PART 3
The alarm had been set to rouse us at seven in the morning. Cal had Paolo make us breakfast. I found out about his culinary talents, in addition to being beautiful and intelligent, this way. Then as we showered together, Cal examined our bodies very thoroughly, paying close attention to our derrieres, to make sure they were none the worse for wear after last night's indignation at the club. It incensed him so that others had touched us in a harmful and degrading way. But I surmised that what had actually angered him was that they had touched us in any way.
It was late morning when Cal had us assembled in the spacious living room. He stood us before him. He had kept Paolo totally in the nude since last night. I could guess what I had to look forward to.
Niwat came in about this time. He was cheerful but as soon as he saw Paolo naked, he immediately appeared to suspect that our time in Fun City had run foul of the parameters of social and moral acceptability. Then for Niwat's cognizance, Cal gave a condensed account of what Paolo and I had done the previous night. That done, he gave his sentence: we were both due for a spanking.
Cal took Paolo's genitals in his palm. Paolo was embarrassed, only because he was not alone, but his eyes wore a glint of longing. The moment Cal touched him, he grew impressively and moved closer to Cal. Cal started to hug him. Cal asked Paolo next why he thought he deserved the spanking.
"You told me to keep an eye on Han," he replied. "I failed to do that."
"Good boy," Cal said. He stroked Paolo's penis lovingly but looked stern and mindful that he was punishing Paolo. Paolo was equally mindful that he was about to be punished. He looked about to take flight, run for cover or cover his nudity, but had been trained well to avoid that. He tried to stand tall. He was indeed a beautiful and proud man. But this trait did not preclude his fear of a spanking, as I was to find out.
Turning to me, Cal reached out and started to remove my clothes. Lesson number one, he said: Cal spanked his boy naked. Always, and this was non-negotiable. He stripped me first of my sweatshirt and undershirt, and next, my jeans and brief. He left my white day-old brief bunched up around my knees. I felt extremely embarrassed to be naked in front of the others but there was no time to indulge in my embarrassment, for Cal had taken my penis in his palm. He caressed it. I groaned. Spinning me to my left, he bent me forward and supported my upper flank on his arm while he spread open my buns with his right hand fingers. He broached my anus and teased it.
"Uuuhhh!" I groaned again. Embarrassed at betraying my pleasure, I looked to Cal. He smiled, understanding. I felt like a little boy again, in the loving care of his father or older brother. I wanted forever to be looked after by Cal. Whatever a boy's age, 8 or 18, 20 or 30, he never outgrows the need for caring by someone older and more confident. He never outgrows the need for propitiation when he knows he has erred. He simply never outgrows the need to be spanked. A spanking in the hands of an older man liberates him from fear, anguish and guilt for whatever reason, and then the boy can carry on. I was this boy, always had been and perhaps always would be. And the man at this point of my life was Cal.
Cal straightened me up, and then in a gesture whose symbolism was understood by a man and his boy, he took my penis and testicles in his palm again. It was exactly as he had done only moments ago with Paolo's genitals. With my genitals now in his grip, I was given over to him, my being, my soul and my private parts. Next, he posed me the same question he had asked Paolo.
I looked at him lost. I thought hard and long, looking eastward to the skylight for the answer. Then I said: "Because I had wanted it?"
I could tell that Cal was on the verge of cracking up but quelled his urge.
"Well, I do know you had wanted a spanking from that first night," Cal said, "but that's not it. Lesson number two: when I give a spanking, it's because I feel it's time, not because you want it. Now try again. Why do you think you deserve to be spanked?"
"I had provoked those men to beat my ass," I suggested next.
Cal bit down on his lower lip to stop from laughing again, this time at my attempt at colloquialisms.
"Yes, you did," Cal nodded, "but those men were under the influence of alcohol. You're not to blame for that - and you're not responsible if the sight of you makes men want you for whatever reason. I cannot blame you anymore than I can blame Paolo if his cascading long hair makes men see a Rapunzel with a _c_o_c_k_ and balls. Some boys have a knack for driving men to do wicked things. It's not the boys' fault. Taking some boys, like Paolo, out anywhere is like waving a red flag before every bull in heat in the city. No, baby, try again."
