Balls
by Dennis Liggio
1
Inevitably, conversation turned to my balls. It’s rare that I have any sort of conversation at all these days without the other person maneuvering it to the subject of my balls. I’m just used to its inevitability like I am the eventual heat death of the universe.
“Do they require a lot of maintenance for your job?” she asked. “Your balls, I mean.”
“There’s some required,” I said, having been through these questions many times before.
“Like, do you spend hours in the bathroom shaving them, making sure every contour is right?” she pressed. "Or do you use some liquid hair removal solution? And do you like, go somewhere for that? A spa?"
“It doesn't matter," I said tiredly. I enjoyed the attention and my balls are one of my preferred subjects, but I get the same questions over and over. "Since I wear briefs, the status of my pubes doesn't matter unless it's sticking out of the briefs."
She looks impressed, so I guess that was the answer she was looking for.
I guess you're wondering why I always get those questions and why I sometimes tire of attractive women asking about my nether regions. It's not as sordid as you think.
You see, I'm a male underwear model.
Imagine, if you will, that you're flipping through the latest department store catalog, looking to see the season's best from Macy's or LL Bean. Maybe you're just looking for a comfortable sweater that's appropriate for the season. As you flip through the catalog searching for the perfect turtleneck, you happen upon the male underwear section. It is there that you see a series of men - secular avatars of Adonis - posed and strutting in masculine postures, their hips thrust out, their arms akimbo, dressed only in the eternal question of boxers or briefs. Though they are attractive males tending towards either the beefcake or GQ conventions that show vast amounts of skin, they have been positioned in such a way that their near nakedness is not overtly sexual. It is only suggestive of male power and sexuality without the bending and twisting you see more often in female lingerie models.
Amongst such men you would find me, fists placed at my waist, back slightly arched, hips thrust forward, the bulge of my briefs thrust outward, the balls inside barely contained in their furious desire to dominate the world. That is my signature pose.
I have other poses, of course – in my line of work, I do not want to be inflexible with my expertise. But my signature pose is my power pose, the one where the true power of my balls shines, like a golden aura. If the photographer at a shoot has any sense, he'll pick my power pose and set me center stage - I am wasted as a back up to others. My balls shine best when they are the sun, the other models' hardware satellite to my own. But I can't always control the whims of the photographers, and so I must make do with second fiddle on occasion.
Also, briefs only. That's my rule. I only do briefs. I have my agent write it in all my contracts so that it is legal and unbreakable. They can't make me do boxers. I once walked off the set when some clearly amateur photographer tried to have me wear boxers. Even when I cited my contract, he just laughed. So when I walked off the set and left them in a lurch, they learned. It took some apologies and sweet talking from his assistant who came bearing gifts of single malt scotch and Red Vines to get me back on the set for the shoot. Even then, I deigned only to go as far as boxer briefs.
This is also a good time to dispel any lingering misconceptions about my career that may have surfaced. For once and for all, I am not a butt model. Never have been, never will be. In no catalog, ad, photo spread, or professionally done shoot will you see me turned around to show off my posterior. I'm not saying that my aft section is without its merits, it's simply not the strength I have chosen to market. You will never know me by my ass. My true marketability is in my crotch and I make that clear to any prospective photographer. If I am going to be photographed, it will be in briefs, my bulge fully exposed to the world and God.
Now let's talk about bulges, since we're on the subject. It is important to realize that absolutely no erections are involved in male underwear modeling. If you get hard, they have to pause the shoot and everyone has to wait around until you get your junk under control again. Male underwear photography is an erection free zone. Any picture of male underwear in a catalog must remain as inoffensive and non-threatening as possible. Any appearance or impression of the male wang should be as common and verifiable as a Loch Ness Monster sighting.
However, this brings us to the flip side. Clothing manufacturers are trying to get the underwear sold with those pictures. The audience for buying them is mostly men, but also their wives, their girlfriends, and assorted significant others. While the near-naked man must look non threatening, they cannot look androgynous, or the most unthinkable or all unthinkables: unmanly. As underwear models, we are to be paragons of the Platonic ideals of manhood, oiled up and poured into a marketable pair of underwear for mass consumption. Thus, while erections must be avoided, there needs to be some impression of male genitalia, some viewable outward expression of the divine grandeur of the Y chromosome. As the erection is taboo, the physicality of manhood in male underwear comes down to one thing, one primal feature, given to us by God and celebrated by culture.
Balls.
I'm always the first to point out that not enough academic attention has been given to balls across the ages. Sure, many scholars are quick to point out phallic representations in cultures, but few scholars give credits to the age-old depictions of cojones in world cultures. For example, did you know that the Mayans had a festival every year at the Summer Solstice honoring balls to give favor and virility to their warriors? They used hanging censors of incense to represent the pendulous nature of the Mayan warrior sack. Are the Mayans too obscure? Then let's talk something more European. Cultural anthropologists often gloss over the fact that the spherical ornaments we hang upon Christmas trees have a different origin. Like many other traditions co-opted into Christianity, these ornaments derive from age-old Black Forest rites that celebrate male virility and practiced on Walpurgisnacht. When you hang a glossy bulb on your Yuletide tree, you're honoring masculinity and the Jungian form of the ball sack.
This brings me to my secondary career, and how I met the young lady I spoke of at the outset of this story. Due to the lack of knowledge about the historical context of balls, something I found true even in academia, I spent years in study and research to gain advanced degrees in the subject. While officially my degrees were in Anthropology, I personally prefer to think of it as Cojonology or Male Gonadal studies. After years of research and publishing, I became an expert in the cultural context of balls. I met the young lady in my gig as traveling lecturer and Adjunct Professor of Gonadal Studies at Columbia University.
I was lecturing at another university on a Thursday at 8pm. The topic was “The Emergence of Balls within American Culture in the New Millennium.” I was happy to find flyers up for the lecture around campus. Sometimes the social climates at universities are not as welcoming to my field of study as they could be. This university seemed to be more welcoming than most.
I make no secret of my other life as a male underwear model when I lecture. In fact, I believe it gives me a unique and personal perspective on the topic. In academia, many lecturers and professors are mere observers, removed from the cultural trends they are studying. They are on the outside looking in, which may cause them to miss details or the significance of certain things. I have no such problem. I am an actor and influencer in my own cultural trend, and I think that unique perspective is appreciated by my audience. Academia could use more "gonzo scholarship" where the scholar directly experiences their subject. However, I don't let my experience overwhelm my research, lest I tarnish or compromise my reputation or message.
