THE DICKENSONIAN METHOD

 

THE DICKENSONIAN METHOD

A tale of competition between two star students by strzeka (03/24)

Dedicated to PsychicClamAlienHero for his good‑natured encouragement

 

Lady Crawford peered through the arched window looking out onto the Forties, as the inner forecourt had been known since the eighteenth century. Her son Robert had succeeded in acquiring a ground floor apartment, discretely hidden, so she thought, by a huge rhododendron immediately outside, almost close enough to touch.

            – I suppose you can ask another student if you need something, Bobbie.

            – Stop fretting, mother. I’ve already told you a hundred times I’m fine.

            – Oh darling! I know. It’s just that I worry so. You will let me know if you need anything, won’t you? I do hate to think of you…

            – Helpless? Is that what you were going to say? For heaven’s sake, mother, I’ve lost a leg not my brain. Of course I’ll manage. Of course people will help. Of course I’ll let you know if I need something.

            – Do promise me, Bobbie. I know you’re strong but you must—oh, I don’t know. I suppose it’s foolish of an old woman to tell a handsome young student like you how to go about life.

            – Well, exactly. What could you possibly know about life of teenagers at the Dickensonian?

            – Oh Bobbie, you are an irrepressible tease. Come here and give me a hug and I shall be on my way.

Robert strode two steps towards his mother and she lifted her face to receive a kiss. She opened her eyes and looked her son up and down, her glance hesitating momentarily at the sight of her son’s left trouser leg folded neatly into his belt. The boy’s stump was not otherwise evident.

            – When will Christopher be here? Have you heard?

            – No. He said after lunch but if he’s coming by train, it’ll be early evening.

            – Well, do be sure to give him my best regards. I’m sure he’ll be willing to help you.

            – Mother, for heaven’s sake, will you stop! Of course he’ll help.

 

Christopher McDonald had been the alpha at their old school. He had lost his right leg at fourteen in a car accident and spent four months in hospital. He returned to school on crutches with one trouser leg folded up and had undergone six weeks extra schooling during the summer hols in order to catch up with his fellow students, avoiding the indignity of having to repeat a year with the immature horrors in the year below them. Chris was the most handsome of all the boys and probably realised it himself, although he was decent enough not to boast about it. After spending a few weeks on crutches, he was fitted with an artificial leg, nothing more than a stump socket with a steel pylon leading to a fake foot. The girls fawned over him in pity, genuine or contrived, until an especially mistimed blowjob by their classmate Robert Crawford in a bus shelter was witnessed and reported by Maisie Holch. No-one believed her, not really. All the same, Chris and Rob were always together and Chris often ate his sandwiches with his false leg propped up on Rob’s thigh. Chris was too good‑looking to be gay. All the girls tried their best to persuade him to take them out although he always declined. But he was seen around town in the company of Crawford. By the time they were young adult school‑leavers, Chris was still admired for his appearance by both sexes but the girls left him alone. The boys derided him behind his back. All, except Crawford.

 

Robert Crawford himself had been smitten with Christopher McDonald ever since the most handsome boy in the class returned after his accident. Most of the other boys were too insecure to try to befriend Chris in any case. He was in a league of his own. Only Robert had tentatively maintained his casual friendship. Chris thought Rob was better looking than him anyway. Rob had a more manly face and dared wear his hair shorn or extremely short. Chris was envious. His parents would never let him change his hairstyle. His shining chestnut hair, the envy of everyone, was boring and Chris longed to have his sides shaded. Maybe when he was at college, he could wear his hair how he liked, at last.

 

He arrived with his floppy locks intact. Rob noticed the shadow cast across his window as Chris made his entrance. Chris’s apartment was the second closest to Rob’s, accessed by the same door but to the left and it faced the park to the rear of the building. There was no immediate reason to confront Chris. Rob would wait ten minutes before knocking on Chris’s door. He was itching to see Chris’s reaction when he saw that Rob had become an above‑knee amputee. Chris had dared Rob to go through with it at the end of last term and said Rob would never do it. Rob straightened his turned‑up trouser leg and ensured it was neat and leant on his crutches, swinging his new stump and rotating it as his therapist had advised him. His trouser leg hung exactly as Rob wanted. It was smart and an immediate indicator of limblessness, just the effect Rob wanted. He could wait no longer. He slapped his pocket to ensure he had his key and crossed the entrance hall to Chris’s door.

 

Christopher opened it half‑dressed. He was in a t‑shirt and his boxer shorts. He saw Robert’s grinning face and only when he stepped back into his room did he see that Rob had become an amputee, just as he had insisted he would.

            – What have you done? Above‑knee? Oh wow! Come in. I want to see your stump!

Rob crutched into the room and pushed the door closed with the tip of a crutch. Chris liked the way the half trouser leg hung empty. He slapped his thighs and leaned forward for a closer look.

            – I never thought you’d do it! How did you get it done?

            – You remember telling me about some guy in Iceland, right? Well, I checked him out and he does amputations in Akureyri, right up on the north coast. He’s taken over from the Mexican guy after the authorities shut him down. Anyway, we were in the east of Iceland and I sort of contrived an accident.

            – Stop bullshitting. What did you do?

            – I put my leg across a gap and Chas jumped on my leg to break my knee. Christ, it hurt! Anyway to cut a long short, I managed to get referred to Guðmundssón and he did the deed without much too much explanation. He said it was a serious injury and I said I thought it would be best to amputate mid‑thigh. He looked at me for a few seconds and I nodded so he knew I was serious and the next I knew it was two days later and I had a stump.

            – You lucky bastard. So he really does go for amputation if the patient suggests it.

            – Well, look at this!

Rob swirled his stump inside his trouser leg.

            – It looks like it, wouldn’t you say?

Christopher was astounded, not only by the fact that his best friend had achieved an amputation but that it was a more severe amputation than his own. His below‑knee was a trifle compared with Rob’s missing leg.

            – Take your trousers off. I want to see.

            – Don’t get excited. It’s just a normal thigh stump. A bit short, maybe. Haha!

Rob let his trousers fall to the floor and leaned on his crutches to allow Chris to appraise the new stump. It had healed well enough not to require bandages but was still tender and slightly swollen.

            – That’s going to be a corker! It is a bit on the short side, isn’t it? Is that what you wanted?

            – Yup. If anything, I’d have ideally liked it even shorter, just a couple of inches but I’m really pleased with this.

            – How did your parents react?

            – Father harumphed and muttered something about getting an artificial leg as soon as possible and mother went into her pathetic mode but she’s not so bad now.

            – What about you? Do you want an artificial leg as soon as possible or are you going to use crutches? They suit you, plus the empty leg looks cool.

            – I want a leg as soon as possible. Something basic, you know, so I have an obvious limp.

            – Yeah, that’s what I thought. Let me change and then you can show me your room.

Rob pulled his trousers up and rearranged his empty trouser leg. The boys spent a couple of hours in Rob’s room watching their fellow students arriving. None of them were on crutches, although several might have found them useful. Two senior students wore robes and brandished walking sticks.

 

Shortly before eight o’clock, all students convened in the mess for dinner and a welcome talk by the housemasters, four senior students who took the fledglings under their wings and who promised to run a tight ship. The group of newbies was singled out especially and reminded of the house rules concerning alcoholic beverages, use of tobacco and prosthetic limbs.

            – I see one young man is on crutches. What’s your name, boy?

            – Crawford, sir.

            – Crawford. We don’t approve of students using crutches at the Dickensonian, Crawford. It makes the place look untidy. Too clinical. I assume you have a fresh stump?

            – Five weeks, sir.

            – Very well. Make sure you are fitted with a limb before half‑term. Anyone else with a fresh stump which we should know about?

Two older students raised prosthetic hooks into the air.

            – Ah! Two new bilaterals, if I’m not mistaken. Excellent. Cox, you have two arm stumps, is that correct?

            – Yes sir.

            – Very brave of you to do both at the same time. Very commendable. Are you coping with hooks?

            – Yes sir, apart from things like lighting my pipe.

            – Quite so. Ask any of the others to help with that sort of thing.

            – Yes sir.

The Dickensonian house rules stipulated that cigarette smoking was forbidden on the premises but smoking a pipe or robust cigars was actively encouraged. Several of the students had already lit pipes, which was by far the preferred method of consuming tobacco.

 

The preliminaries were taken care of and the college was served with the evening meal. Students still struggling with recalcitrant prosthetic arms were assisted by others to the minimum degree, policy being that it was up to the individual students to acclimatise themselves to their artificial limbs without overly relying on outside help. Most of the students remained seated after dinner, enjoying a pipe and regaling others with tales of exploits and adventures during the hols. Rob and Chris looked on, feeling slightly out of place but eager to join in. Maybe if they took up pipe smoking they might fit in better. Chris was impressed by the number of students who were far more severely disabled than he was and who rocked along kicking bilateral leg prostheses into motion. He felt envious. His single artificial foot was hardly in the same class, so to speak. Towards the end of the evening, their housemaster introduced himself and spoke to them on a more personal level, welcoming them and informing Crawford of the usual procedure followed to acquire an artificial leg. He wore a hook on his left arm, and he boasted two leg stumps, one above and one below the knee. He walked with a contrived limp, exaggerating the difficulty of swinging his full‑length leg prosthesis. It had become part of his identity since he deliberately caused the loss of his right foot at seventeen. He had been one‑legged since he was a small child in a big traffic pile‑up and a busy surgeon amputated the toddler’s limb rather than subject the boy to limb reconstruction which rarely succeeded with young children. They had neither patience nor motivation to recover the use of a damaged limb. The housemaster’s thigh stump had four inches of femur and his prosthesis was suspended from a stout leather corset. The recent acquisition of his first arm stump made him feel ecstatically disabled. He had one full limb left, his right arm, and would almost certainly have it replaced depending on how soon he learned to wield his hook and whether he decided on a matching stump or something above the elbow. It might be interesting to have all four varieties but he enjoyed watching experienced below‑elbow hook users manipulating their artificial arms and would rather like to try something similar, at least for a while. He rose onto his artificial legs, wished Rob and Chris good night and lurched back to his own apartment with his hand in a pocket, his cloak swaying from his irregular movement.

 

Formal education resumed the following Monday at ten o’clock, sharp. Chris was reading bionics and prosthetics. There were nine students in his group, including both older students who had professed to having new arm stumps. The new bilateral hook user already walked on above‑knee prostheses and was now a quadruple amputee, one of only three on campus this year. Rob was in a group of eleven studying English and comparative linguistics, artificial intelligence and prompt engineering. He left his crutches in a corner of the room and assured everyone who asked that he would have a new limb in short order, as soon as his stump had settled. He was immediately adopted as the group’s favourite, having become an amputee for the first time only a matter of weeks ago, whereas the rest of the group were completely at ease with their leg stumps, none of them less than five years old.

 

For the first time in his life, Chris felt himself diminished and less than his peers. He was the only student in his group with a single below‑knee stump. All of the others with similar stumps either had a pair of them or boasted an above‑knee stump on the opposing leg. The rest, four of them, were bilateral above‑knee amputees, one of them so severely crippled that he preferred to walk on two inch high stubbies. However, in class he wore full‑length legs attached to a torso corset which extended up to his nipples and forced his prostheses along by leaning heavily on a pair of walking sticks. His stumps and genitalia were much the same length and approximately as sensitive. Despite his severe disability, he was supremely happy with his minimalist stumps and his closest friends derived much pleasure from helping him remove his long limbs and donning his tiny stubbies in the privacy of his room. His gait looked slow and laboured, even pitiful, but the sensations transmitted to his stumps from the plastic feet were worth the effort. Chris watched the man walking and another wave of envy washed over him. Even Rob had a better stump than he had and Chris thought Rob had in some way won a game of one-upmanship. Encouraged by the association with more severely disabled students, Chris began to plan his next body modification. He looked at the gaits of his peers, trying to decide whether to shorten his existing stump or whether to have his natural leg amputated well above the thigh. Perhaps a short femoral stump with a demanding prosthesis on the left and his existing below‑knee stump was the way to go.

 

Rob, on his part, was becoming excited by seeing the arm amputees using their hooks. One of them had had a hook for several years and was perfectly accustomed to using it but the other bilateral had only recently been kitted out with two artificial arms on fresh stumps and was less adept at using them. Rob wanted to know more about life without hands and gradually befriended the new bilateral amputee, a Mancunian named Liam Stephens. Liam himself was far from satisfied with his new status as a bilateral arm amputee and his determination to sport at least one artificial leg before he graduated strengthened every day in the company of leg amputees. His friendship with Robert encouraged him further. They spent evenings together and both became intimately acquainted with the other’s stump or stumps. Gradually their stumps diminished in size as the swelling subsided and the redness of their scars began to fade. Liam could bring himself to orgasm by merely toying with his naked arm stumps, handsome appendages two‑thirds the length of his original forearms. His prostheses, his starter set as he called them, were matte and flesh‑toned and were of the most basic design. His hooks were pristine and Liam cherished them more than he had his hands.

 

Robert felt the time was ripe for his first artificial leg. He brought the matter up with his housemaster who invited him to his rooms the following morning after breakfast.

            – Good morning, Crawford. So, the time has come.

He ran his hook down a list in a black casebook.

            – You’ll be interested to know that your prosthesis will be made in accordance with methods in use in the nineteen forties when there was a dearth of most materials except for aluminium. Your leg will be crafted by the senior prosthetics class and will be exoskeletal with leather fitments. The ankle and foot will be rigid extensions of the foreleg so don’t expect to be taking part in any sporting activities on it.

            – No, of course not. So it will be what they used to call a tin leg?

            – It will. The boys need some practice with this type of limb and it falls to you to show them how well they have learned their skills.

            – What about the knee?

            – Oh, absolutely the minimum possible. Leather straps and a sprung hinge. You will need to learn how to jerk your stump to operate the knee, assuming you wish to use it.

            – I do. I’m sure I can learn, especially since I still have my other leg.

            – Indeed. Your first fitting is scheduled for this Thursday afternoon so if you have other classes then, you will have to make arrangements.

            – I see. I will. Thank you very much, sir.

 

Robert crutched back to his room to pick up a few books and made his way to the morning lecture. He had not expected anything like a tin leg. He loved the austere shape and leather detailing. He would be proud to display it in a pair of shorts. The rigid ankle also sounded like an interesting challenge. He knew that most amputees who learned to walk on basic prostheses were reluctant to transition to more advanced technology. If he could master the primitive knee and the stiff ankle, they might remain features of all his future prostheses, assuming that he needed only one.

 

Chris was pleased for him and also surprised that such old technology was still taught at the Dickensonian. As far as he knew, none of his peers used genuine wooden legs or peg legs, but whether this was due to college policy or personal preference, he had no idea.

            – I bet you have to wear a belt, Rob. Those old legs had an unfortunate tendency to loosen and fall off.

            – I don’t mind. Judging from what the housemaster said, there’s no‑one else here with a tin leg and I’m supposed to be the guinea pig for the prosthetics class.

            – You’re so lucky. Everyone will be asking you about it, I bet.

            – Chris, are you sorry not to be more disabled?

            – It’s like this. Outside college, I’m seen as disabled because I’m missing a foot. Not that anyone can tell just by looking at me or the way I walk, but anyway. But here in college, there’s no‑one else who has only one BK and somehow I don’t feel that I fit in. I’m thinking about either having a revision or becoming a bilat.

            – By revision you mean an above knee job, right?

            – Yeah. You have a much greater selection of artificial legs with a thigh stump. The thing is, I’ve been thinking about having my natural leg off so I can have one of each.

            – Ah, I get it. I thought you meant having your stump shortened.

            – Yes, that would be the alternative. Then I’d be in the same position you are. One long artificial leg and one natural.

            – The thing is, Chris, I’m also weighing up the benefits of having my other leg off while we’re here at the Dickensonian. We’ll probably never have the opportunity afterwards for amputations on demand, so we’re faced with a conundrum. I mean, we’re not even twenty‑one yet and some of us are already planning to lose a third limb. I’m worried about acting in haste.

            – And repenting at leisure. Well, if leisure means removing prosthetic limbs before relaxing, I’m all for it. I truly believe an amputee is disabled only if he is denied access to his artificial limbs. Think of Liam, for example. He’s had his hooks for about ten weeks and he’s already as capable as he ever was.

            – I think you’ll find that’s a slight exaggeration, Rob.

            – But even so, it’s only when he’s not wearing them that you could say he’s disabled.

            – Are you two going out Friday evening?

            – I suppose. Why? Would you like to join us? We’re only going to the pub. Nowhere special.

            – I’d like that. We haven’t been out together for such a long time.

            – Three weeks, my friend! It’s not so long.

 

Robert crutched from his room along the corridor, past Chris’s room, which led to the more modern annex, built fifty years previously. He summoned a lift and descended to a distinctly clinical environment. There was a reception, unoccupied and boldly announced with the words Prosthetarium Reception, leading to a short corridor with four doors. Robert had only just lowered himself onto a chair when a door opened and one of the senior students rocked out smoking a large billiard. He leaned against the wall by the reception desk and called out.

            – Crawford!

            – That’s me.

            – Thought so. Come on, let’s get started.

He tilted his body from side to side, persuading his rigid feet to gradually turn back to face the direction he had come from. Robert thought that whatever prostheses he was using must be especially demanding. All the same, he looked handsome and intriguing, a severely disabled twenty‑something with a big pipe clenched in his teeth and a devil‑may‑care attitude.

 

The Prosthetarium contained four other seniors, all dressed in white lab coats over shorts and T‑shirts with a variety of prosthetic legs visible. The senior who had met him directed the others and, ironically, walked on two tin legs of the exact same design whose manufacture the team were about to commence on behalf of Robert.

            – You’d better strip, Crawford. We need to see some stump.

            – Down to my underwear?

            – No, naked. It’s not cold in here. Don’t be shy.

Robert removed his clothing and crutched closer to the casting apparatus.

            – Give me your crutches and sit down. You know what we’re going to do so sit back, relax and enjoy it. I see you’re marked down for a tin leg. That will be interesting. There’s only one other guy at the Dickensonian with tin legs and he’s standing behind you.

Robert turned his head to see the fully dressed senior with his arms crossed across his chest smirking down at him.

            – I dare say you’d be interested in seeing what we’re going to make for you, right Crawford?

Well, I can show you a little later. But let me explain what we’re going to do. First of all a common or garden plaster cast of your stump, from which the positive mould et cetera. From which the leather socket conforming to the shape of your stump will be made.

            – Oh! I didn’t realise the socket would be leather.

            – The reason being, dear Crawford, that you can hardly expect a tin leg to fit your stump properly. First you will don a sock, then the tin thigh containing the leather socket. Then a series of leather straps will buckle onto a wide leather belt you will have to wear for suspension.

            – Is that what you’re wearing now?

            – Yup. As I said, I’ll show you later. Swing yourself around and Alfred can get started.

 

Alfred took his pipe from his mouth and placed it carefully on a work bench. He dunked a roll of plaster bandage into a bucket of warm water and began the process of wrapping Robert’s thigh stump and groin. The other students watched, making comments and recommendations. Despite the insouciant atmosphere, this was a learning process for those assembled and their knowledge of the casting process would be tested before they graduated, assuming there were sufficient candidates with fresh stumps calling for new prostheses. Otherwise, an existing amputee would volunteer for a new artificial arm or leg, something different from whatever they had used before.

 

The casting was over. Crawford’s stump would shortly appear in replica and a sheet of thick mahogany leather would adopt its shape. The plaster mould would then be forwarded to a team of seniors who would beat a sheet of aluminium into a close copy of the original while another group coaxed a cylinder of the metal into a facsimile of a human leg. A wooden foot would complete the lower limb and shortly after the two major components would be attached with an ingenious system of steel springs and leather strapping to create a demanding but functional artificial knee. Students would be rated by their tutors, their peers and their patients before graduation.

 

Myles Rose, the senior who had acted as supervisor, took Robert aside after he had washed plaster residue from his stump and dressed.

            – I believe I am the only colleague at Dickensonian with tin legs. I had them made at an outside facility and they have been very closely studied here in order for the manufacturing method to be included in our curriculum. But that is by the by. You would like to see them, if I have not misjudged you completely.

            – Yes sir. I would be very interested. I have several questions too, if you don’t mind.

            – Ask away.

Rose splayed his legs and undid his trousers. With little friction, they immediately slid to the floor revealing two aluminium legs criss-crossed with black leather straps.

            – Let me sit and I’ll take one off so you can see it.

His officious pretence fell away as easily as his trousers. Semi-naked and displaying his artificial legs, it was difficult to maintain an air of superiority and Rose was soon explaining to Robert how he used his stumps as amiably as with an old friend.

            – The great thing is that the leather socket is very comfortable and if your stump changes shape a bit, it’s dead easy to whip out and steam it into a better fit. And the tin leg stays the same, no need for expensive alterations.

            – Are they heavy, Myles?

            – No, of course not. That’s the great thing about tin legs. They hardly weigh anything. I’ve heard that old‑timers used to put sand or gravel into their boots for a bit of extra weight so they could swing their legs with a bit more security. They didn’t like not having the weight of their legs, if you see what I mean.

            – Yes, I understand. Is the belt uncomfortable?

            – Around my waist, you mean? No. you get used to it inside a week and the only time you can feel it is when you sit down and the elastic on the rear straps expands. It’s all part and parcel of having tin legs, Robert. I’m sure you’ll love overcoming the challenges. It’s much more fun than the usual socket and pylon they give you outside. And they look pretty stunning too, don’t they? I hope you agree.

            – I do. I think yours look amazing. You’re so lucky to have both legs. I wish I could have the other one off too.

            – Robert, listen. You’ve been an amputee for four months or so, is that right? You really ought to concentrate on learning how to use your stump to its best advantage before you go planning any further alterations. You’ll be notified when further amputations are needed on campus—of course, if you have work done outside, it’s up to you.

            – So what you’re saying is that if I want, I can have my other leg off at some time while I’m here and walk out on two tin legs like you have?

            – Yes, of course. You new boys are sometimes slow to catch on, aren’t you? Don’t worry about it, Robert. We’ll take good care of you. Not just our year but the ones behind us are apparently very adventurous and I’m sure they’ll have some new ideas after we’ve graduated.

            – Well, thank you for talking to me, Myles. I think your tin legs are wonderful and I’m so happy I’m going to have one like it.

            – Or two. Think about it, Robert. Can you see yourself out?

Robert hopped across the room to collect his crutches and Rose busied himself donning his aluminium leg. Robert was amused by the sounds emanating from the tin leg and was filled with joy at the prospect of receiving his own.

 

During their first term, the new boys received subtle encouragement from their tutors and older fellow students to regard their education only as an introduction to using artificial intelligence. Work was increasingly done by machine, more accurately and more quickly than any human ever could, but the machines had little experience of the practical world and relied on human input for creativity and new applications for their phenomenal assistance. The purpose of the Dickensonian method was to generate an elite group of prompt engineers with the background knowledge essential to guide artificial intelligence in new directions. To emphasise the significance of human brainpower, students were persuaded to shed their limbs through both peer pressure and stump envy with the auxiliary curriculum of prosthetic limb manufacture so graduates had little opportunity of employment in anything other than guiding the intelligent machines. There was little need for natural limbs if one’s livelihood depended solely on the imagination. Prosthetic limbs were equally valid.

 

The Dickensonian was forging a reputation as a source of candidates for prompt engineering and the physical disabilities of the frequently legless applicants attracted no special attention nor played any rôle in their future duties. The intelligent, socially vivacious students at the Dickensonian compared their stumps and their artificial limbs, a large variety of which were in constant production. If a graduate was unsuccessful in landing a job in AI, he would already have a valuable lead over candidates for the job of prosthetist and if that failed, he could earn good money on the motivational speech circuit, especially if he demonstrated a variety of stumpage and limb loss. The general public was always sympathetic towards handsome young men who suffered from amputation, regardless of how eagerly the amputee himself had planned his own prosthetic reconfiguration.

 

The students dispersed in mid‑December to rejoin their families for the Christmas festivities. Several boasted new artificial limbs, some on freshly crafted stumps. More than one family spent the holiday bemoaning how their promising young scion had been stricken by disability at the very outset of his career while the amputee himself was quietly considering his next amputation. The Dickensonian had access to surgical facilities and co‑operative surgeons who willingly performed elective amputations on healthy young men. Five days tops and they were out of the facility on crutches until the Prosthetarium provided some kind of replacement. The curriculum was being updated even as the students enjoyed their turkey dinners. On their return in January, they would have the opportunity to be fitted with wooden limbs for the first time. The Prosthetarium was being expanded by the addition of a new lathe and CAD router. For the first time, the facility could produce wooden sockets and prostheses including peg legs as a way of training students to use the machinery by creating something less complicated. None of the peg legs would go to waste, however.

 

Liam spent his holiday with his widower father in a Victorian two‑up two‑down in Altrincham. His father, also a bilateral arm amputee and disabled thirty years preciously, spent a simple Christmas, neither of them prepared to expend the necessary effort to produce a large spread. Stephens Senior was ambivalent about his son’s artificial arms. He knew from his own experience what the boy was going through but whereas he had been despondent at first about his loss and pitied by his own parents and by his wife, Liam showed no such negativity. He had never known his father without hooks and regarded his own almost as a comfort, something dependable and fatherly he could trust. Of all the bilateral hook users at the Dickensonian, Liam would demonstrate the best adaptation to handlessness of any student. His father presented his son with an unexpected gift, although they had not exchanged personal gifts for several years. He pushed a loosely wrapped package towards Liam and the contents clinked. Liam tore the paper open and found six of his father’s used but still fully operational hooks. Two worker’s hooks, two symmetrical hooks and two large curved brass hooks which were no longer made anywhere.

            – Wow! Thanks dad. Aren’t you going to need these, though?

            – I have the ones I need, Liam. These are for you. Get to know what you can do with ’em. I have something else for you.

He nipped the top edges of an unwrapped red leatherette box and lifted it onto the sofa. Liam eased the lid off and peered inside. Neatly arranged in order of size were six prosthetic tools which were designed for specific uses. Their origin was in the early days of the twentieth century before the invention of the split hook and when there were hundreds of disabled amputee warriors from the Boer War to fit with artificial limbs. There were two completely inert hooks, something with a clip on it, a straight bar terminating in a brass ball and a steel ring about four inches in diameter.

            – Put that on, son, and let’s go down t’pub.

