Noah Haynes
(This story occurred about two weeks after Halloween.)
It must have been a Tuesday, because the kids were at school, and I was at home. As a matter of fact, I know it was Tuesday, because I’d just finished making the menu for the week, and was putting the final touches on the grocery list when the doorbell rang.
I pulled the front door open and was confronted by a ragamuffin. The boy looked vaguely familiar; not like I knew him, but in the way of someone that you see on a regular basis at the drug store, but then can’t place when you see them elsewhere. That might have been because he was dressed inappropriately for the cool weather we had that day, and he and his clothes were both dirty from head to toe. I knew it was literally true, since one of his sneakers had had a blow out.
When I opened the door, his mouth opened, but then he just stared at me.
"The kids are all at school, and isn’t that where you should be?"
"You have kids," he asked, in a voice that sounded a little more surprised than it should have.
"Yes, I have kids, and if you don’t know that, why are you here? And why aren’t you in school anyway?" I had the feeling that if you scraped a little dirt off, the kid might be cute; but, I was never much for playing twenty questions.
"I ran away," he responded, like it wasn’t important. "Are you John Patrick Wells?" The kid’s voice was very earnest, as if this was the most important question he’d ever asked.
"You’re a little young for a process server, aren’t you?"
He didn’t get the joke and obviously didn’t have much patience, so I answered him.
"Everyone calls me Jack; but, yes, that’s my name. Are you going to tell me who you are?"
"My name’s Noah. I’m your son."
Twenty minutes later, the boy… Noah walked into the kitchen. His hair was still damp and already starting to curl. He definitely needed a cut, not because it was too long in general, but when your hair curled like that, it was best to keep it shorter than he wore it. Still, the curls made him look even more familiar. It would probably drive me crazy until I figured it out.
I’d been right about how he would clean up. He’d gotten in the shower, while I found some clothes for him. He was at least as tall as Ryan, about 5’3" or so, I was guessing, but he was a little stockier. Not fat, but you could tell he had a heavy bone structure. I’d brought him a pair of Daniel’s sweatpants and a big t-shirt that seemed to fit him okay, and he was wearing a pair of Caleb’s boxers, since Daniel is pretty lean.
He climbed onto a stool, and I sat a breakfast plate in front of him. Whatever else the kid had to say, he’d obviously been cold, hungry, and filthy. I don’t care who he claimed to be, I thought it best to take care of him first. I was sure my shower was going to have a ring around the base but he’d stayed in there long enough for me to fix a good breakfast for him.
I didn’t ask questions as he tucked in, but had a cup of cappuccino. I usually try to avoid caffeine these days, but I thought it was a good alternative to the whiskey that I was really wanting. The boy put away 3 scrambled eggs, two pieces of leftover, grilled ham, a bagel with cream cheese, an English muffin (with butter and I even let him use my special stash of L.L. Bean blueberry preserves), two bowls of Crunch Berries, 2 toaster hash browns, 2 Eggos with plenty of syrup (more L.L. Bean, but I can afford to be nice to a starving kid), a glass of milk, 2 glasses of orange juice, and a hot chocolate. Part way through, he admitted that he hadn’t had anything to eat since the morning before, when he’d bought a pint of milk and swiped a box of donuts.
When he was finally getting full (or maybe his jaws were just getting tired), I finally got to the things that had been making me crazy since he’s shown up.
"Full?" He nodded and took a sip of cocoa. "Good. Now, what on God’s green Earth makes you think you’re my son?"
He looked up over the rim of the cup, trying to do puppy dog eyes, which, I can tell you from personal experience, is hard to do with blue eyes. I just stared at him for a minute until he put the cup down.
"My mom told me that my dad was John Patrick Wells of Bransom, Texas. He was the only guy she slept with around that time."
"Okay, well, let’s look at this then. When’s your birthday?"
"September 26th."
"How old are you? 13?"
He smiled. "12." For a kid, being considered older was a compliment.
"You just turned 12! Geez. Anyway, if your mom delivered you on 9/26, that means she must have got pregnant about…"
"New Years Eve, 1995."
"You already knew that, huh?"
"Yeah, that’s where she met you, at that party at the New Year’s Eve Party at the Horseshoe Casino. She said you promised to come back, but never did. She said if you were that kinda guy, she didn’t want nuthin to do with you."
