Alexander's Resort Ch. 02

Standing by a large window looking towards the ocean were two women watching the surf. The rest of the lobby was empty, even the clerks working at the desk were away.

"Olivia?" Sandra asked nearing them. It was not until they turned that she noticed that each wore prosthetic arms and one was missing the other entire arm. One was older than expected and wore a long lose fitting dress hiding all her features, the younger one probably just a few years older than Sandra, wore a black skirt ending just above the knees and tight fitting white tee shirt that left no doubt she about the lack of a bra under it.

The one with a single arm replied, "Yes." She held the hand out. "You must be Sandra." She smiled and pulled her closer in a light hug. As she stepped back, she pointed to the other woman. "This is Kate." Sandra's expression was pure surprise and it must have shown. "Hope we're not that shocking." They both laughed.

"Have you had lunch?" Kate asked.

"I stopped up the road. Have you found a place to stay?"

"Yes," Olivia said nodding as she spoke. "We have a friend that owns a home on the beach outside of town." She turned and looked towards the ocean for a moment. "It's a beautiful part of the world." She glanced back at Sandra still recovering. "Should we find a place to talk?"

"I have a nice suite upstairs with a small balcony." Sandra shrugged her shoulders watching the two women with missing arms. It was only as they started walking towards the elevators that she noticed Olivia was wearing prosthetic legs. Her gate was deliberate, but almost natural. With the long dress, Sandra could not tell how much of her legs were missing. Sandra's hand covered her chest in an almost vain attempt to keep her heart from pounding its way out and falling on the floor.

Kate stood closest to the buttons in the elevator. "Floor?" she said. Sandra told her and she pushed eight with the tip of her hook then smiled. "Some of the older buttons only work with a real fingertip." She frowned. They stood in silence until the doors opened.

"Make your self to home," Sandra said as she clicked the lock on the door. "Can I get you a drink? We have all kinds of things in the mini-bar."

"Whiskey with ice for both of us," Kate said. "It works better if Olivia and I just share a glass." She giggled holding her hook up while she shrugged her armless shoulder. Sandra twisted the small key in the lock of the mini-bar while through the corner of her eyes she watched Olivia cross her legs. As the hem of the dress rose, the bottom of the sockets wrapped around the stumps below her knees exposed themselves.

"So, you're Betty's daughter," Olivia said scratching her leg with the tip of the hook.

Sandra poured whiskey on ice cubes in two tall glasses still watching them intently and then set their glass next to Olivia on a side table. "Yeah. I'm sorry that things seem so strained with the rest of the family." Sandra held her glass up in a toast then sipped. "I assume it has something to do with your amputations." She watched Olivia nod her head as she spoke. Olivia held the glass up to Kate's lips, then to hers. "Have the amputations happened since you last saw mom? She never talked much about you and surely nothing about this." Sandra pointed at Olivia's legs.

"It's a strange story." Olivia giggled but chose her words carefully as though she wanted to hold everything dear. She and Betty had agreed to let Betty reveal everything when Sandra returned home. "You mentioned a paper you'd written. How much do you know about wanting, ah, needing to be an amputee?"

"I guess I have whatever need you do. Maybe not to be missing so much, but my left leg just has to go." Sandra had decided as she neared the hotel that she would come clean with them about herself. After all, she was expecting Olivia to do the same. "I don't know what I'd tell mom. Maybe it doesn't matter." Both women watched her as she spoke. "I know a guy with one leg because of cancer as a teen, at least that is what he says. It's off near, at, the hip the way I want. I see him maybe once a month. It just fans the flames. I can't take it sometimes." Sandra felt herself rambling and fell silent.

"At least you know what a stump looks like or have a clue how having one would affect your life." Kate laughed. "I've met so many like you, um, us, that haven't." Her hook opened and closed a few times as she spoke. "I was lucky and knew a few other women. I had my arm off at the shoulder first, then the other later. Maybe I did too much." She shrugged both shoulders. "I lost much of my independence. Thank god for Olivia."

"How'd you meet?" Sandra asked finishing the first half of the drink. She stood to fetch a few more of the small whiskey bottles from the mini-bar. "Might have to make a run to a liquor store." She laughed and placed the bottles on the low coffee table in front of them.

"I went with friends to a small community of like minded people. She lived there. We met. One thing led to another and a few days later I moved in with her."

