The drive to the house they rented should have taken them five hours. Six hours after Farokh and Nia had unanimously decided to take the (slightly longer) scenic route. It should’ve been a smooth couple of hours. It almost would’ve been, had they not underestimated the weekend traffic around bigger cities. The first third of the journey went smoothly indeed. Since they left shortly after noon, they were able to get ahead of all the traffic coming from their city and beyond. It wasn’t until they were close to the Austrian border that they encountered a traffic jam. Some overworked long distance hauler had attempted to overtake another overworked long distance hauler, and it had not gone well. The drivers were okay, but both their cargo was spilt across the entire motorway and blocked the direction in which Farokh and Nia were travelling. They had heard about it early enough to be able to leave the motorway before getting stuck in the traffic jam, but the country roads added another hour and a half to their trip, and the motorway was considerably more crowded when they finally rejoined.

Nia had been very quiet for the entire trip before their forced detour. She had stared into the distance or inspected the points where her arms now terminated. Occasionally, she had attempted to move a strand of her well-kempt blonde hair behind her ear, only to realise it was particularly tricky without hands. Farokh had asked if she was okay a couple of times, but never received more than an absent-minded “uh-huh”.

Once they were back on the motorway, Nia suddenly turned to Farokh and asked “So…why does your company work out ways to cut people’s limbs off temporarily? You wanted to explain in the car…”

“Oh right”, Farokh said. “Okay, so first of all your arm isn’t really cut off. It is gone. So when you get back your hands, you will technically get new hands. As I explained to you, they literally grow back based on the genetic blueprint contained in your cells. The old ones are gone. Therein lies one of the explanations for why we do it.”

“I’m afraid I still don’t follow.” Nia looked at him sheepishly.

“Well, first, think of the possible applications”, Farokh said. “Localised cancer in limbs could be instantly cured simply by removing the afflicted limb for a few seconds. No more freak accidents leading to amputations. No more amputees in general. Even people born with a deformity of some sort on a limb could grow up with a full set of limbs and digits, provided the cause of the deformity isn’t genetic. The Atomizer relies on the genetic blueprints to regrow the limb, remember?”

Nia nodded. “That’s pretty incredible”, she said, looking at him with big eyes.

“It is”, Farokh agreed. “But it’s not all. Not that we needed a second reason to do it, but it’s nice to have one anyway. See, the second reason is that once the majority of people with a limb difference can be “cured of it”…that sounds stupid and wrong. It’s not as if they have the disease called limb difference. What I mean is that once most people with a limb difference can have a standard set of limbs, people can eventually start to have fun with it. The body mod community will most certainly take it on, and even grow in size, since it’s reversible. People will want to use this tech for costume parties, cosplays, dares, in fashion, for sex, for absolutely anything. Some may simply want to try it out.”

“Sounds a bit like a drug to be honest”, Nia grinned.

“Well, it sounds stupid, and obviously it’s no drug, but like with some drugs, there’ll be a number of people who want to try it out simply because it’s available and they’d always wondered what it’d be like. In any case, there’ll be some sort of demand for this to be available recreationally. It’ll also further understanding for those few who are still born with deformities and limb differences for genetic reasons. People will finally stop staring and asking dumb questions when having a limb difference is normalised.”

“Do you think this will happen so quickly?”

“I honestly doubt it. We’re a pretty small company by comparison. We can’t do that much marketing early on, so it might take quite a while for people to even hear of it, and even longer for them to actually overcome their fear and lifelong philosophy of thinking of limb differences as a net negative (due to their permanence). However, eventually we will get there, yeah.”

“That’s awesome”, Nia grinned and slapped her stumps together. Then she laughed out loud after she realised what she had just done. Farokh couldn’t help but join in.

“That happens to pretty much everyone over and over again”, he said.

“It is incredibly confusing”, Nia said, holding up her stumps. I can’t really feel my hands, but I also do not not feel it them. I keep forgetting that my hands aren’t there.”

“Yeah, that happens with these boxes. We’re looking into providing the option to get the sensations common for amputees, but we aren’t quite there yet. For now it’s the sensations those born with limb differences get only.”

“I’m not complaining”, Nia said. “I quite enjoy the challenge to be honest.” She inspected her stumps again. “This really is freaky!”

