Allen Robertson

"Well, it looks like they’re going to get along," Allen commented as our respective broods wandered off in various directions.

"Well, the younger ones get along with almost anybody that’s not a girl."

Allen laughed.

"Mine are exactly the same. Van seems like he’s good with younger kids."

"Well, Griffin – my grandson – is the same age as Chuck, so he’s used to it."

"Yeah, he’s probably more used to it than I am to the idea that you have grandkids. Didn’t anyone tell you that you were supposed to wait on that?"

"Well, it’s not like Steve – or Mikell for that matter – gave me much choice in it."

Allen laughed again.

"It’s really good to see you," he said after a minute, and I could only agree.



With the exception of James Howell, Allen Robertson is my oldest friend.

After Mom married Ralph and we moved to the new part of Bransom, I lost contact with all the friends I’d known before that. I was only nine, so it was hard to keep in touch with them, but at least there were plenty of new kids to meet – my next door neighbors, Freddie and Raymond; Jill and her little brother, Lance; Jamie Howell, and others. I quickly met David Bartholomew, who became my best friend for two years, until his parents divorced and both moved away.

It wasn’t until about three months after the move that I met Allen. He and I were in the same fourth grade homeroom. More importantly, we were the two new boys. Even though James, David, and Jill were all in the same class I was, they all had other kids that they already knew – kids whom they’d known since kindergarten. Allen and I were the odd boys out and quickly clung to each other. While he wasn’t into comics, he was a huge Star Trek fan, which was enough to bond us.

Allen showed me the house where he lived. They’d moved to Bransom when his dad was hired at the university, and were renting a house while they looked for one they wanted to buy. That house just happened to be right across the street from Dunn Elementary School, and Allen was able to point it out from the playground.

Allen was never one of my best friends, but we were always friends – from saying hello to each other in the halls, to making the occasional visit to each other’s homes. While Allen never did get into comics, a lot of the boys who lived close to him, who were his close friends, did, so we were brought closer by those mutual friendships.

That, and Allen and I had occasional classes together, from the same homeroom in fourth grade, to the same homeroom our senior year.



"Dad! Lookee this," Chuck said, running through the living room.

"What do you know about running in the house, Little Bit?"

The seven year old came to a halt, suddenly looking abashed (and a bit nervous?).

"I’m sorry," he informed us.

He was looking down at his feet, but rather obviously glanced up to see if Dad was buying it.

Allen looked at me, and I shook my head.

"It’s okay," Allen informed his youngest. "Just make sure you don’t do it anymore."

"Okay, Dad."

"Now, what have you got there?"

Chuck replied by holding up the Texas Tailblazer.

"Van and Parker get spanked with this, and they have to hang it next to their door."

"Well, that’s not as big as your paddle. Think we should get one of these?"

Chuck’s head started rapidly shaking back and forth, almost like he was trying to do a Linda Blair.

"Huh uh. They say it hurts really bad. Dad, can I have a Spanky Bear?"

"What," Allen asked, seeming a bit taken aback, "is a Spanky Bear?"

"Come see it, Dad. You can look at the hamsters, too!" Chuck explained, grabbing Allen by the arm and trying to pull him from the couch.

Allen looked at me questioningly, but I just nodded towards the boys’ bedrooms, and stood myself, so Allen let himself be pulled upright.



Twenty minutes later, Allen and I were finally able to return to the living room.

"I swear," Allen swore, "he can remember the names of six different hamsters he hasn’t known five minutes, but he can’t remember his toys go in the toy box when he’s through with them, after five years and who knows how many spankings."

"He was pretty impressed by the Tailblazer, though," I offered.

"Well, Austin isn’t like around here… Especially when we were growing up. I mean, when you and I were kids, everybody got spanked. All the boys, anyway."

"It’s still pretty close to that around here."

"Yeah, but Austin’s a bit more liberal. I think he just likes knowing some other boy has his own paddle."

"So," I suggested, just a bit tentatively, not wanting to appear too interested, "you spank like your parents did."

He glanced at me for a moment, blushing just a bit. I thought it was cute a forty-five year old man could still blush like that.

"Yeah, well, like my mom, anyway."

His eyes narrowed.

"We didn’t meet until fourth grade – we were nine, right?"

"Yeah."

"I think she quit using it on me about the time we moved to Bransom, maybe a little before, but you know those toys… those um…"

He made a motion with his hand, which removed all doubt of what he meant.

"Fly-back paddles?" I suggested. "Paddleball paddles?"

"Yeah," he agreed. "Mom spanked me with one of those when I was pretty young, before she moved up to the ping pong paddle. That’s what I get Chuck with, but I couldn’t find a wooden one like we used to play with; they’re all plastic these days."

He paused thoughtfully for a second as he settled back into the couch.

"I gave myself a couple of test swats on the leg with it. That little thing really stings."

"One thing I do different than Mom did, is I don’t spank in public."

"I’m sure your kids appreciate that. Remember how mad your brother was?"

A sly smile crossed Allen’s face, and I had no doubt he remembered the incident just as well as I did.

"That was Jeff. Oh yeah, do I remember!"



