LEGLESS IN LHASA

 

LEGLESS IN LHASA

Fiction by strzeka (12/25-01/26)

 

Legless in Lhasa—the companion volume to Christopher Mathesen’s highly acclaimed television series Believe It! watched by over 45 million people

 

ONE: PROLOGUE

Christopher Mathesen, 31, grew up in Wigan and attended Manchester University where he specialised in theology. He is famous for his most distinguishing feature­—his glorious handlebar moustache. And notorious for his determination in completing Believe It! after not one but two disabling accidents incurred during the production of the series. He lives in Altrincham with the personal assistant who later became his husband, Andrew Wiggins, 30, and who accompanied Christopher for the latter part of the production in Phnom Penh, Bangkok and Lhasa.

 

TWO: THE BEGINNING

Christopher made several short films during his school years, shooting first on his phone and later on a digital SLR camera. He edited the material himself, meticulously arranging it into the most logical and revealing presentations. He was persuaded to submit one such production to the BBC’s annual Newcomer Review, where Christopher’s work attracted attention for both its high quality, its unusual refreshing content and Christopher’s presentation style. Christopher’s entry The Turn of the The Screw won the Golden Lens award and he was shortly invited to produce a new series for the corporation, highlighting religiosity and its accoutrements from around the world.

 

THREE: BELIEVE IT! FROM CANTERBURY TO KYIV

The first episode of Believe It! dealt with Western European Christianity. Christopher toured the great cathedrals from Norwich to Ulm, narrating in his pleasant baritone the central tenets of Christianity and how the western variants have evolved over the centuries. Two months later, a second episode dealing with Judaism throughout Europe described that belief system’s specialities and historical development. The third episode compared Orthodox Christianity from Thessaloniki to Kyiv.

 

FOUR: THE LEGACY OF WAR

Christopher’s production team was ready to depart Ukraine and set out for the drive to Poland in the production’s four wheel drive Land Rover. Although the vehicle was not speeding, it swerved sharply onto rough ground beside the road in order to avoid hitting a pack of feral dogs, probably abandoned pets, which rushed snarling into their path. The Land Rover hit a concealed uncleared landmine injuring three of the team. Christopher, sitting in the front passenger seat, suffered severe leg injuries. He was evacuated by helicopter to Kyiv Orthopaedic Hospital and thence to Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury. Christopher’s legs were saved but remained weak. He was fitted with leg braces to support his damaged joints and adapted to life on crutches. He spent many hours reading to his fellow victims, one of whom had lost their sight and the other both hands.

          – The way I see it, I got off lightly. I get around perfectly well on crutches and my leg braces take the strain while my legs heal.

Christopher’s words disguise the pain he still suffers on a daily basis. The multiple fractures he suffered will hinder his former mobility. However, Christopher determined to continue with the remaining three episodes for which he had crafted scripts and twelve months after his injury, his original team minus the blinded audio technician, returned to the road, this time in south‑east Asia.

 

FIVE: PHNOM PENH & BANGKOK

It became immediately apparent that Christopher would benefit from the services of a gopher or best boy to handle the mundane everyday routines which tv productions involve. Christopher was adept on his crutches but no‑one could deny that his former agility was missing. A personal assistant was swiftly selected from a host of volunteers and so Andrew Wiggins joined the team. He later claimed to know in advance that he and Christopher would make a good team if only because they both sported flamboyant handlebar moustaches.

 

Believe It! concentrated on Buddhism in its various guises for its fourth episode. Andrew concocted a winch which would lift Christopher into the back of the production vehicle, a converted Jeep. It clipped onto Christopher’s leg braces around his waist and made it possible for Christopher to create genuine voice‑overs in authentic surroundings. He was usually shown as half portrait, avoiding the leather and steel bracing on his lower limbs and his crutches but occasionally Christopher’s silhouette featured on‑screen, showing the effort required for the man to haul himself on his rigid legs and crutches over ragged Cambodian landscapes.

 

Shooting in Phnom Penh lasted five weeks after which the team left for the calm of Thailand for offline editing and other technical reasons. Christopher and Andrew had bonded and lifted the mood of the production team which had been dubious about continuing as if nothing was untoward despite the presence of the crippled narrator wearing leg braces and a script director who managed his tasks assisted by a pair of artificial arms with hooks. In the south‑east Asian heat, both invalids allowed their prosthetic and orthotic devices full exposure, favouring skimpy shorts and T‑shirts which revealed the full extent of their prosthetic limbs.

 

Our two month sojourn in Bangkok resulted in the fifth episode, later nominated for the prestigious Globe d’Or. It concentrated on the manifold variety of belief systems throughout the region. Christopher treated each religion with respect and gravity. Viewers were fascinated by his explanations of outrageous customs and forgotten religions, unable to take their eyes off close‑up shots of the handsome host’s earnest blue eyes and magnificent moustaches. The final scene, showing Christopher departing a temple against a glorious sunset on crutches, swinging his body as effortlessly as an athlete, became the iconic image representing the entire series, reproduced widely.

 

SIX: THE FINAL INSULT

With their Chinese visas and permits all approved and in hand, the team flew to Běijīng and continued by China Railways for the amazing journey which would terminate in Lhasa, Tibet, over three and a half kilometres above sea level. Soon after departure, it became apparent that Christopher’s injured legs were not taking kindly to the drop in atmospheric pressure as the train climbed into the foothills of the Himalayas. Christopher stoically insisted that nothing could be seriously wrong and that the last thing he wanted to do was delay production any further. Andrew took on responsibility for every duty which Christopher would ordinarily have tended to himself and, as a result, no‑one else on the team really understood the severity of the situation.

 

As we later learned, Christopher’s shattered and crushed limbs had healed well enough to enable the use of rigid leg braces. However, decreasing air pressure reopened microscopic fault lines in his shattered legs, releasing trapped gas which had no exit, resulting in tiny bloodclots. Within twenty‑four hours of departing Běijīng, Christopher’s legs were dying. On arrival in Lhasa, his condition was such that he was admitted immediately to hospital. There was little hope of salvaging his gangrenous legs so with the approval of medics in Roehampton, London, Peking China and the British Embassy in New Delhi, Christopher underwent bilateral disarticulation of his legs.

 

SEVEN: LEGLESS IN LHASA

The production team returned to Běijīng leaving only Andrew Wiggins to tend to Christopher Mathesen in Lhasa. Andrew was directed to accommodation on the hospital grounds, typically used by visitors who may have travelled for many weeks through mountainous conditions. His meals were regular if basic, prepared for staff and patients alike in the central kitchen. Christopher was not allowed visitors for nine days following his amputations, after which Andrew was allowed to stay until Christopher required sleep, as decided by the medical staff.

 

Wiggins was intitially horrified by the severity of Matheses’s amputations but rationalised that his lover would still be mobile in a similar fashion as before. His braced legs had been almost useless. Now he was free of them and could deploy artificial limbs instead if he so wished. He would still negotiate his way on crutches and would have Wiggins at his side to rely on.

 

Christopher Mathesen had been blessed with more than a handsome face and a healthy body. The loss of his legs forced a disguised problem to the fore. Christopher was one of those rare men with a member over twice the normal length and girth . He had always had to disguise the length of his penis, even initially from Andrew who regularly handled Christopher’s leg braces. But there was no disguising the matter now. Divest of any trace of legs or stumps, Christopher’s phallus presented him with a conundrum. How to complete Believe It! with nothing below his crotch except his genitals? How could he disguise the obvious bulk which was now undeniably a prominent characteristic? Quite unexpectedly, the Tibetan medical team provided the solution without even discussing the problem.

 

Christopher’s lower body was encased in a chrysalis of plaster. He sat erect in a plaster support equipped with a covered portal at the front to allow urination. The base of the plaster cast was rounded except for an inch or two in its centre. Christopher could balance it for a few moments. He used his hands to heave his weight forward. Wiggins acted as his personal assistant once again and suggested that Mathesen be issued with crutches cut down to size so he did not scrape his hands on the concrete floor of the hospital. Christopher soon became adept at swinging his truncated body in its white plaster sheath, finding his new mobility more versatile than when he was encumbered with heavy leg braces.

          – He looked astonishingly masculine, Wiggins wrote afterwards. Instead of a half man in a white body cast, all I could see was my companion determined to finish the job he had started and which I felt myself privileged to be associated with.

 

EIGHT: AS ONE DOOR CLOSES…

Christopher’s final episode is a masterpiece of human triumph over adversity. It not only opens up Eastern religions and beliefs to Western understanding, it also demonstrates what can be achieved after physical and psychological trauma. Christopher Mathesen has not made another independent production for the BBC since the completion of Believe It! although he has made many guest appearances since his return. Few realised the severity of his disability but the man remains upbeat and always ready to support the disadvantaged and charities.

