Sam awoke that morning to the sound of a jackhammer outside. He blinked in the inky blackness of his apartment. From his bed, he reached to the nightstand and flipped on the lamp. His eyes adjusted to the light as he looked down the rectangle of his room towards the front door. The room was about seven feet wide and fifteen feet long. It had no windows, no cooking equipment, and no personality. It did however have a bed and a few sheets of wood boldly called a desk. Along the opposite wall, there was also a toilet, a sink, and a small dresser full of fifteen identical outfits. The walls were graying prematurely to match Sam’s hair.

He stretched a moment, sighed, checked the time, stretched again, pulled back the sheets, and stumbled out of bed. His feet padded along the chipped wooden floor to the toilet where he relieved himself, to the sink where he washed his hands and brushed his teeth, then to the dresser where he pulled on his black pants and black shirt. He put on his shoes and walked to the door, paused for a moment with his hand on the knob, then pulled it open.

The hallway outside was dimly lit in fluorescent hues. Sam slinked past countless doors identical to his. He could hear other men bumping around in their apartments getting ready for the day. Ahead of him, the morning sun streamed through the windowed front doors, he braced his eyes for its impact as he entered its warmth. The street was bustling with construction and traffic and pedestrians. Sam spotted another man wearing all black and gave him a solemn nod, then joined the throngs of commuters along the sidewalk.

He wasn’t approved for car ownership due to his social status so he had to take the bus to work. After waiting for three full buses to pass the stop, one finally came with enough room and he trudged onto it with his head down. Without a second thought, he walked past all of the well-dressed elites in their pearly white suits and dresses. They sneered at him and watched him go to the crowded back of the bus. He took the only empty seat in the back surrounded by other men who were also wearing all dark clothing, but Sam was the only one in all black. There were no women back here.

They bustled along the busy city streets. People boarded, people exited, then finally Sam hopped off of the bus at his stop. Sam worked as a cashier at a regional grocery store. He enjoyed how it kept him on his feet and was a well-air-conditioned job. Today he felt particularly good about work because he would be going straight from work to his yearly inspection and then on a weekend getaway that he had been planning for months. After entering through the back door and donning his all-black apron, Sam walked out of the employee area to the store and took up his spot at cash register number three. After a few minutes of quiet daydreaming, his first customer of the day approached.

She was tall and dressed in all white. Her basket was full of food and Sam immediately went to ringing her up and bagging the items. She watched him with a face full of pity. “That’ll be thirteen dollars and fifty cents,” Sam said.

The woman pulled out a twenty and put it on the counter. Sam took it and gave her the requisite change. Before picking up her bags she slid fifty cents back to him and said, “Take this, you need it more than me honey.” Then she walked away with her bags. Sam gazed down at the charity and then slid it into the register drawer. This was a usual occurrence from the few friendly privileged people that actually interacted with him.

The rest of the day droned on, customers came and went, some in black some in white, some in grey or red or brown. Just before Sam clocked out, two young women came into the store. They were dressed in self-chosen colors indicating to Sam that they were only twenty. They had one more year before they were forced to declare their status with their clothing. They came through the line with a bunch of bananas and two cucumbers giggling the whole way. As Sam rang them up one of them said through chuckles, “So why are you in black?”

Sam turned red and prepared his legally required response.

The woman who did not ask him looked agog at her friend and whispered, “Oh my God Karen you can’t just ask someone why they’re in the black!”

Karen turned back to her friend and said, “No, shhh listen!”

“I have chosen to wear black to share with the world that my penis is inadequate,” Sam said robotically.

The two girls erupted in giggles and Karen said, “What is inadequate to you?”

Sam who dealt with rude customers regularly swallowed his frustration and said, “It means I have a small penis.”

He continued ringing up their bananas

Karen’s friend gained some courage and said, “So tell me about yourself.”

This was a question Sam and all of his friends in black received daily ever since the overthrow.

Fifteen years ago a guerilla faction of men and women usurped the country. They called themselves the Mights and always touted their slogan of might power. Once in power the Mights quickly began imposing sanctions against all of those who didn’t fit their mold of the ideal specimen. It began with a penis tax that was inversely correlated with the size of the man’s penis. The more inches a man had, the less he paid. Women were given extreme tax breaks. Then yearly inspections became mandatory for men. Slowly but surely small penis men were phased out of the upper echelons of society. Colleges began only accepting six inch penises (erect) and higher. It was written into law that IF the president is to be male, then he must have at least eight inches of dangle below the belt.

The final disenfranchisement of the small penis man was that he was forced to wear all black. Every man was required to wear a color to show where he fell in the hierarchy of penis size. White clothing meant he was packing at least eight inches. Then as the penis gets smaller, the color of the clothing gets darker. Sam is a humiliating one inch when flaccid and that meant he was clad in the doomed all-black clothing.

