I love short women. I love short women! Sue me! I don’t know what else to tell you!

I love how cute they are. They’re adults, they’re feminine, they have ambition, dreams, desires, but they are just so small!! I have nothing against tall women, either. I can appreciate beautiful women from all shapes and sizes, like this one girl I know that works as a nurse. I’ve seen her wearing her scrubs once and holy shit… Amazon sized. Very tall, muscular, absolutely stunning. But there’s just something else for me about the shorter ones…

I put my phone down. Maybe Hunter is right. That can’t possibly stay online in my profile description, I sound like a fucking lunatic. No wonder why nobody is contacting me. I heard that guys have a hard time getting matches on dating apps but getting NONE in over 6 months? That’s just pathetic. Might as well keep masturbating like I always do. At least my favorite category is already bookmarked… I took another sip of my drink.

"Can I buy you a drink?"

The girl looked up from her phone, not even moving her head. "Straight to the point, are you?"

"I figured I'd give it a shot." He sat in the chair across from her. "D'love to meet these two friends of yours."

While not commonplace to go out in a bar, her outfit was pretty uneventful. She wore a tight leathery, almost latex-shiny, long sleeved button up with the middle three buttons purposefully undone to expose her cleavage. It was held back at the bottom with a thin string, as pink as the rest of her top.

She frowned and scoffed. "Fuck off, man." She waved a hand at him, turning her attention back to her phone.

"Think about it: You, me, my car, a ride in the crisp summer breeze…” As he spoke, he walked around the table to sit beside her on the bench and jumped back. "What the fuck is that?!" She reached below the table and grabbed her thighs firmly..

"What? Cripples aren’t good enough for you, bro?!" She leaned on them, pushing her boobs together using her biceps. As quickly as he had arrived, he was gone. "Good riddance", she muttered to herself, looking around, then down at her chest. 

She wasn't even the most exposed girl in the bar. The ass of another one basically overflowed out of her jean shorts so much that I wondered how she could've tried it on and decided that it was the right size for her. Her cake was pouring out with each of her steps, to the obvious satisfaction of the men around her, but it was more sad than pretty, to be honest.

She drank the last sip of her beer and pushed it aside as she met with my eyes from across the room.

I had watched the whole scene from afar, sitting by myself at the bar, obnoxiously tinkering with the ice cubes in my glass. I’m pretty sure I had understood most of their conversation, a combination of lip reading and what little sound came to my ears, and was pretty saddened by the guy’s attitude towards her. While she didn’t look particularly jolly before, a latent anger lingered across her face as we maintained eye contact. I squinted slightly and lifted my chin, asking. There was no answer.

I downed the rest of my drink and, gesturing more clearly, asked her if she wanted another one. She answered with a half-smile half-pout, looking at her phone for the time and mimed a yawn. I drew a tear on my cheek before pointing at my chest and rubbing my fingers together. Even through her sigh, she couldn't help but smile at my demeanor. She rolled her eyes and mouthed okay before pointing at her eyes and hair. I can deal with that, I thought.

Settling in front of her, I slid her an (unopened) tall can of Sapporo and lifted my own pint, waiting for a quick cheers. She frowned and looked up.

"Did you really bring me a Japanese beer because I'm Asian?"

My mouth agape, I stumbled on my words. "I.. I… Oh my god that was so incredibly racist, it's just that you.. You pointed at your eyes and hair, I thought that’s what it meant and.. and..”

“A dark beer. Like my eyes and hair.” She lifted a hand to point at her almond shaped eyes once more. Something in her motion caught my attention, although I couldn’t exactly say what. “You know what, fuck it. Give me that…” She spilled some of her beer on the table as she lifted the tab and leaned forward to drink the foam that was menacing to overflow. “Not half bad. Although it tastes like cultural appropriation.” I frowned, unsure what to say. “I’m kidding! Oh my god, white guys really can’t take jokes.”

“Don’t play the race card on me! It was an honest mistake!”

“Okay, okay, I was being a little harsh. It’s just that the last guy really pissed me off.” Grabbing her glasses between two fingers, she rubbed the bridge of her nose and put them back on. Again this weird feeling coursed through me. Something was off about her hands. “How about we start over?”

She straightened her back and looked straight at me, hands resting before her on the tired wooden surface. Curiosity tugging at my guts, my eyes flashed down to look at them and my breath stuck in my throat. 

