The next morning at school, I saw Pedrito trying to pull the hems of his shorts below the weals on his thighs, but to no avail. The shorts that normally showed a bit of lower buttock even when he stood upright, could not hide the punished upper thighs. At first he couldn't look at me, but during recess I put my arm around his shoulder and quietly spoke to him.
"Pedrito, you have nothing to be ashamed about. You did something wrong and were punished. You took your punishment like a man and I'm proud of you. I don't think I could have done as well as you."
Pedrito finally managed a little smile. "Thanks," he said. "At least you are a real friend."
Since that day, the moment Pedrito arrived at school, I noticed when he had been punished. I hadn't paid that much attention before, but now, when I saw him move a bit slower, sit down more carefully and try to keep his back to a wall, I knew the reason. And it happened with surprising frequency, sometimes 3 or 4 times a week. He never wanted to talk about it because he still felt ashamed, but when I asked, he told me some details.
The punishments were normally as I had witnessed that day, varying only in the number of strokes and or the severity with which they were administered. His bottom had barely (and I use the word aptly) had time to recover from a previous whipping, when the next one fell due. He told me of some of the reasons for which his father whipped him, and I found them to be rather insignificant.
But one morning, Pedrito came with worrisome news. His father had inquired about me and recently met my parents. I wondered about the reason but did not envision the results this meeting would have. I was soon to find out.
I had a habit of frequenting a local store that sold just about everything. It had hardware gadgets, artists' supplies, books and magazines, as well as a separate section for toys and sweets. I also had made it a habit to eat a few of the sweets that were on display in plastic containers for customers to help themselves. But the customers were expected to put the sweets into a little paper bag, have it weighed and then pay for it. I thought this was too much trouble and just put the sweets directly into my mouth.
This had worked very well for quite some time, but now my luck had run out. The manager told me that he had had his eye on me for months and he was quite happy to finally have caught me in the act. He also had an attendant as a witness. He asked for my parents' telephone number and my fate was sealed.
"You should be grateful the manager didn't report you to the police," my mother said. Both parents were very angry and disappointed with me. "I just don't know what to do with you," my mother added.
"Well, I do," my father said. "He deserves a sound whipping."
My mother and I both stared at him. I had never been whipped at home. Even a spanking was quite unusual. "You are going to beat him?" my mother asked, and she sounded as if the whipping was meant for her.
"What else is to be done? Send him to his room? Forbid the telly? That's not going to teach him."
It was my mother, strangely enough, who came up with the idea.
"Why don't we send him to don Hernando?" she asked my father. "He certainly seems to have had a lot of experience in punishing boys David's age."
My father thought for a moment. "Actually, Margaret, that's a splendid idea. Why didn't I think of it? This will ensure David gets his proper punishment and we won't feel too guilty about it." He gave a little chuckle. I wasn't too happy as I listened to all this, and certainly saw no humour in his remark.
The next day I told Pedrito about what had happened. He was also quite surprised at first but then had to laugh.
"Now you will have a first-hand exposure of what it feels like," he said. "Quite an exposure."
"I don't know why you are so happy about it. Your father will kill me. I'm not his son, he doesn't know me, wouldn't have any kind of sympathy for me."
"Well, David, he doesn't have too much sympathy for me, either," Pedrito said, and I had to agree.
"What do you think he will do? I mean, it's my first time. Surely he can't be as severe with me as he was with you," I said hopefully.
"Don't bet on it," Pedrito said. "My father has specific ideas about how boys should be disciplined and I don't think he'll make an exception with you."
The next several days were spent in a state of extreme anxiety. No one mentioned this at home and Pedrito had no intention of asking his father. So I waited for the axe to fall. I slept badly and had lost my appetite. I stayed in my room doing homework most of the time. My parents let me stew in my own juices.
Then, at last, it ended. I wasn't sure whether to be glad or not, but decided it was better to get it over with.
"Don Hernando has agreed to deal with you tomorrow after school," my father told me that evening. "You will accompany Pedrito to his home and do exactly as you are told when you get there. We have asked don Hernando to deal with you exactly as he deals with his own son, no more, no less. If you don't comply and behave, you will remain at his home until you do. Is that understood?"