 

NINE: …ANOTHER OPENS

There were two main reasons why Christopher wished to move after returning to England. Firstly, I like to think he was looking for accommodation which was more suited to us living together as a couple. It would need a considerable amount of conversion work to make it suitable for a wheelchair user. At the same time, it should remain convenient for me with my full complement of limbs. We sought out an enthusiastic young interior designer and a property in Altrincham which had belonged to a wealthy childless couple. When the property came on the market as a spacious bungalow, the novelty of it in an area such as Altrincham caught Christopher’s attention and we went to view it.

 

At that time, Christopher was still using a manual wheelchair and a plaster sheath. I strapped him into the chair and pushed him everywhere we went. Neither of us trusted his skill at wheeling himself with so little ability to balance his trunk. Any unexpected jolt could have launched him into the void and I was desperate to shield my friend from any further injury. Christopher revealed an aspect of his character which surprised me, as it echoed the same feelings I entertained and which led me to adopting my current persona. He admitted to finding the prosthetic and orthotic equipment he used to have an erotic attraction which he had not realised before his original injury. He had owned three pairs of leg braces, the newest of which had been left behind in Lhasa. I also admitted having the same attraction and Christopher suggested that if I really wanted to explore the erotic side of disability, I should perhaps try donning his older leg braces, neither of which he had any further use for.

 

We co‑signed the deeds for the bungalow and set to adapting it to our needs. The light morning room at the rear of the building was ideal for conversion to a workshop where I intended making Christopher’s prosthetic shells and repairing his other equipment as the need arose. A wall was removed in order to link the kitchen with the workshop. Soon we were both spending the majority of our time there. We both enjoyed experimenting with new ideas to either assist us in overcoming disability or restricting us further. As mentioned, we both derived pleasure from experiencing and using orthotic equipment.

 

TEN: EXPERIMENTS

Christopher’s old leg braces were a little too small for me until the uppermost waist brace and hinges were removed. I could then wear each leg brace as individual pieces. I needed customised connectors in suitable boots in order to wear the braces and we found a professional cobbler who assured us that he understood the problem. Indeed, all the footwear he has adapted has served me well. I have a whole range of adapted footwear from white tennis shoes to heavy rigid mountaineering boots with additional layers added, making the soles ten centimetres thick. They are my most crippling boots. They look magnificent and feel utterly superb. Gradually over a period of months, I wore Christopher’s old braces with increasingly crippling footwear on a daily basis. Christopher bought me my own full‑length crutches as a birthday present and I began to feel that his equipment was becoming mine. I practised walking with crutches and rigid legs until I felt comfortable and confident enough to use them in public. After passing that threshold, nothing would stop me from allowing my leg muscles to atrophy in order to share the sensation of genuine disability with my legless lover. As of this writing, I have been officially approved as a disabled patient entitled to professionally sourced orthotic equipment. My legs have been almost paralysed for the past five years.

 

Our workshop’s original purpose was to serve as a place where I could manufacture Christopher’s plaster shells. We started out with a gross of four inch wide plaster bandages and spared no expense in wrapping our limbs in plaster for recreational purposes. I allowed Christopher to apply walking casts to my legs on many occasions. I loved the difficulty of balancing and walking on the bulky heavy feet. I experienced almost continual erections during the process and again later when I had to function as Christopher’s personal assistant with both legs encased in restrictive plaster.

 

Our greatest joy was gained from the experiments with a wide variety of plaster torso sockets which we invented for a completely legless man endowed with a huge member. Thanks to our seemingly limitless supply of plaster bandages, I crafted a succession of sockets featuring not only bulbous stubby legs to raise Christopher off the floor but also sturdy tubular supports into which Christopher could slide his massive tool. They would allow him comfortable erections, as his tool was too massive to rise vertically. It remained in a horizontal position, varying in length from its flaccid twenty‑five centimetres to its erect thirty‑five. Imagine, if you will, two half litre beer cans end to end.

 

ELEVEN: THE FINAL SOCKET

Inevitably, the huge number of plaster bandages gradually depleted until it was time to order more or to graduate to another more permanent material. I no longer wore long leg casts, having become a permanent leg brace wearer and Christopher was of the opinion that two or three permanent sockets of designs we had perfected during our years of erotic play would serve his purposes well. We decided on a socket with space for Christopher’s member and a flat base, another of similar design with short cylindrical legs for use with crutches and a third with a full‑length penile tube extension and fifteen centimetre long cylindrical legs with rocker feet, also for use with crutches. This latter was for everyday use in the bungalow, where we both expressed our sexuality freely, emphasising our physical shortcomings for each other’s mutual pleasure.

 

My atrophying legs in their custom‑made braces were almost permanently rigid, although there was a mechanism at the knees which allowed me to bend my legs when I had to sit in a vehicle, for example. I had already had two pairs of custom‑made leg braces which reached further up my legs almost to my genitals. They were covered with smooth black leather and a series of eight leather buckles secured the leather corsets to my thighs. The steel struts remained rigid after I stood erect. The only way to bend the knee was by adjusting a pulley attached to a handle linked to the knee mechanism. It was not readily accessible and required the removal of outer wear before it could be operated. Similarly Christopher’s sockets had developed increasingly long stubby legs, allowing him to swing his torso ever further. Our final design was the most daring yet and we both worked on it for over a year. It involved both of us learning completely new techniques and the purchase of a 3D printer with its associated software.

 

The latest socket featured handsomely muscular male legs wearing mountaineering boots which matched my own extreme versions. The legs extended up and joined onto a typical socket moulded with a bulbous crotch to accommodate Christopher’s penis comfortably. The legs could be covered with conventional clothing and standing supported by my full‑length crutches, he looked like any other handsome man in his late thirties, moustachioed and dressed to the nines. He lifted his rigid insensate legs and swung them gently forward, acclimatising to the considerable weight of the thick rigid boots which provided some momentum while walking. The legs proved to be the ideal answer for public appearances without attracting too much unwanted attention, although Christopher’s face was so well known that he attracted admiring attention everywhere we went. It was me, often struggling on one side to maintain balance on my own grotesquely heavy boots, who bore the brunt of the comments about being a cripple.

 

TWELVE: GOODBYE TO LEG BRACES

All good things must come to an end, it seems, and my chosen lifestyle as a cripple in leg braces came to an abrupt end after I accidentally fell down a flight of metal fire escape stairs outside a building where a party was being held by a geographical society. I had stepped out for a moment to enjoy a cigar offered me by a well‑known producer and misplaced my huge rigid boot on the edge of the top step. Without warning, I toppled down the steps, each one seemingly exerting its full potential for damage. My knee mechanisms broke, my lower legs were shattered and both femurs were pulped. I was in a similar situation to Christopher after his first accident. Fortunately, my already weakened legs had lost much of their capability to feel and I was not in great physical pain, although I was excruciatingly embarrassed by what had happened. My impressive cigar was lost but the broken pieces of my leg braces were collected by other concerned guests and accompanied me and Christopher in an IKEA bag to the local hospital where my situation was assessed.

 

Luckily for me, the hospital was renowned for its excellent results with orthopaedic patients. Two teams of surgeons and specialists examined my fractured limbs with x‑rays, microwaves and electrons before coming to their differing prognoses. One group reassured me that I would be walking again after my limbs had succumbed to their regime of pins, shunts, plates and long painful sessions of rehabilitation. The other team regretted that I would never walk unassisted again but would be reliant on custom‑made rigid leg braces and crutches or a wheelchair, as I wished.

 

Christopher had returned home after my admittance to hospital and naturally kept in touch. For his own convenience, he favoured his socket with the generous space at the front featuring short removable peg legs. Their only disadvantage was that he could not adjust them himself without removing the entire torso socket. I wanted to be there to help him, which was almost in my blood by now. I slowly realised that for a period of time, our roles would be reversed. It would be Christopher’s job to look after me.

 

He was as despondent about my choices as I was. I learned from one of my doctors that my upper femurs were partially viable and that with a little reshaping of the bones, I might become a successful user of prosthetic limbs if I agreed to the suggested procedure. I honed my choices with representatives from both surgical teams and with the legless man who relied on my mobility. Ten days later, I became a bilateral above knee amputee. One stump is fairly short on the left and the other is about twice as long, but some of that length is due to flabby muscle used as cushioning for the severed end of my thigh bone.  I am already being shown various artificial legs from several manufacturers but all I want are short thigh sockets which I can walk on. I know rehab centres hate making such things because some patients prefer them so much that they don’t really progress much beyond getting slightly longer or more robust sockets. Rehab clinics naturally want to sell expensive artificial legs with automatic knees and electronic ankles. All unnecessary to regain independence as an amputee. If someone disapproves of how I look thumping along on my stubbies, I prefer to think that it is their problem, not mine.

