The Eyes of Justine

             
Excited by the prospect of starting her first job,
Justine
stood in the dark
ened
ro
om, her hands sliding slowly
over the
thin material of her dress; the
silky folds clinging to the
curves and hollows
of her body.

             
She knew the dress was black silk and that it went well with her strawberry blonde hair and tawny complexion.  For the millionth time she wished wistfully that she could see what she looked like and didn’t have to rely on the advice of her friend Mani for style advice.  The last time she’d seen her reflection in a mirror
Justine
had been fourteen and just days away from losing her sight to the progressive macular degeneration that would rob her of her sight and leave her alone in the dark for the rest of her life.

             
Back then she’d thought her legs too skinny, her arms too gawky; all elbows and angles attached to a slender torso just beginning to show signs of maturation.  Her heart-shaped face and wide green eyes had looked back at her for the last time as her vision narrowed to a dim tunnel and faded into a murky darkness.

             
Seven years, she thought.  I haven’t seen myself in over seven years.  Those seven years had been filled with countless doctors visits, consultations and slowly, reluctantly, acceptance that she would never again be able to see a sunrise or the color of the flowers growing in her mother’s garden.

             
Next
came the school for the blind.  Learning to navigate in a world of darkness; learning to read by touch, to walk by hearing, all her other senses stretched to their limits as they substituted for her absent sight.

             
It hadn’t been easy.  She’d cried for her loss too often to
count
; railed against fate that robbed her so easily and left her trapped, alone in her dark world.
  In time she’d learned to cope with her handicap, pushing herself harder and harder to learn all th
e skills
she
n
eed
ed
to be as independent and capable as she could become.

             
And worst of all, to her nascent teen romanticism, she’d been denied the normal everyday rites of passage; no prom, no dating, no first kiss.  Boys her age were too frightened of her blindness to see past the disability to the lovely
,
intelligent and wickedly witty young woman
,
blooming before their eyes.

             
She’d gone away to a special college after graduating; a university on the east coast dedicated to the sightless.  There she’d learned to rely on her self, learned to trust her self and make her way alone in a world she could never really be a part of again.

             
Today, though, things would be different.  Today she started her job teaching school at a
prestigious private
secondary
school near her home.  It wasn’t a school for disabled or special needs children.  No, the high school had taken a chance on her; freshly graduated from college she would be teaching English Literature to ninth and tenth graders.
  The school itself was something of a phenomena; becoming an instructor at the school was by invitation only.  Graduates from MIT, Harvard, Stanford and Cal-Poly left highly-paid positions in research and academia for a chance to teach at
Mount
Holyhoke
Academy
.

             
Justine
was more than surprised at the invitation to interview even before she’d graduated from university.  Even more surprised to be accepted as an instructor.  It was a dream job that she would have thought way beyond her accomplishments and skills. 
She was determined to show them they had not made a mistake in taking a chance on her.

             
It would be challenging in many ways.  Would they accept her as she was?  Could she give to them the attention they needed or would her blindness prove too difficult a barrier to overcome?
  She’d spent the last month refining her lesson plans and implementing the new technology that would allow her to teach a sighted group of students. 
The task was made easier by the assistance and helpfulness of everyone she’d met at the school so far. 
They seemed to want her to succeed even more than she did.

             
Justine
’s hands traced the contours of her hips and brushed the fabric against her slender thighs.  Mani’s advice could usually be trusted, but still she wondered if the dress was truly appropriate for her first day at school;
it seemed too thin, too clingy,
too low cut as she adjusted her bra and felt the scooped neck revealing a deep plunging cleavage between her high firm breasts.

             
Mani often admired her breasts; claiming they were very nearly perfect apple-sized mounds topped with light pink nipples. 
Justine
had long ago lost any awareness of her body as a visual image easily showing her nudity to her best friend as they tried on outfit after outfit in her room.

             
It meant nothing for her to be nude in front of Mani.  She’d never seen Mani having met her at the school for the blind when she was
eighteen
. 
Mani’s younger brother had been born blind and
Justine
had struck up a friendship with the tall girl in the years she’d been coming to the school to pick up her little brother.

             
Mani was easy to talk to, understanding intuitively
Justine
’s situation and her fears and dreams.  Theirs was an easy friendship that had only deepened over the years. 
Justine
trusted Mani as she trusted few others. 

             
“Are you going to stand there all morning?”
Justine
’s mother asked from the doorway. 
Justine
heard the click of the light switch as her mother flicked on the light.  She never bothered with light switches, of course.

             
“No. No, I’m ready, I suppose,”
Justine
shrugged in her mother’s direction where she knew the woman stared at her with her typically worried expression.

