JD Finley Part 1: Meeting the Boy
I first met JD when school started in late summer of 1999. He was a freshman in high school that year, and that was when the high school was still in the old building that’s now Martin Middle School. We were only about two blocks from the school and were a popular hang out after school and at lunch. Cathy said the lunch business at Magicat’s Burger Bar increased about 200% when school started. I know the arcade was hugely busy during the lunch hours and for a while after school.
I don’t know why JD (Jimmy Dean, and at some point I started calling him Jimmy instead of JD, so pardon me if I slip) stood out to me, but he did. He was taller than me and very lean, but still young, cute, and very boyish looking. He had light blond hair, slightly darker eybrows, a fair complexion, and light blue eyes. Even so, he had a little acne, wasn’t especially good looking, and I honestly don’t remember there being anything special that caught my attention.
What I do remember is that I saw him and several other kids out front smoking one day, and I went out to politely chase them off. Instead of yelling or screaming, I reminded them that it was illegal for minors to smoke, and that the police often used our parking lot to turn around when checking the campus. I remember hearing JD tell the other kids, as I walked away, that I was pretty cool.
After that, JD would often stop and talk to me. It was a bit unusual, since he wasn’t into comics and gaming, like most of my other young friends were, and didn’t know any of my kids. It was only as time passed that I learned he was an only child with a single mother, and he’d never known his dad. Given my own history, I guess it was no wonder we resonated with each other. I was at least lucky enough to have had half- and step-bros and to have had a good step-father at one point. He hadn’t even had those things.
JD is a long and complex story. As time went by, I learned that he was having some real problems at home and at school. I checked the calendars, and school had started 10 August that year. Our friendship grew and I learned most of this stuff by the first of October. Not only was he not paying much attention to his grades, but he was skipping school, and had been ticketed for smoking. Because his mother was working in Dallas, she would get him up in the morning, and he was responsible for getting himself to school, then taking care of things in the morning. According to his mom, they’d been doing that since he was 10. Suddenly it stopped working. It was only much later that I learned that his mom had recently decided to get married, and it was to a guy that JD didn’t much care for. No wonder he was acting out a bit. The trouble was, his behavior was hurting him more than anyone else.
I was still working in the store on a regular basis back then. The Pokemon craze was at it’s height. Even JD and his friends had shown some interest in learning to play. I was loving work, and enjoying home, and had a lot of new friends thanks to the Pokemon card game, but for some reason, JD was special.
Things went along okay. His mom and I met and she trusted me with him and so he started staying at the store longer, and his mom would sometimes even pick him up there in the evening.
The turning point came right before Fall break, which I think started on 4 Oct that year. Right before that, JD had decided to skip school again. By that point, the school had instructions to call his mom if he didn’t show, and she went straight home, catching him and a friend playing video games. I might have been able to understand it if it had been for sex or something illegal, but video games?
If I remember correctly, that was on a Thursday. His mom called in on Friday to make sure he got to school and went straight home. She then went in on Saturday to catch up her work. He went with her. From what I later learned, he had to sit in her office with nothing to do but school work. She’d already taken his Game Boy and Walkman away from him. He was bored stiff and horrified to learn that was how he was going to be spending the entire Fall Break. And he broke. Or ran, anyway.
I think it took three days for her to find him. He’d been staying at a friend and the friend’s big brother had helped cover for him. When he was back, she didn’t know what to do. At that point, I had Steve, Mike, Aaron, Tommy, and Bobby, plus Chris was spending so much time with me that it seemed he was mine. Since I seemed to be doing good with mine, JD’s mom came to me for aid, or at least suggestions and information.
Irene and I had a good, long talk. I pointed out to her that boys don’t just start doing this type of thing. Either something had happened to set him off or she’d been overlooking something. She didn’t have any clue, so we set about doing what we could to correct, or at least control it. She was talking about committing him to some type of pre-delinquent school, where’d he’d live in a controlled environment. It sounded like the major difference between it and prison was that the child could come home on weekends, if he behaved well enough to earn a pass, and that you had to pay for the child to attend. I asked her to put a pause on that. Too many kids seem to be starved for attention and affection, but JD did well when he stayed at the store with me. I was hoping I could find out why he was acting as he was, so we could correct it. I don’t really think she liked the pre-delinquent camp, so she agreed to put off a decision for a bit, or until his next major screw up.
