Second Chance 33

CHAPTER 1

It was a sultry day, the wind was silent and the sun hot, as I drove down the steep hill towards the distant junction. Up ahead I saw that some careless rubble remover had dumped a whole bunch of stones and other stuff across the road. The SUV passed me going at quite a lick and I didn't really get a good look at the driver, but thought to myself that they must be in a hurry!

While the SUV was still in the left lane, I saw it swerve slightly and then bounce a bit as it hit one of the rocks in the road. I heard what sounded like a bang and I sensed that the left front of the SUV dropped down, and immediately the car first pulled left and then as the driver corrected, pulled right. The brake lights came on and the SUV swerved right, and then corrected to straight with the brake lights off. This was repeated and the result was the same, as bits started flying off the left hand side of the SUV, indicating a shredding left front blow out.

There was little I could do, except observe and realised that unless the rate of slowing down increased, the SUV was going to overshoot the intersection up ahead and the traffic lights were red! The driver obviously realised this too and the braking got more pronounced and each time the SUV swerved right as if the driver was battling to hold the steering wheel in a straight line, and the differential braking, having a flat on the left versus a full tire on the right, was overcoming the strength of the driver.

The SUV was now in the right hand lane and the brake lights came on and stayed on as the SUV headed for the barrier rail next to the lane. At the last minute the brake lights went off and the SUV corrected to the left but not enough to avoid hitting the barrier railing with some force. At this point the brake lights came on and stayed on until the SUV came to a halt grinding down the barrier rail the whole way.

I stopped behind the SUV, put on my hazard warning, and got out and went around to the driver door. Looking through the window, I saw an ashen faced attractive woman leaning back against the backrest. I tapped on the window, and turning towards me, she opened the window.

"Are you OK?" I asked her. I could now see her more clearly, and also note that the steering had a spinner on it, and there were some hand controls to the right of the steering column. I felt the familiar stirring in my loins, especially since she was indeed an attractive, maybe 40-something woman with definite wholesome breasts!

"I am indeed relatively OK, seeing as I suspect, I have just trashed my car in no uncertain terms! Maybe you can confirm my suspicions?" She had a lovely, if firm voice! This was no wilting wallflower bimbo for sure! My loins tightened further!

I walked around to the front, and very quickly realised the two front wheels were now pointing in different directions to each other, as the kerb had destroyed the lower suspension, the bodywork had folded into the right wheel and ripped the tire, and various parts of the right hand side of the car had been smashed in.

I walked back to her window, and watched as she lit a cigarette, with a comment that she really needed this! "Look, I know a bit about cars, and my guess is this one will be repairable, but it's going to take several weeks before you will be driving it again!"

"Fuck! I fucking lose again! I lose a tire, lose the bloody car, and now I will lose the job as well!" At this she looked a little embarrassed, "Excuse my language, but my Dad was a dock worker and called it as he saw it!"

Laughing. I replied," I have heard a lot worse, and considering what you have been through, perfectly understandable! But why are you going to lose a job?"

"Well I got a great offer from XYZ Auditors, and the job suited my experience and qualifications 100%, BUT I was warned that the exec who would be interviewing me, was an absoluter stickler for punctuality and timing, and only had this one opening in his calendar! I was running a bit late, and was speeding to catch up some lost time caused by traffic an hour ago, and would have just made it as it was about 45 minutes still to get there. Now there is no way I can make the interview, so I can kiss this one goodbye!"

"Hang on a minute! Who were you going to see?" I asked. Surprised, she named the guy she was scheduled to see, and I smiled as I actually knew the company and most of the senior and executive staff pretty well. I pulled out my cell phone and walked a few yards from her car, and made a phone call. A few minutes later I walked back to her car.

