NO CURE FOR UGLY

 

NO CURE FOR UGLY

Dystopian fiction by strzeka (06/26)

 

PROLOGUE

It was the Fifth Summer of Love. That is the only positive thing I can remember about that year. Everything else was enshitted. There were constant breakouts from the correction camps and inmates wasted no time in creating havoc and destroying property in deserted town centres. The country had just been denied the opportunity to start re‑accession negotiations for the second time. Business owners closed down perfectly viable companies out of desperation and sheer spite. Fashion underwent an upheaval. It was suddenly fashionable to wear deliberately exaggerated clothes and accessories. Trench coats dragged along the ground. Oxford bags replaced ordinary trousers without fail, with hems up to two metres in circumference. Top hats reached nearly half a metre. Gloves became huge approximations of boxing gloves. People looked ridiculous. Everything was ugly. Leading clothes manufacturers banded together and invented the slogan no cure for ugly. They printed it on everything. It was an admission that everything was turning to shit and there was nothing anyone could do any longer to stop it. The fact was that everything had been shit for years but now everyone simply stopped caring.

 

Concerts and happenings around the country were jam‑packed whatever time of day or night they were held. Groups of goths arrived wearing enormous platform boots and towering curvaceous top hats. Gangs of skinheads pushed their way through motorcycle club members. The latter were rigid with layer after layer of leather—shirt, waistcoat, jacket, overcoat, oversized gauntlets and gigantic platform engineer’s boots. The skins had faces covered with steel piercings. Chrome steel chains dangled from their necks and waists. They too wore enormous built‑up versions of traditional Dr Martens boots. The new extreme footwear was ‘one size fits all’. You simply put your usual footwear on and wore the bigger boots over everything.

 

Somehow the groups found a way to get along. It helped that segregation was finished. All the participants were British, the catch‑all euphemism meaning ‘white Caucasian’. Everyone else was either in Staffordshire, reserved exclusively for the unwhite, or in correction camps. Artificial intelligence sized up percentages of various factions and generated corresponding amounts of music. Digital voice copies of popular foreign artists sang familiar popular songs, all of it ex tempore and non‑repeatable. The original performers were furious but there was nothing they could do about it, most of them being restricted from entering the country on one racial or cultural pretext or another.

 

It was probably the skins which took the slogan to heart first. They were usually from low class families, often third generation unemployed and unemployable. Breeding stock for themselves only. They were genuinely ugly, stunted morons for the most part. Hopeless wastes of biomass. They indulged in a frenzy of stretching facial piercings. Lip piercings became gaping holes into which cigarettes could be inserted. Labrets were stretched or surgically enlarged to accept ever larger lip plates. Septum piercings were stretched until heavy steel rings encircling the entire mouth were possible. Delicate chains hung from eyelids to earlobes. Cheek piercings were enthusiastically enlarged until after a few months, the owner’s teeth, if any, were visible through the gaping cheeks. And still the stretching continued until speech and eating was possible only by inserting plugs into the piercings.

 

Skins were also the first group to idolise dentures and fetishise toothlessness in general. It was not unusual to find entire gangs of skinheads making their way slowly along a street in their enormous oversized boots, smoking and spitting from toothless mouths.

 

Mods and emos were reluctant to lose their teeth but favoured exaggerated nose piercings. Emos pierced their lips with adjacent rings to hide the underlying flesh. They connected fine steel chains from a lip ring to an ear lobe, stretching their expression into a grimace. Mods in turn played with minor surgical procedures such as severing ears, splitting noses or slicing through the front of the nose to reveal the interior mucus membranes. Both castes increasingly favoured lip plates in the Amazonian style. The most enthusiastic stretchers inserted caps from tins of spray paint as a mark of their artistic creativity. They were the most devoted adherents to Oxford bags coupled with oversized engineer’s boots.

 

Adult cult members grew even more daring. Groups of disability wannabes suddenly became much more assertive and suddenly it became fashionable to ‘go LLC’, meaning to wear a long leg cast. This was displayed by removing a leg from the user’s jeans. Devotees had their own leather uniforms. They wore officer caps or extra tall top hats, motorcycle jackets with the collars raised and piercing rings inserted through the epaulets. The more affluent wore leather trousers, again with oversized engineer’s boots. Gradually it became apparent that wannabes were suffering emergency amputations as a result of their amateur LLCs restricting blood flow and causing blood clots. Tissue died. Surgeons became frustrated with continually crafting demanding below knee stumps for careless wannabes and it became the norm to amputate a handsbreadth below the victim’s crotch regardless of the extent of damage to the leg. The wannabe could then remain one‑legged or if he was especially determined to use a prosthetic limb, a socket could be made from which to suspend an artificial leg. This surgical deterrent had exactly the opposite effect on dedicated cult members. They paid good money for amateur casters to encase their legs in two LLCs. Groups of leathermen with several members leaning on crutches with one or both legs immobilised became a familiar sight and the skinheads soon began to copy them. Their version of the look was to sport one LLC and one oversized Dr Marten boot. In this way, they did not need to rely on crutches which they could not afford anyway. Inevitably, the first one‑legged skinheads appeared about three months after the first leather wannabes when the surgical regime was in full swing. All the skinheads received identical stumps, the standard mid‑thigh AK. A stump became a badge of honour, the rite of passage to adulthood and genuine membership of whichever cult the amputee belonged to. Mods and emos were the most reluctant to join in the trend, with the exception of cutters and other neuro‑deviant autists who slashed their flesh in mock suicide attempts in the traditional way. They devised a way of removing their fingers and the number of missing finger joints showed how cool you were.

 

As might well be expected, the authorities became involved in how prospective future workers were disabling themselves, on purpose or otherwise. Consecutive governments still maintained the fiction that the county was going through a temporary difficult patch and would soon burst through to the sunny uplands of wealth and happiness for all British citizens. In the meantime, AI government services ran local councils and allocated ration cards and coupons to the unemployed, or about ninety percent of the population. The cards were readily accepted and exchanged for drugs, alcohol and tobacco smuggled in from Holland and France. The growing numbers of young unemployed deliberately making themselves ugly or disabled threatened to upset the delicate balance of unemployed workers to unemployable pensioners. Was a twenty‑four year old one‑legged skinhead with an espresso cup stretching his lower lip a genuine deserving recipient for a work pension? Artificial intelligence was soon forbidden to ponder the question because it became confused by the paradoxes involved and reserved ever more resources on an unresolvable question. As a result, severely disabled amputee wannabes and skinheads continued to receive state benefits in addition to rent and food rations.

