Ménage à trois

 

MÉNAGE À TROIS

An unusual story from the year 2042 by strzeka (11/24)

 

It was five years to the day since Noah Thorne joined Oliver Ashford and Harry Hargrove and a celebration was called for. The vote halfway through breakfast went two for, one against. Oli promised to get the smokes, Harry some wine or beer and Noah himself was merely instructed to wear his finest, including his new socket with the short fake leg stumps which the other two enjoyed seeing. Noah thought it ridiculous to first divest himself of his stumps at their insistence only for them to shortly recommend a socket which included two of them but he had to admit that they made him more stable and presentable.

 

Harry could easily manage a couple of boxes of plonk. Oli was still having problems with his peg arm, the clunky rubberised device he relied on to haul himself around in order to avoid damaging his artificial arm. Bringing home a few grammes of mary jane was no problem, unless you counted queuing for it. But it was only Wednesday, so there probably would not be the same demand as at the weekend.

 

They all left for work at the same time, as on most days. They boarded a tram in front of their building. Noah alighted first and made his way to his workplace at CRAC, the climate reimbursement advice centre. Harry and Oli continued across town to the borough’s recently constructed rationing administration compound. Their job was to provide a human voice for distraught citizens who had difficulties making their rations last. They made no decisions themselves. They merely relayed information provided by A.I., generated in accordance with access to data on the size of the customer’s household, age, nutrition requirements and availability and more. Most of the customers were older citizens continually frustrated by being able to afford extra food but being disallowed it. The general national consensus was that they had helped caused the situation. Let them suffer its consequences with everyone else.

 

No‑one could remember who had genuinely originated the plan to disable themselves. The three of them had been enthusiastic wannabe members of Aleph, a public forum for amputees based in Palestine but for all friendly territories. Oliver, Harry and Noah had all corresponded with quite a few legless men both in Palestine and further afield. Messages could be sent in either Arabic or Roman script. Artificial intelligence transcribed and translated it automatically. Most forum members sought only to gain more knowledge about amputation of their lower limbs to the most extreme degree. Gazan amputee members were always willing to describe their experiences since their amputations a decade ago. Being confronted with young men whose love of life was contagious, wannabes in Europe and beyond gradually altered their perceptions of the ideal body shape. There were many videos of handsome young Gazans together en route to drink coffee and smoke, swinging torso stumps between gloved hands. Some had vestigial leg stumps, useless for prosthetic use. Photos of their naked young bodies, genitals demurely covered, were collected and shared with admiration.

 

That was in the past. Nowadays Oli and Harry both wore identical thick rubber torso sockets of recycled vehicle tyres, sturdy and broad enough to be stable and secure, with a gently curving base to allow easier movement. The base of Harry’s socket compensated for the presence of his short thigh stumps. The sockets were waterproof and provided easy access via a stiff flap for access to private parts for urination. They squeaked on linoleum flooring when damp. Once settled at their work stations, Oli retrieved his artificial arm with its rubber artificial hand and stashed the peg arm in his backpack. Headphones on, display on. He activated his mike and began the day’s flood of advice to hungry callers. From where he sat, he could see through a dozen perspex shields to where Harry sat, already mired in an argument about the impossibility of cooking food when the timetable for the allocation of electricity was never accurate.

 

The work of advisor was demanding and sometimes draining. They were permitted to cut callers off if they became abusive or accusatory. There were internet forums galore with advice about rationing and recipes for the simple ingredients available. If the weather was not too violent, a good harvest of root vegetables might be had. Peas and beans usually had a difficult time of it, not tolerating long periods of drought. Chicken was apportioned twice a week and just under half a kilo of pork mince. Dried spaghetti and macaroni were always available, although they required careful cooking in order not to dissolve. Oli ploughed on through the list of callers, offering commiserations and advice on how to cope in future.

 

He and Harry both found a few seconds to place an order for their marijuana and alcohol. They ought to be available at the collection centre on the ground floor by the end of their shifts. The supply of intoxicants was not rationed but had to be ordered and paid for immediately upon collection. Harry ordered two three litre boxes of English white wine, ten degrees proof. The marijuana was what it was. Sometimes it was quite potent stuff. You took what you could get.

 

The huge advantage of working at the rations office was the guaranteed availability of produce for staff lunches. At twelve, the entire cohort of advisors stopped for an hour’s lunch break. Their meals were assembled from exactly the same ingredients available to everyone but there was always a little meat or chicken and a little effort was made to ensure the food was prepared properly. Harry was ahead of Oli in the queue, waiting and chatting with another legless guy standing on rocker feet attached to his socket. He preferred using a pair of boxing gloves to cushion his hands. There were enough limbless advisors of all genders that various imaginative adaptations were a common sight and no‑one passed comment on a legless man wearing boxing gloves in the queue for his lunch. The job was ideally suited to the severely maimed, requiring nothing more than a human voice and superhuman patience.

 

For his first two years with Oli and Harry, Noah did not work, at least not for the state. He was initially classed as too disabled to be able to serve his fellow citizens and was content to remain at home where he created magnificent vistas of Utopia with AI and used the tiny digital images as inspiration to produce meter‑wide paintings which he sold online for a handsome profit. There was an enormous backlog of artists materials still available, due to the simple fact that most people no longer had the time for creative recreation.

 

Noah was indeed severely disabled. He loved his stumpless lower torso and regarded his last two amputations as the best thing which had happened to him. He had started his adventure as a teenager, staging a ridiculous scenario with two other like‑minded friends, Charlie Merriweather and George Winslow, who dared him to go ahead with his outrageous plan. After downing a dangerous number of painkillers followed with half a bottle of vodka, his feet were severed with a chainsaw. Doctors saw only the injury and repaired it. No‑one in officialdom ever enquired how such a misfortune had transpired. Noah and his friends took note and over the next years arranged apparent accidents in which they lost various limbs.

 

Charlie had been a bilateral amputee missing both hands for almost as long as Noah had been missing his feet. He wore voluntary closing claws, vicious‑looking objects which frightened off potential girlfriends and attracted other young men seeking to distinguish themselves somehow. Charlie rode a sixteen hundred cc motorbike, adapted for use with his claws. George acted as a catalyst, encouraging his friends to experience ever more extreme amputations. He had not undergone any himself, not yet.

 

Noah used a pair of conventional prostheses for two years after his initial maiming. Exoskeletal was what they were called. They looked like his lower legs but the ankles could not bend and the feet were short things, difficult to balance on. Hinges served as knees and the legs gripped his thighs with the aid of leather sockets which he had to lace up. Despite the inconvenience, Noah enjoyed the challenge of walking on heavy artificial legs but did not feel himself disabled in the way he wished. He imagined himself walking on a single artificial leg and booked two further amputations. Four months later, he left rehab on crutches with a rigid rubber stubby on his left stump from which the knee had been disarticulated. His right leg stump was merely a fleshy dome at his pelvis with a truncated remnant of his femur remaining.

 

Elective amputations were, naturally enough, booked through Aleph and profits went to the Gaza reconstruction fund. There were several surgeons around Europe who volunteered their services. The ‘clinics’ provided amputations, food and lodging for two or three weeks but nothing more. It was up to the amputees to equip themselves with whatever prostheses they wanted and, not unexpectedly, a small number of independent rehab and prosthetic services associated with Aleph had quickly sprung up. Most provided perfectly serviceable prostheses, printed in situ from recycled plastic and reusing components from discarded artificial limbs.

 

Noah loved his thick rubber stubby but found using crutches to be inconvenient. George directed him to a series of videos uploaded by a thirty‑something man who had lost both legs from the pelvis. He ‘walked’ in a thick rubber bucket which surrounded his midriff and used gloved hands to swing his torso forward. Other videos showed him balancing on a skateboard, lying back in a recumbent handcycle made from recycled bike parts and wheeling himself around at home on a wheeled trolley. The guy himself was masculine, articulate and upbeat and Noah was gradually persuaded that the loss of his remaining thigh would be the best way to ditch crutch life. He had relied on his rubber bucket for eleven months, after a five month recovery in a wheelchair. He considered himself lucky to still be able to sit and balance on his minimalist femur stumps and he could excite himself by attempting to knead his genitals with them.

 

Both Oli and Harry had always influenced the other. They had known each other since primary school and were inseparable friends until they left school. Oli had been infatuated with the idea of wearing prosthetic limbs and Harry came round to the same way of thinking. As fresh school‑leavers, they were confronted with the formidable task of finding employment. So many avenues were blocked or completely removed thanks to artificial intelligence. Despite the dearth of eager young workers to do simple manual jobs because of emigration and the low birth rate, there were jobs in the service industries with generous quotas reserved especially for the physically handicapped.  It was the government’s way of compensating for the cessation of disability pensions to those under fifty. Oli and Harry dared each other to have amputations in order to take advantage of the deal. Oli was the more daring and intentionally damaged his lower left arm seriously enough with a rotary saw to cause amputation.

 

Since recovering, he had worn a variety of passive hands and hooks, all printed as part of long sockets into which he inserted his stump. After landing his present employment, he had been eligible to be fitted with a subsidised artificial arm and steel hook. Harry had been less adventurous and opted for a simple above knee amputation. He was provided with a thick rubber socket, a kind of sheath to protect the stump, to which different types of prosthetic leg might be attached. Shortly after he was walking on a peg leg crafted from a wooden crutch and several old‑fashioned wooden coat hangers. It was reliable enough but it was too heavy and looked terrible. Harry was dissatisfied and looked to Oli and George for guidance. Both friends knew they were at the mere outset of their plunge into limblessness and continually planned new lifestyles available to the severely disabled.

 

A year later, Harry had a second amputation to match the first. He was left with two handsome short stumps a third the length of his thighs and began his career as a hand‑walker. Oli was intensely envious of his friend’s transformation. There was only one thing for it. He would go one better and have double disarticulations from the pelvis. He would sit in a rigid bucket and propel himself with his remaining hand and some kind of peg arm which he could wear on his stump. Now he had been legless for a year and half. Harry could jiggle the remnants of his legs but Oli had nothing. He found his limblessness ecstatic. There was deep satisfaction in still being able to feel his legs and toes, to perform all kinds of calisthenics with no outward indication of movement. His rubber socket almost reached his armpits. It was smooth and cool each morning, uncomfortable and sweaty each evening. Without it, Oli could remain upright only when seated on a soft surface into which his torso stump could sink.

 

The celebration was modest but enjoyable. The smokes were relaxing and the wine was slightly tart but quite acceptable. Harry and Oli were almost naked, having shed their torso sockets as soon as they arrived home. Only Noah remained encased in rubber. He balanced on the floor facing his friends relaxing on the low legless sofa which was easy for them to climb onto. The usual topic on conversation unavoidably reared hits head once more so they discussed the possibility of further transformations. Harry had recently become enamoured of Charlie’s stunning claws but stated that he would prefer to have curved hooks. The claws were OK for riding a motorcycle, obviously, but they did not seem to be well suited to everyday life. Harry wanted to continue using a traditional keyboard at work and claws were less than the optimal shape. The trio discussed the pros and cons of different prosthetic hands and hooks, different lengths of stump. Oli removed his artificial arm in order to display his stump. It was a handsome truncated forearm, sturdy, muscular and manly. Harry was further tempted but not enough to commit. He was interested to know if Oli felt that his artificial arm was useful, enough so that a second prosthesis would not present a problem.

 

Oli often considered having his right hand off to make himself symmetrical again. He was prepared for the inconvenience of exchanging two artificial arms for peg arms with rubber tips which he would use like crutches to haul his torso stump around. That would be as far as he would go with his transformation. He had seen the difficulties involved in manipulating artificial arms for above‑elbow amputees and believed he would prefer identical forearm stumps. He admired their appearance and their utility. Harry suggested they might synchronise their arm amputations. Recover at the same time. He was sure that if one of them acted prematurely, the other would shortly follow suit. They might as well act together. From that evening on, both men often thought about the practicalities of wearing hooks at work, peg arms in public and sporting naked stumps at home.

 

George turned up unexpectedly on the following afternoon. He arrived on foot although he owned a small electric car. The reason was soon clear enough. He brought two bottles of gin as a belated gift, having heard from Charlie that the guys had celebrated during the week. George assumed it had been someone’s birthday and being ready at all times for any excuse for a party especially with amputee friends, he thought two bottles might hit the spot. One to test that evening, one as a gift for the birthday boy. Noah laughed at seeing him standing outside the door with a bottle in each hand and a shit‑eating grin on his face. Oli and Harry were naked in bed together but quickly slid into their sockets when Noah reported that George had come around with booze. Oli knew exactly what would happen. George was insatiable concerning discussions about limblessness. Fortunately he and Harry had been hatching ideas about converting to bilateral hook use and were more than ready to hear George’s considered opinion on it, although the outcome was obvious from the very outset. George would encourage them to go ahead with their plans. Of that there was no doubt.

 

There had been no birthday. Noah explained how they had also grabbed the chance for a midweek break. Any excuse was enough. George was bemused by having bought a bottle of gin for nothing. He quickly turned the subject of conversation to the inevitable and decided to discover how Noah had come to know the others and eventually move in with them. Noah had told his story many times and had whittled it down to the bare basics. He had wanted to be an amputee. More precisely, he wanted to use artificial limbs. They were the attraction and his overwhelming fetish. His first below‑knee amputations allowed him to experience wearing a pair of lace‑up prostheses with leather thigh corsets. The legs had belonged to another amputee, possibly two. They were newly refurbished when Noah took possession of them. They were heavy with completely rigid wooden feet and ankles and they caused him to rock from side to side when he walked. Next he decided to request knee disarticulations but his surgeon recommended above‑knee amputations as they were quicker to heal and the prostheses would provide a better body image.

 

Noah was persuaded and learned to walk on two above‑knee legs which were little more than steel pylons attached to printed sockets. The knees were mechanical but very reliable. Noah occasionally wore only one prosthesis and swung himself about on long crutches. It was the crutches which had attracted Oli’s attention and after sinking a few beers together, they became firm friends. Oli already wore a fake hand and meeting Noah rekindled his desire to lose his legs. They had collaborated in organising their amputations through Aleph. When Noah revealed he had ordered disarticulations from his hips because of their ease of maintenance, Oli jumped on the bandwagon and requested the same. George looked at the two men’s sockets to inspect the results. Oli’s rounded torso socket was covered with the worn treads of the tyres from which it had been recycled, otherwise completely featureless. Noah had opted for short rounded fake stumps extending from the front of his printed socket. They were long enough to provide support when stationary, short enough not to interfere with his motion when swinging along on his hands. Both men could twist their torsos enough to rock their sockets forward without using their hands. Oli had selected his solid rubber peg arm on exiting his bedroom and leaned on it.

 

Noah suffered psychological difficulties after losing his legs. He had expected to be far more active than he found possible. Ordinary leg amputees had the option of learning to walk on some kind of assistive devices. Noah found hand‑walking to be too exhausting. He lived alone and was responsible for his small household. He had many hungry nights when he had not had the energy to shop for rations. Oli was concerned for his friend and discussed his situation with Harry, who as a man on two prosthetic legs at the time took all responsibility for such matters. Their apartment was big enough for a third legless man and the financial help with the rent was welcome. So Noah moved in, exactly five years ago last Wednesday and here they were, slightly changed and more mature. George commented on what a remarkable story it was and how fortunate they were to share an apartment. He knew nothing of the erotic aspects of the men’s ménage. Oli and Harry did not speak of their sexual relationship nor the manner of their stump‑centric lovemaking. George would have been fascinated but it was genuinely none of his business. Better that he should regard the amputees’ commune as strictly for practical purposes.

 

It was Oli’s turn to ask the questions. George and Oli had known each other for over ten years. George admitted his admiration for stumps at the same time Oli was determining to lose his left hand. Oli’s fresh stump had more or less guaranteed George’s continuing friendly interest. He was a generous and helpful man to know. His inquisitive enquiries into his friends’ feelings about their stumps would have been annoying if he were not so open and genuine. He was easy to get on with. Perhaps he was the type known as a man’s man. He simply had an unrelenting fascination with amputation. Oli teased George about him still being the only one in a broader circle of friends and acquaintances who had not undergone amputation despite his intense interest. It was something of which George himself was only too aware. He explained his reasoning to the group.

 

He believed that if he began a process of self‑transformation, he would automatically lose some of the intense interest he had always felt in seeing and admiring handsome virile disabled men. He fetishised artificial limbs and derived great pleasure from imagining himself using the same devices. He thought he knew himself well enough to know that owning his personal prosthetic limbs for his own personal needs would lessen the attraction and he would lose the one source of pleasure which he had relied on since his early childhood. Hearing this, the others nodded their heads, bemused by the unlikely mindset of their friend but recognising the truth in what he claimed. Their own fascination with other men’s disabilities had also been tempered by the loss of their own limbs and the necessity to contend with learning to use the sometimes primitive replacements which were often the only things available. Oli remembered how needing his recycled wooden peg leg had negated his desire to see other men with peg legs. The compulsion had evaporated. Oli cupped the broad rubber base of his peg arm with his natural hand in thought and George watched him.

 

Harry had been quiet for too long. He heard and understood George’s argument against his own amputations but the gin was beginning to take effect and his better judgment was impaired. It was easy to come to the conclusion that George was hypocritical. Harry lifted his buttocks on his hands in an attempt to adjust his minimal stumps. They stayed firmly in place inside the rubber torso socket but he now faced George directly. He challenged George to undergo an amputation in the new year, something minor and easily manageable. As a member of the local administration, George was eligible for a proper prosthesis. Harry suggested George consider adopting hooks. He could have one hand off now and learn how to come to terms with the hooked life and six months later, he could have the other hand off and become a bilateral. To emphasise the point, Oli pulled his peg arm off and rubbed his hairy stump to dry off perspiration. He held his stump in George’s line of sight and turned it slowly. George felt another surge of lust and stump envy and with defences weakened by the gin, he firmly stated that the time had come. He had nothing to lose. Oli congratulated him and the trio of leg amputees expressed their hopes that George would be a skilful bilateral hook user this time next year. George looked somehow relieved, as if a huge weight had been lifted. They were right. It was time.