"OK. It's about 30 minutes to their offices in my car and 'Old Ramrod' will see you in 45 minutes which is a grace of 15 minutes. So let's get you into my car, and make sure you get the job! Do you have any luggage in the trunk that we should rather take out and take with? By the way, I am Brian"

She looked at me with a very surprised expression, "OK so what other magic do you do? Yes there is a small suitcase in the trunk, which I would rather like to have at hand, and I must just warn you I am somewhat less than might have assumed. By the way, I am Marianne, although most call me May" With that she swung open the door revealing her pants-clad legs which were obviously quite thin in comparison to the rest of her body. She swung first her left leg out using her hands and let it drop down which it did without any resistance. I immediately picked up how short her thigh was, and the clear outline of a full leg brace. She repeated the exercise with the right leg, and again it was obvious that it too had a full brace on, and the thigh was again pretty short.

At this point I had a problem. She was gorgeous, and she was a paraplegic, but because she wore braces meant she was unlikely to be a SCI, and more likely to be a Spina Bifida or polio victim. I had a hard on which was partially obscured by my three quarter jacket, as this was the lady of my dreams. She casually bent forward, holding onto the door for support and lifted first the left leg to horizontal until there was a click, and then repeated that with the right leg. So she was wearing full length braces and had no leg control left. But the biggest surprise was when she lifted the legs, the pants had pulled up revealing the boots she was wearing. These were not your normal bought-in-the-local-store boots. They were ultra-high platform boots. The heel length alone was at least 8 or 9 inches and the platform was a further 2 inches which meant if that continued all the way to the heel, a lift of around 10 or 11 inches!

While I was now gawking at this, she slid down to the ground, and I noted that there was zero ankle movement at all which meant the leg braces were very securely attached to the boots in some way. Even with the massive built up shoes, she was still only about 5'2" although her body from her bum to head would probably have been proportional to a 5'9" body. She broke my slightly distracted reverie by turning herself, carefully lifting and swinging each leg in turn to face the car. She fished out a pair of dark wood crutches, which were stashed next to the seat, and placing them under her armpits said, "Onwards Brian the dragon slayer, let us get ourselves to the next task!"

With that she popped the trunk with the controller she had in her hand, and asked me to take out the small suitcase. I had not noticed her doing it, but she had her handbag slung across herself clearly outlining a lovely set of breasts, and seeing me eyeing them, commented a little bitterly, "At least they are not bad for a women my age, not that they make up for the rest of this body!"

"Hold on there May! I think that what I see is a gorgeous, pretty sassy, and sexy, full blooded woman! The undercarriage is not stock issue, but then I am neither a long distance runner nor a mountain climber, so that is not of any consequence!" At this point we had reached the passenger door of my car, which was a low-slung, sporty, high end BMW.

"Hmmm! Methinks you have Irish in you with all that Blarney !" she commented. "However I think that I am going to need a little help getting into this contraption, as low down is not my best attribute." So I asked her what I must do. "Ok so let me hold myself up by holding onto you, while you bend down and release the knee locks by simply lifting the rings immediately below my knees at the back." She placed her crutches against the car while holding onto the door, then let me bend down to get to the locks and held onto my shoulders. As soon as I released the locks the knees bent and she held onto me, which resulted in me nearly bursting my pants, as she was pretty close to me, and for a short excruciating moment I thought she may have felt my hard on, as she was nearly up against me!

I then gently lowered her into the seat, and then casually reached down, and picking up her legs one at time, placed them in the footwell. She looked at me with a slightly puzzled look and said, "You don't mind handling these crippled legs it seems?"

"Not in the least - they are part of you, and they do not make you less of a woman." Was my response, "But we better get going or you may be late." She started to give me the address but I cut her short just asking if it was the corporate headquarters which she confirmed. I activated the car phone and called in my favourite breakdown service and gave them the details of her damaged SUV, and arranged to have it towed to a suitable repair shop. I then called another private number and asked the caller "if it was clear from where I was to town" which he confirmed.

I put the suitcase in my trunk, and the crutches across the back seat. May then had an experience of some high speed driving, and some 30 minutes later I stopped in front of the corporate HQ, after having been waved through at the security entrance.

