THE WILLING CRIPPLE
A bemusing narrative by strzeka (09/25)
I rejected the title straight off when Mylo first suggested it. All my life I have never admitted or revealed the truth behind my disability although I have been asked about it a thousand times and more. But Mylo persuaded me that I could guide young unfortunates into making the best of their altered situations. God knows, the two of us have tried out quite a few situations ourselves. So after giving the idea some thought, I agreed to write an autobiography under the pen name Kendrick Hayes for submission to the limb centres’s competition for new disabled authors—actually, convalescing invalids—about anything whatsoever to do with their injury or rehabilitation. I have no idea what the clinic intends to do with the entries. The subject matter hardly lends itself to publication of a hardback to be purchased by a wide and expectant audience.
I am more of a diarist than a writer of narratives. I started keeping a diary in my teens. The first ones were actual diaries, manufactured for that purpose. I discovered that ordinary exercise books were more than adequate for the task. I kept my journals in a shoebox hidden at the back of my wardrobe along with old footwear.
I had already decided to write about my attraction to leg braces before Mylo suggested the very same thing. My writing would be unavoidably autobiographical. I would need to invent a fictitious author’s name, hence Kendrick Hayes. I spent several evenings poring over my old diaries, some of them over forty years old now. The paper of the cheap exercise books was yellowing and seemed brittle but my youthful penmanship was perfectly legible neither had the ink faded. Even now, it astonishes me to realise the latent determination and erotic desire associated with my disability in my younger self.
Here is one such example. I was thirteen and hobbling around on a pair of long wooden crutches. My right leg was broken again and this time it was more serious because I had also damaged my knee. The leg was completely covered in thick plaster of Paris. I had begun the entry with a brief description of the cast. I used a series of euphemisms to describe the sensation of presenting my crippled body in public. I assumed naturally enough that everyone experienced the same kind of sexual excitement when considering the mutilation of a limb or its replacement by some kind of bracing or artificial limb. It took a few years before I learned this was very much not the case. Instead of being chastened with embarrassment for my precocity, I was proud of myself for the way I refused to curb myself because of my increasingly distressing disability.
As far as I can remember, I was sitting in the children’s playground outside our block of flats, probably reading a comic. It was early summer and I had been home already for three weeks after my rugby pile‑up. I was a little miffed at missing out on sports with my friends. I was actually missing the company of one of my classmates who I had a crush on. He was really very good‑looking, sporty, tall, nice hair. I wished he was my good friend and I assume now that I wanted to play rugby because he was on the team and it was a good way to catch a glimpse of him in the changing room and shower. Anyway, he was only one of my early crushes. There was another older boy who was not as handsome but whom I admired because he had been injured in a road accident a year or so ago, smashed his leg up and as a result now had to wear a long steel brace on his leg. It was stiff when he walked. He did not seem to notice me watching him walking up the shallow steps in front of our building. He balanced on his rigid leg and stepped up, then lifted his stiff leg next to his healthy foot and repeated the process. It was slow progress and I understood immediately how frustrating it was to be confronted with steps everywhere. I could see a few inches of steel bracing around his orthopaedic boot which made a metallic sound on the concrete steps.
I think he was the one who finally confirmed my determination to get my own leg brace one day and walk around everywhere with a stiff leg, watching other peoples’ reactions to my sadly disabled leg. That was the last time I saw him. He moved away with his parents shortly after. I would have liked to meet him in later years when the two of us had so much in common but I doubt I would have admitted that he was the original inspiration for my transformation into a cripple.
My injuries took longer than expected to heal. The cast was changed twice before being removed permanently in early August. My leg was weak and ached. I was told it was something I would grow used to and that it would lessen in time. I was fourteen by then and not confident enough with adults to stick up for myself. I should have been more vociferous about wanting and needing a leg brace like my neighbour’s. Instead, I meekly nodded at what the doctors told me and saw out the rest of the summer holidays and the beginning of autumn term taking it easy and thinking of different ways to make my own leg brace.
The next significant entry was one I spent considerable time looking for. I was not sure how old I had been when I first noticed I was limping and it took me several evenings of reminiscence before I found the description I was looking for. It was a month before my seventeenth birthday and I was excited about finally being allowed to join the senior rugby team. There were four of us in my form who had applied including my crush, who had deemed it suitable to actually talk with me sometimes. It beats me why I was so deferent to him. I think I was perturbed by his beauty. But the entry dealt mostly with my right leg. I had noticed something strange before but suddenly the reality of what was happening struck me like a bolt from the blue. Why had it taken so long for me to realise that my right leg had not grown since the long leg cast was removed three years previously. I had become so used to compensating for my leg length difference by walking on tiptoe that I had not given the burgeoning source of genuine disability any attention. I kept it a secret. I wanted to be completely sure first, although it was plain enough to see that my left leg was two inches longer than the right. I made myself a shoe insert from corrugated cardboard and when it wore out, I made another one. I was accepted into the rugby team, not daring to reveal my ever‑increasing disability. Rugby was a good way to disguise something like leg length deficiency because none of the players ever stood around long enough for anyone to notice that one of them frequently stood resting on only his toes for a second or two before hurtling into action.
The inevitable happened, as I subconsciously expected and hoped it would. We were playing one of the other local grammar school teams notorious for its fierce offence strategy. I was in precisely the wrong defensive position when the entire scrum swerved in my direction, toppling me and fracturing my short leg for the third time, this time compounding the damage by heaving their bodies over mine, grinding the broken ends together and sealing my fate.
There was some talk of amputation which was flatly denied. My doctors discovered for themselves that my limb had stopped growing and discussed a course of leg‑lengthening after the several new fractures had stabilised and healed. But for the time being, my right leg was once again in a full‑length cast and I was issued with a brand new pair of wooden axillary crutches.
I was working on my A-levels, supposedly. My schoolbooks were delivered to my hospital bed after the extent of my injuries became clear. I would not be returning to school for at least a month and I could not afford to miss yet more time. My previous castings had been late in the school year when the exams were over and there was next to nothing on the curriculum which might affect our futures. Schools functioned as daycare centres for teenagers for much of the late spring term anyway.
This time, my cast had been done by student medics and they had produced a beautiful cast with a flawless surface. Coupled with my pristine crutches, I was in seventh heaven when I negotiated my way around the hospital grounds on the rare days without rain. Unlike on the previous two occasions, I forbade my friends and visitors from signing my cast. I wanted to keep it perfect. The radiology department announced that, in their opinion, I could be allowed a walking cast.
