Sarah awoke to the warmth of the morning sun on her dozing face, bright enough for her to know it was daylight. This was one of those mornings Sarah especially liked. There was nothing she needed to do and no appointment she had to keep. She could rest in bed for just as long as she liked.

Or not just rest. She could hear Lee breathing beside her, soft and steady as he slept on his back, face upward. Sarah smiled. It would take so little for her to arouse Lee's attention and for the two of them to enjoy each other's bodies. To rub her sweaty torso against Lee's. To feel his teeth nibble her clitoris. To be bathed by his tongue.

For the moment, Sarah lay still, letting her erotic thoughts tingle through the nerves of her body, down her legs and around her crotch. She slept naked as always, the better to luxuriate in the sheets over her body, but also to enjoy the proximity of Lee's body beside her, even if he was normally so motionless and rigid. Particularly from the waist down.

But the tingle of erotic excitement wasn't all she was aware of. Her bladder was straining from the need for a piss. That bottle of wine Sarah and Lee had shared last night while listening to the radio play, the two of them wrapped around each other on the sofa, Lee stretched out, his legs stiff and straight, and Sarah entwined around him, burying her nose into the folds of his shirt. And while they were together, enjoying the pleasure of intimate companionship, Petra, her dog, was close at hand, steadfast and reliable, looking out for both of them.

Sarah raised an arm, pulled the duvet off her bosom, relishing the relative chill of the air after the fetid heat under the down-filled cotton, and nonchalantly swung her legs around, so her feet could touch the ground. And then she paused on the edge of the mattress, her arms supporting her weight, the soles of her feet savouring the pile of the rug, the wool tangling in her toes. And then, silently, hoping to disturb neither Lee nor Petra, who was probably dozing in his basket in the hallway, his muzzle buried between his legs and groin, she pushed herself up to her full height and stood upright by the side of the bed. A trail of sheet and duvet slid down behind her onto the mattress.

Then, carefully, guiding herself with outstretched arms, and remembering exactly where the edge of the rug met the cool pine floorboards, she slowly made her way across the bedroom, each step counted, until she knew she was at the en suite bathroom. And then, feeling the even cooler linoleum under her bare feet, she measured her steps towards the lavatory. She raised the toilet seat, turned about and plumped her bare buttocks onto the plastic rim.

Although the rush of urine and the relaxation of having successfully relieved herself was all that was needed, Sarah liked to sit on the loo just a little longer, rather relishing the comfort of sitting there and letting her body decide whether she also needed a crap. And as she sat there, her thoughts wandered back to Lee. It wasn't as easy for him to go to the toilet as it was for her.

Lee and Sarah had been married just over a year now. Sarah relished the memory of the wedding, although there had been the inevitable awkward moments. Particularly as the best man had to push Lee's wheelchair and Sarah's father had to walk so very slowly to guide his daughter step by step along the aisle. And there was some difficulty in engineering the meeting of lips when Lee was told he could kiss the bride, assisted by the best man who bent Sarah down into the right position. But it was an occasion Sarah would always remember fondly. As she did now, while soaking up the dampness on her crotch with toilet paper.

It was a love they said could never last. Well, no one was cruel enough to actually say it to either Lee or Sarah. But it was one of those fairy-tale romances that many people just didn't believe could happen. It had been a tale of impossible romance from the first moment she bumped into Lee.

In fact, it was in a very literal sense that she bumped into him. His wheelchair was a most unexpected obstacle in the clinic where she had gone for one of her regular check-ups. Petra had not given unambiguous enough directions.

Sarah fell on top of Lee, her head landing on his and her steadying hand on his shoulder.

"Are you all right?" he asked kindly.

