The Booby Trap and Other Bits and Boobs (16 page)

A few years ago a friend of mine went for a mammogram and she was so scared of what they might find that she fainted whilst still clamped into the machine. If you have ever had a mammogram you will know how hard they squeeze your boobs, so you will know how likely it is that if you faint, you will have to, um … hang? Awful as this is, it's also quite funny. I thought maybe poetry was the best way to tackle it.

Beauty and the B(r)easts

Once upon a time, my mother thought her giant breasts were 32As. I was a knock-kneed thirteen-year-old, and I needed a clean bra from the laundry when she told me to just borrow one of hers. ‘We're the same size, after all,' she said, jiggling her giant bazookas next to my tiny teenage pimples. Something had clearly gone awry.

Mum's sense of dimensions had been drastically altered by years of her older sister – a woman endowed with chesticles so huge that they began to eventually curve her spine, whispering to her, Gollum-like, in the bedroom they shared, that ‘dental floss with knots in it would do as a bra for you'. During her delicate formative years, Mother had been subjected to regular taunts about fried eggs on ironing boards while sitting down for lunch, and offered membership to the ltty Bitty Titty Brigade when she came in for dinner. By middle age, she'd become practically apologetic whenever anybody set eyes on her perfectly shapely frame. She considered her breasts a personal failure. It all came to a head that Tuesday when the laundry was late out of the dryer. Such was the success of her sister's teasing, it turned out, that my poor mum had been squashing herself into teenage training bras for forty years, well after giving birth to two children and breastfeeding them to boot. Most people knew Auntie Susan as a formidable character, but nobody had quite realised the true extent of her powers until I peered into my mother's underwear drawer. Amongst the Spanx, stockings, and seamless knickers was a terrifying truth in the form of a neatly folded row of A-cup brassieres. Their strained straps and misshapen holders spoke of decades of knocker oppression.

Something had to be done, and the solution came to me in a cold sweat a few nights later, as I lay contemplating the effects of squashing pumpkins into salt shakers. The only person with the courage and ability to tackle such a chronic case of funbag dysmorphia was the stern lady in the changing rooms at Marks & Spencer. Armed only with a measuring tape, she would surely set to work in dismantling Mum's problems with proportion. An objective instrument of measurement would finally afford her the proof of her own body, and any doubts would be quelled by the measurer's strident sense of purpose. The plan was watertight – tighter, indeed, than a 32A on a glamour model.

A few weeks later, we put the plan into action and slayed the beast of self delusion. Mum was officially declared a 34DD, to much aplomb, and picked out bras in her actual bra size for the first time in her life. Freed from the shackles of her previously undersized underwear, which had been leaving red welts along her sides for as long as she could remember, she finally saw her body for what it really was. Clothes fitted in ways that they had never fitted before; her revolutionised underwear drawer was a joy to behold. The spell had been broken.

As for me, well, I learnt from previous generations' mistakes and got myself a measuring tape once I'd grown a pair. I live in blissful harmony with all of my bras, which live happily ever after, pressed against my chest. And I definitely can't borrow my mother's underwear anymore, which is really a great relief for all of us.

Like all good fairy tales, of course, this one wouldn't be complete without a didactic conclusion. And so the moral of this story is that everyone can get silly about boobs, but it's worth not being too silly about your own.

Boob Envy

I didn't really pay much attention to my breasts until I realised that they weren't growing at the same rate as everyone else's. While girls in my class began to develop ample bosoms at the tender age of eleven, I remained ‘flat as a pancake' for most of my teenage years. I came of age in the laddish decade that was the nineties; when humungous fake tits started to dominate the wipe-clean pages of
Loaded
and almost filled page three of the
Sun
, which was stuffed quickly and covertly down the backs of school radiators by the boys, in its entirety. Meanwhile, Geri Halliwell, my idol, had a cleavage that I could only dream about, and my friend has hilariously nicknamed hers ‘Pinky and Perky'.

