You think a blind like me can't appreciate a beautiful woman?" I turned around to face him.
"No, I don't think that at all.  Just because you can't see me doesn't mean you can't appreciate the way I feel or smell."  He seemed pleased, but also surprised.  Hadn't anyone ever talked about these things with him before?  Needless to say, I arrived at the wedding hours late, stoned out of my skull and having forgotten the present, but it didn't matter.  As I expected, Chad called me a few days later, in the evening, and asked me to come over.  This time he promised Karen would not be around.  It was already late at night when I arrived.  He had made brownies.  They were kind of mushy and yet burned, but still, it was sweet of him to make the effort.  While he fiddled with the sound on his massive stereo set up, I looked around his apartment.  In the corner was a large collection of white canes.  Braille notes written on index cards and plastic sheets were tacked to serveral bulletin boards, scattered on the floor and piled up around a heavy cast iron Braillewriter.  Guitars and other band equipment were leaning up against the walls.  The only decoration was a copy of an ultrasound picture, presumably of the baby currently inside Karen. It looked like alot of static.  We chatted some more, but I was getting impatient.  How could I get him to touch me again? 
"Did I tell you I'm taking yoga lessons now?" I asked.  Pretty lame, but it was the best I could think of.  He seemed interested, so I volunteered to show him a few positions.  It didn't take five minutes before he pulled his shirt off and that was the end of any yoga lesson.  Next to the bed was an actual red velvet loveseat, and I pulled him down onto it.  It felt so bohemian.  I kneeled above him, covering his white skin with kisses.  I leaned down, making a tent with my hair, and bit and licked him all around his neck, enjoying the way he trembled beneath me. 
"You knew I'd be good," I said as I pulled down his jeans and took his cock in my mouth.  His whole body went stiff and he clutched convulsively at the edges of the loveseat.  I waited until he was gasping and shaking, then moved back up, putting his hands on my breasts. 
"I never thought when I first met you ..." he said and I laughed. 
"I did."
Suddenly the red velvet loveseat seemed cramped, in spite of its boho charm, especially when the queen size bed was only inches away.  I suggested we move, but he resisted.  When I pressured him, he finally admitted that Karen had bought the bed for him, in a misguided attempt to guilt trip him into staying faithful to her.  I observed that it didn't seem to be working and I had no intention of spending the night on the floor.  The rest of his resistance crumbled and I carried him to the bed.  He was really a little skinny guy, and I felt like I could practically toss him around.  Once in bed, he had yet another objection.
"Uh, I don't have any condoms here, you know."
"It's okay, I came prepared," I assured him, as I pulled the condoms and lube out of my purse.  I took it out of the package and put it carefully in his hands right side up, then let him put it on himself, not wanting to hurt him.  He was just the right size, and I wriggled in ecstacy as he slid into me.  I watched as he leaned over me, frowning in concentration, his unseeing gaze fixed at some point above my head.  He was here and yet not here, locked away in his own blank world as we pressed close as we possibly could, as if we could merge our skins.  I felt utter happiness wash over me in waves.  After we finished, we dozed for a few hours then did it again.  By this time it was morning.  Grey light filtered in through the shades and even though it was the middle of the city, we could hear birds singing.  We went out to breakfast together, then it was time for me to go home. 
Chapter Two for various reasons, it was a long time before I saw Chad again, although we talked frequently on the phone.  By this time, Karen was getting closer to her due date, and he was getting more freaked out.  He alternated between wanting to run away from the whole thing and utter devotion to her.  I tried to be a good friend but I was starting to lost interest.  I don't have much respect for a beauty school dropout who tricks her boyfriend into getting her pregnant then wears her grandmother's ring even after he said he doesn't want to marry her.  And I wanted him to come over again.  I finally convinced him when I promised to take him to a head shop hear my house so he could buy some screens.  This time there was no need for silly games.  We were all over each other the minute I shut the door.  I led him to the bedroom and pushed him onto the bed, then kneeled on top of him.  When I bent down to kiss his mouth, my long hair made a tent around our faces, closing us into a space that was dark, hot and damp.
"Did you miss me?"  I asked, looking for a sign of his devotion.  He only groaned in reply.  Still straddling him, I sat up straight and pulled off my shirt and bra.  He wasn't sure what I was doing, but he could guess, and his mouth smiled in anticipation even though his plastic eyes remained flat and lifeless.  I grabbed his hands and put them over my breasts, and my nipples hardened under his touch.  He sat up to get closer to me as he ran his sensitive hands all over me.  I pulled his shirt off too, and we both gapsed as the bare flesh of our chests met.  Soon we had traded place, so that I was lying on my back.  Without any prompting from me, he pulled off my jeans and went down on me.  I was pleased, not just because he was good, but because he seemed to emjoy it too.  By the time he was done, I was panting and twitching.  He lay down beside me and for a while we were silent.  When I could finally speak again, I said,
"You're pretty good at that."
He laughed.  "I got alot of practice."
"Show off!"
"No, It's true.  How many women do you think I've had?"  I rolled my eyes.
"Geez, I don't know.  Isn't the average around ten?"
"One hundred."
"No way! You are such a liar.  So am I number one hundred or one hundred and one?"
He looked a bit sheepish.  "Ok, so I haven't kept exact count, but it's somewhere around there. "
I wondered if he could really be telling the truth.  As he proceeded to tell me stories of seductions, casual encounters and furtive experiments, I began to see him in a new light.  At first I had entertained the fantasy that he had been leading a wretched, deprived life, surrounded by obese, inexperienced and repressed women, until I came along and showed him how it was done.  But now it seemed that he had far more varied experiences than I, yet the thought was not unappealing.  I especially liked the stories about a certain ex-roommate and his girlfriend.  They would have sex in front of him in the living room and when he realized what they were doing, they would invite him to join them.  Friends who came to visit were sent naked to his room.  They rented porno videos and described the action to him.  It was as though they thought of Chad as an experiment in sensuality.  And really, this was not so different from my own feelings.  Deprived of sight, his most important sense became touch, and by attenuating this most erotic of the senses, he became a man who lived for love.  Still, I did feel a little embarassed by my relative lack of experience, and said so.  He assured me that it didn't matter. 
"I guess not, I still managed to seduce you, after all" I said.  He frowned a bit.
"yea, but what made you do it?"
I laughed nervously.  "I ah, I just thought you were sexy."
"Yea, but why me?"
Suddenly, I froze inside.  It was obvious, even tohim, that we were completely mismatched.  Me, getting advanced degrees, travelling all over the world, and him, a disabled high school drop out scruffy pothead, living on SSI.  I knew the real question was, what's a classy lady like you doing with a bum like me?  but it hung unspoken in the air between us.  I didn't say anything.
                                                                          NEXT