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Encounter - The hospital (The Crip Club前传 儿麻+截肢 )
01
The sign saying Appliances Department always interested me. So I went
that way and found out I was fascinated by the people waiting there.
One man and two women were in the reception area, all of them wearing
callipers. But one of the women was in a wheelchair, with both her legs
jutting out in front of her, wearing KAFOs without knee hinges. Elbow crutches were stowed behind her in clips on the backrest of the wheelchair.

I walked to the chair opposite, sat down and tried to read an old
magazine. The receptionist called the man into the room and he got up
and walked in, limping quite badly on his left leg. The next call,
moments later, was for the woman sitting in a chair near the door. She
bent down to click her right calliper knee lock in position and pulled
herself up, holding the arm on the chair, and went in with a brisk but
leaning gait.

This left the woman in the wheelchair and me.She was reading a book,
obviously prepared for a long wait. She was about 50, wore a skirt and
polo-neck sweater and had fair hair. I didn't see any wedding ring on
her finger. I looked at her and she looked back and shifted in her
wheelchair, pulling herself up by her arms and, in so doing, the hem of
her skirt rode up a couple of inches to show her callipers to her
knees. The steel of the callipers was shiny but obviously old and the
leathers on her callipers were black, very old and the straps loose and
I wondered if she was due to get new ones. I told her I was waiting for
a friend to arrive for the appliance clinic and she said she had been
there an hour because the consultant and the orthotist wanted to see
her.

Then she reached behind her chair for the crutches and pulled them in
front, stuck her hands through the openings and braced herself to pull
upright. The heels of her boots struck the floor and she spread the
crutches wider to get the best angle to pull herself up. Her skirt fell
down to a few inches below her knees. As she straightened up, she moved
her left hand, still in its crutch, to her waist where she must have
locked her calliper to a waist band. She was wearing HKAFOs and they
were the first I had ever seen.I tried not to show any interest but I
couldn't help asked if I could help in any way. She said no thanks,
politely, and pushing her shoulders back, I heard a loud click and she
leaned into the crutches to take her first step, swinging through
slowly to plant her feet just ahead of her crutches which
she gingerly eased in front of her again to head for the toilets a few
paces away. On her second movement, I clearly saw the outline of a body
brace or jacket under her green sweater, the hard edges protruding at
her sides, a few inches below her armpits and in a line along the top
of her back. She was quite small, about five feet two inches but she
was carrying a lot of leather and steel about with her and her steps
were laboured, hence the use of her wheelchair. The sound of her moving
was amazing, clicks, clunks and creaks all the way. She leaned on the
toilet door and pushed it open and with one heaving swing-through was
inside, clipping the door as she went with the toe of her left boot,
causing to wobble slightly on her crutches.

Encounter - The hospital - 02
After a couple of minutes, the receptionist called out "Mrs ......"
clearly to tell the callipered lady now in the toilet it was her turn
to see the orthotist.
There was no reply so I got up and told the receptionist the woman she
probably wanted was "in the ladies" and then I sat down, hoping to get
another view of her before I had to go.
The receptionist went to the toilet door and went in and moments later
re-emerged, holding open the door for the callipered lady who crutched
out slowly towards the orthotist's door. Taking my chance, I rushed to
the door to open it for her and was greeted by a smile and a mouthed
"thank you" as she swung in ahead of me. As she did so, I saw something
astounding. Unfortunately and embarrassingly for her - but fortunately
for me - she had not checked her skirt after going to the toilet and it
was caught in what I assumed was exposed velcro in the lower section of
her body corset, revealing, well almost everything!
For seconds as she hauled herself into the room, I saw her full
callipers from boots to hinges at her corset, her legs encased in
tights and pulled up over her corset, rather out of line because, no
doubt, she had rushed to leave the toilet. The backs of her thighs were
totally covered in laced cuffs, probably about 12 inches long. I saw
just three short hauls on her crutches, the whole of her body rigid
from, head to toe, like a board, as her braced body heaved its way into
the room, The door shut behind her, no doubt by the orthotist awaiting
her.
I sat down again and tried in vain to ready the magazine I had picked
up and waited. It was clearly the end of the clinic and lunchtime. The
receptionist didn't look at me as she went to lunch and I waited, it
must have been 15 minutes. This was an encounter I could not leave. I
got up and walked around but always stayed near the department, looking
constantly at the door from which I hoped she would emerge. Then I
realised I had not seen the other patients come out after they had gone
in. So I hurried off down the corridor and to the other side of the
department, Sure enough there was another door and then I remembered
the callipered lady had left her wheelchair in reception. I rounded the
corner to see her come out and stand next to a woman and a man,
probably the orthotist and his assistant. The assistant was holding a
brown paper sack and I arrived to hear her say she would carry it down
to the car. I noticed the callipered lady was smiling and was chatting
happily.
She was wearing new braces and what a wonderful sight they were. I
stood by the window pretending to look out but only managed to turn to
see her lowering herself into her wheelchair, her crutches already
stowed behind her. The orthotist has left and his assistant was holding
the sack, containing her old callipers which, I would have thought,
would have been better in a museum than at home.
Anyway, the callipered lady was pushing herself towards the lift when I
caught up with them exchanging smiles again as I held the doors open.
The orthotist's assistant handed the sack to the callipered lady and
left us in the lift to go down to the car park. I looked down at her
legs and saw shining new steel rods, smart, stiff leathers, straps and
buckles and cuffs tied tight around her legs which ended in the
smartest pair of orthopaedic boots I has seen. All was light tan and
they were laced and highly polished.
We engaged in a stilted conversation, me saying I was going to the car
and could I help her with her "parcel" and she saying I could carry it
if I didn't mind and me saying I thought her new "appliances" looked
nice.
I introduced myself and she gave me her name. She wheeled out at the
ground floor to the car park where she went to her car, a red Renault,
fitted with an array of hand controls.
How she got into the car and the workings of her new callipers was
going to be a sight to behold.

Encounter - The hospital - 03
She wheeled to the driver's door, unlocked it with the remote control
and opened the rear door. Facing the opened door, she reached for the
inside handle. Her new callipers had been fitted with rather strong-
looking knee locks of a type I had not seen before and were bent in the
sitting position, not jutting out as they had been earlier. To pull
herself up to a standing position, she reached for the locks and pushed
her legs straight so her heels then her soles met the ground resulting
in a very loud click from her locking callipers at her waist. This
pushed her head backwards, as her back arched while she adjusted her
position in her new steel supports. She moved slightly and I heard the
tell-tale creaking of her brand-new callipers as steel and leather
worked together for the first time.
Standing there with her old callipers in the sack, I felt rather
useless as she started her first manoeuvres in her new appliances. I
moved to her and asked if I could help and was surprised when she said
yes. So I moved the wheelchair back a few inches so she could stand
better. I passed the now heavy sack to her but before handing it over
glimpsed inside to see her old callipers and boots inside, looking
rather like wreckage, the straps all bent and useless and the calliper
rods battered. The worn ischial rings were padded and marked by years
of holding up her buttocks and her old body corset, now separated from
her callipers, dark pink and plastic with long and wide velcro ties and
now empty lugs where the hinged calliper tops had been inserted.
She put the sack on the back seat and turned awkwardly to lean, with
her body locked rigid, to the wheelchair to take the crutches from
their clips, resting them at the side of the car. She then leaned
closer to the wheelchair armrests to collapse it. As she had learned
over many years of reliance on her wheelchair, she lifted it and deftly
lifted it behind the driver's seat. Reaching to the crutches she
dipped her arms into the elbow clips to grip the handles and stood a
moment. I asked if she was ok now and she took a deep breath and said
she was. I looked carefully at her, standing there, looking taller and
more straight. Perhaps her new body corset was helping. After years of
wearing appliances, body postures tend to slouch and walking gaits get
looser as people get used to their supports. With the cost of
appliances so high, it was hard to get the NHS to provide new ones
often. I imagined she had lived with her old set for many years.
Perhaps today was like walking for the first time. I said I had been
happy (more than happy if she only knew) to help and I opened the
driver's door for her.
Inside the hand controls were all set out in an array of black plastic
and pull levers around the steering wheel, although the manual gear
stick and foot pedals were still there.
She had been in the clinic for long enough to practice some steps in
her new appliances but now she was on her own, in the car park and she
needed to plant her crutches ahead of her and swing her stiffened body
to attention just two short times to get alongside the seat. I then
realised she was the first polio I had ever known, not only to have
HKAFOS hinged to a body corset but also the first to need crutches to
take any steps at all. Most polios I know can hold onto furniture, or
in her case, the side of the car, to waddle to where they want to be,
only needing crutches for any distance over, say, three steps. For just
the two hauls on her crutches, she covered perhaps three feet before
dropping her crutches inside on the passenger seat and slowly
swivelling her braced body on her new boots so she faced outwards, back
to the seat.
Bracing her body, arms out between the steering wheel and side of the
opened door, her hands gripping with much trepidation, she took her
right hand to her side to release the lock at her waist with a double
but loud "cerlick." She then lowered her bottom to the seat which had
been pushed back to it furthest point to accommodate her previously
fully-callipered legs.
Now her legs were stuck out in front of her again as I held the door
watching. She looked up at me and said she was all right and would have
to get used to her "braces" soon. Her term was not British but American
and I noticed a slight accent, possibly east coast USA, as she went on
to say she had been waiting for them so long, she never thought the day
would come when she would actually get them.
I sympathised and said I knew from polio friends what it was like,
recounting that one lady I had known for years had waited six months
for a new raised boot. She replied she had waited 14 weeks and felt
that was long enough. As we spoke she reached to her left knee lock,
collapsing it after fiddling a couple of times and using her left hand
to lift it partly inside the foot-well while she attended to the right
leg.
This was still sticking out rigidly, facing me and I could see the
shiny brown cuffs and straps, each strap having a white underside, all
of them very new and very stiff but each one pushed neatly into their
retainer. By moving her left foot into the car and with her right still
out, she had her legs apart. I felt I should avert my gaze as I could
see her skirt had ridden up to mid thigh, revealing the thigh cuffs and
the steel rods disappearing into them to emerge - sadly out-of-sight
but clearly in my dreams - into her groin-level ischial rings and the
now bulging waist locks on her spine and chest encasing body corset.
The right knee lock needed more persuasion but her callipered leg was
soon lifted alongside the left and she re-adjusted her skirt. She
smiled as she reached for the door and I said I hoped she would soon
get used to her "appliances" (what an odd, rather English word I
thought). She thanked me for my help, smiled and reached for the
controls. The engine started and as she drove off she waved again.
Waving back I took note of her registration number, reciting it to
myself and later writing it down. I hoped upon hope we would meet
again.