It was because I used the context of my modeling career that I was approached after my lecture by the young lady I've referenced, Sally Monroe. She complimented my work in the Sears catalog of ’13, which was a spread I was quite proud of. The merchandise was not quite Calvin Klein, but I really felt I showed it off well. They allowed me my signature pose, and I think I sold quite a large amount of pairs of underwear for the Sears Corporation. After such a compliment, I invited Sally out to have a drink and answer any questions she might have.
Over drinks I found that she claimed that she was a Women’s Studies grad student at the university, but something was off, though I couldn't put a finger on it at the time. I also thought it curious that a Women's Studies major would have such an interest in my own research. She explained that though her focus was on the other type of genitalia, she understood the reason for my studies and had to admit she was intrigued. This part was not strange to me, as I had heard that sentiment before from other young co-eds and knew it was a new wave of awakening ball-awareness that was slowly making its way across America.
Despite a feeling that something was off, conversation was still quite pleasant as it wandered from topic to topic, whether related to the lecture or not (Her: “Did you know that in some parts of the world they actually eat the balls of animals? They believe they gain their virility.” Me: “I had heard such a thing, but hope they don’t move onto humans!”) But inevitably, for all the academic talk and amusement, the topic of conversation drifted to my own, personal set of balls. She asked the tiresome question at the beginning of this story, but she continued in that direction.
“Tell me more about being an underwear model,” she asked, coquettishly flipping her hair back. “Actually, tell me more about your balls,” she said with a sly smile.
“I’m not sure what to say,” I feigned, “What would you like to know about them?” I've been through this song and dance before. I've found hard-to-get works best.
“I know you’re not really so modest,” she said, “but I’ll play along. I expect yours are bigger than average, allowing you to be, shall we say, ballsy? How do you compare to the other models?”
“I’d say I can hold my own among the best of them. But it’s not for me to toot my own horn.”
“Oh no, of course not,” she said with a smile, “maybe I’d like to toot it.” She's quicker than most.
“I’m sure that can be arranged,” I replied. At this point she had been obvious, so why not stay on that level?
“Then arrange it already, and let’s get out of here!” she said, laughing.
I’ll admit here that this is not the first time I have been taken home by an attractive young lady. I make no excuses for it, and for all this talk about balls, I’m glad to have an opportunity to mention in passing my affection for parts of the female anatomy. This time, however, I don’t mention my conquest merely to boast. What followed is its own story.
She took me back to the house she claimed she shared with another girl from the university. I say claimed, because in retrospect I wonder how much was true. She was younger than me, but she could have easily been older than college aged and simply dressing younger to mislead. I admit that I was thinking with a lower part of my anatomy at this point, so my thinking ignored a few inconsistencies.
Her roommate was conveniently out. We shared another drink in her living room, and while I flirted, her seduction was on maximum. So I'll make a long story short: we adjourned to her bedroom where we made the beast with two backs until we were satisfied. Afterward we laid back and partially disengaged before engaging in the complimentary snuggling. I was feeling rather spent, but I admit I enjoyed feeling her chest rise and fall in my arms.
Feeling lighthearted, I looked her in the eyes and said, "Well, Sally Monroe, how was your evening?"
She smiled, then got a funny look on her face that I couldn’t discern. “Oh, it’s not over yet.”
I felt her disengage herself from me, and turned to reach towards her night table. The motion was very natural, and I remember thinking that she was just grabbing for a cigarette, a joint, or something like that. But at the same time, on the level of instinct, I knew something was wrong. I’m not sure how, but I rolled off the bed just as she swung her arm around, stabbing a knife into the place in the bed I had just vacated.
Holy crap! For all the casual sex I had in my life, this was the first time attempted murder was part of the post-coital activities. She seemed pleased with the sex, and if she hadn't actually been, stabbing is still not the way to criticize my sexual prowess. I suddenly wondered if she was one of those black widows that movies seemed to think actually existed. Was I the first? Or was the bed built on the bones of all her previous fucks?
I scrambled to my feet in the tangle of bed sheets on the side of the bed. She had pulled back into a fighting crouch. She leapt up, using the middle of the bed as a springboard to send her lunging at me. I dodged to the side and she sunk the blade into the wall instead of me.
We both scrambled for balance, me rising to my feet, and her to a crouch. She lunged at me, sinking the blade partly into the wall as I dodged to my right.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I shouted as I ran a few paces from her, vaguely holding onto a sheet that poorly covered my nakedness. I figured there should be some explanation forthcoming for the sudden knife skills she was showing me. I thought crazy people liked going on long monologues? No, wait, that was supervillains.
With a frenzied grunt, she pulled the knife out of the wall. I could see that it was not a kitchen knife. It looked decorated, like it was ceremonial or historical. I glinted silver in the low light. Of course, none of that was as important as the wicked-looking edge on that blade. She had a crazed look in her eyes as she turned towards me.
"I must have your power," she said. "And this is the time. Your balls are now empty. You've lost your power."
I backed against her dresser, moving along it to my right, to get more distance from her.
"That's not how it works!" I said. "Sure, it might be an hour or two before we can fuck again, but I assure you I am still quite powerful." I'm not quite sure which power she was wondering about, but I figured I'd like. Outside of the power to gain an erection, I still felt quite strong. Maybe I needed to have a sports drink for what I sweated out, but I hardly felt my strength sapped by the Kryptonite of orgasm.
She started advancing on me, and I realized this wasn't the best approach at talking her out of her murderous act. One does not simply reason with crazy. Without my own knife I couldn't intimidate her, and it seemed that outright arguing with a crazy person was a recipe for stabbing. Maybe I could stall.
"What are you planning to do with that knife?" I asked, my eyes fixed on her knife that was in the air, the point seemed locked on my chest. I'm pretty sure I knew what she was going to do immediately, but I figured if I got her talking, I might come up with some idea. I darted my eyes left and right, looking for something to help me in the unfamiliar bedroom. To my right was a door, probably to her bathroom.
She laughed. “I’m going to cut your balls off,” she said, “with this knife. What did you think I was going to do with it?”
Okay, so it wasn't just about death and stabbing. There was a method to her madness.
"What? Why?" I said. She hadn't moved forward, so I think I gained a moment by asking her to explain.
