THE CHOICE

 

THE CHOICE

Voluntary amputee fiction by strzeka (01/26)

It is difficult to explain it so other people can understand. The Dickensonian College featured in this story is the scene for The Dicksenonian Method, uploaded in March 2024.

 

I

The certificate I had been anticipating for so many months arrived at last. It was handcrafted on genuine vellum which Andrew insisted felt better than sex to the touch. He wore black latex gloves while handling it. I had had an oaken frame rimmed in silver ready for the previous four months and at last the gaping space on my tiny study wall was filled with the certificate honouring me as emeritus professor of history at the venerable Dickensonian College. I was quite capable of hanging the frame myself but Andrew insisted it was his job and I saw in his earnest expression that he meant it. I was a little apprehensive beforehand but Andrew maintained his balance far better than I expected and we both stood back admiring the glorious penmanship and gilding before toasting my achievement and our love with a glass of Bolinger which I had secreted away for a special occasion. We two multiple amputees toasted each other with half the bottle before departing for an early dinner at our favourite hotel in town where we might dine before the riff‑raff arrived to gawp at our artificial limbs.

 

II

Colleagues have remarked on occasion that they find it especially ironic that a professor of history suxh as myself should not have already published his own personal history but I have deferred until now for the simple reason that my motivation to reveal my life history in an autobiography has always been coloured by my impression of a general aversion to voluntary amputation. In simpler terms, I have not believed that people are interested in hearing about a man who was so determined to become an amputee that he purposefully maimed himself. However, it transpires that there are tens of thousands who find my story interesting enough to purchase a hard cover copy of my autobiography. I am delighted with the situation and grateful to discover a degree of acceptance which I had not expected to find.

 

Forty years have passed since I first stepped into the Forties in a panicked attempt to reach my apartment before the outer gates closed. I was delayed by an accident on the railway ahead of my train. I learned later that a young man had been struck by the train ahead of mine and had lost both arms. Only many years later did I discover his identity and we remain great friends although our contact these days is merely electronic. I was not naïve even at that young age and I actually assumed that perhaps someone had thrown themselves under the wheels deliberately in order to gain a stump.

 

I was eleven, almost twelve. My parents were anxious to be rid of me while their ugly divorce proceedings progressed through the courts at a snail’s pace. My mother was determined to prevent my father from making off with half the family fortune and I am happy to say that she succeeded. My own life would have run along a very different channel if I had needed to actually physically work for a living with a full complement of limbs. I was sent off to the notorious Dickensonian in the expectation, or certainty, that I would avail myself of their unique prosthetic services and I believe I did not disappoint my parents in that respect. They had known about my fascination, my obsession, with hooks and upper limb amputation for five years ever since I began to dress myself by squeezing my arms inside my vest and wearing my jumper with empty arms, the sleeves free to flap around. In my innocent naïveté, I told my mother that I wished I had hooks instead of hands. She asked where on earth I had learned that such a thing was even possible and I said that the gardener’s son, a frequent visitor to his father’s cottage on the edge of our estate, had a pair of steel hooks and I wanted to be like him. Intrigued, she made enquiries of the gardener and learned that his son had lost both hands on his majesty’s service, which was not strictly true, and entertained my intrusive questions with patience and good humour. As far as it was possible for a small child to love a complete stranger, I loved the man with two hooks. He was kind to me and told me stories about his own boyhood, waving his hooks for emphasis. He was patient with my fascination for his disability and demonstrated several times how his equipment funstioned and was operated. He had no idea that he was laying the foundations for my own body image.

 

My mother was intrigued to meet the gardener’s disabled son for herself and made a request to the old man that he should inform her in advance when next he expected a visit from his son. As an excuse, she mentioned that the young man had been spending time with me. She said no more and the old man was struck with misapprehension. However, he need not have worried. A week later, the son paid his father an unannounced visit and learned then that the lady of the house, my mother, had expressed a wish to chat with him. Equally unannounced, he approached the tradesman’s entrance at the side of the building and rang the bell. It being Saturday morning, the housekeeper was in town arranging the next week’s food deliveries. My mother glanced at her watch as if to confirm that she was alone in the house and would have to answer the door herself. She rose from her chore, answering emails, and went to the kitchen to see her caller.

 

Naturally enough, she realised instantly who the caller was. As I know only too well, it is almost impossible to disguise bilateral hooks for more than a minute or two at the best of times.

          – Good morning, ma’am. My name is Trowan, Fred Trowan.

          – Ah, of course! The gardener’s son. Do come in.

They sat facing each other across the large kitchen table and my mother presently busied herself by brewing a pot of tea. She was a little flustered, as she later explained. Fred was even taller than his father and was blessed with golden blond hair rather than the ginger blond common to his family. He was a good‑looking man and my mother found him alluring. He had allowed his beard and moustache to grow since boyhood. His whiskers grew straight and orderly and his beard complimented his profile. This much my mother has revealed about their first meeting. She was a recent divorcée and it would be unfair to accuse her of searching for a lover but she was grateful for the distraction provided by the tea things while she collected her thoughts, nervously watching Fred toying with the tips of his steel hooks, a tic which he has never lost. It would not come amiss to refer to their first encounter as promising. Fred has told me that he received my mother’s blessing to continue providing me with male companionship in the stead of my absent father. I am certain that Fred’s ever more frequent presence in our home made my own later amputations much less shocking than they might otherwise have been.

 

III

I shared a room during my first year with a dear friend, Peter Shaw, who later found renown as a naturalist and author. He had been born with a club foot which, incredibly, had not been corrected. Instead, Peter wore an ugly orthopaedic boot and a leg brace with a steel framework up to his knee. He had discovered the Dickensonian Method in a brochure, one of many which his parents had ordered during Peter’s last year at junior high. Peter was tempted by the opportunity to have his disability corrected by the simple removal of his deformed foot but the more he learned about the Method, the greater his fetishistic desire for more severe amputations became.

 

All the junior pupils were interviewed by senior students whose job it was to ferret out youngsters willing to lose a limb or two in order to maintain the steady flow of fresh amputees needing the prosthetic limbs which were the Dickensonian College’s main source of outside income. Peter and I were interviewed together. No‑one was surprised at his request to have his deformed foot amputated. He was promised a wooden leg with a hinged knee and a full‑length leather socket. This was clearly overkill but Peter was ecstatic at the idea of wearing a genuine wooden leg actually made of wood at the ripe old age of twelve. I was less forward than Peter. In fact, I felt intimidated by the much older students who seemed to wield my future body in their hands, some of which were artificial. I admitted to a life‑long desire to use steel hooks instead of hands. My explanation caused some merriment among the older students. Life‑long from an eleven year old probably meant five or six years. But they soon resumed their rôles and we arranged to have first my right hand disarticulated from the wrist before Christmas. I would be spending Christmas at home with a 3D‑printed cosmetic hand and would wear it until the new year’s budget kicked in. I would receive an artificial arm, the design of which was not yet decided. Peter and I were sent back to our room, both of us too stunned to talk. Regardless of how much you pined for an artificial limb, it was a momentous prospect to realise that it was actually going to happen.

 

I became, for whatever reason, more interested in the digs going on not far from our home. The county council had received a grant for further excavations on a site which had recently been discovered to be considerably more ancient than Roman. On my first hols after losing my right hand, Fred took me for a five mile round trip to see the old ruins and the explanatory panels erected around the site to explain to taxpayers what was going on, what had been found and why it was important. We also talked about my stump and my cosmetic hand. Fred was very proud of my determination to have my left hand off after my right stump had healed and I had my first hook. I learned so much from him in those weeks, most of all confidence that regardless of how helpless I felt without hands, my hooks would always be ready and waiting to take their place, as long as I had the patience to master them. And there was always the one thing which could never be taken away. I would always be seen immediately as a hook using bilateral amputee. I would always be the centre of attention wherever I went because of people’s natural curiosity and fascination with amputation, quite regardless of whom I was with. Even if I walked down the red carpet at the Oscars with the most beautiful actress in the world, all eyes would be on my steel hooks. I looked up at Fred’s face smiling through his thick walrus moustache. He nodded and I knew it was so. I had recently begun to notice that my willy often began to grow stiff when I thought or talked about my new stump. I thought there was something wrong with me and never dared mention it to anyone.

 

IV

The college received its annual budget with a ten percent increase. This year there would be more new amputees, or maybe there would be more artificial limbs. At the start of the Easter half term, I was summoned to the Prosthetarium, where they made the artificial limbs. This year leatherwork was the main theme. All artificial limbs would feature as much moulded and shaped leather as possible. My stump was measured and praised as a perfect example of a residual limb suitable for a long conical leather socket with matching cuff and harness. It seemed so much trouble to go to in order to replace a few missing fingers but my future hook needed to be seated firmly which in turn required secure bracing on my arm stump. The only possible replacement for missing tendons was a steel cable like a bike brake running up my entire arm and fixed to a ring on my shoulder harness in the middle of my back. I had to wear a loop in my left armpit to hold the harness in place. I had all this explained to me by one of the older students who already used a hook. He showed me his harness and cables. But he seemed bitter and I did not really pay much attention. I wished Fred had shown me his artificial arms but I had never seen more than his hooks poking out from his shirt sleeves.

 

I saw my new arm several times during its manufacture when I visited the Pro for a fitting. There were many fittings. I suppose it was because most of the students in the Prosthetarium were new and unwilling to progress too far with work which might not fit properly. This term, all arm sockets were to be manufactured from moulded leather and a thick sheet of chocolate brown leather was the only available source. The contrast with the steel fittings was beautiful and the great advantage of leather was that it could be reshaped within reason by the mere application of steam and pressure. All the sockets were roughly cylindrical without any attempt to imitate the underlying musculature. As a result, the artificial arms looked shockingly stark and primitive. They were technically perfect, as were all the prosthetic limbs supplied at the Dickensonian. As a teaching college, teams of students competed to excel in manufacturing the best possible prostheses of whatever type had been selected. For example, the previous term had specialised in manufacturing artificial legs from aluminium sheeting for both above and below knee amputees. The design was ninety years old and relied on elastic to control the knee mechanisms. Several senior students had competed amongst themselves for the honour of collecting their diplomas on two new tin legs, two of them receiving the parchment and shaking the Dean’s cosmetic artificial hand with a hook. No cosmetic hooks were produced at the Prosthetarium but the Dean was one of the few men allowed an exception.

