The whole school was gathering for assembly, the first thing on our timetable every day. I made my way over to the spot where my friends and I usually stood. It was strange that even though I knew that everyone was looking at me and laughing and giggling, I still found myself compelled to walk tall with my shoulders thrown back. It was if my short pants were taking over my body and making me improve my posture. I tried to slouch and fade into the ground but instead I was walking properly.
I got to my friends, the guys I drank the vodka with in the old ruined chapel where we hung out. We had smoked cigarettes there, talked about the girls we liked to imagine were lusting after our adolescent bodies, and on a few occasions we had even measured up and compared the distance covered by our ejaculating spunk. It was, we liked to think, the very height of teenage friendship and we were by far the coolest gang around. These guys who had shared so much with me and who had pledged their undying loyalty to each other were my closest allies and I figured that I would be safe among them, that they would sympathise with my plight and protect me from the jeering mob.
How wrong I was. Instead of their usual welcome I was greeted with guffaws as they laughed openly at my bared legs. Jim, my closest friend and the guy who had let me borrow his porn collection sniggered at me, 'Go on, do a twirl little boy'. I was twisted around as they remarked on every feature of my legs; the whiteness of my thighs, the length of my knee socks with their purple and green turnover stripes, the tightness of my little shorts, and most of all, the obvious evidence that I had been spanked recently. I looked into their eyes and all that I could see were tears of laughter. When they had done they pushed me forward shouting, 'Go and stand with the little boys up front'. With that I was pushed from group to group until I found myself among the first years. Even they looked as if they wanted to push me on but there was nowhere else to go.
There I was standing head and shoulders among eleven and twelve year olds and they too, safe in their long uniform trousers, were giggling and jeering at the shortie pants bigger boy who had just joined them. The headmaster looked down at what was now a chaotic scene, a hall filled with 700 laughing pupils. I looked up at him and reckoned that he at least would have to put a stop to this. And he looked straight back down at me.
He began to speak and the whole school was suddenly hushed and silent. 'It has been my unfortunate experience over the past few years to have found that wherever there is trouble and mischief there is a hard-core of trouble making hooligans who think themselves superior to everyone else. And at the heart of this particularly obnoxious little gang it is inevitable that in their midst you will find a certain master Michael Ward. And so it is no surprise to me that when I stand here before you this morning and find myself standing in front of the most chaotic assembly that it has been my misfortune to have to preside over, I should eventually find that the root cause of this disruption is none other than that self same master Ward.'
The entire school, including teachers, broke down again in laughter at this. I couldn't believe it, even the headmaster was making a point of picking on me today. I tried to turn away and get out but I was being prodded and shoved by first years who had decided that the head's joke meant that they had his permission to treat me as their own plaything, like some sort of human football.
Assembly settled down again and ended with the usual notices about house exams prior to the Easter holidays. As soon as I got out of that hall I ran straight for the toilets where I hoped that I might be able to snatch a couple of minutes privacy before class. But Jim and the gang were there ahead of me, standing round the hand-basins as if this was exactly what they had expected me to do. A circle was formed with me in the middle, and now the guys weren't laughing.
'Ward, you're dead'. Jim had assumed the position of spokesman. 'If you think that you're going to get away with showing us up like this then you are very, very, wrong. We'll be seeing you again at lunchtime'.
With that they disappeared off to class and I was left with a whole new set of worries. I had known that wearing shorts was going to be terrible, but even last night as I had agonised over what might happen, I hadn't imagined that my closest friends would turn on me like this. I splashed some water on my face in the hope that the cold water would wake me from this nightmare. Then I followed them into class for the first lesson of the day. Naturally I was last into the classroom and had to take my place under the stares of twenty other fifteen year old, and sniggered remarks about 'sissy shorts', and 'baby legs'. It was obviously going to be a long time before any of these guys grew tired of this new joke in their midst.
My usual desk at the back of the class had been occupied and the only remaining place was at the front. It was a double maths class which was hateful at the best of times. Between my anxieties about what lunchtime might bring, the humiliation of feeling cool air around my legs, and the realisation that Mr Locke, the teacher, was constantly glancing at my bare knees and socks, I really wasn't able to follow the lesson at all. Suddenly I heard my name being called out and Mr Locke telling me to get up and demonstrate the theorem he was talking about by working it out on the blackboard. Misery seemed to be piled on misery as I stood before that board, chalk in hand, and not the slightest clue about what I should do next. There was a barely audible level of teasing laughter and I found myself staring back into Jim's eyes. He winked at me, a long slow, 'boy are you in trouble' kind of wink, and without any internal warning I found myself sobbing into the blackboard, an entirely broken and humiliated 15 year old.
