After finding out that I had stolen his birthday present an hour earlier, Gavin called me up and told me that both he and I would be returning the game to the mall.
"Oh, ok Gav," I said. "How are we getting there?"
"Momma said she would drive," he added before hanging up.
I didn't get a chance to ask him any questions, like if he told his mother, or if I was suppose to fess up to the store that I swiped it, or if he was still upset.
Ahhhh...MAN!!
I tried not to think too much about it, as I left a note for Dad and ran out of the door. For the first time (ever) I really felt Gavin being in charge, and (as much as I didn't like it), I also didn't want him waiting for me at his Mom's van.
"Please god - please god - please god," I began to say quietly (and quickly) to myself, as I walked across the street. I was praying, in hopes that God would have pity and save my ass this day. He hadn't before, but I don't believe I had asked as earnestly as I did that autumn afternoon.
"I swear, God, I will do anything you want...just make this...oh, I don't know...please just make this not suck as much as I think it's going to..."
I never claimed to be a deep theologian with a personal connection to the All Mighty - I was simply a frighten young man, who was sure this would (when all is said and done) be one of the worst days of my small life.
Gavin's mother met me outside with a big smile on her face - a smile I took as a good sign that she didn't know why we had to go to the mall. "Gavin will be out in a moment," she said, wrinkling her nose. "He's making a poop."
"Oh," I laughed, trying not to show my nervousness.
"Don't tell him I said that," she said, shaking her head. "He would be so embarrassed. He's at that funny age. You know how it was, right?"
"Yeah," I said, nodding in agreement - that funny age between birth and death when you don't want you white trash mother talking about your 'movements' with your best friend. "Really, really funny age."
"Why he isn't embarrassed about wetting the bed, I don't know," she said, not really paying attention to what she was muttering. "Heaven forbid that... oh, there he is."
Huh?!
I was stunned...did she just tell me what I think she just told me?
"Come on honey," she said. "We're waiting."
"Coming, Mom, jeez," he said.
"You don't need me to help, do you?" she said, as he got to the mini-van. "Everything clean?"
"MOM!" he said.
"Oops!" she giggled. "My bad! Forgot I wasn't suppose to mention about the wiping!"
What the hell was going on?!
I began to fear for my life getting into the van with this woman, concerned that she had been drinking. What mother talks like that about her son in front of his friends?
"Mother!!" Gavin yelled.
"Get in," she said, shaking her head. "It's just Matt. He's practically family, aren't you, honey?"
"Ahhhh, yeah," I said, getting in and slamming the door shut.
Gavin just brooded, not even looking at me. If it was possible, his mother made Gavin even more pissed, which (of course) upset me.
Crap!
I slowly began to realize that God was going to leave me on my own that day!
The drive over was done in the creepiest of silences. They didn't say anything to each other. I had nothing to say to her, and Gav and I didn't say anything. On top of it all, she was someone who never listened to the radio. I was even afraid to breathe too heavily. Very odd.
Oh man,* I remember thinking when I saw it. *There it is!*
Arriving at the mall was almost like docking with another, alien space ship, it was such a contrast to riding in that car.
"You boys be good," she said. "I need to go to Home Depot and Shopper's Food Warehouse."
"We shouldn't be too long," Gavin said, refusing to look at her, or me for that matter.
"I'll meet you back here, at this entrance, in two hours, ok?"
Gavin shook his head, then motioned for me to follow. I had turned to wave good bye to her, but she had already pulled away.
"Let's go, Matt," he snapped. "Don't worry about that bitch. We are wasting time."
"Gav," I said, following him in through the double sets of glass doors. "What's going on?"
"We're going to return the game you stole."
"I said I was sorry," I reminded him.
"I know, but I don't believe you," he said, adding, "But after today, you will be sorry, and you won't do it again." A creepy, unsettling adultness had invaded my young friend's body.
We walked down the hall, past the food court and our movie theaters, and up to the software store.
Ahhh...CRAP!
But instead of walking in we walked right past it.
Huh?
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"To JC Penny's, first," he said.
"To Penny's?" This seemed out of nowhere. "What do you need to get at Penny's?"
"Nothing," he said, turning his head around. "We're going to make a pit-stop and they have the only public bathrooms in the mall."
"The Penny's restroom?" I said, with a gulp, suddenly afraid of what else Gav knew about me - was he a _f_u_c_k_ing mind reader?! Had he invaded my nightmares last summer?!?! "Why?"
"Because, I need to use it!"
"I thought you already used the bathroom back home, dude," I said, adding, with a chuckle, "You're not going to need ME to clean your butt for you, are ya?"
