EVOLUTION

 

E V O L U T I O N

Dubious fiction by strzeka (10/24)

In memory of my Ozzie mate’s legs, incinerated this week after two successful amputations

 

It was Greg Estrada’s thirtieth birthday and, as he had dreaded, his employees gave him a riotous welcome. They had put balloons everywhere and they were wearing silvery conical hats. Greg laughed and thanked them for their thoughtfulness before settling at his desk. There was work to be done, specifically the case of Joseph Jones, who had written once again for consideration for inclusion in the exclusive service which was intended for trustworthy clients only. Somehow the boy had discovered it and, although there was no indication of blackmail or coercion, Jones’s persistence was relentless enough to warrant Greg’s attention. He lifted his stump into a more comfortable position and began to compose a reply to young Joseph.

 

The chief problem was that young Joseph was still a minor. Despite that, he was knowledgeable about his prospective amputations and the variety of artificial limbs then available to him. Greg had corresponded with the boy for over two years, explaining first the legal requirements for membership and encouraging him to patience and maturity. Joseph had applied three years ago for consideration and at the tender age of fourteen had thrown the company into turmoil, alarmed that their most exclusive service was somehow known online.

 

It was a relief to learn that Joseph had cajoled the information from a successful applicant who had been sworn to silence but had revealed the source of his amputations anyway. There may have been a family link or some other close relationship. In any case, Joseph’s request was premature and his desired alterations were both unusual and disabling. Greg squirmed in his chair to balance himself in a more secure position and ensured that his word processing app was disconnected from A.I.

 

Diolch am gysylltu â ni eto. Rydym yn dal i gynllunio i’ch derbyn i’n rhaglen. Byddwch yn amyneddgar os gwelwch yn dda!

(Thanks for contacting us again. We still plan to accept you into our program. Please be patient!)

 

Joseph was an extraordinary example of the early desire to alter one’s body in order to use artificial limbs. Greg himself had known around the age of fourteen that he wanted his natural leg amputated, initially below the knee so he could use a conventional prosthesis or a wooden leg if he wanted. He researched everything to do with amputations and rehabilitation and by the time he left school, he knew as much about the subject as professional prosthetists.

 

There was a small group of friends centred around Greg at school. They admired him for his good looks and his willingness to share answers to homework questions. And they admired his nonchalant manner of walking with one crutch to replace his left leg which he always claimed he could not remember having. It had been lost in a road accident also involving his parents which killed his Portuguese father. He had been placed in care after his recovery while his mother recovered from her own physical and mental traumas. Greg was returned to her shortly before starting primary school. In those early days, he wore a leather corset to which his fake leg was attached, a footless hollow leg‑shaped prosthesis cast made of plaster of Paris. It was a useless hindrance which simply hung from his hip but his young body learned to swing it in order to hop forward on his sound leg. His surgeon had opted to leave his young patient with a short rounded stump too short to hold an artificial limb rather than perform a disarticulation of the entire leg.

 

Joseph Jones read Greg’s reply with some relief. He realised that he would have to wait a few more years and would probably have to organise his life so that his disability would not prove to be insurmountable. He already had a savings account for minors with a major bank and squirreled money away whenever possible. It was intended for his first prostheses.

 

Having seen to the morning’ most urgent correspondence, Greg when out onto the shop floor to see how the latest batch of limbs was progressing. The printer was halfway through producing a lower leg in iridescent black. Wesley Fisher was sewing the harness for an arm amputee and Wally Banks was prompting A.I. to generate improvements to the socket for the same patient. As a bilateral arm amputee himself, Wally was happiest when he could apply his own personal knowledge and experience to helping new amputees get the best start in their new lives. Wally had been with the company from the outset and used the secretive exclusive service to gradually sculpt his body into its current form. His left hand was first replaced by a hook. His legs were next. He had walked on bilateral below‑knee prostheses for five years. Finally, his right hand was also exchanged for a hook. All that remained now was to savour the pleasure of his truncated limbs while he determined what further revisions to his stumps might be most lucrative. Wally’s two extrovert video channels brought him a considerable income each month. One showed his prosthetic limbs in action, the other concentrated on his naked stumps and his prowess with a series of lovers, both male and female.

 

Wesley Fisher was more conservative in his outlook. He had been an aficionado of amputees since early childhood when he saw a man wearing a full‑length plaster cast on his leg for the first time. He was held up by two wooden crutches. Wesley had never seen anything like it before. He assumed he had asked his mother what was going on and told not to stare but his interest was seeded and by the time he started secondary school, not a day passed without him fantasising about a wide range of disabilities. Most of all, he loved to see amputees, especially those who were not yet experienced with their artificial limbs. It was inevitable that he should direct his studies towards becoming a prosthetist and he found satisfaction in returning maimed patients to functionality.

 

Greg spoke with both men for a moment to catch up on their progress. He could see what they were working on plainly enough and knew which client the arm was for. It was one of the voluntaries, a short muscular man with a fashionable wifebeater moustache and cropped hair who had wished to lose both hands. He was a personal trainer and assured Greg he did not need hands to succeed in his profession. He wanted both hands amputated at the wrist in order to maintain his muscular forearms which only he would see after being fitted with artificial arms and steel hooks which he had fetishised for as long as he could remember. It was unusual for someone who placed so much emphasis on physical perfection to transform himself into a bilateral amputee but there were several examples of amputee weightlifters and bodybuilders whose truncated arms and stumps suited their physiques perfectly. There was no reason why the client could not join them, especially after he had regained body symmetry through the loss of his remaining hand. Greg and Wesley would follow the client’s progress with his new hook and if they were assured that the man could cope with a second stump, Greg would contact their private surgeon for a repeat performance. He was a secretive man known to them only by the unusual name Jame who accepted payment to a Swiss bank account under an assumed name. His caution was understandable. He would be struck off if it became known that he undertook twenty or so illicit amputations every year for those desirous of gaining a stump of their own who had the money to pay. Jame was not a greedy man and Greg suspected that he might agree to amputate Joseph’s hands for a reduced price, considering the boy’s youth and improbable access to great wealth. Joseph was an average schoolboy from the Welsh valleys. Greg admired him for his resolution to use hooks and wanted to help him achieve his aim. But before that, the personal trainer would be in the spotlight for prosthetic care and psychological review.

 

Greg and Jame formed a close relationship during the years of Greg’s transformation. Jame had discovered Greg and Wally’s newly founded prosthetics company Obsidian Ltd and paid a visit to see if the establishment met his standards and to introduce himself as a possible source of revenue. There were certain deals which might be done, mutually advantageous, and without revealing overmuch, suggested that potential elective amputees could be referred to him for treatment. Greg grabbed the chance and persuaded Jame to embark on a series of amputations which would allow the already one‑legged crutch user the opportunity to savour increasing disability. Jame’s first procedure was the removal of the front part of Greg’s left foot. He was left with his ankle and heel. For two years, Greg wore a rigid cylindrical leather boot until the sudden onset of phantom pain drove him to demand Jame re-amputate his leg below the knee. For the following three years, Greg walked on both an exoskeletal prosthesis which resembled a natural leg and various peg legs, all produced by Wally on their printer.

 

Greg favoured wooden full‑length axial crutches and became expert at swinging his single peg leg between the crutches. Greg still sought new disability and his last amputation had been that of his knee in favour of a long above‑knee stump. He owned a conventional prosthetic leg with a mechanical knee joint and his long stubby, his elegant white peg leg, which he used almost exclusively. It tapered to a circular rubber base six centimetres in diameter twenty centimetres below where his knee had been. He was shorter and found it another aspect of his disability. He had been inspired to adopt the peg after he saw an eighty year old film about a Second World War veteran who connived his way back into the British Air Force as a double leg amputee. At one point, there was a three second shot of the man on crutches swinging along on an incongruous white conical peg leg. The sight burned itself into Greg’s mind and he determined then, as a one‑legged teenager, that one day he too would strut about on a single peg leg. He had achieved his goal. He pegged back to his desk and called across to Wesley, asking if it might be time for elevenses. Greg was too disabled to carry a mug of coffee himself and Wesley gladly served as the coffee boy because neither of the others brewed proper coffee.

 

The personal assistant’s left arm prosthesis was ready for fitting by the end of the afternoon. Greg inspected it and commended Wally for his meticulous attention to detail. The entire device was black including the anodised hook which might reveal its steel heart as it wore in use. The socket was not only polished to a high gloss, it had received an application of a polymer lacquer which deepened its shine. It resembled a piece of jewellery. Greg sent a text to the client inviting him for his first fitting at his convenience, asking only for an hour’s advance warning ahead of his arrival.  Three minutes later a reply arrived suggesting nine thirty the following morning, to which Greg replied with a smilie.

 

In honour of his birthday, Greg took his colleagues to a nearby Japanese restaurant for drinks and a meal. Instead of the expected sushi, Wesley and Wally insisted on treating Greg to a four course meal, including kaiseki ryori prepared by a chef at their table. They became light‑headed from sake but stopped after one bottle, knowing that the next day they would need to be clear‑headed. Wally was provided with a small selection of forks and spoons in a leather‑wrapped pot which he might find easier to use than traditional hashi, chopsticks. It was an expensive evening, worth every penny. Kicking his peg leg along the darkened street afterwards, Greg felt that it had been a good day, one of the rare ones. Thirty was a good age. Old enough to know what he wanted from life and young enough to have a lifetime ahead to enjoy it. His one thought was about ordering a longer stubby, or to be honest about it, a long peg leg. This short one was great to use and he enjoyed the relentless unforgiving rigidity around his stump. He wanted to be taller. He could use his artificial leg for that but he wanted the additional disability of no knee. He would ask Wally to start work on designing a new peg leg. It would be his thirtieth birthday present to himself.

