"What did I tell you would happen if you got caught drinking beer with those drop-outs you hang around, Jim?"
"The paddle, sir."
"Uh-huh. The paddle. And what do you get when you talk back to your father?"
"A mouth full of Fels Naphtha soap, sir."
"Well, I will give you that much: you do have a pretty good memory, Jim. You would prefer to get this over, I would guess?"
"Yes, sir," Jim replied, his eyes down on the tile floor of the kitchen. All this over less than a half a beer. The least he should have done was to slam down a couple full ones and see if he could get himself drunk. Scott did it, that's for sure. And the penalty would not have been any more anyway. If Scott hadn't been so stupid as to puke all over the driveway they would have gotten away with this, the idiot.
Jim followed his dad to wash basin in the bathroom between the attached garage and the kitchen. His father took that big, ugly bar of yellow Fels Naphtha down from the cabinet, turned on the hot water, took a clean wash rag, and proceeded to work the bar into a nice rich lather.
"I know you think you're too old for this, boy, but as long as you act like a child and talk back, you'll be treated like one. Get over here and open your mouth!"
Jim rolled his eyes but obediently stepped to the sink. His father covered the wash cloth with the suds and then wrapped it round the bar.
:"Next time you have a mind to sass back at me, boy, you might want to remember what having your mouth washed out feels like."
No doubt about that. At fifteen this kind of humiliation was not easily forgotten. Jim opened his mouth wide and in went the bar with the sudsy washcloth. The bar half in his mouth, Jim closed on it and held it there. His father pointed to the corner of the wash room.
"You can stand right there, boy, while I get the paddle. And you keep your hands to your sides. If you want a little more time with that soap in your mouth, just keep acting up."
Jim stood there like he had too many times before, the yellow suds foaming out of his lips, looking like some kind of mad dog. And he was as close to gagging on the soap as ever. But he breathed through his nose and kept his hands down and waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, a good five minutes later his father opened the door and came in, paddle in hand. He set the paddle down on the sink and took the bar of soap out, rinsed the cloth, then handed Jim a glass of water to rinse the rest of the soap from his mouth. Jim spit and rinsed about five times, near a gag with each cleansing.
"Learned not to sass back, boy?" Jim's father asked.
"YES, SIR!" Jim replied.
"And your ready to take your punishment?"
"Yes, sir," Jim answered, but with a tone which suggested a serious attitude that he was much too old for paddling. The look he gave his dad conveyed every bit of his attitude.
"Take the paddle, boy, and get into the kitchen."
Jim picked up the long, thin maple paddle and walked slowly from the bathroom out to the kitchen, his father following him.
"Give me the paddle."
Jim handed the paddle to his father, his eyes now conveying a balance of trepidation and contempt for what was about to come his way.
"Take your pants down," Jim's father ordered while pulling a chair away from the kitchen table.
Jim, his face blushing red, unbuckled his jeans and let them fall to his ankles. He stood there, mortified, clad only in a pair of Jockey briefs.
"Take those briefs down, boy, and bend across the table." Jim did as he was told, his bared ass now offered up to his father's paddle. "And you best hold on to the table and not rise up or give me any more sass if you know what is good for you, Jim. You hear me?!"
Silence. Then a loud crack of the paddle echoed off the kitchen walls.
"I said, 'Did you hear me, boy!'"
"YES, SIR!" Jim replied. And then he did something even he later could not believe he did. Under his breath but far too loud he muttered "asshole!"
For a moment neither father nor son could believe that single little word had found its way into the silence of that kitchen. Jim's dad thought perhaps he really had not heard what he thought he had heard. And Jim thought maybe he actually had only thought the word and not said it. But.
"WHAT did you say, boy?"
"Nothing, sir. I didn't say anything," Jim quickly replied, hoping this lie would fly.
"Oh, I heard it. And you said it. And you are going to say it again. Loud. So there is no doubt in your mind what you just said. Now I want to hear it from you."
"Asshole!" Jim shouted. And he knew what that was going to cost him.
"Thank you. I thought so. Well, actually I can imagine that is what you would think. I was your age once, too, and had pretty much the same thoughts, son. But I never had the guts to say it out loud cause grandpa would have whipped me so hard I would not have sat for a week. But I do give you the courage of your convictions."
Jim was started at the turn of the conversation here, but his ass still smarted from the first hard lick of the paddle and he knew there were plenty more to come.
