I'd be lying if I told you what I noticed first was her smile, that would be unrealistic of me, although it was nothing short of breathtaking, next only to her eyes. That’s what kept my attention screwed to her. They were blue like the warm Caribbean waters we could hear splashing in the distance, like the clear open skies above us, and refreshing like a gust of cool air when walking through the scorching summer heat. As they lingered on me making my way through the misplaced tables, I took notice of the empty chairs in front of her.



I took a deep breath and walked up to her, my hands full with a cup of dark coffee and a plate of mini croissants.

“Can I offer you some company?” I said, motioning with my cup.

Her lips stretched into an inviting smile. She answered without hesitation. “Absolutely you can.” She gestured towards the seat in front of her in response, shaking the symmetric strands of hair that had been omitted from her ponytail. “I could use a conversation.”

“Did you come here alone?” As I forced myself to keep looking at her face, my plate clattered on the table harder than I would’ve liked. I winced. “Sorry.”

“I did, actually. My friend Nina was supposed to come with me, but she cancelled at the last minute. I decided to go anyway to…” She toyed with her fork, wedged between the two fingers of her right hand, biting her lip. “To prove to myself that I could do it. There, I said it.”

“I…” I took a sip of coffee, not sure what to say. “That’s very..” Don’t say courageous, don’t say courageous… “...co-mmendable of you.”

Her brows lifted and her eyes narrowed in another smile. “Thank you. That’s very kind.” She twisted her head sharply to send her hair away from her face. “I’m Amelia.”

“I’m Harold.” Her brows furrowed again. “Yeah, I know, I know. Named after my grand-father, he passed away the day I was born.”

Her left arm lifted towards her face, even though it wasn't nearly long enough to reach it. “I’m sorry, Harold.”

“Eh, don’t mention it. Never knew the guy. It is very nice to meet you, though, Amelia.”

“The pleasure is all mine.” 

Twisting her torso to the right, she dropped the fork from her grasp and extended her right arm a few inches towards me. Without skipping a beat, I covered the distance she couldn’t and met with her palm, completely engulfing it with mine. Her shoulder rose and fell with our shake, sole driver of its range of movement.

“Aren’t you gonna ask about my arms?”

I almost choked on my croissant. I cleared my throat and waited a few seconds, hoping she’d pivot away from the subject. “What's that?”

“I saiiiiid : Don't you want to ask about my arms?”

I paused and waited longer still to think of an appropriate answer. “Should I?”

“Most people usually do it within the first 5 minutes.” She leaned forward to reach her fork again, skillful yet cruelly limited, and poked at her food while maintaining eye contact.

“So if they don’t you make sure to bring it up yourself?” I tried to refrain from smiling with all my might, but the assurance and beauty that shone from her own was too strong for me to resist. “Well, now that the ice is broken..” As I took another sip of coffee, she flipped her fork upwards and craned her neck to take a bite, proudly straightening her back. “Surely that's how you were born, because I'm pretty sure this can't be caused by an accident or trauma. Therefore, since you or anyone else has nothing to do with it, it is of little importance to me.” Proud of my little speech, I took a long gulp of water and stared back at her. 

“Okay, touché.” Her left shoulder rose and fell without intent. “Are you alone here Harold?”

“As a matter of fact, I am.” I shoved an entire mini croissant in my mouth and immediately regretted it. “Pfooo these are so dry..” 

“Try dipping them in coffee next time.” She said cockily with a wink.

Around her cup laid a splattering of light brown droplets indicative of her own experience in doing so. I nodded and, swallowing my first attempt with difficulty, tried dunking the pastry myself with little to no improvement. She seemed to read my expression without effort.

“Now I look like a liar, do I? Pass me one and let me show you.”

Her left arm flicked at her side and stretched a meager few inches towards the croissant when I nonchalantly threw it on her plate. Shifting her weight and twisting her torso again, she dragged the croissant back within range of her fork by repeatedly flicking her small limb before needing to pivot completely the other way to make use of her fork again. She tightened her grip on the metal handle and, holding the flaky pastry with both arms in tandem, poked a dozen holes through the dried crust. Then, she proudly seized it between her two fingers and rose from her seat, adjusting the angle of her entire body simply to allow herself to dunk it inside her own cup. Although I could see her muscles straining underneath her skin and around her shoulder, her legs seemed to be most responsible for her depth of movement. Sitting down, she presented it back to me, now dripping with café au lait, smiling wide.