I was called out to do things on the board in two more lessons that long morning. It must have been some sort of running joke among the teachers and no doubt they were having a good laugh at my expense in the staff-room. When the bell for lunch rang I found myself being whisked along to the refectory by my peers and dumped at the end of the queue of first years. I would be last in to get my lunch but I didn't dare try to take my rightful place. Even stranger though, was the fact that I didn't just run off and try to hide. When I got my tray and turned to find a table I found that everyone else had stood, up clapping their hands and chanting, 'shortie pants Wardie, shortie pants Wardie, shortie pants Wardie'. I found a place at the end of a first year table and gobbled down my food, hardly noticing the fact that the twelve year-old sitting next to me was constantly staring down at my thighs.
When I was finished I stood up to clear my tray away and get out of there, when out of the blue I heard two loud smacks and then felt the flooding pain that was becoming so familiar to me. The kid who had been sitting next to me had delivered a well aimed couple of slaps to the backs of my legs with his bare hand and was now standing next to me saying, for all the school to hear, 'little boys must always ask to be excused before they leave the table!'. I could feel the tears running down my face as I fled the refectory to the sound of yet more laughter.
However, I wasn't going to escape that easily. Within moments my old gang were standing around me once again having dragged me into the toilets. All five of them: Jim Fitsimmons, Paul Smyth, Martin Johnson, Paul Miller, and Pete Nicholls, were holding me at arms length and shoving me from one to the other. 'You've let us down badly Ward and you're going to pay for it. Now what do you have to say for yourself. What do you mean by showing up here at school in those shorts and socks? In case you've forgotten, we're the hard guys round here and we'll not be laughed at or made a show of by anyone, even if we used to let you hang around with us'.
The words hit me hard. It was clear that they regarded our friendship as history, a history they were even rewriting by saying that I hadn't really been one of their gang. I was just a kid they tolerated and let hang round out of pity or something. But they had asked, and for the first time that day I was being given an opportunity to explain that I was being severely punished for smoking and drinking, and keeping porn magazines in my room. Naturally I left out anything about where the shorts had come from. I figured that I had been shamed enough without having to explain that I had brought this particular punishment on myself. As I spoke I tried to imply that it could have happened to any one of us, indeed could yet happen to any one of them. Afterall we had shared those bottles of vodka and cider, we had passed our fags around the circle and shared our hidden caches of magazines. We had done everything together.
But I guess that that was precisely what they were afraid of. They were looking at my usual self from the waist up in dark green blazer, grey shirt, green and purple striped tie, and an entirely new person in short grey school short pants that fitted tightly around my bottom, and with my long grey knee socks still neatly pulled up with their smart green and purple turndown tops. Seeing me dressed like this must have touched off some primitive fear in them that they too might be forced into similar childish clothing. Maybe one or two of them were secretly thinking that it was a neat and smart looking outfit but I doubt it. They heard me out and then had a quick discussion about what should be done next. I guess that they had talked about this over lunch because sentence was quickly agreed.
Jim took the lead again. 'Right Ward, you've let the whole gang down. You've exposed the rest of us to danger and you've obviously been careless enough to let your parents confiscate my magazines. Your Dad is right, you're only a little boy who can't take responsibility for himself and be trusted to keep secrets secret. Do you really imagine that you're parents aren't going to be around talking to ours about what they've found out? You're a menace and a risk and we are going to punish you ourselves for what you've given away. Now drop your shorts little boy and bend over, because we think your Dad is right. The only way to treat little boys like you is to keep them well and truly spanked.'
I froze and just stood there staring at them. They couldn't really be going to go through with this. But then that was a thought that had gone through my mind several times in the past twenty four hours and each time I had been wrong. The one thing I could now be sure of in life was that if a threat seemed so extreme that it would never be followed through in reality, then it was pretty certain that it was going to be inflicted on me.
One of the guys had reached over and undone my shorts, they were not prepared to wait any longer for me to get a move on. In a couple of seconds I found myself with my shorts and briefs down around my ankles and I was being bent forward to present my bottom as target for their angry revenge. Yes, I was the only one who was being punished for things that we had all done together, but they seemed to feel that my being discovered was an act of treachery against them.
There didn't seem to be any order to what happened next, they certainly didn't bother taking turns to spank me but just went at it and hit me wherever and whenever they could. I didn't have to be held down or anything but just stayed in position and submitted to the pain.
Slap! Slap! Slap! Whack! Slap! Smack! Whack! Whack!
The gang settled into a rhythm and developed their theme. This was only a bare hand spanking but the intensity of it, the unrelenting number of smacks, and the pain of it accumulating on top of my Dad's three spankings, meant that in only a few seconds I was bawling in agony. It just went on and on and continued as if forever. The only thing that I noticed other than the increasing pain was that there seemed to be no noise in the room apart from skin hitting skin. There was no talking, no laughter now. These guys were in earnest and my bottom was taking the direct force of their wrath.