Farokh chuckled. They fell silent again for a while.

“Would you like to listen to an audio book?” Nia suddenly asked into the silence.

“Yeah, sure”, Farokh said. “Hang on, let me stop at the rest stop.”

“Nah, don’t bother. The driver drives, the passenger handles the music.” She hesitated. “Or…the audio books.” Farokh giggled. “Whatever”, Nia quipped. “You know what I mean.” She grinned.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I’ll manage. Hang on, I just need to find my phone…” She clumsily looked through her coat pockets and slowly pulled the phone out with her stumps. “Ugh, these stumps are not suited for precision work. At least not without practice”, she complained.

“I can still pull..”

“Nah, forget it, I’ve got it.” She took her phone and used her right stump to swipe up. Thankfully she had installed face ID, so she didn’t have to type her pin into the phone.

She set the phone down on her lap and carefully and clumsily set the car’s stereo’s Bluetooth up for pairing. Then she used her stumps to pair her phone with the car. It took her quite a while as she was not used to using her elbows in this fashion, but she got there eventually. She then opened the music app in order to start the audio book. She struggled to scroll without selecting some other music along the way. After another album had started for the sixth time, she let out a frustrated sigh, but she still insisted on setting up the audio book herself. When the audio book finally started, she let out a triumphant “whoop” and beamed at Farokh.

“Well done!” He said and sounded seriously impressed.

Thirty minutes later they crossed the border. Right behind the border checkpoint there was a service area, and Farokh pulled into the gas station in order to refill. As Farokh waited for the tank to fill up, Nia noticed the pressure that had begun building up in her bladder. ‘Dammit, dammit, dammit’, she thought. ‘Not now.’ They only had another two hours of driving ahead of them, but she realised that she wouldn’t be able to hold it for that long.

“Farokh?” she said.

“Mmh?”

“I think I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Oh crap, okay. Do you want me to come with?”

“Don’t know if that’s possible. There are a lot of people here…”

“Hm…we could go to the men’s room. Not like anyone’s gonna complain.”

“True, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable...” Nia paused and let out a sigh. “Could you just open the buttons on my pants? I’ll manage with the rest somehow.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. Quickly, please?”

“Yeah, of course.” Farokh looked around before he pulled Nia in close and opened her pants’ button.

“Do you think you can manage like this?”

“I hope so”, Nia said, but she sounded far from certain. “Thanks.” She grinned up at him, still pressed closely to his body.

“Anytime”, he replied and gave her a quick kiss.

Nia turned away from him, put her arms in her coat pockets and made her way to the main building. She followed the signs to the bathrooms and quickly dodged into vacant stall. Here she pulled her arms out of her pockets and wriggled out of her coat. She was thankful that the bathroom seemed to be kept clean meticulously by the service workers, so she didn’t have to wipe the seat before sitting down in her current state. She held her coat between her stumps, turned it the right way and moved to hang it onto the coat hook, which had been installed on the inside of the stall’s door. She needed four attempts, but eventually the coat hung on the hook. Then she moved to pull down her pants. They were tight. Not the tightest she had by a long shot, but tight enough to give her problems. Definitely the wrong kind of pants to use when going handless for some time, but she hadn’t known that when she put them on. The pressure on her bladder grew stronger and she grew impatient. Without hands she had trouble grabbing onto anything on her pants. The ends of her stumps were too wide to fit into her belt loop, and the pockets were more “hints of pockets” than actual pockets. Her arms were also much shorter than she was used to, and she had to bend over whenever she tried to pull her pants downwards. Eventually she managed to pull the front with the open button to the side. This gave her just enough leverage to push down. A lot of wiggling, pushing and quiet cursing later, she had pulled her pants down enough to use the toilet. Pulling down her panties was far easier. She needed three attempts to get her right arm stump between the panties and her skin, but from that point onwards it was a simple push-down motion with a hip swing. She finally sat down and enjoyed the sweet release from her strained bladder.

