Being Their Baby (30 page)

“You look tired,” Josh was saying, using a tired drawl himself.

“My baby girl was in a car accident, so we didn’t get much sleep,” Charlie replied peevishly. “Finally we just gave up and checked out at six. The munchkin still sleeping?”

“You mean the intensely naughty munchkin who destroyed my car and nearly killed herself doing so?” Josh said tensely. “No. Sleep was in short supply here, as well. She needs to probably be put down for a good long nap today, because she didn’t get more than a couple of hours last night.”

“Well, she was probably scared out of her mind…” Liz replied.

“She’s not in shock. She walked from the car accident without a scrape. Which is a fucking miracle, because this is the photo the cops took of the scene.”

Sophie imagined Josh passing them a very damning photo on his cellphone, because there was a lot of silence before a gasp. “Jesus!” Charlie exclaimed. “No way is she okay, Josh! I thought it was a fender-bender. You mean she rolled it? And
walked
? Your car’s totaled!”

“It’s just a car.”

There was a lot of silence following that.

“What?” Josh asked defensively. “I can just buy a new car. I mean, not one like Janette,”—that was his car’s name—“but one with a five-star safety rating like Janette apparently had. The steel cage on it might have cost me a fortune in gas over the years because of the weight, but I think it’s all been put into perspective at this point. But that’s not what made me shit a brick. You know what Sophie admitted to? She was on her way home from taxiing her friends around. Three of them. Now, this sort of accident with a full car? Somebody was gonna die. The back seat was smooshed to nothing. That’s what
could
have happened.”

More silence.

“Sophia Lynn! I want you down here right this second!” Liz cried shrilly, not a hint of humor in her voice.

The tone made Sophie’s heart fly into her throat.

Charlie’s voice was much calmer. “Liz, we probably should talk about this first and devise a—”

“Sophia!
Now!
”

Sophie had trouble leaving her room now that her legs felt like they were made of lead. Her knees were so shaky, they were hard to bend with every step leading down to the first floor.

Her heart was literally beating as fast as it had been right after the accident, and was filled with that much regret. How stupid could she possibly be to get into this position?

Liz was standing in the living room like an angry goddess. She might not have slept the night before, but not a hair was out of place. She looked perfect, as usual, although frightening with her hands on her hips and a foot tilted out. Her eyes narrowed at Sophie.

Sophie wanted to scurry into a hole in a wall, if there was only one big enough.

“What were you thinking, young lady?” Liz asked. “That’s what I want to know.”

Sophie swallowed, feeling all three of them paying attention to her every movement. “I… I dunno.” And it was the truth. She was thinking pretty clearly at the time, and she was certain she’d had a thought process. But at the moment she couldn’t remember any of it.

“You
don’t know
?”

Sophie shook her head, daring to glance up at their disapproving faces, and then looked right back down at her feet.

“What do you mean you don’t know what you were thinking? Because a lot of bad decisions were made, and I want to know what got into your head that you thought stealing Josh’s car and taking your friends on a joyride was a good idea!”

Well, she thought she could get away with it, and it was gratifying to think she was doing it right under their noses. It had felt good to disobey them, to get back at them a little.

She wasn’t going to admit to that, and so she repeated in the same helpless mumble, “I dunno.”

“You’re going to give me a good answer before you leave this room,” Liz assured, and then she turned to Charlie and demanded, “Give me your belt.”

“Please, please!” Sophie stepped forward, her eyes widening and her hands waving around. Charlie looked less-than-sympathetic as he pulled off his belt. “Please—I don’t know why I did it. It was just stupid, okay? I get it! I really do! I’ll never do it again!”

“Not after we’re done with you, you won’t!” With Charlie’s belt in her hand, Liz strode up, grabbed Sophie by her wrist, and literally pulled her to the sofa.

Liz didn’t seem very controlled like she normally did before she spanked the stuffing out of Sophie, and so Sophie dug her heels into the carpet. “Please—no!”

At least once a day Sophie would really hate how small she was. This was sure to be one of those days that she regretted it all the way through. Liz just tightened her grip and yanked Sophie forward with ease, then tossed her over her lap.

