A number of years ago I had completed the preliminary education that was required for me to be able to become a lawyer. I did not have the necessary funds to continue on to law school at the time, so I ended up working for a large law firm as a paralegal. One of my colleagues, an attractive young lady named Gail, was in exactly the same predicament as I was, and had also been hired around the same time by the law firm.
Gail and I became rather good friends. Sometimes we were even assigned to work on the same cases, and as a result we got to know quite a bit about each other. I had been wearing glasses for years, and when I graduated from university my prescription was a fairly strong -5.50D for both eyes. That meant that I was just nearsighted enough that it was not comfortable for me to take my glasses off when I was doing a lot of reading, although sometimes when I was at home in my apartment I would read in bed without my glasses. Gail had never worn glasses, but I had my suspicions that she was a little nearsighted just because of the way she held her reading material, as well as because she seemed to squint to see things in the distance. Also, she had tried my glasses on a few times, and she seemed to be able to make her eyes focus through them. For someone who had perfect vision I felt that my glasses were a little too strong for them to be able to do that.
Unfortunately I had reached a point where my own glasses were no longer strong enough. I was also finding it almost impossible to see things in the distance anymore and I had gone off to have my eyes tested. My prescription had indeed increased, and my new glasses, which I was waiting for a call from my optician before going to get them, had climbed a little to -6.50D.
It was an exercise in futility to drive downtown, so I didn’t even have a car. Gail did, but she never drove it to work and only used it on the weekends. On the Saturday after my opticians had called to tell me that my glasses were ready Gail called me to see if I was interested in going to the mall to do some shopping, and I told her I would love to if she would first take me by the optical store so I could get my new glasses. She agreed, and that Saturday morning she came by my apartment building to pick me up.
The optical store where I had ordered my new glasses from was not in an area that Gail was familiar with. She had a terrible time reading the street signs and we missed a couple of turns because she just could not see to read the signs in time to safely make the turn. We did eventually arrive at my optician’s, and I did get my new glasses which I immediately started wearing. Once I had my new glasses on my face, and I could see properly again I suggested to Gail that I should drive the car to the mall. Actually, it wasn’t a suggestion. I insisted that I would drive, and that she should not be driving anymore until she got her eyes checked and got glasses. Gail surprised me when she then asked me if I would let her try to wear my old glasses. I figured that my old glasses would be quite a bit too strong for her, and I told her that, but she told me that she had tried them before and she could see just fine when she was wearing them.
Gail put my old glasses on, but she didn’t protest and let me drive to the mall, where we spent a few hours shopping for some new work clothing. By the time we left the mall Gail had been wearing my old glasses for about 4 hours. I had asked her if she could see fairly well, and she proved to me that she could by reading off a store sign that was far enough away that I could barely see it. I still wasn’t willing to take a chance with having her drive while wearing my old glasses. I drove her to her apartment building and then I took a bus home to mine.
When I arrived at work on Monday morning I met Gail in the coffee room. She was still wearing my old glasses and when I commented on it she merely told me that she could see perfectly with them on. Those glasses were a fairly nondescript pair and no one around the office even noticed that they were my old pair so Gail was able to wear them permanently once she had told our coworkers that her contact lenses had been bothering her and she needed to wear her glasses for a while.
I was quite satisfied with being a paralegal. I had managed to pay down my student loans significantly and I was thinking seriously about just working here until my boyfriend and I got married. We both wanted children, and we both had this old fashioned idea that one parent should stay home with the kids until they were at least of school age. To go back to law school no longer seemed to be a priority for me. Gail didn’t seem to be very interested in marriage. She dated a number of different men, but she never seemed to be seriously involved with any of them. That is why I was not surprised when she told me one day that she was going to go to law school. By this time I assumed that Gail had been to see an eye doctor to have her eyes properly examined as she had recently gotten new glasses. Her new glasses rather surprised me, as they were a lot thicker than her old ones, and when she let me try them on one day in the lunchroom I was quite surprised to see that they were a lot stronger than mine and I could, if I made my eyes focus through the lenses, barely make myself see through them. I asked her how strong they were and she told me that they were -8.50D.
