Diary. Thursday 24th April 2008
Our Lass has been considering getting some new breasts. Or, to speak the speak, augmenting. It's been under discussion for a while. Pictures thrust on me - what do you think of those...? I reluctantly force myself to examine a pair of confident 38DDs. Nipples like Tunnock's chocolate tea cakes sat proudly wobbling on orbs of coffee-flavoured blancmange. Well, they're all right, I murmur, squinting critically. So an appointment had been made. We drove out to the clinic at Methley this afternoon. Set in the countryside between Leeds and Wakefield, a tree-lined drive way with big German saloon cars parked up. It's a general purpose clinic where surgeons do outside consultancy work for other companies. In this instance the internet boob firm mybreast. Very plush, stylish and above all - clean. It obvious that the staff are working in the private sector. No wizened old troll pushing a dirty mop over some c.1930 linoleum here. No drunks fighting in A&E. In this clinic it's clear that they see people who walk through the doors not simply as patients but also customers. They're polite, they engage with you when you approach them. They're professionally nice.
After a short wait with complimentary newspapers (today's!) we're shown in to the consultant. He has that familiar chiselled, public school look. His pink tie with the broad knot. The big shiny diver's watch. The Ian Ogilvy haircut. The grey suit with the wide lapels and the pin-stripe. He has the look at all consultants have. Hurried calm, as if he's just come hot foot from the rugby pitch, hair still wet, the sting of a damp towel lingering on his arse cheeks.
We sit in the leather chairs across from the glass topped desk, the offer of a tea or coffee, as he ticks his way through the sixty minute consultation. Pros and cons. Measurements. Options. I fondled the silicone, kneading the doughy mass sensuously in my hand. It was quite calming. But listening to his professional spiel I wonder if when it comes to boobs he has become like the man who works at the Haribo factory. You know what I mean, day one on the production line and he's rubbing his hands, gobbling up fizzy Cola Bottles and multi-colour boot laces by the fistful, gorging on them, best job in the world... much, munch, munch... Then by the end of the first month the very sight of some novelty candy teeth turns his stomach. Knocked nauseous by the prospect of a Pontefract cake. To then ultimately reach the stage that at the close of the year he might as well be sifting through nuts and bolts. Sat there, looking at the consultant, listening to the steady voice and the objective patter, I'm thinking that maybe it's like that for this bloke with tits. That breasts have lost all eroticism as intrinsic objects. That they've become dull. Common place. And, in all probability, some other area of the female body now stands substitute for the erotic importance that boobs used to occupy. Oh, love, you've got a right pair of elbows on you... Can I suck your knee caps...? Perhaps this man, with his hand-crafted accent and sterling silver cufflinks, trawls the internet searching for high definition images of veruccas. Downloading gonzo films of women washing their hands in dirty pot bowls. Because when it comes to boobs he seemed oblivious. Nipple sensation and cup feel... He could have been flicking through a Haynes manual, describing car parts.
And what's more, looking at the titty slide show on his Dell Inspiron laptop I was getting slightly worried by the fact that the only pictures he seemed willing to show with me in the room were of fifty-odd year old women. I looked around nervously. Furtively, I glanced sideways at Our Lass. Had I been rumbled? My cover blown? Had he spotted me - a MILF lover? A penchant for the maturer lady. Because there they were. Front view, profile and some cheeky forty-five degree angle shots. Breasts of a nubile teenager, the stomach and arms of Geoff Capes. And the stretch marks! They looked like badly laid tarmac. I stared at him in disbelief. All that wank fodder packed onto his hard drive and he decides to focus on women with stomachs that look like a selection of driveways put down by a gang of gypsies. I felt like shouldering him to one side, getting my hands on the laptop... 'Come on, let's have a look at the good stuff...'
And as we looked through the jpegs, the one thing I'd never realized is how many women have seriously odd shaped breasts. He opened the folder with 'Suzanne's' shots. Another one from the Saga set. I could feel my head angle back involuntarily, rocking away in the padded leather chair. A confused look on my face. I double check with the specialist. That can't be right, can it? I'd got my thumb out, creating a plumb line. The right one hung a good four inches lower than the left. If it was my car I'd be worried about tyre wear. Are the pressures right on that...?
I can understand why a woman would want to have breast augmentation. We're living in a world that is becoming increasingly obsessed with image. Like it or not. Let's face it, would Margaret Thatcher have ever become conseravitve leader had it not been for her perky breasts and that cheeky smile bamboozling us all when she privatized British Gas? And breast augmentation's not something new. Over the years surgeons have used a bewildering array of materials to pack out female briskets. For instance, attempts were made in the naughty eighteen-nineties to inject paraffin directly into the breast. It worked a treat. Which meant that late-Victorian lovelies could not only have their beloved broad backsides but also a pair of breasts you could eat a three course kedgeree smothered breakfast from. Until the flesh started dying and ruptured in appalling cysts. Since then there's been the use of ivory, glass balls, springs from a Shackleton high seat chair and now the plumped-up wonder of silicone. And as we speak there are laboratory animals in America trialling the use of hair. No sacrifice in vain, I think you'll agree.