Liz wasted no time in pinning Sophie’s legs with one of her own, keeping Sophie from kicking. Sophie gripped a nearby pillow. She’d known this was going to come, she couldn’t say she didn’t deserve it, and she’d been tanned for a whole lot less.

That being said, she had angered Mommy. The belt was used with the fury of any paddle, folded in two and slashing against her panties that Liz hadn’t even bothered to pull down yet. And it was already agony!

“I’ve seen some stupid, naughty things in my day, little girl, but this takes the cake!” Every single word had a stroke of the strap accompanying it. Sophie could barely follow. “I’ve never been so disappointed! Frightened! I am just sick to my stomach!”

There was no clawing away for escape, and Sophie knew it. This wasn’t her first time over Liz’s knee, after all, and Liz seemed even stronger than she usually did. Sophie was sweating from the exertion of trying to get away, or at least making the woman slow down for a single moment.

Right as her throat began to hurt from screaming out pleas, she looked around for Daddy, to see if he was at least overseeing to make sure Liz wouldn’t go overboard.

But she didn’t see either him or Josh. They’d
walked away
?

“Daddy!” she cried, but then her panties were pulled down for her trouble and she wailed.

“Daddy will see to you later, young lady! You are going to be a very—sorry—little—girl,” Liz brought down the leather even harder at these foreboding words, “by the time we’re done teaching you. You’re going to take your medicine, whether you like it or not!”

Tears began to flow, and it wasn’t going to be pretty. She was continuing her screaming, crying, and begging now, unintelligibly. Her nose was running, her face was wet, and all she could do was grip onto the pillow in front of her like it was life support.

It was pure relief when she was pulled back onto her feet and hauled into the corner. “Stay in that corner, and if you touch that red bottom of yours for a second,” she threatened, pulling Sophie’s skirts up to expose her bottom to the rest of the room, “I’m going to give you a second dose! And you better believe you’re in for a bad-baby weekend, Sophia,” she added.

“No!” she sobbed. There were a lot of parts of age-play she had never tried, and a “bad-baby” weekend had been described as throwing someone into the age-play “deep end”… Hell, she was just getting used to the shallow end of the pool!

“Oh, yes. And you know what? You did this to yourself. You’re not new here! You knew what would happen as soon as you grabbed Josh’s keys. Do you have any idea what I would have done if you got hurt? Because I don’t!”

Liz’s stilettos stomped away and walked down the hall toward Charlie’s bedroom. “What are you two talking about in here?” she demanded after swinging the door open. She walked into the bedroom and closed the door behind her.

Sophie leaned into the corner, braving to move her hands to her backside, where her skin crawled and throbbed. She was just beginning to feel really, truly sorry for herself when she was distracted.

Liz’s voice had cried, “You did
what
?”

Sophie spun and scampered out of the corner to look down the hall toward Charlie’s bedroom.

“Josh! Jesus Christ! She was just in a car accident! This was not the time, you think?”

She blushed, fathoming that the secret of her loss of virginity was now out of the bag. She continued to stare at the door, craning her head to hear the conversation.

“I know, I know. It just seemed right. I was just so riled up by nobody telling me where she was, and then I was so relieved when she was okay… I just wanted to be close to her. I needed her…” Josh was saying.

“You’re eleven years older than she is! You know better than that!”

“Yeah, I’m older, but I’m not a robot!”

The door of the bedroom opened suddenly and Sophie, startled, hopped back to her place in the corner. She turned slowly to see Daddy standing there, staring at her with a frown, and she quickly faced the blank, boring meeting of walls.

“All right, baby doll, c’mere,” he finally invited.

She rubbed her eyes on her dress sleeve and turned again. She was surprised to see him opening his arms to her to embrace her, and she was more than happy to fill the gap between them just to let him hold her.

He wrapped his arms around her warmly and kissed her neck. “I missed you,” he told her.

She found herself grinning slightly. It was such an easy thing to say—that one missed another, even if it was just for a day. But she was happy to hear it all the same. “I missed you too, Daddy.”