CHAPTER 2

I accompanied her into the building, and handed her to the receptionist who started to say something to me as she knew me but a stern look silenced her. I had handed my keys to the concierge at the door, after helping her get out of the car and upright, at the same time getting a good feel of her bum which was not at all wasted but pretty normal, and then taking the liberty of straightening her legs till the locks dropped in -"I am a quick learner", was my comment when she gave me a quizzical look.

"I will pick you up here when you are finished with your interview - don't worry, they will let me know when that is!"

"Wait a minute - how do you know all these people, and why are you doing this for me? How can I ever thank you for all you have done?" She was a bit upset, and her calm demeanour had crumpled slightly.

"I will answer all your questions after you have successfully convinced Old Ramrod to hire you! As to how you can repay me, will you have dinner with me tonight? I am assuming that there is no current Mr May, because there is no current Mrs Brian, but again that is another story. I also assume you will need to get a hotel to stay in, and I can arrange that too - at my expense of course! Getting you a replacement car, may take a little more effort, and I think we should leave that for tomorrow?"

"Wow! Slow down! OK I accept your offer of getting me a hotel, but I will pay. Yes I will have dinner with you but we go Dutch, or I pay - non-negotiable! There is no Mr. May currently. Christ, I need a cigarette!"

As she had still some 10 minutes in hand, I suggested she sit at the fountain outside and have a smoke.

After finishing her cigarette, she suddenly panicked when she found she didn't have a mint to freshen her breath, but I calmed her down, telling her that old Ramrod was a cigar smoker and wouldn't smell a skunk at 20 paces. This time when she lit up she had used a medium length holder and handled it so elegantly, that once again I had a serious strain in my nethers.

The secretary gave me a brief message when May left the conference room after the interview, and as I was skulking in the canteen, I simply walked out and met her in the foyer. "How did you get here so quickly?" she asked suspiciously.

"I have a confession to make - this firm does my company's books, and I am a major client, so I get all sorts of preferential treatment - but be assured, I said absolutely nothing about you, and whatever decision they make will be based purely on your own credentials!" I was pretty concerned that May was going to take this all rather badly, but was immensely relieved when she simply smiled and said:

"Relax, "Old Ramrod" is actually a very sweet man, and he was very straight with me and asked all the right questions, and judging by his initial comments, got all the right answers. He will be discussing this with some other execs later and will give me a call no later than 5pm today!"

"Good, so let's get you to the Hotel, and we can then plan on the rest of the day," I responded. What I did not want to tell her, is that I got a short text message from Allison who was the real power in the place - she was the CEO's secretary - simply saying "She has got the job".

"I am not sure I can focus on anything until I get that call," May reasonably answered, as we started to proceed to the door to outside. I was slightly behind her and watched her actions, as she walked confidently with a swing through action, her remarkable boots striking the floor with a thump and not slipping at all, leaving me thinking they must have some pretty good non-slip heels on them. The ankles hardly flexed at all, and her upper body clearly worked hard at moving her.

She clearly had a degree of spinal curvature as well, although it was not that marked. Her bum was almost of a normal size and emerging out of the bottom of this enticing bum were two spindly little legs which were revealed as soon as any breeze pushed the pants against them, which also clearly outlined the leg braces running up the full length, from the boots to virtually the level of her crotch.

Once again I was thankful for the three quarter coat I was wearing, as I again had a raging hard on. We had got to the front door, and there was a longer ramp to street level or 5 steps. She surprised me by asking. "Since you have been ogling my arse these past few minutes, maybe you can lend me a hand going down the steps? I am pretty independent in most circumstances, but steps are a pain, if there aren't two handrails. So you be one handrail and hold my crutches, and I will educate you as to how a cripple does stairs."