"Alexander's Resort?" Sandra asked.

Olivia just stared blankly. "Where'd you hear about that?"

"Some chat group on the Internet. I assumed it was a myth, least it sure sounded like one." Sandra chuckled.

"If it did exist, a place like that would be like a dream come true," Kate purred not revealing the existence of the resort.

"Do you use your feet?" Sandra asked Kate.

"Not much. I've tried, but I'm too stiff. Connie does. She started when she was a little girl because of an armless aunt." Kate's eyes looked at the arm prosthesis as she flexed the elbow.

"An armless aunt? Really-y?" Sandra drawled slowly thinking about Julie's oft-told story. "Was this aunt's name Alice?"

"Yes, ah, ... how'd you know?"

"My sociology advisor knew her. She uses her feet most of the time. She's missing her right arm above the elbow."

"Amazing," Olivia said. "How'd she lose the arm?"

"You know, I don't know. She's been coy about why. I've wondered if she wanted it off. Do you think Connie knows her?"

"I've never heard her mention anyone else involved with her aunt. Of course, things like that are held close to the chest ... I'm sure you understand."

"Oh my god, yeah. I've never talked to anyone other than Julie about stuff like this. Even with her, I've not mentioned my feelings."

"How about your mother?" Olivia asked as she rested the tip of the hook on Kate's shoulder. A moment later, she moved it as if scratching an itch. Kate glanced at her and blew a kiss.

"What's my mother got to do with this?" Sandra was not able to disguise her surprise. She squirmed in the chair and sipped the rest of her drink, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

"Nothing. I was just seeing if you had spoken to her about your feelings."

"No ... no, I haven't." Sandra's gaze still locked on Olivia scratching Kate's armless shoulder as she spoke.

"So you don't know if your mother might have similar feelings, do you."

Sandra shook her head in small movements as she pondered a question she had never asked herself. "Mom? Hardly." Her head continued to move. "Are you kidding me? Every time I've talked to her about you, she's only complained about you being a lesbian." The stare grew in intensity. "Fuck-k," she drawled in a low deep whisper.

"Hey, I don't know. I was just asking," Olivia finally responded after lowering her hook against her knee. She of course knew but felt it was Betty's choice to confess or not. Now it was obvious that Sandra had not even speculated about any of her mother's past - about wanting to be an amputee or her flings with Olivia.

"How long will you be in Sea Pines?" Kate asked as she shifted on the cushion. She re-crossed her legs leaving the left one over the right knee. Her skirt rode up even more, revealing a hint of white panty.

"I have to fly back tomorrow. I'll be leaving in the morning. Is there any chance of meeting, ah...?" She paused trying to remember a name from an earlier conversation. "Connie," she finally said.

"I don't think so. She's even more secretive. Sorry."

"No, I understand. I just thought that maybe I could learn more about the aunt. Another question though." Sandra paused as if waiting for permission to ask the question. Olivia nodded in silence. "What about Alexander's Resort? Is it real?"

"I've heard the rumors too. That's all I know," Olivia replied looking at her wristwatch. "We promised our friends that we'd be back about now. I hope that this has been some help."

"Two hours already? Time flies, doesn't it?" Yes, yes it has been. Sorry there wasn't more time though."

Olivia leaned heavily on the arm of the couch as she struggled to stand. "Getting old," she teased finally standing upright.

"I'll walk out with you," Sandra said walking to the door of the room. Her hand covered the doorknob as she turned back towards Olivia. "Before you leave, I need to know if there's a doctor who would amputate my leg."

"I think we should talk about that another time."

Sandra leaned against the door. "Why not now? This is something I need to do and not just a whim."

"I know, but I can't help you right now. I'll ask around."

-

Julia was dressed in long pants and a blouse with long sleeves. The left arm dangled along her side inside the blouse leaving the sleeve empty as had become her way of dressing when she was alone or with Mattie. The sleeve blew gently around in the breeze off the harbor. The right sleeve filled with a combination of arm and prosthesis hung along her side. As usual, she wore sandals over bare feet. Mattie's hook held hers as she walked along side.

"Sandra did what?" Mattie said expressing surprise.

"She went to see Olivia."