At this time I thought Cal's analogy mirrored my Pandora's Box, opened up to let out all the forbidden fruits that tempted men and women, just as a spanking in Cal's hand had been my forbidden fruit. But now that I was about to taste this fruit, I must think hard for the right answer to please Cal. It was tormenting me. At last I shook my head in defeat. "I don't know why, sir," I cried, feeling too languid to think. Having had a fitful night, my second in consecutive days, I only wanted to crawl back into bed.
"Well, why couldn't you stop crying last night?" Cal prompted to help me along.
"I thought I'd made you mad," I answered, this time more readily.
"Was I mad?" he asked.
I nodded.
"Did you think I was mad at you?"
I nodded.
"Well, I wasn't," he said. "But you had felt a lot of guilt, baseless guilt, last night and you're still filled with it and with shame at what happened to you last night. I am going to spank the guilt and shame out of your system. Make you cry long and hard the way I know you need to right this moment, and then that'll be the end of it. Do you understand that, Han?"
I nodded. Because this was what I'd waited to hear for so long, I wasn't going to play games and try to get out of it. I only didn't want to be watched by Paolo and Niwat while Cal spanked me naked, and so I wanted to crawl under the bed and hide on their account.
"Yes, sir, I think it'll help, sir," I said to Cal, nevertheless. I was certain Cal was the kind of man who was unafraid to spank a boy as and when he thought it time, and thus protesting about being watched spanked would get me into a worse predicament.
Examining my genitals still in his palm, Cal said next that I must now shave off my pubic hair.
"Okay," he had said to me, "you're not a man yet; go shave this off down here, and be quick about it, and get back in here for your spanking."
Being naïve and new to Cal's discipline method, I thought this was lesson number three, to test if I would submit to him. Or perhaps he had thought it important to my training. Cal took away my smelly brief from my knees, sending me, with Niwat in tow, to the bathroom.
There were a can of shaving cream, some disposable razors, a bottle of Nair and a clipper neatly arranged on the sink counter. I picked up the Nair and razor, sat down on the tub and began to slop the hair-remover onto my crotch. Niwat was closely supervising me. About this time I wondered if now would be a good time to change my mind and just decamp. But my attention was quickly drawn to Paolo's howling. He was being spanked the old-fashioned way, over Cal's knees.
Since Paolo was still sore from the previous night's spanking, Cal opted against using an implement but delivered a hand spanking. I counted the swats while I waited for the Nair to do its job. It was then that I made a discovery: Cal was firm, there was no denying it, but he was also compassionate. Last night he had shown that he was very protective, perhaps sometimes over-protective, of those he cared about. And now he was showing, as in my case, he had understood a boy's need to be cared for. My love for Cal had found a definition at last.
My turn over Cal's lap had been six years and some days in the making. I had returned to him totally hairless and looking younger than thirteen again. Cal had just been whispering into Paolo's ear, or kissing him, I couldn't be sure, and then lifted him from his lap. Paolo latched onto Cal, tears streaming down his face to soil his chiseled facial features. He was hugging and kissing Cal deeply. Cal took Paolo to his corner and placed him there, stroking his spanked bottom tenderly.
I waited respectfully, covering my hairless crotch with my fists. Now Paolo had sunk his head on Cal's shoulder and was still crying. I overheard Cal telling him he must stand there exposed for an hour to consider why he had been punished. Cal soundly reminded him that this was a rule and he was not getting out of it, notwithstanding the witnesses watching him and his proud Latin brood. And then when Cal promised him they would spend a lot of time together later and dinner some time at his favorite Argentine restaurant as well, he calmed down! About this time, I thought a simple chocolate milkshake would suit me just fine. But all this cajoling was taking a long time, so that I thought my time with Cal would never come. And Cal never took his tender hand off Paolo.
Finally feeling reassured, Paolo kissed Cal on his cheek once more as the latter forsook him to his corner. It was my turn at last. Cal went to the settee and called me to approach him. I obeyed. Cal then put me on his lap and inspected my crotch briefly. He nodded with satisfaction, and wrapping me warmly in his arms, he spoke for a long time just to me about my feelings of guilt, my need for expurgation and a spanking. I was nodding quietly throughout that time but I was also absorbing every infinitesimal syllable of Cal's apotheosis of an adult-guided life. For Cal made absolute sense to me. At the end, he directed me over his knees. While I got into position, I kept all my senses alert to receive the long-awaited experience.
