INK
Disturbing fiction by strzeka (03/25)
For Ian, who may recognise himself
It’s strange to think that I met my hero only once and that was a complete coincidence. I very rarely visit Birmingham but on the one occasion in the 2010s I lectured there, I met Terry Davis and his carer outside New Street station and introduced myself. Terry was not wearing prostheses at that moment, except his shell, of course, so we did not shake hooks. I told him what a huge role he had played in my own life and continued to do so, bearing in mind the course I had set for myself after an early retirement. I believe it may have been the first and only time in British history that two Englishmen with such wide lip plates ever conversed with each other. Terry’s lower plate was wider than mine even then and his Swedish carer translated Terry’s indistinct mechanical rattling for me. I had preferred to stretch only my lower lip and had learned to speak more or less distinctly with my lip plate either erect in front of my face or drooping to expose my lower denture. I assume I was wearing my upper denture too that day, as I had a public speaking to attend at the university and the upper set enabled my sibilants and fricatives.
The Swede thoughtfully turned his back on me so that Terry and I could speak face to face. Terry was in his carbon fibre torso socket, strung onto the Swede’s back like a rucksack. Like a child in a papoose. Like a heavily tattooed limbless fellow Brit who looked at the world through chrome‑plated contact lenses. I still had both legs at that time, of course, but my hands were ancient history. They were my second major adjustment and inspired by Terry’s example like the lip plate. I was disappointed to see that his shoulder stumps were concealed inside his socket but said nothing. He was appreciative of my own pair of steel hooks, custom made in Arizona and imported at considerable expense. They were fifty percent larger than standard hooks, symmetrical, with tips designed specifically to hold writing implements. They resembled, I am reliably informed, pirate hooks. Good solid steel, polished to a mirror shine, well capable of lifting a pint of best served in a traditional British beer mug. Not that I drank in a conventional manner, of course. My lip plate prevented it, and even without it, I had no lower lip to create suction anyway.
Not wanting to fawn over the man, I quickly assembled my thoughts and asked where Terry and his Swede were headed, revealing that I myself was due at the university to talk about developments in contemporary Japanese language. Terry replied Homdo dehka which I understood, to our complete mutual delight. A taxi approached and the Swede announced it was their turn. Terry wished me good luck in the future and said he was proud to have met me. His lip plates clacked against each other and I looked into his chrome eyes for some hint of meaning. The Swede interpreted for me as he swung Terry into the backseat of the taxi and shook my hook in farewell.
It was the last I heard of Terry. He died in 2028, only fifty years old. Still young. He was five years my junior. I suppose everyone who dies younger than oneself deserves the accolade So young.
But I am getting ahead of myself. I return my narrative to the time following my lecture in Birmingham. Twenty seventeen. I gave my speech on modern Japanese idiom as used in manga and the competitive nature of the vernacular developing among the youth of the major urban centres Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka. It was reaching the point when an Osaka teenager would spurn manga written using the Tokyo dialect. It was an unprecedented situation in such a homogenous society, one in which I grew up, and my task on that visit to Birmingham University was to introduce new words, new idioms, to linguistics students. I chose to hold my lip plate taut and relied on live subtitles, as I usually did, naturally enough. My hooks overpowered the tiny microphone I was holding. I must have looked ridiculous onstage, a huge steel hook near my face trying to avoid being knocked by my flapping lip plate. But I was the expert, the only man in the country with experience of the sudden linguistic chaos dividing Japan’s regions. I was and still am a little sorry not to have been able to reproduce any of the deviant consonants but the students’ computers could reproduce them well enough.
It occurs to me now, writing this, that England in 2017 and Japan in the same decade were already undergoing metamorphosis. England had already voted for its eventual downfall but people said they knew what they were voting for. They had no conception. Nor could they have had. It is difficult to predict things, especially the future. But that is all by the by.
The lecture was, by all accounts, a success. Professors from the linguistics faculty assured me that my treatment of regional vocal dimorphism was both refreshing and imminently intelligible, which I took to mean that they succeeded in following my presentation. I was grateful that the audiovisual technology had performed properly. A man as severely disabled as myself relies on artificial assistance to a sometimes alarming degree, although as I may have mentioned, I still had natural legs for that lecture. I was taken to meet other senior staff members, whose reactions upon being introduced varied, much to my amusement. It is an alarming experience to find oneself murmuring polite platitudes to a stranger who face is not only more than half‑covered in blackwork tattoos but whose lower lip is stretched around a twelve centimetres wide white enamel lip plate, rarely seen outside Amazonia (which is where mine originated). Not to mention having to shake what I use to replace my natural hand, my thick cold steel hook. If I remember correctly, I chose to wear both left and right matching hooks that morning, partly for the joy of overkill, I admit. As an ambidextrous man since my mutilation, I can use either hook to equal advantage and rarely wear the pair simultaneously. After spending so much time, effort and money in sculpting my arm stumps into truncated perfection, I derive great pleasure in displaying the solid black tips of both my arm stumps to emphasize their perfect semispherical fleshiness.
Inevitably, I was asked about the circumstances which led to the demise of my hands. Whether out of polite curiosity or genuine desire to emulate me I have no way of knowing, but I repeated the trite explanation about a road accident soon after my arrival in England. At that time, my body was hale and healthy, unmarked by a tattooist’s ink. Japanese society, in which I participated but to which I could never belong, had an automatic dislike of disfigurement, with an aesthetic aspect which made it more insidious than similar distaste elsewhere in the world. One of the strongest motivating urges I had as a young man was the desire to relocate to England, where I had been born and from where I had been ripped by my father’s diplomatic position. I wanted tattoos, heavy black designs on my body, my arms, legs and face successively covered in black ink, turning a completely ordinary body into something extraordinary. And to start my transformation, I wanted my arms to be black stumps with globular tips which glistened in their blackness.