 

However, I digress. I was tremendously excited to take ownership of my first artificial limb, marking me as it did as a member of an exclusive brand of men whose bodies varied in some mysterious way from the norm. This, I believe, is the core of the fascination with artificial limbs. They not only replace a missing limb, they also disguise the stump, the alien appendage which embodies the mysterious desire for discovery. I was enchanted by the appearance of the entire prosthesis and its dark chocolate leather, none of which was visible beneath the banal appearance of my coat sleeves. Only my new steel hook was visible and as I discovered on my first forays into the public realm after learning to operate it, people mainly ignored it. Some noticed and turned their heads. One in a hundred noticed early and watched me advancing towards them with excitement and embarrassment, their eyes flicking between my hook and my face. These were the admirers, potential friends or potential stalkers. I felt hugely empowered by my new ability to influence people’s behaviour by my mere presence. You must remember my tender age. I was twelve years old, a young elective amputee with a fetish for stumps and artificial limbs. I was at a school which specialised in prosthetics. You usually had to be an amputee to even get accepted, although there were exceptions like myself who were taken in on condition that they conform with the general ambience soon after arrival. As far as I can remember, I was the first in my class to lose an arm at the Dickensonian although there were two prior arm amputees, and certainly the first to receive one of the new ninety year old artificial arm designs. As I have mentioned before, my growing puberty was making its influence known and I spent as much time as I could alone with my artificial arm both on and off my stump, using its soft artificial leather socket or cold steel hook to manipulate my penis until I soon ejaculated.

 

I was impatient to undergo a second amputation, giving me identical disarticulations at my wrists. However, during the following spring term, I fell ill and was compelled to return home to convalesce. My mother and father were both absent during the daylight hours and I was tended to by my friend Fred. He had a key and dropped in every so often during the day to see how I was. He let me get up for a few minutes because it was so boring to be stuck in bed all the time and it was during one of these interludes that I gathered enough bravado to ask Fred if I could see his artificial arms. I was intrigued partly because I wanted to compare my own leather arm with what Fred wore. He simply pulled his green polo sweater up and over his head and for the first time in over five years, I saw Fred’s artificial arms in their entirety. They were both black with tan coloured cuffs around his upper arms. His harness was canvas but it was discoloured with use. The sockets were scratched and worn grey in places, his hooks were also scratched and the rubber bands which made them closed were different colours and grubby. Despite all these defects, I thought Fred looked even more handsome than before. His artificial arms looked even more manly and virile than if he had had the arms of Superman or Tarzan. I stared at them for several seconds before I said something like I expected them to be different somehow.

          – All hooks are more or less the same, son. They all work the same way. Your socket is leather and mine is carbon but they work the same to hold our hooks at the tip and the same old cable runs up our arms to the ring around the back. How are you getting on with it?

          – Fine. I can wear it most of the day now without it making me sore.

          – You need to be careful about that. As soon as you feel like it’s uncomfortable, take it off. There’s no point in making your stump bleed from a blister which takes a week to heal. You are a new amputee now and you have to learn how a stump is different from an ordinary hand and arm.

          – Did it take you long, Fred?

          – No, not really. I was just little when my accident happened so I don’t really remember it very well. Or at all, really. Are you OK, now? Is there anything else you want to ask about being an amputee? You know you can ask me anything. I don’t mind.

          – No, I can’t think of anything at the moment. But I will if I think of something.

          – Good lad. I better get back to work now. I’ll call in again before it gets dark. Try to get some sleep.

I climbed back into bed and let Fred rearrange my blankets with his hooks. After he closed my bedroom door, I rubbed my willy with my wrist stump and imagined how it would feel to have two long arm stumps.

 

V

I returned to school more knowledgeable about prosthetic arms thanks to Fred and naturally enough to my own experiences with my leather arm. During that late spring term, three other fellow students disappeared for two or three weeks, only to reappear with a freshly bandaged arm stump. The Prosthetarium had given out an edict that in order to maintain the required curriculum, more volunteers were required in the near future, preferably before the summer hols, in order to maintain the level of teaching required during the autumn term. I was becoming adept with my chocolate leather arm and naïvely put my name forward for the elective amputation of my left hand to match my right. However, my application was rejected outright. The rules had changed. No more below elbow amputations were to be performed that term, nor during the next school year which would concentrate on lower limbs. If I wanted an amputation of my left hand, my entire lower arm would have to go with it. The only option available to me was a so‑called above elbow amputation and I would be left with a stump poking out of my shoulder which I could wave around or hide away inside the socket for an artificial arm which would extend from my shoulder to the tips of my new steel hook. I remember gripping my rejection letter in my hook and shaking it in the faces of half a dozen classmates, all of whom said So what? Go for it! And so on their advice I became a bilateral amputee.

 

VI

In retrospect, I was premature. Everyone who knew me knew that I was smitten by the desire to advance to the phase in which my upper body movements were mechanical. They all assumed I wanted to be an android, according to the usual description. But I simply wanted to be an amputee skilled at using artificial arms instead of biological hands. I believe that by the time of my first amputation, my mother had already revealed my obsessions to Fred. It explained his almost continual presence in our home whenever I was there rather than at school. I thought, not unreasonably, that he was there to provide companionship and act as an mentor when I struggled with my ever more demanding voluntary disability. It seemed to me that I struggled but Fred let it all pass him by. By my fourteenth birthday, more than a year after my left upper arm amputation, I was ready to challenge my mentor and brother from another mother. We were thick as thieves. Fred often spend entire evenings in our home. He  taught me how to brew cider and my first drunk was with him, both our hooks clattering ever more uselessly against our glasses. We went on long walks together. All the time we were bonding. I still regarded him as a role model and as I grew older, I realised that there was perhaps not such a huge age difference between us. I began to think of him as the brother I had never had, someone I could share my uncertain feelings about growing up without a male figure I could rely on.

          – Don’t be silly. You’ve been able to rely on me ever since you were little.

          – I know. I didn’t mean it that way.

          – How did you mean it, then?

          – I mean, like, I always wanted to have hooks when I saw you for the first time. That’s when I knew that I wanted to be exactly like you.

          – Are you sure? Wasn’t it the other way around? You didn’t know anything about hooks until you saw me for the first time. Then suddenly you decided that you wanted to have arms like mine.

          – I… I’m not sure. I can’t remember.

          – And you’ve already gone farther than me with your full length arm. Are you going to make your right arm a copy of your left?

          – Do you think I should? Would you do it?

          – No, I wouldn’t. You’ve known me for many years. You’ve seen how I use my hooks. It’s taken me twenty years to get this good, see? Why would I want to ruin all that just for the fun of getting new amputations? No, mate, there’s no sense in it. But as for you—you could do whatever you want. You could stay as you are with one proper artificial arm…

          – You mean the long one?

          – I do. And one long stump without a hand, or you could get rid of that and have another proper stump in its place.

          – You think I should have my long stump off?

          – A hook is a hook, mate. It doesn’t matter how long your stumps are. It all looks the same and with a bit of practice, you can learn to use the hooks, regardless of what your stumps look like. And when you have your artificial arms and sockets on, it doesn’t matter if your stumps are long or short or smooth or gnarly after an accident. You look the same and everyone admires you and watches you using your hooks like they use their hands and they think, I wish I could be like him.

          

I needed no more encouragement. With Fred’s reassuring words and the Prosthetarium’s urging, I underwent the removal of my right stump to match my short left. I had just turned fourteen and absolutely everything seemed to turn me on. I walked around with a permanent erection. My empty right sleeve was tolerated by the Dicksonian for about six weeks, after which I was fitted with a prosthesis to match my left.

 

I had been at the peak of my disability since I submitted to losing my right stump. I had no fondness for it nor did I believe that an artificial replacement would be anything other than an aesthetic improvement. Indeed, facing myself in a full‑length mirror with my sleeves hanging down and the glint of steel at their cuffs, I felt a wave of mature masculine power wash over me. I was fourteen and a half, had a permanent erection and two steel hooks which I was quickly learning how to manipulate along my shaft. Many nights I wore my artificial arms to bed in the hope that I would awaken after an hour of two with a boner which needed the tender care available only from a pair of hooks. My elbows were non‑existent. I squirmed around, trying to persuade my insensate prostheses to come to rest in my crotch. Then I had the opportunity of twisting my shoulders to move my hooks back and forth at random. I was never able to manipulate my penis physically to orgasm with the hooks on my long prostheses but the simple knowledge that I was a bilateral amputee and that I was wearing deficient replacements which I would rely on for everything for the rest of my life was overwhelming to my adolescent brain and I orgasmed time after time by simply changing my position in bed and feeling how my senseless carbon arms rearranged themselves into new positions against which I could chafe my cock and balls.

 

VII

I became quite a star amongst the older students. I was the only student in the college during those years who had voluntarily become a DAE, a double above elbow amputee. I wore disparate prostheses between when I was fifteen and seventeen. My disability was carefully studied by the older students who plied me with questions about everything ranging from how I buttoned a shirt to how I prepared my food. I was often invited to an older student’s digs at the weekend for a bottle of wine and invited to remove my artificial arms. They were passed around among those present who admired the workmanship before being removed to a place which I could not possibly reach. For the rest of the evening, I sat among the leg amputees on the floor being plied with red wine. My short arm stumps were fondled, stroked, kissed, licked and otherwise admired. I was one of the favourites, someone who had dared to reverse his entire future from that of a healthy full bodied young man to an equally healthy double arm amputee who would always be regarded as inferior and disabled. Only another man who had voluntarily chosen to wear double artificial arms could appreciate the pain and triumph in mastering hooks and learning how to live with steel prongs instead of five fingers and a thumb. Nothing could ever beat the feeling when sliding a hook or both hooks along your tool nor increase the ecstasy on a lover’s face when caressing him with cool steel. These things were in the future for a fifteen year old sipping wine from a balloon glass held in front of his face by a grinning fellow student balancing carefully on two thigh stumps. But the promise of great exception was always present. It was one of the foundations of the assurance which Dickensonian students presented in real life. They had lost their natural limbs in favour of artificial versions and learned to love them. They were proud of their peg legs and hooks, just as I was when I graduated. I had fought against the temptations to gain leg stumps and collected my own diploma with natural legs and completely artificial arms. I had short arm stumps poking out of my shoulders and could wave them around but my elbows were gone, as were both forearms and obviously my hands. I was handless and had been so for my senior schooldays. Now was the time to confront the outside world as a bilateral arm amputee. I was determined to show it how I functioned with a pair of hooks.

