Rolling In Love XXX (Mindy White and Bill Stanton)

Contact lens solution flooded his left eye, assuring Bill that his morning routine of inserting his lenses had now been accomplished. He wiped the fluid running out of his eye with a towel. Walking to his desk, he placed his glasses in their case and ever so carefully put them in a safe, protected place in his briefcase. Then on went his blue pinstriped coat, part of a three suit special at a men’s clothing outlet. As he gave himself a final check in the mirror, yet again straightening his tie, he pronounced, “William F. Stevens, M.F.A, you’re ready for your first day at work.”

As he got off the elevator onto the floor occupied by the Simon and Washburn Advertising Agency, a petite blond walked swiftly down the hall, her high heels clicking on the imitation marble flooring. His “Good morning,” was answered by a quick “Hi” and a widening of the young lady’s vivid blue eyes. “I just love the view here,” he said to himself, “and I haven’t even made it to a window yet.”

Sam, the partner who had hired him, took Bill to the required nine o’clock Monday morning staff meeting. All of the usual characters were there, including several pot bellied men who, it turned out, knew everything. There were also several older women around the table who, during the course of the meeting, made clear their absolute contempt for the ideas put forward by their male colleagues. And, defying genetic probabilities, all but one of the younger women in attendance were blonds.

As the meeting was drawing to a merciful end, Sam announced, “I’m going to have Bill here work with Mindy on the Ferguson account. That OK, Mindy?” A young woman about Bill’s age turned her head toward Sam and Bill. She had dark hair and was wearing a trim, dark business suit accented with a colorful scarf. She was only very lightly made up, and she wore heavy, black plastic framed eyeglasses. “Sure,” she said softly and with a faint smile.

When the meeting did finally end, Bill watched his new partner, along with everyone else, push themselves back from the conference table. But instead of standing Mindy, still seated, turned and glided toward the door. Bill suddenly realized that Mindy was in a wheelchair.

When Bill walked into Mindy’s office the next morning at 10:30 for their first meeting on the Ferguson account, he found her behind her solid wood desk peering at some kind of layout. When he said “Good morning,” she looked up at him and with a quick movement pushed her glasses back up her thin nose. Bill couldn’t help noticing admiringly that she was wearing a gray suit with a dark blue blouse underneath. She invited him to sit down, beginning their meeting with, “Well, tell me a bit about yourself, Bill.”

Mindy listened, her eyes appearing to sparkle behind the thick lenses of her glasses, as Bill talked about himself for longer than he had ever done before in his entire life. When he finally decided to turn the conversation toward her, she countered, “You know, we have so much work to do,” while pushing herself to an oval table in the corner of her office, motioning with her hand for Bill to join her there.

“Now,” she began explaining,” the famous Williams Agency lost this account because the client didn’t think their ads were substantive enough. But we can’t let ‘substantive’ become ‘dull,’ now can we?’ So….”

When lunch time arrived, Mindy suggested that they grab a quick bite at the employee cafeteria on the same floor. She wheeled herself with seeming effortlessness out the door and down the hall, Bill following. When they approached the serving line, Bill asked somewhat awkwardly, “How can I help you?” “Oh, I can manage,” she answered briskly. She reached down to her legs, which were crossed elegantly in front of her. Picking up the top limp limb, she placed the foot on the plate beside the other foot and grabbed a tray for the even lap she had just created. Bill was most impressed by the “style” with which she managed her obviously useless lower body.

At their next meeting, Bill watched Mindy’s manicured nails run over the layouts, which were still printed out at their agency to insure that the account executive knew how the ad would really look in print. As usual, she made gently supportive suggestions, such as, “This is truly great work, Bill, but I think moving these figures closer together would make them look more like a team. How do you see that?”

As Bill acknowledged that she had, indeed, improved the ad, his eyes began to water. Mindy tilted her head to one side and asked sensitively, “Is there too much light coming through the window for you?” “Oh, it’s my contacts. I have a lot of astigmatism, and my lenses are thicker than most. “I see, she responded soothingly.” Trying to steer the attention away from his apparent weakness, he asked her, “Have you ever tried contacts?” “I was going to get them for my high school prom, but…ah…I got a wheelchair instead.”

Bill’s heart stopped. He had no idea of what to say. Finally, he stammered, “I’m sorry.” “Oh, that’s OK,” she exhaled softly, looking down at her lap. “I guess you could say that my date fell through.” Then glancing up with a wry smile, she added, “I couldn’t have danced anyway.”

Mindy speedily picked up another layout, making contacts and wheelchairs seem part of another world, a world having nothing whatever to do with them.

They left the building together that evening. Bill was intrigued by how Mindy was able to lift the front of her chair to make it over the gap between the floor they were leaving and the floor of the elevator. “It’s called a ‘wheelie,’ she explained brightly as she turned herself sharply to face the front of the elevator like everyone else.

Mindy and Bill said their goodbyes as they moved together down the ramp to the parking lot. She moved up to a gray sedan, and Bill walked on further into the interior of the lot to find his inexpensive red “sports car.”

He looked back at her in time to see her removing the second wheel from her chair, and then it disappeared inside with her. She then reached down and picked up the seat, pulling it up and over her lap.

“Wow, she has to drag that thing with her everywhere she goes,” he said to himself, not quite understanding what he was feeling about the scene he had just witnessed.

During the night, Bill slipped into the twilight world of dreams… He was back in his frat house at State U, lying on that well worn mattress, when the door slowly opened in a staccato of creaks. Mindy rolled in and stopped her wheelchair about five feet from the bed. She very deliberately and as though in slow motion stood up from her chair. She allowed the thin nightgown she wore to fall from her shoulders and onto the floor. The soft moonlight revealed her skin to be smooth and otherworldly pale. She took off her glasses with both hands and dropped them on top of the discarded garment. Mindy moved with no expression on her face toward Bill, and he exclaimed, “I didn’t know you could walk.” “I can do anything you might want, I can be anything you wish, Bill” she answered in a monotone. She buried her head in his shoulder, and just as the light-colored nipples of her small round breasts touched his chest, he woke up in a sweat. “Holy Crap,” Bill said out loud. He walked into the bathroom to get a drink of water and try and compose himself.

When Bill walked into Mindy’s office for their next meeting he was, perhaps, relieved to find her “safely” back in her little wheelchair and librarian specs. At one point she injected into the conversation, “You know, Bill, we’re making steady progress on this, and I think our work is top rate. But it’s a little iffy as to whether we’re going to meet our deadline. Suppose we ought to put in a little extra time on this over the weekend?” “Sure,” Bill answered, “I don’t know anyone in town yet, so I’m at loose ends,” as they say. “So you never got anything going with Cindy, the little blond down the hall?” she asked teasingly. “No, she seems to be quite busy.” “I’ll just bet. Anyway, where should we meet?” Bill paused for a moment and stammered, “I live in a third floor walkup.” Brightening, she added, “We can meet at my place. It’s in an old suburb pretty much between where you live and here. Let me give you directions…”

When Bill arrived at Mindy’s mid-morning on Saturday, he was mildly surprised to see how ordinary her 60s or 70s ranch style home looked. Specifically, there was nothing to indicate that a handicapped person lived there such as a ramp up to the front door. So he climbed the three steps to the stoop and rang the doorbell. The door opened slowly, and he could see that Mindy was opening the door for him with one hand as she pulled her wheelchair back with the other. She was wearing a blue print blouse with the shirt tails tied together in the front, revealing a pale thin midsection. She had on faded jeans and no shoes. Her toenails were finished off with the same neutral polish she had on her also beautifully manicured fingernails.

“I’ve made some coffee, if you’d like some,” she began, motioning backward toward the kitchen. “Love some,” Bill replied briskly. “Can I bring you some? What do you take?’ “A little cream and a little sugar, please. I’ll meet you in the office,” Mindy added, pointing to a room to the left in front of her.

Entering the kitchen, Bill was immediately struck by the absence of shelves beyond about four feet or so off the floor. And there were openings at several points under the counters, obviously designed to allow someone in a wheelchair to get close to the counter surfaces for food preparation. He quickly poured the coffee and walked back down the hall to rejoin Mindy.

Bill delivered the coffee to what was the largest room in the house, clearly intended to be the master bedroom. But it had been converted into a combination office and gym. Immediately ahead of him as he entered the room, Mindy sat between the two large wheels of her chair at a table surrounded by three to four foot high bookshelves. As he placed her cup in front of her and took his seat, he remarked, “You must be quite a reader.” “Well,” she responded with a slight smile, “I got glasses when I was just in kindergarten, so I had to keep up the schoolmarm image.”