A three inch high metal platform was fitted to the base of my cast to compensate for my leg length deficiency. It looked extremely odd. I had seen leg braces terminating in steel extensions for one reason or another and thought they look spectacular. I imagined what it would feel like to walk with such a device, whether it would be possible to sense the rubber heel at the centre of your foot. Mine was a thick horizontal bar the width of my foot held in place by steel struts. To all intents and purposes, it was a kind of peg leg and I was extremely proud of it.
After five weeks and a change of cast, I was fitted with my peg leg extension and sent home where I spent several minutes every morning reading Troilus & Cressida, 1984, The Old Man And The Sea and reviewing the use of the camera obscura in Italian renaissance art. Then I spent several hours modelling figurines in Fusion to 3D print. Most of them had deformed legs of some kind. I kept the best and might still have one or two somewhere.
My cast attracted much attention from visiting relatives over Christmas who were mainly astounded that I should yet again have been injured. We did not mention anything about the more serious repercussions, meaning the unexpected and irreparable length discrepancy. My younger cousins were disappointed that I did not allow them to scrawl their tags onto the cast. No‑one paid attention to the gorgeous steel riser extending the length of my cast by three inches. That Christmas was the last one when I could sport such a useful piece of orthopaedic equipment.
The cast was much admired by friends and strangers alike. Only once did anyone actually say anything about the cast. It was one of the days when I wore the pair of jeans from which I had removed the right leg in its entirety. My short cast with its metal extension was on display for all to admire. I had just arrived on the platform of a tube station—I can’t remember which one at this remote stage—and the white expanse of my unmarked cast and the rise had been on view for several seconds before I swung the heavy cast forward at the base. The voice which commented on my appearance was young, but a deep baritone coloured by a light sense of amusement. And I like to think admiration. I spun around to see Mylo’s grinning face, completely certain that nothing he had said could possibly be construed the wrong way. His teeth were beautiful and his almost colourless blue eyes glinted in the reflected headlights as the train arrived. We made our way onto the packed train through different doors but squashed our way between the seats to face each other again. I was enamoured by Mylo’s smile. As much as I still loved seeing my handsome rugby friend’s face, Mylo was instantly my new ideal of perfect masculine beauty. He quite simply had one of the most handsome faces I had ever seen and he was smiling at me.
Only when we left the train and were standing next to each other on a packed escalator did Mylo speak again. He was apologetic for calling attention to my disability but at the top where the booking office afforded us more space, I saw why I had attracted Mylo’s attention. His short right leg was encased in a steel leg brace and he was wearing a boot with a seven inch build‑up. His leg was quite rigid and the brace sparkled with frequent polishing as did the enormous black boot. Its front sole curved upward to prevent Mylo from tripping. It was possibly the ugliest orthopaedic footwear I had ever seen. It was definitely the tallest such boot I could ever have imagined. I stared at it for too long, I believe. Mylo lifted it to take a step and suggested we go somewhere for coffee.
I was still young enough not to have a coffee habit and the suggestion sounded very attractive and grown‑up. I kept pace with Mylo on my crutches, although I was rarely fully supported by them. I had become accustomed to walking on my extender. We battled our way through the crowds and settled ourselves in a glass‑fronted coffee shop where a row of tall monoped stools lined the window with a view over the ticket hall. It was unintentionally absolutely the most ideal location to display our deviant damaged legs to any interested passer‑by. A disinterested waiter took our order for two lattes and Mylo turned his full attention to me. I was not an unpleasant specimen. I wish I had a stronger chin but I can disguise it with a beard. My ears are too prominent but I have been told they are charming and make me look more approachable. This is a decided advantage with my disability. Mylo explained how he had caught sight first of my crutches while he was still on the escalator and peered more closely to see why I had them. When he spotted the extender on my cast, his full curiosity took hold and he apologised again for any embarrassment he might have caused me by mentioning my handicap. I insisted that there was no need to apologise. I watched his brow relax, his lips widen into a smile and his eyes narrow. I was infatuated with his face in a way which I might have cause to be ashamed of for my blatant presumption.
He briefly explained how his leg had stopped growing after the so‑called growth plates at the top of his thigh bone was damaged after he was hurt in a road accident. The genuine reason was a medical error with a new drug administered by his surgeon but he had altered the records to pin the blame on physical trauma, leaving his young patient with the life‑changing consequences. Mylo’s leg was the same size and length it had been seven years previously, just before he commenced puberty and his height shot up. Our coffees arrived and once again Mylo was silent while he searched my face for permission to continue his story. He urged me to keep a secret and I naturally agreed and I have asked his permission to reveal it as Kendrick Hayes. Quite simply, he was excited by the idea of becoming a man with a short leg. He had no idea at the time what the final result might look like but the idea of perhaps walking with a limp on a leg two inches shorter, or relying on crutches while a leg five or six inches shorter hung useless beside his healthy leg were all images which caused him considerable erotic excitement. I reassured Mylo that I felt the same way about my own injury, although I was exaggerating. I had not really considered all the implications of going through life as a cripple, although it seemed that I had done little else during my teenage years. We finished our drinks and Mylo suggested exchanging telephone numbers. Both of us thought it would be a good idea to keep in touch in order to have a contact, a friend, who could give support and advice about life as a cripple.
I am undecided about how much I want to reveal about the way our lives intertwined. It was a process which edged towards an inevitable outcome, step by step over a period of years. By the end, we had been friends and lovers, not only with each other’s broken bodies but with our disabilities themselves and the wondrous equipment which we peacocked for each other and occasionally for public display. Our legbraces were as much part of ourselves as our natural legs and we would not have changed anything.
Having revealed in advance how our relationship has developed, I can concentrate more on my own physical development after our initial meeting. At that stage, as I have mentioned, I was 17 and studying for A levels. My leg was semi‑permanently casted and against the advice of my doctors, I made it a habit of hobbling around without crutches, relying on the rubberised extension below my foot to keep me on an even keel. My orthopaedic doctor couyld see by the wear on the rubber that I was using it too much and so it was no surprise to him when I complained about pain in my leg bones. I was taken in for x‑rays, after which half the hospital seemed to recommend amputation way up my leg near my balls and to get rid of the whole rotten leg. The other half, probably the religious ones, the Bible bashers, recommended saving the leg by removing the affected tissue. To them, it was against the will of God to expunge what He had decreed. I firmly believe that religious opinion should play no rôle in twenty‑first century Western medicine but we have regressed considerably since the health service was founded to actually help people. Now its only purpose is to distribute commercial drugs and provide employment for the modern version of witch doctors. However if I am honest, I am completely satisfied with the result so far. I have been stable for four years and so I assume that I have arrived at some kind of status quo, although it may turn out to be as temporary as the several previous status quos.
