Editor Note: This short story, based on true events, follows the author on her bra shopping misadventures.
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“They are huuuuuuge,” Izzy exclaims, reaching with outstretched fingers, attempting to cup my left breast.
“Yes, more than a hand full,” I offer sardonically.
She shakes her hand back and forth, jiggling my tit like a water balloon.
“What size bra are you now sister?”
“I dunno. I’m wearing the same bra I’ve been wearing everyday for the past two years.”
“Cassie,” Izzy reproaches, “what, like a C?”
As if. “I’m wearing a B cup. A very stretched out B cup,” I admit.
Izzy, the quintessential nurturing big sister, ceases her examination. She cradles my hand between her soft palms. “You know, I bought new bras recently, and actually let one of the ladies measure me. It made a big difference.”
I cringe at the thought of a stranger sizing me up. I can barely handle the mirror seeing me shirtless, I’m not a fan of letting perky sales girls glimpse my goods. Anybody who would choose employment in those houses of tata torture is clearly lacking in taste. And probably has flat abs and little perky boobs made perkier with padding and push-ups.
Enter cousin Megan, Victoria’s Secret employee. She’s carrying a gaudy pink striped bag designed to conspicuously tote so called secrets to and fro about the mall. Megan just got off work and her trained eyes spot our tit talk from across the room.
“Oh my God Cassie, are you guys talking about how giant your boobs are?” Megan asks in her booming California girl voice.
“She’s wearing a B cup right now,” Izzy explains.
The “bffffffffff” noise that precedes disbelieving laughter escapes Megan’s mouth.
“Oh my God girl, you gotta get something bigger! Like, you’re at least a D. No, double D. At least.”
“Yeah. But I fucking hate the mall. Shopping, blah,” I utter unenthusiastically.
The perky sales girl is getting stoked; fuchsia dollar signs form in her pupils. “You should come to Vicky’s tomorrow while I’m working. I can measure you!”
Izzy looks at me sideways. She knows having an obsessively fit, fanatical family member size me up is worse than a stranger (despite Megan’s good intentions). The notion of going to the mall in Sacramento suburbia also significantly ramps up the nightmarish aspects of bra shopping. Izzy diplomatically steers the conversation away from making specific plans.
“Seriously though, sis, you need to get measured. The right bra will make you feel like a whole new woman.”
We stay on the topic of titties for a while; both Izzy and Megan recently lost weight, and shrunken boobs were an unfortunate side effect. I’m on the opposite end of the spectrum.
My body has swollen several sizes since I graduated in the spring. Anxiety and food poisoning followed by a variety of unpleasant side effects from Indonesian antibiotics left me looking skeletal, and when my appetite returned I swore off dietary inhibitions, pledging to eat whatever the fuck I wanted. My unchecked indulgence and the post collegiate transition into a sedentary office existence accumulated in the folds of my thighs and rolls on my tummy.
I am a front loader when it comes to gaining weight. Some gals get booty, others get big breasts; its tits or ass, the ‘and’ is a fantasy. In the tuckus department I got zilch, but I’ve got tiggle bitties, or so all the middle school boys used to say. If only those prepubescent heathen could see me now; my boobs have grown from hefty to huuuuuuge.
Whenever I reunite with old friends I get the same reaction: “Whoa, your tits are soooo big! Can I touch ‘em?” Certainly a politer line of commentary than, “I see you’ve gained weight,” but the subtext is the same. They’re still analyzing the changes in my body, but somehow pointing out the good fat encased in the sexy sacks of flesh I carry front and center is categorically complimentary.
Months pass. I am still wearing the same bra. The mammary monsters are still growing. They refuse to be tamed; their rebellion cannot be contained by even the most stretched out of B cups. I return to North Carolina begrudgingly determined to woman up and go bra shopping. As long as my mommy and big sis will hold my hand at the mall and the outing falls under a parental payment plan. Happy 25th birthday to me.
After we get home from the airport, Izzy and my mother both express renewed disbelief at the size of my boobs.
“I think they’ve gotten bigger since the last time I saw you,” mama Liz coos.
“Yep, I’m fatter than I was.”
They both hush my self-degradation, then demand a flash. “C’mon girlie, it’s just us,” they tease.
I oblige. They quickly reach the consensus that I need to take the stretched out B cup off immediately. “Here, you can borrow one of mine,” mom offers as she retrieves a brassiere from her closet.
Although the loaner bra is larger than a B cup, it is balcony style, with a wall of padded fabric that contains the breasts vertically but lacks any horizontal top coverage. It is a cleavage enhancer. Even in a T-shirt, I’m not ready for this jelly; I look like Beth from Dog the Bounty Hunter, whose body type can be described as BOOBS. Given Liz’s breasts are filled with saline, she does not understand my jiggly woes. While her tits are timeless, mine fluctuate to their own circadian rhythm. Some days they are big and heavy, other days they are bigger and heavier. I fear I will wake up one morning and not be able to cross my arms like a normal human being. I’ve started using my desk as a boob rest. I concede, the time is nigh for a shopping trip.
The next day, we are mall bound. First stop: Victoria’s Secret. Where else? I’m an angel, right? I can seductively brandish a Pepto-Bismol colored bag with all the other slutty seraphs. I’m 25!
