Double Trouble for the Twins

As I was taking the meatloaf from the oven and giving the green beans a final stir, Barry walked by me to put the extra silverware he’d picked up back into the drawer. Since setting the table was the twins’ job that evening, it made me glance at the clock to see that they were now over twenty minutes late. I’d have to look to be sure, but I was almost certain that the last time the two of them had been spanked together had been for coming home past the redline deadline. And now it was getting close to a repeat.

And then the phone rang. (Have you ever noticed how ringing phones in spanking stories rarely bring good news?)

Five minutes later, Bobby was getting everyone settled at the table, while Steven fixed plates for me and the twins, and I was stuffing my wallet into my back pocket, while carrying the keys to the SUV.

Fifteen minutes later, I was standing in the security office at Target, signing an agreement that stated the twins weren’t allowed back into the store by themselves. Thirty minutes later, their bikes locked in the garage and their jackets and shoes left in their bedroom, the twins stood in front of me in my office.

"But why, Dad?" Josh protested as I told the two of them to remove their over shirts and lift their undershirts.

"Because that’s how I always spank you," I replied, feeling slightly confused at the question.

"No. Why are you going to spank us?"

I’d been leaning forward a bit, waiting to undo their pants, but now I sat back. I could feel my eyes widen, which was appropriate considering how stunned I felt.

"Have you two been in the same places I’ve been for the last thirty minutes or so?" I finally managed to ask.

"But what did we do?" Johnny finally chipped in to support his brother.

I took a deep breath and decided to answer that as an honest question, rather than with the sarcasm that was my first impulse. After all, I can remember being the twins’ age or a bit younger and honestly not understanding how I’d violated the adult-imposed rules under which I lived. Or worse, not believing that I had violated those rules.

The fact that a boy doesn’t agree with me that he deserves a spanking (or any type of punishment) won’t prevent me from imposing one. However, I try hard to make sure that a boy understands why I think he does deserve one, even if he disagrees. I think that goes a long way towards making spankings something that a kid can accept and helping him not to be angry and hateful towards authority.

"For starters, you know that being more than thirty minutes late is an automatic spanking."

"But we were only late because that guy wouldn’t let us leave the store."

"Yeah," Josh added. "That wasn’t our fault."

"You know," I said, leaning back and looking at them in turn. "I remember Daniel coming home more than thirty minutes late one time. Something had happened to his bike—chain came off, I think. His hands were dirty and the bike was definitely broken. That wasn’t his fault, and I didn’t spank him."

"In this case, ‘that guy’, Mr. Newsome, who is an assistant manager at that store, wouldn’t let you leave because you destroyed a display, and he wanted to talk to me. And speaking of reasons you’re about to get spanked…"

"But it was an accident, Dad," they both protested, almost like they’d practiced it.

"I thought you guys understood the idea of ‘accident’. If you broke something in the living room because you were walking along, one of the cats ran under your feet, and you tripped, that would be an accident—totally not your fault. If you broke something in the living room because you were playing ball, running, and not looking where you were going, it might still be an accident, but it would definitely be your fault. Now, which one of those is more like what happened at the store?"

Neither boy would meet my eyes now. Both stood silent.

"Well?" I said after a long, tense, quiet moment.

"The second one," Johnny said, and Josh echoed him after another second.

"You both know you’re not supposed to be roughhousing in a store, don’t you?"

They looked at each other for a moment (wondering if they could claim ignorance?), then looked at me and shrugged.

"Okay, let’s try it this way then. Would you have done it if a store employee had been standing there?"

They shrugged again before answering, "No, sir."

"Would you have done it if I’d been there with you?"

"No, sir," came a bit quicker and with no shrug.

"So is it okay?"

"No, sir," they reluctantly admitted.

"Thank you. And what happens to boys when they do things that they know they shouldn’t be doing?"

"They get spanked," Josh finally answered in a sigh.

"Now, get those shirts done like I told you."

Josh is normally a bit more formal, a bit preppier, than his brother, but they were both pretty casual this evening. Johnny in jeans and a blue and green checked flannel shirt that was only half buttoned over a long-sleeved blue t-shirt (Home is where the joystick is). Josh was wearing plaid-lined, khaki cargo pants (I couldn’t believe he thought it was cold enough for those, but I remember how cold I got when I was his age), with a camouflage thermal shirt and a denim shirt hanging open over that.

I watched while the overshirts came off and the undershirts came up, then I leaned forward and began undoing belts and pants.

"Guys, even if Mr. Newsome hadn’t kept you at the store, it’s at least twenty minutes by bike from here to there. Even if he’d just let you pick up the mess, you wouldn’t have been home on time. Even if you hadn’t made a mess, it would have been close, since he said it happened just a few minutes before six. Do you understand that?"

