Chapter 30: Lactation Examination Gone Wrong
The vibration from the chair was a lifeline thrown into dark water. I dragged myself from the bed, my body protesting every movement—tender between my thighs, aching in my muscles, the ghost of his grip on my wrists. The silk clung damply to my skin. I stumbled to the chair, my fingers closing around the cold metal of my phone.
The screen showed a missed call from an unknown number. No voicemail. Just a notification, blinking in the stillness.
It was past two in the morning. A wrong number? A patient? The hospital? A cold, practical thought cut through the fog: if it was the hospital, they’d have called Julian first. He was the head. He was already on his way.
I stood there, naked in the penthouse gloom, shaking. The decision he demanded hung in the air, a surgical blade waiting to drop. Submission everywhere. In the OR. The boardroom. The street.
I couldn’t think about it. Not now.
I dressed mechanically in yesterday’s clothes, feeling the dried, stiff evidence of him on my skin. The car arrived at seven on the dot. The drive home was a silent, gray blur. I showered until the water ran cold, scrubbing at my skin until it was pink and raw, but I couldn’t erase the feeling of him, the smell that seemed baked into my senses.
At the hospital, the mask snapped into place. The brisk nod in the hallways, the focused calm in pre-op, the precise diction during the morning’s lumpectomy. My hands were steady. My mind was a locked vault. He was nowhere to be seen, presumably still in cardio, repairing the aortic dissection. The reprieve was temporary, but I clung to it.
By afternoon, a different, familiar pressure began to build. A deep, dull ache in my breasts, tight and hot. Engorgement. It had been happening with more frequency, a relentless, biological reminder. I needed to pump. The thought of doing it in the stark, clinical staff room, with others coming and going, made my skin crawl.
I remembered the small, dedicated lactation room on the maternity ward. It was meant for new mothers, but it was private, stocked with hospital-grade pumps, and had a lock on the door. I signed out a pump kit from Pediatrics and made my way there, feeling like an interloper.
The room was soothing, softly lit with a lamp that mimicked daylight. A comfortable recliner sat in the corner, next to a small table and a sink. The gentle, rhythmic hum of a pump came from behind a privacy screen. A mother’s soft voice, singing a lullaby to her newborn, drifted over it. The air smelled of baby powder and sterilizer.
I settled into the recliner, assembled the pump with practiced efficiency, and flipped the switch. The gentle suction began, a relief so acute it was almost painful. I closed my eyes, leaning my head back, trying to let the mechanical rhythm empty the physical tension from my body. For ten minutes, there was only the quiet hum and the singing next door.
The door clicked open.
I didn’t open my eyes, assuming it was another mother. Footsteps approached, stopped beside my chair.
“Well, this is a pleasant surprise. We don’t often see surgical staff up here.”
My eyes flew open. Dr. Alistair Croft, one of the senior pediatricians, stood over me. He was in his late forties, with a kindly, trustworthy face that graced hospital brochures. He smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners, but they weren’t on my face. They were fixed on my exposed breast, on the pump funnel, on the thin, white streams collecting in the bottle.
“Dr. Croft,” I said, my voice tighter than I intended. I fumbled for the stop button, but my fingers were clumsy.
“Please, don’t stop on my account,” he said, his tone avuncular. “It’s a beautiful, natural process. I am a doctor, after all.” He took a step closer. “Though, I must say, I’m concerned. We usually recommend manual expression or warmth to help with let-down before using the pump. It can be more effective, and it prevents duct blockage. Judging by the tension here,” he reached out, and before I could jerk away, his fingertips were on the upper curve of my breast, pressing gently, “you’re quite engorged. This can lead to mastitis. Very serious.”
His touch was clinical. Supposedly. But his fingers lingered, the pad of his thumb brushing the side of my breast. A cold trickle of dread seeped into my gut.
“I’m fine,” I said, pulling back. “The pump is working.”
“It’s not optimal,” he chided softly, moving his hand. He didn’t move away. His gaze dropped lower. “And with the increased blood flow to… all areas… it’s not just the breasts that need attention. Circulation is key. Pelvic congestion can be a real issue in late pregnancy. It can mimic all sorts of problems.”
His hand moved again, lower this time, resting on my thigh over my scrubs. “A simple massage of the major muscle groups can alleviate so much. It’s a standard part of postnatal care, really. We can start it preemptively.”
His fingers began to knead my inner thigh, moving inexorably inward. Horror locked my vocal cords. This was Dr. Croft. The beloved pediatrician. The singing mother was just behind the screen. I opened my mouth to scream, to tell him to get his fucking hands off me.
The door exploded inward.
It didn’t open. It slammed against the wall with a crash that drowned out the pump, the lullaby, everything.
Julian filled the doorway. He was still in his scrubs from the cardio marathon, a light spatter of blood marring the blue fabric near his collar. His face was a skull-planed mask of pure, unadulterated fury. His eyes, black as a starless night, took in the scene in one nanosecond: me, exposed, Croft’s hand high on my thigh.
The air in the room ignited.
“Get your fucking hand off her,” Julian said. The words were quiet, precise, and carried the cutting force of a scalpel.
Croft snatched his hand back as if burned, stumbling back a step, his kindly facade cracking into panic. “Julian! This is a misunderstanding. I was simply conducting a—”
Julian was on him. He didn’t run. He covered the distance in three long, predatory strides. His hand closed around the front of Croft’s white coat and hurled him backwards. Croft crashed into the privacy screen, sending it clattering down. The mother behind it gasped, clutching her baby to her chest, her eyes wide.
Julian didn’t even glance at her. He dragged a sputtering Croft to the door and shoved him into the corridor with terrifying force. “If you come near her again, if you so much as look at her on this ward, I will personally ensure you never practice medicine on anything more complex than a fucking gerbil. Now get out of my sight.”