He then glanced over to the other side of the room at all the equipment, some of which, like the parallel bars, he recognized, but most of which he didn’t. “Wow, that’s quite a home gym,” he blurted out. “Yeah,” Mindy said softly, “only half my body works for me, but I have to work real hard to take care of all of it.” He was relieved when she picked up one of the layouts to begin work.

During a break from work, over more coffee, they found themselves laughing at some work-related private joke. Bill without thinking gently patted Mindy’s bare forearm. She took her other hand and placed it on Bill’s, squeezing it tighter around her arm. After a second or two, Mindy looked at her hand on his, and then, while jerking it away, looked apologetically into Bill’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” she explained, glancing down, “I don’t get touched much, and…” He managed to recover his composure sufficiently to ask haltingly, “Do you like me to touch you?” Mindy sighed and answered slowly and softly, “Yes, yes I do, very much.” She gave him a smile that was both apologetic and beseeching.

Bill let out a deep breath, and with a trembling hand, he reached out to her and caressed her smooth, pale cheek. Mindy closed her eyes and sighed, allowing her face to fall into his outstretched hand. He leaned over her wheels and kissed her lightly on the cheek, then moved his cheek up and down against hers.

Their lips met, first in tentative pecks, then evolving into passionate pressure. Bill was a bit surprised to feel her tongue enter his mouth with such urgency. She twisted in the wheelchair to grab him by the shoulders and pull him nearer to her. Bill reached down toward her waist as the long, deep kiss continued. But he couldn’t get his hands around her because she was cradled into the seat of the chair between the wheels, which stopped him from getting closer to her.

Pulling her lips momentarily from his, she whispered, “I can get out of this thing.” “Oh?” he answered, puzzled. “Not here, over there,” she explained, pointing to a couch in the gym portion of the room. Mindy pulled back on her hand-rims, turning herself toward the couch. One forward push and she glided up to the blue-covered sofa, Bill following eagerly behind.

Mindy turned her chair sharply so that she was at a 45 degree angle from the seat of the couch. She took her right hand and placed it deep into the cushion, while her left hand went, almost automatically, to the front edge of the wheelchair’s seat. With a little upward motion, her tiny bottom was propelled over the wheel and onto the couch. She then lifted each leg, one at a time, from the footrest of her wheelchair and placed them neatly on down the couch. Mindy elevated herself slightly on her hands and pushed her body further up toward the end of the couch, finally allowing her head to rest on the pillow there. She pushed the black chair back a foot or so, and with that now free hand motioned for him to join her on the cushion, which was only very partially covered by Mindy’s tiny body. Bill sat down at about her waist and stared into her hazel eyes, which peered back at him beseechingly through her thick glasses.

He reached out to her, moving his hands toward her waist, but then hesitated. Instantly understanding, Mindy reassured him, “I’m not delicate. I’m paralyzed from the waist down, but you can’t hurt me.” He ran his hand tentatively down her leg. “Is that Ok for you?” he inquired. “It’s OK. I like watching you do it, but I can’t feel it.” “Oh,” he exhaled in disappointment. “Let me show you where I can really feel,” she said, bringing his hand up to her bare midriff. “Rub me softly here. That drives me wild. It’s like all the nerves that went down there came here.” She moaned as Bill gently took her suggestion. “What about your breasts, are they sensitive too?” he asked breathlessly. “Oh, yeah, she answered with a slightly self-conscious laugh.

He stretched out beside her, his finger rubbing her breast through her shirt. Bill placed his head on her shoulder, and while kissing and licking her neck enjoyed the scent, the cleanest and purest he had ever known. “You’re adorable,” he heard himself say. “Thank you,” she replied, her voice becoming serious, “but I’m sorry I’m a cripple.”

Bill’s heart stopped. “I…I don’t…” he stammered. Mindy looked up at him directly, asking pointedly, “Would you be seen with me, a woman in a wheelchair, in public?” Moving back a little to survey the vision of loveliness before him, he responded with complete sincerity, “Of course.” “How about tonight?” she pressed. “Sure,” he said emphatically. “Then it’s a date,” she concluded.

“Yes, it’s a date,” he mumbled, drifting off to thoughts of how going out with a woman in a wheelchair might be “different.” Realizing his distraction, Mindy took charge and instructed him, “Well, Bill, since we’re dating, it would be a shame to let a good couch like this go to waste.

“Well, are you ready to call it a day?” Mindy inquired as they finished hammering out the verbiage to accompany the layout. “I am, yeah, I am,” he answered gratefully. “If we’re still going out, I need to get changed. Thought I’d put on a little dress, sort of party-like but not too formal.” Getting into the spirit, Bill chimed in, “I have a sport coat and a tie that would go well with this in my car.” “Wow, you’re really prepared,” Mindy noted with that sly smile of hers, as she turned her head to one side. “Oh, I keep a suitcase in my car, you know, in case something comes up.” Or you get lucky?” Bill couldn’t restrain himself from smiling and letting out a nervous laugh, “Yeah, like if I get lucky.” “I hope you’ll keep feeling lucky,” Mindy added as she rolled out of the room. “It’ll take me about a half-hour,” he heard her say as she moved away from him and down the hall.

Bill looked up from the book he was reading to see Mindy glide back into the office. She was wearing a sleeveless white dress on which there was a small floral pattern. The skirt was short, allowing an enticing view of her long thin legs, which ended in light blue shoes, their color picking up that of the flowers on the dress. Bill stood up, obviously most impressed by the beautiful sight moving so smoothly toward him.

Bill grabbed his jacket and followed the young lady down the hall. He opened the door for her, and they moved together into the garage. “I’ll drive,” Mindy announced, “I want you to just relax tonight and have a good time.” She opened the car door and pushed herself out of her wheelchair and into the driver’s seat. Looking back at Bill, she asked, “Would you put my chair in the back seat for me, please? You pop off the back wheels by…” “Oh, I know,” he said as he bent down toward the little wheelchair. “I’ve seen you do it.” “Well, aren’t you the observant one?” she commented with sly satisfaction.

Sitting beside her, Bill was fascinated by how skillfully Mindy maneuvered the medium-sized car despite the fact that her legs hung limply from the seat, her ankles bending outward, leaving her shoes almost on their sides on the floorboard. She steered with her right hand, and with her, left she worked the extra projection from the steering column which was obviously a hand control, down to speed up and forward toward the dashboard to stop.

As soon as they came to a stop in the handicapped space in front of Ricardo’s, a trendy nearby bar/restaurant,  Bill hopped out to put back together Mindy’s wheelchair in the area marked with hash lines for that purpose. Mindy pulled herself into the waiting chair in a fluid, graceful motion, quickly arranging her feet on the two tubes making up the footrest. Bill noticed that her legs looked much more “normal” when she was back in her wheelchair, as though she could actually stand up but just found it more convenient to glide around on her wheels. Mindy actually has sexy legs, he concluded, thin, pale, smooth. Apparently, walking isn’t everything, he decided.

The bartender greeted Mindy by name when he saw the couple entering that part of the establishment. Switching from her wheelchair to one of the low stools at the bar, she looked up at Bill with a smile and said, “Let me show you a little game I play. Put my wheelchair in the back. Jacque will show you where.”

As the couple sat there sipping their drinks, men would approach Mindy, introduce themselves in usually pretentious ways, and begin the process of trying to get to know her. When she failed to show the hoped-for level of interest, that guy would move on to be replaced by another. Between visitors, Mindy whispered in his ear, “They think I could just get off this bar stool and walk out with them!” “Yeah,” you look like you could,” Bill answered, actually quite uncertain as to whether or not that was the proper thing to say. “They never show me any interest at all when I’m in my chair,” she explained simply.

Bill pulled a chair out from their table as Mindy rolled up for supper. He looked into the seat of the chair he was holding, asking the implicit question of whether she wanted to transfer into it. “Oh, I’ll just stay in my wheels;” she answered brightly, “My little game is over for now.” But as he seated himself next to her, Mindy’s expression darkened, and she added, “Unless you’re ashamed to be seen with a girl in a wheelchair.” Bill shook his head back and forth and said, “Of course not.” She looked at him most intently, speaking her words slowly, “I’m counting on that, Bill.”

The garage door closed behind Mindy’s gray sedan as their first date came to an official end. During the process of putting her chair back together for her Bill thanked his date for a “truly lovely evening.” “Oh,” Mindy responded in a breathless, sexy voice, “it doesn’t have to be over. After all, you are so prepared.”