Gail spent 2 years in law school and then she came back to the firm to article before she could become a lawyer. When I first saw Gail after her return I was shocked. Her glasses were now so thick I had to wonder how she could possibly see through them. The fronts of the lenses were noticeably dished in and the sides were thicker than any pair of glasses I had ever seen. She wore them tight to the bridge of her nose, and I could tell that she kept them there with a strap that ran around the back of her head from earpiece to earpiece. When I saw her I couldn’t help myself and I asked her what in heavens name had happened to her eyes. She told me that she had just continued getting more and more shortsighted as she continued her studies and that her prescription had doubled from -8.50 up to -17.00 from the time she had started law school until now. My own prescription had increased a few diopters up to -9.00D since I had last seen Gail, but I had gotten lenses that were supposedly thinner for my new glasses, and it wasn’t really noticeable that my glasses were any stronger than my old -6.50D ones. I asked her if there was any way she could get thinner lenses and she almost blew me away when she told me that she had no interest in getting thinner lenses. She liked her thick glasses, and she told me that she loved seeing the looks on people’s faces when she looked them right in their eyes.
My plans for marriage plans had fallen through when my now ex-boyfriend had done the unthinkable and had slept with another girl. I don’t know if he let me find this out because he wanted out of the marriage, but it certainly caused me to get rid of him. I was now thinking very seriously about going back to law school myself. I had completely paid off my student loans and had even saved almost enough money to pay for my schooling. I asked Gail what she thought about my intentions and she was all for it. She even suggested that if I wanted to we could share an apartment and that would cut my costs a lot.
I liked Gail, and I thought that this might work. She had already offered to give me any of her old school books that I might be able to use, and that alone would save me a few hundred dollars. By giving up my apartment and renting a 2 bedroom with Gail I would then have more than enough to graduate and be debt free, But before we took the final step Gail told me that she had to talk with me. We agreed to meet for lunch at a restaurant near her apartment, and after lunch we walked back to her place.
“I have to tell you something about me before you commit to sharing an apartment with me.” Gail said.
“I can’t believe it is something so bad that it would stop me moving in with you, but go ahead and spill it.” I replied.
“I am addicted to thick glasses. When I found out I could wear your old glasses and they made my eyes a lot worse I absolutely loved it. That is why, just before I went to law school, I went and had my eyes tested and I got glasses that were a lot stronger.” Gil said.
“That isn’t unusual for that to happen,: I answered.
“No, I suppose not if the increase in myopia is natural. But I had only gotten my eyes to adjust to your old -5.50D glasses. I got a prescription for new glasses, but it was only for -5.50D and I ended up changing the number 5 to an 8 and I got -8.50D glasses to wear. They were fairly easy to wear, and after wearing them for a month before I went to school I felt that I was able to see quite well with them. After I had been at law school for about 3 months I went and whited out my prescription slip and photocopied it to give me a blank slip, which I then used to order a pair of glasses that were - 10.50D. I wore those glasses for about 6 months before I went and ordered a pair of glasses that were -12.50D. I was still wearing them when I went into my second year at school and then I got a new pair that was -14.50D, which I wore until shortly before I graduated. Then I ordered my present pair, and they are -17.00D. I am finding that they are really easy for me to wear, and I am thinking of ordering myself another pair that are -20D. Gail said.
“So you are telling me that you have forced all your myopia on yourself by wearing stronger and stronger glasses then.” I responded.
“Yes, that is exactly what I am telling you. I know that you are probably very skeptical, but I have to tell you that I am also taking the same female growth hormone that is known to affect the eyesight of pregnant women and will make them more nearsighted during pregnancy.” Gail told me.
“I am having a hard time understanding why you want to ruin your eyes. After all, being a lawyer is hard enough on a person’s eyesight. But it is your life and your eyesight so I can’t see why it would matter to me if you do what you really seem to want to do.” I replied.
“There is one other thing you should know about me before you make up your mind about us renting an apartment together. I think I am bisexual. I have wanted to sleep with you ever since I first met you.” Gail said to me.
“Whoa, that might be a deal breaker. I have no desire to sleep with another woman. I like being with a man, and feeling his male organ enter, and satisfy me.” I replied.
‘Don’t worry, I can keep my hands off you if you feel that way. I would never do anything that was not consensual. And I also like being with a man, but since I started wearing stronger and stronger glasses I have been finding it harder and harder to find boyfriends. I know there are men out there that are attracted to women who wear strong glasses, but they are quite hard to find.” Gail replied.
