"Rick, I don't understand why you would do such a thing," the man said sadly.
Not knowing what to say, the boy simply scowled.
"I took you in when you had nowhere to go, I've treated you like a son, I've given you nothing but kindness, and this is how you repay that? By stealing from me?"
"I didn't know I owed you anything," the boy said sullenly.
"You don't owe me anything Rick. I'm simply trying to understand why you did this."
"Because I'm a thief and a liar by nature and you knew that right from the start," the boy shrugged.
"No, I never saw you as that. I saw you as a smart, kind hearted kid who did what he had to do to get along in this world," the man said softly.
"Guess you saw it wrong," the boy scowled.
"Maybe, but I don't think so. But I am really disappointed in your behavior."
"Guess that money really meant a lot to you. Guess it meant more than I do," the boy muttered.
"The money means nothing to me compared to you Rick. If you had asked me, I would have given it to you. The money is not the point."
"Then what is the _f_u_c_k_ing point?" the boy raged. . "You take me in, wonderful person that you are and that means I'm supposed to suck your dick or something?"
"Rick! That's gross! Where does a fourteen year old learn language like that anyway?"
"I been around," the boy smiled grimly.
"Yeah, I know you have," the man sighed. "If you needed money why didn't you just ask me?"
"I got no idea why I did it, okay? It was twenty _f_u_c_k_ing dollars. Stop acting like I stole everything you own."
"I told you, the money is not the point. The point is you betrayed my trust in you. The point is that you're refusing to have an honest discussion about this."
"You got no idea how much I hate these honest discussions you always want to have," the boy raged. He reached into his pocket, took out a crumpled twenty dollar bill, and threw it on the floor. "Here's your _f_u_c_k_ing money!" he yelled. "I'll get my stuff together and be on my way."
"On your way? What are you talking about?" the man asked.
"Usually at this point whoever I'm living with says '_f_u_c_k_ off Rick'"
"At this point? You mean after you steal from them?"
"Yeah."
"Is that what you think I'm going to say?"
"Don't you want me to leave?" the boy asked.
"No."
"Tom, you really are a crazy dude. I mean, you're right, you've been so nice to me and I go and steal from you and you still want me to live with you? That's crazy."
"I'm starting to understand what this is about. This is how you try to push away people when they start to love you, isn't it?" the man asked softly.
"This is some major psychobull_s_h_i_t_," the boy rolled his eyes.
"Why do you feel you're not worthy of being loved?" the man asked.
"I don't wanna hear this _s_h_i_t_," the boy said angrily.
"I think you did hear it, and I think you know I'm right," the man said.
"So you really want me to stay, huh?" the boy asked.
"Rick, you mean more to me than anything. I know if you really wanted to leave I couldn't stop you, but it would break my heart. I love you."
The boy's eyes filled with tears and the man once again saw the hurt and scared little boy underneath the tough guy veneer, the little boy who had melted his heart. "I guess I got nowhere to go anyway," he muttered.
"Rick, it's getting late," the man sighed. "Why don't you go to bed. Maybe things will seem better in the morning."
"Are we going to have to have another honest _f_u_c_k_ing discussion about this tomorrow?" the boy asked sharply. The tough guy was back.
"Rick, I will never say another word about it, I promise. Okay?"
"Okay," the boy muttered. "I guess I'll...uh...go to sleep now."
"Okay, goodnight son."
"Goodnight Tom."
Alone in his bed, the boy found that he was unable to sleep. The conversation he had with man kept playing over and over in his head. He knew everything the man said was right. He thought of all of the large and small kindnesses which the man had bestowed upon him, and he felt more like a jerk than ever before in his life. Overwhelmed by feelings of remorse, the boy began to cry. The remorse was for the theft and for the terrible way he had talked to the man, who genuinely loved the boy and who the boy loved back, as best as he knew how. The boy feared that he had forever destroyed the relationship that had developed between them over the past several months. That thought made him cry harder. He lay there for a while, crying and trying to think of a way to make things right with the man. Then he thought of it. He reached for his pants, which were on the floor next to the bed, and drew his belt out of the loops. Then he headed downstairs in search of the man.