He followed Mindy through the garage door and down the same hall they had walked and rolled a few hours earlier. After they passed, the office/gym Mindy turned her chair sharply left, toward the rear of the house. They entered, taking another left, the “girliest” bedroom Bill had ever seen: canopy bed, a number of mirrors, more stuffed animals than he could count and lots of pink. “I want my room to be as little like a hospital as possible,” she explained briefly. “I’d say you succeeded,” Bill said dryly.

The bed made a subtle, “crinkling” sound as Mindy pushed herself onto it. Stepping around her wheelchair, Bill sat beside her, quickly wrapping his arm around her slender waist. They kissed softly and gently.

As Bill began to rub his hands up and down her sides, each stroke coming closer to her small breasts, Mindy whispered, “You can help me undress.” “Oh, I’d love that,” came his breathless reply.

He unbuttoned the back of her little dress, allowing it to fall forward down her arms and into her lap. He bent down to her and kissed the soft, fragrant skin above the small mounds of her bra.

Mindy responded to the obvious puzzlement on his face relating to how he was going to completely remove her dress with her sitting on the side of the bed by instructing him, “Lift my legs up, please.” He knelt down and took off her blue shoes. While rising from the floor, he placed his arms under her legs and brought them up. Mindy’s upper body collapsed onto the thick pillows as he arranged her lovely but lifeless legs below her.

“I’ll help,” Mindy said brightly, placing her hands on the mattress beside her hips and lifting up her little rear end. The whole dress slipped easily down her limp legs. She held onto Bill’s shoulders as he reached behind her and unhooked her bra. He marveled at the same pink nipples he had seen in his dream!

Removing her panty hose and panties was like undressing a doll, he guessed. He did all the work, with Mindy’s lower body offering neither help nor resistance. He looked at her naked body, struck by what a stunningly beautiful young lady she is, seemingly the epitome of purity and perfection.

Bill reached out to remove her glasses, but Mindy stopped him. “No,” she said, “I need them. “ Oh?” “I can’t feel down there, so it helps me to be able to see,” she explained.

Bill bent down and began slowly and gently nibbling on her cute little nipples. She moaned and then taking a deep breath asked, “Shouldn’t you be taking off some clothes too?” “Oh…oh, for sure,” came his somewhat amused but very enthusiastic reply.

Bill walked around the bed, throwing his clothes onto an armchair in the corner. When he slipped into the bed next to her, Mindy reached out and playfully touched the hair on his well-developed pecs. “I love your chest,” she commented seductively. “Shouldn’t I be saying that to you?” he answered matter-of-factly. They both laughed.

They kissed passionately as Bill caressed her little breasts. She reached down and began stroking his expanding penis.

“Tell me what to do, Baby,” he whispered, “I’ve never…” “…made love to a paraplegic?” she completed his sentence. “You’ll see,” she continued, “I’m pretty much like any other woman in bed, sort of.”

Sensing Bill’s increasing excitement, she took her other hand and reached down to part her legs. He pulled himself up and onto her. But before entering her more than ever so slightly, he shifted his weight to one elbow and began making loving circles with his fingers on Mindy’s bare skin just above her waist. “Thank you, “she whispered with tears in her eyes, staring directly into Bill’s.

She slowly turned her head to one side to watch Bill making love to her in one of the mirrors about the room.

He shuddered when he climaxed and collapsed onto Mindy’s breasts. She held him closer to her, motherly stroking his back and cooing, “My baby, my baby.” Then she began panting and shuddering, much as her lover had done seconds earlier. “Oh, My God,” she breathed out and began sobbing. “It’s so, so wonderful,” she continued, “thank you, Bill.”

When he could finally speak again, he said, “It was wonderful for me too.” Then, after a pause, he asked, “you can feel that?’ “Yes,” she explained, “deep down inside… but only when I feel truly, truly loved.” “You are loved,” Bill said sweetly, stroking the tears away from her eyes, “very, very much.” He took off her glasses, and they drifted off to sleep in each other’s arms.

During the twilight of night, he could feel Mindy moving away from him. There was a little creaking sound as she pulled herself into the wheelchair. Without his contacts, all Bill could see was a low, blurry figure gliding away from the bed and toward the bathroom.

Sometime later, he could sense her return. The bed trembled slightly as she pushed herself back onto the mattress. He could feel her pull herself back toward the head of the bed and him.

They awoke holding each other, he breathing in the lovely scent of the nape of her neck. After cuddling for a few minutes, they reached for their glasses from the night stand, put them on, and smiled at each other in contentment.

Mindy pulled herself into her wheelchair, lifting her legs and carefully placing each foot on the two tubes at the bottom of the front rigging. Bill got out of bed on the other side, meeting Mindy at the foot of the bed. She looked up at him sweetly from her chair, wearing nothing but her specs. Bill, yet again struck by her wholesome beauty, reached out toward his clothes, mumbling, “I guess I’d better put something on.” “Why?” she inquired, ‘I’m not going to put anything on.” “Oh?” ”Well, as you saw, getting dressed and undressed is tough for us wheelers. It’s, quite literally, a pain in the rump to get things over our rumps. So we usually just roll around au natural.” After pausing to try to figure out the meaning of Bill’s puzzled stare, she asked, “Shocked?” “No…ah, no,” he stammered, “That’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” “Don’t worry, all the blinds are down,” she added cheerfully, pushing herself out of her bedroom and down the hall toward the kitchen.

Bill was spellbound by the sight of Mindy sitting in her little wheelchair between the counter and the kitchen table preparing coffee, pouring juice, and making French toast. Her pink nipples particularly drew his attention as they moved back and forth with her animated motions.

He started to rise from his seat across from her, but realizing that he was having an erection, he sat back down. Mindy smiled at him sweetly. Bill’s penis throbbed against the fabric of the seat of the chair.

As they ate and to make conversation, Bill remarked, “It’s amazing how you get everything done from your wheelchair.” “Yeah, it’s no problem, as soon as you get everything set up right.” “In fact,” he continued as he glanced down furtively at his swollen penis, “I can see how being in a wheelchair could be an advantage.”

Mindy leaned across the table, paused, and smiled knowingly. “Yeah, want to try it?” “Try it?” he uttered, not immediately understanding her meaning. And before he could even figure out the drift of the conversation, Mindy was rolling around the end of the table toward him. “Try out my chair, see what it’s like to be in a wheelchair like me,” he heard her say as he looked admiringly at her lovely, flawless nude seated body. From where he sat he was looking down at the little patch of dark fur on her Mound of Venus, the sight and his intense sexual arousal having a hypnotizing effect on him.

She skillfully transferred to the wooden chair beside him, leaving the black cushion of the wheelchair unoccupied. By the crispness of her movements, the determined young lady had made it clear that this was going to happen.

Bill moved forward as though to stand. Mindy held up her hand to stop him and instructed, “No, slide into the chair like I do.” He tentatively placed one hand on the far side of the wheelchair cushion and the other beside his bare rear end. Clutching his penis between his legs, he lifted his bottom up and swung it between the large wheels. She placed her hands lovingly on his legs and said, “Let me help.” She lifted each leg and positioned his feet on the tubes. During the course of this maneuver, his penis began projecting out from his legs. When his feet had been finally settled, she leaned forward and took the end of his throbbing organ into her mouth.

After a brief interlude, Mindy continued brightly, “It’s really easy. Just put your hands on the hand rims, like this,” she said while moving one of his hands to the indicated part of her wheelchair. “Push forward on them and you go forward, push back and you go back. To turn you just push more on the side away from where you want to go.”

Bill moved the little wheelchair back and forth hesitantly at first, making jerking motions. His first attempt at a turn ran his feet painfully into the wall! But he gradually got the hang of it and was able to make it down the long hall and turn himself around, finishing up by sliding up to Mindy who was, of course, still seated on the wooden chair with her feet sprawled casually on the floor.

“Very good,” Mindy congratulated him. “You see how easy it is?” “You can go anywhere in this house on wheels. Try it!”

As Bill rolled back toward the bedroom to try out the “round legs,” she called out to him, “Don’t forget about me. I’ll just be here until you bring my legs back.”

“I’ll be back,” he promised as he rolled into her room.

Returning to her side, Bill announced, “Wow, it’s easier to get around in a wheelchair than I ever imagined.” “I’m glad you’ve figured that out,” Mindy replied becoming quite serious and looking Bill directly in the eye. ”It’s positive for me,” she said, her eyes widening behind her glasses like those of a little girl. “How so?” Bill inquired, stroking one of her pale thin legs. “Well,” she began slowly, almost reluctantly, “I think it makes me feel more accepted…less like a freak…less like a cripple…if…you’re willing to use a wheelchair yourself.” She seemed uncharacteristically embarrassed as she looked up from her legs, at which she had been staring, and back into his eyes.

