Down On Love

This is about two people with body abnormalities caused by accidents they were not responsible for. To those who will somehow think I'm shaming a category of people, lighten up, we see people like this all throughout our lives. Then there will be the people who think the story should have taken a different direction, a different outcome, and on and on. To those few I have a suggestion. You too can write and submit a story that will be subject to the comments of others. Good and bad.

I've not been able to write much since the first of the year, consequently I've had more time to read. Where oh where are the new writers with something worth reading? If my stories had ratings like so many of the newest crop I would be embarrassed. There was a time when it might take me a few hours to peruse all the new stories for a day. Now, it usually takes about 30 minutes to skip over all the cuck and wife sharing stories. Don't even get me started on the direction most of the IR stories have gone.

If you're into big tits, shaved pussies, wife sharing and cucks. Go no further, this story will disappoint. It's an ooey, gooey, happy clappy, love story with a pleasant ending.

Down On Love

How does one come to live like a hermit at the age of thirty-three? It's easy, at the age of thirty-one you get knocked off scaffolding four sections high by a forklift driver that ignored the bright orange safety cones surrounding the scaffolding. I spent just shy of a year in hospitals and rehab centers. Lawyers representing me had apparently found that not all things were on the up and up concerning inspections and safety issues, then went after them with a vengeance. Knowing there was a lawsuit afoot the guy I worked for had called his lawyers immediately, I was awake just long enough at the hospital to agree to have them represent me before being placed in an induced coma.

It was supposed to be a quick addition of an electrical circuit for new space heaters being installed in the docking area. I had one of the apprentices help me set up the four high section of scaffolding and then sent him on his way, what I was about to do was a simple one-man, two- or three-hour job. I set out a circle of orange warning cones about ten feet wider than the scaffolding, tossed the tool pouch over my shoulder and ascended the scaffold. I'd run the conduit weeks prior, with the job being a two to three hour venture we saw no reason to transport the scissor lift, besides, it was needed elsewhere.

Long story short, the forklift driver came flying around the corner and through the overhead door opening with one eye driving and the other on his cell phone. By the time he realized he was in deep shit it was too late, as he tried to quickly turn one of the forks caught the scaffold and away I went. I was told long after the incident that I went flying ass over tea kettle, dropping over twenty-three feet completely unimpeded and hit the cement floor full force. All I remember of the incident was waking and thinking I was going to die, the extreme pain in my right shoulder and leg was more than my body could endure. It was hard to breathe, I kept going in and out of consciousness in the ambulance.

By the time my body was healed enough to be taken out of the coma all the legal stuff was in full swing, I could have cared less, all I wanted to do was somehow be able to walk, talk and live life in some modicum of comfort. My right shoulder had been shattered commanding a complete rebuild, two ribs on my right side were broken, one had punctured my lung, the right femur was broken just below the ball part of the hip joint. Somehow or another when the scaffolding toppled over it broke my left ankle and left a nasty cut in my head. Go figure. As my older sister said when I was brought back to consciousness, "I was an F-ing mess.

Considering the town I lived in had no permanent medical facilities beyond a few clinics I was placed in a facility over an hour from home, my older sister Ellen visited me every other week, none of my other siblings ever did. Two I couldn't fault, they were both living abroad, the other was a drug addled loser who couldn't keep himself clean more than a day, if that. The last we knew he lived somewhere in the Des Moines area, we hadn't seen or heard from him in over two years. Though I was making progress the doctors and PT people continually warned I would never be back to normal. In their words, my days of bending pipe and pulling wire were over, I could possibly hold a supervisory position, but I would likely never be hands on again other than simple tasks.

Ellen and her family were living in the house that had been the hub of our farm many years ago. When we grew up it was considered to be on the 'outskirts' of town, when I was seventeen my folks decided they'd milked long enough and it was time to cash in while the housing boom was in full swing. They sold all four hundred and sixteen acres minus ten around the homestead which still had all the original outbuildings. When our folks died the inheritance was split four ways, that was the beginning of my brothers drug addiction. Ellen used a sizeable portion of her money and bought the home place, having lived in it almost four years when my accident occurred.