 

George made his mind up. There was no longer the alternative of not amputating. His only choice was left arm stump or right arm stump first. He had no fear of becoming disabled. His life‑long attitude towards amputation reassured him that it was an enhancement, not a disability. Without revealing his decision, he spent a few evenings and weekend beer sessions in Charlie’s company. He wanted more information from the horse’s mouth about life as a man with bilateral arm stumps before he took the final step and booked surgery through Aleph. Charlie’s claws and sockets had been professionally made and were now seven years old. His stumps were older. He had used his naked stumps for a year an a half after they healed, savouring his lack of hands. The stumps themselves were only fifteen or so centimetres long below his elbows. Long enough to allow him to continue to use his elbows in conjunction with his prostheses but short enough to let him extract a stump from a socket effortlessly when it would be more useful. Charlie was a big man, tall and muscular. He had weight‑trained since his teenage years and his physique was still admirable at thirty. His short forearms emphasised his masculine physique.

 

George suggested meeting the legless guys before Christmas and spending a boozy evening discussing whether or not it was time for George himself to arrange his first transformation. Oli had been persuasive and recommended the loss of a hand to begin. Charlie grunted. He liked Oli and always asked when he was going to get his second hook. George suspected that Oli might go ahead if he set an example but first George wanted Charlie’s advice. They were in an almost empty pub with two pints of weak ale in front of them. Charlie’s arms rested on the table top. The claws were open and looked threatening, just as they always did when the prostheses were at rest. Charlie used voluntarily closing claws. They were large and substantial items and had a ferocious grip. They remained locked until Charlie released them. They were ideal for gripping the handlebar of his massive bike. Charlie operated the right claw and lifted the beer to his mouth, leaning forward to compensate for the claw’s inability to tilt. Charlie had wanted hooks for as long as he could remember, since he first discovered their existence. He had learned to ride a motorbike when he had hands and was dubious about acting on impulse until he discovered a video channel run by a bilateral amputee who drove using the same manufacturer’s claws which Charlie now wore. The claws themselves were large and more prominent than the two pronged steel hooks most arm amputees wore. They also looked imposing. Charlie thought they looked suitably impressive and decided they were what he had been looking for. He researched their availability and found a prosthetist who had a small supply of the devices. After his amputations, self‑caused by freezing his hands and lower forearms in dry ice, he had to wait until he was medically approved to return to his profession and fitted with standard prostheses with standard hooks. He visited the prosthetist at the first available opportunity to have the hooks replaced with claws and had used them daily ever since. They required double the effort to operate compared with ordinary hooks. The claws locked in any position while closing and remained so. A second effort was required to release them. They sprang open immediately and remained open. Charlie learned their shortcomings and how to compensate. He had no intention of returning to standard hooks but recommended that George learned to use an ordinary hook first before deciding what type he would finally choose to live with. It was a life‑long decision. The contrary method of operation meant that someone accustomed to one type found it almost insurmountable to switch to the other type after a while. George inspected one of Charlie’s short stumps and admired its globular firmness. Oli’s stump, concealed most of the time inside a socket, was longer and, George believed, more versatile. He would start his adventure in limblessness with the loss of his right hand just above the wrist. As George had recommended, using a hook on the right in place of a hand was a real test for a man who wished to become bilateral. He would no longer be right‑handed. He would be right‑hooked and quickly discover what it meant to use a steel hook.

 

It was the first of several meetings. George always credited Charlie with providing him the final impulse to take the plunge. He was insistent and reassuring, masculine and amicable. George wanted to emulate him and booked double amputations at Aleph’s ‘clinic’ in Harwich He negotiated with the health service authorities for preferential prosthetic care following his recovery, using his seniority in the system to ensure priority. No‑one asked why an apparently physically healthy citizen wanted bilateral below‑elbow sockets equipped with voluntary‑closing steel claws. George arranged for time off work for elective surgery and two days later was the owner of two tightly bandaged forearm stumps. He found the sight so erotically charged that he actually tried to masturbate with his stumps but they were far too tender and he remained frustrated for several days.

 

He kept in irregular contact with Charlie during his recovery and considered contacting Oli and the others to share the news of his disablement but decided to heal first, collect his prostheses and then drop by to demonstrate them. Charlie promised to coach George in using his new claws. They were anything but intuitive and the two phase operation was sometimes confusing but after a couple of weeks George would have started to form some kind of muscle memory. It might already be too late for him to adopt standard hooks. Charlie wanted George to use claws. He did not know anyone else who used them and although he did not want hooks, he did sometimes feel different in the company of other arm amputees. The two of them together would present an impressive sight and Charlie hoped George might let down his emotional shield during his recovery. Charlie had always wanted George and by encouraging him to disable himself in such a way that Charlie could advise and help, he hoped they might form a closer relationship. Hands or claws, George was a handsome catch. He had no idea that George felt the same way about the handless giant.

 

George was discharged with his stumps in liners. He was warned that they would remain sensitive and he should avoid knocking or stressing them. Without notifying him in advance, Charlie sat outside the clinic straddling his powerful motorcycle, toying with a second motorcycle helmet. George was too preoccupied to notice his friend until Charlie called him. George offered him a choice. They could either motor to George’s home where Charlie was prepared to act as a caretaker until George felt himself capable or they could go to Charlie’s apartment where George could remain as a guest. George chose to be Charlie’s guest. Charlie squeezed the helmet between his prosthetic forearms and pushed it onto George’s head, locking the chin strap with his claws. George gripped his friend’s midriff with his half‑arms and they sped back to Charlie’s home. Charlie proved to be a thoughtful host, a capable carer and after a few days, a sensitive lover. He was impressed by George’s bold decision to become a bilateral amputee in one go and was envious of the slightly longer stumps, which he found more aesthetically pleasing. George’s stumps visibly healed over the next couple of weeks and he began using them tentatively. He used them to wash his face with, to hold a toothbrush, to hold a glass to drink from or a sandwich. He notified his employer that he was ready to return immediately on receipt of prosthetic arms. Strings were pulled and George was soon the owner of a pair of recycled black rubber sockets equipped with exactly the same claws as on Charlie’s arms. The claws looked spiteful and aggressive. However, they were responsive and George quickly understood the logic behind their method of operation. Now he could dress himself, squeeze and grip things. Charlie relished the following days when they were intimately close. He was grateful for George’s decision not only to become an amputee at last but also for his unspoken mutual admiration which had led him to adopt a pair of claws like his lover.

 

George remained with Charlie. Their relationship strengthened as George became more confident with his claws. They invited Oli, Harry and Noah to spend a weekend to celebrate their new lifestyles. Oli left after three days of mild debauchery finally convinced to become a quadruple amputee. It was time to act. He envisaged himself reliant on short peg arms, crutches with sockets, to move around or scoot along on his skateboard. He would change into the new set of artificial arms and hooks on a double harness when he needed his hooks. He began to positively dislike his natural hand and wished to be rid of it.

 

As an existing and trusted patron of Aleph, he received priority treatment from the same Harwich clinic where George’s amputations had been performed and returned home a fortnight later wearing one artificial arm, his fresh stump hidden in his sleeve. Several weeks passed until he felt able to return to the rationing office and continued his work as a one‑hooked legless employee. Other amputee colleagues pumped him for information about how he felt in himself now at being completely reliant on prosthetic arms and pegs. Oli simply described his deep inner satisfaction at being limb free and the enormous pleasure at being severely disabled. His listeners nodded their heads, deducing from their own varying degrees of limblessness that a greater sense of accomplishment was available at the price of some initial inconvenience.

 

Neither George nor Charlie experienced the same mobility problems as their trio of legless friends. As much as George in particular enjoyed the opportunity to admire their strenuous efforts to move about on hands or peg arms, he was never satisfied with his own considerable disability. He had exchanged his hands for steel claws but otherwise life went on as usual. There was none of the ecstatic surrender to helplessness which the trio often remarked on. The two bilaterals developed a routine in which one or the other would forego using prostheses on alternate weekends. On the first weekend, George removed his claws and hung them from the harness ring in his closet as soon as he arrived home from work. It would be Charlie’s responsibility to assist him if he was confronted with something he could not manage with his naked stumps. Charlie admired George’s stumps. They were beautifully proportioned. The scars from the sutures were invisible under the dark hair covering George’s stumps. The handless weekends went some way towards compensating for their weekday prosthetic prowess. They both enjoyed the freedom of exposing their stumps in the knowledge that the other would come to their aid if necessary.

 

Oli derived similar pleasure from his arm stumps. They were long enough to let him masturbate, a familiar activity which now called for a different technique. The fleshy tips of his stumps were ideal to hold and tease his glans, and his shortened hairy forearms worked in tandem on the shaft. If he could also gyrate his body stump against something, the resulting rush was far superior to anything he had experienced when he had limbs. Noah and Harry still had vestigial leg stumps which assisted in maintaining balance when seated without their buckets and often began a mutual session by facing each other and twitching their stumps against the other’s. They were the only men in their circle of friends with hands and they could jerk off in the usual manner, often on their backs.

 

George and Charlie accustomed themselves to boasting naked arm stumps and gradually worked up the courage to try coping as handless men in public. It was easy enough for most of the year but in winter, when the weather was at its most violent and unpredictable, jackets were required. George suggested they each have a jacket adapted to suit their naked stumps which would also avoid the   aesthetic problem of empty flapping sleeves. Charlie sacrificed his black leather motorcycle jacket. It was returned with neatly sewn professionally shortened sleeves, sliced off at the elbow. His short globular stumps poked out and he could use them with ease. George had a dark green leather blazer which he rarely wore but had not been willing to donate for recycling. This too was altered to allow his half forearm stumps to peek out of the sleeves. Charlie’s bike jacket looked spectacular when paired with his black rubber artificial arms. His steel claws complemented the metallic detailing on his jacket.

 

They jointly agreed on one other thing which both found unnecessarily time‑consuming—shaving. As they approached the end of their twenties, their beard growth was the best it would ever be. They both shaved daily out of old habit. Charlie suggested they allow their beards to grow, first as a good‑natured competition between themselves and later, when they both sported impressive growth, as a dare to see which of them would succumb to a barber’s razor first. Bearded men were a common sight again, not for any fashion‑related reason but simply because razor blades were both scarce and low‑quality. But few men dared display such magnificent beards as the two bilaterals. They groomed each other and rubbed scented beard oil and conditioners into their bushes with their uplifted stumps. They both attracted even more attention in public and not a little envy. Many men would have gladly swapped places with them, regardless of their repulsive claws.

 

Oli had independently started his own beard after hearing about Charlie and George’s rivalry. He was quite capable of shaving with an electric razor without outside help. He had never worn a beard before. Unfortunately for him, the whiskers on his cheeks were too sparse so he contented himself with a moustache. It grew naturally in a perfect handlebar, strong curving whiskers which wanted to curl upwards to each side. Oli was an extraordinary figure of a man, rocking his armless torso along on peg arms and drawing admiration for his magnificent whiskers.

 

The winter of 2047 was as disruptive as that of 1947. Roads became impassable, public transport ceased. Charlie regarded himself as a practised motorcyclist and dared to continue riding despite the obvious dangers. Unfortunately his luck ran out when he failed to brake in time to avoid colliding with another vehicle. He toppled sideways with the heavy bike crushing his right leg, a mishap made worse by the other vehicle partially mounting his bike and exerting additional pressure. By the time assistance arrived, Charlie’s broken femur had allowed the weight on his leg to prevent blood flow to his lower leg. To save time, his right leg was amputated close to the hip, leaving a meagre stump mostly devoid of bone.

 

He returned home in a wheelchair which he used by scooting with his remaining leg. His claws were useless on the wheels. The trio of amputees rushed to reassure him that the loss of one leg was not the end of the world. Charlie himself was relieved that he had lost his right leg and not his left. His motorbike was a write‑off but he might ride again with or without an artificial leg which he fully intended to acquire on way or another. He was quite prepared to tolerate a belt and braces suspension system to hold the prosthesis on his stump if the latter proved to be too inconsequential to operate a prosthesis, as he suspected.

 

He was correct. The leg he received was made of recycled tyres, like his arm sockets, and had been manufactured bearing in mind its weight. It was a ten centimetre wide pole without a foot. The knee was a mere lockable hinge, the cheapest and most basic knee available. But it was reliable. Charlie was happy to have anything which would release him from the hated wheelchair. His stump rested comfortably in the only part of the prosthesis which had been personally customised for him. The rubber felt cool and tacky against his skin. A broad rubberised belt cinched across his midriff and was held tight by adjustable steel fasteners. The long tubular leg remained rigid through its entire length unless a release was activated behind the ‘knee’. It had a large steel ring which had to be pulled upwards to release the knee hinge, allowing the user to sit with a bent knee. It automatically relocked on standing. Charlie was easily able to operate it with a claw. The footless lower leg had a separate base, currently an inch thick pad of solid rubber which would wear in use and could be replaced when it became too worn.

 

Charlie was satisfied with his situation. The rubber peg leg was all he needed to walk and despite its unsophisticated appearance, Charlie felt no shame in having one leg of his trousers tailored to knee length so he could reach the steel ring behind his knee. Quite often, he ignored the hinge and sat with his rubber peg leg pointing forward. He would have liked to leave the peg off sometimes but his claws were inconvenient for use with crutches. His lack of wrist movement was the main obstacle. Even during his no‑claws weekends, he insisted that George attach his peg. George appreciated the footless cylindrical lower leg. It was matte black rubber and looked both primitive and hypermasculine. He liked to watch Charlie walking. The peg swung from its upper hinge at the hips with little assistance from Charlie’s stump. His first steps were always unsure and halting until the peg gained enough inertia to co‑operate. Unsurprisingly, George fantasised about his own peg leg but had not made any decision concerning further amputation. There was time enough for that. Maybe after his fortieth birthday in three years time.

 

Noah and Harry both needed new torso sockets. The fake stumps on Noah’s socket had holes along the bottom where friction had worn them and Harry’s socket had become loose without the possibility to tighten it further. Harry had always liked the idea of artificial stumps and had long ago decided he would try to persuade a prosthetist to manufacture his next socket with two short stumps at the front. Noah had a different idea. He was the only member of the ménage à trois with natural hands and was prepared to progress at last to using a pair of short crutches to haul a socket with additional fake leg stumps around. He had considered different scenarios so often and so thoroughly that now when there was a genuine need for an update to his socket, he was prepared to request knee length extensions. They would be the same style as Charlie’s peg leg, merely wide cylindrical tubes with exchangeable flat rubber ferrules. He would use shortened elbow crutches to haul himself about, knowing perfectly well that they would preclude him from using his hands. But he would stand considerably taller and the idea of seeing two immovable rubber legs the length of his former thighs excited him. He discussed the matter with Harry and persuaded him to request the same configuration. Harry initially protested, pointing out that he would need the same kind of peg arms as Oli but Oli quickly changed Harry’s mind, pointing out the pleasures of using arm stumps to operate both peg arms and hooks, exchanging one set of prostheses for another with mere stumps. It was the clincher. Harry had seen Oli struggling with his prosthetic upper limb systems often enough to know what might lie ahead. In the end, Harry succumbed to Noah’s persuasion and ordered his first torso socket with knee‑length extended stubbies.

 

The two men were invited to receive their unusual sockets at the same time. Harry’s customised crutches had taken longer to manufacture than expected. Both torso sockets fit correctly and could be perfected with slight adjustment. The greatest challenge was becoming accustomed to standing on short rigid legs and learning how to benefit from them. The prosthetist advised them to arrange for a sturdy knotted rope to be hung from a ceiling or door frame which they could use to pull themselves erect. He lifted the men to their identical feet and explained that the legs were solid rubber, hardened for resilience, and the tips would gradually wear into a pattern which best suited their style of walking. Noah accepted a pair of short elbow crutches and was advised to wear gloves to protect his hands. Harry lifted his arm stumps while the prosthetist pushed the sockets of his converted crutches onto them. The sockets had ratchet mechanisms which someone might tighten in order for the crutches to fit without slipping. The crutch pylons were aluminium and curved twenty degrees from the socket so their tips met the ground at right angles. The prosthetist apologised for not having experience with such unique devices and invited them to carefully lift themselves using their crutches to discover their new centres of balance. Noah was quickly able to swing himself in place but Harry found he needed to experiment before he felt safe relying on the new peg arms.

 

They practised for half an hour, moving imperceptibly, testing various motions and pressures. Harry savoured his new height and the sensations around his amputation sites. His peg arms ironically felt utterly crippling. He was effectively trapped until someone removed them for him. Neither man felt ready to leave wearing the new sockets and they arranged to have them delivered to their apartment by courier. They left wearing the old sockets in which they had arrived.

 

The new equipment arrived the following afternoon, brought by two apprehensive cyclists whose imagination did not extend to comprehending its use. Noah accepted and signed for them with a flourish. The couriers confronted a legless man with short black stumps and gave silent thanks to providence for not being in his situation.

 

Oli was as excited to see the new sockets as Noah and Harry were to receive them. Noah insisted Harry change first while he still had his hands free. Harry shucked his old socket and positioned the new one on the sofa so he could force his torso stump into it. His arm stumps scrabbled at the closure system in an attempt to tighten it. Noah did it for him and pulled Harry around so he could slide forward from the seat to stand on the floor. Noah held the peg arms firmly as Harry pushed his stumps into them. He was trapped again, helpless until assisted from the prostheses. He balanced on his rigid rubber legs and lifted his peg arms, testing their balance and weight. The prosthetist had done a good job. They were exactly the correct length, providing support when stationary and providing lift when Harry put his weight on his pegs and straightened his elbows. The rigid stubby legs moved forward a few centimetres. He repeated the process and moved slowly across the room until he faced the wall. Imperceptibly he turned himself, enjoying the achievement and appreciated the utility of the peg arms. They were not so crippling as they looked.