 

As arranged, the one‑handed personal trainer whose name was John‑Peter Diamond or J.P. for short, made an appearance at the agreed time. His stump was gripped by a silicone liner and Wally inspected its shape and condition. J.P. had insisted that the stump maintain its bulk and tone after the amputation and settled for the disarticulation of his hand from the wrist with the understanding that the stump could be revised at a later date. Now he arrived holding his maimed arm at an angle in the tell‑tale way common to new arm amputees and continually studied the hairless bony tip before Wally brought him his new prosthesis and indicated that he could don it for the first time. J.P. was fascinated by Wally’s hooks. He used them so effortlessly, exactly as he might use natural hands. The two steel fingers, the only parts of the devices with movement, opened and closed at exactly the precisely correct time. Wally had used hooks since destroying his hands deliberately in early November fifteen years previously using a box of fireworks to do so and relearned to write during his sixth form studies at grammar school. He had been the only amputee on his university campus and still had a large number of friends and useful contacts from those days, most of them initially attracted by his disability. Wally helped position J.P.’s harness across his shoulders and guided him through the motions necessary to operate the hook. The high gloss socket looked superb, unusual for its apparent bulk and shape. J.P. twisted the hook to inspect it from different angles and decided then and there that he would aim at acquiring matching equipment for his remaining hand. Wally eschewed the childish tests to ensure the client understood how to use the new prosthesis. It was sufficient to point out the two methods to open the hook. The client would discover all the tricks for himself in a few weeks. Wally and the other staff congratulated him on achieving his amputee status and assured him that they would always be there to help with any problems they might be able to advise on. Greg handed him a paper bill for several thousand pounds, forcing J.P. to accept it with his left hook. He folded it and stuffed it into his back pocket, inserted his hook through the loop between the arms of his jacket, threw it over his shoulder and left with his new prosthesis on full view. His natural arm echoed the shape of the glistening black socket. Elated as he was at that moment by finally being in possession of his very own prosthesis, J.P. had the annoying sensation of being incomplete and unsymmetrical. He intended to use his left hook for as much as possible over the next few months in order to rely on it when his right arm was also a muscular stump.

 

Wally archived A J.P.’s data, suspecting that the man would be back. The socket could be expanded or shrunken by a few percent if necessary with the application of heat but Wally’s main thought was that a second socket, the mirror image of the left, might be required in the not too distant future. He had noted the attention J.P. paid to his own hooks and recognised the hungry look of exasperation on the man’s face. Greg returned to his desk and set up a notification from his bank when J.P.’s account was balanced. A new email from Jame arrived in the interim. He was anxious to know if Greg’s company had any interest in providing a forty‑six year old lorry driver with a pair of stubby legs.

 

The man had been seriously injured in a motorway accident, trapped by his legs in his cab which caught fire. He was left hanging outside his driver’s door which had been forced open and was one of the first to be rescued but not before his lower legs were almost incinerated. After a months long hospital stay, he was discharged in a wheelchair with a pair of severely scarred and mismatched leg stumps. They were uncomfortable. The reconstructed stumps had healed but the scarred skin was too tight, it itched and his remaining knee had restricted movement making it useless for prosthetic use. He used the wheelchair for eighteen months and accepted that he would never return to working life until he read the inevitable amputation story in an old copy of Reader’s Digest about an American trucker who had similarly lost both legs but who learned to walk on stubbies. He returned to driving a specially adapted rig. By luck, the new amputee met a pair of garish gentlemen in a Brighton pub, both of whom were quadruple amputees, who flaunted their artificial limbs and who recommended that he contact Jame. They assured him Jame would re-amputate his useless ugly leg remnants, leaving him with a pair of comfortable short stumps which would let him choose between sitting in a wheelchair or walking on truncated legs. Jame performed dual amputations, creating beefy rounded stumps ideal for use with short stubbies. Now the remnants of his legs were healed and after some correspondence, Jame recommended Obsidian to the driver. Greg invited him in for a consultation.

 

Joseph Jones had received bad news after his examinations. He had not scored well enough to continue to the sixth form college as he had expected and spent much of his time in his bedroom moping about his lost opportunities, emphasised by both parents at every mealtime. He scrolled through photo sites of amputees and re-watched video snippets of bilateral hook users going about their daily business a hundred times and more. One of his friends from school was in a similar situation and Joseph dared him to help out with an audacious plan he was hatching. Out of sheer boredom, his friend Glyn agreed and the way to Joseph’s double amputations was clear. Joseph found a source of frozen carbon dioxide, which was commonly used during transport of frozen goods to supermarkets and which was regularly simply discarded after use. According to the literature, Joseph would need about ten kilos of the stuff. He dared not try at home because he needed to keep his hands in a boxful of the dry ice for at least six hours to make sure his hands froze all the way through.

 

So on a sunny day at the end of August, Joseph and Glyn dressed in casual clothes and hung around near the loading bays of their nearest large supermarket, part of a shopping centre which served two hundred thousand people. Glyn purloined an unused plastic container which used to be full of fishing gear, floats and hooks and spools of line. The idea was that the two friends would find a quiet spot behind the bins, away from the car park. Joseph would put his hands through two holes in the container which Glyn would keep filled with pellets of dry ice begged from lorry drivers who were about to drive off. They had no great regard for what the kid might want the stuff for and Glyn had a ready explanation ready involving a chemistry experiment. Much to their amazement, the two drivers he approached simply told him to take as much dry ice as he wanted. Drowsy from the effects of a dangerous combination of painkillers, Joseph allowed Glyn to surround his hands with the frozen pellets. They were painfully cold but twenty minutes later, he could no longer move his hands. They watched people going about their daily business through the gap between bins. Glyn flicked through his phone and held the screen for Joseph to see cool things. Every half hour, Glyn added fresh ice. Joseph’s hands began to look alarming, changing colour from a healthy pink to blue, purple and finally something truly disgusting. Not being sure what to do next, they argued about how they were going to get out of the situation. In the end, they decided the best thing to do was for Glyn to call for an ambulance from the shopping centre’s public phone which was free and then hang around outside somewhere where he could check that the ambulance actually arrived. After that, no‑one would know what he had been up to. His parents would wonder where he had been all day but that was no problem.

 

Ten weeks later, Greg heard from Joseph. Once again, the message was in Welsh, most of which Greg understood, having studied it as a hobby since he was twenty and discovered his heritage in the historic nation. It was a wonderful secret code. Greg was unsure of his comprehension this time, however. Joseph said he wanted artificial arms made but would be able to pay only in instalments after he found a job. Greg asked why and after several return emails, the situation became clearer. Joseph had frozen his hands and explained it as a mishap involving fake illicit narcotics which had knocked him unconscious. He awoke covered in dry ice at the bottom of a container where drivers dumped residual dry ice before returning to their depôts. The story was entirely plausible. The boy’s forearms were unsalvageable and Joseph was left with stumps a couple of centimetres long below his elbows. He was tired of his mother feeding him and needed a pair of artificial arms with hooks. It was what he had always yearned for except now he had a genuine need. His stumps were much shorter than what he had wanted and expected. He saw himself bearing long residual forearm stumps to manipulate things but instead, he had hardly enough stump onto which a prosthetic forearm would fit. He would never use artificial arms as proficiently as a man with half his forearms remaining and might even need to rely on the same dual‑operation prostheses intended for above‑elbow amputees. It was his choice. Greg was sure the boy had gone too far. Instead of brandishing a handsome pair of stumps on occasion, Joseph was destined to wear his artificial arms on a permanent basis, never to expose his naked stumps. Half his desires had come true. Greg accepted Joseph as a client, naturally enough. They had corresponded regularly for three years and Greg already felt like he knew the boy. Now Joseph was almost a man and in desperate need of prosthetic assistance. Greg determined to help out and to put financial matters on the back burner, at least temporarily. Perhaps the boy could be treated pro bono. Greg discussed his case with his two colleagues. They agreed Joseph would benefit from a modified pair of above‑elbow prostheses with long sockets in whose operation his elbows could play no part. The upper arm socket would accommodate the useless below‑elbow stumps. The forearms would attach higher up the socket than usual.

 

Greg informed Joseph of their decision, mentioning that he should not worry about financing his new arms at this stage. He invited Joseph to visit Obsidian for a fitting and turned his attention to the legless former lorry driver who was due in turn for his fitting the next morning. Greg made sure any potential obstacles were cleared off the floor and Wally ensured there was enough robust nylon and carbon resin to print a sturdy pair of stubbies at short order.

 

The man arrived promptly the next morning, propelling himself in a lever‑operated wheelchair. It was a device for extroverts, commanding attention for its unusual design and unusual user. He introduced himself to the three men waiting for him as Andy Peters. He was bald with a long and full greying beard tied into a plait. It rested on a well‑worn motorcycle jacket. His meagre stumps were invisible, wearing a pair of black football shorts tucked under his stumps. He thanked the trio for agreeing to see him at such short notice and, without prompting, launched into an explanation of the reasons for his leglessness and his intentions to walk again as well as could be expected. He spoke of the various kinds of stubbies he had seen other amputee men wearing and suggested that he would probably do best with a pair of short pylons with metal feet. Wally always preferred to manufacture prostheses from as few components as possible and suggested that Peters might be interested in seeing a few unique designs he had already started work on before committing to the conventional style. Peters was delighted. Wesley and Greg left the two to their own devices. Both of them were relieved to find Andy Peters jovial and enthusiastic about his prospects. They had no doubt the man would shortly be venturing out on his first pair of stump boots.

 

The two men sat together creating the virtual stubbies which changed from a pair of basic cylindrical legs with rubber bases to a similar more conical version and then to a pair of short traditional peg legs, about which Peters was noticeably more enthusiastic. Wally was careful not to extend the pegs beyond where the amputee’s knees had been, knowing that a greater length implied greater problems with stability and inconvenience when seated. Two hours later, Andy Peters signed the papers for a pair of knee length traditional peg legs in black carbon with fat rubber ferrules, attached to nylon stump sockets by the pin‑lock system. Wesley came to Wally’s assistance to manipulate the scanner, which Wally found cumbersome to use with his hooks. Virtual copies of the client’s stumps appeared onscreen and after replacing his football shorts, Peters asked if he might stay a little longer to watch the process. As he was surprisingly interested in the process, he was allowed to stay until A.I. had optimised the scans to produce the stump sockets and peg leg stubbies. Virtual peg legs slowly rotated onscreen. Only the printing phase was left. Wally estimated two to three days and told his client that he would be notified by text message when the new pegs were ready.

