What Disability
by: Peter

(© 2011 by the Author)
 

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...

Chapter 1

Joe Binder set his coffee down and picked up the file from his desk.  He was relieved to see that it was a single amputee; left leg, just above the knee. Not an ideal situation but he would still have plenty to work with, providing he could reach the guy's head. He picked up his coffee cup and went to stand at the window.  To stare, was more like it.  A section of the park across the street looked eerily like a place he had been in Vietnam, the way the trees grew and the ground around them, and the vines.  A couple of minutes with the view was his way of psyching himself up, putting him in touch with the soldier even before he met him.  Joe's job was a love-hate situation; he hated it, but he liked the results he was able to bring about in someone's life. 

He turned abruptly, set his coffee down, picked up the file and left the room. At six-two, 240 pounds of muscle, Joe was an imposing figure striding down the hallway.  He was in better shape than anyone he knew half his age. Nurses smiled and spoke as he walked by and listening closely, you could almost hear the want in their tone. If they only knew. He was cordial and friendly without leading them on, satisfied that he could have any one of them for the asking.  Which he wouldn't do.  His one indiscretion when he first arrived at the hospital was a lesson learned; when he'd fucked a young nurse in a linen closet. She had all but announced it over the intercom, thus establishing his reputation as a stud.  But never again.  Not just because of the publicity, but because it left him cold.  It wasn't what he was looking for.

He went into room 221 where a young soldier sat up in bed against a stack of pillows, a sheet pulled up to his waist, his eyes closed.  Joe took a sweeping glance at his bare upper body; yes, he was going to be easy to work with.  He had dark hair, buzzed of course, and a rough stubble of beard which Joe suspected was there to make him look older.  There was also a stubble of hair on his thick chest with a trail of darker hair down the center of his abs that disappeared into his shorts.

"Conner Price?"

The boy's eyes snapped open. "Yes, sir."

Joe put out his ham like hand.  "I'm not an officer so you don't have to call me sir.  I'm Joe Binder.  I'll be working with you."

"Oh.  You're my therapist."

Joe laughed. "Do you think you could work up a little more enthusiasm?" he said.  "Therapist is too clinical for me.  Let's say I'm your personal trainer."

"Okay."

"Are you ready?  Had your shower, and breakfast?"

"Yes."

"Let's go, then," Joe said.

"Do I need to put on a shirt?"

"You can take it with you but you don't have to put it on. Better if you don't, we'll be working in front of mirrors and you'll be able see your muscles working." 

The young soldier grabbed his T-shirt from beside the pillows but hesitated, glancing at the wheelchair sitting in the corner.

"They did show you how to get into that thing," Joe said.

"Yeah, but it's over there and I'm over here," Conner said.

"Sounds like a personal problem. What're you going to do about it?"

"Well, it would make it easier if you were to roll it over here beside the bed," Conner said.

"I'm not here to make things easy for you. Another thing, you need to lose the sweat pants." 

"Well, I am still a little self conscious about not having a whole left leg," Conner said with some sarcasm.

"Well, we're going to get you over that. The sweats don't hide anything, and they're just going to be in the way.  Do you have some gym shorts?"

"I've got my old PT shorts from basic," he said.

"Those will be great.  Why don't you change," Joe said.

Conner scooted to the edge of the bed, his triceps and shoulder muscles bulging.  He tugged at the left leg of the sweat pants where they were tangled.  "I suppose if I lost both legs you would be more prone to help out," he said with sarcasm as he stood down on his right leg.

"Nope," Joe said.  "We should get one thing straight.  I'm not your nurse.  I'm  not here to make you comfortable."

"I'm catching on to that," Conner said as he balanced himself and hopped to the locker, holding onto the bed table.  He rummaged around in a bag and came out with a pair of deep green--Army green--PT shorts. He hobbled back to sit on the bed but he hesitated a second before he shoved his sweat pants down.

"No need to be shy around me, I'm gonna see it anyway," Joe said. "And I've seen it all....oh...."  He laughed.  "Well, maybe I haven't," he said as he saw that the young soldier was going commando. "Damn, I know guys who would give up a leg to have what you've got swinging there."

