Following nullifucation due to cancer, a eunuch calls a doctors officer for a follow-up visit that could become something special or end in more frustration ...
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“Good morning, Urology Specialists. This is Teressa. How
may I help you.”
The voice was sweet, and obviously young, and made the
muscles in my chest constrict even more tightly around my ribs. I
had been dreading, putting off making the call but when I called
back to my doctor in Dallas he had prodded me again to do so. I
cleared my throat.
“Yes, uhm, hello. My name is Rick Tilman. I need to make an
appointment.”
“Fine. With which doctor?”
“Dr. Eddington, please.”
“Have you seen Dr. Eddington before?”
“No, I haven’t. I was referred to him by Dr. Smith in
Dallas.”
“It’s nice to see Dr. Eddington has a reputation that
spreads all the way to Texas.”
“Yes, I guess he does.”
“Are you having any particular problems, Mr. Tilman. Or ?”
I wanted to say, Hell, yes, I’m having problems! Huge
problems! I left my dick and balls in a metal bowl in Dallas; I
piss from between my legs -- just like you, honey buns; and I’m
never, ever going to get any more pussy -- including yours,
Teressa, you sweet sounding little thing.
Instead, I took a deep breath and said, “Uhm, well, the
truth is, uhm, I had cancer and was operated on about seven months
ago. They had to remove my, uhm, my, uhm, male equipment.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Dr. Smith just wanted me to establish a, well,
a ‘relationship’ with a urologist in this area to monitor the
situation. Mainly, I guess, in case I get any UTIs.”
“I like, totally, understand,” said Teressa. “I had one
last summer and I was miserable for days.”
“Yes, I had one not long after my operation, and was not
happy.”
“I bet.”
“May I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Does Dr. Eddington treat other men in my situation?”
“I’ve only been here two months, just since I graduated
from the CNA program at the community college. I know of at least
two others, though.” She paused. “But I’m not sure if he had
everything removed. I think they may still have their balls.” I
heard a little gasp from Teressa. “Ooops! Sorry. I meant testicles.”
I chuckled. “That’s OK. That’s what I call ‘em, too.”
Teressa sighed, relieved. “Hey, but you know who could tell
you a lot more? Becky. She’s our office manager and Dr. Eddington’s
head nurse. I just saw her go by. She’s been with him, like,
forever. She’s really nice, though. Would you like to talk to her?”
“Sure. I suppose.”
“OK, Mr. Tilman. I’m going to put you on hold for a minute.”
“Fine. And Teressa, thanks.”
“Oh, no problem. Good luck!” she told me, bubbly as a
cheerleader, as if living with the permanent loss of my genitalia
was a race to run and won. “Becky will transfer you back to me to
set up your appointment.”
I held on the line while Elton John sang “Rocketman”. When
I placed the call, I had not planned to get into any big dialogue
about my situation, and certainly not with women. But Teressa
seemed friendly and not too shocked by my revelation, and I did
want to be sure that I was going to see someone who had a solid
background in treating men with penile cancer. Beyond any urologic
problems I might have, I wanted to be sure that Dr. Eddington would
be on top of possible signs that the cancer had returned.
When the line picked up an older voice came into my still
nervous ear. “Good morning, Mr. Tilman. I’m Becky Collier, Dr.
Eddington’s nurse,” she said -- professional but friendly, and
younger than Teressa’s quick bio had indicated. “How can I help
you?”
“Did your receptionist tell you my situation?”
I heard papers shuffle on her desk. “Just that you’re new
to the area and have recently undergone a penectomy due to cancer.”
Becky Collier, R.N., reeled off the word -- penectomy -- as
easily as most people would say appendectomy or lyposuction. I felt
a little twinge of anger and my voice came out flat and hard. “Yes,
and a bilateral orchidectomy and prostate removal.”
I thought I would impress her with the extent of my
emasculation, and I suppose I did. She paused. No more shuffling
papers. “I am sorry. I know it must be very difficult for you.”
