I was 11. I had had a very conservative upbringing. Sex was NOT a topic for discussion in our household. That left me with the library and all I could find. I was also a choirboy with a voice that could very nearly shatter glass. Thinking about puberty after reading all about it frightened me...and I kept reading. The more I read, the more I began to realize that I wanted nothing to do with it. A plan was forming in my mind. Then, as luck or fate would have it, I ran across a book about the Castrati, young boys in Italy and Europe who were testiculary castrated to keep their beautiful voices from changing. I read it with great enthusiasm, thinking, "Well, this problem is solved." After all, if the elastrator worked on my little animal friends, it should work on me too.

Then fate intervened again. Before I could set my plan into action, I had to go to my doctor for a physical routine exam for summer camp. I came up fine, right down to the hernia check. Then, with my pants still not back on yet, I asked the doctor with all of my genuine 11-yr-old innocence, "How long would it take to castrate me, or should I just wait until I get home and use the bander on myself?"

His reaction was less than serene. He called the nurse who fetched my parents who literally freaked out. They called a child psychologist...the elastrator disappeared from the barn shelf...and I spent 3 days a week trying to explain to this guy why I wanted to get rid of my nuts. Finally, we hit on the singing part of it.

What my book had neglected to mention was that little boys hadn't been castrated for their voices since 1878, when the practice was outlawed. You can imagine my embarrasment, but the fixation was already in place. If nothing else, avoiding puberty was now the issue entirely. My shrinks reaction was also less than serene. Finally, after 6 weeks of him, I gave in and he said I was cured.

Fooled him.

The fixation was far from cured. They let me take a week to go to summer camp during the therapy sessions, as a break from the monotony would be good for me. Fate, luck, whatever, intervened - AGAIN.

I went off to camp...

We arrived and set up on Sunday morning. There were a lot of us at camp, an all-boys camp with varying enrollment. You could stay 1 week, up to 4 if your parents really wanted to get rid of you for the summer ! Our campsites were primitive, with no running water or power. It was back to nature all the way, except of course, for the main facilities like the cookhouse (we had to eat), health lodge, and shower-house.

We usually had 2 boys to a tent, ages ranging from 10 to 17. If you were 18, you could sign on as Staff. There were generally 12 tents to a site, and there was so much to do that we didn't have much free time. We were up at dawn, and usually stayed up until midnight. We showered in the mornings.

The shower facilities were large, with about 15 stations, but no dividers. For boys who had never been to camp before, this prooved to be embarrasing for some. The thought of getting naked in front of a bunch of other boys was traumatic for them; it had been for me as well the previous year. Sometimes, when a dirty, smelly little boy didn't want to shower, we would all be obligated to strip him and throw him in. It was for his own good as well as all of ours ! It was summer and it was hot. Enough said.

It was this second year of mine at camp that I met the first eunuch I had ever seen and not just read about. It was Monday morning, about 6:30 am and our site was just getting in and soaping up. For us experienced campers, it was nothing unusual. We talked about all sorts of subjects as we washed down, plotting all the while to turn off someone's hot water when he wasn't looking.

Everything was going well. We had not even had to strip and toss one single 'new boy' yet. That was when HE walked in, and at first, no one thought anything of it. I looked over at my cousin Scott and said, "Well, either he gets clean or we clean him!"

We could tell he was new. He looked to be about 11 at the most with a thin build and pale blond hair, short on top, long in the back. It was the 80's, after all. He was white, but tanned by a lot of outdoor activity like the rest of us. His pale grey eyes moved all over the shower house, taking it all in. He looked like he was preparing to exit quickly.

Then, he sat his pack down, pulled out his soap and shampoo, sat it aside, and began to strip. Once naked, he stepped in, adjust his sprayer to his liking, and lathered up. Conversation resumed. After a minute or so, Scott smacked my arm and tugged on it; he was pointing at the new boy. I looked and Scott and said, "So?"

Being a head shorter than me, Scott pulled my head down by the ear and whispered, "THAT NEW KID AIN'T GOT ANY NUTS !"

That got my attention.

I shot a glance his way while he was rinsing his shampoo out with his eyes shut. After all, I didn't want to be rude. Scott was right.

Where the boy's sac should have been, it was flat. There were two very thin white scar lines about 1 inch long running vertically under his penis. I instantly realized this boy had been cut, like a calf or pig, and not banded as I so often fantasized for myself.

I was still taking it in when he looked up at us.

