The Mammoth Book of International Erotica

HER FIRST BRA by Cris Mazza

(excerpt from A Body Chemical )

1981

There was one more card from Millard in November, a Thanksgiving card that said hope to see you again… someday… somewhere. Dale picked it up from the floor under the kitchen card table and said, “Who’s this from, your mother?”

“Yuckity yuk.” Leala was slicing hotdogs to go into canned beans. Dale ate lunch at about 10 a.m. when he got home from delivering tortillas to restaurants.

“Well, who is it?”

“It’s a photographer I did a session for. I guess he liked me. Whose mother should we visit for Thanksgiving?”

“A session? What’s that mean? You’re working as a model? Since when?”

“About six months.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought I did.” She put a plate of tepid franks-n-beans in front of him then started sorting through the mail, putting the utility and credit card bills in one pile for Dale to pay from his checking account, the rent and food came from hers. She had a session that afternoon. The guy on the phone yesterday asked how old she was and she’d answered I’m very bold, why’d you ask? then the guy digressed to something else, the color of her hair and eyes, how tall she was, her measurements. She’d changed her ad again. It said, young, versatile female model for private photo sessions with imaginative photographers, you won’t believe what your camera can do.

“How much have you made?” Dale asked.

“Not much. The rent went up, remember?”

“Well let’s make out a budget or something, maybe we don’t have to sell anything to buy grass. Or Christmas presents for that matter.”

“Sessions aren’t predictable, Dale. We can’t budget for them. I thought you were off grass, anyway.”

“Well they use it for cancer patients, don’t they? Maybe it’ll help.”

“Help what? God, what a hypochondriac, it really gets old.”

“I’m getting this shortness of breath all the fucking time, dammit, I’m hot then cold, then I start sweating my fucking ass off. What would you call it?”

“Maybe it’s menopause.”

“Har-de-fucking-har.” He put three huge spoonfuls into his mouth in rapid succession before chewing and swallowing. “So you wanna go away for Christmas vacation this year?”

“No, not now.”

“Then when?”

She picked up his empty plate and put it with the dirty pan beside the sink. “Dale, I tried to tell you once what’ll probably happen, what I’m saving for, but you wouldn’t believe me. That’s fine, you can pretend. Sure, everything’s normal, right?” She boosted herself to the counter and swung her feet into the sink to shave her legs. “Luckily I don’t even think you’ll miss me.”

The photographer handed her two fifties before she came through the door. The session was at his house – he had his living room furniture pushed to one side and a corner converted into a set resembling a dressing room in a fancy department store. A three-sided mirror and stool, clothes with tags draped over accordion partitions, big umbrella lamps preventing anything from showing a shadow anywhere.

“Okay, listen to this,” the guy said. He had long hair parted in the middle, the kind that either looks dirty or if it’s clean, is so fine it’s like baby hair that was never cut. He also had one of those halfway mustaches that usually only sixteen-year-old boys can grow, more baby hair. “Okay, listen,” he repeated, “it’s like, you’re shopping, it’s a big day because… you’ve come to the store without your mother -”

“My mother?”

“Yeah, listen, you’ve come shopping, you took a bus or rode your bike, but you came to this upscale store where you get one of those personal shoppers. You see, you’re here to get your first… training bra.” Suddenly he ducked his head and looked through a camera on a tripod. She wasn’t even on the set yet.

“Does anyone even use training bras anymore?”

“Sure they do, and listen, you’re all excited, this is a big day for you, milestone, know what I mean? Today you become a woman… and all that.” He stood up but continued to look at the set, not at Leala.

“And I suppose my dressing room has a hidden camera or two-way mirror. And then what, my personal shopper is a man?”

“Maybe,” he said slowly. “We’ll see. The important thing is, this is such a big day for a girl. It makes her feel like anything can happen. Um, hang your old clothes on the hook there, like you would in a dressing room. And here you go, try these on.” He pulled a plastic Sears shopping bag from behind one of the partitions.

“I doubt Sears has personal shoppers,” she said, looking inside. There were three or four practically cupless bras and matching underwear, one set white with purple flowers, one baby blue, one with pink polkadots, and one set basic white with lace. The bras were just stretchy material with elastic straps and hook in back.

“You can have them when we’re finished,” he said. “Do you have any that nice?”

“No I can’t say that I have any like these. In fact, I don’t have a bra.”

“You don’t?” His face and sad brown eyes and repulsive mustache seemed to leap at her, but he hadn’t moved closer, just was looking at her. “Oh, good, that’s great. Perfect. Like… this’s real, isn’t it? Your first bra.”

“Yeah, whatever. Where should I change?”

“Well… the dressing room, of course.”

She looked back at him for a moment while he touched his limp hair then touched his mustache then put three fingers over his lips and dropped his eyes.

“Of course, silly me.”

