New Year's Surprise (Commission)

It is the 31st of December, about 23:30. I'm stressed out. Not just because there's almost no time left until the new year, although that certainly plays a part. The questions of when and where are not the important ones. I'm thinking about Josephine, and why on Earth she wanted to meet me tonight.

You're probably wondering who Josephine is. She happens to be a coworker of mine. I started out in a new job not long before Christmas. You don't need to know what kind of job it is, and it isn't really important anyway. Josephine is important. She's the most important woman I have ever met.

You see, I have a thing for women with spinal cord injuries. Wheelchair users, particularly manual wheelchair users. Paraplegic girls, quadriplegic girls, of all shapes and ages. They all appeal to me in different ways, just as they are all attractive to me in essentially the same way. The beauty of women with paralyzed limbs, gliding elegantly on their very own thrones with wheels, like the queens and princesses they are. Almost aggressive in their independence, as if in defiance of what they can no longer do, they make do with what they still have left in a manner that leaves me wondering how beauty like this can even be real.

There were times when I found myself doubting, if only for a fleeting moment, if these women could even be real. I had gone through my adolescence and early adulthood seeing only two girls in wheelchairs around my age. The first was a girl I met in school. She was a year younger than I was, with severe Cerebral Palsy. There was nothing inherently attractive to me by her disability in itself, but maybe I had a different kind of prejudice than everyone else. I ended up getting to know her, but not long thereafter, she and her family moved east. We didn't stay in touch.

I met the second one a few years later. She was a couple of years older than me, and had Spina Bifida - it should be mentioned that at this point, my knowledge about spinal cord injuries was extensive, although not without its holes and misconceptions. She was unlike the first in that her disability made her alluring to me, but she had other traits that made her less desirable than she could have been in a different world. We spoke on a few occasions, just like I found myself admiring the way she moved in her wheelchair, but the mental image of her didn't stick. Again, our paths diverged long ago, and haven't crossed since.

These brief excerpts from the story of my life serve only to let you understand how truly special Josephine is. She is the third. I saw her for the first time earlier this year, in November. And what a sight she was. I was looking for someone who could lend me their keys when I suddenly froze. In front of me, I could see a beautiful young woman, probably a few years younger than myself, with brown hair tied up in a ponytail. Her face was every bit as beautiful as any other conventionally attractive girl her age, but the rest of her made me speechless.

She was sitting in a manual wheelchair, with a light metal frame and a high back rest. Her pose seemed ever so slightly slouched, and her torso somewhat pear-shaped, between a modest chest and a lower abdomen that filled out her high-waisted jeans. Her thighs and calves didn't fill out the rest of her jeans in the same manner, but looked skinny, soft and shapeless at the same time, unlike her forearms, which were skinny, but almost wiry in shape. They led down to a pair of delicate hands, their fingers curled into the shape of numb and only partially useful paws, resting on the push rims of her chair. I couldn't believe my eyes. It was if I had somehow concentrated on the Platonic idea of the perfect girl, and dreamed her into existence.

I don't know for how long I stared at her, but it couldn't possibly have been the eternity if felt like, and I managed to ask her if she had the keys I needed. Only after I had borrowed them did I begin to wonder how her obviously paralyzed fingers could manage with this tiny piece of metal. I got what I needed to get, did what I needed to do, and returned the keys as soon as I could. Josephine was sitting outside the elevator. I thanked her, and tried to show an appropriate amount of appreciation for her, instead of the supernova of conflicting emotions and insecurity in my head. The best I could do was to do my job, leave, clear my mind and come back the next day.

The next weeks were a blur. Few men, if any at all, have been this excited to go to work every day, but for me, it may have been for all the wrong reasons. The thought of meeting her again got me up every morning, and soon, I got to know her. Like my other coworkers, of course. Josephine was working in a different part of the building than I did, so I mostly saw her during lunch breaks and the occasional meeting. Was she aware of how much I was trying to hide the fact that I couldn't take my eyes away from her? Possibly. We became friendly, at least. When we finally parted by the end of the last workday before Christmas, I told her that I was looking forward to a break from work, but I would be looking forward to seeing her again the next year, and that was that.

If the weeks leading up to Christmas had been a blur, the days from Christmas and until now passed so incredibly slowly. "The same procedure as every year", from the days before Christmas to the very last days of the year, going home to my family, eating the same traditional dishes for dinner, watching the same films, visiting the same family members on the same days. I was wondering whether I should celebrate New Year's Eve with my family or someone else when I got a message, two hours ago. It was from Josephine. She wanted to meet me, some place in town. Could I do that? Of course. Honestly, at this point, I doubt anything in the world could keep me away from her. I put on some fancy clothes and began walking through the snow, to the place she had told me I could find her.

I could hear the music long before I came to the door. Classy. I would expect nothing less from her. But nothing could have prepared me for what I saw when I opened the door. Josephine, of course, wearing a classy one-piece jumpsuit that accentuated her unique body shape perfectly, and with her hair no longer tied up like she used to keep it, but flowing freely down her shoulders. What I didn't expect was how she had two other friends just like her in so many ways. Two other girls, in wheelchairs. About the same age as Josephine, and judging from their hands and how they were sitting in their chairs, about the same level of injury, too. They all met my gaze, with the same inscrutable look that I couldn't even begin trying to interpret, and Josephine was the first to speak.

"I've told my girls about you, and they're saying you're a wheelchair fetishist. Is it true?"

Story by One of my Patreons.