COMING CLEAN

 

COMING CLEAN

New fiction by strzeka (09/26)

One

For years, I have hardly thought about my personal history. I believed all the excuses and subterfuges and downright lies were all in the past. I have been gainfully employed as a disabled worker in chemical research, accepted as one of the gang by my colleagues of several years. Suddenly, I find myself confronted with embarrassing twenty‑year‑old scandals raising their ugly heads. I suppose I always knew it might happen but I am disturbed to find myself the centre of attention at work. It is only a matter of time before word gets out to my wider circle of friends, most of whom accept my conventional explanation of why I have hooks.

 

Apparently, a minor altercation in our favourite local bar for after‑work drinks set off the speculation. I was on my way from my seat to the bar to order a couple of beers when another customer deliberately pushed me aside. I was already under the influence of Dutch courage and so I pushed back at him. The extension tabs on my worker’s hooks poked him painfully between the ribs and he let out an especially unmanly shriek. This attracted everyone’s attention. The guy made a rapid exit, having embarrrassed himself and I was left standing by the bar looking ferocious with my hooks raised and my jacket sleeves pulled back to reveal much of my prosthetic arms. Apart from receiving congratulations for daring to stand my ground, talk turned to my disability, namely, how had I lost my hands?

 

Two

There were people present who had known me considerably longer and they answered enthusiastically on my behalf with the version I had adhered to back then before I concocted a more credible story, the one known to my more recent acquaintances. As I sat between two sides suddenly arguing about what exactly had maimed me, I realised that once again I had some explaining to do. The trouble was, I could not remember an accurate explanation of the current version. And how was I supposed to explain to the others that actually, I had been telling untruths about my injury? Lies, in other words. Half drunk and flustered by the dilemma, I remained silent on the subject and concentrated on necking as much alcohol as possible.

 

I awoke on Saturday morning late and hungover, as expected. My hooks were strewn across the bedroom floor. I lifted them onto the bed and swiped them around with my stumps until they arranged themselves. I slung them across my shoulders, jiggling from one foot to the other in an effort to hold on to my piss. I supported my dick between the hooks and hurried to the toilet. Then to the kitchen for the day’s first latte. I sterilised my hooks in a fierce jet of live steam from the espresso machine. I usually had a croissant or sandwich but I had no appetite. Suddenly I remembered the previous evening’s conundrum about my hooks. I desperately tried to remember what I had said. I was still not thinking clearly and I realised it was time for me to come clean about my maiming. I had been living a lie for twenty years and never admitted the truth to anyone, not even my parents. My mother is now dead and my father suffers from dementia so I am free to reveal the truth without their judgment. How it will be received by others who have known me and trusted me as a friend or colleague, I cannot say. I knew only that my confusion and the low‑grade stress associated with trying to stay abreast of my web of lies had finally reached its limit. I decided to write a book about how and why I lost my hands, including what led up to the maiming and all that happened after. With any luck, it would free my mind of the conundrum which preyed on my conscience.

 

I do not wish to give the impression that I generally suffer physically or mentally from my disability. As soon as my stumps were strong enough for me to be fitted with artificial arms and hooks, I felt myself at least equal to my teenage peers. I continued as if nothing had happened, using the remaining year and a half of compulsory schooling before reaching the age of majority and the chance to forge my own future as a bilateral amputee. During that time, I intended to master my hooks.

 

Three

Returning to school was the most stressful episode of my life. Unsurprisingly, none of the school’s five hundred students nor most of the teaching staff had ever encountered a bilateral amputee before. I was intensely conscious of my pristine steel hooks poking incongruously from the sleeves of my sixth‑former’s black blazer. I discovered later that our house master had briefed my classmates in advance about my imminent return. He apparently made me sound like a vulnerable invalid who would need consideration and sympathy from them, who ought to offer me every assistance whenever possible. No‑one was prepared for my good‑natured confidence with my new hooks. I thanked everyone for their kind offers of help but insisted I needed to learn how to do things for myself. My friends soon stopped offering help for everything when they saw how adept I was becoming with my hooks.

 

My schoolmates provided a practical sample of how people in general came to terms with a smarter than average teenager (false modesty be damned!) who might be half crazy because of the trauma he had undergone. Many people were turned off by my hooks on first sight. Others were neutral except they had no idea what to say to me and were obviously uncomfortable in my presence. A few, mostly my old mates, asked me if I was OK and after I told them that I was, we carried on where we left off. They were the ones I demonstrated my artificial arms to, the ones I happily shucked my gear for when they asked to see my stumps.

 

I was allowed to use a small battery powered dictation device which had recently come onto the market. I was unable to write and take notes with a pen, although I had been practising with a biro covered in thick rubber bands so my hook could grip it. I could sign my name and jot down numbers if I was working on some calculation but writing an essay or a report for physics class was beyond me. I had been promised private assistance when the exams came around and that not being able to write was not something I should worry about. Despite all the official reassurances, I continued to practise writing. It was more or less a matter of decreasing the size of the letters I could form with my shoulder and elbow. I no longer had wrists or hands with their oh so useful little fingers. I used one hook to position a pen into the other so I could undertake my writing drills just like when I was five. Up and down, curl around, loops going up, loops going down. I could already write all my letters and numbers. I just had to reduce them from an inch high to normal handwriting size. I discovered that that was for my shoulder muscles to control. My elbows took care of the actual shapes of the letters. My other hook speared the paper, holding it firmly in position. When I perused my mechanical scrawl in despair, I stared at the stationary hook holding the paper in place. It reminded me why I was in my current situation and I felt a surge of achievement and calm. My hooks were everything I expected and I loved them even more than my hidden stumps.

