This is a sequel to Rope and Veil. As with that story, any mistakes or misunderstanding of the issues facing PWD communities are mine and mine alone; and I hope I don't cause offence.
A key element of the story was inspired by Pascale Honore, a woman with paraplegia. Use your favourite search engine.
--ooo OOO ooo --
"Alex, take me down to the sand, be my legs today."
We're staying in a small town in the far north of the state, where Amelia's grand-parents built their summer retreat before she was born. By the ocean, this is the town where Amelia first found her love of water and learned to swim like a fish. When her mother returned to her family for southern Christmases, Amelia was a gleeful child, a dolphin skimming down the waves. She was dark and small and ran like a sprite.
She parked her wheelchair at the top of the dunes, where the grass ended and the soft sands began. The chair placed so conspicuously declared her presence.
"The town gossips might as well know I'm the woman in the wheelchair, right from the start. They'll get used to me quicker that way."
The existence of the sand gave Amelia the shits the first day when the wheels bogged, but she was kind to me by taking her own weight on her arms around my neck, and I carried her lightly onto the beach, rewarded with a kiss.
"Alex, slather me with sun cream, this sun is glorious on my skin, so warm. Thanks, my darling man."
She wore a black bikini, high cut on her hips and a lovely curve over her ass, the top cupping her perfect breasts. Amelia goes a darkness in the sun, her skin colouring with some ancestral trace, and our bodies quickly become a contrast. Her darkness and my lighter tan, my hair turning blond in the sun and salt; her coloured hair, flame red at the moment but that will change next month. She's never constant, but she's always Amelia. Summer by the ocean, there is no better time. Amelia by the sea, there is no better woman. Amelia anywhere, really. She doesn't need a place.
Amelia lay on her front, and I rubbed the cream onto her long legs and up over her slender, muscled back, lingering over her shoulders. I wished she was lying on her back, her breasts a delight for my eyes.
"You're horny, aren't you? I can always tell, your fingers slow on my skin."
"Who wouldn't be horny, looking at you, Amelia? God, look at you, lying there all tanned and gorgeous in a black bikini, barely there."
"Oh go on, fuck off and collect some shells or something. I'm just getting to a good bit in this book, you can wait..."
She paused, two beats and a promise.
"Besides, it's a public beach and there's too much sand."
The problem with Amelia is that she's right. It's a public beach, and of course there's sand. It's a beach.
I wandered off to the edge of the water, scattering sprays with my feet and kicking the water into flickering patterns.
At this end of the beach, fishermen back between the wars cleared rocks from the shallow reef, making a wide landing place for their boats. Now, the place was a small lagoon, and when the tide was low, safe for children, the sandy bottom slowly sloping away to about six feet deep. Some two hundred yards out from the shore, a low reef broke the surf, and kids bobbed on their boards. Out there, I saw snorkels, and remembered Amelia telling me about fish on the reef.
I looked back up the beach to Amelia, but she was engrossed in her book and didn't see my wave. I did as I was told, and bent to collect some shells. She'll want to see them when I go back to her, to wonder at their colours and shiny surfaces. She'll turn them over in her long fingers and trace the corrugations on the shells, all tactile and sensual. I'll watch her fingers, fascinated, and I'll want them tracing along the shaft of my cock. Amelia's touch is always worth waiting for. Her fingers have no weight, they float across the surface of my skin, bringing shivers to my spine.
My fingers on her skin are less successful, sadly. She can see my caress, and know its intent is true; but sometimes I wish she could feel my love for her on every inch of her body.
Her gaze was strong and direct as she watched me return to our wide towel on the beach. I knelt by her side, and dropped a small pile of shells in front of her. It's a little offering.
"Did you read more of the chapter?" She'd sent me away, and I wanted to know it was worth it.
"No. I didn't read another word. I wanted to watch you walk along the beach, bend down, stand up, kick the water, bring me shells."
Sometimes I can't keep up with Amelia. I thought she wanted me gone so she could finish her chapter. No, she wanted me gone so she could see me come back to her.
"I love watching you, Alex. You're a fucking Adonis, you know that? All tall and golden and blond. I watch the women looking at you, and I see their eyes narrow and glint. They want you so bad. I see them look across at me, here on the sand. Sometimes their astonishment shows, before they can hide it."
"Yeah, well, just because you can't walk on the sand, doesn't mean you can't have the hottest man on the beach. Fuck 'em. They can check me out all they like, but only you can have me!"
But I was flattered, of course I was, that the other women on the beach were jealous of Amelia.
She rolled onto her back and propped herself against me, resting her weight on one elbow. She'd undone the string of her bikini top, and as she re-arranged herself the black scraps of cloth slid to the towel. Her breasts were the same dark tan as the rest of her, her nipples darker circles with a small tightness at their centre. Amelia reached for the sun cream and rubbed it onto her arms, breasts and belly.
"Can you rub the cream in on my legs?"
She knows that I love to care for her long, thin legs, and she watched my hands caress the cream into her scarred thighs, the long gouge on her right thigh still pale, never tanning. The lighter, more regular cutting scars were silvering with time, fading memories. I stretched down to rub cream over her lower legs and feet. As I did so, I felt her gentle touch upon my waist sensing the twist of muscle under my skin. Whenever Amelia sees my fingers on her legs, which she cannot feel, she rests her fingers somewhere on my skin, which she can.
"Can you believe that my mother, when she first came here for summer hols, used to rub baby oil on her skin, deliberately, to go brown?"
"You're kidding, you mean she would lie in the sun and just cook? Jesus, that's asking for skin cancer, isn't it?"
