Spank Bingo: Bradley Modine

The whole class was silent with dread, except the two boys who were too engrossed to have noticed my lecture suddenly ending. Bradley Modine was the boy I was coming up behind, though I should have been walking straight towards his face. The reason I wasn’t had to do with his being turned around, talking to the boy behind him. I stood there for a second, then rapped my knuckles hard. He jumped and cried out, "OW!" Since I’d only rapped his desk, I guess he must have bumped his knees. He quickly turned around, and both boys were looking at me with eyes wide.

The whole class was waiting for me to send them to the hall to await a paddling, or at least give them a thorough rear chewing. I’m afraid I disappointed everyone, only holding a finger up to my lips and making a ‘shush’ noise, before going back to my lecture.



At the end of class, I stopped the two boys who’d been talking. "Which lunch do you guys have?"

"First," Bradley responded at the same time Greg said, ‘Second."

"Come see me after you eat, Bradley. Greg, what class do you have next?"

"Gym," he replied, as Bradley was leaving.

"Good. I’ll talk to you now."



On days I didn’t have monitor duty, I made a habit of eating in my room, giving me a chance to catch up on grading, so I didn’t have to do it at the store. I was still eating my sandwich when the door opened and Bradley walked in.

He stood there looking a bit surprised, while I finished chewing enough to swallow. "I thought you were going to eat first," I explained indirectly.

"I wasn’t very hungry," the boy admitted sheepishly.

"Well, come on in."

Bradley came the rest of the way into the room and stood in front of my desk, while I tucked the rest of my lunch away. While I was doing that, I took the chance to give him a quick look-over.

I’d seen him plenty of times but still enjoyed looking. He was tall for his age, but not really tall—maybe about five foot even and probably weighed a lean ninety-two pounds or so. He had dirty blond hair and sea blue eyes. His face was strong, almost a little too strong for a boy his age. His cheeks were high and his nose was bold. His lips were full and red. I’m sure he grew up to be a beautiful young man, but as a boy, he was almost handsome, but not as cute as I really preferred.

The most important thing I remember about Bradley was that he’d come to school every morning neatly pressed and hair parted neatly on the side. He liked rugby shirts, and they were always tucked in when I saw him in the mornings. By the time he got to my class, his shirt was untucked and his hair was hanging over his forehead.

I loved talking with Bradley. He had just a hint of a strange accent. I couldn’t place it at first, until I met his mother.

When I was teaching, we had two ‘open houses’ each year. The second was more traditional, set up to show parents what their kids had been doing, and giving the kids a chance to perform. The first one, which was more important to my thinking, was for the parents to have a chance to meet the teachers. It helped some for the teachers, but mostly it gave the parents some kind of basis of deciding if their child’s teacher was really the ogre the kid was trying to portray.

The first open house for that year had only happened a week before, and both of Bradley’s parents had come. As soon as I’d met his mother, I knew what his accent was. She was a genuine Georgia Peach. Even though Bradley was born and raised in Texas, he’d still picked up a hint of her speech. It gave his Texas drawl an interesting softness at times.

"Bradley," I said, as soon as I’d put my lunch back in the drawer, "I think you know why I asked you to come talk to me."

"Because I was talking in class?"

"You’re almost right. Because you were talking in class again. I’m glad I was able to talk to you and Greg separately. He shouldn’t have been doing it, but I’ve moved you twice so far, and both times you still found someone to talk to. What am I supposed to do with you?"

He was looking very nervous. While I tried to be a nice guy, wanting to interest and engage my students, I did have something of a reputation as a fierce paddler. He looked at me for a minute, wondering if I’d already made up my mind about what to do, then looked away, and finally shrugged.

"Whether it’s for talking in class or disrupting class, you know I’d be perfectly justified in paddling you; don’t you?"

He stared at me for a second, looking a little sick and a lot nervous—is it any wonder he wasn’t hungry?—and nodded.

"All right then. Since we’re both agreed on that, I’m going to tell you a little secret. I like you, and I’d rather not paddle you." That was even true, as far as it went.

"Now, it just so happens," I went on, "that I have a good idea that might help you keep yourself under control. You interested in trying it?"

He shrugged. He didn’t know what the idea was and clearly didn’t want to jump into anything, but he was also sure he didn’t want to get paddled, so he finally nodded.

"Then why not pull up a chair, and we’ll talk for a few minutes."

I waited for him to do it, then turned my chair a bit to face him.

"You know I met your parents last week?"

He nodded.

