It was going to be a fun summer, or so I thought. My mother and stepfather were going to Europe for two months and they left me in the care of my big brother, home for the summer from college. I was only fifteen years of age and they considered this to young for me to be left unsupervised.
They departed on Friday morning with final instructions to me to have a good time while they were gone and to listen to my brother. That evening I had been invited to a party given by one of my friends Their home was not far from our house and so I walked there. I wasn't old enough yet to have a drivers license.
Before I left, my brother, Bob, said to me, "Be sure to be home by eleven and be careful not to drink too much." He obviously knew, since he had been a teenager just a few years before, that beer and wine would be available at the party.
It was a good evening, but the party didn't break up until after eleven thirty and I had a little too much to drink. When I arrived home, somewhat unsteady on my legs, my brother was sitting in the living room waiting up for me.
"What time is it?" he demanded.
I looked at my watch and said, rather nonchalantly, "Eleven forty-five by my watch."
"You were supposed to be here by eleven sharp," he said in an angry voice. "And you are obviously drunk."
I was surprised by his attitude. I didn't feel drunk and I was less than an hour late. "What's the matter?" I asked. "I'm only a little late."
"Come here," he said as he grabbed me and pulled me over his lap so that my rear was in the position for swatting. "I'll wait until you are sober in the morning before we deal with this, but I'm going to give you a small taste of what's going to happen to you if you disobey me again."
With that he laid on ten good swats. My trousers kept them from stinging too much, but what I really minded was the fact that my brother was acting in this way, not as a big brother but as a punishing adult. I decided it was better to say nothing more at this time because he was so mad, and I went hurriedly to bed.
The next morning, after I got dressed and went down for breakfast, I found my brother in the dining room drinking his coffee. He said he was waiting for me.
"I did a lot of thinking last night," he said, "and I realized that your upbringing has been neglected since father died. Mother apparently doesn't know how raise you very well and our stepfather seems to let you have your own way in everything. Therefore I have decided to rectify the situation this summer while they are away."
I didn't quite know what he was talking about. As far as I was concerned, my activities and behavior were perfectly normal, just like that of my friends and other fifteen-year-old boys everywhere. "What are you talking about?" I asked.
"Well, for starters," he replied, "your clothes need cleaning and your hands and face are always dirty. Sometimes you even smell. Also your hair is too long and you are not combing it properly."
I promptly put my hands in my pockets, not sure how to answer him. All I could think of saying was, "That's what you say." It was a less than feeble response.
"Your behavior is abominable," Bob continued, "and I wont have any of it while I'm in charge. Last night you came home drunk and late. For that I'm going to punish you. But first, right after breakfast, I want you to go upstairs and take a bath so that you can be clean for once."
"You can't order me around like that," I shouted.
"Do as you're told, and don't argue," he said without moving from his chair. He took another sip of coffee.
Bob was much bigger than I was and I knew that he could force me do anything he wanted, so I just grumbled under my breath as I gathered my breakfast together. I decided that I would take a bath after breakfast, as he demanded, but I wouldn't do anything else he asked. It had been some days since I had showered and I probably could do with some soap and water anyway.
When I was done eating, I headed upstairs to the bathroom, took off my clothes, and started the shower. The feel of the water on my back and chest was refreshing. I lathered myself all over with soap, rinsed this off, and stepped out of the shower. To my surprise Bob was standing there waiting for me to emerge. He held his fraternity paddle in his hand.
"Dry yourself and then prepare for punishment," he ordered.
I looked at the paddle with some nervousness, realizing that he intended to use it on my posterior, but I said nothing. I dried myself with my towel as quickly as I could. Then I stood there waiting for whatever would happen next.
"You need to be punished for coming home late last night, and for being drunk in the bargain," he said. "I am going to discipline you the way we do to mischief makers in the fraternity."
"That's not fair," I said. "You didn't tell me before I left last night that you would punish me if I was late."
"You need to learn some self-discipline," he replied, "and not depend on warnings all your life. Now bend over and grab onto your ankles."
He had me now, without the protection of my trousers. And his words were said with such severity that I dared not try to argue anymore. I bent into position. After a couple of "warm up" swats, he paused before the first real one. Paddles make a kind of "swoosh" sound when swung quickly and I heard this sound of air before the loud smack! I'll never forget that sound, or the pain it produced.
I tried to remain bent over as the swats came. He would pause between swats, oftentimes telling me to bend my knees more so that they wouldn't lock, and then would come another. I stared down at my brother's shoe the whole time, even as my eyes filled with tears and I could hardly see clearly anymore. The pain was incredible. Until you've been paddled hard you don't realize the kind of heat that is generated and my backside felt like a giant, warm glow.
