Doc



                     Written by Rene Kalbfuss (C) 1994



     It all started with the Sears Mail-order Catalog. Connie, even as a

little girl, would cut arms and legs off the female models. She did a very

careful job, using a single-edge raisor blade and then she would take a

pencil erasor and a group of colored pencils so that the stump would look

as real as the photograph. Here she was an eight year old girl and already

an excellent photo retoucher.



     It was always the female models. Then she saw the film Peter Pan, she

was so excited by the manly macho Captain Hook, that she always want to be

captain Hook's wife and also have a hook. Together they would go off and

fight the other pirates, and they would live happily ever after and produce

little children with their own hooks. This was the daydream of an eight

year old girl. who dreamed someday of becoming an amputee. Such a strange

thing to wish in grade school, but then we all have our own fantasies. Of

course, she kept this fantasy secret--super secret. She never told her very

best friend. She had always wanted to wear a hook.  Just like the Captain

in Peter Pan. A nice shiny chrome hook. Not a cosmetic flesh colored hook

and not a myoelectric hand. Just a plain metal hook. . . .



     As Connie was maturing and becoming a young woman, she learned how to

attract the eyes of people--a power with which she felt would conquer ALL

people. As soon as possible she started wearing Lycra and provacative

clothes. She couldn't keep the provocative clothes at home, because her

mother would have been very upset with her.



     Most of the boys figured that she was crazy and left her alone, which

was best, because she really wasn't interested in the boys, nor girls. It

was just too early in her life for her to come alive sexually.



     "Connie why don't you go to the teen mixers at either the church or

school. You need to go out with boys your own age!" Connie's mother

definitely was concerned. She went to the family doctor and asked,



     "Why does she spend so much time by herself? She doesn't even spend

much time with girls, let alone guys." Connie's mother asked the Doctor.



     The  doctor didn't think it was time to worry yet. "If she graduates

from college and has not yet started going with guys, we'll get Connie some

counselling, but certainly there is no worry yet." The doctor explained to

Connie's mother.



     Connie did not go to the Senior prom and she had never had a date in

highschool. Connie had never shown her art to the highschool art teacher,

and when she went to artschool, she never showed it to the faculty.



     Halloween was the time of the artschool dance and it was a time when

the gays and the lesbians let their fantasies go wild. There was all kinds

of cross-dressing, and, of course, for her freshman ball, Connie came as a

pirate. She did it up full blast with a peg leg and a hook and an eye-

patch, with some of her teeth blacked out and of course a long scar drawn

down her face.  To see a pretty woman walking on a peg leg with a hook

really excited Connie's fellow students. Over the years, Connie had

collected leather stump sockets, and a real arm prosthesis which she got

after a vet in her neighborhood had died.



     "Oh, Connie, where did you ever get such authentic artificial limbs?"

One of her fellow students, asked. After that first Halloween ball, Connie,

started seeing a fellow student Norton, (what a funny first name Connie had

thought.) "It's a family name, what can I tell you," Norton explained. The

only reason Connie would see Norton was that Norton had been one of the

most accurate, authentic cross-dressers, Yet he had to convince his fellow

students, that although he was so faithful in his feminine dress, and

accurate in his make-up actually he was quite straight.



     "Norton asked, "Connie, I think we have something in common, we each

want to be someone else! Ill show you my art if you show me yours, and tell

me what you really want to be." Norton  asked.



     "OK, Norton, perhaps it would be good if I could talk about my inner

feelings and I'll hear you out also." Connie was really curious.



     "OK I'll show you mine if you show me yours and we talk  over the

art's full implications, so that nothing will be not be understood.



     "Norton, I paint women who I would like to look like." As Connie

showed her small paintings of herself. Connie explained. "You see, since I

was eight years old, I've always wanted to be imperfect, or at least have a

non-conforming body." Connie explained.



     "And I paint pin-ups, because I want to be a sexy woman, not a thin

nerd like guy." Norton explained. "By the way, when we are alone, could you

call me Nora?"



     "Sure, Nora, why not?"



     So Norton and Connie saw a lot of each other. Sometimes, they would go

out to museums with Norton dressed and Connie in a wheelchair with her legs

tucked under her, or perhaps with Connie on crutches, with one leg tied

back. The other leg beautifully clad in dark nylon, on a teeteringly high

super-high heel. Norton eventually started wearing one leg up  and on those

occasions he would push Connie in the wheelchair. Yes, the people at the

art school thought they were both nuts.



     Each Halloween ball their costumes got better and better. Eventually

Connie came as a quadruple amputee, and Nora would push the wheelchair.

Some of the other students, while they thought the pair was nuts, at least

they could see a consistancy in their costumes.



     One time an announcement went up on the bulletin board, that a local

prosthetist was looking for an apprentice to help with stump socket fitting

and various assisting duties in the shop. . .



     Connie was hired, and she not only learned a trade, the technical

knowledge greatly improved the realism of her art.



