Far and Beyond Ch. 01

Sandaled and clad in a white tunic, there I stood under the starry sky, right in the center of the moonlit stage of the ancient Greek theater, my head freighted with quotes of wisdom and wit, spoken at different times by people of fame and respect. My own piece of wisdom, my stage play had just been outlined in my mind and I was ready to start writing it. The composition of a tragedy requires testicles, said Voltaire. Yes, I had that piece of a playwright's hardware, those balls of mine. I felt them hanging down there, between my legs, underneath my tunic.

Besides being the author, I was to perform onstage by playing a major role in this upcoming story of mine. Scratch an actor and you'll find an actress, said Dorothy Parker. Absolutely true. There was definitely an actress, to wit a woman, beneath my tunic. Then what about those balls of mine? Now I wasn't so sure about them.

I am a brain, the rest of me is a mere appendix, said Sherlock Holmes to his companion, Dr. Watson. Unlike the famous fictional detective, I greatly valued the appendix to my brain. My brain? That's my second favorite organ, said Woody Allen in one of his movies, clearly alluding to the penis as being number one on the list of his own favorite body parts. My penis, my testicles, were they on my list?

One of the sexiest actresses ever, Betty Grable, once said: There are two reasons why I'm in show business, and I'm standing on both of them. No doubt there were no hanging things between those twin reasons of hers. Were my legs the reason for my being on this stage? Hardly. Undoubtedly it was my brain that had caused my coming here. And yet there was something else. Something about that appendix to my brain. Something of gender issues. They say gender is between the ears, not between the legs. Somewhere between my ears there was that electronic chip, which they had successfully inserted into my brain some time ago. Yet at the moment it was switched off and in no way could influence my train of thoughts.

Acting is standing up naked and turning around slowly, said another American actress, Rosalind Russell. I pulled my tunic off and threw it down onto the stage. Standing naked before the terraced semi-circle of empty stone seating of the nocturnal theater, I recalled two more quotes of gender and sex, the first by Ambrose Bierce:

To men a man is but a mind. Who cares what face he carries or what form he wears? But woman's body is the woman.

The second by Samuel Taylor Coleridge:

A man's desire is for the woman, but the woman's desire is rarely other than for the desire of the man.

No, those statements were in no way the absolute truth. Intellect is an important part of a woman's nature, and women do pay sexual attention to the male body. Anyway, that was what I felt then. My body was now not that of a testicled playwright, and had there been any male spectators seated in front of me, they would have ogled it, overwhelming with desire.

I felt extremely poetic.

If Day reveals such wonders by her Light, What by her Darkness cannot Night reveal? said Samuel Rogers, meaning the fact that the stars could only be seen at night. I looked up at the stars above. One of the numerous constellations scattered all over the dark sky was Andromeda. Robert Browning wrote:

That marvel which we dream the firmament

Copies in star-device when fancies stray

Outlining, orb by orb, Andromeda —

God's best of beauteous and magnificent

Revealed to earth — the naked female form.

The naked female form. Night had revealed my naked female form. Was it imaginary or real? I probably had to switch that chip on in my head to know the answer. Before that tiny device got implanted in my brain, they told me I'd be surrounded with augmented reality. Then something went astray. I realized I was no more than a guinea pig in their psycho-sexual experiments. I managed to escape and now they were after me, searching for me all over the world.

I closed my eyes and remembered that day from my childhood.

I was born in a small Russian town, all the people of which were fond of going to the bathhouse every weekend. Saturday was men's day and Sunday women's. Up to the age of seven I was performing my weekly ablutions on Sundays - my mother used to take me to the bathhouse along with her and my younger sister, Vicki. My story begins on a Sunday when I was already six and my sister just turned five. As usual Mom, sister and I were going to visit the bathhouse.

On our way to the bathhouse, which lay through an aspen grove, I felt like taking a pee and told Mom about it.

"Just go up to that big tree," she said to me.

Having my bladder emptied, I caught up with Mom and sister, who kept on walking along the path. Soon I heard my sister asking:

"Mom, why do Pete pee standing up and not like I do?"

"Because he has a wiener, like all boys."

"And when I'm grown-up, Mom, will I have a wiener too?"

"No, dear, you won't," replied Mom, taking Vicki by her hand, "when you're grown up, you'll have a pair of beautiful breasts, but never a wiener. Girls don't have wieners."

"It's a pity," my sister sighed wistfully.

