The Day We Humiliated the Sexist in the House

—Are you feeling better now? —Carla asked, looking at her younger sister over her plate.

—A bit. I’ve had a horrible morning. Periods are the worst thing ever —Noelia complained, flopping down into her chair with a sigh.

Just then Diego walked into the dining room. He was twenty-two, two years older than Carla and four older than Noelia, and he carried himself with an arrogance the two of them knew by heart. He had caught the end of the conversation and was already wearing his grin, that smug expression he pulled out whenever he could feel above them.

—So being a woman is the worst thing ever, huh? —he said, relishing it.

—I said periods. Being a woman is still better than being a man, that doesn’t change —Noelia replied without even looking at him.

The two sisters were more than used to his comments. No matter how many times they had shown him that being a man didn’t make him superior to anyone, Diego was still clinging to his little imaginary kingdom.

—Sure, much better to hurt down there every month —he shot back, dropping into a chair with a lazy flop.

But as he sat down, he let out a groan. A very specific groan, one his sisters had heard dozens of times over the years. They looked at him and found on his face an expression they knew just as well: the look of someone who has just crushed the most delicate part of his body against the seat.

—What’s wrong, did you sit on your balls? —Carla asked, watching her brother turn pale and start sweating.

—Spot on —Noelia said with a giggle—. It’s the face of someone who’s smashed his balls flat.

—Serves you right for laughing at periods. Pure karma —Carla added, slapping palms with her sister.

They weren’t wrong. Diego had dropped himself heavily onto the softest, most vulnerable part of his anatomy, and the pain was shooting up through his belly like a hot coal. Worst of all wasn’t the impact itself, but that it had happened in front of them. He held it together for a few seconds, but the burning was too intense, so he finally gave in and clutched his crotch with both hands, unable to suppress another moan.

—That’s what I meant! Having balls is the real disaster —Noelia said, laughing her head off.

If he had been alone, Diego would have thrown himself to the floor and writhed to his heart’s content. But doing it in front of them would have been just one more anecdote added to his long list of humiliations. And the list was long.

Ever since they were little, Carla and Noelia had turned the blows to their brother’s crotch into a kind of homegrown sport. They would never have gone that far if he hadn’t always taken it so personally, but from the very first time he couldn’t stand that two smaller girls could knock him down without him being able to hit back. They noticed, and they squeezed that weakness —physical and mental alike— for every last drop.

Usually they took him down with light taps, almost symbolic, the sort that wouldn’t even be noticed on a woman. They did it that way so they wouldn’t get punished by their mother, but also because they were fascinated by the idea of taking out an adult man with minimal effort. Every now and then, though, they hit for real, just to see how far male fragility went.

Once, years earlier, a very small Noelia had caught him on all fours looking for something under the bed and kicked him from behind. That day he ended up in the hospital, because the pain wouldn’t go away even after several hours, and there they discovered he had a problem that required surgery. It was never fully clear whether the kick had caused it, but the sisters loved to repeat, between bursts of laughter, that “Noelia turned one of his balls inside out with one single hit.”

***

Back in the present, the pain began to ease after a few humiliating minutes. Diego promised himself for the umpteenth time that he would stop wearing underwear so loose; his testicles were hanging lower every day, and this wasn’t the first time that had worked against him in front of his sisters.

He remembered the fight in which Carla had grabbed them in the middle of the struggle, the two of them tangled on the floor. He had surrendered instantly, terrified, but she squeezed until she nearly made him lose consciousness, laughing with Noelia. The helplessness of that moment had almost hurt more than the squeeze itself.

—One of these days I’m going to beat you two so badly you’ll spend a month in the hospital —he blurted out, trying to recover some dignity.

—Ooh, how scary! The big macho’s going to hit us. Run, Noelia, before the man of the house gets angry —Carla teased.

—The only one ending up in the hospital is you, the day we finally hit you with all our strength. Ah, no, wait, that already happened and they had to operate on you —Noelia finished, dying of laughter.

Sick of their laughter, Diego got up without finishing his meal. The movement reminded him that his testicles still hadn’t fully recovered.

—Aren’t you going to clear your plate? —Carla asked when she saw him leave it on the table.

—That’s women’s work —he replied, giving her a threatening smile as he walked off.

