D Cup Blues

All sexual activity in this story is between adults of 18 years of age. While the story contains flashback scenes to when the characters were underage, those scenes contain no sexual activity whatsoever. This is my Valentine's Day contest story, so please don't forget to vote!

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Caryn got a most unwelcome gift for her eighteenth birthday.

"See, doesn't that feel much better?" her mother asked as she finished adjusting the straps of Caryn's new 38-D bra in the lingerie shop fitting room.

"I'm

not

that big!" Caryn griped one last time, even as her reflection in the mirror proved her wrong; the detested undergarment fit perfectly. Caryn the proud tomboy, the terror of bullies since grade school, could no longer pretend she wasn't big in the one and only way she'd never wanted to be big.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of, dear," Mom said. "Women have breasts. You've known all your life that you would, too. And you've had them for five years, you've just been in denial. Now, really, can't you tell it fits better? I can tell just by looking at you!"

Caryn looked again in the mirror, and considered how the new bra felt compared to her old one. More support, less squeezing, and it no longer felt like she was in a harness that was much too small for her. She heaved a deep sigh. "Yes, Mom, it does feel better. But all these years I've had to wear a bra, I liked being able to say at least I wasn't a D! D for Dumpy."

Mom laughed as she watched Caryn take off the new bra and get dressed, though she gave her a stern look when Caryn tried to put her top back on with no bra at all. "What will your stepfather say when we get home?"

"Trust me, Mom, Gordon would love it if I went braless," Caryn said. The bastard hadn't quite come on to her yet, but Caryn had long since learned to get dressed in the bathroom after a shower. He'd happened to be in the hallway when she was dressed only in a towel too many times for it to be a coincidence.

"Not that again!" Mom snapped. "Gordon loves you like his own daughter, Caryn, and don't you ever forget it. Who knows where we'd have ended up if it weren't for him!"

"Whatever," grumbled Caryn, whose real father had been killed in Afghanistan when she was five. She had two or three sacred memories of him, and no love at all for his replacement. She did put her old bra back on with no further argument, although after the comfortable fit of the new one she was more aware than ever that this one was indeed too small. She also knew from experience after miserable experience that it was no use trying to open her mother's eyes about Gordon.

"I don't understand you at all, Caryn. When I was your age I'd have killed for your breasts!"

"And I still would kill for yours, Mom," Caryn said. Her mother had always had a slender figure that would have suited her tomboyish daughter just fine. But Caryn had seen enough photographs of her mother from her younger days to know Mom had always been just the sort of lipstick-and-pearls gal that Caryn had never had the slightest interest in being. "I think we got stuck in each other's body by mistake, if you want to know the truth."

"Maybe so," Mom admitted to Caryn's surprise. "But life is unfair, dear. And believe me, if big breasts are the worst thing that ever happen to you, you'll be a very lucky woman."

"Then I guess I am so far," Caryn said as she reluctantly watched her mother pick up two more bras identical to the one she'd just tried on and head for the checkout counter. "They've already been the worst thing to happen to me, ever since middle school. But at least I could pretend I wasn't that big."

"You weren't fooling anyone, dear," Mom said.

"I know I wasn't fooling you," Caryn admitted. Or probably Gordon either, she added privately.

"Or anyone else. You think David and the girls haven't noticed in all these years?"

"Oh, God, Mom, Dave would never give me a hard time about these! That's why we love him!"

"My point exactly," Mom said. "Your friends love you for who you are. And quite frankly," she added with a wicked grin as she handed the three bras to the saleslady, "I think David will love you a little bit more now."

"Mom!" Caryn felt her face flushing, and she stomped off to the exit to wait for her mother there.

As she cooled her heels in the store doorway, Caryn felt like she had a neon sign reading "I WEAR A 38-D" flashing above her head, even though she was wearing her trusty old 36-C (for what she now knew would be the last time). The harder she tried to tried to shake off the sensation, the brighter the sign seemed to burn -- and the more uncomfortable her old bra felt now that she knew it really didn't fit at all. But for all that, Caryn admitted her mother was probably right. Dave, the beloved token male member of her best-buds gang since the eighth grade, had always been just one of the girls to them all, and he'd never been the least bit chauvinistic to any of them. But he was still a guy, and Caryn had gone through her spells of attraction to him as more than a friend on occasion. No doubt Audrey, Valerie and Maureen had done the same, though they'd never talked about it. For some reason -- probably just that they'd been friends since they were still basically children -- Caryn had never stopped to wonder if Dave had ever had a crush on any of them.