"They have that big handicap stall," he said, as I suddenly realized that NOW was not the time to make jokes. "I'm going to spank you there, before we return the video game."
I stopped my laughing.
"In the Penny's bathroom?!" I said out loud.
"Yup."
"NO WAY!"
"Oh, yes way, dude," he said, stopping. "There is no negotiation about any of this. I thought about how this would play out for the better part of an hour, and you will do what I have to say. If you don't, I WILL call the police and have your _f_u_c_k_ing, thieving ass arrested!"
"Arrested? Dude!"
"For a FELONY!"
S H I T!
He was one pissed off little boy!!!
He tuned back around, and kept walking. I just stood there stunned. After a few moments of realizing there was no way around this, I slowly followed my friend into the store.
When we got into the public restroom (one I knew oh-so-well), I was out of my mind crazed with fear and terror. Gavin was actually planning on spanking me in the bathroom of this JC Penny! This didn't make any sense...I mean, what was he thinking?
CRAP!!!
I knew I couldn't beg for him to change his mind - by threatening to call the cops on me for stealing a video game (not even my Dad, but THE COPS!), he showed that there was no wiggle room on this one. Well, not the kind of wiggle room that I had been hoping for.
"Come on," he said, walking into the handicap stall. "Come in and close the door."
"Gav, please," I said quietly. "Why here?"
"Pull your pants and underpants down, Matt," he said, sitting on the toilet bowl.
"I beg you not to do this," I whispered, closing the stall door. "Can't we just do this at home?"
"No," he said. "Not yet we won't. You're follow-up will be tonight when we get back."
"More...tonight...?"
"Do you disagree that you should get as many as I feel I should give you?" he asked, point blank.
"Ahhh, no, Gavin," I said. "I just wonder, well, why HERE? Why NOW?"
"Because I want the people at the software store, the people you ripped off, to know you have been punished," he said, pointing at my pants, then pointing to the floor. "When we leave here we will go there, and you will show them your ass as proof that you were punished."
"Ooooh, Gavin!" I wined.
"It will still be bright red by the time I get you there."
"Nooooo!"
"Stop it!!" he screamed. "Mom will be back in two hours, and I don't want you crying when we see her, so we need to do this now." He pointed again. "DROP THEM!"
I started to say something, but he then put that finger up to his mouth to "shush" me.
(At least he didn't start doing the 'zip it' routine from AUSTIN POWERS!)
There was nothing I could do...
I had to drop them...
SPANK!
Moments later, I was over his lap...
SPANK! SPANK!
...and he began spanking me as hard as he could!
SPANK! SPANK! SPANK!
I could tell there was a lot of pent up RAGE in that small body.
SPANK! SPANK! SPANK! SPANK!
He was trying to transfer as much as he could stand to me...!
SPANK! SPANK! SPANK! SPANK!
...through my ass. And...!
SPANK! SPANK! SPANK!
Ooooooh! It was working!
SPANK! SPANK! SPANK!
"OH! GAV! DUDE!! OOOOH!!"
SPANK! SPANK! SPANK! SPANK!
"OOOOH! HOOOO!!! OOOOOOH!!!"
SPANK! SPANK! SPANK! SPANK!
His hand came down so hard, and so fast...
SPANK! SPANK! SPANK!
"OOOOUCH! OH GOD!"
SPANK! SPANK! SPANK! SPANK!!!
...you could still hear the slap echo as the next...
SPANK! SPANK! SPANK!!!
"OOOOOOOOF"
SPANK! SPANK! SPANK!!
...blow landed with a stinging force!!!
SPANK! SPANK!
"OOOOH! AWWWEEEEE!"
SPANK! SPANK! SPANK!
About then, to my horror, I heard the bathroom door open!
SPANK! SPANK! SPANK!
I tried to muffle my cries...
SPANK! SPANK!!!
But it was obvious what was going on behind that closed, stall door!
SPANK! SPANK! SPANK!!
"Daddy," I heard the voice of a little boy ask.
SPANK! SPANK!!
"What's going...?"
SPANK!!
"Shhh!"
SPANK!!
"Let's leave them alone."
SPANK! SPANK!!
"Why?"
SPANK!
"It sounds like a naughty boy's Daddy is giving him spanking!"
SPANK! SPANK!!!
"MMMMM!!!! MMMMM!!!"
SPANK! SPANK!
"A spanking!" the kid giggled. "Ouchy!"
SPANK! SPANK! SPANK!
"OOOOH! HOOOO!!! OOOOOOH!!!"
