Daniel 4

Many of the kids whom have come to me as fosterlings have needed therapy when they first arrived, and sometimes for a while after. I have problems with grand, sweeping statements that treat the entire world as if they’re all exactly the same person and will react the same way every time. I do feel that many psycho-active drugs (such as Ritalin) are way over prescribed, but I also think, from my own experience, that they can be very helpful to some people. I also think that one-on-one counseling and therapy can do and be wonderful things. After all, while I knew what had caused Bobby’s insecurity and fear of abandonment, I had no idea of how to help him deal with it. While I knew that Ryan had been beaten, I had trouble getting him to open up to me because he was afraid of looking weak. There are things a professional stranger can do that a father figure can’t.

Daniel wasn’t one of those kids. Which isn’t to say that Daniel’s integration into our lives went smoothly. In some ways it did, but there were also problems. I think Daniel’s worst problem on a personal level was that he felt bad because he didn’t feel bad. That might sound stupid when I say it, but if you think about it, you know it happens a lot. Here he was, living in a nice, big house, with lots of new stuff, spending time with his old friends and making new ones; and there his dad was in jail. You could tell that most of the time he was happy and comfortable, and probably not thinking about his father at all. However, he and I did have a number of talks in which he told me he was a horrible kid because he didn’t love his dad and didn’t miss him. I assured him over and again that he wasn’t a horrible kid; he just needed to understand that his father had made his own decisions, and now each of them had to move on in their own directions. For Daniel, who was still a kid, that meant settling into a new family, continuing his education, and growing up. He had trouble with that at first, but he slowly did come to believe me and settle into it.

We visited his father in jail, but the visits slowly decreased. It was easy to see that Daniel thought it was a duty… something he had to do. Every Sunday after church, he and I would go to the county jail, be processed in, and he and his dad would visit for a while. His father didn’t want to hear all the good things that were happening to Daniel. He wanted Daniel to listen to him complain about how unfair life was. Out of regard for Daniel, I put a little money in the man’s account every week, but I finally wrote and told him that was ending if he didn’t stop harassing the kid. Daniel didn’t feel like eating before the visit, and often didn’t want to eat afterwards.

Well, the guy did try to control himself a bit, but he never really seemed to care about how his son was doing. I’d like to say he knew the boy was being well cared for, but I don’t think that was it.

After several visits, I realized that my entire family had thrown its schedule out of whack for this one guy in jail (whom we didn’t even know), so I told Daniel we’d be paying a visit later than normal the next week and invited some friends to Sunday dinner with us. Instead of what had become our normal routine, Daniel changed out of his church clothes and spent the time before dinner becoming friends with Avery Stiller and Cason Kirk, and having a good time. We had a huge lunch, and everyone lounged around afterwards. We adults played some cards and dominoes while the kids ran wild. Finally, about five o’clock, everyone started going home, and I apologized to Daniel because we didn’t really have time for a visit now. He was more than okay with that, though he did make himself feel guilty about it; but we had a long talk, and he not only finally seemed okay with it, but that marked the last of our weekly visits. Slowly, over the eight months or so before the man had his trial, the visits went from every other week, to monthly, to sometimes. After his sentencing, they were a bit more regular, but that only lasted about six weeks before he left for prison.

There were some repercussions to that first missed visit, though. Two or three days afterwards, a letter arrived for Daniel with his jail’s return address. Since it was the first time the man had written, I had little doubt what it was about. I didn’t open it but did call Daniel’s social worker; she said that, as his foster father, I had the right to do it, and it would be a good idea in that situation, so I did and read it to her. Basically the entire thing was castigating Daniel for being a bad son and warning him that I was evil. The social worker came over and took the letter for Daniel’s file, as well as sending a warning letter to the father that if something similar happened, she’d ask a judge to block all future contact.

I did tell Daniel about the letter in vague details, only leaving out that it’d been addressed to him. He seemed relieved at not having to read it.



On the home front, things seemed much brighter for the most part. Daniel wasn’t dumb, but he’d never really bothered doing homework. In my house, with a strict schedule, his grades started going up. Though he could have done that himself at any time (and admitted he knew it should be done), he was still proud of himself and happy with me.

The only real problem we had was that Daniel seemed determined to develop an intimate relationship with Heat. In less than a month from the time I’d first spanked Daniel for not doing his chores, he made two more trips across my lap for the same thing. I’ve talked to him since then, but neither he nor I have been able to put our finger on what was happening. I did have a few guesses, though. Maybe he’d lived with his father for so long, with rules that fluctuated with mood and where enforcement was so arbitrary as to not deserve the description, that he just couldn’t believe that I was going to keep enforcing the rules. Perhaps it was something as simple as he’d never had a chance to rebel against his father, so was working it all out of his system at once. After all, from what he’d told me about his father, it was just as likely that the man would shrug off Daniel sneaking a beer as that he’d smack him for doing homework when the man had wanted chores done first. If you have no idea what’s expected of you, it’s pretty hard to rebel against it. What I think most likely, though, is an extension of what I mentioned earlier. I wish I’d thought of this at the time, and I might have done things differently, but I’ve come to believe that, because of those feelings of guilt Daniel had, I think he might have been subconsciously using me to punish himself by breaking the rules.

