Money Well Spent (Ashley, Isabella, and Aniyah)
Ashley, Isabella, and Aniyah could hardly believe that they had finally saved up $30,000 between them. It had been eight months since the high school seniors had learned that there was a secret group that would make sure any guy they wanted lost his balls in exchange for that much money in cash. Any guy they wanted, ball-less! They had talked about it tentatively at first, half joking but half serious, each secretly afraid that the others would judge her if they knew how much the idea of taking certain guys’ balls excited them.
“It’s a literal castration service!” Isabella had told them, feeling like she was letting them into a strange secret world that she had only just learned about herself and couldn’t wait to explore. “They literally cut off a guy’s balls!”
“So what,” Aniyah asked. Her mother was a veterinarian, so Aniyah didn’t find talk about castration shocking. Aniyah hadn’t thought about it before, but her mom had talked about castration kind of a lot for as long as Aniyah could remember. It never seemed like that big of a deal, but she hadn’t really thought about it before. “Neutering is simple,” she continued, “My mom does it to animals all the time. I guess if you really don’t want a guy to have kids it’s worth it, but would you would really spend that much money just for that?”
“It is so much more than that!” Isabella rushed on excitedly, “It changes them, makes them more calm and submissive. It means they stop thinking they are so big and better and start to behave and do what you say!”
“I don’t believe it,” said Ashley, “but, if that is true, I can think of a lot of guys I would pay that much to have castrated.”
“Isabella might be kind of right,” Aniyah mused, “I don’t think it will change a guy immediately but my mom says castration calms animals down, makes them a lot nicer. She always says if I get a dog make sure that I castrate it immediately or it will be hard to train.” Huh, she had never thought of it before, but why had her mother said that so often? Was she really talking about something besides just dogs?
Suddenly the girls found themselves talking enthusiastically about which of their classmates or brothers they would castrate if they had that much money. The nervousness about what the others would think disappeared as they got more and more excited about the idea.
It didn’t take them long to decide whose balls they wanted to go for: Ashley’s older brother, Ryan. Ryan had made life hell for Ashley and her friends for as long as they could remember. Bullying her, taking up all of the space in the house with his friends and his music so that Ashley and her friends could only hang out in her small room, always getting his way and the best of everything. He pulled their hair, made fun of their looks, and as they had started to develop breasts he had made crude jokes. Isabella was self-conscious about how ample hers had become while Ashley worried that hers were too small and Aniyah worried both about that and about how her nipples kept showing through her shirts. Ryan’s jokes were designed, like everything he did, to make them feel uncomfortable and inferior to him.
The thought of the approaching summer was a little less fun because they knew that when Ryan returned from college he would go right back to annoying them every chance he got. If anyone they knew should have his balls cut off, all three girls agreed, it was Ryan.
\~\~
They started saving up the money immediately. They put away what little money they made babysitting. Then, when they realized how long it would take to save the necessary amount, they took on parttime jobs after school. They did without a lot of the extra fun things that other girls spent money on, but they all remained sure that saving up for this was way more important.
And now they finally had the money! If this worked, then the days of Ryan having balls were already numbered. Isabella wondered, as she texted the number for the secret group, if this was all a hoax. After so long working towards this, she had to believe it was real, but she couldn’t help doubting it.
Isabella’s mother, a psychiatrist, had seemed sure that the service was real when she had casually mentioned it to Isabella. It was a few days after Isabella turned 18. She was the youngest of her friends, and she was happy that her mom was recognizing her as an adult by sharing the story with her. Dr. Sanchez said that the wife of one of the couples she did family counseling for had used the service to have her husband castrated and that she was amazed at how much better their relationship was afterwards.
“It is a huge change for a guy,” her mother had said, “and kind of mean to do without his permission. I was surprised when my client told me what she had done, but after talking with her I realized that she thought very carefully about how big a step it was and what was best for her and her husband before she used the service. Honestly, I think they are both better off now, so I didn’t report my client or the secret group to anyone.”
