The Blindfold Never Came Off

The blindfold never came off.

She remembered what the world looked like, but she did not see it anymore. Every morning when she woke up she would think of it. A crackling fire. A tangerine. A bumblebee. The grass. The sky. A field of flowers, deep rich purple. She had not seen a thing in years; she had lost track of time. But every morning when she woke up she thought of these things, and every night before she went to bed, too.

Sometimes she woke up in bed with him. Sometimes he pushed her off of it in the middle of the night, and she woke up on the floor. She didn't know if he did it on purpose or not. Sometimes she would wake up to him pushing himself inside of her, slowly and firmly, and when he noticed she was awake he would stop, until she nodded. And then he would continue, moving slowly until his hips touched hers, and then back out again, and then back in. Even if she didn't nod he would continue. He had her for him. He could not see her eyes, but he could read her face, and he knew her better than anyone. Sometimes, when he let her sleep in bed with him, he would roll over and wrap his arms around her, pulling her close to his chest, and whisper in her ear, "Red." And she would answer one of two ways. If she said, "Orange," he would pull her over to him. If she said, "Violet," he would just bury his face in her hair and go back to sleep. But he never took off the blindfold.

Fire. Tangerine. Bumblebee. Grass. Sky. Flowers.

She spent most of her days in bed, unless he took her with him. There was not much else she could do, not without seeing. He told her stories sometimes, if he felt like it. He told her about how there were some people in the world who could not see even if they did not have fabric around their eyes. They would have a dog to guide them, or use a stick to feel what was on the ground in front of them. He did not ever get her a dog or a stick. He would put a soft leather strap around her wrist, with a short rope attached to it, whenever he needed to bring her anywhere. And he would hold onto it, and he would pull her along with him until they could sit. She had learned to use her ears, her nose, her fingers. She would sit at his feet, leaning her head against his knees, and listen to the people around them. There would always be people. He only brought her places if he wanted to show her off. He would put his hand on her head, stroke her hair back, fiddle with the blindfold. The first time it happened a spark of excitement went through her belly; she thought he was going to take it off. He noticed, and she could almost see him smile when she heard him chuckle. And then he tightened the knot and went back to stroking her hair.

She learned to listen to the world around her. When she was alone the silence crept up her spine, twirling around her neck and making her shiver. He rarely left her alone, but when he did she could always hear him come home, his feet outside as he walked to the door, the knob clicking as it opened, the lock sliding black into place. She could always hear him breathe, whenever he moved around the room she could hear his footsteps, she could hear him humming to himself, she could hear him coming towards her and going farther away. When they were with people she could hear how many there were, just by how loud the rumble was in her ears. Even with one side of her head pressed against his knee and the sound of his fingers rustling through her hair she knew how to listen, to count how many people were talking to him, hear which ones were men, which ones were women, which ones talked with velvet or venom in their voices. Which ones talked about the weather, or the guardians, or the earth. Which ones talked about her. She always knew when they were talking about her. Even if she couldn't hear them she would know by the way his fingers stiffened slightly in her hair, or went to the blindfold to make sure it was still in place. She knew the difference between a woman's footsteps and a man's, between the sound a shoe made on carpet and on wood and on marble, between ice clinking in a glass and a fork scratching against a plate. She knew how to listen.

Fire. Tangerine. Bumblebee. Grass. Sky. Flowers.

She knew how to smell, too. She knew his smell, she lived in his smell, and she knew the smell of a room full of people. It was not always a bad smell, per se. It was alcohol and tobacco, it was perfume and food. She did not know for sure, but sometimes she thought he took her to different places. He never told her where he was taking her, he just put the strap on her wrist and pulled her along. But she could tell, sometimes, by the way the places smelled, the sounds of the voices inside of them. And when he would feed her, he would let her smell every bite before she took it. Sometimes she would forget, and he would feed her a bite of one thing, and another, and another, and she would get used to it, and then suddenly he would feed her a bite of something else, and she would be startled. He would not let her spit it out, even if she did not like it. She had to swallow every bite that came into her mouth. If she did not like something he would not give her any more, but if he held something under her nose and then put it in her mouth, it would have to go down. She knew how to smell, people and places and food.

