Reductive College 2

It wasn’t a dream. Allie opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling. Had she really removed part of her body last night? Her hand shot to her arm. She carefully inspected the limb, patting down from her shoulder towards the point where it terminated just before where an elbow should be. She tried to move her hand, wiggle her fingers, bend her elbow… nothing. Other than some muscles twitching in her stump, there was no response. As if she had never had a left hand to begin with.

She yawned and sat up. In the bathroom, she again struggled a little. Showering was easy, but shaving required some unusual moves to reach the armpit under her single intact arm. The next issue presented itself when she tried to blow-dry her hair. In the end, she used her knees to hold the blow-dryer while using a brush to organise her long hazel hair.

She needed surprisingly little time to figure out her bra, and when she finally stood in front of her mirror, fully dressed and ready to go, she was rather proud of herself. Her left sleeve dangled emptily on her side, so she rolled it up until her stump peeped out at the end. She smiled at herself in the mirror and stepped out of her room and into the living room.

“Morning sunshine”, Sanya greeted her warmly. “I see you are adapting well to…this.” She gestured to Allie’s arm.

“Morning! Yeah, took me a few tries to do some things, but so far this has been a fun challenge.”

“I’m glad you’re having a good time. How about some breakfast, and then I show you around the campus?”

“Sounds good!”

“Just so you know, you will get some stares. While this tech has been out for a little while now, most people either don’t know about it, can’t afford it, or aren’t curious enough to spend the amount of money required to have a chance to try it out”, Sanya said.

“I understand.”

“There are a few shops around where you can try it for little money, but they haven’t quite caught on yet, so…seeing you will just be like seeing a chick with one arm missing for them. They don’t know it’s only temporary.”

“I guess they’ll find out soon enough”, Allie grinned.

After breakfast, Sanya showed Allie around their campus. Allie had seen it before, of course, but she was still enjoying the tour. As they reached the main administrative building, they turned a corner and collided with a group consisting of three people, who, judging by their anxious looks, were freshmen like Allie. They were carrying bags of mostly useless leaflets, coupons, and free merchandise, which companies distributed a few times per year on campus in a desperate attempt to get young and bright people to either work for them or do business with them. As Allie collided with one member of the group, a girl with blonde hair and pretty glasses, her bag fell to the floor, landed upside down and spilt its contents across the foyer.

“Oh my God, I am so sorry”, Allie said. “Are you okay?” She immediately went down on her knees and began gathering the clutter. She picked up a handful of things with one hand and reached for the bag with the other. As the bag didn’t end up in her hand, she was forced to look and was reminded of the fact that her left arm was missing at elbow level. She blushed and hoped nobody had seen her struggle.

“I’m okay, no worries! You?”, the girl said.

“I’m good, thanks.”

The girl’s eyes kept darting towards Allie’s arm, she was visibly struggling to keep from staring.

“I’m Laura”, she introduced herself. Then she pointed to her friends, a guy and a girl, who had begun gathering the clutter as well. “These are Morris and Alex.” Her friends approached, and everyone shook hands. Allie introduced Sanya and herself, and they chatted while gathering everything before going their separate ways.

When Sanya and Allie arrived back at the flat, they were greeted by Dan and John, who were sitting on the couch watching a movie. John was legless, and he was feeding Dan, who was armless, some popcorn. The sight was so ridiculous that Allie had to giggle. Yeah, she thought to herself, this is my new life. And she smiled to herself.

Allie had a blast. Her room was great, classes were interesting, her roommates were the best she could’ve hoped for, and she just felt home at college. Dan, John, and Sanya had become very close friends of hers, and their company made her start into her new life seem a lot less daunting. After her week without her left arm, in which she constantly had to adapt to different levels of dexterity while her arm slowly grew back, she had quickly come to appreciate the challenges using the Atomizer presents, and she always advocated for its usage, mostly as punishment for not doing chores. At any given time, someone in the flat was missing some part of their body, and the Atomizer made for a fun gadget for parties as well. September quickly made way for October, and soon, Halloween approached.

The group had been invited to a Halloween-party three flats over and two floors up.

Four hours before the party, they had gathered in the living room.

“Ben and Marcus said to come in costume or not at all”, said Sanya to the group. In preparation for Halloween, they had all refrained from using the Atomizer in the past two weeks, which meant that for the first time since Allie had been introduced to the device, everyone in the group had a full set of limbs.

