I’m not much of a socialite. All my life I’ve been a bit disconnected—aloof. My therapist says it’s because how I feel inside never necessarily vibed with what I saw on the outside. Imagine having to dress as a clown every single day but feeling perfectly normal. Or feeling like a boy but having big breasts and a thick bottom, feeling pressured to present femininely. You’d feel uncomfortable! Well I didn’t feel...complete. It’s weird to say, but with my full complement of parts I felt like something was completely off. The feeling was rather vague but I just had too much to keep track of honestly.  It’s a profound feeling and I can’t describe it any more than that, but I got the distinct suspicion that Riley felt the same way as I did and that’s why over time she had more and more removed from her legs. I pushed the possibility of feeling that way myself deep into the empty box where I used to keep my dysphoria for my arm.

As nervous as I felt around Riley when I would see her, it still seemed right that we ran into each other again. Despite however many hives I got thinking about meeting with her and her friends tonight, I still felt it was the right thing to do. However this was my first time going out with one arm and that fact didn’t help my nerves. I reached up with a my index and middle finger of my left hand and poked at my empty shoulder. Lately I’ve really liked to cup it—yes—like a boob. The meat left over from my amputation left a round squishy ball, not entirely unlike a stress ball, topped by the end of my collarbone. I cupped it and gave it a gingerly squeeze. The rush of validating endorphines filled my body and my nerves were calm again.

I dressed modestly for the night: Cute jeans (My thick ass pulled off anything honestly), a white t-shirt with very short sleeves (just enough to show off the bottom of my armless shoulder), and a couple thin gold bracelets on my left wrist. I won’t even go into the difficulty of getting it all on but let’s just say that by that time I was still very inexperienced with having one arm and I spent a lot of time laying on my side, anchoring one side of my jeans while pulling up on the other. When I was finally finished every muscle in my remaining arm ached.

I was meeting up with a voluntary amputee and her friends, whoever they were so it would be strange to try and completely hide my stump. Perhaps Riley wanted a new friend like her so her so she didn’t feel so uncomfortable being an amputee around her. I might as well get used to putting my new stump on display anyway. I could never picture Riley being self-conscious about her own tiny leg stumps. Her cute two inch thigh remnants were so cute on her, almost a fashion statement.

I started to get a little flustered thinking about her and how she might look tonight. I decided to see her unwavering confidence in her short leg stumps as an example of how I could be. Her confidence was very attractive. I spent a lot of time “calming” myself...

The address was pretty close by. I thought it might be a bar or club but it was just a house about five blocks from my apartment. I took a deep breath and walked slowly up the stairs to the front door. After a deep breath I rang the bell.

“Just a minute!” I heard from beind the door. There was a lot of fumbling behind the door and it took a longer than I would have expected. I began to feel bad for even making whomever was answering the door take so long to do so and I unconsciously cupped my shoulder. Finally the door swung open to a tall blonde girl. She was very slender and immaculately put together.

“Hi! You must be Megan!” She said.

“Yep.” I said with a nervous smile.

“Come on in! I’m Annie.” Annie gave a small bow and lead me with quite a graceful walk through her living room. She had a peculiar gait but it was also quite sensuous. The home was nice without seeming bougy. High valuted ceilings and pillows everywhere made the place feel really cozy.

“Welcome to my home! Let’s go to the kitchen.” she led me toward the back of the house and I heard some cheerful chatter. Just before rounding the corner I heard a laugh that was undeniably Riley’s and my adrenaline began to flow.

“Megan! You made it! Im so happy youre here!” at first I couldn’t see who it was and finally looked down. Riley was looking up excitedly. She was...standing...her stumps had to be about a foot above the ground considering how tall she was next to me, which really didn’t bring her to much more than just over four feet tall. I was dumbstruck for a couple seconds, but as I’ve learned, Riley is great with breaking the tension when I’, being a doofus.

 “Honestly I was a bit nervous you’d bail or just not show up. Well that’s why I didn’t give you my number—so you couldn’t!” She laughed. She walked..or should I say waddled...a couple small labored steps toward me and grabbed my hand. Pulling me to slowly follow behind, her gait like an extremely accentuated catwalk, her ass had to work hard to work with whatever was lifting her from the ground. I looked down at her and couldn’t see beneath her hipes as she was so close to me but to my amazement she really was walking despite having almost no legs!

Riley guided me slowly over to one of two others in the kitchen that I was too overwhelmed to look at yet. “Megan, of course you met Annie,” I looked over and smiled. Annie didnt wave but instead gestured her shoulder and knodded her head with a big smile, “This is Gerogina.”

I really needed a muzzle or something! For the third time in thirty seconds I was at a loss for words and my jaw fell open. Georgina had brown curly hair and looked very content sitting on the kitchen counter with no leg at all extending past the left hip of her tight blue jeans. She was holding a drink in both her hands, her completely empty hip resting at the very edge of the counter.

“Uh, hi...uh..” I stammered. Everyone roared with laughter and my face went bright red. “I mean, Im sorry I uh..” Gerogina was laughing too and waved her hands trying to calm me down but still unable to stop her laughter.

“Hahaha! It’s okay it’s okay! Oh my gosh.” Georgina laughed again.

“If only everyone would do that when they first meet me!” Riley chuckled.

“They do youre just too short to ever see them do it!” Someone else said. I looked over and Annie had removed her button-up flannel shirt, revealing two completely armless shoulders. Annie was slender, but what made her moreso was that both her arms were completely missing, even more than me, squared off by her remaining collarbone. Riley began to come back with a joke of her own to Annie, but I never got to hear it because the next thing I knew I was on the couch waking up dizzy with a headache.

“Megan are you okay?!” My vision was still blurry so I didn’t know who said it, let alone know where I was but my memories began to slowly flow back into my head: I just arrive at a party filled with amputees missing large parts of their bodies. I began to feel light headed again.

“Oh shit shes going again!” I heard Riley say.

“Ugh, no...no, it’s okay, but I need to lay here for a few more minutes if thats okay.” I struggled to say.

“Of course! You passed out.” Riley said, now sitting on the ground next to the couch, just about a foot in front of my face. If she still had legs she wouldn’t have been able to sit as close to me as she was. She reached down and pushed herself up with her hand and scooted over so that Georgina could take her place. Georgina was a bit taller than Riley when sitting.

“Sorry we scared you. I really didn’t expect that to happen!” Georgina put her arms up and rested her head next to mine with a sweet friendly intimacy that seemed to make my anxiety melt away. I finally understood that these people weren’t here to laugh at me and they didn’t invite me here for any malicious reason at all. And Riley definitely didn’t invite me for moral support. She invited me here to meet others like myself. Everyone I met tonight so far were missing at least one entire limb. I smiled meekly at Georgina and saw her left hand upon which she was resting her head. Only two fingers, her index, pinky, and thumb, extended from her palm. Okay then...everyone was missing at least one entire limb and a couple fingers. I closed my eyes to take a much needed break from my new reality.