Where did it come from? Let's say I was a teenager. Good at sport, athletics mostly. Also swimming. So I'd seen guys in the showers, and I knew, vaguely, that I was looking at them. Actually, it seemed to me that most guys were looking, not in a sexual way (I know that now) but sort of, well, checking up, comparing. And this was England, maybe twelve, fifteen years ago.

And there was Mick, first year as a teacher, straight out of college, Sports and Geography. If I was fifteen, roughly, he can't have been more than seven, maybe eight years older than me. Only, he was a man, we were boys. Some of us were quite well developed - I was pretty much as tall as I was going to get, 1.79m, good upper body from swimming. But once, just once, I saw him changing from Mr Sports to Mr Geography. He was usually careful to shut the door of the sport teachers' little office by the pool. This time he was careless. I think. Through the slot of the quarter-open door I saw him strip off his sports kit, his back to me. He had muscles I didn't have, and yes, I admired them. I meant to have them when I was twenty-something, like him. Then he turned to pick up his boxers.

I had never seen a naked man. Guys my own age, yes, but a man? And something else. I am still a little ashamed to tell you this. I saw his dick, and I was dumbstruck. The thick curls of dark hair at the root. The strong shaft. The exposed head. Oh, dear God, the exposed head.

Because of course, I knew about circumcision in theory. I'd even seen a few, a very few circumcised dicks in the showers, but they were on guys my own age. They didn't mean anything much. This was Mick; this was a man. And I knew I wanted to be like him. I knew I needed to be like him. Needed.

Then he started to pull up his boxers, and as they slipped up his thighs, I think he realised he wasn't exactly alone. He settled the elastic carefully round his waist, then quickly moved to the door and closed it, quietly.

And that is why, twelve years later, I am sitting in my doctor's surgery. Now, I know a couple of things about him. Like, for example, I know when another guy thinks I look OK. It doesn't necessarily mean any more than that, I know that, too. And I also know he has a reputation among my friends that you can trust him. So I play it a little cool, to begin with. I'm taking out life insurance, so he might as well get the fee for that. I'm sussing him out, I admit it.

Only, now we come to the crunch. And I don't quite know how to ask for it.

'It's a bit awkward.' And then I realise it is not awkward, I am choking because it is just the most exciting thing I've ever said, and it's exciting because just maybe it could happen.

He can see something's going on inside me, and of course he has a stock reply, something about a white coat, but I'm not listening, really, but I hear it when he says 'Don't think of me like your old man.'

And I take a deep breath and say, 'I need to be circumcised.' I hadn't meant it to come so quickly. I'd planned the conversation in my head, I'd meant to start by asking his opinion about circumcision. Then maybe discussing whether it might be a good thing for me to be circumcised. That's not how it happened.

'Need?' he says. 'Very, very few guys need to be circumcised.'

'I think so.' Oh, no, I don't, I know so. 'And it's funny you mentioned my old man. In a way, I want to be like him.' But really, I want to be like Mick.

'He's circumcised?'

I don't know, I never actually looked. But I decide I'd say he was. Of course, that's not the point. Not really, I told him. I think he was beginning to understand. So I got up on the table and unhitched my pants. I'm dark-haired, and my shaft skin is dark, too, and maybe I shouldn't say this, but my dick looks pretty good. Good, but not right. I think I hear a sharp intake of breath.

He makes me skin back, and then further. Then he surprises me. 'I need to see how it works when you have an erection'

'Doctor, you wouldn't be the first man to see me with a hard-on.' He gives a little grin, and turns away while I, what did he call it, 'do the magic'. This is not difficult. I've been thinking pure thoughts to try and keep my erection down. Because I know now that he is going to circumcise me. Which means I am going to have to concentrate so as not to come. He makes me skin back again, and now I know exactly what he's going to say. He's going to tell me he doesn't understand why I want to be circumcised.

'Need. Not want, need.'

And I also know I mustn't come, not there on the couch, and that every time he says the word, that is going to be harder to manage.

'You do understand, really understand, what circumcision means?'

'Oh, yes'. I'd better not say the word myself. My balls have pulled right up tight to my shaft.

'Very well, then. There's stuff I have to say. Maybe you know it already, but I'm a doctor and I have to say it anyhow.'

'OK, say it.'

'All right. There are guys who need to be circumcised. Medically need it. They have a phimosis, a really tight foreskin that hurts them. Or worse, a paraphimosis that traps the skin behind the glans and maybe cuts off the blood supply and they could lose it forever. You don't have either of those.'

'I know.' But don't think I haven't thought about them sometimes.

