Bryce's Buddies 2

It was a pleasant, mid-spring evening. It was about 6:30 pm, and things were pretty cloudy, but we still had a good amount of sunlight. It was still warm, but there was a slight breeze going. Though it had been a damp winter, spring hadn’t been too bad so far and, with the help of several bug zappers, mosquitoes and flies weren’t a real problem.

I remember how, when I was a kid, Ralph would gripe and complain if I gave a friend a ham and cheese sandwich every once in a while (even if I’d eaten at their house before). ‘This isn’t a damned soup kitchen!’ he’d complain later, or, ‘I can’t afford to feed the whole neighborhood!’ I don’t know if we were really that bad off, or if he was just a cheap old jackass.

Either way, looking around our backyard that Friday evening, I was glad I was able to feed the entire neighborhood whenever I wanted. The yard was crowded, mostly with my kids’ friends. PJ was standing at the grill, a hot link on a bun in one hand, while he used the other to turn the various bratwurst, hot links, and franks he was grilling. A plate of them stood near his elbow, but those seemed to disappear as fast as he could add to them.

Not far from PJ stood the large picnic table, heaped with trays of buns, bags of chips, bowls of potato salad, and plenty of chili, grated cheese, diced onions, jars of pickles, relish, several types of mustard, and all the other fixings people might want on their various types of hot dogs. Next to those were five-gallon thermoses of Kool-Aid and a couple of huge ice chests, filled with assorted drinks.

It wasn’t all kids though. The dogs were going crazy, running around and begging scraps. Rocky sat over on the diving board, allowing himself to be worshiped as cats should be by mere humans. Bobby’s band was there, though not playing. They had a gig at the family center that night, but were happy to fill up before they left. There were even some adults.

Tal’s father had come in to ask me a question about when he could pick him up the next day. A few minutes later, he was talking to me while holding a brat in one hand and a bottle in the other. He raised the IBC root beer as if toasting me, then took a big swig, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and smiled.

"My wife is going to kill me for eating here, but I couldn’t pass this up. No wonder the kid likes coming over here, if you feed like this."



Eventually things started to quiet down a bit. Some of my kids had friends staying over. Others were staying over with friends. We’d done the Great Bransom Kid Swap again, with Van, Dex, and some of the cubbies going to the Malone house; the twins and Riley Malone staying at the Marchant house; and Tyler Tristan, Gordy, Morgan Stiller and Paul Richardson staying here with Bryce. The older boys didn’t have as many friends over; but then again, I wasn’t trading out other boys for their friends, either. Still, we had a decent crowd.

The kids would have loved to play in the pool, and we do have it all set up and ready to go, but the water hasn’t really started warming up yet. We’ve had a couple of 80 degree days, but 70s are still more common. By the time everyone was through eating, it was already down in the 60s, and no one felt like getting chilled.

As those who were leaving got ready to depart, everyone chipped in at least a little on cleaning up, and it didn’t take long before everything was shipshape. After I’d made sure those who weren’t supposed to be here were where they were supposed to be, and those who remained were supposed to be here, we headed downstairs to the theater, where we watched Tron. They’ve already been showing previews for Tron: Legacy (which isn’t due until the end of the year) at Disney movies, and the kids were getting curious about what a Tron was and why it had a legacy.

The movie was very different when I first saw it, and I was surprised at how well parts of it held up (even with the old special effects). The kids enjoyed it as well, and are now bugging me to rent a theater for the new one.

Since the pool was off limits, I let the little kids have the game room for a while, while the older guys spent a bit of time messing around. Around 10:30, I went downstairs after them. I stood and watched for a while as they finished up pool, air hockey, and foosball, then chased them all upstairs, with every single one of them complaining.

"Okay, let’s get ready for bed guys," I told them, as we entered Bryce’s room.

"But we’re not tired, Uncle Jack!"

"Tristan, if you’d yawned any wider just now, your jaw would have popped."

"That doesn’t mean I’m tired."

I just shook my head.

"Well," I assured them, "I didn’t say you had to go to bed. I said you had to get ready for bed. Now get moving."

All the boys were already in their stocking feet, and most of them had started removing clothing. Tristan, on the other hand, stood there with his hands crossed over his chest, giving me a mild glare. He was really cute that way, with a slight amount of baby fat left, and his long blond hair and slightly chubby cheeks giving him a cherubic look. Those baby blue eyes just weren’t made for glaring, but he was giving it a good try.

"That’s what you say now," he finally said, "but next you’ll be trying to trick us into laying down. Then you‘ll wanna turn off the lights."

The other boys had already started undressing, but paused now. I remember Morgan’s jeans were already halfway down his thighs, and he just stopped, holding them there and looking to see what was going to happen next.