 

Christopher watches me, fascinated to see his life partner cut down to his own level. One day I may find the gall to brag about having leg stumps while he has none. I know he would laugh. I cannot imagine Christopher with legs or even stumps. He is beautifully agile on his hands and has learned how to tilt his legless torso in enticing ways. I can recognise his questioning pose, his impatient pose and his sexually enticing pose. We continue to experiment with various sockets. Christopher has recently suggested a socket which tapers to a flat base. I am going to draw a few possible versions on a CAD app. He wants to convert himself into a long slender peg leg.

 

THIRTEEN: RELIANT ON CRUTCHES

Neither of us have ever shown any enthusiasm for using a wheelchair long term. Both of us find it preferable to handwalk. Christopher usually wears a torso socket with a rounded bottom and a phallus extension. He scoots around in it with ease and can launch himself into and out of a low chair without apparent effort. Similarly, I use one or two stubbies. I have several sets of various lengths. I prefer my stubbies to be regular cylinders with circular rubber bases. I have as many pairs of crutches, too, all set to match the length of the stubbies. I save hours each week by not needing to adjust my crutches several times a day. Recently I have been exploring more severe disablement by wearing a stubby on only my longer right stump. The remains of my left leg are almost indistinguishable under shorts and I take pleasure in seeing the prominent and deviant black cylinder between my crutches. It grips my thigh stump and extends into my groin. To all intents and purposes, I sit on my stubby leg all day. I find it superbly comfortable and erotic.

 

We both use the same brand of crutch. They are wonderfully strong and reliable. The design is intended for invalids who prefer the support of long crutches extending up to the armpits. I love how easy it is to practise versatile movements on only one stubby by twisting my body between the crutches. I can rely on the crutches without needing to concentrate on balancing on my single peg. Christopher’s crutches are considerably shorter than mine and he uses them only in conjunction with his cosmetic legs or his aluminium peg legs.

 

Christopher’s rubber tipped peg legs are possibly the one achievement he is most proud of. They allow him extra height, making us the same height and letting us look into each other’s eyes on the same level. I am responsible as always for slotting the artificial legs into the base of his socket. Christopher too has experimented with wearing only one cosmetic leg, one of the long ones which resemble a man’s natural leg except for its colour. With a pair of slacks, one leg folded from knee height into his waistline and his big heavy mountaineering boot, Christopher looks much like any conventional leg amputee. He can heave himself along at a regular pace on flat even ground but steps and kerbs present difficulty. It is an enormous challenge for both of us to leave home for a public venue dressed wearing conventional clothing concealing our cosmetic prostheses due to their incompatibility with social norms, such as chairs. If Christopher is walking on his big boots and I have a long peg leg or two, it is next to impossible for us to travel by public transport including by taxi to any venue which might invite us. In such cases, we have occasionally been transported in the back of white vans on make‑shift stretchers which are tilted upright after arrival allowing us to regain our feet.

 

I came across an intriguing design a while ago and sought out a supplier. Our new crutches are similar to the usual type from their tips to their handrests. The upper arms are held firmly by a series of concentric rings attached to the struts on each side. The crutches are light and comfortable but far more secure than other types. Almost impossible to let drop accidentally, I should think. I love the sensation I have when using mine. I feel doubly disabled because not only am I legless, I am also without the use of my hands and arms, thanks to my crutches restricting me from using them. I find it exciting being forced into additional disability. Christopher and I have agreed that only one of us should inconvenience ourselves at any one time with the new crutches. If either of us should need the other’s immediate assistance, it would waste time for us trying to extricate ourselves from the long crutches and then try to reach the other without crutches. Especially not now when I have also begun to favour similar one‑piece torso sockets to those always worn by Christopher. My versions have built‑in stumps, immobile of course, to contain my own. Christopher’s newest sockets have three identical bulges, two to represent leg stumps and the third central bulge to contain and support his genitals. Without my crutches, I would crawl along on my belly, dragging my carapace.

 

FOURTEEN: THE IRRESISTIBLE COMPULSION

Christopher and I collaborated on the screenplay for a production which combined science fiction and ancient theology, revealing the source of the Hidden Truth which has safeguarded Mankind throughout the centuries. It has not always been particularly effective, I must say. Perhaps the battery ran down at times. Anyway, it was lucrative work for two limbless adventurers and after ‘EarthSky’ was released, it garnered cult status among young people desperate to discover some meaning in their futile lives. Earnings poured in and we were finally set for life. There was nothing we need ever want for again and we could do absolutely anything we could imagine.

 

We discussed the advantages of moving to a larger apartment in a warmer climate nearer better equipped providers of prosthetic equipment. Warmer climates meant more sweating, the amputee’s enemy. We researched the availability of prostheses in Scandinavian countries but found no clear favourite. Our flat was big enough for the two of us and had been gradually adapted to serve the needs of two legless invalids especially well. It seemed unnecessary to uproot ourselves merely to start over in unfamiliar surroundings. Neither of us was getting any younger. In mid‑life, a little excitement does not come amiss, but adopting the customs and lifestyles of legless men in a new country seemed a little too demanding.

 

By this time, I was using my favourite restrictive crutches to hop around on a single peg. I very rarely needed to use my hands for anything other than eating after I had washed or showered in the morning. I had regular dates with visiting cosmetologists, barbers, prosthetic technicians, and anyone else who condescended to make their way to us for our custom. I remember the morning when I finally revealed to Christopher the fantasy which I had been harbouring since I admitted to myself that my hands were unnecessary for anything more demanding than gripping my crutches’ crossbars.

 

To my surprise, Christopher simply agreed. He too had been weighing up the pros and cons of losing his hands so he could better propel himself using long cylindrical crutches which slid onto arm stumps and gripped them firmly in much the same way as my stubby gripped my stump. I was astonished that Christopher had been thinking along the same lines as me. We immediately tried to beat the other one down in our rush to be the first to divest ourselves of our hands. It was a pointless competition. We could both undergo similar procedures, either due to some fictional nerve disorder in this country or by simply paying a third world surgeon to remove our hands.

 

We sought out a few local candidates whom we might employ as caretakers. Neither of us intended to become useless invalids. We wanted to use our new stumps to control new long crutches, tubular pieces of orthotic equipment which would envelop our arm stumps and allow us to crutch around as before. Fortunately, a slightly crooked surgeon with some bookie’s debts to pay arranged for our admission to his surgery for bilateral arm amputations and we were shortly the proud owners of half forearms onto which artificial arms with hooks could be fitted as well as our long tubular peg arms.

 

FIFTEEN: PLETHORA OF HOOKS

Christopher gained a second lease of life after his new stumps healed. By accident or design, the length of them suited his image perfectly. His reshaped arms no longer reached the floor, exactly the way nature intended. His handless stumps were shapely and elegant but needs must and we were both shortly equipped with a wide variety of artificial arms fitted with hooks or cosmetic hands. All of our gear was controlled by the simple muscular movements of our shoulders. We could afford the most expensive experimental bionic equipment but neither of us felt the need to spend extra effort on coaxing electronic gear to work when our mechanical steel hooks were far more functional and erotic. We both favoured a similar design with the forearm sockets unnaturally shortened. We both sported short arms. The tips of our hooks could touch the floor in front of us if we rocked back and forth in our torso sockets. Christopher’s hooks allowed him to grip onto his phallus extension, giving rise to some spectacular ejaculations on my part.

 

Best of all is the nirvana of peace brought by the absence of natural limbs. Christopher pondered the theme deeply and came to the conclusion that the union with the universe which mankind has sought through various religions and traditions can best be experienced through total limblessness. Only when every effort by a man is denied and thwarted, later becoming acceptance and love can a man claim to be free. Personally, I prefer to keep a bit of leg stump and a pair of hooks. I’ll take nirvana later.

 

We interviewed several local young men, all recommended by school headmasters or trainers at gymnasiums. We had a few unique demands which most applicants found too extreme but one promising young man with a glorious head of black hair and piercing blue eyes thought for a few moments and enthusiastically agreed, half blinding us with a radiant smile, revealing his perfect beautiful teeth. Like many men blessed with physical beauty, Arnold was smitten by Mother Nature in other ways with other problems. His beautiful eyes were severely myopic and he was practically blind without his thick Coke bottle lenses. He was also quite deaf. His light blue eyes were the clue to that, as the two often occur together. He had been suggested by Christopher’s physical trainer and paid us a visit one evening. One of our unusual requests of our potential employee was that he wear the extraordinarily thick‑soled mountaineering boots attached to a custom‑made pair of kafos while he was in our home. He seemed infatuated by the shocking boots with the ten centimetre thick solid rubber soles and nodded his acceptance of our request, raising his hands with both thumbs up. We, in turn, lifted our steel hooks.

