Spanking the Moon

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Okay, that probably wasn’t true, but it certainly felt like it. As always happened, the holidays had left me destitute of company. It was Christmas vacation and all my best friends were gone. It was even worse than usual this time since John Ward had actually moved out of state to live with his dad at the end of the previous summer. That was on top of the normal exodus my friends made to relatives’ homes over the holidays.

On the other hand, I’d made a lot of new friends lately and re-connected with some old ones. I’d been talked into playing soccer the season that had just finished for one thing. While I was the oldest boy on the team (possibly in the league) because my birthday fell only a few weeks past the cut-off date, I enjoyed playing around with younger guys (so to speak).

Christmas was on a Monday that year, and I think we had two whole weeks off, plus New Year’s Day, giving us a longer than normal holiday. It hadn’t even taken the weekend to realize all my regular friends were gone. Considering how December weather is in our part of Texas (chilly, gray, overcast, and just plain dismal), I hadn’t really wanted to get out. On the other hand, I didn’t want to sit around the house all week by myself, watching game shows and re-runs.

I took a long walk to check on some of my old friends—the guys with whom I’d run when I was in sixth grade. Almost all of them had given up comics, but we still talked to each other at school. I don’t remember the details, but all of them were gone, busy, or just couldn’t leave the house for some reason. I’d killed a while that day, but ended up walking home a lot earlier than I wanted.

With cartoons still a couple of hours away, I ended up at 7-11, seeing if there was anything on the comic rack that could kill a little time for me. I heard the pinball machine going and wandered over to find David Ward, John’s little brother. I watched him play, then wasted a quarter on another game. When that one finished, we were talking, and wandered out together. When I turned right to head home, he turned with me.

Have you ever listened to conversations between middle school-aged boys? They’re not deep. I don’t remember what David and I were talking about, but I’m willing to bet it involved school, favorite TV shows, and what we hoped to get for Christmas.

As we approached my house, I’d already asked David to come in for a while. It wasn’t cold, but it was cool enough to be uncomfortable after a while. As we were headed that way, someone called my name. I turned, looking for a minute, and saw someone waving at me from Clay’s house.

Clay and I had been on that same soccer team. Like David, and most of the kids on the team, he was a year behind me at school. He didn’t live far from us, and, when we learned that, we’d walked to practice together several times. He was in his front yard, kicking a ball around with Grover, a kid who was the same age as Clay, and who I’d known from playing baseball on the same team a couple of years before. David and I stopped and talked with him.

The wind was picking up, it was feeling cooler, and all of us were agreeing that it was a very boring holiday so far, when David suggested going to my place to play some Hearts. Clay and Grover (his name was really something like Henry Glover, but someone had nicknamed him Grover, and he liked it better than Henry) didn’t know how to play, but were bored, chilled, and willing to learn.

In theory, Hearts is really a pretty simple game. You have to have four players, and you deal out all the cards in a standard, fifty-two card deck. There are twenty-six points in a game of Hearts; each heart is worth one, and the Queen of Spades is worth thirteen. However, in Hearts, you want to score low. The two of clubs is always first lead, and you have to follow the suit that’s played if you can; high, in-suit card takes the trick. If they lead a club, and you have a club, you have to play it. If not, you can play whatever you want.

There is one exception to not wanting to get points. If you take every point in a hand, all the other players get twenty-six points each. That’s called ‘shooting the moon.’ Mostly Hearts is a game of tactics—when to get rid of your high cards, when to take the lead and when to try to get out of it—but there is a little strategy involved. Before you begin play, you select three cards from your hand. First hand, you pass the cards to the left; second, to the right; third, straight across; and fourth, you play what you’re dealt. Then it repeats. The real strategy lies in which are the best cards of which to rid yourself. Do you pass off your high cards and try not to catch anything, or do you try to shoot the moon?



It was nearly 2pm by the time we got back to my house. I found a deck of cards and the four of us spread out on the floor of my room and started playing. It took a couple of hands for them to get the idea, but they both caught on fairly quickly. We played that hand all the way through, then started another, with Clay joking about playing a penny a point, like with Rummy. Of course, I don’t think most of them had pennies right then, and I didn’t have a lot of comic money until Christmas came, so wasn’t real interested in risking what I did have. We did start joking around about making other bets.