“See?”

What could've taken me a few seconds to accomplish had taken her the better part of two minutes and yet, I hadn't seen even a smidge of discouragement in her eyes.

When the fork had slipped from her weak gasp, when the croissant had bounced away from her initial poke, when her shoulders were thrown forward in an obvious but controlled muscular strain, when the coffee first dripped on her tapered palm, then the stunted upper arm, and all the way down to wet her black top. To me, it looked like this had been an intense struggle, a pain in the ass as most would say. But to her, nothing had ever felt any different. She didn't sigh, or shake her head, or even look at me waiting for approval. She simply did it. Because she had no other choice.

The brightness of her eyes blinded me again and I found myself stupidly smiling back at her. A familiar warmth started bubbling inside my stomach, making its way down to my groin. I cleared my throat and managed to get a few words out of my mouth.

“Can I assume you're free for a little boat ride today?”

— —

Amelia and I had parted ways for an hour, enough time for the both of us to prepare our essentials for a day on the water. When I reached our designated meeting point 25 minutes early, however, I decided to sit against a tree and close my eyes, immediately dozing off without noticing. A gentle tap on my knee woke me up.

“Come on, sleepy head, you promised me a boat ride, remember?”

I groaned and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, looking up at the source of the sound only to find my date towering above me, shading me from the rising sun behind her. Her coffee stained tank top and pajama shorts were nowhere to be seen. 

Instead, they had been swapped for a simple yet very flattering matte black one piece swimsuit. It had been wedged snugly between her thighs and arched sharply upwards, exposing her generous hips and part of her sides, before widening again at her ribs to press her breasts together. It coalesced into a web of thin straps that crisscrossed at her neck and swam over her collar bones to disappear behind her back. A white translucent shawl throned around her shoulder and although it was being tossed around by the breeze, her arms couldn’t be seen poking out from under it. 

“Shall we, then?” I finally said with a dumb smile across my face.

— —

“There you are, les amoureux. Enjoy ze sea, ze sun is beautiful today.”

After dropping the anchor and making sure everything was in order, our captain wished us good fortune and vanished below deck to relax in his quarters.

“Harold?”

I turned away from the front of the boat and met with her stunning eyes. “Yeah?”

“Would you mind helping me out of this shawl?” Sitting a few inches to my right, she rolled her shoulders back in a motion that had been practiced a million times.

Recalling her own words during breakfast, I answered the same way : “It would be my pleasure.”

Delicately reaching around her neck, I undid the knot that held the shawl together and pushed it aside to reveal her shoulders and arms, or at least what little of them life had granted her. Here, in the middle of the ocean, without much distraction around us, and with this gorgeously flattering swimsuit, the focus seemed to have shifted towards them much to her dismay.

“Thank you.” She pressed her lips and smiled shyly, seemingly uncomfortable for the first time since we had met, probably aware of the shift it had had on my attention. She stared out at the horizon, perhaps in search of something to spark a conversation. The two fingers on her right side toyed at the fabric of her suit like the claws of a crab, voluntary but imprecise.



I shifted in my seat before grabbing a drink from the cooler to try to release the tension. “Care to have one with me?”

She scoffed. “At 10 in the morning?”

“Is there really a proper time to start drinking when on vacation in the Bahamas?” I looked at her through my brows.

“Oh, not at all, it’s the opposite, really. I did spike my coffee at breakfast, in fact. I’m wayyy ahead of you.”

I played with the inside of my cheek with my tongue. “And I thought you had drowned it in milk to hide the burnt aftertaste..” I scoffed in return, handing her a cranberry vodka. “What was it? Bayley’s?”

She shook her head and winked at me. “Tia Maria.” She grabbed the can with both arms and folded herself in half to secure it between her thighs before twisting her torso towards me, allowing her small hand to reach the tab. After a few seconds of delicate maneuvering, a slow drizzle of foam rose up and she brought it to her mouth for a sip. Her eyes rolled in her sockets. “Thanks for that.”

“The pleasure is all mine.” 

She snorted. “Is that going to be your catchphrase for today? It’s the second time in a few minutes you’ve said that, now.” 

