Jane Julia Holden was 14. She was a happy normal teenager, and enjoyed all of the things a girl of her age should be interested in. She was good at school and about to enter her third year at high school, showing good promise with excellent results in all of her subjects. She loved music and followed all of the current music trends, sometimes buying CDs when she could afford them, but mostly downloading the latest songs by her favourite groups to put on her MP3 player. Jane was also developing nicely, with a shapely, well-proportioned figure blossoming out as the months progressed. One Saturday, her mother took her for her first bra to the local mall and she got a professional fitting in the lingerie department of the large store there. After the purchase, her mother wanted to go and look at some household goods she needed. Jane wasn’t interested, so she arranged to meet her mum in half an hour at the Costa coffee shop in the mall. Her mum knew she liked to browse the costume jewellery display, but Jane had plans of her own.
At school, Jane was always thought of as the “plain Jane” of the class. Adverse comments from the other girls, and hurtful remarks from some of the boys had really started to get to her, and she began to believe that she really was ugly. She always wore non-descript plain clothes bought for her by her mother which did her no favours at all. She had a pale, porcelain-like complexion and long mousey brown hair in no particular style. She was more interested in her studies, but could feel another interest arise in her lately – boys. Something else had been nagging at Jane over the years. All of her life she dearly wanted to wear glasses like her mum. She would justify this longing by telling herself she was plain anyway and no boy would ever want someone like her, so she might as well be wearing glasses. The only trouble was that her eyesight was perfect. She could spot a fly on the wall at 50 feet away. She had already decided she was going to embark on the adventure of her life, and now was her golden opportunity.
Once her mother was gone, she made her way over to the reading glasses stand and looked at all of the beautiful glasses on display. What would she give to be able to wear a pair of them? She knew that a visit to an optician for an eye test would be fruitless, so she had already decided to treat herself to a pair. One particular pair stood out and she decided she must have them. She looked around to make sure her mother had gone, and also to see that there was nobody around who knew her. She selected the weakest strength at +1.50 and tried them on. Wow! Everything was instantly bigger, slightly blurred, and whizzing around when she turned her head. There was a laminated card hanging on a cord with various sizes of print to test the strength of the glasses. She found that she could read the smallest print on the card with no problem whatsoever, and the normal sized print was just perfect with the card about 6 inches from her face. They were Diamanté glasses in a mottled brown frame with tiny jewels on the legs, and she instantly fell in love with them. They weren’t cheap at £15, especially with the small allowance she got every month, but a whole lot cheaper than glasses from an optician. She looked at herself in the small mirror on the stand, and loved what she saw. This was what had been missing from her life. The glasses fitted perfectly, with the legs disappearing under her hair to her hidden ears. She immediately took the glasses off, put them into a case which was supplied free with them, and proceeded to the payment desk. Then a thought hit her. What if the lady at the desk queried her about a 14 year old girl buying a pair of reading glasses? What would she say? Then she spotted the self-service checkouts. She went straight to them, scanned the glasses, put her cash into the machine, took her receipt and her glasses, and left the store. ‘Her glasses!’ She felt a huge thrill go right through her when she thought that she had ‘her glasses’ in her pocket, not forgetting ‘her bra’ which was in the bag she carried.
Her mum was waiting outside the coffee shop for her and they both went in and took a table. They got their coffees and settled down for some ‘girl chat’. “See anything you liked?” her mum asked. “Yes,” Jane replied, “but I think I’ll go back again when I’ve saved up more.” Her mother took out some place mats she had bought from a bag, and put them on the table to show Jane. Then she fished in her bag for her glasses case, found it, and took out her reading glasses which were +3.50 and made her eyes huge. Jane was always fascinated by this effect, and longed so much to be the same as her mum. How she wished there and then that she could take out ‘her glasses’ and look at her mother’s purchase with her. She put her hand in her pocket, felt the glasses case, opened it slightly with her finger and felt the lovely smooth frame of the glasses. The longing she felt to wear them was indescribable.
After coffee, they returned to the car park and drove home. Jane couldn’t wait to try out her new glasses, so after dinner she told her parents she had some studying to do and would be in her room all night and requested not to be disturbed. As soon as she closed her door, she put the lock across just in case, and sat on her bed. She took the glasses case out of her jacket pocket, opened it, and wondered at the beautiful sight of her very own glasses, neatly folded in the case. The sight of them gave her a massive buzz, and she experienced feelings she had never known before. It was awesome. She took the glasses out of their case and inspected them. Beautiful! Her very own! Then she very slowly put them on. The magical feeling returned to her, even more intense. She looked around her room. Everything seemed to be bigger, but still quite clear. It moved differently to what she was used to when she turned her head. She immediately loved the effect, and was drunk with the excitement. Then she remembered her promise of doing studying. She got out her books and started to read. This was definitely an ‘OMG’ moment! She held the book at her normal reading distance and found it was crystal clear. She could even bring it up to 4 inches from her face and it was even clearer, enabling her to actually see the fibres of the paper clearly. This was totally amazing to her. She decided there and then to keep her glasses on all night in her room until bedtime. At 9 o’clock there was a knock at her door. She scrambled to take her glasses off and immediately hid them under her duvet. She opened her door. “Cup of tea, love?” It was her mother with tea and cakes. “I think you’ve been studying long enough love. Don’t strain your eyes – I think you should stop now and relax with some TV.” “OK, Mum, I’ll have my supper and stop now, I’m tired. I think I’ll just get into my jamas and watch my own TV. Thank you – I’ll see you in the morning.” She locked her door again and picked up her book to mark the place she was at. Immediately she noticed she was having difficulty seeing the print. She had to hold it almost at arms length, and then it was really too small to see. This gave her an immense thrill and she went under the duvet for her glasses. As soon as she put them on, everything was crystal clear and the print on the book was back to normal. From that moment on she knew this was right, and she was at the beginning of a wonderful journey, and climbed into her bed. She turned her little 14 inch TV on with the remote, and found that she could see it perfectly well. Only now, her 14 inch TV had turned into a 16 inch TV!
Just as she was getting sleepy she turned the TV off. She made up her mind that somehow, she was going to make sure that from now on she would wear her new glasses fulltime. The question was how was she going to do this in front of her mum and dad and her friends at school? She put her glasses carefully back into their case and put it into the bedside cabinet drawer. She lay down cuddling her teddy bear, and drifted off to sleep, with sweet dreams of her new bespectacled world and how she was going to make it work.
To be continued.
https://vision-and-spex.com/plain-jane-no-more-part-1-the-journey-begins-t558.html