I think most people have their “one that got away” story, right? That person you always thought you should have made more of an effort with? The person you liked, and thought liked you back, but you were simply too scared or too insecure to do anything about? The person you let go of too easily. You know the person. Usually people say things like “plenty more fish in the sea”, or “you’ll find someone else”… Well rubbish, I say. Let me tell you about my one that got away, Alma. Because I can assure you right now, there are certainly no other fish like her.

So, a bit about me first of all. My name’s Aristhenia. Yes, that’s my real name. No, it’s not a proper girl’s name, and no, I don’t know how you’re supposed to pronounce it. My parents were kinda weird. Hippies, I guess would be the word. Maybe wackos, if you were feeling less generous. In fact, all the parents of the kids at my school were a little out there.

I was sent to an all-girls boarding school from the ages of 9 to 18. It wasn't a religious school or anything like that. More sort of an off-the-grid school. One that anti-establishment nut-jobs like my parents send their kids to if they want them far away from the prying hands of the government, or god-forbid, child protective services. My parents were fairly typical clients for that school, and although I never properly met them, so were Alma’s I guessed.

So, if it wasn’t obvious already from context, I’m into girls. You may think that’s unsurprising, seeing as for most of my upbringing I lived in an all-girls school, surrounded by exclusively female teachers and female staff (yes, really, not a dude in sight for nearly 10 years of education, if you can believe that). But the idea that all of that was what made me gay? That's a cliche. There were pretty much zero other lesbians in my whole graduating class, as far as I know. Not ones out of the closet anyway. Sure, maybe that’s unfair, I didn’t exactly broadcast much of this myself when I was there. But who knows.

Anyway, it sounds like we’re getting to the central tragedy of this story, right? Was Alma a lesbian too, I hear you ask. Well, I am sad to say that I cannot even answer that question, because to this day, I still don’t know. Yep, if you’re expecting some steamy teenage romance, then you may as well stop reading now. This is a tale of pathetic adolescent yearning and unrequited love. And before you switch off, just hold on a second. Because this story isn’t really about me at all. The best is yet to come. I haven’t even introduced you to Alma yet.

I joined the school at the age of 9, and Alma was in the same class as me from the beginning. There was only one class per year group at my school, so we were told very early on that we'd better get along, us twenty or so girls, because we would be each other's constants for the rest of our school careers.

During most of those early years, from the ages of 9 to 12, you couldn’t really call Alma and me anything more than classmates. Neither of us was in the crowd of popular rich girls who quickly discovered each other, but neither were we in the background either. We kept to our close-knit circles and would occasionally chat if we ended up together during some group assignment. During that time, I can remember just thinking that this quiet half-Spanish girl with long wavy black hair and deep olive-coloured skin was just another student. A bit shy and reserved, sort of how we all were in those early days, but certainly a nice girl nonetheless.

As the years went on, I tried to get a couple of friendships with other girls off the ground, but I struggled to make any of them stick. I don’t know what it was, but something about me always seemed to become distasteful to people after a while. Gradually I fell down the popularity ladder until, by the age of 12, it’s fair to say I had turned into a bit of an outcast. Someone who neither had friends, nor really wanted them.

Now don’t bother pitying me; I was not miserable in the slightest. I was always a bit of a misanthrope, a girl who had enough fun in her own company to not really want for anyone else's company. It was certainly better than engaging in mindless chit-chat, I used to tell myself, the sort of rolling school gossip that all the popular cliques seemed to obsess over. Funnily enough, that was one of the things that struck me first about Alma. Although we were never close, I always thought she seemed a little like me in her disregard for the opinions of others. Like me, she had no patience for thoughtless chatter: either have something interesting to say, or shut your mouth.

