http://www.eunuchworld.org/view.php?storyid=14277 

by Paolo


The doctor watched patiently as the business end of his intern's scalpel moved, perhaps a bit slowly for his liking, finally finishing its task of neatly severing the remaining frenulum of the small penis upon which it had been working. He glanced at the white cone over the unconscious patient's face, dribbled a small droplet of ether onto it to make sure that the boy didn't awaken (what a disaster that would be!), and surveyed his young protege's handiwork. He lent a hand in sponging away a bit of blood, nodding in approval at the neatly, and quite tightly, completed circumcision.

“Now, stitch that just so,” he advised his assistant, nodding.

“It's not too much off, sir?”

“It's never too much,” Dr Michael D. Carver replied, noting that the scar would be very near the body, “Trimming as tightly as possible will ensure that the job doesn't have to be redone later in life, once the boy grows a bit.” He paused. “Besides,” he added wryly, “It's not as if he'll ever need any extra skin down there, later, to accommodate erections, now, will he?”

“I certainly haven't ever, Doctor Carver,” the young surgeon answered, neatly stitching the wound so that, once healed, the underside of the boy's remodeled penis would be completely smooth.

The ironically-named Dr Carver nodded again. It was an old joke, he knew, perhaps one of the oldest from his days back in medical school. That was, if one could call his education 'schooling'. The good doctor, as townsfolk usually referred to him, had been educated by his predecessor – and not formally at a university. Just as he was, now, teaching his own successor. A few forged documents, a favor from a fellow at the courthouse who owed him some, and no one would ever know.

It was necessary. After all, the doctor knew, no one made it out of life alive. Eventually, The Blue Creek Home for Foundling Boys was someday going to need a new Administrator / Doctor / Teacher / Headmaster, and overall Jack-of-all-trades.

And Dr Carver had indeed found an apt pupil in this boy.

He considered the irony of names again as he took in the neatly placed stitches, noting how well the young man had hidden the mark that indicated where he'd severed the dorsal penile tendon as well. The ring of stitches around the shaft looked just perfect, the younger having applied his skills at mending worn clothing well. In fact, the sutures rivaled the doctor's own in quality. When fully healed, the patient would be left with a small, ever-flaccid organ that wouldn't ever suffer from discomfort during erections. In fact, the boy would never have erections. That was, as soon as they were finished with him.

And they were not yet finished.

“Now, making sure you cut the inner and outer layers, make a short incision down the raphe – the center line of the scrotum – not too long, mind! Just enough to allow the testicle to pass through,” Dr Carver reminded him, “Spare the sutures later!”

“Yes sir, it's not the first one I've done, you know,” Carver's protege reminded him, rather bravely, the doctor thought, with a smirk. Carver returned the look, remembering a day when the young man wouldn't have dared been so cheeky with him.

They all grow up someday, he thought.

In fact, this was the third castration that one Dean Fairchild had performed since turning sixteen that year. Dr Carver had decided, when Dean had been but ten years old, that he'd found his successor to his life's work. The boy had been interested in his medical books ever since he himself, and their one and only Nurse / Housemother / Accountant / Jill-of-all-trades (Dr Carver rather liked that joke), one Elizabeth Graves, had taught little Dean and the other boys in his small age group to read. While other boys were interested in gruesome fairy tales of knights and dragons, Dean had been going on about spleens, kidneys, bladders, and the like.

And 'fair' he'd been, too, Carver recalled. He'd entered the world just as quickly and quietly as his mother had exited it, there in the makeshift delivery room at Blue Creek. With almost no hair, which would later grow in as a light strawberry blond, and only two or three cries of infantile disapproval at the whole state of affairs of being born, the baby boy had closed his blue-gray eyes and gone right to sleep in Nurse Elizabeth's (“just call me Liz”) arms. His mother, on the other hand, had gone to sleep on her final push and had not awakened again.

It's a boy, Madame. Looks like we won't have to make a trip to...Madame? Excuse me? I know it's exhausting, but are you absolutely sure that you want to leave him with...Madame?

She's dead, Mike!

It had been just as well, Carver had assured Nurse Liz, as they all called her. “Back on her feet, and back on her back, soon as she's up to it, after her next cycle, and be right back here in ten or eleven months to see me, she would! Do this all over again!”

“You're awful,” Liz always reminded him, and it was true – to some extent.

Doctor Michael D. Carver was a hard man, in most cases, even though no boy at Blue Creek would ever say or even think that.

Names, Carver thought to himself, How silly they are! And rightly so. Blue Creek, after which the home was named, was neither blue nor a creek. In Carver's opinion, it was a brown-and-green river that hadn't fully realized, in most stretches, that it was just an overgrown creek. For the past sixty years, he'd listened to countless boys argue whether the body of water was a large creek or a small river. To Carver, it didn't matter. The silly thing provided fresh water to the home's wells, provided entertainment in the forms of swimming, boating, and fishing, as well as providing free food in the form of whatever the boys could catch. It also spun a waterwheel, which generated just enough power for a few electric lights.

“Well, that's not good,” young Fairchild observed, deftly fishing out a small testicle from its warm and tight pouch and flicking his magnifying lens down from his headband for a closer examination. “I don't see why we don't wait a bit, until we're older and a touch bigger, sir,” he complained, “Be much easier to get a hold of things, wouldn't it?”

“And give the boy more time to mature, or maybe even figure out what these unwanted bits are used for?” The doctor countered, “I hardly think so! The earlier the better, Fairchild! You know that!”

“Yes, sir,” The younger surgeon agreed, as the doctor joined him in examining the soon to be extricated testicle.

