My Blind Neighbor Taught Me to Feel Without Looking

A few years ago I had a neighbor who worked as a prostitute. And, on top of that, she had been blind from birth. Yes, a rather unusual combination. But, curiously, for her and her clients, that oddity worked quite well.

We became friends quickly. Mariela told me almost everything about her life and her work, without filters and without guilt. She also explained to me why her lack of sight, far from being an obstacle, made her a better companion.

—When you lose one sense, the others sharpen —she told me that afternoon, with a calm smile—. I learned to read people with my hands, with my nose, with my ears. Men like to feel seen, even if it’s by a woman who can’t look at them.

Her apartment was right next to mine, on the same floor, and both balconies overlooked the inner courtyard. We could practically talk from one railing to the other. From the day I moved in, I started hearing her exaggerated moans, the doors opening and closing at all hours, the deep voices saying goodbye in the hallway. I couldn’t resist the curiosity and started spying on her from my kitchen. Very bad of me, I know.

That’s how I discovered her profession and her condition. And, since I’m pathologically curious, I wanted to try it for myself. I started blindfolding myself when I masturbated, or when I was with whichever boyfriend I was seeing at the time. I don’t know if it was suggestion, but my sense of touch intensified in an almost unbearable way, as if every fold in the sheets weighed differently.

That afternoon, sitting in her living room, I ended up telling her about it. I told her about the blindfold, the hot fingertips, the way the other person’s body odor became the star of the show. Mariela’s unfocused eyes lit up, as if she had found a favorite topic.

—I can give you a quick lesson so you can sharpen things even more —she said—. Want to try?

Obviously, she didn’t have to insist much.

She lent me an old, soft silk scarf and blindfolded me herself. Her fingers brushed the back of my neck with professional calm, as if she were used to tying knots without looking. Darkness fell all at once and made me breathe deeper.

—First you’re going to learn to see with touch and hearing —she announced.

The first task was to touch her face and say whether she was happy or sad. I felt her cheekbones, her lips, the faint curve of a smile at the corner of her mouth. I got it right. Then she had me press my ear to her cheek to figure out whether she was breathing through her mouth or her nose. I got it right again. It was a gentle game, almost childish, and I could tell my heart was starting to beat faster than seemed reasonable.

—Now the hard tests —she warned.

I had to keep my hand loose. She would guide me toward different objects and parts of her body, and I had to guess what they were at the first touch. No groping, no searching for clues. Just the first impression.

I touched her hair, gathered to one side. I touched the lobe of her ear, warm and soft. I touched the tip of her tongue, which she only just let out for me, and I felt a stab somewhere in my stomach that I didn’t want to name. I touched her navel, the curve of a wrist, a ring. I was getting everything right.

Until my hand landed on something soft, slightly rough, that I couldn’t identify.

—Now you’re going to touch the same thing again —she said, in a lower tone—, but this time you’re going to notice it differently. Let’s see if you realize what it is.

When I returned to the same spot, the softness had hardened. There was no way to mistake it now.

—Did I touch a nipple? —I asked, surprised, and noticed my voice came out raspier than I’d expected.

—Exactly! —she replied, delighted.

I stayed still. Something had shifted in the air of the living room. I didn’t know if Mariela had done it to be a tease, if for her it was a natural gesture between friends, or if she was testing me to see how far I would follow her. I stayed on alert without saying anything. The truth is I was enjoying myself, far too much, and my curiosity about what came next was stronger than any caution.

Without uncovering my eyes, I asked her whether she had taken off her T-shirt. She told me I’d have to find out. It was a very clear invitation.

I stretched out my arms, but she moved back.

—Not with your hands —she said—. I want you to learn to discover me the way I discover people.

—How is that? —I asked.

—With your face. With your mouth, your tongue, your cheeks, your nose, your ears. Everything except your hands.

We started a new game. She brought different parts of her body close to my face, and I had to identify each one without the privilege of sight. A collarbone, the hollow between her breasts, the edge of a rib. Every time I brushed against something new, she quietly explained how she worked with her clients: the aromas, the tastes, the textures, the sounds. All of it, she said, mixed in her head until it formed an image much more complete than any photograph.

The game ended when what came close to my face was her mouth, and it met mine without warning. Not being able to see her helped me forget that I was kissing a woman. I focused on feeling that kiss, on noting how it differed from any other kiss I had ever given. The skin of her lip was thinner. The taste was cleaner. The patience with which she waited for my response was something I had never felt in a man.

I pulled away for a second, took a deep breath, and challenged her to discover me now. I took off the scarf, lifted my shirt, removed my bra and my pants. I stood naked in the middle of her living room, with the blinds lowered and the yellow light of the bedside lamp tinting everything.

***

Mariela knelt in front of me. She didn’t hesitate for a second. Her hands climbed my ankles, my calves, the inner side of my thighs, reading me as if I were a Braille text. When she reached my pubis, she didn’t stop to ask. Her tongue stimulated my lips with precision I wouldn’t have thought possible. I had taken off the blindfold precisely to see her, to burn into my memory the image of her mouth searching for me.

