HOME | DD

Description
body div#devskin0 hr { }

Chapter 4
“I’m just worried you might drown,” Jake stood in front of Barbara, hands on hips, looking as though she wasn’t thinking clearly.
“The doc said swimming was good for me until I get movement back, it will help my circulation or something. I can’t see what the problem is. I can use my arms still, for goodness sake.” She sat with her arms crossed defiantly, wearing her swimsuit under her tracksuit, all ready to go to the pool.
“Okay,” Jake relented. “You need to get a float or something though.” He held the door open for her to go past and as she rolled by she patted his butt and thanked him.
Babs decided she would drive and hauled herself in the car. Jake put the wheelchair in the trunk and joined her in the passenger seat. “I think you’re being really brave going out and all and doing stuff.”
“It’s not bravery, its research, or practice or something, but not bravery.”
They set off and Jake found himself staring at Barbara’s legs which wobbled and bounced around with every bit of uneven road or bend. She eyed him closely, it was as if he was hypnotised by them.
“Do you like my paralyzed legs?
“They are so dead, but so sexy too. You really are beautiful.” He blushed.
Babs looked down at her legs as they wobbled around. “I didn’t think you would like my body any more if it was paralysed.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know, i just thought you might be put off by it.”
“No babe, not a bit,” he grinned a little mischievously. “I was a bit shocked when you told me, but I have to admit it’s interesting watching you.”

After their arrival and the lengthy unloading and undressing, Babs finally approached the poolside where her boyfriend was waiting.
“Help me into the water will you,” she asked.
Jake took hold of her under the legs and round her back and lifted her out of the chair. They were at the shallow end of the pool which had a stepped entry so he walked down carefully, holding her closely. When he was knee-deep in the water, he bent and lowered Barbara into the water. It was shallow enough that she was able to sit on the bottom and still have her head out of the water. Jake was careful to stand behind her in case she lost balance, but she seemed fine.
Barbara’s legs bobbed around in the water and she slowly started to push herself backwards into the deeper water. Soon enough she was swimming backwards, sculling with her hands sufficiently to keep her afloat. She left Jake standing watching her carefully, until she was halfway down the pool. Realising that he wouldn’t be able to get hold of her if she got into difficulty, despite the close watch the lifeguard had on her, he took off swimming front crawl to catch up with her. He could see it wouldn’t take him more than a few seconds to catch her as she was travelling pretty slowly, her legs trailing along behind. She didn’t take any risks on this first attempt and stuck to sculling on her back, simply moving from shallow to deep and back steadily, with Jake travelling slowly behind her in case she suddenly lost control. Only once did she catch a face full of water from someone going quickly past her in the next lane. The shock made her cough and splutter and she panicked slightly, trying to cough, cover her mouth and then sinking down until pulling back up. Jake moved in and caught her under the arms so she didn’t have to try a keep afloat at the same time as get her breath back. It look a minute to clear her throat, but then she set off again on her slow scull up the pool.
After forty minutes Barbara was exhausted, especially in her shoulders, so she swam back to the shallow end and held onto the side of the pool until Jake joined her. He once again cradled her in his arms to help her out of the pool. Once settled back in the wheelchair, they both went off to change, with Jake feeling a little disappointed that she no longer needed his help.

Next time she was in the studio, Barbara arrived early for some extra practice as arranged the day before. She proceeded to allow herself to be tipped out of the chair seven times onto a soft gym mat until she was starting to get tired. Brian was watching her and intervened when he thought she had had enough.
“I think you should stop there or you’ll be too exhausted to do it for the camera. It looks great, very realistic I would say.” Babs nodded her agreement and lifted her legs into place. “I want to re-shoot one of the early scenes if we are finished in time today. “
Barbara gulped nervously. “Which one?”
“The office scene before the accident, I checked the rushes and I’m not happy with the camera positioning for your close ups.”
Barbara had been dreading this. She decided to just let Brian in on her little secret so asked him if they could go somewhere private to discuss it.
Once they had found a quiet corner of the studio where no one else could overhear, she told Brian all about the injection, why she’d done it and how it had gone a bit wrong. She expected him to go ballistic with his artistic temperament, but he didn’t.
“I wondered how you were playing it so well. I am a fan of method acting, but this is a bit extreme.”
“You don’t seem as mad as I thought you might be,” she replied.
“Well it’s going to make re-shooting that scene impossible, which pisses me off because I made a couple of changes, but I suppose we can do it later after it wears off.” He glanced at her expectantly.
“I’ll let you know when it starts to wear off.” She promised him.
“And you won’t do something like that again will you?”
“Not unless it’s absolutely necessary,” she agreed.
“I’ll admit I’m surprised that you would go to such lengths, but then again, it’s going really well so in the end it may be worth it. Your dedication impresses me.”
They left to get on with filming and a sense of relief passed through Babs now that Brian knew what she had done.

The next two weeks passed quickly as the scenes flew by. The crew were making excellent progress and many of the difficult scenes in rehab were out of the way as a result. Though movies weren’t often made in sequence, Brian moved things around knowing he could only shoot the scenes where the character was paralysed. It made things easier for Babs as she became more accustomed to her situation. She found moving around in and transferring to and from her wheelchair much easier, likewise driving the car. She found herself adjusting her position and moving her body in a much more natural way. As a result, the crew moved quickly through the post-rehab scenes as well. Barbara’s character was now in the process of returning to work and completing normal activities. They had her swimming, bowling, getting in and out of her car, performing domestic chores, attending meetings, eating out in restaurants, meeting up with friends in a bar and dating a man. That left her thinking about the sex scenes, which could be awkward sometimes and not at all romantic.