Cosmetic breasts

I received an email a few months ago from a lecturer friend in America.

Hello X,

Well how are you my friend? How is it going? Are you still writing that new novel of yours? Look, I know we fell out a bit over my comments on your last book, but what could I have done except been honest? And what does my opinion matter anyway. Others may well like it. Perhaps it just wasn’t my cup of tea. You know you should really learn to handle criticism better. You can’t expect us all to just say it’s wonderful, now can you? After all I thought you valued truth above all else? Do you want us all to lie? Anyway if you are writing another novel, and you feel it might be more my thing, perhaps you could send me an extract. I’ll be happy to read it for you my friend. Like I said, I thought your last book showed a lot of promise.

All is well here, the new semester has just begun. My friend, how can I say it: Autumn is arrived. The most magnificent season of the year. Its arrival and the subsequent commencement of the Fall term always does such wonders for me. It’s so invigorating and I feel almost as though I’m back in the womb, so comforted am I by autumn’s presence, so at peace with the return of this dear old uncle of a season, this quiet and sedate period. It’s such a sadly calm season, and its power is that it is able to induce this calm in us all. He is quietly potent, is Autumn. And after the dreary dissipation of August, when you’re sick to your back teeth of the back end of summer, and when the university is deserted, and day after day after day goes by monotonously, it’s always refreshing to see the students back. There’s an air of excitement, of freshness, of anticipation. They’re enthused once more, recharged, ready for the calm comfort of learning, the soothing regime of study. At least for the first few weeks. No, tell me my friend, is there anything more harmonious in this world than the dark peaceful nights of Autumn, and sitting down at one’s desk to work with a new set of pens and paper? Hmm? That complement between Autumn’s all pervading calm and the soothing solace of study? It is magnificent. Yet this year I’m afraid to say, something spoilt it.

One afternoon, a week prior to the commencement of term, I found myself alone in my office, preparing notes for a second semester course, Continuum mechanics and Lagrangian systems. I had been reading through a text book and making notes, and I was in that pleasant mood that follows in the wake of a few hours spent in quiet study. That sated feeling, you know, when you love a subject, and enjoy refreshing yourself with it, when you’ve read awhile and feel happy at heart. Calm and as if all can be dealt with. And feeling thus, I decided to have a stroll to the staff room and make another cup of coffee.

With empty mug in hand, I left my office and plodded through the deserted corridors to the staff room. Although the term had not begun, in the week preceding term, as I’m sure you remember, a few students start to appear around the building. I walked by one table, sitting at which were a handful of returning sophomores. They were eagerly discussing something, the drift of which was that someone or other had had breast augmentation. And you know when I first heard this, my immediate gut reaction was to think that they were talking about a fellow student. I don’t know why I thought this. Of course it was much more probable that they were talking about a celebrity. Yet I couldn’t help believe they were gossiping about a fellow student and I had a bad presentiment. However I soon dismissed these thoughts, reassuring myself that they were speaking about some celebrity or other. I knew I was being oversensitive; and knowing myself well, I saw that the mere idea of a student undergoing cosmetic surgery so appalled me that some perverse part of me wanted it to be true; in order that, I don’t know, I might feel desperately depressed over the sheer depravity of humanity. I knew I was being silly. Experience has taught me that in real life people are a lot more grounded and normal than on TV. This was the university. The students were good, intelligent people. I put aside these thoughts.

You know I can’t say I’ve ever been comfortable with the notion of plastic surgery – in my youth I was mortally depressed by the issue – yet in some ways I think that as a society we’ve come to accept it. At least with celebrities that is. The rotting vegetable celebrity world, the world of vanity and egotism, of brainless and mindless stupidity; in this world, this world we are removed from, I think it is at least possible to come to terms with this sick procedure. And one of my most reassuring thoughts that I held in my youth, was that this world would never permeate the real world, and that one could be happy and alone in this life, isolated and cut off from all the sickening acts of celebrities and their plastic surgery. And especially for me, the university, which has been, for all my adult life, a place of immense charm, a place of peace, solace and learning, a seat of honesty, freedom and tolerance, where one can educate oneself – within this pure world I always felt invincible and leagues distant from all that was worldly. Yet this belief of mine has now been destroyed.

