Kenny 17: Solving The Problem (Final Chapter)

I didn’t see very much of Kenny for a few weeks after our talk. He assured me that he was not angry and that he understood, but that he had some business trips that just couldn’t wait. He wasn’t really thrilled with what I had proposed, but he said he would support me if I really thought it was the only answer. I still hadn’t mentioned it to Cathy, and I knew she would be a lot harder to convince. To a nurse, or any trained Medical person for that matter, removing healthy tissue for no medical reason is a real no-no. Unless of course that person is female and the parts we are talking about are uterus and ovaries. In that case, it seemed to me, it takes the slightest reason or no reason at all.

To this day I’m not sure exactly what happened next. Actually that’s not quite true. I know WHAT happened, but I have no idea WHY. It’s been suggested that the whole thing was psychological and I cannot deny that possibility. But whether psychological or physical, all I know for sure is that it was real. It started in the spring of 1995. I woke up one morning to a soaked bed. I had wet the bed! I had never wet the bed from the day I was potty trained! I could remember back when I was 5 years old wetting my pants, and doing it so frequently that my mom had put me back in diapers. There were a lot of theories about why I did it. My mom thought I had a bladder infection; one of her sisters suggested I had a “weak bladder.” Another aunt was convinced I had a “nervous bladder.” My father stated firmly that I was “just too damned lazy” to go to the bathroom. The problem eventually corrected itself without the cause ever being determined, but frankly I believe my father was closest to the truth. I would simply get so involved in my play that I would wait too long, resulting in wet pants. But a bed wetter? Me? Never! Until 1995.

Cathy and I laughed about the incident, she suggesting jokingly that she would have to start diapering me at night, I suggesting not so jokingly that maybe it was a good idea. After all, it was intimate activity, even if it wasn’t exactly mainstream. But after a few days the wet bed was forgotten. Then a week or so later it happened again, only this time I woke up with rather severe pains in my balls, as if someone were holding them and squeezing.

I got up and had a shower, which was quite effective in relieving the pain. We stripped the bed then remade it with clean sheets, this time placing a pad where I slept in case it happened again. Cathy suggested that I call the doctor and get a prescription for an antibiotic, assuming that I had picked up a bladder infection. I still hadn’t told her about the pains in my balls, assuming that I had somehow struck them or twisted them in my sleep. So I called the doctor after I’d got to work and he phoned in a prescription.

By July I was having frequent accidents both during the day and at night - so frequent that I was beginning to wear Attends most of the time. Cathy insisted that I go to the doctor again, this time for a full physical. I had been diagnosed as a Type II diabetic year or two before, and she thought that perhaps there was a relationship there; or worse, maybe I had cancer.

All the tests came back negative, so the doctor referred me to a urologist. “I don’t care about the incontinence,” I told the doctor. “I can live with wearing diapers, but you’ve GOT to do something about the pain in my testicles!”
“If we solve one, we’ll no doubt solve the other as well,” he answered. Then he began to concentrate on the incontinence. He shoved a scope like device up inside my penis and looked around, poked and probed here and there, asked a million questions all about my urination habits as a child, when I’d been potty trained, etc. It seemed to me that he hadn’t even heard my complaints about the pain. Finally in frustration I suggested that he just cut the damned things off, that I didn’t need them any more anyway. The doctor stopped what he was doing and looked at me in horror as if I’d just suggested he massacre the entire state. “Absolutely out of the question,” he declared when he realized I was deadly serious. “Without your testicles you wouldn’t be... you need them, you know, otherwise...”
“Without them I won’t be in pain all the time,” I countered. “I don’t see why you can’t just cut them off and solve a whole bunch of problems all at the same time.”
“I think we can avoid anything that drastic,” he said. “Let’s just get your incontinence under control, then we’ll see where we’re at.”

The doctor gave me some pelvic exercises to do, pills to take, and told me to come back in a month. None of his treatments worked, so I didn’t go back. In the meantime I was doing some serious research on my own now. I had started visiting Alt.Eunuchs.Questions regularly, trying to glean fact from fantasy. I learned what an elastrator is and where to get one, then went ahead and bought one. I already knew what a burdizzo is from my days on the farm, so I bought one of those as well. I was serious now, I had decided. One way or another I was going to become a eunuch.

I have to say that my relationship with Kenny during that time was better than it had ever been. There was no sex at all now, not because he had “cut me off,” but I was in so much pain I was simply not interested, for the first time in my life. So now we could expend all our efforts just being friends; good, mature, sensible friends. It was almost as if I was already a eunuch, except for the pains in my balls that were now becoming so severe that I was having trouble moving around.

I did a lot of experimenting with the elastrator. The first time I banded myself it seemed to me as if the band had dulled the pain somewhat, which of course made it very tempting to simply leave the band on until it had done its work. But then the dull ache in my back started, along with a different type of ache in my balls. I determined to stick it out, but as I lay on my bed, alone in the house, those aches started to get really bad. I thought about what would happen once the balls were dead. They would have to be cut off, and I wasn’t at all confident that I could do it, so I chickened out and slipped a small pair of scissors under the band and snipped. When that band was released, the sharp searing pain where it had been was so severe I literally screamed. I had never experienced anything so sharp, so sudden!

I continued to experiment with the elastrator, trying to find a way to reduce that excruciating pain when the band was clipped off. There was no point in even mentioning such a thing to Cathy. With her medical training, brainwashing as I called it, there wasn’t a hope in hades that she would ever consent to a home castration. I would be lucky if I could even get her to go along with such a thing performed by a qualified surgeon, assuming I could find one. I knew my only hope was Kenny.

“Charlie, are you completely, totally out of your fucking mind?” Kenny almost screamed as I showed him the burdizzo. “Do you have any vague idea how much that would hurt?” he ranted on.
“Yeah, Kenny, I think I have some idea,” I replied. “That’s why I need your help. In the first place I’m not limber enough to get that thing into position and then close the handles. Secondly I know that after I do the first one I’d probably be so out of it, if I was conscious at all, I’d be in no position to do the second one.”
“You’re not gonna try and tell me that people actually use that thing,” he said incredulously.
“They use it all the time on animals,” I assured him. “I’ve never seen it done, but we had one on the farm, only it was a lot bigger. Unc said they had used it on horses.”
“Well, you’re not a horse, Charlie,” Kenny said with a shudder. “You’re also not a fuckin’ pig, or goat, or calf. You’re a human being, and a very special one. Forget it, man! There’s no way I could ever subject you to a risk like that!”

I showed him the elastrator and told him what I had already done with it. “All you’ve gotta do is be there,” I told him. “I’ll put the bands on, then take lots of some really strong pain reliever, or maybe get really drunk or something. Then as soon as the balls are dead, cut them off. In a few hours it’ll be all over.”
“Maybe a whole lot more than just your nuts will be all over,” he said with another shudder.
“I can show you on the ‘net where lots of guys have done it,” I offered.
“You can show me where lots of guys SAY they’ve done it,” he corrected. “Charlie, you’ve managed to convince me that you’d be happier being a eunuch. But there’s gotta be a better way. I’m not gonna be a party to risking your life just so you’re not horny any more. There’s just got to be a better way!”

“I’m desperate, Kenny,” I pleaded. “I’m in so fuckin’ much pain now I can hardly get up out of a chair without help. I admit that I originally wanted to be a eunuch to end the hell that has been my sex life. But it’s more than that now. Dammit, Kenny, haven’t you even noticed I can’t even function any more?”
“I’ve noticed, Charlie,” he replied. “Believe me it’s killing me to see you this way. But still, there’s gotta be a better way. You say that there are other eunuchs on the ‘net?”
“Lots of ‘em,” I said. “At least they claim to be.” I was beginning now to understand Kenny’s pessimism, and it made perfect sense. Were they really eunuchs, or were they just turned on by the idea? I was fully aware that there was no shortage of bullshit on the ‘net.

“Then what you’ve gotta do is find out who is real and who is not, why they were castrated, and how it was done. There’s got to be a safe way, and you’ve got to find it. I would die if I had to watch you lying on a bed, writhing in pain - pain that I had caused. I couldn’t do that! And besides, how in the world would we explain it to Cathy? You know she’s gotta be involved in whatever you do, and you know as well as I do that she’s not gonna agree to me jamming your nuts in this... this animal device!”
“I could be a eunuch for two or three years before she ever found out,” I said bitterly.
“Charlie, that’s not fair and you know it,” Kenny scolded. “Cathy’s been a great wife, even if she hasn’t spread her legs every time you wanted to.”

I knew Kenny was right. I have never been one to enjoy pain, and from various things I’d read on the ‘net I knew it would be nigh impossible for me to use that burdizzo. Just the look of the thing was frightening; and Cathy would never in a thousand years go along with using the elastrator, not to mention the pain associated with that little gem. No, I would have to find someone qualified, and even then I still had to convince Cathy that the whole thing was necessary in the first place.

I went to another urologist. This one was arranged by a doctor friend of Cathy’s. He had a clinic at Duke University Medical Center, and he enjoyed a reputation as one of the top urologists in the country. I knew he’d done castrations; all I had to do was convince him it was necessary in my case. That little task turned out to be a lot more difficult than I’d hoped.