 

The situation seemed to plateau after a year. Reality tv shows and breakfast show interviews featured ever more imaginatively disfigured characters with noses replaced by silicone tubes, lips artfully dissected and reattached, twisted into spirals. Ears were removed and replaced with prostheses held on by magnetic implants or left absent. Inevitably, monocles made an unexpected comeback due to the occasional absence of ears or noses. Suddenly, the disability fetish burst into life again. A particularly handsome mod had appeared on a Big Brother knock‑off for a couple of weeks and attracted a good deal of attention from horny women and jealous men. No‑one had paid any attention to his hands until his turn to prepare breakfasts for the house crowd rolled around. He slouched in his good natured way with a wonky smile and winked for the camera before removing his silicone forearms and revealing a pair of twelve centimetre long Krukenberg pincers. He continued as if nothing was amiss, hiding his forearm prostheses out of camera range and manipulating eggs and raw bacon into a large heavy iron frying pan. No‑one outside the production team had known anything of the guy’s mutilations. Soc‑med went wild with a mixture of horror, admiration, envy and wannabeism. Before the eggs had fried, the Krukenberg prongs were covered again with the inert silicone arms and the rest of the house trooped in to help themselves to a hearty breakfast.

 

Medical staff knew what to expect. Surgeons swore that no below elbow amputee would be given the Krukenberg treatment. Anyone presenting with such an injury would receive a stump the width of three fingers below the elbow. This would make it possible to wear a normal prosthesis with a hook and make Krukenberg impossible. Leathermen wannabes in particular were enchanted by the guarantee of acquiring mechanical hooks and suddenly every second leatherman appeared to be suffering form a broken wrist, casted in tight white plaster. Fingers throbbed and turned purple, then the throbbing stopped and fingers turned black. When the stench pierced the plaster of Paris, the wannabe victim was certain of some kind of amputation. This time, the fad did not take off. The heart‑throb in the House remained one of the country’s four owners of Krukenberg prongs, the youngest and most desirable.

 

The leathermen wannabes quickly became the most disabled group in the country but none of them could be thought of as helpless. The health service was still operational for basic functions and prosthetics was one minor division which had so far avoided the worst of the cuts. Possibly because the health service had never specialised in high‑tech limb replacements, the equipment required to replace a limb remained readily available. Leg amputees were given the choice of limbs made of good old‑fashioned papier mâche and glue or a choice of peg legs of aluminium or wood. Arm amputees had little choice. There were two basic models, one for amputations above the elbow, the other for amputations below the elbow. The sockets were made of the same mush as artificial legs, resulting in thick rigid sockets which proved unexpectedly resilient to damage and durable. They were ugly devices, a fact which further enhanced their popularity.

 

PART ONE

My name is Harvey Williams. I run the aurapod channel HRDR, which is dedicated to body mods of all kinds. I usually present twice a week. I gather the content from other aurapods and from brief interviews with chance encounters.

 

The way Christopher Torres entered my life is as unbelievable as the way it continued. In addition to my main job in personal relations for an energy company, I am a trained professional piercer, although these days I practise only a few hours a week. I specialise in septum piercings. How to get one and keep it clean, how to stretch it, how to acquire the more extreme pieces for large septums. So when a familiar face entered the store where I work and sought me out specifically, I was intrigued. I knew the man from somewhere but could not place him. He gave me a wan smile and explained that he wanted a septum piercing which he intended stretching to at least fifteen millimetres. That was quite an impressive size. I looked at his otherwise unblemished face and realised the dichotomy which always assaults me at times like this. My client had a perfect face and was asking me to deface it. With my own heavily mutilated face, I should have no compunction about setting to whatever the client requested and yet I hesitated. It is a pity to destroy what the gods have wrought.

          – Do you want to start off with a standard piercing and stretch it or do you want a surgical piercing? If you intend stretching to fifteen mil, I suggest the surgical approach. You’ll reach the goal sooner and the final result will be more comfortable.

          – Can we do the surgical piercing? I want to sort of disguise my appearance, see? So the sooner I can start wearing, the better.

          – I was going to ask you. I sort of know you from somewhere but I can’t quite work out where I’ve seen you before.

          – I was on Our House for five weeks. I got thrown out because the alphamale couldn’t stand having an amputee around.

Of course! It was the guy everyone had been wanking over a year or so back. I glanced at his hands. They were brilliant copies of male hands. But they did not move and they had an unnatural sheen to them which I had not noticed. I was excited beyond description. I have always been a devotee of amputees and until now, I believe I have been able to disguise it from the occasional limbless client.

          – So are you Christopher Torres?

          – Yup.

          – That’s incredible. I’m sorry I didn’t recognise you.

          – Nothing to be sorry for. How much will the piercing cost?

          – It’s usually seven hundred but I can give you a ten percent discount.

          – What’s the discount for?

          – In your case, just for being you. I loved you, like half the nation. I was so sorry when you got voted off because I wouldn’t be seeing… Er, sorry, I may have said too much.

          – Oh, no worries, mate. You mean my arms. My prongs. I don’t like showing ’em off which is why I cover ’em up with these fake arms. I get the idea you liked seeing my prongs.

          – Er, well yeah. To be honest with you, I did. I mean, when you think about it, your prongs were onscreen for about twenty seconds, tops.

          – I know. That’s what makes being voted off so hurtful.

          – Yeah. It must have been bad. I’m sorry.

I tried to express sympathy with my facial muscles but they have been incapable of anything of the sort since I linked my lip tunnels with my industrial piercings. The short chains raise my lower lip into a barrier which hides my upper teeth. I will not attempt to describe what effect it had on the way I spoke.

 

I pierced Christopher’s septum and inserted a horizontal bar as quickly as possible. I sold him fifty quid’s worth of sterile wipes, antibiotic gel and some cotton buds. We shook hands when he left and I touched his cool silicone right hand for the first time. His eyes were still tearing because of the pain. A surgical septum was always painful and would remain so for several days. But despite the pain, Christopher looked like a transformed man with a steel tube across his face. I gave him strict instructions not to touch the piercing while it was healing. He looked at me, saying nothing, and searched my face, taking in the steel rings in my eyebrows, the industrials and tunnels in my ears, the large fat septum ring and the stretched labrets with their chains which deformed my mouth. I could see the fascination in his face. He used his inert silicone hands to prise the door open and was soon lost to sight. But I could see him in my imagination. We had spent an hour together and yet I had not seen Christopher’s prongs. Perhaps it was for the best. I never failed to ejaculate whenever I rewatched the clips from Our House featuring him.