Over the next few days I heard more conversation amongst the students about a girl having had plastic surgery, and I started to become convinced that it was in fact a student they were speaking of. It kept coming up too often for it to be otherwise, I thought. Naturally, I felt really troubled by this, yet I was beginning to quietly accept the depressing truth of it. It seemed to be the one and only topic of conversation. (The students I might add, were evidently upset by it; but I’ll come back to them later.) And as I began to accept it, a new feeling crept into my heart: curiosity. I wanted to know who it was who had done this. I felt revulsion for the act and for the person who had committed it; yet I have to confess I was terribly interested in the girl in question, and felt a mixture of revulsion and attraction to her. I don’t mean physical attraction. I mean I was attracted (and revulsed) by a personality so warped and wicked as to do such a thing. It seems to me that when a woman enlarges her breasts she does two things: the first is too physically impress men with her new assets; the second is to get men so worked up, so repulsed, and hurt, that they are naturally attracted to such a vulgar creature. At least I think so. But I’m getting ahead of myself. For the present I still wasn’t certain of the truth, and that all of this wasn’t just in my head. Then on the first Monday of the term, at around noon, I was in the staff room and it was confirmed to me.

Three staff members were having a very heated discussion. Asking what was up (though I had a strong presentiment of what it was), Dr Porter, one of the three, told me that ‘Kelly Huntington had had her breasts enlarged.’ Even though I had fully anticipated this, the moment was an awful one. As though my world had ended. Do you remember when how you were little you used to imagine one of your parents committing adultery? Well I do. I used to lie awake at night worrying about it. That awful moment when I would be told that my father had ran off with a harlot, my mother left alone and in tears, the family at an end. My parents splitting up: the end of the world. I used to lie awake for hours contemplating it. And this was how I felt now. Such feelings I have never felt since I was at school, when I was so often in trepidation and in fear, as when on the few occasions I did something naughty and was told off. Your heart pounding and sinking to the stomach as though your life is over; a feeling of sickness and disaster, of regret, my face growing hot and, I imagine red, these were my feelings when I kicked to the point of seizure my best friend, an asthmatic, whilst playing football at school, and this was the sensation that reoccurred to me when I heard the news.

I felt incredibly, incredibly embarrassed, my face felt hot and red, and you know I have one of those faces that cannot, I mean absolutely cannot hide my true feelings, so that all my sensitive thoughts on the issue were mirrored on my face. People could see how this whole matter deflated me. I felt so embarrassed, but also humiliated, as if belittled. I felt degraded somehow as if it was an insult.

‘Oh! Horrible!’ I exclaimed, never liking to hide feelings. ‘Who is Kelly Huntington?’

Porter gave a curt response, but I couldn’t work out who the girl was, the name meant nothing to me. I was desperate to know who she was. Yet I desisted quizzing Porter further. I don’t really like him to be honest. He’s okay I suppose, it’s just, he’s so smug and self satisfied. He’s good looking, incredibly popular with the young ladies. But personally I think he’s a bit simple. He’s very clever. And he genuinely believes that his good looks make him cool. Yet he’s so not cool. He’s more the conceited and boring mathematician than anyone. He’s got a superiority complex. He can’t take people for what they are or act naturally. Anyway he doesn’t think much of me and wasn’t going to explain to me who this girl was. Instead he resumed his conversation with our two other colleagues, Mark Albright and Dr Irena Pravalova.

Irena Pravalova – I think you met her once? – is a highly intelligent, strong minded, strong willed woman. She’s a peculiar mix of glamour and intellect. She’s good looking, dresses exceptionally well and in lots of ways is very much at home in the world. Yet what endears her to me is that in equal measure, she is a true mathematician: I mean she adores the purity of the subject, the elegance of it, she loves to explore its stark, barren, yet rewarding terrain. And she is an outsider, aloof from mainstream society. She is pure, she’s not afraid to appreciate the finer things in life, and as well as this she has that natural love of justice, that is common to the mathematician, that desire for equality for all, for social justice, even I might say that communist streak, that extremist sentiment. Yet she’s wise enough to balance these with an astute understanding of reality, and like I say in her dress she’s very elegant. She’s also nice, like most quietly successful people, she’s a student of Functional Analysis and Toeplitz matrices, she’s a hardcore mathematician, and you’ll be lucky if you find maybe two or three other women in the U.S. as brilliant as her. She is friendly to all, a true disciple of Christ, being in charge of disabled student’s welfare for maths and science. Anyway, she was really pissed as they say here, by the whole issue. I was glad she was. She always speaks her mind. She is strong enough to.

‘Well it’s disgusting, it’s revolting, it’s unnatural. There’s no place for it, full stop’ she said angrily and enraged. She was very stirred up and beside herself. I’d never seen her so at sea. And although I was glad she was taking it like this, I was a bit surprised to see her reduced to this contemptible state. Usually she’s so calm. I didn’t know what to make of this, this hissy-fit, this display of moral outrage come feline jealousy. I felt sorry for her and contempt for her in equal measure.