 

We outfitted Arnold with everything a novice pretender might need. Although we loved to see him wearing my thick heavy mountaineering boots on his new kafos, we also had his favourite tennis shoes adapted for use with them in the hope that Arnold would wear the kafos in public. He had a custom‑made set of long crutches made specifically for use with his kafos, adjustable but otherwise completely personalised.

 

Arnold never displayed reluctance to wear kafos and we both loved seeing his handsome face, ruined by his heavy glasses and two hearing aids, grinning at his new disabling leg braces. He had handsome legs and we asked him to wear only shorts with his kafos so we could admire his physical beauty as he tended to our physical needs. I assume it was a novelty to Arnold to be complimented on his appearance since his genuine disabilities did not readily lend themselves to compliments, although he was perfection personified without his glasses.

 

SIXTEEN: CYLINDERS

Our fine collection of short crutches were suddenly all useless following the acquisition of our arm stumps. There was only one solution which would ensure our future independent mobility and we both ordered several pairs of varying lengths to be made. We were to be further crippled by having the use of our arm stumps denied us. They were turned into de facto crutches. We both inserted our arm stumps into cylindrical tubes which terminated in rubber ferrules like ordinary crutch tips. They fit onto the remnants of our arms tightly and extended up to our armpits. They gripped our stumps so firmly that we both needed the assistance of a third person to pull them off. A man with thigh stumps might have been able to squeeze his peg arms between his thigh stumps in order to remove them. Arnold never hesitated for a moment when one of us called him to help us change from peg to hook or vice versa. He always grabbed his crutches immediately and heaved his useless legs across to wherever we rested in our torso sockets.

 

My first peg arms were indeed cylindrical from my elbows to the ground. They matched my single stubby and I lifted myself around the apartment that way for many months until my newest socket was ready. It allowed me to sit on its base with my solitary stump raised slightly so as not to interfere with balance. In this manner, I was on par with Christopher. We were both functionally completely legless. The next pair of peg arms were more elegant than the first pair. They tapered smartly from the elbows and the lower section resembled the bottom part of a thick walking stick. All my subsequent peg arms have followed the same basic design with a pronounced taper. The pegs are lighter and a little more versatile and they give a more pronounced impression of severe disability which all three of us have admitted enjoying. Arnold is shaping up nicely. He has not been outside wearing the admittedly ridiculous mountaineering boots but he has on occasion worn his kafos with the tennis shoes after he leaves us in the evening.

 

Christopher and I are waiting for Arnold to reach some kind of conclusion regarding his growing psychological reliance on feeling himself physically disabled. The man has already asserted himself by shaving his scalp on alternate days to keep his bald head gleaming and has acquired new unnecessarily large behind‑the‑ear hearing aids of a prominent glossy black as well as having a mirrored layer added to his lenses to disguise his minuscule eyes. He looks cyborgian. Christopher would like to pay for ophthalmic surgery to correct Arnold’s vision, but the boy insists that the option has been refused before by his doctor.

 

SEVENTEEN: INTERIM

We created a routine which suited all of us. Arnold commuted from his home to ours five days a week, first as an outwardly spry young man proud of his first proper job, then as a disabled young adult with mobility problems solved by full‑length leg braces and latterly as a disabled thirty‑year‑old swinging himself along the streets on full‑length crutches and heavy steel calipers with ugly orthotic boots hinting at severe deformity of the lower limbs. In a brash effort to announce his defiance of inferiority, he took to wearing red boxing gloves while operating his crutches. He wore hi‑vis clothing identical to that used by builders including a hard hat to hide his baldness. I have never known another man voluntarily disable himself to the degree Arnold had in our honour and to go even further in a display of extrovert exhibitionism.

 

Four years after Arnold’s arrival, he announced that a regular visit to his audiologist had resulted in an unexpected referral to an orthopaedic clinic. The audiologist had been concerned about the apparent deterioration in his patient in the year or so since they had last met. Arnold feared he had been sussed as a pretender and was therefore amazed and relieved to discover that his legs had genuinely deteriorated and he was prescribed more robust steel and leather kafos with ugly rigid orthopaedic boots to keep his atrophied ankles straight. Unfortunately, said the doctor, Arnold would need to rely in future on walking sticks, one in each hand, to maintain balance. I remember how excited he seemed when we met the next day and announced that from now on, he was equal with his limbless employers. He was a genuine, registered invalid and had the papers to prove it.

 

Arnold was kitted out with his dramatically more restrictive leg braces. His orthopaedic boots covered his lower legs to his rigidified knees and comprised almost solid leather shafts with thick rounded rubber soles which allowed some degree of movement with a pair of crutches. From now on, he would rely on these first officially prescribed kafos and boots. The two pairs of mountaineering boots which had once been worn by Christopher and myself were relegated to the back of our closet until such time that they could be displayed somewhere suitable. They had played such a significant role in persuading their wearers on to more severe disablement that they deserved acknowledgment.

 

Arnold continued to shave his scalp but grew handsome stubble and adopted more conservative clothes to compliment his disabled status. He ditched his boxing gloves but continued to rely on thick black leather gloves. Arnold was never entirely stable without his crutches, a fact which inevitably turned his mind to the possibility of amputation. Many months passed before it finally became a topic of discussion. I believe Arnold was shocked by Christopher’s willingness to pay for bilateral amputations, on condition that Arnold ensured that he could continue to serve us equally well with artificial limbs.

 

Thus began his heart‑rending process of attempting to decide what kind of body he wanted. His destroyed legs were still a novelty for him and all three of us were impressed by the efficiency and elegance with which he handled his crutches and crippling non‑supportive boots with their rigid curving soles. Arnold had once spent over an hour with me discussing my arm stumps and the tangle of straps and cables on my harness holding my artificial arms together. I demonstrated how to operate the hooks and showed him the selection of various hooks and clips which I could attach to my sockets.

 

Arnold’s dilemma was basically simple. He wanted hooks. It was perfectly within the realm of possibility. Christopher’s wealth would guarantee that. The problem was Arnold’s destroyed legs. He needed arms with hands to operate crutches, without which his crippling leg braces were mere decoration. He loved his disablement and I have known him to sleep wearing his high rigid boots. Christopher suggested a compromise which might allow Arnold to keep his crippled legs and leg braces while gaining forearm stumps similar to those which Christopher and I had chosen. With a new pair of orthopaedic boots designed to allow Arnold some mobility by walking in them, his hands would be freed of the essential job of gripping his crutches. With a sure sense of balance, Arnold might heave his useless legs along under his own power while swinging bilateral artificial arms for added security. It would be quite possible to create walking stick extensions which could be screwed into his arm sockets if he wished to resort to his initial pair of rounded boots during such time when he was not working.

 

Personally, I believed the best configuration for Arnold was bilateral disarticulations at his knees and bilateral arm amputations. I was certain he would take to long stubbies brilliantly while brandishing his new hooks with the enthusiasm he showed for all his disabilities. He was quite realistic about the physical restrictions he would encounter, including the nigh impossibility of changing exhausted batteries in his hearing aids himself with hooks, not to mention replacing audio tubes and domes himself. It was already supremely difficult with his terrible vision.

 

EIGHTEEN: RESOLUTION

The surgeon who had crafted our stumps undertook Arnold’s case. We arranged appointments at a new prosthetist ahead of time. We did not want to be associated in any way with more bilateral arm amputees requiring hooks at our clinic. Simultaneously, his orthoboot specialist worked on a pair of custom boots with rocker soles which allowed the user to stand motionless on the rear sections. Arnold would have no possibility to use the boots’ curved toes. He would have to rely on a few square centimetres for support while standing but the main thing was that he would be able to stand motionless while manipulating his hooks. I must admit to powerful sexual urges at the vision of Arnold without glasses and hearing aids at the command of Christopher or myself. The idea of his encumbrance of the orthopaedic devices covering his legs and his tentative use of the unfamiliar artificial arms was almost too much to bear. The man would be almost helpless. Deaf and blind, immobile and missing both hands. Supremely handsome, looking around at changes in light and darkness with useless eyes and sensing the severe disability he had volunteered for with the rounded tips of his shortened forearms.

 

Arnold made a good recovery from his trauma and was delivered to his home and to whatever domestic arrangements he had made. We allowed him his privacy for ten days before sending him a text message asking about his condition. It was answered curtly by his sister of whom we knew nothing, informing us that Arnold was already due for initial fitting of stump shrinkers the following week. We thanked her for the information and explained briefly who we were, without mentioning our disabilities nor the fact that we had actively encouraged Arnold to reconfigure his physique. The man had already shed his hands and voluntarily crippled his legs on the way to almost certain bilateral amputations at some future date, the sooner the better. The sister, signing herself as Sharon, thanked us for our interest and support and promised to keep us in the loop. It was enough for us to know that Arnold had some kind of assistance, albeit apparently reluctant, and we looked forward to seeing our personal assistant on his return to working life after being fitted with hooks and new demanding orthopaedic footwear.

