Dear reader, this is my entry into
Literotica Summer Lovin' Story Contest 2024
and I hope you will enjoy my story.
If you do, then please read my others or follow me to receive notifications of new stories as I publish them.
I'm always keen to celebrate people who are physically and neurologically diverse. With the Paralympics currently on I couldn't resist writing this story, whilst also making it a little more inclusive.
Although ratings are nice, nothing beats a comment or PM.
I always welcome CONSTRUCTIVE criticism.
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Violet sat in her little sun-bleached blue, beat-up car at the roadside. She'd normally congratulate herself that she'd squeezed into such a small space amongst the line of parked cars but focussed on a pang of resentment as she looked at the street of brick-terraced bungalows, all with cute white framed bay windows.
The rows looked like old-fashioned soldiers with red and white tunics facing each other, wearing black bearskin hats as roofs. The developer's architect didn't excel the day they designed this street of identical-handed buildings that would only win an award for monotonous symmetry.
Her melancholy boiled over, pondering how the new starter could afford a bungalow, when this was her first full-time job. Both her mother and she had given up any hope of being rehoused, despite applying to the council multiple times over as many years. Her mother continued to struggle with the bathroom, kitchen and stairs at their small semi-detached house.
Her thoughts took a further dive when she remembered the day her new colleague arrived and how she'd turned all the boy's heads with her swaggering hips and tight jeans. Company policy was for women to wear skirts and blouses, but no, not her. It seemed she had some concession or guardian angel, as no one had mentioned it or had a quiet word with her, nor had she had HR contact her about it.
Violet's sense of fair play scolded her. She was only jealous of her gorgeous, long blond hair and wonderful slim figure. Something she had to work hard at, but it always seemed out of her reach as she remained her little plump self, despite almost starving herself. It was no wonder those jeans looked so good on Maya's positively athletic legs, rather than her own thunderous thighs.
'What made the new girl so special that after only two weeks they'd allowed her to work from home?'
Not that she wanted to because her mother made her life a big enough misery, as it was without an additional eight hours a day.
'And who would call themselves 'Maya'? What kind of name was that?'
"Pffft," Violet voiced her disbelief.
'Okay, the name conjured up exotic images, but...'
'And... Okay, her olive skin had a wonderful sheen to it,
but that only added to her attractiveness to men.'
"Blegh!" She coughed.
She tried to expel her frustration that far from them becoming friends, Maya remained reserved, in fact positively secretive about herself.
"Argh." She vented.
Her life meandered from one disappointment to another. And now, like everyone else, Maya had also left her to work from home after barely a fortnight. She knew she wasn't anyone's first choice for the team at school, nor college trip, let alone a party invite, but she yearned for any adults to talk to other than her bitter mother.
"Holy crap, I'm going that way too..." she exclaimed aloud.
Disgusted with her depressive turn of mood, Violet grabbed the large envelope of paperwork and her handbag as she stepped out of her car. Pleased that the early summer weather had remained dry and wasn't too cold after the wet spring they'd had. She walked away, counting off the house numbers until she reached number thirteen.
'Lucky for some!'
She whispered under her breath as she approached the gleaming white UPVC glazed front door with trepidation.
'I hope she appreciates I've gone a few streets out of my way for her.'
'Humph, chance would be a fine thing.'
She grumbled in her thoughts as she pressed the doorbell and nonchalantly glanced up the street, trying to look carefree, rather than expose the butterflies that now filled her stomach to little Miss Perfect.
Her bravado panicked as the door remained closed. She attempted to see through the translucent glass panel but saw no movement. Her finger leaned on the white button once more as she tried not to glare into its camera and fail in her attempt to retain any resemblance of being nonchalant.
She pretended to glance up the street at something more interesting than the cold front door, whilst her ear strained to hear the padding of feet or the rustle of a key chain.
A quiet voice called from the camera bell's hidden speaker, "Hang on, I'll be with you in a moment."
Violet struggled to remain aloof as anxiety flooded through her. She didn't realise how desperate she was for this woman to like her. Why couldn't she just be the chatty, witty person she'd hoped for? Someone to share juicy office gossip with instead of being this stoic mannequin with the same personality as her front door?
A muffled chain rattled on the other side of the door, and she heard it click open.
"Thanks, Violet, for dropping the papers around."
Violet turned her gaze from the end of the road as she answered, "That's okayyyy..."
She faltered when she saw the hallway empty.
"Ahem." Came a polite but embarrassed cough.
Violet's eyes dropped, following the direction of Maya's polite cough, but was ill prepared for what she saw...
"Oh my god, what on earth have you done to need a wheelchair?"
The words came out before she'd had time to think and digest the implications.
