Sex that night was crude, grating, mean, lewd, sometimes ugly, and consuming. It was so out-of-control that it was borderline evil. We’d brought some toys along and we used them all, in particular, a double dildo with a vibrator built into each end. I butt-fucked Rina half a dozen times. She did the same to me. Our clits took a pounding. Actually, we each took a pounding everywhere.
I think we both passed out for the last time about 4:00 in the morning. We’d never eaten dinner, which meant we’d had sex for something like ten hours straight. I was awakened by a knocking at the door. I tried to wake Rina to answer it with no luck. I stumbled up and felt my way to the door – God knows where my cane was - opened it without thinking about either the danger of what I was doing, or that I was standing there wearing nothing at all, and said, “Huh?”
There was no answer. I knew someone was right there, looking at me, because I could hear breathing. “Who’s there?” I asked. “I can’t see you, I’m blind.”
“I’m from Housekeeping,” a woman said with a Jamaican-like patois. Her voice sounded friendly, with a hint of humor. Yeah, I’ll bet she found that moment funny!
“Can you give us an hour?” I asked.
“Of course, Ms. Adams.” That was the cool thing about high-end hotels; they’re incredibly polite even when you’re standing there with no clothes on.
Then she surprised me. “Your nipple rings and studs are very lovely, Ms. Adams.”
“Thank you.” I tried to be proper, as though this sort of thing happened every day.
“Do you mind my asking, do they come out?”
“Nope. Never. They’re interlocked inside my nips.”
I couldn’t see her expression, but I swear I felt the air move as she shivered and sighed with delight. “How delicious,” she said in a richly-inflected alto.
I was feeling bolder as I woke up more. “You can touch them if you want.” She did. I felt cool, long, delicate fingers circle them on both breasts, squeeze them in several places, flip the rings, twist them, and then move above them as both her hands cupped my breasts. It felt very good and I moaned and purred quietly.
“Thank you, Miss,” she said. “I’ll return in an hour. Goodbye, Miss.”
“Bye.” I closed the door. What the hell was that? I thought to myself. I heard Rina stirring. “You won’t believe what just happened,” I said.
“I don’t believe anything that’s happened since yesterday afternoon!” Rina exclaimed painfully.
We cleaned up or, rather, Rina did most of it because I couldn’t see what a disaster there was. A messy room is a real no-no for a blind person. It became an obstacle course of things to trip over and fall against. We did find all of my stash though, and I locked it up.
So much for innocent Natalie Adams, I said to myself. I was determined not to be so reckless again. To my credit, I wasn’t. Stripper, junkie or something else, I was still going to be a decent person, and I was going to conduct myself that way as much as I possibly could. I promised myself and Rina.
**********
Needless to say, we spent that day lying around the beach and the pool, after finally feeling better and consuming a huge lunch between us. We had dinner in our room. Rina shot me up normally that evening. I needed sex and she happily obliged, but it wasn’t the frenetic martial arts of the previous night.
We decided to go shopping the next day and took a taxi to George Town, at the southern end of Seven Mile Beach. It was a pleasant day and, judging by the sounds of people, it seemed to be a busy one in town. We bought some jewelry, including a garnet nose stud for Rina that I talked her into. According to Rina, its color matched my garnets; she compared it to my navel button to make sure. Rina didn’t, of course, have her nose pierced, at least not until moments before we walked out of the shop. I had them do it right there. They put it in her left nostril, as I’d asked them to do, and locked it on with a special, flat clasp so she wouldn’t lose it.
Rina was feeling hustled, and that was exactly what I was doing to her. She did it for me, and made no secret of the fact that under no other circumstances would she have allowed her nose to be pierced, except for my asking her to. I’ll admit that having it done to her turned me on. My fingers lightly felt around it and it felt cute, exactly what I wanted. I thought it would look precious with her short, uh … uh … uh … hair.
I was suddenly shocked. I’d never thought about it before. Never, I swear. I turned to where I thought Rina was. She must have seen the shock on my face because she said, “What’s wrong? Don’t you like it?” Thinking I was reacting to her nose stud.
“No, no. I love it. I’ll tell you outside.” I paid and we left.
“What’s wrong?” Rina asked me again.
“It’s surprising and embarrassing actually,” I said. “I was thinking I liked the way you must look with the nose stud, based on my touching your face with it in there. That’s how I make the picture in my mind, as you and Gina taught me. Then I thought it would look good with your hair, but I realized that … that … Rina, after all this time together, and all the things we’ve talked about, and all the times we’ve made love, I have no idea what color your hair is!”
“Really?”
“Really. You’ve never told me. I’ve never asked either, probably because only the length was apparent to me. It could be green and I’d never know it. I feel really weird right now! You’re my lover. I probably should know your hair color.”
“Why? It’s meaningless to you, right?”
“Yeah. I can’t tell anyway, obviously. But I think I should know everything about my lover that I can, right?”