Fire. Tangerine. Bumblebee. Grass. Sky. Flowers.

And she knew how to feel. She knew how he felt whenever he touched her, by the way his fingers ran over her skin. When he was stroking her hair and his fingers slowed or stiffened, he was annoyed, or anxious. When he scratched her head he was happy, or at least content and absent-minded, listening just like she was, but not as well, he didn't know how. When he rolled a lock of hair between his fingers he was interested in what the other people were saying, and she liked when he did this, because that meant he might say something too. When they were with other people and he lifted his hand off of her head and put it on her cheek, it meant that he wanted to show her off. She did not have to do anything; it just meant that the people he was with were looking at her, and she would lean her head into his hand and feel his fingers slipping over her nose, her mouth, her neck. And she would listen to what the people would say about her, and feel for the way his fingers felt on her skin, to see if he was happy with it. When they were alone, in bed together at night, sometimes he would let her lie on her side facing him, and she would run her fingers over his face, tracing the ridge of his eyebrows, around the shape of his eyes as his lashes brushed against her nails; down his cheekbones and his jaw, finding the stubble on his chin; she would touch his nose, trying to find what shape it was in, trying to see where the hairs on his cheeks stopped and started. If she got her fingers too close to his lips, though, which she could not help herself from doing, he would take them into his mouth and bite down gently, and then move her hands away and roll her over so she was facing away from him again. And even though she could not see him, she thought that with all of her touching she knew what he looked like; she had felt him enough.

Fire. Tangerine. Bumblebee. Grass. Sky. Flowers.

He took her to very many places. At first it was the same place: the place that smelled like tobacco and something else. She did not know what the something else was, until a few hours into one of the first few evenings they had gone there he leaned down and held something in front of her nose. The smell of it filled her nostrils and she coughed, trying to lean away, but she was sitting on the floor in between his legs and the cushion of the couch was there. She heard him laugh, felt his hand in her hair, and something poked her lips. He pushed it in her mouth gentle, but it wasn't food, it felt like a cigarette. She had only tried a cigarette once, and did not like it, so she knew he would not give one to her again. But she knew to breathe in, and the strange smell turned into a taste, and he leaned down and pressed his lips to her head and whispered, "Good puppy."

The words made her feel weak. It was only later that he told her it wasn't the words but the strange cigarette that made her weak. It wasn't a cigarette, he said, it was a joint, and it was a kind of drug that he and his friends were trying that night. He called them his friends, which she thought was strange. She did not think he had any friends. He only had her.

She had smoked the whole joint that night, and it had made her feel bubbly and light. She felt as though she could not concentrate on what was being said; usually she was such a good listener, but now she felt as though she was floating out of her body. But she could not see anything, of course; so she was alone, drifting in a cloud above the place. It was just a place to her, but she could hear and smell and feel everything around her. He had put her in a dress that night. She liked dresses, because she liked her legs being free so she could stretch. He liked her dresses, too; oftentimes she heard the people that they were with comment about a dress she was wearing. As she floated, though, the dress melted away, and her body melted away, that body that he loved, and she was not a thing anymore, she was not a person or an object or anything physical. She was just a wisp of smoke in the place, and she curled around his neck so she could sit on his shoulders and rest her head on his heart. In real life she lifted her hand and put it on his face, and she could feel him smile under her fingers before he took her hand and put it on his lap instead, and she dimly heard someone say, "She liked it."

