The Booth

She walked over to the booth that was sitting near the corner of the sidewalk and knocked on the door. After waiting for a moment to make sure that it wasn’t occupied, she pulled the door open and stepped inside. The interior of the booth was a sterile white color with bright LED lighting overhead, directly in front of the door was a console that was about chest height and below console was platform with a small round hole in the center. The console had an error message flashing in the center of the screen. She tapped the console and brought up the admin window where she typed in her password. Once she did that she navigated to the self-diagnostic menu and started a full system test. Mechanisms inside of the platform whirred to life and a horrible grinding sound filled the booth. She winced at the sound and tapped the stop icon repeatedly until the sound died down. She sighed and then crouched down front of the platform putting on her rubber gloves.

“It’s never easy,” she said.

She pressed a few spots on the panel releasing the locks and then set it off to the side before reaching into the platform where she started to disassemble the mechanism placing each piece on the ground next to her before finally taking hold of the grinder barrel and pulling it free. A horrible odor wafted out of the barrel causing her nose to wrinkle in disgust. She looked inside to find dried blood and chunks of rancid meat stuck to the grind heads. Turned the gearing by hand reversing the grind heads and a small shiny object came into view. She grabbed the object and worked the mechanism until it came free. She held it up to examine it.

“A barbell? Who the fuck pierces their sack?” She asked.

She sighed again and tossed the bent hunk of metal into a waste receptacle next to the platform before she began to reassemble the platform when the door opened behind her.

“Oh sorry,” A man said.

“This unit’s out of service,” she replied.

“Uh where’s the next closest one that’s in service?” He asked.

“39th and 5th,” she replied.

“Dammit! I don’t have time to walk that far,” he said.

“We’ll I should be done in a few minutes of you want to wait,” she replied.

“Can you hurry up I need to get to work?” He asked.

“I guess I could just reassemble the unit, and you could use it like that. I do have to stay until I finish all the tests though so it’s up to you,” she replied.

“That’s fine,” he said.

She put the unit back together and then stood up and tapped the console a few times flushing the unit and letting it run for a moment to make sure everything was working again. Once she finished, she exited the command menu.

“It’s all yours, but I got to ask why risk it like this? The odds on these things are terrible,” she said.

“I need the credits, and I have good luck it’ll be fine,” he replied.

“Well, they’re your balls do what you want with them I guess,” she said.

She step aside and he walked up to the console and started to press the screen. When prompted he pulled down his pants and underwear and placed them next to the platform before stepping up to it. The platform lifted up between his legs allowing him to slid his scrotum into it. A whirring sound came from the platform and his balls were sucked down into the machine by a powerful vacuum. She crouched down and looked up into opening in the front of the platform between his legs. Inside she could see a clear tube that ran down from the whole to the grinder barrel. She could see that the vacuum and stretched his scrotum out and watched as a thick zip tie like band was wrapped around the base and pulled tight.

“Ouch!” He said.

“Don’t be such a baby it’s not that tight,” she replied

“How that hell would you know that?” He asked.

“I put on my finger before,” she replied.

“That’s not the same and you know it,” he said.

“Yeah, but what else can I do?” She replied.

He shook his head.

“So are you going to stay down there?” He asked.

“Yeah I want to make sure everything is aligned right,” she replied.

“Oh well I’m going to start it,” he said.

“Feel free,” she replied.

She heard him press the screen and then the beeping countdown, she knew full well that the computer had already made it’s decision and that this was just for the user’s sake, when the beeping stopped a loud buzzer sounded and then blades flashed in the clear tub. His balls fell free and into the grinder barrel where the motor spun to life and they were ground to a pulp before being flushed out into the sewage system.

“Fuck!” The man shouted.

She stood up quickly and found the man grasping his crotch with a shocked look on his face.

“Told you the odds were bad,” she said.

“No this can’t be happening!” He replied.

“Nothing you can do about it now friend, so you’d better get dressed and get to work,” she said.

“I, just, no, this isn’t the way it was supposed to be,” the man whined.

She put her hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

“It’s not the end of the world you’ll be fine,” she said.

He looked at her tears starting to form in his eyes, he picked up his clothing and put it back on before walking out of the booth. She crouched down and put the panel back onto the platform and then stood up and tapped the console a few times finishing her testing. When she finished, she reenabled the payout option and then logged out of the admin console. She smirked as she walked out of the booth and headed back to the central office.