"Where did they come from?" A just-for-fun episodic story

[mansan3010]

EDIT: Just a head's up, I plan to post new installments to this story on this same thread rather than making a new thread for each update. So Just look through the replies for new parts.

Obviously this is fictional. Just a little story I can write in short little sections for fun. Trying to go for that vaguely realistic BE style story. Hope all enjoy.

I.​

Reflecting on it now, Sarah reckoned that it was Janelle’s comment on that Instagram post that first made her aware that something was wrong. That had been just another in a long saga of summer beach photos. Sarah didn’t consider herself too indelibly tied to social media – certainly she didn’t want to share even the same breath with those “influencers” that she saw online so often. That being said, Sarah could admit that she was nonetheless a prolific Instagrammer. Anyone could stop in on her account and be apprised, if not overwhelmed, by the ennui of Sarah’s daily life. Posts of friends, food, outfits, landscapes, and the occasional indulgence in some casual “modeling.” There was the annual uptick in this last form of post during the summer months every year because Sarah was a glutton for bathing suits.

Trying to justify it as a sort of “passion,” Sarah had impulsively hoarded all manner of bathing suits. One-piece, two-piece, floral-pattern, dotted, striped, and everything inbetween, in all manner of cut and style, and in ALL sorts of color combinations. In a dim sort of way, Sarah had remained conscious of the fact that she had been forced to size up her tops that spring, but it wasn’t until she read the comment from Janelle that her eyes really opened to it.

The picture was your standard Instagram fair. Sarah had posted it following a weekend trip to Lake Ovalchuk. Kieryn sat cross-legged to Sarah’s left, with Corinne leaning into frame from Sarah’s right. She remembered being very excited about the post, because she had donned a new bathing suit for that day on the water, and Sarah was oh-so-positive that she was due a treasure trove of compliments on it. The suit was a two piece, balconette-style top with a wide band around her ribs. The Top bore diagonal black and white stripes, and the bottoms were a deep and solidly colored crimson.

During one of her routine check-ins in the initial hour following the post, Sarah read Janelle’s comment. Simple enough: “Did you bring enough to share with the class?” with a couple of melon emojis accompanying it. First, Sarah was bemused – and then a strange sense of reality washed over her. Sarah had always been aware she was attractive. She had good genes, most members of her family were at least decent-looking. Many members were downright beautiful, Sarah included. She understood this the same way she understood that ice is cold and fire is hot – it was a simple fact. Not that Sarah had any sort of ego about it, she wore her beauty with the casualness she felt it warranted, rather than with any sense of superiority.

Her hair, a rich brown with splashes of auburn intermingled, was thick and well-cared for. Sarah opted to wear it long, with a decidedly natural-style that she merely pushed it back from her face. Her features were elegant, with almond-shaped eyes, high cheekbones, and a nose that was “regal-straight,” as her grandmother often said. Sarah’s favorite feature were the icy-blue eyes she had inherited from her father. It was largely due to having heard compliments about her eyes all her life that Sarah found it so easy to accept and understand that she was beautiful. She was slender, and well-proportioned. Part of this last fact entailed that she was small-breasted. That was as much a fact as was her beauty, and Sarah never felt inclined to lament it. Any self-consciousness was easily drowned when Sarah found clothing to be readily flattering to the curves she did have. This made life simple for Sarah, and confidence came easily as a result. Sarah was small-breasted, so then how could it be that a photo of her could inspire Janelle to leave a comment like she had?

Sarah was small-breasted. Though, sitting there in the car, staring at Janelle’s comment, Sarah absent-mindedly pinched at the underwire of her bra that was digging uncomfortably into her chest. But still, Sarah was small-breasted. Of course, she had been forced to return several of the tops she had ordered that spring not once, but twice, for larger sizes before she found them to support her breasts comfortably. Nonetheless, Sarah was small-breasted. Although, as she scrolled back from Janelle’s comment to look at the picture again, Sarah was momentarily struck at the way that her breasts were spilling out of the cups of her top. Regardless, Sarah was small-breasted. She knew this, even as she peered down at her breasts, jostling about on the turbulent country road, and recognized they didn’t look all that small anymore. It must be a trick of light though, because Sarah KNEW she was small-breasted. She always had been, and always would be.

Thus, Sarah assured herself, until she couldn’t any longer. Yep, that arbitrary comment from Janelle was when Sarah first understood that something was going on. Had been for a while by that point, actually. It had been another month before that breaking point came. Sarah had summarily cast aside her drawer-full of bras, all of them sized 32 or 34 C, and all of them from Victoria’s Secret, shortly after arriving home from that lake trip. Her assurance that she was indeed small-breasted aside, Sarah could hardly escape the fact that her bras were uncomfortable. A quick trip to Target and she returned home with a bra sized at 34D, and Sarah found it comfortable enough. In a dazed sort of denial, Sarah rationalized that the problem was water retention – isn’t that what doctor’s always say about odd bloating? It was just water-retention.

Then, a month later, Sarah suddenly found that the 34D bra, which she kept hidden in her t-shirt drawer, had begun to fit every bit as poorly as her drawer-full of old bras had before. It settled on her like a palette of bricks. All her semi-conscious acts of denial, rationalization, and justification flooded her memory and seemed to swirl around that damned comment from Janelle. Sarah felt the distinct sensation that she was being mocked, but of course that was absurd. Maintaining her composure to the best of her ability, Sarah bravely marched across the hall to Catherine’s room. Promptly, Sarah began to weep.

Catherine, who had been lost in her phone moments before, sprung to attention at the jarring intrusion of her dear friend. “Whoa, whoa, Sarah! Easy girl, what in the world?” she asked, startled and confused. She guided Sarah over to her bed, and gently guided the weeping girl to sit down beside her. Sarah leaned forward, resting her elbows on the top of her thighs, and her emotions seem to run at a higher frequency in response to Catherine’s gentle response. All Catherine could do was to gently pat Sarah’s back and wait for the tempest to pass.

“Hey, will you explain what’s wrong please?” She tried again, having let Sarah continue to sob another minute or two. It seemed like she was finally getting control of herself again. With that, Sarah took a deep breath, and sat up straight, rubbing her eyes. She laughed, a bleating, frustrated sound.

“Fuck me, I’m sorry!” Sarah offered, laughing with more sincerity as she said it. “I don’t know what I’m even crying about. I think I just let myself get scared over something stupid.”

“You don’t need to apologize for crying! Crying is fine. You just kinda scared me too is all.” Catherine responded. She paused, waiting to see if Sarah would elaborate. Sarah gave no sign.

“What do you mean you got scared? What scared you? Did you hear something?” Catherine offered, trying to keep Sarah from sliding back into hysterics.

“What? Oh no, no.” Sarah laughed again, and went to grab a tissue. “It’s not like that.”

Catherine paused again. “…Okay….so then what?” She asked with genuine frustration mounting.

“Okay, I’m afraid it’ll sound like so stupid.” Sarah’s expression was sheepish, her voice low and uncertain.

“Will you stop? Just tell me what’s up! No judgment whatsoever. Is it about Trent?” At the sound of her boyfriend’s name, Sarah recognized that she was making the problem seem more serious than it probably was.

“No, I’m sorry. It’s just…okay, have you noticed anything different about me?” Sarah kept her eyes fixed on Catherine.

“What…do you mean?” Catherine was clearly at a loss. “Different like how?”

“Physically.” Sarah’s eyes still burrowed into Catherine’s, and she noted that Catherine’s eyes darted down to Sarah’s chest for the briefest moment.

“I mean…yeah, are we talking about your boobs?” Sarah was thunderstruck, was it really so obvious?

“Yes! So you have!” Sarah started, unable to contain herself.

“Well duh, it’s not like it’s some big secret. They’re right there after all. Why are you scared? I think I’m still confused.” Catherine spoke matter-of-factly, in a way that made Sarah all the more uneasy.

“Well I… I don’t know…I guess I hadn’t really noticed it myself.” Sarah spoke lamely, not believing her words herself. Sure enough, Catherine’s expression was nonplussed.

“What the hell are you talking about? Have you been in a coma? Lizzy asked me if Trent got you pregnant.” Sarah all but shrieked at this.

“NO fucking way! Are you serious?” Sarah felt a species of anger and disgust at the thought of her friends talking about her behind her back. Catherine grinned in return.

“Hey, easy now. Don’t get all angry, do you blame her? You really didn’t notice?” Sarah collected her thoughts.

“I guess what I mean is that I was kinda ignoring it and then it just really hit me and now I’m freaking out a little bit. Like I remember having problems with bras and swimsuits, but it just happened little by little and I ignored it.” Sarah was all but reveling in a bizarre sense of surreality. A cruel form of déjà vu.

“Wow, then that is some intense denial. You should teach a course! I would love to learn how to tune out my problems.” Catherine grinned, but Sarah failed to find the humor in the situation.

“Listen, I was waiting for an explanation myself. When you came in here crying, the first thing I thought was ‘oh shit, Lizzy must be right.’ I mean at least there’s that, right?” Sarah playfully smacked Catherine’s arm at that.

“No, I’m not fucking pregnant. I just freaked out is all. Honestly, I feel a little like an idiot too. Like how did everyone seem to see it before I did?” Sarah asked this last with a painful earnestness. Catherine shrugged.

“I told you, teach a class on denial. Sometimes it does you some good!” This time Sarah softened a bit and smiled. Then her brow furrowed a bit.

“Do you think I should see a doctor or something?” Her eyes were locked onto Catherine again.

“If it will make you feel better, then obviously it doesn’t hurt to see your doctor. Do I think it’s anything serious though? Hell no, they’re just boobs. Maybe ask your mom about it?” Sarah went stark crimson at the thought, but felt that it would hardly be any less awkward to approach a doctor about it. ‘A doctor’ she emphasized in her mind, not HER doctor, because Sarah was NOT about to approach Dr. Colvert with this business.

“Yes. Sorry for scaring you, I didn’t mean to get so worked up.” Sarah latched onto Catherine for a hug, which Catherine returned easily enough.

“Girl, don’t worry about it one bit. I am always down to see you ugly cry. For real though, feel free to talk to me about anything. Boobs or boys, or whatever else. I mean it.” Catherine held Sarah’s gaze firmly as she said this last bit, and Sarah felt she could cry again just from the warmth she saw in her friend’s eyes.

“Thank you, really.” And the girls hugged again.

Catherine’s flippant attitude about Sarah’s inexplicable growth did a great deal to put Sarah’s mind at ease. As a result, Sarah opted not to bother Dr. Colvert, or any other doctor for that matter, with her problem, and didn’t bother discussing it with her mother for another coupe of weeks. Even then, Sarah only did so because she made plans to have lunch with her mother and she felt it would be best to warn her mom so as to protect her sensibilities. It was months later, sitting alone in an examination room at Dr. Colvert’s office with tits the size of her head hanging heavily from her chest, that Sarah would think back on her conversation with Catherine. “What were you thinking waiting so long to come see me about this Sarah?” Dr. Colvert had chastised Sarah openly before leaving to get a lab done. The memory with Catherine had lost a considerable amount of its warmth.

 

[Chacotay]

Amazing! I always like BE stories about uncontrollable natural BE. Even better when the girl doesn't actually like it (too many "realistic" BE stories peg every girl to be a pornstar obsessed with boobs... real woman generally aren't like that.).

Can't wait for the next episode! Hopefully it's not weeks away.

 

[RoadWarrior]

Nice! Would like more

 

[BakersDozen101]

Bravo! More, please.

 

[groffi]

...tits the size of her head hanging heavily from her chest...

That seems to be a very good starting point.

I hope to see more soon.

 

[mansan3010]

II.​

As she climbed into Trent’s little Honda Civic, the first thing Sarah noticed was the overwhelming scent of lavender. The scent was so strong that it turned her stomach, despite being the same scent she sprayed on her pillow before bed each night. No odor, no matter how lovely, could be pleasant when it hung as heavy in the air as the lavender did within Trent’s car. It didn’t take long for Sarah to find the source of the scent. Trent had taped some sort of scented fixture from Bed, Bath, and Beyond to one of his air vents. Sarah couldn’t help but laugh, the fixture was intended for use in a room, which explained why the smell was so overwhelming in the confines of Trent’s tiny car.

“At least I know he’s paying attention.” She muttered to herself, waiting for Trent to walk around to the driver’s side of his car. It was rather touching to Sarah, to know that Trent had apparently taken some initiative after seeing the lavender spray she kept by her bedside. Though the gesture was clumsily executed, she could appreciate it all the same. Trent’s driver’s side door opened, and he slid inside with the quiet grace that Sarah had come to love about him.

“So you couldn’t get the place fumigated BEFORE our date?” Sarah asked, wryly. For a moment Trent merely stared at her, then he grinned and reached for the fixture taped to Sarah’s vent.

“Is it really strong? I’ve been driving around with it for like two days so I can’t even really smell it anymore.” Trent laughed in a bashful sort of way, and rolled down his window. His car was so old that it was one of those hand-cranks.

“This must be how my pillow feels every night. Maybe I need to re-evaluate my life.” Sarah teased, in a good humor from giddiness. Trent laughed earnestly at that.

“Well I promise it wasn’t my intention to torture you with lavender, I just knew you liked it is all. They were out of the car things that are made to clip on the vents, so I made do with what they had.”

“Hey, it’s the thought that counts. You’re sweet.” Sarah beamed at Trent, taking hold of his hand. He pulled in his lips in return, and a plaintive sort of quality shown in his eyes.

“Want to get a drink real quick?” Trent asked, digging his keys out of his pocket.

“Big time. Let’s go to Sonic.”

And off they went. It still amazed Sarah to think she could enjoy, hell, even look forward to, such a simple date as sitting in Trent’s car with a couple of Sonic drinks. Granted, their courtship was still rather young – tonight’s date was actually celebrating 7 months of dating – but Sarah had dated 5 guys before Trent and the longest she had managed to go without incipient boredom was a little over a month. Not for the first time, Sarah considered that what she had with Trent might be something special.

The two of them sat for nearly an hour and a half, talking aimlessly, and Sarah thought they would still be full-steam ahead were it not for the nagging soreness in her shoulders and back. She had begun shifting about half an hour ago, and it had only increased in regularity since. Finally Trent seemed to take notice.

“Hey, you doing alright?” The question was rather abrupt, cutting off Sarah’s laughter at Trent’s story about a friend of his dad’s.
“Uhh…yes.” Sarah knew her answer wasn’t especially convincing. She was very uncomfortable, but nonetheless Sarah didn’t exactly want to have this conversation in the middle of their date. She was having fun.

“So then why are you so fidgety all of a sudden? Got an inch or something?” Trent said this last with the cadence of a joke, but it sounded a bit hollow to Sarah’s ears. She could tell he was genuinely concerned, but he seemed to be trying to play it off.
“Really, it’s fine. My back is just hurting is all. Maybe I should stretch my legs or something.”

