I met Sr. Hernando Perez during my first year at the Instituto San Martin, after I had been transferred from a public school. Don Hernando's son, Pedro, and I had become close friends and he invited me to his home.
Pedrito, as he was usually called, was about my age, eleven-and-a-half. He was a small boy, as most people in this country are not as tall as the Europeans or, certainly, as the Americans, and was always very neatly dressed, regardless of the occasion. Normally it was a clean, white shirt and dark-blue or black shorts, white ankle socks and black leather shoes. His skin was a cafe-au-lait colour and the white shirt and socks made a stark contrast. Sometimes he wore a black or dark-blue tie and for special occasions he wore a short "bum freezer" Eton-style jacket and cap. His shorts were cut trim and brief, leaving the entire expanse of brown thigh bare. For gym, he also wore shorts much tighter and shorter than we did, and he excelled at sports and games despite his slight stature.
Pedrito had straight, black hair and dark eyes (as all natives had) but his eyes were very large with long lashes that gave his face a soulful, dreamy look. Usually, I have found athletic boys to be a bit crude and rough; not Pedrito. He was usually well behaved and soft-spoken. But I liked him particularly because he didn't mind that I had been born in another country.
As I said, the first time I went to his home we were greeted by his mother and I immediately saw Pedrito's resemblance to her. A slight and attractive woman, she welcomed me politely and offered us some milk and cake. From what I could see, the house was small and sparsely furnished, but it was neat and clean. After we had gone to Pedrito's little room and played for a while, loud steps could be heard coming towards us. I immediately felt a change in Pedrito's manner. He seemed to stiffen and he stopped crawling around the floor as we had been doing, playing with his little toy cars. When the door opened, Pedrito jumped up and practically stood at attention. I automatically followed suit and we stood like two little soldiers in front of the stocky, broad-shouldered man who had entered.
"Buenos dėas, papā," Pedrito said, his voice quavering a little. "This is my friend," and he introduced me as a new classmate.
Don Hernando, as I was to call him in the future, looked down at me for a moment, nodded his head and turned to Pedrito. "Your mother tells me you didn't make your bed this morning and that you left your clothes lying on the floor." He looked expectantly at his son who by now seemed to have shrunk in size. I could feel him tremble next to me.
"Oh, I'm sorry, papā," he said in a small voice. "I must have forgotten in the rush to get to school on time."
"You wouldn't have to rush if you'd get up earlier," his father snapped. "I'm just going to wash up. You can get ready. Your friend will remain." With that he turned and left the room.
I looked at my friend. "What did he mean by 'get ready'?" I asked. In reply, Pedrito pointed to a corner of the room. Looking in that direction, I saw something hanging from a hook on the wall. It was a little whip and I stepped up closer to inspect it. It was made of braided leather, with the short handle spreading into four little tails about 8 or 10 inches long. I extended a finger and touched it. The leather was dry and hard and the tips of the tails were bound with another small strip, even harder to the touch, which made a sort of knot. I looked at Pedrito.
"What's this?" I asked, although I could imagine very clearly what it was used for.
"It's a 'chicote'," he said matter-of-factly. "He has another, bigger one. He calls that one a 'lātigo,' although it's not a real whip. Just a bigger 'chicote.' They both hurt badly."
"And he is going to punish you now?" I asked.
"Yes," my friend replied, "and he wants you to watch."
"Why?"
"Oh, he always tries to shame me with people watching when I'm getting whipped. He probably thinks that since you are my new friend, it'll embarrass me all the more."
"And will it?" I asked, knowing that I would be more embarrassed than he. Or so I thought at that moment.
"Not if you are really my friend and you won't tell the guys at school."
"I won't," I said. "I'm sorry."
"Not as sorry as I'm going to be in a moment," he said with a rueful little smile. "Now I better get ready because if he comes back and I'm just standing here like this, it'll be even worse."
I watched with unbelieving eyes as Pedrito first pushed a chair into the center of the room, then slowly unbuttoned his shorts and pushed them, together with his underpants, all the way down to his ankles. Raising his shirt, he bent over the back of the chair. I stood and looked at his bare little bottom. Despite his dark skin, I could clearly see signs of previous whippings, with stripes going down vertically down each buttock as well as horizontally across them. I could see darker pips where apparently the ends of the whip-tails had bitten.
Pedrito, with his clean, ironed white shirt now crumpled up his back, remained in this position as I stood, silently, waiting for his father's return. We waited a long time before the door finally opened again.
Don Hernando strode in, followed by two girls aged about 15 and 17.
"I want both of you to see what happens when a lazy little boy doesn't obey orders, doesn't keep his room neat and who can't get up on time."