 

VIII

This was a momentous summer. I had applied to several universities to read history earlier in the year and every day I expected a letter from any one of them accepting my application for further study. Nevertheless, I was continually disappointed. I grew antsy, not knowing what to do to pass the time. Even my mismatched artificial arms began to annoy me. I still had my first chocolate brown leather arm hanging from a wall hook in my old bedroom and I wished that my arms looked as handsome. Both of my arms were black carbon but the cuffs were different colours and the sockets did not match. The new left arm’s socket was completely cylindrical with no attempt to imitate the shape of a natural arm.

 

My father disappeared abroad after being thoroughly trounced in the divorce proceedings and their aftermath. My mother announced at the dinner table one evening when Fred was visiting that he had proposed to her and that she had accepted. Fred was about to become my step‑father. I was too surprised to speak, although I may have said Congratulations. My mother was eleven years older than Fred, who in turn was eleven years older than me. I was eighteen, he was twenty‑nine and mother was an eternal thirty‑nine. Sometimes I wonder about my mother and the unbelievable way her life had delivered her a disabled son and a disabled husband, both encumbered with bilateral hooks. She would never enjoy the pleasure of warm male hands touching her cheek or flirtatiously resting on her thigh under a table.

 

I gained access to an admirable sum of money when I reached eighteen. The money was and still is held in trust, gaining compound interest on which I could easily live, if necessary. In order to improve my morose mood due to the lack of news about a place at uni, I decided to invest some cash in a matching pair of artificial arms with all the bells and whistles. My stumps no longer felt part of my body. Instead of my artificial arms gradually beginning to feel part of myself, the opposite happened. I felt like an automaton. My stumps played little to no rôle in operating my arms. They were mere appendages on which to fix my carbon arms. I saw them only when I dressed or undressed and was used to holding them in a forward position when I slept so they would not become tangled in my bedclothes. I was unsure about the type of prostheses which would best suit my purposes. I was about to enter university, so I hoped. I would certainly be the only bilateral amputee on campus and I wanted to peacock a little with a spectacular pair of artificial arms which would attract one or two admirer friends and keep the women at bay.

 

I spent several weeks fretting about my arms. I knew I wanted both arms to cover my skin as completely as possible. I did not want a glimmer of my stumps to show, so the cuffs had to go. I would be using bilateral sockets which would hide my stumps from shoulder to tip. My artificial forearms could indeed be mere cylinders. I had begun to appreciate the additional attraction of emphasising the artificiality of my arms. It was futile to attempt imitating male forearms. The wrist mechanisms were hemispherical from which my hooks extended. They were equipped with optional additions allowing me to rotate and alter the angle of my hooks, giving me easier access to my flies and genitals. I found this aspect of technology especially arousing. But the initial frustration remained. I knew what I needed but could not imagine what I wanted.

 

I spoke about my frustration with Fred one Saturday morning. Mother had gone to town to see about wedding arrangements and Fred and I were left without supervision. He disappeared into our kitchen cellar for a few moments and shortly reappeared with six pints of home‑made cider. They were sealed with crown corks and Fred knew how to swipe them off with a hook. It was a good trick for a man with below elbow amputations and not something I could ever expect to do myself. After half an hour, we were both feeling the benefit and giggling like schoolboys. I explained, or more truthfully, complained about my current arms.

 

Fred was as supportive as ever. He commended me on achieving a fine symmetrical body image. He assured me that my stumps were perfectly proportioned and that I should have no compunction about being seen without my prostheses in public. I do not know if Fred genuinely believed that. I do know that he values his half‑forearm stumps too highly to allow himself to think of a revision. I complained about my mismatching arms and despaired of starting at uni with prostheses I felt ashamed of. Feeling merry, Fred said I should have a look at the sort of arms youngsters were provided with back in the sixties. He had recently seen an educational army film in which a bilateral with stumps even shorter than mine had been kitted out with a pair of brown leather sockets and cuffs on both arms. The elbows were controlled by the old‑style mechanisms which required the amputee to jerk his prostheses to engage the elbow locks before he could operate his hooks. I said that they sounded exactly like the sort of thing I was looking for and after searching through his entire viewing history for the past three weeks, he found the video and I watched in amazement as a guy my age received his first pair of artificial arms and began the torturous process of controlling them. I was fascinated by his machinations, jerking and twisting his arms, laboriously raising or lowering his cylindrical forearms before he could lock his elbows and concentrate on opening and closing the hooks. The arms looked superbly artificial and his movements looked utterly, painfully mechanical. I wanted to be as severely inconvenienced as the almost stumpless youngster in the film, who was certainly already years in the grave. Fred laughed at the choice I had to deliberately make myself more disabled, as if it had not been enough to gradually transform myself from a two handed boy into a one‑handed youngster, a bilateral teenager and an armless adult. I still had two arm stumps which I ignored, using them only as ruined flesh from which to suspend the complicated apparatus necessary for my hooks. The black carbon arms hung straight when I walked, giving me an unintentional additional aura of disability.

 

IX

They warned me beforehand that the marriage would be performed by a magistrate in as inconspicuous a manner as possible. This meant, explained my mother, that she would prefer not to have me present in order to avoid the notoriety associated with a new bride and her most two important bilateral amputee men sandwiching her and peacocking with steel hooks. Mother understood both of her men perfectly well and learned to spot the difference between Fred, especially, using his hooks normally and Fred deliberately displaying his conspicuous glittering hooks for attention and sympathy. I willingly agreed. I had no desire to invest in a formal suit even for my mother’s wedding. As fate would have it, the first reply from a university arrived during the afternoon of the wedding and the happy couple returned home to find me in an even happier mood. I had been accepted to Balliol Oxford to read history from mid‑September. It was a three year course and I would be qualified for a huge variety of positions throughout the land in work where a pair of muscular arms was the very least of the physical requirements. We all congratulated each other with copious amounts of champagne and when mother retired shortly before ten pleading exhaustion, Fred and I rescued a few more bottles of cider from the cellar and eventually fell asleep in our clothes in the early hours. Mother discovered us in the morning, alerted by the soundtrack of the eighty year old film stuck on repeat showing a skinny armless ex‑soldier receiving his very first pair of artificial arms with their pristine chrome fittings and unmarked leather surfaces.

 

There was no time for me to be fitted with new prostheses before I headed off to Oxford. In the days following my acceptance, replies dribbled in from Aberystwyth, Edinburgh and Exeter, all of which I binned with pleasure, although I would have gladly attended courses at any one of them. They were and remain fine universities. I came to some kind of compromise with my disparate prostheses by the simple removal of the right prosthesis from my harness. I would arrive at Oxford as a one‑armed freshman. I favoured my left prosthesis because it looked so completely artificial in colour and form. My thinking had its own peculiar logic. If I became adept at using a single hook, acquiring a pair of unsophisticated arms like those in the video would feel like an improvement. If however I swapped directly to the old‑style arms, I would probably feel dissatisfied with them. I wanted to become obviously severely disabled to my fellow students, of course, but I also wanted to be capable of undertaking everything I attempted, although that list was considerably shorter than it had been. For example, I had no intention of shaving after my arrival. I had never grown a beard before and wished to compare my own prowess with my step‑dad’s handsome whiskers. Fred had always had a beard, every since he was a teenager. I do not believe he had ever shaved, simply because of the inconvenience of doing so with stumps.

 

I rented digs in town above a haberdashery and opposite a gentlemen’s bespoke tailor. I believe I never saw a customer enter or leave either establishment in the years I lived there, nor did the window display alter in any way. I applied for and received a student grant, not because I needed it but because it allowed me to gauge the finances and budgets of my fellow students. I did not live vicariously. For my first semester, I was polite to all and sundry but not overly sociable. I believe I was the only amputee on campus, certainly the only upper limb amputee. I relied solely on my left arm prosthesis and allowed my right jacket sleeve to hang empty. I wore short‑sleeved shirts which revealed a glimpse of naked stump on occasion. I had few acquaintances and made no friends. The unaccustomed solitude suited me. I was able to concentrate on my studies and ponder my future. I came to a decision that I would do well in the teaching profession. I would teach history. It was a safe subject, being mainly settled and not subject to major upheavals. I could start a two year teacher’s course during my third year, meaning that I would be at Balliol for a year longer than originally intended.

 

Much to my surprise, I fared far better than expected with a single hook. I became adept at the unnatural motions needed to operate the mechanical elbow. I realised that my glossy black carbon arm with its skinny cylindrical forearm was distasteful and distracting to many of my peers. I kept my tweed jacket with its leather shoulder and elbow patches on and allowed the right sleeve to hang loose.