"If I ever get to use it again," Conner said. 

Joe reached out and took the sweat pants as Conner was  pulling the shorts on. "No reason why you shouldn't," he said.

"Yeah, right, like who's going to want a one-legged guy?" he said as he swung himself around on the bed and stood down on the other side.  "If I was already married it'd be different, but you have to attract a girl first in order to get one to marry you."  He hobbled over to the wheel chair, turned it around and sat down hard in it and laid the T-shirt over his left leg.  As he rolled past, Joe grabbed the handles to push him.

"I got in this thing by myself, I can power it by myself," Conner said in a surly tone.

"I know you can.  I just want to show you I'm not a total prick," Joe said. As they were rolling out the door, he reached down and took the T-shirt off of Conner's leg and draped it over his shoulder instead. "It's nothing to be ashamed of," he said.

In the rehab room Joe pushed the wheelchair to the far end past where the weights and benches and all kinds of workout equipment were; the gym section. 

H"I thought we would start out in that part," Conner said with a wave toward the other equipment as he was being pushed through the other part of the room.

"That'll be later, when you get your new leg," Joe said.

"And when will that be?"

"I don't know, that's not my department. That will be up to your doctors.  My job is to get you ready for it."  He turned the chair around at a small table then sat back against it. "Look, I hope we didn't get off to a bad start back there."

"No, I would say we laid down the ground rules," Conner said.

"Good. Now, I want you to tell me what you hope to accomplish here; what your goals are."

Conner looked down at his legs but didn't reply.

"You must have some expectations," Joe said.

"I don't know if expectations and goals are the same thing, but....well, it's probably impossible, but if you really want to hear it......."

"I do, and without the word impossible.  That word never got anybody out of here," Joe said.

"My ultimate goal is to get back with my unit and finish the job we started."

Joe nodded thoughtfully.

"You don't think that is possible," Conner said.

"I do, but the brass will have to make that decision. I  promise I will do my best to help you make your case.  So, you keep that goal in your head.  But it's going to take a lot of smaller goals to get you there.  I don't know if you remember it or not--you were just coming out of sedation--but you said to me, with tears in your eyes, I just want to be the man I was.  Do you remember that?"

"No."

"Well, that's what you told me so we're going to build on that.  And quite frankly, you don't have that far to go."

"What do you mean?  That far to go for what?"

"Getting you back to the man you were.  You're in damned good shape. You're going to make my job easy. Now, do you want to hear my goals?"

"You've got goals for me?" Conner asked.

"Damn right. It's pretty basic, really.   I'm guessing you were a jock in high school."

'Yeah."

"And a chick magnet, no doubt," Joe said.

Conner frowned through a smile. "I did all right, I guess."

"Better than all right.  You lost your virginity before you were legally old enough to fuck, to an older woman.  Would I be right?"

"How the hell do you know that?"

"Wild guess.  How old?"

"I was sixteen, she was nineteen.  But that was then, this is now," he said, motioning to his leg.

"And now, we're going to get you back to then, both mentally and physically. So here's the guts of my goal, pretty simple, really.... to get you to the point that when you go out in a pair of shorts the girls aren't going to even notice your prosthesis, and even if they do, they're not going to care."

"I don't know about that....if I'll be wearing shorts in public anymore," Conner said.

"Why not?"

"I don't know, I just don't....well, for one thing, my legs aren't the same anymore."

"Well, hell no, one of them is half gone," Joe said.

"I meant my left thigh is smaller than my right."

"We can fix that.  Squats might be a bit touchy, but other than that, you can do……"

"You expect me to do squats?" Conner said, surprised.

"Of course. I see guys doing one legged squats all the time; guys with two legs. We're not going to discriminate against you just because you have one and a half legs. As I was saying, you can do most all of the exercises you did before to develop your legs. I said you were going to make my job easy.  You obviously already know your way around the gym, that's why we're starting here."  He smiled.  "Yeah, we're going right for the  weights.  I just wanted to get your reaction when I rolled you past them.  You didn't like being pushed past the gym, did you?"

"No."

