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tortured animals, never set fires. He had wet the bed until he was ten though, and he had, technically, been abused by a domineering mother, though he had never thought of it as abuse. It wasn't like she'd fondled him or burnt him with cigarettes. She'd just had a firm hand when it came to discipline. Todd remembered the whippings across his back and thighs with twisted wire hangers and extension cords. Severe, perhaps, by modern standards but no more or less than any good parent would have done 50 years ago. She was a bit of a religious fanatic, never letting him play with other kids, making him read the bible every day.
    Oh my God. Maybe I am crazy?
    He tried to console himself with the notion that crazy people didn't know they were crazy, so if he thought that he was going crazy then he must still be sane. It was slim comfort though. He couldn't bullshit himself.
    No matter how convinced he was that this was the right thing to do, that Terrence Mohammed would have created more babies, perhaps even dozens more, that he wouldn't have been able to support and each of those children would have consumed more of the earth's resources and produced hundreds of tons of pollution and waste, Todd couldn't convince himself that the man deserved this. He looked over at the plastic he'd laid out on the kitchen floor. There was a scalpel, two forceps, a needle threaded with catgut and a disposable cigarette lighter.
    What the fuck am I doing? How the hell am I going to cut open some guy's testicles?
    There was a bottle of tequila on the kitchen counter that Todd had intended on using for a disinfectant. It was left over from his ex- girlfriend's birthday party in June. She'd drained the other bottle the night of the party and then ran off with a lesbian from the bail bonds office where she worked. She'd been mad at him because he hadn't wanted to get married and have kids. Before the argument had begun she'd had four margaritas and a couple shots of Patron and was already cozying up to her co-worker. Todd had had a few shots as well. When he'd shared with her his opinion of people who reproduced the entire room had gone silent.
    "I think everyone should be gay. No one should ever procreate. Homosexuality may be a natural adaptation, nature's antidote to overpopulation. Anyone who reproduces when the world is already stretched way beyond its capacity is a selfish asshole."
    "So, I'm a selfish asshole? I want kids."
    "You can't be serious."
    Tact had never been one of Todd's strong suits. His brutal honesty was one of the things Stephanie had liked about him in the beginning of their relationship but a mere four months later, she was already over it and it was the cause of many bitter disagreements. That night they argued, there were tears, harsh words and finally the door had slammed and he'd been alone. Her birthday party had probably not been the right place and time for that particular discussion.
    Stephanie had been his first girlfriend. She was his polar opposite. She rode a Harley and worked as a bond agent/bounty hunter. She was bisexual and had a body from hell. Large breasts courtesy of a skillful plastic surgeon, a hard muscular body from countless hours in the gym, long curly brown hair, full lips that always seemed to grin sarcastically as if she thought the world was a joke, and big fearful eyes as if she were afraid the joke was on her.
    Todd had tried his best not to question how a geek like him had managed such a catch because he knew that Stephanie was turned off by insecurity.
    "I'm insecure enough for the both of us," she always said and that, Todd supposed, answered his question. She was insecure and Todd was about as non-threatening as you could get. He'd still been a virgin when they met while she had been anything but. He wondered what Stephanie would have thought about what he was about to do. She had always said that he was crazy but in a harmless and pitiful sort of way. Todd wondered if she would have still