CHUG
A remarkable tale of limblessness from strzeka (08, 09/23)
Chug Slaughter was born to a woman who died of a meth overdose five days later. Two neighbours acted as midwives. They all shared a squat. The mother, whose name they thought was Geraldine, was high during the birth. It was plain sailing after the head came. The baby’s body slipped out. The two women stared in horror. It had no shins or forearms. It waved its stumps and bawled. Between its legs were two tiny penises, side by side. One of the women sliced the cord with a razor blade. The other washed the boy and handed it to Geraldine who was too incoherent to notice anything odd about the boy. They found a woollen pullover which seemed clean and covered the baby with it. One placed the boy at Geraldine’s teat for his first meal. They cleared the room of the detritus of childbirth and sat watching over mother and child, prepared to wait until Geraldine’s high wore off enough for her to understand what was happening.
The father had been picked up by the police on suspicion of possession three evenings ago. Stephen Slaughter had been stopped often. He blamed his tie-dyed shirts and ripped jeans for attracting their attention. His long blond dreadlocks probably did not help. He was released after it became obvious that he had not been stoned or under the influence when he was stopped, neither had any incriminating narcotic been found on or in his person nor in any of his jeans pockets. Slaughter sauntered back to the disused factory which used to make transistor radios. He ducked under the fence and heaved the broken door open. He went up a rickety metal stairway to his and Gerry’s room and saw that his child had arrived. The police had made him miss the birth of his child. Geraldine looked at him wordlessly and held the baby up. Slaughter came closer and reached out to take his child into his arms, looking forward to seeing tiny fingers gripping his thumb and tiny feet kicking. He could sense something was wrong immediately. He sat on Gerry’s bed with the boy on his thighs and discovered the newborn’s limblessness. Instead of hands and feet, it had conical stumps. No elbows, no knees. Just stumps.
– Look between its legs.
Slaughter hesitated. Please god let it not be some kind of hermaphrodite, some intersex mix‑up. He opened the flannel jumpsuit and saw the two tiny penises, both identical.
– Holy cow. Holy cow.
– What are we gonna do, Steve? We can’t keep a kid here. And we can’t bring up a kid with no arms or legs. I can’t do it, Steve.
– Don’t get upset. We’ll find a way.
– That’s what you always say! When are you gonna find a way, Steve? How we gonna look after it, Steve?
In his confusion and disappointment, Steve hugged his son closer. It’ll be alright, mate. They make artificial arms and legs. But his son had two dicks. A one in ten million chance. One in a billion.
Slaughter knew he should register the birth somehow, let someone know there was a new human in the world, a new human in the squat. Gerry was still in bed. The girls from next door had been helping out. He ought to say thank you to them.
– Gerry, I have to go out again and register the kid somewhere.
– Just go.
He crawled under the fencing back onto the street. He had no idea what to do or where to go. Then he laughed out loud. The police would help him. Two hours after leaving the lock–up, he walked back in, took a queue number and sat down to wait his turn.
– What are you doing back here?
– I need your help. I don’t know who else I can ask.
– Whatya need help with?
– My woman just gave birth to my baby when I was downstairs.
The officer was mortified. They had caused him to miss the birth of his child.
– And the thing is, it’s healthy and all that but it’s disabled. It doesn’t have hands or feet and we don’t know how we could bring it up and we need to register the birth somewhere and give it a name.
– Woah! Hold on. So you have an unregistered deformed baby what you can’t take care of. Is that right?
– Yeah, I suppose.
– OK. Wait here.
The officer marched off for two minutes and returned with a policewoman who came through to the public area and approached Slaughter.
– Come with me, Mr Slaughter. This isn’t really police business but you’ve done the right thing asking for help. Follow me.
Slaughter stood and followed the policewoman into a small interview room. He had been there before, or in one very much like it. The woman, P.C. Lilian O’Brien, introduced herself and opened Slaughter’s file.
– So you were here last night?
– And the night before and the night before that.
– So I see. And your wife gave birth to a disabled boy in that time.
– We’re not married, but yeah. She gave birth to our son.
– I’m sorry, Mr Slaughter. I know you would have wanted to be with her.
– Yeah, well. Too late now. But what do we do next? I don’t know what to do.
– Calm down. We’ll get it all sorted. You have to be truthful with me, OK? This is not about you or your girlfriend or where you live—you’re in that factory squat again, aren’t you? Well, never mind about that. What’s important now is the baby. So you have to be honest with me, alright?
– Sure. I never lie to the police.
O’Brien glanced at him and smirked.
– I don’t! I know there’s no point. I admit I don’t tell you much, but I don’t lie.
– Alright, I believe you. Well, we can do this online. First of all I’ll register the birth. Do you have a name for the child?
Slaughter thought for a moment. His favourite band was KXD Kid and the Chuggers. They had put on a great show two weeks ago. He had found a place to sit with Gerry outside the stadium where they could still hear the music.
– His name’s Chug.
– What?
– Chug. Nothing else. Chug Slaughter. Born thirtieth April twenty twenty-seven. Farmco Radio factory, Commercial Way, Harlesden.
– That’s a very…
O’Brien thought better of interfering.
– …odd address. I’ll just put Harlesden, OK?
– Yeah. The mother’s name is Geraldine. She has a middle name too but I don’t know what it is. She told me once but I forget.
– It’s OK. Look at this and check everything’s correct.
O’Brien turned the screen around so Slaughter could read it. Chug Slaughter born yesterday in Harlesden to him and Geraldine.
– That’s all right.
– Good. Now, what will happen is that they send a birth certificate to you. You’ll need an address for that. Shall we use this address and you can come and pick it up later?
– OK.
So it continued with all the official paraphernalia of registering a birth in Great Britain. They broke for a cup of tea. The officer who had stopped Slaughter four nights earlier was taken aback to find himself bringing tea and biscuits to the same hippy. Slaughter felt like smirking but looked away.
The immediate official business was completed within the next half hour. O’Brien wrote a few notes in Slaughter’s file and closed it. She leaned forward, composing her thoughts.
– Your son is going to need care. I don’t mean his disability, I’m just talking about the post‑natal care every child gets. You should arrange visits from the district nurse, who’ll keep an eye on the baby’s development, its weight and growth, that sort of thing.
– I know. I can just imagine her climbing under the fence and trying to get in.
– Well, exactly. Have you applied for a council flat?
– Of course we fucking well have! Hundreds of times. Sorry. I didn’t mean to swear. It’s not your fault. Yes, we’ve applied for a flat, the first time about three years ago. We keep going back to the council office to ask if there’s anything but there never is.
– I can get in touch with them to tell them it’s urgent.
– It’s always been urgent! They don’t help. It won’t be any use.
– Alright. Stephen, I have to ask this. It’s not easy. I’m a mother myself and I know what it means to become a parent but I have to ask. Would you be willing to have the child taken into foster care or put up for adoption? If you and the mother are unable to care for your son, it would seem only fair to give him the best start in life he can have. Something more than a draughty room in a squat.
Stephen Slaughter put his hands to his bowed head and sobbed. The tears flowed, snot slid from his nostrils. O’Brien quickly fetched a handful of paper towels from the toilet for him. It was true, inevitable. Chug would be put into a home somewhere and he would never see him again. Horrible though it was, it would be for the best. Wiping his face with the coarse paper, he nodded his approval.
_______
It was all too much for Gerry. The birth, the monstrously deformed baby, the lack of hope in the future or trust in Steve all made her more depressed. On the fourth day, she got out of bed and dressed in a peasant blouse and long dress. They were pretty. They made her feel better. She managed to persuade one of the guys to share some stuff with her. She kept it until the baby had been fed and Steve was back. He was being kind for a change. Until he explained that the baby was going to be taken from her and adopted. She could hardly understand what she felt. She had no way to take care of a disabled baby neither did she want to give it up. Steve said the policewoman would be coming to collect it soon. He had warned the others that the police were on their way but only one policewoman would come in and only to collect their baby to take it into care. There was no cause for alarm but it would be better if they could chill for a few hours before they had a smoke.
P.C. O’Brien and her back‑up arrived at six outside the decrepit factory with two people from the council welfare office.
– Stay out here. If I don’t come out after ten minutes, come in and get me.
She took her cap off and squeezed under the broken fence. Two residents sitting by the door watched her approach. She lifted a hand to signal peace in our time.
– Hello. Do you know where I can find Stephen and Geraldine?
– Are they the ones with the baby?
– Yes.
– Go in and upstairs on the right. They’re along there somewhere.
– OK, thanks.
She dragged the warped door open and stepped inside. There was graffiti everywhere, even on the floor. Her footsteps echoed. She saw the steel staircase leading to the second floor and glanced around to see if she was being watched. She was wary rather than afraid, conscious that this was one of the least likely environments to tolerate a visit by a police officer. She walked along the corridor, glancing into each open space, each former office, hoping to see Stephen Slaughter. The new family was in the last office space. Stephen was sitting cross‑legged on the floor facing his girlfriend who was holding the sleeping Chug. They looked up at her, resignation on both their faces.
– Hello.
O’Brien squatted next to Geraldine and peered at the baby. It looked perfect. Unblemished skin, a curlicue of blond hair. His jumpsuit had teddy bears on it. There was a slight odour of stale milk and new baby.
– He’s beautiful, isn’t he?
– I suppose so.
– You’re Geraldine, aren’t you?
She nodded.
– You know why I’ve come, don’t you?
She stared at O’Brien for a couple of seconds and nodded again. The two women felt an empathy for each other. O’Brien because she was going to rip Geraldine’s life apart, Gerry because the policewoman had to do such a terrible thing for her job.
– Say goodbye. Stephen, do you want to bring your son downstairs? It’s time to go. We only have a few minutes.
Stephen took Chug into his long-fingered hands and O’Brien placed an arm around his shoulders. They walked together along the corridor, through the filth and used needles, down the steel steps and out into the evening air. The chequered police car waited on the other side of the fence. One of the council workers got out of the car quietly, leaving the door open.
– Stephen, I’m going to hold the fence up and you can pass the baby to the other side, OK?
– OK.
– Are you ready, Mags?
– All ready.
O’Brien pulled the fence up as high as she could. Stephen crept forward and looked at the middle‑aged woman on the other side. She looked like a kind person. Stephen looked down at Chug for the last time, choked back tears and extended his arms. Margaret took the baby carefully, immediately sensing its limblessness, and O’Brien clambered out from the disused factory premises. Stephen stood motionless, watching his son until the last possible second, until the car’s door shut, until the tail lights were lost from view, until the sound of the motor was silent. He clawed the ground and wept.
Gerry had undressed and returned to bed. She had injected a dose to help her forget. Stephen looked at her and the squalor around them and wished he was dead. He undressed and settled on the old mattress next to his woman. He pulled her head closer to his, to reassure her, to tell her without words that he was here for her, that he would be with her. They slept, Gerry’s overdose overpowering her in the early hours. Stephen awoke to the chilled body of his woman. He was too emotionally drained to feel anything. He had no tears left.
______
Chug grew fast with a good diet of healthy food. He joined the mugshots on the council’s website of children and babies available for adoption like the selection of stray dogs on a rescue home’s site. It was obvious from web statistics that Chug’s image was clicked on frequently. He was a beautiful boy. Quite possibly the description of ‘congenital quadruple amputee’ deterred visitors from continuing.
George Saarinen and John Henrick were successful media names. They had lived together for twenty‑eight years after meeting in the corridors of London Weekend Television. Both men were the ideal image of what the other wanted in a partner, and as both alerted the other’s gaydar, a dinner after work soon turned into a horny relationship and then into a settled partnership. They married as soon as it was legally permissible and had worked on their respective careers together ever since. John’s children’s series of cartoons was about to embark on its third series as soon as a definitive name could be found. The first series, Bee Bee Beetle, had enchanted buyers in Africa and East Asia and so a market for the second series Bee Bee Butterfly was guaranteed. George suggested the third series be called Bee Bee Bacteria but John was not keen. They loved each other as much as they had at the start. Their adopted children had recently both found their own niche and flown the nest. They were twins who had lost their parents in a house fire and who had been difficult to place. George and John had reluctantly been awarded the children’s adoptive parenthood when the twins were six years old. Diana and David were especially close to each other but difficult to place because David had been born sightless. He had no eyes. The skin from his forehead had eyebrows but melded into his cheeks with no eyeholes. He had always worn sunglasses to hide his disfigurement and had recently started wearing mirrored aviators. He liked the feel of their shape and was told that their appearance was sometimes shocking to sighted people. He liked the idea although he had no comprehension of the sensation they were experiencing. With both children now living in their own digs, George and John were feeling lonely.
– John, I’ve been thinking.
– That’s new.
– Ha! Listen, do you feel sort of, I don’t know, a bit empty without D&D here? I mean, we wander around, farting about with stuff for tv, absolutely pointless if you ask me, with nothing to do.
– Speak for yourself. Why are you in a wheelchair?
– My stump hurts this morning. I thought I would give it a rest.
– I see. So what’s on your mind, dearest man?
–Well, I was thinking that what we’re missing is the sound of tiny feet running around. John, not to beat about the bush, I’d like to adopt again. We’re not too old, are we? Forty‑eight is not old, is it? We could have a new son or daughter, couldn’t we? Bring it up until it’s twenty? We’d only be sixty‑five or something. No age, really.
– You have been thinking about it, haven’t you? Alright, I agree with you that this place is like the grave these days. Do you really feel up to raising a child?
– Have you got anything else to do?
– Come here, you old softie.
George wheeled across to John’s desk. John patted George’s stump, the half thigh which symbolised their relationship and their disposition to adopt disabled children.
– If you’re sure, George, there’s nothing I’d enjoy more than bringing up another orphan. But on one condition.
– What’s that?
– It has to be disabled. An amputee like yourself or blind like David. Someone disadvantaged. You know how normals ignore them.
– I know. Good. That’s settled then. Let’s start looking around.
George rolled closer and the two men hugged. They looked at each other’s still handsome faces and grinned in anticipation.
Any future adopted child would be in a perfect situation. The specialised West London school for disabled children was only a kilometre away from their home in Notting Hill. John had escorted David every morning and met him every afternoon until the boy was eleven years old and reassured his parents that he could find his own way there. He slapped his white stick along the pavement, a blind youngster determined to forge his way ahead. People moved out of his way. The boy with black sunglasses looked as if he meant business. Now David was studying linguistics in Aberystwyth, benefitting from his acute sense of hearing to absorb language after language. He had found a girlfriend who had not realised that the handsome guy who was flirting with her all evening on their first meeting and with whom she intended spending the night if he would let her was actually eyeless. She was initially horrified to touch the flesh where there should have been eyes, but David said it did not hurt, there was no pain, he had lost nothing and please would she see him again? His hands brushed gently against her naked breasts and his fingertips barely touched her hard nipples. How could she refuse? David lifted his broad sensitive hands towards her scent and she put her face into them. They kissed and she fell in love with the boy with sunglasses.
______
George took a break from his laptop. He was composing incidental music for a new police series and he was becoming desperate with its inane predictability. He looked in at John on the way to the kitchen. He was reviewing stills from Bee Bee Bacteria, by the looks. George chuckled. They still had not decided on a sensible name for the third series. George threw a teabag into a mug and stood waiting for the water to boil. It was so quiet. Maybe it was time to look into adoption. Ideally, it would be past toddler age, like D&D had been. He took his tea back to his desk and sought out the website of an adoption agency for the south‑east. He found it annoying that there was no filter for the available children. Each and every entry had to be viewed separately. He supposed it increased the chances to be selected for all the children. Including disabled children. He was looking for a child, first and foremost, with some kind of disability. The images he saw represented children of two age groups—the very young and teenagers. They were the most demanding. He scrolled for a couple of minutes and remembered his tea. He sipped it and looked back at the screen. A row of text at the very top of the screen, the last of a paragraph, caught his attention. Specifically the word ‘amputee’. George put his tea down and scrolled up a little to view a male baby, born last April, a congenital quadruple amputee. Good god. All four limbs. It was not apparent from the photo how severe the malformations were. The boy might be completely limbless, a mere torso. That would be too demanding for them. What might John think? He picked up his mug and sauntered across to his husband’s room.
– Hi. Taking a break?
– Yeah. Listen. I’ve just been browsing an adoption site and there’s a young boy described as a quadruple amputee, born that way.
– Oh! How old?
– Ten months, born last April. Come and have a look. It’s onscreen right now.
George put a hand around John’s waist and guided him to see the photo and description of the quad amp. John put his spectacles on and peered at the screen.
– It doesn’t say if the kid has stumps or not.
– Would that make a difference to you?
– Well, it would, really, George. If the boy can use artificial limbs, I’m all for it. But I’d have second thought if he’s too disabled for prostheses.
– That’s what I was thinking. He’s very young, isn’t he?
– That’s alright. I’m prepared for a few months hard slog.
– All that laundry!
– Exactly. Look, why don’t you make some enquiries and find out? What’s his name, anyway?
George scrolled to the top of the entry and let out a short laugh.
– Ha! You’re not gonna believe this. Chug Slaughter.
– What?
– Chug. Chug Slaughter.
– What an absolutely wonderful name! I love it!
– Me too.
George sat down again at his computer, manually positioned his artificial leg and set about composing a provisional application to view Adoptee No. 1175, Chug Slaughter.
A reply arrived late the same afternoon. The child was in an orphanage in Hertfordshire. Due to the child’s age, it was possible to meet the child at the visitor’s convenience between the hours of two and six daily except Mondays. John was perfectly willing to ride out to the address any time. George let the orphanage know they would appreciate a meeting the following day, Saturday, at or soon after two o’clock. This time the reply arrived within minutes.
– Welcome!
John was dressed in his leathers, his thigh‑high leather boots accentuating his denim‑covered crotch. George debated whether to wear his expensive two‑legged leather jeans or his normal pair with the right leg sliced off to expose his artificial leg. He put his right boot on his prosthesis and pulled his leather trousers up. They zipped up their motorcycle jackets, put their long gauntlets and black mirror helmets on and left the apartment. John had fetched the bike from storage earlier in the day. He mounted it first and held the bike steady while George heaved his prosthesis over the rear wheel. George leaned close and gripped John’s midriff. John started the electric bike, twisted the throttle and the two leathermen snaked their way into traffic towards the A1.
They arrived in Stevenage in good time. They were met in the lobby by the matron and another official whose precise role remained uncertain. The motorists were invited to leave their jackets and helmets. They did so, revealing neatly ironed shirts and dark red ties with Windsor knots.
– Come with me, gentlemen. Chug is in our nursery with two other children and is under constant care. That is to say, because of his young age, not because of his amputations, you understand.
It was an odd way to refer to the situation. The matron led them into the nursery and indicated the cot where Chug lay, poking at a teddy bear as big as himself and gurgling happily. To the motorists’ immense relief, they saw that Chug had four long stumps, eminently suitable for prosthetic limbs.
– He’s beautiful.
– He certainly is a charming child. I am happy to say that you see him at his most typical. Content to play on his own or with the other children. There is another aspect to this particular adoptee however, which is why I have invited Dr Wilson here to discuss the matter with you. If you will excuse me, gentlemen.
She smiled at them and departed. Dr Wilson spread his arms and indicated the round table near the wall.
– Let’s sit down. I have something to explain. You see, Chug has another deformity which is not immediately obvious. Indeed it may be said to be something which he could keep private for his entire life if he so chooses. You see, Chug also has lateral diphallia.
George thought he understood the Greek word but waited for confirmation.
– You see, we believe that whatever the mother had taken—she was a drug addict, you see—to cause such disruption to stem cells in the embryo also caused the diphallia. Such disruptions can occur within the first week of pregnancy, before the mother even realises she is carrying. In short, gentlemen, Chug is endowed with two penises, side by side. They both work quite normally. He urinates from both, which indicates to us that his urinary and reproductive organs are healthy and functional.
– Well. I don’t know what to say. I’ve heard of such things happening but I never expected to confront such a thing myself. And you say he is healthy?
– Oh yes. Diphallia is associated with internal irregularities, to the kidneys, for example, but tests several months ago indicate no such deviation. As far as we can tell at this admittedly early stage, Chug will become a man with two functioning penises.
– Good lord. What are the chances?
– If that is not rhetorical, I can tell you that one in six million. So there may be six or seven other men in this country with the same condition. The reason they are not famous celebrities is because they choose not to reveal it. There’s no reason to suspect Chug should grow up any different.
– I understand. As for his limblessness, I’m sure you’ve noted that I’m myself an amputee, for the past thirty years, in fact, and I have a good relationship with an excellent prosthetist who, I’m quite sure, would be most interested in assisting young Chug with prosthetic care.
– That’s good to hear. Chug is going to need a considerable amount of prosthetic care as he grows and I’m sure you realise that the sooner it can begin, the better the outcome. But I’m afraid the world of prosthetics is outside my field of experience. I would refer you to another doctor but I am sure that would be unnecessary in this case.
– It would.
– In that case, gentlemen, may I suggest you continue your negotiations with the matron, assuming, of course, that you are still interested.
– Of course we’re still interested. Who wouldn’t be?
Wilson stood and motioned them to remain seated. He fetched the matron and left them to discuss adoption.
The matron was friendly, which the motorists appreciated. She touched on their ages, enquiring if they would be able to cope with such a young child who would still be only twenty when they were approaching seventy.
– I hope that having a young person around will keep us young too.
– Indeed! I have heard of that before. I assume that you are a couple?
– We are indeed, married for fifteen years but together for much longer. We both have regular work, in television, in fact, and perhaps I might mention that the reason why we wish to adopt a child at our advanced age is simply because our adopted children Diana and David have left us for the university life and our home feels quite empty. My husband George and I have discussed the matter in depth and decided that we would love to raise another child on one condition.
– And what is that?
– That the child be disabled.
Matron leant back into her chair. She had had no inkling that these strange leather‑clad men, obviously partners, might have extensive experience of raising adopted children already. One of them was an amputee himself, extravagantly exposing his prosthesis to the world.
– I might add that one of our children is blind. From birth. Born without eyes.
– And you brought him up yourselves?
– Yes, of course. With his twin sister. She’s perfectly normal, healthy and happy. Having a riotous afternoon with her university friends right now, if I know Diana.
George laughed. Matron looked at the two men. She could see fatherly pride in both their faces. Their children were successful young adults. Chug would need wise parents.
– Gentlemen, we have gone as far as we can at this stage. I will put your application before the board and we will be in touch with you one way or the other as soon as possible. I might add that for us Chug is a very special priority case. We steeled ourselves to having Chug with us for several years so nothing brings me more pleasure than to see your interest in the child. You are the first to view him, sad to say. Rest assured that I will speak on your behalf and I hope we might meet again when the adoption is approved and we can deliver the boy to your home.
– Thank you for your hospitality.
The men replaced their jackets and helmets and motored back to town.
The mechanisations of bureaucracy turn slowly. Five weeks passed between seeing Chug for the first time and receiving notice that approval had been granted for adoption. There would normally have been a further interview with the prospective parents but matron and Dr Wilson assured the board of their suitability and mentioned that the couple had already reared orphaned twins who were now both at university. There was another aspect in Chug’s favour. His prosthetic care would be expensive and time‑consuming and the authorities preferred the expense to be borne by another party.
After a flurry of text messages and emails, it was decided that Chug would arrive before noon on Friday morning. Two days away. It gave a brief opportunity to shop for baby things. Bottles, formula, baby shampoo, bedding, jump suits, nappies. And a plush teddy bear the size of a one year old baby. A cot would be next, preferably one which would convert into a toddler’s bed.
Matron arrived with a nurse and a young doctor carrying a shallow cardboard box in which the sleeping boy lay.
– I have brought you a few items of clothing which Chug has been wearing and some bedding. We never reuse such items, you see. The box should be adequate for a few days until you acquire a cot.
– Very thoughtful of you, matron. Many thanks.
– I think that is all. If you would sign these papers, please, we’ll be on our way.
Five minutes later they were gone. Chug slept on. George and John sat together watching him breathe. He looked so much like a normal baby boy.
The men had been anxious about how well Chug would take to being in a new environment and more importantly, to them. They were the exact opposite of everyone else the young boy had seen around him so far. They were middle‑aged men with facial hair, deep voices, and an insistence on spending as much time with him as possible. Bee Bee Bug and the police symphony took second place over the next few days as the trio made each others’ acquaintance. Chug made a good effort of using his arm stumps to hold onto whoever had picked him up and used his leg stumps to push himself along.
– He’s beginning to crawl, George. I don’t like to see him scraping the floor like that with his little arms and legs. We should see about getting him some kind of, what do you call it, sheaths. Sort of soft covers for his stumps.
– Yes, I was thinking the same thing. Let’s get Liam round, shall we? See what he thinks. I think we owe him a dinner, don’t we?