“Gosh,” he stammered, obviously at a loss for words. “I just never thought…you’re so beautiful…” “I’ll never walk again, Bill. My legs are useless. I’ll have to drag one of these…things,” which she named by hammering one of the wheels with her fist, “around with me for the rest of my life.”

Bill reached out and tenderly caressing Mindy’s cheek as he whispered in her ear, “I love you.” “I love you too,” she answered in a choked voice. “So you can accept…?’ “Actually, I think it’s kind of sexy…you know, from what’s happened this morning. “ Yeah,” she went on, becoming more playful again, “it is kind of fun to play around in our chairs.”

After a sweet little kiss, Mindy continued in an upbeat voice, “Speaking of playing in wheelchairs, I believe I have a toy for you. Let’s switch chairs.” Bill dutifully slid into one of the kitchen chairs, and Mindy gracefully swung her lithe body into her “round legs.”

He watched her glide down the long hall and disappears into the office/gym. She emerged pushing another wheelchair a minute or two later. When she returned to his side, she announced brightly, “This was my first chair, but it turned out to be a bit too big for me. But it should be pretty right for you…if you’ll use it for me?” She stared at him expectantly and plaintively.

“Of course, sure,” he answered with genuine enthusiasm. “This is getting to be fun,” he announced as he slid his rear end into the seat of the second wheelchair. Then, imitating Mindy, he picked up each leg individually and placed his feet carefully on the footrest. Mindy beamed with pride!

As soon as Bill had gotten himself into a comfortable position in his new legs, she asked rather slyly, “Since you’ve gotten so good at getting around on wheels, do you think you could make it to my room?” “I believe I could roll there,” he said tentatively and then broke out in a broad smile. She stroked his thigh and said, “Follow me.”

Mindy quickly pushed herself down the hall with her lover following her by only inches. She rolled to the far side of the bed, threw the bed clothes down to the end, and moved her little bottom onto the even whiter surface of the sheet. Bill pushed himself up to his side and duplicated her actions by thrusting his rear end onto the bed and arranging his legs down the bottom sheet.

Bill pushed himself to his side with his hands and arms and, again imitating Mindy’s movements, pulled himself up to her, his legs being drug passively up the bed. She stared in fascination through her thick glasses, her breathing becoming rapid. She parted her legs as Bill pulled his groin up toward hers. He reached out to touch her band of sensitivity, but she stopped him by sliding his hand beneath her bottom.” “No, she pronounced, “This is just for you, my beautiful lover who is in a wheelchair…just like me.”

He experienced the most violent and intensely satisfying orgasm of his life as he repeated her words, “Yes, I’m in a wheelchair…” His glasses fell off as his head collapsed into the nape of Mindy’s neck. He was left looking at her blurry face as he continued, “…just like you.” “Yes,” she spoke hypnotically, “you’re in a wheelchair, just like me.” She clutched him tenderly to her as he lay there on top of her, shuddering and savoring the waves of satisfaction.

They drifted off to sleep, having passed much of the previous night in sex play. The sun had gone behind the trees outside her window by the time Bill awoke. He found his glasses which had slid under the pillow they shared. With them, he could read the clock on the bedside table and thus become aware that he had fallen behind on some tasks he had promised to complete over the weekend. But before waking Mindy, Bill devoted a few moments to admiring her. He looked at the contented, angelic, almost child-like smile on her face, the smooth pale skin, her tiny waist. The only thing that suggested that there might be something “different” about her was that her very thin legs were sprawled somewhat akimbo on the sheet.

He placed Mindy’s glasses tenderly on her face as he nuzzled her back to awareness. “I’ve got to go,” he announced. “Oh, I know,” she responded faintly. “This won’t be the last time you’ll come, will it?” “No way,” Bill said enthusiastically.

Bill stretched and said reluctantly, ‘Well, I’d better get up and get dressed.” “You mean like walking over there to get your clothes?” “Uh…I guess so.,” he finally replied. “You don’t have to get up. Remember, we wheelers help each other.” With that, Mindy pulled herself into her wheelchair and with one push on the hand-rims rolled up to the armchair on which he had deposited his clothes the night before. Snatching them into her lap, she turned in her chair and pushed herself back to his side. “Here, I’ll help dress you, just like you helped undress me last night.” She took his shorts and picked up his feet as she drew the briefs up his legs. “Use your arms to scoot up your rear end,” Mindy instructed, stroking Bill’s penis lightly as she positioned it in the garment. “You can put on your own undershirt,” she announced. “I’ll take care of the trousers and socks.”

As soon as Bill was dressed and back in the wheelchair, he explained to her that he would need to go back in the bathroom to put in his contacts. “No,” she protested, “you look better in your glasses. You like mine, don’t you?” “Well, yeah…” “So leave the contacts here. They’ll be safe.” “OK,” he agreed as he kissed her goodbye. “Oh,” she added as he rolled toward the door, “leave your wheelchair by the front door. I’ll put it up.”

Later, as Mindy rolled by the wheelchair on her way to the kitchen, she rubbed her hand lovingly on the cushion where he had sat, leaving Bill’s wheelchair there just where he had left it.

At their next meeting in her office, Mindy whispered to Bill as they moved over to the conference table, “It’s a miracle, you can walk!” “Yeah,” he laughed. “But you still can’t see worth a flip, can you?” “Noooo.” Has anyone asked about your glasses?” “No,” he replied, “I think people are pretty used to seeing others switch back and forth between glasses and contacts.” Lowering his voice, he continued, “Now, if I started to come to work in a wheelchair…” “You’d be surprised at how little people comment on even that,” Mindy interrupted, moving herself back and forth restlessly.

At the end of their meeting, Bill said hesitantly, “Um, you know, we’re going to see each other this weekend.” Mindy’s face darkened briefly before he went on, “But…but I’m lonely. Suppose I might come over tonight?” Mindy smiled sweetly and put her hand on his. “I’ll leave the front door unlocked. Your wheelchair is still there…You will you get in it for me, won’t you?” “Sure,” he answered, making no effort at all to suppress a broad smile.

That evening Bill opened slowly the front door to Mindy’s house. The wheelchair was right where she said it would be. After quietly closing the door, he sat down in it. As he lifted his legs up to position his feet, he could feel himself getting an erection.

His erection intensified when he saw Mindy emerge from the office clad only in a wheelchair and eyeglasses. She put her hand beneath his tie and ran her fingers down the buttons of his shirt. “We need to get you into something more comfortable,” she purred. “Shouldn’t I be saying that to you?’ he asked with a little chuckle, his repetition of the same basic joke making it funnier because of their mutual recognition of it.

Once on the bed, side-by-side, Mindy helped undress him. As he drew her closer to him, she put her hands on his hands chest, pausing their passion. “There’s something I need to do first,” she explained. “You might say it’s the ‘dark side’ of being in a wheelchair, but you need to know about it.”

Mindy leaned over to the bedside table and took from the drawer a plastic tub. From it, she removed latex gloves and put them on. Then came out a thin plastic tube which she unwrapped, placing one end into a collection bag. She looked up at Bill sweetly, shrugged her shoulders, and said somewhat sheepishly, “I can have sex, but it seems I can’t pee.”

He watched entranced as she parted the lips of her vagina with her right hand and with her left inserted the little tube. She deftly pushed the small tube what appeared to be two or so inches into her body. When she pressed on her abdomen yellow fluid began running down the tube, dripping into the bag. She sighed in relief. “You can feel that?” he inquired breathing heavily. “Not really,” she replied, “but I get a vague, positive sense that the pressure in my abdomen has been lessened. It’s pleasurable, actually.” “Wow,” is all Bill could manage to think to say as he responded sexually to what, according to textbooks, is a very routine self-care activity for a paraplegic.

She broke the spell he was in by announcing, “I’ll do you later.” “Oh?” he said, slightly startled. “Not now, she reassured him. “ Wouldn’t work now, you’re too aroused.” “Yeah,” he replied breathlessly.

As soon as Mindy had removed the tube, Bill began to stroke her little band of sensitivity. She purred contentedly. He pulled himself closer to her, and they made love in a way which was both tender and passionate.

After Bill had rested a few minutes in her arms, Mindy took control of the situation by announcing, “Well, I’ll cath. you now. I want you to really understand what it’s like to be a paraplegic…like me.”

