Great! Just frigging great. Dad’s no Daniel Boone or Kit Carson, that’s for sure. I don’t even have a license but I could still figure out how to get on the Interstate in Vegas and get off in El Paso, but Dad had to take this scenic route instead, and we ended up stuck in the middle of nowhere. “No problem,” he said. “We’ll just camp here tonight and dig the car out in the morning and backtrack out. You can have the back seat and your, uh, mom and I will set up the tent. Okay?”

“Yeah, sure, Dad.” I answered. Damn right they’ll take the tent, and as soon as they think I’m asleep he’ll jump Sandyslut’s bones just like he does every night. She gets all pissed off if I don’t call her Mom, but usually I just do that around strangers or when I really have to be polite. She’s a lot younger than Dad and I’d like to jump her bones myself, and sometimes she acts like she wants me to. The down mummy bag was warm so I stripped down to just my shorts and curled up, but just as I was getting to sleep I heard her giggle just like she always did right before Dad poked the meat to her. I finally ignored my boner and the noise in the tent long enough to fall asleep, and the next thing I know Dad’s arguing with some guy outside and I have another boner that I can’t do anything about.

“Scott!” Now Dad’s pounding on the car. “Wake up! Get out of the car!” I stuck my head up and first thing I see is this big ass wall of water, so I forgot all about my boner and beat feet out of there. I was barefoot but the old river bottom was soft and sandy and I could have easily kept ahead of the water, but this dude that looked like the Marlboro Man roped me and dragged me to the bank, and then sat on his horse staring at my stuff the same Kenny Wyatt does in the shower.

He built a fire and gave us his big raincoat and another coat and then rode away, saying he’d be back in a couple of hours. It had started to rain by then, so all of us sort of huddled together under the two coats, and pretty soon I felt Sandyslut’s hand where it shouldn’t have been. I liked it and it felt good and I started to get it up again, but it would be just like her to get me all hot and then pull away the raincoat and show Dad my boner, so I turned away so she couldn’t reach me.

The Marlboro Brokeback Mountain Man and some geezer showed up on a pair of cool ATVs and gave us some clothes, then Dad and Sandyslut got on behind him and I got on behind the geezer and we all headed for the ranch.

The ranch house was king of a dump. I’d expected a real ranch house like the big log cabins I’d seen in Flagstaff and Santa Fe, but this place looked like something what’s-his-name would make a Redneck Joke about. They didn’t even have power or a real phone, just a generator they ran now and then and one of those satellite phones that cost a lot to use. Who in their right mind would build a house where you can’t get cell coverage? Anyway, the cowboy’s wife cooked us a good breakfast, then showed me the bunkhouse where I’d be staying with George, the geezer. It was okay, I guess. There wasn’t any power but the lights and water heater run off propane, just like in the house.

It was still raining like piss so I spent the day screwing around the barn, looking at the horses, and went to bed early. I woke up about ten with a boner. It had been three days since the last time I’d spewed and George was sound asleep, snoring away, so I grabbed a sock and whacked off as quietly as I could. “You need a girlfriend, boy,” George said right after I’d finished. He couldn’t see me blush, but he was right. I spent a lot of my time thinking about sex and wondering what it’d be like with a girl, and the way Sandyslut kept teasing didn’t help a bit.

“I used to be a young buck like you,” George told me the next morning as he was dressing. I was still in bed and had the covers pulled up. “Weren’t no women around, so we’d find us a good ewe and poke it right to her.”

“A U?” I questioned. What the fuck was a U?

“Ewes are what we call lady sheep,” he answered. “Not as good as real pussy, nothing is, but still not bad. There’s one with a bum leg in the little pen in the back corner of the barn. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind a bit, and she won’t swell and she sure as hell won’t tell.” He laughed and left the room, leaving me a lot to think about. It was still raining a little but Tom and George had to tend to the stock so they left on the ATVs. Dad was trying to get Tom’s computer worked out and Sandyslut was working in the kitchen with Doris, Tom’s wife. I edged out to the back of the barn to take kind of a casual look at the sheep penned up there. She had one leg with a real bad gash in it and she stood there munching on some hay. I climbed over the rail and eased up behind her and she didn’t pay any attention, so I kind of moved her tail aside to, you know, to see what was there and then I dropped my borrowed pants. I was hard by then and a minute later I had lost my cherry.

“So how was it boy, pretty good?” George asked that night as I slid into bed. I didn’t respond, but my lack of denial and the blush on my face probably gave him his answer.

