"You have a good day at the quarry, Scott?"
"Sure did , dad! I took Jim with me. First time his mom let him ride a bike out there."
"And you remembered what I told you about swimming only in the guarded area by the beach?"
"Yep. There were a few guys who went to explore the cliffs, but I remembered you said that was dangerous so Jim and I just stuck to the beach." Scott glanced briefly into his father's eyes to see his lie, smooth as it came to him, was taken for truth. He couldn't tell for sure.
"Well, son, it was such a nice day today I decided to pick up a sandwich at the deli and go on a little picnic myself."
"Where did you go, dad?" Scott now definitely felt a bit of apprehension. He knew his father well enough to know this conversation was definitely heading somewhere he did not want to go.
"Decided to go out to the quarry myself today, Scott. Pretty crowded out there, too."
"More people than you could count," Scott answered with a bit of nervousness, wondering just when his dad took his lunch.
"So many that I could not find you on the beach when I looked?"
"Must have been when Jim and I were in the concession stand for a hot dog," Scott lied, hoping this would be the end of it. "I was thinking the lawn needs cutting, dad. You want me to get on it?" Definitely time to change the course of this conversation.
"Maybe later, Scott, but first we need to settle something here first. I saw you and Jim diving the cliffs, son. You were out there with that gang from Washington High School, right?"
The moment of decision had come for Scott. Continue to lie and stonewall or confess and hope for mercy from the inquisitor.
"Umm. . . . . well . . . . yeah, suppose we did take a few minutes with some of the guys." Truth was that Scott was elated to be baited into some dangerous dives by the older guys.
"Ah, so you decided to see if you could avoid cracking your skull and Jim's on those underwater rock ledges."
"C'mon, dad. Geez. That stuff about the ledges is just bull_s_h_i_t_.." The second the word "bull_s_h_i_t_" left his mouth, Scott wanted it back. Too late. Big mistake.
"Bull_s_h_i_t_, Scott? Bull_s_h_i_t_? Don't you EVER take that tone with me or start using that kind of language, boy. You hear me?"
"Sorry, dad."
"Not as sorry as you are going to be. That quarry was empty for most of my life, Scott, and I can tell you first hand there are shelves and shelves and shelves of solid rock under that dark water, some of them no more than six feet below the water line."
"Yes, dad. I believe you." The tone of that remark was dripping in disrespect and Scott would have liked it back as well. Again, too late. Geez, being fourteen was hard!
"You have a way of digging yourself in faster than a well digger with a good backhoe, boy!"
This time Scott had the sense to say nothing. His eyes moved cautiously up from the floor just high enough to check which belt his father had on that day. Unfortunately for Scott, not one of the thinner dress belts his father usually wore to work but the thick black belt he liked to wear with his jeans.
"You know Sean Simmons from church?"
"Yes, dad, I know. I know. How could I not know: you've told me about a zillion times." For a third time Scott regretted what he had said as soon as it was out. This was like a plague of oral diarrhea!
"Well, hear it once more, Mr. Sass Mouth. Sean is spending his life in a wheel chair thanks to his diving into an underwater shelf at the quarry."
"I know, " Rob replied sullenly. "Geez. And if we quit driving because one kid was killed in a car accident, how would that work?!"
"You really are looking for a good strapping, aren't you?"
"Can we just get it over with then, please?"
"You know, Scott, all summer you have been building an attitude. A real attitude. You think now that you are going to start high school, you know it all. And your mother and I are fools twenty-four hours a day."
"You're not?" Scott just could not resist. And he knew that one was going to cost him plenty. He watched as his father unbuckled his belt, pulled it free of the pants loops, and then doubled it.
Scott's dad took him by the arm and paraded him into his bedroom, closing the door behind them.
"Take your pants down, boy, and bend over the end of the bed," his father said quietly.
Scott sat on the edge of his bed to take off his shoes. He opened his jeans and slid them down to his ankles, then took his place at the end of the bed and bent forward till his face touched the mattress.
"You have been asking for this all summer, Scott, and I mean to make this one a memory which will last you. I specifically told you not to go outside the beach area. You not only disobeyed me but took a younger friend with you. Then you have the nerve to lie to me. And for frosting you sass me!"
Scott said nothing. No defense might be best here, he thought. Especially given what he had already said to hang himself. He had taken a couple good lickings before with this belt and had indeed dug himself a deep enough hole. Even his attitude had limits.
"Your biggest problems in life, right now, son, are your attitude and your mouth. They get you in trouble at home, they will get you plenty trouble at school, and, if you don't learn to curb them out on the street, they will get you hurt."
"Right, dad!" Rob shot back with a snottiness which surprised even him. He thought for a second maybe he had just thought the words and not said them. Too late again!