 

However, I had not forgotten about the new pair of old‑fashioned arms with obsolete mechanical elbows and rigid leather sockets which I had almost ordered the previous summer. I had other things on my mind, not least of all the new super‑disabled rôle I purposely adopted. I made the necessary lifestyle changes to my routines in order to accommodate the capabilities of my single hook and took pleasure in discovering that I gradually became increasingly proficient at negotiating my way with a single prosthesis. After returning in the new year, I decided to put off my imminent order for a new pair of arms. I would remain one‑armed for the entire history course. Only after graduation, when I was studying to become a teacher, might I decide to gain a second hook. I could easily use the right prosthesis which was hanging in my closet at home but I planned to treat myself to a superb pair of leather arms during the intervening period and return to Oxford sporting a luxurious pair of artificial arms equipped with rotating wrists and pronating hooks operated by clashing against metal tabs on the sockets and the mechanical elbows operated by jerking my hidden stumps backwards to engage my control cables to lower and raise the elbows or to open my hooks. I would relearn to have two arms again and become proficient at the mechanical dance every bilateral above‑elbow amputee needed to learn. It sounded so officious. For me, a man who had preferred to become severely disabled in order to present himself publicly as a successful hook user, there was no greater feeling of accomplishment than studying my naked body in my full‑length bedroom mirror each morning after donning my single artificial arm. My right arm was gone, the remaining stump useless, unwanted. My left stump was invisible, useful only for the most minimal of movements. I had full movement available from both shoulders but the weight and construction of my artificial arms negated any motion they might have suited. Feeling myself so utterly helpless and reliant on a piece of equipment which I had fetishised for as long as I could remember, I stared at the contrast between stump and artificial arm and waited patiently for my powerful erection to subside to a more comfortable level before stepping into my underwear.

 

X

And so it continued. I did make friends in my second year. I was always the elder partner. At last I found an outlet for my need to display myself to another man or men who appreciated my crippledom or some aspect of it. Many successful associations began with a comprehensive explanation of exactly how I controlled my artificial arm and how the hook worked. It might have been tedious except for the bright eyes of the pretty boys my disability enticed. I was once driven to such frenzy by one young suitor that I began to beat his head with my stumps in ecstasy. I was so frustrated by my lack of hands that I ejaculated three times within an hour. This remains my personal best.

 

I renewed my rental agreement twice more before reluctantly relinquishing my apartment. I had been granted digs on campus and a small group of friends carried my belongings and sparse furniture bodily along the High Street to my new digs in a disciplined line to the occasional applause of other students who realised instantly what was happening. I trailed along behind with a bulging rucksack. I was impatient to have my stuff reassembled as quickly as possible and to make a break for the freedom of a rural summer at home with nothing more on the agenda than attending fittings for the most excellent pair of leather arms which I had hankered after for years. Kitted out with a sleek pair of new arms, I would have an entire year to become two hooked again in readiness to present myself as a comparatively conventional new teacher of history in whatever educational facility deemed me suitable.

 

I had noticed before the greater ease between my mother and my step‑father but that summer was my longest vacation before I started my career and the three of us spent much of the time in a giddy whirl of days out, daytrips or picnics. It was like a lifetime of the best days of your life all rolled into six weeks or so. For me, it was wonderful to see Fred so often. He was in his mid‑thirties and he was astonishingly handsome. His physical work kept his belly trim and his legs muscular. His artificial arms changed little. He rarely deliberately drew attention to them. There was little point. On the rare occasions when my mother was absent, we rushed to make love as only severely disabled men know how, thrusting our stumps into the air with frustration and joy of physical freedom, rejoicing in the eternal absence of hands and appreciating the eroticism of naked stumps. It seems futile to describe. Fred used his stumps to hold me firm while building pressure to challenge my arsehole while my own pathetic stumps beat mercilessly against the bedding in frustration. Even after donning my carbon arms, it took many hours of wearing hooks to release the pent‑up eroticism of having no hands. These were the times when I was most appreciative of being so much more disabled than Fred. I know he noticed my ecstasy but we have never spoken or compared what we feel about our stumps when we are together. All too soon, mother returned to find her men casually sauntering about the house or together in the kitchen preparing coffee for the three of us.

 

Fred encouraged me to finally engage a prosthetist with the skill to make the old‑style arms I had planned, assuming I still wanted them. I certainly did and after several messages to and fro, Fred drove me to Langley just outside Windsor where a company which had specialised in various prosthetics for the now defunct film industry had managed to continue by producing, amongst other things, unconventional artificial limbs for both cinematic and public purposes. Even after having refined my designs and desires for several years, I was enthused to new heights after meeting a couple of prosthetists with a combined experience of sixty years in upper limb prostheses for both actors and genuine amputees. I explained what I wanted and showed photos of the old mechanical arms I had set my heart on. Both men understood completely and assured me that regardless of the final appearance of my arms, the ancient elbow mechanisms which relied so much on physical movement to operate correctly were very much still in private production and available for any amputee with the desire for a ‘good old work‑out’. I stated that I was most interested in mastering the mechanisms as a double amputee because, as a teacher, I regarded my victory over my obvious disability as an enticement to my young students to take courage from my example and follow me in achieving their own amputations and artificial limbs.

 

Five weeks later, I was delivered of a set of artificial arms the likes of which had never been seen before. I had insisted that the sockets should not be cylindrical. Instead they were conical. The wrists were not hemispherical. They were flat and the hooks extended from them in the most unnatural fashion. There was not the slightest attempt to emulate natural forms. The sockets were deep maroon leather with cream leather inlays in the shape of traditional shields. They featured on both arms symmetrically and contained my initials. I was provided with four sets of hooks which I might select at any time for any socket. I was intrigued by the inclusion of static hooks, large curving hooks which might be useful only to wear in order to fill an otherwise empty sleeve.

 

The new arms were as expensive as they were exclusive. Fred was hugely impressed. I was overwhelmed at finally having reached my ideal shape of manhood. I was twenty‑four years old, armless, virile, fit and equipped with the most elegant artificial arms I had ever seen. Anyone with the slightest appreciation of prosthetics would be overcome with envy at the sight of them. Mother said she was reminded of the exclusivity of the old Pullman trains because of their livery. The flat steel wrists into which my hooks attached meant that my sockets held sleeves open to the maximum extent before my hooks appeared in their naked glory. From that day forward, I wore two artificial arms again, this time with pride at their beauty and with appreciation of the precision which ensured the correct mechanical response after accurate physical contortions. My arms were difficult to use at first but I was determined to master them. Fred watched me attempting time after time to control my elbows, desperate to help but unable to advise. Thoughtful amputees never encourage each other with platitudes such as ‘you can do it’. Some of us never learn. Some of us remain disabled despite the expense of artificial limbs. ‘You can do it’ becomes a taunt. It is better to remain quiet.

 

XI

Equipped with two hooks extending from my sleeves, I returned to Oxford and took up residence in my new apartment. This year, I would adopt a new persona. I was intensely proud of my leather sockets and determined to show them off as much as possible. My short‑sleeved shirts were perfect and I removed my jacket in all classes so other students could appreciate the professionalism and beauty of my artificial arms and hooks. I assumed that at the age of twenty‑four, my fellow students might be mature enough to tolerate the sight of artificial limbs but once again I remained in solitude. Having moved from town onto campus, I was also isolated from the few students who had formed a liaison last year and who still lived in town. I was frustrated at feeling rejected and alone, although I did realise that it was because of decisions which I had purposefully made myself. There was no‑one else to be angry at. With two functioning hooks again, I dared explore the social side of the town and discovered the watering holes of certain discrete bands of students who regularly met for mental freedom from the norm. It was a facet of university life which I had never experienced and I was excited by the prospect of finding a commune which might accept me for regular meetings and drinks each Friday evening in some ancient inn. Once again, either my hooks or my extreme age led to my exclusion. I became rather bitter, not only towards my so‑called peers but also towards myself. My last year of teaching college was easy enough to comprehend but I was beset with difficulties in accepting myself as an individual suitable for teaching when I could not even make and keep a single friend. I was afraid I had no social skills whatsoever and that I would never be able to relate to a year of eager young students or teach them anything about the subject I loved. Many times I sat in my tiny rooms and beat my sockets against my legs in frustration.

 

I had much time for introspection during that last Balliol year. The teaching course featured little new material. I had been in education most of my life and regarded myself as au fait with the subject. I remained alone and friendless for the remainder of my time. Unsurprisingly, I came to the conclusion that I would thrive only in an environment such as the Dickensonian where physical attributes were regarded more highly than elsewhere. I gathered as much chutzpah as possible from my meagre reserves and sent an impromtu application to the Dean, informing him of my imminent graduation as a fully fledged professor of history. Several days later, I received a letter on paper thanking me for my communication and requesting patience while formalities were attended.

 

I had been awarded with my diploma by Balliol and was already becoming anxious about my situation. I should move from my digs as soon as possible but without a position somewhere, I was stuck in limbo. I certainly did not want to return home to intervene in my mother’s and Fred’s peaceful life. Out of the blue, I was informed that an interview was scheduled for the first Monday afternoon in August and that I was welcome to stay at the Dickensonian overnight if I so wished. I took this as an omen, one which bade well.

 

The Dean received me like an old friend rather than as a potential future colleague. He complimented me on my grandiose facial hair and admired my artificial arms, the likes of which were rarely seen at the Dickensonian. Almost as a by‑the‑by, the Dean quickly reviewed my CV and assured me that I was most welcome to join the history department from mid‑September. I was offered digs on site and accepted them with alacrity. I much preferred to surround myself with the familiar rather than put myself through the stress of renting rooms elsewhere. I returned to Oxford for the time it took to arrange removals and two weeks later, my few pieces of furniture and my books were carefully transported to my future apartment. On the first evening there, I stood in front of the first floor sitting room window looking out over the Forties and felt I had come home. For the first time in many years, I felt genuinely satisfied with life. I believed I knew what the future might hold for me and I was content with it.

 

XII

The Fates held other plans. I settled into teaching well enough. I was disconcerted by the age gap between myself and even the oldest students. I was perfectly aware of the camaraderie between certain members of each class I taught and I longed to join the most promising but such familiarity was strictly frowned upon and not to be entered into. I felt at ease with the older students, possibly because many of them reminded me of myself at that age, awkwardly struggling with new artificial limbs which never quite seemed to obey properly. As always, the sixth form classes featured a sexual undercurrent as natural male friendship blended with genuine admiration and stump envy. By the end of the first term, I found myself the focus of a tall one‑legged student’s attention, one Andrew Holden. He sat in the front row to accommodate his peg leg, of an elegant fluted design acquired two years previously from the Prosthetorium. I checked out of curiosity. We had little in common. He participated in disabled athletics, peacocked as often as possible to display his peg in formal trousers with a leg shortened and was generally popular with his peers for his handsome face and burgeoning Zapata moustache. His grey eyes followed mine and when I caught his gaze during a lecture, I felt my knees weaken. Against all conventional wisdom and common sense, I was falling in love with a student. He was seventeen, still a minor. I was almost twenty‑six, lonely and increasingly desperate for company. I was the youngest professor by far. The next in order of age was fifteen years my senior, a professor of mathematics. He boasted two Symes amputations and occasionally wore narrow cylindrical leather boots instead of leg prostheses. Unfortunately, I was not impressed. His footless boots were intriguing but I favoured upper limb amputations, or bilateral leg amputations at the very least. I was not a leg man, not at that time.

