Last Night Day 5

James gets to know Briony better, and we find out more about her 
trade. (Read Last Night Day first.)

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Last Night Day
By PB.

Part 5


If you've forgotten the story so far, James has just turned 14. His 
mother took him down to the local clinic for castration. Nurse 
Anderson, the usual castrator, was ill and her teenage daughter 
Briony did the cut instead. Briony had almost finished her training 
to be a registered circumcision nurse like her mum. Although James' 
mother asked Briony to cut his penis off too, she wasn't able to do 
that right away. (For legal reasons, which were explained in Part 
3.) At this stage, we don't know if James will eventually get a 
penectomy or not. In Part 4, James started coming to terms with his 
castration, and struck up a sort of a friendship with Briony. (Or is 
it a romance?) They have have made a date for the weekend.


I couldn't wait for Sunday to roll around. On Saturday morning I 
went downtown to get some extra hooks and lures and stuff. Almost on 
impulse, I bought a brand new rod too. I didn't really need it, but 
my old spare rod wasn't much good and this one was a bargain; only 
six months old and in almost perfect condition. It was more than I 
could afford but I thought Mum might spring for it. I got the 
storekeeper to hang on to it for me while I went home to ask for 
money.

Mum went through her usual routine about spending more than my 
income, but I could tell she was pleased I'd finally stopped hanging 
round the house feeling sorry for myself and was taking an interest 
in life again. She gave me thirty dollars. I didn't exactly lie to 
her, just let her assume I was fishing with Jake and Andy, same as 
usual. Anyway, I got the rod. 

Straight after Sunday breakfast, I walked round to Briony's house, 
carrying two rods and a haversack of fishing gear. It was still 
cold, almost frosty, but it promised to be hot and sunny later on. 


Actually, they lived above the clinic, so I went where Briony had 
showed me down the laneway round the back - it was tricky making 
sure I had the right house - and stood there on the doorstep. All of 
a sudden I was nervous. What would it be like, going fishing with a 
girl? What if she had changed her mind? Maybe she would send me away 
again, or laugh at me for my presumption? Why would any girl be 
interested in me? Specially one as pretty as Briony, and older than 
me too. OK, we were going fishing, not having a date or anything, 
but no-one knew better than her how inadequate my penis was. She 
wouldn't come. She'd make up some excuse or pretend she wasn't home. 
Maybe I should just turn around now and go fishing by myself.
Eventually, after I'd stood there on the doorstep for quite a while, 
I knocked. At first there was no answer. Then I heard approaching 
footsteps and as the door swung open I remembered her consideration, 
her kindness to me in the clinic, her happy, friendly smile in the 
corridor at school, and I knew it was going to be all right.

The Witch! Oh my God, she's going to cut my ...

"Oh hello, you must be James. Briony's told me all about you. You're 
a bit too early, she's still in the shower. Come in and I'll get you 
a cup of tea. She'll be down in a minute."

I stumbled in and sat down in the kitchen, white-faced, mumbling 
something, heart pounding in my ears with mingled shock and fear. In 
my head a voice was still crying Witch alert, Witch alert! 
but I tried to swallow down that childish fear.

"Milk and sugar?"

"Yes please" I managed. Maybe she was used to children reacting to 
her like this.

To my secret relief, she didn't sit down but left me to my own 
devices, saying something about having to stand up because of 
trouble with her back. I sat and wrapped my hands around the cup, 
grateful for its warmth and simple comfort, drank my tea. It tasted 
strange with sugar in it, I don't take sugar. It served me right for 
panicing when there wasn't any need.

Briony came down at last, looking beautiful as ever in loose-kneed 
canvas trousers and a checkered flannel shirt. 

We set off at once, heading out of town along the river, upstream to 
a quiet reach I knew of where the trout were often good. This early 
on a Sunday, there wasn't anyone about and we walked in an awkward 
silence for a while. 

"It's strange, being out on a Sunday." she said at last. "I haven't 
had a Sunday off for ages."

"You mean the clinic? But aren't you closed on Sundays?"