‘Oh come on, it’s a woman’s choice, if she wants it done. I don’t see that there’s any harm in it,’ said Porter.

‘No harm in it! What are you saying? You are wrong! It is disgusting’ responded Pravalova. Normally so calm, she was so disorientated by all this and was getting nowhere in her argument with the smug and lying Porter. In the end, sensing that she was all at sea, and that it was contemptible to argue with him, she stormed off. She was livid.

When she’d gone Porter passed some comment to Albright and myself about her being oversensitive. What a complete cocksucker he is! What a fucking toad. He’s such a false, fake loser. You see he’s playing a game where he pretends to be perfectly at ease with the thought of a young woman getting breast implants, and pretends that others like Pravalova can’t handle it. Why can’t he just say it’s sick, it’s revolting, it crushes my soul? Instead he pretends it’s the likes of Irena, someone who is strong enough to own up to her feelings, who’ve got a problem. He’s such a dick, he’s always making her out to be a lesbian feminist type and can’t appreciate any of her grit, her strong mind, her character.

Anyway as Porter and myself stood there, Albright took up his rant.

‘It’s such a disgusting, unnatural operation. I mean please! It’s these foolish magazines with all their pictures of women with humongous breasts which make a young girl so insecure that she has to rush out to a clinic over the summer to have silicon stitched into her breasts by some pervert doctor, some money-making good for nothing son of a bitch. What ever happened to the Hippocratic oath for Crissakes! These doctors they’re subhuman filth. They should be telling these girls to get on with their lives, to be happy with what they are, but instead they’re pocketing thousands for butchering them up and sticking shit down their bodies.

‘Honestly these doctors are creepy. They’re such perverts, chopping women up and cauterising them, and then moulding their breasts to perfection. They’re complete perverts. The problem is they’ve all got such incredibly small penises, that this is the only way they can satisfy a woman. I’ve seen them on TV, these old, lecherous, filthy, fucking Frankenstein’s. They reappear at the end of the operation when Miss rat girl is awake and joyously enraptured in her new breasts and the Frankenstein comes in and starts fondling her breasts and saying how’s that my dear, have I satisfied you now? Motherfucker! Fawning on these vein women like dirty old rats.

‘And they take all that dough as well, and buy a new Lexus and a luxury apartment and holiday five times a year in Hawaii. And the whole sickening procedure is dangerous. These people aren’t regulated. No sir, they’re frigging cowboys. Anyone with a modicum of common sense can see that the procedure is dodgy. I mean come on, sticking silicon into your body! For God’s sake! What if it leaks into your bloodstream? They don’t report it in the press, but most women who get breast implants become ill; they get gross back ache, they can’t even walk let alone run, their hair falls out, their faces burst out with a rage of acme, they start vomiting, they suffer severe chest pains, they’re more prone to cancer, their children are born blind, dumb and brain damaged, they have nervous disorders, suffer spasms, it can even lead to kidney failure. And yet these mother fucking doctors not only help them to do it, but they get paid a bomb for it.’

‘And these rich girls with their rich daddies, who are gonna pamper their daughters and give them boobs – God it’s so disgusting!’

And on that note he ended, having worked himself up to utter peevishness. His rant was bold but by the time he’d said that last he was beside himself. By ranting he’d actually got himself even more worked up, and by the end he looked at no one, he seemed to be miles away, looking down and inwardly as though into an infinite abyss. And he sounded so peeved as those last words dropped out of his mouth: he could barely spit them out. He just couldn’t take it. I stood there saying nothing, but just looking downcast as if I commiserated with him. Porter said

‘I don’t see why you have to be so troubled by it. Nowadays the procedure isn’t so risky. In fact there’s evidence to suggest that getting cosmetic surgery improves your health, your mental health that is. If it makes people feel better about themselves, I don’t see what’s wrong with it.’

But Albright was having none of it and gruntingly dismissed Porter’s words. He was besides himself. So much so that he thought he suffered alone, that he was the only one who felt it. He couldn’t see that others, for example myself and Irena felt exactly as he did. The meeting eventually broke up.