“Or maybe you should lie down?” There was marked concern on Trent’s face, and as he spoke, his eyes briefly cast down to Sarah’s breasts. “Or I can give you a massage if you want?” This last he spoke without any conviction whatsoever, as though it was merely an afterthought stated without intent. Sarah laughed.

“That’s really okay, thanks though. I just think that I have been sitting too long.” Sarah smiled at Trent, and then her eyes shifted to her own lap. Her view was obscured by the bulky shelf of her breasts, tenting the sweater she was wearing.

Though she had hoped, even been convinced, that her odd late-onset development was certainly done when she had gone with her mother to purchase some new bras from Victoria’s Secret in a size that sounded outrageous to her, even now: 32DD. Those bras had never been comfortable, neither when freshly purchased, nor a month or so later when they had been broken-in. Nevertheless, they seemed to her, to fit just fine. And that was enough. Sarah’s mom had been shockingly calm throughout the entire ordeal.

Later Sarah learned about a few somewhat estranged members of her father’s side of the family: a couple of aunts and a few cousins, who apparently were likewise quite large breasted. Sarah’s mother said that though the circumstances were a bit peculiar, it wasn’t necessarily odd that Sarah had ended up being a bit busty herself. “I guess your father’s genes won out” her mother had said, patting Sarah’s leg in her particular way of signaling that she was teasing. The strange timing aside, Sarah found that her mother’s explanation did a great deal to calm her own nerves. With the concern over the nature of her odd development somewhat set at ease, all that remained was for Sarah to psychologically come to grips with the fact that, quite suddenly, Sarah was no longer small-breasted. A pittance in the grand scheme of things, as far as anguish was concerned, but in the small world that Sarah consciously occupied it seemed like quite a big deal.

There were the rather awkward fumbling explanations and near-contrite acknowledgments that ‘Yes, my boobs have actually gotten bigger. Quite a bit bigger actually. Isn’t that a hell of a thing?’ which Sarah began to despise in much the same way she despised the song and dance of adequately saying polite goodbyes to everyone at a family gathering. It became a strange sort of social custom that she felt was native only to herself, given the unique circumstances she found herself in. Mostly that was finally in the past now. It had been nearly 6 months since that conversation she held with Catherine, which she clung to as the “beginning” of this strangeness, though apparently it had begun a while before that apparently.

Before long, it seemed that everyone grew accustomed to the change in Sarah’s physique, and when people ceased treating her like an oddity, it made it easier for Sarah to begin to accept the changes as well. For a time. Then one day, about 3 and half months ago now, Sarah had noticed the red lines of indentation in her skin from her ‘new’ bras. Not long after that, Sarah became consciously aware that they were moving from being vaguely uncomfortable to downright painful to wear for long periods of time. Arriving back in her room after a get together with some friends one night, Sarah’s left breast was in utter agony. She peeled off the dress she had been wearing and noted that her breasts were fairly exploding from the confines of her bra in all directions. A bit of underboob leaked out of the cups on either side, and this was the source of her pain. A small patch of blood showed where the underwire of her bra rested atop her left breast and Sarah realized that she had been rubbed raw.

“No fucking way.” Sarah said aloud, dumbfounded. “What the fuck?”

‘Am I really still growing?’ she thought miserably, feeling like tears were brimming already. She felt a blended sense of frustration and shame, and resolutely decided it was her problem to deal with. A distant echo in her mind spoke the real truth: that Sarah was scared. But she swallowed that feeling, and insisted that this was just some unfortunate genetics Sarah inherited from her dad’s side of the family – just as her mom had explained before. After all, Sarah had never met those women, or even seen pictures of them as far as she was aware. Who knows how large their breasts were? Sarah’s mom had not seemed at all concerned, so perhaps at that time Sarah wasn’t even as large as those women, and this extra growth just made up the difference. It didn’t quell her fears nearly as effectively as her mom’s demeanor had before, but it was enough to latch onto for comfort.

The next morning, Sarah went to Target. She found a 34DDD and tried it on, a bit horrified to find that it didn’t fit. So she tried a 36DDD, and likewise found it a poor fit. Her nerves were building up again. From there, she ventured to the mall to look inside Dillards – a department store that Sarah knew had a better bra selection, though they were considerably more expensive than at Target. First she tried a 32DDDD, a size that looked cartoonish to Sarah’s eyes. Yet it did not fit. Now she felt close to tears again, doubting her self-assurances. She continued searching and found a bra labeled 32G, a size Sarah never knew existed. It looked enormous in her dainty hands, and it filled her with a strange sense of calm because she felt confident that the monstrous thing would be too large for her. And yet here it was, ready to be purchased off the shelves at Dillards. She tried it on, and though it was indeed too large for Sarah, it was not too large by near the degree she expected when she held it in her hands moments before. Despite the cups being a bit loose and pulling away from her chest, Sarah found it far more comfortable than the too-small bras she had been wearing from Target and Victoria’s Secret. She made her purchase, and had been running that bra into the ground ever since.

But that had been 3 and a half months ago, and Sarah sat in Trent’s car, wearing that same 32G bra that had been vacuous when she purchased it, and felt the familiar pinching of underwire resting atop flesh rather than containing it. Sarah had found a XXXL sports bra on sale at Academy a few weeks or so back, and just lately she had taken to donning her 32G, getting things in as good an order as she could manage, and then donning the sports bra overtop of the regular bra. This contained the excess flesh that attempted to pour out of the top, sides, and bottom of the bra, and made Sarah considerably more comfortable. Less chafing, if nothing else. And though the arrangements was incredibly constrictive, Sarah had decided this was more a benefit than anything because it rather effectively masked her marked continued development.

Prior to their date, as Sarah was getting herself dressed and ready, she had stood in front of her bathroom mirror powdering base onto her face. She had on athletic shorts, and a towel wrapped her hair, but Sarah was naked from the waist up. Her breasts hung, enormously full, as she leaned slightly forward toward the mirror. Unconsciously, she glanced down at her breasts and was momentarily horrified to see that it looked as though they dangled around her bellybutton. She tensed up, standing straight, and was relieved to see that in proper position they were still a few inches shy of that mark. She dimly mused that only months ago, her breasts hanging even that far would be absolutely terrifying to her. It’s odd, how the threshold of concern seems to become a moving target. Sarah had immediately ceased her make up routine to put on her bras. Out of sight, out of mind. This had been an effective strategy for some time now.

“Are you sure? I really don’t mind doing it.” Trent’s question broke Sarah from her reverie. For a moment, she couldn’t recall what he was even talking about. Then it dawned on her.

“Have I told you that you’re sweet? Because you are.” Sarah smiled as she spoke, hoping to put an early end to Trent’s concerns.

“You have, yes.” Trent replied with the air of someone trying to bulldoze through meaningless platitudes. “But-“

“Maybe you can give me a massage some other time, but it’s really not a big deal. Please just relax. I just need to stretch my legs.” Sarah cut him off, her frustration creeping into her voice despite her best efforts. She looked at Trent with an expression that she hoped conveyed how serious she was, because otherwise she feared she might ruin their night with her own anger and frustration. Luckily, Trent’s face softened and he seemed to take the hint.

“Alright. Okay. I get it. Just know the offer’s on the table!” He turned away from Sarah and looked out the front of the car. “Should we head to your house?”

“Maybe to the park?” Sarah asked. Trent nodded. Sighing inwardly, Sarah was relieved that the conversation seemed over. The two sat in silence, listening to the song playing on Trent’s radio as they drove. Sarah’s mind began to move onto other things, when Trent suddenly spoke up.

“Just one last thing, and then I swear I’ll stop, okay?” He glanced between Sarah and the road, waiting for her reply.

“Okay, shoot.” Sarah responded without much emotion.

“If your back is hurting you so much, then you really should talk to a doctor, or see a professional massage therapist, or SOMETHING.” Sarah said nothing at first, so Trent continued. “It’s just really not good to ignore pain like that, especially when you’re young. My uncle had something like that and later he found out he had nerve damage in his spine and his doctor said he was lucky not to be paralyzed. Just don’t ignore it, please.”

As he finished speaking, they rolled to a stop at a red light and Sarah could feel him turn completely to look at her, waiting for an answer. She looked at him, his face awash in the red of the stoplight, and she was shocked to see that it looked like he was close to tears. The realization melted her stubbornness at once.

“Okay, I promise. I will make an appointment with my doctor.” Sarah said, holding Trent’s gaze as she spoke.

“You promise?” He asked.

“I promise.” Sarah responded.

“Tomorrow?” Trent persisted. At this, Sarah giggled, despite herself.

“Well tomorrow is Sunday, so I don’t think Dr. Colvert would appreciate that honestly.” Sarah responded. Trent’s face remained serious despite her laughter.

“Okay, then first thing Monday. Right?” Trent asked. The red of his face abruptly became green.

“Yes, first thing on Monday.” Sarah said, taking Trent’s hand that wasn’t on the wheel. “I appreciate that you care about me. I don’t want to worry you.” A car honked behind them, and seemed to snap Trent out of the moment. He looked back toward the road and accelerated rather harshly. At first he said nothing.

“I don’t mind worrying about you, to be honest. Just so long as you don’t give me any more reason than I should.” He glanced sidelong at Sarah, with a smirk on his face. Sarah smiled herself, and felt any tension there might have been evaporate.

“I’ll do my best to reign in the worry.”

They drove the rest of the way to the park in a comfortable silence. The thought occurred to Sarah as they neared the park to make sure she wouldn’t forget to call Dr. Colvert Monday morning. She pulled out her phone, and set herself a reminder with two notifications just to be safe. The passenger side door sprung open and Trent stepped to the side so Sarah could climb out. The air was crisp and smelled of the pungent, but not unpleasant, scent of pine, moss, and rotted wood. Sarah thought she greatly preferred this scent to that of Trent’s lavender mobile. She felt Trent snake his arm around her waist, and it wasn’t long before the pain in her back and shoulders was forgotten altogether, for a time anyway.

 

[jean]

Great story. really good writing. please, let us read more soon

 

[Chacotay]

This is amazing! I'm checking the forums multiple times daily to look for updates.

 

[mansan3010]

III
​

“What were you thinking waiting so long to come see me about this Sarah?” Dr. Colvert’s tone was one that Sarah had never quite heard before. Frustration mingled with disbelief. Sarah sat on the examination table, naked from the waist up, feeling the pin pricks of adrenaline-fueled anxiety. Dr. Colvert’s reaction – the genuinely dumbstruck expression that had eclipsed her regularly impassive face – as Sarah had peeled off her shirt had frightened Sarah. Suddenly her problem felt considerably more serious. And to think she had strolled in to her appointment, blasé and casual, as if it were a routine check-up. Sarah hadn’t even broached the subject of her development herself, Dr. Colvert had been the one to bring it up, after spending most of the first few minutes plainly examining the distinct bulges of Sarah’s breasts with an expression of incredulity.

Sarah bristled at the feeling of the weight of her breasts settling so low on her torso. It occurred to her in a dim sort of way that she had felt that weight settling lower and lower, but she found it easy enough to disregard that discomfort, as well as the frightening implications it presented, just so long as she maintained a prim posture to keep her breasts thrust forward and spent as little time as possible outside of her bra. It was the unexpected bluntness of Dr. Colvert’s reaction that lowered Sarah’s guard, and she became aware that she had abandoned that exquisite posture that she had embraced so adamantly these past several months.

Instead Sarah sat slack, hunched over in a vaguely defensive posture against Dr. Colvert’s severity, and accordingly she felt the lower lobes of her breasts pressed heavily against her stomach. This wasn’t a new sensation necessarily, but the magnitude of it was new. Sarah remembered a couple of months before, the first time she felt the lower lobes of her bosom make contact with her stomach, and she felt such a repulsive sense of dread from the realization that she had donned an old sports bra at the back of her drawer immediately. Though her flesh verily oozed from the garment, and she felt the bra constantly trying to slide up the bottom of her breasts to let them escape, Sarah found this vastly preferable to the sensation of her breasts brushing against her stomach. Yet the feeling she had now wasn’t her breasts merely brushing against her stomach, it was of her breasts pressing forcefully, their weight seeming to restrict her very breathing as her stomach fought against them to rise and fall with each breath. A quick glance gave Sarah the impression that her entire torso was obscured by her boobs, and she understood why Dr. Colvert’s reaction was so extreme if that was truly what she saw sitting before her on the examination table.

The doctor’s initial reaction was simply to gape at Sarah’s chest. Her first question was simple: “when did you first notice that your breasts appeared to be growing?” Sarah had informed her that it had been several months. Then came the harder question: “What were you thinking waiting so long to come see me about this Sarah?” This second question had come after an agonizing silence during which Dr. Colvert continued to stare at Sarah’s chest. It felt like an eternity, but Sarah understood it couldn’t have been more than 20 or maybe 30 seconds. It felt like another eternity before Sarah could muster any sort of answer at all, for she realized that she didn’t really have one.

“I…I really don’t know. I wasn’t…I guess. I wasn’t thinking. It wasn’t bothering me too much, and so I just bought new bras and forgot about it.” This answer sounded lame, even to Sarah’s own ears. The last time Sarah had paid a visit to Dr. Colvert was last year. Sarah was supposed to schedule at least 2 appointments each year, just for routine check ups, but she had been sick during the second appointment of last year, and had never rescheduled.

Lauren, Dr. Colvert’s receptionist, made a couple of snarky comments about this fact, cracking jokes, but clearly genuinely perturbed that Sarah had neglected to reschedule that second appointment. When Sarah had grinned apologetically at Lauren’s jokes, she was startled by Lauren’s sudden shift in temperament. Adopting a stern tone, Lauren had said “You can’t make a habit of this Sarah. You’re young and so you don’t appreciate how important these appointments are, but your health shouldn’t be blown off like that. We only get to see you every 6 months unless you make a special appointment, and missing one of those appointments could be the difference in catching something early or too late. Do you understand?” Sarah felt ashamed, said she did understand, and apologized for failing to reschedule that appointment.

“No need to apologize, Sarah. The only person you’re wronging is yourself. I only mean this as advice.” With that, Lauren adopted her usual bubbly telephone voice.

Thus, it had been nearly a full year since Sarah’s last visit with Dr. Colvert. Her regular biannual schedule wouldn’t place her back for another couple of months, but Sarah had promised Trent she would visit with her doctor about her development. Despite that being the impetus for this appointment, Sarah had neglected to be forthcoming with this fact, yet her breasts had grown sufficient to apparently mitigate her withholding the information. After all, the last time Sarah had sat in Dr. Colvert’s office she had been struggling to keep her 32C brassiere from pulling away from her breasts that were technically not quite full enough to fill the cups to capacity. Now she sat before Dr. Colvert with breasts that she knew were each larger than her own head, and which completely masked her torso.

Just a few days before, Sarah had been lounging in a friend’s room, Regina, who lived just down the hall from Sarah. Regina had just returned from playing volleyball in one of the sand pits located around campus, and she tossed the volleyball to Sarah when she entered the room, the faint bitter smell of sweat radiating off of her. As Regina chugged a water bottle she had pulled from her fridge, she suddenly choked back laughter and narrowly avoided spewing water in the process. Sarah had shrunk away.