"Oh yes, of course. But up till now I've had catch the bus to 
Dennison every week, for the Institute. I've finished now. Then at 
the end of the year, I'll be finished school as well, and I can work 
full-time. Mummy's going to retire soon - she has dreadful trouble 
with her back - and I'll be running the clinic on my own."

I had trouble imagining her as the Town Witch. She was too pretty, 
too young, and too friendly. I told her that. 

"Oh, don't be so old-fashioned. I'm just a normal girl, doing a 
normal job. What makes me different from a pharmacist, or a teacher? 
Everyone has their job to do, I just happen to be a circ-nurse. Is 
there anything wrong with that? Mummy's really old-fashioned, she 
takes it all so seriously. I think being circumcised should be 
fun."

Now she getting weird. Fun? How could she say that? It was horrible 
- as I knew from my own experience. And yet, I had to admit to 
myself that Briony was nothing like her mother. The way she'd ... 
This was too complicated. I changed the subject. 

"You used to have to go every week? How long for?"

"Three years. Two nights a week and all day Sunday. It's just like a 
school, really, except that you don't have to wear a uniform and 
they treat you more like adults. You have to study really hard if 
you want to graduate."

"Three years? That's ... uh, I guess I never thought about it 
before. It seems like a long time."

"It's only one year if you are full-time. Plus the clinical 
placement, of course." 

I made one of those vague noises you make when you don't really 
understand something. 

"Placement" she explained, "I have to have twelve months under 
supervision before I get my Practitioner's Certificate. Most of the 
girls in my class won't get theirs for ages yet, but I'm nearly 
finished already."

"Oh, you mean like work experience? So I guess-"

"Sort of like that," she interupted. "And Mummy's ICP qualified, of 
course, so getting a supervisor was easy for me. I'll be official in 
a few weeks."

This was making me scared again, like I'd been in the clinic. Most 
of the time I could forget about my mother's desire to have my penis 
cut off too, push it down to the bottom of my mind, and just sort of 
pretend it wasn't ever going to happen, but once Briony got her 
certificate... I wanted to change the subject, but something made me 
want to be sure.

"And there's no more training after that?" I asked, mostly just to 
fill in time while I wondered if I should ask about my penis, and if 
my mother had said anything to her yet. She was still talking 
though.

"Not for the circ-nursing side of it, no. But I want to get an AIC 
too, like Mummy. Most circ-nurses have both." She realised she'd 
lost me again. "Oh, sorry - I shouldn't use so much jargon. An 
Artifical Insemination Certificate. For helping people have babies 
when ... well, people like you, when you get married and want to 
have children. That's the other half of a circ-nurse's job, the more 
important half really, but most people forget about it."

That gave me a whole stack of new things to think about, and I 
walked in silence for a while. We'd reached the edge of town now, 
and were heading out along the Green Hill Road. This early there was 
hardly any traffic and we'd settled into a long-striding easy 
rhythm. I guess I'd always assumed I'd get married one day, and have 
children. Up till now I'd only really thought about my castration as 
if it was only to do with having sex (if I got so lucky!) and being 
attractive to girls, and not loosing my penis so I could still 
masturbate - but how would I have children? Something like 
what they do with cattle, I guessed. Perhaps I could ask Briony to 
explain about it, but not right now. I steered her back to safer 
ground, asked her about the school.

"So what do you want to know?" she asked.

"Oh, I don't know. So what's it like there? I mean, what do they 
teach you - or are you not allowed to talk about it?"

"Oh no, there's nothing secret these days. Well, not much. They 
start with all the theory. Nerve tissue, circulatory system, male 
and female genitals, stuff like that. That's in first semester. 
Second semester, we start practical. Sexual response, masturbation, 
basic circumcision."

"Circumcision?" I said, surprised because I could remember her back 
at the clinic on my birthday, telling Mum something about how 
castrations were really easy and circumcision was much harder to do 
right. 

