We were on our second Margaritas when Melissa caught me looking at her cleavage. She smiled and leaned across the little bar table, her brown, curly hair hanging in ringlets around her pretty face: "Hey, can I tell you a secret?"



She and I weren't really going out, not exactly. I didn't know what the heck we were, to tell the truth. I'd met her because I work with a friend of hers, and a few times she'd come out for drinks with a bunch of us from my office. I guess we hit it off; we both know an insane amount of detail about the Star Wars universe, and we're both really into archaic console versions of Mortal Kombat. (I still think it's kind of amazing that a girl is into stuff like that.) So we always found a lot to talk about.



So now we were meeting for drinks sometimes, after work. We would usually meet at this bar on Kearny Street called Murphy's Pub, partly because it was close enough to where each of us worked, and partly because she liked hearing the Irish accents. (The bartenders and the waitresses are mostly from Ireland, for real. They do not like it much when someone orders a Margarita in their Irish bar, but they'll serve you anyway.)



I figured that I'd been friend-zoned, and I didn't really care. Melissa was nice, and she was cute, but she was just someone from my loose circle of friends, and I wasn't really looking for a new girlfriend anyway. We'd sit and drink and talk about stuff; surprisingly, she actually wanted to talk about graphic novels and old video games and what a shame it was that the newer Star Wars movies didn't use much from the Star Wars Expanded Universe. She may have looked kind of like a magazine cover model, but she'd been in her high school Star Wars club and the Math club, and she loved to sit around with me and talk geek.



It was fun, but if she was flirting with me, I didn't sense it. And every week, after we'd been through a couple of drinks, we'd say "see ya" and I'd head home. Just a casual friendship.



Well, until last week.



It had started feeling a little date-y that last time. We weren't doing anything, no touching, no kissing, no talk of dating, nothing like that. But you know how you get that sense that something's going on? I was getting that sense. I wasn't sure what I thought about the idea of dating Melissa, but I didn't think it really mattered anyway; I wasn't looking for that. And so we'd had our drinks, and despite any new vibes I may have been picking up, we just said "see you later" and went home (my case) or out with girlfriends (her case).



It was a week later, and here she was, having seen me sneaking a glance at her sizable boobs, wanting to know if she could tell me a secret.



"Yeah," I said. "Sure."



Melissa turned her head, apparently to make sure no one was listening. I couldn't figure anyone could hear us in a loud bar anyway. Then she turned to face me again, looking kind of serious.



"I induced lactation," she said.



I just sat there for a second, not completely sure what she just told me. "You ... sorry, what?"



She had started to smile. "I induced milk. In my boobs. You know."



I must have had the most perplexed look on my face. "I don't think I do know."



"Oh, c'mon," she said. "I know a few girls who are doing this; you must have heard of it."



I just gave her a blank look. "So do you mean—" I started.



"I'm lactating, yes."



Finally the initial shock wore off, and I started to feel like I understood the conversation we were having. "But you have to have a baby to do that!"



Melissa stifled a giggle. "No you don't. You can induce. Any girl can do it, you know, like, after a certain age and whatever."



"Just like that?"



"Oh, god no," she said. "It took me almost two months."



"Wait, um, how would you even do that? What do you have to do?" I paused. "You don't care if I ask that, do you?"



She gave me a casual, pretty smile. "It actually took less work than I expected. I'm taking this herb a few times a day. I have to do a, uh, kind of massage. But it was taking forever to get anything, and so a few weeks ago I started pumping, like, in the morning, and night, and if I'm working from home then I do it during the day, too. And that did it. It got me started.



"Oh, and—" she looked around again, quickly, then looked back at me, excitedly. "I just got an electric pump, a dual electric!"



"Pump?"



"Oh, boys are so stupid," she said, still grinning, silly. "A breast pump, to pump milk from my boobs. It really works good, so now I can just turn it on and pump while I'm on the Internet or watching Netflix or whatever."



At this point I sat back and took a big hit off the Margarita. What the hell was I suppose to make of this, and what was she even telling me for? I mean, I was all for boobs and everything, but I'd never thought about a girl learning to make milk if it wasn't for her own baby.



After a moment: "So why did you do this?"



Melissa looked demure. "For the same reason most girls do it."



"Um," I said. "Which is what? Sorry, I don't think I really get it."