“I'm Suno.” 

“Spencer.”

Japanese or Chinese would've been my guess, although I was nowhere near good enough with ethnicities or faces to be confident about any of it… Not that it mattered anyway. Her narrow dark eyes stared back at my own, her pink lips slightly pursed. I lifted my drink again, and this time she complied, pressing her can between what little existed of her hands. In the blur of her movement, I couldn’t see clearly how many fingers she had, but it wasn’t many. She caught me looking and she lifted her hands, palms towards me.

“I'll give you 10 seconds to look at them and then if you're not happy you can fuck off like all the others, alright? One…”

Her hands had no fingers. No… That wasn’t true. Her left hand had no fingers. Beyond her wrist, the palm of her hand extended for an inch or so before stopping short, like a balloon that had been tied up, with no pointer fingers at all. In place of a thumb, a single phalanx extended perpendicular to her hand, seemingly immobile. The situation on her right hand was similar, although she did have fingers. Two, to be exact, and they rested side by side almost like a dinosaur’s claw. Which were they supposed to be? This information escaped me. She opened and closed her fist to demonstrate their movement and the digits curled on themselves naturally, making her hand really narrow, especially since she didn’t have a thumb. She reached for her hair to fix her bangs and I followed her movements, fascinated by the unique look it gave her. Her left hand seemed to pass through her hair without much effect, the stubbiness of her thumb giving her very little grasp on them. She set her hands down on the table again, near mine, and they contrasted heavily with each other.

“10!!” She announced, tapping the table with her dino hand. We stared at each other for another few seconds, a silence which I decided to fill with a long sip of my beer. “Thanks for the beer.” she said, expecting me to bolt.

“I’m… Do I have to go or can I enjoy this beer with you?”

She frowned, seeming suddenly more interested in me. “That’s usually when guys run away. Most guys get grossed out by my hands and find an excuse to leave.”

I shrug. “That’s a stupid reason to leave. I don’t mind them.”

She took another sip, wrapping her two fingers around the can while stabilizing it from underneath with her hand. “Tell that to the guy that came around before you, I think I made him gag.”

“The tall jock with the silver chain necklace? I mean, you had to see it coming, right?” I pointed backwards with my thumb, knowing he wasn’t even in this direction. “What this kind of dude wants is a big pair of tits and a quick fuck, that’s all.” My eyes flashed at her cleavage and I tilted my head to the side, furrowing my brows. “Something must’ve pulled him in…”

She clicked her tongue and slapped my hand with her fingerless palm. “I saw you, you know?” She pinched the side of her top between her two fingers and pretended to cover herself.

“Why put the goods on display if not to entice others to peruse?”

This time raising my eyebrows, I took a long sip of my drink while keeping eye contact. Lips pursed, she held my stare for a bit before drinking, too. 

I’m doing it. I think I’m doing it!!!

“So, Suno…” I began, confidence starting to flow in my veins. “What do you do for fun?”

She toyed with her beer with her fingerless palm, pulling it towards her an inch or two. “Well tonight I'm getting ghosted by my own friend.” Her glasses slid down her nose and she adjusted them with her right hand. “I was already here when she texted me that she wouldn't come. Figured I'd get a drink by myself.”

“That last part wasn't all that successful, I feel like.” I looked around, searching for the jock that had accosted her earlier without success. “Too bad people can't let a pretty girl sit alone in a bar.”

She drank again, using both hands to raise her drink, trying to hide the smile that crept onto her face. I couldn't tell if I was being incredibly smooth off if she was letting herself be easily won over.

“I… I like to draw.” She said it almost with disdain, as if embarrassed by the concept of having an artistic side. She crossed her arms on the table and her fingers disappeared from view.

“That’s pretty neat.” Seeing that she wasn’t keen on adding any details, I asked for more. “What do you like to draw? People? Landscapes? ”

She scoffed at the last word. “I’m no Bob Ross. No, I do mostly abstract stuff. Shapes, lines, it’s hard to explain.” Her left hand reappeared and settled on the table between us, the flat end of her palm towards me. 

“Can you show me some?”

She squirmed and sat back, crossing her arms again. “It’s…. very personal to me, no offense. I don’t show my stuff to strangers.”

I chuckled. “I pay for your beer, chat you up nicely and this is how I get repaid?” I said exaggeratedly, gesturing with my hands. “By getting called a stranger?”