Liam Lisson had been George’s prosthetist for the past twenty years. Quite coincidentally, they had gone to the same school together. George was in the class above Liam’s. Lisson had gone on to study orthotics and prosthetics and had started his own company at the age of twenty‑five. By that time, George was already a monopod and heard about Lisson’s new company through the grapevine. He turned up one day in full leather on crutches and the two men hit it off immediately. Lisson became George’s regular prosthetist and, after a few initial meetings, revealed that he too was deeply infatuated with the leather biker scene.
– Gay, you mean?
– What else is there?
– Ha!
They had never made love but they had a closer relationship than was normal with one’s prosthetist. These days they met a couple of times a year for dinner and over the years, George had learned that Lisson always gave him priority service at a discount. George handed Chug over to John. Chug was fascinated by John’s full beard and swiped at the long whiskers with his stumps. George sent a text to Liam—urgent business. help! shall call at 7. Liam replied with a thumbs‑up emoji.
– Hi Liam! How’s it going? Great. Yes, everything’s fine here. Well, you’ll see what’s urgent if you accept our invitation for dinner next Saturday. John’s cooking. Ha! I know! And you’ll meet our new son. Well, we adopted again. No, he’s a very little boy and he’s just coming up to toddler age. Which is where you come in. Well, you’ll see when you meet him. OK, great. Come anytime after four, Liam. You’re always welcome. See you.
– What did he say?
– He said we’re gluttons for punishment.
– So is he coming?
– He is.
– What did you say about my cooking?
– Liam said he was relieved to hear you’re doing it, not me.
– Oh. In that case, he can have a second helping.
– I thought that would make you happy. Now, give Chug back. Hello, little man. Where’s your teddy?
The men grew used to changing nappies. They had never done so before. David and Diana had already been well past the nappy stage when they arrived. Over a period of days, the sight of Chug’s extraordinary genitals became familiar. They both began to sense that having two penises was simply an alternate way of being. They had both agreed that neither would ever mention Chug’s endowment to an outsider. It was an intimate matter for Chug. He needed to be educated in the wicked ways of the world first. It was unfortunately a lesson he would have to learn at an early age. They would have to explain to him that not everyone had two without engendering guilt and furtiveness nor a sense of entitlement and a cause to boast.
Liam turned up soon after four and hugged his hosts. He was wearing his leathers and had arrived on a new electric Harley. The trio went downstairs to inspect it briefly. It was a beautiful machine. As part of a special deal, Liam had bought matching leathers and helmet although he had arrived now in black leather.
– We’d better get back upstairs. Chug will be wondering where we are.
– What did you say? Who will?
– Chug. The boy’s name is Chug.
– Wow! Who named him that?
– Who knows. Come in and meet our new son, Chug.
They went into the men’s bedroom, black, chrome and mirrored where Chug lay in his box, kicking at teddy and holding its face in his stumps. John and George watched Liam’s expression as he realised the extent of the boy’s disabilities.
– I see why you need a prosthetist. He was born limbless?
– Yup. Apparently the mother was an addict and took something which disrupted development. He could have been completely limbless but fortunately, the boy has four healthy stumps. Which is where you come in, Liam. If you’re interested, of course.
– Well yes, of course I am.
– Let’s go and sit down. Glass of wine?
– Yes please. Mustn’t have too much if I’m driving.
– Oh, you can stay overnight if you want a drink.
– In that case, thank you very much. I will.
They sat close together and clinked glasses. Liam changed the subject and asked George about his latest prosthesis which was fitted with a purely mechanical knee, designed in Japan, which was almost impossible to collapse unexpectedly. George described his experiences with it and commended Liam for the excellent fit of his latest socket, made of a slightly flexible material which helped prevent pressure sores. Even so, wearing it was sometimes tiring for a man with only half a thigh and it was a relief sometimes to shuck the damn thing and use crutches for a day or two.
– It’s only natural, George. The skin on your thigh is not meant to bear so much pressure. You do very well for a man with such a short stump, if you ask me.
– I hope young Chug won’t experience the same.
– Listen, I hope I’m not speaking out of turn but are you going to keep the boy’s name? I mean, Chug! What sort of a name is that? Can’t you have the name altered to something sensible while he’s still young enough not to know the difference?
– We thought about that, Liam, but after a couple of days we got used to it. Also, we don’t intend giving him either of our surnames. He has a magnificent surname.
– What?
– Slaughter.
– Oh for heaven’s sake! Chug Slaughter. Oh, on second thought, maybe that’s not bad after all. It’s a very distinctive name for a man who is always going to be very distinctive.
– You can say that again.
Liam thought George was referring to amputations.
They swapped news. George complained about being foisted off too often with mundane tv work and John described his superficial problems with the new cartoon series. Liam was concerned mainly about the noticeable decrease in the number of young amputees coming to his practice for prosthetics.
– It’s the new health regime that’s causing it, Liam. You used to be able to get artificial limbs on the NHS but that’s all gone now and the families of young people simply can’t afford to fork out for a new limb every couple of years.
– No. You’re quite right, of course. It’s so unfair on the kids, stuck using crutches when they might be able to participate in sports with a prosthesis. Which I suppose brings us back around to your boy Chug. He is the main reason why you invited me, after all.
– He is, although as I said before, you are always welcome here, Liam. We need your advice.
Liam felt placated. He was not being taken advantage of.
– You see, Chug is already beginning to crawl around, or at least, he’s trying to. Have you got any ideas on how to make it less painful for him?
– There are a couple of ways, I suppose. If I am completely honest, I think the best thing for an amputee as young as Chug is to fit him with some kind of prosthetic device as early as possible so the child grows up completely familiar with strapping on a prosthesis.
– And Chug has four stumps, not just one.
– Exactly so. I’m thinking that he should have stump boots and some kind of extension to his arm stumps so he can crawl on all fours. When he tries rising to his feet, pushing himself up, he could have a set of stubbies which he could learn to walk on.
– Surely that would still be very difficult for him?
– Oh, don’t worry. There are lots of different designs we could select from. There’s a very useful design which looks like a foot and leg in a plaster cast. With a pair of those, your boy would be able to walk on his stumps until he’s old enough to try with artificial legs.
– It sounds like you know what you’re talking about, Liam. Have you had many cases of such young amputees?
Liam paused for thought.
– I can think of two cases which I’ve treated myself. They were both boys, five or six, and I made them the kind of stubbies I just mentioned. They wore them until they were about fifteen—I mean, they were renewed obviously as the boys grew—but it was only when they wanted to resemble their peers more at that age that they switched. I don’t think either of them felt their stump boots were disadvantageous.
– Hmm, that’s interesting. So Chug might be in a pair of stump boots fairly soon.
– I don’t see why not. What do you think? Would you prefer him to learn to use above‑knee artificial legs before he starts school? It would be very demanding, and bear in mind that it’s more important to have him using a pair of hooks before that. In my opinion, his artificial hands come before his legs.
– Yes, I agree with that. I’ve watched him playing with his teddy bear. He’s quite used to using his stumps to grip things within his reach.
– Good. That shows his development is normal. Maybe slightly ahead of time. I’d suggest that he is fitted with some kind of device which will extend his reach for a few months until he’s old enough to learn how to operate a pair of split hook prostheses.
– What sort of thing do you mean?
– Well, a pair of arms with plastic hooks at the end of fairly stiff, not rigid, forearms. The important thing is to get the child used to seeing something additional on his stumps, some kind of assistive device he can learn to use before getting definitive prostheses.
– I see. So he’ll have a pair of passive hooks first.
– Yes, I think that would be best. He’ll take to his proper hooks much more easily if he’s already used to seeing hooks on his stumps.
– This is all very fascinating, Liam. Would you be interested in helping Chug? Take him on as a permanent client? He has a long way to go before adulthood, twenty years. I hope we’ll all be around at least that long and it would be good if he had the same guy he could turn to who he can trust as much as I do.
– It’s kind of you to put it like that, George. Yes, I’d be proud to help the boy.
– His name’s Chug, Liam.
_______
They spent a pleasant evening together. John served an excellent meal, enjoyed with an appropriate wine. The partners discussed their hopes and plans for Chug’s immediate future and told a couple of anecdotes about David and Diana. David had apparently landed himself a girlfriend. Liam was surprised. He had met David only once and was shocked by the teenager with the eyeless face. But with a pair of dark aviators, only the boy’s white cane revealed his blindness. He was well‑spoken, polite and intelligent. It was not surprising that an exceptional girl might find him attractive. The parents knew nothing of David’s superb tactile skills in the bedroom. Diana had taken responsibility for herself since she was sixteen, surreptitiously taking the contraceptive pill since then. George and John had done their best to prepare both their children for puberty and beyond and had succeeded in instilling self‑respect and respect for others. The trio drank to the youngsters’ success.
Liam slept on the sofa after Chug was put to bed. After their own meal, it was time for Chug’s dinner, mashed peas, beef purée and some mashed banana. His dark eyes watched the spoonsful of food and he stretched his arm stumps as if to grab at them. Liam took note of the boy’s range of movement and began to plan a pair of artificial arms, the lad’s first pair. Arms held on by nothing more than laces, attached to a harness, terminating in a pair of plastic hooks a centimetre in diameter with rounded tips, one pointing up, the other pointing inwards. The boy’s stump boots could be leather with rubber pads at the base for when he tries to stand. Alternatively, a pair of stubbies would serve the same purpose.
Chug disturbed their sleep only once during the night. John rose, picked Chug up and checked the nappy. It was still dry, thankfully. John suddenly realised that Liam was bound to discover Chug’s special status and resolved to reveal it ahead of time. Chug quietened after ten minutes and slept through until six. It could be worse.
– I was thinking about… er, Chug’s prostheses and I was wondering what sort of timetable you have.
– I’d like the boy to have something to protect his stumps as soon as possible. He can be quite lively at times. Of course, if he’s wearing a normal jumpsuit, his stumps are protected to some degree but we’d prefer him to wear a T-shirt and shorts to allow his stumps full freedom of movement.
– Yes, I agree. Listen, it might well be possible to scan his stumps and print a pair of arms with hooks and a pair of stubbies like the ones I mentioned yesterday, if you remember, the sort which look like plaster casts for a broken foot. And if I’m not mistaken, I have next Thursday free at the moment, so if it’s convenient for you, you could bring Chug along and I could scan his stumps and get started.
– That sounds very promising. Thank you, Liam. We’ll be there.
It was not yet the time for further revelations.
______
George ordered delivery of a high chair and extendable wooden cot from a flat‑pack furniture company. They arrived the following day and the two men spent a frustrating couple of hours assembling them with little bloodshed. Chug was overjoyed at seeing the world from a new height while being fed his dinner. He drummed his leg stumps against the seat and reached out for each and every mouthful. He was otherwise a quiet child. Most children of his age babbled, trying to reproduce the sounds they heard around them. Occasionally they produced a word in their respective language which was universally held to be a significant event, baby’s first word.
George stayed home to put the finishing touches to his incidental music for the latest episode of the police series. The policemen left their car and crept towards the den of meth cookers. They were followed by a member of the clique who was in a murderous rage, indicated by plunging a stiletto into a packing case. The tedium was almost unbearable. George made it watchable with sharp crescendos and low vibrato. He sent a copy of the combined production, smothered in three sets of timecodes, back to the tv producer along with a pristine real‑time digital copy. If they needed anything else, they would be in touch. He made himself coffee and wondered how John and Chug were getting on.
Liam had scanned Chug’s arms and had already produced a virtual version of what he had in mind. Shorter than usual arms, curving inwards towards each other, terminating in hooks. John nodded. Chug would soon learn to wield his longer arms and maybe find a way to use his thick blunt immovable hooks.
– Liam, just before you continue, I really ought to come clean and warn you. Chug has another deformity.
– Really? What’s that?
– It’s a condition called lateral diphallia. It means he has two penises, one next to the other.
Liam looked at John in disbelief and down at Chug, sitting in thick disposable nappies and swinging his arm stumps together.
– So don’t be too surprised when you notice.
– I see. Well, thank you for warning me. I’ve heard of this before. In fact, there was an American guy a few years ago who put a couple of photos of his diphallia online. They weren’t there for long.
– What happened to him?
– Disappeared. Too much intrusive abuse, I suppose.
– Yeah. That’s what George and I are worried about. We want to keep it as private as possible.
– Naturally. I hope you know you can rely on my silence. Well, if you’re ready, John, let’s get a scan of the boy’s leg stumps.
John undid Chug’s nappy. He was dry. What a good boy! They made eye contact and Chug poked his tongue out. John poked his out and Chug waved his stumps in delight. John held Chug in the air while Liam circulated with his camera, scanning thousands of images every second. His software would construct virtual reproductions of the boy’s stumps which he would use to print the boy’s first stubbies. He tried to ignore the two tiny penises but his imagination led him to think of the challenges Chug faced in the future to keep his astonishing secret.
Liam messaged John on Sunday afternoon. There were four prostheses ready for fitting at John’s convenience. John suggested eight thirty the next morning. Liam replied with fine.
Chug’s harness was held together with Velcro. After giving the matter some consideration, Liam had decided to use thick stump liners which could be replaced by thinner versions and augmented with cotton stump socks if necessary. The prostheses would be serviceable for much longer that way if the liners themselves were adjustable. Liam showed John and George how to roll the liners on. He fitted the arm prostheses onto Chug’s arm stumps and attached them across the boy’s back. Chug looked in wonder at his new black arms with the silver hooks, not yet understanding what they were for. He banged the new long arms together several times until the hooks linked and he raised his arms above his head. He managed to free the hooks and stared at them. The arms curved inwards slightly. They reached across his lap. The hooks were thick and rounded. Liam had spray‑painted them chrome silver, to make silver hooks at the end of his arms a familiar sight.
The stubbies were next. The rims were flared. Chug would in effect be sitting on them. The bases were curved slightly, with short protuberances instead of feet. They did indeed resemble plaster casts except for the fact that they were glossy black, the same material as the prosthetic arms. Chug watched his stumps disappearing into the black sockets and leaned forward to knock his hooks against his thighs. He chuckled and laughed.
– There you are, young man. All set and ready for your first adventures. As you can see, the stubbies protect his stumps in their entirety. As he learns to crawl, which will be different from a normal child because of his lack of knees, he may well be able to stand earlier than might otherwise be the case. I have designed those hooks to be quite thick and sturdy, so they should be able to withstand any rough play.
– Did you make them point in different directions intentionally?
– Oh yes! Yes, I did. The left hook points up and the right points inwards.
– I see. He looks very impressive, doesn’t he? How long can he wear the prostheses for each day?
– Oh, all day. I recommend you make a game of donning them each morning, and as soon as possible, help him find things he can do with his hooks. Something like a tennis ball to play with, for example. When he seems ready to stand and walk, make sure he has something like a stroller to hold on to with his left hook.
– How soon would you recommend starting him off with normal arm prostheses, Liam?
– Not for at least a year, I would say. Three years is about the earliest you can expect a child to understand how to operate a hook. By that time, he will be walking. Let me know as soon as he begins to outgrow any of his prostheses. I have his files saved securely and it’ll be an easy job to print off a new prosthesis after enlarging it a bit.
– We’ll be sure to do that. Thank you for your help, Liam. It’s much appreciated.
John dressed his son in a pair of shorts, a T-shirt and woolly pullover. Chug suddenly appeared as he would for much of his childhood. Silver hooks extending from sleeves, curving black stubbies under a pair of shorts.
_______
Every evening after dinner, Chug sat on John’s lap for his bedtime story. Neither of the men could remember fairy tales or nursery rhymes from their own childhood. There were still a few children’s books in the bookcase. Chug pointed at the pictures or touched them with a hook and looked up at John for confirmation. Both men had noticed that Chug was not speaking yet and worried that there may be something wrong with the boy’s hearing. John made an appointment with a paediatric audiologist and took the boy along to his appointment. After the initial shock of meeting Chug for the first time, the doctor performed his tests and manipulations and announced that Chug had profound hearing loss in both ears. He could hear below a certain level, low frequency sounds but speech frequencies and those of music were out of his hearing range. The deficiency could be treated with bilateral hearing aids which might work their magic but if, after three months, the boy was still not showing an aptitude to speak, other avenues could be explored.
Chug was fitted with a pair of behind‑the‑ear hearing aids, black at John’s request. John placed the delicate flutes deep into the boy’s ear canals every morning right after the limb prostheses. Chug had immediately become more lively and responsive, chattering more to himself, stopping what he was doing to pay attention when one of his daddies spoke to him. Shortly the first words started tumbling from the boy’s mouth as if there had been a backlog. Instead of merely pointing at pictures in the bedtime books, Chug began explaining what he saw.
– Dog! Tree!
– That’s right, Chug. The cat has gone up the tree into the branches. See, there he is, hiding. The doggy is waiting for the cat to come down.
Chug leaned in closer to see a cat in the tree. He hit it with a hook.
– Cat in tree, daddy! Cat!
It was odd how Chug always leaned over to look at the pictures which John pointed out.
– I think he’s myopic, George.
– Well, let’s get his eyes tested.
The result was disturbing. Chug was severely myopic, twenty‑one dioptre in one eye, twenty‑five in the other.
– It’s really a wonder he can see at all to function.
– Well, we assumed that his uncertain walk was due to his artificial legs, you see.
– It could well be that he couldn’t see where he was going. Unfortunately, the lenses to correct his vision are going to be Coca-Cola bottles—very thick. We can put them into round health service frames with wire temples but you may prefer more attractive frames later, before he starts school.
Chug’s new glasses annoyed him. He frequently scratched at them with his upper arms but the glasses were held firmly to his face. His eyes appeared tiny behind the thick lenses but with his major senses corrected, his speech and gait improved. He spread his hooks wide and thrust his stubbies forward, announced everything he saw and paid attention to things he heard. He was a transformed child. The men became accustomed to hear their son’s thick plastic stubbies thumping on the floor as he explored, driven by his natural curiosity. They allowed his wavy blond hair to grow longer to help cover his hearing aids.
Both Diana and David announced that they were taking time off over the Easter holidays to come home and meet their new brother for the first time. They had both been ‘otherwise engaged’ over Christmas, although John and George were relieved that they would not have extra company in addition to Chug. David turned up first, looking like a typical student. He was welcomed and introduced to Chug who clumped over to examine the newcomer. David reached out to feel for the toddler and picked him up. He knew the young boy was a quadruple amputee but he sobered as he ran his long fingers over the boy’s prosthetic limbs, discovering the hooks and the truncated feet at the end of the plastic legs. He touched the spectacles and hearing aids. Chug watched him, seeing himself reflected in David’s mirrored sunglasses. He lifted a hook in an attempt to touch them.
– He’s very disabled, isn’t he? How are you managing? Did you know beforehand about his vision and hearing?
– No. They were surprises. We wondered why he wasn’t speaking. One thing led to another and we had his eyes tested. He’s almost blind without them for all practical purposes. His glasses have very thick lenses and make his eyes seem very small. It looks very unusual, David. Something which we might consider disguising a little later. Your sunglasses look very smart. Maybe we could get a pair of glasses for Chug with mirrored lenses to hide his eyes.
– Either that or darkened lenses. Yes, I agree.
– And he’s deaf too, or what are the aids for?
– He has severe hearing loss but the aids are obviously working because he’s started talking. I put them in his ears first thing in the morning when I put his arms and legs on.
– Can he use those hooks?
– Actually, David, they’re only passive hooks. He can’t move them. They’re only to get hm used to seeing hooks at the ends of his arms.
– Oh, I see. How long before he gets a proper pair of hooks?
– It’ll be a few months yet. My prosthetist—you remember Liam, don’t you?—has promised to make Chug’s limbs, both hooks and legs, and he reckons Chug will be ready for his first pair of proper hooks when he’s three. That’ll be about this time next year.
– Going to get a new pair of hooks, are you, little one? That’ll be fun, won’t it?
Chug smiled at David, fascinated by the aviators. Their conversation was broken by the arrival of Diana.
– Hello everyone!
She hugged everyone and looked at the blond little boy held safe in David’s arms.
– Let me have him, David.
David released his grip when he felt Diana’s hands. She had a new scent about her, quite nice. There was also a faint smell of marijuana on her clothes. Diana inspected Chug closely and remarked, as David had done, on the glasses and hearing aids.
– How’s he doing on these artificial legs?
– He can walk on them just fine now he can see where he’s going. He just kicks his stumps out and pushes on ahead. If he wants to stand still, he has to hold on with one of his hooks but he doesn’t stand around very much. Always on the go.
– He’s lovely. You’re lovely, aren’t you? Are you glad to see your sister?
Chug lifted an arm and touched Diana’s long hair with a hook.
_______
Chug started attending primary school a month before his fifth birthday, the same school which David had attended nearly twenty years previously. John ferried him there and back in a trailer attached to his ebike. Quite apart from his artificial limbs, Chug cut quite a distinctive figure. He insisted on wearing only black clothes. On his first day, he wore a black hoodie with black shorts. His stubbies were almost new and still gleamed a glossy black. The sockets of his artificial arms were also black carbon with junior sized steel hooks. Chug had taken to his new arms like a duck to water. It took him a couple of weeks to understand how the elbows worked, after which he soon became proficient in manipulating the hooks to do the things he wanted. He could already don and doff his limbs himself, although one of his dads always helped with the liners, and he could dress himself. His latest stubbies had a small flat area on the curved base which let him balance on them if he was careful. All the fifteen children in his class were disabled in some way. He made friends almost immediately with Zeb, a dark‑skinned boy who was born with phocomelia. The boy’s hands were perfect and protruded directly from his shoulders. He was enamoured of Chug’s arms, black like his own would be, and a little jealous of the special hook hands. They sat together and ate lunch together. Chug lifted a hook for Zeb to hold when they went to the canteen. Zeb was much taller than Chug, whose stubbies were little longer than his thighs. Zeb walked slowly, considerate that his new playmate’s legs were not like other boys’.
Chug was a fast learner. He already knew the alphabet and could read and count before he started school. Once there, he was often praised and encouraged by his teacher. Chug learned to write, first with a thick felt pen on large sheets of paper spread on the floor. Individual teaching methods had been devised for individual students whose disabilities and deformities called for unorthodox solutions.
_______
Chug and Zeb were frequent visitors to each other’s homes. Chug was allowed out alone and became a familiar sight on the streets around his home. He wore a new pair of spectacles better suited to the shape of his face with the ultrathick lenses he needed to correct his extreme myopia tinted black. He locked his arms at forty‑five degrees and stumped along at a regular pace on his latest stubbies. They were renewed at six month intervals. The latest pair had something resembling a pair of boots but the thick rubber soles were still curved, allowing Chug to roll forward. Each new pair were a little longer than the previous set. At ten years old, he was only ten centimetres shorter than Zeb. His legs were rigid and black, obviously artificial, but Chug insisted he wanted to wear his black shorts instead of long trousers.
Zeb was still envious of Chug’s arms and one evening when they were together, nominally studying in Zeb’s bedroom, Zeb asked if the prostheses might fit over his own shoulders. Perhaps his hands would fit into the sockets and he could find out what it was like to have a pair of hooks. Chug was amused by the idea. There was only one way to find out. Chug took his black hoodie off and doffed his arms. Zeb struggled with donning them, getting the harness straps tangled so that Chug had to straighten them using his long stumps, but eventually the prostheses were over Zeb’s shoulders and his hands were hidden from view. Without stumps, it was next to impossible to operate the hooks but Zeb was so enchanted with the idea of getting his own set of prosthetic arms that he marched out of his bedroom to show his parents.
– This is what I want! Proper artificial arms like this, like Chug has.
The black prostheses hung motionless from his shoulders but after the initial surprise, his parents promised that they would look into the matter and now he should go and let Chug have his arms back. After much discussion and liasion between Zeb’s parents and Liam Lisson, recommended to them by George one evening, Zeb was fitted with a pair of prosthetic arms and hooks a week before the summer holidays began. Seven weeks later, he was as proficient with them as most bilateral amputees after two years and started at secondary school alongside his best mate, both of them wearing identical bilateral above-elbow hooks. Only a few children who had been at primary school with Zeb knew about the hands at his shoulders, hidden under the pristine sockets.
George and John had explained to the administrators of both the primary and secondary schools that they hoped that Chug would be excused from all games and sports where it would be necessary for the boy to strip naked in order to change into sports clothes. Without specifying the reason, they coyly explained that the boy’s deformities were not limited to his limbs and they hoped that he would not be exposed to further indignities should his genitals be exposed to his classmates. The administrators were completely understanding and in agreement. It was not a completely new request. Chug in turn was told that he did not have to take his shorts and pants off at school for anything, even when the other boys were changing. It was because they only had one penis and would make fun of Chug if they saw that he had two, even though two were better than one. People were like that. Chug nodded sagely and said he knew people were strange by the way they always wanted to help him do everything even though he could do it himself. As far as John and George knew, Chug’s diphallic status was still a secret when the boy was eleven.
