M A T C H L E S S
Fiction about disability and rehabilitation
by strzeka (03/26)
One
The lads at the Harley‑Davidson import warehouse ran an unofficial wager about the shortest journey a new owner would make on a new bike before crashing it seriously enough to require an ambulance. It had been strictly forbidden by management after being discovered after a customer propelled himself twenty‑two metres into a low sidewall across the forecourt, catapulting the heavy and severely unaerodynamic bike into the air before it returned to earth, crushing the customer’s skull in the process. Twenty-two metres was the record and it seemed unlikely it would ever be broken.
Steve Wright reached the traditional age of majority two months before his accident and spent much of the intervening time salivating over brochures of his upcoming treasure, a deep metallic green Hogbender III with extra phat tyres (the brochures spelled it ‘tires’). It was the latest Sportster S with a stage II upgrade. It could easily exceed a hundred horsepower. Stevie had gradually bought all the leather bike gear he could possibly need. Instead of the usual red and white leather apparel, he chose good black leather, knowing it was far more versatile than the specialised specific outerwear designed and priced by bijou designers.
Stevie’s purchase was waiting for him on the dealership forecourt when he arrived to collect it. It was spotless. Even its ‘tires’ had been cleaned on the spot where it stood. One hundred and fifteen horsepower of pure mechanical excitement. Stevie listened impatiently to the spiel of advice from the sales rep. He twisted the chin strap of his glittering green full‑face helmet which matched his bike’s paintwork. Finally, the rep announced It’s all yours! Stevie mounted the bike, settled his helmet onto his head and tightened his leather gauntlets. He fired the primitive engine into life and lifted his feet from the ground as he twisted the throttle far too much. The bike and its rider shot seventeen metres forward at lethal speed before crashing into the rear wheels of a passing eighteen wheeler. The Harley disintegrated. Stevie’s legs fared no better. They were crushed and splintered. The lorry halted and the driver ran around to see Stevie hanging upside down from the rear wheelwell surrounded by the debris of a powerful motorcycle. He was joined by the HD sales rep. The two men stared at the aftermath. Others alerted the rescue authorities. Stevie was shortly extricated and found to be conscious. A medic pried open the helmet’s visor and promised Stevie that he was in good hands and that everything was going to be fine.
Two
It is unlikely that the victim of such a violent accident would survive unscathed. To all outward appearances, Stevie’s head and face were protected by his helmet. He suffered two broken wrists and several broken ribs but his major injuries concerned his lower limbs. His left leg was shattered. His right leg was severed at the knee but remained partially attached by a strip of flesh. It would require surgery to amputate it cleanly. The left leg was probed and studied until three surgeons independently came to the conclusion that the kindest thing to do would be disarticulation of the entire leg from the pelvis. Not even a stump would remain. After nine hours in theatre, the erstwhile motorcyclist emerged legless. There was no vestige of his left leg and his right leg was a mere stump terminating several centimetres above where his knee had been. It was encased in a thick plaster cast and would remain so until its three fractures were healed.
Stevie was kept in a coma for three days and then under sedation for a further week. He gradually became aware of his injuries without anyone explaining them to him. His arms were casted and they ached. He could sense the emptiness at his left hip through the thick bandages. His right leg felt oddest. There was throbbing pain from the fractures and a different pain from the amputation site. He sometimes tried to feel the stump but the result was hard plaster of Paris knocking against itself.
His parents underwent a brief period of shock and depression but were basically psychologically strong enough to accept that their handsome boy was suddenly a legless cripple. His injuries were too distasteful to think about. Time would tell how Stevie himself would cope with his new body.
He received visitors from his school, friends he had not seen for months who had heard through the grapevine that he had been seriously hurt. Most surprising of all was a visit by one of the guys at Harley‑Davidson who had witnessed the smash‑up. Not only did the crew want to know what had happened to the customer, the salesman who volunteereed to visit him, Colin Thursdale, had a fetish for amputees and expected to find the customer sporting a stump or two. There was only one. The severity of Stevie’s maiming was a shock even to Colin who was used to gloating over photos of that sort of thing. Stevie was happy enough to chat about his accident, having no recollection of it himself, and finding someone who seemed to understand about losing legs. Stevie used the casts on his wrists to gesture as he foundered through various possible outcomes. Colin asked if he could come and see Stevie again before he was discharged. Stevie was only too pleased to have some company and said Colin could drop in every day if he wanted.
And so he did.
Three
Stevie spent nine weeks in hospital while his bones knitted and his flesh healed. By that time, Colin had visited fifty‑odd times and the two young men were soul buddies, thick as thieves. As Stevie’s stump healed and the cast discarded, Colin was the only visitor who Stevie allowed to see and touch the remnants of his legs. Having read about heightened sensitivity in stumps, Colin brashly fondled Stevie’s stump, causing Stevie to enjoy a few salacious erections. There was nothing gay about it. It was just one guy helping another out.
Stevie spent his days in rehab, strengthening his wrists and arms. His prosthetist promised him two artificial legs on which he might learn to walk with strength and determination. Seated in a wheelchair, Stevie was conscious of the shocking sight he presented to any onlooker. His missing leg was one thing. His stump was quite another. For one thing, it was phallic. It looked like a dick and naturally enough it extended from the same region of his body. Stevie was grateful to have it but realised that the asymmetry of his lower body was disturbing to see. His stump looked much worse than if he had merely lost his other leg. It looked acceptable enough to be one‑legged. Maybe his prosthetist could make him a leg to put his stump into so he looked like he still had one leg. Maybe it would be possible to have another plaster cast made so he could shove it onto his stump. It would look better than the stump itself.
It was time to go. There was no reason for Stevie to remain in hospital when his future treatment would be prosthetic and therefore easily undertaken from home. Stevie’s father collected his son, seated in a new but basic aluminium wheelchair. It had no footplates and its empty profile was somehow disturbing. Stevie had garnered enough information about various forms of prosthesis that he did not expect to be wheelchair dependant for a while. Thanks to glowing reports from his doctors praising their handiwork in healing his fractures with amputations and unrealistic boasts from providers of artificial limbs promising comfort and mobility, Stevie envisaged himself six months hence strolling down the street with a slight limp, maybe with the assistance of a handsome walking cane. For some reason, the idea of permanently adopting a walking stick to disguise his reliance on prosthetic limbs was unusually attractive.
His mother had recovered from the shock and distress at her son’s maiming but found it difficult to confront his legless reality seated in a wheelchair. Their home was fortunately spacious enough for a wheelchair. There were toilets on both floors. Once a week, Wright senior carried his son upstairs to shower. Otherwise Stevie had no business upstairs. It felt ridiculous not to be able to access his old bedroom. He slept on a makeshift bed in the living room. It was comfortable enough but hardly ideal. His parents stopped entertaining and his other relatives stopped visiting. They were discomfited by the idea of confronting the young Stevie cut down and confined to a wheelchair at twenty and preferred to put the entire matter from their minds.
Four
This was the time in Steve Wright’s life when several schoolfriends were enjoying a so‑called gap year in their education. Originally the intervening year had been spent travelling in a modern form of the classical Grand Tour, when young students acquainted themselves with the antiquities of Rome and Athens and the Levant to return home with a reconfirmed sense of British superiority. The modern version saw young Brits asserting their superiority in Amsterdam, Prague and Ibiza. Stevie spent his gap year being fitted by his prosthetist.
Yamal Gupta was a new arrival, one of three million Indian citizens entitled and willing to relocate to the old colonial power under favourable conditions negotiated in accordance with the most recent trade agreement. He was educated in one of Kolkata’s finest medical establishments and had created his own practice which specialised in equipping Kolkata’s limbless with cheap basic artificial limbs. He held strict religious beliefs, among which was the certainty that current disability was a deserved fate for injustices caused by the sufferer in previous lives. He received Steve Wright with typical courtesy, noted the patient’s extreme disability and began to plan Stevie’s rehabilitation in accordance with both his experience and beliefs.