My desire to replace flesh with carbon and steel was born of familiarity with the superheroes featured regularly in Japanese manga where supermen had limbs replaced by identical mechanical versions whose main characteristics were extreme strength and a suspicious resemblance to the original. Only the metallic surface revealed the transformation. I was already more determined in my own mind. When I had replacement limbs, I decided, they would look artificial. I wanted anyone who so much as glanced at me to see that I was enhanced by artificial limbs like a manga superman. I had to wait and move to the opposite side of the world to do so.
I started with my hands, following the example of my newly discovered idol, Terry Davis, who had not only tattooed his arms entirely black, he had also begun nibbling away at his fingers, producing in a short shrift a pair of hands missing all but the first joints of all ten digits. He sported his ruined hands for the period it took to complete his sick leave before returning to the tattoo parlour where he worked, expecting to continue his profession. Instead, he was shown the door. In desperation for money, he decided to turn his body into a work of art and it was through his first interviews in a niche specialist journal that I first became aware of Terry. I watched in envy as his appearance evolved with always something more extrovert, more shocking and more desirable for myself, seemingly trapped in a society which demanded conformity.
I was initially uncertain about Terry’s determination to stretch his lips. As a bilingual person and studying for a profession involving language, I thought I might be regarded as irresponsible for ruining my ability to speak either of my languages intelligibly after the stretch reached the point when my first trainer plate could be inserted. Unlike Terry, I was unable to manipulate my plates with any great facility either with my stumps or with the standard issue hooks I wore at the time. I loved my three inch plate, more like a cylinder with a flat top which rested on my chin and forced my lower lip forward. It immediately affected my sibilants and I amused myself by singing, or ‘hinging’ as I now had to pronounce the word. I lived only a few kilometres from the specialist who had fitted my plate and advised me on my optimal progress. I visited him weekly to have my plate removed for cleaning and sterilisation, and new plates were fitted at regular intervals, always slightly wider than the previous plug. Soon it became obvious that my lower teeth were interfering with the movement of the plate. My specialist showed me photos of how the Amazonian indigenous folk had their lower front teeth removed to accommodate larger plates. I shortly found a private dentist willing for a price to remove my lower front teeth and all those from my upper jaw. The Amazonians were frequently toothless and I was envious of the resulting loose flesh around their mouths which they re‑purposed to wear their lip plates. I was unsure whether I wished to follow Terry’s example of both lower and the less common upper lip plates. I decided for the time being to indulge in my temporary loss of intelligible speech. The absence of my upper front teeth especially and their previous capacity to coax some recognisable consonants from my mutilated lower lip caused me much amusement. My mouth felt as alien to me as my arms had felt when I instinctively continued to reach out for objects with stumps from which any practical purpose had been temporarily removed.
This was my revised life in England for over a decade. As I had envisaged, I made my deep knowledge of both the English and Nipponese languages my forte. Ironically, I was unable to pronounce either to any recognisable extent. I continued to travel from my more distant accommodation to visit my specialist, now only monthly, as I had become dextrous enough with my hooks to attend to simple matters of oral hygiene which my ever larger lip plates demanded. In the name of practicality, I suggested metal plates after accidentally allowing a ceramic plate to drop from my hook. It broke into three parts and I was heartbroken. It was not only a unique piece, handmade by a village elder, but it had also cost me nearly two thousand pounds. As a result, my expert supplier suggested a series of white enamel plates, made in China of the same material as the ubiquitous tea mugs. I was hugely impressed by the wonderful contrast between the pristine white enamel and the blackwork on my face and have favoured cheap Chinese enamel plates ever since. They are made up to a size which I do not wish to attain. It had already occurred to me at that time that I could use former plates for my lower lip for my upper lip, should I decide to stretch it too with the aim of fitting a highly unusual second lip plate. My collection of enamel plates gradually increasing in size awaits the time when I take the plunge and finally ensure that I shall never be able to speak again.
I have forged a career as a translator of manga. I had always read them. The Japanese have read them since they were introduced in the years before the second world war as a popular medium for spreading propaganda from the military government. They evolved over the decades from official publications for the masses to specialist pulp fiction flowing with subversive influences and condemnable intrigue, catering for every taste, including disablement and amputation suffered by superheroes powered to new abilities thanks to bionic limbs which will forever remain science fiction. Vaunting my own custom pair of hooks of thick mirror steel, I use their tips to type out translations of the triumphant ejaculations of fictional multiple amputees who behave like athletes. I pause only to clear the pool of collected drool from the inner rim of my lower lip plate. British publishing houses prefer to reproduce manga material on glossy paper with every frame perfectly coloured. The collections sell for amounts many times the original cost, a matter which serves my purposes. I make a good living from work whose end purpose I do not find especially rewarding although it is always a pleasure to use my creativity to translate from one of my languages into the other. I can no longer speak either in any understandable fashion. At one stage, I regarded it as a loss. Now I regard it as new liberty to continue stretching my lips with the white enamel plates, partly for the simple joy of being disabled so unnecessarily—I have completely lost the ability to communicate vocally. But partly because I wish to commemorate young Terry Davis, whose pioneering mutilation I find myself repeating.