My leg was opened from mid‑thigh to my ankle. Two inches of diseased femur was removed and the end of the bones were stapled and nailed together. My shin was also shortened by a similar amount and in order to prevent probable further damage, my knee was fused, removing another three eighths of an inch. My leg length discrepancy had increased from just over three inches to about eight in one fell swoop. The limb was pierced with rods and a steel framework held the bits together until they healed werll enough to allow me to wear a new style of cast. My leg was once again completely encased but this time, my foot was not far from where my knee had been. The knee itself was a deformed mash‑up of unneeded flesh which the religiosos agreed to maintain for the amputation fans. It was a leg for sure but I was uncertain if it was what a team of experienced professionals genuinely had in mind as the best possible outcome for a guy like myself at this stage in life. Personally, I had no reason to doubt the outcome at that time. It was only after I healed and survived the torture which is rehab that I began to wonder if doctors ever genuinely have their patients’ optimum outcomes in mind or if they are more interested in demonstrating to rivals how they can, for example, chop a teenager’s leg to pieces and reassemble it to still look like a leg which the patient could never use to walk on because it is so ridiculously short.
My very short leg was casted once again and looked incredibly alien and pathetic. My casted foot rested comfortably on my muscular calf when I lay on my side. It felt so odd to have this rigid two foot long leg extending from my groin. It was going to be completely useless as a leg. I would always have to wear some kind of leg brace with an extension, a really long one, or even a built‑up boot, if a manufacturer could be found who would agree to create something so incredibly outrageous.
My parents were daily visitors, impatient to have me back at home. They were more worried about my A level exam results than my incredible shrinking leg. They were so used to the idea of having a disabled son that they were no longer interested into how disabled he was or what the nature of his disability was. I can not remember a single time when a conversation concerning my short leg ever reached a conclusion. To a more extreme extent than is usually the case, I very rarely contact my parents for any reason and they seem to have lost all interest in me, although I have heard through the family grapevine that they are thoroughly disgusted with my latest adaptation. It cannot be helped. It is what Mylo and I are comfortable with and that is all that holds any significance for me.
In returned to school for my last term on crutches with a casted half leg. The foot was casted in such a way that my toes were covered completely. There was a ventilation hole on the sole. My foot was nine or ten inches above the floor, depending on what shoes I was wearing. I returned to the hospital for an afternoon escape from school, scheduled for when the others had their compulsory sports class. They might be playing football or running along the streets for a five mile run. I was being x‑rayed and every so often, my cast was renewed. I suggested another extension be fitted to the next cast, something like a Perthes brace. The technician perked up his ears and asked where I had heard such a term. It was all over YouTube, I said. Just type in Perthes. Wait a minute, he said. I want to check something. He wandered off for twenty minutes while my cast dried. He came back with a look on his face like the cat who got the cream carrying a plastic bag full of steel components which turned out to be a build‑your‑own‑cast‑extension kit. The vertical braces had pins which gripped the cast. More plaster bandages were wrapped around the upper bracing to anchor it to my fresh cast. The ferrule was a broad slab of black rubber on which I was able to walk. All my illicit walks on my former extensions paid off when I was helped up to my foot and stood with the other foot almost to my knee. The U‑shaped extension felt solid and reliable and the rubber base was out of this world. It was perfectly balanced. I only needed to swing my rigid leg forward for the rubber to grip to floor and provide a reliable base to walk over. It sounds ridiculous to describe it like that but anyone who has had an injured knee will know what I am talking about. I had lost my knee, or it had at least been made useless for me and I would never be able to bend my leg again. Having such a reliable appendage extending from my cast was reassuring and possibly the best of all, it looked really amazing. Like a see‑through peg leg. My casted foot looked slightly ridiculous with the extension but I was content to tolerate the discrepancy between function and form. These were terms which I learned from Mylo, whose studies at art college were gradually influencing me.
My astounding casted leg gained me much attention on my return to school. It was our very last term. Everything which it was deemed necessary for a twenty‑first century school‑leaver to know had been told to us. We knew how to measure the area of an irregularly shaped plot with quadratic equations. We could recognise and name an escarpment, should we ever see one. We had been taught how murders, deaths and disease had affected English royal families from the times when their names were spelled with obsolete letters. But few of us knew anything about handling money sensibly or opening a bank account or what to look out for with mortgages or what a mortgage actually was. No‑one knew how to negotiate with a prospective employer. I sat for my exams, my leg supported on another chair in front of me and learned seven weeks later that I had passed three in three subjects and failed in one, the one which I needed to gain entry to the only university course I was interested in attending. I was 18 and three quarters with one and a half legs, three useless A levels and indifferent parents. I might have been downcast but for Mylo. He commiserated with me and asked me if I was genuinely disappointed about my apparent failure to satisfy society’s expectations of a teenaged cripple. We laughed and joked about how stupid it all was when everything could be done by a computer in half a second and there was no need to know anything about the Stuarts or Tudors. I mentioned that my parents were being sharp about my apparent academic failure and I was getting tired of their criticism. Mylo simply asked if I was still wearing my long extension and I said I was. He asked me to cross the capital there and then, to take a taxi if need be, to present myself to him in his Shoreditch attic before night fell.
It was a gesture he had gradually created with me in mind. He had furnished a corner of his living space with a high bedframe under which was storage space. It was the perfect height for a man with a rigid leg. All the furniture was suitable for cripples like us. I often disregarded the fact that Mylo too was disabled, disfigured, crippled. There was no description we could envisage which would not delight us. I arrived with my extension hidden mostly by my loose trouser leg carrying an IKEA bag of clothes and sundries. I was expecting to stay for the weekend. That was eight years ago. I never went home to live. I am still here.
