I came to my hotel room in a strange mood. I spent the day with a charming young lady, who showed me her friendship. She had dinner with me, she talked to me, and she held my hand at the concert. Her voice was calm and pleasant and her touch was warm. I liked staying with her. I enjoyed listening to the beautiful music with her. I liked her, but yet I did not feel happy. I felt badly because I met her again at one of my "pretender trips". Although I always felt it was the real me when I wore my plus contact lenses with the strong minus-eighteen-diopter glasses over them, that day I knew that the glasses were the biggest problem of mine. It was not the real Paul who she met. It was the other person, the person from my other life. How could she be a friend of a fake person?
My fascination, my obsession with strong glasses had brought me into a situation I could not solve. Nobody, who knew me as a "normal" man, had ever seen me with my strong glasses on. I never had to explain to anybody why I wear strong glasses on weekends and thin glasses on my working days. I lived two different lives. Mary came into my second life, my recreational life, the life that was fake. I could not imagine how I might explain her - a disabled woman, who had to spend her life confined into a wheelchair, that my "best hobby" was to pretend I was disabled. Suddenly, the way I fulfilled my desire to wear strong glasses seemed stupid to me. I was thinking about those people whose vision is so low that they have to wear strong glasses with thick lenses without having any possibility to put them off, take out the contact lenses like I did at weekend evenings, and do things bare-eyed enjoying normal vision. My high myopia was fake, my glasses were fake, my weekend life was fake, and I felt like a fake man too. I was insincere. I was a two-faced person.
The other problem was her wheelchair. I realized I did not know anything about disabled people. None of my relatives or friends was disabled. Nobody had ever told me how to handle those people or how to approach them. I did not have any information about problems they might suffer from or conditions they have to overcome in their lives. Her wheelchair did not scare me off; I even felt it made her fragile, feminine, and rather mysterious in my eyes. However I realized I was probably not balanced enough to become as close to Mary as I had wished when I was dreaming about her.
I went down to the small bar on the first floor of my hotel and bought a big glass of Russian vodka. I held it in my hand - the bottom was as thick as my lenses - took a deep breath and drank it in one big gulp. The bartender made a funny face, took the glass and said: "Man, you drink like a Russian military officer. One more glass?" I looked at him. He was handing me a piece of bread waiting if I would smell it like the Russians do. I nodded, smelled the bread, took the second glass and sat at a table near a jukebox. I sipped my vodka and lit a cigarette. My situation was bad. I did not know what to do. There were two ways: The first was to keep pretending high myopia and then return back home into my normal life, and, if Mary wanted to see me again, meet her with my strong glasses on again. The life could go this way for some time, but one day I would have to solve the problem. The second possibility was to tell Mary the truth as soon as possible to get rid off this two-face situation. Her reaction was unpredictable. However, it was very doubtful she might understand. I was thinking about it for a while, drank two more glasses of vodka and went to bed without making any final decision. I was drunk like a skunk.
The vodka was really strong and thus the next morning was horrible. A long shower helped. As soon as I felt better I put the the contacts in. Then my cell phone rang. I quickly felt for my strong glasses and looked at the small display. There was an unknown number. I pressed the answer button.
The voice in the phone made me happy.
"Hi, Paul, this is Mary, where are you? You sleepyhead, they don't have any tickets for this morning, so I just want to ask you if you mind spending some time together sightseeing the town."
"Oh, what a pity ... OK ... I will be there in a minute."
"I will wait in the front of my hotel."
In a hurry and joy, I took my pair of jeans, a denim blouse, and my sneakers and ran out of the building. The torturous issue whether to go on pretending or tell her the truth was gone.
Mary was waiting in front of her hotel as she had said. She was wearing an old pair of jeans and a red jumper. I noticed her legs were fixed with those black belts to the wheelchair again. She had black sunglasses. When I came near she took the shades off and smiled.
"Ciao." She was smiling so nicely that I thought I would kiss her.
"Hello." I squatted to have my head at the same height. "Where shall we go?"
"Have you had breakfast?"
"No."
"So! This is what I expected, all men are the same, let's have some breakfast first."
