This is my first attempt at a story, and I think one of the hardest parts is picking a subject/title. I had a couple ideas for stories using this same Ophthalmologist male lead character. … Well here goes:
Things were going great for me. I had been a smart kid growing up, and took a lot of advanced placement, dual enrollment, honors classes and CLEP tests. I was lucky enough to graduate a year early, and with nearly enough college credits for an associate’s degree. Always interested in STEM, I continued my schooling as a Biology Undergraduate Student and graduated in 2 years. Since I had kind of been teased about being a “Doogie Howser,” or brain child, medical school seemed like a logical next step. I’d also had a fetish for glasses and especially girls wearing glasses my whole life so I decided to go for Ophthalmology. Which is kind of funny because to this day I still have 20/15 vision. I wasn’t only a total book-nerd and had always been fit, ran cross country and had played baseball, but not scholarship level. You could say I was an All-American kid and had been in the Boy Scouts where I was an Eagle Scout. College isn’t free so when I graduated high school my parents helped me enlist in the Army National Guard because I was still underage. I served for two years in an Infantry Unit and then when applying for medical schools, I also applied for the Health Professions Scholarship Program whereby the Army would pay for Medical School in exchange for 4 years of active service following my residency. The way I looked at this, I would get out of medical school debt free, and be guaranteed a job for four years. Even if the pay wasn’t great, it was more than offset by the free schooling. Fast forwarding a little so as not to bore you with the details, I completed my B.S. in 2 years when I was still just 19, 4 years later I had completed Medical School, then did a one-year general surgical internship which I really enjoyed before reporting to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for my 3-year Residency that included the Ocular Trauma Course. A lot of my interests and training centered around trauma surgery for soldiers coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq with ocular injuries, and I also completed two rotations on a US Navy humanitarian ship. Once following the Haiti Earthquake and another time providing free medical care on a goodwill mission throughout South America. This experience was invaluable and prepared me greatly for active duty. My 4 years of active duty as a practicing Ophthalmologist seemed to fly by, and a lot of time was still focused on eye trauma and surgery. What I found somewhat ironic was that I was also doing a lot of Lasik and other corrective refractive surgery especially for pilots or special forces soldiers so they could be safer at work. Here I was getting into a field because of my interest and attraction to glasses, but was spending an immense amount of time getting good at helping people not need their glasses anymore! I deployed twice, once to Afghanistan and once to Iraq doing emergency and combat-related ophthalmology services and other generalized medical officer duties to deployed units. Military life was fun but I wanted to get out and work on my own. Even though I stayed in the National Guard and I am currently a Major drilling one weekend a month, two weeks a year and subject to mobilization. Since I had no school debt, I was able to buy a house while I was on active duty, and also saved a lot of money by working a lot without spending a lot. When it came time to sell, housing had skyrocketed and I got a lot of equity. Also, it didn’t hurt leaving a major metro housing area and moving back to my home state where housing was cheaper. I paid cash for a 4 bedroom, 2 bath house with garage, lake-front property in a gated community with a resident’s fitness center and swimming pool. I found a job immediately, and bought into a large practice near my hometown that specializes in cataracts and Lasik surgery, as well as general optometry and audiology. The original owners figured a while back that a lot of their older clients for cataract services could build a real relationship and get their general vision and hearing services done as well. The ownership had changed a couple times as the practice had been around for 60 years. They had just lost an Ophthalmologist and were desperate to look for another partner. The Ownership Team I was joining included: 1 other Ophthalmologist, a Husband-Wife Optometrist duo, and an Audiologist. The other Ophthalmologist was an older man, the husband-wife team was about my age and had originally started as employees but later became partners, and the audiologist was fresh out of school still in her pay-off or buy-in years. We also had an in-house lab with a large selection of different lenses as we were more than just a standard optometry practice. What excited me immediately was one of the receptionists was a girl I’d known since Middle School, Vanessa. Not just a “girl” but the hottest girl from school. She had been a cheerleader, and had that blonde hair, blue eyed girl-next-door look. We were friendly during Middle School, but our schedules and activities took us in different directions in high school. She was never stuck-up or anything like some popular