He would have done better to watch the younger one. When he passed Noelia, her hand rose with a quick, precise flick of the wrist. She didn’t hit him with the palm, but with the inner edge of her hand, so that her index finger drove straight into the center, separating the testicles and sliding between them.

Diego didn’t realize until he felt the contact. His smile turned into a strangled groan and his torso doubled over in front of him in a snap.

—Oops, sorry! I was craving egg custard for dessert —Noelia said, now level with her brother’s face.

He dropped to his knees with an expression more of terror than pain, letting out short, rapid gasps, without reaching for his crotch as he usually did. It was a different reaction from all the previous ones.

When he finally touched himself over his pants, the pain spiked so hard that he threw himself fully to the floor with a cry.

—What did you do to him, did you burst one? —Carla asked, confused.

The two of them watched in amazement as their brother shoved his hands inside his tracksuit bottoms and felt again without stopping his screams.

—Hey, groping yourself in public looks really bad —Noelia said from the chair, pretending to be scandalized.

The direct contact only made things worse. Diego pulled his hands away and started rolling around on the floor, kicking at the air, desperate, unable to grab hold of testicles that were burning like never before. Carla and Noelia looked at each other and, after a couple of seconds of bewilderment, burst out laughing.

—If I only gave you a little tap, don’t be pathetic —Noelia laughed.

But Diego couldn’t even speak. He was living through the worst pain of his life, and what little he had managed to feel had filled him with panic. The sensation grew by the second, and soon he found himself crying in front of them as well as screaming.

He was hugely embarrassed to strip in front of two women, but the fear was far greater than his modesty. Without thinking, he yanked down his trousers and underwear. He needed to see what the hell was going on down there.

The two of them were left open-mouthed. First at the surprise of seeing him undress like that, flat on his back with his legs spread. Then at what they saw: the testicles were in an impossible position, both horizontal, as if the back side were now facing forward.

—Did I do that to you with this? —Noelia asked, repeating the striking motion in the air.

Her index finger, slipping between the two, had twisted them inward, causing a torsion in both at once. A double torsion that turned his crotch into a knot of pain impossible to describe.

—Heeelp! —he begged, looking at them with tears in his eyes, not understanding anything.

***

The plea snapped them out of their shock and they started laughing again.

—Bro, it’s clear that being “well hung” has nothing to do with you —Carla said.

What worried Diego most was that his sisters didn’t seem to understand how serious this was. He could only thrash around the floor looking for a position that would bring some relief. But lying on his side, or on all fours letting them hang under their own weight, made it even worse. He had to turn onto his back again, pounding the floor with his hands while he kept crying.

—Look at him, he looks like a giant baby —Carla observed, with Noelia beside her.

A wave of nausea hit Diego hard enough to almost make him vomit. He couldn’t believe pain like this could affect the whole body in that way.

—Please, it hurts so much! —he implored.

The only help his sisters gave him was to finish taking off his trousers so he could kick around to his heart’s content. They left him half-naked just in time to watch him turn and vomit to one side.

—This just keeps getting better and better —Noelia commented.

Carla sighed.

—Fine. I don’t understand how a little tap has destroyed you like this, but it’s obvious you need real help. I’m going to get Lorena, the neighbor, she’s finishing medical school. You don’t move. Noelia, clean up the vomit.

Diego was not happy at all about another woman seeing him like this, especially not Lorena, a twenty-six-year-old student who was enough to stop traffic. But the fear was so great that at that moment he would have accepted being treated in the middle of the street.

What he also didn’t expect was for Lorena to show up with her sister Valeria, her classmate at university. As soon as she heard the explanation, Valeria said there was no way she was missing this, and Carla raised no objection.

Valeria and Diego did not get along at all. They had had more than one serious argument, and once he had shoved her hard to shut her up. Since that day, every time she saw him, she regretted not having returned the gesture as he deserved.

When Valeria entered the house, Diego was no longer convulsing, but they found him lying on his back, screaming and unintentionally putting on a pathetic display. The scene went far beyond what she had imagined, and a satisfaction she could hardly hide ran through her entirely.

—Did your little sister do that to you? —she greeted him with a huge smile.

—Heeelp! —he replied, though in fact he was speaking to Lorena, who was already kneeling between his trembling legs.

—Easy, I’m going to help you —she said, staring at the disaster with an appalled face.