After the second hand, we went to the living room to watch cartoons. At 5pm, everybody took off, but not before I invited them back the next day. Clay and Grover loved the game and wanted to try more. David wasn’t quite so excited about the game but he was in the same boat I was, with his best friends being away at relatives, so he was happy to have something to do.



The next morning, everyone had shown up by 10:30. We gathered in my room, and I explained the rules I’d come up with the night before. Everyone joked about it, but the word ‘chicken’ came up (and I swear I’m not the one who used it), and finally, everyone agreed.

I still remember the first hand—not play by play, but I recall the results pretty well. Clay got stuck with the Queen of Spades for thirteen points. David had caught nine of the hearts, and I got away with no points. After a couple of minutes’ thought, I ran into the kitchen and came back with a chair that went over by my closet. David sat down in it, and Clay draped himself reluctantly over the smaller boy’s lap.

Even though the other three boys were all a year behind me, and even though David was actually the oldest of them (Grover and Clay were both still twelve), he was also the smallest. It’s hard to say exactly how big everyone was. I was still a few months away from fourteen, and while I was still taller than average, it was no longer by much: call me 5’5" or so. Grover, though much leaner than me, was barely an inch shorter. Clay wasn’t quite as tall, maybe 5’3", but he was pretty sturdy and just a little bit chubby. I doubt David came in at more than 5’1", but he was lean in an unathletic way—nearly skinny.

It was funny watching Clay lower himself across David’s lap (and we won’t mention how exciting it was right now) and not just because of the size difference. Clay had very light brown hair that almost matched his perpetually tanned skin, and he wore his long. David’s dark brown hair was a match for mine, and he wore it a little longer than normal, even for those days, but he had a pale complexion, so he was an almost total opposite of Clay. Grover was watching avidly, so I was able to glance at him freely. He was, to my taste, the best looking of the bunch—lean and firm, with dark blond hair, and a fair complexion, but without all of David’s freckles (David had enough for both of them).

My attention snapped back to the chair at the first smack of hand on jeans. David had nine points to Clay’s thirteen, so he put four smacks on Clay’s butt, and he made them good ones. Then they got up, Grover took David’s place, and David took Clay’s. With four points of his own, Grover put five swats on the seat of David’s jeans. I was standing back a little, so I could not just watch David getting spanked, but also watch Clay undo his pants.

By the time David was getting up, Clay’s jeans were down, but barely enough to see half his briefs. We had a little ad hoc meeting, and it was agreed that ‘down’ meant past your knees. Clay protested a bit; but, after the previous day’s games, he must have been sure everyone would be in the same place sooner or later, so his protest was mostly pro forma.

Clay shoved his jeans down past his knees and climbed over Grover’s lap. David watched him, then winced as he realized he was about to have to do the same thing. He wanted to delay it, but we all quickly agreed that you had to get ready as soon as you could and stay that way. He didn’t like it, but couldn’t really argue, since he’d just argued so strongly for ‘below the knees’.

I watched again as David unfastened his pants and shoved them past his knees, while Grover was delivering nine sharp swats to the seat of Clay’s briefs. Nine swats on the briefs is a lot worse than four on the jeans. Clay took them pretty well, but was still yelping and wiggling a bit before the last one landed. As soon as it was over, he hopped back up, and Grover stood, grimacing, and making room for me.

Even as I was sitting, everyone’s attention turned to Clay. He stood there for a minute before finally admitting he knew what the wait was.

"All right, all right," he said grumpily, though no one had said anything. Then he slid his fingers into the waistband of his jockeys and shoved them down to join his jeans around his knees.

As soon as Clay was bare, Grover let me tug him over my lap. I rubbed the seat of his jeans for a minute, but my attention stayed on Clay a few more seconds. I’d seen Clay bare before, but only for a brief moment while he was stepping out of his briefs and into a jock strap, when I’d got to his house a few minutes early one day, before soccer practice. I had a good idea what to expect but now had a great view since he was either not modest or resisting the urge to cover.

Clay had a pretty good nest of hair, slightly darker than what was atop his head, but it was still restricted to the upper base of his penis. His balls were probably as big as mine, but his hung looser than mine did. His penis wasn’t so big, but was a chubby two inches, even hanging soft.

