I was brought up by my mother in a small town in the Midwest. I don't remember my father very well. He and my mother broke up when I was three or four. Not long after that, he died in an automobile accident. We received a substantial payment from Dad's life insurance, and Mom really didn't have to work, but she did anyhow, for several hours a day as a receptionist in a dentist's office.
My childhood in general was not unhappy. Mom took good care of me, saw to it that we had a nice enough house to live in, and I always had decent clothes, also toys, pets, friends, and no real shortage of affection. Now, like lots of mothers, when her little boy did something naughty that required more than just a scolding, my mom would swat me on the seat of my pants, or, in the case of more serious matters, she would -- and did -- turn me over her knee, pull down my pants, and give me an old-fashioned spanking on the bare behind with her hand or her big wooden-backed hairbrush. To most families this is perfectly normal.
However, for those few in stances when I was guilty of misdeeds (like lying, skipping out on school, or playing with fire) -- which she called "the worst imaginable kind of misconduct" -- my mom had a punishment that was formidable: it knocked, scared, and embarrassed the living daylights out of me!
It started the day I first played hooky from school, I was in the second grade. That evening, when Mom found out about it, she was so mad that she threatened to send me to reform school. I didn't know what reform school was, but I was sure it had to be a terrible place from the way she talked about it. Also, loving my Mom and our home, I felt that anything would be better than being sent away, and I told her so.
Just as Mom was thinking about what to do with me, the telephone rang. It was Mrs. Hawkins, our next-door neighbor. She and her husband were in their fifties and, so far as I know, had never had any kids. But like all old people, they had ideas about how kids should be raised.
Mom hung up the phone. "All right, Scotty," she said, looking directly at me: "Take your pants off right this instant, your underpants too!"
"Yes, Mom," I said, and obeyed. It took me a minute or two to get the cuffs of my jeans over my sneakers, but I managed. The kitchen, usually so warm and pleasant, felt strangely cold; the air felt chilly on my bare legs.
"Your underwear too, Scotty," my Mom reminded me. They came down and off without catching on anything.
Bare-bottomed now, I stood waiting for my Mom to sit down on the wooden chair and take or order me over her knee. Instead, she told me to run over to the Hawkinses exactly as I was and ask them to let me borrow their razor strap.
I made all kinds of protests about not wanting the neighbors--the whole neighborhood, for that matter--to see me with no pants or underpants on. Although, fortunately, they all lived at least a couple of houses away, there were lots of kids in the neighborhood, playmates and friends of mine, and they would tease me unmercifully if they ever saw me like this. Mom told me that that was my tough luck, and, giving me a stinging slap on the left buttock, said that if I didn't hurry up and march over to the Hawkinses and fetch that razor strap on the double, then she would give me twice what she was going to give me already!
I didn't stall any more after that, but went out the back door and ran towards our neighbors' house as fast as I could. You should understand that I was a very modest little kid. Even my Mom rarely saw me in my underpants, like, only when she had to come into my room and tell me something and I happened to be dressing or undressing. And only she and the doctor had ever seen me bare-naked. So or course I was just embarrassed out of my mind at being sent outside in just my socks, shoes, and shirtŠit was a light blue pullover shirt without a tail or anything....I had almost outgrown it. If I pulled down hard at the end of it with both hands, I could barely cover my little _d_i_c_k_ and balls, but as soon as I'd let go, they'd show again. There was no way I could make it cover my bare bottom. The crowning blow to my humiliation was that I had an uncontrollable erection. Even though it may have been only two inches long then, I was still mortified that my penis was not only showing but stiff and hard as well.
Nothing let me forget my half-naked state even for a moment--the cool twilight air, the soft new green leaves of our hedge as I squeezed through the narrow opening into the Hawkinses' yard, not even Mrs. Hawkins herself. Especially not Mrs. Hawkins.