 

Peters slid back into his wheelchair and turned on the spot. He bid farewell and Wesley held the door open for him. He pumped the levers with his muscular arms and returned to his brother’s flat by Underground where he was staying temporarily. They had not met since shortly after the accident and his brother was delighted to see him in such an upbeat mood. His wife was more wary, never having ever seen a man without legs but their teenage son David was all over his uncle, demanding to know everything about his amputations and what it really felt like to have such short stumps. Peters was initially amused by the boy’s interest until he began to suspect it was really an obsession. His thoughts were correct. His nephew, although only fifteen, had fetishised limblessness for ten years ever since seeing a man in shorts on one artificial leg crutching along the street. The other leg was missing entirely. The boy had never seen anything so fascinating and started fantasising about limblessness. He tied his own lithe limbs tightly to resemble stumps and later researched the possibilities of injuring himself in exactly the right way to produce whatever stumps he currently wanted. Even in the company of his legless uncle, he was still not sure whether he might prefer to lose a leg or an arm, one or two, above or below the joint. David’s destiny was soon to be decided.

 

Wally immediately set to work printing first the pliable nylon sockets which additionally served to protect the tender skin around the client’s groin. He asked Wesley to complete the prints by screwing the attachment pins into the preprinted holes, something else he found difficult to do with his hooks. Although he had easy access to a wide variety of hook attachments for his prostheses, he preferred to use non‑articulating wrists and basic unsymmetrical hooks, the very minimum configuration available. Other artificial wrists could enable rotation or inflection but Wally preferred to contend with the restrictions imposed by his choice of hooks. He enjoyed wearing artificial arms which advertised his bilateral amputee status and found their use fulfilling, far more so than using natural hands. His similarly disfigured clients admired his dexterity and determined to learn similar prosthetic skills.

 

The nylon sockets were ready and just before leaving, Wally changed the resin for a sturdy black carbon version which would, if all went well, produce a pair of short peg legs overnight, the length of a man’s thigh and strength better than steel. His computer aided design program estimated that each peg could withstand a load of nearly three hundred kilos without danger of splitting. The bald and bearded user was safe.

 

Wesley took the four components and spent several hours to ensure that the peg legs would attach securely to the client’s sockets. Greg was interested to see how Peters would adapt to wearing peg legs after being without any prosthetics for nearly two years. He would have preferred to see his client accept a pair of broad cylindrical stubbies first but assumed that Peters intended to remain principally a wheelchair user and that the peg legs were intended to allow him to leave his chair for short periods of time. He was mistaken.

 

Peters received notice at the end of the afternoon that his pegs were ready for testing. He was welcome to drop in any time after nine the following morning. He arrived at nine fifteen, and with a final pull on his wheelchair’s levers, allowed himself to roll across the room to a stop opposite Greg at his desk. Greg was not surprised to see the grin on Peters’ face and invited him to join Wesley and Wally in the lab. Greg was ensconced comfortably in his chair and did not want to leave it merely to escort Peters, who knew well enough where to go. Wesley took on the job of preparing the man’s stumps, showing how to apply various ointments and unguents to ensure a sterile and healthy environment for continual prosthetic use. Peters grabbed both translucent sockets and Wesley demonstrated how the vacuum seal worked. Peters’ short stumps were already invisible under the enveloping sockets with the serrated pins ready to attach to what he was really waiting for, his first ever peg legs. Wally brought them, cradled in his artificial arms and Wesley again spent time explaining the pin attachment mechanism and the importance of correct alignment. Peters insisted that he understood and, one by one, the former lorry driver, legless for so long, was equipped with the most basic prosthetic legs. His lightweight peg legs remained suspended instead of resting on the bench. Looking down and seeing the foreshortened pegs, he tilted his head back and laughed at his new appearance. Wesley assisted him from the bench to the parallel bars, where Peters discovered that he might not be leaving the premises strutting out on his new pegs after all. His first attempts at walking were nothing less than comical. He lifted his stumps far too high, thrusting the peg legs into the air. He quickly realised that only the minimal movement of his thigh stumps was required. He learned to splay his stumps a little in order to swing the pegs around. He lifted himself up by his arms at each end of the bars until Wesley suggested he try spinning himself on one peg. Despite all the unexpected problems and challenges, Peters was thoroughly enjoying himself, delighted at being upright again and walking in some fashion. He had been optimistic enough to bring a pair of basic health service walking sticks with him. They were strapped to the seat of his wheelchair.

 

Greg took a break from his work to see how Peters was progressing. He stood leaning on his crutches, watching silently as Peters re‑enacted the attention‑grabbing movements which had attracted Greg to consider walking on a peg leg. Peters’ pegs were shorter than the device he had admired but the shape of the pegs and their rigidity reaffirmed their attraction. Greg was satisfied with his white conical peg. It was practical and conspicuous. He could ask for nothing more if he was honest with himself but seeing Peters struggling, the old desire for heightened disability reawoke. He would ask Wally to start work on a long peg for himself as soon as possible. He would need new crutches, a pair considerably longer than what he was accustomed to. It would be fine to stand tall.

 

He returned to his desk and positioned his stump back into the depression his peg legs had worn into the seat. He composed a follow‑up email to the personal assistant, asking how well the artificial arm and hook were performing in ordinary day‑to‑day life. He kept a close eye on his emails, expecting a reply from Joseph Jones asking for an appointment any day. The boy was doubly disabled by the mere fact that he lived in a part of the country with non‑existent public transport. He would have to find someone who could drive him to the nearest station and accompany him the rest of the way, at the very least. In the end, one of his uncle’s drove him. Joseph soon learned to use his hooks. His schoolmates hung out with him to watch him eat a burger and drink a coke manipulating his hooks. Joseph became a minor local celebrity. It was unusual these days for a local lad to lose not one limb but two after the mines had closed. It was common enough in the old days for the town to have several ex‑miner amputees who spent their days in the pub nursing half a pint in the warm.

 

Peters, the determined lorry driver, received new peg legs. Wally returned to his work station to find a message from Greg asking if Wally still had the files used for his present peg leg. Wally guessed what was to come, knowing Greg’s history of amputation and re‑amputation and his astonishing desire to make life difficult for himself. Wally checked that the data for Greg’s white peg leg still existed, reloaded it to check it was viable, and replied with a single smilie. Greg would understand. Wally had no idea what Greg had in mind except that it would be unexpected and a fascinating challenge.

 

Wesley was impressed by Peters’ progress. The man had learned to kick his stumps forward just enough to position the rubber tip of each peg far enough that he could swing his other stump around for the next step. He was, to all intents and purposes, walking on two short peg legs with only the occasion touch of the parallel bars for support. When Wesley suggested enough was enough for one day, Peters mentioned the walking sticks he had brought with him, both almost a metre long. He insisted he would be able to use his peg legs if he had short walking sticks to support him and requested Wesley to shorten them to a suitable length so he could lean on them. It was easily done and a pair of sticks with the rubber ferrules transferred was soon in Peters’ hands. He tried to balance on his pegs and found that tottering from one peg to the other was a good way for the time being to stay upright. But he always had to grab the parallel bar after a few seconds. The shortened walking sticks looked extremely orthotic and deviant. Peters took them from Wesley and found his new balance on four ferrules. He felt invincible and slowly made his way out from between the bars into the main space of the lab, carefully thinking of which extremity to move next. There is only one way for a four legged creature to walk. Peters discovered it after a few minutes. The sturdiness of the short walking sticks in his strong hands let him lean forward slightly, allowing weight off the peg legs which he had already learned to swing out and around. He laughed at the novelty of the situation and the knowledge that he would be able to resume driving as soon as he had mastered his quadruped walk. His walking sticks looked severely disabling. He loved their appearance. He spun himself and returned to the bench where his shorts and jacket awaited and suggested he was ready to call it a day. Wesley lifted him slightly to allow Peters to pull his shorts up. The peg legs poked forward as they always would when he was seated. Wesley hung the short walking sticks over the wheelchair’s back rest and Peters made a grateful exit. It was seven o’clock. Obsidian’s staff had remained on site while their client acclimatised himself to legs again.

 

Peters’ journey back to his brother’s house was one of the last he made in his wheelchair. Although he enjoyed its unusual method of propulsion, which attracted considerable attention in public, he was eager to relearn to walk because it was so vital for his return to driving for a living. He had received a life‑changing amount of financial compensation for his injuries and need never work again but he missed the camaraderie of the road and the easy relationships with professional contacts all over the country. His wife was still delighted to have him at home and their love life had improved beyond what might be expected of a couple both pushing fifty. She loved being enveloped by the meagre stumps and believed that the new shorter versions were responsible for allowing her man deeper penetration and longer coitus. His renewed sex life was one of the reasons why Peters maintained such a positive attitude despite being so severely crippled. He fully intended to adopt primitive stubbies for the rest of his life. They were macho and eminently practical. He was grateful to the staff at Obsidian for suggesting peg legs instead of the cylindrical stubbies other DAKs usually wore. He had no aversion to carrying a pair of short walking sticks with him. He had watched the way his peg legs moved. He regarded it as the ultimate in rehabilitation.

 

His brother and wife were treated to a short demonstration of his new legs. His brother pitied Andy for his misfortune and his sister‑in‑law found the peg legs too deviant. But fifteen year old David was tremendously impressed by seeing his uncle’s amazing way of walking and wanted to know everything about the new pegs. They sat in David’s bedroom discussing Uncle Andy’s re‑amputations and the process of equipping him with a new set of legs. After ten minutes or so, it was obvious what the boy intended. The older Peters was silent, considering the implications of what he might advise the boy, but he knew how he himself had bounced back after the revision of his original stumps and that leglessness was not necessarily the end of an active lifestyle. He swore the boy to secrecy and revealed the fact that amputations were available for a price, as were artificial legs. David fell silent in turn, uncomfortable with an erection in his trousers which his uncle had noted as soon as the door closed and they sat on David’s bed. Finally, he asked if he might touch the peg legs. Peters grunted his permission and David ran his hands along the shafts and up as far as the sockets which gripped his uncle’s stumps. He bowed his head and groaned while his balls emptied themselves. Peters fell back laughing at the boy’s embarrassment and fathomed that his stumps had conquered two of his closest relatives. David excused himself. Peters merely twitched his peg legs and exhorted David to clean himself up before they rejoined his parents. Seeing the boy still suffering from a semi, he made a rash offer, saying that he encouraged David to go for what he truly wanted from life and if that meant walking on artificial legs, he would give David his full support. Peters’ financial compensation for his injuries would be more than enough to turn his nephew into a limbless torso if he so desired. David need only ask, but the time was not now. He would have to wait until adulthood, two and a half years hence. Peters imagined himself at that time, adept on his peg legs, famous among his friends and colleagues for overcoming his disability with panache and good humour. Surely his nephew could manage the same.