The experience was as meaningful and purposeful as the first time my father had spanked me when I was thirteen. My soul felt edified, my guilt atoned in that first swat of Cal's hand as it connected with my bottom cheeks. In that one swat, Cal managed to liberate me from my bad feelings. I had wanted a spanking from Cal, and failing to get that, perhaps my body English had betrayed my longing to Helmut. That had been why I'd felt the guilt.
For half an hour, or perhaps more, Cal spanked my bottom and thighs - everywhere below my waist and above my upper thighs. He had pried apart my crack and spanked my inner thighs. He must have studied this most intimate and private part of my body, in the process. The pain that was replacing my erstwhile-numbed bottom was exquisite. My left fingers dug into the upholstery. My right hand clutched Cal's ankle. My toes had all but curled up like an eagle's talons.
When it was all over, Cal gathered me into his arms for that extensive hug he saw requisite to what was another symbolic ritual between a man and his boy. I bawled long and hard into his bosom. I had also left a big wet spot of cum on his lap but Cal was insouciant as if to imply these things happened. His only concern was for my unusually windy tears. And then I was suddenly retching.
Scooping me up easily, Cal bore me into the bedroom and conveyed me to his bed. He closed the door, climbed in beside me, and turned me facedown on top of himself. I lay on his bosom while he held me pastorally. My heart beat against his chest. My penis impaled against his groin. I felt just a little strange, because still unfamiliar, to be held by him naked, but he understood. He took his time with me, allowing me to get accustomed, while he enveloped me with his warmth and tenderness. Gradually, my body shuddered. I was close to a breakdown and I pressed myself into him, crying softly.
"It's no longer just guilt anymore, is it, baby," Cal whispered, understanding my body language, "so go ahead and cry as long and as hard as you want to."
I did. At his permission, my floodgates burst open and all my feelings of fear, loneliness and rejection that I had penned up in my private, desolate landscape were released in a torrent of new tears. Darn those malleable tear ducts, I scolded myself. But I was sobbing for the longest time in memory and it was such an elixir for my deeply-entrenched hurts.
I was also blubbering incoherently: homesick ....no beauty ....Mish ....I miss so much ....Papa and home ....no meaning at all ....it gets so lonely ....this savage place ....homophobes, hateful homophobes ....gonna get kicked out ....
Cal hugged me very tightly and quietly let me sob it all out. He had seen no need to play psychoanalyst and attach a Freudian theory, or a Piaget origin, or a Kinseyan demography, to my complex. He did what was the only intelligent thing under the circumstances - he listened.
Afterward, I rambled on stupidly about how hurt I had been that night when Cal had not tried to understand me, that first night when I had simply wanted the loving touch of a man's hand. In fact, I had been vociferous in my accusations against Cal. But again, Cal listened. For the time being, there were no clumsy explanations, no incredulous excuses, and no unqualified advice from Cal. He simply listened and accepted me at my own assessment of my confusion and experiences. And he simply acknowledged the validity of my feelings. His hands never left my bottom except to slap me a few times when he sensed that I was holding back.
Finally, I arrived at a plateau of zero emotions, a kind of ebbing of all the senses that kept me mute, numbed and calm. But Cal was sensible that the moment was too protean, realizing that a single misguided word or misplaced touch could trigger off another psychosomatic recession. So he quietly held me in his arms till I drifted into that much-needed sleep.
I became a boarder in Cal's five-story town house during the month that he had extended to his trip in order to wrap up the business for which he and Niwat were in the city. It was quite by accident, and yet it was just the expedience for a healing that I needed. Cal would work in the day while I went to school. In the evening, he devoted his time to caring for his three boys as he juggled it with the myriad business calls he kept getting and having to accept from associates everywhere. Yes, by this time I was aware of my new status as Cal's boy. But with this came a covenant that was made between Cal and me.
The covenant was first made that Monday, the day following my inaugural first spanking from Cal. Cal had made a moral concession, indulging me by allowing me to skip classes. I had been slightly feverish from too much crying and tripping on an emotional roller coaster the night before. But it was not a problem that mere rest could not take care of, and so Cal had allowed me this one time to stay in and rest. Cal had no business that day, and after a short visit in the city, returned to attend to my fever. He woke me up and removed all my bedclothes. I let him, too groggy to resist. I was bare-bottomed when he turned me over. I felt a sticky something lubed up my anus and then a long, sleek tube snaking its way into my rectal canal. I shrieked.