I’m approaching our teenage years now, and you may be able to guess what comes next. Big surprise, it’s puberty. I get that puberty is probably a big deal in mixed-education schools---what with all the hormonal boys and girls running around spreading their cooties---but believe me, it’s a big deal in an all-girls school too, just for different reasons. First came that age-old competition of who got their period first. Then the next week it would be comparing body hair, and the next seeing whose hips were widening the most. But none of those contests were as crucial as the championship bout: boobs. People often ask me how I first realised I was gay. And I don’t know if living with twenty girls all sprouting boobies at the same time does it for other ladies, but it certainly did it for me. You could say I had quite a hard time concentrating during those years as I slowly became conscious of not just my sexuality, but probably more importantly, a worrying penchant for boobies.

So where am I going with all this? Well, let’s get back to Alma, as she is the only important person in this story. Right, so you know how in every class, there is always that one girl who develops waaay before everyone else? Well, in our school, that girl was Alma. She had already gotten a reputation as an early-bloomer years earlier after enjoying a pre-pubescent growth spurt well before the rest of us. But that was in no way the end of it.

I still remember the morning it all changed. Alma rocks up to our first lesson of the day, no fear, no hesitation whatsoever, with a couple of handful-sized lumps sprouted as if by magic on her chest. The class was rightly intrigued by these overnight developments, but noone more than me. I was captivated the moment I saw them. Who knew what I was supposedly being taught the rest of that day, because Alma’s new additions didn’t leave my sight for a second. You know, I cringe now at the thought of what a creep I was at first. But please believe me, I did eventually figure out how to be more subtle. Alma, for her part, bless her, never said a word about it. Not about my staring, not about the ogling and gossiping of the rest of the girls either. It was obvious she wasn’t ashamed of her boobs, but it didn’t really seem like she was especially proud of them either. They were just there. As was already her character by that age, Alma had this sort of blasé attitude when it came to her body. She gave the impression that she didn't regard herself in one way or the other, that whatever happened to her, happened.

Anyway, Alma’s chest was a popular talking point at the school for well over a year before the rest of us started to catch up. Naturally, as time went on, all of the girls in my class started to develop. A few of them started piling on pounds, some got ugly, some pretty, some of them shot up like rockets into the air, and the unlucky few, like yours truly, stayed a miserable five-foot runt for the rest of their lives. As for my boobs? Well, there was never, and still isn’t, much to talk about in that department, so back to Alma.

Over this time, as the rest of us slowly became women, Alma continued to benefit from that little head start. In the months after the first appearance of her boobs, she traversed cup size to cup size. The girl was growing before our eyes at an alarming rate. A common situation Alma would endure during those early months was the popular crowd cornering her in the mornings to get updates on her bra size. It must have driven her mad, but Alma, to her credit, would always answer straightforwardly and honestly. I was glad for her candour, because those updates enthralled me more than anything I was learning in class.

Alma reached a D cup before most of the class had even put on their first training bra, and though you’ll think I’m exaggerating now, believe me when I say that things only got more rapid from there. Only months after filling up what we all thought was the unthinkably huge size of a D cup, Alma was claiming letters like H, I and J. By the time my little bee stings came through, Alma was already well beyond the largest bra our school had spare in its wardrobe. Then one morning, Alma responded frankly to the girls, that the school was now arranging to have her bras ordered in from outside.

So how did I react to all of this? Well, as you can probably guess, it drove me absolutely wild. I mean, to my 13-year-old eyes, those things were huge. And in reality, they were! Alma was a very slender, quite athletic young woman. A girl who loved the outdoors and was by all accounts very active. A slim young girl like that with knockers the size of her head does not go unnoticed. Especially not by me, a budding lesbian with a now unmistakable fetish for huge breasts. I hope I’m getting across just how drastically this girl was altering my impressionable young brain.

I think everyone at that school assumed that Alma’s maturity into womanhood would probably come to an end pretty soon. Early-bloomers exist, but sooner or later everyone ends up at the same place, right? Well... that’s not quite what happened. Oh no, Alma’s body was far from done.

Soon, clothes started to become a more pressing issue for her. The constant need for a new bra was one thing, but it was the school uniform that caused Alma the most problems on a day to day basis. Our uniform was the one you would imagine it to be: white button-down blouse, thigh-high chequered skirt, and black socks; a tie too if you were in that sort of mood. The code was not strictly enforced beyond that, but open buttons around the chest, or god forbid, cleavage, was certainly not allowed. Unfortunately, double K-cup jugs and a button-down blouse do not mix well. As a result, Alma was by far the most frequent violator of the school uniform code.

