Between Feedings

I stood in the nursery, hands cupped beneath the weight of my belly as if I could cradle the child more intimately while she was still inside me. I liked to imagine she knew my palms by their warmth and the pressure of my gentle squeeze, the way a cat comes to recognise its owner’s touch without ever seeing her face.

The room glowed in a hush of artificial twilight: the curtains were drawn, but a pale rose lamp, one I’d found at a consignment shop and rewired myself, cast an underwater shimmer over the soft blue walls. If you’d asked me six months ago what palette I’d choose for a baby’s nursery, I’d have said white and wood, coolly Scandinavian, unisex to the bone. But I’d caved to sentimentality and now the entire room was a confection of pastels and curves, right down to the pale pink quilt draped over the edge of the cradle.

The cradle itself was an heirloom, imported from my grandmother’s attic in Vermont and restored with hours of gentle sanding, Danish oil, and a near-religious attention to historical detail. I’d sewn the bumper myself, a series of cloud-shaped pillows that were, per American Paediatrics, “not recommended,” but which delighted me inordinately. Above the cradle hung a mobile of felt planets I’d ordered from an Estonian craftswoman. Every time I looked at it—miniature Saturn and Jupiter wobbling from fine threads—I felt a pulse of pride as if some portion of my identity had survived the hormonal tide and found expression in this tiny, orbital tableau.

I rocked my hips side to side, not in time with any music but to counterbalance the dull ache low in my spine. The baby moved, a blunt pressure against the left side of my ribcage, and I responded instinctively, hand gliding up my nightgown to trace the shape of a heel or elbow through the tight skin. “You’re running out of room in there,” I murmured, then flushed at the sound of my voice. I had not yet gotten used to talking aloud to another person who could not talk back.

Despite my careful planning, the spreadsheets, the reading, the months of prenatal vitamins, I was scared shitless. Not of the birth itself, which seemed a procedural inevitability, but of the months to come, the years, and the slow accretion of irreparable errors that would add up to a childhood. I’d spent most of my life pursuing perfection, but now I was staring down a future that would be, by definition, messy. I felt a jolt of vertigo as if the floor had sloped slightly beneath my feet.

Jonah’s footsteps registered on the hardwood in the hallway. I stiffened out of habit, then made myself soften: shoulders down, jaw unclenched. His silhouette appeared in the nursery doorway, backlit by the sharper light of the hallway. He wore pyjama pants and nothing else, his chest cut with the lean muscle of a runner. He’d recently started going shirtless around the house after years of modesty. I suspected it was for my benefit, a way of reminding me what I would have access to again, someday.

He paused on the threshold, regarding me as if unsure whether to speak. Then: “You look like a goddess.”

It was the kind of line I would have rolled my eyes at in graduate school. But now, with my hair in a loose braid and my nightgown strained at the belly, the words struck me as unexpectedly sincere.

“Not the pagan kind,” he added, stepping into the room. “The classical type. Pallas Athena, except with a better rack.”

I snorted, instantly mortified by the unlovely sound. “That’s not how I pictured myself at thirty-two.”

“Honestly, me neither. But it’s a good look on you.” He drifted over, hands sliding into the pockets of his pyjamas with feigned casualness. “I caught you talking to her again.”

“She was kicking.” I pressed his palm to the spot where the baby had last made contact. “You try living with someone inside your body for nine months and see how sane you stay.”

He dropped to one knee in front of me, lips pressed to the taut surface just above my navel. “Can I interest you in a lower back massage, my lady?”

The formality made me laugh, an unguarded, full-body laugh that threatened to tip over into tears if I let it. Jonah’s hands traced up my sides, thumbs pressing into the base of my spine with exactly the right pressure. My nightgown was a whisper of fabric, a cheap maternity buy in dove grey, and I was suddenly acutely aware of how little stood between his hands and my skin.

“I thought you hated this dress,” he said, voice muffled against my belly.

“I do. It makes me look like a milkmaid.”

“There are worse fates.” His fingers grazed the slope of my hip, then paused at the curve where my thigh met my torso. “You’re glowing.”

I rolled my eyes, but I didn’t stop him. “You’re just saying that because you want to get laid.”

He grinned up at me, eyes glinting in the dim light. “Is it working?”