Maya sat in a narrow, low wheelchair, her hair unkempt, wearing a baggy grey AC/DC T-shirt and torn stone washed denim shorts, but two bandaged stumps emerged from her shorts where she expected to see athletic thighs leading to two smooth graceful knees.
In keeping with her lack of any filter between her thoughts and mouth, she gasped as she recoiled in shock, dropping the envelope and her handbag.
"Where's your legs?"
Maya's eyes widened, and her jaw dropped. She leaned forward, as she spoke, full of venom, spitting the word out, "Bitch." And she slammed the door closed.
Stunned, Violet stared at the shadow of Maya in the opaque glass as she span to glide away and disappear off to the right. She couldn't compute what she had seen. The cogs in her mind slowly ran over the facts before the realisation of her reaction, what she'd said, and the impact it would have on Maya dawned on her.
Her empathy reached record levels when she realised that this could be the reason for her cautious interactions at work. Her hand shot to the doorbell to ring it again.
"Maya, I'm sorry... That was incredibly insensitive of me..."
She heard the muffled chime, but no reaction came from the little plastic box on the wall.
"Maya, please..." she begged as she leaned against the glass, tears brimming as she panicked, for once realising the implications of her unedited comments.
The street behind her seemed awfully quiet now, and she imagined all the windows glaring in judgement of her. She bent down and picked up the thick envelope human resources had given her and opened the letter box to speak through it.
"Maya... Please... Nobody said... They didn't warn me... I'm sorry... Neither Tim nor HR mentioned anything."
Again, she felt a street full of windows, burning, scathing, judgemental vitriol into her back and deservedly so.
"Maya? Please..."
Then the little speaker in the doorbell whispered.
"No one forewarned to you?"
"No." she shouted at the cold box.
"And you never guessed? Didn't my strange gait even hint at my having prosthetic legs?"
Violet's mind raced, thinking over multiple kitchen chats with other people at work.
"No, how could we? You're slim, athletic and in those tight jeans. Everyone thought you were trying to impress the men, or possibly even some women."
The street became deathly silent as Violet waited for the camera to blink, or at least react. After what seemed an age, Maya's timid voice came from the other side of the open letter box.
"You think I'm athletic?"
Violet bent down to peer through the rectangular opening to see her pretty face looking puzzled back at her.
"Yeah, and not just me, the men, and all the women are jealous, especially the way you kick your hips out as you walk, thrusting your bum out."
The short, silver chain hanging from a stud in her ear swung as Maya twisted her head as she thought. She leaned forward, with the letter box framing her eyes as she peered out. Violet had never been this near to her, noticing her finely applied mascara along her eyelashes, and found her green eyes captivating, whilst catching a faint hint of a sweet floral perfume.
"You promise HR didn't say anything about me?"
"Nope, not at all."
She disappeared from the narrow slit, leaving Violet bereft and yearning to examine her in close proximity again. The door snicked open to reveal a nervous Maya. She tried to smile casually and not stare down at her bandaged upper thighs, as Violet offered her the envelope with an outstretched arm.
"Um, would you like to come in for a cup of tea?"
Violet knew she shouldn't, because her mum would worry at best or worse still, phone her. She would claim she was hungry and needed her dinner, even though she'd probably been eating biscuits all afternoon.
"Yes, I'd love to."
She heard herself answering before she turned her down.
Maya beamed, as her fingerless gloved hands gripped her wheels and in one swift movement both tilted herself back and spun herself around to head to the open doorway at the end of the hall.
"Come on in then, close the door behind you."
The butterflies returned to Violet's stomach with a vengeance as she followed Maya, to realise the door frames were wider than normal. The kitchen was a typical layout, like any good home-built TV program, with everything within easy reach and spaced to give her ample room in her wheelchair.
Maya spun around.
"I assume Yorkshire tea is okay?"
"Yeah, that's really cool how you do that. You make it look so easy... Ah sorry, there I go again."
Violet blushed, dancing from one foot to the other, wanting the tiled floor to open and swallow her up.
"No, it's okay, you can ask... I'm annoyed at HR, though. Throughout the interview, they boasted about all their wellbeing and welfare policies were there to protect and support me. I insisted they warn my co-workers just in case anything happened at work."
"Aren't they supposed to put ramps and lifts in for you?"
"With our department being on the ground floor and as there are only a few steps up to reception, they agreed to add a shallow ramp to the entrance, which still isn't there. But as I've my prosthetic legs, it's not a problem."
She wiggled her thighs to demonstrate her walking.
"Er, so where are your legs?"
Violet blushed at her asking another stupid question again, but it was too late to retract it.
"Oh, they're in the lounge."
Maya saw the surprise on Violet's red face.