"Do you think she'll learn about Connie ... and all?" Mattie stopped walking along the sidewalk overlooking the water. A gust of wind whipped her hair about her head. Mattie brushed at it with her hand. She leaned against the railing facing Julia looking longingly into her blue eyes. The empty sleeve fluttered and as the breeze died down, the sleeve again fell limp.

"Maybe it is time to come out about this." Julia's hook moved though the air as she lifted her arm between them. "I'm tired of hiding. Besides I think she feels something similar. I just get that feeling."

"Yeah? Are you going to tell her everything? You know, who the doctor is. I mean, what if she wants an amputation, are you going to help arrange things?"

"I know." Julia stared blankly at Mattie as she considered everything. "I have a student who approached me one day recently in my office. She asked about having her arm amputated." The hook moved in a wide circle around Julia. "Around here I bet there are a few others that would like to know."

"Here? Ha, I bet there are hundreds around here."

"Nah. Not that many."

"Well, we'll never really know how many, will we? Does this mean you'll have the other arm off? What about teaching, will you quit?"

"Some of the lecturers are using laptops with PowerPoint slides and never write a word on the board. I think I could do something similar ... not like I teach math and fill the board with equations." She giggled. "I'm still not ready. I'm just thinking. Hell, maybe I'll move to the resort and write a book."

-

Betty pushed her left arm back into the sleeve of the sweatshirt and took a pair of crutches leaning against a wheelchair from the closet. Her foot hovered just above the floor as she walked expertly about the bedroom. Each time she passed in front of the mirror, she would stop and watch her reflection. "Thank you Olivia for talking to her," she said aloud with no one to hear. "I hope it went well."

The phone fifteen feet away began to ring. Still using the crutches and not putting the foot down, Betty walked towards the table.

"Hey. I was just thinking about you," she said to Olivia.

"It's just as you suggested. She wants to have one leg."

"I shouldn't have peeked at her e-mail. I saw the messages. I had a feeling that she was into amputees. She'd get all weird any time we would have a chance sighting of some amputee." Betty cupped her hand over the knee of the folded leg.

"You should plan a visit to the resort someday. I'm sorry about the strained relations between us. You'd love Kate." Olivia leaned back and flexed her knee letting the stump move back and forth. "What'cha doing?"

"I was just walking around on my crutches. I don't have my leg bound, just holding it off the floor. I spent awhile without my arm before."

"What's going to be the first stump?"

"Shit-t," she drawled, sounding frustrated. "That's so tough." Her head shook side to side as she talked. She sat on the edge of the bed still rubbing her knee as if it were a stump. "I don't even know how many stumps." She laughed for a moment as she waited for Olivia to speak.

"If you came here, you'd be limbless in a month." She joined in the laughter.

"I've been thinking about the resort." Betty paused and fondled a breast in silence. "You said there was another fifty undeveloped acres next to it." She listened as Olivia acknowledged that. "I want to buy that and build more cabins. I could do it so the style and character of the current resort was unchanged, just more of it."

"That'd be wonderful. I understand the waiting list continues to grow and no one moves away." She laughed. "Why would they? Do you have the foundation contact information?"

"Yes. I'll call them after the holidays."

"If the talk with Sandra had not gone well, would you have done this?"

"I'm tried of hiding the way I feel and what happed with you. These past few weeks have brought me around. I'm sorry it took...."

Olivia interrupted. "It's okay. Are you going to help Sandra contact the doctor?"

"Yeah-h." Betty made a nervous kind of laugh. "Guess I need to go. I'm glad you were so understanding."

-

The moon hung just above the horizon just over the waves breaking against the sand. A few other people milled about on the beach as Sandra kicked at the water rushing back into the ocean. She gathered the hem of the loose tee shirt and tied it firmly around her just below her breasts. The thong between her thighs was probably small enough to be illegal. She didn't care. The excitement of having been with Olivia and Kate continued to drive the adrenalin levels in her body sky high. A bullet could have ripped though her and she would not have felt it.

She stopped walking a hundred yards down the beach from the nearest person and then sat in the edge of the water. The white foam from the last wave just reached her. She held her left foot in the air so that her hip looked like Seth's stump. The next wave rushed along her imagined only leg and slammed against the imagined stump without a leg. She smiled knowing that someday soon she might actually make it happen. Olivia had. Kate had. Others did too. It would be her turn.