The next morning, Isabella’s heart had skipped a beat when she saw the card that her mother had been holding when she told her about the group lying out on the dining table. If someone didn’t know what it was, they probably wouldn’t have guessed it from the cryptic card, which just listed a phone number with the words: “Improvement Services, $30,000. Text his full name and indicate one or both.” She had shoved the card in her pocket and rushed to tell Ashley and Aniyah.
And now, the three girls had finally saved all they needed and were ready to text “Ryan Charles Miller, both.” The three girls squealed and hugged each other as Isabella pressed send. Each girl felt slightly differently as they wondered if it would work.
Aniyah, who was tired of the way Ryan strutted and bossed everyone around had already decided that if this didn’t work she was just going to get her mom’s veterinary equipment and castrate Ryan herself. As they had gotten closer to the goal, she had felt herself becoming more and more assertive, ready to stand up herself if necessary to take Ryan down a peg.
Isabella was giggling with joy. Ryan had made fun of her so much over the years that she was already imagining the things she could say to get back at him: “There aren’t any balls with these tennis rackets, do you have any? Mmm, this ice cream sundae looks good, but I don’t know if I should get it with nuts or not, which to you like better, having nuts or not having nuts?”
But Ashley, who had to live with Ryan and put up with him every day was the most hopeful. She remembered what Aniyah had said her mom told her about castrated dogs being easier to train and wondered if this was her chance to train Ryan into a better brother.
Within moments, they got a text back. It told them where to leave the money and when. Then, after they dropped off the money, a single message: “Scheduled for June 15. We hope you enjoy the results!”
That was two months away. The girls counted down every day and passed the time wondering how it was going to happen. They also wondered if this was all just a scam. And, if it wasn’t was someone making a lot of money from this service or did it just cost that much to do whatever this mysterious group needed to do to make sure that Ryan lost both his balls.
\~\~
Although they did not know it at the time, a complex plan to relieve Ryan of his nuts was already underway. Some things in a plan this complex did require money. For one, the group hired a stunt driver be ready to pull out into the quiet intersection that Ryan always ran the stoplight at. Ryan was angry that his car was totaled and he had to start depending on his parents and friends for rides, but he didn’t suspect that this staged accident was the first step in a process that would end up costing him something worth a lot more to him than the price of any car.
The next, smaller, expense involved paying the employees of a nearby grocery store to stop him at the exist, where they found an unpurchased bottle of whiskey that someone had slipped in with the groceries that Ryan had paid for, resulting in a shoplifting charge.
A larger expense, but one that was essential to the plan was paying Jenny, Ryan’s sort-of girlfriend to goad him into an argument. It didn’t take much. Whenever a girl contradicted Ryan, he got mad. So when Jenny said she was tired of spending time with a loser who now had no car and a legal record, he immediately started yelling at her. The group had paid generously for her to step close to him as he yelled, knowing that a guy like Ryan wouldn’t hesitate to push her. He did, leaving an uneven bruise on her upper arm. So, after the group paid her again, she was able to have him charged with both assault and battery.
As a result, when Ryan appeared in court on May 4^(th), he already had, as the judge pointed out, racked up a lot of troubling behavior: assault and battery, shoplifting, and reckless endangerment for the car accident.
The biggest amount of money that the group spent was to make sure that the judge sentenced Ryan to six months in jail – a sentence that would be deferred or dismissed as long as he agreed to voluntarily undergo counseling. Unless he satisfactorily undertook any counseling or treatment programs that the designated psychiatrist (Dr. Sanchez, Isabella’s mom) deemed necessary he would have to report immediately to jail. He didn’t know it at the time, but as soon as he agreed to this condition, his balls were as good as gone.
\~\~
The counseling sessions didn’t seem unusual at first. Meeting once a week, Dr. Sanchez asked him, in gentle and roundabout ways, about his dismissive attitudes towards other people, especially women, and his inflated sense of his own importance. This might actually have helped him if he had been open to the process, but he wasn’t. He remained moodily defensive, thinking that the whole thing was stupid but anything would be better than jail.