Liam laughed at the improbability of the situation. He was surrounded by new prosthetic equipment, new to him. From one generation to the next. He hooked the steel ring from the package and, with the capable assistance of his father, was soon sporting a standard hook on his right stump and a drinking ring on the left. The two men left the musty chill of the house and joined a group of neighbours who had been happily driven out by exasperated wives. None of them were less than shocked to see Liam, little Liam, with a pair of artificial arms exactly like his father, the old sod. What were the chances? But the boy looked well and a few minutes later was sinking his first pale ale, held firmly in his drinking ring placed there by his father.

 

Robert was welcomed and congratulated by his parents on having acquired an artificial leg. He had left his crutches at the Dickensonian and arrived home, limping heavily on his body‑operated knee. His mother was satisfied that her boy appeared outwardly to be the same Robert as last Christmas before the dreadful accident in Iceland. His father took him aside and demanded that the boy drop his trousers to discover why the boy was limping so badly.

            – Jesus God, is that the best they can do these days?

            – It’s very comfortable, father.

            – It’s the sort of thing they dished out after the war. Surely you could have got something a bit more advanced.

            – I have to learn to walk on a tin leg before I can run on a computerised leg, father. Don’t worry. I know I limp but I’ll learn to walk better after a while. I’ve only had it six weeks.

 

His father harumphed and that was the end of the matter until Christmas dinner when his grandparents drove up from Sevenoaks, as was the tradition every year. Lady Crawford was confined to her more than adequate kitchen preparing a three course meal, Lord Crawford sat in the living room discussing travel routes and road conditions with his father and what meagre news he had of Robert’s progress at Dicksensonian College. Neither of the grandparents had been informed of their grandson’s amputation in the vague hope that they would not be overly distressed at their advanced age. Robert joined them after being shooed out of the kitchen by his mother. He wanted to smoke his new pipe, a handsome bent which he had bought the previous month. He had showed it to his parents, explaining that it was the done thing at college to smoke a pipe. They were both surprised but Robert had not yet dared smoke it in front of his parents. His grandfather smoked a pipe and he hoped he might use his presence as an excuse to fire up. He entered the living room and his tin leg immediately emitted a squeak almost unique to aluminium prostheses. His grandfather heard it and looked closely at his grandson, who was edging his way past his father to sit on the sofa. The boy’s trousers draped over his legs but indicated no especial deviancy. But the boy’s foot remained pointing upwards. It might mean nothing. The old man exchanged a few words with his grandson, keeping an eye out for any movement in the oddly positioned foot. It was quite stationary, as far as he could judge. The boy was wearing an artificial leg, by God. He wanted to get to the bottom of the matter.

 

            – Robert, old son, would you come out to the hallway to help me with something?

It was a typical request at Christmas, some secretive mission which the others were not privy to. Robert rose awkwardly onto his single right leg and dragged the tin leg into motion.

            – Close the door, boy. Now then, I want you to be straight with me. I watched you come in and sit down and there’s something odd about you. And I want you to tell me what’s going on.

He pointed a thick gnurly finger at Robert’s legs to make his meaning clear. Robert knew the game was up and cleared his throat.

            – Well, you see, grandad, I lost my right leg in the summer and I’m wearing an artificial leg made of aluminium.

            – Bugger me! I guessed it from the sound it made when you came in the room. Show me! Pull your trouser leg up.

Robert did so. It rose as far as his knee where the material bunched up and prevented it rising any further. His grandfather stared at it and gripped the bannister. His eyes teared up, to Robert’s concern and dismay.

            – It’s alright, grandad. I’m fine with it.

            – My best friend had a leg like that, a tin leg was what we called them. He had it shot off. Came back with one leg. And that’s what they gave him. And he kept it for twenty years. Oh, I miss him. You know how it is. It was the sound of your leg when you came in the room, see? I knew that sound for all the years we were together, the sound his tin leg made. I’m sorry, Robert. You must think I’m an old fool. You’ve been keeping it from us, haven’t you? When did it happen?

            – Summer.

            – Yeah. Alright, son. I know now. I won’t tell your grandma if you want to keep it a secret. She won’t find out from me.

He sniffed and wiped a hand roughly across his face to dry his tears. Robert hugged him, enjoying the scent of the old man—pipe tobacco, aftershave, fabric softener, manhood. The old man put his arm around his grandson and they exchanged uncertain smiles. It was the last day Robert ever saw his grandad.

 

Chris’s Christmas was less than enjoyable. His parents were going through the final accusatory phase before a divorce and neither had time for each other or for Chris. He was despondent because of his single BK and disappointed that neither of his parents afforded him any attention. The turkey was overcooked, leading to another parental breakdown and Chris made the decision to return to the Dickensonian before the New Year in the vague hope that there would be a few other students around to spend time with. Ironically, his parents’ lack of interest in his disability and how he was managing with a prosthetic foot were the deciding factors in his decision to have his remaining leg amputated high and tight. Wasn’t that they called a haircut when there was almost no hair left? That’s what he wanted his stump to be. High and tight.

 

And so the spring term commenced. Chris was more needy than he had been before and spent as much time with Rob as possible. Rob was tired of Chris’s inferiority complex and would much rather have spent time with Liam but Chris surprised him by saying that the very next opportunity there was on campus for a fresh amputation, he would put his name down to have his leg off. Robert would ordinarily have questioned Chris’s motives but he had heard his friend’s reasoning so many times already that he took a different tack.

            – For what it’s worth, I think it’s a good idea. If you want to keep your original stump, Chris, there’s nothing for it but to have your other leg off. Have you thought about the length?

            – I thought as short as possible. I want to wear a prosthesis on a short stump. I want to use crutches with an empty leg and an artificial foot.

            – You won’t be able to do that here, but I get the general idea. Why don’t you simply go mid‑thigh like everyone else and have an old‑fashioned wooden leg? You did know they’re offering wooden legs this year, right?

            – No! I haven’t heard anything like that.

            – You should get out more, Chris. Everyone is talking about it. Imagine having a wooden leg on your new stump. Something really heavy and old‑fashioned, with tons of leather straps and all the paraphernalia to suspend the thing.

            – I’d rather have a tin leg like yours.

            – I don’t think they’ll be making any this year, not before all the groups have been through making wooden legs. Did you know they’re making peg legs too?

            – No, I’ve not heard that. Imagine me with a fake foot and a wooden peg leg! Ha! Christ, what would that feel like to walk on?

            – You could find out if you really wanted to. You’ll have to apply for an amputation fairly soon though, before the quota fills up.

            – Yeah, I guess so. Alright, I’ll do it. Who arranges amputations?

            – Just tell your housemaster you want one. If you don’t mind me saying so, you’re the one student in our year most in need of a second stump.

            – I know. Don’t remind me!

 

Chris spoke with his housemaster and returned in a better mood. His original request for a high and tight was refused.

            – We encourage our students to experience artificial limbs, McDonald. We want you to learn to walk on a variety of artificial legs, as a group, you understand. We’re now trialling the new equipment and working with wood. If you have an amputation in the near future, you will be fitted with a wooden leg and for that we insist that you have a decent stump for it. But rest assured, McDonald. If you wish to appear disabled with walking a challenge then I can recommend a stump half the length of your thigh and a wooden leg suspended with a leather socket and belt. Do you want me to put your name down for a thigh amputation this spring?

            – Yes please, sir. I am so ashamed of having just the one BK, sir.

            – No need for shame, McDonald, but it is gratifying to know that you are willing to acclimatise rather more with the other students. You might like to meet Harrison Burns who already has the configuration we have just spoken of.

            – What year is he, sir?

            – Third year. Triple amputee, LAK, RBK, RBE if that means anything to you.

            – He uses a hook, sir?

            – He does indeed and will use two before summer is out. Get in touch with him and he can show you his stumps.

            – I will, sir. Thank you so much.

 

It was Rob’s turn for stump envy. He was pleased for Chris that he would soon have a comparable stump to his own in addition to the below‑knee stump but at the same time was frustrated to have only one tin leg. He would have liked to have a pair and struggle with the primitive untrustworthy knee joints until he mastered them and could sport shiny metallic legs all day, every day. However, as he had relayed to Chris, the Prosthetarium was specialising in wooden legs for the foreseeable future and he might not have the opportunity to acquire a matching tin leg. Additionally, his growing friendship with Liam had already awoken his fascination with arm stumps and he was considering volunteering for a forearm stump. Perhaps it was a phase all new students went through when confronted with so many accomplished amputees who rarely even mentioned their prosthetic limbs. It was regarded as a completely ordinary situation unworthy of comment and the vast majority of the Dickensonian body of students went about their studies unencumbered by stump envy or the fetishistic desire to use artificial limbs.

 

Liam already knew of Robert’s growing interest in his arm stumps and hooks. Rob always paid them careful attention when they were together. He wanted Liam to remove his shirt so he could see the prostheses in their entirety and loved to hold the warm sockets in his hands, imagining the handless stumps concealed inside. Liam had made clear he preferred not to doff his arms every time Rob asked him to.

            – I’d rather not, Rob. It takes a while to get my harness and sockets to sit just right after I put them on. And once I get comfortable, I’d rather not mess around.

            – OK. I understand. I wish I knew what it feels like to have stumps like yours instead of two hands.

            – I still feel like I have my hands sometimes. And sometimes it feels like they’re itching. But there’s nothing to scratch and in any case because my stumps are always in my sockets, I wouldn’t be able to reach them anyway.

Liam lifted his right hook and stroked Rob’s cheek with it. Rob gripped the socket with both hands and bowed his head in longing.

 

The Prosthetarium messaged the housemasters announcing that they were ready to accept the first volunteers to trial wooden prostheses. Knowing that Christopher McDonald tended towards despondency for feeling so able‑bodied among his double and triple amputee colleagues, he suggested that Chris volunteer to have his socket and steel pylon replaced with a wooden lower leg and a leather thigh socket, the two halves connected with steel bracing and a lockable knee.

            – It will certainly be more demanding than what you currently use, McDonald. And I have also considered that your above‑knee prosthesis could be constructed to match.

            – You mean I’ve been approved for amputation, sir?

            – Keep it under your hat, boy. But yes, according to the schedule, you will be a double amputee by Easter hols.

            – That’s wonderful, sir. Can I ask who else is on the list, sir? Is Robert Crawford on the list?

            – That is none of your business. I don’t want you talking about this to anyone. You can let your friends know you’re having a wooden leg made, but nothing more. Do you understand?

            – Yes, of course, sir. Mum’s the word.

 

Robert thought he was pushing his luck but had also added his name to the list of voluntary amputees. Most of the candidates were already double amputees but there was always interest and a certain degree of peer pressure to revise below knee stumps to above knee versions, creating in most cases a matching pair of above knee stumps. The Prosthetarium approved of such cases as identical bilateral stumps provided the student technicians with the challenge of manufacturing two identical matching artificial legs, not a simple task for novices. His housemaster had spoken up on Robert’s behalf and had gone so far as to warn the Prosthetarium that Robert Crawford deserved a second tin leg despite such advanced equipment not featuring on the curriculum. His request was noted and arrangements had been made for the original makers to work on the mirror‑image duplicate limb.

            – The two boys are close friends and suffer from mutual stump envy and I want to study their reaction when they are both legless on a pair of prostheses, Crawford on tin legs and McDonald with wooden ones. Neither of them are going to have an easy time of it. I think they’ll make an interesting on‑going case study for the other students.

            – Totally agree. We haven’t had an in‑depth study since that chappie had his arms off. What on earth was his name?

            – Denton. Charles Denton. Arrived wearing a cosmetic artificial hand and left three years later wielding two hooks on above elbow prosthetics and a pair of stubbies. One of our all‑time star students.

            – Immortalised in our casebooks. Let’s hope Crawford and his companion can live up to his reputation. What happened to Denton, by the way?

            – Studying Uralic languages, last I heard. Spent a year researching various dialects of Laplanders following the reindeer around the Frozen North.

            – At least his hands and feet didn’t get cold.

            – Ha! He’s doing very well. Published quite widely, apparently.

 

The second term was more demanding than the first, which was generally considered as an introductory period for incoming students. Students were given projects to research on their own initiative and expected to discuss their findings in weekly meetings with their fellow students and tutors. AI featured strongly in the curriculum, not as a source of material but as a phenomenon to be probed and tested with new applications. The Prosthetarium employed AI extensively in connection with its new CAD manufacturing process. Closely linked with the program of wooden prostheses for the upcoming year, a team of four students worked with AI to adapt a CAD router for the production of custom‑made wooden thigh sockets. It would be the first time that a wooden socket could be produced which matched every last feature of an above‑knee stump and adapted, if necessary, for vacuum suspension. However, the first limbs were to be suspended the traditional way, with heavy leather belts holding heavy wooden legs.

 

Despite the increased workload, Chris continued to fret about his status as the least disabled member of the student body. No‑one else called attention to it and Chris’s obvious limp due to his rigid ankle and foot marked him out as one of the least rehabilitated students. He worked up enough confidence to contact the senior whom his housemaster had recommended speaking to and one Saturday morning after breakfast, he limped along to Harrison Burns’ apartment and knocked gently on the door. He could hear movement and shortly it opened. The face was familiar and, almost uniquely at the Dickensonian, heavily bearded. Chris had seen the man before lurching across the Forties with companions, leaving for or returning from an evening in town.

            – Oh, hello. Good morning. I hope I’m not disturbing you.

            – No, not at all. You don’t happen to be McDonald, do you?

            – Yes! How did you know?

            – I was told one of the juniors might get in touch. Well, come in.

Burns moved away from the door, leaning on a crutch and supported by a steel pylon terminating in a black rubber ferrule. A peg leg. Chris stared, surprised and immediately envious. Burns threw himself into an armchair and pointed at another with his arm stump.

            – Sit down and tell me all your worries. I heard you’re thinking of having another amputation but you’re not sure whether to have a revision or the other leg off.

            – Wow! The housemaster didn’t hold back, did he?

            – These are not alternatives unique to yourself, young man. Many students who arrive with single amputations are confused about how to progress. There’s no reason for you to feel outcast or neglected. So, with that out the way, what have you come to talk about?

Burns leant forward and pulled his steel peg onto the seat cushion.

            – Do you mind if I smoke?

He twisted around and picked up a large bent billiard pipe and a lighter. The pipe nestled in his beard and he looked admirably mature. He steadied the bowl with his stump and soon the room was blue with the aroma of good Burley tobacco.

 

Chris watched in admiration. The man before him was disabled almost beyond belief with only one natural limb and but he exuded self‑assurance. Chris tried to remember why he had come.

            – It’s like this. I have a below‑knee amputation and to be frank, I don’t feel it’s enough. Everyone else has a more severe disability and I just feel out of it. So I want a revision or another amputation and the housemaster said I should talk to you for guidance.

            – Is that what he said? Guidance?

            – Yes.

            – In that case, I can tell you my story and you can take it as guidance. I am completely happy with all my stumps and I recommend anyone to acquire theirs in the same order as I did.

            – How did you start?

            – It started when I was eight. Or when I was five, really. That’s when I saw my first amputee. Out with my parents and we were walking behind a man on crutches. He was wearing shorts and his missing leg, his stump, was hidden inside the shorts leg. I was completely entranced and I stared at him as we were walking along. And then, of course, my parents pulled me away to go into some shop or other, but I kept thinking about how nice it looked to have only one leg.

            – And you were only five?

            – Yup. That’s when it usually starts, around that age. How about yourself? When did you first know you would be an amputee?

            – Not until later. I was a teenager.

            – Difficult years, those. You don’t know what you want to be. Anyway, we can discuss your case later. So I kept my young eyes open for other leg amputees but never saw any until one day when I was about seven, my parents were watching a nature documentary on tv and they showed a photograph of a baboon in South Africa which had been taught to operate railway switches. It was regarded as one of the best examples of an animal being trained to do a specific but simple job but what caught my attention was the owner standing nearby wearing two peg legs. That image burned into my brain and many years later, I found a printed copy of the photograph which I enlarged and had hanging on the wall in my bedroom at home. My parents permitted it due to my injury. The text under the photo explained that the man had been maimed under a locomotive and learned to walk on two pegs and had trained the baboon to help him.

            – Yes, I think I’ve seen the same photo. They’re by a signal box.

            – Quite right. Do you smoke, by the way? Feel free.

            – I haven’t bought a pipe yet, sir.

            – Well, you should. A handsome boy like you should have a pipe. Now where was I? Oh right. So when I was eight, my parents took me on a day trip across to Ostend on the ferry. In Belgium. And Belgium has the world’s longest tram route. Quite impressive for a small country like Belgium but this tram runs all the way from the French border right up to Holland. It’s only sixty‑odd miles but anyway, it’s the longest tram route. And my dad is a bit of a railway and tramway enthusiast so we had to have a ride on it and we went about three miles on it to somewhere for lunch. On the way back, we had to cross the rails to get to our stop and there was a tram coming from the other direction, one of the old ones with big steel wheels visible and accessible. And I remembered the old railwayman and his monkey so just as the tram whooshed past us, I tripped on purpose and stuck my leg under the tram as far as I dared and waited for half a second—and then it was done! My leg was off, the remains of it were mashed up under the other wheels and I was lifted screaming in pain off the track and that’s all I can remember. The next thing was being in hospital with my mother. My father had returned to work several days previously, leaving her to care for me. But my stump was settling down and we had permission to leave the hospital. I remember a doctor telling me to be careful and how we practised using crutches, like the man I’d seen years before in the shopping centre, and that’s how I became an above knee amputee.

            – So you went back to school as an amputee.

            – I did. I had a peg leg for about a year and then my stump had settled down so I had an extendible pylon on a basic socket. Of course, at that age, you need a new socket every six months so it was nothing fancy.

            – What about your other stumps?

            – Well, I did my arm when I was fourteen by filling a metal box with fireworks and setting it off. There was nothing left of the box or my hand. They tidied it up rather nicely, don’t you think?

He raised it in the air to demonstrate half a forearm.

            – It looks wonderful. How about your peg leg?

            – Oh, I had that done here, two years ago. Just a simple BK job, similar to yours, I imagine. I thought it might be rewarding to walk on two artificial legs, one long, one short, and believe it or not, it is. How do you like my stumps?

            – They look, I don’t know, perfect! I love the way you get around with just the peg leg and one crutch. It’s so… erotic.

            – That’s exactly the word. Have you ever made love to a multiple amputee, Christopher? Do you think feeling my stumps might bring you pleasure?

Chris was taken aback by the sudden change of subject but was too infatuated with his host to refuse.

            – I would love to..

            – Take your clothes off, then.

Burns pushed himself erect and grabbed the crutch leaning against the chair. He laboured on his peg leg across to his bed and let his crutch fall to the floor.

            – When you’re ready, undress me.

 

Christopher removed his shirt and T and looked around for a place to put them. In the corner, he spotted a wooden chair which supported Burns’ prostheses. Two artificial legs with a flesh‑coloured cosmesis on both and a matching arm prosthesis with a fake hand.

            – Can I look at your prostheses?

            – Later. We have other business.

Christopher stripped naked and approached Burns.

            – Go ahead. You can touch my stumps now. You can’t hurt them.

            – Shall I take my leg off, sir?

            – I think you ought to, don’t you? Have you made love to anyone wearing your false leg?

            – Er, no sir.

            – Perhaps you will have that pleasure later. Not today. The roles are reversed today.

Chris sat on the edge of the bed and removed his prosthesis. He swung round and looked questioningly at Burns.

            – Start with the thigh stump.

Chris made himself more comfortable and sidled closer to the man who propped himself up with his remaining hand. Chris placed his hand on the stump and felt its warmth under its black curly hairs. He cupped it with both hands and placed pressure on its underside. Burns lifted it for closer inspection. Chris traced a line from near the ball sac along the inside of the truncated thigh and across its tip.

            – Yes! Do that again.

Burns started to become erect. What his penis lacked in length, it made up for in girth. Chris continued to fondle the stump, watching his effect on the man’s libido. The fully erect penis looked as imposing as the man himself. It was an odd contrast—the perfect meaty cock between two ruined legs. Burns lay back and poked at Chris with his below knee stump.

            – Don’t forget this. I know you are besotted with my short stump but give some love to the other one. How do you pleasure yourself with yours? Show me.

Chris placed the footless leg in his crotch and toyed with the stump. It too was covered in black hair with no sign of scarring underneath. Chris ran his fingers around the tip.

            – Sit up facing me.

Chris faced him, legs akimbo each side of the triple amputee. Burns ran the tip of his long stump over Chris’s genitals, not gently but not enough to hurt. Chris was too nervous to allow himself an erection but Burns’ stump had its way and the sight of it poking at his penis woke it up. Chris’s long slim tool curved up and leftward. Burns knocked the glans with his leg stump.

            – Nice looking dick you have.

            – Thank you, sir.

            – Alright. Enough of the games. Lie down on your right side and spread your cheeks.

Chris was alarmed. This was akin to rape but he reasoned that it would be futile to plead rape by a triple amputee. There was nothing the man could do to him without Chris’s active participation. Chris did as he was told and Burns squirmed into a position where his thick cock could access the boy’s man cunt. Chris could feel the tip of Burns’ long stump flailing for purchase against the bed and the useless twitching of the thigh stump against his leg. Burns placed his arm stump around Chris’s midriff and pulled him closer.

            – Relax, boy!

It was only the second time Chris had been entered. He had made love to three other boys, his peers, long ago when he had two legs and it was simple to find a lover. His face guaranteed that. Burns pushed against his anus and he could feel the wetness of precum cooling on his buttocks. Burns’ arm stump pushed violently into his belly and he thrust his penis the first inch into Chris’s colon. He repeated the action and penetrated deeper.

            – Move towards me, boy!

Burns pushed once more and began rhythmically fucking Chris’s tight hole. The crippled man waved his leg stumps in an effort to find purchase, some way to maintain consistent pressure. His thigh stump chafed against Chris’s leg and he kicked against it, excited by the brevity of his limb, ecstatic in its absence. His long stump twitched against the bedcover, pushing him deep into Chris. The effort necessary due to his missing limbs and the erogenous sensations from his stumps joined with the simple pleasure of coitus and Burns ejaculated long and hard.

 

He withdrew and his cock slipped from Chris’s anus.

            – You will fuck like that when you are legless. I hope you realise that. Did it feel good?

            – Yes sir.

            – OK. When you’re ready, put your leg on and fetch a damp towel from the bathroom. Clean yourself up.

Chris waited half a minute and did as he was told. Five minutes later, they were both dressed again, with the exception of Burns’ prostheses.

 

            – You said you wanted to check out my limbs. Fetch them over and you can help me.

Burns’ legs were suspended with a pin‑lock system. Chris rolled the liners on as carefully as possible, knowing the precision required to have the pin aligned with the socket. Burns pulled his legs firmly onto his stumps, counting the clicks as the pins engaged. The artificial arm was in Chris’s hands and he studied the device, admiring the appearance of the cosmetic hand which looked deceptively natural except for the odd position of the thumb and forefinger pinching against each other.

            – Same thing applies. Roll the liner onto my stump and leave the rest to me.

He held his stump out, a perfectly healthy forearm which happened to be missing its hand and wrist. There were a couple of bald patches where hair had not grown back after his injury. It was of little importance. Burns was never seen without his arm prosthesis and never been seen sporting a hook although he owned several and used them when he was off‑campus. Hooks were far more practical than the fake hand but he enjoyed the additional effort which using the fake hand entailed and all his colleagues accepted him as a one‑handed man with a fake substitute.

 

Burns eased his harness over his shoulders and tested the hand. The thumb moved. He smirked. The arm was obviously artificial, the cable slapped against the socket because he preferred it loose and the cosmetic glove fooled nobody.

            – Was there something else you wanted to know?

            – Not really sir. I came to ask about whether I should have my stump revised or have my other leg amputated.

            – And have you come to a decision?

            – Yes sir. I want a thigh stump like yours and to use a peg leg on the other stump.

            – For what it’s worth, I think that’s a brave decision. It will take some time before you can think about a peg leg but it’s perfectly possible. I don’t wear it during the week but I enjoy its reliability when I want to feel crippled. You do understand, I take it?

            – Yes, of course, sir. That’s why I came to ask your advice. Because I don’t feel crippled.

            – Put your name down to have your full leg off, about the same as mine. There are still a couple of vacancies left for this year. So if you’re quick about it, you can start the summer hols on two fake legs like mine.

            – Oh, I hope they can be the new wooden legs they’re making this year, sir.

            – In that case, you should hurry, boy.

            – Yes sir. I will.

Sensing that the visit had come to an end, Chris made his exit and returned to his room. He washed his backside and changed his underpants.

 

It was not yet eleven but Chris was getting hungry and wondered if Robert might go into town for a pizza with him. He crossed the entrance hall and knocked on Rob’s door. There was a delay before Rob opened it, greeting his old friend with a smile and an invitation to enter. Chris stepped inside and found Liam without his prostheses, which lay on Rob’s bed. With his own recent escapade still filling his mind, he asked nothing about the unusual situation and instead suggested the three of them go into town.

            – We hadn’t planned to but what do you think, Liam? Coupla beers and a pizza?

            – Sounds good to me. I’ll have to get my jacket first.

He rose and fumbled with the lock on Rob’s door. The others watched him, knowing that before they graduated, they would also have to master the same simple action.

            – I need another rubber band for that. I’m sorry. Can someone open the door for me?

He held his arms horizontal in a gesture of helplessness, his hooks useless. Rob pushed past him and opened the door.

            – Thanks. I won’t be a minute.

Rob closed the door and looked at Chris.

            – I’ve made my mind up about my next amputation.

            – Oh! That’s good. What are you going to have done?

            – Other leg off to mid thigh.

            – I thought you would. What persuaded you?

            – I was just talking to Harrison Burns. And he persuaded me. Recommended it, actually.

            – Who’s he?

            – The guy with the big black beard and fake legs? You must have seen him.

            – Oh yeah. He goes out at weekends. I’ve seen him. So what did he tell you?

            – He recommended a thigh stump after what I already have, on the other leg, I mean. And then a hand off to get the full benefit of being at the Dickensonian.

            – What? Are you having a hand off? Have you seen how Liam struggles?

            – I know! That’s exactly what I want. Not just one hand, either. I want to have two stumps like Liam. He looks great.

            – But he couldn’t get the door open.

            – It’s the shitty lock not his hooks, Rob. You know that. I bet you’ve been thinking the same.

Rob looked at his friend who had suddenly mapped out his future as an invalid, a cripple. It was the same as what he wanted for himself but he intended to walk on two full‑length prosthetic legs. Chris would probably keep his long stump. It was his choice but if Rob was any kind of judge, Chris would be dissatisfied when they graduated because Rob would be limbless and Chris would still have a knee. A short rap on the door announced Liam’s return and the amputees made their way across the Forties to the nearest bus stop.