“Jesus Christ, get it together! What is so funny?” Sarah had exclaimed. Regina took a moment to gather herself, forcibly swallowing the mouthful of water, and then sputtering coughs as apparently she had not done so cleanly. Finally she got herself under control and, still giggly, explained herself.

“Sorry, it’s really not even funny I guess. But I just looked over and thought ‘what the fuck? Where did you get the other balls?’ and then realized it was just your boobs. For a second it looked like you just had an armful of volleyballs and I got confused because I had just thrown you the one a second ago. It was like a magic trick or something, and then when I realized what happened it just made me laugh.” Regina was still laughing as she finished her explanation. Sarah had feigned a smile, but felt a sense of dread wash over her again.

‘My boobs haven’t gotten that big, have they?’ She thought, and dropped the volleyball she still held, watching its bounces diminish as the ball wound its away behind Regina’s dining table. The storm cloud of apprehension dissipated after Regina hopped out of the shower and the two girls began their planned activity: binge watching the new season of 13 Reasons Why. Their laughter as they mocked the melodrama that unfolded on Regina’s television drowned out the fright that Sarah felt when she considered the fact the fact that her boobs seemed to just continue ballooning bigger and bigger, even as she painstakingly did what she could to ignore the fact to cling to normalcy.

Those thoughts and feelings, along with the legion of others she had swallowed over the last several months washed over Sarah in the seconds that followed her lame reply to Dr. Colvert’s question. “What were you thinking waiting so long to come see me about this Sarah?” The thing was, Sarah did know. She waited because she was convinced it wasn’t really happening. To Sarah, it simply couldn’t be real. This wasn’t a problem that could possibly exist in reality, let alone her reality. Worrying that sudden sore throat could be strep, or that a minor bout of nausea might manifest into the flu, or even that an unfamiliar freckle might be skin cancer – these were the “normal” health crises that she should be facing. Boobs suddenly growing out of no where though? Worse, continuing to grow with no sign of stopping, even after already growing beyond the realm of normalcy? That couldn’t be a real problem she was facing.

Nothing prepared Sarah for facing that reality, and so she had rejected it. Even as her boobs continued to overwhelm her bras despite her best efforts to jump to the next available size, Sarah had rejected it. Even as the weight continued to be piled on, forcing Sarah to adopt a new exercise regiment to strengthen her back, and even eventually throwing off her center of gravity, Sarah had rejected it. Even as the unsightly stretchmarks prompted Sarah to begin a unique skincare routine consisting of coconut oil and cream designed to diminish stretch marks, which was centered exclusively on her breasts, Sarah rejected it. Even as the nightly ritual of rubbing those oils and creams into her breasts made her intimately familiar with the ever-expanding surface she was working to cover, forcing her to buy new bottles of product with far more frequency than ought to be normal, Sarah had rejected it. Because she was fucking terrified of what this all meant. Suddenly Sarah felt on the verge of tears.

“Do you check yourself for breast cancer regularly?” Dr. Colvert finally broke the silence. Sarah nodded, afraid that speaking would release the tears she felt welling up.

“Good. Very good. And have you felt any lumps?” Sarah shook her head, and Dr. Colvert jotted down some notes on her chart.

“I am going to examine your breasts myself, is that alright by you?” Dr. Colvert set the chart down on the table behind her and turned to face Sarah, who nodded. “Alright, then please lay back.”

Sarah laid down, feeling her breasts sliding to either side of her torso to cover her arms. Dr. Colvert requested that Sarah assist by trying to keep each breast in place atop her torso to make the examination easier. So Sarah laid there, using both hands to keep a boob from sliding off her torso. They were examined one at a time by Dr. Colvert.

“I’d also like to perform a mammogram while you’re here, just to be safe.” Once again, Sarah did little more than nod. Her emotions were dissipating and she was left feeling numb and remote. The mammogram was painful, as always, but otherwise uneventful. There had been a nasty moment before the Tech instructed her to place her breast atop the slab, wherein Sarah had a vision of her breast somehow being too large for the machine, and the ensuing humiliation when the Tech informed Dr. Colvert of the problem. Fortunately this did not come to fruition and the results showed no cause for concern. Yet some part of Sarah was almost disappointed, as this likewise indicated that there was no easy explanation for her growth. Following the confrontation with the reality that her situation was abnormal, Sarah found she actually pined for an explanation so that they could begin the process of treating whatever her affliction might be. Even if that meant there were some malignant tumors hidden in the great masses of her breasts, Sarah would be grateful for some understanding, yet the growth remained a mystery.

“I know we have been on a twice-yearly appointment schedule, but I think I would like to have you come back in 3 months for a check up just so that we can follow up to see if you continue to experience further growth.” Dr. Colvert stood before the door of the examination room, winding down the appointment with her customary professionalism.

“Sure, that sounds good to me.” Sarah tried to hide the lingering anxiety she felt. Dr. Colvert seemed to pick up on this.

“Sarah, please don’t stress over this. We can safely rule out cancer, and that would be the scariest outcome to this whole deal. We will get to the bottom of this, if there’s even a problem to get to the bottom of in the first place. The nature of this development, with how sudden and quickly it has progressed, is troubling but that does not mean that there’s anything ‘wrong’, per se. It might just be delayed onset development.” She kept her eyes locked on Sarah, waiting for relief, or maybe protest. Sarah formed a thin smile using only her lips.

“I know, I know. I’ll try not to worry about it. You’re right, thank God it’s not cancer or anything like that.” Sarah cast her eyes back down to the floor, and Dr. Colvert could tell that there wasn’t anything she could do to ease the girl’s fears.

“At any rate, please give me a call at any time if you experience discomfort, or anything out of the ordinary. It’s always better to be cautious. We can meet earlier if necessary. Otherwise, I’ll see you in a few months?” With that, Dr. Colvert turned toward the door. She looked over her shoulder, waited for Sarah to lift her eyes to look at her, and smiled comfortingly. Sarah returned the smile, and moved to gather her belongings.

“Be sure to make an appointment with Lauren before you leave. I’ll see you next time.”

“See you next time.” Sarah responded, and Dr. Colvert took off down the hallway, letting the door to Sarah’s examination room swing shut behind her.

Sarah couldn’t be sure how to feel after this appointment. Her stubborn denial had her legitimately believing that she would come to this appointment, business as usual, with nothing concerning to come from it. Instead, Dr. Colvert had rightly been flummoxed by the obvious large growth that Sarah had endured since their last appointment. Nonetheless, the doctor had seemed genuinely at ease as she left, speaking encouragement and insisting that Sarah had nothing to fear. How should she report this to her mom and to Trent? Innately she understood that if she emphasized Dr. Colvert’s shock at her growth, that would cause both her mom and Trent to begin worrying overtime about her. Alternatively, if she emphasized the optimism with which Dr. Colvert ended their appointment, then she suspected her mom and Trent would be put at ease.

Though she spent the entire drive home vacillating between these options, Sarah opted for the optimistic spin. On some level, she knew that was always going to be the choice – the path of least resistance. She would tell her mother and Trent that Dr. Colvert had ruled out breast cancer and insisted it was nothing to worry about, and that they would sort it all out in time. Perhaps the growth was simply delayed, as the doctor had suggested. And she knew that both her mom and Trent would latch onto this conclusion, just as desperate as Sarah herself was to write this off as something that is admittedly peculiar, but nonetheless benign. Perhaps Sarah could even believe it herself.

 

[mansan3010]

IV
​

For the first time in a while, Sarah felt legitimately great. Despite her stubborn denial, the seed of doubt had certainly sprouted deep within her during the last several months. It had been cultivated and nurtured with the sporadic moments she had endured wherein she was forced to confront the fact that her growth was not something that she could realistically go on ignoring forever, and soon that seed of doubt sprouted into sprigs of genuine fear. Finally that fear had born fruit during that visit to Dr. Colvert. Seeing her doctor’s shock at the size of her breasts, and her discussing them as problems that needed solving forced Sarah to accept the fact that what she had been ignoring for all those months was a bona fide medical concern. While Dr. Colvert had ended that visit on a high note, extolling optimism that Sarah’s growth was not something to be overly concerned about, not yet at least, Sarah found it hard to buy into that optimism herself.

Where before Sarah had found it easy to get lost in her own denial, wearing it like one might wear a jacket to fend off the bitter wind of winter, she found it nearly impossible to shrug off those concerns following that appointment. It was as though Dr. Colvert’s reaction finally cast a spotlight onto the source of Sarah’s latent anxiety, and now it was all Sarah could see. Even as her mom grinned and clapped Sarah on the back saying “See? I told you it’s nothing to worry about!” and Trent gave her a hug saying “Thank goodness, I was getting pretty worried honestly,” Sarah could not join them in their revelry at hearing about Dr. Colvert’s positive spin on the situation. Instead she found herself wallowing in the memory of the look on Dr. Colvert’s face when she first saw the extent of Sarah’s growth. That wasn’t the look someone wore when they earnestly thought something was “no big deal.”

In her misery, Sarah had firmly believed that she would be calling Dr. Colvert’s office back within a month to complain about another surge of growth. She had visions of her tits overwhelming her body, hanging, fat and heavy, to cover her belly button, or maybe even to her hips. She imagined herself as a walking pair of tits, sobbing into the phone begging Dr. Colvert to help her. Then there would be a battery of tests with poking and prodding by a congo line of strangers trying to figure out why this freak’s boobs wouldn’t quit growing, and it would all end with Sarah getting her breasts lopped off just as if Dr. Colvert had found her breasts riddled with cancer at their previous appointment.

Yet here she sat, only a couple of weeks shy of the follow up appointment she had schedule with Lauren on her way out of Dr. Colvert’s office that afternoon a few months earlier, and Sarah felt good. There had been some growth, but it was negligible compared to the growth she had been experiencing prior. She had expected her boobs to blow up like balloons attached to a gushing spigot, but instead it seemed that her growth had slowed to a mere trickle. In the meantime, Sarah had continued her back exercises and her skincare routine, and had enjoyed spectacular results on both fronts. Her back felt strong, with no more of the nagging muscle soreness she had endured following the initial onset of her growth, and Sarah was ecstatic, if not a little surprised, to find that the stretch marks that had been traced along her chestwall were actually diminished considerably, and no new marks had formed at all. She hazarded to guess that perhaps she had only added another inch, maybe an inch and a half, to her bustline in the last few months, and she doubted that Dr Colvert would be able to tell at all. Sarah felt great, mostly because it felt as though her life had actually settled back into the realm of normalcy – albeit a “new normal,” as the therapists liked to call it.

That fact of the matter was that, even if the growth was finally coming to an end, Sarah’s bust was now firmly abnormal given her otherwise slight frame. Her breasts hung enormous, swelling out beyond the confines of her torso such that they obscured her arms when they hung at her sides, even moreso when hoisted up by her bra. Without the support of her bra, they hung to just an inch or so above her bellybutton, a fact which filled Sarah with a species of disgust, and with the bra, they still hung to the top of her stomach even as enough flesh poured over the tops of the cups to fill Sarah’s old C cup bras, and then some. The 32G Sarah had purchased had finally become too uncomfortable to bear, and so Sarah had gotten creative. Finding that the cups of a 38G bra were actually a decent fit, Sarah watched a few Youtube videos about bra alterations and managed to adjust the band and shoulder straps so that they weren’t woefully oversized on her slender torso. She found this to be the most comfortable bra she had owned , even including her old C cups, and this filled her with pride at her accomplishment.

Yet it was impossible to get used to, let alone comfortable with, the gawking and stares that Sarah encountered just about everywhere she went. She was an oddity, and Sarah understood this, but it didn’t help her feel less self-conscious about the sensations of being ogled, especially as she felt her bosom jostling and surging constantly as she walked. Just lately she had taken to binding, something that she felt a not insignificant embarrassment about, but which she nonetheless found to be worth the trouble. Encased in her make-shift bra, Sarah would wrap a cloth tightly around her bosom, and use pins to hold it all together, before donning whatever outfit she had selected. It was an imperfect solution, and at her astounding size it was impossible to truly mask the immensity of her bosom, but Sarah found it made enough of a difference to spare her some humiliation, especially since it remained cool enough outside such that she could further hide inside of sweatshirts and jackets. Sarah found herself considerably less enthusiastic about the upcoming bikini season as she had in years past.

With his worries set at ease, Trent found it easier to enjoy Sarah’s newfound topheavy physique. His hands absentmindedly snuck pinches and playful pokes while they were together, and any time they began to get intimate, the lion’s share of Trent’s moves seemed to center on Sarah’s breasts. This was not altogether a desirable shift to Sarah, who found that as her breasts grew, they seemed to have gotten somewhat less sensitive. As a result she would get bored if Trent spent too much time spelunking in the cavern between her boobs, and her new favorite joke during such times was to ask “You getting lost in there? I’ll be checking Instagram if you need me when you finally reach the summit.” This had come to be code for “let’s get on with it,” and Trent would happily comply with a bashful grin on his face. Sarah had finally found a sort of routine in the midst of the weirdness of her sudden growth, and it made it far easier to come to grips with it.

Finally the day of her follow up with Dr. Colvert came. Sarah found herself downright giddy about it, as she vacantly hoped that perhaps the doctor would do a quick inspection of her breasts, find little evidence of further development, and summarily declare the ‘Year of Boobs’ finally at an end. What a long year it had been. Of course the realist in Sarah understood it would not be so simple. Dr Colvert would do her due diligence and that would likely require at least one more follow up. But Sarah felt happy nonetheless, knowing that at very least there would be no bad news.

Sarah found herself in a familiar setting, waiting patiently, perched atop the examination table, watching for the door to pop open and for Dr. Colvert to peer in with her customary greeting: “Why Sarah, so good to see you again!” She had considered removing her shirt in advance, given that she knew that’s where this exam was going anyway, but the twin thoughts that 1) that would be weird regardless of the context; and 2) there was always the possibility that Dr Colvert would not be alone, stayed her hand. But Sarah wanted to see Dr. Colvert’s face when she saw Sarah’s bare breasts, to gauge her reaction as a litmus test for whether or not this ordeal was truly behind her. It was the doctor’s shocked expression last time that shook Sarah from her self-imposed daze of denial, and Sarah hoped to see an expression of relief or satisfaction, or SOMETHING positive that might indicate that Dr. Colvert was satisfied that there wasn’t anything to worry about moving forward. Then Sarah could well and truly move on from this.

The door snapped open, rousing Sarah from her reverie, and Dr. Colvert bustled inside. “Why Sarah, so good to see you again. Hello, hello.” Dr. Colvert’s voice was dry and mechanical, set into her routine. She had her eyes on her chart, and it was only after she took a seat in her chair that she looked up at Sarah.

“Anything to report?” Dr. Colvert’s eyes bored into Sarah’s, and Sarah was surprised and strangely perturbed that the doctor had yet to even glance at her bosom. What was the point of holding off, since she would soon have Sarah stripped down anyway?

