A Dream Come True

 A DREAM COME TRUE
    by Vik
    Harry awoke at sunrise. The weather had been mild and he had slept with
the windows open. He heard the curtains rustling in the breeze and the swifts
singing as they flew outside. There was the sound of a chick and the flapping
of many wings. He smiled. he knew it was no chick but a hawk and the wings
flapping were those of the pigeons that roosted on the roof of the building.
That hawk sure scared the dickens out of those pigeons every time it came
around.
    He had been away for nearly a month and it was good to be back in his
apartment, in familiar surroundings - his books, his computer, his sound
equipment, his dark-room and his pictures hanging on the wall. Even though he
was single he had a large flat with a queen-size bed in the bedroom and a
hide-a-bed couch in the guest room.
    He yawned, stretched and got up. Putting on his house robe he went to the
kitchen. He got out a pitcher, filled it with milk and put it in the
microwave. Setting it for 3 minutes at full power he turned it on. Then he put
coffee and water in the percolator and turned it on too. While the coffee
percolated he pulled a large breakfast cup and saucer, a bowl and two spoons
from a cupboard and set them on the counter. He picked up the bowl and placed
it on top of the saucer, then he placed the spoons inside the bowl and took
the whole lot to the dining room table. From the sideboard he removed a box of
cereal and placed it beside the bowl. Then he returned to the kitchen. The
microwave had stopped. He opened the door, picked up the jar and without
shutting the door took it to the dining room table.
    The coffee took a little longer to percolate so he went to the table
between the two recliners in the living room, picked up the remote and turned
the TV on. He switched to the news channel, placed the remote beside the bowl
and went to the kitchen. Noticing that he had left the microwave's door open
he pushed it shut. The coffee was ready. First he pulled out the basket
halfway so that the grounds would cool before they went into the waste bin and
then he poured the coffee into the cup. He picked it up, went to the dining
room table and sat down to have breakfast.
    "Things take a little longer now," he thought. "Normally I would have
waited for the milk and the coffee to be ready, poured the coffee and put all
the dishes, cutlery, milk jar and cup full of coffee on a tray and brought the
whole shebang to the table in one trip. I would have also poured me a glass of
orange juice but today it was too much trouble.
    "Well, I've begun a new life. I wanted a change and I've got it.
Everything else is going to be different too."
    Placing some cereal on the bowl he poured milk over it and into the coffee
cup. Opening the sugar bowl he spooned out some sugar, poured it into his caf
au lait and stirred it. Then, feeling quite happy with himself, he had
breakfast while he watched the news. Afterward he smoked a cigarette enjoying
the privilege he had been denied for two weeks.
    He knew that the daily would come in at eight o'clock; he decided that she
could do the dishes so he left them on the table, just putting away the
cereal. He stubbed out the cigarette on the ashtray and very carefully stood
up. He had left his crutch in the corner between the toaster and the wall. He
picked it up and tucked the stump of his left leg between the staves, resting
it on the hand grip. Lovingly snuggling the crutch under his armpit he held it
by the front stave and swung slowly and easily to the bathroom. Previous to
the operation he had discussed with the surgeon how long the stump was to be.
He wanted a short stump and when he gave his reasons the surgeon agreed. The
way he was walking now was the way he wanted to walk as a one-legged person,
partly controlling the movement of the crutch with the stump of his leg. He
had absolutely refused when the surgeon suggested the use of a prosthesis.
    "That would negate the whole purpose of the exercise. Don't you
understand? I want to be an amputee. I've practiced doing many things in my
'crippled' condition and I could get along very well pretending that I wasn't
complete but now I want to be really crippled. Pretending is not enough. I'm
twenty-two now and I don't want to wait any longer. I want to get along with
what's left of my body and the most I'll do is use a crutch. It's not a
question of saving money - I'm independently wealthy - it's simply a question
that I want to be a cripple and live as a cripple."
    He took off his robe, hanged it from the hook on the wall, stood in front
of the wash basin and looked at himself in the mirror. The image of the crutch
confirmed that it was not a dream, that he was indeed one-legged, Yes, his
body had been altered and he looked with satisfaction at the reflection of his
new shape.
    He looked at the shelf under the mirror. There were the deodorant, the
shaving cream, the razor and the after shave lotion that he hadn't seen or
used for a month. The tooth brush and glass were in their hanger on the wall,
The nail brush and bar of soap rested on the washbasin's concavities.
    He opened both faucets so that the water would come out warm and wet his
face. He then removed the top from the can of shaving cream and shook it.
Bending his right elbow he looked at the stump of his forearm. It was four
inches long. He smiled remembering how many times he had mentally practiced
shaving and brushing his teeth before he entered the clinic. For two weeks
previous to the amputation he had bent his fingers against the palm of his
hand and bound his fist and wrist so that they couldn't move. It wasn't quite
like having four-fifths of your forearm missing but it gave him a good idea of
what it was going to be like to have a hand gone.
    Pressing the button on the can he let the shaving cream fall on the stump
of his arm. Holding it up he picked up some of the cream with his left hand
and applied it to his face. He repeated the operation until his face was
covered with lather then he rinsed his hand under the water. He had a bit of
trouble when he tried to rinse the stump of his arm. He had to bend over to
put it under the faucet which meant releasing the crutch from under his
armpit. Holding it with the stump of his leg he leaned over and let the water
fall over the remains of his arm. He felt an enormous satisfaction as he ran
his single hand first over the stump of his arm and then of his leg, enjoying
the absence of the limbs.
    "I'm so glad I'm no longer a pretender," he thought. "Now I'm the real
thing."
    He took the razor with his left hand and started shaving. As he shaved he
reminisced over the events that had brought him to this very much desired
condition.
    *  *  *
    Ever since he could remember he had been all three: a devotee, a wannabe
and a pretender. As a child he had lived in South America for many years.
There he saw many beggars, Most of them were amputees. He remembered two girls
who begged on the street where he lived. One was missing her left leg below
the knee and her stump showed as she crutched alongside people asking for
alms. She would bend and straighten the knee of the amputated leg at each step
as if she were really walking on it The other girl was the one he really
liked. She was a pretty thing who was also missing her left leg. She wore a
wide-skirted dress and her stump didn't show so he couldn't tell how long it
was or whether she had a stump at all. Then one day he saw her leaning with
her back against the wall of a church. She was holding her crutch in front of
her and the stump bulged through her skirt because she was resting it between
the staves. It reached almost to her knee.
    One day she approached him to ask for money as was her wont. For some
reason he noticed something odd in the girl. He was flustered and refused
although he had given her alms before. The girl kept on crutching beside him,
insisting. At times she would be practically walking backwards in front of him
and slowing down, trying to stop him. He had the idea that the girl wanted
more than a few cents. He was fifteen and she must have been about his age.
The image in his mind of the stump drove him crazy. He wanted desperately to
talk with her, to make love to her but he had always been bashful with girls
and didn't know how to approach her. His training had been that one didn't mix
with the lower classes and he would have had a hard time explaining a
prolonged absence from home.
    He kept on giving alms to the girls but the one with the leg missing above
the knee never insisted again.
    There was another girl, not a beggar but a woman of about twenty-five, who
also walked with a crutch. He deduced she lived close to his home because he
ran into her every so often on the street. She must have had polio as a child
or been born with a defect because her left leg was pencil-thin and about two
feet shorter than her right leg. It hung limply from her hip ("Like wet
spaghetti," he thought) and even though the foot hung pointing down from the
ankle there were still about 18 inches of empty space between the toes and the
sidewalk. She wore high-heeled shoes and stockings on both legs and he thought
that she would have to buy pairs of stockings and shoes of different sizes.
The sole of the shoe on the crippled foot was always immaculately clean since
she never set the foot on the ground. She wore a coat that reached down to her
good knee and he suspected that she did so in order to hide the crutch.
    She had a most elegant way of walking evidently acquired from many years
of practice. Her right leg was very well muscled and she walked with a slow,
sensuous sway that charmed him. Her left leg swung aimlessly about because she
had no control over it. It was almost as if she had been born with a crutch in
her hand. Very probably she had never been able to walk normally on two legs.
He would follow her for a block or two when he was on his way home from school
admiring how naturally she used her crutch  or slow down his walk when he saw
her coming head on but at twenty-five or so the age difference was too great
and he never approached her.