He stood, hands never leaving my body, and with a practised motion, pulled me close until my breasts were flush against his chest. He kissed me, slow and searching, the kind of kiss that reminded me why I’d married him in the first place. I felt the thrum of his arousal even before he pressed his hips against mine. The belly made it awkward, but not impossible.

His mouth moved to my jawline, then down the side of my neck, finding the spot where my skin was thinnest and most sensitive. I felt myself clench and release in anticipation.

He let his hands drift upward, thumbs grazing the underside of my breasts. Even though the nightgowns were sensitive, more so than before pregnancy, almost distractingly so. He cupped them, tentative at first, then with more conviction as I leaned into his touch.

I pulled back slightly, dizzy with the sharpness of sensation. “Careful,” I said. “They’re—”

“Sore?” He finished for me, and I nodded.

He thumbed the edge of the neckline, exposing the upper swell of one breast. The areola had darkened in the last trimester, a biological marker of my new status. “Sorry,” he whispered. “It’s just—” His voice broke off as he bent down, mouth hovering just above my nipple, lips barely grazing the fabric.

I expected the usual heat and urgency, but instead, he was almost reverential. He palmed my breast with infinite gentleness, then placed a single open-mouthed kiss right at the peak. The sensation shot through me, a line of heat straight to my core. I found myself gripping his forearms, desperate for more contact but unsure where to direct it.

He worked the straps off my shoulders, the gown puddling at my elbows. My breasts felt impossibly heavy and pendulous, the skin stretched and shot through with faint blue veins. Instead of recoiling, Jonah stared as if seeing them for the first time.

“You’re beautiful,” he said, and I believed him.

He pressed his body against mine, careful to align his hips just below the equator of my belly, and began to rock me in place, matching the rhythm I’d set earlier with my own restless sway.

I closed my eyes and let him lead, every nerve ending tuned to the subtle shifts in pressure: the drag of his fingertips up my spine, the brush of his stubble against my breast, the whisper of breath in my ear.

The room smelled faintly of talcum and new wood, and under that, the musky trace of arousal. I thought about how, just a few weeks from now, the cradle would be occupied, the mobile spinning in slow circles, the nursery filled with an entirely different set of noises.

For now, though, it was just us: two bodies learning how to move together again, recalibrating for the presence of a third.

His hands moved lower, tracing the swell of my ass, then back up to cradle my shoulders. The nightgown was bunched around my elbows, and I found myself wishing it were gone entirely. But there was a strange thrill in being half-dressed, exposed only where he wanted me to be.

He guided me toward the rocking chair, manoeuvring my body with a confidence that felt both protective and predatory. I sat, the frame creaking under my new weight, and Jonah knelt between my knees, face level with my breasts. He cupped them, squeezing gently, eyes flicking up to meet mine.

“May I?” he asked.

I nodded, biting my lip.

He drew one nipple into his mouth through the thin cotton, tongue flicking just enough to make me gasp. The sensation was sharper than before, edged with an almost electric urgency. My body responded instantly, a low ache blooming between my legs.

He continued for a while, alternating between kissing and sucking, as if searching for some secret trigger. I let my head fall back against the chair, eyes closed, mouth open in a silent plea for more.

When he finally pulled away, I was panting, every inch of me alert and raw.

He smiled and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Did I hurt you?”

“No,” I said. “God, no.”

“Good.” He leaned in and kissed me again, his hands sliding under the hem of my nightgown. His touch was no longer tentative; he cupped my thighs, spreading them apart with gentle pressure.

I reached for him, fingers tangling in his hair, and felt the soft, desperate thrum of my own pulse. I wanted him, wanted to be wanted, needed to be reminded that I was still desirable, still capable of this kind of hunger.

I opened my eyes and looked down at him. His gaze was fixed on my breasts, pupils blown wide.

“You really like them, don’t you?” I whispered, half-mocking, half in awe.

He grinned, wicked and boyish. “You have no idea.”

I laughed, high and breathless, and then drew him up to me, craving the press of his mouth, the weight of his body. The moment stretched, hot and brittle, and I knew there would be no stopping, not tonight.

But I also knew we were suspended, right at the edge—waiting for something neither of us could yet name.

