“I’m not going to kill him,” he assured, and then added with a glare into Roy’s face. “I just want him to see Jesus a little.”
“Charlie, come on,” she said, and realized she was shaking. It was cold outside, but she didn’t think she was chilled. She just couldn’t stop shaking. “He’s not worth it.”
Charlie glanced at her and then back at Roy, who flinched. “If you touch her again, if you come by here again, if you happen to run into her on the street, I will hunt you down and you will think you got fucked by a train. Got me?” He slammed Roy into the wall once more, making Roy’s teeth chatter.
“Yeah,” Roy gasped.
When Charlie let him go, Roy collapsed onto the ground, dry heaving.
Charlie put his arm tenderly around Sophie and led her away toward his car. He walked her to the passenger side, carefully guided her into the seat, buckled her in, then locked her door before closing it and walking to his side. Charlie was still looking over to where Roy huddled on the ground, glaring at him.
When he got into the car, he closed the door, then quickly pulled away. He didn’t say anything at all for at least two blocks, where he pulled over, put the car into park, unbuckled himself in a rush, then blanketed her with his body.
For a second she wondered if he was taking measures to protect her from the earthquake that was no doubt going on, but then she seemed to be shaking a lot more than he was. He was holding her. After a long moment, when she felt her shaking subside a little, he pulled back and looked at her face. “Are you okay, sweetie?” he asked, his voice sounding panicked. “He didn’t… touch you at all, did he?” He brushed loose strands of her hair away from her cheeks, then thumbed across what she was certain was a new welt on her cheek.
She swallowed and forced her tone to remain neutral. “No, he didn’t touch me or anythin’—you know, besides the face. It’s okay, he… Well, he does stuff like this. I’m really okay.”
“Jesus!” he hissed, pulling his hands off her face. His face was twisted with blatant disgust when he slapped the steering wheel in front of him. “I should have ripped his nuts off!”
He looked behind him toward the office building, apparently considering doing just that. She grabbed onto his elbow. “Please, let’s just go home.”
He was still glaring at the street two blocks down.
She swallowed, afraid that he was going to go back and do something that would end his career. “Daddy? Please, just take me home?”
She hadn’t thought she’d ever be to the point where she’d call Charlie “Daddy”—not really, no matter what Josh advised and no matter how much Elizabeth would have liked it. She worried that it would sound just all wrong. She hadn’t ever even said the word before. She didn’t have fathers, dads, grandpas, nothing. She had Roy, she had Steve. Her mother hadn’t the foggiest idea who her biological father was, but narrowed it down to one of three guys, none of whom she had any relationship with.
That’s why it was so weird that “Daddy” actually felt easier on her tongue than “Charlie.” She had said it just to get his attention, and it worked… but now she realized that “Daddy” fit Charlie like a well-worn leather glove.
He turned to her and swallowed, the muscles in his neck flexing as he did so, and then he gave a nod. “Yeah,” he said, “let me drive you home, baby girl.”
They had a very silent trip home, although she could tell his brain was everything but silent. He was squinting like a man who had a lot on his mind. When they’d left the city, she could even say that he looked depressed. She smirked and looked out the window, thinking how funny it was—she was the one smacked around, but he was the one who acted like he’d just been raped.
“Why’d that jerk come to see you, anyway?” he finally asked, as they passed a rather enthusiastic sign that greeted, “Welcome to Duxbury!”
“Money,” she replied simply. “It’s always for money… And to be a general dick.”
“You mean, he comes by your work often for money?” he asked her, steel in his voice.
She shrugged. “Normally he bugs me at the bus stop every now and then. Not too often. He hadn’t bugged me at work before. I think the holidays approaching brought out some desperation.”
His eye twitched. “What’s ‘not too often’?”
“Normally he doesn’t go for the face,” she replied, evading the question.
“What’s not too often?” he ground out again.
She looked out the window. “Probably three or four times a year.”
She heard a growl that nearly didn’t sound human. “And how much do you give him?”
“Does it matter?” she replied. “It’s my money. I can do what I want with it.”
“Let me phrase this a different way,” he said after taking a deep breath. “How much do you make a year?”
“Twenty thousand,” she replied.
“And how much of that do you use on yourself? Including anything you go or do with friends?”
“I don’t have friends,” she snorted. “I go, I work, I come home, I eat, I sleep, I repeat. I have more free time right now than I used to, since my weekend job canned me right before my birthday.”
“So out of twenty thousand, how much do you spend on you?” He didn’t seem to want to let this question go.
“I dunno,” she said. “With bus fare, and lunch, I probably blow about eight dollars a day.”
“All right, and where’s the rest going? Please, God, say that you save most of that,” he added with a frustrated huff.
She didn’t even have a bank account! Savings? “Yeah, savings,” she said, which, he’d said himself, was what he wanted to hear. He didn’t want to hear that her paycheck was gone as soon as she walked out the door with it. Her stepfather or mother would grab the cash right out of her wallet. Luckily, she stashed a little bit away, or else she probably couldn’t have afforded lunch, either.
“Well, I know the look of someone who does drugs,” he decided, “and you’re not on them. So fill in the mystery.”