Encounter - The hospital - 04
It took a week before I accidentally came across the double HKAFO lady
again. Her Renault was parked in a disabled space at the leisure centre
when I arrived for a swim. My heart jumped several beats, hoping I
would see her at her car. But I went in and saw the small pool was
being used for a new disabled sessions. I looked through the dividing
glass panel and saw a number of men and women there, all of them in the
water. Then I caught sight of her swimming or floating on her back,
using her arms as paddles, moving towards the steps at the end of the
pool where a lady swimming instructor held the harness of a lift.
She pulled herself in, gripping the harness and with great effort
hauled herself into the plastic support for her bottom. She wore a
white single piece swim suit but her body and legs were without their
braces and the true extent of her disability was clear for all to see.
Both legs were very atrophied and swung gently, dripping water as they
emerged from the pool and I could see her knees were very bony and her
thighs were shallow and marked with indents where, I assume, her thigh
cuffs held her upright.
But it was the shape of her upper body that caused some shock. Her
scoliosis was severe and her curvature to the right forced her right
shoulder and head to lean dramatically so her left shoulder was almost
in line with her left ear.
The instructor had climbed out to switch on the lift which slowly
brought her out to the pool-side. A pool wheelchair was waiting for her
and she was carefully helped into it by the instructor who laughed with
her as the HKFO lady pulled her crippled frame into the seat and took a
blue towel to drape around her neck.
I watched for a couple of minutes as she dried her contorted body and
thin legs with the towel, looking on at the others in the pool before
wheeling herself off to the changing rooms. Her legs wobbled as she
went I could only dream of what she was doing next to stiffen her body
with the HKAFOs and body corset as she dressed.
I decided to abandon my swim in the hope of seeing her to talk to so I
waited around for almost 15 minutes thinking of an excuse to be there
and to be surprised to see her. I turned to see the swing doors push
open with her sitting in her won wheelchair and looking the picture of
health, her face glowing and her damp, black hair brushed back. It was
a warm day but I was not ready for what she was wearing, white shorts
midway on her thigh showing her callipers and a blue and white striped
t-shirt that clearly exposed the restricting shape of her body corset.
I stood there transfixed and walked towards her and as I did so, she
looked my way and spoke, saying she was surprised to see me. We
exchanged pleasantries, asked each other how we were and went out to
the car park. I lied that I had walked and she kindly offered me a lift
into town. I could not refuse. It was just a week since she had worn
her new callipers for the first time but it was clear she was now more
confident in them. This time she allowed me to help with the wheelchair
and she asked me to remove her crutches from their clips so she could
use them when she got out.
"You have to think ahead such a lot of the time, getting everything
where you need it," she said as she lowered herself into the driver's
seat, body brace still free from its calliper lock and still free in
the flexed position.
I held her door as she grabbed both legs' callipers to insert them into
the car with a creak and a clunk from her right foot's boot. Then, for
the first time, I noticed that her right leg must be considerably
shorter than the left as I saw the boot cleverly concealed its extra
deficiency with an added section of raised heel and sole.
I got in and she reversed out and drove into town, chatting as we went
I knew we had a friendship starting. Although she was at least ten
years older than me, the HKAFO lady was friendly and open and I brought
up my limited knowledge of polio and spoke about the polio people I
knew.
As we drove, there were opportunities to look at her callipered legs
and boots, still looking so new and shiny. She wore beige-brown tights
or stockings, I did not, of course, know which, although I knew tights
were more popular with polio women. Her sitting position had revealed
the bottom three inches of her laced thigh cuffs taking in the calliper
rods to the ischial rings which bulged out at her crotch through the
material of the white shorts. As I looked across to her, watching her
drive carefully through the traffic, I noticed how enormous was the
body brace or jacket. The waistband of her shorts was loose to
accommodate its bottom extremity and it ended just below her bustline.
But it was thick, about an inch it seemed. But without it she would
never have sat up straight enough to drive or, with her HKAFOs, be able
to walk in her straight-backed, fully locked ambulation.
She looked in my direction as she signalled left and turned the corner
into the High Street and as she saw me oggling at her legs, she smiled
and suggested a coffee and before I could mouth a reply, she drove to a
disabled parking space outside a department store.
"It's convenient here with the lift just inside the door," she said,
leaving me wondering what would happen next. She asked for her crutches
as she swung her legs outside the car, locking them so they stuck out
like steel girders into the tarmac. I came round to her door, passed
the aluminium crutches to her and as she shuffled to the edge of the
seat, her shorts rode up even more, exposing all her laced new brown
leather thigh cuffs, leaving the ridges of her ischial rings hidden and
bursting to come from her crotch.
She steadied herself on the crutches and heaved herself to stand, with
her waist locks clunking into place. Crutch tips placed first and firm
then five swing throughs to the department store doors and we were
there, facing the lift. When it came, she crutched in, tilting
shoulders and head slightly backwards as she went. We stood alone in
the lift on the way to the restaurant as she said:"I hope I wasn't to
forward with suggesting we had a coffee but I didn't think you would
mind my company."
I said I had been very rude by not introducing myself and I gave her my
name, Mark, and she gave me hers, Sheila, putting out her right hand to
shake mine and smiling as she did so. She stood rigid during the two
floor ride and creaked and swung to the restaurant as I went for coffee
and she found a seat at a table just two paces away. I returned with
coffee and a teacake each moments later to find that she had left me a
seat next to her facing two women opposite. I sat and had to move
closer to her than would have otherwise been appropriate because there
was not much room. We talked about swimming and she told me she had
been every week since she had moved to the town two months ago.
"I like to keep as fit as I can, you have to when you spend so much
time sitting down like me," she said.
"But you do walk about a lot, a lot more than some people using
callipers like yours," I replied."After all, it must be quite an effort
wearing all the supports you have."
Just then she knocked her knife from her plate and it landed on the
floor and as I looked down I saw it had landed next to her right boot.
I tried to bend down from my seat to reach it but realised I couldn't
make it and got up to crouch under the table. It was a heaven-sent
opportunity to get closer to her amazing callipers. I got on my hands
and knees, got the knife and spent as long as I could think I could get
away with staring at the boots, the right one cleverly hiding the
shorter leg as the heel and sole were raised more than the left.The
callipers still shone up through the below-knee cuffs to the knee-pads
and above-knee cuffs to the exposed thigh laced-up cuffs. But I noticed
more clearly how flaccid her legs were, slung between their supports
and resting gently, slumped and useless and only drawn taught in the
beige-brown tights. Without the tights, I thought, her legs would droop
between the gaps in the callipers like putty had they not contained
femur, fibia and tibia in their saggy softness. Suddenly, a hand
touched my shoulder and a voice said softly: "What's keeping you down
there? You coffee's getting cold."
"Oh, nothing," I replied, trying to get out backwards and taking a
last, longing look at these lovely legs. Could I dare to touch her
right leg as I went? I fought with the thought and wondered if her
paralysis had left no feeling in these parts her polio-torn body? I
reached forward and so gently touched her calf just above her cuff, it
was stone cold and my finger tingled with ecstasy. I let my hand drift
carelessly over the calliper and I felt like grabbing it, passionately.
The silvery steel was smooth, polished and gleaming. I knew I had been
found out when I re-emerged from my groping to regain my seat.
"Did you enjoy that? I can feel my legs you know but they don't get as
much attention as you gave," she said, looking at me without a hint of
criticism.