Scott felt his father's hands on his hips pulling his briefs down to bear his butt for the strapping sure to come. His dad peeled the jockeys down to his knees where they dropped to the floor, leaving Scott buck naked from the waist down. To add to his embarrassment his newly developed manhood now started to rise.
"Tell you what, boy," his father said in a quiet but seething whisper which almost frightened Scott. "Right now your mouth is out of control and I'm too angry to take this belt to your sorry ass. So you just stay right where you are while I take a few minutes to cool off. When I get back here I expect to find you just as you are right now. And I am going to take this belt to you till I am satisfied you have learned a lesson. You hear me?!"
"Yes, sir," Scott replied, keeping his shoulders down to the bed and his bared ass raised up over the footboard. No sass in this reply, just as much contrition as he could convey. And a hope his father had not seen his penis rising.
Scott's dad laid the doubled belt on the bed right next to his son's face, then left the room.
After he heard his bedroom door shut, Scott could not help but reach down between his splayed legs to touch himself. He briefly gave thought to betting his father would not be back for a while and going over to the closet to grab a towel and make himself feel better. But he was not about to get caught for a second time that day disobeying a direct order so he just played for a while till he heard the footsteps coming down the hardwood hallway.
His father again closed the door, then took the doubled belt from the bed and moved behind Scott and to the side.
"You are getting too old for this, son. I am really tired of having to take your pants down for the strap."
"Then don't!" Scott replied.
"I won't have to when you start to grow up." The point was underlined with a hard crack of the doubled belt across Scott's bared butt. A dark red stripe began to darken to mark the belt's visit.
"Yes, sir," Scott answered, having learned from prior experience that argument at this point could be painful.
"In the next four years you are going to have to go from behaving like a spoiled child–which you did today–to behaving like a mature adult."
Five more licks with the belt drove this point home, his father taking time and deliberately moving downward to paint purple stripes on his son's wayward ass.
"The next time you sass either me or your mother, boy, you are going to get a mouthful of Palmolive soap AND my belt. You understand me?"
"YES, SIR!" Scott shouted in response to another half dozen well laid on cracks with the leather belt.
"If you want more room to roam, you ask, you don't just take it. And you do NOT disobey me, boy, when I tell you something! Do you hear me?"
The doubled belt lashed twice at the underside of Scott's scalded cheeks, and then three well measured licks laid broad stripes on the backs of his thighs. Scott had made more than a few trips over the end of the bed for the belt, but this one was indeed one to remember.
"Yes, dad, I hear you!" Scott sniveled. So far he had been able through sheer will power to stay in place but a few more like that would be more than he could take. "Puleeeeeeease, Dad?"
Scott's father disregarded his son's attempt to short circuit this punishment and switched sides to crack the belt backhand. The lecture continued with father laying out his son's sins and the son confessing all and pleading for mercy while the belt whistled home. New stripes on the old stripes now began to crosshatch his butt.
Finally Scott's will broke and he bolted upright, grabbing at his welted butt. This time his mouth produced not sarcasm and sass but the pleas of a boy whose attitude had changed. At least for the moment. Father was clearly in charge once more and Scott knew it.
"Pleeeeeease, dad? I really am sorry. More sorry than you know!!! It will NEVER happen again. Honest!! It won't!"
"Six more, boy. Bend!" Scott's dad pointed to the bed footboard with the doubled belt.
Once again Scott bent over the foot of his bed, his now scarlet ass crossed with the darker marks etched by the edge of the thick black belt. Ridges on his hips marked where the doubled strap had snapped down. He put a mouthful of bedspread in his teeth and bit down while he took the six lashes. And then it was over. His father put the belt back on, pulled Scott up by the shoulders to hug him, and left the bedroom, closing the door as he went. Scott could see the sadness and the anger still in his father's face.
For a few minutes Scott just lay on his stomach on the bed, regaining his composure. Felt like he had sat on a nest of yellow jackets. Then, in a curious twist which surprised him, he began to feel himself harden again and reached a hand down to stroke himself. Then he knelt upright and looked over to the mirror of his dresser opposite the bed to assess the damage from his dad's belt.
A serious case of the summertime blues. But there was the towel in the closet. A way to beat those summertime blues. Scott propped the desk chair under the door handle for security, then took the hand towel from his laundry basket in the closet. He went back to his bed, put the towel under, then lay on his belly, and looked up to see his friend Jim smirking at the window.
"How long you been there?" Scott whispered to his buddy as he opened the window.
"Long enough! Let me in!" Jim whispered back. "I wanna watch!"
Scott opened the window and held his hand out to boost Jim inside.