When he heard the front door slam, ten-year-old Norman stopped playing with his little toy car. As a matter of fact, he stopped doing anything, even breathing. He felt like hiding under his bed but there wasn't enough room. He sat on the floor, hugging his bare legs.
"Norman," his mother called from the kitchen, "come downstairs and say happy birthday to your father."
Norman didn't move. He's not my father, he thought. He's my step-dad and I don't care if it's his birthday.
"Norman, did you hear me?" his mother, Doris, called again, louder this time.
James Thornton, meantime, had removed his heavy coat, dumping it over a chair in the hall. "Where's that _d_a_m_n_ed boy?" he growled. "Can't behave even on his father's birthday. Doris, you should really control his a little better. You let him get away with anything."
"James, he's only a child," Doris said placatingly. "If you would just let up on him a bit, he'd be more - er - pliable."
"Pliable?" James snorted and Doris could smell the whiskey on his breath, even though if was only five in the afternoon. "I'll make him pliable. I'll make him so pliable he'll curl into a pretzel."
They looked up as the small, thin boy carefully stepped into the kitchen. He was blond like his mother, his hair cropped short making his ears stick out. His wide mouth was trembling.
"Well, Norman," his mother encouraged her son with a nervous look at her new husband, "aren't you going to wish your father a happy birthday?"
Reluctantly, young Norman approached the large figure of his stepfather.
"Happy birthday," he said in a whisper.
"He's really enthusiastic about it, isn't he?" James mocked. "Where's that loving embrace a son has reserved for these occasions?"
Norman didn't move. His startled eyes flew to his mother but Doris looked away.
"Well, Norman," James chuckled, "where's that marvelous present you have for me?"
The boy brought a small package from behind his back and held it to out the large man in front of him. The kitchen was warm and something was cooking on the stove. He liked the smell but didn't feel hungry. There seemed to be a heavy stone where his stomach was supposed to be.
"Well, well, what have we here?" James said, grinning. "A diamond tie pin? gold nugget? He ripped the brown paper off the box, opened it and extracted a key chain.
"Norman made it himself," Doris said as if the boy required her defence.
"And it certainly looks like it," James said, tossing the key chain on the table. "Now tell me, boy, why didn't you come downstairs when your mother called you? Haven't I told you before that we don't want to have repeat ourselves when we give an order."
Norman stood, his fingers nervously plucking at the hems of his shorts, as his father reached for the top shelf where he kept a leather strap. It was only one of several and Norman knew that each room had a special place for one of those straps, which his father liked to call a tawse. They were all about thirty inches long and had two or three tails. Norman had felt each one and they all stung dreadfully.
"Now come along to my study," James said, taking the child by an ear and pulling him out of the kitchen. "We will have to have a little talk again."
"James, dinner is almost ready. Why don't you wash up and let's sit down for a nice meal. It's your birthday and I've prepared a steak the way you like it."
"This will only take ten minutes or so," James said with a grim smile, twisting the boy's ear. "Ten minutes of this little tawse across his bare backside should be sufficient even for this boy to learn some manners."
Norman was dragged out by the ear and Doris tended to her cooking and setting the dining table. It wasn't long before she could hear the boy's screams. It was a scene that had repeated itself almost every day since she had married James Thornton. She felt sorry for the boy but there was nothing she could do. When her first husband, Harold, had died, she had been destitute. With no money but a great deal of debt, she had accepted James' marriage proposal, just six months later, with relief and gratitude. Since then, she and Norman had lived comfortably, with a large house, good food and new clothes. Norman had been sent to a private school.
James was a strict disciplinarian and Doris thought he was excessively so, but she had nothing of her own and was totally dependent on James' income. So Norman would just have to learn and accept his daily punishments.
As she laid the table, she tried to ignore the continued cries that came from James' study. She took the meat from the oven, filled the dishes with various vegetables and brought out a bottle of red wine. The cries continued, now in a higher pitch and increased decibels. She took off her apron, fixed her hair and waited for James and Norman.
Almost fifteen minutes later James brought in a red-faced little boy still trying to button his shorts. "Bring the highchair," he ordered Doris and Norman was made to sit on its hard seat for the rest of the evening.
The beating had been nothing new, but Norman's bottom was in flames as never before. The tawse had been laid on more severely than before and the number of strokes was probably near fifty per cheek. He had been laid across the arm rest of a heavy leather sofa, his little shorts around his ankles, and told to keep quite still. Any attempt to protect his backside from the strap's sting would only bring on further punishment.
His father had whipped him only the day before and his skin had still been sore and tender, but that didn't intimidate his father's right arm. James was a very strong man and when he lashed the leather across his son's unprotected behind, he used all his considerable strength. And, as usual, Normal had howled lustily at each stroke. Now he sat on his burning backside, shifting from buttock to buttock, trying to eat his potatoes and string beans, drink his milk and try not to draw his father's attention.
James did most of the talking while Doris listened and smiled. She would give him his present later, when James was mellower from a good meal and Norman safely in bed. The wine was good and James finished the bottle in record time.
"Norman," he suddenly turned to the boy who was playing pick-up sticks with his string beans, "stop shifting about on your chair and eat your dinner. Or do you want another little session with the tawse?"
Norman quickly stuffed a string bean into his mouth and tried to sit quite still. No, he certainly didn't want "another little session" with the strap. He definitely had had enough for one night.
But it was not his lucky day. He shifted again, trying to alleviate the sting in his buttocks and James saw it. "What did I just say, boy?" he growled, putting down his fork.
"James, please," Doris muttered timidly, "let's just finish the meal."
"No, Doris," James said, rising from his chair, "first I will teach this stubborn little boy to obey orders." He stepped up to the cowering boy, lifted him off his highchair and carried him out the dining room and into his study. Doris sat at the table, listening once more to the boy's high-pitched screams. It took longer this time before father and son returned to the dining room. James' face was red and sweating, while the freshly punished boy was still blubbering pitifully. Holding his small bottom, once more tightly encased in his brief little shorts, with both hands, he staggered towards his chair and painfully climbed into it.
"You will remain seated until bedtime," James told the weeping boy. "You will have no dessert and you will sit still this time, do you understand?"
"Yes, sir," came the small voice from the highchair. The rest of the evening passed in silence. Doris and James cleared the table and went into the drawing room, leaving the unhappy boy seated on his hard throne.
"James, I bought this for you," Doris said, presenting him with a gift-wrapped package. "I hope you like it."
Still muttering about Norman's behaviour this evening, he slowly unwrapped the package. It was the suede leather jacket which he had planned on buying for himself. "Doris," he said with a wide smile, "this is great! I had forgotten all about it. Thank you."
They spent the rest of the evening watching television.
"James, isn't it Norman's bedtime? I think maybe he'd better go to his room, don't you think?"
"He always complains we make him go to bed too early," James said. "This time let's give him what he wants. After all, it's my birthday." He laughed.
So it was almost midnight before Norman was released from his hard chair. He had shifted, of course, the moment he was unobserved, but it hadn't helped his red-hot, throbbing behind in the least.
"Come along, now," James said, lifting the boy off his chair and carrying him upstairs. "Time for your bath. Your mother is busy cleaning up so I'll do the washing. Young Norman wasn't thrilled at the prospect but naturally didn't show it. Bath time for his step dad always meant considerable attention to his wealed and swollen bottom and by the time he was put to bed, Norman was in tears once more.