“It’s not a mystery,” she replied. “Steve and Ma wanted me to chip in, so I chipped in. That’s why I dropped out. Ma’s got three babies under the age of nine, you know, and Steve’s always between jobs… I mean, they didn’t have me drop out for shits and giggles. I needed to help out. Welfare wasn’t cutting it.”
“And they kicked you out?” he recalled, aghast. “After all that?”
She rubbed the back of her neck. “Yeah… They probably weren’t thinking that through,” she granted. She closed her eyes and pressed her forehead against the window. “I don’t want to talk about this right now. I’m tired.”
“All right,” he replied. “When we get home, I’ll put you down for a nap.” That actually sounded, even though childish, alluring nonetheless. Unfortunately, he added, “And then we’ll talk about what I want to see happen.” That sounded a little more ominous than a nap.
She whirled around in her seat to look at him, shocked. “What? What, am I, like, in trouble or something?”
“No, sweetheart. You’re not in trouble.” He sighed. “I just want… This sounds bad, but I really don’t want you seeing your family again. If you feel you must, I want to be with you if you see them. And…” He hesitated, which made her nervous.
They were driving up the hill they lived on. He was quiet, using both hands on the wheel, and then he blurted, “And I want you to stop working for a while.”
“But—”
“I want you to get your diploma, Sophie.”
“But—”
“Being our baby girl isn’t just for our kicks. I mean, obviously we do get enjoyment out of it or else we wouldn’t keep doing it,” he admitted. “I want to feel like I’ve helped you accomplish something you didn’t think was possible before. I want to take care of you. Be there for you. Let me do that.”
Sophie sighed. “You’re getting ahead of yourself. Liz is gonna break up with me soon,” she announced.
“No, she’s not,” Charlie replied firmly, as if it was the most ridiculous thing he ever heard. “Did she tell you that? No, don’t answer that. She didn’t tell you that. Why do you think that? What could possibly make you think that? The spanking? That means she’s trying to strengthen you and your relationship, not the reverse.”
“I’m a pain in her ass, and I’m too time-consuming, and she doesn’t have the time. We’ve been dating for over two weeks and we’ve barely spent ten hours together.”
“Give her a break. She’s doing the best she can. There’s a reason why she doesn’t bring girlfriends home. She wants me to pick them out and get them comfortable, and then she comes in to do what she wants when she wants to do it and when she has the time. With you, she chose you. She couldn’t even help herself, she wanted you so badly. She didn’t even ask my opinion. So, we’re going about this in reverse order from what’s normal. There’re gonna be some hiccups. Don’t take it personally, and don’t worry.”
“So… You’re not gonna get a girlfriend of your own? Like, another ‘little’?”
“No,” he replied promptly. “We’re so busy as it is, it takes all three of us to keep just one little well taken care of. Especially when I used to play football… I’d be gone sometimes weeks at a time.”
She considered this, and must have said, “So you’re stuck with me,” out loud, because he responded very firmly.
“No, baby girl. Nobody gets stuck with you. You’re a very savvy, hard-working young lady with a lot of potential and who’s as pretty as a doll with a sexy hind-end. You’re exactly our type; a perfect fit. You’re the one who’s stuck with us. We’re all locked in on you. We’re trying not to scare you to death so much that you leave us.”
She grinned, biting her lip, somehow feeling very encouraged by that. She liked the idea that they didn’t just get stuck with her, like people who get adopted by stray animals. In fact, he sounded like he was much more concerned about her leaving them. “So,” she said with amusement as he pulled into the driveway, “if you were to introduce me to anyone, would you say I was your girlfriend?”
He parked the car, turned to look at her with a raised eyebrow, then didn’t answer and got out of the car. She blushed, assuming she had asked something silly, or possibly something very immature.
He came around to her side of the car and ushered her out. “Our lifestyle is a little too different from average to try to fit the usual titles on this, don’t you think?” he finally said, his voice slightly chiding, putting out his hand for her to take.
She smiled, curled her hand around his fingers, and let him lead her into the house. His hand was so big, so warm, so callused… She liked it. She was trying to remember if she’d ever held hands with a man before meeting Charlie.
Josh was running into from the back entrance of the house, blinded because of the shirt he was pulling on over his head.
“Why are you changing into scrubs?” Charlie asked with curiosity. Sophie couldn’t help but wonder as well; Josh was normally out of his scrubs before she came home from work, unless he had something scheduled.
Josh, not glancing up, grabbed something out of the fridge. “People never have babies when they’re supposed to. They wait until I get home, and then they think, ‘Oh! You know what would be fun to do for the next ten hours? Go into labor two months early!’ It’s a conspiracy, Charlie.” He came around the corner, stuffing a Twinkie into one pocket and a Pepsi into the other, weighing his scrubs down. He tied the shoelace-like strings at his waist a little tighter to compensate before looking up and seeing Sophie.
His eyes widened. “Oh, my God! Soph! What happened, babe?” He immediately reached out and cupped her face with his hands. “Did you get hit by something?” Then he looked at Charlie and narrowed his eyes with accusation.
“Don’t give me that look! Have I ever rough-handled a lady?”