It was around this time that I began to get the message loud and clear: that the breasts maketh the woman, and that, as such, I was still very much a girl. The boys would ping the girls' bra straps outside French, and laugh when they sensed no lump of elastic underneath my polyester polo shirt. A strange kind of hierarchy emerged in the corridors between classes; the girls with the bras were, of course, on top. Having a bra became a status symbol - it was, after all, the decade of the Wonderbra - and eventually I demanded one not out of necessity, but as a result of peer pressure.

I longed for the smushed together, pneumatic ‘boobs' (they were always boobs, not breasts) of the girls on telly, and would cry into my mother's much more ample pair on more than one occasion. Magazines didn't help, either. I was aware from a very young age (too young, I'd argue) that I wasn't quite up to scratch compared with, say, Melinda Messenger, and that these women embodied a kind of cheeky, plasticky sexuality that wasn't really me at all. At the same time, the existence of the lads' mags gave me the uncomfortable feeling that having tits automatically made a certain kind of man feel that he could make you the subject of scrutiny. When a friend of mine complained that a pervy old geezer had leered at her bosom before telling her to ‘put them away, love', I felt a bit sick. Some of the girls at school had much older boyfriends, as though their breasts had made them women inside as well as out. One of them showed me her lovebite in the toilets, small and lurid and red, right next to her nipple. I didn't envy her.

In my mid-teens, I became a goth, for a bit at least, and discovered eyeliner and boys. The realisation that the young lad with his hand up your top is too busy counting his lucky stars to question you about your cup size can be a powerful one. In my experience, you worry more about ‘the girls' before you're having sex than you ever do once you're doing it. Provided that they're healthy, of course. ‘Just wait till you get pregnant', my mum would say, whenever I moaned about my chest. I didn't fancy that much, ta (I still don't) and plus, I liked the effect the pill had on their size.

Then, aged eighteen, I
moved
to Paris, and miraculously stopped caring. Whether it was the string of boyfriends that followed or the fact that the French in general seem less obsessed with all things boob-related than the English, perhaps because the women there are smaller and more gamine (if they had the comedy boobs of the tabloids they'd be constantly falling flat on their faces –
ce n'est pas très cool).
Either way, my breasts just became another part of me - nothing to worry about at all, and perfectly sized when it came to encasing them in gossamer-thin scraps of lacy French lingerie. Granted, they're smaller than the average pair, but as the years have gone by
I've
learned to
love
them. I doubt somehow that they'll
ever
make their way downwards to my waist, but I'd like to see them try.

My mum has boobs. Nice squashy ones that sort of fall out of her bra when she takes it off. When boys were mean to me as a teenager or ditched me for Kirsty Grantham in the year above me because she let them touch her breasts, my mum would cuddle me into her squashy boobs and let me cry there. Growing up I assumed I'd have boobs like my mum – as my dad doesn't have them it's hard to imagine what his side of the gene pool has by way of boobs! But as eleven, twelve, thirteen passed and I still had no reason to go to that bit in Marks & Spencer where they sell early-years bras, it became clear that Dad boobs I had – literally. I am now forty and I still have no boobs. And strangely, as I have every other body hang-up known to woman, I am fine with this. I like that I can wear really low-cut tops and not look slutty. I like that even on a ‘fat' day I know I can wear black trousers and from the waist up look sort of skinny. I like that I can buy those meshy Calvin Klein sports bras that offer no support whatsoever and are really just two triangles of fabric held together by string. Best of all, I know, for certain, that my breasts will never hang over my belt like the dinner ladies' at school used to. But I sort of feel sad that my sons will never be squished to my breasts in a maternal way. When they get dumped my only way of consoling them will be with reassuring words, like, ‘Don't worry, wanna go Nandos?'

I always wanted boobs. I think I may have lit a candle for them as a kid after mass praying … Although I'm sure I told my mother I was praying for world peace.

At age thirteen, I was still wearing one of those cotton vest tops (the type your five-year-old brother wears) and I remember changing after a swimming lesson and seeing that one of my classmates had an ACTUAL bra! I'll never forget the look she gave me as she gazed at my perplexed, forlorn face staring at her and then dropped her eyes down to the baggy bobbly off-white vest that was hiding … Well, hiding nothing, as I didn't have anything to hide. She smirked and I died inside.

