Andy quietly pushed open the door of the guest bedroom. James was still in bed asleep. Creeping in, he took a running jump and vaulted onto the duvet, landing on his friend's stomach. He sat back, supporting himself with his arms behind him, and stretched out his legs so that his feet were either side of James' head.
James awoke with a start, the breath partly knocked out of him. The lad was heavy! "It's Saturday" Andy said. "Wake up!"
It was the Easter school holidays, and Andy's parents were away at a conference in Switzerland for a week. James was staying in the house to look after him, and had been there since Wednesday. He hadn't taken any time off work as Andy was a responsible twelve year old and didn't need constant supervision any more, so with his parent's agreement he had left the boy to look after himself during the day and muck about with his mates. Last night he had taken Andy bowling with his friend Peter, and the boys had won easily making him look a right twit. This was a great laugh, though, and they had all enjoyed themselves immensely. When they got back after taking Peter home, Andy and James had stayed up munching crisps with a cheese dip his mum had made for them, talking and watching an old horror film on TV, until Andy fell asleep at 2am and James had half carried him to the stairs before the lad woke up and stumbled to his room.
James raised his head from the pillow and looked around. "What's going on? Where.... Oh. Hello! What time is it?"
"Morning, Jay. Almost nine thirty." Andy had decided that 'James' was too formal, and had shortened it to this. James liked it and knew it was a compliment, marking him out as a friend rather than just an adult who looked after him sometimes. "What's for breakfast?"
"Are you always hungry?"
"Yes." Andy put his right foot under James' nose. The boy hadn't had a bath since Thursday night and was still in his sleepwear of old baggy T-shirt and fleece shorts. His bare feet were none too fragrant. "Wakey, wakey, rise and shine!"
James made a face and pushed the foot away. "I'll do a full English one today. The works. That should satisfy even you!" Andy smiled. "One condition - you must have a bath first. Your feet stink!"
"OK." Andy rolled to the side of the bed and left James to get up. His bathroom was next to his bedroom at the far end of the hall (his parents had one en-suite), and he went in, turned on the taps and poured too much bubble bath under the hot water. He liked a lot of bubbles. While the bath was running, he cleaned his teeth and examined his face for any sign of spots, although he was still a bit too young for this, he thought. Once the bath was at exactly the right depth and temperature, he turned off the taps, turned on the radio, took off his clothes, and lowered himself in, sitting on a plastic submarine. "Toys!" he said in disgust and threw it into the corner. Finally getting comfortable, he lay back and had a really good soak, singing along to songs he knew.
James, meanwhile, had staggered out of bed, a bit dizzy from being woken up so fast by his young friend. He felt his way carefully towards the chest of drawers, but still managed to trip over his sports bag lying on the floor beside the bed, knocking the contents onto the floor. Wednesday's morning paper, his walkman, two books, and a few magazines fell out, together with one leather and one wooden paddle – the latter pock-marked with holes for effectiveness and speed. He hadn't actually planned on any spanking sessions this visit as he had the feeling that Andy would have his mind on having other kinds of fun in the holidays, and quite right too, but had brought them with him on the off chance. Scooping everything back in, he put on his dressing gown and went to the guest bathroom, marvelling again at the size of the house. He heard Andy singing and smiled.
After shaving and cleaning his teeth, he turned on the shower and quickly covered himself in warm water. He didn't want to keep Andy waiting for his breakfast, so only stayed under it for a minute, then dried himself off and wrapped the towel around his waist before returning to his bedroom. He dressed quickly in jeans and T-shirt, combed his hair, opened the door, and went out onto the landing just in time to see Andy leaving his bathroom. He hadn't bothered to put on a dressing gown or anything and was completely naked, and still slightly wet. James saw the perfect opportunity to get his own back for the rude awakening. He went into his room and retrieved both paddles from his bag, although he only intended to use the leather one, and silently crept down the hall and into Andy's bedroom. The boy was still naked and leaning over his bed at the far end of the big room, clearing up the mass of computer magazines that were spread all over it. The radio was still on in Andy's bathroom which muffled the sound as James came up behind him, raised the leather paddle over his shoulder, and brought it down on the boy's bottom with a loud crack.
