Roger (Un)Willingham

Everyone thinks of the ‘terrible twos’ and of how moody teens can be. The truth is that kids of all ages have trouble at times, even if those two are most pronounced.

I love kids in the eleven to thirteen range because it seems to me that they‘re as mature as they‘re going to get before leaving childhood behind. Around that age, they start being mugged by hormones on a regular basis, and one never knows what to expect.

With younger kids, I think it’s not so much that they’re moody but inexperienced. With adults, they (should) know how to recognize when something’s bothering them. Some days I awaken with a little headache already starting or after I didn’t sleep well, and I know I’m going to have to make a special effort not to bite anyone’s head off. Little kids don’t have the experience to spot that kind of problem or understand it. I’m sure the fact that they don’t have the power to bite off anyone’s head doesn’t make it better. And just to put whipped cream on the top, most kids’ memory only seems to start being coherent at seven or eight, so the younger kids probably don’t even recognize that they’re suffering from some negative emotion, even if they realize something’s wrong.



Monday afternoon was cloudy enough to be dim, as well as being hot and muggy. I’d already decided that my Cub Scout Den needed to work on their fitness that day. As cloudy as it was, it wasn’t actually raining, and as hot as it was, it wasn’t anything compared to what it’ll be like in a month, so we went with that.

I have six Cubbies in the den right now, which seems to be a good number. Van, Dex, Del Garza, Randy Thorn, and Erik Wilkins are the old hands, and Roger Willingham joined us not too long ago when his family moved into the area.

All the Cubbies are pretty good kids, but none of them are perfect. You expect that from eight year olds. I try very hard to make the meetings always fun for them. I know they don’t want to sit still for long meetings since they’ve just come out of school. Van is the only one who goes to BCA, so he gets home later than the other boys. The rest of the cubbies ride home with PJ, who picks them up at the Sanger/Briscoe combined campus.

When the Cubbies arrive at my house, they get snacks first thing. As soon as they’ve been served, I usher them all out to our meeting area, where they can eat and talk a bit. I give them a few minutes to blow off steam and relax, and when they get a bit quiet, I call the meeting to order.

Not everyone does it every week, but my Cubbies like to wear their uniforms to school before a meeting. They’re certainly a cute bunch, running the gamut from Del’s Latino looks to Randy’s blond hair and blue eyes.

I normally try to time it so we start the meeting as soon as Van can join us. He’ll come running out, snack in hand, then set it down to say the oath, The Pledge of Allegiance, and then sing "The Star-Spangled Banner". After that, he stuffs his face while we review business, and I hand out any notes their parents will need.

As soon as that’s finished, we start on the day’s project. Our fitness project is something we do on a semi-regular basis. Last summer, when we first started meeting, we made a chart for each of the boys. In it, we keep track of how many they can do of several basic exercises, how fast they run different distances, and then how well they do on certain games (how long they can keep up a hack-sack, how long with a hula-hoop, how far can they kick a soccer ball into a laundry basket—just fun stuff).

Marcus and Daniel were both helping me that day, which allowed me to break the boys up and keep all of them busy. The problem was, busy wasn’t enough for one of them.

Like I said, sometimes I understand that boys are sometimes moody. Maybe they don’t feel good, even though they don’t recognize it as feeling sick. I understand this and try to watch for it. However, just like it’s not fair to be too hard on a kid who’s not feeling good, it’s not fair to let him make everyone else feel miserable. And that’s what Roger was doing.

I don’t think Roger’s a brilliant kid, but he is quick, he thinks fast on his feet. A lot of times that can be a good thing. Unfortunately, he doesn’t always bother to engage his brain when he starts running his mouth, and he can sometimes be rather offensive without meaning to.

I think he meant to this time.

The first time I noticed it, I just quietly told him he needed to settle down. The second time, it seemed more like he was irritable and lashing out than trying to be funny or offensive, so I took him aside.

"Is something wrong, Rog?"

"Huh-uh," he assured me.