Now, don't get the wrong impression. Our school was not one of hard-knocks. It was a new-age school for hippies remember, people who didn't believe in grades, or exams. Still, there were rules to follow. And those uniforms were a way to distinguish the students from the teachers more than anything else. Perhaps in another school, such flagrant wardrobe violations like Alma's would have been dealt with more harshly. But as it was, she received not much more than a slap on the wrist. The rest of the girls complained of unequal treatment at the time, but in hindsight I can see why they never really punished her. The teachers recognised early on Alma’s clear physical disadvantage compared to the rest of us, and as a consequence, they quite rightly decided not to give her too hard a time for it.

So, I probably ought to pause here to let you know where this is going. At this point, you probably just think that this is the story of me developing a crush on my classmate with the big boobs. I guess coming next ought to be the story of how I admired her from afar until school was over, before eventually turning her into a masturbatory fantasy to enjoy in the shower as an adult, right? Well sure, there’s a bit of that, I’ll admit it. But there is much more to describe when it comes to Alma. As it turned out, she would become known for much more than a pair of breasts.

What usually happens now, and it certainly did for me and my peers, was that the worst of puberty would come and go. A few years of discomfort and worry and we would have blossomed into young women, for better or worse. However, puberty was not quite done with Alma yet. What started as just a precocious bustiness, and a few extra inches of height, became much more. Following quickly in the wake of her growing bosom was the rest of her body. In what felt like a matter of weeks, Alma grew from a slightly above-average teenager, to being by far the tallest in our class. Then a few weeks later, she was even taller than most people in the school, including the teachers. By the age of 15, she had topped 6 feet in height, and with no signs of stopping.

As you could imagine, the girl with the biggest boobs in school becoming by far the tallest girl in school at the very same time was, shall we say, noteworthy. Indeed, Alma was the topic of the moment. The constant reporting on her height became a joint headline each week to go along with the growing size of her breasts. It was all a bit too much really. How on Earth Alma managed to keep her cool through all of this constant examination by her peers, teachers and nurses alike, I have no idea. Yet she remained as focused and collected as ever. Whenever she was asked, no matter how innapropriately, “how tall are you?” or “what size are your tits now?”, she would always respond without hesitation “Oh, I’m 6’7’’ last I measured”, “they’re an M cup now, a new bra came in the mail this morning”, as if it was nothing.

So this is all moving pretty fast, and believe me, that’s what it felt like too. Alma’s growth from that point on seemed like a constant, ceaseless, unstoppable force. Far from the intermittent growth spurts the rest of us sat around waiting patiently for, Alma’s growth was apparent almost on a day-to-day basis. Every morning her tights looked a little bit shorter on her legs, her blouse fitting a little worse around the chest. New pockets of squishy boob flesh sprouted all around the seams of her clothing as she outgrew one bra after the other. Alma also began to need to stoop with increasing frequency. I began to gauge her height, not by where her head lay with respect to our classroom’s door frame, but by how much she would have to crane her neck to even get through it.

It must have been only a few weeks after that that Alma reached 7 feet in height. In fact, the morning she told us was an event I remember well. That was the day I got my first real insight into what must have been going on inside her head while all of this bewildering growth was taking place.

That morning, Alma was ambushed by the usual gaggle of classmates who had made it a habit to marvel at the poor girl’s growing proportions every chance they got. Somewhat shamefully, I always used to try to listen in on these conversations. I was far too terrified to converse with her myself, so these opportunities were the closest I could get to hearing Alma talk about herself. It was always slightly infuriating, though. I would easily pick up on the mean-spirited undertone in the way that those girls would interrogate her. Usually some insult, poorly veiled as a compliment, like “Oh wow Alma, you’re so big, I would never want to be that tall, how could I ever get a boyfriend?”, or “Do you ever feel like your boobs could be too big?”. Yet even this wasn’t enough to break Alma’s cool. Every time without fail, she would reply calmly in her characteristic matter-of-fact voice, as if she were totally impervious to any sort of attack on her person. Nevertheless, the questions and comments rained over her daily anyway.