I spent an entire day there, dressed only in a hospital gown, enduring one test after another. They inserted a catheter in my penis and some sort of huge sensor device connected to a computer in my butt, then started filling my bladder with water through the catheter. It was one of the weirdest feelings I have ever had, peeing backwards as it were. They had me pee into a funnel attached to a measuring jug after having removed the catheter, all the time watching various muscle behavior on a computer monitor. They did other various and sundry tests - tests so strange I find it difficult to even describe them.

After several hours of these indignities I was told I could get dressed, then I would be having a conversation with the doctor. Up to that point I hadn’t even met the doctor, having been poked and probed by his staff. After I was dressed, I sat in a chair and waited.

The doctor wasn’t at all what I was expecting. Being a full professor at Duke, plus an esteemed urologist who had a reputation for having been consulted by people all over the world, I was expecting a rather stuffy, conceited man. He didn’t fit the image in my head at all! He was a rather small man, spoke with a distinct English accent; he was extremely friendly and down to earth. I relaxed a little as he settled into a chair and flipped through some papers. Here was a man, I thought, who would castrate me if he couldn’t find the source of my problem. After the preliminaries, he got right down to business.

“We don’t see a situation like yours very often,” he began. “Your problem goes back to when you were two years old, when you were potty trained.”
“Potty trained?” I said with surprise. “But what’s that got to do with the pains in my testicles?”
“Your pains aren’t in your testicles at all,” the doctor declared. “What you are feeling is referred pain. You are having muscle spasms in your bladder and they are being referred to make you think the pains are in your testicles.”
“I’m sorry, Doctor,” I said, getting somewhat annoyed, “I think I know the difference between a muscle spasm and a pain in the balls.”
“Just hear me out,” he said patiently.

“There are two ways to potty train a child,” the doctor pontificated. “The correct way to control your bladder is to tighten the sphincter and hold it tight to prevent leakage. When you urinate, if you are taught properly, you simply relax the sphincter and let gravity do its thing. You don’t really need to use the muscles in the walls of your bladder at all, except to eliminate the last few drops. In your case, you were not taught to relax your sphincter at all to urinate; you were taught to tighten the muscle walls of your bladder to FORCE the urine past your tight sphincter. So we have one set of muscles, your bladder, fighting constantly against another set, your sphincter. Now that you are getting older and beginning to lose a little muscle tone, that fight is getting more intense, resulting in muscle spasms. The incontinence results when the sphincter loses the battle and you get leakage.”

The doctor went on talking about exercises that I could do to correct the problem that my mother had caused when I was two years old, but I wasn’t listening any more. I think he had begun to lose his credibility when he’d tried to tell me that my pains in my balls weren’t really in my balls at all. Then when he said the entire thing had been caused by my mother almost 60 years ago, I knew the man was totally full of shit. He prescribed a muscle relaxant, suggested that I concentrate on relaxing my sphincter and not tensing my bladder when I urinate, and said he’d see me in three months. I managed to thank him, then left his office before I said what I really thought.

It was a 35 mile drive home in heavy traffic. I got progressively more angry all the way home. I have always prided myself on being a very good driver, but that afternoon it wouldn’t have taken much to put me into a very good road rage. I had spent over $7,000 trying to get to the bottom of the problem, and I was no closer than I had ever been. I didn’t know about the incontinence, and I frankly didn’t care. I had been wearing diapers for almost a year now and had got used to it. It wouldn’t have been my choice, but it was no big deal. In a way it was rather convenient. When in diapers I didn’t have to use those filthy public washrooms in malls, on the highway, etc. I didn’t have to stop to pee on long trips, didn’t have to excuse myself from meetings at work. But I knew there was no way I could find anything good about having some unseen hand squeezing my balls for the rest of my life, and I was determined to have them gone.

As I drove home, still seething that I’d spent all that money, lost time at work and got nowhere, I managed to find something good about even the pain. I think maybe I had learned a little something from Kenny after all. He was the eternal optimist, always able to find something good in every situation. I thought again as I drove about the past year. Between the pains in my balls and the embarrassment of having to reveal my diapers every time I dropped my pants, I had completely lost all sex drive. I hadn’t had sex, hadn’t wanted it, for almost a year. Not with Cathy, Kenny, or anyone else. I had masturbated 2 or 3 times, but even that was painful so I’d lost the desire to get off altogether. To my utter astonishment it felt good! This must be what it’s like to be a eunuch, I thought, and it made me want it all the more. I was almost home when I had an idea.

“What you’ve gotta do is find out who is real and who is not, why they were castrated, and how it was done,” Kenny had said. So logical, yet such evasive answers. And then it hit me like a ton of bricks. Of all the eunuchs I had known, I mean REAL eunuchs, the vast majority of them were transgendered males. Many, if not most, could not afford the thousands of dollars for full sex change surgery, so they’d had to settle for second best: castration to eliminate the male hormones, then some sort of hormone therapy to develop a more feminized body. I knew that some of them hadn’t been castrated surgically but chemically, by taking this or that drug to “kill” the testosterone in their bodies. But others had indeed been surgically castrated. So all I had to do was to visit some of the sites on the ‘net that are frequented by TG’s, and hopefully, sooner or later, I would find out where and how they were achieving their castration.

It didn’t take very long once I made some TG contacts, browsed some sites and exchanged some posts to learn for the first time the name Dr. Spector. He even had his own web site, so I had little difficulty checking him out. He provided me with the names of some of his patients and I contacted two of them. One was a TG, the other a man who’d had the same problem I’d always had: simply too much sex drive for his, or anyone else’s good. At that time he’d been a eunuch for about two years, and he told me what I wanted to hear: that his sex drive was completely gone. They both expressed complete and total happiness with the results of Dr. Spector’s work, so I decided to call the good doctor. But first I had to get the agreement of a very conservative nurse: my wife.

Predictably I had the same basic discussion with Cathy that I’d had with Kenny. At first she was absolutely horrified that I would ever consider such a thing, but she knew better than anyone how much pain I was enjoying, which had served to soften her stance considerably. She suggested that I try another urologist, but I refused. “I’ve been to the best,” I pointed out, “and he gives me a line of crap about potty training and tells me that I’m not feeling what I think I’m feeling. Dammit, Cathy, any man can tell you he knows when his balls hurt. There’s no pain in the world quite like it.”
“But... but to have them removed!” she protested. “That’ll make you impotent, won’t it?”
“Maybe yes, maybe no,” I answered. “Some eunuchs claim they can still function, more or less, but the point is it’s no longer important to them. And you know that’s always been a problem for us, and it’s even more so now that you’re... now that you can’t take hormones any more. I think my sex life is over, so I just want it to be REALLY over.”

I knew as soon as I’d made that last comment that I shouldn’t have. Cathy gave me a really strange look. For a good five minutes she didn’t say anything, just looked at me. She flipped through some of the information I’d printed off the net, then she regarded me again. Then she asked the big one, the one I never wanted to have to answer. “Charlie,” she said, her eyes boring into mine, “do you still find me sexually attractive?”

I had to be careful with this one. To a woman, the loss of a breast is at least as devastating, if not more so, as the loss of his package is to a man. And Cathy was no exception. She had gone through a period of deep depression, had spent a lot of money getting a prosthesis (falsie) that would look “normal” and yet be comfortable to wear. I knew that if I told her the truth, that I had pretty well lost interest sexually, she would immediately conclude that it was because of her disfigured breast. In truth it had happened a long time before that, but I couldn’t tell her that either.

I had not known this when we were married, but years after the fact I had learned that Cathy’s childhood had been a thousand times worse than mine. She had a brother, 6 years her junior, who was mildly, and I repeat MILDLY handicapped. He could walk and get around, do whatever he put his mind to really, but with some difficulty because he didn’t have good motor control of his hands, and his speech was difficult to understand. Nevertheless when this brother was a very little boy their father had started compensating for him, and he took it to extreme. Cathy would be called upon to babysit, and if dear brother misbehaved and she punished him, she was picking on him. If he misbehaved and she didn’t punish him, she was not doing her duty. Either way Cathy got punished.

Cathy had a very strong suspicion that she could thank her brother Barry for her breast cancer because when she was 12 or 13, with tiny breasts just developing, her brother would throw temper tantrums and pound on those very tender breasts with his fists. If she fought back she was punished; if she tattled the fight was her fault. In fact for most of her growing up years, everything that happened somehow ended up being her fault. So now it was very difficult to criticize, to suggest that she had in any way contributed to any sort of bad situation because she would immediately go to pieces, thinking she was a total failure.

So what I wanted to tell her in answer to her question was that our sex life had been great for the first few years, but then as it dwindled I began to get the idea that I was somehow inadequate, that I could not satisfy her somehow, could not perform in such a way that it made her want more. Of course the very rewarding, albeit somewhat sporadic sex life I was enjoying with Kenny served to confirm even more that sexually I should never have married in the first place. But I couldn’t tell her that either, could I? To hear such a thing from me would cause her to immediately conclude “I did it wrong! I couldn’t perform in bed in a way to hold you, so you blame me because you’re gay.” In fact nothing could be further from the truth. But she was now sitting facing me, still looking me straight in the eye, waiting for an answer.