She behaved so naturally that all my doubts about problems with her disability and her wheelchair disappeared. There were just she and I and the sunny Saturday morning and the life was great. Good breakfast is also a very important thing. Suddenly I got an idea. There is an old castle called Kuks near the town where there are very interesting old statues and a park full of big beautiful trees. I suggested we could visit the castle. Mary lifted her eyebrows and said it was a good idea . I ran back to my hotel to get my car.
When I came back I saw a paraplegic person moving from a wheelchair into a car for the first time in my life. Mary refused my help. She locked the wheelchair, unstrapped her legs, removed one armrest, held the door and the top of the seat and moved her bottom inside. Then she took her left leg and moved it into the car. Her right leg got inside the same way. It looked quite complicated and difficult - although she managed to get inside quite quickly.
When we arrived to a parking lot near the castle, Mary got out of the car in a similar way, her bottom first, legs next. She looked at me watching her and smiled: "Thank you that you are so patient. It takes me some time to get out. Let's go." We bought some Coke and walked around. After a while we came to the beginning of a long stairway. It was wide and very long. Tens of stairs went up towards the castle. The sight was beautiful. The architect designed this part the way that anybody who wanted to come closer to the castle had to climb up the stairs. The reward for the effort was a number of interesting sights at the building and baroque statues.
I knew there was another way. It ran to the left and wind up the slope without any stairs, but I thought it would be pity not to experience the sights and not to get the impression of walking the stairway towards the castle. The architect's intention was obvious. Visitors were to go up slowly admiring the castle step by step, thinking about the allegorical statues, and, on the top of the stairs they were to turn back and look at the valley with the road and another baroque building on the other side of the valley. If we had gone by the other way we would have lost the most impressive part of the journey. I wanted Mary to see it the same way as any other visitor.
As it would be too difficult to pull Mary upstairs in her wheelchair I decided to carry her up without the wheelchair, find a bench she could sit on, and then go back for her wheelchair. It was a crazy idea, because it was not clear if there was any bench let alone if I was able to carry her up so many stairs. When I told Mary what I wanted to do, she remained silent looking on her legs. She took a breath a few times as if she was going to tell something, but she swallowed the words. Just after I gave up, because I started to think it was a totally stupid idea, she looked up, gave me a dreamy sad smile and said: "You are so kind, Paul." She unfastened the black belts and lifted her arms.
Like in a dream, I took her into my arms and started to walk towards the big stairway. The top floor and the roof of the castle rose up behind the top of the stairs. We were going slowly. I did not want to fall down with her. Mary embraced me. She was holding my shoulder firmly. I could feel her breath on my right cheek. Her skin smelled sweetly. I looked into her eyes. Our faces were so close that it would be very easy to steal a kiss from her. I felt a surge of strength in my body. Here we go! I proceeded in the center of the stairs. We were in the axis of the magic complex of all the baroque buildings in the valley. We could see more and more of the front part of the castle. Neither of us said a single word. I got aroused by the contact with her body.
When we got to the top of the stairs I turned sideways, so that she could see the shallow valley, the stairs, a road lined with 300-year old chestnut trees and a smaller building on the opposite slope. The sight was very impressive. Mary stopped breathing. After a moment I felt a muscle move in her legs. I just thought it was strange, I thought none of her leg muscles could move. Then she said: "Put me over there on the bench, and bring my wheelchair, please," and added with a smile: "Do not worry, I will wait for you."
The wheelchair was unbelievably heavy, the second way up seemed long. The top of the stairs was so far away and so high above my head that I thought I would not make it. When I got back to the bench where Mary was sitting I thought I would die. I was exhausted. I did not want her to notice how groggy I was. I lit a cigarette and sat on the uppermost stair to pretend I was admiring the scenery. I fact I needed a rest. I could not understand how it was possible that I made the way so easily with Mary but the way with the wheelchair, which was much lighter than her, almost ruined me.
"You are a very strong man, Paul." I looked up. My princess was sitting on her throne again and rolling towards me. "I would like to tell you I enjoyed being held in your arms. Thank you."
I took a drag from the cigarette and tried to look as if my hobby was to carry ten girls up one hundred stairways every day.
"You're welcome."
She smiled again and looked at the building on the opposite side of the valley: "What is there?"
The image of another stairway looked like a nightmare.
"Oh, that's probably a kind of summerhouse." I said hoping she would not want to go there.