kids are, but started dating the football quarterback- they were the homecoming queen and king of course. Neither of them were into the honors courses I was, and they partied more than my goody-two-shoes friends and I did. But none the less she remained stunning all through school and was kind of the dream girl every guy wanted to be with. Right away after I joined the practice, we kind of caught up a little. She had since married Quarterback Jeff, and they lived in a trailer park. He worked odd labor jobs, and she had been receptionist here for a few years. Neither of them had went to college. She was still attractive, but as we were now over 30, it was more obvious that she had been one of those naturally thin, and tight bodies in high school, and now a dozen years later, even though she was still thin and pretty it wasn’t the absolute sex appeal like it was in high school. We were always friendly in the office, but she was married and I didn’t think much of it. We certainly didn’t socialize outside of work because Jeff and I had never been close in school. I spent my time building a solid reputation as a local eye surgeon. It would take 3 years to complete my buy-in process through salary deduction during that time. Not to brag but within 2 years, it was a widely accepted truth that I was the better surgeon in our practice and one of the best in the area. Our client-base increased with referrals from other optometry practices, and I built good relationships with customers based on successful outcomes of Lasik or cataract surgeries, and along the way I also became cross-trained as a hearing aid specialist so that my patients could have one doctor and one doctor only when they came in. My life was exceptional, aside from one thing, I had everything I could dream of at 33 years old: a paid-off house on a lake, fishing boat with a big enough motor to water-ski with, newer but modest sports car and truck, a 6-figure annual salary that was growing exponentially each year, a job that I loved, and was in the best physical shape of my life thanks in part from my army time developing hobbies of weight lifting and running that I continued now that I was “out” and had more time to set my own schedule. My only “bad luck” or “no luck” was in finding a steady girlfriend. Everyone in the office it seemed had tried to fix me up with someone, but so far nothing serious had materialized. It was about this time in 2018 that Vanessa came into my private office one morning and told me that she had a problem. I noticed her eyes were red, at first I thought she had been crying (she probably had) but also I would realize she had an eye infection. Vanessa confided in me that she wore contact lenses and had since she was in Grade 5. I mentioned I had never seen her in glasses, throughout all our years of school or during my 2+ years working with her. She said that she hates how she looks in glasses, and hasn’t even had a proper pair in many years, and hasn’t worn glasses in public since elementary school. Jeff also thinks she looks bad in her thick glasses, but her eyes are bothering her and her vision seems to tear up easily. I took her into an exam room and we went through a very thorough eye exam, including dilation. It was apparent she had been drastically over wearing her contacts, her corneas both had some scarring, blood vessel tears, and I told her she would have to get a pair of glasses for full-time wear for at least a month. This devastated her but I made sure to ease her fears by talking about 1.74 lenses and getting the right frames. We discreetly selected a couple frames from the display area that I thought would work good with her prescription. I was surprised how at ease she was basically letting me walk her through this. What she decided on was the Black Prada Catwalk. I was secretly excited to see her wearing glasses, with the glasses prescription we had come up with: (I’ll write it with negative cylinder so you all don’t have to work it out, as you know Ophthalmologists usually use positive cylinder) OD: -9.50, -2.75 x 110 OS: -9.25, -2.25 x70
Being a large practice with lots of unique patients and all the surgeries we were doing, we had our own in-house lab with a very wide selection of lenses and blanks, so her glasses were ready a few hours later. She put them on in my office, still shy to go out to the main building right away, but I told her right away how good they looked on her. And they sure did, as any glasses lover knows, attractive goes up exponentially and now looking at Vanessa I had to secretly admit she looked more attractive to me now than she ever had in school! She wore her glasses dutifully for a month and after a few initial comments, I don’t think she got too much attention from anyone at work. However, she told me Jeff was ready for her to be back in contacts, when I finally gave her the all-clear about a month later. We did talk about the fact that if her prescription continued to deteriorate it would be harder to get contacts. I asked her pointedly now that she was used to wearing glasses, if she thought her vision was better than with contacts, and she confirmed that it was. I told her that was because astigmatism is best corrected with glasses and her astigmatism is quite strong. She sheepishly just said “oh.” She basically