This little tale was inspired by a real girl. I saw her working as a desk clerk in a hotel where I once stayed. She's just as I describe -- up to and including her left hand. The rest, alas, is wishful thinking....
I was late getting in that night because I missed my regular flight to Austin. It was after eleven, Central time, when I finally dragged my tired ass into an unfamiliar inn, victim of a late meeting in LA, and some big convention that sopped up all the rooms at my usual stopping place. I was beat, but relaxed, too -- due in part to the third drink I'd wheedled out of the flight attendant somewhere over Phoenix. By now I just wanted to get checked in and hit the sack, even though my body clock still had 9 PM, LA time.
There was one other guy checking in when I got to the lobby, a fellow road warrior, from the look of him. I stood by, waiting patiently for the girl behind the counter to finish with him, and while I waited I amused myself by watching her.
She was a cute little thing. Short, dark-haired, nice face, not really pretty, but cute and definitely appealing. I couldn't see her legs, as she was wearing the company-issue black slacks, but the uniform did reveal a nicely shaped little butt. And the white blouse was well filled, if you know what I mean.
It was a pleasant diversion to watch her as she puttered around with the check-in procedure, diddling the computer, turning around to encode a card key on the machine on the back counter, then getting the envelope out of a drawer, putting the card in it, and turning back around to the waiting customer.
She had a really nice smile, and turned it on as she placed the card envelope on the counter and announced his room number. The guy said thanks, picked it up and turned away toward the elevators -- and then it suddenly hit me: the girl has no fingers.
Suddenly I was wide awake. Normally, I'd be looking for a girl missing an arm, or even nicer, with only one leg. But this was a stunner nevertheless.
I guess it was because I was tired, or because of the left-over alcohol, I don't know exactly, but I managed to do something I hadn't done in many years.
Remember how, when you're in high school, and you try to talk to a pretty girl -- how you're all tongue-tied, and finally blurt out something really stupid? Remember how the girl rolls her eyes, and you want the earth to open up and swallow you? Remember that feeling? Well, that's where I, at age 28, was about to go.
It'd been a long time since I'd had that feeling, but it all came flooding back. Instead of discretely observing the girl's hand, stealing glances, waiting for her to turn her back to make my card key, then caressing the memory later, back in the room -- instead of doing what I'd normally do, I just blurted out, "Wow, what a sexy hand!"
Fortunately, the other guy had passed out of earshot, and there was nobody in the lobby but us. And that old feeling came with a rush. Why wouldn't the earth ever swallow me when I needed it to? I could feel my face turn the color of a fire engine.
Incredibly, the girl looked up, turned on that thousand-watt smile, and held up her hand, flipping it from palm to back a couple of times. "Like it? Me too. It's really unique, isn't it?"
Stunned, all I could do was stare at it and nod dumbly. There were no complete digits; fingers or thumb. Each had been amputated at the first joint, resulting in a complete set of neat little short stumps, about equal in length. On one or two I could just make out a tiny little closure scar across the end, with a hint of stitch tracks. The rest were smooth and unblemished, as far as I could tell.
I felt the excess color slowly drain from my face as it became apparent that she was not offended. "Uh," I managed, "... what... uh..." that tongue-tied feeling again.
That made her giggle. "It's OK, everybody wants to know about it -- although usually a little time goes by before they get up the nerve!" Big grin.
"Tell you what," she continued, "are you hungry?"
"Uh... yeah!" I'd spent the flight drinking instead of eating, and I was beginning to feel it.
"OK, it's after eleven now. I get off at midnight. Why don't you go up and get settled in your room, then come back down in about a half-hour and we'll go over to Chili's and get something to eat, and I'll tell you all about it. And by the way, my name is Lisa."
And her name tag backed up her assertion.
I couldn't have been more delighted. I could almost have gotten to my room by floating, without the elevator. I puttered around hanging things up, washing my face, brushing my teeth, changing to a fresh shirt, stalling for time. Finally my watch crawled its way to the top of the hour, and I went back downstairs.
"Ready?" she asked as I approached the desk. "I'll just get my jacket from the office." She had a brief conversation with the incoming desk clerk, disappeared into the room behind the desk, then emerged from the adjacent hallway. "If you don't mind, I'll drive my car so I can drop you back here and head home after we eat -- the Chili's is a few blocks down the street."
In the restaurant we picked a table near the back, where nobody could overhear our conversation. I helped her off with her jacket and held her chair as she sat. The waitress was on us right away, since at that time of the night the place wasn't busy, and handed out menus. She took hers with her fingerless left hand, seemingly without problem, and if the waitress noticed she didn't say anything.
The waitress took our drink orders and disappeared as we studied the menus. By the time she came back we were ready to order. She took our selections, then the menus -- then we were alone. We'd been making small talk, so at this point I didn't know anything more than I did before, but I was getting excited just watching her use that unique hand. It seemed to present no problems for her, and things were fairly typical for a first date.
Finally, an opening came up. "OK," I said, "so how did you get the sexy hand?"
"Well, you are interested, aren't you?" she grinned. "I guess I don't think about it that much any more -- but I do like it," she added quickly.
"But what happened?" I wanted to know, "How did it get like that? How did you lose all your fingers?"
"Don't worry, I'll tell you all about it," she laughed. "But it's kind of a weird story. You're not gonna get weird on me, are you?"
It was my turn to laugh. "Well, I guess it depends on how weird a story it is. But I'm just curious... no, that's not really true. I have a really strong interest in that sort of thing. Amputations, I mean."
"Yeah, I figured. You're not the first, of course."
"No, probably not. But tell me...."
"OK, get ready for this -- it's a birthday present. Actually, several birthday presents."
I made a face, but didn't ask. I just let her continue.
"When I was 15 I got the bright idea that I wanted a body mod -- a tongue stud, or a nipple ring, or something like that. Maybe a tattoo. Most of my buddies were getting tattoos and things, and at first it was just to keep up with the crowd, you know?"
I nodded.