Encounter - The hospital - 05
As I sat next to Sheila, I felt a fool, overtaken by my desire to touch
her callipered legs, I had probably lost all chance of ever continuing
the friendship. I must have looked very flushed and my apology was
delivered like a shamed, naughty schoolboy.
"I am so sorry, I forgot myself and I feel I have abused this meeting.
I cannot expect you to forgive me and I meant no harm," I stuttered.
"I, I just, I'm sorry I'm not good at explaining this. I just wanted to
see how it felt, your leg I mean. I didn't know what it would feel like
and I didn't think you could feel it. I am sorry, I had better go now."
Sheila looked at me, her black hair now fully dry and framing her face
which was soft, not beautiful, her nose was angular but her eyes
penetrating.
Moments passed in what seemed like an endless silence before she said:
"I did feel you and it was, well, a shock really. It's not happened to
me before. I'm not sure what to say. Why did you want touch my legs?
They're pretty awful to look at."
I looked at her and summoned up all my energy and said: "I would never
wish to offend you. I am curious to know. I think you are really
lovely, I really don't want to offend you. Just say and I'll go."
Sheila looked down at her coffee, smiled to herself and looked back at
me.I was fully expecting to be told to leave after my embarrassing and
humiliating mistake.
"Look, Mark. I have never thought myself attractive to men, I have
looked on myself as crippled and that's that. I try to look as good as
I can, for my self-esteem really. But I have never had anyone touch me
down there. No one has bothered with me like that. Mind you, I can feel
all inside this," she said touching her body corset and then her
calliper thigh cuffs.
"If you want to do it again, I would like you to ask first."
I looked back at her and was about to say sorry again when the women
opposite got up, made a clatter with their chairs and went,leaving us
like to not-very-young lovebirds, gazing at each other.
Then she added: "We have only seen each other twice and it's pure luck
we are here now. Let's see how it goes."
After a pause, Sheila went on: "I like you, Mark. Perhaps we need to
get to know each other better before you start touching me up!"
We both grinned and I impulsively took her right hand to squeeze it
gently. Our coffees and teacakes were finished and I said I had to get
back to work as I had spent over an hour of my lunch-break already.
Sheila said she was going too so I passed her the crutches as she
pushed legs, knee locks and waist locks together in practised timing
until she was erect. She then swivelled around on her heels, suspended
by her crutches, to face the lift and began her laborious swings
towards it. From behind I could see the straining of the body corset.
Sheila was rigid from heel to the top of her back. Her head was tilted
forwards as she swung through, and she lifted it erect as she stood
momentarily before she planted her crutches ahead of her again,
reminding me of the pendulum of a clock.
Then, suddenly, a young girl ran in front of her, escaping the
outreached arm of its mother, and ran straight into Sheila's legs as
they were in mid-air on the forward swing. The toes of her boots, just
six inches off the ground, struck the child on the leg and she screamed
and fell to the floor. Sheila had nowhere for her feet to land without
standing on the girl and in a split-second, Sheila decided she had to
lean back and dropped her left elbow crutch from its clip on her arm so
she could fall away from the child. The mother, seeing her child on the
floor rushed to her to protect her from Sheila's fall. I dashed to
Sheila's side but was too late to save her as she toppled sideways,
still rigid, but I managed to catch her left shoulder as she went,
stopping her head from hitting a chair.
It had all happened in seconds. The child was crying and being
comforted by its mother as I gathered Sheila's head in my arms and
gently turned her onto her back. Her left elbow was cut and swollen but
her right hand was still gripping the crutch as she had struggled to
find something to hold onto.
"You ok, Sheila?" I whispered to her as people gathered around, looking
at both child and Sheila in turn. An assistant bent down to Sheila and
asked if she was in pain and Sheila replied to both of us that she had
hurt her elbow.Sheila reached over to touch it and winced.
It took a few minutes before Sheila said she felt as if she could get
up and the assistant and I helped her to a chair. But she was still
locked rigid and Sheila motioned with her right hand to the locks on
either side of her waist and asked me to push them down."They make me
able to bend," she said."If I don't I'll be this shape forever!"
I could see she was happy for me to this and I pushed my hands to her
waist to feel the two large lugs protruding.
"Just press the catches down and I can get my bottom on the chair," she
said. Click and click went the locks, thankfully undamaged in the fall
and the assistant I and took her gently under the arms and pulled her
into the chair, her callipers sticking out, girder-like again. The
girl's mother came to apologise to Sheila who painfully bent towards
the child to ask if she was all right.
The crowd started to disappear, leaving me and the assistant with
Sheila, examining the damaged elbow. A wheelchair was offered as Sheila
declined first aid and we were soon by her car, me holding two crutches
and Sheila sitting in the wheelchair.
"I really don't think I can move my elbow to drive properly," Sheila
confessed.
"Don't worry, I'll call the office and say I'm not coming back this
afternoon, something's cropped up. Then I can drive if that's all right
with you?"
"You are a wonderful help, Mark. To be truthful I feel a bit dizzy,"
Sheila said.
The assistant and I helped Sheila into the passenger's seat, her left
arm not able to unlock her waist and knee locks. These tasks fell to me
and I enjoyed them immensely. The steel calliper locks at her knees
were strong and easy to work and I felt my fingers hover over them,
feeling the sensuous pulses tingle up me hands and arms. I was actually
holding the callipers I had admired so much at the hospital and under
the restaurant table. Sheila managed to pull her right leg into the car
and she looked at me helplessly as I assumed she wanted me to lift in
her left. I gently took the calliper at the leather padded knee pad
with both hands, each hand lifting the steel support until the boot was
clear of the doorway. I put it down so softly and looked at Sheila who
shuffled slightly to get her position comfortable, not minding that her
position was less than lady-like. Her shorts were well up over the
thigh cuffs, letting me see a portion of each leg, pale, withered and
encased in tights tight between her calliper rods going into the
ischial rings that made her sit with her legs apart.
Sheila seemed to wince when I leaned across to put her seatbelt on but
it was not her elbow which she touched tenderly.
"I think I may have damaged my corset, it's cutting into me around the
side here," she said as she reached her right hand to point out a
section of her body support sticking out . I touched the corset gently
and found it sharp at the edge.
"Looks like it's cracked or whatever it's made of has come away," I
said. "Best get you to casualty for a check-up I think Sheila."
The hand controls of the car pout me off a bit but, thankfully, the
automatic gear lever and foot pedals were still in place.
It took five minutes to get to the hospital but this time we were
together at the A and E entrance, courtesy of a free disabled parking
place and within minutes Sheila was in a cubicle with me waiting
outside.
Ten minutes later, a nurse came out and said Sheila wanted to see me so
in I went, wondering what was going to happen next. She lay on the bed
looking quite pained and her elbow was in a sling. But resting in the
wheelchair were her body brace and callipers, still attached, sitting
there as if they were skeletal remains of a person. Her boots were
detached from the stirrup holes drilled in the heels and were resting
on the wheelchair seat.
"Sorry to mess your day up like this Mark," She said, her upper torso
tilting without its brace to the right, her head on a pillow but her
smile still intact.
Sheila explained the doctor wanted her to stay in overnight for x-rays
of her elbow and observation. She pointed to her braces, resembling car
wreckage at a breaker's yard and said the body corset had fractured in
the fall and needed repairing.
"Would you be kind enough to do me a great favour," she began. "I need
some overnight things and my old body corset and braces that fit it.
I've no one else to ask. Do you mind?"
So I was in her car again with her front door key and her address
written on a piece of paper. I was off to Sheila's home.