My sympathies were totally with Albright: I felt the same way as he. Whereas that worm Porter infuriated me, by his smug and fake way of pretending everything was dandy. I mean moral issues to one side, any woman must have a natural horror of having breast implants. Can you imagine the thought of getting silicon stuck down your nice, natural, childish chest? Psychologically a girl must feel averse to it. Yet in terms of what they were saying, the truth is, I’m afraid to say, that Albright’s arguments are flawed and Porter’s are correct. The operation does not appear to have a bad effect on a majority of women. (Or at least it seems that way to me. To be honest though I don’t think anyone knows. There doesn’t seem to be any official word on this; and it’s such an emotive issue, that you don’t know who to believe. It would be easy to say it’s bad and those who deny it are protecting the industry; but then again, those who have an understandable aversion to it and who feel it’s revolting, well perhaps they are the liars, blinded in their judgement and wrongly believing there to be risks where there are none. It’s a propaganda war for sure.) But like I say, it doesn’t seem to affect the majority of women, and even if it did that does not mean a perfectly harmless technology could not be invented in future to do the same. I mean the procedure is so improved now – and will only continue to be so – that in the foreseeable future, not only will it get safer and safer, but it will also become dirt cheap so that anyone can afford it. Imagine that, aye, my friend? Every girl having it done. Every single girl. A standard procedure. Just like having a filling or getting your hair dyed. And of course, in time perhaps people will just be genetically manipulated, with a little bit of tinkering here and there, to look like that: so you see it’s all possible. Sick yes, but at the end of the day we’re just animals, we are evolution’s whore and nothing more.

And yes, these doctors may be perverts, but you see they remind me of artists. Do you see the parallels? Watch those documentaries and you’ll see what I mean – in fact many of these doctors are painters as well. And especially, I can’t help being reminded of Renoir, one of my favourite painters. Look carefully at his work and you’ll be impressed by what a pervert he was, the way he has women’s breasts constantly in his paintings. Even I recall, there is one of his baby’s Nanny, her dress slipping over her shoulder to reveal her breasts. It’s easy to imagine Renoir, sensually unwrapping this nanny of his, never satisfied with allowing the breasts to remain uncovered. Plus all his women have large and excellent breasts. And I remember in one picture he seems to deliberately have someone lifting up the nappy of his child in order to reveal its soft, fleshy buttocks. Pervert! Really you can feel the sensual pervert in him. I mean don’t get me wrong, part of me has always found nudist painting, especially by these brilliant French artists, vulgar and base, a corruption of their talent, as though they were selling out. Yet another part of me is attracted to it, and enjoys the sensuality of it. I guess we’ve returned to some timeless questions: what is beauty? Is it profound or base? Where does a natural and platonic love of beauty give way to sordidness and vice? What is the difference between art and pornography?

And of course it is pornography that is to blame for much of this. You and I both misspent a good part of our youth looking at porn magazines, and if you haven’t realised it yet, all those incredible naked women, with their beautiful breasts, well, they’ve all had cosmetic surgery. Did you know this? I have to confess I never did. So you see our generation has grown up with unnatural expectations of what a woman can look like. The majority of women, skinny ones especially, have no breasts whatsoever. Really if you don’t believe me, pull out that dirty magazine from beneath your bed and flick through some pages. I promise you all the women have artificial breasts. Look closely and you can tell. It’s our fault my friend, is it not? Women always say we’re nothing but a bunch of arse grabbing, sex obsessed perverts, and though we vehemently deny it, we know in our hearts it’s true. We judge women on breast size. It may not be the only criterion, but it is important. Like that joker once put it: given the choice between a blonde, a brunette and a red head, then every time, without a shadow of a doubt, ‘I would choose the one with the largest breasts.’ Sadly there’s some truth in it.

And so why should the average woman in the street not feel dreadful, insecure and insignificant when comparing herself to these women. Of course she too will want more cheese on her pizza. And if most women may have the good sense to avoid cosmetic surgery, still there will always be some who succumb. It only ever takes one crazy person to start a trend: once one has done it they all want it done. You have to have strength to resist.

Anyway I’m getting side tracked. If the staff were upset, so too were the students. It was their sole topic of conversation, guys and girls both. So many of the girls seemed put out by it as though it really cut them up. They were moody and huffy and didn’t speak much. They seemed low and cheerless. The boys on the other hand spoke of it. I heard many speaking honestly, admitting that they took it badly, that they had real issues with it whilst others would try to be one ahead of their peers, explaining the reasons of Kelly, and how, if you looked at it reasonably, you could understand why she’d done it.

My sole preoccupation now was to know who Kelly Huntington was and at various times, as I walked the corridors and passed students, I was secretly on the look out for her. I just had to know. Last term I had taught two mandatory first year courses, so I would know her when I saw her. I’m not good with names though, and there seemed an abundance of Kellies and Kerries in the school: it was a name you might give to a typical, faceless, non-descript female student.

