The Last Trip to the Woodshed Tawser rleehistory@yahoo. com
Neither of the two men said a word as they walked out to the woodshed on that warm summer morning in 1890. Both of them were dressed in old-fashioned trousers with suspenders and long sleeved white shirts. The younger man, who was probably around 25 or so, was barefoot and clean-shaven. (He hated shoes, and was barefoot most of the time, except at church meetings. Besides, his bare feet, walking alongside the older mans shoes, reminded him that he was a boy, and that the older man was, well, a man.) The older man, who looked to be in his early fifties, wore a beard with no moustache. He had the stern expression of an Old Testament prophet. He towered over the younger man, who appeared nervous but resigned to his fate. Dark, tousled hair framed his sad, sensitive face. He had blue eyes that at this moment appeared to be on the verge of tears. Around them farm land stretched for miles. The only sounds audible were the dry grass beneath their feet and, if you listened closely, the rapid breathing of the younger man. He followed the older man like a scared but obedient pup. He never looked up, but stared intently down at his dirty toes.
The older man opened the door to the shed and ushered the younger man inside. The younger man blinked for a few seconds in the darkness of the shed. When his vision become accustomed to the darkness, he could see the sawhorse, and the razor strap near it, hanging from a hook. The older man immediately proceeded to unbutton his shirtsleeves and roll them up, exposing his hairy, muscular arms. He was in magnificent shape for a man his age. This wasnt the first time (or the fifteenth, or possibly even the fiftieth) that the younger man had seen the older man roll up his shirt sleeves in the shed, but the sight of those arms still made his eyes turn to saucers and his whole slight frame tremble. The older man took his time rolling up his sleeves, wanting the ritual to have its full effect on the younger man. The younger man ruefully massaged his trousered rump. The older man noticed him doing this, and smiled for the first time that morning.
"Brother Alvin!" he barked when he was finally finished rolling up his sleeves. "Get down on your knees." Alvin, as frightened as he was, did as he was told, kneeling down on the dirt floor in front of the older man, his bare toes digging fretfully into the hard earth. "Yes, Brother Jedidiah. Yes, sir." Jedidiah put his hands on Alvins head. His touch was surprisingly gentle. He began to mutter a prayer. Alvin could not make out the words, but he knew the substance of the prayer. Brother Jedidiah was praying to the Lord for the strength and wisdom to administer the punishment that Alvin needed, no more, no less. The wisdom to hurt his bare posterior enough to make a lasting impression on his soul, and encourage him to avoid the sin of self abuse in the future. Alvin knew that at least the first part of the prayer was going to be answered. It was going to hurt. It would be at least a week before he could look forward to sitting on a backside not covered with bruises and welts. Sometimes it took far longer than a week. He was less sure about the second part. No matter how often he and Jedidiah took the trip out to the shed, he couldnt seem to avoid the delicious evil of pleasuring himself. And he couldnt seem to avoid getting caught either. It was almost as if he wanted to get caught, to make these regular trips to the woodshed for long meaningful conversations between his rump and Jedidiahs fearsome strap. And Jedidiah, who loved him like a son, seemed to take a certain satisfaction from these sessions too. No. More than satisfaction. Pleasure. Jedidiah loved strapping Alvins bare behind, until he howled for forgiveness and promised never to sin again. He could even admit to himself that he took satisfaction from it, because he knew it was for Alvins own good, that he was helping to save his soul.
Alvin was an orphan. His mother abandoned him to an orphanage right after he was born. Alvin hated the orphanage. The other boys introduced him to evil habits, like self-abuse, and the priests who ran the orphanage spanked his bare bottom hard and long for indulging in those habits. Hed spent many a memorable morning draped over the knees of a priest, while a thick wooden ruler or leather strap painted the entire surface of his bare bottom a dark and painful red. And all the priests at the orphanage were master "painters." It seemed to be part of their calling, and in most cases the favorite part. Even after he became a teenager, and started growing hair on his private parts, the priests spanked his bare rear end until he cried like a five year old. Sometimes as many as six or even more of the older boys were caught pleasuring themselves at night in the dormitory. One of the priests spied on them during the night and caught them. It took two or three priests to spank all the miscreants. The sounds of several orphans getting their bottoms blistered at once, of wooden implements and leather straps striking bare teenage fannies, and the howls of barefoot boys in nightshirts pleading for forgiveness and promising never to touch themselves again, filled the dormitory until none of the boys thought he would ever sit down again. Alvin was always one of the boys being chastised.
All those bare bottomed mornings spent stretched over the knees of priests in black cassocks made a profound impression on Alvin. Some of the priests were old men, but some were seminarians, not much older than Alvin. The younger men spanked harder and longer for some reason, and never seemed to want to let Alvin up from their laps. His tears fell like rain on the bare feet of the handsome young seminarians, while his rear end went up in smoke, but no matter how loudly he cried, the spankings went on and on and on. Whenever he thought of God, he felt an uncomfortable sensation in the seat of his trousers. The priests told him that God was Love. Well, to Alvin, Love meant a burning bottom. He had never known another kind of love.