Now, she realized, he must have. Not Caryn herself, of course. Perhaps Audrey, who had never had any denial about her own generous breasts and who had the most feminine taste in clothing among the gang. Or Maureen, who was the smart one and who looked so beautiful in her choral uniform that she had to wear to school on concert days, and who had known Dave from their honors classes even before he'd joined their gang. But Caryn was quite sure he'd never looked at

her

that way, not when she'd always been best known as the tough one of the gang, the Amazon of the school, the one who'd beat up any of the bullies who threatened Dave or got too friendly with Audrey or Maureen (Valerie could and did take care of herself), the one girl who was still bigger than most of the boys after they'd finally hit their growth spurts...and who was blessedly light up top, or so she'd managed to convince herself all this time.

What, Caryn wondered now, if Mom was right and he was aware of how she'd blossomed over the years? What would he think now that she wouldn't be able to hide it anymore? Then, to her surprise, she found herself thinking that might not be such a bad thing. There were worse things than having one of your best friends fall for you, weren't there?

By the time Mom arrived at the exit, Caryn was smiling in spite of herself. "Feeling better already, dear, are we?" she asked Caryn.

"I guess," Caryn said reluctantly. "It's just, Mom, Dave is a friend. We all love him as a friend, but..."

"Caryn, I didn't mean to suggest he was going to fall head over heels for you just because you own the right bra now!" Mom said as they made their way through the crowded mall. "It's just that you're a very pretty girl, if you let yourself be, and of course your friends are going to notice that."

"What if he does fall for me, though?" Caryn asked. "Or what if I fall for him?"

"Well, that's wonderful, isn't it?" Mom said. "Of course, keep in mind that you're only eighteen and you are both off to college pretty soon. But there's nothing nicer than two people falling in love when they were already friends, I'll tell you that."

"Were you and Dad friends first?"

"Yes, but that was in college and it wasn't seven or eight years," Mom chuckled.

"It's only been four years, Mom," Caryn corrected, gathering her coat about her as they stepped out into the crisp winter air in the parking lot. "Eighth grade. He went to Third Avenue for grade school. And in seventh grade he was just a -- well, we didn't really know him then."

"Right, I keep forgetting," Mom said. "Third Avenue...David doesn't seem like a kid from that neighborhood at all."

"Snob," Caryn admonished, though she had privately had the same thought a thousand times. Third Avenue School served the middle of the east side of town, just outside the slums of the city, while Caryn and her friends had gone to Linden Street Elementary in the posh north end.

"Caryn, there's no sense in pretending differences don't exist!" Mom said, fishing her car keys out of her purse. "That is a rough neighborhood, and it's really to David's credit that he's grown up as well-adjusted as he has. That's all I was saying."

"Yeah, I know," Caryn said. "It's just...we don't even think about that anymore, you know? It's not an issue with us, just like it's not an issue that he's a boy. We just don't care!"

"That's wonderful, Caryn. I never meant to suggest otherwise. But it sounds to me like you're having second thoughts about not caring that he's a boy, you know."

"It's not like I can forget I'm a girl anymore, huh?" Caryn groused as she settled herself in the passenger seat. She looked down at her breasts and was more aware than ever that her old bra felt ridiculously tight and confining now, and she cursed the fresh memory of how much better the detested 38-D had felt.

Mom laughed. "That was my point, everyone already knew you were a girl underneath all that machismo of yours. Including David. You know, dear, I don't think I've ever asked you how you girls let him into your gang in the first place. I've always adored him, but from the first time you brought him home I was wondering, just how did that happen?

"Oh my God, the cafeteria!" Caryn shook her head at the bittersweet memory.

"The Northside cafeteria?" Mom asked as she started the car.

"God, I hated that school," Caryn said. "I guess everyone hates junior high, though. Dave certainly did. Yeah, the Northside cafeteria."