She leaned over the table again, long ringlets of hair hanging over part of her face, covering one of her eyes. She pushed the hair aside. "They induce because they want to nurse their partners. And, you know, their partners want to nurse from them."



I just sat there with a look on my face that must've matched what I was thinking, which was something along the lines of: what the fuck, really? People do that?



"I think," Melissa was saying, "that it's kind of a side effect of taking Vitamin E. You get these ideas. Although I used to think about this, kind of fantasize about it, a long time ago."



What Melissa meant by "Vitamin E" is actually a prescription pill for girls (or, uh, women) called the NeoEstrus. Most of the girls I knew, who were all in their 20s or maybe early 30s, took it, or at least said they took it; the pill doesn't really do anything for guys. But girls, well, there were pretty much two reasons they went on it: one, it apparently mixed really well with alcohol; the euphoria it created for females was supposed to be amazing. The second reason was the real one, though: it made them horny, as wild and horny as a guy. All the time.



I hadn't known that Melissa was on Vitamin E, but it wasn't a huge surprise. Lots of girls were on it, and usually you could tell; even when they weren't out to have sex, it made them seem more sensual.



I'd never been completely sure what I thought of this pill. Women's sex drive had never made sense to me anyway; if they could have multiple orgasms—endless, back-to-back orgasms, like my ex-girlfriend Mary—then why weren't they all a lot hornier? They should want to have sex all the time. The NeoEstrus pill fixed that. Girls on Vitamin E, sometimes abetted with a drink, would proposition guys with abandon, and have no remorse or even mixed feelings; it diminished the guilt and the slut-shaming that our stupid social rules had built up over the years. They wanted to go at it, with no strings; they wanted orgasms. It gave a guy's freewheeling libido to a woman's sexual capacity.



I'd been approached, sure. A girl would talk to me in a bar for a few minutes, and it all felt innocent enough. Then almost out of nowhere, she'd ask me if I wanted to go somewhere and fuck. Maybe I could go down on her? Please? She really wanted a guy to make her come. I always turned them down; for one thing, I just hadn't been in a place mentally where I was going to do something like that. And secretly, they scared me.



Confession: I'd never actually been with a girl on Vitamin E. Mary and I were together when it came out, but she had no interest. She said it was because she was a good Catholic girl, although that made no sense; she fucked like a rabbit, and so why would a libido pill be a sin? Anyway, she never tried it, didn't want to get a prescription. The birth control pill she would take, but not the NeoEstrus. The thing is, I think she could've used it. Sex wasn't the reason we fell apart, not really, but the last few months we were doing it maybe once a week at most. Once you got her going, yeah, she really had a good time; she could come and come. A few times she had hands-free orgasms while she was giving me a blowjob. It wasn't that many times, but it was still pretty amazing that she could do it at all. If she got aroused enough, she'd just come, even without being touched. You'd think that experiences like that would have made her a horny girl, but no. It took wine and romantic movies and dinner dates and stuff before she'd start warming up.



So now, Melissa was sitting here telling me that she was on Vitamin E, and it'd given her some "ideas." Ideas that other girls had, too, she'd said. Ideas that had led other girls to, um, activities. Ideas that had apparently led Melissa herself to action.



I sipped on my Margarita and then leaned back against the brick wall. I looked at Melissa, who was still working on her own drink. The crowd noise had gotten noticeably louder.



"So," I started. She perked up and raised her eyebrows. "It worked?" I asked.



Melissa gave a wide smile. "You mean the induction? Hell yeah, it worked." She sipped. "My body definitely works. And I did it naturally, too; didn't have to use drugs." Big smile again.



"Well," I said. "Um, congratulations."



"Thanks," she said, somewhat shyly.



I couldn't help but steal another quick look at her boobs, but it felt a little strange now. Maybe good-strange, maybe just strange. "So you said that, you know, girls do this so they can—"



Melissa interrupted, "They do it so they can nurse their boyfriends." She saw the quizzical look on my face and continued, "While they're having sex and stuff. Or, well, any time, I guess, if they want to feel close."



"Is it like the guy wants to be a baby or something?"



