'Emma, we need to talk.'

'Chris! Darling!' Emma's pretty grin spread from ear to ear. 'Naughty, surprising me like this. Is it about our date tonight? Where are we going?'

'It... it's not about that.'

The grin shrank away as quickly as it had blossomed. 'What's the matter, darling? Why so serious?'

'I've been thinking... The last few weeks have been, um, enjoyable... but I don't think this is working.'

'Chris...! But... you want to end it? Already?'

'I didn't want to do this over dinner. Didn't want to waste your time... get your hopes up. You know. Hoped you'd understand.'

Emma felt the tears surge, but she had learnt to hold them back. It wasn't as though this was the first time. 'Yes, I understand,' she said with grim resolve. 'I understand that you're just like all the others. Don't touch me!'

'Keep your voice down,' said Chris, temper rising along with Emma's. He hastily withdrew the steadying hand from her arm. The breakup was clearly not going as well as he had expected. 'It's your online dating profile. It's misleading.'

'What's that supposed to mean?' Emma took a step back and slammed the small pile of books she was carrying back down on to the trolley.

'The picture is just of your face... and it's a very pretty face, don't get me wrong...'

'Oh, thanks,' Emma deadpanned.

'But then, in your physical description you describe yourself as "slim".'

'I am slim!' exclaimed Emma, then lowered her voice. 'I am slim. Look at my waist. Tiny!'

'It's not your waist, it's your... your...' He gestured to Emma's bosom, which stood between them in more ways than one. 'And your...' his hands moved down to indicate her rounded hips. 'It's really not what I imagined.'

Emma looked down at her hourglass figure, and frowned. 'I see.'

'It's... it's all a bit too much.'

'Too much?' Her pretty face darkened.

'That's not what I mean, I don't mean you're fat or anything, it's just that your... your...'

'My breasts. Just say it.'

'Okay. Your breasts. I just... I can't handle them.'

'You seemed to be handling them perfectly well on Saturday night.' She thought with a reluctant twinge of pleasure to the rare attention her sensitive nipples had enjoyed.

'Yes, and I came in my pants within seconds,' he said, a little too loudly.

Emma tried to swallow her pride. She smiled again, weakly. Perhaps she could still negotiate a second chance. Chris may be turning out to be yet another weasel, but she couldn't face the dating scene again. 'Maybe you'll get used to them? My breasts, I mean? Get bored of them?'

'And that housemate of yours in the next room. I'm sure he was listening. It's all a bit too... it's just not feeling like you're the one. You know? I'm really sorry. It's been nice, but it's over.' Chris attempted a smile that may have been intended as apologetic but just came off as disingenuous and ingratiating. 'Still friends?'

Emma felt blood rush to her pale cheeks. Her spectacles steamed up, and her ginger freckles prickled with rising, indignant fury. 'Get out,' she said, then raised her voice. 'Get out!'

'Sshhh!' hissed a voice from the other side of the bookcase.

'I shouldn't have come to talk to you while you're at work. I'm sorry.'

Chris backed away, then made his way through the library. Emma watched him go, confused, insulted, hurt. She was single. Yet again.

She went back to putting the books back on the shelf. Family planning books, of all things. Not that she wanted children, but she did want to settle down. Thirty was only a few years away, and she dreaded still being single then.

'Emma Enderby. A word in my office, please?' Sue, the head librarian, appeared out of nowhere, her reedy voice causing Emma to jump, the resultant bouncy upheaval under her grey cardigan an unsubtle reminder of the physical attributes which had succeeded in warding off yet another eligible bachelor.

Emma followed Sue through the stacks, down the narrow corridor. She loathed Sue, the scrawny, lanky jobsworth. Though only slightly older than Emma, she had the appearance and worldview of a woman twice her age. Sitting down across the formica desk, Emma began to gabble an excuse. 'I'm so sorry about that row I had, Sue, I didn't know he was going to come in!'

'What on earth are you talking about?'

Oh. So Sue hadn't witnessed the break-up argument with Chris. Emma wondered what it could be about.

'Never mind,' Sue continued, not waiting for a reply. 'There's something I've been meaning to raise with you for some time.'

