CHAPTER XXVII:  

THE PROPOSITION

	Candlelight flickered across the white tablecloth, 
dimly illuminating two people seated across from one 
another as they simultaneously drained their glasses of 
the last of a bottle of vintage Merlot.  The waiter had 
just cleared the table, and the couple was waiting for 
him to bring the dessert tray.  Jeremy's eyes caught the 
flickering light, glowing in obvious adoration of his 
female companion.  Christine read his face and felt 
herself blush slightly.
	"You know," Jeremy said in a voice pitched so that 
only she could hear, "We need to do this more often.  I 
keep forgetting how fabulous you look with your clothes 
on."  Indeed, Chris was dressed to kill, or at the very 
least maim.  While not being particularly revealing 
(though some cleavage was evident), Chris's form-fitting 
dress was engineered such that wearing underwear would 
have ruined its line altogether -- and so she did not.  
As Jeremy continued to gaze at her, Chris felt the fabric 
of her dress trying to resist the pressure placed on it 
by her stiffening nipples.  She felt a wave of warmth 
sweep through her breasts, and she immediately reined it 
in.  This was a damned expensive dress, and she was not 
about to stain it with milk.  She had better control than 
that.
	God, she thought.  He can make me soaking wet with 
just a glance.  Shame on me for letting him do that to 
me.  I promised myself I wasn't going to let my glands -- 
any of them -- rule this relationship.  She hoped her 
bright smile disguised her discomfiture.
	Since she and Jeremy had started seeing each other 
seriously, Chris had noticed a moderate increase in the 
magnitude of her sex drive.  There was something about 
Jeremy that made a strong connection with her libido, 
making her more sensually aware.  Being with him was an 
aphrodisiac to her.  Her body had responded accordingly.  
She always had multiple orgasms with him, often five or 
more per session.  The feverishness with which he suckled 
her stimulated her already high milk production to where 
she could now put out close to three liters a day if she 
so desired -- as much as a well-nourished mother nursing 
triplets.  Her bustline had grown another inch as a 
result, to where Chris was now wearing 42DD bras.  
Despite this increase, she was able to maintain full 
mental control over her ability to lactate.  Her 
alabaster body still looked as if a stasis field enclosed 
it so that neither time nor gravity could intrude.  She 
could bring tears to the eyes of any heterosexual human 
male, but for some reason Jeremy was the only one she 
wanted.  She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but she 
had a hard time envisioning herself being with anyone but 
him.
	For his part, Jeremy was living a fantasy come 
true.  His obsession with lactating women went back to 
his fourteenth year, when he lived next door to a girl 
who had had a baby at the tender age of 16.  He would 
watch her through the fence separating their yards as she 
nursed the child while rocking in her back porch swing.  
Once she caught him at it, but rather than yelling at him 
or covering herself, she taunted him, flaunting her 
naked, dripping breasts, daring him to come over and 
taste her milk.  Her boldness had shocked him at first, 
but finally he took her up on her dare, and from that day 
on he had been hooked.  Now sitting across from him was a 
woman who not only was the most incredible, perfect 
sexual partner he had ever had, but someone whose gentle 
ways and fun personality he had a hard time resisting.  
Jeremy was falling for Chris, hard.
	The way Chris was dressed, Jeremy knew he would be 
unable to keep her body off of his mind, so he decided 
not to fight it and steered the conversation in an 
appropriate direction.
	"Chris, do you still make donations to the milk 
bank?"
	Chris wasn't surprised at the question; she had 
grown accustomed to his obsession and was even 
occasionally thankful for it.  "Oh, yes," she replied.  
"Even with as much as you drink, there's still plenty 
left over."
	"How much do they pay you?"
	"Pay me?  Nothing.  All of the milk at the milk 
bank is donated."
	"Do you have any idea how much they charge women 
who use the milk?"
	"Isn't it a charity deal?  Doesn't it go to women 
who can't nurse and can't afford formula?"
	"Hell, no.  These people make a lot of money 
charging mothers far more than formula would cost.  They 
gladly pay it because of the benefits they feel they're 
providing their babies by feeding them mother's milk 
instead."
	"How much money?"
	"Let's just say you'd be appalled."
	"Then these aren't needy people we're talking 
about, I gather."
	"I did some checking," Jeremy said.  "Most of the 
women who buy milk from this particular bank are wealthy 
society types who don't want to 'ruin their figures' by 
breastfeeding their kids themselves but still want to 
give them all the benefits of it."
	"How do you know this?"
	Jeremy smiled.  "I know a lot of them," he said.  
"You meet an awful lot of people in my business.  My 
clientele is predominantly upper class folks, yuppies 
with six- and seven-figure incomes who are beginning to 
feel an intense nesting instinct.  Seems that a lot of 
these Type A career-minded types suddenly get an urge to 
move out of their condos, buy a big house and spit out a 
couple of kids before their biological clocks run down.  
Naturally, I do all I can for these people.  I charge 
exorbitant commissions and I get away with it.  In the 
process, one hears a lot about how they intend to raise 
their kids in a healthy environment, blah, blah, blah."
	Chris was clearly upset.  "Those sons of bitches," 
she spat.  "They had me convinced that my donations were 
going to low-income families in need, not to cater to the 
politically correct whims of the rich and famous.  Well, 
that's the last drop they get from me!"
	"What are you going to do with the milk, then?"
