David's wife Penny was perhaps a dozen feet ahead of him when he noticed she faltered and slowed.
It was exactly at the wrong time, too, an extremely steep hill loomed not far ahead, the idea was to hit the bottom at maximum speed because by the top both of them would be severely laboring.
The bike race wound down the bay road, all nice and flat for a dozen miles before the final climb, David and Penny had been practicing almost daily, rain or shine.
Jack Hanson was between David and Penny, the three of them in a tight draft. Luckily Jack was always alert, he swerved and missed a collision by inches.
For a moment David thought that Penny had just slipped on one of her pegs, that would be very rare though.
When she rolled to a stop out of the lane though, David knew it was much more than that. He pulled over also, right behind her, she had managed to get one foot down, her face was white with pain.
Their race was over, there was now no way to recover. That wasn't too big of a deal, they weren't going to win anyway but being in the lead group for the very first time would sure have been nice.
"What's the matter, honey?" David asked her, moving up beside her. On their left, the stream of racers going by made a soft whishing sound, they were all moving very fast.
"I'm sorry, I can't. I just can't." David saw her hand drop back to her hip, rubbing. Then she reached downward to her groin, rubbed herself through the colorful skin tight clothing she wore.
"What is it?" Now David was concerned.
"I pulled a muscle or something, it hurts, like I am burning." She said, her face nearly screwed up in tears.
Dismounting, he helped her find a place to sit, they rested for quite some time. Finally, even the stragglers had long since passed.
Penny tried to get onto her bike for the long ride back to their vehicle, but when she tried she gasped again.
After about an hour, Jack Hanson came back.
"What happened? We were running in the top ten, I fell all the way to 20th." He looked at David, then at Penny still sitting there.
"Penny pulled a muscle or something, can you go get the truck?" David asked her.
"Crap. Well, nothing to do about it, sure, I will be back." He took off back towards where their vehicles were parked.
It took another hour for Jack to get back, they got everything loaded and he helped Penny into the vehicle, she was still in pain.
The next day David drove her in to see their Doctor. Jeanine Miller had been their family Nurse Practitioner for years, she was a mildly heavy set woman in her fifties, with a no nonsense attitude.
She came out and sat down with David after her examination, a puzzled look on her face.
"I can't find any sign of injury, not really. But she has a stabbing pain in her right thigh, and a burning sensation in her groin and rectum. I have heard of this, especially with athletes which both of you obviously are. But it's way out of my knowledge, I need to send her to a specialist, OK?"
She wrote down the name of the clinic, called Weiss and Associates. Penny came out about then and David helped her to the car and took her home.
When he explained that they were going to have to drive over 100 miles to see a specialist, she protested that she would feel better if they just gave it some time.
"That is a man Doctor, Honey." Penny said, her face flaming. Penny was bashful, even when they first married it had taken him quite some time before she would allow intimacy with the lights on.
Why, David was not quite sure, her figure bordered on spectacular. Probably partly due to the Catholic school she went to, and her very conservative Mother. That had been fine with David, Penny was clearly untouched on their wedding night, he doubted that she had even kissed anyone else besides him.
"He is just a Doctor." David told her. Penny had always been very shy about her body, even getting her to wear the skin tight suit had been a bit of a struggle but finally she had gotten used to that.
"Still, I think if I just rest?" She asked.
So they did try that, things didn't get any better, they got worse.
It took over two weeks to get an appointment scheduled, but finally they arrived.
When Doctor Weiss came out, he was a tall and quite handsome man about 35, with him was another younger man named Dale who the Doctor introduced as his assistant. David did notice that there was one other man who appeared to be just an orderly, also in his 30's that worked there. He hadn't seen a female nurse, not one.
He assumed there were some, probably in the back.
They took Penny into the back, she glanced back his way, her face flaming. She was aware by then that this was going to involve an analysis of her condition, and in what was certainly intimate areas.
Finally after more than two hours, Penny came back out. Right behind her was Doctor Weiss. One glance at his wife told David that she was very embarrassed, but he was thinking that if she was going to be helped there was no other way.
"Hi, I am Daniel Weiss." The man held out his hand, David shook it. He sat down, a clipboard in his hands.
"I was thinking since Penny tells me it happened while you were biking, that is was likely just and Adductor muscle pulled. But I am afraid it is way more than that since she says she has had tingling and some dull sensations like her pelvis going to sleep."
David nodded, not sure what the man was saying.
"Your wife has what we call Pudendal Nerve Entrapment, The body in this area consists of the Illiopoas and Iliacus, there is a nerve line called the Pudendal nerve. That nerve line runs right through the lower body, the pelvis. The type of activities you do can create problems that affect the entire lower body, from the Sciatic to the Femoral Triange, the Pirformus. I think the problem is in the Pudendal nerve so we need to work on that area."
David blinked, he had no idea of what the man was talking about.