"Yes?" he asked in a calm tone.

"Uhhh," Scott answered.

Then he looked at us and looked down at himself. "Oh, that," he said as if talking about the weather, "You guys never seen a boy without nuts before?"

We said we had not.

Then he started to tell us about it !

I could not believe this was happening. He stepped closer to give us a better view, of all things, and pointed to the scars. "How?" Scott asked. "WHY?" I asked.

"My dad did it to me," he replied.

We stood there too stunned to speak. He went on.

"Last year, my brother was 15 and he got his girlfriend knocked up. Dad flipped out. He beat the hell out of him and left for a while. Mom was at work when he found out and did beat him. When he came back, he was back to normal. He asked me to come down to the basement with him to look for his tool box. I went with him."

"When we got down there, he turned on all the lights and picked me up and sat me on a table. He pushed me back and told me to lay down, so I did, afraid he would get mad if I didn't. My brother had left and I didn't know where he was. Then he pulled out a roll of duct tape, wrapped my wrists together with it, and pulled them back over my head and secured them. He pulled me shoes and socks off, spread my legs and taped them too. I asked him what he was doing and he said that he was going to make it so that he would have at least one son who wouldn't go around whoring and embarras him. He pulled out some new scissors and cut my clothes off me."

Scott and I stood transfixed, wasting water and listening.

"Then," the boy went on, "he pulled out a piece of wet leather string and tied it around my nut-sac. He pulled it tight and I screamed. He said he was sorry, but he had to do it for my own good. He let me lay there until my nuts were numb and then he pulled out a knife. Before I realized what he really meant to do, he had put the knife under my numb nuts and pulled up. I was numb and didn't even feel it."

"He had castrated me."

We both stared dumbly at the little eunuch standing there in front of us telling us this tale. Had he not been there, I know I would not have believed it. "What about your dad?" I asked.

"He went upstairs and called an ambulance and the cops," the white-blond boy replied, "and he went to jail. I went to the hospital, got stitches, Mom and my brother flipped out, and three days later I went home. I got my stitches out a week later. We move near hear after that. I like it here." he concluded.

"He cut your nuts off?" Scott exclaimed, like a shocked 11-year-old would when he can't comprehend something. I on the other hand, understood it. He said his older brother felt really guilty about it and that it should have been him, and all he got was a good beating.

"Your dad's going to be in jail for a while, ain't he?" I asked.

"Yep," he replied, "where he can't hurt us anymore...right where he belongs. He used to hit Mom too."

I felt for this kid. I envied him, having been cut and spared the problems of puberty I wanted avoid. I now knew what a castrato/eunuch looked like, and he seemed like any other boy at camp when he had clothes on.

He was a great swimmer, he could run with the best of us, and there didn't seem to be anything he wasn't good at.

He told us his name was Davey and that he had just turned 9 when his dad cut him. His 10th birthday had fallen just in time to come to our camp.

Fate?

A sign?

Who knows...

I asked him later that day after dinner and campfire if knew what was going to happen to him in later life since his nuts had been cut off. He said he a psychologist to talk to and I told him about mine.

"You better not do it to yourself" he told me, "it hurt real bad. After I saw the blood, I passed out, but man, a rubber band on for 2 or 3 weeks? That would HURT! Not me," he finished, "I am not looking forward to all those shots for the rest of my life."

"Shots?" I asked. Remember, I hadn't read all the information and that was another part I had missed.

"Yeah, if I want to grow up and be a man, I have to start shots when I'm 14 or so. That sucks."

"Don't get 'em," I told him.

"I might not," he replied, "But my brother and my shrink think I should. I mean, what my brother did was bad, but he really wants me to grow up and not be a eunuch; he says I need to be a man."

"Well, it's up to you," I told him, but I don't want anything to do with it."

Over the course of the next week, Davey became a good friend and we didn't even think of him as different. We didn't even stare at him anymore in the showers, and we threw threatening glares to anyone who did. Amazingly, the older boys in various stages of puberty didn't even ask ONCE. They looked, and shivered and left.

Davey and Scott spent a second week at camp, but I had to go back home to visit my own shrink. My thoughts kept going back to Davey, though, and the next year he moved again. I guess he didn't know they were going to move or we would have exchanged addresses. I often wonder what happened to him over the last 15 or so years and hope he's happy, whatever he chose.

I finally chose to keep 'em, just to get rid of the shrink and all the damn visits to his office, but secretly kept the fantasy intact for future use.