“Cathy, I said truthfully, “there has never been a time since we were married that I doubted that you love me, and there has never been a time when I didn’t love you with all my heart. We’ve been through some pretty rough times, and I’m sure that’s had a negative effect on our sex life. It’s also no secret that I spent a number of years thinking I was Gay, and frankly a big part of me still is. When you lost your hormones and your female parts I just assumed that whatever libido you did have would be gone, so I started conditioning myself to living without sex with you. It has nothing to do with how you look, it’s just... just where we’re at. But I still have just as much sex drive as I did when I was 18, and it’s driving me nuts! I want to spend the rest of my life with you, grow old with you, but I don’t know if I can do it with the sex drive I’ve got. I’d rather be asexual, just like you, so we can get on with our lives.”

“But that doesn’t answer my question,” she pressed.
“Ok, I’ll answer it the best I can. I won’t say it doesn’t bother me when I see you remove your bra because it does. It tears me up! But it’s not the way you think. I hate what happened to you! What you went through no one should have to endure! But I am not in any way repulsed by how you look, I just hate that it happened. But I think we’d be a lot happier and I’d be a lot more content if I wasn’t living every day with the sex drive of a teenager. We’re not teens any more, and I’m tired of living like one, or at least trying.”

I don’t think that I had convinced her completely, but she did at least agree in principle. I did notice, though, that she had never once brought up Kenny’s name in our discussion. That just confirmed to me what I had strongly suspected: that she had no idea that Kenny and I were still getting together from time to time. Had she completely blocked out of her memory what she’d agreed to all those many years ago? I was beginning to believe she had. I already knew that such things happen; I myself had blocked out almost all of my mother’s memory, and as hard as I tried I could not bring it back. So now it was time to call Dr. Spector.

If I remember correctly the doctor and I spoke on the phone on three different occasions. I made the big and final call in January, 1997, and made an appointment for April 5. He told me to shave the area the night before, and to arrive around 10 in the morning, to bring a jockstrap to wear after the surgery, and that I would be able to walk out, a eunuch, at around 2 that same afternoon. Needless to say I was very excited, but I still had almost 3 months to wait.

I got another third degree from Kenny, but this time I gave him one right back. “Are you sure you can live without sex?” I demanded.
“Whether or not you’re castrated makes no difference now,” he replied. “Knowing that we don’t have Cathy’s blessing is gonna make it very difficult for me to keep on the way we’ve been doing. But yes, Charlie, I think I can get along very nicely without sex. I’ve done it for the past year and it hasn’t bothered me. We’ve had a hell of a go, you and I - from all I’ve heard better than most. But are you sure this is what you want?”
“I’m sure,” I answered. “I’m getting rather excited by the whole thing, really. You gonna come to Philadelphia with me?”
“Isn’t Cathy going?” he asked.
“I dunno,” I answered. “I haven’t asked her.”
“Ask her first,” he instructed. “If she doesn’t want to go, I’ll go with you. But I have a strong suspicion she’ll want to go, and she should have first option. And don’t tell her you asked me first!”

Again I knew Kenny was right, but I didn’t think Cathy would want to go. I was wrong, she jumped at the chance. I have often marveled at the fact that I was the married one, Kenny the completely gay one; I had spent almost 35 years with the same woman, he had spent two with his wife. Yet he seemed to have so much better understanding of women! Or maybe he just plain understood people better. Whatever one wants to believe is the reason, Kenny’s advice was always sound, always intended to enhance our marriage or get us out of some sort of jam, and he didn’t very often fail. There had even been times when he’d seen a problem, some situation that could easily have been used to drive us apart, but Kenny had always done the exact opposite.

It would be a lie to state that all the communication I got off the ‘net was positive. There were those on Alt.Eunuchs.Questions who called me a lunatic. What they were doing in that forum anyway was always a mystery to me. There were others who admired me, telling me that I had more courage than they could ever find, that as much as the found the idea intriguing they could never actually have themselves castrated. Still others, some claiming to be eunuchs and some not, had lots of advice for me after I’d become a eunuch. There were suggestions for hormones, recommendations to go all the way and take Estrogen once the testosterone was gone, still others that advised that I should try chemical castration first. All of that was fine and well, but eliminating the pain had become just as important to me as getting rid of the hormones. Spring was coming and with it lots and lots of yard work, and in my current condition there was no earthly way I could even mow the lawn or pick up a rake!

One man in particular had been exchanging postings and email with me for about 6 months. I think he knew my situation better than anyone, but even he didn’t know it all. He had been relatively neutral, just feeding me the information that he’d dug up over the past 2 or 3 years. He had not been castrated himself and said he probably never would be, but he was intensely interested in the subject. As the middle of March came and went, John (not his real name) sent me an email. It was very short and to the point: “Charlie, remember you can’t reattach them,” he stated. “Please be sure this is what you want. I don’t want you to wake up some morning in May or June and say ‘My God! What have I done?’”

Well, that simple email began working at my mind. I didn’t say anything to anyone because I knew that any display of doubt whatsoever would probably get the whole thing canceled. So I thought of the pro’s and con’s again. I began to wonder if I shouldn’t reconsider chemical castration for a year or two. But that wouldn’t solve the pain problem, would it? But then there were lots more doctors; maybe one of them, perhaps the next one I visited, would solve the problem. I had had enough “O God, what have I done?’s” in my life to last me three lifetimes; I certainly didn’t need another one. So I called Dr. Spector and told him I just wasn’t ready. He was very gracious and understanding, and he canceled the appointment.

I still hadn’t shared with anyone that all this had gone on. As far as Kenny and Cathy were concerned, who were at that point the only two people who knew that I had made an appointment at all, I was scheduled to go to Phillie on April 5 and be castrated. Actually looking back now, I think this might have been one of the first times I actually got it right the first time, without any prompting from anyone. The first person I told what I had done was Cathy.
“So what are you gonna do now?” Cathy inquired when I told her I had canceled.
“I dunno, Hun,” I replied. “I just don’t know if I’m ready to take that step.”
“Would you like me to see if I can hook you up with another urologist at Duke? There are plenty more, you know.”
“Not yet,” I stalled. “I just don’t know if I can take another off-the-wall analysis like that last one.”
“You’ve got to do something, Charlie,” she said in her best nurse/patient voice. “You can’t go through life holding your crotch all the time.”
“I know,” I said irritably. I left the room, took a long hot shower, which always relieved the pain somewhat, and went to bed.

I was awake at 5 the next morning before the alarm went off. I reached out and shut it off, then got up carefully so as not to wake Cathy. I had been going in to work for 6, which gave me an hour before anyone else arrived to check the network, make sure all of the file servers were running ok, and just have a little time to myself. That solitude was becoming increasingly important to me. The pains seemed to be a little less this morning, and I wondered if perhaps whatever was going on was starting to get better.

By noon that day I had finished everything that needed doing, and it’s a good thing. My mind was whizzing a thousand miles a second, but what I was thinking had nothing to do with computers or LAN’s or the Internet. I was thinking of the constant pain in my groin, the diaper I was wearing out of necessity, and probably most important, what I was going to do to reduce my sex drive now that I had canceled my castration. It didn’t take long to realize I’d made a mistake, so I determined to call Dr. Spector back and reinstate the appointment.

The first call I made was around 6 PM. Cathy hadn’t got home yet. She was now working in a transplant team at Duke, and it was not uncommon for her to get involved in a case and stay at work as long as 24 hours. I called Dr. Spector, but there was no answer. He had no phonemail so there was simply no answer.

Around 7:30 Cathy called to say she would be home between 9 and 10, that they’d had an unexpected lung transplant and she would he home as soon as it was done. After we had hung up I called Spector again, but there was still no answer. I was starting to panic now. Had he scheduled someone else for that weekend? Did he have another opening soon? Had he gone away? So I did what I’d done for the past forty years when I was in distress: I phoned Kenny.

Kenny was out of town again, which was becoming more and more normal for him; but I knew where he was. He was in Miami, working on a contract for a new telecommunications company. I thought as I sat, listening to the phone ring, that Miami in late March was pretty well the best place to be in the United States if you were gay and alone. I knew there would be no end of opportunities to meet other guys there: in bars, on the beach, probably lots of other places I could find if I were there. But I also knew, I mean I KNEW that Kenny would not be availing himself of any of those opportunities. Then the guilt set in. I was just on the verge of hanging up when I heard his voice on the line.

“Charlie, I’ve gotta admit I’m a little confused,” he said when I’d told him what I’d done. “I mean, you were so sure! So adamant! You wouldn’t listen to any objections from either Cathy or me.”
“I know, Kenny,” I said. “I guess I just got cold feet. You know what a fuckup I am.”
“You’re not a fuckup, Charlie,” he answered. “You just have trouble being alone. I’ve known that as long as I’ve known you. But it’s ok, Charlie, he’ll be back. Maybe he was in surgery or something and couldn’t be disturbed. Just keep trying, bud. Do you want to come home?”
“You’re not scheduled to come home for another week,” I reminded him.
“I can reschedule,” he said. “If you need me, I’m there.”
“It’s ok, Kenny,” I said. “I guess I just got a little panicky. I knew if I heard your voice it’d be ok. You’ve always had that effect on me, you know.”
“Just keep calling, Charlie,” he said. “And if you want me to come home just let me know. If I’m not here leave a message at the front desk, and I’ll be on the next flight home. It’s gonna be all right, Charlie.”