He dragged another stool over so he was sitting behind the camera. After her jeans and t-shirt were hung on the hook and her socks stuffed into her shoes (he said leave them under the stool, and let one sock come trailing out of the shoe a little), she glanced at the camera while putting on the flowered bra and underwear with her back to him, but of course she showed in the mirror, tits and trimmed bush. “Your first bra,” he murmured, the camera clicking, zipping to the next frame and clicking again. “How does it feel?”

She turned to hide a laugh as a small burp. The bra actually fit her but the underwear was not bikini style. She could see in the mirror that the high-waisted underwear made her tits look even smaller, the bra like an elastic headband put around her chest.

“Oh god,” he moaned, “god-in-heaven.” The camera clicking and clicking. Her adrenal gland released, the chemical shot through, leaving behind a vibrating hot jello-y place in her middle. She turned slowly back and forth in front of the mirror, stretching to check her ass over each shoulder which also stretched the bra.

“Oops!” One tit popped out when the bra rode up. “Where’s my personal shopper, I need to know if this one fits.”

The guy was huddled on his stool, his face almost to his lap, no longer clicking, sort of whimpering.

“Come on, please, mister? It’s my big day, help me pick one that fits.”

He slid off the stool onto his knees and shuffled towards her. His head came up to her stomach. His eyes were murky and glistening, sweat on his upper lip had dampened the disgusting little mustache. He held her around her waist with one hand, pulling the flowered underwear tight against his chest, bending her knees slightly and throwing her off balance so she had to hold onto his shoulders and lean backwards slightly. With two fingers he eased the bra back over her exposed tit.

“There, it fits like that,” he breathed.

“Are you sure?”

He moved his hands slowly up her body until he was holding her around the ribcage, a thumb on each nipple. He moved the thumbs back and forth, hardening the nipples under the stretchy purple-flowered material. His face tilted up. His two watery eyes right behind each thumb. “Yes, this is how it goes. Like this. Like this.”

“I know sixteen is a little too late for my first bra, but my mother said I wasn’t old enough,” she said, making her voice airy and higher. The flowered underwear were wet between her legs. She tried to grind her twat against his chest a little but the zingers of adrenalin were zapping her almost continuously and she was in danger of falling over backwards.

“No,” he whispered, “sixteen isn’t too old. Not too old at all. You had to be ready. You knew when you were ready.”

“I’m ready.”

“Today you were ready. Today was the day. Oh, but if only your little titties wouldn’t grow any more,” he sobbed, “so impatient for this day, but now they’ll be ruined.” He slid his hands to her back and pulled her stomach against his face, blubbering against her skin below the bra.

“Hey, mister,” she breathed softly. “Today’s not over yet.” She touched a bald spot on his crown with a single finger. “Remember, today’s my big day. And there’s still a half hour of it left.”

He lurched to his feet with her in his arms. “Like a baby,” he smiled through his tears down into her face. He bent and kissed her gently, touching her lips with the awful mustache, while carrying her out of the set and down a hall. The room they went into was dim, but after placing her on the bed, he turned on the night stand lamp and she could see the white lace canopy, the matching white lace lampshade and bedspread and curtains, antique-looking dolls in white or peach or baby-blue satin dresses lined up on a shelf, plus little troll dolls and glass princesses, horses and china puppies, a brush and comb set on the dresser, a life-sized white teddy bear sitting in a corner.

“This isn’t your room is it?” Leala asked, propping herself up on her elbows. He was kneeling again, beside the bed.

“No… it’s yours.”

“Huh? Oh.…,” she lay back slowly. “It’s the room my mother doesn’t know I left to go buy my first bra, right?”

“That’s right.” He took off his shirt. He was as skinny as Dale but not a single hair on him, except his armpits. “Just touch them against mine while they’re still little, while it’s still the big day.” He got on top of her, still wearing baggy green army-surplus pants. She couldn’t feel any hard-on, but his hips were far below hers, on the mattress between her knees, so she wouldn’t’ve anyway. He pressed his gaunt chest against hers, his head down against her neck, then without raising his body eased the bra up so her bare breasts were against his chest. He rocked slightly so their nipples brushed back and forth. And he started to tremble. She could feel his heart like a fist on a windowpane, banging to get out. His swaying continued for five or ten minutes.

Leala’s adrenalin buzz was long gone. She checked her watch by raising one arm in the air behind his shoulders.

Then he was easing the bra back over her, with his chest still pressed to hers. “Okay,” he whispered in her ear. “I didn’t hurt you.” He backed up off her and stood beside the bed. “I’ll leave you in your pretty room, with your bears and dolls.” He clicked off the light and retreated toward the door.

“Hey!” Leala sat up. “I would like a doll like one of them. Where could I get one?”

“A doll shop.” He was a shadowy form by the door, putting his shirt on.

“How much would it cost for me to get one?”

“Some of them are as much as $200.”

“I could just get a $50 one, though, couldn’t I?”