"I need their power for my ritual," she said. "Do you know the power you hold in your ball sack? Not only the power to help create life, but as a male model, you have the power to inspire others. Do you realize the fetish that could be created from your balls?"
I'm pretty sure she didn't mean the type of fetish I immediately thought of.
I'm sure I could have learned more about her strange logic. She probably was one of the crazy types that would talk and talk. But the subject matter was quickly becoming uncomfortable. It didn't matter if she wanted to sauté and eat my balls or use them to summon demons for world domination, the general idea of removing them from me was an uncomfortable subject. I really didn't want to know more about it. I already felt like my balls were shriveling up to try and hide in my body cavity. I had heard that Chinese martial artists had that ability and began wishing I had studied kungfu.
It was time for a quick and reckless decision. I charged the door to my right, bursting into a small bathroom. I slammed the door shut behind me and held my weight on it. I began fiddling with the handle, desperately trying to figure out how it locked in the dim light. The door shuddered against my weight and pushed open an inch as I felt her ram against it. I pushed harder and the door closed shut. I finally found the locking mechanism and twisted it with a click.
I stepped back, ready to put my weight back on the door if the lock didn't hold. A second later I saw her ram the door again. It shuddered, but it held... for now.
As I looked around the room, I was treated with a litany of insults as she banged on the door. She made sure to let me know that there was no escape, that she'd surely get me, and that I should open the fucking door. She also spent a lot of shouting to tell me what she was going to do to my balls once she got them. I'd rather not repeat any of that.
This bathroom was small, at best three feet wide by five feet long. She didn't clean her sink often enough, so it was covered with grime, hair, and nearly empty bottles of hair products. There was some serious grout in the shower. Clearly there was no crazy ritual for bathroom cleanliness.
I was still mostly naked, so when I saw a bathrobe hung up, I grabbed it and put it on. It was pink and frilly, but better than being naked. It was a little short on me, so my big legs stuck prominently out from under it. At least my balls were concealed.
There was a small window with frosted glass on one end of the bathroom above the toilet. It was kind of small, but large enough that I think I could push myself through it. I'm typically not so adventurous that I'd slide through second floor bathroom windows, but with a crazy woman with a knife banging on a fragile door, I was running out of options. I could try and fight, but no amount of towels or shampoo bottles seemed the equal of a sharp knife. So my best bet seemed the window. I hoped it didn't have any bars on the other side.
I opened the window and let out a loud creak, enough that she could hear it.
"What are you doing?" she said. There was some worry in that voice.
Cold air rushed in through the window, momentarily lifting the short skirt of my frilly pink bathrobe. I admit it caused some shrinkage. I looked out of the window and noticed it wasn't a direct drop. This window opened up onto the shingled roof. I wasn't sure what I was going to do on the roof, but it seemed way better than where I was.
As I climbed up on the toilet and started to wriggle my way out, I heard her voice change.
"Umm, so I think I need to apologize." Her voice was now surprisingly calm, if not a little bit whiny. It surprised me, but not enough to make me stop what I was doing. I didn't answer other than to grunt as I tried to slide my masculine frame through this window. I thought I could fit, but I often thought certain furniture would fit into my car when I bought it, and that often turned out to be wrong. I was severely fucked if I got stuck halfway through the window. It would be handing my balls to her on a silver platter... well, a pink frilly platter.
She continued without my response. "I'm sorry about that... about all this. I'm not sure what was going on with me, but I'm okay now. I haven't been taking my medication, because it's been making me feel strange. But it looks like I'm even stranger not on it. Won't you come out? We can talk about this back in the bedroom..."
I laughed to myself. It didn't matter whether she had a psychotic break or not, or if she was normal and nonviolent now (which I did not believe). The risk was too high and I was pretty sure that this was just a trick. I just wasn't going back there.
"We had such a good time earlier," she said. Her voice was calm and patronizing, but there was something else in her voice. Something desperate. I think she was afraid of my escape. "Maybe if it's been long enough, we can have some fun in bed again..."
Try it again so that you can castrate me with your ritual knife? Nice try, psycho girl.
Luckily, I didn't get stuck in the window and was able to pull myself out onto the roof. It was a cold and windy night, causing me to shiver. The roof shingles were rough under my bare feet. The wind was bad enough, but I was not dressed for it: I was wearing only a too-small pink frilly bathrobe, and more than just the robe was flapping in the wind.
I walked along the roof, my arms folded for warmth, and I gauged my options for escape. No matter which side of the roof, it looked like a thirty foot drop to the ground. The softest landing looked to be grass or bushes. Thirty feet looked particularly intimidating when looking down and thinking about jumping, particularly when you're thinking about making the jump half naked.
Then again, my other option was to climb back in the window and deal with Crazy McKnifeypants, which didn't seem like an option at all. This was confirmed when I starting hearing her ramming the door again. She grunted crazily each time she collided with it.
The bushes I could jump into seemed like a bad idea. I was in just a bathrobe and it looked like the bushes might be stinging nettles. Without ever having directly experienced it, I was pretty sure that stinging nettles would not mix with balls very well. The problem was, the bushes were really my only option.
The roof wasn't near another house. It was late at night on a cold night, so there were no pedestrians. I didn't have anything to flag someone down with and my phone was unfortunately in my pants back in the bedroom on the other side of a knife-wielding crazy person. I had no idea how long the bathroom door would hold, and I wouldn't put it past her to climb out here and resume her previous stabbing behavior.
I looked down at the bushes. They were still my top option. My time for decisions came to a close as I heard her break through the bathroom door with a crash and a triumphant scream. She'd be on the roof soon.
I took a deep breath. This was not the time for cowardice. My options were before me and it was time to step up and pick one, not pussy out. Like many other philosophers of masculinity, I had always stated that life should be lived courageously, balls out and brave. While I had tended to mean that metaphorically, that maxim was catching up to me with a very concrete situation. It was time to put my money where my mouth was and to put my courage into practice. Balls out.
Without fanfare, reservations, or even a flamboyant "Tally-ho!", I jumped.
In our reckless acts, time seems to slow to a crawl. Oh, they still ultimately rush past you like bullets, but in the moment your experience of them is strangely dilated, so a single second is experienced in slow motion. After I jumped, I sailed through the air for what felt like an eternity. The bottom of the robe swept upward so that I was like some flying version of Marilyn Monroe and my balls were revealed to the world. In that crisp night, my balls glinted in the perfect light of a full moon and there was some mystical conjunction or glimmer of divinity. Or maybe it was the most perfect movie poster... which I guess would have some sort of an X-rating.