 

Noah tested his own new socket, almost identical to Harry’s. The two straight stubbies were separated further than natural legs. They gave a bow‑legged effect which Noah found attractive. He intended finding shorts of suitable length to hide or disguise his rubber legs. His short elbow crutches allowed him to swing his lower body with more expertise than Harry. The stubbies kept him stable thanks to the distance between them. Oli was impressed by his friends’ enthusiasm and burgeoning skill and considered applying for a set of stubby legs for himself. But first he wanted to hear Noah’s and Harry’s impressions before making a decision. He had something else in mind but kept it to himself for the time being. He also preferred the idea of wearing rubber blocks on his arm sockets rather than using dedicated peg arms like Harry was destined to wear whenever he wanted to be mobile over any distance.

 

Harry and Noah practised their moves at home every evening and at weekends. They were unable to sit in chairs and so remained standing which they regarded as part of the rehabilitation process. Under cover of darkness, Harry and Noah dared extend their practice runs to the public realm. They dressed in hoodies and new army surplus camo shorts which hid their rubber stubbies. Noah found it easier to take longer strides outside. He bent his lover body from his waist and flicked the torso socket forward. It looked like a powerful and masculine way for a legless man to move and Harry did his best to emulate him but his peg arms were not as versatile as his friend’s crutches and Harry always appeared to be struggling, even when he was not. He eventually discovered a way of walking which involved transferring weight from one side to the other, and his rubber legs swung forward a little at each step. He leaned onto his peg arms which flicked forward alternately. Harry looked severely disabled at all times and soon learned to appreciate the new sensations which the requirement for more flexible movement in his torso stump engendered. Slight friction around his pelvic amputation sites caused him to nurse a semi‑erection for much of the time. The helplessness he felt in his arm stumps without his hooks became another source of genuine pleasure. It was the pinnacle of joy to work his stumps to their limits.

 

Charlie and George knew of the trials and tribulations Harry and Noah were putting themselves through by regular contact with Oli and found their interest piqued. As the harsh winter drew to its close, Charlie suggested another get‑together in early spring. He had another reason to invite Oli especially. He had long tried to persuade Oli to adopt voluntarily closing claws such as he and George used and now had a spare pair after ordering a pair of aluminium and rubber claws which he had come to prefer. He wanted to suggest that Oli try out his old set of claws in the hope that the man might experience their superiority, as he saw it.

 

The remnants of ice and snow disappeared with the lengthening evenings. Noah and Harry had become used to crutching outside and Harry seemed to have perfected a waddling rocking motion, pushing himself on each peg arm in turn. Noah merely lifted both stubbies and swung them forward. They no longer needed to pay so much attention to their methods of walking and spent more time discussing personal matters, including those of Oli, who had recently begun to seem downcast and uninspired. They suspected his slight depression might be due to Oli’s conviction that he had reached the end of his transformation, that there was nothing new for him to try and that as a legless torso with two artificial arms, he had experienced everything his amputations could offer. Oli had often congratulated both of them as they overcame physical and psychological obstacles which their immobile short rubber legs presented. Neither man showed any less enthusiasm for changing from their weekday legless rubber sockets into their stubbies whenever the opportunity presented itself. But Oli seemed to be harbouring a secret, reluctant to speak about what was genuinely bothering him.

 

The invitation to spend a weekend evening and the following day at Charlie’s invitation came at the right time. With five days to go, the prospect of spending time with the two handsomely bearded claw users promised to be a welcome break from their casual routines and perhaps Oli could be coaxed into revealing what was bothering him. It brightened their moods and quickened their step, so to speak. When Charlie opened his door to them, he was faced with three severely disabled torsos with beaming smiles. George welcomed them and plied them with alcohol from the very start. The newcomers noticed how expertly George manipulated both the large heavy bottles and the more delicate straight glasses in which he served their drinks. As a man who had come late to amputation, George showed nothing but skill and complete familiarity with the considerable difficulties posed by his insistence on voluntarily‑closing claws. They were so big, so awkwardly shaped, so confusing to use, yet George seemed completely accustomed to them and wielding them as naturally as his own flesh hands.

 

Soon Charlie revealed one of the reasons for his invitation. He showed Oli his new aluminium and rubber claws which he had returned to their original box. He invited Oli to open it, which Oli was easily capable of doing with his standard hooks. He saw the prosthetic claws for the first time. They were familiar from video sequences of men using them but this was the first time he had see them in person. Charlie stated that he had bought them out of curiosity and invited Oli to try them on. As always, Noah stepped up to the task, heaving himself across to park opposite Oli, letting his crutches fall to the floor and starting the familiar process of unscrewing Oli’s hooks. The new rubber claws were lighter than they looked. Charlie boasted of their various advantages compared with normal hooks. They were voluntarily‑opening, like normal hooks, but they also remained locked in any stationary position, in which regard they resembled Charlie’s usual claws. Oli was clearly delighted to see something new on his sockets and found the rubberised claws to be good‑looking and versatile. Charlie waited for Oli to comment positively on the locking mechanism before mentioning that his steel claws operated in exactly the same way and before Oli could protest, Noah was unscrewing the rubberised claws and replacing them with Charlie’s. Oli looked at the unfamiliar claws with surprise and delight. They were much bigger than his standard hooks and remained open like the jaws of a voracious sea creature until he snapped them closed on something. Charlie invited him to wear them for the rest of the evening as Noah screwed the rubberised claws onto Charlie’s sockets where they belonged. Oli initially found the operating method slightly confusing but soon found the logic perfectly simple. His spindly steel hooks remained on the table for the rest of his visit as Oli familiarised himself with the claws which Charlie and George swore by.

 

Talk turned to the new sockets, which were already a few months old. Noah and Harry leaned against the sofa rather than lying on it, supported by their rubber stubbies at a conversational height. It made no difference to them whether they stood or sat. It felt the same. Harry, wearing the artificial arms he had brought in his backpack, was the most disabled of them all but enjoyed the company as much as anyone else. George, ever the connoisseur of thing prosthetic, admired one of Harry’s peg arms and learned about it practicality and the sensations which it transmitted to the stump. It socket was too narrow for it to fit on George’s own stump. He would otherwise have enjoyed wielding an aluminium crutch as part of himself, transforming himself further into a prosthetic man. Both he and Charlie had wordlessly agreed to halt their transformations. It was enough to keep their legs but to cripple themselves with their awkward claws. It was enough challenge. As Charlie had shown, there were different prosthetic devices available for a price and trying them out would remain one of life’s little pleasures.

 

The alcohol loosened Oli’s tongue and he unexpectedly revealed the thoughts about the future over which had struggled for much of the winter. At first, the others presumed he was merely envious of Noah and Harry, both of whom had made great strides, figuratively speaking, in becoming more mobile and outgoing thanks to extra height and a relatively more normal body image. Crippled or not, they now appeared to have legs. But Oli revealed his own plan to regain his full height on two artificial legs and learn to use them to his best advantage. He had researched online and queried AI for answers and solutions. He had studied the gaits of legless, stumpless men who had been fitted with torso sockets to which were attached reciprocating prosthetic legs which enabled the amputees to walk, albeit slowly, by rocking their torsos. When pressure was released from the thigh joint, it moved the leg forward. Some of the men relied on frames, others on crutches, but they could all stand tall.

 

Oli’s problem was finding a prosthetist who could manufacture similar equipment for himself. He intended to acquire the same rubberised claws which George often favoured for use with a walking frame. This entire revelation had the others concerned for Oli’s mental well‑being. Surely he was not beginning to regret his leglessness and arm stumps after so much anguish and time spent creating his ideal body shape. Oli was amused and assured everyone that his complete leglessness and reliance on his rubber bucket for sufficient support to merely sit were the pinnacle of his personal pride. He simply wanted to exploit other avenues of disability and regarded his limbless torso trying to control a full length pair of artificial legs as a suitable challenge. Everyone agreed that it was a formidable challenge and assured Oli that they would support him in his attempt to double his height in the near future.

 

George was enthusiastic about helping Oli fulfil his ambition. The pair of them independently researched independent prosthetists who had both the necessary knowledge and equipment to produce a set of inert legs and a pair of long peg arms to allow Oli his mobility. He also toyed with various designs for Oli’s legs based on Chinese and Brazilian versions which he had discovered online. Oli had originally spoken of reciprocating hip joints but despite their nationwide search, no such devices seemed to be available. Either the demand was none existent or the import price was too exorbitant. George finally contacted the man who was willing and able to provide Oli with legs. Oli would need to arrive for an interview and first fitting as well as agreeing to a payment plan. George relayed the information to Oli, who was amused by George’s continuing interest in his disabilities even though George had his own prosthetic problems to contend with.

 

Arrangements were made, including an initial appointment. The prosthetist worked from a private house on an ordinary street in Frome, Somerset. The only reasonable way for a client to arrive was by private vehicle. Frome had had a railway station, now closed for many years, and it was far from any major thoroughfare. George drove Oli to his meeting, scheduled for late afternoon, in his electric trike. Oli sat in the minuscule back seat, perfectly comfortable with his peg arms detached on the floor, watching the scenery pass slowly by as George drove. Their conversation consisted also entirely of anecdotes about George’s other contacts around the world who had transformed themselves and how they were adapting to locally available artificial limbs. Oli mentioned a particularly original solution to the problem faced by legless men in areas in South Asia which were prone to flooding—they had learned to walk on a single central peg leg attached somehow to their torso sockets. Oli professed interest, which had been George’s intention from the start. He lusted for and had wet dreams about the image of Oli strutting about on long aluminium peg arms, swinging some kind of peg leg. George had not yet decided what type of peg he would prefer to see on Oli. Perhaps he might allow his friend to make his own decision.

 

The prosthetist, William White, was a short bald wiry man who could have been any age between 55 and 75. He welcomed his visitors without remarking on their disabilities and plied them with tea before turning to the matter at hand. He had several suggestions which Oli might like to consider, proposing similar solutions which he had dealt with previously. During his conversation, it became clear that he had been a military man and had retired early to take advantage of the increase in voluntary amputees after the change in the law. He proposed a system of prosthetic legs which Oli could vary according to his wishes and which would all present both advantages and disadvantages. Central to his proposal was a sturdy steel plate which could be attached to Oli’s existing socket. It would have a central housing to hold steel pegs of various lengths. They would allow Oli to stand at various heights. He asked about walking on two legs again at a normal height. The answer astounded him with its deviant logic and excited George to such a degree that he developed a painful erection. Quite simply, the central peg leg would attach to a horizontal bar at knee height from which two artificial legs were attached at each end. They might resemble peg legs or natural legs to which sports shoes might be fitted.

 

Oli considered the proposal. His legs would be easily transferred from one socket to the next. He could experience the comparative normality of two legs which melded into a single central peg or concentrate on directing one full‑length peg with his torso stump. He could see no specific problem with the design and allowed George to help him out of his socket so White could take measurements of both his broad stump and the socket itself. White proposed that the upper pylon be manufactured from the recycled tubular steel leg of an office table with the lower section bearing printed legs to the client’s own design. And yes, they could certainly be peg legs.

 

Oli thanked White for his time and returned home at four in the morning. George’s car was running out of juice and the final twenty kilometres were travelled at ten kilometres an hour in turtle mode. Oli was oblivious in the back seat, dreaming of striding about on a pair of wooden legs, supported by hefty upper thighs which thrust his artificial feet forward.

 

George was in daily contact with Oli, eager to persuade him to accept the absurd prosthetic system which Bill White had envisaged for him. George and Charlie had both begun a deeper exploration into disability by finding an artisan of custom‑made prosthetic equipment not a kilometre from their home. They had both been enamoured of a large silver hook and had persuaded the artist to manufacture two identical hooks. The two men took turns at wearing them. They looked macho as well as opulent. Few men ever afforded even one silver hook. They regarded their acquisitions as investments. On alternating weekends, one assisted the other with tasks the other could no longer perform. It was an erotic business, both he sensation of having huge hooks instead of hands and assisting the partner with intimate functions available only to the partner who used claws. George was more enthusiastic about his oversized hooks and wore them more frequently. He learned how to succeed at basic functions, discovering how to use his inert hooks to prepare food and drinks in the kitchen and a simple way to manage toileting. He had no compunction about being seen in public with giant silver hooks and often wore them instead of claws when he was out with Charlie on their weekly grocery run. Shocked shoppers watched in horrified fascination as the two men manipulated their grotesque prostheses, gathering provisions for the next days.

 

Charlie and George discussed Oli’s potential transformation into a man of normal height balancing on two artificial feet with the help of crutches. Charlie suggested that George might be more successful in persuading Oli to take the leap and place an order if the man could be certain of handling a pair of long crutches with his artificial arms. The best terminal devices for the job were without doubt his broad rubberised claws which could grip and lock onto the crossbars of any crutch type and would support Oli as he learned to swing his prosthetic legs forward. Charlie was far too enamoured of the large inert silver hooks to have any interest in using the rubberised claws and donated them to Oli, who had previously tested them and seemed positive. Two weeks later, coincidentally or otherwise, Oli contacted William White and placed an order for the system of modifications and attachments which they had discussed. Oli decided to have a new torso socket made at the same time, making it easier in future to switch between his legless and leg‑equipped versions.

 

White set to work. His military background propelled him towards optimum results if not perfection. The new socket was ready first. It was heavier than Oli’s previous versions—thicker, sturdier and smoother. The thick steel plate with rounded ends was both bolted and welded to its base. The upper pylon, half the length of the office table leg which it had formerly been, screwed into the plate but was readily removable. White manufactured a rubberised steel ferrule which would similarly attach to the pylon. Oli would have the option of walking on a twenty‑three centimetre long central steel peg leg. The extension was an inverted U. It was a single piece of steel plate bent in such a way that its two ‘feet’ stood thirty centimetres apart. Oli could choose between foot attachments or ferrules. The first alternative would allow him to wear footwear. The second would resemble the peg legs which Oli had previously mentioned. The equipment was not light but did not weigh as much as the flesh and bones which they were designed to replace.

 

George enthusiastically drove Oli to and from his various appointments for fittings and meetings to discuss prosthetic options, ensuring that his vehicle was fully charged. He had learned his lesson. One of the journeys brought him a great sense of accomplishment. He had a pair of ordinary claws with him but drove the entire return journey wearing his and Charlie’s co‑owned silver pirate hooks. Oli was reluctant to join him at first, but George pointed out that he had driven to pick Oli up wearing them through north London traffic and Oli relented. He was himself amazed by the hooks. They were so big and ostentatious, so crippling and apparently useless. George wore the pair frequently and for long periods. Charlie was usually at hand to lend a helping claw when necessary. George found the immovable hooks to be the height of nirvana. He was severely disabled and despite the easy availability of a variety of terminal devices, preferred to wear impractical hooks. They looked wonderful and he sported them with panache and pride.

 

Oli’s new socket and legs were ready and the entire selection of attachments was laid out for him to admire. Oli rocked in using his rubberised claws and tested the new socket with its heavy steel plate. The socket extended higher on his body and its form clung to his ribcage. The plate clanged on the concrete floor but it kept Oli secure. White knelt and attached the thick upper steel pylon, already fitted with a rubber ferrule. It would function as a peg leg, if Oli so desired. White offered the first of two pairs of wooden crutches, both of which were pre‑owned and refurbished to a glossy shine and the leather armpit cushions refilled with horsehair and polished to a bright finish. Oli negotiated his claws onto the crossbars and carefully lifted and swung his body forward. The new socket was perfection itself and provided the necessary counterweight for the steel peg leg. The peg itself felt logical and secure, a reassuring extension of his legless torso. He negotiated his way around White’s laboratory, enjoying the way his crutches obeyed him and the way the peg leg seemed always to travel the perfect distance for him to balance and progress. White was impressed and George looked on in delight, drinking in the sight of his friend learning how to walk on one single central peg leg. White interrupted Oli’s practice runs and suggested he try the peg extension. He slotted two ferrules onto the U‑shaped device and invited Oli to try walking with a new pair of refurbised crutches. They had been painted black at some time in the past and rather than strip the paint, White had applied high gloss black lacquer. The leatherwork was similarly black and after some adjustment to compensate for Oli’s claws, he managed to lift himself to a standing position on two featureless black rubber ferrules.

 

Oli picked his black crutches up and admired their appearance. He balanced tentatively at first on his rubber ferrules, testing their pliability and support. As before, he lifted himself slightly on his crutches and leaned forward enough to persuade his pegs to inch forward. He admired his height, realising that had he not opted to become a stumpless torso, he might always stand as tall as he was now on his central peg leg with steel extensions. Slowly and carefully, he heaved his way slowly across the lab, turning gradually to face the other way and returning to where White and George stood admiring his efforts. George was ecstatic. He had never seen such a device before and was excited at the thought of seeing Oli using it in public. White asked if Oli felt confident enough to try the peg leg ferrules in place of the feet and was pleased to hear confirmation. Oli himself thought that if he could handle peg legs, two artificial feet would be easy. So it was. Oli found it easier to manipulate his double pegs, both of which moved simultaneously and which kept him laterally stable. He actually stated that this was the best of all the combinations he had tried. He was tall, he felt capable, he was comfortable in his prosthetics and he was certain that he would be far more active in his professional life with new peg legs and new claws. He thanked both Walter White for his professionalism and George for his generosity. George removed his new socket and held his old socket in place while Oli forced his stump into it. George allowed White to hang carrier bags containing all the new equipment from his hooks, and after Oli had succeeded in opening to door to their e‑car, they made their way back from Somerset feeling on top of the world.