I loved listening to the boy speak. He had a weird accent. It wasn’t quite Louisianan, but it wasn’t quite a Texas drawl, either. It was only later that I found out his mom had grown up in Iowa, and I guess he picked something up from her, as well. Of course, it wasn’t as pleasant as it could have been, since that was my name he was defaming.
"Look, kid… Noah, I can promise you, I’m not your dad." He looked up at me, obviously starting to get mad at my continued denials. "Why don’t you just ask your mom. She’ll tell you it wasn’t me?"
The boy quickly went from mad to broken. His face crumpled and his eyes teared up. I was already moving around the counter when he said, "She’s dead! Why don’t you just admit it, damn you!"
I pulled him into a hug that he didn’t much want, but he only resisted for a moment. He was still seated on the bar stool, so I gently rocked back and forth with him until he settled down.
"I hate to tell you this, kiddo; but, on I stayed home on New Years, 1995. I remember because Steve had just turned 14 and he had some friends over, so I had a few of my friends over. Seth is the only one that went out."
"Who’s Seth and Steve?"
I figured he needed the diversion to help recover, so I explained.
"Seth is my cousin. He lived with me, after his parents moved, so he could finish high school here. Steve is my oldest son. He’s going to be 27 next month."
He looked at me, pretty obviously revising my age up a bit. (What can I say? I look young for my age. Probably all the toys I play with.)
"Anyway, you should be happy you’re not my kid, Noah. If you were, between doing something as dangerous and plain dumb as running away, and the language you’ve been using this morning, you wouldn’t sit down for a week."
He looked at me and blushed a bit. "You’d spank me?"
"I spank all my boys, when they need it."
"I ain’t been spanked in a while. It’d be okay though. I wouldn’t mind if my dad spanked me." He paused a second and his voice became a little doubtful. "A whole week?"
"Well, maybe I’m exaggerating, but it doesn’t matter. What does matter is, we have to figure out what to do with you now. Why’d you run away? For that matter, why didn’t you just call?"
"I ran away because that foster home I was living in was working me like a nig…"
I interrupted him. "Don’t say it. We do NOT use that word around here. Understand?"
He nodded, then continued. "Well, they was working me hard. And I figured if I came out here, maybe you’d admit it, but even when you saw how much alike we look, you didn’t, and now you say it couldn’t have been you." He paused again. I think he was trying to balance the facts with his desire. The problem was, now that he pointed it out, he really did look some like me, but more like Jason.
"But Mom told me that my dad was John Patrick Wells of Bransom, Texas, and you’re the only one in the phone book."
And then the thunderbolt hit me. As his hair had dried, it revealed a subtle hint of red; but, besides that, he looked so much like Jason - all of my dad’s boys resemble each other, but he looked a lot more like Jason, and a bit more like Matt, than like me - and I suddenly understood. I can only claim willful blindness for not having seen it before. It hit me so hard that I staggered back. Noah saw it and knew something had happened.
"What is it?"
"Christ, Noah. My name isn’t John Patrick Wells."
"But when you answered the door, you said…"
"My name’s John Patrick Wells, JUNIOR. You’re not my son. You’re my brother."
For a moment, it was like he didn’t hear me. Then his eyes went wide.
"Are you serious? Your brother? Where’s our dad?"
My face fell, and the excitement fled his.
"What?" he asked. "What’s wrong?"
"Noah, Patrick died last spring."
No! You’re lying, mother fucker!"
Dr. Jekyll or Larry Talbot should have changed as fast and well as this boy did. His cries stunned me, but not as much as the fist that caught me on the jaw. I was just able to twist enough to catch his knee in my thigh, instead of someplace more delicate. My eyes doubled for a second from the hit to the jaw, and he used it to come up swinging.
I don’t know if the first blow was lucky or if he was too stressed to concentrate. Either way, the follow up blows weren’t aimed at all and none of them did any real damage. I'm sure the tears flooding his face probably were making it a little harder for him to see where he was aiming. And I shouldn’t have been too surprised he wasn’t concentrating well, since he was screaming at me the entire time. At first, the ringing in my ears rather drowned it out. As it went on (for what seemed like hours, though I’m sure it was only seconds), I could hear him, mostly as he was running out of steam. I’m not sure I remember all of it, but I got the general gist, and some of it still sticks out for me. (And I’m going to leave out the rest of the curses. I’m sure you can fill in most of what he said, though he was pretty creative for a twelve-year old.)