—It hurts, it’s unbearable! —he cried, and for the first time his sisters felt something like secondhand embarrassment.

—It’s testicular torsion —Lorena explained—. The strange thing is that it’s happened to both at the same time. Normally it’s just one.

—And that’s why he’s like this? —Noelia asked—. Does it hurt that much?

—Along with a fracture, torsion is the most intense pain a man can feel. And in his case it’s double, because it’s happened to both.

—I’m glad he’s suffering, the idiot —Valeria said without blinking.

—This is serious, girls. If it isn’t fixed quickly, he could lose them. When it happens in one, it’s already serious; in his case he could end up losing both.

—Really? —Carla and Noelia asked almost in unison.

—That delicate. That’s why they should never be hit —Lorena scolded them.

Diego, who was crying and trying not to make too much noise, unleashed all his anguish when he heard he could lose them. What made him feel like a man, stronger than his sisters, couldn’t be that ridiculously fragile. And yet, there was the proof.

—Do something, please, I don’t want to lose them! —he begged.

—You need emergency surgery. I’ll take you to the hospital, but I can try to untwist them by hand. If it works, you’ll feel relief instantly.

—Do it, I can’t take this anymore!

Lorena didn’t waste time. She took one between the fingers of both hands, as delicately as possible, but the scream he let out forced her to ask the sisters to hold his arms down. She tried to put it back in place and make it rotate on its axis. The pain multiplied so badly that Diego immediately regretted asking her to do it. He wanted to tell her to stop, but he could only scream and kick.

As soon as Lorena let go, the testicle twisted again.

—Stop… —he managed to stammer.

—I’m going to try the other one, hold on —she replied.

—Hold on like a man, bro. With balls, even if they’re twisted —Carla told him, pinning one arm to the floor.

—How does it feel to lose your balls because of a tap from your little sister? I hope it teaches you to stop thinking you’re better than us —Noelia added, holding the other.

Diego didn’t answer. He was too busy screaming while Lorena twisted the second one between her fingers. The pain once again surpassed every limit, and the boy started convulsing on the brink of fainting, until she gave up.

—I’m sorry, they’re too twisted. We need to get him there now. I’ll get the car; you two carry him out to the street.

***

Lorena ran off. The other three were getting ready to carry him when a question came up.

—Do we dress him? —Noelia asked.

—Lorena didn’t say anything —Carla replied quickly.

The three of them burst out laughing at the thought of him naked in the middle of the street, with all the neighbors watching. Diego imagined it too, only for him it wasn’t funny at all: he’d be the laughingstock of the neighborhood for years.

Valeria told them to grab him by the arms while she held his legs, positioning herself between them as if pushing a wheelbarrow. She had to make a huge effort to suppress the urge to finish him off with a kick.

They carried him out into the street in triumph, naked, them laughing and him crying. Lorena still hadn’t arrived with the car, but a group of four friends passing by did, and they were left speechless at the scene. Two of them felt sorry for him; the other two joined the laughter without hesitation.

Diego couldn’t believe this was happening to him. What had seemed like an ordinary day had turned into a nightmare that would change his life, whether he lost what he had between his legs or not.

And then Valeria, who was holding him by the ankles, saw her sister’s car coming and knew it: she couldn’t pass up this opportunity.

—Hey, look me in the eyes —she told him—. Remember the shove you gave me?

Without looking away, before he could open his mouth to beg for mercy, she unleashed a full-force kick into that area which, twisted and exposed, was at the perfect height. The blow was so brutal that nothing else was needed to finally put an end to the argument.

—OHHH! —the sisters and the newcomers exclaimed together.

—We’re even now —Valeria said with a tone of relief, like someone finally pulling out a thorn that had been stuck for ages.

—Hey, look, bro, they’ve gone back into place! That kick really did work —Noelia celebrated, and since she couldn’t see them horizontal anymore, she thought they had returned to normal.

Diego looked at her for a second, and by the expression on his face Noelia finally understood what had happened.

—If that was your solution… then yes, it worked —Carla confirmed, amused—. Shame, we’ve lost our favorite toy.

The three of them looked at one another, and the same thought ran through them: to be grateful they had been born women and not part of that sex that bragged so much and endured so little.

—Game over —Noelia said with a smile, while in the distance Lorena braked the car by the curb and ran down, already too late.