	Chris was momentarily puzzled.  Jeremy's eyes had 
taken on a different kind of gleam, one she hadn't seen 
before.  "I don't know, throw it down the drain, I 
guess."
	"You'd be throwing away a gold mine."
	"How so?"
	Jeremy straightened up in his chair.  He hesitated 
a few moments, as if carefully framing what he was about 
to say.  Finally he said, in a conspiratorial voice, 
"Promise you'll let me get all the way through this 
before you condemn it."
	Chris's puzzlement doubled, but she said, "I 
promise."  What was he on about?
	"A couple of hundred years ago, it was considered 
declass‚ for a woman of substance to nurse her own child.  
It just wasn't done.  Many of those women tried to feed 
their infants mashed grains and cow's milk, with fatal 
results.  Those with connections and a great deal of 
money hired professional wet nurses, actively lactating 
members of the working class, to feed and care for their 
infants while they were off being seen in all the right 
places.  Two centuries later, not much has changed.  I've 
noticed that there's a real market for mother's milk 
among these ladies who are too busy with their social 
calendars to nurse their children themselves.  They pay 
top dollar.  I figure, why should the bank be the only 
institution to cash in on this?  Chris, with my 
connections and your talents, we could make a few extra 
bucks on the side providing this service ourselves!"
	Chris wasn't at all sure she liked that idea.  It 
sounded like she would be reduced to little more than a 
dairy cow, doing nothing but sit around being milked all 
day.  She told Jeremy her objections.
	"I would make sure that the number of people 
involved wouldn't cause you to change anything you're 
already doing.  You're already donating -- what'd you 
say?  Two liters or so a day?  That's enough to keep 
about two babies well fed, more if their mothers 
supplement with formula.  By offering a few things the 
milk bank doesn't, like anonymity for example, we could 
command a premium.  We're not talking quitting your day 
job here, but it would mean a couple of hundred dollars a 
week extra, at the very least.  These ladies can afford 
it.  They'd even prefer it, probably.  This way they'd 
know all the milk was from a single donor and so was of 
consistent quality and was free of the possibility of 
contamination by drugs and the like.  I'm sure they'd 
jump at this."
	Now Chris was intrigued.  She had to admit that 
making a little extra pocket money doing something that 
came naturally, and was something she got nothing but 
pleasure out of doing, seemed like a no-lose situation.  
"What did you mean, 'at the very least'?"
	Jeremy's smile got wider.  "In all my dealings with 
the upper class, one thing I've noted is that they're all 
dying to be the first on their block to do the 'new 
thing', the more obscure, outrageous, and maybe even 
perverse, the better.  People with money make up the most 
unbelievable things to keep from being bored."
	"So?"
	"So...again, I've met all kinds in this business.  
There are people out there, believe it or not, that have 
tasted breast milk and consider it a great delicacy.  I 
know for a fact of some guys who would pay hundreds, 
maybe even thousands of dollars, in order to keep a 
couple of bottles of mother's milk in their refrigerators 
at all times.  We would cater to those people as well, 
and make even more money than we would selling to upper-
class mothers!"
	"So I would be some weird kind of prostitute, with 
you as my pimp?"
	"Not at all.  You would be a part-time, modern-day, 
professional wet nurse, and I would be...gee, I guess I'd 
have to call myself a lactation broker.  You wouldn't be 
nursing these men personally, unless of course you wanted 
to..."
	Chris had to admit that the idea had a perverse 
kind of thrill to it.  She would finally be using her 
unique sexual talents to their fullest, with men who 
would not only welcome them, but pay handsomely for them.  
A far cry from her past experiences with men who 
considered sampling her gift of milk as bordering on 
cannibalism, to be sure.  She felt her crotch dampening 
and the warm rush of milk into her breasts returning.  
She was very close to saying yes to Jeremy's proposition.
	Jeremy was still talking, trying to sell the idea.  
"You would still have your job at the publishers; in 
fact, I'd recommend it at least until we know what the 
market will be.  We could bring Sherri in on this too; I 
know she'd go for it.  You would do as much or as little 
as you wanted.  You wouldn't have to meet any of the 
clients if you didn't want to; I would handle that end.  
I'd set up all the clients, keep the books, etcetera.  We 
can negotiate my share of the profits later."  He winked 
at that, but backpedaled when he saw Chris scowl.  "I 
wouldn't dare cheat my sole supplier!"  She smiled at 
that.  "It would even be legal."
	"Enough, already!  You've convinced me it's worth a 
try.  This might even be fun.  But I do still want to 
keep my job, and as soon as I start resenting hooking 
myself up to that pump, I'm out.  These little milk 
machines are mine, not yours, not 'the company's'.  I 
could have stopped lactating at any time over these last 
months, but I have chosen not to because I love it so 
much, and love how my life has changed as a result.  As 
soon as I stop loving it, that's it.  The flow stops 
there.  I'm not a dairy.  Do we understand each other?"
	"Perfectly, my darling," Jeremy replied.  "Just as 
long as you save some for me once in a while?"
	"No problem there," Chris answered.  "In fact, I 
could use your help in that department right now.  All 
this stimulating talk has me ready to burst right here, 
and I don't want to ruin this dress.  Let's skip dessert 
-- I'll serve you something nice and warm and sweet back 
at home."
	Jeremy's lust was almost palpable.  "You'd better 
stop talking or I won't be able to stand up without 
embarrassing myself."  His grin threatened to split his 
face from ear to ear.
	"Gar‡on, check please!"