I've Always Fancied Cindy

by

Kortpeel

"Gosh but you men can be such bastards!"

I made a quick mental scan to figure out what I'd done, or not done, to upset her. No birthdays, no anniversaries. I was baffled.

"What's up, sweetheart?"

"Nigel. He's not taking his testosterone. Poor Cindy is most upset. She's been looking forward to having a normal marriage again."

Cindy and Nigel were long time friends of ours. Nigel had lost both testicles to cancer. He'd had to go through nine months of chemotherapy and three months of observation before the doctors would let him go on to hormone replacement.

Then just as Nigel was about to start on testosterone Cindy learnt she was pregnant. The doctors had taken sperm from Nigel for that purpose before they removed his second testicle. The couple had agreed that Nigel might as well stay off testosterone until after the baby.

Now their baby was on solid food, Cindy had recovered her lovely slender figure and, as she'd confided to my wife Maggie, had been looking forward to Nigel's attention in bed once again.

"Well, if Nigel's not interested why don't you lend her your husband?"

That was a long shot and it got the answer I'd expected: "Like I say Ted, you men can be such bastards." Maggie added after a pause "Besides, it's Nigel she wants."

"I was only trying to help."

"If you really want to help you should persuade Nigel to get on to testosterone."

I went round to see him. "Hello, oh ball-less one. How are you?"

"Never felt better."

That was probably true. Nigel was clear of cancer and out of danger. He was a man who'd walked out of death row. He did look well, although there was a softness about his skin and he'd put on some weight. Not much though.

After some chit-chat and admiring their baby, a son, I got on to the topic I'd come for. "So are you on to hormone replacement now?"

"No."

"Why not? I thought you were looking forward to getting back to normal."

Nigel paused as if wondering what to tell me. "Ted, I'm going to let you into the world's best kept secret and you probably aren't going to believe me."

"What's that?"

"It's about two years since they took out my second ball. What with chemo and testosterone withdrawal I went through a bad time that first year."

"Yeah. I know. It showed."

"Well since then I haven't been on testosterone, and it's been great." Nigel was looking at me waiting for the obvious question.

I asked it. "What do you mean, great?"

"It's difficult to put into words but mainly the mind is sharper and more focussed. I can see things more clearly. I'm less emotional, more rational. And best of all I'm completely at peace with myself. That's a good feeling."

"And that comes from er, not having balls?"

"Yeah. Well really it comes from not having testosterone in my blood." Nigel paused then went on "It's all well and good to say that men have evolved with balls, that's how we're meant to be. That it's natural. That's all true Ted. But it's so that men spend all their time trying to commit the act that will get a woman pregnant. Nature cares only about the reproduction of the species. Kindly mother nature doesn't give a dam about the individual man, woman or baby."

"Quantity and not quality?" I said. "A population always expands to the limit of the food supply?"

"Exactly. To say that something is nature's way doesn't mean it's good. Ma Nature is utterly ruthless. Any antelope in the Serengeti knows that. And so do the lions."

I grinned. Nigel was certainly making a point. He must have thought long and hard about it.

"What it is Ted, it's as if Ma Nature designed a perfect man with his wonderful brain. It's a brain that lets us explore and understand all the mysteries of creation. That's what it means by 'God created man in his own image.'

"Our capacity for rational thought?"

"Yeah. That's the way in which we are God-like."

"All right. Go on." I was getting interested in Nigel's argument. I wondered where he was going with it.

"Then having created man with his powerful brain, it's like Ma Nature suddenly remembered that this wonderful new species had to have a reproduction capability."

I smiled. Nigel was a design engineer and saw things in those terms.

"But by then Ma Nature had used up all her development budget. So she stuck some old fashioned monkey balls on him just to get him into production."

"She used old technology?" I said.

"Precisely. Look, it works well enough as far as reproduction is concerned but the system doesn't match the rest of mankind. We were meant to be something more than just rutting pigs."

He had a point. "I suppose it's a bit like that old joke: nature gave man a brain and a prick but not a blood supply adequate to support both at the same time."