"Yes, sir," they both agreed, as I spread the fly on Johnny’s jeans, exposing his monkey print boxers.

As I leaned over to do the same to Josh, showing a pair of boxers with little skunks running around, then sliding them down his legs, I went on.

"I don’t even know what you guys were doing up there."

"This guy at school…"

"Gary," Josh jumped in to supply the detail.

"Yeah, Gary," Johnny continued, "said they have the new Mario vs. Donkey Kong DS up there where you can test play it. We just went to do that."

"Do I even want to know how you ended up chasing each other around the toy aisles?"

As Josh was stepping out of his pants, I felt him shift to look at his brother, but neither of them answered, so I just assumed that, even if I wanted to know, they didn’t want me to.

"Okay, we’ll pass on that; but guys… You HAVE to learn where you can do things like that, and where you can’t."

We were all quiet as I helped Johnny out of his pants. I was thinking about exactly how to handle the next detail, while my hands worked on auto-pilot, sliding first Johnny, then Josh, out of his boxers. As I did that, I enjoyed the always-interesting chance to compare two adolescent twelve year olds.

Johnny is usually slightly bigger than Josh, but Josh has recently caught up to his brother in height, though Johnny is still slightly heavier (probably getting ready for another spurt of his own). Below the waist, they also looked about the same. That was a change, since Johnny had seemed to plump up before lengthening, while Josh had done the opposite. Now both of them had sacs that hung a bit and were still loose. Josh had thickened and Johnny had lengthened, so now they were both hanging about two and a half chubby inches. They were both still pink and white, but there was one major difference that had caused just a bit of hard feelings. Josh had hair.

I’d explained to Johnny that blonds often seem to have less body hair, and that his father had never been very hairy. As best I can recall, Jason hadn’t had any body hair at all until he was thirteen, but I’d decided not to share that little pearl with his son.

Josh only had about six hairs, and they were incredibly short. If it had been on his upper lip rather than his lower stomach, I would have been looking for a washcloth, not a razor. Still, it had been enough to raise a hint of the green-eyed monster in Johnny—not enough to cause problems between them, but enough to bring a mildly irritated and slightly distressed Johnny to talk to me.

Now those few hairs didn’t seem to make much difference. With the two of them standing there, naked from armpits to socks, knowing what was coming, I leaned back in my chair.

"First, I want you both to know that I’ve noticed you’ve been staying out of trouble. I have seen that and am proud of you for it. However, you’re still boys and you’re going to make mistakes and bad decisions. I’m still your father, so I’m going to be correcting those. It doesn’t mean that I’m mad at you or upset at you or disappointed with you. I hope you both know that I love you, even when you screw up. That’s not going to keep me from wearing you out, but I want you to know it."

"We love you too, Dad," Johnny replied when I paused.

Josh nodded. "Yeah, Dad. We know."

"Okay, then I see three problems here. First of all, you shouldn’t have ridden your bikes up to Target."

They both started to protest, but I cut them off.

"I know you have no boundaries right now, but you also know I expect you to use some common sense when you’re riding. I wouldn’t have had a problem with you going up there on a weekend afternoon, or at this time during the summer, but you know how early it gets dark these days, and you two aren’t dressed for riding at night. You should both know that riding at night, especially on busy streets, isn’t as safe as riding during the day. Since you apparently either didn’t know or forgot that… No bikes until school lets out next week."

"But Dad…"

"I thought that would be long enough for you guys to study up on bike safety, but if you need longer, I can add another week. Do you need longer?"

"No, sir," they both agreed, sadly but quickly.

I could understand why they were upset. Both of them used bikes as their main means of transport. The fact that the weather has been wonderful recently made it a bit harder on them. Still, if I were going to trust them to take off and go where they wanted, they were going to have to show me some responsibility and common sense. Doing without the bikes would probably do a better job of stressing that than even spankings would. Besides, because of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, they would only be in school until noon Tuesday, so it wasn’t nearly as bad as it sounded.

"The second problem is that you didn’t get home until after curfew. I know," I said, raising my voice a bit to cut off fresh protests, "that you thought you’d make it. However, this isn’t something totally unforeseeable, like your bike breaking. To me, this is like just not paying attention to the time. You were delayed because of something you were doing, so I still see that as your fault. Can either of you give me a good reason to change my mind?"

Neither of them twins has ever gotten very shy, so they didn’t mind standing there, trying to come up with a reason. I wasn’t willing to wait all night though, so after a minute or two, I interrupted their thoughts.

"Johnny?"

He looked at me and finally shook his head.

"Josh?"

"No, sir. I guess you’re right."

I’d known I was right and hadn’t been willing to change my mind, but I’d really hoped they’d come to understand why they were about to get worn out.

"Good. And that brings us to what made you late. You’ve both already admitted that you knew you shouldn’t be running around the store like that. And you both know what happens when you do things you know you shouldn’t."