"You’re feeling okay?"

He nodded.

"Everything okay at school today?"

"Yes," he said again, with a tone that, despite his clear soprano, would have done a sullen teenager proud.

That surprised me a bit since Roger is many things, but I’d never seen him sullen. While I haven’t known them long, I also had the feeling that it wouldn’t take much in the way of sass for his father to decide the boy needed a red bottom. Still, I took a deep breath. We were here to have fun, and I needed to remind him of that.

"Well, whether there’s something bothering you or not, you need to watch your mouth. I don’t know if you’re trying to be funny or what, but the other kids aren’t laughing, so settle down. Okay?"

Roger’s a good-looking little fellow, pretty standard size for having just turned eight—about 4’2" and fifty-something pounds. He has light brown hair that’s just a little too shaggy to call a bowl cut and dark brown eyes. His face is basically square, except it looks like someone stuck a rounded triangle on the bottom to serve as a jaw and chin. His lips aren’t really thick or thin and his cheeks aren‘t especially round, but when he smiles, he has very deep dimples. His little nose is a very standard, inverted ‘T’, except that it seems a bit broad at the upper base. The most noticeable thing about him seems to be a light birthmark, almost like a small blob of faded ink, on the left side of his chin. He’s a very cute boy, without being remarkable.

I tried to keep that in mind when he stuck his lip out at me and gave a grudging nod in response to my question. I thought about going from offer of aid to threat right then, but decided to give him one more chance before coming down on him.

It didn’t take five minutes.

I heard something and looked up to see Roger standing over by Marcus, stiff as a board and almost quivering in outrage. I walked over to see what was going on.

"He’s lying about my time," Roger informed me bluntly.

‘Why would he do that?"

"I dunno, but he didn’t time it right."

I asked what Marcus had told him he’d done it in and checked the stopwatch. Roger not only refused to believe it, but also refused to apologize for calling Marcus a liar. I was just about out of patience, but took a deep breath.

"Why don’t you go on so Dex can do his run, then I’ll time it for you later."

"No."

"Excuse me?"

"I wanna do it again now."

"Well, that’s too bad; let’s see your chart. We’ll do someth…"

As I reached for his chart, he snatched it away from me and threw it on the ground."



Two minutes later, we were standing in Van’s room. I was on the bed and holding him firmly in front of me so I could look into his eyes.

"I don’t know what’s wrong with you today, Roger," I said, trying to keep my voice calm and relaxed, "but it’s obvious you’re in a bad mood today. Why don’t you lie down for a little…"

"I don’t wanna."

"All right," I said, taking a deep breath, "then why don’t you sit in the bean bag chair and relax for a little while? You can take off your shoes and…"

"I don’t want my shoes off. I don’t need a nap."

"Well, let me tell you something else you probably don’t want. You probably don’t want a spanking, but you’re about this far," I said, holding my hand up so the first two fingers were about a quarter-inch apart, "from getting one."

His eyes went wide, but then narrowed down, causing an ‘I won’t’ crease between his eyes. His lower lip pouted out, and it was obvious he was gauging me. His father and I hadn’t met very many times before he gave me permission to spank his son, and he actually seemed pretty happy that there was someone whom he’d met and knew held a lot of the same basic values to keep an eye on the boy. The problem is, I’d not spanked him yet and hadn’t spanked any of the other Cubbies while he was around, so, even though he’d heard his dad give me permission, I wasn’t sure he believed me I’d do it.

"Am I wrong? Do you want a spanking?"

He shook his head, though it was a slow, thoughtful shake.

"All right. I want you to relax a while. Get a drink of water, splash some cold water on your face. Sit down for a while if you’d like to. You can come back out when you want, but you need to be ready to start being your usual friendly, polite self. Any more rudeness out of you, and I promise you won’t like it."

Roger was back out there almost before I was. I kept a close eye on him, but he had seemed to settle down a bit. Mostly he was being quiet and doing his own thing; but he made some comment to Daniel that had both of them chuckling. He waited his turn for the hula-hoop without a problem. Then he came back over to me. I was standing not too far from where the boys were lining up to run.

