Little Big Man

LITTLE BIG MAN – a serial novel by Travis Creel

[Author's Note: I enjoy hearing from and engaging with readers. Feel free to contact me with any comments or questions.]

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: IRREVERSIBLE LOSSES

Previously: In the gymnasium, the twelve remaining Tops are confronted with three ball-guillotines brought on board by a mysterious Arab. While all three machines are capable of gelding its occupant, only one will do so. Not even the Russians will know which, but they can calculate the odds for each machine and can place their favored boys into the safest' ones. The first round of competition involves Alex's friends Del and Rhody, as well as South Carolina. The Arab (the Prince Regent of an unspecified country) plays mind games with his victims before informing them that you will hear a beep two seconds before the blade falls'. A few minutes later, a beep was heard – from Rhody's machine.

[Author's Note/Warning: This chapter includes scenes of on-page castration (the only such place in the entire story). If this makes you uncomfortable, skip this chapter. The intro to Chapter 25 will reveal who suffered these `irreversible losses'.)

ALEX: WEDNESDAY, JUNE 15, EVENING – INDIAN OCEAN

I wanted to scream in protest as Rhody's guillotine came hurtling toward his balls.

And missed.

Huh?

It missed. It crashed harmlessly into the block of wood that surrounded his nuts. I looked at Matti and he squeezed my hand. But neither of us knew for sure what this meant.

Was this a colossal mistake? Or was this whole set-up a ruse? Were we to keep our balls after all, and they just wanted to scare us? Or was Rhody indeed supposed to have become a eunuch, and the machine had malfunctioned? A quick look at the Russians told me that they were as surprised as I was; this was not part of the plan. At least, not of THEIR plan.

The Arab's laughter gave me a partial answer. And his speech provided the rest of it.

• Congratulations, Rhode Island. It seems that your nuts have undergone enough stress this evening. You may keep them. Not so for both of your friends, I'm afraid. One of them will soon make a donation to the bowl below. But before that happens, let's turn up the pressure a bit.

DMITRI: The Prince's little stunt was amusing – in retrospect. He should have shared his joke with us beforehand. Our surprise that the blade missed its apparent target must have been obvious to those watching the event. It made us look weak, not in control. One of these twelve boys would have me as a Master – and a Master must never look weak. I would have a chat with the Prince Regent about this.

ALEX: Del started to groan, and South Carolina started to pant as if suppressing pain. Matti and I exchanged bewildered looks. Why were they both reacting as if in pain – and why was either of them in pain? The Arab, of course, had the answer.

• These machines are actually a lot more sophisticated than they look. One of these boys is being gelded as I speak. Blades embedded in the opening are slowly cutting into his ballsac, and simultaneously cauterizing the wound so that he doesn't bleed. This is why you don't see any blood dripping down below. The circle of flesh connecting his scrotum to his torso is diminishing by millimeters every few seconds; when it gets to a critical point, and the balls are hanging by a thread, the blade will descend and finish the job. At that point, there will be a small amount of blood, but not as much as if we just sliced off his nuts. This way, he doesn't bleed out and requires only minimal recovery afterwards.

• But why, you are thinking, do BOTH of them exhibit pain? Because, as I said, these are very sophisticated machines. They are capable of simulating the experience without the actual castration. The boy who will remain intact is feeling the same sensations – his nerves are sending the same pain signals to the brain as if the blades were actually cutting through his flesh. He cannot tell that he is not being gelded.

• We know this because we have tested the device on some of our jailed prisoners. First, we subjected them to the mock castration, leading them to think they were actually losing their balls. Then we repeated the experiment, leading them to think they were again testing the mock castration, when we were actually castrating them for real. In ten out of ten trials, the prisoners were unable to distinguish between the two experiences.

• But do not feel sorry for the men we experimented on. They had been condemned to death anyway, and we spared them the humiliation of living life as a eunuch by executing them the next day.

• One of these boys, however, will not be spared that humiliation and will have to adjust to life as a eunuch. (to us Tops) As will three of you.

Both Del and South Carolina looked to be in extreme pain when suddenly there was a beep. South Carolina cried out, "No!" and his black face was a picture of misery as he saw the blade come crashing down. And land on top of the stockpiece.