 

The housemasters were informed of a new development in the schedule of amputations available to students at the Dickensonian. A new group of prospective surgeons was suddenly available and in need of practice. The housemasters were politely requested to enquire further into the needs and desires of their wards in the hope that additional volunteers might be found for the new team. A joint announcement was made in the mess at dinner one evening and volunteers were invited to forward their names for consideration. Chris and Rob, sitting on opposite sides of the dining table looked at each other with daring in their eyes and both determined wordlessly to outdo the other.

 

With the prosthetic team becoming bored with theory, not unnoticed by their tutors, additional pressure was placed on the younger students, with the promise that enthusiasm to gain a new stump would be noted and rewarded in end‑of‑year credits. Unknown to each other, Chris applied to have his hands removed as well as his full leg and Rob was persuaded by Liam to have his forearms off leaving only short stumps below the elbow. Only that way, claimed Liam, would Rob ever feel disabled and reliant on arm prostheses and hooks. His own stumps were so long, he claimed, that it was like having hands. He knew enough from discussions with other below elbow amputees that the shorter the stump, the greater the disability. Rob nodded sagely and signed up for two below elbow amputations leaving stumps not to exceed ten centimetres in length. The housemasters collected the applications at the end of the week and the following Monday, the first applicants were transported to the university hospital where elective amputations would take place. They would be returned by the end of the following week, some in wheelchairs, some on crutches, some holding heavily bandaged arm stumps in front of them. Their aftercare would be the responsibility of the Prosthetarium. On their return, they were issued with a revised schedule for their coursework, depending on whether they had lost upper or lower limbs. Everyone was expected to be fully recovered in six weeks and ready to be fitted with starter prostheses within three months. That would leave another five or six weeks until the summer hols when everyone should be mobile and capable of operating split hooks.

 

Chris departed in the first transport in an old bus bought from Lincoln City Transport. Every second row of seats had been removed, allowing room for wheelchairs and extended peg legs. The rear of the upper deck had been converted to storage space which contained a variety of crutches and walking sticks for the use of the newly disabled at a handsome rental charge. The first group of elective amputees climbed into the bus and were delivered after an hour’s journey to the facility where their lives would be changed forever, but not completely beyond that to which they had already become accustomed. There was little difference in having a BK stump shorted by sixty centimetres or having a hand and forearm reshaped to match an existent stump on the opposing side. Rob and Chris would be the exceptions, neither having revealed to the other the true extent of their future body images. Chris especially nursed an erection on the entire journey, knowing that he would return as a quadruple amputee with long forearm stumps and a short mid‑thigh stump. He would be even more challenged than Harrison Burns. Only just. He would have two arm stumps for a few months until Harrison rid himself of his remaining hand. If he dared. Chris would persuade him to. Their relationship had become a regular affair. Every Friday evening Chris made his way to Burns’ apartment and the couple indulged in some of the most perverted homosexual acts which were possible to a pair of amputees. Burns’ friends wondered why he no longer joined them for a trip into town on Friday nights. After his amputations, Burns would be left with a natural hand. Chris would be legless with a pair of hooks.

 

The chief surgeon addressed the small group of students who still imagined returning to the Dickensonian with the bodies they lusted after.

            – I see several of you have requested amputations of both upper and lower limbs. Our policy is to amputate one limb at a time, delaying successive operations until the amputee is rehabilitated to some degree with his prosthetic limb. Those of you hoping for arm and leg amputations are going to be disappointed, unfortunately. It’s one or the other and only one limb at a time.

 

Chris and Rob stared at each other in dismay. It was obvious which route they would both need to take. Both would have their natural legs amputated and return to college walking on their existing prostheses and crutches. And then they would have to wait until they were walking confidently on two artificial legs before they could think about losing a hand. Neither of them were naïve enough to doubt the wisdom of the policy although they were both disappointed.

 

Rob was the first to become legless the following morning. His second stump presented a challenge to the trainee surgeons since the patient had requested that it echo his existing stump. He wanted a matching pair and much care was taken to ensure that the sutures were placed in such a way that the wound could be closed symmetrically. Chris’s leg was amputated further up leaving the bare minimum for suspension. The healed stump promised to be a pleasingly rounded nub which would be almost indistinguishable inside a folded trouser leg. Both boys would leave on crutches, Chris on his artificial foot, Rob on his tin leg.

 

The other volunteers were ecstatic to receive new stumps. A bilateral hook user received his first leg stump, a knee disarticulation with the intention of wearing a long rigid peg leg. Two leg amputees gained forearm stumps, one left, the other right. The trainee surgeons were responsible for immediate patient aftercare in order to acquaint themselves with the immediate effects of their handiwork, although the mental state of these fresh multiple amputees differed considerably from that of ordinary patients.

 

The group was allowed to recover at the facility only until their fresh stumps were declared stable and healing well enough to allow them to return to college and the capable care at the Prosthetarium. They would not be seen again at the facility for at least three months.

 

Chris’s mental state improved almost immediately. Despite having wished and hoped for a second more severe amputation for many months, it came as a recurring shock to look down to see his leg gone. The void was stunning and obvious. The size of his stump was also a cause for constant tactile reassurance that he would be severely crippled even with a second prosthesis. He could imagine himself kitted out with a thick leather corset to which his prosthesis would attach. He was impatient to apply for one of the wooden legs which were on offer this term. The first of them was already being completed with a thick leather socket for one of the senior hook users. Chris daydreamed about one day donning the new wooden leg with a pair of hooks.

 

Rob was calmly content to be a one‑legged student, albeit the leg was aluminium. He adapted quickly to using crutches again and learned a new way of operating his primitive knee joint. The tin leg was somewhat untrustworthy and had collapsed several times under him but he had long since learned to fall safely and no damage was done except to his dignity. He was apprehensive about his second tin leg. With two demanding knees to be wary of at all times, he envisioned himself lurching with a conspicuous gait, kicking his stumps more powerfully than modern prosthetics demanded, attracting attention as a double amputee. With any luck, he would sport a pair of artificial arms too. He knew Chris was determined to get arm stumps and just as determined not to lose out in the battle for one-upmanship.

 

Schooling continued regardless. The two crutch‑users were reminded of the college’s policy on crutches and auxiliary mobility aids and encouraged to apply for new prostheses as soon as possible. Chris discussed his situation with the Prosthetarium and discovered what had been planned for him.

            – From what we understand, your new stump is too short to operate a wooden leg. They are heavier and less manoeuvrable than conventional modern prosthetic legs so we’re going to give you a leather harness which you will wear around your shoulders. Leather straps will buckle onto fittings on the wooden leg and you will learn to balance on the leg and, we hope, thrust your pelvis forward to move the wooden leg. And here’s the surprise, McDonald. We’ll be making a matching peg leg, a wooden peg, to replace your existing prosthesis. It will be suspended the old way. Your knee will be weight‑bearing and suspension will be from a leather thigh corset with laces which will match in both colour and material the leather work on your full‑length leg. Do you understand? Do you have any questions?

            – Won’t that make it practically impossible to walk? I mean if I have only a peg leg on the left?

            – It will. We understand from several sources that you suffer from an inferiority complex because of the slight nature of your disability. We hope that when you are fitted with two wooden legs, you will find yourself adequately crippled and find the satisfaction you crave from disability. I see you have also applied for bilateral arm amputations. We insist that you first prove yourself to be competent and independent on your wooden legs before we can consider further amputations. I hope you agree.

 

Chris felt some disappointment at being restricted from continuing his forage into limblessness. It was almost like a test he had to pass. He had to learn to walk unassisted on a full‑length wooden leg hanging from his shoulders with a peg leg which would conceal his long stump almost entirely. It was going to be a challenge. The Prosthetarium staff watched the emotions flitting over his handsome face. It was unusual for a man blessed with such natural beauty to wish to disable himself to such a degree but they were assured that it was indeed the case. The man’s choice to lose his remaining leg almost entirely confirmed his deviant desire. One thing was certain—if McDonald succeeded in achieving his bilateral hooks, he would have achieved something surpassing every previous quadruple amputee which the Dickensionian method had produced.

 

Rob had conscientiously worn a stump shrinker for the past three months and his stump was declared ready for a prosthesis. A brief hiatus in the curriculum was announced by the Posthetarium in order to accommodate Robert Crawford who required a second tin leg. The original members of the student body who had worked on his first one six months previously were granted leave from their studies for a week and set about creating its mirror image as soon as Rob’s leather socket was perfected. Rob was enthusiastic about soon having two artificial legs, although his experience with his tin leg was not what he had expected. However, he found using it with crutches as he had for the past weeks was far easier and more reliable. On warm spring evenings, he had accompanied his friends for a drink in the local wearing only shorts and displaying his conspicuous aluminium prosthesis to all and sundry. He felt more mature than his years crutching along with a pipe in his teeth, swinging the noisy tin leg which emitted a dull hollow thud with each step.

 

Rob was called for a final fitting on Sunday morning. He was invited to remove his prosthesis and belt, to which two more leather straps were riveted. The new prosthesis was attached to them and the new pair stood awaiting their first test. The toeless wooden foot was completed with a shoe and Rob’s fresh stump received a liner and several cotton stump socks. He warily pulled the new leg onto his stump for the first time, sensing the tight embrace of the leather socket. It felt good, just as secure and firm as the other leg into which he squeezed his older stump. He was assisted to his feet and the thick leather belt was cinched around his waist and adjusted to take the meagre weight of the tin legs. Two students stood on each side supporting him by his arms.

            – Take a step or two. You won’t fall.

Rob leant on his left tin leg and raised and lowered the right. The weight was familiar but the sensation completely alien. He kicked his stump back gently and then thrust it forward to force the knee to bend. It did so but there was no forward movement.

            – Oh! I can’t move! What do I do? This feels impossible.

            – Try rocking yourself from side to side to find your balance and then kick off while leaning forward.

Rob tried it as suggested but the tin legs were unco‑operative. He remained in place. He looked wordlessly at the group leader who had designed his original leg. The man stared at the metal legs with a pipe in his mouth, thinking about the difficulty of initiating motion without toes or ankles.

            – I think you might need a walking stick, Crawford. Just something to help you push yourself into action.

A stick was found and Rob tested its length. His support aids stood by and Rob tried again, rocking his body first, kicking and leaning forward onto the walking stick. The new tin leg’s knee straightened and took his weight. He was able to bring the other leg forward alongside the new one. It was progress of sorts. Encouraged by the production team, he practised until he was almost exhausted but he had managed a series of seven consecutive steps and no longer thought that walking on tin legs was impossible. It was merely extremely difficult and precarious. The session ended. Rob was handed his crutches and was escorted back to his room by another bilateral amputee student. He lifted both tin legs simultaneously and swung them forward. It felt easier but Rob knew he would not be permitted to continue using crutches for long. His escort made sure Rob had everything he needed to hand and left the walking stick.

            – Don’t feel despondent, my friend. All beginnings are difficult. Remember that you are now in the same situation as thousands of amputees last century. They faced the same difficulties as you and made a go of it. No reason why you won’t succeed after a bit of practice.

            – No, I know. Thank you, sir.

 

Chris had been listening out for Rob’s return and had heard voices from Rob’s room. After a few minutes, he knocked and Rob called out.

            – Come in! The door’s unlocked.

Chris crutched in. He was wearing sports shorts. One leg hung empty.

            – How did it go? Are you happy with the new leg? You look very impressive with two tin legs, I must say. Very crippled.

            – That’s how I feel. It’s impossible to get up, it’s impossible to take a step. I had to come back from the Prosthetarium on crutches.

            – I know. I could hear you. Well, there’s nothing for it, Rob. We’ve gone as far as we can regarding our leg stumps, at least as far as the Dickensonian is concerned. They have my long stump and the new nub plus your identical half thighs. What else might they need to practise on?

            – Have you heard when you’re getting your wooden legs?

            – Nothing official but someone said I’d probably be one of the last ones on the list because my case was especially demanding because my stump is so short and they need more experience on the CAD machine to make the wooden socket.

            – OK. That makes sense.

            – But it means that it’ll only be a week or two before we break up for hols. I don’t know how well I’ll be walking by then on a wooden leg and a peg leg.

            – Isn’t it exciting to find out? You’re going to have wooden legs the likes of which no‑one has seen in a century or more. I’m really looking forward to seeing them. I bet they’re going to be spectacular.

            – Hmm. I’m not sure the Prosthetarium goes in for spectacular but I have to agree. I’m going to be as disabled on wooden legs as I am with bare stumps.

            – Don’t exaggerate, Chris. You’ll be fine.

            – I wouldn’t be surprised if the two of us leave the Dickensonian sitting on Victorian‑age manual trikes, propelling ourselves down the road with our stumps hidden under tartan blankets so as not to disturb the ladies.

            – Ha! I’d like to try that!

            – What are we going to do next year, Rob? One hand? Two hands?

            – I want both off. I want to be like Liam.

            – Do you think you’ll have mastered your legs by then?

            – I will have had to. If I can’t walk by September, there’s not a great deal of sense in even coming back, is there? The education here is nothing special. You could find the equivalent online. It’s only the Dickensonian Method which holds any attraction as far as I’m concerned. Free amputations, no questions asked and a starter pair of artificial limbs. You can’t say better than that, can you?

            – No, I suppose not. Do you suppose they make hooks with wooden sockets?

            – To match your legs? Ask! They’ll look spectacular.

            – So you said.

 

The Prosthetarium resumed manufacture of wooden legs. As their skill using the AI controlled CAD router accrued, more students volunteered for both full‑length wooden prostheses and wooden peg legs, either fully rigid from thigh to tip or with a leather socket and steel bracing for below knee amputees. The early summer term was characterised by a considerable number of seniors peacocking around the college and on the Forties lawn wearing a variety of wooden peg legs, from elegant elongated cylinders to thick and clunky alternatives impossible to hide under a trouser leg. Even one of the tutors had a long cylindrical peg fitted to his above‑knee stump and wore it everywhere. The rigid leg extending in front of him whenever he sat encouraged young students to apply for amputations in order to wear something similar.

 

Chris had been correct in assuming that he would probably be the last of the first year students to receive his wooden legs. He was told to expect to make a report in the autumn of his experience with the primitive prostheses. He was the first student to receive both a wooden leg and a peg leg, the pair of legs carefully designed to match in colour and material. The full‑length leg’s lower section would be carved to resemble the peg leg.

 

Chris was casted and measured and recasted as the students designed the elaborate harness which Chris would always need to suspend his wooden leg. His stump was next to useless for any prosthetic purpose and he would have to learn to heave the leg forward from his hip. It would be a demanding and exhausting method of operating an artificial leg but the students were interested to see how the fellow fared. He had demanded a minimal nub and many students stood to win considerable amounts of money depending on whether the young Adonis walked independently without sticks by Christmas.

 

His peg leg was ready first. Chris removed his BK carbon fibre leg and stretched his stump to receive the new wooden peg leg. It was a magnificent piece of engineering. His stump slid easily into the socket which felt tight but not uncomfortably so. His kneecap rested on the lip of the peg just like with any normal BK leg but the prosthesis continued up his thigh. Steel bracing on each side extended to a knee lock and onto the lower peg. There was a row of a dozen or so holes along both sides of the socket through which a long lace would hold it firmly onto Chris’s thigh. He tried to imagine himself in a year’s time, maybe, tightening the lacing with a pair of hooks but put the idea from his head and concentrated on the job at hand. The peg leg was on. The students stood back to judge the results of their handiwork and watched Chris’s beautiful features as he appraised the new prosthesis. Balancing on his seat with his minimal right stump almost invisible, he looked magnificent.

            – Stand up and tell us how it feels.

Chris was handed his crutches and pushed himself up. His stump pushed deeper into the peg and nestled more firmly against its flange. The students moved away to give him room to manoeuvre. He sensed a change in the way he balanced. He could no longer stand on the prosthesis, resting lightly on a crutch. The peg leg required him to maintain balance with constant contact. He had become slightly more disabled, albeit equipped with an enviably beautiful wooden peg leg which gleamed under the harsh lights. Chris leaned on his crutches and lifted his peg leg. The knee locks were not engaged and his knee bent. His thigh felt odd, gripped firmly by the thigh corset. His long stump was almost completely hidden. Only a sliver of skin was apparent around his groin. He had a semi. His leftward pointing glans touched the leather socket and a wet dot appeared on it. His naked stump moved about uselessly as he instinctively tried to balance better with his other leg. The leg he had requested to be amputated as high and tight as possible.

            – If you want the peg to be rigid, McDonald, you have to allow the locks to drop into place. I think when you are on crutches, you’ll do better with a rigid peg. When you have your wooden leg, you’ll find it easier to walk if you have use of your knee. You’ll use your peg for leverage to move your leg because your stump simply is not and will never be any help to you.

            – No, I already realise that. I think in real life, I’m going to be a one‑legged man on a prosthesis and crutches.

            – One‑legged and that will be a prosthesis. Quite a tall order, if I may say so. Still, we know of one gentleman at the Dickensonian with two stumps like yours who manages somehow to be independently mobile without aids so there’s no reason why you should not succeed. Would you like me to lock your knee and you can give the peg a test run.

            – If you would.

The drop locks lowered into place and the entire peg leg was rigid. Chris tried lifting it again and the entire leg rose to the left and rotated forward. Chris had automatically taken his first step on his peg leg, the first of millions. The peg felt completely sturdy and reliable. Its large rubber ferrule gripped the floor. Chris took another step with the intention of continuing in a straight line, four or five steps across to the wall. His familiar experience on his artificial foot after his second amputation allowed him to crutch ahead, careful not to allow the ferrule to catch on the floor by swinging the peg slightly to the left. He faced the wall and spun himself around with a crutch and found the one advantage of a footless peg. It rotated with him. Turning was easy.

            – I want you to wear the peg now for a few days to get used to it. We have a few details to complete before we give you your other leg and we want to see you walking confidently on your peg by then, do you understand?

            – Yes, of course, sir. I’m sure I will. This feels very comfortable.

            – Good. Sit down and Jenkins can dress you. You will have to work out your own routine on how to pull on a pair of trousers since you will no longer do so standing.

Jenkins slid his underwear up his peg leg followed by his trousers and folded the empty trouser leg into the belt from front to back. It looked neater than the way Chris did it and the outline of his erection was visible.

            – That’s all we have for you today, McDonald. I want you to walk on the peg as much as possible over the next few days. Get to know its weight and balance. You can try using it locked or with the knee free to bend—up to you.

            – Yes, I will. Thank you all very much.

 

Jenkins opened the door for him and the pair departed, Chris’s foot prosthesis in Jenkins’ hand. He himself walked on above and below knee prostheses but his stumps were more practical for prosthetic use and he had succeeded disguising his amputee status from his twin brother for over three years, ever since his arrival at the Dickensonian when he had eagerly volunteered to gain a thigh stump three inches above his knee. His second stump was a year old, fitted with a matching leg, a mere pylon covered with a cosmesis. Outwardly, he looked like any non‑Dickensonian student. He had learned to use his prosthetic limbs to their greatest advantage and his gait was even and fluid. He had serious doubts that his companion would ever walk unassisted on modern lightweight electronic prostheses, to say nothing of the century old technology he was about to receive from the Prosthetarium. All the same, it would be interesting to follow the boy’s progress. Jenkins opened Chris’s door for him and placed the prosthesis within arm’s reach.

 

Chris and Rob spent many hours together every day after they had completed their regulation five hours of study. They usually spent time sitting outside on one of the park benches lining the Forties, demonstrating their progress to anyone who happened to see them. The flat gravel pathway surrounding the Forties was ideal for practising on. Not too long and completely flat. Chris soon became accustomed to his peg leg and swung it with assurance. It was little different from his artificial foot once he reconciled himself to the thigh corset. Rob was still unsure on his wooden feet but had learned how to rise from a sitting position by leaning sideways and forcing one of his tin legs straight so he could use it to push himself up further. With his arms spread to maintain balance, he slowly circumnavigated the Forties, learning a new way to kick his stumps to ensure that the tin legs landed straight so that the knees would support him. It was an unnatural movement, first kicking back to release the knee and then kicking forward to swing it ahead so that it straightened. It was easier after he had worked up a momentum and found a rhythm but he was afraid of falling when he was merely standing or if he had to walk more slowly than usual. Chris was jealous of him. Rob looked like he would master his tin legs after a few months but the wooden leg which hung from his shoulders which he was due to receive any day would never allow him to stroll along with the regularity which Rob was beginning to demonstrate. He would always find walking a serious challenge. It would be far better to rely simply on crutches with a fake foot or his new peg leg, which he had begun to prefer for its workmanship and exclusivity. He had heard many complimentary remarks from fellow students at the end of studies when they crossed the Forties, rocking along on their own artificial legs. Their hours of practice was often interrupted by Liam’s arrival who wordlessly winked at Chris and placed a hook onto Rob’s shoulder. They returned to Rob’s quarters and quickly shed their prostheses before beginning their lovemaking on Rob’s bed.

 

Hopeful applicants to the Dickensonian began to appear for their interviews. Chris and Rob, along with the rest of their intake, were nearing the end of their first year. Several would leave for the two month semester considerably more disabled than they had been when they arrived but fitted with a prosthetic limb which compensated for their loss, usually surpassing their highest expectations. The joy of amputation was evident on every new amputee’s face at the Dickensonian, regardless of how many previous amputations he had undergone. Men who had years ago entered much as Chris, with a minor stump, left heaving two wooden legs along and flailing bilateral hooks for balance, forcing their graduation capes to flutter and sway. The wooden leg project had been a total success and all of the recipients were more than satisfied with the appearance and additional weight which their stumps had to contend with. Disability was very much its own reward.

 

Liam and Chris were sitting at Rob’s window one weekend afternoon when a new candidate appeared at the arched entrance to the Forties and looked around him. He was on axillary crutches and wearing trousers, one leg of which had been removed entirely and the other narrowed to hold a single peg leg. It was unusual to see a freshman already so severely disabled and they watched him closely. He leaned on his crutches and retrieved a sheet of paper on which, presumably, he had written instructions on where his meeting was to be. For some reason, instead of turning to the left and entering via the main door, he crossed the Forties towards the door adjoining Rob’s apartment.

            – He’s coming this way.

            – Do you think we should tell him?

            – It would be only kind, don’t you think?

            – Go on, Rob. You’ve got your legs on. Tell him where he needs to go.

 

Chris and Liam were limbless on Rob’s bed. Chris had been masturbating Liam, ensuring his right later to fuck his handless colleague. Rob twisted himself erect and held his jeans over his naked body to hide his erection. The peg legger pushed his way through the entrance and Rob leaned out from his apartment.

            – Hi! Hello? Are you here for an interview?

            – Oh, er, hi. Yes but I seem to be a bit lost.

            – Yes, you are. You need to cross the Forties and go in the double doors. What time’s your meeting?

            – Not for another hour.

            – In that case, you’d better come in. We’ll have a cup of tea and you can ask me about the Dickensonian.

            – That’s very kind of ye.

 

He flicked his peg leg forward with his body and Rob stood back from the door to let him in. Chris and Liam scrambled to conceal their nakedness in surprise as the stranger entered. He was paying attention to where his ferrule would land rather than looking at his immediate surroundings and came to a stop in the middle of the room. He saw the two men on the bed and excused himself for interrupting.

            – Think nothing of it. Sit down and make yourself at home, why don’t you?

            – I’m afraid I won’t sit, thank you. I can not. I have this bucket wi’ a peg leg and I have to stand on it but it makes no difference so thank ye all the same.

The young man’s Scottish brogue was strong and confident. There was none of the attempt to sound more southern which many Scottish citizens attempted.

            – But I will take tea if ye’re offerin’.

 

He crutched backwards away from Rob’s bed and turned to see where his host indicated. He looked extraordinary with trousers tailored specifically to accept a narrow peg. Chris was fascinated. He made an attempt to retrieve his peg leg from the floor while remaining decent and realised the impossibility of dressing himself without displaying his genitals and stumps. The newcomer was facing the other way and Chris decided to continue regardless of whether the newcomer saw him or not. Rob was busy in his kitchen nook dealing with tea things, and before Chris attempted to rise from Rob’s bed, he helped Liam back into his jeans. Chris lifted Liam’s arms from the floor and dropped them into Liam’s lap.

 

The atmosphere in Rob’s apartment was immediately strained by the presence of the stranger. He lifted himself against the kitchen wall and leaned against it to free his hands long enough to drink a mug of tea. The invalids introduced themselves, discovering that the freshman was Malcolm McLuhan from north‑west Scotland, hoping to attend the Dickensonian to study prompt engineering for prosthetic design and probably European history.

            – I was recommended to try here because of the prosthetics department. I understand they make their own experimental pieces.

Chris had just finished lacing up his thigh socket and grabbed his crutches to stand without putting his trousers on. He crutched across to where McLuhan balanced precariously on a rigid black pylon, shoulders against the wall for support and slapped his handsome leather thigh corset.

            – This is the sort of work they do here. This is brand new. Had it for a few days.

            – It looks remarkable. Ye’re a lucky man to have such a thing.

            – With any luck, I should have a matching leg shortly.

            – Excuse me for asking, but can ye even wear a leg wi’ ya short stump? I ask because I have two like that and I am currently unable to wear a leg of any kind. It’s one of the reasons I want to be accepted here, see?

            – The leg will be held on by suspenders over my shoulders.

            – Ah! I see. I use a bucket because my stumps are short. The peg is only for occasions when I need to walk. Other times, I walk on my hands.

            – So you can’t really use prosthetic legs at all, Malcolm?

            – No. I have a pair of short stubbie legs I can screw into the base of ma bucket if I want to stand taller but I canna move them.

 

The other amputees were too stunned by McLuhan’s complete leglessness to comment. Chris imagined himself with a second above knee stump as short as the existing one. He would also be restricted to life in a bucket. Scooting around on a skateboard, walking on a big rubber shoe covering the base of his torso socket. He had seen several photos online of legless men heaving themselves along using their hands but McLuhan was the first living example he had met. The man seemed perfectly content with his lot, sipping hot tea with the rest of them. He thanked them for their hospitality and claimed he ought to make his way to the interview room. Rob pointed the way from his window and let the young Scot out. They watched him swing himself across the Forties until his reached the double doors which defeated him until someone leaving held them open for him to enter.