"Oh, we don't start on actual boys and girls. It takes a lot of 
practice and you don't get to start doing actual snips till second 
year. We just start in the lab with a scalpel and a penis - you 
know, just the penis after it's already been cut off."

I shuddered, but she didn't seem to notice.

"They get boxes of them for us, packed in ice, from the local 
clinics I think. It's yucky. But you have to pass in basic or they 
won't let you do intermediate. Then you do castrations, but only 
dogs and horses. Everybody passes that."

She laughed. "Oh no - we had one drop-out. Allie was so stupid she 
forgot to tranquilize the horse! She ended up in hospital. Can you 
imagine, cutting off a horse's balls without an anesthetic?"

We laughed till I had tears streaming down my face. I could just 
picture the reaction of the horse. 

Briony finally sobered up. "Seriously, it could have killed her. But 
it looked so funny."

"Mind you, it isn't only practical. There's exams to pass on theory 
and they're really tough. And essays and research assignments, and a 
final year paper - I did mine on "The Circumcision Practitioner in 
the Modern World", you can read it if you want to. I got an "A" for 
it.

In second year and third year, they did actual circumcisions and 
things - snips, she called them.

"You mean on live people? God, that must be awful" I interjected.

"No. Not really. OK, I mean, it made me kind of nervous at first but 
that's what you train for. That's the whole point of going to the 
institute - learning how to do it properly."

"Oh, I see what you mean. No, I meant for the ... what do you call 
them? Subjects? I mean, for a boy it's bad enough having to be 
castrated by a proper circ-nurse like you, in a clinic, but ... 
eeaugh ... I'd hate to have been castrated like that! Having a 
complete beginner trying to snip me, with all her classmates 
watching!"

"Oh we have to watch, that's how we learn. We're supposed to take 
notes on each other's technique."  But she admitted they couldn't 
always get enough subjects sometimes. They were nearly all from 
poorer families who couldn't find a couple-hundred dollars for a 
private clinic fee.

We were nearly at the turn-off now, and it was warming up quickly. 
Briony stopped to take her jacket off. She had a graceful way of 
moving, even doing awkward things. She saw me looking at her; she 
didn't seem to mind that, just half-smiled and picked her bag up. 


I wanted her to tell me more about the Institute. I still couldn't 
get the picture out of my mind: I kept imagining her doing practical 
a year or so ago, bent over castrating some poor boy while all her 
classmates looked on, probably giggling. I could picture half a 
dozen other boys standing in a line somewhere in the background, 
stripped down to their underwear, or maybe naked, just standing 
there, waiting for their own turn. It probably wasn't really like 
that, but the image filled me with a sort of deadly fascination. I 
had to know more.

"So how do they do it, Briony? Is it really awful?" I asked at 
last.

"It's not so bad for the girls, they just get examined and stuff and 
then they have a clitoridectomy. But it's harder for boys - there's 
three different snips for boys, and only one for girls. But they 
don't get three times as many volunteers, so we have to do them 
-"

"Volunteers? You mean kids actually volunteer to -"

"No, no, silly. Their parents send them. And there's quite a few 
come from orphanages. A few places send the older boys in with 
handcuffs on. But mostly their parents bring them in because it's so 
expensive (going to a private clinic, I mean). At the institute they 
can get their children snipped for free. It doesn't cost them 
anything. They even get free bandages and medication. (That's why 
the tuition fees are so high - do you know it costs thousands of 
dollars to do the full three year course at the Institute? I forget 
exactly how much, Mummy would know. She complains about it often 
enough.)"

"But they are always short of male subjects", she went on. "There's 
usually enough girls to practice on, but they have to use the 
boy-subjects two or three times over".

"You said that before. I don't understand what do you mean."

"Well, there's four main things you have to learn, OK?"

Seeing my blank look, she explained: "Well, we have to learn how to 
circumcise girls, so we get girls to practice on."

I nodded, so she went on.

"Then we have to know how to do the boy things, how to cut the 
penis, and the testes, how to circumcise." She waited till I nodded 
again. "And how to do the other things, of course, like giving them 
an orgasm and health checks, all that stuff."