“Do you even remember your surgery?” The doctor wondered.

“Not really, sir, I was only – what? Five or six, like Elliott here? Like most, I guess, I just woke up in bed with a small hurt, but it healed up. I didn't even know what had happened until years later, sir.”

“Somewhat small, malformed, I wonder?” Dr Carver pointed out, changing the subject, and offering to hold the clamp, once he'd given the patient another drop of ether. “Not you, the testicle, I mean! You take much longer here, and we'll both pass out! Then what'll we do?”

Fairchild tied off the cord, giving it a pull, and tied it again, higher up. He then snipped between the ties, burnt the end just to be safe, and watched the cord vanish back up the inguinal canal. The other testicle, much better looking than its twin, met the same fate a moment later. Both were deposited in a small kidney-shaped bowl for later dissection, to further Fairchild's education of anatomy and disorders of the male reproductive system.

“Any need to reduce the scrotum?” Carver asked.

“Not on a six year old boy, no, sir,” Fairchild answered, neatly stitching the short cut closed and applying some alcohol and a small bandage. When the boy awoke much later in the afternoon (Carver liked to do surgery first thing in the morning), he'd only notice a dull ache between his legs and be back up and about in a week or less, complaining the whole time about being bedridden. It would be as if nothing at all, or nothing worse than a skinned knee or wasp sting, had even happened to him; the boy would go merrily on his way with his pals, blissfully unaware of what he'd lost – or the things that he'd never do in life. He'd certainly never bother girls and make babies, and that was the doctor's main objective.

“It won't even be winter, before he grows a bit and the empty thing shrinks up to nothing but a patch,” Fairchild diagnosed, “He'll look like he never had any to start with.”

“Very good,” Carver nodded, “Anything else?”

“Well, he won't be shaving, or starting any babies,” Fairchild answered, the usual reply, which made them both smile. “Is that it, then?”

“You cut the dorsal nerve?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right, you just go and start the examination, and...”

He was interrupted by the approaching sounds of wailing and thudding footsteps, which could only indicate that Nurse Liz was en route with an injury. Not an unusual occurrence, given the home's ever-increasing population of boys. Castrated or not, boys would still be boys. Theoretically...

“Sounds like Davey Robertson,” Carver sighed, “Again!”

“Robbie Davidson, sir,” Fairchild corrected him, rolling his eyes, as Nurse Liz arrived with a tearful, scruffy boy in her arms. He was dressed only in a pair of short overalls, faded and patched, and his brown haystack of hair was in desperate need of cutting.

Wonder she didn't cut her hair and go out for men's sports, Carver thought of his nurse, turning the just-castrated Grant Elliott over to his assistant. Fairchild grabbed the other table, upon which a burly Nurse Liz would deposit the bleeding boy, all of ten years old, and with a splendid rip in his index finger which still harbored a trident fish hook.

“I'm really getting tired of stitching you up, boy,” Carver warned him, shaking his head at the mess that the rather dirty little urchin was making of his white décor. He doused the finger in alcohol; Robbie screamed.

“Don't you piss yourself, we can't afford diapers!” Nurse Liz warned him.

“Crown of the head, another finger, bottom of the foot – that was a real joy – left butt cheek, right palm...what IS it with you, Richard?”

“Robert, sir!”

“Least you're not cutting anything off,” Fairchild joked, which lightened the mood. It was a running joke at Blue Creek, in fact, since the only foreskins and testicles to be found were on the breeding buck rabbits of the home's farm, as well as one ornery billy goat and an equally pernicious ram. After all, Carver reasoned, boys needed meat to eat and geldings didn't sire.

However, it was his firm belief that boys didn't need to sire, and therefore, didn't need their testicles. No, not a single boy at the foundling's home had a completely intact set of male genitals.

Doctor Carver was a firm believer in circumcision, as well as castration. The former, he'd learned first hand during the war. A circumcised penis, in his opinion, was a much tamer and more docile member. This belief had also been confirmed, many times over, by having to treat too many cases of what he called 'cock rot' at the battlefield. The lustful urges of those uncut men would drive them into the arms of any dirty camp follower. As punishment for each venereal disease, circumcision had proved a timely cure. The attendant pain and difficulty in masturbation following the snip proved a powerful reminder to the men, when their lustful urges returned. After circumcision, very few men returned to the tents of the camp followers.

If they're not invading the country and shooting up the locals, then they're leaving behind legions of illegitimate war babies! That, or when they're not raping and whoring, they're sitting around fiddling with it while there's work to get done!

“It just ain't the same,” some of his former adult male patients would complain, after their circumcisions and various states of surgical repair.

“Well, you're the one what went and got it to rot, now, aren't you?” Carver would retort, “Would you rather I'd have chopped the whole thing off? Go around sticking it into holes, what with God-knows-what in there! You don't know where that thing's been, man! Maybe now you'll think twice!”

He also thought the surgery helpful in reducing unwanted pregnancies, as any circumcision done properly (in his book) made sexual intercourse not nearly the pleasurable and fun pastime that many men and expectant boys thought it to be. There were, he thought, enough foundlings in the world already, without running the risk of making more because sex was easy and also felt nice.

Doctor Carver was hardly alone in making such an obvious connection. The esteemed Doctor John Harvey Kellogg of Corn Flakes Fame had published, “A remedy which is almost always successful in small boys is circumcision, especially when there is any degree of phimosis. The operation should be performed by a surgeon without administering an anæsthetic, as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind, especially if it be connected with the idea of punishment, as it may well be in some cases. The soreness which continues for several weeks interrupts the practice, and if it had not previously become too firmly fixed, it may be forgotten and not resumed.”

