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Chapter 6

Back at work the next day, Annie had been unable to resist thinking about the weekend. Strange that it should have caught her out so many times already. As she left her plush, state of the art apartment building, she had noticed the elevator ride down to the lobby, the ramp that swung left out of the door to cover the drop of the three steps down to the street. She noticed the wide of the sidewalk and kerb cuts, the flight of fourteen stairs down to the nearest metro station from the street. Her office building had easy access too, she noticed, though her office was quite cluttered, despite being one of the biggest corner offices. She wondered when she would get the elusive senior partnership she was after, her turn could be next, that might get her a bigger office still. In all that time, she hadn’t actually thought once about her actual work for the day. Annie had been lost in thought several times throughout the day if truth be told, which was unlike her, but which no one else even seemed to notice, such was her formidable reputation.

The days passed and weeks passed and she tried desperately to leave work behind at the weekends especially, making time to see her family a bit more and Nate of course. They did a few things together each week and she had found herself less caught up in work, until a big case kind of swallowed her up again for a month and making time for anything else was forgotten again. Realising she was slipping back into old habits, Nate patiently waited for the case to end and suggested they go away for a weekend again. Annie, relieved that she had finally won the case, readily agreed.

Nate asked her to meet him at his office after work on the Friday, which she duly did. Annie strolled in to the outer office and spoke to his secretary, who was just standing up and putting her coat on to leave for the day. “He’s waiting for you in there. Have a good weekend,” she waved as she walked out.

“Thanks, I will,” Annie replied, knocking and entering Nate’s inner sanctum. They embraced and shared a long drawn out kiss.

“I missed you this week,” Nate broke away eventually.

“I missed you too,” she admitted. “My fault again for being so busy, but I have a lighter caseload for the next week or so.” Smiling, she kissed him again. “So if you have any plans for this weekend that might involve total relaxation, I have no objections.” There was a glint in her eye as she spoke.

“Oh, I see. You’re expecting to be wined and dined then I take it,” Nate remained perfectly cryptic.

“I am feeling quite stressed and tired,” she admitted.

“Well, why don’t you lie down on the couch for a little while and rest then,” he grinned, mischievously. She did as followed, expecting that he would soon begin his magic on her. “You know it might get boring if we did the same thing all the time, I hope you don’t object to a little variety?”

“Not at all,” she replied, instantly wondering what he was going to do to her next.

Half an hour later, Annie started to wake. She couldn’t imagine why, but she felt very strange. Unsure whether to try to even move or just lie still to discover what he had done to her this time, she waited a moment, allowing her to make a mental inventory of how she felt. She thought she would just go ahead and ask Nate what he had done, because it wasn’t immediately obvious. Certainly she could see and hear so there was nothing odd there.

Annie went to ask him what he’d done, but as she tried to speak, her right arm flicked up and hit her in the face, not hard, but enough to catch her off guard. She made a move to control her right arm and her legs jerked forcefully together and bent at the knee. Confused, Annie tried to speak again and move, causing both legs to straighten, her right arm flew up around the back of her head and the left curled inwards towards her chest. Worse still, drool fell from her mouth and she made a strange squealing sound.

Still confused and now more than a little distressed, Annie didn’t understand what Nate had done and was panicking, thinking something had gone wrong and now she was in big trouble.

Kneeling beside her, Nate looked into her worried eyes and spoke soothingly. “Relax Annie. You’re okay.” She did as he instructed and her legs fell back to the couch and her arms stopped flying around. “You aren’t paralyzed this time, you can still move, but you will have problems controlling your body. When you try to do move something, you will probably lose control of everything else, so you need to think before every action. If you try to do more than one thing at once, you will lose control of everything. When you speak, you need to concentrate only on using your mouth and if you are doing something else, you probably won’t be able to speak as well. Don’t be afraid, I’m here to take care of you.”

Annie wondered how he had done this. Her brain was fried and just didn’t seem to control things normally any more. She thought about what she wanted to say and followed his advice, though her voice sounded really strange and slurred.

“S’okay,” she managed.

Nate left her side a moment and brought in a wheelchair, a little different to the one they had used before. Annie turned her head, immediately causing her legs to spasm again, to look at the chair. This one had all sorts of straps and pads that hadn’t been on the other one. Nate lifted her into the seat, carefully placing her thighs either side of a large padded stud in the middle of the cushion. Her arms both flew out to the side almost hitting him as he pulled her shoulders back and strapped a padded harness over her shoulders. He pulled her right arm forwards and strapped it to the armrest. Her left arm was free to spasm and flail. Next he fastened straps over her feet to prevent her legs kicking out, explaining as he did that she might break a leg if she kicked anything hard. Finally he moved side supports for the headrest in place so she wouldn’t hurt her neck if it lurched sideways. He explained the controls for the powerchair were in the headrest and he would show her later how to use it.