Once she was done, she faced her next challenge. How could she wipe? She used both her stumps to roll out a long strip of toilet paper, which she then grabbed onto with both her stumps. She made a quick and sudden pulling motion to the side and to her satisfaction the paper came free. She tried wiping using her stumps, but realised she didn’t have nearly enough practice to apply enough pressure in order to wipe efficiently. She let out another frustrated sigh and paused. She looked around the stall for inspiration and found some when seeing the toilet seat. She placed the paper on the rim and sat down onto it. Then she made a twisting motion. That worked. Satisfied she placed her stump on a clean bit of the long paper strip and pushed the entire thing into the bowl. She grinned to herself proudly.

Nia pulled another strip of paper from the roll, carefully balanced it over her left stump and leaned towards the dispenser with the disinfectant. She pushed down the handle twice and let the disinfectant drip onto the paper. She placed the paper with the disinfectant on the seat and carefully cleaned the seat as precisely as possible. Once she was done, she pushed the strip into the bowl as well and flushed.

Now to get dressed again. She began by pulling up her panties. This required another bit of rubbing her stumps on her legs in and upward motion, but eventually she had her panties in place again. She began pulling up her pants with more rubbing her stumps up her legs. The technique worked, but was painstakingly slow. She eventually had her pants up enough to be able to hide the fact that she wasn’t completely dressed by holding her coat around her waist, so she grabbed her coat from the door using her stumps and walked out of the stall moving carefully so her pants wouldn’t drop.

Farokh had finished filling up the car and paid by now. He’d moved the car to an empty space right by the entrance and was leaning on the side of the car, waiting for her.

“Hey, how did it go?” he asked when she approached.

“Good, I think”, Nia said. “I do need help with my pants though.”

“Sure come here.” Farokh opened a car door to use as a viewing screen. He placed himself on her other side and made himself as wide as possible. Then he pulled away her coat.

“Could you hold this in place here?” he asked, indicating where Nia should apply pressure to hold her coat in place. Once he was satisfied that nobody could see anything intimate, he quickly and precisely pulled up her pants completely and closed her zipper and button. “All done”, he announced.

“Thanks”, Nia said again.

“Ready to move on?”

“Yep, let’s do it.”

Farokh took Nia’s coat and placed it in the car while she sat down. She managed to push her safety belt in place with her abbreviated arms and pulled the door shut.

“Well done”, Farokh said and she realised that he must’ve been watching her.

“Thanks.” She blushed and smiled broadly.

Farokh started the motor and pulled out of the parking lot.

They left the motorway about ninety minutes later and continued along their way on country roads. Eventually Farokh pulled into the parking lot of a supermarket.

“Let’s buy groceries now, so we don’t have to do it later”, he suggested.

“Good idea”, Nia agreed.

“Would you like to stay here or come with?”

“I want to come. Not like anyone here knows me, and I could use some exercise.”

“Sounds good. I think you had your coat with you earlier, Do you want it again for your…situation here?” He nodded towards her stumps.

“No, thanks though. We don’t know how long I’ll be stuck like this. I might as well get used to being out in public like that, huh?”

“Sure, if you like. Just so you are aware, people will stare. They can’t help it.”

“I know. Thanks for the warning, but I can’t really let that dictate what I do, huh?”

“I guess not”, Farokh agreed. He locked the car and the couple made its way to the entrance. Farokh stopped on the way to pick up a shopping cart, then they entered the store.

“We’re here for only three nights”, he said to Nia. “Would you like to eat out some time, or should we just eat at home every night?”

“Hm, good question. Right now I can’t imagine being out in public like that for dinner.” She waved one of her stumps at him. “Let’s buy dinner for two nights first, and then we can still get more some time later, depending on how I get on.”

“Sounds good”, Farokh said and turned towards the salad and vegetables.

“I’m going to have a look around, if that’s okay with you”. Nia announced.

“Sure, go ahead. I’ll be by the fresh meat and fish after this”, Farokh replied.

“Perfect!” Nia turned right and headed down a different aisle. She headed towards the desserts. On her way she noticed some people who were obviously not used to seeing people with disabilities. Their eyes kept darting to her stumps whenever they thought that Nia wouldn’t notice. The first couple of times this happened were a little unnerving for Nia, but she recalled that Farokh had warned her about this. The technology they had used to temporarily remove her lower arms a few inches below the elbows was still not publicly available, and so these people had no way of knowing that this wasn’t permanent and had happened, well…not really voluntarily, but definitely somewhat consensually. Amputations and deformities still happened, but they were rare, of course. Eventually she settled on finding it amusing how some of those poor people struggled and failed to be sneaky and not just stare outright.