'What's that?'

'Now, no delicate way to put this, but it's your breasts. I know you can't help that they're so big, but I wondered whether you might dress in a way that... makes them a little less conspicuous.'

Emma couldn't believe what she was hearing. First Chris, now this. She cursed her confounded double-F cup bosom! It seemed to bring her nothing but trouble. 'These are the only clothes I own, Sue,' she said, voice trembling as for the second time in half an hour she fought back tears in the face of an attack upon her physical appearance. 'And they're hardly sexy clothes. Just a white blouse and a baggy old grey cardigan.' Emma stood up. The top button of the cardigan popped open, with unfortunate timing. 'At least, it used to be baggy, when I was younger.'

'It leaves little to any reasonably capable imagination,' said Sue, surveying Emma's jutting, round bust with visible distaste. 'And that cleavage. Must you really wear a push-up bra? With a bosom that size?'

'It's not a push-up bra, I promise,' protested Emma, mortified beyond belief. 'I can't afford fancy lingerie. It's just a normal cheap bra from M&S. It doesn't even have underwiring.'

Sue stared, momentarily speechless. 'Th-then how do they stay up like that? And that cleavage?'

'They just sort of do it by themselves,' mumbled Emma apologetically, the pert, ample sources of her woes jutting, preternaturally high and firm, before her.

'Well,' said Sue. 'Consider yourself warned. There have been complaints.'

Complaints! Probably from women, thought Emma, as her troublesome bouncing breasts led the way back along the corridor to the library, as she walked in humiliated fury back to her work. Flat-chested, jealous women, like Sue. But, she thought, if they were jealous of her unwieldy bosom, they were sorely misguided. If anything, she envied them their manageable proportions! Easy to find clothes that fit a small chest, and boys didn't act so weird around them, the way Chris and his various no-hope predecessors had.

Now that her Friday night date had been so unceremoniously cancelled, she sat in the staff room and took out her mobile phone to see if anything else was happening socially that night to help take her mind off things. Alone, she stuck the phone into her bra and pressed the screen against her right boob to unlock it, an unfortunate and awkward ritual she had to follow ever since she hit the screen by accident with the errant appendage while idly programming the phone's biometric security lock, topless, in bed. It would now only respond to breastprint, and she couldn't figure out how to change it.

But it seemed that nothing was happening, so, after the library closed for the day, she bought a microwave meal from the shop on the corner and made her way back to the house where she rented the spare room.

There was no sign of Simon when she got in, and she assumed he must be up in his room, the one next to hers, perhaps busy with one of his computer games. Determined not to let a bad day become a bad evening, she headed to the bathroom for a shower that she hoped would invigorate mind and body. Body. The very word made her sick in her stomach. She avoided looking at her reflection as she discarded her work clothes and hung them on the doorknob and tied her shoulder length ginger curls back into an untidy bun. She could barely make eye contact with herself, let alone gaze upon the hills and valleys of her voluptuous, alabaster-white nude body in the bathroom mirror.

The hot water felt good. Standing in the bath beneath the streaming, steaming shower head, she instinctively arched her back to let the powerful jets pummel her firm double-F's, but the familiar tickle of pleasure, that first hint of something mind-blowing radiating from nipple out to the rest of her body, felt unearned today. She just wanted to pretend that these overgrown, feminine extremities of her upper body simply didn't exist.

But that was difficult, especially when the got in the way. She kneed both of them in turn as she hopped from the tub onto the cheap yellow bath mat, causing them to bounce and jostle with an exuberance Emma deemed inappropriate. She liked to think of her cheerful jiggling boobs as extensions of her personality, ripe, buoyant manifestations of what she liked to think of as indefatigable optimism. Not today, though.

She reached for her bath towel. Not there. Simon, bless him, must have laundered it for her again. Such a stickler for cleanliness. Nevertheless needing to dry off, Emma instead took the hand towel from the rail next to the sink. She held it up in front of her, lengthwise, then pressed it to her body. The outstretched top two corners of the hand towel spanned from one pale, shower-stiff, uptilted nipple to the other. The lower edge just about covered the prim, tufty ginger bush between her cream thighs.