“Nope! I’m happy to say that I’m boob-free for about 3 months now.” Sarah grinned cheekily, using the joke to obscure the fact that she was withholding the truth about her meager growth since the last appointment. If Dr. Colvert noticed it somehow, so be it. But Sarah had decided such a slight change wasn’t worth the trouble of self-reporting. It was like water weight, she reasoned. Dr. Colvert scoffed, smirking a little bit herself.

“I don’t know that I would go that far.” Sarah laughed sportingly, and Dr. Colvert’s smirk turned into a full smile.
“Honestly though, nothing new?” Dr. Colvert extinguished her smile at once and shifted in her chair as she put on her ‘serious face.’

“Honestly. I was convinced it would keep going, but it really has stopped. That figures though, as soon as I go to the doctor about it. It’s like when you try to show someone that your phone isn’t working right and then it works perfectly while they’re watching.” Sarah was rambling, as she often did when she felt excited. She was fully buying into her own ‘good news.’ Dr. Colvert plowed through Sarah’s musings.

“No new growth? No pain? Inflammation? Tenderness?” Dr. Colvert’s eyes shifted back to her pad, and she jotted quick notes as Sarah answered.

“No, no, no, and no.” Sarah chirped proudly. Her legs swung absentmindedly from the examination table.

“Well Ms. Sarah, that is great news.” Dr. Colvert finished writing and looked up expressionlessly. “Do you mind removing your top so that I can examine?” And the doctor stood, turning toward the table to don plastic gloves.

Sarah complied silently, feeling a bit miffed at Dr. Colvert’s lack of enthusiasm. Somehow her stoic disposition was making Sarah feel nervous that she was missing something. Nonetheless, Sarah began to disrobe, first removing her shirt, then undoing the pins and unwinding the binding, and finally undoing her bra. Sarah had expected a comment about the binding, or perhaps about the bra that was clearly modified, maybe even both. But Dr. Colvert said nothing, just waited patiently.

Sarah watched the doctor’s face as she removed the bra, and though Dr. Colvert’s eyes were locked onto her breasts, Sarah was again miffed at the complete lack of reaction registered on Dr. Colvert’s face. If the doctor was going to notice that Sarah’s breasts seemed to hang ponderously a bit lower than before, this would be the moment it registered, and yet Dr. Colvert gave no indication either way. ‘Well maybe that’s a good thing then’ Sarah thought.

“Would you like for me to lie down like before?” Sarah asked.

“Please do.” Doctor Colvert replied curtly. Sarah held each breast atop her chest, one at a time, ignoring the constant ripples and jiggles that came from Dr. Colvert’s probing and prodding. Finally the doctor stepped back.

“Alright, very good Sarah. I’m pleased to say that you have a clean bill of health.” With that, Dr. Colvert smiled warmly and Sarah felt her icy resentment melt away. She beamed.

“Do you think so, Dr. Colvert? Oh my God, I have been so dreading this.” Sarah felt immense relief.

“Aw, what? I thought you loved our little chats.” Dr. Colvert jeered, her demeanor seemed completely different. Sarah laughed.

“I don’t know that I would go that far,” Sarah intoned, slightly deepening her voice in a mockery of Dr. Colvert’s own voice, “lately it seems like you’re only into me for my body.” Sarah felt a flush in her cheeks, cracking her joke without first filtering it out. She did not think that Dr. Colvert would see the humor in this joke, but the woman surprised her by laughing.

“ Oh my, the ego on you.” Dr. Colvert teased, still laughing. Sarah had never heard Dr. Colvert laugh before, and she realized that she felt truly jubilant. Suddenly she felt like she could cry again, but at least this time the tears would be from relief rather than fear.

“Okay, but you really think I’m okay then, doctor?” Sarah’s voice betrayed the reticent hope she had been feeling.

“You want the honest truth? I cannot say for certain. It’s not as though I have a test that I can administer and have it come back negative. We weren’t sure what we were looking for here, so the results we have are moreso a lack of bad news than definitive good news. You understand?” Dr. Colvert was staring fixedly at Sarah again. Despite herself, Sarah felt her joy deflate a bit with this statement.

“You don’t report any changes, and I don’t detect anything worrisome from my physical exam. From what you told me at your last appointment, we should have expected some significant development if the growth had continued unabated as it had been, correct?” Dr. Colvert continued, and Sarah nodded.

“I cannot definitively say that whatever you experienced, if it was ever anything more than routine development in the first place, is gone, because it is not something that has been formally diagnosed. But oftentimes in medicine, the lack of further developments is just as positive as successful treatment. I would tell you if I were concerned, and as of this moment, I am not.” As she finished speaking, Dr. Colvert gave Sarah a winning smile that went a long way to repair Sarah’s positive vibes.

“Hey, that’s good enough for me. Thanks Dr. Colvert.” Sarah smiled.

“Don’t mention it. I’d still like to have you back for your regular half-year appointment. We can just set it for 3 months from now and adjust the schedule moving forward. Talk to Lauren on your way out.” Dr. Colvert stood, removed her gloves, and moved back toward the door.

“Well wait, can I ask you something?” Sarah realized with a start she had almost forgot to ask, amidst her relieved joy. Dr. Colvert stopped abruptly and turned back to face Sarah, her face quizzical.

“I have an opportunity to do an exchange program for school where I get to spend 6 months in Japan. There’s a scholarship involved and I was really hoping I’d get a clean bill of health to go.” Sarah waited with bated breath, expecting the worst.

“No problems as far as I’m concerned, sounds like a great opportunity.” Dr. Colvert’s voice was flat, her mind seemingly already occupied with the next patient.

“The only thing is that we would leave next month, and then I would be gone for 6 months. So I wouldn’t be able to come in for another appointment until August after we get back. Is that going to be a problem you think?” Sarah watched Dr. Colvert’s face, still impassive. For a moment she was afraid the doctor couldn’t approve it, but then she softened.

“Are you kidding me? I’m not about to derail an opportunity like that just so I can see you again in 3 months. If there had been more troubling developments since our last visit, then maybe. Go to Japan, I’ll be here when you get back.” Dr. Colvert smiled warmly again, and ducked back into the hallway.

As soon as the door was closed, Sarah lost her battle with the tears that been welling up. She was so thoroughly relieved, and felt the excitement about her trip to Japan finally break through the dam she had been keeping up while she waited to see if Dr. Colvert would give her the go-ahead. Sarah’s mom had been clear: no approval from Dr. Colvert, then no trip. Sarah absolutely could not wait to tell Trent. He was already signed up, and she would join as soon as she possibly could. Already her mind was filling with visions of she and Trent going on walks through the Tokyo gardens, kissing under the vibrant lights at night, all manner of exciting experiences that awaited her. It would be her first time out of the country.

And so Sarah resolved to let nothing tarnish her excitement and enthusiasm for the opportunity that lay before her. Not the lukewarm reaction of her mother when she passed along the news that Dr. Colvert gave her approval for the trip. Not the 2 and a half hour wait Sarah suffered through to obtain her passport. Not the less-than-flattering photo of her that had been taken for said passport. And certainly not the odd, tingling soreness that Sarah felt in her breasts one morning, just a few days before their departure to Japan.

 

[mansan3010]

V
​

These last few weeks had been perhaps the greatest of Sarah’s entire life – if not, then at very least the most exciting. Everywhere they went, Sarah found herself in awe. Japan presented a truly unique mishmash of both the ancient and the modern. Certainly there was nothing quite like it back home, where even the oldest structures were only a few centuries old. Sarah genuinely felt like the history was a thrumming presence, in a way that she hadn’t felt even when they took a guided tour of the nation’s capitol a few years back.

But what had made the experience truly magical was that Sarah got to spend it with perhaps her two favorite people in the world: Trent and Catherine. Enrolling in the program had been Trent’s idea originally, and he had signed up immediately. Sarah had been made to spend an agonizing couple of months waiting to see if Dr. Colvert would approve her to take the trip in light of her recent health crisis, but in the end it had worked out. Catherine’s presence was truly just the cherry on top. While Sarah remembered telling Catherine about the trip immediately after Trent explained it to her, Catherine had never brought it up in the ensuing months. It wasn’t until Sarah joyously proclaimed that she was officially going to Japan following that last appointment with Dr. Colvert that Catherine revealed she was going as well.

“Shut the fuck up, no way!” Catherine’s face was taught with unbelieving excitement. At first Sarah was taken aback, then slowly the implication had dawned on her.

“Wait…are you going?” Sarah had nearly squealed the question, knowing the answer even as she asked. What ensued was lots of bounding and shrieks of excitement that drew two girls, Megan and Leah, from their bedroom a few doors down.

“Holy shit you guys, did we win the lottery or something?” Leah had asked, her voice thick with annoyance.

To Sarah, it felt like she had won the lottery in a way. She was relishing a seemingly non-stop flurry of experiences and adventures with the two people she considered to be the best friends in her life. There had never been a time, not since she was a little girl, when she had found herself waking up every morning brimming so much eagerness and happiness. In a way, she found it sad that life could become so mundane that most days are a bore. Worse, she realized she hadn’t even realized she was in a rut until the trip to Japan broke her out of it, but Sarah chose to lean into light that was illuminating that dark reality of life rather than the darkness itself.

Truly the only hiccup Sarah had experienced for about the last month was that she had run out of time to alter a couple of bras to bring with her to Japan. The success of adjusting the 38G was greater than she had even dared hope, and Sarah had fully intended to make at least two more that she hoped would see her through the duration of the 6-month program. However the madness that preluded the trip completely consumed Sarah’s attention and time, and it wasn’t until about midway through the second layover in LAX en route to Japan that Sarah even realized that she had forgotten that little project.

“Shit.” Sarah had suddenly muttered to herself, drawing a shocked glance from an elderly woman who sat nearby at the departure gate. The problem wasn’t only that she would be stuck with only the one good bra, the shoddy craftsmanship causing it to already begin to wear out in earnest, it was exacerbated by the fact that Sarah had begun to feel the tell-tale pinch of the bra beginning to be overwhelmed by her breasts.

Not only had Sarah planned to manufacture a pair of “fresh” bras to take with her on the trip, she had actually intended for one of them to size up a bit to a 40G, just to ensure she could deal with any potential additional growth that might come. Dr. Colvert had seemingly failed to notice the minute increase in Sarah’s bust between their two appointments, but that didn’t mean the increase had not occurred. Though Sarah still fervently believed that the dramatic decrease in her rate of growth boded well for the future, she was nonetheless aware that she should expect at least a bit more growth to round it out, and then be pleasantly surprised if she was truly finished altogether. Those best-laid plans had been unintentionally cast aside though, and Sarah had recognized that she would be forced to come up with a contingency if and when the time came.

That time did come, and with a suddenness that Sarah had ruefully become familiar with. One evening Sarah returned home from a spur-of-the-moment trip to an art gallery in what she thought of as “downtown Tokyo” and became very aware that she simply couldn’t ignore the discomfort her bra had been causing her anymore. Thus, Sarah found herself perusing a rack of bras in a small boutique she found in a shopping district not far from the dorms they were occupying. As she entered the shop, she held little hope for success. After all, she had utterly failed to find an accommodating bra back home, and she rather doubted Japan would be better equipped to her unique dimensions given the rather lithe frame of the average Japanese woman. At first she had strongly considered bringing along Catherine and Yumi, the graduate student who was pulling double duty as a sort of “RA” for their floor of the dorm, as well as a translator for when the group made their excursions into the city. But the reality of the situation, and the fact that she was surely doomed to fail, made Sarah feel those familiar pin pricks of dread and she decided she would rather fall the first time on her own. Maybe Yumi could help Sarah find what she needed when the shame receded a bit, or at least when the desperation truly set in.

The boutique was small, and accordingly it felt very cluttered when Sarah first entered. A bell jingled overheard as she stepped inside. Sarah looked around, but did not see a clerk behind the register, nor anyone who looked like an employee around the store. But there were many places one could hide in there, with racks littering the store, and bins jutting out into the limited aisle space. Sarah was astounded to find that it truly appeared that there might be more garments in this tiny little shop than in an entire Victoria’s Secret back home, despite the shop being less than half the square footage. Her eyes fell onto the rack of bras hanging nearby, and Sarah grabbed one at random to investigate. It certainly looked right, and felt right, but Sarah felt completely at a loss when she saw the label which read “75D.”

“What in the world?” Sarah felt as though the bra size might as well have been in the Japanese characters that surrounded the size on the label. Of course she recognized the D, but at the same time she felt quite certain that this bra was about the same size as the 32C bras she had used just until about a year before. So then what did the 75 mean? It looked like the same layout she was used to, just the wrong numbers. Then it occurred to her.

“Oh it’s metric, duh.” She muttered this aloud, feeling her comprehension muddled with frustration because she had yet to learn the conversion between centimeters and inches. A voice spoke up suddenly, saying something in Japanese that Sarah didn’t understand, and she all but jumped right out of her skin. Sarah’s breath hitched in her throat, and she placed a hand on her chest as she turned to face the woman who had spoken.

This was a small woman, no more than 5’1 or so, and Sarah couldn’t even guess her age. The old stereotypes often ring true, and this woman could’ve been 33 or 53, and Sarah couldn’t tell either way. Her features were delicate, and her hair was pulled into a tidy bun atop her head. By the woman’s expression, Sarah could tell she was just as shocked by Sarah’s reaction as Sarah herself had been by the woman’s sudden appearance.

“Dear Jesus, you scared me!” Sarah giggled a bit despite herself. At first the woman merely stared at Sarah, her mouth hung open slightly, and Sarah felt she understood the issue. ‘She doesn’t speak english’ Sarah thought. Then the woman smiled politely.

“You need help?” The accent was very thick, but Sarah was nonetheless pleasantly surprised.

“Oh! You do speak English!” Sarah exclaimed, unable to stop herself. Immediately she felt the shame of being the obnoxious American tourist. The woman merely continued staring at Sarah, her polite smile remained affixed.

“Sorry. I was just looking.” And Sarah gestured toward the tag on the bra she was holding. The woman took the bra from Sarah’s hands and then examined it closely before looking back up at Sarah.

“You need bra.” Sarah was uncertain if this was meant as a question or a statement, but figured the result would be the same either way. Before she could even respond, the woman continued.

“This not work.” The woman spoke with great authority, and Sarah was caught off guard as the woman moved quickly toward her, and held up the bra to Sarah’s right breast. “Small.” The woman’s polite smile resurfaced. Sarah was nonplussed to see how woefully tiny the bra appeared as the woman held it against her boob, feeling a minor jolt of horror to see that a bra that she felt would have likely even been a bit too large for her only about a year before was clearly inadequate to hold even one of her breasts now. That sense of surreality crept back in her mind again.

“Come.” The woman placed the bra back where Sarah had grabbed it, and began winding back through the shop to behind the register. At first Sarah merely stood in place, watching the woman briskly walk away, but then she began to follow after her absently. There was a small doorway with a curtain hanging, which the woman pulled open and gestured for Sarah to step inside. Slowing, Sarah tried to peer inside first, suddenly very aware of the fact that she was here alone and that no one at the school even knew where she was at the moment. The woman’s hand pressed into the small of Sarah’s back, coaxing her inside what turned out to be a make-shift dressing room. There were 3 bras hanging from a hook, apparently the remnants of another customer’s recent shopping trip.

