[clovis]

Silhouetted by the hallway light, Olive appeared in the doorway defeated and diminished. The reality of her situation had finally sunk in and she abandoned any attempt at stealth by unceremoniously dropping her many things right there on the floor. With a kick of her heel Olive closed the door with a sharp bang before collapsing onto her bed in a wallowing heap of sobs.

…

There was nothing in the world Aggie enjoyed more than being right. In this bizarre microcosm of exceptional bosoms, she’d long wondered if her secretive roommate, like herself, was an exception to that norm. As the dim early light revealed her roommate laid out flat on her stomach, Aggie’s every suspicion was confirmed. Such a position would have been impossible had those Hindenburg-sized hindrances been the real deal. It was another mental victory for Aggie, but its sweetness was tarnished by the unabated sound of muffled weeping.

Aggie fought the impulse to bail on the uncomfortable emotional display and see just how early the cafeteria opened for breakfast. The combination of bad introvert instincts coupled with an elitist upbringing had earned her few friends. Though they really hadn’t talked much beyond superficial banalities during their semester as roommates, Aggie could see the girl was clearly in need and she was determined to be a friend indeed.

Sitting vigil, Aggie watched as Olive wept until she slept, only to sleep until it was time to weep some more. This process repeated as breakfast time crept over into lunch. Content to wait for Olive to surface, Aggie dug into her snack reserves and got some reading done. For guidance, she first consulted her well-worn copy of Heidegger’s “Sein Und Zeit,” then switched to Pynchon’s “Gravity’s Rainbow” for some lighter fare.

It was already getting dark again when Olive finally stirred and sat herself up.

“Hey,” Aggie pulled up a chair and offered a glass of water as any good friend would do after witnessing such a marathon cry session.

“Um… hey,” Olive groggily offered back, unprepared and a bit unnerved to be met by her roommate’s eager and analytical eyes.

“You should rehydrate. That was a lot of crying.”

Indeed, Olive was parched and took the glass quickly. As she drank however, a sight seen through the glass caused her great alarm.

“My feet!”

“What about them?” Aggie followed Olive’s gaze to the end of the bed where two bare and perfectly lovely feet lay.

“I… can see them,” Olive muttered in a deflated whimper.

Misunderstanding, Aggie covered Olive in her blanket.

“No, I… well,” Olive buried her head in her hands. “Ugh, I guess we should address the elephant in the room.” Dropping her hands Olive looked down at her chest with sadness, “or the complete lack of anything I’d hope to describe as elephantine.”

“Yes, please!” In an instant, Aggie had somehow produced both notepad and pen from who knows where. Quickly realizing this might be construed as rude, she tempered her excitement. “I mean… only if you’re comfortable with it Olive.”

“You… you called me Olive.”

“Oh, was I not supposed to?” Quick as lightning. Aggie grabbed another notebook and began rapidly thumbing through its pages of dense, microscopic text.

“No, it’s fine. It’s just that you never…”

“Here, November 14th, you said your friends call you Olive.”

“You keep a log of our interactions?” Olive asked while defensively pulling her knees up to her chest.

“I… I wanted to be your friend.”

“Okay… but still- little weird.”

“And all that…” Aggie pointed her pen at the rig on the floor, “isn’t a little weird?”

“I’m hardly the first girl to stuff a bra.”

“I’d call that a bit more than stuffing.”

“Well,” Olive crossed her arms over her chest and turned her face away in shame, “I’m thinking maybe I don’t want to be friends.”

“No, please.” Aggie was surprised at how desperate she felt. “Look, this kind of thing doesn’t come easy to me, and this,” Aggie tapped her book, ‘is the only way I know to get results.”

“Well, I guess we all have our quirks,” Olive said glancing at the wreckage of her fraudulent experiment.

“Look, I get wanting to fit in, but this isn’t the place to do it. And believe me, these people aren’t worth the effort.”

“Fit in?” Olive’s face scrunched in confusion. “I came here to stand out- way, way out, and this is exactly the place for that.”

“I think anyplace else and you would stand out.” Aggie averted her eyes, but directed her pen towards Olive’s bust. “You’re not exactly small in the ah… chest area- you know, by normal standards.”

Olive took in a long, deep breath and a pair of nice full E-cups swelled within her nightshirt. She cupped them in her hands and gave them a good looking over. But Olive’s look quickly became one of disdain and she released them in a defeated sigh. “Blech! Who wants to be normal?” Olive spat the word out like it tasted bad. “And yeah, I might stand out in this room, but in a few days I’ll have nothing on you smartypants.”