 

It never occurred to me that Christopher was so self‑conscious about his prongs that he wanted to make his face fashionably ugly. Facial piercings had the exact opposite effect as far as I was concerned. They drew attention to the wearer’s features and emphasised the underlaying beauty. Naturally, I realised only too well that they could also be used to stretch and deface various features. I myself chained the steel‑ringed mutilations around my mouth to disfigure it and alter my pronunciation. My deep sonorous baritone sounded like exotic music when I spoke. Anyone who spoke English would understand my speech with its missing consonants. I was used to people staring at my lips when I spoke. Perhaps they were trying to lip read, as many people unconsciously do. I do not believe they had much success. I liked the incessant clinking of the chains linking my lips with my ears and the way I could place additional weight onto my lower lip to force it to droop and expose more of the inner mucus membrane. That made my speech even more unintelligible. Many times I had considered inserting a ring or tunnel in my upper lip to make the situation worse but it would detract from my septum ring. My end goal was to link the tunnels in my lower lips with my septum piercing making it next to impossible to open my mouth. I should be able to speak somehow and I was keen to stretch my labrets wide enough to accept a heavy steel ring through them.

 

In Christopher’s case, the situation was reversed. He wanted people to look at his face, not his prongs. Ordinarily, his face would be his crowning glory. It was an amazing combination of handsome young man and vulnerable boy with the future promise of a bear with a massive beard. Christopher boasted permanent, perfect stubble which affirmed his maturity and complemented his facial structure. But all anyone saw on meeting him were his prongs which he usually hid. He would rather be more severely disabled than stared at and recognised because of his prongs. I learned later that he had undergone a Krukenberg procedure and I should refer to his prongs as Krukenbergs.

 

Three weeks later, Christopher returned to the workshop where I practised. It was almost closing time and the light outside was fading. I saw a figure approaching dressed entirely in black. His hoody was heavy enough to cover his face and line of sight entirely. He brushed at it with a fake hand and revealed enough of his face to make himself recognisable.

          – It’s time to put a bigger tube in.

          – Let me see how you’re healing.

I gripped the starter tube between my finger and twisted gently. It rotated as I had hoped, showing that the underlying skin had healed. A larger tube would stretch the diameter of the piercing by only a millimetre but it might still be painful for a few days. Later, new jewellery could increase in size by a bigger proportion.

          – What do people say about your piercing?

          – No‑one says anything. I don’t talk to people. They always make fun of me, because of the way I was sent out of the House.

          – Surely not.

          – Or they just want to see my prongs.

          – Your Krukenbergs.

          – Yeah. How do you know that’s what they’re called?

          – I looked it up.

          – What did you do that for?

I stopped what I was doing, removing my latex gloves or whatever and looked deep into his gorgeous green eyes.

          – Because I love you. I am infatuated with you. If I could, I would clone you and worship you.
His mouth dropped open in tandem with my own drooping lip.

          – Really? Do you like me? Why? I don’t understand.

I was astonished. How was it possible that such an Adonis, such a marred Adonis, felt himself such an outcast?

          – In fact, I want to carry you home over my shoulder and worship you there.

Christopher stared at me for several seconds. At first I thought he had not understood my deviant speech. Then he lowered his head and sobbed. I started and made to hold him but backed off. I had no idea what his amputations were like. I was reluctant to hug him in case I squeezed painfully tender flesh. I watched helplessly as my idol mourned his timidity and loneliness. I tried smiling but succeeded only in tightening the chains connected to my ears.

          – I’m sorry.

          – Don’t be. Christopher, it’s time to close the shop and head home. Are you alright? Or shall we go for a burger somewhere?

          – No. Can I come with you?

          – Of course you can.

 

I wanted to talk to Christopher for another reason. He was suffering from a distinct lack of self‑confidence for seemingly no reason. We sat with our burgers cooling in front of us while he looked around to see if anyone was watching before pulling his hoodie away from his face and then beginning the conspicuous procedure of pushing his sleeves up to his elbows with his silicone hands. Another glance around the room before he gripped each hand in turn between his knees and removed them from his bifurcated forearms. Unable to help myself, I stared in wonder at the Krukenbergs. Christopher squeezed the box containing his burger gently and raised his arms to a suitable angle so his prongs could grab his burger.

          – Bon appetit! Mmm, this tastes nice. Thank you for treating me.

          – You don’t have many friends, do you, Christopher?

          – Just call me Chris. No, I don’t. It’s not surprising, is it?

His short forearms described a circle between us to show why.

          – But that’s not a real reason, is it? There are people with much more noticeable things different about them and they have friends. People in wheelchairs and blind people. No, you have to face the truth, Chris. You need to understand that no‑one thinks poorly of you for the way you had to leave Our House. Most people were on your side anyway. Don’t you check soc‑med out?

          – I don’t anymore.

          – You can’t go on blaming that silly tv show for the rest of your life. And that only leaves your Krukenbergs.

He seemed to flinch at the sound of the word.

          – Look around you now, Chris. No‑one has noticed them and there are quite a few people in here now. They have more important things to do than check out the number of amputees in the room.

          – When you say it like that, it does sound a little ridiculous. You must think I’m foolish or something worse.

          – Of course I don’t. I already told you how much I admire you. I want to be your friend if you let me. I want to see you as often as I can. And I know you won’t believe this but I think your prongs are fantastic. They are so extremely masculine and yours are so beautifully healed. They look quite natural, just as if you had always had them. I wish you could see them through my eyes. You’d see yourself not as an amputee but as a Superman Adonis with all his strength in his fantastic arms.

 

Christopher’s head was bowed while he took in my words. I could see him smile at the end. He raised his head and his gorgeous green eyes looked past the chains and rings defacing my appearance. He made and held eye contact for unusually long.

          – I love you, too. I feel safe with you.

          – Don’t you usually feel safe?

          – No, I don’t. I’m disabled, you see. My Krukenbergs are not strong. Not robust. I couldn’t defend myself with my arms in a fight if I had to, you see.

          – No, I suppose not. I’m sorry, Christopher.

          – You don’t need to feel sorry for me.

          – Alright, I won’t. I’ll just admire and respect you. Is that OK?

He laughed, possibly for the first time in weeks.

          – That would be more than OK.

 

It was time to leave. We had finished off our burgers and cokes. Christopher slid his Krukenbergs back into the silicone prosthetic forearms with the artificial hands which had been in his lap while we ate. It seemed such a well‑honed movement, as familiar to Christopher as putting gloves on might be for anyone else. I wondered if it was frustrating to be additionally disabled by the inert silicone arms. Christopher’s prongs were shocking but they suited the zeitgeist perfectly. No‑one would be more horrified by seeing a handsome pair of Krukenbergs on a handsome man than by seeing many of the facial mutilations which were becoming ever more expensive and exclusive. I held the heavy door open for Christopher and we stood outside for a few moments trying to decide what to do next.

          – Would you like to come round to my place for an hour or so? There are still a few things I want to talk to you about.

          – I’d like that. Is it far?

          – Twenty minutes on the tram. It’s easy to get back here.

          – OK, let’s go.

