Heather & Astrid (Part the First) (Patreon)

How do you meet someone new?

If you’re like me, a somewhat-insular, hermit-minded gal with no shortage of filters, defense mechanisms, and a (well-earned) capacity for (non-cynical) mistrust of intention… it’s not always easy.

And how does a homebody like this meet someone, say, in the last 16 months? With lockdowns, provincial border closures, and a generally heightened sense of social aversion compounding an already Gladys Kravitz-level of suspicious interaction with the outside world? It gets a little more difficult.

Especially when this person lives in a sparsely populated village that’s 5 miles from the nearest store, and a solid hour away from the closest thing that can be considered a “city?” Now, we’re off to the races.

And then, when she lives in a country where, try as she might, she’s had a just-rotten time learning the native tongue? I envy my polyglot amigos — as decent as I am at English, Spanish is just… hard. I blame it on the conjugations, and on the PTSD I still carry from those two catastrophic semesters of Latin I took in college.

We are denizens of a modern age, so an obvious answer to all of these “how” questions is “the internet.” And that’s worked, to an extent — in the last spell of time, I’ve met a number of folks who I’ve grown to appreciate, and even moreso, consider to be friends... insomuch as the boundaries imposed by a computer screen will allow.

But, that human contact, dude. A pox on the fundamental human need to be social, even for the relatively unsociable, such as myself.

So, insert a day in the not-too-distant past, around the time when the weather was just starting to get a little chilly. During my time on Instagram, I’ve received a near-infinite number of direct messages; the vast majority of them have been a simple “hey;” some variation of “I have a question,” but there’s never a question; or heart/baby bottle emojis (if I had a nickel for each baby bottle emoji I’ve gotten, I could retire).

But every now and then (I read all of them, usually on the toilet), there’s one that has a little substance. One such message is from a person I typically refer to as a “sister:” a person who, like me, has been afflicted by some form of macromastia.

I always give these messages a little extra attention. I remember, a several years ago, how pants-poopingly thrilled I would have been to stumble across an Instagram, or a Patreon, like mine. I’ve mentioned this before, but when I was growing, the only info I could scrounge up on my condition were a handful of WebMD-ish articles that offered little insight, a few straggling newscasts from far-flung countries, or (of course) material from exotic websites geared toward dubious end results.

Anyway, the messages from the sisters. I’m not gonna judge anyone based on their ice breaking abilities, so I’m always willing to give the benefit of a doubt. But, there are a few factors that always affect how seriously I take missives like these.

The first is the age of the account. If it’s a few days old, there’s a better chance that it’s a poser who’s out for a role playing thrill. Not my cuppa.

The second are the images represented on the account itself. When you’ve been around the block as many times as I have, you tend to build a familiarity with the women out there who legit have had experiences with GM/MM. So, when the pics have been pirated (as mine frequently have been for similar RP accounts), you can tell who they’re from. “Hey, that’s totally yungfrekz, or BVT. Merp.” You send a quick line to the woman in question letting her know that so-and-so account is stealing her hard work, hit the report button, and move on with your life. Women with giant boobs have enough to deal with — best to look out for each other whenever you can.

Another tell is the language in the message itself. Keep in mind, these are semi-pro role players, so they’ve had some practice when it comes to getting into character. But, chinks in the armor show up pretty quickly: questions about what I do about (specifically) bras; an unfamiliarity with the “trick responses” I throw out there that would absolutely resonate with a giant-busted gal; requests for pictures because “I’ve never met another woman like me before, so if you’re comfortable, I would love if you could share…”; lactation, lactation, lactation (no, I don’t, because huh?); or simply, diving into conversation that’s just a little too (as my grandmother would call it) familiar. “Hey, so isn’t it fun to just play with your nipples all the time?” Hmm. Nah, I’ve got a day job, and my back hurts.

But. Every now and then (and it’s waaay more rare than you would think), there’s a missive that gets green checkmarks across the board. Wait a sec… is this chick for real?!

