Pete's Balls: The Dividing Line

Remembering that this is the Vernal Equinox, a time for changes, I remembered this one from the way back machine. It's about changes, two men, a problem and how they resolve it. 

Note that this is not sex on the run, on the golf course, in the motel, it's about two guys, their sex and a difficulty they face. It's always amused me, think of it as a sitcom about sex just with no laugh track. 

My hope is you'll enjoy it as much as I did many years ago writing and, okay, just now, reading it again.  PJ

My best friend's wife called to ask if she could come round, mumbled something about needing my help or some such. I don't much care for her but over the twenty years they've been married, we've rubbed along...after all, I am his best friend, not hers, and as she's not the sort of person who entertains or goes out we seldom see each other. We can be overly civil to the point of seeming to be good friends but I suspect we're both putting on an act albeit a very good one. However, her request for a meeting was a first, mentally I chalked it up to perhaps planning a surprize for Pete; His 45th birthday was soon and perhaps she'd decided to do something about it.

She was a few minutes early and almost before she got into the foyer it was easy to see she was clearly agitated, even forgot she didn't like me and gave me a perfunctory kiss-that in and of itself was surprizing, the last time we'd done that was at her wedding. She dropped her wrap on a chair, accepted, indeed seemed glad to be offered a drink and waited for me to get one for each of us and sit down. About half her drink went down in two swallow, looked at me and said, "Pete wants to be Castrated."

I dropped my drink. In moments like this the perfect response is "Uhm" which is what I said and she pressed on. "He's been at me about this for months and now....I'm afraid he'll go do something and just have them...lopped off. He's so impetuous."

Not the Pete I knew but I could find no reason to interrupt her with a dissenting view..

"He's says he's tired of being..." she stumbled over a word she loathed..."horny all the time. He says everything sets him off, fire plugs, trees, meat at the butchers, he says he can just see his ...you know.....nuts....hanging there with a price of so much per pound. Just everything and I'm so afraid I'll open a door and I'll catch him....."
I helped her out. "Masturbating? Jacking off? Wanking? Playing with the tube sausage?"

"God, yes. He does it everywhere, even at the table he'll pull itout and...you know. Plays with it underneath the table, he just forgets to eat and one time he forgot he had food in his mouth and.....He found some sort of sex sheets in that sort of catalog for sex things for sex; He said you could wipe them off with Mr. Clean."

I had to avert my face. To an already improbable situation she'd just added a note of domesticity that was the counterpoint to everything she'd just said. Perhaps if it hadn't been Mr. Clean....

"I guess I don't know what you want me to do...I'm not really comfortable telling him his own wife told me he wants to cut off his nuts..."And I thought about his nuts from both the observer's and the consumer's point of view. Pete and I had been having casual sex since we were in college. He married her, not a wise decision, as he was quick to tell me. She was a boring sex partner and he usually"shared" that piece of information just before I fucked him or he sucked me. Quid pro Quo. Sex didn't define our lives, we were both in business-the same firm as it happened-did quite well and our time together was by our own convenience and, I suppose, on occasion, sex. Pleasant as those time were, it was clearly information I needn't share with her. Ever.

"Bill, what can you do? I can't discuss it with him, you're his best friend and I don't even know how to talk about this...this kind of thing."It occurred to me that much as I didn't give a shit about her, she had a point, a good one. "Even with you I'm embarrassed." Her face was flushed the sort of happy red one associates with Christmas, the spirit of giving, having things taken away...What was disconcerting was that she was now framing this in terms of what I could do or should do or something.

"Uhm"that helpful word again..."If he comes to me and If he wants to talk about it then, sure, I'll talk to him but I'm like you, this is from outer space to me...apart from...uhm...being in a rut too much didn't he say anything else? I mean, you're his wife, you just don't say, 'Honey, guess what? I'm gonna have my balls whacked off. Surprize!"

She'd finished her drink and I poured her another one as much to buy some time for me to think and to give her a moment to further compose her thoughts. I decided that "In Vino Veritas"and as Veritas was not for us tonight, I tossed some ice cubes and water in my fresh glass and let some very expensive single malt Scotch work its way through my carpet into the padding. She accepted hers almost gratefully and got around half of it in one gulp. Based on the conversation, I doubted that she needed her tongue loosened, we'd passed that point and all I could wonder was...what the hell was next?