Encounter - The hospital - 06
The drive to Sheila's house from the hospital was about 25 minutes. It
was in a cul-de-sac of fairly new bungalows, all with green front lawns
and her home looked neat and well-cared for. I parked her car in the
drive and used the back door key she had given me to get into the
kitchen. Sheila had asked for overnight things and an old body corset
and leg callipers to use while her damaged one was repaired. and I was
told these would be in the bedroom. I saw her wheelchair in the hall on
my way to find the bedroom, a light and airy room. Sheila had told me
to get a nightie from a drawer inside a walk-in dressing room. I opened
the door and saw an array of orthopaedic supports that would have
supplied an entire hospital and found a nightie from a drawer and
looked in amazement at the collection of old and new bracing, all of it
hung with care, neatly alongside her clothes. As a relative stranger, I
had been trusted to go into Sheila's home and get things which most
people think are private. I knew this trust could not and would not be
abused. But I felt guilty looking at her things. I picked up her old
body brace I had carried from the appliances department together with
her callipers which rested below them against the wall. They were heavy
and cumbersome to hold so I went to the car with them before returning.
The leather edges of the body brace and the ischial rings at the
calliper tops were soft. There were eight straps around the leather
covered plastic brace to pull it together to mould her torso erect and
the lugs at the waist to connect the callipers were worn and rough to
the touch. But it was the callipers themselves that I enjoyed touching
most of all. They were heavy and the stirrup ends were worn where the
boots would fit and the side bars were grazed, with one of the welded
joints near the right knee were loose, the reason, I suspected, for her
getting her new appliances that day. All the leather straps were frayed
and soft and the knee caps were torn. Closer inspection showed that the
above knee cuffs were also loose from their side mountings on the
calliper sides.
I put them in the car boot and went back in, going into the bathroom to
collect her order of wash items in a bag before returning to the
wonderful array of callipers in the dressing room.
Normally the hospital would keep old callipers and body corsets but
Sheila had more than a spare set which all patients are allowed to keep
in case of breakages and repairs being needed. I saw before me six
pairs of lace-up boots in various stages of repair, one very old black
pair that looked as if they were probably the first she had ever worn
as a child, clumsy in their design and, although polished, very scuffed
at the toes. There was a pair of white boots, more delicately made than
the others, with open heels, the left one two inches high and the right
about four inches. Directly above them, hung on the wall, were matching
callipers with white leather, clearly quite new and their leathers
still stiff. It appeared the white set were for "best" and the steel
uprights were well polished and new.Two pairs were brown, one dark and
the other light. Again, sets of callipers were arranged above the
matching boots. There were four sets of crutches, three wooden under-
arm and in light and dark wood and one set, aluminium elbow crutches
like the ones she now had in hospital with her.
Then I saw the boots she had in the bag at the hospital. These matched
the callipers I had taken to the car so I picked them up, thinking her
new ones at the hospital may not fit her old callipers. The boots were
heavy, the right one heavier than the left and its extra raised heel
leaving little room for her foot. I put my hands inside them to feel
what they were like. The left boot had an insole that was soft and
pliant and my fingers went to the toe while the right was clearly for a
very small foot indeed. Although the boots looked and were the same
size fom the outside, the right foot must be half the size of the left.
The inside of the right boot had a hard insoles moulded to the shape of
a club foot. The boots had been cleaned and even the oil at the stirrup
holes was clean. Sheila was obviously meticulous about their care and
appearance.
I thought Sheila must have paid for her additional appliances and I saw
the tell-tale name and logo of a well-known, private fitter on a tag at
the side of one of the four spare body corsets that hung like parts of
a tailor's dummy from the wall rack. They must have cost hundreds of
pounds, I mused. Two of the corsets had leather straps and buckles,
velcro pads and lace up backs and had steel mountings for callipers to
the waist and were varying flesh colours. But there were two very
different ones. One was clear, transparent thermoplastic, its left edge
open with a strong but stylish ridge of velcro as the only means of
closure. The top and bottom of this corset were covered not in the
traditional soft leather of the others, but in a clear rubber. It was
feather-light to hold and it had no means of attaching callipers.
Perhaps it was not for using callipers or walking in at all and was for
Sheila to use when wanting to sit upright, perhaps seated in her
wheelchair. The other had calliper connections but it was shiny black
rather like vinyl to the touch. It was tough and, when knocked with my
knuckle, sounded like metal, and its eight leather and buckled straps
in a row at the back rattled as I did so. I looked for its partner
callipers and saw them propped up in the corner, slightly hidden by
clothes, as if the paralysed cripple they normally contained had walked
off without them. They looked more abandoned than the others lined up
in the dressing room. But they were stunning. They were obviously
custom-made but had all the weight-bearing requirements of her NHS
braces except they had shiny black leather fittings and black steel
buckles with unusual leg cuffs. Instead of just one below the knee and
one above there were two, the surrounding steel, gleaming black bright
in the dressing room lights. The four leg cuffs on each calliper were
matched by the knee-caps, each carrying four tiny straps with retaining
buckles and inserts. The thigh cuffs were not long and laced like her
others but were only four inches or so broad and on each there were six
small straps and buckles.The calliper rods were sprayed black like the
rest of the steel and incredibly shiny, with the knee locks sprung and
quick to engage or unlock. I touched them where they were, realising
that for Sheila they must be as exiting as they were for me. There was
no footwear at the gaps where the stirrup lugs were. But, I thought,
they could not attach to any of the practical but unfashionable boot
collection in the room.
For a woman her age, and I believed she was about 61, there was a look
of youth, panache and style about her clothes hanging alongside her
bracing apparatus. There were several summer skirts, dresses and
assorted t-shirts and tops in pastel, cheerful colours and patterns,
most bearing designer labels and behind them a selection of evening
wear, blue and black dresses and the majority short in length. It was
clear to me that despite her disability, Sheila wasn't afraid of
showing off her body, particularly her legs. There were only two pairs
of jeans and one pair of black trousers hanging there as I examined her
wardrobe, careful not to disturb anything. Then I saw a shoe rack.
In knew some polio women who enjoyed wearing "ordinary" shoes, getting
the heels drilled to take in their callipers. After all, flat shoes are
not always the most appropriate for every occasion and they are
unflattering. Sheila had other thoughts clearly.

Encounter - The hospital - 07
I knew I should get back to the hospital with Sheila's things but I was
unable to move. I was fascinated by the contents of her dressing room
and the shoe rack displayed an aspect of Sheila no-one would have
suspected in a polio-crippled woman.
Six pairs of shoes were on the rack, the most striking of which were a
pair of black platform sandals with a heel that must have been 12
inches and a platform of six inches. They seemed the same, shiny with
cling-backs and two tiny straps with buckles to go above the ankles.
But, on closer inspection, the right one, no doubt for her deformed
club foot, had a supported segment inside that closed off the open toe.
On the heels were tiny black mountings, sticking out two inches on each
side. Making another assumption, I thought these would be to link to
her callipers. I could not help pick up the right one and I took it to
the custom-made black callipers and, sure enough, they fitted with the
aid of a circular mechanism that clicked to lock the high heel into
place. There was no flexation.
The next pair I examined were white high heels with an enclosed steep
back, but with no platform. But the heels must have been the maximum
height anyone could buy without platforms. I guessed they were seven
inches high, again with retaining tiny straps above the heel, and again
the right shoe had its inner padded and filled out. The instep was
gloriously steep and I imagined Sheila tottering along in them. This
pair was also equipped with mountings, matching the shoes, enabling
them to encase her crippled feet and legs in her callipers. I searched
for callipers to match but couldn't find any. The heel looked extremely
high as the undersole was light tan, showing off the seven inches to
their best effect.
The third pair had no heel mountings and could not be worn with
callipers. These red heels, about five inches high, were court pumps,
again with a padded insole in the right shoe. Their soles were unmarked
and were obviously in use for decorative purposes only if Sheila went
out sitting in her wheelchair.
The fourth pair were knee-length black leather boots, their heels an
inch thick and drilled for callipers, the light oil around the holes
still sticky. I felt the right was bulky in the foot and was slightly
smaller in the diameter at the top. No doubt this was a tailor-made
pair, measured around Sheila's calves and taking into account the
additional atrophy of her right limb. At mid-calf, fixed to the boots
were black leather cuffs, their steel inserts hidden in the stitching.
They had integral straps and buckles, making it possible to use the
boots without calliper cuffs being fastened over them.
The fifth pair rested on their side, their extreme heels unable to
stand. I found it hard to believe what I saw but I picked the left one
up and held it, amazed by its erotic beauty. I had seen ballet heels
before but not like this one. How could any woman with polio wear
these? They were shiny black and the toe heels were inch and half
blocks and the insteps were covered by six straps, each with tiny
buckles. At the ankles were two inch wide straps, all matching shiny
black, with two straps and buckles. The trade-mark right shoe had no
padding of any sort this time, probably because, at this height, there
was no chance of her club foot doing anything except be squeezed into
the shoe and hang there. The heels tapered to an inch thick where tiny
holes, with steel holders set into them, had been drilled. Callipers
with ballet shoes, I could hardly believe it.
Lastly, the sixth pair of "ordinary" shoes rested, looking out-of-place
with the rest.They were flat brown shoes, with inch high heels, drilled
to accept callipers.These, I imagined were gardening shoes.
I stumbled out of the dressing room and took my last look around the
bungalow from the hall. Each doorway was wider then the average, to
take a wheelchair, and it appeared that Sheila lived alone. As I locked
the door and headed for the car, her things in the boot, I thought
about what to do next. Surely Sheila would have known I would have seen
her collection of callipers, body corsets, boots and shoes and would
be expecting a response or, at least, a mention of it in conversation?
Had I been sent there to find out what she wore and was this deliberate
on her part, knowing I was fascinated by her callipers.?