The splinter of anger slipped away on the sincerity of her
voice. “Yes. Yes, it is.”
“How long ago was your surgery?”
“Seven months.”
“What stage was your cancer?”
“Stage III, penile.”
“Do the doctors feel there were adequate margins for long-
term success?”
Nurse Collier was asking in diplomatic med-speak whether
the doctors removed my dick fast enough to save my life, or whether
the cancer was still eating me alive.
“You of all people should know how doctors are when it
comes to cancer,” I replied, just as diplomatically. “They wait
five years before deciding whether any treatment was a success.
But, in general, they think my prognosis is good.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear it,” she said, and her voice told
me she really was. “Now, how can I help you?”
“Obviously, I feel rather, uhm, awkward about my
situation.” I paused by Nurse Collier made no comment. “I just want
to make sure that your office, Dr. Eddington is experienced in
dealing with men in my condition. Especially in regards to the
cancer. Teressa said you’d been with the doctor forever, so --”
Becky Collier laughed. “She did, huh? ‘Forever’? I guess
fifteen years is ‘forever’ when your nineteen.”
I chuckled. “I have to admit, you don’t sound quite as old
as the mountains.”
“Some days I feel it, though. You sound rather young
yourself, for penile cancer. It’s a good deal more common in older
men.”
“Yes, I know. Guess I got lucky. I’m 41.”
“Ohh, Mr. Tilman, that is young to be dealing with
something like your surgery.”
“Rick. Call me, Rick. I only discuss details of my penis,
or lack thereof, with women who call me by my first name.”
She laughed again. I liked making her laugh, and she was a
woman who enjoyed laughter, I could tell.
“All right, Rick. To answer your questions, our urology
group and Dr. Eddington in particular have a great deal of
experience dealing with penectomy patients. We’re the largest
urology group in the state and Dr. Eddington has a national
reputation, so we get referrals from all over the state and along
the border of surrounding states as well,” she said, as if reading
from a resume. “Dr. Eddington works with everything from pediatric
cases -- like when a baby boy is born with a retracted or deformed
penis; to teenagers and men who’ve suffered traumatic injuries --
gunshots, car wrecks, farm accidents, chain saws.”
“Chain saws?”
“Don’t ask.”
I wanted to ask, but let it pass.
“And he also sees at least 10 to 12 penile cancer patients
a year. Not all of them have undergone or need radicals such as
yours,” she explained. “Probably 80 percent are partials, but we
see and do our share of radicals as well.”
“Do you assist Dr. Eddington in surgery?”
“Yes, I do.”
I was silent a moment, remembering Dr. Smith’s surgery
nurse, looking down at me with eyes more pale blue even than the
scrubs and mask she wore. They were competent, confident, kind eyes
that could not hide a hint of sadness, knowing what that masked
band of men and women were about to rob from me. The jewel theft
that was about to occur. I lay there then, and sat at the kitchen
table holding the telephone receiver now, fighting to remember the
gift they’d left behind -- a chance at life, to fulfill other
dreams that did not involve sex or marriage or children. Every day,
every hour, every time I took piss I had to fight to remember that.
Sometimes I won the fight and sometimes I cried.
Nurse Collier seemed to sense in the silence what I was
feeling. “How are you handling it, Rick?”
“Handling it? Why, Miss Collier you of all people should
know, I don’t have anything TO handle anymore,” I tried to joke.
She waited a beat. “Becky. Call me Becky.”
“OK, Becky,” I managed through a lump in throat. She waited
again, not pressing, not in a rush; she had, or was making time for
me. “You know, good days and bad,” I finally said. “Some days I
hardly notice it, except for when I take a shower or go to the
bathroom. Other days, it’s -- Every minute is torture.”
“Are you menopausal?” she asked, knowing I would not be
able to take a testosterone supplement since I was a cancer
patient; and that castration often caused a man to suffer the same
sorts of symptoms as a woman during “The Change” or following a
hysterectomy.