“Oh, come on.” I sat back and let my arm dangle over the railing. “It was just a joke but if it’s bothering you I’ll switch tracks and bust out something new.”

“Do you usually cycle between tracks when you’re on a date?” She paused for a moment and crossed her legs. “Or is that a Bahaman special?” 

“Oh God, it’s a date?” I brought a hand to my forehead and stared right ahead, like a kid caught with its hand in a cookie jar, and sighed loudly between pursed lips.

She rolled her eyes again, her smile somehow even brighter than before. “You’re dumb, you know that?”

“And you’re on a date with me, what does that tell you about yourself?”

And just like that, she laughed. It wasn’t much, nothing more than a short giggle, but at this moment, it was for me the most beautiful sound in the world. Like clear spring water trickling into a crystal cup, and as refreshing as a dip in a creek would’ve been in this sunny morning heat. I popped open a can for myself and lifted it between us. 

“Here’s to a beautiful day with a beautiful woman.”

We cheered and I took a swig, almost burning my throat with too much cold sparkly cranberry mix, and she did the same, still holding the can between her misshapen limbs. 

Shoulders arched, arms tensed, neck craned, it was a balancing act hidden in plain sight. I had hardly taken my eyes off of her since we had gotten on the boat but now, she had caught me staring at her insecurities head on. I could feel my cheeks reddening along with hers. Somehow, I managed to summon a second cookie jar.

“They’re not the prettiest of sights, are they?” She put away her drink between her thighs and straightened herself once more. At her left side, the limb seemed to curl on itself like she was trying to hide it from sight. “I get it.”

“I’m sorry, Amelia. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“It’s okay.” She pouted. “It’s not everyday that you see a girl without arms, right?” 

I rubbed the back of my neck in shame. “That’s… certainly one way to put it.” I took a swig and turned to face her, diving into her twinkling gaze to reassure her. “I still invited you here with me though, did I?”

“I guess you did..” 

Amelia looked away to stare at the horizon once again and I let her have this moment of silence. More than just breaking the ice, we had just fallen through it and landed on our asses. I took another sip of my drink and pivoted away from her out of respect, searching the skies for a non-existent wisp of cloud. When the wind picked up to throw her blond locks across her face, she grabbed her drink and brought her left foot up on her seat, propping her right leg across the left’s knee. Then, she grabbed the rebel hair between her first two toes and wedged it back into place behind her ears as skillfully as someone who never had any other options. She downed the rest of her drink and I did the same. 

“If I tried to do that, I would tear all the ligaments in my legs at once.” 

“All you need is practice.” I reached over to retrieve the empty can from her grasp and our fingers touched for a moment. “And I’ve had my fair share.”

She shrugged to reach the side of her cheek where her hair had broken loose once more but the blunt articulation only failed to push them back. Scooting myself closer to her, I reached over and put them back in their place, letting my hand trail down the side of her face and onto her neck, where the sun had deliciously heated her skin. Her shoulder rose to meet me and I let her rounded angle lie in the palm of my hand, running my thumb over her collarbone. She closed her eyes and shivered, hard at work to control her breathing.

“Amelia, can I hold…”

Your hand? Your arm? It? I cursed at my awkwardness but let the words hang anyway, by fear of upsetting her with another wrong step.

Craning her neck, she looked down at it, her limb. More fingerlike than anything else, it didn’t articulate from her shoulder per se, but from several inches lower. Almost leveled with the side of her breasts, it’s as if it had grown directly out of her ribs. Where her arm normally should’ve been stretched featureless skin, as smooth as the one on her back or upper chest. Her shoulder fell and rose again as she unfurled her limb as best she could.

Her smile was back, although tinted with something I couldn’t quite decipher. “I would love it if you did.”

I moved even closer to her, so close in fact that our knees met and I could almost feel her breath against my face. I pushed my right hand on the back of her neck and brought the left on her thigh, feeling her hot skin underneath mine, slowly tracing my way up, briefly meeting her swimsuit before falling on her skin again where it let her hip and waist breathe. 

There, her breath hitched. Expecting, awaiting. 

I let a few seconds pass, allowing her time to either make up or change her mind, when her right foot finally guided my hand over to her limb. I let it slide between my fingers and delicately closed my fist around it. 