went back to full-time contact wear but said she was wearing her glasses some at home, and they did make an occasional appearance at the office. Each time I saw her wearing her glasses, I made sure to give her some sort of compliment that day, even it was about her hair, clothing or the glasses themselves. More interesting, was in early 2019 her and Jeff got divorced. After the fact, it came out that he had been abusive in the past and was cheating on her. She moved into an apartment near the office, and by early 2020 it seemed she was over her divorce and at times almost flirty with me. I was not dating anyone serious and the idea of getting to date my childhood crush that I now knew wore strong glasses was a huge turn on. She had been wearing her glasses for about the last week straight when on a Monday evening near closing time we were both in the break room. The flirting had been building up and out of the blue she asked which one of us was going to ask to the other out first. I said, it was me, right now, and asked if she would come to a military dining-in event that Saturday. She excitedly said yes, and about that time our audiologist (Kelly) came into the room. I had recently fit her with anti-fatigue lenses for her -3.00 prescription. Kelly mentioned that she really liked her new glasses and had no headaches all day. Vanessa asked about the lenses, and then said yeah she thinks she should be wearing anti-fatigue. I told her it had been about a year since her last exam and she was still wearing her glasses from two years ago that we had picked out, we could do an eye exam right now. She agreed. In the meantime, Kelly had really come into the room to show me a new RIC hearing aid model that was touted as very small and discreet. Being a Hearing Aid Specialist now, it was myself and Kelly that took care of our audiology needs. With that Kelly said goodnight and left Vanessa and I alone again. If I was already excited about the fact that we were finally going out, and that I was also going to give her an exam and potentially help get her new glasses with digital lenses, I was downright shocked by what she said next. Vanessa picked up the hearing aid and casually said “this is really small, I could wear this and no one might notice. I have some hearing loss and probably should have hearing aids.” I commented that I never knew that, and she said that yes she had bad ear infections and fevers as a kid that damaged her hearing to the point where she always just barely passed the hearing screenings at school, and now after years of loud music and partying in her teens and 20’s when she worked in a bar she could tell her hearing was probably worse. I tried to keep it cool, and not seem too anxious but suggested that we could do a hearing test and she said, “ok yeah!” I decided to do the hearing test first, in case she backed out later. I knew she really couldn’t back out of her eye exam, because her glasses were by now well-known to everyone and her contact lens prescription was about to expire. After her checkup the year before where we had discussed that her corneas were in too bad of shape and her astigmatism prescription pretty wicked, corrective surgery would not be perfect her, she had kind of come to peace with glasses and contacts. We went into the hearing center and went through all the screenings of pure tones, speech and noise, and it was pretty apparent that she had a moderate loss in her left ear and a mild-moderate loss in her right. I programmed two RIC hearing aids, put the thinnest tubes possible on for her, and put them in her ears. She had never tried hearing aids before and was excited to have them in her ears. We talked and went through some sounds and I suggested we go check her eyes and she was very happy to get to wear them for that. At that point, I don’t think she realized I was going to recommend she wear them all the time. On our walk over to the optical side of the house, I asked if she knew what frames she wanted. She said matter-of-factly that she wanted the Ray Bans New Wayfarer in Tortoise. I told her those would look great on her, and she asked “you really don’t mind me wearing glasses, do you?” I think it surprised her. We went through the initial screenings of glaucoma, auto-refraction and took some pictures of her eyes. I commented that she was right to be wearing her glasses as her right eye did seem to have small scratch that was healing nicely; she agreed that she doesn’t wear her contacts anymore when her eyes are hurting, red or sensitive. We went through subjective refraction with the phoropter and once we got the distance vision dialed in, I put up the near chart. She had confessed that she had been having some near vision discomfort and eyestrain when wearing either glasses or contacts. So it was no surprise to me when she needed a +1.50 add to see the lines clearly. Her new spectacle prescription was to be: OD: -10.25, -2.75 x110, +1.50 OS: -10.00, -2.75 x70, +1.50 She asked if her glasses would be anti-fatigue, I told her that she was actually going to need progressives, and have both a near and intermediate area to help. She blushed immediately and said “aren’t those bifocals?” I told her they were but not to worry, and that anti-fatigue lenses are basically bifocals too; she quickly stated that she