That was about the worst part of all. Mrs. Hawkins did not come to the back door at once, but took her own sweet time--several minutes at least. I'm sure she saw me coming and watched me through a darkened window while I nearly died of embarrassment standing there bare-bottomed on her open back porch--in front of God and everybody in town, or so I felt. Then, finally, Mrs. Hawkins opened the door, always first with this sweet-old-bitch smile on her face, then with an equally feigned look of surprise. Her line was always the same:
"Why, hello, little Scotty. Land's sake, boy! Where are your pants?"
The first time this happened, I just told her: "Mommy sent me over here to borrow your razor strap."
"But you all don't have a razor," she persisted. "Henry and I will of course be glad to lend it to you for a few hours, but do tell me: Whatever do you want it for?"
Naively, I told her just what she wanted to hear me say: "My Mom says I've been a bad boy and I need to have my bottom whipped."
"I see," Mrs. Hawkins would say with a nod. "Well, a mother knows what's best for her children."
She then let me into her kitchen, where I waited until she had fetched the strap and handed it to me. Then she turned me toward the door with one hand on my shoulder and, swatting me lightly on the bottom with the other hand, she said: "Run along now." I did, as fast as I could.
When I was back home again, Mom took me down to the basement, which was also our laundry room. There she made me lie on my tummy on a low wooden bench, my feet still on the floor. There was a pillow under my midsection, and another under my face. Mom made me hold this pillow with both hands and wrists inside the pillowcase.
The first time that the strap came down across my bare upturned behind. it didn't just hurt like hell, it also shocked the daylights out of me. I didn't cry right after the first blow--I was busy gulping in air as fast as I could in order to let out a yell loud enough to get rid of as much of the pain as possible. After the second blow of the strap, and each succeeding blow, believe me I yelled and cried my lungs out until Mom had smacked me a full dozen times. Then, when she was through at last, she said: "Now, young man, I hope that will teach you a lesson--never ever to play hooky from school!"
"Yes, ma'am," I answered meekly.
After we had climbed the stairs out of the basement, Mom handed me the strap and told me to take it back over to the Hawkinses'. I didn't even ask if I could put on my pants first. I sensed, correctly, that she wanted me to remain without them for awhile. Besides, after that strapping, my bottom was so sore and tender, that I'm not sure I could have put my pants and underpants back on right away even if Mom would have let me.
It still was awfully embarrassing to have to run over to the Hawkinses' again in just my shirt, socks and shoes, and I hated it. Mrs. Hawkins made me show my whipped bottom to her and Mr. Hawkins, who said he was glad to see that some people still believed in rearing kids the old-fashioned way. They had me bend over while Mrs. Hawkins put some cooling lotion on my bottom, which, she said, looked like two ripe tomatoes when I stood up straight.
Even at eight years old it was very humiliating to have to bend over and let this woman run her fingers and palms over my bottomcheeks and in my crack and everywhere. I liked it even less as I got older. I must have been just a few months short of my thirteenth birthday and sprouting the first half-dozen tiny strands of pubic hair, when Mom finally decided that I was too mature to be punished in this manner. For about another year she occasionally punished me with a strapping when she thought that I had really stepped out of line and had it coming to me, but on these two or three times, she then used one of my own leather belts and only made me lower my pants and underwear in the rear--and only for the duration of the strapping.
As for those times I had to run over to the Hawkinses' to borrow the razor strap when I was eight until I was twelve-and-a-half years old, I feel sure Mrs. Hawkins very much enjoyed the pain and embarrassment that I had to feel in being punished in the manner that I was. I'm sure she enjoyed it, because every one of the dozens of times that it happened, she was always at home to lend my Mom the strap and to receive me when I went to return it. In the later instance, she always insisted on my letting her see the red marks left on my skin, and she always smeared lotion on my bottom with her own hand. Never once did she offer me a towel or even a rag to cover my bare bottom and exposed genitalia, but always sent me home in the same half-naked state as I had come there!