Nineteen months after the accident I was been deemed capable of being on my own with a minimum of care. I moved in with Ellen, her hubby and two kids. At the ten-month mark of my moving in they got an unexpected surprise, Marvin had received a huge promotion along with greater pay and benefits, with one stipulation, they had to move to Fort Smith, Arkansas. There were no second thoughts for either of us, she sold the place and got on with life. With the original inheritance money I'd received when our folks died and the enormous settlement I received from the accident I bought a place on the lake with plenty of cash left over. Surrounding 2/3 of the lake was a national wildlife refuge, the remaining areas had been settled years prior.

I found the place quite by accident. Ellen, the kids and I had driven to the public beach area of the lake on a hot summer day about a month before they were to leave. When we passed by an older place with a for sale sign Ellen quipped.

"There ya go little brother, you should buy that place."

Which I did. Though I was mobile and could function, anything that required a lot of stamina or was laborious in nature I was not able to do. Thus I hired just about everything I needed done, which allowed me to stay sequestered in my comfortable surroundings. To the right of me was a remodeled home a quarter mile away, to the left an older battered place around three hundred feet away. The parents had long since passed on and the kids only showed up about once a year. What was once known as the twenty-seven acres of woods across the road from me had been sold and was being developed. The lot sizes were two to three acres and the homes had to be in the three hundred thousand range minimum. HOA's, the bane of modern homes.

I would sit on the front porch and smile to myself, I'd tramped those woods for years hunting rabbits, squirrels and grouse. I bagged my first eight point buck in those woods at the age of fourteen. The yuppy leaf lickers who lived there now referred to it as a sanctuary for wildlife. They'd shit their pants if they knew how many animals were killed for food in those woods through the years. I liked sitting and listening to the sounds of silence every morning either on the back porch facing the lake or the front porch watching kids as they waited for the school bus. There were two entrances to the subdivision about 100 yards apart. The kids gathered at the one furthest from me each day.

Kids would walk by my house in the morning and afternoon, at times late in the day I would be working in the rose gardens or annual flower beds in the front yard, something left by the old couple I bought the place from. In their hay day I imagine the flower and rose beds were beautiful, now they were mostly overgrown and in need of my attempts at bringing them back to the glory days with loving care.

When it came to the kids walking by the guys were always geeky screw around little twits while the girls seemed to fit one of two categories. Those too shy to look at me or ever dream of waving hello, and the others who dressed like they were twenty-five and flirted with the boys constantly. Both categories of girls made me chuckle, they may dress like they're older, but they walked and acted like they were twelve. You could tell the ones who were suddenly developing, when they'd see someone of the male gender watching they'd thrust out their little chest and walk past proudly. I remembered my sisters had done the same thing at that age, I guess mankind hasn't changed that much after all.

Without my sister and family to help I found myself in somewhat of a dilemma as soon as I moved in. It was hard to grocery shop for one. Even with a zero-turn mower I couldn't seem to mow the half acre of finished lawn in front of the house and the nearly full acre behind the house without being in pain. The eight-foot pathway to the boathouse and dock was rapidly becoming overgrown. Then there was the boathouse and dock which desperately needed attention. Keeping the pathway to the dock clean became more than my body wanted to tolerate.

During one of my much-hated adventures to the grocery store I happened upon an old classmate, Elizabeth Enders, she was married with a little boy and a second one in the oven as she described it. During our brief ten-minute store aisle reunion I discovered that her husband, Orville, did lawn maintenance and other handyman tasks and that she cleaned houses along with her sister. I remember thinking, 'how cool is that'? Two birds with one stone as they say.

Yes.... I jumped on that like a chicken on a June bug. Over the next year with others doing most of what needed to be taken care of I became more and more reclusive. The local grocery store was now delivering groceries to your home for a fee of $12, how could I go wrong, I ordered online, they brought it to me. I was financially set but the boredom drove me to sign up for one of those internet jobs working from home. I took orders and answered questions for an online business, all I had to do was choose my hours and log on. It didn't pay a hell of a lot, but it did fill part of my day. In the spring of that year I made the decision I would go outside more, I needed to stop living like a hermit.