 

Later that evening, Peters realised that he had left his phone at Obsidian. He was annoyed at himself for being so lax. It must have slid put of his shorts pocket when they were on the casting couch. It was too late to send texts but next day was a Saturday and with luck he would be able to call in to collect his phone before catching an early afternoon train home. He complained about his forgetfulness but his brother said that he must have had other thoughts on his mind when he left the prosthetist place. It was true. David, with innocent guile, asked if he could go with his uncle to collect the phone and see him off at the station. His parents agreed. It saved them the bother of doing the same thing and David was old enough to be trusted on the streets of London, at least in daylight hours.

 

Wally had spotted the phone and taken it with him. He was the only member of Obsidian who owned a car, a small two person electric three wheeler, ideal for a bilateral hook user with its handlebar steering and controls. The next morning, a chain of texts flew between the four and back to Greg, who informed Peters that his phone was safe with Wally. Apart from the relief that it had been found, Peters was concerned about getting it back before his train left. Greg gave Peters Wally’s phone number and the two men agree to meet on Paddington station’s concourse an hour before the two o’clock departure. They could have lunch together and Peters would be accompanied by his nephew.

 

Wally made his way from his Pimlico flatshare to Paddington in good time. It was cold out so he wore a white hooded puffer jacket with NASA emblems, light enough to allow him full use of his artificial arms and hooks, which were almost concealed by the tight elasticated overlong sleeves. He spotted his client immediately when he entered the concourse with his lanky blond nephew at his side. He walked over to join them and after a few pleasantries, handed over the phone. David suddenly realised that the man was an amputee and his interest peaked. Peters suggested they go get a pizza for lunch and he was paying. Peters propelled himself across to an Italian restaurant instead of one of the chains, accompanied by Wally and his nephew who was already excited by seeing a man with a hook eating a pizza.

 

Once inside, Wally slipped his bulky jacket off. He was wearing a white T‑shirt, almost compulsory underwear for arm amputees. David stared at two artificial arms and once again felt the inevitable pressure of a misplaced erection. He squirmed in his seat. Both Peters senior and Wally were left in no doubt that the young man was an admirer. Only Peters knew he was also a wannabe and suspected that the display of Wally’s artificial arms might give the boy more ideas. Indeed, David forgot his uncle’s peg legs and concentrated on Wally’s amazing hooks which were far more desirable than mere leg stumps to his mind. He tried not to stare but it was far too late for that. Wally gently asked if David was interested to see how his hooks worked, as he seemed interested. David gulped and replied that he was, so while waiting for their order to arrive, Wally gave a complete explanation of his apparatus, as comprehensive as only a prosthetist could give. David’s interest veered from lusting after the appearance of double hooks to imagining himself operating artificial hands or hooks himself. Maybe he could even become a man with peg legs and hooks. The inevitable happened but this time David had to eat his pizza and travel home halfway across London with a dark sodden stain across his beige chinos for all to see.

 

There followed a period towards Christmas and into the New Year when Obsidian had a normal input of work for amputees who required only single limbs and who made no great impression on the three men. So it continued for several weeks until an almost apologetic email arrived from the muscle‑bound personal assistant asking about the availability of service at the end of April. Anticipating only an order for a new prosthetic arm due to the changing shape of a fresh stump, Greg replied that he would be welcome, that his prosthetic data was on file and that he was assured of a quick turnaround.

 

Business continued as usual. Greg maintained contact with former clients, never wishing to intrude but enquiring how well the prostheses they had supplied were holding up. It was not only diligent aftercare, it was also covert advertising, reminding their clients that they still existed. Above‑elbow clients most frequently responded to the enquiries, which often led to the production of a new arm of a different design, masterfully crafted by Wally. In mid-April, Greg received a message from the one‑armed personal trainer requesting a fitting as soon as possible. Wally expected no great difficulties. The data was on file and Wesley would hardly be overworked. Welcome, replied Greg and suggested an afternoon time when the place was quieter.

 

His arrival threw Obsidian’s preparations for him out the window. In the interim, the trainer had paid a visit to Jame for a few days in early February and departed a week later with a distinctly muscular right upper arm stump, long enough for its bulbous tip to peek out of his T‑shirt’s sleeve. Greg was both shocked and intrigued. Why did a man who had sculpted his body to masculine perfection wish to disable himself? For two months, J.P. learned to function as a one‑armed man. The arm was artificial. Greg assured him that it would be perfectly possible to manufacture an above‑elbow prosthesis and suspend both arms from a new double harness. He called Wally to join them to discuss his prosthetic options. Wally was equally surprised but pleased to see J.P. again after several months. They had got on well together and Wally now suspected that his own bilateral status had played some part in persuading J.P. to maim himself further. His new long artificial arm and hook would be a challenge for him but he was a right‑handed man and would become a right‑hooked man. His right hook would always be the dominant hook, regardless of how well he could obviously perform with a single left hook.

 

J.P. explained first why he had opted for a more severe amputation than he had originally intended. He had landed a seemingly permanent position as the personal trainer to a Middle Eastern emir who lived in London for much of the year at the top of a City skyscraper in a three hundred square meter penthouse. He was a lonely man, hirsute, heavily bearded, immaculately outfitted daily by his manservant, homosexual and outrageously infatuated with associating himself with amputee men of his own age for company and sexual relations. His predilections would have made him an outcast in his minuscule home country but he was an influential banker and availed himself of London’s decadence. He had been enchanted with J.P’s blond good looks during a chance meeting with a client after noticing the man’s hook. He discretely discovered the man’s contact details and made him the kind of employment offer which J.P. could not refuse. J.P. had shared the penthouse with the manservant and the emir since mid‑January. The emir approved of the man’s intention to gain a second stump and preferred to see something much shorter. J.P. agreed, first reluctantly and then with greater enthusiasm. He now enjoyed displaying the fully healed remnant of his right arm to his ‘boyfriend’ who sucked and fondled it at night. J.P. had only one request for Wally. He wanted the artificial forearm to appear as muscular as his left prosthesis. He would maintain his hard‑won physical symmetry and body image. Wally assured him that it was quite possible and escorted the man into his workshop to scan the new stump and begin the design of J.P’s second prosthesis.

 

Andy Peters had applied for driving permits as an amputee and undergone the requisite tests in a manually operated rig. The adaptations were not what Peters himself would have chosen. He spent time and effort, visiting several dealers of new electric lorries which could easily be converted to manual operation and researching apparatus offered by several companies to enable even legless drivers to operate heavy cargo rigs. He was waiting for the arrival of a spanking new Volvo head which would already have his preferred adaptations fitted. He had worn his peg legs on all his journeys, trusting in his short walking sticks for balance although he had learned to totter short distances on his pegs without support. The walking sticks were inconvenient at times and he considered the odd combination of peg and crutches which the guy at Obsidian used. If he had the same kind of crutches, he would be able to free his hands momentarily to sign something or otherwise use his hands. Maybe he could even get longer peg legs. Or make do with just one. He would walk around just as the Obsidian guy did. Greg, that was his name. One long conical peg leg, white of all colours, and a pair of crutches. Greg got around perfectly well. There was no reason why he himself would not be just as mobile. He would discuss it with his wife first in case she did not want to see her man on one rigid peg but it was phallic enough for him to know her answer. He would turn himself into a peg legged driver and strut around like he owned the place. He sent a text to Greg requesting an appointment.

 

J.P. collected his bilateral prosthetic arms. Wesley transferred his older left arm onto the new harness and, with Wally’s verbal guidance, fitted the apparatus onto J.P. The client seemed deluded with the new arm, discovering to his dismay that it did have the same range of motion he was expecting. Wally explained that the restiruction was due to the hinge at the elbow and that he would have to learn to lift the entire prosthesis with his shoulder if he wanted to position the hook how he wanted. Then there was the dual action mechanism which operated both the forearms and the hook attachment. Wally suspected that J.P. assumed the arm’s operation would be much simpler but now he had only his two shoulders and an elbow to operate the hooks. His life would be difficult if he did not master his new arm and Wally warned him of such but pointed out that many men led successful lives in industry and business with two above‑elbow prostheses and that there was no reason why J.P. should not also succeed in anything he turned his mind to. J.P. departed with his two hooks visible from his smart jacket’s sleeves, determined to show his lover how well he could already manipulate his prosthesis. If only he could remember to twitch his arm to swap between lifting or lowering his forearm and opening his hook. His master was delighted to see his lover so completely disabled and their love‑making that night was amongst the best J.P. had ever experienced. He was completely shocked the next morning when his lover insisted that he revise his left stump to make it identical with the right. He would have mere stumps poking from his shoulders and be completely helpless without demanding artificial arms. The emir suggested the end of summer as a deadline and stared at J.P. with dark eyes until he was certain that the man understood. J.P. realised that he had better learn how to use the new prosthesis in a hurry because he would shortly have two of them. He asked the manservant to unscrew his left hook and tape the cable to his socket and for the next weeks compelled himself to use only his new right arm prosthesis. He used his left socket for occasional support.

 

Joseph Jones turned seventeen and spent the summer with his younger cousin in North Wales. His parents were going through a divorce which they had tried to conceal from their son. Now the summer was spent arguing about who would have custody of the boy. As his mother had been unfaithful, his father was granted full responsibility for Joseph. After two weeks of games when his cousin had helped Joseph bind his legs into fat stumps, he returned to a house without his mother. His father explained the situation, which Joseph had intuited. He missed his mother but his mind was full of plans for elective amputations of his legs. He knew he could attach prosthetic legs to his stumps using artificial arms because he had watched videos of other men doing exactly that. He wanted to have both artificial arms with hooks and artificial legs from his knees down. He admired all the boys and men walking on two steel pylons. He knew he would be able to do the same if only he could find some way of getting rid of his feet. He dare not try dry ice again. It would look too suspicious.