 

The long summer holiday between finishing school and starting at uni was probably the best time of my life. Three friends had banded together and bought an old VW bus to do up the previous winter and quite out of the blue, one of the gang invited me to join them on a tour across to Cologne and down the Rhine as far as we dared push the old van. I soon discovered that there was little point wearing my artificial arms in the van and for the next four weeks, I was pampered by my fellow travellers. They insisted on allowing me to go au naturel, baring my pleasantly rounded stumps to all and sundry. They helped me eat and held my drinks for me and assisted in other bodily functions, except for wiping my arse every morning, a time‑consuming and tedious procedure involving hooks and half a roll of toilet paper. We saw the sights, Deutsche Eck, Heidelberg Schloss and what all. I began to love the sensation of complete physical freedom from hands. The remnants of my arms were streamlined appendages, as if designed by nature to enhance the beauty of the upper male body. My hooks remained in the back of the van wedged into the gaps on each side of the spare wheel.

 

All too soon summer was over and I was reunited with my hooks. I applied for lodgings near the university before learning that there was accommodation available for disabled students on campus at a much reduced rate. Although I hardly regarded myself as disabled as someone in a wheelchair or a blind student, I was accepted and lived in, as we said, for the next three years. My digs became a convenient place for my friends to crash when we had overstayed our welcome at the pub and the last bus had gone. To make matters worse, I had discovered the magic of alcohol and usually had a bottle or two of vodka or gin in the fridge which only served to reinforce my popularity. My university friends were, almost without exception, superficial hangers‑on who I lost touch with almost immediately after leaving uni. I am not bitter. I could easily afford to share my booze. I was compensated with a handsome sum for the loss of my hands from both the school’s insurance and my father’s private insurance which covered injuries such as mine up to two hundred thousand. The school insurance paid out many times more as they were found responsible for the circumstances leading to my maiming, as I had expected. Fraudulent or not, the end result was the same. A healthy and promising senior student had been catastrophically injured by school equipment on school property during school time resulting in the irreparable loss of both hands. The insurance company was forced to concede that I was entitled to compensation for my life‑changing disability and settled for the maximum amount demanded.

 

Four

Despite my reassuring nest egg, I was as determined to land myself a well‑paid position in a worthwhile job with a respected company. I was accepted to read mathematics and chemistry at Southampton University and applied for digs on campus which I was entitled to as a disabled student. The apartment was more suitable for someone in a wheelchair but the plumbing was adapted for someone with limited use of their hands and the tiny kitchen was ergonomically perfect for me. As I settled in and knuckled down with the minutiae of my chosen subjects, I gradually learned the everyday routines which suited my unique situation. I developed some kind of muscle memory. I no longer found myself thinking about how to do everyday things like boiling water for tea or changing bed sheets. I simply did them. Almost unnoticed, my hooks became an intimate part of me rather than a separate entity which I wore. My stumps faded from prominence as the shiny black sockets and steel hooks became more familiar and imposing. I regarded my artificial arms almost as armour, which sounds far‑fetched until one realises that I had a distinct advantage when handling caustic substances in the lab. My hooks were fireproof and impervious to both intense heat and severe cold. My fellow students watched me nonchalantly manipulating test tubes bubbling with some hideous concoction and may even have felt a little envy. As I have mentioned, I had already become so au fait with my hooks that I hardly realised how advantaged I was.

 

Despite being surrounded with intelligent peers, some of whom were enviably handsome, I found myself alone after hours and I found it disconcerting. We got on well enough when we worked on mutual projects but somehow, there was no advance from anyone regarding more intimate friendship or companionship. I did not believe I looked unpleasant in any way. I looked after my personal hygiene and wore clean clothes. The only reason I had no close friends I could imagine was naturally enough my status as a bilateral amputee. What I found perfectly normal and unremarkable was still shocking and perhaps even disturbing to my colleagues. That was understandable enough, if disappointing. After several months of solitude, I suspected that I had gained a reputation for being a loner and that no approaches for closer friendship would even be forthcoming. In the meantime, other relationships and friendships bloomed among my year’s intake. But I remained alone with my phallic arm stumps. It was a new situation for me. I had never imagined myself as other people might see me. There was no way to express that my disability was my greatest achievement which I was intensely proud of and not something distasteful to hide away.

 

Five

Understandably, I became somewhat bitter and short‑tempered with my fellow students. My second year was no more promising, nor was the third. Our numbers diminished each year as unsuccessful students dropped out and the most promising were prematurely snapped up by interested companies. I toiled on, now more enthusiastic about chemistry than mathematics simply because of my prowess in practical research thanks to my hooks. Despite the ignorant rejection by my fellow students, I had attracted attention for the above‑mentioned reasons and during my third year, I was approached with no less than three lucrative job offers from recently founded companies rather than the big three, as I had anticipated. Their wage offers were also enticing and after weighing up the options for a couple of months, I accepted one and concentrated on graduating.

 

I started work at Kinetix Albion after an awkward and expensive move. I am too disabled to participate in something as physically demanding as carrying heavy boxes and furniture, although I managed to dismantle my flat pack furniture well enough. Unfortunately, I had the wrong mindset when I started my job. I expected to be rejected as far as personal relationships were concerned and I may have given an arrogant impression. As a result, I was treated as the runt of the litter, the last person to be invited to a social function, the solitary remaining staff member when teams were assembled. I found the situation frustrating at first but soon inured myself to it. I concentrated on my work and undertook private research against company policy but in the only way available to an outcast such as myself. Once again, I was reluctant to assign responsibility for my solitude onto my artificial arms. I was equally productive as any other team member. My reluctance to socialise was a result of the caution required by my secretive research. In fact, these were mere excuses I invented for myself. My hooks marked me out instantly as the group’s anti‑social outcast. It is a simple fact of my life that my specific disability is visible immediately. Hands are second only to the human face in personal exchange. Humans as a species gesture and clarify, explain and demonstrate, describe and reassure with our hands. I can do none of that. My hooks point at random angles as I enter a room and remain the same for the duration. I give off the same vibes as a cardboard cut‑out replica and receive the same amount of companionship. It seems I am doomed to suffer the same consequences of my rash action a decade previously regardless of where I go or what I do. My hooks are the immediate and most prominent aspect of my personality which outsiders see. Regardless of the fact that I am perfectly attuned to using hooks instead of flesh and blood fingers, their shock value ensures that the same psychological barrier rises between me and anyone I speak to.