"Would you time me if I run again?" the boy asked, reasonably politely.

"Sure, let me walk down there, and I’ll take over from Marcus for a minute. Go get in line."

As I started that way, I heard Del yell ‘Ready.’ A second later, Marcus yelled ‘Go’. I watched Del dart by me. Marcus told him his time and jotted it down, then I borrowed the stopwatch from him and turned just in time to see Roger shove Randy.

I don’t know exactly what happened before that, but what I did see made it obvious that Roger had tried to get in front of Randy. . I don’t know how Randy reacted to that, but I actually saw Roger push the smaller boy away from him.

I was back across the distance almost as fast as Del had been. When Roger turned back and saw me coming, his eyes went wide, and he started to run, but only got about three steps before I had hold of him.

I was holding his upper arm and tried to guide him towards the house, but he dropped to the ground. I think he was a little surprised when I just reached down, yanked him up, and tossed him over my shoulder. I didn’t set him down until we got to Van’s room. Since I was holding his knees almost at my shoulders, he couldn’t really do much but thrash and protest, though he was doing both vigorously.

Once in Van’s room, surprised we didn’t have a parade following us to find out what all the noise had been about, I popped him up enough to catch his hips, then placed him on his feet.

"I warned you what was going to happen, Roger."

"What’d I do?"

"What’d you…" I sputtered. "You pushed Randy, and don’t tell me you didn’t, because I saw you."

He suddenly looked a bit guilty. "I wanted to go next."

"That doesn’t matter, Roger. We have to wait our turn, and even if he cut in front of you, it’s not an excuse to push somebody. What’s wrong with you today?"

He shrugged.

I’d been kneeling down so our eyes were on about the same level, but now I stood up. Placing my hand on the back of his neck, I led him over to the adult-sized, armless, straight-backed wooden chair that sat by the boys’ desks, and pulled it out. I sat, took Roger by the hips, and pulled him to me.

"I’m sorry you don’t know what’s wrong. I know it can be very frustrating to not feel good and not understand why. That’s not an excuse for you to try to make everyone else feel bad, and I think you know that. I know you know what I said would happen if we had any more trouble today. Unbutton your shirt."

The boy suddenly went almost limp, barely keep his feet. "I don’t wanna spanking, Jack."

"If you didn’t want a spanking, then you should have behaved after I warned you. And I’ll tell you something else, Roger; you’re not going to believe this right now, but I’ll bet you feel better after we get it over with."

The boy obviously thought I was lying to him because he tried to jerk away from me. Of course, I had a pretty good grip on his hips still, so he didn’t get very far.

"Roger, I know you don’t want a spanking. Even if you’ll feel better afterwards, it’s still no fun getting there. You are going to get one, though, so you might as well make this easy so we can get it over with quickly. Now unbutton your shirt, please."

I guess quickly being better wasn’t any more believable than feeling better afterward. He did reach down, but instead of lifting his shirt, he tried to push my hands away from him. When that didn’t work, he just let himself collapse.

I didn’t even try to hold him up. He didn’t hit the ground hard, but he did just lie there, starting to whine. I was watching carefully to make sure he didn’t try to escape now that I wasn’t holding on.

"Roger," I told him after watching a few seconds, "I’m trying to be understanding. I know your Dad spanks you, but you’ve never been spanked by me so that makes it scary. Your Dad’s given me permission to spank you, and I think I should, but if you’d rather wait for him, you can stay here until he gets here, then we’ll talk to him."

He was quiet for a minute.

"Do you want to talk to your dad?"

"No!"

"Then stand up and unbutton your shirt."

"NO!"

"Roger," I said again after taking a deep breath that wasn’t especially calming, "one of those two things has to happen. If you don’t want to talk to your dad, then I’m going to spank you. Now we can do this easy, or we can do it hard. Neither one’ll be fun, but easy’s definitely better. Are you going to stand up?"