“Kenny?” I said as I tried to hide the tears in my voice.
“Yeah, Charlie?”
“I guess maybe I haven’t said this for a while, but I love you, man!”
“I know you do, Charlie,” he answered. “I love you too. But now you’ve gotta pull yourself together before Cathy gets home. Why don’t you take her out to dinner?”
“It’s late, Kenny!” I exclaimed. “I don’t even know when she’s gonna be home.”
“So call some place nice and make an open reservation. She’ll appreciate it, Charlie, and you know she deserves it. Keep me posted, ok?”

There it was again! Kenny was giving me advice on my marriage, and making perfect sense in the process! I didn’t call to make reservations because there was absolutely no way of knowing when Cathy would be home. She had been thrilled to death when she landed the position on the transplant team, but the honor hadn’t come without a price. When a heart or lung became available and was matched with a patient, all members of the team were expected to be in the OR within an hour, scrubbed and ready to operate; and they were expected to stay there until the surgery was finished, which could be as long as 36 hours! That was fine for a 25 year old nurse, but Cathy was double that age, and her body was probably even older after having fought cancer and chemo therapy.

Cathy arrived just before midnight, thoroughly exhausted and demoralized. I knew without asking that the patient had died on the table, and when that happened Cathy was always devastated for days, as if she had been solely responsible for the entire procedure, not just a nurse on the team. I knew she wouldn’t want to go out to a restaurant so I did the next best thing: I ordered in a large fully loaded pizza. Cathy loved pizza! I still didn’t feel I could share with her my frustration at not being able to contact Spector; she already had enough on her plate.

It was three days later when Spector and I finally connected; three days during which my email friend’s prediction had come true many times, but in a completely opposite way than he’d suggested. Every time I called and got no answer I repeated “My God, what have I done?” “I’m sorry,” he said when I’d explained that I had reconsidered again, “I’ve made other plans now. I can reschedule for... let me see... around the middle of May.”
“Doctor,” I pleaded, “isn’t there some way you could fit me in? I’m kinda desperate. I’m in a lot of pain, and I just don’t know how much longer I can take it.”
“You’re in THAT much pain?”
“Yes, sir,” I answered. It was true, the physical pain was getting pretty bad; but the emotional pain, the desire, now a full obsession, to return to those days in my youth before puberty were so strong I could hardly live with myself from day to day.

Dr. Spector asked me to wait a minute, then he put the phone down. I could hear muffled voices as he spoke to someone, then there was a long period of absolute silence, and he finally came back on the line. “You were scheduled for April 5, right?” he questioned.
“That’s right,” I said. “My wife and I have already booked off work for the 4th so we can drive up. I’m sorry about canceling, I know I must sound like something of a flake, but I promise if you can go ahead with that appointment I won’t cancel again.”
“That’ll be fine,” the good doctor said. “If you can be here promptly at 10 that morning, we’ll go ahead with the surgery.”

If I’d been able to reach through the phone at that moment, I would have kissed the doctor no matter who was watching! “Thank you so much!” I exclaimed, and we hung up. “I’m rescheduled,” I told Cathy as she looked at me curiously, wondering why in the world I was so excited. Now that the problem was solved and the surgery was back on, I explained to her what had happened. She still wasn’t fully behind the entire project, but as had been the case our entire marriage, she went along because she knew how badly I wanted it.

The drive from Raleigh to Philadelphia is a clear shot up Interstate 95. There had been a horrific snowstorm in Phillie on Wednesday, April 2; it had been so bad that the Interstate had been completely closed for a while. I was a little concerned what we might run into, but by Friday spring had returned, the roads were clear and dry. Just the same, it was 400 miles so we left early Friday morning and the drive took us a little over 7 hours. Kenny had called Thursday night and wished me well, we exchanged discreet “I love you’s”, he repeated that he was glad Cathy was going with me and that he’d be thinking about me. Now we were in the car on the road with nothing to do but talk, and the topic of conversation was not hard to figure out.

Only two weeks ago I’d had my regular quarterly visit with my doctor - the visit that all diabetics, at least all who have common sense, have to endure. I had crapped all over him about all the money I’d spent with him and two urologists and hadn’t come any closer to a solution. I had told him very smugly that I was going to solve the problem myself, that I was going to Philadelphia to be castrated. “Please don’t do that,” he had said. “If you’ll just give me more time I’m sure we can get to the bottom of it.” My doctor at that time was a young man, probably in his early 40's, although he looked in his 20's. In fact I called him ‘Kid Doc.’
“Yeah, right,” I had said rather disgustedly, “and at what cost? And how long will it take? And what about the libido problem?”
“Sometimes these things take a little more time,” he argued, and probably rightly so. “As for the libido, I would have no problem prescribing a castrating drug.”
“Tell you what,” I proposed. “I’ll give you more time to do your thing... a month, two months... if you’ll agreed to castrate me if you don’t find the problem.”
“I think you know I can’t do that,” he said. Of course I DID know he couldn’t, or at least wouldn’t do that.
“Then I’m gonna go ahead,” I told him. “But I do need to know, if and when I do, will you still be my doctor?”
“Of course,” he replied. “You’ll still be diabetic, and you’ll still need treatment for that. Just please keep in mind that you’re doing this against my advice.”

The doctor had then given my a prescription for a very powerful antibiotic: Cipro. I don’t know if he knew about Spector, or if he had some other idea about where I was going or how I was going to be castrated. He hadn’t asked, and I hadn’t volunteered the information. He instructed me to start taking the Cipro immediately and to take it for two weeks after the castration.

That was our first topic of conversation as Cathy and I drove north on I-95. Due to our busy schedules, she and I had not really discussed my doctor’s visit before. After I had recounted the conversation, I went into a bit of a tirade, for perhaps the hundredth time, about how the medical profession will remove a woman’s sexual parts at the drop of a hat, but wouldn’t touch a man’s no matter what. I had even read of young men with testicular cancer, older men with prostate cancer, and in both cases their doctors had chosen to use chemotherapy or radiation rather than castrate the patient. “It’s not fair,” I ranted. “It’s sexual discrimination, that’s what it is!”

“Doctors are so afraid of lawsuits,” she defended. “They’re afraid that they’ll castrate you, then six months later you’ll realize it was a mistake and sue them for doing irresponsible surgery.”
“But aren’t a man’s testicles just the male version of a female’s ovaries?” I asked.
“I guess you could say that,” she agreed.
“Then I don’t see the difference. It’s MY goddamned body! They rip out women’s ovaries every day of the week!”
“But that doesn’t stop a woman from having sex,” she argued. “Take away a man’s hormones and he’s incapable of sex. There’s a big difference.”
“I don’t see any difference at all,” I replied bitterly. “I’ve still got my balls and my hormones, but I’m still not able to have sex. I still have the urge, just not the outlet.”

As soon as I’d said it I knew I’d gone over the line again. Cathy went silent, having interpreted my remark, probably accurately given my mood at the time, as an accusation. Why the hell did I have to be so fucking cruel? A simple remark like that and I’d hurt the woman I loved so incredibly deeply, and yet I did it all the time! What the hell was wrong with me anyway?”

I had been telling myself, and anyone else who would listen, for over thirty years that I was married to one of the finest women on the face of the earth. No, it wasn’t perfect; our sex life was a disaster, but so what? She was always doing something for me, like bringing home a shirt, a new suit, shoes that she’d seen on sale and thought I might like. I had bought a motorcycle only five years after we’d been married, though we could ill afford it at the time, and I’d had one ever since. This activity she had tolerated, even putting forth the effort to learn to drive, although she had never owned one of her own. Our house was full of trinkets she’d bought for me: models of my favorite cars, motorcycles, and of course my John Deere collection, which was (and still is) all over the house. I’d had a large theater organ AND a piano since the early 70's, even though Cathy had no interest in music whatsoever. But it wasn’t enough! Every discussion of sex, it seemed, ended with me making some accusing remark that shot her down in flames. I felt like a spoiled little boy: a 58 year old spoiled little boy.

We stopped for lunch at a service area sometime around 1 PM; or more accurately we stopped so I could change a very wet diaper, and decided to have lunch and gas up while we were stopped. I had got quite used to the routine of wearing diapers now. It wouldn’t have been my choice if I’d had a choice, but I didn’t mind really. Changing myself, or having Cathy change me at home was just part of my daily routine now. Even at work I had determined which employee washrooms were less busy and could make the change quickly and discreetly. Actually I had got so I liked the feel of the wet diaper because the warmth seemed to ease the pains in my balls somewhat. But changing in the crowded, less than clean washroom of a truck stop in the Interstate was quite another matter, and one that I knew I would never get used to. All the same I got the job done, we had our lunch in silence and were back on the road.

“I’ve got to ask you something,” Cathy said as I set the cruise control at 70. “You’d still be doing this even if you didn’t have the pain, wouldn’t you?”
I didn’t even have to think about that one. “Yes,” I answered. “I guess the pain sorta brought it all to a head, but that’s not the main reason I’m doing it.”
“Are you doing it for me?” she asked.

