How It Began...

"Morning, Carol," I said over my computer as Dr. Carol Wilson passed my desk. "I had a very nice time on Friday, and Ashley is so cute."

"Thanks," she murmured continuing a couple steps on.

I heard her stop outside her cubicle which was next to mine. She took a step back, so she was barely visible at the wall between our workspaces.

"I'm sorry," she said, her head hung low.

I just looked at her, not being able to fathom what she might be apologizing for.

"Art said that I should apologize to you, that I probably made you sick by letting you see my flat chest when I was feeding Ashley," she said just above a whisper, and then disappeared into her space.

I should have just shut up, kept my thoughts to myself. I was the only male in the office, and I heard a lot of things from the all-female staff as they talked about family and friends. In today's litigious society, it paid really high dividends to say nothing, especially anything that might be construed as a sexual inuendo or worse.

There were six cubicles on the second floor of our office. We are a medical practice owned and operated by my sister-in-law, Rita. Dr. Rita Wang, sister of my late wife. Due the growth of the practice, we now had four other physicians, all females, in addition to Dr. Rita, and had built out the space on the second floor for offices in anticipation of future staff additions. Of course, things had hit a lull right after we'd spent the money for the addition, so only Dr. Carol and I occupied workspaces on the second floor. In building out additional exam rooms on the first floor, my office was taken over and several spaces changed function, and we had completely forgotten that any new physicians would need their own spaces in addition to exam rooms. I was up here alone for six months before Carol had started with us two years ago.

I sat stunned at my desk for a couple seconds, then spoke out loud, not even turning to the wall that separated us.

"I think you have the most alluring, magnificent breasts I have seen in my entire life. It was so touching to watch the bond between you and Ashley. Thank you, and I am sorry if I stared, but I found your breasts intoxicatingly beautiful."

I turned back to my computer, saved the document I had been working on, and began to write out a resignation letter, sure that Carol would be reporting me to Rita. There would be no trouble, I'd definitely stepped over a line and I did not want to cause Rita or the practice any issues.

Five minutes passed without a sound, then Carol walked quietly past my entranceway without a word and headed downstairs to begin seeing her patients.

At about ten thirty, Carol came upstairs to pump. She'd had six weeks off with her first child, Ashley, and pumped three times a day since returning to work three weeks ago. She walked past my office, head down, and entered her cubicle, drawing the curtain that had been put up over the entrance. I heard the whir of the pump a couple minutes later, and tried to focus on the report that I had been working on but my mind could still see Carol's breasts as they had been last Friday night.

Dr. Rita was a planner, and had decided to get the principals together to discuss problems we were having with our electronic medical records and the implementation of a new schedule. This really affected the doctors and staff more than me, but I had been asked to attend as well as I was CFO. To keep it informal and have everyone relaxed, Rita had invited everyone to dinner at her place on Friday night, spouses and kids were welcome. After dinner the staff had stayed around the dining table, while Paul, Rita's husband, and those spouses in attendance and several kids decamped to the family room to watch a movie. It was only about twenty minutes before Art came up and, handing Ashley to Carol, announced that "She needs you."

Carol had smiled shyly and responded that there were bottles in the bag, but Art wasn't having that and responded that she should "just feed her." He handed the baby to Carol and took a seat at the kitchen counter.

It was obvious that Art wasn't a care-giver type. All the women at the table were mothers and said it was fine, but it also became immediately obvious that Carol had not intended to be breast-feeding. I lowered my head and pretended to be absorbed in some papers Rita had handed out as Carol undid the buttons on her blouse and unhooked the front closure of her plain white bra, and raised Ashley to feed her. There were six of us around the table, the five doctors and myself, who was seated to Carol's right and separated from her by one of the other docs.

"Okay then," Rita began, returning the conversation to the topic we had been discussing, and I felt it was okay to raise me head. As Carol had Ashley on her right breast, there was nothing really to see, as her undone blouse covered her left side. The conversation resumed and after a few minutes I was not even distracted by the child suckling in our midst. It actually began to feel 'normal.'

At some point, I can't even recall how long it was, Carol unlatched Ashley from her right breast and moved to cradle her to take the left. She nonchalantly uncovered her left breast, unlatched Ashley from the right, and moved the child to take the left, leaving her right breast completely uncovered.

