Ill-Spanked by Moonlight
Have you ever come awake to find yourself already up and doing something? That’s what happened to me last Saturday morning at about 3:15. I was up on one elbow, trying to turn off my alarm clock, when I finally became conscious enough to realize that it wasn’t the clock making the gentle, but persistent beeping noise.
Grumping quietly to myself, I climbed from bed and walked over to the master panel for the house alarm. I wasn’t in a huge hurry because I was now awake enough to know it wasn’t the fire alarm. I knew what the sound did mean, though, and promised myself that I’d be setting a fire in just a few minutes.
If you’re a long-time reader, you might remember me mentioning that the outside doors on my house have a secondary circuit that trips whenever they’re opened. Maybe it’s cheating, but our home is just too big for me to keep track of everything—especially when I’m sleeping. It is a great little device; it even has a timer, so I don’t get awoken every time Charlie goes jogging at 5:30 in the morning.
This, however, was definitely not Charlie. As I headed for the back door, I grabbed the big tee I’d left on the back of the chair before going to bed, and pulled it on. I didn’t know what I was going to find, but I figured it would be better if I didn’t find it in just my Jockeys.
I heard them before I even got through the sun room: giggling, splashing, a quick bark of laughter, then quicker shushing. I was already shaking my head, but I couldn’t believe what I saw. Not that three boys sneaking out for a swim was totally beyond my comprehension, but who it was came as a real shock to me. Well, seeing Shea there wasn’t a shock at all, and that he’d gotten Kyle to go along with it wasn’t too surprising, but I couldn’t believe that Josh was with them. I had to look twice to make sure it wasn’t Johnny, with water making his hair look darker.
It only took a second for me to realize that this was actually exactly the type of trouble that Josh would get himself into: not a case of doing something really bad, but of doing something that sounded fun, without thinking of what could happen, largely because he wanted to go along with his brothers or friends (or cousins).
The three of them weren’t in deep water, about belly or chest high, and were playing around—wrestling and splashing— more than swimming. Where I was standing by the house, I was deep enough in the shadows that they didn’t notice me. I stood and watched for a moment until Kyle gave me the perfect opening. "Shush! Don’t wake up Uncle Jack."
Stepping away from the wall, I said, not too loudly, "It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?"
The silence couldn’t have been louder as they all turned to me, looking like drunk teenagers in a slasher flick—eyes wide and stunned.
"Why don’t you come out of there now?" I asked, in a way that made it clear I wasn’t asking.
Slowly, the three of them pushed their way through the water, coming towards me with unquestionable reluctance. Though I’d spent all week with the other two boys, I took a close look at them as they approached me.
Kyle is the son of my cousin Darren. He looks a lot like his dad and a whole lot like his brother, especially in their coloring. Both boys are tall and lean like their father had been, blond haired and blue-eyed. DJ looks more like his father in the face, though. Kyle’s face is a little rounder, with a wider smile and a somewhat wide, pug nose. I was almost as surprised to see him out here as I was Josh. Kyle can be a little hyper (more so than your average 10 year old), but he seems to learn from all the spankings his big brother receives and generally stays out of trouble.
Shea, on the other hand, looked like most of the other boys in my family: brown haired, blue eyed, with slightly chubby cheeks. The biggest difference between Noah or Huck and Shea was that Shea’s hair and eyes were both lighter—he was still brown haired, but his eyes were more gray than blue. He was a bit tall for his age, which was getting close to eleven, and he wasn’t really skinny, but far from fat. I love Shea a lot; he is a real joker, with a contagious smile (especially since his front adult teeth have come in, giving him a somewhat comical look when he flashes his mischievous, lopsided grin), but he can also drive me crazy and is often in trouble for doing things with absolutely no thought.