I went straight home that afternoon and bellowed through the front door, ‘Mammy, I need a BRA!!!' I definitely didn't, but as Mammy Whitmore's only daughter, she conceded.

Aged sixteen and going to the local disco, I only had two small bumps where my breasts should be. I had a solution. Two padded bras. Now this may sound stupid, but I swear it was my saviour. Thankfully no guys came near me so there was no fear of anyone finding out my situation as they rummaged in the ‘under jumper/over bra area'.

My friend's mam used to sow her two bras together, which seemed extreme, but even more effective. One bra slipping below the other can end up with the dreaded four breasts look, which is actually worse than the flat-chested look.

I was seventeen when my boobs properly blossomed into 32Ds. Of course they didn't grow at the same time – oh God, wouldn't that have made life so much easier. So I had to wait at least six months for the left one to catch up with the right one. We've been on an incredible journey, my boobs and I, and we still have our arguments, especially when they prevent me from fitting into a designer sample-size dress, but they're mine and I've accepted them … for better or for worse.

Uplifted

Nobody knew what to say when Eric came to work with the tits. In fact, nobod
y said anything for several shifts. Not to his face, at any rate. Even meeting his eyes was a struggle, what with the rack that had materialised under his shirt.

‘It can't be a boob job,' I whispered on a break from the phones. ‘Can it?'

I was in the canteen with Melanie and Tom from Retentions. Eric was standing in the queue with his tray, though we doubted he could see it on account of his cleavage. It was just so unexpected from such a clean-cut, regular guy.

‘He's a middle-aged man, married with kids.' This was Tom, convinced it was a wind-up or a thing for charity. ‘He's got some socks up there.'

‘Big socks,' Mel noted. ‘Massive.'

For a moment, the three of us watched as Eric took his turn in front of the lunch technician behind the sneeze counter. On seeing him, or rather his breasts, she reached for a spatula as if preparing to swat a fly. Eric greeted her, and then pointed to the sausage and mash. It took a moment for the poor woman to blink and serve him, but he didn't seem to mind. In fact, Eric looked really quite cheery as he took his tray to the table. Just then, he stood out more for his mood than the mammaries I believed he'd had fitted. Like everyone else, Eric was normally doleful and sullen. This was a call centre, after all. We came here to earn a living, and paid for it with our souls.

It was Greg from Assurance who finally asked him straight up. Eric had just walked into the gents, where the man was in mid flow. He left a urinal between them, as is convention, though Greg had no interest in seizing a glimpse of what he was packing down there.

‘Mate,' he said finally, on zipping himself up. ‘Are they for real?'

Eric looked around, beaming broadly.

‘My bosoms?' he said to clarify, as if there was anything else of note about him, and finished with a deft shake. ‘Sure.'

It must have taken Greg some guts to just ask the guy direct. Nobody else had begun to find a way to address the issue. Even so, when Eric replied so freely, it left poor Greg quite unprepared to follow it up.

‘Right,' he said, and hurried across to the taps. ‘Thanks.'

When Eric appeared at the sink beside his, Greg responded by washing his hands vigorously.

‘It's OK,' said Eric after a moment. ‘There's no reason for either of us to be embarrassed. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me anything.'

‘I'm good,' said Greg, who then backed away from the sink and returned to work with soap on his hands.

Once word of the encounter spread across the centre, it wasn't long before people mustered the courage to take things further with Eric. I was on the phones when our line manager approached his booth. She lived by the company rule book. If a clause were added to cut out our tongues, she'd have been the first to find a knife and instruct us to form an orderly queue. At the time, I was having my ear chewed off by a customer with anger issues. This happened so often throughout each shift that I'd learned to tune out the ranting and listen to conversations around me. It didn't do much for my spirits, but I'd yet to take the lift to the roof terrace and jump off. I sat up straight in my seat, which allowed me to see over the edge of the divider as the woman who signed off our time sheets perched on Eric's desk and asked him to skip the next call.