The man was in the den watching TV. He looked up and saw that the boy was standing in the doorway holding a belt and sobbing. "Rick, what are you...?"
"Tom, I'm so sorry about what I did," the boy cut him off. I gotta be the world's biggest asshole to steal from you after all you done for me. I deserve a whipping." The boy handed the man the belt, pulled down his sweatpants, exposing his naked bottom, and bent over the arm of the couch.
Horrified at the thought, the man dropped the belt to the floor. "Get up Rick, I'm not going to do this," he said tiredly. "I couldn't. Just pull up your pants and go back to bed. We'll talk more in the morning."
The boy pulled up his pants and faced the man. "You want to be my dad, right? Well, most dads would whip a kid who did what I did."
"I hear what you're saying," the man said quietly. "And maybe a spanking is in order here."
"So you're going to do it?" the boy asked anxiously.
"I'm not going to use a belt on you. Go upstairs and get my hairbrush from the bathroom. I'll use that."
The boy ran upstairs, got the man's hairbrush from the bathroom, and headed back downstairs. The brush was made of wood and was small, but it was heavy. The boy smacked it against his palm and was surprised by the sting. He pushed away the second thoughts he was having, went back to the den, and handed the man the brush. The man patted his lap. "Okay, bend over Rick," he said quietly.
The boy once again pulled down his sweatpants and placed himself over the man's lap. He looked back at the man. "You're really going to do this?"
"Yeah, I am. I think it'll make us both feel better," the man sighed.
At first the man was unable to spank the boy hard enough to actually hurt him. The boy's little bottom looked so tender and vulnerable, and the man felt sorry for him. He gave him a couple of half-hearted whacks and was about to tell him to get up. Then the man thought about how angry and betrayed he had felt when he discovered the missing money and he was able to work up enough anger to bring the hairbrush down with some force. The boy reacted by squirming and sucking in his breath. When the man raised the hairbrush again, he saw that it had left a red oval on the boy's bottom. After a couple more whacks with the hairbrush, the boy was unable to keep silent any longer. "Owww!" he complained.
"Spankings are supposed to hurt," the man said almost apologetically.
"No, I know, I'll try not to make a big fuss, but ohhhh, it hurrrts!" the boy moaned as the man continued to bring the hairbrush down in a steady rhythm, not really swinging it with the strength of his arm but, rather, with a flick of his wrist. The object was to sting the boy's bottom without actually doing any damage to the boy's skin.
"It's okay to make a fuss," the man said sympathetically. "I know this really hurts." After about a dozen whacks it was clear that the boy was certainly feeling the sting. The red prints left by the brush had merged into an overall redness, which covered the boy's entire bottom, and the boy was squirming and twisting. The man felt sorry for the boy, who was clearly in a great deal of pain. However, he knew the spanking could not end until the boy actually cried. "Why are you being spanked Rick?" the man asked, as he continued to spank the boy's bottom with the brush.
"Owww! Cause I'm a stupid asshole jerk," the boy yelled.
The man gave the boy a particularly hard whack. "Nope, it's for something you did, Rick. Which was what?"
"Owww! I stole from you. I'm so sorry, Tom. And for the way I talked to you too."
"Yeah, that was pretty disgusting," the man said as he whacked the boy's beet red bottom again. "You are never to talk to me like that again."
"Ouch! I won't, I won't, I swear," the boy sniveled.
The man began to step up the intensity of the spanks in the hope of getting the reaction he was looking for. The boy reacted to the harder swats by twisting and squirming furiously and kicking his legs so hard that his pants went flying across the room. "Owwww!" he screeched. "Stop! That's enough!"
"I decide when it's enough, not you," the man said sternly, and he continued to spank the boy.
Convinced that the man was never going to stop bringing the brush down on his throbbing, burning bottom, the boy struggled madly to get off the man's lap. The man, being considerably bigger than the boy, held the boy down easily and continued to apply the hairbrush. Finally, the boy burst into tears, stopped struggling and lied limply across the man's lap. "Please no more, please, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," the boy blubbered.
The man put the brush down and released his grip on the boy. "It's over," he said softly. "You can get up now."