didn’t want anyone to know and kind of scolded herself for being so blind. I told her that we could mark them up right now since no one was here and I would personally run them to the lab to keep it on the down-low. Of course we went with the 1.74 lenses in digital freeform progressives. We got the frames marked and were incredibly close to each other. She asked if there would be contacts in this prescription, I assured her that we could try mono-vision or distance contacts with readers. It in no way meant she was done with contacts, this relieved her some. That was about it for the night, everyone had left before we had even started the exams, and we were going to shut down when she asked what she should do with the hearing aids. I asked her if she wanted them, and she said she didn’t know if she could afford them. I explained that in our state the government provides 1 pair of hearing aids to adults with a qualified loss. She was excited to hear this, but kind of conflicted that the reality of her having hearing aids just set in. I could tell she was kind of sheepish, like she had been the first time she was wearing her glasses a couple years before, and then she said quietly: “are you still going to go out with me now that I need bifocals and hearing aids.” I laughed that off and told her that I have never wanted to go out with anyone more than I wanted to go out with her. And then I told her I wished she had told me about her hearing sooner, we could have fixed this years ago. She said that no one knows, and Jeff never knew. She also swore me to secrecy about both her hearing aids and progressives, as this was nothing a 35-year-old wanted out in public. About two days later her glasses were ready and the lab tech left them on my desk. I called Vanessa into the office and we went through the fitting and dispensing. It was a turn-on sitting across the desk from her watching her shift her eyes and head and tilt back to use her reading add for the first time. She understood it would take up to two weeks to get used to them. She was also relieved that no one would be able to tell and they weren’t really much thicker than her old pair. I had noticed that since getting her hearing aids she was wearing her hair down so no one could tell. After I fit them, we talked about our date and decided she would come to my house Saturday afternoon and then we would drive together to the event. We also ended up having a quick kiss, and I could tell immediately that I wanted nothing more than to kiss her again. Saturday rolled around, and I had been off since Wednesday evening because of my surgical schedule and follow-ups. So I hadn’t seen Vanessa since she started wearing her progressives. She got to my house and was wearing a black shoulder-less dress, nice makeup, had curled her hair but was wearing it down over her ears, and was wearing her new glasses. Her first words were, if I wasn’t dating you, I would have cheated and wore contacts. I kind of laughed and asked how she was getting on, she said that she could tell she had less eyestrain but was still having some issues with steps and while moving. She also said that she was trying hard to avoid being one of those “old people that tilt their head back so that people could tell.” I asked about any comments, and she said some people at work had complimented the frames. I assured her she looked amazing, and she told me that I looked good in my Major’s Uniform. She had never been in my house, and was mesmerized with the lake view. We went to the event, and had a wonderful time. The food was good, and she got to see me in a military/commanding role as a Major, not entirely different from my role as a Boss/Owner at work, but to me it felt like I was finally the Quarterback or Homecoming King good enough for Vanessa’s attention. We danced and she got to meet some of my military friends as well. No one of course mentioned her glasses, because even though you could tell they were strong, they looked great on her, and she was absolutely stunning. When we got in the car to leave, she made a comment that she would have had a really hard time at the big round table with all the chatting if she didn’t have her hearing aids. I told her I was glad she was able to hear so good. When we got back to my house there was no illusion about where this date was going to end up and before long we were both completely naked in my bed, except for her glasses and hearing aids. She asked me if I wanted her to take her glasses off and I said no I wanted her to be able to see and be comfortable. She kissed me and said Jeff never let her wear glasses, she’d have to go blind or wear contacts in bed. Afterwards, I told her that was the best sex I’d ever had. She replied “good, I’m glad, because it was for me too and I was so afraid. You’re in such good shape now and have all this nice stuff, you could have anyone you want.” I told her I didn’t want anyone else but her. We ended up falling asleep cuddled up and woke about the same time 7 hours later. She reached over and put on her glasses then her hearing aids, I could see she was using her reading add to look at her aids and get them ready to insert. She must have noticed me watching her, not realizing that I was watching because it was a huge turn-on to me. She was again kind of sheepish