Grandpa and Bras

Before I got breasts, I tried to imagine what they would look like when they came. Would they sprout all at once while I was sleeping? That seemed to be what had happened with some of the girls at school. I thought maybe my skin would stretch out first, making a wrinkly pouch that would gradually fill as my breasts grew inside them…like a balloon being blown up.

I wish I remembered more about my early breasts. What did they look like? What size were they? How long did it take to reach my adult cup size of Bplus-to-C? I really don’t know. My only two breast-related memories from my teen years revolve around my grandfather.

I remember hugging him at the bottom of the stairwell in our house on Eureka Lane. He and Grandma had just arrived. I must have already hugged her, because she was standing behind me with Mom. Grandpa and I put our arms around each other, happy to be together, and then he pulled back suddenly. “Hey!” He announced to our gathered company, “You’re wearing a bra!”

I don’t know how old I was, maybe 14. It must have been my first bra. I didn’t say anything or even look at him. I just walked up the stairs, straight into my room. On my way, I could hear my mother and Grandmother do their much rehearsed harmonic expression of simultaneous exasperation.

“Daddy!”
“Dave!”

A few years later, I had grown accustomed to wearing bras, but not to paying for them. They were so expensive! Beautiful lingerie seemed like one more thing I had to learn to do without. Growing up, I never felt like I had the right clothes or shoes or haircuts. Of course, Mom tried to get us all the things we wanted. But her tight budget and abundant good taste usually prevented it, at least until December.

Every year, as Christmas got close, my grandparents would give us money to go shopping with. My sister and I would buy presents for ourselves, wrap them up, and open them after our the candle-light supper. This way, we got what we wanted. We wouldn’t be surprised of course, but everyone else would be.

The year I was 16, I spend my money at Victoria’s Secret. So delighted with my purchases, I arranged the velvet, lace and silk brazzierres perfectly on a bed of pink tissue paper. To me, it looked like a luxurious work of art, a bouquet of rare flowers, an all-you-can eat fashion buffet. To my grandfather, I’m sure it looked like pure sex. As a self-centered teen, I didn’t think about it, but he came from generation where the word “unmentionables” wasn’t just a campy way to say “panties.” They really meant it!

When I opened my gift at our family gathering, Grandpa took one look at my careful arrangement and blurted out, “Who gave you that?!” His eyebrows were halfway up to his hair-plugs. Grinning, I cheerfully informed him, “You did!”

This time, he was the one who didn’t say anything on the way to his room.