Stevie had done his own research into the many possibilities open to a legless amputee such as himself. He had been despondent at first about the apparent difficulty of fitting an artificial leg onto his pelvic bone until he saw a similar amputation on a young YouTuber. He had a full‑length artificial leg attached to a socket which cradled his pelvis, held on by two velcro straps around his waist. The YouTuber demonstrated his extremely halting gait, doing his best to control a mechanical hip joint and a mechanical knee joint. It looked precarious. Despite that, Stevie enthusiastically mentioned the prosthesis to Yamal Gupta who regarded such contrivances as a waste of material, work, patience and effort. Without refusing outright to consider it, he politely announced that Stevie would not initially be issued with such a device.
Stevie understood the reasoning. He had seen for himself how the YouTuber struggled to walk on it, and he had one natural leg. He pressed ahead, enquiring whether he would be entitled to a normal artificial leg for his long stump. Gupta was of the opinion that such advanced equipment might come later after the patient had demonstrated his ability to balance and walk on a short prosthesis known as a stubbie. He described it as a kind of short peg leg. Stevie thought for a few seconds and asked if he might not have a long peg leg so he could be as tall as he was before with his own legs. Gupta condescended to the request and began preparations for fitting the patient with a single hinged pylon. The patient would balance on the peg leg and walk with two full‑length axillary crutches. When he became proficient, it might be time to discuss progressing to a conventional artificial leg.
Thanks to his long stump, his peg leg’s socket sat firmly, completely immobile. He sat on its upper rim as if it were a tall bar stool. The peg itself was aluminium with a fat rubber bung on the end. And there was a hinge on the pylon which had to be manually released before it would bend. It meant that Stevie could sit with the peg leg folded. Otherwise it would stick out in front of him. The peg leg was simplicity itself. It looked smart. Stevie would have his trousers adapted so one leg was sewn completely closed at the hip and the other leg sliced off halfway down to allow him access to the ‘knee’ joint. Finally, Gupta handed him a new pair of aluminium crutches. Once adjusted to the correct length, they were comfortable and lightweight. Stevie looked down to see that he was now reliant on a trio of rubber ferrules for his mobility. Gupta watched his gait practice, much like the Kolkata cripples for whom he had made countless peg legs and stubbies. He basked in their gratitude and Stevie proved no different. The young man was pathetically grateful and excited at being independently mobile again after too many weeks in a wheelchair. Stevie appraised himself in the full‑length mirror at the end of the parallel bars. The guy watching him was obviously severely disabled. The solitary peg leg looked uniquely shocking, as deviant an alteration as possible. And yet it had its own attraction. The empty leg was exactly that. The peg leg had its own spartan elegance and best of all, it felt sturdy and supportive. He was almost as tall as he had been before. The crutches were comfortable enough. He would get used to them in a few weeks. All in all, Stevie was satisfied with his new image and intended braving the outside world as a legless man who used only one peg leg.
Five
Unsurprisingly, his parents were distraught at his appearance. Regardless of being fitted with a peg leg, Stevie was still unable to rise from a normal sitting position. The peg leg played no part in such action, nor could it. The boy’s crutches were continually in the way and made an annoying clacking sound when in use. His father began to make poorly disguised suggestions that Stevie should finally move out to more suitable accommodation and offered to help finance it. Stevie complained about the domestic friction to his best mate, Colin.
Colin had not yet seen Stevie in his newest configuration. Stevie described it to him in erotic detail. Colin leaned back in his chair and pulled his jeans down far enough to have better access to his dick. The idea of having Stevie around, teettering on a single peg leg was too much to cope with. Several day’s worth of spunk gushed onto his crumpled jeans and darkened the fabric. Clearing his throat, Colin suggested that if Stevie really needed a place to crash, he could come over to Colin’s place. It was on the seventeenth floor but there was a lift and Stevie could crash on the two‑seater sofa in the lounge. It was far too short for a normal bed but Stevie might find it comfortable enough. Stevie thanked Colin for his kind offer and promised to let him know shortly.
The move was simplicity itself. Stevie’s parents both helped out. Colin ran back and forth from the lift to his closets and cupboards where he had made room for his friend’s belongings. Stevie brought only his newest clothes and a couple of pairs of altered jeans. He had a few books and some 3D printed models which he wanted to keep. That was all. Apart from his wheelchair and crutches and all the other orthotic and prosthetic equipment his disability required. At last, his parents thanked Colin for his generous offer to allow Stevie to stay over for a few nights and departed. Colin trembled with excitement in the lift in anticipation of seeing his mate propped up on crutches and a single peg leg. It was too incredible to be true. Stevie was not yet completely sure‑footed on his peg and his tentative steps on such an unusual and unforgiving piece of equipment caused Colin to lose control. He came in his trousers and felt his knees grow weak.
Six
The few nights Colin had initially mentioned regarding Stevie’s temporary stay while he sought a flat stretched into a few weeks and then a few months. Colin turned into an imaginative and enthusiastic amateur prosthetist. Stevie’s crutches allowed him to adjust them from short to long and everything in between. Colin made a thick heavy socket from plaster at Stevie’s suggestion. It was similar to, but better than, the first cast he had worn while the bones in his stump were mending after his accident. Colin attached various extensions to it, including chrome‑plated tubes from a Harley’s exhaust system. Stevie took all the experiments in his stride. He was adept at crutchwork. The next piece of gear Colin was about to make was based on the old cast. Stevie suggested that it should be possible to extend a cast quite a bit past the tip of his stump using rolled up foam or even cardboard as a base to cover with plaster bandages. The resulting hollow base of the cast would surely be strong enough to bear Stevie’s weight. He would have a pristine white plaster cast which at first glance might look like he had broken his leg. Then you would notice that the cast was too short and had no foot. Or maybe Colin could shape the bottom to look like a thick casted foot. It would look well horny. This was how Stevie ambulated for most of the time the two friends shared Colin’s flat. Every six weeks or so, Colin recasted Stevie’s stump. The hollow cylinders of plaster below his stump proved strong enough for Stevie’s needs. It never ceased looking erotically charged. Stevie preferred long casts without a bulbous foot but Colin usually got his way and crafted some surrealistically thick feet complete with an additional thick rubber strip to walk on. To all intents and purposes, Colin provided his friend with a never‑ending series of peg legs. Some of the longer casts were occasionally inconvenient. They were semi‑permanently part of Stevie. He had no means to remove or fold it when it was in the way.
A message arrived from the clinic inviting Stevie to present himself for appraisal regarding an artificial leg. The date was far enough ahead that there was ample time to continue enjoying Colin’s latest masterpiece, a footless cast with a perfectly cylindrical piece of plastic drainage pipe under it. The resulting shape was a perfect blend of white plaster of Paris leg cast and completely artificial peg leg. It was an ideal weight and length. Stevie wore adapted jeans with it. The left leg had been completely removed and the hole sewn closed. The right had been truncated at the knee and machine sewn with a neat hem. The odd plaster peg leg looked excruciating. It was one of the very best casts Colin had made. He loved the way Stevie flicked it forward with such self‑assurance.
But all too soon, the time came to remove the cast in favour of the original peg leg supplied by Gupta. It seemed a pathetic piece of gear. The pylon was a mere narrow shaft, the ferrule was minuscule, the socket was strong enough but characterless. However, Stevie wore it for his visit to his prosthetist and demonstrated his skill at walking on a solitary peg leg. Gupta was privately impressed. The young man used his crutches with surety and the peg leg beat a regular rhythm.
