I didn't dream or move around. I just fell into that heavy kind of sleep I'd forgotten my body was capable of.
Sometime in the middle of the night, I woke up to pee. It took me a second to remember where I was, but the night before quickly came back to me. I was at Matthew's house. Right.
I padded out into the hall in just the boxers I'd had on under my jeans and did my business. As I stood at the sink washing my hands, I just stared at my face in the mirror. I looked rough, but I was alive, which was more than I'd expected to be.
When I went back into the hall, I heard a low, rhythmic sound coming from the kitchen. It was clearly mechanical, and I wondered if Matthew had fallen asleep on that comfy couch with the TV on. I listened for a minute and then followed the sound because I was nosy like that.
The kitchen light was on, and Matthew was sitting at the counter on one of the barstools with a book open in one hand and…his other hand was holding some kind of pump to his chest. It was pressed over his left nipple, and milk seemed to be filling up the glass jar attached to it.
Human milk. From a man…
I stood in the doorway and didn't move.
Matthew hadn't heard me and just continued to read as the pump moved in that slow, steady rhythm.
I'd never seen anything like it in my life. Not from a man. Not from a woman either, but I’d come across enough nursing moms over the years to know what I was witnessing.
The rational part of my brain was slowly catching on to what was happening.
Matthew, the gorgeous man sitting twelve feet away from me, was lactating and pumping his own chest milk at two in the morning. How did I not know that was even possible?
Unfortunately, the rest of my body wasn't being rational at all.
I quietly stood there and couldn't look away. I wasn’t upset by it, but I definitely had some feelings. After a minute, I realized what those feelings were because I was getting hard. Actually…hard from watching him. I flattened my palm against the front of my boxers in a way that I hadn't needed to in over a year. I couldn’t even remember my last erection, and here I was getting off on my rescuer’s chest milk.
What the actual fuck?
4
MATTHEW
I heard the bathroom door click shut, and my whole body went still.
The pump was still going and milk was freely flowing into the collection jar for him to just happen upon.
Fuck, was Joshua coming out?
I just sat there for a second, listening for sounds that indicated he was about to catch me in my most vulnerable state…but there was only silence.Thank fuck.
After a few more minutes, I was empty enough that I could dump the milk I’d collected and get everything cleaned up. I didn't dump often because wasting milk felt wrong when there were so many people and animals in need, but these were extenuating circumstances. The organization I donated to was a partner of the Lactin Brotherhood. They worked with local non-profits, hospitals, and shelters to provide milk and milk-based products to those in need. The various groups used it for everything from feeding babies with unique dietary needs to abandoned newborn animals, and even some cheeses and butters. It wasn’t the mosttraditional method of providing protein and dairy to people, but it was a fatty source of nutrients that was easily digestible. The perfect food.
Unfortunately for me and those like me, it was also an embarrassing nuisance.
I didn’t ask for the ability to lactate, but since it first started happening in my twenties, I hadn’t been able to hold down a normal relationship. Either someone was only interested in the milk and nursing as a kink, or they were interested in me and freaked out by the milk.
Hiding it from Joshua wouldn’t be easy with him living with me, but if I wanted him to feel comfortable staying for as long as he needed to get into a better headspace, I needed to tread lightly with him. I had no idea what his triggers or past experiences involved.
Besides, we weren’t lovers. He was a guy I pulled off a cliff a few hours ago and might not even stay through the breakfast. Worrying about it now was a waste of time, so I poured the milk down the sink and got everything cleaned and back in the cabinet so my secret could stay that way a little longer.
In my dark room, I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling, listening for sounds of movement in the quiet house.
I'd been planning to check in on him every hour or so just to make sure he was still here. But somewhere early in the morning, I pressed my ear to the guest room door and heard nothing but the slow rhythm of deep sleep and figured I’d be safe.
Pumping only took twenty minutes, and I couldn't put it off indefinitely, so I went for it. I was just lucky he didn’t decide to grab a glass of water on his way back to bed.
My eyes popped open before the sun, but that wasn't unusual. I pulled on a flannel over my t-shirt and headed to check on Joshua. Through the door, I could hear his heavy breathing and knew he was still sleeping, so I went to the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee. When it was done, I took my cup out to the back deck and sat on the cushioned sectional that offered a gorgeous view of the ocean.
I'd been sitting there for maybe fifteen minutes when the sliding door opened up, and Joshua came out with a throw blanket wrapped around his shoulders. His hair was sticking up in every direction, and he looked fucking cute.
