What Is Normal?

The name is Derik Jones, not that it matters for this tale.

A solid six foot and right at 200 pounds, sandy colored hair and deep dark blue eyes, a good description of me would be a hunk if you asked any of the ladies.

But that was then and this is now. Now I am 5' 10" and 172 pounds.

Growing up, I did all the things that young people do. Yea, I got drunk a few times, stoned some, and found I didn't like either situation much.

I also got laid, lord did I get laid. I never kept track, but I would have lost count anyway.

There was my best bud named Jack Johnson, he was a lot like me and we got along in a way that is hard to describe.

His family moved into our town when we were in the 2nd grade.

If we had told people we were brothers, they would believe it. Plus we were always together, or nearly always. We played on the same teams, went to the same dances, most of the time when dating it was double dates.

I asked one gal to the Junior prom but Jack had asked her first. The next year he asked the one I took the year before and I went with the one he had taken.

"How was she?" Jack asked me the next day.

We both roared at that, we both knew. We sometimes dated the same girls, too, comparing notes.

Just two crazy guys growing up together, fast friends.

I will never forget the day Jack came driving up to my house in his impossibly bright red Camaro.

I looked out, he had some gal with him, no big deal there, he usually did.

The one I was with, Wanda I think her name was, was still in my bed. I could hear her all the way into my living room, she sure did snore.

I had just been in there, watching her sleep. Each intake of air was so loud I swear her big boobs vibrated.

Jack got out and went around to open the passenger door, and this vision got out.

I stood there and stared. Damn! Jack had found himself a winner, no doubt about that at all.

How does a man describe that reaction? I don't know to be frank. I do know that she made me very sure that Wanda had not managed to get all I had to give.

Her hair flowed down all the way to her shoulders and past, she had on round gold wire framed glasses, freckles, a button nose that turned up and a body that was..well..just right?

Not classical beauty by any stretch, she was..I do not know what she was. She sort of jiggled as she walked, the way she stepped was like models you see displaying clothes.

I realized I was not breathing as she and Jack walked up to my porch.

"Hey! What's up?" Jack grinned, his hand reaching out to touch her elbow as she stepped up onto my porch.

"This is Carrie, Carrie, my bud Derik." I could tell from his expression that he was reading my mind.

She led out her hand, smiled. I took it, it felt like butter, warm, soft.

There were lots more comments but I don't remember any of them.

We all sat around and did the usual BS, the gal named Wanda I had staying over came out wearing just one of my T-shirts.

She looked a bit worked over, the truth is that was probably my fault. We had a lot of fun the night before.

Jack had told me she loved to screw, boy was he right about that.

Wanda was one of those types that was careless, she folded her legs underneath herself on the couch and sat there with her black pubic hair showing.

Carrie didn't say anything, just got an amused expression on her face. I wanted Wanda to cover up, but I didn't say anything.

Finally Wanda wanted to go home, so Jack and Carrie left. I didn't want them to.

Jack and Carrie became exclusive, much to my chagrin. We had bounced girl friends back and forth before, never at the same time though.

Not Carrie. Jack got her and he kept her. I wanted her and at first was even thinking along those lines, Jack made it clear that this time was different.

Me? I was so in love with that woman that I had to be careful around her.

I was the best man at their wedding, the first time I ever got to hold her in my arms and kiss her, right on the lips.

That I will never forget, Carrie leaned back and looked right into my eyes.

"I'm sorry, Derik. It really is Jack, I love that man." Then she smiled and let go of me.

I knew right then that all of my efforts at not letting anything show had failed, she knew how I felt.

I guess I didn't hide it as well as I thought I had. I do know that she filled my head with all sorts of thoughts and fantasy, but I also knew it could never be.

+++

Jack threw a fit when he found out I had joined the Army a few weeks later. I had always been around, he had always been around.

Now he didn't want me to go.

Yes. We really were that close. But the way the situation was, I wanted to get far away so I could get over Carrie.

That didn't work out, either.

Carrie threw even more of a fit when Jack signed up just a few days later.

"What in the hell are you doing, Jack?" I asked him when he told me.