The boy sprang to his feet and grabbed his aching bottom with both hands. Not giving a _d_a_m_n_ about what he was exposing, he danced from foot to foot as he vainly tried to rub the sting out of his well-spanked backside. After a couple of minutes of this he became conscious of his nudity and blushingly retrieved his pants and put them on. "I can't believe you really did that to me," he said to the man, as he got his sobbing under control.
"Rick, you asked for it."
"Oh yeah. It's just that no one ever...uh..."
"Put you over their knee and spanked you?"
"No, never. Geez, that really hurt! But it made me feel...kinda...I mean..." the boy struggled for the right words.
"Better about things?" the man suggested.
"Yeah. It made me feel like you was my dad," the boy blushed.
"So you think that's an expression of love?" the man asked.
"Is this going to turn into another psychobull_s_h_i_t_ session?" the boy groaned.
"This could turn into you going back over my knee," the man said sternly.
"No, don't do that," the boy said quickly. "I don't really mean it when I say that stuff anyhow. I really respect you Tom. That's the truth."
"You respect me because I spanked you?"
"No, I respected you before and I still do. And I loved you a lot before and I still do. Even though you set my butt on fire," the boy added reproachfully.
The man smiled, took the boy into his arms and hugged him tightly. "I love you a lot too Rick."
"You forgive me?"
"Of course I do. I forgave you before I spanked you, which made it particularly hard to do," the man admitted.
"I didn't mean to carry on so much, it's just that it really hurt."
"I know that son. You shouldn't feel badly. I thought you were really brave about it," the man said soothingly.
"Tom, if I ever act like an asshole again, like I did today..."
"I'll put you over my knee again. And watch that language!"
"Oh, I'm sorry. You would really spank me again?"
"Yeah, I would. Not just for any little thing, but I think you need to feel that you've paid a price when you do something really bad. You may not see it now, but I think the spanking you got today did you a world of good. I think that on some level you realize it already. Rick, we both know things have got to change around here."
"Yeah," the boy said softly.
"It's partly my fault," the man said. "I was trying to be your friend when what you really needed was for me to be your father. So, the bottom line is that I am the boss. I make the rules, you follow them. And if you forget that I am the boss, I will use that hairbrush again. Got it?"
"Yeah. I won't forget," the boy said quietly. "That brush really hurts!"
"Yeah, I know," the man said guiltily. "I spanked you very hard. Your bottom is really red."
"Don't feel bad about it Tom. I don't, honest. My butt hurts but my feeling don't."
The man laughed and hugged the boy more tightly. "Okay, that's good. Let's see what we can do about making that butt feel better."
The man led the boy upstairs and into the bathroom. He picked up a bottle of Aftersun. "Sunburn lotion?" the boy asked.
"Yeah, if it cools a sunburn, it should work on a burning butt," the man said. "Pull down your pants."
The boy once again pulled down his sweats and he caught a glimpse of his spanked bottom in the mirror. "Wow, that is really red!" he gasped.
The man gently applied the lotion to the reddened cheeks. They were hot to the touch. "Yeah, I'm afraid you're going to be sleeping on your tummy tonight. And I bet you'll be reminded that you were spanked every time you put your backside on a chair tomorrow."
The boy pulled up his pants and hugged the man. "I'm okay," he said. "The lotion really made it feel better. I deserved it Tom. You shouldn't feel bad about it."
"No, I don't. Not much anyway. Ready to go to bed?"
"Yeah, I'm exhausted. Getting your butt tanned is real tiring," the boy smiled a little.
The boy got into bed and, as the man had predicted, grimaced when his tenderized bottom made contact with the mattress and immediately turned over onto his stomach. "It's burning up again," he complained.
"I'll get the lotion," the man sighed.
Laughing a little at his predicament, the boy once again pulled down his sweats. The man came into the room and applied a generous amount of lotion to the punished bottom. "Mmmmm," the boy sighed, "that feels good."
"Okay, go to bed. It'll be better in the morning," the man said soothingly. He pulled up the boy's pants, tucked him into bed and gave him a kiss, like one would do to a small child. The boy did not mind at all.