Being Their Baby

by Korey Mae Johnson

  “My, my,” Josh’s voice was in the kitchen suddenly, “I thought my ears were burning!”

  Charlie pursed his lips, left the office, and stomped into the kitchen with Liz on his heels. “What were you doing with her?” Charlie demanded, pointing at him accusingly.

  Josh, wearing pajama pants and a short-sleeved t-shirt, crossed his arms. “What, are we kissing and telling now?”

  Charlie took a threatening step forward, and Josh didn’t even take a step back, nor did he flinch. He merely asked, “And what’s with the aggression? You’re the one who fucked up, and so are you.” He pointed to Liz as he opened the refrigerator and pulled out a cup of pudding. “I’m merely the one who found her trying to walk all the way to nearest bus route. She was actually planning on going back to Southie, if you can imagine.”

  “Hey, I know I fucked up,” Charlie snapped, “but she just can’t go running away every time she gets upset with one of us.”

  “And how did I fuck up?” Liz cut in, putting her hands on her hips.

  “I don’t know why she worships the ground you walk on, Liz. She’s been here two weeks and you can barely cut away from work enough to even sit down with her. You’re not exactly waxing eloquent on your love for her or anything. God forbid you do that—might make her feel secure or something.” He pulled the lid free from his pudding cup and threw it away before continuing, “And Charlie—Jesus Christ! She told you that she couldn’t sleep alone without a television on and that it was important to her to sleep with you, and you were basically telling her to toughen up.”

  Charlie’s mouth widened for a second, and then he shut it, too stubborn to comply. He had been sleeping by himself—or with Liz at the very most—for thirty-two years and hadn’t had any trouble. “Well, she should toughen up!”

  “She’s plenty tough, fuck head. That’s her problem!” Josh suddenly roared, waving his pudding around. “You know she didn’t even have a bed in her old place? She slept on the couch in the middle of a two-bedroom apartment packed with seven people—surely against fire code—with chaos and television ensuing around her twenty-four/seven. Sleeping in a nice comfortable quiet bed with you turning on the television block after ten is a little bit of a change for her. Why would you even do that to her?”

  Charlie snorted and shoved his hands in his pocket. “I didn’t mean to be a dick, Josh!” he said defensively. “I thought learning to sleep through the night was a nice lesson to teach her!”

  “Well, you’re a shitty-ass teacher. Nice communication with your little.” Sarcasm was dripping from Josh’s lips. Charlie looked over at Liz, hoping for some support, but she looked very distant. “Now you two have got to get with the program. I’m not going to let either of you fuck this up for me.”

  Charlie squinted, wondering for a moment if he was hearing things. “For you?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Josh stabbed his pudding with a spoon. “My world has officially been rocked. That’s it—no more ho’s. No more puck-bunnies. No more slutty nurses, techs, or interns. No more drunk chicks. I’m through. I’m just a two-woman man, now. Sophie’s shown me the way.”

  Elizabeth was now ready to exchange an incredulous expression with Charlie. Her eyebrows were practically drawn up to her hairline. “Josh… are you ill or something?” she asked, stepping toward Josh.

  He took another spoonful of chocolate before answering casually. “Nope. My head’s just not up my ass for once and I can see a good thing when it’s licking my dick like an ice-cream cone on the Fourth of July.”

  Charlie wasn’t exactly sure what really happened when he saw a bright flash of red across his eyesight for the next couple of moments, but the next thing he knew he was trying to strangle his little brother on the floor, calling him a ‘sick, miserable fuck.’ All Josh had to do was get a good punch to his bad shoulder to get him to let go.

  Josh gasped for air, clutching his throat, and glared over to where Charlie was holding his punched shoulder, which was screaming with pain like it hadn’t done in years.

  When Josh was able to spit out words again, he coughed, “God, Charlie—I didn’t force her or anything! She’s young and sexually curious, as you know, because you got quite far with her last night before you blew it—literally and figuratively.”

  “Christ, you two!” Liz hissed, marching between them and putting on her best lecturing stance. “You’re like dogs fighting over a bone, and it’s going to stop right now. Josh—where’s Sophia?”