Encounter - The hospital - 08
I arrived back at the hospital and parked at the disabled area, using
Sheila's parking badges. I decided to leave her things in the car until
I knew where she was and walked to A and E reception. Sheila had been
admitted to a female medical ward and I retrieved her calliper, boots
and corset from the car and went to see her.
She was sitting up, or as best she could, in a chair next to her bed
when I arrived, talking to ther women in the bed next to her. Dressed
in a hospital nightgown, she appeared to be unbraced as her curvature
sent her head leaning so awkwardly to her right. Then I realised I had
forgotten her dressing gown and I had to explain I was a bit lost in
her dressing room, collecting her belongings and I had left without it.
"It doesn't matter, it's been so kind of you to get all this," she
said, pointing to her old calliper, Boots, body corset and bag of wash
things and nightie."You have been so kind, I am sorry I had to ask you,
but there is no one else around. My neighbour who usually looks out for
me, is on holiday."
I said I had been pleased to help and noticed her left elbow had been
bandaged.
Sheila explained the x-rays had showed nothing but bruising and her
body corset, together with her callipers and boots, had been taken to
the appliances department to be mended. The doctor, she added, had
thought it best for to stay in for the night to see how she was, in the
expectation she would go home the following afternoon.
I thought I had better leave as I felt uncomfortable in the female ward
outside visiting hours and I asked Sheila where I should leave her old
bracing.
I said I would call the ward in the morning to see how she was and
would be very happy to collect her if she was discharged in the
afternoon. She seemed genuinely pleased to see me but we didn't mention
anything about her dressing room at her bungalow because the ward was
too public. We waved goodbye as I left here there and walked to the
shuttle bus stop to travel into town.
Not much happened at home that night but I couldn't get Sheila and her
callipers and accessories from my mind. I hoped we could see a lot of
each other. It was Saturday morning and I rang at about 10am and spoke
to the ward sister who said Sheila had had a comfortable night and the
duty doctor was see her soon. I asked if Sheila could call me and, sure
enough, at about 11.30am, the phone rang.
"Hello, it's me," she said."They say I can come home this afternoon and
I wondered if you could collect me."
Sheila said the doctor thought her elbow,although swollen, would soon
be back to normal."Got to get that right or I don't walk anywhere," she
explained.
I said I would be there at 2.30pm. I collected a bouquet of flowers on
my way to the hospital and arrived in the ward to see Sheila sitting in
a wheelchair, this time dressed to go. She was wearing her old boots
and callipers and, I presumed, her old body corset. We collected her
crutches and belongings and she said goodbye to her neighbour and staff
as we wheeled off the ward accompanied by a nurse.
"They have still got my body corset and callipers in appliances and I
have to go back on Tuesday to get them. Part of the corset strapping
was torn as I went down. What a silly thing to do, first time I've ever
tumbled," Sheila said.
"First time you have been upended by a child either," I joked. I drove
her home and as we travelled, I mentioned her trust in me - a relative
stranger - going into her home. I said I was embarrassed to go into her
private dressing room.
"Oh I understand, men do feel awkward about seeing women's things
sometimes and I understand. But I didn't want you to feel embarrassed,
why should you?"
I thought about where my answer might lead me but I went on, trying to
focus on the road ahead. "Sheila?" I asked with some sense of
trepidation in my voice. "Why do you have so many callipers and boots
and - err - shoes in your dressing room? I just wondered. I couldn't
help seeing them, well I couldn't and you asked me to get your things
and ...."
My stumbling ended with Sheila interrupting to say: "I know, it does
look odd or whatever you call it. Don't feel embarrassed, I'm the one
who should be.
"But just like any other women I like to dress up, and why shouldn't I
- after all I've only had polio!" She seemed angry and I know I had
judged her."Look, Mark, I may be a cripple but I like to look an
attractive one. OK?"
There was silence until I pulled up her drive and put on the handbrake,
turned off the ignition and looked at her. She looked at me at the same
time and she put her hand on mine.
"I am sorry, I didn't mean to snap at you - you have been so kind to
me, Mark. It's just that I have always been told to be that polio
cripple, to keep out of sight. Well I do, most of the time but I need
to feel I can be attractive to men, even if I don't see many!"
At this point she laughed out loud and I knew she was trying to explain
something deep inside her, letting it go with laughter.
"Well, Sheila, you know I told you a secret back in the restaurant -
that I am attracted to callipers. I found your collection stunning but
- I'm not sure how to say this - I think you look lovely in them."
Sheila squeezed my hand and pecked me with her lips on the cheek. I
felt like an explosion had gone off inside me.
Without saying anything, I took out Sheila's wheelchair so she could
pull herself into it and wheeled her to the back door. Opening it, she
wheeled herself in, over some mail that had been delivered. I picked it
up and gave it to her.
"Oh look, there's something here for you to see, Mark," Sheila said,
holding up a post-card. It was from a freight delivery company saying a
parcel had been put at the back of the garage. "One more for the
collection," she grinned.
I collected the things from the boot of the car and went in, only for
Sheila to greet me with: "You fetch it in Mark, would you?" The parcel
was four feet high and weighed quite a bit. I took it into the kitchen
but Sheila had wheeled herself through to the living room and had
hauled herself onto the settee. "You open it Mark. I ordered this the
other month and I haven't had anyone to show it to, only you now."

Encounter - The hospital - 09
The parcel had been well sealed and Sheila advised me to get a knife
from the kitchen to open it. I opened it at the top, and saw inside a
pair of callipers, hinged together by a brightly polished steel
waistband, inlaid with soft and supple white leather.
I looked at Sheila who just smiled and waved her arm as if to tell me
to get them out. I put my hands inside the parcel and gripped the
waistband to pull them out. They were magnificent, hand-crafted
callipers, and left in the box at the bottom was a body corset with
what looked like transparent thermoplastic with shining steel plates
running up the sides, back and front. Carefully packed at the very
bottom was a separate parcel. The callipers were quite heavy as I
placed them next to Sheila for her to see.
She lifted them off the floor and I sat next to her, quite out of
breath, as she examined the craftsmanship. The steel calliper rods were
very flat and without any of the jointed welds found in most callipers
where rods are altered to suit the length of leg. They were polished
shining bright and rose from the stirrup lugs for going into heels,
passed white leather below knee cuffs to the white leather knee pads
and drop knee locks to two above knee cuffs, both three inches wide,
one above the other.
These were something new to me and replaced the wider, laced or
strapped cuffs on Sheila's other callipers in her dressing room. Sheila
practised doing up the numerous straps along the shafts of the
callipers, saying the leather was so much softer than any others she
had. I just watched and dare not touch.
It was the top of the callipers that was so different. Gone were the
ischial rings which allowed Sheila to link her callipers, separately,
to her body corsets. The rings did make Sheila swing through with her
legs splayed apart as the rings brushed against each other at her
crotch. And they did make her sit with her callipered legs apart.
Instead, the callipers ended with a two inch wide flat steel link
joining the inside rods, securing them so she could swing through in a
fixed manner with her legs closer together. The outside callipers ended
just above hip height at drop locks holding a four inch protrusion
that seemed as if it would go into lugs on the body corset. Linking the
outside calliper rods was the waist band, its inside surface covered in
white leather and the outside in matching, shining steel.
"I had these measured for me at the orthotics suppliers I use,"
interjected Sheila, as I sat gawping at the callipers."With these I
won't look so bow legged any more. What do you think?"
I put my hand on the upper of the two above knee cuffs to hold the
callipers upright while I drew the parcel towards us for Sheila to
extract the body corset and the remaining package at the bottom. She
lifted out the corset, the steel bands reinforcing the plastic and the
edges padded with transparent, glass-like, but soft gell-filled
padding. It was cleverly hinged on the left and, releasing four swing
over clips on the right, opened it fully to show its moulded shape
designed to push her bent upper body erect. She closed it, locking the
clips and took the callipers to insert the protrusions, bayonet-like,
into the gleaming steel lugs on the corset. Then Sheila secured the
waist band around the corset, strapping it across with the two broad
and supple straps, feeding the ends through the tinkling buckles.
She pushed the waist locks into place and the erect shape of her new
callipers took on a life-like form, empty and awaiting her crippled
body to be harnessed into it, straightening the curved spine and adding
outward scaffolded strength to her flaccid legs.
I managed to answer Sheila, saying: "This is amazing, you must have
spent a fortune on these things, Sheila. It's like a suit of clothes
from Bond Street."
"Got it in one, you perceptive man," smiled Sheila. "Women who can
afford it spend a lot on under-clothes and these, in my way, are mine."
She reached for the last package and undid the soft white paper to pull
out one, then two, items of stunning footwear.
"These finish it off, they cost a fortune alone," she said offering me
one of the items, designed for her right, tiny, club foot which I had
imagined and not yet seen in the flesh.
I moved to the edge of the settee and glimpsed down at her old boots,
especially the right and looked down past the t-strap to see the foot
bend inwards into the moulded container. The angle of my view allowed
me to see a gap between the side of the boot and her curved foot.
Sheila saw me and took my wrist and the hand holding the new footwear,
taking it down to the carpet so I could place the new against the old.
"I always wanted to have something different to wear for special
occasions and I told them this was what I wanted and they've done
things very well," she said.
"You've got quite a few adapted shoes and the orthopaedic boots in the
dressing room, but nothing like this," I replied, standing the new
footwear alongside the old boot. The white leather and shining steel of
the callipers and the see-through plastic and steel bands of the body
corset were now being matched with the final, ultra-designer fashion in
orthotic footwear.
The right footwear was soon joined by the left, standing by on the
carpet and Sheila carefully showed me how to attach them to the waiting
calliper ends.
I pulled the body-length braced shape onto my lap and with her help,
drew open the stirrup ends to slot the rods into the footwear, taking
care not to make any marks.
They were boots made of clear, transparent thermoplastic, with no
apparent joins between the inner sole and the raised section beneath
them. Their soles were clear as well, but slightly ribbed to walking
on. They did up with clear laces and the only non-transparent elements
at foot level were the calliper sides, now clipped into the raised
sections. In style they were like old fashioned orthopaedic boots, but
the raised undersoles were at least nine inches at the toes and twelve
inches at the heels.
They were fully enclosed, in typical boot style, and the uppers were
made of soft and pliable clear plastic. The shape of the left inner was
much different to the right. Like all her other footwear, Sheila's
right club foot had been sculpted its own, precious shape inside the
plastic, the toe and bent under sole areas being made up with a section
of thermoplastic like the raised section.
After I had fixed the clear boots onto the stunning callipers with
corset, I stood and rested the whole shell against the wall. Sheila
asked me to help her stand and I brought up the wheelchair. She took
the new bracing as we wheeled by on her way to the dressing room, being
careful not to over-use her bruised elbow.
"I'll just put this away, Mark. I feel like a collector getting more
exotic things for the collection.I really must stop for a while, this
was a very expensive outfit."