Josh, like Johnny, looks a lot like his dad and always had. The two of them aren’t identical, but they both resemble their father closely enough that you had to have them next to each other or know them really well to see the difference. His nose is a little wider than Johnny’s, and his cheeks not quite as round. Both of them have thick, dark eyebrows and eyelashes, and wide, red lips that smile often— though Johnny’s smile always seemed to have a hint of mischief to it that his little brother’s lacks. Josh’s blue eyes are lighter, closer to gray than John’s, but you really had to study the boys to recognize all those differences. Especially with wet hair, so Johnny’s medium blond looked more like his brother’s light brown, they could be mistaken for each other, since there was only a difference of maybe an inch and a couple of pounds between them. But, they weren’t so close that I couldn’t tell it was really Josh wading towards me.
All three boys were nude, but they were only 10 and 11 years old. It was nice I wasn’t going to have to worry about getting anything out of the way before I got around to starting some fires; but there really wasn’t anything there worth checking out, either… even if the backyard hadn’t been too dark to see many details.
Kyle was the first to come up the steps and as he did, I grabbed him by the arm and laid a couple of hard, full-arm swats on each of his cheeks. They were rapid fire, landing so fast I’d finished spanking before he’d caught his breath from his first yelp. It wasn’t so fast that he wasn’t dancing, trying to jerk away from me or get his hand behind him.
He wasn’t crying, but was sobbing hard when I let go of him. As I turned for the next boy, I saw that Shea was trying to work his way past me. "Stop right there, mister!"
Shea froze, one foot in the air, and slowly turned to look at me. Then his shoulders slumped and he waited while I grabbed Josh’s arm and gave him the same treatment I’d just given Kyle, with the same effect. Kyle had finished his dance, but was still rubbing as I let go of Josh and reached for Shea. He started to jerk away from me, but must have realized what a bad idea that would be, because he turned and offered me his arm. I took it and had him dancing while Josh was still doing his act. After that little trick of trying to sneak around me, just as he thought his swats were done, I lined up one extra coming down onto the center of his bottom, with my fingers curled a bit to snake between his legs and was rewarded with an extra-loud, wet yelp, before I let him go to demonstrate his dance to his cousins.
The three boys stood there sniveling for a moment, before I herded them all into the house. Since they were still dripping wet, I turned them into the kitchen, so they could at least drip on the tile floor. As soon as we were in the kitchen, I had the three wet, naked boys line up in front of me, against the counter. If the situation hadn’t been so serious it would have been funny looking at the three of them.
They must have left their underwear in their bedrooms and not even thought about towels, so they were standing there with water heavy on their skin and their hair plastered to their heads. I’d flipped on the kitchen light and could see that all of them were red-eyed (from the chlorine or the spanks, I couldn’t say), but only Kyle was still sniffling a bit. Kyle, at barely a month short of his eleventh birthday, was standing there with his hands modestly covering his little boyhood. Josh, who was the oldest of the three, at 11 years and 1 month, wasn’t concerned about modesty. I couldn’t see his hands, since they were tucked behind his back, but the motion of his arms gave away what portion of his anatomy he was really concerned about, as they seemed to make slow, rubbing motions. Unlike Kyle, who was glancing at me occasionally from the corner of his eyes, Josh wouldn’t look at me at all. He knew what they’d done and how much trouble they were in. Like Josh, Shea was totally unconcerned by his nudity; but, when he could be bothered to look at me, it was nearly belligerent.
Matt— my brother, and Shea’s dad— had warned me about that. When Shea’s first caught in trouble, he almost challenges you to tell him he was wrong. Shea’s big brother is a pretty good kid and often avoids getting spanked for minor stuff just by listening to the lecture and admitting he was wrong. With Shea, you can’t even get him to listen to the lecture until the spanking is done. Still, I had something to say that I thought was going to get all their attention.
"You two have barely been here a week (Shea hadn’t even been there a full seven days yet, actually). I went over the pool rules very carefully with you. Kyle, what do you know about swimming without a supervisor?"
Before Kyle could get his mouth open, Shea inserted, "Josh said he’s had training."
"Yes, he has, but not lifeguard training, and that’s not what I asked." With that, I turned my attention back to Kyle, who finally spoke up.
"We have to have a supervisor to go swimming."
"Josh, I would ask you who the supervisors are, but there’s really only one important question. Did you tell these boys it would be okay for the three of you to go swimming by yourselves?"