I stood and looked at him with open mouth. I tried to speak but no words emerged from my dry throat. I swallowed a couple of times.
"But Dad - " I started, but my father interrupted me.
"No excuses, no arguments. It has been decided and you will do extactly as you're told. Now go to your room."
I didn't sleep well that night, either. The scenes of Pedrito's punishment kept floating up in front of my eyes. I could even hear his moans, shrieks and screams. Would I scream like that? Would I be able to take such a whipping at all? Maybe I should run away. No, if Pedrito could take it, so could I. Just because I was a foreigner didn't mean I was soft. I would show them! I tried hard to convince myself of what I was saying, but with little success.
I couldn't pay much attention to the lessons next day. Pedrito kept looking at me with an unfathomable expression. Surely he wasn't sorry for me. That would have been demeaning. Anticipation? Yes, that was more like it. He wanted to watch and see how I would react to corporal punishment.
As we went home together after school, my legs felt weak. One consolation was that my shorts were longer than those of Pedrito and would hide any stripes I would have on my thighs. At least that humiliation would be spared me.
Pedrito's mother let us in and we went to his room to await don Hernando's arrival. We played with the toy cars, but my heart wasn't in it.
When we heard the front door open, we stopped pretending to play. We stood and held our breaths. At least I knew I did. I started to shiver and my heart beat loud and fast. The moment of my execution was here.
We waited - and waited.
At last, the door opened and don Hernando entered. He looked at his son.
"Bring me the chicote," was all he said, and when Pedrito had left, he turned to me.
"Ladrōn," he said coldly. Thief. Yes, I did steal, I suppose, but it was such a little thing.
We stood facing each other for a moment, the man serious, detached. I, awkward and shaking.
"Bājate los pantaloncillos," he said. Obediently, I lowered my shorts.
"Underpants," don Hernando snapped, and I lowered those, too.
"Over the chair. Don't act stupid. You saw the routine when Pedro got his. Move!"
Stumbling with my restricted ankles, I first moved the chair and then bent over it the way Pedrito had done.
"Please, don Hernando, don't whip me too hard. I won't ever do this again," I pleaded. "I promise."
"Cāllate," he replied. Shut up.
Pedrito returned with the chicote which he handed to his father. "Stand over there, out of the way. You will watch your friend being punished the way I punish you. His parents have requested me to do just that and I will comply."
He stood by my head and I knew what to expect. Or thought I knew. In fact, when the first lash whipped down my right buttock, I almost screamed. But when I thought of how Pedrito's brown bottom had reacted to the first blow, and how Pedrito had just twitched a bit or moaned, I was able to control myself. The burning pain was surprisingly sharp and deep, but when the next stroke whipped down the center, I thought I'd die. No, I mustn't scream, I kept repeating to myself. I mustn't. I felt awfully sore between my bottom cheeks and between the legs, particularly the inner thighs and I wondered how many I was going to get.
The third stroke, as expected, lashed down my left buttock and the fourth again down the middle. This time I squeaked like a pig. I turned my head towards where Pedrito stood watching. He was wearing his brief black shorts and I pictured the weals he was showing on the back of those bare thighs. I steeled myself for the next three cuts and managed to keep my noise to a low moan and gurgle.
Three more, and my low moans grew in volume. My buttocks were throbbing and my hole was on fire. Three more and my moans developed into loud cries.
"Don't make so much fuss," I heard don Hernando through my cries. "We haven't even started yet. You'll be very sorry for stealing long before we reach halfway through your punishment."
Stroke followed stroke and each seemed to rip my skin off. The underside of my buttocks, near my thighs, hurt the worst because those hard tips always fell on that same area. As soon as I wished for those tips to bite somewhere else, they did - in the middle, and that was even worse, so I waited for the cuts down the cheeks. And that felt just as painful. I started to cry.
