5. Mark #2
Not just practical assistance. A claiming. A role in the management of her body that goes beyond sex and into something daily, routine, permanent. I want to be the one who does this for her. Not a plastic device that breaks at the worst possible moment.
Me. My hands. My mouth. Every morning, every evening, for as long as she needs it.
"Here?" Her voice has dropped to something barely above a whisper.
"Here."
I stand, move around the table until I'm close enough to touch. The breakfast dishes can wait. The conference calls can wait. Everything can wait except the woman looking up at me with blue eyes that have gone wide and dark.
The nightgown has buttons down the front—small, white, worn smooth from years of use. I undo them methodically, not rushing, while she sits perfectly still in the morning sunlight.
When the fabric parts, her breasts are full and heavy, already showing the faint dampness that means she's past due for relief.
My hands curve around her, thumbs brushing over nipples that are already tight with pressure. She makes a small sound in the back of her throat, and her head falls back slightly when I squeeze gently, testing the fullness.
"Better?" The question is automatic, but I'm watching her face for the answer—the way her mouth parts slightly, the tension that eases from her shoulders when I massage the ache away.
"Yes." The word comes out breathless, and then she adds, "But not enough."
I lean down, seal my mouth over her left nipple, and begin to suck. The milk comes immediately—warm, sweet, flooding my tongue in steady pulses while she makes quiet noises that have nothing to do with pain and everything to do with relief mixed with something else entirely.
This is what we do now, what we'll do every day, the morning ritual that belongs to us alone. I drain her completely before switching sides, my hands working to ease the pressure while my mouth takes what she offers.
When I finish, she's breathing harder, her pulse visible in the hollow of her throat. The nightgown hangs open around her shoulders, and she makes no move to close it immediately. Instead, she looks at me with something that might be wonder.
"That's going to be our normal," I say, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. "Every morning, every evening. No more machines."
She swallows, nods. "Okay."
Just like that. No argument, no protest about the implications of letting me perform this intimate maintenance twice daily for the foreseeable future. Just acceptance that this is how things work between us now.
I button her nightgown back up, return to my seat, resume drinking coffee as if I didn't just milk my stepdaughter at the breakfast table in broad daylight. The normalcy of it feels deliberate, important.
"Better?" I ask again, though I can see the answer in her posture—the way she's settled back into her chair, relaxed in a way she wasn't five minutes ago.
"Much." She picks up her fork again, returns to her eggs like nothing happened. "So what time are we leaving for campus?"
"Nine-thirty." I check my watch automatically. "Traffic shouldn't be an issue, but parking might take a few minutes."
"You know where my classes are."
"I know where everything is."
She takes another bite of eggs, considers this. "Do you know what I'm studying in Literary Theory?"
"Postmodern narrative structure. Your professor assigned three papers this semester. You got an A-minus on the first one because you argued that unreliable narrators reflect societal uncertainty about truth itself."
The specificity of it makes her laugh—actual laughter, not the dry humor from before. Bright, surprised, completely genuine. The sound does something to my chest that has no business happening over breakfast.
"Okay," she says, still smiling. "That's slightly terrifying and also impressive."
"Which part?"
"That you remember the grade breakdown from papers I wrote before you started watching me."
"I'm thorough."
"That's one word for it." She reaches for her coffee, and there's something playful in her expression now, something that wasn't there last night when everything was intense and urgent and new. "What else do you know that I don't know you know?"
The question opens doors I'm not sure she's ready for me to walk through.
What don't I know about her daily life? Her coffee preference—black with cream, never sugar.
Her study habits—she takes notes by hand because she retains information better that way.
Her sleep schedule, her favorite spot on campus to eat lunch when the weather's good, the way she chews on her pen when she's thinking through a difficult concept.
The way she looks when she thinks no one is watching.
The private expressions, the moments when she lets her guard down because she believes she's alone.
The careful way she counts money, the determined set of her jaw when she's pushing through fatigue, the soft vulnerability that crosses her face sometimes when she's reading something that moves her.