Twelve year old Nicholas trudged up the stairs and headed for his bedroom. His dad's reaction to his school report, and in particular the "effort" comment, although expected, hadn't been welcome for the little boy.
"I warned you that if your marks and effort didn't improve I'd tan your backside, didn't I young man?" His dad had reminded him.
"Yes, daddy," Nick had replied.
"Get up to your bedroom and wait for me," the angry man had commanded, "It's about time I gave you a _d_a_m_n_ good hiding. Maybe that will help you change your attitude."
Nicholas wasn't a naughty boy. Just a lazy one. He put the minimum effort into his school work, and now he was going to take the consequences. He didn't get many hidings, but when his dad took it into his mind to thrash his son's bottom, it was always an excrutiatingly painful experience for the blond child.
Upon entering his bedroom, Nicholas closed the door behind himself and sat down to wait on his bed. He was only wearing his light weight summer pyjamers, but he didn't think off putting on any thicker garments to protect his bottom. He always got his hidings on his bare bum anyway. Nick was small for his age, with blond hair that was almost too long, green eyes and a pale skin - although his love of sports had ensured that his build was better than average for a boy his age. As yet, he had no hair below the eyebrows - Nicky was a bit of a late bloomer in that respect.
Eventually, too soon but also it seemed not soon enough, Nick heard the clumping footfalls of his father as the big man ascended the stairs. Nicholas rose off his bed to face his dad as the man opened the bedroom door, then closed it behind himself. To the little boy, the man always seemed much bigger when he was about to administer a thrashing. Nick's heart leapt when he saw that his daddy had the cane this time. He had really hoped for a belting, but his father had had other ideas for chastising his young son. Even the cane looked small in his dad's big hands, but Nick knew that his father was an expert at weilding that stick across his son's bare bottom.
"Take off you pants and bend over," no preliminaries, no lectures. That was over now. Straight to the painful business.
Knees trembling, Nicholas removed his thin pyjamer shorts, placing them neatly on his night stand. He had bared his bottom before his father before for hidings, but never got over the fearful feeling of removing his only protection. Now, half naked, the twelve year old got up onto his bed on his hands and knees, bottom up, waiting for his punishment to begin. The tears were already in his eyes.
His dad put the cane down on the bed next to the little boy, just where the child could see it, and, also in the boy's line of sight, went about the ritual of preparing himself to whip his son. First he took off his tie, folding it and putting it in his pocket. Then he leant over Nick and lifted the lad's pyjamer shirt right up to his shoulders, completely exposing his target area. Now, his eyes fixed on the pale, rounded and slightly chubby backside of his son, he slowly rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, before picking up the cane and whipping it through the air a few times. The man flexed the cane and then addressed the trembling little boy once again,
"Knees further apart, then put your head down and your bottom up, my boy,"
Nicholas obeyed immediately, spreading his legs, pushing his face into the bed and raising up his bare bottom. Apart from the actual hiding, this was the worst part of the waiting. Nick could no longer see what was going on behind him, knowing that any moment the light tapping that his dad was now doing with the cane on his bottom would become the first burning lash of his hiding.
He didn't have long to wait. His dad balanced himself on the balls of his feet, lifted the cane back, and then whipped it across the bare, pale little bottom before him, smoothly following through to make sure that his son experienced the full force of the stroke. The boy's body jerked convulsively moments after the gunshot like sound of the cane snapping across his bare behind, and a pitiful sob escaped from the bent over youngster. Nick thought that he had been caned enough to know what to expect from the first stroke of a caning, but he was never prepared for the sheer agony of it. He knew that no matter what he had done, his daddy would never do him any real damage, but that was little comfort as the cane once again whipped across his poor bottom.
Nicky's dad lashed the cane for the third time across the tender little upraised bottom of his son, noting the boy's curled toes and white knuckles as he desperately tried to take his hiding bravely. Although not a cruel man, he always made sure that when he thrashed Nicholas' bottom, he did so mercilessly, drawing out the painful session as much as possible, in the belief that the boy should not only fully appreciate the agony of his punishment, but also learn some self control. For the fourth time, he brought the cane down vigorously across his son's bottom, eliciting a squeal from the little chap. He made sure that he struck the boy with the end of the cane - the part the was accelerating the fastest.
Nicholas screwed his eyes shut as the tears poured out of them into the bedclothes. He wasn't allowed to move during hidings, so his only expression of pain was the howls that he was trying to suppress as each fiery stroke bit across his little bottom. On the fifth lash, he battled to keep still. As he usually did, his dad was slowly working his way down the little boy's bare tail, and the fifth lash landed right in that particularly soft and sensitive lower quarter of his buttocks. Another long pause, then the sixth, just below the fifth. Now Nicky was struggling to keep still. Surely six was all?
But the twelve year old was not to be so lucky. His dad whipped the cane down again four more times across the lowest part of the twelve year old's poor bare bottom. Finally, the biggest hiding of Nicholas' life was over, and the red faced, crying little boy was allowed to get up and rub his blazing bottom. He got the usual "this is for your own good lecture", then the warning about it being worse next time, and was sent to bed. Nicholas vowed that he would ensure an excellent school report in future - he never wanted a hiding like that again!