 

We entered another new year in much the same fashion. University life rarely undergoes great change and old habits, old traditions, remain for decades and even centuries long after their origins have been forgotten. The taboo concerning relationships between masters and pupils was and remains common throughout the land, which makes what follows so controversial.

 

I was revising my notes for the next day’s lecture on Cicero when I started. It sounded like someone was gently but insistently tapping at my door. I tried to imagine what the noise could be and decided to ignore it. It must be coming from the walls. But it continued for another twenty or so seconds and so I rose and approached my door.

          – Who’s there? Is there anyone there?

The tapping stopped immediately. A low baritone voice, very close to the door, murmured in reply.

          – It’s Andrew, sir. Let me in!

Andrew? I thought quickly. Oh god, it was the boy with the peg leg and piercing eyes! We must not be seen together! I opened the door, hooks clattering against the lock and announcing to my neighbours that I had company. Andrew thrust his peg leg into the half open door and slid inside. Before the door was shut, he gripped my upturned face and thrust his fingers through my beard to cradle my face holding it firm while pressing his lips against mine and his tongue into my mouth. I flapped my stumps helplessly. The cables slapped against the sockets. I was helpless until Andrew released me and I kicked the door shut.

          – How dare you! What do you think you…

Again he pulled me to him and I relaxed. He was stronger than I and his stance was firm. I suddenly allowed myself to enjoy the intimacy. I had pined for company for so many years. It arrived from the most unexpected direction and immediately revealed how severely disabled I was. Instead of repeating his kiss, he cradled my head against his chest and lowered his own onto my crown. I felt safe, secure, loved, and I became intensely aware of my lack of arms. I wanted to hug Andrew but my stumps were too weak to lift my prostheses and I allowed them to remain inert hanging uselessly against Andrew’s back. I have no idea how long Andrew’s embrace lasted. One eternity, two? Eventually he disengaged himself and placed his hands on my upper arms. I could feel his body heat on my stumps.

          – Come inside, Andrew. We can’t stand here all night.

 

I had intended to remonstrate at least a little at being molested against my will as a severely disabled victim of dismemberment but I reconsidered after realising that I had chosen to return to a college notorious for fostering the sexual aspects of multiple amputations and prosthetic limbs in an exclusively masculine environment. Andrew sank into my only armchair while I sat on a dining chair facing him.

          – Don’t worry, sir. I just had my eighteenth birthday. I’m an adult now!

          – Thank heavens for that. Congratulations, Andrew. Look, you can’t call me sir. Call me Homer.

          – Like the poet, sir?

          – Yes, Andrew, like the poet.

If Andrew had mentioned the Simpsons, I swear he would have left very shortly after.

          – It’s a difficult name to shorten, isn’t it, Homer sir?

          – It is. What shall I call you?

          – Andrew is fine, or Andy. I don’t mind.

          – Alright, Andrew. Tell me first of all what you are doing here. What made you knock at my door tonight?

          – I wanted to tell you that now we can be together. The law says we can be together now.

          – That’s only what the law says. But the college has its own rules. We could both be expelled.

          – That’s ridiculous. There are loads of teachers who have relations with the sixth formers. Everyone knows.

          

It was true enough. Everyone did know. I was desperate to keep our liaison secret and forbade Andrew from mentioning anything about what had just happened. He promised and said that he wanted us to see each other again for as long as possible so of course he would keep everything as secret as possible. And he did. I believe of all the current affairs on campus, ours was the only one which never became public knowledge. I did not speak of it, having no‑one else to confide in, and Andrew never boasted about it to his peers.

 

Andrew justified his love for me. He was infatuated by my beard, my sole external secondary sexual indicator. I still had a full head of hair and regarded myself as suitably hirsute. He was fascinated by my artificial arms and hooks. He loved to see hooks on another man. He had no interest in acquiring a pair for himself. He was much fascinated by leg stumps. His first was the one he used with his peg leg. He was completely infatuated with the idea of replacing something so mundane as a pair of legs with something as exciting and fascinating as a pair of peg legs. He already had one and revealed in a lowered voice, as if a third party were listening, that he already had an appointment to lose his lower right leg. I was horrified but he assured me that it was fine to have one leg off above the knee and the other off below. It would let him play around with a variety of artificial legs and peg legs and their combinations. I began to understand Andrew’s excitement, although double amputees from the Dickensonian were required to accept matching bilateral stumps almost without exception.

          – I want to keep a knee, see, Homer sir? It lets me walk upstairs, you see?

          – Yes, of course it does. Is that what you want, Andy? To be legless and always rely on artificial legs?

          – Yes, sir. And only peg legs. I want two peg legs, sir, more than anything else.

 

We spoke about our own amputations and prostheses until we were exhausted with endless repetitions of eroticism and sexual excitement. I described my old stumps before I progressed to my current flabby appendages which were more useless year by year. I would soon lose the ability to move my arms at all and would be reliant on prostheses with rigid shoulders. I would be unable to lift my arms, although my elbows would still be mobile. Andrew said the mere idea of seeing me so deeply disabled would drive him wild with desire. I made a mental note for my prosthetist. My Pullman arms still had many years ahead of them before they needed replacement but the next pair would definitely have a solid yoke across my shoulders leading to static upper arm sockets. With Andrew by my side, I might have no need of practical prostheses. Functioning arms came in many varieties. I could imagine myself wearing a pair with forearms I could raise and lower and hooks I could open and close. I would never be able to feed myself or dress myself. I would always be reliant on another man to help me. That evening, he undressed and sidled up against me, sucking on my stumps until I shouted for release. He turned his back to me and I sodomised this Adonis, this sudden lover soon to be legless and twice as desirable because of his disability.

 

XIII

Andrew became a familiar sight crossing the Forties from the centuries old apartments occupied by the teaching staff to the newer students’ block diagonally opposite. After the loss of his right lower leg, he peacocked on his solitary peg leg with wooden axillary crutches. He was supremely disabled. But a teenager’s flesh is malleable and heals quickly. Three months after losing his leg and with only a week to go before the school year terminated, Andrew was fitted with a replica of the last solid oak peg leg to be produced for a bilateral amputee miner in 1907. Andrew simply bent his knee and placed it on a cushioned shelf between two shafts leading up his thigh. The peg itself extended from below the knee shelf. Despite Andrew having his knee, the peg leg was quite rigid throughout its length and held his limb immobile. He was ecstatic with the complete artificiality of his mobility. His shorter thigh stump played no rôle in his mobility for his entire final school year. But privately, especially in my apartment, Andrew was perfecting a skill which would literally carry him forward. He was learning to walk on peg legs.

 

His athleticism was his saving grace. He had a superbly athletic body and his double amputations lent their own piquant redefinition of male beauty. Andrew crutched around the stadiums to which he qualified, quite unself‑conscious of the astonishing figure he presented to the public. His solitary peg leg, of a design not seen outside a Hollywood production for over a century, attracted attention from American bimboes and Swedish Atlases. He refused their attentions and returned to my weak artificial embrace for confirmation of his excellence.

Our friendship was already determined enough, cemented enough, and reassured enough to make our final decisions permanent. We pooled our money, although I pooled most of it, and purchased a ground‑floor apartment in a new block. We moved in two days after its completion and tested its suitability for an amputee couple. All the required additions and alterations were ready. Andrew finally had a place and time to allow himself the luxury of learning to operate two peg legs.

 

The dichotomy of his pegs was the most arresting thing about Andrew. The peg for his thigh stump was a slender aluminium pylon with a large rubber ferrule. It was rigid and extended horizontally when Andrew sat. The peg for his below knee amputation was conspicuous, bulky and ornate. The peg itself was ringed with superfluous fluting and bulged to meld with the base of the knee shelf. The shafts enveloping Andrew’s thigh were decorated with appliqué reliefs. The leatherwork was all stained black with bronze metalwork. The peg leg in its entirety looked heavy and awkward but its appearance was deceptive. It too was rigid throughout its length and remained horizontal when Andrew was seated. Worn together, there was an immediate sense of recognition that the slender pylon was artificial lasting only a moment before the subsequent shock of realising that the other leg was a skilfully crafted wooden peg leg. The two pegs really had no business being paired in such an unlikely combination, least of all because of the minuscule number of bilateral leg amputees who professed a desire to walk on two peg legs. Andrew insisted, saying that it was his way of expressing solidarity with his lover.

 

I was charmed and admit to making a conscious effort to improve the mastery I had over my hooks inspired by Andrew’s efforts to walk. In those early years of my bilateralism, I had learned to operate my arms. I was quite comfortable with the fact that there were many things which I did before which I could do no longer. I accepted it. But there were aspects of using artificial arms which I ignored and it was Andrew’s example which encouraged me to strive for better control and greater flexibility. I practised my movements until I could almost combine elbow and hook movements into a single flowing motion. I still had to deliberately pause and jerk to switch the primitive mechanism from one function to the other. I wanted to learn to control my arms well enough by muscle memory that they would begin to seem like parts of my own body rather than auxiliary parts which I strapped on against my will. Andrew’s presence in my life eased the difficulties any bilateral amputee faces.