It hurt like hell, but I didn't cry. I only shouted "ouch" three times when the blows seemed particularly hard.
"You can stand up," Bob said as he laid down the paddle. "Put on some clean clothes when you dress, and throw the ones you were wearing into the laundry. Throughout this summer I want you to put on clean underwear and a clean shirt every day. You can wear your trousers for several days, but don't let them get too dirty, or you'll be sorry."
I threw my clothes into the hamper in the bathroom and looked in the mirror at my backside. It had blazing splotchy red marks all over it. I then went off grumbling to my room to find some clean clothes. When I was dressed, Bob told me that I could do whatever I wanted until lunch time, which he said would be promptly at noon. I double checked the time on my watch against that of the kitchen clock before I left the house to go over and see a friend. I was back home a few minutes before noon. I certainly didn't want to incur Bob's wrath any more that day.
At lunch Bob said, "I took a look in your room while you were out, and it's a mess. You need to clean it this afternoon."
"I've made plans to go to the movies with Fred," I replied. "I'll take care of it tomorrow."
"No, you'll do it this afternoon," my brother said. "You can go to the movies another time. Today it's your room! Better call Fred right now to tell him you have other plans for this afternoon."
There was no escaping Bob's insistence that I telephone my friend immediately, so I did so as soon as we had finished eating. Then I went to my room while my brother washed the lunch dishes.
I hung the clothes that were on the floor and tidied the top of my dresser. The room looked cleaner than it had in months and so I went downstairs to tell my brother that I was done. It was my intention then to go outdoors afterward and toss a basketball through the hoop that my stepfather had erected in the driveway.
But Bob stopped me. "Come on, lets go upstairs to see what you have done," he said. "It didn't take you very long, did it?"
We went together to my room and the first thing he did was to open one of the dresser drawers. "Is this what you call clean?" he asked. The socks, handkerchiefs, and other items in that drawer were in a cluttered mess. The same proved true of the other drawers he opened.
Next he looked under the bed where there was a mass of dust bunnies as well as some old socks. There was even a magazine in the corner that I thought I had lost some weeks before. I apparently hadn't looked under the bed in months.
"This room hasn't been cleaned," my brother said in a rather high pitched and loud voice. "You aren't going to get away with this kind of behavior as long as I am here." The latter was said with a firmness that caused a chill to run up and down my spine.
"I'll do a better job of cleaning," I said, somewhat weekly, and began to open the top drawer of my bureau so that I could straighten it out.
"I'm going to punish you this time lying down on your bed," he continued. "Take off all your clothes."
"But I just put them on a few hours ago," I protested, "and they are all clean."
"Get them off, and get them off quickly," he said. "And then lie down on the bed." The tone of his voice made it clear that I had better comply or I might get worse punishment. I reluctantly removed every stitch of my clothing and lay on the bed, face down, saying as I did so, "I hate you. I wish mother and dad were here. They wouldn't let you hit me this way."
"I'll bet you do," said my brother, "but they are in Europe and I am in charge now. Put your pillow under you stomach so that your rear is higher than the rest of your body."
I did so, and then he left the room to get something. I assumed that it would be his paddle, but instead he brought back some cloth binders to tie my hands and feet to the bed posts. Next he took a belt from my closet and began to apply it to my buttocks.
He wasn't holding anything back and proceed to lay blast after blast of leather across my naked behind, which soon became quite red and swollen. Each vicious bite of the belt as it lashed into my buttocks sliced into my self control, until, by the fifteenth stroke, I was wailing. "It hurts. It hurts, oh god, it hurts."
"It (smack) is (crack) supposed (thwack) to, bob said with no sympathy."
I screamed because the pain of the first blow was so intense. Then I pleaded in desperation with him to stop. I said I would clean my room real good if he would only let me up. But Bob acted as if he didn't hear me and kept the belt swinging onto my now ripe, red bottom. Within a short time I was crying like a baby, something I hadn't done for many years. The pain was almost unbearable.
Finally, he laid one last terrible stroke across my poor burning ass. My whole body reacted to the pain, layer after layer of pain that he had poured onto my butt. "That's enough," he said as he put the belt back in the closet. "You can lie there for awhile and think about how you are going to clean up this room before supper." With that he pulled the drawers out of my bureau and dumped each one onto the floor. Then he tore all my posters off the wall--posters of my favorite rock stars--and crumpled them up before dropping them into the waste basket. He left the room with me still bound and sobbing on the bed, lying face down with my tortured bottom exposed.