"I am just asking. I do not want us to go there. You have worked enough today," said Mary releasing the brakes of the wheelchair. "You do not need to get to the Guinness's Book of Records."
She rolled closer to me and caressed my cheek.
"You are very kind to me."
She took my glasses off and dried my forehead and face with her handkerchief. I forgot she must have seen how much sweat slid down my face after I had brought the wheelchair. I closed my eyes so that she would not notice I had my contact lenses. She put my glasses slowly back on my nose.
"They are very heavy," she said. "What can you see without them?"
"Oh, just a mess of spots of colors, without any depth or particular shape."
"Do you have any spare glasses with you?"
"Yes, always, I would be totally lost and helpless if I lost or broke my glasses."
"My I have a look at them once more?"
The discussion started to be quite a turn on for me, and my fetishism was waking up. I loved talking about strong glasses. Only this time I was rather nervous, because I did not feel like telling Mary the truth. If she had not understood, I would have lost her friendship forever. I handed her the case with my spare strong glasses. She opened it, took the heavy spectacles out and put them on. My heart stopped. Mary was looking through the thick lenses at me. I knew she actually could not see anything, as those where my second special glasses with a lot of cylinder diopters. I was enjoying the sight for a while. I liked her. Her eyes were so small, so hidden behind the thick lenses, and her face became so sexy for me.
She turned her head several times, looked up and down, and - still keeping her glasses on - said:
"I cannot see anything, I cannot focus. I even cannot find any way how to identify any of the spots I can see."
"Mary," I answered, "you cannot see anything, those glasses are too strong for you. I think your own glasses are barely stronger than one diopter, so there is no chance for you to be able to accommodate."
"And they are heavy too," she observed.
"Yes, they have to be, the lenses are thick." My blood pressure was rising, as I was looking at her heavily bespectacled face.
"Ehm ... it's interesting experience, I wondered what it was like to wear glasses like yours since I saw you for the first time," she continued putting them off.
"Thank you," she handed me the case back. "How many diopters are there?"
"These are minus 18 diopters." I answered slowly.
"They are very strong. What is it like to wear so strong glasses?"
"Oh, it is quite normal for me." I lied. "I am used to wearing them. Well, there are some problems with peripheral vision, which is blurry. I mean I need to turn my head rather then moving my eyes. But it is OK."
"I have not seen anybody wearing glasses as thick as yours are." She continued and I felt my blood pressure rising.
"I think only few people have to wear such strong glasses, although I have seen some people wearing glasses of a similar strength. How many diopters do you have?"
She smiled and said: "I have only half of a diopter."
"Do you have any cylindrical diopters to correct astigmatism?" I asked.
"No."
"I think you can see very well without your glasses. Why do you wear them?"
"I like wearing them. I like how I look with my glasses. I think they suit me, don't they?" She surprised me with her answer.
I told her the glasses were very nice and they really suited her - which was true - I only wished she had stronger glasses. The image of her with my spare glasses on her nose was still in my mind turning me on like hell. I thought we should stop the conversation about glasses. I did not want to tell her anything I would be sorry for later. I felt my hands were sweating. It was really too difficult for me to keep on speaking about the topic without telling her too much.
I looked at the castle and suggested to go closer. Mary smiled, nodded, and turned her wheelchair towards the huge building. I felt a great relief, because the situation was so thrilling and sexy for me, that I was not sure if my voice sounded naturally.
We set off to look round the castle. The building was closed but both the park and the yard with columned portico were accessible for visitors.
When we entered the big paved yard, Mary stopped and said: "What a beautiful spot!"
She rolled quickly to the center of the paved space, stopped at a large smooth piece of rock and turned back to me. Then she called "Hallo!" The walls returned the echo back. "Hello!" she called again. "Hello!" echoed the castle.
I was standing near the gate watching her playing. She looked so nice and happy. She noticed me watching her.
"It's so nice here!" she called.
Before I could come closer to her she held the wheels firmly and pushed them with a strong swing. Her wheelchair moved to the left and started making a pirouette. She kept making the move again and again.
I was standing there in amazement. She was enjoying our trip. I could see her dancing. I was looking at her making more and more pirouettes and rolling in arcs when I realized I loved her.
to be continued
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