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I hear that Nancy is very pretty. I can hear it in the way she laughs. I can hear it in the way her voice squeaks when she gets excited. I can very clearly hear that Nancy is very pretty. Nancy sounds perfect. I can’t see that she’s pretty. I’m blind. Well, I can kinda see light from dark, but not a lot else. I certainly can’t see Nancy. I hear her though when we have lunch at the work cafeteria. We have overlapping social circles and we congregate at 1pm around the table at the back of the canteen, out of the way. Gunnar basically guides me to my seat. He’s my best mate and colleague. We work as analysts in the ahem… public sector. Which is how I have to describe my job as a recordings analyst at GCHQ. Gunnar works as a translator. I work as a human lie detector. Being blind helps with that kind of thing. My friends call me Daredevil, but honestly I can pick up slight pitch changes, quivers, evasions in speech and can work out from that if they are lying, like nobody else can. Other friends call me Rainman. My actual name is Clyde. So, I asked if Nancy was pretty. “Sure bro, you could say she was pretty” Gunnar said, his Norwegian accent lost under American inflection, as so many who grow up learning English from the movies do. “So she’s not pretty?” People don’t notice they’re dong this, but sometimes they soften their lie by saying ‘you could say...’, or sometimes it’s to convince themselves. I think it was the former here. “No, no, I think she is pretty” he was back-tracking instead of attacking, which meant he was still trying to convince himself. That ‘think’. That’s a caveat. It serves as plausible deniability to his conscience. I reckon Gunnar didn’t want to say she was ugly out of politeness. “Be honest mate. I can always tell. And anyway, it’s not like I’d hold it against her. Blind, remember?” “She is pretty dude, really cute. Just… she’s not thin like some girls. Why? Are you gonna ask her out bro?” And there we have it. The source of his evasion. Her size. I should maybe have guessed. I could hear that she was a plentiful eater at lunch. I could hear her groan at the thought of hitting the gym with Colette. I could her chair groan a little when she sat down. But it didn’t matter to me. I was blind, I wasn’t going to judge. To me, Nancy sounds perfect. -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- Nancy always smells very nice. That’s one of the things I’ve always liked about her. She sits at the table and smells like sweet peach and nectarine. Everyone else always smells like work or stress or tiredness and coffee. But Nancy always smells like sweet peach and nectarine. To me, Nancy smells perfect. “You look nice today Nancy” I say. The line between flirting and joking is narrow, I was walking it. “Ah that’s really sweet. Wait, oh no! You were joking!” She said, and then letting out a clanging laugh. It was one of those really natural and unforced laughs. It was nectar. “Sorry, I was. But I’m sure you do anyway.” I say and smile. Maybe I looked shifty when I did this. Some people say I look shifty when I speak, because I can’t make eye contact. Because I can’t see your eyes. I hope Nancy doesn’t think I look shifty. “Awww, you’re really nice Daredevil!” she said. She touched my arm gently as she said it. The hairs on my arm all stood erect. They weren’t alone. “Hey girl, did you know that Clyde has the hots for you? That’s why he’s always so sweet to you” Gunnar said. I could hear that he wasn’t lying, but I knew that he wasn’t lying anyway. I really did have the hots for her. I hope I wasn’t blushing. “Clyde, you sly dog” Colette teased. You could hear from the way she said it that she was smiling as she teased. Smiles affect the pronunciation of vowels strongly. “Hey, leave him alone. I happen to think Clyde’s cute too” Nancy snapped back. She said it sharply and instinctively, and the stress was on the ‘too’, which means she wasn’t worrying about the words that might have carried the lie. Which means she was telling the truth. Which means Nancy really believed that I was cute also. See, I told you Nancy sounded perfect. -*-*-*-*-*-*--*-*- Nancy feels nice. And she’s been much more tactile since Gunnar outed me as fancying her. A brush of the arm, a friendly hug. I love the warmth of her. I didn’t care whether she was fat or slim, but I loved how soft she was. How cushioned. She felt perfect. “So, when are you going to ask her out, man?” Gunnar said