 

Six

Despite being subtly rejected by my colleagues, I was successful with my research. I worked on an additive to make lye less reactive to aluminium which may prove beneficial when applied to oven cleaner. My hooks are uniquely suited to handling such a caustic substance. I received a financial bonus and encouragement to continue, this time with a hand‑picked selection of collaborators. My reputation grew after I submitted a report for publication to a science journal and I began to receive subtle hints that my employer’s competitors would be interested in meeting me for a chat. I had never been head‑hunted before and regarded it as a compliment rather than blood‑thirsty competition. I waited for over a year until I finally heard from a competitor whose recent research into chemo‑metallurgy had already attracted my attention. Aethelgard Chemicals’ head of personal relations was possibly the last person in the entire field who did not know that I am a bilateral amputee and was visibly shocked upon meeting me. My hooks were the first topic of conversation, standing in for the more usual small talk topics such as the weather and how the journey had been. I went into considerable detail about rehabilitation and the mechanical capabilities of my artificial arms. I also concocted a highly credible explanation of how I had been injured. It differed considerably from the version all my current colleagues had heard and accepted.

 

I worked for Kinetix Albion for another seven months while we brought the lye additive to commercial standard. I spent a well‑deserved month relaxing before joining Aethelgard. The atmosphere struck me immediately as more convivial and lively. Many of the employees were younger than myself and possessed of an unconventional trait. They were inquisitive and daring and the company benefited purposely from their enthusiasm for exploring new applications for age‑old chemistry. My mood improved as I too relaxed into my new role with new colleagues. They showed me sympathy and interest. As always, I was the first hook user any of my colleagues had met and I patiently explained a shorter version of what I had told the PR chief as I demonstrated how my hooks opened and closed, opened and closed.

 

Although I was employed as a team leader, I found myself participating far more closely on a practical level with my colleagues. They accepted me with all the friendly respect a person in my position could hope for but there was something missing. Simple intimate friendship with any attractive individual evaded me once again. This time I could ascribe my woes to our obvious age difference. I was a decade older than many of my fellow workers and it is a sad truth that in one’s twenties, anyone over thirty is seen as past it, over the hill. I was reluctant to consider the fact that my hooks and their in‑built psychological barrier could play any part in the matter.

 

Seven

I continued to enjoy my work. It gave me a purpose in life. I felt myself to be a productive member of society, hidden away behind the cut-throat capitalist hellscape which ran modern life. While proto‑feudal overlords sucked the citizen’s livelihood dry with every passing year, those who survived could enjoy the benefits of my and my team’s efforts to extend the efficacy of ever‑diminishing rare earths.

 

Aethelgard Chemicals took an interest in its workforce. People’s birthdays were always celebrated, or at least commemorated, in some way. It was a welcome break to be invited to the conference room at eleven in the morning to find the negotiation table overflowing with the best the local bakeries and conditoria could provide in puff pastry and smörgåsbord. I already knew what to expect on my thirty‑seventh birthday and sure enough, the invitation to wrap things up for an hour or so came a few minutes before eleven. I was feeling unusually brazen for some reason and for whatever reason, I wandered into the conference room, already filled with most of the staff, without a jacket. I was wearing a short sleeved shirt, as all my shirts are the same type, which allowed my artificial arms to be fully visible. This was apparently quite a surprise to many of those present who had not seen my prostheses before, although surely no‑one could possibly be unaware of my amputee status any longer. I seemed to cause quite a disturbance before the vice‑president finally spoke, congratulating me and giving those assembled a brief resumé about my team’s recent results and, completely unexpectedly, a brief resumé about my maiming and how I had beaten my disability. I was livid. My disability has absolutely nothing to do with anyone else. However, despite this obvious faux pas, I was shortly approached by an apparently shy recent rookie whose innocent face was adorned by a fiercely dark five o’clock shadow and a full moustache which curled around his handsome lips. He offered me his right hand and held it there while I appraised him to see if he was poking fun at me. He also held his amicable gaze. I glanced down to touch his steady hand with my right hook. He took it into both his hands and held it for three, four seconds, before moving it up and down carefully and releasing it.

 

          – Happy birthday, Jet!

          – Thank you. How do you know my nickname?

I had been known as Jet at K.A. I had never really discovered why but for some reason the name stuck and as it was not offensive, I allowed it to continue.

          – I was at Kinetix Albion in the maths department before I came here and heard about the guy with hooks who they called Jet. That’s you, isn’t it? I’m sorry if I offended you.

          – No, not at all. I was just a bit surprised. This is quite a spread, isn’t it? I was expecting to go out to lunch for a change today but seems I shan’t need to. Those egg and shrimp open sandwiches are my favourite. Can I ask you to help me with one?

          – Yes, of course. They do look good. Let me get a couple before the others cotton on.

He shovelled two onto flat porcelain plates and grabbed a fork. We moved a few steps to the edge of the room. A long shelf holding brochures, books and various objets d’art surrounded it at a convenient height for eating smörrebröd with hooks.

          – You see, I can’t squeeze the lemon onto the shrimp.

          – Oh, don’t worry about that. I’ll do it. I hope you don’t mind me asking but what the boss said about how you lost your hands is quite different from what I was told at Albion. I mean, it’s not really any business of mine, but I’d be curious to know how come there are two different stories.

          – I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.

          – Oh, my bad. I’m Liam. Liam Lloyd.

          – Well look, Liam. You are right to say that it’s no business of yours but I don’t want to offend you and you look like an intelligent man. You see, the way I was injured was so distasteful that I prefer to have people believe a less disturbing explanation. After all, as you say, it is not their business how I gained my stumps.

My choice of words was deliberate. Liam raised his eyebrows. His reaction was as I hoped. I had guessed right.

          – So it wasn’t an accident then? I mean, the things people told me behind your back seemed to me unlikely. I know about wanting to become an amputee, see? I was willing to go along with the explanation back then but suddenly hearing a new version here which everyone seems to accept as the truth makes me suspicious.

          – And is that a bad thing? Need I be worried?

Liam laughed quietly. I admired his perfect teeth for a few moments.

          – No, of course not. But I’d love to know what really happened. How you gained your stumps, as you put it.