He derived some consolation from the fact that the priests subjected the seminarians to the same excruciating bare bottomed chastisement that the orphans experienced. He often heard it, walking down the hallway outside the Father Superiors office. He didnt want to get caught loitering, for fear of getting his own bottom blistered again, but he relished listening to the screams and tearful pleadings of the seminarians, not to mention the deafening CRACKS of the strap across their scorched, raw rear ends. Once, he noticed that the door was ajar, and found the courage to peek into the office. The most beautiful sight he ever saw rewarded him: the meanest of all the seminarians, bent over Fathers desk, his cassock lifted up over his broad, Irish buttocks, while a strap much longer and thicker than the ones used to punish the orphans landed time after blistering time across his squirming, sanctimonious, reddening rump. The inhabitants of the office were all so caught up in the painful drama being enacted over the desk, that none of them noticed Alvin.
The mean seminarian, who was only 19, was also the handsomest man Alvin had ever seen. He was tall and muscular and well built, with dark hair and piercing blue eyes that made Alvin's sensitive heart turn to mush. And even inside his loose fitting cassock, it was obvious he had a pair of buttocks that were proof positive God exists. Nothing so breathtaking, so beautiful, could be an accident. But he was as proud and boastful as he was beautiful. He claimed he came from a good family, and that his distinguished antecedents placed him far above his humble surroundings. Were it not for his vocation to the priesthood, (he batted his long eyelashes and glanced heavenward with an angelic expression that made Alvin's innocent heart stop beating) he would now be attending the finest universities and dining at the best homes. Alvin adored him at first, and was crushed when it became apparent that he was as mean as he was boastful and beautiful. He loved spanking orphans' bare bottoms, and the smaller and weaker the orphan, the harder and longer he spanked them. Alvin was the smallest and weakest of them all.
The mean seminarian looked down on everyone else at the orphanage, including, when he wasn't looking, the Father Superior. But Father was no fool. He had looked forward to this moment for months, when the rough democracy of the strap would make the seminarian drop his "lace curtain" pretensions and dance a nimble jig like the peasant bog trotter he really was. (His father, it turned out, was a saloonkeeper and notorious bootlegger, and his mother took in washing from a local brothel. He learned his impeccable manners from the whores' clients, some of whom were sons of the finest families in the city. At least it was a high-toned whorehouse. That much of his boasting was true.) The vicious young bully was clever when it came to concealing his misdoings, but now was exposed (literally), and Father had him where he wanted him, bare assed and screaming over the edge of his desk.
Two of his brother seminarians held him down (none too gently), and despite the struggles of their victim, their broad grins and delighted laughter gave the painful occasion an almost carnival atmosphere. Everyone but the spanked seminarian seemed to be having a marvelous time. The others visibly gloated over his outraged pride and his shrieks of pain. Both of the other seminarians came from poor but proud families, and were fed up to the teeth with the boy's airs and graces. Also, it was well known he had the most beautiful backside in the diocese. That backside was now exposed to their full view, and judging from Father Superior's wrath, would be so for some time. Lust and dislike are a powerful combination, and provided ample motivation to ensure that the unpopular boy's bottom was held down and kept in position for the strap. Good family, my sainted mother's moustache, Father sneered to himself. The phony bastard even screams in Gaelic. It was hard for Alvin not to giggle at the spectacle of bouncing buttocks and hopping feet. First the sole of one bare foot became visible, then the other, then the first again, and on and on and on, as if the mean seminarian were running a marathon in place. And winning. It was the hardest, longest whipping he had ever witnessed, and he had witnessed (and experienced) a distressing number of agonizingly long whippings in his short life.
But Alvin was shocked when Father started using language he never expected to hear from his priestly mouth. "So because you have a nice set of dimples you think you can fool the world into believing you are the Duke of Wellington's personal ass wiper? Well, I see quite a set of dimples in front of me right now. But they are too pale by half. I think I'll put some color into them. (CRACK!!!!! LASH!!! HOWL!!! SOB!!! MOTHER OF GOD!!! JESU!!! HAVE MERCY!!!) You didn't look so well bred when I caught you in the laundry with this other pervert's prick up your pampered ass! (Alvin had not noticed until that moment, so transfixed was he by the sight of the mean seminarian's comeuppance, that there was a second seminarian standing in the corner, sobbing loudly, his cassock tied at the waist, revealing a set of buttocks painted colors that even Michelangelo could never have imagined.) "So you like men tampering with your _s_h_i_t_hole, do you? Well, then you are in for a treat, because I intend to tamper with your pert little Mick ass till you won't feel like sitting it down again till after Jesus comes back!" And from the horrifying condition of the once silken and delicate "Mick ass" in front of him, it looked like Father was speaking the gospel truth! "Or are you hoping to spend your heaven taking it up the ass from all twelve of the apostles in turn, and all the angels and saints after that? I wouldn't bet your perfumed turds on it, you chocolate bottomed bugger! (You think I don't know you sprinkle your hairless ass cheeks with eau de cologne?) You'll exhaust the patience of the compassionate Virgin Herself, just as you've exhausted mine, and within a nick of your planting your sweet-smelling feet on the threshold of the Pearly Gates, she'll be BEGGING the Blessed Lord to take a strap to your oh-so-sensitive seat that will make the one I'm beating you with feel like the hair from a baby's butt! THE HAIR FROM A BABY'S BUTT!!" He accentuated each word with a godlike swing of the strap that shook the room to its fo! undations, and rendered the "chocolate bottomed bugger" speechless with pain and humiliation. His gaping mouth was as wide as his whole head and his eyes bugged out at least an inch from his skull.