She did like it. She liked being smoke, but he brought her back to her body when he took her home. He closed and he locked the door behind them, and then he reached out for her and he caught her. She giggled; you could not catch smoke. But he did, he could do anything, and he ran his hands down her arms and caught the rope of the leash around her wrist. And then he moved, pulling her a little as he got farther away, and she stumbled, feeling dizzy and light still. And he caught her again, and put her on the bed, and she could hear his fingers moving and bumping as he tied the rope to the headpost. She put her hand up to try and feel the knot, but her fingers were clumsy. Then she felt him climb into bed with her, him in between her legs this time, and he leaned over her, pressing his lips to her cheek, running his tongue under the blindfold over her skin, and she smiled, trying to reach it. The leash caught one of her hands short, and she raised her other hand, but he caught this one too and put it back on the bed. His other hand pushed up her skirt, and he whispered, "Red."

The word made her weak, and she did not say anything, just smiled. She did not have to say anything; she knew that tone of voice of his, she could feel it as he pushed into her. It was not quite desperate, but it was determined, and he was not waiting for an answer. He was not waiting for her to say orange, no, he was just telling her, as a courtesy, what he was going to do, and he did not have to, not when he had that tone of voice. Violet was the word that he had chosen for her, when he had first gotten her. If she ever wanted him to stop, she could say it, and he would stop. No questions asked, no anger, no guilt. If she said the word, he was done. When he felt like asking, he would say red. But he did not always say red, because he never had to ask. All he had to do was take.

He moved inside of her that night, and she moved inside of herself as well. She felt she was dreaming as he touched her. She was his, she belonged to him, she was his puppy and his violet and whatever he needed her to be. She did not know that he would not take the blindfold off; as he pushed himself further into her he put his hand on her face, covering her eyes, so even if she didn't have a blindfold she would not have been able to see him. She had been given it when she was younger, when she was waiting. And since then, it never came off.

He told her the next morning that she had been high. She still felt it a little bit, that weightlessness in her lungs and in her head like she was a bird. The night before as he had run his hands over her body, ripping the dress that she had liked, she didn't know what it looked like but she had liked wearing it, but he had ripped it and she had felt as though she were flying. The two of them together, him on top of and her around him, she wrapped her legs around him, pulling him deeper inside of her, and he sighed. She loved when she could make him sigh. He put his hands on her hips and guided her, and she moved the way that he had taught her, and he sighed again, shaky, in her ear, as his tongue traced her jawbone and then he bit her ear. She had been high, he told her, from the joint, and he had been a little bit high too, which is why he had been so gentle. She liked when he was gentle; she had told him that before, since that night, that she liked the way it felt when she was high and flying and he was following her. He laughed when she said so, and hummed a little song to himself thoughtfully before saying that perhaps it would happen again.

That was the first time she had been high, but it was not the last. His friends knew that she had liked it, and they kept bringing him the drug. He did not always want her to take it; he gave it to her most of the times, but not all. It was not the first time he had tied her down, though, and it certainly was not the last.

The second place they went to was the place made of metal. She did not know, of course, that it was made of metal, but that is what it felt like, under her knees and her hands, and it is what it sounded like, whenever anyone walked by her, she could hear their shoes clicking on the metal. That was the first time that she did not sit at his feet, and she did not like it. She had been alone, the whole night, and she could hear him, she knew that he was near, but she could not feel him. He had told her to walk, slowly, five steps forward, and then stop. She felt the ground change under her bare feet, and then she felt his hands on her shoulders, running down her arms again, this time taking the dress with him. It pooled at her feet, and she did not say anything, but her eyebrows furrowed. People had looked at her before, she knew that. She knew that he took her places to show her off. But he had never shown her off like this. He was jealous, he told her after, when she asked him why he had done that. But he wanted to make himself more jealous, and to make the other people jealous too. They could look, but they could not touch.