‘I think you know why I'm here,' she said, possibly unaware that every phone drone within earshot was now watching them closely.

Eric looked puzzled, and yet he didn't stop smiling.

‘Is it my performance?' he asked.

‘No, that's fine. It's your … enhancement.'

In the pause before she put her concern into words, I watched the colour in her cheeks begin to blossom. Eric simply sat there, with that blissful expression set across his face.

‘I had them done on my week off,' he said, cupping his chest as if to show her. ‘The soreness has almost gone now. I can't wear an underwire for a couple more weeks, but that hasn't stopped me shopping for bras. I'm building quite a collection!'

At first, it looked as if our line manager would respond by fainting. Instead, with what must've been a herculean effort, she mustered the focus to nod and clear her throat.

‘Eric, is everything OK at home? Do we need to know about any difficulties?'

Eric looked to one side for a moment, still looking strikingly sunny, and then shook his head.

‘It's all good,' he said simply, just as his phone began to ring. He gestured at the headset on his desk. ‘Shall I?'

Our line manager didn't appear to register the phone for a moment. When Eric repeated himself, it seemed to come as quite a shock to her.

‘Of course,' she said, and gave him space so he could take the call. ‘Sorry.'

It was no understatement to say that I loathed my job. Tied up in targets, there was no room to be human. Seeking new horizons, in the current climate, was frankly a pipe dream. All we could do was hit the numbers until the time arrived when we'd all be replaced by computers. As a result, an air of utter desolation hung over the call centre cubicles.

Every now and then, the line managers would be sent in to pull a stunt in a bid to force some laughter, but it was always so fake that it teetered on tears. They'd been known to wear fairy wings or rubber rings, and once a month we'd assemble to play the kind of motivational games that made a bullet in the head seem like a kinder option. So, it was striking how Eric's spirit seemed to sky rocket following his breast augmentation. We began using the technical term after chatting to him about the procedure. As more people braved a conversation, it just seemed like less of a big deal. Eric wasn't embarking on some gender reassignment, we learned. What's more, having discussed his reasons in full with his family, he'd undergone the procedure with their blessing and support. He did admit to Les in Escalations that the idea just popped into his head one day, but he stressed that it had taken several months before he decided to make the investment. That was how Eric described it sometimes, as if he'd placed money in a savings account with a high return.

‘I wish I'd done it earlier in life,' he once told me in between calls. I hadn't started the conversation. Eric had heard me quietly tapping my forehead against the desk in a bid to just feel something, and popped up looking positively beatific. I'd asked him what he had to be so buoyant about, but by then he didn't need to spell it out. In fact, now that he was free to wear any bra of his choosing, the balcony number that he favoured made him appear even more uplifted. ‘I appreciate it might look unconventional,' he added, as my phone began to ring. ‘But what matters most is how it makes me feel on the inside.'

Back in my bedsit that evening, after a ready meal in front of some reality TV on repeat, I turned in for an early night. I had nothing exciting to get up for, but sleep was the only time I could slip from my grim existence. I shed my work uniform, which always seemed so pointless when we were invisible to the public, and caught sight of my reflection in the mirror. Pulling back my shoulders, I considered myself for a moment. For a man in his mid-forties, my hairline was on the wane, while my waist was thickening no matter how many extra miles I put in on the treadmill. Studying my reflection, I cupped my chest and pushed both inwards and up. Frankly, there was enough give there for me to shape them into something more becoming. I held them in place for a short while. Then, dismissing an idea that sprang into my mind, I turned to my teeth to see if I needed to floss.

Six weeks after Eric's transformation, during which time he had nailed four silver stars for his shirt pocket in recognition of his call turnover, I had a chance to feel his personal work first hand. I wasn't alone. Having walked into the gents, I found a small queue of colleagues awaiting their turn. Eric didn't seem to mind at all. He had even unbuttoned his shirt to enable a close examination. At first it looked like a sexual thing, but the guys were quick to stress this was purely driven by curiosity.