It had just been a few months after Allen and I had met. It was one of those perfect fall afternoons when it was still warm, but no longer hot. It was one of the long, Saturday afternoons, with nothing particular to do and all day to do it, and I’d ended up over at Allen’s house.

Allen had been happy for the visit, and we’d crossed the street and played on the school equipment for a while, before going back to his house to get some lemonade. We were sitting on the back porch, sipping, and talking of the inconsequential matters that occupy boys’ minds when he suddenly perked up.

"What?" I asked.

He gestured at me to be quiet.

The back porch was to one side of the house, and I was sitting on the outside. The windows of the house were open to the breeze, and with us both quiet, I could hear his mom’s voice, raised and a bit angry.

Allen placed his glass on the porch and crept over to the window, gesturing for me to follow, but to stay low. Once at the window, it was easy to tell why.

Allen has a huge family. When we were in fourth grade, he had brothers in sixth, eighth, ninth, and eleventh, as well as one in the army, and a toddler sister. I never could remember all their names, but right now, Jeff – the ninth grader – was standing in front of their mom as her finger wagged at him.

Jeff looked a fair amount like Allen, but leaner. All the boys had thick, dark brown hair, with just enough body so it didn’t lie flat. I know Allen had blue eyes, but I don’t remember his siblings well enough to know if they did or not. I do remember that Jeff’s hair was longer than Allen’s, just brushing his shoulders in back.

The biggest difference between Allen and Jeff is that Allen was always just slightly… not chubby, but he carried a little extra padding. The only time he was actually chubby was at the end of seventh grade, right before his growth spurt, but it wasn’t until our senior year that his body finally leaned out (and even then, he still had the full cheeks that made him look boyish and friendly).

At fourteen, Jeff was already leaner than Allen. For some reason, Jeff wasn’t wearing anything but jeans, and it was easy to see his firm, lean build. He was even barefoot, I realized, as I looked down to see the wide bell-bottoms that just let his toes stick out.

"… Wouldn’t have taken you thirty minutes, but you’ve argued with me and ignored me all day, and I’m sick of it," their mother was saying as we edged up to the window that was open to catch the fresh breeze. "Now get those pants off."

"No!" Jeff protested.

"Do you want your father to deal with this?"

"I’m sorry, Mom," Jeff said after a second, quickly changing from rebellious to contrite. "I’ll do it now."

"Now’s too late. You are not in charge here. It’s not like your father and I treat you like a slave, but I expect you to do a little around here, and I expect you to do it when I told you. Now are you going to mind me?"

It’s funny to think how many fourteen year olds I’ve spanked in the last ten years. Back then, when I was only nine, fourteen seemed grown up to me. After all, Jeff was about as tall as, maybe slightly taller than, his mom. He was in high school. But here he was, being chewed out and threatened like a little kid. I think I would have been entranced even if I hadn’t been a spanko. Allen certainly was. Of course, if either of us had thought about what that probably meant for our butts over the next five years, it might not have been quite as exciting.

Jeff and his mom were staring at each other. Jeff’s back was mostly to us, but I could tell his arms were crossed defensively over his chest. The quiet dragged on for several long moments before his mom finally broke it.

"One," she stated firmly, holding up a finger, just in case he doubted her.

Jeff rolled his head around his shoulders, then stopped so he was staring at the ceiling. I’ve little doubt he’d rolled his eyes at the same time.

"It’s your choice mister – me or your dad."

She skipped a beat before going on.

"Two."

Jeff glanced at her for a second, then must have decided she was serious, because his hands jumped to the front of his jeans. You could see the back of his belt sag as it came undone, and the back of his jeans followed a few seconds later.

With her instructions being followed, Mrs. Robertson belayed the count. She crossed her own arms this time, and watched while Jeff shoved his jeans down legs that had enough hair to see even from the window and through the screen. With jeans around his ankles, he stepped out of them and laid them on the couch as he stood up.

I’ve always liked seeing boys in their briefs, but Jeff looked incredible in those Jockey shorts. He wasn’t in great shape, but his back had some real tone to it, his belly was flat, and he had a hint of a waist. His legs were incredible – probably due to all the bike riding most boys did back then – and they rose to a butt that stretched the white cotton covering them, clearly showing slight dimples on each side.

Left in nothing but his Jockeys, Jeff stood straight, brushed some hair back from his shoulder, then took a rather defiant pose. Standing in my underwear like that would have been horribly embarrassing for me. This was only my second visit to Allen’s home though, and it would be years later before I realized that he and his brothers walked around the house like that all the time, early mornings and late evenings, so it was fairly normal to them.

I do have to wonder if being that way in the middle of the day, just for the purpose of getting your rear busted, made a difference in how acceptable it was.

Mother and son glared at each other another second, then Mrs. R pointed towards a corner. I double-checked later and saw they had a small hutch or cabinet of some type there. Jeff must have walked over to it and gone into one of the drawers. A moment later, he came back into sight carrying a Jokari paddle, though I’d never heard of the game before that day.

The window where Allen and I were watching was in the dining room, so Jeff and their mom were more than a room away from us. Admittedly, the dining room wasn’t that big, so they were standing maybe fifteen or twenty feet from us, but we still had a much better view of Jeff as he crossed the living room to that hutch. I watched closely, admiring the way he filled the front of his briefs as he walked towards us. He disappeared from view for a few seconds, and when he came back, I was suddenly much more interested in what he was carrying than in him.