You keep it to DMs for a while. People are clever, and Lord knows we’ve all been bored this past year, so it wouldn’t surprise me if there was some bloke out there who took the time to carefully cultivate a presence and a voice that passed muster. As time goes on, though, the quality of the conversation just seems like, well, conversation. You share jokes, memes, life experiences, a few light-hearted chuckles, sometimes dealing with the bowling balls on your chests, but often not. And when everyone’s finally a little comfortable, the verification process effortlessly presents itself.

(A simple voice message isn’t always trustworthy — I got burned in the past by one couple who was into it for the thrill — she provided her voice, I believed it, and from there, a whole new thread about how she wanted to have some fun with her boyfriend, and how the three of us should set up a group on WhatsApp, there’s the chain of dickpics, and… ahhh, there it is. The ingenuity comes out.)

But back to that one day, when the weather was just starting to get a little chilly. I got one such message, and suffice it to say, the verifications got the seal of approval to the point where, beyond the shadow of a doubt (at least in my experience), this gal was on the level. Not only that, but she was cool! Smart, funny, irreverent, gosh-darned cute, and to top it all off (of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world), she actually lived reasonably close. DMs turned into swapping phone numbers and eventually settling on Telegram (you guys ever use Telegram? It’s great — way more handy than WhatsApp). And then, one day, we decided to actually meet. Like, in person. That human contact thing that I was talking about earlier.

Long story short, this is the story of how I met Astrid.

I’ve mentioned Astrid before, so if she sounds a little familiar, that’s why. A few story posts that ended up making the cut when we spent some revelrous nights together cooking, drinking, and gettin’ all fat and fancy.

The first time we met, it was actually pretty goofy. This was back in late 2020, and there were some burblings about how Spain might get a little froggy (again) with lockdowns — closing borders, police barricades around cities, etc. At that point, we had spent hours and hours and hours chatting on the phone about whatever. The text message log was looooong. We had been hitting it off really, really well.

One morning, I stirred awake to an uncharacteristically formal text message from her — her basically being like, “Hey, so, not sure if you’re down for this, and if you’re not, that’s totally cool, because I know you have shit to do… But I’ve kinda got nothing to do right now, and it’s all setting up to get awfully lonely again, so… if you’d like, it might be fun to hang out, if I can come to where you are?”

It took all of about 15 seconds for me to rub the sleep out of my eyes and respond with a “Hell yes, let’s do it!”

She was like, “Are you sure? I didn’t want to ask, but my friend said ‘DO IT,’ so…”

“Yeah! When do you want to come?”

“I dunno… tonight?”

“Yeah! We’ll hunker down, I’ll make sure we have all the wine!”

We didn’t talk much that day. The house was a MESS — I’m talking aftermath of a college house party catastrophe, so I dug out my most faithful house cleaning bra, prioritized the apocalyptic setting, carefully chose a room in which to deposit all of the laundry and random detritus, and started wailing.

I suppose there’s an angle to look at this day from. On one hand, lovely — it had been ages since I had any semblance of company, so hooray for Heather! On the other hand… a little pathetic? What, an outside observer might wonder, had Heather even been through this last year to put her into such a good fucking mood? Sweeping the floor to a never-ending Taylor Swift playlist, whistling into the broom handle like she was in an ‘80s movie, dear God, is this how inmates feel when they get their twice-yearly conjugal visits? A long-awaited break in the monotony from something as simple as someone coming down to spend a night or two? But, there you have it. Heather was happy, in that way that you typically only find with four-year-olds on the playground when they make a new best friend in the whole-wide world for a day.

You might get a particular hoot out of this part: later, she dropped me a line, letting me know that she was about an hour away from my little place way out in the countryside. I had some nibbles prepared, made sure the supply of boozes was more-than enough to last for at least a couple of days until another delivery could be scheduled, managed to steal away a moment for a shower (it had been a few days, because at the height of Covid, who really showered every day? I’m disgusting in so many ways, and am not afraid to admit it).