 

We continued like this for several years. My mother was happy that I had found such a faithful friend as Andrew, although in truth, he found me. I sensed a little hesitancy from Fred who otherwise was as reliable and sociable as always. I know he would have loved to share our bodies like we used to but the risks were too great now with two partners to keep secrets from. I was grateful to Fred for noticing one Christmas that my table manners had improved. He was referring to the way I had finessed the way I handled the glassware which my hooks could theoretically hold. I had reached the pinnacle of my ability. It was the last winter I would use the ruddy leather prostheses which had served me well for a decade.

 

XIV

I began to feel both pain and general weakness in my stumps. My sockets and arms were comparatively heavy and I suspect that the continual strain of repeating the monotonous calisthenics to operate my arms led to the situation. I returned to my prosthetist and explained the new sensations.

          – I’m afraid to say that your stumps have taken too much of a beating. How old are you?

          – I’m forty‑one.

          – Yes, I see. You’ve been an amputee for most of your adult life, haven’t you?

          – Longer that. I lost my right hand at fourteen. And my left arm in its entirety soon after.

          – Most unfortunate but never fear. I propose that we manufacture a fresh set of arms for you which will not cause so much stress to your stumps. In fact, none at all.

          – Are you giving me rigid shoulders?’

          – That was my plan, yes. Have you anything against progressing to more rigid prostheses?

          – No, not really.

          – Don’t worry about it. The forearms and hooks can be quite lightweight, assuming you wish to continue with body‑powered prostheses.

          – I do.

          – So although your upper arms will be fused with your shoulders, we can design the lower arms in such a way that you will be able to manipulate object in front of you at waist level and bring food items to your mouth. You will notice a degree of increased disability but after so many years, I’m sure you are prepared for the psychological shock and will soon find a way back to your previous capabilities.

          – I see. Very well. Shall we start?

 

I was surprised to discover at my first fitting that the upper arms were separate. I had expected them to be connected to some kind of rigid yoke which I would wear across my shoulders but I was surprised to find that there was quite a good range of motion still available to me even when I was trussed up in the new prostheses. Andrew was going to have his work cut out for him donning and doffing my arms. I would have to learn to do it myself, of course, but it had always been Andrew’s responsibility to ensure that my arms were comfortable and efficient.

 

Andrew himself was of the opinion that I should not struggle against the obvious strains and pains which prolonged prosthetic use caused.

          – You shouldn’t forget that you’re severely disabled, Homer. It’s only natural your stumps are going to play up from time to time.

I looked up at him, balancing on his preposterously huge wooden peg leg. He lifted himself backwards on his crutches and repositioned his peg.

          – If it’s worth anything, I’m looking forward to seeing you with new arms that make life harder for you. It means I can do more and be with you more.

          – You have such a strange way of expressing yourself, Andrew.

          – I want your arms to be rigid little things with pincers at the end like a crab on the seashore. I want you to have the beautiful hands of a male model made of stiff rubber on stiff arms. I want you to have forearms made of silicone which look like genuine stumps.

          – Stop it, Andy. You’re making me erect.

          – Good. It’s time you started playing with your stumps and prosthetics again. You take them far too seriously.

          – And you do not?

          – Don’t be ridiculous.

Andrew laughed and swung himself towards the kitchen to check on something. I had never thought of having artificial stumps made of silicone but the idea was so enticing that I brought it up with the prosthetist when I collected my new arms.

          – I’m not sure I understand. You want artificial arms which look like stumps?

          – Yes, exactly. They should be soft and pliable like ordinary flesh and about the size and length of average below elbow stumps.

          – And you would wear them in place of your hooks, I assume?

          – Yes, of course.

          – Well, I’ve never heard of anything like that before, but of course, it is perfectly possible. Would you like to have these silicone arms detachable from your usual harness and prostheses or would you like us to make a new suspension?

          – Just make them interchangeable, if you would. My partner is used to making my alterations for me.

          – Very well.

 

I took delivery of my new arms and their associated auxiliary components a month later. The fit of the arms was perfection itself. My stumps were cushioned inside new upper arm sockets which curved generously up and around my shoulders, clinging in place with no effort on my part. The new forearms were merely four stiffly flexible spokes holding a mechanical wrist into which my hooks attached. The forearms weighed next to nothing and I had a new identical full set of the same hooks I had received years ago but made from a supremely lightweight aluminium alloy.

 

But the best was last. Two disturbingly realistic arm stumps lay on the prosthetist’s workbench. I was told the stumps were rigid and covered with five millimetres of pliable flesh‑toned silicone. For the first time in nearly two decades, I could be seen as a man missing his hands and sporting naked stumps instead. The silicone had a slightly glossy surface which reminded me of sweaty flesh. I was impatient to try them out and discover how they functioned together to grip objects, or even singly paired with a hook. I thanked my prosthetist and swung my right hook for him to shake in farewell. I returned home to show Andrew my stash.

 

XV

I adopted both the ultralight forearms with hooks and the silicone stumps as my regular prostheses. Andrew regarded it as his job to exchange one set for the other soon after I returned home from the Dickensonian each evening. Occasionally I wore one of the static hooks instead of a split hook for a little extra piquancy. I was enamoured of the surreal vision of myself which regarded me from the mirror. Both upper arms were encased in glossy black carbon sockets which restricted the use of my natural stumps. They were both weak and atrophied, useless for anything except for holding my prostheses in position. Below my artificial elbows, two muscular male arms appeared, cut tragically short above their wrists. I appreciated their weight compared with my hooks. The stumps had the additional advantage of allowing me full cable control directed solely toward my elbows. I had no need to switch control from elbow to hook because there was nothing attached to the stumps. They functioned together, gripping glasses or food items between their pliable tips. To all intents and purposes, they looked exactly like flesh and blood stumps and I loved having them. I had several jackets altered to suit my artificial stumps. The sleeves were cropped to allow exposure and I gradually adopted the persona of a man who had lost his hands rather than of a severely disabled voluntary amputee who was almost completely armless. Andrew and I continued to frequent our favoured restaurants and watering holes in town. Andrew usually selected one of his less flamboyant peg legs on such occasions and I usually wore bilateral hooks if only because it was unfair for Andrew to be distracted from a fine meal by the necessity of feeding me, although he had done so very many times with never a word of complaint. I was also minded of my appearance to other diners. Perhaps my glistening stumps were not completely appropriate evening wear to a venue where affluent diners might order exotic viandes.

 

It was during this period that my autobiography was published. I considered it as quite the accomplishment. It was no easy task dictating the text in its entirety, battling against autospell and the inane suggestions of artificial intelligence. Looking back, it seems premature to have published the book when I still had my own legs. I already knew then that my explorations of disability were by no means complete.

 

As Andrew and I approached the ages of forty and fifty respectively, we began to consider retirement. The Dickensonian had, purposely or otherwise, entered a period when it dealt exclusively with lower limb amputations. For a professor such as myself with a keen interest in mentoring young hook users, the keen young faces scratching away in their text books with ink pens held in real hands held no great fascination for me, regardless of their new wooden or aluminium legs, depending on what year they had entered the college. I felt myself superfluous to requirements and made enquiries about the possibility of an early retirement, or perhaps some form of semi‑retirement, from the Dean.

          – You will understand, sir, that I have no wish to inconvenience the college or disrupt the students’ curricula.

          – Of course not. Think nothing of it. There are other candidates, old boys in fact, who might be persuaded to carry some of the burden if a little sweetener were offered. Tell me! You have never opted for additional amputation after your third arm amputation. Have you no interest in gaining leg stumps? As you know, the Prosthetorium would be only too glad to provide an excellent pair of artificial legs for you. One might go so far as to say the sky is the limit for a respected member of the teaching staff.

          – You flatter me, sir. I find my own experiences with my artificial arms satisfying enough, so much so that I have never hankered after artificial legs.

          – Well, bear in mind that we shall always be here for you if you change your mind. You have a disabled partner, is that correct?

          – Yes sir. An LHD/RAK. He has both hands. Walks with crutches on one peg.

          – An old boy, I assume?

          – Yes sir. A thwarted hook user, in fact. He would have wanted to amputate his hands but for the fact that he was already a leg amputee and realised that he needed hands to operate crutches. But he disabled himself to such a degree that he is now constrained to mobility on three ferrules.

          – Is his disarticulation complete?

          – It is, sir. Quite useless.

          – How wonderful. And you take pleasure in it, I hope?

          – Of course, sir.

          – You are a lucky couple and I wish you well. Let me know what you decide, won’t you? And do give some thought to leg stumps. I’m quite sure your partner will advise a way.

          – I’m sure he will, sir.

 

XVI

And of course, Andrew did. I repeated what the Dean had told me when I relayed his good wishes and Andrew became serious.

          – It’s something we’ve not spoken about, isn’t it? But somehow I feel it’s always been there in the background.

          – No, it really hasn’t. I’m perfectly content with my arm stumps. I don’t feel the urge to collect another set.

          – That’s because you were working. Commuting every day, walking around that impossible old college with its worn steps everywhere. What a nightmare! That building’s architecture is the prime reason I wanted a single peg leg.

          – Don’t exaggerate, Andrew. It’s not that bad.

          – Ha! You should try it. Why don’t you, Homer, my love? There’s no need to go as far as I have but you could have a couple of knee disarts and take up stubbies. They would serve you well and you could turn one into a long peg leg and walk around with me on crutches. I wish you would. We would be such a handsome pair together, both swinging a single peg.

          – But I have no arms for crutches!

          – I’m sure you could get extended crutches for your stumps. You always claim they’re so useless but they’re in no worse shape than many combat victims who relearn to walk on a peg leg with two peg arms. Let’s order up a few amp vids tonight and you can see what’s on offer for leg amps without hands.

          – It sounds like you want me legless, Andrew.

          – Of course I do! I’d love to see you with two identical thigh stumps. Long or short or in between, it’s up to you. But I do think you’d find a new meaning to life without legs. There are so many ways to play around with a pair of leg stumps. And I’m sure you’d find it invigorating to learn something new after so many years with little arm stumps.

          – Alright. I’ll think about it. I don’t think I want to go as far as you but maybe a pair of stubbies would not look amiss with my arms.