He slammed the door in Croft’s stunned face and turned the lock.
The silence was deafening. The mother stared, frozen. Julian’s gaze sliced to her. “Out.” It was not a request.
She scrambled up, fumbling with her baby and her pump, and fled without a word.
Then it was just us. The hum of my pump, still going. The rapid, ragged sound of my breathing.
Julian turned to me. The fury hadn’t left. It had just condensed, refined, redirected entirely at me. He stalked over, his movements lethally controlled. He didn’t look at my face. His eyes were on my breast, on the pump, on the bottle half-full of milk.
With a violent swipe of his hand, he knocked the pump tubing away. The machine whirred pointlessly. Milk dripped down my skin.
“So this is where you disappear to,” he said, his voice a low, dangerous vibration. “To let greasy, old men put their hands on you under the guise of medical care?”
“He— he just came in, I didn’t—” The words died in my throat.
He leaned down, bracing his hands on the arms of the recliner, caging me in. “Do you have any idea what would have happened if I hadn’t walked in? Do you have any fucking instinct for self-preservation?”
Before I could answer, his head dipped. His mouth closed over my nipple, still wet and tight from the pump.
I cried out, my back arching off the chair, not in protest but in shocking, electric response. His tongue was rough, lapping at the leaking milk, suckling hard. It wasn’t gentle. It was a claiming. A consumption.
He pulled back, his lips glistening. “This,” he growled. “This is mine. Everything that comes from this beautiful, swollen body is mine. That fucker doesn’t get to even think about it.”
His hand pushed between my legs, rubbing firmly over the fabric of my scrubs. “And this wet, desperate cunt? Mine. Did he get you wet? Were you getting ready to spread your legs for him, too?”
“No! God, no, Julian, please—”
“Please what?” He unbuttoned my scrub pants with harsh, efficient tugs. “Please prove it’s mine? Please show me who you belong to?”
He yanked the fabric down to my knees. The cool air hit my wetness. His fingers plunged inside me, fucking me with them hard and deep. “Soaking. So fucking wet. Is it from fear? Or is it because you saw me break that pathetic piece of shit in half?”
He withdrew his fingers, slick with my arousal, and brought them to my mouth. I tasted myself, salty and musky. “That’s your flavor. Mine. It doesn’t belong in this room with anyone else.”
He unbuckled his own scrubs, freeing his cock, which was already fully, intimidatingly hard. He was angry, and it made him brutal, magnificent. He didn’t bother with positioning. He grabbed my hips, hauling me to the edge of the recliner, forcing my legs wider over the arms of the chair. He notched the head at my entrance and sank into me in one punishing, deep stroke.
The cry that tore from me was one of sheer overwhelmed sensation. He filled the sore, tender emptiness ruthlessly.
“Look at me,” he commanded, his voice raw.
I forced my eyes open, meeting his burning gaze.
“Who does this pussy belong to?” He pulled out slowly, almost all the way, then slammed back in, making me jolt.
“You,” I gasped.
“Who’s going to milk these perfect tits dry?” He leaned forward, capturing my other nipple in his mouth, sucking hard, the dual sensation of fullness below and sharp pull above short-circuiting my thoughts.
“You are,” I sobbed.
“And who owns you?” He set a relentless, driving rhythm, each thrust a declaration. The chair creaked violently. “Every Goddamn part of you. Your skill. Your mind. This tight, fucking perfect cunt. Say it.”
The climax gathered, ruthless and fast, brutally wrung from me by his possession, his words, his utterly dominating fuck. “You do! Julian, I’m yours!”
It was all he needed. With a final, deep grind, he came, spilling into me with a guttural groan, his teeth sinking into the soft flesh of my breast, not quite breaking the skin but branding me all the same.
He stayed there, buried inside me, his forehead damp against my chest, his breathing harsh. The only sounds were our breaths and the distant, cheerful melody of a maternity ward lullaby piping through the speakers in the hall.
Slowly, he softened, withdrew. He righted his scrubs with an air of chilling normalcy. He watched as I clumsily pulled my pants up, my hands trembling too hard to fasten them.
He reached down and did the buttons for me, his touch oddly gentle now. Then he picked up the bottle of breast milk from where it had fallen. He held it up to the light, examining the creamy liquid.
“Don’t come back to this room,” he said, his voice quiet, final. “You pump in my office. Or not at all. I decide.”
He poured the milk slowly, deliberately, into the sink. It swirled down the drain.
“Rounds start in twenty minutes. Don’t be late.”
He walked out, leaving the door wide open behind him. I sat in the wrecked chair, exposed, used, the taste of him and me on my lips, the smell of sex and split milk thick in the air.
From the corridor, I heard his phone ring. He answered it, his voice already shifting into the calm, authoritative tone of the Head of Department.
“Hayes… Yes, the dissection was textbook. Tell the family the prognosis is good… What about the other matter? The credentials committee for the promotion?… Good. Schedule the review for Friday. I want it finalized.”
The promotion. My promotion. The one he held in his hands.
His footsteps faded away.
I finally managed to stand, my legs watery. I cleaned up mechanically, disposed of the pumping kit. As I left the room, smoothing down my scrubs, my own phone buzzed in my pocket.
Another call from the same unknown number. This time, I answered, my voice hollow. “Hello?”
“Finally,” said a familiar, worried male voice. It was Ben, my friend from med school, now a journalist. “I’ve been calling for days. Listen, I’ve been doing some digging on your new boss, Julian Hayes, for that profile piece. There’s something off. Something buried. We need to talk. Tonight. Somewhere he won’t see.”
The line went dead in my hand.