by Anna Martin
Dalton was stoking the fire, his hands encased in thick protective gloves. The heat was making sweat break out across Finn’s forehead, and he wondered if he would be burned.
“That stuff protects you from the heat of the metal,” Dalton was saying, and Finn forced himself to pay attention. “Are you sure you used enough of it?”
Finn nodded. “I’m sure.”
“Okay.”
With tools that were blackened with soot, Dalton thrust the wrist end of the mechanical hand into the heat of the fire, waited until the silver grew red-hot, and then transferred it to a slate platform next to the fire and began to sculpt the metal.
Watching him work, Finn got an idea of the skill and mastery required to make these strange, otherworldly creations, the combination of fire and copper and the insistent clanging of wood and silver and slate.
Suddenly, Dalton was demanding “Now,” and Finn stuck out his arm, bracing himself for burned skin and searing heat that never came. The metal was warm, for sure, but it wasn’t unbearable.
“Don’t touch it with your left hand,” Dalton warned him. “Or I’ll be making you new fingers to match.”
Dalton frowned at Finn, in displeasure or concentration, Finn wasn’t sure. He selected a smaller wooden tool and started to gently tap at the hot metal, forcing it to mold around the end of Finn’s arm. After a few minutes of working like this he cast his protective gloves aside and wiped the sweat from his brow.
“Here,” he said, and Finn lifted his arm. Dalton carefully took hold of the metal fingers and tugged, the grease helping the hand slide off. “You can go and wash your arm now.”
He gestured to a door off to the left, and Finn obediently rose and made his way around the various benches and machinery to a small washroom. There was a bar of soap next to the deep wooden sink, and despite Finn’s scrubbing, it took a good few minutes of work before he felt his arm was completely clean. He dried it off with a surprisingly soft towel and rolled his sleeve back down to cover the end of his arm.
The whole procedure had taken longer than he had expected; the rush of fire and adrenaline had kept him on edge for a long time, and combined with his lack of sleep the night before, Finn suddenly felt exhausted. As he walked back through to the workshop, he yawned, then tried to cover it as he caught sight of Dalton already working on the next part of the process, smoothing out the still rough edges of the hand.
“That’s it for today,” Dalton said, barely looking up. “I’ll keep at this for a while. Come back same time tomorrow.”
Finn nodded, disappointed but accepting that he couldn’t expect Dalton to work day and night to get the new hand ready for him.
“Can I get you anything?” Finn asked, surprising them both as Dalton looked up.
“No, thank you,” Dalton said. But the offer had earned Finn the first real smile he’d seen from the other man yet.
“Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” Dalton echoed.
Dalton may have refused Finn’s offer, but that didn’t mean that he did not want anything from the young man. The scent of raw metal filled the room, clogging up his senses as he continued to work on the mechanical hand. It was one of his finest pieces, he was sure of that much, and couldn’t help feeling that the hand’s owner had inspired both the beauty and strength he was creating.
Finn was not the type of man that Dalton was normally attracted to. Not at all. He had, for many years, sought solace in the arms of men older than himself—much older, in some cases. The line between mentor and lover had been blurred too many times for him to count. Dalton had taken something from each of these men; the blacksmith who’d taught him how to work metal, the surgeon who had taught him human biology, the engineer who had taught him mechanics, the professor who had taught him how to read and write—essential skills, when he opened his business. There was little in common between his previous lovers. Some had been of the highest class of society, others from much lower down on the ladder of life. That didn’t matter. He took what they had offered him and gave his body in return.
Not for many years now, though. It had been a long time since he was young and hairless, the look that each of his lovers had uniformly desired. That no longer mattered. He had built up his reputation and his business on the bones of knowledge that each had passed on, and he was proud of his discoveries.
His sexuality had been formed when he was too young to know what it was, or the power that he held as a man. He knew that some of the other traders along Columbia Road were wary of him; he had no wife and showed no interest in taking one. He did not frequent the brothels. Girls did occasionally come to his door, or come to sit next to him in a tavern, but he was always polite with his refusal of their company.
The way he felt while around Finn was scaring him, just a little bit.
He finished off the work he needed to do on the wrist joint and balanced the hand on the end of a wooden post he’d carved for the very purpose of holding something steady. This was not his last task before he could go and sleep, though.
Dalton knew he should probably eat something but couldn’t force anything past his lips other than tepid tea. His head ached, his eyes hurt from hours of concentration, but if he didn’t do something with the human hand still lying on a marble slab it would start to rot. And that would be unpleasant.
He’d hidden the hand when Finn came that morning by simply throwing a cloth over it. That cloth was placed carefully in a bucket ready for washing, then Dalton surveyed the morbid sight in front of him.
Finn’s hand was well preserved. Tennessee would have seen to ensuring it was packed tightly for the journey, and it was Dalton’s responsibility now to take care of it until his work was complete. In most cases, he then delivered the limb to the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel. It meant walking through the East End with his gruesome packages, knowing that the residents of this area of the city knew who he was and what he was carrying. To another man, this might be intimidating, but Dalton had been victim of stares and whispers for too long now. He was used to it.
