My name is Lia, I am 26 years old and I have just had my right arm removed. Not permanently, of course, I have no intention of being disabled forever. Who knows what I might need two hands for some day, right? No, this is temporary.

After ReducTec Inc. first went public with their “Atomizer”, which can temporarily remove and alter limbs, the public had very mixed reactions. Some people loved the sudden freedom in designing their bodies. Some celebrities had limbs removed to go with a specific dressing gown. Bands with certain limitations popped up all over the place, like the group “the Armless Archers”. There were reductive fraternities and sororities at some colleges, but that was rare.

Other people thought it was tasteless, and some particularly conservative people began an enormous smear campaign against ReducTec and anyone who used it. After a while, the whole thing became the norm, meaning the folks who hated it were still vocal about their disapproval, the ones in favour pushed back and the vast majority of people didn’t care at all. Let’s face it, how many people ever really get the idea to remove a limb just for fun?

There was another group of people, those who saw medical potential in ReducTec’s products. See, since the Atomizer (and all other ReducTec products) work with cell reprogramming to restore the limb, a broken leg, bone cancer in the femur, a traumatic limb loss or even some birth defects could suddenly be cured by simple removing the afflicted limbs and restoring them set to normal genetics. All of a sudden, war amputees, a rotationplasty, a krukenberg procedure or a ray resection became a thing of the past. ReducTec has brought about a medical revolution. Any injury could be cured in the span of 30 seconds. So while the public was divided and largely didn’t care, the medical community was buzzing. Still, you rarely saw people using the Atomizer recreationally. Most people thought of ReducTec’s products as medicine by now, and it never occurred to most that there could be some fun to be had as well.

Anyway, I was wearing a ring on my right hand and jumped a fence when I tried to take a shortcut on my way back home from the swimming pool. I slipped, the ring got caught and I tore of my right middle finger. It didn’t really hurt, as I was in shock. After I collected myself, I picked up my finger with the ring, put the ring in my pocket and went to find some help. I had tried to avoid going through the mall with the shortcut, but since I was now looking for help, I crossed the street and headed straight into the mall. Just by the entrance there was this ReducTec maintenance and recreational body alteration shop, which still operated in most major cities. I have no idea how they make profit. I guess they don’t but since ReducTec instantly won the entire medical community as customers, I reckon they can afford it and still hope to establish themselves as a major recreational company as well some time.

I vaguely remembered having read an article about the company and their medical abilities a few months earlier. I’d had no interest in removing a part of me before, but now, I figured I might as well see if they could help me. By now, the pain from my ripped off finger had begun to register with my brain, and I felt a pulsating stinging pain.

I entered the shop with me bleeding hand and a severed finger, and the store clerks immediately picked up a small hand-scanner shaped device, told me to hold still and got to work. I felt a warm, prickly but pleasant feeling in my hand, and when I looked, I was missing slightly more if my middle finger, but the nub was covered in skin. As if I had never had a right middle finger. I gasped and held my hand away, as if to get away from it as far away as possible. I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths before opening them again. I was a little calmer now, and I noticed the pain was gone. My hand felt as if it had always been like this. I was fascinated. Horrified, but slowly, the fear made way for pure and genuine fascination. I tried moving my stump, touched and inspected it. I still remembered what touching my fingertip had felt like, but touching the stump was different. It was as if my fingertip had never existed, the sensation simply stopped with the finger. No phantom sensation, nothing.

“Thank you”, I said to the clerk. Emotions welled up and I tried to avert my face, so as to not show them my emotional state. I put my hands over me eyes, only to realise that since I was missing the middle finger, the hole in my fingers was exactly in front of my eyes. A wave of embarrassment swept over me, but I saw the clerk grin.

“That’s normal”, he said, “don’t worry. That happens to almost everyone who comes here the fist time.”

I thanked him and giggled nervously. He checked his device and froze up.

“What is it”, I asked nervously.

“Well, when you came here bleeding, and missing a finger, I took the first device I could reach and went to help you. I didn’t check the settings.”

“What does that mean?”

“I erased your finger injury. Normally when I do that, I use the unlimited time setting, so I can quickly restore it with the restoration pen. You can’t do that if there’s a time limit set in the reduction.”

“So my missing finger has a time limit?” I asked, feeling my throat narrow from panic.

“Y..yes, it does. It seems like the device was last used to remove one of our earlier appointment’s leg, if I remember correctly. The good news is that your finger will come back without anyone having to do another thing. That I guarantee, your reduction is temporary.”

