The Disturbing Part of My Conversation With Bill
In my previous post I detailed my first conversation with Bill, a coworker with one testicle.
Bill had described to me an unfortunate turn of events involving alcohol, a nail gun, a regrettable ricochet, and the subsequent loss of one of his testicles.
He described it with a level of detail that seemed completely unnecessary–it was disturbing.
Following the nail gun discussion, we navigated through several comparatively mundane topics of conversation, most of which had nothing to do with anybody’s testicles, damaged or otherwise.
Eventually he began to tell me about his ex-girlfriend. He described to me how much he adored her. He described to me how much she reciprocated his feelings. He told me with regret that they were forced to break-up.
“How is it that you were forced to break-up?” I asked him.
“Well, it turned out that she’s ‘kind of’ my sister,” he replied casually.
Then he stood there silently. For the first time all day–he stood there silently. He had jabbered on about his guns, his dog, his truck, and his testicles–the one he still had and one he didn’t. But now he stood there silently.
“Please explain,” I said.
“Explain what?” He replied innocently.
The man who thought it necessary to guide me through a graphically detailed journey of the loss of his testicle now had nothing say.
“Explain how she’s ‘kind of’ your sister.”
“We have the same father,” he again replied innocently.
I puzzled for a moment as I absorbed what I had just heard.
“That would make her less ‘kind of’ your sister and more ‘exactly’ your sister…it’s pretty much the textbook definition of a sister.”
“Half-sister,” he corrected me. “We have different mothers.”
It seems the poor girl’s mother had never told her who her real father was until the circumstance of her dating her half-brother forced the situation.
“It was really too bad we had to break up,” he said with regret. “We had a lot in common.”
“Of course, you had a lot in common,” I told him, “DNA for starters.”
Then he said something horrible.
Note: I know what you’re thinking: more horrible than the story about a nail piercing his testicle? Yes!
“We had great sex,” he proclaimed with an amount of pride that seemed wholly inappropriate.
“Stop it,” I yelled in a panic.
I didn’t need the mental image of a man with one testicle having sex with his sister. (Correction: half-sister.)
“I’d be more comfortable if we went back to talking about your lost testicle,” I said emphatically.
Just saying the words made me queasy; no man should ever have to utter that phrase.