    Since he was ten he had pretended to be either one-legged or legless,
mostly the latter. When his parents were away visiting friends in the evening
he would bend either one or both legs and tuck them into his pajama legs
knee-first. Then he would pull up the waist band and tie the cord, Finally he
would roll up the legs around his thighs and shins so that the knees stuck
out, looking like he had stumps instead of legs. Sitting on his bed he would
hold up his hand and say, "Alms for this poor legless beggar, please. Alms for
this poor legless cripple."
    Not content with this he would slide down the side of the bed and crawl on
all fours around the floor of his bedroom. He thrilled at the feeling of not
having any legs and crawling on his hands and "stumps". Sometimes he would
swing his body between his arms, humping along and landing on his butt at
every "step". The best part came when he wanted to climb back on the bed. He
became very adept at hoisting himself with his hands on the edge of the bed
and then swinging first one "stump" and then the other over the edge.
    One evening when he was about eleven he had been feeling poorly. His
parents had an engagement so they asked the maid to look in on him
occasionally. He was already in bed when they left and as soon as they did he
performed his "legless" act. Half an hour later the maid entered the room to
see how he felt. He was sitting on the bed and when the maid looked in he
showed her his "stumps".
    "Look, Mar a," he said. "My legs have been cut off!"
    "God protect you, child!" the maid said, bringing her hands to her face.
She left his room and didn't look in on him again.
    He devised another way of pretending he was crippled. His parents were
used to the very long baths that he liked to take so he knew he would be left
in peace while he was in the bathroom. He had the idea one day to sit on the
floor and cross his left leg over the right one. He half bent his right knee,
crossed the left leg over the right and tucked his left foot so that it rested
against the left side of his right leg, just above the ankle. Then he twisted
his waist to the left and leaned with both hands on the floor.  Unable to walk
with his legs twisted one about the other he dragged himself all over the tile
floor resting on his hands, his left hip and thigh, and the inside of his
right foot.
    Another trick he pulled in the bathroom when his parents were away was to
bend his right arm and put it through the sleeve of a short-sleeved shirt. He
would then put his left arm through the other sleeve and button up the shirt.
To diminish the bulge at the right shoulder he would cup his hand around it.
Looking in the mirror and using a little imagination it looked as if his arm
had been amputated at the elbow. He would raise it and lower it and jiggle it
slightly as he had seen the stumps of real amputees do.
    When he was sixteen his parents left once more for the evening. They had a
different maid now and she was very sexy. He walked into her room and started
chatting her up. They sat on the edge of her bed. She tucked one leg under
her, hitched up her skirt and started to unroll the stocking very slowly. He
looked down at her leg and it looked like it had been cut off at the knee,
just as he pretended his legs were cut off. She was raising and lowering her
other leg enhancing the illusion that she was one-legged. He had a tremendous
erection and put his hand on the girl's knee pretending it was her stump. Just
then his parents walked in, having returned from visiting their friends, and
caught them in the act. He got a good chewing out and the maid was fired.
    Whether he was pretending to be legless or one-armed there was always a
time when he cupped the "stump" of his arm with his hand or the "stumps" of
his legs with both hands, delighting in the feeling that his arm or legs were
incomplete and that the hand or hands by rights had no business being where
they were. He started another pretense. He would tuck his legs inside his
pajama trousers and then put the jacket on so that it covered his right arm.
He would put his hand behind him so that it was held in place by the trousers'
cord. Now he was not only legless but strictly one-armed with not the ghost of
a stump hanging from his right shoulder and the sleeve hanging empty as he
crawled on the floor. Crawling on his two "stumps" and his left hand he would
watch that empty sleeve flapping about and have an orgasm.
    When he had just turned seventeen he graduated from high school and his
father sent him to college in the States. His father insisted that he live in
a dorm so the times of pretending were over. However he still day-dreamed of
being an amputee. He imagined all sorts of combinations. One leg off below or
above the knee, both legs off with one below and one above the knee or both
legs off above the knee. He wanted stumps so he did not day-dream about one or
both legs disarticulated at the hip. In his day-dreams there were also images
of beautiful girls similarly crippled and they would make love in the most
outlandish positions because of their missing limbs.
    The first week he saw a coed with her left arm amputated at the elbow. He
was disappointed because she wore a white stump sock but loved to watch her
walk with her stump jiggling at each step.
    During his four years at college he met and dated several girls and had
his normal share of sex but amputee girls were very hard to find although he
kept looking for them. In that sense he missed his years in South America. He
wanted to go back, look for the one-legged beggar girl and make love to her.
However his parents had moved to a different country and he couldn't find a
good excuse to go back where the girl was.
    He was a sophomore when one day he found himself drinking beer with some
friends at a night club. A bunch of girls was sitting at the next table. One
of them was sitting with her back to them but she turned her head sideways and
he saw in spite of the dim light that she was beautiful. He got up and asked
her to dance but the girl refused. He behaved like a gentleman and didn't
insist. He returned to his table and resumed the chat with his friends.
Somebody at the girls' table spilled a drink and the lovely girl stood up to
avoid having the liquid fall on her lap. It was then he saw that the girl's
right arm had been amputated halfway between the shoulder and the elbow. She
was wearing short sleeves and the stump was beautiful - rounded where the arm
ended and with a  flat tip about half the diameter of the arm. He thought that
maybe the girl had refused to dance with him because she didn't want to give
anybody any unpleasant surprises. In the low light of the room he had not
noticed her missing arm when he asked her to dance. Then he thought that maybe
the girl didn't really want to dance. He was afraid of being rejected again so
he kept his seat.
    He was twenty-one in his senior year. His grandfather had set up a trust
fund in his name when he was born and now he was given control of the money.
To celebrate he was having tea with a girl when across the room he noticed a
rather fat girl sitting at another table. She had a very pretty face but the
rolls of fat disgusted him. She was holding her tea cup with her right hand
and her left hand rested on her lap. Then she lifted her left arm to reach for
her purse and he noticed that the forearm ended a few inches below the elbow.
She pushed her purse towards her with the stump until she could reach it with
her right hand. She reached into the purse while holding it open with the
stump and pulled out a wallet. She opened it and pulled out some bills. The
performance had made him forget that she was fat and to his dismay he realized
that she was about to pay her bill and leave.
    She did pay her bill. It was late autumn and the weather was getting
rather chilly. She pulled out a single glove from her purse and using her
stump with great dexterity she put it on her right hand.
    He decided he had to meet her. He talked to Val whom he knew could get the
information he wanted for him, and she wrangled an introduction. The one-armed
girl's name was Dot.
    They had several dates. As Dot realized that they liked each other she
started losing weight and soon became quite presentable. Eventually she turned
out to have a lovely body. Her face which had been pretty turned beautiful as
soon as she lost her double chin and her cheeks hollowed out a little. She had
a car and she showed him her driver's license with "Restricted to driving cars
with automatic drive only" stamped on it.
    One day they were having drinks at a bar and he felt confident enough to
hold her hand. He held it for so long that at last she said, "May I have my
hand back, please?"
    She wanted to have another drink from her glass.
    He learned that she worked for the department store that ran the tea room
where he had first seen her. She was of an artistic bent and designed the
windows and the special exhibitions. Her hobby was making jewelry and she
showed him some pieces of her own making. He was astonished at the fine work
that it entailed and asked how she could do it with only one hand.
    "I was born like this," she said simply, holding up her stump.
    Just before Graduation Day they went to a rodeo. While they were roping
and tying the calves he asked her whether she would rather go to dinner at one
restaurant or another.
    "I don't care," she answered. "You choose."
    "Let's leave it to luck," he said, pulling out a coin from his pocket.
"Heads the first one, tails the other."
    He flipped the coin in the air but it arced towards her. She was seated to
his right. He reached over with his left hand but missed catching the coin.
Instead his hand fell on her stump. He left it there for a moment. She looked
at him and giggled. Then she picked up the coin and said, "Here it is. Heads!"
    He took the coin and put it in his pocket. Without really thinking what he
was doing he raised his right forearm from the armrest between them and patted
it with his left hand.
    He said, "Come here, lass."
    She looked at him and smiled shyly and rested her stump on the armrest. He
lowered his arm so that the elbow was in the air next to her and his hand was
resting on the front part of the armrest. He cupped her stump and gently
caressed it. She looked at him tenderly and rested her head on his shoulder.
    Graduation Day arrived and she was there to see him proudly flick the
tassel on his cap from right to left.
    That night they went out to celebrate and he asked her to marry him.
    She was doubtful.
    "I don't know, darling. All my life I've thought that I wanted to marry a
one-armed man, one who would understand exactly how I feel about my condition.
You're the perfect lover but you have too perfect a body to be my perfect
husband."