Jeff walked back to his mother, moving much more slowly than when he’d gone for the paddle. There wasn’t a pause between each step or anything, but it’s hard to imagine how he could have taken much longer.

Standing next to his mother, he held the paddle behind his back, like she’d suddenly forget about it.

"Please, Mom," Jeff whined.

I was surprised at how much the well developed fourteen year old sounded like many of my friends (and slightly worried that he might have also sounded a lot like me in the same situation). It suddenly occurred to me that, though Jeff towered over Allen and me, maybe he wasn’t really that much older than us. We were nine. He was fourteen. Yet my mom was twenty-six, almost twice as old as him, and his parents looked to be much older than that. Fourteen might seem grown up to me, but it was looking less and less that way, at least in this one example.

Mrs. Robertson didn’t answer, but held her hand out. Jeff took about a half step back. His mom waved her hand a bit, and Jeff surrendered. I couldn’t hear for sure, but I think he moaned a bit as he handed her the paddle.

Paddle finally in her hands, Mom put her hand on her hip and looked at her son. He looked away for a minute, but then his shoulders slumped and he climbed onto the couch.

Allen and I now saw Jeff from the side, so it was hard to be exactly sure how he was positioned. He was at the edge of the couch, so his mom was facing towards him from his left side, and right next to him. Jeff had his knees on the seat of the couch, with his feet hanging over the edge. Looking at his feet, I’d have guessed that his legs were spread, so his knees were about hip width apart. He had his elbows on the back of the couch, but his mom put her hand between his shoulder blades and pushed down, so Jeff let himself go forward, until his arms and head were hanging over the back of the couch, and his chest rested against it.

With her son in position, Mrs. Robertson stepped back and lifted the paddle. She wasn’t giving full arm, golf style swings, like they seemed to use at school, but each swat still echoed out as it landed.

From where I was, it looked like Jeff stayed still for the first swat. And the second. But a third popped down, and his head jerked up. A fourth swat, and you could see his shoulders tense up as he pushed against the back of the couch, and he started shaking his head back and forth, like he was trying to deny the pain (or saying no to the tears that wanted to come).

A fifth swat landed, and Jeff yelled out. It was followed by a sixth, and his feet beat a brief tattoo against the edge of the couch.

"All you had to do," his mother suddenly said into the silence which had been broken only by the crack of the paddle, "was a couple of simple chores."

The paddle fell again.

"All you had to do,"

CRACK!

Jeff’s head and back rose as he pushed himself back. His mom put her hand in between his shoulder blades and pushed him back again.

"was mind me."

CRACK!

"O-ho-ow!"

"All you had to do,"

CRACK!

"That’s enough!"

"was act like you’re part of this family,"

CRACK!

"and like you live here."

"Please, Mama, I’m sorry," Jeff cried. He wasn’t sobbing, but tears were evident in his voice.

The paddle stopped, but it still seemed to hover above his butt.

"I am tired of having to argue every time I tell you to do something, Jeffery Bruce. I am tired of having to fight to get you to do any little thing. Do you understand me."

"Yes, Ma’am," Jeff agreed readily.

The tears seemed already to be fading from his voice, but you could tell he was very on edge.

"When I ask you to do something, I expect you to do it, and do it then. I will not tolerate you wandering in and out when you want and ignoring me. Do we understand each other?"

"Yes, Mama."

Suddenly Mrs. Robertson seemed a different woman. The angry disciplinarian was gone, and a concerned, sympathetic mother was in her place.

The new mother reached down and gently helped Jeff to his feet. As soon as he was standing, he reached back to gently rub his backside, but she wrapped her arms around him for just a second, then moved to the side a bit and patted his back.

"I really don’t like doing that, Jeff, but I will do it when you can’t behave. Just try to help me out a little, okay?"

Jeff was facing away from us, so I couldn’t tell for sure, but I distinctly heard a sniff, which surprised me, because I didn’t think he’d cried. It was only years later that I met some kids whose faces would be soaked with tears after a spanking without me ever hearing a sound, though I don’t know if that was the case with Jeff or not.

"Now," Mrs. Robertson said, pointing with the paddle, "get your jeans and you go get those things done for me."

"Okay," Jeff agreed, sounding almost happy now.

He picked up his jeans, and walked back towards the bedrooms.

Allen and I just stood there for a moment. I can’t even describe the almost overwhelming mix of emotions that were flooding through me. At nine, I didn’t even have a hint what the raw lust was that made up most of the mix. I certainly don’t have any idea how Allen felt. On the other hand, he might not have been affected by it as powerfully as I was, because of the way he turned to me after a long moment’s quiet.

"You wanna play some Jokari?"



"So, you got it at Build-a-Bear? I think we have one of those back home."

"Yeah, they’re a little expensive, but it really is a lot of fun to help the kids with them. My grandson even had a birthday party there."

"I still can’t get over you having a grandson," Allen answered. "You’re making me feel old."

"Well, I am older than you," I reminded him.

"Three months, okay."

He paused and smiled.

"You never did let me forget that."

"Oh, I just teased you because I was jealous."

"Of what?"