"No way am I going to let you go get your ass shot off without me there to help." He told me.

In the military, the odds would be very high that we wouldn't end up in the same place anyway.

But we did.

+++

I still to this day do not remember the explosion, but it was a big one. It came from my side, too, and the tin can Jack and I along with several other guys were in had no chance.

I do remember lots of firing, and someone screaming "Oh Jesus Christ!" over and over.

+++

A person has to constantly move to stay upright when they have two artificial legs. It took me quite some time to get used to that but it got so that if you didn't know, you probably could not tell.

I was lucky in that mine were gone right below the knees, the guys that lost a limb above the knee had a much harder time.

They told me that plastic surgery would fix my face, and it did help but the man looking back at me from a mirror was someone else. They also dug some chunks of metal out of my insides and hooked things back together.

The truth is that I was one of the lucky ones.

Jack had dragged me out of the machine and across the road to a pile of debris, then even though he was also bleeding from about everywhere, he had held off those that were trying to finish us off.

He took two rounds in the chest doing that, both of them stopped by his flak jacket. Each time he came right back up and started firing again, I saw that with my one good eye.

Then more of our men came in and it was over quickly. I guess I passed out for awhile.

I do remember the chopper, and I remember Jack reaching over to hold my hand. Say what you will about that, neither one of us is gay.

How Jack got out of there with nothing but superficial wounds is beyond me, maybe because I and two other guys took the brunt of it. The other two?

Well, they are heroes.

That was the end of the military for both of us. Jack had a left arm that now hung down, he could move it some but it would never be the same.

That was Jack's idea of "superficial" and he was more concerned about me than he was himself.

Me? I felt guilty because except for me, none of that would have happened.

"Hey, we might have been run over, God knows what if we hadn't gone, so it's not your fault!" He consoled me one evening when I got into one of my depressed moods.

+++

The government surprisingly takes pretty good care of their men, I don't care what anyone says.

There would be no reason for me to ever work, not really. It was a long ways from being rich but got enough of a stipend to live on.

Jack had lost two fingers and part of his vision in one eye so he was in the same situation.

Yea, I know. "Superficial" he said.

A good chunk of my compensation went towards buying a Corvette. Red, stick shift, too. Go ahead and say that a guy with no legs can't drive a stick shift.

Wanna bet?

Jack went to work for a software firm, I got a job working in accounting for the same outfit.

So we drove to work together.

Life settled down to one day after another, the crazy days we had growing up were long gone.

Then there was Carrie. I still felt the same way, but I also did my very best to not let it show.

Like that worked.

I even dated, one might think that a man with an oddly disfigured face and no legs would get nowhere at all.

Place your bets on that one, too. That is actually an asset.

Women are curious, maybe that is it? I sure got a lot of comments when taking a woman out about driving that red Corvette.

I also had some of them pay a lot of attention to the stubs of my legs, at first I thought that was odd.

But they came to my bed and they went on about their way, partly my fault there.

Not a single one of them was Carrie. Not one of them was good enough.

Often it was just Jack, Carrie and I, dinner at their house, evenings out.

Carrie and I danced, Jack never minded that, we all became closer as three of us instead of just two if that was possible.

There was no silly rubbing or anything, just dancing.

I never kissed her though, or said or did anything at all. I just could not, no matter what I felt inside. Jack was a man that I will say with no shame at all that I loved.

A girl friend, playing? No problem. A wife?

Off limits.

Vows, you see. That mattered to them, and it mattered to me.

+++

The change was forced on us.

It was perhaps six long years later, we were headed to work just like we did every single day.

Some days we took Jack's van, on nice days we took my Vette. By then I had traded the other one in and had the brand new one.

It was the z06 model, the 50 year anniversary design.

85 miles on it.

I had bought it just two days before, so that morning I picked Jack up.

"Bet you can pick up the gals in this thing!" He grinned at me as he hopped in.

"You get the honor of being the first person to ride in it." I laughed back.

We were wisecracking about going trolling in it, the usual BS. I reached up and turned off the traction control, so I could chirp the tires.