When in the bathhouse and totally naked, I and my sister, as usual, started frolicking and romping around. Though well accustomed to being surrounded by naked females once a week, it was on that day that I felt I possessed something important that no girl had and all girls might be somewhat envious of that thing. After all it was not bad at all to have something that all the others around could envy you and with such thoughts I decided to taunt my sister a little bit.

"Hey, Vicki," I addressed her with a grin upon my face, "I know you wanna have a wiener, like me, don't you?"

"No, I don't," she replied, standing opposite me.

"Yes, you do," I stated firmly, "I heard what you said to Mom. But you'll never have one. You're just unlucky to be a girl. To have a wiener you must be a boy, not a girl. It's nice to be a boy and have a wiener."

"Why don't you go then with boys to the bathhouse?" asked Vicki.

"I want all girls to see what I got between my legs, the thing you girls don't have. Unlike me, Vicki, you'll never get one, but I, when grown-up, will have a big, big wiener, big like..."

My eyes fell on a plastic tube of shampoo lying on the wooden bench beside me. I grasped it and pressed it to my pelvic area, imitating a penis.

"Big like this," I exclaimed. "I'll have a wiener big and strong like this. Men have wieners and that's why they are stronger."

"And I'll tear it off from you then," Vicki smirked and with a quick movement of her hand snatched the shampoo tube off me.

"Give it back to me!" I snapped angrily.

"Never!" she cried out and with the shampoo tube in her hand skittered away from me. I darted after her and we started a chase among and between the naked girls and women, along and round the wooden benches and shower stalls. As soon as I caught up with her, I grasped the tube, trying to tear it off her hand, but she didn't yield and instead grasped the tube with both her hands. A tug-of-war ensued with no winning side.

"Give my wiener back to me!" I shouted.

In response, my sister only laughed and started kicking her legs, trying to fight me off. I pulled at the shampoo tube harder, but slipped awkwardly on the wet tile floor and dropped onto my knees. And then my sister's foot, absolutely unexpectedly for me, flew right into my groin.

I'd never been hit down there before. I'd hurt my knees, elbows, stomach, my buttocks, my shoulders before but never that little sac that hung beneath my little penis. And never before had I known a pain that could be compared with the killing shock that I felt the very moment my sister's little foot crashed into my scrotum - that little skin sac that every boy has in addition to his wiener. Never had I had any idea that the two tiny orbs hanging in that sac were so sensitive. So sensitive as to let a little girl so easily make them explode with shocking pain. A sharp, stinging, unbearable kind of pain.

"Oooooh!" I cried out, released the plastic tube and immediately grasped my aching balls. Along with the pain, my legs got at once too weak to support my body on my knees, so I fell right onto the wet floor. Lying on my side and clutching my testicles with both hands, I tried to soothe the pain in them, but all in vain. Instead the pain spread high up into my stomach.

"My baaaaalls," I groaned. I knew those awfully aching things in my trembling hands were called balls but never before had I said that word aloud. Never had I paid much attention to my testicles and now I was too well aware of my possessing them. A mere kick from a small girl granted them with such great pain as to render me absolutely helpless and one of my first thoughts, while holding my burning balls, was to give that kind of pain back to my sister, to make her grasp her own aching balls and fall down in the same painful shock. But my eyes, stuck to my sister's groin, at once sent to my mind the message - "she's no balls at all". Another second and I remembered I was the only one with a pair of balls in the whole bathhouse. The only one with a wiener and balls, while Vicki was a one without a wiener and balls. She was a girl.

A few girls of about my age gathered around me and some of them started giggling. Some of them had never seen a boy hurt his balls and they didn't understand why I was lying on the floor, holding my hands between my legs and moaning something painful. I think they couldn't see my little testicles hidden in my hands. And there were their mothers and elder sisters who told them what I meant by groaning "my baaaalls" and how weak those things situated between every boy's legs were. And all through my pain I heard the girls laughing at me. Laughing at my balls, the balls they didn't have. The balls that made me lie at their feet, unable to get up. I raised my painful eyes to see a row of legs towering over me. About a dozen of pairs. And nothing hung from between them. I enviously stared at my naked sister who joyfully giggled at me and seemed to be proudly showing off her smooth groin to me. Damn, why didn't my own groin look the same? Why didn't I have the thing all the girls had between their legs - that nice, cute slit instead of my boyish possessions. The possessions that could be so easily abused by any little girl.