They both looked very nervous now. Ordinary, run of the mill spankings didn’t come with a buildup like this, and neither of them seemed happy with where I might be going. I’d already decided exactly where I was going, but I wanted them to follow my steps, rather than just spring my result on them.

"If you’d done either one of those things, I’d be spanking you for it; but this isn’t worth two. While tearing around a store like that isn’t smart and could be dangerous, it’s not illegal, so you don’t deserve a switching."

Johnny sagged when I said that. He has a healthy respect for that switch, and I think Josh fears it even more, never having had a taste of it yet.

"Still, you obviously deserve something to make this a little more than usual. I thought about using the hairbrush," both boys went tense and pale when I said that, "but I think I have something that will do a fine job of making sure you remember this."

With that worrisome, vaguely eerie pronouncement, I turned away from them and dug into my paddle drawer.

Just recently, I’d become interested in Lexan paddles and made a purchase of several assorted sizes and styles. So far, I’d had two rave reviews (one of them not in a good way) about how well they worked. And since one of the paddles was very close to the same size as Red, but a bit thinner, I thought it would be worth trying in this situation. After all, Lexan is supposed to sting a lot more than wood, so I thought a quarter-inch Lexan paddle would be a bit worse than a three-eighths inch wood paddle, but also that their recovery time would be much quicker than from a hairbrush.

As I turned back to them and the boys got a good look, their worry faded slightly to confusion. They had probably been expecting Black, since it was their next oldest brother’s new implement, but had no idea what to expect from this. Still, I’d said it was an upgrade, so they weren’t thinking they were home free.

"Who’s on first?" I asked.

Neither of them was in the mood for levity, so they just shrugged and faced each other. Left hands came out, right hands came up in fists, and one, two, three. Hand spanks butt… I mean, paper covers rock, so Josh was starting. His shoulders slumped a bit, but he stepped up to move to my right side. I stopped him and stood myself.

"Over here, please," I told them, gesturing to the couch.

Now they both looked really confused, but moved where I’d indicated. Josh went over the near arm of the couch, and Johnny started to follow him, but I stopped him.

"The other end, Johnny."

If there’s anything I remember from my boyhood, I know that the unusual, especially in circumstances like this, is probably not good. Apparently Johnny and Josh had already learned that lesson, because they were both looking very nervous by now.

I put the paddle on the back of the couch near Josh, then took him by the hips. He was already pretty well placed, but I lifted him up just a bit, so his tiptoes were barely brushing the carpet.

"Okay?" I asked.

He grunted an affirmative, knowing I was only asking if anything important was getting squashed or bent.

When he was set, I went around to Johnny. He’d already pushed himself up onto the tips of his toes, so I just adjusted him a bit, then walked back around to his brother.

Picking up the paddle, I paused to address the two of them.

"Do you both understand why you’re about to be spanked?"

A couple of grunts.

"What’s one reason, Josh?"

"Because we were roughhousing at the store and knocked that stuff over."

"Johnny?"

"Because we got home too late."

"And you understand why this spanking’s going to be harder than normal?"

This time the answer was more sob than grunt.

With that done, I gave the paddle its first swing.

I can’t describe it, but the sound of plastic hitting bottom wasn’t the crisp, clear Crack! of wood. The yelp from the first swat was a lot different as well. Either boy would normally have taken the first few swats quietly.

The paddle landed again and again, a little lower each time, quickly leaving the center of his rear reddening. He was mostly holding still, and had managed to take the second and third swats more quietly, after the shock of the first smack.

I gave Josh a pat as I lifted my hand from his back and stepped away from him. Johnny had been watching us, and he jerked a bit when I started towards him, paddle in hand. He buried his face in his hands as I stepped around behind him.

As I lined the paddle up for the first swat, I looked past Johnny to see his younger brother lifting his head and watching us.

Johnny reacted almost exactly the same as Josh had. A yelp when he realized how much more the new, slightly smaller paddle stung, then a fight to show a bit of dignity.

After Johnny’s three, I completed the circle. As I came back around, Josh’s head went down, and Johnny’s came up.

Four strokes down his left cheek had Josh gasping heavily, and as I stepped away, that leg was shaking, almost spasming, as he tried to ease the sting.

Back to Johnny, and he took it about the same—the main difference being that he was shifting a bit, shoving his left foot against the floor and flexing his knee.

Another circle and four more swats down the right cheek this time, and both boys were yelping again. Another circle and another trip down the crack and the yelps were getting loud and wet. Around again to get the sides of each cheek, and the yelps were becoming sobs. One more trip around and down the crack, and each of them was beginning to really sob. Three more swats for Josh, this time down his left leg, angled to curve a bit into the inner leg, and he was crying. The same for Johnny, but he managed to hold back from crying. Back to Josh, three more on his left leg, then back to his brother. This time Johnny couldn’t hold it back. Back to Josh again, and three more down the outside of his left leg. He shrieked his protest at the unexpected extras.