He gasped in relief. I gasped in shock. I could not imagine what Del was thinking.

• (triumphantly, to Del) That means it's you, boy.

A second later, without a warning beep, the blade fell and poor Del's balls landed with a plop into the waiting bowl.

The doctor rushed to attend to him, holding in his hand what looked to me like a miniature blowtorch. A small amount of blood fell from Del's severed scrotum into the bowl. Del screamed with the pain as his wound was being cauterized and a moment later passed out. Mercifully, I thought.

They didn't bother to revive him as the doctor finished patching him up and then maroons took him from the room, presumably to the `hospital' to recover. Others cleaned Del's guillotine of the blood around the stockpiece, and wiped down the others as well.

The Arab picked up the severed scrotum, and waved it around triumphantly. Somehow it had remained in one piece. The balls were still inside. Had it not been an actual person's balls, I would have marveled at the technology which allowed the ballsac to remain virtually intact as it was sawed off. But it was an actual person's balls – and a friend's. And it hurt.

Matti and I looked at each other in silence: Del was now a eunuch. Would we be next? A horrible thought went through my head – what if Matti and I were in the same group? What if we were pitted against each other?

That question became highly relevant as DeJuan Brooks again took center stage, holding the bowl with the ping-pong balls.

• The next competition will involve the following three Tops: . . . Nevada . . . South Dakota . . . and Wisconsin.

Here we go.

I wasn't psychologically ready for this. South Dakota must have been, because he stepped forward without waiting for maroons to drag him forward. I sighed, squeezed Matti's hand without looking at him, and followed suit. There was no point in struggling. Nevada apparently felt differently, and waited until Bubba and Cody pulled him up off his butt and hauled him in front of the three devastating machines.

• Your move, gentlemen. Who goes where? You have two minutes.

The Arab looked at his watch. The Russians huddled, and I heard a startled cry from `Peter'.

[Author's Note: to follow the following conversation, it may be necessary to review how the Prince set the machines. He had a pouch with seven red balls, five blue ones, and three white. He selected a ball without showing it – this determined which machine would be activated, but he made a show of `adjusting' all three. He then drew a second ball, and then switched the settings of the two OTHER machines, which might have included the original active one, complicating the odds. He allowed the Russians to decide which captive went into which machine.]

DMITRI: We weren't ready yet.

• (Boris) Wait! Come over here a moment.

The Prince complied, so that we converse without the boys overhearing.

• (Boris) Did you put the balls back?

• (P.R., with one of his signature smiles – enigmatic and sinister at the same time) Once a pair of balls has been removed, it is permanent.

Boris's look said `don't treat us like idiots'.

• (Boris) I was talking about the balls in the pouch.

• (P.R.) I think the pouch came off along with the boy's balls.

• (Boris, annoyed at the P.R.'s dance) The balls you used to choose the settings.

• (P.R.) Oh, THOSE balls? No, they weren't replaced either.

• (Boris) But that affects the probabilities, right Sergei?

• (Sergei) Of course.

• (Boris) How do we know what they are now? You didn't show us the first ball you pulled out.

• (P.R.) Oh, come now. You can design a sophisticated algorithm to select your slaves out of thousands of applicants, and you can't figure out which color I selected?

• (Sergei) It was red. He switched the blue and white settings, but it was the red guillotine that worked. So it must have been the original one selected. Both balls chosen were red.

• (P.R., checking his watch) Forty-five seconds.

• Be reasonable, Your Majesty. You were playing games with us instead of answering our question. You can't count that time.

The real question was why he was putting us on the clock at all. He was treating us like his lackeys instead of his business partners and suppliers. And our future slaves could see that.

• Thirty seconds, but very well. You can have an extra minute, but then I put them into the machines randomly.

• (Yuri, urgently) Sergei, what are the odds?

• (Sergei) I don't need to calculate them. There are now five red, five blue, and three white. So red and blue are the same. And white has to be the most likely to geld, because of the switching.

• Okay, so who goes in white?

• (Sergei) Wisconsin, obviously. I just lost one of my three, and the other two are in this group. I have to protect them.