Her hands reached behind her as she leaned back staring off into the growing darkness. Thoughts of nothing mixed with thoughts of Olivia and her mother. She thought about if Julie wanted her arm off and if her mother somehow knew Olivia wanted to be this way. She struggled with the possibility her mother might want to be missing something. That possibility was causing her less concern.

-

Just after midnight Thanksgiving morning, Sandra's plane landed. By the time she arrived home, exhaustion had long since set in. A deep slumber quickly covered her as her head landed on the pillow and her naked body fell over the quilt.

The sunlight was already pouring though the blinds when the phone rang. "You are still coming, right?" her mother's voice said almost too loudly in her ear as she held the phone slightly away from her head. "I'm having turkey about two-thirty. Julia and Mattie will be here too."

"Yeah-h," she drawled and slurred still asleep. "I've got to get another hour of sleep."

"Want me to call you later?"

"No, no. I'll be there." Sandra did not wait for any other words and dropped the phone on the nightstand.

-

Sandra crutched from the bathroom fresh from the shower and leaned the crutches against the wall next to the dresser. She pulled a drawer open and flipped though the tee shirts and panties until she found something that suited her mood. She considered going without underwear or maybe just panties as her fingers turned over the black thong, then the coffee colored boy cut panties. Eventually she left the panties in the drawer and pulled a plain white tee shirt out.

With her left foot hovering just off the carpet, she hopped to the edge of the bed, and began wrapping the wide elastic bandage around her folded leg. Even now, it remained slim and not overly bulky. Even stuffed inside of slacks it was not obvious that it was a folded leg rather than a real stump. The tee shirt slipped over her chest, then the long loose fitting denim dress with the wide straps and deep cut front that exposed much of the tee shirt. She stood and placed the crutches under her arms and brushed her hands over the dress smoothing out any wrinkles.

Pausing in front of the mirror, she examined herself and thought about the reaction. She did not care anymore and said so aloud as she twisted enough to look at the slight bulge where her small foot was against the buttock. She had spent hours alone over several years with her foot bound, usually pacing around her flat, and always alone. It had long since started to feel 'normal'. Having seen Olivia, Kate, and heard about the possibility that her mother might even wish to become an amputee, Sandra no longer felt it was necessary to hide her feelings.

Screw it she told herself and crutched towards the bedroom door imagining that the leg was actually gone. For the first time in her life, she knew it really would be soon. There was no way that Olivia and Kate could have accomplished their amputation other than with a willing surgeon. Soon she would learn of that person.

As she draped her purse over a shoulder as she stopped by the phone, dialed, and listened.

"Mom, you said something about guests. Who?" She listened. "Plans changed and they aren't coming? Okay. Just checking, I was so asleep when you called. I'm leaving now." She closed her phone and slipped it into her purse.

-

Betty stood in the open doorway holding the door knob. She wore a black dress ending just above the knee and plunging enough to show a little cleavage, her shoes were the red high heal shoes she often enjoyed wearing when she was trying to feel just a little more sexy.

Sandra leaned casually against the tops of her crutches. "I'm only pretending ... for now." She crutched further into the large marble foyer. "I suspect you knew I need this."

Betty's expression was mixture of surprise and elation as she closed the door. She nodded her head while stepping closer to her daughter, then wrapping her arms around her. "I do," she whispered into an ear then kissing her cheek. "I do too." Her lips dabbed at the ear. "I know a doctor. It won't be long." She paused. "It won't be long for either of us."

Sandra leaned back slightly looking into her mother's light blue eyes and resting her hands along her mother's upper arms leaving the crutches balanced lightly under her own arms. "We'll make a great mother and daughter pair." She giggled.

Betty walked quietly towards the great room and sat in one of the large soft chairs while pointing at the one across from her. She reclined and shifted trying to make herself comfortable, trying to relax enough to talk about what had occurred. Her feet lay parted as they stretched out from the chair, then one foot crossed over the other ankle.

"I'm glad you are pretending today," Betty began before stopping and clearing her throat. She twisted again in the chair and crossed her left ankle over her knee more as a man would cross his legs. She leaned forward slightly. Her hand knocked the shoe off the foot and it made a soft noise as it fell on the carpet. She watched Sandra breathing, sitting looking as if she was missing a leg. Betty smiled and pulled the foot under her hip.