 

I paid more attention to the youngsters in my lectures who arrived waddling on knee‑length stubbies after a pair of above‑knee amputations. I was aroused by their rigid little legs poking out from their shorts, artificial replacements for knees and shins and ankles and feet. I tried to imagine myself in their situation, a fifty‑something hook user with a big beard and a certain swagger about him. It was a style I was prepared to adopt, especially since I already had a companion who might concurrently adopt a similar stubbie leg as mine. We would make a fine pair—Andrew hobbling on a single stubbie and short crutches while I lurched along on a pair of stubbies and short artificial arms. I was quite aware that my operational pair of hooks would have to be considerably adjusted if I suddenly became sixty centimetres shorter. I did not want my hooks to drag along the ground.

 

I pondered the future for six months and discussed our options with Andrew. He was excited at the prospect of having a legless lover and promised that I would shortly experience the ecstasy of genuinely permanent leglessness. I arranged a six month furlough at the beginning of June, to return in January for a two day week. The Pro informed me in turn that everything had been prepared for my bilateral amputations, after which a new and hopefully enthusiastic team of prosthetist students would take it upon themselves as their first project to fit me with two pairs of stubbies to my own design.

 

For the first time in quite a while, I was actually excited about the future. I was going to be a new man with new challenges and a renewed enthusiasm for life with artificial limbs. I would have a full complement.

 

XVII

Regardless of how well one is prepared beforehand for the imminent post‑operation period, it is always a shock to confront the results of bilateral amputation for the first time. And once again, not everything had gone to plan. After being talked out of disarticulations from the knee, I was recommended identical above knee amputations, around the midway point between my crotch and my knees. I woke up to find heavily bandaged stubs which extended less than a handsbreadth from my balls before curving around in a frankly erotic fashion. I had been short‑changed once again. There was nothing to be done. I summoned a nurse and demanded to hear an explanation of why my stumps were so short. She alerted the desk and within the hour, a short balding surgeon and two trailing whitecoats appeared.

          – Quite simply, we discovered some deterioration in both thighs and were advised by an expert in the field that it was probable that there might be complications. We saw it best to amputate higher, in accordance with the cardic’s advice. You will appreciate that with your limbs spread open undergoing amputation it is not the best time to start weighing options. We immediately opted for the route of least resistance. I believe you will find little difference in the future outcome with your present stumps compared with what you might have had with slightly longer stumps.

 

It was an explanation. My stumps healed well enough for me to be returned home in an electric wheelchair. Andrew immediately switched to using a short peg leg with shortened crutches in solidarity and for several weeks, we lounged in the late summer sunshine, exposing our stumps to the sun and replacing our prostheses only when the sun had set and the air cooled. It was possibly the most perfect autumn. I allowed myself the rare opportunity to relax in complete limblessness, free of all responsibility for self care, from washing to eating. I wore my silicone stumps while seated in the wheelchair. The open build of my prosthetic forearms on my hooks had the unfortunate tendency to snag on the chair’s armrests and control stick. But I was due new shorter prostheses to match my diminutive stature after my first stubbies were finished and I could be sure about my final height.

 

I resigned myself to accepting my short thigh stumps. Looking down, it appeared that I had no stumpage at all. There was no sign of stumps extending forward from my crotch. I envisaged myself in an all‑encompassing body socket, mobile on a longboard or a trolley on castors. It would be a degree of disability beyond bilateral stubbies. I would initially learn to kick about on short stubbies before progressing to longer pylons. Ideally I wanted cylindrical carbon fibre stubbies long enough to be practical, short enough to require shortened prosthetic arms. I envisaged myself teaching once again in the new year, with bilateral aluminium hooks extending as far as my waist and stubbies with thirty centimetre long pylons. Square plastic and rubber feet to totter around on. All eyes on my transformation from the tall hook user my older students knew to a prosthetic dwarf who hardly recognised himself.

 

XVIII

I came to a private financial arrangement with the Prosthetarium concerning my new arms. The curriculum was such that the focus would remain on lower limbs for the next three years. As a result, there was no‑one at the Pro with hands‑on experience of manufacturing artificial arms. Therefore outside assistance would be necessary and it was this aspect which generated costs.

 

However, the team demonstrated their excellent skills at preparing me and my stumps for the first stubbies. My stumps were deemed suitable for standard carbon sockets with pins for suspension. I was perfectly happy with that. I regarded them as my first learner pair of stubbies. They would come with two sets of pylons. One pair would allow me to totter about on my stumps, the other would let me take actual strides. It was suggested that until I knew which length I liked, my cylindrical stubbies should be deferred. They became my symbolic final goals. They represented my completed journey and I lost myself in reveries many times imagining the hollow boom from my stubbies at each step as I kicked my pathetically short stumps along. They would transport me slowly but reliably for the rest of my life and I would function everywhere with my unique customised bilateral hooks, or even better, my artificial stumps. The image was overwhelmingly erotic. Me with my deceitful arm stumps, artificial and senseless despite their realistic appearance standing proud on my perfect cylindrical stubbies, their length perfected to suit my new stride and gait.

After too many fittings, I thought, my first carbon fibre sockets were ready. Both sets of pylons were available but I was started with the short pair. They really comprised nothing more than the connector mechanism and a rubber foot pad, square and stiff. I was allowed to rise onto my stumps and experience balancing on my alien feet. Assistants held my hooks, leaning down to compensate for my inability to raise my arms. I realised I had to twist my torso in order to swing each stump but I had little strength in my back to do so. Ironically, I felt that I would succeed better with the longer pylons. They were swapped out in a couple of minutes and ironically, I discovered that I was indeed able to generate more leverage with the longer pylons. Two prosthetists fussed as I tried each new step, imperceptibly adjusting the angle of the pylons. My hooks clattered along the parallel bars, lowered to their utmost because of my extreme disability. I practised spinning around on one stubbie to reverse direction and to my delight, my new legs obeyed. At the first sign of fatigue, I was lifted into my wheelchair wearing my longer stubbies. I was greatly amused to see that, at last, I appeared to have artificial legs. I was instructed to practise every day, not to strain myself, to learn how to walk on the longer pylons before attempting the short ones again. When I was proficient, it would be time for proper stubbies and short arms.

 

XIX

Andrew ensured I kept to the rehab programme. Every morning, we did the identical motions with whatever stumps remaining to us in order to strengthen the remnants of muscles and sinews. It is difficult to say how much use we gained from the exercises but fortunately they did no harm. After twenty minutes, Andrew pulled on his peg, assisted me with my pair and pushed me erect to lean against the wall until I had my hooks. He pushed himself up with his metre long crutches and we stumped together to the kitchen to start breakfast. Afterwards, Andrew replaced my hooks with my silicone stumps. Their additional weight was a great help as I learned to manipulate my pylons. Gradually there were more days during the week when I ignored my wheelchair and walked on stubbies through choice. Andrew pointed it out to me, oddly enough. I took it as a sure sign of my continuing adaptation to limblessness, another victory. Having learned how to teeter on long pylons, it was time to learn to totter on short ones. This time, there was no problem. Obviously I had gained more strength and control in my core and stumps. The minuscule pylons seemed to be a parody of prosthetic assistance. But Andrew loved to see me so utterly crippled. I had no legs to speak of. I wore short shorts from which the rubber feet were scarcely ever visible. I swung my silicone stumps with as much power as I could manage in an effort to move my backside enough to lift each stump enough to make a little progress. After winning the battle to remain erect, I began to enjoy the additional disability and preferred to wear the short stubbies even outside in public in my wheelchair. I must admit that I rarely lowered myself from my chair. There was realistically little point. I could reach almost everything I needed with my hooks from a seated position. The wheelchair was more mobile than my stubbies. But I stayed upright on both my short and tall pylons. It was time to return to the Pro to be fitted with my definitive cylindrical stubbies. The students sometimes referred to them as elephant legs, of which I immediately approved.

 

XX

I never failed to become sexually aroused in the Prosthetarium and would have been embarrassed but for the assurances of technicians and medics alike that most processes resulting in artificial limbs were necessarily intimate, frequently fetishistic and most usually simply horny. I did not feel myself to be especially disabled on the fitting table. My artificial arms and hooks were well within reach, someone else’s reach to be sure, but that is by the by. My leg stumps had recently regrown their customary cover of curly dark hair. I was extremely proud of possessing two such masculine appendages which blended perfectly with my pubic hair and sexual organs. Andrew had long since commended my appearance but I must admit that being referred to as horny by students thirty years my junior cemented their opinion in my mind. I knew my undercarriage was hairy and horny. I could feel it myself. My stumps were sensitive and occasionally caused audacious excitement leading to glorious orgasms, the results of which dripped from my shorts onto my stubbies and thence onto the floor. I thought this somewhat embarrassing but all the same I was happy to soil myself and the immediate environs with ejaculate at my advanced age.

 

I was presented with my elephant legs at the beginning of December. I had been legless for six months and learned to walk again on steely pylons. Now I might have real legs again. Hollow and artificial to be sure but certainly leg‑like and supportive. They were surprisingly light but were rigid and unyielding. The upper edges were supremely well tailored to my needs. I loved wearing them and standing erect again. The bases tapered to circular rubber soles. Walking in new stubbies was as powerfully erotic as gaining my first artificial arms as a young man. I was fascinated by my new image, completely satisfied to be cut short, to be genuinely legless, to be reliant on these primitive cylinders for my mobility. I swung my new shorter silicone arm stumps for balance and their weight returned some confidence and practicality while I relearned to walk.

 

As I mentioned, I had acquired new sets of arms, precisely customised for my reduced height. It was a question of practicality first and foremost. My original hooks extended easily to the base of my stubbies. I found them incongruously long. My upper arm sockets were recast at half their previous length. I maintained my silicone stumps at their original length but I had new lower arms made, this time of carbon fibre, enclosed and fitted with flat chrome wrist mechanisms. I favoured farmer’s hooks, vicious convoluted steel hooks with a fierce grip and an aggressive appearance. These I attached directly to the flat wrists where they furnished an imposing effect to my otherwise diminished figure. However, I wore my handless stumps most of the time. I basked in my limblessness, savouring the still fresh brevity of my legs and the absence of knees, never less than utterly horny. Needless to say, both Andrew and I preferred to dress as scantily as possible.