“We know that Ben and Marcus know about the Artomizer from one of our parties”, Dan added.

“Laura told me last week that Alex bought one for herself recently, so I think it’s safe to assume that Laura, Morris and Alex will have been playing with it as well. I’m pretty sure I saw Laura struggle to unzip her jacket on Monday, and when some guy asked her if she needed help, she hid her hand from him”, Allie mentioned.

“I think it’s safe for us to use it for tonight”, Sanya concluded.

“Great”, John said. “So.. what did you guys have in mind?”

“I was planning to go as Mr. Crabs”, Dan said. “I bought this red body paint and was going to paint myself red. Now that we’re using the Atomizer, I can also do the claws. You do have the scalpel add-on here, don’t you?” He turned to ask Sanya.

“That’s a fun idea! Sure. Get ready and in costume, once you’re done I’ll do the claws with you”, she said.

“Awesome! Anyone else here need me?”

The others shook their heads, and Dan headed off to his room.

“I was planning to go as Yoda”, said John. “When Dan bought his red body paint, I asked him to get some green paint for me as well. I also bought black sclera contact lenses and latex ears.”

“I can make your legs shorter and basically take away a joint and some bone, as well as shorten your arms and remove some fingers”, Sanya said slowly while putting it all together in her thoughts. “Yeah, that should work. Go and get ready then.”

“Thanks Sanya”, said John and left.

Sanya turned to Allie. “What about you, do you have any ideas yet?”

“No, not really. How long do I have to decide?”

“Well, my brother is a huge fan of some German TV-show called ‘Bernd the Bread’. It’s about a depressed loaf of bread, and nowadays episodes of that show are the idling loop of the kids’ TV-channel at night…what?”, she asked when she noticed the disbelief in Allie’s face.

“No idea how he found it, but he managed to track down some episodes with subtitles and it’s one of those ‘so bad it’s funny again’ kind of things. Anyway, Bernd has no arms or legs, but his hands are attached directly to his body, and I think it’s the same for is feet. I actually bought a costume, but with the Atomizer and some latex, I think I can come up with something even better. So you have until I do my arms.”

“Sounds fair. Then give me half an hour”, Allie said.

“You got it”, Sanya said. “I’ll go and figure out my altered costume then.”

“Thanks Sanya”, said Allie as Sanya headed for her room.

“Sanya, I got it”, Allie said as she entered the bathroom, where Sanya was just applying makeup while simultaneously drying a liquid latex cast.

“Awesome, what is it?”

“I’ll go as Venus de Milo. I have these white mesh lenses to do the eyes, and plenty of makeup and hair-dye to do the colour. And if you have some liquid-latex left, I can even do some highlighting to mimic the stone a little better. If you can set the timer of the Atomizer to 24 hours, I can also try that configuration tomorrow. I’ve been meaning to try that for a while now. And I’ll use a white bedsheet to make the tunic”, Allie explained excitedly.

“That sounds amazing”, Sanya said. “I should have some liquid latex left. Give me half an hour and I’ll bring it to you.”

“Thanks!” Allie smiled.

“Go get ready then”, Sanya said.

Two hours later, the friends assembled in the living room once more. They were in costume for the most part: John already looked like Yoda, but didn’t yet wear the robes. He had altered them to fit him once Sanya had done his limbs, and until them, it didn’t fit him. Dan was almost ready. He had a latex nose and was completely red. Sanya…looked like a loaf of bread with arms and legs. She had shown Allie a picture of Bernd and Allie had to admit that her costume came incredibly close. Allie was also almost ready. The tunic was sewn ready, and Allie was completely white with some liquid latex here and there. She was also wearing the mesh contact lenses.

“I have one question”, Allie said. “Can the Atomizer remove my…my nipples?”

Sanya looked surprised, but as soon as she eyed the tunic she understood. “Sure, I can, but you don’t have to. Marcus said the party will be okay with mild nudity. He made that very clear. So…it’s up to you.

“Hm, okay. I’m not worried about you guys. Ever since Dan’s birthday party, where we all ended up naked and triple amputees in the end I don’t think I have to worry about you…okay, screw it”, she said. “I’ll do the costume properly.”

“Attagirl”, Sanya said and grinned.

“Okay, Dan, how about we start with you while Allie get’s ready?”

“Sounds good”, Dan agreed.

“Roll up your sleeves and…you know what, just remove the shirt for this”, Sanya instructed as she picked up the Atomizer and clicked the scalpel add-on into place.