This time he didn’t bother answering or even looking at me. He just started whining again, complaining about how mean I am. I even asked how I was being mean, but that led us straight back to ‘I don’t wanna spanking.’ Even with little kids, I try to talk to them, hoping they’ll remember that, but enough was enough.

"Last chance to do it the easy way, kiddo. Stand up."

He ignored me.

"One."

I paused for a few seconds.

"Two."

He’d been lying on the floor, cringing a bit while he whined, but now looked up at me. He didn’t even try to stand though, so I did my part.

"Three."

When I reached for him, he tried to scurry away, but my arms were too long for him. I grabbed a handy ankle and pulled him back to me. Shifting my grip, I lifted him up and plopped him on my knee.

Roger tried to get away, but he’s so small I was able to hold him firmly with one hand, while unfastening his sneakers and tugging them off.

As soon as the shoes were off, I stood him up again, just long enough to shift my left arm to go around his front, then used that to push him back a bit. He was off balance, leaning backwards over my left leg, and couldn’t keep me from undoing the snap of his blue jean shorts. Once that was done, I flipped him over, and reached around him with both hands to undo the zipper. Then I was easily able to slide shorts and briefs off in a bundle.

I would have preferred to remove the Scout shirt Roger was wearing, but really didn’t feel like fighting with him that much. He’d been wearing his cap, but it had come off at some point. Seeing him in nothing but his gold and blue neckerchief and blue and gold socks would have been a real treat; but I had the feeling this boy wasn’t going to give me much chance to look anyway.

Coming to that decision, I firmed my grasp on him and stood, tucking him under my left arm. He was facing the same direction I was, though his face was pointed towards the ground, which might be why he didn’t panic until I was actually taking B4 off the wall.

"No. No, Jack. Not the paddle. I’m sorry. Don’t paddle me. Please!"

"I warned you that you were making things harder on yourself, Roger. I would have just given you a hand spanking, but now you are going to get the paddle."

I walked back to the chair, placed the paddle on Bryce’s desk, where it would be easy for me to reach, then sat down. As soon as his feet hit the ground, Roger tried to run, but I never gave him a chance.

Holding his wrist, I spun him around and gave him a yank, so he came in between my legs. With my right hand, I gave a slight push on the small of his back, so he kept going. As soon as he was bent over my left leg again, I locked my right one across his legs, just below his knees, keeping him from kicking around too much. Then I shoved his blouse up to his shoulders.

Roger doesn’t look Mediterranean, but he does seem to have a hint of natural tan to his complexion. With him bare from shoulder blades to crew socks like that, his round, firm little bottom stood out nearly as pale as Van or Randy’s skin. It was a wonderful little bottom, too. Even as tense as he was, there was only a trace of dimples. From the small of his back, it rose slowly to two little mounds, clearly separated by a valley, but with a sharp fold back to his upper legs. It was as smooth, and velvety, and just perfect.

While I had his legs pinned firmly, the rest of him was trying to make it hard for me to appreciate his little heinie. His hands were trying to get back far enough to cover it, but that turned out to not be a good idea. I managed to grab both his hands, then pinned both his wrists together in my left hand. Held like that, all he could do was wiggle a bit, though he was very vocal and already starting to cry.

With him held tightly, I reached down to rub those little cheeks. They felt so pleasant under my hand that I decided, though I’d promised him the paddle, I didn’t have to give the whole spanking with it. After a minute, as my hand gently rubbed his rear, he calmed down just a bit, which is what I’d been awaiting.

"You’re going to get spanked for acting up today and being rude to the other guys. I tried to work with you and give you a chance, but you just wouldn’t take it. After the spanking, you’re going to get… four," I added, deciding quickly that number should be fair but not harsh, "swats with the paddle for not minding me."

As soon as the word ‘spanked’ came out of my mouth, Roger began begging, pleading, apologizing, and swearing he’d never be naughty again. I ignored him.