 

We waited an extra five weeks for Arnold to reappear. His appearance had changed. He had short dark hair, a beard and moustache, a black leather motorcycle jacket and tight black leather trousers over which his old kafos and his new boots fitted. Most surprising of all were his eyeglasses which had reverted to the old transparent type. His eyes appeared to be mere pinpricks. He rocked his way into our apartment on his rigid legs, walking without crutches or walking sticks for possibly the first time in several years. But he looked confident and after shaking his jacket off, he lifted his amputated arms in triumph and thrust his hooks alternately into the air.

          – I never imagined I would feel so accomplished and so complete as I do right now. I was a bit dubious about the new boots because I can walk on only the back half but I think I prefer them now because they allow me hooks instead of hands.

 

Arnold demonstrated his split hooks for us, glittering with their newness. His carbon sockets were standard black and he looked especially proud of the way his upper body was completely transformed by the presence of his harness and the additional strapping and cabling which converted the shrugs of his shoulders into the only movement he could persuade his hooks to make. One half of the split hook would open, only to snap shut automatically as soon as tension was released. Everything Arnold would do from now on would be restricted to what that shoulder shrug could control. Christopher and I had long since become inured to the fact that most actions we might like to take were no longer available to us. We could no longer open champagne bottles or squeeze toothpaste from a tube. We could no longer peel potatoes or slice tomatoes. Our clothes were restricted to those we could put on. Buttons and laces were out. We were severely disabled but we presented our disabilities to the world without shame or embarrassment. Arnold was still a little unsure of himself, hence the thick leather jacket whose long sleeves almost hid his hooks. Despite that, he was a spectacular cripple, carefully negotiating his path on his massive heavy leg braces and distasteful orthopaedic footwear, maintaining his precarious balance with raised hooks.

 

But there was work to do. His return meant that he was once again ready to see to us after we toiletted. He shaved my head, scrambling to squeeze the electric razor between his hooks. There were simply no electric razors on the market which were designed for use with hooks. We sent him on shopping trips to pick up items which we had forgotten to add to our weekly delivery. He became a familiar figure in the neighbourhood. His face looked so odd when he wore clear lenses and his hearing aids, leg braces and, most of all, his artificial arms deterred anyone from commenting. Even preteens with their vicious mouths were struck speechless by the leatherclad automaton, the robot man, whom they saw on occasion. Some of them memorised his appearance to be revisited late at night down the years when the vision of Arnold struggling on useless braced legs or grappling to keep hold of an item with his hooks flailing in every direction might cause his young admirers to become devotees, confirmed by the warm sperm they emitted too often during their confusing wet dreams, forming their sexual preferences and peccadillos for the rest of their lives.

 

NINETEEN: A THREESOME AND A NEWCOMER

We heard later that Arnold met Lloyd, short, bearded, crewcut, working the till at the supermarket. Lloyd had been shocked by Arnold’s hooks but only because bilateral hooks were Lloyd’s number one fetish and he was momentarily confused by feeling so erotically charged while at work. Several weeks and three or four encounters later, Lloyd dared speak to Arnold, saying how much he admired the way Arnold handled his hooks and that he was envious of them. Arnold was charmed. He always sought out Lloyd’s cash desk so he could look at the guy with the shy smile, who looked like a boy with a beard.

          – Nothing to it, mate.

Arnold reached across the counter and twisted his hooks slowly under Lloyd’s nose, opening the hooks and letting them click closed. Lloyd squirmed in his seat. His small penis was rock hard and his balls were tight on the very edge of cumming.

          – See, this is how my hooks work.

          – No, I don’t see. I don’t understand it.

          – Like this. Look, why don’t you meet me after I get off work and I can show you better then?

          – That would be great. I get off at eight. I could meet you at the bus stop outside at a quarter past.

Arnold thought quickly. He left Christopher and me at seven but could ask to stay a little longer.

          – OK. I’ll see you outside.

Lloyd turned to his next customer while Arnold dropped our purchases into his rucksack and rocked his way on rigid legs back to our apartment.

 

Lloyd was a head shorter than Arnold which made Arnold feel protective and defensive. For the first time in his life, he had someone he actually cared for. He did not realise the irony of a man as disabled as he was feeling protective of a healthy young man with a full complement of limbs. I also fell in love with Lloyd at first sight. There was something about him, maybe his innocent appearance and his heart‑melting shy glances and half smiles when speaking. Whatever Lloyd’s charms are, his first date with Arnold was a success. Lloyd helped support Arnold onto a bus and the pair of them ate hamburgers while discussing all of Arnold’s many disabilities. Lloyd was fascinated to see how handsome Arnold was without his glasses and watched in horror as Arnold’s eyes slowly rotated in their sockets seeking clarity but seeing only a cacophony of colour. More than Arnold’s amputations, his new friend’s semi‑blindness was the factor which gave rise to the most empathy in Lloyd. Arnold spoke of how his legs had become atrophied to the point when he needed his own calipers and had his orthopaedic boots manufactured to fit his deformed weakened ankles and feet. Lloyd was more sexually aroused than he had ever been and demanded the opportunity to make love to Arnold as soon as possible. The toilet at Maccy D was not the best place. Arnold took Lloyd back to his apartment and raped Lloyd as only a semi‑paralysed bilateral amputee knows how.

 

Lloyd appeared in our lives one Friday evening when Arnold was tidying up after bathing Christopher and myself and drying us off. We heard a tentative knock on the door and looked quizzically at each other, not expecting callers.

          – Oh! That must be Lloyd. I told him this address. I hope you don’t mind. It’s just that he has to help me soon because we’re going out this evening.

          – Is he your boyfriend, Arnold?

          – Yeah. I suppose he is.

          – Well, let him in! I’d love to meet him.

 

Christopher was wearing a short white bathrobe which nearly covered his penis. His arm stumps were naked but I had already slid my stumps without stump socks back into my set and was wearing a pair of boxer shorts. My longer stump extended from one leg. Arnold hung the bath towels to dry next to the laundry basket and rocked as quickly as possible to open the door. We heard some muffled speech and the smack of a kiss before Lloyd’s diminutive figure stepped into view and his eyes widened in increasing amazement. Somehow Arnold had not explained anything about his employers’ disabilities. Our condition came as a total surprise to a young man whose every fantasy we fulfilled. I waved a hook and indicated a chair.

          – Come in, Lloyd. Don’t be shy. Sit down. Welcome to our humble abode. Arnold, why don’t you get us all a drink? There’s a bottle in the back of the fridge.

 

Making drinks for four with two hooks would take Arnold a few minutes. We could pump Lloyd for some info and what we discovered was fascinating. And we both wanted it to continue, having both become enamoured by Lloyd’s boyish shyness coupled with his adult attributes like his beard and deviant sexuality. Christopher became frustrated without his hooks and flapped his stumps around inside the sleeves of his bath robe, causing it to fall open and exposing his gigantic cock. It was too much for Lloyd. His orgasm lasted eight seconds and discoloured his crotch almost immediately. He hung his head in embarrassment, which I found utterly endearing. Arnold arrived carrying a tray of shots to find Christopher and me grinning at the stricken figure standing with his legs spread as wide as they could stretch.

 

TWENTY: LLOYD’S LEGS

Lloyd became a regular visitor as Arnold’s relationship with him deepened and matured. The most usual time was a Friday evening, usually shortly after seven,  sometimes nearly eleven depending on Lloyd’s shifts. We never repeated our near naked display which had greeted him on his first encounter. We all assured Lloyd that it was a perfectly understandable reaction to being faced with two scantily dressed quadruple amputees. We were both safely ensconced in our body sockets with artificial arms concealing our stumps on subsequent visits.

 

It did not take long before the subject of equipping Lloyd with some kind of orthotic aid arose. Arnold suggested an eye patch, a smart leather one, not some flimsy elastic thing. Lloyd himself was open to anything. He was turned on by Arnold’s leg braces, Arnold’s arm prostheses, my arm prostheses, Christopher’s legless torso socket with its built‑in phallus extension—everything. He admitted one evening that he felt inferior to us three because of his diminutive height. Christopher swung himself to our bedroom and returned a few minutes later dragging the astonishing built‑up mountaineering boots from the back of the closet. Lloyd tried them on and found himself standing twelve centimetres taller. They were loose and too big for him but he wore them for the rest of the evening and was delighted with the opportunity to stand almost eye to eye with Arnold.