"OK."

"So, let's imagine that your family couldn't afford a private clinic 
and they sent you to the Institute instead. OK? Well, first you get 
circumcised - or sometimes you get your testes snipped first, it 
depends - and after you healed up, then you have to come back later, 
to get castrated by the castration classes. They nearly always leave 
your penis till last, maybe a month or two after your balls come 
off. It takes quite a while, but it's all under proper supervision, 
and it's absolutely free. The Institute pays for everything."

"But that's horrible!"

"It's not so bad.  They get masturbated a lot first, it's like a 
whole month of Last Nights. We do a lot of that in first year, 
practicing masturbation and stuff on the prac subjects. They love 
it!"

"But what about ... well, don't they get nervous and stuff? Because 
they know you are going to castrate them afterwards?" I asked. "What 
happens if they can't get a hard-on?"

"Oh, we have our ways", she laughed. "It's one of the things we have 
to learn. A good nurse can make any boy hard, even if he knows she's 
going to cut his dick off. Lots of them get snippy-droop -"
"Huh?"
"Oh, sorry. They are scared about being castrated, and their little 
dicks shrivel up  - in class we call it snippy-droop. It's quite 
common."
She told me that there was another sort of reaction too; she said 
some boys are turned on by it; girls too. She said that nurses like 
that, they called them "boners". 
"They're always the best", she explained, "when you've got a test - 
you have to pass the practicals - you always hope you get a 
boner."
"Because they get hard?"
"Yes. A good boner knows you're going to cut him and he stands up 
straight away. If it's an important test and you're trying to 
impress the Review Board, it really helps."

Once she got started on the subject, it was hard to stop her. Not 
that I wanted to stop her - I was both repelled and fascinated at 
the same time, if you know what I mean. One part of me was appalled 
at the casual way she talked about "doing snips", as if it was just 
a trivial minor proceedure - maybe it was for her, but loosing my 
balls had changed my life forever. The same for any boy, I guessed. 
And another part of me was drawn irresistably by it, not exactly 
willingly, but from somewhere inside like a craving for a drug, I 
guess, or maybe the way that a gambler wants just one more roll of 
the dice. 

We didn't only talk about the Institute, but by the time we got to 
the walnut farm - there's a shortcut there that takes you to the 
river - I had a pretty good picture of the place, and always, I 
seemed to have just one more question. I had to make an effort to 
turn my mind to other things, like what we were supposed to be here 
for in the first place, the fishing.

*

Briony hadn't been joking when she said she'd never been fishing 
before. I had to show her everything: rigging up her rod (I gave her 
my new one, not that she would have known the difference), picking a 
good spot, not letting your shadow fall across the water, getting 
the worm onto the hook properly, casting, the lot. She was a quick 
learner though.

We'd only had our lines in for a few minutes when she turned to me 
and grinned "This is fun." Girls! We hadn't even had a bite yet. But 
it was fun. Perhaps it was just as well; she wasn't likely to 
catch much with her technique, I thought. Come to that, I wasn't too 
sure I'd catch many myself. Usually, Jake and Andy and I would get 
here earlier, but I'd had to wait for Briony today.

It was a perfect day to spend by the river. It was getting quite hot 
by this time, with just the gentlest of breezes, and of course, I 
thought the company was good. We stuck at it for an hour or two, but 
there wasn't a sign of a fish. I wasn't all that disappointed, 
really. I was content to leave my line in and sprawl out on the 
grassy bank, watching the hypnotic flow as the river ran past, and 
chatting quietly. As if by mutual consent, we didn't talk about the 
Institute anymore, just stuck to small things. I think I talked 
about fish a lot, just to have something to say really, but I don't 
think I bored her too much: she was a good listener when she wanted 
to be.

