As I handed my cloak to the referee at stationB, I felt a
firm hand clasp my shoulder. Close to my ear, Dad growled,
"Twenty."
I repeated, "Twenty."
The ref, perched upon a swivel
stool to one side of the table, looked uncertainly at me then said,
"You sure?"
I nodded yes, lying. With the first flicker of
uncertainty in the ref's face, an image had shot back into my
mind:Reggie bent over for his last swat, moaning, his fists
clenched;the pain obvious on his contorted face;
the wooden frat paddle, landing and recoiling, two tremulant golden
blurs sprout from his cheeks like angelic wings. He had taken only a
dozen. I was not sure at all.
After jotting down my bid,
the man swivelled away from the table, spread his legs and patted the
stool. "Put your timer up here where I can reach it," he ordered. When
I set my foot onto the stool, my heel slid over the polished surface
until the sole of my foot came to rest against his crotch. As he
fiddled with my timer, he pulled my foot harder into his groin. I
could feel him throbbing under my toes. He fussed with the timer some
more as though there were something wrong with it. I smiled at him,
thinking it was nice of him to stall for me, to allow me extra time to
rest. His eyes crawled up my body to my face. But he didn't
smile. Finally, he said, "assume the position." I retrieved my foot
and faced the spanker, while the ref called out, "Twenty." A murmur
ran through the crowd, and the spanker smiled. He was young,
handsome. The black cloak lent him the air of a university student, as
though this were his convocation and the paddle his degree. He drew a
hand across his forehead, moving a lock of hair to one side like a
tassle on a cap. As he turned to practice his swing, I saw a large
Rembroidered on the back of his cloak.
Robert?I thought.Could be Ryan, Richard,
Robust. Red-assed.
"Bound or free?" he asked.
I stared at
the paddle, hesitating. I could see Dad from the corner of my eye. He
shifted his weight as if he were about to step toward me. "Free," I
said.
TheRstudent grinned. "Bend over and
grab your ankles."
It hurt. The pain from the first swat seemed to swell after the paddle left my skin, reaching its peak just as the second swat landed. With each successive wallop, the sting grew. And burned. After five, the pain was continuous, enormous. And expanding. As a prelude to each swat, the man inhaled deeply through his nostrils in a long sniff that anticipated the length of the swing. He seemed to inhale the paddle itself and expel it in explosive, fiery breath onto my backside. I found myself breathing with him, inhaling in tandem and expelling in a gasp, only to suck in a sobbing lungful as the pain swelled in my cheeks.
The wood seared my ass. I gasped, then inhaled with him for the eleventh swing:a long, slow breath that filled my lungs to bursting;then an explosion of breath and of pain. I sucked in more air as he drew the paddle back again. He unleashed his breath, and mine followed in a long wail of agony. I fought the urge to give in. I desperately wanted to say "uncle". My lips formed the first syllable during the next rising wave of consuming pain. My tongue closed on the "n", and my moaning throat shaped the sound.
Suddenly I heard Dad's heartbeat as if it were next to my ear, strong, steady, proud. Imagining the feel of his skin against my face, I opened my mouth to feed on his pulse and released the remaining air in an asperate sigh. The paddle drew back, but the breathing I heard was nowhis, expanding in me, filling me. The paddle landed. The hard pain was still there, harder, but now it was hishardness. I wanted it wanted him firm unyielding in me. Hard. I welcomed the next swat as if it were his touch, as though the pain promised to bring me closer to him, making meof him. His. The I We. Us.
We whispered, "Harder."
Then it stopped. I waited for more, hungering for more. There came a low buzzing to my ears, and I felt myself pulled up. The ref was looking at me like a doctor examining a patient. He was saying something. Then the buzzing became the murmer of the crowd, and I was saying, "Yes. I'm fine."
As the ref crouched to start my timer, theRspanker stroked my bum, smiling at me. I returned his smile, and he fetched my cloak. Slipping it on, I turned around to find Dad. He was standing at the edge of the crowd, staring at me in a way that made me blush and turn away. It wasn't anger I saw on his face;nor pride. It was intense fascination, as though he had seen something in me he hadn't been aware of. It frightened and embarassed me. He was seeing me truly naked for the first time, I felt. And yet...the pit of my stomach burned, thrilling under his gaze as never before.
Then he was beside me. I looked up. His face had regained its normal composure, serious, placid, comfortable. He walked with me to the next station, saying, "You need to rest a bit. Take your time."
I paced back and forth for a while in front of the next station. The spanker watched me as though I were a slow-motion tennis ball, holding his leather paddle like a racket, poised for just the right serve - the one that would land me on his lap, from where he could smack my bum across the court. Love all. Dad nodded to me, then flashed five fingers. Then another five. I nodded back to him, turned to the ref, and said, "Ten."
The leather paddle seemed easy
after the frat paddle. Possibly, I was going a little numb. As we
walked to the next station, I said to Dad, "I could have taken
more."
He said, "You have a long way to go yet. Save it."
Something in his voice made me look at him. He was smiling.