Kellogg was a man much like himself, Doctor Carver liked to think. Carver admired the great man's dedication. His upright and pure marriage completely unsullied by the carnal acts. Kellogg himself had adopted dozens of orphan boys. Like Carver, Kellogg knew the wickedness of lustful thoughts and shameful deeds of the young. Like Carver, he swiftly acted to prune those offending parts from his charges.

Doctor Kellogg's health campaign to end the unnatural and destructive urges of the young were an inspiration to Doctor Carver. A dog eared copy of the great man's book, Plain Facts for Young and Old held a place of honor in Carver's small library of medical books. He read it often, reading and rereading those passages closest to his heart.

Where Carver and Kellogg parted spiritual ways was in regard to castration. Where Kellogg was more willing to wait and see if those destructive vices returned to a boy before proceeding with the removal of the offending stones, Carver knew well those urges, if left unchecked, always would.

For a boy, even one tightly pruned by circumcision, the desires generated by the blossoming of manhood would inevitably prove too powerful. Trimmed or not, they would be pushed on by carnal desires. Kinder to remove the source before it becomes a problem.

Evolution, recently uncovered by Professor Darwin had shown that traits of the parents were always passed to the children. It was an indisputable scientific fact, no matter what the religious naysayers thought about it. Poverty, idiocy, insanity, and suffering of all sorts was the biologically proven destiny for the abandoned boys in his care. For the human race to prevail those of lesser stock needed to be removed from the gene pool. A quick and humane castration was far kinder than entire generations of poor and suffering offspring bringing down their entire species.

It was beyond dispute that circumcision and castration solved both of those problems, the doctor would be happy to tell you! In a state free from the dual temptations of sexual sensation and animal instinct his boys went on to be productive members of society. Without their flawed genetic heritage driving them to ruin they were more focused, and much more able to contribute to the betterment of all. Freed from their destructive biological urges, Doctor Carver's boys thrived.

The latter subject, well, now that was a rather subjective matter that wasn't universally accepted, despite the obvious good.

Many a night, the good doctor would ponder his ideals about castration, and his habit of enforcing it. Although he never let on, wearing the appearance of the salty old curmudgeon as easily as his favorite old coat, the doctor was actually a quite contented man. And if he were content in life, he reasoned, then why wouldn't anyone else be, too? In fact, everyone else in the somewhat distant town of Blue Creek found him quite agreeable, and besides, it wasn't just the unwanted waifs, foundlings, wards, orphans, and other assorted castoff boys he'd taken in at the home that had benefited from his beliefs. No, no – in fact, he'd been called upon to perform the dubious surgery for any number of young would-be Romeos, a few too-young fathers of the aforementioned lot, chronic masturbationists (so he called them), oddly injured lads, boys who didn't like girls, and even men whose wives had had quite enough of bearing children - and of husbands who caused this problem!

Logically, he reasoned, all of the above should be just as content as he himself had been when he'd been castrated at Blue Creek some fifty-five or so years ago by the doctor he'd replaced. In fact, if he'd not been a eunuch himself, Carver reasoned, why then – Fairchild might be his own son! They were a pair, in fact, and he'd gone so far as to name Dean Fairchild with his own middle name.

He thought of names again, now that Robertson's (or was it Davidson's?) finger was repaired. He glanced at Fairchild, now deep into his dissection, and scribbling notes. Usually, the task of picking names for infant boys left in their care fell upon Nurse Liz. Baby boys delivered there at the home were named, of course, and boys too little to remember being left there were given a new surname. Nurse Liz, however, had the unfortunate tendency to favor certain names. There were at least five Jacks, six Johns, a host of James, and even an unfortunate set of triplets named Tom, Dick & Harry.

Yet there'd been something about Fairchild, he recalled. From the moment he'd cut the unusually agreeable infant's umbilical cord, he'd noticed it. Not that he put much stock in things like fate, karma, or spirituality of any sort. He'd simply liked this baby boy very much, which was, Nurse Liz had reminded him for years, quite out of character.

“Well, he's really a pleasant baby, isn't he?” He justified it. “I'll call him 'Dean', since he seems to be all-business already! Never pees when being changed, doesn't cry, coos and smiles all the time! I think he likes me!” Dr Carver justified it, who, as Nurse Liz pointed out, had developed the tendency to carry baby Dean around with him all day long.

But even though he'd never admit it, Michael Carver had often wondered what it would be like to have a son of his own. Being a doctor, of course, he knew the mechanics and biology of it – even though he'd been rendered incapable of both when he'd been about as old as little Elliott. Hell, he hadn't even known about The Topic, as he referred to it, until he'd been nearly as old as Fairchild was now. One would have thought, that tending livestock and breeding them, that he'd have made the connection: the bull mounts the cow, but the steer doesn't. The bull has testicles, and the steer doesn't.

Some boys figured it out, some didn't.

Some asked about it, most didn't.

In fact, the boys simply didn't even think about it. Carver knew that he hadn't. He made a note in his log, a rather large and old, somewhat battered thick book which he kept in the roll-top desk in his small office just off the infirmary. Grant Elliott, aged 6, typical radical circumcision and castration, he noted, leaving a note to himself to record more, once he and Fairchild had finished examining the boy's malformed testicle. Best to find it and get it out now, he reasoned, before it could rot or turn cancerous and spread. One testicle malformed, dissection needed. He closed the book. “Hell, this is just the F-G-H-I-J volume,” he snorted. He logged the date and time, adding: Surgery splendidly performed by Intern Fairchild, Dean.