 

Coincidentally, Joseph was on Greg’s mind. Many weeks had passed since Greg recommended that Joseph should make an appointment for a fitting. He had discussed Joseph’s case with his colleagues and they agreed to treat it on a pro bono basis, meaning that the boy would not have to pay. Enough time had passed since the amputations for his stumps to have recovered fully. The boy only needed to get himself to Obsidian for treatment. Greg was prepared to accommodate him for the day or two while his prostheses were being printed. He sent a message to Joseph renewing his invitation to make an appointment. Joseph showed his father who replied to Greg for confirmation about the extraordinary generosity. He ran through possible volunteers who might drive his son to London to return a day or two later. Finally, he persuaded his ex‑brother‑in‑law to take a week’s holiday in early October and a date was arranged with Obsidian.

 

Andy Peters returned to work. His new adapted Volvo had cleared customs and been registered. The cab was high above other traffic and Peters found it easier to haul himself up with his arms, scrabbling with his peg legs for some kind of purchase on the narrow steel steps. Once inside, he spread his stumps for better balance and drove using manual controls which he had had a hand in designing. He gradually found regular work, mostly so‑called last mile runs from warehouses and goods depôts to retail outlets. Much of the invoicing was done electronically so Peters did not necessarily need to exit his cab at his destinations. Many of his customers had no idea that the man was legless, neither did many of the other drivers he met on the road. It was just like the old days. Peters was in his element.

 

Joseph’s uncle Gwyn collected him from home and the pair made their way down the M4 to West London. Greg was surprised on meeting Joseph for the first time. He was a tousle‑haired teenager with the suggestion of a blond moustache and much taller than expected. He had a shy smile and averted his eyes when speaking to an adult. He was quite charming. Gwyn stated he had reserved a hotel room for two, making Greg’s kind offer of allowing Joseph to stay with him unnecessary. Wally was ready for the boy and invited Gwyn back in three hours or so.

 

Joseph’s stumps had indeed healed. His elbows were both healthy and intact and his forearm stumps were short semispherical appendages which would be useless to operate conventional below‑elbow prostheses with. The boy had to all intents and purposes become an above‑elbow amputee as far as prosthetic care was concerned. He would always rely on artificial arms which were initially difficult and afterwards merely demanding to use. But the long above‑elbow sockets were designed in such a way that it would be possible to lean on the elbows, something most users of similar arms could not do. Joseph had managed fairly well at home with his naked stumps. They were useful for some things but he was looking forward to having arms again.

 

Wally showed him the virtual set of prostheses he had designed specifically for Joseph. The model was ready and needed only tweaking with the boy’s actual data. Wally explained that Joseph would lose the use of his elbows while he wore his arms because his stumps were too short to control a pair of hooks. He shucked his prostheses to reveal his own stumps, which were optimum for using hooks with. Joseph nodded his admiration. Wally removed Joseph’s T-shirt and scanned his upper body from every angle. He uploaded the data to A.I. and waited for a virtual model to appear onscreen. Joseph replaced his T‑shirt by himself, which Wally was pleased to see. Shortly a three dimensional model of Joseph’s upper body appeared alongside the virtual prostheses. Wally needed only to program one model’s dimensions onto the other.

 

Wally’s model featured perfectly straight cylindrical forearms. They looked artificial at a single glance but had the advantage of weighing the very minimum and the wrist mechanism with its hook would seat firmly into the end of the cylinder. Wally asked Joseph to confirm that he was satisfied with the design, that he would not prefer the appearance of more natural forearms. Joseph assured him that the tubes were OK. He had the choice of flesh tone or black for his carbon arms. Joseph had already thought about which he preferred and, surprisingly, asked for pink. Wally overlaid a third set of data onto the virtual arms to subtract slots and screwholes for additional steel components which the arms would need to function. That was Wesley’s department after the components had printed.

 

Joseph was no longer needed while Wally finessed the final STL files before printing. He had actually begun to feel embarrassed by the way Joseph stared at his stumps and hooks but felt sorry for the lad. He would always be encumbered by the two‑phase operation of his mechanical body‑powered arms although he might become skilful enough for them to become second nature. It all depended on how Joseph acclimatised himself to being so severely disabled. Wally suspected the boy regarded it all as a bit of a lark, some kind of adventure. Joseph returned to Greg’s desk and announced that they were finished for today, which was not quite true but Greg understood. Greg offered a coke while Joseph waited for his uncle to return and he accepted. He could manage cans of coke with his stumps. Greg rose from his seat and grabbed his crutches. He pegged across the room to their fridge and put two cans into the pockets of his shorts. Joseph stared at the most incredible sight. The man was walking on one peg leg, white, and kicked it ahead of him while leaning on short crutches. Joseph had never imagined anything like it. When he imagined himself as a leg amputee, he always had two artificial legs whose shapes altered as and when he saw a new design. This guy had a single peg leg. He crutched over to Joseph and told him to take one of the cans. Joseph squashed his stumps together to pick it out of Joseph’s pocket and held it up to be opened. Greg pulled the tab and returned to his seat. Joseph stared at the astonishing white peg leg and knew he wanted the same. Then he remembered his artificial arms. He would never be able to use crutches with a pair of hooks. But maybe if he had two white peg legs, he would learn to walk on them. That was what he would do. All he needed to do was find a way to have his legs amputated so people would look at him and admire his panache.

 

J.P. contacted Jame again, eager this time to make his body symmetrical. He knew what his lover wished to see and he himself wanted two identical stumps. He had seen photos of limbless body builders and after the initial shock, realised that a well‑toned body with two upper arm stumps was perfectly balanced and admirable. The amputee body‑builders lost none of their masculinity because of their disability, on the contrary. Well‑sculpted upper arm stumps were handsome appendages and J.P. wished to experience the erotic pleasure they represented. His muscular artificial arms would present a challenge which J.P. was impatient to overcome. Jame was delighted to offer his services again before the month was out. He needed only arrange matters with a few people first and he would let him know when the amputation could take place.

 

J.P. lost his left stump, the almost complete arm missing only his left hand at the wrist. Jame took pains to ensure both stumps would match in bulk and length. J.P. was collected by the manservant and returned to his penthouse room six days later. He was using his right prosthesis again. The manservant removed the hookless left prosthesis from J.P.’s harness. J.P. dared not return to his work yet. His affluent clients would have to bide their time for a few weeks until the new stump was robust enough for J.P. to resume. None of them had known of J.P.’s imminent revision. He was interested to see their reaction when he once again returned as a one‑armed man, this time with a single above‑elbow prosthesis. Gradually J.P. became familiar with the repetitive motions which his arm demanded to first position the elbow and then operate the hook. His gestures became more modest. He stopped leaning forward when locking the elbow, although it helped. He reminded himself to remain erect and to project the appearance of a man who was perfectly adjusted to using hooks. The manservant watched but said nothing. The emir was enchanted with his lover’s physique and enthusiastically provided all the sexual release J.P.’s healthy body craved. He had not yet made a serious attempt at satisfying himself with a hook.

 

Against his father’s advice, Joseph wanted to leave school. He was approaching eighteen years of age, the age of majority. He would be a fully-fledged adult and he could do what he wanted. School had been tedious and seemingly pointless. He would have preferred to be in the sixth form college. Maybe his attitude would be different in that case.

 

Joseph wore his artificial arms from the moment he woke up to the moment he returned to bed. The oddly coloured arms with their even odder shape and shocking hook terminals became such a familiar sight that his father stopped being so concerned for his son. Joseph struggled with positioning his hooks in advance of actually using them. The forearms had a restricted range of motion due to the hinges attaching them to the sockets. They were angled slightly so that the hooks almost touched in front of Joseph’s crotch, a deliberate choice by Wally to allow him to toilet himself and for the obvious reason when a seventeen year old boy was concerned. Masturbation was a strong motivation for Joseph to learn how to use his hooks properly. The thought of stroking his shaft with steel hooks was still as intensely erotic as it always had been for him. Crippled by limblessness, the compunction to function with artificial limbs remained as strong as ever. He fantasised about Greg’s white peg leg and wished he could some day feel the precarious imbalance of a single artificial leg. But his arms would never allow him to wield a pair of crutches the way Greg did. So he thought.

 

His father took Joseph aside one quiet weekend afternoon and sat opposite him. It was a conversation about the future. He said he was gratified to see how well Joseph had rehabilitated. He accepted that school was disappointing and approved of him leaving without completing his final year on condition that Joseph found employment. There was little work available locally. He would have to move to a larger town or maybe to England. It was his decision. He claimed to understand the challenges Joseph faced in finding employment and would continue to support him in any circumstances. His father’s attitude surprised Joseph. It was obvious that he did not regard Joseph as too disabled to work. The only challenge was finding something he could do. After nearly an hour’s discussion, the two hugged. Joseph placed his prostheses around his father’s waist in the familiar gesture and shrugged to tighten the forearms. He could feel nothing except cool pressure on his stumps, hidden from view now and always.

 

Andy Peters continued to accrue more routes and more customers grateful for prompt deliveries made on time. His status as a double amputee was well‑known throughout the local area and he was, unknown to him, often contacted partly because of his notoriety. He was completely at home on his peg legs and had accustomed himself to being head and shoulders shorter than everyone else. He had learned how to use his pegs to clamber up into his cab and appreciated their comfort and reliability. Other leg amputees he encountered frequently complained about chafing and insecurity concerning the moving parts of their artificial legs. Peters recommended a peg leg to each and every one of them.

 

On his last year of school, his nephew David spent much of his free time between revision for exams with his uncle. David had openly admitted his admiration of amputees and admitted that he would have no complaints if the worst happened and he himself lost a limb. Peters had been perfectly aware of his nephew’s infatuation with amputation and devoteeism for quite a while and finally succeeded in assuring the boy, soon to be a man, that he understood and approved, saying that a man should be who he needed to be. If David wanted to undergo life‑changing disablement in the form of amputation, he need only ask and Peters would set the ball rolling via Obsidian’s secretive service for wannabes and finance the transformation on condition that David never speak a word of the chain of events to his parents. They concocted a plan in which David would join his uncle as usual from home. Peters would deliver David to Obsidian and his future would be in their hands. Any physical alterations would be due to a mishap on the road, the details of which David was free to invent for himself. It had better be credible because he would rely on the story for the rest of his life. David said he wanted to become a DAK like his uncle but would wear thick cylindrical stubbies instead of peg legs, although the pegs also looked really cool and he would definitely want to try them too. Peters nodded his approval and made a rough estimate of the cost of crippling his nephew. Knowing how much Jame expected for an amputation, he reasoned that he could afford the cost. His compensation account had rarely been touched since he returned to the road and it would be a fine thing to see his nephew as a legless cripple, hobbling on knee‑length stubbies but with the same self‑reliance and panache. In mid‑June, Peters parked his rig in a nearby underground parking area and the two men made their way to Obsidian, where David’s future would be decided in collaboration with the amputee staff. David had turned eighteen and any decisions about his transformation into a legless cripple were his alone. He discussed his desires with Greg, sitting directly opposite him, and admired the overwhelming eroticism of Greg’s single elegant peg leg.