"We all have our roles in life, boy, and yours right now is to grow up, to test, push limits, take risks, know it all, that kind of thing. My job is to help you grow up and show you there are sometimes some nasty consequences in life when you go over the line with risky behavior and a bad attitude."
"Yes, sir," Jim replied, hoping maybe this was not going to be as bad as he thought.
"Besides a sassy mouth, you have a potty mouth, boy. And when I finish with you here, you and I are going back to the bathroom to wash it out again. You hear me?"
"Yes, sir."
Jim's dad stood back and to the side surveying the broad red band across his son's ass from the first lick with the paddle. He raised the paddle high and then swept it down just below that first blotch. Jim's grip on the table edge tightened and the pain of the paddling started to spread.
"You might be interested to know your drinking buddy, Scott, took a good licking with his dad's belt for his punishment."
Again the paddle cracked hard across Jim's bared butt, turning the bottom half of his ass deep scarlet.
"And he is grounded for the next two weeks, Jim."
Three more measured whacks with the paddle, each a bit lower till the last of the three licks came in just about where the cheeks meet the thigh.
"Do you have anything to say for yourself?"
"No, sir," Jim replied wisely, his knuckles now white as he kept his grip on the edge of the table, his ass writhing and bucking with each crack of the paddle.
"When I finish with you in the bathroom, you can go to your room and start in writing for me. You are going to write out the Fourth Commandment for me two hundred times, boy."
Craaaaaaaaaaack . . . . . crrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaack . . . . craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaccccckkkkkk
"Yes, sir!"
"Let's hear it from you, then."
"Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother," Jim answered. It was all he could do to keep his hold on the table. His backside felt as if a swarm of wasps had attacked. After a short silence, the paddle cracked again, this time a bit higher on new, still white skin.
"Again."
"Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother," Jim replied, this time with some pleading in his voice. The sneer and bravado had left him after the first eight or ten licks.
The paddle cracked down.
"Again, boy."
And this little duet continued for the next several minutes with Jim trying to take all the time he could between his recitation of the fourth commandment so the paddle would not fall as fast on his scalded butt. Another dozen and Jim could no longer hold out.
"Pleeeeeeease, sir! No more. I've learned the lesson!"
"Good!" his father answered, cracking the paddle now lower just at the tops of his thighs."Then you give me five more repetitions of the fourth commandment, Jim."
Jim dutifully gave him five more repetitions, taking a hard lick with the paddle for each one.
Jim's dad looked down at the deep scarlet and purple backside and visibly winced at what the paddling he had had to give his son. But then, the boy was fifteen and this might be the last chance to set the foundation for his future. He set the paddle on the table next to Jim and gently pulled his son up by the shoulders.
"I know you don't believe it, Jim, but I do know how you feel. I do. And it does hurt me. But better you should learn a lesson here from me than something much worse later on. You make the mistake you just made with your mouth and call your supervisor an asshole someday and you will lose your job on the spot."
"Yes, sir." Jim's eyes were bloodshot but he was going to hold back any tears from this licking no matter how hard.
"Get yourself back into the bathroom, then."
Jim started to pull his brief up.
"No. You just leave your pants right here in the kitchen and get into the bathroom. Now."
Jim stepped out of his jeans and briefs and walked across the kitchen; then he stepped back into the bathroom. His father followed him in, once again took the soap and lathered it, then put the naked bar into his mouth. Jim closed his eyes and then clamped down to hold the bar in his mouth.
"You keep it there till I come back for you.
Several minutes later Jim's father returned, took the soap from his mouth, then offered him a glass of water for rinsing. Jim rinsed and rinsed and rinsed.
"When you finish here, you can put the paddle back on the hook, son, and then you can go to your room and start in on your writing. Two hundred times. And I want the whole commandment, too, boy. 'Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother that it may be well with thee and thou mayest live long on the earth.'"
"Yes, sir," Jim replied.
"You have something to say to me, then?"
Jim looked him in the eye and saw this probably had really been hard for his father to do. "I am sorry, dad. Really. And not just sorry I got caught. It will not happen again. I know I had a licking coming."
"My hope is that this will be the last one I ever have to give you, Jim. Whether you believe it or not it really hurts to have to take your pants down and give you a whipping. But I would not be much of a dad if I did not do what I know to be the right thing. So let's make this the last one? Please?"
"You got it, dad." And then he thought of that whole case of Bud he and Scott had hidden away and he smiled.