Expanded
Part 2 is available at https://rebirth.pub/reddit
I press the plunger to the first stop before the tip goes anywhere near the liquid, then sink it into the reagent and let the plunger back up slow. Fifty microliters climb the barrel. I move the tip over the open Eppendorf and keep my thumb where it is.
The underwire of my bra cuts into my ribs.
The band under my left breast presses in hard enough that I suck a breath through my teeth. I hold it and wait for the pinch to let up. It doesn't. I dispense and set the pipette back on the rack. Then I reach under the collar of my lab coat, work a finger past my blouse, and hook the strap to shift it off the sore spot. There's no give in the elastic. I try to slide it outward anyway and there's nothing, no slack anywhere in the thing, and the finger I've got hooked under it has gone white at the tip by the time I give up.
I take my hand back and look at the row of tubes. An ache spreads across my chest, dull, the kind that doesn't have a source you can press on. I flatten my palms against the black epoxy of the bench. Same stool I've sat on for three years, and my weight is sitting inches further forward than it did this morning.
I reach for my pen. The blouse pulls tight across the front as my arm goes out and the buttons take the strain. Cotton drags over skin. Something in my chest jumps at the friction and I lose the pen, knock it sideways across the bench.
It rolls. I watch it go. I don't get up. I've been a 34B since I was twenty and this feels like five pounds showed up in the last minute.
Heat comes up my neck and settles lower. I cross my legs under the bench, which turns out to be a mistake. The pressure sends another spike of arousal through me. I shut my eyes and clench my jaw until my teeth hurt and breathe through my nose.
The ache gets worse. The tissue is swelling against the bra and I can feel it working, actively, like something with a schedule. I look down.
Under the open lapels of the coat, the pale blue blouse doesn't fit. Fabric tight over a chest bigger than the one I checked in the rearview of my Corolla this morning. The gaps between the buttons stand open, showing skin and white nylon pulled thin.
I uncross my legs and stand.
Stumble, catch the bench. My shoulders pull back on their own to counter it. My back hurts, low, between the blades. I take a step away and have to lean away from it, spine curving.
"Hey, Leah."
Jack's over by the fume hood with a rack of vials. He looks at my face first. Then down. He stops walking.
I turn my back to him and pull the coat closed, arms crossed over the front. Pressing down like that is a bad idea. The pressure of my forearms against the swollen tissue sends a blinding jolt through me. I swallow.
"I have to go to the restroom," I say.
"You want me to grab -"
I'm already going. The weight pulls down with every footfall and the underwire grinds along the fold underneath, sawing at the rib. The cups buckle. The straps are in so deep I can feel my pulse against the elastic.
The hallway is colder than the lab. Everything on my chest goes tight at once and I have to stop. A sharp gasp escapes my lips. I hunch forward to keep the fabric off, but that just moves it. I put my shoulder against the cinderblock and walk myself along it.
Thirty feet to the women's room. There's a printout of the safety rules taped by the door and the bottom corner has been curled since spring, and the third fluorescent tube down has been flickering since March, and facilities keeps closing the ticket. I count scuff marks on the tile instead.
The door with the silhouette. I push it open and get inside.
Empty. I go past the stalls to the mirror over the sinks.
My face is red, blotchy with it. I let go of the lapels and shrug the coat off, hang it on the hook by the paper towels. Somebody's left a Diet Coke can on the counter, sweating a ring into the laminate.
The blouse is finished. The fabric's stretched to nothing over the top and the buttons look anchored to wire. My fingers aren't steady. I get the top one, at the collarbone. Then the next. My knuckles keep brushing the skin and each time it goes through me. Every incidental contact sends a spike of arousal straight to the base of my spine. I bite my lip.
Third button and the two sides spring apart.
I slide the shirt off my shoulders and let it drop.
The nylon is stretched flat, buckling along the seams, losing. The skin coming over the top and the sides is pink, deep pink. D cup now. Maybe E. And it isn't stopping. The underwire is bent out of shape, carving a red trench underneath. The straps are buried.
I put my hands on the edges of the sink and lean into them. The weight swings a little when I move and pulls on the skin. It throbs on the beat of my pulse.
I don't want to touch them. The ache makes me. I get my fingers under the bottom edges, keeping clear of the wire, and lift.
The relief is instantaneous, followed immediately by a devastating rush of pleasure. My breath hitches. Closing my eyes, I let my head drop forward.
I'm a researcher. I need to get back to my bench.
I open my eyes and look again. It hasn't stopped.
Denser, heavier, pushing out. The fabric goes thin over the peaks.
I let go and put my hands back on the sink. Everything drops and the bra takes it as far as it can. The center gore starts to give. Threads snap one at a time and each one pops loud in a room with tile on every surface. The faucet at the far end drips.
I stand there and watch it happen.
The front lets go. The straps whip over my shoulders. The nylon falls off me and hits the wet floor.
The weight lands against my ribs. Deep red lines everywhere the clothing was. The ache goes right through my torso, and the cold air on skin that's never been exposed like this puts my knees close to gone.
I hold the sink until my knuckles ache. I can feel it inside, asking for more room, more skin, more blood.
I take the coat off the hook and pull it closed over bare skin, button it to the collarbone. It's thick enough to drape and hide the worst of it. The blouse stays where it fell. One of the bra straps is lying half in the puddle under the sink and I leave that too.
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