ON THE TRAIL
																																	 Part 2
																															   M. Knight

		
	"Sassy, why don't you get out that iron maiden rig and maybe our bew friend can help you with it," Emma said. You could even try it out tonight walking over to his cabin, then he'd only have one person to carry."
	I lowered Sassy's limbless torso from her chair and as I took care of the dishes she toddled back to her room from which I could hear some thumping noises. Eventually she returned with an assortment of aluminum tubing and plastic forms draped over her narrow shoulders.

	"Here's the stuff," she said, brushing her breasts together, as if dusting them off. It was really disconcerting to watch her moving those big breasts the way people do their arms or hands. Even with that she was quite pleasant to be around. Her face was warm and open and her ready smile quickly put me at ease.
	"How does it work?" I asked.
	"The plastic forms go around my chest," she said, "My shoulders are too small and soft to support anything  so they figured out this way to clamp the forms around my ribs and the metal rods get tightened down on each side. They can be adjusted by twisting them, pulling them to the right length, then twisting the other way."
	She wobbled her way into the center of the pile.
	"This contraption here is a kind of bucket my bottom goes in.  These," she said pointing her left breast at two rods, one about two feet long the other about five inches, "are the peg legs that screw into it. If I wear a special padded boot on my leg, I can motor right along on the shorty version."
	"How's the 'iron maiden' work?"
	"That uses the longer peg. Hey, did you have something else planned for this afternoon?"
	"Not at all. Just taking the weekend off here on the island."
	"Well, OK, then. You want me to try it on?" 
	"Sure."
	"We can save some time if you help, OK? I used to be able to get into this rig alone but it takes like forever."
	"What shall I do?"
	"Take my jeans off."
	"Pardon me?"
	Emma doubled over with laughter.
	"Take my jeans off," Sassy repeated, laughing herself. "I can't fit into the bucket with jeans on."
	"Fair enough."
	I removed her little cut off jeans, leaving her bottom as bare as her top.
	"OK, so I don't wear panties. One less thing to deal with in the bathroom. I do have to wear something on the bucket, though, or I'll get chafed to kingdom come. Here," she said aiming a  breast at some cotton things, "put those panties on me. The ones with just one leg. I can't pee wearing this bucket, but that's the way things go."
	I fitted the cotton panties onto her pelvis, adjusting the fit around her leg stump.
	"You got great hands, kid. He's got great hands, don't you think, Em?"
	Emma laughed again. That wonderful musical laugh.

	"So, OK, the next thing is set me in the bucket. Don't put the peg in it yet. Right, with my leg sticking out. Good. And buckle the strap. Perfecto."
	All of this was giving me a incredible rush.
	"Now, while I'm still upright, strap the plastic chest forms on me. Get the places where my boobs fit in lined up and the rest should fall into, place. I tried to make them cut out holes for my boobies but they said the rig wouldn't be strong enough that way. I can't move at all inside it. Barely breathe. That's why I call it an iron maiden. Lordy I hate feeling so strapped in. OK, all buckled up?"
	"All done."
	"OK. Now, lets build the rest of the machine. You want to do my peg or the crutches next? Doesn't really matter."
	With that she toppled over backward, just missing hitting her head on the floor.
	"Better do the peg first, then adjust the crutches to length. Screw that long thing in, stud, go go go!"
	They both broke into peals of laughter. I might have been embarrassed but their laughter saved the day.