I didn’t realize how much of myself I’d lost to caution until Jonah’s mouth found my breast again, this time without the cotton barrier. The sensation was raw, borderline painful, but my body processed it as pleasure, the nerves lighting up in a chain reaction that made me gasp.

He was kneeling in front of me, the skirt of my nightgown bunched around my hips and my nipples exposed to the open air, flushed and darker than I’d ever seen them. I saw myself through his eyes—a living fertility goddess, part altar, part offering. He cupped both breasts in his hands, balancing their heft with something between worship and hunger. When he licked a slow spiral from the base to the tip, I shuddered so hard the rocking chair clattered against the floor.

“Sensitive?” he asked, voice hoarse.

“Keep going,” I said, and meant it.

He drew the tip of my nipple between his lips, sucking with just enough force to blur the line between pleasure and discomfort. The pressure was exquisite—a sweet, sharp ache that made my thighs press together, seeking friction. I’d read that some women couldn’t stand this kind of attention while pregnant, but for me it was as if my entire erotic axis had migrated north, everything else dimming in comparison.

Jonah switched to the other breast, grazing my areola with his teeth before soothing it with the flat of his tongue. I ran my hands through his hair, pulling him closer, and he responded by gripping my thighs and spreading them wider, sinking between my legs so the top of his head rested against my belly.

“You’re going to smother yourself,” I teased.

He didn’t answer, only redoubled his efforts, mouth latching on with a baby’s persistence. The thought flickered through me—Jonah, craving milk that didn’t yet exist, preemptively greedy—and I felt a strange surge of pride mixed with anticipation. He wanted something only I could give him. Soon, I’d be the sole supplier of his particular need.

I rocked in the chair, the motion unconscious at first, but then deliberate, letting my hips do the work my arms couldn’t. Jonah’s hands slid up, pushing the nightgown higher until it was a useless scarf at my shoulders. He knelt back, taking in the full expanse of my body: swollen breasts, the arch of my belly, the dark line bisecting my navel, the slickness between my thighs.

“You’re perfect,” he said.

I didn’t recognise the person he described, but I wanted to. I wanted to be the woman who could answer this need, who could turn her own vulnerability into a weapon.

He stood, looming over me, and ran his hands down my arms, tangling our fingers before pulling me to my feet. The sudden change in perspective made me dizzy. He kissed me again, harder this time, teeth clashing, tongues frantic. I felt the hard line of his arousal through the thin barrier of his pyjama pants.

He lifted me, hands firm under my ass, and backed me against the nursery wall, careful to avoid the bookshelves and the framed print of “Goodnight Moon.” The drywall was cool against my back, a relief from the furnace of my skin.

Jonah pressed his whole body against me, pinning me in place. His mouth returned to my breasts, and now there was nothing gentle about it—he sucked and licked with a desperation that bordered on an animal. I could feel his heartbeat against my sternum, his breath coming in ragged pulls. My hands found the waistband of his pants and shoved them down, freeing him. He groaned into my breast, then let go just long enough to yank the nightgown over my head, leaving me naked except for a pair of cotton panties, already damp.

He hesitated for a split second, eyes sweeping over me with a kind of hunger I’d never seen before. “I want you,” he said, the words almost a growl.

“Then take me,” I said, and I meant that, too.

He hiked my left leg over his hip and pushed aside my underwear, fingers slipping inside with an ease that made me blush, even now, even after all this time. I was wetter than I’d ever been, my body having decided that lubrication was the solution to every possible problem. He slid two fingers in, then three, and I clung to his shoulders, using his body as leverage.

He teased me, circling the head of his cock at my entrance, then pulling back just enough to make me whimper. “Please,” I said, not caring how desperate I sounded.

He obliged, pushing in slow and deep, careful not to press too hard against the baby. The new angle forced me to stand on tiptoe, which only added to the sense of helplessness, of surrender. The wall behind me was cool and slightly textured, a counterpoint to the slick heat where our bodies met.

We fucked like that for a long time, Jonah’s hands bracing my hips, mine scratching down his back. The room filled with the wet slap of skin, the creak of the wall, our unfiltered noise. I thought of the neighbours, then dismissed the thought, unwilling to let in any reality but this one.

