SHOPLIFTER SURPRISE

copyright: Lesley Tara, 2009

I like to think of this happening to me … but take it as fiction (all names and places have been changed, and any resemblance to real persons or places is purely coincidental).


They had set me up! And they had done it so neatly that there was no way out. I stared at the two women in shock and dismay. There was no alternative – I was going to have to do whatever they wanted – anything at all.

I was fifteen and a half years old, although I looked two or three years older – a fact which caused me a lot of bother, with older boys and men constantly making passes or dirty remarks. The reason for this was partly my height – I am five foot nine inches – but most of all my bust. My family all have big boobs, inherited from my grandmother who came from somewhere in northern Italy. From her I also have my straight black hair, which I had grown quite long; at school I kept within the rules by platting it into two pigtails, which came to just below my collar. My tits had developed early, and were probably the largest of any girl in my year at school – perhaps even of the year above as well. I kept them firmly enclosed in a plain white bra, though its uplift did give me a striking profile and cleavage – I hid the latter from view, but couldn’t disguise my breasts’ jutting prominence. It wasn’t that I didn’t like my breasts – I had become used to them now, and was much less self-conscious – but I was fed up with their effect on the male sex and the boorish behaviour that resulted. Not only were the boys at school constantly trying to get their paws on them, but they treated me as if I was just an appendage to my bust. In particular, they acted on the assumption that the bigger a woman’s breasts, the smaller her brains. This was far from the case – I was clever and ambitious, worked hard, and was predicted straight A grades in the important exams next summer. I was aiming to go to Oxford or Cambridge university when I was 18, and then on to a professional career – certainly not to settle for being a boring housewife and mother.

My Tuesday afternoon timetable was sport with no last lesson afterwards, so I was free to leave school an hour earlier than normal. I always used this to spend some time in the town centre, going to the library or window-shopping, sometimes with a friend but usually on my own. One of my favourite places was our medium-sized branch of a national chain of department stores, and I enjoyed looking through the clothes and – in particular – the lingerie department. On this particular Tuesday I had been admiring some flimsy items of underwear in lace-edged black which were very sexy and adult-looking, and then I looked through the party dresses for teenage girls – there was one I had been thinking of buying, and I tried it on in the changing rooms, but the only size they had in stock was a bit too tight. With regret, I gave it back to the assistant, picked up my satchel and sports bag, and headed for the exit. Just as I was about to go out, I felt a grip on my sleeve and heard a polite but firm voice saying: ‘Just a moment please, young lady, I must ask you to come with me’. It was the store security officer, who I had seen quite often before, particularly when I was in the lingerie section. She was an imposing black woman, aged around 30; she was taller than me, and looked like a former athlete – she was trim and fit, with well-muscled arms and legs, but also full-figured and shapely around the waist and hips. I was not alarmed, thinking there was some mistake – whatever it was would be easily cleared up, and it would waste less time if I went with her and sorted it out. So I was quite calm as I accompanied her through to the back of the store and down a quiet corridor to a door marked ‘Duty Manager’, at which she knocked.

I was ushered ahead of her, into a rather bare and utilitarian office. There was a couch against one wall, a couple of basic chairs, some filing cabinets, and a desk behind which sat a poised, capable, but rather severe-looking woman in her mid 30s. She had dyed blond hair cut in overlapping layers, in a quite short ‘businesswoman’ style, trimmed around and behind her ears and cut to the nape of the neck. She was wearing a dark grey jacket which offset a pink blouse; I saw later that she also had a matching grey skirt which was quite short and tight, with a slit vent at the back, and black calf boots. She took off her glasses and laid them next to some paperwork, and regarded me steadily. ‘Is this the one, Melissa?’ she asked the security guard, who nodded and said: ‘Yes, Miss Campbell’. I began to feel a bit less confident, but interrupted at once: ‘There’s been some mistake – I don’t know what all this is about!’ ‘We’ll see then, shall we,’ calmly replied the manageress, and she asked if I had bought anything in the store that day. I said no, explaining that I had tried on the dress but the fit hadn’t been right. ‘OK,’ said Miss Campbell, and she cleared the papers from her desk into a drawer before rising and walking around to the front. The black woman turned a key in the lock of the door, and then placed my satchel and kitbag on the vacant desktop. ‘Open these, please’, instructed the security guard. Foolishly thinking that this would clear everything up, I unzipped my sports bag – and gave a gasp of dismay. Lying on top of my kit were two pairs of the expensive black panties that I had admired in the lingerie department, still with their store price tags and labels. My breath was taken away for a moment, my stomach gave a sickening lurch, and I sat down heavily in one of the chairs.