Blind Date

I have a great face for radio.

That's a polite way of saying that I am not a handsome guy. Funnily enough, I have a great voice for radio too, a low booming voice that sounds sexy, especially if I talk slowly. One ex-girlfriend told me that I have a voice that goes straight into a girl's panties.

The result, however, is that my dating life is not great. Tinder doesn't work for me, with my face nobody swipes right. But with my voice, if I can get a girl on the phone, I can almost always get a first date. Trouble is, getting a second date is harder.

I was walking down the street in San Francisco one morning. I'd been working from home and I got out to run a couple of errands, as much to get out of the house as anything. The sun was shining. In August, in San Francisco, that is not guaranteed. The stories about the fog are all true.

There was a blind girl coming up the street. She had a white cane and was doing that tap-tap thing that blind people do to make sure that there is nothing in front of them, and to feel for the kerb. I kept clear of her as I walked past.

Suddenly a couple of guys ran out of a store. I wouldn't have been surprised if it had been a robbery, or an attempted robbery. The two guys basically ran over the blind girl and knocked her to the ground and ran off. A Mexican guy came out of the store and saw the guys in the distance, turned and walked back in.

"Are you okay?" I said to the blind girl. I held my hand out to her before I realized that I was an idiot, since she couldn't see it. So I bent down, took her hand, and pulled her to her feet. There was blood running down her face.

"You're cut," I said.

"I am?"

She put her hand up to her forehead and felt where she had hit the sidewalk, felt the blood.

"Is it bad?" she said.

I pushed her hair out of the way so that I could see how badly she was cut.

"I'm not a doctor," I said. "But it looks like it might need stitches."

"Shit. I could do without this. I'd better get Uber to the ER."

"I'll drive you," I said. "I live a block away. My car is there."

"I'm fine."

"You're not fine. You have blood running everywhere." I took my sweatshirt off and pressed it to her head. "Hold this in place."

"What is it?"

"My sweatshirt."

"It'll get blood all over it."

"It'll wash out. Come on, let's go. How do we do this?"

"How do you mean?"

"Do I hold your hand or what? I've never guided a blind person before."

"Let me hold your arm. Don't walk too fast."

I bent down and picked up her cane, and the dark glasses that had also ended up on the sidewalk.

"Do you need your glasses?"

"No, it's fine. I just wear them because people find my eyes intimidating."

She looked at me. She had blue eyes, but the way they unseeingly looked through me was, indeed, aggressive.

We went back the block to my condo with me holding her cane, and her pressing my sweatshirt to her head with one hand, and holding my arm with the other. I drove her the short distance to the hospital. By the standards of an ER, this wasn't a serious injury. The triage nurse looked at her and told us to sit.

"What's your name?" I asked, suddenly realizing I didn't know.

"Astrid," she said.

"Swedish?"

"Norwegian. My parents came from Norway. I was born here."

"We could be here in the ER for ages," I said, based on my own experience.

"There are advantages to being blind," she said cryptically.

"Meaning what?"

"I bet I get seen within five minutes."

She was right. A moment later, another nurse came, took hold of her arm, and guided her to the back. I didn't go with her since I didn't know her. I waited, feeling a bit odd since I had her white cane and I could see other people assuming it was me that was blind. It was only about half an hour later that she returned with a dressing on her forehead. The nurse passed her to me like a relay baton.

"How bad is it?" I said.

"Four stitches," the nurse said. She handed me a packet of dressings. "Put a new dressing on each day. Keep it dry for the first twenty-four hours. No showers. Take her to her regular doctor in ten days to have the stitches removed."

I realized that the nurse assumed I was her boyfriend, or her husband, or somebody close enough that I might be changing her dressings and taking her to the doctor.

"I'll take you home," I said.

"You don't need to do that. I can get an Uber."

"Apparently I have to change your dressing every day."

She laughed. "So you're moving in, as well as driving me home?"

"It was a perfect first date."

"I guess I can make you a coffee to thank you."

"Are you sure? I don't want to inconvenience you."

"I may be blind, but I can make a coffee in my own kitchen easily enough. Drive me home and let me give you a coffee. You do drink coffee?"

I let her take my arm and guided her to the car park. She lived a ten minutes drive away in a different part of town. We went into her apartment.

"Can you change your own dressing?"

"Probably not. But I have a roommate. She helps me with stuff like that when I can't manage."

