HOME | DD

Description
THE OLD BRACE MAKER - PART ONE

They sat at the small table in a quiet corner of the restaurant, gazing at each other in the light of the candle flame. The evening had gone so quickly, there had hardly been a break in conversation since they sat down, they were both completely immersed in the delight of getting to know each other and discovering how much they had in common. She sat very upright on the edge her chair and he leaned close as they talked.

The place was very quiet now. It had been fairly full when they arrived and as he followed a few paces behind her to the table he had noticed how almost every head had turned to stare at her as she passed, he heard the hushed whispers, some diners even nudging their partners discretely or jerking their heads in her direction to punctuate a whispered comment about her. He knew that most, particularly the men, had noticed her because she was so strikingly beautiful, but he also knew perfectly well that all eyes had immediately shifted to the formidable steel brace visible at her neck that was the cause of her erect posture. It would have been difficult for anyone to miss it, and hardly surprising that it should draw comment on such a beautiful woman.

He had been mesmerized by her all evening, and not just by her physical beauty. She was charming, funny and intelligent. She had a natural shyness which he found absolutely enchanting. She seemed to be a very private person and he was enjoying the challenge of slowly earning her trust. He could feel her responding to him, beginning to open up to him a little at a time. Initially whenever the conversation shifted to more personal matters she had tended to break off eye-contact with him, but as the evening progressed he noticed he could hold her gaze more easily, as though she was more willing to allow him to see inside her.

As they waited for their coffees he had placed his hand casually near to hers on the tablecloth and now, judging this to be the right moment, he edged his fingers towards hers and touched her gently. To his dismay she recoiled and withdrew her hand, abruptly dissolving the relaxed atmosphere they had been enjoying. As her face began to redden she tried to apologize. "I'm so sorry Dave, I didn't mean it like that, it's not you, it's just..."

He cursed himself inwardly for being too hasty with her but she interrupted his thoughts.
"There's something you should know, something I have to tell you" she said, "before you, before this goes....."

His face barely concealed his apprehension as he waited for what would come next.
She chose her words slowly and carefully: "Look, I've enjoyed this evening enormously, really I have Dave, I like talking to you, … I like being with you, more than you could imagine… it's just … that … I don't think we should be doing this. I wasn't thinking very far ahead when I accepted this invitation. It must look as though I was leading you on".

His worried look changed to one of incredulity. "What do you mean? I thought you felt pretty much the way I feel. Was I wrong?" he asked.

"I don't think there's much future in … in our … well, … I don't think there would be much point in us … " her words trailed off.

"In our getting a bit more serious? Why ever not, Claire?"

There was a long pause. Then she said "It's this thing… it's my brace...", blushing visibly even in the candlelight, "… it doesn't … um … well, I can't … what I mean is we … oh, boy, this is going to be difficult!..." She gave an awkward little laugh and tried to look away, to gather herself, but the brace held her head firmly and only her eyes moved.

He looked at her sitting there so poised, so erect and so beautiful. The golden reflections of the candle flame danced brightly on the wide polished steel bar that emerged from the front of her blouse and ran up to the sculpted silver form which curled up the around the sides of her jaw. His eyes followed the ring of steel encircling her very slender neck to where he could just glimpse one of the struts behind. Her sandy-blonde hair was twisted up into a loose knot high on her head and the few stray curls which hung softly down her cheeks contrasted beautifully with the rigid steel of the brace.

Her eyes, lashes and eyebrows were quite dark considering her blonde hair. This meant that although she was wearing very little make-up she still looked as though she was ready for a photo-shoot. She had beautiful skin, and she was at that age when he felt a woman is at her most beautiful, when a few subtle little lines make an appearance around her eyes and mouth when she smiles, enhancing them and giving her a sort of interesting sparkle. When she laughed that wonderful deep velvet laugh he noticed that her mouth widened slightly asymmetrically, exposing her even bottom teeth more on one side than the other. He loved that. He made her laugh just so he could see it again and again.

"Okay, here it is..." She began again, jolting him back to the present. There was no laughter in her voice now. "You see, Dave, I wear this thing all the time … so … I don't think it would be fair to you … I'm sure you wouldn't ..."

