Free The Blue Hour by T. Jefferson Parker Page B

could feel the faint stirrings of desire down in his pants. It was
difficult for him that his thoughts about sex were linked to his thoughts about
castration, but the two went everywhere together, like twins, one beautiful
and one ugly. Castration. The
word sent a chill through his nervous system. It was one of the few English
words with the power to do that.
    Colesceau had done his
research into chemical castration. In fact, he liked to think of himself as a
detective who went and found things out. Depo-Provera was a brand name for
medroxyprogesterone acetate, a chemical reproduction of the female hormone
progesterone. Injected into males it was a hormone inhibitor, and it affected
people differently. In some males it nearly eliminated the sex drive; in others
it diminished it; in still others it seemed to have little or no effect.
Recidivism rates were between 3 and 8 percent, depending on who you believed.
It encouraged breast growth, hair loss and a loss of overall energy and
strength.
    Only some of this was
disclosed in the State of California Department of Health protocol agreement
between Atascadero State Hospital for the Criminally Insane and committed
patient Matamoros Colesceau.
    Since he'd been released
three years ago, they'd injected the stuff into him at the end of his counseling
appointment every week. What a strange feeling to sit there and watch that
swarthy female nurse jab the needle into his arm and make small talk about
sports or the weather while she pushed the plunger down: all this to remove
from Matamoros the keen fury that brought such pain to women and such pleasure
to himself.
    What he discovered was
that the people giving him this drug had no firm idea of what it would do to
him. Which was why he got a special deal for joining the protocol—a slightly
early release from Atascadero and parole terms rather lenient for a
twice-convicted violent sex offender. The privileges of the lab rat, he had
thought.
    But the larger reason he
was chemically castrated was because there was no more space in the mental
hospitals, because his prison term was satisfied, because he needed— according
to current budget-tightening policy—to be "reintegrated into the
community." So they'd given him a choice of castrations: chemical or
surgical. The chemical was temporary; the other permanent.
    Now that was funny.
Which one would you take?
    Infuriating, too.
    In the upstairs spare
bedroom he took off his shirt. He hated the way the silver duct tape cut red
furrows into his side. He hated the way the edges became slippery after only a
few minutes—sweat and adhesive oozing down his ribs. He hated the smell. He'd
actually tried a corset but it made him feel more female.
    But what he hated even
more was the way his breasts stuck out after just six months on the
Depo-Provera, and the way his complexion became smoother. He couldn't do much
about his skin, but he could do something about the tits.
    Three full wraps, all the
way around. Through his shirts, you couldn't even tell, he was pretty sure. But
he could certainly tell now, as he pulled off the tape and watched his skin
peel away and then sag back, reddened, to his body. As the tissue fell to the
floor, his pubescent girl's breasts jiggled into view. He knew there was
something not completely usual about this thing he was forced to call himself.
    In fact, there was
something drastically not usual about it.
    He saw all this and he
thought about what had been done to him and it made him even more furious than
he'd been to start with.
    Colesceau had learned one
more thing about Depo-Provera as a castrator. It might be 92% effective 100% of
the time, or 100% effective 92% of the time. But it wasn't all effective all
the time. Because sometimes, although not often, his rage and his lust would
join fists like in the old days. Every couple of months, say.
    Sometimes it would only
last ten seconds. Sometimes a few minutes. Nothing like before, when he could
sustain himself at