  “Soph’s sleeping. I couldn’t make myself wake her up; she’s exhausted. As soon as I got her home, I just gave her a warm bath and put her down,” Josh answered, and Charlie was colored surprised. Josh normally didn’t take caregiver roles—he was usually just interested in the sexual parts of age-play and nothing else. He’d been more into the role-play than the lifestyle.

  “Wait,” Charlie said then, picking himself up from the floor. “Then when did the blow job come in?”

  Josh eyed him wearily as he also climbed up from the floor. “I think it’s best to spare you the details,” he told him. “She’s fine, that’s all you need to know. She was all smiles when she went to sleep, I promise.”

  “Why didn’t you bring her back here?” Charlie demanded, unable to keep from sounding hurt.

  “Because she’s sensitive, she doubts herself and her worth, she doubts that we love her or even like her. I didn’t want her to come in here, get lectured on banging out the back door at all hours of the morning, and then get another spanking right before Liz spent the whole day in her office, you went to work, and I went to sleep. See what I mean?” He sighed wearily and hoisted himself up onto the countertop with a fluid movement. “Look, we’re doing a different thing here. This isn’t about choosing a lifestyle for her—we need to help her grow into confidence enough that she can choose it for herself. And I don’t want her to feel that, for self-preservation, she has to grow away from us. We gotta knuckle down.”

  Liz smiled warmly at Josh and squeezed his upper arm. “I’m sorry I sort of brought her in here without any plan,” she admitted. “I should have been here more, paying attention.”

  Charlie sighed as he continued to massage his shoulder. “Well, I like to think between the three of us, we can get her in the right state of mind and erase some of the past damage she’s been through.” He glanced at Josh, who looked like he was a soldier about to charge into battle. “Okay, Captain America—what’s the game plan?” he smirked.

  Josh smirked back, then pointed Liz toward the fridge. “Liz, get this asshole some ice so he can go snuggle up to the little girl back there before she wakes up alone. I think things are going a little fast for her sexually, and she seems anxious to please us all, so let’s not take advantage of her. I gave her the birth-control shot, but I don’t plan to go that far with her for quite a few months. Not even if she begs us—I want her to feel like she’s 100% part of this family before we do that.”

  Charlie nodded. “What about your new born-again announcement that you’re a two-woman man?” he challenged playfully as Liz brought him a bag of ice from the freezer and pressed it under his business jacket and onto his shoulder. He chewed down a curse at the pressure and the cold.

  “Hey, I mean it, too. No more Bachelor Josh. I’m committing. Besides,” he added casually, “I said no sex, not that we’d treat her like a nun. And,” he added, holding up a finger. “I want her to get out of that stupid job and working on her studying full-time. I know stupid teenagers, and she’s not one of them. I don’t know how far she’ll want her education to go—but I’m willing to pay the bills for it as long as she goes to college nearby.”

  Liz’s mouth dropped open. “You’d foot the bill?”

  Josh crossed his arms across his chest with confidence. “Yeah, me. Why are you saying it like that?”

  “The only thing you spend money on is booze, babes, and beaches,” Liz reminded him flatly.

  “And hockey,” Charlie added quickly.

  �
�Well, since I’m now in a nearly monogamous relationship with an eighteen-year-old, I’m going to say I don’t have to worry about the booze or the babes. The beaches won’t be a problem—I have a conference in a couple months in Daytona and then one in Maui. Besides, babe, I’m done with my residency, you know. I have over a hundred thou just sitting in my bank with nothing better to do. If you or Charlie pays for her, someone might find out and ask questions about your relationship with her and you have reputations you have to keep squeaky clean. Anybody asks, say that you’re with Charlie, and she’s with me. I’m a young doctor, for God’s sake; people expect me to rob the cradle a little and buy things for a sexy little thing on my arm. If she calls me Uncle Josh in public, nobody would even bat an eye, I guarantee it.”

  Liz pursed her lips and lifted her eyebrows. “That could work,” she admitted, then looked at Charlie and added, “We can bring a little into public once we have a way to introduce her! If she’s in a relationship with your brother, then people will assume she’s not in one with us, even though she’ll be with all three.”