"No, no, not like that," she said. "I have some friends—not Julia—" (she meant our mutual friend, the one I work with) "but I have these friends who have this kind of relationship with their partners. It's not infantilism or anything. They do it because it's beautiful. I mean," she leaned in toward me again, over the table, "the girl is making food in her body and giving it to her partner from a sensitive place. It makes them feel really close to each other, right? Not to mention breastmilk has all these antibodies and stuff, so if the guy gets sick—well, you know guys get sick more than women do. But if he's drinking her breastmilk all the time, it gives him the benefit of her immune system. Like, my friend Claire says her boyfriend never gets sick anymore, not even colds."



"Geez," I said. "Anything else? Will it let us live to be 95 and have multiple orgasms, too?"



Melissa stifled a laugh, and gave me a silly mock-smug look. "Oh, you wish."



I took another drink. I was thinking about the wisdom of having another Marg.



As if reading my mind, Melissa took a sip and then announced, "I think that's my last Margarita for right now. I don't even know if I can finish this one."



"Yeah, me too, I think."



She continued: "So, anyway, some girls donate their milk, like, to milk banks. You know, for babies whose mothers can't nurse or who can't make enough milk. Actually I only know like one girl who does that, but pretty much all my milky friends say they want to donate." She shrugged. "I don't know if they mean it, or if they feel like they have to say that just because it's a charity thing."



I took a moment and then asked the question that was now foremost in my mind.



"So why," I wanted to know, "did you really do it? Why induce?"



She sighed and cocked her head slightly. A finger played with one of the ringlets in her hair.



"Um," she said. "I guess because I used to think about what it would be like. And I've always been kind of sensitive in, uh, that region, so I thought it could get sort of interesting, like, you know, in the right circumstances."



She took a sip of her drink. "Also, I had this friend who had a baby when we were 16," she said, looking almost embarrassed for some reason, "and I was always really fascinated with how her boobs made milk. I kept trying to imagine that mine would be able to do that, too, someday. It seemed amazing. So I guess I used to think about it a lot."



Melissa took another sip, and smiled at me shyly. "Mostly I wanted to know if I could. I wanted to see if I could have that power."



I nodded. "And now you have."



"And now I have," she said. "Also, I wanted to know what it would feel like to, um, you know, maybe nurse a guy, to know what it feels like, and sort of have that kind of a special secret with someone."



"And now you have," I said, again.



She shook her head. "Not yet. I haven't done that yet. I mean, there's a guy I think I'd like to try nursing, but I don't know if he'd be into it or not."



My heart started pounding because I was suddenly pretty fucking sure what she meant, what all of this meant. She glanced up at me, meaningfully.



I was talking again before my brain was even engaged. "Is that ...?"



She looked directly at me. "Yes, it's you, fuck-head."



I felt my face flush, and waves of shock pass through me in strange, warm tingles. It was like I'd entered another dimension.



"Really?" I choked.



"Well, yeah," she said. I was in shock; I could barely hear her.



I didn't know what to say, and I didn't know what to think, and I just sat there, feeling stunned. This girl who was on Vitamin E and who I'd been meeting for drinks just for fun; she had a thing for me. More than a thing, I guess. What did I think? And if she was on Vitamin E, why the hell hadn't she ever asked if I wanted to fuck or, well, whatever? Girls on the NeoEstrus were usually really forward.



I let out a breath and looked across the table. She's kind of hot, I realized; it was dawning on me for the first time that I actually thought this. I mean: pretty face, beautiful hair, and her body was, well, attractive.



And she was smart, and funny, and she liked some really cool shit (did I mention she likes seinen anime?). So why hadn't I made a move before? What the fuck, dude?



Right then I knew why: Mary. Every girl was getting compared to Mary, and coming up short because there would never again be a Mary.



Which had absolutely nothing to do with Melissa; she had nothing to do with Mary breaking up with me, and nothing to do with the unresolved feelings I had. Fuck those feelings.



I was about to say something when I started thinking about this other issue. Did I want to—I didn't know how to think about this—did I want to taste Melissa's milk? This is what she wanted. Dude, I said to myself, she's lactating, she induced lactation, and she wants to know if you'll try it. What. The. Fuck.



And then, after a moment, simply enough, I answered myself: what's wrong with that? I had never in my life thought of anything like this, but the way Melissa talked about it really did sound sensual and even sexual. Really sexual.



She was saying to me: "So what do you think?"



I had a slightly awkward smile."Um, OK, yeah. I'm interested."



