Milk Fed - Melissa Broder Page 0,42

full underwear, like granny panties, and I couldn’t help but think about what her pussy smelled like under there. I wondered if she was wet. Then I felt guilty for wondering that.

“You’re sure you’re not creeped out down here?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

“Well, why don’t I stay a bit, just in case, until you fall asleep.”

She sat down on a cushiony chair across from the sofa bed.

“Okay,” I said, but I didn’t get under the covers. I imagined going over to the chair, facing her and rubbing up against her body like a cat. I imagined grabbing the back of her head and kissing her forcefully, our teeth clicking together, her gorgeous tongue in my mouth. I imagined opening her pajama top and seeing those tremendous breasts, sucking each of them.

“Why don’t you get into bed?” she asked.

“Okay,” I said.

I lifted up the sheets and blankets, crawled under them. Miriam did not stand up or make any effort to tuck me in, and yet I felt as though she were somehow tucking me in from across the room. I watched her body moving gently up and down with each breath, her pale blue eyes so clear in the candlelight, like glass. I could hear her breathing too, as though she were trying to lull me to sleep with the rhythm.

“Comfy?” she asked.

“Mmmm.”

“Good,” she said.

“Tell me a story,” I said.

“Really?” She laughed.

I hoped I wasn’t pushing it. But I was in such a blissful space, and if I couldn’t touch her, then I wanted the room filled with her words.

“Yes,” I said.

“Okay. Do you want a story about animals or a story about plants?”

“Animals,” I said.

What I really wanted was to slide my hand under my waistband and rest it there, to comfort myself, help myself drift off. But I was afraid that she would see the bump in the sheet where my hand was and be disturbed by it. Also, I didn’t trust myself to simply cocoon my vagina with my hand without rubbing. I was wet and would have loved to gently rub my clit, light and fast. Instead, I settled for wrapping my arms around my upper body—like Dracula in his coffin, only sweet and soft. It felt nice, the warmth of a hug. I sucked my nicotine gum.

“There was a woman who lived in a village,” she began. “She was about our age. It was a village outside of Los Angeles, but not in Orange County or the Valley. It was a village that had all palm trees and no other kind of tree. It was the only one in Southern California without any other kind of tree or bush except palm trees.”

She stopped for a second.

“Sorry, I veered into plants. I’ll get to the animals in a minute,” she said.

“That’s okay,” I said.

“This woman was looking to bring some other types of trees to the village, particularly, what are those trees? Oh yes, evergreens. But none of the other villagers wanted them there. They didn’t understand why she wanted any other kind of tree when palm trees were so beautiful. In fact, one or two other kinds of shrubs had started to grow there over the years, and the people had gone so far as to rip them out. This woman reminded the rest of the people that other kinds of trees, including evergreens, were native to Los Angeles, whereas palm trees had been brought over from somewhere else. But that didn’t matter to them.”

I heard her swallow.

“Also, this woman couldn’t figure out why she even cared so much about other kinds of trees. The only thing she could come up with was that when she looked at a palm tree, she always felt like it was laughing at her. But when she looked at an evergreen tree, she felt that it was on her side. Uh-oh…”

“What?”

“Maybe this is going to be about plants. Sorry. Anyway, one night this woman went to see her aunt. Her aunt was the only person who didn’t shut her down entirely when she said that she wanted to go to another town and get a baby sapling evergreen tree and bring it to this village, which, by the way, was illegal according to town ordinances. Her aunt didn’t understand her fascination with evergreens, but she understood what it was like to really want something, because when the aunt was younger, she had wanted to marry a person but had been forced by her parents to marry someone else. So her