 

Christopher was inspired to design a set of prosthetic legs for Lloyd which would allow him to do exactly that. He contacted our prosthetic specialist and explained the problem. It was a simple case of height extension but Christopher insisted that the prostheses be rigid from groin to toes to force Lloyd to experience the same inconvenience as Arnold. Between the two of them, they created a pair of artificial legs for Lloyd before the man had an inkling of their virtual existence. Through some sly questioning by Arnold and a little rearrangement at the clinic, a three hour slot for fitting a short healthy man with a pair of height increasing leg prostheses was reserved. Lloyd would shortly lose the ability to use his knees, ankles and feet.

 

The prostheses would give him about thirty centimetres of extra height by forcing his feet into an almost vertical position inside the rigid cylindrical legs. They would be contain moulded spaces inside the lower legs which would support Lloyd on tiptoe, like a ballerina. The prostheses would extend further before reaching the rigid artificial ankles and feet. Lloyd could wear any footwear he wanted but he would be standing thirty centimetres taller on rigid legs, denying him the opportunity of sitting with bent legs. He was familiar with the problem since meeting Arnold. They always stood wherever they went because Arnold could not use a chair or stool.

 

Christopher explained his idea before the plan was finalised. Lloyd was excited to be taller, excited to be crippled, excited by having his own artificial legs. He travelled to the prosthetic clinic which dealt with Arnold’s equipment and experienced the erotic pleasure of having both legs encased in plaster. Unfortunately, the joy was short lived. The plaster was cut away and Lloyd was sent home to wait for his invitation for a fitting of his first artificial limbs.

 

In the meantime, Arnold also considered Lloyd’s wish to be taller and suggested that with a custom‑made pair of leg braces, he could be fitted with built‑up orthopaedic boots with high rises, making him as tall as he wanted to be. The big advantage was that they would both be wearing the same kind of calipers and boots and as the years passed and Lloyd’s legs atrophied, they would both be in a similar situation. Christopher pointed out that it would be essential for Lloyd to retain his hands in order to fit Arnold with his prostheses and orthotic devices every morning. Under no circumstances could Lloyd be allowed to lose his hands, regardless of how often he pined to be a genuine amputee.

 

Christopher’s design was a success. Lloyd regarded his thick black carbon legs with trepidation, seeing how much longer they were than his own muscular ones. But after he coaxed his legs into the long prostheses, forcing him to stand in an extreme tiptoe position, he discovered the erotic difficulty of rising to his new artificial feet and for the first time, but not the last, he ejaculated uncontrollably onto the fitting bench. He was assured that it was a common occurrence, more typical of leg amputees seeing their stumps transformed. This idea caused a second ejaculation, less voluminous than the first but no less impressive. The ejaculate was wiped away before Lloyd was spun around and eased to the ground to stand on something other than his own two feet for the first time in his life. His own feet were thirty‑five centimetres above the soles of his prosthetic feet in an excruciatingly uncomfortable position which would gradually ease, altering Lloyd’s ankles to be viable only when forced into the extreme ballerina position. Shortly Lloyd’s fetish for wearing artificial legs would lead him to genuine disability after his Achilles tendons shrank to such a degree that Lloyd could no longer straighten his ankles. Being otherwise fit and healthy, Lloyd mastered his rigid gait in a few months and learned how to stand by pulling himself to his feet. He modified the built‑up mountaineering boots and wore them, gaining an extra twelve centimetres. He stood the tallest of us all and beamed with pleasure at the paradox of finally standing at a man’s height but at the cost of becoming severely disabled. He persevered through the pain and tolerated the odd position of his ankles and feet when he removed his legs.

 

He was in considerable pain when he was not wearing his prostheses due to the shrinkage of his Achilles tendon and was admitted to hospital after the tendon in his right ankle simply snapped. His foot hung loose. Doctors surveilled the damage and compared it with the opposite ankle. Prognoses were discussed until Lloyd happened to mention that he had a close friendship with the broadcaster Christopher Mathesen who had been recommending elective bilateral amputations of Lloyd’s feet for two or three years. Without feet, Lloyd could be fitted with prosthetic lower legs of any length. He could be as tall as he wanted. His prospective surgeon discussed the arrangement with both Lloyd and Christopher, who would be paying for the procedure. With a little exaggeration and masterful manipulation of the surgeon with his flirtatious manner, Lloyd succeeded in achieving bilateral below‑knee stumps on his twenty‑seventh birthday. His stumps were just over ten centimetres long, nicely rounded and would allow him to use a huge variety of artificial legs including primitive wooden peg legs with knee shelves, examples of which Arnold enthusiastically showed him.

 

TWENTY‑ONE: AMERICA BELIEVES IT!

Fifteen years had passed since the first episode of Believe It! had aired. The head of programming had changed twice since then and it seemed that the new boss was casting about for old favourites which might be rewarmed. The channels were almost completely populated with sport, soaps, Attenborough documentaries and all‑night talk shows from midnight to midday. One day, a courier brought Christopher an old style letter printed on quality vellum with the tv corporation’s logo on each page. It was from the head of programming. He reminded us of Christopher’s early success and proposed a similar production which would study the myriad versions of Christianity in the United States. It was possible that the new head was not knowledgeable about his limbless star’s physical condition. Christopher, naturally enough, gave it nary a thought and thus began an intense negotiation with the head of programming, head of production and Christopher himself. At no stage did he make it obvious that he was completely legless and he automatically kept his hooks out of sight onscreen as he always did in order not to distress his interlocutor unnecessarily. He was delighted to be approached for a follow‑up series and intrigued by the subject matter, despite the fact that he had always derided the depravity of rural American beliefs. It might be possible to present them in such a way that they might self‑destruct. After being out of the limelight for over a decade, perhaps a return to the old subject with a new slant would present an interesting challenge.

 

Things almost derailed on the first physical meeting when Christopher was ferried to the corporation’s headquarters by taxi. He was wearing his cosmetic legs on a torso socket with his penis concealed along one trouser leg. He had shucked his hooks and sported two mechanical wooden hands with spring‑loaded fingers and thumbs which he had recently begun to favour during encounters with the public. The taxi driver helped Christopher in his wheelchair as far as the lobby, where Christopher announced his appointment to the receptionist, himself a legless veteran in a wheelchair. The selected producer soon arrived to meet him and seemed surprised to discover that her eleven o’clock was disabled. Christopher noticed the flicker of repulsion on her face. It was not an auspicious meeting. They went upstairs to a conference room where other members of a potential production team waited. Christopher allowed each of them the thrill of feeling his wood and steel right prosthesis. They all recognised him. The unbeatable moustache was as audacious and masculine as ever and the laughter lines around his blue eyes were deeper and more prominent. Otherwise Christopher was very much the same man who had frequented these corridors many years before, with the exception that the younger Christopher had calipered legs and natural hands.

 

The producer explained her vision. The new series was to be called America Believes It! and would comprise six episodes in various parts of the USA. She proposed that the country had enough radically different approaches to Christianity to make for an interesting project in the right hands and she hoped that Christopher could entertain the possibility of creating the script and introducing each episode.

 

Christopher was well aware of his limitations compared with the earlier version of himself and weighed up the pros and cons of coming clean about his physical requirements. He decided to keep his revelations to a minimum and satisfied himself with an admission of being more disabled than at the end of the first series. He lifted his curiously fascinating hands while explaining that he required the full time services of a personal assistant, mainly for mobility. He was, as he was sure it was unnecessary to remind them, completely legless since his visit to Lhasa which had cost him the remnants of his legs. And also delivered so much in compensation, he thought. The producer was taken aback again, not having imagined that a wheelchair user’s legs might be mere plastic reproductions, just for show. Christopher’s white tennis shoes were fashionable but strictly for decoration only.

 

It was a long meeting which mutated into lunch served them in the conference room. They discussed visa requirements, passport applications, a route, a timetable, an itinerary. Money would be discussed later but they were talking about six figures per episode. A personal assistant would be added to the expense list. The script for the first three episodes should be submitted by a date two months hence including outlines for the remaining three. Production was pencilled in for autumn when atmospheric and climatic conditions should be generally tolerable.

 

The meeting concluded with Christopher requesting a few days to mull over his ideas. He would contact the corporation in the near future with his decision and they could draft a contract to be electronically signed at the same time.

 

TWENTY‑TWO: BORROWED BEAUTY

It was simple enough to draft scripts for the first three episodes. America is rife with cults and belief systems which barely deserve the dignity of religion with none of the tenets proposed by Jesus Christ. Christopher worked solidly for the following weeks, researching the stranger implementations of belief as it evolved through the centuries into the unrecognisable, disgusting, appalling. He contacted leaders of churches in rural areas asking for a video interview and was rejected because he was an ‘Aphrodite of the Pretender’, as evidenced by his physical disability. It was difficult but the producer was pleased. The first payment was made, there was a team in place. There was only one possible problem. Would Christopher be on camera during his introductions and narrations? Did the producer not think it would be preferable? It was difficult to say, Christopher being so severely disabled. Might he suggest another on screen narrator who could also act as his personal assistant? Seeing an opportunity to save a few thousand, the producer agreed after seeing photos. Lloyd would be the face of America Believes It!