But that moment was an apex, just the high point in a journey that descended rapidly. Frantically I grabbed at the hem of the robe, trying to desperately cover my family jewels as the bushes surged towards me. I hoped against all realism that I'd simply strike the bushes and bounce off, slightly scraped and unharmed. I closed my eyes and hoped.
I believe it was Nietzsche that said that "Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man." All I know is that hope did not prevent the torment of my balls.
I remember striking the tops of the bushes, their claws grasping up at me like the ravenous dead. That alone hurt. But a moment later, the force of my descent and my own weight had weakened the branches enough that they broke and I fell down into a bush. Where before I had brushed up against the ends of the top branches, weaker and brittle, now my poor nethers scraped across strong inner branches, thick and nearly unbreakable.
For just a moment after the fall, I sat in the bush, the shock of it overriding anything else, the bizarreness of the predicament telegraphed across my mind. But such anesthesia lasted just a moment. Then I screamed. I screamed loud and with all my being. My scream was that of a man who had not only felt excruciating pain, but had suffered such torment at the core of his being, in the one part where his hopes, his love, and his consciousness rested. My balls. Like the cutting of Sampson's hair, this attack on my most treasured region was a darker attack on my soul than any mere attempt on my life would create. I admit that after I screamed, I wept for a few moments.
I knew I had to get out of that bush, but I knew further friction would add more pain. So with gentle movements and a wincing expression, I lifted my posterior from the hellish claws of the bush and pushed myself forward. I gingerly pushed myself over the lip of the unbroken branches and fell forward onto the grass, free of that torturous bush.
I lay face down gasping for breath. When my wits returned to me, I turned over and assessed the damage.
Scratches covered my legs and crotch. I looked as if I were a man who attempted love making with a dryad to discover that her feminine nature only went so far. My balls were scratched, yes, but thankfully not bloody. My thighs were the worst case: they each had long scratches that even now dripped blood. I pulled a few large splinters of wood out of them with a hiss..
As I stood up, I realized that while my legs were shaky and the scratches stung, I had not broken any bones. I looked back up at the roof to see the distance I had jumped, but my blood ran cold. On the roof staring down at me was Sally.
She had a look of hate and frenzy, but her eyes were half lidded as if in the throes of some strange pleasure. She still held the knife and had not bothered to dress, so she stood naked on the roof in the moonlight, looking like some vicious Bacchae.
We stared at each other. Unless she went back into the house or made the jump into the bushes herself, she had no way of reaching me. She knew that I had escaped and was not pleased. I knew I had triumphed in my escape, though I had paid for it in desperate pain.
It was I who broke out stare. I turned and ran, not wanting to risk her ire or to dare her to take the plunge into the bushes to chase me. In a hobbling run, I charged off into the night, leaving her staring after me, armed and naked in the wind and moonlight.
2
An hour later I arrived back at Sally's house in a police squad car.
After my jump I had limped to a busy nearby road. While none of the helpful motorists seemed willing to stop and pick up a scratched and limping man in a too small frilly pink bathrobe, they were more than willing to dial 911. For the cops, a naked man in a pink bathrobe was just par for the course.
Back at the police station, I had a great deal of explaining to do. The idea that I was an adjunct professor or a male underwear model seemed unlikely to them. The idea that I could be both seemed an impossibility which made me look even credible. I was left alone in the interrogation room a few times where I looked at the scratches on my legs. When they applied disinfectants from the first aid kit, I had nearly howled in pain. Now they only throbbed in a dull pain. I wondered how long the scratches would keep me from photo shoots.
Ultimately, they found they didn't have a good reason to hold me. They had nothing to charge me with; there was no alcohol in my system, and despite the robe being too small, it did actually cover my junk as long as there was not a strong breeze blowing. My case was probably helped by the fact that I did sort of look like the picture on the website for my lecture, though I was clearly far more disheveled now.
From that point, they were obligated to look into my claims of attempted murder. They assumed it was more likely a domestic disturbance rather than murder in the face of all my protests. But if it got me a ride and police escort back to my pants, I was not going to complain. I received a pair of police-issue sweat pants to wear and the assurance that they would never want that pair back.
I was very adverse to walking up to the door of Sally's house, but the officer told me under no terms was I allowed to stay in the squad car, even if I had pants now. I wondered if he thought I was going to teabag the seats. I just didn't want to get stabbed.
It took a few knocks on the door and the loud statement that they were police before Sally finally opened it, looking sheepish and not at all insane. She had dressed in simple pajamas and didn't look at all like she had been banging a professor nor like she had followed him out on the roof to stab him just an hour ago.
Though she might have been able to lie about all of it, she didn't. I think she was shocked to have the police at her door, or maybe she had come down off her insanity. Or maybe she just feared that they'd get a warrant and discover more than she wanted. She didn't disavow all knowledge of me and admitted that I had been there. However, she was shocked at any claims of an attack, doing her best acting job. Since they couldn't prove I had been attacked and I had no wounds other than those inflicted by the bushes, the attempted murder angle was dropped and any pretense of her being a suspect disappeared. The officer who was allowed inside found my clothes and my wallet, so I finally received respect first for not being a liar and second for actually being a university professor. I tried to show them some of my wallet photos of my best underwear shoots, but they were uninterested.
Another squad car was called to take me back to the university. The first officer stayed at Sally's to take a statement from her. I hope his balls are okay.
With a sigh, I sunk back into the cushions of the second squad car's backseat. I carried my folded jeans and underwear with my left arm; nobody wanted to give me any leeway to be naked again, even if it was just to change out of the police sweat pants. My shirt tugged uncomfortably on me, as I had put that on in a hurry, so I kept fidgeting in my seat.
The officer in this squad car kept staring at me in the rear view as we drove towards the university. I was hoping she wasn't going to pull a knife on me too, but she finally spoke.
"So I hear that you're an underwear model."
I smiled. Things were getting back to normal. I knew where this was going.
"Yes, that's right," I said.
"I've always wondered about the men in those magazines," she said. "You always hear about female underwear models, but not the men." She paused, catching herself. "I'm sorry, you've had a rough night. Do you mind the questions?"
"Not at all," I said. "I'm always willing to answer the questions of a fan."