I took her by the head so her tongue would go deeper. She let me. I heard my own breathing and understood, for the first time, what she heard in her clients: that soundscape that said more than any glance ever could.

Suddenly she pulled back.

—Let’s go to the bed —she said, her voice a little broken.

I followed her. We lay down, we held each other. Her hands moved over my body as if she were drawing me with her fingers. I had never felt caresses like that, without a single wasted gesture, without the usual clumsiness of someone who has eyes to guide them and gets lazy with the rest.

Between sighs I confessed that I regretted not bringing my vibrator. She smiled and pointed me to a dark wooden box under the bed. I took it out and opened it: it was practically a miniature sex shop. Dildos of all sizes, latex, silicone, some with strange ridges. I chose one because of its unusual curve, asymmetrical, which she called “the freak.”

—Lie down and relax —she told me, patting the sheet.

She grabbed my thigh so I would open my legs and I obeyed without thinking. She felt around until she found my slit and began sliding the toy in with almost unbearable softness. A muffled moan escaped me, one I couldn’t hold back.

The strange shape of that dildo was touching places inside me nothing had ever reached before. Mariela moved it in slow circles while she kissed my mouth and stroked my breasts with her free hand. I clung to her tightly, started shaking, and my pelvis began moving on its own to follow the toy’s rhythm. My moans turned into short cries.

And then she stopped moving.

She kept the dildo inside me, motionless, pressing only lightly. She knew I was on the edge and wanted my own body to finish manufacturing the climax, without help, so it would last longer. I liked the idea. I closed my eyes, didn’t move a muscle, breathed through my mouth, panting, and directed all my attention to the corners the toy was filling. From there a tremor rose that spread over my skin, up to my shoulders, up to the nape of my neck.

I felt trapped in an orgasm that hung in the air for an eternal instant. My mouth fell open and I formed a moan that began as a rough whisper and grew until it became a scream. When I opened my eyes I saw Mariela’s concentrated face, her ear tilted toward me, attentive to every reaction like a musician tuning an instrument.

I would have liked to stay sprawled there all afternoon, but I still had electricity left in my fingers. I sat up and announced that now it was her turn to lie down and relax. She smiled like a little girl who had been promised a gift.

She felt around the box and chose her favorite: the biggest one of all.

Before touching her, I looked for the scarf and blindfolded myself again. I wanted to be blind again in order to understand her better. Feeling my way, I found her crotch, fitting that enormous dildo between her lips with the greatest possible care. I remembered her instructions and paid full attention to her sighs, to the small changes in her breathing, to the way she squeezed my wrist to tell me when to speed up and when to slow down.

I moved very slowly. Her moans were the same ones I had heard through the wall, the ones she reserved for her favorite clients. It meant she was really enjoying this. And that aroused me all over again. Almost without meaning to, with my free hand I began stroking my breasts, without stopping moving the toy inside her.

I was tempted to take off the blindfold and look at her. I didn’t. I threw myself on top of her, without letting go of the dildo, and kissed her mouth with a urgency I didn’t know I had in me. She let out a cry of intense pleasure that seemed to enter my whole body. Our tongues searched for each other without order, as if we were fighting over something neither of us could name.

Her body began an undulating motion and her cries grew longer. I ran my tongue over her entire body, without looking at her. I spread her legs to fit myself between them and licked the inner side of her thighs while still pushing the toy all the way in.

Suddenly I felt her change position. She grabbed my legs and set them on either side of her head. We ended up in a perfect sixty-nine, and there was no more strategy. Only tongues, fingers, muffled moans against damp skin. We both came at the same time, with a long cry that blended into a single voice.

I collapsed on top of her, my head resting on her pubis and hers against my face. It took me a long while to get my breath back. Two orgasms in a row like that had never happened to me before.

When I had enough strength to sit up, I sat on the bed and finally took off the blindfold. Mariela settled beside me in silence. Without knowing why, I felt like crying. She noticed right away, hugged me, and kissed my shoulder.

—Come on, help me put the water on for the mate —she said, without any drama, as if what had just happened were the most natural thing in the world.

We got dressed, made mate, and chatted until it began to get dark outside. I would have stayed with her until the next morning, but I needed to be alone to think. I said goodbye by brushing her cheek with my hand and giving her a soft kiss on the lips, as if I wanted to leave a small mark before leaving.

That night I went back to my apartment not quite knowing who I was. I spent a long while in front of the bathroom mirror, looking at my mouth, wondering how many other things I still had left to discover.

Maybe now you’re wondering whether I became a lesbian, whether I’m bisexual, whether I’m something else. I wondered that too for weeks. The best answer I found was not to put any label on myself, neither to define my sexuality nor for anything else. Because to label yourself is to make yourself smaller. The only thing that became clear to me was that with Mariela I had learned something no man had ever taught me: that pleasure doesn’t come through the eyes. And sometimes, when I blindfold myself in my bed and touch myself alone in the silence, I can still hear her breathing very close, as if she were kneeling in front of me again.