Stevie's Cousins

I’ve never been one hundred percent sure, but I’ve always strongly suspected that Yvonne had an ulterior motive when she asked me to ’adopt’ Stevie. She and I had had an interesting and fun relationship, and there had been a sexual element to it, but there wasn’t enough of anything to keep me interested. I loved Stevie, loved spending time with him, and liked Yvonne. The trouble was, in 1987, I was teaching, working comic conventions when the school schedule allowed, spending time with my family, with Stevie, and with Yvonne – and pretty much in that order or priority.

I think that naming me as Stevie’s father was an attempt to bring my interest back to her. It may have worked a bit in the short term, but I was interested in being a father and a friend. She wanted a husband. The two desires were not exactly compatible.

The problem is, she didn’t exactly use legal means for me to adopt Stevie. Instead of making me his guardian or getting me to adopt him, she swore a declaration that I was his birth father, who’d been listed as unknown on the birth certificate. Since I agreed, my name was added and I am legally, if not biologically, Stevie’s birth father.

The thing Yvonne (who, we should remember, is younger than me, and I was only twenty-three at this point) didn’t think about is that there’s a name for what she did. It’s called perjury and it’s illegal. That meant that when I didn’t marry her or continue our relationship, there wasn’t much she could do about it.

I actually think it frustrated her that she couldn’t really even sue me for child support, but it frustrated her worse that I covered his insurance and made sure he never went without things. I’m sure she was happy, and more comfortable from a financial standpoint, but it still must have made her insane.

The thing is, when I adopted Stevie (or whatever term you’d like to use for it), I didn’t marry Yvonne, but I did get more out of the deal than just a son. I got a family.

Yvonne’s mom liked me okay when we were dating, though she thought I was immature for being into comics and crazy for teaching middle school. I don’t know what Yvonne told her later, but she lost most of her tolerance when Yvonne and I stopped dating.

Yvonne’s brother, my Stevie’s namesake, was a different story. Steve loved his little sister and was protective of her, but he also knew her. Apparently he knew her well enough to have an idea what might have happened in our relationship, and he judged me on how I treated his nephew, and how I had treated his sister, and ignored most of what she said. That was actually pretty great, because Steve was a father himself.

Despite the fact that I’m older than Yvonne, and her brother’s older than me, Stevie is older than his cousins. Jason is a year younger than Stevie, and Chris is two years younger than his big brother.

The three of them definitely looked like family, which was funny, because Stevie resembled his uncle more than his mom. All three boys had blond hair and blue eyes, but Jason’s and Chris’s eyes were a much lighter color – closer to grey – than Stevie’s, and their hair was more a buttery blond than Stevie’s darker coloring. They all three had the same chin that their parents shared, and the same thick eyelashes. All three also had a similar, lean build, though Stevie’s face was a bit rounder than Jason’s or Chris’s. All three were very cute boys.

I’d met Jason and Chris before I adopted Stevie, and continued to know them after. When Yvonne and I still had a relationship, I would sometimes keep all three boys during the summer so they could spend the day at the pool.

Something else I really liked about Steve (besides his continued acceptance of me) is that he was actually about as strict as I was. We didn’t agree on all the details, but we both firmly believed in setting limits and holding boys to them. His boys were at least as used to having their bottoms bared and spanked as Stevie was (probably more, since his kids lived with him), and I knew Stevie had made more than one or two trips over his uncle’s lap.

Of course, the bad thing about giving good training to a small family is that it reduces your chance to reinforce the lessons. Jason and Chris were both pretty well behaved kids. More, they rarely stayed with me more than a workday. Their mom would drop them off in the morning, and Steve would pick them up that afternoon. That’s not to say they were perfect, but they seemed to accept that I’d spank them just as quickly as their dad would spank Stevie. They believed it, so it never took more than a word to settle them down.

When I first met them, they must have only been three and five. Five is when I start to consider a kid spankable, but I’d never give a three year old more than a few swats. Then came my separation with Yvonne, which played havoc with the time I spent with Stevie, until I put my foot down and was awarded regular visitation. By the time that happened, though, which would have been when Stevie was in second grade, Steve had taken a new job and the family moved. I still saw them occasionally, but the long-term visits ceased.