Both friends were the target of low‑grade bullying by one or two preteen loudmouths. One morning at break, a small ring of boys encircled Chug, calling him a variety of names. Zeb rushed to his defence and struck the ringleader on his ear with his left hook. The teasing ceased immediately and never resumed. The witnesses learned not to anger the two spazzes who had the equivalent of knuckle‑dusters on each arm.
Chug had his eyes tested. There had been some slight improvement and a new pair of spectacles was delivered, this time with mirrored lenses. Chug said David’s glasses were the sort he wanted and George approved wholeheartedly. Chug was a pitiful figure when he was not wearing his glasses for whatever reason. He held his hooks out in front of him to feel and had difficulty walking slowly on the curving bases of his stubbies. After one such occasion, following a hot shower one evening, Chug said it would be possible for him to get around without glasses if he had different arms. His dads asked him what he meant and Chug described a pair of arm prostheses which were straight and rigid, terminating in thick round rubber pads. He would be able to walk on all fours and keep his eyes on the ground in front of him. George laughed at him.
– You want to go around on all fours like a gorilla? John, what do you think about having our own gorilla around?
– I think it’s an awful idea, Chug.
Two months later, Chug received his first quadruped prostheses—artificial limbs designed uniquely to allow the boy to walk on all fours. He was due a new pair of stubbies anyway. Liam made them shorter, just over thigh length. The foot extensions were missing. Instead, there was a bulbous protrusion and a strip of rubber curved up from the base, over the toe, ending neatly on top of the bulge. The new pair of quadruped arms were slightly longer than where his elbows would be and similarly terminated in bulbous rubber paws. Chug tested them all in Liam’s workshop, watched by George. He balanced on his new shorter stubbies and pronounced them suitable. The feet looked like fat stumps. Chug appreciated his limbless status and had no compunction about demonstrating to other people how disabled he was. He was proud of his stumps and his hearing aids. His unexpected mirrored glasses held people’s comments at bay. He donned his new arms with the rubber paws and tested them by walking around exactly like a four-legged animal, a quadruped. There was a natural way of walking on all fours which he automatically adopted. He stumped across to George and pushed himself upright, teetering on his new stubbies.
– Are you happy now? Is this what you wanted?
– It is what I wanted. Thank you, Dr Lisson!
– I hope you realise that I am not going to take you out looking like that. Put your hooks on.
– Can I keep the stubbies on?
– Yup.
Chug alternated between his short quadruped stubbies and his previous long pair. They both fit his stumps just right. He wore his hooks to school but frequently changed into his quad arms after supper if he had no homework. George and John became accustomed to seeing the cylindrical quad arms resting on top of Chug’s stubbies when they watched some video stream in the evenings. Chug could use his quad stumps well enough to manage in the toilet. He simply leaned against the bowl and rested his penises on a rubber paw.
Inevitably, Chug took his taste in clothes from his dads. Nearing their sixties, both men had happily missed out on a decade of horny visits to motorcycle clubs. Now Chug was old enough and responsible enough to look after himself for a few hours on a Saturday night, the men resumed where they left off. They both dressed in motorcycle leathers with thigh high boots, gleaming black jackets and long leather gauntlets and made their way on John’s Harley to dank cellars frequented by other like‑minded men. Chug was not to be outdone. He announced that he wanted a motorcycle jacket for Christmas.
– You have to decide whether you want to wear hooks or your quad arms, Chug. If you promise to wear your hooks all the time instead of your paws, we’ll think about it.
– Great! Can I have some leather shorts as well?
John stared at him, wondering what was actually going through the boy’s mind. Was he simply copying what he saw his dads wearing or was Chug turning into a leatherman? Chug’s mirror eyes revealed nothing. He threw himself onto his paws and stalked slowly to his bedroom. He shut the door. John shook his head. They had a very difficult teenager on their hands.
They got Chug’s current dimensions by devious means from Liam.
– He wants a leather jacket, Liam, and we’re trying to keep it a secret from him but we don’t know his measurements. You have them, don’t you? Can you let us know the width of his shoulders with prostheses and the lengths of his arms as far as his hooks? Yes, an email will be fine.
Chug was overjoyed with his new motorbiker’s jacket. It was covered in zips and studs and his hooks were partially hidden by the long stiff sleeves. George called him back from the hallway, where he had been admiring himself for too long.
– Try these on.
Chug manipulated his hooks to rip the wrapping paper and to slice through packing tape. A long narrow cardboard box opened to reveal something wrapped in white tissue paper. It was a pair of short shorts. Long enough to cover his abundant genitals, short enough to expose almost the entire expanse of the boy’s stubbies. With the jacket, he would look hot. He stumped off to his bedroom with the shorts in one hook and returned several minutes later looking proud as punch. He was a very sexy young man, someone who would attract the attention of any of the homosexuals in a leather club. Chug had not yet asked where his dads actually went on Saturday nights, reasoning that they deserved their own privacy. While they were away, Chug often spent the time going through YouTube videos of men wearing and walking on bilateral above‑knee prosthetic limbs. He found one from the late forties of a member of parliament who had lost his legs in the war and who used a pair of long prosthetic legs. The man climbed down the steps of an aeroplane and shook hands with some people. Then he walked away from the camera, lurching and thrusting his tin legs every which way. It looked fascinating. Chug could only power along on his rigid little stubbies. He wanted to look like the old member of parliament, walking along in his motorbike jacket, swinging his hooks, wearing his short leather shorts, kicking his stumps along and working a tall pair of black artificial legs. He would have to think of a good reason why he wanted long legs. He was fifteen. It was time for him to look like a leatherman like his dads with mirrored eyes like David.
Liam was amused.
– This always happens, George. Lads reach their mid‑teens and all of a sudden they start wanting to look like their peers. Has he made any remarks about what sort of legs he wants?
– No, just long ones. I dare say it would be easier for you if he settled for steel pylons.
– Aluminium these days, but I know what you mean. Yes, it would be easier to fit him with extensions as he grows and transfer them to new sockets, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d prefer cosmetic legs, if you see what I mean.
– If I know Chug, the more artificial his legs look, the better. I’ve never known anyone demand to emphasise his disabilities as Chug does, from his black hearing aids to his quadruped stubbies.
– I think it’s a very healthy sign that the boy accepts himself as he is, George. The quadrupeds are an amusing game for him, something to play with at home. You don’t mind, do you?
– No, of course not. I’ve always said Chug can have any prostheses he asks for. Now it’s time for him to get serious and get a pair of proper artificial legs under him. Is he going to have much difficulty, do you think, Liam?
– If I know Chug, I’d say no. He adopted his hooks quickly enough, if I remember correctly. He has the motivation to learn to walk on full‑length prosthetic legs especially as he’s the one requesting them. I’ll send you a date when I can take him for a fitting, although he might need to skip a school day.
– It can’t be helped. Thanks, Liam.
Liam already had Chug’s measurements. He added two millimetres to all diameters and designed a pair of prosthetic legs with the same mechanical knees as George used. The lower legs would be mere cylindrical shafts of aluminium, leading to a pair of feet with minimal movement. Silicone feet covers would allow the boy to wear any shoes or boots. Three weeks later, Chug arrived with George to test the new limbs.
Liam fitted liners and stump socks before offering the prosthetic legs. Chug’s stumps disappeared completely into the black sockets. Liam pulled Chug to his new feet and watched with some concern as the boy fumbled with his hooks, trying to grip the steel bars between which he would practise walking. The knee mechanisms held him securely erect. For the next ninety minutes, Chug followed Liam’s requests and instructions and gained an understanding of how to operate the legs. It was completely different from what he was used to. The stubbies were easy to walk in. The long legs were not. But it felt grand to be standing as tall as any other guy his age. The legs looked cool. Steel poles.
– I can’t really teach you any more, Chug. You’re doing OK for your first try. Keep practising and you’ll be walking in a few weeks.
It was impossible for Chug to use crutches or walking sticks with his hooks. Walking practice was the first thing on the agenda every day with another session before supper. George or John took him outside for a walk around the streets, slightly further each day. Chug put a prosthesis into his dad’s proffered arm. He discovered fairly quickly that he could walk better if he kept one leg rigid and kicked with the other stump to make the knee bend. If he rocked his body from side to side, he could work up a fairly good rhythm. After a couple of weeks, he demanded to try walking independently. His mechanical gait was fascinating to watch and it felt cool to Chug. He learned exactly the right way to alternate the different ways he kicked his stumps forwards to make the legs move safely and the motion soon became ingrained. Chug would always walk in the same fashion, revealing to any knowledgeable onlooker that the man had a pair of artificial legs but was completely proficient in their use. It was a handsome masculine way to walk.
Chug continued to alternate between wearing four prosthetic limbs for school and four stubby limbs for leisure. George and John were nonplussed and amused by Chug’s insistence at walking around at home like a dog but never made any comment. It was obviously something which he found satisfaction in, perhaps confirming his uniqueness.
There were other changes at the same time. By his seventeenth birthday, Chug had completed puberty. His beard was obvious after two or three days. He had his own electric razor, which John had wrapped in draught excluder so Chug could grip it better. His shoulders broadened, requiring adjustments to his harness. Most prominent of all was the change to his genitals. Chug would probably have been well endowed if he had only one penis. Instead, the pair had alternated in length. First the right expanded leaving the left a centimetre behind. Then it was the left’s turn to undergo a three month expansion. Chug’s ball sac expanded to accommodate the demands of two penises. It grew large and hung low. The short shorts he had received no longer held his bollocks. They usually slipped out, one on each side. Chug’s dads paid close attention to how Chug dressed. It was far too easy for the outlines of his penises to be apparent under tight clothing. Chug preferred to feed a penis down each pants leg when he could for mere comfort but sometimes it was fun to pack his two generous penises and the big balls into a tight pair of underpants and stuff the whole lot into a pair of jeans. The bulge was incredible. His dads allowed him to look like that at home but asked him not to show off in public. Gradually, Chug learned from their reactions, intentional or not, that he had something exceptional between his legs which he was supposed to hide even though it was all perfectly obvious. Chug thought it ridiculous and with the determination of a teenager, decided he would play around with his more than impressive package, if only to annoy his dads.
Zeb drew his attention one evening when they were out on the town together. They were both wearing full‑length prosthetic arms and hooks, but Zeb had a black leather jerkin over a white T‑shirt while Chug preferred his leather jacket. Zeb was wearing tight stretch jeans which were fashionable again after years of the bell‑bottoms revival. Chug had a pair of drop‑crotch jeans which suited his style of walking and were amply baggy to disguise his genitals. Sitting opposite each other on a tube train, Zeb’s indecent bulge caught Chug’s attention. All matters relating to his own penises had been guided by his concerned fathers. It was always something at the back of his mind. Seeing Zeb with a package almost as big as his own triggered his curiosity. Zeb’s manhood was clearly outlined under the tight denim, his big balls squeezed either side. Zeb’s hooks hung between his wide open legs, framing his crotch. Chug wanted to ask his friend for advice. He wanted to know how he could look provocative and sexy. But his upbringing forbade him from revealing the truth, even to Zeb. Chug splayed his prosthetic legs as wide as he dared and enjoyed the sensation of his weighty scrotum tightening as his penises erected. Not wearing underwear, none of which was comfortable for him, the loose material of his baggy jeans tented in his crotch in two locations. Zeb noticed Chug squirming around and saw the erections’ effect. He squinted and cocked his head trying to make sense of what he was seeing. It looked like Chug had two dicks. Really strange. Chug shrugged and jerked an artificial arm and pushed against his cocks with a hook, trying to hide them but succeeding only in drawing more attention. Zeb leaned closer to Chug and spoke in a low voice.
– What the fvck have you got in your pants, bro? It looks like two dicks.
Should he say anything? Chug and Zeb had been best mates for years, since they were little and Zeb saw Chug’s black carbon arms for the first time. He could trust Zeb.
– Don’t tell anyone, bro, but it is two dicks. I’ve got hard‑ons and I can’t hide them when I’m sitting down.
– Whaddaya mean, man? Two dicks? What you talking about, bro?
– I’ll show you later on. Just don’t tell no‑one.
– OK, I’ll keep schtum. Man, you’re crazy.
It was Saturday evening. His dads would be at the leather club until the early hours. He and Zeb could have a couple of hours on their own at home. Zeb got up and held out his prostheses for Chug to grab hold of as he struggled to stand on the still moving train. The amputees got off and made their way to the surface.
– Come round my place, Zeb. My folks are out for the evening. I wanna see your gear and you can see mine.
– Suits me. I told ma I’d be home by midnight. We got time.
Zeb took his trainers off and left them by the door. The boys went to the kitchen and Chug opened a couple of beers for them.
– I meant what I said, bro. I’ve got two dicks and I’ve always had to keep it a secret because my dads are afraid of what might happen if word gets out.
– How is that possible, man? How you get two dicks?
– I was born this way. Stumps instead of hands and feet, but with two dicks. Just like you with hands but no arms. You can’t choose what you get.
– Ima take my arms off.
Zeb shrugged and jerked his way out of his long prostheses, revealing his tender manly hands at his shoulders. Chug thought they looked cool. He often wondered what it might be like to have five fleshy bony fingers instead of two steel ones.
– I’m taking mine off too.
Chug pushed against his legs and forced his arm prostheses to loosen. He shrugged them off and they joined Zeb’s pair.
– I know what. Wait here a minute.
Chug went to his bedroom and wriggled out of his jeans. He used his stumps to pull his leg prostheses off and arse‑walked across to his quad stubbies. He forced his thighs into the short stubbies and pushed the short arm stubbies onto his stumps. He was naked except for his prosthetic limbs. He trotted out of his bedroom on all fours and returned to the kitchen. Zeb looked up, amazed by what Chug had become.
– How do you like this? This is how I like to be at home. I don’t have to balance on my legs and I can still use my front paws like my stumps.
Chug moved around in a circle, revealing his heavy ball sac to Zeb. His dicks were hidden from view. Then Chug pushed himself up onto his hind legs and stood, tottering for balance. His semi‑hard cocks pointed at Zeb’s flipper hands.
– You weren’t lying. Man, I’ve never imagined anything like that. Do they both work?
– Yeah. I pee out of both of them and they both get erect at the same time and I cum through both of them.
Zeb was too astonished to react further. Chug lowered himself back onto his four paws and trotted back to his bedroom, his ball sac swinging between his leg stumps. He pulled his front legs off and struggled back into his artificial arms. After a few minutes, he returned walking on his short stubbies but with hooks. Zeb finished his beer and leant down close to the table before releasing the empty can. He gestured with his hands.
– Can you fvck with them?
– I don’t know. I suppose so. But I’ve never had the chance. And my dads forbid me from letting anyone else know.
– I won’t tell anyone. Do you wanna see mine? Can you pull my trousers down? I can’t reach.
Zeb stood up and waited until Chug managed to loosen his belt. He allowed his jeans to drop, revealing his own superbly shaped penis, all twenty‑eight centimetres of it. It stood upright, pulling his ball sac upwards. Chug shrugged his arms and touched the solitary dick with a hook. It was strange to see only one. It seemed only natural to have two. His penises were becoming erect again. It was horny to see what Zeb had and Zeb felt the same.
– Hey man, let’s go to bed together.
Chug looked at the kitchen clock. They still had at least an hour before his dads returned.
– You’d better let your mum know where you are, bro.
– Yeah.
Zeb texted round chugs. His mother puzzled over its meaning until she suddenly understood.
Chug shook his arms off again and kicked his stumps until his stubbies loosened. Zeb leant close and peeled Chug’s liners off. His hands were broad and handsome. Too bad they were in the wrong place. He shook his jerkin off and stood looking at Chug’s four stumps and two dicks. Chug kicked at his duvet and worked his way down his bed. Zeb moved it with a foot and lowered himself carefully next to his best mate. Chug called out to extinguish the lights and they were left in darkness with only streaks of light from passing traffic reflecting off the walls. Both boys had strong erections. Zeb felt his way with his enormous solitary penis and placed it between Chug’s pair. He began to copulate slowly against Chug’s belly, using his hands to hold Chug’s shoulders for better traction. The thick penis chafed along Chug’s shafts. Chug had rarely been able to maintain any pressure on his penises. His hooks were inadequate for masturbation. He had no ability to move his open hooks along them. This was the first time he had been with another person. Zeb’s hairy belly moved over his glanses. It felt so good. Zeb was enjoying the sensation of his cock sliding between Chug’s dicks. All too soon the inevitable happened. Zeb came first and splashed cum onto Chug’s chest. He relaxed and lowered his weight onto Chug. Chug used the opportunity to copulate against Zeb’s weight and soon a flood of semen splashed against his mate’s belly. Zeb laughed in his deep voice. He leaned across Chug at an angle so he could caress Chug’s face with a hand. They fell back facing each other. Zeb tried to hold Chug’s shoulders but could not reach. He could feel the tips of Chug’s leg stumps on his thighs. Chug put an arm stump across Zeb’s chest to hold him close and the boys’ phenomenal genitalia touched and settled during the night while the sperm‑soaked duvet dried.
George and John arrived home in the early hours and noticed a huge pair of sneakers by the door. There was only one lad who wore such large footwear. Zeb was on a sleepover. The men crept around quietly so as not to awaken them and went to bed.
Chug woke at seven thirty and needed to pee. He slipped his quad stubbies on and rocked naked to the toilet. Once relieved, he returned to bed. Zeb opened his eyes and splayed his hands, his version of stretching.
– Hi. Are your folks home?
– Yeah. Their jackets are there.
– They won’t mind me being here?
– Why should they? It’s nothing new.
– OK. I need to pee.
Zeb sported magnificent morning wood. The first piss of the day was always a nuisance. His huge dick was too erect to lower into a toilet bowl and his hands were useless. Unsure what to do, Zeb aimed his tool towards the shower and let his stream flow. He went back to join Chug. Chug was still erect. Zeb stood staring at the unlikely sight. He imagined himself with two. Chug’s big loose scrotum flowed across his leg stumps. Chug’s balls were as big as eggs, easily. Bigger. Zeb lowered himself onto the bed and turned himself so he could use his dick to poke at Chug’s tools. Neither armless teen could do anything else. Their acrobatics were fun. Chug’s dicks were much harder than his own. They splayed out slightly in a V shape. After a few minutes foreplay, they heard movement from the dads’ bedroom and Zeb quickly stopped the game and got out of bed to put his jeans on. Shortly there were sounds from the kitchen and the toilet flushed. The dads were up.
Both young amputees donned their arm prostheses and looked at each other. Apart from the shit‑eating grins, there was no sign of the previous night’s shenanigans except for the large dark stains on the duvet cover. Chug decided to pull the cover off later and put it in the laundry basket. Chug opened the bedroom door and two fresh‑faced young men joined the dads for breakfast.
– Hello, Zeb. I guessed it was you from your sneakers in the hall. Did you have a good time last night? What did you get up to?
Zeb thought John was talking about their sexual exploits until he realised that he was asking what they had done in town.
– We just walked around, you know, Leicester Square and Covent Garden. We had a hamburger and a milkshake and walked back to Baker Street.
– This time next year you’ll be old enough to get a drink. I bet you won’t be walking around so much after that.
It was difficult to imagine either boy handling a pint. It was simply another hurdle to overcome. Zeb would have more trouble than Chug, who had a sturdy pair of stumps inside his prostheses. Zeb’s beautiful hands played no role whatsoever in operating his artificial arms. He was completely reliant on shoulder movement to raise his forearms and open his hooks. He took joy from being able to do that much. George placed mugs of coffee, glasses of orange juice and slices of toast in front of them. The dads watched the two young men shrugging and jerking their prostheses, forcing their hooks to obey their will, delicately nipping at their food or firmly gripping their drinks. Both were handsome guys in their own right and together, they were perfect examples of diverse manhood, united by age, temperament and limblessness.
Part Two
Five summers faded into autumn. Chug and Zeb spent more time together, first after school, later all day, every day while they dreamed of independence. Chug’s bedroom was comfortable but they ought to try to broaden their horizons.
There were many difficult conversations with his dads over his immediate future. They were completely at ease with Chug’s continuing insistence on walking around on all fours but frequently reminded him that he ought to wear his long legs more often, although it was difficult to invent a convincing reason. They were comfortable with Zeb’s presence in their home for much of the time but were reluctant to admit that the boy’s relationship was homosexual and increasingly deviant. They had brought Chug up in such a way that their own gay marriage ought never influence the boy’s attitude. They reluctantly admitted that Chug too was gay, the only one of their three children. Perhaps it was almost to be expected.
Zeb had started working for himself a few months after leaving school. A friend had earned a place at an art college and persuaded Zeb to earn a few quid as a sitter—a model for students to draw. His ebony skin with reflected highlights was a challenge to reproduce on paper. His body was taut and muscular and the pair of hands protruding directly from his shoulders provided visual interest. Zeb sat regularly and the money mounted up.
Prosthetist Liam Lisson designed a pair of arm prostheses for Zeb which enabled him to use his previously useless hands to operate them. Lisson positioned a crossbar inside the sockets which Zeb could grip with his hands instead of relying solely on shoulder movements to move his arms. Now he could exert considerable power and dexterity over his prostheses. His hands, uselessly protruding from his shoulders for twenty years, finally had a role to play.
Zeb worked as a delivery driver. He had earned enough to invest in an electric bike. With two healthy muscular legs, he pedalled his bike into motion after which the motor took over. He braked by pedalling in reverse. His arm prostheses gripped the handlebar, immobile until he touched a hook to his phone’s screen showing his food deliveries and routes. Regardless of the weather, except for rare episodes of rain, Zeb wore his white leathers on the job with a white full‑face helmet outlined with blue led lights. He was amused by his customers’ reactions to seeing a food delivery guy turn up at their house handing over a bagful of hamburgers or a box of pizza with not one but two steel hooks. He was popular with other riders and most restaurants whose food he delivered. Customers frequently tipped him two or three pounds extra. He was much admired.
Chug would have enjoyed work like Zeb but there were few openings for a man without limbs. Chug never felt sorry for himself. He was a realist. He was unlikely to land employment unless he could use his brain in some unique way which artificial intelligence could not.
Chug was adept on his artificial legs and was a proficient hook user but he preferred the intimate security of his rubber‑tipped stubby limbs. He often wore only a jockstrap. He was reluctant to wear his prosthetic limbs to satisfy the norms of society or because his dads thought he should. Occasionally he removed his mirrored aviators and indulged in functional blindness, enveloping himself in a miasma of indistinct colour. Chug’s severe myopia had not improved over time. He had several pairs of transparent glasses but he disliked their effect on his face, shrinking his eyes down to pinpoints. He liked his aviators best, the same design which his eyeless big bother David wore.
His refusal to apply for a place at university was what frustrated his fathers most. Chug had done well at school and his final report glowed with encouraging remarks from admiring teachers who had often formed friendly relationships with the quadruple amputee. But even they realised the futility of Chug trying to enter the job market. Apart from his four prosthetic limbs, Chug also relied on his hearing aids and his Coke bottle glasses.
Last but not least, Chug began to insist that he was ready and capable of leading an independent life if only he could find an apartment somewhere. It went without saying that Zeb would join him. The two bilateral hook users might be able to assist each other in running a household although it would not be easy. George came up with a solution, quite unexpectedly, after chatting with a German translator he ran into in the tv station’s canteen. Jürgen Schneider wore a hook and George off‑handedly announced that his son also relied on a similar device. Ten minutes later, both men had revealed their entire lives to each other, down to which gay clubs in Berlin they favoured. The German was returning home after seven years in London and was looking for someone to rent his compact but comfortable apartment in Brent. He would prefer to sell but the housing market was so depressed he doubted he could even get his money back. Renting might be one answer. Before they rose from the table, they had agreed that Chug could move into the apartment with his lover as soon as it became vacant and George had paid a deposit for the first month’s rent. Schneider preferred to leave his furniture, if that was acceptable. It was not only acceptable, it was ideal.
Schneider was able to meet Chug and Zeb, his future tenants, before returning to Germany. He was surprised to find two bilateral amputees. He had understood that Chug used only one prosthesis. Chug was wearing his long legs under a pair of baggy jeans and it took time for Schneider to realise the extent of the young man’s disabilities. He felt great admiration for the couple. He left at the same time as Zeb, who wanted to start a four hour evening shift around five. They inspected Zeb’s bike and video equipment, necessary for verification in case of customer complaints. He complimented Zeb on his sleek white leather outfit and admired how Zeb put his helmet on and lowered the visor with two hooks. Zeb switched his bike on, thanked Schneider for his good will and generosity and pedalled off into the evening traffic, all ready to dodge and weave his way from restaurant to customer and back. It was the most lucrative time of day. He anticipated earning between seventy and a hundred pounds during his four hour shift.