And she did. It was a simple process - she hung on to the handrail and me, and swung one leg out over the next step, twisted her body to drop the leg onto the step, then swivelled back again, slipping the leg on the upper step off, and then down to the next step, swivelling the other way. It happened so smoothly, we were down the stairs in a flash. At that point the concierge came up to me and said the car would be there in a minute, which it was. "I can see you have some pull here! Do many clients get this service?" I answered that there were a few who qualified.

I once again carefully helped her into the car, and we set off, at a far more reasonable speed, to the hotel I had booked, and to the next problem. I had booked an up market suite for her, and told the hotel management - who I knew - that if she insisted on paying, he was to invoice her for a normal suite, and I would surreptitiously settle the difference. He was to tell her that they gave her this suite because of the lack of accessibility that the other available suites offered.

When she saw the suite she was immediately suspicious. "What is going on here?" she demanded of the manager, who had personally come with to show her the suite.

He was good and suave. "The bathrooms of the normal rooms are not adapted to your needs and so it is a complimentary offering we make on occasions such as this." Not once did he use the words "cripple" or "disabled" or god forbid "challenged". She appeared to be mollified, but threw me a sharp look - to which I shrugged my shoulders, and looked nonplussed as well.

I suggested that she take a bath, as it had been a bit of tiring day, given she had driven a fair way, had a minor accident, and then a 45 minute interview. I asked if she could manage everything on her own, as I was a little concerned as to how much she could manage without any assistance. She had looked into the bathroom and found it to be acceptable, I assumed, because she did not make a negative comment.

"Shit, I have lived on my own for more years than I care to remember, so I am sure I can handle one day!" Was her somewhat curt reply. She turned to the manager, "I assume this is non-smoking room?"

He replied that it was, but the room had a covered balcony, which was open on the one side, and they were on the 4

th

floor, so provided she smoked on the balcony, with the inter-leading door to the suite closed, she could smoke there to her heart's content. This definitely seemed to cheer her up, and she turned to me and said, "Sorry that was unfair of me - I shouldn't have snapped at you like that. Let me have that bath now - actually I will shower - and have a short nap for an hour or two, and if you give me your number, I will give you a call when I am ready to go out into the world again hopefully after getting that call from the interview."

This was a clear hint for me to bugger off, so I took my leave, and left her to do whatever it was that she was going to do, after I had written my number down on the notepad on the desk.

CHAPTER 3

I reckoned, that with the way women generally do things, I had at least 3 hours to knock off, before the phone would ring. I had sort of semi-retired as the CEO of a large local company with extensive international legs, so there was no question of having to go back to work anyway. I had let them know that 'something' had cropped up and so I was not likely to return to work that day.

So I headed back to my penthouse suite, which was only a couple of blocks away from the hotel where May was staying, and made myself some coffee, and ran through what had happened that day. I had always liked women who were strong willed and especially those who wore leg braces, which had become a bit of a rarity over the last decade as polio had all but been totally eliminated in the USA since the late 60's, since the introduction of general vaccination over the last 40 years.

I was a bit unsure of why May wore leg braces, especially since the stunted, wasted appearance of her legs indicated the onset of the cause at a very early age. This initially was a strong indication of either Spina Bifida or polio, as a very young child. Given the lack of atrophy to her bum (a lovely one at that!), it tended to indicate polio, which would then set her age to at least 50, unless she was one of the few who still got it in the 70's.

The thought of all this once again led to action in the loins, and I realise that I was indeed going to make a heavy play for this sexy, vibrant woman. I decided to do a little devious investigation in order to get a better picture of her, so I phoned my favourite secretary in the auditing company, Allison.

"Hi Allison, you remember you once told me that after I sorted out the little problem you had with a certain ex, that if I ever needed something I was to ask you and you would help, no questions asked? Well I do have something I need, and you will need to get a look at a file of the lady that just had the interview with Old Ramrod, just a bit of her background, if you could please my dear - and then you and I will be square". She was surprised, and asked if I realised the lady was somewhat crippled? "Oh yes! I am well aware of that, but it's only her legs - the rest is pretty good!" Was my flippant reply.