Nigel liked that. "That's closer to the truth than you think. Except it's not the prick that's the problem. It's the testosterone. That's what addles a man's brain. It makes a cunt struck idiot out of a rational man."

"Hmm. I guess we've all been cunt struck in our time," I remarked.

"And if you've got your balls you still are. Any straight guy with balls is vulnerable to a pretty woman who sets her sights on him."

I wish, I thought.

"I tell you Ted, if testosterone wasn't built in it would be an illegal substance. It's a mind altering drug."

"Oh, come off it Nige. It's not that bad."

"You see Ted, it numbs your mind so that you are blind to its disadvantages. No normal guy would willingly give up his balls and say goodbye to sex forever. Not even the old farts who can't even get it up anymore. They'll spend their money on Viagra instead. Yet what is sex? All you do is squirt your load into a sticky hole for heaven's sake."

"There is more to it than that, Nige."

"Yeah. A whole lot of time and effort wasted to get to that point."

I had to laugh at his cynicism.

"Ted look at eunuchs in history. They started off as slaves without any rights whatsoever. Lucky not to be killed. Yet lots of 'em rose to great wealth and power despite everything. And why? Because of their capacity for rational thought."

"Yeah but -"

"Look at those guys in Russia. There was a religious sect in Tsarist times."

"The Skopje?"

"Yeah. They believed in castration for religious reasons. Everyone else thought they were nutters but as a group they came to be the wealthiest people in Russia, richer even than a lot of the aristocracy."

"Because of their castration?"

"Because they were capable of rational thought. And because they didn't waste their time on sex."

"Hmm." I was wondering how to counter Nigel's argument.

Nigel went on. "The trouble is: you see a guy without balls and you think what a terrible loss. How dreadful. That is a normal reaction. But I'm telling you Ted, that is the best thing that could ever have happened to him. The only thing of value that he's lost is the ability to father a child. And so what? There's no shortage of kids in the world."

"And that's your 'world's best kept secret'?" I asked him. "That you're better off without balls?"

"Yeah. And I told you that you wouldn't believe me. Testosterone has you in its thrall Ted. It's blinding you to the truth. It's only when you've been without it for a while that you can see the truth of what I say."

I could see what had happened. Once Nigel had gotten used to not being interested in sex he no longer missed it. It was at that point I remembered why I'd come to see him. I was here to persuade him to get on to testosterone and become normal again. How could I persuade him? Here was the one man I knew for whom sex held no interest, no temptation.

"Nige, what you say may well be true and I know that you certainly believe in your argument."

"That's for sure."

"But even so Nige, you've got to start taking testosterone."

"What on Earth for?"

"For the same reason you gave up aerobatics when you knew Cindy was pregnant. As a husband and father your life isn't your own."

Nigel went silent. He'd given up private flying because of its dangers. He'd felt that it would be irresponsible to risk his life just for fun when he was responsible for the well being of others, his wife and his then unborn child.

Nigel thought about that for a while. "Oh shit! You're a real bastard, Ted."

"So what did you say to Nigel to get him to take his testosterone?" Maggie asked me a few weeks later. By that stage Nigel was back to his old pre-op self and performing satisfactorily, so Cindy had confided to Maggie.

"It's a man's thing, Maggie. You don't really want to know. It's probably better that you don't." I knew that would get to her. She'd been on at me to tell her what I'd said to Nigel. Maggie was burning with curiosity.

"If you don't tell me this minute...." she said.

I kept her at it for a while before I pretended to give in. "Okay. If you really want to know I'll tell you but promise you won't get angry?"

At that stage she'd have promised anything. "All right."

"Well, you know Nigel has always fancied you?"

"No. Really?" I certainly had Maggie's interest at that point but would she buy it.

"Liar. Of course you knew."

"Well... I didn't actually know."

"I had to tell him that you liked him and then when he was back to normal we could have a partner swapping session."

"You didn't?" Maggie was wide-eyed. She'd bought it. Well that would give her something to think about.

Me too. I've always fancied Cindy.

End