     After graduating from art school Connie  got a job doing art assembly

at a large ad agency. She quickly moved up at the ad agency. She had good

concepts and she handled her account well and both client and the account

exec were quite pleased with her work.



     She was so square sounding and gung ho at work, but then no one at the

agency knew that Connie did quite strange paintings of amputees wearing all

kinds of strange and antique artificial limbs. She had always wanted to

paint both men and women amputees  both with and without their prostheses.



     It was a bright spring Saturday afternoon, and Connie was exploring

the east village gallery scene which had mostly faded because of the

recession. There were still a few galleries left. So as she walked further

east, she noticed that there were more burnt out buildings, and probably

more squatters. Then she saw a gallery with paintings that were almost like

hers. Here were paintings all showing amputees alright, but none of them

had artificial limbs. There seemed to be an opening and there were quite a

few people in the gallery so she went in. Most of the men had beards, pony

tails and piercings. Some of the women  had shaved heads, also many of them

were toothless, and most of the people there had tattooes. They were one

strange lot.



     Then she noticed that most of the men and women were also missing an

arm or a leg. There were many peg legs in use. There was even one woman in

a wagon with short thigh stumps and only one hand.



     Connie was almost creaming in her pants, she was so excited.



     "Whose paintings are these--I want to talk to the artist," Connie

asked very excitedly.



     The woman in the wagon pointed to the corner there was a tall, scrawny

guy with a pony-tail wearing a tank-top and shorts--strange garb for a

gallery opening.



     "Hi, I'm Connie, and I've been painting like this since I was eight

years old." she exclaimed.



     "Oh, you have? What intrigues you about amputees?" Doc wanted to know.



     "I guess it's not guys who intrigue me it's me that intrigues me. At

first I used to cut females out of the Sears Catalog, and then it was my

own photographs, that I performed surgery on," by now the whole herd of the

gallery people gathered around Connie and listened.



     "I would like to move in here and paint you all," Connie, by now could

hardly restrain herself.



     "So you've always wished to be an amputee yourself," Doc asked.



     "Yes, but now that I work at an ad agency, it would be pretty hard to

ask for leave time to have a leg or two cut off-- they might not be so

understanding. And how does one find a friendly Doctor who will accept Blue

Cross and Blue Shield for a VOLUNTARY amputation. One could have an

accident? But how does one stage an accident--one could get killed!"



     "What if you had an accident, would they keep you on if you were

wheelchair bound? Would they keep you on if you only lost one leg? How

understanding are they there at the agency?" Doc asked.



     Connie, asked where they all lived, and it turned out that they all

squatted in a burnt out building down the block.



     Doc was the landlord of the squat, and the leader of the group. Most

of the people had jobs in the east village rather than work uptown like

Connie did. Connie figured that she really had a gold-mine here, if they

would let her paint them.



     "Connie, why don't you come to dinner during the week and we will show

you the squat and we'll show you a room you could move into, and we'll

discuss the rent. Since the building is a squat, we do pay the

utilities,and we are trying to work out a deal with the city where we can

fix up the building and then own it eventually as a coop."



     Connie was excited, she could hardly wait for the dinner Connie had

never seen people eat with such a lack of manners. Since many of them had

one or no hands, they really almost ate like dogs. The food was already in

bite sizes so that no cutting was involved. The food was good.



     "Connie, Why would you like to move in? Doc asked?

     Well, obviously, to save on rent, and paint you all. How did you all

get together anyway?" Doc shook his head so that no one opened up. It was

strange to have so many amputees all living together.



     Would you really want to move in and live here in our squalor? Would

you still want to go to work from here??



     "Well I don't know whether I would want to continue to work with so

many wonderful people to paint here.



     After dinner, Connie was introduced to the gang. There was of course

Doc, He was only missing a couple of fingers, but then he was missing a lot

of teeth. There was Joan, she was also a painter, she was wearing shorts so

that you could see that she was missing both legs just above her where her

knees used to be. Connie noticed that her stumps were beautifully shaped.

There was James. He really did prefer to be called James. He was missing an

arm about midway between his shoulder and elbow. One of his legs ended

about mid-calf, but he wore a crude peg leg, with his knee bent. There was

Minnie Mouse who was absolutely beautiful--so beautiful she could pass for

a model. She was tall thin and had an absolutely bald head and no ears and

she had one arm that was complete but the other ended just above the

wrist.. When she ate she could eat just like a regular person, as long as

she didn't have to cut any meat. Magda was another wagoneer. She had a

complete butt but no thighs. She had a complete supply of fingers.



     Not one person there was complete. Every single person was an amputee.

and that should have tipped Connie off. Doc was missing the least amount of

anybody. And the fact that there were no stitches on any of the stumps was

strange. Usually when a limb is amputated there is a cut, stitches to hold

several folds together and it leaves a depression where the flaps are sewn 

together. Here there were no stitches. Hmmmm.



     Most of the guys were only missing one or two limbs, but another of

the girls was missing both legs and one arm just above the wrist. That was

Noreen. She also was a painter, in fact, many of the people were painters.

