There they were. Neatly folded on my bed. Pristine and freshly ironed. There they were on my bed. I could feel my heart thumping. My mother had smiled at me when I came in from school. She had asked me how my day had been, had I learnt anything new. And then, straight faced, she mentioned that there was a surprise waiting for me in my room. A surprise! Well more of a shock really when I saw them. There they were, a neat pair of grey schoolboy short pants. And the real surprise was that they were mine. Which is to say that until this moment they had been my well-hidden little secret.

How may boys have already acquired a shorts fetish at fifteen? For six years now, since I had turned nine, I had steadfastly refused to wear shorts in public. My father had argued with me and bribed me and insisted that I wear shorts at least during the summer holidays if not during the hot schooldays through May, June and September. And every year I had refused and screamed back at him and slammed doors and told him that no self-respecting guy would be seen dead in shorts nowadays. Yes, he might have had to wear them every day until he left school, but now we were in the nineteen eighties and things had changed; shorts were for sissies. And every year my parents had given in. And every year I kept my disappointment to myself because they hadn't realised that I had to refuse to satisfy my honour and keep my friends, even though I kind of liked the idea anyway. But they wouldn't force me and so every summer I wore my jeans and secretly wished that I had nut-brown knees like Dick in the Famous Five, and could have a life of adventures and discover new worlds.

Then, last September, I had been in town on my own. I had wandered around a few shops and picked up some stuff for school: Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, a couple of pens, a very small water pistol with a very powerful jet, that kind of stuff. Then I had to call into Marks and Spencer and buy a couple of grey school shirts that Mum had given me the money for. And there, among all the school clothing, were some very traditional looking grey shorts. I looked at them and dreams of parent-free camping holidays and boarding school antics swept into my mind, a mind brought up on Just William, Jennings, Swallows and Amazons, and the Famous Five. I was fourteen years old and had spent another summer holiday refusing to wear shorts. But secretly I thought that shorts were the symbol of freedom and adventure.

I touched them and read the label; 7 - 8 years old. I looked along the rail. 9 - 10 years old. 11 - 12 years old. 13 - 14 years old. I couldn't believe it. I didn't think that they still made school shorts for teenagers but there they were. I had some money of my own left over. It was enough and before I had really thought about it I was at the till with my two shirts and a pair of grey school shorts. The cashier didn't even make any comment about a boy my age buying them, for her it was just another end-of-holidays school-rush transaction.

On the bus home I thought about it. If Marks and Spencer was stocking school shorts for fourteen year old boys then there must be fourteen year old boys going to school in shorts. That seemed pretty obvious but I had never seen anyone over ten years of age in shorts at school, and if I had I would have teased him mercilessly. But the evidence was there. Somewhere, maybe at some posh boarding school, boys my age were wearing shorts as part of their uniform, even in 1981.

At home I had stuffed my new secret shorts into my special hiding place under a floorboard beneath my desk, and there they stayed most of the time for the next few months. If my parents and my brother were out of the house for an hour or two and I had the place to myself, I would put them on with a grey shirt and my uniform blazer, and admire the traditional schoolboy in the wardrobe mirror. Then I would imagine myself being sent up to the headmaster's office to be caned for some misdemeanour. Sometimes I would do my homework wearing my special short pants and casting frequent admiring glances at the way my knees were exposed under the desk. I was always very careful and made sure that I was never caught wearing them; the humiliation would have been too awful, and anyway, how could I ever explain the reasons I loved them so much.

My shorts had been my special secret for seven months and now here they were, freshly laundered, neatly ironed, and carefully exposed on my bed. I looked at them and for the first time since I had bought them I felt really, really, scared of them. Fifteen year old comprehensive school students from Yorkshire in 1982 simply would have died at the sight of such a childish garment in their bedroom. So long as they had been my secret I had loved them. Now that they had obviously been placed there on my bed by my mother, I hated them. Oh the fickle nature of teenage romances!

And then I got really frightened. If the shorts had been discovered then everything else in my hiding place must have been found, and let's face it, every teenager has things that they would prefer to keep well hidden. I lifted the shorts off the bed.

Sure enough there was a tidy little collection of contraband lying there. A, now empty, half litre vodka bottle. A cigarette lighter. Two very old and very battered magazines that had been the subject of my recent wanking fantasies. Nothing else, but then there had been nothing else to discover. Everything that I needed to keep hidden from my parents was now lying on my bed and I felt as if I had been given a good kick in my balls, followed by an even better kick in the teeth. Nothing here would have been easy to explain on its own. Together they were a trap of doom. I could already hear the disappointed tone in my father's voice as he lectured me on the dangers of alcohol, the dangers of smoking, the shame of pornography. And then I could imagine him trying to work out what he should say about the grey school shorts.

Beside the bottle there was a note in my father's handwriting. It simply said, 'Change into your shorts and wait for me to call you. P. S. Yes, you are in trouble'.

I couldn't think of anything way out of this so I took off my trousers and pulled on the shorts. I went to hang up my trousers in my wardrobe and got yet another shock. The wardrobe was empty. Everything, my jeans and shirts, my favourite sweatshirt, my Leeds United tracksuit, everything had been removed. I went over to my drawers and there I found the same story. I couldn't work out what it all meant but I guessed it was some form of punishment and that all would soon be explained. But knowing that didn't really help. I sat down on my bed, held my face in my hands, and started to sob quietly to myself.

Just before six o'clock I heard my father's car pull up. Then he entered the house and I could hear my brother, Sam, talking to him. Then I heard my mother joining in. I listened and waited, but I didn't have long to wait. I could hear my Dad coming up the stairs and approaching my bedroom door where he seemed to wait for a moment before coming in. I looked up into his face and he was grim and worried looking.

