why she was called "Tami Beethoven" -- II

       Bracing her hands behind her on the front table where her papers lay, Tami stood bolt upright in front of the class, giving them an unembarrassed full frontal view of her statuesque nakedness.  Her topic: measuring bra size.

        “My, uh, project is on a very basic topic, but I think one that maybe could be done better.”  Tami had little trouble with public speaking, having been Vice President of the student government in her sophomore year.  “I think you girls, anyway, could identify. I remember --”  she looked up at the ceiling, maybe a bit uneasily, her big toe twisting onto the dusty tile floor, “buying a bra that I was sure was the right size, only to get home and it was, like, too tight, or else I was swimming around in it.  Or maybe, did you ever,” she said, looking at a couple of the female students toward the front, “maybe you hadn’t eaten all day, and your, uh, breasts” (one could tell that in this classroom setting she had stopped herself from saying “boobs”) “were far apart, like this” -- she looked down and, cupping her breasts, separated them -- “and the bra didn’t bring them together, or if you ate a lot of pizza or something, they were bigger and more mooshed together” -- the ideal model for what she was talking about, Tami compressed her breasts so that they met -- “and the bra pulled them apart?”

        Some sounds of agreement and nodding from the female students.  There were three male students, and being gay they were less interested, but polite.  Tami was popular with them too.

        Wanamaker said, “So what is your solution, Tami?”  Tami didn’t need it but, after years of seeing students freeze up while giving oral reports, he automatically interjected to help things along.

        Turning around to pick up the papers, giving the class a view of her beautifully formed butt, Tami turned back to say, “The problem arises from the, uh, conventional method of measuring bust size.  Look at page 137 of the Basics of Design text.”

        They could all see a slight sheen of sweat on Tami’s face and her concave tummy, but this was not due to nervousness.  It was well known that in the winter Tami, with her increased metabolism, often felt hot after spending some time indoors.  Also this basement room was stuffy.  Tami looked at Claire in the back row.  “Claire, could you read the first step in that list, on the left?”

        Claire, a very thin Asian girl in a silk puff-sleeve blouse, white jeans and high-heel black boots, found the page and said, “You mean where it says measure rib cage, then across nipples?”

        “No, before that.  The first step.”

        “O.K.  ‘Step One.  Stand upright in a bra that fits correctly.’”

        She looked up at Tami who had a little smile on her face.  It sank in quickly.  Wanamaker laughed and so did some others.  With a big smile Tami said, “Now how it tells you how to measure the rib cage and across the nipples, but first you have to wear a bra that fits.”  She was a little animated now, moving her hands, her breasts jiggling.  “It’s like the joke about the germ killer that says, ‘use only in well-ventilated area’.  But if it was well ventilated, there wouldn’t be germs in the first place.

        “My solution involves some calculus,” she said, turning to the blackboard, making some of the students groan.  Wanamaker good-naturedly said, “O.K., people.”  As she wrote Tami held the papers in her right hand, her butt jiggling ever so slightly, quarter-phase glimpses of her bouncing breasts sometimes being seen.  She was drawing a section of a cone, some curves, an integral... “Make it understandable, Tami.  I don’t want to clip your wings but we’ve never had a math major in this class before.”

        Tami got into the explanation of it and most of the class could partly understand, or thought they did.  “My model is that of a parabola.  Almost all women have breasts that can be fitted into parabolic cups.  I made some computer models.”

        The room went dark and the big screen to the side lit up.  A purple torso with two blue parabolic solids jutting out with some equations on the bottom in a neutral font.  “Ooooo,” someone said teasingly.  “Finally, someone uses our new flat-screen,” Wanamaker said.

        “This is the paraboloid of a C cup.  And now, D, and double D, or E in the British system.  Here’s B and A.”  A few more images and Tami darted to her right and turned the lights back on.  “You can see that, with the breasts free and not wearing a bra, the cross-nipple measurement is plugged into the parabolic formula, and you translate that into cup size.”

        “How do you know this would be comfortable for all women?”  Wanamaker said.