I missed a whole year. Or, I enjoyed a gap year. I was so enchanted with building a new life with Mylo, at being semi‑independent, that I completely ignored my diaries. I did occasionally think I ought to make a permanent record of how I felt and what we were planning. Everything seemed to be going exactly as we wished. But fate had other ideas. This time Mylo was stricken by excruciating agony in his thigh. He resumed his crutches and made he way around town painfully and awkwardly. His pain did not relent, so reluctantly, Mylo approached the medical profession in desperation. He was suffering from a similar bone‑weakening infection which had cost me leg length but this time, although it was more localised, it had spread to a larger extent and much to Mylo’s hidden delight, his thigh was shortened by five inches. He whispered to me on one of my daily visits about how he was going to insist on having a boot build for his extremely shortened leg. There was absolutely nothing wrong with his ankle or foot. They were perfect examples of a young male’s foot. In Mylo’s case, the sole of his right foot was slightly above his left knee joint. Any boot he succeeded in having made would be the length of his opposing shin. His foot and opposing knee would be paired with each other. His knee still worked. It was the one thing which we enjoyed about our bodies most in those years. Mylo’s insanely shortened leg with its functional knee halfway along his thigh. I regarded it as a sign of superiority. I too was functionally a one‑legged man. I relied entirely on my leg brace extension to walk and it was all the same to me whether I wore it hidden by trousers or over a pair of altered skintight jeans. It was fun to choose how to wear my trousers. In either case, the extension would be visible at the cuff. Sometimes I wore my cut‑off jeans which allowed the entire length of my extension to be apparent to anyone looking.
The next diaries, resumed after a couple of years, are mainly about my progress as a cobbler. Mylo had already worked his way, or as he says, elbowed his way into his career as a fashion director for a glossy male fashion magazine which is designed in Shoreditch by a team of human designers and syndicated throughout Europe and Canada. Mylo himself has featured on the pages more than once thanks to his physical beauty. The surreal boot on his half leg has not yet appeared. Mylo swears he will one day feature in a catwalk exhibition sporting his hideous orthotic equipment while wearing shorts. He calls his boot hideous. I do not. His half leg is healthy and strong enough to wield his oddly lightweight twenty inch built‑up boot attached to his steel legbrace with its leather thigh corset and belly belt. There is no reason to suppose that there would not be an article about fashion for the disabled fashionable man in which Mylo might play a prominent rôle. I was talking about my diaries and yet the subject has turned yet again to Mylo. Such is my life. I have no complaint.
I was not overly keen on my prospective profession. Mylo had run into a well‑known shoe and boot designer at a Parisian fashion show and they discussed the manufacture of footwear in Europe, where artisans and experts were rapidly diminishing in numbers due to the China effect. Mylo was already fitted with his half‑leg boot, which he insisted on displaying by having every single pair of trousers and jeans modified, cutting the lower right leg off and hemming it tidily so his incredible footwear was visible to everyone. In those days, he did not use a walking stick and his gait was quite even although one of his legs was completely rigid and he had no sensation in his right leg anyway. The many surgical operations he had undergone had affected his nerves so that they registered almost nothing. And once again I find myself writing about Mylo.
I had been fitted with a leg brace with an ischial ring on which my backside rested, to all intents and purposes. Like sitting on a stool, almost. A conventional legbrace extended from my groin down past my former knee to my ankle, somewhere near where my knee used to be. But it extended much further down my boot to clasp the heel of my grotesquely extended boot. Thus my leg was one rigid entirety from my balls to the sole of my boot. My entire life revolved around my rigid leg. Whenever I sat, my leg protruded in front of me. If I was wearing a pair of my adapted trousers, my extended boot was visible to everyone. I was sitting in the audience of one of Mylo’s shows when he lurched up to me with a middle‑aged man, who appeared almost too anxious to shake my hand and get to know me. It was my future employer, one of the Midlands’ most expert boot and shoemakers, who had always had a soft spot for the severely disabled because his dear old dad had also worn a built‑up boot his entire life. He had approached Mylo after spotting him backstage and one thing led to another. I had been unemployed for half a year although I had kept my hand in as well as I could at home.
The shoemaker, whom I will not name here, was intrigued to meet a youngster afflicted with a leg brace and built‑up boot. Mine was an astonishing vision of extreme disability, although my natural short leg was perfectly comfortable inside its leather and steel encasement. The huge boot weighed little more than a hiking boot. I was completely used to walking with a stiff leg and as we retired to a quieter location, he complimented me on my choice of brace and boot rather than demanding a simple amputation to rectify my physical limitation. It sounded like a lot of beating about the bush and I was dubious about the immediate future with an obvious devotee as the patron. But that soon changed. It transpired that the man and his company was one of the country’s leading producers of deviant specialised boots. He was setting up a production unit in the south of the country and wanted to know if I would be interested, as an unemployed boot user, to learn the trade, in which case I might acquire the right to produce my own orthotics free of charge. There was already a Northern sub‑division where one of the staff specialised in leg braces and their boots.
I was bemused by being offered such a job and too flattered to want to mull it over. I saw Mylo’s expression of encouragement and thanked the bootmaker for his kind offer. It was another of the turning points in my life, one of the most significant.
I spent two months in the Leicester premises, first watching the other bootmakers, then gradually learning how to handle the tools to produce ever more demanding results. The London shop on Dean Street was opened with little fanfare, a narrow shopfront with a tidy but reserved grey and yellow facade. Three orthopaedic boots served as window dressing. The interior was restored wood, as close to the original decor as possible. Our workshop is at the rear of the premises and the long corridor is lined with mirrors and subdued lighting which allow our customers a view of themselves as they test our product for the first time. I am proud to say that none have ever had a built‑up boot delivered which is even half the height of my own. The mere fact that I have a healthy foot, albeit the size it was when I was young, compels me to wear a boot with a broad expanse of featureless black leather. The associated strapping and metalwork is part of my steel bracing.
I have several enigmatic entries in the diaries. For whatever reason, I often left six week gaps between entries. I suppose now that I was still acclimatising myself to two new endeavours—making boots with the other two cobblers and customer service. Our shop floor was open and there was no place where I could stand in order to hide or disguise my crippledom, should I wish to. I found an entry concerning an occurrence which I remember now I am reminded of it, although I had put it out of my mind. An office worker, about my age, quite handsome with a short full beard and extravagant handlebar moustache, often stopped to stare at the three boots on display in the window, often enough for me to learn to recognise him. I assume he had also spotted me inside, perhaps when I was standing illuminated by one of the lights. One early evening, I noticed his approach and to my surprise, he entered and stammered something about needing shoe repair. He held out a boat shoe, a rather pathetic item. I said that we could indeed resole his shoes and I cited a price double the ordinary, which did not perturb him. I noticed that he was angling for a favourable position to gain a better view of my boot and brace and asked him if he would like to ask me about them, since there were only the two of us in the shop and discretion was guaranteed. He squirmed a little, but found the courage to admit that he found my orthotic equipment fascinating and fantasised about wearing something similar himself. I asked if he had ever worn a leg brace and assured him that it was a normal thing to do. He might own and wear a leg brace and no‑one could tell that his crippled rigid leg was not in fact perfectly healthy. He nodded, as if having received the final blessing for a stupendous act of bravery. We repaired his boat shoes and delivered them after a fortnight. We saw nothing of him for several months, until he unexpectedly returned one afternoon wearing a long leg brace fitted to an Oxford shoe. It looked very professional and the man appeared very pleased with his new body image. I have no idea if he wore the brace permanently or if he had the day off and decided to visit us to demonstrate where our previous encounter had led.