David stood there with his briefs exposed and looked little happier than Clay. They watched Grover take his four swats from me, then David took Grover’s place, and I gave him nine good ones that had him doing a little yelping. Then it was Clay’s turn. I was able to see vague handprints from the early swats he’d taken, and I was able to turn his slightly rosy bottom a much more distinct red color before I’d landed all thirteen. He was also doing a more vigorous wiggling with each swat, though he had his yelping a bit more under control this time.

As soon as I let Clay up, he gave himself a good rub, then nearly yanked his briefs and jeans up. As soon as David saw Clay dressing, he did the same.



Have you ever heard the expression ‘payback’s a mother’? The problem with a game like Hearts is that many of the points are thrown as ‘offs’—when someone can’t follow suit. Therefore, you might innocently throw out a mid-level diamond and end up receiving the Queen of Spades. Once you’ve caught the queen, unless you’re able to shot the moon, you’re in last place. The best you can hope for is ten swats on the bare. Or, one other person can catch all the hearts, in which case you’re tied for third, the other two players are tied for first, and you’re going to get twenty-six swats on your briefs. I think ten bare is still better.

Clay must have thought Grover was swatting too hard or something because that’s what happened to him. Grover played a fairly innocent card and caught the Queen of Spades for his trouble. I think I came in third, and Clay first, so Clay got to have Grover, bare, over his lap.

The game went back and forth like that. I think Clay had a repeat turn bare before I had my first turn, but it wasn’t long before all of us had been last. As the game went on, things got worse, simply because we were all getting tender. It only takes a few minutes to play a hand, even if someone has to take a long pause to choose a card. That means that half of us were getting some pretty stingy swats every five minutes or so and, once you started getting tender, even the swats on the jeans started to do a little more than tickle.

I don’t know about the other guys, but I was actually dragging the game out. I loved watching the other guys getting swats—loved watching those jeans and briefs go up and down. Instead of dumping points on one person, trying to run him out of the game, I was watching the score and dropping points on anyone who was lagging behind, trying to keep the score pretty even. Someone has to get at least thirteen points every hand, but it’s theoretically possible for a normal (hundred point) game of hearts to last eight turns. That was my goal.

I’d already popped wood at least a couple of times. I’ve been into spanking all my life and was loving this game (even while I was getting a little sore), but at that point in my life, the front side was of as much, or even more, interest as the backside was. I’d seen all three boys standing there, pants and briefs around their knees, maybe rubbing their sore butts after getting swatted on their briefs, waiting for their bare spanks, and had been checking them out while watching the spanking action at the same time. As in height, David was the smallest of us, hanging short and lean between a not big pair of balls, with just a few wisps of hair starting to appear on his lower belly. Grover was the nicest. He wasn’t quite as thick as Clay looked to be and was hairless, but was longer, with the head hanging past the bottom of his sac, which was loose with a medium-sized pair. I think I was eight months older than the oldest of the other three and it showed, being at least as thick as Clay, as long as Grover, but with more hair that was starting to spread towards my balls, though my sac didn’t dangle as far as Clay’s.

Their bottoms were as different as their fronts. David really was pretty scrawny, and his butt was nearly flat. Clay was chubby, not just in face and belly, but in his bottom cheeks, which were round, full, and only slightly dimpled. For my taste, Grover was the nicest here too—not wide, but full and with definite dimples, but not so deep they looked hollow.

I didn’t mind popping wood with my jeans on, but when I’d had pants or more down, I’d acted like I was in the gym showers again, and stored the images without processing them; but I was worried about being able to keep it up. Then it became a non-issue.

Grover had hopped up from my lap and shoved down his briefs so he could enjoy a good rub. I’d gone over David’s lap for my jeans spanks, and now Clay was over David’s lap, getting smacked on his briefs. I wasn’t really rubbing and glanced over at Grover when I realized he was stiff as a board. I don’t think he even realized it until he saw me staring, then he went red, but stayed stiff. David let Clay up and started to call Grover over, when he saw what was going on and whistled. As soon as Clay saw it, he laughed.

"Thank God. I kept nearly getting hard every time I rubbed, but I didn’t want to be the first one."

I had to laugh at that and admitted the same problem. David was staring with a bit of jealousy but didn’t make any comments as Grover went over his lap, though I think David might have given those next swats a little harder than normal. After Grover broke the ice and Clay laughed it off, I realized all of us were getting hard. And pretty soon, we’d all shown one while bare. Of course, if I’d known adolescent boys better back then, I guess I would mainly have been surprised at how long we lasted before showing.