Then that day, when the news arrived that Alma was 7 feet tall, the only thing the girls could ask was: why was this happening? And why indeed. But as Alma explained to them, the cause of her growth was a complete mystery to her. No one in her family was tall—in fact, they were shorter than average. She said that her parents had recently travelled down to visit her and had been shocked to see what had become of her. Alma didn’t dwell much on this quite personal issue, but I can only imagine how unsettling it must have been to see your daughter in-between visits grow 3 feet in height along with two enormous breasts. In any case, Alma said that her parents took her to a series of doctors, but none could determine the cause of her growth.

And that was that. I was just as baffled as everyone else in the group at hearing her story, but Alma herself seemed totally non-plussed. Even our teacher, who had also been slyly listening, broke in to offer her consolations. She remarked that the school would try to do anything they could to help her. Yet Alma brushed off that too and merely replied, “it’s okay, I don’t really mind”.

So there we were. Our school was now home to a gorgeous 7 foot, huge-breasted amazon. And while this fact was the source of constant amazement for everyone around, students and teachers alike, the budding young giantess simply continued her days as usual. As far as Alma’s behaviour went, it seemed like the only real hindrances were the fact that she now had to duck to enter rooms, and that she couldn't wear a blouse without brandishing several inches of deep cleavage to the class.

It probably doesn’t even need saying at this point, but I may as well: I really was starting to fall in love with Alma. She was unlike anyone I had ever seen. Not even the most perverted alcoves of my imagination could compete with this girl. She wasn't just a dream, she was better than a dream. Yet as much as I longed to gain the courage to talk to her, I never could. Remember, I was a 5-foot scrawny little outcast, usually seen with a greasy brown fringe covering most of my face. Even though Alma was generally a gentle girl who kept to herself most of the time, I still felt wholly inadequate even being near her.

Oh, but go near her I did—it shames me to admit, but since I hadn’t made much in the way of friends, I would spend most of my early mornings and late afternoons wandering around the school grounds searching for Alma. If I found her crouched down on an under-sized chair in the library with a book, I would go and find some corner where I could covertly watch her while she read. Or if she was out and about in the hallways, or in the school grounds, I would simply follow her around, keeping a good distance so as not to be seen. To this day I still have no idea if Alma was aware I was stalking her for so long. Truthfully, the prospect of being caught didn’t even cross my mind at the time. I had such a low opinion of myself that I simply assumed that I would be nothing more than an insignificant worm to her eyes.

So, where is all this going? It’s not looking promising for Alma and me, is it? Well, bear with me, we have a lot more to get through first. "Surely not more growing?", I hear you ask. Well, I apologise if you thought I was done describing Alma’s growth, I'm afraid you are sorely mistaken. And sure, I can hear you all reply—"7 feet is already implausibly tall for a 15-year-old girl. You expect us to believe she could possibly grow any taller?" Well, if you’d have asked me that at the time, I would have said the exact same thing. But the real world has a funny way of subverting expectations.

All of the teachers and us assumed, without any good reason, that Alma’s 7-foot milestone would be the end of it. But after a week went by, it was already clear that our assumption was wildly misjudged. Alma was growing, and not slowly at all. Being so incredibly tall already, it was getting harder to really gauge Alma’s growth. She was simply just taller than everyone around. So instead, it became the small things that started to tip me off. For instance, one day, she walked into class barefoot because her size 15 shoes intended for male basketball players were suddenly too small. Then another day, while standing in line for lunch, a loud crash echoed around the hall after Alma smashed her head into a hanging fluorescent light fixture that she apparently hadn’t realised she'd outgrown. I remember a particularly startling incident during a lesson when our teacher was nearly blinded by a stray shirt button whizzing across the room at the speed of a bullet. You see, due to the expanding size of Alma’s chest, she was in a constant battle against those damned blouses. I suppose you probably didn’t think a classroom button-popping incident would actually occur outside of pornography, would you? But believe me, that happened. Apparently, Alma’s growth was so fast and so constant, that her bust would expand even within the space of one lesson.

