A hot June morning. For several weeks, there had been a mystery about the money we left out for the milkman. My wife and I were not very methodical about it. Sometimes one of us left the money, sometimes the other. The bills were erratic because we were often away. So it was a while before we realised, as the bills got bigger and bigger, that we had been leaving money out for the milkman, but he hadn't received it.
And that Saturday morning, I was gazing out of the window at nothing in particular when I realised. The paper boy, retreating from the door, was carrying a clutch of notes and coins. He had been stealing the money.
I don't know how old paper boys are supposed to be, but this was no more than 12. He had been delivering our papers for about six months. He was fair, slim, about average height for his age. On this warm morning, he was wearing only a tee-shirt, very brief white football shorts (the briefness being then the fashion) and white socks rolled neatly down to his ankles.
I dashed out. "Where did you get that money from?" I called.
"What money?"
"The money in your hand."
The boy looked down and opened his hand. "It's mine."
"Come here with it," I said sternly.
He sauntered over, with a defiant and slightly coquettish look on his face. "Show me," I said. "Show you what?" he asked. "Your bare bottom," I felt like replying, but instead said: "The money in your hand."
He opened it. "Count it out," I said. He did and it came to exactly the same as the money we had left for the milkman the previous night.
I pointed this out and added: "You've been doing this quite a while, haven't you?" He didn't bother to deny it, he just looked down with a slight smile around his lips.
"Have you got any more papers to deliver?" I asked.
He opened the bag on his shoulder and showed me. "Just this road. It'll take me five minutes."
"Ok," I said. "Deliver them. Then come back. if you don't, I'll report you immediately to the shop."
He shrugged his shoulders and sauntered off, a well-formed bottom rippling inside his little shorts. I fancied he wiggled it slightly as he turned the corner out of sight, and I thought he was probably a rather precocious boy.
Within the previous nine months, I had caned the bottoms of five naughty boys. It seemed certain that a sixth caning would now take place. This time, I was confident and fetched the cane from the attic immediately, though I placed it out of sight behind the dresser in the dining room.
After almost exactly five minutes, the boy re-appeared. I ushered him into the front room and sat him down for a talking-to. He pulled his legs up under his chin, giving me a eyeful of the backs of his bare thighs and good view also of part of his bottom, the backs of his shorts having ridden up quite high. I suspected something was on offer, but that something was not what I had in mind.
"Right," I said. "We're clear that you've been stealing. I could tell the shop, and you'll lose your paper round. I could ask the newsagent to inform your parents and -- well?"
"Well what?"
"What would happen?"
"I'd get a hiding. Strap. Bare bum."
"I've got an alternative," I said.
"Shall I take these off?" he said, putting his hands into the waistband of his shorts. "Hadn't we better go upstairs, though?"
"I'm not sure you understand. I intend to cane you. Hard."
"Oh" he said. He restored his feet to the floor and sat up straight. "I hadn't thought about that. Why should I let you cane me?"
The boy had a rough accent. He was clearly a street urchin. "For two reasons", I said precisely. "First, you keep your paper round, though I hope you'll stop stealing from your customers. Second, you don't get your Dad's belt. You get my cane, six good strokes, but you can keep your shorts on."
I could, I suppose, have caned this urchin across his bare seat. Unlike the more middle-class boys I had caned previously, it wouldn't have surprised him. I got the impression he was used to taking his pants off for strange men. But I had already thought about it: I hadn't previously caned a boy in football shorts and, in any case, it somehow seemed more single-mindedly punitive to discipline a boy when he was at least partially clothed.
He shrugged. "OK, seems fair enough to me." He stood up. "Shall I bend over here?"
"No, in the back room. That's where the cane is."
He led the way, his bottom filling out his little shorts and more or less begging to be firmly spanked or caned.
"You'll find it behind the dresser," I said.
He reached round and brought it out, examining it curiously. "Used it before?" he asked.
"Yes," I said. "A number of naughty little boys have crossed my path lately. They've all left this house with very sore bottoms. As you will."
He shrugged, handed over the cane, hitched his shorts up a little, and bent gracefully over the dining room table. He dramatically pushed his buttocks upwards. "Go on, then," he said.
I hadn't actually thought of having a boy over the table to be caned, and it wasn't quite the right height. But the target was so tempting that I brought the first stroke lashing down there and then. It wasn't well-aimed and it didn't have full force. But at least it showed I meant business.