 

Greg agreed with his client Andy Peters and his vital and enthusiastic nephew. By amputating about ten centimetres above the knees, David would have sturdy stumps ideal for use with stubbies which might extend only as far as knee‑length or a little further, giving him conspicuous short artificial legs which would swing in arcs as he pushed his way forward. David saw himself wearing thick cylindrical stubbies with rubber at the bottom and much longer stubbies like thick tapering peg legs. If he had a pair of stubbies like that, he would learn to use them properly and intended to use them always. Greg sought out an illustration of a gentleman wearing such a design and ensured it was exactly the shape David meant. Greg was of a mind to allow the amputations through Obsidian. The client was enthusiastic and knowledgeable but he was still young. He asked David to excuse them and suggested that he join Wesley in the lab until he was called for. Greg needed to discuss David’s amputations with his uncle.

 

Wesley accepted him to watch while he worked on an artificial leg until after only a minute or two, David noticed Wally toiling away at his workstation on the other side of the room. All his attention was concentrated on watching the way Wally used his hooks. It was the first time David had seen a hook user in real life and he was infatuated with the appearance of the man’s arms and the delicate way he coaxed the touch‑screen display to do his bidding. He forgot about his cylindrical stubbies for the time being and imagined himself with a similar pair of hooks. He knew enough about artificial arms to know that Wally’s pair were body‑operated. He could see how Wally stretched his shoulders and leaned this way and that, occasionally twisting his hooks together to reposition them. He imagined himself a few years older, strutting along on a pair of long stubbies, pausing at a roadside cafeteria to eat a hamburger, gripping it with a pair of steel hooks and being watched by myriad children and their shocked parents. By the time his uncle waddled into the lab to greet Wesley and Wally, David was certain that he wanted to be a man who had replaced his natural limbs with prostheses allowing him to experience the exciting loss of all tactile sensation. He might continue to function in society as a man but he would have four stumps. He could remove all his prostheses and experience helplessness, reliant on only his stumps. He tried to imagine himself in that situation and shortly ejaculated into his underwear. Regardless of what people might think, his body knew how it wanted to be. The only problem left was whether to forego his legs or his arms first. It was probably too late. He was here to begin the process of having his legs amputated. With luck, in a month’s time, he would be in a wheelchair with both thighs sliced in two halfway along their length. Then he would have long stubbies for the rest of his life and could plan to lose his hands. He looked at Wally again, sifting through a pile of papers, nipping the pages with a hook. It looked so perfect, so manly. He would do it, too.

 

Greg and Peters came to the unexpected conclusion that there was no time like the present. Greg texted Jame to ask if it might be possible to treat the client in the next few days and received the gratifying news that there was ample time to perform the requested alterations as their most recent client was still with them and the entire clinical team was still present. Peters promised to deliver the boy the same day. By the following morning, David had become a double above knee amputee in coma but recovering nicely. His thighs were a third of their original length. Prosthetic use would be demanding with such short stumps but Peters had assured Jame that the boy intended using stubbies permanently and short stumps were judged the preferred choice. It did not preclude the opportunity of sporting artificial legs, nor indeed of using only one with crutches. The short stump would be well hidden for the best aesthetic effect.

 

Peters informed his brother that David had come a cropper after not paying attention to where he was going but made no other comment. The boy had been conscious and lucid on his way for treatment, which was true. His bother thanked him for the information and suspected that his devotee son, who had fetishised about amputation for many years in full knowledge of his parents, would return missing a limb. It was no surprise. He had seen how his own brother glorified his stumps and his stubbies. The pair of them were as bad as each other. He debated whether to inform his ex‑wife that their son was injured but decided to wait until he knew the extent.

 

David’s stumps were shorter than Jame had intended. For some inexplicable reason, he had made the initial incision on the right leg too high and had no alternative but to continue. The stump was much shorter than he had planned. Knowing that his client insisted on gaining matching stumps, there was nothing for it but to amputate the other leg equally as high. Jame was fairly disgusted with himself. He almost never made errors, and this was only the second time he had made such a major cock up, the first time being three years back when he turned a bilateral below elbow devotee into a bilateral above elbow amputee. Fortunately the client had accepted his unexpected situation without suing after receiving gratis not one but two pairs of protheses and a whole selection of terminal devices. The man had wanted to use hooks and in that regard, nothing had changed. Jame met the man in passing at Luton airport two years later and learned that the client enjoyed his long artificial arms. He admitted that he had planned to spend his late twenties and thirties with below elbow hooks before transforming himself in his forties to a man with short stumps hanging from his shoulders. He was better endowed than that and appreciated the macho appearance of his stumps, although he was the only person who ever saw them. As Jame reminded him, no‑one else mattered. Jame’s assurance of his ex tempore amputation activities increased considerably. It was unusual for one of his patients to regain consciousness regretting the loss of a limb they had specifically gone to considerable effort and expense to lose but it was not unknown. Jame knew from his discussions with both David and his uncle that the boy would probably be happy with double disarticulations but Jame was not malicious enough to cause such a major injury, unless asked. Jame checked on David’s progress every couple of hours until he awoke and entertained him with photos of his bandaged stumps taken on his phone. Jame was experimenting with a new painkiller, still uncertified in England, and asked if David felt any pain. Apparently, most of the discomfort was from the tightness of the bandages binding his stumps. Jame contacted David’s uncle, currently collecting a quantity of rhubarb in West Yorkshire, to report success and satisfaction. Peters replied with a single emoji and looked forward to the time when a legless uncle might have his newly legless nephew on stubbies working alongside him.

 

David had plenty of time to research exactly the kind of stubbies which he would feel most comfortable with. For the time being he was wheelchair‑bound at home and rarely ventured out. His parents were sympathetic about his plight but David seemed to accept his fate calmly and looked to the future. His father suspected that there was more going on than the effects of a mere road accident. The injuries were far more severe than such an event might warrant but he was averse to confronting David to delve deeper into the truth of the matter. David had been surprised at his stunted stumps. He had expected them to be at least half the length of his thighs but as the weeks passed, he accepted the handsome rounded stumps, knowing that using artificial legs would be difficult for him. This in turn reinforced his determination to wear stubbies. By the time his stumps had healed well enough to consider acquiring his first pair, he had decided he wanted stubbies like the Obsidian chief’s single peg leg. And he wanted white stubbies instead of black like everyone else seemed to have. His uncle delivered his without his wheelchair to Obsidian. David had learned to handwalk on his backside using a pair of thick gardening gloves to protect his hands.

 

The Peters discussed the design which David wanted. Greg advised him that two pegs like his own would be too precarious to walk on without crutches for a beginner and recommended wide cylindrical legs with a sufficiently sturdy base for better balance. As a compromise, he promised that they could be white. When David had become proficient on his stubbies, he could begin to experiment with different types, including short peg legs. Greg was privately pleased that the boy would not need training on a long pair of artificial legs. His stumps were too short to grip prostheses securely and most DAKs with similar stumps usually resorted to heaving themselves and their prostheses around on crutches. It was not a convenient way to walk. There was no reason why David should not slowly work his way up to using metre long stubbies, shorter than his natural legs but enough to return some of his stature.

 

Wally turned out a pair of stubbies which made David as tall as he had been when kneeling. They had thick black rubber bases which would wear into a comfortable shape with use. David held on to the parallel bars for his first steps and felt empowered by using his stumps to walk. The stubbies were unwieldy. It was hard to position them but after half an hour and several tips from Wesley, David learned to lean forward slightly and to kick his stumps out to the side, just enough for the stubbies to clear the ground. It was a shocking way to walk. David spread his arms to balance and savoured the sensations in his stumps. His uncle arrived back to collect David and return him home. David used his stubbies in public for the first time and was a little disappointed to find that most people merely averted their gaze. Andy Peters had already learned to walk on two peg legs, over half a metre long, and no longer used a shortened walking stick. The two men clambered up into Peters’ rig in their own fashion and on the return journey, Peters offered David employment as a sidekick and general assistant when he had learned to walk. David promised to think about it, but realised that he was unlikely to find a better offer any time soon. Maybe it would be best to learn the business, learn to drive a lorry and all the other things an independent driver needed to know. David sat in the cab admiring his gleaming stubbies and cupped them with his hands. He loved the hard unfeeling surface, quite unlike the soft flesh of his thighs.

 

In the interim, bilateral arm amputee Joseph had found employment. Quite by chance, he met a former schoolmate who told him about his summer holidays, touring around England by public transport and staying overnight in youth hostels. His friend suggested that Joseph should look into getting a job as a receptionist in something like a youth hostel, where there was very little manual work involved. He would need to be a receptionist and a travel advisor and a linguist to help foreign visitors. He only needed a few words and sentences to start off with. It might be fun and he would definitely be asked a hundred times a day about his fantastic artificial arms and hooks, which his friend assured him looked really cool and suited him. Joseph thought about it for a couple of days and then composed an email explaining his interest in becoming a receptionist and explaining his disability, which he hoped would not pose a problem. It was his first CV, slightly naïve and wildly optimistic, but Joseph’s enthusiasm shone through and amused the head of the youth hostel organisation to whom Joseph addressed it. She showed it around to some colleagues and asked their opinion about a young Welshman who used a pair of hooks. No‑one had anything against it in principle if the young man was determined to succeed. There were several vacancies available immediately if the chap was free to start. The job of receptionist was not well paid. It was usually seasonal work although the organisation had a few permanent year‑round employees. There was one such position open in Shrewsbury, the nearest to the applicant’s address. A quick message affirmed that anyone who was willing and able would be more than welcome and the applicant was bilingual in English and Welsh which would be a big bonus. No mention was made of Joseph’s hooks. By the end of the week, Joseph was invited to arrange an interview in Shrewsbury.