I did end up moving in with Gail. She was quite easy to live with, and true to her word she never once made a move on me. I was going out with a lawyer who worked at another law firm, and while we got along well, I did not feel that he would be the right one for me to marry. Gail was also dating. She was going out with a guitar player who spent a lot of time playing at a local bar, and while I wasn’t really into the bar scene I often went to the bar with Gail to hear him play. Her extremely thick glasses didn’t seem to bother him at all, and some nights he would bring her home and stay the night. Sometimes I woke up and I could hear them making love through the paper thin bedroom walls.
Gail had already purchased another pair of glasses. She told me they were -20D in both eyes and she was wearing them around the apartment as often as she possibly could. She was also taking more of that growth hormone in the hopes that it would increase her myopia enough so that she could wear her new -20D glasses all the time. I still was having a hard time coming to terms with her desire to be extremely myopic, but in a way I had begun to like the appearance of the new glasses that Gail was trying to get used to. The front was dished in a bit more than the other glasses that Gail had been wearing and the rear portion that had most of the prescription in it did not come all the way out to the edge of the frames. There was a flat part with no prescription around the area that held the prescription. Sometimes if I was home and Gail wasn’t I would pick up these glasses and put them on, imagining how it would feel to have to wear them myself. My -9D prescription was so much lower than the -20D prescription in these glasses that I had a hard time getting my eyes to focus through them, but if I persevered I could sort of see things off in the distance after I had worn them for a while. I knew that my own glasses were no longer strong enough and I was thinking that it was about time I had my eyes examined and got a new pair of glasses.
I suppose Gail had realized that her -20D glasses had not been put back in the exact same place that I had picked them up from. That was how she knew I had been wearing them once in a while around the apartment while she was at work. I had mentioned to her that I needed to have my eyes checked again, and one day she surprised me by asking me if I would like to try taking some of the female growth hormone that she had been using. She suggested that if I tried that, and it worked, possibly I would be able to wear her old -12.50D glasses and could save myself the cost of an eye exam as well as the price of new glasses. This was tempting to me, as I really didn’t have any extra money at the moment and I was having a lot of trouble in class. I remembered that Gail had gone from -8.50D up to -10.50D so I asked her if it would be possible for me to try to wear her old -10.50D glasses but she told me that she no longer had that pair. I knew that was a crock, because she never ever threw away her old glasses and I figured that she just wanted me to have to use the growth hormone and wear her stronger -12.50D glasses. Finally I gave in and agreed to take some of the hormone pills. It wasn’t long before I had no choice but to wear the -12.50D glasses, and they seemed to be just about perfect for my eyes.
Gail had been taking the hormone pills for a few years now, and she seemed to need to take a larger dose over a longer period of time to make her eyes more nearsighted than the amount she had started taking in the beginning. Finally the pills kicked in and she was able to wear her -20D glasses all the time, which she really liked. I still thought she was doing something that she was eventually going to regret, but every time I tried to caution her she shrugged my concerns off and as much as told me that it was her business and she would quit when she was good and ready to quit. What surprised me more than anything was that even after she had reached the point where she felt very comfortable wearing her -20D glasses she still was taking the hormone pills at an accelerated pace.
As she had said, what she was doing to herself was her business. I had refused to take any more of the hormone pills after my eyes had adapted to wearing her old -12.50D glasses. I could see just fine wearing them, and I had no desire to be any more nearsighted than I was. But something was wrong. My eyes were gradually becoming more and more nearsighted without me taking any more of the pills. Gail explained it away by suggesting that there likely was a residual effect from the hormone pills I had already taken, and I accepted that explanation. It wasn’t long before I had to ask Gail if I could try her old -14.50D glasses. When I put them on I was shocked. They seemed as if they were made for my eyes and before long I was dependent on that -14.50D prescription. I was a little upset about this, but I seemed to be able to see just fine with those glasses on.