Then, in early June, Dr. Sanchez made the surprise announcement: she saw no progress at all. And unless he was willing to try one last thing, she was going to tell the judge to order Ryan to report to jail next week. The only remaining chance Ryan had to stay out was of jail as what Dr. Sanchez called “simulated castration therapy.”
“Don’t worry!” she laughed when she saw the fear on Ryan’s face, “I take it from your reaction that you know what castration is.”
“Yeah,” Ryan mumbled.
“Can you say what it is?” Dr. Sanchez prompted.
Embarrassed, Ryan stammered, “when a guy’s balls get…” He couldn’t make himself finish the sentence. Even the idea made him uncomfortable, and why were they even talking about this?
“Well,” said Dr. Sanchez, “yes. Let’s call them ‘testicles.’ But you are right. Castration is when someone removes or kills a guy’s testicles. Cutting them off is one way, but you can also just stop the blood supply to them, either by breaking the blood vessels leading to them with a clamp or even a tight rubber band will work. They really are remarkably fragile!”
Ryan had gone pale as he listened in horror, trying not to think about how fragile his most important parts were and what the Doctor seemed to be suggesting.
“There are a lot of benefits to castrating guys,” Dr. Sanchez continued pleasantly, “most of the benefits aren’t even physical but mental. It forces you to learn that you aren’t invulnerable and far from being superior to women, you in fact have a major disadvantage. Being castrated can hurt a guy’s self-esteem, but, let’s be honest, your problem isn’t low self-esteem! It is exactly the opposite. A humbling experience like that can ultimately be very good for you. Oh goodness, you are starting to shake! Like I said, don’t worry. I’m not saying you should really be castrated. Given how big your ego is, you would probably never recover from that. You’d always feel like a sad, inferior shell of your former self. However, there is a new treatment that I have just found out about that simulates the effects of castration. I think it is the best option for you.”
She went on to explain that the treatment was chemical and would counteract the hormones that he is getting from his testicles now. The result will be that he won’t be able to get hard, his balls will probably shrink, he’ll lose muscle, and his sex drive will plummet. If he did this for six months, Dr. Sanchez promised, he would learn how to be more humble and more thoughtful of others around him.
“A year of having slightly different bodily chemistry is better than being locked in jail, don’t you think?” she asked. Ryan didn’t like the plan at all, especially the part about his balls shrinking, but he had to agree that six months like that was, in fact, better than jail, so he agreed.
Dr. Sanchez immediately filled out the paperwork. Anyone looking at it later would find no smoking gun. The form, which Ryan signed, was a referral to a group called Mental Health Improvement Specialists for what was just listed as “additional assessment and wellbeing treatment.” A business called Mental Health Improvement Specialists did actually exist legally very briefly in rented office space, but by the time the first month’s rent was up, MHIS had disappeared without a trace. Nonetheless, when Ryan called the number on the form that day, someone answered the phone and scheduled an appointment for June 15.
\~\~
When Ashley’s mom told her that Ryan had a “special treatment” scheduled for 7:00 pm on June 15, Ashley almost couldn’t control her excited curiosity, and her voice had unmistakable notes of happiness in it when she asked, “Really? What is the treatment??”
“Never mind that now,” her mother replied breezily, “just something special. I’m only mentioning it now because it is the same night that you asked if Isabella and Aniyah could hang out here for a movie night, remember?”
There is no way that Ashley could possibility have forgotten. As soon as they got the tantalizing text hinting that her brother was going to lose his balls on June 15, she had arranged for the other girls to be in the house so that they would all find out at the same time if something really happened. “Oh yeah, that’s right,” Ashley said trying to sound casual, but she couldn’t mask the hope in her voice when she asked, “Does Ryan want us there for this special treatment?”
Her mother laughed. “No, I’m sure he doesn’t. I’m telling you because your dad will be driving Ryan to his treatment. Afterwards, I don’t think that coming home to a house full of girls will be the best thing for Ryan, so how about if I can take you and your friends out for pizza to get us out of the house. Sound fun?”
