Film and a Girl redux


“I think my nipples are too big…they would make my breasts look larger if they were smaller – what do you think?”

My only response was a completely caught off-guard, “Wha...Whaat?”

Mouse was acting dead serious, and just kept on nonchalantly walking along.

“I mean, just, you know, the areola – my nipples themselves are really perfect, if I do say so, but my boobs look so small like they are now – wish I had some way to change my nipples.” She gave me a sly, side-long look, “A male perspective would be appreciated, ‘specially from one who’s seen both of ‘em.” She continued walking with her chin high, and suppressing a grin, I could tell.

I wasn’t much more coherent the second time around.

“Uh…well….I….Mouse, that’s not fair!”

Although it really was a fair question – I doubted if anyone besides her doctor, her immediate family, maybe a few girls in her gym classes, and, oh yeah…me - albeit by fortunate accident a week previous - had seen her naked boobs since they became noticeable. She wasn’t letting up, though, and cupped her bra under her blouse with both hands and pushed up to show some skin. My face already felt hot, and I was almost beyond embarrassment by now, but dammit, I just had to watch that – I’m a man; I’m stupid, as Zorba once said.

“Come on, Rob, look how hard I have to work just to get any cleavage! Honestly, I’m sixteen next week and I’m flat as a board. How will I live up to the American Dream with teeny tiny tits like these?” She gave me a pouty look that was fake as all hell, and then just cracked up, laughing so hard she had trouble telling me, “Oh God, Rob, the look on your face – I’ll never forget this! You’re sooooo red!”

She laughed for what seemed five minutes straight, and I had to admit, by the end I was grinning in resignation to my fate – I had seen her boobs and I had paid a little for the privilege. The fact that it was completely accidental made it somehow less sexy for both of us, but I will never forget that glimpse of what passed for pulchritude, and it passed pretty damn well, I’ve always thought.

It was the first time I saw a girl’s bare breasts in real life - the old adage that there were only boys in my family rang truer than ever - and lemme tell you, for most guys, and me in particular, nothing is the same after that. It’s not like I suddenly lusted after every female that walked by - hell, I was already discerning enough in that department, thank you – but the few movie images and the fold-outs and their tits from the skin mags suddenly took a back seat in my head to a pair of real, in-the-flesh, rosy-tipped breasts. This was gonna make the day’s movie viewing tough – I didn’t know about Mouse, but I was pretty distracted by now!

Here’s how it happened, one of the great moments in any boy’s life but vibrantly special for me:

Some background first - Mouse and I had been swapping books for some years, and they weren’t limited in content by any means, so we had already shared our thoughts on sex and such to a fair degree, at least what can be gleaned from that medium, and had been to enough films and seen some of the early attempts to bring a more adult perspective to the screen, so that we had a glimpse of what the actual mechanics might be, which were confirmed at least somewhat murkily by the Hygiene Classes and Health Books we were issued come high school, and me a little more so by “The Talk” with my Dad.

One day a few months before the Great Breast Exposure Incident, the older brother of a friend decided to invite us young’uns into his sanctum sanctorum, which had been off-limits due to its prurient nature – he had stacks of Playboys and other adult mags laying around, a poster of a scantily clad starlet on the wall facing the foot of his bed, mysterious foil-wrapped little squares in an open drawer that turned out on closer examination to be Trojan condoms, and the real pièce de résistance: an eight-millimeter projector with more than a few of those, yes, grainy porno films! Needless to say, we soon found out just how bad a porno flick could be, at least visually, if not in execution as well.

Those old 8-mils, before Super 8 with sound, were crappy, frankly, and the sex was almost as mysterious as reading about it in a bad-girl paperback – just what was going on half the time was pretty murky, so you had to exercise imagination. My introduction to the worst aspects of any sort of sexual relationship was repellant and fascinating at the same time, as most of these were copies of copies of low-budget European or US stag films from the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, with plenty of vaguely plain women, with real breasts and often pubic hair, performing fellatio and receiving penetration in various orifices while looking as bored as the men performing with them. On occasion, the women would seem to be moaning in simulated pleasure, or maybe in pain – it was kinda hard to tell on a silent film, and even to my untrained eye, I knew what a hard-on was and many of these guys seemed pretty limp for any sort of sex to speak of, let alone banging three broads in a 5 minute short.

