Chapter 1

I have got a tale to tell, and it is a doozie. Most will never believe, and others will cringe several times as they read this horrific tale that happened to me. I had always thought that I was a good guy, I didn't eat, drink, or do any other thing to excess, but Karma has a way of sneaking up on you and wham; you are flat on your back and can't understand what happened. This is kind of what happened to me.

Me? I'm Robert Stanton Preston. Most people call me Rob; I'm 26 years old, single, 6'-1" and about 195 pounds. I have been called handsome by some and above average in looks by others. I am the supervisor of product operations, one step down from the position of Production Manager of Operations for CRS Manufacturing in Taylor, Texas. We manufacture metal products that most everyone has seen in a hospital, i.e. cabinets, bed pans, hospital beds, gurneys, etc. If it's metal and in a hospital somewhere, then we probably make it. We do quite well and have been ever since Cletus Johnson, Rodney Peterson, and Stanton Evans broke away from their boring jobs and created this company twenty-four years ago. I have a sister, Sylvia, that is the chief accountant for the company who is 40 and Cletus's son, James, 36, is the director of marketing and sales. Rodney's daughter Judy, also 36, is the manager of administration and support. Furthermore, Cletus's wife 'Miss Dorothy' is the lobby receptionist. Yeah, there is some nepotism in the company.

Oh yeah my dad is Stanton Evans. He and my mother had a little falling out after he, and his secretary were caught in flagrante delicto in his office by my mother Grace Marie Evans. Mom has since remarried, and I was adopted over my father's wishes. However, since I have been a teenager, my real dad and I have been close. Mom finally relented when he, and I would sneak off to just be guys. My step father Ronald Preston was a milk-toast city dweller and knew nothing of country life. I was raised inside the Austin metro area, well actually first it was West Lake Hills and then Lakeway, which are ritzy bedroom communities for the rich and famous of the Austin area. My sister could go with my father when the split came about when I was two, and she was twelve.

However, once I was about 14; I rebelled and really got to know my father. He was a great guy; he made a mistake, but my mother couldn't forgive him and tried her damnest to turn me away from him. I was two when she divorced dad, and I never knew him until I started rebelling. My step-dad Ronald (not Ron or Ronnie, just Ronald) was some rich investment banker whom my mom fell head over heels for, and since he was of the hoity-toity set, she became just like him. Ronald tried to have me call him father, but that never took. So you can see what kind of childhood I had. However, to both their chagrin, I ended up looking more like my father as I grew older. This was another slap in the face for my mother as she had really loved my father. I became a constant reminder of what she gave up, so I was shipped off to prep schools, academies and such to learn how to be a gentleman and maybe take over my step father's job when he retired.

Even at a young age this did not appeal to me, but I really wanted a first-rate education so my rebelling was not against school, but the discipline at home and the total lack of respect that I was shown there.

During my summer vacation when I was 14, my mother had taken a trip to San Francisco to look at some art that she and Ronald wanted to buy. I was left alone at home with instructions to clean up the attic. I went up there and found all kinds of things, among which was a file folder of Mom's divorce papers. I found out who my real father was and his last-known address was in Taylor. I did a little research on the computer and found that he still lived in Taylor at the same address, and I even got his phone number. I also found out about his company CRS. When Ronald came home, I had straightened up the attic and was playing like a good little boy, and nothing was said. That night I called my father, and we had a long talk. He asked if I liked the outdoors, you know hunting and fishing. I said I had no idea as I was always cooped up in school or at home. We lived in West Lake Hills at the time and not that far from Zilker Park in southwest Austin. My dad asked if I could meet him at the park train depot at ten the next morning. I jumped at the chance and said yes.

One of my classmates at Belfour Academy, Jeffery Broadhead, had an older brother Brian, who could drive. So we asked him if he could drive us to Zilker, so we could have a little fun. He agreed and drove us to the park.

Belfour is a non-religious, non military four-year high school for gifted students. It is located in McKinney, Texas northeast of Dallas. It is a very strict male-only school, in grades 8 through 12 that show promise in the disciplines of the business world. Coming out of Belfour almost guarantees acceptance at any college in a business program. Most students come out of Belfour with the equivalent of an associate's degree in business and well on their way to a bachelor's or masters in business in short order when going to college. Enough of my blowing my own horn.

We waited in the park at the little depot for my father. The park train was a narrow gage one that rode around the whole park. It was probably a sixteenth or maybe smaller than the size of a real steam train. You could fit two people to a side in the cars that were open so you could enjoy the view of the park and all its wonders. Each car could hold four adults or probably six kids.

It was unreal when I looked around the depot. There was this man who looked like an older me. He was tall and very fit with a small picture in his big hand. I walked up to him and said, "You must be Stanton Evans; I'm Robert Stanton Preston." I stuck out my hand, and he just stared at me. At 14, I was about 5'-8" and 115 pounds. At that height, I was as tall as Ronald, but he outweighed me by a good forty-five pounds.

"My God, you've grown so big. I would have hardly recognized you. However, you do look a lot like I did when I was younger. It really is you, my son." He said and then hugged me to him. My dad was about 6'-3" and 210, and he about squeezed me to death. He had two tickets for the train, but quickly bought another for Jeff. We were soon whisked away for a train ride. My father and I talked the whole ride. Jeff talked too, but it was mostly just us two. After the ride, we sat at a picnic table, and my father bought us lunch from the concession stand. We talked for hours and finally about 4:30 he drove us both home. That was my first encounter with my real father, but it was not my last. Not by a long shot.

