Chapter 32: Author's Notes
There's always one in every junior high school. In my junior high school, her name was Barbara, and I encountered her for the first time in the school library. I went to junior high school in the 1970s, and I was twelve years old in the seventh grade. Back then, junior high school kids were quite a skinny lot compared to what you see nowadays. About 40 percent of us were skinny and scrawny, maybe fifty percent of us were normal, and about 10 percent of us were slightly chubby. I was one of the 40 percent who were skinny and scrawny. One of the flatsies. Yeah, in seventh grade, just about all of us were still flatsies. Puberty didn't begin until maybe eighth grade when a few of the girls started to develop.
I encountered Barbara for the first time in the school library. I was looking through the stacks at the books on the top shelf. Barbara must have entered the aisle behind me. I didn't know she was there. Barbara leaned back against the book shelving and let her breasts completely block the aisle. Barbara's breasts were the wonder of my junior high school. Her breasts came down to her waist and then hung out in front of her like a pair of American footballs suspended in mid-air. They tilted upwards a bit positioning her nipples, which you could see in everything she wore, pointing up at the ceiling. Her breasts not only stuck out to a mind-boggling degree, they also bulged out a bit at the sides as well. They wobbled sideways to-and-fro with every single breath, step, or movement that Barbara made. I put my book back up on the top shelf, turned around to exit the aisle, and got a face full of Barbara. Did I mention that I was short? About five feet tall. Then and now. I walked face-first into Barbara's boobs, and toppled over backwards onto the floor, my eyeballs, I'm quite sure, wide open and staring.
Two boys witnessed the event from behind me and began to laugh. Barbara made a quick exit and was nowhere to be seen. Was it a prank, or an accident? I don't know. One of the boys questioned me.
"What's the matter, Nikki? Get a facefull?"
"That girl's a freak!" I sputtered. I was not the least bit jealous of Barbara. I may have hated being a flatsie, but I would not have wanted breasts that unwieldy even when I despaired of ever landing a boyfriend. Barbara had a face like a photoshop accident. Her eyes looked a bit unnaturally far apart. Her nose looked like an accident with a cotton-picker. Her lips were directly underneath her nose. There was nearly no space between her nose and mouth. Her face was a complete catastrophe. Barbara never lacked for boyfriends. One after another. She could never keep the same one for very long, I noticed. I didn't get my first boyfriend until college. Still skinny and flat-chested.
The feminine ideal in Victorian England was plump, buxom, and curvaceous, with the waist cinched in to an absurdly tiny size by a corset. It's easy to imagine Alice eying the occasional high society lady visiting the Asylum with a bit of envy not just for her luxurious clothes, but also for her luxurious, obviously well-fed figure. Then Alice goes back to her room, looks at her own skinny, underfed, underdeveloped figure in working-class clothes in a full-length mirror, and throws up her hands in despair thinking she's hideous.
Alice's breasts in the good ending (Alice/Charles) and the neutral ending (Alice/Mr. Reed) were modeled to some degree after Barbara's breasts. Actually, I think Alice's breasts are smaller simply because they didn't bulge out sideways the way Barbara's did. I gave top-heavy Alice a more fetching profile.
In the two bad endings in which Alice loses weight, she still remains rounded enough to look acceptable in Victorian society. The important thing is that she doesn't look poor. In Victorian society, a thin physique was associated with poverty. Alice is definitely not thin in the two bad endings.
Afternote inserted. The alternate endings have been removed because fanfiction dot net forbids "interactive material." I had one decision point in the story, but that might have been enough to draw attention from the site's self-appointed censors and prompt a complaint that resulted in the story being removed. I did not want to risk removal of this story over the one chapter with a decision point. Straight, unaltered song lyrics have also been removed. Only the parody lyrics remain.
I don't think I would want breasts as large as top-heavy Alice, myself. I'm five feet tall. Before a two-day hospital stay, I was 150 pounds which were mostly in the right places. I was a Judy Garland type. Was. Two weeks after my hospital stay, I was 140 pounds. The blood pressure medicine prescribed in the hospital made me absolutely miserable for two months until a doctor switched me to another medication. I lost an additional five pounds during those two months. Down to 135 pounds. Lost my C-cups. Now A-cups. Lost a few inches on my hips. Lost my fat little tum below the belly button. I was borderline voluptuous before the hospital stay. The need now to sharply restrict my sodium intake makes it impossible to gain the weight back. I'd like to gain those fifteen pounds back, and maybe even an additional five, even if it does mean getting a fat little tum below the belly button again. I miss my C-cups. I miss the fully rounded hips I had. I miss my backside bounce. I want to fill my old 16W (American size) dresses the way I used to again. I can definitely sympathize with Alice's desire to avoid losing weight. It sucks to lose nice-looking curves. My usual clothes are now obviously a bit too big. I'm two dress sizes smaller. I had to dig out old clothes. When you're five feet tall, every single pound up or down shows. I wouldn't wish "Benign Positional Vertigo" on anybody.
End of Chapter 32
This story is based on the characters created by American McGee. EA (Electronic Arts) owns the copyrights.