Summer with an Afrikaans family – Part 2
The following morning was time for my first lesson. All the visitors sat around the dining room table, and in the corner the cane still leaned menacingly. I determined to be very cautious. Everyone was given a very thick book called "Afrikaans Grammatika" and in it were various lessons in grammar along with appropriate translation exercises and concluding homework assignments. First Mrs De Jaager inspected everyones homework assignments, and then everyone turned to the next chapter. At the end of the chapter, she rewarded us with tea while she read aloud from a book called "Patrys Hulle", about an Afrikaans boy (sort of like an Afrikaans version of Richmal Cromptons William), except that whereas Williams retributions were tacitly implied, Patryss were graphically described along with the occasional picture of him bending over for the cane. We all experienced a sort of vicarious shudder of enjoyable horror at Patryss exploits and the invariable retribution that followed.
That afternoon it was back to the stream until the gong sounded for tea, when we all dashed to the house. One of the visitors, a boy of 11 from another room named Chris, started to dart into the kitchen but the rest of us remembered in time and screeched to a halt just outside the kitchen door to dry ourselves off. From inside the kitchen we heard an exasperated rebuke from Mrs DeJaager followed by an injunction for Chris to fetch the cane from the dining room. We entered in time to see a disconsolate Chris slowly emerging from the dining room with cane in hand, which he reluctantly handed over.
"Broek af en buk!" she rapped. Chris pulled down his swimming trunks—all he was wearing—and bent over and touched his toes. A narrow but fleshy pair of buttocks reached invitingly into the room. Mrs De Jaager laid the cane across the center of thee buttocks, then withdrew it and brought it back down with a loud whine and a crack. Chris jumped up and grabbed his rear end. Ow! My bum! he yelled. This brought a giggle from the watching boys but not from Mrs De Jaager, who roughly pushed him back down again. Again he touched his toes, and again the cane was laid across the target, a fraction below the red line that had already formed. Another whine and another crack, and this time the boy shuddered, as did his buttocks, but he did not move. Two more followed, each successively lower, and then he was ordered to get up. Tears were starting from his eyes, his face was flushed, and he clutched his buttocks, furiously rubbing up and down. Then he gingerly pulled up his trunks and stiffly walked towards and up the staircase.
That evening he had trouble sitting at the dinner table, squirming in discomfort, and later in the evening showed us the four raised ridges across the lower half of his bottom, evenly spaced. He had clearly been struck hard and I again resolved to stay clear of Mrs De Jaager's wrath.
But it was Mr. De Jaager who provided my first punishment.
The weekend came and Mrs De Jaager went to visit her sister on a nearby farm. Mr De Jaager said we could go up into the mountains and he would pack us a picnic lunch. The nearby mountains were beautiful, with many caves that had at one time been inhabited by the aboriginal Bushmen, and their drawings were still on the cave walls. There were beautiful views from those mountains, for whereas some parts of the world are heavily forested, in those mountains the trees were in clumps around streams, and paths weaved high up on the mountains in and out of those clumps of trees. The trees promised water and shade, and one quickly emerged into beautiful views as one passed through.
All of the boys decided to go on the hike – Mr De Jaager stayed on the farm. So the nine of us set out – the six visitors and the three family members. We crossed our favorite stream and walked through a meadow, from there winding up into the mountains. It was a hot day and we were looking forward to the first of the tree clumps and eventually a possible cave, which we had been told lay at the end of the trail. The Afrikaans boys thought there was a cave, but were unsure. We walked in silence and about three hours later, after weaving and climbing amid ever more glorious views, reached the top of the mountain. The path ended into a broad expanse of shelf rock, and after clambering up a few levels, there was the hoped-for cave. We entered the cave and looked for Bushmen drawings. There were a few—rather faded—but the romance of finding a cave was full reward. After exploring it, we emerged back into daylight and found a rocky ledge overlooking the mountain range that stretched endlessly into the distance. We are our lunch and the conversation turned to the farm and its family. The three brothers acknowledged that their parents were strict, but said they were a loving family that provided closeness and warmth, and they would choose their lot any day over the rushed, impersonal lives of the city dwellers. As for me, I said I thought there was too much caning. They shrugged--it came with the territory, they said, and they usually deserved it.