It didn’t really matter. I’d made sure all my cousins and nephews staying with me had been able to quote exactly who was allowed to supervise while people were swimming, and what would happen to anyone swimming without one of those people. I just wanted to see what the boy would say.
"I told them I had that swimming safety class, Dad."
It was funny listening to them and I had trouble not smiling, since all three of them were absent-mindedly rubbing their bottoms, even as I lectured. Those full arm, wet bottom smacks sting!
"That’s not the same thing, is it?"
He stared at his cousins for a minute before finally shaking his head. Shea looked disgusted, like he’d expected Josh to lie to me, to try to take the blame off them. Kyle just looked embarrassed.
"Here’s my problem, guys. Not only do you know that you’re not supposed to be in the pool by yourselves; not only do you know you’re not supposed to be out of the house at this time of night; I specifically told you that you needed to get in bed early tonight, because you were going to need a lot of rest for this weekend."
Before I could get the next sentence out, Shea interrupted, "But we weren’t sleepy."
"Okay, you weren’t sleepy. Did that mean you could just disobey me?"
My boys would have known to hush, but Shea had the bit in his teeth now. "Everyone in my room was asleep, and I heard someone talking when I went to pee."
It made sense. I’ve had six guests this past week, between school being released and their going to camp. My boys all have big rooms, but the younger kids are already doubled up, so I had to put some thought into who went where. At 14, my youngest (step-) brother, Trent, had been friends with Cal for years, so it was no trouble to put them in together. I had also decided to put Kyle’s big brother, DJ, in with Daniel; since he’d had trouble playing well with the younger kids, I thought putting him upstairs might help him stay out of trouble. Downstairs, I had to think about it more. Campbell is as quiet as his brother is outgoing— introverted, you might say— but I finally put him in with Barry and Noah. Neither of them is the type to tease in a mean way, and they’re both aggressive extroverts, so I thought they might bring Campbell out a bit. After deciding on that, it was easy to put Reese, the oldest one left, in with Ryan and Mickey. Shea and the twins have known each other all their lives, and I thought about putting him in there, since there’s only a few months difference between his age and Kyle’s; but the honest truth is, Shea and Johnny seem to excite each other into mischief and even real trouble, so I put Kyle in with the twins and Shea in with Van and Bryce. I guess it makes sense that he’d turn to his oldest friends when he was bored and restless.
At that point, Josh cut in. "We were just talking, Dad. Me and Kyle weren’t really sleepy, and Shea came in and got in bed with us, and we started talking about camp, and I told them about getting a moonlight swim last year, and…." his voice trailed off, since the rest of it seemed pretty self-evident.
"The worst part is that in one burst of activity, you boys disobeyed me, you broke a house rule, and then you broke a safety rule. If you boys can’t be trusted to behave when I’m right here, how can you be trusted to behave at camp?"
I had to wait a couple of seconds for the meaning of that to really sink in; then, three panicked, little boys were rushing to assure me that it was a totally different situation and that they’d be on their best behavior at camp, and PLEASE let them go still.
Ignoring the begging, I stood and walked out of the room. Three sets of eyes followed me as I left the room and were still watching the door as I came back a few moments later. All six eyes quickly tracked from my face, which I’m sure held no good news for them, to my hands, which held worse. I laid something obviously wooden on the counter behind them, then returned to my seat.
"Come here, Kyle."
I was holding Heat for the Seat, the paddle that had been used on the twins for nearly two years now and that they were close to outgrowing, in a way that it wasn’t hard at all for Kyle to tell exactly what it was. He didn’t argue with me, but was already quietly sobbing as he stepped to me. I’d not had to spank Kyle in nearly two years, and he’d never been spanked with Heat. That’s not to say he wasn’t used to getting spankings. His dad said he wasn’t as much of a challenge as DJ, but he’d still had more than a couple of sessions of pants-down therapy. It’s just that Darren is a practitioner of the belt, and Kyle had had past experience with how painful an unfamiliar implement could be.
I had to pause a moment to guide the boy over my lap, but he went meekly. Even though Kyle was pretty lean, he still had a nice bottom -- a bit more heavily dimpled than most ten-year olds, but still pretty full. My handprints were still distinct on his rear, and I paused for just a second to admire him before making the last adjustment. As soon as I had him in place, I took a firm grip on his waist, I lined the paddle up and went to work.