She put on a new pair of gloves and unwrapped a fresh catheter. But she placed one end of the tube in the same collection bag that already held her urine. “Lie still,” she instructed as she gently lifted Bill’s penis with one hand. She began threading the thin tube slowly into him, a process made possible by her holding the organ straight and by the lubricant on the tube, which he now could feel but not see. It felt strange to have something moving up him like that, and it did sting. But like everything associated with Mindy, it was also exciting. She hesitated for a moment as there was a bit of resistance to the advancement of the tube. “Must be passing through your prostate, from what I’ve read,” she explained. He focused on the blurry image of her pink nipples as he sensed a deep push within him. Suddenly, pale yellow fluid began inching down the tube and into the collection bag. He could feel the same sense of relief he had earlier observed in his lover.

She removed the cath. much more rapidly than she had inserted it causing the sting, while more intense, to last only a split second. As he caught his breath, he asked, “How do you handle the ‘other’?” “The other? Oh, I have a ‘bowel program,’ enema every morning. I’m sure you’ll find out all about that…someday,” she commented slyly.

At long last, the much anticipated Friday evening had arrived, and Bill was on his way to Mindy’s for the weekend. His penis grew even larger as he sat down in his wheelchair at the front door. As instructed, he joined Mindy in her bedroom. She was on the bed, nude, and cathing herself. Beyond her and on the bedside table he could see that she had placed a bottle of wine and two wine glasses. He pushed himself onto the bed beside her and stroked her band of sensitivity while admiring the sexy performance unfolding before him.

She helped him undress, and they made love slowly and tenderly.

“Tonight,” she informed him, ‘I thought we’d just stay in. I’ll cook for you.” “Sounds good to me.”

They pushed themselves, still undressed, into their chairs and headed for the kitchen.

Mindy placed the tray on which she had balanced the wine bottle and glasses on the table and poured Bill another glass.

He marveled as she moved ingredients around the little kitchen, all from her seated position. He watched her expertly filet two chicken breasts. And speaking of breasts, he certainly couldn’t keep his eyes off hers.

Dawn broke on Saturday morning with Bill and Mindy holding each other contentedly.

Mindy was first into her chair. She rolled into the bathroom, her front rigging fitting neatly into a space under the sink, allowing her to reach everything on the bathroom counter. She brushed her teeth and gargled.

“I’ll put coffee on,” she said cheerfully as she emerged from the bathroom. “Wonderful!” was Bill’s response as he pushed himself into the bathroom to repeat Mindy’s morning hygienic routine.

Mindy became serious as they had their morning coffee and French toast. “What do you want in life, Bill?” she asked as she looked him intently in the eyes.

He was somewhat taken aback, no one previously having asked him such a profound question in so straightforward a manner.

After a long pause he managed, “Well, I’d like to be a success, like at the firm, you know, be well regarded by the clients and my colleagues, bring in lots of business…maybe even develop a reputation in the business. “ Is that all you want in life, to do well at work?” Bill went on slowly, “”I want a family someday. I want to be really loved by someone.” “That’s what I want too,” Mindy said softly, “to be loved… And I want a family too.” She looked up at Bill and said proudly, “I can bear children.”

After they had finished breakfast and put the dishes in the dishwasher, Mindy explained that she had to do her exercises. They rolled past the office furniture and into the gym portion of the former master bedroom. Her workout began by rolling up to a stationary weight machine, carefully locking the brakes on her wheels, and pulling the weights toward her armpits. “I have to keep up the strength in my upper body. It’s actually better for my shoulders in the long run to do these exercises. If my shoulders went, I’d have to go into a power chair. It would be tough to keep in shape then. I’d probably get fat.” “That would be a pity,” he commented, making no effort to hide the fact that he was staring at her slender waist. Mindy smiled.

Following the completion of the upper body exercises, Mindy rolled over to a shelf in the corner of the room and took down two long appliances made of plastic and leather straps. They were obviously braces for her limp legs. Transferring onto the couch, she placed each leg into one of the braces and strapped them on tightly. Then it was back into the wheelchair, her legs sticking out rigidly and unnaturally in front of her. She moved up to and into the end of the parallel bars. She scooted herself forward in her chair and placed  her feet, now in lace-up, old schoolmarm shoes,  on the floor in front of her. She then reached up and grabbed the bars with both hands, pulling herself into a standing position. Moving her hands, one at a time, down the bars, she was able to move herself slowly forward by lifting her upper body upward and then swinging her legs and feet a few inches farther down the floor beneath the bars. Then by balancing on her braced and rigid legs, she was able to move herself into position to move forward again.

“Well, you’re walking,” Bill commented rather tentatively. “It’s not really walking,” she replied, her breath heavy from the exertion. “It’s more dragging my lower body around. But it’s good for those of us on wheels to ‘stand’.”

After Mindy had gotten back in her wheelchair and taken off the heavy braces, she rolled up to him and commented, “You know, you haven’t been on your feet for, what, over eighteen hours?” “Should I get out of the chair for a while?” he asked, seeming to be confused by the mixed signals. “Well, not just stand up and walk, no, like me, on the bars. I’ll show you. My braces won’t fit you, but we can strap your legs together. That’ll give you much the same feeling as it is for me to ‘stand’.”

She reached down and lifted his feet into her lap. She took four straps from her braces and bound his legs together at the ankles, calves, knees, and thighs. “Now,” she said, pointing to the bars, “push yourself over there and see if you can do what I did.”

Bill rolled his outstretched legs between the parallel bars as he had seen Mindy do earlier. He grabbed the bars and pulled himself into a vertical position. It was certainly a strange sensation for him in that while he could “feel” his legs they didn’t feel like his legs. They seemed, in fact, to have a wooden quality, sort of, like he would imagine prosthetic legs would be experienced. He quickly discovered for himself that they only way to move forward was to balance on his “wooden legs” long enough to move his hands down the bars. Then he’d lift himself up and with a rocking motion push his legs a foot or so down the floor. “Wow,” he exclaimed after a few minutes, “this IS just dragging your legs around after you.” “Tell me about it,” she shot back.” “That’s how they wanted me to get around all the time in rehab. They strapped my legs into braces and gave me forearm crutches. They wanted me to go out into the world like that. I felt like the mechanical girl, plus it took me forever to get anywhere. I said no thanks to that, I’ll just sick with my wheels. “I can see why,” he puffed, as he turned himself around laboriously at the end of the bars. While doing this maneuver he declared, “I’ll be glad to get back into a wheelchair myself. “ Yeah. Now I do use the braces and crutches sometimes, like when I’m invited to a party where there are only stairs. But I hate them. I feel so ungainly and ugly in those clunky things.”

Later, over lunch, they began to discuss their plans for the evening. “Let’s go out for drinks and dinner,” she suggested brightly. “Same place as last weekend?” Mindy cocked her head to one side and said knowingly, “Why no, Bill. Wouldn’t they all think it strange that last week you were walking and now you’re in a wheelchair?” “Yeah…they…they would, I guess,” he said slowly and mechanically, allowing the significance of what Mindy had just said to sink in.

In preparing to go out, Bill rolled into the bathroom where Mindy, seated on a metal chair in the shower, was finishing her bath. After turning off the water, she grabbed a towel to dry herself. Reaching out of the enclosure, she pulled her wheelchair over a small speed bump like rise close enough to her so that she could transfer back into it. When she was out of the shower, Bill rolled into it, transferred to the metal chair in which she had been sitting, pushed his wheelchair to the outside of the stall and grabbed the flexible hose so he could clean himself. Both now clean, they dressed each other on the bed.

Both ready now, they rolled together into the garage and up to Mindy’s car. “Two people, both in wheelchairs, going out together can be kind of tricky,” she explained. “There are ways for both of us to sit together in the front seat, but it’s a challenge, as you’ll see someday. So, for tonight, how about you just sit in the back seat?’ I’ll drive.”

Bill dutifully opened the back door and, just as Mindy had taught him, swung his rear end into the seat behind the driver’s. He popped off the wheels of his chair and placed them on the floorboard. He then leaned out, retrieved the chair itself and lifted it over his lap and onto the seat beside him. His date beamed with pride.

Mindy skillfully loaded herself and her sports chair into the front seat, and the couple was off for their date.

She pulled the gray car into a handicapped space on the south side of the second largest mall in the city. When Bill expressed some surprise at their destination, she explained, “”There are several bars and grills in this mall, good ones. Besides, a girl’s gotta’ shop.”

They pushed their wheelchairs onto the hash-marked pavement beside the car, Bill requiring at this point twice the time for this maneuver as his date. She led the way into the mall, not pausing or even flinching as the automatic doors swung open to admit them.