Best to get the boy castrated, he also reasoned, before he could discover that it felt good (so he'd read, and been told) to fiddle with it, make it get erect (hard, stiff, a woody, some called it), or God-forbid, want to go sticking it in a girl and perhaps making a baby! That was, after all, the worst case scenario. In all his years as a surgeon, he'd certainly seen enough of the results of that particular action gone bad: stillbirths, babies strangled by umbilicals, blue babies, deformities, distraught parents, mothers (like Fairchild's) who died of the labor without ever seeing their child, and fathers who might or might not have given a damn less about the arrival of their offspring. Not to mention the ones who sought illegal abortions, which Carver refused to perform, and the ones who simply sought him out to dispose of a live and perfectly good baby boy on his doorstep.

Madame, if you shall carry the child to term, you shall be compensated! If you'll sign here. However, I will not murder an unborn baby just for the sake of your comfort! Perhaps next time, you'll keep your legs closed?

Of course, the latter were never refused by Blue Creek, no matter how young. Never mind the fact that women for miles around knew that they could simply “cross the river” and be relieved of their problem. In fact, most of the population of Blue Creek had been born there, never even having seen their parents. Then again, Dr Carver had delivered most of the town's residents as well. Sometimes he came home from a delivery call alone. Sometimes he came home with the baby.

There were other benefits to the castration surgery as well, Carver knew. From his own boyhood at Blue Creek, he knew, there would be no need of razors and the time and expense of teaching boys to shave and the like. There wouldn't be awkward questions and “The Talk”, about where babies came from, as there'd be no desire for it on their part. “Men can make babies, like the animals do, but castrated boys like you can't, and don't even want to,” was all there was to say about that.

There'd be little to no acne, no funny squeaking voices, no disgusting sweaty body hair, and no unpleasant odors that fully intact men tended to put off unless they bathed regularly. Not to mention no stained sheets or the condition of neurasthenia that always accompanied, and identified, those who indulged in too much sexual pleasure. No, there wouldn't be any time spent on that sort of “fooling around,” bothering others by their nighttime noises of 'fiddling with it', and leaving the boys free to tend to their chores and studies without distraction.

Dr Carver had rudely discovered this when he'd been drafted as an Army doctor. No squeaking beds at night, their occupants pleasuring themselves, were to be heard at Blue Creek. Naturally, he'd not known about this habit before then, nor even thought about it. After all, boys like him hadn't ever known of that kind of thing, much less been able to act on it even if they had. However, he'd soon learned, men did! Or worse yet, them having sneaked in a whore to the camp, or – and at the top of the list of sexual perversity – sex with another man! Or a boy...

The thought made Carver nauseous.

He'd first heard of that particular thing when he'd been on loan to a British unit, and the men had told him tales of buggering vicars, school headmasters, and the like. Carver had wondered that the English, with their “English Vice”, as some called it, had kept from going extinct when the men all seemed to prefer young boys over women? Was there not a one of them in the lot that hadn't used his bum to entertain some priest or teacher or uncle, before even growing his own first pubic hair? Bunch of Sodomites, he'd labeled them all!

The English soldiers, however, had just laughed at him and asked him how he'd gotten into the service, “in his condition,” and had he gotten his bits shot off in a battle? Perhaps he'd once been a choirboy?

That was when the good doctor had learned that his being a eunuch, as his mentor had called any and all castrated males, was quite apparent to his not-castrated comrades.

“You mean you boys, all gelded and like that, never got it up the...?” Someone would invariably ask.

“Certainly not!” Would be his constant reply, and they hadn't! Not that anyone, when Carver had been a boy, would have even been capable of such an act!

Once these things were all clarified, the doctor had simply replied, “One does not need balls to aptly put yours back together again!” Sans anesthesia, of course, just for good measure!

So it was, the military units all knew, that Doctor Carver (unlike his river) was aptly named!

A few good things to come of his tour of duty, however, were not only the lives he'd saved, but the confirmation of his beliefs. These beliefs, instilled in him as a young boy, were now so polarized that one might think of them as a unique religion. There was also the benefit of his pension, the increase of his medical skills, and his slightly higher than usual State stipend for taking over at Blue Creek upon his return to civilian life. In fact, it was his own income, and payment for services outside the home in money or barter, that kept the place running. Never mind the fact that one local official, far off in the big city, owed him for getting him his experience “out in the world” – when his condition as a eunuch should have disqualified him on medical grounds and landed some important officials in some very hot water. Still, it had been a relatively safe position, and the payoffs to keep quiet were good.

Such was what allowed Dr Carver to maintain his own little version of the world at Blue Creek, in a small corner of the larger one that he didn't care for it at all. If he never had to go any further than into town, arduous a journey as that was, ever again, it would be too soon!

Every boy needs to go out into the world, Mike, and see what it's really like. You'll gain such appreciation for your life here, in fact. I've arranged for you to serve as surgeon for a...

As he recovered himself from his reverie, making sure that little Grant Elliott was fine (why wouldn't he be?) in his corner of the doctor's office near the window, Carver yawned and stretched to his full height. Another benefit, he wondered – increased height. Fairchild was already beginning to show signs of it, although the sixteen year old might easily pass for a tall and awkward twelve.

They say this war's going to be even bigger, Mike! Thank all that you're older and disqualified! Trenches, poison gas, and the like!

The doctor opened the window to let in some warm spring air for his patient. Plenty of work and fresh air and sunshine, he reasoned. And at Blue Creek, there was always plenty of work for the boys to do. After all, the home was not only such, it was also a self-sustaining enterprise. It had always been so, Carver recalled from his own boyhood, and rightly so, given the disastrous economic times and recurring virulent outbreaks in the cities. He recalled the influenza tragedy, enough to make any doctor question his own abilities as his patients died around him.