"Do you want me to make the coffee? I don't know quite what the protocol is."

She laughed. "Yeah, it's a bit complicated. You can make the coffee quicker than me, but I'm thanking you, so I should make it myself."

She filled the kettle and put it on. She opened a cupboard, got coffee out, mugs, a filter. She knew exactly where everything was. Presumably she took great care to put stuff back exactly where she could find it when she cleared up. Soon she was passing me a mug of coffee.

"Am I allowed to ask how blind you are?"

"Sure. It's bad. I can tell if it is light or dark, if there is a person standing right in front of me or not. Not much more than that. Just really big stuff. If there is a picture on the wall, maybe. But not what it's a picture of. Of course, I'm technically illiterate. I can't read. I can't write except on a keyboard."

"Have you been like that from birth?"

"Yes. My mother had some major infection during pregnancy. I've never been able to see. I'm a good age though."

"How do you mean?"

"Screen readers. Voice recognition. None of that stuff was around until the last ten years or so. I can hold down a job as a software engineer."

"Wow, I had no idea. Where do you work?"

She told me the name of a major tech company, a name you would recognize.

She laughed. "I'm a diversity hire," she said.

"Really?"

"Sort of. Tech companies were falling over themselves to hire me. They all wanted a blind programmer on their staff. They didn't care that much if I could program."

"Can you?"

"I have a CS degree from Berkeley. Of course, their admissions are also so politically correct they wouldn't turn me away since I was blind. But I was near the top few of my class. I'm not above letting being blind open doors for me, but I'm not going to rest on that excuse."

"You're proud that you're a good programmer."

"Exactly. There were lots of Asians in my class, of course, and one black guy. All the tech companies were falling over themselves to hire him too, as a sort of freak. A black guy who could program. Like me, a blind chick who can code. It's insulting, in a way."

"How do you mean?"

"Companies all try and hire us weirdos in the name of diversity, but actually we are more alike than different. We are all CS grads. We all know C and Python. All geeks. The usual stereotypical social incompetence that seems to go with being nerdy. I dress in programmer uniform."

She was wearing jeans and T-shirt with the logo of a video game. She had a pretty face, although marred a little by the big white dressing. Her hair was black, tied back in a pony tail with one of those elastic hairbands. I suddenly realized just how attractive she was. She was curvy, without being fat, with large breasts.

"Do you know what you look like?"

She laughed. "Not really. I've been told I'm attractive, but I'm not really sure what that means."

"I can confirm that."

She moved her hands and pretended to cup her breasts. "Apparently I have a nice rack."

"Wow," I said laughing. "That's not the sort of thing that girls usually say to strangers."

"Is it true?"

"I'd need to see them properly to give a professional opinion."

She laughed. "You wish. I know they are big. Well, obviously I know my bra size. I could show them to you, if you like. As a thank you for helping me."

"Don't do that."

"You don't want to see them after all?"

"I'm a guy. Of course I want to see them. But I don't want you to do it to thank me. If you show them to anyone, it should be because they are kissing you and you want to go further. Or something like that."

"I should do something to thank you though."

"You made me a coffee."

"I mean more than that. Is there something I can do for you?"

"Like what? Write me a app for my new startup?"

Suddenly I knew what I wanted. I wanted to go on a date with her. With my unattractive face, but my sexy voice, a blind girl was the perfect choice. I seemed to be getting on really well with her already.

"Do you like steak?" I said. "I could take you out to dinner."

She laughed. "That's more like you thanking me. But I'd like that. I'm paying though. That's the least I can do. But I've got a request."

"Fire away."

"Can you cook?"

"I'm a man. Of course I can cook a steak."

"Then will you cook a steak for us? Here. If we go to a restaurant, you'll have to cut my steak up for me. Otherwise I'm a blind girl with a steak knife, I don't need any more stitches today. Then I have to find the pieces on my plate by feel. I can do it, but I'd prefer to look an idiot in private, not public."

"OK. Do you drink?"

She laughed. "I'm blind. But that doesn't mean I don't like cocktails. They're orthogonal."

"You're such a geek. ‘Being blind is orthogonal to drinking.' Who uses the word ‘orthogonal' in an everyday conversation?"

"I admit it I'm a geek. Like I said earlier, I think I define myself more by my geekiness than my blindness. Especially at work."