I stopped work for the day. The screen darkened and I suddenly saw the fuzzy reflection of my face in its soft surface. The white expanse of my lip plates was obvious. The presence of my newer upper plate prevented me from holding the lower plate in its accustomed upright position, the way I held it customarily for over a decade as its size gradually increased. Now it had reached its maximum size. The upper plate was only half its diameter. Sometimes when I attempted to speak, I achieved a phenomenon in which the enamel plates slapped against each other, resulting in a metallic consonant which has no written equivalent. I looked into my eyes reflecting other light sources. There is a neat regular band of uninked flesh across my face, a centimetre or so thick. It crosses my eyes and raises above my ears to join at the back of my skull. My blackened face has a patina, an artificial glow. The tattooed skin on my bald head shines differently. It is a different type of skin. My lip plates drooped freely and clattered as I moved away from my work station to continue my day with a meal, stump care and preparation for the morrow.
Once again, I had been invited to Birmingham University to present the latest developments in the dialect wars. I checked that my legs were fully charged, that my energy stream links were still valid for the Midlands and that I had the latest version of my speech ready on my voice emulator. I occasionally vocalise during presentations in order to underscore a point, but as both my lip plates now as then hang down from my mouth concealing my chin, there is little chance of persuading my audience without electronic assistance. It makes little difference to the effectiveness of my enunciation even if I remove my upper lip plate. The tangle of my naked upper lip no long obstructs my lower plate and I can simply insert my tongue through my lip to hold it still. Widening and tightening my jaw muscles, the lower lip plate erects smartly to conceal half my face. The reason for its maximum size is obvious—I have no wish for my lip plate to impair my vision.
I was offered private transportation from home to the university as an accommodation for my restricted mobility. A well‑appointed minibus arrived at the arranged time and the driver helped me climb up into the vehicle on two prosthetic feet, gripping its fittings with my thick mirror steel hooks. If I remember correctly, I had been only recently fitted with that particular pair of legs and my lower limb amputations were still simple disarticulations of both knees. Recovery had been fast and I had quickly adapted to stumping about at home on a simple pair of stubbies but I was advised and determined to maintain appearances in public with full‑length prosthetic legs. Easier said than done, in my case. I had difficulty finding balance on my artificial feet and discovered that oversized army surplus boots could provide stability and reliability. I persuaded one of my health visitors to place my wooden and steel feet into the boots and cover them with plaster of Paris. It hardened quickly, providing a stunning set of prosthetic feet permanently wearing size fourteen US Army boots. I have never seen another amputee wearing such obviously unsuitable footwear. Despite the visual imbalance of such big footwear, my physical balance is much improved, although I fear that my days with knee‑length stumps are limited. I have received notice from the surgeon at the facility which undertakes my voluntary amputations that a fresh wind of change is blowing next spring in the form of new ownership and that any outstanding desired amputations should be arranged at our earliest possible convenience. I have nothing to do during the upcoming summer months and therefore applied for the stumps which I had originally anticipated graduating to only in my early sixties.
It was something at the forefront of my mind as we approached Birmingham. I had already ensured that my vocaliser was synched with my PC graphics. We had stopped once in Bicester where the driver joined me in the passenger compartment to brew us espressos and served roast beef and blue cheese sandwiches. He was decent enough not to enquire about my obvious and hidden disabilities and instead made conversation by describing a journey from which he had recently returned on the continent, which I found both interesting and refreshing to hear. I have never visited the mainland continent of Europe and he suggested I drop a word with any senior at the University about joining the enthusiastic group of Europhiles and polyglots who eagerly visited foreign parts as often as their visas would allow. As a dual Japanese‑British citizen, I can arrange to bypass the restrictions for English passport holders and travel abroad as often as I want—assuming of course that I have someone who wishes to assist me at my own slow pace. I am not, I regret to say, the best possible travel companion, being unable to communicate verbally and unable to walk far.
So I have assumed.
I gave my talk which I had updated to encompass the vernacular of the previous winter’s editions of the most popular manga. Of particular interest from an orthographic perspective was the reintroduction of centuries old hirogana to represent speech uttered by automatons. This development was currently evident only in the south‑western regions and had not yet appeared in Tokyo manga. The old hirogana were noticeably more complicated than those in current use but they were eminently practical. My emulator reproduced their sounds perfectly, since none of the new consonants were present. For the first time, I used proximate touch to write examples using hirogana. I had taught my machine to recognise the tip of my hook and was able to gesture accurately enough for it to produce onscreen the Japanese text at, if I may say so, a rate equal or superior to young Japanese readers of the manga I translated. My upbringing in that society prevents me from further boasting.
The lecture lasted nearly two hours, a concession to my disability, whichever of the many which one may assume. Those present paid gratifying attention to my presentation and the entire group, myself and our organisers included, were efficiently transported (myself in a wheelchair) to a superb buffet spread of the freshest and most skilfully presented seafood which I have seen outside Japan. The food was far beyond sushi, excellent though that may be. Since I have been unable to use kashi, chopsticks, for twenty years, a young student was introduced to me as my assistant, should I wish to employ his services. I had noticed him in the audience and thought how his life might be with such effortless beauty.
His name was, is, Horace Massey. He is almost two metres tall, his frame is divine, his face is divine, his short scruffy blond beard is divine and his glossy blond hair twists into impossibly beautiful curls framing his gorgeous face. I may be repeating myself. He introduced himself in the most impeccable Tokyo accent I have heard from a European and said he had volunteered to provide me anything and everything. It was the standard Japanese phrasing employed for centuries until the present. A cliché. I nodded to indicate both that I had understood and that I approved. He sat next to me at our buffet and opposite me on my journey home to London.