 

PART TWO

I paid attention to other passengers looking at the pair of us. My visage was fashionably symmetrical in contrast to the odd trend last year which favoured lop‑sided features and scarring. Christopher sat opposite me with his unmovable silicone hands on his thighs. He glanced at traffic outside the window as the tram sped along its reserved tracks, stopping for a few seconds every three or four minutes. The next stop was ours. Christopher rose and made a pathetic attempt to grip a pole with a silicone hand. His fingers simply spread unnaturally wide with the pressure. He caught hold of the pole with his elbow as the tram swung around the corner into my street.

 

Safely inside, I invited Christopher to relax. I hoped he would remove his silicone arms again. I was curious to see more of how he used his prongs for domestic purposes. I need not have worried.

          – Do you mind if I take my hands off? I don’t usually wear them after I get home, you see.

          – Go right ahead, Christopher. Let me know if you need anything.

          – Thanks, I will.

 

Moments later, the silicone arms lay on the cushion next to him. The Krukenbergs seemed suspended. The prongs were too short to reach his thighs. Chris made no effort to move them or use them in any way. It was as if he were an ordinary amputee. But Chris could never be normal. He shook his mane of curly golden hair from his face and looked around at his surroundings. I like to think I have a modern creative environment including several intriguing art pieces. One wall is covered with a slowly expanding collage of photographs, both my own and by others. The subject matter is, of course, facial piercings. Chris got up and walked over to it for a closer look. He was soon enraptured. His Krukenbergs became animated as he leaned closer and blocked reflections for a better view.

          – Ah! I’ve found a guy with what I want.

 

I dropped what I was fussing with in the kitchen and approached the collage. Chris was pointing with a single left prong at the photo of a tall Latino man with a large septum piercing. His nose ring was a stunning twelve centimetres in diameter and fifteen millimetres thick. The closure ball was the size of a large marble. It rested on the man’s chin just below his lower lip. Like Christopher, he had no other visible piercings. Without a shadow of a doubt, the man would have all eyes on his astonishing face wherever he went. I understood Christopher’s fascination immediately. If he could become as arresting as the man in my collage, people would simple not notice his deviant silicone hands. They might not even pay attention to his Krukenberg prongs.

          – Is that what you’d genuinely like, Chris? Would you really wear such a huge ring?

          – Oh, of course! Do you doubt it? I already have something much more shocking than a septum piercing, don’t you think?

 

His mischievous words took me by surprise. Perhaps I had missed something but I had the impression that Christopher made every effort to hide his disability. Now it seemed like he was completely content to be the centre of attention. I was confused.

          – Well, yes, you do. But I thought you didn’t like people seeing your Krukenbergs.

          – I don’t like them staring at them. They think I’m some kind of feeble‑minded cripple who can’t fend for himself. And in that, I suppose they’re right. I already told you I’d be useless in a fight. I’m always afraid that my krukes will get injured.

          – I’m not surprised. Is that what you call them? Krukes?

          – Yeah. What do you call them?

          – Well, I haven’t become all that familiar with them. I thought of them as prongs until I found out what they’re really called.

          – Prongs isn’t really a very positive name, though.

We returned to the sofa for a few minutes.

          – Let me have a close look at how your piercing is healing. Tilt your head.

 

The straight surgical steel trainer through Chris’s septum had a tiny crust of dried blood around the wound. It was healing well. I estimated that if Chris wanted to stretch to twelve mil or more, he would need about a year of continually updated piercings. I was prepared to go to great lengths to make sure that the process was as pain‑free as possible. I was well aware that Chris would be entirely reliant on other people when it came to his nasal piercing. There was no way his fleshy prongs could ever manipulate anything like a septum ring—unless it was the size of the one we had both just been admiring.

          – Is it sore, Chris?

          – No. Nothing like it was at first.

          – OK, good. I think we’ll let this heal completely. It will be the baseline for all further stretches.

          – Will it stretch enough to get one of those big rings in?

          – Yes, if we’re careful. We have to take it slowly. The piercing can be gradually stretched but it must not tear. That would cause an irregular scar and scar tissue simply does not stretch like healthy skin.

          – Have you had problems with your piercings? You have so many. Are you stretching anything at the moment?

          – I had trouble keeping my labrets open. Those are the ones in my lower lip. The steel rings would fall out at night and the piercings would try to close. And mucus membranes close up real fast. You know if you bite your lip accidentally, it heals up almost overnight. Otherwise, there was just the ordinary pain. Ear piercings are painful. The industrials were the worst. They’re what my lip chains are linked to.

          – I like those. I’ve seen delicate chains from lip rings to ear piercings before but yours are the biggest and heaviest I’ve seen.

          – Do you mind that it distorts my mouth?

          – No, of course not. You are a grown man. You know what you want and you have the confidence to look like you want. Not like me.

          – Do you mean your krukes?

          – What else?

          – How did you get your krukes, Chris? What’s the story behind them?

          – It’s a long story.

          – No problem. We have all night.

Chris’s head whipped round and his mouth fell open. He peered into my eyes to judge if I were being serious. I activated the musculature near my ears and succeeded in stretching my tortured lower lip into the semblance of a smile.

          – If we go right back to the beginning, my name is not really Christopher. I was not born in this country. I was born to a gypsy family in Romania.

          – You would never believe it! You don’t look anything like a southern European!

          – That’s where the problems began. It was obvious that my mother had had sexual relations with a gadjo, a man who was not a Roma. That is even more taboo than in white society because there is a racial element. Believe it or not, Roma consider themselves superior to white people.

          – That’s ridiculous!

          – Racism is ridiculous but let’s not debate that now. So my mother was ostracised and I was taken from her to be raised by the other families jointly. The seniors had a quick discussion about what rôle I was going to have, how I could best bring in some money for the elder elite. They decided it might be good if the pretty young boy had no hands and passers‑by would throw the unfortunate young beggar a coin or two. And so they chopped my hands off. And like you said, mucus tissue heals quickly. So does the flesh of tiny babies. I think they probably used a pair of shears. One of them held the shears in place over my arms and someone else stamped on them to sever my hands.

          – That’s terrible! But how do you know that?

          – It’s common knowledge that many Roma beggars were deliberately crippled soon after birth. That’s why there are so many amputees. That way, they have no trouble adapting to the life of a cripple because it’s the only way they’ve ever been. Legless Roma begging at curbsides have never experienced phantom pains or any of the other ailments associated with amputations simply because their amputations were done before their bodies had even finished developing.

          – That’s terrible! Why are they allowed to continue?

          – Because no‑one cares. Do you care what happens in a gypsy camp?

          – No. OK, I get you. So how did you get to England?