That’s where this story might have ended, except Steve and his wife decided that they didn’t like where they’d moved. After checking around, they moved back to Bransom in 1991, right as Stevie was finishing third grade, Jason was finishing second, Chris was finishing kindergarten, and I was finishing teaching.

1991 had been my last year teaching, but I’d left feeling torn. I did love the paddling, but I also enjoyed the kids and teaching. Not all of them were a joy, but I’d been very lucky in avoiding the remedial classes and having good students. On the other hand, the paperwork had kept getting worse and worse, and the last semester, with my helping cover for our vice principal, who was having chemotherapy, was a killer.

I think the decision to quit teaching really came when Jim, the person who’d been covering the store for me while I was at school, decided to quit. He wasn’t happy with school, wasn’t happy with our agreement, and wanted to do something else. He stuck it out until I finished that school year, then left.

I’d been thinking about leaving teaching anyway. I really did enjoy it, but the store was making good money – more than enough to support me. I’d be losing some, by quitting the teaching job, especially since I’d lose the contribution towards retirement and my insurance, but I’d also be enormously reducing my workload. It was a hard decision, but the right one. I was easily able to find two college students and a high school kid to replace Jim, and they did a much better job than he ever had, which made things even better and easier for me.

And it freed me up to spend more time with Stevie.

You’d think Yvonne would have complained, but she was happy for the free child care while she was at work, and willing to let him sleep over more often in exchange.

And that’s how I ended up with all three boys staying with me for a few days.



There were several reasons the boys were with me that week. Of course, with Stevie, it was just scheduled visitation. The thing is, while there were other kids around, I thought he’d like having his cousins, with whom I knew he was close, visit for a while. I also thought it would be nice to give their parents a break and return the hospitality they often showed Steve. I think a lot of the reason, though, was that I knew I needed a vacation.

As much as I loved the comic store, teaching and then going to the store and running it were enough to wear a person out. It hadn’t taken much over a year for me to realize that I had to find some time away from both of them. While I couldn’t get out of the Thursday morning comic shipment, and while I’d have to do at least a little work at home, our young guests seemed like a great way to guarantee I’d do something different (if not exactly relax).

Steve and his wife were happy enough to go along with the idea. I’ve never met parents, no matter how good they are or how much they love their kids, who can’t use a little personal time. And that’s how it was that Stevie and I picked up Jason and Chris on Sunday afternoon.

Things went great at first. Sunday afternoon, we stopped for pizza, and then went to the old theater, which was still showing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2. When we got home, we played board games until the boys couldn’t hold their eyes open.

Monday morning, we made a trip into Dallas to visit the zoo. It was pretty hot, but we weren’t on any kind of schedule, and the kids had a great time. That evening, we watched a video before playing more board games.

The biggest complaints I had were that I made the boys take baths (no matter when I told them to bathe, they always had better things to do) and Stevie didn’t like that I was making him wear his undies. Since his uncle wasn’t a naturalist, and his cousins still wore pajamas at least sometimes, I just felt that was better. He didn’t complain too much, but he wasn’t happy. Admittedly, the three of them running around bare would have been too cute for words, but they were still incredibly cute in their underpants.

No, it was actually Tuesday morning when the trouble started. After a couple of busy days, I’d thought the boys might like some time to relax and do whatever. I had some paperwork that had to be done, and doing it after the boys went to bed wasn’t the best way to make sure I was giving it a fair amount of attention. Having recently been teaching sixth graders, I was fairly confident that I could tune out their background noise enough to get the work done.

"Dad?"

"One minute," I replied, finishing my thought, before laying my pen down and turning.

"Can we go outside?"

All three boys were standing there in bathing suits.

"You can go outside, but you can’t go to the pool."

"But you said we could go swimming today, Uncle Jack," Jason reminded me.

"That’s true, but I also said that we’d go after lunch, didn’t I?"

