Losing a Part of One's Self

by Lee G.

When I was a kid I would tell people, "No, I'm not a real dwarf. Dwayne is the real dwarf." Even as a kid, Dwayne's body was more real to me than my own.

You asked me what I miss most about him. That would be the touch of his hand grasping me a little above my elbow. He would do that when we waddled our foor foot tall bodies side by side. Since he could walk so much more better than I do, he used his hand and arm to support me between elbow and armpit. Or, when we were sitting side by side - in the car or a movie, for instance - that touch guided my arm down to his crotch. As I fondled him, he would stroke my arm with his short arm. That was our substitute for holding hands. The only way we could really hold hands was when I would put my arm around his shoulder. Then he could reach a hand up to meet mine. Yes, it is his arms and their touch I miss most. And, of course, the touch of both his hands working on my cock, with his mouth right down there also, of course. Maybe that's why I was so fond of the shortness and the bow of his arms - they were perfect for milking my sperm into his mouth.

Yes, it is his arms that have become the image of all that I lost when he died. I was in a public restroom not long ago. The little kid's urinal I have to use was right next to the sink. A good looking young guy in a suit and tie came up to the sink, looked in the mirror to check his tie, and nearly caused me to have a heart attack. A hand with four fingers was attached to his shoulder by what could have been no more than an inch or two of arm. He used the hand to hold the knot of his tie as he adjusted it. His suit coat was cleverly cut to allow him use of the hand. It didn't really look like one of Dwayne's arms, but the shortness of it gave me an erection that stopped urination. I tried to follow him out the door but couldn't keep up. Ever since, I have played a mental tape of him leaning over to reach that hand down to my arm, to guide my hand up to his crotch, as I use my other hand to rid myself of frustration and loneliness.

Growing up as we did in our little farming community and into our equal stature of not quite four feet, Dwayne and I were inseparable. There was no one like us. But we had each other to eliminate frustration and loneliness.

We were different, of course. I didn't know then that there was a name for how I was born, bilateral PFFD with fibular hemimelia and associated deformities of the feet. That means the fragments of my thighs are not attached in a stable way to my hips. It means I'm also missing bones in my lower legs. It means my feet are twisted so that I can not get sole to ground. Other than that, I appear to be a pretty strong and normal looking guy.

Dwayne had the right amount of bones. They were just too short and bowed in the arm and leg department. He could do anything but reach. I could do anything but walk without a waddle. In those days and in the backwoods where we grew up, parents of kids with birth defects didn't seek medical attention. They just coped as best they could. I could move and get about in my awkward way on my legs, but my father was worried about their fragility. He used wood, leather and metal from old harness to make a rig of boots that fitted over my twisted feet leading to supports which braced my legs and hips. The whole thing belted around my waist. It made it possible for me to work the farm, protected from further injury. I was short and I was slow, but there was no chore I did not try. With my weight supported in the frame I could stand without exhaustion. After I inherited the farm, Dwayne and I worked it ourselves with a minimum of help from hired hands.

Our little community got used to us. We were just taken for granted. As long as we didn't leave the community, we were not bothered by stares. Either because of our bodies or because we were two inseparable males. No one thought of us as lovers. And we didn't either. We just did what we did and lived as we lived because we were as we were. Just as we didn't know the words PFFD and fibular hemimelia, we didn't know the word "gay" either. We knew queer. But surely we weren't that. We were not citified sissies. We were farmers. And we didn't kiss each other or act gushy like boys and girls did in movies. We didn't stick our things up each other's butts like we had heard about. No, from age 12 on all we had done was what we did several times a day. Dwayne would use an arm to guide me to his crotch. That would get both of us erect. When he could no longer bear not being able to reach me, he would fall on me to get his hands and mouth down in the center of my rig and around my cock. I would turn us so that I could get my mouth down on him. And then we nursed each other, fed each other with our own milky strength. We never used the words "love" or "sex". The only way we talked about what we did was to whisper to each other, "I'm thirsty, Dwayne" or "Milking time, Ev."

And we had assumed that would be our life forever. We gradually changed everything in the house to be operated at a four foot level. In the evenings, Dwayne would help me out of the boots and straps and we would hop up on the couch to read or listen to records. Our little short legs, his bowed and mine twisted, stuck out in front of us. Until one of us got thirsty. Then with his support under my arm, we waddled to bed where I would wait in the dark for the touch of his hand on my arm once again. In the morning, as he helped me get strapped in for another day of work, his touch could get us thirsty again.

