as good as home free!

Jackson reluctantly stepped up for the attachment of his weights. We had all practiced combat with various amounts of weight tied around our balls, and he was in an impossible situation. A pound or two could be managed without much difficulty, but forty-nine pounds? No way. He’d have to be hanging on to the weight with his good hand all of the time, and with only one arm that worked he would essentially be defenseless. He fidgeted around as the weight was attached. The soldiers that man the induction centers have all been castrated and they have little patience or mercy for guys who still have their balls. The slightest provocation is enough to cause them to surreptitiously punch the guy in the balls while they are clamping on the weights. It is hard to hold still and let a guy mess with your nuts, but we had all practiced that very thing during the seminars and summer camps that we had attended.

Jackson finally struggled back to his chair, carrying his attached weight by its built-in handle. He tried sitting there holding it, but was slowly slipping to the floor, so I got up and gave him my chair to support the weight.

The weighing in and attachment of penalty weights was finally completed, and a guy formally explained the Personal Combat test. We all knew what the procedure was, but like a policeman reading a suspect his Miranda rights, he had to say it and we had to listen. The tests would take place in one of four small private arenas, and no spectators or judges would witness the fights. Each contestant was issued a two foot long piece of stout cord. Each pair of combatants would enter the arena together and fight until one was subdued, at which time the victor would usually tie up his opponent using both pieces of cord. He would then ascend a short ladder and remove a castration package from the bin. The package contained a short length of rubber tubing that was to be used as a tourniquet and a small plastic slicer with a molded-in razor blade. The severed testicles and scrotal sac were to be placed in a pass-through chute, after which time a door on the opposite wall would open to allow the victor to exit. If no winner was produced after thirty minutes of combat the attendants would enter and castrate both contestants.

The fat kid and the big guy were the first contestants. The fat kid was even worse off than Jackson. In addition to being a fat slob he had also screwed up his test, and it was all he could do to carry the eighty pounds of lead penalty weights that were clamped around his balls. The dig dude was now fully erect, all eight inches of his boner bobbing out in front, leading him into the arena. The walls were insulated against sound but we could still hear the fat kid scream. Twice. The light over the pass through chute finally came on, indicating that the fight was officially over. An attendant verified the contents, and then held the bloody evidence out for all to see before opening the door and allowing two stout medics to enter and haul the blubbering lard ass out so two more contestants could use the arena. He was face down on the gurney and it was apparent that the castration hadn’t been his only degradation. He would eventually end up on the frontier and would probably be captured by the enemy, at which time he would become intimately familiar with the indignity that he had just suffered.

Our names were finally called. This was it. I rose and confidently walked to the arena, followed by Jackson struggling with the lead weight fastened around his testicles. The door closed and we were on our own. I had rehearsed and planned this moment for a long time, and my plan was to make a feint towards my opponent’s crotch, and then nail him in the head with a high, roundabout kick, stunning him so I could tie his hands, and finally his feet together before castrating him. That was a best-case scenario, of course, as my opponent would no doubt have some moves of his own planned.

As it was, Jackson simply walked to the middle of the arena and sat down on the padded floor and offered me his cord. “Get it over with,” he said, resigned to his fate. There was no way he could even put any kind of defense with one arm was immobilized in a cast and fifty pounds of dead weight attached to his most sensitive parts. He couldn’t stand without supporting the weight with his good hand. He was effectively reduced to sitting on the floor.

I tied his one good hand to his leg behind his back and scaled the short ladder to retrieve the castration pack. I twisted his piece of rope into a short plug and told him to bite down on it to protect his teeth and keep from screaming. His balls were already pulled out from his body by the penalty weight, so it was easy to stretch and wrap the tourniquet tightly around his scrotum.

The castration tool has a slot about an inch wide at one end and tapers down to where a razor blade has been fixed. I gently grasped his captive balls, noting that although he was basically smaller than me his nut were larger than mine. I worked the slicer over his scrotum below the tourniquet, and then hesitated. He bit down hard on the knotted cord and nodded his head. I held his balls steady and gave the cutter a quick yank.

It was all over. I had spent the last five years preparing myself for this moment. I had ran countless miles to condition my body, and had spent thousands of dollars of my dad’s money attending prestigious preparation camps and attending fighting seminars and I had sparred daily with both professional trainers and my classmates so I could have the very best chance possible of winning. It had all been wasted. A trick of fate had matched me with an opponent who had simply surrendered his manhood. All of his hopes and dreams for the future we now a piece of dead meat that filled my hand.

I placed his severed genitals in the chute and closed the lid. A minute later the door in front of me buzzed open and I left the room, never to see Jackson again. My parents and Marsha were waiting by the door. Dad shook my still-bloody hand and offered his congratulations, and Mom hugged me tight, only to be startled by something hitting her in the belly. She looked down and blushed: She hadn’t seen me naked in over ten years, and had never seen me sporting an erection. Marsha had, however, and she would both see it and feel it hundreds of times in the next twenty years.

All men remember their Castration Day, and most sit around the taverns for years afterwards and relate to whoever will listen all of the details of how well they fought. I guess I’m one of the exceptions, because I have never told anyone the particulars my victory. My son will face his Castration Day in less than a year and I have prepared him in every way to face a tough opponent and wage an all out battle to save his balls. I can only hope that he will be as lucky as I was.