For years I lived an active life. Really active. Hiked, swam, rode a bicycle and a motorcycle, did some SCUBA diving, some surfing and loved going dancing with my wife and friends. My wife didn't do all the active things I did, but some.
It changed on July the fourth 2006. I was on my Harley XLCH headed home after working the graveyard shift. It was seven-twenty in the morning and I was sliding along the uncrowded freeway at about sixty-five. I was in the third lane getting ready to move into the fourth and then transition onto a different freeway. Already in the fourth lane was an eighteen-wheel truck with his blinker on saying he was transitioning too. I got a good look at the logo on the side of the truck. I let off the gas and was just about to slide over behind the truck when the outside tire on the next to back axel of the truck exploded. Pieces of tire flew all over.
Unfortunately one of those chunks of tread and steel belt slammed into my leg, knocking my Harley and I down and ripping a hole in my leg. The truck didn't even stop! He transitioned onto the other freeway and left me and my bike lying on the warm pavement. Three cars honked as they flew past me, but they didn't stop. I think I passed out because the next thing I remember was being lifted into the back of an ambulance.
When my wife got the call telling her what happened she called two of my friends to get the bike and bring it home. She called my sister and told her I'd been hurt. Then she came to the hospital. She got there an hour before I came out of surgery.
"He'll keep the leg," the surgeon told her, "but he may limp some. The muscles were badly torn and the femur was broken in three places." She found out I'd be in the hospital three weeks and off work three months. A lawyer visited me in the hospital. He was pretty sure we had a good case against the trucking company. He took the case on contingency. If we won, he got a big chunk of the settlement. If it went nowhere, he got nothing and so did I.
When I woke up she was right there. She stayed by my bed all the rest of that day and then she visited every other day. She always left when I went to physical therapy. She saw just one session and cried. After that, when they came to get me for therapy, she went home. I worked hard and instead of being off work three months I was off six weeks. I needed a cane for balance, but I was up and back to life.
The day I came home she made a great dinner and when it was about nine o'clock we went to bed. She had never peeked under the bandages at my leg. Never reached in and groped me to see if it still worked. That night when we got in bed she said she was afraid. She shut off all the lights and we groped in the dark. She found out the tire had missed my equipment. She found out my equipment worked and that I could still give her great orgasms. Over the next month we tested my range of motion and stamina, always in the dark. The best I could do was twice in twenty-four hours and as many oral orgasms as she wanted. Laura never once looked at my scarred leg. Hell, I had trouble looking at it too. The scar started an inch and a half below the crease where leg meets torso and goes all the way down to the knee. At the widest it is about eight inches wide. When I first came home the scars were still red and angry looking. Six months later they were still red but they had changed enough that I didn't think of them as angry scars anymore.
The stress of my work aggravated the injury area and made it ache almost all the time. The doctor said it was some kind of nerve damage and that short of cutting the nerve and taking all the feeling out of my leg, I could take painkillers.
I never got back on the bike. I originally bought the bike because we both loved riding together and going with friends to gatherings and camping trips. When I sold the bike Laura was pissed. She said she understood but I had trouble believing her. The longer I continued to limp and need the cane the less she wanted to go places together. She said everything was fine and she always had a reason why she didn't want to go with me. I felt she was ashamed of me.
On the days or nights I needed painkillers our sex life wasn't possible. She kept telling me it wasn't a problem. I wanted to believe her.
Some of the other things we used to love doing together changed or died too. At a dance I could manage three slow dances before my leg hurt so bad I wanted to cry, even with the painkillers. I knew Laura loved to dance so I told her to dance with any of our friends. I nursed a beer and watched. She seemed to have a good time and she checked on me between songs. I was invited to go SCUBA diving with four other couples and I knew the swim would be good for me and the leg. Laura wouldn't go. Even when the other wives told her how they stay on the boat and play while the boys dive, she refused to go. I decided the therapy was important and I went. It was good for me and the leg. I went two weeks without any painkillers.
The week of the first anniversary of the accident the company I worked for downsized a hundred employees. I was on the list. More fortunate than some, I got hired by a friend to work the phones and counter at his business. In the back of my mind I still had hopes for a settlement from the trucking company, but I knew it wasn't a guarantee. It had been a year and nothing had happened.
Laura and I had pooled our money from the day we got married. We sat together on the first and fifteenth and paid the bills, together. The first time we sat down to do the bills after I started working for Stan the room was filled with tension.
We got the bills paid, but the thousand or more we had been stashing away for the future wasn't there. We got the bills paid and put three hundred in our slush fund for the next two weeks but our investment money for the future didn't happen. When we were done with the bills she said, "This sucks. You aren't pulling your weight any more."
I've been known to have a pretty fast fuse. I retorted, "So for the ten years we've been together and I was putting in two grand a month more than you, were you pulling your weight?"
"Yeah! I do a lot more than bring home a check! Who does the laundry? Who cleans the house?"
"Are you saying that what you do here at home balances the two grand a month more that I brought home?"
"I think it does."
"So, how can I balance it out with no more money coming in? Have you seen the news? Of the hundred guys who got downsized when I did I only know of three who have jobs at all. What do you want from me? Should I do the laundry? Clean the house? How do we balance it so you feel Ok?"
"You could help out more." She nodded.
"I need to know exactly what I need to do so you feel that we're back in balance. You say I'm not pulling my weight. Tell me how."
"I'll think about it. Let's talk again on the weekend."
I came away from that conversation feeling shitty. I could understand that our lives weren't like they had been. Being downsized and working for less money, hurt. Limping hurt. Not being able to dance with Laura and having to sit and watch other men hold her when I couldn't, hurt. Going on the SCUBA trip without her hurt.
When we went to bed that night Laura wore a t-shirt and panties. I noticed and figured she must have been expecting her period to start. Our usual pattern had Laura use the bathroom first and then crawl into bed. I'd do my thing in the bathroom and join her. I'd roll to her, we'd kiss and tell each other we loved each other. Once or twice a week I'd get a signal in the kiss and the sex would begin. Over the years she had trained me well in how to please her. I was a more than willing student. Training her to please me was easier. I could touch her the way she liked to be touched, fondle her and enjoy the way her body responded. She taught me just how to slide into her for maximum effect. Just about anytime she was in the mood I could give her as much lovin as she wanted, as many orgasms. When everything else smelled like shit, at least we had that.
Our sex lives were good for my ego. The night she came to bed in T-shirt and panties I made up that her period was about to arrive and I knew she hated sex when she was having a period. I didn't say anything.
We met at the table on Saturday morning. She handed me a piece of paper. On it was a computer generated list. It was a list of what I was to do. I was to keep the cars serviced, and clean. I was to vacuum the house once a week. I was to dust the house before I vacuumed. I was to do our laundry: wash, dry, fold and hang up/put away. I was to cook diner twice a week.
I read the list. Then I asked, "And this brings us into balance?"