Of a sudden, the bathroom door flew open behind her, a gust of cold air whipping her ample, bare, dripping wet buttocks. She span around in fright, the corners of the hand towel pinned to her nipples with dainty wet fingers. 'Oh Simon, it's you,' Emma chuckled.

'Goodness!' said Simon. The weedy, short-sighted accountant, still in the day's disheveled suit trousers and shirt, was carrying a pile of fluffy, freshly tumble-dried bath towels. 'I didn't hear you come in. Really must get around to putting a lock on this door, mustn't I?'

'That's alright,' smiled Emma, too pleased to see a friendly face after such a terrible day to be embarrassed about her precarious state of near-nudity.

'Anyway, I washed your towels,' he said. 'Good timing, by the looks of it.' He passed the top one in her direction, dangling it from outstretched arm while he watched and waited.

Emma nearly extended her own hand to take it from him, but realised that doing so would cause one corner of the small, barely modesty-preserving hand towel to fall, thus exposing a breast in its naked entirety. The absence of a lock from the bathroom door had caused Simon to walk in on her after showering dozens of times in the past, and so her nude body wasn't exactly something he had laid eyes on before, but regardless she felt that some decorum and distance were still called for. Instead, she took a few small steps forward and, with three fingers still holding the corner of the towel firmly on to her right nipple, used finger and them to take the proffered bath towel from her landlord. 'Thank-you so much for washing and drying it,' she gushed. 'You're so sweet.'

'Don't mention it,' said Simon. He lingered in the doorway.

'Anything else?' said Emma, standing there with the shiny wet tops and sides of her breasts exposed, along with her ample thighs and shapely calves.

'Sorry to bring it up, but your rent is overdue by nearly a whole month.'

Emma winced. 'I know, I know,' she sighed. 'I get paid next Friday, I'll make it up to you then'

Simon nodded with a smile and sidled out of the bathroom again, shutting the door softly behind him. What a nice, considerate man, thought Emma, as she ran the soft, dry toweling over her creamy opulence.

She heated her microwave meal and, wrapped in the towel, took it up to her bedroom and switched on the little cheap laptop. Picking at her sweet and sour chicken, she logged in to Vali-Date, the matchmaking service that had yielded so many short-lived relationships, and reactivated her profile with a sigh. She looked quite pretty in her head-and-shoulders photo, she thought. That had been a nice holiday to Italy, with her old schoolfriend Rebekah. The Tuscan sun had brought out her freckles, which she considered to be her best feature. She texted Rebekah suggesting a Saturday morning gossip over a cup of tea. She looked at the section which detailed her physical attributes. Hair: red. Eyes: Blue. Height: 5 feet 6 inches. Build: slim. There was no box where she could indicate "Tits: Enormous," and tempting though it was to simply add this apparently important statistic to her written biog, she had a feeling it may cause more problems than it would solve. She was slim, she said to herself. Her waist, neck, ankles, they were all dainty and ladylike.

Taking a deep breath, she stood, faced the full-length mirror on the wardrobe door, and dropped the towel to appraise herself fully. Cherry-varnished toenails, cute little feet tapering into slender ankles and curving out into delicately formed calves. Her formless, dimpled knees weren't exactly her best feature, and her thighs had always disappointed her: firm and toned but the wrong side of chunky, flaring still further to hips of childbearing generosity. She span around, angling chin over shoulder to survey her bottom. She grimaced. It was a fine shape, swelling out in an uninterrupted curve from the tops of her thighs, but so big! Thank goodness, then, for her waist. Her bottom tapered back into svelte, princess-like daintiness, and a narrow back that swooped swanlike up to a long, graceful neck. She turned again to look at herself from the front. Her intimacy was a neat, discreet affair, juxtaposed with a tousled mop of bright copper pubic hair that seemed to keep itself roughly in check with need for cosmetic intervention. A cute crease under her stomach and a deep belly button, sent the message that she was no slave to a diet, and that her hourglass waist was nature's work.