'You've seen the evidence Michael', he said, ' and you know that I know what you didn't want me to know'.

So far, so true.

'Your Mum and I have had a talk about this and we've made some decisions that you are not going to like. First, you've obviously been doing some hard drinking with those so-called friends of yours. I'd suspected as much before and now I know for sure. For that you will be punished. Second, I guess you've been smoking a bit too, and for that you will also be punished. The porn magazines are not something that I can approve of. They are sick and humiliating to all women, and for that you will be punished. But the shorts, well the shorts are a different matter altogether.'

I continued to look at him and tried to work out what was going to come next. My guess wasn't far wrong.

'Every summer you've insisted that you wouldn't wear shorts when I asked you to, and now I find you seem to have some special reason for keeping a pair hidden in your room. Well, I can't punish you for doing what I've suggested you should do. So instead the shorts will be your punishment for the magazines. You like to see other people being humiliated, well now you're going to be the one who is humiliated. I know well that you will hate wearing them to school but that's just tough from now on.'

I didn't like the sound of that, 'from now on', but I remained silent. I figured that the mess I was in was big enough already and didn't need any extra support from my mouth. I just looked down at my knees and felt another tear slowly slide down my face.

My Dad went out of the room for a minute, returning with a shopping bag.

'As you're going to be wearing shorts all the time you will need another pair, and you'll also need these socks'.

He dropped six pairs of long grey knee socks onto my bed beside me along with another pair of grey school shorts.

'I hope that you appreciate that it wasn't easy finding a shop that had a supply of knee socks with your school colours on the tops', he said sarcastically. 'Put on a pair of them now, and remember that you have to keep them pulled up and folded over neatly at the top. If I see you with socks sliding down to your ankles you'll get a good spanking'.

I looked up at him and said, 'What? You never spank. You always say that spanking kids is just stupid and makes them violent'.

'Well, I guess I was wrong about that because not spanking them seems to turn them into cheeky, vodka swigging, fag smoking, sly little masturbators! Now get those socks on quickly.'

The socks were weird. I had never had a pair like these. They were long and grey with red and green stripes woven in at the top. 'Just like a proper schoolboy's' I thought as I pulled them up over my calves. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw that my Dad was no holding his wooden clothes brush in his hand.

He signalled me to stand up and I stood there before him at attention.

'There will be plenty of other new rules in this house, and not just for you but for Sam as well. Your Mum and I have obviously been way to lax about discipline. But that all ends now. Bend over the chair.'

I slowly walked over to the desk and pulled out my chair. Then I put my hands on the seat and bent over.

'Not like that. I want you to bend right over the chair. Get your hands on the floor.'

I had to stand on tip-toe to reach over and I could feel my shorts getting quite tight over my bottom.

'Good. This is a position you are going to find yourself very often from now on'.

Again I didn't like the ominous way he said, 'from now on'. It sounded like this was going to be a never-ending punishment not like the week long groundings that I had had before.

'This is your punishment for drinking alcohol. As it's your first spanking I will spank you on your shorts but for all future spankings you will have to drop them and bare your bottom. That will include the spanking you're going to get later this evening for smoking'.

Then it started.

Whack!

I cried out, '_f_u_c_k_, that hurts'.

'Don't you swear at me young man. Just for that you've clocked up another punishment session.'

Whack! Whack! Whack!

'As I said. This is going to be a very familiar position for you from now on.'

Whack! Whack! Whack!

'And we will have a strict new set of rules from now on.'

Whack! Whack! Whack!

'You will wear shorts every day until the end of October.' Whack! Whack! Whack!

'You will not be allowed out except to go to school or when supervised by adults'.

Whack! Whack! Whack!

'You will not be allowed to watch telly'.

Whack! Whack! Whack!

'Instead you will spend your evenings studying.'

Whack! Whack! Whack!

'And you will be in bed by nine o'clock every night'.

Whack! Whack! Whack!

'I will write out a full set of rules at the weekend, but in the meantime you had just better make sure that you behave yourself and start being an obedient little boy. Do you understand me?'

'Yes', I replied quietly though my tears.

'Yes what, young man?'

'Yes Dad'.

And at that he smacked me across my bare thighs with his hand.

'From now on you live in a strict household and you call me Sir. Now do you understand?'

'Yes Sir'.

'That's better'.

With that he took me by my hand and marched me downstairs to the kitchen like a little boy instead of a fifteen year old teenager. And believe me I really felt like a little boy with my bottom in more pain than I had ever had in my life, and the tears streaming down my face.

I had even forgotten that I must have also looked like a little boy in my neat grey shorts and my long grey knee socks. But I realised that as soon as we got into the kitchen and there was my Mum putting dinner on the table, and there was my younger brother sniggering at me.

'Sissy pants', he whispered as I sat down very carefully.

It was enough to set off another stream of tears. I could hardly believe what had happened to me in such a short space of time. But then neither could my thirteen year old brother when Dad snapped at him.

'There's no need for you to be so _c_o_c_k_y either young man. Michael will be going to school in shorts tomorrow, but you will be getting shorts at Easter. And both of you will be staying in shorts every day until the Halloween break in six months time'.

That was enough to silence Sam for the rest of the meal which must have been the quietest dinner ever eaten in our house.

Later that evening my father gave me my first bare bottom spanking with the clothes brush and afterwards I went to bed and cried myself to sleep. It had been my secret dream to be sent to school in short pants. But I had always meant it to stay secret, and I was quite certain that the next day at school would be far more humiliating than my first two spankings.