I wanted to make the game last, since I was unsure I’d get everyone to agree to another, but I kept looking at the cards I was dealt and thinking of shooting the moon. It’s an extremely gratifying move, especially when you manage to secure it before anyone realizes what you’re doing. With a really good hand, you can be solidly in the lead and your opponents can’t do anything to stop you. It is also, however, a very dangerous move. All it takes is for one card to fall wrong, and you’re stuck.

When I’d explained my ideas for this game, everyone had agreed with me that instead of as you’d do with a normal tie, in which the winner would be first and everyone else would be tied for second, if someone shot the moon, the other three would be tied for last—meaning twenty-six bare butt smacks for each of them. No one had tried it, and I had what looked like a nearly perfect hand. I couldn’t stand it anymore.

I had a good hand for shooting the moon even from deal: four of the five highest spades, three of the four highest hearts, the two highest clubs, and some off cards. I passed three of the four offs, keeping a mid-range club that could be thrown out in the first hand (when you can’t throw, count), and received back the Ace of Diamonds, the high spade I was missing, and a mid-range diamond that I could just throw off with no problem.

The game began exactly as I’d expected, and I quickly took the lead. I looked closely at my cards for a minute, then threw the mid-diamond, while everyone should have at least one. Except Clay didn’t, and he threw a heart on it. David caught that trick, then came back in a spade. I couldn’t help but catch it, and never got out of the lead, leaving me with twenty-five points, and Grover and Clay tied for first.

The spankings were delayed a bit while everyone rolled on the floor laughing at me, but I finally lay over David’s lap and let him give me his twenty-four swats on my jeans. We both stood and he shoved his jeans down, while I shoved down my jeans and jockeys, then watched David get one swat each from Grover and Clay before I took my combined fifty from the two of them. They weren’t being incredibly hard, but they weren’t going soft either. By the time Clay landed the last swat, I was yelping and squirming, and don’t mind admitting that I had to dry my glasses before I could see clearly again. That many spanks hurt!



We finished off that game, with everyone playing much more cautiously. I was wondering about my chances of getting everyone to play another when Clay suggested it, and everyone agreed to it. The main point was, we realized that nothing special happened to the ultimate loser under my rules, so we added a bit before starting the second game. We were going to play to one hundred again, so it was decided that anyone who went over a hundred had to get buck naked, no matter what they would normally get, and that the actual loser, the one with the highest point total when the game ended, had to get his spanks with a novelty paddle I’d won at Six Flags the previous spring (it wasn’t very heavy, but it wouldn’t start to hurt like your hand would).

We all agreed we were pretty tender and ended up taking a break before starting the second game. We all chipped in some coins and went up to 7-11 to get a quart of soda. Then we came home, and I made hot dogs for everybody. After lunch, we checked the TV Guide, but there was nothing showing on any of the five channels (six if the channel from Tyler was coming in!), so we ended up back in my room.

This game was just as much fun as the first. Things continued to pop up on a regular basis, and even though it happened to all of us, it served as a continual source of embarrassment and amusement. We were all getting pretty tender, so the reactions were more extreme. Even the interplay as people promised to get each other back was amusing, unless you were the one doing it. All of us were steadily red, barely fading back to rose before something was added, yet we were all having a great time and laughing, occasionally even when it was through tears.

After my brilliant example of how and why not to shot the moon, everyone played very cautiously, and we were managing to keep the scores close. Then fate called again. I remembered how badly it had hurt when I’d failed—literally and figuratively, but it looked like a perfect hand. More than that, there weren’t going to be more than two more games. We were all pretty close. I think Clay was the furthest ahead, with eighty-nine or ninety points, while the rest of us were in the lower eighties or upper seventies, with only a few points between us. Finally, I just couldn’t resist and passed my three offs.

It was perfect. I got the lead with the second trick and didn’t lose it until the final hand, when all the points were already in.

"Twenty-six points each puts all three of you over one hundred, so you can get stripped… all the way. Clay, you’re in the lead, so grab the paddle."

