Haresh Shah
Let A Pencil Be The Judge
‘How can you tell if someone has firm breasts?’ Asks Marie.
Just a couple of hours earlier we sat at the riverside Marina City Restaurant in the Marina Towers. During the course of the evening, I happen to mention to Marie how bummed I was that at the last minute my friend Jena had backed out on me. At the time I was still working for Time & Life and getting into some serious photography, to an extent that I had not only bought myself the Pentax Spotmatic, and several lenses, flesh unit, filters, tripod and all, but had also set up the dark room of my own in the storage closet of my South Shore Drive apartment. I was better at doing close ups and headshots. I had natural aptitude for it. But now I had gotten into my head like most every artist and photographers that one of the things I would also like to do was to do some female nudes. Jena and I had been good friends and she offered to pose for me, but had gotten cold feet at the last minute. Even I didn’t realize how sad I must have looked as I was relating this to Marie – whom I had just started dating.
‘That wasn’t nice of her!’ says Marie in a tone of a little mother comforting her child. And we resume our dinner.
‘I’ll pose for you!’ I hear her say while we are waiting for our coffee and the deserts. I feel her gentle gaze fixed on me as she offers to be my model.
We finish our dinner and rush to my apartment. I am nervous as can be and Marie is too. Doing the nudes is the first for me – it is for both of us and we are not working on being just friends. We have already shot a film or two and now taking a short break. We are sitting on the floor on the generously padded wall-to-wall rug, relaxed enough for Marie to feel comfortable sitting in front of me in the nude.
Marie is not the most beautiful girl on the earth. But not bad looking either. Just your regular girl next door. Going for her is her youth, she is only twenty three. Not that I am much older either. And she is built like a brick shit house.
‘How?’ I ask.
‘Do you have a pencil?’
‘Sure.’ And I get up and fetch one from the desk in my bedroom. She gets up and stands in the middle of the room, stretches her frame vertically and brings her feet together, as if at attention. Takes the pencil from my hand and levels it against the lower curve of one of her breasts and lets her hand go. The pencil comes tumbling down and lands at her feet. I pick it up and am now standing face-to-face with her.
‘You see?’ She asks. But I’m afraid, I don’t.
‘Let me show you again.’ And she snatches the pencil from my hand and levels it under the other breast and lets go of it. Again it comes tumbling down.
I still don’t get it.
‘You see, my breasts are as firm as can be. The reason the pencil falls down. But if there were even a tiny bit of sagging, they would hold the pencil right where I placed it.’
And then I see her cupping her breasts and slightly cradle them, as if saying good girls! I suddenly feel jealous of her hands.
Now I see. ‘Wow!’ I’m in awe of her proven firm breasts.
Fast forward sixteen years. It’s the spring of 1986. We are in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, shooting a multi-girl pictorial containing of the girls from the countries participating in Mundial ‘86 – the Soccer World Cup – hosted by Mexico that year. We have a private bungalow within the complex of Hotel Krystal Resort. Secluded and complete with its own outdoor swimming pool. While the crew is busy setting up details of the group shot, the girls splashing in choreographed harmony, the girls are clustered around the shaded patio that connects the house with the pool. Seems like there is some commotion going-on on the patio. The girls are in the different stages of undress, just standing around, sipping on their drinks, talking and surrounding Brenda.
‘Really? They’re beautiful. They sure look real to me!’ I hear one of them say while her gaze fixed on Brenda’s breasts. As I walk towards the girls to find out what the commotion is all about, they part to let me in.
‘Did you know that she have had a boob job?’
‘Who?’
‘Brenda here.’
‘Is it true?’ I asks Brenda.
‘Yup!’
‘When did you have it done?’
‘Oh, not long ago.’
I look at the proud and pleased expressions on her face and then at her firm-as-boulders pair of breasts. Not long before I had looked at the set of her test shots. And her breasts looked just fine, but when I mention them, she tells me how she had decided to have them enhanced after having looked at those photos.
‘I just wanted to have them bigger and firmer.’ She tells us.
‘They sure look great, wow! I thought the surgery would leave visible cut marks under them?’
‘Not really. Yes, they do, but barely.’ And she lifts both of her breasts with her hands and all I could see underneath them were teeny-tiny incisions.
‘That’s incredible. Do they still feel the same? I mean, to touch?’
‘Of course they do. I sure don’t feel any difference. Neither does my boyfriend. You want to touch them?’
‘No,, its alright!’
‘I don’t mind, really.’ She says and moves closer, as if presenting me two giant scoops of vanilla ice cream topped with cherries. Sure enough, as far as I can tell, they are firm and they feel as natural as any other set I have ever touched.
‘See?’ And I see a smile of satisfaction on her face.
‘That’s great. Now it’s time to get back to work.’ As I walk back, I couldn’t help but wonder whether they would pass Marie’s pencil test?
A year and a half later. We are doing another multi-girl pictorial. This time in Hong Kong. Its rather late in the night. Must be past eleven. I no longer remember what it was that I needed to communicate to the girls urgently, I knock on Lynne (Austin) (Playmate July 1986) and Shannon’s (Long) (Playmate Australia – September 1985 and US October 1988) door. Unlike in Mexico where each girl had a room of her own, in Hong Kong we have them sharing rooms. Lynne opens the door. They are wide awake and having a glass of wine. Probably one before calling it a day. They are already in their pajamas. Nothing out of ordinary, except that they seem to be holding back something – a smile. A big laugh even.
‘Uhm! What’s going on?’
‘Oh nothing. Just girl talk!’ Shannon chirps coyly and then gives a mischievous sideway look to Lynne.
‘Come on, you can tell me!’ I prod.
‘Should I tell him?’ Asks Lynne.
‘If you want to!’
‘Alright. Why not? Haresh is one of us. Well, Shannon and I were trying to figure out which one of us got the bigger ones? I was convinced that I did.’ That made sense. Lynne is taller and looks proportionally bigger at 5.6 ½” (1.68m) compared to compact Shannon at 5.3” (1.60m).
‘Don’t tell me you guys were going to measure them before I knocked on the door!’
‘We were going to, but then Shannon points me to that…’ I follow Lynne’s eyes moving in the general direction of Shannon’s bed. Pitched on the top of it is what I can only describe as giant twin tents of a bra.
‘She does!!!’ Concedes Lynne.
And I thought it was just us deprived and depraved male of the species that obsessed over the female mammary glands.
Haresh Shah 2013
Illustration: Celia Rose Marks
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