 

Personal trainer J.P. continued to benefit from his commitment to personal betterment by mastering his artificial arms. After six difficult months when he was occasionally stressed by but never disappointed in his slow progress, he suddenly noticed that he no longer consciously planned his movements. He had already accepted his limited range of movement and learned to compensate by moving his body or standing closer or at an angle to the task at hand. In short, he had begun to assimilate his prostheses as part of himself. They were no longer separate entities which he strapped on but an integral part of his body. He used them with well practised movements which he adapted to look competent and masculine. His lover was hugely impressed by J.P.’s rehabilitation but insisted that he remove the prostheses when they made physical love. It was J.P.’s arm stumps which the emir idealised. If he wanted, J.P. would not wear his arms but would instead sport his handsome stumps all day, every day. But that would be unnecessarily cruel. The emir did not regard himself as a cruel man despite insisting that his lover undergo additional amputation for the pleasure of his lover. J.P. himself admired his stumps and the sensations of being armless, including the minor frustrations of life. Most of all he missed the ability to masturbate. He had attempted many times to coax his tool to orgasm but he found his hooks unsuitable and his mechanical elbows did not allow him simultaneous access to his cock with both hooks. It was just one of life’s disappointments. He stood in front of his room’s full‑length mirror and admired his muscular legs, trim belly and muscular arm stumps. He liked what he saw and the figure in the mirror smiled back in approval.

 

David was on a correspondence course to qualify as a lorry driver. He had never driven before and first had to qualify as an amputee car driver. There was a plethora of other courses to take but many of them simply gave a percentage and were not so critical. He spent time with his uncle, helping to deliver goods all over the Midlands. Like most amputees who wore their prostheses permanently, he became used to wearing thick stubbies and hardly gave them a thought. He moved well, swinging his legs in a regular beat, pounding along uncaring of stares and whispered comments. He was still planning ways to lose his hands. He had got his stubbies. It was time for another challenge. He wanted mid-forearm stumps, long enough to manipulate stuff with but short enough to make it a challenge. Short enough to make it compulsory to always wear hooks. He had long recognised that it was the hooks he fetishised, not his potential arm stumps. They were incidental to his need and desire to sport bilateral hooks, to be seen as a man who had only artificial limbs and who thrived in spite of them. Because of them. He imagined himself riding with his uncle when the pair of them had run out of conversation wearing artificial arms. He was certain he would still be able to do everything he needed to, including driving an adapted cab. His uncle managed fine, although he had his hands. He drove with his two peg legs indicating the way forward, barely clearing the dashboard.

 

The manager of Shrewsbury’s youth hostel invited Joseph to pay a visit for an interview and to show him the ropes. He happened to notice his interviewee arriving, a tall blond young man with a pleasant face, his hands in his jacket pockets. He left his office to wait in the reception hall and stretched out to shake hands. Joseph returned the greeting, revealing that his right hand was missing. He used a steel hook instead. The manager was surprised but took it in stride and pointed the way to his office. He invited Joseph to remove his jacket and had more than a surprise. He was genuinely shocked. Joseph was wearing only a plain grey T-shirt and his artificial arms glinted as he hung his jacket up. They were the first topic of conversation. The manager expressed his concern the Joseph might not be capable of undertaking all his duties. Joseph assured him that his artificial arms were well capable of most tasks and that he had no qualms about his disabled status.

 

Indeed, he did not regard himself as disabled while he wore his hooks. The manager was impressed by Joseph’s slightly antiquated turn of language. They spoke of working hours, wages, tips, meal breaks, the long overnight shifts alternating with two other workers and finally asked if Joseph was interested in seeing the rest of the hostel. It could house about sixty guests in rooms for four or eight. They looked at the tiled bathrooms and showers, saw where hot food could be prepared and finally at the area behind the building where benches and tables were provided for the guests to sit. They were popular on sunny summer mornings when the guests ate breakfast outside in the fresh air. It was a secluded spot surrounded by forested hills and far enough from the main road to be quiet enough to hear birdsong and nocturnal insects. The hostel was closed between eleven in the morning and three in the afternoon. They stopped back at the reception desk and inspected the register into which visitor card details had to be copied every evening before delivery to the local police station before noon the next day. Joseph demonstrated his skill at writing. He wrote in angular capital letters, their shapes and spacing dictated by his lack of functioning elbows. The manager admired the unexpected neatness and legibility of Joseph’s sample and announced that if Joseph was interested in joining the staff, he would be most welcome and they could sign an employment contract immediately.

 

After doing so, Joseph waited an extra hour for his receptionist colleague, Derek, to arrive for the afternoon and evening shift. He was a linguistics student who had dropped out of university a decade ago and worked at the hostel ever since. He had no greater ambition in life. He drove a sixty year old Citroën 2CV, wore army surplus and spoke four languages including their dialects and slang. His first comment on being introduced to Joseph was Jesus Christ! The manager left the two together, hoping Derek would acquaint the new man with the minutiae of a receptionist’s duties. He returned to his office to make a call to head office and shortly heard male laughter echoing through the empty corridors. Derek and Joseph had hit it off. Derek had already told Joseph he would have no problems driving a 2CV with his hook thingies and learning that Joseph had never driven, promised to teach him.

 

David passed his exams with more than adequate marks and volunteered for a fire prevention course and joined a wrestling club where he caused no end of confusion for other members. His leglessness was usually a disadvantage but he was able on occasion to use the absence of his legs to surprise his sparring partner with an otherwise impossible move, bringing him crashing to the floor. He was still envious of his uncle’s peg legs and contacted Obsidian to ask about the possibility of being fitted with a pair. He wanted to walk on tall peg legs, regardless of the fact that his stumps were best suited to stubbies. He would work his way up, starting with a pair identical to his uncle’s well worn pair. They were covered in scratches and pitted with tiny dents caused by knocking into the sharp corners of steel baskets and trays. After a brief chat with the older Peters, the pair of them booked time at Obsidian to be outfitted with two new pairs of peg legs.

 

Wally made the fittings and allowed A.I. to make the final decisions on material thickness and stress resilience. Coincidentally, Joseph Jones arrived while the two lorry drivers were in the lab. His left control cable had caught on something and had begun to fray and rather than risk it snapping at an inconvenient moment, he used a day off to travel into London to have the cable replaced. Wesley attended to him and took him into the lab. David saw Joseph walk in bearing two artificial arms dangling from his shoulders. There were hooks at the ends of his arms. David immediately thought of wanking with a pair of hooks. It was the one thing which still provided the most reliable orgasms. He had become accustomed to his leg stumps and the sensations they sent when he squirmed on his belly in bed, rotating his stumps against the blankets for pleasure. If he had arm stumps, he would double it. He glanced at his uncle, currently watching a screen with Wally and returned his gaze to the guy with no arms. He was good looking but when Wally fiddled with the harness and removed the artificial arm, he could see the guy had only the smallest of stumps at the elbow. David wanted much longer stumps so he could wank with them. It would be so cool after he learned to walk on peg legs if he could also have a pair of hooks with long arm stumps. He was edging, very close to cumming but turned his attention away from the one artificial armed guy sitting not ten metres away. His uncle was through with his approvals and now it was David’s turn to finesse the design of his first peg legs.

 

Wally had done a good job. He had selected the pin lock system to hold the pegs onto David’s short stumps. The liners themselves had belts which circled David’s waist. The brief animation showing how the pegs were attached repeated onscreen. David’s stubbies scraped against his chair when his stumps twitched with excitement at the thought of wearing peg legs. Wally had designed them with the upper halves broad enough to accept David’s stumps and the lower halves narrowed to large rubber ferrules. His first pegs were twelve centimetres longer than his stubbies and Wally warned him to become thoroughly proficient on two pegs before progressing to a new pair with longer pylons. But there was one condition which David did not like. He would be relying on crutches for a good few months and Wally recommended long wooden crutches to allow him to use his hands occasionally. Walking sticks and elbow crutches were too restrictive in that sense, although he could by all means try walking with them too.

 

David thought about Greg’s long cylindrical peg leg and considered asking Wally to change the shape of his own to match Greg’s. But the peg legs rotating slowly on screen looked macho and beefy. He gave his approval for them to be printed and lifted himself down onto his sturdy short stubbies. Soon he would be taller. The legless pair collected their jackets and bid their farewells at the same time that Joseph received his left arm back from Wesley with a taut new cable. Out of common decency, Andy Peters asked if he could give Joseph a lift somewhere. There was plenty of room in his rig—especially leg room. Joseph laughed and said a ride to Paddington would be most welcome. David was excited at the prospect of asking the guy about his arms. They introduced themselves briefly and left Obsidian to start production of their new prostheses.

 

David started by asking how long Joseph had been an amputee. He mentioned that he had been on stubbies for nearly two years and had just finished his training to become a lorry driver. Joseph congratulated him and asked how David’s injuries had happened. David was not used to being asked about his stumps and did not have a ready answer. He said they were done in Oxfordshire and corrected himself to state that it had happened in Oxfordshire. Joseph asked if the surgeon’s name was Jame, by any chance. David was shocked. Was Joseph admitting to having his arms amputated voluntarily in the same way that David lost his legs? He actually paid to have artificial arms for the rest of his life? Joseph was sure that David was a successful wannabe, unusually young to be so massively disabled. They arrived at the rig and the two legless men clambered up in their own fashion, followed by Joseph who found precarious purchase climbing up into the cab with the meagre handholds available. The conversation continued. Andy asked if Joseph worked anywhere and heard about his new job in the Shrewsbury youth hostel. He had his own tiny two person room there for the winter months, a bunk bed and a small table and two chairs. Everything else he needed was in the corridor outside and free for him to use. Andy was impressed that a good looking lad like Joseph had not let his maiming stand in his way of getting ahead in life. The youth hostel sounded like an ideal job. David asked if anyone could stay and Joseph explained that non-members had to pay more for a bed but they could spend the night there. David said he would like to come and see Joseph. Maybe after he had his new peg legs. He could test them out on a trip to meet Joseph once more and Joseph could show him around. Andy heard the eagerness in David’s voice. He was not surprised that he wanted to see Joseph but he did not yet know the real reason. David wanted to know everything about Joseph’s amputations and his prosthetics ahead of making a final decision to transform his body again.