There were three sets of groans and protests, but no one tried to back out. I climbed into the chair and watched while the three of them stripped down. Clay seemed to be the least shy of all of us and was quickly out of all his clothes. Grover and David both stopped in their socks, but Clay actually took off every stitch, then grabbed the paddle and stood there, already half-hard.

Once they were all ready, I had to decide whom to do first. Part of the reason I was sitting tender was because I’d had fourteen points the last hand, and David, who’d had zero, laid the swats on pretty hard. As a matter of fact, he’d been getting everybody pretty well the whole day. I thought about making him wait for last, dreading what might be coming, but decided I wanted to get him first, while my hand was fresh.

He moaned when I motioned for him but didn’t resist, and was quickly over my lap. He was moaning more before I finished. His butt was already nearly red when I started, and it was crimson before I finished. He was trying to be tough, but I was giving those smacks hard—just like he’d been doing it, and he was whimpering and even sobbing a bit before I let him up. Just like I’d had to do when I’d tried and failed, he had to stop and dry his glasses before he could see right.

It only took me a minute to decide between the remaining two. Grover not only had the nicest backside, but he played a pretty conservative game, so I’d had less chance to get him over my lap than the rest. I wanted to save him. Besides, getting Clay next let me use the paddle and rest my hand.

Even with the paddle, I doubt that I spanked Clay any harder than I had David. While the paddle wasn’t flexible, so probably stung more, I wasn’t irritated at him. Besides, he was tougher than David. Not that Clay wasn’t making some noise before I got through. He was ooching and ouching, wiggling and squirming, but also laughing a bit, though that might have just been him choking down sobs. Whatever the cause, he jumped up after twenty-six, dancing around and rubbing his rear. His dick had been half-hard to start, and jumping around like that hadn’t softened it. By the time I had Grover over my lap, he’d stopped dancing as was as hard as a rock—nearly as hard as I was.

Grover’s spanking was almost anticlimactic. I wasn’t smacking as hard as I could, and I wasn’t using a paddle. Still, I was darkening that pretty, rosy red bottom and the other boys were appreciating it. David had finally settled down and, like Clay, was absently rubbing his own backside while watching me smack Grover, and was slowly growing stiffer and stiffer. Grover wasn’t quite as tough as Clay, and he was not only yelping and ouching, but he had to stifle a couple of sobs before I finished with him.

As Grover climbed to his feet, wiping discreetly at a couple of unshed tears before starting to rub, Clay made a comment about David’s size, or lack thereof. David, not having much he could say in reply, pointed out that Clay was still smaller than I was. I’m not sure exactly what happened next, but I quickly found myself as naked as the other boys and digging through a box in the closet to find an old school ruler. Then we were standing in a circle, and it only took a quick touch for Grover to be just as hard as the rest of us.

I’m not going to swear I’m remembering this correctly, but it seems like I was right at four inches, while Grover came in second at three and a half. Much to his disgust, Clay was right behind him at three and three-eighths, but took comfort in the fact that Grover’s was thinner than his. David was last, at only two and three quarters, and was a little thinner than Grover. Still, he was big enough.

Can you imagine what happened next, with four hard, naked, and well-stimulated adolescents in a room? We were quickly kneeling down on the floor, each boy’s knees touching someone else’s in a rough square, with butts on heels. At first, we were watching each other as we stroked ourselves, but it didn’t take long before Clay brushed my hand away and took over for me. I reached over and started to do David, and the chain completed itself.

I guess it was the same for the other boys, but I know I was hot! All the ups and downs had me nearly on hair trigger, and the pleasurable, throbbing ache in my rear wasn’t calming me down. It was only in the last seconds, when I saw Grover’s face go red, that I realized what was about to happen, and I jerked out of Clay’s grasp, so I could lean to the side, grab my t-shirt and throw it on the floor between us.

Once I was back in position, Clay went back to work, but I was happy to see I’d made it. Almost as soon as the shirt was down, Grover went up. I’d swear the first shot jetted almost chin high before arching down onto the shirt. The sound he made was too loud to be called a gasp, and I think he stopped moving (and maybe breathing) for a moment. I know Clay’s hand and mine did, but I could see David watching avidly as he continued to milk Grover. Finally, Grover had shot his wad and couldn’t stand the contact anymore, jerking out of David’s hand.