We spoke of many things. I learned about Horace’s lifelong fascination with everything Japanese and his three year sojourn in the capital. He learned about my lifelong fascination with amputation and my adult interest in blackwork tattoos which cover my body and stumps. We discussed the aesthetic characteristics traditionally associated with wearing lip plates in Amazonia and the disadvantages of wearing them in the West. Horace is the first non‑medical man I have allowed to inspect my lip plates and loosely hanging mutilated lips. He encouraged me to vocalise and professes a wish to hear more of my speech in order to learn to understand me and interpret for me in future, much as the Swede did for Terry Davis. The thought of seeing Horace regularly filled me with an overwhelming sense of contentment and gratitude, the first stage of the wonderful sequence which leads to love. I touched his charmingly wild beard with a big chrome hook and he turned his head slightly to take its tip into his mouth and suck on it. I ejaculated. I had not even realised that I was erect. After arriving home, I invited Horace to spend the night if he wanted rather than return immediately in the university minibus. The driver returned alone.
Horace insisted on cleaning me up. My ejaculate had soaked my underwear and had run onto my stump sock and liner and the socket itself was spattered with fluid as was the inside of my trousers. He was as careful as any professional caretaker and spent as much time ensuring that my prosthetic leg was cleaned as thoroughly as my stump, with which he was gratifyingly gentle. I asked him if he enjoyed seeing my black leg stumps, still sturdy and strong thanks to the internal musculature remaining much the same after a dislocation or two and his reply surprised me. He said he far preferred to see short leg stumps and cited a well‑known Russian leg amputee with minimal stumps who relearned to walk on two full‑length prosthetic legs, balancing on an almost empty pelvis. To my astonishment, Horace professed a desire to emulate the Russian and to have his genitals removed completely, to become a nullo. I was confused and asked why Horace wanted to lose not only his legs, which I understood completely, but also his sex organs. He coyly asked permission to remove his trousers and underwear in order to show me in lieu of a verbal explanation.
Horace had a handsome scrotum filled with two good‑sized testes covered with the same short curly blond hair he sported all over his body. But his one single defect became obvious. Mother Nature rarely provides such perfection without some disadvantage. Horace was physically perfect except for the absence of an adult penis. His phallus was the size of a young child’s. It had, he told me, remained the same since he was five. I stretched a hook toward his erect penis. Horace said it could ejaculate but its simple lack of size meant that he was unable to masturbate. His glans had never developed and worst of all, the penis itself was almost insensate. It felt almost nothing. Horace expressed no regret or disappointment with his endowment but I was fascinated by the idea of malfunctioning genitals.
Horace explored my body that night. I left a nightlight on in the corner—in fact, it was a digital clock with illuminated numbers. I touched his face and handsome arms with the tips of my arm stumps. He repeated the action which had set me off on the return that evening—he sucked the tips of my arm stumps and suddenly I felt him become momentarily rigid as his balls emptied many weeks’ worth of semen onto my belly. It was warm and smelled of the ocean. I dabbled at it with my arm stumps while Horace fetched a bath towel soaked partly in hot water and for the second time in a few hours, he cleaned my torso and stumps of sperm.
We slept eventually. I awoke with my stumps enveloped and protected by Horace’s strong limbs. I looked at his sleeping face, beautifully endowed by nature. Horace was too good‑natured to flaunt his beauty. He wore his hair as nature intended. It fell naturally into broad curls. Horace and I were complete opposites regarding our appearance. I was anxious to awaken and replace my artificial limbs and lip plates but I had no wish to disturb the sleeping Adonis. He awoke a few minutes later and wished me good morning, kissing my lips and sucking the tangle into his own mouth to tongue them. He licked my eyes clean of night dirt and carried me to the bathroom where he held me under one arm while ensuring the shower was at a comfortable temperature. He sat on my low shower stool with my amputated body on his lap and we cleansed ourselves together, hardly speaking.
We spoke of the future over breakfast. Horace fed me and I ate soft toast and carefully drank the coffee which he held for me. He asked what plans I had for the near future and I mentioned that my priority was scheduling new bilateral thigh amputations at my usual facility before my accustomed surgeon was possibly transferred elsewhere. Horace nodded his understanding and expressed his hope to see my newly shortened stumps. As if as a momentary aside, Horace said what a wonderful summer it would be if his own hands were replaced in order to use hooks identical to mine. They usually shock or horrify onlookers but Horace paid them little attention until mentioning them just now. My arms were strung out across a chair in the living room somewhere. Horace said that although he admired my blackened stumps, he would prefer his own to be shorter, so short that he might use sockets designed for above‑elbow amputees with physically demanding prostheses operated only by shoulder movement. He glanced at me to see my reaction. My mouth was open in surprise and drool slid onto the table from my ruined lips.