Whack! Whack! Slap! Smack! Slap!
After forever had passed and I had taken so much that the pain had reached a steady state of agony, the slaps began to become weaker and slower. Slap!
And then it was all over. I was one very sorry little boy lost in my own internal world of pain and shame. I stood up and slowly pulled my underwear and shorts back up. I felt so miserable that I really didn't care when I realised that my gang of five tormentors had acquired a large and very fascinated audience while I was being spanked. Even now that they had finished not a word was spoken. I went over to the washbasins and scrubbed my face clean in cold reviving water. When I turned the tap off I found that the room was entirely empty. The bell was ringing for afternoon lessons and I was on my own again. I looked into the mirror and fixed my hair and tie. 'Well', I thought, 'you brought it on yourself and you'll just have to put up with it'. And with that I made my way quickly to the classroom and reassumed my seat at the front of the class. If this was how it was going to be then I would simply have to learn to avoid as much trouble with teachers, parents, and peers, as was humanly possible.
The one thing, however, that was not humanly possible, was to maintain any sort of comfortable position at my desk. I tried lifting my bottom cheeks one at a time to relieve the pain, but that only left more pressure on the other. It took a while before I could really concentrate on the lessons but I guessed that having a throbbing backside was likely to be a pretty constant state for me for some time to come.
At the end of the afternoon the bell went and was drowned out by the roar of seven hundred teenage boys welcoming the weekend. As was usual on Fridays the school emptied of both teachers and pupils within a few minutes. There was no hanging around for after school football or even detentions. Nobody wanted to be in that building for any longer than was necessary. My preoccupation with my aching bottom slowed me down and I was last out and found myself left alone to walk home. It was a fairly painful journey but I welcomed the fact that I was free from my tormentors for the first time that day. Perhaps even boys in short pants could hope for some freedom from humiliation at weekends.
I turned in at our garden gate, tired, hungry, and still in pain. Even though home was where it had all started I was glad to be back. Once inside those walls I would be safe from the eyes of others. I couldn't help but notice as I had walked that nearly everyone I passed was fascinated by my legs and turned to stare. Some were clearly remarking the rare vision of a teenage boy in school shorts, but in all truth I was past caring so long as they weren't actually hitting me.
An old saying started to go round and round in my head like some sort of mantra. 'Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never harm me. When you're dead and in your grave you'll suffer for what you called me'.
I reached the door and was let into the house by my mother, who took one look at me and exclaimed, 'Michael, what were you told about keeping your socks up?'
I looked down and sure enough both of my socks had worked their way down to my ankles. My mother told me to get into the kitchen and I didn't really need to be told what was going to come next. 'Afterall', I listed in my mind, 'since breakfast I had been spanked by my Dad, slapped by my brother, slapped on the backs of my legs by a first-year, spanked to tears again by my old gang, and all of that was on top of the countless other humiliations that had been piled on by teachers and pupils'.
This might not be the welcome home that I would have hoped for but it seemed to fit in with the new pattern of my sorry life. I was about to get my first spanking from my mother. She walked over to the cutlery drawer and withdrew a simple wooden spatula. That at least couldn't be as painful as the brush I thought, but oh, how wrong I was yet again. Instead of pulling my pants down my mother reached over and pulled up the leg of my shorts and delivered a few swift smacks to the inside of my left thigh and then repeated the exercise on my right leg. This was an entirely new kind of pain, more stinging than the aching throb produced by the brush, and it was very effective. I guess that I just didn't have any more tears left inside me but when my mother was finished I was back, yet again, to a state of infantile sobbing.
'Maybe that will help you remember that we really do expect you to look neat and smart at all times from now on'.
Remember! How would I ever be able to forget that day. Teenage boys in short pants could obviously expect a swiftly delivered spanking for even the slightest misdemeanour or mistake. A few more days of this and I knew that my life would be changed forever. There certainly would be no return to the carefree days of illicit drinking, smoking, or even wanking; at least not without the knowledge that retribution would be exacted for every moment of pleasure. I went up to my room and thought back on the events of the day. The stinging continued to be distinctly noticeable on the inside of my thighs.
My brother, Sam, came into the room. 'Well I hope you learnt something today mister oh so big brother. Don't you forget that I'm going to have to suffer the same after Easter when Dad makes me wear shorts too. And it's all your fault. You get into trouble and I end up having to obey the same new rules that Dad's going to give us tomorrow'.
He was clearly very angry with me and he really did have a point. Both of us would be living under a new regimen of strict rules, and all because I couldn't keep my most secret secrets secret. I buried my face into my pillow and tried not to think about the new rules that Dad had promised he would draw up on Saturday.