The Journal Ch. 03

It became immediately obvious that although sex had been what we needed when we walked into the kitchen, it wasn't what we needed when we walked out. The emotions we'd undergone had moved to equally substantive ones, like love, relief and joy. When Jim recovered his composure, he helped me up, and we went to our bedroom where he undressed himself and then me. We climbed wearily into our wonderful king bed, Jim turned off the phone and he held me very tightly until we slept.

The next few days were spent in reestablishing ourselves with friends and relatives, going to rehab and visiting doctors. My burns had healed remarkably well, to the point that they really looked like sunburn. I finally told the prosthetist that I wasn't going to use the left arm he'd mocked up for me. He billed it to my benefactor and sent it to a charitable organization to use in Africa. My right arm isn't getting much easier to use, and frustrates me every day. I think I only wear it because Jim and my parents seem to want me to. I know I need to learn how to use it or I'll never be independent, but I don't have to like it.

Jim and I never did get around to sex the first week; I've been fighting a yeast infection for weeks from the antibiotics I was on, but the snuggling has been first rate. Jim seems to be avoiding my stumps, contrary to the interest he showed at first, which kind of hurts my feelings. Oh well.

Mom and dad flew in from Montana on the 3^rd, and I have to admit that my emotions were mixed. It is really nice to have mom around to help, but she seems to think I have reverted to a 3 year old, just because she needs to help me do things. She's always been the rock of the family, but I've seen her red-eyed a couple of times. It took dad a couple of days to get used to seeing me, and I think he cries a lot. Dad is hard of hearing, so he can't understand me very well, but we find ways to communicate with each other. The nice thing is that he just seems to know what I need, so he's become a hug dispenser. Sometimes you just need a hug from your daddy, and there's nothing else in the world that will do.

The swelling in my stumps keeps going down, faster on the right side, probably because I wear the arm on that side. My left stump is funny compared to the right one. The bone doesn't go all the way to the end, so the tip droops, kind of like a little boob. I can even feel it wiggle when I walk. The scars are turning pink from the original red, and it doesn't make me want to wet my pants if I nudge something with them like before.

We had some friends over for Sunday dinner, and I got a little drunk. I guess I have less blood volume since my arms left, and two beers gets me buzzed like four did before. I won a contest with one of Jim's younger friends, he challenged Jim to a chugging contest, and I talked Jim into letting me take his place. Before the guy had his second swallow done, I had drained my mug and slapped it on the table. I didn't have to swallow, I just opened wide and let it go down, winking to Jim, who had the good grace to blush!

Jim left on business Monday morning, and it was a lonely couple of days, at least until Wednesday.

Around 1:30 Wednesday afternoon, I was going through the video drawer in our bedroom looking for something to watch. My yeast infection had been gone since Monday, so I was looking through our selection of porn for something to raise my pulse a little. I had already figured out that my hook would open far enough to grab my rabbit vibrator, and I was looking for something to enhance my already randy mood.

At the back of our drawer where the nasty stuff is kept, I found a book, small and bound in red leather. I took it to the bed and sat it down so I could open it. It turned out to be Jim's hand written journal, going back fifteen years (ten years before we met) in his small, precise writing style. I felt guilty about reading it, but it was like a train wreck; I wanted to look away but couldn't.

I started reading when we began to date. It was really sweet, and went on and on about how much he loved me. He noted several things I did in bed that drove him wild, and I filed those away for later. Overall it was heartwarming and very loving.

Then curiosity got the better of me, and I started to wonder about his prior loves. I turned to the first page.

I read a few pages in confusion, and then it dawned on me. These were records of women he'd seen on the street. Details of where, when and more. There was an acronymic code in the entries that I didn't understand. The letters SAK, SBE, DAK, LAK and others were noted in the margin beside each woman's record. And then it hit me! They were amputees! Single Above Knee, Single Below Elbow, Double Above Knee, Left Above Knee.

My Jim had a fetish for amputees!!

My heart sank in my chest and my hook started to shake. MY HOOK!

I was a DAE!

I flew into a crying panic and the only thing I could think of to do was to email Janey. I knew my parents couldn't see me like this, so I was glad they were off at the golf course. Janey responded right away and said she was on her way to the house. I tried to pour myself a shot of whiskey, but I couldn't get the damned bottle open, and I was shaking like a leaf anyway.

Janey burst through the door at a trot at the stroke of 3:00, and I just pointed to the journal. She walked to the bed and picked it up, then sat on the couch. I sat down beside her, and put my head on her lap.

"I want to go through this. From front to back. So you just make. Yourself comfy and. I'll let you know. What I think. When I'm done," she burped. She started to read from the first page, patting me occasionally as she read. When she'd finished, she sat me up and turned to face me.