With three year’s experience behind him, Zeb knew all the tricks of the trade and switched up to a new electric scooter specifically designed for delivery riders. He suggested starting his own Visio channel, not to compete with his rider colleagues but to show off his prowess at handling life with a pair of farmer’s hooks. He spoke to the camera from behind his visor, his face hidden. His sonorous voice combined with his patient humourous narration made his twenty minute videos a hit and he was soon able to monetise his channel. It was an extra source of income. There was a GoPro on his chest, another on his helmet and a third in the middle of the handlebar. He removed it when he left his bike unattended. The bike’s locking system worked electronically with the press of a button. Zeb had taped it to his right prosthesis.
Zeb’s foremost reason for starting his channel was his concern for Chug. He hated to think of his mate at home alone, mooching around the apartment on his paws, wasting time. Chug had an almost new laptop doing nothing. He suggested that Chug might like to learn to edit Zeb’s videos. It would give him something to do during the daytime.
– I don’t know anything about editing video.
– Neither do I but it can’t be that difficult. Everyone else seems to be doing it. Tell me that you don’t want to do it.
– No, I won’t say that.
– So you’d be ok with it if one of my mates from college came and showed you how.
– Yeah, I suppose.
– Alright, bro. That’s what we’ll do.
Two weeks later, Chug edited his first video without outside assistance. He needed to wear his artificial arms instead of his quad stubbies to walk around on and found that his artificial legs were more convenient when sitting at a table, working. Zeb’s friend Jackson had advised Chug to use a stylus rather than a mouse or the laptop’s track pad to navigate around the video editing app. Zeb watched Chug’s first effort and made a couple of suggestions to improve the flow in a couple of places. Chug understood and agreed to make the changes. Jackson called in at the weekend to see Chug’s efforts and showed him how to add background music. It was a slow process. Chug needed to learn more shortcuts and ways to switch between natural sound and dialogue tracks to a new music track. Jackson was fascinated by the way Chug leaned to and fro, shrugging his shoulders and jerking his arms to position the tip of a hook exactly where he wanted it. It took so long to accomplish what a click of the mouse would normally do but Chug had no way of using a mouse. But he got the job done. He uploaded the first video to Visio on a Sunday evening just after Zeb arrived home with two bags of leftovers, food which restaurants had reserved for riders. Usually they were perfectly good orders which had been cancelled halfway through preparation or mistakes carelessly made by cooks, like adding garlic to a pizza when the order specified no garlic.
There were three hugely popular driver video channels on Visio. Zeb had delivered to a customer who lived further south than he usually fared and parked his scooter next to another one marked with the Visio logo. He recognised the bike and knew who it belonged to. He waited a couple of minutes until the driver, the owner of possibly the most popular driver channel returned and lifted a hook for a high five.
– I’ve heard about you, bro. You do north‑west, right?
– Yeah, usually. I just saw your bike and thought I’d say hello.
– Good to see you, bro.
– Listen! I need your advice, man. I got this video channel but I need some way to get it out there. A bit of publicity.
– Oh alright. Whatya think about us doing a video together? I could put a link to your channel in my comments.
– Oh man, that would be great.
Three weeks later, they did a six hour evening shift together. The White Ghost, as Zeb called himself online, biked around town alongside his mate until their paths diverged for different customers, circling back to the same restaurants to repeat the process. The mentor paid no special attention to Zeb’s artificial arms. They were just two London drivers sharing a route for an evening. Neither of them reached their pay targets but it was worth it. The White Ghost channel had a mention on the most popular one and soon Chug’s edits were being downloaded and viewed ten times, then a hundred times as often. Viewers were fascinated by the Ghost with the hooks. The money rolled in. Fifty or sixty quid from the morning shift from five to nine and another seventy to a hundred in the evening. Every month, a handsome amount of money arrived from Visio. They sent a pair of stickers which read white ghost with their logo. Zeb asked one of his mates to stick them on his scooter and was recognised more often by his colleagues. But Zeb never raised his visor. No‑one knew what his face looked like. No‑one would ever recognise him on the street if he sauntered along with his hooks in his pockets. His visor hid his features, his voice was amplified through his mike and the speakers in his helmet and his hooks could not divulge his skin colour. He was accepted into the small clique of drivers who were simultaneously famous via Visio but completely anonymous.
Chug found a new purpose in life after Zeb showed him the income from Visio. Zeb’s twice daily excursions were more than enough to cover rent and utilities. He no longer felt he was taking advantage of Zeb’s efforts in his delivery job. He quickly learned the way to turn mediocre video material into something entertaining. He was interested to see what his lover’s life on the road was like and never failed to include the juiciest comments about other road users or comments made by other colleagues. None of his foul language about senseless road users or rude customers ever made its way into a Visio video however. In short, Chug felt that he was working profitably, earning extra cash for their joint expenses. Gradually, Schneider’s old furniture was collected and taken for recycling. Smart new stuff replaced it, usually assembled by George and John who never missed a chance to spend time with the boys. They were both fanatical supporters of Zeb’s visio channel and watched each and every video several times to increase viewing statistics. Zeb’s deep voice and his vexing London accent filled their apartment whenever Chug uploaded a new video.
Chug and Zeb often collided when Zeb returned home. Sometimes Zeb had no time to remove his helmet before Chug pulled him, hook in hook, to their bedroom. Zeb succumbed to Chug’s dominance and allowed him to take the initiative in their bedroom games. Zeb kept his helmet and jacket on but pulled his leather trousers down as far as his boots would allow. He lay on his belly, head askance, watching his mate removing all his prostheses before crawling on top of his legs. Without hands to guide them, Chug’s penises slid around on Zeb’s thighs and buttocks leaving trails of precum until one of them found the sweet spot. Zeb relaxed and allowed Chug entry. Chug pumped as well as he could for a man without knees for traction. His arm stumps gripped Zeb’s slick leather jacket, useless appendages. Gradually, Chug’s active penis alerted him that he was coming. He withdrew and began the random process of inserting his other penis into Zeb’s hole. The effort never failed. Chug completed the act with his second penis and came from both, copious amounts of cum erupting, propelled by powerful muscular tension inside his body. Chug rolled off Zeb and his penises slapped against his belly, both ultrasensitive after the dual orgasm.
As much as Zeb enjoyed the impromptu sessions with Chug, he yearned for a bigger dick inside him. His own was three inches longer and much heftier than Chug’s impressive tools. He wanted to experience something challenging, to feel himself fulfilled with a big dick he knew he could take, something which would satisfy him. He did not want to cheat on his limbless lover and invented something which he would need help with if he was to succeed. He contacted one of his mates from the art college and was put in touch with a guy, Dorian, who had his own studio under a railway viaduct where he made sculptures from discarded steel fittings from demolished buildings and other old refuse he found. He had a 3D printer which he used to produce irregular fittings to hold his sculptures together. Zeb turned up at his studio after finishing his morning shift.
– My mate is disabled like me but he wants to fvck with his stumps. I need him to have his arm and leg stumps fitted with dildoes so he can fvck me.
– Wow! That would be incredible. Turning limbs stumps into dildoes. I can’t imagine anything hornier than that.
– But can you make them?
– Sure I can. I need the guy to come here so I can measure his stumps and you have to provide me with the sort of plastic dicks you want. It’s easy enough to join the dick onto the stump and print it.
– It sounds like you know what you’re talking about.
– Yeah well, I’ve made some specialist stuff before. This isn’t the first time I’ve worked with an amputee, although they usually end up with a leg prosthesis.
– How do you want to go about this?
– Bring him here to be measured.
Chug climbed into his trailer, the same one as John had ferried him to school in twenty years previously. Zeb connected it to his old ebike and the pair set off for Dorian’s studio. Chug was almost naked except for his codpiece which he wore in public. He had several, from mere specialised underpants to black leather items, studded with long pointed bullets. On this trip, his codpiece was a semi‑flexible vinyl bag for his cocks and balls. He had left his arms at home and wore only his shortest stubbies from the quad set. He looked utterly crippled and extremely virile. Dorian stood outside his studio when they arrived, smoking a long curving churchwarden pipe. Like his fictional namesake, Dorian was a man possessed of remarkable masculine beauty. Chug stared at him from inside his trailer. Zeb dismounted and opened the trailer’s top, allowing Chug to make his way out. He stubbed across to Dorian and spread his stubbies for balance.
– Hi. I’m Chug Slaughter.
He held his right stump up for Dorian to bump. Dorian took a final drag of smoke and removed the pipe from his mouth.
– It’s good to meet you, Chug. Zeb has told me you need some new arms.
– And legs.
– Oh really? Well, why not? The more the merrier. Come on, let’s go in and we can get started. Shall we start with your arms? Zeb, did you bring the item I mentioned?
– Actually no. But I know the size. It’s just like a rounded shaft.
– Oh! I thought you wanted something more realistic.
– Let’s see how it goes.
Dorian carefully removed Chug’s stubbies and appraised the man. The stumps were longer than he had imagined. It was ironic that they were so muscular. If they had been thinner, Zeb’s request for new prostheses would not have been necessary. Chug could have fvcked him with his stumps directly.
– So if I understand correctly, you want a pair of arms which end in dildoes, right? Do they have to be identical?
– And a pair for my leg stumps. No, they don’t need to be identical. What are you thinking of?
– I thought maybe one arm and the, er, shaft could be straight and the other one could be bent at ninety degrees or whatever. Maybe the same with the leg stumps.
– I wouldn’t be able to walk if one of my new stubbies sticks out at ninety degrees.
– Chug, you won’t be able to walk on the new prostheses anyway. They’re going to be strong enough to do what Zeb suggested but they’re not going to be robust enough to walk on. I can try to reinforce the upper section as much as possible but 3D printed stuff is not as strong as carbon fibre.
Chug nodded his understanding. Dorian set about measuring the four stumps and discussed the width and length of the extensions. They approved of the idea that the left side versions would be angled at thirty degrees and the right side one would be straight.
– I have another idea. Tell me what you think. We could make hooks which fit on to the end of your arms so they don’t look quite so phallic. They would just look like passive arms.
– That sounds like a good idea. Let’s do that. I’d like to wear a pair of big pirate hooks.
– Just like in the Captain Hook film? Alright, I’ll print a pair and you’ll look like a pirate.
Dorian had enough information to start designing. He opened his laptop and booted the modelling app. First he created a cylinder and adjusted its dimensions to match Chug’s stumps. Next he extended it in accordance with Zeb’s wishes. Chug and Zeb both watched his perfect face concentrating. His features animated with satisfaction as each phase completed. His beautiful eyes reflected the computer screen. Suddenly there was a virtual socket which terminated in a long phallic shaft. Dorian closed its tip in a perfect hemisphere.
– There you are, Chug. An arm stump dildo. Zeb, how do you like it?
Zeb was trying to imagine the representation made real and being put to its intended use. He had a raging erection under his leathers and wanted to knock it into a better position. It was useless to try. His prosthetic arms did not allow him to reach his genitals when they were constrained by his leather jacket.
– It looks fine. Great!
– Alright. Let’s use this as a starting point for the bent one.
Dorian copied and mirrored the virtual dildo. Now there were two. He activated a short section at the top of the shaft and pulled it with his mouse until it reached thirty degrees.
– Like that?
Chug imagined wearing it and fvcking Zeb with it.
– Can you make it ninety degrees? I think that would be better.
Dorian made the alteration within seconds.
– Yes! That looks fantastic. Can I have a hook for that too?
– Sure.
Chug laughed at the sheer improbability of the situation. He was becoming excited too. His cocks were squashed and crossed over each other in his codpiece and he could feel the skin on both of them releasing itself from the pressure. He wondered if Dorian would notice the growth inside his already generously packed codpiece. He would find out soon when Dorian started measuring his leg stumps. His dicks were now outlined inside his codpiece.
Dorian was not looking out for anything abnormal. He could see perfectly well that Chug was well‑endowed. He tended not to stare at other men’s genitals because doing so always led to frustration. His own penis was malformed, an otherwise perfect shape with a broad purple head but with a shaft only two centimetres long when fully erect. At other times, it shrank into his body leaving only his testicles visible. The less he thought about what his sex life might have been with a longer penis, the better. He disguised the void at his crotch with mirrored steel chastity cages affixed to his sac which gave the impression of a small but very insistent erection.
He repeated the process on Chug’s leg stumps. The results looked like two peg legs with rounded tips. Once again, he tilted one of the shafts until Chug and Zeb were satisfied. If Chug wore them on a visit to a club, he might be very popular indeed, although it was difficult to imagine how a man wearing four mismatched dildoes on his stumps might manage such an excursion. Zeb would carry him on his back, of course, the way he always did.
– It’ll take a couple of days before these are ready, guys. I’ll let you know when you can collect them. Is there anything else you’d like? How about a new pair of legs, Chug? I can make a pair from the waste metal I have. Would you like to be tall? How about a pair of legs to make you two metres tall?
– That might be overdoing it but I can imagine myself one eighty‑five. I suppose the idea is to show off your handiwork?
– That would be the general idea, yes.
– How much would a pair of legs like that cost?
– I can give you a discount but I’d say about a thousand. They’d be rigid things, Chug, no knees.
– That’s OK. Knees are a pain anyway.
Chug imagined how he would look with a pair of sculpted steel legs, partially see‑through, comprising dozens of pieces welded together. He would look spectacular. As soon as he had an extra thousand to spare, he would remind Dorian of his offer. Dorian stood, leaning gently against a table, admiring Chug’s skill at using his arm stumps to replace his stubbies. Zeb heaved him to his feet with two hooks and Chug tottered to find his balance. He lifted a stump once again.
– Thanks for this, Dorian. I’m looking forward to getting my new gear. It looks like it’s gonna be a lot of fun.
– I hope so. Bye, you two.
Zeb lifted Chug back into the trailer and secured the roof. He mounted his ebike and gripped the bare steel handlebar which deterred thieves better than any lock. There were no gears, no brakes. When he was working, his farmer’s hooks gripped the handlebar perfectly. Everything else was operated with his legs or automatically. The amputees were both horny and sped home, the White Ghost being recognised several times and receiving friendly honks from car horns.
It took longer to print the stump dildoes than Dorian had expected. Two of the prints failed halfway through, resulting in a chaotic spaghetti of wasted plastic. Dorian had to buy an extra reel of filament to complete the project. The successful prints seemed sturdy and rigid. The walls of the sockets were half a centimetre thick and the shafts were straight and smooth. At the end of the week, Dorian sent Zeb a message inviting him to pick them up. He did so at the end of his Friday evening shift. Dorian promised the pirate hooks would be ready the following week. The four dildoes fit into the delivery bag and he cycled home full of enthusiasm for an evening of experimentation with Chug.
Dorian himself found inspiration from the prints he had just produced. He designed and printed a thick plastic ring through which he could push his balls. The ring had a flange which slotted into any artificial penis he cared to make. It would need a belt to stay in place because his cock was too short to hold a penis extension. Dorian experimented with various lengths, including monster dildoes thirty centimetres long but he settled on a short plastic cock ten centimetres in length. It was short enough to be realistic and made a suitable bulge in his underpants. It chafed against his cock head which erected and held firm inside the shaft. For the first time in his life, Dorian could imagine what life might be like for a man who had a dick.
The man who he had made them for now had six. Zeb handed the new devices to Chug, hoping he would immediately try them on. Chug was wearing all four of his prosthetic limbs and was not in the mood to test the dildoes at that moment.
– Let’s try these later in bed, OK? Did Dorian say anything about the hooks?
– Oh, yeah. He said they’ll be ready next week.
– Good.
– Is anything up, Chug? You seem a bit under the weather.
– No, it’s nothing really. I was thinking about something while I was editing this afternoon. I want a video channel too. Some place where I can show off what I have and make some money. I reckon it might be popular.
– You’re talking about showing off your dicks, right? You’d have to use a porn site, Chug. Visio wouldn’t let you post that sort of stuff.
– No, I guess not. But what do you think? Would you film me? I don’t know much about cameras and all that.
– Sure, I could do that. What sort of stuff are you gonna do?
– I thought we could have a few sex sessions with our stumps showing. They go mad for that sort of thing.
– And just kind of coincidentally, it turns out that you have two dicks.
– Yeah! I wouldn’t advertise it beforehand. People would just discover it for themselves.
– Haha! That sounds like fun. Alright, we’ll do it. But we mustn’t show our faces. No‑one knows I have flippers and that you have two dicks. I reckon we ought to keep it that way otherwise we’d never have any peace.
– I know. Strictly confidential.
Chug’s mood improved during the evening. He had been fairly sure that Zeb would refuse to film him or, even worse, refuse to film the two of them together. Chug liked making love to the White Ghost, completely covered by his white leathers and motorcycle helmet. Obviously, Zeb would have to have another identity in Chug’s videos. He could wear his black leathers instead. Or latex. Chug tried to imagine how either of them could ever put on a shiny rubber suit themselves. It was hard enough to get liners on.
Zeb fitted Chug with all four dildoes before removing his arms and relying on his hands. Chug looked slightly ridiculous with his left limbs bent to varying degrees. No‑one’s knee would ever bend upwards like the quasi‑leg dildo on his left. The right dildo pointed forward, a mere extension of his socket. The dildoes were thirty centimetres long and as fat as Zeb had requested. Chug’s arm dildoes were the same length, the same thickness. The right one was straight, the left was bent thirty degrees at the elbow. Zeb squirmed onto his belly and invited Chug to do his worst.
The dildoes felt odd on Chug’s stumps. They were not a perfect fit by any means but with a pair of liners, they were secure enough for him to guide the tips towards Zeb’s hole. The fingers on Zeb’s flipper hands twitched in frustration at being unable to participate. He was reluctant to interrupt Chug at this stage to don his hooks again. Chug used his straight right dildo to tease his mate’s anus. He increased pressure and tried twisting the tip slightly to persuade entry. But it was no use. Without lubrication, the dildoes were all too blunt and too broad to enter Zeb. Chug explained what was wrong. Zeb understood. They would try again later. For the next half hour, they embraced and hugged with their vestiges of limbs.. Chug’s dildo prosthetics seemed to promise a lot of fun, especially since they were asymmetric. His new dildo arms would look amazing when the two hooks were ready. It would be fantastic to see Chug wearing them in public. After falling asleep for an hour, Chug awoke and carefully removed his dildoes and liners. He smoothed his blond beard with his arm stumps, lay back and dreamed of trotting into a film studio full of prostrate amputees, all ready to be serviced by his dicks.
The two young men showered together in the morning. Both were feeling crusty with dried pre‑cum. Chug held the shower attachment between his stumps for Zeb and then showered himself while Zeb held it at shoulder height. They ate a simple breakfast of toast and yoghurt, both naked except for their prostheses, before Zeb dressed in his white leathers and the White Ghost left for a four hour breakfast delivery shift. Chug rummaged with a hook in a drawer, searching for his favourite leather codpiece—a rigid leather creation which held his genitals in a comfortable position and let him concentrate on his editing work. Chug often had erections during the day and they distracted him. Occasionally he gave in to temptation and knocked against his dicks with both hooks simultaneously. He was unable to move the hooks up and down his shafts with his artificial elbows and his attempts at masturbation were usually exercises in frustration. Zeb was in no better a situation. He was also frustrated by his inability to wank with his hooks. He knew what it felt like to hold a dick in a hand, to wrap his fingers around a warm hard tool. If he lay sideways on one of Chug’s leg stumps, he could touch one of Chug’s cocks. He would have loved to hold them both but some things were not meant to be. Chug stopped daydreaming and started uploading Zeb’s latest video material.
Dorian had been daydreaming too. The prints of Chug’s pirate hooks were almost ready. He would paint them with metallic bronze paint. He tried to imagine Chug standing on a pair of normal length prosthetic legs and wearing a normal jacket with both brass hooks extending from the sleeves. Had there ever been a man who wore two hooks like that? Maybe some old mariner who had lost his hands in a premature black powder explosion, who had recovered by the skin of his teeth and whose experience of battle was too valuable to allow him to retire. Maybe such a man would be fitted with two brass hooks on wooden sockets as symbols of appreciation and honour. Maybe there was a pretty young cabin boy to assist him with his necessities, whose fuzzy peach cheeks he might touch with a brass hook or caress between his gnarly stumps when they settled for the night.
Dorian had become infatuated with the vision of Chug’s long stumps. There were so many prosthetic devices Dorian could build for a limbless man, not all of them exactly practical, but Chug had agreed readily enough to the impractical pirate hooks. Perhaps he would be interested in wearing other prosthetic sculptures which Dorian might devise. Dorian had no idea what kinds of stumps the White Ghost might have. It was impossible to tell where his arms ended, although Dorian suspected Zeb had trouble bending his arms so maybe his elbows were artificial, meaning that his stumps were short, just a bit of his upper arms left. Dorian would be astonished to discover the truth, that Zeb had perfect hands but no wrists, no forearms, no elbows, no biceps. His hands drooped directly from his shoulders, so the naked Zeb hugged himself all the time. With his prosthetic arms hiding his hands, he looked very much like a bilateral amputee, although Zeb was no amputee. Neither was Chug. Neither of them had undergone amputations. It was just a throwaway word to describe their birth defects. Dorian wondered if he could describe himself the same way. He could feel the solid mushroom in his underpants. If he touched the tip now, it would make quite a mess. If he could have a longer penis, he would want it as long as possible. As long as his forearm. That would be his ideal.
The paint had dried. Dorian sent a message to Zeb. Zeb heard it arrive just before he delivered his last drop‑off of the evening. Dorian was three miles away. Zeb checked his battery to make sure he had enough juice to make the detour and collected Chug’s new hooks.
– They look really great, Dorian. I love the brass colour.
Zeb picked one up in a hook to inspect more closely. The hook capped a long narrow socket which fit over Chug’s dildoes.
– I hope Chug likes them. Now when he goes out wearing his dildo arms, he’ll have something to disguise them.
– Chug always wears his artificial arms when we go out. He’s better with them than I am because he has stumps.
– Oh! Don’t you have stumps then, Zeb?
Zeb hesitated. He was not embarrassed to use artificial arms and hooks but he was sensitive about his flippers. He looked at the questioning eyes in Dorian’s impossibly handsome face and decided to come clean.
– I have something called phocomelia. It means I have shoulders and I have hands, but there’s no arms in between. My hands are attached straight on to my shoulders.
Dorian’s micropenis twitched. The man standing before him in white leather, the White Ghost, was not an amputee at all. His entire reputation was false.
– But everyone says you’re an amputee! That’s why you have hooks.
– I can’t help what people say, man. I have hooks because Chug showed me how I could use a pair when we were just boys. And I’ve had a pair of hooks ever since.
– I suppose a pair of hooks is better than a pair of hands at your shoulders. I’m sorry, Zeb. I was confused.
– No harm done, bro. I have to get back now. I’ll let you know how Chug likes his hooks.
Chug liked them very much. He was impressed by their colour, having expected plain black plastic. He shucked his prostheses as soon as Zeb explained, needlessly, how they would fit onto Chug’s dildoes. Chug leant onto his prosthetic legs and took the hooks to the bedroom, where he removed his artificial limbs and replaced them with his short thigh stubbies and the arm dildoes. He carefully fed the end of the dildoes into the hook sockets and pushed them on as far as they would go. He had a pair of artificial arms terminating in improbable brass hooks, much bigger than normal, completely immovable. They looked amazing! He stumped back to Zeb to show them off. Zeb was amazed too. The hooks were obviously next to useless but were so prominent.
– Oh man, that is incredible.
Zeb fell to his knees and held out his prostheses. Chug stumped towards him and hugged him with rigid dildo arms made respectable with the brass hooks. Chug wanted to lean forward to walk around on all fours, using the hooks to lean on but they looked a little fragile for that purpose. He would stick to his rubber paws for that.
– I want you to wear them when we go out.
– And when will that be? We haven’t been out for weeks.
– Shall I take Saturday evening off? Where do you want to go?
– Anywhere which takes us.
– Black Doom?
– That would do nicely.
– You want to wear your leather?
– Yeah and the codpiece with bullets on it.
– Oh! Sounds like you’ll be on stubbies, in that case. I thought we might turn up looking reasonably normal.
– What on earth for? What could be more normal than a guy a hundred and thirty centimetres tall, wearing stubbies and a pair of pirate hooks?
– Wear just one. Have an empty sleeve and one pirate hook.
– OK. Sounds good.
Zeb opened his delivery bag and found two portions of fried rice and szechuan chicken which were undeliverable because of an erroneous address. Zeb let the restaurant know. They replied keep them. Zeb tipped it all into two bowls and fed both of them. Chug gestured with his ridiculously large brass hooks.