“On and off,” I said. “Some weeks I go through hot flashes,
night sweats, insomnia, headaches -- the whole nine yards. Others,
nothing. The biggest side effect has been weight gain in my hips
and thighs. I’ve got a bigger butt now than my sister!”
Becky Collier chuckled. “Welcome to the club. I’ve been
fighting the Battle of the Butt for years.”
“How’s it going?” I asked, trying to picture the woman who
went with the voice.
“I’m winning. For now.”
“What about your chest?” she asked, knowing that another
side effect of castration without hormone replacement could be
slight to complete breast development.
“My nipples are puffy and sore all the time, but no fatty
tissue forming behind them -- yet.”
“Good. You don’t want to have to be dealing with that on
top of everything else. We can help you keep it that way through
diet and other medications that don’t involve hormones.”
“Oh, good!” I enthused, and meant it. Breast development
was a possibility of which I was fearfully aware. Outside of
medical personnel, I had told only one person -- my sister -- about
my emasculation, my neutering, my “nullification” -- saying, “Sis,
I guess we have a lot more in common now.” Denise had force a smile
as she nodded and brushed a tear from her cheek. Even though Becky
Collier was a nurse experienced in the field, it amazed me that I
was conversing so casually, so easily with her. I had said more,
warmed more to this total stranger in five minutes, than the sex
therapist I visited for three months after my surgery.
“How are you doing with your urination?”
“I’m sitting!” I teased.
“Silly! I figured that. I mean with your sphincter control.”
The sphincter, I had learned, was the small knot of muscle
at the mouth of the urethra that allows a person to control his or
her -- or its -- flow. “It’s a lot better than it was,” I told
her. “I had to wear an adult diaper -- all the time! -- for almost
two months after the operation. God, I hated that! I felt so, just
so completely out of control. Almost helpless.”
“Hey, fella, I definitely can relate. My second child had
no mercy on me when coming into this world. My sphincter was
totally messed up. I had to wear a diaper every minute of the day
and night for almost four months after I had Brittany. I was
wetting myself more often than she was. Like you say, you just feel
so helpless when you can’t control that very basic element of your
bodily function.”
So, Becky Collier had children. And probably a husband with
a 10-inch dick that she loved to climb on and -- I pushed the
fantasy out of my mind. “How is it now?” I asked.
“Oh, that’s been nine years ago. About a zillion Keigles
later, I’m basically fine. I wear a mini-pad when I go to the gym
because when I really push it, I can leak a little. But that’s not
uncommon for a lot of women.”
So, Becky Collier is friendly, loves to laugh, her youngest
child is nine, and she works out at the gym. “How often do you go?”
I asked.
“To the bathroom?”
“No!” I laughed. “To the gym?”
She laughed, too. I was becoming intoxicated with her
laugh. I didn’t want to go to work or put down the phone. I just
wanted to sit there with a second cup of coffee and share with
Becky Collier all the fears and pain and frustrations I had felt
since that first awful day in Dr. Smith’s office when he had told
me I had cancer and that I would have to have my penis removed.
“Oh, I get there a couple of times a week, if I’m lucky.
Between two energetic, athletic kids, a full-time job and a little
volunteer work I do at my church, it doesn’t leave a lot of gym
time for Momma.”
“What about your husband? Can’t he help out with the kids?”
I was fishing and I knew it. I wondered if she did. If she
would sense that for the first time in months this dickless guy on
the other end of the line was actually enjoying talking to a woman,
was actually interested in a woman again.
“If I could find Jack, he might help. But I doubt it. Kids
and marriage never were his thing.” There was no rancor in her
voice, not the bile that so often bubbles in a woman’s throat when
she talks about her ex. She’d been hurt, but moved on from it, I
could tell. “We divorced five years ago, and not long after he
disappeared to duck the child support. Now it’s just me and
Brittany and Jack Jr. Lord, I wish I had possessed the foresight to
name him something else.”