"What do you mean?"

"I try and be a really good software engineer, and try and ignore the blindness. I really feel proud when people make so little allowance for it that they forget I can't see their PowerPoint slides or something. That they are doing the same and treating me as an engineer and ignoring the blindness."

"Do you need a ride to work or anything?"

"I think I'll work from home today, given all that has happened."

"If I go and get my computer, I could come and work here too."

"That would be great. Let me give you money for the steak and stuff. It would be good if you could get that too. I can do it, of course, but it is a lot simpler if you do."

I went back home and gathered up my computer and other stuff I needed for work. On the way back to Astrid's house I stopped at the supermarket and bought a steak big enough for two, some salad, ice-cream, a bottle of wine, a bottle of gin. I guessed she probably didn't have any Martini glasses, so I bought a couple. Then, wondering if I was being a complete idiot, and misreading everything, I added a packet of condoms. Once I got to her house, I was hoping I wouldn't need to go out again until the following morning.

Chapter 2

I arrived back at Astrid's apartment with the ingredients for cocktails and ingredients for dinner in a supermarket bag. Not to mention ingredients for the evening if I got to stay the night.

I put the bag down. Astrid came over. I was thirsty so I poured myself a glass of water. To my surprise, she started to unpack the shopping. It was interesting to watch, given that she was doing everything by hand. She took the plastic tray containing the steak, knew what it was immediately, and put it in the refrigerator. The ice-cream she put straight in the freezer. The wine bottle was next. She felt the shape of the bottle.

"Red, right?" she asked.

"Yes."

She put it on the counter. Presumably, if it had been white, she'd have put it in the refrigerator. The bottle of gin she wasn't sure about.

"Gin? Vodka?"

"Gin. I'm going to make you a Martini."

"Good. I love cocktails. But I never bothered to learn how to make them myself."

I'd already forgotten that in the bottom of the bag was a packet of condoms. I was mortified when I saw them in her hand.

"These are what I think, aren't they?"

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't be so presumptuous. Just leave them in the bag and forget I bought them."

She looked at me with her unseeing blue eyes. "I'm not a nun, you know. I'm just blind. I'm going to put them on my nightstand. If it turns out we need them, then that is the best place."

She confidently walked down the corridor to where her bedroom presumably was, knowing exactly where all the walls and doorways were without needing to feel them. A moment later she was back without the condoms.

Meanwhile, to cover up my embarrassment, I had got ice out of the freezer and was making us both gin Martinis. She didn't have a cocktail shaker, so I stirred them in a big tumbler with a spoon, which is actually the way the purists say they should be made. Despite what you might have heard from James Bond, Martinis should be stirred not shaken.

"So much for working this afternoon," she said, when I put the Martini into her hand. She knew immediately what it was from the shape of the glass and the cold temperature.

"You're off sick," I said.

She laughed. "I'd better go to bed then."

"Can I come too?"

"Maybe later. Don't rush it. I like slow."

That sounded promising. Astrid had already put a packet of condoms by her bed, and now was offering me guidance on how to get her there later.

We sat drinking our Martinis. We both got out our computers and replied to a few emails, at least giving our colleagues the impression that we were working from home. But really, we were getting to know each other.

Later, when it was dinnertime, I made a salad dressing for the bag of salad leaves, and I cooked the steak on her cast-iron skillet, with the extractor on full-blast so I didn't set off the first alarms.

"What do you want me to do?" I asked her as I put the plates on the table.

"You have to cut my steak up into bite sized pieces," she said. "I can manage from there but...will you just feed it to me? I'd like that."

Since it was one big steak I just cut bite-sized pieces off it, and I ate some of them, and some I put on a fork and pressed against her lips. She'd open her mouth, take the steak, chew it and swallow. I couldn't remember ever feeding anyone before. It was surprisingly intimate, especially since it was just a few hours since we had first met, when she'd been knocked down in the street.

"Ice-cream?" I asked.

"I'm too full now. I need a rest."

"What do you do when you relax? You obviously can't watch TV."

"To be honest, I often watch TV with just the sound. You'd be surprised how little the visuals add. Seinfeld reruns lose almost nothing. Plus, when my roommate's here, she often gives me a running commentary too. I need that for something like Game of Thrones."

I laughed. "You miss out on all those sex scenes."