Chug began to speak more often about his tentative plans for his own adult channel on one of the commercial platforms. He was prepared to do his preplanning and due diligence himself, making sure that there would be no legal repercussions for depicting the homosexual act. It seemed unlikely. Jurisdictions where male sex was illegal did not allow the platform at all. Despite being capable of producing some kind of video with their two smart phones, it would be better if a professional photographer—or actually anyone, really—could take charge of the photographic side of the productions. Chug had no idea who he might trust enough not to betray his diphallism to the wider world once the secret was out.
Saturday morning was busy. Zeb had decided that however much he netted during his four hour breakfast shift would be spent that evening on their visit to Black Doom. The joint had started out as a bar for the West Indian community. It was soon watered down by being a friendly place where their white friends were also welcome and gradually the place had morphed into a multicultural gay bar where lesbians and trans‑folk were grudgingly tolerated but segregated away from the leather clientele. Leather and rubber was the unofficial uniform. Outrageous perversity was welcome and expected. Several appreciative eyes paid close attention to the arrival of a tall black leatherman holding a leather leash. It was attached to a thick black leather collar around the neck of a midget with one old‑fashioned hook. Men grabbed their crotches with stiff gauntlets to shift their erections inside tight leather trousers. A closer look revealed the midget’s spiky codpiece. It was a very generous size. Obviously the guy thought a huge package would give him some advantage. With the self‑confidence developed over many years of being stared at, the amputees surveilled the room and Zeb raised a hook in the direction of a round table with a good view of the bar. It was occupied already but Zeb was fairly certain its present occupants would move fairly soon. Chug rocked his way ahead, leading his master. He reached the semicircular couch and waited patiently to be lifted onto it. With one brass hook, made of plastic, there was little chance of him being able to use it to climb up onto furniture. It would never bear his weight. Zeb leant down and placed his artificial forearms as far under Chug’s armpits as possible and lifted his legless lover onto the seat. Chug spread his stubbies to give his genitals more room and leaned against the tabletop with his solitary hook, smiling at the two middle‑aged homosexuals whose pursed wrinkled lips expressed their distaste. They rose, delicately collected their manbags and sidled away. Chug laughed and raised his brass hook. Zeb slapped it with his steel version.
They were halfway through their first drinks when a tall figure arrived wearing a black motorcycle helmet and a leather trench coat. He looked around, pinpoints of light reflecting on his black visor. His head paused when he seemed to spot Chug and Zeb, although nothing about them hinted at their abnormal status. He turned to the garderobe, removed his helmet and coat to reveal glossy black musculature. His head was covered except for holes for eyes and mouth. He peeled a long pair of rubber gloves from his arms and handed them to the attendant. He walked directly towards Chug and Zeb’s table and wordlessly sat. They looked at him, waiting for some kind of acknowledgment or greeting.
– I didn’t expect to find you here.
It was Dorian’s voice.
– I hope you don’t mind if I join you.
Chug lifted his right stump and showed his new hook at the end of his rigid straight dildo arm.
– Ah! You like it enough to wear it out. I’m so pleased, Chug. I wondered if you would approve of them.
– They’re both great. Zeb wanted me to wear only one tonight.
– It looks very good with your leather jacket.
– I know. Thanks for making it.
– Don’t mention it.
A waiter dropped by and asked for orders. Dorian ordered a cocktail with a straw in it.
– Actually, I’m glad to see you here because I have a favour to ask. You see, I’ve been invited to take part in a photographic exhibition for next autumn and I was wondering if you would agree to sit for me. I want to make a series of photographs about deviant beauty—that’s the theme of the exhibition, you see. So I was wondering if I could photograph you in my studio. It would all be done in good taste. I don’t want to exploit you.
– Are you good with a camera, Dorian? We also have a need for a video cameraman in the near future. Someone who knows lighting and camera angles and who doesn’t mind seeing a stump or two.
– Well, I suppose I am fairly good. My last exhibition work sold out. I haven’t done much video but it’s much the same as far as lighting and angles are concerned. What did you have in mind?
– Zeb and I are going to make some sex videos and upload them for sale.
– Really?
Dorian’s micropenis again made its presence known. Dorian could feel it pressing slightly against his rubber suit.
– Let me think about it. I have a fairly heavy schedule, so I can’t spend a lot of time with you. But shall we make a deal? If you agree to sit for me, I’ll come and video your sex act.
– Acts. There’ll be more than one, I hope.
– So it’s agreed, then?
– Yup!
The amputees relaxed as well as they could in an environment least suited to relaxation. It was not a surprise that an adonis such as Dorian should also be a fan of leather and rubber. The leather scene was hyper masculine, an insistent counterpoint to the romanticism of Dorian’s physical beauty. The only surprising thing was his rubber hood which hid his remarkable face. Perhaps he tired of the attention he attracted, although his skin tight rubber suit did little to deflect it. Zeb did the work of two, carefully lifting Chug’s drink to his lips until Dorian offered to do it.
– Let me, Zeb. It’s my fault Chug is helpless. That hook looks stunning but it isn’t much use right now.
Dorian looked at the couple with fresh eyes now they had agreed to pose for his photographic project. Both of them had handsome faces, good‑looking healthy bodies, flat bellies. Zeb’s long legs were muscular, a fascinating contrast with his mechanical cylindrical forearms and the prosthetic hooks. Chug was willing to wear a variety of improbable prosthetic devices on any and all of his four stumps. There was potential for some spectacular compositions.
They stayed late and slept late. Zeb left for an evening shift at four, leaving Chug tapping on his laptop, reading suggestions from other users on how to get the best from the editing software he used. There was a new update with new features which promised to simplify transitions and chroma effects. Chug had developed his own style which seemed to suit the material Zeb shot. Several short takes followed by a longer one. It was logical and effective, as well as unobtrusive. Severely disabled as he was by primitive body‑operated mechanical prostheses, Chug was gradually able to produce ever more polished videos the equal and better than several other similar channels. The experience he gained would serve him and Zeb well when their erotic videos could be edited in complete privacy without needing to reveal their identities to anyone. Chug had already made the decision that both of them would wear leather hoods in all their videos. Dorian would place them on their heads and tighten the laces and buckles. They would look fine with their black carbon limbs.
Three weeks later, Dorian called to ask about the amputees’ availability for a test shoot in the studio. He had acquired all the props he needed, simple forms which would add context to the portraits. His ideal was the work of Robert Mapplethorpe, whose renown was due to his style, partly to his celebrity clientele and partly to his notorious early death from aids. Mapplethorpe was interested in the sensuality of skin. Dorian was interested in the same and its contrast with artificial limbs. Both, he felt, could be approached with the same respect and joy. Chug and Zeb promised to devote an entire weekend to Dorian’s initial tests. Dorian promised to compensate Zeb for his lost earnings, which he honestly estimated at about a hundred and sixty pounds over two days. Dorian had reserved two hundred and handed ten twenties to Zeb when they arrived.
They really need do nothing, Dorian explained. He had devised a rotating platform and set up lighting and his camera in front of it. He could fine tune the play of light on skin by rotating the platform a millimetre at a time. Zeb sat first. Dorian was concentrating on the upper torso and the interplay between skin and prosthesis. It was only when Zeb suggested that he might like a few shots of his impressive penis that Dorian paused to reflect. Should he make such blatant references to his ideal?
– Zeb, can you place your hooks on your penis? Not so you’re masturbating, though. Just touch it. Hold it up.
Dorian was impressed by Zeb’s endowment. It was one of the largest he had ever seen. Combined with the two steel hooks, which caught the light along their curved surfaces, he was able to capture the intrinsic essence of his project, which he intended titling Prosthetic Erotic. The giant tool stood erect and proud but essentially useless for pleasure. It was a powerful photograph, and although this was very much a practice session, Dorian thought that he had produced an image which might be one of his most memorable.
Chug’s stumps received no less respect. In one image, Chug held a rose in his arm stumps and tilted his hooded head as if to smell it. Dorian shot from below, from an improbable, impossible angle. Light caught one petal and made it glow, and illuminated a row of steel studs on Chug’s hood. Only a second perusal revealed that the rose was held between stumps. It was another potent image.
The inevitable happened. Dorian asked if Chug would remove his codpiece so he could take a few erotic photos. Chug looked at Zeb and to Dorian before replying, his voice muffled from inside his leather hood.
– If you promise never to reveal my identity to anyone, ever, I will. You must promise, Dorian. What you are about to see will make your photos famous all over the world.
Dorian thought it a magnificent example of exaggerated hubris. He had seen big dicks before. There was no need to worry about Chug’s being so unique.
– Of course I promise. You can trust me. We’ve already agreed to do this shoot anonymously, haven’t we? Don’t worry, Chug. No‑one will ever know who you are.
– Alright, Dorian. I think I can trust you. Take my codpiece off. The buckles are on both sides.
Dorian kneeled in front of Chug. Their eyes locked. Dorian looked earnest and Chug’s reluctance melted away. The codpiece loosened and Dorian slid it away from between Chug’s buttocks. Two long streamers of pre‑cum stretched from the glanses. Dorian froze and stared. It was incredible. Chug had been right. This was not hubris. He quickly gathered his thoughts.
– I understand. I understand the codpieces now.
He stared at the two erect penises pointing in slightly different directions. Chug tensioned his groin and they twitched.
– May I touch you?
– Go ahead.
Dorian peeled the foreskins back and admired the broad heads, both gleaming under the lights.
– Can you maintain your erections for a minute, please?
He refocussed his camera and rotated the platform.
– Touch your left one with your stump, please. Just the very tip. That’s it.
Dorian shot a series of photos, spinning the platform slightly to emphasise the play of light on the dicks. It was little more than an exercise in exhibitionism. The shots required much more creative thought. Mapplethorpe’s approach would not do justice to Chug. After an hour, Dorian thanked them both and gently replaced Chug’s codpiece after cleaning its interior with kitchen paper. Chug rolled his liners onto his leg stumps and pushed them into his stubbies. Zeb helped him with his arm stumps and spread his arms on the floor. Chug squirmed into them and shrugged them into position before sitting up, leaning forward and powering himself onto his stubbies. Zeb held his heavy leather jacket for him and they were ready. Without his glasses, Chug could only see the blurred silhouette of his lover’s legs. He followed it.
– Give me a couple of weeks to study these photos and we’ll have the definitive shoot by the end of the month, if that’s OK with you.
– It’s fine. Remember what we agreed, Dorian. Silence about my dicks. I don’t want the publicity.
– I promise, Chug. Believe me. Goodbye.
Chug placed his stubbies next to his paws. He had not worn them for several months. Imperceptibly, Chug had unintentionally transitioned into a man with four artificial limbs. He walked confidently on his legs and was comfortable with the effort and contortions necessary to persuade his elbows and hooks to obey him. He regarded his dildo arms and the pirate hooks as suitable for bedroom games, little more. Zeb had still not lost his innocence to the fat black dildo arms. He had suggested that Chug penetrate with both his dicks at the same time during one of their sessions but the penises were not close enough together to allow it. So Zeb inured himself to the dual process Chug required to achieve sexual satisfaction. The second penis chafed along Zeb’s buttock as Chug performed the act. Chug was a gentle lover if only because of the difficulty he had supporting himself with his stumps. Zeb imagined himself holding his mate in place on his back but his hands were useless and his artificial arms were little better.
Zeb continued his twice‑daily excursions. His bike with its distinctive tubular steel handlebar without anything attached to it was never touched by light‑fingered thieves. Scarcely a week passed without some colleague’s bike being stolen during a moment’s carelessness. No‑one was interested in a bike which appeared to have no brakes or gears. Zeb’s phone holder was strapped to his left prosthesis so he could access the screen easily with the tip of his right hook. It was easy to glance at the phone when he needed to follow directions to a pick‑up or drop‑off. He was beginning to learn the frequent customers who seemingly lived on delivered food and they were pleased to see the White Ghost, the guy with the hooks. He received compliments from people who followed his video channel. In response, Zeb practised and learned how to jerk his right prosthesis so the hook rose high and emulated a salute. Zeb’s thanks issued from two tiny loudspeakers on each side of his helmet next to the tiny spotlights.
Chug spent several hours every day editing Zeb’s GoPro material. His future gay channel was on his mind less. He thought more about the kind of photographic imagery he might suggest to Dorian. He knew one of the most spectacular and shocking images would be exactly what he and Zeb did nearly every night when one of his dicks was deep inside his mate and the other was shoved aside on Zeb’s backside. The mere contrast in skin colour looked stunning, Chug’s dick looked impressive and a closer look, something everyone was guaranteed to do, would reveal the other dick in Zeb’s hole. It looked perfectly normal to Chug. The short render was ready and Chug continued editing after checking the previous transition. He was experimenting more with traditional cinematic storytelling. He already knew about rhythm, direction of movement, aspect and other common sense things which actually had a name. It was all useful knowledge. He spent several minutes extracting the microcard from an adapter and manipulated his prostheses until the next tiny memory card was inserted and he could edit last night’s deliveries.
Dorian had taken nearly two hundred photos of Chug and Zeb and analysed them closely over the following days. He appraised their immediate impact, composition, lighting and subject matter. The latter gave him most concern. He was desperate to depict the men’s deviant beauty while conveying a sense of acceptance and adaptation. He felt it was vital to depict the men’s prosthetic limbs as merely another aspect of their bodies, something to be included in erotic scenes. In several images, the combination worked. He preferred the images where some artificiality was obvious, either a limb or the hoods they had worn. Chug’s naked stumps were tantalising but demanded too much attention. They detracted from the message Dorian wanted to convey. He refined his thoughts and planned the next, tentatively final, shoot. When everything was in place, he invited the men back, insisting they both wear their full complement of artificial limbs. On Saturday morning at ten o’clock, they arrived and stripped naked except for their prostheses.
Dorian positioned his subjects much as they had been during the practice shoot. This time he spent more time finessing the lighting. He had an additional objective for his camera, a wide‑angle lens which allowed extreme close‑ups. He asked permission to touch and rearrange the men’s prosthetic limbs manually, realising that they could not be expected to position them precisely themselves. They both good‑naturedly agreed Dorian could arrange them as he wished.
The first session concentrated on skin and the contrasts between black and white. Dorian used only monochrome, as Mapplethorpe had done, wanting lighting and texture to tell the story. Once again, Dorian made minute adjustments to the carousel platform the men were posed on, turning it to emphasize some detail. Chug and Zeb watched him working, his face blank with concentration on his creative endeavour. Each shot took many minutes until Dorian felt that his photography coincided with what he saw in his mind.
The second series featured the men’s artificial arms and hooks manipulating or resting on the flesh of the partner. Caressing a chest, touching the nipple, resting on a belly. Dorian would have liked to take shots of a hook touching the partner’s lips, cheek, holding the head gently, but he had promised not to show the amputees’ identity. He concentrated on the broad plains of the torso, and the dark shadows cast by an artificial limb.
They broke for lunch. Zeb placed an order at a restaurant where the staff were always friendly and quick. He glanced at his phone to see the time. Seventeen minutes later, the food arrived—three different Thai dishes and a generous amount of white rice. Dorian found some spoons and helped his hook‑using friends to grasp them. The food was delicious and easy to eat for the amputees. Dorian stacked the plates and they returned to the studio.
Dorian wanted to feature Chug’s dual penises but in a sophisticated manner. He had in mind a shot of Chug’s artificial leg with his groin in the background, blurred and indistinct but featuring both phalluses. Another shot involved Zeb reaching towards an erect penis with the other almost hidden by the hook. Dorian used his macro lens to ensure that only the foremost details were in focus. He concentrated as much on composition and lighting in these shots as he had before. Zeb’s hook was very much the subject, its curve echoing the structure of Chug’s right glans, outlined with a streak of light reflecting off its glossy surface. The second penis was erect in the background, indistinct until attention shifted.
Dorian turned his attention to Zeb’s impressive tool. It was easier to be more sexual. Dorian contrasted the long penis with Chug’s leg prosthesis, the steel pylon reflecting its length. Zeb contorted himself in order to place both hooks under his scrotum, lifting his balls for close inspection while his erection stood in the background, too blurred to be titillating. The last shot Dorian took was of the men lying on their backs, their backsides touching. Zeb lifted his muscular legs, Chug lifted his stumps and Zeb allowed his thick tool to rest in the gap between Chug’s double erections. Dorian shot from above, producing a bewildering geometrical image akin to a collage of disconnected body parts. Once again, he rotated the platform incrementally, ensuring perfect lighting in at least one of the images. He declared the session complete and helped Chug sit on the platform.
– You didn’t take any shots of my hands, Dorian.
– Oh, I did. Your hooks are in lots of shots.
– Ah, I don’t mean my hooks. I mean my hands.
Zeb shrugged his shoulders until the shoulder sockets loosened and his arms hung from the harness down his back. He splayed his hands and wiggled the fingers. Dorian was astonished and shocked by Zeb’s deformity which he saw for the first time.
– I thought you might like to shoot these too somehow.
– Zeb, would you let me think about it? Let me take a few shots now, so I can plan a few angles.
Zeb sat on the platform next to Chug, who lifted an arm stump for Zeb to grip. Zeb’s hands were both full‑size adult male hands despite their position. Hidden under the sockets, there was no hint that Zeb’s broad shoulders concealed two handsome manly hands. Dorian worked fast as Zeb demonstrated a variety of positions and the extent of his reach. Dorian had already imagined a startling image, full of thwarted beauty and pathos. If he could make it subtle enough, it would be the best of his submissions. Dorian held Zeb’s prostheses for him as he inserted his hands back into the sockets and they were again lost from view. Zeb shrugged a few times, straightened his elbows and opened his hooks. Everything in order.
– Give me a few days. Can you come in again on a Saturday?
– Yup. Make it around midday, if you can. That way I can do a breakfast shift.
– OK. Let’s do that. Will you bring your leather hoods next time, please?
The amputees left with linked arms. Chug’s gait betrayed his amputee status. Dorian found his style of walking quite fascinating, mechanical and organic at the same time. He hoped he could capture the same bewildering attraction in his images.
– Has Dorian mentioned anything about payment for these photographs?
– No, but he did agree to video us for our porno channel. I reckon we’ll get our money’s worth then, don’t you?
Zeb thought about it for a moment.
– Do you think there’ll be a lot of porno shoots?
– It depends on if you can get it up, Zeb.
– Haha! In that case, Dorian gonna be a busy boy.
After arriving home, both men shucked their arms and put T‑shirts on before replacing their prostheses. Zeb changed from denim jeans into his white leathers, struggled into his matching jacket and bent down to force his upturned white helmet onto his head. He switched his loudspeakers and spotlights on with his chin and announced he would be back by ten. Chug, sitting naked on their bed, waved a stump and set about donning his quad stubbies. He had not worn them for ages. He was feeling horny and the horniest thing he could think of was to be totally disabled while Zeb was out, naked except for his rubber stubbies and his forearm paws. He would trot around the apartment attempting to do what he usually did, enjoying his limblessness. His heavy scrotum swung between his stumps, already tightening in anticipation of the magnificent climax to come. He sat in a corner where a beam of sunshine had warmed the floor, spread his rubberised leg stumps and leaned forward onto his paws, contemplating both his erect penises and how best to monetise the dozens of videos he and Zeb could make together. As soon as Dorian’s exhibition was over and done with, they could make a start. He gently peeled his foreskins back, first with one paw then the other. Soon he would have to masturbate to relieve himself, in the unique limbless way he had available to him.
Dorian was jealous of Chug and Zeb. He was jealous of their close relationship, which he had never experienced with anyone. He was jealous of their unbelievable sexual equipment and the easy acceptance of their exclusivity. Most of all and in his own mind, most shamefully, he was jealous of their prosthetic limbs which they wore as nonchalantly as a pair of spectacles or the hearing aids in Chug’s ears. He had a lifelong yearning to be physically different. His remarkable male beauty was of no interest to him. He knew he was good‑looking but did not regard it as anything special. He saw it every day. What he wanted was a disability like Chug had when he walked. Two artificial legs. His infatuation with prosthetic limbs had lead to his photographs featuring almost exclusively Zeb’s hooks and Chug’s artificial legs. The images were useless! He had photographed only his own perverted vision of the two men. No‑one else would ever want to see stumps and artificial limbs! Oh, he had wasted so much time. Why could he simply not have concentrated on what he was best at, the play of light on skin? He need never have brought the steel hooks or steel pylons into his images. And they were for a prestigious exhibition! What could he have been thinking of? Despite his misgivings, he admired Chug’s leg stumps more than anything else, more than his amazing double dicks, more than Zeb’s huge dick. He lay back and allowed himself to knead the lump between his legs until it emerged from his groin and spread its head. He imagined it being touched with a steel hook—maybe Zeb’s, maybe Chug’s but best of all, his own. He soiled his underpants and went to the toilet to remove them in disgust.
Dorain waited three days before reviewing his photos again. He needed no fewer than twelve, no more than fifteen. He spent the morning looking at the works of Mapplethorpe to remind himself of the serenity and honesty of the images. He hoped to find similar aspects in his own work. By the end of the afternoon, he had selected eight photos. All of them depicted artfully illuminated skin and part of a prosthesis. He was undecided about how sexual he wished the remaining images to be. Perhaps Chug and Zeb would be able to clarify his thoughts if they could see the material. He printed his eight definites in black and white on glossy photo paper. The larger size added more earnestness. He messaged Chug to ask if he could call round to discuss the exhibition. Chug replied that he would be happy to. Dorian placed his prints and laptop into a rucksack and left in a better mood than he had been for several days.
Zeb opened the door to Dorian. He was about to leave for a three or four hour evening shift, cycling around north‑west London from restaurant to customer, weaving in and out of evening traffic on his electric bike.
– Sorry I can’t stay. I’d love to see the photos but some other time. Show them to Chug. I know he wants to see them. He hasn’t talked about anything else.
Dorian looked at the White Ghost and the friendly eyes. Zeb opened his mouth to activate his mike and lights with his chin and allowed the mirrored visor to drop. His electronic voice wished them a pleasant evening and he was gone. Dorian found Chug wearing a T-shirt and matching shorts on the sofa. He had skinhead boots on his feet. The pylons disappeared into the boots seemingly without support.
– Hello Chug. Thank you for seeing me. I’m in such confusion with my photos.
– Well, let’s have a look and I’ll tell you my opinion for what it’s worth.
Chug kicked a stump to straighten his prosthesis and used it to twist himself erect, pushing himself up with rigid arms. He shrugged and his arms relaxed, returning to an almost natural angled position. Dorian watched closely.
– Let’s sit at the table. Is that alright?
– Yes, of course. Perfect.
Dorian shook his rucksack off and took his laptop out.
– I printed what I think are the best but you must tell me what you think. Nothing is definite yet, you see.
He put the stacked prints on the table and explained what he was aiming for in each image. One by one, they inspected the photos which were all obviously part of a series on a constant theme. Dorian looked at Chug’s profile as he studied each photo. The lenses in Chug’s glasses were almost a centimetre thick. He must have been almost blind when they did the photo shoots with leather hoods. The large black hearing aid behind his ear looked very distinctive. How did he manage to put them in his ears without hands? Perhaps Zeb did it.
– Dorian, I don’t know what you are worried about. These are superb. No‑one could ever tell it’s me and Zeb. They all look kind of erotic with the way you’ve got the skin and the way it contrasts with the hooks.
– The theme of the exhibition is supposed to be Deviant Beauty. Do you think these are beautiful?
– Of course they’re beautiful. Even the way you photographed the hooks is beautiful. You can see the little scratches on them. I’ve not noticed those before. Dorian, I don’t know what you’re worried about, honestly.
– Alright. Thank you, Chug. You’re very kind. It’s a worry off my mind. I didn’t know if you would like them.
– Well, I do.
– Then there are the other photos, the ones which show your penises. I mean yours and Zeb’s. Not just yours. I don’t know if any of them can be called deviant beauty. I don’t know what to do. We spent so much time on them and they are good photos, I can see that, but I don’t know if I dare include any of them without your permission and consent.
– Let’s see them. Are they on your laptop?
– Yes. Just a moment. I’ve got each shot in its own folder so if you like a photo and want to include it, all we need to do is find the best version.
– I see. That’s a good way of doing it. I might nick that idea for Zeb’s downloads. I get mixed up sometimes and he has to tell me which bit belongs where. I don’t suppose it matters, really.
– Do you like editing, Chug? Does it bring in much money?
– It is fun. I thought it was difficult at first even though I sort of knew what I wanted to do. Now I know how the program works and how to do what I want, it goes much faster and I like seeing the way each video comes together. I can’t go out with Zeb but I have a good idea what his shifts are like now and other people like watching him too. We have fifty thousand subscribers already after seven or eight months and that’s a lot.
– It is. I’m happy for you. You’re also learning a profession, all by yourself here at home.