I held the smörrebröd in my right hook and bit into a combination of dark bread, mayonnaise, boiled egg and lemon‑drenched shrimps. It was a wonderful combination of whatever could fit onto a slice of bread and I admired the Danes for concocting something so delicious.

          – Look, Liam. I think I can trust you not to gossip about my little accident if I tell you the truth.

          – Of course you can. Anything you tell me will stay completely confidential.

          – Tell me, have you every wished you had a hook? Do they interest you in that way?

          – They do. And not just one. I hope you don’t mind me saying so but a man with two hooks has reached the height of masculinity. I admire the look, I envy the prostheses, I yearn for my own stumps and I love the idea of wearing hooks permanently.

          – You certainly seem to know the terminology, Liam. Alright. I don’t want to talk about it here and now. Are you free to meet up on Friday afternoon? We could go for a drink or you could come round to my place if you’d like to see my other prostheses.

          – I’d like that. Thank you, Jet.

 

Eight

Liam’s imminent arrival sparked me into action of a kind. Although the idea of a book had been churning around in my mind for some time, the fact that I had actually promised Liam the truth at the weekend gave me a needed impetus to sort the story out into some kind of logical sequence.

 

In much the same way as Liam had briefly described his own obsession, my own fetish for gaining stumps in order to operate a pair of artificial arms with hooks on the end was emphasised by finding myself in close proximity with a double amputee at an early age. When I was eight years old, I broke my leg playing football and spent three nights in hospital under observation while my injury was x-rayed and casted. I was on a children’s ward where there were five beds, only two of which were currently in use. The other bed was occupied by a bigger boy. I suppose he may have been twelve or thirteen. We did not do much socialising with such a vast age difference. The only reason I remember him is because he had no hands. He had also broken his leg and was unable to use crutches. I was captivated by his long handless forearms. After breakfast, a nurse brought him a pair of pink artificial arms and helped him put them on. For the rest of the day, he wore the hooks, using them to hold his comic books and turn the pages or grab a beaker of water from his bedside table. I watched him all the time and I remember my little boy’s willy being stiff. At home later the same week, I clomped around on a pair of long crutches practising before I went back to school, imagining myself sporting a pair of hooks and carrying on as if nothing had happened.

 

I waited for Liam on Friday afternoon before we made our way to my flat. There were only three stops on the train, hardly a commute but a regular feature in my daily routine which I enjoyed. I always stood, preferring to grip a support pole rather than to sit with my hooks on my thighs, on display for all and sundry. Liam and I exchanged quiet observations about our recent work until we reached my home. I used the work hook on my left stump to enter the five digit door code. I had had the electronic lock installed soon after I moved in. I dislike keys.

 

Liam was the ideal guest. I had agreed to come clean about how I lost my hands and he waited patiently for me to reach the moment of truth. In the mean time, we looked at two similar pairs of artificial arms I owned, neither of them currently bearing hooks. Liam studied their construction. His enthusiasm was plain to see. It was obvious that he hankered after owning a similar pair into which he might insert his own handless stumps, preferably sometime in the near future.

 

It was time to come clean.

          – I’ve been an amputee for twenty years. I’ve been an amputee for longer than I had hands. I was only seventeen when I decided I’d waited long enough. You know the certainty you get in your late teens that you know your own mind. You have your own opinions on things and you know you’re right. It’s not entirely unjustified when you consider that the educational system also expects its charges at that age to know what they want to adopt as a profession, what they want to study at university and a whole lot else that I still can’t be sure about twenty years later.

          – But you knew you wanted hooks.

          – That was never in question. I had an encounter when I was very young with a guy who had two hooks. I don’t want to go into detail but I was able to watch him for many hours and he didn’t seem to mind. I’ve never seen him again, although we must have been fairly close neighbours for some of the time. But that is by the by. Seeing a real pair of hooks being worn confirmed for me that I wanted the same thing in the future for myself. I wanted to grow up as a student with artificial arms ending in a pair of shiny steel hooks. I never gave a thought to how disabling it might be to lose both hands or how difficult it would make life. Even something as simple as turning a key in a lock or unscrewing the lid on a bottle of shampoo are suddenly next to impossible. But after I’d gained my stumps, I learned new ways of dealing with things like that. I never accepted that I’d become disabled. I always thought it was an uncaring society which caused me problems. A lack of interest in good design generally. Look around you and see if there is anything which genuinely pleases your eye.

          – I understand. I studied industrial design and ergonomics alongside maths.

 

I was impressed by Liam’s interest in my meandering narrative. He was a patient listener. Everything connects with everything else. It was difficult to stay on track and explain my way to the tipping point, although I had been mulling over the best way to do so for several days.

 

          – So I was determined to destroy my hands which was the only way I could think of as an excuse to have arm amputations. I worried that if I wasn’t brave enough or assertive enough that I’d be left with disarticulated hands and long handless forearms. I wanted to avoid long stumps. I wanted stumps half the length of my forearms so the doctors would have no choice but to amputate above my wrists. You know how they always try to give the patients as long stumps as possible, even though they’re covered in shitty scar tissue and criss‑crossed with cratered skin which festers and stinks trapped inside sockets? I wanted stumps which were much shorter than just slicing my hands off at the wrists.

 

          – Is that what you have now?

          – It is.

          – And are you happy with your stumps? I hope they don’t cause you discomfort.

          – They’re fine. I’ll show you a bit later if you like. Anyway, my next problem was how to arrange a credible situation which would result in me having my hands amputated how I wanted without anyone suspecting that I had done it on purpose. Not my teachers, not my parents, not my friends, and as it turned out, not the insurance companies who were liable if something terrible happened to me.

 

          – It took me a while to research all the potentially dangerous things at school before I was ready. There were things like the guillotines in the arts and crafts room which might slice through a wrist if all the guards were removed. And even so, I would still be left with one working hand. It would be too obvious to lose both hands in an accident with a guillotine. I had been in the metalwork class for a couple of years. The boys had a choice of doing metalwork or domestic science. The girls could do domestic science or woodwork. Don’t ask me what sense there was in all that. The boys learned what raw dough looked like and the girls learned the difference between screws and nails.