He pulled out abruptly, leaving me empty and aching, and guided me back to the rocking chair. He sat first, then pulled me into his lap, straddling him. The shift made me feel huge and ungainly, but Jonah didn’t seem to mind—if anything, his hunger intensified. He guided me down onto him, filling me in one slow thrust, and I gasped, bracing myself on his shoulders.

The chair rocked in time with our bodies, back and forth, the movement amplifying every sensation. I wrapped my arms around his neck and let my head loll back, letting the pleasure crest and recede in waves. Jonah cupped my breasts again, squeezing them together, sucking first one nipple, then the other, switching back and forth with a rhythm that soon outpaced the thrust of our hips.

He looked up at me, eyes wild. “God, I can’t wait until you’re actually making milk.”

The words sent a shock through me, more erotic than any physical touch. “What if I don’t?” I whispered, half-afraid, half-challenging.

He didn’t answer with words; instead, he lowered his mouth and began to nurse in earnest, his tongue flicking at my nipple while his hands kneaded the flesh. The sensation built and built, pleasure tangled up with something close to pain, until I thought I might scream. I clenched down around him and felt him stiffen in response.

“Fuck, Elise,” he said. “I’m gonna—”

“Do it,” I said, grinding against him. “Come inside me.”

He did, his entire body shuddering, arms clamped tight around my waist. I followed, not a full orgasm but a release all the same—a flood of heat and pressure that left me limp and trembling.

We stayed like that, bodies locked together, the rocking chair slowing to a gentle sway. His head rested against my chest, lips brushing my breast with each breath.

After a while, he finally spoke. “Do you think it’s strange?”

I ran my fingers through his hair, feeling a chill as the sweat on my back began to dry. “What do you mean?”

“That I want you like this. That I desire...that.”

I thought about it and then shook my head. “It’s just biology,” I replied. “It’s love.” After a pause, I added, “And it’s pretty exciting.”

He grinned, visibly relieved. “I’m glad.”

I kissed his forehead. “You’ll be a wonderful dad.”

He chuckled, the sound shaky and dry. “I really hope so.”

I believed it, if only because I needed to.

We untangled ourselves, feeling a bit awkward and sticky, and I found myself gazing at the cradle, its mobile gently turning in the dim light. I pondered the life awaiting us, the milk that would come, and the hunger it would satisfy.

For now, though, I was content to be consumed.

I hadn’t expected the aftershocks to be as intense as the main event, but the moment Jonah caught his breath, he pulled me back onto his lap, skin still slick from sweat and the evidence of our hunger. The rocking chair had stopped moving, but my pulse hadn’t. Every inch of me felt hypersensitized, every nerve ending tuned to the possibility of more.

Jonah’s hands found my breasts again, but now his touch was greedy, almost feral—thumbs circling the swollen tips, palms pressing until the ache became a delicious agony. My nipples were flushed and throbbing from his earlier attention, but when he bent his head to suckle again, the pain arced directly into pleasure. I watched him—eyes closed, brow furrowed, jaw working with an intensity that made my breath hitch.

He cupped my belly with one hand while the other kneaded my breast, his mouth latching on with wet, messy precision. I felt a new wave of heat pool between my legs, my body betraying me by wanting more when I should have been spent. He let go with a gasp, face glistening, and looked up at me with a wild, almost desperate light in his eyes.

“Sorry,” he panted. “I can’t help it.”

“Don’t,” I said, voice barely audible. “Don’t stop.”

He growled—actually growled, the sound vibrating through my chest—and slid me off his lap, pivoting me so my back arched over the arm of the rocking chair. His face was level with my breasts, and he went back to work, suckling each nipple in turn, saliva and sweat and something else slicking my skin. The hunger in him was bottomless as if he could drink me dry before I’d even begun to produce.

I let my head fall back, hair sticking to my damp neck. My hands clutched at the arms of the chair, knuckles white, as Jonah’s mouth moved lower, kissing a path down my belly, lingering at the tautest part where the skin was stretched thin as tissue. He pressed his lips there, reverent, and then worked his way back up, using both hands to trap my breasts together and devour them in tandem.

The feeling was obscene and overwhelming, and I rode the edge of a second climax, legs trembling and toes curling into the air. Jonah’s cock was hard again, or maybe still hard, and he fumbled for a moment before positioning himself at my entrance, the tip sliding against the slick heat between my thighs. He eased in, slowly, as if savouring every fractional inch.