In the rear view, I saw her smile. "Oh really? I've always really wondered, but all those male models... I guess what I'm asking..." She paused. "Do you have to manscape your balls?"
by Dennis Liggio
1
Inevitably, conversation turned to my balls. It’s rare that I have any sort of conversation at all these days without the other person maneuvering it to the subject of my balls. I’m just used to its inevitability like I am the eventual heat death of the universe.
“Do they require a lot of maintenance for your job?” she asked. “Your balls, I mean.”
“There’s some required,” I said, having been through these questions many times before.
“Like, do you spend hours in the bathroom shaving them, making sure every contour is right?” she pressed. "Or do you use some liquid hair removal solution? And do you like, go somewhere for that? A spa?"
“It doesn't matter," I said tiredly. I enjoyed the attention and my balls are one of my preferred subjects, but I get the same questions over and over. "Since I wear briefs, the status of my pubes doesn't matter unless it's sticking out of the briefs."
She looks impressed, so I guess that was the answer she was looking for.
I guess you're wondering why I always get those questions and why I sometimes tire of attractive women asking about my nether regions. It's not as sordid as you think.
You see, I'm a male underwear model.
Imagine, if you will, that you're flipping through the latest department store catalog, looking to see the season's best from Macy's or LL Bean. Maybe you're just looking for a comfortable sweater that's appropriate for the season. As you flip through the catalog searching for the perfect turtleneck, you happen upon the male underwear section. It is there that you see a series of men - secular avatars of Adonis - posed and strutting in masculine postures, their hips thrust out, their arms akimbo, dressed only in the eternal question of boxers or briefs. Though they are attractive males tending towards either the beefcake or GQ conventions that show vast amounts of skin, they have been positioned in such a way that their near nakedness is not overtly sexual. It is only suggestive of male power and sexuality without the bending and twisting you see more often in female lingerie models.
Amongst such men you would find me, fists placed at my waist, back slightly arched, hips thrust forward, the bulge of my briefs thrust outward, the balls inside barely contained in their furious desire to dominate the world. That is my signature pose.
I have other poses, of course – in my line of work, I do not want to be inflexible with my expertise. But my signature pose is my power pose, the one where the true power of my balls shines, like a golden aura. If the photographer at a shoot has any sense, he'll pick my power pose and set me center stage - I am wasted as a back up to others. My balls shine best when they are the sun, the other models' hardware satellite to my own. But I can't always control the whims of the photographers, and so I must make do with second fiddle on occasion.
Also, briefs only. That's my rule. I only do briefs. I have my agent write it in all my contracts so that it is legal and unbreakable. They can't make me do boxers. I once walked off the set when some clearly amateur photographer tried to have me wear boxers. Even when I cited my contract, he just laughed. So when I walked off the set and left them in a lurch, they learned. It took some apologies and sweet talking from his assistant who came bearing gifts of single malt scotch and Red Vines to get me back on the set for the shoot. Even then, I deigned only to go as far as boxer briefs.
This is also a good time to dispel any lingering misconceptions about my career that may have surfaced. For once and for all, I am not a butt model. Never have been, never will be. In no catalog, ad, photo spread, or professionally done shoot will you see me turned around to show off my posterior. I'm not saying that my aft section is without its merits, it's simply not the strength I have chosen to market. You will never know me by my ass. My true marketability is in my crotch and I make that clear to any prospective photographer. If I am going to be photographed, it will be in briefs, my bulge fully exposed to the world and God.
Now let's talk about bulges, since we're on the subject. It is important to realize that absolutely no erections are involved in male underwear modeling. If you get hard, they have to pause the shoot and everyone has to wait around until you get your junk under control again. Male underwear photography is an erection free zone. Any picture of male underwear in a catalog must remain as inoffensive and non-threatening as possible. Any appearance or impression of the male wang should be as common and verifiable as a Loch Ness Monster sighting.
However, this brings us to the flip side. Clothing manufacturers are trying to get the underwear sold with those pictures. The audience for buying them is mostly men, but also their wives, their girlfriends, and assorted significant others. While the near-naked man must look non threatening, they cannot look androgynous, or the most unthinkable or all unthinkables: unmanly. As underwear models, we are to be paragons of the Platonic ideals of manhood, oiled up and poured into a marketable pair of underwear for mass consumption. Thus, while erections must be avoided, there needs to be some impression of male genitalia, some viewable outward expression of the divine grandeur of the Y chromosome. As the erection is taboo, the physicality of manhood in male underwear comes down to one thing, one primal feature, given to us by God and celebrated by culture.
Balls.
I'm always the first to point out that not enough academic attention has been given to balls across the ages. Sure, many scholars are quick to point out phallic representations in cultures, but few scholars give credits to the age-old depictions of cojones in world cultures. For example, did you know that the Mayans had a festival every year at the Summer Solstice honoring balls to give favor and virility to their warriors? They used hanging censors of incense to represent the pendulous nature of the Mayan warrior sack. Are the Mayans too obscure? Then let's talk something more European. Cultural anthropologists often gloss over the fact that the spherical ornaments we hang upon Christmas trees have a different origin. Like many other traditions co-opted into Christianity, these ornaments derive from age-old Black Forest rites that celebrate male virility and practiced on Walpurgisnacht. When you hang a glossy bulb on your Yuletide tree, you're honoring masculinity and the Jungian form of the ball sack.
This brings me to my secondary career, and how I met the young lady I spoke of at the outset of this story. Due to the lack of knowledge about the historical context of balls, something I found true even in academia, I spent years in study and research to gain advanced degrees in the subject. While officially my degrees were in Anthropology, I personally prefer to think of it as Cojonology or Male Gonadal studies. After years of research and publishing, I became an expert in the cultural context of balls. I met the young lady in my gig as traveling lecturer and Adjunct Professor of Gonadal Studies at Columbia University.
I was lecturing at another university on a Thursday at 8pm. The topic was “The Emergence of Balls within American Culture in the New Millennium.” I was happy to find flyers up for the lecture around campus. Sometimes the social climates at universities are not as welcoming to my field of study as they could be. This university seemed to be more welcoming than most.
I make no secret of my other life as a male underwear model when I lecture. In fact, I believe it gives me a unique and personal perspective on the topic. In academia, many lecturers and professors are mere observers, removed from the cultural trends they are studying. They are on the outside looking in, which may cause them to miss details or the significance of certain things. I have no such problem. I am an actor and influencer in my own cultural trend, and I think that unique perspective is appreciated by my audience. Academia could use more "gonzo scholarship" where the scholar directly experiences their subject. However, I don't let my experience overwhelm my research, lest I tarnish or compromise my reputation or message.
