Kid Gloves (3 page)

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.”

“What happens if I take it off?” Finn asked.

Dalton shrugged. “You’d have to start again, trying to get the nerves to align themselves with the magnetic points in the joints. It’s hard work. That’s why I told you that it takes weeks to acclimatize yourself to a new limb. You have to train yourself, you have to figure out what this strength is and how to use it. You will need to teach yourself how to write again, how to hold a bow and arrow, how to shoot accurately.”

“Will you help me?”

The words were out of Finn’s mouth before he could think on them. He wasn’t one to ask for assistance from anyone, he took pride in his self-sufficiency. But for this… for this he needed Dalton’s help. He wanted to learn, but more than that he wanted to exceed.

“Of course,” Dalton said with a smile and let go of Finn’s arm.

Finn would later wonder if the move was one he’d calculated and instructed his new hand to do on purpose, or if it was a decision that his subconscious made for him. Either way, he couldn’t stop himself from reaching out and touching, wondering if the dark brown leather was really as silky smooth as it looked.

The sensation through these fingertips was dulled, and he’d already touched with one hand, and Dalton hadn’t flinched, so as an experiment, and nothing more, he reached out with his left hand too to compare the sensations.

It was so warm.

Finn wondered if the other man slept in the corset, if he lived with the leather wrapped around his waist.

“No,” Dalton said.

“I’m—I’m sorry?”

“No, I take it off at night and tie myself into it again in the morning,” Dalton said. “You asked me if I sleep in it. I don’t.”

Finn dropped both his hands. “That was uncalled for. I apologize.”

With great certainty, Dalton took Finn’s wrists in his hands and guided them back to his own waist. “If I minded you touching, I would have stopped you,” he said.

Emboldened, or maybe just determined to prove that he had nothing to prove, Finn cupped both his hands around Dalton’s waist and ran them up and down the soft leather, learning the textures with his new one and storing the memories for later comparison. His fingertips compared the ridges of the whalebones, then around the back to the rough laces.

His hands worked higher, up and up until they were pressed against hot skin that was sheened with sweat. The corset ended just below Dalton’s nipples, and Finn explored those too, the tight pink nubs and how they hardened under his touch, the whorls of hair on the other man’s chest, the hard collarbones and strong shoulders.

“This is… I shouldn’t be doing this. It’s sinful, it’s wicked….”

“According to who?” Dalton said, his voice a low whisper, his lips only an inch away from Finn’s neck. “I gave you a hand, now I’m showing you how to use it. How to feel with it again.”

“I don’t know what I’m feeling,” Finn said with a tiny sob.

Dalton stepped back, aware that Finn’s hands still lingered on his waist, but not prepared to go any further while the young man was distressed. He was aware that his heart was thumping hard in his chest, aware that Finn’s probably was too. As far as Finn’s new hand was concerned, this was a good thing; it encouraged his body to accept this new addition. But the look of fear—that was not welcome.

“You can leave now, if you want,” Dalton said gently. “Or you can stay. Your choice will have no bearing on my responsibility to you, to helping you recover. The mechanics are only the start.”

“I don’t want to leave,” Finn said. His voice only wavered a tiny amount.

“Would you like to go and lock the door, turn around the sign?” Dalton said. “I’d do it myself, but people tend to misunderstand why I wear this.”

He gestured to his corset with a small, self-effacing smile, and Finn nodded. He forced himself to breathe deeply as he locked up the shop, aware that he had just closed up his only escape route, effectively trapping himself inside. He wondered if this was Dalton’s plan all along, and the arousal rushed out of his body.

“Hey,” Dalton said softly, reaching out his hand as Finn hovered by the door. “It’s okay. I promise.”

Finn took long strides forward (he was a soldier, after all, he was fearless) and slipped his hand into Dalton’s, surprised and pleased at how the warm, dry palm wrapped around the edges of his new mechanical hand.

“I can feel things with it,” Finn said. “I can feel things again.”

“Yes,” Dalton said simply.

The staircase that led to Dalton’s private rooms was dark and narrow. There was only one distinct living space: at the front of the house, a small washing area, a bowl and jug under a mirror. At the back, away from the noise of the street, a low bed. It was homey, with a large chair, several books, and a desk, personal effects dotted around.

“I don’t want to scare you,” Dalton said. “I know this is new to you.”

Finn lifted his chin defiantly but said nothing, allowing his actions to speak for him.

“I’ll remove your shirt,” Dalton continued. “You won’t have enough dexterity in your fingers to do it yourself yet.”

“I dress and undress myself every day,” Finn said. “I can manage.”

“I don’t doubt it. Let me do it because I want to, then?”

Finn managed a terse nod and clenched his fingers by his sides as Dalton opened the few buttons and helped Finn lift it from his body.

He had, of course, already seen the other man naked once before, but this time he felt like he was allowed to enjoy the sight. Dalton encouraged Finn’s hands back to his waist and leaned in, rising on his toes to brush a cautious kiss across the young man’s lips.

Finn resisted, resisted, then finally gave in to the kiss, opening his lips and encouraging Dalton inside. His hands clenched at the leather of Dalton’s corset, kneading the deliciously soft material as they learned each other’s taste, how to drag each drop of pleasure from this act.