As it turned out, my lectures fell on Mondays and Fridays for this second year class, and it being week one, Monday’s class was cancelled so that Friday’s was the first. So I would be kept in suspense till then. In the interim I was constantly thinking on the issue.

You know it yourself, the ladies at this university can be categorised as those who are attractive, those who are very attractive and those who are stunning. These girls may be intelligent and educated and so forth, but equally they possess the most graceful and elegant of female forms. It seems that brains beds beauty, wealth weds charm and eventually all these factors amalgamate, forming the creatures I find in my class. I guess I’ve always held dual feelings in regard to the girls in my class. That they should often be so vivacious and feminine seems to go against the grain of true intellectual rigour, of everything that the purity of academia – and most especially of mathematics – stands for. On the other hand it’s nice to teach and mingle with such honeys. It’s just I can’t say that I’m totally at ease with it. I’ve heard stories in the past of some of the girls doing modelling in their spare time; which, however you want to say is no big deal, doesn’t quite sit right with me.

As to the academic capabilities of the girls, well, this year, as in most, there are none amongst my flock who command a hard, strong mind. There are no Irena Pravalovas in the making. Two girls are good, they nearly have the necessary grit; but a miss is as good as a mile really. They are decent thinkers, fairly bright, but not the complete article. The majority of girls are pseudo-intellectuals. I don’t mean that as any slight against them, and I should point out that I like most of them, they’re ever so pleasant by and large. But they are only pseudo-intellectuals. Not just those who will obtain thirds and two-twos, but also those good enough to get two-ones and firsts.

As I say, with the exception of one or two bitches, the girls are decent, friendly, and thoughtful, they work reasonably hard – harder than a lot of the boys anyway – and I don’t mean to belittle them by describing them as pseudo-intellectuals. Any deficiency in intellectual grit is compensated for by an equal dose of emotional intelligence, an ounce of motherly good sense: these girls will make excellent teachers.

So then my friend these are the girls. And it was one of their number who had committed the sin of having implants put in. Though I desired to get on with my life, and to ignore such impure goings on, the mystery consumed me and I knew that until I had discovered the girl’s identity, I could in no measure move forward. Like a reluctant but absorbed Sherlock Holmes I set out to uncover the truth. Three possible suspects came to mind.

The first was a bitchy young blond, thin and sexy, a vixen if ever there was one. To describe her: she is white trash by nature, petit bourgeoisie by birth. So is my impression anyway, though I have to confess I’ve never spoken to her at all. However her body language, her propensity to huff and scowl, would lead anyone to think that she’s a bit of a bitch. She’s leagues off from being a liberated thinker. Her all round good looks and slim figure, her lack of bosom, made her a prime suspect. However, was her name Kelly? I wasn’t convinced it was. Despite her trailer park heritage, vixen white trash, is by the way, quick minded and likely to get a first.

The second candidate was again one of the few girls I didn’t like. This has a lot to do with her ineptitude in math. Whenever I’ve made an effort to try and explain things to her, she never understands, she seems to resent it, huffs and puffs, and blames me as though I’m an annoying bore. It’s one of the few things I hate about my job, this sort of deteriorating relationship with a girl. It would be nice to know these girls better, and not through the medium of math. Perhaps she’s awful, but still, I hate this sort of restricted relationship where you’re limited to communicating with people like this, where friendship seems to rest upon the random proviso, of aptitude in mathematics. Anyway, her coursework is always a nightmare to mark. She is I believe studying mathematics and business, and hates the mandatory mathematical component. She always presents an unhappy, sullen face, seems to despise academia and me personally and all that I represent. Yet could even she descend so low as to have plastic surgery? One thing I did know however was that she was called Kelly. I tried to recall her surname from her coursework papers; but struggle as I might it eluded me.

The third suspect I had in mind, was, I was sure, another Kelly. She’s attractive and bright, fairly rich and pure bred. How can I say it? A light of joy shines through her, a radiance, a zest for life. She’s lively, and though lacking true grit, is good at her work, a candidate for a first. She’s a bit of a diva, a flirter, you know the sort who likes the concept of sex rather than the deed: likes to read and think about it, to flirt, to be admired, to have attention. Her ambitions are abstract: she revels in being a queen, to always command power over others, forever on the periphery of having sexual encounters, but only occasionally indulging in them, maintaining her position and reveling in the potential off it. She harbours dreams of fame I believe, she’s good at dancing – I once saw her execute a pirouette at the end of a lecture, in front of a guy she walked over to chat to. She’s pleasant and warm to some, including myself, bitchy to others, especially some of the girls, and shares my disdain of vixen white trash for example. But more than this, I specifically recalled she had something of a spat with one buxom coquette in the class last year, who is in every way her match. She’s generally pleasant and happy but also has that narcissistic streak, that will to be the alpha female.