I don't know if I breathed or not, trying frantically to look without looking, mesmerized by the scene before me. Carol's exposed right breast, teet distended by the suckling of her daughter, was so beautiful. Certainly not large, it was a small swell of tissue - not more than an "a" cup - with the areola just a shade darker than the surrounding alabaster flesh and not much larger than the base of her swollen teet. That nipple, about the size of the end of my little finger, stood out seductively, and Carol made no move to cover herself with her blouse as she went about feeding her daughter. The conversation continued, and I made sure to move my eyes to each of the doctors as they asked questions or gave answers. I swear that I caught a little grin on my sister-in-law's face at one point as she, I'm sure, was enjoying my awkward predicament.

The discussion continued with no one else seeming to be distracted. Again, it somehow became 'normal.' Or so I lied to myself, hoping I wasn't acting like an adolescent, and hoping too that no one noticed what I prayed were surreptitious glances at Carol.

"Hmm, someone's full," Toni (Dr. Antoinette Devino) said, smiling and nodding toward Carol. We all looked to see Ashley had sated herself and had fallen asleep. She was cradled in Carol's arms. It was an genuinely moving sight, mother and child in a classic pose of love. It was, for me, also a deeply erotic sight as I took in the splendor of Carol's breasts both exposed; small, perfect, capped with adorable protruding nipples.

Dr. Carol was a bit awkward socially. Or at least around me she was. We'd sat on opposite sides of the same cubicle wall for the past eighteen months, and in that time she'd never said 'excuse me' or 'can I ask...", and had never called me by name. If she had a thought or question, she just asked it out loud from her desk. A disembodied voice seeking information or offering an opinion. I always answered the voice, wondering if she thought of me as the computer on Star Trek, a voice that answered questions and not a real person. She broke my thought, my daydream recollection of the previous Friday night.

"What you said earlier," she began.

"Dr. Wilson, I apologize. It was completely inappropriate of me. I'll understand if you feel the need to report my behavior to Dr. Wang," I answered. Rita might understand, but she wouldn't tolerate anything that hurt her practice. She worked too hard and I had been wrong to voice my feelings.

"Did you mean it?" the voice on the other side of the wall asked softly.

I am so getting fired, I thought. There won't be a resignation, Rita will just call me and tell me to pack up my things. Tell me that she's so disappointed in me, ask how I could be so stupid? Carol is probably recording right now, I thought, and waiting to sue the hell out of the practice.

But there was something in that voice...

"Karen, my late wife, was a small-breasted woman as well. I always thought her breasts were fantastic. She loved... well, she enjoyed my attention," I smiled at the recollection.

"Your breasts are even more lovely, very sensual and wonderfully shaped. Carol, you should never think about apologizing for letting anyone see them, they are beautiful and it's a gift that I got see you feeding Ashley.." I trailed off. There were so many things I could say, but none of them would make up for that fact that I had been unprofessional.

"She wasn't like Rita? I just thought..." the voice said.

I smiled. "They were very alike, but not in the chest department. Rita is gorgeous and voluptuous. They had the same hips, but up top they were Yin and Yang."

The silence was crushing. I stared at the wall, waiting for the voice. I could not even hear her breathing, nothing. The clock on my wall seemed to stop.

Finally, I heard the sound of the curtain being pulled back, and Carol walked past me without a word, not even a glance in my direction. What's going on? I wondered.

She was a little late coming up for lunch, which she always ate at her desk since she began working here.. Now, of course, she ate, and then I would hear the sound of the breast pump afterwords. I generally worked through lunch myself, but today I just wanted to be on the other side of the wall in case the voice spoke. It didn't. The pump whirred for a time, then more silence.

Just before I knew she would be going down for her afternoon patients, her phone rang. I tried not to listen but it was in reality not possible with our shared wall and an otherwise empty second floor. There were no camouflaging noises. I worked to focus on my screen, but it was a tense conversation and though she tried to keep her end quiet, I caught snippets.

"Ass!" she said, hanging up the phone roughly.

"Everything okay?"

There was a sigh. "Art has to go in early and there's no one to watch Ashley till I get home."

"Anyone you can call?"

"He says he's tried," the voice said with an edge. "what the hell did he say yes to them for before getting this taken care of?"

"Hey, it'll be fine if he brings her in here. We are pediatricians, after all. Pretty sure we can find someone to watch her while you work," I offered.

"Rita's already being so kind letting me miss patient spots while I pump three times a day. I don't want her getting angry with me."