Mom came up and helped me get to my feet. She was naked as all the other women and while she was picking me up from the floor, her pussy was so near my eyes. I remembered the dangling balls of my Dad, I'd seen them couple of times before, and I realized that when I grew up, I'd have those low-hangers and not the thing my Mom had, the thing I stared at as I stood before, holding my balls in one of my hands, while my other hand clutched her arm to prevent me from falling down again. All the younger girls went on giggling as they watched me clutching my scrotum, my little wormie-penis nervously quivering over my hand. And whenever I cast my painful look I saw pussies, pussies and pussies. I didn't know if any of the girls could guess that I badly envied them, but no doubt none of them envied me then, especially when they heard me telling Mom about how my balls hurt. Mom told me that boys should be careful not to let their balls get hit for it would always hurt them that bad. The girls heard Mom's words and saw the painful grimace on my face. And then they heard my silly question. I don't know why I did it - for I knew it was a silly question. Anyway, I asked it.

"And girls?" I said.

"What about girls?" Mom inquired.

"Should they protect their balls, too?" There couldn't be any sillier question at that moment.

"What balls, sonny?" Mom looked at me, surprised. "Girls don't have them, don't you see?"

All the girls burst into laughter. Maybe they thought that it was my pain that made me so stupid and blind. But I knew only too well they had no balls. And of course, I could see they had none. But something deep within me made me ask that question. Something that wanted me to hear aloud the confirmation that being a girl meant possessing some sort of advantage. And I asked Mom one more question:

"Then they are lucky, aren't they, Mom?" I asked her, still holding my balls in my hand and my eyes fixed on her pussy.

"Yes, we are," I heard the ringing voice of my sister and turned aside to see her kick the shampoo tube away along the wet floor of the bathhouse, crowded with naked girls and women. The tube stopped at a corner by the feet of some girl, who sneered at me, then pressed her hand against her smooth groin, doubled over and grimacing a pain on her face, teased me:

"My balls, my poor balls!"

I grasped my aching balls harder. Vicki was still giggling beside me, my little sister who only an hour ago couldn't have imagined that her elder brother would so soon so desperately envy her. My head was ringing with these words - "Balls, balls, balls, why these balls? Who created these stupid balls?".

"You'd better take a cold shower," Mom said to me. "It must help you to deal with the pain."

She led me to the nearest shower stall, while the girls, having lost interest in me, scattered about the bathhouse.

"Are you better now?" Mom asked as I was standing in the cold shower.

"Not much," I said. "It still hurts. My balls still hurt."

"You must be always careful not to get them hurt like that," Mom gave me a piece of advice that only mocked me more.

"Mom, I wanna have a pee."

"Just pee in the shower, sonny."

I squatted down and started peeing.

"Why are you taking a pee like a girl?" Mom sounded amazed. "You can do it standing up."

"My balls hurt," said I, still peeing, squatted on my haunches.

"Does it make you unable to pee like a man?"

"No, it doesn't. Sure I can pee like a man. It's just this kind of pain..."

"You are a man, Peter, and you must learn this kind of pain sooner or later, and to be a man you must get over it not to show your weakness to all the girls around. Especially to your little sister."

"Okay, I'll get over it," I said, getting up, still holding my aching balls in my hand.

All of a sudden Vicki appeared before the shower stall, looking at me with a smile.

"How's your wiener? Still hurts?" she asked.

"It's not my wiener, it's my balls," I said. Stupid girl, for her it was all the same, wiener or balls. She had managed to hurt her brother real bad but had no idea how painful it was for him, how bad it was for his balls. Stupid girl, who stood before me naked. Damn, I realized why I had just been pissing like a girl. I wanted to be a girl now, with the thing between my legs like my sister had, and totally ignorant of any ball pain. Ignorant like her, wiener-less, ball-less, with a cute slit between her legs.

"Yes, Vicki, you kicked me in the balls," I confirmed the fact once more, "and they hurt like you never know."

"Stop complaining like a girl, Peter," said Mom.

"Maybe I'm a girl," I replied. Mom wanted to say something to me, but all of a sudden the lights went out and the whole bathhouse plunged into darkness, something being obviously wrong with the power supply. A few little girls screamed. I unclenched my hand and looked down. To my surprise I could see clearly in the darkness, and I saw that I was a girl, that thing between my legs distinctly indicated that I was a girl. The pain vanished away.

"Mom, I am a girl!" I cried out, but the lights were on again, the pain returned, and my hand grasped my balls once more.

"Stop talking nonsense, Pete," said Mom.

"But I saw," I insisted.

"What did you see?"

Instead of saying anything, I just squeezed my aching balls in my hand and once more looked at my naked sister, at the thing she had between her legs...

To be continued