As I approached and passed my thirtieth birthday, I noticed that my ankle was losing strength. It initially drooped a little and became difficult to slide into my boot each morning. There was little pain at first but after several weeks, the ankle had been inactive for so long that it was showing signs of severe atrophy. I returned to my orthopaedic specialist who shook his head and pronounced the end of my career as a man wearing a boot. Unfortunate though it might be, it would be much more practical to fuse my ankle in a vertical position and use the resulting limb to control a Perthes brace with either a crossbar or with a circular steel ring at its base. I would keep my leg brace but lose my boot. I was concerned in a professional sense, knowing that to some considerable degree, my own crippledom advertised better than any verbal recommendation the range of orthopaedic equipment our company was capable of producing. All the same, I was excited at the prospect of walking with my lower leg comprised of steel struts and nothing else. I knew I would walk as well as ever. The rigid brace would be as stable as my built‑up boots and equally impressive.
I discussed the situation with Mylo and with my employer who was sympathetic about my condition and reassured me that regardless of what kind of device I used in the shop, my position was secure. Mylo said he would love to see me using a platen between steel struts, something like the sole of a shoe without the rest of the shoe. It would look amazing. I personally liked the idea of my brace terminating in a steel ring until Mylo reminded me of the noise it would make when it struck the floor and how slippery naked steel could be. As always, he was right, but I held on to the idea.
In the meantime, I adopted a typical Perthes crossbar. It felt odd compared with the mass and area provided by my enormous boot. My leg was much lighter and the base felt less stable. But after a few weeks, I was striding along as confidently as always. I had reverted to wearing long trouser legs on both sides, in order to conceal to some degree the almost non‑existent space between my pathetic spastic leg and the rubber sole. I had a pronounced limp at first, which I never lost until my revision. My drooping foot was never a problem as far as sensation was concerned but its uselessness began to affect my nerves and I suddenly found myself in the ironic position of wearing a full‑length leg brace but having very little sensation of possessing a leg. It was disconcerting, although I realised better than anyone else that I was completely safe. My brace would hold me secure regardless of how my natural leg felt. I spoke of it again with Mylo, who listened to my complaint as patiently as always. For the first time, he mentioned amputation, noting that my limb had deteriorated gradually over the years we had been together and that although he loved to see me crippled with only a steel bar to walk on, he would be happy if I converted to an amputee, on one condition—that I manufacture or order a leg brace for my healthy left leg and walk with crutches as a one‑legged man, whose sole leg was encased in steel and leather. The idea of being functionally legless was tremendously exciting and erotic. Instead of being concerned about my latest problem, I looked forward to returning as an amputee. Heaven knows I was an expert with crutches. Disability held no fear for me.
My doctor tentatively approved after I mentioned amputation. He declared the possibility had been on the cards for several years but I had always preferred to struggle on with my deteriorating limb and leg brace. He recommended a high amputation, leaving only a couple of inches of femur to serve as support for my stump which would be useful when sitting. There was little chance of learning to use an artificial leg with any kind of success because of the extreme shortness of my future stump. I was intrigued to face the prospect of possessing a useless stump. I assumed it would still be capable of sensation and I knew that the skin covering it would come from the sensitive tissues around my upper thigh. My stump would be a new erogenous zone, something for Mylo and me to experiment with. The doctor made an appointment and ten days later I was in recovery with most of my right pelvis bandaged beyond recognition. I was given relaxants and looked down on my reshaped body with calm satisfaction. I felt younger, rid of the limb which had always crippled me. At last I had the opportunity to learn to walk again with a prosthetic limb if I wished. I would appear normal to those I met. But I was more enthusiastic about Mylo’s suggestion of being a one‑legged man with my remaining natural leg restricted by a full‑length leg brace. In that case, I would appear extremely crippled to any onlookers and lying at rest in my hospital bed, I yearned for the pleasure of renewed crippled mobility, relying on a steel framework to hold me erect and a pair of handsome wooden crutches to propel me forward.
I was taught to use such crutches to walk in rehabilitation. The irony of the matter was that although I had used crutches on occasion for much of my life, my balance had changed completely and I was now reliant on only one foot. I had nothing to lean on except of course my crutches. I freely admit that I found the advice of the coach useful and encouraging, although as a preliminary announcement that I might need further orthopaedic care further down the road, I mentioned that I could now sense the same debilitating weakness in my joints which had led years ago to my right leg needing orthotic support. I wanted the process of gaining a heavy, leather‑covered leg brace to be as closely associated with hospital recommendations as possible. It would have rigid ankles attached to a high‑topped orthopaedic boot and possibly even a custom built‑up boot which I would craft myself.
SYMES
In due course, I was discharged by my surgeon, and seen from the premises by his staff. They watched me crutching confidently away from their facility, my hair which I had allowed to grow long blowing in the breeze, mingling with my beard. I felt normal again which was initially assuring and pleasant but even during the first longer distance I had taken on one leg, I could sense that something was missing. It was the additional struggle of overcoming disability which I yearned for. Using crutches due to a missing leg were far from the physical challenges I required to feel life satisfaction. I wanted, needed, to feel crippled.
As the months passed and I became familiar with my amputation, I agreed to trial a prosthetic leg. It would attach via a belt and suspenders of some kind, wrapping securely onto the artificial thigh and holding the apparatus comfortably against my minimal stump. I would relearn to walk by swinging my pelvis in order to propel the lower leg forward. Privately, I doubted that the device would be useful. I might use it on certain occasions when it might be inconvenient not to have use of my hands but I could not imagine relying on it as my prime device.
However, I was delighted to find myself feeling extremely crippled by the long unwieldy artificial leg. As promised, it was suspended by a sturdy set of belts around my midriff. My artificial thigh and waist were held rigidly, making it next to impossible to sit while wearing the leg. This was a prosthesis for active gentlemen who spent life of their feet. I was a gentleman who sat for long periods and certainly did not rely on my single foot for mobility. I was pleased with the additional disability the new leg provided. I would be able to limp with a walking stick or two much more convincingly now that I had an obviously artificial leg. It was an interesting body image. Mylo despised the object and barely tolerated it in our bedroom. He found it ridiculous to have spent many years wishing to lose a limb only to then replace it with a facsimile. I could see his point. For the first time ins several years, Mylo and I discussed our disabilities in great depth during a pre‑Christmas weekend. Both of us had agreed to speak our minds about the other’s short‑fallings and not to take offence. Which would have been quite pointless anyway, but maybe food for thought.