It was… soft. Infinitely soft. Velvety, cashmere-like, pristine, without the expected wear and tear of someone her age. It was like an antique that had never been used, yet I could feel the tiniest muscles tug and bend inside of it as she tried to return the favor of my embrace with her puny might. The uniqueness of her anatomy left me completely speechless. How could her limbs be so distorted and yet feel so… right? I released my grasp and ran my fingers under it, allowing her to hook it against my own digits in the feeblest of holds. It may have been weak, but she was holding my hand, now.

“Thank you.” She whispered. Her smile had faded away, replaced by something a lot more intimate, more vulnerable. “You have no idea how much this means to me.”

“No, I don’t.” 

I let go of her limb and my left hand wandered back to her cheek instinctively, in a gesture I had done a hundred times with other girls. But… she wasn’t like the other girls. That skewed the equation. Was she ready for me to make a move? Or would she prefer me to take it slow? We had only met an hour and a half ago, after all. Given the strength in her arms, would she even be able to push me away if she needed to?

I panicked and aborted.

Instead, I gave her chin a little pinch and leaned back to reach inside the cooler again, choosing to gallantly pop the tab on her drink this time around. Shoulders thrown forward, she took a long swig before offering it back to me. As I took a drink for myself, I could almost get a hint of her lips through the taste of the cranberry cocktail.

I sat back beside her and passed my arm around her shoulders to bring us closer together, meeting her two fingered right hand in the process. I threaded my fingers between hers like we had done earlier, now less scared of offending her or committing a faux pas. She reciprocated without a second thought. I could feel the muscles tense in her arm and up to her shoulder. 

When I took another sip, she craned her neck my way without a word and I guided the can towards her lips, not unlike a calf reaching out to a drinking bottle. Seeing as she didn’t back away from my hand, I continued tipping the can until it was completely empty. She looked back at me and licked her lips.

“Was that too much?” I asked, unsure about her reaction.

“It was perfect.” She said in a soft voice, trying and failing to wipe away what had spilled at the corners of her mouth.

We laid back once more and admired the sea together in silence, with only the lapping waves to serve as background noise. A lone floating gull sneaked out of the catamaran’s blind spot, eyes closed, enjoying a much deserved break from the open skies above. 

“One time for Halloween I…” Amelia laughed nervously. “..My mom dressed me up as a bird. She had sewn dollar store wings on the sleeves of an old t-shirt to…” She silenced herself and shook her head. “Nevermind, I don’t know I’m telling you this story..”

I untangled our fingers to cover her shoulder instead, pressing her against my side ever more. “Come on, you can’t start telling me something and then leave me hanging like that! Besides, I think it’s a pretty cool idea for a costume.”

“I…” She rolled her shoulders under my grasp but I didn’t let her go, as I thought she still needed some reassurance. She snuggled against me and continued. “They hung at my sides instead of having them folded against my back so the illusion was pretty good. To people that didn’t know me, I looked norm…” She took a deep breath and sighed. “I looked almost normal.”

The gull stretched its wings and flew away right at this moment, as if it had been activated on cue. Amelia’s gaze was still fixed on the sea before us, but I could only imagine what had started brewing in her mind.

“Normal is boring anyway.” I bit the inside of my cheek. Had I been too cheesy? 

She let her head lean against mine and I knew I must’ve at least defused some of the tension inside her head. “Then I’m cursed to remain interesting forever, I suppose.”

I put my nose against the top of her head and took a whiff of her scent. “Personally, I’d go for cursed over boring every single time.”

“I’ve heard it before. Nothing but bells and whistles until they realize I need help to open a Tupperware lid. Guys are all the same.”

I swallowed hard, craning my neck to try and meet her gaze. “Can I at least get one chance to prove you wrong?”

A melancholic smirk was all that remained of the jaw dropping smile she had offered me all morning and even her eyes seemed to have lost some of their shine. But she remained beautiful nonetheless, whether in joy or sorrow, happiness or sadness. I lifted my left hand to her cheek again and leaned in closer, attentive for a clear sign of consent on her part. Then, when she tensed the muscles in her neck and her eyes slowly came to a close, I gently kissed her on the lips.

She returned the favor once, then twice, then another, before backing away for a moment and as we drowned into each other’s gaze, my hands had found her sides again. I intertwined the two fingers to my left between mine and held them gently, reassuringly, in a way that I hoped could only mean one thing.