– But most post‑production places use AI these days. Not much call for editors these days.
– No, I suppose not. But it’s good to know how to construct a video, I think. It helps you see the world in a new way.
– I think that’s true. Funny, that. Let’s look at your sexy pictures now.
Chug lifted his forearms to lean against the table. It looked like he was preparing to tuck into a substantial meal. Dorian called up his first folder of photos.
They looked at nine or ten images, all of them showing Zeb’s huge penis or Chug’s pair. Zeb’s was the only one shown sharply in focus. Chug’s own were always either blurred and out of focus, or else only one was in the foreground. Chug was fascinated to see how Dorian had managed to photograph him without making it obvious that the really odd thing was his diphallia. He had made a huge effort to treat them just as anyone else’s single dick might be treated.
– These are great, Dorian. They really are.
– But if you think of the theme, Chug—are they beautiful? Deviant beauty, that’s what I’m supposed to be showing.
Chug turned to peer at Dorian. He was trying to express himself using vocabulary he was not familiar with. Dorian looked at the tiny eyes behind the lenses.
– There are two I like best. The one with Zeb’s penis and his leg with my cocks in the background. I like the way half the picture is dark and half light. Then there’s the one where we’re both touching our dicks with a hook and Zeb’s curves one way and mine points the other to make like a circle. You can see my two dicks in that one too but only if you know to look. The hooks are the subject. I like that one very much.
– You don’t think it’s too exploitative? That I’m trying to sensationalise? Oh, it’s so difficult to explain!
– No, of course not. I understand, Dorian. Don’t worry. I know it’s difficult. I think the photos themselves are beautiful, even if the subject matter itself is just a couple of hooks and my blurry cocks. The way you’ve managed to balance it all, dark and light and smooth and rough and flesh and steel. It’s wonderful. And if you look really hard, you can see the guy in the background seems to have two penises but it isn’t really obvious, is it? It’s great. I love it.
Dorian, always an emotional man, felt huge relief. He felt vindicated. Perhaps his photos did show deviant beauty after all. Chug approved of the way he had treated the subject.
Dorian quietly returned his laptop and photos to his rucksack.
– Do you have to go right away, Dorian? Would you like to stay for a while? Zeb won’t be back until late. I thought you might like to see some more of my prostheses.
– That would be interesting. I’ve never seen you wearing the two pirate hooks together.
– Yes, I thought you might. Let’s go in the bedroom and you can help me change. Help me up, will you? It’s easier.
Dorian held Chug’s right arm prosthesis. It was hard and irregular. It felt erotic. He would love to take a series of photographs of all of Chug’s artificial limbs, both separately and being worn. Chug lowered himself to his bed and lay back.
– Take my limbs off, Dorian!
Chug spoke in a surprisingly stern voice. Dorian was taken aback, suddenly outclassed and reduced to an inferior. The tone was familiar from dozens of sado‑masochistic porn videos he had watched. It was the way masters ordered their slaves. It was exciting. Not only was he going to see all of Chug’s limbs, he was probably going to be fitting them to the stumps. His micropenis made its presence known. He could feel his foreskin wrinkling and filling with the glans.
First, he ought to remove Chug’s legs. He opened the bow which held Chug’s sports trousers up and pulled the elasticated waist down past Chug’s buttocks, half covered by sockets. He left the bunched trousers wrapped around Chug’s artificial shins and looked closely at the naked sockets in order to discern how the legs were suspended, attached to the stumps. There was a valve near the bottom which, he knew, would release the near vacuum which forced the sockets to remain in place. He pressed them both and pulled each socket carefully away from the leg stumps. The legs were in his arms.
– Put them on the floor. Take my arms off now.
Dorian would have like to examine Chug’s naked crotch. Both penises were relaxed, perfectly ordinary penises. Seeing two was like being subjected to some kind of optical illusion. Dorian turned his attention to Chug’s hooks and arms. Chug would have to sit up first so he could remove the harness. Without saying anything, Dorian placed an arm around Chug’s shoulders and lifted him to sit. There were no valves on the arm sockets. Then Dorian understood. The arms were held on by the harness. If he could get it free, the arms would come off the stumps. There was a steel ring in the middle of Chug’s back. Dorian pulled it upwards. Chug would have to raise his arms.
– Will you lift your arms, please, Chug?
Chug did so. Dorian slowly removed each prosthesis from the stumps and placed the set on the floor, being careful not to tangle it.
– Would you like me to remove the rubber liners too?
– No. Leave them. Fetch the two dildo arms. They’re over there in the corner.
Chug jerked his head. Dorian found the arms under a pair of Chug’s stubbies.
– Put them on me. Don’t get them mixed up.
Dorian remembered printing the arms. He knew which dildo was intended for which stump. The bent one went on the left. The straight one on the right. Dorian was leaking precum. He could feel the wetness cooling in his underwear.
– The hooks are in the top drawer on the left.
Dorian fed one onto the hemispherical tip of Chug’s left dildo.
– Do you want them both, Chug?
– Yes, of course. Make the left hook point up and the right one point inwards.
Dorian did so and stood back to watch Chug examining his brass‑coloured hooks. They were enormous compared with his standard steel hooks, easily three times as big. They were the classic pirate hook shape, curvaceous and heavy. Dorian had found a ready‑to‑use image file on the net and had adapted it to slide onto the dildoes. Chug had no elbows now. The hooks extended his stumps. He leaned forward slightly and touched both his penises with a hook. They were semi‑erect. He moved the hooks back and forth along the length of his cocks and groaned in a low voice. It was a novelty to be able to manipulate his genitals himself.
– Does this excite you, Dorian? Are you excited to see me touch myself with my hooks?
– Yes. It is very erotic to see you using the hooks like that.
– I don’t believe you. I want to see your dick. Show me your dick, Dorian. Get your trousers off and show me how much you like my dicks.
Dorian was horrified. He never showed anyone his micropenis. No‑one else had seen it since he left school. He could sense it was useless to argue with Chug. With an increasing sense of dread, he loosened his belt and undid his trousers. He could feel the big wet patch at the top of his legs. He pulled them down quickly, ashamed of the way he had soiled himself. His naked glans glistened in the mess of his wet pubic hair. Chug looked at it with as much fascinated amazement as Dorian had looked at his own pair.
– Is that it? Is it really that short?
Chug reached out with his right hook in an effort to touch the mushroom‑sized dick. Dorian hesitated a moment and moved closer. Chug leaned forward and lifted the penis head with his hook.
– That’s incredible. I had no idea. I’ve never seen anything like that before.
– I am erect, Chug. It is as long now as it can be. I’m sorry.
– No! Don’t say that! You should never be sorry for what you have. I can understand why you are shy about showing other people. How do you think I feel? Do you think I can show other people what I have?
– So there are two of us.
– Exactly right. Alright, Dorian, I’m sorry if I embarrassed you. I didn’t know. I won’t do it again. Can you give me those stubbies and put them on my stumps? Then we can go and sit down again.
Dorian pulled his underpants and trousers up and fitted Chug’s short rubberised stubbies onto his stumps. Chug held his pirate hooks up and rolled off the bed. He stumped past his artificial arms and legs on the floor and guided Dorian back to the lounge.
– Dorian, tell me if you don’t want to talk about it, but is your penis the reason you are alone? Are you too shy to find a boyfriend? You are gay, aren’t you?
– Yes, I’m gay and you’re right. No man would want to be with me. I’m sure of it.
– But that’s ridiculous! There are plenty of men who find small penises to be sexy and yours is extreme. Some men like undeveloped penises, the size of a little finger and some like mature penises like yours. You can cum, can’t you? Have orgasms?
Dorian’s distaste for his situation relented slightly in light of Chug’s concern.
– Yes, I can have orgasms but I don’t masturbate. I can only play with the head because I have no shaft. I’ve seen how men masturbate in videos. I could never do that. I masturbate by rubbing my crotch against my bedsheets. That’s the only way.
– Yeah. I do that too.
Dorian was surprised at the revelation, until he realised the obvious.
– Is that because you have no hands?
– Yup. And not having knees or legs makes it awkward to move my dicks, you know, to wank. I just have to flex my pelvis but it’s hard to control where my dicks are going.
– I’m sorry, Chug. It must be hard for you.
– It’s alright. Me and Zeb get on OK. We make love together. You’ve seen Zeb’s cock. He has the same problem we do. He can’t wank. Not with his hands sticking out of his shoulders.
– It must be frustrating for him to have hands but not be able to reach anything. I don’t think I could stand it. I’d much rather have a pair of hooks on ordinary stumps. Oh, sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.
– Are you a wannabe, Dorian? Would you like to lose a limb? You want your hands off?
– I love seeing men with hooks. I get erect if I only think about it.
– And no‑one can see your erection! That’s very clever. I think you should try a dating app and advertise that your best features are Number One, mini-penis and Number Two, handsome face. Make it your top feature. That way you won’t have to worry about disappointing a prospective boyfriend because he’d already know and got in touch exactly because he likes the idea of your short dick. Why don’t you search for a nullo? You’d have the upper hand in that case.
– What’s a nullo?
– It’s a man who has had his dick cut off.
– Oh! Who would do such a thing?
– Haha! Why don’t you advertise for a nullo boyfriend and ask him?
Dorian stayed longer than he expected. Chug had so many interesting and surprising things to talk about. Dorian fetched both Chug’s paws and his arm prostheses from the bedroom. Chug showed Dorian how he walked around like a four‑legged animal. He sat on the floor, stubbies splayed, leaning neatly on his forepaws, and continued chatting as if it was completely ordinary. For Chug, it was. Zeb returned home and found them deep in conversation. Dorian had asked some technical details about the prosthetic arms and Chug donned them in order to demonstrate. Dorian’s amputee fantasies were being reinforced. He understood the extra difficulties both Chug and Zeb faced because they had no elbows and tried to imagine how much simpler and more versatile a pair of hooks would be if an amputee kept some of his forearms. He tried to imagine himself with hooks and suddenly felt his penis pulsing. He was having an orgasm. This time he was not disgusted. His libido knew what his physique needed. Two hooks.
Zeb struggled out of his white leather jacket and stood in front of the mirror trying to persuade a hook to nip the release on his helmet. Since Dorian was present and Chug was wearing hooks, he took the opportunity to shake off his own prostheses. He grabbed the harness with a middle finger as it slipped down and hung the arms from a hook in the hall. The White Ghost sat next to Chug and nuzzled against his neck until Chug turned and kissed his mate.
– What have you been talking about?
– All sorts of things. Mostly you, because you weren’t here.
– Oh great.
– No, we’ve been talking about ways that Dorian can find himself a boyfriend.
– Jeez! A bloke looks like that and can’t find a boyfriend? Has the world gone crazy?
– There’s more to it than that. Dorian, is it OK to explain stuff to Zeb?
– I suppose so. Zeb, you see, I have a big hang‑up about my penis.
– Yeah, that sounds familiar. What else is new?
– The thing is, mine is very short. I mean, it looks like a normal one except I don’t have a shaft.
– You mean it’s like my arms?
Dorian stared at the handsome hands resting against Zeb’s upper chest. Hands but no arms.
– Yes! Exactly like your arms!
Dorian, always emotional, suddenly had an epiphany and realised how trivial his deformity was compared with Zeb’s. The shock of sudden enlightenment caused him to break into tears.
– Excuse me. I never thought of that before. Ah! Sorry.
– Don’t worry about it. So what conclusion have you come to about Dorian’s new boyfriend?
– I told him to go on a dating site and advertise for a nullo.
– Haha! I bet that would bring a few replies. Nullos are usually desperate to find boyfriends for obvious reasons.
– Are there lots of nullos? I’d never heard of them before.
– Quite a few. More than you’d think. It’s just another form of body mod, like piercing or stretching earlobes. If you’re lucky, you’ll find a nullo with a tattooed face and dozens of piercings. That’ll give you something to photograph, I bet. One of the riders has a tattooed face and lips covered in thick lip rings. They sort of slot together like a zipper when he closes his mouth. Keeps his helmet on when he’s delivering though, like I do.
Dorian stared at Zeb, shocked again at how different people could be, quite voluntarily. He could never tattoo his face. What would it be like to have a tattooed boyfriend? Or any sort of boyfriend?
– Dorian, if you want to meet interesting people, I could ask a few riders round for a party one evening. I’m sure you’d find someone really interesting. We’re a strange bunch in the flesh, so to speak.
Dorian looked at the armless man gesturing with his hands and wondered what kind of man Zeb would consider strange. It was time to get home.
– Thank you for having me. I’ve learned a lot this evening. I’ll see myself out.
Dorian slung his rucksack over his back and left, taking care that the door locked.
– What else were you talking about? Why is he so emotional?
– He’s a wannabe. He wants hooks.
– Yeah, I sorta guessed.
Dorian was emotional because of the evening’s revelations. He felt justified in preparing the rest of his photos for Deviant Beauty, he had seen Zeb’s physical disability which he found sexually arousing and Chug had persuaded him to emphasise his micropenis to find a boyfriend with none. Most of all, his mind was filled with the idea of working in his studio, creating steel sculptures, making 3D prints and photographing portraiture while wearing his very own set of steel hooks like Chug and Zeb wore. He looked at his own slim, delicate hands and wished they were hook prostheses.
P a r t T h r e e
Dorian’s neatly mounted exhibition photos were delivered by the print house. The entire set weighed practically nothing. Full of trepidation, Dorian slit open the packaging paper to examine the prints. They had been reproduced at high resolution on glossy photographic paper at A1 size. They looked magnificent. Every pore of his subjects’ skin was visible, every scratch and dent in their prosthetic limbs evident. Dorian completed the submission form and decided to deliver his work to the gallery in person.
Chug and Zeb heard nothing from Dorian for a while. Zeb left for work twice a day, cycling around the local area delivering food to people too busy or lazy to cook or to people like himself, handicapped somehow. He delivered pizzas several times to an address about a mile from home where a guy met him almost every time outside the entrance to an apartment block. The bloke was legless and wheeled himself around on a skateboard. Apart from that obvious disability, he revealed chrome teeth when he spoke. His head and face were tattooed with simulated strokes of black paint from a rough paintbrush. Over the weeks when Zeb happened to deliver his evening pizza, they became better acquainted with each other. The guy introduced himself as Sod.
– Short for Silly Sod. That’s what me mates called me after I got blown up, see? I thought it was pretty funny meself. Like it was my fault.
– Were you in the army or something?
– Yeah. Down in Salisbury doing target practice only no‑one told me what time we were supposed to be clear. Oh well, I guess they did but I fvcked up. Anyways, to cut the proverbial long story short, I was still out on the range behind a ridge when the first ammo came over and I got me bleeding legs blown off. And me block and tackle.
Sod spread his arms to demonstrate the area of his body which had been destroyed. Zeb noticed that his fingers were merely short stumps.
– Anyway, that’s my story. What happened to you?
– Born this way. Not with artificial arms, though. They came later.
– Haha! You’re funny. Alright mate, see you around.
Zeb thought it might be an idea to invite Sod to the general get‑together and booze‑up he and Chug were planning in order to introduce Dorian to some prospective boyfriends. If he ran into his mate with the lip piercings, he might invite him too. His bike was marked with his Visio channel name. It was practically the only way to recognise him. Lots of riders kept their identity hidden behind mirrored visors as the economy tightened. There were more riders around these days, working men desperate to earn a few extra bucks to make ends meet. They were not much competition though. It was an effort to dash around north London after working for eight hours and sitting in traffic for two hours to get there. They were not really up to it. Zeb clacked his hooks together to straighten them, closed them on the naked steel handlebars and headed back to the nearest hamburger joint to collect another double order.
The social ‘do’ was on Chug’s mind too. He was perturbed to realise that he did not really know anyone whom he could invite. To be honest, he had no friends. He rarely went anywhere except maybe to a club with Zeb but they stuck together and never socialised with other men. He was not naïve enough to assume that other men would want to chat to a pair of amputees, especially when Chug was wearing his quad stubbies and arrived on all fours. He knew Zeb had friendly relations with several other drivers who had recognised him through the Visio videos but he had never met any of them. It was ironic, really. The party, or whatever it was, was intended to link Dorian up with another guy and at the same time, it might be a way for Chug to make a friend or two as well. Maybe he should make an effort to appear as normal as possible, wear his legs and hooks at home for a change. Zeb enjoyed seeing Chug on his short rubber stubbies but maybe he should make a good impression. He sniggered. Even if he stood tall on his artificial legs, his mirrored aviators and big black hearing aids would still mark him out as special.
Dorian had to travel to Hornsey to deliver his light but cumbersome package of images. They were accepted and signed for, and after a brief conversation with the administrator, Dorian left feeling drained. His fate was now out of his hands. He had no upcoming outside projects. Perhaps he could start work designing the steel legs for Chug he had mentioned a few weeks ago. They would hardly be practical. Perhaps it would be better to wait until Chug brought the subject up rather than bother him with Dorian’s fetishistic brain farts. Luckily, Dorian’s phone pinged with an incoming message enquiring about his availability for a wedding shoot. That would take his mind off other matters for a while.
Zeb ran into his tattooed and pierced colleague during the evening shift. They both had a delivery in the same direction. They stopped at a red light and Zeb opened his visor and waved a hook at his friend to do the same.
– Are you free two weeks on Saturday? We’re having a party at ours and you are invited!
– Great! Where’s that?
– Brent. I’ll message you on your Visio channel with the time.
The light changed. They lowered their visors and sped off ahead of the rest of the line of traffic.
Zeb was expecting Sod to order a pizza some time during the evening. He kept an eye on the app, ready to accept any order to Sod’s apartment building.
Chug was wearing short stubbies with his hooks when Zeb got home just after nine. Zeb struggled out of his helmet and lowered himself to the floor in front of Chug. They swung their prostheses to each side for balance and kissed.
– I invited my mate to the party.
– Ah! When is it?
– Fortnight on Saturday. And I’m inviting Sod when I see him.
– Is he the legless guy?
– Yup.
– How many people are coming?
– Shall we have six? That’s not too many, is it? Me, you, Dorian, Sod, Howard and one more.
– Who’s Howard?
– The guy with the lip piercings.
– Right. Yeah, six is about right. Are you gonna invite someone normal without tattoos or piercings or stumps?
– Not if I can help it. Haha!
Zeb could not think of anyone else who might like to join them. But maybe Howard or Sod knew someone decent who might enjoy an evening with some decidedly odd folk. Someone who might catch Dorian’s eye. It was the whole point of the exercise. Dorian was spending the evening watching Visio videos and was currently entranced by a documentary about a mountaineering expedition in the Alps. All the participants were amputees and Dorian gloated over the artificial limbs. His glans was erect and leaked pre‑cum until it soaked through Dorian’s jeans. He was transfixed by seeing young men of his own age struggling with cleated peg legs and stubbies, manipulating ropes and hitches with steel hooks. It was too much. He watched to the end and went to bed, frustrated that he could never experience stumps of his own. He turned onto his belly and gyrated his hips until friction worked its magic and he pumped ejaculate into the sheets. He slept in its warmth.
Chug and Zeb showered together next morning. Chug washed Zeb all over with a sponge strapped to his right stump and turned his attention to himself. After drying themselves, Chug sat on the toilet seat so Zeb could kneel and place Chug’s hearing aids in his ears and the heavy glasses on his face. As usual, Chug’s handsome eyes disappeared behind his aviators, disguising the effect the thick lenses had on his appearance. He swiped his full beard with both arm stumps, trying to rid it of the last recalcitrant droplets. They dressed in the bedroom, Chug in a fresh T‑shirt and leather codpiece, then four stump socks and his long cylindrical stubbies. He threw his arm prostheses onto his bed, arranged them correctly and shoved his arm stumps into the sockets. He opened and closed the hooks a couple of times and shrugged until the harness felt balanced across his back. Zeb spread his T‑shirt on the bed and used his teeth to make an opening he could push his head into. He could pull the tight neck opening over his head with his hands—one of the very few things they were useful for. Chug held Zeb’s underwear for him to step into and his White Ghost leather trousers. Zeb followed Chug’s example and pushed his prostheses over his shoulders, disguising the masculine hands at his shoulders.
Time for breakfast. Both men were prosthetically equipped with everything they could be to make a successful day of it. Two cups of espresso each, some toast, and Zeb declared himself ready. The time was coming up to seven. He wanted to do a morning shift from seven until ten or eleven, whenever it quietened down. He stuffed his feet into his white sneakers, pushed his white helmet onto his head and lifted his right hook for Chug to swipe.
– See you for lunch.
Zeb activated the delivery app and seconds later, his first order appeared. Accept or reject? Zeb looked closer at the address. It was Sod’s building. An order for four hamburgers and a litre of Coke. Before anyone could snatch it, Zeb swiped accept and left at a run to pick up the food and ferry it to Sod. It had to be Sod.
There was an interminable queue at the counter due to understaffing. Zeb’s order took twenty minutes to prepare and he would have cancelled the job under ordinary circumstances but he specifically wanted to call on Sod and this order was paying five fifteen plus a one point five times premium because of the early hour. Finally, he snatched the bag of burgers in one hook and the Coke bottle in the other and stashed them in his thermal bag. He unlocked his bike and pedalled its motor into action. He was soon speeding east towards the estate where Sod lived up on the sixth floor of a ten storey block, which looked depressing when it was brand new in the mid‑Seventies.
Sod was outside to meet him.
– Whoah! Never seen you in a wheelchair, man!
– I have company over and he’s got my skateboard. He got blown up in Aghanistan. This is his wheelchair. Whyn’t you come up for a coffee and meet him? You have a lot in common.
Zeb glanced at his phone. It had only just gone seven, and there was only one order on offer for a bunch of coffees. Zeb was not interested.
– OK, I’ll come up to say hello. Have you got coffee?
– We just brewed another pot. Come on! Leave your bike. No‑one will nick it.
Zeb pressed the lock button on his right wrist and the bike beeped. He unhitched his big thermal bag and the two went inside.
– This is my mate’s custom wheelchair. Just so you don’t think I use one all the time.
– It looks pretty snazzy. I like the handles.
– Yeah. He has hooks like you so he needs levers on his chair cos he can’t push the wheels. Push six, will ya? Anyways, he’s staying with me for a coupla weeks until he gets a new bit of gear.
– Oh? Where does he live?
– Somewhere near Plymouth or something. Ask him.
The lift opened and Zeb pulled the unlatched apartment door open for Sod to wheel through. Zeb stepped in and followed Sod to the kitchen where a muscular, tanned, silvery‑haired man with a black moustache sat with black carbon arms on the table. Out of social nicety, Zeb pushed his visor open and reached across to bump hooks with the stranger.
– I thought Sod was pulling my leg yesterday when he said a delivery guy used hooks. Not that I’ve got a leg to pull, but anyway.
Zeb shifted position slightly to see the man’s naked buttocks and two round nubs on the chair. He had no visible genitals. He was wearing only his prosthetic arms and a leather waistcoat. All he needed was an officer’s cap and he would be the ideal daddy in any leather club.
– My name’s Bug, by the way.
– Hi Bug. I’m Zeb. Is Bug short for something?
– Yeah but I’m not telling you. Not yet anyway.
He smirked and one side of his moustache lifted. He looked lecherous. It was a well‑practised look. Sod handed Zeb a mug of coffee.
– There’s something I wanted to ask you, Sod. See, we’ve never had a party or social do at our pad and we were wondering who to invite to one. We need more people, see? So I was wondering if you’d come. And since Bug is staying with you, if you would kindly join us, you would be very welcome.
– Don’t know about that, mate. You can see what condition we’re in.
– Ha! That’s why I’m asking. There won’t be anyone there who’d give a damn about a stump or two.
– Well, that sounds interesting. Whatcha think, Bug? Feel like a night out?
– Where is it?
– My place. Brent. Me and my mate share a flat. He’s limbless, deaf and almost blind, so you could say he’d be happy to almost see you.
– Whoah! Vicious! When is this booze‑up, mate?
– Saturday after next, starting at six. Bring your own bottle if you don’t like beer.
– Whatcha reckon, Bug? Saturday after next?
– I’ll be there. Never could pass up a good amputee party.
Zeb’s phone beeped with an incoming order. Breakfast hamburgers for Willesden. He swiped accept.
– I have to go. Sod, mate, I’ll drop you the address next time I see ya. Thanks for the joe. Nice to meet you, Bug.
Zeb tapped his visor down and left the two ex‑army gays to each other. Zeb could imagine what they got up to with but one pair of hands between them. The legless silver daddy would be quite a catch for someone who was searching for a father figure.