She frowned. “I’m serious, Spencer.” She lifted her right hand and flicked her fingers towards me. “You wouldn’t get it.”

I was losing ground here, better if I got back on track before I lost her for good. “I’m kidding, Suno.” I took a sip of my drink and wanted for her eyes to meet mine. “I like this,” I gestured at the both of us, “this little chat. I didn’t mean to judge, I just wanted to tease you but clearly I overstepped my welcome and I’m sorry.”

Her traits softened, hands joined on the table between us. I felt bad seeing how much my comment had affected her. “Thanks.”

A reconciliation silence slipped in our conversation. We let it glide for a minute or two, looking around the room and at each other. The music had been turned up gradually as the evening grew late and some tables had been pushed aside to create a makeshift dance floor. Weird place to come and dance, I thought to myself. Turning back towards Suno, I took another sip of my drink and she motioned at it with her chin.

“What’re you drinking?”

“Cider. Same ABV as beer, but tastes like apples. And sometimes like farts.” I grinned. “But this one is pretty good, so no farts.”

“May I?”

Eyebrows raised, she seemed to have regained some of her confidence back after my little slip up. Fingerless hand extended towards me, I rotated my pint to present her with the handle. She fit her thumb inside it and twisted her arm counterclockwise to simultaneously press her palm against the pint and keep a good grip on the handle. She twisted the pint and pressed her other hand against the cold glass, easily fitting her other hand inside the handle. The lack of thumb on it was striking, as she didn’t have any opposable finger to help with her grasp. She lifted the pint to her lips and closed her eyes, immediately taking another mouthful.

“Mmmmh this is delicious.” She licked her lips, looking down at the golden liquid in front of her.

“....and it’s mine, thank you very much.” I reached over to take it back and my hand brushed against her left forearm. Although it wasn’t intentional, I let it rest there for a fraction of a second longer than I normally would have. “I’ll order two next time.”

I let it go of my pint and she promptly downed the rest of it, her jet black hair falling over part of her face as she straightened up. She winked at me. “Oops.”

Mouth slightly ajar, I leaned forward and snagged her own beer, downing the rest of it myself. “And now we’re square.”

Feeling a stronger connection building between us, I put my hand palm side up on the table and reached out towards hers. “I still can’t believe that people skip on you just because of your hands. People have weird red flags sometimes.”

She was still holding on to my empty glass, calculating. “I don’t think we’re at the holding hands part of the night. Not yet, anyway..”

“What part of the night are we at, then? Thumb wrestling?” I replied without skipping a beat. That got a smile out of her. A real one, with visible teeth and a slight chuckle. 

She flashed her left hand and the stub she had in lieu of a proper thumb. She pinched it with the fingers of her other hand and tried to wiggle it. The palm of her hand did move at the wrist, but the stub itself didn't. “It doesn’t even bend! How do you want me to win?”

“Can you really lose then if it can’t be brought down?”

She narrowed her eyes and looked down at her hand again, the smile refusing to leave her face. “You’re an idiot, you know that?”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” I turned her can bottoms up to catch a few leftover drops without success before looking in the distance behind her. “I’m due for some fresh air. There’s a cozy little corner on the patio at the far left. Do whatever you want with that information.”

Without waiting for an answer, I got up and walked away. Fuck. I had managed to make a good move on a girl and my next great idea was to just… leave?! I cursed at myself, hoping to have made the right decision. Some guys say that playing hard to get is the proper way to get girls’ attention. But again, most guys are pretty dumb, and that includes me.

I welcomed the crisp evening air with closed eyes and took a lungful of it. Hints of incoming rain and decomposing leaves reached my nostrils and almost made me forget I was in the middle of the city. I let my hand trail on the wooden handrail that separated the terrasse from the sidewalk. It was slightly wet, but not unpleasant. Refreshing compared to the inside of the bar. From the sliding window to the right of the door, I ordered two more pints of cider and made my way to the table I had told Suno about. I didn’t need to wait for long, because my boldness had been rewarded. She trailed behind, her phone held like a playing card between her two fingers, and looked up, a good head and a half shorter than me. God damn I love short women.