Here were a lot of painters and they were all amputees. Connie just didn't

think -- she was so excited. She agreed to move in the following week,

again she was told not to tell anyone. That also should have tipped her

off. they did not want her to tell anyone at work.



     The following Tuesday, Connie rented a pickup truck and moved her

paintings and her clothes into the squat. After returning the pick-up

truck, again they had dinner and Connie was helped to move her stuff into

her own room. So far so good. Doc explained to her that although there was

no rent there was legal gas water and electricity. and the utilities were

due when you move in.  So she gave Doc, a check for $100, and they all did

a lot of drinking to celebrate Connie's moving in. Naturally Connie got

pretty drunk and doc helped her up to her room where he said he was going

to give her her good night massage.



     Connie didn't notice all the people smiling. So when she was in her

room, Doc asked her to put on shorts and a t-shirt and he would give her a

nice rub-down. Now Connie was sore from the moving in and she was pretty

tipsy, so why not. . .



     "Okay, now Connie the only thing left to do is to have our initiation

ceremony. To admit you to our cooperative. Now before we begin, I want to

remind you that you would like to be an amputee, when you wake up you WILL

be an amputee.  . ."



     Connie was fairly tipsy and she heard Doc mention that she would be an

amputee in the morning, but it did not all quite register.



     Doc put on some rubber gloves and started rubbing her legs with a

liniment. It had a strange smell, but it was immediately soothing and soon

Connie drifted off to sleep. He had rubbed her legs up to mid-thigh.  The

massage left her tingling and she soon drifted off to sleep.



     What a dream she had. She dreamed her legs were boiling and had

evaporated. What a strange dream. So when the light streamed in her room in

the morning, she decided she would get up and take a shower. So she pulled

the covers back and started to get out of bed. It was a strange feeling,

her legs did not work right, and as she tried to stand up, she fell over.

What the . . .



     SURPRISE, shouted the gang. They had all come in when they heard her

stirring. Now you joined the club. Look down at your legs. As she looked

down she took inventory of her long curvy legs with slim ankles and long

tapered feet. Somehow, in the fog she thought she saw them and then she

tried to stand up again, Ooops! Without feet it is difficult to gain one's

balance and stand up--so she fell.  Then as it sunk in that she was

legless, she laughed and then said, "OK what do I do now--I guess no more

pretending-- I can paint myself--I should have put two and two together.

Alright this is a trip a gas, but what do I tell them at work when I call

in this morning???"



     Well it's not as if we didn't talk this over with you, first. Why

don't you call up work and ask for a month's leave. An emergency came up!!!

You want to call them and say you had an accident yesterday and could they

possibly have a wheelchair waiting for you at the door, when you come in

today or a month from now. Whenever. You are welcome to go to work every

day. Here is the phone.



     This called for a quick inventory. Her legs both did end about the

same length. So maybe she could walk on her new thigh stumps.



     I guess I'll have to say I had an accident. But I'll tell you I don't

want a wagon, I want thigh boots. I can walk on my thighs, and I'm sure you

men will find my new stiff legged walk kind of sexy. And the men did laugh.

So it was agreed to get Connie some lace up thigh stump boots like  used to

be worn in the 19th century. Connie found out that the best way for her to

raise her nominal money needs would now be to beg. She could almost earn

more money begging than at the agency. It was surprising that Connie had

never run into the various house members out begging.



     As she thought back on it -- she had seen one of the men with a below

the knee peg leg one day walking home from some shopping. He had his knee

bent and the peg went from his knee down to the ground.



     Most of the women had more limbs missing, it was to make them more

helpless for having sex with the men. As Connie looked down at her new

stumps she realized that they were indeed attractive. No scars and no

stitches.



     "Alright now I have a question," how come so many of you have no

teeth? One of the woman answered that it was found that to be young and

toothless was a big help in begging. The women could smile and lisp

requests for moeny and they found they really did clean up that way.



     What Connie soon found out was that the squat had gallery openings

every weekend as a means to recruit new members. Apparently the couples

were monogamous, so that meant that she would soon have to attract a guy to

come join her in her room. Now she tought it would be difficult to attract

men in her new status, but the group suggested that she go up to a museum

and give it a try or that she could go to a bar.



     So Connie went to an East Village bar, to see what the reaction would

be. It was the main time of the evening, and there were sure a lot of guys

there, She found she couldn't get up on a bar stool so some of the fellows

gave her a boost. Once she was up on a bar stool she looked like a regular

human.    Soon she was talking to various guys and suggesting that they

come over to visit the squat's gallery. And she was on her way. A lot of

the fellows were not turned on by the squat or the other women, so they

were soon  counted out. But then Connie decided to go up to the big museum,

where guards hovered over her, and supplied her with a wheel chair. Connie

had never been in a wheelchair before and she found that it was a very

comfortable way to see the museum.



     . . .Nora, you won't believe what happened to me. Why don't you come

down to this east village gallery . . . they are having an opening of a

woman show of my paintings This Saturday . . . OK see you at 3 then. . .



(More to come)