Page 68 of Hush, Little Baby

Not because Marta lacks compassion, but because she reserves that particular tone for children and people she believes have been mistreated.

“His room is ready?” I ask, dragging her attention away from Charlie. She fixes me with another scathing look.

“Yes,” she answers, after closing her eyes for a brief moment, the universal gesture of a woman questioning every life choice that led her to this conversation.

“Would you like to see your room?” I ask, ignoring my house manager for now, and rest a hand on Charlie’s shoulder.

He hesitates, as if expecting some trap or punchline, but when I give his shoulder a gentle squeeze, he nods.

“Follow me then. It’s upstairs.”

As I guide him toward the stairs, he follows without protest. I hear Marta sigh, soft but exasperated, as we climb.

At the landing, I turn left and walk him to the far end of the hallway. The walls are lined with framed photographs and abstract paintings, but Charlie takes in none of it. Instead, his gaze is fixed on a simple white door, out of place among all the dark wood and brass fixtures.

I pause just before the door.

For years, I had been beginning to think I would never open this door for anyone. The room behind it was a project I’d started on a whim and then ached over for the better part of a decade, always adding, always perfecting, always dismissing staff from the upper level when I worked on it. There were times when I’d nearly emptied it out, convinced there would never be a point, that I was a fool to keep hoping for someone who might fit.

But now, with Charlie standing in front of it—nervous, silent, and shivering as if from cold—I feel the old ache rise again, just as sharp in my chest as it was the first time I thought of building this place.

I was in my late twenties when I first walked into a kink club, thinking I’d seen it all, that nothing could surprise or unsettle me after the carnage and chaos of my world.

I had just taken over my father’s work after his death the year before. In those days, I found it exhausting to keep the legal and illegal work separate while successfully operating both. And after a particularly frustrating failed deal, I found myself drinking alone in an unfamiliar place, surrounded by leather, chains, and kneeling subs.

It was in a small room in the back of the establishment where I’d first discovered age-play. I’d been about to leave when the bartender I’d been speaking with suggested I take a look at “something different.”

That “something different” had come in the form of pastel walls, children’s toys, and a grown man cradling another man on his lap, holding a baby bottle to his lips.

I had stood frozen in the doorway, not out of disgust or horror—those would have been a relief, something I could make into a joke and move past. It was my need that stunned me, a raw ache at the base of my throat, as if I’d just found what I’d been looking for my entire life.

Ever since then, the need had grown into an obsession.

I wanted it more than I wanted the money, the status, the immortality of my father’s name. I wanted it more than I wanted to stay alive, some nights. It had taken years—years of pretending, years of going through the motions, years of trying to turn the wrong men into the thing I truly wanted—before I could admit that the only way to fill this room was to make it the center of my world and wait.

I push open the door, inhaling the room’s faintly sweet smell of powder and clean linen.

Charlie comes up to my side, his mouth dropping open at what he sees.

The walls are a soft, sky-washed blue, broken at intervals by painted clouds. There’s a crib—much larger than standard but built to look entirely normal—made of solid white wood with a plush, padded mattress and a hand-stitched baby blanket in soft pastels. White shelves line the far wall, filled with picture books and plush animals, everything soft-edged and meant for hands smaller—or, at least, hearts softer—than mine.

I let the silence breathe, waiting for his reaction, but Charlie just stands there, rooted, as if he can’t decide whether to approach or retreat. His eyes track slowly from the crib to the bookshelves to the oversized changing table, its drawers neatly closed and surfaces laid out with cloths in gentle, cartoonish patterns.

“It’s yours,” I say, quieter than I intended, but it seems wrong to disturb the hush of the place. “Everything in here. I had it made for—” For you. The phrase catches in my throat, so I force a cough and try again. “For someone special.”

His gaze flicks over to me, full of that startled, wounded hope I recognized the first night. He steps in and runs a trembling hand along the bars of the crib, as if to test if it’s real wood, or maybe if it’s real at all.

I want him to say something, but all I get is a series of rapid blinks, his lips parted slightly.

“Do you like it, Charlie?” I ask.

He nods, but his face says he might be about to faint. I reach for him and half-expect him to flinch, but instead he leans into my touch, letting me guide him to sit on the edge of the crib mattress. His knees wobble, and when I kneel in front of him, I see the first shimmer of tears in his eyes.

Fuck.

“It’s not—if it’s too much, we can change anything you want,” I say as I reach for the edge of the mattress, my knees creaking as I lower myself to him. “Charlie. Baby.” My hand smooths over his thigh in an effort to ground him.

He sits so still that I’m afraid he might tip over and shatter. His eyes are fixed on the opposite wall, unfocused, but I can see the fine tremor in his jaw, the way his knuckles blanch as he clutches his blanket.