    His desire to be an amputee which had lain dormant most of the time during
his last college years was exacerbated. So was his devotee aspect. To be no
longer a wannabe or a pretender! He, an amputee, marrying a lovely amputee!
    He answered, "I'm perfectly willing to lose a hand for you but I'll ask
for something in return. You don't know what it's like to lose a limb because
you never had that hand. You grew up one-handed. I'll be losing a hand after
having had two all my life. You want me to understand you but I also want you
to understand me. So I must ask you to lose a limb as well. That way each one
of us will know exactly how the other one feels. I don't think you want to
lose your only hand so that leaves one of your legs. Since at least part of
the time you'll be needing to use a crutch I suggest that you have your right
leg amputated. That way you'll be able to handle the crutch on the side that
your leg is missing. Losing both an arm and a leg on the same side can be very
inconvenient."
    She smiled, "Losing a limb is always inconvenient but I agree with you
that losing a leg on the same side as my missing hand would be very
inconvenient.
    "However if I agreed to have my right leg amputated that would leave me
with two missing limbs while you would be missing only one. Our problems would
once again be different. To make sure we understand each other, would you
agree to have a leg amputated as well?"
    He felt more aroused than ever. The idea of making love to a one-armed,
one-legged girl while he himself was similarly crippled was immensely
seductive. More important, he was comfortable with the girl. She had a good
sense of humor and was fun to be with. Their tastes and scales of values had
very much in common. They were good friends. He had fallen in love with her.
It wouldn't be such a tremendous sacrifice to give up a leg as well as an arm
for her sake.
    "Agreed. Tell you what. Since you'll be missing your left arm and right
leg I'll have my right arm amputated just like yours and my left leg severed.
How's that?"
    "Suits me fine," she said as she caressed the back of his neck with the
stump of her arm.
    She ran her hand through his hair and said, "There are just two details
that remain to be fixed."
    "Which are?"
    "We already know where you're going to lose your right arm and that we are
going to lose a leg each. Question: at which level are you going to have your
leg amputated and at which level am I going to have my leg amputated?"
    "During the last summer vacation I saw a tall, slim one-legged blonde. She
was dressed in a very tight fitting dress. Her right leg was almost totally
missing. The stump was very short and as she crutched along the stump was
resting on the hand rest. She held the crutch by the front stave. Since the
dress was so tight it tented and I could see how her stump moved back and
forth as she moved the crutch. I thought it was tremendously sexy."
    "Fine. Now we know how you want to lose your leg. What about mine? I'm not
sure whether I want a long or a short stump. I don't even know whether I want
my leg amputated above or below the knee. What do you think?"
    "Since the stump of my arm is going to be like yours perhaps the stump of
your leg ought to be like mine. Then we would each be the mirror image of the
other - as far as amputations go, that is."
    She said with a serious mien, "One last thing. I have never used a
prosthesis. I've always managed with my single hand and my stump. It's not
possible to walk or stand up any length of time without some sort of aid.
We'll limit it to a crutch - one crutch only. Not two crutches. We could
handle them with our stumps below the elbow but no; just one crutch. No
artificial legs, not even peg legs. Agreed?"
    He was getting to love the girl more and more.
    "You're a woman after my own heart. And no hooks or artificial arms. Just
one leg, one arm and one crutch each plus whatever use we can make of our
stumps."
    She smiled wickedly.
    "We'll make a splendid couple. You like amputee girls and you want to be
an amputee too, don't you?"
    "Is it that very obvious?"
    "To me it has been ever since we met. When Val introduced us you couldn't
keep your eyes away from my stump. I used it and waved it about just a bit
more than necessary and you nearly had an orgasm. I was fat then so it
couldn't have been my good looks.
    "We're very much alike, you know. I was born without my hand and I've
always wanted to be one-legged as well. When I was a young girl I would bend
my right leg and bind it in place. I would hop about or crawl on my hand, the
real stump of my arm, one knee and the 'stump' of my leg.
    "I fell down from a fence and broke my right leg deliberately so that I
could have a crutch to walk with while it healed. Of course I kept it
afterward. From then on every time I was alone I would pretend that my right
leg ended at the knee and I would walk about using the crutch. I wanted so
badly to be dependent on that crutch. I wanted it to be my life-long
companion. I would look at myself in the mirror and think 'You're not only
one-armed, you're also one-legged.' Of course the stump of my arm was real but
I loved to caress the 'stump' of my leg with my real stump. I learned to bend
over far enough so that I could rub the tip of my stump against the knee which
to my mind was the tip of the 'leg stump'. I'm getting all wet just thinking
that someday I'll be able to do it for real. I never showed it to you but I
have another crutch at home. The old one became too short when I grew up. When
I'm alone at home I spend a lot of time with my leg bound up. I bought a pair
of baggy blue denims and cut off the right leg above the knee. When I tie up
my leg and wear them I look for all the world like a one-armed  (which I am)
and one-legged (which I'm not) woman.
    "Did you ever play games like that when you were a child?"
    "Very often. Sometimes I pretended to be one-legged or one-armed but most
of the time I pretended to be legless. A few times I even pretended I was
legless and one-armed. But most of the time I sat admiring my knees or
crawling on them. They looked like real stumps.
    "I'm afraid I'm not very good at using a crutch. Could you give me some
pointers before I lose my leg?"
    "I'd be delighted to. Tell you what. To-morrow you and I will go to the
drugstore and buy a crutch for you. Also some baggy blue denims and a very
wide leather belt. I have to go because I have to advise you on the right size
for the crutch. Then you can move in with me. I have to go to work but we'll
spend every spare moment of my time practicing walking with our crutches."
    "Look, I have more money than I know what to do with. You could quit your
job and we could spend all our time practicing. We would be ready sooner that
way. I could also get some elastic bandages, a wrist splint and adhesive tape
at the drugstore. I could fold the fingers of my right hand flat against the
palm with the thumb in front of the second knuckle of the index finger.
Between you and me we could bandage the hand and the splint up to about
halfway up my forearm. Then we could tape over the whole shebang. It won't be
exactly like having my arm amputated a few inches below the elbow but it'll
give me a fair idea of how to handle myself with only one hand.
    "That way we'll both learn how to be one-legged and one-armed before we
have our limbs amputated."
    "Smart boy," she said and kissed him passionately.
    The following day he packed his clothes and drove to her house. He picked
her up and drove her to the store where she resigned her job. He waited for
her outside and when she came out they went to the drugstore. Then they went
to the supermarket and stocked up on food, drinks, soap and all sorts of
household articles. Last they bought his baggy blue denims and a very wide,
flat belt. They went to her home and she locked the door.
    "All right, it's time to practice," she said. "You have twice as much to
learn as I do. I have to learn only how to be one-legged and I've practiced it
quite a lot. So we'll begin with you. Go into the bathroom, take a good shower
and come out in your shorts. Then we'll fix you up."
    He did as he was told and when he entered the bedroom she had everything
laid out on the bed plus a tape measure and a pair of scissors.
    "Well start with the easy part first," she told him.
    She measured the length of his thigh and cut off the left leg of the blue
denims four inches above the knee.
    "You're going to have to do and undo the strap around your leg with one
hand only so we might as well put your hand out of commission from the
beginning."
    She took the splint and taped one end to his hand. She taped the other end
to his forearm. Then she wrapped a strip of tape just above his wrist.
    "Try to bend your wrist," she ordered.
    He tried. "I can't," he answered.
    "Good. Now bend your fingers and your thumb the way you said."
    He did so. She took the elastic bandage and with her hand and the stump of
her arm she bound first the fingers, then the hand and finally the wrist and
forearm to where the splint ended, about seven inches from the elbow. He was
amazed at how tightly she had wound the bandage with only one hand.
    "Try to move your fingers."
    Again, he couldn't.
    "Fine. Elastic bandages tend to loosen up and if they do they slip. We'll
hold the bandage in place with the tape."
    She taped the bandage, again very tightly.
    He asked, "Are you sure you're not going to cut the circulation to the
arm?"
    She looked deep into his eyes.
    "Does it really matter?"
    He bent his elbow and looked at his bandaged arm. The hand was
indistinguishable from the forearm. It just looked like he had a very long
stump. He realized that putting on his shorts after the shower had been the
last thing he would ever do with both hands.
    He shrugged. "No, I suppose not," he said.
    "O.K. Let's start on the leg. This will only take a few minutes. Let's
adjust the crutch to your height. Put your socks and shoes on and stand up."
    He put on his socks using just his left hand. His shoes were the moccasin
type so he had no trouble with shoe laces. He stood up.
