JR 5: The Real Thing

For many, many years now, the first set in a new block Magic cards has been released in October, with the two follow-up expansions coming in February and June. The Urza’s Cycle followed that same pattern. JR had been happy with the new cards he’d been able to earn, but he felt they were far from enough.

JR’s father had organized a program at church where teenagers did yard work for older people in the congregation who couldn’t do their own anymore. Of course, JR participated in it. (I would assume it was expected of him, but he might have been happy to do it anyway). While the yard work was done for no fee (gas was provided by the church), some of the people did tip. Not all the tips were in cash. (JR once admitted that his favorite yard was that of a woman who baked every time he came around, so his rest break between front yard and back was accompanied by fresh, warm sugar cookies and lemonade, or something similar. Enough of the tips were in cash that he was able to pick up a few extra packs of cards every week – enough to keep him happy, anyway.

Time passed, and JR never mentioned our little flirtation with whatever we’d done. As summer wore on, his mind focused on other issues, like the fact that he was going back to school.

"Have you known anyone that went there?"

"Bransom Christian Academy? A few. They’ve been around for a long time."

JR glanced around to make sure we weren’t being overheard.

"Can they seriously make you drop your pants for a paddling?"

"That’s what I’ve heard."

"Oh, geez!" he exclaimed, rolling his eyes. "It might be better to just stay home with Dad."

"And how happy do you think your dad would be, after he’s gone through all this trouble to arrange it?"

"Boy, you’re just a barrel of good news, aren’t you?"

"Don’t kill the messenger, JR. Besides, you’ve matured a lot from the kid that got expelled, haven’t you?"

From the look I received, I think he was trying to decide whether I was being sarcastic or not.



When school started, JR’s father made him quit coming to the Thursday night games for a few weeks. Once JR proved that he was capable of staying out of trouble, he was able to start coming again. Since the Thursday night games were fairly small, it made a big difference, and I was glad to see him and his group again.

At that time, school was starting in early August, which meant a short summer, but the kids also got a week long ‘Fall Break’, which I thought was somewhat unnecessary when you considered Thanksgiving and Christmas vacations; but they hadn’t asked me. (That had been decided before I started on the school board).

JR still came to most of the Sunday tournaments, and AJ even came to one Thursday tournament on his own, but apparently JR’s dad had handled most of the transportation. JR did have one little complaint before he was able to start coming back on Thursdays.

"Jesus, it’s almost as bad as being home schooled still."

"You knew about it before you started going there, buddy."

"It’s not like I had any choice."

"But you knew about it and you still did it."

I got the look he felt that comment deserved. I lifted my hands and shrugged.

"I just…" he started, stopped, then took a deep breath. "I was just playing around."

"Had he told you to stop?"

JR blushed a bit and refused to meet my eyes, so I knew the answer was ‘yes’, even before he nodded.

"Well, that’s really rough, but now you know he’s serious."

"Yeah, well he could have just…"

JR ran to a stop when he realized that the teacher ‘had just’, but he’d kept pushing.

"Worse than your dad?"

"I dunno. Dad never paddled me."

He paused for a moment.

"At least I got to keep my boxers up."

"Did you cry?"

"No… Not really."

I could guess what that meant; probably some a little sobbing and a few tears.

"I’ve never even heard of ‘Jokari’. Is that a company that makes school paddles or something, I’ve never seen one like that."

‘Yeah, you have,’ I wanted to tell him. ‘It was lying on my desk when you got undressed.’

"No," I said instead. "It’s a game you play with a ball on an elastic cord. Pretty fun, actually. I used to play it with a friend of mine," I added, thinking of Allen Robinson. "I don’t know if they still make it though."

"Well, I wish he’d kept it for the game. It was worse than my old principals paddle, ‘cause it didn’t just hurt, the damned thing burned like hell. My butt was sore the rest of the day."

"What’d your dad say?"

"I didn’t tell him. If the teacher did, he didn’t say anything. Besides, I’m getting my homework done and turned in, and I’m getting ‘A’s on almost everything, so he’s happy enough."

"I was only asking because I seem to remember you getting into a bit of trouble before with your mouth and how your father reacted to it."