Three heads nodded gloomily.

"So I’m trying to finish this up so we can go after lunch. Do you guys still want to go outside?"

Three bobbing heads assured me they did.

"All right, c’mere then."

The three of them gathered around my window, and I had Stevie take a minute to point out his boundaries to them, and then I had Chris repeat them.

"If you guys stay in that area, I’ll be able to keep an eye on you. If you want to go anyplace else, you come ask me, and we’ll see about it. Understand."

‘Of course we do. Can we go play now?’ their nods seemed to imply.

"All right, go on then. I’ll bring you some Kool-Aid out in a little while."

The three took off like a bevy of startled quail, and I settled back into my work.

I went back to my paperwork, glancing out the window every once in a while. They’d taken a ball out with them, and were running around in something that looked like a variation on keep away. I wasn’t too worried about them. Jason and Stevie were close to the same size, and both were a fair amount bigger than Chris, but Chris had a certain cheerful aggression about him that stood him in good stead with the older boys. I knew keep away was the kind of game that could cause bad feelings, but the three of them seemed to have a good balance among them.

After a while, they came back in.

"Dad, Dylan’s out front of his place, and he says he can’t come down here. Can we go down there?"

I didn’t bother to ask how, if Dylan couldn’t come down here and they couldn’t go up there, they’d managed to talk. I had no problem envisioning each of them moving to the far side of their boundaries, then yelling the conversation back and forth.

"Yes, but only up to Dylan’s place."

"Thanks, Dad."

Do all groups of little boys travel in stampedes, or was I just lucky?



I wasn’t quite finished with the paperwork, but definitely needed a break. It wasn’t close to time for lunch yet. Because of the store‘s hours, I tended to keep a rather later schedule, so lunch came a bit after noon, though Chris and Jason had been dragging our schedule a bit earlier. Still, the boys had been outside a bit over an hour now, so I went into the kitchen, iced down some Kool-Aid and glasses, and took the whole mess outside to rehydrate them.

I walked out into the yard in front of my condo and looked up towards Dylan’s apartment. They weren’t there. I looked behind me, but they weren’t anywhere I could see. I walked to the edge of my building and looked both ways. No one there either. This wasn’t a usual behavior for Stevie, but it had happened before, so I wasn’t panicking. I walked back, set the drink and glasses on the stairs, and didn’t even have to consider before heading for the pool.



"You boys need to get home," I informed the three of them.

To say I wasn’t happy would have been an understatement, but I was trying hard to keep it out of my voice and my attitude.

"We weren’t in the pool," Chris informed me, helpfully, just in case I hadn’t noticed that fact.

Instead of responding, I just stepped out of the way between them and home.

"Now."

Apparently the tone of voice registered, because all three of them began the trek, looking like dogs on the way to the vet’s office. I followed along, and we made the journey in silence.

Once we were back in the apartment, I sat down on the couch and lined three very nervous little boys up in front of me.

"Now what did I tell you three when you asked if you could play outside?"

"But we didn’t get in the pool, Uncle Jack," Chris repeated, in case I’d missed it the first time.

"Did I say anything about the pool, Chris?"

He looked a bit confused, maybe thinking that I’d said I’d take them swimming today. Stevie, who knew me better, answered for him.

"You said to stay in front of Dylan’s house."

"That’s right."

"But he went to the pool," Jason informed me.

"But that doesn’t change what I’d told you. If you’d stayed in front of Dylan’s house, that would have been fine. If you’d come back in front of our place, that would have been fine. But that’s not what you did. And, if I remember, didn’t I specifically tell you that you couldn’t go to the pool when you asked to go out?"

Obviously that little tidbit had escaped them until I mentioned it, but Stevie and Jason began reluctantly to nod.

"Chris, what does your dad do when you don’t mind?"

His eyes went wide and his little lip pouted out and began to tremble, but he didn’t pause before he answered.

"He spanks me."

"Stevie, what happens to you when you don’t mind me?"

"I getta spanking."