Ok, another one of those questions I had to be very careful how I answered. Maybe I hadn’t even thought of that one myself until faced with the question; but faced with it now, it didn’t take a lot of brain power to figure out the answer. “No, I’m not, Cathy,” I answered honestly. “In my opinion my balls stopped being my friends after our last child was conceived. I just want it all over!”
“Are you sure? Because if you’re doing it for me...”
“I’m doing it for US, Cathy! You were born with a very low sex drive. You can’t help that any more than I can help having a very high one. I’ve tried everything I know to make sex more attractive to you, but nothing’s worked. Maybe it’s because I’m more gay than straight and just don’t know how to please a woman; maybe it’s simply your ‘family curse’ the same as mine is to be a sex maniac. But I just think we’ll be a lot happier once I’m a eunuch. I’m too selfish to give you up, and I can’t live this way any more. My sex life has always been all out of whack and I just want it over!”

We drove the last two or three hours in silence, each with our own thoughts. I knew, had known for years, that it had been very selfish of me to get married. But if I hadn’t, those beautiful kids of ours would never have been. I had thought many times about getting out of the marriage, that Cathy would have no trouble finding a man who would be better for her, perhaps even better TO her, but I loved her too much. I NEEDED her! And I’m pretty sure that she would never have tried marriage again if her first one failed, and I simply couldn’t do that to her. I wondered what Cathy was thinking as we drove along, but I’ve never asked. All that was really important to me was that she would be with me when I took this very important step.

We got to Philadelphia around 6 PM, found the hotel just off I-95 where I’d made reservations and checked in. Once we’d got in and unpacked, we went out for a nice meal. I was thinking things like “this is the last meal I’ll have as a complete man,” but I kept the thoughts to myself. We talked about other things - pleasant things, neutral things. Bobbi and Jeff and their two children had moved down from Canada and were living with us until their house was built, so there were always lots of “kid” things to talk about. Cathy, always the doting grandmother, said she wouldn’t mind doing some shopping for kids’ clothes if we got the chance. I wasn’t real anxious to do any kind of shopping, but I agreed to look for an outlet mall or some such if we had the time.

One of Dr. Spector’s instructions was to shave my entire groin area from navel to knees. I had been in the habit of keeping myself shaved anyway since I was always wet down there, but I went over the area before bed anyway, making sure I was completely hair free. Cathy offered to help but I declined, thinking that this would reinforce my earlier statement that I was doing it for ME.

I didn’t sleep very well that night. Twice during the night I got up and went outside for a smoke. Cathy had never smoked, so I had never smoked in the house. I had actually pretty well given up smoking, but my nerves tonight demanded nicotine and I obliged. The snow from the storm three days ago was all gone now and the night air was actually quite warm as I wandered through the parking lot of the hotel. I don’t even remember what I thought about, but I do remember getting excited that my lifelong ordeal would soon be over. This time tomorrow I would be a eunuch; my stormy sex life would be behind me and I could be what I’d always wanted to be: a normal, considerate father and husband.

Our appointment with Dr. Spector was at 10, but we had no idea how long it would take to get downtown so we left the hotel shortly after 7. Traffic was light and we had no trouble finding the address we’d been given, so we were parked and ready shortly after 8. We sat it the car and talked a while, walked to a drug store a block or two away so Cathy could get something - I don’t remember what, then finally running out of things to do we knocked on Spector’s door shortly after 9. The doctor himself answered the door, looking a bit surprised to see us. I introduced Cathy and myself to which Spector replied “You’re early. My assistant isn’t here yet. But come in and we’ll get the paperwork out of the way.”

We were ushered into a very cluttered hallway with boxes stacked along both walls, then into an even more cluttered room. There were boxes everywhere! “I’m sorry for the mess,” the doctor said, “I’ve just moved in and haven’t got everything put away yet.” So this was why he’d been reluctant to schedule me! It hadn’t been a heavy calendar at all, but simply that he’d moved!

Spector sat at a very cluttered desk and pulled some papers out of a drawer and began asking about my medical history. I had taken a chance this morning and hadn’t worn a diaper, afraid that he might not do the procedure if he knew too much about my real condition. I had told him about the pain, in fact had told him that was my primary reason for wanting to be cut. He asked a few questions about that pain - when it had started, had I got a blow to the balls, had I been checked for cancer, all that sort of thing. As we talked I noticed the small examination table, tucked in a sort of alcove on the other side of the room. I felt a shudder pass through my body when I realized that this was very likely where I would be castrated.

When Spector left the room to answer the door, Cathy attacked me verbally. Somehow I knew she would when we saw the setup. From her viewpoint the room where I would be cut must have seemed downright primitive! She was on a transplant team, was accustomed to an environment where conditions were as near perfect as was humanly possible; yet here we were in a box cluttered room, a very tiny examination table that looked anything but sterile, and no obvious way to make it any better without extensive modifications. I quickly dismissed her objections, stating flatly that it was this or nothing, and I wasn’t about to accept nothing.

When Dr. Spector came back into the room he introduced his assistant, a rather attractive young lady. I have tried to remember her name but cannot, so I will call her Sherry.

As Sherry and the doctor started making preparations, she told us that she had been a man, had been castrated by the doctor several years ago, then had had complete SRS two years ago. The transition was at the very least impressive. After she confessed that she’d started life as a male I could see the telltale signs: legs that were a little heavier that most young ladies, hands that were somewhat large. But on the whole she was a very attractive female. I found myself admiring her, even envying her in some ways: she had recognized exactly what she was and had done what she had to do to live her life that way. At 58 I still wasn’t sure what the hell I was!

“I guess it’s time for you to get undressed,” Dr. Spector announced as he placed a tray of instruments on a small table. “I have found through the years that it’s a lot easier to castrate a man if he has no pants on.” I tried to laugh, to enjoy his attempt at humor as I slipped out of my shoes and pants, but I was far too nervous. At his suggestion I left my T-shirt and socks on, then I climbed up on the small table. Cherry swabbed my entire crotch with betadyne, then busied herself taping my penis to my belly while Dr. Spector gave me 4 or 5 injections to temporarily kill the nerves. “Now we wait,” he announced. “You should be completely numb down there in about ten minutes.”

I lay on the table, looking at Cathy, then at Dr. Spector as he fumbled with my genitals, testing for feeling. When I assured him that I couldn’t feel his hand pinching my scrotum, he picked up a scalpel. I was free of pain for the first time in almost two years. I looked up at the ceiling. I had always been something of a wimp when it came to someone cutting on my person, had even had a general anaesthetic 20 years earlier when I’d had a vasectomy so I wouldn’t have to watch. I was afraid I might faint or something and I didn’t want to take any chances that might foul things up. I had been getting more nervous by the minute all morning; my heart was pounding at an alarming rate; but as I lay on the table staring at the ceiling and felt the vague sensation of someone handling my genitals, I was overcome by a calm the likes of which I hadn’t felt for years. It was finally happening!

As I lay there on the table, staring at the ceiling, I realized that this was it! In a matter of hours now I would be a eunuch. I thought of the incredible sex life I’d led. I saw Kenny and the very first time we’d had sex, and how utterly shocked I had been. I watched on my own private screen in my mind as we went through high school, then college. Then I saw Cathy, and as I saw her I felt her squeeze my hand. I had been so terrified the first time I had to perform with her, but it had been ok; no, it had been GREAT!

“He’d fuck a rock pile if he thought there was a snake in it,” my Uncle Brad had said about one of my uncles. That was ME! And as I had that thought, I knew without any question that I was finally doing what I had to do, what I WANTED to do!

I felt something wet hit my foot - I looked down to see that the sock on my right foot was soaked. “There’s the source of your pain,” Dr. Spector announced, “a simple hydrocele.”
“Hydrocele?” I questioned.
“It’s a simple fluid buildup in the membranes surrounding the testicles,” Cathy explained. “I’ve seen it hundreds of times in the OR, but I’ve never known it to cause the kind of pain you were having.”
“There was a lot of pressure there,” Spector told us. “Didn’t any of the doctors you had do an ultrasound?”
“At least twice,” I answered. “But not of my testicles. They did ultrasounds of my bladder, but that’s all as far as I know.”
“All they had to do was an ultrasound,” Spector said. “A hydrocele as big as that one would have shown up like a big red sign.” If you like I can just relieve the pressure on the other testicle, then put them back and stitch you up. I’m pretty sure you’ll have no more pain.”

I looked down at my genitals for the first time. He had made an incision on the underside of my scrotum and had one testicle hanging out with a clamp on the cords and blood vessels that connected it to my body. I looked at Cathy, but her face was more or less expressionless. I looked back at my denuded testicle and was suddenly filled with what can only be described as a hatred. “Cut the fuckin’ things off!” I hissed.

As the doctor went back to work, I suddenly realized that I was watching and not feeling anything but fascination, so I asked Cathy to raise the table so I could see better. She did, and I watched as the doctor castrated me.