"And that's what I wanted to see. So today we're going to try all the equipment and see how you handle each one, then I'm going to set you up with a workout schedule and exercise routines. Then I'm going to leave you pretty much on your own. I'll monitor your progress. I'll be around to answer questions and give any assistance you need, and maybe kick some ass if I think you're slacking off.  How does that sound?"

"Okay except for the ass kicking part. You won't have to do that, I don't slack off in anything I do," Conner said.

"No, I don't expect you do.  So, let's get started."

Joe directed him from one machine or station to the next, making notes along the way. Conner pushed himself to the first station in the wheel chair but when he got out of it Joe pushed the chair out of the way, and Conner had to move to the next one on his one good leg.  Joe observed the muscular soldier's bulging chest muscles as he pumped the reps out on the pec deck. 

"You weren't down and out long enough to lose much muscle mass. You look great," he said.

They left the squat rack till last. Joe watched the young soldier carefully for his reaction when he pointed him to the rack.

"You're serious.  You want me to do this," Conner said.

Joe shrugged.  "Are you telling me you can't?"

"No. I've never done one legged squats before." 

"Do some warm-ups first, with just the bar, get your balance," Joe told him.

Conner maneuvered himself under the Olympic bar and gave it a little twist to release it from the safety lock. Then he slowly bent his knee and went down.  He sucked in a deep breath of air and started back up but his leg buckled.  He instinctively used his other leg to assist and lost his balance.  Joe quickly clasped his hands around the boy's tight waist and helped him back into position.

"Fuck!" Conner swore under his breath as balanced himself on his good leg again.

"That's a natural reaction," Joe said.  "But that leg's not there."

"No fuckin' shit," Conner swore. He took in another deep breath and gathered his strength, focusing on his good leg. He shoved up and went up easily.

"See, you've got the strength, you just have to find your balance. Your brain doesn't know that leg's not there, it's still sending messages to it," Joe said.

Conner did several more then asked for some plates on the bar.  Joe put a ten pound plate on each end.

"I can handle more than that," Conner said.

"I know you can, but I want to see your balance first," Joe said.

Conner pushed out a half dozen squats then stood still till Joe added two more plates.

The squat machine was the last on the list.  Joe checked it off and pulled Conner's wheel chair up for him.

"You said two things today that I want to address," he said as they were going back to his room.  "You said you didn't expect you would be wearing shorts in public again.  And when I made that remark about your cock you said, yeah, if I ever get to use it again.  Both negative. I can't and won't work with negative, only positive. The secret to wearing shorts now, is not to wear the long baggy ones that go down over your knees.  All people will see is the leg of the shorts flopping around and all that does is attract attention to it and conjure up pity. I've seen it time and again. So buy shorts that strike you about mid thigh, so your thigh muscles show when you walk. People see that, they'll look at you with admiration.  Girls get a look at those thighs, they're not going to bother looking any further down, they're going to be wondering what's in between them."

Conner laughed. "I wasn't expecting this kind of pumped up pep talk as part of therapy."

"Call it pep talk, call it advice, just pay attention to what I'm telling you.  You're hung like a young stallion, no reason why you shouldn't put it to good use. Shit, there are nurses right here in this hospital who would do you in a heartbeat."

"Give me their names," Conner joked excitedly.

"When the lights go out tonight and you're lying in the dark with nothing but your thoughts to keep you company, you need to count your blessings.  That injury could've been a lot worse.  It was awfully close to blowing off your balls and that magnificent cock along with them. You've still got everything going for you.  You're a good looking guy, well built, and well equipped. Your body is quite capable of delivering the goods if your head tells it to."

"Are you going to give me their names?" he asked.

"No.  I'm your trainer, not your pimp.  Listen, I've got a volunteer I would like to assign to you." 

"I don't need a workout partner," Conner growled.

"No, I mean to help out with changing the weights on the barbell, stuff like that," Joe said. "Besides the inspiration, you would be doing him a favor. He has to put in so many hours of community service at the junior college to graduate.  He's  doing his here."

"Okay if you think he'll inspire me, if he stays out of my way."

"No, I meant you will inspire him."

To be continued...  

Posted: 01/30/15 rp