James Callan

The One With the Eyes That Can Seize Your Soul

We had pizza, and it was hot. Banana peppers and jalapeños. First bite burned the roof of my mouth. And my date was smoking. Off the fucking charts.

At her place, a tiny cold home in Seward, Minneapolis, she pulled down my Wranglers and gave me an ultimatum:

“I’m gonna give you a handjob,” she told me. So far, so good! “But you have to look into my eyes, and you can’t look away.”

“Okay…”

“If you look away,” she added, “It’s over. That’s as far as we go. I leave you high and dry. I’ll kick your ass out.”

“Can I blink?”

“Yeah, you can blink. You can even cum—cum right into my open eyes. I don’t care. But if you look away, it’s over. And that’s that. You won’t be seeing me again.”

I was so hard I could almost cry, and I didn’t think I’d last long, so it seemed like an easy game. A few minutes. Five at the absolute most. No problem. Just don’t look away.

But when she wiggled in close, taking hold of my cock, I realized, already, that my eyes had strayed away. I was looking at her hands, each elegant finger. I was transfixed by her predator touch. She had  rune tattoos below each knuckle and, as I puzzled over their meaning, I privately wondered Is this girl a witch? I admired her silver rings, her outrageous press-on nails. I zeroed in on her possessive strokes.

She took hold of me with grace, thumbing away the precum. Her handwork was deft. Her fingers, balletic. My eyes lingered as long as I dared, hoping to move them before she took notice, before the game began. I savored her artistic flare, her sexy panache; her Komodo dragon acrylics as loud as a Tokyo skyline.

I met her eyes just in time.

“Okay, big boy.” Big boy! That almost made me cum. “Don’t you dare look away.”

I was determined that I would not.

It was more intimate than I could have imagined; staring into the eyes of god (for that is who this woman became in this game of discipline and pleasure). “Don’t look away,” she threatened. “Don’t look at my tits,” she teased, working away at me with one hand, unbuttoning her shirt with the other. As the lumberjack flannel parted to her navel, I was truly put to the test. But I didn’t look away. “Good boy.” I passed the test.

Behind her head, a nest of serpentine dreadlocks, a Netflix menu cycled stills of featured shows and films. It was hard not to look, despite my disinterest. In my peripherals, I noticed Will Smith, Matt Damon, Emma Stone. It was like being watched. Being judged. Being tested.

“Do you like my eyes?” She asked, and picked up the rhythm, her silver rings cold on my dick.

I nodded, moving my head, but my eyes remained fixed. “The most beautiful eyes I have ever seen.” It wasn’t a lie. Hey eyes were remarkable. Blue-green. Speckled with gold.

“They are contacts,” she told me.

“Oh,” I said. I didn’t care. Beauty is beauty, and I told her so.

“You are sweet.” She massaged my balls in one hand, tickled my shaft with those gaudy, sorceress talons in the other.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Do you want to look at my tits?”

“Yes, please.”

“Well you can’t.” It was a test. “If you look away, it’s over. And so are we.”

Again I nodded. I blinked, but didn’t dare look away.

“Tell me about my eyes,” she demanded.

“They are beautiful.”

She eased her grip on my cock. She slowed her stroke to a standstill. “You can do better than that.”

She wasn’t wrong, and deserved better, besides. So I did my best to tap into my poetic depths. To do so, I had to ignore the mounting pleasure, the teasing fluctuation of her rewards and punishment. And, of course, I could not look away, or break her stare. I was forced to avoid my tendency to look up and to the right, which is what I do when amassing deep thoughts. It was difficult, but I managed. I told her about her eyes.

“Your eyes are starlight on azurite. Two foreign moons that hover in a far-off blessed galaxy. Your eyes are fire, blue flames and comet tails. Precious gems. Baubles I want to worship, want to drown in.”

Like before, she massaged my balls.

“Your eyes are inhuman. They are the eyes of god. I am now religious. Entirely devout.”

Two hands on my shaft, and the rhythmic expertise of delicately wringing it dry.

“If I never breathe again, I want to die looking into your eyes.”

She rewarded me with a smile, which I dared not look at, but I could see her frenulum piercing shining from the fringe of my field of vision. Then she popped the last buttons on her flannel, letting the shirt slide off her shoulders, down her arms. For a moment, it hung like laundry on my penis. Then she tossed it to the floor.

“Tell me more about my eyes,” she said. “Tell me how much they mean to you. How much you love them.”

At this point, I was close to cumming, astounded that I hadn’t yet. I took a breath, ready to offer my sermon about her eyes. “Your eyes are forbidden treasure, each one its own Cave of Wonders. In them, I see sun-glinting doubloons, a genie lamp, and three wishes: your left eye, your right eye, and the perfect gap between them. Your eyes are…” I had more to say on the subject, but that’s where my sermon ended. I did well while I lasted, but it ended prematurely, if you take my meaning.

But it wasn’t my fault. No really, hear me out:

I wasn’t looking at the screen —I was being good, looking straight into her blue-green eyes, and nothing else— but I couldn’t help noticing something surface in the background; a Netflix still of one of their featured films, Clash of the Titans. It popped up on the television, a monster made of clay, a mythical woman with snakes instead of hair. It was a masterpiece made by Ray Harryhausen, special effects guru of his time. It was a frightening, iconic, image of the 1981 adventure of my youth. It was the unforgettable Gorgon bitch, the beautiful but deadly Medusa.

You weren’t supposed to look into her eyes. If you did, you turned to stone—forever. This crossed my mind while I stared into a god-like woman’s eyes. Her beauty was mythical, and it had me asking: Is she a Gorgon?

Then I broke the stare between us, and not just a blink. I looked away, down at her tits.

I couldn’t see it before, what with my eyes locked on hers, but I had noticed a dark shape nestled between her breasts. I figured it was a tattoo, and, sure enough, I was right. Looking at it now, I clearly deciphered its image. Lifelike and intricate, staring right at me with blue-green eyes so realistic that I swear they may have blinked —I shit you not— it was Medusa’s fang-baring grimace and snake-laden locks.

The handjob stopped, and my dick, which had been turned to stone, heroic and statuesque, quickly went limp, and small. But I came anyway. I blew my top the moment I saw Medusa on the screen, and blew my load on Medusa inked between those perfect tits.

And it’s just like she told me. I broke the stare, so I broke the spell. I looked away, and that was that. Her flannel went back and she shrouded its open flaps with her serpentine dreads. “Get the fuck out of here,” she commanded. 

I tried to apologize.

“No, don’t even look at me!”

That’s rich, I had thought, coming from her! Misses Don’t Look Away. But I left, just as she asked me to.

But before I turned away to walk out the door, the screen behind her blinked and shifted. And just like that, Medusa was gone, like an ancient myth, almost forgotten. It was Squid Game or Stranger Things. Something like that. Something altogether forgettable.

Thinking about it now, I can’t recall her name, but I’ll never forget her face. I couldn’t forget her eyes even if I tried.

But what do I call her? No fucking clue. How might I look her up? I’m afraid I cannot (all homes look the same in Seward, and I never did mark the address).

No matter how hard I try, I just can’t remember. Was it Marisa? Melissa? I guess I’ll never know for sure. But she’s the one with the eyes that can seize your soul, so I give her a moniker as mighty as myth. She’s the portrait of ink between her precious tits. She’s Medusa, who turned me (a small part of me) into stone.