"I always wanted big brothers."

Allen laughed.

"Maybe we should have worked out a trade. I always wanted little brothers, and I seem to remember you had plenty of those."

The conversation went on another minute, before I guided it back towards my interest.

"How come you got spanked with a ping pong paddle, but your brothers got that Jokari paddle?"

"Oh," Allen answered, "I got the Jokari paddle, too. I told you that Chuck gets that paddleball paddle?

I nodded.

"And that I did when I was his age?"

I nodded again.

"Well, family legend has it that when Mike – my oldest brother – got a paddle broke on his butt, Mom would find something bigger. She also found a replacement for the smaller paddle that she kept using on us younger kids. But, when we got big enough – I guess as big as she remembered Mike being – she started using the bigger paddle on us."

"What was bigger than the Jokari?"

"I don’t guess she ever broke one of those things."

He shifted uncomfortably for a second.

"I can sure believe she never broke one. I know I’ve never broken a paddle on anybody."

"So you’re saying your Mom swung harder than you?" I teased.

"No… Well, actually, probably yeah. I know Mom left bruises a couple of times, and you can’t do that anymore, but I also remember about when she started using the bigger paddle on me, so I had a better clue how to handle it."

"And I’m sure your kids appreciate it."

"I wouldn’t be too sure of that. It mostly kept them on the straight and narrow, though."

"I guess your mom was the main spanker in the family since you ended up spanking like her."

"Well, she didn’t work, so she was with us a lot more. She just turned the older kids over to Dad for really serious stuff. I don’t spank quite like she did. I take the kids to their bedrooms. Still make ‘em bend over the back of a chair like she did, though – seems like it’s easier to control them that way. Problem is, I remember how embarrassing it was to get spanked in the living room like that."

Yeah, so did I!



It was towards the middle of sixth grade. Allen’s family had moved to a new house the summer before sixth grade started, and now lived pretty close to Woods Elementary, where he and I had both attended sixth grade in the school’s first year. Now it was late winter, which can be very capricious in Texas. This day was a bit cool, but nothing to what we’d had recently. I’d been happy just to get out of the house, and Allen had been happy to have company.

The new house into which the Robertson’s had moved was on the edge of town at that time. I mean that quite literally, since not five yards past their backyard was a cornfield. They had a fairly big backyard, though it wasn’t fenced. There was a swing set on one side and a medium size storage building on the other. Technically, the Robertson’s lived on a corner lot, but the street that made the corner didn’t run any further than their own house did, just running out at the back of the yard, where the cornfield began. (The previous fall, the change from pavement to field made a great place to set up a bike ramp, though it did make landing a bit rougher).

"Hey," Allen told me, conspiratorially, "I found a lighter on the street yesterday."

"Does it work?"

He dug it out of his pocket and flicked it a couple of times, but there was enough breeze to keep it from catching. After a couple of tries, Allen looked around, then pointed at the storage building. Once there, in lee of the wind, the lighter caught. And of course, being two, not quite twelve-year-old boys, we immediately started looking for something we could burn.

A piece of paper that I’d stuck in my pocket for some reason quickly became ash. A dried out piece of corn husk smoldered, but didn’t want to catch, so it was carefully stomped out, then abandoned for a couple of twigs, which caught nicely. And then disaster struck.

"Allen, are you boys back… What are you doing? Where’d you get that? Don’t you have any sense? Give me that," Mrs. Robertson concluded, snatching the lighter from Allen’s hands.

Both of us dropped the miniature torches we’d been holding, grinding them into the dirt to make sure they were out, though I don’t think Allen’s mom appreciated our caution.

"I would have thought you two were old enough to know better than that. What do you think you were doing?"

The answer to that was really quite obvious, but there are just some things boys instinctively know aren’t a good idea to say – some questions to which there just aren’t any good answers.

"Get in the house," Mrs. Robertson finally said, after several long, uncomfortable moments. "When I get through with you two, you’ll think long and hard before doing something like this again."

Allen led us in through their back door, with his mom trailing behind us. He stopped, and his mother passed us, leading us into the living room and straight over to the couch. It was a different couch from what they’d had in their old house, but standing there, in that situation, in front of the couch, had very unpleasant associations in my memory. From the way he was squirming, I’d say they were much worse for Allen.

The lecture really wasn’t very bad. Simply a reminder of how irresponsible we’d been, and how dry the weather had been lately, which made ‘that kind of behavior’ even more dangerous. Then she announced the capper.

"You two don’t have a clue how bad burns really are. On a day like today, with a mild wind, it would only take a few seconds for your clothes to catch fire, and a sunburn isn’t one-tenth as bad as a real burn. Both of you should thank God that nothing like that happened because, I promise you, your bottoms aren’t going to be hurting at all, compared to what might have happened to you. Now get those pants off."

Somehow I found myself unable to appreciate the favor she was doing us, and I wasn’t real thrilled about having to take my pants off in front of her, especially not standing in the living room. The fact that David, Allen’s eighth grade brother, had come into the hall to see what the commotion was didn’t make me any more comfortable. It never occurred to me to refuse, though (and refusing would probably have just led to a call home, which wouldn’t have improved my situation at all).