I stared down at him, caught in the crossfire between need and fear. The baby shifted, an internal kick against my ribs, and I welcomed the distraction, anything to keep me from dissolving completely.

Jonah started to move, shallow thrusts at first, careful not to overbalance me in the chair. His hands locked onto my hips, fingers digging in so hard I knew I’d be bruised tomorrow. He pulled me toward him with each thrust, the force rocking the chair in tiny increments, making every movement count double.

He never looked away from my breasts, mouth open, tongue darting out to lick his lips as if already tasting the milk he so obviously craved.

I felt the pressure build again, a slow climb up the spine of my body, every muscle tensing in anticipation. Jonah’s pace quickened, the rhythm growing ragged, breath coming in harsh gasps. His hands abandoned my hips and grabbed my breasts again, squeezing them so hard I gasped.

“Fuck, Elise, I—” He didn’t finish. Instead, he pulled out, still pumping, and came in hot, viscous streaks across my belly and breasts. The mess was immediate, sticky and gleaming in the low light. I felt myself clench, a ripple of pleasure tightening through my core, and I came again, a small, sharp aftershock that left me shuddering.

We collapsed together, Jonah’s head resting on my stomach, my arms draped loosely around his neck. The room was dead silent except for the sound of our breathing—his, heavy and spent; mine, a quick flutter.

I was about to say something stupidly sweet when the first contraction hit.

It wasn’t a gradual build, like the ones I’d been having for weeks—a Braxton Hicks twinge, a polite reminder that the main event would eventually arrive. This was a body-wide seizure, a compression from within so deep and primal it didn’t register as pain so much as a total system reset.

I stiffened, muscles locking in protest, and Jonah pulled away instantly, concern flooding his face. “Elise?”

I tried to speak, but all I could manage was a strangled whimper.

He was on his knees in front of me, hands hovering, unsure where to touch. “Is it—?”

“Contraction,” I managed. “A real one.”

He blinked, then laughed in disbelief. “Now?”

“Now,” I confirmed, gripping the arms of the rocking chair so hard my fingers went numb. The pressure subsided just as quickly as it had arrived, leaving behind a tremor of adrenaline and a thin sheen of cold sweat.

Jonah’s gaze darted from my face to my belly and back again. He started to say something, then thought better of it. Instead, he held my hand, rubbing his thumb over the inside of my wrist like it was a magic trick that might stop time.

We sat there, naked and tangled and sticky, waiting. The silence was no longer peaceful; it was electric, straining under the weight of what was coming.

The next contraction came seven minutes later, sharper, more insistent. I bit down on the inside of my cheek, not trusting myself to cry out. Jonah counted seconds under his breath, his grip on my hand tightening with each number.

“I should call the hospital,” he said, once the wave had passed.

“Not yet,” I said. “Let’s wait.”

“For what?”

“For one more.” I wanted to savour this—these last moments where I was still just me, still just us. I wanted to hang onto the feeling of his hands on my skin, the taste of him still lingering in my mouth, the afterglow not yet dimmed by the task ahead.

But the contractions didn’t care about my nostalgia. They came every six minutes, then every five, and soon I was panting through the pain, head pressed to Jonah’s shoulder while he stroked my back in desperate, useless circles.

When it was time—really time—he dressed me in the softest cotton robe we owned and helped me downstairs, supporting most of my weight. He fumbled the keys, dropped them, picked them up, and kissed my knuckles as he slid me into the car.

On the way to the hospital, I looked over at him, searching for the man who’d made love to me an hour earlier, the man whose hunger and need had remade my sense of self. I found him in the tremor of his hands on the steering wheel, in the way he glanced over at every stoplight to make sure I was still breathing, still present.

“It’s really happening,” he said, voice raw with awe.

“Yeah,” I said, smiling through the next contraction. “It is.”

I thought of the cradle and the mobile, of the future, waiting in soft pastels. I thought of Jonah, waiting for the taste of milk that would soon be his, and of myself, newly remade, ready to give.

We sped through the dark, chasing the dawn, both of us changed forever by the hunger that had brought us here.