So then I had my possible suspects. Yet in all honesty I wasn’t convinced it was any of them. Sadly, the whole tale engrossed me, and I couldn’t stop thinking on who the girl was and the implications thereof. You see if it was girl one or two, vixen white trash or the academic-hating business student, then that would be soul crushing since these people were so trashy, so petit bourgeoisie. On the other hand if it were girl number three, the diva, that represented something different. I felt at least that I had something in common with this girl, she was pure bred, intelligent, alive, demanding, egotistical, she has that passion for life. So with her it would be depressing to see her sink to such depths of vanity, when she might be expected to know better. I will say this though, peculiar as it may seem. If it was her then I could perhaps forgive her, I would understand why she had did it; whereas if it was one of the first two, then I couldn’t forgive them: they were alien to me.

In fact the more I considered, I realised it would be soul crushing whoever it was. In my mind’s eye I ran through all the girls in the year, and frankly it could have been any of them. You see there are no Irena Pravalova’s in my class. Make no mistake about it my friend, Madame Pravalova is as rank an egotist as anyone; but her mind and soul are hardcore, and if she craves power at all it is in a very abstract and pure sense. And to be honest I think she is beyond such petit measures. She has a passion for her subject; and the joy, the quiet joy of studying and exploring the vast unknown of topology, the richness of analysis, of sitting at her desk deep in thought, this is enough for her. It is a pure source of energy, of spiritual happiness off of which to live. All worldly things such as power are beneath her. Whereas, to be honest, just about all the girls in my class are lightweight and I don’t, at the end of the day, have any real trust or belief in them. So any one of them might have committed this heinous crime; and then it would be soul crushing because it would prove this essential, underlying truth to me: that in fact all the women in my class were foreign to me, soulless, different, coquette’s at heart.

It could even, I reflected, be one of my two most intelligent girls. One especially, Laura was a good outside bet. I like her because, one, she seems to have the hots for me and often bedecks herself in fashionable attire especially for me to admire; two, she’s almost a hard core intellectual and asks me questions after lectures; three, she’s a rank egotist, hates the other girls and mixes only with the boys, and I have to say I find that personally trait so attractive. And it’s this egotism, this low self esteem come narcissism that led me to think it could be her. She craves power you see. And though she’s attractive her looks are totally eclipsed by the spectacular beauty of the other girls.

My mind became diseased by the whole process and I started to imagine all the girls in the university, including Laura, including Irena Pravalova having fake boobs put in. Anyway so much for my thoughts. I should cut to the chase.

Friday eventually came. The lecture was at four. Though keen to know who the girl was, I was incredibly cautious of looking that way, of appearing to scour the rows of girls, inspecting their breasts, and didn’t want to let the cat out the bag as to how much this meant to me. So I taught the lecture, deliberately focusing solely on that, as if nothing were amiss. It being the first lecture, sheets had to be handed out; but though I usually walk around the lecture hall giving them to individual students, today I intentionally did not. I kept my distance.

When you’re lecturing, although you make a point of making eye contact with the audience, you don’t really see anything but a blur, at least at the time. Thus the lecture passed, I talked emphatically and half passionately about matrices and vectors, tensor notation and material properties. I absorbed myself in writing, shunning the students as I wrote on the blackboard; I deliberately made no attempt to look at the girls. Eventually the lecture came to an end.

When it did I seemed to drop back into the real world. Recovering myself, I now had the opportunity to ogle my students as they left. As I stood there and looked out, I think there was something in my manner and voice, when I said ‘okay that’s it for today’ that suggested to them that I was saying ‘alright, now let’s turn to the real issue: who is the girl with the cosmetic breasts? Stand up please!’ At least that’s how it felt. My oversensitive face, I believe, gave the game away.

One or two students acknowledged me, we exchanged brief glances; most hurried away, and none descended to speak with me, very unusual for the first lesson of term, and I put this down to the fact that everyone was so depressed by events. I saw my girl Laura looking downcast; she didn’t come and ask me anything but like the others rushed off with a black face. I felt tragically sorry as if something was wrong.

The class soon emptied, I stayed behind handing out sheets to students who had arrived late, and then tired and satisfied that the lecture was over, and that it was home time on a Friday, I walked back to my office. I would have to wait for another day to determine the identity of the mystery woman.