    She picked up the crutch and held it vertically under his left armpit.
    "Too short," she said.
    He said sarcastically, "I thought you were going to advise me on how to
buy a crutch of the proper length. What do we do now, go and change it?"
    She laughed.
    "No, silly. Crutches are adjustable in height within certain limits.
You're six feet tall. I bought a crutch that could be adjusted for people who
measure from five feet nine to six feet three inches. See where the staves
join the center post? The three parts are joined by two screws that go from
the front to the back of the crutch. The screws are held in place by butterfly
nuts and pressure washers. The center post is perforated along a great part of
its length. All I have to do is remove the screws, slide the center post up or
down and replace the screws, washers and nuts."
    She laid the crutch on her lap and very dexterously adjusted it to his
height. It only took a minute, He couldn't get over his amazement at how well
she managed with her single hand.
    "One more adjustment," she said.
    She again placed the crutch vertically under his arm pit.
    "Let your arm drop naturally," she commanded.
    She took a look at his knuckles and the hand grip. They were at the same
level.
    "No adjustment necessary. Time to 'chop off' your leg"
    She ordered him to take off his shoes and socks and sit on the edge of the
bed.
    "Now bend your leg under you and place the belt under your ankle with the
buckle end to your left and close to the ankle."
    "Aren't you going to help me do this? I'm one-handed now, you know."
    "Only when it's absolutely necessary. You have to learn how to be both
one-legged and one-handed. So get going!"
    "You're a hard-driving teacher."
    "Only because I love you, darling. Amputations are definitive. There's no
turning back afterwards. Not many people are as lucky as we to practice being
limbless before they really are."
    He was mollified.
    He placed the belt as she had told him to and brought the free end around
and over his thigh. He inserted the end through the buckle and pulled tight.
The buckle's pin was way beyond where the perforations ended.
    "You'll have to start again. Wind the belt around your ankle first and
then around your thigh."
    The pin was close to the perforations but if he fastened the belt it would
be too lose.
    "Hang on a minute, my love."
    She picked up the scissors she had used to cut off the leg of his blue
denims. He pulled on the belt as tight as he could and with the point of one
of the blades she punched a hole through it at the proper point.
    He pushed the pin through the hole wishing he had his right hand to help.
It finally went in. He raised his thigh and felt his foot moving under him but
his knee did not move. He remembered his days as a child when he tucked his
bent legs into his pajama trousers. Only this time he was not play-acting. He
was getting ready to have his leg removed.
    "'Amputation' and 'stump' are such sexy words," he thought.
    He put on the blue denims. At least he could lean on the "stump" of his
right hand while he did it. He understood then why they had to be baggy. His
foot made a lump behind him and it would have been difficult to move the
'stump' of his leg if the seat had been tight. He drew up the zipper and put
on his right shoe and sock. His left knee stuck out of the cut-off leg of the
pants just like it had out of his rolled-up pajama leg many years ago, looking
like a stump.
    She handed him his crutch.
    "All right. Now stand up and start walking."
    "That's all there is too it, huh? Just stand up and start walking!"
    "No, my love, that's where you begin. There's much more to it. You'll have
to learn how to go up and down steps, to pull out your wallet and pay the
butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker and then you'll have to learn how
to carry home everything they sold you. You'll have to learn how to shower and
go to the head with only one arm and one leg. You'll have trouble knotting
your tie, pouring yourself a glass of water and a zillion other things. So
that's not all there is to it. Now get up and walk."
    He tried to stand up but lost his balance and fell back on the bed. He
tried again, leaning on the "stump" of his arm and managed to stand up. He
couldn't feel the floor with his left foot. He looked down and saw his leg
ending at the knee. He raised the thigh but no more leg could be seen. Only
the knee showed below the cut-off leg of the denims, looking for all the world
like a stump. She was the perfect pretender and with her skill she had made
him feel like his leg had really been cut off.
    As he did when he was a child he raised his hand to beg for alms. He had
always done it with his right hand and he did it again, raising his bandaged
"stump". He also raised his bent leg so that the knee showed very clearly. He
swung the 'stump' of his leg in an up and down arc from the horizontal to
where he couldn't lift it any longer.
    "Alms for this poor beggar boy, kind madam. Alms for this one-legged,
one-handed boy. Look at me, madam. I have only one arm. I have only one leg.
Look at my stumps. I can't work. Alms please!"
    She laughed so hard she had to sit on the bed with tears in her eyes. She
wiped them away with the stump of her arm.
    He waved about both "stumps" enjoying the delightful feeling of
crippledness. The crutch, replacing his shortened leg, felt wonderful under
his arm. The sense that his foot could not touch the floor - that there was
this huge empty space where his leg should have been - excited him no end. He
wanted the feeling to be real, permanent.
    "You'll make a wonderful cripple! The arm does look a little made up but
your leg looks like it was really cut off at the knee. Are you sure you want
your leg amputated so high?"
    "Yes my love. With a long stump I wouldn't be able to place it on the hand
grip and move the crutch with it. You have no idea what a sexy feeling it is.
Besides we'll wear very short shorts when the weather is warm enough so that
our stumps will remain in sight. After all showing off your stumps is one of
the charms of being an amputee."
    She too was excited by the idea of becoming one-legged.
    "All right, time to start practicing. You're leaning to your left on your
crutch. It's not vertical. Remember that the crutch replaces your leg. You
wouldn't walk with your leg sticking out at the side. Straighten up and place
the tip of the crutch where the heel of your foot should be. From now on it is
going to be the heel of your foot."
    He had a sense that it wasn't only putting on his shorts that would be the
last thing he had done with two hands. He now understood that he would never
again walk on two legs.
    "I am not going to release my leg until its cut off. Is that it?"
    "Yes. And when I tie up my leg it too will stay that way. From now on you
and I are one-legged and one-armed. There will be a transition from the
pretend to the real situation and then you, I and our stumps will live happily
ever after."
    "And how will that transition come about? We have to make arrangements for
the operations. Are we going to go out in the street looking like this?"
    "The arrangements have already been made, my love. After you went home
last night I called a friend of mine at the clinic. All we have to do is make
a phone call when we're ready and they'll send an ambulance to pick us up.
Your surgeon will be a gorgeous one-armed blonde and mine will be an extremely
handsome one-legged guy."
    The idea of being maimed by a beautiful amputee struck him as delightful.
Then he thought twice about it. He frowned, "Are you sure it's O.K. to have a
surgical operation done by an amputee?"
    "Don't worry. These people are good. They've been practicing for years."
    "You do think of everything, don't you?"
    'When I have the chance to make my dream of being one-legged come true and
to boot I can catch a dreamboat like you who is going to lose an arm and a leg
for both our sakes I try to be as thorough as possible.
    "Now start walking. You'll have to practice and practice and I'm eager to
get on with our plan. At first you'll take short steps, remembering to keep
your crutch always vertical within a plane parallel to your direction of
movement. In other words, move it backwards and forwards but try not to move
it sideways unless you're about to lose your balance. Now move the tip of the
crutch forward about twelve inches, lean on it with both your armpit and your
hand and bring your foot to a few inches in front of the tip. Try to bear as
much of your weight as you can on the hand and leave the rest to the arm pit."
    Her instructions had been very precise. He did as he was told and to his
surprise he moved supply to a position a short distance in front of where he
had been standing. The "stump" of his leg swung forward as he moved the crutch
and backward as he moved his leg.
    "That's the idea. The crutch replaces the leg so it and the stump must
move together in the same direction. It's a bit awkward at first because with
those unfortunate two-legged people the arm on the same side moves backward as
the leg moves forward and vice-versa. You now have to move your arm, the
crutch and the stump in the same direction all the time. You'll get used to it
shortly."
    He started crutching, hesitantly at first, around the room. Soon he was
taking longer steps. He delighted in walking with one leg and a crutch.
    "You're doing great," she said. "Now go out to the living room. There's
more space there for you to practice. I'll join you shortly."
    He crutched all around the living room. He went around the sofa. He leaned
over and tried to turn a table lamp on and off with his right hand. The
bandaged "stump" prevented him from using it, reminding him he was not
supposed to have a right hand. He went to the window, shut it and lifted it
open again.