There were only about ten reels in his collection, which included a couple of his experimental home made stop-motion efforts with their family dinner ware and cookery, so there were only a few really interesting moments out of all the chaff on the porno ones. Nowadays, seems like every hetero porno aimed at horny guys has to have mandatory girl-on-girl action, but there was only one very short lesbian bit on the tail end of one reel, and although that actually was the best filmed sequence of any of them, the women both seemed to have minor physical flaws that kept them from being even semi-pretty. I’ve noticed this carries over into the present day – really pretty women generally have already gone on to something more than X-rated films, and even the online porno I’ve occasionally run across is filled with damaged goods or plain girls with a fetish aspect – huge tits, puffy nipples, baby-doll chests, easily violated asses, whatever. I won’t go into the few plusses or mostly minuses about all this, but the whole pre-video underground aspect of the late ‘60s 8MM world is almost unknown and unremembered today.

After a while, it wasn’t interesting enough to go to all the trouble of setting up the projector, and it was a lot easier to look at the latest fold-outs, anyway. Mouse meanwhile, was having to make do with the rare glimpse of a Playboy or some other “men’s” mag if she wanted a so-called man’s-eye view of the feminine ideal, and gossip among her few gal-pals for any other feminine input. One of the few things she’d let on about her family was its utter lack of communication to and from their only daughter, and their adoration of her older brother – this would come back to haunt them in a few years, but that’s for a later entry – so her Mom was no help at all to poor Mouse when the birds and bees subjects started to be more important than playing with dolls or reading Nancy Drew. Like that would’ve been Mouse’s interests, anyway.

She was a voracious reader, and had no illusions about the physical end of things from start to finish – her period had started two years before and she had plenty to say on that subject, believe me, but when I eventually told her about the 8MM films, she was speechless for a moment, then quite voluble about the unfairness of it all – why was she shut out of this kind of opportunity to see sex in action?!? I imagine in today’s world, she’d’ve had ample chances to watch or even experience pretty much any of this by her sixteenth birthday, altho I doubt she’d be giving head to some shithead in middle school, or stroking some other girl’s mons – she had way too many partitions in her life for casual sex to intrude at that point.

Anyway, I told her it was really crappy and hardly qualified as a film, and after a semi-detailed rundown of one of the milder 8MMs, she was mollified, but only because she declared she was waiting for a real, honest-to-god porn film adventure with me - something that wouldn’t happen for couple of years - but at any rate films in general were beginning to break the taboo lines, and we started to see partial nudity on a regular basis pretty soon, if not the outright sex that would be a little tough to see even today in a mainstream film.

This wasn’t to Mouse’s complete advantage, tho, as even using her intellect as a measuring stick, she was still comparing her maturing body, unconsciously maybe, to the American ideal of big tits and skinny bods. She told me later that she took the view that her body was a possible weapon in a sexual manner, so just in case, she planned on fine-tuning that aspect as soon as she could. Now back then, body modification was limited mostly to rhinoplasty and other relatively minor things, and the silicone breast augmentation shitstorm was in the near future, so most racks you saw back then were natural, and therefore more intimidating if you were comparing.

I don’t care how conscious you are of how invidious the pressure to excel is in even the mundane areas of looks or beauty, but at a gut level Mouse was under a certain amount of peer and, yes, personal pressure to look sexy, mostly because, frankly, she was feeling those hormonal changes just as much as I was. I could tell when she was frustrated with how she appeared, and I wasn’t really surprised when in the summer of ’70, she began to dress in a more controlling manner – using as much allure as she had to keep a guy off balance so she could level the field a little. I figured it wasn’t meant for me, or maybe a little tangentially, so I often wondered if it was specifically aimed at someone, but not if at all, because she always had some plan in that head of hers.

She still wasn’t exactly a beauty queen, but she was careful to make the most of her looks in what she wore, which eventually became somewhat scandalous on one glorious occasion in school, where we still had a stiff dress code, and it was zealously enforced. She was thrilled that she was actually sent home to change into something more appropriate, but was disappointed that the only people who noticed were the few of us who knew her at all. We were in a big high school in a desert city, and about a dozen girls were sent home that late spring day towards the end of school because of inappropriate clothing, including some fairly BGOCs, so Mouse wasn’t even on the radar, poor thing.

Soon after that day, we were eating at Mag’s Ham Bun, a long-since defunct restaurant where the thin-sliced ham on a bun with mustard was unrivaled – even to this day, IMNSHO – and it was a fave of both of ours. We’d grab our food and eat at some old cast-iron tables down the sidewalk around the corner, kind of out of sight, where we’d swap books, talk about the ones we’d read, see what was on the bill at the movies we were going to see, and shoot the shit about anything that was interesting. I wasn’t a clotheshorse ever, so I was dressed in my usual formal summer wear for movies – jeans, a loose shirt with rolled-up sleeves, well-worn leather sandals with old tire treads on the bottom, and B & L pilot sunglasses. I had just started wearing hats with large brims, not quite panamas, ‘cause I despised most cowboy hats, and I’d given up on ball-caps – they just didn’t cut down on the sun enough, the ever present heat being the eventual reason I moved from Arizona.