          – Haha! That sounds a lot like my school. But you had more variety. So what did you find in the end?

          – It wasn’t really difficult. There was a lathe in the metalwork room and I knew from all the warnings and the stickers pasted all over it that it was a lethal piece of kit. My idea was to attach something fairly irregular in shape and when the lathe was turning as fast as possible, I’d grab hold of it. I knew there were other cases of amputations caused by faulty lathes including one where the guy reached in first with his left hand and then with his right and had them both chewed off in an instant. That’s what I intended to do.

          – That must have been awfully painful.

          – I won’t lie and say it was painless but the injury is so massive that there’s no way the pain matches the injury.

          – So was this during school time or were you alone?

          – No, I wasn’t alone. That would have been fairly dangerous because of blood loss. I had all my classmates around me and the teacher. Of course, I had to keep an eye on him to make sure his back was turned. As it was, there was enough shouting and yelling from everyone else to alert him almost as soon as the fingers from my left hand went flying. Blood everywhere. Even I was surprised and shocked so it seemed like a perfectly natural reaction to lean in with my right hand to rescue the left. Within half a second I was left with two bleeding forearm stumps whose bones were twisted and split. Someone dragged me away from the lathe and sat me down on the floor. The other students were cleared away to the other side of the room and the teacher did his best to staunch the bleeding with a couple of metal clamps.

          – It must have been traumatic for everyone.

          – I dare say it was. Let me take my arms off and you can see what I have left.

 

My stumps are uneven. The left one is a third as long as it used to be whereas the right is just over half. There was so much damage to my bones that it was deemed auspicious to amputate rather than to attempt to reconstruct splintered bones in a slightly longer stump. Prosthetists advised the surgical team that time was of the essence for the patient in question, meaning that I needed a pair of healed stumps pronto in order to sit for my final exams this year rather than the next. I dropped my sockets noisily to the floor.

 

          –  See? Not quite the same length but well within acceptable limits. I can use my stumps when I absolutely have to, otherwise they’re hidden away inside my sockets from dawn till dusk. Longer than that, actually. No‑one sees them.

          – Is that why you wear long sleeved shirts too?

          – That’s just to stop people staring. I prefer wearing short‑sleeved shirts but my arms attract too much attention. So I cover them up.

          – I think it looks great to have just your hooks peeking out of your shirt sleeves. It’s so considerate. Like you are doing your best not to alarm anyone with your disability.

          – Is that how you see me? As disabled?

          – No! I meant in the general sense. I’ve never seen you struggling to do something with your hooks.

          – Well, I do struggle occasionally but that’s when I usually delegate a job to someone else. One of the perks of being the foreman, you see?

          – That’s crafty!

          – I’m glad you think so. Like I said before, keep it under your hat.

 

I put my arms back on and shrugged the harness into place.

 

Nine

          – How are you going to do it, Liam? Have you arrived at a plan already?

          – Dry ice. I don’t have the guts to physically destroy my hands like you did.

          – Ha! I don’t have the patience to sit still for eight hours.

          – Eight? I thought four would be long enough.

          – No! Four’s not enough. You want to make absolutely sure your hands will be amputated without any chance the doctors can make misguided attempts at saving them. If you make absolutely certain that your hands and wrists are frozen completely solid, they’ll have no alternative. They might make you wait a couple of days while they waste their time before they amputate, but you’ll still get your stumps.

          – I see. Thanks for pointing that out.

          – You’re welcome. Imagine the horror of freezing your hands for four hours and then going through reconstruction and skin grafts for the next five years.

          – Is that really what they would do?

          – Follow the money, Liam. What would bring in more cash? Repairing your ruined hands in a series of thirty operations over five years or chopping your hands off, once?

          – Are they really as sadistic as that?

          – Depends largely on the hospital and the head surgeon but I wouldn’t want to chance it. There’s another thing. Have you got someone to sit with you while you’re freezing your hands?

          – No. Do you think I’d need someone?

          – For sure. Your hands will be useless after about twenty minutes in ice, regardless of whether the freeze leads to amputation or not. But if you intend being in ice for eight hours, you’ll need someone to bring you drinks and warm soup to help keep your core temperature up. The dry ice needs to be topped up regularly too, and the room has to be ventilated properly to stop you passing out from the build up of  carbon dioxide. That’s something you don’t wake up from.

          – I haven’t thought about that. I didn’t expect it would take so long, see?

Where would I find someone reliable who would keep my secret afterwards? It would be shitty if word got out that I destroyed my hands on purpose because I want to wear hooks for the rest of my life. People would think I’m mad.

          – They would. It’s happened before too. The guy had to move and take on a new identity and invent all kinds of fake reasons for how he lost his hands. You can always tell a wannabe by the way the back story changes. The best thing to do is to invent a reason before you even start and stick to it. That’s what I should have done too. I changed my story when I started working at Aethelgard Chemicals. I don’t know why any more. It was OK for a while but then problems began to pop up when people who’d known me before began to hear news about me from people who knew me only after I changed jobs. That’s why I’ve decided the time is ripe for me to come clean with everyone and tell the truth.

          – What will your insurance company say? They compensated you for your amputations due to the first cause, right? Aren’t they going to accuse you of fraud when they find out the truth about the accident with the lathe? That you did it on purpose?

          – I think there’s a legal time limit for fraud on insurance claims. I think it’s twenty years.

          – You’d better make sure before your book is published, hadn’t you?

          – I had.

          – And what will people think after they find out the truth? You can hardly expect sympathy and understanding from the general public. What would your family think?

          – Those are secondary matters. The most important thing at this stage is for me to tell the truth at long last. It will be a huge relief to open up after all these years of deceit and lies. People might call me insane but I’m sure it would soon blow over. People soon forget things like that. The media makes a fuss for a couple of weeks then some other scandal crops up to attract people’s attention.

          – Do you know what I think you should do? Your first story was effective enough, wasn’t it? You should simply go back to that. Tell everyone at A.C. that you were telling a fib because you were tired of telling the same old story all the time. You wanted a new story, not realising it would blow out of proportion. After all, it’s not really anyone else’s business, is it?