She looked at me brightly.



Then, I said, "I just need to know a little more, just because, you know, I've never even heard of this."



"You live a sheltered life, Josh."



"I'm sure I do. I know I do. OK, but ... I mean, how is this done? Um, like, would we have to be naked and stuff?"



"No," she answered, quickly. "No, we don't have to be, but, well, obviously I'd have to open my top. I don't think you'd mind that, would you?"



I just gave her a big, stupid grin. I was so busted.



"So listen," she said. "This is what I think. Let's get a cab and go to my place. You can try it out, and if you like it, well, that's great."



I nodded.



"And if you don't, I'll just give you a blowjob and we can call it a night."



We found a cab after only a couple minutes.



—



"I thought you had a roommate," I said as we walked in and she turned on the lights. Her apartment had a light, pleasant floral scent that I noticed immediately.



"Not anymore," Melissa said as she set her keys on the counter, unhitched her purse from her shoulder, and dropped it along with her laptop bag onto a chair. "I've been in this place for about a month, and it's just me."



"Wow," I said. "I mean, this has to be expensive."



"Yeah," she said. "$4,300 a month. I know, I'm getting robbed. But once I started at Redac I really got a decent raise, so I can afford it."



I quietly suppressed any feelings of envy that might otherwise be rising; there was no way I could afford $4K a month. So what, she was a Marketing Consultant or something. They make a lot of money.



"Anyway," she said, "want a drink? Wine?"



"Wine would be good, yeah."



She opened her fridge and pulled out a bottle of chardonnay; girls, sheesh. She pulled off a rubber cork with a small whoosh. "You OK with white wine? It's all I have right now."



"Yeah, sure, I like white." Well enough, I guess.



She was pouring two glasses. "This is really good; it's from Sonoma."



"Yeah, Sonoma's good."



Melissa paused to put her iPhone in a docking station and turned it on: chill music, kind of like the ocean set to song. "For mood," she said.



I took my glass of wine from the counter.



"OK", she said. "Come and sit on the couch."



We sat down, and I was sitting right next to her so that our legs touched, which was really as much my doing as it was hers. She turned to face me, glass in the air. "To, um, experiments," she said with a shy smile. "Successful experiments."



"To experiments," I concurred. We dinged our glasses, and we both took sips.



We sat there for a minute, each drinking a little more of the wine (which I have to admit was pretty good wine, by the way).



I took a breath. "I don't really know how to start this."



"You still want to try, though, right? You're still OK with it?"



"Yeah," I said, in a quiet voice. "I am."



"OK," she said, thoughtfully. "I think we should start with this." She set her wine glass down on the coffee table and turned to me.



Suddenly she was putting her face to mine and pushing her lips against my lips, and we were kissing, and both our mouths had opened just slightly, and our tongues met for the first time, and I could taste the Chardonnay in her mouth.



Melissa let out a low purr as we kissed.



The kiss ended. Our lips parted slowly and stuck together slightly, and I could tell she was starting to smile. She smelled like soft perfume, wine, and limes, all good.



"I just figured we should start off with that," she was whispering. "It can't hurt. Maybe warm us up."



I whispered back: "I don't think it hurt."



I put my wine glass down, too. We were kissing again, my tongue feeling tingly as it slid smoothly across hers.



This time, when we parted, Melissa sat herself back. She'd been wearing a stylish yellow cardigan, and now she was taking it off. Underneath she had on a sleeveless blouse, I guess a kind of lavender color or something. She stopped and looked in my eyes. Then she started to unbutton.



I was suddenly very nervous. I'd been with plenty of naked women before, but this felt really different.



She didn't take the blouse off; she just opened one side of it and showed me a large, pastel-colored bra cup. Then, she slipped a bra strap off her shoulder, and pulled her arm out of it. Her bra cup was loose now, just hanging on. She looked at me again and smiled silently.



I expected her to pull the cup away, but she didn't. Instead, she laid back against some pillows and then gestured: "C'mere," she said.



I sort of crawled up so that I was almost in her lap, laying partly on her, partly next to her on the couch. "Let me know if I start crushing you or something," I told her.



"You're fine," she said. Then, she pushed me down, hard, so that my head was in front of her chest, in front of that bra cup. She cuddled my head with her hand.