JR went pale with that. I watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down.

"Guess I should tone it down a bit, huh?"

"Probably be a real good idea."



Besides a bit of adjustment to his new school (and their rather strict, old-fashioned corporal punishment policy) for JR, September was quiet for me and the other Magic players. That was good, because Pokemon had exploded. In January, I’d barely had ten players show up for our first Pokemon tournament. Now I had a tourney for it every Saturday and had trouble finding room for all the players. I had just as much trouble keeping anything in stock.

Thursday nights were especially nice because things were quiet. In a store, quiet isn’t always good, but it’s nice when it’s a change of pace.

Of course, business always comes with problems. I loved being able to provide a place for people to come and play Magic and Pokemon, and doing so did increase my business, but it also increased my problems.

One of the problems with running a store – any kind of store – is shoplifting. While shoplifters have provided a great deal of fun to me at times over the years (and grist for more than a couple of stories), they’ve also provided me with some real problems, and introduced me to a few people whom I seriously thought should never be allowed to breed. (If you’re on probation, why would you steal anything, much less a five dollar comic book?).

The trouble with running a store like mine, where you have gaming rooms and invite people to bring their own materials into the store, is not only that it can make shoplifting easier, but also that it almost dares those with a loose idea of ownership to take from other people. When your customers are kids, having their prized possessions stolen can make for hard feelings, even though you had nothing to do with it and tried to help make things secure.

I consider shoplifting to be part and parcel of owning a store. I don’t like it and have done my best to restrain it, but it’s like taxes and insurance – something with which you’ll have to deal if you’re in that kind of business. But customers stealing from other customers?

It happened to Mikell once. I won’t go into the full story here, but how do you feel when someone you love like one of your own sons (this is before he moved in with me) is in tears because, through no fault of his own, he’s lost something that he really enjoyed, worked hard to gather, and took pride in? Simply because someone else thought they deserved what Mikell had worked for or what had been given him by his family, Mikell was devastated.

I was angry.

It was bad enough when my own stuff was stolen, which happened a few times, no matter how secure I tried to keep things. But when people were using my store to steal from friends of mine, it was worse.

And there was nothing I could do about it. If I caught them, they were toast. Gary McKinney found that out, to his regret. And he was someone I liked.

The worst thing to me was that I knew there had to be several thieves, because it was too spread out to be one person. Not every incident was reported to me until later (you don’t always notice at the time), but I paid attention to who was around when something happened. I was sure that Gary was one of the problems, so I watched him like a hawk until I proved it. I didn’t know what to do about the other occasions, though. I kept coming up with new things, trying to be watchful, but things kept disappearing.

At home, Steve was starting his freshman year in high school. Mikell was a sophomore, but already old enough to drive (and finally really starting to live by the house rules, rather than seeing them as something to get around). My brother, Aaron – whom I thought was my youngest brother – turned fourteen that month, and was extremely unhappy that I wasn’t treating him like an adult yet (and that his mom was making him live with a barbarian who didn’t understand how wrong it was to spank teenagers, and who managed to keep making that argument, despite Mikell and Steve laughing in his face). At ten years old, Tommy was in a brief lull between the turbulent period that had occurred because I ‘took him away’ from his mom, and his teenage years. The biggest challenge was that I was home schooling Bobby, who, having recently turned eight, needed a lot of individual attention, even outside the school work.

Of course, work doesn’t care about home, and quiet times don’t last.



It might have been the last week of September or first week of October, but I’m not sure. I do know that it was late enough in the fall that the 7pm Magic tournament was now starting in the dark.

We had a decent crowd that night, including at least one customer of whom I was very definitely not fond - Garrett Heedly. I think Garrett was twelve years old and in seventh grade. He was a bit too heavy set for me to find him cute, but he wasn’t ugly either. Obnoxious is what he was.

Garrett was one of those customers who didn’t understand that the customer really isn’t always right. He seemed to think that the five, sometimes even ten, dollars a week he spent in my store gave him license to do pretty much anything he wanted – including ignoring me when I asked him to do something… or not do something that was annoying other customers.