 

Rob took encouragement from the encounter. He had felt himself more severely disabled than he had anticipated after receiving his second tin leg but seeing how Malcolm had to go through life made him realise that things were not so bad, could indeed be very much worse. He determined to master his tin legs in short order so that by the beginning of the summer hols, he would be walking with assurance, possibly with the swashbuckling sway of a man with two artificial legs, but he would walk and be satisfied with the ability to do so. Chris was similarly more resigned to his solitary peg leg than he had been until now.

 

His appreciation of his wooden peg leg intensified several days later when he was summoned to the Prosthetarium for a final fitting of his new leg. The entire team which had worked on the various phases of its manufacture were present and eager to see their handiwork put to use. Chris was questioned about how the peg leg had performed, whether its weight was excessive, how useful the knee lock was, the practicality of the leather thigh corset. Chris explained in detail while the new wooden leg was fitted over his nub and suspended from his shoulders with a bewildering network of leather straps. There were straps to hold other straps in place. The top of the leg was expertly curved to allow him to rest on it comfortably. In practice, he would not stand on the wooden leg, rather he would sit on it. It was immediately obvious to everyone present that the man would certainly never swing it using his stump. The stump extended barely far enough to prevent the leg from slipping off. The strapping, his suspenders, held the wooden leg firmly against his lower body. Somehow, he was going to have to learn how to swing his hips to force the leg to move.

 

Chris received advice on how to don the suspenders and how to rise from a sitting position using his peg leg to push himself up. He could regard himself fortunate in still possessing a natural knee and had seen how Rob struggled to stand since gaining his second tin leg.

            – There is little we can teach you, McDonald. You are the first man to be kitted out with the combination you are now wearing. I can only repeat the old adage that practice makes perfect and I recommend that you wean yourself away from using crutches as soon as you feel stable on the new leg. You may well find that the peg is of some use in swinging the full leg forward.

 

Chris tried taking a step. He settled his peg leg into a suitable position and found that it felt long.

            – Er, my peg is longer than the leg.

            – Yes, that’s quite deliberate, McDonald. You’ll find it easier to swing your leg forward when your peg provides a little clearance. It’s the one thing which your peg can do to make walking a little easier. If you rely on your peg—think of it as your strong leg—you’ll soon be swinging the wooden leg enough to take the next step. Look, take the leg now and try walking around the Forties on crutches at first. But be aware that we won’t be making any alterations to your new leg until you are walking independently without support and have at least two week’s experience.

            – I understand. I would like to say how proud I am to have two such beautiful artificial legs. They are works of art.

 

The group smiled their appreciation at his comments. The legs were beautifully finished, varnished with high gloss acrylic to allow the original wood to glow. It was something which only the user would see, it being assumed that a man so severely crippled would not wish to publicly display primitive prosthetic limbs. But Chris was quite used to displaying his handsome attributes in public and dealing with the stares and comments. He fully intended to display his wooden legs at every conceivable opportunity. He asked for his crutches and slowly swung his way back to his room, where he collapsed onto his bed and, relieved and exhausted, drifted off to sleep.

 

The end of term approached relentlessly. Tutors demanded essays on subjects tangential to their studies in an attempt to discover which of the students were learning merely by rote and which had a wider interest in their subjects. Having their mobility restricted for much of their first year, both Chris had Rob had read widely during their periods of confinement as they waited for their stumps to heal and the seemingly never‑ending limbo proved its worth when both were invited back to continue their studies in the autumn, when they would also have the opportunity of membership in the Prosthetarium. The two legless friends would have some kind of input on what was to be proscribed for the next year’s intake. Neither were likely to maintain a practical approach to amputation and rehabilitation, adopting the attitudes of the members who had deliberated on their amputations and had jointly recommended increasing disability. Rarely had two men, both apparently friends before they arrived, been so easily persuaded to voluntarily disable themselves so radically in their first year.

 

Senior members took note and reported to their superiors and after some pre‑arranged deliberation, it was decided to increase the rate of amputations for budding prosthetist students. The following year’s intake would undergo rapid disablement in order to be fitted with the wide variety of artificial limbs now produced by the Prosthetarium, from wooden peg legs to carbon fibre sockets and advanced mechanical knees. It promised to be an interesting year. The graduates had achieved a production rate for prosthetic limbs which had never been the intention of the originators of the Dickensonian Method and the Prosthetarium was now equal to producing professional quality artificial limbs from any epoch since the late nineteenth century to the present day at an industrial pace. The new year of seniors included several amputee students with a sadistic streak.

 

During the early summer evenings, Chris, Liam and Rob spent many hours outside Rob’s quarters on a park bench which two more able‑bodied fellows had shifted there. The two legless students were both anxious to master their artificial legs well enough to return to their parents’ homes without crutches, although Rob was often seen with a handsome walking stick which one of the seniors had lent him. He had experienced something close to an epiphany one afternoon when he subconsciously began jerking his stumps in such a way that his tin legs swung forward at precisely the right moment. Instead of his previously demanding and halting gait, he found himself walking with a far more comfortable cadence. He purposefully slowed himself slightly and found that he need not exert himself so much. From then on, both his gait and his confidence improved.

 

Chris still struggled with his heavy wooden leg which was trustworthy and fairly comfortable to wear. Just as had been predicted, he found that his peg leg did much of the work. He developed a swagger to help swing the wooden leg from his pelvis. He thought his gait was improving but he still needed to concentrate on walking above everything else. His preferred method of walking however was on crutches wearing only his peg. It was difficult to find an opportunity to stride along in such a manner at the Dickensonian with its policy of requiring amputees to rely solely on their artificial limbs. Chris’s mental state also improved after becoming severely disabled. His sense of inferiority diminished, due in large part to comment from older students who expressed their admiration for his determination to master such primitive prostheses. Chris felt he had regained some of the admiration he had always received from his peers.

 

The summer term ended with the exam results. There were extra credits for dedicated co‑operation concerning the Dickensonian Method. Diplomas were distributed by the Dean in a ceremony held in the Great Hall on a podium reached by four stone steps, worn concave by centuries of footsteps. Reaching the centre of the stage for a congratulatory handshake was a nerve‑wracking ordeal for new amputees, whose every movement was studied intensely by the audience. Rob concentrated especially on the steps, which seemed designed to throw him off balance. He kicked his stumps slowly and regularly to demonstrate his mastery, accompanied by the resonance of hollow aluminium legs. He received thunderous applause from the watching audience. Chris earned a similar outburst for his new‑found agility on a rigid wooden leg and peg.

 

 Rob said nothing to his parents about his second amputation. Much of his determination to walk competently on his tin legs was due to his desire to avoid the inevitable questioning which would ensue if and when they discovered that their son was a double amputee. Neither his mother nor his father paid enough attention to their disabled son’s style of walking. As far as they knew, the boy had an old‑style limb which was more than enough reason to explain his gait. They were both preoccupied with work matters and spent much of their leisure time online. Rob resumed his habit of walking around one‑legged with crutches. It was easier and faster and he could allow his younger stump some respite from the prosthesis. He felt that he had achieved everything he could possibly want regarding lower limb amputation. His thigh stumps matched, they were a handsome and useful length and after he left college, he would have a vast selection of prosthetic devices to try. He was more interested in full‑length artificial legs but spent several hours researching manufacturers of stump boots and stubbies, knowing he could choose his height at will.

 

Chris’s parents were even less observant. They spent most of their time avoiding each other. Their divorce proceedings were progressing slowly and the atmosphere in the household was tense and uncomfortable. Like the Crawford’s, their son’s halting gait was noted and put down to his disablement. It took four days before his mother discovered Chris’s wooden legs when she entered his bedroom one morning when he overslept. In her shock, she felt unable to continue working and compelled Chris to reveal every detail about his elective amputation including the fact that his stump was considerably shorter than originally intended. Mrs McDonald reasoned that since Chris had already succeeded in disguising the amputation for four days, there was little point in fretting over a disability from which the boy had obviously already recovered. She admonished him for being irresponsible, retired to her bedroom and wept in disappointment at the untrustworthiness of everyone around her. Alone in his bedroom, Chris pulled his long wooden leg onto his bed and rubbed his genitals over its glossy surface until he ejaculated deep into the socket. His erection subsided a little but he still had a semi when he finished lacing up his peg leg’s thigh corset. He spent much of the day avoiding his mother, feeling himself chastised in a familiar way from former years. He cared little for her distress. It would be interesting to see her reaction next summer when he returned with two more stumps, assuming all went according to plan. He had heard rumours about the upcoming schedule for the Prosthetarium.

 

Chris contacted one or two schoolfriends in the hope of meeting after hours for a beer in town. Only one agreed to turn up. It was surprising how soon friendships wilted when not enforced by constant presence. The two friends met outside the railway station in town and Chris immediately had to explain why he had a peg leg, clearly visible extending from his trouser leg. The friend, Will Karlin, was fascinated by the peg and even more surprised when they turned and walked in the direction of a good pizzeria. Chris’s conspicuous swagger gave the game away and he admitted to having lost his other leg in its entirety and that his opposing prosthesis hung from a convoluted system of strapping criss‑crossing his body. Will stopped suddenly and held onto a railing as he came in his underwear. Chris was a little embarrassed at the public display of such a lack of self‑control but was enthralled at causing such a reaction. Chris kept his knee locks engaged while they ate their pizzas and the peg leg remained horizontal for Will’s perusal during the two hours they spent together.

 

Early September and a new college year. Freshmen flooded into vacated rooms along the corridor where Chris and Rob had kept the same rooms as last year. Rob was smitten by a new intake who seemed never to take a short black pipe from his mouth and whose left hand was a steel hook. Their rooms were almost adjacent. Not to be outdone, Rob took to smoking his own pipe more frequently and sat outside on the park bench on late summer evenings smoking and reading. The hook‑user, Étienne Girardet, frequently just happened to see him and wondered if Rob might let him sit with him. Étienne had lost his hand by playing with his father’s electric drill and the less said, the better. He had only been six years old.

 

            – Yes, I really did have a hook all through school. How could I not?

Chris explained his own disability, omitting much of the associated details and demonstrated his tin legs.

            – What sort of stumps have you got, Rob?

            – Mid thigh.

            – Both of them?

            – Yup.

            – Fantastic! I’d love a thigh stump. I love seeing men walking along on crutches with a trouser leg tied up. You know what I mean?

            – I know what you mean. I do it all the time., not here, obviously. They don’t like people using crutches but when I’m away from college, I’m a one‑legged man.

            – With a tin leg! Oh mon dieu.

Étienne rearranged his erection by poking it with his hook.

 

Before the first week was over, Rob and Étienne were regular visitors to each other’s rooms. Étienne’s stump was long and narrow and eminently suited to foreplay. It was too large for Rob to consider accepting into his arsehole but Étienne willingly climbed onto Rob’s stumps and shafted him with the wild abandon of a randy teenager. Sometimes Rob was still wearing his tin legs and the resulting sounds seemed to echo around the compound. Discretion was not guaranteed.

 

Liam noticed Rob’s interest in Étienne and was despondent for a couple of weeks until he found himself a new friend who lived across the Forties. Piers Delarge had lost his hands at thirteen after climbing onto the roof of a gondola in the French Alps. It had only been a dare among schoolmates. Piers clambered up first, enthusiastically raised on the shoulders of his friends but found that the roof was wet and slippery. He grabbed the cable to steady himself just as it transversed a pylon and his hands and wrists were crushed to pulp. He fell back inside the gondola and was transported by helicopter to a nearby hospital after the panicked schoolkids arrived at the end station.

 

            – Quite the story, is it not?

            – It must have been terrifying.

            – I suppose it was. I have blocked most of it from my mind. I can only remember what I’ve been told. But the end result is much to my liking.

He slowly traced the outline of his left hook with the right. It looked sensuous. Liam smirked.

            – You really like them, don’t you?

            – Of course I do. You enjoy yours too, I think. It is very macho for a man of a certain age to present himself wearing two hooks. We are still young so we are still learning. When we are ten years older, we will be irresistible to a certain type of person who understands.

            – Piers, what makes you think that?

            – Ah, you English boys. You are so unimaginative. You do not understand the attraction.

 

Liam was nonplussed. He had thought he understood the attraction for hooks by men who lusted after arm stumps and he knew about the admiration which accomplished hook users attracted in general. But he had not contemplated the erotic nature of his stumps to which Piers alluded. He knew about the powerful effect his hooks had on solitary masturbation but Piers meant something more. He was intrigued by the brash Frenchman and soon the two bilaterals were inseparable. Piers had further surprises in store for Liam. He had honed his limblessness into an erotic art.

 

Chris also noticed Rob’s preoccupation with the one‑hooked Girardet. Once again, he was left on the outside of things. In reality, many of the new intake who lived along the same corridor regarded him as godlike. He walked with a masculine swagger, had a peg leg and was so handsome that any criticism of him was superfluous. He was an Adonis and none of the new boys dared talk to him, not wishing to be shunned by their idol. Chris, on his part, would have loved to have a new friend, even one of the new boys with a simple standard issue artificial leg.

 

He endured the situation until, several weeks into the autumn term, he discovered that Malcolm McLuhan had been admitted to the Dickensonian. He had not noticed the legless man previously because McLuhan had permission to remove his peg and handwalk on the base of his torso socket. The man was almost invisible. Chris renewed their acquaintance when he noticed the Scot at dinner one evening. McLuhan also found it difficult to forge new friendships, possibly because his disability was too extreme for others to accept. Chris found McLuhan’s torso socket arousing and imagined himself wearing one. McLuhan demonstrated manoeuvres in his room before shucking the carbon shell and hurling himself onto Chris’s belly for a session of legless sex. Chris began to regard his long stump as a hindrance. Malcolm used his torso stump to make love to Chris, who imagined himself with two minuscule stumps like Malcolm’s and his fantasy never failed to result in orgasm.

 

New seniors took control at the Prosthetarium. They belonged to the year which had seen the first call for voluntary amputees. The facility had previously worked only on pre‑existing stumps. As a result, almost all the seniors were at least double amputees. Having seen some fascinating wooden legs produced earlier in the year, several availed themselves of the opportunity to gain a new pair of wooden legs until the college administration noticed what was going on and demanded that younger students also deserved their fair share. The seniors reluctantly turned their attention them but coerced one‑legged amputees into volunteering for a second amputation as a condition of receiving a wooden leg. This ploy remained undetected by admin and the sudden increase in applications for second leg stumps was regarded as the result of the usual peer pressure and stump envy.

 

By late November, resources were running short. There were several new bilateral students who had hobbled themselves with heavy and unresponsive wooden limbs and the Prosthetarium studied their rehabilitation closely. Admin issued a new directive, rumour of which had circulated for several months. The new year was to be dedicated to upper limb prosthetics and there was a dearth of relevant students. Old applications for hand and arm amputations were searched and applicants who were still resident on campus were invited for interviews to the Prosthetarium. First among them was Chris McDonald.

 

Chris received the invitation to attend on a cold December Saturday morning. Chris and Malcolm were still in bed, half awake, debating whether to rise or laze for another half hour. Both of them had morning wood and a growing urgency to urinate, although that presented no problem. Chris kept several piss bottles under his bed.

            – The Prosthetarium wants me to call in for a chat.

            – What about?

            – Doesn’t say.

            – Only one way to find out.

            – Yeah. Do you want to get up?

            – No but my tummy thinks my throat has been cut.

            – You want some breakfast? OK, let’s get moving.

Chris waited while Malcolm peed and helped place the torso socket onto his lover. Malcolm pushed himself erect, slid to the floor and swung himself towards the tiny kitchen. Chris slid his long stump into his peg and tightened the thigh corset. He reached to grab his crutches and pegged into the kitchen, where Malcolm had already lifted himself onto a chair. Naked, except for his black carbon shell, he looked magnificent, his complete leglessness a stunning erotic attribute which Chris thought he would never tire of seeing.

            – Omelette or scrambled?

            – Same as what you’re having.

Chris took six eggs from the fridge and set the espresso machine for two cups.

            – You’ll have to put your leg on if you go to the Pro. You know how they dislike seeing crutches and this new bunch are even stricter than the last lot from what I’ve heard.

            – I know. It’s a nuisance at the weekend but there’s nothing for it. How about you? Are you OK in your socket or do you want the peg?

            – I’m fine legless until we go out somewhere, Chris. Get yourself ready. I’ll be alright.

Chris looked at his friend and thought how close they were. Malcolm was never less than attentive and considerate, regarding Chris’s disability to be more serious and demanding than his own situation. Protected inside his sturdy shell, he was safe and secure from the many pitfalls which Chris inevitably encountered on his demanding wooden legs. He knew Chris harboured thoughts of having his long stump disarticulated, leaving him as legless as he was himself. He made no comment. A torso stump was both shocking and enjoyable and the phantom sensations of feeling his legs where there was nothing was at times intensely erotic. Chris would have to come to his own decision alone but Malcolm would give his support regardless.

 

Chris checked whether the Prosthetarium would see him immediately and was told to turn up at ten. It was twenty to.

            – Shit! I need to get my leg on.

Chris crutched to his bedroom and lifted his wooden leg, still wearing his trousers, next to his bed. He poked his peg into the other leg and arranged the bewildering network of leather suspenders which held the wooden leg against his pelvis. Malcolm swung in to watch and to help, if possible. He regarded Chris’s long wooden leg as nothing more than an encumbrance. His friend was far more agile on his single peg leg and he had felt great pride when they were out in public together, both crutching along on their pegs. Several minutes later, Chris pushed himself up and made the final adjustments to the strapping. Malcolm handed him a clean shirt from a drawer and Chris put it on over his head, balancing carefully on his wooden leg and moving the tip of his peg slightly to steady himself.

            – All set. How do I look?

            – Perfect. If you give me my peg, I’ll wash the breakfast things.

            – Oh, OK. Jump on the bed.

Malcolm’s steel peg leg stood resting against the bedside cabinet. Malcolm dragged himself into a convenient position and Chris screwed the peg into the base of the torso socket. Malcolm’s crutches were on the other side of the room, short axillary crutches which showed signs of wear. Malcolm was quite capable of rising onto his peg leg after many years of regular practice and always seemed transformed when he suddenly stood forty centimetres taller.

            – I’ll be as quick as I can.

            – No hurry. Take your time.

Chris limped away from the bed towards the door and left for the long walk to the Prosthetarium.

 

            – Ah, McDonald. Good to see you. Come in, come in.

There were three seniors waiting for Chris in addition to the chief. They made their way to rehab, where they sat on two sofas usually occupied by waiting amputees.

            – We wanted to have a word because you applied last year for arm amputations. That is correct, is it not?

            – Yes. That was before I had my leg off.

            – And I believe you were told no further surgery until you are walking on your new prostheses, correct?

            – Yes, sir.

            – You seem to have mastered their use now. You find the peg leg preferable to a normal prosthesis?

            – Yes, I do. The peg is very stable and comfortable to use. The steel bracing keeps it aligned and I have enough stump to exert enough power to compensate for the other leg. It is also reliable when I use only the peg and crutches.

            – Good. It seems to me the time is ripe for your first arm stump. How do you feel about undergoing the process to turn you into a hook user??

            – Since I became more disabled, sir, I have come to realise that I am often reliant on my crutches and I don’t believe I could use them properly with artificial hands or hooks so I would prefer to wait a while before I make any decision about my hands.

Chris paused for a moment, thinking of Malcolm’s legless torso.

            – But I would agree to have my long stump shortened to match my femoral stump, sir.

            – That would leave you completely legless.

            – Yes sir. I would need to walk around on a torso socket, sir.

            – We don’t make torso sockets. You would be in a wheelchair and we strongly disapprove of wheelchair use on a permanent basis.

            – So I am not eligible for another lower limb amputation?

            – Not for the foreseeable future. The Prosthetarium wants to see the students at the Dickensonian using prosthetic limbs to their full advantage, not seated in a wheelchair. You have made excellent progress so far and you may regard yourself as responsible for the increase in the number of peg leggers currently at the college.

            – Thank you, sir.

            – I wonder if you know of any students we might approach who have spoken to you of their desire to gain arm stumps. We are starting a programme of upper limb replacement in the new year and are naturally keen to manufacture as wide a variety of arm prostheses as possible.

            – I see. Yes, sir. There is one friend who I know wants to use a pair of hooks. Rob Crawford.

            – Isn’t he the boy on tin legs?

            – Yes sir. We were discussing further work a while ago and he said he’d love to have a pair of artificial arms made of aluminium to match his legs.

            – Did he, indeed? The boy has quite an imagination.

Two of the seniors scribbled Rob’s name and ‘aluminium sockets!!’ in their notebooks.

            – Very well, McDonald. That will be all for now. You can see your own way out.

            – Yes, thank you, sir.

 

He smiled uncertainly at the others present and manually placed his wooden leg so it would straighten under him when he rose. He pushed himself up with his hands and straightened his knee, pushing himself erect on his ferrule. He steadied himself and walked to the door. The seniors watched him with reluctant admiration. They personally had nothing but respect for the severity of McDonald’s elective amputation and his willingness to hobble himself further with the primitive wooden legs he had chosen. They themselves had only one full natural leg among them, saved from removal only by the unfortunate fracture it had sustained shortly before surgery and being in long leg casts for four months. They waited until they heard the outer door close before discussing what they had just heard.

 

            – He’s not wrong. It’s a bastard trying to use crutches without hands. You should try it some time. I think we’re missing out on a good opportunity to study the recovery of a legless client, though. It wouldn’t be difficult to make a leather body socket with an aluminium base, for example, on which he could heave himself along. There’s a legless new boy who I understand has a carbon fibre body socket. Maybe we could get him in here and ask him about his stump.

            – Are you suggesting that McDonald might actually end up legless here at the Dickensonian? That goes far beyond our remit. Our mission is to produce users of prosthetic limbs and there is little chance of McDonald ever requiring a new pair of legs without stumps.

            – True enough. Let’s keep him in mind. And let’s get the legless newbie in for a chat.

            – Fine. Shall we give Crawford a call?

            – Yes, Crawford sounds like he’s willing to try something different. I do enjoy it when there is a little variety in the mix.

 

Rob received a text message inviting him immediately to the Prosthetarium. He was eating brunch in Étienne Girardet’s apartment. They had enjoyed a heavy night of sex and had showered together and dressed each other before Étienne set to rustling up a late breakfast. They intended continuing in the same vein later. Rob was infatuated with Étienne’s stump and love to watch his lover using his hook for everything.

            – Oh! They want to see me at the Prosthetarium right now.

            – Why? Tell them you must finish brunch.

Étienne plunged a knife into his croque monsieur.

            – I’ll tell them to wait. What do you think? Twenty minutes?

            – I suppose so. What do they want?

            – Only one way to find out, Étienne.

 

Both tin legs had begun to emit new sounds. The knees occasionally squeaked when he stood up. Rob had inspected them carefully, looking for signs of wear but could see nothing untoward. The chief was waiting for him in the entrance hall and Rob heard the same spiel which had greeted Chris an hour previously.

            – So you see, we feel this would be the ideal opportunity for you to gain a pair of radial stumps. We understand you have expressed a desire to use a pair of aluminium sockets to match your legs. Is that correct?

They could have heard that only from Chris. Had he been here informing on him?

            – Yes. I think they would look very attractive.

            – I’m sure they would. The sockets would be leather with a tin cover. Our programme for next year will centre around the production of leather sockets for arm stumps. I think if we time your amputations fortuitously, the production team should be able to produce an aluminium prosthesis by late March. That means your first surgery will be immediately after your return in the new year. I hope you are amenable.

 

Rob was excited by the prospect of his own arm stumps. The entirety of the spring and summer terms would pass with him recovering from first gaining one stump and arm, and immediately afterwards his second. By the time the year ended in July, he and Étienne would be more equal, even assuming Étienne still had both legs.

            – That would be wonderful.

            – Good. This needs to be confirmed but I’ll mark you in for the first surgery on January eleventh.

Rob stared at his hands and flexed the fingers. He could picture looking down and seeing steel hooks instead and the image aroused his libido. His penis quickly tented inside his chinos.

            – If you hear of any other prospective hook users, send them along. The Dickensonian summer programme relies on a healthy rate of applicants, and the sooner the better. That’s all for now, Crawford.

Rob twisted himself erect onto his tin legs. They emitted distinctive sounds as leather chafed against aluminium and one knee squeaked twice when Rob rocked himself out. He smiled both at the sound of his artificial legs and at the prospect of being a quadruple amputee before summer.

 

The Prosthetarium began to make concrete preparations for the new programme. Existing arm amputees were informed of the chance to participate by trialling one of the new prostheses and were encouraged to persuade their friends to consider replacing a hand or two with hooks. There would be extra credits for successful applicants and their referees.

 

In keeping with the sadistic streak running through the programme, the seniors researched obsolete and austere prostheses and favoured a design comprising an arm brace of fifteen millimetre wide and three millimetre thick lengths of aluminium sheet metal more commonly used in manufacturing old style leg braces. The lower section would be formed of a single long piece of metal bent through a hundred and eighty degrees at the ‘wrist’ and drilled to accept a hook with a half inch screw fitting. The upper section would be linked with hinges at the elbow, the two extensions held by a half cylindrical triceps cuff, also of aluminium. The stump sockets would consist of one or two rigid leather cuffs, custom made for each amputee and riveted to the metal bracing. Standard split hooks would complete the basic design and an order was placed for five each of left and right hooks and ten control cables for delivery at the start of February.

 

The finished prostheses would offer little in the way of adjustment. The triceps cuff would hold the upper arm firmly, the simple elbow hinge would bend a hundred and twenty degrees with no rotation and the hook would have neither articulation nor rotation. Fresh amputees would find them austere, basic and demanding. The seniors were anxious to seeing the devices in use, preferably on bilateral students and anticipated fascinating reports of rehabilitation and difficulties encountered. Nothing prevented the new amputees from acquiring any prostheses they chose from independent prosthetists but while they studied at the Dickensonian, they would be required to wear the leather and sheet metal prostheses on campus.

 

Talk about the new design spread among the senior students. One interested party was intrigued by the sound of the new prosthesis design and volunteered to trial one before production began.

            – I think it would be better if someone who knows what to expect from a hook prosthesis gives it a go before making them for the new amputees.

The chief mulled it over. There was a week left before Christmas and a week or two immediately after the new year before production was planned to begin.

            – Alright, Jones. I agree. How long have you been an amputee?

            – Twelve years with an arm stump, two with my leg stump.

            – You got that here?

            – Yes sir.

            – I see you’re wearing a peg leg. Is that one of ours too?

            – Yes sir. I’ve had it three months.

            – I see. One of the new enthusiasts, eh? Do you have a normal prosthesis?