          – It was due to some EU welfare campaign. First of all, I was adopted to Poland. That’s where I got my official name Krzystof. I have Polish papers too. I was about two and a half, I suppose. Not quite three. And the authorities thought the sweet‑faced child with no hands might benefit from a pair of krukes. So long before I started at kindergarten, I got my prongs and learned to do everything with them.

          – Wow. So how did you end up here?

          – Well, apparently I was difficult to place with a family. Don’t forget that I was a Roma orphan with a severe disability and horrendous krukes. The Poles are a superstitious people and they believed I must be cursed somehow to be the way I was. A couple of years later, an English couple adopted me and I settled down with them. They changed my name to Christopher and I took their surname. And that’s how this bastard became a disabled guy with krukes.

 

Chris was silent, as was I. He bent his head and opened his prongs a couple of times. They were a cruel mutilation on top of an even greater mutilation. I could not understand why the young Krzystof had not been fitted with a child’s pair of mechanical arms with thick finger‑like hooks. Somehow it seemed more acceptable to see a man like Chris with a pair of hooks than with fleshy prongs.

 

I decided to change the subject.

          – I was making coffee before we sat down. Would you like a cup?

          – I’d like that. I’ll come with you. We can drink it in the kitchen. You don’t need to pamper me.

          – That’s good to know. Tell me how you like it.

We chatted until our coffee was ready. Christopher had a little trouble bringing his mug to his mouth. His krukes were a little too short. It reminded me of something I had been meaning to ask.

          – Chris, have you ever thought about having a pair of hooks made? You know, standard issue artificial arms with hooks? Or do your krukes make it difficult to wear arms like that?

          – Oh, I could wear a pair if I wanted but I’m not eligible because I already have my krukes. They are regarded as superior to hooks so I have to pay for them myself if I want a pair. Why do you ask?

          – It seems that you have a little difficulty holding that mug of coffee to drink from.

          – True. But if I had hooks, they would present another problem. I doubt I could lift a mug like this with a hook. They’re not designed to handle curved shapes like this. The mug would almost definitely slip and make a mess. But for most other things, it might be easier to do some things. I wouldn’t need to lean in so close to what I’m doing.

          – That’s what I meant. Look, I don’t want to offend you, but if you’d like a pair of hooks but you don’t have the money, I can lend you some. How much are they, anyway?

          – Don’t know. A few thousand, I expect.

          – Yeah, I guess so. Let’s find out. Would you feel better about your arms if you had hooks instead of krukes?

          – I don’t know. Would you like to see me wearing two hooks?

          – It’s not a matter of what I would like. It’s a matter of how you can learn to feel better about yourself. I think you’d be less self‑conscious if you had the same prosthetics as other arm amputees.

It was a lie on my part. I was very keen to see Chris kitted out with a pair of hooks. It was also unlikely that they would improve his confidence.

 

We spent much of the evening researching clinics which could manufacture a pair of arms specially customised to take Chris’s krukes into account. The closest was on the outskirts of Cambridge. Chris dictated a query which I emailed asking for a quote. I was also interested in knowing how much ‘going private’ would cost. All too soon, Christopher mentioned that he should make tracks. I invited him to stay overnight.

          – Maybe some other time. Thank you for the offer, though. I think there are still trams running to the town centre, aren’t there? I can easily get home from there.

          – If you’re sure.

 

Chris fetched his jacket and began the awkward process of sliding his silicone arms into the sleeves. Finally he looked perfectly normal, if a strikingly handsome blond Adonis could be regarded as normal. But his hands drew no attention until he attempted to open the door lock. He was practically helpless. I escorted him downstairs and let him out. I stood watching his crown of golden hair dim as he walked away from a streetlight. I so much wanted Christopher in my life that buying him a pair of artificial arms was the least I would do.

 

PART THREE

There followed an unexpected hiatus. I was suddenly inundated with frustrated customers who had been unintentionally misled by misinformation which AI had provided them about district heating. I still dedicated two or three hours every afternoon after five at the workshop. I knew irregular hours were a deterrent to building good customer relations, just as bad as AI slop. It seemed I was confounded by other people’s malfunctioning technology at every turn.

 

But my regular customers always knew to text me first for an appointment. I had some of the most exotic and extreme piercing jewellery in town. I was hearing more enquiries about lip plates which had recently begun to gain some popularity. I was also interested because although I had already deformed my lower lip, I was quite prepared to take one of two possible routes. I could stretch my existing holes with solid discs. In effect, I would have two miniature lip plates. They would deform my lips and mouth and I would have trouble drinking and speaking. Neither of those things presented a deterrent. The alternative was a new central piercing to gradually expand until I could graduate from a stud to a ring and a plug to a plate. Needless to say, having made my decision, I promptly undertook the surgical piercing myself and prepared to suffer the consequences of hunger and isolation until the wound had healed well enough for me to rejoin society.

 

I was quite aware that Christopher’s septum piercing was also still at the tender stage. I wondered how he felt about the discomfort. A septum is not a difficult piercing but it must be kept clean. Touching it feels like a punch on the nose. But it is quick to heal and I expected Chris to contact me at any moment about his next stretch. Unlike all my other customers, Chris was reliant on me to tend to his piercing. Even with hooks, he probably would never be able to remove his piercing for cleaning. I found myself drawn back to my collage and the photo of the handsome Latino guy with the astoundingly large septum ring. Where would I ever get such an object? There was no urgent need. I guestimated Chris’s septum piercing would take three years or so to reach fifteen mil in diameter. Perhaps by that time, I might have an impressive lip plate. The more I thought about it, the more determined I became on behalf of the two of us.

 

In the meantime, there was the other project concerning Chris which occupied my mind. I was waiting on his initiative. I dearly wanted to see him wearing and using a pair of hooks. Not only because I thought he would fare better than with his krukes, which I regarded as clumsy manipulators, but because he might assimilate into the ugly zeitgeist and be more approachable and perhaps become more outgoing and sociable. Chris’s shyness and reluctance to socialise were greater problems than his deviant arms, although they all reinforced each other. Perhaps it was unfair to class prosthetic hooks as ugly. I did not regard them that way myself but I knew well enough how the vast majority of people view artificial limbs.

 

We seemed to discover the same promising prosthetist at the same time. According to his website, he was a solitary craftsman specialising in custom artificial limbs in strict accordance to the client’s wishes and requirements. He claimed to be able to fit clients who had been disappointed by the refusal of health service prosthetists to take on difficult cases. I did not believe Christopher would be particularly difficult but his prongs would probably need consideration during the design of the lower sockets. I bookmarked the page with the intention of showing Chris later. However, when we next met, he had already discovered it and enthusiastically described it to me.

          – It sounds like the man is waiting for me. The only problem is getting to Inverness. Of all impossible places! I suppose all his customers have to pay him two or three visits. All that extra expense!