Don Hernando, unmoved, continued applying that chicote down the left cheek, centre, right cheek, centre until I was wriggling and writhing on the chair like a cut worm. My crying increased in volume despite my efforts to stop. I saw Pedrito watching; I looked at his face and I saw commiseration and encouragement. I probably just imagined it, but it gave me courage to absorb the next - how many, a dozen, two? - strokes without loud screams.
And still it went on. Don Hernando brought the whip down with great force that never diminished. On the contrary, to me it felt as if he hit me harder with each cut. I don't know how long it lasted. I realised that I was howling with pain and felt ashamed. I didn't remember Pedrito making that much noise. Did he really get this much? Was don Hernando being more severe with me for my fault or because I was a foreigner whom he took to be soft and spoiled?
As the strokes continued, unabated, I thought my bottom must have been fully flayed by now. I couldn't imagine I could take much more. Surely I would faint or something.
At that point don Hernando handed the chicote back to Pedrito who took it with comic reverence, as if receiving a holy object.
"Como te sientes?" don Hernando asked sarcastically. How do you feel? Well, I needn't have to tell him. He could judge for himself. I was in total misery and I felt as if encased in molten lava between hips and mid thigh.
There was silence in the room except for my panting and low moaning. Pedrito just stood there, not moving, not speaking. Don Hernando drew his hand across my backside.
"Mira, Pedrito," he said. "Ya no es blanco." Look, his bottom is no longer white. "His skin nicely shows up the red and purple colours."
"David, if my son had been caught stealing, I would have whipped him with a real lātigo that might leave bloody weals all over his behind. So I'm making an exception in your case because I don't know your family that well yet and because you are a little gringo who is not used to our ways."
I lay across that chair and heaved a sigh of relief. By now I didn't care if he thought me soft and spoiled. I just wanted off that chair and out of reach of don Hernando's chicote.
"Pedrito," his father continued, "take the chicote back."
As Pedrito turned to hang it up on its hook, I started struggling off the chair.
"Where are you going?" don Hernando snapped. "Did I give you permission to get up?"
"N-no, don Hernando," I said and quickly bent over again to wait for his permission.
"And bring me the lātigo," finished don Hernando.
What? Did I hear right? No, that couldn't be!
"But don Hernando," I squealed, "isn't it over?"
He laughed without humour. "Over? No, my boy, your real punishment is just beginning."
This time I lost all control and sobbed wildly. "I can't - I just can't -"
Don Hernando just stood there, implacable, waiting for his son's return, as I lay there weeping. It was just too much.
Pedrito returned with the larger chicote and handed it to his father. Somehow I thought he looked a bit excited, perhaps to see someone else getting what was normally reserved for him. A bit of Schadenfreude, perhaps. Well, I didn't begrudge him a little pleasure. I might feel the same in his place (actually I was in his place. I meant if roles were reversed. Oh, well, never mind.)
Don Hernando sat on Pedrito's bed and looked at me. "It's about time you had a little lesson in our country's-style discipline," he said, calmly playing with the long, thick tails of the chicote. "Pedrito told me you like to be like us, not like all the other gringos, so you might as well get used to our way of punishing our boys. We make men out of them. We keep them in shorts, very brief shorts, no matter how cold it gets, to toughen them up. You gringos bundle up at the slightest wisp of wind. Pathetic!"
I listened to all this while draped across that hard chair and wished he'd stop talking and get this over with. But then I thought about how sore and tender my backside was and wished he'd talk for ever. I just couldn't make up my mind what I wanted except to get out of here as soon as possible.
Again I felt don Hernando's fingers on my bottom. "Yes," he muttered, "here would be good. Hmm, and there. Yes."
And a second later I felt the heavy tails lash across my buttocks, very low, so that some of the tails bit into the cheeks and others around my thighs. He had positioned himself on one side and behind me and had drawn the whip horizontally across both cheeks. I had seen him do this with Pedrito, but had forgotten. Now I remembered. I also realised that he lashed me across those parts he had just fingered and they just happened to have been the parts that throbbed and burned the most. Then the next stroke whipped across my lower bottom and I couldn't help it: I howled.