Yet as I approached a door, I saw a girl walking along in the opposite direction. Something told me – I just had a presentiment all of a sudden, I was giddy and my legs wobbled – that this was her. We exchanged eye contact through the glass of the door, and there was, I don’t know, meaning in it. There was a moment of hesitation as we both approached the door, both of us too respectful to just barge through; then I opened it for her and allowed her to pass, and she did so thanking me and smiling. She was very pleasant I have to say, it being Friday I guess, plus she was clearly pleased with her self, her new found source of joy.

In that smile I read that this was she. It was a very pleasant smile, as if she were the happiest girl in the world. Plus I caught sight of her bosom and it had that fake, rigid, shadowy look to it, that sinister, devilish, artificial breast look. So then it was over.

I was relieved. Exhausted after the lecture, not wishing to engage my mind in any new mathematics, desiring to be out of the building at all costs, to give myself up to reflection, I left the department and went to the graduate bar.

It’s really plush in here, with stylish décor and dingy lighting, and at five o’clock on a Friday it is so empty and chilled out, that God, I could just sit here for hours on end recovering myself, replenishing my adrenaline stores. I ordered a scotch and soda and took up a seat in the corner by myself. It had that soothing, end of the day, Friday feel to it.

And here I mused. I now knew who Kelly Huntington was. She was neither of the three suspects I had in mind. She is a business and mathematics student, a friend in fact of suspect number two, and, I might add, just as light weight at math. To be honest I don’t really like her, though to be fair, I can’t write her off as a no-brainer either. She had smiled genuinely at me as I passed, and I smiled back. She is alright you see. She is attractive but no stunner, and ultra skinny, probably anorexic in her teens, so that probably the boys would have teased her for having no bosom. I think, to be honest, I didn’t like her before all of this. I’ve heard she wants to be an actuary.

And so that was that. I spent a good three hours or so drinking and unwinding in the bar. Reflecting on what I’d seen in the lecture theatre, now that I was far from it, I saw clearly that Kelly Huntington had been sitting in the middle with a posse of three or four boys, whilst all the other students were visibly perturbed by something. As if the lecture hall fell into two distinct camps: the superior, radiant, everything’s hunky-dory, Team Kelly Huntington, and then the others, put out and saddened, but united against her. So many of the girls seemed really, really down. As if the sunshine had been knocked out of them, their faces wan and pale as if dying.

The term moved on. Initially the girls united against Kelly. Old hatchets were buried, long standing bitch-quarrels put aside in common fear and hatred of her. Kelly’s girlfriends deserted her. I admit I was pleased to see the chief coquettes unhappy, their noses out of joint. Amongst these some of the naturally large breasted were being very catty and haughty, calling Kelly a pair of boobs on a stick, saying that all the dog needs now is a face lift and a nose job and she’ll be perfect. I should tell you that suspect number two, who had been Kelly’s friend, was no longer speaking to her. She sat apart from Kelly, with a sad face, her spirits drowning. I felt especially sorry for her, to see her take it like this, especially as I had deemed her a suspect. Truly this girl has taken on a new aspect for me now, I’m sorry to have ever accused her, and she is clearly upset, and as such I’ve found something in her to like.

I even half like suspect number one, the vixen, now, even if only on account that she hasn’t sunk to the depths I accused her of. As for suspect number three, the pure bred: I’m really sorry I ever could’ve accused her of such depravity, clearly she is better than that.

So has it gone with the girls. I am pleased by their reaction. If they had have thought Kelly’s actions cool or normal I would’ve been upset. So I’m glad of their bitchery. Yet on the other hand part of me feels delighted to see the old order upset. The born and bred beauties, the inheritors of all that is golden, having their power usurped. And I feel sorry for Kelly a bit now, as no one seems to like her, the things they’re saying are dreadful, viz., she’s a stick, she’s got a dog’s face and I can’t help feel sorry for her, after all she just wants to look beautiful and who in this world doesn’t? Recently though, one or two girls have been understanding of her, deliberately going out of their way to make friends, and realising that it’s not the done thing to be nasty to her. They have accepted things, and I anticipate that others will too in future.

In herself she seems fine and still as buoyant as ever, though I anticipate that it will catch up with her in the end, the nasty comments of her piers, the pariah status she’s been afforded by the other girls. And probably the buzz will ware off and then what? How will she fill the void? With more surgery? She still has a loyal regiment of three or four boys, ready to be her toadies. She is incredibly happy, joyous over the state of her body.

I have known people mortally depressed over the state of theirs, and perhaps, the flat chested Kelly was likewise before. That such deep and meaningful states of mind can spring from that which we all know to be thoroughly shallow and meaningless, our bodies, tells us I think, something of our flimsy nature. It is a clue, a clue to our existence.