So you can imagine my loss when his heart gave out after only 30 years of pumping the energy he needed to move through life with those bowed little limbs. I lost interest in everything. I sold the farm and moved here to town. Eventually I did get interested in finding out more about my deformity. I haunted the medical school library. I learned that, particularly in unilateral cases, the foot is often amputated and the remaining bones fused to make above knee stumps for artificial legs. Or the foot can be left on and rotated around to function as a "knee" instead. Or, in some cases, the thigh can actually be lengthened in a long and complicated process. But, for people like me with both legs affected, the usual thing is to do nothing and let the kid learn to get about as best he can. There was something comforting about learning that. There was nothing else that could have been done for me. My folks had done the right thing. I was who I was and always would be. The only change is that the feet have gradually gotten more twisted and that I get more exhausted in trying to walk and so do less of it. You can see that I have life in this house pretty well designed. Nothing is beyond my reach. I don't have to go very far to do what ever I want.

Why don't you move in with me, Tyler? It would work for your stubbies, too. And I know you're just as lonely as I am now, without Eddie.

***********************

Ok, Ev, since you ask, I'll tell you what I miss most about Eddie. It's those little baby legs. They are the essential part of my picture of him. Everything else could change about him over the years, but they never did.

We grew up together like you and Dwayne did. Next door neighbors. Same grade in school. I have no memories early than memories of him. I have no memories of him without those legs which never grew. Neither one of us could remember the polio itself, of course.

Very early on he began to use a board with roller skate wheels. That's what he used when we played baseball, or went to the swimming hole. Sometimes I would lift him into my wagon and pull him to the play ground, arranging the legs to help give him some balance. The feet in the baby shoes might flop around into impossible positions during the bounce and tumble of our play.

But part of the time I tried to avoid him. I also wanted to play with other kids. I didn't want to feel responsible for lifting him and carrying him. There were times I wished I lived somewhere else instead of next door to the cripple with the legs which never grew. That became especially true when I hit adolescence.

And then came the accident which left me leg stumps no longer than his baby legs. Now it was his turn to be the helper. He taught me the tricks of life in a wheel chair and the fun of scooting around on a board under people's feet.

Special places were left for us to park our chairs at basketball games and football games so that we always had front row seats. The movie theater had special places for us in the back corner. That was an advantage, too, since nobody noticed my hands on his legs or his on my stumps or either his or mine finding what was between the legs. And in my case finding that the thing between did grow - into firm flesh almost as big around and almost as long as the legs.

It was strange how people accepted us. We were popular kids. After basketball games we would go to the drive-in in the car my father had adapted with hand controls. And our car would be the center of activity. We would go to the drive-in movies, and the others would gather around our car at intermission. "Tell us what the movie is about," they would joke. Their assumption is that they would be making out with dates while we watched the movie. Their assumption was that we were sexless. Although they knew it was not literally true, in their minds my sex had been cut off with my legs and Eddie's had never grown beyond babyhood. Our parents had a different version of desexing us. They were secretly glad that they would "never have to worry about him getting some girl pregnant", meaning "no one would every want him sexually." But in the meantime, everybody was glad we had each other. Other kids didn't have to go out of their way to include us all the time. Our parents didn't have us hanging around being lonely.

So we discovered and invented sex all by ourselves. It started on my first trip to the swimming hole after amputation. Eddie had fixed up a wheeled cart for me and off we went. When we got to the swimming hole and undressed, he wanted to see what my stumps looked like. And what they felt like. In those days of raging hormones, probably any touch would have given me an erection; but his touch on my inner thighs and around the scars brought my cock up with such vigor that it knocked against his exploring hands. A similar phenomenon then occured between his legs. "Shit, Eddie, it looks like you've got three legs now. And one of them really moves. Let's see who's the biggest."

We were pretty much equal. And the process of measuring led to his hopping up on my lap. I could feel his cock against mine and one of his useless legs folded up on my stumps, the other up against my belly. As my body exploded, I lost balance for us and toppled us over onto my back. We grabbed each other in an embrace and rolled around on the ground. Sometime in that process Eddie came, too, in his own way. With no muscles to thrust his hips, I felt cum leaking out of him on to my belly as he panted and gasped. We washed off in the swimming hole. His leglets floating as he thrashed his arms in the water. My stumps were more of a hindrance than a help in the water. But I didn't care. I felt wonderful and alive and happy for the first time since losing my legs.