It took a few months before Gail required a stronger prescription. She actually went to see an eye doctor this time instead of ordering whatever prescription she thought she could handle. I was very surprised when her new prescription turned out to be -25.00D. She ordered the same regular plastic lenses for her new glasses that she had been wearing, and other than the front dish being curved in a little bit more, and the rear bowl being just a tiny bit smaller circle her new glasses didn’t look noticeably different than her -20.00D ones had. She did have a little more of a problem seeing things off in the distance because her best visual acuity now apparently was very close to 20/40, but this didn’t seem to concern her. And if I had thought that Gail would stop taking the hormone pills I had been wrong. She continued taking two pills every day and I knew that the maximum recommended dose was only one pill. I couldn’t figure out what my roommate was trying to do to herself. Another thing I couldn’t seem to figure out was where the heck was Gail getting these pills? They were only available with a doctor’s prescription, but somehow she seemed to have an inexhaustible supply.
I finished my studies at law school and I returned to the law firm to do my articling. Gail was now a full-fledged lawyer, and I was assigned to work under her. I wasn’t sure if this was a good thing or not, because I felt that now we would be seeing a little too much of each other for things to work out. I guess I had neglected to mention it but Gail and I had been sharing the same bed for a while. I know, I had no intentions of letting this happen, but somehow it did. We were managing to keep up the subterfuge of us not being in a lesbian relationship by dating some of the lawyers in our, and other law firms, but none of the guys I went out with really interested me, and I was fairly certain that Gail felt the same way.
Once I started assisting Gail at trials I realized how she was using her thick glasses to her advantage. She would often refer to her poor eyesight by saying that she couldn’t see things that people with good vision could, but that with her little bit of vision she could still see that things didn’t look quite right about a crime scene. She would take a picture, or a diagram, and she would bring the paper almost right up to her glasses to study it. I think that this played to her advantage with the jury, because she was getting a lot of people off.
Things were working out so well for Gail that I was surprised that she had continued taking the hormones. The hormones were still working though, because Gail had to go back for another eye exam and this time her prescription jumped another -5D. Her eye doctor was quite concerned about this development, and he wanted to send Gail for further testing, but she declined his request and there was nothing he could do to force her to go. Gail had her new -30.00D glasses made to her specifications, and the lens blanks had to be specially ordered so that they were a full 30 mm thick. That was almost an inch and a quarter, and when they were finished and ground to fit the new slightly oversized frames she had also chosen they really looked like they were made for a blind person. The front curve managed to go from edge of frame to edge of frame, and must have been done to at least a -10D prescription. The rear bowl was about 25mm in diameter, and I figured it held the -20D balance of her prescription. She could have gotten a much nicer looking pair of glasses, but when she put them on and looked at herself in the mirror she was really quite pleased with her appearance.
It had been quite a while since I had taken any of the hormone pills, but my eyes had steadily gotten worse so I had my eyes checked and had also ordered myself a new pair of glasses. My now -17.00D prescription was exactly the same as the prescription that was in the glasses that Gail had worn before she got her first -20D myodiscs. I had tried to wear Gail’s old glasses, and I knew before I even had my eye exam that they were pretty close to what I now needed, but they were so thick and awful looking I knew I would rather die than wear them out in public. My new glasses were going to be done in the highest index lens material that I could get, and I accepted the optician’s suggestion to go for a slightly smaller size of frame than the larger wayfarer style that most people were wearing. I was quite pleased when I picked them up and saw how nice they looked. I just couldn’t pull off the “look at my thick glasses” appearance that Gail seemed to demand. Yes, I did wear her old thick -17.00D glasses when we were around our apartment at her request, but there was no way I was going to go out in public wearing them.
Gail’s thicker glasses brought out more theatrics in the courtroom. She had purchased a fold up white cane, and all it took was a flick of the wrist to extend it. She always used it when she was walking anywhere and she told me that she had to get used to it because if anyone saw her downtown without her using it they would be suspicious if they saw her walking into court using it. And sometimes she would use it when she was walking around giving instructions to the jury as well. It did seem to draw a lot of sympathy her way, and since my income was riding on her coattails I didn’t mind.
Gail had quit taking the hormone pills once her prescription reached -30D. At least I think she had, but her next eye exam showed that her prescription needed to be increased by another -2.00D. My own eyes had gotten worse even after I had stopped taking the pills, so I figured that this was likely the residual effect that Gail had mentioned before and it would eventually stop. Instead of ordering a new pair of her especially thick glasses Gail ordered herself a pair of hi index myodiscs that looked a heck of a lot better on her than the outlandishly thick ones did. But she still wore the really ugly thick ones every day into court. I knew why she was doing that though, and I didn’t say a thing.