"You’re lying! Why’re you lying to me. You’re him. You’re my father. He can’t be dead." By this point, the boy was crying loud and hard, and he wasn’t trying to hit me so much as just hold himself up. "He can’t be. He was supposed to take care of me. He was going to love me…."
His voice was slowly trailing away, and if he said anything after that, I didn’t hear it. I should have been angry with him, but I couldn’t be. I just held him, and he collapsed against me, crying again. I couldn’t change the past, nor the fact that he was an orphan, so I did the only thing I could do.
"I do, Noah, and I will. You’ll always have a place here."
Three hours later and I was beginning to go insane. PJ had come in, looked at the new kid, said something about not letting me bring home any more strays, and then wisely went to do the grocery shopping I’d missed. I’d been on the phone with Richard twice. When he’d hired a family law specialist for his firm, he’d joked that it was only because of me. At times like this, I seriously believed he hadn’t been joking. I’d called Maggie at CPS and explained the situation to her. She was checking with Louisiana. I’d also filed a report with the police (runaway, not assault). I’d also called the primary family law judge in our area (with Richard’s blessing) and gotten permission to have a rush job done on DNA testing for me, Noah, and Jason (which should prove if we were half-brothers by our father, beyond a shadow of a doubt). We’d all taken a trip to have blood drawn. In the meantime, the judge was willing to keep him in town pending the results. If the situation checked out as Noah had claimed, he said it'd be pretty quick and easy to grant me custody. Until then, he’d have to be turned over to CPS. As soon as the call came through on that, Maggie called to ask if I was interested in taking in a short-term foster child, until proof of relationship could be established. I told her I’d think about it (which earned me a punch in the arm by Noah, who was listening on the speaker).
I hung up the phone after her call. She and Richard had both told me it would probably take a couple of days to get any action, mainly waiting on the DNA tests. I was paying for a rush job, but there’s only so fast you can rush those things. I turned to Noah, who looked half-stunned. He’d gotten what he’d wanted, but I don’t think it was anything like what he’d imagined.
"Okay, kiddo. That’s that for now. Now we can only wait. For them. We, however, still have about three more things to take care of."
He gave me a questioning look, so I went on.
"First, your nephews will be home in about…" I glanced at the clock, "two hours. You need to decide what you’re going to call me, so we know what to tell them."
"You said your name is Jack," he stated questioningly, not seeing where I was going.
"Yes, it is. And that’s what all my brothers call me; but, my sons call me ‘Dad’."
He just looked at me. "But you said you’re my brother."
"Right, but if I’m going to get custody of you and raise you for the next six years or more, then there’s no reason I can’t adopt you. If that’s what you … Oooff!"
The last wasn’t planned, but the result of him hitting me with a flying bear hug.
"Okay," I continued, "We’ll plan for the adoption from the first, and you can start calling me dad right now."
He just smiled. "Okay, Dad," he said, and his smile became a grin as he tried the taste of that in his mouth.
"The second thing is, we need to do some shopping. None of the clothes you had with you were real good before you did the hike. We can see what’ll fit you from the hand-me-down closet, then go get anything else you need."
I sat quiet for a minute, until he became uncomfortable.
"You said there were three things."
"Right, but I already told you what the other one was." He gave me a blank look, so I continued. "Remember? I told you that you wouldn’t want to be my son, because of …"
He cut in. "You’re going to spank me?"
"Are you going to tell me that you don’t deserve a good spanking right now?"
He didn’t know what to say to that and just looked at me for a minute. He’d already said he’d be willing to get spanked to be part of a family, but he had obviously not expected it with this immediacy.
When he didn’t answer, I walked over to him, gently took his upper arm, and told him, "We’ll usually do this in your bedroom, but let’s go to my office for now."
Once in my office, I turned the spanking chair to face him, then dug into the paddle drawer for a minute before finding what I’d already decided upon. I pulled out the leather paddle I’d bought on eBay not to long ago.
"What’s that?" he asked, not sounding especially threatened, but not very happy either.