"I guess...whatever will help her is what we should do." He managed.
"OK. Weekly sessions, perhaps 10, even 20 of them or until we see results. I will set up a schedule."
The man David had decided was a nurse filled out some paperwork, handed it to them to sign.
"Since the type of work we need to do is rather intimate, we have to have you both sign a release." He told them.
Dale knew that without signing they were not going to be getting any help, so he signed it without reading it, pushed it over to Penny who also signed.
Then he helped Penny to the car and headed home.
She was very quiet the entire drive.
Finally he asked her what all they had done.
"They poked me and felt around, had me move to several positions. It was all kind of embarrassing, I don't really want to talk about it, honey."
"Well, I am sorry, but we have to get you better." He told her.
"I just am totally uncomfortable with all of this, you know how bashful I am." She said.
"Honey, they are Doctors, they work with human bodies all day every day. It's best to just do whatever they want, get it over with, and get you well again."
"I guess so." She looked out the window, fell quiet.
Over the next month, David drove Penny up to the clinic, when she came out after the 3rd session, he had again noticed the only people he had seen were the three men, other than a few patients waiting.
All of the patients were female.
He also noticed that now Penny appeared more relaxed. The first treatments she came out after subdued and quiet.
Now she acted happy, and she was also showing signs of improvement, mentioning she wasn't hurting nearly as much.
Then one night after a couple of months of treatment, she turned and reached for him in bed. It had been difficult, she had been in so much pain before that after just a few attempts he had stopped trying, not wanting to hurt her.
Penny reaching for him was something completely new, up until that moment David had always been the one to initiate sex.
The other thing he noticed was that she felt nowhere near as snug as she normally did, but he passed that off to just a result of her home exercises she was doing.
Those involved what was described as Kegal exercises, perhaps that was what it was? As they made love, Penny didn't really seem to experience any discomfort, he was very pleased at that.
It was perhaps a month or so later, and his wife was now seeming to be fairly normal so she said wanted to go try riding again.
"Do you think it might be too early?" He asked her.
"No, Dan and Dale both said it would be fine, to just take it easy." She said.
"Dan and Dale?" That struck David as odd, she called her Doctor and his nurse by their first names?
But they went for a short ride, and she seemed to be doing OK.
Back at their house and all sweaty, Penny went in and took a shower. She came out with a big bath towel, began to dry off.
Right in front of him?
David had of course by then seen her naked many times, but not one time had she ever just walked out like this. Always it was either in her bed clothing, or with the towel wrapped completely around herself.
He did like that, and he was staring.
"What?" Penny asked, looking up and catching his gaze.
"I have never seen you come out of the shower like that, relaxed?"
"Oh." Penny giggled.
"I guess I am just used to being seen naked, they work on me at the clinic and...." She stopped when she saw the expression on his face.
"They see you...naked?" David had assumed that they used normal draping, things like that even when working on more intimate areas.
Penny had earlier mentioned that some of their work was probably like the massages she had seen David get after long biking runs. Those were from people along the route that worked on legs right out in the open. David liked those and they helped, but Penny had never allowed any of the men to ever touch her, just the women.
"Well, yes honey. They have to work like that, it's the only way to reach some of the muscles."
She had never really gone into any detail about the therapy sessions, and he hadn't thought to ask.
Curious now, David later turned on the computer, usually it just sat there untouched. He found the search engine, tried typing in some of the terms he had heard Doctor Weiss mention.
Of course he really couldn't spell those but the machine was quite helpful with that.
That was when he realized just what, and where the "Pudendal Nerve" was. He had been thinking it was in the back of her upper leg since she tended to favor it, limp.
There were articles, descriptions, charts and drawings, even photographs.
As he got deeper and deeper into the websites, he found videos of female "therapists" working on males, creating "orgasmic spasms" which were supposed to be beneficial to help in easing the pains and burning sensations.
If that was a legitimate exersize, then just why was the "therapist" also naked? That was just plain porn and David knew it. There were even ads from "therapists", if those were real therapists, why did their photos all show pretty women with very low cut tops on?
The next click floored David. The photo of the patient was an attractive woman, she lay on a table on her back, completely nude. Inserted into her vagina was a long cylinder, it appeared to be quite large.
"See video preview." A link read.
David clicked on that, the video started with the woman undressing completely, then lying down on the table. A man came in, his back to the camera, he leaned over the woman and pressed what appeared to be a dildo inside of her. Then he heard a buzzing sound, realized the tool was a vibrator. The man stepped up beside the table, the screen gave a brief shot of his face.
David was sure the man was the one named Dale from the clinic he took Penny to. The man began to massage the woman's stomach, then down to her groin, working the pelvic muscles on each side, then on down to her upper thighs. It actually looked like a regular massage except the woman was blatantly nude and there was that vibrator stuffed inside of her.
