We're off again and my friend is now comfortably installed behind the driver's seat. I haven't had much time to take a good look at her when Nick was bringing her over, but I noticed what I had seen earlier on Facebook. Absolutely no arms, but she does seem to have the shortest thighs possible. I wonder if she can use them for walking at all or she simply waddles like I do. I greet her and she starts chatting about usual girl stuff. Even with the limb issue, some things never change. Makeup, TV-shows, clothes... When I crane my neck to look at her, my stomach knots. I didn't care much about my own arms and legs now after so many days, but why did it have to affect her? And everyone else?

----

Nick parks the car in front of a normal-looking house and leaves us seated inside for a few moments. When he comes back, he's pushing a wide reinforced stroller for both of us. After locking it in place beside the car, he goes around to pick up and sets Catherine down in it. In the meantime, I'm bending forward, trying to reach the clamp that would release me from my seat without too much success. My new boyfriend finally comes to my rescue and holds me tight in his newly muscular arms. When he kisses me, I can't resist and don't want to, either. Boy or girl, he is still the love of my life.

In the stroller, our weight is bringing the structure and fabric down noticeably everytime we hit bumps and cracks in the pavement but my friend doesn't seem to care too much. She's used to this. In her eyes, she's a regular woman born in a world where helplessness is normal for half of the population. Being carried around and cared for isn't unusual at all. She rolls her shoulders and I feel movement against my hips when she adjusts her position, reminding me that she indeed has legs. She's still making conversation, but I'm not really paying attention. I nod and *Hmmhm* when she demands confirmation while I look around at the nursery as we make our way into it.

It's a small house on the corner of Red Fields and Brooks that used to be a nursery for actual babies and children. Seems like today it's a nursery for women! The entrance leads directly into a furnished living room which connects to a kitchen and a corridor further down the house. Nick has entered unannounced and Catherine's chatter alerts the owner of our presence. From down the hall, the sound of shoes progress towards us and their owner reveals itself to me. While I've never seen a neuter yet, I'm absolutely certain that this is one. Casually dressed, its features are a mix of male and female but lack any distinctive trait of either of those genders. While its slender visage seem to resemble a woman more, its chest is flat and lacks breasts. Its hips aren't as wide as usual women's, but the skin of its arms and face doesn't have men's hairiness. A loving smile stretches on its face when it sees us around the corner.

"Good morning, ladies." It says. Its voice is like a little girl's : high pitched and untouched by puberty. The combination of it on an adult sized body is very disturbing for me. "Mary will also be joining us today, she should be here in around half an hour."

She crouches and lifts me out of the stroller to set me on the ground before doing the same thing to Catherine. With our coats removed, Catherine moves over to the low couch. Like I thought, she can't walk on her legs like pegs, but she does seem to be pushing herself forward ever so slightly which each hip rotations. I try to follow behind her but slowly start falling behind. Meanwhile, Nick is having small talk with the yet-to-be-named neuter. 


"So Sarah, did your writing progress since last week?" Catherine asks, her back against the cushions.

I shrug to relieve an itch on my cheek. "So far so good, I guess. I've been having troubles for a while now, you know how it is. Endings and stuff..."

"Yeah, I feel you." She clicks her tongue and the flat-screen TV powers up. I sigh. I bet mine works the same way, too? I guess some things are adapted for women in this world after all.


Nick is done talking with the neuter and comes close to say goodbye for the day. My stomach knots again when we kiss. I was able to spend whole days alone when Roxanne was at work, why do i have to come here once a week now? I bring my arms up to feel his beard and he puts a hand behind my head. When we detach, he holds my arm brieftly before turning around and leaving the house, thanking our host, Hope, in the process. I turn around to face Catherine and she whispers to me.


"I've always wanted arms just so I could hold on to my Mark this way. I think it's soooo romantic." She shrugs and pouts her lips, trying to reach out in front of her with her empty shoulders. She giggles and lays back, absently rubbing her short legs against each other.


I feel like screaming : "YOU'VE HAD ARMS YOUR ENTIRE LIFE GODDAMMIT!" but I don't. At least not today and not now. If what I'm experiencing right now is a cover of some sort, I've got to keep it as credible as possible. We watch TV for a few minutes before I break the silence again, trying to scratch the surface.


"Can you even imagine what it would be like to have limbs like all the guys?" I ask.

"I don't want to think about it. Sounds pretty complicated to me", she answers. 

"What do you mean?" I turn my head and see Hope exiting the house to move the stroller back outside.

"I mean", she says, waddling from side to side until she faces me, "my whole body is in one place." She shrugs again and arches her back to bring her tits forwards. "It's hard enough to move around using the few muscles we have in our torsos, and you think dealing with limbs as well would be any easier? I'm telling you, Sarah, we're the winners of the gender ballot."