            – Yes sir. But I’ve not worn it for weeks.

            – Interesting. I want you to write a report for us comparing the peg with your leg and if you can emphasise the advantages of using old technology in place of electronics and bionic limbs, we could offer a few extra credits. You’re wearing an artificial hand—what other prostheses have you used?

            – Standard hooks, worker’s hooks, static hooks, cosmetic hands and this basic hand. It’s quite useful and the cosmesis makes it look fairly unobtrusive.

            – It does. You realise the model we intend making will be anything but unobtrusive?

            – Yes sir. That’s why I’d like to test one.

            – Very well. Come in on Monday morning and we’ll take a mould of your stump. With any luck they can make a start on the socket before the hols.

            – Thank you, sir. I will.

He took his leave, satisfied that he still had time to benefit from the Prosthetarium in his senior year. He had left it too late to undergo the amputation of his other leg and was generally disappointed that he was unlikely to ever become a DAK, a double above knee amputee. He longed for the challenge of relearning to walk on artificial legs. His enthusiasm for a peg leg earlier in the year was a result of his deep desire to complicate his mobility as much as possible. He had hated his legs even before losing a hand and the Dickensonian method had promised a solution and psychological relief but he had left things too late. Maybe his wooden peg leg and primitive hook device would sate his urges.

 

Chris was in much the same mental state. He had expected to shed his long stump in the near future and was depressed by the rumours that there would be no new leg amputations next year. It was dedicated to upper limb amputations and prosthetics. Chris had no interest in becoming a hook user in addition to his severe crippledom. He was gradually convincing himself that a second minuscule leg stump was the way to go. He would navigate the world like Malcolm. They were so close these days that it seemed possible they would forge a future together as two legless torsos and the prospect of living independent lives together in wheelchairs for much of the time held only promise. He hoped the current infatuation with arm amputations would not last long. He wanted to persuade the Pro to take the manufacture of torso sockets onto a future programme.

 

Students were free to remain on campus in their apartments during shorter semesters. It was common for new amputees to remain at Easter or over the autumn break, whether through inconvenience of travel or the apprehension of what family members might comment about still healing stumps. Rob, Étienne and Liam were the only members of their year who remained on campus, each for their own reasons. Chris purposefully left his long leg prosthesis leaning in a corner of his room and left on crutches and his peg leg. His father had moved from the family home and only the incomprehension of his mother stood in his way. He would show her that life on crutches was still worth living. He did not believe it himself. He pined for Malcolm throughout the ten days before returning to the Dickensonian.

 

The nineteen students which comprised the new year’s intake returned to their homes in the same condition as they had arrived. All were lower limb amputees, the traditional minimum requirement for acceptance at the Dickensonian, and they described what they had seen and who they had met during their first term. Young men not yet twenty with a wonderful future before them, guaranteed by the centuries old reputation of Dickensonian alumni who rarely failed to achieve social acceptance above and beyond that endured during their arrival. As the decades passed, the school intended to allow disabled students to study had transformed and now the secretive Dickensonian Method guaranteed general admiration for alumni who left on tin legs or hobbling on a peg leg or facing life with not one but two artificial arms, hailing admirers at their acceptance speech with a steel hook, their certificate clasped in the other. This year’s intake with their comfortable artificial legs had no idea of the ideological onslaught the Prosthetarium seniors had in store for them in the spring term. If they had their way, at least half the new boys would open their Christmas presents next year with hooks.

 

Rob rarely met Liam any longer. They both had thoroughly enjoyable relationships with legless students from the year below them but their isolation at Christmas compelled them together. Étienne had been reluctant to return to the south of France for a few days so he was invited to join the old friends for a modest but enjoyable Christmas lunch in Rob’s apartment. It bore no resemblance to the delicious spreads he was accustomed to but Rob had bought some roasted turkey and boiled some potatoes, used the water to make stuffing and served frozen mixed veg straight from the microwave. It was an admirable attempt by a legless boy and enjoyed by all three, if only because of hunger. The canteen was closed for the duration and students who remained on campus were responsible for their own grocery shopping—not always easy on a pair of prosthetic legs.

 

Rob and Liam renewed their old friendship. They spoke of their coursework and explained to Étienne what might lie ahead. Being with the two hook users was initially exciting for Rob, who naturally realised that his guests required a certain degree of consideration regarding quite ordinary actions to which a man with two hands would not give a second thought. It was a useful exercise for Rob. The foremost problem for hook users was always to plan how to undertake any task designed for hands with the steel fingers of a hook. Or in Liam’s and Étienne’s case, with two hooks. Having become inured to walking on tin legs, Rob paid more attention than usual to the way his guests used their artificial arms, admiring the way the hooks apparently operated as natural hands. His determination to acquire a striking pair of aluminium arms terminating in steel hooks with which he could make an impression on all and sundry grew stronger over the Christmas holiday and by the time the first returnees appeared outside his window in the new year, Rob already knew that he wanted to become a quadruple amputee with aluminium prostheses by the next summer hols. He thought he might be reprimanded for being too insistent but had no idea about how the sadists in charge of the Pro would react to his request.

 

The old shuttle bus parked just past the archway leasing to the Forties. Punctuality had been emphasised. Rob waited out of the drizzle in his apartment from which he could keep an eye on affairs. One of the third year students, a double amputee, waited silently with two first year students. Rob left his digs when he spotted one of the Pro seniors crossing the Forties. It was time to leave for the facility where his first arm stump would be created.

 

The group was met by medical staff and escorted to their individual rooms where they would recover for a few days until they were dismissed as walking wounded. They were offered a light lunch and warned not to eat again until after their surgeries. Liquids were permitted. The chief surgeon interviewed each of his patients, who agreed that stumps two thirds the length of their forearms was an ideal length both aesthetically and functionally. The double amputee senior wore a prosthesis on his right arm, an injury from his teenage years, and requested a matching stump on his left arm, a few centimetres below his elbow. Their requests were noted, their questions answered and they were left to prepare themselves mentally for their second and third amputations the following day, to be performed in the alphabetical order of their surnames.

 

Rob lost his left hand soon after eleven o’clock in the morning. The operation was simple enough. The patient was young and robust, apart from his two well‑healed leg stumps. He was allowed to remain awake for the proceedings, allowing for a quicker recovery. The new stump was tightly wrapped and Rob was wheeled away to make room for the day’s final patient, the senior who would shortly be a bilateral arm amputee with a prosthetic leg. He had negotiated with the Prosthetarium in advance and was due to receive two of the new experimental artificial arms which they intended trialling. They would be fifteen centimetres shorter than standard artificial arms. The man wanted to experiment with short prostheses but could not afford a pair from a certified prosthetist. It would be interesting to test a pair of hooks which terminated approximately halfway between his elbows and non‑existent wrists.

 

As students returned after the Christmas and New Year break, the Prosthetarium ground into action. The entire group acquainted themselves with the manufacture of the first prosthesis for L. W. Spencer, their guinea pig, the peg legged senior who had volunteered to test the design. His old arm stump had already been cast and a positive mould made. It was obvious that only the leather socket and aluminium triceps cuff need be custom made. The other components could be produced ahead of time. With the exception of the senior who wanted short prostheses, all amputees would receive hooks whose tips terminated exactly forty centimetres from their elbows. Sheet aluminium was cut to size, polished to a mirror finish, drilled and tapped and bent to form a rigid frame to which the leather socket would be attached with a rivet or two. The senior himself made several suggestions about how the device could be improved, all of which were noted but ignored. The purpose of this initial programme of ten primitive prosthetic arms was to study the psychological effects on the subjects of receiving the most basic of artificial arms and hooks. During one test, it was noted that a standard hook still had the facility to turn through a hundred degrees or so without loosening which was not the intention of the Prosthetarium designers. They could weld the hook device into place preventing its reorientation but that would prevent its replacement and so the ability to twist the steel fingers to point laterally or upwards was retained.

 

The fresh stumps were tended with professional care. One of the new boys seemed dubious about his amputation, complaining that his stump hurt and that he was afraid of what his parents would think when he returned home as an arm amputee. One of the senior students sat with him for much of his recovery time, reassuring him and calming his mind. How had his parents reacted when he lost his leg? It was too long ago. He could no longer remember. In that case, they would not have been angry, otherwise he would have remembered, right? There was no reason to worry. They would still love him no matter what. His worries eased and the Prosthetarium received a report on his mental state. The chief thanked the senior and allowed conditioning to begin for the second phase, during which the junior students who underwent hand amputations in the spring term would be encouraged to maintain their body symmetry and mental balance by relinquishing their opposing hand. Only a pair of hooks would guarantee maximum credits, apparently, according to a vicious rumour deliberately spread among the new Dickensonians. The one‑legged freshmen received the news with trepidation, realising that those of them who did not get hooks this term might well be getting another leg stump the next. They were not wrong expect regarding the timetable.

 

The first batch of arm amputees returned to college. The Prosthetarium took responsibility for the new amputees’ stump care again. Rob made his way back to his ground floor apartment and began to adjust to his new life. He felt more disabled by losing one hand than by losing both legs. Doing everything with one hand was alright but it was a pain having to be so careful not to knock his stump in any way. It was easy to forget the hand was gone. It still felt natural to reach out for something only to see half a bandaged arm. It would be a while before the stump was healthy enough to think about a prosthesis but it would all be worth it in the end. Rob imagined both his artificial forearms crafted into muscular shapes with metal wrists curving into steel hooks. The experimental hooks which the Pro was working on were nothing like it.

 

Étienne spent as much time with Rob as possible and his presence reassured Rob that life with a hook was virile and desirable. In the weeks before Rob received his arm prosthesis, his mind roiled with the reality of the sheer inconvenience of one‑handed life and the determination to adapt in order to ready himself for the imminent loss of his right hand. The other new one‑handed amputees were comforted and helped by their boyfriends and lovers. The triple amputee senior fared the best. He was merely impatient to receive his new pair of short aluminium prostheses and learning how to use not one but two steel hooks. He had immediately noticed that he was unable to masturbate without a prosthesis, something which had preyed on his mind. His stumps were too short to reach his genitals without contorting his body. He had occasionally wanked with his hook but it was an unsatisfactory experience. He hoped that using two hooks would provide a better overall sensation. He also missed massaging his leg stump in bed. It was his greatest loss, he felt. Despite these things, he was excited to be kitted out with a pair of deviant arms, much shorter than ordinary prostheses. He had heard that his custom‑made pair would be equipped with elbow locks which he was eager to experience. After a flat rotary knob at the elbows had been tightened, he would be unable to flex his elbows and unable to loosen the locks himself. He imagined himself with short arms locked at ninety degrees, his basic hooks pointing the way forward. He wanted to appear disabled, to feel disabled and to be disabled. It was his greatest regret in the few months remaining to him at the Dickensonian that he had not applied for his second leg amputation when he had the chance. The novel upper limb programme at the Pro had dashed his chances. Fortunately he had succeeded in acquiring a rigid wooden peg leg during last year’s programme and he was more than satisfied with the challenges it presented.

 

The senior guinea pig’s experimental prosthesis was ready for its first test fitting. There was no excuse, the student prosthetists reasoned, why the patient should not walk out wearing it. There were almost no adjustments to be made after the leather stump cup was laced tightly onto the stump and the triceps cuff buckled on. The prosthesis had been facetiously placed on a red cushion and lit with a spotlight in the Prosthetarium’s rehab room. It looked superb. The mirrored aluminium struts were perfect and the tan leather cuff and socket lent a slight organic quality to the austere apparatus. Four of the seniors and the chief were waiting for the patient to arrive at nine thirty.

            – On time as always, Spencer. Come in. We’re all ready for you.

Spencer stepped inside, foot first followed by the peg. The chief was privately amused that almost all the students who had applied for peg legs were still using them, indeed, seemed to prefer wearing them instead of their conventional artificial legs. Spencer was one of the few above‑knee cases who never used the knee lock. His peg was rigid whether he was standing or seated. The Dickensonian provided an environment where such extravagance was not only allowed but encouraged. Outside, the real world was less accommodating.

            – Jesus! Is that it? I wasn’t expecting anything like that.

            – What were you expecting?

            – Well, I thought it would look like an arm made of aluminium. You know, arm shaped. Muscles.

            – No no, Spencer. I thought we made it clear that this was an experimental design based on a prosthesis from the nineteen forties. Back then there was a dearth of materials but a bounty of aluminium. All intended to make new aeroplanes, of course. So apart from some steel screws, this minimalist prosthesis is what returning disabled servicemen were offered. I hope you respect their sacrifice enough to condescend to experiencing the same learning curve which they had to live with.

It was a preposterous utterance but Spencer nodded his head, removed his jacket and shucked his artificial arm with its pink metal hand. The chief indicated one of the students, who plucked the new prosthesis from its plush cushion and asked Spencer to hold his stump horizontal. Its length was the same as for the other aluminium arms. Spencer’s stump was half his forearm and the stump socket was ten centimetres long. The prosthetist placed a short stump sock onto Spencer’s arm and guided the prosthesis along the stump until the stump reached the end of the socket. He fed a shoelace through a row of four holes and pulled them tight.

            – Is that uncomfortable?

            – No. It’s quite tight but not uncomfortable.

The prosthetist turned his attention to the triceps cuff. The leather was riveted to a semi‑cylindrical aluminium cuff which glinted as Spencer’s stump was turned from side to side. Another lace was threaded through six parallel holes and tightened. The cuff was secure. The control cable extended from the hook through a welded nut on the outer strut and up to the cuff, across the amputee’s back to an adjustable strap attached to the canvas harness. A canvas ring anchored the harness in Spencer’s left armpit.

            – All set and ready. You know how to use a prosthesis so go ahead and test it. Is the cable tight enough?

            – The cable is fine.

Spencer studied his arm in wonder. His stump was perfectly obvious instead of concealed inside a socket. There was a void between the end of his stump and the hook. He stretched his arm to open the hook successfully and tried tensioning his shoulder with the same result. The hook opened and closed with its familiar click. The prosthesis felt sturdy and secure. He tried twisting his forearm to alter the angle of his hook but could not. The hinge at his elbow prevented any rotation. He tried moving his shoulder joint instead and managed to get the hook to the angle he wanted but it required considerably more effort than what he was used to and he suddenly realised why amputees in old films always seemed to shrug and twist in such an exaggerated manner. They had to. It was an interesting sensation but something which had to be learned. He had lost his natural hand and wrist. Now his prosthesis had denied him much of the use of his elbow too. He tried turning the hook’s orientation. It was stiff but he could turn the fingers vertical and horizontal.

            – Do you mind if I put my jacket on? I want to see what the wrist looks like in a sleeve.

            – Go ahead.

Spencer fed his artificial arm into his right sleeve and shrugged his jacket on. The hook was a familiar sight. He lifted his arm in front of a full‑length mirror and lifted his hook. The sleeve lay oddly flat against the prosthesis and the mirrored struts were quite visible. Completely different from what his old prosthesis looked like under clothing.

            – Your thoughts, Spencer?

            – It’s different. It’s more restrictive than my old arm and requires a new set of body movements but I don’t expect any problems with that. It’s appearance is fairly surprising. I’m not sure I like my stump being on display like that.

            – But it’s hidden inside the leather socket. You can hardly say the stump is on display.

            – I mean the length of the stump is obvious. There’s a certain degree of privacy with a normal socket.

            – Very well. If you are satisfied, you may take it now. I want a report after three days and another in a week’s time, do you understand?

            – Yes sir. Thank you sir.

Spencer reached down to hook the harness of his old prosthesis and pegged out of the Pro. He was quite pleased with the new arm despite its physical restrictions. He would wear it for the rest of the day and put it to use in the evening in the local with some of his colleagues. If it could lift a pint, he would give it a good review.

 

Back in his apartment, he brewed a pot of tea and called on his neighbour, John Kerrigan, to join him. Kerrigan was a triple amputee and liked to spend weekends wearing a pair of cylindrical stubbies, both purchased from an independent supplier outside the Dickensonian. He was wearing his above‑elbow prosthesis when he arrived. The two amputees compared their range of movement and ease of operation and came to the conclusion that Spencer had a little less range than Kerrigan. Spencer was quite capable of handling a mug of tea with his old prosthesis but the new one was unable to bend without spilling most of the contents. The fault lay in the elbow joint. Kerrigan could do it by contorting his body but both men drank their tea using their natural hands. They both admired the appearance of their hooks and were happy to tolerate the limitations which their prostheses imposed. Kerrigan was intrigued by the new prosthesis. So basic, so restrictive.

 

A month had passed since the amputations. Sutures had healed, swelling had decreased somewhat but that meant little. The new leather sockets were adjustable. One by one, the first batch of arm amputees received mostly identical prostheses to that which Spencer had received and evaluated. It was decided to fit all future arms with lockable elbows. There was a certain elegance in holding a prosthetic arm at ninety degrees when at rest. Amputees with long stumps found that their forearm stumps were held by both a narrow leather cuff below the elbow joint with the tip of the stump held by a leather cup near the wrist. Their stump socked arms were visible. Rob was the third to be fitted and was disappointed to the extent that he dared to protest.

            – That’s not what I wanted! I thought I was getting an arm that looks like an arm, just made of aluminium. My legs are leg shaped. Why isn’t my arm? They’re supposed to match!

            – Crawford, dear boy. No-one mentioned anything about these arms being anything other than the most basic design. These were in common use after the second war and we want to learn more about how contemporary amputees used them. Unfortunately they are now all with their maker so we have to rely on reports from men like yourself to guide us in our investigations. I’m sure you understand, Crawford. You are not a stupid man.

            – No, of course not. Will my second arm be the same?

            – It will. But first we hope that you will use this for everything and we would appreciate a written report from you at fortnightly intervals until your second amputation. You do understand, don’t you Crawford?

            – Yes, of course.

 

Rob was disappointed that his hook was nothing like he had been looking forward to. Of course, he could have whatever he wanted in future if he paid an independent prosthetist to make what he wanted but the pared down arm with its cuffs and tiny stump cup fell far short of what he expected. A senior helped him don the arm and as the lacing was tightened around his muscles and the sheet metal bracing imposed its rigidity, Rob’s misgivings gradually fell away. He was wearing his first hook and it looked remarkable at the end of his arm. Much more masculine and imposing than his former hand. He tilted his arm from side to side to test its range.

            – If you want to lock the elbow in a certain position, you just tighten this screw at the elbow, you see Crawford? This is the only addition we have made to this design. And you can use your hand to turn the hook so the fingers can hold something like a glass or pull a book from a shelf, or you can push them around to open horizontally so you can turn a page, for example.

            – I see. OK, can I keep this on?

            – You can indeed. Remember we are always here to help, Crawford. Let us know how you are progressing and if there are any improvements to the design you would like to see.

            – Yes sir. I will. Thank you very much.

 

All the new one‑armed students were directed to write reports on their impressions of their new prostheses. Rob dictated his thoughts to his word processor and read through the text.

 

The arm is still very comfortable to wear. I don it immediately on waking in order to don my artificial legs. The hook is as useful or even more useful than fingers for tightening the lacing on my thigh corsets. I have been using a plastic clamp on the laces instead of tying a bow.

It is possible for me to use the prosthesis for eating, assuming the food item is small and solid. French fries, pickles, small tomatoes, frankfurters. The lack of articulation at both the elbow and wrist prevent me from handling a fork or spoon as the foodstuff falls as the hook rises. This is no longer frustrating for me because I know the hook’s restrictions and no longer attempt movements which I know it can not perform. I feel the hinged elbow is the main source of the restriction. The arm is more robust than I expected and more robust than it looks. There is no looseness in the hook. I can twist it to a suitable angle with my hand. It requires some effort to move but the hook then stays in place and can lift and pull heavy objects without rotating. I am prepared to use this prosthesis long term. I trust it and find it a good assistive device.

 

Two hundred and sixteen words. That was enough. Rob tapped send and the message dropped into the chief’s inbox. Rob wanted to criticise the prosthesis for all its negative aspects. He was unable to use the hook to eat using cutlery, as he had alluded, it was almost useless for dressing because the angle of the hook made reaching buttons almost impossible, the hook was unreliable when reaching up for something, and he could not bend his elbow enough to let him touch his opposite shoulder. But he dared not sound too critical or ungrateful. The one‑armed students, seniors, who had stopped him to ask for a demonstration of his primitive prosthesis had all assured him that ordinary modern prostheses for below‑elbow amputees were far superior and he would have no problem learning to use one after becoming accustomed to the old‑style apparatus. Rob anticipated losing his other hand calmly, knowing that bilateral hook users rarely faced any of the problems he had overcome. Coming to terms with two of the aluminium artificial arms was going to be quite a challenge but Étienne had promised to be there for him as Rob adjusted to not only being one‑armed again but reliant on the single deficient artificial arm.

 

The chief read his fortnightly reports from the new amputees and ticked their names in his register. All but one of the students had consistently praised the new devices which stretched the imagination but he had it in black and white. Spencer, the senior with the peg leg, had also commended the prosthetics team for recreating the device and admired their skill at moulding leather to form such comfortable sockets. Unknown to the prosthetists, he had arranged an appointment with an independent prosthetist outside which would be his first destination after graduation. He was of the opinion that the aluminium prosthesis provided the absolute bare minimum assistance and was merely a manifestation of the Pro’s increased sadism. God help the juniors who would be starting their summer hols with two of the bastardly things. The chief sent a message of his own to the facility, confirming the imminent arrival of three students to whom they should administer identical amputations of their opposing arms. And the earlier, the better, he thought. He wanted the trio kitted out with bilateral hooks when the hols started. Two new triple amputees and a quad—Rob—would be a commendable achievement for the Prosthetarium. It was rare for so many students, especially from the younger years, to become so severely disabled so soon after arrival. The upper limb programme would continue in the autumn with a new prosthesis on offer, a more conventionally shaped device crafted almost entirely from leather with long sockets which enveloped the elbows and long conical triceps cuffs which all but obliterated he sight of skin on the amputee’s arm. They would be as restricted in operation as the brace‑style arms offered in the spring but would be far more attractive in appearance and the Pro was itching to see how the spring term’s bilaterals reacted to seeing the autumn’s novices with something so clearly superior.

 

The trio scheduled for surgery were once again transferred on the old Lincoln City bus which looked as incongruous parked in the Forties as its passengers did, limping their way across to board on their artificial legs. Three handsome and intelligent young men not yet in the prime of life voluntarily embarking on a life without hands. They were nervous but optimistic. Rob was troubled by thoughts of how his parents would react when he arrived home in July with four stumps instead of two. They had hardly been able to accept his leglessness although they had witnessed for themselves how well the boy walked on his tin legs. They were not worried for his future. He had a good head on his shoulders and that was the main thing in the age of AI. Rob had assured them that his artificial limbs were part of the natural way of things at the Dickensonian and his parents reluctantly agreed. The college’s reputation overrode any objection to its alumni’s limblessness. Amputation had been a badge of honour for its graduates who had gone on to work in social services from care for the elderly to accessible town planning for the better part of a century. A stump or two provided experience for the difficulties experienced by the disabled.

 

The surgeon and his team worked their magic again, producing stumps matching in length and breadth to those created barely three months previously. None of the surgical team had any compunction about amputating healthy hands. The Dickensonian Method was well known to them and they had written assurance from all their clients that they understood what they were about to undergo. The facility was grateful to the college for its steady stream of healthy limbs for its students to amputate. It was certainly more rewarding to provide a stump to a young man than to sever a dead pig’s leg as was done in most other teaching hospitals.

 

Within the week, the trio was declared fit to return to the caring hands at the Prosthetarium. The students had been dressed in their street clothes for the first time by the surgical students, many of whom had never seen multiple amputees before and found it disconcerting to handle such primitive prosthetics as Rob’s tin legs. But the patients were grateful for the help and departed, raising their aluminium arm prostheses in farewell.

 

To all practical purposes, Étienne moved into Rob’s flat while his new stump settled. Étienne made food in the tiny kitchen, assisted with personal hygiene and was otherwise always to hand, so to speak. Rob used his artificial arm as much as possible but was inexpressibly grateful to his friend for everything which the device could not do. Their relationship inevitably strengthened and their physical love reached new depths of depravity as the limbless man’s body was subject to the young Frenchman’s most perverted acts. Rob allowed Étienne to continue, not only because it felt good, but also because he hoped that their friendship, their relationship would grow into genuine love. He also hoped that his one‑armed boyfriend might also apply for additional amputations. It would be a fine thing if they could always be together, Rob limbless and Étienne with an artificial arm and two artificial legs, There was still time for them to achieve such a configuration while they were at the Dickensonian.

 

Liam visited several times during Rob’s recovery. He had used hooks for years and never gave them a second thought. He was privately appalled by the experimental prostheses which the Pro had provided but said nothing in order not to distress the new amputees who had no choice in the matter. Even if they had modern prosthetic arms made outside, they would be condemned to using the aluminium brace models at the Dickensonian. Rob was jealous of the facility with which Liam handled daily life. His hooks did exactly what he wanted and he could move them around with ease. He lived a completely independent life without assistance. Rob could only dream of being so independent. Liam assured Rob that he would be able to take care of himself when he got his second hook. In order to prove his point, he showed several videos from his personal stream which depicted African and South American bilateral arm amputees functioning at home and work with naked stumps.

            – If they can do it without prostheses, you can do the same with them, Rob. Don’t forget there’s always someone worse off than yourself. And once you get a decent pair of arms, you’ll be back to the old Rob.

He pulled Rob towards him with a hook around each shoulder and hugged him. Rob’s metal thigh slid from under him and he toppled sideways. He lay on his side in surprise and both amputees burst into hysterical laughter at the surreal situation in which they found themselves.

 

The late spring term saw only two seniors, both DAKs with high tech legs, apply for arm amputations. It was the result of both of them losing bets where the forfeit was either the payment of ten thousand pounds or the loss of a limb. Being already legless, there was no alternative and ten thousand was a lot of money. One of the seniors requested a long stump above the elbow, the other was content to receive the conventional forearm stump, two thirds the length of the full arm. Neither of them healed enough for them to qualify for the aluminium brace prosthesis and they graduated as triple amputees with empty sleeves. The sadistic team of prosthetists at the Pro also graduated, most of them already promised employment in various rehabilitation facilities around the country. Four of the six were triple amputees, the remaining two double amputees, all of whom had spent much effort ensuring that they were fitted with the very best mechanical body‑operated artificial limbs which the Pro was capable of manufacturing. The long leather socket and hook which one had demanded provided the chief with inspiration for the next term’s programme. The new juniors would be pressured into an express programme of bilateralism. For the first time, applicants would be eligible to forgo both hands at the same time. The traditional routine had proved itself largely redundant. Reports from the spring’s experimental amputees had demonstrated that they functioned satisfactorily with the assistance of other students and there was no reason to suppose that the new intake would be any different. It was exciting to think that the one‑legged first year’s intake might be using bilateral hooks by Christmas.