"When I had to give out progress reports, I went ahead and figured everyone’s average. You’re making an 87. Do you think your mom would like it if I called and told her you could be doing a lot better if you’d stop talking in class all the time and pay attention?"

The look on his face was all the answer we needed to that, and I was suddenly glad he’d not eaten before coming to see me; I wasn’t sure he’d have been able to keep it down.

"She wouldn’t like it at all."

"You think you’d be in trouble?"

"I think Mom’d spank my butt."

"Has it been a long time since you’ve had a spanking?"

He looked a little less sick, but still pretty nervous as he shook his head, then stopped, then shrugged. "I guess right before school started."

"So maybe a month. What time does your mom get home in the afternoons?"

He shrugged again. "Little after five, I guess."

"Okay, now here’s what I said I wanted to try, to help you control your little problem. It’s called visualization. You ready?" I waited for him to nod. "Then I want you to lean back and close your eyes." He did. "Good. Now listen and when I tell you something, try to see it in your mind, as clearly as you can. Understand?"

He opened his eyes a bit to look at me, and answered, "Yes, sir."

"It’s 5:15, and your mom’s just walked in the door. She’s obviously not happy, and you know it’s because I’ve called her and told her about you talking in class, and that I think it’s keeping your grades down a bit. What does she say?"

He’d been relaxing a bit but suddenly tensed. "She says, ‘Bradley Matthew!’" he told me, his normally clear, upper alto voice, dropping nearly to a tenor, and his accent, which is usually just a slight undertone is suddenly much stronger, "‘What is going on in your head? It’s bad enough you can’t figure out when to shut your mouth when you’re at home, but now your teacher calls and says you’re talking so much it’s affecting your grades. Well, if I’ve talked to you, and Mr. Wells has talked to you, and you still doin’ it, then I guess we’re gonna have to get your attention some other way, aren’t we? You go get ready, and I’ll be in there in a while to take care of you.’"

He’d obviously heard lectures like this before—often—and it wasn’t really funny, but he did the accent so well, it was hard not to laugh. He was dropping almost all his ‘r’s and his 'I's were more like 'ah's. It was almost as much caricature as it was mimicry, and I'm glad he had his eyes closed, because I couldn't stop a smile.

"So, what do you have to do to get ready?"

His eyes popped open. He'd obviously been lost in the unpleasant memory and was flushing slightly, but he still answered me, though I had to remind him to close his eyes and try to picture it as if it were really happening. I don't know if he was able to, but I sure got a good picture of it.

"Well, I go to my room," he told me, his voice its usual, upper alto, and his accent back to normal (for him), "and get ready for bed." He paused a second and I thought I'd have to prompt him, but he finally went on. "Take off my clothes, lay out my pajamas, and go get a bath." His voice wasn't quite normal anymore, but almost a drone, and you had the idea he was really seeing each step now as he described it. "I can't take a long bath, 'cause Mom'll get mad if I make her wait, so I just get in and wash real quick. Dry off, brush my hair, 'cause she always complains that I look scruffy when it's not combed. Hang up the towel, go get my pajamas on. Turn down my bed, then get my desk chair and set it in the middle of the room. After that, I just wait."

I could picture each step clearly and found myself wanting to interrupt to ask what kind of pajamas he wore. I didn't, though. Not only would it have broken his flow, but I honestly couldn't see his mom buying the little kids’ elastic arm and leg band-type. The one time I'd met her, she'd seemed very formal, and I was sure he wore miniature adult style, and probably a robe with them.

His eyes opened again, more slowly, but this time he addressed me directly. "That's really not very fair, is it?"

"What's that, Bradley?"

"Well, that I have to rush through my bath, so she doesn't have to wait, and if I'm not fast enough, she chews me out and gives me extra smacks; but then, I have to wait on her."

When put that way, it didn't really sound fair, but I could think of at least one somewhat acceptable reason. "Maybe the reason she makes you wait is so that you have a little time to think about why you’re in trouble. Has she always done that?"

He didn’t have to think long to answer. "No," he admitted, "just lately, I guess. She used to take me to my room when I was gonna get it."

"Okay, now close your eyes again." I waited a second for him to comply. "You’ve been waiting, and now she comes to your room."

He definitely didn’t look happy now, but he went on. "As soon as she shuts the door, she starts waving that dam… darned brush at me. She’s gonna chew me out some more, like," he paused and was suddenly doing that other voice again, "‘I don’t know how many times I have to tell you it’s important for you to do good in schools. Do you think your father drives an hour to work every day for fun? We live out here because it’s a nice place, and they have good schools. He doesn’t do that so you can sit there and talk in class. You’re being rude to Mr. Wells and to the other kids, and you’re embarrassing me, making that man think you don’t know how to act.’"