	"OK, now put the crutches on. See where they fasten at the sides? Undo the wingnut and put it on and tighten the wingnut again. Right. And the other side. Cool. Now, all ready?"
	"I guess so."
	"OK, get around behind me and lift me up. EASY...OK, There. That's it."
	There in the center of the cottage living room stood Sassy on one aluminum peg leg, nearly five feet tall, her little bare stump waving around under her. She was supported and steadied by the two aluminum props that were fixed to the sides of the plastic forms enclosing her chest.
	"We gotta adust the crutches," she said. "They're too far back. They need to be one more notch foreward."
	"This set up is different from what you had at the shool," Emma said while I adjusted the angle of the crutches.. 
	"Yep. I didn't have boobs then. When I developed they changed the chest forms and attached the crutches lower. Actually works better. I use the same bucket for both short and long, too. Leaves my leg hanging out and Oh, guess what! I can use my leg to push the elevator button!"
	"Great," said Emma. "You usually use your right, uh.. nipple otherwise?" 
	"The one at home, yes," said Sassy. "Some of the others I have to use my nose or chin or something. I still can't reach up very high."
	"Take a couple of steps around the room," Emma said, "show him how you can walk."
	With some effort, Sassy leaned back onto her single peg, arched her back angling the crutches foreward then leaned into the new position. She then lifted her bottom and hopped the peg up between the crutches.
	"Hey! What do you think? Pretty decent, eh?" She took a short tour around the room.
	"In case you hadn't noticed, this is one hell of a lot of work," she said. "I can get around a lot better and faster on my fanny. Plus I can use my boobs. I can do this if necessary, though. Maybe I'm just out of practice. They worked so hard with me at the institute. They really wanted to find some way for me to stand up and walk around."
	"You feel up to going over to his place in that rig?" Emma asked.
	"Shoot, I'm all trussed up like a Christmas turkey, I might as well try it."
	And so I Got Emma's clothes and my jacket, Sassy's short peg, found a coat for her and a few minutes later with Emma in my arms and Sassy in her threepoint rig we had set out for my cabin.
	Once inside, with Sassy steady on her props, I put Emma on my daybed and started a fire in the fireplace.
	"Hey this place is nice," said Sassy. "your view is better than ours. Mind if I take a look around as long as I've got this rig on? I can see better from up here."
	"By all means. Make yourself at home."

	Sassy plodded off around the cabin and I sat down next to Emma. She took my hand in her arm stumps and stroked it.
	"You really do have nice hands," she said looking at my hand. "What does it feel like? To have hands, I mean. Real hands." I had no answer.
	She looked at the ends of her arms. 
	"No, that's OK. I was just thinking out loud," she said very quietly. She held the ends of her arms together and wriggled the little forearm stub on her left arm. The muscles in her right arm became tense, then relaxed . 
	"Sometimes I try to see if I can wiggle my fingers. If I close my eyes and pretend, sometimes I think I can feel them. I guess that's stupid. They're just ugly dumb stumps.
That's all. Ugly stumps."
	"They're not ugly, Emma. Really. They're just as beautiful as the rest of you." I took the ends of her arms in my hands and looked into her deep blue eyes. "I think these hands of yours are as wonderful as any hands I've ever seen. Besides, They're the hands you were born with, aren't they?"
	She nodded.
	"And nothing's been chopped off, has there?"
	She shook her head.
	"Then you can't very well call them stumps, can you?"
	She looked at her arms, then up to my eyes. Then she put her arms around my neck and kissed me.
	"Hey you love birds, let's keep it under control!" came the teasing voice of Sassy as she thumped back into the living toom.
	"Great place," she continued. "So how's about getting me out of this straight jacket now? Case you don't remember I can't go to the john in this rig."
	Emma and I both laughed a little and I went to Sassy's rescue.
	"How's your ankle doin, Em?" she asked as I unbuckled the various straps.
	"Feels a little better, really," she said stroking her ankle. "Still pretty swollen, though."
	"Good. Not broken. It'd be getting worse, not better," she said as she rolled out of the chest armor. "Hey, you got anything to drink?"
	I listed the contents of the portable bar I had brought with me, "and I have some wine to go with dinner."
	"Where'd you find this guy?" Sassy asked as I started to lift her up, "He's great. No, get this cotton underwear off me too, would you, hotshot? I love to feel nice carpet like this in my toes."
	More laughter.
	"Fix me a bourbon with just ice, no water, OK, I'll be right back, I hope."
	And with some care, I tipped her into an upright position and she started swivelling her way back to the bathroom. 