The next caught me around the left thigh and curled around so that the tips stung the inner parts high up and inside the buttocks. Again my howl filled the room and I saw Pedrito shift his feet. He looked at the floor. Was he ashamed of my behaviour or was he scared? When the next lash whipped into me, I tried to suppress my scream so that only a loud gurgle emerged from my constricted throat. God, how many more? When would this be over? Was it possible that Pedrito had felt exactly the same and I had underestimated the effects of the big chicote.
Another very hard stroke whipped around my thighs and a mewling sound came from my tightly compressed lips. The sting was incredible and I felt my skin being ripped off. Another, on that same spot. I found myself sobbing once more, when another cut it into my lower buttocks. My right hip got the impact of the hard tips this time and pain flared. The next one caught the lower buttocks, then another between the thighs. Another around my right thigh and the tails whipped around towards the front. I bellowed with the unexpected pain this produced.
"Oh, papā," I vaguely heard Pedrito's voice through my haze of red-hot pain, "please stop! It's enough! You've punished him enough! Please, papā!"
The whip crashed down on the lower half of my sore and throbbing bottom.
"Enough, Pedro? For a thief, this is not nearly enough. I intend to comply with his parents' request and punish him as I would punish you if you ever dared to steal something, no matter how small or insignificant it may be. So be warned."
And the chicote caught me around the thighs again. And again.
"You'll be lucky if there is any skin left on that plump little backside of yours," don Hernando said coldly as he landed the whip across the middle of my behind. "I certainly will make sure that you won't sit down for a couple of weeks without great discomfort."
He continued the whipping, slowly, mercilessly, bringing down the large chicote with full strength each time, concentrating mostly on the lower buttocks and upper thighs, but always making sure that the tails found the soft inner parts of thighs and buttocks, even parts in front.
When he at last put the whip down, I was lying limply across the chair, trembling front head to foot.
"Pedrito," don Hernando addressed his son, "go over to the neighbours and see whether Marėa and Teresa are home. They may come over and have another look, if they want, to see what happens to a thieving gringo."
Pedrito was about to say something, but changed his mind. I just heard a small murmur before he turned and left the room.
"You may have a ten-minute rest, David," don Hernando said. "Stand up and get into the corner over there, where the small chicote is hanging. Put your lips against it, hands behind your neck. Don't move, if you know what's good for you. I'll be back in ten minutes but I can hear every move you make. So you better obey."
He left me standing in Pedrito's room, my face against the chicote hanging from its hook, hands behind my back, weeping like a baby. My bottom burned and throbbed as if my heart were beating back there. My legs felt weak. I wished I were back home, safe in my bed.
As I stood there, I heard voices from the front door and presumed the girls had decided to enjoy another boy's beating. When the door opened, I saw that I had been right, but another couple was with them.
"These are Mr. and Mrs. Sandoval, the girls' parents. They wanted to see what all this was about. The girls had told them about Pedrito's punishments, so they wanted to see for themselves," don Hernando announced.
"That's the boy over there," don Hernando said quite unnecessarily. "That boy with the skinned backside. His name is David. He is Pedrito's age and is being punished the way Pedrito would have been. David, come here and keep your hands up."
My shorts and pants were still around my ankles, so my progress back into the room was slow and somewhat exposed. This didn't seem to matter to the parents who looked at me with interest.
"A gringo child? Do his parents know of this?" Mrs. Sandoval wanted to know.
"Of course," don Hernando replied. "They are the ones who asked me to deal with the boy. David talked to them about Pedrito's punishment and apparently they felt it would do their son some good. I hope so. Otherwise, he's coming back here for more of the same."
"How many has he had?" Mr. Sandoval asked.
"Fifty with the chicote," don Hernando said, "and 25 with the 'lātigo'," don Hernando said. "He has 25 more to go. I thought you might want to observe the rest of the whipping."
The four Sandovals and Pedrito stood along the far wall where they could watch without interfering with the full swing of the chicote. Pedrito didn't look at me but stood fiddling with the hems of his brief shorts.
"All right, David," don Hernando said crisply, taking up the whip again,