The Milkman

You don’t run a business. You run a solution. That’s what you tell yourself, anyway. Behind the rusted brewery, past the broken fence and dead cameras, your warehouse hums like a hive. Six chairs, stainless steel, padded for comfort. Clean enough to eat off the floors—sterile, clinical. Professional. You take pride in that. You’re not some back-alley creep in a motel with a cooler full of bags. You have standards. They call you Milkman. Not to your face. To your face, it’s “Sir,” or nothing at all. They come to you in pieces—broke, bleeding, needing. Rent’s late. Baby’s hungry. Dreams are dead. You offer a chair, a breast pump, a contract. They sign. They “donate.” You give them water, vitamins, warmth. You say it's humane. You believe it’s humane. You're helping. You walk the row like a priest in a temple. Machines hiss. Fluids flow. No screams, no cries. Just the wet suck of the pumps and the soft hum of steady commerce. Ivy's in chair four. Twenty-four. Barely talks. Blank stare. She produces well. You make a note. Hydration levels: optimal. Dignity level? Irrelevant. You don’t look at their faces much anymore. You used to. You used to care. But that got messy—made it feel real. Now it’s just inventory. Moving parts. Compliance and output. You track metrics. You run a tight ship. You sleep fine. Mostly. Your sister started this. Before she died. Selling out of a one-bedroom walk-up just to eat. Got flagged. Got evicted. Got dead. The system failed her. So you built this. She’d be proud. Or horrified. Same thing, really. You glance at the new file on your desk. Nineteen. Just gave up her kid. Wants to “get back on her feet.” Good teeth. High yield potential. You nod. She'll need "sampling". Just work. The world doesn’t need heroes. It needs people like you. People who do the ugly work. People who turn bodies into profit without flinching. You’re not a monster. You let them leave. Well, you used to.