It had seemed like such a good idea. No, not good. Funny. It had seemed such a funny idea at the time.
Now, as Richard Hall sat on the tacky plastic sofa in the chilly white waiting room, tinny upbeat music washing over him, there was nothing resembling humour anywhere to be found on his face. He was pale, and drawn. His blue eyes were sunken into the back of his skull - he hadn’t slept in a week. He had to fight the urge to go to the bar downstairs and demand a pint of whiskey.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ the more practical part of him said, ‘you couldn’t afford it. And beside, drinking is what got you into this mess to begin with’.
He settled back into his seat and looked up at the massive screen which loomed over the room. It read ‘45’. He looked down at the small paper ticket the receptionist had handed him: ‘48 - RICHARD HALL - TOTAL EMASCULATION’.
Three to go.
He took another look around. Most of the other patients here were trans women - after all, this was a penis removal clinic. He was the only cis guy there.
Part of him - the more assertive part - wanted to march right up to the receptionist’s cage, stuff the ticket through the grille and stride out. He settled for adjusting his tie.
The door at the back of the room opened, and out stepped a very attractive woman and a man Richard assumed was her husband. She was in tears, overjoyed. Her surgery had gone better than she’d ever dared to even hope. For a moment, Richard felt happy for her. Then, he saw the screen count up to 46, and started feeling sorry for himself again.
The twenty or so minutes it took to get to 48 felt like a millennium. At one point a nurse, obviously noticing that he had now turned a rather unattractive shade of green, came over and asked ‘is everything alright?’
Richard felt fear and injustice and rage well up in his chest, and fuelled by these emotions, he opened his mouth and said ‘a glass of water would be lovely’.
As the nurse brought it to him, he reflected that he’d never been very assertive. Perhaps, he thought, that’s why I did this. To try and force myself to stand up for myself. Fat lot of good it did, then.
————————————
Dr Linton was tall and thin, wearing an impeccable tweed suit beneath his teal surgeon’s coat. His accent, like his nose, was slightly pinched and stuck up. His office was neat, almost scarily so - but that was to be expected. He did, after all wear a small blue badge which proudly proclaimed ‘ORDER OF SURGEONS OF THE PARTY’.
Richard lay still and naked on the cold steel table - not due to any sense of calm or even resignation, but because of a rather ingenious and secure set of restraints. Dr Linton was looking through his file.
‘Name: Richard Hall, age nineteen, sex male’ he raised his eyebrows and smiled, ‘though not for much longer’. He laughed. Richard didn’t.
Dr Linton carried on, unfazed.
‘Castration is a permanent procedure, Mr Hall. The primary effect is sterility, but that isn’t the only one. Without your testicles, you will be physically unable to produce testosterone, the hormone which regulates, among other things, bone density, hair growth, fat distribution, and penis size - though, that won’t be a concern for you, since you’ve elected to have that removed too. Had you kept it, then it would have atrophied - that is, the internal structures would have decayed and been reabsorbed into you body - and it would have shrunk to more or less the same size it was when you were born.’
He stopped for a moment, and took a drink of water. Richard wanted to ask for some too - his mouth felt suddenly and unexplainably dry - but he found he lacked the power of speech.
‘Of more concern to you,’ the doctor carried on, ‘is the fact that you will lose your sex drive. There are also some behavioural changes you can expect - I suppose you’ve heard of the “eunuch calm”. That’s a half-truth. Castration won’t completely annihilate anger - emotions aren’t ex nihilo products of hormones - but it does tend to reduce excessive anger and violence. Do you understand what I am saying, Mr Hall?’
Richard wanted to speak, he tried so hard to speak, but the words turned to ash in his throat. He eventually nodded his head - not as an agreement, but in the hope that it would knock something loose - but Dr Linton took it as such.
‘Excellent,’ he smiled, ‘then let’s get started, shall we?’
He flicked a switch in the corner, and the room changed before their eyes into a small operating theatre. Dr Linton put on his rubber gloves and mask, and extracted from a drawer a set of nasty looking implements.
He held up one - which looked to Richard far too much like a pair of pliers - and stepped over to the table where Richard lay.
Something about the sight of the doctor standing over him with a pair of pliers eager to remove his genitals shocked Richard back to life - he regained his power of speech and yelled ‘anaesthetic! Anaesthetic! Aren’t you going to give me anaesthetic?’
The doctor gave him an almost pitying look. ‘Sorry, but we’ve not got any. After all, there is a war on…’
Richard closed his eyes. He felt the cold latex gloves touch his penis. The doctor’s grip on it was gentle as he slid the cold metal ring around the base.
Then nothing. Forever and ever. Richard felt the world must of stopped. Everything was black and still.
Until the fire came. The burning which filled his mind. He screamed louder than he ever had before. A thousand years later, he something fall against his legs - something warm, and fleshy, but dead. He felt blood rushing out of his groin, and seeping between his thighs before dripping onto the table.
After a few moments he felt the dead thing being lifted, and he dared to open his eyes.
In the doctor’s hand he saw his penis - except, of course which a bloody stump at the base. The sight of it made him faint.
He came to a few minutes later, woken by a thin burning in the middle of his scrotum. For a moment, he forgot where his was. When he remembered, he convulsed.
‘Careful!’ Dr Linton hissed, and Richard obediently fell silent. The doctor reached inside his open scrotum - which felt horribly wrong to Richard - and managed to hook both of his testicles. He then pulled out something which looked like a net cutter.
The doctor let one of his testicles lay on his leg, and then guided the other up to the blade. After a few seconds, he yanked the testicle as hard as he could. The blade dug into his spermatic cord, and it hurt like hell - but it didn’t cut! Richard wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or angry.
The doctor examined the cutter, and then took it over to a small desk.
‘Blade’s gone dull,’ he said apologetically. A few moments later he returned, and grabbed the testicle again, guided it to the blade. He pulled - and this time, the blade sliced cleanly through, severing it forever.
Richard lay back. He was exhausted. He waited for it to end. He barely flinched when the doctor guided his other testicle across the blade. He just lay back. Taking it in.
He watched, half conscious as the doctor pulled up a copy of his birth certificate and then, with a deft hand, struck out the field ‘sex’.
He was a eunuch. Richard Hall was a eunuch.
——————————————
A few hours later, Richard strolled out of the surgery, clasping a small jar and a pamphlet, both of which he had been given in the recovery room. He began to walk back home. The tightly packed bandages in his underwear itched slightly, but he didn’t care.
He kept looking at the jar. In it, suspended in a clear alcohol, were his penis and testicles - his scrotum had been thrown away. For some reason, whenever he saw it, he smiled.
He felt giddy, he felt happier than he ever had - he felt alive. He had been castrated, and life had carried on. He broken into a broad grin.
He stepped into his small apartment, and put the jar pride of place on the mantel.
And then he sat down, and turned his attention to the pamphlet he had been given.
It read in, large colourful letters:
‘WELCOME TO YOUR NEW LIFE’.