"OW!" Andy stood up as his hands flew involuntarily to his backside. He looked back at James for a moment. "Yes sir" he said, pressed his knees into the edge of the mattress and bent over, folding his forearms on the duvet with his head down between them.
James was a bit taken aback by this. He had just intended to give him one playful whack, but with Andy bending over and waiting for punishment, it would be impossible not to continue. Raising the strap over his shoulder for every stroke, he counted carefully to himself as he brought it down onto the boy's bottom twenty times. Andy cried out every time the paddle lashed down, tears starting from his eyes.
James put the leather paddle down and picked up the wooden one. Raising it high in the air, he aimed at the lower half of Andy's bottom and whacked him severely, making the boy shout out in pain as the wood struck flesh already made tender by the leather. Eleven more times the heavy wooden paddle came down, always very hard and always in the same place. He was crying freely now, howling in pain as the beating progressed and pain exploded across his bottom.
James paused for a minute to get his breath back. Andy was sobbing quietly but stayed in position. His bottom and was bright red all over, with a few darker areas and the occasional purple one where the edge of the paddle had bit, while the lower half of it was bright and shiny, and just beginning to turn greeny-black. James changed instruments again and picked up the leather paddle.
He thrashed Andy as hard as he could, whipping the leather all over his bottom and the tops of his legs. Thirty times it fell, biting into the boy and making him scream in pain, turning his bottom darker and darker red. James then aimed at the tops of his legs and whipped them four times at full force. He was rewarded with a high-pitched howl as each blow fell.
Returning to the wooden paddle, James aimed at the earlier bruising and slowly whacked him twelve more times in exactly that spot, leaving it swollen and purple-black. Andy's back arched slightly and he raised his head and screamed as the paddle fell again and again, eyes and nose both streaming. Finally, James changed his grip on the handle and, twisting his body and stepping into the strokes, beat him six more times at full force, the paddle smacking down viciously onto the boy's bruised bottom, knocking him forward so that he had to put his arms out to prevent himself from collapsing onto the bed. He only just managed to stay properly bent over, and the last six strokes had been so hard that Andy's screams turned to a continuous moan, his voice cracking into both low and high pitched cries.
James was out of breath. He had totally lost himself in the scene, and looked around. Andy had somehow managed to stay bent over the bed, and was sobbing loudly. His bottom looked a complete mess, bruised and swollen all over. James gasped in horror, dropped the paddle, moved over to Andy, held him gently around the shoulders, and helped him up. The boy twisted to shake him off, and looked him right in the eyes as never before.
"GET OFF ME!" he shouted, and flung himself face down on the bed, buried his face in the pillow, and screamed.
"Andy, I.... Oh Andy, I'm so sorry!"
James didn't know what else to say. There's nothing else I can say, he thought, is there? What have I done?
Picking up the paddles he numbly walked out to the hall and back to his bedroom, dropping them into the corner behind the door. Then he sat down on his bed and stared into the middle distance, his eyes unfocussed. He started to cry, great wracking sobs that shook his entire body, in despair at the damage he had done and the friendship he had ruined.
After almost an hour, James got up and went downstairs. There was no sound from Andy's bedroom, and the door was closed. He walked into the sitting room and absently started to pick up the debris of the night before. Broken crisps carpeted the floor where they had sat, laughing at the horror film that wasn't horrible. James stumbled and sat down on the sofa, his head in his hands, and didn't move.
A couple of minutes passed. James heard a door open, followed by a muffled grunt and a thump. A toilet flushed, and he heard Andy slowly coming downstairs.
Wearing a bright blue T-shirt and dark blue fleece shorts, the boy limped painfully into the room and looked at James, who stood up.
