Photo: Joel Goodman
Flash Fiction
“I want you to touch my______” Tatiana cried out, the second they had their clothes off. He had never heard that particular word said out loud before, he scarcely knew what the word meant. His wife didn’t call it anything and neither did he.
She said it now again, and reached for his hand, in case there was any question of him not hearing. Though one ear was kind of whacked, he wasn’t deaf. Not yet anyway.
He wondered if it was true what they said, if you didn’t have one sense, it made the others stronger?
Presently, she declared, “Ah,” in her faintly accented English. Her brother, who had arranged this whole unreal situation, had a much more pronounced accent than she did.
It was two on a Wednesday afternoon in Westwood in September.
Outside the windows of the high rise, the mountains were rust colored and looked like any moment they would burst into flames. He wondered what it would be like to live with such a view: such expanse, such space? And of course he wondered what it would be like not to be able to enjoy it, or at least in the way most sighted people could.
Maybe if they decided to go through with all ten sessions, he’d been paid for five, he’d find out what it was like to be so smart, so successful in the world, did she know how beautiful she was, was she always blind?
II
Today Tatiana had on a bright silk caftan and, artfully applied make up. Her black hair was shiny and smooth around her face, and she wore a different pair of dark glasses, ones that turned up at the ends and were edged with bright stones. They couldn’t be diamonds, or could they?
Fifteen hundred dollars a session for what they were about to do again. He decided then, she must not know how beautiful she is, she didn’t have to pay for it. If he weren’t married and loved his wife, he’d go out with her, she was actually funny. Smart as a whip too.
“Next time you’ll meet Lancelot.”
“Who?”
“You’ll find out,” Tatiana laughed.
III
Lancelot turned out to be the biggest, blackest poodle he had ever seen. He was as beautiful as Tatiana.
“Now I’m going to _____,” she cried out sometime later, when the black caftan was on the floor, and the black dog reclined on the foot of the bed.
“Don’t worry, lie back, I’ll find my way to you.”
IV
The text read: “I knew you were the right person, five minutes into your class I could tell you were perfect for Tatiana. She’s very pleased. And so am I. I’d like to send you a check for the next five.”
They needed the money. Fifteen grand at this particular time in their lives was exactly what the doctor ordered. It would free them from their immediate worries, and enable them to put away a bit in case of an emergency. Who knew he would get this for making love with a rich blind linguistics professor who wanted to make herself more desirable in the dating market? Would she list him on her resume?
V
He started to notice, when he’d go home after the session, things looked drab: their small apartment, the neat row of shoes at the door, the living room that needed paint, the small bathroom with the shower curtain he had never liked, and now was beginning to mold at the hem.
His wife would look up from her computer—she worked from home—and as always her smile was both sad and sweet. She, and he hated to think this, was beginning to look sort of drab too.
VI
“I was married once,” Tatiana told him. “I never had pleasure, not once. I did not even know what pleasure was! Until you. Now, when I am married again, I will be knowledgeable.”
“I’m glad your brother approached me,” he told her. “I thought it was weird, it’s a first for me too. ” He added playfully, “Do you have any candidates?”
“Yes,” she admitted.
They were lying naked on her bed and Lancelot was between them. Both of them were stroking the magnificent black dog, which had taken a liking to him, licking his toes while he made love to his mistress.
“I’ll miss you!” she confided.
“I’ll miss you too!” he replied and it was true.
VII
On the last session she asked,
“Would you like to see my eyes?”
“You always cover them.”
“I’m told they are harsh.”
He stroked the dog.
“Lancelot’s seen them he doesn’t mind.”
“Amanda who puts on my make up and helps me to dress, she has seen them too!”
“How about your brother?”
“Of course! “
“I’m ready!”
She was wearing a bright, colorful, silk mask today, securely wound around her shiny black hair.
With one tiny pull, it was off.
Her head was very still, her chin lifted proudly. Her new confidence, he liked to think had something to do with him. Staring, he thought of nuclear war, Guantanamo, and of a horror movie he had seen at a neighborhood revival house.
Tatiana told him, “When I was little, just after the accident, I was informed I could have glass eyes, like the doll’s eyes, or just have what I have now. Sometimes I dream about doll’s eyes. Are they my eyes?”
“That’s why you keep that doll with glass eyes on the shelf over there?”
“Yes!”
“I understand.”
“I’d like to know what you think: My former husband would not have them seen.”
He was staring at the dark holes in her head.
“Am I pretty without my mask on?”
“Yes,” he lied. “You’re a beautiful woman. Everything about you is beautiful!”
“Should I keep the mask on?”
“It’s up to you.”
“But I want to know what you think.”
He closed his own eyes then, and kissed her for the last time.
by 
