Chapter 2

One thing the Army taught him was how to keep a straight face. It was useful when a wet behind the ears Second Lieutenant, fresh from Officer Candidate School attempts to explain something to an NCO who was already competent before the LT jacked off for the first time. It was useful when a Colonel, whose last ten years were spent in a supply depot, tries to tell you that he understands how hard it is out there and that the rules of engagement were carefully designed to balance readiness and sensitivity to lifestyle of the natives.

It is really, really helpful when JJ comes to visit.

JJ is five feet, ten inches of 'oh my god'. She has the face of an angel and the body of a porn star. One of the young, hard body porn stars though, not those aging, rode hard and put away wet, plastic surgery makes everything bigger porn stars. She has these firm C-cup tits and nipples that get all pokey when she is excited, or happy or cold. She has an ass that makes men's mouth water and legs that you want to have wrapped around your head. She is the only woman he had ever known that can give him a hard-on by saying "Hello."

The fact that she is a lifelong, card-carrying lesbian and married to his sister meant that the vital skills he learned in the army kept him from making a fool of himself whenever she came to his apartment, and she came over a lot.

JJ was a bigger geek than he was which was really saying something. She had always been fascinated by tech in all of its variations, and had, after college, been hired by a security company that supplied everything from cameras to iris scanners to most of the buildings in the Diamond District of Miami. Within two years, she had become the owner's right hand and, when the previous owner had talked about retiring, Christine helped JJ buy him out.

Since then, she had become the person to talk to about high-tech security in the state, and even had contracts up and down the Eastern Seaboard.

JJ and Doug had been best buddies since first grade, and she loved him like he was her own brother. They would talk on the phone or via video chat whenever he was in the US, and she wrote and sent him care packages weekly, without fail, every time he deployed. Even when his sister was busy building her new company, JJ was there for him, and he loved her.

He had managed to convince her not to fly to Germany while he was hospitalized, but no matter how much he protested; he couldn't stop her from flying to DC when he was transferred stateside and sent to Bethesda. He hadn't wanted her to see him, to see the half of a man he had become. He didn't want her to worry, and he definitely didn't want her anywhere near him when he finally got his hands on some way to end it all. He preferred that JJ and Christine mourn the man he used to be, not the limbless freak he had become.

Of course, JJ had other plans; and what JJ wants, JJ gets.

Today JJ was fixing the shorted out camera in the hall, and Doug sat there watching as she climbed up the ladder. As she reached up to move a tile in the drop ceiling, her t-shirt rode up, exposing the flawless skin of her stomach. As the shirt rose, so did Doug's erection.

Shaking his head, he wheeled his chair around and headed back into his office. He wanted to watch the feed, see when it was live again so he could let her know and if that retreat also hid his erection, so much the better.

He grinned as he saw the screen flicker and the camera go live. It was pointed at JJ's face. She had the tip of her tongue clenched in her teeth and protruding just a tiny bit between her luscious lips; an enticing image at any time! The picture jiggled as she moved the camera around, finally settling down as she screwed it back in place. The image was a clear shot down the hall towards the elevators and the stairway doors, exactly as it should be.

"That's got it, JJ!" he yelled out the open office door.

Seconds later, JJ was there beside him; a hand laid casually on his shoulder as she scanned the numerous screens for herself.

"Hey, look at camera eight! Is there some reason it is zoomed in on what looks like someone's bathroom window?" she asked, grinning at him.

"I was playing with the balcony cameras, and I supposed I stopped it there when I was flipping through the views." He said, trying to play it off.

"Sure you did. You always did have a thing for peeping. I still remember finding you on the fire escape when we were in eighth grade. I never did buy that whole "I forgot my keys" story. I'm sure that it was a complete coincidence that you could see into my bedroom from there." She said, laughing.

"I did forget them! I thought I could get up to the apartment..." he trailed off, shaking his head. It was no use; she hadn't believed him then, and she wasn't going to believe him now. That she was absolutely correct, he had been peeping, was no consolation.

"We're going to have some friends over tomorrow night. You never met Becky, but she was Chris's roommate in the dorm, her freshman year. She just got married, and they're coming to town to see her parents. You should come next door and hang out. Only a dozen people or so coming so it won't be crowded." JJ said, changing the subject.

"I think I'll pass." Doug demurred. He almost never left the apartment if he could help it. Having people stare at him made him itchy and foul tempered. Having people treat him like a cripple, even if he was, just plain pissed him off.

"Doug, you need to get out more. You have been home from the hospital for six months now and except for your therapy, I don't think you have left the apartment. It isn't good for you." JJ pressed, sounding annoyed.

Doug loved that she treated him just like it was in the old days. She hadn't put up with any bullshit back then, and she still wouldn't take any bullshit today. But he still wasn't going.

"Yeah, well. Life sucks, then you die." Doug said, one of his favorite expressions.

JJ stared at him for a moment, and then shook her head.

"I have to go into the office for a while; a new client wants the specs on a custom piece. I'll be home by four if you need anything." She said, kissing him on the cheek. "Love you!" she added as she turned to go.

"Love you too, JJ." Doug replied automatically. They had been saying that to each other forever, but he knew that they had two entirely different takes on the phrase.