Sam was pulled back to the present by women impatiently saying, “We said, ‘tell us about yourself.'”

Sam cleared his throat and said, “I am one inch when flaccid, would you like to see for yourself?”

The women leaned into each other in giggles and Karen said, “God no,” then turned to her friend and said, “See I told you they have to say it. Let’s go find more.”

With that, they paid in a rush and took their phallic foods towards the door. They were Sam’s last customers of the day. He had a knot in his stomach as he took off his apron. He closed out his register slowly with lightly shaking hands and brought his locked tray over to his manager’s office. His knees wobbled on the way there. At the door of the office, he took three rushed breaths and then knocked. Immediately the woman on the other side said, “come in.”

Sam walked in and said, “Hey, Loren, I’m just clocking out for the week. Here is my cash drawer.”

She accepted the tray from behind her desk without looking up from her paperwork.

Sam stood. She wrote. He leaned from side to side. She kept writing. Finally, he said, “There’s also something else I’d like to talk to you about.”

Loren took a deep breath, put down her pencil, and looked up from her reading glasses. Her brown hair fell in front of her face in thin wisps of color. Her blouse was pink signifying that her ideal penis size that day was seven and a half inches. Her brown eyes waited for Sam to make the first move.

“So I’ve been working here for about five years and I think I have kept in good standing, always been on time, always leave customers satisfied…”

“To the point please,” Loren said.

“Well, I think I deserve a raise,” Sam said in a flash.

Loren didn’t move. She kept her eyes planted on his. Then chuckled and said, “you? A Raise? Puhlease. I’m sorry, I can’t quite remember here, will you tell me about yourself, dear?”

“I am one inch when flaccid, would you like to see for yourself?” Sam said for the second time today.

“Sure and tell me more while you’re at it,” Loren said.

Sam pulled his shirt over his head to reveal his flat abdomen. As he reached for his pants he said, “My girth is two inches when flaccid. When erect my penis is four inches long and four inches in circumference. My last ejaculation was one week ago.”

As he finished the last of this endlessly practiced phrase, he tucked his thumbs into the waistband of his pants and pulled them down to his ankles.

Loren’s eyes dropped to his crotch and she gave a low slow whistle. “It isn’t that cold in here is it?” She laughed. “Bring that over to me, put it on the desk here.

Sam shuffled over to her desk and rested his balls and penis on the cold fake wood. Loren pulled off her glasses and leaned forward at the comically propped up package before her. It stared back at her. She reached out with her right hand and poked it dead center with the eraser of her pencil. It sprang back when she released it to her amusement. She repeated this three times. “Make it grow,” she said.

“Yes ma’am,” Sam replied. He shuffled back from the desk and stood up. He reached down with his fingers and began sliding the head of his best friend in and out of its tan sheath.

“One inch isn’t much as you know Sam, but I never agreed with the government’s decision to use flaccid measurements the official tests. Think they’re just doing it to sell even more of you short. Hands off.”

Sam released his penis and put his hands behind his back. “Turn sideways,” she said.

He turned his body. In front of him, his penis continued to lift off of his balls and reach towards his belly button. Finally, it halted with the skin pulled tautly and Sam watching Loren hopefully. “Tell you what,” Loren said, “If you can get that up to your belly button in the next minute without bending over, I’ll give you your five percent raise.”

She gestured with her hand. Sam’s hand took up his penis and stroked it slowly up and down. He knew it was already at full mast, but he still enjoyed trying for her. Within forty seconds he was grunting and thrusting into his grasp while Loren calmly went back to her paperwork. After a minute she looked up and said, “Yeah I thought so. Get out of my office and have a nice weekend.”

Sam swallowed the lump in his throat and reached to the floor to pull up his pants. His penis bobbed like a flag in the breeze before him while he got dressed. He briskly exited her office without another word and left the store. According to his watch, he had enough time to stop by the DPH for his yearly inspection before heading to the airport.

He waited at the bus stop, empty in the off-peak hour. Boarded the bus, bumped along the road, then hopped off at the DPH stop. The building was a squat one-floor cube of cement. The sign out front read, “Department of Penis Honesty, the only measure of your pleasure.”

Upon entering, he took a number from the roller and sat down in the back of the room. Ahead of him was a sea of men waiting their turn, all facing forward where the large room narrowed to a hallway filled with doors. Every few seconds the loudspeaker would call a number and a man would part from the bunch and walk into the hallway to his assigned room. “B13 to room 103,” “T65 to room 115,” and on and on it went. All of the employees here were women. They came in and out of rooms in the hallway and filled out paperwork and overall took very little interest in the men before them.

