How I Went Blind

Love at Last Sight

It was the beginning of summer after my college graduation.  Audrey and I had gone to lunch several times in the past year or so, with increasing frequency, but I would not have called it "dating."  The day came, though, when she said, "Would you like to see my house?"

"Sure," I said.  Audrey was a couple of years older than me but she was one beautiful person, inside as well as out.  She drove me to East Lakeside Drive, a quiet tree-lined street at the edge our town, where we parked with the engine running.

"Just one thing, though."  She reached into the pocket in the door beside her and pulled out what looked like a couple of pieces of translucent paper maybe two inches square.  She extended them to me and asked,  "Do you know what these are?"

"Sure I do.  They're eye patches," I replied.

"OK, there's something you need to know.  I like my men blind."

"Go figure!" I exclaimed.  "Wow!"

She said, "That is not at all the reaction I expected."

I replied, "Listen, all my life I've been obsessed with the thought of being blind, as far back as I can remember.   I even managed to buddy up when I was eight years old with this blind kid my age I'd seen at the mall a few times.  Turned out his house was just a few blocks from the apartment where I lived with my mother.  

"He mostly lived at the school for the blind but on breaks and vacations he'd call me as soon as he got home and I'd spend a lot of time with him.  His parents thought I hung the moon because I cared about him.  I learned a lot about being blind from him, even how to do Braille and navigate with a blind cane.  I got a sleep mask and took to wearing it whenever I was at his house.  I let him and his parents think I was using it to try to understand his reality better.  For Christmas that first year they gave me a pack of eye patches with a blind cane of my own, and wraparound sunglasses, Keith's idea.  

"For the next three and a half years, whenever he was home, I got to spend the time as the blind kid I secretly longed to be, all day every day unless we went somewhere.  They took me with them on vacation to the ocean each summer, three straight weeks without eyesight.  They presented me as a friend from Keith's school.  If they found me strange they never said anything and I never let on about my obsession to them or anyone else ever.  You're the first one I've told."

"Incredible!" she exclaimed.  She reached into the door pocket again and pulled out a pair of wraparound dark glasses and a folded blind cane.

"You come ready for anything," I said.

"I try," she replied.  

I set the glasses and cane in my lap. I unwrapped the flesh-toned eye patches. They were the kind that's hollow in the middle so you can open your eye comfortably, like Keith's parents used to keep me supplied with.  I put one on my right eye.  Then I  bade farewell to the world of light as I applied the other to my left eye.  I felt for the sunglasses and put them on.  My wang started surging between my legs.  I felt the car move forward briefly and turn right.  We stopped and I heard a garage door opening in front of us.  We pulled forward and stopped.  Audrey shut off the engine and the garage door closed behind us.  I felt for the handle to open the car door, without success.  Finally Audrey opened it from the outside.  I slid around and let my legs hang from the side of the bucket seat as I unfolded the cane.  "Down there" began to settle.

I got on my feet and Audrey said, "OK, Joe, turn right and let me guide you."  She led me a few steps and turned me around and said, "We're at the bottom of the steps up to the kitchen door.  Three steps up and turn right.  I felt for the steps with my cane and guided myself with my left hand on the crude wooden stair rail.  From behind me Audrey said, "The door's unlocked, go ahead and let yourself in."