After downing our respective drink, she allowed me to sit close to her and wrap my arm around her shoulders, her warmth so close to me. The dynamic had changed. The distant back-and-forth banter we had started inside the bar was nowhere to be found, and I could feel something more complex had started forming between us. We were still strangers, of course, but strangers who hit it off pretty well and weren’t particularly eager to let the other go for the night. 

Taking yet another risk, I tried my little trust maneuver from earlier, placing my hand on her lap with my palm facing upwards. This time however, I made sure to keep looking forward so as not to put pressure on her. She had all the time in the world to make her decision without being influenced by my gaze. I waited and waited but my hand remained empty. Instead, I felt her shadow creep on me followed by the contact of her lips against my neck. Needless to say, we didn’t stay at the bar much longer.

The taxi ride was tense. With expectations, with the smell of alcohol and of our sweating bodies. Sitting on opposite sides at the back of the car, I couldn’t wait to get close to her again and needed to bite the inside of my cheek to prevent me from trying to hold her hand. She had rebutted me twice for that, and I wasn’t going to ruin the mood just for a cute gesture.

Next thing I could remember was the door of my apartment closing behind me. We made our way to the living room without hesitation and before I knew it, she was sitting on my lap facing me. She wrapped her arms behind my neck and when I looked into her narrow eyes, I saw desire and lust.

“Suno, I…” 

I reached for a strand of jet black hair and pushed it behind her ear. Before I could say another word, she kissed me. A quick, interruptory kiss, just to shut me up. Her lips were soft, if slightly wetter than I would've expected.

“Stop talking.”

I reached for her neck and gently pulled her close again, slowly, until I could take a glimpse at the inside of her cleavage. All I could see in the dim light were shadows and rounded shapes, but that was enough for me. Her chest moved slowly along with her breathing, and the lasting smell of alcohol was in the air.  

Then, something touched my cheek. It was her left hand, the one with only the stub of a thumb, the least complete one. She laid it against my cheek tenderly, in its utmost simplicity, and I surprised myself by expecting the grip of fingers on my skin, or the soft crackle of nails against my beard. None of it was possible, of course, but it was all the more exciting. How unique she was compared to the other girls, her difference a novelty for me, yet she probably thought the opposite of it for herself. Raising my own hand, I did the same, running the back of my fingers where her rebel hair had been a moment ago.

We kissed again. A deeper, more lavish kiss, followed by two quick ones before she pushed her tongue inside my mouth. It was warm, intimate. I did the same in response and muted wet noises filled the space between us, adding to the suave ambiance. I reached for a handful of hair and gripped it softly, still holding on to her mouth, tasting her saliva like the world’s most precious nectar. And, just as I stuck out my tongue for another course, she backed away, retrieving even her hand. Her breath was hot against my face and her hips twisted on my lap as she straightened herself. I opened my eyes to look back at her.

Hers were halfway closed. Her hair had tousled its way back across her face and her hands were on her hips, their broken form shamelessly on display. She found the string of her top with her right hand and pinched it between her two fingers to pull it loose, without any trouble or hesitation even with the awkwardness of her grasp. As her breasts sagged slightly and fell back into her bra, her cleavage drooped and took a more natural shape. She grabbed at her sleeve with her tapered hand and pulled on it once before adjusting her grip and digging her digits deeper into the sleeves. Even though it took her more time than I would’ve guessed, there was no frustration in her movements, no hesitation, but rather a series of practiced adaptations. When her fingers slipped and she needed to try again, she simply did, without a second thought, as if this regularly happened. And while her lack of thumb clearly affected her strength, she thought nothing of it, instead hooking her fingers against the fabric like trying to puncture it. She breathed and lived normalcy even with her unusual condition and that gave her even more confidence in my eyes.

She turned to the other side, this time sliding her fingerless palm under her top near her shoulder. Angled against the articulation, she bent her wrist to lift the fabric off of her skin and pushed downward with force, folding her narrow hand almost in half. The top fell off of her shoulders on my lap and she pushed it aside clumsily with her palm.

She fixed the position of her breasts as naturally as any other girl I ever knew, by plunging her hands inside the cups and lifting them back into place one at a time, once again undisturbed by her misshapen hands. Looking down at me, she noticed the bump in my pants and pushed her left hand against it, twisting and turning, feeling my erection harden even more. As she motioned for me to remove my own clothes, I whispered into her ear.

“Make me.”

And just like that, the banter was on again. Her lips stretched into a smile and she bit her lower lip, perhaps wondering if she should answer back or simply follow suit. 