I took up position more carefully, measured my distance and thought more carefully about what I was doing. I was caning a naughty 12-year-old's bottom, and he deserved the full sting of the cane across that cheeky little rear. I raised the cane. Swish! Crack! It landed right across the middle of his bottom. And though there wasn't a cry or even an "ouch" from this tough young lad, there was a sharp intake of breath. "Third stroke coming up," I said. Swish! Crack! It landed slightly above the previous cut. "Ouch!" It was hurting. "Fourth stroke now." Swish! Crack! It had landed below the second one and it was just about the hardest I had ever delivered. "Ooocuh!" This was really hurting; more, I think, than he's expected.
"Bend over a bit further," I said. He did as he was told, and his bore bottom was higher, his shorts tighter, and the target more inviting than ever. The point where the legs meet the roundness of the bottom and, in his case, where brown flesh became white was now exposed. The fifth stroke lashed with pinpoint accuracy across the hem of the shorts. I took my time over the final stroke, which struck the bared flesh, leaving an angry red stripe. "Aaaarrrgh!" Rather surprisingly, this boy, perhaps not quite as hardened as he'd tried to pretend, was now screaming his head off and crying.
He jumped up, clutching his well-caned rear and looked at me indignantly. "I didn't know it was going to be as hard as that," he said.
"Sorry," I replied. "You deserved it."
He pulled the back of his shorts up, each leg in turn, looking over his shoulder to observe the damage. Yes, it was certainly effective. This, I could see, was a well-caned bottom.
"I shall want the money back, by the way," I said.
"You took it."
"No, I mean the money you took before."
"Oh. Well, I've spent it. But I'll try and save up, I promise."
"Ok," I said. "I'll give you two weeks. Or you'll get another dose of the cane. Understand?" He nodded.
Still clutching his sore posterior, he left the house, a little less _c_o_c_k_y than when he had arrived.
Two weeks later, I caught him walking briskly off after he had put the papers through the door. I caught him by the arm. "The money? Two weeks?"
"Oh, that," he said. "Sorry. I forgot."
"Well, I did warn you. Finish delivering the papers and come back."
When he returned, he rather wearily put his bag down, and sauntered through to the dining room. "Six again?" he asked.
"Yes, but not in those." The weather had cooled off and I was nodding at his jeans. Without his word, he undid his belt and dropped them to his ankles. He was wearing a little white cotton slip; well, it was originally white but, on this little ruffian, it had become quite grubby.
"Right off, please." He kicked the jeans off his feet. "Pick them up and fold them neatly." He bent down to do so, and the flimsy white cotton slip stretched tautly across his buttocks. I had never seen anything so caneable. "Take you shirt off." He did so and remembered, just in time, not to toss it away. And there he was: naked, except for the little slip protecting his vital organs and his soon-to-be chastised young bottom.
I got a straight-backed chair and placed it in front of him. "I want you over this, this time. Right over. I want that backside really high."
He was satisfactorily positioned and I could hardly wait to bring the cane lashing down on that provocatively shaped bottom. It was then I realised that it was back in the attic. Still, it would do him no harm to stay there, buttocks raised and ready, thinking about how his rear end would soon tingle under the whippy bamboo. I told him not to move while I fetched the cane. I took my time fetching the cane from the attic, and then there was a phone call, so in all he had to wait a good 10 minutes.
Then I gave him the thorough caning he deserved: six hard strokes through the thin cotton that was almost useless and, in any case, was so scanty that it exposed large expanses of bare flesh to those painful lashes. He squealed loud and long and tearfully.
It was a few weeks later that a neighbour told me that her milk money was going mysteriously missing. I explained who was responsible and said I would deal with it. And this time -- I saw no alternative -- even that little slip had to slide down to his ankles and I had the naughty 12-year-old bent over the back of an armchair, bare bottom high in the air. The cheeks were like little apricots and they still bore the faint marks of the earlier thrashings I had given him. I gave him eight hard strokes, the cane biting deep into his naughty bottom cheeks, leaving stripes that were more red than pink. Then, just to round it off, I put him over my knee and briskly spanked him with the flat of my hand, so that his bottom glowed like a sunset and, I've no doubt, felt to him as though it were on fire.
It was a hiding to remember, and he didn't come back for more. But the cane in the attic was ready for more: it rather liked pre-teen bottoms and, it seemed, all those 11 and 12-year-olds who crossed my path were thoroughly deserving of it.