He found a suitably sized jar and placed Finn’s hand in it, adding his own combination of salt water and alcohol to the brim and tightly replacing the lid. It was not the most sophisticated of preserving methods but it would do. The jar was placed in a cupboard with a solid door—meaning Finn wouldn’t accidentally catch sight of it.
Then Dalton scrubbed his hands and forearms with the same bar of soap Finn had used to remove the wax from his arm—Dalton knew this. He could still feel the residue on the soap. With exhaustion fast approaching, he checked that the door was locked, climbed the stairs to the few small rooms above the shop that he called home, and collapsed on his bed fully dressed, and slept.
ON THE third day of their interaction, Dalton was well rested and feeling more serene than he had in a long time. There was a hum of anticipation running through his veins; he couldn’t help but feel like Finn was going to get on spectacularly with his new hand, and Dalton was anxious to get started.
Not wanting to look overeager, Dalton started his morning by opening up the shop front early, while the other traders were still setting up their stalls. He even managed a smile for the lady in the flower shop, although that would probably later prove to be an inadvisable move.
Spring was in the air, and Dalton left the door to the shop propped open, hoping to entice the crisp breeze through the shop and banish the smells of soot and metal and sweat.
Finn was running late, but that didn’t bother him particularly. He wasn’t one for rigorous timekeeping, and despite his anticipation he sat down at his workbench—facing the door, this time—and got to work on one of his standard replacement knee joints.
When Finn did arrive he was red in the face and out of breath, clearly having run down to the shop from wherever he was staying.
“Forgive me for my tardiness,” he said, straightening and forcing himself to walk evenly into the workshop. “I overslept.”
“It’s fine,” Dalton said and smiled again, despite himself. “At ease, soldier. I’m not your sergeant general.”
Finn nodded and relaxed his shoulders.
“Sleep well?” Dalton inquired.
“Yes, thank you, sir,” he said.
“Dalton.”
“Yes.” They were yet to use each other’s names in conversation. “Is it ready?”
“Yes,” Dalton echoed. He stood, carefully stowed his tools, and led Finn to the spot where the hand had been resting on the wooden post overnight. It was still a little rough around the edges, and he would clean up the joints and file off the sharp spots before releasing it to its new owner. But until Finn tried it on, Dalton had no way of knowing what adjustments might be needed, so he saved the fine details for later.
There was still work to be done to fit the hand to the stump at the end of Finn’s arm, so Dalton directed him to sit again on the small stool next to the fire, although today it wasn’t stoked and gave off much less heat.
Dalton himself sat on the hearth, not caring about getting dirt on his clothes, and again rolled Finn’s shirt up to his elbow.
“How are you feeling?” he murmured as he set about getting his leatherworking tools in order.
“Good,” Finn said. “Excited. And nervous.”
“Me too.”
“You’re not supposed to tell me you’re nervous,” Finn said with a tentative smile.
Dalton offered him one in return. “Nervous to see if it works as well as I expect it to,” he said, a touch of arrogance creeping into his voice. He knew how good he was. “Okay. Let’s get started.”
He took a long, clean piece of cloth and cut it into a thin strip that he worked around the end of Finn’s arm. It took some time, wrapping it around the stump neatly until all of Finn’s skin was protected. Then he took a jar of strong smelling, almost alcoholic liquid and bathed the cloth in it.
“Let that dry a bit,” Dalton said and stood, replacing the few materials he’d already used in their correct places.
“Looking at this for the past few weeks has made me feel sick,” Finn said quietly as he twisted and turned his forearm, examining how Dalton had neatly folded the cloth in on itself so there was no need to pin it in place.
“Do you have phantom pains?”
“Sometimes,” Finn said. “Pins and needles more often. And it itches.”
Dalton nodded. “That’s good.”
“It is?”
“Yes,” he said. “It means your nerves are still working and will be more likely to reattach themselves to the magnetic points in the hand.”
“Oh.”
“This is going to feel heavy at first,” Dalton said as he once again sat on the floor and pulled Finn’s arm toward himself. “Let me know if it hurts.”
The molded end of the hand fit neatly over Finn’s stump, sliding easily into place. Several inches of metal wrapped around his forearm, a counterbalance, Finn realized, to better distribute the weight. It wasn’t uncomfortable, and he leaned forward to better see how Dalton was working.
At the very top of the metal part around his wrist there was a series of holes punched evenly through the metal and this, apparently, was where the leather came into the equation.
Finn could sense the pride Dalton had in his work; not just the quality, but the craftsmanship and care he took with each detail. The leather was beautiful, smooth, and almost completely blemish free, probably sourced from one of the other traders along the road. It was a small piece, then again, that was all he needed.
With a long piece of thread and an imposing needle, Dalton set to work stitching the leather to the holes in the metal. It took a while, and Finn felt his shoulder start to cramp at one point from holding the position for so long.
“Do you need a break?” Dalton offered.
“No,” Finn said and rotated his arm a few times. “Just needed to ease the ache.”
“Okay. I’m nearly done here.”
The leather was trimmed neatly, and then Dalton punched a new set of holes through the seam so that the section could be tied up tightly, preventing the mechanism slipping from Finn’s arm.