I took a deep, trembling breath and nodded. That was something, I guess. Knowing that this was temporary helped digest this weird situation. I looked at my hand again, marvelled at how alien and yet symmetrical it looked with the missing middle finger.

“How long until the finger comes back?”

“Tw..two years”, the clerk stammered. He looked tense, as if he expected me to explode at him. I expected to explode at him too, but instead, I was baffled to hear a chuckle escape from my mouth.

“Two years? I can do that.” This was insane. Why wasn’t I panicking? I must’ve been going mad. But somehow, I could completely comprehend and accept the situation.

“Woah, in a million years I would not have expected you to react this way”, the clerk said, still looking apprehensive.

“Honestly, me neither, but…I’m not in pain, you helped me when I needed it, this is somewhat fascinating and…also, I can’t change it anyway. Neither can you, what’s done is done. Might as well accept it and move on.”

“That’s a remarkable way to look at things”, the clerk commented.

I didn’t respond. I was inspecting my hand again. I would never have done this if I hadn’t been forced to. I had never even thought about it. Yet, now that it happened, and now that I knew it was temporary, I was surprised to find that I could live with it. No, not just that, but that I was actually excited about the next two years. Few people were still missing limbs, mostly those who didn’t trust the technology and those who were born with limb deficiencies due to genetic defects. Any physical accidents and maldevelopments due to conditions like Amniotic Band Syndrome could be fixed by ReducTec products, as could any amputations. Only proper genetic defects still didn’t have a cure. I didn’t know anyone with missing limbs. None of my friends or family had ever had a limb removed for more than 30 seconds in order to repair an injury or cure a problem with a limb. I would be unique. That was a frightening and yet exciting thought at the same time. I thought about what my life would be like in the next two years. There would be questions and stares, and I would struggle at the piano, but otherwise I doubted I would really miss my finger. Slowly, an idea formed in my head. Would I really do that? Could I really do that? The entire idea seemed insane to me, but somehow, I needed to find out what that was like.

“Could you remove the entire hand?” I held up the hand with the missing finger.

The clerk looked surprised. “Really? I…I mean yeah, sure, I can. Just so you know, if I remove a limb that already has a reduction, that other reduction is paused. So for example, if I removed your hand for a year, your middle finger would come back in three years…” His voice trailed off.

I took a second to digest this new information. Did I still want this? Honestly? Yes. It would actually make it more exciting, going back from missing an entire hand to only missing a finger. It would be like slowly returning to normalcy.

“I would still like the entire hand removed, up until here”, I said, making a cutting motion about three inches below my elbow. “How much would that cost? That and the finger…”

“I screwed up the finger, the finger is on me”, the clerk responded.

“I came here for help, you helped me. I’m happy to pay for the finger as well”, I replied.

“Nah, the finger is on the house.”

“That’s awfully kind of you, thank you!” I smiled warmly.

“Are you sure about the hand? It wouldn’t be expensive, twenty or twenty-five quid, depending on how long you want it gone.”

“Yep, call me insane, but this has been a ridiculous day anyway. Why not do something I’ll definitely regret by tonight?”

“Okay then”, the clerk chuckled.

“Keep the device as is, let’s do another two years”, I said, now leaning into my insanity entirely.

“Okay then. Ready?”

I nodded. The clerk showed me how to hold out my arm and set to work. The warm, pleasant, prickly feeling was back and slowly consumed my hand and arm. It took the clerk about a minute until he paused.

“Would you like a scar? I can do all kinds of scars with this thing, to make it look and feel like it was amputated, or I can make it look and feel like you were born this way. Or I could do nothing, in that case, your stump looks completely smooth, as if your arm just ends”, the clerk asked.

I thought for a moment. “Can you make it look like I was born this way, but with an almost perfect stump?”

“I’ll see what I can do”, he chimed.

“Aaand done”, he said a few moments later. He switched off the device and gave me some space.

Had I really just done that? Had I really just willingly removed my dominant hand for two years? Was I completely insane? Obviously, I decided. But now that it was done, I could feel the excitement again.

I inspected my arm. It ended right where I had performed the imaginary cut earlier. It felt like my arm had before, except I couldn’t feel my hand. I didn’t feel its absence as much as I just didn’t feel it. You know how you can place your consciousness in different parts of your body? How you can feel your fingers move when you concentrate on them? Or your knees? Well, I can’t do that with my right hand. My arm ends just below the elbow. My stump looks very natural. It narrows down a little and has a small dimple near the tip and a small protrusion in an awkward position that can be used well to type, I figured out later.