‘Be my guest,' said Eric, when I caught his eye. ‘Cop a feel.'

It had been some time since I'd placed my palms on bare breasts. The divorce had seen to that several years back. Tentatively, having warmed my hands by blowing on them, I covered Eric's chest with my fingers splayed.

‘Wow,' I said, on noting how his nipples impressed upon my palms. ‘They're really kind of perfect.'

‘I know,' said Eric proudly. ‘It's been the making of me.'

I made way for Will from Relations and Support, but studied Eric's face the whole time. He just seemed so jubilant to be sharing this moment with us. It was as if his enhancement wasn't something he had done for himself but the benefit of everyone around him.

‘Man, that felt good,' said Will, before leading everyone back to work with what was clearly a spring in his step.

I had been in the job as long as Eric. We started in the same week, in fact. Back then, I took to the phones with vigour and vim. Now, I just felt worn out and washed up. I worked to pay the rent, the maintenance and bills, with a little tucked away each month for a rainy day. I couldn't remember the last time the sun had shone, but then nor did it truly pour. Every morning I awoke to the sound of drizzle, which was marginally more powerful than my power shower on full tilt. At work, hearing Eric in the cubicle next to mine was about the only thing that stopped me from heading home, slotting my head in the oven and then wishing that I was on gas. He laughed and joked with the callers, wishing every single one of them a nice day as his way of signing off. It should've made me grind my molars down to stumps. Instead, it sounded so heartfelt that I wished I could muster the same spirit. Even on tea breaks, when it was customary to just sit there staring at the walls, people began to gravitate towards Eric for conversation and entertainment. Any men who viewed his breasts with suspicion or ridicule were quickly won over, while I noted how the women seemed completely at ease in his company.

All I wanted to do was experience just a hint of Eric's joy for life. That winter, when I left the call centre with him one evening, and just before we went our separate ways, I turned to him and asked outright.

‘Your breasts,' I said. ‘Would a pair do the same thing for me?'

It was a chill evening. Even in his quilted coat, zipped up to the throat, there was no hiding Eric's cleavage. In a way, I had grown so used to seeing his boobs that the man would've looked odd without them.

‘It all comes down to making the most of what little we have,' he said eventually, before sharing something with me that I hadn't expected.

I watched him head into the night, both hands buried in his pockets and his shoulders swinging with each stride. A moment later, I found myself nodding, as if I understood Eric's reasons for what he'd just told me. It all made sense now I saw things through his eyes. Above all, men had been admiring and desiring the bosom for all the wrong reasons. We had denied ourselves the chance to look and feel
magnificent
. It was all a question of confidence, I realised. I had a life to celebrate, and not squander for a moment longer, even if that meant taking risks.

I knew where to find the clinic. It wasn't far off my route home. As I'd made the same journey twice a day for a lifetime, even the detour felt like a liberation. There would be no going back. My rainy day had arrived. I didn't even think about bailing as I approached the clinic's revolving door. If anything, I felt like I had come home. I pushed through, and found myself in a reception that was so blindingly white it might've been modelled on heaven. The lady behind the desk looked up from her monitor and asked how she could help.

‘I'm interested in an enhancement,' I told her, adding, ‘top half,' in case she was in any doubt.

‘Then you've come to the right place,' she said, without any hesitation or surprise. ‘If you'd just like to complete this assessment form first. After that we can discuss your options in more detail.'

‘Great,' I said, and took the documents from her. ‘I'll fill it in right now. Might as well seize the moment!'

It felt great to be fired up by something for once. I couldn't wait for this journey to begin.

‘You're welcome to take a seat over there,' she said, gesturing behind me. ‘If you can find a space.'

I smiled and turned, faltering only when I saw the sofa and the fact that two of the three spots had been taken. Still, there was enough room in the middle, and I felt sure the pair busy signing off their forms would squeeze up for me.

‘Have you heard?' I asked, on dropping into the seat between Tom from Retentions and Les in Escalations. ‘Eric is moving on.'