I had little more to say than if Mylo ever wished to extend his disability beyond his still magnificent built‑up boot, I would support him figuratively in every way possible. I had no specific wishes nor demands. I thought Mylo’s body image was perfect. He heaved his crippled leg with its fantastic boot as regularly as his healthy leg, producing the irresistible lurching motion I had always admired. He himself loved his status as a cripple and was quite prepared to expose his orthotics to all and sundry if the occasion arose.
I had always been more open to Mylo’s suggestions, and of course I had my own ideas about how we might proceed. For the first time, I suggested that Mylo consider a minor amputation of his own, something disabling for sure but leaving plenty of opportunity for prosthetic limbs. He poo‑pooed the idea, saying quite firmly that his enormous boot was as much part of his identity as his face and that nothing would persuade him to alter his disabled leg. But he might be open to amputation of his healthy leg. It vwas an audacious idea but I realised then that Mylo also considered ambulating on one severely disabled limb as some kind of destination at the end of a process of reduction.
By late Sunday evening, our way forward was clear. We were approaching our fortieth birthdays, both in good health maintained largely in part by our energetic efforts to move around. We decided that by our fiftieth birthdays, we would both be totally dependent on artificial aids and crutches for mobility, although in what combination was left to us, personally as individuals. We were too close to complete leglessness for either of us to dictate to the other which limb he should disfigure next. It was a wonderful period of exploration into severe disability, searching out video documentaries about men who had come back from despair with prosthetic help to rediscover a tolerable life.
To my great surprise, Mylo acted first and returned after a ‘working trip to Monte Carlo’ with an above‑knee stump on his healthy leg. His crippled leg was exactly as before. He wielded his crutches as aggressively as ever and the horseshoe cleat around the base of his enormous boot’s heel rang out as we swung ourselves jointly through the airport arrival hall to our cart. I was not shocked by Mylo’s appearance. I knew he had been planning something. It is difficult to arrange an amputation for oneself without leaving an occasional hint. That evening, as he tended to his fresh stump, he described the series of prosthetic limbs he wanted to test and experience before he was too old to enjoy using them.
We waited eight weeks for Mylo’s stump to heal before we resumed our lovemaking. He new body felt odd for both of us. Neither of us discussed the new amputation. It seemed as inevitable as rain. I suspected it would be my turn next and I even had an idea of what it might be.
I believe I speak for both of us when I say that our hunger for further disability increased as we achieved them. In other words, the more disabled we became, the more satisfaction we felt in ourselves. We had both been cripples for many years. Our adventure into disablement brought new demands, new challenges and fascinating new mechanical solutions to shore up our crippled and missing legs. I had decided on my next revision which I intended would deliver my ultimate body configuration and allow me to play with a wide variety of both orthotic and prosthetic equipment. I would have the best of both worlds. As furtively as Mylo had shown me, I made arrangements to undergo a simple revision to my remaining foot. I wanted the front part gone and to keep only the heel.
I started work on a new boot for my reshaped foot before my amputation. It was black leather, as were all our footwear, cylindrical with slight padding around the front. It resembled a horse’s hoof and I fully intended to add a horseshoe cleat to its heal. I have always loved the attention my cleats attract. Such a minor thing but full of such visual pleasure for connoisseurs of deviant orthopaedia. My surgeon expressed his concern for my predicament and officially noted the increased degree of disability in my medical records. I would be entitled to the renewal of all the equipment I required, including a new artificial leg for my vacant side. I was perfectly content to continue walking on one leg brace with crutches. There were minor alterations and additions I wanted to make to my leg brace but they could be done without manufacturing the entire device.
I was wheelchair‑bound for two months after my Symes amputation. The large expanse of skin in front of my ankle itched and twitched, making my life a torment until the scar had healed well enough to allow me to scratch it for relief. I finally had permission to resume my leg brace, now fitted with the cylindrical boot I had designed and built. I slid my footless leg into the boot and felt the cool padding supporting my stump. I gently tightened the black laces and wheeled myself across the room to where my crutches awaited. I stood, a little uncertainly, and grabbed my crutches for support on the incredible appendage which my leg had become. To all intents and purposes, it was like a peg leg of flesh. I would never be able to balance on my heel without outside support. The Symes was extremely disabling for an already one‑legged man and I knew exactly what I intended to create next. Mylo had once warned me about walking on naked steel but my hoof was now exactly that and presented no great danger. My toeless foot exerted no lateral force which might slide.
My brace maker excelled himself in producing a lower leg brace which I could substitute for the one holding my cylindrical boot. The new one was primitive in appearance although its linking mechanism to my leg brace was delicately machined and state‑of‑the‑art. Two rods of rounded steel, like metal dowels, extended two inches beyond the base of my heel and connected with a circular piece of the same material, three and a half inches in diameter. I would stand a little taller on my metal stilt and I anticipated the pleasure of the sensation transferred by the unforgiving steel framework.
I agreed with Mylo that the new apparatus was a little too extreme for domestic use. It was completely rigid, making sitting problematic. This was not such a problem in public as there were always willing onlookers prepared to approach for a closer look if I requested them for a little help in rising to my ‘foot’. Mylo was next to useless. As much as he revelled in his leglessness, his profound disability also impacted my choice of prosthetic equipment. Mylo had worked diligently over the preceding months since acquiring his thigh stump and artificial leg. The limb was standard health service issue, Barbie pink, exoskeletal to somewhat resemble the shape and size of a typical male leg. We both regarded it as fairly hideous and Mylo thought it made a wonderful contrast with his crippled leg and its wonderful expanse of leather boot. The point I am making is simply that he had learned to operate it so well in conjunction with his obviously crippled leg that no‑one would suspect that Mylo’s other leg was in fact a prosthesis. Mylo’s lurching gait evolved into something more even with a slower rhythm. I thought he looked more elegant but Mylo could look elegant wearing anything.
