1. Chapter 1 #2
I put my hand on her shoulder. Just that.
The cotton of her nightshirt is worn soft, and I can feel the heat coming off her skin through it, and under my palm her shoulder is small and tense as a knot.
She's got her head turned away from me, toward the dark window, toward her own reflection barely there in the glass.
Strawberry blond hair loose on one side.
Arms crossed again, over her chest, the old habit.
"Don't," I say. "Not now."
She lets her arms come down. Slow. She puts them at her sides and stands there with her hands open, and I can see her fingers shaking, small tremors, the kind you can't stop once they start.
I take the hem of the nightshirt again and lift it.
Up past her belly, the round, tight swell of it, the pale skin up past her ribs.
She breathes in, and her ribs move under my knuckles, and she doesn't stop me.
Over her breasts this time, all the way, and I pull the whole thing up over her head and off, and she lifts her arms for it the way you'd lift them for a shirt in the morning, half asleep, and then she's standing in the kitchen in nothing but her underwear with her tits bare in the hood light.
They're heavier than I thought they'd be.
Full and low and round, the skin stretched tight and shiny over the top of them, the veins faint blue under the fair.
The nipples are dark and long and wet, still beaded with milk, and one of them is dripping a slow line down the underside of her breast, catching the light the whole way.
She crosses her arms again. Fast, instinct. "Ray —"
"I said don't."
She drops them. Her face is red all the way down her throat now, and her eyes are wet and bright, and I don't know if it's shame or something else. I don't ask.
I put my hand on her belly first. The taut skin of it, warm, the baby's weight shifting under my palm if I press, and she lets out a breath through her nose at the touch.
Then I slide my hand up over her ribs. And I cup her left breast in my palm, and it's so full it doesn't even move, doesn't give, just sits there in my hand like a fruit that's been left on the vine too long.
Heavy. Hot. The nipple's poking out between my fingers, and there's milk on my thumb the second I touch it.
"Jesus," I say. Low. "You're so full you're swollen."
"I told you." Her voice is thin. "It's been like this since — it's worse at night."
"Sit up on the table."
"What?"
"On the edge." I nod at it. "Sit up on the edge."
She looks at the table, at the bowl of dough on it, and then she looks at me, and something crosses her face that I can't read — some calculation, some last check.
Then she turns and hoists herself up onto the edge of the table.
It's awkward with the belly; she has to sort of lean and swing, and I put my hand under her elbow to steady her, and she lets me.
Then she's sitting on the edge of the table with her legs hanging down and her bare tits out and her hands braced on the wood behind her, and the dough bowl's right there next to her hip, and the glass of water's sweating a ring into the wood about a foot from her thigh.
I pull the chair up in front of her and sit down. My knees are on either side of her feet. She's looking down at me from up there on the table, and her mouth is open a little, and I can hear her breathing.
"Last chance," I say. Not because I mean it. Because it's the kind of thing you say.
"Just do it," she says. "Before I —"
I don't let her finish. I lean in, and I take her right breast in my hand, and I put my mouth on the nipple.
The first pull, nothing comes. She's so full it's backed up in there, and I have to work at it, suck hard at the tip, and she makes a sound above me — a sharp little inhale, the sound of somebody touching a bruise.
I keep at it. I get my tongue flat against the underside of the nipple, and I pull, and then it comes.
Hot and thin and sweet, and it hits the back of my tongue, and I swallow, and I pull again, and this time it comes in a real stream, a rush, and I hear her gasp.
"Oh," she says. Just that.
I drink. I keep my hand cupped under the breast, lifting it, squeezing gently from the base to push it down toward the nipple, and it comes faster that way, and she's leaking into my mouth in a steady flow now, and I'm swallowing it down.
It's warm, and it's thin, and it's sweet — sweeter than cow's milk, sweeter than anything out of a carton, and it's her, it's the taste of her body, and I've wanted this for weeks.
Her hand comes down. I feel it land on the back of my head, light at first, her fingers in my hair, and then she presses, just a little, pulling me in against her. Her breath is coming faster now. Her thigh's pressed up against my arm, and I can feel it trembling through the denim of my jeans.
I pull off her for a second to breathe and look up.
There's milk on my lip, and I wipe it with the back of my hand, and she's looking down at me with her mouth open and her eyes half shut and her hair all fallen loose on both sides now, and she looks wrecked already, looks like a woman who hasn't slept in a week and just got handed a bed.
"Does it hurt less?" I ask.
She nods. She can't seem to get words out. Her hand's still in my hair.
"Good." I switch to the other one. The left's been dripping the whole time, a wet line all the way down her side, and when I take it in my hand she makes a low sound in her throat, almost a moan, and her head tips back.
I put my mouth on it, and I pull, and it comes easy this side, comes in a hard, fast stream the second I suck, and she cries out — a real cry, sharp, and then she claps her other hand over her own mouth to muffle it.
I stop. Pull off and look up at her.
"The house is asleep," I say. "And if it isn't, they're going to hear you either way. Take your hand down."
She takes her hand down. Slow. She puts it back on the table behind her, and she keeps her eyes on mine while I put my mouth back on her and pull, and this time when she makes noise she doesn't try to stop it.
It's a low continuous sound, not quite a moan, more like a hum, like something loosening in her chest.
I drink her down. Both sides, back and forth, and with every pull I can feel her getting lighter, feel the swell going down under my hand, feel the taut stretch of the skin easing.
Her breath is coming in long shakes now.
She's got both hands in my hair, and she's not pressing anymore, just holding, the way you hold something you don't want to drop.
"You still want me to keep going?" I say against her skin. I don't lift my mouth off her.
"Yes." It comes out fast, before I've even finished. "Yes. Keep — don't stop."
So I don't. I take her deep, get as much of the breast in my mouth as I can, and I suck hard, and the milk floods out of her and down my throat, and I swallow and swallow.
She's arching up off the table now, her back bowing, her heels hooked on the chair rungs under me, and she's making that low hum again, and her fingers are tight in my hair, and she's saying something under her breath I can't make out — not my name, not a word, just sound.
Her right side's gone soft under my hand now.
Empty. I can feel the difference — the skin's not stretched tight anymore; it's loose and warm, and the nipple's still hard, but the weight's gone out of it.
I switch back to the left and finish it.
Drain it down, pull after pull, until the stream slows to a trickle and then to nothing, and I keep my mouth on her a while longer after that, just holding the nipple between my lips, feeling her pulse under my tongue, feeling her breathe.
Then I lift my head.
There's milk on my lips, and I don't wipe it off.
She's still sitting on the edge of the table with her hands in my hair and her tits hanging down, soft now, emptied, the nipples still dark and wet and shining in the hood light.
Her chest is rising slowly. Her eyes are closed.
The gold band on her left hand is catching the light above my head, and she's not turning it now; she's just holding still with her fingers slack in my hair like she forgot they were there.
She opens her eyes and looks down at me. She doesn't say anything. Her hand falls out of my hair, slowly, down to her own lap, and she sits there on the edge of the table with her bare chest and her round belly and her wedding ring, looking at me like she's waiting to find out what this was.
“You come find me the next time you need that, Ginny, and I’ll help you out,” I reassure her as I back away from the counter.
She looks for her nightshirt and hops off the counter and leaves me with a simple “Okay, Ray, goodnight.”