I don’t know how Gail managed to do it, but she had managed to have herself registered as being legally blind. The designation for this is that you have to have a lower visual acuity than 20/200. Many people who are nearsighted and have a lower visual acuity than 20/200 claim to be legally blind – without glasses, but their visual acuity with glasses is closer to 20/20. They are not legally blind, and to claim that they are does a dis service to those that are really legally blind. But somehow Gail convinced her doctor that even with her new -32D glasses she was unable to see any further down on the eye chart than the 20/200 line and she was able to get the designation she wanted as being legally blind. I don’t know why she wanted this, because I was sure she could see a lot better than 20/200 with her glasses, but she did explain to me that being registered legally blind meant that she was entitled to a few special privileges, along with a tax break on her income. I also figured that it was so that people didn’t mess with her, because the last thing you want to do is give a disabled lawyer a hard time about a disability.
Gail had her prescription climb a little more over the next year. She had stopped going to the eye doctor that had registered her as being blind because she didn’t want him to find out that her visual acuity when she wore glasses with the correct prescription was much better than she had let on. She had found a younger, and much cuter doctor for us to see, and had made me an appointment at the same time. I hadn’t realized that my eyesight had deteriorated a little more, but I really didn’t think a lot about it when the doctor told me that I needed another -1.25D added to my prescription to give me the best vison I could get. I didn’t like this, but it really didn’t concern me much because I had needed glasses ever since I was 10 years old. Gail also was given a new prescription and her new glasses were going to have to be -35.00D. She ordered 2 pairs, one being similar in frame and lens style to her very thick and ugly looking -30D ones with the regular index plastic lenses, and the other pair was similar to her -32D pair with the hi index glass lenses. I only ordered one pair and they were also going to have the thinnest highest index lenses that I could get.
Over the next few months Gail managed to obtain a number of victories in cases that were considered to be rather high profile ones. Her income rose significantly, as did mine, and her reputation was allowing her to pick and choose cases that she felt she had a reasonable chance of winning. We did have a few minor arguments about a couple of the cases over the clients, who I considered to be guilty, and she had to remind me that it was not up to a lawyer to determine their client’s guilt or innocence. It was a lawyer’s responsibility to give the client the best defense possible, and then it was up to the jury to determine guilt or innocence. I was forced to agree with her and even though I thought some of our clients were guilty as could be I helped Gail defend them to the best of our ability. The jury did convict in both of the cases in which I was convinced of our clients guilt, but Gail’s spirited and aggressive defense got them both lesser sentences than they deserved in my books.
Gail spent a lot of time wearing her extremely thick glasses that, in my estimation, really made her look like a blind person. She loved the look, and she told me that she actually liked the vision that the thicker regular plastic lenses gave her. I had been able to wear her old rather thick -17D glasses around quite easily before my last prescription increase, but since I got my new high index glasses I had worn them all the time. Gail kept trying to get me to wear her old thick -20D glasses around the apartment and particularly when we were in bed together. Finally I gave in to her request and I started wearing the -20D glasses around for her. She particularly wanted me to wear them when we were in bed together and she told me that it made her extremely horny when I was wearing them when we made love together. The more I wore them the more sex we had, and I rather enjoyed cuddling and playing with Gail in bed. I felt that I could still see quite well when I was wearing my own -18.25D glasses, but I had also gotten used to wearing the stronger -20D ones so it didn’t bother me to wear then for Gail.
I had given up trying to psychoanalyze Gail. It didn’t bother her at all that she was actually blind without her glasses. She couldn’t even see to read anything without glasses. But then again, I needed to bring things so close to one eye before I could focus on it that I was next best thing to blind also. We were both helpless without correction, and even though Gail had another -16.75D of minus in her glasses I couldn’t see a whole heck of a lot more than she could. I really could not understand why Gail was always after me to wear her old -20D glasses, and even though I was finding that they were getting easier and easier for me to wear I was not at all excited about possibly ending up needing the higher prescription eventually.