I was also diligent. I accustomed myself to the altered function of my leg which helped increase the impression of security I received as tactical feedback from both the steel cleat on my boot or the steel ring on the leg brace. The steel ring had one characteristic which I should have understood much earlier. Quite simply, all sensation generated by contact between the steel ring and the ground bypassed the remnant of my foot and lower leg. I felt it in my thigh more clearly than from any previous leg brace version. I wore the rigid steel brace only at weekend when Mylo and I spent time in the outdoors or treated ourselves to a Sunday brunch on an impromptu shopping trip. I felt myself to be almost completely legless on such occasions. My crippled leg was held in suspension, the stump at my heel was undisturbed in its black woollen sock and only the broad padded ring encircling my groin transferred any sense of physical contact. This was a disturbing development but not wholly unexpected. After many months of stasis when we both felt ourselves content with our disabled legs and stumps and our impressive collections of artificial limbs, leg braces and built‑up boots. Our bedroom closet had already overflowed and we had been compelled to make a decorative display of the larger pieces for the lounge in order to keep them out of the way and to make room for prospective new items. But as always happens, my increased disability had inexorably led me once again to the situation where I wished to adapt my body configuration to account for the need for the disability. I admired Mylo’s half‑thigh on his non‑crippled leg. I even enjoyed watching him manipulating the clunky old‑fashioned exoskeleton with its canvas and leather straps and rows of inexplicable rivets. Perhaps I could get one very similar for myself. It would mean amputating most of my crippled leg and I was by no means sure if my resulting thigh stump would be strong enough to control a leg prosthesis anywhere nearly as well as Mylo did.
My surgeon was of the opinion that this was the only amputation which made sense. He had been of the opinion that I should have had my crippled leg removed decades ago rather than my sound leg, especially to the degree that I insisted on, leaving a flabby half dome of thigh tissue padding at my right groin. Once again, he had a warning. He took into account my desire to wear an artificial leg on the stump but doubted the stump would have the strength for such an activity. Instead, he suspected I would benefit most from upkeeping my role as a crutch user and walking on a single peg leg which would encase my stump in its entirety and replace any visible speck of skin below my waist. The peg might be fairly long like a tapered cylinder, a stubby leg in practice, or it might be considerably shorter with a smart rubber ferrule on the tip of a narrow strut. I still had credits left from my Symes amputation for new prosthetic devices and I shortly became a legless man, a double above‑knee amputee. I had progressed, I felt, from a brace‑using cripple to a double amputee, something which I had never dreamed of achieving. My legless body felt indescribably perfect as my narrow half‑thigh healed. Its resemblance to a large phallus was unavoidable. The prospect of walking on a single peg with a pair of shortened crutches was intensely erotic. I would have achieved my final configuration and could once again have entire suits of clothes custom‑made in the certain knowledge that they would all suit my stature on one peg leg perfectly.
Once again I was returned home in my wheelchair, which had been in storage since its last use. Mylo collected me and helped me transfer into our electric buggy, or the cart, as we called it. It had always been difficult to slot our prostheses and leg braces into the empty space beyond the steering mechanism. Now I would be able to simply swing my legless self into the front passenger seat and allow Mylo the luxury of additional leg space for his built‑up boot. Our crutches, long and short, fit between us on the floor, leaving the rear bench free for a tolerant passenger or a goodly amount of groceries. Our disabled status and the sticker on the windscreen allowed us free parking and free recharging, saving us the grand sum of thirty pounds throughout the year on our electricity bills. But we were grateful for the consideration.
I seriously considered remaining in the wheelchair. I had no need of footplates to smash into walls and doors, it was simple to transfer from chair to another or from chair to commode. There were no legs to get in the way. Only a single narrow stump, healing well. It resembled a big penis so much that Mylo suggested I try buggering him with it but his bumhole is too tight. I would like to use the stump as a surrogate penis, though. Perhaps if not with Mylo, we could find a willing volunteer from the staff of one of our associated companies. We should entertain again as often as we used to. I think we stopped when we realised that we were becoming too disabled to realistically expect our guests to do everything for themselves because we were supposedly too crippled. We could easily have invited the type of guest who would be satisfied to see a couple of crates of lager and sit around until the early hours when the last of them had been drunk. But we preferred more refined guests. At one stage, Mylo always cooked and served cordon bleu meals for us two and perhaps four guests. Then we started ordering sushi for our guests to enjoy and to help themselves to drinks as we were unable to crutch around the apartment and carry a drink or a tray. There were also the interruptions caused by the arrival of offspring, which have the unfortunate habit of disrupting one’s leisure time for a decade or two.
I suggested inviting some of the staff who had worked on our behalf manufacturing our prostheses. It would have the additional benefit of free advice for me concerning my peg leg and its alternatives. This time we would make it quite clear that we would be serving smørrebrød, Danish open sandwiches, and in the modern style, everyone would be expected to bring their own bottle. The days of fine dining at home were long gone, especially for guests of the severely disabled. Even so, we made sure our home was spotless and that everything which might be required was functional and available. Our prosthetic team arrived at various intervals over an hour or so, all of them familiar faces and all intrigued to see us in our natural habitat functioning on the devices they had had a role in producing. Mylo dressed in an evening suit which he had not worn in ten years. The left trouser leg had already been shortened to accommodate his built‑up boot which blazed with a freshly polished surface. I assisted Mylo to fold the wholly useless right trouser leg neatly for pinning to his belt line behind his stump. With a crisp white shirt and black bowtie, he looked the height of elegance with his gleaming black axillary crutches beside him, waiting in the hallway for the first of our guests to arrive. I had chosen a more relaxed approach. I had a short waistcoat which would look fine with a normal dress shirt. I also selected an old pair of once fashionable sage green shorts which would serve the purpose of concealing my right stump completely and lying suggestively on top of the remnant of my crippled leg. I intended to allow some kind of view of my phallic stump for anyone curious enough to look.
Our guests included a new member of the staff whom we had no actually met before but who was recommended by our other guests. He made up the numbers and we welcomed him into our home, where he quickly established himself as the most loquacious with the grandest collection of suggestions and anecdotes. He laughed when I innocently asked him if he had heard of voluntary amputation and admitted not only to having heard of such a phenomenon but also to have undertaken many such operations in his homeland. He saw no harm in it, moral or otherwise, and the pittance which his patients paid him was a welcome addition to his meagre wage. Intrigued by my question, he asked if my own limblessness was all strictly medically necessary, whereupon it was my turn to laugh. We spent much of the evening discussing aspects of various amputations and disabilities. I showed him my collection of now impractical and unneeded prostheses and orthotic solutions for my ever‑changing crippled leg. We ended the evening with revelations about the practical results of voluntary amputations in village life—which configurations were considered auspicious or unfortunate, which attracted the gods’ favours and which were invitations for devilry. It was all complete hogwash by our standards although entire nations had lived by the edicts for centuries. Whatever the case, by the time the last of our guests left, I was convinced that although my life in a wheelchair was acceptable, my most urgent desire to satisfy a reawakened urge for elective amputation was to convert my flesh and bone fingers into steel hooks. A man who could operate a pair of steel hooks with arm stumps was to be admired all over the civilised world. I also knew that my solitary peg leg would require me to use peg arms instead of holding onto crutches. They could even be identical to my peg leg except they would be longer in order to fit onto my arm stumps. My arms would be mere crutches. To all practical purposes, I would have no use of my arm stumps at all if I wished to be mobile and I must confess that the idea led me to ejaculation, aided by friction from my leg stump.