Bills shoulders and arms were aching because of his efforts to keep up with Mindy. At long last, she seemed to be entering a store where he might, possibly, be allowed a brief rest. He glanced up at the sign above the door as he followed her inside. It was a French name he couldn’t pronounce followed by the words, “Shoe Boutique.” “Shoe boutique!” he repeated to himself, surprised if not startled.

While Mindy studied intently the displays in the show store, he pushed himself to her side and asked in a whisper, “you need new shoes?’ “Well, I wouldn’t say I ‘need’ them, but I do want them. You see, Dear, God gave women feet so that we could wear fancy shoes… You didn’t think they were for walking, now did you? ““Well, sort of…” “How…how…pedestrian of you,” she concluded in mock scorn.

When Mindy asked to try on a pair, the young sales clerk appeared flustered as to how one helps a woman in a wheelchair try on shoes. Mindy quickly put the even younger woman at ease by lifting one leg, crossing it over the other and taking the shoe off, placing it in her lap. She then reached out for the new shoe, which the cute little redhead took from the box and handed to her. After placing the shoe on her obviously limp foot, she announced, “I’ll take these, please.”

“Those are some shoes,” Bill commented after she had placed the $426.83 charge on her gold American Express card. “Well,” she explained as though to a child, “they’ll last forever. Just one more advantage to being in a wheelchair, you see,” she concluded with a wry smile. Bill looked down at the worn heels of his own shoes, worrying self-consciously if others had noticed the wear and were wondering how a wheeler’s shoes could get into such condition.

They stopped back by the car on the way to the bar so that Mindy could safely deposit her treasure in the trunk.

As they rolled together into the dark wood paneled lounge, several people at the bar turned to watch the couple make its rather unusual entrance. An attractive young lady stared briefly at Bill and then quickly averted her eyes. For the first time he experienced being categorized as a “guy in a wheelchair” and dismissed. Mindy reached out and touched his hand for a few moments in support.

They pushed themselves to the end of the bar where the serving surface was at chair level. “You’re going to stay in your wheelchair this time?” he inquired when she seemed to be ready to go ahead and order. ‘Sure,” she shot back, “I have nothing to prove this time. And, besides, I’ve got my wheeler boyfriend with me tonight.” She leaned over and gave him a little peck on the cheek.

After finishing their cocktails, they moved to the establishment’s dining area. The hostess made a big show of having the two chairs from their little table removed so that they could both approach it easily in their wheelchairs.

At work, the campaign they had created for the Ferguson account had been highly successful, bringing lots of revenue into the firm and establishing their reputations as “ad whizzes.” With the recognition, though, came increased scrutiny by their coworkers, and it became know that their lunches together weren’t just for business, that they were dating and were, in fact, a couple.

While no one actually spoke with him about the relationship, Bill was frequently made aware of the fact that the “special” nature of a romance with a woman in a wheelchair had been given some thought by his colleagues. In the men’s room, for example, the guys’ bawdy talk would immediately cease when he entered, the other boys appearing not to want to “rub in” their sexual exploits to a man whose girlfriend’s legs were paralyzed and certainly, they believed, couldn’t be very good in bed.

On one occasion, Bill found himself on a very long elevator ride with the office flirt. While chatting with him she placed her hands on her hips, thrusting her well endowed chest forward. She then suggestively smoothed some imaginary wrinkles from her very short skirt. In an effort to relieve the tension that at least he was feeling, he commented on her obviously expensive purse. “Oh,” she breathed out with a broad smile, “it’s a Renczinni. You know, we only live once, so why settle for less than the best? I mean, Bill, you don’t have to settle for less than the best…now do you?” she concluded with a wink as her little shoes clicked her out of the elevator.

As so often happens in good solid relationships, there was no “Epiphany’ in which they suddenly discovered their love for each other, no dramatic candlelit proposal. Mindy and Bill just knew that the liked, respected and loved each other and that they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together.

And, as every Hollywood writer knows, the next part of the process was to “Visit the Parents.”

An elegantly dressed and thin gray-haired woman came rushing out of the palatial home as Mindy brought her car to a halt in the circular driveway. Bill stepped out to help her with her chair, but before she could slide herself into it, her mother had leaned into the car, hugging her and repeating, “It’s so wonderful you’re here, my dear, sweet Mindy.”

Anna pushed the wheelchair up the wide ramp at the front of the house. Once inside, Bill noted that there was an elevator beside the curved staircase. What Mindy had once said about her father leaving her mother “well off” was clearly true. And it was most obvious that no expense had been spared in making the family home wheelchair accessible for the much dotted upon Mindy.

During their stay, Anna frequently encouraged them to get out of the house to have fun. “You don’t have to stay here all the time to keep an old woman company,” she explained, although with a little hair coloring she could easily have passed for Mindy’s sister and would have received the same kind of attention from men as had her daughter that night she was sitting on the bar stool.

Once when Mindy was out of the room, she opened up a bit. Anna commented, “I’m so glad Mindy has found a nice young man,” She paused, chocking back tears, “It’s been so difficult.” “I know,” Bill answered softly, smiling sympathetically.

The visit to Bill’s parents was more challenging, from a number of perspectives. After a two hour flight, he pulled the rental car into the driveway of their ranch style suburban home. Because there were no ramps, he carried his fiancé into the house, placing her in an armchair in the living room. This arrangement allowed, as Mindy viewed it, Bill’s relatives to come “see the cute little crippled girl.”

She “held court” for a while and then requested the return of her wheels. Fortunately, there was a ledge surrounding the sunken living room which allowed Mindy to move reasonably freely around the Steven’s home.

On outings, like to the mall, his family was impressed by how well she got around, how upbeat she was with everyone. They didn’t, of course, fully understand that Mindy spoke up first so that others would begin conversing with her, instead of asking her standing companions what “she” might want.

On several occasions, his mother commented to Bill that she missed seeing him in his contacts, inquiring more than just once if he might have lost them. Bill hadn’t actually thought about them in weeks, and he had to think very hard to remember that they were still in Mindy’s bathroom, just where he had left them that first night they slept together.

Toward the end of their stay, Bill’s father not so subtly asked to speak to him in his home office.

The older man began the discussion by commenting on how proud he and his mother were of his accomplishments in his new job.

Then, after clearing his throat, he got on to the real message he wanted to convey to his son. “You know, Bill,” he began, “Mindy’s a really nice young lady, but I hope you’re not getting too serious about her.” “We’re very close,” he answered, somewhat ambiguously, “Well, well,” Dr. Stevens proceeded, not quite certain where the conversation stood. “I’m a dermatologist, not an orthopedic surgeon, but from what she’s said, it sounds to me like her paralysis is permanent.”

“Yes,” Bill said gravely, “it is.” Mindy understands that the first thing she’ll do every morning for the rest of her life is pull herself into a wheelchair.”

“Sad,” his father acknowledged, putting on display the fact that the young woman had his sympathy if not his acceptance.

Bill briefly allowed himself to indulge his thoughts in the beautiful vision of Mindy pulling herself from bed into her chair, her little pink nipples moving gently away from him and down as she settled into her “round legs” for the day.

His reverie and his increasing level of sexual excitement were cut short when the doctor cleared his throat again and continued, “Anyway, your mother, and I want the best for you. We know you’re going places, so to speak, and someday…well, you’ll need a wife with the potential to go, shall we say, the whole distance with you.”

“Yes, you’re right, of course,” the son answered dreamily, allowing his thoughts to wander to how smoothly Mindy glided around when they did, indeed, “go places.”

Bill and Mindy began making wedding plans as soon as they got back home.

To his great surprise, Bill actually enjoyed the process of making the wedding preparations. Everywhere they went where the staff wouldn’t actually be present at the ceremony, such as the caterers and at the photography studio, he went on wheels. So at the stationers, the china shop, etc., they were a “wheelchair bound couple.” Bill got a real “charge,” sexual in fact, at how the sales staff clucked over them, repeatedly telling them how “brave” and “courageous” they were.

Resting from their wedding arrangements, Mindy and Bill enjoyed a glass of wine at the trendy wine bar in the mall, where they had become regulars.

After asking him how he was enjoying his Bordeaux and allowing him to go on for some time about all the nuances of its “nose” and “finish,” Mindy placed her hand on his and in her purring voice said, “You know, it’s wonderful to see how well you’re getting around in your chair. I appreciate so much you’re learning to do that for me.” “Oh,” Bill replied, “I’m happy to do it for you. And, besides, it’s really not a problem for me. As a matter of fact, after an hour or so I forget that I’m using a wheelchair. Like when I want to go somewhere, it just seems natural to reach down for my hand-rims. I don’t even think of standing up. Does that make any sense to you?” “Yes, it certainly does,” she replied looking thoughtfully across the table. It’s what in rehab they called ‘flying out of your chair,’ where you finally become so well adapted to life on wheels that you just forget about being in a chair.” Bill thought for a few moments and exhaled, “Yeah.” Mindy smiled at him enigmatically but sweetly.

