“So. How do you want to do this?” She asked, looking up at me.

“I thought you were the pro. I’m counting on you to know what you are doing..”

“I’ve never done a video before either. I'm not a pornstar, Sydney. I used to dance in a strip club, that's all.”

“Well, that's kind of similar if you ask me…”

“Are you going to stand there and insult me or we can get started?”

“Okay, okay, my bad.” I send my hair off of my face with a head flick. “Where to, now?”

“I say we both start off frame. Then either of us makes her way onto the bed and then from there we kind of just…” She shrugs.  “Improvise.”

“Improvise? That's your best plan?” I start pacing between the kitchen and the door of the room. “I can’t improvise, I'm not a…. I've never really done…”

“Sydney, we’ve talked about this over and over again now. It’s me… I’m here… You don’t have to be nervous.” She touches my thigh as I walk past her. “Just… Be yourself.”

“The one with or without arms?” I anchor my feet on the floor and twist my torso towards her.

She sighs. She gestures towards me and I sit down on the floor beside her. “I am not forcing you to do it, Syd. If you’re uncomfortable, say it.”

“I know, I know. It’s just that… I feel like every time I’ve taken back some control over my life, something new comes up and suddenly I’m as clueless as a fish out of the water.”

“If…” Her arms joined above her breasts, she fiddles with them just as she would with hands. “If what you said is true… No, forget that. I don’t think you would lie to me about something so crucial. I know it must be difficult for you, even after so much time. But maybe something like this is what you need. Emancipation. To be taken out of your comfort zone.”

“Yeah, my comfort zone has blown up in the last few weeks, I can tell you that.” I lay my head on my knees. “What’s with the big words today, huh?”

She doesn’t bite. “It’s also why this is a practice run. If you don’t like it, if it’s a disaster, then we forget about it. And we can still be friends.”

“I know, I know.”

She jolts forward and puts her right arm on my lips. “Enough I know’s, more Okay’s, okay?

I look back at her from beneath my frowned brows. “Okay.” I take a deep breath and keep it for as long as I can with my eyes closed. When my brain is about to start boiling from the inside, I let it out like steam from a train’s chimney. “Let’s do this.”

She smiles. “That's my girl.” She slaps the side of my boob with her stump.

She waddles over to her laptop, picks up her pen with her teeth and uses it to press a few keys. Looking up at the screen, she's waiting for the recording to start. From where I am, I can see her tongue poking from between her lips, a subconscious tic she always does when she's holding something in her mouth. Dropping on all fours, she walks over to the foam steps set on the side of the bed to climb on top of the mattress. She rocks her hips from side to side trying to make herself comfortable as well as fix the sheets around her rump. She then looks down at herself and flattens the fabric of her shirt above her breasts before looking back at me with a sly smile. She stares back at the camera.

She waves her stumps above her head. “Hi everyone. My name is Lexi. Welcome to my OnlyFans. As you can see, I'm a congenital amputee. This means that I was born like this, missing most of my legs, as well as my arms above the elbows.” She rolls on her back to throw her hips above her head, showcasing her fun-sized legs, as she calls them. “It affects my daily life in ways you can’t even begin to imagine, but that never stopped me from doing what I wanted. Within the range of possibilities, of course.” She joins her arms again beneath her breasts to push them together and up, leans her head to the left and ruffles her hair to send them behind her ear. In the few weeks since I’ve known her, I couldn’t count on my toes how many times she has done this exact sequence. “I used to work in a specialized strip club with other girls like me, where I learned how to use my body to my advantage and feel sexy with my own limitations. And…” She turns to me. “Today I'm going to show a few tricks to one of my good friends. Why don't you come in the frame, Sydney.

I can almost feel a new stack of steam coming out of my ears. “Why did you say my real name?” I whisper aggressively.

Her voice cracks and she laughs, completely out of character. She quickly comes back to it. “My God she's so silly, I love her.” She says, her smile growing even wider than before. “Come and sit beside me.”

She twirls her arm in the air before tapping it on the mattress beside her. Uncertain, I slowly make my way into the shot of the camera, staring at the flashing red light. Even if I'm wearing clothes I feel completely naked already. I put my legs up on the bed, with a lot less difficulty than her, and walk up to her on my knees, sitting back on my feet and completely blocking my only source of interaction with the world.

“Why don't you say hi to our little audience and tell them a bit about yourself!” I think my facial expression speaks for itself and she immediately picks me back up. “If we had some people watching, what would you say to them?”

I scoff, not even closely trying to be pretty or even comfortable. “Well, hi. My name is Sydney. I'm… I'm also an amputee, well it's pretty obvious, … Gosh this is so embarrassing I am terrible at this.” I turn away from the camera and raise my shoulder, trying to hide my face behind it.

“Don't say that! On the contrary, you're so goofy it makes you adorable!

I chuckle sarcastically. “I'm sorry Lexi, I have a hard time being serious.”

“I’m telling you. Act as if we're actually live. Maybe it'll get the stress off these little shoulders of yours. Here, I’ll help you.”

She stands on her legs and, supporting herself with her arms, walks around me to my back and massages the tense muscles in my shoulders. I let my chin rest on my chest and consider what Alex helped me put on. These bright baby blue leggings are a bit too tight to my liking, but I have to admit the shape they give to my ass is worth the discomfort. We have decided to match them with a black short-sleeved crop top that fits tightly over my breasts but hangs loosely over my stomach.

“Oh my God Lexi, how do you do this?” I sigh, both in disbelief and muscular relief.

“Not too bad for a chick without hands now, huh?” Without any sense of rhythm, she proudly tippy-taps my shoulders before focusing on my back again. “Theeeere you go…. Now breaaaathe…”

“That feels really… Ow, yes, exactly there..” I roll my left shoulder whichever way, trying to connect my knotted muscles to her stump.