One of the first things I did was get busy rejuvenating the neglected rose and flower beds, there were three rose beds along what was the front yard fence and flower beds across the front and sides of the porch. It was work I could do when I wanted and rest when I needed to, it was also when I first noticed her walking down the street. A large Doberman at her side. She had a definite limp, always wore long pants, hair covered the majority of her face on the right and she was always looking down. I wondered what she must have endured to be this way. She walked by every day about ten fifteen, having kept myself cooped up in the house I had never paid attention before. It was a sunny morning when she looked up catching my eye, but quickly put her head down and tried walking faster.

It was on a morning the second week of me working on the second rose garden when I determined I would say hello, it was a rather warm morning with high humidity, yet she had on full length cotton trousers, a pull over shirt and sneakers. When she was about ten feet away I stood limping my way to the fence, something I was told I would have all my life, a definitive limp. I knew she was watching me from the side when I spoke.

"Good morning, lovely day other than being so muggy."

She slowed but didn't stop, quickly glanced sideways and proceeded. In a moment of desperation I yelled.

"My name is Tucker, it was nice to see you."

That scenario carried out for three more mornings, as I rose on the fourth morning I was thinking to myself if she didn't answer I was going to drop it and not bother trying to know her. Slowly making my way to the fence from the rose bed I noticed her gait had slowed and she was walking toward the edge of the road closest to me. When she looked up I knew why she kept herself hidden, on top of having a horrible overbite, a scar ran from the corner of her mouth all the way to the bottom of her right ear. Watching carefully to see my reaction she brushed her hair back slightly, when I showed no change in my demeanor she told me her name.

"I'm Betty, I live down the road about a half mile from you. I bought the old Stinson place three years ago. I walk my dog every day to help with body issues."

I looked at her, "Body issues?"

"I have a prosthesis, it attaches just above my right knee, thus my limp and if I don't exercise a little each day my legs jump and twitch all night long. So.... I walk every day. I moved here to teach, then all of this happened in a car accident." Looking around she smiled. "I remember when the old people lived in this house, the rose beds were always so full and fragrant. You're doing a good job with them."

"It's nice to meet you Betty, please stop one day for coffee. It would be nice having someone to talk with who knows what I'm going through."

When I extended my arm across the fence to shake her hand she stayed on the shoulder, not budging, just watching me, she nodded and proceeded on her way. What she had said intrigued me, I called Elizabeth trying to get what information I could. She suggested I go to a website she listed and read for myself. Betty Walters, involved in a tragic accident when she was hit from behind on a patch of black ice. There were no other vehicles involved ahead of her, the bridge abutment she ended up wrapped around was damage enough. It had taken them over an hour to extract her and when they did her right foot was so crushed it had to be amputated.

Glass had cut the right side of her face to the point her cheek skin was no more than two flaps, in one of the photos you could see teeth through the wound. She had been in the hospital for over six months when she was discharged. I had no trouble empathizing with her, I'd been there, got the t-shirt and bumper sticker, maybe we could find common ground and become friends. Considering what I'd been through I was nothing to look at, I had a facial scar similar to hers on the left side, stainless steel plates in my head and I hobbled around with a cane or walker. Yet, for the first time in years I was cautiously optimistic, perhaps being a hermit wasn't going to be my final destination.

For the next three weeks we talked nearly every day, weather permitting, I noticed that even with the overbite she had soft delicate features. The scar was obvious but had healed enough it was pink and no longer what I imagined had been a deep ugly red in the beginning. I learned that choosing not to return to teaching she became a Marketing Research Analyst working exclusively from home, she analyzed marketing trends and sold that information, at present she had over two dozen clients, all were online catalog type places.