I have since realized that Spector’s technique was different from normal, if there is such a thing. He didn’t have, or at least didn’t use, a cauterizing device, but instead he snipped off the several layers of membrane that surrounds the testicles, then stitched those membranes around the ends of the cords and vessels to stop the flow of blood. “It’ll feel as if you still have testicles for a while,” he explained as he worked. “In time they’ll disappear and you’ll have a completely empty scrotum. I always leave as much tissue as I can because if you ever want SRS the surgeon will need as much tissue as he can get.”
“Not a problem,” I stated forcefully, “I’m having enough problems being a man; I would never try to be a woman.”

The other testicle had a hydrocele as well, but not nearly as bad as the first one. It had got extremely hot in our little “operating room;” Dr. Spector was sweating profusely and obviously having trouble seeing. He had been interrupted several times by people coming to the door looking for their supply of female hormones. I realized that Dr. Spector was a valuable resource for transgendered people - probably one of the few in the country.

When he was finally finished, a little after 2, he applied bandages and instructed me to put on my jockstrap and get dressed. “Come by in the morning before you leave,” he instructed. “I’ll change the bandages and check for hemorrhaging. You’re a eunuch, Charlie!”

As I walked down the front steps of Dr. Spector’s town house, I felt as if I was walking on air. The pains in my balls had dulled and disappeared when he’d injected me with pain killers, but it was so much more than that. I knew I was only a few ounces lighter, I had actually held my own balls in my hand! But I felt at least three hundred pounds lighter! I had no pain, no nausea, only a slight feeling of weakness that I knew came from nerves and would pass. I was ready to head downtown to see some of the sights of Philadelphia.

“Not on your life!” Cathy said sternly. “We are going directly back to the hotel and you’re going to bed! I’m terrified that you’re gonna start bleeding, so as soon as I can get you into bed that’s where you’re going, with an ice pack between your legs.” Obviously Cathy the nurse was alive and well.

Once again I feel I should point out Cathy’s frame of reference. The heart transplant unit at Duke is very rigid and strict, has all the latest and best equipment and one of the strictest sterile protocols in the country. Dr. Spector had done his best, but still Cathy had found conditions absolutely appalling. “If there’d been any other way, I would never have allowed him to cut you,” she said forcefully. “Humor me, Charlie. You do anything to raise your blood pressure and those stitches are gonna pop. You’re going straight to bed, and you’re not getting up until it’s time to leave in the morning.”

I did as I was told. We went straight back to the hotel (I drove - I felt that good!) and I got undressed and went to bed. Cathy got a ziplock bag somewhere and filled it with ice from the hotel ice machine, and plunked it unceremoniously against the bandages over my crotch and told me to keep it there. She wouldn’t let me smoke, not because I was inside but because she said it would raise my blood pressure. I was disappointed - I felt so good I wanted to go dancing - but I knew Cathy had made several major concessions so that I could be a eunuch, so I allowed myself to be babied and pampered. By morning, she told me, if there had been no problems the risk would be greatly reduced and we could go home. “By then you’ll probably be in some pain,” she predicted.

The drive home on Sunday, April 6, was totally uneventful; well, that’s not exactly true. I had spent a restful night, if you can call having a bag full of ice where your balls used to be restful. Cathy had gone into full nurse mode, hovering over me, responding to my every wish and whim (well, she always did that anyway, didn’t she?), and keeping ice at my crotch all night. When we awoke around 7, she removed the bandages and found that all was well and the danger much reduced. I still had absolutely no pain, and to my great astonishment, had not wet the bed!

Cathy had placed three towels under me and told me not to worry about wetting, but she didn’t want a pissy diaper near that incision for fear of infection. She did the same on the seat of the car, saying very emphatically that she’d rather I have pissy pants and leave her car seat (It was her car) pissy than to risk an infection. The amazing thing was that I drove home, and didn’t pee a single drop the entire way home, except for the three pit stops we made. I had called Dr. Spector, Cathy and I both spoke to him, and we agreed there was no need for me to go see him. I had a strong suspicion that he’d felt somewhat intimidated because Cathy was a nurse and was glad to see the last of me, knowing I was in good hands.

I was planning to go back to work Monday morning. We arrived back in Raleigh around 6, stopped for a good meal at a local restaurant on the way, so we didn’t arrive home until around 8. Dr. Spector had instructed me not to lift anything heavy for at least two weeks, which wasn’t really a problem because the heaviest thing I usually lifted at work was my laptop computer; so I got up at 5 Monday morning and went to work as usual. Things were going fine - still no pain, a feeling of complete elation still enveloping me, until my phone rang at 10. It was Cathy, and she was in tears. “I just got a call from Mum,” she said tearfully. “Dad just died.”

I have already mentioned that Cathy’s dad had been very strict, very abusive as Cathy was growing up. But unlike me and my father Cathy and her father had long since reconciled. Actually he had become a great father and father-in-law, had even helped us financially on one occasion. Now that he was gone our presence was a no-brainer; we had to go! It was a 1500 mile drive, so we obviously had to leave right away. I left work immediately and headed home. “Are you ok to travel?” Cathy questioned as we packed. “You sure you can make a trip like that? I mean, your incision and all...”
“I’m fine,” I assured her. I called Kenny, who was out of town again, to let him know what had happened. “I’ll come home right away to help drive,” he said.
“Not necessary, dude,” I answered.
“But Charlie...”
“I’m feeling fine, I have no pain, and I’m not even wearing diapers any more. I’ll be fine, Kenny.”

I was fine! I hadn’t felt so good in a long time! So shortly after lunch time Cathy, Bobbi and I boarded Cathy’s Lumina and headed north again, destination eastern Canada. Cathy fussed and worried, concerned that I would rip a stitch, start bleeding somewhere on the road, begin having pain, but none of those things happened. By the time we got to Maine it had turned cold - VERY cold! On a lonely stretch of 2-lane road that Mainer’s call a highway, some time in the middle of the night, we hit a very deep pothole and blew a tire. Over Cathy’s objections I got out and changed the tire, surprising even myself to realize the only discomfort I was feeling was the extreme cold. I doubt that it was any more than 10 degrees. We got across the border into Canada on that little donut spare and stopped for the night.

Next morning I called the Chevy dealer and explained what had happened, and they reacted immediately. “Come right in,” the service manager told me, “we’ve got a special on Michelin tires right now.” I did, and in no time at all we had four new Michelin’s on the Lumina and were again on our way. It occurred to me as I was waiting for the tires to be mounted, this was the exact same town, just a small Canadian border town, where Cathy and I had spent our wedding night. Coincidence? Yeah, probably. But an interesting one, no?

We spent almost two weeks with Cathy’s mother. In spite of the reason for our unscheduled visit, we had a good time. I got to know a lot of Cathy’s relatives, people I’d met before but had never really known. I called Ellen and Mom Collins. Ellen wanted to see me but I had no desire to see her so I declined. I did want to see Mom Collins, but she said no, that my place was with my wife and her family. “We’ll see each other soon,” she assured me. Little did I know at that point how right she was, how soon we would spend a lot of time together.

Cathy removed my stitches while we were in Moncton. We were both amazed, based on my research and her experience, that I had healed so quickly and so well, and that I’d had no pain, no swelling. There was a little bruising, in fact my cock was all blue for a while, but by the time she removed the stitches it had turned a sickly yellow color, which she assured me was completely normal. So by the time we got back to Raleigh I was pretty well healed.

My first visit to “kid doc” was interesting. As usual I had signed in and had been ushered into a small examination room where I waited for the doctor. His first words to me, even before he had said ‘hello’ were “Well, did you do it?”
“I did it,” I replied. He immediately wanted to see the results and I lowered my pants almost anxiously, making sure he knew that I was no longer wearing a diaper. He examined the incision carefully, critically. “Seems to have done a good job,” he mused. “So when do you want to begin hormone therapy?”
“Are you nuts?” I exclaimed. “If I’d wanted hormones I would’ve just left my balls where they were. Never, Doctor! I’m NEVER gonna take hormones!”

I guess I've come to the point where I have to tell you about Kenny. I've been putting it off now for quite a while, perhaps because by writing about him, remembering him, he's been in some ways with me again. But like everything Kenny did, he died in style, with no fanfare, no burden on anyone.

Just days after Kenny's 58th birthday, I had the dubious pleasure of calling his mother and telling her that her son was gone. He had been working in a Midwest city for about six months, spending three or four days a week there. He had come home for his birthday because Kenny and I always had a 'special' birthday party. It was the first time since my castration that we’d made love, and the last. Then he left and said he wouldn't be back until the project was finished, which could take up to a month. Four days later when he didn't show up for a meeting, his client checked on him at his hotel and they found him. He had apparently gone to bed as usual, and some time through the night his heart had simply stopped.

At his mother's request, we took Kenny back to Moncton to be buried next to his father. Robbie and I escorted her through the whole ordeal; he on the right, me on the left. Through the whole procedure I hardly saw or heard anything. I never cried, I think I was too stunned. In my mind I saw playing over and over, like an old movie, a beautiful thirteen year old with a voice croaking between soprano and baritone as he came bounding into the classroom as I was leaving. Little did I know then that as beautiful as he was externally, I hadn't seen anything of his real beauty till I'd got to know him.