"So, Jason, did you boys mind me this morning, or disobey me?"

"We disobeyed you," he answered, his voice a bit broken.

"And now you’re going to get spanked."

A chorus of moans and begging began, but it didn’t stop me from reaching out and tugging three bathing suits down to their wearer’s ankles, then off.

"Now let me tell you boys what’s going to happen…"

As I talked to them, I leaned back and took the chance to look them over. Stevie was about average height for his age, while Jason was a bit on the tall side, so Stevie was only an inch or so taller. On the other hand, both boys were five or six inches taller than Chris. Below the waist, they were even more similar. Stevie wasn’t exactly an early bloomer, and at nine-and-a-half, he wasn’t showing any signs of puberty so far. As a matter of fact, the biggest difference between the three of them is that, while all three boys were circumcised, Chris and Stevie were both hanging forward in a bit of an arch, while Jason’s peter tended to lay atop his little balls, huddling back in the remaining, loose foreskin, making me think he was probably going to be a grower (can you tell that when a kid’s pre-adolescent?).

"Two of you are going to stand with your nose to the wall right there," I said, pointing, "while the other one gets his spanking. When all three of you’ve been spanked, you’re going to Stevie’s room for a nap…"

"No, Uncle Jack…" Jason protested, like the nap was worse than the spanking.

I continued as if he hadn’t spoken.

"When you wake up, it should be time for lunch. After we’ve eaten and cleaned up, if all three of you have behaved and haven’t argued with me, then we’ll go to the pool. Do you understand?"

They all three nodded.

I pointed at Jason and Stevie.

"You two – noses to the wall. C’mere, Chris, I’m going to let you go first."

"I don’t wanna go first," Chris protested, even as the older boys turned and walked towards the wall.

I took Chris by the hips, picked him up, and sat him in my lap. I draped my arm around his shoulders and let my other hand rest on his leg, patting gently.

"Chris, it’s best to go first and get it over with. If you didn’t go first, you’d have to listen to the other boys get it, and that’d just make it harder when your time came."

"But I don’t wanna…"

A small yelp escaped him as my hands moved to firm a grip on him, then I flipped him moony side up.

"I’m sorry about that, Chris, but I really wasn’t giving you a choice."

I’d learned long ago that trying to reason with a reluctant six year old was just a waste of breath, and I had no intention of keeping the other boys waiting while Chris repeated the same thing for every reason I had. The truth was that someone had to go first, and I’d picked him.

What I’d forgotten was just how tiny a six year old’s bottom really is. My hand nearly encompassed it as it came to rest on his pale, tender little cheeks. Not wanting to draw this out, my hand rested just long enough to get a feel for his bottom and to measure the distance.

Spanking a six year old is a lot like clapping politely. You don’t use your entire hand, and you don’t slam them together. The pace was a bit slower than real applause, but I wasn’t trying to use a lot of force. I knew that his bottom was going to be a lot more tender than my hand, and I didn’t want to do the whole thing in just a few smacks.

Over and over again, my fingers and the upper part of my palm smacked down against his round little cheeks. The color wasn’t changing much, but it didn’t have to. The swats might not have seemed hard to me, but they were definitely stinging to Chris, and the constant, not quite rapid, assault quickly moved him from little yelps, to small screeches, to real crying.

Chris stayed pretty still at first, but after the first few seconds, his feet began to kick, and I could feel him wriggling across my legs. That didn’t stop me from spanking, and he was really squirming by the time I thought I’d made my point.

I wasn’t timing it, but I’d be surprised if it took much more than thirty seconds to have him crying for real; then I rolled him back up into my lap. He didn’t try to hide the tears running down his face.

"I love you, Chris," I assured him, pulling him to me for a hug, "but you are going to mind me while you’re here. Understand?"

He hugged me back, and I felt him nod against my neck.

"Good. Then it’s time for your brother to get his spanking."

I picked Chris up and carried him to the wall, standing him beside Jason. Jason flinched as the spot was filled, knowing what must be coming next. Not wanting to disappoint him, I put my hand on the back of his neck and gently pulled him away from the wall.