 

XXI

I was shocked to meet my mother when Andrew and I arrived shortly before Christmas. We were met at the station by Fred who saw it wise to warn me that his beloved wife was not long for this world. It was only then that I realised the seriousness of her illness which had manifested itself during the autumn and had laid her low. Without going into detail, she was suffering from one of the female complaints. She was thin and frail, her beautiful face haggard and wrinkled from pain. I wanted to envelope her in my arms and hug her tight, to assure her that she was loved and that her only son would be there for her. But of course, her only son was the limbless dwarf she peered down at. My silicone stumps had been swapped for wooden walking stick extensions before leaving home. I could no more hug her with them than reach her withered cheeks to kiss. Andrew looked in horror from face to face, stabbing the floor with his crutches, struggling to maintain balance on his peg leg. This was far from the welcome we had expected.

 

The catering staff did us proud. Their provisions were beyond superb throughout the festive period but none of us had an appetite. I poked at my food with my steel hooks. I found the new shorter arms more responsive. My flesh and blood stumps near my shoulders were not as useless as I feared. In fact they were surprisingly responsive. But there was little joy to be had. Mother rested for much of the time. I visited her and sat beside her bed, regaling her with anecdotes from the Dickensonian and elsewhere. She showed little interest in my latest amputations and prosthetic solutions. It was to be expected.

 

On the twenty‑seventh, the inevitable happened. Fred awoke to find my mother dead beside him. Shocked and confused, he wandered into our bedroom and announced the news. It was the first time I saw Fred’s naked stumps. Andrew pushed my stump socks on and I slid into my stubbies. We waited until he had donned his peg leg before the three of us returned to Fred’s bedroom where the body lay. For the first time in many weeks, mother’s face looked peaceful.

 

XXII

She was buried with a simple service in the family plot behind the chapel. Andrew and I returned home, leaving the house in the capable care of Fred and the housekeepers. The question arose, what to do with the house? There were no further descendents in the offing to leave it to. It was inconveniently large for a single person and its upkeep was expensive. I could sell it but I could alternatively sell the apartment and move back to my childhood home, to share it with Andrew and Fred. If Fred was willing to stay on, we would put the apartment on the market. Otherwise, Fred could move to more suitable accommodation and the house could go.

 

Fred decided to stay. Two months later, our return was complete. We closed off half the house and settled into two bedrooms on the ground floor, the drawing room and the kitchen. After living faithfully as a step‑father for three decades, Fred allowed his gay side to gradually re‑emerge, much to Andrew’s amusement. The two men had known each other for years, of course, and despite the age difference—Fred was in his sixties—he and Andrew forged a loyal friendship, helping each other in the most natural way possible. Andrew had hands. Fred had legs. I had neither but with Andrew’s reliable participation, I was kitted out daily with stubbies and artificial arms after which I needed no special assistance. We replaced the antique furniture with our own, brought from our apartment, and gradually the old house advanced a century and transformed from the nineteenth century into the twenty‑first. The old carpets were removed and burned in favour of the original restored chetwork floors which suited Andrew’s peg leg and my stubbies far better. Mother’s delicate antique crockery and cutlery was auctioned in favour of the chunky stoneware which a hook might hold securely.

 

I did not return to teaching after my mother’s funeral. I explained the reason for the change of plan. The Dean and others wished me well with the reassurance that I should contact the Prosthetarium first for any future prosthetic needs. With a little skilful negotiation, I arranged for similar conditions for the other two men in my life. My handless mentor and my legless lover deserve the same prosthetic adventures as myself.

 

 XXIII

I kept in regular contact with the Dean until his retirement three years later. The new Dean, a much younger man, was already a bilateral arm amputee and a hook user like Fred and me. Unsurprisingly, the curriculum for the Prosthetarium soon changed to concentrate on upper limb prostheses. I applied immediately and proffered Fred’s name too as a willing candidate although I kept it a secret.

 

It took another year before Fred got his new arms but Andrew and I applied for consideration for matching stubbies and to my delight, we were both fitted with almost identical stubbies. I had a medium long pair, just slightly longer than where my knees had once been. Andrew’s single stubbie matched them perfectly in width and length. For the first time, we were both the exact same height. I was able to return home wearing the new stubbies. They made me slightly taller. Andrew changed back and returned on crutches wearing his ornate peg leg with his single new stubbie poking out the top of his back pack.

 

Andrew found the new prosthesis to be more forgiving than his peg leg thanks to its broader base. I could never decide which I preferred seeing, the peg or the new stubbie. On the rare occasions when Andrew ventured out alone, he often preferred his full‑length single peg leg and crutches, the ones which matched. The peg narrowed to a point capped with a rubber ferrule identical to those on his crutches. He was the epitome of elegance.

 

Several months later, the Pro was ready to take on arm amputees. Several years had passed since arm prostheses had last been made there and the Dean was keen to broaden his novice students’ repertoires as quickly as possible. I assured him that the requests from my quarter would engage their imagination and skill.

 

And so I let Fred know that he was about to receive the pair of artificial arms which he had always dreamed of. They would fulfil his every need, they would be both beautiful and practical and he would be proud to display them to all and sundry. He need only design them.

 

Oddly enough, he knew exactly what he wanted. Early in his childhood, he had seen a photograph of a bilateral amputee standing with his amputated arms behind his back. The hands were missing. Each stump was held by a short socket the size of a tea cup. It was obviously leather and a second leather cuff held the upper part of the forearm just below the elbow joint. The upper cuffs were similarly leather. The framework was a skeletal framework of steel. The hooks were standard issue with no additional function available.

          – I could never get that picture out of my head. Decades later, I ran across it on the web and printed it out. I kept it secret from your mother, as if it was something shameful. I am sure she would have not understood my attraction to such an odd photo.

          – Do you still have it?

          – Yes, of course! It’s in the safe with some insurance papers.

          

Half an hour later, the decades old photocopy was rephotographed and enhanced by AI to serve as a guide for the Pro. I assumed that Fred had originally been in love with the man in the image. He would have been at least twice Fred’s age when the photo was taken.

 

The Prosthetarium was intrigued by Fred’s image. Although the materials were simple and readily available, the design called for extreme accuracy. In one sense, the design was an ideal transition between leg and arm prostheses because the framework would be made from the same steel sheet metal used to manufacture old‑fashioned leg braces. No questions were asked about why the client wanted such primitive equipment. However it turned out, it would look new and present Fred with a challenge in customising himself to his new equipment.

 

I had considered requesting a conventional pair of shortened black carbon fibre arms with standard hooks as my original pair looked dull and worn, as indeed they were. But after giving some thought to the matter, I came to the conclusion that the only logical design for my new arms would be an above‑elbow version of the arms currently under construction for Fred. Having studied everything necessary to produce well‑fitting equipment from such basic materials for Fred, I felt confident when I waddled in on my new longer stubbies, waving my silicone stumps from side to side in an effort to maintain my balance. I was amused by the reception I had at the Pro. Most of the students had no idea that I was a former tutor and I enjoyed discovering how ordinary clients were treated when they made no attempt to curry favour with the staff.

 

My short arm stumps presented their own problems with suspension, as always. How could you design an arm which was basically a bent steel bar which would stay put on a man’s shoulder when the stump was just an elongated nub? The students studied various solutions until the best presented itself.

 

Fred had chosen black leather for the sockets on his chrome steel arms and I was tempted to choose the same. My stumps were casted and rigid leather sockets crafted from the positive moulds. I loved the sensation from the first fitting. We discussed my options for arm length and function. I already had functioning arms of different lengths and the showstoppers, my silicone artificial forearm stumps. We decided to create something truly oustanding and unique. Thanks to the total absence of stumpage, it would be possible to coax the steel framework into short arms without elbows which turned inward across my chest. The tips of the hooks would touch but the main advantage was that I would have no need to perform the calisthenics necessary for an above‑elbow amputee to operate his artificial arms. The hooks would be permanently available at a ninety degree angle and ready for me to hold glasses or food to my mouth. The apparatus would glint with the chrome steel and look quite stunning. Needless to say, I would appear extremely disabled while wearing such short and restrictive prostheses especially in Fred’s company, whose matching arms would be immediately more familiar artificial arms. Fred was delighted with the appearance of his forearm stumps enclosed inside black leather sockets. The natural material lent an exclusive air of quality which was missing from carbon fibre.

 

I was called for my final fitting. I arrived wearing the stubbies which the Pro had made the previous year. I had already become quite used to their length. I had learned to rock my pelvis just enough to let me kick each stump in turn, forcing the bases of the stubbies forward far enough so I could shift my weight over the centre of balance. This I could do regardless of which arm prostheses I was wearing, or indeed if I was wearing prostheses at all. My arms had been attached to a semi‑permanent yoke across my upper back, the centre of which served as an anchor point for my hook cables. The device appeared quite impractical. There were no arms although these were arm prostheses. There were obvious black leather sockets but the rest of the device was convoluted chrome steel bars which bore two standard steel hooks. As my stumps slid into the sockets and I shrugged the yoke into place, my new short arms became gloriously apparent. My stumps had enough movement to allow me to move each arm and hook individually, enough to be useful. The curved forearm replacements guided my control cables precisely to the hooks, which I could control almost effortlessly. The entire piece of kit held me firmly and I felt a renewed sense of extreme disability. I would learn to use the ultrashort arms and hooks but I would be further restricted by their brevity. I had made the choice and I would live with it.

 

XXIV

The three of us were kitted out with new prostheses of our choosing. We rarely had occasion to appear together in public but even so, we derived a deep reassuring pleasure from seeing ourselves augmented by matching artificial limbs. Fred was proud of his hooks and used them as naturally as his hands, lost when he was only six years old in a farm accident caused by his father in a careless moment. Andrew continued to favour his single cylindrical stubbie for its breadth and stability. Standing between them, at the same height as Andrew with two similar stubbies and with prosthetic arms matching Fred’s, I felt myself master of my home and master of my fate. It was really simply a matter of choice.

 

THE CHOICE