After what seemed like an hour or so, but was really probably about twenty minutes, Bob returned and unbound my hands and feet. "Report to me as soon as this room is clean," he said, "and I want you finished before supper." With that he left the room, and I stood for a moment trying to rub the pain from my backside before I got dressed. It was a useless endeavor. Some of the pain lasted all night, and it came back every time I tried to sit down the next morning.
I worked on my room in anger. I was particularly mad about the loss of my posters. After all, I thought, Bob had no right to take them off the wall. It took me a long time to get that collection. Yet I did straighten up my drawers, rehang all my clothes in the closet, and sweep under my bed.
When I reported to my brother that I was finally done with my room, he went with me to inspect it. This time he found it in relatively good order. All he said was, "So you are able to keep something clean when you decide to do so." With that he left to go prepare the evening meal.
It was clearly too late to go outside and play with the basketball and so I stood reading a magazine in my room until supper time. I didn't feel like sitting down. That evening I watched TV with my brother, I standing much of the time.
I was awakened the next morning by my brother shaking my shoulder at what seemed like an unbelievably early hour. "It's time to get up and take your shower," he said. "I've already had mine."
A shower when I got up? I wasn't used to showering in the morning before breakfast. Why was he doing this to me, I wondered. But the experience on the bed the afternoon before made me decide not to anger him. I dutifully rose, took off my pajamas, and entered the tub. When I turned the water off and got out of the tub, I found Bob standing there waiting for me to finish. He was holding my towel.
As I dried myself, he said, "You haven't been getting enough exercise. I can see that you are beginning to get a pot belly. And you are only fifteen years old. It's positively obscene. I think an exercise program is in order."
"What do you mean," I asked.
"I mean that you need to do some regular exercises every day to get rid of some of that fat that is building up on you from sitting and watching too much TV."
"I don't watch much TV," I said in anger and with a bit of a whine in my voice.
"That may be," my brother responded, "but you are certainly not doing enough exercise. This morning you will do at least ten push ups and sit ups, and if you increase the amount every day you should be able to take off some of that extra weight. Now hurry up and get down on the floor. Start the sit ups, ten of them."
"Can't I put on some clothes first," I whined.
"No," he answered. "Do them here in the bathroom just as you are."
I was only able to do eight sit ups before I fagged out, and the push ups were even harder, only seven of them.
"You better begin to practice a little," Bob said. "You are really out of shape. I only told you to do ten each. A boy your age should be able to do at least twenty-five without getting tired. I won't insist you do any more this morning, but tomorrow you better be able to do ten or there will be serious consequences." It was a threat I didn't like to hear. My backside was still quite sore from the afternoon before.
My brother then patted me on the rear in an affectionate manner. I could see in the mirror that my bottom was still quite red and perhaps that was why he was being so gentle in his patting. Then he put his arm over my shoulder in a brotherly way and, with the other hand, ran his fingers through my hair. It seemed like the old Bob was finally returning, the one that I had grown up with.
But then to my sudden surprise, he took a lock of my hair in his hand, stretched it away from my head and, with a pair of scissors that I didn't realize he was holding, cut it off.
I yelled, "Hey that's my hair. What are you doing?"
"Don't worry, I'm fixing it."
But I was worried. What he cut off appeared to be a big batch from the back of my head. It had taken me a long time to grow all that hair. I immediately glanced at my head in the mirror. Indeed there was a large area at the back of my head where the hair was now short, while the hair on the rest of my scalp hung long. It looked terrible.
"I can't go out like this," I screamed. "I look like a fool with my hair so uneven. Look what you've done. You've made a mess of my head."
My brother smiled, "If you don't like it that way, you can wear a hat. But I would advise you to go to the barber as soon as possible. Now get dressed and lets have breakfast."
He walked out of the bathroom leaving me fuming and wondering what I could do to retaliate. I believe I felt much like Sampson must have felt after Delilah cut off his locks.
I sat and glared at my brother during breakfast. Afterward I put on a hat to go outside, but I looked silly wearing a hat in the middle of summer. There was nothing I could do but go to the barber shop to get the hair evened out. Wearing the hat, I allowed my brother to drive me to the barber shop where he, before I had a chance, instructed the barber as to how to cut my hair so that I would no longer look like an unkempt teenager. He loaned me the money to pay for this service on condition that I repay the loan as soon as I got home. The whole experience made me feel more humiliated than I had in a long time.
When we got home, it was not yet lunch time but I didn't want to go over to Fred's house because I wasn't sure I wanted him to see my new haircut. I was too embarrassed to show it around yet. So I went to my room and began to read a book I had not yet finished.