Time slowed to a crawl, Sam dozed in the back of the room. He daydreamed about his weekend away from home. The hotel, the beach, the bikinis, anything could happen. Around him some of the men fidgeted with nerves, others seemed to be in a reverie of preparation. Occasionally one of these daydreaming men would be called and they would have to make an effort to hide their erections as they walked to the hallway. If any women noticed they would chuckle to themselves.

Finally, Sam’s number was called. “S9 to room 101.” He stood up and walked down the aisle between waiting men. He reached the end of the large room and went into the hallway, quickly spotted his desired room, and entered without a second thought. Doing this yearly had taught him to not think too much.

Inside the room sat five women. They all held clipboards and were diligently filling out paperwork. Before them, there was a thigh-high table covered in black cloth with a small sample jar in the center of it. Sam closed the door behind him and that is when the apprehension started setting in. The woman at the center of the lineup was tall and tan. She had short-cropped hair above her all-white business attire and her face was turned in an eternal smirk. Eventually, she looked up at Sam and said, “Ahhh, ladies, we finally got one.” One of the ladies cheered and the rest looked dejected as they handed her a few dollars. All of this happened in plain sight.

“Good afternoon sir my name is Margie and I will be inspecting you today. I would like you to state your name and tell us about yourself for the record. Remember you are now under oath.”

Sam rose up to his full height and said, “I am Sam Terry, and I am one inch when flaccid, would you like to see for yourself?”

With the cold cordiality of a medical inspection Margie said, “In a moment. Tell us more.”

“My girth is four inches when flaccid. When erect my penis is four inches long and four inches in circumference. My last ejaculation was one week ago.”

“Now what you have stated is the whole truth?” Margie asked.

“Yes ma’am,” Pencils scurried across paper all around her.

“Good. Mr. Terry, you may now disrobe and prepare for inspection.”

A small pang of trepidation shot through Sam’s veins as he pulled his shirt over his head. All the preparation in the world couldn’t prepare him for inspection. He tossed his shirt aside and kicked off his shoes. Then, trying to not think about it, he pulled his pants down to his feet and stepped out of them. When he looked back up, one woman was discreetly passing her colleague a dollar. They all seemed to be holding back laughter.

“And now the inspection will begin,” Margie said. “Constance, what are your observations?”

The woman on the far left of the line as Sam faced them looked up from her note-taking, squinted, and said, “It appears the patient is of a healthy height and weight, he seems to have good musculature in the legs, but not in the arms.”

“Thank you, Constance,” Margie said, “Shannon?”

The next woman over grinned and said, “Patient appears to be in a relaxed state, thus I am unable to take his pulse from my current position.”

“Correct Margie, let’s continue with the inspection and circle back to you. We will now enter the second phase of the inspection. Mr. Terry, you will ejaculate in the allotted sample container. Remember if any semen misses the cup, you will have to attend a series of government-mandated community service projects equal in hours to the number of sperm cells you waste. Off the record, I suggest you aim true.”

Sam’s mind flitted to the people he knew who had missed a drop or more of semen and had to live in abject slavery for the rest of their lives. Chain gangs on highways and workers in sweatshops.

With the five women diligently watching and taking notes, Sam plucked his penis from atop his testicles and began stroking with two fingers. The woman all the way to the right let out one burst of laughter before collecting herself behind her clipboard. Next to her in the lineup, a stopwatch was clicked the moment he touched his penis.

For a painstaking thirty seconds, Sam worried that he would be unable to attain an erection in this atmosphere. He pictured the women in front of him underneath their well-ironed uniforms and tried to meet their eyes, but they were all zeroed in on his penis.

After about a minute of painstakingly flailing his shrunken penis around for the women, the blood started to flow and he was able to fit his whole hand around it. The women watched with mostly disinterested zombie eyes. “My penis is now as large as it will ever be,” Sam announced to the room. He removed his hands from his penis and placed them on his head.

The timekeeper clicked off her stopwatch and took note of how long it took for him to attain an erection on her clipboard. Margie said, “Okay Shannon, let’s take that pulse.”

Shannon and the women stared raptly at Sam’s penis bobbing to his heartbeat before him for ten seconds and then Shannon said, “I am reading a healthy heartbeat of about 70 beats per minute.”

Margie turned her head and raised her eyebrows to another woman in the line who, after a pause, said, “I concur with this reading.”

“Good,” Margie said. “Sam, you will now present yourself for measurement. Brooke, please prepare his measuring cylinder.”

In no apparent rush, the brown-haired woman on the end who had laughed earlier stood up and opened a cabinet along the side of the room. Fog rolled out of it. She reached in and plucked a tall cylinder out of a bunch. Then walked this over to the table and placed it down and knelt beside it. “Measuring ready.”