Things came to a head one day when I told Gail that I didn’t want to wear the -20D glasses in the evenings around the apartment any longer because they seemed to be making my eyes worse. And it really seemed that they were. After wearing them for a few hours, whenever I wanted to go back to my own -18.25D glasses, it seemed to take a fairly long period of time before my eyes adjusted back to the lower prescription. Gail tried all her powers of persuasion to try to convince me, and in doing so she made a fatal error. She let it slip out that she had been putting some of the female hormone from the pills into my wine in the evenings. I could not believe what she had just said, but when my mind realized the implications I lost it. I told her in no uncertain terms that I didn’t give a damn what she did to herself, but for her to do what she did to me behind my back was criminal. She agreed that she had gone way too far and she apologized, but the apology sounded hollow to me. I felt that she wasn’t really sorry for what she did, but was just sorry that she had slipped up and told me. I could no longer live with her, nor did I want to work for her anymore.
That evening I moved out of the apartment and into a hotel. The following day I turned in my resignation at the law firm and since I told them I no longer wanted to work with Gail they accepted my resignation effective immediately. I had another job at a different law firm and I was in my own apartment by the following weekend. My association with Gail had been very lucrative for my bank account and while I knew that my earnings would be diminished in the future anything was better than being with someone as manipulative as Gail.
I don’t know what hurt me the most. I think it was the fact that she had been bent on destroying my eyesight from the time we moved in together, but it also hurt that she didn’t even call me after our breakup. Had I mattered that little too her. Apparently I had.
It took a while for me to reestablish myself in the legal field. But soon I was dealing with new clients in the real estate field and I was back earning a living, so all was good there. It did take me longer to find a replacement in the romantic field. I had been having more and more trouble seeing clearly in the distance with my -18.25D glasses and I knew I needed a stronger prescription. I was determined I would buy a new pair of glasses, but I was also going to be fitted for contact lenses. I didn’t want to go back to the same eye doctor that Gail and I had used, so I found a new one and made an appointment. I showed up a little bit early for my appointment, and there in the waiting room was an attractive looking man, so I sat down fairly close to him. He introduced himself as Darrin and we started to talk. He was a high school math teacher and had been wearing contact lenses for years. The glasses he was wearing looked to be every bit as strong as mine were, and I asked him if he knew what his prescription was. He told me he was a little over -20D, but didn’t know his exact prescription for sure. I told him my glasses were -18.25D, but I knew I needed an increase and I was going to get contact lenses. Darrin told me that he had been wearing contacts for years, but had recently been forced to return to glasses because his eyes were too dry in the environment inside his new school. We established that neither of us were romantically involved with anyone at the moment and Darrin asked me for my phone number before he was called in for his appointment. He did manage to tell me that he thought I looked very nice wearing glasses and he also told me that glasses were much easier to take care of than contacts. Because of his advice I never did order contacts and my new hi index -20D lenses were going to be full field instead of myodiscs in the frame I chose.
Darrin made me forget about Gail. I did see her on television from time to time after she had handled another spectacular trial. Her new assistant was a young lady I had known at the law firm, but I had not realized until she started working with Gail that she wore glasses. And from the time I had first seen her wearing her glasses around Gail I had noticed that her glasses appeared to be getting progressively stronger. I didn’t know this for a fact, but I suspected that she had also taken my place as Gail’s partner in bed.
I have to be truthful. I missed sleeping with Gail. She was a very tender partner, and she could make me come quite easily. But I was working on Darrin, and eventually he was coming around to being able to satisfy me. We were talking marriage and we had pretty well decided that since we were both past the age of 40 we would be better off adopting a child or two. I had been searching the data bases of the local adoption agencies, and I had found a young lady that was of great interest to me. She looked a lot like I had when I was younger and was quite nearsighted for a 9 year old. Also she had a 6 year old brother that could be adopted with her so we would have an instant family and we would keep the siblings together in one home
It was one thing to adopt a 9 year old high myope, but at least I was never going to do anything to make her eyes worse. Any progression she had would be natural, and that is the way it should be. I often wondered what was wrong with Gail’s mind that made her want to be almost blind and why she would attempt to do the same thing to her friends and lovers.
Specs4ever Jan 2016
https://vision-and-spex.com/the-almost-blind-lawyer-t894.html