    As he finished raising the window he heard a thumping sound behind him. He
turned around and there she was, crutching toward him. The illusion of
one-leggedness was perfect. The "stump" of her leg peeped enticingly from the
bottom of the right leg of the blue denims and swayed in perfect unison with
the crutch. She was wearing an espadrille on her left foot with the ribbons
tied up around her slim ankle. A very tight white blouse with short sleeves
and an astonishing d colletage completed the ensemble. The stump of her arm
which was normally very quiescent waved about a little every time she brought
her leg forward. She crutched slowly, swaying her body in a sensual manner at
each step just like he remembered that girl with the crippled leg.
    And the crutch! What a crutch! It was not an ordinary aluminum affair like
they have in the hospitals. This one was made of red oak with very thin
staves. The hand grip and the saddle were covered with the finest Cordovan
leather. The wood had been varnished and it gleamed in the light. There was no
adjustable center post, no nuts and bolts. The two staves melded gently into a
thicker one twelve inches before they reached the floor. The crutch had been
made to order.
    He was dazzled. If this was what she looked liked pretending he couldn't
imagine what she would look like after she had her leg amputated.
    "You like?" she asked with a brilliant smile.
    "I... I don't know what to say. Seeing you has left me speechless."
    "I'm glad you approve."
    She pointed at the crutch with the stump of her arm and said, "I have a
collection of these; eight in all. There's another model. It's finished in
shiny black enamel. I have four of each: for flat soles, one, two and three
inch heels. I thought of having two more made to be used with four inch heels
but I decided it would be too dangerous since I can use only one crutch to
walk with.
    "As you can see, I've been pretending for a long time."
    He thanked his gods that he had met such a charming, delightful woman.
    They spent the rest of the day crutching about her house. At one point she
teasingly dared him to catch her. He tried to but she was much better than he
at using a crutch and ran circles around him.
    "Not fair!" he said. "You've had years of practice!"
    She crutched up to him, put the stump of her arm around his neck and
kissed him. The combination of a sexy crippled girl kissing him while he
himself was on a crutch with a useless right hand was too much. He tried to
pick her up to take her to the bedroom. His crutch was in the way and he
tossed it off to one side.
    He was strong enough to pick her up while she screamed, "Please don't,
sweetheart, well fall!"
    Fall they did. He had forgotten about his "missing" leg and when he tried
to take a step with it they both came tumbling down. He managed to fall so
that she came down on top of him.
    "Are you all right?" she asked.
    "Yes, I'm fine. A bit embarrassed but fine," he answered. "Are you O.K.?"
    "I had a comfy cushion to fall on," she said with a smile.
    He put his hand on her breast and gently squeezed the nipple. She was not
wearing a bra under the blouse.
    "As long as we're down here why don't we take advantage of the situation?"
    "Suits me fine," she answered and started unbuttoning her blouse.
    They made love for an hour, at the end of which both were exhausted.
Making love when both partners have a leg tied behind them does not make it
easy to find a comfortable position.
    With the ease of long practice she picked up her crutch and stood up. He
was still on the floor and she stretched out the stump of her arm.
    "Place your crutch upright against the wall."
    He did so.
    "Now hold on to my stump so that you can get up."
    While he was still teetering on one leg she pulled her stump away from his
hand. He hopped to the wall and gratefully snuggled his crutch under his arm.
    "I told you it was always inconvenient to lose a limb. We have, for all
practical purposes, lost two."
    "I don't care how inconvenient it gets. I really want to lose them!"
    "Well, the sooner you learn how to get along with one leg and one hand the
sooner we'll make our dream come true. Come on, let's practice some more."
    By supper time he was getting to be quite good with his crutch. They were
both quite hungry from the exercise.
    "Time to cook dinner," she said.
    "Cook? How?"
    "We'll make it easy to-night. We'll heat some TV dinners and eat at the
counter. There's apple pie for desert. There are plates and cutlery in that
cupboard," she said pointing with her stump. "You get them and place them on
the counter. In the meantime I'll put the dinners in the microwave and slice
the pie."
    The cupboard was over the counter. He managed to open the door without
dropping his crutch. There was a stack of plates in the middle, a cutlery tray
to the left and several glasses to the right. He tried to pick up a couple of
plates but his crutch started to fall over. He thought that if he were already
missing his leg he would be able to control the crutch with the stump. He
tried the next best thing. He pulled the crutch away from him and opening up
his bent leg he tried to thrust the knee between the staves. He was able to
introduce about three inches of his "stump". It was enough. The crutch was
away from his body and he was supporting it instead of the other way around
but by now he felt stable enough standing on one leg.
    He picked up two dinner plates at a time and set them on the counter.
There followed two dessert plates. He placed one to the left of each dinner
plate. Then he brought down two glasses. He lowered the cutlery tray and
placed a knife, fork and spoon beside each dinner plate. He ended by placing
the tray back on the shelf and shutting the cupboard door.
    Retrieving his crutch he called out, "Ready!"
    There was the sound of muffled applause behind him. She was clapping by
beating her hand against the stump of her arm.
    Eating with one hand was not hard for him. She, of course, had been doing
it all her life.
    Picking up the dishes and taking them to the dishwasher was another
matter. He had to carry the plates, cutlery and glasses across the kitchen.
First he went to the dishwasher and opened the door. Then he returned, picked
up the knives with his left hand and holding them and the hand bar
simultaneously took them to the dishwasher and placed them in the cutlery
basket. He picked up the forks and spoons and did the same thing. He went back
to the counter and contemplated the plates and glasses. Finally he took one of
the plates and tucked it between the "stump" of his right arm and his body.
There were remains of food on the plate and he dirtied his shirt. He shrugged
in resignation.
    "It's always inconvenient," he thought. "But what a small price to pay for
achieving a life-long ambition."
    He finished carrying the other plate and the glasses to the dishwasher,
poured some dishwasher liquid into the bin, shut the door and turned the
machine on.
    She was in the living room, watching the TV, absent-mindedly running her
right hand over the "stump" of her left leg. She too was wishing that the
training period would be over soon so that they could both be double amputees
and enjoy their lives as they wanted to.
    He crutched in saying, "It's been a long day. I'm going to hit the hay so
hard it's going to hit me back!"
    "I'm right with you," she answered.
    She turned off the TV and stood up. They crutched to the bedroom side by
side.
    Undressing was a bit difficult for him but not for her. When he finally
lay on the bed he tried to do so on his back. His left foot got in the way and
he turned to sleep on his right side. She was facing him and having had
previous experience of sleeping with her leg tied up she lay on her left side.
She touched his leg "stump" with hers.
    "My stump loves your stump," she said in a low voice.
    He answered, "All my stumps love all your stumps."
    They went to sleep in each other's arms, whether complete, incomplete,
bound or free.
    They slept late the following morning. When he opened his eyes she was
already awake, looking at him tenderly.
    Suddenly he sat up with a start.
    "What is it? What's the matter", she asked.
    "My leg. I can feel it to the knee but I can't feel anything below."
    "It's perfectly normal," she said. "The position in which you have kept
your knee for the past twenty-four hours makes it difficult for the blood to
circulate. Also your sciatic nerve is under pressure. The combination makes
your leg numb. Actually this is very good because it enhances the realism of
your 'one-leggedness.' From now on you'll feel as if the leg had been really
cut off at the knee. My leg is numb too. I walked by resting my  'stump' on
the edge of the bed and it felt like I had a real stump."
    "But doesn't it damage the leg?"
    She gave him the same answer she had given him on the previous day when
she had bandaged his arm very tightly to make it look handless.
    "Does it matter?'
    "No, of course not. How silly of me to worry."
    They had breakfast. He was getting good at setting the table and taking
the dishes to the dishwater.
    "Time to shower and dress," she said.
    He showed his "handless" arm saying, "But it will get all wet."
    She replied, "Not to speak of the leather belts strapped around our legs.
When leather gets wet and dries it shrinks. Come to think of it, we could save
some money on the amputations. Wet and dry the belts until they shrink so much
they cut our legs off."
    "Sadist!" he said.
    "Not any more than you, my lord. It was you who suggested that we both
have our legs amputated."
    "Yes, but only after you suggested that I lose my arm in order to marry
you."
    "I didn't suggest it. I only said I had hoped to marry a one-armed man. It
was you who offered to have your arm amputated. Anyway, let's not quibble over
trifles. We've agreed on many things already. Let's just agree we're both
sadomasochists, O.K.? Now let's get back to the showering business."
    She crutched to the kitchen and returned with three draw-string garbage
bags held in the crook of her left elbow. They were of two different sizes.
    "This long narrow one is for your arm. the other two are for our
'amputated' legs. You put your stump in and pull the draw-string. That way
neither the bandages nor the belts will get wet."
    "You are a clever girl, aren't you?"