“What did you see in me?” Her breath hitched in her throat like someone on the verge of tears, although there were none in her eyes. Her lips quivered inches away from mine and I paused, unsure of how to answer. “What did you see that makes me worthy of so much tenderness and care?” The words seemed painful to pronounce. “Why are you so nice to me?”

I kissed her again before answering, pulling on her short arm to press her against me. Without skipping a beat, her tongue escaped her lips and slithered between mine, twisting around as we relished each other’s taste, and I grabbed her thighs to lift them onto my lap, their weight anchoring me precisely in this moment. I reached behind her back with my right hand, finding another opening in her swimsuit to devour the feeling of her skin against mine as the rest of my senses were being overwhelmed by her presence. 

The musky scent of her sweat mixed with sea water, the labored sounds of her breath against mine, the sun coming in and out of her shadow, and the almost irresistible need to open my eyes and take another look at her flawed beauty. It was only when her tongue retreated home and her lips had calmed down that I dared to look back at the clear blue irises a few inches in front of me. She was still waiting for an answer.

“You should see yourself through my eyes.” I ran my fingers through her hair, messing up part of her ponytail. “I’ve never seen someone like you.”

“I know that.” Her eyes trailed down and lingered on my chest, unfocused. “No one has. That’s usually part of the problem..”

“I mean it. You should see yourself through my eyes.” I leaned in and she allowed me a single kiss. “I'd be lying if I told you what I noticed first was your smile, that would be unrealistic of me. But that doesn’t mean it was anything short of breathtaking. Next only to your eyes.” She nuzzled against my hand as I caressed her cheek. “Do you want me to tell you I wasn’t intrigued by the girl without arms sitting by herself at the hotel buffet? Because I’d be lying again.” I smiled kindly and kissed her again, meeting no resistance. “But that doesn’t mean the rest of you isn’t earth shattering.” I chuckled and ran a hand through my own hair. “I.. I mean.. You’re funny, witty… And you started drinking even earlier than me! That’s gotta count for something, right?” Seeing as she wasn’t laughing at that last comment, I forced myself to turn it down a notch. “There’s just something about the way you are and what you exude that leaves me wordless.”

There were tears in her eyes, now, and I found myself wondering how she would wipe them out of her face. “Do you mean what you just said?”

“From the bottom of my heart I do.”

She smiled and it seemed that the spark had found its way back into her eyes. Gently holding one of her arms, I dragged us both to the corner of the cushioned seat and slouched against it, her body lovingly pressed against mine, her head on my chest. I kissed the top of her head and let my fingers run across her stomach absentmindedly, eyes closed, enjoying the purity of the silence that enveloped us. Then, succumbing to the temptation, my left hand found its way inside her swimsuit to rest against her naked breast, pressing her nipple in my palm. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, her right arm angled towards her chest.

— 

The rest of the day had been just as wonderful. 

We had returned to shore shortly before 2pm, absolutely starving, and had made our way to the buffet to grab whatever scraps the others had left us. Then, we spent the rest of the afternoon sitting at the pool bar, chatting about everything and nothing, gradually getting to know each other. 

Amelia is the youngest of four, has two sisters, as well as a transmasc eldest brother, and had lived most of her childhood in a chic downtown apartment before moving to the countryside after both her parents had had drastic career changes. There, she had fallen in love with the landscape of her backyard and had picked up painting, especially inspired by Bob’s Ross’ uptick in popularity around the mid 2010s. She has one cat named Salami and lives by herself in a small one bedroom apartment near her workplace, a telemarketing company for which she is a human resources assistant.

“Wait, wait, wait…” I spun my fingers in the air between us. “Back it up a notch. Quick question. How do you paint, exactly?”

“With a paintbrush, of course! What a stupid question!” She chuckled and rolled her eyes mockingly. 

“You know what I meant, Amelia.” I threw her a side look and took a big gulp of my beer.

She looked at me through her eyebrows in return. “If you really want to know, you’ll use the proper words and ask your question directly, Harold.” She smirked and took a sip of her own with her straw, the fingerlike arm on her left gently holding it in place. “Only if you dare to do so, of course.”