She started by telling me that JD had been spanked when she got home the day he’d skipped, then spanked again last night, when the police had returned him to the house. JD later explained to me that her spankings were a few pops with the belt on his boxers. He admitted it hurt enough to bring tears to his eyes, but said it in a manner blasé enough to make me think it didn’t really get through to him. She just didn’t know what to do now.
To start, I got her to admit that JD had run away because she had put him in a position where he felt he had nothing to lose. He was wrong of course, but a week of total boredom with an unknown amount of punishment to follow was pretty harsh for a boy that age. I also pointed out that she had only responded that way because JD had done the same thing to her. She just didn’t know what else to do and so she’d overreacted, just like he had. When she was able to see it that way, she relaxed a bit. She still wasn’t happy with him, but she understood a little better.
From there, I sat out to help her decide what was fair for JD. The boy deserved to be punished, both for skipping school, then for running away; but, he also had to be encouraged in good behavior, and feel like he had a reason to try. We finally did come up with a plan, and Irene asked me to go with her to implement it.
Irene’s fiancée (who made such an impression on me that I can’t even recall his name anymore) had stayed with JD, while Irene came to talk with me. He sat quietly while she and I explained things to the boy. Actually, she sat fairly quietly as well. I think that, even though she understood she had overreacted, she still had a lot of emotional baggage that was making it hard for her to deal with him.
I explained to him that there were two basic issues we were confronting. In the first place, he had skipped school again and still had to be fully punished for it. In the second place, his running away was wrong and, while he wasn’t going to be punished further for that, having already received a (fairly mild sounding, if you ask me) spanking, there was the fact that that act had made it very hard to trust him.
At that point, we paused for Irene to apologize for overreacting and try to explain why she had. I think the simple fact that she admitted she had overreacted made him feel better, and he seemed to relax some. Then I announced his sentence.
"You’re going to be completely grounded, JD. No TV, no phone, you can’t go anywhere, you can’t have friends over, and no games." He started to protest, but I cut him off. "I don’t want to hear about it, boy. You thought you’d have friends visit and play games when you were supposed to be in school, so now you’ve lost those privileges." I paused, but he didn’t try to say anything else, so I continued. "You’re grounded through Saturday." Now he looked stunned.
"You mean this Saturday?"
Since it was Wednesday evening when we were talking, I guess he didn’t think that was too bad. At least not as bad as he’d been dreading.
"Yes," I replied, "this Saturday. Your mom and I agreed that you deserve to be punished, but that it doesn’t need to be too extreme. This way, you’ll miss your vacation, but you’ll still be able to spend a little time with your friends before going back to school."
He obviously didn’t like it, but knew it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, so he accepted it with a fair amount of grace. Then his mother took up the thread.
"That’s your punishment for skipping school, JD. However, there’s also the issue of trust. You’ve screwed that up pretty bad, and now we have to find a way for you to earn it back. I don’t know how you’re going to do that, except by showing us you can stay out of trouble. In the meantime, I have to find some way to be able to work without constantly worrying about what you’re doing. Jack suggested a way to handle that."
"I have to leave for work at 7am," Irene continued. "From now on, your bedtime is at 9:30, which means no TV after 9pm, so you can get your bath and be in bed on time." The boy again tried to protest, but this time Irene cut him off. "I don’t want to hear it, JD. We already explained about the trust issue. This isn’t a punishment, but you brought it on yourself, so you’re going to have to deal with the consequences."
"The reason you have to be in bed so early," she explained, "is because you still seem to need more than eight hours sleep, and you’re going to have to start getting up at 6am. From now on, instead of waking you up and leaving you to go to school, I’m going to leave here a few minutes early, and I’m going to drop you at Jack’s house. You’ll be riding to school with his kids."
JD seemed fairly happy with this idea, especially after he’d tried it. He already knew that I fixed breakfast for my gang, and he’d complained to me about never having anything but cold cereal or microwave breakfasts. Once we started, and he found out that it gave him some alone time with his chosen father-figure, it became all good. Since he didn’t watch much television, even the early bedtime wasn’t a huge problem for him.
"Jack’s also going to supervise you after school. Instead of coming home in the afternoon, you’ll go straight to his store. And I mean straight, young man," she added in a stern tone of voice that she managed very well. "I wouldn’t have complained if he’d done it before; but, just so there’s no question, Jack has my permission to spank you any time he feels like you need it. Understand?"