She felt the dress on her feet, and then she felt her wrist jerk a little bit. He was pulling on the leash, but not pulling to walk; he was fiddling with it, and only later did she realize he had tied it to something. She did not realize it until she tried to sit and her hand would not come with her; he came back to her, as close as he could get, and he adjusted it for her so she could sit. And then he disappeared again, leaving her alone with her blindfold and her hand still tied, but she didn't know what it was tied to. She just kept listening for his voice, rocking back and forth slowly, wondering why no one was touching her. Usually no one touched her because she was with him. But now she was alone. It was not until she heard a noise, and jumped, and made a startled noise of her own, and then she heard a laugh, that she realized where she was. The first noise, not hers, had been the sound of something metal running against something else metal, lots of other things metal; a cane running against the bars of a cage. He had put her in a cage, where everyone could see her, but no one could touch her. And he could see them seeing her, her, who was supposed to be just for him, even though she could not see them. She could hear them, and she could smell the alcohol and the smoke in the air, she could hear the voices twisting like smoke, but she could not see them. She wasn't sure how much she liked this at first, this being alone. She missed him. She wanted to put her head against his knee and feel his fingers in her hair, but he just left her there, for almost the whole night, all by herself. She could hear footsteps passing by; sometimes they slowed, sometimes they stopped, she could tell they were looking at her. She listened for him; she heard his breathing, slow and even and gentle near her. Even though he had left her alone he stayed nearby almost all night. He watched the people watching her, watched the people wanting her, but no, she was not for sale, he told countless people who asked. She was his. She sat on the floor of the cage, rocking back and forth, slowly, feeling nothing but the metal and the strap on her wrist and the cold air on her skin, and she listened to the people. It was the first time she had ever heard someone call him any name. "Is she yours, River?" asked a deep voice, a man, and she was prepared for whoever River was to say no, because she was not River's, she was his. But he was the one who answered, with a smile in his voice that she could hear even if she could not see, and he said, "Yes. Look, don't touch."

They had gone to many different places over the past few years. Since then she heard people call him many names. River was her favorite, though. She never said it to him, she never called him anything, she did not have to. If she ever spoke, he knew she was talking to him. But from that day forth she thought of him as River, her River, ever-changing, ebbing and flowing and taking her places, it was the first name that she ever associated with him, and it was her favorite.

She thought about that night very often, trying to figure out if she liked it or not. She liked to hear the people, but she can hear people anywhere. She knew he was there, but he was far away. Close enough that she could hear his voice when he spoke, but she could not touch him, and that was what she did not like. She liked the nights when she sat close to him and could feel him against her skin. She even liked when they were home, more than she had liked sitting on the floor of the cage, because when they were home she was his, and she could sit and listen to nothing but him as he moved around. In the cage she was alone, even though she knew he was near; she was alone, tilting her head back and forth, searching for him. She did not like the searching part that much. But later on in the evening, when she finally heard the strange noise again and then felt the strap around her wrist moving a little bit, she felt flutters in her stomach. She wanted to touch someone, to touch him, and then he reached out for her. She did not know if they were alone; she could not see, and she did not care. It had become too much for him, she knew. All of those people looking at her, even if they couldn't touch they were looking and he could see the want in their eyes. But she was his, his alone, and after all of that night that she had sat alone he put his hands on her and he laid her down and he kissed her, he put his hand on her neck, he put his fingers in her mouth, he put himself inside of her, and he was hot and he was like fire. Red. He could not stand it any longer, people looking at her, so he took her back. She became soft and wet and melted like putty in his hands, she could feel the metal under her back and she could smell the drink on his breath and she could hear him, sighing in her ear, she loved when he sighed at her, when she could make him sigh. She made a noise too, on the floor of the cage, and tried to move her legs, but he shook his head, bumping his nose against hers, and put one hand on her knee until she stilled. And then he took both of her wrists in one of his hands and brought them above her head, pinning her there and opening her up, and he used his other hand to touch her, over the curves and the muscles and the bone, he felt every inch of her inside and out and she knew him, better than she knew anyone. She was, after all, his.