          – Absolutely not. Actually, I hadn’t thought of that. Well done, Liam. I’ll have to think about it.

 

We spent the rest of the evening discussing the niceties of using hooks with no recourse to hands. I have always lived alone as an adult and have fashioned my lifestyle to something as independent of functioning hands as possible. Liam described his compulsion to adopt mechanical hooks with no tactile sensation whatsoever. He had researched auxiliary devices available for prosthetic sockets to make the wrist rotate or alter its angle but was determined to function as a bilateral amputee with the most basic of prostheses.

 

He wanted hooks which were permanently set at the same position, their rotation possible only by physically twisting the wrist attachment. My hooks are of the same basic design. There is nothing to go wrong with them. The auxiliary devices, in comparison, are comparatively fragile and unreliable. Liam did not mention freezing again that evening. I was reluctant to participate. I thought of the aftermath and the stories which might arise when a bilateral amputee wearing a pair of steel hooks was found in the company of a severely injured man facing imminent amputation of both hands. It was not a situation I wanted to have to invent another story for.

 

Ten

Liam and I became good friends after that initial evening. I offered him my encouragement and advice before his transition and welcomed him to my home when his determination seemed to falter. Watching me function with hooks never failed to return his spirits. He kept his preparations for the procedure secret, even from me. I am not bitter. He froze his hands at home in the company of another successful wannabe found in an internet forum who had frozen his feet up to his ankles two years previously and now walked on standard issue artificial legs.

 

I heard of Liam’s absence from work only after he had been away for two weeks and guessed immediately what the cause was. I called him later that evening and allowed the phone to ring for as long as it might take for a handless man with bandaged stumps to answer. I was correct. Liam had two fresh stumps and the regular company of the same footless friend every evening. He was already suffering from buyer’s remorse, as is so often the case with severe maiming. I had suffered it far less because I had been much younger without the responsibilities of adulthood. I had nursing staff and family around who did everything for me while my stumps shaped up. Liam was alone for most of the day until his friend arrived to feed him the evening meal and tend to the domestic things a double arm amputee cannot do without prostheses. The main problem was not his sudden realisation of what actual disability genuinely meant but the daily tedium waiting for the time to pass, until his friend arrived, until his next hospital visit, until his first fitting, until the next. I paid him a visit when his stumps had healed well enough to remain without dressings and naked.

 

I was surprised to see they were uneven. I thought this unusual considering the method Liam had chosen to divest himself of his hands. I expected to see two stumps two thirds the length of his forearms. Instead, both were less than half. I could understand better why Liam might be suffering from buyer’s remorse. The stumps were nothing like the svelte rounded appendages we both admired. My own were handsome in and of themselves. I was proud of them and sometimes regretted that I was so reliant on prostheses. If I had a companion, I am sure I would sport my stumps much more often, both at home and in public. However, Liam’s stumps resembled the sorry remnants left to an amputee after a particularly harrowing trauma. Their difference in length emphasised Liam’s disability.

          – Why are your stumps so short, Liam? Sorry to sound so brutal about it. I don’t understand.

          – The doctor said I’d frozen my arms for so long that I’d killed more tissue than perhaps I intended. He had no doubt at all that I’d done it deliberately, see? Although he didn’t judge me, not to my face anyway.

          – Well, that’s good. So did you have too much of your arms inside the ice?

          – I suppose I must have done. Too late now.

I was mortified in case I had been responsible for Liam’s short stumps. I had advised him to freeze for eight hours. Perhaps it had been too long. There was no way to be sure.

          – Have you heard when your artificial arms will be ready?

          – Another two weeks. I’m going spare. I can’t do anything for myself during the day. My stumps hurt most of the time but not as much as they did at first.

          – Try to bear it, Liam. It won’t be long now and you’ll be much better off after you get your hooks.

I was exaggerating again but there was nothing for it. Liam looked despondent and lethargic. Nothing like the enthusiastic wannabe from earlier in the year.

          – I don’t even know if I’ll be able to use my hooks properly with such short stumps. They’re much shorter than yours and even yours are shorter than the stumps I was hoping for.

          – Don’t worry about that, Liam. You’ll be able to use your hooks perfectly assuming the sockets fit securely on your stumps. When your stumps are supported like that, their length doesn’t really matter. And it’s a psychological thing too, in a way. You feel a bit hard done by because your arms are so short now and you’ve always been used to seeing longer arms. When you get your hooks, your arms will be back to their normal length and that in itself will be reassuring.

 

I was largely inventing the whole thing. I was relieved and thankful that my stumps were so much longer than Liam’s. He would probably need a socket and pin system to suspend his artificial arms. Without the sockets being physically locked on, his short stumps would continually work themselves loose. I had no such problem. I could enjoy the supreme insensate rigidity of my artificial arms for short periods even with naked stumps if I were too lazy to don stump socks first. I loved feeling the sockets against my skin. It was such an unusual and unnatural sensation, available only to the rarest of amputees, to men like myself. And only a minuscule percentage of us had actively sought out voluntary maiming in order to gain the never‑ending need for complicated mechanical replacement limbs, finessed to perfection with two shining steel hooks.

 

I thought of rallying Liam further with promises that everything would be better when he had his own hooks but it was very much in his own hands, so to speak. It is not unknown for a recent amputee to fall into such lethargy that he never learns to gain all the benefits from his artificial limbs and remains chronically depressed. Many are reluctant to wear hooks in public, unwilling to have their amputee status advertised to all and sundry. They remain doubly disabled—psychologically and physically. Instead, I asked if there was anything he would like me to do for him while I was there but he refused to allow me to do anything.

          – My friend will be here soon. He’ll do what needs to be done.

I left the matter at that. I asked if I should go before the friend arrived and Liam assured me that I was welcome to stay to meet the double leg amputee who had enabled him to disable himself to such an extent,  more than what was acceptable.