He nodded his acceptance. He was probably a bit nervous. I’d told JD he needed a good spanking, as opposed to what he said his mom gave him, and I’d threatened to do it, but hadn’t carried though. However, he’d met Aaron, Mikell, and Steve, and I had little doubt that he’d heard a few stories about my spanking. Since Mikell wasn’t very shy about it, JD probably knew that it had only been about three months since his last spanking. Since Mikell was 16, I’m sure that left little doubt in JD’s mind that I would do it if I thought he needed it.
"That leaves us with one last problem, JD," I said, picking up the thread. "Do you understand why we feel we can’t really trust you right now?"
"Yeah," he replied. "Because I skipped school and then ran away."
"You know you’re grounded, but the question is, ‘how do we enforce that?’ Your mom can’t stay home from work until you go back to school, you’ve already shown that taking you to work with her isn’t a real option. I could let her bring you over to me, then I could take you to work with me, but she and I agree that that wouldn’t be real punishment, even if I put you to work." I paused to see if he had any opinion he wanted to share, but he just waited expectantly.
"That leaves us two choices. First, I could take you to work with me, and to make up for the lesser punishment, we’ll go in your room right now and I’ll heat your rear end for you." The look on his face said he wasn’t real thrilled about that, which was good, because it wasn’t the choice I wanted him to make. "The second option is that we give you a chance to either start earning our trust, or to prove that the camp is what you need. You give us your word that you are going to accept your grounding and abide by it, and we’ll leave you here, by yourself."
He went for that option almost as fast as I could spit it out.
"Think hard about this, JD. We’re not playing around. We’re not going to trust you 100%. Your games and the VCR will be locked up. Other stuff will be disconnected so you can’t use it. Your mom might call to make sure you’re still here, and I might decide to drop by to make sure you’re alone. If we catch you violating, you’re out of chances. Do you understand that?" I waited for him to acknowledge that he did. "Do you think it’s worth the chance? If you don't think you can do it, then I'll take you to the store with me, while you get your feet back under you."
"I can do it, Jack. I promise I’ll do right."
"All right, boy. You said it, and we’re going to hold you to it."
The rest was just working out a few details. Before leaving, I went out to the car and brought JD several books, and a few other things.
"You’ve got all this time, so you might as well use it. Read a little. I brought a number of different things, so maybe you can find something that interest you. There’s a journal in there. Maybe if you start writing things down, you can figure out what the problem’s been lately. Your mom swears you weren’t like this last year. I also brought you some loose paper, envelopes, and stamps. Since you can’t spend time with your friends, maybe you could write them some letters. You’re grounded, kiddo, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do anything. Okay?"
I got a big hug and a sincere thanks before leaving.
As far as I ever found out, he handled his grounding as well as he'd promised. The arrangement for regular weeks also worked out well, for about three days, as I remember. Our schools have always let out about 3:15, so I knew something was wrong when JD walked in at about 2:20. I tried to be casual about it.
"I didn’t know school was getting out early today," was all I said. He had the grace to look a little embarrassed.
"It didn’t. But it’s sixth period and I don’t have nothing important. The teacher doesn’t even take roll, and she doesn’t care if I’m there or not, so I figured it was okay to come on over."
"I’m not even going to discuss what the teacher thinks about you being there, JD. That’s not important. What’s important is…" I stopped and looked around. We weren’t busy, but I figured we didn’t want to have this discussion in public. I let staff know I’d be in my office for a little while, then led JD up there.
"Now, what I was saying was, the important thing isn’t what your teacher might or might not think. What’s important is that your mom and I have both made it clear that your behavior has been unacceptable this year and that it has to stop."
"But it’s just one class!"
"JD, I don’t care if it’s just ten minutes. You promised me you weren’t going to skip school anymore. Didn’t you?"
He didn’t have to think. He was looking very embarrassed and nodded yes.
"I’m very disappointed in you, JD. We’ve talked about this, and I thought you understood how important it was for you to behave, and that you agreed you were going to. Well, you might not think it’s important to keep your word, but I do."
Instead of saying anything else, I pulled the spanking chair to the center of the room, then stepped into my private bathroom to retrieve a copy of the bath brush that had been doing such a great job on Mikell the last year or so. I returned, not trying to hide the brush, and sat in the chair before addressing him again.