	I sat down on the daybed beside Emma who was still concerned with her 'hands'.
	"I wish I could pick up change from the counter or a paper clip. I wish I could do a lot of things like that. And I wish people wouldn't stare at me when I do just anything at all. Ever sinci I was a little kid. Makes me feel like some carnival freak or something. Why can't people just accept that my hands are different and not get so uptight about it." I hugged her. She was quiet for a time then said, 
	"But then, when I see Sassy, I realize I'm not so bad off. Then, too" she said, waving her stumps at me, "think of the money I save on nail polish!"
	She giggled.
	"Actually one time my brother painted fingernails on my stumps ...no, I won't call them that anymore, on the tips of my arms when I was in high school. Funny. At least I thought it was."

	"Hey, Emma, you still an invalid?" came a call from the bathroom.
	"Fraid so. I guess I could crawl back there on my hands and knees...er knee."
	"No, that's OK. I just can't reach the john paper from the seat here. I've been trying but I keep falling over."
	"Be right there," I volunteered, as Emma nodded her agreement.
	"How'd you get up there? I asked the enthroned Sassy as I entered the little bathroom.
	"Crawled up on the side of the tub and then hooked my chin on the sink and swung over. Figured it out when I was touring in the 'iron maiden'. Didn't figure the distance to the paper roller though."
	I took a few squares from the roll and began to dry my guest's privates.
	"Well, thanks, there, fella. Didn't expect full service," she said. "Betcha this a first for you isn't it?"
	"A number of things have been firsts today," I smiled.
	 "Thanks. I can do  a lot of things for myself, but a little assistance goes a long way. Lift me down now will you sport? I'm ready for that drink."

	The fire had made the cabin as warm as their place when I carried the naked torso of Sassy back to the living room. 
	"Damn, you still got your clothes on?" Sassy chuckled at Emma. "Why don't you get comfortable?" Emma began by taking off the top of her heavy sweats. 
	"For that matter, stud, I don't know why we're the only ones showin' off our wares.  How's about a peek at thast manly chest of yours?"
	"Sassy, you're terrible!" Emma said. The guy's nice enough to take care of us and cook dinner, don't be a pain!"
	"Oh, all right, Miss Prim!""
	"No problem," I said. Don't want to be the odd man out here!"	
In fact the room was so warm that the prompting by Sassy was welcome.
	I  hung my shirt and Emma's top back in my closet, changed into shorts and started to make some drinks.
	I fixed Sassy's bourbon and started a scotch for myself. 
	"Emma?"
	"Scotch, too, please, if there's enough."

	I sliced some cheese onto a plate and dumped some crackers into a little basket I found in the kichen. Mrs. Mitchell had seen to it that certain things were always there for her renters.
	"Where do you want to sit? or stand or whatever?" I asked Sassy.
	"By golly, I think he's getting with the program," she laughed and headed for the daybed. "Give me a boost, will ya, sport? There's room for three up there isn't there?"
	"Sure." I boosted her up, she swivelled around and said,"OK, I'm ready, hand me that nice drink."
	I held the drink in front of her. She shrugged her little shoulders, closing her breasts on the glass and raised it. "Here's to a great day. Em's ankle is just a little strain, and she's found a new friend!"
Enmma raised her glass. "Here here!"
	So the three of us, sitting on the daybed, celebrated the day. Sassy took the edge of the glass in her teeth and gently took a little sip of her drink, returning the glass to her bosom.
	"Hey, I got my hands full. Could somebody fix me a piece of cheese, please?"
	 Emma placed a bit of cheese on a cracker and presented it balanced neatly on the tapered tip of her right arm. The fact that she had to reach across in front of me gave me ample opportunity to appreciate that most perfect figure. This was a very nice day.