 

Eleven

Sure enough, there was soon a knock and the sound of keys in a lock. Liam’s assistant rocked into view on two artificial legs. I have never seen anyone his age flaunt leglessness with such alacrity. I immediately felt an affinity with him. He obviously regarded his own bilateralism with the same proud exclusive pleasure as I did, wielding hooks all day, every day. He had developed a gait which deliberately attracted attention to his artificial legs.

          – This is Robbie Peck.

I reached out my right hook which Robbie took carefully. He held it for three or four seconds before moving my stump up and down once. Releasing my hook, he peered into my eyes with, I felt, recognition of our situations. I introduced myself.

          – I’m pleased to meet you at last. Liam has often mentioned you and the talks you had before he took the plunge. Without your help, he might still be lounging around with hands instead of being about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime.

Robbie and Liam exchanged a glance which I had seen only once before, between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Suddenly I understood the entire situation. Somehow Robbie was indebted to Liam and therefore continued to subjugate himself to Liam’s needs and wishes. Liam blamed Robbie for his unsuccessful amputations and was embittered. He had wanted stumps like mine but now faced a lifetime of disability with shorter inferior stumps which did not even match.

 

Liam was momentarily content. Robbie had seen to him in the toilet while he pissed and we had the first lagers of the evening in front of us. Liam was pleased to find himself capable of holding a pint of beer between his naked stumps and we genuinely complimented him on his ability. Robbie and I retreated to Liam’s bedroom for a couple of minutes, where there was some issue with the bedframe. It was an excuse.

 

          – What’s the matter with him? He just gets more miserable every time I see him. Is it me? Am I doing something wrong?

          – No, Robbie. It’s not you. Liam has definitely changed since his transition. His amputations are not what he wanted. You know that. That’s one reason why he’s bitter. Do you know why his stumps are so short?

          – No. Only what he’s told me himself, from the explanation his surgeon gave him. Muscle tissue destroyed past the halfway point, or something. So his amputations are what they are. I know the doctor tried to rescue as much as possible. It’s what they always do.

          – What are we going to do? If he doesn’t buck his ideas up, he’ll have no interest in learning to use his hooks and I know from experience it takes a lot of practice and effort with quite a few bumps along the way before suddenly everything seems to fall into place and you’re using your hooks as if they were a pair of oddly shaped hands.

          – Really? Is that how it feels?

          – Mine do. I can’t speak for everyone. I’d never change back to natural hands now, even if it were possible. But it’s not. It’s not a decision I’ll ever be asked to make or explain my refusal.

          – You like having hooks?

          – I do. I like the way I can manipulate other people simply by manipulating my hooks.

          – That sounds wonderful. I can only rock along on fake legs craving sympathy.

          – You don’t feel disabled though, do you?

          – God, no! I love walking with a pair of stumps. The more basic and primitive my artificial legs are, the better I like them. It’s such a satisfying thing to master. I am helpless without my legs and yet as soon as I strap them on, I’m as capable as any other man.

          – That’s exactly how I feel about my stumps. What was it about the bed you wanted help with?

          – There’s nothing wrong with it. I just wanted a word with you out of his earshot.

Robbie smiled again and this time I recognised a charming hint of male flirtation.

 

Twelve

The odd relationship between Robbie and Liam held until Liam received his first pair of hooks. Robbie messaged me and extended Liam’s invitation to visit again, mentioning that he, Robbie, would again be present. Much as I was interested in seeing Liam’s new kit, the promise of enjoying another evening in Robbie’s company was the deciding factor.

 

Liam had changed beyond all recognition. Again. The depressed apathy was no more. Instead, he gave the impression of a young boy with a brand new train set. Robbie opened the door to me and I immediately spotted Liam behind him, bursting with excitement. I shrugged my jacket off and rearranged my harness before approaching Liam with a extended hook. He carefully stretched out his own, mindful that it need not open. Our hooks interlocked briefly and we tugged each other back and forth in a parody of a greeting.

          – How do you like them, Liam? Are they what you expected?

          – They’re much better than I expected. I love ’em!

He held both arms out towards me. The sockets were black carbon fibre, as were the triceps cuffs. Liam’s sockets differed from mine in one major characteristic, due to the meagre length of his stumps. The sockets extended past his elbows and partially enveloped them, mainly for added security if he should fall but also to help the short stumps function more firmly. The only possible downside to them was that Liam could not straighten his artificial arms completely. The elbow was canted by several degrees. Liam’s arms would be permanently bent slightly. It was not a conspicuous trait.

          – I asked for these symmetrical hooks and I’ve got a pair of worker’s hooks on order.

He demonstrated how he opened his hooks by flexing his shoulders. Fresh rubber bands caused the hooks to snap closed with a reassuring metallic click.

          – The best thing is no‑one can see how short my stumps are. I look like a completely normal guy with bilateral hooks. No‑one need ever know!

          – That’s good, Liam. It’s true. You look like any other man with hooks. Are the sockets comfortable?

          – They’re great. They really hug my elbows and little stumps so it feels like the sockets are all part of my arms. And the hooks are great. I’ve already learned how I need to twist them around before I try to pick something up.

          – Ah! Good. You’re a fast learner. Well, let’s not stand here. Shall we sit down?

          – Go ahead, you two. I’ll bring the wine.

I glanced at Robbie and noticed that he was also peacocking in a pair of knee‑length denim shorts. His flesh‑toned prostheses wore short white socks and black loafers. Something about them still looked odd. They resembled natural legs but were possibly too slender. They also reflected light sources like natural skin would not. They were beautiful and I understood why Robbie enjoyed his amputee status so much.

 

The conversation oscillated between Liam’s prostheses and his prospects for the immediate future and my on again, off again plans for my book. Having an especially knowledgable captive audience, I asked my friends for their opinions on the wisdom of revealing the truth about how I had destroyed my natural hands in favour of wearing a pair of hooks and the lies I had concocted ovet the years as an explanation of my amputations to people whose curiosity won out over courtesy. I pointed out that all of us were voluntary amputees. I asked Robbie first if he was ‘out’ to his friends and family regarding his disability.

          – No. They think it was a road accident. Only the doctors know it was dry ice and they’re forbidden from talking about people’s injuries to outsiders, so I’m safe. How about you, Liam? What have you told your family?