There will be no new supplies coming in until this pandemic is over, so we'll have to cut back, Liz. This thing could well wipe out over half the boys!

As he watched the lot of them on the grounds below, breathing a sigh of relief that he didn't have to deal with girls, he wondered when the next resident-to-be would be dumped off? After all, it wasn't unusual for parents, suddenly unable to support their children, to drop a boy on their establishment. Hell, it wasn't even unheard of for a boy with a small pack slung over his shoulder to come toddling up the way, all alone, and ask for refuge. Blue Creek was known far and wide, after all.

It was also another sign of the times when they didn't object to the terms and conditions of a boy's stay at Blue Creek, no matter how short the residency.

“Perhaps you misunderstand?” The good doctor would always tell 'prospective unloaders', as he called them, “Whether your son stays for a week, a year, or becomes a permanent resident, our policy of medical care does not change. Perhaps you cannot read the agreement?” He would remind them.

Of course, some couldn't read. All the more reason that he insisted on educating his young charges, so that they would be able to determine what might be their outcome when entering into some contract in later life! Only once had a returning parent been shocked to find his son rendered sexually helpless, and what an ordeal that had been! Dr Carver was not one to repeat a mistake, especially one that had taken so long to sweep under the proverbial rug.

Others simply shrugged and said things like, “Don't matter none if'n ya cut his balls off, what do we care?” or “Sure don't need'r'want no grandkids!” These were the ones, Carver knew, that weren't apt to return to reclaim their merchandise, per say, no matter their professed intentions.

Give us about a year, we can come back and claim him...And the year(s) would come and go, and the boy would remain there.

Still, Carver spelled it all out: “Bilateral orchiectomy, following radical circumcision with dorsal neurotomy. In other words, all foreskin and testicles removed, leading to loss of sensation in the remaining organ, sexual inability in later life – a permanent condition. No offspring, or desire to produce any.” More often than not, after blank looks, he would simply say, “Gelded, like a steer, leaving only a small, nonfunctional penis.”

As Carver reminded himself, it was a sign of the times that this didn't seem to bother very many people. Of course, everyone in town knew that all the Blue Creek boys were castrated. In fact, a handful of boys in town with families of their own were, too, for various reasons. Some, even voluntarily – second or third sons, he recalled, and even a few come-and-go residents.

“Thank God,” Carver would often tell himself, when he even thought about God, “That once it's gone, it's GONE! No way to replace it!”

And of course, this was something that he always spelled out carefully to the 'unloaders', and to any boy who happened to be present to hear it, so as not to end up being surprised by the outcome of his “physical examination upon admittance”.

However, if the boy didn't ask, Dr Carver didn't offer. Neither did Nurse Liz. This was the case most of the time, in fact: Don't ask, and don't tell. Besides, most of the boys were too young to understand – and that was just as well, too.

As he continued to watch the boys below doing this and that, going about their boyish business, Carver realized that he had no idea who had known, who currently did, and who didn't even yet have a clue about his castrated state. “The younger, the better,” he'd always remind Dean Fairchild, when he'd begun training him up in the medical arts. The newcomers would have their exam, and of course, wake up to find a few bits missing. Many times, the explanation of “You didn't need them,” or perhaps, “They were going bad and had to come out, like tonsils!” were enough to suffice for the curious. Only the older boys seemed to have any problems with this at all, but most of those times, the idea of never being hit there again – bad as that hurt – was good enough for them.

Can't hit me in the balls anymore!

That excuse worked well for those who didn't have a clue about “The Topic”, and just what testicles were used for.

Still, Carver knew that such innocence wasn't going to last much longer. More and more, he saw, children were seemingly younger and younger as their worldly knowledge increased. He blamed it on access to newspapers and radio, for them what could afford them. Why, wasn't that one boy, he recalled, nearly fourteen and had already known where babies came from? Already able to ejaculate, wasn't he, the dirty-minded brat? And proud of it...

It was scandalous, plain and simple, that he'd known about The Topic! That boy's name, Carver recalled: William Akers. “Such a dirty-minded boy!” He muttered to himself, checking his old notes in the A-B-C-D-E volume. Yes, Akers had been one of the very few who'd been shocked and had protested loudly the idea of his pending castration.

“YOU AIN'T CUTTIN' MY BALLS OFF!” He'd yelled, unwisely trying to make a run for it, once his aunt and uncle had unceremoniously deposited him in the care of Blue Creek, until he reached such an age where he could fend for himself in the world. This usually happened around the age of sixteen or seventeen, rarely earlier, unless in the case of adoption.

But why do it if he'll only be here for two or three years?

Because he might sneak off and bother a girl, or worse yet, MY BOYS!

This was one advantage of keeping some of the older and bigger boys around – they'd simply run Akers down and hauled him back, kicking and screaming – but not so much after a liberal “ass-beatin'”, as they sometimes called it. After all, Blue Creek boys tended to stick together.

“You won't even miss it,” they assured him, holding him down on the table as the ether was applied.

In the end, Carver's philosophy and the boys' assurances had proven out, just as they always did. Without his testicles to supply the mysterious substances that turned boys into men, William Akers soon settled right down. The discomfort of his tight circumcision, however, before his erections had stopped about a month later, had made him much more tractable. That, and the threat of removing the rest of his now-useless boyhood member hadn't hurt either! In seemingly no time at all, he had, just as every other boy had, settled right in.

“If playing with it is a problem for you,” Carver had warned him, once recuperated, “I can always shorten it?” He hadn't, though, as that threat had been enough to frighten Akers out of the idea. That, and showing Akers a few case notes from his books and the notorious “dick shot off” articles from his time in the war had turned the trick.