Tristan has a face that’s made for smiling, and I could see his lips quiver as he tried not to. I knew he was just teasing, but decided to see how he liked it.

"C’mere, Trist."

"Why?" he asked, his voice dripping with suspicion.

"Because I told you to. C’mere."

The boy slowly walked towards me, and I stepped over and sat on the side of Bryce’s bed.

"Life your shirt."

"You’re not going to spank me, are you?"

"I am if you don’t mind me."

Knowing he didn’t have much of a choice, Tristan untucked his t-shirt and lifted it over his slightly rounded belly.

"How long’s it been since you had a spanking anyway, Tristan?"

"Geez… I dunno," he said, after giving it a few seconds’ thought, watching as I unfastened his jeans and slid them down his legs, exposing the white, Tiger briefs he was wearing.

As I did that, I looked around at the other boys. Morgan was wearing the knit boxers he liked, which really seemed more like very loose boxer-briefs to me. They were in a camo pattern he favored (and matched his t-shirt). Morgan has been wearing boxers for two or three years now, since about the same time Avery switched over (much to my disappointment). Gordy and Paul were in plain white briefs, but Tyler and Bryce were wearing their new, colored Tiger briefs—Bryce in blue and white, and Tyler in red and blue with white trim.

"Well, you remember when Easter was, don’t you?"

I looked up to see him nod.

He stepped out of the jeans as they hit his ankles, letting go of his shirt to balance himself on my shoulders. As soon as they were off, he reached for his shirt again.

"Hands over your head. Have you had one since Easter?"

His head cocked to the side as he thought for a second, then straightened it again as I pulled his shirt off.

"Nope," he assured me after a second.

"No wonder you’re so mouthy this evening. C’mere."

His eyes went wide, and he tried to back away, but I grabbed his waist and tossed him over my lap, grabbing him before he could squirm away. I rested my hand on his rear, then looked up at the other boys, who were watching very closely.

"How old is Tristan?"

"He’s ten," Tyler, Gordy, and Bryce all rushed to inform me.

"You guys better count to make sure I don’t screw it up then."

I quit rubbing and raised my hand. Tristan was trying to protest but was laughing too. My hand smacked down with a satisfying pop and a mild exclamation from Tristan.

"One!" the other boys counted. Then, "Two! Three! Four! Five! Five!"

"That was six! That was six!" Tristan protested.

"Get it right, you little heathens, or I’ll have to keep you home tomorrow and teach you to count."

The next pop landed accompanied by "Seven," and they managed to get the last three right.

I set Trist on his feet, and he reached back to grab his round little rear and start rubbing as he danced around. The dance quickly ended, and he stuck his lower lip out and tried to split his glare between me and the other boys who’d ‘accidentally’ miscounted, but he was giggling too hard for it to be very convincing.

"Morgan, haven’t you got those pants off yet?"

His shirt was actually off, but he hadn’t been around for a session of ‘good spankings’ before, and had just been too busy watching to get his jeans the rest of the way off.

"Almost," he replied, reaching down for them.

"Almost isn’t good enough. C’mere," I said in a mischievous tone, matching how I’d told Tristan.

"Uncle Jack…" Morgan said in a pleading, wheedling tone of voice.

"Nope. Get over here."

His jeans fell to his ankles as he shuffled over and put his hands on my shoulders to balance himself as I pulled them off. He tried to back away quickly, but I got one arm and yanked him forward. He didn’t resist much as I got him into place, and he started giggling as I straightened the back of his boxers.

Without me telling them, the other boys counted out the swats as I placed eleven firm, but not hard, stingers on his rear end. Morgan’s pretty lean, but he’s still enough of a boy to have a round little rear, and it’d been a while since I’d spanked him, so it was fun to give him the swats.

As soon as we were done, Morgan hopped straight up and started doing a fire dance. His eyes were wide, though not damp, and his mouth was open a bit. I think he was a little surprised at how much the ‘play’ swats had stung, but he was still laughing along with the other boys.

Everyone was down to just their undies now as I looked around.

"What about you, Paul? Been a while since you had a spanking?"

The boy blushed a little and shook his head.

"No, sir. I kinda got it last weekend."

"Last weekend. What happened?"

"I wanted to go out with some friends after the baseball game, and Dad said no. I guess I kept arguing, even after he told me I’d better knock it off."

"Yeah, that’ll do it all right."

I changed my glance and saw Tyler trying to hide behind one of the posts of the bunk bed.

"Tyler, I’m guessing you wouldn’t be hiding if you didn’t need a spanking. Have you had one since Easter?"