"True. But it's also impossible to tell what's going on in a sword fight. Who's winning. You can tell someone got killed, but you don't know who. It's not the best program to watch when you're blind, but everyone at work talks about it all the time so I try to know about it."

"Do you want me to try it?"

"What?"

"Doing the running commentary for you."

"Okay."

"Have you seen ‘Big Little Lies.' It's set down in Monterey."

"No. What's it about?"

"Suburban Moms. A whole lot of intrigue that gradually comes out. It's well acted."

So we sat down on the sofa, inches apart, and found the show. There is a lot of dialog that doesn't require much commentary, and a lot of beautiful scenery, and beautiful houses, where I did my best to add color.

Finally, the episode ended. I had a strong urge to put my arm around her and kiss her. But I didn't have the nerve to just do it, for some reason.

"Can I kiss you?" I said.

"Would you ask if I wasn't blind? No. You'd just do it the normal way and try and kiss me. And if I didn't want you to, I'd turn my head away."

"Are you going to turn your head away then?"

"You don't get to ask me like that. You have to commit, to find out."

I put my arm around her shoulder. She leant in towards me. I kissed her on the cheek. She turned her head, but towards me. Our lips met. They started to move. I felt her tongue push forward experimentally. It met mine. I felt my cock get hard. Her eyes were closed, so I closed mine too. We just kissed by feel. I pulled her tighter against me and then I slid my other hand onto her breast. Even through her bra I could feel that her nipple was hard.

I moved my hand from her shoulder, pushed it up the back of her T-shirt, and unclasped her bra. The hand on her breast dropped lower, and then slipped up the front of her shirt, under the now-loose cup, and onto one of her magnificent breasts.

I broke the kiss for a moment. "I can confirm that you have a nice rack."

She laughed. "I know. I like to play with them too."

"When you...?" My voice fell away.

"Yes, blind girls masturbate, you won't be surprised to know. Even girls who can see can't see there, so it's all feel even for them. No girl can see her own...you know."

"Pussy."

"Yeah. For some reason I came over all shy and couldn't say that word."

"I want to see yours."

"I know. I guess I should take you to the bedroom. I want to see yours too." She casually put a hand on my crotch and felt my hard cock through my pants. "Or rather feel it, since I won't be able to see it." She gave my cock a gentle squeeze. "It feels nice so far."

Astrid stood up. She took my hand and pulled me to my feet. I followed her down the corridor into her bedroom. As I came in, I flicked the light switch.

"No," she said. "No lights. So we're equal."

I turned the light off. With a little light spilling up the corridor from the living room, it wasn't pitch black for me. She put her arms around me and kissed me. She ran her hand over the front of my shirt, and once she'd worked out what sort of shirt I was wearing, she undid the buttons and pushed it off my shoulder. It fell to the floor. I grabbed the hem of her T-shirt. She lifted her arms up and I pulled it off. Then I pulled the straps of her already-undone bra and pulled them off down her arms. We were both topless.

I knew she liked to go slowly so I pulled her onto the bed like that, without undoing her jeans yet. The two of us kissed and cuddled, our tongues exploring. I worked my way down her body with little kisses and attacked her nipples, gently biting them and tonguing them and kissing them. She let out little sighs of pleasure. She had big breasts. Often girls with big breasts have small nipples, and vice versa, but she had big nipples too, the color and size of raspberries.

Her hand slid down my body and she undid the zipper of my pants. A moment later she had her hand wrapped around my cock.

"Take your pants off," she said.

I undid my belt, lifted up my ass, and slid my pants and my underwear off. I was naked. She kissed my mouth and then my neck. A moment later she was at my nipple. Then my navel. It was like she was seeing my body with her tongue since she couldn't see it with her eyes. She went lower still.

She had one hand around the shaft of my cock as she guided her mouth over the head. It felt extra-special knowing she couldn't even see my cock, she was experiencing it entirely through the feelings in her mouth. Of course I was already rock hard, but if anything, the way she used her tongue around the rim of my knob made it even harder.

While she started to move her hand and her mouth up and down my cock, I reached over and undid the button on her jeans, and slid the zipper down. She didn't stop licking me, but she moved her body so that I could peel her jeans and panties off her ass. She used her legs to work them down to her ankles. I pulled them over her feet and threw them off the bed.