The night before the funeral as I stood staring at the coffin, I suddenly noticed that he was wearing his bracelet. Without thinking I undid the snap on mine and put it on his wrist, right next to his own, and I whispered good-bye to the best friend I had ever had. I felt guilt and remorse for the life he'd lived, because of me. He could have had a family, or a lover, a full time lover that is, but he refused to leave me. He assured me over and over that he had the best he could ask for; but how many others would have settled for the life he led? I was the one who drank; I was the one who smoked. I was the one who had diabetes, who had a long family history of heart disease. And yet it was Kenny who died first. Mom had no problem with this and told me simply "His work here was done here, Charlie." As usual Mom was right: Kenny had done his job and done it well; now it was time for him to rejoin his father, whom he had adored.

There are literally thousands of incidents I haven't documented here to show how special he was. Like the time I was laid up with knee surgery and couldn't walk, couldn't drive. Kenny just took over my duties as father and got the children to school meetings, hockey games and swim meets. Like when Cathy was so sick in the cancer ward. He became mother and father to the children then, because neither of us was able. Like when we first set up our triangle arrangement. It was Kenny who imposed a rule that neither Cathy nor I had thought of. When Cathy and I were having a fight, or I was in the doghouse over something, Kenny was off limits for me. He reasoned that the last thing a marriage needed was for one or the other of us to have someone to be sympathetic and undermine the relationship. There were times, I have no doubt, that he could have moved in on a situation and may well have helped to separate Cathy and me, but that's not what Kenny was all about.

I had a million things I wanted to say at this point, but now that my fingers are on the keyboard I can't think of a single thing. Perhaps the entire story I've just related says it all. That is, after all, why I wrote the story. It's my tribute to a pretty wonderful guy.

Mom is still alive, living with Robbie in western Canada. She is now well into her 80's and is failing fast. Robbie retired a couple years ago and moved out West and took his mom with him. I don’t get to see them as much as I’d like, but they all understand and we still keep in touch by email and telephone.

A little over two years ago Ellen had a sudden heart attack and died instantly. As expected my sister and I were totally disinherited, our father's estate being left to Ellen's three children. This had apparently been our father's direction before he died. It hurt some, but it was the principle, not the money. I've made it this far without his help so I guess I can make it the rest of the way. My sister could have used that money, and I had planned on sharing my portion with her when the time came. She only had one child, a daughter who came down with the same diabolical disease that killed our mother: Multiple Sclerosis. Debbie had never married, so now it is more or less up to my sister and her husband to take care of her.

As for me, I won't be leaving my children anything either. I'm 64 years old now, six years into a new career, and flat broke. I told my kids last year when I updated my will that there was no money so don't count on it. You see they already have their inheritance. The girls are both well established in their own homes, and I just spent the last of my savings helping Kevin buy a 13-acre plot of land bordering on his sister's property. Like his father before him, Kevin lost a lot of money when he sold his house in Canada. Kevin is well established too now, in his new home with his wife, and we are planning on building him a garage/workshop next weekend.

I have spent a lot of money doing family oriented things. In 1998 I bought a Chevy Suburban, now affectionately called “Big Red” by family and friends alike. It is fully customized with white leather seats, a killer Nakamichi stereo, mahogani trim inside, chrome and stainless steel trim outside. Why on earth would an old fart like me want such a behemoth of a vehicle? Well, because we seldom go anywhere alone. We have timeshares in Myrtle Beach and Orlando now, and whenever we go we can depend on at least one of our children, and always three grandchildren. There are two events every year that are completely non-negotiable as far as the grand’s are concerned: Every July Big Red goes to Myrtle Beach for a week, every December it’s Orlando; and the grand’s are always there.

Every Friday night through the summer, around 7 PM, Big Red gets loaded with as many neighbors and their kids as want to go, and we all head for the Wake County Speedway where we watch the stock car races and pig out on nasty hot dogs. Again, it’s an activity that has become expected. Big Red has turned out to be one of the best investments I have ever made!

I have been asked a few times, and will probably be asked more as a result of this story, would I do it again? What would I do differently if I could do it again. My first reaction is to say that now I have finally figured out that I'm gay, through and through, and that I had no business ever getting married. I believe that, but when I think of the family I have now, I would be hard pressed to wish them out of existence. As for my castration, I have one giant regret: I wish I’d done it twenty years sooner than I did.

My family:

First there's Stephanie. Ms. Independence! She came to Raleigh with us in 1981, graduated high school here, and stayed go to NC State when the family returned to Canada in 1983. She was only 17, but she did just fine. After college, with a degree in Criminology she stayed here in Raleigh and went to work for the Department of Correction. She met a young man while she was still in school, a certified alcoholic who not only drank constantly but also beat up on Steph now and then. Of course we were never aware of that until later. She stuck by him, cared for him, loved him. Phillip is her husband now, and he's been dry for over ten years. He's a good husband and totally devoted to Stephanie.

We don't see as much of Steph and Phillip as I would like, but I understand. Phillip comes from an extremely dysfunctional family. He is the middle of three brothers. When he was 14 his mother went to his school, had him pulled out of class to tell him that she wouldn't be home when he got there, that she was leaving, and that he should tell his little brother. And it went downhill from there. Now he calls Stephanie's family "that bunch of crazy Canadians," because when we're together there is always laughter, always picking at each other good-naturely, always love. Phillip cannot relate to a family that acts like that and it makes him very uncomfortable. He's coming though, he drops in from time to time to borrow some tool from me, or ask my advice, or to use the bathroom. He is constantly telling people “Stephanie’s father is a genius!” No, I’m no genius, and I really don’t think Phillip means it that way. That’s just his way of saying he admires me, and I appreciate it.

And still I miss Kenny.

I have already spoken of Kevin a great deal, so there's not much more to tell. He has an almost obsessive love for the outdoors, having grown up with his dad taking him camping, fishing, hunting. He was racing motocross when he was 8, even stripping the engine and putting it back together between races. He was never much of a scholar, had no aspirations of college or anything academic. I told him that's ok, be a garbage collector if you want, just be a good one. He went to a community college and became a welder/boiler maker. From all the things I've heard, he is a very good one!Kevin and I were always 'best friends' until he was 17, which was when he learned the true nature of my relationship with Kenny. In spite of my efforts to explain, he had a very rough year, which was complicated by the girl he was going with, who regarded our closeness as a threat and set about to destroy our friendship. As any father of a teenager will tell you, there is absolutely no point in trying to fight those hormones because you'll lose every time! I was devastated, thinking of my own relationship with my father and that history was repeating. Frankly this gulf between my son and me was one of the reasons I moved to Raleigh.

Kevin got over his problem, finally saw that girl for the bitch she is, and we are now best friends again. In August 1998 I had the extreme pleasure of going to Nova Scotia and helping him sell his house, pack up, and move to Raleigh. He and Suzanne, his fiance, lived with Cathy and me for about two years with their Children Dixie and Becky. They are Labrador Retrievers. Full house, or what?!

I stayed with Suzanne's parents in the summer or ‘98 while we cleaned up Kevin's house and got it sold, packed up the U-Haul and finished up all his business. They are wonderful people and we became very good friends. The night before we left they threw a party for us, and two of the guests were a gay couple who live next door. I judge their age to be around 35. They were truly the life of the party, and fully accepted by all present. It gave me hope... things really are changing. Suzanne, who I don't think knew anything about me at the time, told me that Rodney and Dennis had been her very good friends as long as she'd known them, and that they were totally devoted to each other. I wanted desperately to get to know them as Gay brothers, but that wasn't the right time or place. In the future, who knows? Kevin is the kind of kid (kid? He's 33! But I'm 64, so I guess I have the right to call him a kid.)... the kind of kid that everyone loves. He stands a good three or four inches taller than my 5'7" and is built like the proverbial brick shithouse. As one of my neighbors who has 'adopted' Kevin as his surrogate son says, "Putting your arms around Kevin is like hugging a giant oak tree!" Yes, in case you haven't guessed, I'm pretty proud of him. Years ago when Kevin was 10 or so, Kenny gave me a poem that I thought I'd share. I have no idea where it came from or who wrote it, but when he gave it to me he looked me in the eye and said "You better do like it says or you'll answer to me!" the poem goes:

A careful man I want to be, A little fellow follows me.
I do not care to go astray for fear he'll go the self same way.
I cannot once escape his eyes, for what he sees me do, he tries.
Like me he says he's going to be, that little chap who follows me.
He thinks that I am big and fine; he believes in every word of mine.
The bad in me he must not see, that little chap who follows me.
I must remember as I go through summer sun and winter snow,
I'm building for the years to be, That little chap who follows me.

Is it any wonder I still mourn for Kenny?

And then there's Bobbi. She was my youngest, my little princess. She was very athletic, was on a swim team from the time she was 7. She paddled kayaks and made it to the Canada Games, where the Olympic team members are chosen. She never made it though because she came down with severe debilitating headaches, which scared the bejeepers of out everyone. We immediately thought brain tumor, but the doctors could find nothing wrong. She still has those headaches, but she keeps on keeping on. Bobbi was also the musician of the family. Both she and Stephanie play piano, but Bobbi is the one who enjoys it, and she sings like an angel. Bobbi was still in college when we moved to Raleigh, and she opted to stay there to finish. She met Jeff and they were soon married. Jeff is the youngest of four children, three boys and a girl. His father reminds me so much of mine it's scary! Needless to say he didn't have much of a relationship with his dad and was very leery of me.