 

Rob warily adapted to a new life as a limbless man. On the few mornings when Étienne had not shared his bed, the first thing was to position a piss bottle so he could urinate. It was easy enough once he had eased himself out of bed, always wary of landing on the tip of one of his leg stumps. They were gradually becoming less sensitive and Rob felt that if he still had hands, he would scoot around his apartment on his stumps. However, he was now reliant on his aluminium arms and donning them was the first stage in assembling himself, after which he was able to drag his tin legs onto his stumps. After twenty‑five minutes or so, he was kitted out with four artificial limbs and ready to start the day. He was able to make himself a sandwich but usually had to bend forward to bite mouthfuls direct from the plate. He would have loved to drink coffee but satisfied his thirst with several gulps of water flowing direct from the tap.

 

Rob was also wary of the way his parents would react to his return as a quadruple amputee. They knew nothing of his upper limb amputations. He mentioned his reluctance to returning home to Chris and Malcolm one evening.

            – So you’re scared of what they’re going to say, right? Why haven’t you told them about losing your hands?

            – I don’t know how to. And it’s not so much that I’m scared, it’s simply not wanting to listen to their criticism.

            – Were they angry about you becoming a DAK?

            – They were surprised but they didn’t seem particularly interested. My father shrugged it off and made some vague comment about my tin legs which he found old‑fashioned and mother was confused and wouldn’t be in the same room as me for three days but I think my father had a word with her and she calmed down after that. But I absolutely can’t stand the idea of turning up like this. They would say I’m mad and worse.

Rob lifted his hooks at arms length. The mirror‑polished bracing glinted in light from the setting sun. Regardless of their provenance, they looked impressive. Chris had seen the hooks many times already and was used to their primitive alien appearance. Malcolm reached out carefully, balancing on his torso socket, and Rob moved closer. Malcolm took the left prosthesis in both hands and examined it at close range for the first time.

            – I love the contrast between the steel and the tan leather. It’s a very bonnie piece of kit.

            – It’s not steel, Malcolm. It’s aluminium. Lighter, I suppose.

            – Ah. I have an idea if you’re not wanting to visit your parents. Come with me to Scotland and you can help out in my family’s shop in Lochalsh. They usually take their own vacation when I arrive and leave me alone but you’d be welcome to spend a few weeks if you prefer.

            – What sort of a shop is it?

            – It’s actually a tourist centre. It’s only open for three months of the year and it’s really just my mother’s hobby. We sell maps and postcards and souvenir keyrings and decorative plates. That sort of thing. All you’d have to do is keep an eye on the stock and handle the cash desk.

            – That sounds like fun. Where would I stay?

            – In our home. Plenty of room. I’m sure we’d have a good time while my parents are away somewhere.

            – You know, Malcolm—I think I’d like to take care of your mum’s souvenir shop.

            – Then it’s settled. Good! I’ll let my parents know and ease their minds. They worry about me being on my own as a legless invalid.

Rob glanced at him to see if he were serious and the pair of them laughed at the irony. Rob later informed his parents that he had been fortunate to gain employment for the summer months and therefore would not be joining them at home. His mother replied how very peculiar but you must do as you wish.

 

Exam results were delivered to each student in a large white envelope. Rob slit his open with the bread knife from a sitting position, knowing how to access the dreaded paper enclosed. He had begun to know the abilities and characteristics of his artificial arms intuitively and assumed that he was merely becoming used to them. His learning went deeper. He was retraining his body to use the remaining joints he could control to reproduce motions he had never needed to think about previously. Just as he had inadvertently struck upon the ideal cadence to swing his leg stumps, making walking as effortless as possible, he was quickly finding the optimum ways of using his particularly restrictive arm prostheses. His movements were far from fluid and natural but he no longer felt disabled. He had begun to appreciate the austere beauty of his arms and wore short‑sleeved shirts on campus to display his braced leather‑clad stumps.

 

He had received a ninety‑three percent passing grade and was assured of a place in September. He would be a third year student and eligible to become a junior at the Prosthetarium. The credit gained by losing a leg evaded Chris this year. He had scored a respectable seventy‑nine and would return if his parents agreed. Malcolm and Étienne also gained high grades. The close group of four would be together again for the third year which promised to be the most rewarding yet. They would have access to the Prosthetarium and first dibs on experimental prostheses.

 

On midsummer evenings, Rob opened his window to allow the scent of the rhododendron flowers into his room. He and Étienne sat together, often not speaking for long periods, watching next year’s intake hobbling on one or two artificial legs to their interviews or four year seniors, graduates, heaving their suitcases to waiting cars, struggling to control their peg legs and recalcitrant hooks. They had been a sadistic bunch and Rob was happy to see the last of them. Next year, assuming he had a place on the Prosthetarium selection board, he would be a much more thoughtful guide for the juniors, recommending always that they begin their transformations under the Dickensonian Method with bilateral hand amputations rather than a second leg amputation. He appreciated the pleasure in mastering a pair of prosthetic legs but the real joy of disability was gained by becoming genuinely helpless and overcoming it by using hooks skilfully. He intended sharing his experience with as many of the young intakes as possible.

 

Malcolm carried his peg in his rucksack and departed the train at Glasgow heaving himself along the platform on his naked torso socket with gloved hands. Rob lowered himself carefully onto the platform, ensuring his tin legs were straight before allowing his weight onto them. They were extraordinarily unreliable on step and stairs. Malcolm’s father waited at the end of the platform, a man standing two metres tall with a literally prize‑winning beard and moustache and wearing a leather motorcycle jacket with his kilt and motorcycle boots. He leaned on some railings with his extinguished pipe between his hands and watched his legless son and their equally legless guest approach. He put his pipe into his sporran and stepped into the young men’s path.

            – Is that all the laundry ye’ve brought? Hallo son.

He knelt to embrace Malcolm with a passionate hug.

            – Da, this is my friend Robert Crawford.

            – A’ll call ye Robbie, if I may. Ye’re most welcome.

Rob extended a hook which Mr McLuhan looked at in surprise for a split second before grasping it with both hands and shaking just enough for Rob to feel in his stump. It was an indication that the giant man understood limblessness to a gratifying degree.

            – Where’s mother?

            – In Lochalsh, where else? I’ll drive ye home and then I must collect her or I’ll ne’er hear the last. Did ye have a good journey? Is there anything you’re needing?

            – A good meal and a dram would be more than welcome.

            – Aye, an’ we’ll have us more than just a dram. To get to know our guest. Are ye fond of a drop o’ whisky, Robbie?

            – I’m not sure, sir. I don’t often drink. It makes me dizzy.

            – Aye, it’s supposed to. Come on. Let’s get home and we can talk on the way.

 

The enormous Scot, a fifty year old distiller of some renown in his own country, had great hopes for his son who had gradually learned to appreciate various blends of whisky, essential for a proprietor of a distillery such as the McLuhan’s. His legless son’s greatest challenge was inspecting the barrels and testing the contents. His minuscule stature made access difficult but there was nothing wrong with his tastebuds. Father and son agreed almost entirely on the definitive qualities of their produce and McLuhan Senior was certain that his son would continue the two century old family tradition forward. They spoke of college, the exams, their prosthetic limbs and McLuhan Senior learned with surprise that his guest walked on artificial legs.

            – A would never ha’ known. And e’en now, A’m not sure I believe ye.

Rob blushed with pride. He had the hots for the giant Scot. Rarely did you ever meet a more masculine man. This one was good‑humoured and considerate. The way he treated Malcolm was proof. As Malcolm’s socket had grated through the grit and filth on the floor at Glasgow station, its sound attracting the attention of nearby passengers, McLuhan showed no outward sign of anything being amiss.

 

McLuhan drove north for an hour on ever narrower, more rural roads and turned onto a gravel road leading to the family home, a stone house built originally two centuries ago to house the first distiller and the tools of his trade. It had been enlarged over time and now comprised a four bedroom house and a separate distillery. The nearest neighbours were half a mile away in the smallest of villages.

            – Home! Welcome to Drumbuie, Robbie. A hope ye have yesel’ a bonnie time wi’ us.

            – Thank you, sir.

            – Will ye need help, son?

            – No thanks, da. I can manage.

McLuhan got out of the car and strode across a grassy area strewn with granite boulders.

            – He’ll be checking on the still. He spends most of his time there. Let’s go in the house and you can choose where you want to sleep.

Malcolm opened his door and lifted his torso socket to the edge of the seat. He gripped it and slid his body to the ground.

            – Can you give me the rucksack, Rob? I only need the peg from it.

Rob lowered it to his friend and began the process of easing his tin legs along the seat. He twisted himself enough to allow one leg to dangle and kicked his stump to straighten it. He lowered himself to stand one‑legged on the ground and hooked his other leg out of the car.

            – We can get your bag later. Let’s go in. It’s freezin’ out here.

It was a balmy eighteen with a brisk wind from the Atlantic, not exactly cold but far different from the humid summer heat of the university town. Malcolm gave Rob his key.

            – I can’t reach the lock. Can you open it?

Rob had practised opening doors. It was one of the most basic things to do but for someone without fingers or a wrist and with elbows restricted in range of motion, it was always a challenge. Rob studied the orientation of the slit in the lock and knocked his hook into a matching position. He made sure the key faced the correct way, inserted it and tilted his body from the waist. There was a little resistance until the lock opened and the door swung inwards.

            – Good show. Thanks, Rob.

            – Easy when you know how.

 

The door opened directly onto the living room. The contrast with the building’s appearance and age was extreme. The furniture was low and recalled the sleek shapes fashionable in the Sixties. Despite that, it looked comfortable and spacious.

            – Make yourself at home, Rob. I’m just going to change. Shan’t be long.

Rob was taken aback by being left alone. He looked around the room and suspected that the low furniture was an adaptation to his friend’s leglessness. There was a huge screen against one wall and a variety of electronica, again on a long low shelving unit. An elongated oval dining table with six white leather seats stood near the window, which could not have been enlarged in any way since the house was built. A glass‑fronted cabinet nearby displayed a selection of whiskies on glass shelves. It was a fine room, comfortable but not ostentatious. Rob heard Malcolm returning and rocked himself around to see his friend reappear on two legs and wearing a blue‑green kilt with an off‑white Arran sweater. He swung his legs along between two long wooden crutches and looked magnificent.

            – Wow! Malcolm! You look spectacular!

            – Thank you kindly. I thought I’d change before mother gets back. She likes to see me standing tall.

Malcolm’s legs looked natural at first glance. They were attached to a transverse bar at knee height and wore long white socks and black dress shoes. The bar in turn was attached to a pylon which extended from the base of Malcolm’s torso socket. He crutched across to where Rob stood with his mouth open.

            – No‑one would believe you’re legless. That’s amazing.

            – Don’t be ridiculous. The legs don’t move and I’m rigid from my neck to the soles of my patent leather shoes. They look smart, don’t they? Anyway, I want to greet ma when she gets home like this and I’ll put my walking shoe on for dinner. Otherwise I can’t sit at table.

            – You look great.

            – Aye. This is what I wear in the shop. I swear most customers don’t realise I’m legless. Hey! I just had an idea! Why don’t you wear one of my kilts and show your tin legs? Have you ever let anyone actually see them in public?

            – No, I haven’t! Wow! It would look amazing.

            – Right. That’s settled. We’ll both be on artificial legs tomorrow with the sole exception that you can move yours.

            – Are we going to the shop tomorrow already?

            – Oh yeah. Ma will tell you all about it. Now I’m back, she can take a day or two off until they disappear for two or three weeks.

            – Where is it, exactly? How will we get there?

            – Right by the harbour. There’s a ferry across to the islands, see? It’s only once an hour so all the visitors like to spend some time in the shop or having an ice cream next door. We do a good trade in the summer months but for the rest of the year, the ice cream parlour closes and so does the tourist centre.

            – How many people visit, say, in a day?

            – Depends. The islanders never stop by. I’d say up to two hundred. Depends if a coach goes across, see? And it depends on the weather. If it’s nice in the morning and turns to shit later, there’ll be a flood of people in the shop. If it’s raining first thing but then brightens up, there won’t be anyone.

            – It sounds all very new and mysterious. I’m looking forward to seeing it.

            – Aye. It’s a fun place to spend a summer. People from all over the world and they tell you stories about ancestors who emigrated. As long as you can answer their questions, they’re happy and usually buy something to remember you by.

            – I hope they don’t ask me any questions.

            – Oh, don’t worry about that. Ma has a cheat sheet of all the ferry times and when the bus comes by. In summer there are four buses every day to and from Glasgow. And a different list of historical things which happened hundreds of year ago and about the local tribes. The people around there still speak Gaelic. That shows you how fierce they must be to fend off the Sassenach language into the twenty‑first century.

            – What does Sassenach actually mean?

            – Saxon. The Saxon language. English.

            – God! I hope they speak some English.

            – Haha! Of course they do. I’ll tell you what, though. It would be useful to know the numbers in a few different languages. Last year there were a lot of Japanese tourists for some reason so I learned their numbers. There’s nothing more charming than seeing a couple of Japanese ladies react to hearing the price of their souvenirs in their own language in a tiny place like Lochalsh.

            – I can imagine.

            – The other thing is that some people stay inside to watch me. Especially if I’ve crutched to the back room to fetch something for them. They sense there’s something wrong with my legs although they might not understand what the problem is. I can’t sit, see? These legs are stable if I’m balanced properly but I need crutches to move even a couple of inches. Some of them look over the counter to look at my legs.

            – Really? That’s very rude of them.

            – Just wait ’til they see your hooks. Are you going to wear short or long sleeves? I think you’ll sell more if you wear short sleeves so people can see your stumps.

Rob’s stumps were obvious, clad in leather inside the glittering frame which held his hooks. They were the most unlikely thing to see worn by a cashier. Malcolm suspected that customers would persuade others inside to check out the guy with the hooks. But few of them would catch a glimpse of the tin legs under his kilt.

 

Mr and Mrs McLuhan arrived home half an hour after the last ferry of the day arrived. Three German visitors toured the shop and bought some fridge magnets. Malcolm saw the car pull up outside and stood ready waiting to greet his mother. Apart from the crutches, he looked like any of his peers. Mrs McLuhan held his shoulders and kissed his cheeks.

            – Welcome home, son. And we have a guest. How do you do? My name is Jacqueline, Jackie for short.

Rob carefully extended his right hook to shake hands and introduced himself. Mrs McLuhan held the hook and noticed the other on his left arm.

            – You’re most welcome to our home and I hear you’ll be helping in the shop. It’s very kind of you.

            – Thank you for inviting me.

She smiled and turned away to remove her shoes. Malcolm lifted himself and swung around to face Rob.

            – Would you like to choose where you’ll sleep?

            – Yes. Robbie, you can have your own room on the ground floor at the back of the house or you can share with Malcolm. His room is adapted for him, you see.

            – I’m not sure.

            – Go and take a look.

Jacqueline McLuhan watched Rob rock himself into motion. She knew he was wearing artificial legs but did not know the extent of his amputations. Malcolm hauled himself into his bedroom and Rob followed.

            – See? Plenty of room. You can have the lower half of my bed.

There was a thick futon on the floor. It needed only a pillow to make it eminently suitable for two legless men. Malcolm pointed out the chrome‑plated bars and hoists hanging from the ceiling and the black leather bench currently in its upright position.

            – This is my dressing bench. I can change my sockets and lower myself onto my pegs or bucket. Well, I’ll show you.

Malcolm stood himself at one end of the vertical benchtop and leaned against it. He held onto the edges and activated the motor. The benchtop slowly tilted back and carried Malcolm to a horizontal position. He opened his kilt, pulled up his sweater and loosened his torso socket. The front section came away and he lowered it to the floor. He twisted his body until the rear section could also be removed.

            – Will you hand me that black leather shoe—the black torso socket there?

Rob hooked it up by one of its straps and Malcolm took it. He placed it at his pelvis and pushed his way into it until he was enveloped in black leather. The base was a sheet of slightly curved aluminium, clean but scratched. Malcolm had walked on it quite a way, Rob thought. He closed the retaining straps, pulled his sweater down a little and reactivated the mechanism to tilt the benchtop. He held on again as the apparatus lowered him gently to the floor. He straightened his sweater and handwalked to collect his torso socket and the attached legs. He manhandled them out of the way into a corner where there were other adaptive sockets and crutches of various lengths.

            – Do you think you’d be comfortable sharing with me? I don’t snore, don’t worry.

            – I’d like to, very much. I promise not to kick you in the night.

The two amputees laughed and rejoined Malcolm’s parents in the living room. Malcolm launched himself onto the low sofa, leaving Rob standing. He knew that it would be difficult for him to rise from such a low seat.

            – May I sit on one of the dining chairs? I’m afraid the sofa is too low for me.

            – Make yourself comfortable, Robbie. You have two artificial legs, is that right?

            – Yes and they’re rather old‑fashioned so getting up can be a problem sometimes.

            – You seem to manage very well. No‑one would realise you’re wearing two prostheses.

            – They will tomorrow! I’m going to get Rob to wear one of my kilts in the shop so everyone can see his legs.

            – That’s rather exhibitionist, Malcolm. What do you think, Robbie? Don’t you mind your legs being on display like that?

            – I’ve never shown them in public before. It might be an interesting experience.

The McLuhan’s were surprised to hear that someone in Robbie’s situation had never revealed his artificial legs. They assumed that he had been legless and handless for many years, since childhood. They had no inkling that his stumps were only about two years old at most.

 

The McLuhan’s shop opened at nine. At eight, the party of four left the house after a hearty breakfast. Mr McLuhan drove his wife and Malcolm drove Rob in his two‑seater electric quad bike. They were open to the weather but the forecast had promised a clear day. Malcolm belted himself onto the bench seat and controlled the bike with a handlebar fitted with a throttle and brakes.

            – I reckon you could drive this, Rob. Could you hold the handlebar with your hooks?

            – Yeah, I think so. I’d like to try.

            – OK. We’ll find a place to practise.

The two vehicles arrived at the ferry port. Mrs McLuhan entered her shop trailing the amputees as Mr McLuhan headed home to the distillery. The two boys were dressed almost identically in natural white Arran pullovers and blue‑green kilts. Malcolm wore his cosmetic legs and for the first time ever, Rob’s gleaming tin legs were visible beneath his long woollen socks. His artificial arms distorted his sleeves and the flat bars to which his hooks were attached were plainly visible. Before the morning was over, Malcolm would insist on rolling Rob’s sleeves up to reveal the leather‑clad stumps.

 

Mrs McLuhan explained the layout of the shop and storeroom, how to access the utilities and pointed out her handwritten black book of the latest ferry and bus timetables. She showed much of the merchandise to Rob so he understood better what he was selling.

            – I’ll show you how to use the cash register and card payment system. Don’t worry. Your hooks are more than adequate. Hardly anyone uses cash these days but I keep a small float of ten pounds just in case I need to make change for a customer.

            – I’m sure I can manage, Mrs McLuhan.

            – I’m sure too. Do call me Jackie. We’re all adults, after all.

She gave another of her attractive smiles.

            – Malcolm, are you OK on your legs?

            – I should be. I’ll have to be. I didn’t bring my shoe.

            – You should have done. He usually sits on a stool behind the counter, you see, Robbie.

            – I’ll be OK, ma. Stop worrying.

The day’s first ferry docked two hundred yards away and Mrs McLuhan turned the sign on the door to read open.

            – I’m going to leave you to it. The bus will be here in a few minutes. I’ll be at home packing so if you get into trouble, just call.

            – I will.

Mrs McLuhan stood aside as the first customers entered to browse among the wares on sale. Rob waited at the end of the counter, ready to stroll across to answer any possible enquiries and Malcolm stood erect behind the cash register leaning on his crutches. She appraised them. Two fine handsome lads. One of the customers bought half a dozen postcards and they left.

            – I’ll be on my way too. I hope you have a good day, Robbie. And you, Malcolm. See you tonight.

A smart single decker bus pulled into its terminus stop and opened its doors. Mrs McLuhan joined a few other passengers for the five mile ride back to Drumbuie. The others had a much longer ride to Glasgow.

 

Far to the south, Chris was also experiencing something new for the first time. He had volunteered to act as a guinea pig for a team of prospective prosthetists at St Mary’s in Roehampton. After a short interview online followed by a few photos of his amputations, he was invited to be measured, studied and casted by the students. He was allocated luncheon vouchers and coffee and biscuits during the day. The main prize was a completed professional quality prosthesis for each stump which he would receive at the end of the course in seven weeks. The eight students were struck by their client’s physical beauty and shocked to see his severe limp generated by an old‑fashioned wooden leg suspended from his shoulders and the lace‑up peg leg. Chris explained why he was wearing such basic prostheses and mentioned attending the Dickensonian, from which he had acquired his admittedly fascinating artificial legs. The students promised to supply two new legs made of the latest bio‑plastics. The first day was spent discussing various prosthetic designs for his disparate stumps and two teams of four formed, both planning to produce the most promising prostheses they had discussed. Chris privately wanted a long sleek carbon fibre peg leg, entirely rigid, but doubted that the students would condescend to making anything quite so basic.

 

The other reason Chris had volunteered was darker. He had been warned by the Prosthetarium that he would not be eligible for arm amputations until he was walking securely and stably on his prosthetic legs. The combination he had voluntarily chosen were suitable for his main goal—to appear severely disabled, more so than Rob on his primitive tin legs. Dragging his wooden leg around with his peg leg was exhausting and still felt insecure. His high amputation had been a mistake, he realised now. It would have been far more practical to have half a thigh, giving him the opportunity to try a comprehensive range of various legs. He had condemned himself to wearing a leg over which he had little control and which was little more than a support on which his pelvis rested. He had suggested a lightweight rigid peg leg attached to a robust corset. It would have no motion whatsoever but Chris was certain that he could walk on it if his opposing artificial leg was slightly longer. He could use his knee to rise and lift the peg forward. The Roehampton students had laughed at the impossibility of walking on such a restrictive device and rejected the suggestion out of hand.

 

Chris assumed that his new prostheses, yet to be designed and created, would allow him to walk and perhaps disguise the extent of his disability. He could return to the Dickensonian in September and apply for immediate bilateral arm amputations. His source had leaked the decision to allow simultaneous amputation of both hands starting in the new term. It was the last directive which the sadistic fourth year graduates had passed. They wanted the new intake of freshmen to become bilateral hook users by Christmas although none would be present to see the results. Chris thanked his source for the information and assured himself that regardless of what kind of vanilla legs the Roehampton team produced, he would be picking at his Christmas turkey with a pair of hooks. He was intensely jealous of Rob’s alarmingly deviant prostheses. The leather cups which held the tips of Rob’s stumps were so erotic that he became erect whenever he imagined Rob donning his arms each morning. The idea of having a pair of artificial arms equipped with similar cups was exciting and he was frustrated by being unable to experience it already.

 

The ferry departed for the islands at ten leaving Rob and Malcolm alone in the deserted shop. The ice cream parlour would open at noon, just in time for the next ferry.

            – Do you want to try out the quad bike? Have you driven one before?

            – I’ve ridden a bike so I know the Highway Code and that sort of thing but I’ve never driven anything with a motor in it.

            – Aye, well there’s nothing to it. Shall we go outside and you can ride in the yard.

Rob heaved himself up onto the quad bike and Malcolm explained how to turn the motor on, where the indicator light switches were, and how to accelerate and brake. Turning was plain enough. If Rob could hold onto the handlebar securely, there was no reason why he should not drive the bike. He noticed that his standard hooks could not grip with any force. He needed something like a worker’s hook which could encircle the handlebar but they were imports and expensive. In spite of that, he pushed the ignition and pulled the handlebar to slowly creep into motion. Two minutes later he was circling the forecourt, down to the road and back. It was great fun and exhilarating to drive something for the first time. His hooks were capable of controlling a vehicle and he felt proud of himself.

            – That’s a lot of fun. I’ll have to get myself something like that. Thanks for letting me ride it.

            – It’s not difficult, is it? Shall we have some coffee while we’re waiting for the next rush of customers?

            – Good idea. Is the quad OK here?

            – Yup. Both quads are great. Come on, quad. Let’s get some coffee inside us.

 

Chris was casted literally dozens of times. The instructors inspected the results with a practised eye and rejected over half of the students’ attempts, explaining why and describing the problems which could occur later to both the clients’ stumps and the hospital’s expenditure. Several days later, Chris watched the students manufacturing prosthetic limbs and plastic corsets, giving advice and describing how it actually felt to have a stump. Chris was of the opinion that he had only one. The useless nub at his hip counted for nothing. Several trial prints of lower leg prostheses were tested and critiqued. The greatest difficulty facing the students was designing the left foot which would impact on the patient’s knee. It was a matter of a millimetre or two how well the foot performed. The first batch of below knee prostheses would have rigid ankles which the patient claimed he had some experience of. He tested them all for comfort and practicality, four different protheses in four different colours. They were all uncomfortable to wear. He was not used to patella weight‑bearing prostheses. Back to the drawing board, or in Chris’s case, back to the casting chair.

 

The shop was quiet for ninety minutes until visitors started arriving to catch the next crossing. A couple of American fell walkers turned up asking for cappuccinos but were disappointed. They looked around at the merchandise and browsed through a guidebook. Neither of them paid the amputee assistants any notice. They left without buying anything. A young couple drove up but stayed in their car. Then a coach full of Welsh pensioners arrived and the shop was soon overrun with prospective customers. They asked where they could get a cup of tea and were sorry to hear they would have to wait until they were on the ferry. Several noticed Rob’s hooks and looked away in embarrassment. Such a pity for the young man. The ice cream concession next door opened and the pensioners left as suddenly as they had arrived. No‑one had bought anything.

            – Malcolm, is it always like this? How do you stay in business?

            – Wait a bit. Most of the sales are to people who get off the ferry. There’s no gift shop or anything on the islands so we’re the first place where they can get their souvenirs.

            – We should sell tea and coffee. Pound a cup.

            – You want to do all the washing‑up?

            – I wouldn’t mind.

            – We probably need a special permit.

            – Your mum would know. Call her and ask.

Malcolm called and asked why they did not serve drinks.

            – I’ve asked before, Malcolm, but we’d need a licence and it’s too expensive.