"Wait, Claire, please ..." He touched her hand as he interrupted her "I honestly don't mind your brace at all. It really doesn't bother me in the least. Actually, I'm hardly aware of it … " He was lying. He was very aware of her brace, it was the second thing he had noticed about her, the first was that he found her very attractive, but the brace was what made him stop the car and approach her, so it was probably the main reason they were here tonight, but he would never tell her this.

Yes, he often noticed attractive women, his eye seemed to be quite practised at scanning a crowded place and fixing on the most attractive woman there, he couldn't seem to help it and it didn't do any harm. "Beauty is there to be appreciated," he told himself, "that's the whole point of it, and there's nothing quite as beautiful as a beautiful woman". Nothing much ever came of it of course, he liked to let his eye linger on her, just for as long as she was in view, and then she was gone and that was that.

It would have been the same when he first noticed her waiting to cross the street as he drove by, he saw her turn slowly at the waist to look for traffic. "Mmmm! She's nice. Carries herself regally, elegantly, like a cat". And that would have been that, but then the sunlight glinted off the brace supporting her chin. Suddenly everything changed. He had to get a good look at her, try to meet her, talk to her. He always likened this moment to those movie scenes inside a submarine under attack, all the klaxons and sirens and red flashing lights and wildly tilting decks. This required drastic action. Fast! He looked for her again in the rear-view mirror, then pulled the car quickly into a side street and parked it. His heart was pounding and his legs felt weak. He was sure he could feel the chemicals surging into his bloodstream, must be adrenaline and morphine together or something. He felt that strange and yet familiar feeling, his focus razor-sharp but somehow woolly and detached at the same time.

No time to feed the parking-meter, he'd have to take a chance on that, and he'd miss his business meeting, but that would have to take care of itself. Trifling matters in comparison with the task at hand. As he headed for the place he had last seen her he could hear his pulse thumping in his ears.

There! She was moving between the cluttered stalls of an open-air street market. Perfect! He slipped into an adjacent row, from here he could watch her without her noticing. Late twenties, no, more like early thirties, slender, well dressed, sort of casual-but-elegant, just a hint of makeup, hair loose and natural, no rings on her left hand. And she looks comfortable on her own, so she's not waiting for someone. Wonderful! He watched as she wandered slowly amongst the stalls, occasionally touching garments on hangers here, looking at artwork there. When she stopped to look at some earrings laid out on a table he got an idea of how restrictive her brace was because she could only see them by bending way forward at the hips, keeping her head and body absolutely rigid as she leaned over the table. Then, selecting one she straightened up and held it up in front of her face as she examined it. She never moved her head even slightly, and he couldn't see any sign of flexibility at the waist either. So it wasn't just the neck brace he had guessed it to be, it went all the way down to her hips. He tried to get a better look at it, but her blondish hair hanging onto her shoulders concealed all but the front of it. He could clearly see the big silver chin pad, rising quite high at the sides and wrapping very closely round her lower jaw, and below that a single front support running down close to her throat. He could also make out what looked like a neck-ring extending back from that and disappearing into her hair. He'd never seen anything quite like it. This didn't look at all like the sort of brace one would wear for a few weeks after an accident or surgery, the ill-fitting one-size type with stiff white adjustment straps poking out in all directions. This looked very much like a custom fitted thing, and a long-term commitment. He felt a stirring in the front of his trousers at the thought.

He knew he had to approach her before she left the market and got on her way again or he would have to follow her in the hope of some opportunity to speak to her. He knew from experience that it never works to try to actually stop someone in order to strike up a conversation, so he might have to follow her for quite a while waiting for his moment, and that would look as though he was stalking her. He wasn't into stalking. He was sure it was always blatantly obvious, if not to the subject then at least to anyone watching. And it was demeaning, it bordered on harassment and it probably made the "subject" feel extremely uncomfortable. No, he had decided his motto in these situations should be "Talk, don't stalk".

So he had to move right now, or risk never getting another chance to speak to her - ever! If he thought about it too long he'd find some reason why he should delay. Or he'd rehearse so many possible conversations in his head that he'd panic when she finally spoke to him. No, he must act immediately! So, trying hard not to rehearse anything, he made his way closer as she moved slowly along, his mouth dry, his heart thumping and his knees threatening to fold under him at any moment.