"I think you know what’s going to happen now. Get your pants down, your shirt up, and get over my lap."
JD didn’t hesitate. He didn’t act like he was anticipating it, and he didn’t exactly hurry, but he tucked his shirt up under his arms. The boy was tall, but very lean. His belly was flat, firm, and defined, but he was far from hard enough to have a six pack. His chest wasn't as good, since he had no definition to his pecs yet.
I watched his hands as they unfastened his belt and his jeans. He pushed them down to around his knees, but they were baggy enough that they fell to his ankles, revealing legs that were smooth and hairless, but firm and well-shaped, though too lean to be called muscular. As soon as they were down, he took a couple of shuffling steps over to me, then fell across my lap.
I knew from him and his mom both that she’d once spanked him like this, over her lap, on his briefs and sometimes even his bare bottom, with her hand or a wooden spoon. While they couldn’t agree on when she’d changed, they did agree it had been over three years ago, before he started middle school, which started in sixth grade at that time. I was pretty sure he’d grown in that time, so it took a minute to get him properly settled across my lap.
I’d done all the talking I thought needed to be done, so as soon as he was settled, I started. I didn’t go easy on him, but I wanted to make sure it lasted a bit, so I wasn’t going real hard, either. At first, he stayed still and silent, except for a small jerk to his body as each swat landed, almost like he’d received a small electric shock. As the spanking continued and the heat built, his legs began to move around, making his feet dance. I was moving the swats around, trying to heat his entire bottom. What he’d done was very wrong, and if he didn’t realize this himself, I was going to take the time to bring it home to him.
JD never did try to cover himself, but his motions became more pronounced as the brush continued to kiss his rear. When I moved down onto his thighs, I could feel his upper body shift. His hand came to rest on my knee, but the I could feel it slide back down, where he took a firm grip on my ankle.
Physically, he kept himself fairly restrained, but not so much vocally. The quiet he kept at first began to be punctuated by small ‘ohhs’ and ‘ouches’ of pain. They slowly grew a little louder, and it wasn’t long before I could hear the tears in them. Soon enough, he was quietly sobbing and as it started to grow louder and harder, I stopped.
I helped the boy to his feet. He stood there, tears seeping down his face, not knowing what to do with himself. I quickly solved that problem for him.
"We have a problem JD. Have you ever heard that lying makes things worse?"
He had a puzzled look in his face as he shrugged. I don’t like shrugging in most cases, and would have made him answer, but it didn’t really matter this time.
"The problem we have is, I think you lied to me." He started to protest, but I silenced him with a finger across my lips. "Let me explain my thinking, then you can answer me." He nodded his acceptance, if not his delight.
"You see, you told me you thought it would be okay to skip just this one class. I don’t think that’s true. I think what happened is, you decided to skip it without thinking about it. Then, when I confronted you, you just said that, hoping to get out of trouble. That’s lying."
"The trouble I have," I continued, "is that I’m about 90% sure that’s what happened. However, 90% isn’t 100% and thinking something doesn’t make it true. So here’s what we’re going to do. If you were telling the truth about that, then you can pull up your pants. If you were lying, then you need to drop your boxers and we’ll finish your spanking."
"That’s not fair!" JD informed me.
"What’s not fair? I know what I believe, but you’re the only one that knows the truth. You told us you wanted to earn our trust back, and the worst thing I could possibly do would be to punish you for something you didn’t do."
"The way I see it," I told the boy, "is that either you didn’t lie, so you can pull your pants up and we’re done. Or, you did lie, so you drop your shorts and take your punishment. Or, you did lie, but you’re not going to admit it, so you’ll take advantage of my love and trust to get away with something. It’s your choice, son."
He looked at me and a fresh tear ran down his face. "Mikell was right," he murmured, almost under his breath.
That seemed like a non sequitar to me, so I had to ask, "Right about what?"
"Your lectures are as bad as your spankings." With that pronouncement, he shoved his boxers down to his knees, where they fell to join his jeans around his ankles. "I didn’t mean to lie," he assured me, in a slightly sullen voice, before looking at the no doubt fascinating pattern his boxers and jeans were forming around his feet.
"JD, I can understand a boy accidentally knocking stuff over or losing track of time. I do not think someone can lie by accident, unless they just don’t know what they’re talking about."