I explained that it was just a leather paddle, something of a cross between a paddle and a strap, since it was stiff leather. I’d not used it on a boy before, but Brain and I had played around with it a few times, and I knew that, if I was careful, it would be just what a 12 year old who was big for his age would need - a lot of sting, and a bit of lingering soreness to remind him of his correction for a bit.
"Step over here and hold your shirt up under your arms."
"How come I have to hold my shirt up?"
"Two reasons, Noah. Well, three really, if you count the fact that I told you to. First, because it keeps your hands occupied and out of the way. Second, because it gets your shirt out of the way so I can get to your pants."
It took him about a second to get that.
"You’re gonna pull my pants down?"
"Not just your pants, kiddo," I replied calmly.
His eyes went wide and his voice went loud and up about a half-octave, cracking halfway through as he asked, in a rather panicked voice, "You’re gonna spank my bare butt?"
His shirt had been climbing his belly, but it now dropped back down.
"Do you gotta spank me today? Can’t you give me another chance?"
I honestly thought about this one. This isn’t a kid who was moving in with me because he’d been in trouble. This wasn’t a kid who had been living with me and knew the rules that he’d broken. On the other hand, this is a kid that had done something incredibly dumb, and who was smart enough to have found a way to call, if he’d really wanted to.
"Yeah, Noah. I really think I do have to spank you. Maybe it’s not fair to you, but you could have been killed. Worse, you could have been kidnapped and raped, then tortured to death. What you did was VERY irresponsible and dangerous. And that’s not the only thing you’ve done, is it?"
"You mean hitting you?" he responded very meekly.
"No. Hitting me was a stress response -- you did it from shock and disbelief. I don’t think I’ll ever let it pass again, but it was a special case. I was talking about the fact that you stole that food yesterday."
"But I was hungry."
"Which you wouldn’t have been, if you hadn’t run away. See where I’m going?"
He looked for inspiration in the carpet, but finally looked up at me and nodded.
"And cause I cuss a bunch, too. Right?"
"Actually, no. I’m willing to admit that you might not have known that running away is illegal. I firmly believe there’s no way you didn't know that running away was dangerous. I think the same is true about stealing. If you told me you thought it was okay to steal, I’d call you a liar. However, cursing is an area where different people have different standards, so I’m going to tell you our rules on that and give you a chance to correct yourself, before I do it the hard way. Okay?"
He nodded, then replied, "I did know stealing was wrong. I was just so hungry. I know," he interrupted me as I started to reiterate my point on that, "it was still wrong and it was my fault I was hungry. I didn't know it was illegal to runaway, but I guess I did hear about all those kids getting hurt and stuff…" his voice trailed away.
Actually, running away wasn’t REALLY illegal. I think the law just allows runaways to be taken into custody, but since it can also be used to declare a child incorrigible and commit them to a youth facility, it wasn’t a distinction we really needed to worry about right then. Instead, I offered him a break.
"Noah, you’re going to get spanked, and I think you understand why you deserve it. However, if you want a few minutes to get used to the idea, we can sit and talk for a few minutes. It would probably be good for you to hear how I run this house and what you’ll have to expect for the next few years."
He nodded, so we moved over to the couch. I sat next to him and dropped my arm around his shoulders. He tensed at first, but then relaxed and leaned into me.
"One thing I’ve found," I started out, "is that boys are just like other small, semi-tame animals: they love being petted and they need it. The difference is, some people feel uncomfortable being affectionate with boys, so boys grow up being uncomfortable. Not in this house. I felt you flinch when I put my arm around you, so I’ll warn you right now - get used to it. It’s good for you, and you don’t even have to worry about me doing it in front of your friends, because I’ll probably treat them the same way. Got me?"
He tried to sound like he was accepting it reluctantly and only under protest, but his voice was almost eager as he said, "I guess I can handle it."
I reached up and mussed his hair before moving on.
"I already told you you’re going to have to clean up your language; but, that doesn’t mean just not cursing. I haven’t noticed you doing this yet, so I’ll tell you now I expect you to say please and thank you, and an occasional sir or ma’am - as in yes sir and no ma’am - won’t kill you. I don’t expect you to use it every sentence or even every discussion, and I really don’t care if you say it to me as much as other people, but it’s always good to be polite, and that needs to be true as much to your little brothers as to your teachers. Got it?"
