It was thirty minutes past midnight when I arrived home that night, thirty minutes past when I was supposed to be home. The house was all dark as I pulled my car into the driveway.
I gently turned the key in the door and quietly went in, hoping that I could make it to my room unnoticed. My dad had warned me that if I missed my curfew again I would be punished.
As I started down the hallway, I noticed a light on under my bedroom door. I didn't think much about it, though. I often left the house in a hurry and left my light on.
The bathroom was the first door before my room, so I stopped off there before going on to my room. I thought if Dad came out to check my room now, I could say I was in the bathroom.
I was in the bathroom about five minutes, just long enough to get undressed and brush my teeth. I put my dirty jeans in the laundry basket and then headed toward my room.
I made my way down the dark hall dressed now in only a T-shirt and my underpants. I paused briefly at my parents' bedroom door. There was no sound. They must already be asleep, I thought.
Softly, I opened my door. I was certain that was I going to make it without getting caught. I was almost home free. I opened the door just wide enough to slip in without letting the light flood the hallway, when, to my surprise, I saw both my mom and dad sitting on my bed.
Mom was sitting on the bed with her arms folded, and Dad was next to her with one of his belts across his lap. Dad also had the paddle laying on the bed between them.
I was so startled, I didn't know what to say. I just stood there.
"Where have you been, son?'' Dad asked very calmly.
"I . . . I had to take Mark home," I said after a few seconds. That was true, I did have to take my best friend Mark home after the basketball game. But that wasn't the reason I was late. I was late because I had stopped off to see Andrea.
At age 15, and with only a restricted driver's license to get me to work and school - or school activities - my parents insisted that I was still too young to date or be going over to a girl's house. So I couldn't tell them that I had gone to see a girl.
Another reason why Dad was so strict about curfew was that my driver's permit prohibited driving between midnight and 6 a. m.
"Do you know what time it is?" he asked, still remaining unbelievably calm.
I looked at the clock on my nightstand. It read 12:37.
"Yes, sir. I'm sorry I'm late. I should've called."
"That right, you should have," Dad said, his voice now starting to sound angry. "But I told you what would happen if you were late again, so now you're going to be punished."
Dad got up and walked over to my desk and began to clear a place off at the end of the desk. My dad was a teacher and a former coach, and he made me assume the same position as when he paddled a student - bending over the desk with my knees not bent and my buttocks sticking up in the air.
"Son, I want you to take off your T-shirt and bend over the desk."
I slowly raised my shirt and pulled it over my head. Having already removed my jeans in the bathroom, I stood facing my dad in only my briefs.
I walked over and took my place across the desk, knowing that if I made Dad wait it would only make the punishment worse.
"You'll get 37 lashes with the belt, one for each minute you were late."
I raised up and tried to tell him that I was in the bathroom for at least five minutes, but he was in no mood to negotiate.
"You just earned 10 more swats for arguing," he said.
Then, Dad placed one hand on the small of my back and held the doubled-up belt with the other. He raised the belt and brought it down sharply across my backside, striking my leg just below my underwear. It stung, but I knew not to move or raise up.
A few seconds later, the second lick landed, hitting me on the seat of my underpants this time. The thin, cotton briefs did little to cushion the blow.
Pausing briefly between each lash, Dad proceeded to put one stripe after another across my buttocks. By the 10th lash, my butt was on fire. After 20, it felt like all the flesh had been ripped off my buttocks and upper legs.
Dad knew how to place each lick strategically to cover my entire bottom. After 30 lashes, the pain was so intense that I couldn't keep the tears from my eyes. I seldom received a spanking during which I didn't cry. Dad said spankings are supposed to hurt and that usually meant tears.
After seven more licks, I was crying like a baby. After the 37th swat, Dad stopped. I thought he was finished. I lost count after about 25. I started to raise up when Dad pushed me back down.
"We're not finished yet," he said. He laid his belt down and picked up the paddle.
Dad often used both a belt and the paddle during a spanking. After so many lashes with the belt, the licks became dull and not as sharp, so he changed to the paddle for greater impact.
He gave me 10 hard swats with the board, each one creating a burning sensation on my already red bottom.
Finally, he stopped and allowed me to raise up.
"Now, do you want to tell us the real reason you were late?" Dad asked. "I called Mark's house. He said you left at a quarter before 12."
I had no choice but to tell them that I went to see Andrea.
"All right, son, now we've got to punish you for lying," he said. The whole time that Dad had been spanking me, Mom hadn't said anything. But now it was her turn.
"You know how we feel about lying," Mom said. Lying was not tolerated for any reason, and it meant an automatic spanking.
Mom got up from the bed where she had observed my first spanking and moved a chair into the center of the room. She sat down in the chair and motioned for me to bend over her lap.
While Dad gave me most of my spankings, I got my share from Mom as well. Mom's technique was quite different from Dad's. She spanked me like a child - over her knee and bare-bottom.
Even though I was 15 and quite humiliated to be spanked this way, Mom always pulled down my underwear.
I went over and laid across Mom's lap. Then, she reached up and hooked her finger in the waistband of my underwear and pulled them down to my ankles, then off, leaving me completely naked and stripped of any pride I had left.
Mom pulled me into the spanking position, with my legs dangling off the side of the chair. She then began to deliver a series of rapid-fire swats with her open hand.
Mom didn't need to use a belt or paddle, and unlike Dad, she didn't pause between swats. She fired one lick right after another. She, too, covered my entire bottom with 15 or 20 swats on one side, then 15 or 20 on the other.
The tears had let up from my Dad's spanking, but now I was sobbing again. Mom continued to spank me unrelentingly, spanking me harder and harder.
Finally, after about 50 swats, she stopped and told me to stand up. I was already embarrassed enough from her seeing my bare backside, now she would see me from the front.
Mom had never been one for modesty. As a child, I often had had my pants pulled down and given a bare bottom spanking in front of my sister or my grandmother.
It was always humiliating, but since I had reached puberty, it had become even more embarrassing for Mom to see me naked. The didn't stop her from spanking me bare-bottom, though.
Mom continued to spank me that way until my 17th birthday, and Dad paddled me for two years after that. He gave me my last spanking a week before I left home and went off to college. It was for lying.