Boxing Day. It was icy and snowy on the hill outside our house, and my wife was setting out to visit her sister. No sooner was she through the gate than she was sent flying by a boy on a toboggan. I immediately recognised him as a 12-year-old from up the road, whose parents I knew.
I rushed out and helped my wife get up. The boy stood to one side, looking distressed. My wife was shaken, but not injured, and said she would carry on to her sister's. We both looked at the boy.
"What about him?" asked my wife.
"Sorry," said the boy, whom I shall call David. "I'm very sorry."
"Well, you'd better be," my wife said. "Wait till your parents hear about this."
"Oh, please, no, I'm sorry."
"I'll deal with it," I said. "You go."
My wife went on her way and I told the boy to come outside. Was I already thinking about the cane in the attic? I believe I was.
David was snowy and wet. I told him to take his coat and shoes off, and ushered him into the back room. He was wearing thick, tight jeans and a chunky pullover. Both were dripping wet from the snow.
"That was very dangerous," I said. "You could have caused serious injury."
"I know. I'm sorry. But please don't tell my parents."
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't."
"They'll take my toboggan away from me, and I'll get grounded, and I'll probably get the slipper."
"That all sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Shall we go?"
"Please. I'll do anything. I'll -- I'll come and do the washing-up every day."
"Well, that would be useful. But not punishment enough, I'm afraid. You need a good thrashing."
He looked down tearfully.
"But your parents," I said, "don't need to give you the thrashing and they don't need to know about it."
He looked up. "No?"
"No. I've got a cane in the attic here. You can bend over and I'll give you six of the best now, and that will be the end of the matter."
"I haven't had the cane before," said David. "I've only had the slipper."
"Well, my lad, there's always a first time. The cane is definitely what you deserve. Now, what is it to be? The cane here, or the slipper and all the rest of it at home?"
There was a short silence, while David thought and fiddled with the belt of his jeans. "Will it hurt alot?"
"Of course it'll hurt," I said. "That's the idea. I hope you'll have a very sore bottom."
He was still fiddling with his belt. "Will I be able to keep these on?" he asked. It hadn't actually occurred to me that he wouldn't but, now he had raised the question, the jeans looked pretty thick and well-padded.
"What happens at home?" I asked.
"Depends," he said, from which I concluded that, more often than not, trousers and pants came down.
"I'm afraid you'll have to take your jeans off," I said. "But you can keep your underpants on. I assume you're wearing some?"
He nodded hurriedly, as if anxious that I shouldn't imagine he was ever so indecent as to go around without underpants. But he remained silent. "Well, come on," I said. "Make your mind up. I'm waiting."
At last, barely audibly, he whispered "Ok" and started, resignedly, to undo his belt. "I'm going to get the cane now. When I come back, I want you stripped down to just your underpants and socks. Understand?"
He nodded and I climbed the stairs to the attic and the whippy cane. Two months earlier, I had caned two local prep school boys, Keith and Paul, across the seats of their short pants. I hadn't expected any further use for the cane. But now another tender, young bottom, this time protected only by underpants, awaited its attentions.
I returned to find David in mauve Y-fronts and socks, as requested. His clothes, typically for a 12-year-old, were scattered all over the floor. "Right, David, we can start by picking those clothes up and folding them neatly, in a pile." He bent down to obey and I had a good view of the bottom that I was shortly to chastise. He was a well-built boy, quite muscly for his age, and his round, firm bottom cheeks jutted out provocatively. I swished the cane through the air once or twice, giving him a sense of apprehension of what was to come.
I took a hard-backed chair and placed it in the centre of the room. David fiddled with his pants, streching the thin, mauve cloth so that it covered the maximum area of his plump bottom. But without any instruction from me, he bent over the back of the chair, though not far enough. I patted his bottom gently with my open hand. "Come on, further over than that. Get that rear end up."
When I was satisfied with his position, I picked up the cane again. I contemplated the target: a bare-backed and bare-legged boy, with his naughty, chubby bottom, underpants stretched tightly across the cheeks, awaiting half-a-dozen stinging strokes. I intended to take my time over this. I took up my stance, to his left, legs slightly apart, and tapped the cane lightly against the lad's upraised buttocks. "Right, six hard strokes. Don't move until I tell you. If you move your position, you'll get extra strokes. You can have a short break in the middle. I'll tell you when."
I raised the cane, well above shoulder high and swished it down fairly high on the buttocks. It made a satisfying cracking sound, and David emitted a satisfying whimper. This was going to be a more effective punishment than the one I administered to Keith and Paul three months earlier. "One," I said. I measured my distance again, swished again, aiming slightly lower. A louder whimper. "Two." The third stroke landed right across the middle of David's swelling cheeks and made a satisfying indentation in his pants. The whimper had become a squeak.
"Right," I said. "You can have a little rest now. You can get up and rub for a minute." This was more for my benefit than David's; he would probably have preferred to get it over with, but I liked watching naughty little boys rubbing sore bottoms, and I wanted to check progress. He straightened up sharply and, with both hands, massaged his rear end vigorously.
"Pull your pants down a minute," I said.
"I thought you said I could keep them on," he protested.
"You can pull them up again in a minute. I just want to check."
He rolled the back of them down just beneath his buttocks, revealing three distinct pink stripes. I had spaced them carefully over the upper buttocks. Now I carefully noted the unblemished lower buttocks which would get the three remaining strokes.
"Ok, back in position," I said.
David sighed, carefully adjusted his pants and got over the chair again. It took a while to get him in the right position; for a moment, he became pouty and defiant, and I had to warn him that, if he didn't co-operate, his pants really would come down. But eventually his buttocks were upraised properly once more. I swished the cane down once more, harder than ever, and this time the whimper became a cry of pain. A fifth stroke bit deep into his bottom cheeks, causing him to judder and cry even louder. The sixth stroke was, I am sure, the most painful. It struck that point where the buttocks curve out from the tops of the legs which I knew hurt most. So I was inclined to forgive him when he jumped up immediately, clutching his rear and screaming blue murder.
"David, I said you were to move only when I told you."
"Oh, please, no more, no more!"
"Just get back in position," I said.
He did as he was told. He was now very tearful. "No more please" he said faintly. But I told him to stay over the chair, bottom in the air. This was a good position for a naughty 12-year-old, feeling his little bottom tingling from the succession of firm cane strokes and wondering if another would shortly land. I just stood watching him as he fidgeted uncomfortably around.
"Ok," I said putting the cane down. "You can get up now. I won't cane you again. Just over my knee for a couple of smacks."
He got up, rubbing hard once more. I sat on another straight-backed chaired and beckoned him over. He stood on my left side, but I moved him to my right, and then pushed him gently over my knee. I kept my left hand on his bare back, pulled his pants up very tight with my right and then gave him two quite moderate smacks, which landed partly across the stretched pants and partly across the strips of bare bottom cheek that now peeped out from under them. I then pulled the pants down a little and gazed at my handiwork, ignoring David's cries of "no more, no more". The six pink stripes were spaced very evenly from the top to bottom of the buttocks, with the fifth, the very hard one I had given, slightly angrier than the others. Then I pulled up his pants, gave him one more very light smack and let him get up and get dressed, which he did rather slowly and amidst much rubbing and moaning.
I then sent this well-caned boy, with his very sore bottom, home with his toboggan, and returned the cane to the attic. It had been used twice in three months and I idly wondered if more opportunities for its use would present themselves.