Josh ignored him. “You okay, bunny? What happened?”
“Long story,” she sighed wearily. “I’m okay. Really.” When Josh looked disbelieving about that, she added firmly, “Really.”
Josh gave a huff, walked back into the kitchen, and came back out with a bag of frozen peas wrapped in a dishtowel. He dropped the bag into Charlie’s hand. “Keep her head elevated to reduce swelling, apply that for fifteen to twenty minutes, take a rest for a half hour, then repeat and repeat and repeat. Give her some ibuprofen. Not aspirin. Ibuprofen.”
“Okay. Aspirin. Got it,” Charlie said, giving him a thumbs-up.
Josh looked at him with annoyance until Charlie put up his hands. “I was just kidding. I’m not dumb. I’ve had bruises before. Now get going.”
Josh leaned down and kissed her forehead. “Love ya, babe,” he told her, squeezing her shoulder affectionately. She smiled, getting chills at how easily he released that sentiment. She tried to make eye contact, but he was already talking over her head to Charlie. “If you need anything, call my cell.” He walked past them to the coat closet, then spun around as he tried to stab his arms through the sleeves. “And don’t do anything that I should be doing.” He pointed his finger at Charlie and pretended to shoot it like a gun, and then he quickly took off through the front door.
“What was that about?” she asked, turning her head up to Charlie.
“Nothing,” Charlie replied, leading her toward the stairs. “Although it should make you feel better to know that everyone has crazy relatives.”
* * *
Sophie woke up from a nightmare; one where she couldn’t seem to escape her real family. Roy seemed to be in every corner in an otherwise empty city, leering at her. There was no escape, no defense, and like in all dreams, she couldn’t seem to scream for help or make any noise at all. But then again, there had been nobody to scream for in the dream.
Her face was numb, and it took her a moment to reason out why. She blinked through the darkness until she could see a bag of frozen corn on her pillow. Charlie had been switching the ice-packs around, trying to keep as much ice on her face as possible to keep the swelling down. At the moment, the numbing from the ice hurt worse than the swelling.
She felt lonely. When she’d gone to sleep, Charlie had been there. In fact, she had fallen asleep snuggled up to him. It seemed that he tried to replace himself with an extra blanket and her old teddy bear.
She sat, the nightmare still reeling, her face numb, her bottom tender, her tooth throbbing, and realized she wasn’t going to get back to sleep. She turned on the light, reached for her remote, and the TV in front of her turned up blue, asking for a parental control keycode.
A keycode?
The television hadn’t asked for that in the two weeks she’d been there, and she’d constantly slept with the television on! Did Charlie do something to mess up her television? Because she had watched some with him earlier on this same device!
She frowned at it, then punched random keys in. That didn’t work, so she messed with the TV settings. A message came on that read, ‘Set to OFF from 10:00 pm to 6:00 am. OVERRIDE YES/NO?’
She grinned and moved the cursor over to ‘yes.’ It went blank for a moment, then black, and then the keycode was requested again. ‘Please type in keycode to verify options change.’
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” she groaned, falling forward until her forehead hit the mattress. She looked at the clock by her bed and saw that it was only two in the morning.
She considered this; her bottom, which was still warm to the touch, warned her not to do anything against the rules. However, as far as she knew, this wasn’t a rule. Apparently, it was for somebody because the cable was child-controlled, and she feared that she was the “child” in this scenario.
Or maybe it was only blocked in her room?
She grabbed her bag of mostly-thawed corn and decided to investigate, quietly walking down the hall and down the stairs. Both Liz and Charlie slept downstairs, though in different master bedrooms. There were only three rooms upstairs, but the other two were always locked.
She walked to the giant TV and turned it on. It actually showed a good five seconds of cable before the blue screen appeared, asking for the keycode.
She swore under her breath, picked up the remote, and sat there. She wasn’t going to let this obstacle defeat her this easily—in a house of three people with busy schedules, they would probably only agree on an easy password for something like this.
Was it the zip code? She typed it in.
Nope.
The last five digits of their phone number? The first five digits?
Nope and nope.
She twisted her mouth and sat down on the sofa. “Aha!” she said, when she thought about what all three of them had in common—they liked spanking. They liked BDSM, too, but that was a four letter word. Age play was a seven letter word. So she typed in S-P-A-N-K.
Bingo. HBO popped up on the screen in all of its three o’clock glory. She had to choose between some depressing documentaries and a horror movie. Of course, she chose the horror movie, because real life was depressing enough, and most of the other channels seemed to be bogged down by infomercials about overpriced CDs with the golden oldies or earwax vacuums.
She pulled her legs up under her, hugged a pillow to her chest, and watched the endless bloody mayhem that no one other than paranormal figures with chainsaws could mete out on poor, unsuspecting college students who only wanted to run around naked and have their orgies at a mysterious lake.
The TV suddenly turned off. She stared at it, confused, wondering if she’d have to type in the keycode again. She reached for the remote and it was gone.
She looked up and noticed the bare-chested visage of Charlie, who looked tired and out-of-sorts, gripping the remote in his hand. “Bed,” he growled. “Now.”
Being Their Baby Page 12