Slowly, taking each step only after Allen had, I tossed my jacket onto an easy chair, sat down and removed my shoes, then stood and, moving even more slowly now, undid my fly and slid my tight jeans down my smooth legs.

"You go get the paddle," Mrs. Robertson announced.

With jeans around my ankles, I looked up. Mrs. R. wasn’t really looking at me anymore than she wasn’t looking at me. It was more like she was watching the whole room, and I just happened to be there. Allen, his jeans already lying on the armchair behind us, turned to walk miserably to that same hutch now standing in a different corner. When Mrs. Robertson cleared her throat, I forced my attention away from Allen – and believe me, seeing him in his Jockeys was something I’d been awaiting ever since we’d spied on his big brother’s spanking more than two years before; this just wasn’t the way I’d wanted to get the view – and quickly took my jeans the rest of the way off. Standing up to put them on the chair, next to Allen’s, I at least had the delightful view of him bending over to dig into one of the drawers.

All too soon, Allen stood and brought the paddle back to where his mother and I waited. It was a ping-pong paddle, which looked a bit more vicious for lack of the rubber covering. Allen handed it to his mom, then shot one last, pleading glance, which she ignored. After a moment, his head dropped and he climbed onto the couch, right next to the arm.

For just a second, as Allen draped himself across the back of the couch, I had a perfect view. The little extra padding Allen carried made for a perfectly round backside. It wasn’t big enough to seem flabby, but was much fuller than most early adolescent boys.

Even then, I loved seeing boys in their underwear, and this was no exception, despite the circumstances. Allen was wearing a red t-shirt with blue bands around the collar and sleeve hems, and some kind of design on the sleeves and shoulders. It had been long enough to cover the waistband, but, as he leaned forward, the shirt rode up enough to reveal the dashed lines of one of the generic, department store brands, like Ward’s or Penny’s, which would have been given away by the double seat anyway.

"Allen…" his mother said, after he’d leaned forward so his chest was resting on the back of the couch.

Allen shifted enough that you could imagine him sighing, but then his legs, which had been tight together, spread until his knees were about shoulder width apart. Mrs. Robertson nodded, then turned to me.

"Right like that, right here," she said, gesturing to a point a bit less than a yard away from him.

Never thinking of refusing, I climbed onto the couch and settled myself into the same position my friend was in.

I could feel Mrs. Robertson examining me, then she turned.

"Do you want some of this?" Mrs. Robertson asked.

I jumped a bit, then looked up to realize she’d started to walk behind the couch, which must have brought David into her view. I couldn’t see him around the corner now, but he must have beaten a hasty retreat, because she brought her attention back to us.

Moving the rest of the way around the couch, Mrs. Robertson stood between Allen and me and leaned forward. It seemed an awkward position, but she must have been used to it, because I heard the paddle crack down right away.

The thing I hated worst was that I couldn’t see Allen because his mother was between us. I wanted to see how he was reacting, but couldn’t. A second later, the pop of the paddle repeated again, and this time I didn’t have to make assumptions about where it landed.

Now let me tell you, that ping-pong paddle wasn’t tickling. A ping-pong paddle is fairly lightweight, but it can get some really good sting and more than a bit of heat going, especially for a younger boy. However, I’d had several paddlings at school and was already used to getting the belt on my bare butt at home.

That’s not to say Mrs. Robertson wasn’t a good paddler. She moved that thing back and forth, covering both cheeks, from the upper slopes all the way down past my sit spots, and moving the paddle back and forth and around so I had no idea where the next swat would be. Unlike the paddling I’d once seen her give Jeff, she just kept going and going.

Back and forth the swats popped, again and again. One for him, one for me, over and over and over. It wasn’t the deep, throbbing, aching heat of a huge school paddle, but it was building and burning, and I could feel tears forming in my eyes.

I was managing to hold still though. I think my feet might have been drumming a bit, and I know my fists were beating against the back of the couch, fighting the urge to cover my butt (which, in my experience, always resulted in my hands getting swatted), but I was staying fairly still and wasn’t ready to break down crying yet.

Of course, I wasn’t really thinking about those things too much. Mostly I was wondering how long it was going to go on. I wasn’t lost in the agony of it, like I usually was from a belt whipping. Paddlings at school didn’t go on long enough to get me to that point. This spanking was different, because it had already been longer than a whipping, and the pain was still building, but it still wasn’t that bad.

It was still bad enough, though; and as the paddle popped down again and again, I could feel the tears standing in my eyes start to roll down my face. I was taking it, but not knowing when it would stop was starting to really scare me, which only made the pain worse.

And then Allen started to cry.

"I’m sorry, Mama. Ple-hee-he-ease. Please!"

Several swats in a roll followed, none following on my tender tush, and Allen howled. Then one more swat, harder than the rest, right on the center of my rear, and no more followed.

Allen was crying hard and loud when his mom told us we could get up.

Climbing off the back of the couch was a strain my aching rear would have preferred to avoid, but I didn’t want to stay there.

As soon as I was on my feet, I dried at the tears on my cheeks with one hand and got a head start rubbing with the other.

I didn’t think about that fact that his double seat briefs gave him a lot more protection than the thin back of my Jockeys did. I also didn’t consider that his mom might have been swatting him much harder than me, or that I was bigger than him. I especially didn’t think about the fact that this is what he was accustomed to getting, and while wood has a totally different feel from leather, it really wasn’t bad compared to what I was used to.

