Remembering a Ritual

[Written from the perspective of the unluckiest man in the world ;)]

This is the story of how one angry woman, and a kick ruined my testicles, as well as my relationship with the love of my life.

I haven’t had sex—or dated much—in many years, but whenever I touch myself, I always find myself thinking back to past experiences with the love of my life. Her name was Rana, who was my very first sweetheart, that I met senior year of high school. She was this beautiful Guyanese girl, who had this adorable short hair-cut and was a little nerdy and bookish and wore these glasses that suited her face so well and was just… the most beautiful girl in the world to me.

We fell for each other quickly, and we started dating then. We were inseparable, always hanging out with each other at the lockers, and always comforting each other—because both us were a little weird, and back then quiet students like us who had nerdy interests tended to get bullied a bit. But we always had each other’s backs, and we were in love, and we even attended the same university in order to continue our relationship.

We were convinced, from the very start, that we would get married, have children, start a family together. Rana often told me that it was her dream to start a happy family with a man he loved, often telling me how important it was to her to raise a happy home, unlike the one she grew up in.

A memory I often reminisce about when I’m alone at night is a ritual we had. It started after our co-ed gym class. We were playing field hockey, and one of my more vicious bullies, a girl named Cath, came up from behind me, and rammed her hockey stick into my balls, so hard that I immediately started crying. Rana had run over to me screaming, was so worried she had been on the verge of tears.

Later, at her place, before her parents came home from work, she had us get naked in her bedroom, and, standing in front of me, she placed her body against mine, and she gently cupped my bruised and swollen testicles. She told me how silly I was to not wear a cup, and that she cherished those balls of mine, because she wanted children with me, that I needed to protect them, and that she would always do her best to take care of them—she said, as she started stroking me and giving me the best handjob of my life.

This was something she insisted on doing even after I recovered, became a tradition for years. I loved it. Her hand on my balls, her face beaming at me from behind her glasses, her beautiful wide smile as she told me how much she loved that my balls were “plump”, the way she’d make our naked bodies press together so that when I came it would drip all down her legs. When I touch myself I often imagine the things she used to say, which I found silly and sexy and cute all in one: “I just know you have plentiful sperm”, or “I want your children inside me so badly”.

It all changed one day because of Jennifer, during Rana and I’s senior year at university, after we had moved in together.

It happened at a local co-ed intramural soccer match, which both Jennifer and I played in, and Rana attended. I should say that Jennifer was once pretty close friends with Rana and I, but we became estranged because she had cheated on another close friend of ours with a guy named Chris, and we had chosen her ex’s side over hers, and cut contact (we also didn’t like Chris, because he knew that it had been cheating when it happened). Every now and then, though, we’d see each other at events, such as these matches, and she would always make a scene out of approaching us, and telling us that we were bad friends who had abandoned her.

The match gets intense. This local league has always been competitive, with a lot of people who grew up playing travel soccer their whole youths. Chris and I are jawing at each other for the entire match, getting physical, especially because we’re playing on the same wing. We’re kicking at each other’s ankles viciously the entire time, until finally, he gets me with a dirty slide tackle, and starts standing over me and taunting me. Both teams start forming around us and arguing, and in the chaos, because his crotch is right at my eye level, I see red and just uppercut him in the nuts.

We’re all wearing gym shorts, and no cups because it’s soccer, and I get him real good. I can literally feel my fist squish each of his nuts a little into his pelvis. Both teams are screaming, Chris keels over moaning as Jennifer rushes to help him, roaring at the ref to throw me out, which he does. As I’m leaving the field, a lot of my friends start jokingly applauding, since none of us like Chris very much.

Rana is laughing, and I remember her joking, yelling: “No babies for them, I guess.”

I laugh too, before I notice Rana’s mouth open in surprise and horror, and I feel the worst pain I’ve ever experienced in my life.

I feel like something hard has just pressed into my groin, started forcibly shrinking and crushing my testicles. It feels like they’re being shattered into a thousand pieces. Jennifer has run up from behind me, kicked me so hard in my manhood—it feels like she’s literally caved in my nuts. I remember seeing the dark shape of her soccer cleats stuck in between my legs, as I desperately tried to get her to remove her foot from my testicles. It’s a deep, sharp pain. Looking back, I think I could tell even then my sex life would never be the same.

After what feels like an eternity, she lowers her leg, and I limp in agonizing pain towards Rana and my friends. I remember being so dazed by the pain that I just reached my hands into my pants, underneath my underwear, not caring who was watching, trying to find my balls. I fall to the ground immediately sobbing in pain, desperately holding my testicles, retching on the grass. I’m in so much pain that it’s all a blur. I remember Rana cradling me, one of her hands reaching over my crotch area as if attempting to protect them, far too late. I remember vividly moaning repeatedly: “my balls… oh my god… my balls… she kicked my balls… my balls…”

I remember Rana yelling at Jennifer, and Jennifer replying sarcastically: “No babies for who?”

I remember a visceral dread, the feeling that Jennifer had just changed my life for good. I remember praying to god that my balls weren’t fucked up.

My prayers weren’t answered. At the hospital, we learn—Rana beside me—that both of my testicles underwent ruptures. They performed surgery and, although both of my testicles were saved, most of their ‘matter’ had been lost, and, while they did ask for me to undergo a sperm test following my recovery, they were nearly certain I would be unable to have children (they were correct). For an idea of the damage done, someone from the hospital asked me for permission to take measurements for a research study on “Testicular Volume After Trauma”.

Poor Rana, the love of my life, she burst into tears.

Our relationship suffered afterwards. Something died in her, it felt like. For a time, we learned to deal with my injury in the bedroom, experimenting more with toys. But I got the sense that it wasn’t the same for her. Our sex life really struggled, despite our best efforts. One day, she told me she wanted to rekindle it, and that she wanted to do our old ritual, the thing she always loved to do in our naughty times together.

We take off our clothes. We press our bodies together. She reaches down and fondles my once-plump testicles, which are now shrunken from atrophy. She strokes my penis, which can no longer get as hard as it once did, even with cialis. Something breaks. She’s looking into my eyes—like we used to during this ritual, her with her beaming eyes—and she breaks down into tears.

We broke up maybe a month later. She apologized, saying she desperately wanted to make it work—but that children are a deal-breaker for her, and that adoption isn’t a viable option for her, because she’s concerned about the conditions of the adoption industry. She tells me she loves me, and that she doesn’t blame me, and that she blames Jennifer for “ruining our dream”.

She still checks up on me, almost every month. I feel so strange, reading her texts and not being able to bring myself to reply sometimes, her not knowing how often I think about her now, and the ways in which I think about her.

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