Caryn, Audrey and Valerie were always the bad girls of Linden Elementary. Maureen was the smartest girl in their class, but she'd never fit in with the other brains and she'd helped Caryn and Audrey through enough math homework to get in their good graces. The princesses and the nerds wanted nothing to do with them and of course the boys didn't want any girls around, and the feeling was very mutual. So none of the quartet were surprised when the far end of the table they cornered for themselves in the lunchroom on the first day of seventh grade remained theirs alone.

The other end was claimed by a ragtag group of boys, some of whom Maureen knew from her honors classes. "Nerds," Audrey said with a look askance at them a week or two into the school year.

"Yeah, but they're harmless," said Caryn.

"That one kid, David? He's in three of my classes," Maureen added. "He never says anything unless the teachers call on him, but he's smart. I hear he's a straight A student."

"I hear he cries if you look at him the wrong way," Audrey said.

"I heard that too," Valerie said. "But you know who I heard it from? The boys from Third Avenue. They're a bunch of assholes, they probably made him cry all those times."

"Even so, who wants a crybaby around?" Audrey asked.

"Boy, you're all heart!" Caryn needled her friend. "Remember what it's like for boys, they're supposed to act like robots, no feelings. And they hit each other back, not like when I beat them up!" If Caryn wasn't very impressed with her body as it blossomed into womanhood, at least she'd discovered one benefit of being a girl. Boys never hit her back.

"Yeah, whatever," Audrey said. "I don't care as long as the nerds keep to their side of the table, that's all."

And for most of the year, they did. So none of the girls was quite sure why the group dwindled away by early spring, from half a dozen down to just David and his chubby friend Scott Bransky, whom Maureen always called 'the most annoying boy in the universe', and then finally to just David when Scott joined the rest of his other friends at another table at the other end of the cafeteria.

"I wonder what the story is with him," Audrey said on the first day of eighth grade, when David had dutifully taken his seat alone at the other end. "All the other nerds moved to that other table, why not him?"

"I think it's got something to do with Brad Preston," Maureen said.

"That little creep!" Caryn snapped. "God, I always hated him. Remember in the fourth grade when --"

"Don't remind me!" snapped Valerie. "Everybody remembers that! But he and Scott were always best friends back then."

"That's just it," Maureen said. "Brad wants Scott to himself, so he treated David like shit all last year, ever since he and Scott became friends. You should hear the things he used to whisper at David in French class every day before Madame LaSalle got in. It was disgusting."

"And Scott abandoned David over that? And all the other nerds too?" Audrey asked. "That's not fair!"

"Scott's known Brad a lot longer," Maureen reminded her. "All the others have. Brad used to pick on them, too. Maybe they all think he'll let David in sooner or later."

"It doesn't look that way to me," Caryn said.

"I don't think David really cares," Maureen said. "He's a good kid, but he never says anything anyway."

"I can see why, if even the nerds abandoned him," Audrey said. Then, to everyone's surprise, she said, "Think we ought to invite him to sit with us?"

"I don't think he'll want to," Maureen said. "But it's okay with me."

"Me too," Valerie said.

"I didn't think you'd ever say that, Audrey," Caryn added. "But yeah, he seems like a sweet kid."

It was Valerie who finally gave him the invitation, on her way back from the snack bar with a hard-won fudgesicle in her hand. "Wanna sit with us?" she asked David, who was looking stoic as ever in his solitude.

David looked over at the other end of the table, where Valerie's three friends were pretending not to notice him as always. "You think they'd mind?" he asked her.

"They won't," Valerie said. "We talked about it. I hope you don't mind."

"He had the most adorable smile when he came over and sat down next to me," Caryn told her mother now. "Terrified, like he thought we were gonna eat him alive or at least chase him away from the table. But he got along great with us all. He and Maureen started right into talking about the classes they had together, and...you know, we all became friends. He'd read more books than anyone I know. And he knew about your century's music," she added with a smirk.

"So that's why you became more interested in both reading and decent music around that time," Mom said, ignoring the barb about her age. "I remember how your grades shot up," she added gratefully. "And even then, you were all just friends with him."

"Of course. That was eighth grade -- boys were icky! Except Dave, of course. He wasn't icky, but he was still a boy. We always used to say 'present company excluded' when we talked about boys like that, and he was cool with it. I mean, the boys in his grade school had made his life so miserable."