I lined the paddle up at the top of Kyle’s crack and started moving down it with one, two, three swats in an almost unconsciously choreographed precision. Kyle’s body stiffened when the paddle first cracked down, but his sobs didn’t get louder. He’d probably just realized what so many people have learned over the years— the fear is often worse than the real thing. Which isn’t to say that the paddle was pleasant for him and as I began tracking down his left cheek, he began to squirm. Before I was through with his right cheek, he was yelping and his sobs were getting louder.
Even as I moved down onto Kyle’s legs, he didn’t break. It occurred to me that he was going to have it hardest since the other boys would be drying off more while he was spanked. Still, I knew how Darren swung that belt, and knew that it was going to take a real fire in his rear to push Kyle over his limits. That was okay, though. I’d come into this planning to commit arson on some boy rears.
By the time I’d planted four spanks on each leg, Kyle was really crying. I think he’d tried to keep it down, because the kitchen echoed, and he must have thought everyone in the house was going to come see who was getting spanked. He hadn’t been here often enough to realize that, outside of the dining room and part of the living room, the kitchen seemed quiet to the rest of the house. I didn’t tell him that, though; a little embarrassment is good for the soul.
As I went back over the pattern a second time, changing it up just a bit this time around, Kyle’s squirming got harder and harder, and he was kicking his legs so much that I had to stop a stroke a couple of times to keep from hitting a foot at the top of it’s arch. His hands were a little better controlled, though; so I pushed him a bit further to my left, jacking his bottom higher into the air, and putting his legs far enough down that he could really only kick from the knees. Then I went back to work, starting the last pattern over, much to his obvious dismay, as he finally broke from hard crying to real bawling.
Considering the nature of his crimes— especially something that risked his own life and that of his cousin— I had no mercy on him and continued through the entire pattern, leaving most of his cheeks a seriously deep, angry crimson. Then I turned to the sit spots, which don’t get much attention during my basic pattern.
I could feel Josh wince as I started on those tender spots, either because he knew this would be the worst part of the spanking, or because of the screech the other boy let loose with. Either way, Kyle was crying even louder and harder than he had been, and suddenly found the energy for a little more struggling, as the paddle smacked five times, rapid fire, in stinging wrist-strokes against one sit spot, then the other. Then three more swats, slower, more measured, and much firmer, seared the sting all the way to his heart before four final swats, right across both cheeks on the smile of his bottom, made sure he’d be thinking about the punishment for awhile.
I took the broken boy and rolled him to sit in my lap. He wrapped his arms around me, but I could feel his little feet kicking as his blazing hot tail came into contact with my bare leg, and I felt his weight shifting back and forth as he tried to keep it out of contact with my roughly-haired leg. I changed my grip on the boy and shifted him so his bottom was hanging free, between my legs.
I could only hug him for a minute. I knew he wanted comforting— probably needed it right then— but I also knew it wasn’t fair to delay the punishment of the other boys too long.
I helped Kyle to his feet, but he was definitely not ready to be standing yet. He was bending and flexing and trying everything but sitting back down to keep the weight off his legs. He started to rub, but I grabbed his hands.
"Not tonight, Kyle. I’m very disappointed in you boys, and I think you should take this sting to bed with you. Understand me?"
The boy was still crying too hard to want to talk so he just nodded.
"Good. Then go to the bathroom if you need to, blow your nose, and get in bed. Don’t let me catch you rubbing."
He nodded again miserably, but started to turn away. Before he could move, I leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on his forehead.
"I’ll be in to check on you in a bit, Kyle. Go on to bed now, sweetheart."
He kissed me back, softly, on the cheek, then gingerly turned towards the bedrooms.