No one around, we were playing, having fun.

The Sun was shining, it was going to be a nice day.

At the highway, I looked both ways and pulled out into the center turn lane, checked my mirror and saw it was clear so I moved right into the fast lane.

I never saw the car coming up very fast in the right hand lane in time, the guy then dove left around a slower machine.

Just a kid in a hot rod Volvo, checking out his brand new supercharger.

I did see him just before he hit and put my foot to the floor to get away from him.

The rear tires instantly screeched but it was too late, he nailed my rear end and we started into a spin to the right.

The trouble with having an artificial leg is to get your foot off the floor requires lifting the entire leg.

That means reflexes are slower.

My Corvette shot straight across two lanes of oncoming traffic, 405 horsepower screaming in second gear.

Something white, and big. I saw that.

When everything came to a stop I looked over and saw that Jack had the entire side of the cab smashed down on top of him. He wasn't moving at all.

It was his turn to be on the wrong side, but the air bags had deployed. That saved his life.

Barely.

They cut him out of the car, hauled us both off to the emergency room.

I didn't have a mark on me, other than swollen eyes and a very sore wrist. My lower legs had slammed the underside of the dash and even bent one.

But those were steel legs.

Carrie came in as I sat there miserable.

"What happened?" She asked.

I told her, then she was crying and that broke my heart. She grabbed me and hugged me, I held her quietly, doing my best to make my kind stay blank.

What I was feeling with Carrie in my arms was not something I was proud of, not at that moment.

Jack was in the hospital for nearly three long months. I went in there every single day to visit, and I saw Carrie a lot as a result.

More often than even normal. I guess we leaned on each other for support there for awhile.

Carrie had me come over for dinner several times, we often had lunch together and talked.

One day she mentioned that she noticed I was not dating much. I hadn't been, either. Being with one woman after another, knowing it was going to be a dead end just does not fill a man's life.

Perhaps some men can do that, but now into my 30's I guess the truth is that I had grown up?

"You know, if I hadn't met Jack first, I think I could have ended up with you." Carrie admitted, her hand patting the back of mine.

"Yes, I always found you...special." I told her.

"You don't hide it very well." She smiled.

"I'm sorry, I thought I did."

"You don't. And don't be sorry, it's flattering. Besides, I really do like you too, you are one neat guy. Jack knows how you feel, we even have talked about it. He told me he always hoped you would find someone, someone who can make you happy. He even told me he was surprised you never made a pass at me."

"Jack? You know how I feel about him, I could never...." I probably blushed at that.

"I know. But he told me about how the two of you used to trade women." She said with a grin.

All I could do was blush.

+++

It was just a few days after that, they released Jack. There had been several surgeries, each one a major worry, but he was on his feet and acted like Jack again.

Neither one of us went back to work, the kid with the supercharged Volvo had no insurance at all but I did.

And Jack had one of those disability polices, he and Carrie took that out when they got married.

Damn good thing, too.

All risk, and a million dollars on my side. Plus one of those riders that pays a monthly stipend for life. My bad eye was poor before, now all I had was a blur, so I was disabled also.

My insurance agent had talked me into it, explaining that shiny bright red new Corvettes are a target if there is an incident.

They even gave me a new z06 Corvette, but it was blue.

I sold that, bought a van.

Jack was considered totally disabled now since his left arm hung slack and it was going to be unlikely he would ever use it again.

Plus beneath his clothing he wore a little bag, and would have that for the rest of his life.

I did feel some guilt about that, but Jack took it all in stride.

"Man, did we turn out to be a couple of cripples, but at least your toe doesn't hurt.!" He joked.

I had always had a problem before with my big toe on my left foot. One would think losing the damn leg would fix that but it didn't.

The damn thing still hurt anyway.

+++

Life returned to about as normal as it is possible for life to be in our situation. By then, even with two steel legs, I didn't feel handicapped at all.

I even went and got me a pair of those running legs, man can a person fly with those!

Jack and I went fishing, we joined a bowling team and Carrie always came down to watch and cheer when one of us managed to throw a lucky strike.

