*Dedicated to Wayne P. over at SOLDG*

This is a true* story; all characters and events described are based on factual accounts, although some small portions of dialogue have been altered for dramatic effect. Certain manufacturers or their representatives have paid a substantial fee to, or performed many hours of cunnilingus upon, the author for the shameless promotion of products and services. Any persons who believe this are invited to forward their most recent bank statements, along with a blank signed personal check to the address provided below. Credit cards are also accepted. VISA is the official sponsor of the Miss Blind America Pageant. VISA it's everywhere you want to be ... Provided you want to be in debt! If you are a lawyer and have been contracted to sue the author for the gross misrepresentation of the facts, in this paragraph in particular, or any other paragraph contained in this account, please be aware that I am a minority female, from a one parent home who was sexually abused as a child. I am undergoing psychiatric care and currently on several prescribed medications, one of which has documented side effects very similar to those pathological symptoms demonstrated in this paragraph. I am also a blind, pregnant, unemployed writer currently living abroad, and have an outstanding debt of several dozen thousands of dollars in student loans. You can't win. I will however be more than willing to negotiate a settlement in the event that your client's only desire is blood. Thus ends this disclaimer. Have a very nice day. -rr

On with the story...

"If you had a choice, of being blind from birth or being blinded later in life – say at age..."

"Sixteen?" I offered helpfully. I'm 22 now and six years can be a long time in the dark.

"Yes. Okay, being blinded at age sixteen ... Which would you choose and why?"

I considered the question carefully, or at least I seemed to. I already knew the answer, of course, but they wanted to see us thinking. Like these were the most important questions in the whole world.

"Well," I began, "I can only answer from my own experience. I will always be grateful that I was able to see the world around me, even if only for sixteen years. While at times it does fill me with ... regret, with sadness that I didn't appreciate what I had at the time, I can honestly say that I feel very lucky to have those memories." I paused, as if wondering if I should expose myself. "They ... sustain me, have sustained me ... through some rough times in my life."

The talent portion was a biggie. That and the interview of course - the question and answer, which I thought I'd aced. Talent would be a bit harder though. I did a piano recital, something easy at first, Beethoven's Fur Elise, but I'd done the arrangement myself and I thought I could give it a lot of emotion. With the Beethoven it's largely a matter of tempo.

My second piece was more difficult, a selection from Chopin that I struggled with constantly and more than a few people probably would have warned me away from it, if they hadn't been worried about my confidence. But I needed to demonstrate technical skill and that's something Chopin is perfect for. The man was a bitch and all I had to do was nail him.

I did.

Afterwards I spent 20 minutes vomiting in the bathroom. You have no idea how difficult that piece was. I'll never, ever play it again. I'm afraid to.

The hardest portion, and oddly enough the easiest, is the swimwear portion. I say easiest because it's really out of our hands, the contestant's, I mean. God, in His infinite wisdom, more or less decided a long time ago who would do well in this area and who wouldn't, like a long time before we got there. I mean, we're all blind, so there isn't a lot of the runway model walking, sexy eye contact with the judges, and waving into the camera stuff. We have our costumes and makeup artists, and our families who tell us we're beautiful, but we don't know what the other girls look like. Shoot, most of us don't even know what we ourselves look like. The last time I saw myself had been almost six years ago. I'd looked pretty, all blonde and blue eyed, but what about now? And just try telling a girl who's been blind since birth that she's blonde. That'll make as much sense to her as me telling you what blue sounds like.

That's why none of us really worried or cared about the swimsuit portion, so I was a little surprised when I won that. I'd come in first runner-up in Talent and first runner-up in the Interview portion, which disappointed me more than it should have, I'm sure. The good news was that two different girls had won those. Miss Blind Wisconsin had taken talent with her cello, she probably sleeps with it, and Miss Blind Alaska had really come across well during the question and answer. Even I would have voted for her, she's really very smart and articulate. But I heard she looks like Ben Franklin.

That meant I had a very, very good chance at winning the title. On points, for those who like to keep score, I stood in first place. But the judges didn't go on points alone; they had their own scales, their own factors that weren't written down anyplace. Those were from casual observation, from seeing us away from the stage and the lights, watching how we interacted with ourselves and the people around us. This wasn't really a policy or anything, but it was a fact and we all knew it.

So maybe you'll understand why I'd been a little shy about bringing my dog with me. A lot of the girls have Seeing Eye Dogs; one has a Seeing Eye Pig. I have a dog, a 4 year old cocker spaniel named Bob. Lot's of people say that's a dumb name for a dog, but I don't know. Bob sounds ... friendly. Like someone you can trust, you know? Plus it sounds really funny. "Bob." Say it out loud, you'll see. It always cheers me up.

Bob is a well trained animal. Very, very well trained. He cost a lot of money too, a lot more than I could afford. Not so much for him as it was for the training, the traveling and all that. I got him through Second Sight down in California and they really do everything they can to make the dogs affordable. I don't think they ever turned a person away for financial reasons. Anyway, I had some help from the Helen Keller people, and Lighthouse for the Blind, chipped in a little. Plus I had some anonymous donations from regular folks who'd heard about me, or maybe even knew me. It's rather flattering when you think about it, that total strangers would care enough to help buy me a dog. I certainly appreciated it.