“Don't matter, hurts if it gets stiff now, and don't feel right when I rub it,” Akers had conceded, just before he'd forgotten all about that sort of thing.

“Sir?” Dean Fairchild distracted the doctor, “Was there something?” He asked from the doorway, “Nurse Liz was wondering if you wanted anything?”

Carver looked at his watch. Had it been an hour already, and Fairchild was done with his work? “Whatever became of that Akers boy, I wonder?” The doctor asked, “You remember him? Older boy, one of the more difficult ones?”

“Wasn't he the one who apprenticed to the newspaper, sir? After Miss Pendleton contacted her nephew?” Fairchild asked in reply.

“That was him!” Carver agreed, “One of our more successful placements.”

“Few and far between as those are now, sir,” Fairchild nodded. “How long's it been?”

“Almost a year since Akers left us,” Carver sighed, going back to watching the boys below. They all had their assigned chores, he knew, and they all did them. In fact, he only rarely had to spank one of them for dereliction of duty. “No one seems to want you heathens any more,” he smiled wanly.

“You'd miss us, sir, and you know it,” Fairchild grinned at him, hastily dodging the small chair cushion thrown at him!

“That I would,” Carver admitted, “Dean, speaking of Miss Pendleton, I think it might be time, now that the weather's warming, to go begging the old biddie for a donation. I noticed that Davidson's overalls were getting a bit short?”

“Sir, those were Smith's outgrown ones he had on,” Fairchild corrected him. “Nurse Liz calls them 'shorts-alls'.”

“Egad!” Carver sighed, palming his face, “You know, it used to be, not every single boy we took in turned out to be a lifer here!”

“You mean like me?” Dean smiled at him. “Sir, you think it's because if someone is going to adopt a boy, that they don't want one what's castrated? Maybe they're looking for one who can give them grandchildren, sir?”

“Silly,” Carver snorted, “If they want a new grandson later, they can come and get a used one here!”

“Maybe they think we're too weak for work, or not as good as intact boys, sir?” Fairchild offered, “Or that we're castrated because of bad genetic traits, like Darwin says? They'd be ashamed of us, sir? Ashamed to have a defective in their family?”

Carver looked sharply at him. “Don't you ever consider yourself inferior or defective, boy! There's nothing, other than making a baby, that those so-called 'real boys' can do that you lot can't do better! You're thinking with your brain, while they're thinking with their balls! You are not defective, since I have removed the defect!”

They both had a chuckle at that remark, but the hard truth was, no – no one was adopting lately. In fact, little Grant Elliott was probably not nearly the last of the foundlings who would turn up at Blue Creek that season. He dreaded the period of nine months after the winter, as that when everyone stayed in to mate, and then dump their offspring on him nine months later. Still, they both also knew, it could benefit the home by having more boys to hire out for local work, whether for money or bartered goods. After all, summer wouldn't last, and there was the yearly issue of new clothes and shoes to confront. Carver made a note to apprentice one of the older boys to a cobbler as soon as possible.

“You've grown, Fairchild,” Carver sighed again, “Robbie Davidson isn't the only one in need of some new trousers.”

“Warm enough to hem them into shorts,” Dean shrugged, “Pretty soon, be hot enough to not need 'em.”

“Still, it's not quite seemly to have you lot running around naked all summer,” Carver shook his head, “Although I suppose it's a good idea if you're anywhere near the creek. I'm of a mind for turtle soup, you know?”

“River,” Dean couldn't resist the joke.

“You can take a pair of my trousers and cuff them up. Just take it easy on the clothes,” he added, glancing at Elliott. “You did very well today, Fairchild,” He paused, “Dean.”

Most of the time, Carver referred to the boys by their last names, when he could remember them. Actually, if he were to yell “JACK!” or “JIMMY!” he might get four or five replies! It was an old habit, and Dean Fairchild noticed it right off.

“Thank you, Doctor,” he replied.

“Dean,” he repeated, “How do you feel about performing castrations?” He then asked.

“It's necessary, isn't it, sir?” Dean wondered. “That's what you always told us, I mean?”

“It doesn't bother you?” Carver asked.

“No, sir?” Dean wondered, “Why would it? It's a little thing, and we're all the better for it.”

“Never mind,” Carver shrugged, “I just needed to know. Of course it's necessary. I was just thinking about Akers and such. Just being maudlin, I suppose. What day is it, anyway?” He added.

“Wednesday, sir,” Dean answered, cocking his head. “Was there something else, sir?”

Carver studied his disciple's face. It wasn't that he himself had any doubt. No, that wasn't it. Castration was (as he always said, the earlier the better) a most beneficial surgery that saved boys from getting into all sorts of trouble in later life. After all, hadn't he seen plenty of that during his military service?

Certainly none of his boys at Blue Creek were going to go chasing after whores, getting some odd and incurable disease, or bringing home unneeded offspring to support. Not to mention the trouble of shotgun weddings and the gossip that invariably followed those! Still, he needed to know how his replacement felt about it. If Dean Fairchild weren't just as committed to 'The Cause' as he, Carver thought, then there would be trouble down the road.

“Just making sure you don't have any objections, Dean,” Carver repeated.

“Not a one, sir,” Dean replied, “Besides, we've too much to do, to have to worry about any of those other distractions, now don't we?”

“Not that you'd ever get distracted,” Carver snorted, “Now, had you made any progress on Elliott's testicle?” He asked.

