Alvin Crownédshield was not looking forward to this meeting with his father. In fact, he dreaded it, but it was necessary. He had no money of his own, and, at the age of 19, had still learned nothing which could conceivably enable him to earn a living.

So, if he needed money, and he did, $100 to be exact, no trivial sum in 1927, he would have to ask Father for it.

So, he steeled himself for the ordeal and approached his father. "Er, Father, may I speak to you privately ?" This request automatically set off an alarm in Randolph Crownédshield's mind. What could it be this time ? As if he couldn't guess.

"Yes, Alvin, let's go into the library. Now, then, what is the problem ?

"Er, well, er, Father, there's this girl...."

"Oh, Alvin, not AGAIN !"

"Er, I'm afraid so, Sir."

"I assume that, as usual, she is no one I would want in the family."

"Oh, I can assure you of that, Sir."

"Alvin, you have the most abominable taste in women. If you must impregnate a young woman out of wedlock, why can't you choose someone who would make you a respectable wife ?"

"Uh, I'm uh, afraid I have a taste for sluts, Sir "

"Really ?" inquired his father, his voice dripping with sarcasm." In fact, why must you impregnate anybody ? Condoms have been in existence since the 18th century.

They are easily obtainable. Why, WHY, WHY won't you use one ?"

"They dull the sensation."

"Incredible as it may seem to you, young man, I am well aware of that fact, from experience."

Alvin's father sighed and then continued. "Alright, what does this one want ?"

"An 'illegal operation', Sir."

"Thank God. I'm supporting enough of your bastards now. This makes five abortions and child support for three of your bastards. If you are ever gainfully employed, which seems highly unlikely at this point, I shall expect to be repaid.

I shall not hang by my thumbs in anticipation of this event, however.

I'll call Dr. Preston and learn when he can take Miss What's-her-name. By the way, what IS her name ? "

"Gwendolvere Beaugrophe"

"Ah, yes, a fine old family, from the Bowery, I believe." sarcastically remarked Mr. Crownédshield, than whom it would be hard to find anyone more class-conscious.

Mr. Crownédshield picked up the telephone , removed the receiver from the hook and jiggled the hook a few times to alert the operator. "Operator, please connect me with 2309. NO ! NOT 2305, 2309 !, Dr. William Preston. [idiot]. Hello. Marsha ? , this is Randolph Crownédshield. Is Dr. Preston available ? Yes, I can wait a few minutes.

Bill, this is Randy. Alvin's gone and done it again. When can you take care of the young woman ?

4:30 ? Just a second. Alvin, can she be ready by 4:30 ? "

"I think so, Dad. I'll call her up and ask her."

"Bill ? 4:30 will probably be alright. If there's any problem, I'll call you back. Her

name ? Gwendelvire Bowgrough (I think)."

Alvin's father handed the telephone to him and Alvin jiggled the hook."Operator ? Please give me 4817. Hello, Mr. Gagliardi ? This is Alvin. Is Gwendolvere around ?

Thanks." At this point, Alvin held the receiver as far from his ear as the length of the cord permitted. Shortly, thereafter, a nasal screech from the receiver proved that

Mr. Gagliardi had found Gwendolvere ."

"Gwen, this is Alvin. I've arranged for what you wanted done. Can I pick you up at quarter after 4:00 ? OK, See ya then."

"Does she always shriek into the telephone like that ?

"Yes. I think she thinks it's deaf. Anyhow. 4:30 will be alright."

"You'd best leave now, then. When you have returned Miss Boughgruff to her home, you are to return here directly. Do you understand ?"

"Yessir" replied Alvin and left. Mr. Crownédshield waited until he heard the engine of Alvin's Stutz Bearcat and then picked up the telephone again. "Operator,

get me 3324. Rachel ? May I speak to Dr. Fieldstone ?

This is Randolph Crownédshield. I spoke to you a while ago about a bilateral orchidectomy for my son, Alvin. When could you perform it ? Tonight ! Excellent.

Yes, barring unexpected delays, 6:00 PM would be perfect. He's on his way to bring one of his girl friends to a physician for a D & C right now."

Alvin picked up Gwendolvere at Gagliardi's Fruit Stand and drove her to Dr. Preston's office. The only patient there before them was an obvious queer who smiled at Alvin and sniffed at Gwendolvere. After a moment the door to Dr. Preston's office opened and a pimply nervous-looking boy of about 15 came out clutching a rolled-up calendar in his hand with dates checked in red on it. Alvin laughed as the boy left and the queer entered Dr. Preston's office.

"What's funny ?" asked Gwendolvere.

"The kid with the calendar. He jerks off too much and that's a way to make him cut down. He's only allowed to jerk off on the days with the red check marks, and they get fewer and fewer month after month. A friend of mine had to follow a calendar like that for ten months."