It was because I used the context of my modeling career that I was approached after my lecture by the young lady I've referenced, Sally Monroe. She complimented my work in the Sears catalog of ’13, which was a spread I was quite proud of. The merchandise was not quite Calvin Klein, but I really felt I showed it off well. They allowed me my signature pose, and I think I sold quite a large amount of pairs of underwear for the Sears Corporation. After such a compliment, I invited Sally out to have a drink and answer any questions she might have.
Over drinks I found that she claimed that she was a Women’s Studies grad student at the university, but something was off, though I couldn't put a finger on it at the time. I also thought it curious that a Women's Studies major would have such an interest in my own research. She explained that though her focus was on the other type of genitalia, she understood the reason for my studies and had to admit she was intrigued. This part was not strange to me, as I had heard that sentiment before from other young co-eds and knew it was a new wave of awakening ball-awareness that was slowly making its way across America.
Despite a feeling that something was off, conversation was still quite pleasant as it wandered from topic to topic, whether related to the lecture or not (Her: “Did you know that in some parts of the world they actually eat the balls of animals? They believe they gain their virility.” Me: “I had heard such a thing, but hope they don’t move onto humans!”) But inevitably, for all the academic talk and amusement, the topic of conversation drifted to my own, personal set of balls. She asked the tiresome question at the beginning of this story, but she continued in that direction.
“Tell me more about being an underwear model,” she asked, coquettishly flipping her hair back. “Actually, tell me more about your balls,” she said with a sly smile.
“I’m not sure what to say,” I feigned, “What would you like to know about them?” I've been through this song and dance before. I've found hard-to-get works best.
“I know you’re not really so modest,” she said, “but I’ll play along. I expect yours are bigger than average, allowing you to be, shall we say, ballsy? How do you compare to the other models?”
“I’d say I can hold my own among the best of them. But it’s not for me to toot my own horn.”
“Oh no, of course not,” she said with a smile, “maybe I’d like to toot it.” She's quicker than most.
“I’m sure that can be arranged,” I replied. At this point she had been obvious, so why not stay on that level?
“Then arrange it already, and let’s get out of here!” she said, laughing.
I’ll admit here that this is not the first time I have been taken home by an attractive young lady. I make no excuses for it, and for all this talk about balls, I’m glad to have an opportunity to mention in passing my affection for parts of the female anatomy. This time, however, I don’t mention my conquest merely to boast. What followed is its own story.
She took me back to the house she claimed she shared with another girl from the university. I say claimed, because in retrospect I wonder how much was true. She was younger than me, but she could have easily been older than college aged and simply dressing younger to mislead. I admit that I was thinking with a lower part of my anatomy at this point, so my thinking ignored a few inconsistencies.
Her roommate was conveniently out. We shared another drink in her living room, and while I flirted, her seduction was on maximum. So I'll make a long story short: we adjourned to her bedroom where we made the beast with two backs until we were satisfied. Afterward we laid back and partially disengaged before engaging in the complimentary snuggling. I was feeling rather spent, but I admit I enjoyed feeling her chest rise and fall in my arms.
Feeling lighthearted, I looked her in the eyes and said, "Well, Sally Monroe, how was your evening?"
She smiled, then got a funny look on her face that I couldn’t discern. “Oh, it’s not over yet.”
I felt her disengage herself from me, and turned to reach towards her night table. The motion was very natural, and I remember thinking that she was just grabbing for a cigarette, a joint, or something like that. But at the same time, on the level of instinct, I knew something was wrong. I’m not sure how, but I rolled off the bed just as she swung her arm around, stabbing a knife into the place in the bed I had just vacated.
Holy crap! For all the casual sex I had in my life, this was the first time attempted murder was part of the post-coital activities. She seemed pleased with the sex, and if she hadn't actually been, stabbing is still not the way to criticize my sexual prowess. I suddenly wondered if she was one of those black widows that movies seemed to think actually existed. Was I the first? Or was the bed built on the bones of all her previous fucks?
I scrambled to my feet in the tangle of bed sheets on the side of the bed. She had pulled back into a fighting crouch. She leapt up, using the middle of the bed as a springboard to send her lunging at me. I dodged to the side and she sunk the blade into the wall instead of me.
We both scrambled for balance, me rising to my feet, and her to a crouch. She lunged at me, sinking the blade partly into the wall as I dodged to my right.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I shouted as I ran a few paces from her, vaguely holding onto a sheet that poorly covered my nakedness. I figured there should be some explanation forthcoming for the sudden knife skills she was showing me. I thought crazy people liked going on long monologues? No, wait, that was supervillains.
With a frenzied grunt, she pulled the knife out of the wall. I could see that it was not a kitchen knife. It looked decorated, like it was ceremonial or historical. I glinted silver in the low light. Of course, none of that was as important as the wicked-looking edge on that blade. She had a crazed look in her eyes as she turned towards me.
"I must have your power," she said. "And this is the time. Your balls are now empty. You've lost your power."
I backed against her dresser, moving along it to my right, to get more distance from her.
"That's not how it works!" I said. "Sure, it might be an hour or two before we can fuck again, but I assure you I am still quite powerful." I'm not quite sure which power she was wondering about, but I figured I'd like. Outside of the power to gain an erection, I still felt quite strong. Maybe I needed to have a sports drink for what I sweated out, but I hardly felt my strength sapped by the Kryptonite of orgasm.
She started advancing on me, and I realized this wasn't the best approach at talking her out of her murderous act. One does not simply reason with crazy. Without my own knife I couldn't intimidate her, and it seemed that outright arguing with a crazy person was a recipe for stabbing. Maybe I could stall.
"What are you planning to do with that knife?" I asked, my eyes fixed on her knife that was in the air, the point seemed locked on my chest. I'm pretty sure I knew what she was going to do immediately, but I figured if I got her talking, I might come up with some idea. I darted my eyes left and right, looking for something to help me in the unfamiliar bedroom. To my right was a door, probably to her bathroom.
She laughed. “I’m going to cut your balls off,” she said, “with this knife. What did you think I was going to do with it?”
Okay, so it wasn't just about death and stabbing. There was a method to her madness.
"What? Why?" I said. She hadn't moved forward, so I think I gained a moment by asking her to explain.