And, on the subject of nature's work, there they were. The twins. The puppies. The most obvious and visible expression of her profound womanliness. Beginning with two creases on her ribcage, their weight caused them to bulge a little downwards before soaring back up in long, round arcs to where small, pale, lightly indented areolae graced summits that aimed outwards and upwards, before swooping, concave lines joined them to her chest just below her collarbone. They bulged out to the sides, getting in the way of her arms, and the relative lack of space on her torso meant that a tight, deep cleavage formed naturally where they vied and jousted for room. Considering how high and pert they sat on her chest, they were paradoxically soft and bouncy. She shimmied her slim, square shoulders for her own entertainment as she stood there, and watched with quiet fascination as her breasts continued to wobble under their own inertia, their rounded bases slow and ponderous, their creamy, rounded tips quivering with spry elasticity.

There was a tight, pale blue crop-top in a drawer somewhere. She found it and put it on, stretching it with difficulty over the jutting bust that had grown a few cup sizes since she had bought it. Standing there, braless and knickerless, she struck a few poses in the mirror, surveying her thinly-clothed bosom from various angles. Her breasts looked much nicer without the bra, she thought. Bras squashed them into strange looking shapes. She only wore the things because... well, it was what you had to do, wasn't it. But there wasn't really anything a bra could do to improve on the natural shape of her breasts, classically formed as they were in spite of their ponderous size. Underwear kept them from bouncing around too much, but even then there was a limit to how effectively even the most restrictive of brassieres could control those autonomous globes that stuck up and out in front of her. And it wasn't even as though her nipples were too prominent. Her skin-coloured areolae were small, very gently swelling hillocks, and her nipples themselves spent most of their time as inverted dimples at their centres, except when... stimulated. A lot. Maybe she could have a new photo taken for her internet dating page, showing not just her face, but a few inches of cleavage, too, that would avoid disappointing people expecting some skinny beanpole of a woman. Or perhaps a photo showing her all the way down to the waist, braless in this turquoise top that so clearly illustrated her striking bust-to-waist ratio, without all the lumps and straps and bulges of one of her cheap, poorly-fitting brassieres adding all sorts of ugly unnecessary detail and compromising how fine her naturally pert bosom could look.

It was time for bed. She realised she hadn't moisturized after the shower, and peeled the top off, her breasts tumbling heavily back into view, bobbing and swaying, relishing their freedom. She sat on the edge of the bed and took a long, pink plastic tube of body lotion from the nightstand. A few brisk shakes, and a tight squeeze caused a few ropes of thick, white liquid to spurt forth from the opening, up into the air, before draping haphazardly over Emma's large breasts, which she wobbled a little to distribute the lotion before massaging it tenderly all over those sweeping, expansive tracts of pale skin. Her mind wandered to the previous weekend, when Chris had sat next to her on this same bed, rubbing the moisturizer lotion onto her himself. His hands had felt so good, so strong, so delicate when it came to brushing her sensitive nipples. How badly she had wanted to orgasm like that, from having her breasts fondled by a loving boyfriend, instead of her usual guilty ritual of doing it herself!

She lay on her back, miserable and horny, her breasts teetering high above her, quivering unsteadily like two huge hills of milky panna cotta. A breeze from the slightly open bedroom window blew across her lotion-slick nipples, sending a shiver through her body. She wriggled, causing her gravity-defying mounds to dance in the cold draught. It felt so good, the tickle of the air on her sensitive tips, the heavy, rhythmic thud of her breasts against one another. Too scared to touch herself on the clitoris for fear of the shuddering climax which might overwhelm her in an instant, she writhed her hips and thighs, hands by her side on the blanket, breasts swaying and jostling and striving towards the ceiling above her in the night air. The orgasm crept up on her, a tingle emanating from her nipples as they finally stiffened and popped out the indentations where they coyly spent most of their time, a rash of goosepimples coursing over her bosom as the shockwave made its way through her body to that pleasure centre between her legs. Suppressing a series of involuntary yelps, she let the long, slow feeling throb in her breasts, until she could take it no longer and, grabbing both of them in her small hands, thrust her left nipple between her lips and rolled the other between thumb and forefinger until the full, electric orgasm wracked her body.

