Dear Sir, - Apropos of the clever story and the very many interesting letters about limbless women in recent issues, especially this week's letter by "Hop Crutch," my own unique experiences may be of interest.
My professional life was spent mainly as a ship's doctor, with intervals ashore and for some years now I have been on the retired list. As a young man I happened to strike San Francisco, and taking a liking to the city I stayed on for a number of years, getting valuable experience as an assistant to a well known and very busy general practitioner. For some time I stayed at a small but very good hotel upon the heights. And very soon became interested, like everyone else in the hotel, by the bye, in a beautiful young lady, of about twenty-six or seven, a resident of the hotel and who had a little suite to herself.
She was a pathetic case for she was completely paralysed in all four limbs. She was quite helpless and spent her time on her couch or in her bath-chair, being looked after by her own maid who did everything for her.
I got to know her a little more intimately than the majority of the guests, as I did several small services of a medical nature for her and now and then was invited to her sitting room. The pathetic part was that helpless though she was, she was always at pains to appear beautifully dressed in the graceful flowing draperies of the time and she was coquettish enough to allow her surprisingly small and weak feet in very dainty slippers to show as she laid practically immobile except for her head, on her couch.
Another curious thing was that she always wore long kid gloves indoors and out. No doubt to hide the poor paralysed hands, and a voluminous silk shawl also helped to hide her useless arms and hands. Apart from her sensitiveness about her condition, she was a very charming woman, often when she got to know you, quite gay and cheerful.
She allowed no one to touch her, however, except her maid. I only once offered to carry her to her bath-chair but she was so obviously distressed and alarmed that I never made the suggestion again.
But one night, however, I was suddenly awakened by her maid who asked me to come at once to her mistress as she had been taken suddenly ill. I hurried to her bedroom and found her only half-conscious and in great pain, which, by the bye arose from acute indigestion and which I was able to relieve almost immediately.
But I think I got the greatest shock of my life that night, for the woman I had thought paralysed lay in bed only the mere trunk of a woman, completely without either arms or legs! The arms were entirely absent from the shoulders and she had only short thigh stumps a few inches in length.
Otherwise she was perfectly, in fact, beautifully formed. Her paralysis had, of course, been what we should now call "camouflage," the stiff useless arms and legs being cleverly constructed artificial limbs.
I was sworn to secrecy about my discovery, and next day she appeared as usual in her "paralysed" state. But the incident naturally increased our intimacy and now she was able to relax in my presence. So much so that very often during my visits to her sitting room she received me in her limbless state, glad as she always was to get rid of the stiff, cumbersome, false limbs. These I understood she had usually discarded at night in the privacy of her sitting-room, when she had no fear of interruption.
Curiously enough I did not find her lack of limbs distasteful and now that her secret was out as far I was concerned, she blossomed out into a very charming and fascinating companion.
To cut a long story short, we both left San Francisco shortly afterwards and were married just two years after our first meeting. She never went back to her false limbs after that, but was content to enjoy life as cheerfully as possible as the beautiful but limbless woman she really was.
I brought her to England and we settled down in a pleasant little seaside town, leaving her in the charge of her devoted maid during my absence a sea.
I never regretted our marriage and that we were together for nineteen very happy years. Then I lost her and I have never married again.
Your readers have been discussing the attractions of beautiful, limbless women. I can tell them from experience that a beautiful woman entirely without limbs can be in her own way most strangely attractive. It may seem extraordinary, but it is true!
Yours faithfully,
M. D.
(Editors Note - Thirty years ago there was living in Brommels Road, Clapham an entirely limbless man named William Goy. He was very intelligent, could write well with his mouth, drive a van, and make bed work. When he was about 56 he married a young woman and had several children.) ed.