"I don't know, it's so puzzling and I didn't have time to think, it was just so startling"...no arguing that one...."and he looked so hang dog, frustrated, talked about changes in his life and how frustrated he was but...with what or whom or why...he just sat there and I didn't know what to do either so I told him we'd discuss things tomorrow night at dinner."

Apparently this was a reasonably fresh conversation.

"I just needed some time..." and, I would bet, so did he.

The problem was that whatever else, I was now in this unfunny sitcom of unwelcome sexual manners. But I did have the instant thought that if any one was going to cut them off, it would be me. And a random picture went through my mind. Pete was tied to a table, nude, and I was at the stove making some sort of sauce telling him just as soon as it was properly thickened and the bouillon was boiling, we'd get ready for me to have him for dinner. I found it oddly erotic and had to put a throw pillow over my lap.

Again, "Bill, what are you going to do? " But the answer, throw him on the floor and fuck his eyes out, wasn't designed to be of any help so I did the cowardly thing and said, "Uhm".

Later that evening I did see the man of the hour when, after she'd had several more drinks, he came by to collect his peacefully sleeping wife. Of course I had something to say to him and that was, "Tomorrow, here, noon." He nodded dumbly hoisted her over his shoulder and left. Some days are more difficult than others.

I watched the semi-unhappy couple stagger down toward the driveway and was interested to see he just dumped her in the back of his SUV; Apparently her car was to have a sleep over at my house. He didn't bother to wave so there was nothing to wave back to, just slammed the door, went back inside, fixed myself a quadruple-all through the evening, after the first one got depth charged, I'd been sticking to lightly flavoured soda water which meant that I was totally compos mentos all ears to hear her tale of confusion and a gaggingly long list of increasingly stupid complaints about Pete. Two hours in to her ongoing whine I was ready to step into the kitchen, cut my balls off, return, drop them in her drink just to see if that would shut her up. If this was his home life I began to see how frustration and, of course, her being a lousy fuck, could contribute to some wild ass thoughts. Castration seemed a bit too wild assed but I hadn't heard his version. Yet. That was to be feature of noon tomorrow and while I was interested to hear more than I'd already heard, I was also vaguely annoyed at the whole situation and how it ended up in my lap.

On the other hand, if that was what was really on his mind, I'd rather have some up front warning; I for one wanted his balls to stay where they were. Years of looking up, straight across or down and seeing them there had led me to a certain reassurance as to status quo. Normally I have a ritual before going to bed, I think most men do, but this night, I started stripping on the stairs and by the time I reached my bathroom was naked, stood there taking a piss-I live alone so the lid is never closed and the seat only rarely down-gave it a good shake and headed for my still unmade bed. (I have a housekeeper who comes a few times a week and does things like the laundry, changes the sheets, cleans the bathroom, makes the bed, leaves a list of cleaning supplies I/she needs and then leaves. I haven't seen her in years but she's still cashing my checks, the house is clean and there are no complaints, why do I need to see her? Last year I needed to call home on a day when I knew she was there and...neither of us could recognize the voice of the other.) I'll say this, she knows how to make a bed a man wants to sleep in, lots of pillows, all of which can be thrown on the floor, thick quilts, soft sheets and the room temperature turned down to sixty five so getting in and getting warm is a pleasure. Also there's nothing tidy about it, you never feel that you've "made a mess" if you roll around, toss out pillows, have "nocturnal emissions" or just rip it up. Tonight was no exception. I rolled up in a quilt, tried to get comfortable and then something came to me that at once satisfied and frightened me: If anyone was going to cut Pete, it was going to be me. I'd earned the privilege. And with that bit of imperfect logic I was suddenly exhausted, having solved the problem and dropped into deep sleep.