  Charlie thought about it. Normally he had the main relationship in this circle—Liz or Josh might move in and do a scene or two or even enjoy a night or even a week with one of his baby girls, but they’d never liked a girl this much, and certainly never in an equal amount. He would actually have to share his little this time.

  He grunted his approval anyway. “I’m gonna go see Sophie,” he told them, walking out of the room with a grimace.

  “Hey, do you want me to look at that shoulder, old man?” Josh joked.

  “It’s a shoulder, not a vagina,” he replied without turning back. “And I wouldn’t want you to even if you were a real doctor.”

  Josh’s tone sounded less than amused. Snarkily, he replied, “Real nice, bro. Love you, too.”

  It was twenty degrees outside, and even though the entrance of the pool house was only about thirty paces, it was grueling. It felt like a physical barrier between him and Sophie, and he wasn’t fond of barriers. No—if sleeping with Josh was going to start becoming her habit, then Josh would have to start sleeping in the main house.

  He opened the door and quickly found himself frowning. Inside the nearby laundry room, a pile of dirty clothes—with Sophie’s panties on top of them all—was in plain sight. His first thought, Charlie was ashamed to admit to himself, wasn’t that Josh took advantage of her: it was that the only person who should be taking off his little girl’s panties was him.

  Charlie chided himself inwardly. He and his little brother had shared girls their entire adult lives and hadn’t thought twice about it. He wasn’t going to start acting territorial with him now.

  He walked into the bedroom and stopped at the foot of the bed, watching how the tiny young woman curled up in Josh’s sheets so that only her face and a couple of her blond curls draped across the pillow. Somehow, maybe because of her long, dark eyelashes and cute button nose, she was as adorable to him as a boxful of fluffy and clumsy puppies and kittens. He found himself looking around, as if he wanted to find someone else nearby who he could call over and bring the cuteness to their attention.

  Instead, he carefully sat next to her on the bed. He looked down at her for a long moment. No wonder Josh didn’t have the heart to wake her. She wasn’t a peaceful sleeper; she looked like she was sleeping with intensity—in fact, as if she were dreaming about something that needed her undivided attention. But she was so sweet. He couldn’t help himself, and eventually began brushing a couple of loose curls away from her porcelain-like face.

  Her eyelashes fluttered, partially opened, and then she rolled up more tightly into the covers. “Mmm,” she grumbled groggily, “what time is it?”

  “Nearly six,” Charlie answered.

  She frowned. “It’s too early,” she complained.

  “Six pm,” he specified.

  Her eyes shot open. She looked straight ahead, her body stiffened, and then she sat up so quickly that her untamed curls fell over her face. “Wha—?” she blurted as she flipped her hair back over her forehead to peer at Charlie. “Daddy!” she gasped, her eyes rounding nervously. “I’m really, really sorry. I promise I—”

  Charlie couldn’t be more pleased that her first reaction was to call him ‘Daddy’ instead of Charlie. He had worried that the progress he’d made since she came there had been lost already because of what had happened between them during the night. “Sophie, you’re not in trouble,” he clarified, trying not to chuckle.

  She blinked. “You mean… you’re not mad? Josh said you and Mommy’d be pissed.”

  “First, little girls don’t say words like ‘pissed,’” he informed her firmly. “Second, we were worried for you. We didn’t know where you were; I was checking snow banks for you all morning until Liz called and told me Josh had you. But I’m the one who’s sorry. I tried to get you to open up and tell me what your needs were, and then I dismissed them when you did.”