Officials and administrators at Hornsey College perused the submissions from their selected contributors. Dorian’s work aroused the greatest controversy. It was fairly obvious that the photographer had taken inspiration from Mapplethorpe but his work held a warmth, a sense of empathy, which was missing from the original. Dorian’s submissions clicked several boxes, depicting as they did homosexuality, contrasting skin colour and limb difference. Three of the photos indistinctly seemed to show a remarkable genital abnormality. One of them was too explicit for a public exhibition but it was overwhelmingly the most erotic. The officials discussed Dorian’s work and the vote was cast to display eight of fifteen images. One of the officials had met Dorian several times and was infatuated with his remarkable physical beauty.
Zeb decided he needed business cards. It would be easier to give a card with his details clearly printed than to try to shout his phone number to someone else at a red light or in the hubbub of a busy kitchen. He parked and locked his bike outside an office supplies shop in Cricklewood High Street and ordered a hundred business cards for same day delivery with all the relevant information. He received a penny change from a tenner but left it on the counter. He would look out for a near‑by drop in the afternoon and curve by to collect the cards.
By the end of the week, all the invitees had a smartly laid‑out business card except for Howard’s friend Quentin who apparently did shifts south of the river after losing a job as an investment banker.
– Wait ’til you see him.
– Why? What’s he like?
– He’s a skinhead.
– Oh. Good bloke, is he?
– The best. Here we go.
The lights turned to green and the two electric cyclists powered off in different directions. Zeb was not overly keen on skinheads but knew there were two sorts—hardnuts and wannabes. Maybe Quentin was one of the latter. He had to be. Howie would not invite anyone who would cause trouble.
Bug’s new socket, the genuine reason for his arduous journey from Plymouth, was ready. Two days before Zeb’s social evening, a Thursday, Bug travelled to his prosthetist by invataxi in his wheelchair to collect it. Balancing with minuscule leg stumps, he powered the propulsion levers of his custom‑made wheelchair with two farmer’s hooks, uniquely suitable for gripping the levers. Zeb used the same hooks because of the reliable grip on his handlebars. A few hours later, Bug returned sitting in a leather and aluminium torso socket which enveloped his entire body up to his armpits and allowed him to both rock and slide himself forward on the curving metal base. He had insisted on a rounded rather than flat base, as his prosthetist recommended, stating that it was easier for him to move dragging himself with his number sevens if the base was rounded. He stared at the prosthetist with his intense hypermasculine features and forced him to agree to Bug’s design. Now he was sitting in it, his entire torso squeezed gently by good black leather, his catheter taken care of behind a removable codpiece above the shiny wide expanse of the sensually curving aluminium base, two centimetres thick, designed to last a lifetime. Bug was forty‑five and reckoned another thirty years might see it out.
Bug joined the army at sixteen. He was fit, active and enthusiastic. He obeyed every order to the letter and disguised his distaste for those peers and superiors whom he disliked. He was promoted through the ranks at regular intervals and by the age of thirty, he had enough credit to his name that he was allowed to bear a moustache, a rare privilege. Two years later, he was overseeing deployment of newly delivered ordinance when a missile exploded prematurely, as the official investigation put it. Bug lost only his lower body and most of his hearing. The remnants of his femurs were tidied, patches of skin retained to cover the amputation sites. His genitals had been neatly sliced off, as one of his surgeons succinctly put it. He could urinate through the stump of his penis but the loss of his testes meant that he would never sire a child. Bug spent a year on his back while his arse healed and his arm stumps became robust enough for a pair of hooks. Finally he was released from hospital to a well‑deserved retirement with full benefits, slightly more than the minimum wage. For the past eight years, Bug had supplemented his income by uploading regular insights of his everyday life with stumps and prostheses in use for a pay‑per‑view video site. A few months after launching, it brought in tenfold as much as his disability pension. Bug’s persona as a leather master was at odds with his physical reality, legless and handless, but he had thousands of followers worldwide who subscribed to see his three stumps and hooks. Now they could appreciate the black leather body socket which suited his leather master image to perfection. He would try it out when he and Sod visited the delivery boy.
Dorian received notice of the inclusion of his work in the Deviant Beauty exhibition together with two complimentary tickets for guests to the vernissage, the private viewing before the opening day. There was no doubt in his mind about whom he would invite. The press would be present. The college’s biennial exhibition usually attracted a few journalists who circled the works and wrote desultory articles which sometimes made it into print on a slow day. This year, the theme of the exhibition had already engendered considerable interest. There promised to be good publicity.
The morning of the get‑together at Chug’s place. Dorian apologised for not being able to escort the amputees to the exhibition himself but his presence was necessary during the afternoon. Chug said he understood perfectly. He spent some time assembling himself and his attire. Long legs, black boots, leather trousers, white T-shirt and his motorcycle jacket. He lifted his head back and persuaded his right hook, holding a comb, to tidy and straighten his beard. It was beginning to get long. His hair was ok. Zeb arrived home and showered immediately. He waited for his skin to dry and wore identical clothes—leather trousers, T‑shirt, jacket. When Chug wore leg prostheses, the men were almost the same height and no‑one who saw them together could doubt they were a close couple.
Dorian was keeping a close eye on every taxi which pulled up outside the gallery. The doorman was a body‑builder, employed for this evening from a private security company. He spoke four languages, was a personal trainer for four oligarchs who paid him well and he had an English gentleman’s sense of decorum. When he saw a car draw up and a rear seat passenger struggling to lift prosthetic legs onto the pavement with a pair of hooks, he left the foyer to assist.
–May I help you, sir?
Chug glanced up at the giant pointing to Chug’s steel pylons.
– This one is caught under the seat.
– Leave it to me, sir.
The giant squatted and reached in to reposition Chug’s right ankle. He loved the sensation of the artificial leg in his broad hand.
– Try now, sir. Hold onto me for balance.
He extended both hands. Chug swivelled in his seat and reached out with both hooks. The giant carefully supported Chug until he had his artificial feet under him and held Chug’s elbow until they were both inside the gallery. Zeb followed behind, surprised to see Chug being escorted and assisted as if he were disabled. Dorian approached and they both thanked the doorman, who stood aside to admire another fine‑looking leather amputee join his friend.
– Thank you for coming. I don’t know anyone here! I feel so out of my comfort zone.
– Why? You should feel proud of yourself. Where are your photos?
– Along the back wall. Listen, if you hang around there, people are going to notice your hooks and put two and two together. Some of the press photographers might try to sneak a shot of you, although they’re not allowed to photograph the visitors. So watch out.
– Let’s look at the other photos first, then, and just wander by yours.
Other exhibitors had found deviance in many places. Someone had produced charming images of mentally challenged children playing. Another series of photos were dignified studio portraits of people with visible facial scars. Dorian’s series was now visible. They stood looking at the work, much bigger than life size, and appraised the play of light on their skin and stumps which Dorian had concentrated on. Chug’s diphallia was visible but not obvious in two shots. It was too much to hope that no‑one would notice. All the work was being studied and evaluated by everyone present. Chug had allowed his penises into each leg of his jeans. His large scrotum always caused him to boast a prominent package. It was not an unusual sight in a young man’s crotch. A woman in a severe black business suit directed a photographer colleague to take two photos of Dorian’s work, both of them the diphallic ones. She pushed past the trio of men standing nearby watching, the photographer trailing.
– Well, she didn’t notice anything.
– Most people don’t, Chug. They walk around with their eyes closed most of the time. Do you think she noticed anything odd in those photos?
– Hard to say.
In spite of Dorian’s reassurance, the woman and her photographer left the gallery and motored back to the offices of a national newspaper. She had noticed the oddity in Dorian’s photos and intended writing a brief article decrying the increasing trend towards sensationalism in modern photography. There was no such phenomenon—she had just invented it herself. But it was true that one of the guys in these photos had two dicks. It might make for a bit of notoriety for her.
Dorian, Chug and Zeb stuck together and tried to keep out of the way of serious‑looking people who toured the gallery pointing out various details which they were happy to explain to their colleagues. Explanations were less forthcoming when a group stood before Dorian’s photos. It was not quite the done thing to comment on prosthetic hooks or stumps or genitalia—and was that, could it be? It looks like the sitter has two… No, surely not!
Dorian’s images caused much private speculation and his name was noted. No‑one paid any attention to the two disabled men.
Chug and Zeb returned home, slightly drunk on punch, and struggled out of their smart clothes. Chug kept his long legs on but replaced his jeans with a codpiece and Zeb removed his arms entirely, saying he wanted to have a snooze. It was a rare occurrence. He lowered himself onto their bed and slept like a log for three hours.
– We’d better order some drink, man. How many people are coming? Five? I said it’s bring your own if you don’t want beer, so how many beers should we get?
– A six‑pack each is enough.
– Yeah, I suppose. Shall I order?
Zeb opened one of his delivery apps and used it as a customer for the first time. Some unlucky driver would have to ferry forty‑two cans of beer. As chance would have it, Howard saw the order flash up and noticed the address which he had learned from Zeb’s business card. He accepted the order and sped off to Zeb’s chosen supermarket. Forty minutes later, he hauled the six‑packs into Zeb’s kitchen. He raised his visor to show his grinning face, enhanced by seven thick steel lip piercings.
– Howard mate, thanks for bringing these.
– You reckon this’ll be enough?
– Don’t know. It’s enough to start with.
– Yeah, we can always order some more. See ya later.
Howard let his visor drop and left them with a pile of lager. Zeb started the difficult process of lifting them into an almost empty refrigerator with full‑length prosthetic arms.
A message arrived from Dorian. Most of the guests and journos had left the gallery leaving Dorian and the doorman to chat. They had been discussing Dorian’s photos and it gradually became clear that the doorman was as interested in amputation and prosthetics as Dorian himself. Both of them tried to keep their interest private and hoped no amputee would ever be offended by their surreptitious attention. When Dorian mentioned he would be visiting his photographic models that evening, the doorman said he wished he were coming because he would enjoy meeting the two arm amputees again. Dorian contacted Chug.
– do you remember the doorman at gallery? he wd like to see you again. may i invite him?
– Hey Zeb. Dorian wants to know if he can bring his new boyfriend tonight.
– What? I thought the whole idea was for us to find him a boyfriend.
– It looks like he’s beat us to it. You remember the muscle guy at the gallery?
– The bouncer? Yeah.
– It’s him. Dorian wants to bring him. Shall we let him?
– What do you think? The more the merrier?
– We might as well. What’s his name?
– Don’t know yet. So I can tell Dorian it’s OK?
– Alright.
– doorman welcome. come as early as u can.
– gallery closes at 5.
– ok c u.
– Jeez man! It’s gonna be crowded in here.
It was. Sod and Bug arrived first, both of them hauling their torsos from the taxi on their legless stumps. Bug’s aluminium shoe crushed gravel under it. He had been practising walking in it all morning and had discovered that by rocking and swinging his body, the rounded base of his brand‑new leather torso socket allowed him to roll forwards slowly but surely. He was also wearing his leather motorbike jacket and a chrome‑trimmed officer’s cap pulled down low over his eyes. His arm prostheses were in a rucksack. He wore two carbon fibre peg arms with rubber pads for propulsion. Sod had a beat‑up pair of red leather boxing gloves to protect his mutilated hands. His leather torso socket had a mere rubber base and Bug’s metal version had already awakened a desire to acquire something very similar. Bug rapped on Chug’s door with a peg arm.
– Welcome! You’re the first. Come in!
Chug stood aside and admired Bug’s peg arms. He was the only other man he had ever seen who used such items. He might be interested in seeing Chug’s own versions in use a little later. It was almost inevitable that all their disabled guests would display their prosthetic limbs at some stage during the evening. Bug’s silver and leather socket looked fantastic paired with the biker’s jacket. Sod removed his boxing gloves and flexed his finger stumps. His leather socket was fitted with a bulging codpiece held on by studs. It looked provocative. Chug approved wholeheartedly. Zeb sauntered out of the lounge and greeted his guests and introduced them by name to Chug who was meeting them for the first time. Chug was impressed by the fact that neither of the men passed comment on Chug’s name.
Bug lurched from side to side in his rigid socket and slowly rocked his way into the lounge. He found an empty corner and shrugged his rucksack and jacket off. He removed his peg arms and pulled the Velcro closures on his bag open with his forearm stumps. He lifted his prostheses out and was shortly sporting a pair of hooks, one a standard hook on the left and a symmetrical hook on the right, exactly right for holding a can of beer. Bug rolled around to face into the room and watched the others from beneath the visor of his cap. Zeb was slowly extracting cans of beer from the fridge. Bug watched the way Chug walked into the room with Sod. He was obviously on artificial legs. A quad. The mirror aviators and his big beard made him an imposing man, regardless of his hooks. Bug made an effort to see the boy’s hearing aids. His own were discrete and a bugger to put in. Most days he bothered with only one. There was a sharp knock on the door and Chug excused himself to Sod, who crawled across to where Bug sat.
– Hi! This must be the right place. You’re Chug, right? This is Quentin and I’m Howard.
Chug watched the man’s mouth in amazement. It looked as if it were zippered with thick chrome rings, all bearing a large closure ball. His face and forehead were streaked with abstract lines tattooed onto his scalp and around his ears. After the initial shock, they looked artistic. Sod’s tattooed face and head bore much bolder designs but the general inspiration was the same. And Sod had chrome teeth. This guy had chrome lips. Quentin held out a hand and gently grasped Chug’s right hook. He had a handsome intelligent face, and had very recently shaved his head which caught the light and shone handsomely. He stood far taller than any of the others present. He moved forward into the lounge as Chug led them to meet those already present. Howard was dressed in cowboy boots, jeans and a white hoodie. Quentin wore the skinhead uniform of white T-shirt, green MA‑1 jacket, skinny jeans shortened and rolled to expose his tall Dr Marten’s boot and the built‑up boot on his short leg. A meter‑long steel and black leather kafo leg brace stretched from the sole of his boot up to his crotch. He heaved the disabled leg forward and followed with the skinhead‑booted leg.
Sod and Bug watched, intrigued by the couple. Obviously good friends, completely different in lifestyle. And the polished expanse of the skinhead’s orthopaedic boot looked spectacular. They stood above the legless veterans and reached down to introduce themselves and shake hand to hook. Not knowing what to do or where to go next, they both lowered themselves to the floor. Quentin’s huge boot was ten centimetres from Bug’s aluminium shoe. Zeb held cans of beer in each hook and watched that his guests held them before releasing his grip. He remembered Chug’s worry about having invited too many people. If the guests sat on the floor in the corner for the rest of the evening, they could invite a dozen more. Only Dorian and the doorman were missing. Chug looked at the guests and decided to change. He rocked into the bedroom and closed the door. He removed his clothes and swung his heaviest, spiky codpiece over his cocks and balls. He shed his four prostheses and replaced them with the quad limbs, two rubberised stubbies and his peg arms with rubber tips. He pawed the door open and trotted over to the foursome in the corner who were deep in cross‑conversations with each other. Chug splayed his leg stumps and sat next to Quentin’s enormous boot. He leaned forward onto his forearm paws and tried to pick up a thread of conversation. He could hear speech all around him but it was impossible to determine who was speaking or what he was saying. Bug took note of Chug’s large hearing aids and knew the frustration he must be experiencing. He could understand next to nothing, either. Reason enough to get the guy alone later and learn to know him better.
Sod was fascinated by Howard’s face. They had both favoured the abstract lines which were trendy a few years back. Sod’s central tattoo started low on his forehead and swept up over his head like a black mohawk. More twisted lines passed over his ears onto his cheeks. Howard preferred a flurry of irregular lines like a bunch of twigs across his entire face and over his shaved head. His piercings clicked when he spoke and when he drank from his can of beer. Sod was comfortable displaying his face at all times but Howard had learned there was less bother if he wore his helmet at all times while he was working. Occasionally he delivered to a hotel or swanky block of up‑scale apartments where the concierge asked him to remove his helmet. It was a nuisance and the concierge often thought better of it after seeing Howard’s naked face.
Howard and Quentin were talking to each other about their bikes and a few useful shortcuts they had discovered. Chug leaned forward trying to make out their words. Bug felt like their alpha, as he so often did in social situations. He sat erect in his leather socket, leglessness reinforcing his unique status, his artificial arms and hooks the centre of attention in any group of men. He emptied his first can and held the compressed empty out to Zeb with an expression which suggested more. Zeb straightened his protheses and rose, nipped the empty can and went to fetch another beer. On his way back to the sinister Bug, the doorbell rang. Dorian was here! Bug held his second can with both hooks while Zeb pulled the tab open. Bug poked it into the can and thanked Zeb.
Zeb shrugged his arms into a position from which he could operate the door handle. Dorian stood there, framed by the huge presence of the doorman who had helped Chug from their taxi the previous day.
– At last! Welcome to our pad. Leave your jackets if you want. We’re all in the lounge squashed up in the corner, haha! Do you want a beer? Listen, just help yourself when you want. It saves me a trip.
The doorman stepped forward from behind Dorian and lifted a canvas bag. Bottles clinked inside it. Zeb peered inside and up at the smiling face of the giant.
– There was no need.
– It’s not done to arrive at a party without bringing something. We hope you’ll find a use for these. Would you like me to put them in the refrigerator for you?
Zeb stared up at the remarkable man who suddenly dominated with his presence. He nodded and chuckled. The giant turned towards Dorian and touched his cheek with a huge hand. With the giant in the kitchen, Zeb whispered to Dorian.
– Dorian, is he your boyfriend?
– I don’t know! He found out that the amputee photos are mine and I said they were friends of mine. Since then, he won’t leave me alone.
– Do you like him? Do you want me to ask him to leave?
– No! He’s the most thoughtful and considerate man I’ve ever met. He works so much and puts himself through so much trouble to make other peoples’ lives comfortable. He saw me feeling down after I heard some horrible people saying bad things about my photos and he came over to talk me out of my funk. He’s the most wonderful man I’ve met. I hope I can see him again after the exhibition closes.
– Wow! Dorian, you’ve found yourself a boyfriend. Well done, mate.
The boyfriend sauntered back from the kitchen and waited to be directed. Dorian suddenly realised he had not introduced his friend yet.
– Oh, I’m so sorry! Zeb, please meet my friend Benjamin.
Benjamin made a huge fist and lifted it for Zeb to bump with a hook.
– I’m pleased to meet you. Just call me Ben. Thank you for inviting me.
– You’re welcome. Let’s go and meet the others.
The others were still huddled together on the floor. Howard and Quentin rose to their feet as Dorian and Ben approached. Quentin’s leg brace immediately clicked to the locked position. The others ceased speaking and watched. Dorian was wearing the smart clothes he had chosen for the gallery and looked unusually cheerful. Ben’s hand was on his back, reassuring him, directing him forward gently. Dorian felt such trust and gratitude towards the giant that his knees were weak. Zeb spread his prostheses as if to envelope the newcomers.
– Everyone! This is Dorian who took the photos which are now in the exhibition at the gallery and this is Ben who is working there as the doorman.
Zeb introduced the group and briefly mentioned how they came to be present.
– And last of all is Bug who came up from Plymouth to collect his new socket. Why don’t you show it, Bug?
– Alright, I will.
Chug pushed himself out of Bug’s way with his peg arms. Bug, his face still concealed by his officer’s cap, tilted his body and leaned forward. The thick aluminium base rocked from side to side and edged gradually past Chug and into the empty space in front of Ben who suddenly squatted and fist-bumped another hook.
– I’m very pleased to meet you, sir. Your socket is very impressive.
Bug was flattered by the salutation. It was true. Bug had designed the leatherwear himself. It was decorated with studs and steel rings suggesting nipples. His leather biker jacket featured more of the same and his hooks completed the leather and steel outfit.
Zeb felt uncomfortable about his guests huddling in a corner and suggested the group move across to their two‑seater sofa and the two easy chairs. Bug rocked his way across the room, enjoying the sensation of legless motion, Sod swung himself on his stumped hands, Chug trotted on his rubber paws. Zeb invited Dorian and Ben to share the sofa. Quentin lowered himself into a chair and released the lock holding his short leg rigid. Ben noticed the startling built‑up boot as if for the first time.
– Quentin, may I ask the reason for your short leg? Wouldn’t you find it more convenient to use crutches and walk on one leg?
– Oh, I often use crutches at home, especially in the mornings after I get up. It takes a while to put my leg brace on, you see, and I’m usually in a hurry first thing in the morning.
– Ha! Yes, I am too.
– I dare say. And the reason for my short leg is that I was run over by a car when I was eleven and my joints were dislocated and bent out of shape. And after that, my right leg carried on growing as normal but the left one remained the same size, although I made a full recovery otherwise. There’s nothing wrong with the leg now. It just doesn’t match the other one.
– And that’s why you need the boot. I see. It looks spectacular. I think it’s the largest one of its kind I’ve ever seen.
It was the second time Ben had passed comment about someone’s equipment. What else might he be curious about? Chug rose onto his four paws.
– I’m going to put my limbs on. Zeb, stay here. He usually helps, you see. Ben, would you like to help?
– Yes, of course. You’ll have to tell me what to do.
Chug doubted it. He stumped towards his bedroom, peg arms flailing for balance, with Ben following.
– Come in and close the door, Ben. You are a trustworthy man, are you not?
– I believe I am. I’m trusted by my clients to remain silent about their affairs.
– Good. I hope you won’t speak about what you see here.
– I shan’t. Of course not.
– Good. Let’s start. I need a T‑shirt and I’m going to wear a codpiece. I’ll let you choose which one.
– Really? There’s a first time for everything! Where do we begin?
– Take these short limbs off me first. Then you need to put stump socks on. There’s a fresh pair on the dresser.
Chug watched Ben’s hands tenderly grasp his right rubber stubbie and felt increasing pressure as he pulled. The socket loosened and Ben placed it to one side. He repeated the action on the left and reached across for the stump socks. Chug thought he was too practised for this to be the first time he had handled prosthetic gear.
– Do you want your legs now?
– Not just yet. Take my peg arms off.
– Is that what you call them?
– For want of a better word. They’re not really stubbies, are they?
– No. I haven’t heard the expression peg arms before.
– Ben, do you have experience with amputees?
– Yes, I do.
– OK. I wondered. My arms are over there. You can use the stump socks in the sockets. They’re clean.
Ben took both Chug’s arm stumps into his hands to inspect them. He felt the underlying musculature, unusual in arm amputees. He smoothed the liners before slipping the cotton stump socks on.
– Do you want the apparatus too now?
– Yes please.
Ben looked at the artificial arms and straightened the harness. He held the sockets in front of Chug’s stumps and invited him to push into them. He lifted the harness over Chug’s head and made sure it was seated centrally across his back.
– You have no buckles on the triceps cuff.
– No. I can’t use them anyway.
– Are they comfortable?
– They’re fine.
– I mean generally. Do you feel comfortable with artificial arms?
– I’ve never known anything else. I was born this way.
– Ah, congenital. I thought perhaps you were a victim of sepsis.
– No. Nothing like that.
Chug tested his hooks. They opened smoothly and closed with a tiny metallic click. He lifted and lowered his forearms and locked them at ninety degrees.
– Change my codpiece next. There are several in the topmost drawer. Find one you like the look of.
Ben inspected five different codpieces. One was heavy with upended bullets poking out, another was covered in short blunt spikes. He selected one which was criss‑crossed with broad strips of leather, making it fairly rigid.
– I like this one. I’d like to see you wearing it.
– I like it too. Take this one off me, please.
Chug lay back on his bed and lifted his leg stumps. Ben loosened the Velcro straps on Chug’s codpiece and pulled it past the stumps. Halfway, he inhaled sharply and froze. He stared at Chug’s pair of penises and into Chug’s eyes.
– My God, I never thought…
– That you would see a man with two dicks?
– No. That I would ever find another.
Ben put the codpiece with the stubbies and stood up. He loosened his pressed black uniform trousers and let them drop to his ankles. He pulled his briefs down and exposed his genitals to Chug. The heads of two penises, one above the other, glistened with pre‑cum. They shared a thick shaft and bifurcated vertically. The bottom penis was almost twenty centimetres long, the upper slightly shorter. Ben had taken to stretching his ball sac and a long cylindrical steel weight around his scrotum pushed his testes away from his fleshy cocks. Chug stared, not able to speak. Ben could not take his eyes off Chug’s remarkable penises, side by side, completely different from what he had. Ben was unable to use his penises for coitus. They were connected until the last ten centimetres where they separated completely. He was inured to his fate that only lonely masturbation would ever bring sexual pleasure. He had never dared expose himself to anyone else. Until recently, his mother was the only person who knew his secret.
Chug spoke first.
– Take my arms and liners off. I want to be naked. I want to fvck your dicks.
Ben was shocked into action. He stepped out of his trousers and threw them towards a chair. He locked the bedroom door and hurriedly undressed. He tried to remain calm and gentle while he removed Chug’s arms and peeled the stumps socks and liners from his stumps. They were both naked. Ben stood waiting for Chug’s instructions, trembling with excitement. He was about to perform the act of copulation with another man for the first time.