            – OK. That’s what I thought. See you later. Yes, everything’s fine. He’s OK too.

Rob had listened in and shrugged. He strolled outside and looked at the few cars which had pulled up and at the pensioners spread out around their bus with their ice creams. His arms were on display and so were his tin legs. He had not noticed that his socks had fallen down and both his aluminium calves were on full display for everyone to admire. Several of the old folk nodded towards him and made sympathetic noises. The poor boy. What on earth could have happened to him? Maybe he was born that way. Yes, that must be it. Imagine going through life like that!

 

The ferry docked and moments later a stream of passengers on foot disembarked heading directly for the tourist centre. Three or four cars drove off and suddenly the forecourt emptied as the waiting vehicles moved into the ferry. Rob stood watching the action, his prosthetic arms crossed over his chest. The sun reflected off his legs until he rocked back into the shop. As Malcolm had predicted, several people followed Rob inside but instead of looking at the merchandise, they looked furtively at the young man in a kilt and sweater wearing four artificial limbs. He paid no notice but Malcolm noticed. He was propped up by the cash register watching people’s reactions. Not wishing to appear too rude, the customers inspected the goods and Rob unfolded his hooks and rocked over to offer comments and suggestions about the goods. As if by magic, almost everyone picked out some item on Rob’s recommendation, flustered by being addressed by a handsome young man with hooks and metal legs. A queue of customers formed by the counter and Malcolm was kept busy for several minutes taking the customers’ money. Gradually they left the shop, leaving the amputees alone again.

            – I’ve never seen that happen before. We took nearly three hundred quid in ten minutes.

            – How much do you usually take?

            – Thirty would be good.

            – Wow!

            – I think they saw you and followed you in. And then you persuaded them to choose something and they did.

            – Ha! You think it’s me? Shall we try it again when the ferry comes back?

            – Yeah. Stand outside again. Did you know your socks have fallen down? Everyone could see your legs.

            – Oh god.

            – Leave them! They look great.

Malcolm’s hunch proved accurate. Rob waited outside watching the ferry enter the small harbour at two hourly intervals throughout the day and enticed inquisitive travellers to enter the shop where he pointed at mugs and decorative plates and photo albums. Customers seemed entranced by the primitive hooks and queued obediently to hand over their cash to Malcolm.

 

By the end of the day, they had sold goods totalling nineteen hundred pounds and spent an hour after closing restocking the shelves. Malcolm printed a list of the day’s sales on the cash register and folded the two metre long strip of paper to show his mother.

            – She’s not going to believe this. We’ll have to order more stock too if this continues.

Jacqueline McLuhan was astonished and delighted. It was a record for a single day. She had no idea about the trick the two young amputees had devised to encourage customers into the shop to part with their money. The senior McLuhans left for Edinburgh airport the following day, the first leg of their three week vacation in the Greek islands.

 

Work on rebuilding Chris continued with his enthusiastic cooperation. He was patient with the students and let them know as they cast his stumps whether something felt wrong, saving them from a reprimand. They were grateful and encouraged to make the extra effort to produce high quality limbs. The second batch of below knee prostheses were more comfortable with less severely shaped ridges around his kneecap. The toeless foot slid easily into a running shoe he had brought for testing. At the end of the first week, he had two BK legs which he was pleased with and assured the responsible teams that he thought they had nailed it. Regardless of the instructors’ critique, he was the only one who could genuinely judge their success. He would have liked to wear one of them home to test over the weekend but the legs were only 3D prints, not strong enough for long‑term wear. They would need to be reproduced in carbon fibre before they were strong enough for prosthetic use. It was a novel sensation to feel his thigh rubbing against a trouser leg again after many months of using the lace‑up wooden peg leg. Despite his admiration for the skill of the two groups of students, for whom he felt a genuine admiration, he was still anxious about appearing full bodied. His peg leg provided a clue for others to witness as to why his gait was so belaboured although it was his stronger leg. He hoped that if he accepted a new short BK prosthesis, his other leg could be shaped like a peg. He had suggested it once. He needed to be more insistent.

 

The weather in Kyle of Lochalsh remained tolerable throughout the week. There were no coaches on Tuesday but two on Wednesday and Thursday and a returning coach on Friday. Rob stood outside for ten minutes each time the ferry returned, using the opportunity to smoke one of his pipes which Malcolm lit for him. Try as he might, it was still too demanding to operate a lighter with his hooks. He needed someone with a hand to help him smoke but his hooks were capable of gripping a pipe and bringing it to his lips. He looked magnificent with a big black pipe clenched between his teeth, one arm bent and locked at ninety degrees and the other free to touch his pipe. His tin legs shone in the sunshine between the clouds. He was more surefooted than he had been even a couple of weeks previously. The uneven ground and different surfaces presented a challenge but Rob was determined to conquer his disability. He knew he would fare better with a walking stick, which many of the locals young and old used as a matter of course, but his hooks were next to useless for carrying a cane. He had to rely on his sense of balance and his two strong stumps.

 

Halfway through the course, the teaching staff called a meeting of the prosthetist hopefuls and Chris. He had already decided on which BK leg he preferred and hoped that the definitive version would be as comfortable to wear on his stump as the 3D print.

            – So. We’re halfway through and at this point, we have to ask our patient if he can bear to submit to another few weeks of your torture. Chris, would you like to say a few words?

            – Thank you, Professor Dickens. It has been a torture of sorts. After a flood of attention, when my stump is casted two hundred times, I’m left waiting for some kind of result. All the time worrying about my peg leg . Is there something wrong with it which must be corrected? Despite my doubts, both groups have produced superb artificial legs to replace my peg and I’ve made my choice which I’d prefer to wear in future. Now I look forward to the next period of torture for my right leg where there are more problems lying in wait for you. I feel I should make a personal preference clear at this stage, though. Both teams have spent a great deal of time making sure that the foot on my BK stump is comfortable to walk on and strong enough to bear my weight. However, I’d personally prefer my right leg to terminate in a simple rubber ferrule. No foot. Trying to walk on two artificial feet with my disability is too much. I understand that the teaching staff wish to see a prosthesis like a full leg but my personal feelings are that a peg leg would be far more practical. So if I might make a suggestion, I’d like a peg leg which is lockable at both my hip and at knee level.

            – I see. That should present no practical problem for our students—I hope you agree—but it does mean that one of the main aims of our programme, to allow you to walk on two artificial legs as close to natural legs will be thwarted. I have my doubts about this lockable peg leg. What do the others think?

            – It’s certainly within the remit of our students. I rather think that the calf section is the least demanding component and I don’t see any major obstacle to forming it into a peg rather than a foot.

            – Yes, I tend to lean the same way. The major challenges in the right leg lie elsewhere rather than in the terminal.

            – Very well. A peg leg it shall be.

The meeting continued with a discussion of which teams would be responsible for which components and what hinges would be most effective. Chris left the meeting in a much better mood than when he entered. He was going to have a professionally made set of legs, custom made to his precise wishes. The long peg leg would look superb and allow him to gain his hooks.

 

Over the next days, Rob and Malcolm learned to fend for themselves. The nearest grocery store was two miles from home and Rob drove the quad bike there and back. He needed assistance almost every time to get products from shelves too high for his hooks or too low for his rigid knees. Malcolm kept an eye on stock levels and placed orders to be delivered within ten days. He stopped wearing his cosmetic legs and wore his leather and aluminium shoe, balancing on a cushioned stool in the shop. As a result, Rob did much of the physical work and the variety of goods he handled were good practice for hook use. He was gradually becoming accustomed to the movements needed to operate his hooks efficiently and the weeks spent in Lochalsh boosted his self‑reliance and confidence.

 

All too soon, it was over. Malcolm and Rob waited until the McLuhan seniors had returned and settled back into their routine before embarking on the long journey south to the Dickensonian. They found Chris and Étienne sitting outside smoking pipes.

            – Hi! You’re back very early.

            – Three days. Not too early. How are you? Had a good summer?

            – Malcolm has a new pair of legs.

            – Really? Oh, your peg leg has swapped sides! Pull your trouser leg up.

Chris’s new peg was a curving tapered shape, narrowing elegantly from his knee to the rubber ferrule. He pulled up the other leg to display his muscular BK prosthesis gripping his stump and supported by his kneecap The black carbon fibre glistened with newness. The legs were a superbly matched pair.

            – They not only look good, I can walk much better. The peg locks at the knee when I stand and I can swing it from my hip if I want but I can lock that too. Slows me down a bit but it feels great.

            – You’ve still got the corset though, right?

            – Yup. Covers my belly.

            – It all looks great, Chris. Where did you have them made?

            – Roehampton. St Mary’s. They needed some amputees to practise on, you see, and the wages for six weeks guinea pigging was a professional quality prosthesis for each stump.

            – What have you done with the wooden legs?

            – Left them at home. I haven’t used the long one for ages. I just wear the peg leg and crutch around. Much easier.

            – Yeah. I suppose so. Malcolm and I have been selling souvenirs to visitors on the west coast of Scotland.

            – Really? That sounds like fun.

            – It’s my mother’s business. We kept the place ticking over for three weeks or so while my parents were abroad. I sat legless on a chair by the cash register and let Rob do all the work.

            – True. Let me take my case inside and I’ll join you for a smoke.

 

Rob and Malcolm made their way inside to their respective rooms and changed from their street clothes into something more comfortable. Malcolm brought his shoe and an old pair of red boxing gloves to walk on. Rob swapped his long legged trousers for a pair of short football shorts and his shirt for a hoodie whose sleeves had been shortened to the elbow. They returned to rejoin Chris and Étienne outside.

            – I was thinking about applying for membership of the Pro this term now we’re eligible.

            – Junior members.

            – Yeah. We won’t have much of a say but we can get a better idea of what goes on for next year. Plus the perks, of course.

            – Which must not be mentioned.

            – Never. Last term I wanted to join so I could have a new a pair of hooks but after using these all summer for real, actually using them, I’ve come to the conclusion that I like this design. I’d actually like them to make another pair in case these wear out but I don’t suppose they will.

            – Are you satisfied with those legs, Rob?

            – Yeah. I wouldn’t want to have legs like yours, Chris. No offence! I like the appearance of these tin legs and so did a lot of visitors.

            – Rob wore a kilt, see? Showed off his legs and his hooks. People packed the shop trying to catch a glimpse of him.

            – I can imagine. So is that what you’re going to do, Rob? Join the Pro?

            – Yeah. Why don’t you apply too, Chris?

He quickly weighed up the advantages of being in a position to influence decisions on amputations and prosthetic replacements. If his had his way, it might be advantageous.

            – Yes, I think I will. It might be an interesting addition to the CV.

 

The weather changed with the month. Rob and Malcolm spent many hours of freetime in Rob’s apartment watching new recruits arriving and they watched closely to guess what kinds of prosthetic limbs the newcomers used. It was fun to see new faces, young men embarking on a new adventure which would see them acquiring new stumps and extraordinary artificial limbs as well as a top‑notch education.

 

The term began. New housemasters, selected at the end of the previous term, welcomed the new students and explained the house rules. Prostheses were to be worn at all times during hours of study. Modest attire was expected. They were all most welcome and encouraged to avail themselves of the many surgical and prosthetic opportunities which lay ahead of them. The Dean spoke a few words, repeating what had already been explained and handed over to the chief of the Prosthetarium.

            – We have an exciting year ahead of us. For the first time, we will allow bilateral arm amputations to those students whose mobility will not be immediately impacted. The applicable prosthetics will be a second generation of the design trialled earlier in the year, the difference being, for those of you wondering, that regardless of the length of the forearm stump, only one socket, short or long, will be made.

 

Chris’s heart sank. He had set his heart of a pair of long stumps gripped by short cuffs just below his elbows with the ends of his stumps enveloped in leather cups like on Rob’s arms.

            – The Prosthetarium is also accepting applications from third year students and they should reach me by this time next Wednesday. The top six applicants will be accepted and we hope to have experience with a wide variety of prosthetic equipment.

Rob and Chris glanced and nodded at each other. They both assumed that they were sure to be accepted by the Pro.

 

Chris expected a reprimand for not wearing the wooden legs issued by the Pro and to be rejected out of hand but instead he was welcomed by the new fourth year students and the chief. They demanded that he attend the Pro later in the day for a private viewing, when he would demonstrate the mechanisms in his peg leg which allowed him a far greater range of movement than available with his old wooden leg as well as being capable of complete rigidity from his torso to the ferrule, which the Pro had previously denied him. Rob’s application was a shoo‑in, certain from the outset. He was now the most amputated student and had adapted extremely well to life with artificial limbs. The chief was particularly interested in picking Rob’s brain on how his psychological adaptation had progressed over such a short period.

 

The old bus parked just inside the archway and four students limped across the Forties with a fresh change of underwear. Chris’s peg leg was locked and he twisted his hips to swing it forward. Three first year students kicked AK stumps to swing their feet. Chris kept his peg rigid on the bus where it was much admired by the younger men. Only one of the others admitted to owning a peg leg and claimed he preferred using it rather than his prosthetic leg.

 

Chris was second in alphabetical order and had both forearms shortened to eight centimetres below the elbow. He reasoned that whatever kind of socket he ever had, it would always resemble the shallow cups which cradled Rob’s stumps. Chris’s understanding of physics left much to be desired. The three younger men chose more wisely. Two lost their left forearms at the halfway mark and the third both hands, three centimetres above the wrist. Of the four fresh amputees, he would be the most satisfied with his stumps and the most enthusiastic about using antique hooks. The four of them were returned to the Dickensonian in under a week to the capable hands and hooks of the Prosthetarium.

 

Étienne was shocked by the brevity of Chris’s bandaged arms but said nothing. For several days, Chris remained in bed, limbless, balancing with the help of his long BK stump. Étienne dashed back between classes to check on his lover, offering food, drink and the piss bottle before hop‑running back to the next class. Chris soon discovered one monumental error which he could not forgive himself for overlooking. His stumps were too short to reach his penis. He was desperate for several days before reassuring himself, without evidence, that his hooks would be more than adequate to satisfy himself. At such times, Chris was almost suicidal with dispair. Without artificial limbs, he was nothing more than a pretty face and even that needed shaving.

 

Rob was shocked to see Chris’s new stumps. The bandages were off and the patients were warned to be careful.

            – They look to be healing well, Chris. It won’t be long before you can start using them again.

            – How long was it before you got your arms?

            – About six weeks before I was cast, so say two months between amputations and hooks. Are you going to get this open design?

            – Yeah. I hope so. I’m going to have short cups for my stumps and then about a foot of empty space leading to my hooks.

            – You should have shorter arms. Using artificial arms like mine is different from using hands. You have to power your prostheses with your stumps and you’re going to have trouble if your arms are too long. They’re like levers. Think of trying to lift a litre bottle of water with a short stump. It’s not going to work if your pros is as long as your arm was. But if you have short artificial arms, you’ll be able to lift the bottle no problem.

            – You mean I’m going to have to have short artificial arms for the rest of my life? That long arms are no good?

            – Well, if you actually want to use your artificial arms and hooks, the short alternative is the only choice you have. Of course, if you want to go out on the town and dress up, you can have a longer pair under a smart evening jacket and handle a cocktail if you’re very careful. I suppose it depends on how sturdy the frame is. I’m pleased with mine. It’s very strong and holds my stumps firm so I can use my hooks.

            – That’s what I want to do!

            – Then it means short arms, Chris. Don’t worry. You can have your sleeves altered to fit.

Chris collapsed back onto his bed. He had obviously beaten Rob in their private rivalry. Rob used his hooks on the lousy aluminium framework now just as naturally as he had used his hands. He had become more dextrous during the summer months. What would it be like to have metal frames only half the length? Would he be able to reach his mouth to eat or his cock to wank? Rob saw his old friend’s despondency and left him in peace. It was always difficult after a fresh amputation. Despite the shocking brevity of Chris’s arm stumps, Rob thought that he might enjoy being fitted with various prostheses and he intended influencing the Pro to make them.

 

The first year student, James Leigh, who had undergone bilateral amputations at the same time as Chris sought out Rob for advice and info about what kinds of artificial arms the Prosthetarium had on offer. Rob told him to come to his rooms in the evening. Leigh turned up accompanied by a friend who declined to come in.

            – I just came along to open doors for James, you see, sir.

            – I see. Come in, James.

Rob was unused to being called sir but he was highly respected among the younger students for his extreme amputee status.

            – Thank you for seeing me, sir. I hope I’m not disturbing.

            – No, otherwise I wouldn’t have invited you. What do you want to know?

            – I’m going to have my first casting next week and I wondered if there is anything you would recommend, sir. You see, I have an artificial leg and I must be able to take care of it and my stump too, of course.

            – Yes, James. You’re going to spend quite a lot of time tending to stump care from now on. Do you mind showing me your stumps?

Leigh was wearing a white hoodie and his arm stumps were hidden by the sleeves. He held his arms out and invited Rob to push the sleeves up.

            – Ah! You like long ones, do you? They look very smart, James. They’re going to look great when the swelling goes. You must be very pleased. I think you’ll be able to don your leg pros with these, regardless of what arms you get.

            – So in the mornings, I’d put my leg on with my stumps and then my arms.

            – Yup. If you’re like most bilaterals, you’ll soon learn to do things with your naked stumps. It’s a useful skill to learn because then you’re not helpless if one of your hooks breaks, you see.

            – Yes, that’s what I was thinking. I wanted to ask you about the arms I might have from the Prosthetarium, sir. Are they still making arms like yours, sir?

            – They are. James, you can call me Rob.

            – Thank you, s.., Rob. So mine will look like yours.

            – Almost. You see how my stumps are held by these cuffs below the elbow and then lower down they disappear into these cups? The general plan for the autumn production is to form long leather sockets in your case so your stumps will be completely covered in leather. That will feel very nice, I’m sure. I have this gap in between, you see. It’s perfectly fine and comfortable. It’s just that you can see my stump socks if I’m wearing them and some people have not taken to the look.

            – I think it looks cool to see your stump socks. My friends and I were watching you in the mess and you use the hooks just like they were your own hands.

            – I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration, James, but you are kind to say so.

            – How long did it take to learn to use those hooks? I hope you don’t mind me asking you these questions.

            – Not at all. It took a couple of months before I started to understand how to use them but I was working in a shop during the summer holidays, just before you arrived here, and I used them a lot every day. I suppose that’s why it looks like I use them so well.

            – When did you get them?

            – Beginning of March.

            – This March? This year?

            – Yes. I was amputated in January.

            – Oh! I thought you had been an amputee for years.

            – I have been. I lost a leg three years ago in a hiking accident in Iceland. And I had the other one off at the Dickensonian soon after I got here so I could trial these tin legs.

Rob knocked a hook against his left thigh.

            – And you’re still wearing the same ones?

            – I hope to always have tin legs, James. They are a rarity these days but I know I’ll always be eligible to have a new pair manufactured here at the Prosthetarium. They’re a hundred year old design but I’ve learned to walk on them and I like their appearance and the noises they make.

            – I’ve heard them too when you walk along the corridors. I like to walk behind you to see the way you kick your stumps to make the knees work.

            – Really? Do all the boys do that?

            – A lot of them do.

Rob was pleasantly surprised. Naturally, it was all part of the Dickensonian Method. It reinforced stump envy and the directive insisting that lower limb prostheses be concealed at all times during college hours was to demonstrate how bilateral thigh stumps could be disguised under clothing for students initially too shy to consider baring stumps or artificial limbs in everyday life. It was quite a compliment to be regarded as a rôle model for young students.

            – Have you given any thought to having your leg off to match your stump? What sort of stump do you have, James?

            – It’s about half my thigh, a bit less maybe. Can I ask you what sort of stumps you have?

            – They’re both about two thirds. Good strong stumps for working tin legs. I reckon you could have the leg off while you’re at the Dickensonian and leave with four great stumps and some unique prosthetic limbs, especially if you learn to use the artificial arms you’ll soon be getting. They’re more basic than what a prosthetist outside would make but some of the joy of amputation is in learning to operate artificial limbs. You have to remember that all our limbs, the ones made here, are copies of what men used in years past when there were no bionic knees or hands and mechanical components weren’t so advanced.

            – Are your arms difficult to use, Rob?

            – Yes.

            – But you still like them?

            – I love their appearance and the attention I get because of them. I love the way I have to work my arms and shoulders to operate the hooks how I want. It makes me look very disabled and I like that, even if I don’t feel disabled myself. It amuses me to see the look on some people’s faces when I notice them watching me stretching and jerking my arms and knowing that they have no idea about my tin legs. It was fun last summer. I was in Scotland and wore a kilt so my legs and hooks were on full display all the time.

            – That must have been fun.

            – For me, it was. So many people said they felt sorry for me. I just told them I can still do everything they could do. I just do it in a different way and when I go home, I can take off my artificial limbs and enjoy my stumps.

It was a lie on Rob’s part. He had not been home since he gained his arm stumps but he was determined to spend Christmas with his family now he could wield hooks to his satisfaction.

 

The Prosthetarium members met several times during the weeks following the season’s first amputations. The new members, including Chris and Rob, convened to plan the amputation regime for the upcoming year. The chief congratulated the congregation for their work in encouraging students to achieve forearm stumps in order to gain new knowledge about the experience of using primitive prostheses. He commended Rob on his excellent command of them and assured Chris that his stumps, which he privately considered disastrously short, would be fitted with appropriate prostheses as soon as they had settled a little more. In truth, all the new arm amputees were kept waiting for Chris’s stumps to heal well enough for the first casting to begin.

 

The chief knew that Chris wanted a pair of arms to rival Rob’s but he was going to be disappointed. The chief intended his team to manufacture immovable leather cups into which Chris would insert his useless stumps. They would hold the remnants of his arms at ninety degrees and the aluminium sheet metal would be permanently welded in that position. Two hooks would complete the prostheses, whose tips would extend nearly twenty centimetres from Chris’s elbows. The chief knew of the rivalry for disablement between Rob and Chris since their arrival. He was delighted with the way Rob had adapted to limblessness and intended to make Chris experience disablement far in excess of what Rob had conquered. The boy had had the audacity to replace his wooden legs over the summer. Let him try to replace the hooks which the Prosthetarium would make him. He would wear them on campus for the next two years.

 

The handless youngsters became impatient. The student prosthetists had been creating aluminium bracing for the required number of prostheses. Hooks and cables had been ordered and delivered. The chief called Chris to enquire about the state of his stumps. Chris was as anxious as everybody else to be fitted with hooks. Étienne had been a trustworthy companion, caring for Chris’s stumps and ensuring that he had everything he needed. Ètienne had become inured to seeing Chris’s naked stumps, pathetic nubs rounding out his elbows. His ami would never use the stumps for anything useful. They were too short and Chris would always need prostheses with elbow bracing which further reduced their range of motion.

 

            – Come in, McDonald, and sit down. It’s time to commence our programme of manufacture and to be honest, we can no longer wait for your stumps any further.

Chris looked suitably morose. His stumps hung by his side almost to his waist.

            – You will be pleased to know, however, that the team has finalised the design of your prostheses and if you feel that they are healed enough, the first castings will be done in the near future.

            – I’m sure they are healed well enough now for casting, sir.

            – Let me see them. Lift them up.

The chief inspected each stump and deplored their brevity. He had already received assurances from the facility management that Christopher McDonald had indeed stipulated two centimetres of below elbow stumpage and the facility had on file signed waivers of consent. The chief grunted his acceptance and the matter ended there.

            – Yes, I agree with you. Alright. I’ll start the programme and let you know when you can come in for casting. We intend fitting the first year students first with their more conventional length stumps. I’m afraid to say that yours are somewhat problematic. I find it odd, McDonald, that you insist on such deviant stumps regardless of all advice. You were recommended to gain a mid‑thigh stump and ended up with a disarticulation to all intents and purposes. Similarly, several bilateral amputees explained at considerable inconvenience to themselves the advantages of long forearm stumps and yet somehow you connive to persuade the surgeon to reduce your forearms to nothing. Can you explain perchance?

            – I want to be disabled, sir. I want to be reliant on artificial limbs. I want to have artificial limbs which are challenging to use and shocking to see.

            – Is that why you insisted Roehampton make you a peg leg when a conventional limb would be more practical?

            – Yes sir. It’s obvious, isn’t it?

The chief stared at Chris’s unnaturally beautiful features, enjoying the rare privilege of meeting someone so strikingly handsome and being able to look at him regularly. It was an enigmatic state of affairs. McDonald had already become one of the most severely disabled students which the Dickensonian Method had engendered to his knowledge and the boy still had over a year until graduation. And one long leg stump. It was going to be interesting to watch him learning to use the experimental and restrictive prostheses which the Prosthetarium students had devised.

 

The first year arm amputees were all casted over two days at the start of the following week. James Leigh was the first patient and a priority. His stumps had healed and he had already begun using his two stumps as pincers. His friends kept an eye on him and were always close by when he needed some help. Everyone was relieved and pleased for Jim because he would soon have hooks and could get on with life. His long and shapely stumps would be hidden inside equally long and shapely leather sockets riveted to mirrored aluminium struts hinged at the elbows, holding his forearms firmly and preventing rotation. The prostheses were not only restrictive, they were also cumbersome to operate. For first‑time amputees who had no experience of anything else, they were welcome assistance in the void of limblessness when anything which could be fixed to a stump was an improvement over nothing. This was the theory whose practical application Chris was about to experience.

 

He was assigned two of the most promising students because his amputations were so uniquely demanding. They had read the patient’s medical notes and his psychological appraisal as well as his stated desires for his prosthetic limbs. It was noted that the patient had already received and rejected a pair of wooden legs manufactured eighteen months ago by the Pro. The chief had decreed that regardless of whatever upper limb prostheses the patient might acquire from an outside source, he should use the prostheses which the Pro was about to embark on while he was on campus until he graduated in eighteen months. During that time, a vast amount of unique data on the amputee’s rehabilitation and adaptation to an unexpectedly disabled life should have been collected, ready for collation and deep study.

 

Chris was a cheerful and cooperative subject. The student prosthetists had naturally seen Chris before on campus but this was the first longer period they had spent in his presence when they were free to gaze on his facial beauty and wide range of handsome expressions. They were also intrigued by the man’s artificial legs which he was proud to demonstrate. He felt he had mastered his peg leg and had learned to swing it from his pelvis at a rate which matched the capability of his rigid left ankle and foot to complete a cycle. The result was that he now walked with a regular gait, limping on his left leg but using his peg to support himself. It was an intriguing method of ambulation and the prosthetists made notes on their observations, all of them to be added to the Dickensonian’s voluminous archive of prosthetic care.