    "I told you, I have been practicing this for lo these many years."
    They breakfasted, showered and dressed.
    She told him, "You've gotten very good at walking on a flat surface. Now I
want you to learn how to go up and down stairs. Come with me to the garage."
    A door from the kitchen led to the garage. He was glad because he would
have felt self-conscious crutching out of doors. It wasn't the leg that
bothered him so much as the arm. The tape that covered it was white and stuck
out like a flag.
    The garage was large and her sapphire blue car left plenty of space
available between the grill and the back wall. She went to a corner and pulled
out a set of wooden steps. There were five steps at each end with a fairly
large platform in between. She pushed the contraption with the stump of her
arm to the center of the available space.
    "You don't know how to do this and I'm out of practice. I've been too lazy
to come here as often as I should to keep in practice. I'll do it first and
show you how. You stand nearby, ready to catch me if I fall."
    She crutched up to the steps at one end while he crutched over to the side
of the stairway.
    "The fundamental principle is that while you're going up the leg goes
first and then you bring your crutch up to the same level as your foot. It's
quite the opposite when you go down. The crutch goes first and then you bring
your foot down to the crutch's level. Don't do anything silly like trying to
take two steps at a time, especially when you're going down. You risk breaking
your neck. Understood?"
    "Yes, ma'am. Leg first when going up, crutch first when going down. One
step at a time."
    It made sense. The crutch was rigid while the leg could bend at the thigh,
knee and ankle. If you raised the crutch first while going up the saddle would
be higher than your armpit. If you lowered your foot first while going down
the crutch couldn't bend. It would swing like a vaulting pole and send you
tumbling down the stairs.
    She demonstrated. Her lack of practice didn't show. He admired the elegant
way in which she handled her crutch.
    He thought, "She'll make a splendid one-legged woman and with that hand
she's already missing I couldn't ask for anybody better."
    "Your turn," she said.
    The first time he went up and down the "stump" of his arm waved all over
the place. By the fifth he had brought it down to a gentle jiggle which he
thought quite appealing. He hoped when had his arm amputated the stump would
jiggle in the same way.
    They practiced and practiced. They kept thinking of new and more difficult
things to do and they found ways to do them. Not very orthodox ways at times
but they worked. They found they could do things with their "stumps" that they
had thought impossible. The bond between them grew stronger and stronger every
day.
    Two weeks to the day after he moved in with her they decided they were
ready.
    They removed the belts and unwound the tape and elastic bandage around his
arm. Their unbound legs were thin and useless below the knee from lack of
exercise. He could move his elbow but his wrist and fingers were locked in the
position in which he had placed them.
    She said, "We'll have to use our crutches to go to the clinic," and
reached for the phone.
    The doctor was a smashing redhead. The right sleeve of her white coat was
empty. Her stump reached about four inches below the shoulder. It moved now
and then and when it did the sleeve would rise and fall. He wondered if his
stump would do that as well as jiggle.
    She smiled when she saw the state of his arm and leg and said, "Welcome to
the Dream Club."
    He understood that she, too, was a voluntary amputee.
    She asked him a few questions, looked at the fundus, examined his
reflexes, took his blood pressure and pulse, measured his breathing rhythm and
ordered a clotting time analysis and an electrocardiogram.
    "I'll start operating on you in a couple of hours if all the analyses come
out well. Two hours after that you'll be as you've wanted to be for so long."
    She rubbed the stump of her arm with her hand. There was a happy look on
her face and her emerald green eyes were shining.
    She said, "You do realize, of course that this is definitive. There's no
turning back. Once your arm and leg are gone they'll be gone for the rest of
your life. We're not sea stars, you know."
    He was puzzled, "Sea stars?"
    She grinned.
    "Primitive animals have astonishing regenerative powers. You can cut off
one of a sea star's arms and it will grow back on. Not only that but the arm
will grow a new sea star. Us poor humans can only grow new skin over the stump
of a severed limb. Of course we could fit you with an artificial leg and a
hook for your new hand..."
    That was when he had blown up and told her that he was having his limbs
amputated because he wanted to be a cripple.
    The look in her green eyes and the way the stump of her arm was waving
back and forth told him that she was aching to amputate his limbs. He
understood that she was only doing her duty as a physician in trying to
dissuade him.
    "I'm sorry," he said, "It's just that I've been waiting so long for this
moment and I'd hate to lose this marvelous chance."
    "Not to worry," she answered. "If your tests come out OK, and I don't see
why they shouldn't, you'll have fulfilled your dream before the day is over."
    The nurse took a blood sample, carried him to cardiology in a wheel chair
and then took him to his room in the same wheel chair.
    Two hours after he had left the doctor's office another nurse gave him a
shot and wheeled him on a stretcher to the operating room. At the same time
another nurse was wheeling Dot, who had been assigned the room next to his, to
another operating room.
    He woke up feeling a dull pain. He couldn't quite place the origin at
first. Then he realized he was hurting in two places. He smiled with
satisfaction. Just to make sure he lifted the sheet over his right arm. Yes,
there was his arm or rather what was left of it. The stump was so short that
they had to bandage it to above the elbow. He pushed the sheet away from him
and looked at the stump of his left leg. It was precisely the length he
wanted, allowing for the thickness of the dressings. He let go a whoop of
exultation.
    A nurse heard him and rushed in thinking something was wrong.
    He apologized, "I'm sorry, ma'am. It's just that I've wanted to be
one-armed and one-legged for so long and now at last I've got my wish!"
    'Oh, you're one of those, are you?"
    "One of those? Oh, yes. There aren't many of us around, are there?"
    "Quite a few. They perform at least a dozen voluntary amputations every
week in this hospital alone. Personally I can't see what you find in it."
    "Look, ma'am, some people aren't happy because they're fat, others think
they're too thin. So they go on a diet to change their weight. Some persons
are black-haired and they dye their hair red. Others have brown eyes and they
wish they were blue so they buy colored contact lenses. I wished to have only
one arm and one leg so I had the extra limbs amputated. It's that simple.
    "Could you tell me how the girl next door is doing? The one who had her
right leg amputated?"
    "Oh, she's doing fine. She woke up fifteen minutes ago and asked for her
crutch. I never saw anybody who had just lost a leg handle a crutch with such
finesse, much less so soon after her amputation."
    "Well, yes, she was an expert before she lost her leg. She taught me how
to use my crutch. Would you hand it to me, please?"
    She walked to the corner, picked up the crutch and gave it to him. He got
out of bed and crutched to the bathroom. He regretted that the bandaged stump
of the leg would not fit through the staves. He moved it in unison with the
crutch as Dot had taught him. He was still a bit woozy from the operation but
he kept his balance. The stump of his arm jiggled a little as he walked. It
was his first experience as a real double amputee and he was enjoying it to
the hilt.
    A week later the nurse who had heard him whoop came into the room with a
wheel chair.
    She handed him what looked like an oversized diaper. It was actually
something similar to a man's jockey shorts without a slit in the front.
    "What's that?"
    "'Jungle pants.' You're supposed to wear them at PT so you don't give an
indecent show if your gown goes up above your hips."
    He put the garment on remarking how easy it was to put the stump of his
leg through the hole in the left side. Once he had it on he moved from his bed
to the wheel chair.
    "The doctor says it's time to start your PT."
    "You keep talking about PT. What is PT?"
    "Physical therapy. You have to learn how to walk with a crutch, do things
with your remaining hand and eventually be fitted out with prostheses."
    "But I don't need PT. I've been rehearsing being one-legged and one-armed
for two weeks. I can use a crutch quite well, thank you very much - you saw
that the day after my limbs were amputated - and I can get along very well
with my single hand and the stump of my arm. And I don't want artificial
limbs. My girlfriend and I decided we would get along with just one crutch
each and our stumps."
    "Look, I don't know what you and your girl decided. All I know is that
I've been ordered to take you down to PT. You can discuss the matter with your
physiotherapist and your doctor when you get there. Now sit straight on the
chair and I'll wheel you down."
    "May I take my crutch with me?"
    "They have plenty of crutches down there. Now let's go."
    He looked up over his shoulder at her, "You know, you're a gorgeous woman.
You'd look lovely if you smiled instead of frowning so much."
    The nurse arranged her hair and smiled. She looked at his stumps with a
touch of envy.
    She pushed his chair into the hall. Dot was being wheeled out at the same
time. She didn't have her crutch either.
    The two nurses walked side by side, each wheeling her patient to PT.
    Dot looked at him with a loving smile and said, "Hi, you handsome cripple!