Cal quickly lay me on his lap, folding his arms around my waist and thighs. "Calm down," he whispered, "calm down. Sshh." He held me down while I squirmed, and then I wept at the discomfort of the rectal thermometer inside me. Cal ignored my tears, holding my bottom firmly with a palm laid flat against my cheeks. He held tightly to the glass between his fingers for a long time, too long, for I started to hate the feeling. I felt so ashamed at having my temperature taken in that infantile way. But Cal believed in its worth when his boys were sick.
I started calming about half an hour after, and this was when I heard spelled out to me the requirements of being Cal's boy and loved as Cal's boy.
"You may find you're going to need and get a lot more of this tube right here, Han," Cal said while I lay with my head in his arms. "Now, I have listened to your cries and I have watched you and understood you. You're 5 feet 8, and 118 pounds. In my book, you're starving. I don't think you're deliberately starving, so take it easy, baby, sshh. I'm not accusing you of anything, but you obviously have an eating disorder. Your fear of separation from family and the loss of the sense of order in your life are classic factors for weight loss while you try to assume some control of your life. Your weight is probably the one thing left you feel you can control.
"Probably it's through emaciating yourself that you hope to impress on others that you're dependent on family and thus you would have to be sent home. I love you, my boy, but it's going to be hard love you'll get from me. It'll be tender love, too, but get this right: you're not going home until it is time. Your Papa would want you to finish your education here. So for the rest of the time that we're together, you will move into my house. I am going to restore some sense of order in your life and it's going to be through spanking a lot, like I know you got it a lot in your childhood and must miss deeply. And this thermometer might be necessary inside you sometimes, too.
"It'll certainly help you to focus on the important things in your life once more. I won't have it any other way. You will not question me or resist me because you know this is what you need right now. More important, tomorrow we'll have to go and find a paddle for you. I don't intend to fail you."
I heard everything that Cal was outlining to me. I hated some of the things he had said even though they made sense, for boys my age were naturally rebellious towards absolute control by others. So I cried in Cal's arms for a long, long time at my fate while he continued to hold the thermometer in my anus. It was the longest first rectal I ever had, but after an hour, when I realized that Cal's terms were non-negotiable, he gently removed the tube, carefully stroking my bottom with his other hand. So emotional was the moment that I clung onto Cal while he soothed my anus till I fell asleep.
And so, I fell into the routine of Cal's arbitrary and random spanking, as well as controlling and adjusting me, during the next three weeks. In exchange, Cal added me to his fold of adopted family. Paolo and Niwat became my new brothers. This was our covenant. I was sometimes resistant, especially in the first week. I coveted Cal's attention but forgot it was not on my own terms. I learned how stern and patient Cal was in disciplining me that first time I rebelled.
Stripping me of all my clothes until I was naked, he called Paolo and Niwat to watch while he made full use of my new paddle on my bottom. And then while the other two watched, I was made to submit to the rectal thermometer's calming me for an hour, but the entire time in Cal's arms. There was later the corner time beside the television, standing there naked and exposing my spanked bottom, while they all watched Cinemax. I was being forced to learn how to stand tall and be proud of myself. But Cal was also generous and compassionate when, after my corner time, he bestowed his love and hugs on me while I sobbed in his arms and promised to be good. He hugged me on the couch and took me under the blanket with him, hiding my nakedness from others, but always keeping his hand on my bottom as a reminder of our covenant.
The time soon came to send Paolo back to Brazil. Cal wept. Paolo was inconsolable. But with one less boy to shepherd for the time being, Cal took pains to monitor my studies. He was still always busy with work and answering calls, but could still find time for me. Under his direction, I refocused on my studies. My grades began to climb for the first time in a long time and I started to become a bit more secure about being in the big city and being who I was.
As good things must come to an end, so came the day for Cal to proceed to Munich, and Niwat to return to Thailand. The night before, I had cried sorrowfully in Cal's arms for I could not bear for him to leave. In the final minutes left with each other, Cal drew me to his chest while Niwat waited patiently in their taxi.
"It's not finished between us," Cal reassured me. "I'll see you again, and this time we won't wait six years."
And then Cal was gone with the clouds.
THE END