Take me out of the ballgame –

Chapter 1 -- Off Season

"Show me, please!" Susan demanded. The two young children had ridden down a short distance from their homes to a creek and just barely away from the prying eyes that kept her from knowing the truth. Her curiosity had reached its zenith weeks ago after hearing all the talk of her parents about the reasons for his absence. Victor, unaware of her condition, tied up his horse leisurely. She tied up hers quickly ready to assault him if Victor didn't comply. She folded her arms and glared at him. "Geesh, Victor, you've been gone for two months and I wanna see what they did to you!"

"It's not right. You're a girl and I am a boy. Besides, I am still healing and need to be careful." he stated firmly. He turned his back to her reaching up to unpack his horse's satchel and grab his lunch. Susan came up behind him and pulled down his shorts just as he reached in to grab his lunch bag. He dropped it right away and began to reach down to pull up his shorts taken back by her sudden violation. Susan was faster still and had already dropped to her knees and quickly pulled down his underwear. The expression on her face as she gazed upon his sex said it all.

Astonished by how he different he looked, she stammered, "You ... you look just like me now." Victor read the confusion in her face and started to cry. Realizing what she had done to hurt his pride, she stood up to hug him. He pushed her away at first. "I'm sorry, Victor. Really I am." He tried to run away and he fell over being tripped by his pulled down shorts.

She knelt down and hugged him again. Trying to comfort him, she pleaded, "I was just curious. Honestly, I thought you would be, you know, normal by now." She lied. She knew from his parent’s talks that he was more like a girl now. His crying quickly turned to uncontrollable sobbing. She was, after all, like a sister to him now, she thought. Months of pent up emotions were spilling onto the ground and running down the sand into the creek from his eyes.

That didn't help her sense of confusion, nor his as he grunted out between sobs, "What am I now?" Months earlier, things were much different between them just four months prior ...

Victor opened the front door and stared at the roofs of the cabins. They called them cabins, but it was more of a hodgepodge of houses made out of mud, wood, and mobile homes. Nothing consistent in how they looked. Frost on some of the red slated roofs were being turned into steam in the morning sun. The air was nippy, but still. He heard his mom come around the corner and she commented, "It ought to be the last frost before the spring flowers come out, I would think."

"You think so?" Victor jumped up and down on his heels ignoring the chattering of his teeth as he closed the door.

"Yes, Dear. And I can see you know what that means?" his mother responded.

"Baseball tryouts in a few weeks." came the excited comeback. He heard his dad yawning and turned to see him stretching his arms. He saw his dad hug his mom and the two of them kissed.

"You know, Victor, you shouldn't be too hopeful. You are still on the small side." his dad, Alex, quipped.

Victor hung his head down for a moment. Then a smile came over his face and he exclaimed, "I can use that to my advantage, Dad. I have a smaller strike zone and I am a fast runner." His dad chucked and nodded in agreement. "Do you mind if I go play at Susan's this morning after my chores? She has that new baking oven she got for her birthday. She wants to make some cakes."

After getting his coat on her son and a quick swat of his butt, Victor went out to do his chores. In the still of the morning, he looked over to the old windmill. Horses grunted in the paddock as they inched over to the water barrel to get a drink. Maybe, he thought, he and Susan could go riding later on in the day. He loved living here. He could ride horses, go down to the creek when it was flowing and play for hours with her. And school was easy. Both of them were home schooled now. The bus took too long to get them to school and came back too late for them to have any time to do chores. They were, even at seven and eight years of age, needed to do work on the ranch.

Victor walked up to an old rickety door that hung from the entrance to the barn. With all of his might, he pushed it aside and breathed in the pungent odor of hay. Grabbing a set of pruning shears from a hook, he soon found himself cursing that he forgot to put on his gloves as the hay scratched his hands. With all of his might, he cut the bailing strings and watched the hay bale fall apart. He put the pruning shears back and put on the coarse gloves embracing the feel of the hard fabric roughness versus the scratchy hay. Carefully, he took chunks of hay and walked them over to the paddock and placed them in a wooden bin for the horses to eat. He watched them stir conscious that sometimes they took to eating right away and sometimes just stood their ground. A mare named Lucy raised her tail and plopped poo on the ground. When she was done, she meandered over to the fresh hay and began to eat.

When he was finished, he returned the gloves and looked at an old rusted out bus on the side of the barn. All that remained of its last mission was the word church on the side. The name had long since disappeared. The ranch had been a church retreat years ago, but when silver was discovered in the hills, the church sold off the back part of the ranch to a mining company and sold the rest of the ranch to people from Phoenix who wanted an inexpensive summer getaway for them and their kids. According to his parents, the church built a gorgeous new building in Las Cruces near the university and acquired a nicer retreat in the mountains to the east of Las Cruces.

Victor climbed the rail fence to pet Henry. He was his favorite horse. Looking past him, he noticed the windsock for the air strip briefly flap. It was accompanied by the squeak of a the windmill with a gurgle of water being shot into the barrel of water the horses drank from. Henry poked his head down to the fresh water and lapped up some water.

Feeling cold, Victor jumped off the rail fence and scurried to the adobe home where Susan and her family lived where it was warm. Her dad and his dad ran the ranch all year long. But, the families for the ranch only showed up during summer to escape the searing heat of Phoenix. Some drove and others would fly in. They all belonged to the same church in Phoenix and had heard through the grapevine that the property was being sold. Many of them third and fourth generation Arizonians who, in years past, would flee to San Alex or up in the mountains of Arizona to escape the brutal summers. His dad said one day, they would turn the village into a summer retreat for profit, but, now, it was run on a shoe string. Both his dad and Susan's dad moved onto the ranch renting out their homes in Silver City to students.

Victor rang the doorbell and soon disappeared into Susan's place leaving his family's woe's behind him. The family often had long talks about what they would do and whom they would see over the dinner table. They were down to one car and it was becoming apparent that they needed to do something about improving that. The homeowners were reluctant to pay more fees. Money was tight. And now with his mom pregnant, Victor worried if he would have a chance to play baseball in the valley league. It was a twenty mile drive to the ballpark. It was fun playing with Susan, but he wanted to have more friends to play with, even if it was once or twice a week. And, maybe some of them could come out and see him, play in the community pool, and even go horseback riding.

His mom and dad were custodians of the cabins around them. Susan's mom and dad did maintenance of the facilities during the off season, and during the summer, they were concierges along with Victor's parents. On occasion, they might see someone for Christmas come up, but their little cabin village wasn't known for reliable snow meaning more, often than not, there was no white Christmas. Plus, the cabins were by that time winterized. Situated about 4,500 feet, however, they could expect a cool summer often in the high to mid 80s during the summer. So, every summer, the kids from Phoenix would exit to the mountains of New Mexico to get away from the summer heat. This was far cheaper that going to San Alex and far less crowded too.

After his chores were done, he went in to play with with Susan. A little while later, she opened the door to the oven, pulled out the cake, put it on a small table, and then hugged Victor. They sat down and ate the small cake together.

After she finished, she whispered into his ear, "Hey, let's play doctor."

Copyright © 2020 by AuP reviner

[Author’s Note: Some readers may recognize the similarity between this story and a K. T. Leone story. The beginning plot device in how the character has an accident is similar, but only because it inspired me to write a story about an accident in a totally different way than she did. I wish she were alive to see what I did with the premise of how Victor loses his penis and testicles. She was a gifted author. ]