As time went on we became very close. He did ask once what I wanted to do for a living, and I said I wanted to be like him. Ronald and Mother wanted me to go into the banking and investment industry; however, that seemed too lame to me at the time. Dad said he would help me as much as he could. I suddenly had a bank account, well he was a signer on it, but it was mine. He also deposited money into it every month, and he said it was my allowance and when I asked why so much, he said, "It's to make up for all the years I wasn't able to give you anything. I lost track of you and your mother after the divorce, this was at your mother's insistence. However, next we started the company and were very busy getting it going. By that time, I didn't have a clue where you were, or if you were even still around here. I sure missed a lot by not seeing you grow up, but I don't plan on missing anymore." I felt more love coming from my estranged dad than I did from either my mother or my step-father.

You know there is a world of difference between a father and a dad. I know the words are supposed to be synonymous, but there really is a world of difference in the emotions that are attached to each of those words. A father is a man who exercises fatherly care over other persons; a patriarchal protector or provider. However, a dad is an informal word for father, but there is so much more than that. A father is someone who either provides one-half of the genetic material for the birth of a child, or someone who cares, nurtures, is responsible for, or protects one's progeny or adopted progeny. A dad is someone who becomes almost one with a child; he protects them; he nurtures them just like a father, but he is also someone whom the child can relate to, someone they can go to when they are troubled, someone who the child can depend on through right or wrong. Fathers normally can't handle the latter. A father to me doesn't become that interested in their children on a personal level. Yes, they are their children, but that is where the connection ends. There is a kind of love there, but not the total commitment that a Dad has. I know this is all semantics, but stop and think about the male head of your home: was he a father to you, or was he a dad? Shortly after I became greatly more acquainted with my dad, we moved from Westlake Hills to Lakeway out on Lake Travis, so without wheels I was much further from my dad. I sometimes think that my mother had a great deal to do with that move.

That doesn't get us to the horrific part does it? Oh well, fast forward a few years and I am enrolled in Texas State in their business management program down in San Marcos. My mother and step-father wanted me to go to UT, but I wasn't going to live at home, and be confined to their rules and their lives. My dad gave me a car at graduation from high school, against my mother and step-father's wishes, but I told them he was my father too so live with it.

There I met Jimmy Conner. Jimmy was my roommate all through college. We met the first day and became fast friends. He went more toward the sales and marketing end of the business courses, and I tended more towards the management end, so I had most of the preliminary courses he had as well. When we graduated, I applied for a job at CRS; Jimmy applied at a marketing firm in Dallas. We both were accepted and I promised if I was ever in Dallas, I would look him up, and he promised if he came to Austin, he would look me up.

A few years later Jimmy came down for a presentation to a firm in Austin and was going to be here for a few days, so he called me as we made a date to catch up at a local watering hole in north Austin near his hotel. We had been talking for a while catching up and drinking long necks, and I needed to recycle some of my beer. I went into the bathroom and was tapping my kidney when two guys came in and stood on each side of me and were using the facilities just like me when unexpectedly one says to the other, "Stay away from my wife." And I hear a hell of a loud bang and suddenly instant horrendous pain, and after that everything was black.

The next thing I know I see a white ceiling and a subdued light on the wall behind me and two lights in the ceiling that are off. I am feeling no pain at the moment, but then too I can tell that I am drugged pretty heavy as my mouth is all cottony and my head is pounding. My mother is standing by the bed and so is my dad, on the other side. I look pleadingly at my dad and try to talk, but nothing comes out; just a kind of weak croak.

"Son, I hate to be the one to tell you, but you were shot in the dick. Some ass hole on the left side of the urinal from you shot the ass hole on the right side of you. Shrapnel from the divider tore into your dick and damn near tore it off. You have had one surgery, and you will need a couple more before you can even think of using it for something to pee out of, let alone for anything else."

I faded to black once more. When I once again awoke, it was just my mother there holding my hand. I looked at her and raised my eyebrows, and she said, "I told the old fart he had to leave; telling you something like that, how could he?"

I croaked out, "True?"

"Yes it's true, but he didn't have to be so crude about it. Yes, you do have a somewhat mangled member now, but it will be fixed right; I can promise you that."

All I could do was groan and try to just will my own death. It was not to be, and shortly Ronald came in and said that he had contacted the finest plastic surgeon in the world, and he would be here in a couple of days. "Once Dr. Pierre de Bonier knew what the problem was he said he would have his team gathered and arrive in two days, and he guaranteed that you would have a working member when his team was complete."

[That Doctor de Bonier is actually pronounced as de Bonay like Count de Money from 'History of the World Part: Part I' by Mel Brooks. However, de Boner is how it looks, right?] BR

I nodded my head and went back to sleep. I drifted in and out of consciousness several times over the next day and a half. Then Dr. de Bonier came in when I was awake, and he examined me and said he would be able to reconstruct a new and better penis from what I had left. He said that he had brought some stem cells with him from Europe to assist in healing, growth, and to help with tissue rejection.

He said, "I vill fix dis organe to be comme neuf. Ah like baby new."

I hoped he was right; I could just see me pissing through a tube for the rest of my life and never having sex again. I nodded my head and said, "I thank you for any help you can give me."

"Oui, you young man, need organe for to be happy, I make so you be happy long time."

From what I could see from his examination, I would need all the help I could get. I saw a stubby piece of flesh; all bandaged up with a tube coming out of it going to a bag at the side of my bed. My once proud six and a half inches was barely even an inch and a half long, with no discernible head. I almost passed out again when I saw what was left of me. I also had a chunk out of the back of my right hand, but that looked better after skin grafts from my ankle and butt. When I was first informed about where they got some of the skin for my hand, I had to laugh as I would now be shaking people's hands with my ass.