 

Oli was reluctant to ask for assistance every time he wanted to change sockets or claws. Noah was perfectly willing to assist, as he had always been and frequently offered  a helping hand. As the only flat dweller with natural hands, he was aware of his assumed responsibility towards his flatmates, both of whom had adopted their own preferred artificial arm terminals. Oli always wore his rubber claws because he usually wore his upper pylon at home, requiring only claws and crutches. He used his peg leg, seldom needing assistance. Harry was willing to lend a helping hook but his work was such that neither of the others wanted to disturb his concentration for something as trivial as exchanging terminal devices. Between the two bilateral arm amputees, they owned a large enough selection for either man to choose exactly the most suitable combination. Noah gladly assisted in changing hooks for claws until one day, out of the blue, he made a surprising announcement over the evening meal. He had helped Oli swap his rubberised claws for the steel versions received from Charlie and had finally decided that he wished to emulate them. He intended to lose both arms above the elbow in order to experience armlessness to its fullest. He wanted upper arm stumps about two thirds the distance to his elbows so he could operate a set of upper arm prostheses with ease. He longed to feel the same limblessness in his upper body as he did in his stumpless lower torso. He assured his friend that he would learn to use a pair of above‑elbow prostheses and become proficient with a pair of standard hooks. He had thought about his options for many months and was ready for his transformation. In fact, he had already booked an appointment for his amputations in four days time, leaving his flatmates in some confusion about how they would cope without Noah’s hands. Neither of them dared pass comment or criticism. Both Oli and Harry had progressed to their preferred degree of limblessness. It would be churlish to deny Noah the same. If the man wanted a greater degree of disability, he should be allowed it.

 

Noah was away for two weeks, during which time Oli became reliant on his peg and two feet. He had purchased a pair of worker’s boots and wore them inside and out. He wore a mid‑thigh length utility kilt to accommodate his upper peg and for much of the time it concealed the fact that the man had only one prosthetic leg, not two. His artificial feet wore thick white socks and ankle boots. He looked like a two‑legged man in a kilt and accepted the questioning glances from passers‑by as he crutched his way past them. Harry remained earthbound, feeling that the sensations from handwalking transmitted to his stump via his in‑built short peg legs were worth more than a transition to more natural‑looking alternatives. He preferred using standard hooks and was completely content with his amputations during Noah’s absence.

 

It took longer for Noah to heal than expected. There was some problem with the speed at which his flesh knitted. His stumps were monitored around the clock until an alarm sounded in the middle of the night. Both stumps had become necrotic and an emergency meeting was called of all available surgeons. They decided that two further amputations would be preferable to disarticulations and Noah’s half arms were reduced to minimal stumps at his shoulders. He was unaware of this, having remained in induced coma since his initial amputations. The new stumps healed well enough for his surgeon to recommend that the patient be brought round with a psychologist at hand to reassure the quadruple amputee that his armless status should be regarded as a greater challenge rather than the disastrous loss of his arms which it clearly was.

 

Noah was gradually revived and first became conscious of the web of sensors and drainage tubes criss‑crossing in front of him. His bandages held his stumps firmly and increased their girth and length. Noah intuited that something was different from what he had expected but relaxed back into semiconsciousness. Everything was fine.

 

The next day, his body was free of the chemicals which numbed his senses. He very soon realised that his arm stumps were nothing like what he had envisaged. He had intended to wear a pair of artificial arms on long above‑elbow stumps. Now, to all intents and purposes, he had no stumps. He let out a wail of anguish, quickly answered by several nurses and the psychologist who sat with him after the nurses had left. Noah learned of the gangrene which had affected both stumps after the first amputations and how the surgeons had reluctantly allowed him to keep short arm stumps. He might otherwise have had his arms disarticulated from the shoulder, leaving him without any vestige of stump. For that, he should be grateful. He would still be able to wear a set of prostheses but would find their use more restricted and challenging. But it was up to him to decide how well he wanted to rehabilitate himself. No mention was made of his missing legs. As his arm stumps healed, Noah began to recover some of his libido and spent much time activating the modified and repositioned musculature near his genitals in order to excite his erections. He imagined himself manipulating his cock with a new pair of hooks, and looked forward to the learning curve. It would be a unique achievement to bring himself to orgasm with the finely tuned movements of his shoulders. Noah’s recovery progressed ahead of time, to the intense relief of his doctors. He was allowed his bucket and a lightweight hospital wheelchair and transferred to rehabilitation, where the technician would have his hands full with the impatient quad.

 

They got on like a house on fire. Noah was positioned into a sitting position and propped up by cushions. He was instructed to lift his thighs and stretch his arms to the sides. The flesh at his groin rippled and his apple‑sized arm stumps described circles in the air. Noah found his exertions to be erotic and deeply satisfying. He had begun to appreciate his tiny arm stumps more now that he was certain that a pair of artificial arms with hooks was still on the agenda. It had been his aim—to replace his hands with hooks. In that, he had more than succeeded. Thanks to some rare pulling of various strings, Noah was visited by a prosthetist who discussed his prosthetic options. He was offered a variety of replacement arms, including a pair of inert arms the approximate colour of Caucasian flesh with handsome masculine hands and immobile wrists and elbows. The arms were intended solely as cosmetic, when the patient might wish to appear as normal as possible on occasions where he did not need to actually manipulate anything. Noah asked if they would support his weight and allow him to move in his bucket. The prosthetist was unsure but was sufficiently intrigued to know that he made a note to have a set made for his patient free of charge in the name of medical research. Four weeks later, he delivered a handsome pair of arms of recycled tyre rubber attached to a yoke which dropped over Noah’s head to rest firmly on his chest and across his shoulders. Traditional mechanisms to operate bilateral arms were linked skilfully inside the yoke. Noah was ecstatic with his new pair of hooks and insisted that his rehab trainer spend as much time with him as possible so he could learn to operate his new equipment to the greatest effect. He learned how shrugging one shoulder operated the arm on the opposite side and how to jerk his mechanical elbows to lock them before operating the hooks. He was pencilled in for discharge two days after he fed himself for the first time. George took him home, impressed by the way Noah flailed his artificial arms to make them do his bidding. Noah looked so sexy, so desirable, that George began to plan something which would realign Oli’s and Harry’s lives as well as his and Charlie’s. Quite simply, George wanted the limbless Noah as a fuck buddy. Shed of his bucket and arms, the torso with the big dick would be irresistible. And George wanted him.

 

Oli and Harry had both become more proficient with their hooks while Noah had been gone, from simple necessity. They assisted each other far more often, adjusting each other’s prostheses with their hooks or claws and holding on to the other’s torso sockets while they squirmed they way into them. Harry had learned how to walk on his rubber peg legs without outside assistance but Oli still preferred to use his pegs only outside the flat. Suddenly Noah returned and the ménage was thrown into mayhem. Neither Oli nor Harry wished any harm on Noah, utterly helpless until his arms were over his shoulders, but the new quad’s physical demands proved to be more than the two legless men felt capable of continuing. Oli explained as much to George during one of their regular contacts. Oli was most riled by having to use claws to manipulate Noah’s arms because of their sturdiness and then asking Harry to exchange his claw for hooks so he could work. Harry agreed that Noah’s complete limblessness was a challenge they were not willing to contend with and that was when George proposed his solution. He and Charlie had discussed the matter and agreed that if Noah was himself willing, he could move into Charlie’s apartment with his own cot and where the two bilateral arm amputees felt themselves able to care for the limbless torso. Oli heaved himself back and forth in the living room, his peg legs squeaking on the highly polished floor, thinking of a way to explain to Noah that he was too much of a burden and that they wished to be rid of him.

 

George came to the rescue. He appeared one Sunday morning, uninvited, and demanded coffee and biscuits. Oli, balancing on his peg legs, began to crutch over to the kitchen but George said he wanted Noah to brew it. Noah was on his skateboard and could scoot around using his hooks but he was incapable of making coffee. George allowed Oli to continue and enquired whether the two quads were up to taking care of Noah, with his much reduced capabilities. Harry admitted that there were problems and George suggested that Noah might thrive better in an environment where the inhabitants could better tend to the torso’s needs. It was the main topic of conversation for the rest of George’s visit and it terminated when George towed Noah’s skateboard out to his e‑car with his claws and transported themselves to Charlie’s apartment to begin a new life.

 

Both men were attentive to Noah’s needs, feeding and toileting him. Noah lost his apprehension of being tended to by his friends wearing vicious‑looking claws. They were gentle with him and after several weeks, he accepted their invitation to sleep with them instead of alone in his cot. George released his passion for sucking on Noah’s arm stumps and Charlie concentrated his efforts on tracing the scar tissue around Noah’s pelvis with his tongue. After discussing their needs and desires, Noah enthusiastically agreed to be the bilateral amputees’ go‑between. Charlie entered Noah who entered George at the same time. The three friend’s faces kissed and necked each other, the only conventional way the ménage à trois could express their intense love for each other and their appreciation of each others' remarkable stumps.

 

MÉNAGE À TROIS

EVOLUTION

 

E V O L U T I O N

Dubious fiction by strzeka (10/24)

In memory of my Ozzie mate’s legs, incinerated this week after two successful amputations

 

It was Greg Estrada’s thirtieth birthday and, as he had dreaded, his employees gave him a riotous welcome. They had put balloons everywhere and they were wearing silvery conical hats. Greg laughed and thanked them for their thoughtfulness before settling at his desk. There was work to be done, specifically the case of Joseph Jones, who had written once again for consideration for inclusion in the exclusive service which was intended for trustworthy clients only. Somehow the boy had discovered it and, although there was no indication of blackmail or coercion, Jones’s persistence was relentless enough to warrant Greg’s attention. He lifted his stump into a more comfortable position and began to compose a reply to young Joseph.

 

The chief problem was that young Joseph was still a minor. Despite that, he was knowledgeable about his prospective amputations and the variety of artificial limbs then available to him. Greg had corresponded with the boy for over two years, explaining first the legal requirements for membership and encouraging him to patience and maturity. Joseph had applied three years ago for consideration and at the tender age of fourteen had thrown the company into turmoil, alarmed that their most exclusive service was somehow known online.

 

It was a relief to learn that Joseph had cajoled the information from a successful applicant who had been sworn to silence but had revealed the source of his amputations anyway. There may have been a family link or some other close relationship. In any case, Joseph’s request was premature and his desired alterations were both unusual and disabling. Greg squirmed in his chair to balance himself in a more secure position and ensured that his word processing app was disconnected from A.I.

 

Diolch am gysylltu â ni eto. Rydym yn dal i gynllunio i’ch derbyn i’n rhaglen. Byddwch yn amyneddgar os gwelwch yn dda!

(Thanks for contacting us again. We still plan to accept you into our program. Please be patient!)

 

Joseph was an extraordinary example of the early desire to alter one’s body in order to use artificial limbs. Greg himself had known around the age of fourteen that he wanted his natural leg amputated, initially below the knee so he could use a conventional prosthesis or a wooden leg if he wanted. He researched everything to do with amputations and rehabilitation and by the time he left school, he knew as much about the subject as professional prosthetists.

 

There was a small group of friends centred around Greg at school. They admired him for his good looks and his willingness to share answers to homework questions. And they admired his nonchalant manner of walking with one crutch to replace his left leg which he always claimed he could not remember having. It had been lost in a road accident also involving his parents which killed his Portuguese father. He had been placed in care after his recovery while his mother recovered from her own physical and mental traumas. Greg was returned to her shortly before starting primary school. In those early days, he wore a leather corset to which his fake leg was attached, a footless hollow leg‑shaped prosthesis cast made of plaster of Paris. It was a useless hindrance which simply hung from his hip but his young body learned to swing it in order to hop forward on his sound leg. His surgeon had opted to leave his young patient with a short rounded stump too short to hold an artificial limb rather than perform a disarticulation of the entire leg.

 

Joseph Jones read Greg’s reply with some relief. He realised that he would have to wait a few more years and would probably have to organise his life so that his disability would not prove to be insurmountable. He already had a savings account for minors with a major bank and squirreled money away whenever possible. It was intended for his first prostheses.

 

Having seen to the morning’s most urgent correspondence, Greg went out onto the shop floor to see how the latest batch of limbs was progressing. The printer was halfway through producing a lower leg in iridescent black. Wesley Fisher was sewing the harness for an arm amputee and Wally Banks was prompting A.I. to generate improvements to the socket for the same patient. As a bilateral arm amputee himself, Wally was happiest when he could apply his own personal knowledge and experience to helping new amputees get the best start in their new lives. Wally had been with the company from the outset and used the secretive exclusive service to gradually sculpt his body into its current form. His left hand was first replaced by a hook. His legs were next. He had walked on bilateral below‑knee prostheses for five years. Finally, his right hand was also exchanged for a hook. All that remained now was to savour the pleasure of his truncated limbs while he determined what further revisions to his stumps might be most lucrative. Wally’s two extrovert video channels brought him a considerable income each month. One showed his prosthetic limbs in action, the other concentrated on his naked stumps and his prowess with a series of lovers, both male and female.

 

Wesley Fisher was more conservative in his outlook. He had been an aficionado of amputees since early childhood when he saw a man wearing a full‑length plaster cast on his leg for the first time. He was held up by two wooden crutches. Wesley had never seen anything like it before. He assumed he had asked his mother what was going on and told not to stare but his interest was seeded and by the time he started secondary school, not a day passed without him fantasising about a wide range of disabilities. Most of all, he loved to see amputees, especially those who were not yet experienced with their artificial limbs. It was inevitable that he should direct his studies towards becoming a prosthetist and he found satisfaction in returning maimed patients to functionality.

 

Greg spoke with both men for a moment to catch up on their progress. He could see what they were working on plainly enough and knew which client the arm was for. It was one of the voluntaries, a short muscular man with a fashionable wifebeater moustache and cropped hair who had wished to lose both hands. He was a personal trainer and assured Greg he did not need hands to succeed in his profession. He wanted both hands amputated at the wrist in order to maintain his muscular forearms which only he would see after being fitted with artificial arms and steel hooks which he had fetishised for as long as he could remember. It was unusual for someone who placed so much emphasis on physical perfection to transform himself into a bilateral amputee but there were several examples of amputee weightlifters and bodybuilders whose truncated arms and stumps suited their physiques perfectly. There was no reason why the client could not join them, especially after he had regained body symmetry through the loss of his remaining hand. Greg and Wesley would follow the client’s progress with his new hook and if they were assured that the man could cope with a second stump, Greg would contact their private surgeon for a repeat performance. He was a secretive man known to them only by the unusual name Jame who accepted payment to a Swiss bank account under an assumed name. His caution was understandable. He would be struck off if it became known that he undertook twenty or so illicit amputations every year for those desirous of gaining a stump of their own who had the money to pay. Jame was not a greedy man and Greg suspected that he might agree to amputate Joseph’s hands for a reduced price, considering the boy’s youth and improbable access to great wealth. Joseph was an average schoolboy from the Welsh valleys. Greg admired him for his resolution to use hooks and wanted to help him achieve his aim. But before that, the personal trainer would be in the spotlight for prosthetic care and psychological review.

 

Greg and Jame formed a close relationship during the years of Greg’s transformation. Jame had discovered Greg and Wally’s newly founded prosthetics company Obsidian Ltd and paid a visit to see if the establishment met his standards and to introduce himself as a possible source of revenue. There were certain deals which might be done, mutually advantageous, and without revealing overmuch, suggested that potential elective amputees could be referred to him for treatment. Greg grabbed the chance and persuaded Jame to embark on a series of amputations which would allow the already one‑legged crutch user the opportunity to savour increasing disability. Jame’s first procedure was the removal of the front part of Greg’s left foot. He was left with his ankle and heel. For two years, Greg wore a rigid cylindrical leather boot until the sudden onset of phantom pain drove him to demand Jame re-amputate his leg below the knee. For the following three years, Greg walked on both an exoskeletal prosthesis which resembled a natural leg and various peg legs, all produced by Wally on their printer.

 

Greg favoured wooden full‑length axial crutches and became expert at swinging his single peg leg between the crutches. Greg still sought new disability and his last amputation had been that of his knee in favour of a long above‑knee stump. He owned a conventional prosthetic leg with a mechanical knee joint and his long stubby, his elegant white peg leg, which he used almost exclusively. It tapered to a circular rubber base six centimetres in diameter twenty centimetres below where his knee had been. He was shorter and found it another aspect of his disability. He had been inspired to adopt the peg after he saw an eighty year old film about a Second World War veteran who connived his way back into the British Air Force as a double leg amputee. At one point, there was a three second shot of the man on crutches swinging along on an incongruous white conical peg leg. The sight burned itself into Greg’s mind and he determined then, as a one‑legged teenager, that one day he too would strut about on a single peg leg. He had achieved his goal. He pegged back to his desk and called across to Wesley, asking if it might be time for elevenses. Greg was too disabled to carry a mug of coffee himself and Wesley gladly served as the coffee boy because neither of the others brewed proper coffee.

 

The personal assistant’s left arm prosthesis was ready for fitting by the end of the afternoon. Greg inspected it and commended Wally for his meticulous attention to detail. The entire device was black including the anodised hook which might reveal its steel heart as it wore in use. The socket was not only polished to a high gloss, it had received an application of a polymer lacquer which deepened its shine. It resembled a piece of jewellery. Greg sent a text to the client inviting him for his first fitting at his convenience, asking only for an hour’s advance warning ahead of his arrival.  Three minutes later a reply arrived suggesting nine thirty the following morning, to which Greg replied with a smilie.

 

In honour of his birthday, Greg took his colleagues to a nearby Japanese restaurant for drinks and a meal. Instead of the expected sushi, Wesley and Wally insisted on treating Greg to a four course meal, including kaiseki ryori prepared by a chef at their table. They became light‑headed from sake but stopped after one bottle, knowing that the next day they would need to be clear‑headed. Wally was provided with a small selection of forks and spoons in a leather‑wrapped pot which he might find easier to use than traditional hashi, chopsticks. It was an expensive evening, worth every penny. Kicking his peg leg along the darkened street afterwards, Greg felt that it had been a good day, one of the rare ones. Thirty was a good age. Old enough to know what he wanted from life and young enough to have a lifetime ahead to enjoy it. His one thought was about ordering a longer stubby, or to be honest about it, a long peg leg. This short one was great to use and he enjoyed the relentless unforgiving rigidity around his stump. He wanted to be taller. He could use his artificial leg for that but he wanted the additional disability of no knee. He would ask Wally to start work on designing a new peg leg. It would be his thirtieth birthday present to himself.