 

Three groups of students cast his arms several times, from the soft tissue at the tip of his stumps to his armpits and over his shoulders. Chris thought it was overkill but assumed that the students knew what they were doing. They did. Two weeks later, Chris was invited back for his first fitting of a set of prostheses which team B had completed first.

            – Stretch your arms out, Chris.

The sockets were sculpted leather, a dark tan in colour which contrasted beautifully with the mirrored struts. The leather was neatly sewn at the rear resulting in something resembling the shape of a boot. The upper half was riveted to a U‑shaped frame which left space between its lowest extent and the leather socket. At Chris’s elbow, the leather socket turned ninety degrees. Chris’s stump had been measured and studied by several groups who agreed that the man’s stumps could slip into a canted rigid socket. His nubs, the remains of his forearms, fit into cup‑shaped extensions which resembled the shape of the sockets on his friend’s prostheses which Chris had claimed to find erotic. A short U-shaped brace, welded to the upper arm brace, held a standard hook. With both prostheses on the patient’s stumps, a harness was quickly tightened and adjusted across Chris’s back and the students stood back to admire their handiwork and the patient’s reaction to receiving a pair of extremely short hooks on leather sockets which could barely move. Chris had nursed an erection for most of the time the students had worked on him and now he tried his hooks for the first time. He tried stretching his arms but nothing happened. He was unable to stretch either arm. Both were held firmly by the framework. His elbows were immovable inside the leather sockets. His hooks pointed left and right but he had not yet succeeded in opening them. He had never felt more helpless in his life and pumped sperm into his underwear. It splashed along his leather thigh socket and began to soak though his trousers. The students watched his reaction and grinned. Another satisfied customer.

 

Despite his body’s automatic reaction to the first ever experience of seeing a pair of hooks at the ends of his stumps, Chris was perturbed by the extreme lack of mobility enforced by the prostheses. His elbows were solid at ninety degrees and his shoulders had some movement, mainly to operate the opposing hook.

            – I think you need some training with that pair of arms, McDonald, but you will be pleased to hear the other team has a version which may be more to your taste.

The first team busied themselves with removing the long sockets from Chris’s stumps and the second team stood by with the arms they had created twisting slowly in their leader’s hand. They rocked their artificial legs into motion and approached their patient, knowing he was anxious to try the next pair of artificial arms.

 

Their version was more like what Chris had fantasised over ever since he saw Rob’s arms and the leather cups into which his stumps fitted. Now Chris’s elbow stumps slid into rigid leather cups about ten centimetres long at both elbows and his upper arms were encircled by long cuffs riveted to the same kind of frame as on the previous pair. This set had struts welded at an eighty‑five degree angle to hold the hooks. The prostheses were held on solely by the long sockets on his upper arms with a semicircular support at his elbow and the hooks once again extended the minimal possible distance. However, after adjustment, he was physically able to stretch his arms slightly to operate the hooks and his shoulders were more responsive. The minuscule cups holding his ultrashort forearm stumps were perfectly rounded and looked utterly superb. He broadened his shoulders to test the hooks and made his decision.

            – These are perfect! I’d like to keep these, if I may.

            – You can keep both pairs. I expect you to trial both of them, McDonald, and I’d appreciate it if we could have a comprehensive report in two weeks and updates every ten days after that as you become accustomed to them. Do you understand? These prostheses have been quite a challenge for both teams so I hope you appreciate the effort which had gone into making them.

 

He was escorted back by one of the students who suggested he try summoning the lift himself. He made no comparable suggestion outside Chris’s apartment door. Once inside, the assistant hung the second pair of experimental prostheses onto a clothes hanger and left him alone, kitted out at last with prosthetic arms, the hooks pointed toward the ceiling after he lay down on his bed contemplating his future life with artificial arms. His peg leg was in an awkward position hanging halfway over the bed and he wanted to straighten it but his arms were too short to reach. Exhausted from his emotional turmoil, he let it be and slept.

 

It was dusk when he woke. Twenty minutes until mess. The stain on his trousers had dried and was almost invisible but he could still sense the cool caked jizz in his underwear. He tried pushing himself up but his prostheses allowed no such motion. Instead he tightened his belly muscles and sat up, swung himself around to allow his peg to drop to the floor and manoeuvred his left leg prosthesis to take his weight as he forced himself up. His rigid little arms were of no use. They reminded him of some kind of robot with rigid limbs which could only shoot flames or death rays. He tried opening a hook. What use was an open hook so near his elbow? He went to the bathroom and fought with his jeans for many minutes before extracting his slimy penis. He tried gripping it to avoid it spraying urine. It was difficult. When he dressed next the morning, he would not attempt wearing his jeans. Anyway, they needed washing. Chris moved around his apartment, feeling how his stumps were restricted by his new prostheses and admiring the proximity of his hooks. He would become accustomed to them, of that he was certain, but until then, there was something of a learning curve to overcome. He would do anything which a normal man could do at elbow’s length.

 

James Leigh was delighted to receive his new arms. The long leather forearm sockets were nothing short of phallic. They looked superb. The hooks were pristine, the rubber bands spotless and the control cable gleamed. As Chris had quickly discovered, the aluminium frame prevented James from stretching his arms to work the hooks so all movement came from his shoulders. When he wanted to grasp something, he needed to alter the angle of his shoulder and elbow to bring the hook into position. An experienced bilateral amputee would reject the restrictive prostheses out of hand but James was enchanted with them and excited by his new disabled appearance with hooks peering from his sleeves. He had already learned to don his artificial leg using only his stumps and was wary of tearing the liner with the hooks.

 

Chris tapped on Rob’s door. He was wearing football shorts to show off his carbon fibre legs and a singlet printed with the number seven to expose his prosthetic arms in their entirety. The disparity between his legs and arms was obvious. Rob stared wordlessly and gestured behind him. Chris swung his peg leg into the room and Rob closed the door.

            – How do you like them?

Chris lifted his arms. They were so short, the hooks so impractical.

            – Chris, are they really what you asked for? You can’t move your elbows, can you?

            – Nope. They’re always in this position. My stumps are too short to move forearms, see?

            – I thought they would be. I didn’t want to say anything. You know, when you have a pair of arms made outside, you’re going to have the same system that above elbow amputees use. Two cables, one to raise and lower your forearm and one to operate the hook.

            – I’m fine with that.

            – It just makes you more disabled than you would otherwise have been. I don’t understand your infatuation with really short stumps.

            – Look Rob, it’s my body and I’ll do what I want. I wanted my leg off and it’s gone. I have this peg instead and I like it. I wanted short arm stumps and that’s what I have. I think they look great.

It was a ridiculous outburst. Chris sounded like he was trying to justify his extreme disability to himself. His prosthetic arms looked pathetic, almost useless. What use were two hooks at your elbows?

            – Look, if you don’t have anything positive to say, I might as well go. I thought you’d be pleased for me.

            – No Chris. I can’t be pleased for you. Maybe when you have a practical pair of prostheses. Can’t you volunteer at Roehampton again? Or simply have a proper pair made? You’re never going to use those for anything useful.

Rob gestured with his own stumps to emphasise his points. The framework restricted his movements and his hooks moved around in random arcs. He was quite conscious of the fact that the Prosthetarium’s artificial limbs were experimental and intentionally primitive and he understood why. But they had done Chris no favours in locking his hooks in one position and disabling his elbows.

            – I’m leaving.

He rocked from side to side, gradually turning his rigid ankle to face the door. He leaned forwards and turned slightly to reach the door handle and struggled to open his hook. Rob watched him for several seconds and when he felt that Chris’s frustration had built enough, he stepped forward and Chris allowed him to open the door. It was an ignominious departure.

 

Several days later, Chris had calmed and forgiven Rob for his justified criticism of his short arms. It was difficult to use them for most things. He had practised opening the lock on his door to avoid the same sense of helplessness which had washed over him at Rob’s. It had been an undignified display and he wanted to make amends. Perhaps the small group of friends could pay the local inn a visit and he could buy a few rounds to show his appreciation for their help and support. With his face close to the screen, he slowly tapped out an invitation to join him for beers the following Saturday afternoon at the King’s Head. Everyone accepted with thanks.

 

They wore their best street clothes, as non‑uniform was called. Malcolm wore his kilt with a leather jacket and made his way on crutches and his solitary peg leg. Rob, Liam and Étienne wore jeans and hoodies, to disguise artificial legs and arms but Chris himself peacocked in football shorts and a Pink Floyd T‑shirt. He had not yet had any of his jackets altered to allow him to use them with short arms. His black carbon legs looked magnificent in comparison but best of all was his grin of pleasure at seeing his friends again. He sat and leaned forward far enough to allow his right hook to knock the knee lock free allowing his peg leg to bend. Malcolm had already removed his and sat bolt upright in his torso socket.

            – Ye’d best sit next to me, Chris. Ye’ll ne be drinkin’ wi’ short hooks.

            – Thanks, Malcolm. Thanks everyone for coming. I’ve been a bit of a bastard lately and I want to apologise and make it up to you. I hope you can forgive me.

Chris gestured with his hooks, suggesting that he was beginning to regard the metal frames holding his hooks as part of himself, as much as his artificial legs. Rob watched him closely, checking for any signs of petulance but saw only his good‑natured old friend.

            – I have some news for you. Rob suggested I contact the people at Roehampton who made my legs last summer. So I did. And the chief prosthetist said they had recently been discussing the dilemma presented by minimal stumpage and had mentioned the trouble they had with my thigh nub. So when I explained about my arm nubs, he immediately perked up and practically begged me to come in to give a talk to the students about adapting to life with such short prostheses. He sounded very interested to see these aluminium and leather arms which the Pro has been churning out this year. And I think he wants to have his arm students make me a set of arms to match my legs, just like you suggested, Rob.

            – That sounds wonderful, Chris. Did he ask you how you had lost your arms?

            – No, they already know I’m at the Dickensonian.

            – Ah, so no need to explain anything. Are you going to have a proper long pair made?

            – Yep. They’re going to be special custom made to accommodate my stumps but they’ll otherwise be the same kind of design that above elbow amputees wear. I’m so excited at getting a professionally made pair of hooks which match my legs. I’ll be whole again.

            – That certainly is something worth drinking to. Whose round is it?

            – It’s my round, Malcolm. I’m buying the first three rounds, if that’s alright. We might need some help carrying them.

            – Just call across to the barman. Someone will bring the drinks over.

 

Someone did. Talk about prostheses turned to talk about the Prosthetarium. Rob, Chris and Liam were junior members and privy to information which was supposed to be confidential. Rob knew that Liam still lusted after a leg stump and that the next year’s programme would centre around producing as many bilateral below knee amputees among the latest intake as possible. They would be fitted with wooden legs and thigh corsets again, which had proved to be by far the most popular alternative available from the Pro when leg stumps were last on the agenda. The new students had been reluctant to participate in the autumn term’s programme of bilateral arm amputation but sufficient numbers had gained arm stumps for the Pro to declare it a success and the latent prosthetists behind the aluminium framework prostheses which served only to further disable new amputees were guaranteed excellent grades. From the New Year onwards, a considerable increase in applicants for bilateral below knee amputations was expected among both the first year as they acclimatised themselves with life at the Dickensonian and from other years too, following a year’s hiatus in leg stumps. Unknown even to Rob and the other junior members, no conventional artificial legs would be provided to the newly amputated. Regardless of whether the student had one or two stumps, he would receive a variation on a selection of wooden peg legs which the prosthetists had been designing.

 

Liam was especially enthusiastic. He had mastered his artificial arms and used his hooks as freely as a normal man used hands. Circumstances had prevented him from participating in the Pro’s programmes when legs had been on the agenda but now, with only eighteen months left before he graduated, he was ready and willing to gain leg stumps. He imagined himself with footless legs and handless arms, living a fulfilling life reliant on prosthetic limbs of a bewildering variety and finding a life partner who would worship his stumps. Étienne also claimed to be ready for a leg stump, assuming and hoping that he would still ski the slopes above Grenoble with a prosthetic leg. Rob, limbless and more than happy with all four stumps, assured everyone that he would do his best on their behalf and they would have their amputations before summer. And more importantly, their new wooden peg legs.

 

The Dickensonian was transformed by the first year’s enthusiasm to acquire bilateral below knee stumps. The surgical facility reverted to its policy of amputating only one limb at a time, largely redundant due to the fact that most of the youngsters already boasted one prosthetic leg. Those with below knee amputations were given a second stump matching in length and those with above knee amputations could choose the length of their below knee stumps. The fresh junior amputees were allowed the use of crutches as a temporary concession and experienced a new mobility on one prosthetic limb and crutches. By mid‑May, the trailblazers among them had been fitted with their first peg legs.

 

Étienne and Liam were scheduled to acquire their first leg stumps in June. Liam was assured that a method would be devised to allow him to use crutches with his hooks. When the term ended in mid‑July, twelve first year students departed wearing bilateral peg legs, wooden legs with leather sockets suspended from laced thigh corsets, and four more had only one stump beside a natural leg. Other senior students sported new below knee stumps short enough to use peg legs with knee pads. Only Étienne had received such a peg, the first of its kind which the Pro had made and he was expected to provide a comprehensive report on its use and characteristics before similar items were provided to other amputees. Étienne’s peg was suspended by leather belts around his thigh and stump, causing him to walk with a heavy audible limp. He returned to his home in France for the summer where his parents morosely accepted their son’s transformation as the price to pay for a Dickensonian degree.

 

Étienne said nothing about gaining a second leg stump in the autumn. If all went well and according to plan, he would be hobbled almost beyond belief by winter, legless on two long rigid peg legs. His life was about to become especially challenging but he lusted to become severely crippled. He regarded his long rigid peg leg as essentially Gallic in style and he was determined to walk on two, not unlike some of the hundreds of similarly disabled ex‑soldiers after the Great War.

 

Chris spent much of the summer in the rôle of guinea pig for another group of trainee prosthetists who were eager to compete with each other to produce comfortable and practical arm prostheses for the Adonis who had lost more of his forearms that he had probably bargained for. His elbows were useless for operating his new arms but their existence meant that they had to be accommodated somehow in the design of the prostheses. He had grown used to doing as much as he could with his short hooks and no longer attempted to do things which he knew he was no longer capable of, and his frustration decreased accordingly. While Étienne was recuperating with a fresh leg stump, Chris found himself compelled to use his hooks as much as possible. Quite coincidentally, he was learning the motions needed to operate his long carbon fibre arms.

 

Two competing teams again produced two pairs of artificial limbs. Both featured upper arm sections which enveloped his shoulders but one pair narrowed to thin cylindrical arms terminating in hooks while the other featured muscular forearms which the team thought might complement the man’s handsome appearance. Both pairs were equally long, as long as his natural arms had been. The latter pair filled his jacket sleeves and he chose to take them. The remaining pair would be cannibalised for parts. Chris found it strange to see his hooks so distant. He was proud of having come so far and achieved so much, knowing that his looks had opened opportunities for him. He was guided in the use of the two phase prostheses, and warned that learning to continually switch between controlling the hooks and the elbows would seem cumbersome and frustrating for the first few weeks. Ten days before the autumn term started, Chris left St Mary’s for the last time, fully kitted out with professional quality artificial limbs. Even his peg leg seemed to have an extra spring to it.

 

Rob spent the summer holiday at his parent’s home. Despite its opulence, it was a boring environment. Both parents had been angry that Rob had allowed himself to sacrifice his hands for the two primitive hooks which they found quite repulsive in appearance. Rob argued that he was perfectly capable of leading a normal life with artificial limbs and would be inconvenienced only if deprived of them somehow. He had over a year’s experience of using his aluminium and leather hooks and had long since become inured to the exaggerated gyrations he had learned in order to position his hooks productively. Lady Crawford was barely able to be in the same room with him, especially since Rob deliberately chose to wear the skimpiest of summer wear to display his tin legs and the full length of his arms including the ugly canvas harness. He sunned himself in the grounds, stumps hidden from the sun by sturdy sockets. The sun warmed the leather and metal and felt most pleasant through his liners.

 

The group of friends returned to the Dickensonian as seniors. With the exception of Étienne’s remaining leg, they had all completed their transformations and it was time to start thinking seriously about their professional futures. They were all expert prompters already, able to generate almost any desired result. Their expertise with English and logical thinking allowed them to translate a client’s imprecise and wavering descriptions into explicit prompts which would return appropriate results instantly. Artificial intelligence knew everything about fuzzy logic except how to interpret sloppy thought processes, broken grammar, inadequate vocabulary and the like. It had no independent imagination. The prompters gestured with artificial arms and hooks to coax necessary information from clients before recasting it in a concise and precise prompt. Clients were enchanted and delighted. One commented ‘The fucker might have clomped in on two fucking peg legs but he got the factory humming again’. There was no greater praise.

 

Chris was still struggling with his new arms when he returned to the Dickensonian. Rob was intrigued to see how prostheses which had to accommodate Chris’s elbows and minimal stumps had been constructed to allow operation from the shoulders only. Chris’s forearm stumps would quickly atrophy until they had no effect on his artificial forearms. They might as well not exist. As autumn progressed and the days shortened, Chris became more adept with his hooks and was more reliably his cheerful friendly self. He was happy with his lot, except for his long leg stump. He was of the opinion that if he had his stump amputated leaving about half his thigh, he might learn to walk on two peg legs. He watched the second year students being fitted with bilateral peg legs and felt envious at their proficiency. They looked admirable, striding powerfully along on their pegs until they stopped and continually adjusted their ferrules, perfecting their balance almost subconsciously. Chris was sure he would be capable of the same and put his name down for an above knee amputation. The Prosthetarium was still concentrating on below knee amputations untilt the end of the year but Rob could pull the strings. As a DAK himself, it would be unfair for Rob to refuse to act on his behalf. Chris only needed to persuade him.

 

The Prosthetarium convened to decide on the next year’s programme. In their time at the Dickensonian, the Pro had explored the effects of bilateral peg legs and bilateral hooks as well as the occasional voluntary amputation in order to avail the amputee of some basic prosthesis. Data from the second year peg leg users, over half the year’s intake, continued to accrue and was analysed closely, for both physical and mental rehabilitation purposes. Rob dared suggest that their last year concentrate on double above knee amputees who might be fitted with a variety of artificial legs including the tin legs which he recommended but also short peg legs and stubbies. The latter had not been trialled in the time he had been at the Dickensonian and stubbies were a perfectly valid adaptation to leglessness, coming in several variants which offered interesting avenues of exploration and study. The chief peered over his bifocals at the handsome quadruple amputee who had mastered use of the most primitive prosthetic limbs which the Pro had yet devised.

            – I think you may be on to something there, Crawford. You yourself are already in a position to use stubbies. Is it something which you would consider trialling before we make a final decision on the upcoming amputation programme? I must admit, I find the idea intriguing but we should bear in mind that moving directly to bilateral above knee amputations rather limits our capability to explore less severe amputations over the next few years.

            – Yes, I understand that. I would be pleased to work with the prosthetic students on a pair or two of trial stubbies and report back on their quality and function. I have also heard from the body of students that there are others who would also be prepared to even up a second leg in order to become legless.

            – Excellent. Leave this with me and I shall discuss it with the Dean.

 

Liam’s second leg amputation left him in the ideal position to participate in the following year’s prosthetic programme. A customised pair of wooden axillary crutches had been crafted by a prosthetics team and Liam had learned to swing a full‑length peg leg with a lockable knee over the preceding months. It was temporarily his only leg and he kept it rigid, negotiating his way with his hooks enclosed tightly in mechanical fixtures halfway down the length of his crutches. Liam was a late convert to leg amputation but his close association with Rob and Chris in particular had subconsciously encouraged him to take the plunge. He now sported a pair of above knee stumps, two thirds the length of his natural thighs and he anticipated stumping around the campus on wooden stubbies before the year was out. Liam often spoke with Étienne about their experiences on peg legs. They reinforced each other’s assurance and determination to graduate, teetering to accept their diplomas on two pegs or maybe stubbies, accepting the hard‑won document with a hook. Both men would leave as quadruple amputees, having gained five new stumps thanks to the Dickensonian Method.

 

The Prosthetarium programmed the router to produce three types of wooden stubbies. Raw material was delivered regularly at six month intervals by the local forest maintenance authority, who was happy to evade the expense of disposing of fallen and damaged trees. They had a bountiful supply of oak from a centuries old tree which had been split in two by a lightning strike. The legless amputees who were granted a place in the stubbies programme would receive beautifully shaped items, the naked wood polished to a glorious finish. The stubbies might last a lifetime. Rob saw to it that Liam and Étienne were issued with a pair of oaken stubbies. He modestly held back from acquiring a pair for himself. He was too fond of his tin legs to want to learn another way of walking. Similarly, he might take advantage of his situation to acquire a new pair of prosthetic arms but the leather and metal hooks he had worn each and every day for nearly three years had become familiar and he was quite happy to accept their limitations. He admired Chris’s muscular black carbon fibre forearms but their construction demanded just as much physical effort from Chris as he experienced, albeit for different reasons. Chris’s prostheses were intended to compensate for his severe disability whereas Rob’s were designed to cause greater than necessary inconvenience. Rob loved operating his hooks and had all his shirtsleeves shortened to expose the glittering metal framework of his artificial arms.

 

The Pro waited impatiently for the stumps of freshly amputated limbs to heal well enough for the first fittings to begin. Liam insisted he was ready but Rob advised him to wait a while longer until all possible bugs had been removed from the manufacturing process. The first client to receive stubbies of oak was a second year student who had arrived with two old and healed above knee stumps. He walked on standard issue health service legs, tolerably efficient but aesthetically wanting. He volunteered enthusiastically, never having worn stubbies, and he was interviewed to ensure that his six month old arm stumps, acquired by the Dickensonian Method, were adequate to withstanding the inevitable falls. He had been issued with the programme’s standard aluminium framework hooks and replied that he was as safe on his stubbies as the hooks allowed him to be. The Prosthetarium prosthetists accepted his assurance and the young man selected the design which cupped his thigh stumps and then curved to narrow rubber‑tipped bases. They were not unlike short peg legs and looked especially disabling. It would require excellent balance to use them on a long‑term basis. The quad amputee assured the team that he was quite sure he could handle a pair of short pegs, having been a DAK since he was ten. His stumps were cast several times and the dimensions fed into the router which inverted them and estimated the minimum amount of raw material necessary. The stubbies were to be exactly half a metre long from the upper flare to the tip of the peg.

 

The Pro took their time preparing the sections of oak for processing and with the chief’s final approval, the router was engaged. Over the next two days, it produced sculpted wooden peg legs of astonishing beauty. Two prosthetists applied liberal coats of beeswax to the surfaces inside and out, enriching the golden colour and protecting the wood from moisture. The young amputee was amazed to see his wooden legs for the first time and after practising for a couple of hours, tottered out carrying his older artificial legs under one arm. He would hide them at the back of his closet and wore the hooks and peg legs made by the Prosthetarium for the remainder of his time at the Dickensonian. He was the youngest DAK/DBE for over fifty years and in his later years, rose to become chief of the Prosthetarium.

 

Liam fought between his desire to appear crippled and his desire to impress. He was enamoured by the idea of wearing stubbies short enough to allow him to waddle, the length limited to the length of his former thighs if not even shorter. But after seeing other stubbies being produced from the oak wood which the Pro had so unexpectedly acquired, he decided to request a pair of slightly tapered stubbies seventy centimetres long which he could wear with shorts to expose the natural beauty of his wooden legs. He adopted the habit of swinging them in wide arcs as he walked, spreading his hooks wide for balance. His odd gait helped him make a name for himself and his works on insurance theory in the age of climate chaos were hailed as groundbreaking.

 

Chris’s stump was shortened to half a thigh in preparation for a wooden stubbie. Its length was reliant on Chris’s ability to use a pair of peg arms, cylindrical hollow crutches into which he inserted his arm stumps, allowing him to crutch along on his single peg. It was elegantly curved, narrowing to a three centimetre wide tip which was fitted with a rubber ferrule. Chris alternated between his complete set of carbon fibre limbs and the wooden prostheses which rendered him one of the most severely crippled men ever to graduate from the Dickensonian. He found lucrative employment as a radio announcer and narrator of written works. He spent much of his leisure time experimenting with a huge variety of artificial limbs and assistive devices, prompting AI to invent prostheses which only a man with such impractical stumpage could use. Despite his maturing beauty, he remained a loner, finding other people’s attention either intrusive or fetishistic. He had gone through many trials to attain his extreme disability and his stumps and he enjoyed them in selfish solitude.

 

Étienne was kept waiting for his deviant pair of peg legs. They would require longer sections of raw material to manufacture and the chief did not want to use the precious oak. The router would also need re-conforming which would take time and otherwise disrupt production of stubbies. With three weeks before graduation, Etienne’s stumps were casted and their dimensions submitted to AI. It had no experience of creating long peg legs for below knee amputees and time was spent training it with century old photographs of men standing on peg legs, their short below knee stumps bent and supported on cushioned shelves at knee height. The AI generated hundreds of illustrations of similar men wearing such peg legs until the Pro was satisfied that Étienne’s pegs would succeed. The resulting carved pegs were covered with three thick layers of lacquer and the shiny pegs were delivered three days before graduation. He attached the pegs to his stumps with leather straps and was lifted to stand on thick rubber ferrules. Someone handed him a walking stick and the sportif young Frenchman tried walking for the first time on two rigid peg legs. He found it completely different from his previous pair which allowed knee movement but soon acquired the rocking motion which allowed him to swing his pegs forward. He changed back into his lace‑up peg legs before leaving the Pro for the last time but dared wear the two crippling black pegs for his graduation, struggling visibly to climb the five steps to the podium. Walking stick in one hook, he shook the Dean’s hand with the other and lifted his diploma high into the air. He returned to the Alpes Maritim and became a ski instructor for disabled skiers who placed all their trust in a man sitting in a monocoque, explaining technique in French, English and Italian to limbless visitors.

 

Rob returned home, naturally enough, with his diploma. His father was ill and the prognosis was not promising. As the family feared, the Lord succumbed to his disease and a dignified funereal ceremony was held honouring his life. Rob walked behind the coffin, both metal knees squeaking audibly in the austere silence. In accordance with tradition, Robert Crawford inherited his father’s title and attended sittings in the House of Lords, the youngest Lord for nearly two centuries and the first to use artificial arms, the same pair made by the sadistic members of the Prosthetarium in a continuation of the college’s own indefatigable traditions, embodied first and foremost in the Dickensonian Method.

 

THE DICKENSONIAN METHOD