Her reasoning is ridiculous. Of course it's hard to move when you're nothing but a pillow of flesh and bones!


I point towards her hips. "What about your legs? Wouldn't you want them longer?"

"They're fine just like that. Plus, why would I need more when Mark can do things for me?" 

I shrug myself. "I don't know, maybe being able to walk from one room to the other in seconds?" I gesture an arm from where we're sitting to the adjacent room. "You also just told me you wanted arms, didn't you mean complete arms?"

She frowns. "Of course not. Normal arms for us girls. Like yours. I don't need hands or fingers, Mark has them and helps me all the time!"


This conversation is starting to piss me off. I know she doesn't have any memories of her ancient self, but I at least thought she would feel excited to talk about the possibility of being different... Of being her. The worst part is how confident she is about this whole thing. How normal it is for her. 


I wave my left arm at her. "Personally, I'd give this arm if the other could be like Nora's. Her arm isn't much longer than mine, but God she has TWO fingers, Catherine! How cool would it be if we'd have even one of those!? Imagine being able to hold things yourself, or fix your hair! Wear nail polish, scratch your chin or your breasts when they're itchy or..."

"And you know just as well as I do that she was bullied to near-suicide in high school exactly because of it." I jerk back, as if hit by a slap in the face. She whips a lock of hair back into place and changes her tone. "Look, I'm perfectly happy the way I am now. Not every woman can say they have legs right?" Her right thigh rises and falls to mark her words and she looks down at it. "Well, I hate them and everything about them. The way they articulate at my hips, how round they are, or how they're precisely the same length, and most of all how they hinder my movements when I'm laying down, but I've learned to accept myself as I am. Now, if you'll excuse me, I want nothing to do with appendages or elbows or knees or all these hinged muscle-coated bones so if you want to continue daydreaming do it in silence and let me watch TV."


After a decisive push on the ground using her left thigh, she hops back to where she sat before and leans against the cushions. What a bummer. I look back at her legs and sigh, again trying to activate my own. But they're long gone, along with the muscles that controlled them. I picture myself flexing them and try to get up by bringing my feet close to my body, but I stay perfectly still. All I'm able to do is clench my butt cheeks or the muscles of my pelvic floor. With every passing day, it's becoming harder to imagine myself having limbs, let alone using them. My memories are getting blurry, as if this is starting to become my only reality. I try to visualize having a complete right arm that extends beyond my stump, reaching out to grab a nearby cushion. But it doesn't last long. Right at the moment when I would be able to feel the soft fabric on my fingertips, my vision shatters, leaving me with nothing but my short arm, raised strait ahead, the atrophied muscles in it, stupidly sculpted by evolution, uselessly moving beneath my skin. I bring my arms up and move them slowly against my neck and chin, this simple contact a conslation to my current state. As I recall Catherine's words, my eyes start to water. I try to wipe them before anyone can notice but, with a stellar timing, Hope enters the house again just in time to catch me repressing a sob. 


"What is wrong darling?" It quickly takes its shoes off and crouches near me. "What is it, you can tell me."


Catherine turns her head and her expression softens when she sees mine. I try to breathe through my nose while Hope wipes the tears on my face.


"I'm just tired, that's all." I flap my arms once. "This month's been pretty hard on my morale, and there's the stress from writing my book, and then I don't know all these things are changing so fast I just..." 


I lift my stumps and press them into my eyes, trying to hide my sorrow. Hope secures me into its arms, brings me into the bathroom and sets me on the cushionned countertop. It runs a hand in my hair and gently lowers my arms, uttering kind words in a low voice. Sure feels weird to be conforted by the voice of a 5 year old. When I seem to have calmed down a bit, it lowers itself to me and whispers in my ear.


"Do you think you could be..."


She doesn't finish her sentence and I don't want it to, either. Now is not the time. First I need to know if my current state is permanent or not, and today's already been a hell of a roaller coaster ride. And it's barely 10 in the morning...

Hope seems to notice my fear and immediately takes action to comfort me again. It closes the door and comes back to me.


"Look, I have tests right here in the cabinet." It taps the mirror to my left. "Plan is : We do it, check what it says, then I let you handle the rest at your own pace, and..." It moves its fingers across its mouth to signify it won't tell anybody. Its compassionate grey eyes are fixed on mine and await an answer. I try to speak but the words get stuck in my throat. So, I nod. Terrified.


It drops me on my back and delicately removes the extremely short pair of jeans I'm wearing as well as my underwear before setting me down on the toilet. It grabs the test, reads the instruction to itself and runs the big lines back to me. I signal that I am ready.

Then, I pee.