“When you put it like that, I suppose so. It’s interesting that your blindness has become so much a part of who you are now, that you sometimes don’t even seek visual cues. Or clues. That must have happened within your first month. By the beginning of your second blind month, we were having sex. I assume you’d want to know what your sex partner looks like.”
“Yes, but I do know what you look like.”
“Only by feel.”
“Yes, but that’s how I determine … Oh,” I said.
“Right, it doesn’t occur to you anymore to determine what a person looks like by anything other than feel.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing really, other than your becoming blind is in the past. Your brain has accepted that no sight comes to you and has, obviously, forgotten about it, forcing your mind to no longer consider the visual information that used to be important to you. It’s like you’re no longer a woman who used to be able to see but became blind. At this point you’re only a blind woman; your brain and mind know that you receive no sight and don’t expect any. Everything your mind wants to evaluate, it does without visual input.”
That was too close to metaphysical for me to want to figure out. Especially on vacation. So I said, “Look, just tell me what color your hair is! I’m sure it’s not weird or anything.”
“As a matter of fact, Alie, my hair is green,” she said in all seriousness.
“It is?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh … okay,” I said. Now I knew and I let it drop. When I thought about it, it didn’t make any difference; it didn’t matter at all. I tried to picture a green, short-haired girl with the features I’d felt on Rina’s face, in my mind. I couldn’t, but not because her hair was green – which I thought I understood. It was because I couldn’t assemble a visual image very well. I could feel it with my fingers, but I couldn’t construct it as a picture. What was present in my mind was an amorphous concept without the form of an image. No, not amorphous; it wasn’t formless; it simply wasn’t assembled into a picture. I knew Rina’s facial features. I knew what its form was like in relationship to how my own face felt, or Rocco’s or Gini’s or anyone else I’d examined. I knew it, but I couldn’t see it – not literally, and not in my mind.
I’m not sure how to describe that, but I’ll try one more time. When you, O Sighted Pe
rson, picture someone in your mind, you see them as a semi-illuminated form, Right? You see the shape of their head, their skin color, maybe even eye color, if they wear glasses or have a beard or mustache, what is their hair style and color, and so on. Maybe you noticed some of those things but not others. In that image, you don’t include things like the temperature of their forehead, or the volume of air passing into or out of their nose, right? Well, likewise, I don’t think about their color – their color anywhere. I can’t measure it or relate to it. Therefore, it’s irrelevant and has become unimportant to me.
We walked on. I got the feeling that Rina was looking at me.
“What?” I asked, half expecting that she wouldn’t know what I was talking about.
“My hair is very light blonde, Alie. Almost like yours was when we first met.”
“Really? Coulda fooled me! When I finally thought about it back in that store, I sort of thought it’d be brunette.”
“No. It’s not the color yours is, it’s the color yours was.”
“Naturally?”
“Yes, but not quite this light. My ancestors were Swedish. My hair is naturally blonde, and I have it lightened to a very pale blonde which is essentially the same shade, but lighter and more vivid.”
“Love, what color are your eyes?” I asked.
“Blue … but lighter than yours. They’re bright, though.”
“So now I know.”
“Does that change your picture of me?” She asked.
“I have a non-visual picture of you. So what you told me changes nothing. I can’t tell if you look good with blonde hair or not. But by touch, I can tell that you’re beautiful to me. I can tell that by the way you respond to me and treat me too, of course. But if a sighted person asks me, now I’ll be able to tell them in descriptive terms that make sense to them. This has been a strange conversation, don’t you think.”
“Yes, until I consider that you’re sightless.”
We walked on and turned down another street.
“Oooh,” Rina said. “There’s an interesting shop.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“It’s called Romania’s, and it doesn’t look like any of the other island shops.”
“Romania’s? On Grand Cayman? Seems out of place – by, maybe, 6,000 miles.”
We entered and, immediately, a woman’s voice said, in heavily-accented English, “Welcome Alie and Rina, we’ve been expecting you.”
Chapter 16 - Gypsy
That was a surprise! I turned to Rina and whispered, “Do we know this woman? She sounds Eastern European.”
“I don’t know her,” Rina said.
“I’m sorry, do I know you?” I asked, turning my head in the direction of the voice.
“No. I suppose I should introduce myself,” the woman said. “My name is Miruna, and this is my sister Neculai.”
“Alo,” said an older, lower-pitched voice.
I was confused. “How do you know who we are, and why did you say you were expecting us?”
“Our sisters told us. That is, our sisters elsewhere in the world.”
“You have sisters in River’s Edge?” This was making even less sense as the conversation evolved.
“I don’t think so. But sometimes, some of us see images on the wind, or in the globe – what you would call a crystal ball. I believe River’s Edge is in the colder regions, correct?
“Uh … yes.”
“As we’ve left home, we’ve tended to settle in warm climes, like here, the Greek islands, the Arab desert, the South Pacific, and so on. But we keep in contact. On the wind.”
This was just plain weird. I didn’t get it. I thought it might be a con, but I couldn’t see the point of it. It sounded like some of her sisters had said we were coming, but how would they have known? And what did “on the wind” mean? Was that an old, Eastern European way to say telephone? Or wireless phone?