“Yeah, sure” Ashley said not very enthusiastically. Pizza with her mom didn’t sound like the most fun, especially because it meant that she and her friends wouldn’t be able to talk about what the hoped was going to happen to Ryan. Worse if they weren’t in the house when Ryan got back, they might miss a clue.
Still, when June 15 arrived, Ashley and all of the girls were happily smiling and laughing as they piled into her mom’s car to go for pizza, each one bristling with unspoken excitement about what might be happening to Ryan even at that moment.
Ashley, Isabella and Aniyah were engrossed in talking, mostly about what fun they were having in their free time now that they had graduated and weren’t all working whenever they could to save money. So, none of them noticed that Mrs. Miller wasn’t driving to the pizza place they usually went to. In fact, when the car came to a stop, they were in an office park and all of the businesses looked closed for the night.
“Where are we, mom?” Ashely asked.
“It’s a surprise!” Mrs. Miller smiled, “Just follow me.” She unlocked a side door and ushered the girls inside. Soon, they found themselves in a small back room. On a table were three boxes of their favorite pizzas and they descended on them hungrily and happily. There were comfy chairs that they flopped into, facing a window into another room. “What’s happening?” “Where are we?” “What is this?” The girls asked excitedly on top of each other.
“This is dinner and a show,” Mrs. Miller said with a grin. She pointed to the other room through the window and said, “In a few minutes Ryan is going to come in there and you should all know what is going to happen next. After all, you are the ones who wanted it so bad.”
Oh shit, had they been caught? What was going on? Mrs. Miller couldn’t really be smiling and laughing could she? But she was.
They couldn’t control their excitement any more, and Aniyah said, hopefully, looking at Mrs. Miller “He’s really getting castrated?”
“Buh-by ballsies!” Isabella giggled and all four of them burst out laughing.
“Ok, ok,” Mrs. Miller said smiling, “Yes. You said both of them, right?” The girls blushed.
“But first,” Mrs. Miller continues, “I want to tell all of you girls how proud I am of you. I was impressed by how seriously you took the choice and, even if I am his mom, I have to admit that Ryan deserves it. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that he was your first choice. I even thought about doing it myself sometimes. Ashley, I hope you don’t think I should have done it earlier.
“Oh my god, this is amazing” Ashley said blushing. She was still in shock at what she was learning about her mom but also excited that it really seemed like her mom approved. “I’m really not in trouble?”
“Oh, dear, not one bit” Mrs. Miller gushed, “We made the price on the card so high to be sure that you didn’t take the choice lightly or as a game. But all of the work you girls did to save that money shows that you know what a huge thing it is. Just remember that it is such a big deal because of how totally it is going to affect any guy you do it to. We know that balls are just silly little blobs of meat, but without them guys feel completely destroyed. Always remember what you are taking away from them. If you want it bad enough to work like you girls did, though, then you should do it! Just remember that the guy probably wants to keep them as much or more than you want to take them, even when you know he will be better off without them.”
The girls sat for a moment in silence, appreciating for the first time the full power of the choice they had made. The silence was finally broken, when Isabella asked, “Wait, so who is this secret group? Does my mom know you’re in it?”
Mrs. Miller laughed, “The secret group is me, your two moms and a few others.”
“Mine too?” Aniyah said with a smile of disbelief, “Damn! That is so cool!” She felt new respect for her mother wash over her.
“Oh yes,” Mrs. Miller replied, “In fact she has a special role tonight, so this seems like a good time to start.” She tapped on the glass, and Dr. Sanchez rolled a stretcher into the room with Ryan unconscious on it, followed by Aniyah’s mom in scrubs and several other women. The scrubs made it hard to recognize most of the women. Ashley thought that she recognized Ryan’s ex-girlfriend Jenny and her mom, but wasn’t sure.