She did neither, surprisingly enough, and dismounted from my lap, standing in front of me again in all of her half-naked glory. Fetching a hair tie on her wrist, she coiled and put up her hair in the blink of an eye, not allowing me the pleasure of analyzing how she actually did it. Her hands traveled back down to her hips and pushed her shorts down without difficulty to reveal her underwear, a simple pair of black panties that matched her bra perfectly. She toyed with them with her two fingers, pulling the fabric in the only way she could, and her other hand moved back to her stomach. It ran back up to her breasts and pushed against the cup, her palm disappearing entirely inside the padding.

“How’s that for an incentive?” She flipped her bra inside out to flash her tits at me, fingers hooked at the cups, and the left one slipped out of the short range of her stubby thumb. “Oops.” She added as she stepped back towards me and climbed onto my lap once more. 

Her hands left her body and started exploring my own, sliding under my shirt to feel my chest while she buried her nose in my neck. I closed my eyes and leaned back to enjoy her touch and the shape of herself against me, her aroma filling my nostrils. At my side, her left hand felt tentative, unsure, even through the pressure she put against me. There were no nails against my skin, no fingers to grab onto my arm, simply the slight pressure of a stump, confident but limited. I could feel muscle and bone move inside her palm, although I knew little about what she was trying to accomplish. I finally gave in and flipped my shirt over my head, narrowing the clothing disparity in-between us, and reached over for another flurry of kisses. Then, with both hands underneath her ass, I lifted her into my arms and carried her over to my bed. 

I dropped my pants as well and towered over her, my knees on either side of her hips, and she lifted her hands above her head, seemingly trying to hide parts of them underneath the pillows. I came down to mingle with her tongue and let my right hand wander across her body, squeezing her breast along the way, aiming for her incomplete palm as my final destination. As I reached past her elbow and closer to it, her breath hitched and her tongue froze for a moment. It was brief, but noticeable enough that I knew she wasn’t completely on board with my action. I backed away and plunged into the darkness of her eyes.

There was a tremor in her look. Not of fear, but of discomfort, of someone who knows what is coming. Of someone that is expecting me to react negatively about parts of her body she had no say towards, or to be repulsed by her touch as we got more and more intimate. Surely she would know to trust me now, wouldn’t she? After the evening we had together? Or perhaps she saw me look at them when she undressed for me, and thought of my stare as judgemental. Little did she know I had nothing but praise and admiration for her. Not because I pitied her, all the contrary. But rather because in that moment, she simply was, without question, without hesitation. 

She was more than just her hands, of course, yet they also defined who she was. She didn't exist and live despite her hands, but rather in spite of them. I wish she could’ve seen herself from my eyes.

“Stop worrying, Suno.” I offered her a smile while my hand rested on her wrist. “You’re perfect the way you are.” Something behind her eyes seemed ready to melt away, fragilized by my words.

I moved further down her limb to meet with her hand and she shivered, closing her eyes. I ran my thumb at its end and brought it close to my face to land a kiss against it, exactly where her fingers never were. The skin was soft and warm and firm exactly like her body had intended it, far from anything to be ashamed of. This part of her was as normal as anything that ever could have been, and I needed her to know that. She needed to know that her normal was enough. Enough for herself, and certainly enough for me. I pressed her hand against my upper lip and took a deep breath before leaning forward and landing another kiss on her lips. Her right hand came to the side of my face and I grasped this one in turn, wrapping my fingers around her symmetrical, tapered, thumbless hand.

“No one has ever said this to me before.” She swallowed hard and water collected in the corner of her eyes. She wiped her tears with her empty palm. “You really mean that?”

I kissed her once more. “You could’ve been born with hooves and I still would’ve brought you back here.”

“Doesn’t say more about you than about me, then?” She chuckled, gaining back some of her confidence from earlier.

I pulled her into a sitting position and reached behind her back to unclasp her bra, and she immediately hid her nipples with her hands. “Do we really need to finish this conversation now?” We both looked down at the erection bouncing up inside my boxers.

She smirked and presented her hands, which I gladly took in mine before pulling her naked body against me. A wall had just fallen. With my words and my wits, I had given her some of her confidence back. As we kissed and the last remaining pieces of clothing were thrown across the room, her right hand pressed into my back and I could now clearly feel the sting of only two nails digging into my skin.