"Yes…" he stopped, so I lightly tapped my knuckles on the top of his head and he yelped playfully, then finished, "sir."
I moved away from him a bit and turned so I could face him. My arm came down from his shoulders, but I made sure to keep plenty of contact the entire time we talked, including shifting back to that position.
I started by explaining to the boy why I spanked. Not the things for which I spanked; but why I thought spanking was necessary. I told him how everyone had to face the consequences of their actions, and how, for adults, that could lead to losing friends or jobs, or being fined or imprisoned. He hated to admit it, but agreed that a sore bottom wasn’t bad price to pay to learn to avoid those things later.
Noah felt bad about having hit me, so we talked for a minute about the difference in spanking and hitting. He’d already had some basic geometry and remembered that all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles were squares. From there, it was easy to explain that all spanking involves hitting, but that doesn’t make them the same thing. While the way he hit me could have knocked out a tooth or even broken my jaw, a real spanking was given in a way and delivered to a place that it would cause pain, but not damage. After he admitted he felt bad about stealing the food hed taken, I explained how spankings are cathartic, giving the child a release over the bad feelings, and cleaning the slate for parent and child, since they both knew the child had accepted the consequences of his actions, and it was time to put that behind them and move on.
"Do you understand all that, Noah?"
He nodded, then said ‘yes sir.’
"Then do you know what time it is?"
He nodded again. "Time for you to spank my butt."
I stood and he stood with me. I placed my hand on the back of his neck and gently guided him back towards the spanking chair, he followed me a few steps, then stopped. I turned towards him.
"Jack?" he said softly, "Dad, if I got to get it bare, can I just take the stuff off, instead of you pulling it down and all?"
"Noah, I usually consider embarrassment part of the spanking, and I pull the younger kid’s clothes down for them, both to speed things up and because it lets them know who’s in charge."
I looked at him for a minute, then decided.
"Okay. I’m making no promises about next time, but if that’s how you want it, that’s how we’ll do it today. Get them off."
I hate to admit it, but I watched with intense expectation as he stripped. He was tall for 12, but hardly the tallest I’ve ever known. Over the years, I’ve known 11 year olds that looked 14, and 16 year olds that could pass for 12. The fact that he was already about 5’4" gave me an idea of what to expect, but I wanted to see it.
I hadn’t gotten a good look at him earlier, so was thrilled when his shirt went up and over his head. There was a small, thin patch of dark hair under each arms, but his belly was bare. It was also lean and hard. He didn’t have a six-pack, but the outside was defined, and he had that crease down the middle. If he wanted a six-pack, he could have had it without too much more work. His arms were firm and fit as well. He wasn’t ripped, but he was lean and wiry and in good shape.
Noah dropped the t-shirt on the floor beside him, then slipped his fingers into the waistband of his borrowed sweats and boxers. He looked at me for a moment, then took a deep breath and shoved them down his legs. When the wad of clothing hit his ankles, he shifted back and forth to pull them loose. He started to stand, then stopped and looked at me from a half-bent position.
"Is that good, or do I have to take off my socks, too."
"Watch the sarcasm, mister," I snapped, and he looked apologetic, so I moved on. "No, you can leave your socks on."
He stood and dropped the ball of clothing on top of his shirt. He seemed unsure of what to do with his hands, and they just wandered almost randomly. I spoke to him again, taking a minute to check him out.
Like most of the boys in our family, Noah was a big-boned. Not fat, but he was a bit wider than normal in the shoulders and hips. His legs were as lean and firm as his arms, and he was obviously used to walking or biking, because he had well-defined calves. Then my eyes crawled back up to what I'd really been waiting to see.
Noah's scrotum was loose and dangly and his balls were both clearly separate and a nice size. It’s always hard to tell, but his penis didn’t look too long, not quite hanging to the bottom of his sac, but it was obviously fairly thick, even soft. His pubic hair seemed slightly more red than that on his head. It was thick and long enough to be curly, but only made a small swath across the upper base of his penis, and not quite an inch wide. His sac and legs were still smooth, but it looked like a few hairs were starting to spread onto the base of his shaft.
Noah was kind enough to be looking elsewhere, giving me time to examine him. Before he could turn back to me, I called his attention back to me.