We had lunch after that, sitting cross-legged on the grass. There 
wasn't much point in fishing any longer; it was too hot and still to 
tempt a trout out from under his rock - they like feeding in the 
morning and don't come out again till it's almost dark. 
It was very hot and I was sleepy, and I lay there for a long time 
watching Briony out of the corner of my eye. In the back of my mind, 
I was trying to sort out what I felt about this extraordinary girl: 
one minute warm and bubbly and friendly, then confiding in me like I 
was an adult - I guess I was, nearly, 14 and a bit already - and 
tomorow she'd go back to the clinic and be cool and professional 
while she cut some boy's genitals off. Sometimes I think most people 
you meet really have two or three different personalities if you get 
to know them well enough. Briony had about five. I couldn't work her 
out.
We went swimming later on. 
"There's no one around is there?" Briony asked, glancing round at 
the horizon.
"I don't think so. No one ever comes here. Well, me and Jake and 
Andy sometimes, but they're not here today."
"So we can skinny-dip?" she asked.
"You mean take our clothes off?"
"Yeah. Why not?"
I guess I felt funny about exposing myself to her (as if she hadn't 
seen everything already!) but I couldn't say no to a chance like 
that. She must have known that that was what was going through my 
mind, but she just acted sort of naughty and innocent, if you know 
what I mean. By the time she had her shirt and pants off I had 
stripped too and my little dick was half swollen up, still soft 
enough to bend in the middle, but hard enough to show. I was very 
conscious of it. She sort of laughed at that. She was so beautiful, 
standing with her hands on her hips, her pointed, freckled breasts 
exposed and her white bikini panties barely hiding the darkness of 
her sexual hair. She stepped closer then, reached out to me saying 
"I can see you need cooling down!"
For a moment I thought she was going to touch me, maybe even take my 
penis in her hand; she flashed a sudden broad grin - and I was 
overbalanced and falling already by the time I woke up to her. I 
heard her happy shriek of laughter as I flailed my arms and splashed 
into the deep, cold pool. 
It's not a bad spot, the Shady Reach. It was too cold to stay in for 
long but we swam and splashed and did handstands and threw rocks for 
half an hour or so. And I couldn't take my eyes off the patch of 
reddish pubic hair between her thighs. The thin white cotton of her 
panties was almost completely see-through when it was wet. She knew 
I was looking, she knew she was turning me on, and I guess she made 
sure I got a good look at her breasts and between her legs, but 
somehow she never quite let me get a close-up look at her pussy. (I 
tried to see it, of course.)

*

By the time I got home it was nearly dark already. I was 
deliberately vague at dinner when Mum asked me how my day had been. 
She seemed a little surprised that, although I hadn't caught 
anything with my new rod, I didn't seem to mind. Of course, I 
carefully didn't mention who I'd been with.
"And did Jake catch anything?" she asked.
"Nah, we only got some snags" I replied misleadingly. I mean, it 
wasn't exactly lying, was it?

I masturbated for a long time in bed that night, playing mental 
pictures of Briony, like a slide show in my head. I pulled my dick 
to the image of Briony unzipping her fly and sliding her jeans down, 
to the image of her laughing as she stood thigh deep and threw 
skipping stones, her puckered pink nipples stark against the white 
of her breasts, and I remembered the mysterious, fluid way her 
breasts changed shape as she stooped for another stone, and then the 
wavy darkness of her intimate hair showing clear through the front 
of her panties. 
In an orgy of self-pity now, I imagined myself in some other world, 
with my balls uncut, more swollen now, pumping life and growth into 
my strong young adolescent penis. Already it would have grown - how 
much? - a half-inch longer? I thought longingly of Briony's face, 
her smile as (in my dream) she undid her bra and dropped her eyes to 
glance with new respect at my bigger, sperm-filled manhood. In my 
dream my dick was bigger still, adult-sized and thick and manly, and 
now Briony's downcast eyes were full of admiration, even desire.
But this could never be.
It would be some other boy who had her now, some other boy who had 
the manhood to fulfill her, make her come. In an agony of black 
despair, I knew the reason why I could never have her - because of 
that day in her office - it seemed so long ago already - when, like 
an obedient child, I had laid on her couch and spread my legs and 
let her cut my balls off. 
She had been right. It would have been better to have cut it all 
off.