"Stuff happens. She'll understand." I opened the schedule on my screen. "Looks like you're blocked at 3:30 anyhow. You could feed her instead of pumping and she'll likely sleep until you two get home."

The voice was quiet again. I wondered if she faced the wall when we spoke, or if she even considered me at all.

"Taken care of," I said a couple minutes later.

"Hmm?"

"I messaged the boss about Ashley and she said it's fine."

"Oh."

Moments later Cariol walked past my desk. There was no eye contact, but she did say 'thanks' as she headed downstairs.

The afternoon was busy. I had two Zoom sales presentations from companies competing to put lab equipment in our office. These things are all pretty much the same, and neither seemed very anxious to answer questions but just wanted to make their sales pitches. I ended a little frustrated after both were finally done and was about to begin drafting letters to both with a strong demand to get specific answers to the questions I had asked. This was part of the job, to be the one who handled all the sales folks so the doctors could do what they do, see patients.

Carol was suddenly at the top of the stairs, Ashley in her arms. Darn, was it already half past three? I knew when I heard her in her cubicle, my mind would be wandering and there was no way I'd be able to focus on writing angry letters.

"Hi there, beautiful," I said, addressing Ashley. "Come to visit mama today?" I asked, rising from my chair to get a view of the baby.

"Could you hold her a sec?" Carol asked, smiling.

"Ah, sure," I answered, happily taking the baby from her.

Carol walked into her space as I cuddled and cooed with Ashley, my mood brightening immediately.

"Don't tell Art." The voice said.

Don't tell him that I was holding the baby? That didn't make sense. Besides, I never even saw the guy before the other night.

Carol stepped out of her office and came over to my desk. She was nude from the waist up, her breasts full, nipples pointing straight ahead.

"I can take her now," she said softly, putting her arms out to me. With an incredulous look on my face, I handed Ashley into her mother's arms. She took the baby, and curling her in her arms, brought Ashley to her right breast where the infant immediately latched on to sup.

"You meant what you said, didn't you? I can see it in your eyes," she smiled.

My eyes met hers. Hers were filled with tears.

"Art says my tits are too small, he hates them," she whispered.

"You are feedng and nurturing your daughter," I began. "Your breasts look perfect to me. They are exquisite, and very erotic. I love everything about them." I said, suddenly aware that I had at some point collapsed back into my seat and was looking up at Carol and Ashley.

I became aware too, that I was beginning to seriously dislike Art. How could a man tell a woman, any women much less one that bore your child, that her body was not attractive? It was ignorant and cruel, traits I did not like in any person.

"He saw you staring the other night. He says you must not like women if you would stare at such pitiful tits, or that maybe you were like staring at an accident, so horrified you couldn't turn away. He said for me to apologize," she said, looking not at me but at Ashley's face.

"You don't believe that, do you Carol?"

"i... not after what you said this morning,... and the look you had just now," she smiled at me. She turned and disappeared into her cubicle with Ashley.

Hundreds of questions flooded my mind, thrashed together in the maelstrom of emotions I was experiencing.

"There is nothing pitiful about you. Your breasts are flawless," I said in a hoarse whisper to the wall. No response.

Staring at the wall, I asked, incredulous, "Why the hell would your husband say such horrible things about you? And why didn't he come and cover you up when he saw me staring?"

It was quiet for what seemed a long time.

"We're not married," I heard her say. After a pause, "We're not even together. He's my roommate..." she said.

I was confused. Surely I hadn't..., no, somewhere during the interview or while talking in her first few months, she'd given the impression to us, the whole office, that there was a relationship. Maybe she'd never said 'married,' but I was certain we all thought they were together.

"It was a mistake," she said quietly, that voice from the other side of the wall. "We were celebrating my birthday and... I guess we both got a bit drunk. He was in my bed the next morning when I woke up..."

I could hear her crying. My dislike of the guy was growing. "Did he force..."

"No, I'm sure he didn't. It was... I wasn't thinking, it was just a mistake. He acted all cool, but then got perturbed when I said that it would never happen again. That's when it started... I guess his ego was hurt. He started saying how I wasn't his type anyhow, telling me..."

"Telling you how he didn't like your body? Yeah, protecting his ego," I nodded to myself.

"Yeah."

We were both quiet for some time, each in our own minds. After a bit, Carol came out of her 'office' and set Ashley in a portable playpen Art had also delivered.. "She's sleeping," she said to me. "would you mind just keeping an eye on her while I finish up with my last few patients and close some notes?" Her breasts, still uncovered, were less full now, but no less beautiful. For some reason, I was very taken with her confidence in her body, despite what I imagined was a difficult harangue from Art at home. She smiled at me nodding okay, and stepped out of my sight.