In early 1996 Bobbi and Jeff and their two children moved to Raleigh and lived with Cathy and me for two years while we got them a piece of land and built their house. Jeff and I are the best of friends now; he calls me "Sir." I told him one time with a grin that he didn't have to call me "Sir," but he replied "I know that, maybe I just want to."

In September 1998, their third child was born: a little boy. They named him Charles, or as we call him, LilCharlie. Charlie is a true miracle child. None of Bobbi’s pregnancies were easy, but Charlie’s almost killer her. Her doctors had urged her to abort him, saying that her very life was in danger, but she refused. She spent most of the last 3 months of her pregnancy in the hospital, but finally LilCharlie was born. I'm still not used to having a namesake... I cannot hold that little guy, or even look at his beautiful face without tears in my eyes. As a baby he was so beautiful, so perfect, so tiny! He got to the point that whenever he heard my voice he started yelling until I picked him up and sang to him. My sister said one day, "Well, Charlie, think of it this way: At last someone besides me and Mom appreciates your singing."

Charlie will be 4 in September. He is one going concern now, let me tell you. He loves to tease and torment his older sisters, and they adore him in spite of all the grief he gives them. “You will never die,” Cathy says frequently, “as long as that little boy lives.”

And still I feel so bad that my life is so great and Kenny is not here to enjoy it with me.

In light of all the above, I mean all seventeen chapters of it, I cannot honestly say that I would want anything to be different. I should never have got married, but if I hadn't there would be six wonderful people, maybe more in the future, who would never have been born. As I sat holding LilCharlie shortly after he’d been born, watching him watch me and smile as I sang to him, I cannot imagine the world without him. And he was only only 3 months old! No, if I could go back and do it all again, knowing the outcome, I wouldn't change a thing. Well, yes, there's one thing I would change: I would treat Kenny a whole lot better and treasure him more. He certainly was a jewel!

When I am doing something with my children, any of them, or my grandchildren, I often think of my father. He ignored my sister and me, and even more so our kids. Now that I have raised a family and I'm watching my grandchildren develop, I know for certain what I always suspected. It's his loss, not mine and Joan's! We weren't perfect kids by any means, but I think there was enough good there for him to enjoy if he'd looked for it, but he never did. Oh well...

Speaking of my sister, she still lives in Toronto with her husband and daughter. Debbie is 49 and not doing very well. She came down with MS, as I’ve already mentioned, the same horrible disease that killed our mother. With modern drugs she has been able to function better than her grandmother, but there is still no cure. MS is hereditary, skips generations, and attacks females much more than males. I don't have to tell you I watch my girls pretty closely because I carry that gene too; but so far there have been no signs. Now that Cathy and I are alone again, our kids all established in homes of their own, Joan and Co. just might consider moving in with us. I hope so, I really love my big sister. I became a citizen of the United States in May, 1998 and Cathy was sworn in in January 1999, so sponsoring a sister should be much easier now.

I have often been asked why I didn't pursue my music, why I never played the organ again after Kenny and I left for college. I can't answer that; I have no earthly idea. I did buy a used organ in 1971: a small church organ or a large home organ, take your pick. In 1991 I traded it for a large theater style organ. But I was content to play those organs for my own enjoyment. Neither Cathy nor Kenny had any interest in music, so my organ playing was just for me and the children, and even they had little interest in the organ. I guess perhaps that was something I needed at one point in my life, and then I moved on. Sometimes I regret not having kept at it, but we all have priorities, and that was just not high on my list.

One might think after reading this series that I am constantly mourning Kenny, but I'm not. I think on the whole I am as happy today as I've ever been. But there are still moments, lots of them, when I think of Kenny, and I cry. It's not so much tears of sadness, just tears of wonder at how incredibly lucky (blessed??) I've been.

There was one more incident that I must relate. In early 2000 I allowed myself to be talked into taking hormone therapy. The details are not important, except to say in my own defense I felt that I had no choice. Because Cathy is a nurse the doctor simply gave me a vial of testosterone and a handful of hypodermic syringes with instructions to inject every two weeks. Knowing what a full dose would do to me, I started with 10 percent of the normal dose and began to work up. Before I’d got past 30 percent, the old drive was back, and in spades. I’m ashamed to say that it wasn’t long after that and I was doing things I shouldn’t do, only this time I got caught. Cathy was furious, stated very clearly that she wanted a divorce, that she’d had it.

Word quickly spread throughout my family, and needless to say they were all shocked and very angry. Kevin appointed himself as their spokesman and phoned me, then proceeded to give me the tongue lashing of my life. “Where’s the self control you always taught me?” he demanded. “Where’s the dedication? What am I supposed to believe now, Dad? You always taught me better than that. Were you lying? What in hell’s wrong with you?”

I didn’t say anything; what could I say? So I just sat and listened as Kevin ranted and raved, occasionally agreeing with him, from time to time protesting weakly that he didn’t know the whole story, that if he knew it all he might think differently. But I knew he was right, so for the most part I just let him rant. In truth I was proud of him: he had the guts to say what he thought; he loved me enough to let me have it with both barrels, just as I’d always done to him when he needed it. Then when he was done he apologized, saying he’d been taught better than to rave like that at his father, but that I needed it. Then he said “I still respect you, Dad, and I love you. But please, just use a little more common sense.”

I did. I stopped taking the hormones at once. I offered to move out of the bedroom into the spare room, at least until we got things sorted out. Cathy said “Please don’t. Let’s just sort things out now.”

With the help of our children, who were all very supportive, we did sort things out. Things are pretty well back to normal now, and I still cannot believe I was stupid enough to take the poison that they call testosterone. As much as I miss him, I’m glad Kenny wasn’t here to see that little incident. As hard as Kevin was on me, I know it’s nothing compared to what Kenny would have done. But it will never happen again. NEVER!

As I was writing this conclusion, I thought of my latest interest: Harry Potter. Thanks to a story posted on EA by Paolo, I discovered the Harry Potter series and became instantly addicted. In the concluding chapters of Book 1: The Sorcerer’s Stone, our hero found himself unarmed and defenseless and facing the Dark Wizard. But the Wizard was foiled because every time the body that he’d overtaken touched Harry, it was burned excruciatingly. Later Professor Dumbledore explained to Harry that he had experienced such total, unconditional and self sacrificial love, that he was untouchable by the Dark Wizard. That got me thinking: Harry Potter and I have a lot in common.

First there was my own mother, who sent me to the farm when I was a very small boy to avoid the turmoil at home. At the farm there was Uncle Brad, who loved me so much that he sent me away when I was 18, telling me that I was no longer welcome there, that I had better things to do. Three years later he had to sell the farm because he could simply not afford to hire someone to do the work that I’d done without wages.

There was Kenny and his family, all of whom have loved me, supported me in my every endeavor, without question or reservation. And they have all loved me enough to kick me in the butt when I needed it.

There’s been Cathy, who has tolerated more than any wife should have to and come up smiling; our children, who still think I’m the best daddy in the world. And now there are three grandchildren who are thrilled when their grandparents come to visit, or when they get to sleep over at our house.

There have been so many more: my sister, some of my professors, various friends over the years... could it be... maybe... But no, Harry Potter is a fantasy; a story about witches and wizards and all such... But still I have to wonder about Professor Dumbledore’s explanation to Harry. He was above it all, seemingly indestructible because he’d been loved unconditionally. Maybe there’s something to that proposition after all.

I guess perhaps I should set the record perfectly straight. When I started this story I planned to change all the names except Kenny’s and mine. As a result my wife got the name Cathy, but that’s not her real name. Her name is Rita. She is, as I hope I have portrayed in this story, one very tough lady; at the same time she is as gentle as a kitten.

Well, that's my story. It’s not the end because there are incidents every day these days I’d love to share, but perhaps another time. I hope you all enjoyed reading it half as much as I enjoyed living it. I'm going to close the final chapter with a hearty THANK YOU to all who have stayed with me. It has been a bittersweet experience re-living all those memories, and it would not have been worthwhile without someone to read them. One final song: This is a song written and recorded by Rita MacNeil, a Canadian folk singer. To me this song illustrates exactly how I feel.

I've been going over my life
And I feel you in the breeze
You're a constant reminder
Of what used to be
And I know you walk beside me
On the earth beneath my feet
And though you're only a memory
You still give to me
A reason to remember,
And a reason to believe

I've been going over your life
And I've seen you on your knees
You so wanted favors bestowed upon me
And I know that in our distance
You were never out of reach
And though you're only a memory
You still give to me
A reason to remember,
And a reason to believe.

And the love that you gave to me
Is the reason I feel
Why the heart needs affection
And the soul needs peace.

I've been going over our time
And when parting had to be.
When you live through the changes
Oh the learning cuts deep
And I know that in your silence
You found a way to speak
And though you're only a memory
You still give to me
A reason to remember
And a reason to believe.

Rita, Kenny, I love you!

Charlieje