That night as they were making love, Mindy stroked his back gently purring, “Relax, Honey, you don’t have to work so hard.” She pulled him to her, and he went limp in her arms. “Let me show you something,” she instructed. She placed her hands on his bottom and with her well-conditioned arms pulled him farther into her, and then allowed his penis to move out just a bit. “This is how wheelie boys make love to their girlfriends,” she explained as he came violently inside her.

They held each other tenderly the next morning as the sun peeked through the lush leaves of the trees outside her window.

“Are you happy with me, Bill?” she asked, fighting back a little yawn. “Deliriously.” “The wheelchair thing doesn’t bother you?” “Not in the least,” Bill replied, waving his hand in a genuine dismissal of the very suggestion.

Fully awake now, she pushed herself up on one arm, looking at him searchingly. “I want to know,” she began cautiously,” how you would feel if you really needed a wheelchair, if you were, like me, a paraplegic.”

After some thought, he replied, “Well, from what I’ve experienced, I certainly wouldn’t be real upset about it. I can do anything from a wheelchair, I’ve learned.” “Including making love,” she interjected in an upbeat voice. “Yes, including making love,” he acknowledged with a smile as he reached out to finger her lovely, pink nipples.

“Speaking of love,” she said breathlessly as she allowed her upper body to fall back onto the fluffy pillows, “I want you now.” She guided his body between her legs. She took his hands in hers and placed them under her little bottom, and then grasped Bill’s rear end forcefully. “Now,” she went on with a slight giggle, “we do all the movement with our hands. I’ll do the boy’s part, and you do the girl’s part. Two paras have to really work together to have a good sex life. For us a ‘quickie’ is something you sit in, not something you do in bed.” Bill laughed at her pun, taken from the brand name of their wheelchairs, now so familiar to him because it was emblazoned on the rear of their back rests at a slanting angle.

Later, during lunch, Bill announced, not for the first time, “Mindy, I’m happier with you than I’ve ever been before in my life.” ‘Even in wheelchairs?” she asked, testing him yet again. “You know,” he said after a few moments reflection, “I think our both using wheelchairs brings us closer together.” Yes it does. We’re a wheeler couple,” she summed up brightly.

A few evenings later, the couple treated themselves to a very special evening out, at the fanciest and most expensive French restaurant in town. The cocktail waitress strutted over to their table, her legs appearing to go on forever beneath her extremely short skirt. After taking their drink orders and bouncing away, Mindy asked softly, tentatively, “What did you think of her?” “Her?” Bill mumbled, apparently in some kind of fog. “Don’t tell me you didn’t notice her?” “Well…yeah,” he finally answered, “…of course I noticed her…” “Attractive?” she inquired, her eyes widening behind her thick lenses. “Uh, attractive, I guess so. But she’s not my type.” “Are you sure?” she probed. “Of course, I’m sure,” he whispered, stroking her forearm. “I love you completely,” he concluded.

Mindy sat in silence for a few minutes and then said in a chocked voice, “I know you love me. But…but…it’s just that I can’t completely shake this fear, this horrible nightmare, that someday you’ll see someone…someone like her, and you’ll jump out of your wheelchair and go running to her, screaming, “I’m not really a cripple like…like that poor girl’.” Mindy’s eyes were moist as she looked down at the two large wheels which perpetually surrounded her hips and legs.

Bill felt as though he had been punched in the chest, and he lifted Mindy’s chin up with the top of his hand. “No, no,” he began slowly, his voice hushed, “I want nothing but you and our life together. I just wish there were some way I could completely and finally prove that to you.”

They had more wine together after returning home, making cathing a bit more “challenging” than usual. But the lovemaking was intense and wonderful. Bill collapsed onto her petite body, and she pulled him closer to her and began rubbing his back.

“Bill,” she whispered softly in his ear, “are you truly happy that we’ll be married soon?’ “Absolutely thrilled, dear,” he mumbled his tongue a little thick from all the wine. She licked his earlobe, continuing, “I want a very special wedding present from you, Dear.” “Sure…what?” He managed to get out. After a long pause and a deep sigh she whispered, “I want you to join me on wheels…forever.” “I thought I had,” he answered obviously somewhat confused. Her voice became tremulous as she went on, “No, I mean have a procedure that will make your lower body paralyzed, like mine.” “I would do anything for you, Honey,” he mumbled as he drifted off to sleep in her arms.

The next morning at breakfast Bill asked sheepishly, “Darling, last night did you say something about me becoming a real paraplegic?” Mindy looked straight into his eyes, her voice proud, almost defiant, “Yes, I did, Bill. I want you to be in a chair like me, permanently, from now on.”

It took him a few minutes to process what his lover was saying to him. When he finally felt that he fully understood, he shook his head and wondered out loud, “Wouldn’t that be a bit dangerous? I mean, if I had an ‘accident,’ how could we be certain we’d get it right, you know, at the right level of my spine?” “It would have to be done by a surgeon,” she explained, matter-of-factly. “Would a doctor do that?” “Not here, no,” she said, glancing quickly away, “…but overseas.” “Oh,” is all he could think to say right then.

“Wow,” he finally said, his head spinning about a bit. “I don’t have any problems with people in wheelchairs. And it doesn’t bother me to use one myself. Uh, in fact, I’ve some to see it as kind of sexy. I guess I just thought that, well, you know, I want to be able to take care of you. I love you, Mindy.”

Resolution and determination literally shot from the young woman’s eyes. “I love you too, Bill. Then ever so slowly, she asked, “Do I look like I need taking care of?” “Well, no,” he stammered. “I was more thinking about around the house. What, what if I lost my job at the ad agency and had to really go to work?” Mindy smiled, patting his hand as one would a child’s. “Look, dear,” she explained, “my family is loaded, and I’m the spoiled only child. We could hire a crew of carpenters, cooks, and even security guards. If you and I never worked again, we’d still never want for anything. Feel better?’ “Yeah, I guess so.”

During the day, the silence about Bill’s proposed operation was deafening. They worked on their latest ad campaign, played a game of chess, and discussed the country’s economic woes. “I believe the basic problem is corporate irresponsibility,” Mindy had explained. “We get offers for personal credit cards all the time, right? But banks are hesitant to loan to other businesses because they know that if things get tough, the scoundrels will just declare bankruptcy and disappear with their golden parachutes.” “I know it’s happened,” he responded in agreement with t he lady.

As they sipped wine together that evening, Bill asked causally, as though inquiring about the whereabouts of the newspaper, “Where and when am I going to have my surgery?” Mindy gasped. “During our honeymoon, on the island of Cypress,” she finally said in a weak, quavering voice. “That’s convenient,” he commented matter-of-factly. “We’ll be in the neighborhood anyway, on the Mediterranean cruise.” Tears welled in Mindy’s eyes as she spoke. “You’re really going to do this for me, aren’t you?” “I’d do anything for you,” he responded cheerfully. “Besides, it’s not like I’m going to have a sex change is it?” “No,” she laughed in obvious relief, “you’re not going to have a sex change. Thank you, Bill,” she added, leaning over to kiss him, her pink nipples brushing up against the hair on his chest.

All the wedding preparations having been made, Mindy and Bill were set to leave for her hometown and the ceremony later that day. There was, though, one more thing to be taken care of there in the city.

Bill pushed the wheelchair he had been using for the past months into the We Ship store at First and Elm. The clerk stared at the small wheelchair, which was obviously designed for lifetime use. It contrasted so sharply with the bright wrapping paper and bows on the walls.

“Yes, Sir,” the clerk greeted him, making an effort to sound cheerful. “I need,” Bill began,” to ship this wheelchair overseas. “Gosh,” the clerk drawled, “not sure we have a box that big.” “Oh, I can make it smaller. Look…” Bill popped off the wheels, to which the man responded, “Well, how about that! Pretty fancy wheelchair.”

As Bill filled out the address label to “Mrs. Mindy Stevens” in care of a hospital on the Island of Cypress, the clerk commented, “I pity the poor person who’s getting this package. Hell of a way to have to get around.” “Yeah,” Bill mumbled, “hell of a way to get around.”

