Hey all! I am new to the story writing scene but figured I’d try my hand at it. Hope I didn’t do too poorly Additional parts to come! Some adult content present Emma walked into her first day of class and chose a seat back the front of the lecture hall. It was a chilly day to start the fall semester with the wind whipping, more reminiscent of a November day, rather than September across New York. Emma was beginning her last year of college and, while excited to see what the future held, had no interest in ending the best years of her life thus far. Standing 5’ 7”, Emma had light brown hair just longer than shorter length and sparkling blue eyes. An active tennis player and runner, she had an athletic build and had a somewhat intimidating but definitely attractive vibe. Studying to become a teacher, Emma was looking forward to finding a job as a high school math teacher upon graduation. As Emma took out her notebook to prepare for her general education class, International Politics, her friend Jen popped in and took a seat next to Emma. Jen was a marketing major. The two women had met during their freshman year and had been friends ever since. A beautiful blonde, Jen turned heads of guys everywhere. Emma and Jen together? Well that was a stunning combination for any guy. “Hey Emma, back for our last year! How was your summer?” asked Jen. “It was great. Relaxed through much of it and read a new book each week! I guess I’m an athletic nerd,” Emma noted. “What’s new with you Jen?” “Had a great summer interning at Hershey Chocolate. I learned a lot but felt like all I did was stare at a computer, so I know what you mean about always having your eyes in a book! I also played a lot of tennis too but was having issues in the last few weeks. I had lost my touch and wasn’t playing as well. Must have been the late summer heat or something.” “How about this weather Jen? I can’t believe I am wearing my UGG moccasins on the first day of classes! Between those and my North Face jacket I feel like I am ready for winter. Speaking of shoes, I love your new navy clogs!” “Thanks Emma! I got them over the summer and obviously wasn’t planning on wearing them until later in the semester but today’s weather seemed like a good excuse. Want to try them on?” “Sure! Although I’m not sure if they’ll fit me. What size are you? I’m a 9.” “I’m a 10. Here, give them a shot!” After exchanging further pleasantries and catching up on their summers, the professor entered the lecture hall and began the class. The first week of classes is known as “Syllabus Week”. The self-explanatory name means not much learning is done while syllabi are distributed and reviewed. End result: lots of parties. With the class underway and the syllabus distributed, the professor did something quite different for the first day and actually started teaching new material. Jen and Emma were not too pleased but took out their pens and dutifully began taking notes. After a few minutes, Emma glanced over at Jen’s notebook and noticed that she had just been doodling and not writing anything down. “Too smart for this class Jen? I see you are just doodling,” Emma teased. “Eh, I just don’t feel like taking notes today. It’s not allowed during syllabus week,” Jen jokingly retorted. “Whatever floats your boat!” The next 20 minutes consisted of the professor detailing how the early 20th century world powers and come to be and who the big players were heading into World War I. Towards the end of the lecture, Emma looked over at Jen and saw her friend squinting as she looked up at the whiteboard. “I thought you weren’t going to take notes today Jen? Why are you squinting while looking at the whiteboard? You’re eyes bothering you?” quizzed Emma. “Oh it’s nothing Emma. My eyes are just tired today. I guess I was just out too late last night.” Emma shrugged it off and figured if Jen wanted to talk about or was having trouble seeing she’d mention it. In truth, Jen was worried but didn’t want to admit it to Emma. At the start of the lecture she had been all set to take notes but quickly realized that the words on the whiteboard were unreadable. When she had seen Emma managing just fine she began to question her eyesight. “I have never had trouble reading the board in classes before,” Jen thought. She remembered back to her last semester and tried to think about where she sat in class. After some thought, she realized that she sat in the middle to front half of all the classes. “Perhaps I have been having issues for a while and not even realized it.” This train of thought led Jen to wonder whether her decline in tennis skill had anything to do with her seemingly sudden blurry distance vision. In the end, Jen figured she’d forget about it. After all, she could just sit closer to the board and see just fine. The next month or so went by in a hurry and before Jen and Emma knew it, the calendar had flipped to October. Aside from a mild week or two in the middle of September, the weather hadn’t improved much. Jen had played tennis with Emma during the mild stretch and Emma had won nearly every game. Jen’s problems continued. Emma ribbed her friend but Jen didn’t seem to like the joking. Emma figured that Jen was just frustrated and left it at that. Jen had arrived at her International Politics class early the second day of class and chose a seat in the middle. Emma had sat come in later and sat next to her friend. They continued to sit in the middle of the class into October. Despite moving closer to the whiteboard, Jen could be seen squinting to see the board. As the leaves fell and the first snowflakes of the season whipped the landscape white, Jen and Emma were beginning to be burnt out from the schoolwork and ready for Thanksgiving Break. During the second week of the month, the two friends were