If she knew I was fishing, Becky Collier had readily taken
the bait. Had opened up a door onto her life, and more than just a
crack. I hurriedly fumbled for something to say, not wanting the
beats of silence to settle into good-bye. “We can’t know what the
future holds.”
“No, we can’t. So, what about you? Are the Keigles doing
their job?”
Keigles are isometric exercises often used my women after
childbirth when urinary leakage is a problem. Very simple, they
merely involve squeezing and holding the muscles of the crotch,
releasing and repeating over and over and over and -- “I guess
they’re working, slowly but I hope surely. No more diapers or thick
maxis. I’m down to a mini-pad now, but still have to wear one
constantly and change them four or five times a day. Anytime I
laugh, or strain or sneeze, I leak a little.”
“I know it’s frustrating for now, Rick, but that’s pretty
typical for seven months post-op. Just keep doing those Keigles, as
many of them as you can possibly do every day,” she advised. “Give
it a year. If you’re not down to just one or two mini-pads a day,
or maybe just a pantyliner, then talk with Dr. Eddington about
other remedies. There are drugs, such as Ditropan, that can help.
And if those don’t, Dr. Eddington can go in and tighten your
sphincter surgically or even install an artificial sphincter, if it
comes to that.”
“Really?”
“Yes, he’s done a lot of them.”
I heard buzz in the background. “Rick, can you hold for
just a minute, I need to pickup another line.”
“Of course,” I said, terrified that she’d return to “our
line” and tell me that she had to go. I could feel the energy of
the conversation winding down, but I didn’t want to say good-bye.
Not yet. I looked for something else to say, a question to ask that
wouldn’t seem too invasive and yet would test just how comfortable
she was with a dickless guy, with me. When she returned, I
said, “May I ask you something?”
“Surely.”
“You know, I had to wear the diapers, then I went to a maxi
pad. I didn’t feel like Pudgy the Clown anymore with all that
diaper padding and plastic bloomers gone from around me, but it
still felt like I was wearing a log between my legs.”
“You got that right,” she sniggered. Not quite a laugh, but
close enough.
“Now I’m down to the mini-pads.”
“Much more comfortable, right?”
“Yes, much. The problem is, when I went from the diapers to
the pads, I needed something that would hold them firmly in place,
so I won’t leak around them,” I explained. “I used to wear men’s
brief’s, but --”
“With your hips, your flatness down front, they don’t fit
anymore.”
“Right,” I agreed. “My sister bought me a bunch of panties.
No, no, nothing lacy or frilly or pink. Just plain white briefs
with some elastic in them so they’re snug and keep my pad in place.
They work fine,” I paused, “but --”
“They’re still panties,” Becky filled in.
“Yes.”
“And your not comfortable in lingerie?”
“Well, I -- No, I guess not. I --”
“Good for you,” she told me. “You’d be surprised how
effeminate many men become, and sometimes very quickly, after your
type of surgery. We have several patients that to look at them, you
can’t tell whether they are men or women. We have others who retain
they male identity in half their life, but dress and live as women
in the other half. And we have a handful for whom Dr. Eddington has
performed complete sex changes. Vagina, the whole deal.”
“He does that?”
“Yes, and it’s really amazing! They come back for check
ups, put their feet in the stirrups, and if I did not know better,
I would not have the slightest idea that they were not born female.
It’s just, well, incredible!”
“Wow! I bet,” I told her, leaving out the fact that more
than once I had held a mirror between my legs and wondered what it
would be like, if I wouldn’t be better off to have a have a set of
full, thick lips smiling down at the glass, instead of just the
dime-sized circle of muscle near my anus. But those thoughts
slipped into the background when I heard Becky Collier say, “I’m
proud of you, Rick, for wanting to hang on to your maleness.”