I watched the careful sway of his well-punished bottom, then turned to Shea. The boy seemed to have been entranced by watching me thrash his friend, but suddenly, worriedly, snapped out of it as he felt the force of my gaze. It wasn’t too surprising to me. While I knew that Shea and Campbell were sometimes spanked for the same offense, and even in the same room (their father’s office, where all spanking was done), they never watched each other. Matt had mentioned that he put one boy in the corner while the other was spanked, so this might have been the first spanking Shea had seen in years. His worry was equally understandable, since what he’d just witnessed had no doubt reminded him that, while his father was a formidable spanker, he always started with the hand. I’d bet Shea hadn’t had a real paddling like I give in the two years since the last time I’d spanked him.
"Your turn, Shea."
He started shaking his head and stepped away from me.
"All right, I’m not going to fight with you about this. I’ll call your Dad to come get you tomorrow morning."
"NO!"
"Those are your choices, Shea. You screwed up, you deliberately chose to break the rules; now you can either accept the consequences or I’ll send you home and let your dad deal with you."
Tears were already running down my nephew’s face, but he started to softly cry a few seconds before he took the few steps to put him by my side.
Shea is actually about four months younger than Kyle; but at 4’10" and about 87 pounds, he’s an inch taller and maybe 5 pounds heavier. It is five very nice pounds, though; and, as I took him over my lap, I realized that this boy had a very round, firm, spankable bottom.
I reached out and took him by the hips to pull him over my lap, but his little hands dropped to my forearms. His chin was quivering and he was trying hard not to cry as he made one last bid for leniency.
"I’m s-s-sorry, Uncle Jack. We were only p-pl-playing."
"I know you were, babe; but, it doesn’t matter why you did it. You disobeyed me, you broke the rules, and you did something very dangerous. Now it’s my job to see you pay the consequences and remember not to do those things again. Do you understand?"
Shea started to really sob now, as he realized that there was no leniency to be had. I lifted my hands from his hips and pulled him to me, hugging him tight for a second. He wrapped his arms as far around my shoulders as they would go, and buried his head against my neck. I held him that way for a minute, but didn’t want to keep Josh waiting, so after a moment’s comfort, I pushed Shea back, then guided him over my lap.
His sobs became louder as we got him into position. Shea was very used to being over a man‘s lap, and it wasn’t hard at all to get him where I wanted him. When I thought he was in the right place, Shea surprised me by pushing himself up just a bit more, letting his upper body drop more sharply, then he wrapped both his arms around my left leg. It only surprised me for a second, though, once I realized what he was doing. Matt had asked many questions about how Barry reacted to his spankings, and I knew Shea had once had his own Spanky Bear, so it didn’t surprise me that Matt had passed this trick on to the boy.
I was a little disappointed to see that my hand prints had already faded to pink on him, but I figured it wouldn’t matter soon, anyway. As soon as he was in position, I reached behind me for the paddle and went to work. The first swat caught him by surprise and was rewarded with a healthy yelp. He was a bit more stoical for the second, but he was already in such an emotional place that he just couldn’t control himself. As the paddle moved down his bottom in the same pattern Kyle had just experienced, Shea just lost it. Like Kyle, though, I knew this was something the boy deserved. I knew his nose and throat would be nearly as sore as his bottom because he was crying so hard, but I steeled myself to make this a spanking he’d never forget.
Still, the boy surprised me. As I moved down onto his legs, it seemed he took a deep breath and just stopped crying. His silence didn’t last for long, but when he started again, it was quieter. He was still crying hard, with all control gone, and I couldn’t define it at first, but I honestly think now that the crying had lost all the anger and resentment. I think that Shea had given over and was just accepting the punishment for once. Or maybe he was just too emotionally drained to do anything else.
Like most of my family, Shea isn’t especially dark, but he’s not nearly as fair-skinned as Kyle. Still, by the time I finished my second trip over his legs, his rear was nearly glowing as badly as the other boy’s had been. Shea was wailing as I lined up for the final swats on his sit spots. I glanced up and saw tears streaming down Josh’s face as he awaited his turn, and saw him squeeze his eyes shut as he realized his cousin’s spanking was nearly over. I don’t know if Josh didn’t want to see those last, hardest, burning swats that he knew would linger after the rest were faded, or if he just didn’t want to see Shea’s spanking end, bringing about his own turn.