"I've heard him talk about it a couple of times," Mom said. "So you knew it wasn't that he cried just from people looking at him the wrong way," she admonished.

"Of course I did! They were bullies. And once he was our friend, I always made sure they left him alone. I guess they teased him a lot about being defended by a girl, but he never cared, at least not that I saw. I think he really enjoys being kind of a sissy, to tell you the truth."

"Sissy? Caryn, that's uncalled for."

"I'm not saying it's a bad thing!" Caryn said. "I just don't know any other word for a guy who doesn't mind if he's more like the girls in some ways. And Dave doesn't. He's so much more confident than he used to be, and I think he loves being the only guy in the gang, really. But we've never talked about it, because we really don't care."

"Does that mean you're over feeling sorry for yourself because you have breasts?" Mom asked.

Caryn let out a frustrated laugh, and crossed her arms defensively over her accursed breasts. "Okay, you've got me there. But I still don't want to think about what Dave will think of me being a dumpy D cup."

"He's been your best friend for years. Why would your bra size change anything?" Mom asked. "Or is it that you want it to change? Don't expect me to believe none of you girls have ever even thought about it."

"We have," Caryn admitted. "Or at least I have."

"Has he got a date for the prom yet?"

"Mother!" But Caryn didn't tell her mother the answer, which she knew to be no. Dave hadn't missed a chance all year to tell them all how he didn't care a bit, always with that grin of his that Caryn now realized she'd come to adore. But she wondered, did he really not care?

"All I am saying, Caryn, is that David is a wonderful young man, and you've got nothing to be embarrassed about with him. Now, if you were still seeing that Rick boy..."

"I'm not!" Caryn snapped. "Never again! I've learned my lesson about dating football players!"

"And David is about as far from that as you can get, isn't he?" Mom needled with a knowing grin.

Caryn had all that night to think about that, which at least gave her something to block out her D-cup angst for a while. When she reluctantly swung on her new bra the next morning, it looked more enormous than ever. So, worse yet, did her breasts, comfortable though they were for a change. Worse still, it presented a new challenge she hadn't even thought of. She had long since mastered the art of fastening her bra behind her back, but now she found she couldn't quite reach far enough to do so. After three tries led only to sore arms from stretching them at an awkward angle for too long, Caryn thought for a moment that she'd found a loophole for her lifetime sentence. That lasted only as long as it took her to recall the way she'd seen Audrey get into her bra so many times in the locker room: put it on backwards first and twist it around the back once the clasp was fastened. She had always wondered just why Audrey did that; now, alas, she knew. The maneuver once again made the "I WEAR A 38-D" neon burn just as brightly as it had done at the store, but worse yet, it worked. Once again Caryn had no choice but to wear her new bra.

There was no denying her breasts, back and shoulders felt much better, as much as she hated to admit it. There was also no reason to believe anyone at school would really notice the difference, and she was a bit old to let such things bother her anyway. Had anything really changed?

She couldn't help but feel like something had. And so, in a last-ditch effort to draw attention elsewhere -- and, she conceded, perhaps to catch Dave's eye -- she decided to do something she had quite possibly never done by choice before: wear a skirt to school.

The powder-blue floral print skirt was a gift from her well-intentioned but clueless grandmother two Christmases ago, and Caryn had begrudgingly worn it to the family dinner that December but never touched it since then. It did look graceful and pretty, she admitted as she pulled on her loosest top over it and assessed herself in the mirror. It wasn't who she really was at all, and she was determined as ever not to turn into a girly-girl like her mother had been just because she was a dumpy D cup...but it looked nice enough.

Naturally, Gordon thought so too when she appeared in the kitchen doorway. "Well good morning to you, young lady!" the jerk said with a smarmy grin from behind his ridiculous moustache. "You should dress up like that more often!"

"Thanks," Caryn said, forcing a smile as she took her seat.

"I was just thinking I ought to offer to take you shopping for some nice dresses, you know," Gordon went on.

"Oh, stop it, you!" Her mother said with that annoying laugh she always used with him. "You know Caryn dresses up once in a blue moon and that's it. I'll never understand why you don't dress like that more often, dear. You do look lovely." But mercifully, she left it at that.