The Mammoth Book of International Erotica

believe what your camera can do.

“How much have you made?” Dale asked.

“Not much. The rent went up, remember?”

“Well let’s make out a budget or something, maybe we don’t have to sell anything to buy grass. Or Christmas presents for that matter.”

“Sessions aren’t predictable, Dale. We can’t budget for them. I thought you were off grass, anyway.”

“Well they use it for cancer patients, don’t they? Maybe it’ll help.”

“Help what? God, what a hypochondriac, it really gets old.”

“I’m getting this shortness of breath all the fucking time, dammit, I’m hot then cold, then I start sweating my fucking ass off. What would you call it?”

“Maybe it’s menopause.”

“Har-de-fucking-har.” He put three huge spoonfuls into his mouth in rapid succession before chewing and swallowing. “So you wanna go away for Christmas vacation this year?”

“No, not now.”

“Then when?”

She picked up his empty plate and put it with the dirty pan beside the sink. “Dale, I tried to tell you once what’ll probably happen, what I’m saving for, but you wouldn’t believe me. That’s fine, you can pretend. Sure, everything’s normal, right?” She boosted herself to the counter and swung her feet into the sink to shave her legs. “Luckily I don’t even think you’ll miss me.”

The photographer handed her two fifties before she came through the door. The session was at his house – he had his living room furniture pushed to one side and a corner converted into a set resembling a dressing room in a fancy department store. A three-sided mirror and stool, clothes with tags draped over accordion partitions, big umbrella lamps preventing anything from showing a shadow anywhere.

“Okay, listen to this,” the guy said. He had long hair parted in the middle, the kind that either looks dirty or if it’s clean, is so fine it’s like baby hair that was never cut. He also had one of those halfway mustaches that usually only sixteen-year-old boys can grow, more baby hair. “Okay, listen,” he repeated, “it’s like, you’re shopping, it’s a big day because… you’ve come to the store without your mother -”

“My mother?”

“Yeah, listen, you’ve come shopping, you took a bus or rode your bike, but you came to this upscale store where you get one of those personal shoppers. You see, you’re here to get your first… training bra.” Suddenly he ducked his head and looked through a camera on a tripod. She wasn’t even on the set yet.

“Does anyone even use training bras anymore?”

“Sure they do, and listen, you’re all excited, this is a big day for you, milestone, know what I mean? Today you become a woman… and all that.” He stood up but continued to look at the set, not at Leala.

“And I suppose my dressing room has a hidden camera or two-way mirror. And then what, my personal shopper is a man?”

“Maybe,” he said slowly. “We’ll see. The important thing is, this is such a big day for a girl. It makes her feel like anything can happen. Um, hang your old clothes on the hook there, like you would in a dressing room. And here you go, try these on.” He pulled a plastic Sears shopping bag from behind one of the partitions.

“I doubt Sears has personal shoppers,” she said, looking inside. There were three or four practically cupless bras and matching underwear, one set white with purple flowers, one baby blue, one with pink polkadots, and one set basic white with lace. The bras were just stretchy material with elastic straps and hook in back.

“You can have them when we’re finished,” he said. “Do you have any that nice?”

“No I can’t say that I have any like these. In fact, I don’t have a bra.”

“You don’t?” His face and sad brown eyes and repulsive mustache seemed to leap at her, but he hadn’t moved closer, just was looking at her. “Oh, good, that’s great. Perfect. Like… this’s real, isn’t it? Your first bra.”

“Yeah, whatever. Where should I change?”

“Well… the dressing room, of course.”

She looked back at him for a moment while he touched his limp hair then touched his mustache then put three fingers over his lips and dropped his eyes.

“Of course, silly me.”

He dragged another stool over so he was sitting behind the camera. After her jeans and t-shirt were hung on the hook and her socks stuffed into her shoes (he said leave them under the stool, and let one sock come trailing out of the shoe a little), she glanced at the camera while putting on the flowered bra and underwear with her back to him, but of course she showed in the mirror, tits and trimmed bush. “Your first bra,” he murmured, the camera clicking, zipping to the next frame and clicking again. “How does it feel?”

She turned to hide a laugh as a small burp. The bra actually fit her but the underwear was not bikini style. She could see in the mirror that the high-waisted underwear made her tits look even smaller, the bra like an elastic headband put around her chest.

“Oh god,” he moaned, “god-in-heaven.” The camera clicking and clicking. Her adrenal gland released, the chemical shot through, leaving behind a vibrating hot jello-y place in her middle. She turned slowly back and forth in front of the mirror, stretching to check her ass over each shoulder which also stretched the bra.

“Oops!” One tit popped out when the bra rode up. “Where’s my personal shopper, I need to know if this one fits.”

The guy was huddled on his stool, his face almost to his lap, no longer clicking, sort of whimpering.

“Come on, please, mister? It’s my big day, help me pick one that fits.”

He slid off the stool onto his knees and shuffled towards her. His head came up to her stomach. His eyes were murky and glistening, sweat on his upper lip had dampened the disgusting little mustache. He held her around her waist with one hand, pulling the flowered underwear tight against his chest, bending her knees slightly and throwing her off balance so she had to hold onto his shoulders and lean backwards slightly. With two fingers he eased the bra back over her exposed tit.

“There, it fits like that,” he breathed.

“Are you sure?”

He moved his hands slowly up her body until he was holding her around the ribcage, a thumb on each nipple. He moved the thumbs back and forth, hardening the nipples under the stretchy purple-flowered material. His face tilted up. His two watery eyes right behind each thumb. “Yes, this is how it goes. Like this. Like this.”

“I know sixteen is a little too late for my first bra, but my mother said I wasn’t old enough,” she said, making her voice airy and higher. The flowered underwear were wet between her legs. She tried to grind her twat against his chest a little but the zingers of adrenalin were zapping her almost continuously and she was in danger of falling over backwards.

“No,” he whispered, “sixteen isn’t too old. Not too old at all. You had to be ready. You knew when you were ready.”

“I’m ready.”

“Today you were ready. Today was the day. Oh, but if only your little titties wouldn’t grow any more,” he sobbed, “so impatient for this day, but now they’ll be ruined.” He slid his hands to her back and pulled her stomach against his face, blubbering against her skin below the bra.

“Hey, mister,” she breathed softly. “Today’s not over yet.” She touched a bald spot on his crown with a single finger. “Remember, today’s my big day. And there’s still a half hour of it left.”

He lurched to his feet with her in his arms. “Like a baby,” he smiled through his tears down into her face. He bent and kissed her gently, touching her lips with the awful mustache, while carrying her out of the set and down a hall. The room they went into was dim, but after placing her on the bed, he turned on the night stand lamp and she could see the white lace canopy, the matching white lace lampshade and bedspread and curtains, antique- looking dolls in white or peach or baby-blue satin dresses lined up on a shelf, plus little troll dolls and glass princesses, horses and china puppies, a brush and comb set on the dresser, a life-sized white teddy bear sitting in a corner.

“This isn’t your room is it?” Leala asked, propping herself up on her elbows. He was kneeling again, beside the bed.