• But you are guaranteed to keep one of them. I could lose all three.

• (Sergei) Yes, and you could keep all three.

• (Boris) He's right. You haven't lost any yet, Dmitri. Sergei has. He deserves to protect them.

• (P.R.) Time's up. Your decision?

ALEX: They put me in the middle machine, the white one. Nevada was to my left, in the blue machine where Rhody had been. South Dakota was in the red machine that had castrated Del. Logically, we knew that fact shouldn't matter, but South Dakota looked devastated when the assignments were announced.

I liked South Dakota – and he was Nodak's best friend. Nevada I had no fondness for, mostly because he was Wyoming's best friend. And because of that peach cobbler. [cf. Ch. 22, when Nevada ate his dessert during Rhody's and Maine's torture.]

But one of us would soon be neutered, and didn't deserve to be. I prayed that it wouldn't be me.

DeJuan Brooks presented the Arab with the pouch containing the colored balls and he drew one out, again passing behind each of the three machines and turning a knob that was out of my range of sight. As he passed behind me, he patted me gently on the top of my rump. Bastard.

Then he drew another ball out of the pouch, and I saw that it was red. The Arab passed behind me and twiddled the knob. And then he did the same to Nevada's.

• Let the games begin.

I inhaled. In fifteen minutes I would either be back against the wall, intact, watching other Tops await their fate or down in the hospital, being attended to by Dr. Haddad or his equally monstrous colleague, Dr. Tafriq. Without my `nads.

DMITRI: I wanted one of Sergei's boys to get the chop, aware of the irony that we were depending upon Sergei to figure out our strategy to preserve the choices of the rest of us.

I was waiting for a blade to drop falsely, sparing one of the contestants and narrowing it down to two, but instead all three of the boys seemed to be experiencing the sensation of having their nut sacks being slowly sawed away. Three faces were contorted in agony, one white blond, one Native American, and one Latino. I could tell nothing from the distortions in their expressions as to which was suffering the loss for real.

ALEX: I was in agony, feeling the blades saw into my nutsack – or simulating the experience. We were all in agony. And we'd passed the point when the fake blade had dropped onto Rhody's stockpiece. Suddenly, I heard a beep to my left and a blade came crashing down – was it another fake one? I heard Nevada scream.

It was a scream in preparation for whatever happened. And it was followed by gasps of relief. Nevada was spared. South Dakota or me.

The pain in my balls was nearly unbearable. I couldn't believe that I could be experiencing this much agony and it might not be real. It sure felt real.

I contemplated life without balls. Maybe it wasn't so terrible. It wasn't like I had that vibrant a sex life before the contest. And I would still have my cock. Plus it seemed unlikely, that whatever happened, I would be using that cock for fucking very often anyway. So maybe this wasn't this much of a muchness.

Or so I tried to convince myself. I wasn't succeeding. I loved my balls. I loved the way they tingled when I got aroused. I loved the feeling of an erection. I loved spilling my seed, even by hand – and even more into the bowels of another human being. Dammit, I wanted –

There was a beep. Omigod, this is it. It wasn't my guillotine that was beeping, it was South Dakota's. If last time was a pattern, his would be fake, too, and I was due for the chop. I turned and looked at South Dakota, our faces mirroring each other in a mixture of extreme pain and extreme anxiety.

And then the blade fell. And sliced off South Dakota's scrotum.

Both of us started to cry, for different reasons.

DMITRI: The Native American boy was attended to – unlike the Korean he remained conscious – and, after getting temporarily patched up, was sent off to the infirmary.

While I was pleased that Wisconsin had remained intact, Sergei had lost his top two choices in the first two rounds. I felt bad for him.

• (Sergei) I'll survive. Nevada will be fine. Just remember that we agreed that if any of us were down to one of our choices, we'd pick him first in the draft. Right?

• (Yuri) Yes, of course, Sergei. Provided the Royal Family doesn't pick him ahead of us.

• We'll deal with that when we have to. Right now, we have to -

I was interrupted by the Prince, who was egging DeJuan to get on for the next round. He drew out North Dakota, Illinois, and Oregon.

