Bras, Bosoms and the bane of the body beautiful

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(fiction - short story competition)
It’s spring and again, I was plagued by the search for the perfection. So I embarked once again on my search . This time, I was to come to one definite conclusion. You can't have everything.

I should have known better. Nice legs, neat waist, a tight little bottom - what did I have to complain about? My chest! It was horrible. I was convinced no woman had ever been cursed with a chest as awful as mine.

I made quite a study of it all. When your bosom is so far from 'ideal' , you look for something to help disguise nature's unkind imperfections. For me, that something was the perfect bra. I became obsessed with the idea. If I could find that bra, I would, at last, have an equal chance in the arena of love.
About the only fact I uncovered of any comfort was that matters were a great deal worse for women like myself in the years B.B. (Before Bras).

From balancing their natural endowments high atop stiff boned stays in the late 1600's to flattening those same endowments out of existence in the 1920's.

It is little wonder women were considered frail and subject to fainting fits. Compressing a twenty-eight inch waist into a fashionable eighteen-inch Edwardian corset would send the hardiest soul into a fainting fit of epic proportions.
This leads me to another little known fact. The French word, 'brassiere' means infant's under-bodice. So what do the French call their bras? Soutien-gorges, of course. If we had borrowed the correct word, given the English fondness for abbreviating, my search could have been for the perfect souti!

So. I had to find the perfect bra. There had to be one out there somewhere; one that would at least help my chest attain some level of social acceptability. I had concluded that if I looked normal on the outside, I might have a chance of getting a relationship off the ground before things got out of hand, and with my chest, they always did - literally.

Once I had the partner of my dreams fascinated by my mind and personality, anything was possible. No, there were two possible scenarios, given that my perfect bra could not stay on indefinitely. When the time came for the disguise to be removed, love could have blossomed. What lay behind the disguise might no longer matter. Or ... I couldn't bear to think of it.

I should perhaps explain I have an aversion to sharp objects and pain that borders on the phobic. The idea of surgery flashed once through my mind to be immediately shelved alongside other useful notions such as time travel to an age when a figure such as mine was acceptable, if such a time ever existed.

Before I discovered The Maska Modifier. I developed a slouching walk that removed my chest from sight. I was the brunt of countless bosom jokes. It was a loveless and unhappy life surrounded by the lust of others. Yet, The Modifier, I was told, had been around for a long time. Developed for needs such as mine.

My tale involves the day I found it.

Or rather, it found me. Let me explain. I was waiting at an intersection for the traffic lights to change, when a woman greeted me. I couldn't decide how old (or young) she was. Maiden, mother, crone - to this day I could not tell you which. That alone should have warned me.

She had long black hair, flawed by a striking white streak running left from her widow's peak. She fixed me with eyes so black I could not distinguish the pupil.

"I am Laila Kazan," she announced, as though I should have been expecting her. "Corsetiere Extraordinaire - among other things!" she added. The introduction was so stagy I almost laughed. Until she spoke again and blew my cynicism away in a whirlwind of astonishment. "You cannot slouch around hiding your breasts all your life, regardless of how much pain they have caused you. I have what you need in my shop. Come with me."
I stared after her, my mouth opening and closing like a distressed guppy. She didn't look back, strode on confidently, boldly, as though she knew I would follow her magnificent black-clad form. I did.

I had to run to keep up with those leather-clad legs, longer than mine by a good fifteen centimetres. I felt as elegant as the Penguin waddling after Catwoman through the sewers of Gotham City.

She kept up the pace for ten minutes, turning, at last, into a tiny shop in the oddly-named Bargain Lane. All the shops had sparkling new interiors behind their Victorian facades and seemed to change hands as often as fashion itself.

I stood alone in the little shop. 'Ultra Undies' was packed from floor to ceiling with more varieties of underwear than I had dreamed existed. A noise from the back of the shop startled me. Laila Kazan reappeared, carrying a brown box.
"The Maska Modifier," she announced. "Try it on out there."
She pointed to the doorway. With a long-nailed finger dressed in an extraordinary silver ring, she extracted a garment from the tissue paper. It was remarkable only for its plainness. No lace, no padding, no wires - nothing. Two moulded cups and some elastic. I almost laughed.

"What is this supposed to do?" I asked, my tone scornful. My research into bras had left me with unrealisable expectations. I knew this simple construction of lycra and elastic would do nothing for me, however pretty the fabric. In the afternoon light streaming through the window, it had a crystalline sheen.

"Don't be so sure." The woman spoke as though she had heard my thought. "Just try it on. After all, what do you have to lose?" Her bell-like laughter filled the shop, as I took the bra from her.
"It's the wrong size," I mumbled, feeling silly.

"No, it will fit, I promise," replied the woman, "I guarantee you will be astonished at the results. Try it on," she repeated, "and then we'll discuss the price."

I carried the ridiculous thing out back to the changing cubicle. The mirror taunted me. Turning away from the hateful sight, I removed my jacket, shirt and bra before picking up the Modifier. The fabric felt odd, almost alive in my fingers. I didn't know if I liked it.

My fingers tingled as I secured the single hook. Silky straps slid over my shoulders. The cups settled sensuously onto my skin. The feeling was indescribable. It was as intimate as an embrace. And it fitted perfectly. Too perfectly, I thought, aware that the original sensation had changed. The most peculiar feeling rippled down my torso, as though my body was trying to surge through heavy water. The feeling stopped as suddenly as it had started.

I felt silly again, standing half-naked in a tiny cubicle, afraid to face a mirror. Finally, with my eyes tightly shut, I spun around. I opened my left eye first, just a little. What I thought I saw snapped both eyes to attention.

Facing me in the mirror was the most perfectly proportioned pair of bra-clad breasts I had ever seen. I felt like crying. I could not take my eyes off them. My nightmare had vanished. I was flabbergasted. No, I lie. I simply couldn't believe what I was seeing. Trick mirror, I thought. Then I realised it couldn't be. Laila's face had added itself to the reflection. She looked exactly as she had when I first saw her - smiling.

"Well?"

I was lost for words. I turned, posed, raised my arms, hugged myself and laughed.

"How much?" was all I could manage. Laila leaned towards me and whispered in my ear. My breath caught in my throat. She was asking for the exact sum secreted away in my emergency savings. But I didn't care. My 44 D's, the bane of my life since I was thirteen years old, were no longer there. There would be no more lusting stares, no more faked panting and mimed nipple squeezes. For years, my enormous breasts had embarrassed me, humiliated me, ruined my life. No more.

I grabbed my cheque-book and filled in the required amount. The corsetiere accepted the cheque graciously and left me to finish dressing. When I put my shirt back on, it hung loose and comfortable, where once the buttons had strained to meet.

As I left the shop, the corsetiere's rich voice sounded from the back of the shop.
"Do not be so surprised. This is what you have asked for. Now you have it." A bell-like laugh followed me into the street.

It was only when I stopped at an intersection to wait for a break in the traffic that I noticed how horribly tight my comfortable old jeans had suddenly become.

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