I scrabbled at my mouth with my stumps and Horace understood the gesture. He inserted first the upper lip plate and then the lower. Now my drool would collect in the plate unless I prevented it from doing so. The plates flapped when I vocally requested both sets of prosthetic limbs. I suspected that Horace’s presence and surprising admission might entail me requiring full‑length legs. He fitted the hooks onto my stumps, handling the cold steel with as much delicacy and care as he demonstrated toward my stumps. He carried me to the bedroom, where my legs leaned against the wall. He dressed my long thighs in liners and stump socks before holding the prosthetic legs firmly, allowing me to insert my stumps into them. He lifted me with one arm under my armpits and smiled at my momentary struggle to maintain balance. I felt so safe in his arms. For a man such as myself with no tactile input from my steel hooks nor from my feet, absent for several years, it is a matter of joy and relief to stand almost unaided and to feel secure, just like in the past before the alterations. The cool rigid familiarity of artificial legs soon dismissed any sentimentality however, and I rocked my body to seat my stumps as tightly as possible, ready for the day’s challenges.
I was physically complete again, in urgent need of continuing the conversation with Horace about losing one’s hands, whether by accident or desire. I shook my left hook towards my laptop and asked for it, causing my plates to knock together. Horace reached over for the machine and opened it for me. A few taps and I was back with my vocaliser app. I ensured it could read the tip of my hook correctly and adjusted it for speed and volume. Horace sat by watching the process, fascinated by the latest adaptation for the severely disabled. I initiated the sequence and began tracing the elegant flowing shapes of hiragana above the screen. After every circular full stop, the machine pronounced my input in both a standard Eastern Japanese dialect followed by a translation in a Southern English accent. Horace asked me to omit the translation. My initial message was straightforward and needed no clarification. If Horace felt he was mature enough to understand what everyday life without hands was like, I could speak to my surgeon on his behalf. I was sure that the amputations would take place on my recommendation. In that sense and to that degree, Horace’s stumps were assured. How precise Japanese can be when dealing with technical matters. Nothing like normal speech where obfuscation rules the day. I rotated the broad shining tips of my hooks around each other, planning how to explain the disadvantages of having arms which ended in mere stumps when it was necessary to press or push or twist something designed for the able‑bodied. I stated merely that there would be difficulties. Horace agreed with my statement and revealed that he had spent a year working in a rehabilitation centre in Yokohama for ‘victims of amputation’ and was fully aware of both the difficulties and the newly discovered abilities and resilience which many disabled patients discovered after being fitted with standard issue artificial arms and hooks. He not only knew about the disadvantages but had also seen them in practice. Despite that, he had gained greater insight into the ways the human body adapted to disability and felt certain that he would himself be able to maintain his lifestyle and living standard with a pair of hooks.
I explained briefly why I had blackwork on my arms. I wanted attention—in fact, I craved attention. I wore T-shirts in winter so everyone would see my black arms. My face was still natural at that stage and I was continually disturbed by the lack of something I needed, much like an addict of some drug will fret if his supply ends. Within a short period of time, I discovered a way to lose my spindly hands, to have my face blackworked to what you see today and to have my future leg amputations pencilled in for three years hence. I transformed from a lad with tattooed hands to a man with a tattooed face but no hands. I had long known about the US company which made custom hooks for both theatrical and cinematic purposes but they also created unique prosthetics for the general public for a price, naturally. I had always admired large thick hooks, worn singly by cinema pirates. I described that I wanted big custom‑made hooks with the usual necessary characteristics. As the vocaliser pronounced these syllables, I lifted both hooks in front of my chest for Horace’s inspection. It was a deliberate invitation to join me in mutual disability, reliant on steel hooks of one design or another and severely disabled always for the rest of our lives, shunned by half of society and pestered with inane questions by the rest. I have avoided the latter by my intensely repulsive appearance. Horace looked at me to see why I had stopped gesturing above the laptop and I tapped my upper plate. Horace removed and held it. I sucked my upper lip into my mouth in preparation to vocalise. My lower lip plate rose to its natural upright position, its upper edge almost blocking my sight, kept at a distance only by my nose. I abandoned hiragana gestures for the time being. I wanted to express myself sincerely to Horace, in the most genuine and heartfelt way I can.
I spoke slowly in English with its wider range of consonants which might be intelligible. I spoke one sentence at a time and repeated it if Horace did not understand. A simple nod or shake sufficed. I drank in the beauty of his face and saw how his eyes confirmed his understanding. What a wonderful student to teach at the university. A man who not only understood but whose joy in learning was apparent in his beautiful features. I stated the simple truth that I adored him, his nature, his looks, his approval of my differences. I told him I wanted to see him every day and invited him to share my home and my life. I promised him that I would be financially responsible for him after any surgical or prosthetic requirements he might encounter during his sojourn in my company.
Horace took my left hook into his hands and squeezed it. His knuckles whitened. He lowered his head and allowed the steel to touch his forehead. He accepted my invitation to live with me with gratitude and expressed his admiration for a man, more precisely for me individually in particular, who had mechanised both his legs, both his arms, turned his face into a facsimile of the ancient human need to distinguish ourselves. But he said that most of all he would enjoy being with me most because he fetishised my hooks and wanted to see them and to see me using them in addition to actually possessing and needing the same objects of desire himself. He reminded me that his arms would be shorter than mine and that his prosthetics would always be more challenging for him to use than mine. And then he begged me to arrange for his operations during the long summer semester and for help in acquiring similar large mechanical hooks.
I looked into his green eyes for many seconds after he stopped speaking. He stared into mine. It was all the confirmation we needed. Leaning on the table, I pushed myself to my artificial feet and announced through my lip plate that we were going to embark together on a journey of evolution.