 

TWENTY‑THREE: BIBLE-BASHERS

Everything was ready, down to the smallest detail, including who would check on Arnold’s apartment each week while he was living with me during Christopher’s and Lloyd’s absence. Neither of us were too disabled to function alone but Arnold had his long leg braces which lent him the advantage of height. He was useful to have around. Christopher left with a solitary torso socket with a detachable codpiece for his tool, short arm prostheses fitted with standard hooks and his slimmest peg arms. The wood and steel hands were in his luggage. Lloyd was fitted with his ordinary sockets and two sets of pylons both of which made him taller than his natural height. His primitive rubber feet and shoes clamped onto the pylons. He walked with a confident swagger not unlike any other bilateral amputee. The main thing, according to the producer, was that he did not appear to be overly disabled. It was a challenge for Christopher if there ever were one. He turned it into a personal challenge, overcame it and its consequences still resonate today.

 

The entire production team departed Heathrow and flew direct to Miami. The first episode was centred around urban protestantism and Miami was rife with many versions, imported and promulgated by retirees from all over the north‑east. The producer’s plan was to launch the new series from familiar surroundings before shifting to more surreal and disturbing environs. A format was designed where Christopher sat on the left discussing the subject of the episode with someone off camera. Viewers knew Christopher’s familiar face. Then the camera panned or zoomed out to include Lloyd who then addressed the camera and thus the viewer directly. From then on, Lloyd would handle the on screen interviews with pastors and evangelists and high priests. Christopher’s familiar voice provided an even, easily understood narration during the intervening segments. In this way, Christopher’s presence was constant and Lloyd’s handsome face with its charming flirtatious mannerisms provided a welcome key attraction. Crusty rural Bible‑bashers who hated youth and its sinful ways produced a smile for the camera after a half hour encounter with the deferent young blade who listened to the Holy Truth and knew his place.

 

None of the interviewees were told of Lloyd’s disability beforehand and most of them had no reason to suspect such a matter. Even on outside shots to camera, when Lloyd and his interviewee strolled through a cemetery or along a country road together, Lloyd’s deviant footfall remained unremarked. He loved being as tall as most of the men he met and gained self‑confidence from knowing that if he wanted, he could be taller than any of them. Lloyd’s body proportions were never ridiculous, although observant individuals often privately noted that it was unusual to see someone with such long legs in relation to the rest of their body.

 

TWENTY‑FOUR: THE SPARK

The team returned home for post‑production offline editing and narration. From Miami, they had entered the foothills of the Appalachian mountains to visit tribes which approved of child brides ‘with the blessing of our Law Geeze Crast’. Communication was difficult, comprehension even more so. Lloyd often felt himself vulnerable when discussing the local traditions when faced with three or four village elders and the local holy man, knowing that if he needed to make a run for it, he would never succeed. The cameraman might intervene but there was never certainty.

 

The three online edits took four weeks. Much time went on preparing accurate subtitles. The producer was satisfied with the end results but as charismatic as Lloyd was, the narrative seemed lacklustre compared with the first series when Christopher himself presented onscreen. In the remaining three episodes, the producer wanted much more of Christopher’s onscreen presence.

 

Christopher had nothing against a more comprehensive screen presence but reminded his producer of his physical restrictions. The producer enquired if Christopher was capable of ambulating on crutches and artificial legs and received a positive answer. He suggested that Christopher would appear quite normal if he were seated while wearing the costume legs and his wooden hands. In fact, there was little need for Lloyd’s presence onscreen.

 

The producer had also noted the lack of a certain spark in the latest episodes and hoped that an opportunity to view the limbless charmer in action might return higher ratings. It was voyeurism of a kind. The subject was himself an extrovert and never refused a chance to demonstrate his prosthetic skills.

 

TWENTY‑FIVE: UPDATES

Christopher felt perfectly comfortable about being depicted using his artificial limbs. They were as much part of himself as his natural limbs had been and he enjoyed the variety of appliances which he could use to be mobile or to benefit from his arm stumps. He spotted the possibility of acquiring a few extra devices from the production company in the weeks before the team returned to the Far West to complete the series with insights into the modern commercial religions, Scientology, Mormonism and Latter Day Saints. These were urban belief systems reliant on strict mutual control and dense populations of believers. Shooting was almost entirely indoors in various locations.

 

Series Two, Episode Four: Scientologists. Venue: Las Vegas. Christopher had been warned beforehand about the paranoid fear of scientologists of revealing any of their central beliefs to outsiders and therefore the local head administrator insisted on remaining incognito. The producer agreed as did Christopher. He had been recently fitted with a new pair of crutches which outwardly resembled standard elbow crutches. In Christopher’s case, his crutches comprised two long arm sockets to which aluminium tubular extensions attached like standard crutches. They terminated in thick rubber ferrules. Christopher and his prosthetist honed their length to perfection. He would be able to sit in his torso socket with his manly cosmetic legs attached and lift himself carefully, allowing him to swing his booted legs along flat surfaces. For example, along Las Vegas’s Sunset Strip in the company of the head honcho. He was an educated man with clear diction and an inexhaustible flow of the false bonhomie which made the manner of a member of the elite so alarming. It flowed into his conversations, raising red flags about credibility in every sentence. He seemed oblivious to the effect he had. Christopher had been seated onto a broad white armchair with his artificial legs arranged realistically. He was wearing a new pair of cosmetic hands for the first time on camera. They did not resemble his own natural hands but were handsome specimens of a healthy young man’s hands. The palms were broad, the digits were long. The skin tone was exactly suitable for a man such as Christopher. He gestured carefully with the immobile hands, wary of attracting too much attention. Lloyd stood off to one side, ready to remove the prostheses at a moment’s notice for Christopher’s functional wooden hands or hooks.

 

The twenty minute conversation was shot in its entirety and would provide much of the episode’s audio but the images would be replaced by visual inserts. However, one excellent shot of Christopher interrogating his mark made it into the final cut. He posed his question and leaned back with twinkling eyes and a wry smile playing around his beautifully moustachioed mouth with chin resting lightly on his right artificial hand. The image was later lifted for use in print advertising and has since become one of the iconic images Christopher is famous for.

 

Salt Lake City. The episode opened with a long shot of Christopher and his interviewee making their way across London Bridge. Christopher power his stumps at a regular pace, swinging his senseless hollow artificial legs at the same rhythm as the interviewee, apparently in all seriousness, described how Mormonism had been delivered to the children of the word all those centuries ago, when the Metropolitan Line was already running between Harrow‑on-the‑Hill and Aldgate. Christopher later reported that his walk across the bridge was a personal best. The Mormon interviewee obviously never walked anywhere and was so out of breath after fifty metres that they leaned against the balustrades looking out over the toxic dry lake bed which was slowly killing their city, the Vatican of Mormonism. Climate change had evaporated the water, leaving behind millions of tons of effluent from agricultural chemicals which had once brought health and life but now brought sickness and death. Christopher suggested that perhaps God was sending a message but the interviewee was having none of it. The Children had been through trials and tribulations before. The scene changed to a coffee house embellished with the signs of the Lord dangling and twisting from surface. Christopher sported his wooden and steel mechanical hands, originally custom‑made for him less than two hundred miles from this very spot.

 

The town was half dead. The more intelligent abandoned the entire state and shed the crippling falsehoods they had been indoctrinated with since childhood. Many adopted Scientology and a few became Latter Day Saints. It seems ironic that given the chance to clear one’s head of false prophets, the temptation to adopt new ones is irresistible.

 

The producer received daily rushes from the team by satellite and was enthusiastic about the presence of Christopher in episodes four and five. The images of silhouetted figures which included the quadruple amputee conversing on a public thoroughfare while negotiating his passage on hollow stilts and long peg arms were fascinating for their striking non‑conformity with accepted broadcast norms. In order to push the envelope still further, the producer suggested that Christopher wear his legless torso socket and short crutches to the meetings for the final episode. Lloyd suggested that he too could wear shorts which would display his artificial legs and received permission to do so. The team travelled from Utah through the parched central desert of the northern states as far as the Mississippi before stopping for their last ten day schedule with Jehova’s Witnesses.

 

TWENTY-SIX: THE CAUSE OF DISABILITY

Compared with the Utah organisation, the Witnesses gave a lacklustre impression. They had no central tenets. Their cult relied on weirded protestantism which was more easily recognised by householders who opened their doors to a pair of Witnesses. A whole encyclopaedia of questions and retorts with their correct responses was studied by every Witness, which provided the mental strength to withstand the flurry of insults they were subjected to on a daily basis. They did themselves no favours by giving credence to vicious beliefs such as those imposed on Christopher and Lloyd.