– Lie on the bed. I’m going to climb on top of you. You can lift me if you want to.
Ben lowered himself slowly onto the low bed and put an arm around his limbless partner. His feet extended beyond the foot of the bed but that did not matter. He lifted Chug and brought his head to his own. Suspended in the air, Chug leant towards Ben’s face and kissed him.
– Put me down. Get our dicks together.
Ben moved Chug slowly towards his genitals. Both men had erections and Ben continued positioning Chug until he felt the tips of Chug’s dicks touch his thighs. He lowered the torso man and squirmed to rearrange his own bifurcation. His balls were conveniently distant, halfway down his thighs. Chug began to copulate as urgently as his stumps allowed. His glanses chafed against Ben’s belly and against the lower penis. Ben’s tools were enveloped by Chug’s thick impressive cocks. His upper cock was being forced into the gap between Chug’s cocks with every push. Ben had never thought he would ever find anyone who might satisfy him. With the release of years of pent‑up frustration, Ben thrust back at Chug who was reaching climax in both cocks simultaneously for the first time ever. He had always found it necessary to use both hooks to masturbate one cock at a time and when he fvcked Zeb, he had to alternate. Chug became so excited by feeling Ben’s cocks between his own that he began to kick against Ben’s thighs with his stumps and tried to claw himself closer with his arm stumps. Ben was almost frenetic with so many sensations which he craved and fantasised over. The inevitable happened and both men were slimy with the generous semen from four cocks. It flowed between Ben’s legs and dripped onto Chug and Zeb’s bed.
Ben lay back, spent from excitement and dumfounded at having found another man with diphallia, with two real cocks instead of the bifurcated dicks on a single thick shaft which he had. Chug stretched his arm stumps across Ben’s chest and turned his head sideways. His hearing aid made it uncomfortable. He raised his head, his beard melding with the fur on Ben’s chest.
– We need to change the sheets. Sorry to be so domestic about it.
– Don’t worry. You’re quite right. I’ll do it. Where are your sheets?
– Bottom drawer.
Ben lifted Chug off himself and lowered him to a sitting position. Chug slid onto the floor and busied himself with replacing liners on his leg stumps. He would wear the stubbies for the rest of the evening. There was no point now in trying to impress the others with his proficiency at using long prostheses. The only man he wanted to impress was with him now. Ben stripped the sperm‑laden sheet from the bed and folded it. The sperm had not soaked through. The bed was dry and the fresh sheet was in place. Chug was feeding his other stump into a stubbie.
– Don’t put your arms on Chug. I’ll feed you and hold your drink for you. I wish I could always be there for you.
– OK. I still need that codpiece and a T‑shirt though.
Ben finished dressing Chug and replaced his own clothes. His bifurcation hung down one trouser leg, the steel‑clad stretched scrotum down the other. Due to Ben’s height and muscular bulk, the bulge in his crotch was not disproportionate. He picked Chug up under the armpits and lifted him almost two metres into the air. They were eye to eye. The hold turned into a hug and they kissed, tasting each other. Ben lowered Chug onto his rubber‑soled stubbies, unlocked the door and they rejoined the company.
Dorian was now sharing the sofa with Bug, lifted there by Howard. Bug was reclining so much that the aluminium expanse of his base faced the room. He had removed his officer’s cap, revealing a bald scalp in need of a shave. His hooks were linked across his leather torso socket. Dorian discovered that Bug had been a military photographer alongside his other accomplishments. His nickname came from Shutterbug. They were discussing the difficulties of handling a professional mirrorless camera with a pair of hooks. Many functions could be operated successfully with the steel touch of a hook on the display panel but changing objectives was next to impossible. Dorian learned that Bug still had half his forearms and was not as disabled as Chug or Zeb, both missing their elbows. It was gratifying to discuss shop with someone who was knowledgeable. Bug was impressed with Dorian, not only because of his natural beauty but also because he exuded an air of respect and empathy toward the limbless daddy. Bug softened his usual demeanour, hence the removal of his cap and his relaxed position. Without demeaning himself so far as to actually flirt with the boy, he hoped he could command enough attraction to keep the boy interested. Dorian felt gratitude towards the older man who expressed an interest in his opinions. If only he had someone as authoritative as Bug in his life to help him decide things. It would make life so much easier. Dorian loved Bug’s thick black moustache and the coarse stubble and wanted to photograph him. Maybe a series of photographs revealing tenderness engendered by respect. Dorian wanted to touch the manly face but dared not.
Sod and Howard were scheming together to get more facial tattoos. Howard’s blackwork was delicate enough to allow much bolder designs to be superimposed. He admired the boldness of Sod’s work. Quentin was in the kitchen with Zeb, chatting over a beer. No doubt about something to do with a food delivery app or electric bikes.
– Are you hungry, Chug? Shall I order some food?
– We’d better ask what people want. You never know about allergies and that.
– True. Leave your arms off for the rest of the evening, OK? I love your stumps. It’s nice to look at them, especially when you’re wearing your short legs. Chug, I want to be with you. I can’t think of another man I could be with. You know what I mean, don’t you?
Chug was amused that Ben had skipped so many steps before going directly to the heart of the matter. Of all the disabilities and deformities shared by most of those present, Chug’s and Ben’s genital abnormalities were the most difficult to bear in normal society. Ben’s years long dedication to stretching his scrotum halfway to his knees indicated that he accepted his abnormality and had no compunction about emphasising his package even more. Chug’s extravagant codpieces were his way of declaring his unusual status, although there was no indication of the real reason for such an extrovert display. Chug was smitten by the attention of someone as masculine as Ben with his perfect body and his amazing dual penis. Ben was lovestruck with the idea of caring for the pragmatic adventurous limbless man with two virile members, as difficult in their own way as his own. A series of unlikely coincidences had brought them together. It would be the height of recklessness to ignore such luck. Both men were already conscious of the possibility, the likelihood, the necessity of forging lives together. Only practicalities stood in their way.
They found an empty space closer to where the group had started from. Ben sat with his legs splayed. Chug sat between them. As he had mentioned earlier, Ben was content to sit and look at Chug’s arm stumps which were just long enough to let him hold a drink. Chug’s beard was dishevelled after their lovemaking. It would be Ben’s job to keep Chug looking as handsome and as healthy as possible. To feed him, dress him, wash him, love and cherish him in the hope that Chug would not feel stifled or dependent. It would be wonderful if Chug could live with him in the opulent apartment which one of his clients paid for. Would the man be jealous? He was a billionaire prince from an oil state and one of only two other men who knew of Ben’s diphallia. Ben was used as a bottom when the prince was in town. His nation punished homosexuality with death. The handsome infidel with a penis which prevented him from cheating with another man made Ben the ideal candidate for fvcking. He was subservient and obedient. In return, he received rent‑free accommodation in one of the most envied addresses in London. The interest on the prince’s wealth paid for it in forty‑eight hours. Ben’s other three ‘eastern gentlemen’ had been persuaded to employ him by the prince. They immediately did so, not wishing to show any sign of disagreement with their sovereign. They were, however, delighted with the young Englishman who deferred to their superiority with grace and whose spoken Arabic improved with every visit.
Zeb circled every twenty minutes or so, making sure everyone had something to drink, asking if they wanted something to eat. Zeb knew all the best places to order from. If someone wanted Chinese, it would come from a dark kitchen in Lambeth. A curry would come from Brick Lane and good old fish and chips from Earl’s Court. No‑one yet professed to being hungry. Zeb noticed Chug being sucked into Ben’s influence. They were infatuated with each other. Dorian was almost down Bug’s throat. Zeb took eight more cans of beer from the fridge and distributed them to his guests, two at a time. His shoulders were aching. He wanted to take his arms off. Several of those present thought he was an amputee. Feeling miffed at Chug’s abandonment, he went to the bedroom and doffed his prostheses. He returned, saying nothing, waiting for the inevitable remarks about his missing arms. His broad chest and tight belly looked admirable. Then there were the hands. The impossible hands, normal in every way, broad, manly, in an impossible place. The remarks came, the hubbub rose. Chug and Ben looked across to watch the commotion. Chug chuckled. Ben was shocked. He thought Zeb was an amputee. Quentin did too. His own disability was obvious for anyone to see. Zeb had kept a very close secret. After the first shock, his usual attitude to Zeb returned, now coloured by respect for a man fated to use hooks instead of his own hands, always present but forever useless.
Zeb placed an order with his favourite Chinese restaurant for an enormous amount of boiled rice and three portions of three different dishes. Twenty minutes later, the delivery arrived. Ben and Zeb answered the door. The driver was a familiar face, a colleague. He did not recognise Zeb without his white leathers and prosthetic arms.
– Hang on a minute, mate.
Zeb followed Ben to the kitchen, where Ben was unloading two bags.
– Ben, put a can of beer in my hand.
Ben took a fresh beer from the fridge and held where Zeb could grasp it. Zeb went back to where the driver waited.
– Here y’are, mate. We’re having a party so here’s a brew for later.
The voice was familiar and the driver recognised it. He knew now that the White Ghost had hands after all. Zeb had let his guard down but it was not important.
Quentin helped Ben arrange the food and a little later fed Zeb, Chug, Sod and Bug before enjoying their own meal. Zeb asked Ben to open one of the bottles of vodka he had brought. People were already feeling mellow from the beer. A couple of vodkas might sharpen them up. Make things happen. Once again, Dorian began to feel left out of the proceedings. He and Ben were the only unmutilated people present and Ben had gradually become the group’s apex alpha, pandering to Chug and Zeb especially. He was not jealous of Ben. He was envious of Chug who could choose to be limbless or to function normally with four artificial limbs. It was not fair. Ironically, Chug and Zeb’s plan to introduce Dorian to some of their friends was backfiring as the mutilated and limbless socialised among themselves. Dorian felt there were lessons to be learned.
Evening stretched into night. Slowly people paired off and left. Sod and Howard left together in a taxi. Quentin made his excuses and disappeared. Bug was left on the floor, unaccustomed to being left alone in a roomful of virile young men. Dorian, slightly drunk but still lucid, came and sat cross‑legged in front of him. They did not speak but Bug’s acceptance of Dorian’s presence was enough to calm his mind. Dorian stared at Bug’s artificial arms and the hooks, which for him at least were the epitome of masculinity. Ben sat amongst the remaining trio, two of them without their prostheses. Ben’s attention was continually drawn to the thick leather codpiece hiding Chug’s penises and his desire to repeat the unfathomable sex act they had performed earlier..
Shortly before dawn when people around them slept, Dorian and Bug left together. Dorian placed Bug’s leather officer’s cap onto his head, almost obscuring the man’s eyes and kneeled to get the prosthetic arms into the sleeves of Bug’s well‑worn motorbiker’s jacket. Bug rocked himself slowly and silently past the others. Dorian opened the door and waited for his legless master to negotiate his way over the doorstep and out into the hallway. The aluminium base creaked against the polished concrete floor. They departed in a taxi for Sod’s apartment, which was empty when they arrived.
Dorian expected to play the role of sub to Bug. The man had a powerful presence despite his severe disabilities. After the taxi had departed and was lost from sight, Bug ordered Dorian to carry him for the rest of the way. He was not a great weight. Dorian hefted the torso into his arms and managed to cradle the aluminium base in his arms. Bug fumbled with his hooks until he gripped Sod’s spare door key and attempted to open the door himself. His hook was useless. Dorian lowered Bug carefully to the ground, opened the door and allowed Bug to rock himself inside. They rose to the sixth floor, entered Sod’s apartment and began the process of extricating Bug from his socket.
Zeb awoke first, hungover and desperate for the toilet. Ben heard him and awoke to find Chug hugging his midriff.
– Wake up, Chug. Wake up, man. It’s morning. We have to get going.
Sod opened his eyes and looked around him in alarm until he remembered where he was. There was no sign of Bug. He stretched his arms and rubbed his finger stumps over his face.
– Good morning, people. What’s the time?
– Coming up to seven.
– Oh god. Seven on a Sunday morning. Oh well. It can’t be helped.
He slid down from his armchair and swung himself to the toilet. Ben stood and waited for Zeb to give some direction.
– Chug, do you need your limbs?
– Hooks and stubbies. Do you want to help?
– OK.
Without asking permission, Ben scooped Chug into his arms and carried him to the empty bedroom.
– Do you want to wear that codpiece?
–It’s fine. I want a clean T, though.
Ben dressed Chug in his clean shirt and lifted the prothetic arms onto Chug’s stumps. The long cylindrical stubbies were next. Chug thanked him and stumped out to the toilet. Ben watched him thrusting the stubbies around in semicircles and thought it was the most fascinating way to walk he had ever seen in person. His personal all‑time favourite was a young Latvian who made videos showing how he got around using two peg arms and one single peg leg. Surely he did it only to show off? No‑one could be so inconvenienced and still function in life. But he thought about the guy when he fondled his penises late at night, sliding his open palm to and fro in the tight gap between his upper and lower glanses. His fist almost closed around the dual shaft. He squeezed and edged himself repeatedly before returning to his thoughts of arm stumps hidden inside peg arms. Chug returned. They went to the kitchen together to join Zeb and Sod, who were already advanced with breakfast.
All over the world that morning, readers of the Sun‑Telegraph found an indignant reportage by Karen Biche‑Mogg who was disturbed by the growing tendency for so‑called artists and photographers to attract more of the attention they obviously craved by going to increasingly appalling lengths to shock their clientele and the general public. By way of example, she cited two photographs she had recently had the misfortune of encountering in a London gallery showing interracial homosexuality with the additional depravity of a most unnatural deformity, which the reader might consider at their own risk. Thousands of fans of homosexual depravity downloaded the amazing double dick pics to their hard drives and wondered who it could be.
Ben returned to his home in Central London. He never stopped thinking about how he and Chug could forge the way ahead together. He felt trapped by his Arab clients. They paid him too well and allowed him to live in such opulence that he was reluctant to change. Bug returned home to Plymouth or thereabouts, bombarded daily by plaintive messages from Dorian wishing they could be together. After a fortnight of tiresome adulation, Bug blocked Dorian’s messages and Dorian sank back into his familiar depression.
The exhibition approached its end. Visitors who returned a voluntary questionnaire contributed towards the final appraisal of the featured works. Dorian’s photos were uppermost in the statistics in several categories. Of all the deviant beauty on display, they were the most intriguing and the most honest. Other entrants’ work was contrived, a little forced, if not politically incorrect. Dorian’s subject matter was good old sex which everyone could appreciate, depicted between two men, neither of whom led simple lives. The photos were also beautiful examples of the art of photography in an expert’s hands. After a close competition, his secret admirer cast the deciding vote and Dorian was awarded fifteen thousand pounds for his daring exposé. He was grateful but his turmoil did not ease. He knew exactly what he was going to do with the money.
Zeb made it a habit of delivering Sod’s evening pizzas direct to his door. Sod invited him for a quick espresso and a toilet break. Zeb offered to run other errands for Sod, having seen how awkward it was for a legless man to run errands himself on a skateboard. Sod mentioned that Dorian had contacted him to ask about Bug who had seemingly cut him off. And talking of Bug, Sod was having the same kind of socket made with an aluminium base. One that he could either hand‑walk in or rock from side to side to move forward slowly. Bug had recommended the sensation of being legless and still being able to walk after a fashion. Sod wanted to try it too. Zeb thanked Sod for the coffee and cycled back to pick up the next order.
Dorian was looking to buy a small used hydraulic press. It would be useful for his metalwork but that was not why he wanted it. He could afford a new one with the money from Deviant Beauty but it would probably be used only once. An old one would do. He trawled through various online marts, losing hope of finding one. Finally, after several weeks, he saw exactly what he needed. The device weighted seventy kilos and would be a bitch to transport and install but as Dorian saw it, there was no alternative.
Chug was concerned to hear about Dorian’s poor mental state. The social evening had done little to improve matters. Instead of Dorian discovering a variety of interesting new people to befriend, he had instead seen how people with similar problems stuck together, excluding him entirely. He left feeling more isolated than before, additionally burdened by his infatuation with the legless daddy whose hooks and extreme leglessness excited him. Chug wanted to apologise, perhaps not in so many words. He thought about asking Dorian to work on new prostheses and tapped out a message to him.
– i need a new pair of hooks. can you call by?
Chug explained his idea. He liked the pirate hooks Dorian had made to slide over the dildo arms and had been thinking about having a pair made which would extended from short sockets on his arm stumps. The hooks ought to be the same curvaceous shape but not so big. Something between the original size and a normal steel hook. Dorian understood the brief perfectly. He already had the necessary dimensions on file for Chug’s stumps and it would be easy to shrink the pirate hooks. They discussed the best angle at which to set the immovable hooks. Chug did his best to pry into Dorian’s mind to discover why his handsome friend was so reluctant to enjoy life. But Dorian, pleased though he was to help Chug again, was close‑lipped about his internal problems. They were nothing new and no‑one was interested.
The two arms with the attached hooks were easy enough to design. The print was difficult because of overhangs. The hook was impossible to print in one piece. But two days later, the parts were ready. Dorian assembled them and stood the two prostheses on a table to cure overnight. They would extend Chug’s stumps a little but were not really useful. He invited Chug to call in the next day at his studio under the railway viaduct to collect them.
He spent the rest of the afternoon and evening preparing his flat to be empty for a few weeks. He disposed of half‑eaten food, took out the recycling, made sure the next month’s rent was paid. He found some old jeans and shirts which already showed signs of wear and would wear them the following morning.
Chug arrived mid‑morning, strolling on his full‑length protheses, arms locked at a thirty degree angle. The hooks were obvious, ready for action. Dorian bumped fist to hook and swung his arm to encompass his workspace.
– See anything new? I have a new hydraulic press. It means I can make new shapes and use new materials for prostheses, for example. Come and take a look.
Dorian turned the press on. It had been delivered two days previously and Dorian had lifted it onto one end of his work bench with the help of the delivery guy. It was not a heavy piece of equipment although it could exert a ferocious force. Chug’s new hook arms stood next to it. Dorian helped Dorian out of his jacket and once again admired the mechanical perfection of Chug’s artificial arms. Chug shrugged them off and Dorian took them over to a chair and suspended them over the chair back by the harness. Chug was admiring the new hooks. As he had requested, they were the same shape as the previous hooks but smaller, a more realistic size. And they were still black, the same as the sockets. Dorian had not painted them yet.
– Let me hold them for you and you can try them on.
Chug pushed his stumps into the sockets. They were an easy fit. Maybe he needed an extra stump sock or two. Dorian glanced at the hydraulic press and pressed a button to raise the main component. It rose for two seconds and stopped. It was ready.
– How do they feel?
– Fine. A little loose but they’re OK.
– They look incredible, Chug. You’re so lucky to choose your hooks each day.
Chug looked at Dorian to check if he had heard correctly. He held his stumps out and admired the inert curving hooks which were next to useless but great attention‑grabbers. Dorian pressed the lower button on his new press, linked his hands and placed his wrists onto the pressure plate. The press crushed his hands and wrists to splintered pulp and stopped. Dorian gasped for air to scream in pain. Chug had not noticed the act of mutilation. He was confronted by the sight of Dorian trapped in his new machine by his hands. After a few seconds of shock, processing what had happened, Chug reasoned he should call for an ambulance. He crossed the room to where his prostheses hung over a chair, removed his new hooks and hurriedly donned his arms. His phone was in his jacket by the door. He dropped it onto the table and called the emergency number.
Chug was interviewed a couple of weeks later by two police officers who called ahead of time to warn him of their visit. He was well aware of the incredible coincidence of Dorian losing both hands in the presence of another hooks user at the very instant he was trying out a pair of new ones which Dorian had made for him. The police were frustrated that Chug had not seen how the incident happened, being preoccupied with checking out the new hooks which presumably were still in the studio somewhere. Chug also regretted the fact that his vision was so restricted by his coke bottle lenses that he saw very little unless he was looking directly at something. He removed his mirrored aviators and offered them to the policewoman for inspection. She was astonished by their weight and thickness. Reluctantly admitting that the only possible witness was unable to help with their enquiries, initiated by an insurance company, the police thanked Chug for his kind co‑operation and departed. It seemed probable that the new bilateral amputee’s incident had been accidental. Dorian would be entitled to receive social welfare assistance for his prostheses.
Word got out among those who knew Dorian. Zeb naturally knew as soon as he arrived home that afternoon and found Chug in a peculiar mood and dragging himself around the apartment floor half naked, wearing only peg arms. Sod found out from Zeb a few weeks later when he off‑handedly mentioned Dorian. Sod was certain Dorian’s accident had been deliberate. He and Bug had both teased Dorian during the social evening and had practically forced the bloke to admit to being a devotee and wannabe. Sod repeated Zeb’s news to Bug when Bug called to ask about progress with Sod’s new aluminium and leather socket. Bug almost felt vindicated. He had been sure Dorian would gain a stump or two before long. He was pleased to learn that Dorian would be wearing the same type of below‑elbow prostheses which he wore himself. He reconsidered his attitude towards the boy and sent a text message to rekindle their communication.
Dorian was allowed to remain on a hospital ward until his stumps were healed well enough for him to be fitted with a temporary pair of hooks. His status as a solitary bachelor meant he would be unable to cope at home alone. The hospital prosthetist did a good job of providing a pair of translucent nylon sockets with two Hosmer Five hooks. Dorian thought the sockets were ugly but knew it would be several months before his twenty centimetres long stumps would have shrunk enough to let him have a definitive pair of permanent prostheses made. One evening, he typed out a message to Chug.
– am home. can we meet?
Chug discussed it briefly with Zeb.
– tomorrow evening? zeb will be here.
– ok.
Dorian arrived just before seven. Zeb opened the door to him. Dorian looked a little contrite but had a devilish smile ready to break. He lifted a hessian bag in his right hook. Its glass contents clinked.
– Hi Zeb. Thanks for the invitation.
– Come in, man.
Zeb stood back as Dorian entered. He shrugged his jacket off and grabbed it with a hook before it fell. Zeb took it and dropped it onto the bed. Chug waited in the lounge, fully kitted out in his full‑length prostheses. Dorian strode in and waited for Chug to appraise what Dorian had become. Not wanting to bother with shaving, Dorian sported a three month growth of beard, framing his face and making him look more mature, more masculine. His pretty features were still apparent but not so prominent. He held the bag out as an offering.
– Put them on the table, Dorian. Thank you for bringing them.
Dorian lifted two bottles out by their necks and placed them on the coffee table. Laphroaig and Absolut.
– Oh very nice. Thanks, Dorian. I see you’re managing with the hooks.
Dorian lifted his arms and looked at each hook in turn. He held them out for Chug to inspect and retracted them.
– They’re marvellous, Chug. Do you remember I said I was envious of you? Now I know why you thought I was crazy. It isn’t always easy but I’ve never felt better. I love having hooks and I love having stumps. They’re exactly what I wanted. Do you want to see them?
– Maybe later, Dorian. Are you going to open those bottles?
– Ah well, I was hoping one of you could do it. I have trouble opening screw‑top bottles.
– So do we. Zeb knows a good trick. Go and see what he does.
Dorian picked up the Absolut and made sure it could not slip. He followed Zeb to the kitchen and watched as Zeb opened the bottle with a simple device designed to remove lids from jars. It could be knocked or pushed with a hook, eliminating the need to rotate the cap. Rotating things was not a bilateral amputee’s forte, as he had discovered.
Chug and Zeb watched Dorian manipulating his hooks throughout the evening. He had obviously been a quick learner, enthusiastic, unencumbered by regret. He had achieved the stumps he wanted and was free to use his beautiful steel hooks for everything for the rest of his life. Dorian’s mood had improved. He joked about his disability and used his hooks to gesture with exactly as if he were describing something in the air with natural hands. Later in the evening, after a couple or three drinks, he made an admission to Chug. An apology of sorts.
– You see, I bought the hydraulic press with the sole intention of crushing my hands. It was the only way I could think of to do it which was at all credible. An artist in his studio meets with a terrible accident. And I needed someone there to call for help. It was a shitty thing to do to you. I’m sorry, Chug. It must have been horrible to see me hurt like that. To tell you the truth, it felt pretty horrible too. But you saved my life and I’m grateful to you.
– And all because you wanted hooks.
– Yes. Can you understand?
– I think so. I use the hooks because I was born without hands. Zeb uses hooks because his hands are in the wrong place. You use hooks because you feel they make you a man. They do and so does your beard. It looks good, Dorian. Keep it. It looks like it grows the same way as mine. In a couple of months, we could pass for brothers.
– It would be nice to think so, Chug. Thank you for understanding.
Dorian reached out for his drink and his hook clinked against the glass. He angled his arm so the rim of the glass could reach his lips, leaned back and swallowed the neat alcohol. A perfect evening.
CHUG