“You…uh..take off.” The woman’s voice trailed off as though she didn’t quite have the words, but she gestured with her hands to indicate that she wanted Sarah to remove her top.

“Oh, what? No, no that is okay.” Sarah was alarmed and flustered. She became aware of how tight the quarters were with the two women huddled inside. There were perhaps only 4 or 5 inches between the woman and the prodigious shelf of Sarah’s bosom.

“Yes. I help you.” The woman’s voice was implacable, and she pulled a measuring tape from her smock.

“No, really. I was just looking.” Sarah wanted to escape, but the woman stood directly between her and the doorway. The woman merely stared at Sarah, clearly not comprehending, and then gestured again toward Sarah’s top.

“You need help.”

‘Sister, you don’t know the half of it.’ Sarah mused. Suddenly the woman poked the swell of her left boob which pressed into the cloth of the shirt Sarah wore. Her breasts were beginning to quad out of her bra again, and though Sarah didn’t think the effect was as severe as it had been in the past, this woman had apparently seen it right away. Sarah shrunk away from the woman’s touch, but the woman seemed not to notice.

“Let me help.” The woman’s voice remained firm. She was on a mission, and suddenly Sarah’s resolve wavered.

“Alright, fine. Just hold on.” This woman seemed, if nothing else, utterly convinced that she could help Sarah. Perhaps this would be for the best, even if it was a little odd and intrusive. Moreover, Sarah understood she would never have to step foot in this shop again if she didn’t want to, ‘whatever, who cares?’ she thought to herself.

So she began the unwrapping process yet again. She maneuvered carefully as she peeled off her shirt, careful not to catch the woman with her elbows. As she finished removing the shirt, she felt the woman grasp one of the pins she used to cinch her binding, and Sarah convulsed as if tickled.

“Please don’t touch me like that.” Sarah tried to sound stern, but her voice sounded thin to her own ears. The woman merely continued to politely smile.

“You need help.” The woman repeated, gesturing toward the binding. Now Sarah was feeling somewhat offended. She hurriedly set about unwrapping the binding, and carefully folded it, and set it on the ground behind her. Then she reached behind her back and unhooked her bra. The woman held out her hands, and Sarah handed the garment over without much thought. For a moment the woman examined the bra.
“You do this?” The woman asked, holding up a section of the strap that had clearly been resewn.

“Yes, I did that.” Sarah spoke uncertainly, unable to get a read on the woman. The woman only nodded.

“Yes, you need help.” There was a moment in which Sarah felt quite sure she would snap and slap that damn smile off the woman’s face. She felt shame welling up, as she stood horrendously close to this stranger in a tiny dressing room, with her massive tits nearly filling the space between them. The woman was in all likelihood only doing exactly as she stated: trying to help. But the limitation on her English skills caused her words to sound harsh and blunt, and Sarah’s own insecurity made it hard for her to see generosity in the woman’s words and actions.
“Turn round. Lift arm.” The woman gently grasped Sarah’s shoulder and twirled her so that Sarah faced away from the woman. Sarah absently lifted her arms away from her torso a bit, and then felt the woman’s gentle hands lift them up further. For a few seconds, Sarah felt incredibly foolish standing there with her arms out like a child acting like a bird. ‘Thank the Lord there isn’t a mirror in here.’ Sarah thought. Then the woman’s arms appeared from either side of Sarah’s torso and the woman pulled her tape measure across the broadest expanse of Sarah’s breasts. The tape was somehow very cold, and Sarah couldn’t resist the urge to shiver at its touch.

For several seconds Sarah felt the tape adjust in small movements across her boobs, and then suddenly the tape dropped and rested limply around Sarah’s hips. The woman grabbed the loose end to free up her right hand, and then Sarah heard the unmistakable sound of pencil scratching paper. Then the woman’s right hand appeared again, and the tape was lifted to stretch across her rib cage, just beneath the place where Sarah’s breasts surged from her chest wall. Again Sarah felt the tape adjust in more small movements a few times, and then the tape abruptly dropped.

“Okay. Done.” The woman proclaimed, and then turned to leave the dressing room. She stopped and turned back toward Sarah. “You dress and come out.” With that, the woman slid by the curtain, leaving Sarah alone to dress herself again. Taking her time, Sarah slowly went about arranging her breasts as comfortably as she could within the tight confines of her bra, then wrapping herself back into her binding. This afforded her time to think, and she was struck with how quickly this situation had spiraled. She had entered the shop no more than 10 minutes ago, intending merely to browse the wares, and then suddenly found herself standing topless in front of this strange woman. Though it was obvious now that there was no cause for concern, Sarah nonetheless felt a species of shame as she thought about what her mom would say if she knew how Sarah had numbly complied with the woman’s orders like that, going so far as to bare her naked breasts. And for what purpose? So that the woman could “help,” whatever the hell that meant.

Sarah was still ruminating on these thoughts when she emerged from the dressing room. The woman was standing just a few feet to Sarah’s right, just behind the register. She did not look toward Sarah as the curtain swished closed behind her. Without a word, Sarah walked around to the other side of the register, and waited. The woman was occupied with some laminated piece of paper, and still had not acknowledged Sarah’s presence. Just before Sarah voiced her frustration, the woman suddenly looked up with her same polite smile.

“65P.”

Sarah’s mouth, already parted as she had been about to give the woman what Sarah felt was some much-deserved sass, dropped completely open.

“Excuse me?” The woman did not seem to understand Sarah’s question, but did seem to understand the tone.

“Your size, 65P.” She repeated, without any semblance of emotion other than professional courtesy. Sarah’s mind was in a daze. What did that size even mean? Maybe nothing. Sarah’s mind tumbled about trying to make sense of it. Yet that was the problem, she literally could not. While Sarah had pieced together that the numbers corresponded to centimeters as opposed to inches, it nonetheless appeared that the bra letters were likewise on a different scale than what she was accustomed to as well. Or was that too much of an assumption to make based upon inspecting that first bra which was labeled as a D, but which looked to Sarah like one of her old C cups? Distantly, the woman spoke again.

“I’m sorry, what?” Sarah asked, her voice quiet, and tentative.

“I should make order?” The woman repeated her question, unperturbed.

“Oh, uh, I-I don’t have, um, money.” Sarah stammered. The woman’s face showed no understanding. “I cannot pay for it.” Sarah spoke slowly, and the woman’s face appeared to register what Sarah had said that time.

“You no pay now. I should make order?” Sarah felt a bit overwhelmed, and suddenly desired nothing more than to head back to her dorm and see Trent. She nodded, and the woman seemed delighted.

“Yes, I order. You come back 2 weeks?” Sarah nodded, only vaguely listening to the woman now. She waited for a couple of minutes as the woman jotted down a date two weeks in the future, and the shop’s phone number, on a claim ticket. Then she fixed Sarah with her most polite smile yet, and bowed.

The first thing Sarah did when she returned to her dorm room was to look up a conversion for 65 centimeters to inches, and found that it was the equivalent of about 26 inches. Then she proceeded to do some research into Japanese bra sizing, and before long found herself perusing an entire world of international bra sizing she did not know existed. Sarah decided she would spend more time looking into the range of bra sizes later on, but for the moment she was more interested in seeing what a Japanese P cup supposedly translated to back home: she was not thrilled to discover it was the equivalent of an O cup in US sizes. Part of Sarah had hoped she would find a greater disparity and she would rightly be sized at something like a 32H back home. There was a pit in her stomach as Sarah felt as though she had suddenly come aware of her own denial yet again.

More cursory research revealed that ultimately the letters of a bra size corresponded to the difference in measurement between the rib cage and the bust. Sarah had of course always understood this, but she had thought there was some strange calculus you did in the midst of it wherein you added 5 inches to this or that. Apparently this was wrong. More importantly however, Sarah learned that women with slighter builds, as she herself possessed, often required larger cup sizes due to how small their underbust measurement was. Thus, her bra size might look gargantuan, but it was more like a technicality owing to how meager her underbust measurement was. Or so Sarah reasoned to herself. ‘If I were a bigger girl, then my cup size wouldn’t be nearly so big.’ This logic seemed reasonable enough to Sarah, and she allowed the knot in her stomach to loosen a bit.

All the same, Sarah felt shamefully naïve. It was a similar feeling that you might experience when a stranger pulls open a door that you had spent an inordinate amount of time struggling to push open to no avail. Sarah was genuinely flummoxed by the idea that she had apparently been so far off the mark regarding her bras, these garments she spent every single day wearing. A few articles on the subject later however, and Sarah’s shame turned to irritation, as it appeared that this was not an uncommon ignorance - particularly in America. Sarah cast into her memory, trying to remember a time she had seen a bra size bigger than a G cup, or a band size that was smaller than a 32. She felt certain that she really had never seen a bra, at any shop back home, that exceeded those narrow confines of band and cup size. ‘Maybe I should’ve looked beyond Victoria’s Secret and Target.’ Sarah reflected, bitterly.

Finally Sarah found what, to her in that moment at least, appeared to be the Holy Grail. A chart illustrating the size comparison and conversion across the various international bra sizing customs. ‘Jesus Christ, let’s get on the same page here, ladies.’ Sarah quipped to herself. An anecdote Sarah’s grandmother had told her about Sarah’s mother and aunts occurred to Sarah: apparently grandmother had found mom and her sisters playing dress up using grandmother’s girdles. One aunt wore it about her hips like a skirt, the other aunt had the girdle perched precariously atop her head like a hat, and mom had come closest to realizing its intended purpose by wearing around her waist, but was attempting to hula hoop with it. “I tell ya, I almost hated to explain how to wear the girdles the right way because it tickled me to death to see them try to sort it out themselves.” Sarah saw a dismal humor in the fact that people seemingly couldn’t find common ground on something as simple as the sizing of a bra. ‘Well, let’s try to sort it out I guess.’ Sarah thought.

The first discrepancy appeared to be the use of double letters for bra sizes. Some countries used them for every letter following C, while others did not use double letters at all. Curiously, some only used double letters for certain sizes, but then skipped others using some logic that Sarah could not ascertain. Sarah was mildly amused to find that only the US appeared to use a triple letter. ‘Good ole triple D,’ she mused to herself, thinking that it existed moreso for fashion purposes than utilitarian purposes. After all, even as she saw letters ranging all the way to P on the list, there was some formidable mystique about that DDD. ‘I’ve been successfully brainwashed by Victoria’s Secret.’ Sarah realized, and this time found the humor in her own naivety.

The second, more important discrepancy occurred as a result of the first: the further down the list one traveled, the more out of sync the various sizing customs appeared to be – for the most part at least. According to some of the articles Sarah found, it seemed that UK sizing was popularly thought of as the “standard,” and Sarah began to understand why when she saw how much greater the range of sizes on the UK list ran. Tracing her finger along the chart, Sarah found that her size according to the woman in the boutique – 65P – corresponded to a 26K, or perhaps a 28K in UK sizes. Ludicrously, Sarah felt a sense of relief. Once, not too long ago, Sarah understood that the letter K in conjunction with a bra size would’ve sounded ridiculous in and of itself, if not altogether a frightening concept. Yet having spent the last hour or so with thoughts of O’s and P’s dancing in her head, the idea of K suddenly seemed far more inviting to Sarah, almost comforting even. Again she reflected on the strange nature of anxiety, and how the threshold for horror was so easily shifted by changing circumstance.
Along with the relief, Sarah allowed herself to feel a tinge of excitement. For all the confusion and cross-information regarding bra sizing, there was one recurrent theme to the various posts and articles she had read. These women had raved about how much more comfortable they felt even with breasts as large, or often larger Sarah was pleased to find, just by virtue of having found properly sized bras. Perhaps that woman had been speaking in earnest when she suggested that Sarah needed her help, and soon Sarah would enjoy the same comfort in owning her first bra that was actually tailored to fit her dimensions correctly.

The idea brought a relieved excitement to Sarah, and she found herself hoping it wouldn’t take too long for whatever process the woman had initiated to obtain Sarah her bra to be completed. ‘That must be why my boobs have been so achy lately.’ Sarah reflected. There had been a numb soreness in her breasts since shortly before Sarah departed for Japan. At first Sarah had been frightened, as the feeling was similar to the dull ache she had grown accustomed to ever since this strange period of growth had commenced – though not quite the same. She had considered mentioning the soreness to Dr. Colvert just before she left, but the revelry in their impending journey Sarah had shared with Trent and Catherine dissuaded her from making the call. Just in case it would have put a last-second kibosh on the trip. After all, the soreness was not quite the same as the ache she had felt as a result of the growth Sarah had been enduring in the months prior.

Now it had been a little over a month since the soreness had set in, and Sarah had noted no further growth. There had been a peculiar itch, but nothing more. Accordingly, Sarah reasoned that the soreness must be the wages of so much time spent in bras that were woefully ill-suited to provide her with the support she needed, and the itch must be due to her skin being irritated by the smallness of the cups. Some of the articles she had read mentioned some soreness and skin irritation as a byproduct of an ill-fitting brassiere. ‘I’m sure that when I finally get this new bra from that boutique in a couple of weeks, the soreness and itch will go away on their own,’ Sarah thought as she closed her browser window and got up to see if she could track down Trent and Catherine. On the heels of the thought, Sarah also reflected ‘Man, thank the Lord I didn’t call Dr. Colvert about that pain before we left or I would probably be sitting alone in my bedroom right now instead, and all for nothing.’ Even just the thought filled Sarah with a melancholy dread.

In the ensuing months Sarah would spend a great deal of time ruminating about how she had elected to not share that pain with Dr. Colvert, and would come to feel very differently about it altogether.

 

[Chacotay]

Amazing as always! Can't wait to see if she has to handle a big growth spurt on her own!

 

[jean]

Good job.
I would like to know more about her nipples and areola.

 

[Veryvery]

Fantastic writing! Please keep it up

 

[Curtwill]

V
​

These last few weeks had been perhaps the greatest of Sarah’s entire life – if not, then at very least the most exciting. Everywhere they went, Sarah found herself in awe. Japan presented a truly unique mishmash of both the ancient and the modern. Certainly there was nothing quite like it back home, where even the oldest structures were only a few centuries old. Sarah genuinely felt like the history was a thrumming presence, in a way that she hadn’t felt even when they took a guided tour of the nation’s capitol a few years back.

But what had made the experience truly magical was that Sarah got to spend it with perhaps her two favorite people in the world: Trent and Catherine. Enrolling in the program had been Trent’s idea originally, and he had signed up immediately. Sarah had been made to spend an agonizing couple of months waiting to see if Dr. Colvert would approve her to take the trip in light of her recent health crisis, but in the end it had worked out. Catherine’s presence was truly just the cherry on top. While Sarah remembered telling Catherine about the trip immediately after Trent explained it to her, Catherine had never brought it up in the ensuing months. It wasn’t until Sarah joyously proclaimed that she was officially going to Japan following that last appointment with Dr. Colvert that Catherine revealed she was going as well.