Aggie looked up from her notes with a rare look of utter confusion. “Huh?”

“Oh, you think Tierney’s the only one I’ve been trying to compete with? The real threat is YOU!” Olive made her point with an accusatory finger directed at Aggie’s modest chest buried deep within a bulky flannel.

“Wha- what?” Aggie went nearly cross-eyed from the accusation. She had an easier time with Grime’s equation than deciphering her roommate’s nonsensical ramblings. She knew the school put them together because they didn’t know what to do with them, but now Aggie wondered if she was the victim of yet another prank.

“ONE SEMESTER!” Olive wailed. “I’ve only got one semester left. There’s no way I can get properly big now let alone be a contender.” Aggie saw actual tears forming in the girl’s eyes. Clearly this wasn’t a joke, though Olive’s level of despondency and absurd convictions had Aggie now questioning her roommate’s sanity.

“I mean, what was the point of coming to this godforsaken place and putting up with all its prima-donna bitches?” Olive wiped away her tears. “No-offense.”

“None taken.” Aggie said nothing, just stared on in bewilderment while one hand rapidly jotted down more notes.

“And you know, Tierney’s really not that bad either- said I was free to carry on more or less as if nothing happened. And sure, the only one I’m really fooling is myself, but now that I’ve been up close and personal with the real thing…”

“Up close?” The comment sent one of Aggie’s eyebrows up.

“The size. The feel. The weight. The smell… MAGNIFICENT!” Olive’s eyes rolled back into the glorious memory. “Just wait, you’ll see. If you really are a legit prodigy, then you’ll be a bigger bust goddess than even Tierney by the time you get out of here.”

“I… I…” Aggie read and re-read her fresh notes and came up with nothing. “My aptitude and measurements could not have less to do with each other.”

“Oh, ha-ha.” Olive mockingly slapped a knee. “Not here they don’t.”

“Wait… what? Olive, I think you’re very confused.” Aggie tried her best to not sound condescending. “I think you’re conflating an effect with some disparate cause, but let me assure you, hillbillies aren’t the only people guilty of inbreeding. What you’re seeing here is some strain of hypertrophy that was selectively or inadvertently ingrained into this population- one that thankfully passed me by.”

Now it was Olive’s turn to look incredulous. “Are you stupid?”

“I…” Aggie’s reaction was akin to a slap in the face. Closing her notebook she said in a wavering whisper, “maybe I’m not so keen on having a friend either.”

“Look,” Olive grabbed her bosom for emphasis, “what little I have now is far more than I came here with. It was the girls back home who teased me and gave me the name Olive- short for Olives- which despite my deepest wishes, was all mother nature saw fit to give me.”

“Wait,” Aggie went back to her notes, “why would you want to be called Olive if it’s a cruel nickname?”

“Well, it was cruel then, especially coming from those girls struttin’ about with bras filled with their adequate apples or generous grapefruits. Not that I got the worst of it, mind you, there was another girl we called Raisins.”

“We?” Aggie admonished.

“Raisins was a prima ballerina- she couldn’t have cared less. Anyways, I took the name Olives to be ironic- like calling a really big guy tiny. Deep down I knew any comparison to me and the most meager of foodstuffs wouldn’t last for long. I was destined to sprout some real produce- not just the sort you grab by the handful, but some proper two-handers. The kind with some real heft that just begs to be squeezed and caressed. So ripe so full, and so frickin’ big- the kind of big that wins top prize at the county fair. The most perfectly swollen and juicy things you’ve ever seen- all heavy and bloated with the sweetest, most succulent flesh.”

“Umm… I think the cafeteria's still open if there's something you need to, ah… take care of.” Aggie joked, but found herself licking her lips nonetheless. “You know, for my eighth grade science fair I grew a forty pound tomato.”

“That's what I'm talking about!” Olive exclaimed while holding her hands way out to envision how a pair of such behemoths would project from her chest.

“Well, it sort of malformed under its own weight. Looked like an angry Nixon.” Aggie let out a little sigh at what seemed a lingering middle school regret before asking, “but honestly, vivid analogies aside, what girl outside of this place would even think such a size possible?”