 

As arranged, the one‑handed personal trainer whose name was John‑Peter Diamond or J.P. for short, made an appearance at the agreed time. His stump was gripped by a silicone liner and Wally inspected its shape and condition. J.P. had insisted that the stump maintain its bulk and tone after the amputation and settled for the disarticulation of his hand from the wrist with the understanding that the stump could be revised at a later date. Now he arrived holding his maimed arm at an angle in the tell‑tale way common to new arm amputees and continually studied the hairless bony tip before Wally brought him his new prosthesis and indicated that he could don it for the first time. J.P. was fascinated by Wally’s hooks. He used them so effortlessly, exactly as he might use natural hands. The two steel fingers, the only parts of the devices with movement, opened and closed at exactly the precisely correct time. Wally had used hooks since destroying his hands deliberately in early November fifteen years previously using a box of fireworks to do so and relearned to write during his sixth form studies at grammar school. He had been the only amputee on his university campus and still had a large number of friends and useful contacts from those days, most of them initially attracted by his disability. Wally helped position J.P.’s harness across his shoulders and guided him through the motions necessary to operate the hook. The high gloss socket looked superb, unusual for its apparent bulk and shape. J.P. twisted the hook to inspect it from different angles and decided then and there that he would aim at acquiring matching equipment for his remaining hand. Wally eschewed the childish tests to ensure the client understood how to use the new prosthesis. It was sufficient to point out the two methods to open the hook. The client would discover all the tricks for himself in a few weeks. Wally and the other staff congratulated him on achieving his amputee status and assured him that they would always be there to help with any problems they might be able to advise on. Greg handed him a paper bill for several thousand pounds, forcing J.P. to accept it with his left hook. He folded it and stuffed it into his back pocket, inserted his hook through the loop between the arms of his jacket, threw it over his shoulder and left with his new prosthesis on full view. His natural arm echoed the shape of the glistening black socket. Elated as he was at that moment by finally being in possession of his very own prosthesis, J.P. had the annoying sensation of being incomplete and unsymmetrical. He intended to use his left hook for as much as possible over the next few months in order to rely on it when his right arm was also a muscular stump.

 

Wally archived A J.P.’s data, suspecting that the man would be back. The socket could be expanded or shrunken by a few percent if necessary with the application of heat but Wally’s main thought was that a second socket, the mirror image of the left, might be required in the not too distant future. He had noted the attention J.P. paid to his own hooks and recognised the hungry look of exasperation on the man’s face. Greg returned to his desk and set up a notification from his bank when J.P.’s account was balanced. A new email from Jame arrived in the interim. He was anxious to know if Greg’s company had any interest in providing a forty‑six year old lorry driver with a pair of stubby legs.

 

The man had been seriously injured in a motorway accident, trapped by his legs in his cab which caught fire. He was left hanging outside his driver’s door which had been forced open and was one of the first to be rescued but not before his lower legs were almost incinerated. After a months long hospital stay, he was discharged in a wheelchair with a pair of severely scarred and mismatched leg stumps. They were uncomfortable. The reconstructed stumps had healed but the scarred skin was too tight, it itched and his remaining knee had restricted movement making it useless for prosthetic use. He used the wheelchair for eighteen months and accepted that he would never return to working life until he read the inevitable amputation story in an old copy of Reader’s Digest about an American trucker who had similarly lost both legs but who learned to walk on stubbies. He returned to driving a specially adapted rig. By luck, the new amputee met a pair of garish gentlemen in a Brighton pub, both of whom were quadruple amputees, who flaunted their artificial limbs and who recommended that he contact Jame. They assured him Jame would re-amputate his useless ugly leg remnants, leaving him with a pair of comfortable short stumps which would let him choose between sitting in a wheelchair or walking on truncated legs. Jame performed dual amputations, creating beefy rounded stumps ideal for use with short stubbies. Now the remnants of his legs were healed and after some correspondence, Jame recommended Obsidian to the driver. Greg invited him in for a consultation.

 

Joseph Jones had received bad news after his examinations. He had not scored well enough to continue to the sixth form college as he had expected and spent much of his time in his bedroom moping about his lost opportunities, emphasised by both parents at every mealtime. He scrolled through photo sites of amputees and re-watched video snippets of bilateral hook users going about their daily business a hundred times and more. One of his friends from school was in a similar situation and Joseph dared him to help out with an audacious plan he was hatching. Out of sheer boredom, his friend Glyn agreed and the way to Joseph’s double amputations was clear. Joseph found a source of frozen carbon dioxide, which was commonly used during transport of frozen goods to supermarkets and which was regularly simply discarded after use. According to the literature, Joseph would need about ten kilos of the stuff. He dared not try at home because he needed to keep his hands in a boxful of the dry ice for at least six hours to make sure his hands froze all the way through.

 

So on a sunny day at the end of August, Joseph and Glyn dressed in casual clothes and hung around near the loading bays of their nearest large supermarket, part of a shopping centre which served two hundred thousand people. Glyn purloined an unused plastic container which used to be full of fishing gear, floats and hooks and spools of line. The idea was that the two friends would find a quiet spot behind the bins, away from the car park. Joseph would put his hands through two holes in the container which Glyn would keep filled with pellets of dry ice begged from lorry drivers who were about to drive off. They had no great regard for what the kid might want the stuff for and Glyn had a ready explanation ready involving a chemistry experiment. Much to their amazement, the two drivers he approached simply told him to take as much dry ice as he wanted. Drowsy from the effects of a dangerous combination of painkillers, Joseph allowed Glyn to surround his hands with the frozen pellets. They were painfully cold but twenty minutes later, he could no longer move his hands. They watched people going about their daily business through the gap between bins. Glyn flicked through his phone and held the screen for Joseph to see cool things. Every half hour, Glyn added fresh ice. Joseph’s hands began to look alarming, changing colour from a healthy pink to blue, purple and finally something truly disgusting. Not being sure what to do next, they argued about how they were going to get out of the situation. In the end, they decided the best thing to do was for Glyn to call for an ambulance from the shopping centre’s public phone which was free and then hang around outside somewhere where he could check that the ambulance actually arrived. After that, no‑one would know what he had been up to. His parents would wonder where he had been all day but that was no problem.

 

Ten weeks later, Greg heard from Joseph. Once again, the message was in Welsh, most of which Greg understood, having studied it as a hobby since he was twenty and discovered his heritage in the historic nation. It was a wonderful secret code. Greg was unsure of his comprehension this time, however. Joseph said he wanted artificial arms made but would be able to pay only in instalments after he found a job. Greg asked why and after several return emails, the situation became clearer. Joseph had frozen his hands and explained it as a mishap involving fake illicit narcotics which had knocked him unconscious. He awoke covered in dry ice at the bottom of a container where drivers dumped residual dry ice before returning to their depôts. The story was entirely plausible. The boy’s forearms were unsalvageable and Joseph was left with stumps a couple of centimetres long below his elbows. He was tired of his mother feeding him and needed a pair of artificial arms with hooks. It was what he had always yearned for except now he had a genuine need. His stumps were much shorter than what he had wanted and expected. He saw himself bearing long residual forearm stumps to manipulate things but instead, he had hardly enough stump onto which a prosthetic forearm would fit. He would never use artificial arms as proficiently as a man with half his forearms remaining and might even need to rely on the same dual‑operation prostheses intended for above‑elbow amputees. It was his choice. Greg was sure the boy had gone too far. Instead of brandishing a handsome pair of stumps on occasion, Joseph was destined to wear his artificial arms on a permanent basis, never to expose his naked stumps. Half his desires had come true. Greg accepted Joseph as a client, naturally enough. They had corresponded regularly for three years and Greg already felt like he knew the boy. Now Joseph was almost a man and in desperate need of prosthetic assistance. Greg determined to help out and to put financial matters on the back burner, at least temporarily. Perhaps the boy could be treated pro bono. Greg discussed his case with his two colleagues. They agreed Joseph would benefit from a modified pair of above‑elbow prostheses with long sockets in whose operation his elbows could play no part. The upper arm socket would accommodate the useless below‑elbow stumps. The forearms would attach higher up the socket than usual.

 

Greg informed Joseph of their decision, mentioning that he should not worry about financing his new arms at this stage. He invited Joseph to visit Obsidian for a fitting and turned his attention to the legless former lorry driver who was due in turn for his fitting the next morning. Greg made sure any potential obstacles were cleared off the floor and Wally ensured there was enough robust nylon and carbon resin to print a sturdy pair of stubbies at short order.

 

The man arrived promptly the next morning, propelling himself in a lever‑operated wheelchair. It was a device for extroverts, commanding attention for its unusual design and unusual user. He introduced himself to the three men waiting for him as Andy Peters. He was bald with a long and full greying beard tied into a plait. It rested on a well‑worn motorcycle jacket. His meagre stumps were invisible, wearing a pair of black football shorts tucked under his stumps. He thanked the trio for agreeing to see him at such short notice and, without prompting, launched into an explanation of the reasons for his leglessness and his intentions to walk again as well as could be expected. He spoke of the various kinds of stubbies he had seen other amputee men wearing and suggested that he would probably do best with a pair of short pylons with metal feet. Wally always preferred to manufacture prostheses from as few components as possible and suggested that Peters might be interested in seeing a few unique designs he had already started work on before committing to the conventional style. Peters was delighted. Wesley and Greg left the two to their own devices. Both of them were relieved to find Andy Peters jovial and enthusiastic about his prospects. They had no doubt the man would shortly be venturing out on his first pair of stump boots.

 

The two men sat together creating the virtual stubbies which changed from a pair of basic cylindrical legs with rubber bases to a similar more conical version and then to a pair of short traditional peg legs, about which Peters was noticeably more enthusiastic. Wally was careful not to extend the pegs beyond where the amputee’s knees had been, knowing that a greater length implied greater problems with stability and inconvenience when seated. Two hours later, Andy Peters signed the papers for a pair of knee length traditional peg legs in black carbon with fat rubber ferrules, attached to nylon stump sockets by the pin‑lock system. Wesley came to Wally’s assistance to manipulate the scanner, which Wally found cumbersome to use with his hooks. Virtual copies of the client’s stumps appeared onscreen and after replacing his football shorts, Peters asked if he might stay a little longer to watch the process. As he was surprisingly interested in the process, he was allowed to stay until A.I. had optimised the scans to produce the stump sockets and peg leg stubbies. Virtual peg legs slowly rotated onscreen. Only the printing phase was left. Wally estimated two to three days and told his client that he would be notified by text message when the new pegs were ready.

 

Peters slid back into his wheelchair and turned on the spot. He bid farewell and Wesley held the door open for him. He pumped the levers with his muscular arms and returned to his brother’s flat by Underground where he was staying temporarily. They had not met since shortly after the accident and his brother was delighted to see him in such an upbeat mood. His wife was more wary, never having ever seen a man without legs but their teenage son David was all over his uncle, demanding to know everything about his amputations and what it really felt like to have such short stumps. Peters was initially amused by the boy’s interest until he began to suspect it was really an obsession. His thoughts were correct. His nephew, although only fifteen, had fetishised limblessness for ten years ever since seeing a man in shorts on one artificial leg crutching along the street. The other leg was missing entirely. The boy had never seen anything so fascinating and started fantasising about limblessness. He tied his own lithe limbs tightly to resemble stumps and later researched the possibilities of injuring himself in exactly the right way to produce whatever stumps he currently wanted. Even in the company of his legless uncle, he was still not sure whether he might prefer to lose a leg or an arm, one or two, above or below the joint. David’s destiny was soon to be decided.

 

Wally immediately set to work printing first the pliable nylon sockets which additionally served to protect the tender skin around the client’s groin. He asked Wesley to complete the prints by screwing the attachment pins into the preprinted holes, something else he found difficult to do with his hooks. Although he had easy access to a wide variety of hook attachments for his prostheses, he preferred to use non‑articulating wrists and basic unsymmetrical hooks, the very minimum configuration available. Other artificial wrists could enable rotation or inflection but Wally preferred to contend with the restrictions imposed by his choice of hooks. He enjoyed wearing artificial arms which advertised his bilateral amputee status and found their use fulfilling, far more so than using natural hands. His similarly disfigured clients admired his dexterity and determined to learn similar prosthetic skills.

 

The nylon sockets were ready and just before leaving, Wally changed the resin for a sturdy black carbon version which would, if all went well, produce a pair of short peg legs overnight, the length of a man’s thigh and strength better than steel. His computer aided design program estimated that each peg could withstand a load of nearly three hundred kilos without danger of splitting. The bald and bearded user was safe.

 

Wesley took the four components and spent several hours to ensure that the peg legs would attach securely to the client’s sockets. Greg was interested to see how Peters would adapt to wearing peg legs after being without any prosthetics for nearly two years. He would have preferred to see his client accept a pair of broad cylindrical stubbies first but assumed that Peters intended to remain principally a wheelchair user and that the peg legs were intended to allow him to leave his chair for short periods of time. He was mistaken.

 

Peters received notice at the end of the afternoon that his pegs were ready for testing. He was welcome to drop in any time after nine the following morning. He arrived at nine fifteen, and with a final pull on his wheelchair’s levers, allowed himself to roll across the room to a stop opposite Greg at his desk. Greg was not surprised to see the grin on Peters’ face and invited him to join Wesley and Wally in the lab. Greg was ensconced comfortably in his chair and did not want to leave it merely to escort Peters, who knew well enough where to go. Wesley took on the job of preparing the man’s stumps, showing how to apply various ointments and unguents to ensure a sterile and healthy environment for continual prosthetic use. Peters grabbed both translucent sockets and Wesley demonstrated how the vacuum seal worked. Peters’ short stumps were already invisible under the enveloping sockets with the serrated pins ready to attach to what he was really waiting for, his first ever peg legs. Wally brought them, cradled in his artificial arms and Wesley again spent time explaining the pin attachment mechanism and the importance of correct alignment. Peters insisted that he understood and, one by one, the former lorry driver, legless for so long, was equipped with the most basic prosthetic legs. His lightweight peg legs remained suspended instead of resting on the bench. Looking down and seeing the foreshortened pegs, he tilted his head back and laughed at his new appearance. Wesley assisted him from the bench to the parallel bars, where Peters discovered that he might not be leaving the premises strutting out on his new pegs after all. His first attempts at walking were nothing less than comical. He lifted his stumps far too high, thrusting the peg legs into the air. He quickly realised that only the minimal movement of his thigh stumps was required. He learned to splay his stumps a little in order to swing the pegs around. He lifted himself up by his arms at each end of the bars until Wesley suggested he try spinning himself on one peg. Despite all the unexpected problems and challenges, Peters was thoroughly enjoying himself, delighted at being upright again and walking in some fashion. He had been optimistic enough to bring a pair of basic health service walking sticks with him. They were strapped to the seat of his wheelchair.

 

Greg took a break from his work to see how Peters was progressing. He stood leaning on his crutches, watching silently as Peters re‑enacted the attention‑grabbing movements which had attracted Greg to consider walking on a peg leg. Peters’ pegs were shorter than the device he had admired but the shape of the pegs and their rigidity reaffirmed their attraction. Greg was satisfied with his white conical peg. It was practical and conspicuous. He could ask for nothing more if he was honest with himself but seeing Peters struggling, the old desire for heightened disability reawoke. He would ask Wally to start work on a long peg for himself as soon as possible. He would need new crutches, a pair considerably longer than what he was accustomed to. It would be fine to stand tall.

 

He returned to his desk and positioned his stump back into the depression his peg legs had worn into the seat. He composed a follow‑up email to the personal assistant, asking how well the artificial arm and hook were performing in ordinary day‑to‑day life. He kept a close eye on his emails, expecting a reply from Joseph Jones asking for an appointment any day. The boy was doubly disabled by the mere fact that he lived in a part of the country with non‑existent public transport. He would have to find someone who could drive him to the nearest station and accompany him the rest of the way, at the very least. In the end, one of his uncle’s drove him. Joseph soon learned to use his hooks. His schoolmates hung out with him to watch him eat a burger and drink a coke manipulating his hooks. Joseph became a minor local celebrity. It was unusual these days for a local lad to lose not one limb but two after the mines had closed. It was common enough in the old days for the town to have several ex‑miner amputees who spent their days in the pub nursing half a pint in the warm.

 

Peters, the determined lorry driver, received new peg legs. Wally returned to his work station to find a message from Greg asking if Wally still had the files used for his present peg leg. Wally guessed what was to come, knowing Greg’s history of amputation and re‑amputation and his astonishing desire to make life difficult for himself. Wally checked that the data for Greg’s white peg leg still existed, reloaded it to check it was viable, and replied with a single smilie. Greg would understand. Wally had no idea what Greg had in mind except that it would be unexpected and a fascinating challenge.

 

Wesley was impressed by Peters’ progress. The man had learned to kick his stumps forward just enough to position the rubber tip of each peg far enough that he could swing his other stump around for the next step. He was, to all intents and purposes, walking on two short peg legs with only the occasion touch of the parallel bars for support. When Wesley suggested enough was enough for one day, Peters mentioned the walking sticks he had brought with him, both almost a metre long. He insisted he would be able to use his peg legs if he had short walking sticks to support him and requested Wesley to shorten them to a suitable length so he could lean on them. It was easily done and a pair of sticks with the rubber ferrules transferred was soon in Peters’ hands. He tried to balance on his pegs and found that tottering from one peg to the other was a good way for the time being to stay upright. But he always had to grab the parallel bar after a few seconds. The shortened walking sticks looked extremely orthotic and deviant. Peters took them from Wesley and found his new balance on four ferrules. He felt invincible and slowly made his way out from between the bars into the main space of the lab, carefully thinking of which extremity to move next. There is only one way for a four legged creature to walk. Peters discovered it after a few minutes. The sturdiness of the short walking sticks in his strong hands let him lean forward slightly, allowing weight off the peg legs which he had already learned to swing out and around. He laughed at the novelty of the situation and the knowledge that he would be able to resume driving as soon as he had mastered his quadruped walk. His walking sticks looked severely disabling. He loved their appearance. He spun himself and returned to the bench where his shorts and jacket awaited and suggested he was ready to call it a day. Wesley lifted him slightly to allow Peters to pull his shorts up. The peg legs poked forward as they always would when he was seated. Wesley hung the short walking sticks over the wheelchair’s back rest and Peters made a grateful exit. It was seven o’clock. Obsidian’s staff had remained on site while their client acclimatised himself to legs again.