Once I had collected my thoughts, I put on my coat again, a task that was awkward and a little tricky, before I headed to the register to pay. The clerk printed an invoice and explained it to me. It came down to twenty-two quid. I tried reaching into my coat pocket with my right hand, only to realise I couldn’t do that anymore. This excited me. I was missing a part of my body, for the next four years. I felt blood rush to my face and I grinned an embarrassed grin, before I reached across with my left hand and awkwardly fumbled my wallet out of my pocket. I placed it on the counter in front of me, clumsily opened it and took out a debit card. I paid the 22 bucks. The clerk told me to call if I had any issues or questions, the told me to wait. He took a small paper bag, opened a drawer which was full of small bags with gummy bears. He took a handful and threw them in the bag. Then he looked up.

“Do you like weed?”

“Um…occasionally, yeah”, I said, a little confused.

He opened another drawer and pulled out three bags with what looked like (and later turned out to be) two grams of weed each.

“These are normally 20 bucks a piece, but we are allowed to use them ourselves for free if we want to. So I’ll share my ration for the month, for my screw up.” He winked at me.

“Woah, thanks…” I paused, realising I hadn’t said his name once the entire time I was here. My eyes darted to the name tag, which was prominently featuring on his shirt. “…thanks Antonio.” He smiled.

“I…I’m Lia, by the way”, I stammered. I offered my right hand for him to shake… He looked at me expectantly.

“Here it comes…” he quipped.

“Oh dammit.” I giggled. I will get the hang of this.

Antonio grinned. “Okay, so the gummy bears will remove your limbs for 12 hours. Each colour is another limb, the more you eat the more of the limb you lose. Each limb is timed individually. I won’t tell you which limb belongs to which colour, because where’s the fun in that?” He paused for a second to give me time to ask questions if I came up with any, but I didn’t. “The weed is from our ‘Couch Lock’ series. It’ll remove your legs. I have given you three different strengths, they each have different effects, but they are all designed to stop you from walking.” He grinned. “The effects last about a day longer than normal weed. So you will get high and lose the ability to walk, and then, after a few hours, you will be sober again, but your reductions are reversed about 24 hours after that.”

“Wow, I don’t know what to say.” I was blown away. “Thank you!”

“You’re so welcome!”

I picked up the bag and tried to put away my wallet, only to realise that I didn’t have a free hand. I set the bag down again and put my wallet away, before I picket it back up, waved my stump to say goodbye and headed home.

Back at home, I quickly got rid of my clothes and went to the bathroom. I marvelled at my new shape and inspected my arm from all angles. I tried reaching out with it, imagining what grabbing something would feel like. I tried reaching down to my privates, only to find that I had to bend forwards in order to be able to reach with my right arm. My limitation aroused me, and I slowly but surely became unbearably horny. I went to my bedroom and started masturbating. I had to use my left hand. That was clumsy, so I tried using my stump, but that was even more awkward. The awkwardness excited me even more, and soon I came. I carefully got up and went back to the bathroom, where I took a quick, awkward shower and cleaned myself up.

It is evening now and the insanity still settles in. After dinner, I consider using some of the weed to make my thoughts even more intense, but that would take the focus away from my arm stump. No, I want to take this slowly. I get up and go to where I keep my regular weed. Which strain should I choose? After some thinking, I choose a classic, Northern Lights, in order to calm down and just enjoy, but I am immediately confronted with yet another obstacle. How on earth am I supposed to roll a joint? I don’t have a bong or a vape. I prefer edibles, or a classic joint if I want a quicker high. Now that quicker high might as well be an edible. I should bake more…focus! The joint now, you can bake tomorrow, I tell myself.

I take my grinder and put some bud into it. I awkwardly twist the cap of the grinder with one hand, until I am satisfied the bud was in small enough pieces. I unscrew the bottom compartment. There is no way I would be able to make an adequate tip today, so I take a filter and place it in my paper. I then awkwardly shovel the weed into the rolling paper. Now for the hard part. I use my stump as a giant finger. It is imprecise and frustrating, and I crumble up four papers until I finally get it done. I end up with the worst joint I have ever rolled, but hey, it’ll get me high. I put the joint in my mouth, grab a lighter and head to the balcony.

Today was a weird-ass day, I chuckle to myself as I light the atrocity that is my joint.