             
Justine
’s mother approached; her steps whisping across the carpet. 
Tucking a stray strand of
Justine
’s page-boy cut coif behind her ear, she cupped her daughter’s face.  “You can do this,” she encouraged.  “You’ve never failed yet at something you set your heart on.”

             
Justine
sighed, “Oh, I do hope so.  This is the beginning of everything.”

             
Her mother hugged her close, wishing once again that life hadn’t been so cruel to her beautiful daughter; wanting to smooth the difficult path before the young woman and knowing there was little she could do. 
What came next would be up to
Justine
; succeed or fail;
Justine
’s destiny lay entirely in her own hands. 

             
The realization didn’t make it any easier to let her go.

             
Justine
left the house soon after, her brand new valise tucked under her arm as her folding cane tick-ticked from side to side as the young woman gracefully made her way down the steps and walked confidently up the street; never once making a misstep or awkward motion.

             
Justine
disdained the usual conceit of sunglasses to hide her blindness.  There was nothing wrong with her eyes after all; clear bright green irises set in sparkling white orbs spaced wide on her gamine face had always been one of her best features.  If the lack of focus disturbed some when she looked at them; well, that was their problem, not hers.

             
Looking back on that day in the months after,
Justine
was astounded at just how little she’d understood about the difficulties ahead of her.  No matter how good the technology or how practiced her curriculum and lessons, getting control of a classroom full of high-spirited energetic teenagers had been almost too much of a challenge.

             
At first the students had been a bit stand-offish, intimidated by her blindness. 
Using her prodigious memory and her acute senses,
Justine
had soon put them at ease when she unfailing identified each student by their customary sounds and scents in the first days.

             
Seeing that
Justine
was more than a match for them, some of the students had begun testing her, as children will; the pranks had begun. 
Justine
caught them out, each and every one, much to the chagrin and embarrassment of the older boys.  They’d soon come to the conclusion that this petite blind girl was more than a match for their adolescent willfulness and settled into a more constructive routine.

             
It hadn’t been easy to get to that point.  Only the intervention of Roland
allowed her to gain the upper
hand on several occasions.  Roland was a godsend. 

             
Roland Childes taught chemistry in the next classroom.  He held a PhD from MIT in chemical engineering and molecular biology and was a veteran of
Mount
Holyhoke
Academy
having taught there for the last eight years.  She’d met him that very first morning as she settled into her desk before the first bell.

             
She’d been cuing up her introductory notes and arranging her handouts when she heard his calm, confident footsteps approach down the hall and pause at her door.

             
“Can I help you?” she inquired, turning to face the doorway.

             
“I imagine we’re hall-mates,” Roland’s voice, a deep contralto with melodious tones tingled her ears, “thought I’d come introduce myself before the little heathens crashed the party.  I’m
Roland;
I’ve the room next door.”  His steps drew nearer as
Justine
stood behind her desk.

             
Justine
stuck out her hand in greeting, “Nice to meet you.”  Roland’s hand clasped hers; warm, dry and masculine he shook her hand firmly, failing to t
reat her like the fragile cupie
doll so many a
ssumed her to be.  “I’m
Justine
.”

             
Rol
and continued to hold her hand as he welcomed her to the Academy, “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you for some time,” he added.

             
“Oh?”

             
“Yes.  You’re presence here has been much anticipated and a matter of not a little discussion amongst the staff.”

             
“Oh?”
Justine
felt like a broke record, “Because I’m blind?”

             
Roland’s hand clasped her palm tightly; she felt his pulse rise and sensed he
r own respond
as he paused before answering.  “Not at all.  It’s just that you’re the youngest instructor the Academy has ever invited to teach here.  We’re all dreadfully curious about how you managed that considering how selective the Committee can be in hiring matters.”

             
Justine
reluctantly slid her hand from Roland’s grip, “I’m afraid that’s even more of a mystery to me,” she admitted, her hand tucking a stray hair behind her ear.  “If truth be known,” she continued, “I feel a bit out of my depth.”

             
Roland’s eyes watched the diminutive girl as he considered her admission. 
In his early thirties, Roland had never given much thought to anything other than his studies and his research.  Of course he’d had desires and even dallied on occasion with willing undergrads, but it had all been secondary to his interest in his work.

             
But then, he’d never met anyone as attractive as this young woman before either.  And she apparently had absolutely no concept of herself as an object of desire.  She wore no makeup, yet needed none.  Her lips a perfect iridescent pink, skin tanned and flawless with a light sprinkle of freckles across her pert nose.  Short reddish blond hair hung just below her chin framing her heart-shaped face.

             
The calf-length black silk dress clung to her like a second skin showing every curve and contour of a youthfully vigorous body.  Roland felt a far distant part of him awaken like a sleeping mountain disturbed from its eternal slumber. 

             
The unusual sensation disturbed him.