Priests and geldings

I’m reading the “Dexter” novels again, reading about my favorite serial killer and his Dark Passenger. Reading about his moonlit Need and his playmates.

I like Dexter.

I envy Dexter.

And tonight, I want to be Dexter. I want to find a bright, cool place- and I, who usually hates cold!- and I want to take you there. I want to press steel hooks through your pretty ankles, behind the Achilles’ tendon, and lift you up, whimpering and sobbing, the blood from your ankles running up your legs and to your groin, passing over your taut buttocks and up your back, mixing in with your hair like tears in the back of your head.

You talk about wanting voluntary castration sometimes, and tonight I want to give that to you… not that it’s likely to be very voluntary once I start.

I want to take the knife in my hand, a pretty, curved gelding knife, and run it along your thighs while you squirm and twist and beg me not to. I want to open your thighs and follow the smooth line of your sartorius, and the fat rector femoris with my fingers. I’ll drag the knife down and open up the skin of your scrotum, letting the testes pop out like two fat eggs while you scream and try to thrash. The testes are only attached to the body by the vas deferens- the long tube from which ejaculate moves from the testes to the penis- otherwise, they’re simply held to the body inside the scrotum. It would take only the slightest effort to cut through it…. It barely even bleeds.

You’re a eunuch now. In some ancient temples, particularly that of the goddesses Cybele and Artemis- who most anthropologists consider related- a male had to be castrated to become a priest of these powerful, gender-queering goddesses. Artemis was my first patron goddess, the first deity to whom I felt true kinship and a desire to serve as priestess. And now you, my pet, are qualified to serve as one of her priests. How did one do that, I wonder? Was the boy-child taken, castrated, and left at the temple steps? Or was he raised by the temple, a serious young man who chose to give his manhood to the goddess for the privilege of entering her service? Did he choose this? Did he make the cuts himself? Was he held down on the altar, screaming and flailing as you are?

It bleeds up your stomach, your chest, pooling at your neck and dripping from your hair. It’s strange how untouched your face is left, contorted and red from screaming and light-headed from too much blood around the brain….

I’m doing you a favor like this, baby… every basic first aid manual says that to control bleeding, ensure that the wound is above the heart….