Geez, the kid really did have the lecture down pat. I wondered if he’d thought about this before, without my guidance, or if his mom was just that predictable. I couldn’t think of a way to ask, though, and didn’t have a chance, since he just kept going, after a brief pause to clear his throat and return to his own voice.

"When she gets through chewing me out, she sits down, and I gotta lay down on her legs. Then she pulls my pajama bottoms down and spanks me." His eyes opened as he admitted that. He was blushing and only looked at me for a second before glancing away.

"So she spanks you on your underwear?"

"You wear underwear beneath your pajamas?" he returned.

"I don’t normally wear pajamas at all, but I guess you don’t. So she spanks your bare rear," I added, only half in question.

Bradley nodded, blushing, and not looking at me at all now.

"So, that’s the end of it?"

"Pretty much. I get to pull ‘em back up as soon as I get up, but I have to stay in my room the rest of the day, except for dinner, and can’t get dressed."

"You said it’s been about a month since you’ve had a spanking, Bradley?"

Another blush. I think he was running out, though, since this one wasn’t quite as deep.

"Yes, sir."

"Does she spank pretty hard?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

"Pretty hard."

"Those brushes hurt real bad, don’t they?"

"Yeah," he mumbled, clearly embarrassed now that we were conversing, rather than him telling a story.

"Do you cry?"

"Yes," he said sharply, starting to get ticked off with my continued personal questions.

"Now we come to the point of all this, Bradley. If you know what’s going to happen if I talk to your mom, if you know she’s going to bare your bottom and spank you until you cry, if you know you’re going to hate it and it’s going to hurt, why do I have to keep calling you down in class for the same thing?"

He opened his mouth, but obviously couldn’t think of a thing to say. It was an obvious connection, but not one most eleven-year olds seem to make.

"Do you think she’ll still spank you if, when I call her, I tell her I had to paddle you today for talking and disrupting class?"

He nodded sadly.

"And do you think it’ll feel better to get spanked the same day you got paddled? Or worse?"

"A lot worse!" he assured me. There was a long pause. I waited because there was obviously something else he wanted to say. It took a minute and two tries to get it out, but he finally choked out, nearly sobbed, "Are you going to paddle me?"

I’d certainly planned on it, but I found myself feeling sorry for the boy. I really did like him. I was quiet for a second too long and saw a tear rolling down his face.

"No," I answered, and I think he was so tense that he didn’t even hear me at first. After a second, he just seemed to melt in his chair.

"Thank you," he murmured, so quietly I could barely hear it. Even slumped as he was, I could see how relieved he looked, and realized how sick he’d looked the entire time.

"What I am going to do is make you a promise, Bradley."

He sat up, listening closely now.

"If you talk in my class again, I will paddle you. If you interrupt class again while I’m trying to teach, I will call your mother and explain things to her. And I’m not making any promises that I won’t call her to deal with you talking at other times. Do we understand each other?"

He nodded, looking slightly worried, but mostly relieved at his reprieve.

"Good, because I do like you, and I would rather you just stay out of trouble, so whenever you think about talking during my class, just think about your mom chewing you out, how bad you feel taking your bath and waiting on her, how embarrassed you feel when she pulls down your pajamas, and how much that brush hurts; then ask yourself if what you have to say is really THAT important. Okay?"

He nodded again, nearly smiling. "Okay, Mr. Wells. I’ll really try."

"I know you will, Bradley." I paused and glanced down at my watch. "Now, if you hurry, I think we both still have time to eat lunch. That is, if you’re hungry now."

He looked up, a bit surprised, and replied, "Yeah, actually I am."

He stood up and left the room, but stopped halfway to the door and turned. I’d already returned my lunch to the desktop, but looked up at him.

"Thanks for, you know… for giving me another chance."

I gave him a thumbs up and he turned to walk away. I waited until he reached the door to speak. "You’re welcome, Bradley, but.…" I paused and waited for him to look back at me, before finishing. "Don’t make me regret it."



He didn’t. I did finally have to paddle him once, much further along in the year and that wasn‘t for talking; but I never did have to call his mom. When he did slip and talk in class again, which never again happened while I was teaching, I’d pull him aside at the end of class and ask him two questions: "Is it going to be worth it?" and "How long has it been now?"

Boy howdy! Not even October, and I already have two stories and the squares are right together. That's great!







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