"OK. Let me start. By saying that. I've only known. You both for a little while. And that I think. You're both. Terrific people. This is a strange. Book to be sure. And I don't pretend to. Understand Jim's. compulsion but it. Seems to be. Very deeply. Programmed in him. Have you read. This all the way. To the end?" she asked, panting a little with breathlessness from her extended speech. I was surprised to see tears on her cheeks. It must get worse, I thought.

"No. I couldn't," I said.

"I think you should. In the beginning. It is just what. It seems to. Be, but in the. Middle it changes. After he meets you. The sightings stop. And it's all. A really touch. –ing tribute to. Jim's love for you. And at the end. It becomes a. Really poignant. Record of. Your accident. And his thoughts. About what's. Happened to you. And his guilt. For reacting. To your. Amputations. With pleasure. Instead of sorrow. His heart is breaking. Because he loves. You so much. But he feels guilty. About his fetish. And it's killing. Him. Let me ask. You something. Does he love your tits?"

I nodded, eyes downcast.

"A lot?" She nudged my left breast with her index finger.

"A lot." I said. "He can't keep. His hands. Or eyes. Off of them. I used to. Hate them until. I met Jim."

"Magnify that. Fondness for. Your boobs by. A thousand. And you'll know.

How he feels for. Your stumps. But he doesn't. Feel he can tell. You without. Hurting you."

Janey had to stop to regain her breath, and as she did, she looked at me and smiled through her tears. As her words started to center in my mind, I began to realize that she was probably right. Jim had never shown me anything but the deepest love, the greatest respect and the most steadfast support.

"What should. I do, Janey?"

` "You have two. Choices here. I think. You can turn away. From him and. Leave him before. He gets back. Or you can. Be the woman he. Needs to fulfill his. Life and his. Fantasies. Through no fault. Of his or. Yours. You are. Equipped like nobody. Else in the. World to be his. Life mate as well. As the woman he. Has fantasized about. His whole life. I'd give anything. To be that. Important to… Well, anybody," she finished, her stoma whistling with her effort. She was crying openly now, and I hugged her to me with my prosthesis.

We sat and talked for several hours, and at the end of our discussions, I had read the journal cover to cover, and I had to agree with her. It wasn't the evil thing I'd initially thought it was. It held the thoughts of a man in the grip of a compulsion he felt he couldn't fight.

The world I'd almost let slip away had turned from darkness to the brightest of days. And I knew exactly what to do.

I messaged my mom with Janey's help and told them I needed the house all to myself for two nights and days. They made it to the house in just a few minutes and swooped up their stuff. I had Janey make them reservations at a golf resort not far from here. Before they left, mom gave me a hug and whispered, "Good luck Honey, he's a keeper."

"Luck has. Nothing to do. With it, mom. And I intend. To keep him."

Janey checked the flight schedule and found that Jim's plane was on time. I had her message a friend on mine who is a TSA agent at the airport and she said she'd message me when she saw him go through. Janey and I swung into action. She gave me a shower and shaved my armpits, legs and pussy.

The phone rang, and we both jumped a foot. It was Allison at the airport. She'd just seen Jim blow through the airport like a gust of wind. She said he was smiling like it was Christmas morning. If he only knew what Santa had gotten him. We estimated that he was 45 minutes out.

Janey and I chose a nude Frederick's shelf bra under a forest green sleeveless bamboo tee. A black satin mid-thigh pleated skirt, seamed hose and black 3"heels completed the ensemble. No panties, of course. I held my stumps up one at a time, and Janey used some makeup to hide the scars a little. She sprayed Jim's favorite perfume, TABU, in the air and had me walk through the mist, after telling me to exhale forcefully while doing so, since perfumes can irritate my lungs.

Janey and I heard the garage door go up. She air-kissed me and scooted out the back. She was going to come back later and help me change when I speed dialed her on my phone. I took up my place in the living room and waited, my bare stumps twitching like a horse's tail in my nervousness.

I heard Jim drop his bags in the den. Then total silence, followed by the sound of retching from the hall bathroom.

FUCK! With a surge of adrenaline, I realized I'd left the journal on the table by the couch in the den! My heart sank as I imagined what was going through his head, and I knew that somehow, I had to fix this.

I sat on the floor of the bathroom, staring out the door at the end table by the couch. My mouth tasted like puke, and I wasn't sure I was done throwing up yet. I'd run dozens of scenarios I'd run through my mind in the last few weeks, but this wasn't one of them.

I was certain beyond a doubt that I had left the journal hidden in the back drawer of the DVD cabinet, and I was just as certain that Ann would have never gone looking there. So much for certainty. I now believed that there was every reason to believe that the next time Ann saw me would be that last. I was filled with the sickening feeling that what she found on those pages would be so abhorrent to her, so damning that she would tell me to leave forever. I looked back on the contents of the journal and wished with all my heart that I'd never started it. Or the one before it, or the first one, back when I was in junior high. It had been that long.