She paused at a table laden with old hand-tools and garage junk. He pounced. Actually, he walked over to the table as casually and disinterestedly as he imagined one would normally approach a table laden with blunt saws and bent screwdrivers. She was bending low over a box of old brass odds and ends as he pretended to study the stuff on display. He picked up one of those oddly shaped wrench things you find where lawnmowers go to die and said "I'll bet most of these didn't fit anything the day they were made - destined from birth to end up at junk stalls like this." Just sharing a simple observation, suitably un-'pick-up line'-ish, he thought.

She had to straighten up and turn towards him completely in order to see his face. As their eyes met she gave him a friendly smile "Yes, these tables always seem to be full of them, don't they?" She was truly beautiful, and had an enchanting smile and a lovely voice. He was in heaven! Then she turned towards the table and tilted her body forward again, resting one hand on her knee while she dug around in the box. He couldn't help staring at her, and he felt sure that she could feel his eyes on her. He thought he could see a slight reddening of her cheek and wondered if he was imagining it.

He emerged from his trance long enough to realize that this was the critical moment. The next few seconds would determine the future, so he had to do it right first time. Although she couldn't see that he was watching her, she must have been almost expecting him to because her present awkward pose was so very unnatural it couldn't fail to attract attention. Now if he pretended to ignore it, as most people would, as his parents always insisted he do with their urgent tugs at his arm "don't stare darling, come away", she would know that he was pretending, and he would be doing nothing to make her feel more comfortable. For to ignore means to withhold acknowledgement, and without acknowledgement there can be no acceptance. "Don't stare at the freak, come away!"

But if he acknowledged it gently, without causing her embarrassment, he stood to gain some common ground, establish some trust, a sense of acceptance. A freak, once acknowledged and accepted, is no longer a freak. He took the plunge.

"Looks like they made the tables a bit low" he said, trying include an unpatronizing compassionate smile in his tone.

To his relief she replied with a deliciously low giggle, followed by a relaxed pause. She didn't straighten up. He knew he had succeeded, she must have heard that smile.
"I'm looking for another one like this" she said, holding up a chunky brass door-hinge, dark green with age, "but you can never find two the same".

Description
THE OLD BRACE MAKER - PART ONE

They sat at the small table in a quiet corner of the restaurant, gazing at each other in the light of the candle flame. The evening had gone so quickly, there had hardly been a break in conversation since they sat down, they were both completely immersed in the delight of getting to know each other and discovering how much they had in common. She sat very upright on the edge her chair and he leaned close as they talked.

The place was very quiet now. It had been fairly full when they arrived and as he followed a few paces behind her to the table he had noticed how almost every head had turned to stare at her as she passed, he heard the hushed whispers, some diners even nudging their partners discretely or jerking their heads in her direction to punctuate a whispered comment about her. He knew that most, particularly the men, had noticed her because she was so strikingly beautiful, but he also knew perfectly well that all eyes had immediately shifted to the formidable steel brace visible at her neck that was the cause of her erect posture. It would have been difficult for anyone to miss it, and hardly surprising that it should draw comment on such a beautiful woman.

He had been mesmerized by her all evening, and not just by her physical beauty. She was charming, funny and intelligent. She had a natural shyness which he found absolutely enchanting. She seemed to be a very private person and he was enjoying the challenge of slowly earning her trust. He could feel her responding to him, beginning to open up to him a little at a time. Initially whenever the conversation shifted to more personal matters she had tended to break off eye-contact with him, but as the evening progressed he noticed he could hold her gaze more easily, as though she was more willing to allow him to see inside her.

As they waited for their coffees he had placed his hand casually near to hers on the tablecloth and now, judging this to be the right moment, he edged his fingers towards hers and touched her gently. To his dismay she recoiled and withdrew her hand, abruptly dissolving the relaxed atmosphere they had been enjoying. As her face began to redden she tried to apologize. "I'm so sorry Dave, I didn't mean it like that, it's not you, it's just..."

He cursed himself inwardly for being too hasty with her but she interrupted his thoughts.
"There's something you should know, something I have to tell you" she said, "before you, before this goes....."