But something was wrong, I knew it and could feel it, but had no clue as to what it was. Before, Carrie was bubbly, she still was a little bit but I saw her slip into some kind of mood from time to time.

One day Carrie and I sat out in the waiting room, I had driven them down to their Doctor's office for a followup.

"So? How are you and Jack doing? I am surprised you two haven't had any kids." I happened to say.

Just talking, at that point I still had no clue what was going on with them, not really.

"We can't. Jack..he..the surgery, they cut some nerve endings and he can't..it doesn't..." Carrie looked down.

"Oh. God, I am sorry." I said. Jack had never mentioned that, most men wouldn't, even with close friends I suppose.

"The Doctor says that maybe..someday..because I guess they grow back?"

I knew that it was possible, my own scars all up and down one side were numb for years, but now often they would itch.

I did my best to reassure her, once again Carrie broke down into tears and once again I held her.

Jack came out shortly after. He looked at Carrie with concern, then at me, but he didn't say anything.

Married, of course. People get so that they just know?

We were all quiet going home.

+++

Two days later, Jack asked me over for dinner. There was nothing unusual about that, I was over there at least 2 or 3 times each week anyway.

Later, we would sit around and talk about everything under the Sun, Carrie often joined right in.

This evening she was quiet, not normal for her.

"Derik? I want to talk to you about something." Jack said as Carrie vanished into the kitchen to do the dishes.

Different there also, usually all three of us ganged up on that.

"Sure, anything." Jack handed me a beer and we sat down in the living room.

"Well. Carrie told me that she had mentioned to you about my...problem."

I nodded.

"We want to have a kid. We are both getting older so we know it has to be soon."

I still didn't say anything.

"Anyway, to make a long story short, we want it to be you, OK?"

That was a surprise.

"You mean, do an artificial thing?" I had heard of that but knew nothing about how it worked.

"More than that. Carrie has needs and even though I try, do my best, she is having some...you know." Jack was blushing.

"If you don't want to, it's OK. We will understand. It's just that Carrie and I both love you and we know we can trust you."

I was floored at that.

"Please? We talked about it and she says she wants to." Jack asked.

"You want me to? You mean, me and Carrie? See if I can get her...pregnant?"

"Yes, that is exactly what I..we..mean!"

Just then Carrie came into the living room. I had a feeling she was in there listening. She looked at me and blushed.

"You guys are serious, aren't you?"

They both nodded.

+++

That is how I ended up making love to my best friend's wife. I would never have made the attempt, but they asked me to.

I have to say that once we started, I was not reluctant. I had wanted her, been in love with her for what seemed to be ages.

Even when I was with a different woman, it was always Carrie that was in the back of my mind. So much so that over the last couple of years I had degenerated mostly into solo sexuality.

We went back into their spare bedroom, a room I had spent countless nights in all by myself.

We stood and looked at each other, Carrie was red faced but she also appeared determined.

How does a person even start in a situation like that?

"God. I can't believe this is happening." Carrie said finally.

"Look, Carrie. We don't have to...?"

"Damn it! I am so wet right now I almost can't stand it! Don't you DARE say no to me!" She blurted out.

Then she was in my arms.

I know. Another man's wife. To me, it was now all right. It was perfect, in fact.

At one point she reached down and tripped the catch that holds the screws embedded in my legs. Then she undid and removed my pants.

I lay there nude, and as fully erect as I can get. She shrugged off the flowery light house dress she was wearing, naked beneath it.

Her breasts were small but perfect for her slender frame, her slightly rounded belly flowed downwards to a thatch of pubic hair the same color as her head. Her nipples were tiny, the size of a dime, her chest between her breasts already was flushed red in anticipation.

Unashamed, she got up on the bed and straddled me, reaching down with both hands to aim my member at her unshaven slit.

"Uhhhh!" Escaped her lips as she pressed down over me.

I could go into all the details, but there is no point in this story. Carrie and I had amazing sex, she was fully into orgasm in seconds and stayed there for what was perhaps a dozen minutes the first time.

About a half hour later were doing it again and although it was far slower and far less furious, once again she was having one peak after another.