Julia's Chocolates by Cathy Lamb Read Free Book Online

breasts communicated to you?”
    “That’s simple.” Lara dropped her breasts, her eyes flashing in anger, her mouth twisting. “They can’t stand being a minister’s wife any longer. They can’t stand the lid that is tightly nailed down onto the box. They want out. Completely out. They want to be free. Very free. Completely free.” She took another swig of wine, her blond hair falling about her shoulders.
    “Well, then! Your breasts are offering you truth! Wisdom! Share more, share!” Lydia’s eyes opened wide, awaiting the official announcement.
    “They want me to leave here and become an artist,” Lara said quietly. “In New York.”
    And then she burst into tears, burying her face in her hands, the cross dangling between her knees until she reached up and broke it right off the chain.

3
    S ometimes life is better when you’re woozy. Very woozy. My shirt and bra were still off, discarded somewhere behind the couch, the candles flickering between me and the four other women.
    We were still examining our boobs, trying to understand their psychology. Well, all of us except for Lara, who was on her sixth brownie and fourth glass of wine and laughing hysterically on the couch as she mimicked the voices of various people in her church’s congregation.
    At one point she stopped, yanked her boobs up so she could see them well, and said to me, “Still young. Still happy-looking. What happened to me ?” She kept laughing, the sound getting more high-pitched as the evening went on.
    I glanced down at the Mammoth Melons. I had always felt completely detached from my breasts, as if they were another appendage, an appendage that I didn’t need and didn’t want. 35 DD. And they had been that big and bouncy since eighth grade. I almost needed a harness to rein the things in.
    The women in our family line for as far back as we could remember had all had huge boobs. Huge, protruding breasts. We’d all tried to hide them. Even in old family portraits the women are sitting ever so slightly hunched, their shoulders pulled inward, as if they couldn’t stand for future generations to know what lived on their chests.
    Yes, we all tried to hide our top halves, except for my mother, who wore them like a giant come-and-get-me banner.
    And it had worked. Many husbands. Many boyfriends.
    My whole childhood was filled with Creeps Who Liked Large Breasts. Even on children. I groaned as an avalanche of memories started to cave in on me, black and dirty and horrifying, and I fought them off, knowing how they bended what little sanity I felt I had left.
    Robert had liked my breasts, but really nothing else. He had played with them, squeezing them until I’d cried out, pushing them together, then back out. Massaging them as one might massage bread.
    “Come on, baby,” he would whisper, “arch your back for me.” He’d push me onto his king-sized bed in his bachelor pad, insist I strip, then make me pose in various positions.
    At first I had liked it. “You look hot, baby. Open your mouth. Oh, yeah.” I thought it was kind of sexy. I had only been with one man before Robert, a hurried and somewhat drunken affair, and that a man like Robert wanted to be with me at all, that he was willing to risk seeing me naked, well, that in itself was sexy.
    He’d straddle me and play with my boobs with his hands, his mouth, then he’d flip me over and do the same thing. It was as if my breasts were the only thing about me he really liked. He rarely kissed me at all, even less so on the lips, and the second after we’d finished having sex—and he’d never noticed that I’d never orgasmed—we were out of bed, and he would start in on his complaints and demands…
    “We’re going to my mother’s tomorrow night…. I know your cooking class is then. You’re going to have to skip it. I already told her and my father we would be there. My mother wants to talk to you about your clothes. It’s about time, too.”
    Or, “Those pants,