Grover did stay in place though, and the rest of us continued to work. David, with nothing else to do, was leaning back on his heels, eyes closed, and looking blissful, until he added his own little pool to the ocean that Grover had shot. Apparently John had taught his little brother the same thing he taught me, and David was an avid practitioner. That left just me and Clay, and we shifted so that we could do each other. Both of us were red-faced and breathing hard, and I was fighting hard to hold off. When I felt Clay start to spasm, I quit fighting and we both shot off at the same time. Because of the way we’d moved, we ended up getting as much on each other’s legs as on the shirt.

By the time Clay and I climaxed, Grover and David had sprawled out on the floor. Knowing a good idea when we saw it, Clay and I joined them. After a while, we got up to get cleaned up, but we’d waited a bit too long, and we all ended up in the shower, washing the dried mess off. I rinsed off the shirt, then threw it in the dryer, but all of us quickly got dressed. For some reason, all of us were feeling awkward and shy around each other and wanted to be dressed.



The next day, Wednesday, I kept waiting, but no one came over. Finally, I walked over to Clay’s house. He was home, and we kicked a soccer ball around for a while, but he wouldn’t talk about the day before, and I couldn’t force myself to broach the subject. I ended up inviting him over the next day, then heading for the convenience store to check on new comics.

It was Friday, not Thursday, when we got together again. We were killing time, all of us awkward and nervous, when someone finally suggested we play Hearts again—same rules. There was some hemming and hawing, as much because no one wanted to look too eager, I think, as any real reason.

All of us had been bruised after Tuesday, and were still a bit tender, so we only played one game. It was a good game, though. After my success at the end of the last game, and after a very conservative game this time, David tried to shoot the moon and missed it. He ended up naked, and getting 25 swats with the paddle from both Grover and me. We took it pretty easy on him, but he was still crying a little by the time Grover let him up. He wasn’t crying so hard we didn’t all end up on the floor again, but this time, I thought far enough ahead to get a damp towel from the laundry before we got started.



I never played the game with those same guys again. David and I weren’t really friends; though we would end up doing stuff together for a number of years yet, it was always by accidentally running into each other, never planned. Clay and I remained friendly, but he was a horn-dog with female orientation, so wasn’t interested in those games, except as an easy way of relief. I don’t even remember Grover after that year.

Grover did come over the next week, though. Clay and David were both visiting their fathers. My father was at work, and I decided I’d rather be bored at Mom’s house, where I at least had my comic collection. I’m not sure exactly what day it was, but probably Wednesday or Thursday, when everyone had gone back after Christmas.

We talked about all the stuff boys that age do, and even about comics a bit, though he’d not really read any in years. Then we talked about the game, and I jokingly suggested a two-player version. He laughed, but protested there was no way he was taking any spanks today. Hearing that, I had to press.

"Well," he told me, in his still upper tenor voice, "Dad doesn’t let me stay up real late, except during the summer. He says it’s too hard to get me up when school starts again. I’m supposed to go to bed at midnight. Well, last night, there was this movie coming on at midnight that I wanted to watch, so I turned all the lights off, and turned the TV down real low, but I guess he woke up and saw the light."

"You get a whipping?"

He blushed, but admitted it with a nod. "When he saw me, he just turned around and went back to his room, but then came right back out with his belt. He motioned me to get up, then took me to my room. I had to pull off my shorts and lay down so he could do it."

"Was it really bad?"

"Not the worst I ever got, but it didn’t tickle," he assured me in a mildly sarcastic voice.

"Can I see it?"

He looked at me for a minute, then nodded and started to undo his pants. After a second, he stopped and looked at me. "You wanna jerk off again?"

It was my turn to nod shyly, and we both stripped our clothes off.

Grover lay down on my bed and let me examine his rear. It was covered in what looked like a fading pink snakeskin pattern. Apparently his dad whipped with the tip of the belt, and the pattern was the result. He’d come over first thing in the morning and hadn’t said when his dad caught him, but it must have been nine hours or so. If that wasn’t really bad, I hate to think of what would be.

Grover moaned and sighed as I ran my hands gently across his tender rear, and that was just making me hotter. Finally, as much as I loved playing with his butt, I told him to roll over, and I stretched out beside him.

Grover really tried to hold out and did a pretty good job. I went off almost as soon as he did, but I was only able to splatter my chest. He actually got some on his face. That boy really needed to release a little more tension.







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