The time had come for Stevie to progress. He was entitled to a health service leg prosthesis, of which there were several models available. They were all equipped with mechanical knee mechanisms. Gupta presented a brochure featuring the available legs, their advantages and disadvantages. Stevie intended to continue using a single peg with crutches even if he had an artificial leg. But then he spotted a leg which differed considerably from the others. It was based on the same kind of framework used for leg braces. The upper thigh socket was tightly laced to his stump and its steel frame led to a bendable knee and a wooden leg. It looked both primitive and exotic. Stevie compared its technical capabilities with other suitable models and made his mind up. He tapped the illustration and requested to be fitted with an old‑fashioned wooden leg.
Gupta was annoyed. He had expected the boy to select something more modern. There were new developments in knee mechanisms which he was interested in developing for the Indian market and was keen to have the various versions in development trialled by British amputees first. The device the young Wright had selected used a basic hinge adjusted with rubber and leather straps. However, the peg leg had the considerable advantage of being far more easily adjustable than other models, thanks to its leather socket and primitive lacing.
These were exactly the attributes which enticed Stevie. He had not wanted an artificial leg but had no idea that such genuinely old‑fashioned equipment was even available in the twenty‑first century. He was smitten with the idea of wearing a steel frame with a leather socket and a wooden leg. He tried to imagine what he would look like when he returned to uni after his gap year looking very much like Long John Silver. The only difference was that Long John’s single leg was flesh and blood.
Gupta put up some resistance and tried to persuade Stevie to change his mind in favour of another primitive leg design, a carbon fibre copy of the traditional post‑war tin leg. It had one of the new knees but Gupta was experienced and honest enough to realise that Stevie was too disabled to put a knee mechanism through its paces. Reluctantly, he took a series of measurements and forwarded them to the manufacturer for delivery during the first week of next month. The components would be assembled at the clinic and Stevie would be invited once again to take delivery of his new wooden leg.
Seven
Colin was as excited as Stevie at the prospect of seeing a legless man walking with a single wooden leg. Stevie said that he would probably wear it with long trousers without a left leg, naturally, but otherwise he intended exposing as much of the leather socket and the complicated lacing as possible. Colin was in two minds about whether he preferred Stevie to continue using a single peg leg, which had become his signature style over the past year. Stevie pointed out that the huge advantage of the wooden leg was simply that the knee bent. He would be able to sit in a lecture room among his fellow students instead of being compelled to sit down the front facing the professor because of his rigid peg leg. He would be less notorious on campus, becoming known as the one‑legged guy rather than that legless guy with a peg leg. He would be more easily approachable if he did not immediately appear to be completely, horrifyingly legless. Uni was the wrong place to peacock his disability, regardless of the attention it might bring. There was time enough for that and besides, Colin provided all the attention Stevie’s stump needed.
Gupta presented Stevie with his wooden leg. The artisans had done an excellent job. The wooden leg and its associated immovable foot were superb examples of the genre, the wood left plain but burnished to a deep glossy shine. The chromework gleamed and the tall leather socket emitted a powerful scent of new leather. It was a magnificent item, full of the promise of improved access and additional capabilities. Best of all, the knee mechanism could easily be locked making the leg into the equivalent of a peg leg. This was how Stevie envisioned using the leg despite Gupta’s reassurances about the security of the knee. Anyone who saw him would quickly realise that the leg was artificial. There was no point in pretending that it was natural by allowing the knee to bend. That was asking for trouble. Stevie had rarely fallen but the consequences could be catastrophic. When he was wearing a plaster cast peg leg, a fall meant remaining earthbound until he had someone’s assistance to help him up. The wooden leg was no more accommodating.
Neither Gupta nor Stevie himself ever brought up the matter of fitting the empty site of the disarticulation with a prosthesis. It was technically possible to provide a lightweight prosthesis comprising two jointed pylons connecting to a pelvic socket at one end and a rubber foot at the other. Stevie had researched similar devices and concluded that such a limb was more trouble than it was worth. His crutches were also comparatively as inconvenient but far more reliable. It was unlikely that a crutch would ever collapse under him unexpectedly. And swinging himself along a thoroughfare between a pair of crutches was far more elegant than lurching precariously on one double–jointed set of pylons and another single jointed pylon, either of which might collapse at any moment. So with the assurance he had worked to achieve during his first year of leglessness, Stevie accepted his destiny as a one‑legged man without questioning other possible alternatives. His left leg was gone and would remain so. He had a long muscular stump more than suitable to wear stubbies, peg legs, plaster casts and now a genuine wooden leg. Colin had used it to excite himself many times and some of the stains on the leather socket were due to his lover’s ejaculate.
Eight
Stevie studied hard. He had applied for lodging in a single room on the ground floor of the residential quarter to avoid a daily two hour commute by rail. He was studying to become an electrical engineer. He was the only amputee currently on campus that year. Handsome young amputees were few and far between and usually blended into the background without attracting undue attention. This was not the case with Stevie. His classmates were mostly a good‑natured bunch, curious about the one‑legged guy on crutches. Stevie relied entirely on his wooden leg. All his peg legs remained at home where Colin had arranged them in a line along their bedroom wall where he could see them from bed when he wanked. He missed Stevie’s company and toying with his stump while caressing the empty pelvis which never failed to excite Stevie. They edged each other many times a week. Stevie also missed Colin’s sexual attention and his more innocent everyday assistance. His wooden leg was much less of a burden when Colin saw to its regular upkeep and insisted on helping Stevie don it first thing every morning.
It took only a couple of weeks before Stevie was tentatively invited to join a few of the other guys for a midweek visit to the local public house for a drink or two. It was strictly forbidden to have alcohol on uni premises and the students were still fresh enough to have some respect for the rules and regulations. They planned to get to the pub around eight o’clock and one soft‑voiced student who lived in Stevie’s block suggested he call in on Stevie beforehand and they could go together. Stevie agreed. His chaperone was called Garth Moss, a twenty‑one year old only child from Sevenoaks in Kent. He was attracted to men who displayed some kind of physical oddity, perhaps an eyepatch or hearing aids or a missing fingertip. He was curious to know how Steve Wright had lost his leg. Maybe it was cancer. They often removed the whole leg in such cases to stop the tumours from spreading. Like the rest of his colleagues, Moss did not realise that Wright’s single leg was also artificial.
Stevie was fretting over a minor problem which had manifested during the day. Thanks to a lack of attention by Colin, the knee joint had begun to squeak. Not always but sometimes it squeaked at every step until it somehow settled down and was again silent. Stevie had tried silencing it with a drop of olive oil which worked for half an hour. There was nothing for it. Stevie braced himself psychologically to reveal to a gang of peers that he was legless and that his leg was an old fashioned wooden leg.
Garth Moss called round at twenty minutes to eight, assuming that Stevie would be ready to leave. The pub was about a ten minute walk away. He had not taken into account that Stevie’s progress was a little slower. They would be late but it was not important. Stevie was already fully dressed and standing when Garth knocked. Gareth stood aside to allow Stevie room to exit his room. He was wearing the motorcycle jacket he had worn on the day of his accident. It had survived with only a few scratches, quite normal and to be expected on a macho leather jacket. He wore one‑legged jeans and a black leather boot on his wooden foot. His crutches were dark polished wood, very similar to the glossy surface of his wooden leg. Stevie closed his door and struck out with Garth behind him. The squeaking began. Stevie was initially annoyed but grinned in expectance of Garth’s question. He did not have long to wait. Garth was the quick‑witted type and after locating where the sound was coming from, cleared his throat and asked Stevie if his leg was squeaking. Stevie answered that it was, forcing Garth to continue with awkward questions. No, it wasn’t a leg brace. It was the knee joint in his wooden leg. Yes, really. A genuine wooden leg. Yes, he was legless. His left leg was too short for an artificial leg so he just used one. That was alright, wasn’t it? Of course. Garth spluttered that he had no idea. He was sorry if his query was insensitive. He didn’t mean anything by it. As the pair of them left the university’s main entrance, Stevie assured Garth that everything was fine but asked him not to mention his disability to anyone else. Otherwise he would have to explain the same thing to everyone a dozen times and he simply didn’t feel up to it tonight. Garth promised and felt that there was now a secret pact between the two of them.