Then again, Daniel might have just been happy for all the attention he could get and was just as happy for negative attention as positive.

Whatever the cause, I’d started to worry about that boy and was even beginning to wonder if he’d do better in another home. I don’t know if he realized what I was thinking or if he finally settled in, but his behavior did finally reach a less tumultuous point where he would often go a week or two without a red tush. Of course, some of his spankings were a little more memorable than others.



It was the Friday before Bryce‘s birthday, nearly a month after his first spanking, and only a couple of days since his most recent one. I was trying to keep Daniel from spending all his time with his old friends; not because there was anything wrong with them, but because I wanted him to come to know his ‘brothers’ and the kids that lived around us, as well as keeping track of his old friends.

I remember the date because the next weekend we were having a sleepover for Bryce’s birthday, so I’d let him have Quinten over, and he was going to be spending the night with Quint the next week to avoid the Munchkin invasion.

Things had gone fairly quietly that night. The boys had eaten with us, then gone to Daniel’s room so Daniel could show off his new toys and indulge in some Yu-Gi-Oh! Mostly I knew that Daniel had been getting into Heroclix and wanted to teach Quinten.

Have you ever wondered how many times a boy getting into trouble is from just plain bad timing? I had the munchies and was querying the boys to see who else wanted something. I was only curious when I didn’t find Daniel and Quinten in Daniel’s room. The trouble didn’t start until I got upstairs and found Bobby’s door ajar. Since I knew he was playing a gig that night, I went to find out why the door was open. I needn’t have bothered, though, since Daniel and Quint not only came out, but did so with an armful of Bobby’s ‘Clix. Though he’s Latino, Daniel still managed to go pretty pale when he saw me.

"Would you like to tell me what you’re doing?"

He stood quiet for a moment before lifting one arm to point over his shoulder. "I was showing Quint the dioramas Bobby makes."

It was understandable. Bobby made dioramas with Heroclix figures by sculpting and painting Styrofoam. All of them were imaginative and some were incredible. They were certainly worth looking at. I had a number of them displayed at the store, and even sold some, but he kept his favorites in his room.

Which didn’t change the fact that the boys weren’t allowed in each other’s rooms without permission. Being that Bobby wasn’t home, I was almost certain that he’d not given permission. Which wasn’t the only issue at question.

"And you decided to take those with you to look?"

That brought a blank stare for a moment. "We were borrowing them. I didn’t have some of the ones I wanted."

"And you had Bobby’s permission to borrow them?"

"No," he answered in a pained whisper.

"Did you even have permission to be in his room?"

"No," he answered in a near sob.

"I think we’ve talked about respecting each other’s privacy and property, haven’t we?"

I knew we had. I’d made a list of things he needed to remember now that he wasn’t an only child.

That he wanted to deny it, wanted to claim he’d forgotten was plain on his face, but he finally admitted it. "Yes, sir," he answered, sounding even more pitiful.

"And what happens to boys who don’t?"

"They get spanked," he sighed, any hope he had for clemency due to his friend’s visit evaporating.

I nodded to him. "Go on down to your room and get ready for bed. I’ll be there in a minute."

"Daniel," I said, as he turned away, then waited for him to turn back, before pointing at the figures he still held. He darkened, then handed them back to me. Then he turned and skulked away to the stairs.

I waited until he’d started down, then turned back to Quinten. "You wouldn’t go into someone else’s house without permission, would you?"

He shook his head.

"I’ve always thought that taking something that doesn’t belong to you without asking is a good definition of stealing. Don’t you?"

He winced when the ‘s-word’ came out, and looked up at me through his eyelashes.

"Are you going to spank me too, Jack?"

"Do you deserve a spanking, Quinten?"

He struggled for the right answer, and I let him for a short moment, before I eased his worry.

"No, I’m not going to spank you. I’m going to assume that Daniel didn’t tell you that you were breaking a rule. I’m going to assume you didn’t think about what a bad idea this really was. I’m going to assume that one spanking is going to teach two boys a lesson. But be careful, Quinten, because I’m not going to assume that twice; understand?"

He nodded, his lips moving in what might have been a prayer of thanks for his narrow escape, then he suddenly looked sad again, and quickly mentioned the reason why.

"Jack, please don’t spank Daniel. We really were just gonna look, and only borrowed these ‘cause we were already here."