He wheeled Annie out the back door to the waiting van and proceeded to load her via the lift to the side door. When the wheelchair was in place, he fastened it to the floor of the van. Once he had their luggage loaded, he got in the drivers seat and set off.

Annie had said little so far, it was such hard work even to get a couple of words out and every time she spoke she paid for the effort with uncontrolled jerks and spasms in other parts of her body. They seemed to be driving for ages, though Nate kept asking her if she was okay. They stopped after a couple of hours at a highway service station to get gas and a drink. Nate fed her a bottle of water and then took her to the bathroom. He had already got her in a diaper, but he hoped she could use the toilet herself if he could keep her balanced on there. He wheeled her in and went through the laborious process of unstrapping her, before lifting her out and onto the raised toilet seat. She was able to wrap an arm around the rail and hold on whilst he supported her trunk from the other side. After a few moments, they both heard the tinkle of Annie’s pee. She felt an overwhelming sense of relief that revealed itself in a foamy drool escaping her mouth and a strange snorting sound, which was her giggle.

“Are you laughing?” Nate asked her, a smile near his lips.

“Yeah,” she slurred.

He soon had her cleaned up and re-dressed before lifting her back into the chair and fastening her down. “Do you want to try steering the chair yourself?”

“Yeah,” she threw her head back in emphasis.

“Okay let me switch the battery on and you can try it, but I think I might need to put something round your neck or you’re going to ruin your clothes with all that drool. Let’s see if they have a bandana in the shop.”

“Okay,” Annie replied.

Nate switched the power on and told her how to operate the chair with her head. Annie concentrated on getting her head to push the switch on the right of her temple, which it did. The switch moved a cursor on a small screen down a list of motion arrows. When she got to the direction she wanted to move in, she hit the left switch with her head and the direction was selected. Hitting the right again, caused the chair to move and the left to stop. The movement was quite rapid due to the sensitivity of the controls and it took her by surprise so she immediately let go. Trying again she forced her head to be more gentle and it turned in a nice slow arc as she intended. Reversing was a little more difficult as she had to try to turn her head at the same time to see where she was going, but she managed without too much difficulty. Nate opened the bathroom door and held it for her to try and steer out. It took her a couple of tries to line it up correctly with the door, but once through it was surprisingly easy to move. Annie steered the chair as best she could alongside Nate, trying to match his steady walking pace, into the shop and down the aisles. Nate found some bandanas for sale and held them up for her to choose.

“Blue’n,” she slurred and looked at a woman who was openly staring at her. Annie wondered what she looked like. Last time, she knew she looked like anyone else, just sat in a wheelchair. Okay it was obvious that she couldn’t use her arms and legs, but she looked ‘normal’. The way the woman had stared at her suggested she looked somewhat less than normal this time.

Soon they were back on the road, only Annie now wore the blue bandana round her neck to keep the drool from getting on her clothes. It was another hour before they turned off the main highway and onto back roads, eventually ending up heading through tree lined roads. Before they reached their destination, Annie could already smell the sea air.

As she made to speak, Annie’s jaw spasmed, making her first word last an age. “I……I love th’beach,” she eventually forced out.

“You guessed correctly,” Nate replied pulling up at the entrance to the place they were staying. It wasn’t a five star hotel like last time, but a resort of beach houses instead. He booked them in with the guy on the gate, who gave Nate a nod as he held up a pass for him to get through. Soon he was pulling away again down a sandy lane, past cute little painted wooden houses. A few moments later he turned into the driveway of a larger property than those they had passed by. Taking their bags from the van, he opened up the front door and went inside, turning on lights as he did so.

Moments later, he returned to collect her. “Do you think you can steer onto the lift?” he asked.

“I…..I’ll try,” she managed.

Getting the hang of the steering had proved quite easy and they were soon heading up the ramp running alongside the front of the house, carrying her towards their weekend of adventure.

Once inside, the hallway opened up to a large single storey, open-plan beach house. The furniture was all painted bright colours and matched the feel of the place. The walls were all wood panelled and hung with typical beach scene photos and prints. The kitchen had blue and yellow cabinets and the dining area in front of great big glass doors, had a table painted the same blue. The doors opened onto a large deck and the beach and sea lay beyond. It was heavenly.

“Beautiful here,” she said.