Nine
But the secret was out. Stevie had anticipated as much in a situation very much like the one where he now found himself, surrounded by intelligent young men curious to know the gory details of how he had lost his leg. And why he used crutches. Didn’t he like using a prosthesis? Stevie condensed his explanation down to a few simple words. I ran my Harley into a lorry and it ripped my legs off. It was short, easily understood, horrific and revealing. Stevie had lost both his legs and therefore the leg he was walking on had to be fake too. Wow! Who would have guessed? You never would have known. How long ago did it happen? Stevie himself was impressed that he still had his own legs twenty months ago. So many changes in such a short space of time. Stevie’s status changed in the minds of his peers too. Instead of being an average guy with one leg, he was transformed into some kind of daredevil super hero who rode a Harley and beat a smash‑up which could have killed him by mastering a single solitary wooden leg. Everyone plied him with lagers, hoping to hear more about any aspect of his transformation. After a couple of beers, people asked things which they would never have dared ask sober. How long was his stump? How did his wooden leg stay on? Did he lose his block and tackle? What was it like to have sex wearing a wooden leg?
Luckily for Stevie, his next lecture was on Friday morning at nine thirty. He had been carried home sitting on the crossed arms of two of his new friends with his arms around their necks while the rest of the group took turns to use his crutches. It had been a wild and crazy evening and had hardly cost him anything. Everyone else plied him with as much as he could drink and there were still four untouched pints on the table when they left. It was no exaggeration to say that Stevie had inadvertently become the group’s alpha male. Possibly because of the short distance between their digs, Garth Moss became a frequent visitor to Stevie’s room and the first of his ring of new friends to not only see Stevie naked but also the first to make love to the remnants of his once handsome legs. Stevie quickly discovered how different gay sex could feel without the interference of legs. He could swing his stump out to the side giving wide open access to his anus. It was a speciality for the dedicated few, like some cruel and opulent delicacy. His leglessness emphasised his twitching anus and the broad expanse across his lower body devoid of limbs was a turn on for imaginative young men who had only Stevie’s sexual satisfaction in mind.
Ten
Stevie’s reluctant reputation spread further than his immediate circle of friends, if such they were. Older students, third and fourth year alumni, gradually learned the truth about the guy on crutches they occasionally saw around campus. Apparently he was completely legless and he walked on a wooden leg. One third year student, about to graduate in a couple of months, was so intrigued that he worked up enough chutzpah to enquire the whereabouts off the cripple’s digs and enough gall to make an unannounced visit. Amputation had always been an obsessive interest and he would gladly undergo amputations himself in order to gain the ultra‑masculine nirvana of a hirsute stump. His name was Warren Skinner and he interrupted Stevie’s lazy Sunday morning when Stevie lay on his bed reading, half naked wearing only his prosthesis and an open kimono. Stevie laboriously rose, reached for his crutches and squeezed his way to open the door, expecting to see Garth with coffee and sandwiches but finding instead a tall dark handsome stranger who apologised for the disturbance and asked to come in. Stevie peered into the stranger’s eyes and seeing no threat, crutched backwards to allow the stranger to enter.
He immediately introduced himself as Warren Skinner, just call me Warren, third year student and if you don’t mind, there’s a few things I’d like to ask you in private, like. He reached into the shin pocket of his army surplus M‑65 fatigues and retrieved a half bottle of vodka. Would you like a nip? I know it’s only eleven but the sun is over the yardarm somewhere. Oh, that makes no difference. I don’t do yardarms. Ha! Neither do I. Have you got any glasses?
Warren was an affable guy. He was prematurely balding and had a whirl of wiry hair circling around his bald patch. His face was afflicted with the thickest and wiriest growth of whiskers Stevie had ever seen and he sported a dense beardstache. His walrus moustache extended far below the line of his upper lip and hid his mouth, blending in with the growth of his soul patch. His beard was long enough to interfere with the pelt which covered his chest. One might say that Warren was afflicted by whiskers. Stevie, who shaved every other day during a good week, was in awe of the sight and could not take his eyes off his visitor.
You might wonder why I’m here. You see, I’m interested in amputation and prosthetics and I’m studying with that goal in mind. So when I heard you use an artificial leg, I thought I might benefit if I came over and picked your brain. If you don’t mind, of course. I just want to hear your experiences of using artificial limbs and how you think they might be better.
That was the introduction which Warren made. In actual fact, he was desperate to lose his hands which he regarded as pathetically small and weak compared with the rest of his body. He had been infatuated with acquiring his own pair of hooks for many years after travelling to school by bus where one of the regular passengers, an older man in a suit with a briefcase, usually sat in the same seat near the door every morning. He had a pair of steel hooks which looked fantastic contrasted against the black leather briefcase on his lap. But Warren was fascinated by all kinds of amputation and wanted to see Stevie naked and to inspect his wooden leg from top to toe before he left. Hence the vodka.
Warren found two former glass jars pressed into service as glasses. He sloshed a generous two fingers into Stevie’s glass and a similar amount into his own. Your very good health. I hope I’ve not come at a bad time. I don’t really have much I need to know. It’s alright, Warren. Take your time. I know it can be, er, confusing. Yeah, well, I wanted to ask about your experiences with the bionic knees you may have used. I know the electronics in them are shitty and I reckon they can be improved with a bit of research but we have to find some willing amputees to tolerate being experimented on.
Well that’s too bad because I’ve never had a bionic knee. Oh really? What sort of leg are you wearing now? Just an old‑fashioned wooden leg. Do you want to see it? I’d be fascinated.
Stevie stood between his crutches and undid his jeans. They fell to the floor and Stevie sat back on his bed. Warren’s eyes were rivetted to Stevie’s wooden leg. He had never seen such a prosthesis although he knew they had existed long ago before the first world war in the previous century. It seemed incredible that this was a recently manufactured example actually in active use by one of his campus’s students. It was too wild to believe. Almost without warning, Warren fell to his knees and stretched out both arms to encompass Stevie’s leather thigh socket. Their weight prevented him from lifting his stump in reaction. Warren lowered his head. His beard mixed with his hirsute arms and concealed Stevie’s leather thigh. He looked down in amazement at how his visitor had suddenly changed from a domineering ultramale into a plaintive supplicant.
For Warren, the artificial leg was more impressive than any conventional work of art. The lower leg, probably mass‑produced on lathes at one time, was a sensuous limb. Cool, hard, glossy and heavy, it was everything a normal male leg was not. The toeless foot was adequate to fill a size nine boot. The leather socket was the most inviting aspect. It had a beautiful patina which could only improve with time. Warren completed his homage and turned his attention again to Stevie.
You must forgive me. You have a wonderfully remarkable limb. I have read about the manufacture of these prostheses and seen photos, of course, but yours is the first I’ve seen in the flesh, so to speak. I hope you don’t mind. Stevie merely shook his head. Warren’s homage was different from Colin’s. Colin was simply keen on Stevie’s stump because it was so horny. Warren seemed to see beyond that sort of thing. He seemed almost to worship it.