My regular personal assistant arrived shortly and met Horace for the first time. He was surprised to see me fully dressed already and wearing long prostheses rather than my usual stubbies. I introduced the two men, both much the same age, and told PT Reyes that thanks to Horace, I had no need of Reyes’ excellent service that day and that he was free to leave immediately. He thanked me and immediately left in haste before I could change my mind. Horace was impressed that Mr Reyes had learned to understand my muffled clicking and asked if I would like to wear my upper plate. I seem to think more clearly when I am fully equipped and so before starting the process which leads inexorably to our present situation, I allowed Horace to insert my upper denture and my upper lip plate, moving the lower plate past its tipping point and causing it to droop at an angle. I tensed my jaw muscles to pull the plates against each other and set my jaw at that angle. The plates are displayed to an acceptable degree, prominent but not blatant. My upper plate is useless and helpless in this position and my mouth feels either non‑existent or like the open gaping beak of a toucan or flamingo. But this is the uniquely human physical artwork of a culture which has practised it for millennia and thanks to pioneers like Terry Davis and perhaps myself, it is achieving some minor popularity in Europe. Few men who stretch their lips take it to my extreme. Usually the closed cylinders I mentioned before are enough. Distinctive and disabling.
My surgeon, Dr Hubert Alexander, knew to expect a call from me at about that time. I had mentioned on the previous time we spoke that I would need at least a revision to my leg amputations or possibly their complete removal. Fortunately it was the weekend and Alexander was probably relaxing in his impressive spread bordering the Moor Park golf course. Or he was planning the evolution of another young man with the resources to pay and the assurance to face life with a selection of artificial limbs. I have never known a surgeon so accommodating to the community of men who wish to be amputees. Alexander is unusual, at least in Europe, for the simple fact that he will reduce a patient to a limbless torso on request. Many surgeons who undertake voluntary amputations for devotees are reluctant to perform bilateral amputations or to disarticulate limbs. I gestured in front of my screen again for a couple of minutes and had the message translated into English. I approved it and called Dr Alexander. He answered within ten seconds, which indicated that he was not previously occupied. My message complete, Alexander answered with a series of questions to which I could reply either yes or no. After teasing him with the promise of more lucrative work on the way, I insisted that we meet as soon as possible and therefore, at my suggestion, Horace and I linked arms and he escorted me to the Metropolitan station.
The walk did me good. I rarely venture out for any distance on my artificial legs, although they are completely capable of sustaining assistive power for over four continual hours. I need only kick my stumps and the automatic lower legs do the rest. I also need to take care of my balance and to place weight alternatively on each prosthesis. Learning all three simultaneously is what makes the use of artificial legs such a challenge It is much easier when to rely on the arm of a companion. Alexander met us at the underground station in his wife’s electric and whisked us to his home where we were initially directed to the sumptuous seating arrangements facing the golf course’s number ten hole beyond a row of poplars. It was difficult to imagine an English landscape which held more comfort and prestige. I allowed Horace and Alexander to introduce themselves and guessed Alexander already intuited he would become intimately acquainted with the body of my Adonis.
Alexander asked me if I was comfortable or if I would like to remove any of my four artificial limbs. I gestured for Horace to remove my leg prostheses and trousers. I was wearing briefs, sufficient to maintain some degree of respectability. Before Alexander heard anything from Horace, I wanted to assert priority. By a protracted series of sometimes repeated statements, requests and questions, I was able finally to agree that my thighs, the beautiful muscular remnants of my legs, would be reduced to the extreme minimal length generally considered practical without requiring use of a dedicated torso socket, although, Alexander emphasised, nothing would prevent the nubs from being removed later in order to provide a completely limbless surface for my lower body. I could be provided with dedicated rubber blocks to let me heave my torso along without spoiling the appearance of my much more expensive and exclusive custom hooks. He checked his electronic diary and announced that I would become extremely legless on August the sixth. Hiroshima Day. Since none of us were driving and the time was past noon, Alexander had his pool boy bring us gin and tonics. The young man was shocked by my appearance but recovered his composure quickly and held his tray steady while I manipulated my hook.
There was the other matter which still played on my mind. With so little space below my buttocks, it would be inconvenient to possess tackle the size and weight of mine. I used to fantasise about the possibility of shortening my penis in such a way that only the glans remained, reattached to the minimal stump of my severed penis. I have ejaculated many times envisaging myself coming from the head of my penis attached directly to my legless groin. Alexander did not concern himself with urology. He was more interested in his new acquaintance, understandably. Not only was he smitten by Horace’s facial and physical beauty, he was intrigued by the firmness with which Horace described his desire to have some optimum amount of his arms removed in order to facilitate the use of challenging prosthetic arms and hooks identical to or more massive than mine. Alexander worked backwards, stating that their prosthetic care did not extend to the provision of custom terminal devices. Horace would have to arrange their manufacture himself. But Horace could indeed be fitted with a physically demanding pair of artificial arms which could be additionally restricted with locking mechanisms and a limited range of motion. Horace’s expression resembled the rising sun after a long dark night. It was exactly how he envisaged himself. The main decision was to finalise the length of his stumps.
Dr Alexander asked Horace if he was content to have me present in the room while discussing an intimately private matter. He replied that he was and that he had already had valuable advice from me. I was given leave to remain and settled back to listen to how the conversation evolved. My arm stumps were posited as a reference point. Alexander had crafted them according to my own wishes, paying particular attention to the spherical ends of my stumps. I could feel my arms hidden inside my sockets. I could sense the sudden absence of sensation above my wrists and the absence of my palms and fingers. I loved to concentrate on the loss of my limbs, as if to feel their non‑existence. Horace described once again how he wanted to lose not only his hands, he also wanted his replacement arms to be challenging and a little inconvenient to use. Alexander understood completely and described the options available. Regardless of the fact that Horace stated he would wear his hooks all his waking hours, Alexander described the advantages of maintaining some degree of stump below his elbows which would be advantageous when washing, shaving and dressing, for example. Horace, of course, knew this. He had seen me donning my prosthetic legs with my arm stumps before donning my artificial arms and knew how useful my black nubs were. He had felt them on his body at night and knew how they felt in his hands.