I paused for a moment. He was still focusing on the floor, leaving me free to admire his adolescent frame. His little dick was cut loosely enough that most of the head was hooded, but it wasn’t that big. Then again, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t showing his best right then, either. His balls, on the other hand, were fairly impressive. He also had a thick thatch of hair that was someplace between dark blond and light brown. He was lean enough that his hips formed that perfect ‘V’ down to his crotch. I continued talking even as I soaked in the scenery.
"I think what you mean is that it was impulsive, and you did it to try to get out of trouble. Is that close to right?"
He looked up at me and nodded.
"I can understand that, JD, but it doesn’t make it okay; does it?"
"No, sir."
"All right then, let’s get you over my lap and get this finished."
JD placed himself back across my lap, a bit closer to the right position this time. His bottom was mostly flat, but he had some flesh in the back, making me think he’d only had a growth spurt recently, and was putting on a bit of flesh again. It was also a dark rose color, but not yet truly red. That wasn’t going to last for long.
It hadn’t been a long rest, and he started reacting much more as the brush began to pop against his now bare bottom. He was jerking much harder this time and yelping from the first. His bottom quickly began to be a true red, but not as quick as the yelps turned to sobs.
He started kicking, but still not trying to get away or cover himself. He took a grip on my leg that was hard enough to be painful. I’m sure it wasn’t near as much pain as I was causing his bottom, so I ignored it. As his bottom darkened past red, his head came up with a wail of despair and he broke, beginning to truly cry like a naughty boy half his age, then he just collapsed across my lap. I gave him a few more swats so he wouldn’t try to fake that in the future, but didn’t concentrate on the upper thighs or sit spots like I normally would. He was so sore he barely reacted to them, and I quickly brought the spanking to it’s close.
I placed the brush behind me, then gently rubbed his cheeks for a moment before helping him to his feet. This time I didn’t leave him standing in confusion, but pulled him to me. JD only topped my height by an inch or so, but he still had to bend down a bit to rest his head on my shoulder. I held him while he cried it out, quietly talking to him and telling him all the things little boys need to hear in that situation - that I loved him, that he was forgiven, and that it would be all right now and we could forget it and move on. He slowly settled down.
After a few moments, when he was still crying, but soft and slow and nearly had himself under control, I spoke again. "This is the time when my boys would have to go to the corner. I give corner time so a boy can recover his dignity and so he can think about what he did and how to stay out of trouble next time. Understand?"
I felt him nod against my neck.
"Good. Since this is your first time, we’re going to skip the corner time. I think it would do better for us to spend time togheter this time. Okay? Or would you rather do CT?"
"No, sir!" he replied emphatically.
"I do have some bad news for you, though." He pulled back and looked at me. "Just like you're not getting corner time this time, that wasn't as hard as I'd spank my boys." His eyes went wide with disbelief, but I continued before he could say anything else. "And next time, your boxers are coming straight down." He paled a bit, but had the good sense not to argue.
I led him to the bathroom with him shuffling beside me. Once there, I helped him clean up and get some water before letting him dress.
When his mom showed up to pick him up, he was finishing up a project for me. In return for doing small chores around the store, I gave him quarters for the arcade. She was talking to him while he put things away, and I wandered over to remind him of another conversation we’d had.
"JD," I asked, "wasn’t there something you needed to say to your mom?"
She looked at me quizzically, but JD blushed a bit.
"Oh, yeah. Mom, Jack had to spank me today."
He didn’t seem too bothered to admit it, and she wasn’t bothered at all.
"I’m sure you needed it," she replied. "Does he do a good job?"
"He sure does. He spanks a lot harder than you do."
"Well, maybe I should ask him to handle all your spankings from now on."
I think JD couldn’t decide whether it was good because he and I would be spending time together or bad for the obvious reasons. However, that wasn’t what I had in mind.
"That’s nice, JD; but, I meant asking about the weekend."
Have you ever seen one of those cartoons when someone eats a bowl of chili or something, and their head turns into a thermometer? That’s what JD reminded me of. He blushed so red that I wouldn’t have been surprised to see steam coming out of his ears. Before addressing his mom, he looked down at the table.
"Oh. Mom, Jack says I can stay at his house this weekend, if it’s okay with you?"
It was okay with her, and JD actually managed to go the entire weekend without earning a spanking.