Encounter - The hospital 10
Sheila's new acquisition for her calliper collection stood out from the
rest in her dressing room because it was so different. The ischial
rings that were on all her other callipers were missing from this
transparent outfit, replaced by two sitting pads that would fit right
under her buttocks.The pads were three inches long and jutted from the
back of her callipers on short extensions of her shiny steel rods.
Instead of being leather-covered, the pads were clear and filled with a
gel-like substance, just like the edging of her new transparent body
corset.
Sheila pushed herself, holding the callipers on her lap, the bent body-
like shape jutting out in front of her as she used her good arm on one
wheel. I followed her to the bedroom and she wheeled to the bed and
asked if I could help her lay the new bracing on her bed. I lifted the
whole thing from her, enjoying the feeling of the smoothness of the
see-through plastic and put it on the double bed.
Sheila turned to look at me and our eyes met, this time I didn't avert
mine but saw in hers a longing that I felt and I had hoped she would,
at some time, express. She sat in her wheelchair, her left elbow
bandaged and put out her right arm.
"Lift me up please Mark, will you, please?" she said, looking so
helpless. "Lay me on the bed, I want to try these new toys on. But
I'll need your help."
I bent down on her right side and she put her right arm around my neck
as I put my hands and arms under her upper thighs, pushing her skirt
above her knees as I did so. I felt the backs of her callipers and felt
safer gripping the outside rods running up alongside her left leg as I
tensed to lift her. Sheila was much lighter than I imagined and lifting
her so I could stand was no difficulty.
I pulled her closer to me and felt the stiffness of her body corset dig
into my chest. Her knee-locks were dropped and her legs swayed slightly
inside their steel as I took her the few steps to the bed where I
gently laid her down, with her head on a pillow. Her body corset
creaked and I arranged her callipered legs outstretched below her, next
to the new brace set lying to her left. Her skirt was well above her
knees, at about mid thigh, and she didn't mind me gawping at her
callipers along her legs.
I started to speak but I didn't know where the words came from. I felt
embarrassment and a desire to be close to her at the same time.
"You know I love to look at you Sheila and seeing you like this is the
most wonderful thing I have ever seen. Please let me help you."
Sheila grinned and replied: "Mark, I want you to help me. Can't you
take a very broad hint? Come here."
With that she stretched out her right hand and pulled me gently to sit
on the bed next to her. "You will have to help me get these off, it
could be an excuse but my elbow does hurt a lot," she smiled.
Sheila put her left hand down to her skirt zip and pulled the fastening
down but asked me to pull the skirt from her legs. I took it by the
waist and pulled it gently down over her callipers, making sure it
didn't snag on the straps, buckles and cuffs. I kept my eyes on her
legs, unsure if I should look up at her now exposed crotch. I extracted
her skirt from her boots and caught some of the material in the right
t-strap, lifting the whole callipered leg up a little. I didn't notice
and the steel encased floppy limb fell back to the bed with a
delightful wobble of its tights-encased flesh,.
Sheila advised me how to undo her calliper straps and asked me to look
down while she tried to take off her shirt. I tried to concentrate on
all the straps and buckles from t-strap to laced thigh cuff and when I
reached the upper part of her legs, I saw her tights at her crotch,
below which were tiny red panties, nestling at the junction of the
upper thigh cuffs and touching the ischial rings that gave her standing
support.
Sheila had managed to get her shirt off and lay on her back squashed
together in the constricting body corset that was pulled together by
six large straps with velcro-ended buckles to keep them tight across
her chest, waist and stomach. Her breasts stuck up over the edge of the
corset, contained in a white bra and showing their ampleness despite
lying flat and having part of the bra under her corset. Her nipples
protruded and as she moved her breasts moved slightly. Sheila lay on
her back with the straps of her callipers loose and laid on the bed,
showing her withered legs inside the shaped rails of her callipers.
Sheila asked me to remove the stirrup lugs from her boots. I started
with the left, taking it by the heel and undoing the laces, and
lifting, so gently, her crippled foot from the leather. Her right foot
was very misshapen and was curled on its side and was definitely a club
foot, the toes curled together and about half the length of her left.
The boot was heavier than the left and I put my hand into its warm
inside to feel how padded it was to take its strange shape. Taking off
the boots and taking her feet out, allowed the thin legs to take their
normal, almost elastic shape and went into a zig-zag pattern inside the
braces now they were released by the tension.
Sheila directed me to the waist locks on her corset and I undid the
safety clips and drew the calliper rods from them, disengaging her
torso from her legs. I drew down the callipers so the ischial rings
were clear of her legs and stood up the battered supports by the side
of the bed. This left Sheila's legs free of the steel and leather that
confined them.I touched her right club foot, withered in her tights and
clawed in its shape. Holding her atrophied calf which shook like jelly
in my grasp, I brought the club foot to my mouth and kissed its toes
softly.
Sheila giggled, saying she wish she could feel it more. Her sensations,
she said, were of a dullness but she admitted her left leg did have
more feeling. I took her left leg and drew my fingernail along its full
stockinged length from her tiny ankle, along the back of her calf and
to the knee, a crooked and bony thing and then along the inside of her
wobbly thigh. Sheila tensed as I did this and I looked at her and she
had her head pushed back into the pillow in pleasure.

Encounter - The hospital 11
Sheila was very aroused by my touch and I was transfixed by how she
felt and looked, lying there. The softness of her withered limbs, still
encased in her tights, lay unfettered by the callipers and were now
free to be lifted and touched. I caressed her thighs, seeing the marks
left in them by the tightness of the lace-up cuffs. I drew Sheila to me
and we kissed, gently at first and then passionately. She pulled me on
top and we embraced, my mouth moving across hers and then down to her
breasts, poking hard and upright over the ledge of her body corset.
Sheila pulled my hardness from inside my bulging trousers and rubbed it
against her crotch, pulling me closer to her. I put my hands to the
buckles and straps around her body corset and undid two of the straps
as she fondled me. Then she stopped and gripped my arm.
"Mark, I want to - but you haven't seen me without this, I'm not so
nice without it," she said softly.
"I love your body, as it is, and I want to feel you close to me," I
replied, moving back to the straps and buckles. As I undid the one
nearest her breasts, her upper half released and swayed to the right.
Even lying down , the contortions of the brace had held her upright.
But now she leaned heavily to the right. She helped me take the body
corset away, advising me to lift her back as I shuffled the corset to
one side, laying on the floor as it came away. I drew away from her and
kneeled on the bed, her crippled body, misshapen beneath me. Sheila was
about to speak but I put my finger to her mouth. I smiled at her,
surprisingly unshocked by what I saw. I leaned to whisper in her ear:
"Sheila, you are lovely. Never, ever, again, be afraid of what you may
think you look like. I love all of you, as you are." Sheila was clearly
worried that I may not wish to be with a polio crippled woman, her body
thrust this way and that by the infection that struck her as a child. I
gently touched her forehead and lifted her face to mine.
Uncontained by the corset, Sheila's breasts looked much larger than I
had imagined and she put one had to unfasten her bra, but she asked me
to help, seeing that her left elbow was still hard to move. She leaned
onto her right side, pushing her sagging shoulder upwards to compensate
for the lurch of her bent spine. I unhooked her bra and took it from
her, glancing at the size label- 32G. She rolled onto her back and I
could see the fulsome breasts wobble onto her chest, inviting me to
touch them and mouth their nipples with my tongue. There was a deep
line around her upper body, showing the pressure the top edge of her
body corset put upon her sagging torso. Her breasts were wonderful to
hold, there was so much of them. I told Sheila they were hidden in her
corset and they were too lovely to be confined under the plastic and
leather.
She said she sometimes wore a lower cut corset to show off her breasts
and tugged at the new transparent scaffolding lying next to her.
I'll show you," she said, teasing me in the length of our foreplay.
"Help me into this."
It took several minutes to "dress" Sheila in her transparent clear
corset and callipers with their white leathers and steel bands,
inserting, finally the stirrups of the wonderful see-through, plastic
boots with their towering 12 inch heels. Before we had started, Sheila
had taken off her tan tights and her panties, so now she was naked and
held rigid by her new, designer-made bracing.
Her feet were clear to see inside the new footwear, the club right
foot, warped and tensed and the left, its toes flat. The laces were
drawn tight to hold her feet in and the height of the raised soles, at
toe and heel, was a sight to behold. It made me gasp.
The white leathers and cuffs hugged her legs and the shiny calliper
rods ascended her purplish and red limbs, hauling them into as rigid a
shape as possible. Just below the hair at her crotch the cross band
held the two inner calliper rods together and the outside rods went
into the waistband now drawn across her corset.
The callipers were in their locked position at the knees and waist at
Sheila's request. She was held in steel, leather and plastic bondage,
unable to move because her left elbow and arm were out of action. She
had only been able to dress herself with her free right hand, relying
on me to insert her feet, legs, thighs, waist and chest into the
bracing. Her breasts, free of her bra, were now splayed out several
inches flat on her chest through the lower edges of her new body
corset.
This corset, showed the shape of her bent body, like seeing a shape
frozen in ice. The inserts in her corset pushed her spine straight and
she was now quite upright, the four side clips locking her in. If she
had wished we could have made love with her in that position, forced to
lie, locked in place. But Sheila said her new style pads at the back of
her callipers, replacing her old ischial rings, were uncomfortable and
could I help her up.
I swivelled her on the bed cover to face the side of the bed, removing
her old bracing to one side, and took her left arm. Between us, we
unlocked her at her waist and I drew her to a sitting position. With
this, her remarkable breasts swayed into the cut out sections of her
body corset, overflowing the gell-padded edges and protruding as any G-
cup breasts would do, arching over the plastic and pointing with
awesome cleavage so they obstructed her view down her body.
Her legs stuck out awkwardly from the edge of the bed and Sheila
advised me to grab her boots and pull them down to the floor, so
forcing her to be able to stand. As we did this, Sheila's heavy breasts
swayed into my face and I kissed them hungrily, her excitement of
seeing my trousers bulge shown in the stiffness of her nipples. Boots
on the floor, together we arched her back and locked in her waist
mechanism so she was standing tall, much taller than I had seen her,
the 12 inch boot heels and soles raising her to my eye-level.
Putting one arm, around her, I kissed her slowly on her lips and she
drew down her good hand to rub my bulge, unleashing it from my
trousers. I put my hand on her crotch above the steel cross band and
felt her dampness. We kissed and caressed passionately as we stood
there. She put out her right arm to hold herself up against the bedhead
wall and I stood back, panting, to gaze at Sheila's braced loveliness.
The only "clothing" to obstruct the complete view of her naked crippled
frame were the white leather and shiny steel bands along her legs. Her
flaccid muscles along her legs tensed as she moved slightly and I could
see her left toes move as she got used to her standing pose. She leaned
back onto her new-style pads at her buttocks and she seemed to relax as
they took her weight. Her left arm hung loosely by her side and she
smiled a broad and soft smile and tossed back her black hair. She
beckoned to me to kneel by her callipered legs and urged me to
investigate her bound limbs with my hands and tongue.