But I bet most of them would have second thoughts about opening their checkbooks for another blind girl if they knew Bob was a lot more to me than just a pair of eyes and an appetite. He was also about 6 inches of hot, hard canine cock, which has never ceased to amaze me. I don't know for sure that he wasn't trained to provide that additional service, but he might have been. He was already full grown when I got him almost two years ago and the first night we were alone he practically raped me with his tongue.

Well ... not rape, really. It's kinda like that old joke:

A big black guy grabs a nun as she's walking down the street. He throws her in the bushes, rips off her habit, and has his way with her. Afterwards, he looks down at the nun and says, "What are you gonna tell the priest now, sister?" And the nun looks up at the man and says, "Oh, I'm going to tell the Father that I was walking down the street when a big black man grabbed me, threw me in the bushes, and raped me twice ... unless your tired."

Thankfully, Bob didn't get tired and for a few moments there, I almost thought I could see again! A dog's tongue can do that to a girl. It wasn't long after that when I discovered the joys of mating with my dog. He really is a horny little devil and sometimes I'm genuinely worried that we're not alone, because it is hard for me to tell. I mean, for all I know the blinds in my bedroom window might be wide open! But usually I check those.

So the biggest problem with the Miss Blind America pageant turned out to be that Bob and I were never really alone. And if we were, I couldn't ever know for certain how long we had. I shared my hotel room with Miss Blind Delaware and Miss Blind Hawaii, one of whom snores terribly, by the way. My parents and friends were all in town, of course. We had reporters and judges and pageant officials, and all the other people who make these things work, bustling in and out of our lives at all hours of the day and night.

Bob was horny. And, truthfully, so was I. This Miss Blind America thing could be very stressful and like all of Mother Nature's children, when we get stressed we like to unwind. To relax. To work that nervous energy out of our system, so it was only natural that I felt these urges. It isn't wrong or abnormal to fuck a dog. People are so stupid about that. I knew the judges wouldn't understand it though. Nor would the sponsors. Imagine winning Miss Blind America, opening a shopping mall or two, doing a commercial for sunglasses or condoms or whatever ... and then revealing that I fuck my dog. The Vagasil people might not worry so much, but Trojan? They don't even make condoms for dogs, do they?

Prinia might like it though. "It must be the puppy chow!" Heh! Imagine that ad campaign!

They stripped what's her name of her Miss America title fifty years ago just because she showed her tits in some Playboy magazine, like half the people in the world haven't seen those before! And the other half is trying to! Anyway, if they'd yanked her title, and she could actually see ... Just think what they'd do to a blind girl who likes a little doggy dick on the side. Can you say "Manned Mission to Mars"? Because that's where I'd be going if I was lucky. A one way ticket too, I bet. Peta would put a price on my head. The SPCA would make Bob go to dog therapy and he'd probably wind up doing Stupid Pet Tricks on Letterman, or even worse, a guest spot on the Tonight Show!

" ... My next guest is the dog who fucked Miss Blind America and eventually put her in the space program ... The world's first Fucking-Eye Dog ... Give a big hand for Bob, ladies and gentleman!"

Okay, okay ... I hear you. "I get it. You had to abstain for a week," you're saying. "So what? I've been married to the same man for 13 years! Don't talk to me about frustration!"

My Aunt Bethany said that once. We weren't talking about Bob, of course, my oldest sister had been complaining because she lost her birth control pills and couldn't get a refill note for a week. She'd wanted to borrow some from me. I was like, no way! I'd only been 15 then, but hey! The Chili Peppers were coming to town, you know? I was gonna need those pills!

A lot of people think the Miss Blind America all happens in one evening. It doesn't. It happens over many evenings in front of a live audience, and it's taped. Then the final night, when the winner is announced, those tapes are used to make it seem like the whole thing is live. You could never get 52 blind 18-22 year olds, including Puerto Rico and Guam, to sing and dance and juggle and answer questions and parade around in bikinis all in one night! Get real. Someone would end up in the hospital.

So this was really frustrating. Now usually I'd walk with Bob to the contestants' back stage area and give my dog to my parents to hold for me, since the pageant people provided us with guides. They were friendly kids for the most part, who led us around by the hand. My guide turned out to be a 9 year old boy named Thomas and he was a sweetie. My dad caught him looking up my skirt once, but I think Daddy is just over protective. I'd asked Thomas to tell me what color my panties were. I mean, if you can't trust a nine year old, who can you trust? I know Thomas didn't really look because he said they were white, but I wasn't wearing any panties at all. So you see? Thomas was my little guardian angel and much too self-conscious to sneak any peeks, even when I invited him too.

Or else he's really devious! I try not to think about that though; I'm pretty much an optimist.

Blind people have to worry about that stuff. And not just what color our panties are, I mean the other stuff too. Like who's peeking. Believe me, there's nothing worse than undressing in your bedroom, thinking you're alone, and then hearing a stranger's voice whispering, "I've seen Paris, I've seen France..." It gives me the creeps every time! Even if it is just my brother and his friends. Usually.