“Shut the fuck up, no way!” Catherine’s face was taught with unbelieving excitement. At first Sarah was taken aback, then slowly the implication had dawned on her.

“Wait…are you going?” Sarah had nearly squealed the question, knowing the answer even as she asked. What ensued was lots of bounding and shrieks of excitement that drew two girls, Megan and Leah, from their bedroom a few doors down.

“Holy shit you guys, did we win the lottery or something?” Leah had asked, her voice thick with annoyance.

To Sarah, it felt like she had won the lottery in a way. She was relishing a seemingly non-stop flurry of experiences and adventures with the two people she considered to be the best friends in her life. There had never been a time, not since she was a little girl, when she had found herself waking up every morning brimming so much eagerness and happiness. In a way, she found it sad that life could become so mundane that most days are a bore. Worse, she realized she hadn’t even realized she was in a rut until the trip to Japan broke her out of it, but Sarah chose to lean into light that was illuminating that dark reality of life rather than the darkness itself.

Truly the only hiccup Sarah had experienced for about the last month was that she had run out of time to alter a couple of bras to bring with her to Japan. The success of adjusting the 38G was greater than she had even dared hope, and Sarah had fully intended to make at least two more that she hoped would see her through the duration of the 6-month program. However the madness that preluded the trip completely consumed Sarah’s attention and time, and it wasn’t until about midway through the second layover in LAX en route to Japan that Sarah even realized that she had forgotten that little project.

“Shit.” Sarah had suddenly muttered to herself, drawing a shocked glance from an elderly woman who sat nearby at the departure gate. The problem wasn’t only that she would be stuck with only the one good bra, the shoddy craftsmanship causing it to already begin to wear out in earnest, it was exacerbated by the fact that Sarah had begun to feel the tell-tale pinch of the bra beginning to be overwhelmed by her breasts.

Not only had Sarah planned to manufacture a pair of “fresh” bras to take with her on the trip, she had actually intended for one of them to size up a bit to a 40G, just to ensure she could deal with any potential additional growth that might come. Dr. Colvert had seemingly failed to notice the minute increase in Sarah’s bust between their two appointments, but that didn’t mean the increase had not occurred. Though Sarah still fervently believed that the dramatic decrease in her rate of growth boded well for the future, she was nonetheless aware that she should expect at least a bit more growth to round it out, and then be pleasantly surprised if she was truly finished altogether. Those best-laid plans had been unintentionally cast aside though, and Sarah had recognized that she would be forced to come up with a contingency if and when the time came.

That time did come, and with a suddenness that Sarah had ruefully become familiar with. One evening Sarah returned home from a spur-of-the-moment trip to an art gallery in what she thought of as “downtown Tokyo” and became very aware that she simply couldn’t ignore the discomfort her bra had been causing her anymore. Thus, Sarah found herself perusing a rack of bras in a small boutique she found in a shopping district not far from the dorms they were occupying. As she entered the shop, she held little hope for success. After all, she had utterly failed to find an accommodating bra back home, and she rather doubted Japan would be better equipped to her unique dimensions given the rather lithe frame of the average Japanese woman. At first she had strongly considered bringing along Catherine and Yumi, the graduate student who was pulling double duty as a sort of “RA” for their floor of the dorm, as well as a translator for when the group made their excursions into the city. But the reality of the situation, and the fact that she was surely doomed to fail, made Sarah feel those familiar pin pricks of dread and she decided she would rather fall the first time on her own. Maybe Yumi could help Sarah find what she needed when the shame receded a bit, or at least when the desperation truly set in.

The boutique was small, and accordingly it felt very cluttered when Sarah first entered. A bell jingled overheard as she stepped inside. Sarah looked around, but did not see a clerk behind the register, nor anyone who looked like an employee around the store. But there were many places one could hide in there, with racks littering the store, and bins jutting out into the limited aisle space. Sarah was astounded to find that it truly appeared that there might be more garments in this tiny little shop than in an entire Victoria’s Secret back home, despite the shop being less than half the square footage. Her eyes fell onto the rack of bras hanging nearby, and Sarah grabbed one at random to investigate. It certainly looked right, and felt right, but Sarah felt completely at a loss when she saw the label which read “75D.”

“What in the world?” Sarah felt as though the bra size might as well have been in the Japanese characters that surrounded the size on the label. Of course she recognized the D, but at the same time she felt quite certain that this bra was about the same size as the 32C bras she had used just until about a year before. So then what did the 75 mean? It looked like the same layout she was used to, just the wrong numbers. Then it occurred to her.

“Oh it’s metric, duh.” She muttered this aloud, feeling her comprehension muddled with frustration because she had yet to learn the conversion between centimeters and inches. A voice spoke up suddenly, saying something in Japanese that Sarah didn’t understand, and she all but jumped right out of her skin. Sarah’s breath hitched in her throat, and she placed a hand on her chest as she turned to face the woman who had spoken.

This was a small woman, no more than 5’1 or so, and Sarah couldn’t even guess her age. The old stereotypes often ring true, and this woman could’ve been 33 or 53, and Sarah couldn’t tell either way. Her features were delicate, and her hair was pulled into a tidy bun atop her head. By the woman’s expression, Sarah could tell she was just as shocked by Sarah’s reaction as Sarah herself had been by the woman’s sudden appearance.

“Dear Jesus, you scared me!” Sarah giggled a bit despite herself. At first the woman merely stared at Sarah, her mouth hung open slightly, and Sarah felt she understood the issue. ‘She doesn’t speak english’ Sarah thought. Then the woman smiled politely.

“You need help?” The accent was very thick, but Sarah was nonetheless pleasantly surprised.

“Oh! You do speak English!” Sarah exclaimed, unable to stop herself. Immediately she felt the shame of being the obnoxious American tourist. The woman merely continued staring at Sarah, her polite smile remained affixed.

“Sorry. I was just looking.” And Sarah gestured toward the tag on the bra she was holding. The woman took the bra from Sarah’s hands and then examined it closely before looking back up at Sarah.

“You need bra.” Sarah was uncertain if this was meant as a question or a statement, but figured the result would be the same either way. Before she could even respond, the woman continued.

“This not work.” The woman spoke with great authority, and Sarah was caught off guard as the woman moved quickly toward her, and held up the bra to Sarah’s right breast. “Small.” The woman’s polite smile resurfaced. Sarah was nonplussed to see how woefully tiny the bra appeared as the woman held it against her boob, feeling a minor jolt of horror to see that a bra that she felt would have likely even been a bit too large for her only about a year before was clearly inadequate to hold even one of her breasts now. That sense of surreality crept back in her mind again.

“Come.” The woman placed the bra back where Sarah had grabbed it, and began winding back through the shop to behind the register. At first Sarah merely stood in place, watching the woman briskly walk away, but then she began to follow after her absently. There was a small doorway with a curtain hanging, which the woman pulled open and gestured for Sarah to step inside. Slowing, Sarah tried to peer inside first, suddenly very aware of the fact that she was here alone and that no one at the school even knew where she was at the moment. The woman’s hand pressed into the small of Sarah’s back, coaxing her inside what turned out to be a make-shift dressing room. There were 3 bras hanging from a hook, apparently the remnants of another customer’s recent shopping trip.

“You…uh..take off.” The woman’s voice trailed off as though she didn’t quite have the words, but she gestured with her hands to indicate that she wanted Sarah to remove her top.

“Oh, what? No, no that is okay.” Sarah was alarmed and flustered. She became aware of how tight the quarters were with the two women huddled inside. There were perhaps only 4 or 5 inches between the woman and the prodigious shelf of Sarah’s bosom.

“Yes. I help you.” The woman’s voice was implacable, and she pulled a measuring tape from her smock.

“No, really. I was just looking.” Sarah wanted to escape, but the woman stood directly between her and the doorway. The woman merely stared at Sarah, clearly not comprehending, and then gestured again toward Sarah’s top.

“You need help.”

‘Sister, you don’t know the half of it.’ Sarah mused. Suddenly the woman poked the swell of her left boob which pressed into the cloth of the shirt Sarah wore. Her breasts were beginning to quad out of her bra again, and though Sarah didn’t think the effect was as severe as it had been in the past, this woman had apparently seen it right away. Sarah shrunk away from the woman’s touch, but the woman seemed not to notice.

“Let me help.” The woman’s voice remained firm. She was on a mission, and suddenly Sarah’s resolve wavered.

“Alright, fine. Just hold on.” This woman seemed, if nothing else, utterly convinced that she could help Sarah. Perhaps this would be for the best, even if it was a little odd and intrusive. Moreover, Sarah understood she would never have to step foot in this shop again if she didn’t want to, ‘whatever, who cares?’ she thought to herself.

So she began the unwrapping process yet again. She maneuvered carefully as she peeled off her shirt, careful not to catch the woman with her elbows. As she finished removing the shirt, she felt the woman grasp one of the pins she used to cinch her binding, and Sarah convulsed as if tickled.

“Please don’t touch me like that.” Sarah tried to sound stern, but her voice sounded thin to her own ears. The woman merely continued to politely smile.

“You need help.” The woman repeated, gesturing toward the binding. Now Sarah was feeling somewhat offended. She hurriedly set about unwrapping the binding, and carefully folded it, and set it on the ground behind her. Then she reached behind her back and unhooked her bra. The woman held out her hands, and Sarah handed the garment over without much thought. For a moment the woman examined the bra.
“You do this?” The woman asked, holding up a section of the strap that had clearly been resewn.

“Yes, I did that.” Sarah spoke uncertainly, unable to get a read on the woman. The woman only nodded.

“Yes, you need help.” There was a moment in which Sarah felt quite sure she would snap and slap that damn smile off the woman’s face. She felt shame welling up, as she stood horrendously close to this stranger in a tiny dressing room, with her massive tits nearly filling the space between them. The woman was in all likelihood only doing exactly as she stated: trying to help. But the limitation on her English skills caused her words to sound harsh and blunt, and Sarah’s own insecurity made it hard for her to see generosity in the woman’s words and actions.
“Turn round. Lift arm.” The woman gently grasped Sarah’s shoulder and twirled her so that Sarah faced away from the woman. Sarah absently lifted her arms away from her torso a bit, and then felt the woman’s gentle hands lift them up further. For a few seconds, Sarah felt incredibly foolish standing there with her arms out like a child acting like a bird. ‘Thank the Lord there isn’t a mirror in here.’ Sarah thought. Then the woman’s arms appeared from either side of Sarah’s torso and the woman pulled her tape measure across the broadest expanse of Sarah’s breasts. The tape was somehow very cold, and Sarah couldn’t resist the urge to shiver at its touch.

For several seconds Sarah felt the tape adjust in small movements across her boobs, and then suddenly the tape dropped and rested limply around Sarah’s hips. The woman grabbed the loose end to free up her right hand, and then Sarah heard the unmistakable sound of pencil scratching paper. Then the woman’s right hand appeared again, and the tape was lifted to stretch across her rib cage, just beneath the place where Sarah’s breasts surged from her chest wall. Again Sarah felt the tape adjust in more small movements a few times, and then the tape abruptly dropped.

“Okay. Done.” The woman proclaimed, and then turned to leave the dressing room. She stopped and turned back toward Sarah. “You dress and come out.” With that, the woman slid by the curtain, leaving Sarah alone to dress herself again. Taking her time, Sarah slowly went about arranging her breasts as comfortably as she could within the tight confines of her bra, then wrapping herself back into her binding. This afforded her time to think, and she was struck with how quickly this situation had spiraled. She had entered the shop no more than 10 minutes ago, intending merely to browse the wares, and then suddenly found herself standing topless in front of this strange woman. Though it was obvious now that there was no cause for concern, Sarah nonetheless felt a species of shame as she thought about what her mom would say if she knew how Sarah had numbly complied with the woman’s orders like that, going so far as to bare her naked breasts. And for what purpose? So that the woman could “help,” whatever the hell that meant.

Sarah was still ruminating on these thoughts when she emerged from the dressing room. The woman was standing just a few feet to Sarah’s right, just behind the register. She did not look toward Sarah as the curtain swished closed behind her. Without a word, Sarah walked around to the other side of the register, and waited. The woman was occupied with some laminated piece of paper, and still had not acknowledged Sarah’s presence. Just before Sarah voiced her frustration, the woman suddenly looked up with her same polite smile.

“65P.”

Sarah’s mouth, already parted as she had been about to give the woman what Sarah felt was some much-deserved sass, dropped completely open.

“Excuse me?” The woman did not seem to understand Sarah’s question, but did seem to understand the tone.

“Your size, 65P.” She repeated, without any semblance of emotion other than professional courtesy. Sarah’s mind was in a daze. What did that size even mean? Maybe nothing. Sarah’s mind tumbled about trying to make sense of it. Yet that was the problem, she literally could not. While Sarah had pieced together that the numbers corresponded to centimeters as opposed to inches, it nonetheless appeared that the bra letters were likewise on a different scale than what she was accustomed to as well. Or was that too much of an assumption to make based upon inspecting that first bra which was labeled as a D, but which looked to Sarah like one of her old C cups? Distantly, the woman spoke again.

“I’m sorry, what?” Sarah asked, her voice quiet, and tentative.

“I should make order?” The woman repeated her question, unperturbed.

“Oh, uh, I-I don’t have, um, money.” Sarah stammered. The woman’s face showed no understanding. “I cannot pay for it.” Sarah spoke slowly, and the woman’s face appeared to register what Sarah had said that time.

“You no pay now. I should make order?” Sarah felt a bit overwhelmed, and suddenly desired nothing more than to head back to her dorm and see Trent. She nodded, and the woman seemed delighted.

“Yes, I order. You come back 2 weeks?” Sarah nodded, only vaguely listening to the woman now. She waited for a couple of minutes as the woman jotted down a date two weeks in the future, and the shop’s phone number, on a claim ticket. Then she fixed Sarah with her most polite smile yet, and bowed.

The first thing Sarah did when she returned to her dorm room was to look up a conversion for 65 centimeters to inches, and found that it was the equivalent of about 26 inches. Then she proceeded to do some research into Japanese bra sizing, and before long found herself perusing an entire world of international bra sizing she did not know existed. Sarah decided she would spend more time looking into the range of bra sizes later on, but for the moment she was more interested in seeing what a Japanese P cup supposedly translated to back home: she was not thrilled to discover it was the equivalent of an O cup in US sizes. Part of Sarah had hoped she would find a greater disparity and she would rightly be sized at something like a 32H back home. There was a pit in her stomach as Sarah felt as though she had suddenly come aware of her own denial yet again.

More cursory research revealed that ultimately the letters of a bra size corresponded to the difference in measurement between the rib cage and the bust. Sarah had of course always understood this, but she had thought there was some strange calculus you did in the midst of it wherein you added 5 inches to this or that. Apparently this was wrong. More importantly however, Sarah learned that women with slighter builds, as she herself possessed, often required larger cup sizes due to how small their underbust measurement was. Thus, her bra size might look gargantuan, but it was more like a technicality owing to how meager her underbust measurement was. Or so Sarah reasoned to herself. ‘If I were a bigger girl, then my cup size wouldn’t be nearly so big.’ This logic seemed reasonable enough to Sarah, and she allowed the knot in her stomach to loosen a bit.