He groaned.

Other than that, he didn’t make any other sound or resist me at all. He just followed me the few steps back to where I’d been sitting.

"Jason, you know you’re supposed to mind, don’t you?"

He nodded.

"And when you’re over here, who’s in charge?"

"You are," he answered in a tremulous voice.

Without saying anything else, I took him by the wrist and guided him around. He let me lead him across my lap, though a small sob escaped him as he leaned across my legs.

"I’m sorry, Uncle Jack," he assured me.

"I know you are, buddy, but that doesn’t change the fact that you didn’t do what you should have."

I paused for just a second before going to work.

Jason’s little bottom was a delight – just as round as his little brother’s, but a bit firmer. I ran my hand lightly across it for a second, gave a slightly firmer squeeze, and then started to applaud.

Jason was not only several inches bigger than Chris, but had several years more experience with being spanked than his little brother. Still, standing nose to the wall, waiting and listening, couldn’t have been good for his nerves, and he was yelping and ouching, kicking and squirming, about as fast as Chris had been. Then again, I wasn’t going as easy on Jason as I had on Chris either.

I still wasn’t spanking especially hard or fast, but I was putting some flick in my wrist to be sure Jason’s little butt would be stinging for a while after I let him up. I’m not sure ‘appreciate’ would be the right word, but there was little doubt I was making an impression on him.

With Chris, I’d stopped almost as soon as he’d started to really cry. With Jason, I went a while more, making sure he was well and truly past sobbing and into real crying territory. He was making all kinds of noise, and his sobs were coming too close together to tell where one ended and the next began. Then there was a sudden pause as he filled his lungs, a loud ‘owie!’, and there was no question he was crying.

I stopped spanking.

A second later, he tried to strangle me. Almost before I had him flipped up into my lap, he threw himself forward, into my arms.

"I’m thorry, Uncle Jack. I’m thorry."

"I know you are, buddy," I assured him, hugging him tight to my chest.

We sat there for a long moment before I moved him away from me.

"C’mon now, Jason. Stevie still needs to take his turn," I reminded him quietly.

Jason nodded, but made no effort to stand, so I pushed myself up, carefully taking a grip on him, and carried him to the wall.

Chris’ tears had been honest, but it hadn’t taken much to inspire them. His crying had already faded mostly to whimpering and some sniffles, but his big brother’s crying apparently reminded him of his own sore bottom, and he began to cry a bit again.

When I turned to Stevie, he didn’t just flinch – the boy was trembling. He wasn’t used to having to await his spanking, and it had obviously not been good for his nerves. I didn’t let that stop me though.

Stevie didn’t wait for my hand, but turned to follow me as soon as I put his cousin down. As soon as I sat, he started to go over my lap, but I stopped him.

"I want you to know that I’m very disappointed with you, Steven James. Not only have I had to spank you for practically this same thing, but you’re the oldest. I don’t know whose idea it was, and I really don’t care, but you should have tried to talk them out of it and let them know what would happen if y’all got caught. Do you understand?"

He tried to say something, but couldn’t choke it out, and settled for just nodding as tears traced down his cheeks.

"I’ll always love you, Stevie, but you have to think about stuff like this – about what you’re supposed to do, and why I’ve told you we have rules. Okay?"

"Okay, Daddy."

I pulled him in for a brief hug, then moved back enough to take his hips and help him across my lap.

Stevie knew better than his cousins what was coming, and moaned as he slipped into place.

I started out about the same as I had with Jason, a medium pace, with lots of quick, stinging swats all over his bottom. Despite the wait and his nerves, Stevie took the swats at least as well as Jason had. That only lasted a few seconds, though; and with the sting quickly building, his protests became louder, and his legs really started thrashing around.

When his sobs were on the edge of becoming real crying, I straightened my hand, and the next swats were a bit slower and firmer, given with my palm, not just the fingers. These were the ones that would bake the sting in and make sure he felt it for a while.