once again in their International Politics class, now learning about Game Theory. Jen was slowly realizing that squinting was proving useless even though they had moved to only 10 rows from the front of the class. After class that day, the two friends went to a new sandwich place in town for lunch. As they were standing in line, just 10 feet or so away from the menu, Jen realized it was all a blur. Resigned to the fact that she really wasn’t able to see well anymore, she finally brought the subject up to Emma. “Well Emma, I think you’re going to be looking at a girl with glasses sooner or later. I really don’t think I can continue to pretend anymore. My vision is blurry. Even the menu here isn’t that clear.” “I’m sorry Jen. I sorta figured something was up. I’ve noticed that you squint a lot in our International Politics class. Here, I can help you figure out what to get for lunch since you said the menu is blurry.” Over lunch, they chatted about this and that but much of the conversation focused on Jen’s admittance that glasses were probably in her future. Emma mentioned that maybe they would solve her friends’ decline in tennis skill. Both girls, at age 22, had never worn glasses. Jen was an only child and both her parents wore reading glasses but had just got them in the last several years. Emma, one of three children, had always had good vision although her last appointment had been before she started college. Emma’s parents had bifocals to correct for slight myopia and presbyopia while her 15 year old brother had just got glasses for nearsightedness and her 20 year old sister did not wear correction. As they reached the end of their lunch, Emma said “Well, I’m sure you’ll look great in specs Jen! It seems like the majority of our peers wear glasses or contacts. I am actually surprised one of us hasn’t needed glasses until now!” Jen replied, “well maybe you’ll have to get glasses too and we’ll be twins!” “Nah, I could see just fine from the back row earlier in the year and haven’t noticed any problems. Good old eagle eyes over here. However, I’d be happy to try yours on when you get them and see if they help!” “What do you mean when, Emma? I may not need them!” “Oh come on Jen, you couldn’t read the menu here. That isn’t good. Don’t you want to be able to see clearly?” Resigned, Jen shrugged. Jen wasn’t keen on the idea of glasses. She had always had the attention of many guys and considered herself to be quite attractive. Most of the people she knew wore contacts. That’s it she thought, I can get contacts and no one will ever know! A few weeks later, over Thanksgiving break, Jen found herself in the waiting room of an eye doctor’s office. Still hoping that she wouldn’t need glasses, Jen saw two others waiting as well. Both were college aged women in glasses. Surprisingly, Jen really liked the look of glasses on both women. Hmm, she thought, maybe I could pull glasses off if I can find a frame that actually looks good on me. But maybe these women don’t usually wear glasses and are just doing so because they are at the eye doctor. When the assistant called her name, Jen became a bit nervous as she walked back into the exam room. Jen couldn’t remember when her last appointment had been but she thought it was sometime early in high school. She couldn’t remember much of it but apparently her eyes were perfect then. The exam began with the assistant asking some basic eye health questions and Jen explained the issues she had been having from the tennis to the whiteboard in class. After some color blindness tests and an awful spray of air into her eye, Jen was ushered into another room, this one with a chair and big contraption that she assumed was used to check her eyes. After a few minutes of being alone, the doctor came into the room. Jen was immediately taken aback. Dr. Abby Pressman was in her late 20s, tall and blonde with a similar build to Jen. Dr. Pressman’s eyes were covered by glasses that enlarged her eyes. Jen hoped her eyes didn’t look like that if she got glasses but did have to admit that the magnification gave Dr. Pressman a very interesting look and Jen was intrigued. Dr. Pressman introduced herself and then put some letters on the wall in front of Jen. She said they would test Jen’s right eye first. First, a big letter E was displayed, the standard beginning of most eye exams. Jen correctly stated it was an E. There we go, Jen thought, I can see OK. “Alright Jen, that’s good. You can make out the letter E. Now let’s see how small we can make this before it becomes blurry.” A new line of letters appeared and Jen said “F, P”. “Good job, Jen. Three for three so far!” Jen was gaining confidence that maybe her eyes weren’t as bad as she thought. The next line appeared “T O Z”. Jen said “T D Z”. With no response from Dr. Pressman, Jen got a little nervous. The doctor clicked again and the letters got smaller “L P E D”. However, all Jen saw was a blur. Somewhat startled, Jen conveyed that she couldn’t make out the letters. “Ok, not to worry! We can make that clearer I’m sure!” After some clicks and asking “What is better, 1 or 2, 3 or 4,” Jen could read the line of letters and said L P E D. Then, Dr. Pressman made the letters even smaller. At this point, Jen figured there was no way she was supposed to be able to see the line clearly and said she couldn’t make it out. Once again, some clicks and questions later, the letters D E F P O T E C came into focus. “Well Jen, you are somewhat nearsighted in your right eye which I’m sure is contributing to why you can’t see the whiteboard. Let’s take a look at the left eye. Once again the test started with a big E but this time Jen was shocked that it was all blurry. Dr. Pressman once again clicked away and showed Jen a smaller line. Eventually, Jen could read the 20/20 