Chapter 1

Emma tossed around in her bed tangling herself in the sheets, limbs twitching as THE DREAM held her in it’s grip. Emma was reliving the night three years ago.

Kicking out time at the pub, Emma and Peter were drunk. Emma was horny and too drunk to have the sense to go home in a taxi. So she got in the car with her boyfriend at the wheel for the short drive to his place. Emma sat in the car, drowsing in the warm interior, part of her wanted Peter to slow down, but part of her wanted him to get her home as soon as he could so that they could fuck.

Emma was startled awake as she realised that Peter was talking to her, she looked over at him. Peter was saying something, she couldn’t quite make it out. He was staring down at her crotch, Emma’s dress had ridden up to reveal her pale green silk panties. Something registered in Emma’s brain as being wrong with this picture. Before she could speak the air was forced out of Emma’s lungs, a noise that sounded like hell had suddenly released all of it’s captive souls. Smothering darkness, it took Emma a moment to realise that it was the air bag inflating around her face and chest. She was aware of leaning sideways, almost horizontal, hovering there for a brief eternity before moving again, down, a rending screech, white hot pain burnt her soul before the darkness mercifully took the pain away.

Emma woke trembling and covered in sweat. Untangling herself from the sheet she carefully pushed her self upright and leant against the headboard of her bed. Gradually her heartbeat slowed.

“Oh Jesus,” She thought, “Am I ever going to stop reliving it?”

According to the police report the car had hit the central reservation at 95 Mph and had reared up onto the driver side wheels for a short distance. When the car came back down it was over one of the support posts for the crash barrier. The car floor was badly rusted and the Z shaped post had cut cleanly through the weak metal, the post had then carried on straight through Emma’s right leg. Part of the barrier still attached to the post had mangled Emma’s left leg so badly that it had to be amputated when she arrived at hospital.

Peter hadn’t visited Emma in hospital, he had walked away from the crash with a small cut on his forehead from, of all things, the plastic cover for the air bag.

She later found out that her boyfriend of two weeks had no license, no insurance, Mot or road tax. As he was driving whilst drunk, speeding and caused a serious injury he was invited to attend one of Her Majesty’s penal institutions for a period of just one year.

Emma had found it hard to accept that he was released before she was. One year had become six months, oh and of course he got another month off for good behaviour. And of course the four weeks he spent on remand before his trial counted as serving part of his sentence. Emma didn’t get out of hospital until a month after he had been released from prison.

Fortunately for Emma her business had been well looked after by her best friend Jessica. Emma had started the small cleaning firm six years before, when both girls were eighteen. Jess had been Emma’s first employee six months after she had begun, for the year prior to the accident Jess had mostly worked in the office so she was able to cover for Emma until she was well enough to return to work.

Emma had been despondent whilst in the hospital, when she went home that was gradually replaced by a sullen anger. She was angry with a system that would allow someone to do this to her and walk away after less than six months, angry with people who treated her differently because she was in a chair, but most of her anger was directed at herself. No one had forced her to get into that car, she knew he had been drinking, Emma couldn’t believe she had been so eager for a fuck that she had taken such a stupid risk.