“Okay, hold out your arms and keep still”, Sanya said. “I set the timer for twelve hours, so you’ll get your hands back in your sleep. Is that okay?”

“Yep, sounds perfect, thanks”, Dan replied.

Sanya removed Dan’s hands and a few inches past his wrists. Then she turned his arms and began to carefully cut between his ell and his poke. She went until a few inches below his elbows, before she pressed a few buttons until the word “Krukenberg” appeared on the small display. She selected the option to do the muscles and began to wave the atomizer over the point where the cut in Dan’s arms ended. Dan grimaced as the muscles rearranged, but it only took a few seconds.

Sanya switched the Atomizer off, and Dan opened and closed his claw-like stumps a few times.

“This is trippy every time”, he commented. “I should repaint my arms. The insides of the claws are skin-coloured.” He headed to his room and returned a few minutes later, constantly blowing on the red paint on his arms to make them dry faster. Once the paint had dried, he used his claw-stumps to put on his shirt again. In the mean-time, Allie had put on the tunic and Sanya had already removed her left arm at the shoulder. Once Sanya had also removed her right arm, leaving her with a single right arm stump that just about reached the sides of her breast, Allie carefully walked to the bathroom mirror and marvelled at her new shape. She moved her right arm stump around as much as she could. She tried to do the same with her left arm, but could only shrug her armless shoulder where her left arm had once been. Once she had inspected her look for the evening enough, she returned to the others.

“Are you okay?” Sanya asked.

“Yep, thanks”, Allie said. “I didn’t expect it to look this good. I will need some help with my coat and doors tonight though, I guess.”

“No problem there”, Dan said and ostentatiously snapped his claws. Allie grinned.

“You look great”, John said.

“Thank you!”

“How will you get out the contact lenses when you get back tonight?” The question came from Dan.

“I…I didn’t think of that”, Allie admitted. “Damn it!” She tried to reach her eyes with her stump, but couldn’t reach past her cheek. And even if she had been able to reach her eyes, how was she supposed to get the contact lenses out with just one stump? “I really didn’t think this through properly, did I?”

“Probably not. Don’t worry though, I’ll help you when we get home. I have these little suction sticks, so I won’t have to put my fingers into your eyes”, John said.

“That’s awfully nice of you, thanks John”, Allie said visibly relieved.

John was next. Sanya carefully removed his knees and most of his legs, leaving him with short kneeless legs with feet attached at their ends. Then she shortened his upper and lower arms and removed his index and ring fingers. She cut a little further into the hand, then pushed the sections together. She carefully mended the flesh together, and when she was done, it looked like John had always had three fingers on each hand.

“Wow, thank you!” John marvelled at Sanya’s handiwork.

“You’re most welcome. I’ve always wanted to try doing that. I’m glad it turned out this well.”

John went to put on the Jedi-robes, which now fit him perfectly. Meanwhile, Sanya had shrunken away her legs until her feet were attached to her rump. She enlisted Dan to shrink away her arms and push her hands up to her shoulders. She directed him while he was at work. Once Dan was done, Sanya looked satisfied.

“Okay then…let’s go to a party”, she said, and turned to waddle to the door.

Allie asked Dan to help her into her coat, as she didn’t want to walk half-naked through the building, and the friends headed to the party.

“We should probably take the elevator”, John said as he stepped into the corridor. “I think I could manage stairs, but I doubt that Sanya could. She has no legs and no arms to help her.”

“Good idea”, Sanya said a little out of breath already.

The group moved on past the staircase and to the elevators, where Dan used a claw to press the button. While they waited, a few freshmen walked past, curiously eyeing the weird collection of deformed people, but before they could come ask questions, the elevator doors opened with a “ping” and the friends quickly shuffled inside.

­­­­­­­­­­­­­

“Ding dong”

John rang the doorbell twice. They heard steps from inside the flat. Then the door opened.

“Woah awesome!!” Marcus’ eyes went wide when he saw them. He had blackened teeth, am eyepatch. He had a plastic-hook in one of his hands and was wearing a pretty decent looking pirate costume in general. “You guys look incredible!”

“Thanks”, said Sanya. “Your costume isn’t too shabby either.”

“Well, thank you. I know most of these costumes, but what is yours?”

“A German kid’s show character called Bernd the Bread. I’ll explain later”, Sanya said.

“Okay, great! Well, come on in guys.” He motioned for them to come in.

