So Let's See How This Works

I went to the eye doctor today to get a new prescription. My previous optometrist had dissatisfied me in a couple of ways, none of them big, but enough that I wanted to try someone new. So I made an appointment and went to a place my wife had gone to and considered acceptable. She'd mentioned that the doctor was female, but I really paid no mind to that detail, expecting to find myself being helped by one of those doctor-y types wearing a white lab coat over nondescript clothing.

It kind of took me by surprise, therefore, when the doctor showed up young and pretty and, frankly, stacked, and in a cleavage-revealing dress to boot.

(Let me take a moment here to say that even though I'm an erotica writer, and I'm starting off my first blog post by describing an unexpected encounter in the close confines of an examination room with a hot chick of an optometrist, this is not going to morph into a porn scene or any kind of sex scene at all. So don't get your hopes up for a steamy "Better like this? Or better like this?" fantasy.)

Now, here's the deal. I'm of the opinion that there's absolutely nothing wrong with a guy looking at a woman's body, unless she catches him doing it. If she catches him doing it, especially in a professional interaction, it's crass and rude. This means that unless circumstances guarantee that she won't notice, it's rude to even try to sneak a peek.

There I am, then, running the gamut of eye-doctor tests ... several of which involve her sitting on the opposite side of a machine from me, with the machine covering her face, but, because of the construction of the various devices, leaving a partial or even complete line of sight to her chest. And the animal instinct part of my brain is saying, "She totally can't see you, there's a big hunk of metal between your face and hers, go ahead and stare at her rack." But the rational part of my brain is saying, "Dude, no, she's looking directly through the machine, at your eyes." And as fate would have it, my eyes are crappy enough that I have to go to the optometrist, but I actually have really good peripheral vision. So the decolletage revealed above her low-cut, silky green dress is like a magnet tugging and pulling at my eyes, and I'm having to constantly fight it through the entire appointment.

The worst moment comes when we get to that point where she's shining the light straight in my eyes checking my pupil responses or whatever the hell they're doing when they shine that light in your eyes. Zap! It's like an interrogation chamber spotlight stabbing into my vision, blinding me, trying to make my eyes tear up or squeeze shut. But I know I'm supposed to keep them open, so I'm struggling to do so, and at the same time struggling to not look down and away from that light at the exposed upper curves of her breasts.

At that moment, she taps her earlobe and says, "Look right here."

Pure horror and panic. Oh shit, did I slip and look down at her tits? No, I've been working hard not to this whole time. But I've definitely been seeing them. No, only in my peripheral vision. I did not look at her tits. Did I?

And after a split second of that (in which I did manage to keep my eyes locked firmly on her earlobe), I remembered that optometrists always say that when they're shining the light in your eyes.

And that's where I am with you, my friends. You have here a situation in which I am allowing you to look into my psyche. I'm throwing the windows of my soul open to the world, and I'm scared more or less shitless that someone's going to think I'm looking at their tits.

I'm going to work very hard to avoid being rude and obnoxious in this blog. But I'm also going to try to be honest, and that's going to mean saying some things that a subset of readers will take the wrong way. Already, there must be someone out there who's thinking, "This guy just thinks of women as walking sets of breasts," even though this entire post has been about how hard I work to avoid making women uncomfortable with the natural, reflexive instincts of my male brain.

But I'm pushing ahead with it anyway, because the goal is for me to see things clearly, and hopefully help others see things clearly as well.

Except for my optometrist, whom I really, really hope is not reading this right now.