Long time no see!"
    He waved the bandaged stump of his arm and answered, "Hi, you gorgeous
amputee! Good to see you again."
    They were both wearing hospital gowns and the drop below her right hip and
his left hip betrayed the almost absolute lack of a leg.
    They both raised their short stumps so their gowns tented and holding the
stumps of their arms with their good hands they raised them above their heads
in a sign of victory.
    The nurses left them at the PT room. A stunning blonde approached them
walking on a crutch. The stump of her left leg reached to mid-thigh and her
right hand was off an inch above the wrist. She had the same slow, sensual,
swaying way of walking that he had already seen three times before in his
life: the "polio girl" as he thought of her, the one-legged girl with the
tight dress and Dot when they pretended to be one-legged.
    She said, "Good morning. My name is Arlene and I'm your physiotherapist. I
know that finding oneself minus one or more limbs can be a great shock and
there's a tremendous feeling of helplessness. I'm here to teach you how to
adapt to your limitations and learn to live as normal a life as possible."
    Dot looked about her. Everywhere there were groups of recent amputees
doing various exercises. Each group was being led by a physiotherapist. It
struck her that the amputees had been grouped according to the types of
amputations. Three people with one leg amputated below the knee and another
above the knee were doing their exercises together. Five people with both legs
amputated above the knee were doing the same. Everywhere she looked the
members of each group had similar stumps. In a corner a tall, slim brunette
sat on a stool practicing writing with one of her feet on a sheet of paper
that lay on the floor. She was wearing a bikini. Both arms were off at the
shoulder. She had a physiotherapist for herself.
    What struck Dot was that all the physiotherapists were stunningly
beautiful girls who had suffered the same amputations as the members of the
groups they were leading.
    She said to Arlene, "How does the clinic find so many lovely girls who are
both physiotherapists and amputees?"
    Arlene smiled, "It's not hard. There are plenty of recent graduates and
the hospitals are glutted. It's not easy to find a job in PT. The clinic looks
for specific amputee physiotherapists and hires them. The idea is that a
person with a disability can best be trained by someone with the same
disability. "
    "And suppose a specific amputee is not available?"
    "Then the clinic places an ad on TV asking for able-bodied girls who are
physiotherapists and are willing to have the necessary limb or limbs
amputated. If they answer the ad and agree then the clinic pays for the
operation, all their medical expenses and their rehabilitation. See that
armless girl in the corner teaching the other girl how to write? She had her
arms amputated a year ago. She says she's never been so happy in her life."
    "And the girl she's helping?"
    "That's a sad case. She was an amateur pilot and her light plane crashed.
She's adjusting fabulously however."
    "Are you a voluntary amputee too?"
    "Yes. It's a well-kept secret but there are many more of us around, both
men and women, than people think who have had one or more limbs amputated
voluntarily. A year and a half ago I jumped at the chance to lose my hand and
my leg."
    "Are you going to take care of Harry while someone else takes care of me?
After all he's missing his right hand and left leg like you but I'm missing my
left hand and right leg."
    "Normally there'd be two of us but my opposite number resigned yesterday
to get married. So I'm going to take care of both of you."
    He said, "Look, I don't think we need very much physiotherapy. Dot was
born without her hand so she's used to being one-armed. We both practiced
being one-legged before coming here and we only requested admission when were
quite proficient with our crutches. I taped up my hand to get used to doing
things with only one arm."
    "Let me see," said Arlene. She called for two aides who wheeled Dot and
Harry beside a walking bar fastened to the wall and fetched two crutches.
    "Please hold on to the bar and stand up."
    They did so and Arlene adjusted the crutches properly. She handed them
over and said, "All right, let's see you walk."
    They raced each other around the room veering when they got to each group
of amputees. They slowed down for the last twenty yards and aped Arlene's sexy
walk.
    There was a round of thundering applause from everybody. The handless
people beat their stumps together and the two armless girls clapped with their
feet.
    "Good show!" Arlene said. "Now let's see you going up and down some
steps."
    They practically ran up and down the steps.
    Arlene said, "One more test. Do you see those burnt out light bulbs in the
ceiling? There are two folding step ladders and spare bulbs in that closet."
    She pointed to the closet with the stump of her arm and continued, "I want
you both to change a bulb each."
    Harry tried to hide his dismay. While he and Dot were crutching over to
the closet he whispered to her, "What do we do now?"
    She answered, "Easy. Just watch what I do and play follow the leader."
    She crutched over to the closet and opened the door by turning the handle
with the stump of her arm. She then leaned her crutch against the wall and
placed one of the higher rungs of the ladder on her left shoulder. Keeping the
ladder in place with the stump of her arm she retrieved her crutch and carried
the ladder under one of the bad bulbs.
    Dot then placed the ladder on the floor and spread out the legs. She
lowered the tool shelf on the ladder, went back to the closet, picked up a new
light bulb, crutched back to the ladder and placed the bulb on the shelf.
    Harry watched everything she did and, albeit a bit clumsily, replicated
her movements.
    Dot then crutched to the front of the ladder and leaning her crutch
against its side she rested the stump of her leg on the nearest rung. Holding
on to the ladder with her right hand she bent her leg, swung the foot up to
the bottom rung, straightened her leg and placed her stump  on the next rung
up. Then she slid her hand up the ladder. By repeating the operation she
climbed up. Resting the stump of her leg on the top rung she reached up,
unscrewed the burnt out bulb, placed it on the tool shelf, retrieved the new
bulb and screwed it in place.
    Harry had caught on quickly and they both came down at the same time with
triumphant grins on their faces.
    Arlene scratched the side of her head in puzzlement with her stump. She
had never seen two double amputees who had lost their limbs just a week ago
handle themselves with such skill.
    'It's lunch-time. We'll go to the coffee shop and have lunch together. The
treat  is on the house," she said.
    They served themselves cafeteria-style, pushing their trays along the
chromed railing with the stumps of their arms and holding up their plates so
the personnel could serve them. They settled on veal cutlets with peas and
mashed potatoes. They also picked up some buns and butter. For dessert they
chose apple pie a la mode.
    When they reached the cash register Arlene told the cashier to charge the
meals to the clinic. The girl pushed some keys on the cash register with her
wrists and let them through.
    Harry asked, "Are all the personnel amputees?"
    "Yes, except for some of the nurses. Sometimes we need able-bodied people
to turn the patients in bed. The clinic is dedicated to amputations and with
very few exceptions everybody who works here has to be missing at least one
hand above the wrist or one foot above the ankle. The policy of covering all
medical expenses for amputations and rehabilitation extends to anybody who is
able-bodied but wants to work here."
    Dot and Harry carried their trays to a table. Arlene had let them go first
so they wouldn't see how she did it,
    They both placed their single hand at one end of the tray and the stump of
their arm under the other. Holding their crutches tightly under their arms
they moved them with their elbows and their hips. They couldn't use the stumps
of their legs to control the movement of their crutches because the thickness
of the bandages prevented them from thrusting the stumps between the staves.
    Arlene came up behind them doing the same thing. The stump of her leg was
too long to place on the hand grip. When all three were at the table she
pushed back her hair with her hand and the stump of her arm.
    "Good show!" she said. "You two must have practiced for ages before
becoming amputees."
    Dot said, "Harry practiced being one-armed and one-legged for two weeks. I
was born without my left hand and for a long time I pretended that I was
one-legged as well.
    "You see, Harry asked me to marry him and I told him I wanted a one-armed
husband. He said he was willing to lose an arm if I lost a leg. I told him
that I would be left with two stumps to his one so he agreed to lose a leg as
well. And here we are."
    "You kids don't need very much PT. I'll teach you some exercises to keep
your stumps strong, They'll remove the stitches and the bandages in a few days
but your stumps will still be swollen. I'll show you how to wrap an elastic
bandage to bring the swelling down.
    By three in the afternoon they were back in their rooms.
    Four days later the doctors removed the dressings for the last time. The
stitches were also removed. Their stumps were still slightly swollen but they
were thin enough now so that they could rest them on the hand bars, between
the staves. They bandaged their stumps as Arlene had taught them so the
residual swelling would go down quickly.
    To their disappointment the doctors insisted that they stay for another
three days.
    "Just to make sure there's no sign of infection," the curvaceous redhead
said. She was in her office, wearing a short-sleeved blouse. The stump of her
arm wiggled when she moved in her chair and Harry found it enormously
exciting.
    They were checking out when Dot's doctor approached them on his crutch.
His left leg had been amputated a few inches below the knee.