"Well, I don't see what you guys get out of jerking off."

"That, my dear, is because you don't have a prick."

The queer came out soon afterward looking annoyed and unhappy and left hastily. Dr. Preston came to the door and called out "Gwendlebower Boargroup."

"That's Gwendolvere Beaugrophe." snapped Gwen huffily.

"Sorry" said Dr. Preston. "Come in."

Alvin explained, unnecessarily,"She's here for dilatation and curettage. Please send the bill to my father, Randolph Crownédshield. "

"Very well" said Dr. Preston. "Please wait in the waiting room. The procedure should take about a half hour." Both of these unnecessary comments were made so that Gwendolvere wouldn't realise that she was but one of five girlfriends of Alvin's

who had required this procedure.

Alvin devoted the half hour to browsing through back issues of National Geographic looking for photographs showing native women's breasts. Finally, Gwen emerged from Dr. Preston's office looking sick and walking painfully.

"How do you feel ?" Alvin asked solicitously.

"Shitty" replied Gwen. Alvin was shocked. Girls, at least nice girls, didn't use such language in 1927. "You're lucky you're a guy and never have to get your insides scraped. Look, sweetie, why don't you save us both a lot of trouble and marry me ?"

"Because my father is a snob. If I married you, he'd boot me out and cut me off without a cent. I'd be penniless, homeless, and jobless."

"What do you do for a living, Alvy ?"

"Nothing. I sponge off the old man, so, you can see why I have to stay on his good side."

After delivering Gwen to Gafliardi's Fruit Stand, Alvin drove directly home as his father had told him to. Pulling into the driveway, he was surprised to see his father's Brewster green Willys-Knight sedan parked in front of the garage with his father at the wheel .

Randolph Crownédshield did not enjoy driving. He was too nervous. And, today was Friday. Jepson's day off was Thursday, so where was the chauffeur ? Alvin pulled up alongside the Willys-Knight and his father beckoned him over and opened the passenger's side door. Alvin got out and got in.

Mr. Crownédshield started the almost silent Knight engine and pulled out to the street where he looked to both left and right several times before entering it. lin asked "Where are we going ?"

His father did not answer immediately and then said only "I'll tell you when we get out onto Route 38. Until then, don't distract me." Rte 38 was only four blocks away, but Mr. Crownédshield made as much of a project of it as if they were going to California. Finally, after much fretting, he got into the right lane of Rte 38 heading east.

Only then did he relax and speak to Alvin. "Alvin, do you remember what I said the last time this happened ?" Alvin's sudden chalky pallor revealed that he certainly did remember. He stared at his father in horror and dismay. "Bu' but, Father, surely you didn't.................."

"Didn't what, Alvin ? Did you think I was joking ? Have you ever known me to joke about serious matters ? Did you think that I was exaggerating ? I'm not noted for hyperbole. It appears that you believed that I didn't mean what I said. Since when have I ever made idle threats ?

No, when I told you that, if you ever got a girl pregnant out of wedlock again, I would have you castrated, I meant every word of it. We are now bound for the office of Dr. Seymour Fieldstone, a surgeon, who has agreed to perform the operation. The only alternative I shall offer you is that, if you so request, I shall pull the car over onto the shoulder of the road, where you may alight and go your own way, with nothing but the clothes on your back and the few dollars in your wallet. Shall I ?"

"No" said Alvin miserably. "But Father, I'm your only child."

"It may not have occurred to you, Alvin, but that problem is not irremediable. I have mourned the passing of your dearly beloved mother for five years. Incredible though it may seem to you at 19, am not an old man. I am only 39 years old and, if I say so myself, very well-preserved.

There are a number of younger women who consider me attractive and very eligible. You need not counsel me about gold-diggers. If I have not attained the age of discretion by now, I never shall. So, Alvin, you are not essential to the continuation of our name or bloodline. "

Alvin was stunned. He could think of no reply. He had always assumed that he would inherit the entirety of the Crownédshield fortune. Now, suddenly, it seemed likely that he would be lucky to inherit 25% of it, not that that was a paltry sum.

There were no other patients in the waiting room when they arrived. They had just seated themselves when a man in a white laboratory coat entered the room. He was of medium height with kinky steel-grey hair and a hooked nose. He immediately identified himself. "I am Dr. Seymour Fieldstone."

"I am Randolph Crownédshield and this is the patient, my son, Alvin Crownédshield. He has agreed to the operation which we discussed as an alternative to being disowned."

"Very well." "Alvin, do you have any questions about the surgical procedure which you are about to undergo ?"

"Yes, several" replied Alvin. "Other than making me sterile, what other effects can I anticipate ? What effects will it have on my body overall ? How will it affect my personality ?"