Dean nodded. “Healthy enough, no spots or signs of malignancy, sir. I don't wonder that it wasn't a bit achy, though, with how the epididymis was malformed. I don't think it had proper blood flow, either, and it was quite small compared to its twin, sir. The main artery was quite thin. I'm sure he'd have been complaining about it shortly, if we hadn't taken them out.”

“Very good,” Carver nodded, “I'll examine your findings later. Now,” He looked around the room, clapped his hands and twisted them together as if plotting something, then looked out the second story window again. A gang of five similarly-sized naked boys, all carrying fishing poles, were headed down the hill towards the creek. River. Whatever. Perhaps fish for dinner, then?

“Why don't you clean up, best you can, and go and see Miss Pendleton? Take that...oh, what's his name? That annoying gingery Irish one with you?”

“Sean Reilly, sir,” Dean supplied helpfully, nodding. “Doubt we'll be back by supper, though. It's a ways there and back.” He looked out the window. “REILLY!” He yelled, “UP HERE!”

“Wear him out, he'll sleep well tonight,” Carver said, “She'll feed you, don't worry. She just adores you boys. Probably because she doesn't know you all that well! Hell, if it weren't for her crazy old great uncle, we wouldn't even have a home,” He reminded Dean. “Did I ever tell you that story?”

“Hundreds of times, sir,” Dean smiled.

“Oh,” Carver sniffed.

“Who was president back then?” Dean smiled. It was another running joke about things being old, as pretty much everything at Blue Creek was. Doctor Carver included, Dean thought, but he didn't say it.

“Probably George Washington,” Carver snickered, “Wednesday, you said?” He palmed his face. “You know what she'll do?”

Dean nodded again. “She'll either insist it's late, and that we stay the night – or, she'll load us up in that rattling Ford of hers and insist on driving us home,” Dean shuddered. “Reilly will be happy, though. Wednesday is his group's night for the salts.”

'The salts' was another of the good doctor's euphemisms for 'getting an enema'. Not only was he convinced that a circumcised penis was a healthier penis, that a castrated boy was a happier boy, but he was also convinced that a clean colon was a healthier colon. Erratic bowel movements and constipation were not to be tolerated, after all. Improper bowel habits, he believed, led to malaise, gas, bloating, cramps, and overall toxicity of the entire body. In addition to being yet another thing both Carver and the great Doctor Kellogg shared a strong belief in, he'd seen that in the war as well. He'd been reminded of the importance of a clean lower intestine when he had had to repair more than a few damaged bellies with what he deemed 'abominable colons'. That, and a full colon over time could put undue pressure on the prostate gland, increasing the desire for sex!

He'd even devised a schedule, so that each night, a small group would get their cleansings without having to make anyone wait or keep anyone up too late. The proof of the benefits of these weekly enema sessions was apparent to the doctor: the boys slept very well that night, and were full of energy and ready to go the next day.

Carver waved him off. “Well, have him trade with someone. Won't hurt to go a day early with it? Oh, and see if you can find Reilly's 'O', while you're out there?” He joked.

Dean smiled and went to await Sean Reilly, now toddling back up the hill as if greatly bothered that his fishing trip with his mates had been interrupted.

As Dr Carver sat down to study Dean's dissection of Elliott's testicle, and his notes about it, he smiled again. Sean Reilly, he recalled after consulting his other log book, had come to them four years earlier at age eight. His father had been killed on a railway project, and his mother had died of complications of pregnancy, taking the unborn and far too premature baby with her. This had left Sean with no one to take him in, although the authorities in the next town over had certainly tried.

The foul truth of the matter, Dr Carver knew, was very simply – no one wanted an Irish boy. Hell, they'd have had better luck placing a Negro or Asian child. As he studied Dean's notes, he laughed to himself. He remembered the adorable little urchin introducing himself so politely, leaving the “O” off of his name, as if the boy thought that this might hide his Irish heritage. (Never mind his flaming hair, freckles, pale skin, and harsh accent!) He remembered the time, perhaps a year after his coming, that Sean had tried to color his violently orange hair with brown shoe polish. The poor boy had ended up looking like a pickaninny for half the summer, before it had worn off!

“God, how bad must it have been for him, to try and color his hair and change his name?” Carver wondered, “No boy should feel that way about himself.”

“Sir?!” a piping voice shouted from the doorway, nearly causing the doctor to fling Elliott's disembodied testicle across the room in shock and fall out of his chair! “Is Dean pullin' me leg, er do ya really want to me ter be goin' wit 'im ter see Gran Pendleton?” There was a pause. “Oh, wiiiiicked! Is that Elliott's ball, then?”

“Quiet down, you'll wake him up!” Carver admonished him.

“Not likely, sir,” Sean retorted, coming on into the infirmary proper, “What with tha' stuff you give us! I think I slept fer a week when ya took me balls out!”

Carver waved him over, taking in Sean's dirty face and overall waif-like appearance: worn shirt, wild hair, dirty, short pants tattered off at the knees and held up by a rope belt. Perhaps, the more pathetic they looked, the more Mrs Pendleton might cut loose the purse strings, then? “Yes, this is Elliott's,” the doctor nodded, “It's not quite right, is it?”

He went back to the dormitory to dress to see me?

Sean leaned in, interested, as all young boys are, by disgusting things. His blue eyes were wide. “Oh, God, ee's not ill is he? Tha's awful!” Sean squeaked. “Good thing you got it outta there, sir?”

Carver smiled at him. “He'll be fine,” He assured the boy. Whether it was an effect of castration or not, Carver wasn't sure. He himself recalled the same kind of camaraderie when he'd been a boy. The older boys always looked after the smaller ones, and bullying wasn't an issue. In fact, the doctor thought, Blue Creek boys were much more attentive and affectionate than their intact counterparts in town. He didn't know what he'd do without some of the older ones to help out, seeing as how the State wasn't about to send them any more help. He and Nurse Liz were it, and thank all for the older boys who hadn't left!

