Daddy Milks His Stepdaughter

1. Chapter 1

The house talks at night. I've known that for years — the tick of the furnace, the groan of the stairs, the refrigerator humming like it's got something to say.

I've sat in this kitchen through a hundred of these hours, long after everyone else went up, listening to the place breathe.

Tonight the dough's been rising since nine, a big bowl of it under a dish towel on the counter, and the whole room smells like yeast and warmth.

I've got a glass of water in front of me.

Haven't touched it. It's just something to hold while I wait for nothing in particular.

Then I hear her.

Bare feet on the linoleum. Soft slap, pause, soft slap.

She's trying to be quiet, and she's failing the way people always fail in this house — the third stair from the bottom always groans, and the hallway floor creaks at the threshold.

I don't turn around. I take the glass and lift it, put it back down, watch the water settle.

"Oh." Her voice behind me. Small. "I didn't — I thought everyone was asleep."

"Couldn't sleep." I turn on the chair, slow, so I don't startle her. "You're up late."

She's in the doorway with one hand on the frame, like she might turn around and go back up.

The nightshirt is thin and pale, and it's stuck to her.

Both sides. The wet has gone dark and wide across her chest, and the shape of her under the fabric is plain as anything — heavy, full, the nipples standing out hard against the wet cotton.

She's got her arms crossed a second later, folding them over herself, but she's already too late. I've seen it.

"I was just getting water," she says.

"There's a pitcher in the fridge." I nod at it. "Cold."

She doesn't move. She's looking at the glass in front of me, then at the floor, then at the bowl of dough under the towel. Anything but me.

"You're leaking," I say.

Her face goes red from the throat up. Even in this light — just the one over the stove, the hood light, everything else dark — I can see it climb her cheeks. She pulls her arms tighter. "I know. I woke up, and it was — it's been doing that. It's fine. I'll just get a towel."

"It's not fine." I stand up. The chair scrapes back, and she flinches at the sound. "You're soaked through. That hurts, doesn't it?"

She doesn't answer. That's an answer.

I come around the table slowly. Not fast. There's no reason to rush anything at this hour.

The linoleum's cold under my bare feet and warm where the fridge has been pushing heat out all night.

She watches me the whole way, and she doesn't step back into the hall.

That's the thing I notice. She doesn't step back.

"Ginny." I stop a foot from her. Close enough that I can smell her — soap, and under it the warm, milky smell that's been in the house since she got here, the smell that's been following her around like a shadow.

"You've been walking around here for three days with your arms crossed over your chest. I've been watching you do it. "

"That's —" She swallows. "That's not —"

"You're full to hurting." I keep my voice down. Low. The way you'd talk to something skittish. "Aren't you."

Her eyes are wet, and I don't think it's crying.

She's tired. There's a bruise-colored shadow under each eye, and her hair's come loose from whatever she tied it back with, strawberry blond strands stuck to her temple.

Twenty-four years old and she looks like she's been carrying something heavier than the baby.

"It's not something you can just —" she starts.

"I know what it is." I lift my hand, slowly, and I put my thumb against the wet cotton, right over her nipple.

The fabric's cold and wet on the outside and hot underneath, and I can feel the shape of her through it, the hardness, the weight.

She goes still. Completely still. Her breath stops in her chest.

"Ray —"

"Let me help you, Ginny." I don't take my thumb away. I press, just a little, and the wet spreads under the pad of it. "I've always wanted to do this."

Her mouth opens, and nothing comes out of it.

"I've thought about it," I say. "Since you got here.

Since before, if I'm honest. Watching you sit at that table with your arms crossed and your face pulled tight.

You think I don't see it. You think your mother sees it.

She doesn't. She never looks at anything too close.

" My thumb moves, one slow circle, and her whole body gives a little shudder she can't hide. "But I do."

"You're my —" She stops. She can't finish it. Stepfather. That's the word. She can't get it out of her mouth, and I don't need her to. It's in the room anyway. It's been in the room since she got here.

"I know what I am," I say. "Doesn't change what you need."

She makes a sound. Not a word. Something caught in her throat.

I take my thumb off her, and I get the hem of the nightshirt between my fingers.