  He combed her hair back tenderly with his fingers. “I’d never mean to hurt you like that, Sophie. I meant to come and talk it out with you before you went upstairs, but I’d already said the wrong thing by then… done the wrong thing. Daddies make mistakes, too, you know. So, I’ll take it slower with you and really try to be more attentive to your needs. If you want, we can even put the age-play in the back drawer. We can date like normal people do. And if you want to try age-play later on with me, or Liz, or Josh, then we’ll do that. On your terms, so—”

  She was blinking at him, looking very intent on his words, yet she began to raise an eyebrow wearily at him until she cut him off. “Daddy,” she said firmly. “I like age-play.” She straightened her shoulders. “I think… It’s actually way hotter than I thought it’d be, and I’m getting the hang of it still, but I’ve read that book Liz got me front to back about a million times. If I don’t like it, I don’t know why I’d read it so much. I mean,” she added as he was opening his mouth to reply, “when you drove me home yesterday, I was hoping you’d do daddy stuff, like make a snack and watch a movie with me and read to me until I fell asleep… and I was really happy when you did.

  “And then, I was even happy when I was watching the third or fourth—I think they’re all the same, really—Friday the 13th. I was hoping you’d wake up and take me to bed. I was just hoping it would be your bed, or that you’d stay in mine with me…” Her shoulders slouched as she added sadly, “I get lonely, and I was having nightmares, and you make me feel… safe. Not that Liz wouldn’t do a good job, but she’s a girl, and it’s different when it comes to nightmares and stuff. Anyway… That’s why I wanted you. I wanted more daddy, not less, and not just during the day, I guess.”

  Charlie didn’t know what to say for a moment. He had a momentary flash of shame for not acting much like a daddy earlier. She needed someone to care for her, and best of all, she wanted it, too. For most of two weeks, he probably was acting grouchy enough only to remind her of the environment she’d just come from.

  He patted his lap. “Come here, baby girl,” he invited. She skootched promptly toward him, hampered slightly by the extremely large shirt she had been sleeping in. He helped her settle on his lap and then he put his arms around her. “Thank you for giving me another chance, sweetie,” he told her. “I’m going to be the daddy you need, okay?”

  She nodded and wrapped her arms around him.

  “If you run away and worry me like that again, though, you’re going to get tanned raw,” he added after a moment of holding and rocking her back and forth on his lap.

  She gave a single wry chuckle. “I know,” she admitted. “I won’t do that again.”

  He put his nose in her curls and drew in a deep breath. A deep calm washed over him. It was a new day, and he was a daddy who had his baby girl.

  Chapter Ten

  Six Months Later…

  Liz watched as Sophie, dressed in a short skirt and a plaid cardigan, poked at her Froot Loops with a sneer on her pink, pouting lips. Sophie
had been with them over five months now, and she had absolutely blossomed. Before Christmas she had been looking rather sickly, but now that she was eating—and eating something other than smoothies and frosting—she had a beautiful pink hue to her cheeks.

  What was never cute was when Sophie was grumbling something hostile under her tongue. Liz was sick of it. “Drop the attitude, missy, right this second,” Liz ordered, pointing a finger sharply in Sophie’s direction.

  Sophie slammed her spoon down on the table. “I wasn’t doing anything,” she snapped like a teenager who needed a good paddling. “You’re the one who’s embarrassed over me,” she added grumpily.

  Liz rolled her eyes. Sophie was trying to manipulate her—again. It wasn’t as if Liz didn’t constantly do things with her. Maybe in the beginning of their relationship, Liz had dropped the ball on several occasions, but that wasn’t the case anymore.

  If anything, Liz felt like she had been stretching herself a little thin. Liz was trying to be everything for everyone nowadays, and she was barely even getting good sleep because of it. As far as Sophie was concerned, Liz had made the time to take her consistently out on lunches and dinners, or stayed in for a movie night with popcorn, and just last weekend she had taken Sophie to a spa for a full weekend. Sophie’s complaint rose Liz’s hackles. “This is a big deal for me, and I’m just taking one guest, and that guest is going to be Charlie. That’s final, Sophia.”

  “It’s always final,” Sophie snipped. “You never care about my opinion or my feelings.”

  “All right, young lady,” Liz said, sharply putting the coffeepot back in its holder. She turned and pointed to the corner on the far side of the room. “Get your ridiculous little butt in the corner, now.”

  Sophie’s mouth dropped open, aghast. “I’m eating breakfast!” she said, pointing at her cereal as if she’d just been quietly eating it and not throwing a mini-tantrum all morning.

  Liz looked at her threateningly. “Do I need to put you in the corner?”