“I don’t understand,” Rina said impatiently. “How did your sisters know about us?”
“Ah … we see glimmers on the wind. Occasionally, they are capsules of great joy. Sadly, more often they portend great sadness, or follow great sadness. Sometimes we can see through the sadness and can help. We have helped many, and know of others we have not yet attempted to help. There is Chan-juan, Livia, Frederique, Claire, Saida, Mariana, Kibali and others. All came to be known by one of us, on the wind.
“And, of course, there is Alie.”
“What about me?” I asked.
“Misfortune has befallen you, yet you have honestly tried to make the best of it. You are, as some would say, a survivor, with more inner strength than you would have been expected to have, or that even you thought you possessed.”
Now I was sure this was going to be some kind of con. Miruna would want to read my fortune or something and charge me a lot of money.
“You have been blind for seven months, yet you face more than ten months of nothingness, followed by light, followed by …”
“Well, you’ve done your research, but I’m not buying.” I said. “Let’s go, Rina.”
I took Rina’s arm and we turned to leave.
“You are a heroin addict, and you are very concerned that, when you think this phase of your life is over, you’ll be unable to break the habit.”
How in the world did she know that?
“You’ve been talking to Roger or Rocco.”
“I do not know those people.” Somehow, I believed her. “But we can release the hold the drug has on you. We make teas, you see.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“And why should I?” Rina added.
“I don’t know why you should believe us,” Neculai spoke up this time, “but I know that you already do.”
“How much is this cure going to cost me?” I asked.
“All we ever ask for, is what you believe is fair. However, in this case, we may be able to trade. You have something that could help another elsewhere in the world.” Miruna had spoken again.
“And what is that?” I asked.
“Your blonde hair.”
“In case you didn’t notice, my hair is black,” I pointed out. “And there’s not much of it.”
‘I’ve sensed that your hair is naturally blonde and straight. It’s important for another to have it.”
“I don’t get it,” I said. Now I was getting impatient. “Stop talking in riddles.”
“Let me explain. We try to help women who are in difficult times, almost always not of their own doing. Take your case. You were blinded legitimately, but your sentence turned cruel and life-disrupting when you were re-dosed and the time was extended to eighteen months.”
There was no way she could have known that. No one outside of Uptown Disability Services knew that, and they were legally bound not to divulge it. Rina squeezed my hand, and I knew she realized it too.
“Soon, some of our other sisters will try to help another woman, far away from here. To do that, they will need to give her blonde hair, and other things. Though much is within our power, there are limits. To do what they will be called on to do, they need the duh – there is no exact English word – they need the duh of your hair.”
“And what happens to me if you take the duh of my hair?” I could not believe I was having this conversation.
“You become bald, of course ….”
“No thanks, enough has been done to me.”
“Please, allow me to finish. We will replace the duh of your blonde hair with another. Your hair will then be dark and intensely curly, similar to how it is now, but the curls will be much tighter and perhaps a little coarser. You will need no treatment by a hairdresser to maintain it, because it will then be that way naturally. In fact, two days after we transfer the duh it will grow very quickly overnight until it is a couple of centimeters long. Then it will grow at the normal rate ever after.”
“And if I don’t do this, I can’t have the cure for my addiction?”
“We will
give you the cure regardless. Nothing else would be moral. But we hope you will help us help another.”
I was not going to bite. I didn’t even want to know where the Afro duh had come from. In fact, I started laughing at the whole thing. Duh!
With tears of laughter running from my sightless eyes, I had to ask, “And how do you go about exchanging my duh for another?” And then I laughed even harder. Couldn’t they have chosen another word? I was to find out later that duh was a Romanian word for spirit, or genius or essence, or … well, you get the idea.
“You merely hold the crystal for a moment. Then it happens. The crystal absorbs your duh, and gives you the other. Your curls will drop off, to be replaced by your fresh, natural ones in a couple of days.
“If I touch your crystal all my hair will fall out? Are you going to electrocute me or anything”
“Of course not.”
I was still laughing. “Well duh, if you can make my hair fall out and change to Afro hair by touching a crystal, I’ll do it. I don’t believe it for a moment. The teas I might have believed would help, but this is too nutty.”
“It will happen as I described. It is not reversible. As soon as you donate your duh, it will be carried on the wind to our sisters far away.”
“Alie, I don’t think you should mess with this,” Rina spoke, urging caution.
“Look at it this way,” I said, copping a cavalier attitude. “If it works, I won’t need to perm and color it anymore, only an occasional trim.”
“But what about after your vision is restored?”
“Rina, that crystal isn’t going to do anything. But if it should, then I’ll be okay keeping my hair that way. After all, everyone in River’s Edge knows me with short, dark, curly hair anyway. I don’t know if I’d have the patience to ever grow it out, for that matter. Besides, if it works, it would lend credibility to their teas, and I would welcome the help breaking my addiction when the time comes.
Eighteen Months Page 25