"Which is a good reason to have not been here in the first place, Quint. No, I’m afraid Daniel did know the rules and he’s going to get spanked."

While we’d been talking, we’d gone back into Bobby’s room and put the figures back. Now I led Quinten out of the room and dropped my arm around him as we started downstairs.

At the bottom of the staircase, I pointed Quinten towards the living room couch. "You go have a seat. I want to talk to you a little more, but I don’t want to keep Daniel waiting too long."

He stood there for a moment, looking imploringly at me. There was no doubt in my mind that he knew what they’d been doing was wrong, and I have suspected Daniel had mentioned it was against the rules, but I really did think Quint might learn a better lesson by not getting spanked and that might end up working in Daniel’s favor. I shook my head, then turned him, gave his shoulder a gentle push, and a not quite so gentle slap on the rear, before heading for Daniel’s bedroom.

Daniel was standing nervously by the side of his bed and jumped when I entered the room. He’d not only stripped down to his briefs but had turned the chair away from the desk and Heat rested in its seat. I crossed over, lifted the paddle, and gestured for the boy to come to me.

He stayed where he was and pleaded with eyes and voice, "Please, Jack… I’m sorry."

I really looked at the boy. Not just at how good his skin tone looked against the white briefs, but at him. All the bruises and swelling from the accident were gone, and I’d been wrong to think he wasn’t good looking. I’d known better looking kids, even better looking Chicanos, but Daniel was still really pleasant looking with his thick, but not bushy eyebrows, his lean nose that ended in an upside down ‘T’, his slightly pointed chin, the thick hair, and the way his eyes squeezed up when he flashed that wide, mischievous grin. Or maybe it was simpler than that. Maybe it was just that I’d come to love him.

One of the things I loved best about Daniel was his brash, cocky self-assurance, but that wasn’t there right now. Unshed tears stood on his eyelids and his lower lip shook with a small quiver. I looked at the boy, so unlike his normal self, and just wanted to wrap him in my arms and forgive him. I just didn’t feel I could—not and retain his respect or my own.

"I’m sorry too, Daniel. I’m sorry we’ve had to go over this so many times. I’m sorry it’s so hard for you to get used to following the rules. One of the first things we talked about when you decided to live here, though, was that with this many people living in one house, there have to be rules for everyone to follow, and you have to respect them—the rules and the other people both. I know you know the rules. Why can’t you try to follow them?"

He shrugged, then took a deep breath. "Can we just get it over with then?"

I nodded and gestured for him to come to me. This time he did, and I reached up, smoothing his hair back, where he’d mussed it removing his shirt. "I do love you, Daniel."

He looked at me for a moment, then leaned against my chest and I hugged him for a minute. From there, he mumbled, "I try."

"I know you do, and I’m proud of you for that. I know this is hard for you, but it won’t get any easier if I treat you differently from the other kids, if I let you get away with stuff."

I felt him sigh before he answered, "I know."

I let go of him, stepped back, and sat down. He stepped to my side and moved his hands away so I could reach his briefs. He flinched when my fingers slipped into the waistband of his briefs, but he didn’t try to pull away from me anymore. Daniel was still pretty shy about his body, and we’d had a little trouble between him and Ryan since Ryan and Cal had left the bathroom door unlocked at all times, even if they were in the bathtub… something Daniel just wasn’t ready to handle. On the other hand, I’d already seen Daniel bare enough times over the last month that his modesty was wearing away.

I slid the briefs down his thighs to his knees, then gestured for him to go over my lap. He’d been there often enough to know how I wanted him then. When he got into position, he was pretty tense, but I saw him take a deep breath and force himself to relax, his little cheeks spreading a bit, then his legs opening to spread apart like I’d told him I wanted him to do for the start of his spankings.

I had the paddle resting across his bottom, but was rubbing his lower back.

"Daniel?" I said after a moment, and his hand came back. I took it and guided it to the small of his back, then rested my forearm across his wrist.

As soon as I had him in position, the paddle came up, then smacked down. Daniel knew what to expect, which didn’t make it any easier for him to take it. The paddle tracked one, two, three swats down the center of his bottom, then started tracing down each cheek, adding sting to the first swats where they overlapped. More down the middle, then a couple to the side of each cheek, before making a third trip down the center.

Daniel had taken the first swats pretty well, but the repetitive pattern, coming down on the same place again and again, built the sting, and he started to react, kicking and squirming and yelping.

It wasn’t until I moved down onto his legs that he started to really struggle. As the swats moved down the inside of one leg, then the outside of the other, before switching back to the first, the small, rapid kicks of his feet turned into bends, as he tried to cover his upper legs with his feet. As I finished the legs, his yelps were getting wet and becoming broken with sobs.