“It might take a while for you to get used to tying this on your own,” Dalton said gently. “Is there anyone who can help you with it? A wife?”
“No wife,” Finn said stiffly. “I’m sure one of my comrades will help.”
Dalton looked up. “You seem eager to get back.”
“Yes. Once it’s fully functional again, I’ll return to my unit.”
Dalton nodded and stood once more. The hand was resting on Finn’s knee now, just lying there, doing nothing. He felt a sharp stab of disappointment.
“It won’t happen immediately, you know,” Dalton said, reading his expression. “Give it a few minutes. Feel free to get up, if you want to.”
To distract himself, Finn watched as Dalton finished putting his things away, then returned to his workbench and the item he’d been working on when Finn arrived.
“How long have you been doing this for?” Finn asked, unable to stop himself.
Dalton sighed as he turned over the contraption in his hands. “What feels like a long time,” he said. “This specifically, though? A few years.”
“Oh.”
“I started out making standard prosthetics,” Dalton said. “Wooden legs, that sort of thing. The more I learned about that, the more possibility I saw in making things that moved as the missing limb would have done. It took a lot of time, a lot of research with very intelligent men, learning from them, before I started working on pieces like yours.”
“How many have you done?”
“Bespoke pieces… maybe thirty-five.”
“I thought more!”
Dalton smiled. “Standard pieces, like this,”—he held up the knee joint, that would be fixed to a more traditional wooden leg, for those who couldn’t afford to buy a full leg—“a few hundred.”
Looking down at his mechanical hand, Finn felt a sense of unease; anyone who looked upon it would know immediately that this wasn’t a part of his own biology. It was beautiful, there could be no doubt about that, but it stood out.
“Can you cover it?” he asked, wondering if this was what he wanted after all.
“Yes,” Dalton said. “If that’s what you want, there is a type of rabbit skin that can be worked to give it a more natural look.”
“Do many people request that?”
“Only a few, so far,” Dalton admitted. “I suppose there is a cosmetic reason why one might not want the metalwork on show, but it will dull the sensation in the very ends of your fingers, if I cover them. If that’s what you want, though, I am happy to do it for you.”
Finn nodded and thought some more. “Can I let you know, at a later time?”
“Of course.”
They were silent, then, for a long time as Finn waited for something… anything to happen.
“You don’t speak much, young soldier.”
“I was taught respect.”
“And silence? I almost took you for a religious boy at first.”
Finn nodded. “A few have. But no. I’m an archer. You too, sir, are well known for being cautious with your words.”
“It is a good way to live,” Dalton said. “There is less chance of saying the wrong thing to the wrong person.”
Finn agreed. He stood, feeling more steady now, the weight of his new hand still feeling lifeless at the end of his arm. He walked slowly around the workshop, taking the time to examine the rows and rows of tools attached to the stone walls, the materials carefully stored in large chests.
He turned to ask Dalton more questions, wanting to demand how long it would take before he could feel something—anything—and felt himself caught for words.
“What is that?” Finn asked.
“What is what?” Dalton said, turning on his seat.
“That… underneath your shirt.”
Dalton caught his eyes in
a level stare. “What do you think it is?”
“It looks….” Finn was blushing again, wondering why on earth he even mentioned it. Now he would have to admit what he thought it was. And if he was correct, surely Dalton would be the one with cause for embarrassment, not himself? “It looks,” he continued, “like a ladies’ undergarment.”
Without changing his expression, Dalton’s fingers went to the top button of his shirt and began to undo each one in turn, the deep blue fabric falling apart as, inch by inch, he revealed his own chest to Finn.
Wrapped around his waist, up to his chest, was a leather and whale-bone, tight stringed contraption. Finn blinked, knowing the word for it but ashamed to speak it aloud.
Dalton finished shucking off his shirt and carefully hung it on a nail in the wall. As he turned away, Finn got his first look at the back of the corset, tightly laced and neatly tied.
“Would it make you more comfortable if I left my shirt off too?” Dalton asked affably.
“It’s not… I mean, don’t feel you have to….”
“I don’t mind,” he said in the same, even tone. “I spend a lot of my time hunched over one of my workbenches and it causes pain in my back. My doctor sent me to a corsetière to construct this for me. It keeps my spine straight while I work and relieves me of the associated pain.”
Finn felt himself blushing further, sure his face must be blood red by now. So it wasn’t a ladies’ undergarment at all. It was medical.
Suddenly, Dalton smiled and gestured to Finn’s hand. The fingers were slowly curling in toward the shiny copper palm, and Finn’s embarrassment leaked away as he watched the movement, quietly stunned.
“It’s doing it on its own,” he murmured.
“No,” Dalton corrected, taking Finn’s arm in his hand and watching as the mechanical fingers started to sensuously undulate. “You’re doing it.”
“I’m not,” Finn protested. “I’m really not.”
“Your mind isn’t, then,” Dalton said. “But your subconscious is. Those nerve endings in your wrist—Tennessee didn’t tie them off like he would with a traditional amputation. They’re still there, waiting to attach themselves to something.”