Encounter - The hospital 12
Sheila's helplessness was erotic. She could only move her right arm and
she used her hand to masturbate herself as I drew my fingertips and
hands over the amazing orthopaedic boots. I had always thought about a
polio woman's feet, hidden inside the creaking leather of her footwear.
Now I could see them for myself, on display like items in an exhibition
case. Their shape looked soft and looked comfortable in their tailor-
made uppers, no sign of them being forced in and crushed. The right
club foot was tiny, about five inches from what could be described as
the heel to the clawed-in big toe.The ankle was so tiny and seemed to
squirm out of the boot to the t-strap and rise unwillingly to the
stretching of the calliper rods.
I lay on my back to look up the callipers and see Sheila towering above
me, dominant, braced in bondage and helpless. She stood quite erect,
her high-heeled boots making her more aggressive in her stance, yet her
smile was wide and her eyes glinted. Her breasts jutted out from her
body corset, the nipples erect and hard.The steel clips on her corset
glinted in the light of the bedroom and the upright steel inserts held
her like a statue. Her flesh under the see-through corset was pressed
tight and sucked into its grasp, especially her right side where the
tension was greatest, pulling the curved side into line with the
carved-out inserts in the moulded brace. Her lovely breasts were
entirely pushed up, out and over the cut-down shaping of the corset's
edge and as she moved her hold leaning on the wall, they swayed
delightfully. The angle of the corset edge forced them upwards to a
line from the bottom her neck and as she took her hand away from the
wall, she touched her nipples with her little finger, generating a gasp
of pleasure. I rose to kneel and held the outside calliper rods on both
legs above the knees and gently swayed her whole rigid body. Sheila
reached for the wall to support herself but I knew what I was doing.
I pushed her onto the soft bed. She shouted out in surprise and as she
fell, board-like, her left arm falling safely to one side and her legs,
imprisoned in their steel and leather, bounced upwards and settled on
the bedcover, the limbs trembling as they settled. We both laughed and
I moved onto the bed,taking off my clothes until I too was naked. The
only difference between us was that Sheila was encapsulated in
callipers and corset. The feeling of lying on her steel callipers and
plastic corset was incredible.
Sheila grabbed my stiffness with her right hand, squeezing it hard to
its fullest erection and pulled me hard to her very damp crotch where
she masturbated herself until she arched back her head and her whole
caged body pulsed in orgasm. She took my stiffness and knowing what I
had told her, she started to pleasure me in a way that I had only
dreamed of before.
She inserted my stiffness under the bottom edge of the buckled above
knee leather cuff on her left leg, forcing it in so its end stuck out
upwards and onto the shiny, cold flatness of the calliper rod, pushing
me to a length I am sure I had never attained before.
Like Sheila, I now knew what the restraint of leather and steel cuff
felt as I urged my stiffness in and out from this ecstatic love-making
position. The rhythm of my movements against the cold steel forced me
to climax as I was holding Sheila's wonderful breasts.
Sheila gasped as she came moments afterwards, her hand having worked
hard at her crotch before she took the end of my stiffness and pulled
it further through the cuff. She loosened the cuff straps and pulled
them tighter, buckling the straps back so I was held crushed and even
closer to her calliper. From my position, I could use my fingers to
play softly with her crotch, but the cross-bar that held her callipers
in parallel prevented much movement.
I used this amazing time to grip her calliper rods and caress the
transparent body corset. Her skin underneath moulded to my pressing and
my fingers squeezed her nipples so they stood out at least an inch. I
reached down to Sheila's right foot and undid the lacing so I could
gently introduce my fingers to her tiny club foot, encased in its
remarkable footwear. Sheila used her right hand to push the end of my
still partly rigid stiffness under the calliper rod so I was completely
drawn into her calliper, causing me to cry out. But my stiffness grew
again and, further aroused, I moved up and down to rub myself against
the steel and leather while I put my fingers to her crotch to pleasure
her. Our artificially stimulated climaxes came at the same moment and
Sheila's withered legs shook in the constraining callipers and we both
moaned and mouthed our love for each other.
Our first love-making left us perspiring and sore and when I disengaged
from her calliper, Sheila kissed my member and I softly cupped the
mounds of her fleshy breasts before unlocking the side clips of her
corset. This released her sagging and curved body and I unlocked her
callipers and removed the corset from her.
I stood and cradled her in my arms, picking her up from the bed, her
legs outstretched and rigid to carry her to the bathroom and a shower
together.