It was as I started over on his bottom that he began to really cry. He began pleading, "No more. Please. I’m sorry," but I ignored the cries, as heartbreaking as they were. This time, instead of straight down the cheeks, I worked back and forth, from side to side, which didn’t seem any easier for him to take. His right hand was still pinned firmly to his back, but his left was beating against my arm and side, trying to find a way back to give even momentary protection to his hot, aching rear. By the time I got to his legs, he was crying too hard for anything he said to be understood and was growing too sore to struggle anymore.

By the time his upper legs were the same brick red color as his bottom, he was crying so hard I could feel his sobs shaking him against my legs. He was crying loud and hard, but still holding onto the last threads of his control by his fingertips. He lost that when he felt the paddle line up on his already blazing red sit spots.

Daniel wailed as the paddle cracked down on those tender spots. Left, then right, again and a third time, before the paddle hovered over the left spot. The boy was already bawling—a sorry, naughty boy who’d paid his debt and was now just wanting comfort and love, but I wanted this to stay with him a while. The paddle cracked down three more times on the left spot, but rapid fire this time and his voice raised in another drawn out wail, his legs going stiff and his head raising up. The wail didn’t die until after another three swats had landed on the right spot.

I dropped the paddle behind me. Knowing he wasn’t ready to be comforted just yet, I left him over my lap, letting him squirm a bit, and began to gently rub his bottom. Realizing his hands were free, he reached back and pushed mine away, then struggled off my lap to do a careful, but intense fire dance. After only a moment of that, he looked at me, tears and snot shining on his face, then lurched forward into my arms.

I held him for a moment, letting him dampen my shirt, before pushing him back. "You ready to do some corner time?"

He shook his head, so I pulled him back against me. We stayed like that a little longer before Daniel pushed away from me. I put my hand on the back of his head, then guided him towards the corner. He was still crying as I left him standing there, but not as hard. I gently lifted his hands to his head, then reached down to give his bottom a last, gentle rub before leaving the room.



In the living room, Quinten was on the couch where I’d left him, but looking towards Daniel’s room. I sat down beside him and dropped my arm around his shoulder. He tensed for a minute, but then settled in beside me.

"How you doing?"

"Okay, I guess," he replied.

"I hope not."

His eyes went wide that I’d admit hoping he wasn’t doing good.

"Your best friend just got spanked, Quinten. He’s told you how I spank, hasn’t he?"

His blond head nodded.

"What do you think he’s doing right now?"

"Crying? Corner time?"

"Right on both as far as I know. Do you really feel okay, knowing what he just went through?"

This time Quinten shook his head and looked on the edge of tears himself.

"Good. The thing is, I want you to help Daniel some."

"Me?"

"Yeah, you. You’ve both told me that his dad didn’t really spank, and that your dad spanks a lot. Daniel isn’t used to having rules to follow. He’s not used to being expected to carry through on things. It’s really hard for him. You are used to them. He needs you to help him get used to it. Try to get him to see that he needs to act here like he would if he was at your house, not at his. Can you do that?"

Quint looked at me, his blue eyes wide, but after a minute he nodded.

"Okay, I think he’s had enough corner time. Come on."

As Quinten followed me into the playroom, I thought to ask, "The actual reason I was looking for you two was because I was about to make a snack. You want something?"

You’d think Quinten’s parents starved him, since I never saw him where he didn’t want something to eat. When we reached Daniel’s room, I had Quint wait just outside the door.

Entering Daniel’s room, I crossed over to the corner.

"You ready to come out?"

He nodded, then turned around. He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around me.

"I’m sorry, Jack. I don’t mean to keep getting in trouble."

I hugged him tight, trying to let him know he was loved and forgiven. "I know you don’t, Daniel. I’ll spank you every time you earn one, but I’ll never quit forgiving you. Okay?"

He mumbled something, that I wasn’t sure I caught correctly, so I asked, "Excuse me?"

"I said," he replied exasperatedly, "that the second part’s okay."

I had to think about it for a minute, then laughed. From his point of view, he had a great point.

"Quinten’s right outside the door. I don’t think you need to get dressed since it’s about time for you two to get ready for bed, but would you like me to help you get your shorts on?"

"I guess not. I wanna bath tonight anyway."

Which was another nice thing about him. He liked being clean.

"Okay, I’ll send him in. Oh, and I was about to make a snack when someone distracted me. You know Quint wants something. Think you could handle one?"

I invited Quinten in before we negotiated a snack, then left them alone when Quinten started getting undressed. As I left, I pulled the door closed behind me, but stopped to listen for a moment. They were too far from the door and speaking too quietly for me to make out much, but as soon as I was out of the room, Quint had one comment that was more than clear enough.

"Damn! That IS worse than my dad gives."





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