His face barely concealed his apprehension as he waited for what would come next.
She chose her words slowly and carefully: "Look, I've enjoyed this evening enormously, really I have Dave, I like talking to you, … I like being with you, more than you could imagine… it's just … that … I don't think we should be doing this. I wasn't thinking very far ahead when I accepted this invitation. It must look as though I was leading you on".

His worried look changed to one of incredulity. "What do you mean? I thought you felt pretty much the way I feel. Was I wrong?" he asked.

"I don't think there's much future in … in our … well, … I don't think there would be much point in us … " her words trailed off.

"In our getting a bit more serious? Why ever not, Claire?"

There was a long pause. Then she said "It's this thing… it's my brace...", blushing visibly even in the candlelight, "… it doesn't … um … well, I can't … what I mean is we … oh, boy, this is going to be difficult!..." She gave an awkward little laugh and tried to look away, to gather herself, but the brace held her head firmly and only her eyes moved.

He looked at her sitting there so poised, so erect and so beautiful. The golden reflections of the candle flame danced brightly on the wide polished steel bar that emerged from the front of her blouse and ran up to the sculpted silver form which curled up the around the sides of her jaw. His eyes followed the ring of steel encircling her very slender neck to where he could just glimpse one of the struts behind. Her sandy-blonde hair was twisted up into a loose knot high on her head and the few stray curls which hung softly down her cheeks contrasted beautifully with the rigid steel of the brace.

Her eyes, lashes and eyebrows were quite dark considering her blonde hair. This meant that although she was wearing very little make-up she still looked as though she was ready for a photo-shoot. She had beautiful skin, and she was at that age when he felt a woman is at her most beautiful, when a few subtle little lines make an appearance around her eyes and mouth when she smiles, enhancing them and giving her a sort of interesting sparkle. When she laughed that wonderful deep velvet laugh he noticed that her mouth widened slightly asymmetrically, exposing her even bottom teeth more on one side than the other. He loved that. He made her laugh just so he could see it again and again.

"Okay, here it is..." She began again, jolting him back to the present. There was no laughter in her voice now. "You see, Dave, I wear this thing all the time … so … I don't think it would be fair to you … I'm sure you wouldn't ..."

"Wait, Claire, please ..." He touched her hand as he interrupted her "I honestly don't mind your brace at all. It really doesn't bother me in the least. Actually, I'm hardly aware of it … " He was lying. He was very aware of her brace, it was the second thing he had noticed about her, the first was that he found her very attractive, but the brace was what made him stop the car and approach her, so it was probably the main reason they were here tonight, but he would never tell her this.

Yes, he often noticed attractive women, his eye seemed to be quite practised at scanning a crowded place and fixing on the most attractive woman there, he couldn't seem to help it and it didn't do any harm. "Beauty is there to be appreciated," he told himself, "that's the whole point of it, and there's nothing quite as beautiful as a beautiful woman". Nothing much ever came of it of course, he liked to let his eye linger on her, just for as long as she was in view, and then she was gone and that was that.

It would have been the same when he first noticed her waiting to cross the street as he drove by, he saw her turn slowly at the waist to look for traffic. "Mmmm! She's nice. Carries herself regally, elegantly, like a cat". And that would have been that, but then the sunlight glinted off the brace supporting her chin. Suddenly everything changed. He had to get a good look at her, try to meet her, talk to her. He always likened this moment to those movie scenes inside a submarine under attack, all the klaxons and sirens and red flashing lights and wildly tilting decks. This required drastic action. Fast! He looked for her again in the rear-view mirror, then pulled the car quickly into a side street and parked it. His heart was pounding and his legs felt weak. He was sure he could feel the chemicals surging into his bloodstream, must be adrenaline and morphine together or something. He felt that strange and yet familiar feeling, his focus razor-sharp but somehow woolly and detached at the same time.

No time to feed the parking-meter, he'd have to take a chance on that, and he'd miss his business meeting, but that would have to take care of itself. Trifling matters in comparison with the task at hand. As he headed for the place he had last seen her he could hear his pulse thumping in his ears.