Mouse had decided on a new, yellow cotton sundress with a hemline that fell just past her knees that day, and it had a bit of a Regency look to it, I think because it emphasized her boobs a little more than the usual sundresses she wore, which were cut for cleavage, something she hadn’t developed much of quite yet. It had thin straps she pulled down off her shoulders as we ate, that showed off a nice tan she was developing, and while we were talking they slipped down even more, so she kept pulling them up a little. As usual, she had some big, quirky old-lady sunglasses on, with rhinestones and a beaded keeper so she could dangle them off her finger while talking. She had taken this up recently to cut down on her habit of twirling her hair, something that she had been trying to stop since I’d known her.

One thing you could depend on in Scottsdale back then and probably now, was the never-ending parade of small critters that were looking for shady spots away from the desert sun, so it wasn’t unusual to have lizards skittering, snakes slithering, and most of all, little ground squirrels mooching near the buildings in the old section of town. We had a couple of tiny squirrels that came over every time we were there, and Mouse named them Floppsy and Moppsy, ‘cause tho they weren’t bunnies, she claimed like all good American girls, they aspired to be.

Now, Mouse’s dress had a bow in the back that kept it tight, but it was kinda low in the back, and she must’ve felt it loosening, so she reached back behind with both hands to pull it tight, turned slightly, and knocked her leftover sandwich bits onto the ground under her legs - right then things happened too fast to understand. Suddenly Mouse started making little mewling noises, and started to stand up, then sat down, then stood up real quick, and that’s when it happened.

Her dress caught on something on the edge of the table and as she stood up all the way, it was pulled right off her chest, revealing a pair of firm round breasts in all their glory. I’d seen she wasn’t wearing a bra, and maybe that wasn’t the best idea in hindsight, as I got an eye-popping view. I’ve seen plenty of breasts since then, some of ‘em damn good looking – some firm, some beautifully shaped, some fit the requirements for ‘pert’ perfectly, with all kinds and sizes of nipples and colorations, but Mouse’s stand out - for a pair on my first view, I can honestly say they were very, very pretty.

Her skin was almost white where her bathing suit must have covered her breasts, and the pale, light-blue veins just under her skin there followed the gentle curves of each breast, with a few freckles here and there, and with a tiny mole just under her right arm next to that breast as accents, but topping each breast off were her exquisite nipples – ah, what can I say about them that would convey the rosy pointed lusciousness of those nipples. They seemed slightly erect, but on reflection, it may have been just the natural shape – they were medium-sized, and somewhat conical, two red exclamation points on Mouse’s small, firm pair. In short, she made up in quality what she lacked in quantity.

Meanwhile her arms were constrained a little by the straps, and somehow she just froze up for a second, and she looked right at me, her face at first pale, then flushed. “Well, shit!” she calmly remarked, and the flush spread over her shoulders and her chest while she whipped the straps back up and pulled up the sundress to cover her breasts. She didn’t say anything else until she was finished tying the bow and straightening her dress. She bent down and picked up the sandwich bits and tossed them over a few yards on the grass, and Floppsy and Moppsy were right on ‘em, along with a few sparrows.

“Well. That was exciting.” She sat down, still blushing, and took a long drink of her soda; I think to give her time to compose herself a little more.

“Holy crap! I’ll say! What the hell happened?” I forgot completely how awful that must’ve been for her, and I was still a little dazzled by the experience - I had an instant hard-on, too, and I hoped she didn’t notice!

“Floppsy, or maybe Moppsy, ran up my leg when I shifted my foot to get some ham off of it,” then in a rush of words, “and I don’t know, somehow my dress…um…and...and all of a sudden, my boobs fell out, in case you didn’t notice. If you missed that part - which I doubt - well tough shit…I’m sorry, but I don’t care to repeat it.” She smoothed down her lap and rolled her eyes, “I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life.” She was still blushing and the yellow dress made it stand out even more. She put on her sunglasses, and gave me a prim smile, “Hope it was worth it.”

I finally let loose with a grin I had been suppressing – I didn’t want to laugh and make things worse. “I admit, I got a pretty good look, so yeah, I guess so. I don’t mind telling you...”

She interrupted me, “Telling me what? What? Shouldn’t we be heading to the theater by now?” She shouldered her purse, stood up very carefully, and that was that. At least until the next Saturday.

After a pair of Euro romances that had some discreet tit shots, we were walking home and she sprang her initial prank about nipples, then after calming down, she asked with a sly look, “Seen any others before mine? It’s a first for me, so honestly, what’d you think of my boobs?”