"No, sir, but Riley and Tim both got one this week."

"They did? Together?"

"Nope. I don’t know what happened with Riley. Him and Dad came into our room Wednesday, and Dad asked me to leave. I could hear him getting a whipping, but he didn’t wanna talk about it when I went back."

"I guess not. Is he okay?"

"Yeah. He still don’t like the belt, but he’s not really scared of it no more."

All the other boys were quiet and obviously sympathetic. Riley plays with the twins more than with Bryce and his buddies, but all those boys spend time together. I don’t think any of them have much if any experience with the belt, but they have a healthy respect for it.

After observing a moment’s silence for their friend, Tyler added, "But Tim got in trouble at school today. Scooter said they came and got Mom out of her class to go to the office."

"Ow!" Gordy said, obviously thinking of his own, similar experience.

"Yeah. When we got home, Tim said his class had been in the library, and him and his friend were playing around, and they kept doing it after their teacher told them to stop, and they knocked a display over. He said he had to pull his pants down and he got three hits with the Rod of Correction."

I glanced at Gordy, whose eyes were wide and face pale. I didn’t blame him. I’d seen the Rod of Correction at work before. The one they’d used on Steven looked very similar to what our British friends would call a junior cane. I’d seen another, slightly smaller one that they used on the younger boys, but still, ‘ow’ seemed appropriate.

"He let me and Riley see his butt. You could still see these red stripes. He said it hurt a LOT worse than the belt. He really felt sorry for his friend, though. At least Mom was right there. His friend had to wait ‘til after school to get it."

Tim is really good with the younger kids, but he’s not as friendly with them as Riley, so the moment of silence didn’t last but a second before Tristan interrupted.

"Doug got paddled at school last week."

"Doug?" Bryce asked, sounding shocked. "How come?"

"He said they caught him and another kid going out of bounds on the playground."

"Yeah," I thought. "That’d do it." That had been a paddling offense even when I was in elementary.

"Well," I said, interrupting before we got into a discussion of school discipline. "I feel bad for your brothers, Tyler, but it sounds like you still need one."

I crooked my finger at him. His head dropped and his shoulders slumped, but I could still see his smile. Without being told or me having to help, he draped himself across my lap.

Tyler is used to more and harder spankings than Tristan, but he carried on every bit as much as the other boy had—wiggling and squirming, oohing and ouching—though it was broken by giggles the entire time.

As soon as I let him up, he jumped around, rubbing his bottom, but didn’t even try to hide his laughter.

As soon as he calmed down, I turned to my son. "I know you haven’t had a spanking since Easter, Bryce. Heck," I added, pretending to think about it a minute, "you haven’t had a spanking this whole month. We’d better take care of that."

Bryce smiled at me as I gestured from him to my lap, but he started to back up. He quickly ran into Paul who pushed him right over to me. Both of them were laughing and wrestling around when I pushed them both onto the bed.

"If you’re so anxious to see someone else get spanked, you must need one after all, Paul."

"Not me, not me!" he protested, but he was laughing every bit as much as Bryce, as I smoothed the back of their briefs, then proceeded to go back and forth between the two of them as the other boys counted each swat.

The two of them were still laughing and poking at each other, trying to add swats to each other’s rears when I let them up, and didn’t even bother faking a fire dance, though Paul did have a quick rub when I separated the two of them.

The only boy left was Gordy, who was looking a little nervous and a little left out.

"I know how long it’s been since your last spanking, Gordy," I reminded him.

He shook his head.

"I don’t?"

"Me and Dex were fighting last night, and Mom had to spank us," he admitted sadly, but without blushing.

"Well, if you had one last night, I doubt you need another one today," I assured him. He looked a bit relieved, but only a bit.

I stepped over to him, then added, "I know what you do need though."

Gordy screamed as I grabbed him, tossed him on the bed, and started ticking. It wasn’t long until all the other boys ganged up on me. I’m not ticklish, so they didn’t have much luck there, but they did managed to sneak in a few swats. They would have had more luck with it if they’d been concentrating on me, rather than trying to swat each other’s bottoms as well.



Tristan had actually been right. After I called the wrestling match to an end, I had them all go and get bathed. While they were doing that, I checked on the older boys. By the time they were all clean, they were all yawning as well. After all, it had been a pretty long day for them, and I think I’d used up the last of their energy reserves. I got them all tucked in without too much arguing.

By the time I was finished, Gordy—who runs full speed all day and collapses once you finally get him in bed—was breathing deeply and evenly. The other boys started talking baseball as I crept to the door and turned out the light.

"Good night, Uncle Jack," Tyler said and the other boys echoed him.

"Good night, guys."





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