She moved so that her pussy was over my mouth. I didn't need any more encouragement. I pushed my tongue between her fleshy lips and tasted the nectar of her arousal. For a moment, I was surprised that she was shaved. Then I realized that even girls who can see have to do the most delicate parts by feel, not sight. I slipped my tongue up and down the length of her slit. She pushed her pussy down lower, and started to moan even though my cock was in her mouth.

I was ready to fuck her. I moved myself out from underneath her. She realized what I was doing. With unerring accuracy, she picked the packet of condoms up off the nightstand, knowing precisely where she had left them. She got one out, tore open the wrapper, felt the condom to see which it was rolled up, and then put the end in her mouth. She bent down, pushed her mouth down over my cock, and started to put the condom on. Then she used her mouth to work it a bit further down my cock. Finally, she used her hand to unroll it the length of my cock.

She moved onto her back and spread her legs. In the dim light I couldn't truly appreciate her body, but I could get a sense of it. Big breasts. A nice figure. Shaved. The folds of her pussy lips barely visible, swollen, and standing guard around her entrance.

I moved between her legs. She grabbed my cock and half-guided, half-pulled me until I was pressed up against her opening. I pushed forward slowly. I love that feeling when I first enter a woman, especially when it is for the first time with her. Astrid let out a long, low moan of pleasure as I slipped inside.

She wrapped her arms around me and pulled her legs up so that I went in even deeper.

"Welcome to my body," she said quietly.

I tried to think of something amusing or sexy to say. "Your eyes may not work, but the rest works for me."

"Ssh," she said. "Just do it. Fuck me."

Somehow, dirty talk coming out of a blind girl seemed even more filthy, even though there was no reason it should.

I started to move my hips, sliding my cock back and forth inside her tight pussy.

"Oh yes, that feels so good," she sighed.

I knew from experience that with the condom it would take me longer to cum than normal. So I started to fuck her harder and faster, without needing to worry I'd explode prematurely.

"Oh yes...keep going...just like that...that rhythm."

I kept a steady pace of sliding back and forth inside her. Obviously, I'd never seen her cum before, but I could sense she was getting close.

"Don't stop," she gasped. I knew that was girl-talk for I'm about to cum. And indeed it was. She let out a low growl, more like an animal than a woman, and I felt the tempo of her orgasm in her cunt, like a little metronome setting the time.

I slowed down and let her come back down from her ecstatic high. Then I sped up again. I was not that far away myself.

"Squeeze me with your cunt, you blind bitch," I said.

I'd said it in the heat of excitement, inappropriate as it was. She didn't seem to mind. She squeezed her muscles and tightened her body around my cock. It felt wonderful. I felt the first blast of my orgasm shoot down my cock.

"Cum all over me," she gasped.

I pulled out, pulled off the condom. She reached down, and with an uncanny sense of exactly where it was, wrapped her hand around my cock and stroked me. My body squirted a lattice-work of cum all over her mound and her belly. She reached down and felt it, rubbing it onto her skin like a cosmetic. Then she lifted her hand to her mouth and tasted me. Given that she was blind, I assumed all her other senses were stronger, even taste.

"Mmm," she said. "I've not tasted that for too long."

"Why?" I said. "You're really attractive."

"Being blind scares guys off. Or they want to tick the box. ‘fucked a blind girl'. To add to fucked a girl with only one leg, or something. As you can imagine, that's not a turn-on for me. I can't use Tinder since I can't see the pictures. Of course, I don't care how people look anyway."

"It didn't scare me off."

"No. Somehow the whole randomness of it all made it special. You helping me, cooking me dinner. It seemed natural to go to bed."

I moved to one side and lay on my back. She moved over and lay on top of me, pressing her breasts to my chest. Her sticky belly

"We're going to stick together like this," she said, "but I don't care. I'll have a shower later."

"This isn't a one night stand, is it?"

"I hope not. It's been a special day. I know you were joking earlier when you said it had been a perfect first date. But it really has."

I kissed her again. I could feel a huge attraction, way beyond the one-night-stand that I'd assumed this was going to be. But did I really want the challenge of a blind girlfriend? It was a novelty for a day but I could imagine that I'd have to help her in all sorts of ways I'd not even thought of. But I knew that I wanted more than a one-night fling.

To be continued... Don't forget to vote. Or leave comments below. Or send me an ESmail. Make me a favorite author so you don't miss any stories.