A motion caught my eye, and I glanced up to see both Chris and Jason settling into place, like they’d jumped when the first harder swat echoed across the room. Or maybe it had been Stevie’s wail and sudden tears that had made them jump.

A couple of swats on each cheek, and one down so that my hand landed partly on the lowest slope of the cheeks and partly on the upper leg, and I stopped. Stevie wasn’t quite bawling, but he was well on his way.

Like I had with his cousins, I rolled my son to sit on my lap and held him close for a moment, maybe a few seconds longer than I had with the other boys.

"It’s all right now, buddy," I assured him, as I held him and rubbed circles on his back. "I love you."

I finally helped him to his feet and walked him back to where the other boys still stood. Putting his nose against the wall, I reached over and gave Chris, then Jason, a quick, gentle bottom rub, before having all three boys turn around.

"Do you understand that you guys need to mind when I tell you something?"

Three very enthusiastic nods.

"Do you understand what’s going to happen if you don’t mind?"

Three more nods, as three pair of hands snuck back to cover their rosy little rears.

"And do you all know I love you?" I asked, spreading my arms.

All three boys rushed forward, jostling to get their arms around me, and letting me fold my arms around them tightly. I held them that way for a long minute.

"Now," I said after a bit, relaxing my hold a little. "Do you remember what I told you was going to happen next?"

"Naps," Jason said, sounding a bit pouty.

"That’s right, and I also said that if you didn’t give me a hard time, we could still go swimming after lunch. So is anyone going to argue with me?"

Three heads shaking, though without much enthusiasm. Still, they let me lead them to Stevie’s bedroom.

Stevie had pulled his sheet up that morning, so I folded it down, and then lifted each boy, one at a time, laying him face down on the bed. When all three were positioned, I pulled the sheet up over their lower legs, and then sat down beside them.

Little boys hate sleep, mostly fearing they’re going to miss something. However, there really is some truth to the idea that spankings wear a boy out. As I reached over, using one hand to rub backs, and the other to rub still warm, reddish bottoms, all three of them quickly passed out, only one of them even pausing long enough to request macaroni and cheese for lunch.



I did have time to finish my paperwork before the boys awoke. I heard them moving, and stepped into the hall to see motion in the bathroom. I walked over to find Stevie and Jason, both still naked, sharing the bowl and giggling. Jason looked fully recovered, though Stevie still seemed to have a hint of blush.

I turned and glanced into the bedroom to find Chris sitting on the edge of the bed, rubbing his eyes and looking groggy. I picked him up and carried him to the bathroom, letting him relieve himself while the other boys washed up.

After Chris had washed, I ushered the three of them into the living room, then watched, a bit sadly, as they put their bathing suits back on. I thought about keeping them bare for a while longer, but our dining room furniture just didn’t look like it’d be that comfortable on bare bottoms – even ones that couldn’t quite be called freshly spanked anymore.



The boys were quivering like racehorses as they impatiently waited for me to rinse the dishes, and I had to threaten them with more corner time to get them to sit down while I put on my own trunks, but we did get down to the pool with no more incidents.

I did have to remind Jason about cannonballing into the pool without looking to see who else was around. It was hardly crowded, since it was the middle of the afternoon, but there was a lady around reading a book, and I’d told Jason once not to jump in where he’d be splashing towards her. The second time it happened, I called his name in a vaguely threatening manner. He looked at me, a bit chagrined, but then Stevie whispered something to him, and Jason suddenly went a deep red.

He didn’t cannonball the rest of the day.



That was far from the last time Stevie’s cousins visited us. I remained friends with Chris, and especially Jason, and was close to both of them throughout their childhood. I’m not sure if our closeness was despite of, or maybe because of, the fact that that first summer visit was far from the only trip they made over my lap – individually or in combinations.

Whatever the reasons, it’s obvious that I made an impression on the boys. My biggest clue about that was when Jason dropped his six-year-old son Jake off for an overnight stay with us. His parting words of wisdom were, "You’d better behave, because Uncle Jack’s the one who taught me how to really give a spanking."





Return to Story List

Return to Table of Contents