It had stopped raining and warmed up and the wind had blown all night, and the next day Tom said the road would be passable, so Doris loaded us up in the four-wheel drive pickup and drove us to town. It was just in time too; another couple of days and Sandyslut would have been giggling for the cowboy. Dad didn’t have any ID, but the bank in town was the same one he used and they worked something out and he rented us a car. “Comeback and see us sometime,” Doris said as we loaded up. “You’re always welcome.”

“How was your trip?” Kenny Wyatt asked on the first school day after Spring break.

“Weird. First of all, Dad got lost and we got the car stuck, then a flash flood came and washed all our stuff away, then a Cowboy found us and took us home. He and his wife had a fifteen year old daughter, and well, anyway I got some.” I explained, distorting the truth only slightly.

“No shit! How was it?”

“Better than my hand,” I smiled. This answer was the absolute truth.

“Did she have big hooters?” Kenny’s perfect mate would be a well-hung tranny with big boobs.

“I didn’t pay much attention,” I said. “I took her from behind.”

“You dog!” Kenny was impressed.

“Yeah,” I answered, “Just like a dog.”

It was Sandyslut’s idea for me to go back that summer. She didn’t come right out and say it, of course, but she wanted Dad all to her self so she could really get wild without worrying about me listening in. It was okay by me; despite my recent experience with the opposite sex I still didn’t have a girlfriend and I knew that Tom and Doris had a daughter not much older than me. If that didn’t work out there was always the alternative.

Doris met me at the bus station and introduced me to her daughter. Charlene was taller than me and outweighed me, and to put it politely, was uglier than a mud fence. She made it clear right from the start that she’d rip my head off if I so much as tried to touch her and that was fine by me. The sheep I had fucked looked better than her and besides that she was all apeshit over some Anthony guy.

They usually didn’t work on Sunday so I took my time getting settled into the bunkhouse before strolling over to the back of the barn to, uh, you know, see what was there. “She’s gone.” George stepped out of wherever he’d been hiding. “Weren’t ours anyway, just a stray that wandered in. The closest sheep are over on Wilkins’s spread, about five miles thataway, I reckon. Long walk just for a few minutes recreation, and the fourwheelers leave tracks anyone can follow. Young feller like you really needs to know how to ride a horse. Now this here’s the bridle,” he said, holding up thing made of metal and leather. I was still speechless. Did this old coot have eyes in the back of his head or something? “It goes on just like this, see? Then the saddle blanket. Always shake it out good and make sure there’s no burrs or nothing stuck in it. Then the saddle, like so.”

He made me saddle and unsaddle the horse several times before I got everything right, and then showed me the basics of riding, and by the end of the afternoon I could at least stay on and make him go about where I wanted to. I was a long way from competent and would need a lot more experience before they’d turn me loose on one, but at least it was a start.

The next day we spent working on fences. Tom showed he how to drive a Polaris ATV and we loaded a bunch of tools, wire, and steel fence posts onto a small trailer and headed out along the fence line, replacing bad posts and missing sections of wire. That evening I had another riding lesson, and the next day George and I rode out to check on some of the stock.

“We gotta band that calf,” he said, pointing to a frisky little whiteface calf. He undid his rope and threw a loop expertly around one of the calf’s hind legs, then tied the rope around the horn of the saddle. “Come on, give me a hand,” he said. Grabbing something out of his saddlebag. The horse held the line tight and George threw the calf on its back and had me hold the hind legs apart while he put a little rubber band on the end of the tool.

“What’s that for?” I asked, then watched as he squeezed the handles to expand the band, and then worked it over the struggling calf’s nutsack.

“Make’s him into a steer,” George answered. “His ball’s will fall off in a week or two.” I knew about castration; Kenny Wyatt talked about guys getting their balls mashed or cut off all of the time.

“Oh,” I answered, “That must hurt.”

“Want to find out?” George asked, motioning to my crotch. I didn’t answer, but I did casually slip a hand into one pocket to make sure mine were still there. He did two more calves, then offered the tool to me for the last one. I had trouble getting the band over the calf’s nuts and had to struggle quite a bit. “You should practice some,” George commented.

“What am I supposed to practice on?” I asked, then blushed as I got the joke.

We spent the rest of the week repairing and building fence, and I rode a little each evening. “I’d like to go for a ride, by myself, I mean,” I announced after breakfast the next Sunday.

“Okay, I guess.” Tom seemed a little unsure.

“Kid’s pretty good,” George reassured him. “He won’t get into no trouble on Smoky. He ain’t quite ready for Flash, though.” Flash was Charlene’s horse, and in addition to being big enough to haul her fat ass around he was also a little on the mean side, or spirited, as the call it.