Her breasts wobbled freely as she let them go, undulating like jellyfish, pale in the darkness lit only by a dim streetlamp the other side of the curtain. The orgasmic pleasure was replaced in an instant by guilt, and the hatred of her breasts, temporarily forgotten while she had masturbated them, returned with a vengeance. She scrambled under the covers, rolled over onto her side, curled up, and slept.

***

'Men are bastards,' concluded Rebekah, not for the first time, when Emma had finished her story in a secluded corner of Starbucks the next morning. She furrowed her brow and stirred her café latté with a wooden stick. 'Fuck him.'

'I wish I could,' said Emma with grim humour. 'It's been years now. Back to online dating for me.'

Rebekah rolled her mascara-framed eyes. 'The only people you meet online are creeps, perverts, and passive-aggressive "nice" guys.'

'But it's still statistically the best way to find someone,' Emma insisted. 'The library's just full of old people, schoolchildren, and young parents. There's thousands of men my age online, I just need a better way of deciding who's right for me.'

'You keep going for these shy arty types,' said Rebekah. 'Perhaps you need someone who's a bit more of a man. Someone who's not going to run a mile when you get your baps out.'

'Hmph, don't start,' said Emma, and took a sip of tea.

Rebekah took her smartphone from inside her bra, and flicked through the photo gallery until she found the pictures from the holiday to Tuscany. 'You still using this picture?'

Emma nodded. 'Though I cropped it.'

'Cropped it?'

'Down to just my head and shoulders.'

Rebekah sat back in her chair in despair. 'But look at you in that bikini! Your boobs look incredible! I told you that if you put that picture online you'd have the pick of the whole universe of single men out there!'

'I look like a porno actress,' said Emma, leaning over and peering at the picture. She had been talked into buying that yellow bikini by Rebekah and had regretted it all holiday. She had worn it for one day at the pool and, feeling the leering eyes of the Italian men undress her for hours, had reverted to sitting in a deckchair in a summer dress instead, reading her library book in the shade. 'I like how my smile looks, and the sunlight is flattering, but there's just too much bosom on display.'

Rebekah looked Emma up and down. 'Well, then let's see if we can find a compromise. Dave's got a camera we can borrow, he's out at football today. Come back to mine, we'll try some different outfits on you, and get a picture out on my balcony.'

Emma cringed.

'It's a sunny day,' smiled Rebekah impishly. 'You'll look at least as pretty as you do in that Italy photo.'

'Fine,' said Emma, smiling in spite of herself. 'It's my day off, and it's not like I've anything better to do now, is it?'

Rebekah stood and grabbed her handbag. 'That's the spirit, Em. Let's take the bus.'

***

Since school, Rebekah and Emma had been unlikely pals, Rebekah the moody goth in eyeliner and black hair, Emma the swot in the grey cardigan. But they had both been late bloomers in the chest department, and had bonded over the challenges that arose for both of them as a consequence.

Now, ten years on, Emma surveyed the growing pile of clothes her oldest friend was laying out on the bed. None of the suggested garments seemed to be her style.

'This should fit you,' said Rebekah, holding up a skimpy white vest top by its straps. 'You still an E-cup? Size ten?'

'Thirty-two double-F,' winced Emma. 'Haven't been an E since college.'

Rebekah looked at Emma's chest. 'My, yes you have grown, haven't you. I was an F-cup until last year. Thirty-six G now. But my old clothes from when I was a thirty-six E should fit you. The numbers and letters sort of average out.'

Emma gasped. 'I can't believe you've overtaken me again!'

'It's the beers,' said Rebekah, ruefully slapping one of her firm torpedo breasts under her black T-shirt. 'Yours'd be this size, too, if you ever switched to the heavy stuff.'

'No way!' laughed Emma. 'I'll stick to the odd glass of white wine. My boobies are quite large enough, thank-you very much!'

'Well, this'll show them off. Try it on.'

Emma looked at the miniscule cotton top in disbelief. 'It doesn't look like it will fit.'