        “Breasts are more pliable than even a lot women think, at least I believe so.  I’ll show you.”  Tami walked forward so that she was between the two students in the front row.  “This would be a spherical model,” she said, grasping her breasts from the front with her palms almost flat against the nipples.  “From there you can go to the paraboloid, then the hyperboloid.”  She cupped her hands around her breasts, then squeezed a slight bit and then a bit more.  “Finally there is the cone shape.”  She squeezed now so that her nipples were sticking out.  “This was the ‘bullet bra’ from the 1950’s.”  She stood in profile, both hands on one breast now, squeezing toward the base with one while the other pulled out on the nipple, extending out from her body quite a ways.

        “And those were very uncomfortable, I hear,” Wanamaker said.

        “But that’s because of the materials used, which were specifically designed to extend the shape.  If the softer fabrics are used, and of course, if the bra size was measured correctly to begin with...”

        “It sure looks like you’re squeezing your tits out,” another girl said, then looked back at the professor.  “Sorry about the language, but it looks painful.”

        “I ask everyone to try it, all you women, next time you’re in the shower,” their naked classmate said.  “It’s not as bad as you think.”

        Wanamaker thought of saying, “All I can think of is B & D pornography, where women get their breasts tied up and clipped,” but of course he didn’t.  As a heterosexual male, he had a fascination with breasts that practically no one else in his field shared.

        “Anyway,” Tami said, “we’re not talking about conical projections, like that bra Madonna wore in the ‘90’s.  They would not be a good idea anyway just before you’re period when you naturally have lumps, especially around here,” she said, lifting her arm and tracing the side of the mound under her shaved armpit.  “My model is with paraboloids.  And now, my real life model,” Tami said.

        Gretchen, leaving her coat on the chair, got up from her place near the door.  Protectively draped in her white sweater, she bashfully folded her arms in front of her as she stood next to Tami, a tall girl slouching, looking down at her uneasy suede boots next to Tami’s confident bare feet.

        “Gretchen is a bio major who graciously, uh, I mean was cajoled, into serving as my guinea pig.  Now up here on the screen, these are CG fill-ins -- NOT photos, I’ll have you know -- of her breasts.  Note the measurements, plugged into the formula, and it shows she’s a 38C.  Now here is an actual photo of her wearing the cotton turtleneck she’s got on now. . . Of course, now she has a sweater over it.  Note the bulging on top in the photo.  Though she measured herself in the standard fashion, it came out to 38B and the bra did not fit.”

        The lights were on again and Tami and Gretchen looked at each other.  “I can tell you’re nervous,” Tami said, glancing down slightly at her own erect brown nipples that had sensitivities well beyond being able to predict the weather.

        As Gretchen bit her lip and took off her sweater, Tami said, “Here she is wearing a paraboloid bra I cobbled together in the dress lab, 38C.  Come on, stick ‘em out,” she teased.

        Gretchen took a deep breath and stood up straight, all five feet eleven inches of her, and turned this way and that.  Her breasts stood out proud and paraboloid.  No bulges or straps were visible.

        “It looks excellent,” Wanamaker said.  “Very nice lines.”

        “Great set of guns, wouldn’t you say?” Tami said.

        The class laughed, and for a second Gretchen swayed this way and that, like a runway model.  Then her upbringing kicked back in and she turned to snatch her sweater and slip it back on.

        “That concludes my presentation,” Tami said, gathering her papers.  Gretchen scurried back to her seat.

        “Thanks, Tami,” Wanamaker said, but before Tami could sit down he added, “Let me say, that’s beautiful hair color you’ve picked.”

        “Oh thanks.”  She looked down modestly, separating her legs slightly, pushing her pubic patch forward and placing her hands on both sides of it as if to frame it.  “It’s called ‘Plum’.”

        Wanamaker was at a momentary loss.  He had been referring to the hair on her head.  But it was the same color so he let it go.  Besides, come to think of it it looked good down there too.

        After Tami sat down the professor, sitting in the back, used a few seconds of silence as most good professors know how to do.  “Thanks, Gretchen, for helping out, and good to meet you... Tami Smithers: A, as usual.  Good project, very inventive.”  A few people clapped.  “Now the next, Claire, you’re up...”