as he walked with me to the canteen. “Ask who?” I said, playing dumb but only for comic effect. “Hey, now who’s the liar? Nancy, you dickhead” he guffawed, dropping a British obscenity in his Americanspeak. “You two are so obvious. At least you have an excuse.” “I don’t know. For a start, I’m hard work, needing help doing so much. You’re my best mate, you know that. I require more attention than I can give. And anyway, Nancy’s so pretty, is she not out of my league?” I hadn’t had a proper girlfriend before. Not a proper proper girlfriend. I’d had female friends who had gone out with me out of sympathy or because they pitied the blind guy. But never because they wanted to date me. Date the guy who could hear every one of their doubts about me, from their intonation. “Look, bro. You are into her, so I’m going to be honest. She’s fat, man. Like, a really big girl. And you’re a good looking bloke. If anything, she’s punching above her weight, and that’s a lot of weight to punch above.” Gunnar said, sincerely. I did enjoy being called a good looking bloke. I actually heard it a lot. People tended to tell me more because I couldn’t see it for myself. You might think that, as a blind person, vanity is beneath me, but au contraire mon ami, blind people are the vainest people you will ever meet. Beauty carries more lustre to us, since we hear people talk about it and mount such significance upon it, but can never see it. So, we want to uproot expectations and be called beautiful too. I didn’t enjoy how Gunnar described Nancy though. “She’s fat, man.” It seemed condescending. Like she was plague-carrying or something. There was just more of her. And I would hate to live in a world where more Nancy was a bad thing. The world can never have too much Nancy. -*-*-*-*-*-*-*- “Hey Daredevil” Nancy giggled as she saw me and Gunnar arrive at the table. “Oh, and Gunnar, sorry.” “Yeah, you two lovers just talk to each other. I’ll grab lunch. What do want, dude? They have lasagna as a special today?” Gunnar asked, grabbing a tray. “Yes please mate” I replied. “Oh, and could you go get me a slice of bread pudding while you’re up there Gunnar darling” Nancy asked. How had I not known she was a big girl? She had clearly already eaten dessert and she was ordering seconds. Should I mind? Should that put me off? It would for most sighted people. But, fuck it, I like who I like. And I like Nancy. It wasn’t just the previous bowl of bread pudding I could smell. It was sweet peach and nectarines from her perfume. I could smell it with such precision. Two sprays on the neck, one on each wrist. It was heavenly. She smelt wonderful And when she started talking, I could hear that past-paced talking of hers. The dramatic rises and falls of her sing-song voice. The giggling excitement, the tell-tale of happiness. I loved her enthusiasm, her joie de vivre. She sounded fantastic. And then she wrapped one arm around me in an affectionate embrace. That soft arm, so hard to squirm out of, not that I ever felt the desire to do so. It pressed me against the doughy delights of her upper chest, my head mushed above her breasts She felt delightful. “Nancy?” I asked as we were preparing to leave. “Yes, my darling?” Those mellifluous tones were almost sung with good-natured warmth. “Would it be okay… would you mind… maybe meeting up some time outside of work? You know, for a drink or something?” I stumbled through my words. I was normally so clear and concise, but every sound was a hurdle, and I tripped over each one. “Oh, I’d love to Clyde!” She hugged me again, this time with both arms wrapping around me like feather boas, but then tightened like boa constrictors. You didn’t need to be a human lie detector to know that she meant it. She really would love to. She then pulled back, and time hung in the air. I could sense her bread pudding breath breathing on me. I could hear her breathing accelerate as we faced one another. I could feel her large stomach press against me even as she stood back. I could smell wafts of sweet peach and nectarine. And then we kissed. I don’t know who leant in first, who followed whose cue. But we drifted forwards until our lips met. I like to think she closed her eyes. I have a feeling I closed mine. And we kissed. Her bulky body pressed against me and I felt anchored and secure, warm and coddled. Nancy was very pretty. I had heard right. Nancy smelt beautiful. She felt wonderful. And best of all, as her lips hung on mine, Nancy tasted perfect.