"I need their power for my ritual," she said. "Do you know the power you hold in your ball sack? Not only the power to help create life, but as a male model, you have the power to inspire others. Do you realize the fetish that could be created from your balls?"
I'm pretty sure she didn't mean the type of fetish I immediately thought of.
I'm sure I could have learned more about her strange logic. She probably was one of the crazy types that would talk and talk. But the subject matter was quickly becoming uncomfortable. It didn't matter if she wanted to sauté and eat my balls or use them to summon demons for world domination, the general idea of removing them from me was an uncomfortable subject. I really didn't want to know more about it. I already felt like my balls were shriveling up to try and hide in my body cavity. I had heard that Chinese martial artists had that ability and began wishing I had studied kungfu.
It was time for a quick and reckless decision. I charged the door to my right, bursting into a small bathroom. I slammed the door shut behind me and held my weight on it. I began fiddling with the handle, desperately trying to figure out how it locked in the dim light. The door shuddered against my weight and pushed open an inch as I felt her ram against it. I pushed harder and the door closed shut. I finally found the locking mechanism and twisted it with a click.
I stepped back, ready to put my weight back on the door if the lock didn't hold. A second later I saw her ram the door again. It shuddered, but it held... for now.
As I looked around the room, I was treated with a litany of insults as she banged on the door. She made sure to let me know that there was no escape, that she'd surely get me, and that I should open the fucking door. She also spent a lot of shouting to tell me what she was going to do to my balls once she got them. I'd rather not repeat any of that.
This bathroom was small, at best three feet wide by five feet long. She didn't clean her sink often enough, so it was covered with grime, hair, and nearly empty bottles of hair products. There was some serious grout in the shower. Clearly there was no crazy ritual for bathroom cleanliness.
I was still mostly naked, so when I saw a bathrobe hung up, I grabbed it and put it on. It was pink and frilly, but better than being naked. It was a little short on me, so my big legs stuck prominently out from under it. At least my balls were concealed.
There was a small window with frosted glass on one end of the bathroom above the toilet. It was kind of small, but large enough that I think I could push myself through it. I'm typically not so adventurous that I'd slide through second floor bathroom windows, but with a crazy woman with a knife banging on a fragile door, I was running out of options. I could try and fight, but no amount of towels or shampoo bottles seemed the equal of a sharp knife. So my best bet seemed the window. I hoped it didn't have any bars on the other side.
I opened the window and let out a loud creak, enough that she could hear it.
"What are you doing?" she said. There was some worry in that voice.
Cold air rushed in through the window, momentarily lifting the short skirt of my frilly pink bathrobe. I admit it caused some shrinkage. I looked out of the window and noticed it wasn't a direct drop. This window opened up onto the shingled roof. I wasn't sure what I was going to do on the roof, but it seemed way better than where I was.
As I climbed up on the toilet and started to wriggle my way out, I heard her voice change.
"Umm, so I think I need to apologize." Her voice was now surprisingly calm, if not a little bit whiny. It surprised me, but not enough to make me stop what I was doing. I didn't answer other than to grunt as I tried to slide my masculine frame through this window. I thought I could fit, but I often thought certain furniture would fit into my car when I bought it, and that often turned out to be wrong. I was severely fucked if I got stuck halfway through the window. It would be handing my balls to her on a silver platter... well, a pink frilly platter.
She continued without my response. "I'm sorry about that... about all this. I'm not sure what was going on with me, but I'm okay now. I haven't been taking my medication, because it's been making me feel strange. But it looks like I'm even stranger not on it. Won't you come out? We can talk about this back in the bedroom..."
I laughed to myself. It didn't matter whether she had a psychotic break or not, or if she was normal and nonviolent now (which I did not believe). The risk was too high and I was pretty sure that this was just a trick. I just wasn't going back there.
"We had such a good time earlier," she said. Her voice was calm and patronizing, but there was something else in her voice. Something desperate. I think she was afraid of my escape. "Maybe if it's been long enough, we can have some fun in bed again..."
Try it again so that you can castrate me with your ritual knife? Nice try, psycho girl.
Luckily, I didn't get stuck in the window and was able to pull myself out onto the roof. It was a cold and windy night, causing me to shiver. The roof shingles were rough under my bare feet. The wind was bad enough, but I was not dressed for it: I was wearing only a too-small pink frilly bathrobe, and more than just the robe was flapping in the wind.
I walked along the roof, my arms folded for warmth, and I gauged my options for escape. No matter which side of the roof, it looked like a thirty foot drop to the ground. The softest landing looked to be grass or bushes. Thirty feet looked particularly intimidating when looking down and thinking about jumping, particularly when you're thinking about making the jump half naked.
Then again, my other option was to climb back in the window and deal with Crazy McKnifeypants, which didn't seem like an option at all. This was confirmed when I starting hearing her ramming the door again. She grunted crazily each time she collided with it.
The bushes I could jump into seemed like a bad idea. I was in just a bathrobe and it looked like the bushes might be stinging nettles. Without ever having directly experienced it, I was pretty sure that stinging nettles would not mix with balls very well. The problem was, the bushes were really my only option.
The roof wasn't near another house. It was late at night on a cold night, so there were no pedestrians. I didn't have anything to flag someone down with and my phone was unfortunately in my pants back in the bedroom on the other side of a knife-wielding crazy person. I had no idea how long the bathroom door would hold, and I wouldn't put it past her to climb out here and resume her previous stabbing behavior.
I looked down at the bushes. They were still my top option. My time for decisions came to a close as I heard her break through the bathroom door with a crash and a triumphant scream. She'd be on the roof soon.
I took a deep breath. This was not the time for cowardice. My options were before me and it was time to step up and pick one, not pussy out. Like many other philosophers of masculinity, I had always stated that life should be lived courageously, balls out and brave. While I had tended to mean that metaphorically, that maxim was catching up to me with a very concrete situation. It was time to put my money where my mouth was and to put my courage into practice. Balls out.
Without fanfare, reservations, or even a flamboyant "Tally-ho!", I jumped.
In our reckless acts, time seems to slow to a crawl. Oh, they still ultimately rush past you like bullets, but in the moment your experience of them is strangely dilated, so a single second is experienced in slow motion. After I jumped, I sailed through the air for what felt like an eternity. The bottom of the robe swept upward so that I was like some flying version of Marilyn Monroe and my balls were revealed to the world. In that crisp night, my balls glinted in the perfect light of a full moon and there was some mystical conjunction or glimmer of divinity. Or maybe it was the most perfect movie poster... which I guess would have some sort of an X-rating.