He didn’t answer, buttoning his shirt, then he looked up, but she couldn’t really see his eyes. It was too dark.

“A girl should have a doll like that before she gets too old… don’t you think?”

He slowly reached for the door knob. “Too old?”

“Yeah, like… before she’s… say, eighteen... don’t you think?”

He opened the door and a crack of light lay on the floor between him and the bed. “I… guess so.” Then he went out and closed the door.

She lay back on the bed with a suddenly thudding pulse, but not the same thing as the earlier neon lightning bolt of adrenalin. The wave of almost nauseous weakness passed, and she thought about the symptoms Dale described, then she got off the bed. Her clothes were folded on the sofa in the living room with exactly $100 in cash placed on top, a fifty, two twenties, a five and five ones. Maybe he’d forgotten about the two fifties he’d already given her at the start of the session.

December was a slow time for both student photographers and sickos. Leala got her hair cut into a pixie style and used some of her savings for white jeans, a white jean jacket, and several new tank tops. She had her ears pierced and wore just the two pearl studs which came with the piercing. She let Dale pay for the piercing and call it her Christmas present, but he also bought her a corduroy skirt and jacket set that was one size too big, so she exchanged it for a denim mini and peasant-style top with sequins, both from the girls department. Dale said she looked like a baby pop star in Teen Beat magazine.

“That’ll work,” she answered. “Maybe I’ll get some cheap jewelry from a teeny-bopper accessory store.”

“Whadda you mean?”

“Oh… I don’t know… If I want to start a real modeling career, I hafta have an angle, you know? My own shtick.”

“You can’t start a real modeling career just because you get a few new clothes and say you want to be a model.”

“You don’t know anything about it, Dale. I’ve had some gigs. How many gigs have you had lately?”

Dale stared fixedly at the TV screen. It wasn’t even on. He still had hair down to his collar, except where he didn’t have hair at all, and it looked wet even when it wasn’t. The flattened cushions in the chair that had come with the furnished apartment had stains now where his head rested. Sometimes he still tapped a drumstick on the coffee table while he sat there. It seemed the drumstick appeared and disappeared by magic, but she’d found it once, by accident, stashed under the seat cushion.

Leala loaded some celery sticks with peanut butter, wrapped them in a paper towel and placed them on Dale’s lap on her way to the sofa. “Listen, Dale, this is really important.”

“What, that I’m a failure?”

“No, but we are. You know? It’s only been, what, three and a half years. We could just call it one of those things. We’re both young, we could… you know, still be like our ages.”

“Instead of old married farts?”

“Speak for yourself, but I guess that’s the general idea.”

The drumstick appeared, but he didn’t start tapping. He held it up and placed the tip against his lips like a long finger saying Shhhh. “No.”

“No? That’s it, just wo?”

He took a bite of celery then replaced the tip of the drumstick against his mouth while he chewed. It sounded like a horse chewing corn. It sounded kind of nice.

“Dale, it wouldn’t be like we hate each other’s guts and go to court to fight over the car and stereo. And it doesn’t have to be now, we could do it when we’re both ready, when we can both afford it, you know?”

“We can barely afford this shit together.”

“I know, but I’m working on a plan.”

“You mean becoming a famous cover girl by next week?”

“There’s lots of types of modelling, Dale, and I may’ve found my niche, and I can even capitalize on it, expand the potential.”

“Now you sound like a yuppie businessman.” He swallowed what looked like a hard lump.

“I’m just saying I’ve discovered a way to make what I do more lucrative, and when I make enough of a stash, how about I share it with you and we, you know, go our separate ways?”

“What if I want to stay with you?”

He was just sitting there looking down into his lap like an imbecile who watches himself pee, holding a celery stick with globs of peanut butter in one hand and the drumstick in the other.

Leala stayed on the sofa for only a few seconds longer, then went into the bathroom, shook her short hair and watched it all fall into place. For the first time in her life she was glad for the strip of freckles across her nose. She wondered how much colored contact lenses would cost, because some pure green eyes would really complete the package.

Three more jobs popped up right away in January. The first just wanted her feet – feet walking, feet splashing puddles, feet showing over the side of a pick-up truck, feet on gas pedals, feet kicking a ball, feet in high heels. He said he’d done sessions with guys and older people and little kids, and some animals. When he took her out for lunch after the session, she touched his leg with her bare toes under the table, but nothing happened, so the Feet! exhibit he said he was working on must’ve been real. The second wanted her to hang laundry on a line – just white sheets and towels – on a very windy day, wearing a light cotton dress and bare feet, but the photographer was a woman and, as a matter of fact, almost didn’t want Leala at all when she saw her short hair. The third worked out a little better because he said from the start he wanted a nude, but he also made her sign a form promising she was over eighteen. Still, he liked her newly shaved pussy and fucked her afterwards, but only gave her $20 for cab fare when she asked, although she was parked around the corner from his house.