He rotated the chair to watch her leave. The room, hell, the entire apartment always felt empty when she left, colder too.

Turning back to his screens, he surveyed the various views with satisfaction. He had the building security feeds up, four to a screen, on the leftmost three monitors. Next, he had all eight of his balcony cameras, each on its own screen, and each of the three hallway cams on their own screens. The last two of the forty-inch screens was a camera management grid that showed thumbnails, a grid of twelve little boxes each, with the last, empty box on each grid showing the camera number that was currently active on his control board.

His two sixty-inch screens were currently showing his web browser, on the left, and the local news broadcast on the right. He rolled his chair over to the desk, hit the switch that engaged the electromagnetic lock on his front door, and moved to the keyboard. He engaged the motion detection routine on the hall cameras; the screen would flash a red border when the camera sensed movement, letting him know there was someone in the hallway outside his apartment. He liked being prepared.

On one of the big screens he pulled up his list of porn bookmarks and chose a website, then on the other he pulled up his favorite erotic story archive. He hadn't been laid in a year and a half and right now, his mind still full of JJ; he needed some release.

It was almost dinner time when motion sensors on the hallway cameras alerted him to movement. He saw that Christine was about to ring the buzzer, so he paused his game and hit the solenoid switch that deactivated the lock on the front door. The solid clunk could be heard clearly in his office, and he watched on the monitor as Christine opened the door and entered his apartment.

"Doug, you asshole, you got JJ upset again." He spun his chair around to see his irate sister standing in the doorway, hands on her hips and a scowl on her face.

"What? I didn't do anything!"

"That's the problem, isn't it? That is always the problem. She wants you to come to the party is what. She wants you to get out of this apartment. She wants you to meet people, make friends, and not be a God damned hermit."

Doug just looked away, letting his eyes scan his camera feeds while he tried to come up with an excuse he hadn't already used. He didn't want to be the token cripple, the charity case at his sister's party for people he didn't even know.

"Doug, she loves you. I love you. We hate that you have been secluding yourself here. You have this hang-up about how you look, but you know that we don't give a shit." Christine paused for a minute, and then continued in a sad voice. "You are the bravest man I know, and yet you let your fears keep you locked up in here."

"Chris..." Doug took a deep breath and counted to ten ... in Pashtu. 'God damn it, ' he thought, but wisely didn't say it out loud.

"Okay." He said with a sigh.

"Wait, what? Okay? You are coming?" She looked so hopeful, so happy! Doug, despite his misgivings, couldn't help but smile back at her.

"Yes, sister dear, I'll come to your party. I'm not wearing a fucking tie though," he replied, trying to scowl at her and failing. He had never been able to refuse his sister when she really wanted something. She was all the family he had left.

"OH MY GOD!" Christine yelled happily, and practically attacked him, plopping down in his lap. "You will not regret this; we are going to have such fun! I promise, no repeats of your homecoming, okay?" She kissed him on both cheeks and hugged him tight.

Doug just shook his head, giving her a kiss on the cheek in return and watched as she dashed out of the apartment. On the security monitor, she was practically dancing as she turned right, towards the door to the other penthouse apartment.

His homecoming was an unmitigated disaster. Christine and JJ had picked him up at Bethesda the day he was released, had two crewmen carry him onto the company jet and fly him down to Miami. There, in the airport baggage area, were at least two hundred people, about half he sort of knew and half he had never seen before. There were banners and placards, balloons and confetti. When they rolled his manual wheelchair from the security area, they had started cheering, and he promptly threw up his last meal.

He wasn't sure if it was the flight, his unease at coming back to his home town or maybe the daunting task of being the center of attention to a crowd of people he didn't know or give a shit about. There was shocked silence, and he felt like crying, shamed by the nausea, by his appearance, by his fear.

JJ had whipped off her leather jacket and covered him with it, hiding the foul liquid that soaked his shirt and his shorts, that dirtied the bandages on his stumps, and Christine got them to the closest bathroom in record time, but the damage had been done.

Doug winced at the memory and then sighed again. "Fuck me." He whispered to the silent room.

He turned back to his game, trying to get his mind off the party he was now expected to attend, but he just couldn't work up the enthusiasm to play. He had been working on alternate ways to play video games. Most required two hands, or at least, the good ones did. Usually the left hand on the keyboard and the right on the mouse or if it was a console game, two hands on the controller.

He had ordered a specialty trackball that was designed for an MMORPG game. It had a dozen buttons in addition to the trackball, and it looked promising. He was playing with the settings, trying to get the most important keys mapped to buttons he could use. The game he was playing tonight, single player since he didn't want to listen to twelve year olds question his manhood as they kicked his ass, was Left 4 Dead 2, a cooperative zombie first-person shooter.

He had successfully made it through three maps, on easy mode, though it hadn't been easy at all when playing one-handed. He thought that he might actually be good enough to play with other people, well, other newbs, in a couple of months ... if he practiced a lot. He did have an idea for a control setup that would allow him to be a little smoother, but he hadn't found anything on the market that would suit his needs. This trackball setup was the closest. He made a mental note to ask JJ if she had anyone in her shop that could put together a custom control set for him.