The majority of the boys are taking it badly, as well they might, they’re so, so young. They’re evidently peeved by it, can’t accept it, and I like them for being honest, for saying that it’s sick, and what have you. Kelly’s toadies are no doubt telling her how wonderful her breasts are, that she’s an amazing, perfect girl, but I’ve seen these boys – they’re all a bunch of fakers as well, like Porter or the plastic surgeons themselves. They know fine well it’s sick, but I guess this is their way of making peace with it. Anyway they’re liars and I’ve much more a liking for the peeved, frustrated boys who are upset.

And so has the pack unfolded itself, and such is life. Yet I can’t help worry about one student’s reaction. My girl Laura. Since the return of term she’s been downcast and wan, fading away. She is sick at heart and soul, it has had a profound effect on her. She never cares to ask me a question any more, she seems to shun me. She doesn’t believe anymore, she is taking it out on me. She doesn’t talk to the other girls so can’t unite in their bitchery. The boys in her group all hate Kelly and are loyal to Laura, but that is not enough for her. She is dumbstruck. It has deeply upset her. These are 19 and 20 year olds after all. And I can’t but worry – although I think I’m just being silly – that she might do something foolish and have an operation herself. That might be her only way to come to terms with it. And you know the parallels are there between her and Kelly: they’re both egotists, they both have their little gang of boys. But the difference is that Laura is made of purer stuff, she is noble of heart and mind, she is better. Yet I can’t help imagine her with large oversized breasts – my mind has become diseased by events – in place of her natural, ever so little ones, that, flat, childish but lovely chest. For me she’s perfect as she is, being imperfect and natural. But I fear for her. She’ll listen to her own mind, not the opinions of men such as me.

So there it is my friend, a shattering start to the semester. I’ve somewhat come to terms with it now, especially by writing this letter to you, and I’d have loved to have written off Kelly as a no-brainer, petit bourgeoisie, but it’s not quite true. For sure she is a bit simple, a bit shallow, but she’s along way from being devoid of good.

You know just as prostitution has aroused and inflamed moral outrage since time began, cosmetic surgery, and especially breast enhancement seems to do the same now, to strike you right to the core. Take the whores of Babylon for instance: much maligned and hated but why? Because of their immorality or because they were only available to some? You see, where does moral outrage end and man’s sense of his own inferiority begin? I’m telling you moral outrage and the human ego are inseparable, they’ll never be held apart. They are intertwined, intermingled and throw something like cosmetic breasts at them and the two will react in duality, so that you will never know which it is that is upset. The whole dilemma, the rights and wrongs of the matter, the morality, the jealousy, the cat-calling, the bitchiness, the prudishness, the priggishness, the sense of injustice, the sordidness of it, yet the underlying fact that beauty counts for so much in this world – all are bubbling around in one overcooked cauldron. The whole dilemma is unfathomable, unsolvable. It is a deep human enigma.

Here is something I read on a confessions website:

I went to Bangkok three months ago for a bit of a no bars bender. In the event, I didn’t really have the balls to get up to all the things I’d planned, the reality of sexual encounters always being a let down. But anyway I came into contact shall we say, with both female and male prostitutes. It’s fairly common for the women here to have breasts implants, and I have to admit that I was never that comfortable with them, and thought it vulgar. But the things is, is that often the lady boys also have breast implants; and if they had had them put in, and you could see their penis under their breasts, I found that I didn’t have a problem at all; in fact I understood these men, saw the breasts were merely an artefact and felt at home with these lady boys. What is all that about?

I think this encapsulates that enigma.

All the same my gut feeling remains the same and I stand by it: it’s disgusting and unnatural and there’s no place for it, especially at the university, a place of peace, refinement and learning. It is an abuse of science, an abuse of the science of anaesthetics: a brilliant innovation designed to better the human condition, has been hijacked and prostituted for such tawdry gains. Then again what am I saying. The university has, since time immemorial, played host to the rich, the vulgar, the well fed dunder heads of the bourgeoisie and the sword of scientific advancement has at all times been dual-edged. So perhaps nothing has changed. And this cosmetic surgery is the future, however sick that may be. Believe me it is coming. It is the beginning of the end for the human species as we know it. Soon we’ll all have the bodies we want, and then ironically appearances will cease to matter. Cosmetic breasts somehow get right to the crux of what it is to be human and tell us something profoundly banal about our existence. They are like a bad omen, a scientific clue, to the randomness of our lives, and cosmetic surgery cuts right to the heart and sole of our beings. It betrays the lie of our existence.


Yours

Stephan.