I rush to the back of the store before I lose my gumption. There is no line, so I approach the saleswoman standing at the dressing room entrance. She appears normal enough; her pant size isn’t smaller than her shoe size, and she doesn’t seem overly energized. “I need to be measured,” I announce.
“Okay,” she responds. “So what size are you wearing now?”
“That’s not important,” Liz interjects. “She needs something bigger.”
The saleswoman raises an eyebrow. “Let’s get you in a dressing room. Do we all want to be in the one room?” she asks.
“Yes please.” Am I 25 or 5? The Vicky’s rep leads us to our fitting room, follows us in. The four of us stand crowded in the four by five foot stall.
“Let’s see what we’re working with,” says the stranger, slipping the measuring tape from around her neck.
“Like, so I should take my shirt off?”
“Um, you can if you want to. But I can just measure you over your shirt.” She wraps the measuring tape around my chest and assesses the numbers.
“Looks like you’re a 34 triple D or 32 E. We don’t have that many options in your size but let me go grab some things for you to try,” she says rushing out of the cramped space.
The dressing room door closes. My eyes recede into my skull. I had mentally prepared for a D, maybe even the notorious double D. But a triple? An E? I didn’t even know that was a size. If the support crew were not in tow, I would probably run the fuck away right now.
After the customary knock-knock on the door, the sales clerk presents several gargantuan brassieres for me to try, with the assurance that she will be right back to check on us. The first two aren’t even close; nipples bubbling over, side boob hanging out. Too small. The last one seems okay, though.
I turn to my mother, “This looks good right?”
She studies the merchandise. “Let’s ask the lady for her professional opinion.”
Sigh.
As promised, the saleswoman returns. She knocks softly on the door, asks the obligatory, “How are we doing in there?” We are peachy. I am mortified.
“Would you come take a peek?” Liz says, opening the door.
The Victoria’s Secret employee enters the dressing room, eyes fixated on my chest. She declares in her most nasal pitch: “Well that sucks.”
Tangible silence.
“We don’t really have anything for you. Sorry,” she says sheepishly with one foot out the door. And she’s gone.
“Uh, was that her professional opinion?” I protest, “That sucks?”
“If its any consolation, I’m pretty sure you scared the shit out of her,” Izzy laughs, “Your facial expression was priceless.”
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” I growl, scooping my crumbled clothes off the floor. Apparently I am the Lucifer of lady lumps, cast out of Victoria’s pearly gates, denied the angels’ secrets.
Next stop: Nordstrom’s. I picture myself browsing shoulder to shoulder with old ladies shopping for long sleeve nightgowns and bras with sex appeal akin to tighty-whities. I enter the lingerie section with head hung low, muttering obscenities.
A grandmotherly sales clerk greets us. “How can I assist y’all today?” I am at least relieved that there is a small chance “that sucks,” is in her vocabulary.
We tell her Vicky just turned me down. “They had nothing for me,” I report wistfully.
“Phooey,” she replies, sighing. “They are so very limited over there, sweetheart, and half of their employees really don’t know what they are talking about. You come with me and we’ll get you taken care of.”
I follow Grandma Nordy into the fitting rooms. Izzy lingers in the underwear area, but the saleswoman’s maternal nature triggers Liz’s enthusiasm.
“Now, first off, do you know what type of bra you are looking for?”
“Not so much,” I confess.
“Okay, well first I will measure you, and then I can bring in a variety of options.” She pulls her measuring tape from her back pocket and wraps it around my breasts, then measures the circumference of my chest below the mammaries. “Looks like you are around the 34 triple D or 32 E mark,” she says.
Reading the bewilderment in my face, she explains, “So, when the circumferential measurement goes down, the cup size goes up. You are a small person, but with large breasts, so your triple D cup in a size 34 is equivalent to an E in a size 32. For somebody that was bigger around, they would be a 36 double D, or 38 D, or 40 C, etc.”
Grandma just imparted untold wisdom; even my mom admits this is the first time she’s heard an explanation of bra sizes after the sales clerk leaves to gather merchandise. I’m glad to inject some sense of logic into this damn process. I had departed Victoria’s Secret incapable of comprehending how I had such massive tiggle bitties there was no help for me.
The next two hours are a blur of bra straps and underwire. I try on every kind of bra, in various sizes, with extensive hands-on help.
“You hold the cups over your breasts, and I’ll fasten in the back,” the sales clerk instructs. She adjusts the straps, looks over my shoulder first at my chest, then at my face. She smiles. “See how with the proper fit the bra lifts and separates your breasts? How does that feel?”
I gander a glance at the mirror, “Oh, wow. Um, good. I kinda feel like a whole new woman,” I say, shock in my voice.
Izzy has rejoined us in the dressing room, she’s trying things on in the next stall over. “Told ya!” she exclaims.
The next time the whole family is together in California, we tell the tale of my first real bra shopping experience to Megan. A very solemn look comes over her freckled face, “Oh my God, Cassie. Like, I just want to say, on behalf of Victoria’s Secret and all of our employees, I am so sorry. That sucks.”
Bio: Cassandra Mill lives in Portland, Oregon with her dog Billy Ray. She works at a local telecom company as an office assistant.