But, as stated, Horace was adamant that he wished to be challenged by his amputations at all times. Alexander tried again to explain that Horace’s artificial arms could be constructed in such a way that they functioned exactly as a pair of limbs for a man with bilateral above‑elbow stumps, regardless of the fact that Horace would still have elbows and minimal stumpage. He would simply insert his truncated arms into long rigid sockets which would trap his arms. The artificial lower arm to which the hook was attached would be operated by shoulder control and could be set to lock in preset positions and to be incapable of a wide range of movement. Horace closed his eyes and envisaged a pair of artificial arms custom‑made to emulate added disability and came to the final conclusion that he would prefer to lose both elbows to be equipped with genuinely challenging prostheses. The only remaining question was the length of stump.
Alexander practically insisted that in cases of voluntary amputation, the longest possible above‑elbow stump was preferable. Regardless of the length of stump, it would be hidden by the prosthesis at all times and therefore the only realistic consideration was the physical appearance preferred by the naked amputee. Horace had a set preference for above‑elbow stumps. He had a considerable collection of amputee men, topless with chest hair on display, whose stumps terminated about two thirds of the way down. Alexander agreed that there was still sufficient length to operate the type of prostheses Horace would be issued and if he wished, it was quite possible to hobble the prostheses to make their control more of a challenge. Once again, Horace beamed. They shook hands and Alexander spent a couple of minutes writing in his notebook before turning to me.
He was genuinely surprised that I intended transmuting from DKD to DAK without an intervening period sporting mid‑length thighs and a variety of stubbies and prostheses before succumbing to the ultimate, or the penultimate in my case. I was satisfied with my experience on full‑length artificial legs. The knee mechanisms had proved reliable, although I never genuinely trusted them. I preferred to wear stubbies, mainly because of the immediate visual impact of a legless man walking on his stumps. The associated motion, swinging both stumps out to the side and forward in a continual ballet of disability, was the apex of leglessness for me and the many men like me around the world who chose to be arrestingly deviant for their own convenience rather than adopt bilateral prostheses to satisfy societal convention. I told Alexander that the time had come for me to disable myself by shortening my thighs to the extent that I would still be able to wear the most extreme minimalist stubbies with pylons scarcely longer than an ordinary rubber ferrule. Alexander laughed and said he had known I would end up with ten centimetre peg legs. I made him smile on the other side of his face by announcing that my micropegs would not be the end of the process.
For copyright reasons imposed by my publisher, I must omit the details of the process leading up to our amputations and our procedures and recovery. Suffice it to say that all was well. Naturally enough, my recovery took considerably longer than Horace’s. He was fitted with a pair of inert fake arms which simply acted as sleeve fillers until his first prostheses were completed. We were both spoiled until my stumps were decreed healed and we were discharged together, two severely disabled amputees wearing bilateral artificial arms. Horace had allowed his beard to grow for the entire period of amputation and rehab and was now a stunning example of Viking hereditary. He stood nearly two metres tall, looked magnificent and wielded two pink artificial arms haltingly and hesitantly. I feared for his sanity but he continually assured me that he found it arousing to find his stumps so incapable. The standard issue hooks he had been issued appeared somewhat pathetic compared with my thick solid pair and one of the first things we did together after arriving home was to contact the manufacturer to enquire about a new pair of custom hooks for a new amputee.
I found it alarming and then amusing to be so utterly hobbled by my almost complete leglessness. My newly issued stubbies were strung onto my lower body by endless lengths of elastic velcro. I was becoming used to feeling the skin of my new stumps enveloped in unforgiving rigid sockets which allowed no change of position or angle. I had two steel pylons eight centimetres long, the shortest available, fitted with thick rubber feet six centimetres square, also the smallest available. My steps were shorter than ever before, a few centimetres at a time. I found the action of attempting to walk using legs which no longer existed the height of eroticism and as my overfilled sac pumped months old sperm onto my expensive oak parquet, I returned my thoughts to removing my burdensome genitals in favour of a smooth groin in preparation for my next amputations, the final stop before a hemicorporectomy.
Horace on his part found that his disability and domesticity were a poor match. His stumps had healed well and had been expertly shaped into long rounded cones of flesh and bone. Horace was helpless without his prostheses which had also been deliberately designed through long discussions with his prosthetist to be deviant and inconvenient. The forearms were ten centimetres shorter than usual, the wrist connectors were immovable, the elbow hinges had one direction of movement and the elbow mechanisms locked at fifteen degree intervals only. Horace initially accepted his new abilities stoically but after several days his mood changed as he realised that minor things like scratching an itch, filling a glass with water, putting on socks were all fraught with difficulty. I knew from experience that the phase would last only a matter of weeks and I was fully prepared to be patient with my personal assistant while he collected his wits and learned to use the hooks he had yearned for.