A little chill ran down Bill’s spine as he watched the big wheels disappear beneath the cascade of Styrofoam popcorn. He knew that the next time he saw that wheelchair he would have no choice as to whether or not he wanted to pull himself into it.

Mindy’s bridesmaids formed lines of three girls on each side of the elevator on the ground floor of her mother’s home. One of the three on each side were in wheelchairs themselves, friends she had made in rehab and since in support groups.

The elevator door opened, revealing Mindy in a tailored white wedding dress, with lace arms and, suggestively, panels of lace on each side of her upper body. Her favorite uncle, Sam, pushed her out of the elevator and down the aisle, the bridesmaids following slowly behind.

After responding that he and her mother were “giving her away,” Sam and Bill helped Mindy into a kneeling position in front of the clergyman, her thighs being supported by thin plastic braces designed for her specifically for such occasions.

After the vows were exchanged, she and Bill kissed. He stood and walked several feet to where her little wheelchair had been placed out of the way and rolled it back behind her. He offered his arm in support as she pushed herself off the prayer rail and back into her chair.

Mindy turned smartly in her wheelchair and, smiling brightly at the guests, pushed herself back down the aisle, Bill walking beside her with his hand on her shoulder.

At the reception, the three young ladies on wheels moved quickly around the hall to greet everyone, enjoying their fluid mobility and seeming to savor the opportunity to show it off to others.

As they waited in the small pre-board line before their connecting flight to Nicosia, Mindy asked her husband, “Well, how are you feeling about this?” “Fine,” he answered somewhat absently. “A little scared?’” “Yeah, you know being cut on…  But I want things to be good for us, and I know this is important.” “Thank you,” she said her eyes moist.

When the call to pre-board came, Bill stood up to pick her up, as he had done for the flight from the States. “No,” she stopped him. “I don’t need your help.” She pushed herself down the jet-way, performed a little wheelie over the entrance to the plane and rolled up to their first class seats at the very front of the aircraft.

As they settled in their seats, Mindy remarked casually, “You know, Bill, one wheeler can’t carry another about.” “No, I guess not,” he chuckled, glancing down briefly at his legs as Mindy carefully arranged hers into a poised and proper position with her little hands.

They were picked up at the airport by a wheelchair equipped van and taken to what appeared to be a vacation resort in the foothills north of the city. As soon as they had passed through the gates of the blindingly white walls surrounding the complex, they were taken to a several room “bungalow,” one of about a dozen which circled a larger building, presumably the “hospital.” The only indication that this was not, in fact, just an upscale hotel was the presence of a hospital bed in one of the bedrooms.

Shortly after they had finished their lunch of delectable local seafood, there was a gentle knock on the door. A few seconds later and without waiting for an answer from within, the visitor opened the back door, bringing home to Bill that this was, after all, not really a hotel suite but a glorified hospital room. A trim, exotically beautiful nurse pushed a portable EKG machine up to where he was seated.

“Would you take off your shirt, please?” she asked politely. Suppressing an urge to say something “smart,” like, “I thought you’d never ask,” he simply complied. She squeezed a bit of shaving cream on each side of his hairy chest. With a razor she created, two approximately inch square patches onto which she pasted the electrodes.

After removing the electrodes and taking his “vitals,” she asked sweetly, “Our records indicate that you are in excellent health. Is that correct?” “Yes it is.” The nurse nodded respectfully to Mrs. Stevens as she and the piece of medical equipment exited the suite.

That evening as they enjoyed a glass of wine on the patio before an early and light supper, they received a visit from a tall distinguished man with gray hair at the temples and dressed in an immaculately tailored gray suit.           “I am Dr. Nikos Makarios, “he announced as he sat down to join them. ‘ I wanted to stop by and come to know you before the…procedure…in the morning.” “How kind of you,” Mindy responded with a slight nod of her head.

After finishing his small glass of wine, the doctor rose to take his leave. “I am pleased that I have come to know you. I always wish to know my patients.” “Aren’t you wondering…,” Bill began to ask, but the gentleman’s hand went up to silence him. “I have spoken at length with Mrs. Stevens,” he said slowly. Then, picking up the pace of his speech, he continued, “Besides, we take pride in providing special services to special people. I shall see you in the morning,” he concluded with a courtly bow.

During the night, Bill could sense someone beside their bed. “Mr. Stevens,” the female voice whispered, “we need you to take this, please. It will calm you.” She put the little pill in his hand and handed him a glass of water. “Only drink just as much as you need to get it down, please.” He drifted back to sleep quickly.

The same lovely nurse woke him and Mindy early in the morning, long before sunrise. Bill went into the bathroom to urinate and brush his teeth. Mindy was in her chair facing the bathroom door by the time he emerged minutes later. “Are you ready?” she asked hopefully. “Absolutely,” he answered with complete confidence. “Good…and thank you,” was all she could think to say.

Bill was directed to climb into the hospital bed, and the anesthesiologist began an IV drip right there in their suite. Mindy rolled over to the bed, kissed him on the cheek, and removed his glasses, assuring him, “I’ll keep them right here until you get back.” “Thanks,” he said groggily as though he had had a few drinks. She pushed herself back in her chair so they could roll the bed to the back door and on into the main hospital building.

Less than two hours later, Dr. Makarios, already back in an elegant blue pin-stripped suit, walked into the living room of the suite and informed Mindy, “It all was quite routine. I severed your husband’s spinal cord. He is now a complete T-11 paraplegic, just like you.” “Just like me…,” she paraphrased dreamily. “The procedure was not at all traumatic, so recovery will be swift,” the doctor concluded.

The first thing Mindy did when they wheeled the bed back into the room was to put his glasses back on his face. “How are you?” she asked with a slight smile. “I don’t feel that bad, actually,” he responded in a rather detached manner. “Strange, really…not feeling anything at all down there.” “Yes I know,” she said picking up his hands and cradling her face in them, “yes, I know…thank you.”

The next day, a nurse brought Bill a hospital wheelchair. Mindy quickly left the room and pushed back in his chair from home. The nurse mumbled something about “being prepared” and watched in some awe as a supposedly new paraplegic transferred himself from his bed to the wheelchair.

Both of them back on wheels now, Mindy picked up her cell phone and dialed Bill’s parents’ number. “Good morning,” Bill heard her say, “I think we’re OK, but Bill’s had an accident…Slipped transferring from the ship to the boat to take us here to Cypress…Not sure, but he can’t feel anything from his waist down right now…Yes, the doctors think he can get better, ‘only time will tell,’ as they say…Oh, I’m sure they’d be happy to talk with Bill, Sr. It’s just that none of them speaks English.” After she ended the call, Bill commented wryly, “You should be on the stage. “ Thank you, Kind Suh,” she replied, sounding for all the World like Scarlet O’Hara

They joined their honeymoon cruise there in Cypress for a week of sailing through the Greek Islands before returning to the shop’s home port of Venice.

The gentle rolling of the ship “facilitated” the love making of the paraplegic couple.

After a few days at sea, Mrs. Stevens asked her husband, “How does it feel to be a real para?” “You know,” he answered after a few moments’ thought, “it’s really not that different. Even before, after a few hours in my chair I’d forget about my legs. It was like they weren’t even there.”  “ So you don’t regret what we’ve done?” “I don’t regret anything,” was his emphatic reply.

When they landed back home, airline personnel brought them their TWO wheelchairs this time. They transferred into their “round legs” and rolled together off the plane, up the jet-way and past the security checkpoint, where Bill’s parents were waiting to meet them.

Dr. Stevens made the expected comments about the body’s ability to heal itself and the progress of medical science. Bill’s mother, of course, gushed over him, at one point saying, “I know how tough this would be, Billy, but just look at how well Mindy gets along in her little wheelchair.” Mr. and Mrs. Stevens exchanged knowing smiles.

The fact that Mindy had always been in a wheelchair and that they were married seemed to ease Bill’s transition back to work as now a wheeler himself. They quickly became known throughout the building as “that young couple in wheelchairs.”

A few weeks after their return from overseas, the older couple who had just moved into the house behind them was sitting in their den, the curtains of the room’s large window still open despite the darkness outside. Mr. Johnson, happening to glance at Mindy and Bill’s home, recalled something he wanted to tell his wife. “You know, dear, he began, “I saw the young couple who lives there out on their patio over the weekend. They’re both in wheelchairs.” “Poor dears,” Ethel commented, sadly shaking her head. “Tragic,” was how Edgar summed it all up.

Across the back yards, the light went out in Mindy and Bill’s bedroom. A wheelchair waited for each of them by the bedside, in which they will live the challenges, excitement, and joy of the morning and all the mornings to follow, as they held each other in the night.

THE END