It was probably his voice she first fell in love with. Quietly spoken. Reserved. Kind and considerate. And this conversation led to their first date. That was an achievement in itself. Neither she nor Lee could go on a date without the assistance of other people. But Sarah's sister agreed to accompany her to the town-centre pub chosen more for its wheelchair access than for the quality of its beer or the pleasantness of its ambience, where Lee was waiting with a friend who insisted on smoking and was rather unsubtle in his pursuit of Sarah's already married sister.

Sarah eased herself off the toilet seat, taking full advantage of the strength of the metal bar placed there more for Lee's benefit than her own, and followed the trail of the wall tiles to the sink where she washed her hands, face and bosom with the warm, soapy water.

Lee hadn't been the first man in Sarah's life. That distinction was held by Tom, the young guy from the kennels who brought Petra round when it was necessary to put faithful old Shep to pasture. He was a thin lad and very nervous. Petra was still very much in thrall of him, still taking every opportunity to burrow his muzzle into the crotch of his jeans. Of course, nowadays it was Sarah's crotch that mostly had that honour, something that gave her a guilty twinge of pleasure she didn't really like to think about too deeply. But dogs do that. Perhaps because it's quite warm there.

And not just warm as Sarah established as she put her hand on Petra's muzzle and felt the unmistakable contours of Tom's groin. Curious, she rested her palm flat on the length of it, surprised by the thickness of the fleshy member under the tight denim. And she was sure the warmth it emanated wasn't just that left by Petra's muzzle.

"What are you doing?" gasped Tom, as Sarah's hand squeezed and stroked his hidden penis.

"Sshh!" remarked Sarah, her face upward and her broad smile directed in the approximate direction of his voice.

"What? Bloody hell! Those are my flies! What are you doing? I've got a girlfriend, you know. It's not right!"

"This says it is," Sarah said softly, as she eased out a penis that was growing ever larger and thicker. It slumped out of his unzipped jeans and the slit of his cotton boxer shorts.

Sarah had no idea what she should do with an erect penis now she had one in her hands. She loved the feel of it: throbbing, warm, twitching, and, above all, veiny. She'd never imagined that the veins on a penis would stand out in such absolute relief. This was a feature that none of those Braille or audio books had mentioned in very much detail. However, she knew that a girl was supposed to do something with a penis, and she was curious to know what semen might feel or even taste like. She'd always imagined it would be a bit like the juices she'd sometimes loosened up in her vagina, but already she could tell that a man's genitals smelt distinctly different to those of a woman.

After all these years, Sarah could still remember all the licks of her tongue and her tentative attempts to get some of that strangely hooded and wholly unveined glans into her mouth, over her tongue and perhaps, as she'd once read, toward the back of her mouth. In later encounters with Tom, Sarah was much less clumsy, prolonging the time of his erection beyond the less than a minute it remained stiff on this first occasion before splattering onto her chin and cheek, a surprisingly warm and oozingly erotic sensation, quite unlike whatever she'd expected. Particularly since she had no informed idea of when it would happen.

Of course Sarah got to know Tom much better after this, although perhaps not as often as she'd like. Although Tom said with some sadness that he enjoyed sex more frequently, more reliably, and, even, more satisfactorily than he did with his girlfriend, Mandy, he also said he wasn't going to abandon her for a girl with whom he knew it just wasn't going to work. As he stated, the extent of his skills in community care only went as far as dogs, which he was properly qualified to handle and train. His qualifications didn't extend to the owners of the dogs. And anyway he'd already proposed to Mandy.

Sarah sometimes wondered what Mandy might have thought to see her fiancé fucking her so vigorously and punctually, usually within only five or ten minutes of her opening the door to the flat where she lived at the time and the two hurriedly dispensing with the business that provided the excuse for his visit. But as she lay beside Tom's heaving body, his chest rising and falling after his exertions, his salty sweat streaming off his limbs and soaking into the sheets, mingling with the puddles of warm perspiration she had also shed, Sarah knew that this was a relationship doomed.

And soon, of course, it petered out. Tom's visits became fewer and fewer. And then he ceased to visit at all.