“Sir, insert your erect penis into the cylinder, I apologize if it gives you a slight chill. Somebody decided to put our storage cabinet directly below the air conditioning vent.” Margie said with a sly grin.

Sam’s erection had significantly deflated in the time it took to prepare the glass cylinder on the table before him. The cylinder was about a foot tall and frosted from the cool cabinet. Along the side were various gradations and inside the water was filled to the brim. Around the base was a large plate that would catch what water overflowed. Sam stepped up and took a deep breath. He contorted his body to angle his penis downwards and plunged it into the icy depths. The shock made him gasp, but he was not allowed to reach down and comfort his shriveling penis. The moment he was inserted into the cylinder all the way, Brook made a small mark on the side of the cylinder where his penis head rubbed against the side. Water gushed out the top as he pushed for any extra centimeters. “Now remove your penis,” Margie said.

Sam quickly removed his now dripping penis and Brooked leaned in to see where she had written with her marker. “Subject is four inches erect,” she said. The other women scribbled on their clipboards. She then measured how much water was left in the cylinder in order to calculate the volume and circumference of his penis. “Subject’s penis has a circumference of four inches,” she said to the quiet room.

Then she rose and took the cylinder from the table so there was only a small collection cup on it again. She fussed around the room for a minute while the other inspectors continued writing notes and then she took up her seat at the end of the row again.

“We will now begin the penultimate phase of our inspection. Sir, masturbate to completion. Per the Disclosure Act passed last year, you must announce to the room when your ejaculation is approaching. Go ahead.”

The women watched. Sam paused. They kept watching. Finally, he reached down and picked up his now fully shrunken penis and began to stroke it quickly not wanting to waste any time. Again, when he picked up his penis, the woman between Brooke and Margie clicked her stopwatch. Sam’s breathing deepened. The room shrunk around him. His hand started fast but found a way to pick up his speed further. He closed his eyes, but could still see the shapes of the women watching him through his eyelids. He thought he heard a giggle stifled by a cough over the silence of the room.

After what felt like an hour, Sam’s penis had hardened into his fist and his breathing had abandoned its deep tempo in favor of sharp, short gasps. Pleasure echoed through his veins along his arms and legs. He moaned quietly into the now silent room. “I am about to ejaculate,” he said quickly. He opened his eyes and looked past the women who were watching through their bored eyes. He felt his penis jump in his grasp and he quickly pointed it down into the collection cup.

Sam felt like the room watched with bated breath. In reality, the women were just counting down the minutes until their shift was over. With a grunt, his penis dribbled its white pleasure into the jar. His hand fluttered from the base to just below the head. In private practice, he preferred the feel of his hand across the glans, but he couldn’t risk altering the flow of ejaculate when his life was at stake. His head was down focused on his pink head, but he could hear the women taking notes. The timekeeper clicked her stopwatch and said, “A minute two. New record.”

One woman smiled as the others handed her some cash. All this right in front of Sam as his penis slowed its dance in his hand and he shook off the tip. His skin flushed red as he stepped back from the jar. Not a single drop had landed anywhere on the black cloth so he lived to be enslaved another year. Margie took a few final notes and then said, “Okay big boy, this is where it really counts. Brooke, prepare his flaccid measuring cylinder.”

Again, the woman on the far edge of the row stood up and gathered a nearly frozen cylinder of water from the cabinet and placed it before Sam whose penis was still slightly plump from its previous fun. “Sir, insert your erect penis into the cylinder,” Margie said.

Sam stepped up to the cylinder and dropped his penis into the tundra. Quickly it shrunk down to its smallest size. Then Brooke still waited a minute before she marked its length. “Remove it,” Margie said nonchalantly.

Sam stepped back and awaited his result. Would he move up the social ladder this year? Would he finally be able to get that raise and move out of Small Penis Housing? The seconds ticked by. Finally, Brooke announced to the room, “Subject is one inch when flaccid.”

Everyone sighed. Margie made a final note on her clipboard and looked up at Sam with a professional smile. “Sir, your inspection is now complete, please get dressed and bring your sample to processing on your way out. Have a great weekend!”

In a flurry of cloth and embarrassment, Sam got dressed. The women before him were filing papers back and forth and preparing for their next inspection in hushed tones. He picked up his still warm jar of semen and walked out the door behind him. He walked down the hall away from the large room of waiting for men towards a counter that was labeled, “processing.”

At the counter, a tall red-haired woman was writing details on a sticker that she would paste to a jar filled with a white, warm sample. She would then put a lid on the jar, spin her chair to toss the jar into a large canvas bag, and start on the next one. Sam reached the counter and said, “I have a sample for processing.”

Without looking up she said, “Leave it next to the others and exit that way.”

Sam placed it on the counter beside other waiting jars and slunk out the door into the golden sunset.

The End.