Looking back on it, it’s pretty obvious that Garrett had no social skills, wasn’t well accepted at school, and that his efforts to fit in were forced and annoying. As a parent, I would have felt bad for him. As a store owner who was trying to deal with a large number of people and situations at the same time, my patience with him was limited.

From a Magic point of view, Garrett’s most annoying habit was to go online and find professional level decks (yes, there are Magic professionals, though hardly anybody really makes a living at it), then build them himself – and play them at our tournaments.

On one level, I don’t blame him. It’s not an actual violation of the rules, but it is a violation of the spirit. In a friendly neighborhood comic store game, all the players build their own decks, and they expect to play against similar.

One night, the first night Garrett had done anything like that as far as I know, his deck disappeared. He came to me about it.

"All right, folks. Has anyone seen Garrett’s deck?" I asked after getting the rooms attention.

I described the deck box and card protectors he’d had it in.

No one had.

"Everyone please take a minute and look through your stuff. He left it right over here. If you’ve been in this area, please check your bags. Even if you haven’t, check anyway, in case someone moved it by accident or as a joke. C’mon now, everyone look."

I waited a few minutes, but no one could find it. I had things I really had to be doing. I didn’t have the right to search everyone’s bags. I didn’t insure other people’s cards against theft (even if that person hadn’t just set their cards down and walked off). There was really nothing I could do except ask people to keep an eye out for them and go back to my other duties.

Ten minutes later, Garrett came out to report that he’d found his cards.

In JR’s bag.

Five minutes after that, JR and I were in my office. I’d left him only long enough to step into my bathroom and pick up a bath brush, which JR was watching nervously.

"Then how did it get in there?"

"I dunno. It was just an accident."

"If it was an accident, why didn’t you find them when you were looking through your bag?"

"I dunno. Maybe something else got put on top of them?"

"Maybe, or maybe you didn’t look very good, if you looked at all. And if that’s true, how did Garrett find them so easy?"

"Why was he going through my bag, anyway?"

The honest truth was that I intended to chew Garrett out about that. If I could have used it as an excuse to kick him out of the store, I might have done it, but I couldn’t do that and keep the matter quiet at the same time. That meant Garrett got a free ride. Of course, the fact that Garrett had beaten two of JR’s friends that night, and that JR’s bag had been sitting right next to where Garrett had left his cards might have made him think he had reason to look in the first place.

"Do NOT try to make this about him, JR," I said instead. "You’ve screwed up, and we both know it. The only question is, do you want me to talk to your dad about this, or are we going to handle it here?"

He sighed, and answered, "Here."

He was unfastening his pants before he’d finished the word.

I moved a chair where there’d be room for him to go over my lap, then I sat down and watched as he got his fly undone and shoved his jeans down, letting them fall past his knees on their own.

"Bare?"

I nodded.

He shoved his boxers down as well, but they stayed at about knee height.

JR’s t-shirt only hit the top of his hips, so he was exposing pretty much everything. It occurred to me that, even though I’d had him stripped to his boxers just a few months before, and even though I’d spanked his bare butt, I’d never seen him like this.

His balls were pretty good size, and his sac was loose, with a pretty good dangle, but his dick wasn’t showing very well. Even though the skin of his penis had already darkened and looked about as thick as mine when I was soft, JR was barely two inches long, if that. I know you can’t always tell how big someone is going to be when he’s hard, and I’m sure JR had other things on his mind, but it really made me regret not taking the chance to see him hard when I’d had it. On the other hand, the skin was bunched loosely up just behind the head – he was obviously circumcised – but it made it look like he would do plenty of growing when he did it.

I try not to stare on these occasions, but JR was embarrassed, uncomfortable, and not watching me. Still, I only briefly registered the way his thick patch of almost brown pubic hair was spreading onto his legs and starting a triangle to climb towards his belly before looking back in his face.

"You know what you did, JR, so I don’t think I need to lecture," I told him as I sat."Over my lap."

He sighed, and for a moment it looked like he was going to rebel, but the moment passed, and he stepped over to my side, then laid himself across my legs.

Like the rest of him, JR’s buns were nicely formed. They were solid, but he had enough extra flesh that the dimples weren’t too distinct. The hair that was pretty thick on his upper legs grew sparse as it neared his cheeks, and the cheeks themselves were still mostly smooth, except right around the crack.