          – Nothing. They don’t know yet. We’re not exactly estranged, but we’re not close either. They’ll find out soon enough. I usually go home for Christmas. They’ll find out then.

          – Oh, you should warn them beforehand, Liam. They might want to buy you gloves or mittens.

          – But would you want them to know that you froze your hands off? What are you going to tell them?

          – I don’t know yet. I haven’t decided. Probably some disease. Sepsis or something like that. I certainly don’t want anybody else thinking that I did this deliberately. They’d think I’m crazy or worse.

 

It was true enough. It was the main reason I’d not yet made a serious start on my book. I had written a chapter or two about the exciting discovery of an alternative body image at a young age and the realisation that the same was available to myself. Regardless of the fact that our deliberate amputations were merely an intervening stage in the process, needed only to create our stumps, it was and will remain an aspect of the human condition which will forever remain a secretive and slightly shameful compulsion. I believe the reason for this distaste springs from the fact that many amputees not only never wished to lose limbs, they also never bothered to master their prostheses. Or they were smothered in confused concern by relatives and friends who understood nothing about limblessness or the field of prosthetics. How appropriate would it be for a teenager to rock a glittering pair of hooks like me when my own diabetic grandfather had recently lost his shitty ulcerated foot to gangrene? As my parents fawned over the old man, I stayed home. I learned how to masturbate with two hooks. When that was in hand, I learned how to masturbate with my stumps.

 

          – So what you’re saying is, I shouldn’t admit to wanting hooks because of the negative feedback I might get?

          – Oh, you’d get it alright. But if you really want to write your story, why don’t you simply turn it into fiction? It would still be just as valid a story and just as fun to read. That way, you could earn a few bucks and in future, if anyone asks why you have hooks, you can just tell them to read your book.

          – That’s exactly what I want to do. I see your point. It’s the same story whether the reader believes it’s about me personally or if I’ve written about someone who just happens to be the same as me.

 

Those were the wise words I heard from Robbie. He was, as I have mentioned, an enthusiastic amputee. He seemed to know as much about arm amputations as his own below knee amputations and admitted to finding hooks erotic and inspirational, which he had always assumed meant the speaker was inspired by seeing a stump to have a wank at the soonest available opportunity. Robbie was still in the dog house regarding his relationship with his old friend but Liam was obviously on the mend. Robbie was an enthusiastic admirer and proposed a couple of adaptations to Liam’s arms which might be interesting, especially in view of the fact that Liam’s stumps were so much shorter than what he had been expecting.

 

          – Do you know what I’d like to see? If you had special short sockets made. They’d be just a bit longer than your stumps and they’d curve inwards

from your elbows. The thing is, the sockets would fix onto your upper arms and you would lose any use of your elbows. You’d have permanently bent arms which you could close across your chest or lean forward to pick up a burger or something like that.

          – Little short arms with hooks? Yeah! I’ve seen photos of a guy with hooks like that. I might like that. That’s one advantage of having little tiny stumps like mine. I can play around with my sockets.

 

It was then I realised Liam was well on the road to recovery.

 

Thirteen

A year later and Liam had taken advantage of his right to have a second set of prosthetic arms made. He had also taken advantage of his overly short stumps. His new sockets completely enveloped his upper arms and included the meagre distance he had available below his elbows. Their shape resembled pool noodles. Black and perfectly curved. All one single unit. Liam had no need of extra steel hooks. It was easy enough to transfer the existing ones to his short sockets.

 

I found it surprising that a man who had been so despondent about finding himself with short stumps was suddenly so enthusiastic again about disabling himself to a degree far beyond anything I could have envisaged for him. Liam was a new man and with his unusual short arms, he became flamboyant and extrovert. He treated himself to a new wardrobe which featured shirts, woollens and jackets all custom tailored with short sleeves. Liam basked in his disability. His arms were conspicuously short and unnaturally curved inwards across his chest and belly. The hooks touched each other in front of his navel. Liam used his shoulders to position his hooks where he needed them and stretching his back muscles operated them. He had no elbows, no wrists, no hands, no fingers. He was completely reliant on his deviant artificial arms and loved to peacock with them.

 

Robbie felt as if he had been released from some kind of psychological bond. Although he had played such a small rôle in Liam’s maiming, he felt responsible for not ensuring that the situation was not checked beforehand. They had possibly not done enough research and Robbie, as a successful wannabe, believed he bore some blame for Liam’s initial disappointment. But as Liam gradually mastered his hooks and then took a creative rôle in designing new prostheses, Robbie’s mood lifted too. We became close friends, sharing an intimate secret which might upend our lives if it were to be revealed.

 

 

Fourteen

I published my story anyway. I had spent so much time and effort on it, I felt it almost obligatory to offer it to an inquisitive public. I altered all the characters’ names and created a nom de plume for myself. But anyone who knew me would recognise me and it was this simple fact which served my original purpose. Writing my autobiography had been cathartic. I was far less concerned about my colleagues’ confusion about how I had lost my hands, especially after becoming acquainted with Liam and the Robbie during the process. Robbie’s friendship was like a mellow retreat into his generous empathy whereas Liam’s extrovert lifestyle was not conducive to a comfortable friendship. His severe maiming and his deviant prostheses were shocking in themselves, without Liam’s accustomed boisterousness. I remained on good terms with Liam and saw him occasionally at work but we are not as close as we were. Liam has possibly rediscovered his independence, or found it for the first time.

 

Robbie and I have formed a symbiosis of two bilateral amputees. I write this in Robbie’s apartment. It is his turn to be pampered. He is taking a holiday from his prostheses all weekend. We retrieved his old wheelchair from storage and every alternate weekend, he airs his naked leg stumps. I push him when he tires if we go out but he otherwise enjoys a release from his artificial legs. On the intervening weekends, it is my turn to bare my stumps. Robbie finds his inner soul as a passionate caretaker. He feeds me, lifts a glass to my lips and tends to my toiletting. My stumps revel in their unaccustomed freedom and I am gradually learning to appreciate the joy of being severely disabled with a handsome willing amputee lover to help.

 

COMING CLEAN