“I’m glad you like it,” let’s take a look around. They visited the rooms off the hallway, two bedrooms, one with an en-suite was nice but Annie couldn’t get the wheelchair through the door. To the other side was another bedroom with a large adapted bathroom next door. The bedroom had a king-size bed and view of the ocean; this was their room. Nate went into the kitchen and found the fridge was already full of the things he’d ordered for them, including a pizza ready to cook for their supper. He popped it straight in and then poured them a glass of white wine. Annie wheeled into the dining area to look out at the beach. She saw the beach wheelchair parked outside on the deck.

“For me?” she asked, pointing, in a roundabout way, with her left arm, which immediately retracted in towards her chest in protest. More drool escaped her mouth as she smiled and squealed when Nate nodded his head in reply. He wiped it off her chin with the bandana.

“Yeah, babe. Thirsty?”

“Yeah.”

“Here you go,” he held the wine glass to her mouth and managed to support her chin enough for her to swallow a little. Your body is behaving like it would if you had a neurological injury or disease. You think about doing one thing and pay for it with uncontrolled muscle contractions elsewhere.”

“S’okay,” she slurred. “I..I know you’ll look a..after mmmeee.” Her legs spasmed in protest at her longest sentence yet. “I…I like the wheelsshhair, though. Mmmmmush better w…with me driving.” This time it was a jerk of her head and left arm flying over her shoulder that followed.

They drank more wine, waiting for the pizza to cook and talked, Nate waited patiently for every painstakingly slow sentence Annie spoke. Once their food was ready, he cut the slices and then cut those for Annie even smaller.

As he fed Annie, trying to help her by cutting the pizza into very small pieces, she did her best to concentrate on just chewing her food. Her left arm flailed wildly throughout and her right arm and both legs fought constantly against the restraints. Nate was exhausted just watching the constant twitches and spasms that wracked her body. He had hoped she would learn to just relax so that her body wouldn’t fight itself but he realised that even the smallest action had a consequence and he was feeling a bit guilty at how hard she was having to work. He decided to leave things as they were but he wondered how much he could watch her go through.

When they had finished eating, he readied her for bed. He had no idea how hard it would be to get her undressed. Unlike last time where Annie had been unable to help, at least her body hadn’t resisted, but this time, she kept trying to assist him and making things worse as a consequence. When he tried to get her arms out of the sleeves of her shirt, she could control one arm for him, but the other and her head then went off in opposite directions and he ended up nearly being pulled on top of her as a result.

“Try to relax, honey. Just think about breathing and let me do the work.” She did for a bit, but as soon as he moved to something else, the twitches started again and it took him forever. To make it worse, she kept apologising every time one of her limbs flew out and disturbed his work. It took an hour just to get her undressed, on the toilet and brush her teeth. Dressing her in PJ’s and a diaper just in case took another half an hour.

When he had finished and started to undress before taking a shower, he looked at her lying on the bed, twitching and flailing her limbs. Approaching her, he tried to take her hand in his but it retracted in towards her chest. “Sssorrry,” she slurred. “Nnot easy t..t.. ssstayy ssstill.”

He looked her in the eyes. “Do you hate this?”

“Nnno, bbbut hharrd w..w..work. Fffo yyyou t..t..oo.”

“Don’t worry about me,” he reassured her. “I didn’t think this through properly though did ?”

He left for his shower then, thinking all the while about what he was going to do about the situation. He felt guilty because although she may not hate what he had done, he certainly hadn’t made it easier for her to relax and that was the whole point. He was supposed to be relieving her tension, not increasing it. As the steam from the hot water billowed around him, he started to think about what he was going to do. She had enjoyed the freedom of steering the chair, but everything was hard work, from eating to dressing, even just speaking was making her body impossible to control and it was driving him nuts just watching her, never mind what it must actually be like. Physically exhausting were the two words that sprung to mind. As he finished up and dried off, Nate came to a decision. He would have to do something about it. Perhaps just removing the hypnotism altogether would be a good idea, he could still look after her and let her roll round in the wheelchair. That might work, or she might start to refuse his help and want to do things herself, that was no good. Maybe he could just revert to what he’d done last time. He left the bathroom and went to get ready for bed, still undecided about what he was going to do.

After nearly an hour in bed, neither of them was asleep. Annie’s body continually writhed around and was keeping them both awake despite being exhausted after their long day at work and drive here. It was the final straw for Nate, he needed to take action now or she would be a mess all day tomorrow and it would be his fault. He did what he normally would and spoke quietly into her ear, gradually, slower than before, she began to relax and the tension that had wracked her body started to dissipate. When she was still, he began to undo the mess he had created in her mind and implanted a more orderly message. He didn’t even bring her around properly she was so relaxed but left her to wake naturally in the morning, optimistic that she would now rest peacefully for the remainder of the night and feel refreshed in the morning. Feeling more relaxed himself, he turned and switched off the light, then draped an arm lovingly across her stomach as she lay motionless on her back beside him.