I sat with my back straight and looked into her eyes defyingly. “Do you paint using your arms or your feet?”

She nodded exaggeratedly, uncrossing her legs. “Great question! Let me show you.”

And there, like an otherworldly beast emerging from the unknown depths of a forgotten ocean, her right leg broke the surface of the pool, dripping with chlorinated water. She wiggled her toes one at a time with impressive dexterity. 

“For broad strokes and backgrounds, what I usually do is grab a brush between my first two toes like so...” 

She stretched them apart and lifted her foot to eye level seemingly without effort before moving it to and fro before my eyes. There was something hypnotic about the fluidity of her movements, the effortlessness with which she moved her leg with such precision. In this moment I knew that everything that her arms were too imprecise or too short to accomplish, her legs could do just as well. 

Her foot started tracing precise shapes in the air, crisscrossing Xs over here, then small circles further up, before miming to dip her brush in an invisible smidge of paint on the bar.

“For smaller details, however, I need more support…”

She pulled herself to me with her left leg, propping her foot up on my seat between my thighs, before angling her right ankle across her knee. Squinting, lower lip locked underneath her teeth, her motions had become minute, surgical. She wedged her second toe underneath the big one to purposefully smudge a detail on her imaginary canvas, poking my nose in the process. I grabbed her foot and massaged her sole with a thumb, easily getting rewarded with a satisfied grunt, when my attention drifted away to meet the tense muscles of her thighs, following their course up towards her hips, where they frustratingly blurred beneath the surface of the water. Amelia pinched my nose to get my attention back.

“You asked me a question! How about you listen to the answer?” She put on a fake angry look and laid her foot flat on my chest. I grabbed and lifted it even higher in retaliation, throwing her off balance.

“I’m sorry, I got distracted.” I put a securing hand on her back and the other grabbed the inside of her thigh, albeit a little closer to her groin than I had aimed for. I didn’t back away. “What were you saying?”

She pursed her lips trying to feign annoyance but the alcohol in her veins prevented her from being even slightly convincing. “If you wanna be so forthcoming, why don’t you just carry me back to your room so I can give you a proper demonstration?”

A warm tingle blossomed at the bottom of my spine and irradiated into my stomach. I leaned in and, hands still holding her back and thigh, kissed her softly. I whispered in her ear ; “It would be my pleasure.” 

—

I woke up to the sound of a dog barking.

What time was it, for fuck’s sake?



Must’ve been at least 9am according to the amount of light filtering through the curtains. I yawned and stretched, rubbing the remaining sleep out of my eyes. The patio door in the living room slammed shut.

“Sorry!” A feminine voice whispered forcefully from one floor below. I could hear her muffled steps even on the thick carpeted staircase. “Hamlet couldn’t wait another minute.” She chuckled. “Didn’t you let him out when you came to bed last night?”

I nodded. “As I always do.” Amelia knelt on the bed beside me and rubbed the sole of her feet together. “Maybe he’s just excited about all the snow we had last night.”

“Maybe..” She leaned forward in a 90 degree angle and kissed my lips. “Did you sleep well?”

“Like a baby.” I reached for a handful of hair and tugged her close to me for a few more of these kisses. “Dreamt of you, actually.”

“Oh reaaaaally?” She grinned and sent her bangs away from her face with a quick twist of her neck. “How did I look?”

“That’s a stupid question.” I propped up on my elbow and reached for her cheek. She shrugged against it. “Gorgeous. As always.”

She threw her left shoulder forward and wagged her arm dismissively. “You always say that.”

“That’s because it’s true.”

With a hand on her ass, I quickly pulled her towards me and she toppled onto my chest, her nubbed arms and bare shoulders flailing uselessly. Her delicious laughter filled my ears and she tried to wiggle out of my grasp without success.

“Harold let me go!!” She giggled and wagged her limbs with renewed fervor. “I'm going to pee myself!”

Seeing as she was currently laying on top, I winced at the idea of her bladder emptying on me and helped her back upright. After another calculated hair toss, she turned away and leaned low again to reach the doorknob with her right hand, offering me a spectacular view of her cheeks spilling out of her underwear.

I took a mental picture of it and, although it was still hidden behind her thin black panties, it was as if she was wearing nothing at all.

I promised myself I would tear it off of her the moment she walked out of the bathroom.