When I came down to lunch, my brother told me to hold out my hands so that he could examine them. "Your fingernails are dirty," he said emphatically. "Go to the bathroom and clean them, and clean your hands too. They are none too presentable."
I was mortified. I felt like a little boy. I hadn't been told to wash my hands before eating since I was about eight years old. But I thought it best not to argue and so went to the bathroom to do as I was told. When I returned, Bob made me hold my hands out again so that he could examine them. Then I was allowed to sit down and eat the meal he had prepared.
At lunch he said, "Now you look almost like a human being. But you still don't behave like one. And you need to do some of the chores around here. What in the world do you do for the allowance father gives you?"
"I mow the lawn," I replied.
"It doesn't look like you do a very good job. When was the last time you did it and how often do you do it?"
"Every three weeks, and I did it just a week and a half ago. Dad said it was O. K."
"Well the lawn clearly needs a mowing now," said my brother. "After lunch, before you do anything else, mow the lawn properly."
"I don't have to," I said.
"You do if you want any supper," he replied. "Maybe you need another taste of the paddle."
I shuddered, but kept silent.
"The other thing I need to talk to you about," Bob continued, "are your crude manners. I really don't think you should be allowed out in public until they improve."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"You answer the telephone like a prize fighter, very rudely. And you show no respect for your elders. I know I'm your brother, but I am some years older than you and so you should show me the respect that an adult deserves."
"I'm not rude to you," I pouted.
"You've been so poorly brought up that you don't even seem to know what respect is. From now on, until you learn to show respect, don't think of me as your brother, but think of me as your tutor or master. You will address me as 'Sir' and not as Bob. Is that understood?"
"I can't call my brother 'Sir'," I said. "It doesn't seem right."
"You will do so," he replied, "and you will start immediately. I will give you the rest of the day to practice addressing me properly. By tomorrow, if you don't do so, or if you call me Bob instead of Sir, I will lay the paddle on your backside to remind you to be more courteous.
"That's not fair," I said.
"That's not fair what," he replied sternly.
"That's not fair, Sir," I said, feeling rather foolish in addressing him in this way.
"That's more like it," he said. "Now go out and mow the lawn while I do the dishes."
"Yes, Sir," I said with emphasis to show him how silly it sounded. He didn't reply, and I decided I had best go do the lawn. Fortunately the grass was still low enough so that I could get away with a halfhearted job. He never realized how many spots I missed in the mowing that day.
Later, after I had reported to him that I was done, I went over to Fred's house where I met the inevitable questions as to what I had done with my hair. I didn't let on about my problems with my brother. I just told Fred that I had made the momentous decision to change my hair style.
I made sure that I was home before six so that my brother would have no complaints about my lateness and I carefully cleaned my finger nails and hands before supper. We watched TV that evening, although I didn't get the choice of programs. And every time I spoke to my brother without using 'Sir' he corrected me. I found that I was slowly getting used to the term, even though I found its use offensive.
The next morning I was again awakened by my brother and hustled into the shower. I was able to complete the ten sit ups, but only nine of the push ups.
"Bend over and hold on to your ankles," Bob said. "You will get a stroke with the paddle for the push up you didn't complete. I warned you yesterday, didn't I."
"Yes," I said weakly.
"Yes what," he demanded.
"Yes Sir," I said.
"You will also get a stroke for forgetting the Sir. Now bend over and be quick about it."
The two whacks stung on my bare backside and I was sure they must have left angry red marks. I stood up when he told me I could and started for my bedroom so that I could get dressed.
"No need to get dressed yet," my brother told me. "This morning after breakfast you are going to start doing some of the chores you should have been doing around here for a long time. I want to be sure that you learn to do them well and so I will keep the paddle handy for your training. If you aren't wearing anything, then I won't have to wait for you to drop your pants every time you deserve a stroke."
I was horrified at this announcement. The only thing I could think of saying was, "But Sir, people outside the house will be able to see me through the windows."
"No one is interested in looking at your miserable body," he said with finality. Of course he was wrong, but what could I do? He clearly had the upper hand at that time. I sat eating the breakfast he had prepared in great discomfort. I found it embarrassing, even though he was my brother, to be sitting there with him exposed in my birthday suit.
"The first chore you will do this morning," he said during the meal, "is to make the beds--both yours and mine. So while I wash the dishes, you go upstairs and start on them. Make sure there are no wrinkles in either one when you are done. I will come up to inspect them in a few minutes."
"Yes Sir," I said as I stared at the floor beneath my feet. I was finally getting used to the "Sir."