"The primary effect, and the one for which the procedure is being performed, will be to render you impotent. With a few weeks, probably two or three, you will be unable to obtain an erection, or, if you can, it will lack sufficient rigidity to use in sexual intercourse.

You will lose the ability to ejaculate semen and, therefore, to experience the sexual orgasm. In addition to these primary sexual effects, there will be secondary effects. You will lose almost all of the hair on your body except for that on the top of your head which will remain thick and abundant until your dying day.

Therefore, after a few weeks, you will no longer need to shave. Your pubic hair will be shaved off before the operation. When it grows back, it will be straight and soft like a woman's pubic hair. You will retain some hair in your armpits also.

Of greater concern to you, no doubt, will be that you will lose about 50% of your muscular strength and stamina. An intensive program of vigorous exercise can restore part of this, according to Lionel Strongfort, based on his experience in training men who lost their testicles in the War.

Unless you watch your diet very carefully, avoiding sweets, fats, and most starches, you could become grossly obese. If you do, the fat will accumulate on your hips, thighs, and buttocks, rather than on the abdomen as it does in males. This is a female pattern of fat distribution and will feminize the configuration of your body.

There is also about a 50% chance that you will develop breasts, though they will probably remain small, like those of a girl of about 14.

Masculine personality traits such as aggressiveness, assertiveness, competitiveness, boldness, etc. will tend to be suppressed. You will be more docile ,

tractable, and passive. I think that answers your questions, do you have any others ?"

Alvin shook his head. "I should also add" continued Dr. Fieldstone, "that for a few weeks after the operation you will probably feel melancholy and depressed. This is not so much regret over your loss as a physiological reaction of your brain to deprivation of the testicular secretions. It will soon go away.

You will not be troubled much by sexual frustration, however, inasmuch as your sex urge will be reduced by about 95%. Lust will be replaced by wistful yearning. In time, you will develop a placid tranquility known as the "eunuch calm".

Now that I have prepared your mind, it is time for your body to be prepared for the operation. I intend to use local anæsthesia. It is safer and you will feel better afterward. Now, go through that door on the left. You will find yourself in an ante-room. Remove all of your clothing and walk through the other door at the end of the room. My assistant, Mr. Muscovite, will prepare you for the operation."

After Alvin had entered the ante-room, Dr. Fieldstone turned to the boy's father and said, "You may wait either here or in the waiting room. I must now prepare myself to perform surgery" .With that, Dr. Fieldstone entered another door on the right into an ante-room where he donned a linen smock and an oiled silk shower cap. He picked up a pair of rubber gloves but did not put them on until he had entered the operating room, so that he did not touch the doorknob with them.

Alvin was now lying on the operating table. Mr. Muscovite had washed the operation site with disinfectant soap and warm water, clipped and shaved off Alvin's pubic hair and the hair on his thighs near the operation site, and disinfected the entire area with iodoform.

Mr. Muscovite handed Dr. Fieldstone a hypodermic syringe filled with a clear liquid. Dr. Fieldstone told Alvin "This is a solution of cocaine which will numb the skin of your scrotum. I am injecting it along the lines of the two incisions which I intend to make.

After your scrotum has become numb, I shall inject cocaine through the scrotum into the spermatic cords at the sites where I intend to bind and cut them. If, at any time in the procedure you feel any pain, do not hesitate to notify me. I don't want you to suffer any pain during the operation, though, unavoidably, there will be some pain after the anæsthetic has worn off."

Suiting the deed to the word, Dr. Fieldstone proceeded to anæsthetize Alvin's scrotum and spermatic cords. The operation itself went swiftly after the anæsthesia had taken effect. Alvin felt nothing. He kept his eyes closed inasmuch as he had no desire to witness his own emasculation.

Dr. Fieldstone asked Alvin "Do you want to have your testicles preserved in formaldehyde, or should they be discarded ?"

"They're of no use to me once they've been removed. Throw them away." responded Alvin. The sight of his severed manhood would have been unbearable to him. When he opened his eyes, Dr. Fieldstone was suturing the incisions in his flat empty scrotum. Alvin couldn't keep his eyes from filling with tears. It was done. He was a eunuch.

Dr. Fieldstone applied sterile cotton dressings to the incisions and held them in place with adhesive tape. Then he instructed Alvin about keeping the dressings clean and dry and told him to stay in bed for the next week. After that he could be up and about but avoid strenuous activity for another week.

"No running, jumping, dancing especially the Charleston, no sports, no heavy lifting, no bicycle riding, motorcycle riding, or horseback riding. Return at the end of the second week to have the stitches removed."