"I think we already talked enough about spanking in general, and why you’re about to get this one, that we can skip any more lectures. Do you have any questions, or are you ready to get on with it?"
"No way I can get off this time?"
"I don’t think so, Noah. It looks like you’re part of this family, so I think we should start right now. C’mere."
He moved over to me, and I took his arm to guide him across my lap. His bottom was a little flat, which didn’t surprise me. The odds were, to be that height at just past 12, he’d just had a growth spurt. He had some cheeks though, due more to muscle tone than the normal layer of fat. I’d suspected that, and it was one of the reasons I’d chosen the leather paddle. Much less chance of bruising or damaging the muscles with a flexible object.
Noah never fought me, but he was very reluctant as we got him into place. I saw no reason to delay further, so I carefully placed the paddle on his bottom; then, with a motion that was more wrist than forearm, and no shoulder, the paddle flicked up and snapped down upon his left cheek.
Noah was not what you might call a stoic. He yelled from the first swat, and was begging me to stop, swearing he’d already learned his lesson, and promising anything if I’d only stop. I didn’t, and at about the sixth swat, he started really fighting, trying to get off my lap or cover his bottom. That paddle probably wouldn’t have hurt his hands too much, but I didn’t feel like a fight right then. I released my hold, and his continuing struggle nearly shot him off my lap.
He jumped up and started to rub, but I stopped him with a quick, simple sentence.
"We’re not done yet, Noah."
I grabbed his ears and frog marched him to the sofa.
He wasn’t crying, though his eyes were damp. He was silent as we made the quick trip to the sofa. As I let go of his ear, he turned to face me.
"Please, I’m really sorry, don’t spank me no more."
I put one hand on the back of his neck, and told him, "I think we already covered that Noah. I’m sorry this hurts worse than you thought; but you came here looking to be part of this family. I’m glad you did, but I really think you need to start off with a clean slate." Then I cheated. I took his chin in my free hand and turned it so we were looking directly into each other’s eyes, and said, "Don’t you?"
He sobbed, but nodded his head.
"All right then," I gave him a soft push towards the couch. His hips came a little higher than I wanted, so I took a small pillow from the couch and put it on the arm. "Over that, please, then put your hands behind your back."
"With the pillow under him, his toes barely brushed the ground. Once I took his wrists in my left hand and put a little forward pressure on them, his toes were just off the ground. He had no chance of fighting loose thing time.
I placed the paddle across his bottom, and he immediately tensed up. I left it there a minute and gave serious thought to spanking the boy. He had several dark pink marks across his bottom, but he’d not had anything like what I consider a spanking yet. Should I let him off easy? Should I let him off completely? I just wasn’t sure.
"Noah, any boy in this family that did what you did - even just the theft - would be getting a lot worse than what I’m planning to give you. It’s going to be a really hard spanking, but it’s still just going to be a spanking, and not as hard as some I’ve given. Do you understand that?"
"Yes, sir."
"Did you hear EXACTLY what I said?"
He thought about it for a minute, then said he did, and even repeated it, almost as I’d said it.
"That means that, if I’m going to treat you as part of this family, I’d wear your rear end out. Do you understand that?"
"Yes."
"Do you want me to let you off?"
His voice broke in a sob as he answered, "No. I wanna be your kid."
"You’re my little brother, Noah, and I will adopt you if I can. You ARE part of the family. It just depends on if we start after you get dressed or if we started when I answered the door."
He lay there for a moment, then tried to twist around. I released his wrists and he turned to look back at me. "I wanna be part of the family, I want you to be my dad, and I wanna clear slate. Please just do it 'fore I get too scared."
I turned him back and he put his hands behind his back without me having to ask him. I took both wrists again, lifted the paddle and smacked it down on his bottom.
Noah yelped from the first swat and was quickly yelling, but he didn’t beg anymore. His butt wasn’t tiny, and the paddle was only about two inches wide, so I did a five-down pattern on him. I took five right down the center, then six back and forth on each cheek, before going back to the center again. Five down the crack, then a couple on the sides, though his cheeks were so flat he didn’t have much side. Five more down the center and I moved to his legs. He was howling by this point, crying loud and hard and I knew he’d nearly had enough. He was struggling hard under my hands, but I had all the leverage and he couldn’t do anything but squirm around a bit.