Shea had been amazingly controlled throughout the paddling, but when the paddle started to beat a rapid tattoo on those tender spots, I felt his grip on my leg loosen, and his right hand flew back to defend itself. I knew the boy must have no conscious control of himself, so I gently took the offending hand and pinned it to his side to finish my attentions.
I gently rubbed Shea’s back for a moment, before putting the paddle behind me, and helping him to sit up. I was nearly shocked by the heat of his bottom against my bare thigh, but he didn’t wince and squirm like Kyle had. The only worry Shea had right then was to be comforted and loved and he burrowed himself into my arms. I could feel his tears and snot soaking the front of my t-shirt as he nestled against me.
"It’s all over now, baby. You paid for it, and you’re forgiven. I know that was really hard, but you’re so brave and I love you so much. Shhh…. You’re going to be okay."
I hated to keep Josh waiting, but Shea was in such a worse place than Kyle had been that I just couldn’t let him up yet. Instead, I raised one hand from Shea’s back and gestured at Josh, who nearly jumped over to press himself into our hug."
After a couple of minutes went by, both boys seemed to be settling down, though Shea was still crying pretty hard and coughing.
When I moved my arms, Josh reluctantly stepped back and I asked Shea, "Did you hear what I told Kyle?" as I helped him from my lap.
He nodded and wasn’t trying to rub his bottom, but I wanted to make sure.
"No rubbing, but you can use the bathroom real quick, then you get right in bed."
As soon as I was finished again, Shea was back in my arms and pushed a kiss against the corner of my mouth. I returned it, then kissed him on the tip of his nose and his forehead before letting him go. He looked at me for a minute, obviously not wanting to leave, and I almost regretted having sent Kyle off. It probably would have been better for me to tuck them all in. Still, I shooed him off and he slowly turned and walked away, leaving me and Josh alone to deal with the rest of the problem.
Josh’s eyes were already red, and I felt bad for him as his chin quivered, showing me how close he already was to going over the edge. Josh was usually pretty stoical about taking his punishments and I was worried for how rough this was going to be on him. I was trying to think of the right thing to say, when he beat me to it.
"It was my fault, Dad. I know I don’t deserve to," his voice broke as he said it, but he went on, "but please let them go to camp."
I had to think a second to understand why he’d even think such a thing, before I realized what I’d said and how he must have taken it. I grabbed him by his shoulders and pulled him into my lap. The boy was stiff as a board and nearly vibrating with tension.
"Of course you deserve to go to camp, Josh, and you’re all going. I’m sorry if what I said sounded like I wasn’t going to let you go."
Josh nearly went limp in my arms when he heard that and didn’t stiffen, even as I continued.
"But I said it because I’m very disappointed in the three of you, Josh." I paused for a moment to collect my thoughts, not wanting to get too far off track. "Sweetheart, do you remember a conversation we had a couple of weeks ago?"
I felt his shoulders shrug under my arm. Okay, it was a bit of a general question.
"A conversation when I hung something on your wall…."
"Oh," he replied unhappily, "you mean Red. You said you were mostly gonna still spank us with Heat, but when we did something real ba…" His voice trailed off and he looked over at the counter, then back at me. "Do you want me to get it?"
I nodded.
Josh started to climb from my lap, then stopped and wrapped his arms around me tightly for a second. I squeezed him for a second, then he broke away and stood up. He walked over to the counter. When he was close enough to see the top of it, I saw him pause for a second and shiver; but then he stepped up and took the paddle from the counter. He looked at it for another second, seeming to read the poem, before turning back to me. It was only a few steps to my side, but he took them slowly, though with surprisingly little hesitation.
I’ve known Josh pretty much all his life and he’s lived with me for over five years now. He doesn’t get into as much trouble as Johnny or Barry, but he’s still made more than a few trips across my lap in that time and he knew how to position himself.
He handed me the paddle, then placed his hands on my legs— his left hand was on my upper left thigh, and his right hand was on my right knee. He gave a little jump and pushed at the same time, then let himself pivot forward so he was suddenly lying with his bottom centered between my legs.
