The Lieutenant

"The Lieutenant" is a short story by Harry Turtledove, published in The Touch, edited by Steven-Eliot Altman, ibooks, 2000. The story is part of a shared universe created by Altman, in which an unexplained disease called Sensory Depravation Syndrome (SDS) creates people who can, through skin on skin contact, deprive others temporarily of one or more senses.