 

Peters’ journey back to his brother’s house was one of the last he made in his wheelchair. Although he enjoyed its unusual method of propulsion, which attracted considerable attention in public, he was eager to relearn to walk because it was so vital for his return to driving for a living. He had received a life‑changing amount of financial compensation for his injuries and need never work again but he missed the camaraderie of the road and the easy relationships with professional contacts all over the country. His wife was still delighted to have him at home and their love life had improved beyond what might be expected of a couple both pushing fifty. She loved being enveloped by the meagre stumps and believed that the new shorter versions were responsible for allowing her man deeper penetration and longer coitus. His renewed sex life was one of the reasons why Peters maintained such a positive attitude despite being so severely crippled. He fully intended to adopt primitive stubbies for the rest of his life. They were macho and eminently practical. He was grateful to the staff at Obsidian for suggesting peg legs instead of the cylindrical stubbies other DAKs usually wore. He had no aversion to carrying a pair of short walking sticks with him. He had watched the way his peg legs moved. He regarded it as the ultimate in rehabilitation.

 

His brother and wife were treated to a short demonstration of his new legs. His brother pitied Andy for his misfortune and his sister‑in‑law found the peg legs too deviant. But fifteen year old David was tremendously impressed by seeing his uncle’s amazing way of walking and wanted to know everything about the new pegs. They sat in David’s bedroom discussing Uncle Andy’s re‑amputations and the process of equipping him with a new set of legs. After ten minutes or so, it was obvious what the boy intended. The older Peters was silent, considering the implications of what he might advise the boy, but he knew how he himself had bounced back after the revision of his original stumps and that leglessness was not necessarily the end of an active lifestyle. He swore the boy to secrecy and revealed the fact that amputations were available for a price, as were artificial legs. David fell silent in turn, uncomfortable with an erection in his trousers which his uncle had noted as soon as the door closed and they sat on David’s bed. Finally, he asked if he might touch the peg legs. Peters grunted his permission and David ran his hands along the shafts and up as far as the sockets which gripped his uncle’s stumps. He bowed his head and groaned while his balls emptied themselves. Peters fell back laughing at the boy’s embarrassment and fathomed that his stumps had conquered two of his closest relatives. David excused himself. Peters merely twitched his peg legs and exhorted David to clean himself up before they rejoined his parents. Seeing the boy still suffering from a semi, he made a rash offer, saying that he encouraged David to go for what he truly wanted from life and if that meant walking on artificial legs, he would give David his full support. Peters’ financial compensation for his injuries would be more than enough to turn his nephew into a limbless torso if he so desired. David need only ask, but the time was not now. He would have to wait until adulthood, two and a half years hence. Peters imagined himself at that time, adept on his peg legs, famous among his friends and colleagues for overcoming his disability with panache and good humour. Surely his nephew could manage the same.

 

Later that evening, Peters realised that he had left his phone at Obsidian. He was annoyed at himself for being so lax. It must have slid put of his shorts pocket when they were on the casting couch. It was too late to send texts but next day was a Saturday and with luck he would be able to call in to collect his phone before catching an early afternoon train home. He complained about his forgetfulness but his brother said that he must have had other thoughts on his mind when he left the prosthetist place. It was true. David, with innocent guile, asked if he could go with his uncle to collect the phone and see him off at the station. His parents agreed. It saved them the bother of doing the same thing and David was old enough to be trusted on the streets of London, at least in daylight hours.

 

Wally had spotted the phone and taken it with him. He was the only member of Obsidian who owned a car, a small two person electric three wheeler, ideal for a bilateral hook user with its handlebar steering and controls. The next morning, a chain of texts flew between the four and back to Greg, who informed Peters that his phone was safe with Wally. Apart from the relief that it had been found, Peters was concerned about getting it back before his train left. Greg gave Peters Wally’s phone number and the two men agree to meet on Paddington station’s concourse an hour before the two o’clock departure. They could have lunch together and Peters would be accompanied by his nephew.

 

Wally made his way from his Pimlico flatshare to Paddington in good time. It was cold out so he wore a white hooded puffer jacket with NASA emblems, light enough to allow him full use of his artificial arms and hooks, which were almost concealed by the tight elasticated overlong sleeves. He spotted his client immediately when he entered the concourse with his lanky blond nephew at his side. He walked over to join them and after a few pleasantries, handed over the phone. David suddenly realised that the man was an amputee and his interest peaked. Peters suggested they go get a pizza for lunch and he was paying. Peters propelled himself across to an Italian restaurant instead of one of the chains, accompanied by Wally and his nephew who was already excited by seeing a man with a hook eating a pizza.

 

Once inside, Wally slipped his bulky jacket off. He was wearing a white T‑shirt, almost compulsory underwear for arm amputees. David stared at two artificial arms and once again felt the inevitable pressure of a misplaced erection. He squirmed in his seat. Both Peters senior and Wally were left in no doubt that the young man was an admirer. Only Peters knew he was also a wannabe and suspected that the display of Wally’s artificial arms might give the boy more ideas. Indeed, David forgot his uncle’s peg legs and concentrated on Wally’s amazing hooks which were far more desirable than mere leg stumps to his mind. He tried not to stare but it was far too late for that. Wally gently asked if David was interested to see how his hooks worked, as he seemed interested. David gulped and replied that he was, so while waiting for their order to arrive, Wally gave a complete explanation of his apparatus, as comprehensive as only a prosthetist could give. David’s interest veered from lusting after the appearance of double hooks to imagining himself operating artificial hands or hooks himself. Maybe he could even become a man with peg legs and hooks. The inevitable happened but this time David had to eat his pizza and travel home halfway across London with a dark sodden stain across his beige chinos for all to see.

 

There followed a period towards Christmas and into the New Year when Obsidian had a normal input of work for amputees who required only single limbs and who made no great impression on the three men. So it continued for several weeks until an almost apologetic email arrived from the muscle‑bound personal assistant asking about the availability of service at the end of April. Anticipating only an order for a new prosthetic arm due to the changing shape of a fresh stump, Greg replied that he would be welcome, that his prosthetic data was on file and that he was assured of a quick turnaround.

 

Business continued as usual. Greg maintained contact with former clients, never wishing to intrude but enquiring how well the prostheses they had supplied were holding up. It was not only diligent aftercare, it was also covert advertising, reminding their clients that they still existed. Above‑elbow clients most frequently responded to the enquiries, which often led to the production of a new arm of a different design, masterfully crafted by Wally. In mid-April, Greg received a message from the one‑armed personal trainer requesting a fitting as soon as possible. Wally expected no great difficulties. The data was on file and Wesley would hardly be overworked. Welcome, replied Greg and suggested an afternoon time when the place was quieter.

 

His arrival threw Obsidian’s preparations for him out the window. In the interim, the trainer had paid a visit to Jame for a few days in early February and departed a week later with a distinctly muscular right upper arm stump, long enough for its bulbous tip to peek out of his T‑shirt’s sleeve. Greg was both shocked and intrigued. Why did a man who had sculpted his body to masculine perfection wish to disable himself? For two months, J.P. learned to function as a one‑armed man. The arm was artificial. Greg assured him that it would be perfectly possible to manufacture an above‑elbow prosthesis and suspend both arms from a new double harness. He called Wally to join them to discuss his prosthetic options. Wally was equally surprised but pleased to see J.P. again after several months. They had got on well together and Wally now suspected that his own bilateral status had played some part in persuading J.P. to maim himself further. His new long artificial arm and hook would be a challenge for him but he was a right‑handed man and would become a right‑hooked man. His right hook would always be the dominant hook, regardless of how well he could obviously perform with a single left hook.

 

J.P. explained first why he had opted for a more severe amputation than he had originally intended. He had landed a seemingly permanent position as the personal trainer to a Middle Eastern emir who lived in London for much of the year at the top of a City skyscraper in a three hundred square meter penthouse. He was a lonely man, hirsute, heavily bearded, immaculately outfitted daily by his manservant, homosexual and outrageously infatuated with associating himself with amputee men of his own age for company and sexual relations. His predilections would have made him an outcast in his minuscule home country but he was an influential banker and availed himself of London’s decadence. He had been enchanted with J.P’s blond good looks during a chance meeting with a client after noticing the man’s hook. He discretely discovered the man’s contact details and made him the kind of employment offer which J.P. could not refuse. J.P. had shared the penthouse with the manservant and the emir since mid‑January. The emir approved of the man’s intention to gain a second stump and preferred to see something much shorter. J.P. agreed, first reluctantly and then with greater enthusiasm. He now enjoyed displaying the fully healed remnant of his right arm to his ‘boyfriend’ who sucked and fondled it at night. J.P. had only one request for Wally. He wanted the artificial forearm to appear as muscular as his left prosthesis. He would maintain his hard‑won physical symmetry and body image. Wally assured him that it was quite possible and escorted the man into his workshop to scan the new stump and begin the design of J.P’s second prosthesis.

 

Andy Peters had applied for driving permits as an amputee and undergone the requisite tests in a manually operated rig. The adaptations were not what Peters himself would have chosen. He spent time and effort, visiting several dealers of new electric lorries which could easily be converted to manual operation and researching apparatus offered by several companies to enable even legless drivers to operate heavy cargo rigs. He was waiting for the arrival of a spanking new Volvo head which would already have his preferred adaptations fitted. He had worn his peg legs on all his journeys, trusting in his short walking sticks for balance although he had learned to totter short distances on his pegs without support. The walking sticks were inconvenient at times and he considered the odd combination of peg and crutches which the guy at Obsidian used. If he had the same kind of crutches, he would be able to free his hands momentarily to sign something or otherwise use his hands. Maybe he could even get longer peg legs. Or make do with just one. He would walk around just as the Obsidian guy did. Greg, that was his name. One long conical peg leg, white of all colours, and a pair of crutches. Greg got around perfectly well. There was no reason why he himself would not be just as mobile. He would discuss it with his wife first in case she did not want to see her man on one rigid peg but it was phallic enough for him to know her answer. He would turn himself into a peg legged driver and strut around like he owned the place. He sent a text to Greg requesting an appointment.

 

J.P. collected his bilateral prosthetic arms. Wesley transferred his older left arm onto the new harness and, with Wally’s verbal guidance, fitted the apparatus onto J.P. The client seemed deluded with the new arm, discovering to his dismay that it did not have the same range of motion he was expecting. Wally explained that the restriction was due to the hinge at the elbow and that he would have to learn to lift the entire prosthesis with his shoulder if he wanted to position the hook how he wanted. Then there was the dual action mechanism which operated both the forearm and the hook attachment. Wally suspected that J.P. assumed the arm’s operation would be much simpler but now he had only his two shoulders and an elbow to operate the hooks. His life would be difficult if he did not master his new arm and Wally warned him of such but pointed out that many men led successful lives in industry and business with two above‑elbow prostheses and that there was no reason why J.P. should not also succeed in anything he turned his mind to. J.P. departed with his two hooks visible from his smart jacket’s sleeves, determined to show his lover how well he could already manipulate his prosthesis. If only he could remember to twitch his arm to swap between lifting or lowering his forearm and opening his hook. His master was delighted to see his lover so completely disabled and their love‑making that night was amongst the best J.P. had ever experienced. He was completely shocked the next morning when his lover insisted that he revise his left stump to make it identical with the right. He would have mere stumps poking from his shoulders and be completely helpless without demanding artificial arms. The emir suggested the end of summer as a deadline and stared at J.P. with dark eyes until he was certain that the man understood. J.P. realised that he had better learn how to use the new prosthesis in a hurry because he would shortly have two of them. He asked the manservant to unscrew his left hook and tape the cable to his socket and for the next weeks compelled himself to use only his new right arm prosthesis. He used his left socket for occasional support.

 

Joseph Jones turned seventeen and spent the summer with his younger cousin in North Wales. His parents were going through a divorce which they had tried to conceal from their son. Now the summer was spent arguing about who would have custody of the boy. As his mother had been unfaithful, his father was granted full responsibility for Joseph. After two weeks of games when his cousin had helped Joseph bind his legs into fat stumps, he returned to a house without his mother. His father explained the situation, which Joseph had intuited. He missed his mother but his mind was full of plans for elective amputations of his legs. He knew he could attach prosthetic legs to his stumps using artificial arms because he had watched videos of other men doing exactly that. He wanted to have both artificial arms with hooks and artificial legs from his knees down. He admired all the boys and men walking on two steel pylons. He knew he would be able to do the same if only he could find some way of getting rid of his feet. He dare not try dry ice again. It would look too suspicious.

 

Coincidentally, Joseph was on Greg’s mind. Many weeks had passed since Greg recommended that Joseph should make an appointment for a fitting. He had discussed Joseph’s case with his colleagues and they agreed to treat it on a pro bono basis, meaning that the boy would not have to pay. Enough time had passed since the amputations for his stumps to have recovered fully. The boy only needed to get himself to Obsidian for treatment. Greg was prepared to accommodate him for the day or two while his prostheses were being printed. He sent a message to Joseph renewing his invitation to make an appointment. Joseph showed his father who replied to Greg for confirmation about the extraordinary generosity. He ran through possible volunteers who might drive his son to London to return a day or two later. Finally, he persuaded his ex‑brother‑in‑law to take a week’s holiday in early October and a date was arranged with Obsidian.

 

Andy Peters returned to work. His new adapted Volvo had cleared customs and been registered. The cab was high above other traffic and Peters found it easier to haul himself up with his arms, scrabbling with his peg legs for some kind of purchase on the narrow steel steps. Once inside, he spread his stumps for better balance and drove using manual controls which he had had a hand in designing. He gradually found regular work, mostly so‑called last mile runs from warehouses and goods depôts to retail outlets. Much of the invoicing was done electronically so Peters did not necessarily need to exit his cab at his destinations. Many of his customers had no idea that the man was legless, neither did many of the other drivers he met on the road. It was just like the old days. Peters was in his element.

 

Joseph’s uncle Gwyn collected him from home and the pair made their way down the M4 to West London. Greg was surprised on meeting Joseph for the first time. He was a tousle‑haired teenager with the suggestion of a blond moustache and much taller than expected. He had a shy smile and averted his eyes when speaking to an adult. He was quite charming. Gwyn stated he had reserved a hotel room for two, making Greg’s kind offer of allowing Joseph to stay with him unnecessary. Wally was ready for the boy and invited Gwyn back in three hours or so.

 

Joseph’s stumps had indeed healed. His elbows were both healthy and intact and his forearm stumps were short semispherical appendages which would be useless to operate conventional below‑elbow prostheses with. The boy had to all intents and purposes become an above‑elbow amputee as far as prosthetic care was concerned. He would always rely on artificial arms which were initially difficult and afterwards merely demanding to use. But the long above‑elbow sockets were designed in such a way that it would be possible to lean on the elbows, something most users of similar arms could not do. Joseph had managed fairly well at home with his naked stumps. They were useful for some things but he was looking forward to having arms again.

 

Wally showed him the virtual set of prostheses he had designed specifically for Joseph. The model was ready and needed only tweaking with the boy’s actual data. Wally explained that Joseph would lose the use of his elbows while he wore his arms because his stumps were too short to control a pair of hooks. He shucked his prostheses to reveal his own stumps, which were optimum for using hooks with. Joseph nodded his admiration. Wally removed Joseph’s T-shirt and scanned his upper body from every angle. He uploaded the data to A.I. and waited for a virtual model to appear onscreen. Joseph replaced his T‑shirt by himself, which Wally was pleased to see. Shortly a three dimensional model of Joseph’s upper body appeared alongside the virtual prostheses. Wally needed only to program one model’s dimensions onto the other.

 

Wally’s model featured perfectly straight cylindrical forearms. They looked artificial at a single glance but had the advantage of weighing the very minimum and the wrist mechanism with its hook would seat firmly into the end of the cylinder. Wally asked Joseph to confirm that he was satisfied with the design, that he would not prefer the appearance of more natural forearms. Joseph assured him that the tubes were OK. He had the choice of flesh tone or black for his carbon arms. Joseph had already thought about which he preferred and, surprisingly, asked for pink. Wally overlaid a third set of data onto the virtual arms to subtract slots and screwholes for additional steel components which the arms would need to function. That was Wesley’s department after the components had printed.

 

Joseph was no longer needed while Wally finessed the final STL files before printing. He had actually begun to feel embarrassed by the way Joseph stared at his stumps and hooks but felt sorry for the lad. He would always be encumbered by the two‑phase operation of his mechanical body‑powered arms although he might become skilful enough for them to become second nature. It all depended on how Joseph acclimatised himself to being so severely disabled. Wally suspected the boy regarded it all as a bit of a lark, some kind of adventure. Joseph returned to Greg’s desk and announced that they were finished for today, which was not quite true but Greg understood. Greg offered a coke while Joseph waited for his uncle to return and he accepted. He could manage cans of coke with his stumps. Greg rose from his seat and grabbed his crutches. He pegged across the room to their fridge and put two cans into the pockets of his shorts. Joseph stared at the most incredible sight. The man was walking on one peg leg, white, and kicked it ahead of him while leaning on short crutches. Joseph had never imagined anything like it. When he imagined himself as a leg amputee, he always had two artificial legs whose shapes altered as and when he saw a new design. This guy had a single peg leg. He crutched over to Joseph and told him to take one of the cans. Joseph squashed his stumps together to pick it out of Joseph’s pocket and held it up to be opened. Greg pulled the tab and returned to his seat. Joseph stared at the astonishing white peg leg and knew he wanted the same. Then he remembered his artificial arms. He would never be able to use crutches with a pair of hooks. But maybe if he had two white peg legs, he would learn to walk on them. That was what he would do. All he needed to do was find a way to have his legs amputated so people would look at him and admire his panache.