“They ain’t there no more,” George said as I saddled up Smoky.

“Huh?”

“The sheep. Wilkins moved all over to the other side. Twenty or twenty-five miles. Too far to ride.” He went over to the cabinet and got the castration tool and the jar of bands. “Good time as any to practice,” he said, putting them in my saddlebag along with a small pair of clippers. “Don’t leave it on too long or you’ll be walking and talking kind of funny.”

Banding a calf was all it took to get me worked up after that. Knowing how the band cut into the tender skin and the relentless pressure exerted on the balls as the band compressed them into a small hard lump always got me hard and I had to slip away and jack off, and the sight of the calves walking stiffly the next day, bleating plaintively at their discomfort gave me another boner. I rode Smokey every Sunday, and although I searched high and low I never found the sheep, and by the end of the month even Charlene was starting to look good.

“Come back next summer and I’ll hire you,” Tom said as I loaded up to leave. Doris made a big show, of course, and even Charlene had warmed up enough to give me a friendly peck on the cheek. George just stood there smiling, taking it all in.

I don’t rightly know how the bander got into my duffle bag; I didn’t put it there, but George always said the thing was about worn out and that Tom wouldn’t buy a new one until it either broke or got lost, so I have a good idea how it got there.

Kenny Wyatt was the first guy I talked to when I got back. Kenny was gay. He wasn’t pushy about his sexuality but the message was clear; here it is, come and get it. He liked guys and I liked, uh, females, but despite our differences we were friends, and since anything to do with a guy’s balls really turned him on I just had to show him the tool.

“Did you, you know, like try it?” Kenny asked, slowly working the tool’s handles.

“Uh, yeah, just once,” I answered. “It hurt like a bitch after a few minutes, then it really hurt when I cut it off.”

“Why’s that?”

“I don’t know. Try it,” I challenged, then handed him the jar of bands. He dropped his pants and cupped his hands around his nuts, then loaded a band onto the tool and applied it to his ballsack. He started getting hard right away and spewed within a minute. I’d seen this before; all junior high kids dressed down for PE and showered afterwards, so all the guys had seen each other naked. Most had also seen Kenny with a boner, and quite a few had seen him spew. That’s just the way he is.

I handed him the cutters. “Ouch!” he cried as band parted. “That hurt!” He massaged his nuts for a minute, probably hoping that I’d help him, then said. “I want to do it again, only this time I want you to tie me up and band me just like you would a calf.”

“Okay,” I finally said. Despite his repeated offers I had never touched Kenny’s, or anyone else’s balls.

“Okay. Tomorrow. I’ll bring Dad’s old handcuffs.” Kenny’s dad was a security guard in one of the casinos, and he carried a gun and stuff just like a real cop.

I didn’t use the handcuffs; Kenny wanted it just like a calf, and real cowboys don’t carry handcuffs, so I used some stout twine to lash him hand and foot to my bed. “Ouch! Take it easy,” Kenny complained as I eased the band over his balls.

“Shut up and suffer, Bitch.” I got that line out of some book I’d once read, and I emphasized it giving his darkening nuts a flick with my thumb and forefinger. He got hard but didn’t spew, and I left him tied up for about fifteen minutes before letting him loose. “Think about what it would be like if the band stayed on like it does on calves,” I said afterwards. What I didn’t say was that I’d gotten rock-hard and had almost spewed as I watch him thrash around trying to get loose.

“Your turn,” Kenny finally said, brandishing the handcuffs.”

“I don’t think so,” I answered. I had no intention of letting Kenny fuck around with my balls.

“Oh yeah?” Kenny said, then grabbed my wrist. He was a little bigger than me and his dad had showed him some cop-type moves and he quickly snapped one end of the cuff over my wrist and the other end to the bed rail. With one of my arms pinioned it was easy for him to secure the other, and in a few minutes he had my pants off and my legs secured to the opposite end of the bed, and a few minutes later the band was cutting into my ballsack. “Okay, now we’ll see who the Bitch is,” Kenny said climbing onto the bed to straddle my chest. “Suck it, Bitch.” He stuck his cock in my face.

“No way, Kenny! Let me loose!” I pleaded. We were friends, but not that kind of friends, if you know what I mean.

“Okay Bitch, suit yourself,” he said, and then left the room.

Sandyslut found me three hours later, which was at least an hour too late. The handcuff key was on the floor by the bed, right where they determined that I had dropped it. Kenny denied any involvement, claiming that he’d been home watching TV the whole time. He also said that I’d been acting goofy since returning from the ranch, and that he’d loaned me an old pair of his dad’s handcuffs. If that don’t just beat all.