Sam, an Exotic Dancer?

Janice and Jolene obviously wanted to talk, but from the way they kept glancing at the people around us in the cafeteria line, the subject was not one they were willing to have anyone overhear. Once we were through the serving line, I led the way to a corner table away from the line and the doors. At the moment, it was empty and we could have a private conversation. I picked a chair that put my back to the room. Experience had shown that this way our voices would be masked by the hundreds of other people in the dining hall and with our backs to them, no one could read our expressions or our lips. We had all heard the story about the hearing-impaired girl at a school in the next county who had learned lip-reading to avoid having to attend a special school. She had spread quite a lot of scandal by spying on and then repeating conversations that were supposed to be private. No doubt she did it to make herself popular among those with whom she shared the secrets. In the long term, however, she only managed to make herself an outcast. I was half-sure that the story was only an urban legend, but everyone I knew had taken the moral to heart — a secret is only a secret so long as you protect it.

My new friends sat on either side of me and Jolene slid close enough that her knee was against mine. I wondered what they wanted to tell me that had to be private. Like every other teenage girl on the planet, I was a sucker for a confidence.

While we ate our lunches, Jolene told me that Janice had seen us together afterwards and thought that she could get Jolene to introduce her to me. I wondered briefly why she had felt it necessary to go through an intermediary, but I decided to file it away as just another example of how people were behaving strangely around me all the time. It was probably the same thing that Jim and Bud had been telling me about why boys seemed to be avoiding me — she thought I was 'out of her league'.

"Janice told me about her cousin's experience with a growth-spurt like yours." Jolene said in her lilting Southern accent. "I thought you might like to hear the story from her."

I caught Janice tearing her eyes away from my chest when I turned my head to hear her story. She blushed and managed to look me in the eyes while she told me about her cousin.

"Shirlene was 16 when she started growing," she said. "She's my father's half-brother's daughter by his second wife. Her mother, my Aunt Estelle, has big tits and says that all the women in her family have them too. Still, it was a real shock to Shirlene when she went from a C to a DD practically overnight. Over summer vacation they kept growing until finally she stopped at an E-cup. Shirlene was a small girl like you, Sam. She thought her big boobs made her look funny and she tried to hide them as best she could. She wore clothes that were too big for her and she never, ever went swimming because a swimsuit could not hide anything. She practically became a hermit, locked up in her room.

Well, my Aunt Estelle and Uncle Randy tried to talk her out of it, but they just made things worse. She thought they were worried because she looked strange, not because she was acting strange, so she just got worse.

This went on for two years, until she went off to college at the University of Miami. Her Freshman roommate tried to get her to come out of her shell, and managed to get her to go to a fraternity party. Well, Shirlene had never drunk a drop in her life. The frat boys took one look at her and decided to try to get her blotto. Before you could bat an eye, her clothes were off and she was dancing for them. It was a short trip from there to the upstairs bedroom, where those boys took turns with her all night and most of the next day.

By the time Shirlene got back to her own dorm room, she was a changed person. She dropped out of school inside of a week and got herself a job as an exotic dancer in a nightclub. The month after that we hear that she's starring in adult films under the name of Summer Winters. Right after that she starts sending home $5000 a month to Aunt Estelle and Uncle Randy, along with letters telling them how happy she is now that she has found her true calling in life.

Anyway, when she was home this past Christmas, she told me to keep an eye out for any girl at school who might be having a similar problem adjusting to having big boobs."

"Gee, Janice," I said. "That's certainly an interesting story about your cousin Shirlene. But I'm not sure how that applies to me." I was very curious about any words of wisdom that 'Summer Winters' might have for me.

"Well, you see, she told me that the studio she works for is always looking for new talent and that if you want to give her a call, she will see that you get hooked-up with the right folks."

"Un hunh," I said, stunned. O. Henry couldn't have written a better ending to Shirlene's story than that. "I appreciate the thought, Janice, I really do. But I've got a career already planned." I had to shut up at that point. I could hardly tell them about my planned career.

Janice took my silence for permission to press the issue. She said, "Lord, girl! With those hooters you could make a thousand dollars a day! Anyway, it's never a bad idea to have something you can fall back on if your first choice doesn't work out."

"Thank you, Janice. What a nice compliment! Do you really think I belong in por... ah, adult films?"