          – I already told you, Chris. You don’t need to worry about money, especially not rail fares. Look, I don’t want to brag but I could buy you twenty pairs of hooks if you needed them. Don’t mention the price again.

          – You’re so kind to me. Why are you doing it?

          – Because you are worth it, Christopher. You just don’t realise it yet. When you do, I hope you will accept that I was right.

 

We worked together on the application for a pair of custom‑made artificial arms with split hooks. I typed out the email and enclosed close‑up photographs of the krukes so the Inverness prosthetist, Douglas McDougal by name, knew he would not be working with an ordinary pair of stumps. A reply arrived an hour later. It would indeed be possible to fit the client with a comfortable functioning pair of prostheses but further discussions were needed. Christopher was invited to the Inverness clinic at his convenience for preliminary consultation and initial fitting procedures. In other words, a chat and to be measured.

 

I found a handsome steel tusk for Christopher. It would be painful to insert but a day or two later, it should start to serve its purpose in stretching Chris’s septum. The jewellery was curved like the horns on a longhorn steer. It could point downwards like a Zapata moustache or upwards like Salvador Dali’s distinctive version. Chris could wear it for three months or so before upgrading to a thicker piece.

 

Unavoidably, I pressured him into sharing his thoughts about a pair of hooks. He was understandably reluctant to initiate the conversation because he could not afford the cost himself yet. This time I insisted that he arrange his affairs so that he could travel in my company from any Thursday to the following Sunday which times suited me best. For the first time, Chris admitted that he had come around to my opinion which was, simply, that he would fare better in everyday life with a pair of standard hooks than trying to function with any kind of practicality by continually removing his silicone hands and then replacing them. It had become such a frequent ritual that Chris hardly paid any attention to it but it was a tremendous waste of time and effort for something which I regarded as completely trivial. But I was not the one with a pair of krukes. Something which Chris told me about the taunts he heard at school made me more sympathetic toward his never‑ending attempts to appear whole. A group of classmates had told him that his Krukenberg arms looked like a pair of gay dicks trying to fuck. Another taunt was that they looked like a pair of pork sausages. I was appalled. No wonder he hated other people seeing them.

 

PART FOUR

Christopher and McDougal agreed on a date for an appointment. Since neither of us had previously ventured so far north, I suggested that I accompany him and that we make the trip over three days, staying in a comfortable hotel for two nights. Chris and I met up at our local station for the train which would connect us with the express. Chris looked spectacular with his curly steel ‘moustache’. As always, he wore his non‑functional silicone hands in public. My own new labret piercing was almost the size of the other two holes in my lower lip already. I would wear tunnels in them until the new central piercing stretched enough to accept a flat disc.

 

Chris removed his jacket and his fake hands once we were settled in the express. It would take us nine hours, according to the timetable, but we were prepared for delays. I had a bag full of home‑made sandwiches, fruit juices and a packet of sausage rolls as well as several litres of water.

 

I was quite used to seeing Chris’s krukes so it always came as a surprise to see other peoples’ reactions to them. Our electronic tickets were checked twice during the journey. I watched the conductors’ expressions when they caught sight of the krukes. The second conductor could hardly bring herself to approach Chris’s phone, held firmly between the prongs. I laughed inwardly despite myself. The single visible prong looked exactly like a penis at first glance. She held the scanner at arm’s length and thanked him with a choked voice.

          – Poor woman! You see what my life is like?

          – I do. Listen, Chris. I want you to pack your silicones away before we get off and to face Inverness as you are now.

          – I’ll have to put my jacket on, though. No‑one will be able to see my krukes.

          – I know, but you’ll be able to whip your jacket off and have access to your krukes straight away. Have you thought that seeing you remove what appear to be natural hands like a pair of old gloves and then catching sight of your prongs is what outsiders find most disturbing?

          – I have thought about it so much that I am bored with it. I wear the hands because I know people hate my krukes. If they also don’t like seeing me remove them, I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t.

          – Don’t fret. With a little luck, this trip to Dr McDougal will see you with a pair of standard artificial arms.

          – And do you think they will attract any less attention? I’ll still be immediately obvious as an amputee.

          – True enough, but there is something less disturbing about seeing mechanical arms than your surgically altered krukes. It’s the simple fact that they are living flesh and blood but so very alien which makes people uneasy.

          – I suppose so. The uncanny valley.

          – Pretty much. Do you want a sandwich?

          – Yeah, thanks. It’ll help pass the time.

I held the bag wide open for him. He managed to grasp some egg and cress sandwiches and settled back for the process of feeding himself.

 

Christopher good‑naturedly obeyed my suggestion to forgo his silicone hands at our destination. I lengthened the drag‑handle of his suitcase and looped it over his left kruke, concealed under his jacket. His right sleeve hung empty and drew attention to itself with its unnatural movement. I chalked it up to another example of how Chris’s krukes made his life appear more deviant. Despite the zeitgeist, it had never been the intention to disable the individual through deformity. Every extreme piercing, stretched to the limit and beyond, gradually caused the loss of some function. The best example is that of people with enlarged cheek piercings, designed to display their teeth and tongue. They found themselves unable to smoke or to drink conventionally, simply because they could no longer suck. Their speech is usually unintelligible. I import circular inserts of chrome and glass if anyone is interested in plugging their stretched cheek piercings for the duration of a champagne evening, for example.

 

I insisted that Chris accompany me to the hotel’s restaurant for a slap‑up meal that first evening. He had brought short‑sleeved dress shirts with a dark red bow‑tie and a striped black and white tie. Under normal circumstances, Chris would have worn his silicone hands and I would have fed him. On this occasion, my handsome blond friend strode brashly into the restaurant and waited to be seated. His Krukenbergs were on full and unavoidable display. The maître d’, a distinguished gentleman with a monocle, succeeded in maintaining eye contact and guided us to a corner table. Chris chose to sit facing into the room so he could check for possible devotees.

 

We shared a roast pheasant with creamed potatoes and cranberry sauce. Chris battled bravely with the chunky ornate silverware. It was easy enough for him to grip the utensils but delivering each morsel to his mouth without allowing it to fall was always a fraught process. The unfortunate truth was that the Krukenberg procedure produced prongs without the function of rotation. Chris had his own unique way of eating meals but I would not allow him to do so while we were in a fine restaurant. I wanted him to have a fresh experience of the impracticality of using his krukes when he met McDougal the next day. I believed he would be more accepting of a pair of artificial arms despite his existing ability to manipulate objects in his own fashion.

 

We slept together in the hotel’s sumptuous king‑size bed. We had wordlessly drifted into sharing a bed when the opportunity presented itself. There was nothing especially sexual about it, nothing beyond tactile explorations of one kind or another. I find it arousing to be touched by Chris’s krukes and have sometimes awoken in the morning to find Krukenberg prongs resting on my chest.