Morning at my place was, in so far as was possible, standard issue. The automatic coffee pot worked, the toaster worked, the refrigerator door worked, the orange juice tasted like orange juice....but none of that explained why I was stark naked drinking a cup of coffee, lining up toast, orange juice (when you live alone you drink it straight from the container and don't give a fuck if there are crumbs in the bottom of the toaster.) and whatever else seemed to suggest breakfast. Just for the hell of it, I jerked off into the garbage grinder and wondered if I could get Pete's balls in there. It sounded sort of gruesome but, what the hell, what I was being put through was sort of gruesome.Somehow I managed to slide a hand and an arm around the front door and grabbed my paper without revealing "my nekkid shame" to some small minded neighbor. Equally, I couldn't find any reason to get dressed. Sat at the table, ate toast, drank juice, drank coffee and in an uninterested sort of way read the front page. We are, I believe, blessed with one of the worst papers every printed. No matter how serious things are in the world, their front page will always feature some inane picture they consider to be spiritually uplifting; A child blowing fluff from a dandelion, a fountain with the pool reflecting clouds. Sitting there with it in hand was no reason to read it, just get it off the front porch so burglars won't think I'd gone away.

What I did do was think about the interview to come in a few hours. I'd never thought much about what sort of relationship I had with Pete, he wasn't my boyfriend or my fuck buddy and while he and I had considerable history and the sex was almost incidental-something we'd always done, no problem. He was that friend in which you find you have part of your life invested and he has in yours. It isn't just secrets or longevity, but the deeper, almost minuscule things that tie you together forever. And maybe, to be honest, maybe I did love him and again that brought in the unfortunate topic of sex.

I looked out the window and, unusually, it was a ravingly beautiful day, the light sparkled on the pool, the lounges seemed inviting and so, grabbing a kitchen dish towel, I wandered into my own back yard, dove into my own pool, paddled about and slid up out of it in front of my own meter reader from the gas company. It's at that moment you realize how insufficient a dish towel is for maximum coverage. Of course he's a guy, I'm a guy and it is my backyard but it's the sense of the thing.Or not. I walked side ways to the door to the kitchen and he, smiling a lot more than was really necessary, read the meter, left and went back to the street on the path between my garage and that of my neighbor. My morning as a nudist was officially over. As I climbed the stairs I collected shoes, socks, a tie, shirt, pants from the previous evening and found myself in my bedroom. Just for the comfort of ritual, I showered, shaved, washed my teeth and then remembered it was a Thursday and, I had every reason to believe, I would be expected to have dropped in at the office somewhat earlier-around the time I was joining Esther and Fernando in the pool. Using my private line, I called Parthy, my secretary, and not infrequent co conspirator, and told her to think up some sort of credible lie and remember to tell me what she'd told the next day. Owing her something, I said there'd been a slight emergency dropped in my hands. She said she completely understood, Pete also was taking a day off and we were going to play golf. I said something like that and let her handle anyone looking for me. That cleared up the day.

I'd told the candidate for eunuch-dom to drop by around noon and, as he was pretty prompt, I assumed he would be there on time. That gave me about three hours to do research, try and think what I was going to do and then wonder how I would do it?

The thing about research is that it can provide answers even if sometimes in an elliptical sense. By 10:30 I knew more about castration than I'd expected to know in my life. What I was interested in, specifically, was how it was done. Technically, I knew you could take a knife, grab the sack and slice them off but that was not only slightly barbaric but could lead to shock and then to death. Even without his nuts, I wanted Pete alive and well so the knife wielding mode was out as was a clean, surgical hospital setting. One of the things that I learned was that, unlike many surgeries, castration was not one you could just drop by your neighborhood Urologist and sign up for. There were a few doctors in the country who did them, a few more who would do them for patients who were on the road from being a male to being a female. I may have missed something in conversation but never had I heard him say he wanted to be anything but all boy but...without his balls was he? It wasn't time to get into the philosophy of it so I kept at the methodology of nut cutting in contemporary America. Indeed there was an under ground group know as "Cutters" who would drop by and remove your testicles, sometimes free of charge IF they were allowed to film the excision for, I assumed, sale, collecting or showing.Also these cutters didn't advertise and getting to one wasn't something I could do between now and a rapidly approaching noon.

I was just starting an article from a medical text on where to make the first slice in the scrotum and then remove the testes when Pete showed up. A bit grim, not the smiling face of the man I had about decided I loved, well, loved enough to turn him from a stallion to a gelding.