Who knows how long it took Alma to reach 8 feet in height, but it couldn’t have been more than a month. Regardless, it was far too fast. We were all still reeling from her last milestone. This time though, the issue of Alma’s growth was discussed in a lot more serious terms. Back at 7 feet tall, the girl was unusually tall, sure, but people do occasionally reach those sorts of statures. Perhaps Alma simply suffered from a similar affliction, we thought. But 8 feet tall?  And then pretty soon after, 9 feet? Well, Alma was heading into uncharted territory now. I remember one day during lunch, a girl looked up who the tallest person who ever lived was, and would you believe it, Alma, at 9 feet and 8 inches, was already taller than him. A rapturous discussion then followed, in which the girls all expressed their excitement about sitting in the same room as the tallest person in recorded history. All of them rushed over to compare their to heights to hers, with none even able to clear the great mounds of boob that she had stuffed inside her blouse. Of course, Alma’s reaction was exactly as anyone could have expected by this point: “Hmm, that’s cool, I guess.”

We were approaching the summer of year 11. Alma, me and the girls in our class, had all had our 16th birthdays by now. Despite it still bewildering us all, Alma’s ascent to a nearly-10 foot tall goddess-like creature was now just one of those everyday things. Looking back on it now, I can't believe how natural it became to have Alma around. Sure, if you'd asked me, I was still madly in love with the girl, but generally speaking, the school was getting used to Alma’s continual growth. Every new development was just like the weather in a way—a constant. But don’t let me play it down. Keep in mind, this is all still totally bonkers. Alma was not simply a preposterously tall teenage girl, her bodily proportions were—for lack of a kinder word—downright freakish. You have to picture it, 10 feet sounds impossible to begin with, but even then, her frame was nowhere close to some skinny elongated beanpole. No, Alma was robust. Sturdy like a tree. Her limbs were thick and firm, her hands and feet in perfect proportion with the rest of her statuesque body. Of course, what I meant about her freakishness was not those body parts, but rather her breasts. The things that started it all. Her cup size was already rounding out the alphabet even before she reached this crazy height, but by the time she topped 10 feet, Alma had transcended beyond brassieres altogether.

You might be wondering how I would even know anything about Alma’s undergarments or lack thereof, but trust me, it wasn’t exactly a secret. I remember that one fateful morning when Alma first clambered through the classroom door without a bra on. Her breasts—each one now the size of a beach ball—swung unsupported to-and-fro like giant pendula suspended from her chest. They were concealed underneath a large blue bedsheet that she had wrapped around her torso for support. This was new. And the sight of her like this caused a chorus of gasps to echo around the classroom. Only one day earlier, Alma had still been valiantly attempting to cram her excessive upper body into the largest bra that the school had been able to source for her via mail. But the decision to release them from that lacy prison, I thought, was a long time coming. The sight of all that flesh bandaged up in some ghastly configuration inside that tiny blouse and bra always made me feel claustrophobic. It was a relief seeing her chest unbound and able to move for the first time.

Unfortunately, not everyone in the class was as thrilled for Alma as me. Many, including our usually easy-going teacher, protested that this was taking it too far. It was obscene for a 16-year-old to be getting around without a bra or proper clothing, she said. I could see her point, to an extent—even though Alma’s modesty was still covered by the sheet, it really left nothing to the imagination. The swollen roundness of each jiggling breast was clearly visible, and you didn't even have to squint to see two long nipples poking out ostentatiously through the fabric. But when first questioned over the sudden decision to forgo proper clothing, Alma simply shrugged and said: “Nothing fits. What else am I supposed to do?”. No one had an answer to that. And indeed, what was she supposed to do? It seemed that the war between Alma’s body and her clothing had been fought, and her body had won.