 

Dr Douglas McDougal himself greeted us in his clinic’s entrance lobby. He was a heavily bearded ruddy man with a full head of silvery hair. He was dressed in a shirt and tie with a brown tweed jacket, a red tartan kilt over a matching pair of aluminium exoskeletal prosthetic legs wearing black Dr Marten boots. He rocked himself into motion and stretched out a hand to shake mine and to bump fist to kruke with Chris. Unexpectedly, he spoke standard English without a trace of a Scottish accent, something of an anomaly from a figure who closely resembled a stereotypical Scot.

          – Welcome to Inverness. I’m pleased to meet you. Let’s go to my office and we can get down to business.

 

McDougal called for refreshments, the main purpose of which was to put us at ease during their preparation and exchange the unavoidable small talk demanded in such situations. We learned of the psychological basis for self mutilation, citing what I had done to my lower lip as an excellent example of the genre. We spoke of the spectrum of exhibitionism practised by amputees and other disabled citizens, from his own year‑round use of a kilt to reveal his tin legs to that of amputees who became housebound through overwhelming timidity to be seen with a disability in public. Christopher immediately pricked up his ears. He had never been quite so inconvenienced by his reticence to reveal his Krukenbergs but he was definitely at the opposite end of the spectrum.

 

McDougal examined the krukes. They were healthy. The prongs were individually  optimally shaped for maximum utility and the pair of them were equidistant from the shoulder and as dextrous as could be hoped for. Chris mentioned that he would prefer not to reveal how he had become an amputee nor why he had become a very young recipient of the Krukenberg procedure beyond the fact that it had been done before he had been adopted from eastern Europe to this country. McDougal appeared to gain sudden understanding of Chris’s situation.

          – And you now find yourself willing to adapt to the more usual method of compensating for missing hands. I have studied your photographs and I have three alternatives regarding how we progress from here. First of all I need to know if you are genuinely willing to become a hook user. There is little point in acquiring a set of artificial arms if they are going to be half‑heartedly worn only on high days and holidays.

          – I don’t know what to say. I want hooks because it is so inconvenient for me to use my krukes in everyday life. I can’t wear ordinary clothes and use my krukes at the same time and I dislike having to undress in order to use them, even where it is possible. You can imagine my difficulties if I am required to sign something in a busy shop, for example.

          – I feel I ought to point out that Christopher often wears cosmetic hands, silicone gloves in fact, to disguise his Krukenbergs.

          – Ah! Is that so? No wonder you are so reluctant to use your krukes, as you call them, in public. You have conditioned yourself to believe that your krukes are something shameful and ugly to be hidden away from public view. I believe you know by now that this is not really the case. There is no shame associated with your condition. I believe you act more out of habit now than out of shame.

 

Christopher nodded his reluctant agreement. His situation would be much less inconvenient if he had his shirts and jackets altered to accommodate his krukes so they were always available to him for use. But he was reluctant to reveal his short deviant arms even during the Age of Ugly, adherents to which would find his krukes as fascinating as I did.

          – But I have a suggestion which may interest you. I propose making a set of short arms equipped with terminal hooks. By short I mean ten to fifteen centimetres shorter than the standard length, the idea being that you could choose to conceal your hooks by wearing a coat or jacket with standard length sleeves. When you gain the confidence to bare your hooks, you could adopt outerwear with altered sleeves thus giving your hooks immediate full access to your needs. I assume you would be more comfortable with shorter sockets from the fact that your pincers are short and you will be accustomed to a shorter range of motion. Do you agree?

 

Christopher was silent while he considered this new alternative. He stretched his stumps, opened and closed his prongs and leaned forward onto his elbows.

          – What about my Krukenberg pincers? Are they going to be crushed into the socket or can you make some kind of adaptation for them?

          – I intend making an inner glove of soft chamois leather into which you will insert your pincers. They will be held firmly and restricted in their movement. In fact, I believe the best way forward is to provide you with mechanical elbows, making it unnecessary for you to exert any effort with your pincers toward the operation of your artificial arms and hooks.

          – So to all intents and purposes, I will lose use of both my pincers and my elbows.

          – Indeed you will, at least on a temporary basis, of course. The entire length of your arms will be converted to mechanical control from your back and shoulders.

          – Including the hooks?

          – Oh yes. You will quickly learn the movements necessary to switch from elbow control to hook control. I assume you are already quite familiar with the need to orientate yourself to use your pincers. Using your hooks will be very similar. As you become familiar with your hooks, you will learn to preposition each forearm beforehand before engaging the hook. Do I make myself clear?

          – So I won’t be able to simply reach out and use a hook?

          – That is already two different motions. You will require a third. A mere nudge against the upper socket to lock the forearm in place. Then you will be free to operate the hook. I assure you the series of movement rapidly becomes second nature. You are fortunate to have the entirety of your upper arm available to assist you in the process. So what do you think? Will a pair of shortened mechanical arms suit your purposes? What material have you considered?

 

Christopher was gently guided into the decisions which McDougal seemed to have made on his behalf in advance. With an amateur’s interest in the technicalities of a pair of artificial arms, the details which McDougal proposed all sounded perfectly reasonable. I was impressed by the extra care involved to ensure that Chris’s prongs would remain comfortable inside their prison. How would it feel to Chris to have his krukes unavailable? If push came to shove, he could presently remove his silicone hands and gain access to his prongs. But in future, he was unlikely to remove his jacket and shirt in order to shed his artificial arms in any conceivable situation. As I had originally planned, Christopher would be transformed into a bilateral amputee reliant on steel hooks, visible or not. That was his choice. How would he take to being additionally disabled in a completely new way merely to operate hooks? Would he prefer hooks to prongs? I hoped so. I wanted to see Chris kitted out with artificial arms. They were one of my long‑standing fetishes and I was certain I could persuade him to stick with them through the frustrating first months when everything seemed next to impossible.

 

Once Christopher had seen a 3D facsimile of his future short prostheses onscreen, he signed the papers allowing McDougal to begin his work. We enjoyed a splendid lunch of venison, most unexpected and hugely enjoyable. The afternoon was spent creating several casts of Christopher’s shoulders, both arms, each individual pincer and a general overall cast which represented the natural way Christopher held his arms. The new prostheses would be restricted in their movement to emulate Chris’s existing natural range of movement. McDougal suggested that the forearm sockets should look muscular to provide room for the gloved Krukenberg pincers and to give the silhouette of a man who works out and pays attention to his arms. Nothing could be further from the truth in Chris’s case but it is difficult to persuade a man from vanity when the opportunity presents itself.