Either that or I really had to dislike him and I knew that wasn't the case.

"I'm here, per your instructions. I suppose you've got a speech prepared...."

"No, actually, this is hard for me....I want to hear why and I'll listen I promise I will'cause, well, you see, I thought a lot last night, oh not when she was running you down, but when I was laying in bed and I finally looked myself in the face and, Pete, I love you."

"I..."

"No let me finish. I love you like I always did but just didn't get around to telling you.Sure, the sex was great, but the time with you was greater. Didn't matter what we were doing, just being with you was what counted. You don't know how happy you made then and make me now and whatever happens, will in the future." We were both very quiet. I looked at him and tears were running down his face.

"I guess one of us had to say it first and somehow, I knew it would be you. Shit. I don't remember when I knew I loved you, maybe at my wedding but...then it was too late. I saw your smile as my best man but I also saw how pained you were, what a mistake you knew it all was but...that's why we make mistakes. At least we love each other, would've been awkward if it hadn't worked out that way." And I saw a bit of a smile.

"Yeah, would have been.So now we have another problem. Forget her, Last night when she was listing all your faults I wanted to off her, Jesus she's a bore.."

"Did she mention she blames me for not having children...? That's been her big rap for years, fuck I think she expected to get knocked up on our wedding night or at least some night on the honeymoon-Jeez I wanted to take a honeymoon with you, not her, go hunting or play golf for two weeks or just...."

"Yeah, woulda been good.We still can, now that things are going to change."

"I gotta talk to you about that. See, for over a year, I've just been strangled with sex, I want it day and night, I don't care how, and she wants it put on a schedule. I know I did things I shouldn't have done like jacking off at the table...."

"I had to look away when she told me that, I swear I was going to laugh...."

"...and then, then it was like some mania came over me, I wanted to jack off all the time, and, worse, I was always ready and loaded....I 'spose she told you about the sex sheets..."

"Uh, they were mentioned. As was the Mister Clean...."

"And then it came to me, if my balls were cut off, I wouldn't be almost addicted to sex, wouldn't flog the log at stop lights, Jesus, I'm amazed I wasn't arrested a few times for indecent exposure. I took terrible chances, one night at a dinner given by the mayor, black tie, I slipped my dick out and shot in a coffee cup and licked it up. Oh, she knew what I was doing but...it was great I loved doing it. And then I'd come here and, well, you know what happened here...."

"Yeah...but it seemed to stop happening. I thought maybe you'd, I don't know, found another guy or...."

And he threw himself on me. Grabbed me round the waist and almost forced my mouth open with his tongue. It took a while to unsnarl the bodies on the floor. He was pulling off his clothes and concurrently almost ripped the buttons from my shirt. It was get naked time alright, second time today.

"I want you, now, hard, up my ass and then do it again. 'Member how you could stick your fist up there? Well, put some hot sauce on it and punish me, wash my nuts in it, my cock. Turn me over your knee and spank me until I bleed.Let me show you how sorry I am I waited to tell you I love you, I'll do anything, anything...." And he got busy with the end of strip-o-rama and was rolling on the floor, my cock in his mouth, his hand kneading my ass....clearly we were going to be busy for a time.

Finally I calmed him down, got him situated and mounted him, not as usual, but with a straight shot as deep as it went. He groaned but his ass grabbed me and I could feel his prostate with my cock head. He writhed, groaned, screamed to be fucked, shoved back at me so hard I almost fell out.He got rabbit fucked and the the long, slow in and out strokes. I put my hand over his mouth and nose so he couldn't breath and that just set him off more and, rather too quickly, I could feel his abdomen begin that spasming that says a guy is on the threshold and is primed and ready to shoot. I pulled out, rolled him over just in time to go down and drink down what I'd just milked out, staying to lick the length of his log, looking for those bits of pearls of him, I wanted all of him in me, If I could have had his child, fuck, I would have. And then we lay there.

"Couldn't do that without your balls you know." He was quiet.

"But I'd have you to fuck me....and...you said you love me...so..."

