"You owe me." He stood by my desk and looked down at me like I was some kind of scum.
"Yeah. I owe you. Ask me to buy you dinner. Ask me to take you out on my boat some weekend. Don't ask me to take your sister out on a blind date."
"I know it's a lot to ask. Look, I know you'd like to go to the big scuba show at the Queen Mary this weekend. I'll pay for you both, and pay for dinner. Please." I thought if I didn't give in he would get on his knees and beg.
"OK. I'll do it. Heaven help me if she looks like you."
"She doesn't. She's blond, and I don't look like a woman but she does." He dropped a card on my desk with her name, address and phone number on it. She was visiting from Florida. She had been in an accident and had finished rehab and everything before she came out here to California to visit her brother. She would be staying at Bill's house with Bill, his wife and their two kids for two weeks. I was to take her out on Saturday. Oh well, at least I'd get into the scuba show for free and get dinner too.
When I called her the next day she had been at Bill's about four hours. I introduced myself and asked her if I could take her to the scuba show on Saturday. She wanted to know if I was a diver, if I had a boat, and how long it took to learn to dive. She sounded really nice, and even a little sexy on the phone and I found myself hoping she would say "Yes" to my invitation. She did. I told her I'd pick her up at nine in the morning.
At nine sharp I was standing on Bill's front porch feeling like some teenaged pimple ringing a doorbell, waiting for my date's Dad to open the door. Instead a beautiful young woman opened the door. She was blond, tall and beautiful. She was wearing a tunic top that was big enough to hang below her butt and yet snug enough to make sure I noticed that she had two wonderful, full breasts. Her smile was radiant and held my attention until I noticed that she also had on dark blue tights, or perhaps the right word is tight since there was only one leg. Her left leg was missing! Bill had set me up with a one legged woman!
I had a fleeting thought about leaving, but that smile and the light in her eyes brought me back before I could move to leave.
She grabbed the crutches by the door and came out. We walked to my truck and she told me how much she liked trucks, and the outdoors. She got in without my help after I opened the door, and I noticed that her leg was very shapely. I looked away, not knowing exactly what I should or shouldn't do. I focused on getting us on the freeway and then the conversation took the familiar course of two strangers trying to find enough common ground to like each other.
I discovered that this was a hiker, swimmer, biker, camper who loved sports, loved being outdoors, hated hunting with anything more dangerous than a camera, and worked as a teacher at a community college in Vermont. She discovered (if she had already been briefed by Bill she never let on) that I am a hiker, swimmer, diver, camper, boater who loves being outdoors, loves outdoor sports, hates hockey, doesn't hunt, and works as an analyst in a consulting firm. By the time we had driven the thirty miles to The Queen Mary where the scuba show was being held, we were friends. As I watched the road and talked with her I got more and more comfortable with her. Every time I looked over at her I was surprised at how she radiated healthy, happy, pretty and sexy. I had two thoughts during that drive about taking her home to meet my Mom and Dad and marrying her. Then I noticed her missing leg, or noticed that there was a missing leg and it should have been there, and I had second and third thoughts about even being her friend.
We wandered around the show looking at all the newest and shiniest scuba stuff and she charmed everyone. She would smile at someone, ask a few questions and have them smiling or laughing and treating her like family. The men treated her like family that they wanted to have sex with, but everyone liked her. She had me explain anything she didn't understand, and she asked me questions about what was important to me, and what I liked and didn't like until I was sure she knew me better than my mother. I saw myself in a mirror once and was shocked to see how huge my grin was, and later I saw it again reflected in something chrome. I was having a wonderful time.
We stopped at a booth where a man was sitting behind a desk with information about a dive school and store that he and his brother ran in Huntington Beach. The man looked at Carol and asked, "Where'd you leave your leg?" His smile never wavered. Mine did. I wasn't to the place where I could ask that question.
Before Carol could answer he rolled back from the desk to show that both his legs were gone from the knees down. "Shark got mine of the Barrier Reef nine years ago." he said.
"Auto accident last January for me." Carol said.
"Damn shame. You seem to be doing well. I'm glad." He turned his attention to two young men who had come in to sign up for one of their classes. Carol and I moved on to the next booth and she stopped and asked, "Were you curious?"