My tattooist was intrigued to hear that I had continued my body modifications after acquiring hooks and lip plates. With some difficulty, I explained that I wished to become a nullo in preparation for the complete removal of my leg stumpage. Without enquiring further, possibly out of frustration, he forwarded the contact details of a colleague who specialised in the art of genital realignment. The man operated from a hermetically sealed clean room inside a former tyre dealership under a railway viaduct in Willesden. I hired a quad bike onto which Horace lifted me and drove myself. The half‑face motorcycle helmet left my lip rings visible. My hooks were more than equal to the task of operating the automatic electric vehicle. In fact, it was such a pleasure to use that I ordered the same model for myself soon after. Even Horace has enough power left to him to drive it with his short artificial arms.
With the help of my AI interpreter app, we discussed the variety of mutilations available. I was offered the possibility of keeping my balls by having them relocated inside my groin but I declined. If I need testosterone, it is available commercially. However, I have always been intrigued by the severance and relocation of the glans directly onto the groin. Apparently much pleasure is available from such a shaftless penis and the prosthetist pointed out that my legless situation was ideal. After ninety minutes, we had arranged a program of a three week progression during which my balls would first be removed, then my ball sack sliced away, followed by my penis being removed with only the flaring tip kept and reattached directly to the stump of my penis. I wore a catheter for two weeks while the flesh healed and enjoyed the sensation so much that Horace now inserts a variety of silicon and steel tubes and pipettes through my erect glans into my bladder.
I became proficient on my minuscule stubbies. I twisted my body from side to side for momentum and lifted my legs as far as possible—not far—in order to walk. Horace watched me swing my heavy steel hooks for balance. I believed he was planning further disability for himself but he refused to discuss the matter. I believed he still felt shame for the period of antisocial depression we both underwent while he discovered the enormity of losing his hands. He was reluctant to discuss the matter lest I remind him that not all tempting alterations are what they may appear to be. I believed he wanted thigh stumps in order to use long conical stubbies. He had a collection of men wearing such prostheses which we enjoyed discussing together.
We were a surreal couple. Horace became more handsome. His long blond beard curled as attractively as his hair. He stood almost two metres tall and when he was not wearing his prostheses, he held his arm stumps slightly proud of his torso to expose their sculpted shape for me. Wearing his short prostheses, he looked like some fantastic science fiction illustration of an ideal android, beautiful and mechanical. I was a fully inked legless freak with a bald head, a destroyed mouth useless for communication except to those who had learned to distinguish my various clattering noises. I boasted black carbon artificial arms terminating in large chrome hooks, custom‑made for me, heavy, stylish, eminently practical. They were my inevitable destiny. All the years in Japan dreaming and planning an escape to both my independence and the opportunity to sculpt my body as inspired by my great hero Terry Davis. Horace had a similar pair of heavy hooks on order, elongated to compensate for his short carbon sockets. I feared that he would find their weight overwhelming but he stated simply that it would be another challenge and he welcomed it. That was the moment I knew Horace had crossed the borderline between a grieving disabled man to an enthusiastic voluntary amputee. There might be no stopping him. He already had bilateral above elbow amputations, usually the final stage for many quadruple voluntary amputees. I knew how much he enjoyed seeing his nubs at the end of the day relieved of his heavy obstinate protheses. We never failed to admire each other’s evolving bodies at the end of the day before relaxed into each others’ stumps.
I grew my import business to encompass historical manga from the second world war. The Japanese government exhorted the populace to acts which now seem tame compared with the atrocities by automatons and androids taken for granted by modern audiences. There was also a growing audience for manga series created and completed before the age of Hello Kitty. Many regarded the previous thirty years of manga as wasted on emasculated characters with little direction. I agreed. And so did many of my customers. With Horace as my assistant once again, we were able to bring an entirely new range of publications to a European audience, much to their delight and to our profit.
My provisional plans to have my stumps disarticulated were on hold. At Horace’s suggestion, who well understood my desire for a challenge, I instead decided to master using a series of ever longer pylons until I was proficiently tottering around our home on steel pegs forty centimetres long. It was an extraordinary achievement for a man with such extremely short leg stumps but for the time being at least, it seemed probable that I would retain the ability to walk. A hiatus during this process of my height increase allowed Horace to achieve his first leg stumps. I was somewhat disappointed that the metre ninety‑five figure would be gone forever. With stumps as short as he demanded, it was unlikely any prosthetist would recommend he learned to walk on tall prostheses. But Horace seemed completely content with his stubbies, far more so than with his first artificial arms, and he ordered several pairs varying in length and width. I prefer his shortest—two carbon cylinders with rubber bases which compel him to walk very much as I did before I reduced my stumps. However, perhaps because he was so exceptionally tall, as well as exceptionally beautiful and exceptionally intelligent, Horace prefers to wear a pair of knee‑length stubbies with upturned, foot shaped rubber bases. The soles are the shape of those for a ten year old. He teeters on his stubbies, throwing his thick chrome‑plated steel hooks around for balance. He started his progress to becoming the stump of a man he is today, my perfect antithesis, a brother from another mother, through meeting me because of his love of the Japanese language. We both use it daily, for business and pleasure, and nothing brings us more pleasure than translating the incomprehensible into something which reveals the hidden horror behind the apparently ordinary. In one sense, Horace and I have transformed ourselves into 架空の機械モンスター(fictional mechanical monsters). In every other way, we are two ordinary men with extraordinary wishes and we are happy to have found each other at such an early period in our lives so that we may share the joys and tribulations of lives with primitive artificial replacements for our alien limbs. Now we both feel free to scream our frustrations and victories at each other, being equally abled by identical prosthetic limbs.
Read more about Terry Davis here:
http://legbry.blogspot.com/2021/12/de-springplank.html