As soon as I finished telling him what was coming, my hand came up. I was using mostly wrist with just a bit of elbow to land the swats, making sure there’d be plenty of sting building up, but without anything that would linger long.

I could feel Roger squirming under my grasp. He was trying to tug his hands loose and trying to kick, but I held him too tightly. All he could do was thrash his head around a bit.

He kept begging at first, saying anything to get it to end. I didn’t talk anymore, and really didn’t listen to him much. His little bottom quickly pinkened, and as it started turning rosy, his sobs and yelps grew strong enough I couldn’t understand what he was saying any more. As the little cheeks approached red, he was crying too hard to even try saying anything, though he was wailing and moaning as much as crying.

With a boy that carried on as much as he had before the spanking ever started, I wasn’t really listening to him at all. Unless he really, obviously, believably broke down, I was planning on turning that little bottom as red as the waistband on his Spider-man briefs.

Before he quite achieved that color, I felt him suddenly go tense. He howled, then collapsed limply across my leg, his body shaking in broken-hearted bawling.

I know he still had the paddle swats to go, but I gathered him up and rolled him to sit in my lap. He didn’t resist at all as I gathered him into my arms. Instead, he rested his head against my chest. He was saying something, but it took a few moments for me to realize he was apologizing over and over again.

"Shhh… it’s okay now. It’s gonna be all right," I assured him.

I’m not sure how long we sat there, but it was long enough for the harsh sobs to have died, though he was breathing deeply, sniffing, and still crying a bit. He was huddled against me as I rubbed his back. After a minute, he took a deep sniff and looked up at me.

"You didn’t use the paddle yet?"

I just shook my head.

"Can we do it now please, so I don’t have to start crying all over again?"

I looked at him for a minute, but he wasn’t panicked now.

"Do you still deserve the paddle, Roger?" I asked, feeling a bit confused.

He nodded.

"Why?"

"For disobeying you," he answered nervously enough it sounded like a question.

This time I nodded.

"Can you roll over and lie on my lap, please?"

With no protest whatsoever, he did, only pausing to wipe his face on the sleeve of his shirt.

I reached back and picked up the paddle, then started asking if he was ready, but he’d already said he just wanted to get it over with. I’d planned on placing all four swats on his sit spots. Instead, I landed them two on each cheek. He started howling with the first swat and held it until after I was finished, then collapsed, crying hard again, but not bawling.

I gently rubbed his bottom for a minute, then started to help him sit back up.

"D-d-don’t s-s-stop."

I smiled.

"C’mon, you don’t want to stay there."

I helped him up, but kept him right against my legs and hugged him to me, letting my hands fall so I could rub those little cheeks again.

He gasped as my hands came back into contact with his own personal bonfire, but after a second he relaxed again, then wrapped his arms around me.



Roger and I both had to change shirts, but it was easy enough for him to borrow one of Van’s. He was pretty sore and not moving very quickly, but seemed to recover a lot, even just walking out to the backyard, after he’d washed his face and got some water.

Once with the other boys, Roger seemed to be his old self. The other boys were a bit hesitant, but it was obvious he’d been spanked, and they opened back up to him quickly. Roger even joked with Van that now Van was going to have to get a spanking from Roger’s dad, just to keep things even. Of course, that led to them realizing that Randy’s the only one of them I’ve not spanked yet (excluding playful spankings, of course), which led to Randy getting a little friendly ribbing from all the boys.



When Mr. Willingham picked his son up, Roger very openly informed his dad that I’d had to spank him and why.

Mr. Willingham and I talked a bit and agreed that Roger had probably just had a bad day, but that he’d keep an eye on things to be sure.

He also assured me that the way Roger acted was how he normally takes a spanking. For some reason, he just can’t be brave before it starts; but after he realizes he is going to live, he is okay. While Mr. Willingham had never used the paddle after a hand spanking like that, he did say that Roger was not only good about corner time after a spanking, but was very affectionate and helpful afterwards as well.



I wonder how he’ll act if he has to get a spanking with someone else.





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