Warren did not want to outdo his welcome and thanked Stevie for his hospitality. The vodka bottle had about a third left. He left it with Stevie to use as he saw fit. May I visit you again before I leave? Thank you so much. Shall I visit on Friday evening?
Eleven
Thanks to the season, it was quite acceptable to wear informal clothes outside of school hours. Stevie had an endless stash of plain white T‑shirts worn with knee length shorts. Warren adopted the same quasi‑uniform with white trainers. His pelt was on full public display for the first time since he had arrived at uni, with less than three weeks left. He was exceptionally self‑conscious about his hairiness and came close to despair at his dense black beard. It grew fast and he knew any attempt to be clean‑shaven was doomed to failure. He would need to shave at least twice a day and would never lose the dark shadow of a beard. Stevie, however, was unusually infatuated with the hairy giant who plied him with delicacies on every visit. They became more frequent until Warren and Stevie were practically living together during Warren’s last week. They were both in love with each other. Warren loved Stevie’s stump in a more sensuous way than Colin, who regarded it as a fabulous target for some slap and tickle before sex. Sex for Warren was slow and sensual. He moved his pelt carefully and used the curly hairs along his arms to titillate the empty space at Stevie’s pelvis. They had bathed together. Warren cradled Stevie in his lap. After several sessions, Stevie suddenly noticed something which had escaped his notice. Warren rarely used his hands directly to handle Stevie’s body. He favoured his forearms and preferred to rub his arm hair against Stevie’s skin rather than use his fingertips.
OK. I don’t know whether I should be telling you any of this but I trust you, Stevie. I told you before I want to lose my hands. I think a pair of hooks instead of a man’s hands is the height of erotic nirvana. I’m going from here to start training as a prosthetist but there’s something else. I know someone, and don’t ask me who or how, who has promised to do a proper job of amputating my hands at the wrist and fixing the paperwork so I’m entitled to hooks. No, not yet. I want to get a settled position as prosthetist first and then get my stumps. So it wouldn’t be for say five or six years. But that’s the way I’ll be by the time I reach thirty. I’d love it if you were along for the ride, Stevie. We could be together if you wanted it.
It was a big ask. Colin had been faithful during the three years of weekly absences as far as Stevie knew and was always as excited as a puppy to see his return early on Saturday morning. Stevie travelled back early on Monday mornings, thus avoiding the crush. Stevie was faithful too but if he were completely honest, Warren turned him on much more than Colin and had far better prospects. Warren was working to become a genuine prosthetist whereas Colin simply encouraged Stevie to use peg legs. Stevie had enjoyed the years with Colin although there was little love left. They had a relationship based on Colin’s amputee fetish and Stevie’s unnecessary reliance on Colin’s admittedly useful daily assistance. The path was clear. Stevie should come clean at the earliest possible opportunity and make the difficult announcement that he had met someone else. It was just incredibly difficult.
Twelve
Their relationship settled into something resembling that between ordinary housemates who shared rented accommodation. Colin was enough of a realist to anticipate something like it eventually happening between the pair of them. Perhaps if Stevie were not so severely disabled, they might not even still be together. Colin maintained his habit of helping Stevie with the drudgeries which came with stumps and prostheses.
Warren kept in almost daily contact. He had moved up country and rented a large studio apartment in a converted warehouse. His studies for anatomy, physiology, biomechanics, material science and prosthetics design fascinated him. He had the best possible motivation to succeed. His approaching graduation was the key to his own amputations. He kept his potential disability in mind when furnishing his flat. Everything had to be easily handled by a man without hands, only long hairy forearm stumps, and suitable for use by a one‑legged man on crutches. Warren had not yet discussed their future but he hoped that if their bond remained strong, they might tie the knot and take each other as their lawful married husband. Certainly they would both have distinct disadvantages as prospective boyfriends or spouses on the usual scene.
Colin found employment as a bespoke carpenter. He had a knack for conjuring unconventional solutions to unique problems, as Stevie knew to his benefit. He became a white van man, although the van itself was fairly modest and electric. Stevie worked from home giving the human touch to new websites created by AI. The electronically produced sites were usually functional but rarely took human error into account. Stevie made them more forgiving for the usual busy common man to use and charged a premium price for a premium product.
Thirteen
Warren had advanced in his studies as well or better than he had hoped. In his third year, he felt reassured enough to begin to make realistic plans for the future. He drew up contact lists of rehabilitation centres in hospitals around the country, especially close to his current vicinity. He liked the city, the general area and his stylishly furnished home. He crafted an impressive curriculum vitae and made niggling improvements to it over several months. He sought out eminent prosthetists who demonstrated some degree of willingness to divert from run‑of‑the‑mill artificial limbs. Warren would be in the odd position of being fully qualified to manufacture a pair of artificial arms but physically unable to do so. He wanted a pair of hooks which reflected his own professional excellence. Every evening just before midnight, he tapped a message to Stevie’s phone with a snippet of daily news and a declaration of love. Stevie saw it most often immediately upon waking the next morning. It was the best possible way to start the day, even more than when Colin rolled out of bed beside him to start lacing Stevie’s wooden leg to his stump. Colin lifted Stevie to his wooden foot, handed the crutches one by one as Stevie positioned them perfectly into his armpits and then the two ex‑lovers made their way to the bathroom and mixed their urine while standing on each side of the toilet bowl. Colin washed Stevie’s face and armpits while Stevie clung to the towel rack balancing on his wooden leg. It was moments like these which showed continuing dedication and subservience that Stevie felt the strongest aversion for what he knew he had to do. Colin would be devastated but as Warren had delicately explained, Stevie should not restrict his life because he felt some kind of obligation to an amputee fetishist. It was a cruel truth and Stevie realised it as such after a short period of indignation. It was the first negative comment Warren had ever made about Stevie’s lifestyle and it hurt. But it was true.
Fourteen
At long last the results were back. Summa Cum Laude. The highest possible grade. It was not only a well‑deserved achievement for the twenty‑seven year old after so many years of study, it was a guarantee of employment in any hospital he might choose to work in. He would never be turned down by any establishment, such was the dearth of specialists all over the country. Once he was comfortably set in a reliable position, possibly with a bevy of regular amputee regulars, he would activate the secretive process which would rapidly result in the illegal but official recognition of himself as a bilateral below elbow amputee due to complex regional pain syndrome. He would be fitted with artificial body‑powered limbs with steel hooks as terminal devices and continue work as a disabled consultant for the disabled. In non‑medical terms, he would be worth his weight in gold.
As expected, he was accepted onto the staff of the very closest amputee facility. He spent three or four months learning the routines and acquainting himself with the surprising selection of the public which laboured with artificial limbs. Warren had read the statistics but never realised that every tenth person he saw was somehow disabled and a tenth of those had an amputation. Here they all were. Young and old. Mostly old. They sometimes cracked jokes, those who had been amputees for decades. Recent amputees were bitter. They complained of pain. They complained of waits between fittings and they complained that their grandchildren were frightened by their artificial limbs. One grandfather with sixteen grandchildren under the age of ten openly wept on a visit to receive a new pair of above elbow prostheses. The steel hooks fitted to his chalky pink sockets were the stuff of nightmares for young children and they dared not come near him. Warren decided that he would test the old man’s experiences for himself. He already had three nephews, although they were beginning to be old enough to be interested in seeing hooks rather than afraid of them.
Stevie was excited for him and congratulated him on every individual success. Suddenly, the single message which would change both their lives forever arrived, just like the many hundreds before. Come and join me. Move in and keep my flat safe while I get my stumps. Stevie thought about moving. What he would need, what he would take, who would help. He did not have enough money to afford a removal van and a couple of strong lads to carry his stuff. He said as much to Warren and shortly received a thousand pound transfer. It was enough. Colin offered to help but Stevie declined to inconvenience his mate any further.