There! She was moving between the cluttered stalls of an open-air street market. Perfect! He slipped into an adjacent row, from here he could watch her without her noticing. Late twenties, no, more like early thirties, slender, well dressed, sort of casual-but-elegant, just a hint of makeup, hair loose and natural, no rings on her left hand. And she looks comfortable on her own, so she's not waiting for someone. Wonderful! He watched as she wandered slowly amongst the stalls, occasionally touching garments on hangers here, looking at artwork there. When she stopped to look at some earrings laid out on a table he got an idea of how restrictive her brace was because she could only see them by bending way forward at the hips, keeping her head and body absolutely rigid as she leaned over the table. Then, selecting one she straightened up and held it up in front of her face as she examined it. She never moved her head even slightly, and he couldn't see any sign of flexibility at the waist either. So it wasn't just the neck brace he had guessed it to be, it went all the way down to her hips. He tried to get a better look at it, but her blondish hair hanging onto her shoulders concealed all but the front of it. He could clearly see the big silver chin pad, rising quite high at the sides and wrapping very closely round her lower jaw, and below that a single front support running down close to her throat. He could also make out what looked like a neck-ring extending back from that and disappearing into her hair. He'd never seen anything quite like it. This didn't look at all like the sort of brace one would wear for a few weeks after an accident or surgery, the ill-fitting one-size type with stiff white adjustment straps poking out in all directions. This looked very much like a custom fitted thing, and a long-term commitment. He felt a stirring in the front of his trousers at the thought.

He knew he had to approach her before she left the market and got on her way again or he would have to follow her in the hope of some opportunity to speak to her. He knew from experience that it never works to try to actually stop someone in order to strike up a conversation, so he might have to follow her for quite a while waiting for his moment, and that would look as though he was stalking her. He wasn't into stalking. He was sure it was always blatantly obvious, if not to the subject then at least to anyone watching. And it was demeaning, it bordered on harassment and it probably made the "subject" feel extremely uncomfortable. No, he had decided his motto in these situations should be "Talk, don't stalk".

So he had to move right now, or risk never getting another chance to speak to her - ever! If he thought about it too long he'd find some reason why he should delay. Or he'd rehearse so many possible conversations in his head that he'd panic when she finally spoke to him. No, he must act immediately! So, trying hard not to rehearse anything, he made his way closer as she moved slowly along, his mouth dry, his heart thumping and his knees threatening to fold under him at any moment.

She paused at a table laden with old hand-tools and garage junk. He pounced. Actually, he walked over to the table as casually and disinterestedly as he imagined one would normally approach a table laden with blunt saws and bent screwdrivers. She was bending low over a box of old brass odds and ends as he pretended to study the stuff on display. He picked up one of those oddly shaped wrench things you find where lawnmowers go to die and said "I'll bet most of these didn't fit anything the day they were made - destined from birth to end up at junk stalls like this." Just sharing a simple observation, suitably un-'pick-up line'-ish, he thought.

She had to straighten up and turn towards him completely in order to see his face. As their eyes met she gave him a friendly smile "Yes, these tables always seem to be full of them, don't they?" She was truly beautiful, and had an enchanting smile and a lovely voice. He was in heaven! Then she turned towards the table and tilted her body forward again, resting one hand on her knee while she dug around in the box. He couldn't help staring at her, and he felt sure that she could feel his eyes on her. He thought he could see a slight reddening of her cheek and wondered if he was imagining it.

He emerged from his trance long enough to realize that this was the critical moment. The next few seconds would determine the future, so he had to do it right first time. Although she couldn't see that he was watching her, she must have been almost expecting him to because her present awkward pose was so very unnatural it couldn't fail to attract attention. Now if he pretended to ignore it, as most people would, as his parents always insisted he do with their urgent tugs at his arm "don't stare darling, come away", she would know that he was pretending, and he would be doing nothing to make her feel more comfortable. For to ignore means to withhold acknowledgement, and without acknowledgement there can be no acceptance. "Don't stare at the freak, come away!"

But if he acknowledged it gently, without causing her embarrassment, he stood to gain some common ground, establish some trust, a sense of acceptance. A freak, once acknowledged and accepted, is no longer a freak. He took the plunge.

"Looks like they made the tables a bit low" he said, trying include an unpatronizing compassionate smile in his tone.

To his relief she replied with a deliciously low giggle, followed by a relaxed pause. She didn't straighten up. He knew he had succeeded, she must have heard that smile.
"I'm looking for another one like this" she said, holding up a chunky brass door-hinge, dark green with age, "but you can never find two the same".