"Andy...." he said in a broken voice, and a tear rolled down his cheek. Andy wobbled over and threw his arms around him in a big hug, squeezing him tightly.
"Don't cry, Jay, please. I'm OK. Don't worry, it's all right."
James was stunned. He picked Andy up and squeezed him back, tears pouring down his face. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry" he repeated, until the boy told him to shut up, smiling.
"I don't understand what happened, Jay."
"I lost control, that's what happened. I've never done that before. I'm so sorry."
"Stop apologising. I stayed down, didn't I?"
That was true. "Yes, but...."
"Would you have stopped if I had stood up and told you to?"
"Of course!"
"Well then. But I still don't understand, Jay. What's the difference between me standing up and telling you to stop, which you would do, and you ignoring me if I beg you to stop during a whacking?"
"It's a matter of tone and degree, Andy. You can always tell the difference. If you say something like "please don't beat me any more, sir, I'll be a good boy" then it's part of the scene, but if you say "stop, Jay, stop" it isn't, and I'll stop straight away. If in doubt, stand up and grab my wrist. This will always tell me you are serious. There's something else, too, called a 'safe word'. This is a word, usually 'mercy' or something but often unrelated to the scene, which will indicate that you want it to end. It's particularly important when restraints are used."
"Restraints?"
"Tying someone down so they can't move during punishment."
"Oh."
"We'll use a safe word in future, if you want."
Andy shrugged. "Don't know." He paused. "There's one more thing I don't understand."
"What's that?"
"Why did I stay down?"
James looked at him, reached over, and gently ruffled his hair. He thought he knew the answer, but it would be a hard one to explain. "Let's have breakfast and we'll talk about it."
Twenty minutes later, the kitchen was filled with the smells of a full English breakfast fry-up. James had fetched the pillows from his bed and Andy was sitting on them, shovelling food into his mouth. It was all covered in ketchup, and he pointed at the plate. "My bottom looks like that!" he said and grinned, dribbling a bit of egg yolk on the table. James smiled but didn't laugh. It wasn't funny, he knew. The boy had forgiven him, even seemed to think that there was nothing to forgive, but he had still lost control. He looked intently at Andy.
"What did you feel while I was beating you?"
"Pain! I thought you were going to break my bum!"
"No, I don't mean that, Andy. What did you feel inside yourself?"
There was silence as the boy thought about this. "At first I thought it would be just another spanking, you know, sore bum, me crying, and so on. Then when you used the wooden thing on me so hard, I realised I was really in for it."
"And how did that make you feel, inside?"
"I don't know," he paused. "Like a bad boy, I suppose."
Now they were getting somewhere. "Why did that make you stay down?"
"Because I sort of thought I deserved it. While you were whacking me I thought that I was being beaten for being really naughty. I thought it was right that you should do it to me and that I had no right to stand up until you gave me permission."
"You were caught up in it, like me. You must have wanted it to stop, though."
"Yes and no. I did want to it stop, but I kind of liked the idea of being really badly beaten. That sounds nuts, doesn't it?"
"No. Not at all, although it is very unusual in a twelve year old boy. We'll have to be a bit more careful in future, you know. No matter how severe a thrashing, the person doing the whacking should never lose control."
"Okay."
"Andy?"
"Mmm?" he replied with a mouthful of food.
"Do you understand why you like being whacked?"
The boy shrugged. "I just like it, I suppose. I like feeling naughty and the whole punishment thing. I like the way my bottom looks and feels afterwards. I don't know."
James could tell that Andy had heard quite enough about the CP scene for one day. He was emotionally drained himself. He changed the subject. "Do you still want to go to the cinema this afternoon?"
"Better not. I can't sit down for long, except on pillows like this."
"What would you like to do instead?"
Andy had already worked this out. "Can we go to the amusement park, Jay? Please? It's not far, and it has great rides. I'm sure I can sit down long enough for that."
"Why not? Finish your breakfast and let's go!"