As we became better acquainted, she along with her dog started walking the six feet from the shoulder of the road to the fence when we talked. The first time she did that she was in a t-shirt with some band logo, jeans that hugged her cute ass, and sneakers. Her bust wasn't overwhelming but certainly adequate for her body which I guessed was five foot six or seven, a slender waist and dark brown hair. The jeans were snug enough that I could see the prosthesis, she seemed comfortable enough with me by that time it didn't bother her any longer. It was on one of those mornings I asked if she would like to come in for coffee.

Standing rigidly her body language told the dog to be on guard as it stared at me, hair bristling along its neck. She quickly told me why she couldn't do that.

"I don't go into men's houses alone, I was raped that way in college and swore I'd never put myself in that position again. But..... if you aren't averse to the idea, we could go fishing some morning. I have a boat and a canoe, fishing from the canoe is more fun and paddling is good for my body. It might help you also."

It was game on, I enjoy fishing and if it meant getting to be around her without fido acting like she would devour me I was all for it. I was waiting at the dock the next morning, as I watched she paddled toward me. With the spring spawning season over we only caught a few panfish which she invited me to enjoy with her for supper.

I was confused. "You won't come to my house for coffee, but you'll invite me to your house for dinner. How does that work?"

She smiled, "Because at my house is Ella, a Doberman that will protect on command. Oh, and there's Buford the cat who won't attack but will cheer if the dog does. If that doesn't work, I have both mace and pepper spray along with a 38 special that I'm capable of using with proficiency."

I was grinning by that time, "This was fun, before today I hadn't left my property in almost nine months, drop me off at my place, I'll clean the fish and come over about five. A walk to your house might do me some good."

She nodded, "Let's do that, but don't overdo it, I'll wait at the end of the driveway with Ella. I haven't had much luck with guys since the accident so if you aren't there by five fifteen I won't come looking for you, I'll chalk it up as the latest loser in my life."

I confirmed, "I'll try to be there by 5. Anything I should bring other than the fish?"

"Flowers are always nice, too bad your roses aren't in bloom. See you later." I watched as she paddled away.

I called Elizabeth to see if she'd get me some flowers, she told me she couldn't, they were headed to her folks and wouldn't be home until the following Monday. Then in a soft guarded voice she spoke.

"You can do this Tucker, you're no longer an invalid, pull yourself up by the bootstraps and go do it. It could be your first step to some sort of normalcy, you're too young to live the way you do."

As she hung up I knew she was right, I needed to do this, I had avoided people long enough. At the store I damned near went into a panic attack, I hadn't been around that many people in nearly a year, when I reached the checkout panic set in again. Sandy Stone was on the cash register, she would certainly know me, scars and all, I was walking with a cane which made it all the worse in my eyes. I didn't need pity from the likes of her, she was a snooty bitch in high school, I was certain she was still a snooty bitch as an adult. To my surprise she was cordial and polite.

"Hi Tucker, I heard you were back in town and bought a place on the lake, but I haven't seen you in town. Are you still recuperating, Janice told me she saw you talking with that lady who used to be a teacher, Betty something. Are these for her?"

I debated whether to be nice or naughty, nice winning out, "They are, I'm having dinner with her tonight. We're gonna cook up some fish we caught earlier. I thought flowers would be a nice gesture."

Sandy chuckled, "Can't hurt that's for sure, it's about time you left that house Tucker, and I don't think she ventures very far either. Enjoy your dinner, hopefully this won't be the last we see of you Buddy."

No one had called me Buddy since high school, being caught completely off guard all I could do was grin and nod my head. After cleaning the fish I put them in a zip lok bag and went looking for a cooler. I knew I had some, I just wasn't sure where. Alas I spotted the yellow kool-mate on the top shelf in the garage. Putting an ice pak in the cooler I tossed the fish on top, grabbed my cane and set out on a new adventure. I was as scared as I was exhilarated. What if I couldn't walk that far? What if by the time I got there I was in agony? Question after question rolled through my mind. I was about fifty yards from her driveway when I had to stop and sit on a log at the edge of the woods, my body was in complete revolt.