All the same, Sarah felt shamefully naïve. It was a similar feeling that you might experience when a stranger pulls open a door that you had spent an inordinate amount of time struggling to push open to no avail. Sarah was genuinely flummoxed by the idea that she had apparently been so far off the mark regarding her bras, these garments she spent every single day wearing. A few articles on the subject later however, and Sarah’s shame turned to irritation, as it appeared that this was not an uncommon ignorance - particularly in America. Sarah cast into her memory, trying to remember a time she had seen a bra size bigger than a G cup, or a band size that was smaller than a 32. She felt certain that she really had never seen a bra, at any shop back home, that exceeded those narrow confines of band and cup size. ‘Maybe I should’ve looked beyond Victoria’s Secret and Target.’ Sarah reflected, bitterly.

Finally Sarah found what, to her in that moment at least, appeared to be the Holy Grail. A chart illustrating the size comparison and conversion across the various international bra sizing customs. ‘Jesus Christ, let’s get on the same page here, ladies.’ Sarah quipped to herself. An anecdote Sarah’s grandmother had told her about Sarah’s mother and aunts occurred to Sarah: apparently grandmother had found mom and her sisters playing dress up using grandmother’s girdles. One aunt wore it about her hips like a skirt, the other aunt had the girdle perched precariously atop her head like a hat, and mom had come closest to realizing its intended purpose by wearing around her waist, but was attempting to hula hoop with it. “I tell ya, I almost hated to explain how to wear the girdles the right way because it tickled me to death to see them try to sort it out themselves.” Sarah saw a dismal humor in the fact that people seemingly couldn’t find common ground on something as simple as the sizing of a bra. ‘Well, let’s try to sort it out I guess.’ Sarah thought.

The first discrepancy appeared to be the use of double letters for bra sizes. Some countries used them for every letter following C, while others did not use double letters at all. Curiously, some only used double letters for certain sizes, but then skipped others using some logic that Sarah could not ascertain. Sarah was mildly amused to find that only the US appeared to use a triple letter. ‘Good ole triple D,’ she mused to herself, thinking that it existed moreso for fashion purposes than utilitarian purposes. After all, even as she saw letters ranging all the way to P on the list, there was some formidable mystique about that DDD. ‘I’ve been successfully brainwashed by Victoria’s Secret.’ Sarah realized, and this time found the humor in her own naivety.

The second, more important discrepancy occurred as a result of the first: the further down the list one traveled, the more out of sync the various sizing customs appeared to be – for the most part at least. According to some of the articles Sarah found, it seemed that UK sizing was popularly thought of as the “standard,” and Sarah began to understand why when she saw how much greater the range of sizes on the UK list ran. Tracing her finger along the chart, Sarah found that her size according to the woman in the boutique – 65P – corresponded to a 26K, or perhaps a 28K in UK sizes. Ludicrously, Sarah felt a sense of relief. Once, not too long ago, Sarah understood that the letter K in conjunction with a bra size would’ve sounded ridiculous in and of itself, if not altogether a frightening concept. Yet having spent the last hour or so with thoughts of O’s and P’s dancing in her head, the idea of K suddenly seemed far more inviting to Sarah, almost comforting even. Again she reflected on the strange nature of anxiety, and how the threshold for horror was so easily shifted by changing circumstance.
Along with the relief, Sarah allowed herself to feel a tinge of excitement. For all the confusion and cross-information regarding bra sizing, there was one recurrent theme to the various posts and articles she had read. These women had raved about how much more comfortable they felt even with breasts as large, or often larger Sarah was pleased to find, just by virtue of having found properly sized bras. Perhaps that woman had been speaking in earnest when she suggested that Sarah needed her help, and soon Sarah would enjoy the same comfort in owning her first bra that was actually tailored to fit her dimensions correctly.

The idea brought a relieved excitement to Sarah, and she found herself hoping it wouldn’t take too long for whatever process the woman had initiated to obtain Sarah her bra to be completed. ‘That must be why my boobs have been so achy lately.’ Sarah reflected. There had been a numb soreness in her breasts since shortly before Sarah departed for Japan. At first Sarah had been frightened, as the feeling was similar to the dull ache she had grown accustomed to ever since this strange period of growth had commenced – though not quite the same. She had considered mentioning the soreness to Dr. Colvert just before she left, but the revelry in their impending journey Sarah had shared with Trent and Catherine dissuaded her from making the call. Just in case it would have put a last-second kibosh on the trip. After all, the soreness was not quite the same as the ache she had felt as a result of the growth Sarah had been enduring in the months prior.

Now it had been a little over a month since the soreness had set in, and Sarah had noted no further growth. There had been a peculiar itch, but nothing more. Accordingly, Sarah reasoned that the soreness must be the wages of so much time spent in bras that were woefully ill-suited to provide her with the support she needed, and the itch must be due to her skin being irritated by the smallness of the cups. Some of the articles she had read mentioned some soreness and skin irritation as a byproduct of an ill-fitting brassiere. ‘I’m sure that when I finally get this new bra from that boutique in a couple of weeks, the soreness and itch will go away on their own,’ Sarah thought as she closed her browser window and got up to see if she could track down Trent and Catherine. On the heels of the thought, Sarah also reflected ‘Man, thank the Lord I didn’t call Dr. Colvert about that pain before we left or I would probably be sitting alone in my bedroom right now instead, and all for nothing.’ Even just the thought filled Sarah with a melancholy dread.

In the ensuing months Sarah would spend a great deal of time ruminating about how she had elected to not share that pain with Dr. Colvert, and would come to feel very differently about it altogether.

This is a great story and the fact that you're educated on bra sizing works add to the realism of the story as Sarah's conflicted emotions about her experiences until acceptance of her present body.

 

[Chrislorette]

I hope there’s more to come... I love this story!

 

[mansan3010]

VI.
​

These last few weeks had been perhaps the worst of Sarah’s entire life – if not, then at very least the most frightening. The acrid scent of perspiration and body odor were a miasma in the hallway outside of Sarah’s room, and the smell seemed to become a physical thing unto itself when one stepped foot inside the room. Catherine had moved out about 3 weeks earlier, and it had been a relief to both girls.

“I felt like I was in a kiddie haunted house or something.” Catherine explained to a few of the girls shortly after she vacated the room she had shared with Sarah. “Like I would wake up to the sound of moaning, and hear the creaking of Sarah’s bed springs, and it started to really get to me. I sound like such an asshole.” But all the girls were quick to rebuke Catherine on this point, insisting that it was a very “tough situation.” On this last point, Catherine was in full agreement.

Though she spent most of the first couple of days following her move telling anyone who would listen about how guilty she felt at having done so, what Catherine felt strongest of all was peace of mind. Certainly the girl did feel a pang of guilt at leaving her friend alone to suffer with whatever the hell was happening to her, but Catherine felt justified that there had to be a limit to the amount of second-hand suffering one person’s gentle constitution could bear. Moreover, Catherine understood, knew for certain because Sarah had expressed as much herself numerous times before Catherine left, that this problem Sarah was suffering through was humiliating, and so Catherine reasoned that Sarah would prefer to be left with privacy if privacy could be afforded.

On this point, Catherine was in fact correct. Sarah had longed for privacy ever since they first arrived in Japan in the first place, though the reasons for this desire changed over time. At first Sarah’s desire for privacy was due primarily to her solitary nature. Being an only child, Sarah had always found she possessed little patience for any of the three roommates she had endured during her college career thus far. Then Sarah began to desire privacy because she wanted time alone with Trent, and those feelings grew stronger and stronger as the couple had continued to be flatly denied opportunities for intimacy.

There was yet another reason Sarah wished for more privacy, and this reason permeated all others in some capacity: Sarah still felt uncomfortable with her newly developed body, and had gone to great pains to hide the extent of her growth from her friends and family. Suddenly she shared a room with Catherine, which meant Sarah no longer enjoyed plausible deniability regarding the poor fit of her makeshift bra, the binding which she used to de-emphasize the swell of her bosom, or the degree to which her boobs had overtaken her torso. It was hard not to feel a little violated when she caught Catherine watching her wrap up her binding, or thought she caught Catherine sneaking glances of her naked breasts when Sarah emerged from the bathroom. Despite her tits becoming increasingly more apparent in their belligerent growth, Sarah stubbornly clung to the idea that they were her own personal secret, and did not enjoy that secret being threatened or violated.

This last reason had become more pronounced a couple of months earlier, when Sarah had realized with a bitter certainty that her breasts had grown some more. It had been cruel in its timing, less than 2 weeks removed from Sarah receiving the bra the woman from the boutique, whose name turned out to be Ainu, which had been carefully tailored to fit her dimensions. Truly it had been a revelation, how comfortably and effectively that bra held and supported Sarah’s breasts. She imagined it was similar to a person seeing the world clearly for the first time after finally being given glasses they hadn’t realized they had needed all along. Sarah had taken it for granted: bras are uncomfortable. That’s what they are, it’s in their nature. How wrong she had been, and how thrilled she had felt upon realizing the fact. So much so that she didn’t even mind the king’s ransom she had to pay Ainu upon her receipt of the bra.

It had taken Sarah a day or two to get used to how much tighter the band was on this bra, but that came easily enough because of the reward of the band being tight as it was: Sarah’s shoulders hadn’t felt so comfortable since she had first donned a training bra. Again it was as though she hadn’t even been fully aware there was a problem until she was confronted by its solution, her straps had dug into her shoulders all day, every day, for years. While there was still a distinct burden resting on Sarah’s shoulders, her breasts were very large after all, it felt like nothing at all compared to what Sarah was accustomed to. The band was actually pulling its weight, for the first time ever in Sarah’s experience, and accordingly the burden was properly shared. The one down side that Sarah noted was that the bra, because of the lift and support it provided, did more to emphasize her bust than squash it as she had become accustomed to. Even in her binding, Sarah felt that her bosom stood out, far more pronounced, than was ordinary for her. However the comfort she felt wearing the bra did a great deal to mitigate this problem, and Sarah could appreciate that even if she preferred her bosom be less pronounced, at least this bra projected her boobs in a flattering manner.

Thus it felt like horrible cosmic cruelty when, about ten days after Sarah had first tried on the new bra, she felt the old familiar pinch yet again. ‘There is no way in hell.’ She had chastised herself internally, as if chiding her own body. She shifted and adjusted her flesh within the confines of the bra, and felt as though she corrected the issue. Thinking that perhaps she had simply caught her boob in an awkward angle within the bra at first, Sarah was disheartened when the feeling abruptly returned soon after as she walked across the dorm room to grab her backpack. There was a busy day of class ahead of her, and so Sarah did what she did best and cast the worry to the back of her mind. It resurfaced throughout the day when lulls afforded her opportunity to take note of the pinching feeling, but Sarah did her best to keep herself otherwise occupied.

It was a week later, standing in front of the mirror clad in only her bra, that Sarah swallowed the bitter truth. Flesh rose in doughy bulges around the lip of each bra cup, and twin bulges jutted rudely into the space near her armpits. The band of this bra was far too snug to allow the customary swell of underboob sneaking out from beneath the cups that Sarah was used to, but that only increased the effect of her breasts quadding from the cups of her bra. Sarah felt tears stinging her eyes, and would surely have fallen to hysterics had Catherine not suddenly barged into their room. The suddenness with which her friend broke her reverie caused Sarah to bound from the mirror to her bed, as though she had been caught doing something wrong.

“Oh, sorry!” Catherine said sheepishly, reacting more to Sarah’s cagey response than to the situation itself. “You okay?” She asked.

“For sure, I was just getting ready.” Sarah said, busying herself with her binding cloth. She could feel Catherine’s eyes on her. When Sarah finally lifted her own to meet Catherine’s, she found Catherine’s affixed to Sarah’s bra – more specifically to the swells of flesh trying to escape Sarah’s bra. For a moment Sarah was afraid Catherine would ask her about it, because it had only been just over a week ago that Sarah had proudly showed off how well the new bra fit to Catherine. But Catherine said nothing.

“You just scared the shit out of me is all.” Sarah continued, hoping to draw Catherine’s attention away from her chest.

“So sorry, should we implement a knock-first rule?” Catherine teased. “I haven’t seen someone jump across the room like that since I walked in on Cody jacking off.” Sarah snorted laughter at this, she had completely forgotten that story.

“Oh no!” Sarah mimicked the high-pitched voice that Catherine said Cody had when he shrieked at her for walking in on him, and this made Catherine laugh as well.

“Oh no!” Catherine performed her own impression, and Sarah felt the awkwardness dissipate.

“Really, you just scared me.” Sarah’s laughter died out, and she began wrapping herself in her binding. Catherine kept her eyes focused on her own bed, where she had laid a pile of laundry. For a moment Catherine remained silent.

“Honestly my first thought was that Trent might be hidden somewhere in here.” Just by the sound of her voice, Sarah could tell Catherine was smirking as she spoke. “Especially with you standing there in your bra like that.”

“Yumi would ground me for the rest of the trip if she caught me with Trent in here.” There was laughter in Sarah’s voice, but her face felt flushed all the same.

“No shit, that’s why I thought I might be onto something though. I mean the way you rushed across the room like that…” Catherine trailed off, and she simply stared at Sarah with a conspiratorial expression that made Sarah laugh again.

“Okay, well then I totally get it.” Sarah said as she finished pinning the binding in place. Then she pulled a flowing blouse over her head, and felt considerably better. Sure enough, Catherine made no further comment or glance toward Sarah’s chest that evening.

Yet that was when the desire for privacy to conceal her development first really took hold in Sarah. From there it blossomed into a visceral gulf between the girls, and unfortunately eventually evolved into a quiet animosity between them as well. Sarah found herself increasingly desperate for privacy to bathe, dress, and any other activity that might expose her breasts to Catherine, yet she had no cogent rationale to justify that desire other than to come clean about her continued growth. And that would undermine the entire point of Sarah getting privacy in the first place. So Sarah remained vigilant, shepherding about her tits and carefully avoiding detection. It was as though Sarah were sheltering enemies of the state, and Catherine was the dreaded “big brother” from which Sarah must remain hidden. Naturally over time, Sarah came to think of Catherine in an unconscious way as ‘the enemy.’ For if ‘the enemy’ discovered Sarah’s secret, then ‘the enemy’ would raise the alarm and rain down humiliation and horror upon Sarah in the form of unwanted attention, probing, and potentially even an early end to Sarah’s adventure overseas. Sarah wouldn’t have that. And so she grew increasingly aloof, then irritable, and finally downright hostile towards Catherine in her furtive campaign to hide in plain sight.