"And I do I'm just pointing out that your fun is going to be somewhat limited. You can't tell me you haven't enjoyed many, many trips astride my tail playing caboose. You used to measure how deep you could go. Remember when we'd take calipers to see whose nuts were the biggest around and how about the time in the market when we dropped our pants and tried to weigh 'em in one of those hanging fruit scales. Neither one of us had many to the pound. And all that stops if you have 'em whacked off and another thing....If you want it done, I'll do it,I love you that much. Right here in this house on the island in the kitchen. I've read up on how and it's easier than I thought and not too painful....." He was in awe .

"You'd do that for me...."There was a blinding moment when something I said hit home..."You really do love me, you really do...." Somewhere Sally Field was not smiling.

"Yep, well, that's been established. And, by the way, I know you love me so we're equal. And now could we get up? I mean doing it on the floor is great but lets move on to my shower, get cleaned up, have another session in bed or go play golf. Or both. I've got Parthy spreading the word that I'm not there and you can call in sick or nuts or both..."

"Shower, I want you soapy and warm and slick to the touch. I want to scrub you, shave you, go down on you...."

"And I want just the same for you...."

The thing about golf in a crisis is that it offers wide open spaces to make terrible mistakes, swear every other word and all will understand that it's golf and it's frustrating so all of that's just the norm. Guys wave and make sympathetic gestures when the one you hit sails off the course and there's the distinct sound of window glass in a car being broken in a parking lot. But it's also a good place for deeply personal conversations as it's not forced and every so often it has to break to play the damn game and that can be a good thing as it provides a moment to concentrate on something else which lets you get a fresh perspective on what you're talking about. And, the way we played it, there was no structure, no rules of golf to be attended to; Fuck the USGA. We made it a point to tee off on the first hole and always finish on eighteen but in between we played holes as they became available. If we were behind a foursome on six, we'd scoot through the bushes and play an utterly empty sixteen. Eventually we go all eighteen played just not in the order suggested. And, what the hell, we seemed to find the on course relief stations where we went in and sought, uh, relief. Some times even took a piss.

Over the course of the game I explained to him what I would do the following day-no point in putting it off, he'd wait for this for a long time. I'd have him secured on the island in my kitchen, his head propped up so he could see just exactly what I was doing and in about an hour...it would be all over. He would be an official Eunuch and I'd have a film I could sell for quite a lot of money. I told him I'd have papers for him to sign, releases, waivers, documents that certified he was under no duress, this was his choice, I was his best friend and I was only acting under his requests and instructions. All of which was fine with him.

Back in the club locker room it was just as it always was, horsing around with some of the other guys, trash talk about our various teams and what had become a new function, a sign of the times. Admiring new tattoos or piercing.We had dinner in the club grill room at what was called the "round table" as it was where all the unattached men sat, or, to be more accurate, men who were there without their wives. The usual chops and corn-really corn is the vegetable of the human male. Show me a man who doesn't like corn and I'll show you a man of whom I'm suspicious.

I neither know nor care what he told his shrew of a wife. I don't even know whether he let her know he was with me-which oddly might have calmed her. It was a brief conversation and then we had the evening ahead of us. Pete was getting the jitters and scattered from television to a laptop back to television out to the kitchen,back to the sitting room until finally it was getting to me. With some little effort I hauled him up the stairs, stripped him and threw him in bed, carefully putting cuffs on his wrist, an act he always liked.

"Now sir, you and I are going to have one last rodeo. All bets are off, and we can do whatever ever we want. The object is to fuck each other as many times as possible, you cannot leave the bed and, yeah, oral and anal are in play however you wish to play them. Got that? I slugged him with a bed pillow and went right in. Must have been at it a good two hours, course there'd been some pauses for romantic interludes but, all said, no one could complain about what they got or what they received. Finally I had him on his belly and was straddling him when I announced victory and also a final shower just to get the sweat and other bodily fluids sluiced off .

All clean and fresh, I tucked him into my bed, said I had few preparations for the next day and try to sleep. It sounded almost juvenile when I said it but I did, "You've got a lot to do tomorrow so I want you well rested."He snuggled in, his eyes shining with love and, I have to admit it, anticipation. I kissed him, turned out the bed side light and went down stairs. For all my talk about "preparations". I had everything I needed, read it over and was sufficiently tired to return to upstairs to join my best friend, the man I loved on what could be the last night before his life as a complete man came to an end.