Each time I went around, each boy shifted, burying his head when I approached him, but looking up as I left. Both boys were shifting and squirming, kicking enough that I had to be careful stepping around them, but neither had tried to stand, even if I wasn’t next to them. Now, as Johnny saw his brother’s head come up as he started to thrash and heard that shriek, he took his hand from where he’d been holding his face and stretched out towards the younger boy.

Johnny had no way of knowing what had drawn that cry, but he knew his own turn was coming as I stepped away from Josh. He started crying harder, but his hand still stretched across the couch.

Johnny didn’t howl like Josh had since he had some warning, but he was still crying hard before the second set down his left leg had finished.

As I stepped back around the couch, I looked down to see their hands meeting, holding tight to one another.

The second pattern on their bottom was abbreviated, leaving off the swats on the sides and the last trip down the center. Still, it was enough to have both of them bawling. Before I started on their legs, they were both lying limp, only squirming and jerking as the swats landed.

This time, I only made one trip down each leg, right in the center, but they both tried to find strength to kick, and I had to push down a bit on the smalls of their backs to keep them from wriggling away. Before I was through with their legs, they were both starting to cough a bit. Still, each of them looked up each time to see what was happening to his brother.

After the legs, I lined up and gave Josh three firm smacks on his left sit spot. From somewhere, he found breath and strength to howl. When I came around to Johnny, he’d covered his head with his free arm. I gave him the same. He howled, but managed to stifle it in the couch cushion. When another three swats landed, firm and fast on his right spot, his head came up and he was just as noisy as his little brother had been. Then I circled around again to give Josh his last three swats. When I got there, he’d reached out with his free hand and gripped Johnny’s hand. As I lined up for those last ones, I watched Johnny uncover his head and reach out to the other boy.

When I was done, I walked to the center of the couch and dropped the paddle between them. I don’t know if it had been the extra sting of the Lexan, the strain of each watching his brother get it, even as he was getting his own, or the slight recovery time between each set, but both boys were taking this spanking much harder than a more normal, but equally long and hard one.

When they saw the paddle land between them and realized it was over, the two of them collapsed from their weariness. I left them there, bawling loud and hard.



A few minutes later, I came back into my office, put the paddle away, and picked up their clothes.

"Do you guys think you can get up?"

Both of them were still crying a bit, but not hard anymore, and they forced themselves to their feet. Johnny reached back and began to rub, but Josh didn’t want to - maybe worried that rubbing would just make it worse (or maybe afraid his hands would catch fire).

"C’mere, guys," I said, spreading my arms for them. They both came over and wrapped me and each other in their arms. We stood that way for a moment while they smeared my shirt.

After a moment, I started to rub their backs, then finally let my hands stray down to lightly rub their still flaming hot bottoms.

"You guys going to live?" I asked when I felt the hugs start to ease a bit.

"Yeah," Josh replied.

"I guess," Johnny answered, as if unsure that was a good thing.

"Here’s what’s going to happen. You guys were supposed to set the table tonight. Since you weren’t here, I had Barry and Noah do it, so you get to clear. I’ve not eaten yet, but we have warm plates waiting. Do you want to eat first or clear first?"

"I don’t think I could eat right now," Josh said without hesitation.

"Yeah," Johnny agreed a second later. "Clear first."

"Okay, go wash up and clear. We can even eat at the kitchen counter so you two can stand."

For some reason, the boys never seem to really appreciate my attempts at post-spanking comic relief.

"Ummm… You’re not going to give us our clothes back?" Johnny asked. Josh looked like he already knew the answer.

"Nope," I assured them. "You missed doing a chore. Consider this a work-off and be glad I’m not giving you strikes."

Johnny seemed to consider it a bargain. Must have had something to do with those two strikes he already had.

There were kids in the living room and more kids in the playroom. Walking around naked (especially in our house) is one thing, but walking around with your red, sore bottom displayed is another. Still, it’s not like they’ve not seen most of their brothers in similar situations. They held their heads up and tried their best to ignore everyone. As for their brothers… Well, everyone knows the price for teasing a fresh spankee. I will say that Parker’s eyes looked like they were going to fall off his head when he got a look at them.

I followed the boys to their bedroom and dropped their clothes off while they washed up; then followed them to the dining room. Both of them were moving slow and carefully, so I ended up clearing and let them split the kitchen jobs.

By the time that was done, they were moving a little more easily and were ready to eat. They did decide that standing at the counter was a better idea. And since most everyone in the house had already had a good view, they decided there really wasn’t much use in putting on even boxers. I guess you could call it an experiment with air-cooling.





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