But that moment was an apex, just the high point in a journey that descended rapidly. Frantically I grabbed at the hem of the robe, trying to desperately cover my family jewels as the bushes surged towards me. I hoped against all realism that I'd simply strike the bushes and bounce off, slightly scraped and unharmed. I closed my eyes and hoped.
I believe it was Nietzsche that said that "Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man." All I know is that hope did not prevent the torment of my balls.
I remember striking the tops of the bushes, their claws grasping up at me like the ravenous dead. That alone hurt. But a moment later, the force of my descent and my own weight had weakened the branches enough that they broke and I fell down into a bush. Where before I had brushed up against the ends of the top branches, weaker and brittle, now my poor nethers scraped across strong inner branches, thick and nearly unbreakable.
For just a moment after the fall, I sat in the bush, the shock of it overriding anything else, the bizarreness of the predicament telegraphed across my mind. But such anesthesia lasted just a moment. Then I screamed. I screamed loud and with all my being. My scream was that of a man who had not only felt excruciating pain, but had suffered such torment at the core of his being, in the one part where his hopes, his love, and his consciousness rested. My balls. Like the cutting of Sampson's hair, this attack on my most treasured region was a darker attack on my soul than any mere attempt on my life would create. I admit that after I screamed, I wept for a few moments.
I knew I had to get out of that bush, but I knew further friction would add more pain. So with gentle movements and a wincing expression, I lifted my posterior from the hellish claws of the bush and pushed myself forward. I gingerly pushed myself over the lip of the unbroken branches and fell forward onto the grass, free of that torturous bush.
I lay face down gasping for breath. When my wits returned to me, I turned over and assessed the damage.
Scratches covered my legs and crotch. I looked as if I were a man who attempted love making with a dryad to discover that her feminine nature only went so far. My balls were scratched, yes, but thankfully not bloody. My thighs were the worst case: they each had long scratches that even now dripped blood. I pulled a few large splinters of wood out of them with a hiss..
As I stood up, I realized that while my legs were shaky and the scratches stung, I had not broken any bones. I looked back up at the roof to see the distance I had jumped, but my blood ran cold. On the roof staring down at me was Sally.
She had a look of hate and frenzy, but her eyes were half lidded as if in the throes of some strange pleasure. She still held the knife and had not bothered to dress, so she stood naked on the roof in the moonlight, looking like some vicious Bacchae.
We stared at each other. Unless she went back into the house or made the jump into the bushes herself, she had no way of reaching me. She knew that I had escaped and was not pleased. I knew I had triumphed in my escape, though I had paid for it in desperate pain.
It was I who broke out stare. I turned and ran, not wanting to risk her ire or to dare her to take the plunge into the bushes to chase me. In a hobbling run, I charged off into the night, leaving her staring after me, armed and naked in the wind and moonlight.
2
An hour later I arrived back at Sally's house in a police squad car.
After my jump I had limped to a busy nearby road. While none of the helpful motorists seemed willing to stop and pick up a scratched and limping man in a too small frilly pink bathrobe, they were more than willing to dial 911. For the cops, a naked man in a pink bathrobe was just par for the course.
Back at the police station, I had a great deal of explaining to do. The idea that I was an adjunct professor or a male underwear model seemed unlikely to them. The idea that I could be both seemed an impossibility which made me look even credible. I was left alone in the interrogation room a few times where I looked at the scratches on my legs. When they applied disinfectants from the first aid kit, I had nearly howled in pain. Now they only throbbed in a dull pain. I wondered how long the scratches would keep me from photo shoots.
Ultimately, they found they didn't have a good reason to hold me. They had nothing to charge me with; there was no alcohol in my system, and despite the robe being too small, it did actually cover my junk as long as there was not a strong breeze blowing. My case was probably helped by the fact that I did sort of look like the picture on the website for my lecture, though I was clearly far more disheveled now.
From that point, they were obligated to look into my claims of attempted murder. They assumed it was more likely a domestic disturbance rather than murder in the face of all my protests. But if it got me a ride and police escort back to my pants, I was not going to complain. I received a pair of police-issue sweat pants to wear and the assurance that they would never want that pair back.
I was very adverse to walking up to the door of Sally's house, but the officer told me under no terms was I allowed to stay in the squad car, even if I had pants now. I wondered if he thought I was going to teabag the seats. I just didn't want to get stabbed.
It took a few knocks on the door and the loud statement that they were police before Sally finally opened it, looking sheepish and not at all insane. She had dressed in simple pajamas and didn't look at all like she had been banging a professor nor like she had followed him out on the roof to stab him just an hour ago.
Though she might have been able to lie about all of it, she didn't. I think she was shocked to have the police at her door, or maybe she had come down off her insanity. Or maybe she just feared that they'd get a warrant and discover more than she wanted. She didn't disavow all knowledge of me and admitted that I had been there. However, she was shocked at any claims of an attack, doing her best acting job. Since they couldn't prove I had been attacked and I had no wounds other than those inflicted by the bushes, the attempted murder angle was dropped and any pretense of her being a suspect disappeared. The officer who was allowed inside found my clothes and my wallet, so I finally received respect first for not being a liar and second for actually being a university professor. I tried to show them some of my wallet photos of my best underwear shoots, but they were uninterested.
Another squad car was called to take me back to the university. The first officer stayed at Sally's to take a statement from her. I hope his balls are okay.
With a sigh, I sunk back into the cushions of the second squad car's backseat. I carried my folded jeans and underwear with my left arm; nobody wanted to give me any leeway to be naked again, even if it was just to change out of the police sweat pants. My shirt tugged uncomfortably on me, as I had put that on in a hurry, so I kept fidgeting in my seat.
The officer in this squad car kept staring at me in the rear view as we drove towards the university. I was hoping she wasn't going to pull a knife on me too, but she finally spoke.
"So I hear that you're an underwear model."
I smiled. Things were getting back to normal. I knew where this was going.
"Yes, that's right," I said.
"I've always wondered about the men in those magazines," she said. "You always hear about female underwear models, but not the men." She paused, catching herself. "I'm sorry, you've had a rough night. Do you mind the questions?"
"Not at all," I said. "I'm always willing to answer the questions of a fan."
In the rear view, I saw her smile. "Oh really? I've always really wondered, but all those male models... I guess what I'm asking..." She paused. "Do you have to manscape your balls?"