'Your frenulum, that's the little bit of connecting skin that gets tight when you're right back, sometimes we take that out, but you don't need it.'

'That's not it.'

There isn't something, well, religious about this? Because if there is, I'm sorry, but we don't handle that here'

'No, nothing like that.'

Then he gave me, well, a sort of old-fashioned look.

'And this isn't some part of a scene, is it? We don't handle that here, either.'

'No.' But I am lying. You see, this is the bit that is the scene. He is talking to me about circumcision. He is doing it calmly, professionally, and I have a raging hard-on that is getting harder as he speaks to me, and I have to stop myself coming.

So he explains to me all the reasons to keep my skin. Yes, I know I will never be as sensitive again. I know the nerves will dry out. So will the glans. But I still need to be circumcised. Then he picks up a probe. This is a low blow. All he does is touch it to my cockhead, just at the rim. The bastard must know I'm nearly there - I've been so good, holding all the erotic feeling in, just answering him calmly, but now I can't suppress a cry.

'I think that says I'm right. It stays moist under the skin. It would never again be as sensitive as it is now.'

Yes, yes, I know. I know all of this. But when you are finished, I shall have the penis I want. Only, if I come on your couch, that's not part of this scene, where I hold everything under until the pressure is unbearable, and then I hold it down some more.

'Also,' he says, 'we only do one kind of circumcision here. Maybe you've read on the net about how you tell your doctor how you want it to look. Well, not here. When I perform a circumcision, I go for the gold standard. I take as much foreskin as I can, I strip out the frenulum and you get a very clear, dark scar, quite far back on the shaft. It's a nice mark, I call it the ring of confidence, and it makes it very obvious you were circumcised as an adult. So does the colour of the glans. It never goes the colour the other circumcised guys have, the ones who were done at birth. The guys at the gym will see that. Some of them at least will know what it means.'

I know I have less than fifteen seconds before everything blows. 'You have to stop. I know all that, and it's making me want it even more.'

And he makes me get my pants on, turning away so as not to embarrass me as I fight to get it back in my pants. When it's all stowed away, I sit down again. I want him to circumcise me now, tight and far up the shaft, like he said, but no, the appointment is four o'clock tomorrow.

Do you think I get any sleep that night? Do you think I want to? Twenty-four hours to think it over? What else would I think about? This guy is going to mutilate my penis, let's be honest, that's the truth. And I want it so much. All because of one guy, one adult man, whose circumcised cock I saw for a few seconds through a half-open door. Yes. Yes!

I get there, early, and he makes me wait. I knew he would. I lie on the couch, naked under the paper sheet with the hole cut in it and he picks up my cock by its still-covered head and feeds it through. I'd thought I wanted to have it done without the anaesthetic, but when he says no, I know he's right.

'Now,' he says, 'before I put the needle in, I need to be sure you've thought about this thoroughly.'

'I've thought about nothing else.'

'All the things I told you? All the disadvantages? All the reasons against?'

'All of them. Some of them are the reasons I want it.'

'Well,' he says 'just a couple of other things. First, when your glans is permanently bare, I said it will lose sensitivity, and it will. But for a week or so, maybe even longer it will still be highly sensitive, especially the corona. It will sometimes give you an erection in your pants. The edge will rub and maybe a very fine layer of the skin of the glans will flake off. You have no idea how itchy that will be or how horny it will make you feel.' Then he looks at me, 'I suppose you did masturbate last night?'

'No. I've had the last one with a skin.'

'Hmm. I think you are in for quite a bad time. Because, second, no sex, any kind, until the itching has gone. That will be hard, you'll want it a lot, even more if you really didn't come last night, but not even with lube. You'll need the lube later, when you're fit to start a sex life again. Like I said, you'll be gold-standard tight.'

'How long? Till I can?'

'A month? I don't know. Let me tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to put in the anaesthetic, then I'll mark up your penis where I shall make the cuts.'

So he marks me. For just one millisecond I think, what the fuck am I doing? This guy is going to circumcise me, for real!

And then I think, yes, this guy is going to circumcise me. And I look at the marks and say 'Could it be tighter? Please?'

'You don't want it tighter, it'll pull your balls forward as it is. Any tighter and it will hurt when you get a hard-on.'

'Yes, tighter.'

'Right. If it's what you want.'

'Not want. Need.' I could hardly speak. 'I need to know I am really circumcised.'

'Oh you'll know that,' I said. 'Every time you take it out for a leak, every time you have sex, every time you take a shower at the gym, every time you see your penis, you will know you've had a real circumcision.'

And he picks up the scalpel, and slips the hard, sharp point of it under my skin.