All I was really thinking about right then was how bad I felt for my friend. His face was dark red and soaked with tears. He was bawling loud and hard, and doing one of those slow motion dances, where he flexed one knee, then the other, trying to ease the burn in his bottom. It looked incredible and, despite my own pain, I started getting stiff – something I’d only recently started to notice.

"You," Mrs. Robertson said, addressing her son, "get to your room and stay there until I come talk to you."

She waited while Allen scurried off, then she turned to me.

"Allen’s not going to be able to play anymore today, so you get dressed and go on home. And I’d better never catch you doing something like that again."

"Yes, ma’am," I assured her, as I grabbed for my pants.

It was only after I was out the door that I allowed myself to be upset with his mom. The whole thing was totally unfair. Not only had she blocked my view of Allen getting spanked, but now she sends me off without even a chance to talk him into showing me his fresh spanked rear.



"Yeah, I’ll bet you do," Allen said, interrupting my reminiscences. "At least I was used to it, and used to running around the house in my shorts. It must have been really embarrassing for you."

"I survived," I assured him.

"Yeah, and you got to go home, so you didn’t have to put up with another long lecture, or with David teasing… Well, you wouldn’t have had to put up with that anyway."

"What?" I asked.

"I guess he’d watched or listened or something, but he teased me because I cried and you didn’t."

"Well, if that’s what you usually got, I was used to a bit harder."

"That was a bit harder than what I usually got, but not a lot worse. For the really bad stuff, Mom had Dad take us to the garage."

"What was that?"

"I was smart enough to never find out. I couldn’t stay out of trouble, and I didn’t get my last spanking until I was… a freshman I guess, which was more than a little embarrassing… but I never did any of the serious stuff that got the other guys taken out there. They told me about it, though, and I saw the strap."

"So your dad didn’t spank you unless it was really serious?"

"Oh, no. He’d get us too, but he did it the same way Mom did, unless it was really serious. Actually, that last paddling I got was from him. But when it was something really serious, and I’m talking like when Jeff got caught with pot or when Dad had to get David from the police station for shoplifting, he took them out to the garage."

"They all said," Allen continued, "when Dad took them out there, they had to get naked, and he kept this strap out there, that was like…"

Using his hands, Allen described the size of the strap at about twelve inches long, three or four inches wide, and maybe one-quarter inch thick.

"… and the damned thing had holes in it! David said it felt like Dad was peeling his skin off with it. I mean, by the time he was in high school, he could take a paddling real still and quiet, but he was howling when he got that strap."

I thought about making another comment about growing accustomed to what you usually got, but let it pass.

"Sounds like it was pretty scary," I said instead.

"It was. I was in the kitchen one time – putting away dishes or something – when one of them got in trouble. I could hear them yelling when Dad whipped them. I ran to my room. Wouldn’t go near the kitchen after that if someone was getting a whipping."

"And you never got whipped with it?"

"Nope, I was too scared."

"Sounds like it did its job then."

"Yeah?" he asked somewhat sarcastically. "Didn’t keep Jeff from ending up doing a stretch in prison."

"No, but it kept you out of even high school kinda serious trouble."

Allen tilted his head to the side for a second, looking a bit perplexed, before he answered.

"Okay, I guess you’re right about that, but it’s still not something I’d ever do to my kids."

"So you just paddle them, even for serious trouble?"

"Oh, no. I don’t use my dad’s old methods. I use yours."

"Mine?" I replied, a bit startled. "Oh," I added, after a second, "you mean Ralph."

"Yeah, sorry. I forgot…"

"Not a problem. He is married to my mom, so it’s an easy mistake for other people to make. Mainly I was trying to figure out when you met Patrick."

"I met him," Allen responded. "Remember when you got inducted into Junior Honor Society? You introduced us then, and I think a couple of other times."

"Huh. I’d forgotten that. But I was pretty sure he’d never spanked you."

"No, and if he was really worse than Ralph, I’m glad of that."

"Yeah, but whose fault was it you found out how Ralph whipped me?"

"Okay, it was my idea, but you said there was no way we were going to get caught."

"Well, we wouldn’t have been if you hadn’t…"



It might seem funny for two men in their mid-forties to be arguing over whose fault something was that had happened about thirty-five years before, but we were really just teasing each other. Even when it happened, we both knew there was enough blame for both of us.

It was summer, only a few months after Mrs. Robertson had spanked Allen and me, and not long after Allen had turned twelve. I didn’t often invite friends over to my house because Mom and Ralph could both be erratic at times, and I never knew when they’d do something humiliating. However, sometimes my friends wanted to get out of the house, and I couldn’t visit them all the time. Other times, like this one, they just dropped in.

Fortunately, Danielle wasn’t home, Mom was at work, and Ralph was outside, working on Mom’s car. I don’t remember the trouble, but she’d had to take Ralph’s van to work that day. I’d helped Ralph some with the car, until he’d found what the problem was and realized he’d have to go get a part, which could either be ordered for him, or which he could drive into town to pick up. He called Grandpa and arranged a ride.