Warren contacted his so‑called gatekeeper and announced that he was ready for his transformation. A local prosthetist had been notified that a recent amputee required a new pair of below‑elbow prostheses in the near future. Everything was set. Stevie was comfortably ensconced in the attic apartment which seemed to have been designed for a legless man including the bathroom. Warren promised he would be away for about a week at most and would be back as a bilateral amputee for the rest of his life. They both laughed at the prospect. Warren was genuinely boyishly excited, like someone knowing he would receive a train set from father Christmas but would still have to wait for another four weeks before seeing it.
And so the deed was done. Warren’s hands were disarticulated in under two hours and the bony protuberances on each wrist ground flat. Freshly shaven skin was pulled across the gaping space which his hands had vacated and sewn closed. The disarticulations were no more than flesh wounds. They healed quickly. After four days, bandages were no longer deemed necessary. Instead, Warren wore thin leather sheaths to protect his healing incisions. They looked hot. He considered having a much thicker pair made, studded with chrome spikes. They would look good on a pair of stumps. Stevie waited impatiently back in the attic, impatient to know how Warren was recovering.
Fifteen
It came as a shock to all of Warren’s work colleagues that he had undergone bilateral amputations of his hands. No‑one had heard anything about what had caused such a disastrous injury. He had left in good spirits of Friday evening but had not mentioned any weekend plans which might involve risk or danger. Warren had been with them only a few months but had already demonstrated his technical material skills and his easy‑going empathy with the clients. Apparently he was making a good recovery and might expect to rejoin the production team in six to eight weeks. He would receive his first prostheses in record time, assuming he was determined to continue working as a disabled technician. There were other cases of amputees returning to the field of prosthetic, most of them with a single amputation. Warren would be one of the few boasting a pair of hooks.
Warren was discharged at six in the evening on the fifth day. His wounds were no more serious than deep gashes which were knitting well. There was little point in keeping the patient hospitalised. A prosthetist paid a quick visit to check on the condition of the leather sheaths and handed over a third similar item. This consisted of thicker but still supple leather to which a curved aluminium plate was attached at the far end near his elbow. When Warren’s stump had healed more, the new sheath would allow him to manipulate the metal plate which would merely create a litle space between itself and the leather sheath. By varying the meagre pressure available from his arm muscles, he could pick up objects such as pens, spoons and the like or use it to slide under a magazine page to turn it. It was delivered in a see‑through plastic bag and looked particularly nondescript. Warren accepted it gratefully and wondered what use it might be.
After making sure that Stevie was home to open the door, Warren was delivered to his home address by ambulance. A hospital runner carried his belongings and knocked on the fourth floor apartment’s broad metal door. He was surprised to see it slowly swing open to reveal a young man on crutches wearing a solitary peg leg. He stood aside to allow Warren to enter, holding his stumps carefully at the ninety degree angle in the inevitable manner of fresh arm amputees. He toed the bag of belongings over the threshold and backed away, leaving the amputees to their own devices.
Neither of them knew what to say to each other. Stevie was wearing a rigid mid‑length peg and remained standing, resting easily on his shortened crutches. Warren sat at the kitchen bench still wearing his jacket with his black leather stumps concealed by the sleeves. He had already begun to realise the enormity of what he had done to himself. It would be fun to peacock in front of friends and colleagues occasionally wearing a glittering pair of steel hooks but those times were few and far between. He would be permanently disabled when trying to dress himself, brush his beard, open a can of beer, the lid of his laptop, a jar of ketchup. He had no hands and whatever difficulties he encountered now were not going away. This was his new reality. Stevie could sense the despondency in Warren’s demeanour and crutched wordlessly into to the far reaches of the studio.
Sixteen
It was an excruciating evening. Warren remained seated in his jacket with his stumps extended in front of him. After an hour of morose contemplation, much of which was caused by helplessness without either hands or hooks, he stood and carefully shook his jacket off. He was wearing a white T, their uniform, and his hirsute muscular arms appeared fitted with the protective thin leather sheaths. It was unusual to see such long stumps. Only the hands were missing. Warren sat again, staring at his leather stumps, trying to understand the obsessive attraction which had compelled him to maim himself to such a degree for life. He weighed up his options. What was done was done. There was no going back. Even with a functioning pair of bionic hands, his life would be unimaginably different in ways he had yet to experience. It was unfair to expect others to understand the depth of shame and self‑disgust he was feeling. Stevie had been very quiet and had given him peace to acclimatise himself.
Warren crossed the studio to where Stevie was settled in a nest‑like depression in a bean bag chair. His crutches and peg leg rested on the floor next to it. Warren moved a stool with his foot and sat on it facing Stevie. He took a deep breath and apologised for being so unapproachable. Stevie nodded and smiled briefly but said nothing. Warren looked at his lover and saw Stevie’s physique as if with new eyes. He lived with the single remnant of a once handsome pair of strong legs. He was now reliant on a single artificial leg, or as tonight, a solitary peg leg. Surely Stevie had it worse than he himself. He would soon have his first hooks and to a lesser or greater extent, the old Warren would be back. He would be able to do things for himself again, to work and he had his legs. He would never have to crawl on the floor.
He apologised for being difficult. Stevie assured him that he could take as much time as he needed to think about the way forward. That was the key which clicked in Warren’s mind. He needed to concentrate on the road ahead, the future, not sink into despair about what could have been or roads not taken. He apologised again and promised to buck his ideas up.
Stevie held on to Warren’s broad shoulders after replacing his peg. He had to hold onto his crutches too while Warren carefully stood, stumps outstretched for balance. Stevie looked at them closely for the first time and said that Warren must be proud of gaining such handsome stumps. He would be the centre of attention and envied by men who admired amputees. Warren was happy that Stevie genuinely approved of his stumps. He looked at them through Stevie’s eyes and had to agree. They were going to be enviable stumps and he was lucky to have them. He should be satisfied with his lot. From then on, Warren caught himself in time when he felt his mood sinking and remembered Stevie’s honest opinion. He was a man to be envied and soon he would be fitted with the type of artificial arms which he had fantasised over since he was a young teenager. The old Warren was already gone, a figment of his memory, lost in the past. The future Warren was about to be born and he promised to be an impressive figure in more ways than one.
Seventeen
Warren’s presence did not overly disturb Stevie’s routine. They still coordinated their bathroom visits but now Stevie struggled to assist Warren rather than vice versa. The fresh stumps showed obvious signs of further healing. One morning Warren suggested that he would like to test the unusual leather sheath with the metal scoop on its underside. Stevie found it rolled up in the inside pocket of Warren’s leather jacket. It looked a modest piece of equipment. Stevie slid it on to Warren’s right stump and smoothed the leather with his warm hands. Warren twisted his stump to see the gently curved scoop and made a motion which would have lowered his hand. The tip of the scoop lowered by about a centimetre and by trying to raise his hand, the scoop tightened against his stump again. Warren laughed and got up, looking around for something to pick up. There was a free newspaper on the kitchen table. Warren opened the scoop and slid it under the paper. He lifted the paper and laughed again, seeing that he had regained the ability to manipulate objects. Stevie was fascinated by such a simple but useful adaptation. Whoever the inventor was, he or she was definitely an amputee.
The left stump was healed as well as expected. Warren adopted the scoop sheath as his main prosthesis on the right and found peace of mind in the simple ability of lifting certain things. He had rediscovered his joie de vivre and Stevie was happy for him. An invitation from the prosthetic clinic for the first fitting arrived. There was only one slight problem, transport. Warren would have rented a car but he would be unable to drive until he gained his hooks. There was really no‑one who might be willing to spare time to drive Warren the seventy‑odd miles and wait for several hours before driving back. Unless… Stevie contacted Colin for the first time in weeks and briefly explained that Warren had lost his hands. He had an appointment for his first fitting but needed a lift. Was Colin interested?