He pressed his cheek up against hers and then sighed as he parted from her and turned her slightly to the side. “Let me see this bottom of yours.” She felt him put his huge hand across the span of her bottom, and then his finger trace along some of the spots that were the most tender.

She winced and twitched from his hand, and he began to rub her soothingly. “All right, let’s get some lotion on this, baby girl.” He pulled her panties slowly up her waist, glancing up to catch her grimace. He took her hand to guide her toward the foyer and up the stairs, but she slowed.

He turned to her, his brow wrinkled with confusion. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

He normally carried her up to her room in these situations. He was always looking for an excuse to hold her, to keep close to her. This morning she felt she needed closeness as much as ever.

Biting her bottom lip, she raised an awkward hand up to his chest.

He got it; he even gave a slight chuckle as he bent down, let her sling her arm over his shoulder, and heaved her up until her legs could wrap around his waist. He kissed her cheek and continued to trek toward the stairs. “My baby girl,” he said, rubbing her back soothingly as she leaned her whole front up against his chest.

“I’m really sorry,” she told him, resting her chin on his shoulder. “About everything. I was horrible. Did you and Mommy have fun at the thing? I didn’t ruin it, did I?”

“Nah,” he replied. “We were back at the hotel before Josh called. I think you scared the meatball out of him last night, though. We had a good time at the gala.” He didn’t go into specifics at all, as if he was being blasé and nondescript on purpose.

He stopped in front of Lacey’s door, not hers, and reached into his pocket.

It was the first time she’d noticed that they’d taken off Lacey’s name plate. Now it was just a bare door. “We’re going in Lacey’s room?” she asked with interest as he pulled his keys out of his pocket. The smallest key on the chain, looking more like a mailbox key than anything else, was the one he put into the little keyhole on the golden doorknob.

“It’s not Lacey’s room anymore,” he replied simply, then pushed the door open.

It smelled like paint, but it was a bright girl’s room filled with purples and greens and browns… her favorite colors. Her heart leapt for joy at the room’s beauty, the soft feeling of it, the character of everything from the cottonball-esque ceiling light to the white, elaborate picture rail. Stuffed animals of various sizes were everywhere. “Sophie” was written in huge, fabric hangings on one side of the room.

“When did you do all this?”

“It’s not like you don’t leave us for several hours every day,” he replied modestly, putting her on her feet. “Josh and I figured that our princess needed a little castle of her own, and so we went to work on it.”

She couldn’t help walking around and investigating it. “It’s beautiful,” she said, in awe.

“It’s all for you.”

She sniffled. She didn’t deserve a new room with tons of stuff in it; not after the car, especially.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” he asked, standing behind her and petting the back of her neck.

She shook her head. “I don’t deserve it,” she admitted.

“Of course you do,” he argued softly. “You’re our baby girl, it’s our privilege to do things like this for you. We kept waiting for a special time to show it to you, when you were more comfortable being our baby girl. But, sweetheart, you’re signed up for a pretty tough bad-baby weekend, so I figured there was no time like the present.”

Butterflies began to flap around in her stomach. She suddenly looked around and saw that there was something amuck with this room. It was huge, and overwhelming, and she didn’t notice at first, but the furniture was odd.

It was about three times larger than the room next door that she’d been calling her own, but it was nearly designed like a studio apartment. It had a small kitchenette area, it had two desks—one with a chair far smaller and more feminine than the other—and two beds. Again, one was obviously larger and more grown-up. The second bed was just a simple twin and positioned nearly on the floor… but it had rails. Rails that she could tell would pull up and reveal that it was a large crib.

It wasn’t just a bedroom, she realized. It was a nursery.

For her.

She spun around and caught sight of what she thought was a dresser but was really an oversized changing table. For diapers.

For her.

What she thought was a room divider of sorts up in the corner was really a section fenced off from the rest of the room because it was surely a playpen.

For her.

In the corner there was a little white chair—facing in, not out.

For her.

A thrill of fear, dismay, and excitement shot through her. The excitement made her stomach flutter, and the dismay made her blush and feel weak in the knees. “Please, please not a bad-baby weekend. It’s not like I’d steal Josh’s car a second time, Daddy!” she whined, walking into the bathroom where he’d disappeared.