North Dakota. A sexy blond if ever there was one, whose delicious rump I coveted. Number one on my wish list, although I would be virtually as happy with Wisconsin or Minnesota.

Illinois was Boris's number two, and Oregon – not any of our `type's – Yuri's number three. But Sergei advised us that the odds were almost even, blue being a tiny bit worse. It was a crapshoot. We put Oregon in Blue, Illinois in White, North Dakota in Red.

After setting the active blade, the Prince switched the white and blue machines, which meant that the second ball he had chosen was red. I could scarcely believe my eyes. Red AGAIN? I was beginning to wonder if the Prince had pulled a fast one on us, and every single ball in the pouch was red, despite his having shown us otherwise initially.

The Prince had a twist in store, but it wasn't that one. Barely a minute after the boys started squirming in discomfort, a beeper sounded. We were used to that. One of the three would be spared. I saw Oregon almost relax when he realized it was his own machine that had beeped.

Which made him all the more surprised when his severed balls decorated the bowl below.

ALEX: When I returned from my ordeal, Matti had hugged me in relief. But no one – not the Arab, the Russians, nor any of the maroons – paid any attention. Nor did they pay attention when he started to whisper to me during round three.

• Mississippi and South Carolina talked to each other all during your turn. No one cares – it's okay as long as we're quiet. I've figured out a couple of things. The first ball is the one that will drop while the second ball is the machine they DON'T switch. Which means the first four balls were all red. If red is the live one this time –

• God, I hope not, that's Nodak!

• Well, if it is, then maybe they're all red and this thing is just a ruse.

• And I better hope you don't go into red.

• But if it's not red this time, and the number of times they've drawn red is just a coincidence, then –

A shriek interrupted him. It was Oregon. His balls lay in a bloody mess in the bowl below and the Arab's doctor was rushing to him.

• What happened?

• (Rhody) It beeped. It wasn't fake. They – omigod.

Which about summed it up.

I don't know why they did that. He could have bled to death if they weren't careful. Well, they were careful, I guess. They were on him in a flash, cauterizing the wound. But blood had gushed from his severed scrotum, splattering the floor and his guillotine.

Well, I do know why they did that. They wanted to be unpredictable. They had now done it differently each time – the third beep was the real one, the second beep was the real one, and now the first beep. What would happen in the next round? And the next round was the most important of all: Matti was going into one of those machines.

After they cleaned up the place and carted off Oregon, DeJuan Brooks stood before us and simply said:

• Well, you know who you are.

Matti squeezed my hand and stood, awaiting his assignment. And I didn't know which one to hope for.

DMITRI: It happened so quickly. The four of us looked at each other in shock, and then at the Prince, who shrugged as if to say, "Hey, gotta mix it up a little."

Or was it so that we wouldn't have time to calculate the odds? Or had our mathematical brain thought ahead that quickly?

• (Sergei) Okay, I haven't had the chance to calculate it, but it's gotta be blue that's the most likely to geld.

• (Boris) So we protect Mississippi and Wyoming. That's my number one and Yuri's. Dmitri, you have your top two choices intact, you can give up Minnesota.

I didn't want to give up anyone, but couldn't argue with his logic.

• Okay, Minnesota goes in blue, I'll agree to that. The other two?

• (Yuri) My favorite color is red, so I'll take red.

• Okay, Wyoming is red, Mississippi is white, and Minnesota is blue.

• (Sergei) Mississippi is not white, he's Black.

Bad time for a joke, Sergei. No one laughed.

ALEX: They put Matti into the blue machine, the one on the right. That was the one that had just gelded Oregon. He did not look happy at the choice.

I clenched my hand into a fist and thumped my heart twice. I meant it to say, "Stay strong" – I don't know what he thought it meant. He nodded in return, ever so slightly. I could see him swallowing hard.

With my left hand, I grabbed Rhody's right. I needed support, and I trusted Rhody enough to know he wouldn't misinterpret it. He stroked my left arm gently with his free hand, a reassurance. I gripped his hand more tightly but didn't look into his face.

My mind was a morass. Matti was my best friend in the whole world, and Rhody was my next best friend. And both were in love with me. If Matti lost this competition, they might keep us separated for the remaining days of the journey. Could I find solace with Rhody? Or would that be leading him on, when I didn't reciprocate the feelings he had for me.