Encounter - The hospital 13
Sheila had confessed her excitement in our love-making with a devotee.
She had never met one before and she enjoyed her dominance and control
and my submission to it.
"I always thought I had to fantasise about my sexuality on my own," she
explained. "That's why I have collected such a wardrobe over the years.
Rarely have I ever been out of the house wearing any of it so I've
satisfied myself here, on my own."
It was confession time as we drove to our first evening out together,
to a restaurant outside town. We were very open with each other as we
exchanged emotions. It seemed like a huge weight was being lifted off
each of us as we owned up to our feelings.
Sheila admitted that her wardrobe, as she called it, stimulated her and
she had never met anyone she dare show it to. Until I came along,
admitting I liked her callipered legs.
Then, she said, things changed. She had found someone she not only
wanted to be with - but someone who enjoyed her crippled body.
"Never, once, even as a teenager, did I think anyone wanted to make
love to me. I have kept myself to myself, except for a couple of men
who, I now know, used me for their own stimulation and fun. They had no
feelings for me, as I am," she went on.
Sheila said she was 51. I had guessed a few years older and she was
proud of having kept herself in good shape, swimming and exercising.
She had worked as a primary school teacher and had taken early
retirement after getting a large sum of money left to her in a will.
"That's when I decided to spend something on myself and I started to
look for a private supplier of callipers," she explained.
Sheila was sitting in the passenger seat of my car, not the best
vehicle for a disabled woman. The low floor of the MG sports car meant
we had had enjoyed a comical few minutes lowering her into the seat and
stretching out her rigid legs into the footwell. Sheila's left arm was
now back in use, although still bruised from her fall, and she brought
with her a pair of wooden under-arm crutches which now lay at her side,
rather like cot sides.
The sun was still up and we took our time to get to The Sails, a
restaurant by the waterfront where I knew it would not be too busy for
a Tuesday night. Sheila was still apprehensive about going out in her
sexy shoes and callipers so I chose The Sails because I knew Bob, the
owner, and his wife Karen who was also crippled with polio. I had
telephoned them to say I would be coming with Sheila, explaining she
was shy about coming out and would welcome their support - and a drink
together afterwards.
Sheila had loved dressing up and I was invited to watch for the hour
that it took. From her collection of bracing, she chose the corset that
was shiny black rather like vinyl to the touch, with its eight leather
and buckled straps in a row. Her black plunge bra forced her breasts
even more outward over its edge and her callipers were the custom-made
pair with shiny black leather fittings and black steel buckles with
unusual leg cuffs.
Instead of just one below the knee and one above there were two and the
surrounding steel, gleamed black bright. The four leg cuffs on each
calliper were matched by the knee-caps, each carrying four tiny straps
with retaining buckles and inserts. The thigh cuffs were not long and
laced like her others but were only four inches or so broad and on each
there were six small straps and buckles. The calliper rods were sprayed
black like the rest of the steel and incredibly shiny, with the knee
locks sprung and quick to engage or unlock. On her feet were
the pair of black platform sandals with a heel that was 12 inches and a
platform of six inches. The right one for her deformed club foot had a
supported segment inside that closed off the open toe. On the heels
were tiny black mountings, sticking out two inches on each side to link
to her callipers.
As I drove, I had my hand on Sheila's upper right thigh, resting on the
short red skirt that was several inches above her knee, exposing her
two above knee cuffs. I felt the outline of her shiny black calliper
rods and the jolt of her thin legs as we went down the road towards the
restaurant.
Getting out of the car was more difficult than getting in and Sheila
pledged she would use her car next time as we laughed during the
exercise. With the seat as far back as it would go, I ended up lifting
her legs upwards and outwards through the open door, making sure no one
else was there to share my pleasure. The view of her uplifted legs,
callipers and exposed thighs was amazing. To show her new-found freedom
of expression, Sheila hiked up her short skirt, grinning all the time,
to show the very tops of her stockinged thighs, with suspenders, under
her shiny black callipers. Gently I put her extreme heels on the
ground, careful not to scratch them as Sheila used my arms to haul
herself upright, clicking her corset into place in a smooth and
practised action. Taking her under-arm crutches, she swung through by
my side to the doorway.
There were just four other tables occupied and after being greeted by
the waitress, we went to our table overlooking the marina and its many
coloured-sailed craft. Sheila's skirt and white top may have been the
subject of the admiring glances of a man near us but I suspected that
it was her huge, jutting breasts, callipers and high heels that caught
his attention. He and his wife were about to leave and his look at
Sheila was noticed and the couple soon went. I thought I was the
luckiest man alive.
Our meal was wonderful, enjoyed even more by the caressing of each
other under the table cloth. At one time I thought I would climax as
Sheila pulled my penis from my trousers, almost jerking me under the
table! At about 9.30pm, Bob appeared and greeted me and I introduced
Sheila who was now so excited by our out-of-sight touching that she
glowed and was in the mood to flirt a bit. Bob noticed her callipers,
now her skirt was riding high to a couple of inches below her crotch
and complimented her on how good she looked. Bob sat down and was soon
followed by Karen who I had not met for a couple of years.
She swayed across the restaurant, her face beaming and hauling herself
along with her walking stick. Karen had polio since she was two and now
used her stick to help her walk, her right leg encased in a cumbersome
HKAFO with fashionable white leather cuffs, knee-cap and straps. On her
right foot was a glossy patent white high heeled shoe, not as high as
Sheila's but enough to take her tiny five feet frame to five feet five.
Her "good" left leg was atrophied but was without the calliper she had
worn for most of her childhood and teens, although it had left her with
severe cuff marks and her foot flayed from side to side with each step.
I got up to greet her and, surprisingly, she bent towards me and we
kissed on both cheeks, my hand drifting to her back to see if she still
wore her scoliosis corset. She did, its hardness stimulating me.
Bob and Karen had been to a Polio Fellowship committee meeting and they
talked about the friends they had there and soon urged us to meet them
next week

Encounter - The hospital 14+last
Sheila and Karen got on very well and it was clear they talked a lot
about polio and making more people aware that, although crippled by it,
they were not to be ignored and classified as just disabled.
For the meeting Sheila felt she had to "dress-down" for the occasion,
resorting to boots instead of high heels. She wore her pair of white
boots with open heels, the left one two inches high and the right about
four inches together with the matching callipers with white leather
which were quite new. From her wardrobe, she wore one of her two flesh
coloured corsets that had leather straps and buckles, velcro pads and
lace up backs and with steel mountings for callipers to the waist. A
white flowing dress with a light blue stripe pattern was worn just
above the knee and Sheila used aluminium elbow crutches, thinking she
would "fit in" better with others at the meeting.
Bob and Karen drove to Sheila's to pick us up, Sheila deciding to go
with Karen in her Peugeot saloon to chat on the way while Bob and I
went in my MG. The drive to the next town was about 20 minutes and Bob
made no mention of the surprise for me to come.
When we got to the hall, Karen got out of her car and it was clear that
she had "dressed up" and said she felt awkward because Sheila had
decided to go the other way. The women laughed and we joined in too,
but when Karen came around the car in her hauling, swaying walk, I
realised she had found something very different to wear.
Sheila distracted me as she swung herself out of the car and stood on
her white boots, locks ks clicking and squeaking as she stood up,
crutches in her hands.
"Hey, Bob, you never told me Karen seeks attention just like me, it
looks like she is the star for tonight," Sheila said as she pointed one
crutch in Karen's direction.
Karen put her stick out at the back of the car and brought her legs to
a standstill, bending her head in a mock curtsey. She had a stick in
her other hand too and I was soon to find out why. She needed more help
than usual.
"I thought Sheila would put her glad rags on so here I am, with my best
on," said Karen.
"I only hope some friends here have followed my example. By the way,
you fellas look very casual," she joked.
Sheila could tell I was awe-struck by Karen's appearance and, maybe a
little jealous. For such a tiny woman, Karen was now my height. This
had been achieved by her wearing a white high heel of such proportions
on her left foot that she was taller than Sheila. On her right, polio-
crippled foot Karen wore no shoe at all. It hung loose, toes straight
down, wobbling in its tan seamed stocking between callipers than ran
from a black rubber patten end up her tiny leg, past white below knee
cuff, knee pad and above knee cuff to the hem of her pale blue mini
skirt where the shiny steel rods disappeared up her thigh.
She said she had taken the calliper to an orthotist friend and had it
extended to accommodate the 14 inch height of the heel of her custom-
made platform shoe, its towering heel held onto her foot by an array of
matching straps and buckles.
Karen dropped her car keys, either accidentally of deliberately, and
Bob bent down to pick them up, taking his time to get up from where her
foot had been planted. He looked around him before touching the sky-
scraper heel and touching her foot. He picked up the keys and gave them
to his wife, p[ecking her on the cheek as he did so.
We all looked at each other and we knew that each one of us was
enjoying the event. Karen dragged her calliper to the front of her and
brought her massive high heel to the side of it, swaying down and
teetering slightly on her unfamiliar heel as she went. Sheila was by
her side as Bob and I watched them haul and swing into the hall. We
were among the early arrivals and were met by two women who introduced
themselves to me and Sheila as Amanda and Rita.
They were in the kitchen getting coffee ready for members. Both were
polios and were very smartly and attractively dressed. Rita was sitting
in a wheelchair behind a serving counter. Amanda was the older of the
two, at about 5ft tall, but quite mobile despite using short under-arm
crutches to support her tiny frame. Her right foot was in a massive,
old fashioned orthopaedic black boot with, what must have been a 16
inch heel going down to a nine inch raise at the front, exhibiting
great leg deficiency and a foot-drop at a great angle. But she wore no
calliper and her leg seemed quite strong. When she moved, her ankle
wobbled slightly, throwing her huge boot to the right and then the left
at each step. Her left leg and foot were normal, although her shoe was
a black leather pump with a four inch heel. I gazed at her legs and
feet and knew straight away that her raised boot must have been
specially made to allow her to match it with her lovely high heel.
Karen and Bob joined us in the kitchen and Rita wheeled herself to
greet Karen who bent as low as her corset would allow to kiss her on
the cheek. Rita was in her late 40s at a guess and her disability
stunned me. She was a shapely woman, her grey sweater trying to
contain very large breasts which shook as she wheeled her chair. Her
left leg was in a fixed knee-lock calliper sticking out in front of
her, her orthopaedic boot showing some signs of wear. But her right leg
was missing and her six inch stump protruded an inch or so under the
hem of her skirt, its end showing scars although covered in a cut down
stocking.
"We have two new members, Rita," Karen said. "I told them we are a
social lot and I know they will enjoy our get togethers."
I looked at Rita who smiled at Sheila and I and offered her hand to
shake ours.
"Very pleased to meet you both," she said. "Welcome to The Crip Club."

normalren

哪位大神翻译一下

t3m19870312

caiqifeng1 发表于 2019-2-11 17:38
想问问看这些文章是否已经有人翻译？若是没有的话我可以选着翻几篇权当练手（时间精力有限，做不到全翻） ...

本人已经翻的：
He Hooks a Good One(儿麻＋截瘫＋截肢)
Kim(儿麻+截瘫)
Martha(儿麻)

本人翻译中：
Amy(儿麻)
The Umbrella  by CF(儿麻+截肢)

其馀欢迎认领！

bear

楼主受累翻了吧

t3m19870312

caiqifeng1 发表于 2019-2-11 23:00
试试水翻一篇比较短的，水平有限脑补无数还请见谅www

太感谢大佬协助翻译了！！
叩谢！

P7592

期待新作，謝謝翻譯