Eighteen
The prospect of seeing Stevie’s lover cut down by disability was overwhelming. Apparently his arm stumps were long and hairy. Colin was excited by the chance to sit waiting in a prosthetist’s waiting room where there might be all manner of amputees. Without missing a beat, he agreed to chauffeur Warren back and forth and was pleased to be back in contact with Stevie. Colin missed arriving home to see Stevie propped up on a peg leg and crutches, waiting for him.
He was impressed by the renovated warehouse when he called at their address. He was invited upstairs for coffee before setting out and checked that his white van’s power was set to idle. It was the first time Colin had met Warren face to face, although he had caught a glimpse of the guy once before. He was envious of the man’s thick black beard which seemed to continue down his neck onto his chest and back. His stumps were similarly covered in thick curly hair. Colin stared at the handless wrists and imagined how they would feel exploring his body. They drank espressos and expressed their gratitude to Colin for taking the time to help out. Colin was impatient to continue the journey, having dreamed the previous night of a waiting room bursting with handsome helpless amputees begging him for help.
Warren refused to give a direct answer to Colin’s questioning about how he had lost his hands. He agreed that his stumps were perfectly symmetrical and of optimum length. He had been lucky in his misfortune. He might have lost far more. The conversation turned to artificial arms and the pros and cons of the different types. Colin had nursed a powerful erection since they set out and gradually Warren began to recovery his libido. He was becoming inured to seeing his own stumps. They no longer turned him on in the same way as they had at first when the shock of the new mixed with the joy of ownership. The prospect of wearing and using, actually owning, some of the fantastical artificial arms which Colin described acted as an erotic stimulant. Colin suspected there was something distinctly odd about the way Warren avoided his simple question and put two and two together. He had either paid to have his hands off or had caused an accident himself. Colin suspected the first alternative was what had happened. No‑one ended up with such perfect stumps due to trauma, that much was obvious. He must have found a surgeon somewhere and paid him to amputate. Colin decided to keep stumm for a while. If he offended Warren at this early stage, he might miss out on further trips and not see Warren kitted out with his first pair of hooks. That was something he really did not want to miss now he had the chance, if he behaved himself.
Nineteen
His prosthetist greeted Warren after several week’s absence. He inspected the hairy stumps. Warren’s scars were still healing. It would be several months before the handless wrists were as robust as they had been previously but Warren’s stumps were sturdy enough to bear the weight and pressures associated with a pair of hooks.
The prosthetist explained what Warren had already surmised. His forearm stumps would be encased in sockets made to conform to their shape. His upper arms would bear half cuffs to direct cabling and the like over his skin. Unfortunately, the sockets might prove uncomfortable due to the impressive pelt Warren had on his arms. They would become sweaty very quickly and that could lead to serious inflammation of his underlying skin, which may be difficult to spot. Therefore, the prosthetist recommended a socket comprising only four steel rods to act as supports between elbow and wrist. They would allow Warren to perspire freely. His pelt would remain visible. The combination of his hairy stumps and the steel equipment along his arms would probably be one of the most unusual sets of prostheses in the country. Warren had more or less set his heart on a pair of enclosed black carbon sockets but immediately understood their disadvantages for a man with so much fur.
The arms were ready for delivery ten days later. The prosthetist once again invited Warren to the clinic but Warren was reluctant to inconvenience Colin again. He had proven to be a reliable assistant for shorter journeys and had twice done most of the heavy work during two separate journeys to a hypermarket. Stevie followed behind Colin and Warren, who wore only his sheath and scoop. The three of them purchased a week’s groceries and stopped off at the gelateria for rum and raisin ice cream. On the second visit, Warren mentioned that his arms were ready and that he had asked them to be delivered by courier to save Colin the effort. Colin was indignant. It was no effort at all, he claimed. Worst of all, he would not see Warren’s artificial arms or the waiting room full of amputees.
He need not have worried. Warren and Stevie had decided to invite Colin for a sleep‑over one weekend, when he could sate himself on his refound friends’ stumps and artificial limbs. The new artificial arms were delivered and Warren was beside himself with excitement. Stevie slit the box open. There was a QR code for a video demonstration about donning artificial arms on an A4, the invoice, two prosthetic arms with attached standard hooks and two pairs of other hooks. Stevie forced Warren to watch the instruction video first. The artificial arms were both connected to a double harness and some care was needed to arrange the straps and cabling to operate the arms properly. The worst difficulties were soon behind them and Warren was wearing his see‑through sockets with hooks. The tips of his stumps were cushioned inside flexible leather cups which took the pressure when Warren stretched to open a hook. He found the metallic click of the hooks intriguing. Stevie saw the difference in Warren’s demeanour immediately. Warren was still severely disabled but psychologically, he felt like he had regained his hands. His stumps now terminated in something which could grab and hold, just like a normal hand. All he needed to do was learn to use them.
The prostheses were very much the beginner’s starter version. With some effort, the hooks could rotate on the wrists for vertical or horizontal operation. There was no other movement possible. It looked so odd to see his hairy arms wearing hooks. He stood in front of a mirror appraising his appearance, lifting his arms, twisting his stumps, opening and closing his hooks.
Stevie learned how to add rubber bands to increase the hooks’ grip. There was a practical choice to be made. The hooks could grip strongly enough to lift heavy objects in which case they crushed things easily or they could have a delicate grip which lessened their utility but caused less damage. The so‑called worker’s hooks proved to have the most fierce grip. Stevie put four bands on one worker’s hook and three on the other. Warren experimented with all six hooks and preferred a standard hook on the right and a similar symmetrical hook on the left. It was better adapted to holding things like bottles and glasses.
Warren was again facing disappointment which threatened to overwhelm him. The artificial arms were everything he had wanted and more, but although he understood how to work the hooks, there were many things which were either difficult or impossible. Using cutlery was awkward and he often dropped a knife or fork. He had difficulty gripping an ordinary ballpoint and practised his signature with a fat Pentel which his hook could hold securely. He wanted to be make espressos for himself and Stevie but the machine was expensive chrome steel. Every surface was rounded and smooth. His hooks simply slipped off them. In fact, almost the entire kitchen needed re‑equipping with equipment which fit between the prongs of his hooks. Eventually the right worker’s hook with three bands proved equal to the task with the bottle‑holder hook on the left.
Most urgent of all, Warren learned two useful techniques for wiping his arse with hooks. He regained his independence and dignity. He learned several techniques for pleasuring himself. His naked stumps were adequate for the task but for a man who had fetishised steel hooks for as long as he could remember, the prospect of masturbating with hooks never failed to excite him. The symmetrical hooks proved more than sufficient for the task as did the worker’s hooks with their circular gap for gripping broomsticks or spades. The powerful hooks needed to be operated with extreme caution.
Warren’s mood improved again as he discovered new ways of doing old things. He also began to realise there were some things his hooks could not do and so he stopped trying and avoided the frustration. He asked for Stevie’s help instead. Stevie made a small adaptation to Warren’s learning process. He now wore his artificial leg from dawn to dusk and beyond in order to be always ready to answer a call for help from Warren. They diminished in frequency as the weeks progressed until Warren finally announced he felt able to return to work. He arranged his return for the following week’s Tuesday. A shorter first week would be easier for him. There would be many routines which would need testing before he had a practical rota of duties which he could perform independently.