 

J.P. contacted Jame again, eager this time to make his body symmetrical. He knew what his lover wished to see and he himself wanted two identical stumps. He had seen photos of limbless body builders and after the initial shock, realised that a well‑toned body with two upper arm stumps was perfectly balanced and admirable. The amputee body‑builders lost none of their masculinity because of their disability, on the contrary. Well‑sculpted upper arm stumps were handsome appendages and J.P. wished to experience the erotic pleasure they represented. His muscular artificial arms would present a challenge which J.P. was impatient to overcome. Jame was delighted to offer his services again before the month was out. He needed only arrange matters with a few people first and he would let him know when the amputation could take place.

 

J.P. lost his left stump, the almost complete arm missing only his left hand at the wrist. Jame took pains to ensure both stumps would match in bulk and length. J.P. was collected by the manservant and returned to his penthouse room six days later. He was using his right prosthesis again. The manservant removed the hookless left prosthesis from J.P.’s harness. J.P. dared not return to his work yet. His affluent clients would have to bide their time for a few weeks until the new stump was robust enough for J.P. to resume. None of them had known of J.P.’s imminent revision. He was interested to see their reaction when he once again returned as a one‑armed man, this time with a single above‑elbow prosthesis. Gradually J.P. became familiar with the repetitive motions which his arm demanded to first position the elbow and then operate the hook. His gestures became more modest. He stopped leaning forward when locking the elbow, although it helped. He reminded himself to remain erect and to project the appearance of a man who was perfectly adjusted to using hooks. The manservant watched but said nothing. The emir was enchanted with his lover’s physique and enthusiastically provided all the sexual release J.P.’s healthy body craved. He had not yet made a serious attempt at satisfying himself with a hook.

 

Against his father’s advice, Joseph wanted to leave school. He was approaching eighteen years of age, the age of majority. He would be a fully-fledged adult and he could do what he wanted. School had been tedious and seemingly pointless. He would have preferred to be in the sixth form college. Maybe his attitude would be different in that case.

 

Joseph wore his artificial arms from the moment he woke up to the moment he returned to bed. The oddly coloured arms with their even odder shape and shocking hook terminals became such a familiar sight that his father stopped being so concerned for his son. Joseph struggled with positioning his hooks in advance of actually using them. The forearms had a restricted range of motion due to the hinges attaching them to the sockets. They were angled slightly so that the hooks almost touched in front of Joseph’s crotch, a deliberate choice by Wally to allow him to toilet himself and for the obvious reason when a seventeen year old boy was concerned. Masturbation was a strong motivation for Joseph to learn how to use his hooks properly. The thought of stroking his shaft with steel hooks was still as intensely erotic as it always had been for him. Crippled by limblessness, the compunction to function with artificial limbs remained as strong as ever. He fantasised about Greg’s white peg leg and wished he could some day feel the precarious imbalance of a single artificial leg. But his arms would never allow him to wield a pair of crutches the way Greg did. So he thought.

 

His father took Joseph aside one quiet weekend afternoon and sat opposite him. It was a conversation about the future. He said he was gratified to see how well Joseph had rehabilitated. He accepted that school was disappointing and approved of him leaving without completing his final year on condition that Joseph found employment. There was little work available locally. He would have to move to a larger town or maybe to England. It was his decision. He claimed to understand the challenges Joseph faced in finding employment and would continue to support him in any circumstances. His father’s attitude surprised Joseph. It was obvious that he did not regard Joseph as too disabled to work. The only challenge was finding something he could do. After nearly an hour’s discussion, the two hugged. Joseph placed his prostheses around his father’s waist in the familiar gesture and shrugged to tighten the forearms. He could feel nothing except cool pressure on his stumps, hidden from view now and always.

 

Andy Peters continued to accrue more routes and more customers grateful for prompt deliveries made on time. His status as a double amputee was well‑known throughout the local area and he was, unknown to him, often contacted partly because of his notoriety. He was completely at home on his peg legs and had accustomed himself to being head and shoulders shorter than everyone else. He had learned how to use his pegs to clamber up into his cab and appreciated their comfort and reliability. Other leg amputees he encountered frequently complained about chafing and insecurity concerning the moving parts of their artificial legs. Peters recommended a peg leg to each and every one of them.

 

On his last year of school, his nephew David spent much of his free time between revision for exams with his uncle. David had openly admitted his admiration of amputees and admitted that he would have no complaints if the worst happened and he himself lost a limb. Peters had been perfectly aware of his nephew’s infatuation with amputation and devoteeism for quite a while and finally succeeded in assuring the boy, soon to be a man, that he understood and approved, saying that a man should be who he needed to be. If David wanted to undergo life‑changing disablement in the form of amputation, he need only ask and Peters would set the ball rolling via Obsidian’s secretive service for wannabes and finance the transformation on condition that David never speak a word of the chain of events to his parents. They concocted a plan in which David would join his uncle as usual from home. Peters would deliver David to Obsidian and his future would be in their hands. Any physical alterations would be due to a mishap on the road, the details of which David was free to invent for himself. It had better be credible because he would rely on the story for the rest of his life. David said he wanted to become a DAK like his uncle but would wear thick cylindrical stubbies instead of peg legs, although the pegs also looked really cool and he would definitely want to try them too. Peters nodded his approval and made a rough estimate of the cost of crippling his nephew. Knowing how much Jame expected for an amputation, he reasoned that he could afford the cost. His compensation account had rarely been touched since he returned to the road and it would be a fine thing to see his nephew as a legless cripple, hobbling on knee‑length stubbies but with the same self‑reliance and panache. In mid‑June, Peters parked his rig in a nearby underground parking area and the two men made their way to Obsidian, where David’s future would be decided in collaboration with the amputee staff. David had turned eighteen and any decisions about his transformation into a legless cripple were his alone. He discussed his desires with Greg, sitting directly opposite him, and admired the overwhelming eroticism of Greg’s single elegant peg leg.

 

Greg agreed with his client Andy Peters and his vital and enthusiastic nephew. By amputating about ten centimetres above the knees, David would have sturdy stumps ideal for use with stubbies which might extend only as far as knee‑length or a little further, giving him conspicuous short artificial legs which would swing in arcs as he pushed his way forward. David saw himself wearing thick cylindrical stubbies with rubber at the bottom and much longer stubbies like thick tapering peg legs. If he had a pair of stubbies like that, he would learn to use them properly and intended to use them always. Greg sought out an illustration of a gentleman wearing such a design and ensured it was exactly the shape David meant. Greg was of a mind to allow the amputations through Obsidian. The client was enthusiastic and knowledgeable but he was still young. He asked David to excuse them and suggested that he join Wesley in the lab until he was called for. Greg needed to discuss David’s amputations with his uncle.

 

Wesley accepted him to watch while he worked on an artificial leg until after only a minute or two, David noticed Wally toiling away at his workstation on the other side of the room. All his attention was concentrated on watching the way Wally used his hooks. It was the first time David had seen a hook user in real life and he was infatuated with the appearance of the man’s arms and the delicate way he coaxed the touch‑screen display to do his bidding. He forgot about his cylindrical stubbies for the time being and imagined himself with a similar pair of hooks. He knew enough about artificial arms to know that Wally’s pair were body‑operated. He could see how Wally stretched his shoulders and leaned this way and that, occasionally twisting his hooks together to reposition them. He imagined himself a few years older, strutting along on a pair of long stubbies, pausing at a roadside cafeteria to eat a hamburger, gripping it with a pair of steel hooks and being watched by myriad children and their shocked parents. By the time his uncle waddled into the lab to greet Wesley and Wally, David was certain that he wanted to be a man who had replaced his natural limbs with prostheses allowing him to experience the exciting loss of all tactile sensation. He might continue to function in society as a man but he would have four stumps. He could remove all his prostheses and experience helplessness, reliant on only his stumps. He tried to imagine himself in that situation and shortly ejaculated into his underwear. Regardless of what people might think, his body knew how it wanted to be. The only problem left was whether to forego his legs or his arms first. It was probably too late. He was here to begin the process of having his legs amputated. With luck, in a month’s time, he would be in a wheelchair with both thighs sliced in two halfway along their length. Then he would have long stubbies for the rest of his life and could plan to lose his hands. He looked at Wally again, sifting through a pile of papers, nipping the pages with a hook. It looked so perfect, so manly. He would do it, too.

 

Greg and Peters came to the unexpected conclusion that there was no time like the present. Greg texted Jame to ask if it might be possible to treat the client in the next few days and received the gratifying news that there was ample time to perform the requested alterations as their most recent client was still with them and the entire clinical team was still present. Peters promised to deliver the boy the same day. By the following morning, David had become a double above knee amputee in coma but recovering nicely. His thighs were a third of their original length. Prosthetic use would be demanding with such short stumps but Peters had assured Jame that the boy intended using stubbies permanently and short stumps were judged the preferred choice. It did not preclude the opportunity of sporting artificial legs, nor indeed of using only one with crutches. The short stump would be well hidden for the best aesthetic effect.

 

Peters informed his brother that David had come a cropper after not paying attention to where he was going but made no other comment. The boy had been conscious and lucid on his way for treatment, which was true. His bother thanked him for the information and suspected that his devotee son, who had fetishised about amputation for many years in full knowledge of his parents, would return missing a limb. It was no surprise. He had seen how his own brother glorified his stumps and his stubbies. The pair of them were as bad as each other. He debated whether to inform his ex‑wife that their son was injured but decided to wait until he knew the extent.

 

David’s stumps were shorter than Jame had intended. For some inexplicable reason, he had made the initial incision on the right leg too high and had no alternative but to continue. The stump was much shorter than he had planned. Knowing that his client insisted on gaining matching stumps, there was nothing for it but to amputate the other leg equally as high. Jame was fairly disgusted with himself. He almost never made errors, and this was only the second time he had made such a major cock up, the first time being three years back when he turned a bilateral below elbow devotee into a bilateral above elbow amputee. Fortunately the client had accepted his unexpected situation without suing after receiving gratis not one but two pairs of protheses and a whole selection of terminal devices. The man had wanted to use hooks and in that regard, nothing had changed. Jame met the man in passing at Luton airport two years later and learned that the client enjoyed his long artificial arms. He admitted that he had planned to spend his late twenties and thirties with below elbow hooks before transforming himself in his forties to a man with short stumps hanging from his shoulders. He was better endowed than that and appreciated the macho appearance of his stumps, although he was the only person who ever saw them. As Jame reminded him, no‑one else mattered. Jame’s assurance of his ex tempore amputation activities increased considerably. It was unusual for one of his patients to regain consciousness regretting the loss of a limb they had specifically gone to considerable effort and expense to lose but it was not unknown. Jame knew from his discussions with both David and his uncle that the boy would probably be happy with double disarticulations but Jame was not malicious enough to cause such a major injury, unless asked. Jame checked on David’s progress every couple of hours until he awoke and entertained him with photos of his bandaged stumps taken on his phone. Jame was experimenting with a new painkiller, still uncertified in England, and asked if David felt any pain. Apparently, most of the discomfort was from the tightness of the bandages binding his stumps. Jame contacted David’s uncle, currently collecting a quantity of rhubarb in West Yorkshire, to report success and satisfaction. Peters replied with a single emoji and looked forward to the time when a legless uncle might have his newly legless nephew on stubbies working alongside him.

 

David had plenty of time to research exactly the kind of stubbies which he would feel most comfortable with. For the time being he was wheelchair‑bound at home and rarely ventured out. His parents were sympathetic about his plight but David seemed to accept his fate calmly and looked to the future. His father suspected that there was more going on than the effects of a mere road accident. The injuries were far more severe than such an event might warrant but he was averse to confronting David to delve deeper into the truth of the matter. David had been surprised at his stunted stumps. He had expected them to be at least half the length of his thighs but as the weeks passed, he accepted the handsome rounded stumps, knowing that using artificial legs would be difficult for him. This in turn reinforced his determination to wear stubbies. By the time his stumps had healed well enough to consider acquiring his first pair, he had decided he wanted stubbies like the Obsidian chief’s single peg leg. And he wanted white stubbies instead of black like everyone else seemed to have. His uncle delivered him without his wheelchair to Obsidian. David had learned to handwalk on his backside using a pair of thick gardening gloves to protect his hands.

 

Peters discussed the design which David wanted. Greg advised him that two pegs like his own would be too precarious to walk on without crutches for a beginner and recommended wide cylindrical legs with a sufficiently sturdy base for better balance. As a compromise, he promised that they could be white. When David had become proficient on his stubbies, he could begin to experiment with different types, including short peg legs. Greg was privately pleased that the boy would not need training on a long pair of artificial legs. His stumps were too short to grip prostheses securely and most DAKs with similar stumps usually resorted to heaving themselves and their prostheses around on crutches. It was not a convenient way to walk. There was no reason why David should not slowly work his way up to using metre long stubbies, shorter than his natural legs but enough to return some of his stature.

 

Wally turned out a pair of stubbies which made David as tall as he had been when kneeling. They had thick black rubber bases which would wear into a comfortable shape with use. David held on to the parallel bars for his first steps and felt empowered by using his stumps to walk. The stubbies were unwieldy. It was hard to position them but after half an hour and several tips from Wesley, David learned to lean forward slightly and to kick his stumps out to the side, just enough for the stubbies to clear the ground. It was a shocking way to walk. David spread his arms to balance and savoured the sensations in his stumps. His uncle arrived back to collect David and return him home. David used his stubbies in public for the first time and was a little disappointed to find that most people merely averted their gaze. Andy Peters had already learned to walk on two peg legs, over half a metre long, and no longer used a shortened walking stick. The two men clambered up into Peters’ rig in their own fashion and on the return journey, Peters offered David employment as a sidekick and general assistant when he had learned to walk. David promised to think about it, but realised that he was unlikely to find a better offer any time soon. Maybe it would be best to learn the business, learn to drive a lorry and all the other things an independent driver needed to know. David sat in the cab admiring his gleaming stubbies and cupped them with his hands. He loved the hard unfeeling surface, quite unlike the soft flesh of his thighs.

 

In the interim, bilateral arm amputee Joseph had found employment. Quite by chance, he met a former schoolmate who told him about his summer holidays, touring around England by public transport and staying overnight in youth hostels. His friend suggested that Joseph should look into getting a job as a receptionist in something like a youth hostel, where there was very little manual work involved. He would need to be a receptionist and a travel advisor and a linguist to help foreign visitors. He only needed a few words and sentences to start off with. It might be fun and he would definitely be asked a hundred times a day about his fantastic artificial arms and hooks, which his friend assured him looked really cool and suited him. Joseph thought about it for a couple of days and then composed an email explaining his interest in becoming a receptionist and explaining his disability, which he hoped would not pose a problem. It was his first CV, slightly naïve and wildly optimistic, but Joseph’s enthusiasm shone through and amused the head of the youth hostel organisation to whom Joseph addressed it. She showed it around to some colleagues and asked their opinion about a young Welshman who used a pair of hooks. No‑one had anything against it in principle if the young man was determined to succeed. There were several vacancies available immediately if the chap was free to start. The job of receptionist was not well paid. It was usually seasonal work although the organisation had a few permanent year‑round employees. There was one such position open in Shrewsbury, the nearest to the applicant’s address. A quick message affirmed that anyone who was willing and able would be more than welcome and the applicant was bilingual in English and Welsh which would be a big bonus. No mention was made of Joseph’s hooks. By the end of the week, Joseph was invited to arrange an interview in Shrewsbury.

 

Personal trainer J.P. continued to benefit from his commitment to personal betterment by mastering his artificial arms. After six difficult months when he was occasionally stressed by but never disappointed in his slow progress, he suddenly noticed that he no longer consciously planned his movements. He had already accepted his limited range of movement and learned to compensate by moving his body or standing closer or at an angle to the task at hand. In short, he had begun to assimilate his prostheses as part of himself. They were no longer separate entities which he strapped on but an integral part of his body. He used them with well practised movements which he adapted to look competent and masculine. His lover was hugely impressed by J.P.’s rehabilitation but insisted that he remove the prostheses when they made physical love. It was J.P.’s arm stumps which the emir idealised. If he wanted, J.P. would not wear his arms but would instead sport his handsome stumps all day, every day. But that would be unnecessarily cruel. The emir did not regard himself as a cruel man despite insisting that his lover undergo additional amputation for the pleasure of his lover. J.P. himself admired his stumps and the sensations of being armless, including the minor frustrations of life. Most of all he missed the ability to masturbate. He had attempted many times to coax his tool to orgasm but he found his hooks unsuitable and his mechanical elbows did not allow him simultaneous access to his cock with both hooks. It was just one of life’s disappointments. He stood in front of his room’s full‑length mirror and admired his muscular legs, trim belly and muscular arm stumps. He liked what he saw and the figure in the mirror smiled back in approval.

 

David was on a correspondence course to qualify as a lorry driver. He had never driven before and first had to qualify as an amputee car driver. There was a plethora of other courses to take but many of them simply gave a percentage and were not so critical. He spent time with his uncle, helping to deliver goods all over the Midlands. Like most amputees who wore their prostheses permanently, he became used to wearing thick stubbies and hardly gave them a thought. He moved well, swinging his legs in a regular beat, pounding along uncaring of stares and whispered comments. He was still planning ways to lose his hands. He had got his stubbies. It was time for another challenge. He wanted mid-forearm stumps, long enough to manipulate stuff with but short enough to make it a challenge. Short enough to make it compulsory to always wear hooks. He had long recognised that it was the hooks he fetishised, not his potential arm stumps. They were incidental to his need and desire to sport bilateral hooks, to be seen as a man who had only artificial limbs and who thrived in spite of them. Because of them. He imagined himself riding with his uncle when the pair of them had run out of conversation wearing artificial arms. He was certain he would still be able to do everything he needed to, including driving an adapted cab. His uncle managed fine, although he had his hands. He drove with his two peg legs indicating the way forward, barely clearing the dashboard.