During the years before I completed my transformation, Mylo and I discussed my insatiable yearning for increased disability hundreds of times. Mylo assured me that he would assist in every way possible and occasionally even expressed a fleeting interest in seeing me utterly reliant on artificial limbs. He himself was quite content to remain one‑legged, crutching along on his short leg in its built‑up boot locked to his rigid leg brace. He had reached his ideal body image many years ago and felt no temptation for additional stumps. I gave much thought to the things I would lose in tandem with my hands. I would lose my sense of touch, the convenience of living in the world designed and made for two‑handed people and the sensual private pleasure of masturbation. Even two long forearm stumps promised little more than frustration and the prospect of manipulating my cock with two hooks was exciting to think about but the reality might not be so satisfying. Then there was matter of my mobility. I had gradually acquired a distinctive and arresting mode of walking. I used shortened axillary crutches of glossy black enamel in conjunction with my single peg leg. It was a foot shorter than my natural healthy leg had been to improve my balance. My clothes were tailored for a peg leg user. I loved the eye‑catching aspect I struck in public. I saw people surreptitiously taking photos or video of me and I never failed to stare at the camera for a second or two so that they would realise that I knew I was being immortalised. I did not want to lose the ability to use my peg leg. By the age of forty‑seven, it had become my all‑time favourite prosthetic device. It turned the stump of my withered crippled leg into a sturdy masculine appendage whose existence emphasised the empty space where I once had a perfectly normal healthy leg. Therefore I waited patiently for the time when I was content to adopt hooks in place of hands, when Mylo was willing to support me for a couple of months and when I had tentative appointments with both my surgeon, whose last amputations these would be before his retirement, and with my maker of artificial arms, who had a list of required characteristics I desired. I had spent thousands of hours researching and watching bilateral arm amputees wearing their body‑powered hooks. Sometimes they allowed their prostheses to remain inactive as mere sleeve fillers. Othertimes the hooks were pressed into action by builders, farmers, teachers and the like. Naturally enough, I understood that I was seeing only the successful attempts but I was savvy enough to know that where one man had succeeded in learning to wet shave himself with a straight razor using a single hook, almost anything was possible with a little practice. I was excited to join their respected ranks and one late‑June afternoon, I pegged my way into the familiar hospital and announced myself present for an appointment with my surgeon. He shortly appeared and greeted me before I followed him silently on my three rubber ferrules to his consultation room. I indicated the length of stump I wished but was advised to accept something shorter in order to avoid the risk of decreased blood circulation in the stump. Stumps. Slightly disappointed, I agreed.
There are many things which a surgeon may encounter during his work which cause urgent alteration to the plans drawn so carefully beforehand. In my case, my arteries took a route down my arm which would cause my stumps to cut off circulation, as suspected, but to a greater degree. With my right arm open to the elements, my surgeon had little alternative but to amputate five inches above the point which I had indicated as my ideal length. I was not only going to be handless, I was going to be almost stumpless too. I would never have the option of manfully flinging my artificial arms aside in favour of manipulating something with long hairy stumps. I would wear artificial arms for sure, but they would contain only air, not the stumps of my truncated arms. I knew nothing of the emergency alterations the surgeon had made until I was allowed to awaken two days hence, after a plan of compensation had been drawn up by the hospital’s solicitors in case I should decide to sue for more. However, I refused to treat my surgeon in such a vindictive fashion after such a long and fruitful relationship and we went our separate ways shortly before I was fitted with my first hooks. It was the first time I genuinely realised that I would never shake anyone’s hand ever again.
My first sockets were a great success. I had no trouble in learning to manipulate them. It was something I had wanted to experience for years. The hooks were in the connector mechanism at a set angle and could rotate ‘manually’ but could not otherwise bend like a human wrist. I learned to lift my elbows to do functions a mere twist of of the hand would have accomplished. Instead, I had to perform conspicuous unnatural movements to coax my steel fingers, only one of which could move, into doing what I wanted. As I learned the possibilities and limitations of my arms, I began to accept that this was the only future I had. I would not be slipping a socket to one side while I used a naked stump for some suitable purpose. My disability was such that the black carbon sockets and I were very much an item, indivisible. I spent little time in rehab. My fresh stumps healed as reliably as my previous ones. I returned home in my wheelchair with my peg leg indicating the way ahead with my glossy black arms in my lap.
Mylo’s patience with me as I discovered the limitations of my prosthetic arms must be mentioned. I am forever in his debt for his understanding and encouragement. It used to be possible for me to stand resting on my crutches and actually help in the kitchen or otherwise around the apartment. My single peg leg was not such a hindrance. But now without my crutches, I was condemned to being seated. I stopped wearing my peg and allowed my phallic stump to poke out from my boxers. Mylo exchanged hooks for me several times a day, from regular to symmetrical and back again. I learned to masturbate with the symmetrical ones. They have an oval gap between the steel fingers which accommodates me very pleasurably.
I have waited too long to continue my autobiography after Mylo’s death. My publisher had been considerate of my anguish but I feel strong enough to continue. I have a most attractive young physical trainer or personal assistant as he practically is. He visits me for three hours between seven and ten every morning. He tends to my prostheses and washes me, shaves my head and ensures my twelve inch beard is to its best advantage. We discuss the past and the process which had led me to the possession of such an opulent apartment and such severe disability. I know he is fascinated by my amputations by the way he treats them when he washes my stumps. He treats my artificial arms as if they were irreplaceable treasures. I am going to ask him if he would consent to taking Mylo’s old room and moving here permanently. With just a little assistance, we could spend much more fulfilled lives together. I long to stretch my peg arms to kick my peg leg forward on a long walk with the beautiful man who has fallen in love with my stumps. Perhaps he has an ulterior motive.
THE WILLING CRIPPLE