and said, “not very sexy having to put on my bifocals so I can see to put on my hearing aids.” I really wanted her to understand that she was sexy in every way to me, but not wanting to scare her off by coming out with a glasses fetish. So I told her that it doesn’t matter they are bifocals, you would have needed your glasses to see that anyhow. Right away, I thought maybe that was too harsh of a response, but it seemed to work, because then she said: “you know ever since you’ve put these in my ears I haven’t wanted to take them out, but I am desperately afraid of someone seeing them.” I asked her why and she said it might have to do with her also having thick glasses and not wanting to appear different. I understand that answer, and then she said “it’s kind of funny that usually most girls would be afraid to show them to someone they just started dating, but this is the opposite you are the only one who knows about them.” We went down for breakfast and she was wearing one of my t-shirts with her underwear, hair pulled back in a messy bun so her aids were visible and was making us breakfast. I walked up behind her and she was looking out the window at the lake stating “man I could get used to this view”, I said “yeah me too.” We were a couple from that date on, and everyone at work was happy for us. Since we had known each other for over 20 years, and worked together as friends for like 4 years by now, there was really no use taking it slow. It seemed like any days off were spent together and a couple weeks later we were at her apartment and had just finished a walk around a park, came up the stairs, went inside and she took a book out of her mail slot. She let out the comment that she was finally fully used to her glasses because she had just done the stairs, focused on the book title, and all these things without even thinking. We hadn’t talked about her “ears” or “eyes” in these couple weeks, so it was my first chance to ask her what she thought about them. She said that she liked them and being able to see clearly, she had tried reading small print through the top of her glasses and realized it was harder if not impossible. She did say the only trouble she had was that her head seemed to get tired moving so much and tilted back reading books for long periods of time. I didn’t think much of it until later when we were settling in and cuddling to watch TV, and she had to get positioned just right to see out of her lenses. I told her I had an idea, and asked where her old glasses were. She thought I was going to tell her to wear them and she said they were too weak to see the TV clearly from this distance, I told her no, I was going to get her some lenses that would be more comfortable for watching TV or reading a book for a long time. She said she trusted me and I marked a line below her eyelid and the pupils and took her glasses to work. Our lab only has 1.67 index bifocals, so they ended up being a little thicker than her progressives, and between the lower index and higher prescription they were quite a bit thicker than the lenses they replaced. However, I was bursting at the seams with excitement to see her wearing lined bifocals when I saw them. It was a weeknight when they were ready, but we had already made plans to watch a movie at my house and her stay over. She came in, and we had a drink, then changed into pajamas; I was pleasantly surprised she pulled her up so I could see her aids. Before we started the movie, I told her I had a surprise for her and got her glasses. She shifted her eyes down and was looking at them and commented “Oh, my these are actual bifocals like what my grandmas wore.” I told her that yes they were but that they were functional, and that she might like them for certain tasks, plus she wouldn’t have to wear them out anyhow. “Ok” she said, “you’re the doctor” as she ran her finger along the edge thickness extending from the frame. She put them on and asked what I thought, I told her they looked good, and reminded her that I always liked her hair up so it was making me kind of bias. She tried out the bifocal with her phone and then we watched a movie. She agreed that without the intermediate area there was a larger distance area and she could sit more comfortably and still see even cuddled up. The movie was a romantic comedy and afterwards, I could not help myself. We ended up having sex right on the couch. Afterwards, she said “you’re so good for my self-esteem.” I asked what she meant, and she said “the whole movie I felt like an old lady with these big thick bifocals and embarrassed that I needed them to see, but you still seemed super into me.” I affirmed that I was super into her, and that I had always liked those frames since I basically picked them out. That put her more at ease. It’s been about 6 months since we started dating, she has just moved into my house. At home, she wears her bifocals about half the time, but always wears her progressives when she leaves the house. She still has not shown anyone her hearing aids, but I get to see them every night when we settle in and she pulls her hair up, or on lazy weekend days. The best part is though, she has never asked me to write her a contacts prescription and has fully adjusted to wearing glasses.
https://vision-and-spex.com/it-only-took-20-years-t1943.html