    "Congratulations." he said. 'In another two weeks your stumps will be
absolutely beautiful."
    He unpinned his trouser leg, rolled it up and showed them his stump. There
was not the slightest sign of a scar upon it.
    "I had my leg amputated three years ago. You can expect similar results
six months for now."
    They paid their bills, called a taxi and went to her place. Each one had
taken only a small valise with a change of clothes and a toilet kit. They
carried the valises in the crook of the elbow of their missing arms.
    When the taxi driver offered to carry the valises to the door of the house
they refused his help.
    "Thank you," she said. "We may have lost our limbs only two weeks ago but
we're already expert amputees."
    "It shows. You both have a lovely way of walking," the taxi driver said.
"Between the two of you you'd make a great whole person."
    "But we're not whole and we don't want to be. As a matter of fact that's
why we each had a leg and an arm amputated."
    She didn't trouble to explain that she had only had her leg amputated and
that she had been born minus an arm.
    The cabby replied, "The more power to you. Have a good day."
    They went into her house eager to examine their stumps in private. They
had taken looks at them in the clinic but the place was full of doctors and
nurses who kept barging into their rooms at the most ungodly hours either
prescribing or administering medicines or changing their bandages and
examining the stitches for any sign of infection.
    They both spoke simultaneously.
    "Show me the stump of your arm."
    "Show me the stump of your leg."
    They laughed.
    "Ladies first," he said and extended the stump of his arm.
    She gasped, "It's beautiful! That surgeon did a splendid job even if she
had only one arm to work with. Do you know that she was right-handed and
that's precisely why she had her right arm amputated? She said it would be too
easy to lose her left arm and she wanted things to be difficult for her after
her amputation. She's considering having her left leg amputated below the
knee, not because it's easier to use an artificial leg but because she wants
the stump to show all year round. She has to use a crutch in order to do that
and she's practicing beforehand like you and I did."
    He bent his elbow and looked at the stump. It was a lovely stump, a most
satisfying stump. He tried to close and open his fist and he could see the
muscles at the tip contracting and relaxing. He remembered when he had put on
his shorts the day he moved into her house. That was the last thing he had
done with both hands. Going to the bed to have his leg bound with the belt was
the last time he had walked on both legs. It had been only four weeks ago but
somehow it seemed so far back in time.
    She cupped her hand around his stump and caressed the part below the elbow
with her stump. What they had done had joined them as partners for life with
ties more binding than those of any marriage vows. She felt full of love for
this man who had given an arm and a leg for her, and for whom she had lost a
leg.
    "I love you," she said, looking at him with glistening eyes.
    "I love you too. I love you so much that I feel I could burst."
    She tossed her head gaily. With a bright smile she said, "Your turn now.
Let's go sit on the couch and you can look at the stump of my leg."
    They sat side by side with her on the left and him on the right. Their two
leg stumps were touching. She raised her stump for him to see. He placed his
good arm around her shoulders and caressed her stump with the stump of his
right arm. She shivered at the touch of the two stumps.
    He said, "It's gorgeous! Look at how beautifully rounded it is. And the
muscles still feel very strong."
    "We'll have to be careful about that," she answered. "If we don't exercise
them continuously they will become shriveled and pointy and ugly. I noticed
that you tried to clench and open your fist when I was looking at the stump of
your arm. I saw your muscles move."
    "Yes, but I wasn't trying to exercise my stump. I just wanted to know
exactly how it feels when you want to move a limb that you no longer have."
    "And how did it feel?"
    "Delicious. It filled me with joy. It's a sensation that those poor folks
with whole bodies will never delight in."
    He raised his stump and wiggled the muscles, again trying to close and
open his fist.
    "See? There's no hand to move. It's lovely!"
    "Let me look at the stump of your leg," she said. "You have two new stumps
to my one."
    He raised the stump of his leg and it was she who put her arm around his
shoulders. She caressed his stump with the stump of her arm and it was he who
shivered with delight.
    They looked at each other with desire in their eyes.
    "Bed!" they both said as one.
    This time there were no troublesome feet or bent legs to get in the way.
    *  *  *
    Harry rinsed the razor under the running water. He wiped it dry and closed
the faucets. With a face cloth he wiped the remaining lather from his face.
Then he unscrewed the top of the toothpaste tube. He placed the tube on the
washbasin and holding the toothbrush with his hand squeezed out some
toothpaste with the stump and ran the bristles over it. He brushed his teeth.
    He got under the shower and reaching out placed his crutch nearby. The
stall had been fitted with small stainless steel shelves at sundry points on
the walls so that he could lean on them with the stumps of his arm or leg.
They were there to help him keep his balance because he couldn't take his
crutch with him under the water. He turned on the faucets and leaned the stump
of his leg on one of the lower shelves. He reached for the soap and placed it
in the crook of his elbow. Picking up the brush he ran it over the soap
vigorously and scrubbed himself.
    "It's a good thing Dot was born without a hand. Things would have been
much different if she had been born with her arm missing from the shoulder,"
he thought.
    He wondered if he would have been willing to match Dot's missing arm if
that had been the case. He had always wanted to be an amputee but except for
the few times that he kept his arm under his pajama jacket he had always
pretended he had stumps.
    After rinsing himself he reached for a towel. He had always dried his back
by holding the towel behind him and rubbing it back and forth from side to
side. They had warned him that amputees often try to use their missing limbs
and that he could fall if he tried to walk on his missing leg but
automatically he reached for the ends with his hands.
    "What a lovely feeling," he thought as he looked at the stump of the arm.
He straightened and bent the elbow enjoying the sight of the truncated limb
moving. He tried to close his missing right fist and the muscles in the stump
contracted.
    Holding the towel between the stump of his arm and his body he picked up
the crutch and left the shower stall. He dried himself bit by bit. To dry his
back he bent his elbow double to hold one end. The strokes from side to side
were much shorter but that was part of the inconvenience he had expected.
    Being a self-sufficient double amputee was quite an art and he felt proud
of himself.
    He went to the bedroom and dressed himself while humming a tune. He was
going to see his maimed girlfriend and he was happy.
    It was late spring so he selected a pair of khaki Swiss army shorts and a
beige short-sleeved shirt. The shorts were indeed very short and they would
show practically all of the stump of his leg. He put the stump of his arm
through the left sleeve of the shirt and rolled it up with his left hand. Then
he put on the shirt, buttoned it up and with his left hand rolled up the right
sleeve. He didn't like floppy sleeves so he had always rolled them up so they
would only reach a short way below his shoulders. Now, more than ever, he
wanted his arms to show - especially his incomplete right arm.
    Before he left the apartment he took out his brand new driver's license
and looked at it with pride. Stamped on it was the phrase, "Restricted to
driving cars with automatic drive only."
    He took the elevator down to the garage and crutched slowly to his car,
enjoying the  feel of the crutch under his armpit and the dull thud of the
crutch every time he moved it forward and it landed on the concrete floor. He
rejoiced in the knowledge that those sensations would remain with him for the
rest of his life.
    He got in, leaned forward and to the right to insert the key and started
the car. He fastened his safety belt by reaching over his lap with his left
hand. With the stump of his arm he shifted the gear lever. He reveled in the
unusual way in which he had to perform ordinary, everyday actions.
    They had an appointment in the park. He parked his car and crutched over
to the pond consciously ignoring every envious stare from the men and every
admiring gaze from the women.
    He saw her from a distance. She was wearing hot pants that showed part of
her buttocks. The stump of her leg, like his, was resting on the hand bar and
jutted out just a bit beyond the staves. From her sleeveless blouse the stump
of her arm was gently swaying at every step.
    His right elbow was slightly bent and the stump jiggled gently just as he
had wanted it to. He stopped to watch her admirable walk. Crutch - leg ,
crutch - leg. Step - sway, step - sway. The stump of her arm enhanced her
crippled beauty. He was filled with desire and tenderness for the beautiful,
maimed creature that was approaching him.
    He started crutching again and they met.
    "Excuse me, ma'am, haven't we met before?"
    "I don't think so, sir, but I think it's time we did."
    "Would you like to take a walk?"
    With a coquettish smile she answered, "I'd love to."
    He offered her the stump of his arm. She tucked her stump under it and
together, they crutched away down the lane under the spring light filtering
through the trees.
    A beautiful redheaded girl with emerald green eyes shuffled on her knee
pads as she watched them go away. The breeze blew her hair in front of her
eyes and she pushed it back with her left hand, the stump of her right arm
uselessly trying to help. She saw them disappear into the woods and smiled.
    THE END