When I lower my gaze, the look of emptiness that lies beneath my hips seems amplified by the adapted seat. The small opening in the middle lets me pee without too much help and prevents me from falling in due to my lack of thighs. But when I'm on the toilet, even after 27 days, it still scares me. How clean the whole missing limbs appears to be. No scars, no trace of bones, like I was born like this. Because I was. From now on, I was.

The results take 5 minutes to appear, which gives Hope time to wipe me and put my clothes back on. While she does, I can't help but bring an arm to my mouth and nibble on it, just like I would bite my nails. When it is finally time, Hope reads the result while trying to keep a strait face. However, the corners of its mouth betray it. It turns the test around as I sigh deeply. I feel like throwing up. I lower my head and bring my arms up to cover my mouth in surprise. Hope kisses me on both cheeks and hides the box in the cabinet.


"Better now?" It asks.

"Yes," I lie. 


There's a loud knock on the front door followed by the confused noises of people entering the house. Chatter fills up the living room, covering the sound of the TV, and I distinguish another woman's voice as well as a man's. Of course.


"Like I told you, I'm not saying anything about this." Hope says. "I'll leave you here while I greet Mary and John and you join us when you feel ready. Alright?" I nod. It slips its hands in my pits and sets me on the floor again before exiting the bathroom and leaving the door ajar.


I look down at my belly and take a deep breath. I can't let this get to me right now. I need to get out there and act as if everything is just fine. As if I'm not pregnant, and as if I've always been like all my friends : Living in the protective shadow of my boyfriend and neuter. I feel tears coming back up but I shut them out. One waddle at a time, I progress towards the door. Screwed on it at shoulder level is a metal handle. I can use it to swing the door open with my right arm if I use all the strength I have left in these tiny limbs. After a decisive push, the door opens halfway through and immobilizes there, giving me enough room to walk back to the living room. 

As always when walking longer distances like this, my movements become automatic and almost rhythmic, just like when I was complete. I'm more confident than before and I no longer fear of falling forward with every step I take. At first, I needed to regain my balance basically after making a move but now I can chain them and progress at a satisfying rate considering my appearance. I gotta admit I enjoy the abs this state gives me, although my belly won't stay flat for long now...

When I reach the living room again, I use my left arm to lean on the wall for a second and look up at the newcomers. Mary and I have have been good friends since high school, where she also met John, and they've been dating ever since. She's still wearing her coat, which makes it difficult for me to guess if she has any limbs at all. While I continue my way towards Catherine and the couch, John sets her girlfriend on the ground and removes her coat, revealing what I had feared. Her body is a mix of mine and Catherine's, but not in a good way. Her fitted pants look just like the one I'm wearing and cover her pelvis entirely, including the spot where legs are usually expected to be, and the sleeves of her shirt are sewn shut so close to her shoulders there's no way she has any arms at all.

Now at her level, I open mine and cover the remaining distance that separates us to greet her into a loose hug. At least I can put my arms on the sides of her neck, but she's pretty much just leaning towards me and hooking her chin over my shoulder in response. She isn't as bony as I remembered her to be, but the few added pounds definitely suit her. When I let go of her, we exchange "Hi"s and "How are you"s and begin heading to the cushionned area. After a step of two, Mary pivots on her left hip and drops on the ground. From there, alternating hip and shoulder pushes on the floor, she rolls passed me and reaches Catherine before standing up on her own again using her chin as support. 

And I thought Catherine and I were impressive. Entirely without limbs, Mary relies solely on her shoulders, her hips and her head to do everything. Climbing on the cushions should be quite a challenge for her, even if they're set directly on the floor. But, as I reach them again, a different story unfolds before me. Without even thinking about it, she throws her chest forward and bites on the fabric of the cushions, undulating her body and bringing her ass on higher grounds with every consecutive movements. She crawls and worms with more confidence than me and Catherine united. Maybe she was right earlier, saying that we did win the gender ballot... The less limbs we have, the easier it is. Now balancing on her buttocks once more, she walked up to my friend and lay beside her, their sides only inches away from each other.


"Okay now girls," Hope turns towards us as the door slams shut behind John, "here is today's schedule. There you go." Still working my way through the room, Hope picks me up and sets me on the couch with the others. "Freetime until we start training at around 11, then we eat lunch at 12. After that, we're going to watch a new documentary that I thought could be interesting for all of us, but especially for you, followed by a discussion about our thoughts about it. Finally, you can have the rest of the day free to yourselves. Good for everyone?"

Mary and I nod while Catherine leans to one side and lifts her right shoulder a few inches into the air. Oh, I think she has a question.


"What's the movie about, Hope?"

After briefly searching through its pockets, it reads something off a torn piece of paper : "Using extremely advanced pieces of robotics and authentic public reactions, Gordon Stevens peaks into the what it is being a woman and how they are perceived in everyday life according to their body configuration."

I raise my brows, definitely interested. This afternoon, huh? That should be worth the wait.

----