 

Both sets of peg legs were ready for fitting two afternoons later. Andy left his beat up old pair behind for recycling but David kept his stubbies. His new pegs looked incredible after his stubbies. So sleek and elegant! He held onto the parallel bars and exercised his entire knowledge of how to walk on short stumps. The tips of his pegs seemed impossibly distant. He looked at himself in the full‑length mirror at the end of the bars. A good looking bloke on peg legs. Might look better if he were wearing shorts instead of mere underpants. His erection was insistent and obvious but his uncle and Wesley had often encountered the odd physical reaction to new prosthetics before and paid little attention. Wesley offered a pair of wooden crutches to David and asked him to walk further into the lab using them. After a couple of adjustments, Wesley was satisfied. David was merely grateful for the extra support. His pegs were much more unstable than his shorter stubbies but his uncle had beaten the odds and stood on his new pair now watching his progress. Wesley was satisfied that David was handling the crutches correctly and the invalids made their way via Greg’s work station to settle the invoice. David stuffed his stubbies into his back pack and they made their way back to the Midlands feeling invigorated. David explored the sensuous curves of his peg legs on the way and imagined how he would manage when he had steel hooks instead of hands. He would never feel anything again. In a way, it was a shame but also really horny. Nothing was going to change his mind. If only he could think of away to get a pair of mid forearm stumps. He had ogled Joseph’s stumps for long enough to realise that longer stumps would be more suitable if he intended driving a rig in future.

 

Joseph and Derek got on like a house on fire. They spent only four or five hours together at work every third day and Joseph looked forward to them but Derek often suggested going for a pizza in town or sinking a few beers in his houseshare room. He showed no interest in Joseph’s artificial arms although he was an enthusiastic supporter of Joseph’s attempts to try new things. When Joseph announced that a new acquaintance would be staying with him at the youth hostel the following weekend, Derek immediately offered to chauffeur them around town. Joseph made no mention of David’s disability.

 

It was unusual but not unexpected that two bilateral amputees of a similar age might strike up a friendship but with both holding a strong suspicion that the other had elected to lose their limbs, there was a stronger bond than might otherwise be the case. Joseph met his friend at the station while Derek waited in the car listening to hits from the Eighties. He had four cassettes which were still usable in his car’s player and he listened to them on repeat. He spotted Joseph returning with a short figure who turned out to be a guy Joseph’s age staggering along on peg legs, propped up with a wooden walking stick. Jesus Christ, he muttered to himself. It was like having someone else’s worst nightmare. Joseph’s hooks were practically invisible under his long off‑white seaman’s pullover. The new guy’s peg legs were anything but. They all greeted and introduced each other and Derek asked where they wanted to go first. Joseph suggested the youth hostel where the third receptionist, Arnold, was currently registering the day’s influx of visitors. They could all sit behind the counter with him and shoot the breeze. They did not often get a chance to be together.

 

David was more stable on his pegs now after gradually becoming accustomed to meagre support from the narrow ferrules. Instead, he was mastering the main trick of the trade—continually shifting his balance from one peg to the other. He already felt secure enough to ditch his crutches in favour of a short walking stick which looked either pitiful or horny, depending on your preferences. Arnie had seen it all before, being a compulsive amputee devotee and an enthusiastic poster on amputee photo sites. Joseph’s arms were already familiar to him so he aimed to see the peg leg guy’s naked stumps before the evening was over. He often succeeded in making intimate acquaintance with visiting amputees and had once called in sick in order to spend an entire weekend with a handless young Turk who had no compunction about buggering him with long forearm stumps. Maybe it was the sort of thing they liked to do in Turkey. God knows there were enough Turkish arm amps online.

 

High above the London business district, the emir was desirous of similar treatment and after one or two unsuccessful attempts, J.P. suggested wearing long artificial forearms shaped like dildoes so that he  could improve his lovemaking. The emir was immediately completely enchanted with his lover’s idea and encouraged him to acquire such apparatus.

 

Wally commiserated with J.P. at his lack of a functioning forearm stump and set about designing a rigid one‑piece prosthesis which J.P. could wear on his right stump. It would have a rigid elbow bent at eight‑five degrees and the forearm would taper to a delicate rounded tip a couple of centimetres in diameter. J.P. asked if the device could be printed with glitter or holographic foil to make it look less intimidating. And more like a sex toy, he thought. Wally suspected what the prosthesis was for and charged a substantial fee. The arm was printed overnight and the following evening, a satisfied one‑hooked customer walked out wearing it on his other stump. The emir was also satisfied by its twenty‑five centimetre long increasing width.

 

Joseph relinquished his lower bunk to David. They had spent much of the evening in Derek’s poky room and both of them had shed their prosthetic limbs to show each other their trophy stumps. Joseph revealed that he had a tiny amount of stump below his elbow but used prostheses designed for someone without elbows. The others could see now that the upper sockets were on the long side. Derek could not understand how a guy with such short leg stumps could possibly learn to walk again, not to mention on a pair of sexy peg legs. They were surprised by Derek’s choice of words but he was quite right. David asked if he might inspect Joseph’s arms more closely and rested them across his peg legs, studying the various mechanisms and simply envying their artificiality. The long cylindrical tubes which held Joseph’s hooks looked both alarmingly artificial and immensely desirable. His own pair would resemble his own arms, the ones discarded to an incinerator after amputation. David longed for the day. He was almost competent on his peg legs. Soon it would be time to advance. The amputees lay on their bunks stage whispering to each other about what their stumps felt like when they were free of prosthetic limbs after a long day. Joseph mentioned how odd it was to have feeling back at the tips of his arm stumps, although they were too short to do anything useful with. David listened and imagined himself removing a similar pair of artificial arms as the last thing he did each night and the first thing he did each morning. His arms were going to be black, though, not that peculiar prosthetic pink. He tried to describe the feelings in his leg stumps and how their proximity to his cock and balls made them such a turn on. It was a sensitive subject for Joseph too. As much as he appreciated the complicated manner in which his full arm prostheses worked, he was still sorry that he was unable to manipulate his genitals with a pair of warm stumps. He asked David not to talk about that sort of thing because it made him sad.

 

The next morning, Sunday, Joseph awoke because the bunk was shaking slightly from the motions caused by David squashing his stumps into his peg legs. Joseph left his arms off until after they had washed their faces in one of the communal bathrooms and had breakfast in the canteen baring his naked stumps. There would definitely be guests there at this time. Their reactions to seeing him eating with hooks were often amusing to watch and  guests were even more alarmed to see him without. David would help him if he asked. David caused something of a stir by appearing in shorts and T‑shirt. He reckoned he could manage a short distance without his walking stick. The small ferrules on his pegs allowed him more agility than the wide rubber bases of his stubbies. Nonetheless, the sight of a handsome young guy severely crippled and condemned to use such ugly things was enough to distress a pair of Swedish hikers to tears. In Sweden, no‑one would ever be left without the best artificial limbs available.

 

Joseph had an evening shift starting at three so in order to avoid tiring himself, the pair went for a short walk along the path behind the hostel. There were moss‑covered wooden benches, the new generation of leaves was just losing their first spring brightness and the sun cast patterns along the way. David could contain himself no longer. He admitted he had wanted to lose his legs so he could walk on stubbies and asked Joseph if his amputations were voluntary. Joseph admitted that they were and described the ridiculous way he and his friend had hidden behind a supermarket’s bins while he froze his hands in a box for fishing tackle. He giggled and the pair of them broke into laughter. David continued by revealing that he was in love with Joseph’s arms and intended to have his own hooks before summer was out. He needed only to persuade his uncle to drop him off at Jame’s place, not mentioning that he also needed to persuade him to pay for the operations and prostheses. Joseph nodded with complete understanding and insisted David ask for longer stumps. That way, he could use his own elbows instead of having to rely on a mechanical pair. He stretched his arms out and demonstrated how little freedom of movement the hinges provided. Then he leant closer and lifted his right prosthesis onto David’s shoulder in a gesture of friendship. David glanced at the steel hook next to his face and spontaneously ejaculated between his peg legs. In future years, David would remember this innocent moment with his disabled friend when he irrevocably decided to lose his hands. It was always his best memory—the warm spring sunshine, a private conversation which proved cathartic, and the pleasure of trusting in a like‑minded companion. It was life at its best. Joseph helped David slip down off the bench onto his peg legs and they walked slowly back to the hostel.

 

The staff of Obsidian were kept busy enough over the following months but they noticed that the small group of customers who had made repeat appearances earlier in the year had not contacted them again. This was a good thing. The prosthetic limbs they had supplied were obviously satisfactory and functioning reliably, something which they prided themselves on. Greg treated himself to a longer peg leg in the traditional style, having seen how stunning young David Peters looked on his own pair. His new peg was black carbon, and with a new set of longer crutches, Greg settled into the life of a legless man on a single peg leg. He felt a sense of completion within himself, a deep satisfaction at living a deviant life which brought him so much satisfaction.

 

David experienced the same joy as he became more acquainted with his peg legs. He had originally intended to progress stage by stage to longer pegs but his current pair extended a little beyond where his knees had been and were so comfortable that he decided in favour of remaining a short man. He could walk on both pegs in his remarkable style and rarely used a walking stick, unless he knew he would be having a drink later. One afternoon in August, he and his uncle were on a run from Grimsby to Hudderfield. With little regard to the possible outcome, David said he was envious of his friend Joseph, who had shown him that it was perfectly possible to adapt to handlessness in favour of hooks. Joseph drove perfectly well. Derek had taught him to drive his age‑old 2CV. Andy laughed at the boy’s admission and tentative pleading saying he had been waiting for months for David to ask for his next amputations.

 

Late in the evening back in his room, David composed an email to Jame requesting consideration for the bilateral amputation of both hands, to produce forearm stumps about two thirds their current length. He reread his message twice before pressing send, knowing it would commit him to becoming a quadruple amputee. His career as an amputee driver was already assured. All that remained was to equip himself with the necessary artificial limbs.

 

E V O L U T I O N