Anyway, standing there, surveying a kitchen and dining area that (I am happy to say) I had actually done a pretty good job with, it hit me… I was a little bit nervous.

LIke, actually, really nervous. And it wasn’t just because my social skills, like so many of ours, had been eroded. I was sitting there, sipping on some wine, tapping my foot, going through a mental laundry list of stuff that I may have overlooked during my cleaning spree. Did I clean the toilet? Bedsheets all done? Should I put some wood on the fire to warm the place up a little more?

And then it hit me. A part of the anxiety had something to do with all this normal first-impression stuff. But, like so many of the not-always earnest messages I had received on Instagram had implied, I hadn’t really met too many other women like me. If you’ll recall from any of these past posts involving Astrid (or, if you’ve visited her Instagram yourself), you’ll know that her boobs are huuuge. Like, I’m talking Heather-class. And I didn’t quite know how, when she arrived, I would treat her peculiar physical anomaly.

Isn’t that weird? I mean, I look at my boobs in the mirror everyday. I haul around all 20-some pounds of them, and I get all the looks, reactions, and types of treatment you would expect to come along with having Heather-class boobs. So why the heck was I so nervous for precisely the same reason? Did other people, men and women alike, have a similar trepidation when interacting with me? I know for a fact that they do. But for heaven’s sake, doesn’t my entry into that particularly blessed club make me exempt from such considerations? Is there some logic to it, or do I just overthink this stuff too much?

I saw the car pull up into the driveway, just as the last dregs of twilight were dipping into an indigo over the mountainous horizon. Astrid hopped out of the car, and went into the backseat to retrieve a small backpack before jaunting in my general direction (uncertainly, was that my door, or that one?)

I remember the first thought I had was a playful pang of envy — where did she find a leather jacket that fit her so well? I gave a few sharp knocks on the window, and a small wave and a point to the front door. One more glug of wine. 

Turns out, your mind plays tricks on you. I had forgotten, in that last hour before she arrived, that we had had probably dozens of hours of just mindless, wonderful yammering on the phone, and with that, I had forgotten that we actually have a great deal in common. The moment I met her, it was like seeing an old friend. The boobs came up in the conversation right away, as we both did our instinctive lean-hunch to give each other a hug and the standard-issue European double cheek kiss. One of the first things we commented on was that it was waaay harder to pull off when both women are rocking boobs the size of Christmas hams.

And, after the brief tour of the digs, a glass of wine being poured, it didn’t take too much time to sink into a comfortable normal in front of the kitchen fire as the hours stretched on. Wintertime is kinda great — there's nothing that messes with my mind more than the summer, where it doesn't get dark until after 10 p.m., and the sun is already coming up by 6 — it's kinda cruel, not having that many hours of night time. But the wintertime, that part of the year specifically, you're looking at a solid part of an Earth's rotation being spent in pitch. So it's lovely, when you can look at the clock, realize it's waaaaay too late/early, and not have to pay much consideration to the fact that the sky will be turning blue any minute now. 

More time for wine with someone new — and all the silliness that might entail in whatever sort of night might be spent scream-singing the Rolling Stones, solving Sphinx's riddles, burning the shit out of pancakes, digging through each others' piles of clothing, et al, et al...

This was only the first rendezvous of what would turn out to be many for Astrid and me — stories that are certainly worth telling in the near future. How'd she get onto Instagram in the first place? What happened during that day we got lost in the wilderness? How fucking competitive is she when the dominoes come out (and she insists that *I'm* the competitive one)? Does she have names for HER boobs (I'll let her tackle that.)? And, as you might be wondering... when two women with a collective 40-ish pounds of boobage get together, what in the fuck, exactly happens? Is it a frat-pack flick from the '80s, a relatively subdued experience more reminiscent of a Victorian novel... or somewhereabouts in between? 

All I'll say is to stay tuned for a brand of silliness that might not deviate too far from this little tidbit that I'll leave you with for now.

Wine does funny things to people.