	The sun began to get close to the horizon, and the calories made the room even warmer. Emma looked at my shorts and decided that her sweatpants had to go. She handed me her drink and pushed at the the sweats. They and her red silk undies suddenly hit the floor together, leaving her as well-dressed as her roommate. 
	"Whoops!" she  said. "I'm sorry. I didn't want to expose the place where my leg used to be." I quickly handed her the scotch. "I know it's not very pretty even though they did their best."
	"Emma, It's not a problem. Really." 
  "You don't mind ?" 
	"Not in the slightest." The surgery scar was nearly invisible on her hip but some distortion remained.
	"More comfortable?"
	"I am, really." she put her drink down and got some cheese and a cracker for herself.
	"I just didn't want you to see right away. I know I look funny down there and I feel a little strange about being ...um, bald, too."
	"Oh?"
	"That happened in the hospital. When I woke up I had no leg and no pubic hair. For the follow up surgeries they did it again. Then when I was home it looked so weird, all sort of one-sided when it started to grow in so I just started shaving myself. What do you think, Sassy? You saw it before. Do I look better like this?"
	"Yep. A bunch. More nude, I'd say, than naked. How does it feel? I mean itchy or anything? Reason I ask is that I step on my fun fur a lot when I run around barefoot and it hurts like hell. Anything I should know?"

	As Emma began her discourse on the ins and outs of feminine shaving, I excused myself from the conversation, freshened the drinks and the fire and stepped over to the kitchen area to begin supper.
	What Mrs. Mitchell had put in the refrigerator was a good-sized steak, peas and greens for a salad. In a basket on the counter were some potatoes suitable for baking.
	"Can we eat at the coffee table?" Emma asked. "Sassy does better there and considering how we're dressed, I think I'd be more comfortable there, too. Is that OK? And we can watch the fire."
	While the potatos baked another round of drinks was poured.

	"Oh this is such fun," Emma said, stretching out on the daybed. Sassy had slid down ont the floor and was leaning over the coffee table. As I watched, she rubbed her right nipple back and forth along the edge of a picture book. Within a few seconds the nipple enlarged and became quite firm. Then she repeated the sequence with her left breast. She saw me watching her.
	"Like I said, not fingers, but it's what I got and that's how I have to do it." Then she used these now-erect appendages to open one of the books that lay on the table. "This is a neat book," she said, leafing through its pages. "Tells all about the history of the lake area and its wildlife. I really have to do that trail tomorrow. I mean, that's the whole reason I came out here. If Hopalong over there isn't up to it, are you available, Galahad?"
	"I'm available until Tuesday, Sassy. After that you're on your own. Ok, ladies how do you like your steak?"

	A few minutes later places were set at the coffee table, the wine was poured and the meal was served.
	I don't remember the conversation. I was far too fascinated by the women dealing with their steak, peas, potatos and salad. And their wineglasses.
	Emma had captured the stem of her wineglass in the crook of her elbow and proposed a toast. Sassy enclosed a glass between her breasts and lifted it in reply.
	The firelit image of Emma cutting her steak and Sassy's by pressing a fork down with her little right arm and cutting it with a knife held in her elbow will be with me forever. Sassy, with obvious pleasure, managed to pick up a fork between her breasts and locate the tip under the morsel she fancied. Then she lowered one of those magnificent mammeries on the handle of the fork and tipped it up so that she could eat from a fork "like everyone else". The potato was nibbled directly as the omelette at lunch had been. I've tried to remember every second. The conversation eludes me now, but the images remain. 

	"I don't do dishes," Sassy said, I do recall that. "I can, believe it or not, I just don't."
	I carried the dishes to the sink. When I turned, the two girls had their heads together, eyeing me and giggling.
	"We've decided that because you rescued me and made both lunch and dinner," said Emma, "that we should be very nice to you tonight."
	Being very nice to me was the understatement of all  time. Slowly, one little move at a time, they teased me, tickled me, got me out of my shorts and up on the daybed. 
	That whole night was spent in every possible, every conceivable kind of lovemaking.
Each girl devised some special new treat as the other was driving me mad with something only a woman of her physical description could accomplish. They wouldn't even allow me to become exhausted. At any sign of flagging energy I was immediately teased by the pair back into some semblance of vitality. Mercifully, by dawn I had become unconscious and slept until noon.

	The smell of freshly brewed coffee returned me to life, and I opened one eye to see a cup and saucer balanced on Sassy's two big boobs. Emma was curled up beside me.

	"Good morning, Sir Galahad," Sassy said, her eyes shining. 

	"Ready for day number two?"