After the swim, I asked "Wanna do that again?" He certainly did. This time I made his third leg grow with one hand as I fondled one of his motionless ones. I lay back and lifted him up to sit on my belly. Then I wanted him closer, and I pulled him down into my embrace. He hung on to my shoulders as I moved his upright cock back and forth on my belly, waving my stumps in the air trying to get more thrust. Sometimes his legs flopped against them. Between our bellies our cocks rubbed and rubbed. I made up for the missing movement of his hips with a frantic thrusting of my own. I felt myself explode again. Something was happening to Eddie, too. In the midst of his gasping his lips found mine and his tongue pushed down my throat.

For two guys thought to be sexless, we probably had more sex than any other guys in school. We played with each other whenever we were alone. We learned how each other's bodies worked. I learned what motion I had to supply and how to avoid hurting his lifeless legs. He was amazed that the very sight of his naked legs and cock was almost enough to bring me off. Simply crawling over each other or rolling around, we could come to orgasm. The touch of his feet on my cock made me spurt like a fountain. I could take his cock between my stumps and squeeze him into coming. If we were in a movie or sitting beside each other in the car or on the couch, we came in our shorts fondling each other. At the drive-in movie, there was plenty of room in the seat for us to lie down while I moved his body against mine and brought us off.

All that we managed without sleeping together. But soon we were doing that most of the time, too. Either at his house or my house. And always with the gratitude of our parents: "At least the poor cripples have each other, and we don't have to worry about them so much."

Eddie's mother taught me how to help him with an enema. ("That's the worst part about not having any muscles down there:" he always said.) One day as we were horsing around afterwards, my cock tip got between his legs and brushed his crack. With some of the vaseline that was handy I got myself up into him. It felt so good and warm and wonderful that I got even harder. He was on his back with his legs dangling just out of the way of my stumps. I found I could push into him with some leverage on the stumps. Before I knew it, I was thrusting up him. He yelled so loud I was glad his folks were gone. I must have hit something, but I was beyond caring. I emptied myself into him. Each time I spurted up him I pushed out a stream of his cum on my belly, and I pushed out a scream from his mouth. I felt a spasm and a tightening around my cock inside him. When he could breathe again, he laughed and yelled, "It works. I think I moved when you were up in there. You made me move."

So after graduation, we went to college - together, of course. Then we got jobs - together, of course. And a house - together, of course. For the chores and activities of living we had chairs, and scooter boards, and the stubbies which let me "walk" on my stumps. I rarely used full length prostheses: they separated me too much from Eddie.

Life was good. The only thing I would change if I had it to do over again is that I would find some real friends. We lived so much for each other that we seemed to have no time or energy for anyone else. We had no gay friends. We had no disabled friends. I wish we had known you, Ev, and Dwayne, for example. It would not have been so bad when Eddie died. Cancer in the prostate that had brought him such joy, cancer in the place where he discovered he could move. What a horrible irony!

*************************

In the 10 years since Tyler and I met each other in the medical center and I invited him home with me, in the 10 years of discovering life after loss, we have not made the mistake of isolating like we did in our previous relationships. We do have friends. But we have each other, too. We're hitting 60 now so we do not spend every free minute in sex like we did with Dwayne and Eddie, but we're still quite functional, thank you very much. We like to cuddle in an embrace. His stumps rest on the twists of my feet. Our cocks meet. Sometimes that is enough in itself. Sometimes I feel really young and I push his stumps up so that I can enter and ride him. I know that's the one pleasure Eddie never gave him. The pleasure he gives me is in the attention he gives my legs. He actually likes to look at them. He seems never to get enough of the bizarre way they look and feel and work. He is not the least bit upset that my feet are twisting more and more with the years. He takes them in his hands and puts his cock between them and then leans over to take mine in his mouth.

We wear full length legs every once in awhile. Yes, I have had some made that lace up over my legs and leave the feet hanging out. With a crutch or a cane, we go for real walks nearly 6 feet in the air. It still feels unreal to me - like a circus stilt walker. But the exercise is good. It is a refreshing change of perspective.

But mostly we use chairs. We're planning a move to a new place designed for chairs. It's near all our new gay and disabled friends. We're heading for the sunset years. One of us will be widowed again. But without any regrets. Yes, we've lost a part of ourselves. "Death is the only amputation that really counts," says Tyler. But no regrets. It's been a great ride. "In more ways than one," says Tyler with a wink.

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