Allen and I were just hanging out, enjoying the air conditioning, and chatting. We went into the kitchen to get a drink, and Allen saw Ralph’s cigarettes lying on the counter.

Picking them up, he joked, "You ever smoke?"

"Yeah," I answered. "Do you?"

"Sure. Think he’d notice if we took a couple?"

I didn’t even have to think about it.

"Nope."

I was sure he wouldn’t, since he and Mom smoked the same thing, and there had to be three open packs lying around the house, and probably one in each of the cars as well.

I’d been whipped for smoking before, though, and was very careful about it. I checked outside to make sure he wasn’t back.

If you don’t know my Grandfather and Ralph, they weren’t exactly friends, but they were birds of a feather. I was sure that when they got back, Grandpa would come into the garage, they’d finish repairing the car, and they’d gripe about how everyone but them was a useless idiot. The two important points were that I didn’t really want to be anywhere near them, and I expected them to make plenty of noise when they arrived back.

I grabbed a couple of smokes from the pack, picked up the lighter, and we went out back, so no fresh smoke odor would betray us.

Good thinking, but it didn’t matter, since two other things betrayed us – two things I didn’t know. You see, I didn’t know that Allen didn’t really smoke cigarettes. Like most kids, he puffed and blew. When I saw him doing that, I showed him how to inhale. I wasn’t great at it, but I could usually do it without choking. After watching my demonstration, Allen tried it. He choked like a cat with a hairball. Still, that wouldn’t have been a problem if I’d known that Grandpa had a doctor’s appointment, so he was just going to pull up to the driveway and drop Ralph off very quietly.

I should mention that Grandpa had a heart problem, so he didn’t smoke and didn’t allow it anywhere near him. The first thing Grandma, Mom, or Ralph did after spending time with Grandpa was to run for the nearest pack of cigarettes and lighter. The cigarettes were still on the kitchen counter, where Ralph had left them. The lighter was in my hand. Allen and I were on the patio, almost right under the kitchen window that Ralph was standing next to.

Oops!

I don’t know if Allen was coughing so hard he wanted to throw up, but when Ralph slid the patio door open, I certainly wanted to. It wasn’t five minutes after we’d lit the cigarettes that we were standing in Mom and Ralph’s bedroom. His belt was already off and lying on the bed, while I was shoving my jeans down past my knees. Allen was standing there, still coughing just a bit, while telling Ralph his phone number.

Allen watched very closely as I slid my jeans down, and while I found it very embarrassing, I couldn’t really blame him. Over the past few months, I’d grown several inches, and not all of them were in height. I even had a little pubic hair already. Since I’d not taken my briefs down yet, that might not have been a disaster, but I’d made the mistake of thinking of Allen over the back of the couch when he got home, and was now desperately trying to avoid achieving a full-blown hard on. I was so distracted by that worry that I barely noticed the conversation Ralph was having.

"No, I caught them with the cigarettes in their hands. Both of them."

Thanks, Ralph. Nothing like having a (step-) parent everyone knows is a narc.

"Definitely not. Jack’s going to get his butt worn out. I just wanted to let you know why Allen was getting sent home."

That’s even better. Why don’t you take out an ad in the paper so everyone will know what you’re going to do?

"No, it wouldn’t be much trouble. I don’t think they’ll feel much like playing for a while, but Jack’ll probably be glad of the company later."

Now what was he talking about? Why was he even talking, for that matter? He’s sitting there, speaking in a friendly, almost urbane manner that I couldn’t remember ever hearing from him – certainly not when he was addressing me.

"Hang on one second, please?"

"Allen, your mom was about to leave on some errands, so you’re going to stay here. She’ll pick you up about 6:30 this evening. Go ahead and... Jack, you know better than that. Get those jockeys down. Allen, pants and jockeys down to your knees."

With those instructions, Ralph went back to the phone. I have no idea what else was said. I was busy being entranced at finally seeing one of my closest friends undressed, while being humiliated that he was going to be seeing me.

Allen didn’t have the same shyness of being seen in his briefs that I had in those days before suiting out for gym, and he shoved his jeans right down, but then he stood up and looked at me. Both of us stood there a second, fingers in the waistbands of our briefs, until Ralph snapped his fingers at both of us.

My attention went to him for a second, and I realized he was saying goodbye. I turned back to Allen. His jockeys had moved down about a half-inch, so I finally bit the bullet and shoved mine down past my knees, and stood up, giving Allen a full look at me. He stared for one second, then did the same.

Do you remember how hard it is to tell how big you really are, how much you’re growing? I’d known the hair was new, but I hadn’t realized how much I was growing until I saw myself compared to Allen.

That’s not to say that I was huge at twelve. I can still picture Allen standing there, his short t-shirt barely covering the tops of his hips, leaving him fully exposed down to his knees… Just like I was. His sac had stretched so he was actually dangling now, but his balls weren’t much bigger than marbles still. His penis was barely more than an inch, and probably half of that was head, which was hanging down to rest on his sac, just above his balls. The pink and white shaft was no longer the ballpoint of a little boy, but it wasn’t a Marks-a-lot yet. More like a Sharpie, I guess. I thought it was just as cute as he was.