“Thanks,” I said, sounding a lot more confident about that
possibility then I felt.
“Anyway, Rick Tilman, you are talking to the right girl
when it comes to helping with your underwear problem.”
“Really?”
“Yep, I’ve got just the thing for you. They’re called
SheBoxers,” Becky told me. “I know, you’re not crazy about the
name, and I suppose, since they’re marketed to women, they’re
technically ‘panties’, but they’re nothing like what you think of
as women’s underwear.”
“How so?”
“They come in three styles -- longline, which is just above
your knees, mid-thigh and shorty. The shorties have legs with
elastic cuffs that come down about two inches on your thighs and
they fit and look just like a pair of tight men’s briefs,” she
explained. “Except with no fly, of course. And with the legs like
they are, no pantylines either.”
“That last part is good to know,” I told her, and we
laughed together, our voices mixing in the moment of this casual
yet incredibly intimate encounter we were sharing. I already could
imagine Becky Collier in the shorty SheBoxers, the front flat
against her tight belly, the material stretching over round, firm
hips she thought a tad too wide. I felt a strange tingling around
my pee hole. I wanted to hear her say it. “Are those what you wear?”
“Yep, as the matter of fact, I have on a pair of black ones
right now,” she told me as off-handedly as if she were telling me
what brand of coffee she used. “They come in black, white, skin-
tone and, I think, gray.” The tingle raced through my flat, empty
crotch. “I have some of all three styles,” she went on as I became
aware of the tightness of my fingers on portable phone. “The mid-
thighs are great under jeans. The longlines are too hot for summer,
but they’re really cozy in the winter.” Suddenly the prickly tingle
died as unexpectedly as it had arrived, as I realized Becky Collier
was conversing with me about her underwear with the same ease she
might suggest a brand of pantyhose to a girlfriend. There was no
reason for her to feel awkward about such talk, after all, as I was
no longer a member of the opposite sex. In fact, I had no sex at
all, and who would know that better then Becky Collier, R.N. Just a
round, flat crotch and a pee hole between my legs, ohhh, so similar
to any woman, and to Becky herself. “When it’s cold, I like to wear
the longlines with knee-highs. But I guess you won’t be doing
that,” she chuckled, but something had gone out of her laugh for
me. I felt sad, and foolish that I had even imagined that, despite
my dickless state, Becky was flirting with me, intentionally
matching me tease for tease. No, it wasn’t that, I decided. It was
just a intelligent, professional, probably attractive divorcee/mom -
- woman! -- trying to make a eunuch feel more at ease in his de-
balled condition.
I forced down the lump in my throat. “Gosh, I hadn’t
noticed the time,” I told her. “I have to get to work.”
“No problem. I’m the one who was rambling about the wonders
of SheBoxers,” she said and quickly gave me the name of the local
department stores where they could be purchased. “If the clerk
looks at you funny, just tell her your wife looks soooo good in
them, you just want her to have more.”
I smiled in spite of the heaviness that had settled into my
chest. “Look, Becky, thanks a lot. I really appreciate your help.
It’s been really nice to talk to you.”
“Yes, you, too. I’ll be looking forward to meeting you when
you come in for you appointment.”
Oh, my God! I thought. That’s right! I’m actually going to
be meeting her. “Uhm, yeah, me, too.”
“Good. Then I’ll transfer you back out to Teressa, if you
have time to make the appointment now?”
I hesitated. I had told Becky Collier all about my pathetic
crotch, my ass like a girl’s, my over-inflated nipples. And she’d
seen it all before, probably dozens of times. Yet, there was
suddenly a part of me that did not want her to see the sexless,
empty swatch between my legs. But I did need a local urologist,
and, yes, I knew no matter how untouchable Becky Collier was to me,
I badly wanted to meet her.
“Yes. Yes, please do transfer me back to Teressa. I’d like
to come in as soon as possible.”
(to be continued/if anyone is interested)