line and even impressed the doctor by reading the 20/15 line clearly. “As you may have gathered Jen, you are not seeing things that clearly and glasses will really help! Your right eye is better than your left. Here, take a look at the 20/20 line now. A blur right?” Jen confirmed that she couldn’t see it at all. “Alright, now here is a trial frame with your prescription in it. Put it on.” Jen slowly slid the bulky, ugly, trial frame glasses on her face and immediately the letters came into focus. “Wow!” Jen said out loud, “So this what I have been missing!” Dr. Pressman smiled. Jen had to admit this was amazing and felt somewhat aroused but quickly suppressed some not-sure-pure thoughts and wondered where those had come from. Still though, Jen wanted to wear contacts, not glasses and asked Dr. Pressman about it. “You have some astigmatism Jen and that might make it tough. However, before we talk about that, I have another test to do. Leave the trial frames on.” Jen wondered what else the doctor needed to check as she could see so perfectly with the glasses. Dr. Pressman retrieved a card with different sized lettering on it and told Jen to read the top line. Jen grabbed the card and held it arms length from her face and read the top line. “Well done. Can you hold it about a foot from your face now and read me the smallest line you can see?” Jen brought the card closer to her face and looked down at the second line which she read. She then looked at the third line, which had become a blur. “Interesting,” remarked Dr. Pressman. Jen was somewhat confused. Was she supposed to be able to read those tiny letters? Dr. Pressman swung the phoropter in front of Jen again and flipped some lenses and then took the card from Jen and held it up. “Can you read the bottom line Jen?” Jen admitted she couldn’t. After a few more flips Jen said the bottom line was clear. “Jen, it appears that you need some reading help in addition to your distance prescription. Your prescription for distance will help you see sharply far away but your eyes don’t seem to want to focus close up with the distance prescription. Before you freak out, I want to tell you that I have seen this problem crop up more and more lately and isn’t that uncommon anymore with the advent of smartphones and tablets. There are a few options. The first, is to only wear your glasses for distance and take them off for close work. However, I don’t think I would recommend that because you would have trouble in class switching between the board and notes. The second is contacts with a distance prescription and then reading glasses over than for close work. However, you may still find it troublesome in class with notes and your contacts prescription with astigmatism might be a bit hard to get used to. What I recommend, would be a multifocal lens. No, not necessarily a lined bifocal but a progressive. No one will know that you have two prescriptions except you!” Jen didn’t know how to take this news. She thought that if she was going to get glasses it would just be for distance. She never expected to need bifocals! At 22! However, she wanted to be able to see and in the back of her mind she was thinking back to that feeling that had crept into her when she had seen clearly through the trial frame. “Ok, let’s do progressives,” Jen said, her mind made up. A few days later, Jen picked up her glasses and was amazed at the clarity of the world. However, she immediately noticed that the world was swimming. The assistant assured her that if she wore the glasses full time for a few weeks, she’d get used to the swimming and the progressives would work very well. Jen once again got slightly aroused with her new lenses in front of her face. She had been given her prescription at her appointment and had been doing some research on it to see how it compared to other prescriptions. She had realized that it was somewhat common for people in college to need some help with close work. Either way, Jen had picked some great, bold, black frames that gave off a sexy vibe when combined with her blonde hair. Leaving the office a glasses wearer, she looked down at her prescription (OD -1.25 -1.00 x90; OS -2.50 -1.00 x 80 ADD +1.75) and was excited to hear what Emma had to say about her new specs. Back at school for the last few weeks before Christmas, Jen walked into her International Politics class and found Emma. “So, what do you think?” Emma looked up and barely recognized the sultry, striking blonde woman, her friend Jns. Her jaw almost dropped a little bit before she caught herself and said, “Wow, Jen! You rock those amazingly! Nice to see again?” “You bet! But you can make fun of me for being an old lady…they’re bifocals!” “No way! Wow, I didn’t think your vision was that bad Jen! Well, can I try them on?” “Sure Emma, but you’ll probably think I’m blind and I doubt you will be able to see anything.” Jen took her glasses off and immediately fell into a blur. Emma took Jen’s specs and slipped them on. She looked out at the board and it was all a blur. She looked down at her notes and once again realized she couldn’t see much. “Man, Jen. You were right. I can’t see much at all with these! Glad they help you though.” The last three weeks of the semester concluded in a busy fashion with exams and not much time to party. Jen was loving her clear vision and the many compliments she had received on her glasses despite the fact that everyone who tried them on thought she was totally blind! Emma, for her part, couldn’t shake a new feeling. She thought Jen was quite hot. Where this thought come from, she wasn’t sure but Emma thought it must have to do with the glasses. Emma and Jen both had had boyfriends here and there through college but were currently both single. Quietly, Emma wondered how Jen felt about her.