 

The manager of Shrewsbury’s youth hostel invited Joseph to pay a visit for an interview and to show him the ropes. He happened to notice his interviewee arriving, a tall blond young man with a pleasant face, his hands in his jacket pockets. He left his office to wait in the reception hall and stretched out to shake hands. Joseph returned the greeting, revealing that his right hand was missing. He used a steel hook instead. The manager was surprised but took it in stride and pointed the way to his office. He invited Joseph to remove his jacket and had more than a surprise. He was genuinely shocked. Joseph was wearing only a plain grey T-shirt and his artificial arms glinted as he hung his jacket up. They were the first topic of conversation. The manager expressed his concern the Joseph might not be capable of undertaking all his duties. Joseph assured him that his artificial arms were well capable of most tasks and that he had no qualms about his disabled status.

 

Indeed, he did not regard himself as disabled while he wore his hooks. The manager was impressed by Joseph’s slightly antiquated turn of language. They spoke of working hours, wages, tips, meal breaks, the long overnight shifts alternating with two other workers and finally asked if Joseph was interested in seeing the rest of the hostel. It could house about sixty guests in rooms for four or eight. They looked at the tiled bathrooms and showers, saw where hot food could be prepared and finally at the area behind the building where benches and tables were provided for the guests to sit. They were popular on sunny summer mornings when the guests ate breakfast outside in the fresh air. It was a secluded spot surrounded by forested hills and far enough from the main road to be quiet enough to hear birdsong and nocturnal insects. The hostel was closed between eleven in the morning and three in the afternoon. They stopped back at the reception desk and inspected the register into which visitor card details had to be copied every evening before delivery to the local police station before noon the next day. Joseph demonstrated his skill at writing. He wrote in angular capital letters, their shapes and spacing dictated by his lack of functioning elbows. The manager admired the unexpected neatness and legibility of Joseph’s sample and announced that if Joseph was interested in joining the staff, he would be most welcome and they could sign an employment contract immediately.

 

After doing so, Joseph waited an extra hour for his receptionist colleague, Derek, to arrive for the afternoon and evening shift. He was a linguistics student who had dropped out of university a decade ago and worked at the hostel ever since. He had no greater ambition in life. He drove a sixty year old Citroën 2CV, wore army surplus and spoke four languages including their dialects and slang. His first comment on being introduced to Joseph was Jesus Christ! The manager left the two together, hoping Derek would acquaint the new man with the minutiae of a receptionist’s duties. He returned to his office to make a call to head office and shortly heard male laughter echoing through the empty corridors. Derek and Joseph had hit it off. Derek had already told Joseph he would have no problems driving a 2CV with his hook thingies and learning that Joseph had never driven, promised to teach him.

 

David passed his exams with more than adequate marks and volunteered for a fire prevention course and joined a wrestling club where he caused no end of confusion for other members. His leglessness was usually a disadvantage but he was able on occasion to use the absence of his legs to surprise his sparring partner with an otherwise impossible move, bringing him crashing to the floor. He was still envious of his uncle’s peg legs and contacted Obsidian to ask about the possibility of being fitted with a pair. He wanted to walk on tall peg legs, regardless of the fact that his stumps were best suited to stubbies. He would work his way up, starting with a pair identical to his uncle’s well worn pair. They were covered in scratches and pitted with tiny dents caused by knocking into the sharp corners of steel baskets and trays. After a brief chat with the older Peters, the pair of them booked time at Obsidian to be outfitted with two new pairs of peg legs.

 

Wally made the fittings and allowed A.I. to make the final decisions on material thickness and stress resilience. Coincidentally, Joseph Jones arrived while the two lorry drivers were in the lab. His left control cable had caught on something and had begun to fray and rather than risk it snapping at an inconvenient moment, he used a day off to travel into London to have the cable replaced. Wesley attended to him and took him into the lab. David saw Joseph walk in bearing two artificial arms dangling from his shoulders. There were hooks at the ends of his arms. David immediately thought of wanking with a pair of hooks. It was the one thing which still provided the most reliable orgasms. He had become accustomed to his leg stumps and the sensations they sent when he squirmed on his belly in bed, rotating his stumps against the blankets for pleasure. If he had arm stumps, he would double it. He glanced at his uncle, currently watching a screen with Wally and returned his gaze to the guy with no arms. He was good looking but when Wally fiddled with the harness and removed the artificial arm, he could see the guy had only the smallest of stumps at the elbow. David wanted much longer stumps so he could wank with them. It would be so cool after he learned to walk on peg legs if he could also have a pair of hooks with long arm stumps. He was edging, very close to cumming but turned his attention away from the one artificial armed guy sitting not ten metres away. His uncle was through with his approvals and now it was David’s turn to finesse the design of his first peg legs.

 

Wally had done a good job. He had selected the pin lock system to hold the pegs onto David’s short stumps. The liners themselves had belts which circled David’s waist. The brief animation showing how the pegs were attached repeated onscreen. David’s stubbies scraped against his chair when his stumps twitched with excitement at the thought of wearing peg legs. Wally had designed them with the upper halves broad enough to accept David’s stumps and the lower halves narrowed to large rubber ferrules. His first pegs were twelve centimetres longer than his stubbies and Wally warned him to become thoroughly proficient on two pegs before progressing to a new pair with longer pylons. But there was one condition which David did not like. He would be relying on crutches for a good few months and Wally recommended long wooden crutches to allow him to use his hands occasionally. Walking sticks and elbow crutches were too restrictive in that sense, although he could by all means try walking with them too.

 

David thought about Greg’s long cylindrical peg leg and considered asking Wally to change the shape of his own to match Greg’s. But the peg legs rotating slowly on screen looked macho and beefy. He gave his approval for them to be printed and lifted himself down onto his sturdy short stubbies. Soon he would be taller. The legless pair collected their jackets and bid their farewells at the same time that Joseph received his left arm back from Wesley with a taut new cable. Out of common decency, Andy Peters asked if he could give Joseph a lift somewhere. There was plenty of room in his rig—especially leg room. Joseph laughed and said a ride to Paddington would be most welcome. David was excited at the prospect of asking the guy about his arms. They introduced themselves briefly and left Obsidian to start production of their new prostheses.

 

David started by asking how long Joseph had been an amputee. He mentioned that he had been on stubbies for nearly two years and had just finished his training to become a lorry driver. Joseph congratulated him and asked how David’s injuries had happened. David was not used to being asked about his stumps and did not have a ready answer. He said they were done in Oxfordshire and corrected himself to state that it had happened in Oxfordshire. Joseph asked if the surgeon’s name was Jame, by any chance. David was shocked. Was Joseph admitting to having his arms amputated voluntarily in the same way that David lost his legs? He actually paid to have artificial arms for the rest of his life? Joseph was sure that David was a successful wannabe, unusually young to be so massively disabled. They arrived at the rig and the two legless men clambered up in their own fashion, followed by Joseph who found precarious purchase climbing up into the cab with the meagre handholds available. The conversation continued. Andy asked if Joseph worked anywhere and heard about his new job in the Shrewsbury youth hostel. He had his own tiny two person room there for the winter months, a bunk bed and a small table and two chairs. Everything else he needed was in the corridor outside and free for him to use. Andy was impressed that a good looking lad like Joseph had not let his maiming stand in his way of getting ahead in life. The youth hostel sounded like an ideal job. David asked if anyone could stay and Joseph explained that non-members had to pay more for a bed but they could spend the night there. David said he would like to come and see Joseph. Maybe after he had his new peg legs. He could test them out on a trip to meet Joseph once more and Joseph could show him around. Andy heard the eagerness in David’s voice. He was not surprised that he wanted to see Joseph but he did not yet know the real reason. David wanted to know everything about Joseph’s amputations and his prosthetics ahead of making a final decision to transform his body again.

 

Both sets of peg legs were ready for fitting two afternoons later. Andy left his beat up old pair behind for recycling but David kept his stubbies. His new pegs looked incredible after his stubbies. So sleek and elegant! He held onto the parallel bars and exercised his entire knowledge of how to walk on short stumps. The tips of his pegs seemed impossibly distant. He looked at himself in the full‑length mirror at the end of the bars. A good looking bloke on peg legs. Might look better if he were wearing shorts instead of mere underpants. His erection was insistent and obvious but his uncle and Wesley had often encountered the odd physical reaction to new prosthetics before and paid little attention. Wesley offered a pair of wooden crutches to David and asked him to walk further into the lab using them. After a couple of adjustments, Wesley was satisfied. David was merely grateful for the extra support. His pegs were much more unstable than his shorter stubbies but his uncle had beaten the odds and stood on his new pair now watching his progress. Wesley was satisfied that David was handling the crutches correctly and the invalids made their way via Greg’s work station to settle the invoice. David stuffed his stubbies into his back pack and they made their way back to the Midlands feeling invigorated. David explored the sensuous curves of his peg legs on the way and imagined how he would manage when he had steel hooks instead of hands. He would never feel anything again. In a way, it was a shame but also really horny. Nothing was going to change his mind. If only he could think of away to get a pair of mid forearm stumps. He had ogled Joseph’s stumps for long enough to realise that longer stumps would be more suitable if he intended driving a rig in future.

 

Joseph and Derek got on like a house on fire. They spent only four or five hours together at work every third day and Joseph looked forward to them but Derek often suggested going for a pizza in town or sinking a few beers in his houseshare room. He showed no interest in Joseph’s artificial arms although he was an enthusiastic supporter of Joseph’s attempts to try new things. When Joseph announced that a new acquaintance would be staying with him at the youth hostel the following weekend, Derek immediately offered to chauffeur them around town. Joseph made no mention of David’s disability.

 

It was unusual but not unexpected that two bilateral amputees of a similar age might strike up a friendship but with both holding a strong suspicion that the other had elected to lose their limbs, there was a stronger bond than might otherwise be the case. Joseph met his friend at the station while Derek waited in the car listening to hits from the Eighties. He had four cassettes which were still usable in his car’s player and he listened to them on repeat. He spotted Joseph returning with a short figure who turned out to be a guy Joseph’s age staggering along on peg legs, propped up with a wooden walking stick. Jesus Christ, he muttered to himself. It was like having someone else’s worst nightmare. Joseph’s hooks were practically invisible under his long off‑white seaman’s pullover. The new guy’s peg legs were anything but. They all greeted and introduced each other and Derek asked where they wanted to go first. Joseph suggested the youth hostel where the third receptionist, Arnold, was currently registering the day’s influx of visitors. They could all sit behind the counter with him and shoot the breeze. They did not often get a chance to be together.

 

David was more stable on his pegs now after gradually becoming accustomed to meagre support from the narrow ferrules. Instead, he was mastering the main trick of the trade—continually shifting his balance from one peg to the other. He already felt secure enough to ditch his crutches in favour of a short walking stick which looked either pitiful or horny, depending on your preferences. Arnie had seen it all before, being a compulsive amputee devotee and an enthusiastic poster on amputee photo sites. Joseph’s arms were already familiar to him so he aimed to see the peg leg guy’s naked stumps before the evening was over. He often succeeded in making intimate acquaintance with visiting amputees and had once called in sick in order to spend an entire weekend with a handless young Turk who had no compunction about buggering him with long forearm stumps. Maybe it was the sort of thing they liked to do in Turkey. God knows there were enough Turkish arm amps online.

 

High above the London business district, the emir was desirous of similar treatment and after one or two unsuccessful attempts, J.P. suggested wearing long artificial forearms shaped like dildoes so that he  could improve his lovemaking. The emir was immediately completely enchanted with his lover’s idea and encouraged him to acquire such apparatus.

 

Wally commiserated with J.P. at his lack of a functioning forearm stump and set about designing a rigid one‑piece prosthesis which J.P. could wear on his right stump. It would have a rigid elbow bent at eight‑five degrees and the forearm would taper to a delicate rounded tip a couple of centimetres in diameter. J.P. asked if the device could be printed with glitter or holographic foil to make it look less intimidating. And more like a sex toy, he thought. Wally suspected what the prosthesis was for and charged a substantial fee. The arm was printed overnight and the following evening, a satisfied one‑hooked customer walked out wearing it on his other stump. The emir was also satisfied by its twenty‑five centimetre long increasing width.

 

Joseph relinquished his lower bunk to David. They had spent much of the evening in Derek’s poky room and both of them had shed their prosthetic limbs to show each other their trophy stumps. Joseph revealed that he had a tiny amount of stump below his elbow but used prostheses designed for someone without elbows. The others could see now that the upper sockets were on the long side. Derek could not understand how a guy with such short leg stumps could possibly learn to walk again, not to mention on a pair of sexy peg legs. They were surprised by Derek’s choice of words but he was quite right. David asked if he might inspect Joseph’s arms more closely and rested them across his peg legs, studying the various mechanisms and simply envying their artificiality. The long cylindrical tubes which held Joseph’s hooks looked both alarmingly artificial and immensely desirable. His own pair would resemble his own arms, the ones discarded to an incinerator after amputation. David longed for the day. He was almost competent on his peg legs. Soon it would be time to advance. The amputees lay on their bunks stage whispering to each other about what their stumps felt like when they were free of prosthetic limbs after a long day. Joseph mentioned how odd it was to have feeling back at the tips of his arm stumps, although they were too short to do anything useful with. David listened and imagined himself removing a similar pair of artificial arms as the last thing he did each night and the first thing he did each morning. His arms were going to be black, though, not that peculiar prosthetic pink. He tried to describe the feelings in his leg stumps and how their proximity to his cock and balls made them such a turn on. It was a sensitive subject for Joseph too. As much as he appreciated the complicated manner in which his full arm prostheses worked, he was still sorry that he was unable to manipulate his genitals with a pair of warm stumps. He asked David not to talk about that sort of thing because it made him sad.

 

The next morning, Sunday, Joseph awoke because the bunk was shaking slightly from the motions caused by David squashing his stumps into his peg legs. Joseph left his arms off until after they had washed their faces in one of the communal bathrooms and had breakfast in the canteen baring his naked stumps. There would definitely be guests there at this time. Their reactions to seeing him eating with hooks were often amusing to watch and  guests were even more alarmed to see him without. David would help him if he asked. David caused something of a stir by appearing in shorts and T‑shirt. He reckoned he could manage a short distance without his walking stick. The small ferrules on his pegs allowed him more agility than the wide rubber bases of his stubbies. Nonetheless, the sight of a handsome young guy severely crippled and condemned to use such ugly things was enough to distress a pair of Swedish hikers to tears. In Sweden, no‑one would ever be left without the best artificial limbs available.

 

Joseph had an evening shift starting at three so in order to avoid tiring himself, the pair went for a short walk along the path behind the hostel. There were moss‑covered wooden benches, the new generation of leaves was just losing their first spring brightness and the sun cast patterns along the way. David could contain himself no longer. He admitted he had wanted to lose his legs so he could walk on stubbies and asked Joseph if his amputations were voluntary. Joseph admitted that they were and described the ridiculous way he and his friend had hidden behind a supermarket’s bins while he froze his hands in a box for fishing tackle. He giggled and the pair of them broke into laughter. David continued by revealing that he was in love with Joseph’s arms and intended to have his own hooks before summer was out. He needed only to persuade his uncle to drop him off at Jame’s place, not mentioning that he also needed to persuade him to pay for the operations and prostheses. Joseph nodded with complete understanding and insisted David ask for longer stumps. That way, he could use his own elbows instead of having to rely on a mechanical pair. He stretched his arms out and demonstrated how little freedom of movement the hinges provided. Then he leant closer and lifted his right prosthesis onto David’s shoulder in a gesture of friendship. David glanced at the steel hook next to his face and spontaneously ejaculated between his peg legs. In future years, David would remember this innocent moment with his disabled friend when he irrevocably decided to lose his hands. It was always his best memory—the warm spring sunshine, a private conversation which proved cathartic, and the pleasure of trusting in a like‑minded companion. It was life at its best. Joseph helped David slip down off the bench onto his peg legs and they walked slowly back to the hostel.

 

The staff of Obsidian were kept busy enough over the following months but they noticed that the small group of customers who had made repeat appearances earlier in the year had not contacted them again. This was a good thing. The prosthetic limbs they had supplied were obviously satisfactory and functioning reliably, something which they prided themselves on. Greg treated himself to a longer peg leg in the traditional style, having seen how stunning young David Peters looked on his own pair. His new peg was black carbon, and with a new set of longer crutches, Greg settled into the life of a legless man on a single peg leg. He felt a sense of completion within himself, a deep satisfaction at living a deviant life which brought him so much satisfaction.

 

David experienced the same joy as he became more acquainted with his peg legs. He had originally intended to progress stage by stage to longer pegs but his current pair extended a little beyond where his knees had been and were so comfortable that he decided in favour of remaining a short man. He could walk on both pegs in his remarkable style and rarely used a walking stick, unless he knew he would be having a drink later. One afternoon in August, he and his uncle were on a run from Grimsby to Hudderfield. With little regard to the possible outcome, David said he was envious of his friend Joseph, who had shown him that it was perfectly possible to adapt to handlessness in favour of hooks. Joseph drove perfectly well. Derek had taught him to drive his age‑old 2CV. Andy laughed at the boy’s admission and tentative pleading saying he had been waiting for months for David to ask for his next amputations.

 

Late in the evening back in his room, David composed an email to Jame requesting consideration for the bilateral amputation of both hands, to produce forearm stumps about two thirds their current length. He reread his message twice before pressing send, knowing it would commit him to becoming a quadruple amputee. His career as an amputee driver was already assured. All that remained was to equip himself with the necessary artificial limbs.

 

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