I switched the brush to my left hand for a moment and ran my right hand across his checks. They were as solid as they looked, but, except for a few pimples, the skin was velvety smooth and soft.

I switched the brush back to my spanking hand, firmed my grasp around his waist, thought for a moment about saying something else, but then just went to work.

The style of bath brush I prefer is about ten inches long. Over half of that – almost six inches – is the head. The head is an oval, about three inches at its widest, but it’s slightly off center. If you hold it with the bristles facing away from you, it’s shaped like a large apostrophe on a handle. The head is about a half-inch thick, and over the years, I’ve found it to be very effective on nearly grown teenage boys.

JR was apparently no exception, because he jumped like I’d poked him with a live wire when the brush smacked down on his left cheek. I was using almost all wrist with the smacks, but they were still solid swats with a solid instrument to a boy who was used to being strapped, not paddled, and he continued to react that way with each swat.

The head of the brush was small enough that I could concentrate on one cheek at a time. I started on the left, then smacked his right cheek. I paused between each blow, giving the sting time to climax (and him to settle down) before placing the next swat elsewhere.

As I lined up for a third swat, there was a rosy red blotch high up on each of JR’s cheeks. The third swat came back down on the left cheek, and JR’s entire body jerked, his feet kicking up a bit and his head tossing back. It wasn’t a huge thrash, but it was obvious. He was taking them quietly though, and continued to stay quiet as the brush smacked down again and again.

Even on a nearly adult-sized boy, the brush was wide enough that three swats on each cheek left a trail from even with the top of his crack nearly down onto his legs. I went back up and started again, moving more towards the outside of the cheeks this time.

As the first of those swats fell, partially overlapping the first smacks, the jerks of his body became more forceful and pronounced, though he still settled down between each one, and he began making a fairly quiet, but forceful, grunting noise.

There was a little more room placing the swats down the outer curve of the buttock like that, and I was counting in my head, ‘…twelve… thirteen…’ as I worked back and forth and from top to bottom.

JR was losing control, and what had been short-lived jerks were now close to becoming real, continuous thrashing, as the forceful grunts became more pained and less quiet.

The fourteenth smack cracked down and caught his upper leg more than his butt.

"All right," JR said forcefully, twisting around and trying to get his hand over his butt. "That’s enough," he said, half demanding and half pleading.

I ignored him and placed another swat on the left side, this one definitely on his leg.

"Oh-ho-how!" he protested and started pushing against my left arm, which was across his back and around his hip.

"Move your hand, JR."

"That’s enough, Jack," he told me, much less demanding this time. "It really hurts."

"Move. Your. Hand!"

He didn’t quite have the leverage to get off my lap, but he did twist to the side, and I was barely able to hold him from rolling off my legs. I could still get a swat in, but couldn’t see to aim it, so I didn’t bother. Instead, I let him up.

As soon as he got his feet under him, he started grabbing for his boxers.

"Leave those there," I snapped at him.

He looked up at me, but stood up, leaving himself uncovered.

"But that’s enough, Jack," he whined, no longer sounding like his normal, confident, teenage self.

"That is not enough, JR."

I looked him straight in the eyes when I said it, and he flinched.

His eyes were reddish and damp, but he hadn’t been crying. It was obvious he didn’t like what I had to say, though.

"Do you think I’m stupid, JR?"

"No," he assured me, shaking his head.

I started to speak, but his hands were moving behind him.

"Don’t rub," I snapped. "We’re not finished yet."

He moaned, almost silently, but moved his hands back to his sides. After a second, he crossed them in front of his crotch, then folded them across his chest.

"If you don’t think I’m stupid, then what do you think I think happened tonight? You told me you checked your bag, but right after that, Garrett found his cards in your bag. That means you lied to me about checking it. The only reason you’d do that is because you already knew the cards were in there."

He wasn’t looking at me now, but his arms had gone from crossed over his chest to hugging himself.

"Am I wrong? Is there another reason you wouldn’t really look for another kid’s missing cards?"

He refused to answer me.