SPANK! SPANK! SPANK! SPANK!
The kid and father both giggled together.
SPANK! SPANK! SPANK!
"OOOOH! HOOOO!!! OOOOOOH!!!"
SPANK! SPANK! SPANK! SPANK!
This was so unfair! All of it!! I couldn't take anymore!!!
SPANK! SPANK! SPANK!
"OOOOH! OOOOOOH!!!"
SPANK! SPANK!
The pain! OH MAN! That awful, hateful pain!!!
SPANK! SPANK! SPANK!
"OOOOH! HOOOO!!!!"
SPANK! SPANK!
"Only ten more left, my friend!"
SPANK! SPANK! SPANK!
"OOOOH! HOOOO!!! OOOOOOH!!!" It wouldn't be any sooner for me!
SPANK! SPANK!
"95!"
SPANK!
"96!"
SPANK!
"97!"
SPANK!
"98!"
SPANK!
"99!"
SPANK!
"100!"
"OOOOH!" I didn't know if he was right or wrong, but it sure felt that way.
He stopped when he said he would. I just laid there and sobbed. I could hear some coughing and whispering from the rest of the bathroom. I didn't really care at this point. My back side was smoking from Gavin's busy hand, that most of the humility I might have once had was long gone.
"You done in there?" we heard a voice call out, after a few minutes.
I looked up over my shoulder to Gavin. He looked at me totally relaxed, and smiled a really goofy smile, as he began to gently rub my butt. "Yeah, I suppose so, for now."
There was silence coming from the other side. I think they were expecting an adult voice, not some little kid's.
"Well, I need to use it when your done," the disembodied voice said. "I have my own naughty child out here who could use his seat heated up a bit."
"Daddy! Noooo!" a tiny voice cried out.
Gavin and I both grinned. He reached over with his other hand to wipe away my tears.
"Yeah," a second adult voice said. "And I'm after him!"
There was more than one person waiting for us to get out so that they could spank their errant sons?! What had we done! We had started a chain reaction!
"One moment," Gav said, as he helped me to my feet, and pull my pants and underwear on, before we walked out.
There were actually three sets of men and naughty boys standing outside waiting to use the JC Penny spanking booth. All six pairs of eyes widened when they saw it was just the two of us.
"What were you two playing in there?" one particularly gruff man said to me. "Did you spank that kid."
"Ahhhh, no," I said, softly.
"Daddy!" his son said. "HE'S the one crying!"
"Did HE spank YOU?"
I didn't answer - I looked to Gavin to handle this.
"What game are you two playing?" the guy demanded to know.
"Nothing sir," he said, holding up the bag with the video game. "My friend stole this from a store in the mall, and I told him that before we returned it he needed to be spanked."
"But you have to be a year or so younger than him," the man observed.
"Actually, four years younger."
"Four years!" his son (about 9 years old) said in awe of my young tormentor. "WOW!"
This was so humiliating.
"Where's his father?"
"He didn't want his Daddy to know, so I did him a favor," Gav then turned his attention back to me. "Show them."
"Gavin!" I whined.
"Come on, you are going to be showing it to the dudes at the software store," then he turned and smiled at the six in there. "Besides, they all HEARD what happened."
Everyone started laughing.
I shook my head - sighed - and dropped the back of my pants just low enough so that they could all see the back of my underwear. I hesitated to pull them down and actually show them my bottom cheeks, so Gavin reached over and yanked them up, giving me a killer weegie that exposed my fleshy, red rump.
"OH MY!" at least two of them said.
"See!" he said. "I was telling the truth." The little braggart.
"Very impressive," the second man said. "I can't wait to get this rascal's behind that color."
"Wait your turn!" the first man snapped. "We were here first."
"It's ok, Daddy," that man's son said, softly. "They can go ahead of us."
"Oh, shut up you!" the other son to be spanked son said, giving the first boy a kick in the seat of the pants.
I dug my undies out of my ass, and pulled my pants up and walked on out of the door, not looking to see if Gav was following. This was simply horrid.
"Ahhh," Gavin said, following. "I'll leave you all alone. Wait up, Matt."
"Ok."
"Have fun!" Gavin said, waving to his new admirers. All of the men laughed out loud, while all of the boys scowled and began to whimper to themselves.
Nothing else was said about what happened. I just wanted to get there, moon them, and leave. I was hoping that's all Gavin had planned to.
"Why did you think about doing this?" I asked. "This seems rather complicated to have come up with in just an hour."
He didn't say anything. He just walked next to me, grinning ear to ear - looking very please with himself.