To me he added, "This is Marėa and Teresa. Our neighbours' daughters. I told them I was going to punish Pedrito and asked them to be witnesses to the boy's shame."
He walked into the room and slowly took the whip off the hook. He swished it through the air as he approached the bending figure of his half-naked son.
"As you can see, I have had to punish him only a couple of days before," he said, stroking the bare bottom with the tips of the chicote. "Why was that, Pedrito? Why don't you tell these young ladies why you were punished."
Supporting himself with his hands on the chair seat, Pedrito turned his head a bit but didn't look at the girls who just stood and grinned.
"I - I came home late from school," Pedrito said in a small voice. "I had to stay behind to finish a lesson I had not completed for my homework."
"And what did you get for that laziness?" don Hernando asked brusquely.
"Fifty with the chicote," Pedrito muttered. I noticed his face had flushed a bright red. Even his ears seemed to glow.
"Yes," his father said, "and he is going to get a bit more this time. It's time he learned that orders must be obeyed, rules must be followed and homework, as well as school lessons, have to be done properly. Now watch."
Don Hernando placed himself by Pedrito's head and, raising the whip high over his shoulder, brought it down smartly across the right buttock. I could see the hard tips landing on the under bum and Pedrito jumped. I noticed that a dark line appeared where the tails had landed. Pedrito's brown skin didn't show the weal as mine would have. It didn't look red, more like a darker brown.
The next stroke landed in the cleft between the cheeks and the boy wriggled a bit more. The third whipped hard down the left buttock. I heard Pedrito moan. Stroke number four landed in between the cheeks again. And so it went: right, middle, left, middle, right, middle, left, middle, so that the cleft always got twice as many as each buttock. I could see that the strokes in the cleft were particularly effective because they not only landed across the sensitive anus, but also reached the inner thighs and perineum, sometimes even flicking at his small genitals. I always knew when that happened, because poor little Pedrito let out a particularly loud, high-pitched scream.
Don Hernando wielded the instrument with undiminished force and gradually I noticed that the weals became more pronounced and slightly elevated, little ridges that ran down from the apex of the cheek towards the upper thigh. The effect on the area where buttock meets thigh was most pronounced because that was where the hard tips of the tails bit most fiercely.
Each time the whip whistled down, there was a sharp crack as it met the boy's flesh and Pedrito jumped a bit more and his groans became louder and louder until he bellowed. I hadn't thought that the little whip could hurt that much but since the target's size was quite limited, the braided-leather tails kept crossing and re-crossing the previous welts. It was obvious that the pain was great and that Pedrito wasn't screaming without reason. I felt my own legs tremble.
Don Hernando raised the whip high and brought it down as hard as he could, coldly and dispassionately, on his young son's bare and well-stretched backside. Each time he targeted the cleft, he seemed to put even more muscle into it and seemed satisfied when the boy roared out his agony.
The pattern of stinging cuts didn't alter throughout the next 25 strokes and the boy was now frantically begging his father to stop.
"This is only the first part, my boy," his father calmly announced. "I will use the 'lātigo' for the second installment. Just stay in position until I get back."
Don Hernando returned the chicote to its hook and disappeared. Now the girls started giggling and chattering. They stood up close to the bending, sweating boy and inspected first his wealed little bottom and then his tear-stained face.
"Look at those marks," Maria said, running a fingertip across one of the more raised weals. "You can see where it landed between his legs. And look at that one!"
"I can see his little thing," Teresa giggled. "I think it also got something."
The girls stood and pointed, laughed and commented, while Pedrito felt their fingers on his burning bottom and writhed with shame.
"Can't you be quiet and leave me alone" he finally mumbled. "Don't you ever get punished?"
"Like this?" Marėa asked. "No. never. They tell me only boys get whipped. And they certainly deserve to be."
"But we have never actually seen how boys are punished," Teresa added. "It's very exciting, isn't it? Does it hurt very much?"
"What do you think?" Pedrito snapped with annoyance. Of course it hurts. Maybe you should try it some time."
The girls laughed. "If we complain to your father that you yelled at us, what do you think he will do?" Marėa asked with a wicked little smile.
Pedrito looked at her. "You wouldn't, would you?"
"Why not? You did snap at us, and we just asked you a very polite question."
"Well, it was a stupid question," Pedrito said.
"There, you see? Now you are also being rude. Now we have no choice but to report it to your father."
"Oh, come on. You don't have to say anything. Please?"
The girls just laughed. The banter continued for several more minutes until don Hernando returned. I immediately saw that he was carrying the larger 'chicote,' or 'lātigo' as he called it. It was basically just a longer, heavier version of the 'chicote' he had used first, but I could see that it would be considerably more painful. The tails were longer and thicker, the wound tips heavier.