'It's stretchy,' said Rebekah. 'Come on, cardy off, blouse off, let's see it on you.'

Sighing, Emma unbuttoned cardigan and blouse, and stripped until she was standing there in Rebekah's bedroom in just her beige Marks & Spencer brassiere.

Rebekah was not impressed, and placed hands on cocked hips, shaking her head. 'I really have to take you bra shopping,' she said. 'That's a terrible fit. I've seen you topless, and believe me that bra does not do your bangers justice.'

'Shut up,' blushed Emma, and stretched the white top over her abundant bosom. They both regarded the result in the mirror by the door. 'Oh, it's no use,' Emma said. 'It's so tight you can see the outline of the bra right through it.'

Rebekah's voice dropped to a low, conspiratorial purr. 'So, let's lose the bra, shall we?'

'You have something in my size?' said Emma, the penny not dropping.

'Nope,' said Rebekah, and before Emma could do anything about it, the straps of both the cotton top and her beige bra had been slipped off her shoulders, and the backband hooks had been snapped open by practised thumb and fingers. Like a conjurer pulling a tablecloth from beneath a vase, Rebekah yanked Emma's bra from under the white vest in one confident stroke.

Emma yelped. 'Rebekah!' Her breasts, now unconstrained by the ill-fitting undergarment, resumed their high, natural pout, the neckline of the white top only just covering her smooth nipples. The natural cleavage now on show looked, if anything, tighter and deeper than it had in the bra, which had only served to downturn and separate her breasts.

'That's more like it!' said Rebekah, an erotic gleam in her green eyes. 'Those tits, Emma! Those glorious tits!'

'I look absurd, Rebekah!' said Emma crossly. 'Look at me!'

'I am looking at you,' grinned Rebekah. 'And every red-blooded man in the world would want to look at you, too.'

'Give me my bra back!' Emma stamped her foot, and her breasts wobbled in angry defiance.

'Emma, trust me, you look incredible,' said Rebekah. 'Look at yourself again. The improvement is staggering. For one thing, you can't see the bra any more.'

'That's because I'm stark naked under the top!'

'But that's a good thing, Emma. If you can't see the straps and bulges and all that, there's less attention being drawn to your chest. Less detail to focus on.'

Emma was sceptical about this logic.

'And we can't see your nipples through the material because they're so flat and pale. So to all intents and purposes it looks like you're wearing the most perfect invisible bra ever made! Granted, your boobs are fairly bouncy when you walk without a bra, but this is just for photographs, so no-one will know. I promise!

Turning again to look at her reflection, Emma considered these words, and tugged the straps of the top back onto her creamy, freckled shoulders. Her boobs did look rather magnificent in the top, she had to admit. 'Okay,' she said. 'Let's take some pictures.'

Various braless costume changes later, the two sat with an early evening glass of wine reviewing the day's work.

'I can't make up my mind,' said Emma. On the one hand, she was pleased with how good she looked in the photographs, especially the ones taken toward the end of the afternoon as the light was fading. On the other, she dreaded the thought of any single one of these photographs ever being seen in public. What if her bralessness was more obvious to the casual observer than Rebekah was claiming?

'You don't have to for now,' said Rebekah. 'Let's go out tonight. How do you feel about wearing a corset?'

'Certainly not!' said Emma. 'Going braless is one thing, but I'm not wearing something like that on my internet dating profile!'

'Not on the internet,' said Rebekah. 'Tonight. Ever been to a burlesque night?'

'It sounds rude,' frowned Emma. 'Is it like... a strip show?'

'Not really,' said Rebekah, standing and heading back to the bedroom. 'It's just nipple tassles and a bit of harmless fun. But you've got to dress up. Come on, top up the wine glasses and let's get you looking the part.'

Whether it was the emotional rollercoaster of the past twenty-four hours, the confidence boost of the impromptu fashion shoot, or simply the glass of wine, Emma decided just to go along with whatever Rebekah had in mind. She grabbed the bottle, stood, and followed Rebekah back to the bedroom for whatever makeover her friend had in mind for the evening.

What the heck, she thought. I could use an adventure.