“I’m sorry that you have to watch from behind glass tonight,” Mrs. Miller said, “but your first time it’s best if you aren’t too close. It’s not that we don’t trust you to stay out of the way; it’s just that it can be a really powerful thing to watch and it helps to have a comfy chair and pizza if you start to feel overwhelmed. But if you want, you can be more hands-on with the next guy you pick.”
The next guy? Did she really say that? Seeing the look of surprise and eagerness on the girls’ faces, Mrs. Miller added with a broad smile, “Oh and, by the way, we don’t normally charge for this service. I know that $30,000 is an awful lot of money, but remember, I’m sure that if Ryan could he would pay 10 times that to keep them. Now that you girls know what a meaningful and wonderful thing taking a guy’s manhood can be, we trust you to make good decisions. So, whenever you want help doing anything – anything whatsoever – to a guy, just let me or one of your moms know and we will help you make it happen.” It felt in that moment like the girls’ entire lives had transformed and they could do anything now.
They watched in awe as the women in the other room worked quickly, doing things like prepping Ryan by shaving his pubes and attending to equipment monitoring his vital signs. They made jokes, cheered the women on, and talked about who else they wanted to “fix.” When everything was ready, Dr. Jackson, Aniyah’s mom, worked fast. The girls all said “gross!” and pushed their pizza away when she cut into Ryan’s sac and two white orbs became visible, but their curiosity and sense of accomplishment overcame the grossness and they soon leaned close to the glass to get a better look. It looked so easy, a few clamps on the cords, some quick work with a scalpel and in no time Dr. Jackson was holding up two now useless balls in front of the window for the girls to see before she dropped them into a jar.
“Congratulations,” Mrs. Miller exclaimed as Dr. Jackson cauterized the wound and stitched back up his empty sac, “Ryan is now a eunuch!” The girls smiled enthusiastically at each other and basked in the knowledge that they were the reason he didn’t have nuts anymore.
When the girls seemed to have fully savored their moment of triumph, Mrs. Miller said gently, “Ok, Aniyah and Isabella, your mothers will be back in a few minutes. I’m sure that you will have a lot to talk about. Ashley and I need to go collect her brother’s balls before we go home.”
As Ashley and her mom walked down the hall, the two felt closer to each other than they ever had before, but each seemed not to know exactly what to say to acknowledge this new closeness. Finally, Mrs. Miller said, “I thought you would probably want the jar with his balls in it, it will look nice in your room as a reminder of how you and your friends’ hard work paid off. You can show them off to your friends, just please hide them if your brother comes into your room. It will probably take a few years before he’s able to see them without freaking out.”
“Oh my god, mom,” Ashley panted, “This is so amazing, thank you. This is the best day ever. But what are you going to tell Ryan when he wakes up?”
“Don’t worry,” Mrs. Miller said, “Your dad will explain it to him. As far as Ryan will know, we were all the victims of some mysterious and horrible crime. No one will be able to trace it back to any of us. No one ever does. Just give him a little space at first when your dad brings him home, he’ll need some time to get used to not having balls before he starts to learn his new role.”
“Does dad know already too? He didn’t know before did he?” Ashley asked in confusion “He would never agree to that, would he?”
Mrs. Miller smiled sweetly and paused for a moment before deciding that her daughter was ready to know. “Well,” she began, “your father and I used to disagree about a lot of things. Do you remember how much he and I used to fight when you were younger?” Ashley nodded slowly. “Let’s just say that I made a change and since then he has been much more agreeable about a lot of things.”
As she said this, she slipped a small jar with two orbs floating in it out of her purse. Ashley couldn’t believe her eyes. Was she really looking at her dad’s severed balls? Then it all clicked for her. Of course! Five years ago her dad and mom used to fight almost nonstop, they started couples’ counseling with Dr. Sanchez and almost immediately her dad seemed like a new person. He became more humble and uncertain. There was a quiet sadness about him and whereas before he was assertive about everything, he was now hesitant. But, at the same time, he was a much better husband and father, constantly attentive to Ashley and her mother. Thinking about the change, Ashley smiled and had a feeling that she was going like having her brother around much more from now on.