The boy was suddenly tense again. Even lying across my lap, his entire body was straight as a rod, his legs straight out and crossed. I waited for a minute, then put the paddle down and slipped my hands between his legs, down by his knees, and began to softly rub.
"You have to relax, kiddo."
It took a few seconds, but his legs separated and slowly began to droop. I felt him take a deep breath, then he let his upper body sag. When his head was down, I felt his right hand grab my ankle. He tensed a bit when I lifted the paddle, but only for a second.
"I won’t try to tell you this isn’t going to hurt, Josh; but, I know you’re going to be brave about it. I’m very disappointed in what you did tonight, but I’m very proud of you for taking responsibility and never forget that I love you."
"I love you, too, Daddy," he replied in a wet, quivering voice.
Except that I was using the heavier paddle, his spanking was the same as the other boys’ had been. Of course, he was used to being paddled, while the other two really weren‘t. But a paddling’s never fun and the fact that this was his first experience with the big boy’s paddle made it really rough for him.
He didn’t yelp at first, but Josh was crying from almost the first swat. Maybe I’m kidding myself, but I think his cries were different from his cousins’. Kyle’s crying had been scared, and Shea’s had been angry and resentful, but it seemed like Josh’s was that of a boy who knew he needed to cry the naughty out so he could have a fresh start. They were hardly tears of joy, but there was anticipation of the peace and forgiveness he knew would soon be his.
Josh always tries to take his spankings well, but he’s still just a little boy, and he was soon squirming and kicking in time to his yelps and sobs. About the time I started the first covering of his bottom, I felt his left hand join the right around my ankle. He never tried to cover his bottom, but he was gripping my ankle so firmly, I began to think I’d be the one with bruises.
He’d had the longest wait, and just working himself up to ask me to let the other boys go to camp must have been a real drain on him. Before I got to his sit spots, he was a wreck and could do nothing but lie there, twitching and crying. I doubt he even noticed that I went easy on his sit spots; but there were no witnesses, so I could always deny it later.
Before I could put the paddle down behind me, Josh was already trying to push himself up. I quickly moved to help him into his preferred position, standing between my legs with our arms wrapped around each other, with me softly rubbing his bottom. I don’t know how long we stayed like that, but it was long enough for him to settle down and start to doze on my shoulder. Before he could fall asleep, I helped him to his feet.
"C’mon. You need to be in bed now."
The boy grumbled, but didn’t resist as I ushered him along.
As soon as I had Josh pointed at the toilet, I went to check on Kyle. It looked like he’d washed his face, but then cried a little more. I hoped he’d not thought he was going to miss camp, but wasn’t going to wake him to be sure.
Knowing how sore he must be, I helped Josh into bed and kissed him goodnight, then went to check on Shea.
Shea had gone to sleep nude, and it looked like he’d not even washed his face off. He was still snotted up enough that he was already snoring, so I went back into the bathroom, then came back and woke him.
Shea had pretty obviously cried himself to sleep and was NOT happy to be awoken. Still, I wasn’t going to let him sleep like that. I rinsed his face and had him wash his mouth out with a sip of water, then I gave him a drink (he’s not really supposed to have liquids after dinner, but I knew he had to be dehydrated). He blew his nose, and I washed his face again, then he took another drink after I helped him into his Tiger training pants. Then I helped him lie back down.
"Shea, did you think I said you weren’t going to get to go to camp?"
The boy shrugged, but then nodded, and even in just the light from the bathroom, I could see him start to tear up again.
"I didn’t mean to say that, Shea. We’ll talk about it in the morning, but you’re going to go to camp. You just have to promise me you’ll follow the rules and be safe. Okay?"
The relief was evident on his face, and he relaxed and drifted off to sleep as I rubbed his still-warm, little bottom.
I did have a talk with all three of them the next morning after breakfast. None of them felt real good when I woke them, but they all seemed better after moving around a bit and getting some juice and water into them. I explained — being very careful about how I phrased things this time — to tell them that if they did something like that at camp, they could be sent home and we’d not be able to do anything about it.
All three boys solemnly promised that they’d behave at camp.
"Besides," Shea concluded, "I don’t want to think about the ride home if you have to come pick us up cause ’a that!"