When Bob came up to inspect the beds, he found a small wrinkle in mine. He didn't even tell me to bend over as he hit me two hard whacks on my already somewhat sore bottom. He then tore the covers and sheets from my bed and stood watching me as I struggled to put the mess back together again.
When done with this task, he ordered me to begin washing the kitchen floor. I had to watch my step in the basement when I went to get the cleaning materials because I was not wearing any shoes and the basement floor had all manner of tools, cans, and glass objects on which I might hurt myself.
Bob insisted that I get down on my hands and knees to wash the kitchen floor. "It's the only way to see the dirt," he said.
"Yes Sir," I replied. But the next time I spoke to him I forgot the Sir and merited another healthy swat on my backside. Bob certainly knew how to place the paddle so that it produced the most pain on me with the least amount of effort on his part. The kitchen floor done, he assigned another chore. I didn't get finished with all the chores that day until lunch time. And my bottom was quite sore from all the paddlings it received during the process.
That afternoon I stayed home, mostly in a standing position, reading one of the books that had long stood on my shelf unread. I wasn't anxious to see any of my friends with my rear as sore as it seemed to be, even though I could now go out with my clothes on. The story I was reading, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain, was so interesting that I kept at it in the evening and didn't watch any TV.
Again, the next morning began with my brother waking me so that I could take a shower and do the exercises. To my surprise I didn't have much trouble getting through the eleven sit ups and push ups he assigned, so he said the next day I would have to do fifteen of them.
I still had to do all the chores--making both beds, cleaning various closets, washing the bathroom floor, vacuuming all the rugs--in the nude with occasional swats of the paddle to keep me in line. By now I began to realize that my brother would always assign so many chores to do that I would have to spend all morning doing them. What free time I might have, as long as my brother was in charge, would be only in the afternoons.
I was allowed to wear my clothes when I did yard work or any other chores outside, but I had to be naked during chore time in the house. My use of the term "Sir" became so proficient that I sometimes used it twice in a single sentence. For example, "Sir, I have a question to ask you, Sir."
By the end of the two months that my parents were gone, I had the house in the cleanest and neatest condition I could ever remember it being. All the floors, windows, and walls were washed. The yard so was neat it looked like a professional gardener had been working at it. I was doing all the laundry, making the beds every day, setting the table for every meal, taking out the garbage, and even doing some of the cooking under my brother's direction.
I didn't actually spend much time with my friends that summer. I didn't go with them to the movies anymore because, if I did, I would have to leave the theater early to get home in time for dinner. I also never went swimming with them because I didn't want any of them to spy the perpetual redness of my posterior when I donned my bathing suit.
Instead, I spent much of my spare time reading. I had suddenly become enamored of the classics, perhaps as an escape from my situation, but more likely because it was the summer that I discovered the joys of good literature as never before.
Only once more did my brother punish me lying down on my bed. This happened because I forgot to do one of my chores. It wasn't purposeful. He, at breakfast, had given me a list of ten items that had to be done that morning. I did all but one of them as instructed. However the list was so long I forgot that one. My brother then decided to punish me for this neglect while I lay on the bed. Because I remembered the pain of the first experience with the lying down position, I tried to resist and lashed out at him. But he was much stronger than I and soon had me down on the bed, legs kicking and arms flailing to no avail. As before, he tied them to the four bed posts, placed a pillow under my stomach so that my rear was high in the air, and then laid into my backside with his own belt, which was thicker and more painful than mine had been.
I can not adequately describe the pain of that whipping. The muscles of my deeply divided and strengthening thighs collapsed under the relentless blows of the belt. My already pink buttocks became a mass of crisscrossing stripes. It seemed that my brother particularly aimed for the area where the thigh meets the leg, the place where some of the most intense pain can be felt during a whipping. When he finished, I lay gasping for breath as I weeped a torrent of tears. And I did not arise for some time after he untied the bindings.
The day before my parents returned, Bob told me that I no longer needed to call him "Sir," and that my training was done. The two of us went to meet them at the airport. I greeted them with the politeness that my brother had taught me and I offered to carry their bags. Both parents liked my haircut and the clothes I was wearing. We returned home and my mother was amazed at the condition of the house and yard. Bob told them that much of the credit was due me because I had worked hard to get them in that condition. I beamed at his pride in my accomplishments.
Mother later said to me, "My you have grown up during the summer. You are a different person than the one we left behind two months ago. You are now very adult in your ways. Perhaps your father and I should go away more often, leaving you in the care of your brother."
I said nothing in reply but the words, "Thanks, mother."