Sean sniffled and rubbed his eyes. “Sure an' yer not jus' sayin' tha'?”

That was another thing – it wasn't unusual for any of the boys to burst into tears when upset, and Sean's little gang had taken Elliott in hand already after only a few days at the home. It was a good thing, Carver knew, having someone to talk to, someone to assure them that it was just a little thing, a minor surgery, a couple of snips, and they'd be up and about in no time like nothing had even happened. And sure enough, Sean Reilly cried. Dr Carver held him until it passed.

He sniffed the boy's hair.

“When was the last time you had a bath?” He changed the subject.

“Last night, sir?”

“It didn't work,” Carver informed him, unbuttoning the boy's shorts and noting the couple patches that Nurse Liz had improvised from a flour sack. He sighed at the state of Sean's shirt, which might, if it had tried, made a good scrub rag. He fetched a new bar of soap from the cabinet, handing it to the again-naked boy. “On the table,” He then suggested, giving him a quick check to make sure he wouldn't be going down on the long walk to Gran Pendleton's. Why did they all call her that? He wondered.

After a few pokes, prods, and squeezes, listening to his heart and lungs, looking in his ears and throat, inspecting his feet, and all the standard stuff that all the boys knew to perform themselves, the doctor released Sean. “Make sure your trousers get a bath when you do, too,” he told the naked boy, “And don't waste the soap!”

“But tha water comin' out tha pump to the lav is ICE COLD!” Sean protested.

Must have been a great experience, Carver, you've even brought back some English slang!

“Not like you'll suffer from shrinkage,” Carver assured him. “It's good for the circulation, boy!” He tousled Sean's hair, dreading that time of year when he'd have to get the hand shears out and start shearing boys like sheep for the summer. Perhaps he could apprentice someone to a barber?

“Wha' aboot me shirt an' some shoes?” Sean asked, on his way out.

“Look sad and pathetic for Miss Pendleton,” Carver told him. “And why do you call her 'Gran'?”

Sean shrugged. “She likes it, sir,” he replied, “Says if we live on her land, in her old house, then that makes us her grandsons!”

Carver palmed his face again and looked at the boy through his spread fingers. He closed his eyes and shook his head. Blue Creek had been deeded over to him when his predecessor had died, and surely the old lady knew that. Then again, perhaps she was going senile?

“Use what you've got, Reilly,” he suggested.

“Tha's not much, sir!” He joked, “But fer me Irish charm an' me devastatin' good looks!”

When Sean had gone, Dr Carver went to sit by the window again. Nurse Liz and some of the boys would be busy preparing lunch, he knew, and he realized that he'd skipped breakfast...again. Of course, Grant Elliott was going to be hungry when he woke up later in the day, having had nothing to eat since lunch yesterday, as well as a good dose of 'the salts' that previous evening. He smoothed the boy's hair, staring out the window at the blue sky over the line of tall trees.

“Spring, at last,” he mused, glancing over at the monthly requisition form on his desk. “Where would we be without bureaucracy and paperwork?” He sighed, “Damn office-bound idiots, don't have a clue,” He snorted, wondering if perhaps, this month, the inventory he'd submitted for December might finally show up? Just what he needed for March, unseasonably warm as it was: candy canes, Christmas cookie mix, woolly undergarments, and an assortment of medicines to treat winter illnesses. Hell, had it not been for old Miss Pendleton and some kind folks in town, the boys wouldn't have had any Christmas, except for a tree they'd cut themselves.

From his makeshift bed near the window, Grant whimpered. The doctor propped him up a bit, got him to take a sip of water, then held him until he went back to sleep. He felt his eyes begin to sting, berating himself. “Grown man, stupid!” He muttered, knowing full well that he, just like his charges, wasn't exempt from having a good cry now and again. He busied himself with checking Grant's bandage; no bleeding, no excessive seepage, and only a tiny bit of swelling and bruising. Perfectly normal. God, but Dean did good work, didn't he?

He sat back down, as it was his policy to have someone stay with a freshly castrated boy all day long until the patient awoke and could be carefully put back in his own bed. He smoothed the boy's hair again, running his fingers along Grant's cheek, where no beard would ever grow. He traced around the perfectly formed small ear, and whimsically touched the tip of the boy's nose.

“How could anyone look at that face and say no to him?” Carver wondered, “How could such a boy not be wanted by someone, somewhere?” He paused and let the tears come. It had been a while since his last one, he knew, so he figured that he must have needed it. “Well, you're wanted here, Gary,” he added, not even realizing that he'd gotten the name wrong. “I've never turned a boy away, and I'm not about to start any time soon! You're a Blue Creek boy now!” He smiled. “Brown River!” He laughed to himself at his own joke, holding the boy's hand and just staring out the window at the boys now playing tag on the lawn.

It happened so fast, just as it always did: Gertie the goat, fleeing someone chasing after her with a milk pail, came charging through the throng of boys. Sammy, Stevie, Scottie? What's-his-name didn't see her, crashing into her and spinning sideways to slam his black-haired head right into the large sugar maple, face-first. It was comical, the way he rebounded to fall flat on his back.

“OWWWWW!” The wail of pain came up to the window, and blood flew. Carver sighed.

“But what would you do without them?” He told himself, grunting as his back popped when he got up to fetch a wound kit and the needle and thread for stitches. “That's gonna leave a mark!” He told himself.


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