“When I was a kid, my mom worked in the cafeteria here and used to sneak me in if she couldn’t get a sitter. Seeing all these overblown beauties really did a number on me and this place became an obsession. It was hard work, but I learned all its secrets. Getting enrolled was actually the easy part. They give out one scholarship for tax purposes, and they don’t bother looking far. Mom sent in my application and here I am.”

“Well then, who’s the dumb one?” Aggie retorted. “If what you’re saying is true and you’ve been taking classes here for four whole years, shouldn't you be more on par with the other girls here?”

“Yeah,” Olive gave one of her breasts a poke, “the flaw in my plan. I’m an art major and… well, let’s just say art is subjective. Though you think my stuff would go gangbusters here- a celebration of the female form, but mostly big ole’ boobs. But apparently that’s too gauche or something. Your kind don’t talk about their vast wealth or their vast bustlines even though it’s all out there for the world to see. Probably why they dress like their politics- conservative. They accentuate nothing. I mean, if I had those kinds of boobs, or money, everyone would know about it. But look at me now… Ugh! I’m not even a quarter of the woman I was just yesterday!”

“You really wouldn’t want to be that big though?” Aggie asked throwing another glance at the bulky mess on the floor. “Would you?”

“Well, ah…” Olive blushed. “The way you phrased that question makes it kinda hard to answer honestly.”

“And your deflection tells me you’d want to be even bigger,” Aggie hadn’t even realized she’d gone back to taking notes as Olive simply smiled back and blushed an even darker shade. “But really, wearing that thing over there should have taught you how uncomfortable such things would be.”

“Everyone here seems to manage okay. Besides, it’s no different than those girls who wear high-heels all the time. It’s uncomfortable, but they want a certain look.” Seeing an argument quickly form on Aggie’s lips Olive dismissed her with a wave of her hand. “Oh, what do you know about it. You’re young, you’re just a freshman.”

“I’m twenty three!” Aggie sat up straight as if to present herself as taller. “I’m one of the oldest girls here. A bulging bust isn’t actually a sign of greater maturity you know. I was a prodigy which is how I’ve already attended five of the world’s top universities starting at age eleven. And I’m no freshman. I’m a one and done. Credit-wise I could leave right now. I’m just here to fulfill a family obligation which…” Aggie’s eyes suddenly went wide and she bolted up out of her chair. “Wait… wait… wait…” Olive thought her brainiac roommate was suffering some type of glitch as she watched Aggie’s eyes dart rapidly to and fro and her head tilt about in various positions as if her brain was performing some immensely complicated computations.

Olive subtly scooted herself back on her bed. “I mean, there’s a whole wing of this school with your family’s name on it- makes sense they’d want you to come here. Take the freshman comment as a compliment. At your size, you’re either a freshman or an idiot.”

“No, it’s not… everything you're saying is insane… and yet, so much of my life would finally make sense.” Aggie’s head was swimming in a flood of new data. “My mother, my aunts, cousins, and all their friends. They all got big when they were away at college. This college.”

“See?”

Aggie looked down at her own chest. “Did they really make me come here so I’d get big like them?”

“There are worse reasons to attend college.”

“No… no…” Aggie did her best to resist the ludicrous ideas polluting her mind. “No, there’s a perfectly good reason for all of this. I mean, it’s been scientifically observed throughout history that wealthy females develop later than, ah…”

“Poor ones,” Olive finished.

“So, isn’t that more likely than what you’re suggesting- which is what exactly? Something in the water? Some mystical text woven into the grading system that make a girl magically sprout gargantuan mammaries?”

“No,” Olive shook her head at Aggie’s silly hypotheses, “when your grades arrive in your mailbox you also get the… I don’t know what to call them exactly… pills?”

“Wait, WHAT?” Aggie ran to a drawer and pulled out a large clear baggie that was absolutely bulging with what appeared to be dozens of colorful marbles. “Are you talking about these?”

“HOLY #@&%^!!!”

…


*Finally some new content. Sorry about the lag, but I am writing quite a lot right now. I've added a ko-fi link in my signature below which is a tip jar of sorts. I'd like to keep things free, but anything would help. If you can't make a donation, comments (even criticism) would be much appreciated as well. If you do leave a tip, let me know what story you are following as it may help me focus on what to put out and when. I'll continue my ongoing stories, but have some entirely new short stories as well. These may be held until a price goal is hit- I haven't decided yet. Also, what are some ideas for rewards? Is there such a thing as a writing sketch? Maybe a paragraph or two using my own characters or yours with a suggested scenario. Let me know your thoughts, and thanks for reading.