"Look at me, James Robert."

He flinched again, but looked up at me from under his lids.

"JR, I care for you a lot. I really like you and consider you a friend, but there is NO excuse for this; don’t you understand that?"

He was looking back at the floor again, but nodded after a minute.

"You know Garrett’s not the first kid to have cards disappear. I know there’s been stuff stolen when you’re not around, but do you think anyone else would believe that? Do you want everyone thinking that you’re a thief, so you stole their missing stuff, too?"

"No," he answered, barely above a whisper.

"JR, I know Garrett’s a pain in the butt, but the fact is, he’s a customer. So is every one of the other kids out there. I love you, but I owe it to them to take as good care of them as I can. Do you understand that?"

He was looking at me now, and I could see that tears were starting to roll down his cheeks. He nodded.

"I’m sorry."

"Did you steal his cards?"

JR stood silent for a moment, looking at the floor again, then nodded.

"Even if you answer the next question, JR, I have no reason to believe you, but I still have to ask. Is that all you’ve stolen?"

"It is, Jack – I swear."

"I hope that’s true, buddy, but whether it is or not, I’m going to swear this to you: if I ever catch you stealing again, you’ll be out of the store permanently, and I will tell your parents why. Understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"And are you beginning to understand why I’m so upset about this?"

"Yes, sir."

"And do you understand that your whupping’s not half over yet?"

He moaned, but I wasn’t finished yet.

"As a matter of fact, I’d say you’re lucky I don’t have Garrett in here watching you get it, don’t you think?"

He nodded vigorously this time.

"All right then," I said, sitting back down, "let’s get this over with."

His motions were jerky, and I doubt it was just from the jeans and boxers around his ankles, but he stepped forward and put himself back over my lap. I ran my hand around his hot butt for a second, then lined up the brush.

"I hope we never have to do this again, JR – not for any reason. But if it does happen, I want you to understand that if you ask me to punish you, then I’m in charge. Got it?"

"Ow!" he protested, more in reply to the brush smacking down on his upper leg than the question.

"If I tell you to move your hand, you move it," I added, smacking the brush down on the other leg, to his renewed protest.

"If I tell you to stay down, you stay down," I added, moving back to his left leg for another swat.

This time, his protest was broken by the first sob.

"And if you take a punishment from me, I’ll let you know when you’ve had enough for what you did."

Back on the right leg again, and there was no question that the ‘ow’ was as much sob as protest this time.

My point made, I moved back onto his bottom. While both cheeks were reddening nicely, the space along the crack was still almost lily white, so I moved the brush from the top down. This time, instead of letting the sting build and peak, I went rapid fire, and JR went crazy.

As the brush smacked along his crack, his sobs became full blown. As I peppered the brush back and forth, from cheek to cheek, the sobs became real crying. Six swats on each cheek, and I was sure that he was going to be remembering this for a while, and that I’d fulfilled my promise of more than doubling what he’d already had. I finished with several swats, back and forth, to each sit spot, which had him on the edge of losing all control and bawling.

I think he was really trying to restrain himself, and I could tell he had a death grip on the chair, but he was still flailing around, rocking back and forth, by the time I finished, and his legs were kicking faster than the swats were landing.

I held him over my lap for a minute, dropping the brush, and rubbing his blazing, aching cheeks with both hands. Once he’d backed away from the edge of breaking, I helped him to stand.

He threw himself against my chest, bending his knees so he could lay his head on my shoulder, and wrapped his arms tightly around me.

"I’m sorry, Jack. I know it was stupid. I’m so sorry."

I just held him and told him it was okay.



A few moments passed while JR got himself back under control. When he finally stepped away from me, I released him, and then wondered how bad my shirt looked.

Probably not as bad as his face.

JR was brushing tears from his cheeks with the back of his hands and sniffing.

"That was really hard, Jack."

"Are you saying you didn’t deserve it?"

He paused a moment.

"I guess I did, but it was still really hard."

I nodded, having nothing else to say.

We were both quiet a moment.

"Jack?"

"Yeah, bud?"

"Are you going to blow me now?"

I just stared at him a minute, and it actually took me a minute to understand his reference to my almost joking comment from when I‘d nearly paddled him over the summer.