I was ready to move on to his legs. I felt he needed to at least sample the whole thing, so he couldn’t say he hadn’t known what to expect later. On the other hand, I didn’t want to totally break the poor kid either. I knew that paddle was stiff, but was still supple enough to bend, so I laid three down each leg, drawing fresh squeals with each one. I’d really wanted to have him spread his legs, since I rarely used this position, and get a few into the crack, and I always finished by heating the sit spots a little extra, but I think he’d already had more than enough. Part of the family or not, good sample or not, he’d accepted the consequences and it was time to stop.
He was a mess as I helped him to his feet. He started to rub, then was scared to touch it. His face was soaked with tears and snot. His eyes were pleading for comfort, so I stepped to his side, put my left arm behind his back, then bent to grab him around the knees and lifted him.
I carried Noah to my bedroom and sat him down just long enough to change my grip and ease him, face down, onto the bed. I quickly grabbed a spare comforter and covered him gently, up to his waist, then sat beside him and spoke to him - gently and soothingly - assuring him of how brave he’d been and how proud I was of him, all the while rubbing his back. I had literally worn the boy out, and he was asleep before he’d even stopped crying.
There are some things that I rarely have the chance to do. The most important thing is the kids. I try as hard as I can to keep spankings as consequences that they deserve for misbehavior. If they come to think of it as something else, it ruins a lot of things in our lives. So, when I have a chance to do those things safely, it’s very hard to resist them. As soon as I was sure Noah was asleep, I grabbed a disposable rag, drew the comforter to his knees, then slid my rock hard dick out of my pants. I softly traced my left hand over his bottom, while I wrapped the other around myself and began to stroke. I was so wired that it only took a few seconds to pop and I barely got the rag up in time to catch the mess.
As soon as I’d cleaned up and recovered my breath, I tucked the comforter back over Noah’s shoulders and gave him a kiss on the cheek. He didn’t wake, but did shift just a bit and smile.
It had been after 2pm when I tucked Noah in. He must have been tired to start, because he hadn’t awoke by the time the kids came home from school. PJ and I had put up the groceries when he got back, and I’d actually been able to do a little baking. I’d had to do something to keep my hands busy while making all those phone calls, so I'd already made the dough and got it ready.
When the kids came home, I had fresh, just out of the oven cookies awaiting them. While they were pouring milk, I excused myself for a minute. After a quick dash, I was talking to the boys about their days, when we were interrupted.
"That smells delicious. What is…" Noah’s voice trailed off as he saw the crowd.
I'd put the clothes Noah had left in the office next to him, and his damp bangs were the only sign that he'd taken a minute to clean the tears and snot off his face.
"Hey Noah. Do you want chocolate chip cookies, M&Ms, Reese’s Pieces, or Oatmeal - with or without raisins?" I asked him.
"Ummm…" he answered decisively, still studying the crowd of kids. Then the smell penetrated and he turned back to me. "Can I have one of each?"
We compromised on three, and he was taking a bite, while shyly watching the other boys, before someone finally spoke up.
"Hey, Dad," Ryan said, "This guy looks a lot like Huck. Who is he?"
"Who’s Huck," Noah replied.
"Huck is your nephew by Jason. He’s going to be your cousin, I guess."
Noah thought about that for a second, probably filing the name away, or trying to connect his wildly expanded family tree. "Oh, okay."
"Dad," Bobby asked, "if he’s Huck’s uncle, wouldn’t that mean he’s OUR uncle too?"
I nodded and Charlie took over the thread.
"Matt, Jason, Mike, Ben, Aaron, Bryan, and Trent," he said, naming each of my brothers.
"Dad, is there something you’d like to tell us?"
"Apparently your grandfather had one that he didn’t know about. Guys, this is Noah. He’s my half-brother. His mom died a few months ago, and since your grandpa is dead, I’m going to adopt him."
I think it’s safe to say that Noah was overwhelmed by his welcome.
"Hey, Dad," Daniel asked after everyone had introduced themselves, "when did you find out about him?"
Noah was staring at him a bit, apparently surprised to learn he had an Hispanic brother.
"Just this morning. Why?"
"Because they way he’s moving, I’d say you’ve already spanked him, which means that he even beat my record."
Even Noah found that a bit funny. He tried to look ticked, but it’s hard to do that when you’re giggling.