After a while we set back down the mountain. It was even hotter and we were glad to come to a clump of trees and its inevitable hidden stream. In a rush of high spirits, we jumped into the shallow water and started to splash each other. Chris, in an act of bravado, stripped off his wet clothes and pranced in the water. It was quite a sight--his penis flopping up and down in front as he pranced and the four stripes he had recently acquired still sweeping across his behind. In a further fit of high spirits, and even more bravado, he picked up the heap of clothes and flung them into the water slightly downstream, then raced after them as we all rocked with laughter.
Because we were still quite high up the mountain, the stream was quite steep, and flowing quite swiftly, and the current caught the bundle. Some of the clothes caught on a rock but the rest vanished over a waterfall none of us had spotted. Chris started downstream to rescue his remaining clothes.
"Stop!" I yelled. "Its not safe!"
It truly was not, and to my relief I saw Chris hesitate and then stop.
"What am I to do?" he asked in despair.
"Here," I answered. "Ill take off my shorts and lend them to you. Ill just wear my underpants." Chris gratefully accepted and we continued to wind our way down the mountainside. It was empty country with little risk of meeting anyone. We were all soaking wet and my underpants clung to my body.
After a couple more streams to cool down in, we reached the bottom of the mountain, crossed the meadow, waded across our stream, and headed for the house. Chris decided to go round the side entrance so he could go straight up to his room and change into his own clothes. Since Mrs De Jaager wasnt around, I didnt mind walking with the others into the kitchen first in my underpants.
Mr. De Jaager stopped short when he saw me.
"What kind of way is that to walk around?" he demanded in Afrikaans.
I wasnt sure how to respond, not wanting to get Chris into trouble.
"Answer me!" he snapped.
I still did not know what to say. I came from a schoolboy tradition of never being a snitch.
Accustomed to instant obedience, he suddenly lost patience and reached for me, dragged me to a chair, sat in it and draped me over his lap. He gave me a stinging slap on my wet underpants.
"Cat got your tongue?"
More in a state of shock at this sudden turn of events, and still unsure how to keep Chris out of trouble, I still said nothing. Mr De Jeaager rolled back my underpants. He rested a calloused hand on my right cheek as I lay motionless in dreaded anticipation.
"This will teach you to speak when spoken to."
He proceeded to spank me, hard. His hard calloused hand sank deep into the soft flesh as he rhythmically alternated cheeks, and each slap produced a sting greater than the last. I started to squirm and gasp.
I must have received close to 20 before Chris entered the room0--he had not heard the echoing smacks at first because he had water running in the bathroom as he rinsed off his feet. He heard them as he dressed, then came down to see what was going on. He stopped short when the scene met his eyes--me draped over Mr De De Jaagers lap, my bare bottom arched up, the rain of slaps coming down. He still had not made the connection, and stood uncertainly while Mr De Jaager finished the spanking--about 30 slaps in all. The man lifted me off and I grabbed my cheeks, crying as much from shock as pain.
Willem looked across at Chris.
"Look how you got one of our other English boys into trouble!" he said. Chris looked confused.
"Perhaps that will teach you to answer me--and maybe to take better care of your clothes," said Mr De Jaager to me as I still stood rubbing.
Chris now understood what had happened and dejectedly asked permission to speak. He then told Mr De Jaager that it was all his fault and revealred what had actually happened.
Mr De Jaager looked angry again. Far from feeling any remorse at spanking me--for he felt that I should have answered when questioned--he turned his attention to Chris.
"Well," he said, "If you cant take care of your clothes, then you deserve no less than this boy"--and so saying, hauled Chris over to the chair, yanked down his shorts and underwear and pulled him across his knee. Chris's legs and arms dangled symmetrically at either end and his striped bottom pointed up.
Without another word, Mr De Jaager proceeded to spank him in the same fashion, and I watched fascinated as his buttocks changed color--his spanking lasted longer than mine and soon he, too, was crying. I dont know if his existing stripes made it worse or whether they were simply cosmetic lingering marks from his earlier hiding, but given the force of the spanking, the hand sinking deep into each buttock, it scarcely mattered, and in short order his flailing legs had kicked off his shorts and underpants. For the second time that day, he lost his clothes, but this time across a room instead of over a waterfall, and under a much greater force.
To be continued....