“Can I take your coat?” he offered to Allie.

“That’d be great, thanks, but you’ll have to remove it for me as well.”

“No problem.” He set the plastic hook aside and unbuttoned her coat before taking it off for her. “Wow, Allie, you look incredible!”

“Thank you”, Allie said, smirking shyly.

“I’ll put your coat right here. Why don’t you go and join the others for now?”

“Thanks, I’ll do just that.”

Allie walked past him and into the living room. Allie and her friends weren’t the first to arrive, and there were quite a few other guests in the room. Allie spotted Sanya, who sat on the couch and seemed to cause quite the stir, especially among those who hadn’t been introduced to the Atomizer yet. Dan was in the corner by the snacks and the drinks and showed a group of his study acquaintances how his claw arms worked by opening a bottle of beer for himself. It took him a few tries, but eventually he succeeded, which made all the bystanders cheer.

“Allie”, a voice called out. “Over here!”

After a few seconds of searching, Allie managed to locate the source of the voice. It was Laura.

“Hey Laura”, Allie said as she approached. “Great costume!”

“Thanks, but look who’s talking. You look amazing!”

“Well, thank you.” Allie smiled. “So what exactly am I looking at?”

Laura seemed normal, until her waist, which seemed to be the ending point of her body.

“I’m a magic trick gone wrong.”

“That’s awesome! How did you do it?”

“It’s called a hemicorporectomy. Basically everything below my belly button is gone.”

“Fascinating. So…how do you pee?”

“For tonight I don’t. I’m banking on not drinking too much, but if I want to stay like this longer, I’d need a surgical exit.”

“That sounds…unpleasant.”

“Eh, the Atomizer can do it, and I have the necessary tubes and bags at my place already. I don’t think I’ll need them yet, though. I think I’d like my private parts back some time, and I really don’t fancy crawling everywhere.”

“I get that. Still, looks awesome. And freaky, but mostly awesome”, Allie said.

“Thank you. So…what about you, you don’t seem to be able to do a whole lot by yourself…”

“Yeah, but I was kind of hoping to have some of the guys help me.” Allie winked at Laura and tried to point at her half-nude body with her single arm stump.

“I’m sure you won’t have to search long”, Laura giggled. “In fact, there’s someone I wanted you to meet.”

“Ooh, that sounds interesting”, Allie said. “Whom? And where are Alex and Morris, by the way?”

“Alex is over there dressed as a lamp. She removed her left leg at the hip and hopped up the stairs to get here, which was a sight to behold. And Morris is the dude from 127 hours with his hand missing and all the fake blood.”

“Damn they look great! I’ll need to go and say hi to them.”

“Do that. Then come back. I wanted you to meet someone, remember?”

“Right. See you in a little while.” Allie turned around and went to say hello to Morris and Alex. She received a lot of praise from everyone she saw and enjoyed the attention.

When she returned to Laura, she found that Laura was talking to a teddy bear.

“Um…hello?” Allie coughed a few times to get Laura’s attention.

“Ah, yes, Allie, meet Toby. Toby is a friend of mine. He met Alex through me, and Alex helped him with his costume.”

“Oh. My. God. You are so cute!!” Allie almost screamed.

“Ahaha thanks. I’d shake your hand, but neither of us have… anyway, nice to meet you, Allie, Laura has told me a lot about you.”

“She has?” Allie shot Laura a curious glance, but Laura just snickered.

“She said you’re new in town and that you like pubs and cafés. Anyway, wanna talk? I think the kitchen is fairly quiet.”

“Sounds good to me”, Allie said and shot Laura a grin.

“Have fun”, Laura just said.

Toby led the way to the kitchen, and Allie got a good look at his costume. It seemed like Alex had removed his legs at the knees and his arms at the elbows. He was wearing a teddy bear suit that had the same brown colour his skin had.

“Here we are. Have a seat”, Toby said, pulling a chair at the kitchen table back for her with both his stubby arms. Then he struggled to climb into a chair himself, but managed after about a minute.

“Sorry I couldn’t be of any assistance”, Allie commented.

“That’s quite alright. This is new to me, but I’m having fun exploring this.”

“I completely understand. When I moved in with my roommates and they introduced me to it, I thought the idea was super freaky. Yet I haven’t spent a week with all my body parts since.”

“Really?” Toby looked surprised.

“Yeah, it’s just fun. I don’t always go all in, never actually. Usually it’s just a finger or a hand, or maybe a leg on the weekend.”