"Oh, papā," Pedrito exclaimed as he, too, saw what he was carrying, "please not the 'lātigo,' please, papā. I'll never do it again. I'll clean up my room and study. I promise I will!"
"After another 25 with this," his father said, dangling the thick tails in front of Pedrito's nose, "I should hope you will."
He positioned himself as before and delivered 25 fierce strokes across the already well-whipped bottom. Pedrito howled at each cut but when the strokes fell between his buttocks and legs, his entire body bucked up with spasms of pain. I could see the weals getting darker and thicker and I thought I actually saw that little bottom starting to swell up. Stroke after stroke, applied mercilessly hard each time, landed left, centre, right, centre, left. Don Hernando seemed to aim carefully so that the tails also bit well into the inside of the boy's thighs and looked amused when Pedrito's whole body jumped.
Once Pedrito couldn't stand the agony when the tails whipped sharply between his legs and he jumped up. I saw his small face, contorted with pain, wet with tears, turn towards his father with such a pleading look that I was sure his father would relent.
"You will get three extra strokes for this disobedience," was all don Hernando said and poor Pedrito had to get back into the punishment position. The three extras were applied with even greater force and Pedrito shrieked.
Finally putting the whip aside, don Hernando turned to the girls.
"Well, I hope you learned something as well. Now you see what boys get when they misbehave. Pedrito will be more careful in the future, don't you think?"
I nodded, certain that he would be, as I looked at his swollen, bruised backside. I know my white skin would have looked even worse, but I didn't doubt that his pain was as acute as if his skin had been white. It just appeared to be tougher when the skin was brown.
The girls also nodded. There was a short silence. They looked at each other.
"Don Hernando," Teresa asked, "are boys allowed to be rude to ladies even when they are only 15 and 17 years old?"
"No, of course not," don Hernando said. "Why do you ask?"
"Well, we don't want Pedrito to get into more trouble, but he really was very rude to us. He called us stupid."
"Yes, and he shouted at us when you were gone," confirmed Marėa. "Shouldn't a boy also be punished for that?"
"He certainly should," don Hernando said coldly. "Pedrito, is this true?"
"They asked me if the whipping had hurt," Pedrito wailed in despair. "I said it was a stupid question. And it is!"
"And you shouted at them as well?" his father asked.
"No, I just raised my voice a bit."
"I see. You raised your voice a bit and told them what they asked was stupid. Do you call that being polite to a visitor, a lady visitor, no less?"
"Oh, please, papā!" Pedrito now whined frantically, "I didn't mean to be impolite. Really. Please don't whip me any more!"
"You will get another ten for each act of impoliteness," his father announced, unmoved by his son's distress.
This time he stood behind the boy, a bit to the side, and whipped the boy horizontally across the lower buttocks and upper thighs. He beat the boy so hard I though he wanted to take the skin off his backside. As a matter of fact, from where I stood, it looked as if some spots were already quite raw. Pedrito roared and jumped, but kept obediently across the chair. When his father had finally finished the last 10 cuts, the boy just lay there, draped over the chair back, panting and sobbing. We all just stood and watched for a moment. The brown buttocks were now dark purple and really swelling up, the ridges left by the tails stood out in high relief. The lower parts of the buttocks, where the boy will have to sit on his hard school bench tomorrow, were actually skinned and thick purple lines decorated the upper thighs.
"Pedrito, you will stay in position until I come back and give you permission to get dressed. You will not move or you will get the same all over again. I mean it!"
To me he added, "I think you better go home now. You can come some other time when Pedrito has not misbehaved so you two can play together."
"Tomorrow?" I asked. I noticed that my voice was dry and raspy. I swallowed.
"That's up to Pedrito. His behind may be a bit too sore for some games, I dare say, but he will see you in school tomorrow."
It had got dark outside by now and I quickly ran home. It was a 30-minute walk but this time I made in less than 25. When I got home, I told my parents of my experience.
They listened with amusement at my excitement.
"The locals, especially those with more Indian blood, tend to be severe with their boys," my father said.
"Yes," my mother added, "I have seen these little whips being sold at the markets. Some are quite small, but others look quite fearsome. I'm sure your little friend has learned a good lesson. Maybe we should deal with you the same way, seeing that you like your dark little friends so much."
"He is tough," I said defensively, "and so am I. I can take it."
My parents laughed. "We have to get some 'chicotes' for him," my father said. "Next time he is naughty, we can try it out on him and see how tough he is."
I was getting a little worried. I hadn't thought they would take me serious. I was getting a bit more here than I had bargained for, as I would soon find out. But at that time I had no idea that my toughness against that of Pedrito's, would soon be put to the test.