Once she got to the desserts, she quickly found what she was looking for. Profiteroles. Popular in Italy and Greece, they are cream filled dough-pockets that swim in chocolate sauce. She grinned in anticipation and began the process of picking up a box. Her angle to the boxes wasn’t ideal, and she wasn’t used to her arms being considerably shorter and less articulated with her hands, wrists and a good chunk of her lower arms missing, but she got there eventually. She realised only now that she wouldn’t be able to carry much else for her lack of hands, but that was okay. She would just have to make multiple trips. Held the box between her stumps and made her way to Farokh, who grinned when he saw her arrive like this.

“What?” she asked?

“Huh? Nothing. I just think you’re cute.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, I do. Don’t know why, but this suits you.”

“Well, thanks!” She smiled. “I enjoy this, but it is frustrating. I knew I used my hands a lot, of course, but I didn’t realise just how much I do that subconsciously. Now I can’t and it’s super weird.”

“I know what you mean. I haven’t done handless, but I’ve been legless for half a day at work once, and I kept trying to get up from my chair and just straight up leapt to the ground. It was weird. But do you like it? Generally?”

“Yeah, I’m enjoying the challenge. It’s…different.” She smiled. She’d noticed a slight tent in his crotch. Did he like this? In that way? Did she even care? Not really. There certainly are weirder kinks and fetishes out there. Still, curious.

“What did you bring anyway?”

“Profiteroles!” She grinned and showed him, which meant raising her arms at her shoulders, since she used what remained of her lower arms as “hands”.

“Uh I love those”, Farokh exclaimed.

“So do I! No idea how I’ll eat them, but we’ll figure it out.”

“I’ll feed you if necessary!”

“And they say romance is dead.” She stuck out her tongue at him and giggled. He chuckled. Nia placed the profiteroles into the shopping cart and left Farokh by the vegetables.

Their remaining time in the supermarket followed a similar pattern. Nia would fetch things – salami, cereal, ham, bread – one by one and bring them to Farokh, who made his way through the supermarket with the shopping cart collecting the smaller things that required hands to collect or were simply to small to be picked up by Nia, who, until this morning, had never missed any limbs in her life.

Eventually they had everything, and Nia pushed the cart to the register. She watched as Farokh paid and loaded the groceries first into bags and then the car, painfully aware that she was completely and utterly unable to help him. Once Farokh was done, she pushed the shopping cart back to the drop-off and told the beggar next to the cart stand that he could keep the deposit.

She hurried back to the car and Farokh opened her door for her from the inside. She proudly fastened her seatbelt herself again as Farokh pulled off the parking lot for the final stretch of their journey.

It was evening by now and the sky was getting darker. The sun had just disappeared behind the peaks of the surrounding mountains as Farokh pulled into the driveway of their lake house AirBnB.

“Oh my God, it’s stunning”, Nia gasped as she exited the car.

“Right? The reviews said the view is among the nicest in the area.”

“I believe that in a heartbeat”, Nia said as Farokh entered the code into the lock of the box holding the keys. The box promptly sprang open and Farokh opened the door with the key.

“Wow”, Nia just said. She had found the wall-size window overlooking the lake.

“Wow indeed”, Farokh grinned.

“It’s beautiful.” Nia held her left arm across Farokh’s back as if to half-hug him from the side, but her lack of a hand and the general shortness of her stump made it a little awkward and she ended up dropping her arm again. “Should we go and fetch the luggage and groceries?”, she asked.

“Yeah, let’s do that. I’m not quite sure how you could carry things, but…”

“I’ve thought about that”, Nia interrupted. “I can carry our luggage as I can get my arms through the handles. If you position them with the handles easily available I can bring them inside myself.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, why not? I want to try to make this work.” She again waved her arm stumps in his face.

“Okay then.”

“And before I bring them inside you can help me get one arm through the handles of one of the grocery bags. You can carry the other two and put the things away while I deal with the luggage.”

“Sounds good”, Farokh said and got to work.

‘This will be a great weekend’, Nia thought to herself as she pulled the luggage into the bedroom.