Even as the first flares of agony tore through Sarah’s chest and the incessant heat and itch set in to her flesh, Sarah tried to keep her secret. Even when the physical pain and discomfort became so overwhelming that Sarah could scarcely focus on anything but applying her coconut oil, aloe vera, and medicated ointment, Sarah tried to keep her secret. Even as it became necessary for Sarah to remain confined to her bed, trying desperately to fight through the agony she felt in her chest so that she could stay on top of her studies remotely, Sarah tried to keep her secret. Even when her boobs began to swell, gaining in appreciable mass day by day such that Catherine estimated they had nearly doubled in size, Sarah tried to keep her secret. By the end, Catherine’s feelings weren’t even wounded by Sarah’s conduct anymore, she was just exhausted. When Yumi revealed that a spare dorm room had opened up down the hall, Catherine jumped at the opportunity to escape.

Yet for how upset and hurt Catherine felt due to Sarah’s treatment of her in the last few weeks, she had understood that her feelings paled in comparison to the hurt that Trent must feel. Catherine had not been alone as ‘the enemy’ in Sarah’s troubled mind.

“She’s still sick?” The concern was palpable in Trent’s voice. Idly, Catherine had felt bemused at Trent’s particular choice of words. Sarah was ‘sick.’ That was a considerably tidier way to describe whatever the hell was going on with her than Catherine felt was warranted. Looking into Trent’s haggard face, Catherine’s outrage had simmered immediately. He knew that this was something more serious, the problem was simply that words came difficult when one was confronted with a problem so abnormal and perverse.

“Hey, she will be fine! I’m sure she will be over it any time now. I got mono during my junior year of high school and I swear I was out of commission for like 3 months. This is nothing.” Catherine’s cheery tone sounded every bit as insincere as she felt saying it. For a moment she had feared she had leaned too far into the sugar-coating based upon the disgruntled expression on Trent’s face, but then his countenance softened.

“I hope you’re right.” Trent said softly, his eyes shifting to the empty wall of Catherine’s new dorm room. Catherine’s heart broke for him. ‘He just wants to see her again.’ She thought somberly.

It had already been two weeks since Trent had last seen Sarah on that day that Catherine moved out. As soon as whatever was going on in Sarah’s chest reached its fever pitch, Sarah had forbade Trent from coming to see her. At first she insisted she was not feeling well, and didn’t want him to catch a bug from her, but by the fourth day Trent had begun to suspect something more serious was at play. When the growth began to accelerate and Sarah had become bed-ridden due to the pain and discomfort, she made Catherine promise to not let anyone come see her – including Trent. The earnest misery Catherine saw in Sarah’s face unnerved the girl sufficient to cause her to take the promise seriously. For a time, Sarah and Trent remained in constant contact through text messages and occasional phone calls, but then as Sarah’s condition worsened, she dropped off the grid almost entirely. Eventually their communication slowed to a trickle, and Trent had come to expect a paltry token message proving that Sarah was even still alive in there.

In the ensuing weeks following Catherine’s departure, only Catherine and Yumi had access to Sarah. They would bring her water, meals, and do what they could to help Sarah stay atop her studies. Fortunately for Sarah, the program was prepared to allow a medical hardship to exempt her from certain requirements – like attendance and quizzes – and allowed for the difference to be made up by attributing those portions of her overall grade into her final exam. Initially Catherine performed these tasks with a latent bitterness due to what she perceived as undue rudeness she had suffered at Sarah’s hands down the stretch of their cohabitation. But Catherine’s hurt feelings began to heal with the passage of time, and Yumi’s concerned and dutiful attentiveness let Catherine regain perspective that her friend was suffering through a truly bizarre and frightening ordeal.

In total, 5 weeks had elapsed since Trent had last seen Sarah. How cruel it seemed to him, that she should be so close and yet completely out of his reach. He could lay in Carrie’s bed, which was placed against the wall adjoining her dorm room with the one Sarah resided in, and Trent would be no more than 3 feet apart from Sarah. But the walls were old and densely built. There had been a few times he had taken to sitting in the hallway, leaning against Sarah’s door. At first he had spoken to Sarah through the door, and he could faintly hear her reply from time to time, but when the sickness had gotten worse Sarah stopped responding. For a time, Trent was content to sit in silence outside Sarah’s door, feeling devilishly romantic. But when Sarah’s moans of pain had begun a few weeks back, Trent found that he couldn’t bring himself to do it anymore.

Thus Trent became dependent upon Catherine and Yumi for updates on Sarah’s condition. Each day, he hoped to hear that she finally seemed to be herself again, and each day that hope became thinner and thinner as the answer came back: “She’s about the same.” It became harder and harder to differentiate between actual updates and the rumors that spread throughout the program, particularly after Catherine moved out of the room. It seemed there were all sorts of bizarre theories as to what was going on with Sarah, including a rumor that she had actually gone home and the program was trying to protect its prestige by pretending she was sickly instead. Another was that Sarah had been abducted by sex-traffickers, or perhaps some covert government agency. Trent felt a horrid disappointment in his peers for sharing such ludicrous, and sometimes nasty rumors with one another.

However it appeared that one ‘rumor’ might actually be the truth. At first it had seemed to Trent to be every bit as inane and silly as the idea of a secret government entity kidnapping Sarah as a political hostage, but then it began to be colored with detail that the other rumors lacked. The sickness had to do with Sarah’s breasts. They were growing out of control. Images of The Blob occurred to Trent when he first heard this rumor, but there was a nagging sense of credibility to it all the same. Hadn’t it already happened anyway? There had been the date party when Trent had noticed Sarah’s cleavage seemed deeper than usual, or the basketball game when Trent had noticed how unexpectedly tight the jersey she wore was stretched across Sarah’s chest, or the night when he had cupped her breast and felt with certainty in the darkness of his bedroom that it overwhelmed his hand with a magnitude that was completely unfamiliar. Finally there was that night in the car, when he had made Sarah promise to schedule an appointment with her doctor because her boobs were causing her backpain. Yes, Sarah’s breasts had already grown to an abnormal size even before this trip to Japan. Supposedly it had happened again, and this time in a much more extreme manner.

This was where the rumor began to be fantastical, even despite the fact that Trent felt there was some fundamental truth to it. Richard had heard from Brett, who heard from Alex, who heard from Carrie, who heard from Catherine that Sarah’s breasts were the size of watermelons now. They were “at least twice as huge as they were when we got here.” They “covered most of her body when she was laying down.” Sarah “probably can’t even walk on her own now if she tried.” While Trent felt certain that there was some truth to the rumor, he likewise felt certain that these were exaggerations. ‘They have to be.’ He told himself anytime he got to thinking about it.

All he cared about was getting to see Sarah again. This trip was supposed to be a magical experience they got to share together, and now they had been robbed of more than a month of it. Trent missed her so much, especially as even their text communication dried up so completely. There were times he thought the texts he had been receiving lately weren’t even actually from Sarah – that they were actually being sent by Catherine or Yumi to spare his agonizing concerns. Each message was so robotic lately. Like reading a mission log or something equally as dry. He had never been so disconnected from Sarah the entire time they had known one another. It stirred in him a particular type of loneliness that felt so much worse than any he had experienced before, and in a way it caused Trent to understand that he must truly love Sarah. The realization stung, and Trent felt tears begin to surface just behind his eyes.

A vibration in his pocket provided a distraction and prevented the tears from spilling over. Pulling out his phone, Trent saw that it was another message from Sarah. ‘Let me guess: Just ate, now I am resting again. Love you and miss you. Same as every message for how many days now?’ Trent thought bitterly as he entered his passcode to read the message.

Hey, are you hungry?

For a moment, Trent simply stared at his phone screen. Dumb struck. Somehow the last thing he had expected was an actual message beyond the mindless logs he had been receiving. Then he snapped out of it and responded.

Holy shit is it really you?

Trent stared intently at his phone, waiting impatiently for the ellipses icon to appear so that he would know she was responding to him. There they were.

lol yes, it’s me. Are you hungry?? I’m starving

There was such a feeling of sweet relief that Trent forgot to breath. The tears that had been lurking began to stream down his face, and he was already standing to head toward Sarah’s room.

Do you want me to bring you some food?

The thought didn’t even occur to Trent that Sarah would refuse, he was already stepping out into the hallway and heading toward the elevator so he could scrounge together a snack in the cafeteria.

Yeeees, please! I can’t wait to see you

While he waited for the ramen noodles to boil in the microwave, Trent simply stood admiring the text on his screen. Never had he expected for a text message to hit him as hard as this one had. There might have never been a purer moment of jubilant relief in Trent’s entire life. He hadn’t been aware of how tense he had been until he felt his muscles loosen. He hadn’t been aware of how foggy his mind had been until he felt it clear up. He hadn’t been aware of the hitch in his lungs until he felt himself breath deeply the sweet relief. Finally the microwave dinged, and Trent sent a response before he stirred in the flavoring powder.

Heading that way. See you soon.

‘Thank goodness.’ Trent thought as he rode the elevator back up and walked down the hallway towards Sarah’s room. ‘Thank goodness.’

 

[RoadWarrior]

Really good!

 

[Chacotay]

So much suspense! I can't handle it!

 

[mansan3010]

VII
​

Sarah’s first thought was that she needed to make sure that Catherine remembered the speaker or else they wouldn’t have any music to listen to. The second thought was ‘Oh shit, did I forget the volleyball?’ Then the third and final thought came with a stark and shocking realization: ‘That was a dream?’ Though the thought was formed as a question, already it resonated with a clear certainty in Sarah’s mind. That was a dream. Certain arbitrary details became ludicrous as Sarah’s waking mind came to order – the volleyball was the same one she had used as a soccer ball at the age of 6 for one.

Before long, reality settled upon Sarah like a weight, and she became aware of three very important facts: one, that her mind felt clearer than it had in weeks; two, she didn’t feel the agonizing throb or the maddening itch that had so dominated her consciousness this last month or so; and three, there was quite a literal weight that appeared to have settled upon her midsection. For a moment her mind rebelled against these assessments – and she felt certain that she would likewise find them to only be dreams as the pain and abhorrent itching would set in all the stronger for it. It didn’t happen. Sarah understood, with a warmth of relief unlike anything she had experienced in her life, that the pain and itch were well and truly gone. Tears came unbidden, and Sarah let them come. She felt them trail down each cheek accompanied by a sweet stinging sensation.

These thoughts all occurred within a span of perhaps 30 seconds, and then Sarah found her reverie punctuated by a more troubling realization: she felt an uncomfortable, unpleasantly warm and moist pressure across her torso, and at her sides on either side of her stomach. At first Sarah thought it might be her body being overheated under the weight of her heavy bedding, because that was the closest thing she could compare to the sensation. But even as her mind grasped at such a mundane explanation, Sarah felt the pit in her stomach yawning open anew because there was a dual sensation that made the feeling distinct. It wasn’t just an unpleasant warmth spread across her torso, it was a reciprocal warmth felt in alien extremities that her brain for some reason wanted to process as her breasts. Sarah understood, having experienced the hellish ordeal of her own arrested growth for the last month which had felt more like a year to her. Nonetheless, her waking mind found it difficult to process the sensations, and the horrifying new reality they heralded.

It all felt like a fever dream. Even as Sarah became aware that her elbows were perched upon the outer flanks of each breast, and that the twin bulges on which her arms rested were not scrunched up blankets as she had first perceived them to be when she noticed them in the periphery of her vision. Even as she recoiled in pain as her muscle-memory caused her to accidentally thrust her elbows into the sideswells of her own bosom for leverage when she had attempted to sit up in her bed. Even as she felt that oppressive weight shift about her torso in response to her sudden movements. Even as she worked to gather her bosom into herself to make necessary room for her elbows to seek purchase on the mattress for a second attempt at sitting up. Even when she utterly failed the second time against an immense weight as she tried to sit up again. Even when Sarah felt the weight of her breasts try to settle in her lap during the brief moment she had nearly achieved a sitting position, and it finally began to sink in that she was legitimately trapped in bed, unable to find leverage against the weight of her own immense boobs. It all felt like a fever dream.

The familiar feeling of surreality washed over Sarah, and it enabled her to keep the frankly mortifying problem she faced at arm’s length. She weighed her options with a detached bemusement. ‘Who to call?’ She thought, wryly. There was Catherine, but Sarah still felt a dim sense of aggravation mingled with shame toward Catherine. ‘No, not her. Too much baggage. I just need help.’

Then there was Yumi, the classic authority figure. Yumi would be all too happy to help, just as she was all too happy to do anything and everything. Sarah felt a sardonic satisfaction as she reckoned that her current predicament might be one that finally outmatched Yumi’s bubbly enthusiasm. ‘That’s not even true though’ Sarah reflected, ‘Yumi would raise a big stink and bring in a whole team of doctors immediately. Too tired.’ The fact that this was clearly an inevitable conclusion no matter who she called didn’t resonate with Sarah quite yet.

‘How about that bra-maker lady?’ Sarah smiled at the thought. ‘After all, hadn’t she insisted that she could “help” me?’ Sarah couldn’t help but smile bitterly at the thought. That “help” had lasted, what, maybe two weeks?

So that left one candidate, and Sarah found that this person had been the only person she had intended to call all along anyway: Trent. It was genuinely overwhelming, how greatly Sarah realized she had missed him. Throughout the entire ordeal, Sarah had battled with her own nerve – simultaneously wishing to spare Trent the shock and horror at witnessing her in such a state, but also feeling like his presence was the only thing that might have brought her any relief. Reflecting on it now, Sarah recognized that the real reason she had forbade Trent entry during the worst of her spell was that she had been afraid of what his reaction might be. What if he showed up and instead of relief, Trent only brought further shame? Worse, what if he abandoned her altogether, and left Sarah with heartache on top of the agony she had been enduring. Without that misery clouding her mind, Sarah found the thought considerably more ludicrous. How could she have ever doubted Trent’s love and devotion like that? There was a pang of existential dread as Sarah briefly reflected on how distant and meaningless their love had felt in the midst of her ordeal, but she dismissed it quickly. She had been foolish, that was all.

Nevertheless, Sarah had to steel herself as she grabbed her phone from the nearby nightstand and pulled up Trent’s contact. There would be shock – love or not. There would be horror – devotion or not. God help her, Sarah even felt it likely there might be revulsion. How could there not be? ‘I’m a fucking freak.’ Sarah thought bitterly, as she regarded the fleshy masses casting haphazardly to either side of her torso. And yet she still had not seen the full extent of the “damage” because she was unable to sit up to remove the blanket and take stock of the situation.

“We will do it together.” Sarah said aloud. ‘If it’s love, then we should face it together anyway.’ And as Sarah opened their messages, she vacantly hoped that perhaps facing it together might make it somehow make it more tolerable. She couldn’t be alone anymore. A cursory scan of their most recent messages showed that Sarah had been sending the same generic message for weeks – Just ate, now I am resting again. Love you and miss you. At once she was stricken by how hollow those sentiments – “love you and miss you” – became when they were copy pasted over and over again for days on end. Further, she was frightened to realize that she truly didn’t remember having sent those messages at all. Then she took a deep breath and typed.

Hey, are you hungry?