The South ain't the Bible Belt for nothin. Religion seeps in the air of long southern evenings when honey suckle and wisteria and viburnum invite thoughts of warm, moist, fragrant folds and turns of flesh. Fear of the body drives southern religion and coach's paddle sought to inscribe its terrible message on boy's bottoms. Our job was to subdue the nastiness of body for higher ways. 1965 no one questioned the right of coach to paddle or preach; we got both. Dad's belt worked the same way; it worked to write the law across my bare ass. Other than knowing I like it in ways I shouldn't, I didn't think much of it.
Coach More happened to be a preacher on weekends; weekdays he presided over PE classes and a football tean run by student assistants. I didn't really think he did more than take role and paddle boys's butts. You knew the inevitable would happen with Coach; your older brothers and older friends warned you: Be Prepared! He'll get you first semester ninth grade. I'd been more than warned. During one of our strip poker games, Mike had paddled me with a board Danny made in shop. It was a penalty after I'd lost a hand with no more clothes to lose.
We rolled a die to see which of a pre-arranged group of penalties we'd get. I rolled the paddle penalty. Then I rolled to determine the number of licks. Well, I'd wanted it. Six the die came up again. The most possible. Six licks with the paddle. Mike had won, would weild the board, and wanted it as much like Coach would do at school as possible. He suggested I get a jock for the ceremony. Danny's paddle was a work of art, lovingly sanded and smoothed with four bodacious holes down its center. Well, I'd be ready when Coach More paddled me next year in the mystical world of ninth grade. So I was ready; sort of.
Coach More's paddle, legend had, was made by a swimmer who'd made an Olympic Squad in the fifties and claimed he owed everything to Coach. This paddle was a work of art, shiny from years of boy sweat and tailored just for coach. Black Moriah they called it. The wood was lignum vitae -- the hardest known boys said. Pitch black, twenty-two inches long with a carefully-molded handle, and a procession of twelve blister-raising holes down its blade. That blade tapered as it ran 3/8" at its head; 7/8" at its butt -- like a wedge of cheese. I'm told the taper made the thing the tool of righteousness it was meant to be.
Your first day of ninth grade coach met your class for the first time; no one dressed out; coach preached. Our nation, he told us, was fighting for its life; the battles we waged around the world were the battles of true religion against the godless. How was I to know any better; it all sounded true and this was Coach talking. I suspect we got the athletes guide to clean living, right thinking, and right religion that day. Much the same as he would have preached on Sunday. You will get into trouble boys, he said, but I love you and God loves you, and I punish you because God loves you and wants you to be all you can be. The end of the sermon was an amazing: "Since everyone screws up, you need to know what to do when I send you to my office. Go immediately to my office, remove your shorts, push your tee shirt up under your arms, stand two feet away from the front of my desk, and bend over with your hands on the desk. Being ready when I arrive signifies obedience and your willingness to be corrected. Failing to do this signifies rebellion and will be punished severely. When I arrive, you will say 'I am ready, Sir' and we will begin. Normally you will receive ten licks. That's all boys."
Wow! that made my groin tight. On the way home, I caught up with Mike and asked what it was like. He said it was like nothing I'd ever had before: my Dad' belt or the paddles we'd used for penalty poker. He said Black Moriah was wrath itself and I'd have to wait my time like everyone else. After some hemming and hawing, a little tense hard-on shuffle, I asked Mike if he's show me to help get me ready. I said no one came home at my place until 6:30 and Craig's pledge paddle from college was in his room waiting. Mike laughed, happy at the idea. (I'm certain he need to get off after a day of school as much as I did.)
As we got to my house Mike suggested I go upstairs first to change into gym clothes, put the paddle on the table in the attic room we played cards in, then come back downstairs to meet him. I made the preparations and went down. Stern as a judge, Mike said: "Boy you need to go to my office." I answered according to the drill and headed for the attic, stripping to my jock and arranging myself bent over the attic table. Some minutes later Mike arrived. "I'm ready, Sir." I played the part.
Mike hefted Craig's paddle from the table and ran it smoothly over my waiting ass. (I wondered if this was Mike playing coach or Mike playing Mike.) Next, he guided that board in between my cheeks, parting me at the crack: Nothing Mike hadn't seen before in our games, but this felt different. Then he lifted the paddle and hove at me with a force I'd never felt before. Its report against the attic rafters hit me first. What a sound. I wasn't sure I'd been hit. Right at the uppermost round of each cheek, suddent, separate stabs signalled the first broken capillaries. Pain and heat spread. "Coach always gives a breather after the first one," Mike said. I gulped and thought about wimping out. Silly as it was, I thought of Craig in Viet Nam.
The rest came in steady succession, carefully aimed for coverage and intensity. Mike was good at this and I wondered if he'd practiced on asses I didn't know about. About lick five I unclenched and began to look around. There was the distended pouch of my jock demonstrating its pleasure at the proceedings. Behind stood Mike at the ready, paddle rising back for the blow. Wow! Watching that thing hit me, me, I can't tell ya what it was like to be both looking at me getting beaten and feeling me get beaten. By now sweat gathered in my crack and I knew the wood was having its effect. But Mike, Mike, I couldn't believe it. He was hard as a rock under those FarmerK kahkis.
My whipping ended and I stayed in position a moment to breath. Mike nearly cried out: "I didn't hurt you did I?"
"No, no," I assured him. "So that was what it was like with Coach?"
"Well, I guess," Mike replied, "I'd have to have a dose myself to know for sure" I couldn't believe my ears; he was volunteering. "Get youself ready, Son," I happily joined I part I'd played through in fantasy many times. Watching as Mike undid his trousers simply brought me beyond myself; I began rubbing the pouch of that jock, oblivious to the genuine pain in my backside. "Stop that," he said, "Wait for me."
Without coaxing, he slipped his shorts off and hiked-up his shirt assuming position over the table. The sight was grand. Muscular fifteen-year old legs and a butt to behold ready to bust. I did as he had, caressing him with the blade and parting those cheeks with the board. This was my first view of his hole. Then, full of myself, I stepped back, aimed, and fired. That first moment when the white grew whiter from impact then colored a flush then true scarlet took my breath. What a rush of control; this boy was mine as I had been his. I let him breath then continued. About lick six I began to worry a bit as the angry color grew and seemed to darken toward blue. He said nothing. I wasn't about to stop.
Lick ten and I wondered what would happen next. "So," I said. "It's worse with Coach, but not much worse." As he turned I was greeted by a hard-on out-purpling the butt of this boy I admired so much. I'd never quite seen anything like it. Mike Laughed: "Let's take care of these" grabbing his _d_i_c_k_ and heading for the old camp bed against the far attic wall.