He was already flushed, but managed an even deeper shade of red.

"Just asking," he finally replied.



I gave JR enough time to calm down and collect himself; then I left him to dress and clean his face while I fetched Garrett.

"I’m sorry," JR told the younger boy a few minutes later. "I should have taken it seriously and really looked for it. I don’t know how it got in there."

Garrett obviously didn’t believe him. On the other hand, it was also obvious that JR had been crying, which had to have made Garrett wonder exactly what had happened during the long time in which we’d ‘talked’. And then he smiled.

"Okay," Garrett finally answered, begrudgingly. "Just be careful."

JR nodded, though I could tell he hated taking chastisement from the other boy.

"JR, you go on back now. I need to talk to Garrett for a minute."

Once JR had left, I turned to the other boy.

"JR’s not the only one who needs to be careful, Garrett. I think I know what happened, but I don’t really know if JR was trying to steal your cards, if they got in there by accident, or if someone else put them in there as a joke or something. What I do know is that you can’t just go around searching other people’s stuff."

"But I…"

"But me no buts, mister. What if JR said you put them in there because you and him were fighting?"

"Why would I…"

"Why doesn’t matter, Garrett. Think about it. I only have your word for what happened and that you found them there. And if that’s not good enough, what if you’d looked through his bag, not found them, but he said something was lost. And people saw you in his bag. What do you think would happen then?"

"But I…"

"What did I just say?" I interrupted him again.

"Don’t get me wrong, Garrett. I understand why you did what you did, and I’m glad you got your cards back, but you need to understand what could have happened. Got me?"

He was obviously unhappy, but then he nodded.

And then his eyes flicked past me, and he smiled again.

"You don’t think he stole them?"

"I don’t know what really happened, Garrett. I do know that we have trouble with things being stolen up here, and I’m trying really hard to find ways to stop it. On the other hand, JR’s a friend of mine, so I notice when he’s up here, so I know he can’t have done it all. Especially since we have had a bunch of Pokemon stuff go missing, and JR’s not into that."

Since Garrett was into Pokemon, he took the point and nodded.

He looked past me again and his fading smile came back.

"Can I go now? Mom’s going to be here soon."

"One last thing. I try to keep things from getting stolen, but you’re responsible for your own stuff. If you hadn’t just set it down and walked off, it wouldn’t have been stolen or whatever. Someone walking away from their stuff is not an excuse to steal it, but if you know there’s a problem, you should be careful."

"Okay," he said, once again not happy, but acknowledging the point.

I actually agreed with him, since I hated having to keep track of every little thing and not feeling like I could trust people whom I really liked.

"Go on then."

He looked past me one more time, restoring his smile, then left.

When he was gone, I turned towards where he’d kept glancing, and saw the straight backed, armless, wooden chair, turned so there was room on both sides of it, and with the wooden bath brush lying on the floor next to it.

Oops.



It wasn’t much longer before time to close up. The game room was empty except for JR and his friends, and I was watching them file out. Kev was carrying JR’s bag for him. The three other boys went past me and headed downstairs, while JR lingered just a bit behind.

"My butt’s really sore, Jack," he said without preamble.

"Good. That’s what you deserved," I reminded him.

He nodded without hesitation or reservation. Then he stood there and looked at me.

JR is not especially tall as an adult, and he wasn’t quite full-grown at fifteen. He stepped up a bit so there was very little space left between our chests. He was looking straight into my eyes, but, because of the height difference, his eyes were only on level about with my chin.

"Thanks for not kicking me out of the store or telling my parents, and…" he cleared his throat. "Well, for everything."

I reached up and rested my hand on his shoulder.

"You’re welcome."

Then he leaned in and wrapped his arms around me, resting his, this time dry, face against my shoulder again.

We stood there quietly for a minute before he leaned back, looking up again, without moving his arms.

"And Jack?"

I looked down at him.

"Hm?"

"I love you, too."

He stretched up a bit and planted a dry smack against my cheek. He looked extremely embarrassed for a second, then quickly stepped back and scampered to catch up with his friends.







Return to Story List

Return to Table of Contents