Ralph’s hanging up the phone snapped my attention away from Allen’s privates. As I glanced up, I saw him reacting the same way I was and realized he must have been just as fascinated by mine as I was by his.

"I don’t think I need to lecture you about this. You," he said, wagging the belt that he’d just picked up in my general direction, "have been whipped for this before, and your mother said you know better," he added, changing his attention to Allen.

"Over the side of the bed," he added after just a second’s pause.

Ralph usually made me lie over the corner, so that it was between my knees, which might have helped keep me in place just a bit by limiting my kicking and squirming. Because of that, I’d been standing down by the end of the bed, with Allen really between me, and Ralph, who’d been sitting at the head while talking on the phone. Allen just stepped forward and lay across like he’d been told, so I had to walk around him. I didn’t mind too much, since it gave me my first bare view of that still round, full but firm, lily-white rear end.

Normally I was one of those kids who was whining, begging, and pleading to get out of the spanking. I’d been trying to do less of that as I got older and started to discover what would become my (extremely touchy and fragile) teenage dignity. With Allen not only there, but almost calmly laying himself into place, I had to follow suit. Of course, Allen didn’t know what he was in for, but I still had to be at least as tough as he was.

With the two of us stretched out over the side of the bed, Ralph took a moment to move us a bit further apart (I guess he didn’t want to accidentally hit one of us when he was aiming at the other, or maybe he just wanted to make sure neither of us missed that little bit of extra attention when the belt whipped around and caught your hips). I’d been avoiding looking at Allen, but glanced over when I felt the bed shifting. Allen was staring back at me, and his seeming calm had either been a front or had already shattered, because his eyes were begging me to tell him it wouldn’t be too bad.

I wish I could have.

When Ralph was happy with our position, I felt him shift behind us. That was all the warning I got before the sound of the belt slicing through the air.

I felt my body jerk as a hot stripe landed across my backside. I grunted as a bit of air was forced out, but I was determined not to fuss too much this time, so had my jaws clenched tight. I needn’t have bothered. A second later, almost as soon as I heard the belt crack down again, Allen screamed.

It’s so hard to compare how one boy is spanked to another. A lot of it depends on what you’re used to. I’d been spanked by Allen’s mother, and the spanking had been enough to bring him to tears. I don’t know that she spanked us the same way, but I’m pretty sure he wasn’t accustomed to anything nearly as intense as what I normally got.

When Ralph decided you needed a whipping, he was going to do a good job on it. Looking back, I think there was some differentiation, and I know I got to keep my briefs on, and sometimes even my pants on. But if I was in real trouble, it was going to be bare butt, and he was going to keep whipping me until I’d had all I could stand and then a few more.

As the belt cracked down again and again, back and forth between me and Allen, I lost all thought of trying to impress my friend or take it bravely. Each stroke of the belt painted a line of fire across my tender backside. Up and down the belt covered most of that tender flesh, each stroke feeling worse and worse. I’m not sure if the pause between as he dealt Allen another stroke made things better or worse.

I was crying hard, but not quite bawling yet when I heard Ralph’s voice.

"Move your hand."

I had to look to be sure my hands were still above my head, clenching the bedspread.

Another pop of the belt and Allen really screamed.

"Move your hands now!" Ralph repeated more forcefully.

I don’t know if Allen had been bawling before, but he was now, as I saw him shift around. I looked back to see that Ralph had pinned his hands behind his back.

Three more pops, none of which landed on me, and Allen was literally worn out, crying so hard he was shaking the bed. And then I felt Ralph’s hand in the small of my back, and the belt began to fall rapidly, again and again and again, with no break, until I was screaming and begging and crying at least as hard as Allen had been.

Then it just stopped.

"Get your clothes and go to your room," Ralph addressed us.

I don’t think the words really meant anything to me right then. All I really knew was that he was putting that damned belt back in its loops; then he left the room.

After a while, Allen and I managed to get up and go to my room. It was only later that we realized we’d left our clothes in Mom’s bedroom, and shyly snuck back to get them. That didn’t matter to much for a while though, since we were both more interested in checking each other’s well thrashed rear than in getting dressed.



"I was so embarrassed when Ralph whipped us," Allen informed me after our playful argument had ended.

"Why?"

"Because you already had hair. I knew you were taller than me, but I felt like such a little kid after that. I started checking every day to see if I was getting any."

I had to laugh at that, and Allen wasn’t offended.

"I didn’t feel better until we started showering after gym, and I saw most of the guys didn’t have any either."

"Well, you takes your comfort where you can get it."



I don’t know where the conversation would have gone after that. Before either of us could say anything else, a storm of feet came charging, but not quite running, into the living room.

"Dad! You gotta see their game room, they…"

"Joe, I’m right here. You really don’t have to scream."

Allen’s eleven-year-old son looked slightly abashed, but it barely slowed him down at all.

"Sorry, but they got all kinds of stuff. You guys come play foosball with us. Please!"

We agreed, and Joe and Bryce shot ahead of us as we old men forced ourselves out of our seats again.

"You still any good at ping-pong?" I asked him.

"Oh yeah, but after last night, I don’t think Joe’s going to want to mess around with ping-pong paddles for a while."

As we started downstairs to the game room, I was desperately thinking of a way to get that story out of him.





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