I remembered with total clarity the first amputee I'd ever seen. His name was Stephen, and he sat beside me in the third grade. Looking back, I think he must have been a congenital SAK, because he also had a thumb which apparently had no bones inside it, which was almost as fascinating as his missing left leg. He had a noisy, squeaky leg, probably wooden, and a big leather belt and shoulder strap affair with his name on it, as if it could have gotten misplaced. I can just see it, "Gee I wonder if this is my missing leg?" some little kid says, hopping into the lost and found. "Nope, this one says Stephen."

Then, in Middle school, there was Kathleen. Her locker was next to mine in the middle hallway. She wore dresses almost exclusively, and her left arm stump was perpetually hidden inside the sleeves. She never moved her stump, keeping it stiffly at her side. I helped her get water out of the fountain a couple of times, as she stooped slightly, her mini dress sliding up her thighs. Mt eyes, however, were locked on her empty sleeve as she drank. One time, the cloth of her sleeve brushed my hand, and I thought I would pass out and fall over. I never thought about it, but she was older than me, and the fall took on a more somber edge, when I arrived in school to find that she had graduated the prior spring. I had a new girl next to me, one who filled out her angora sweaters much more amply than had Kathleen, but unfortunately the sleeves were full, too. I saw Kathleen several years later, in the park by my house, on the 4^th of July, I think. She was wearing a tank top, and she held her small purse in the elbow crook of her LBE stump. I followed her for an hour or more, thrilled by her apparent new ease in regard to her stump. In contrast to her conservative days of junior high, it was in constant motion, pointing and gesturing, hugging and touching her friends as they walked.

The list went on in my mind, and for the first time, I found myself wondering if I should seek counseling for this fascination.

I thought about the word 'fascination' and decided it wasn't appropriate in the least. One might be fascinated by butterflies, but one would not behave contrary to all expectations of normality to follow a butterfly for hours in a shopping mall, hoping to see the butterfly unfurl its wings just one more time. Following a person in a mall is not called fascination, it's called stalking. Stalking didn't fit either, though; I never intended to do anything to the person at any time, other than to observe.

For better or worse, 'Devotee' seemed to be the most accurate term. "One who is ardently devoted to something or someone."

I would have sworn that I had been ardently devoted to Ann, even before she'd been so cruelly crippled. Imagine my confusion and disgust when I realized that, even as I cried in regret for Ann's amputations, I had been sporting one of the most intense erections of my entire life!

My regret now filled me to the brim, along with the certainty that whatever happened in the future, it would be too late to save me from losing the most precious, fulfilling relationship I was ever likely to have.

I rose, checked myself in the mirror for evidence of my interlude with the commode, and then stepped into the den. Any thoughts of trying to talk my way out of this had evaporated as soon as they had inserted themselves into my mind, and so I went in search of my beloved, intending to stand before her with my head bowed in humility as I apologized and said goodbye to her.

When I heard Jim in the den bathroom, I panicked. All of our preparations had been based on a joyful homecoming, and now I didn't know what to do. I was plainly dressed to seduce rather than console, and there was no time for me to change my clothes, even if I had been able to do so myself. I didn't really know what I would have changed into, anyway.

All I could do was to change the venue from the bedroom to somewhere less sexual and more comforting, and that meant our favorite place, a bench overlooking the koi pond. I made my way quickly, and sat down just as Jim made his way out the back door. I was so nervous I was shaking, and my stumps twitched spastically. I was angry at myself for several things. First and foremost, I was angry at myself for leaving the journal where he found it. It was an honest mistake, but one which had already caused unnecessary heartache. Secondly, I was angry for overreacting to the book itself. If I had taken the time to read it instead of having a fit, I would have seen the words describing a man's unbelievable love and compassion for his partner.

Nervous tears fell from my eyes, and I let them. I heard Jim's footsteps on the garden path. I stood, turned, held my stumps out and silently said, "I'm so sorry."

I walked slowly through the house, paying close attention to all the things that represented our love. The cheap souvenirs from the places we'd been together. A vial of sand from Kill Devil Hill, where the Wright brothers flew. A pine cone from Crater Lake.

A pressed flower in a frame from the first bouquet I'd brought her. A candle from her niece, a child I'd likely never see again. By the time I'd complete my tour in search of Ann, I felt like howling in rage and anguish for my stupidity.

As I walked out the back doors onto the patio, I saw her sitting on the bench in the Japanese garden we'd built together, nearly obscured by the wisteria and passionflower vines. My sorrow settled upon me like a leaden cloak, and I trudged toward her slowly, walking toward my date with death, tears streaming down my face.

She stood and turned toward me, her pitiful stumps outstretched, and I said, "I'm so sorry."