The Booby Trap and Other Bits and Boobs (7 page)

Grace stared at him for a long moment. Eventually, a small smile rose on her face.

‘It's all right,' she said. ‘I'm going to get dressed now. Look away.'

Ben nodded, and shuffled himself round on the duvet, fixing his eyes on the far wall of Cheryl's bedroom. A full-length mirror stood beside a chest of drawers, reflecting what was happening behind him, and he fought the urge to take a single glance into it, one last action in pursuit of a quest he no longer wanted any part of.

‘Okay,' said Grace, and he turned back to look at her. The blue top was back in place and the colour was fading from her cheeks. Her hair was messy where she had pulled the top over her head, long strands of it hanging loosely around her ears and down towards her neck.

‘How do I look?' she asked.

‘Good,' he replied.

Grace rolled her eyes. ‘Good? Is that all? Jesus, there is so much I have to teach you.'

‘Okay,' he said. The thought of being taught anything by Grace Matthews suddenly seemed like the best thing in the world. ‘I'm a fast learner.'

She laughed. ‘I bet you are. Come sit next to me.'

Ben made his way up the bed, and flopped down beside her. He raised his knees so they formed an arch, and felt a shiver of excitement rush through him as she rested hers against him.

‘What's your favourite colour?' he asked. His reserves of small talk, never particularly overflowing, were dangerously close to empty.

She frowned momentarily, then smiled. ‘Green. What's yours?'

‘Blue,' he said. ‘Pale blue.'

‘Why did you tell me about your quest? You must have known I wasn't going to like it.'

Ben nodded. ‘I did. But I didn't want to lie to you.'

Her smile widened, and she inclined her head slightly towards his. ‘Yeah? Why not?'

‘I don't know. It just seemed important. It seemed like –'

Her lips stopped his words. Ben's eyes widened, then slowly closed, as the world he knew faded to black around him.

A Trip Down Mammary Lane

Going to the shops with my mum

Was the same old boring humdrum

She never seemed to listen

As I'd see the goods in the shop windows glisten

I yearned for all the stuff I could see

So badly I wanted to pee

Passing another shop door, my tongue would scrape on the floor

‘Mum! This window! Look at those puppies!', I'd shout

‘You're not ready, not now' and I'd furrow my brow

What was she on about?

Passing the dairy shop entrance

She would sigh with a waited temperance

‘Mum, I want them! Those milk jugs!'

And she'd pull me along with her tugs

Next up it was the baps on display

As the baker stood mixing his whey

The cans in the store, the melons galore

The kegs in the pub, the man selling balloons while eating his grub

The funbags on sale midst all of the toys

Being stared at and played with by all of the boys

The scooters with hooters and tonkas with honkers

I wanted them so badly it was driving me bonkers!

And then finally one day

After years of dedicated pray

I gazed in the mirror with a dumbfounded stare

Had someone actually answered my prayer?

Sweet Lord I finally had a pair!

And it was then that I knew what my mum had meant

I'd have been all shopped out with my money spent

When there was no need to panic; the process was much more organic

I jumped in the air and shouted ‘Hoorah!'

But then I thought ‘Shit', I have to shop for a bra.

My breasts and I, as with any relationship, I suppose, have had our ups and downs. Although I can sufficiently say, since heading past ye olde twenty-five mark, it's more a case of downs. Literally. But we had our glory days once upon a cleavage – long, long … LONG ago. I had few attributes growing up; I was far too tall, socially inept, incredibly chubby, spotty, train tracked and worst of all, I considered the lunch ladies to be my only friends at school. But to compensate for the arse I was dealt (an arse that DARED to be both big AND flat!), God (or whoever) bestowed upon me some enormously capacious knockers. They were the light(s) at the end of my dark teenage tunnel. Though I am sad to say that for the first few years of our time shared together, I was deeply ashamed by them. I felt as though they were unwelcome squatters on my chest, I found their size embarrassing and attention-seeking. They completely stole my thunder from age thirteen onwards. Always entering the room SEVERAL seconds before me, constantly introducing themselves to strangers before my face even had a chance, and blocking my view of the television if I ever tried to watch telly lying down in bed, not to mention their knack for turning running for a bus into a game of volleyball. The day I was measured in John Lewis and was forced to buy a 38HH bra, I remember weeping. Hating my father for it, because they are without doubt inherited from him. He's known for his ample bosom. Still quite firm for a man in his sixties. I would spend hours constructing diversion techniques by stooping and swanning around in oversize men's shirts.

Looking back, I feel deeply ashamed of my animosity, and more so … naivety. What I saw as impostors were actually loyal friends in disguise. Assets I didn't realise could one day become something of a currency in the bedroom and, the feminist in me is loathe to admit, almost everywhere else. And yet, in what I now look back at as their glory days, I took them totally for granted. Since my teen years, I've lost five stone. A large portion, as with most women, came off my décolletage, and now where those mountains once stood proud, lies a very unimpressive pair of molehills. Molehills that with every year try to run further and further away from my face. I have this recurring nightmare that by my fifties I shall be able to wrap them around my neck and fashion some sort of new age (or old age) bow tie out of them. (She shudders.)

Nonetheless, I'm glad we had some time together. I would like to take this opportunity to formally apologise to my breasts for the years of abuse and neglect I subjected them to, all the sports bras two sizes too small that I shoved and folded them into trying to flatten them down, for all those times I huffed and puffed because I insisted they made everything I wore look slutty (when actually, looking back, I realised, I just bought slutty clothes), for holding them hostage under thick material, never to see the light of day. Breasts, at any size or shape, are a miracle. They are the food with which we nourish our children, they are the collateral with which we negotiate with lovers, and come on, let's face it, whatever they look like, you have to admit we got lucky, we could have had balls … imagine that.