Mr. Muscovite helped Alvin up and washed the blood off his thighs and buttocks, and Alvin returned to the ante-room and got dressed. Not only his scrotum, but his mind was numb. He had not yet fully grasped what had been done to him. Sorrow and resentment would set in later.

He joined his father in the waiting room and said "Well, it's done. Now can we go somewhere and eat ?"

At Gillette's Steak House, Alvin voraciously consumed a Porterhouse steak, asparagus, and mashed potato, but skipped dessert as he realized that he would have to from now on unless he wanted to look like a pig. In fact, he'd have to avoid mashed potatoes too, henceforth.

It was only after he had gone to bed that the enormity of the evening's tragedy hit him, and he was devastated. He bursted into tears and, burying his face in the pillow, cried for over an hour. " They're gone, GONE. There'll be no more fucking, ever. My cock won't get any stiffer than a cooked noodle, ever again. I'm RUINED !

I should've gotten out of the car out there on Rte 38. Oh, what the hell good would that do ? I don't know how to earn a living. I'm '....only a bird in a gilded cage.' "

The next five days were the most boring in Alvin's life. He had never been much of a reader. Masturbation was already more like hard work than pleasure and he'd never cared much for it anyhow. He slept a lot and brooded over his misfortune in his very copious spare time. What activities would he be able to enjoy if he lost half of his strength and stamina ?

When he was finally allowed to be up and to go outside if he wished, Alvin found that he tired very easily. He did, as Dr. Fieldstone had predicted, feel very melancholy. He took a few slow aimless walks around the Crownédshield estate, but mostly just sat on the verandah looking out over the garden.

After the stitches were removed, Alvin drove down to the beach and enjoyed sunbathing and swimming in the Atlantic Ocean. He envied the young men whose bathing trunks bulged in front as his had not long ago. Now there was nothing there but his already shrunken prick. Still, going to the beach was the most enjoyable thing he'd done since his groin was plundered. Already the girls in their wet bathing suits didn't excite him, though he enjoyed watching them.

Gradually, Alvin was coming to terms with his condition. About five weeks after the operation, his gloom lifted and he began to consider what he was going to do with his life. He would doubtless continue to live on an allowance from his father, so the question resolved itself into that of what he was going to do with his time .

For the short run, there was his 20th birthday in two weeks. Doubtless there would be a big party, but he hoped not a family reunion. His queer cousin Octavian would want to give him a blow job, a gift Alvin could no longer use. He certainly did not want to have to explain why to Octavian.

Prohibition being still in full swing, the birthday bash was tamer than it might have been. Randolph did not believe in patronizing bootleggers. The only spirituous beverages were home-made apple cider and whatever the guests brought in their hip flasks.

Octavian was not there. His parents said that he was ill, but another of Alvin's male cousins told him that Octavian was in the hospital having gotten his balls smashed and the shit beaten out of him by a young man who hated queers. Being nutless himself, Alvin felt sorry for Octavian, but he had often heard it said that a cocksucker doesn't need balls.

Alvin received many expensive presents, such as an Audemars Piguet wristwatch from his aunt, Eugenia. To his surprise, Alvin received only a legal-sized envelope from his father. When he opened it, however, he found that it contained the title to the family yacht , Ye Crownéd Shield. Randolph had not used the yacht in the five years since his wife died.

Included with the title were a credit contract with the Seacrest Petroleum Co., of which Randolph Crownédshield was the majority stockholder , so that the fuel used by the yacht could be charged to Randolph's account. The crew were all his employees.

Randolph addressed Alvin and the guests concerning this present. "In the nineteenth century, it was a popular practise among the wealthy to send the young man of the family off on a Grand Tour of the major cities of Europe to acquire experience, culture, and polish . However, Europe is not the world. I have given you the means to explore the world at your leisure. You have letters of credit at all of the major banks in all of the major cities of the world.

You are not tied to steamship line schedules. You may stay as long as you wish in any congenial place and go wherever you will whenever you will. The world is your

oyster. Postcards will be appreciated."

Alvin was overwhelmed. The gift had given his empty life meaning again. He could go anywhere and everywhere in the world, see all of its wonders. And there was SO MUCH to see. Except for a few vacation trips to the Antilles, he had never been ANYWHERE. There'd be so much to do that he need never be bored again.

He was sincerely grateful and that very moment forgave his father for the terrible thing he had had done to him, and said "Father, I don't know how to thank you. You have given me the greatest vacation any man could ever have. "

It was to be a very long one. Randolph Crownédshield had anticipated the 1929 stock market crash, was ready for it, and actually made a long-term profit out of it by buying up blue-chip stocks dumped at bargain basement prices by panicky stockholders.

And so, Alvin's wanderings continued until the war in the Pacific finally drove him back to the U.S.