She'd redressed, and I was torn between disappointment and relief. She kissed Ashley and patted her softly. Then she walked to the top of the stairs. "Y'know," she said without looking back, "I've never even had a boyfriend. Before that night, I'd never... Now I have this angel and can't remember anything about how that happened."

She walked down the steps to continue her day.

When Carol came back upstairs after finishing with her notes and callbacks, it was well after five-thirty. She found me at my desk, Ashley in my arms.

"She was getting a littte fussy. I hope it's okay that I picked her up?" I said as she reached the top of the stairs. My office was less cubicle than the others. My desk literally faced the stairs, almost like a landing or reception area instead of an office. Anyone coming upstairs would run into me, and have to go around my L-shaped desk to get into any of the real cubicles beyond.

Carol was smiling brightly. "I hope she wasn't a bother. She probably needs to be changed."

"Nope, I already took care of that," I nodded toward the tied-up trash bag next to my trash can. We didn't normally keep a diaper genie in tis part of the office.

"Oh, I hope it wasn't.."

I smiled. "I've seen worse." Then smiling down at Ashley I added, "But not much, young lady."

Carol chuckled. I found that I really liked seeing her happy.

"Then she's probably hungry," I heard her say. Looking up, I saw that Carol was unbuttoning her blouse already.

"Please don't," I said a little too curtly. The smile faded from Carol's face.

"No," I said, "No, it not... " I looked down at the infant in my arms. "It's not that I don't find your mommy beautiful. I do, very much so. Very much."

"I could watch you... " I said, looking into Carol's eyes. "You are a beautiful woman."

A soft smile curled onto her lips.

"But it not right. You are with Art..."

"There's no 'with', we are honestly nothing more than roommates," she protested.

"He's her father, and you are living with him," I said flatly, looking at Ashley again. "If.... if things were different...." I trailed off.

She came up and touched the side of my face gently. A smile that did not match the look in her eyes greeted my gaze. "You're a good man."

She kissed Ashley, still in my arms. "Cmon, you fussy thing. We need to be going?' I released the baby into her arms, and they disappeared into her space.

It was a month later, sitting at my desk, that the voice said simply, without preliminaries. "Art is gone."

"What?"

"He's gone. Moved out. I asked him to please go, that there was no future with me. He agreed."

"Oh. Ah..., is he going to take care of Ashley? I mean, support or..."

She cut me off. "I have never needed or wanted his support. I got an attorney, and he has signed away all parental rights."

"Hmm," I said to the wall. Processing, I sat in my chair looking at the wall.

The whir of the breast pump filled the space. I listened and thought for a long time, as I did everyday.

Finally, when the sound of the pump stopped, without any preliminary or introductory comment I said, "You are a very beautiful woman. Will you have dinner with me tonight?"

Nothing. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears. I stared at the wall, wondering if I had again over-steeped, or if I had completely blown my chances already.

"I don't have a sitter," the voice said flatly after a while.

I chuckled, almost laughing out loud. "Has Ashley ever been to a restaurant?"

"No," came back. It was said sing-song, like an eye roll or that I should have known the answer.

"it's about time, then," I said. "Besides, I assume that if this is going anywhere, she's part of the deal. We ought to get to know each other better..., see if she likes me."

"Oh." The voice sounded surprised, almost stunned.

I waited, but there was nothing else.

"Carol, are you alright?"

"No." I recognized the sound of speaking through tears. "What time, and where?" she asked, sniffling.

I answered, smiling. "I'm not asking to meet you somewhere, I'm asking you out on a date. With Ashley. I can pick you up at seven, if that works?"

"Uh-huh," came back the voice, obviously crying.

It was then that I became aware of how hard my heart was beating, how I was gripping my chair as I spoke to that voice on the other side of the wall. Then suddenly, with her 'uh-huh,' I was able to breathe again.

I slapped my desk and yelped 'yea!' throwing a fist in the air. I heard the voice laugh.

That was five years ago. We married eight months later, and our second child, Ashley's second sibling, is due in about six weeks. I adopted Ashley and that became final two years ago. And yeah, I still think Carol has the most amazing, sexy breasts on the planet, and can't wait to watch her breastfeed our child.