 

PART FIVE

We returned refreshed and in better spirits. Chris had not only seen the type of prosthesis he would soon receive, he had also learned much more about the gradual process of becoming used to relying on steel hooks. Some users felt that little had changed. Wearing hooks had become part of their daily routine, as unremarkable as putting on a shirt. Others mentioned the mental change which accompanied any such new equipment. It took a while to discover what it was best suited for. There was no shame in asking for assistance on occasion. The greatest challenge of all was the simple fact that Chris would have to expose his prosthetic arms and hooks to everyone everywhere and become used to stares and inquisitive questioning.

 

 

Christopher and McDougal agreed to conclude the process by courier instead of another fitting in person. Several weeks after our return, the first package arrived. It contained two glossy black forearm sockets, deceptively muscular as promised but shorter than natural forearms. There were tubular receptors inside the sockets, temporarily held in place by velcro, to accept Chris’s krukes. He was intrigued by the design. It was the first time his prongs had ever been gloved. Now they were held firmly, immobile inside the handsome black forearms. Chris wore them as much as possible for several days and a week later, returned them by courier with his grateful approval for McDougal to continue his work.

 

Much of it had already been done. He needed only to assemble the diverse components and attach them to a sturdy harness. The upper arm cuffs, intended to guide the control cable and strapping away from bare skin, were of the same carbon material as the sockets. Chris’s equipment looked very smart. Any amputee would be proud to wear such imposing artificial arms.

 

Chris took receipt of them and signed for them using krukes for almost the last time. McDougal had enclosed a superbly designed booklet which demonstrated how each component worked, what is was for, how to repair it if possible and what to do if not. The harness was the greatest challenge. It should fit tightly but not so tightly as to restrict movement or cause chafing. The sweet spot was when it was possible to open the hook without any initial looseness. When it was optimally responsive, the harness was correctly adjusted. Chris and I spent the best part of an hour testing and adjusting the harness and then repeating it all over again. Finally Chris stood before me with his new artificial arms pointing slightly forward with the steel wrists level with his belt. The hooks curled down slightly further. The arms were definitely shorter than natural ones but the discrepancy was not immediately obvious. Chris would be able to hide his hooks inside a jacket’s normal sleeves if he so desired.

 

Chris was quite capable of donning his equipment himself after a couple of trial runs. He was intrigued at the sensations from his krukes, trapped motionless inside the sockets. He began to appreciate the rigidity of his forearms and the immobility of his hooks unless he forced them into a different position. Pointing up, the hooks could hold a glass of water. Pointing left or right, he could handle papers. Pointing down, the tips of his hooks were brilliant for typing on a keyboard. Chris learned to adjust his hooks before he attempted to actually use them. It saved a lot of time which would otherwise have been wasted while Chris made unsuccessful attempts to manipulate his hooks for a task they were not primed to do.

 

Within weeks, Chris had become completely comfortable with his new arms and hooks. I loved watching his contortions before he reached out. Everything he would ever do depended on opening and closing half a split hook. To enable a bilateral amputee to do so required the complicated artificial arms with their restrictive mechanical elbows and unusually short forearm sockets which Christopher was learning to live with. That such a simple movement of one of the hook’s prongs should call for such a life‑changing alteration in a handsome man’s masculine appearance was a matter which never ceased to amaze and fascinate me. His short black artificial arms with shiny steel hooks always on display were the height of male perfection for me.

 

I discovered a series of four septum rings designed specifically for stretching. Their external diameters all matched as did the size of the closure ball. I bought them for Chris without asking whether he wanted to advance from his curly steel horns to a circular steel ring but he was of the opinion that the ever thicker nose rings would act as a better distraction from his hooks than the horns. The initial ring was slightly too large but Chris bore the pain and for the next year graduated from one ring to the next. His septum piercing was already the most distinctive feature in his handsome face and I believed that the time was ripe to experiment with heavier and more blatant jewellery. My own personal project had progressed faster than I had dared to hope. I was now wearing a seven centimetre diameter disc of ebony wood in my lower lip. I had passed the tipping point where my lip muscles could overpower the weight of the disc. The disc wobbled uncontrollably when I spoke, I was unable to drink without dribbling and mealtimes were accompanied by sucking and slurping sounds as I battled to chew. I had removed the two labret rings I had previously worn and now boasted a perforated lower lip with a single black lip plate. There was another man in the neighbourhood at that time who had also dared to adopt a lip plate. I saw him once or twice at the metro station and in the supermarket but never exchanged words with him. His disc was possibly a little larger and lighter than mine because it was held at an angle and hid his mouth and part of his nose.

 

In all honesty, by the time Chris was ready to stretch beyond the extent which the last of the septum ring series allowed, the ugly trend had run its course. A new younger generation had elbowed its way into the never‑ending evolution of trends and fashions. There were apparently details of clothing which distinguished them but the most apparent was the fashion among young males for a haircut called the MPB. At its most simple, hair was shaved off the front of the scalp from ear to ear. Others went to some expense to maintain an obviously artificial expanse of naked scalp which was typical of a balding male. The look was also considered ugly but as it was also a natural development for unfortunate prematurely balding men, it did not receive as much negative criticism as the uglies had engendered. They looked on at the upcoming generation and envied the tattoo‑free faces with unsplit noses, pliable even lips and external ears. For my part, I gradually continued stretching and can now boast a heavy enamel lip plate which hangs down to conceal my perforated lip. It exposes my lower teeth. I suck back saliva continually and change my soaked pillow twice a night because my useless lips passed drool through them.

 

But Chris had gone from strength to strength. It took him a while to accustom himself to his longer reach. Although the prostheses were deliberately shorter than natural arms, he was pleased with the increased reach. He found his rhythm when operating the hooks and worked the necessary motions into a fluid ballet of movement. He no longer resembled a disabled man straining to use awkward prostheses. He looked like an artiste demonstrating a particularly fine set of accoutrements which had been conferred out of gratitude for some forgotten deed. Needless to say, the subtle admiration he gained from onlookers in every niche of life gradually brought him the self‑assurance he had lacked as a younger man.

 

Christopher stands beside me now for our annual Christmas card photo. Our new puppy is in his artificial arms. His broad grin reveals his teeth from behind the thirteen centimetre wide steel septum ring with its huge heavy closure ball which circles Chris’s mouth and stretches his septum and nostrils to an alarming degree. My own septum piercing is nothing more than a thick ring with a steel ball which can knock against my front teeth if I allow it. Otherwise my lip plate drags my lower lip down. I strain to produce a smile and the photographer makes his choice. The pup is the centre of everyone’s attention. The photographer busies himself with his camera for a moment and Chris and I exchange a quick kiss with the dog wriggling between our chests. With considerable effort, I can purse my lips enough to reach Chris’s, half hidden and protected by the enormous steel ring dominating his face, stealing attention from the short artificial arms he now wears with pride.

 

NO CURE FOR UGLY