[This is the first part of a much larger work. It is not a sex story, although there is sex in it and more as it goes along. This part has oral sex, fondling, woman-with-woman, and coitus. This part has the characters looking at the nature of their beliefs, what drives their actions and the possibility that life doesn't need to be the way it has been. I would appreciate feedback on what works for you, the reader, as well as what doesn't.]
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She was tiny. When the other kids hit puberty they grew; she stayed small. On the first day of high school she was stopped in the hallways three times by teachers who thought she was at the wrong school. She did finally hit puberty when she was fifteen, but it was a disappointment. The changes that she had watched happen to everyone else were not what happened to her.
Instead of growing taller she had a little growth spurt that got her all the way to four foot nine and a half inches. Then she stopped. She grew the hair the books said she would grow, but not much. She shaved her arm pits once a week, but only for psychological reasons. Her hair was strawberry blond and there were only a few hairs in each pit. If she let them grow no one would even have noticed them. From the time she was eleven she had looked at her self, at the spot where her legs came together, wondering when the hair would grow there. It did, when she was sixteen, but so few of the strawberry blond hairs that from four feet away they were nearly invisible. As a senior in high school she still had what looked like an eleven-year-olds body.
But those were minor disappointments. The big disappointments were her breasts. Maybe that is not the way to say that. The biggest disappointments of puberty were what didn't show up. Her best friend starting high school grew B cups before they finished the first year. She grew nothing at all. By the time she was a junior she wore a t-shirt or camisole under her blouse but she still had no need for a bra, and she was hurt and upset about it. Her Mother had C cups. Petra had never met any other family other than her mother and her father. Her mother was five seven, considered tall for a woman of her generation. Her father was almost six foot tall and a big man. She had never heard either of her parents talk about where they grew up or any family stories. She had no idea what her family history was and if that would tell her that the women were usually late bloomers, or were generally flat too.
Finally near the end of her senior year something started to happen. She woke up one morning and her nipples were tender and looked just a little swollen. She felt the camisole rubbing against her nipples all day long. At once it felt kinda good and it hurt a little. She was very excited because she thought this swelling and tenderness were the beginning of getting breasts. That night she touched them when she was in bed. She rubbed lotion on them and fell asleep with her hands covering them. The next day things were the same. On the third day the t-shirt she had worn to bed was stuck to her nipples. Something had leaked from them and dried during the night. She took it as a good sign.
It wasn't. It was the only sign.
By graduation day she had conical nipples that were bigger than they had been the year before. The areolas were each the size of a quarter, and the nipple itself was about the size of a blueberry. A small blueberry. But her chest was flat.
She graduated high school as the shortest and flattest female student in the school. She had never been on a date. She had never danced with a boy. Her girlfriends were careful not to talk about sex stuff around her. And what she really wanted was a boyfriend, a relationship, a body. She wanted to be normal.
After graduation she got a letter in the mail telling her that not only had she been accepted to one of the colleges she had applied to she had received a scholarship as well. Her Mom and Dad helped her arrange for housing and pack, plus all the little things that go along with leaving home for the first time. Her parents didn't have lots of money but they took her shopping for a "reliable good little car" and they paid for it. It was a small car; a Honda Civic. Buying a car was, like many things, a trauma for her. When she sat in a car at one lot the salesman said to her, "Let your Dad sit there. After all, he'll be the driver." At another dealer the salesman wanted proof of her age even after he had seen her driver's license. Even in the Honda she had to sit on a pillow and she could barely reach the pedals. Her Dad put blocks on the pedals after they got the car home to make it easier for her to drive.
Going to college ...
Arriving at the college after driving for two days, she ran into the familiar problems of looking like she was eleven. Before she was fully registered, three people had asked her where her parents were. Another person had asked if her sister was a student here. She thought about getting a t-shirt with the words "Yes, I'm eighteen" printed on it. She decided not to when she realized that no one would believe it.
The first year she lived in the dorm. She had a roommate who was a sophomore. Her name was Carol and she was from Iowa. The degree she was interested in getting was a Mrs. So she dated a lot and was quite willing to tell Petra all about the boys and what she did with them. Petra hated hearing about Carol's exploits. They simply pointed at what she wasn't doing. What she was doing was studying. Her first year she finished with a 4.0 gpa. She did find a job for the summer and she enjoyed it. She worked at a summer pre-school, working with three-and-four-year-olds. They liked her, they had fun, and they learned from her. The parents got over leaving their children with someone who looked so young.
Petra made an effort to dress like she was nearly twenty, but it wasn't easy. The stores that catered to twenty year old women didn't carry clothes her size. When most of the women her age were wearing shorts and cropped tops, Petra discovered that the shorts didn't look right when you don't have hips and the crop tops require breasts in them. She discovered that bib overalls were coming into fashion and that they were available in her size. They covered the lack of breasts a little and lack of hips didn't matter. For warm weather they even came in shorts.
At the end of summer Petra decided that dorm living wasn't working for her and she started looking for an apartment near campus. She found a two-bedroom place only two blocks from campus that would be perfect but she would need a roommate. She rented the place and then went in search of a roommate. She talked to at least eight women before she found Jenny. Jenny was a transfer from a community college, also starting her second year, thinking about majoring in business, and when they talked she never mentioned dating or men once. She was a good looking woman but didn't dress to attract attention. They agreed on the rent and they moved in. It was a perfect match.
The classes they took were nearly the same and when one needed help the other knew the subject well enough to help. They decorated the apartment in contemporary cast off and didn't seem to care very much how it looked. Both required that the apartment be clean. They studied hard, made good grades and as seniors made the dean's list. At graduation with their bachelor's degrees, they were both accepted into grad school at another university. So they traveled there together and found another two-bedroom apartment they could afford, moved in and spent another two years together.
During those years, Petra gave up on the idea that her body was ever going to look like a woman. Jenny was a considerate roommate who never made a big deal of her body, never barged in on Petra when she was in the shower, and never told Petra anything about any dates she might have had. When they were about finished with their master's degrees they started interviewing for jobs and getting job offers. Petra got three offers. Jenny got six. None of Jenny's offers were in a city that Petra's offers were in. So, three days after they graduated, Jenny and Petra loaded their cars with everything and drove off in different directions. Jenny drove to New Mexico and Petra to Nebraska.
Moving on ...
A year passed quickly. They called each other about once a week, wrote e-mails a little more often than that and were pretty happy with the firms they were working for and the cities where they now lived. Jenny's main complaint was that she missed Petra and Petra's main complaint was that she missed Jenny. Petra spoke often of being lonely and of wishing she would meet people who would become friends. Jenny spoke of missing Petra, of the great neighborhood she lived in, and the cheap prices for homes.
One day Petra arrived at work to discover an email from Jenny. She was all excited about a home she had found. It was in a great neighborhood across the street from a park, had a great big private back yard and a front yard filled with roses and other flowers. She wanted Petra to come to New Mexico and see it. She gave Petra three dates when she could easily take off work for a week, asked Petra to pick one and let her know. And she wanted to know as soon as possible.
Petra asked her supervisor which dates would work best for him and he said she could have any of them. She picked the soonest. She called Jenny at work and as soon as she answered Petra said, "I'm going home tonight and start packing!" They laughed and talked for a while, then again that night and the following weekend. When the wheels lifted from the runway in Lincoln, Petra wished the plane would go even faster.