The cotton's thin and worn soft from washing, and it lifts easy.

I pull it up slow, an inch at a time, and I watch her face the whole way for the no.

It doesn't come. Her breath comes back, shallow and fast, and her hands stay down at her sides now, fingers curling and uncurling against her thighs like she's trying to decide something.

The hem clears her belly. There's the swell of it, round and tight, the skin stretched smooth and pale under the light. I keep lifting past her ribs. She's holding still for me, and there's a fine tremble running through her that I can feel more than see.

"Ray," she says again. Just my name. It doesn't sound like stop.

The hem catches under her breasts, and I stop there, holding it up, letting the fabric gather in my fist while the rest of her comes into the light.

Heavy. Full. The veins faint and blue under the fair skin, the nipples dark and wet and standing up hard, and a slow bead of milk welling at one tip, catching the light, hanging there.

"Look at that," I say. Low. "You're dripping."

She covers her face with both hands. Not her chest — her face. Like if she can't see me, she doesn't have to be here for it. I let her have that. I'm in no hurry.

"When's the last time somebody touched these?" I ask. "Really touched them."

Her voice comes out from behind her hands, muffled. "That's not — you can't ask me that."

"I just did."

"He doesn't —" She stops. Starts again. "It hurts when he does. He doesn't know how. He just grabs at them like —" She cuts it off, and her hands come down off her face, and her eyes are bright and hard now, angry at herself for saying it. "Forget it."

"I won't." I let the hem go, and it falls back down over her, and she blinks at me, thrown. I step back and pull out the chair at the head of the table. The one that faces the window, the one that looks out on nothing but the dark yard and the fence. "Sit."

"What?"

"Sit down." I keep my hand on the chair back. "You came down here for water. You're going to drink some water, and then we're going to deal with the rest of it." I nod at the glass. "Sit."

She stands there a second longer. The fridge kicks on behind her, and she startles at the sound, a small jerk of the shoulders, and then she laughs at herself — one short breath of a laugh, no humor in it.

And she sits. She comes around the table and lowers herself into the chair, careful, one hand on the edge like she's still not sure her body will hold her, and she sits with her back to the dark window and her hands flat on the table.

I go to the fridge. I get the pitcher out and pour her a glass, and I put it down in front of her. The cold glass sweats on the wood. She wraps both hands around it and drinks, and I watch her throat work, and I watch the wet patch on her nightshirt spread a little wider while she does it.

She sets the glass down half gone. "Why do you want to?" she says.

"Because I've been watching you for days.

" I lean back in the chair, and it creaks.

"Because you walk around this house holding yourself like you're carrying a full bucket and you're afraid to spill.

Because your mother doesn't look at you and your husband isn't here, and somebody in this house ought to see what's in front of them.

" I let that sit. "And because I've wanted to put my mouth on you since the first night you sat down at that table. "

Her hands tighten around the glass. She doesn't look away from me.

"That's a terrible thing to say," she says.

"It is."

"You're married to my mother."

"I am."

"I'm —" She stops. She looks down at the table, at her own left hand, and the ring's there catching the light, a thin gold band, and she turns it with her thumb once, twice, like she does when she's thinking. "I'm married."

"You are."

She looks up. "You're not going to say anything else?"

"What's there to say?" I reach across the corner, and I put my hand over hers on the glass. Her skin's warm from holding it. "You know what you are, Ginny. I know what I am. That's not the question on the table."

"What is."

"Whether it's going to be you alone in the dark upstairs with the ache, or whether you're going to let me help you." I keep my hand on hers. "That's the whole of it."

She breathes. In through the nose, out through the mouth, slow, like she's counting. "If I say yes," she says, very quietly, "it's just this. Just the once. Just because it hurts."

"Just because it hurts," I agree.

I stand up. The chair legs drag on the linoleum, and she watches them drag, watches anything but my face.

I come around the corner of the table slowly.

She's got both hands flat on the wood still, and she doesn't move them, doesn't pull back, just sits there with her shoulders up near her ears like she's bracing for weather.

"Stand up," I say.

The chair scoots back behind her, and the sound of it is loud in the room, and she winces at it, glances up at the ceiling. The house is quiet up there. Nobody's coming.