The next morning I had him stay in bed, the usual, nothing by mouth, no food. I went off to prepare the "surgery" and suggested that Pete use the time to jack off, beat off, jerk off to his hearts content as that activity was going to come to an end unless he went on steroids and then, I was careful to tell him, what he'd produce was just a thin, watery fluid, no bright white, no viscosity but at least he would "cum"in a manner of speaking. Leaving him and a box of tissue to do whatever he wanted, I went down stairs and got the island ready for the deed to be done. I had a large sheet over it, worked out how to tie him down, not for any fetish sake but to prevent him from bucking as the deed was done, got a bag of sterile water, all my tools and...I was ready. Up the stairs and told him to get in the shower and carefully, thoroughly shave his groin from his navel to his ass and part way down the top part of each thigh. I told him to come downstairs in a T shirt and some warm socks and we'd get started.

He looked shaky, but determined and, as he sat on he edge of the island, I checked to make sure he was thoroughly shaved. I had a surgical razor that I'd acquired from some where in the past and I did some touch ups just to make sure. And then we were ready.

I helped him onto the flat surface but made sure his torso was elevated so he could watch what happened. His crotch was just at the edge of the island and his legs were spread and tied down as well as a strap around his chest to keep him from jumping and I had his hands secured to the side of the island. I looked at him, "This is it. It starts now. What do you want me to do...."

It wasn't a strong voice but he said, "Go for it, lop 'em off". At which point I began to paint the area with Beta dyne solution for sterility, tied his dick and secured it to his belly and then pulled out what he didn't expect. I knew that Pete assumed I'd get a scalpel and just dig them out however in all my reading, that was one of the more dangerous ways so I'd found a better, just as effective method, an elastrator which was a device that placed a very tight ring at the top of the scrotum which prevented blood flow. The testicles died in a under an hour but, as opposed to cutting, it was far safer, just as effective and saved him a lot of blood and pain. Not that it didn't hurt, it did, but overall it was a better choice. For something even quicker, I could have used a burdizzo which was clamped over the cords and cut them inside the flesh. Thirty seconds per side but wildly painful and I couldn't do that to the man I loved. What I was doing was hard enough....

I showed him the elastrator, explained how it would work and let him watch as I loaded it with the hard rubber ring into the mechanism, which was something like a pair of opened pliers, held the ring in readiness as I picked up his scrotum and began to load it through the hole in the elastrator band. I was careful to get it as far back, as close to where his sack joined his body as possible. The last thing I did was to gag him; I wanted both of us to suffer in silence.

"Ready?" He nodded and I released the handle and the ring snapped closed. It was the first time the pain really hit him and he writhed which was why I had him strapped down. It was hard to stand there, my eye on a clock knowing as the minutes went on he grew closer to losing his balls, in some sense, my balls but when you love someone....

I could see him watching his scrotum begin to turn colors, first to a deep red and then on to purple. I knew the darker it got the deader they were but said nothing. But I didn't need to.

He began to violently shake his head, plead with his eyes seemed to indicate he has something to say. I hesitated. I knew he was in enormous pain but stopping now and starting again, later only made it hurt just as much, maybe more. But..I pulled the gag

"Can you stop? Are they dead yet? I want you...."

Without bothering to answer I grabbed the tool that cut the hard rubber ring and let blood flow back. It hadn't been too long and while he was going to have a lot of pain for a while he would have his/our balls. I fell on him, crying but it was the only way I could have done it. Logic, talk, whatever I could have said would have been meaningless, he had to be close to losing them, know I would do it out of love for him and have the impact of what it all would mean before he could back down.

Three years later, he's happily divorced, lives openly with me as a gay couple, we stroll naked in the back yard and have even encouraged the meter reader to strip if he wants and take a dip in the pool. The only reminder is a slight scar around his scrotum where the elastrator was and, oh yeah, the tattoo that I got him that goes around the same place, one dashed line that every so often says, "Cut Here".