“That seems completely crazy to me, but who am I to talk?” He raised his two stubby arms.

“So Toby, tell me about yourself.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Let’s start with the basics.”

“Okay, I’m from Erlangen, which is near Nuremberg in Germany. I study political sciences, am 22 years old. After school, I spent a year in Scotland, where I started to really like whisky, as well as some time in Utrecht in the Netherlands. I have two siblings, two younger brothers. One studies as well, the other one is still in school. I like classical music and modern music – any good music really – and I am a bit of a nerd. I enjoy skiing and scuba diving…” He paused for a moment.

“Wow, you sure have gotten around”, Allie said. She couldn’t help but notice how attractive he was, and how approachable he seemed to her as he gave her a friendly look.

“Yeah, I have. But what about you?”

“Well, I’m 19 years old, fresh out of high school. I’m from Dublin, I have two siblings, an older brother and a younger sister, and I study law.” Allie rattled down all the information she could think of and finished with “…and I really like nerds”, which made Toby grin.

“Well, I guess I hit the jackpot then”, he mused.

The evening unfolded and Toby and Allie got into some deep topics, as well as some completely random, unexpected ones. The two had gone to get a drink (which Toby placed in front of Allie on the kitchen table with a straw.

Later they joined the others in the living room, and Laura shot her a knowing grin, which Allie returned.

At some point late in the evening, Allie went back to Toby.

“I saw a balcony at the end of the corridor outside the flat when I arrived. Wanna go and have a look?”

“Sounds good”, he replied. “Lead the way.”

Allie led him to the door and paused.

“Could you help me with my coat? I think it’ll be a little too cold for my to go without one.”

“If I can, sure.”

“Okay, let me find it.” Allie used her stump and head to dig through the coats until she found hers. She pulled it out with her teeth and “handed” it to Toby, who help it with his stubby arms. After some struggling and wriggling, she eventually slipped into her coat.

“Thanks”, she said, a little out of breath. “Let’s go.”

On the balcony, they were completely alone. There was a padded bench, which they sat down on. For a while, they just enjoyed each other’s company in silence.

“By the way, you look incredibly soft. I’d hug you if I had arms”, Allie said suddenly. ‘Going in a little hot there, Allie, hm?’, she thought to herself. ‘Ah screw it, he seems into it.’

“Can I feel?”, she asked.

“Sure.”

He leaned closer and Allie extended her stump to feel his soft suit, but the stump was in her coat.

“Um could you help me get my stump out?”, she asked.

“Yeah, hang on.” He folded her coat back and allowed her to pull out her only stump.

“Uuh, that is incredibly soft”, she said as she felt his body through the teddy bear suit. “I kinda miss my arms, or else…”

She realised how close she was to his face. For a moment, time seemed to stand still. Then she closed her eyes, leaned in, and gave him a kiss. He seemed to be surprised, but after the initial surprise, he reciprocated.

“That…I’m…sorry..” Allie stammered.

“Sshh”, Toby made and kissed her again.

Allie smiled.

“How about we go to the pub tomorrow? There’s this pub I’ve been meaning to try for a while now just two blocks away..”

“I’m in. And if I pick you up, you can show me the Star Trek model you’ve told me about.”

“Deal. I’m in this building, flat 32C. 7pm?”

“It’s a date”, Allie said.

“Great!” Toby smiled.

They stayed on the balcony for another half hour, and only headed back to the party when Allie began to freeze.

Back at the party, Allie was approached by John, who was ready to head back. Dan joined them, but Sanya, who’d had quite a bit to drink and was chatting and giggling with Laura, said she’d come home later.

Back in their flat, John quickly waddled to take a shower to remove all the makeup, before he removed his own contact lenses. Then he helped Allie remove her white mesh sclera lenses before waddling to bed.

Allie hopped in the shower and cleaned herself of the makeup as well as she could with her single arm stump. She realised she’d have to go for a second round in the morning again, but was positively surprised by how much she had managed to remove in her current state.

She took fifteen minutes to brush her teeth and headed for her bedroom. There, she encountered the next problem: how was she going to get dressed in her pyjamas?

Removing the tunic proved eased, but she couldn’t find a way to slip into her pjs.

As she was completely exhausted, she eventually resigned to sleeping nude. She wrapped herself in her blankets by holding on to it with her teeth and stump and turning around and soon drifted off into a deep sleep.