 

Christopher knew he was doing more than pushing an envelope, as the producer expressed it. He was in full shock mode, arriving completely legless in a wheelchair with arm stumps bearing only short aluminium crutches. He was propelled by an assistant who was also legless. Their first interviewee was visibly shocked but rallied after both men ignored external reactions and concentrated on settling into the new surroundings for the first interview with a Witness historian. However, shortly after recording began, the historian personally attacked Christopher’s morals and lack of faith, stating that his lack of limbs was a direct judgment on his evil deeds and God’s way of preventing more of the same in the future. Lloyd’s artificial legs received similar denigration. For the first time since returning to the USA, the amputees were genuinely in fear of their lives should their homosexuality become known. The historian exhausted herself of trite learned explanations and fell into a morose defence of the cult’s righteousness. In order to leave an unforgettable impression, Lloyd lifted Christopher from his wheelchair shortly before their departure and the historian despaired of the sight of the sinners making their deviant way over God’s green land, Christopher heaving his socket along with his peg arms and keeping pace with Lloyd, kicking his rigid wooden lower legs forward and feet and pushing Christopher’s empty wheelchair. He could have sat in it himself.

 

The second interview went better. The interviewee was initially much more accommodating to meeting with a man on wooden legs accompanied by a half man apparently propelling himself with walking sticks poking out from missing arms. She greeted her guests and guided them into a conference room decorated with a frieze on all four walls illustrating the joyous promise of victory guaranteed by God to every Witness. There was much smiling, as there is in many mental hospitals, with groups of exclusively white‑skinned people wearing clothes from the nineteen‑fifties. Once again, Christopher heard that amputees were especially hated by God for their sins. Their stumps would never regenerate. They would never get their limbs back. The glory of God guided the hands of scientists to invent ever more wondrous cures for the devil’s diseases but a stump was the final warning. It was God’s will and judgment.

 

It was not Christopher’s role to protest against the opinions expressed by the interviewees. He thanked them for their time, sometimes allowing them to touch a wooden and steel hand as they shook hands. The Witnesses remained adamant that the amputees should convert to God’s Love as soon as possible, after which the cult’s surveillance and accountancy departments would no doubt take over the responsibility for individual thought and belief.

 

The production team returned home. Christopher felt himself enervated by the recent attacks on his morality, as evidenced by his limblessness. He felt an urge to express himself even more emphatically and began to weigh up his options. He could remain an arm amputee with more demanding prostheses by the simple procedure of bilateral above elbow amputations. Or he could be more emphatic by divesting himself of both arms as completely as his legs. In effect, he would be placing every last responsibility for his well‑being in others’ hands. He would be completely at their command, in their control, in their arms and on their laps, as helpless as a baby. With his fortieth birthday on the horizon and surrounded by amputees who understood and accepted his physical deficiencies, Christopher made arrangements to have his arm stumps disarticulated from his shoulders, leaving no vestige of a stump. Only his massive penis would remain as an external appendage and if his plans came to fruition as he imagined, his future was assured.

 

TWENTY-SEVEN: PLANS

Arnold was more than happy to have Christopher back after a three month absence. For the first time since losing his hands, he had been completely reliant on his hooks without anyone else’s assistance and as a result had learned several patterns of movement and techniques to manipulate his hooks. He felt far more accomplished than this time last year. His hooks had gradually become second nature and he no longer needed to plan his movements before taking action although the realisation had come slowly. Arnold was as comfortable with artificial arms as it was possible to be and he was proud of his accomplishment. His legs had continued to deteriorate and were useless without the restrictive bracing and heavy rigid orthopaedic boots. Arnold walked as little as possible because of the difficulty in rising to his feet again and because of the high probability of damaging his hooks in a fall.

 

It was not long before the subject of their disabilities arose during normal conversation. Christopher had not yet revealed his intention to lose his arm stumps and was bemused by Arnold’s complaints about feeling restricted by his crippled legs.

          – I think you should think about using peg arms like mine if you’re scared of falling. Go and have yourself kitted out with a new pair of socket with crutches attached.

          – Well, I would but bear in mind that I’d have some difficulty getting the crutches off my stumps and donning the hooks. Then there’s the problem of what to do with the crutches when I’m wearing hooks.

          – You’re thinking about being out in public, aren’t you?

          – Yeah. People stare.

          – But you must be used to that by now.

          – I know. But it would be easier if I had someone along with me when my hooks are out of action. I wouldn’t need to swap my peg arms for my hooks all the time if there was someone else along who had hands.

          – Or hooks. I suppose you were thinking of Lloyd.

          – Yeah. Lloyd is great for helping out because he knows exactly what it’s like to be unable to do something.

          – True. Lloyd make a wonderful assistant because he is such an accomplished amputee. Listen, Arnold. There’s something I want to discuss with you. I should have mentioned it before. I’ve come to the conclusion that I want to become a torso with a huge tool. No limbs.

          – Oh! Are you sure? How will you manage?

          – I’m going to need outside help. If you don’t feel up to it, we can get a professional in. I’m thinking that I’d be mobile in a chair and the assistant would handle the rest. I’m thinking that I’d be hot in the porn industry. I still have a good body and dick. I want to make a mark before it’s too late.

 

Christopher was always full of surprises, but these new ideas were unwelcome. I understood his desire to be limbless to the utmost, his brain firing commands to absent limbs and basking in floods of dopamine as it realised for the thousandth time the futility. Christopher was already ninety per cent disabled and it really would make little difference. He wore his hooks for less than a third of the time he was awake, preferring to use his remaining stumps to push himself around with peg arms. His sets of artificial arms rested unused and gathering dust on accessible supports along our bedroom wall.

 

          – What about you, Arnold? Are you content to continue wearing your leg braces or are you ready for stubbies? Don’t you think it time for a change?

          – I have thought about it, of course I have. But I still like the idea of being crippled by rigid legs, regardless of whether it means my own legs in braces or artificial legs on a pair of stumps. What I’d like most is to have two disarticulations at my knees so my stumps can wear a ton of different stubbies and peg legs.

          – You have been giving it some thought! I’d love to see you on two peg legs with two hooks.

          – I’d have peg arms in that case, Christopher, not hooks. If I had peg legs, they’d be rigid from my balls to the floor. I wouldn’t have knee hinges. I’d probably have short pegs attached to the base of my sockets.

          – It sounds good. Shall I get the ball rolling?

          – Let’s do it!

 

TWENTY-EIGHT: FACSIMILES

Not everything went to plan, however. Christopher was unable to find a surgeon willing to allow him total limblessness. His Thai doctor said he should be content with the perfect body he already inhabited. A new Colombian contact was reluctant to reduce Christopher to a mere torso. He was surprised by the refusals after spending much time and effort in researching surgeons who agreed to commercial elective amputations. Arnold made several suggestions regarding Christopher’s phallic change of career including the manufacture of two prosthetic arms which terminated in precise copies of Christopher’s astonishing penis, itself the size of a man’s forearm. After several frustrating months, he was delivered of a pair of flesh‑toned silicon arms which indeed terminated in life‑sized facsimiles of his huge tool. His disappointment at retaining his arm stumps diminished over the time he spent researching production teams willing to feature a torso with three enormous dicks. At the same time, Arnold’s own preparations bore fruit. He was due to visit a surgeon in Serbia to have his lower legs removed from his knees. His kneecaps would be repositioned under the stumps for support and protection and it was expected that Arnold would be able to stump around on his femurs for the rest of his life.

 

Arnold’s amputations were a complete success. The new stumps were perfect, painless, robust and in a few months, would bear the weight of their owner. Until then, both stumps were casted in plaster of Paris with rounded tips and rubber soles. The Serbian orthopaedic clinic manufactured a pair of peg arms of the exact kind Arnold had specifically stated he did not want. He was now in the same conundrum as Christopher. He had to choose between hooks or peg arms and someone else had to do the changeover for him. He returned home in an inexpensive wheelchair and spent several weeks recuperating. In the meantime, Christopher had learned for himself how disabled he would be without his stumps and had reluctantly come to the conclusion that it was better perhaps to maintain the ability to operate hooks on artificial arms than to call on someone else for every bodily function. If he wanted to experience complete disability, he could wear the realistic cosmetic prostheses with hands which he had worn in the American interviews. There was much satisfaction to be derived from seeing the insensate masculine hands extending from his stumps. Their slight weight was intriguing and as always, the inability to move the body part he was looking at resulted in intense mental pleasure with enormous erections. The cool silicon looked realistic gripping his penis and it was this combination of unlikely artificiality and unlikely reality which persuaded an international production company to welcome the quad amputee in his fifth decade onto their books for the ride of a lifetime.

 

– to be continued -

 

LEGLESS IN LHASA