“Are you serious? What would I know?”

“Come on, you’ve seen Playboys, your friend’s smutty little home movies, and who knows what else, and so have I a few times, to say nothing of the movies lately…give me your honest opinion – I can take it, believe me.” She seemed to be almost asking for a disappointment, I thought.

I was still a little embarrassed, so it was somewhat painful to admit, “Yes. It was my first real look at any girl’s boobs, and yes, they were…are pretty nice.”

“Thank you very much. I was kidding about my nipples, but I bet they beat your friend’s 8MM boobs, if not Miss July’s.” She said it in a light tone, and maybe she meant it that way, but it kinda pissed me off – I didn’t like the way she was using worst-case comparisons.

I was a little protective of her, whether she needed it or not. “Cut it out! If you’re trying to turn me on, that’s the last thing to say. I like you too much to start fantasizing about your boobs for no reason, and you shouldn’t be using me that way yourself. What kind of friend would I be if I started agreeing with you compared to centerfolds and porn films? Do you really want that?”

She gave me neutral look, “No. I suppose I don’t, not really. I’m so screwed up about sex and looks and everything lately, Rob – guess I don’t know what I really want.” But I could tell she did know, and dammit, I hadn’t meant to be so harsh. I should’ve known fishing for compliments wasn’t her usual MO, and I’d have to work a little to fix this. I hope I hadn’t hurt her too much.

“Sorry if it came out too harsh, but tit size isn’t why you’re a friend. Movie bimbos don’t count as yardsticks, either, but just so you know, I like you as you are – don’t worry about your boobs so much.”

She was fairly quiet on the rest of the trip home, talking exclusively about the movies we’d seen until we were at the intersection where we usually split up, and she looked back at me and asked,

“Who am I fooling? Am I attractive at all? Or am I just The Skinny Little Rat, like some of the bitches at school call me?” She looked a little forlorn.

“Screw those girls. You look pretty damned good to me.”

“That’s just because you’re my friend, and anyway, I think you’re just being nice. That’s one of your faults, you know, you’re just too goddam nice.” She smiled a little, “I know looks aren’t everything, but I still somehow feel…inadequate.”

“For a girl who’s smart, maybe even brilliant, that was a dumb thing to say!” I grinned, “Shit, that wasn’t so nice, was it? I guess I can’t say I’m nice all the time – I owe you an apology for not looking away when your dress slipped and your boobs showed, but I won’t apologize for telling you right here and now, that they were well worth looking at – hell, they were beautiful. That’s no shit, either.“

Mouse laughed, “Gee, thanks, mister! That’s a little accident that’ll never happen again, believe me! And trying to make me feel good by praising my titties after that lecture? Who’s dumb now?” She laughed again, “OK, I must say, that it does seem to work…a little.” She looked at me ruefully, “Sounds like both of us are grasping at straws.” Then she looked thoughtful, “You really do care a lot about my feelings, don’t you? Thanks for that much, at least, Rob.”

I squinted a little up at the sunlight fading behind her. “I used to think it was just your smarts that I liked, but lately, I wonder if there’s more to it than that – I’ve found you’re pretty nice to look at as well, regardless of what you think. Sometimes I think maybe there’s bigger things in store – except, I know you well enough by now, that you’ll only let it be something little…won’t you?”

The shadows made her expression indistinct. She studied me for a few seconds with her head cocked a little to one side. “Sometimes I think you’re a little in love with me, and sometimes, I think maybe I’m a little in love with you, too, but we both know that’s different than real love – and that’s not something I can give, at least right now.” She looked away, “You’re right - you know me well enough by now, so you know that I can’t change, and I can’t just be in love - it’ll have to be more - much, much more. As for...sex...well, just sleeping with each other isn’t enough make things work, although I guess you can fake it - just look at my parents.”

She walked back to me and looked up at my face. “I’m not ready for anything big yet, but I’m workin’ on it. You’ve noticed, I can tell - I saw that boner last week.” Now I was blushing. “Thanks for the extra looks at my dubious charms - even if I have to accidentally serve ‘em up on a platter.” She flashed a quick grin. “Maybe someday I’ll love somebody all the way, but it’ll have to be my way, I can’t help that – whatever it turns out to be.” She straitened my collar in a sisterly fashion, “I’m gonna try a new tack every so often just to see if it works, so be prepared to be shocked. Wait’ll you see my new dress next week!” I could see her smile and I grinned back. She turned and started walking toward her neighborhood, and spoke over her shoulder, “Wish me luck.”

I watched her walking away for a few seconds, wondering how hard she was going to make her own life from that moment on.

I said quietly, “Luck.”