Twenty
His inquisitive colleagues welcomed him back. They all promised to give their support and assistance whenever necessary. Warren only had to ask. His unusual prostheses gave rise to comments about the suitability of using equipment which the clinic did not itself provide its clients. His foreman suggested that Warren keep his artificial arms hidden while dealing directly with members of the public. Better still, he could work on his own behalf and construct a pair of arms with conventional sockets. Perspiration need not be a problem with specialist liners, he learned. He should ideally adopt the habit of removing both sockets regularly throughout the day in order to change either the liners or stumps socks or both. Best of all, management came to an agreement with Warren that components made on site such as sockets were free of charge and those purchased from outside like cables and hooks could be had at cost.
Warren understood the criticism, if such it was. Moreover, he now had a project to think about to fill the lax periods between client work. Using his starter arms, he would manufacture his second pair himself as far as possible. The process was largely electronic and overseen by AI algorithms specialising in prosthetics. He scanned his arms from shoulder to rounded stump tip and requested a prosthesis which covered his hirsute arms almost in their entirety. His shoulders would retain their full range of movement but Warren was curious to know about the experiences of patients without elbows. It was possible to fit Warren’s long sockets with lockable elbows. These could be set at various angles at fifteen degree intervals and locked in place by the same unnatural jerk. The hooks could then be operated with the forearms held mechanically in the locked position. The more Warren thought about the appearance of such glossy black prostheses and their associated problematic and conspicuous operation, the more excited he grew about experiencing his amputations as if he had lost his elbows and his stumps were very much shorter. His new prostheses would be less intuitive and less responsive. But he had his original pair of artificial arms and the scoop sheath if he wanted something less demanding. Possibly with Stevie’s example in mind, Warren was becoming inured to the idea of displaying his disability and his artificial limbs in the same way an extrovert bodybuilder displays his muscles. He had been encouraged to do so at his workplace by management. Best of all, Warren began to appreciate the erotic nature of his situation. There was something undeniably horny about plunging phallic arm stumps deep into glistening black sockets every morning, concealing his flesh and allowing it to be held rigid for many hours.
Twenty‑one
Their lives adapted to their new situation. Warren sold his car and purchased an electric quad bike. It was controlled entirely from a T‑shaped control stick which suited both Warren’s and Stevie’s disabilities. The fourth floor loft was adapted mainly to favour Stevie’s leglessness rather than Warren’s handless stumps. Warren continued to experiment with various prosthetic adaptations. For a while, he favoured wearing a standard hook on the right stump and an inert rubber hand on the left. He no longer felt himself to be disabled, having a wide selection of hooks, prongs, rings and balls to complete an empty socket. Stevie learned everything to be known about upper limb prostheses and Warren felt himself especially lucky to have someone to rely on if he found something too difficult. Their mornings began by Stevie fitting Warren’s prostheses to his stumps, covering them entirely and transforming his stumps into artificial arms lockable in a narrow band of angles at fifteen degree intervals. Stevie loved seeing Warren’s contortions as he manipulated his arms when they worked together on domestic chores. Warren himself had learned the mechanical movements necessary to operate his arms, knowing in advance that he would make life more difficult for himself. He knew from experience with amputees at work that his familiarity with elbow locks was invaluable and he had decided to continue. Gradually, muscle memory eased the physical process and Warren began to adapt to a new identify as a man whose arms appeared to be completely artificial. He removed them every four hours for fifteen minutes when he changed his stump socks and liners and reapplied a chemical lotion to deodorise and disinfect his stumps.
Stevie continued his work from home in a never‑ending effort to humanise AI programming. Regardless of incessant promises and warnings by desperate entrepreneurs and irresponsible techno‑experts, the singularity was held at bay by the surreal errors and blatant lies hallucinated by ever more energy‑hungry AI algorithms. There was no humanity, no style or warmth in AI output and specialists like Stevie were able to command impressive tariffs for their work.
Stevie wore his standard issue artificial leg when Warren was around at weekends but preferred the simplicity and reliability of a peg leg during the week when he was alone. Warren had made him a broad selection of pegs of different lengths and styles. Stevie’s favourite was a long gradually tapering slender peg leg which looked superb issuing from the shortened leg of a pair of jeans whose other leg was entirely missing. Stevie preferred to merely roll the shortened legs of his jeans to suggest the likelihood of a hidden stump.
Colin was a regular, if infrequent, visitor. Any discomfort there may have been concerning Stevie’s relationship with another man had long since dissipated. Colin and Warren got on fine with each other, as demonstrated by the occasions when he was called on for his assistance when Warren’s hooks were incapable of a job which was out of reach for Stevie. They always showed their appreciation with a decent meal afterwards. After an unusually long absence, Stevie decided that they ought to remind Colin of their existence and invited him for drinks the following Saturday evening. Colin was delighted to be invited after quite a break. He had deliberately kept his head down recently until he felt ready to socialise again with friends.
It did not take long after his arrival for the reason for his self‑imposed isolation to become clear. He made no mention of it, knowing that one of his amputee colleagues would notice something within a minute or two. Warren noticed first and demanded to see Colin’s right hand close up. Colin grinned and extended his mutilated hand which comprised five perfectly healed stumps. There was half a thumb, and the four fingers were all reduced to a third of their original length. The stumps were padded with flesh and they looked superb. Colin refused to give a direct answer to Warren’s questioning about how he had lost his digits. He agreed that his stumps were perfect and of optimum length. Stevie crutched over to watch Warren gently stroking Colin’s stubs with the tip of his right hook as if he could feel it. Colin could certainly feel the hard coolness. He was very proud of his new‑look hand. He had paid dearly for his minor amputations but the end result was worth it. His stubby hand was almost useless for most purposes but he could entertain himself and others by attempting everyday actions. He could not pick up or hold a drink. Or a tv remote. Or work a zip. None of this mattered. He had already begun to imagine himself with a missing left hand, using a stump like Warren’s in tandem with his maimed hand. Or a hook.
As the evening progressed, Colin returned to the subject, never far away. He addressed Warren directly and said he would reveal how his finger stumps came about if Warren revealed how he lost his hands. Warren’s attitude towards Colin had already changed during that evening. If Colin had always been a wannabe, he had kept it supremely private. He wondered how far Colin was willing to go if, as he suspected, Colin regarded his two amputee friends as some kind of ideal. Throwing caution to the boozy wind, Warren revealed that his amputations were elective and that it had taken many months to persuade himself that he had done the right thing. He would no longer wish to use hands. He loved his restrictive prostheses. He loved feeling disabled by the very devices intended to compensate for his lack of hands. Colin declared he was in complete agreement.
Epilogue
Stevie continued to work from home, making twice monthly journeys to head office for staff meetings, whose only function was to serve as a meeting place for colleagues who might not otherwise even know of the others’ existence. Warren was promoted to customer liaison officer and redesigned the entire system of prosthetic aftercare available to the country’s amputee population. He was frequently interviewed by tv companies during the process and his distinctive swarthy and now greying beard became as notorious as his artificial arms. He occasionally doubted that he was being invited to interviews in order to provide visual interest but the monetary compensation was always welcome and enjoyed a little later by the two amputees in the form of unusually opulent treats in high class restaurants.
Colin was financially secure to such a degree that he dared experiment with further reduction. His initial experiment on his right hand had been widely admired by the cognoscenti, people who could appreciate an amputation or two. Within a year, he was a left below elbow amputee with a healing residual limb. It would shortly be fitted with some kind of replacement for his hand. He had not yet decided what he wanted. Colin was satisfied with what he had. In that respect, he had achieved his goal.
The loss of a limb is regarded as a tragedy, a life‑changing accident by journalists and publicists who know nothing about the subject. For the open‑minded and imaginative, the loss of a limb is the introduction to a new way of living, completely matchless to what had gone before.
M A T C H L E S S