But then I had gotten those erections . . .

No! It was all too confusing. I couldn't let Rhody distract me from Matti – there was the too real possibility that Matti would, in a matter of minutes, be taken away from me forever.

I didn't `love' either of them, not in that way. But I was emotionally tied to them both, in complex ways, and I knew I would be devastated over losing Matti.

The Arab drew out a ball, looked at it, and fiddled with the knobs on the frames. My stomach tightened.

Then he drew out another ball, and fiddled with the knobs – on all three frames. What the fuck?

• (the Arab, to the Russians) Don't worry. I have only switched two of them. But since this is the last round, there is no point in revealing which two I have switched.

• (the Arab, to us) And now the die is cast. In just a few minutes, we will have our four eunuchs, who will come to live with my family. The rest of you . . . we'll see where you wind up. But let's not get ahead of ourselves – that won't be determined for days. Let's concentrate on what will be determined right now – which of these bowls gets a present.

I couldn't watch. I looked away, and then felt Rhody increase the pressure with his powerful grip. He leaned over and whispered, "He needs you."

I felt ashamed. Rhody was right. I couldn't let Matti go through this alone and not even look at him. So I looked at him. He was looking back.

All three of them were grimacing. I remembered what pain I had felt with the instrument feeling like it was sawing slowly through my ballsac.

Matti and I were as one, holding on to each other, trying to get each other through this. I was trying to give him the courage to endure the pain and to let him know I was with him even if the worst thing happened. And he was trying to assure me he'd be all right even if the worst happened.

And neither of us believed it.

There came a moment when neither the Arab nor any maroons were looking at him directly and I saw him move his mouth. I knew he was speaking directly to me, but I'm not a good lip-reader and didn't know what he said.

I turned to Rhody and whispered.

• Did you see that?

• Yeah.

• What did he say?

• He said, "I love you, Cheesehead."

At that moment, `Cheesehead' was the most precious word in the English language. I felt moist, and wiped my eye. I didn't want the Russians or that fucking Arab to see that. I didn't want them to see how destroyed I was at the possibility of my friend losing his manhood. Or of me losing him forever.

I checked around the room. No one important was looking in my direction.

"I love you too," I mouthed back, and saw him grin. That famous grin, the one that had gotten me back when we first met, standing under the ten-meter board at the UWS pool. I didn't know how he was able to grin in the situation he was in, but it seemed to give him strength – and me, too.

Did I mean it? Yes. But what does love mean anyway? If it meant that I wanted to be with him all the time, that I didn't ever want to lose him, then I loved him. Did it mean I wanted us to be lovers, in a sexual sense, the way he did?

At that moment, I didn't know the answer to that question. I just knew I wanted him, I wanted to hold him, to touch him, to feel his chest against mine, to see that grin, to hear his bad jokes, to –

A bell.

Wait – that was not one machine making that sound. That was . . . all three!

DMITRI: The level of tension among us wouldn't have matched that of the boys in the machines. But Yuri and Boris were on edge, hoping that Minnesota would suffer the irreversible loss. And I, were I a more generous soul, would have hoped for the same result, so that their top picks (Wyoming and Mississippi, respectively) could be maintained. But while Minnesota was publicly stated as my number three, I didn't think of him that way. I salivated for the boy. I wanted to fuck that ass raw. There was so little difference between him, North Dakota, and Wisconsin, that I could have drawn straws as to which I bedded first. I knew taking the virginity of all three was impossible, but a man can dream.

My reverie was interrupted by the bells. Yes, bells, plural. More than one machine was signaling that the blade was about to fall. I looked at the Prince. He grinned and pointed, in turn, to each of the three guillotines – yes, he was saying, all three had sounded.

And seconds later, all three blades came hurtling down simultaneously toward the exposed scrota of the three terrified prisoners.

Plop, went one of those scrota, into the waiting bowl.

"Dammit!" I heard Boris cry. For the skin covering that fallen scrotum was black.

Mississippi was now a eunuch.

[COMING UP NEXT: CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: NOW wHAT?]