"Did Lee's friend tell you to do this?" I asked.
OOOH! That got his attention.
"You don't think I could have thought of this myself?" he asked.
"I didn't say that."
"You implied that."
"If I did, I'm sorry, it's just that this doesn't seem like you," I said, adding. "This seems much more cruel."
"Cruel?!" he yelled, half laughing. "Dude...don't even get me started."
"You humiliated me back there, and you don't even care."
"All part of the punishment," he said flatly.
I didn't care what he said, but I was sure that some of these ideas had to have come from Lee's camp mate, Tom.
CRAP!
When we got to the software store, Gavin immediately asked to speak to the manager. There were two men at the counter ("Sammy" and "Mark" according to their name tags), and as it turned out Mark was the manager. I recognized Sammy from the day I stole the video.
"Can we talk, sir? " Gavin said, looking at Sammy. "In private."
"This seems serious, son," he said looking at Gav, then to me.
"It is, sir," he said. "Do you have an office we can talk? It won't take very long."
"Ok," he said with a laugh when we got to the back office. "You have piqued my interest."
We walked a few feet away and went into the very small office / storage room.
"What is it that's so important that you gentlemen couldn't say out there?"
Gavin looked at me. "Matt," he said, handing me the bag with the game. "Do you have something to tell this man?"
"Ahh, yeah," I said, with fresh tears still loitering around my eyes. "I, well, I kind of did something last summer, sir."
"Last summer?" Mark said with a laugh. "What did you do last summer, son?"
"I kind of, well," I said, exhaling, putting my hand in the bag and bringing out the in store preview copy of Final Fantasy VIII. "I kind of swiped this from the store - your store - last August. Sir." I handed him the game.
He stared at it blankly. I could tell he was not prepared for me to admit to THAT!
"So this is where it went?" he said to himself.
"Yeah," I said, coughing.
"You stole this from here last summer? From my store?"
"Yes."
"And you are bringing it back now?"
"Yes."
He was silent again, as he stared at Gavin. I could tell he was convinced that we were not on the up and up for whatever reason.
"For whatever reason," he said, eyeing us both up and down. "I don't think you are on the up and up."
(SEE! I told you so!)
"You can see all the discs are still in there," I said, pointing at the case.
"Why...why did you bring it back...today?" Mark was stunned. "Did you boys break it or something?"
"He got it for me for my birthday," Gavin began to explain. "I had no idea he had swiped it. If I did, I would have made sure he would have returned it long ago."
"YOU made him return it?"
"Uh-huh."
Mark sat back in his chair and looked at the game in stunned disbelief.
"To be honest," he said. "I don't know what to say. In most cases of shoplifting, I would just friggin call the mall security in the time. Never has anyone turned themselves in for stealing, though, not in the seven months I've been working here."
"Please, sir," I whispered. "I - I am sorry. Please don't call security."
"How did you do it?" Mark asked. "Before I decide what to do, I want to find out how you did it?"
I looked at Gavin sheepishly - he hadn't even heard how it happened, having just found out about it a couple of hours earlier. I looked back at Mark the Manager, as I told him about the day I came in and snatched it from the desk when Sammy wasn't looking.
"It was just stitting right there in the open?"
"Uh - huh."
"Just right there?"
"Yeah."
"Just ASKING to be stolen?"
I didn't say anything to that. I looked back down to my feet.
"Sammy? Sammy was the one here that day?!"
"Yeah," I whispered. "I'm sorry. I hope he doesn't get into trouble."
"I'll deal with HIM later," Mark said, sighing. "I think that I'll leave security out of it, but I also friggin think I need to call your parents."
I stared at Gavin, who was cool as a cucumber; he must have foreseen this moment (did that little pecker read ahead?)
"His Dad doesn't need to be called," Gavin said like a Jedi Master, leaning back in his chair. "Matt has already been punished."
"He has?"
"Matt," he said, nodding at me. "Show him."
I stood up, turned around, and dropped my pants, and this time along with my undershorts, down to the floor. I was standing a foot away from this stranger, who was checking out my naked rump.
"Oh my," Mark said. "You were spanked?"
"Uh-huh," I said, biting my lip.
"Still looks pretty sore," Mark said. "I bet your Daddy has spanked you a lot."
"He has," I said, still holding in my breath - this was not my favorite position in the world.
"Pretty good, huh?!" Gavin said, very proud of his work, but trying hard not to reveal that it was him who got my bottom that nice shade of red. "You should have heard him cry!"
"Well," Mark said, reaching out and touching my butt. "Maybe I still can!"