It hurt so bad he couldn't even scream. Alvin knew how he felt. There are some hurts that can't even be screamed. Once you have been hurt like that, you can't ever forget, or lead a normal life. Alvin knew all about hurts like that. And now the mean seminarian did too. He was humbled, which he richly deserved to be. But his spirit was broken and his pride crushed, which no one deserves, but which often happens to the helpless. But Alvin was experiencing the sweetness of revenge for the first time in his life. He had never loved anyone before, but now he loved the Father Superior, and promised to stop praying for him to die.
Much to the surprise of everyone at the orphanage, who expected the now humbled seminarian to be unceremoniously kicked out on his bruised and battered bum, Father Superior appointed him his personal secretary. The two of them were known to work together in Father's office well into the wee hours of the morning. Rumor had it that loud moans were sometimes heard coming from the office, and that the now sad and mournful seminarian was seen leaving it, massaging his aching rump. At first it was assumed he was being punished for inadequate performance of his duties. But no one ever heard the sounds of the strap. Knowing glances were exchanged. Soon Father Superior began introducing his new secretary to all the other heads of religious communities in the area, as well as to all the bishops in neighboring states, and it was remarked about this time that he began making his devotions in chapel standing up, or seated on the softest of pillows. The seminarian was now the target of universal contempt and derision (which might have been less universal if the other priests and seminarians realized that he would eventually become the Cardinal Archbishop of New York, and at one time a leading candidate for the Throne of Peter.)
But from Alvin's point of view this new situation did not represent an improvement. Despite the awful consequences for the seminarian's backside (except for the fact that it had not been built yet, some might have drawn comparisons between his asshole and the Holland Tunnel), the fact that he was back in the Superior's good graces meant he was once again free to take out his (even greater than ever) frustrations on those of the orphans. In no time at all, Alvin found himself once again (and many many times during the next few years) over the knees of the Superior's personal secretary, his tears falling in puddles on his tormentor's long, beautiful, tapering toes, while his bare bottom went up in smoke.
He ran away from the orphanage when he was sixteen. He ran as far from it as he could, until he found himself in the depths of the open country. He survived by begging and stealing. Sometimes he even took money for allowing wicked men to put their filthy private parts into his hungry mouth, or allowing them to suck on his. He even knew, all too well, what it felt like for a man to put his privates inside his tender bottom, and to ride him the way hed seen dogs riding each other. That is what it made him feel like too, a dog. It hurt so bad, but he was so hungry and so alone. Alvin was well acquainted with the wickedness of the world, and it had eaten deep into his soul.
When he showed up on the doorstep of Jedidiahs farm house, it was six months since he had left the orphanage and he looked like a scarecrow. Dirty and haggard, he hadnt eaten in days. Jedidiahs heart went out to him and he took him in. Jedidiah lived alone on his farm, and he appreciated the boys company as much as the boy appreciated having a roof over his head and three square meals a day. Jedidiah was old enough to be the boys father and the boy was desperate for male love and approval and guidance. Jedidiah provided him with all three, and before long the two of them lived like father and son on an isolated farm in the middle of nowhere. Jedidiah made it very clear to him on the day he first showed up that if he lived with him he would be subject to his punishment and correction, and that meant one thing, the razor strap applied liberally and long to the flesh of his bare behind. Since the half starved boy was in no position to negotiate, and since he was no stranger to bare bottom correction, he agreed. But Alvin soon proved himself a good worker and Jedidiah was proud of him. He seldom had to whip him for failing to do his chores. But Jedidiah was a godly man and a devout Christian, and he would not tolerate immoral behavior, like masturbation. Alvin had acquired that evil habit in the popish orphanage and nothing that Jedidiah did appeared to be able to break him of it. Over the years he had whipped him for it more times than he could count. The whippings got harder and longer as Alvin got older, until sometimes the blood ran down the boys legs and he passed out, but just when Jedidiah thought he had gotten through to him, he would enter the out house to find Alvin with his trousers down around his bare feet stroking himself. And then the two of them would take the familiar journey out to the woodshed.
Jedidiah finished his prayer and ordered Alvin to his feet. Alvin stood up and proceeded to remove his trousers. There was a strange look in Jedidiahs eyes when Alvin removed his trousers. The boy was a hard worker and had beautiful, muscular legs. Naked from the waist down, with his long shirttails covering his manhood and his soon to be blistered rear end, Alvin turned to the sawhorse and stretched himself over it meekly, without needing to be told. Jedidiah got down on his haunches and strapped Alvins wrists and ankles to the legs of the horse, making movement and resistance impossible. When Alvin was younger, Jedidiah was able to whip him without restraints, but now that he was older, the straps were required to ensure that he submitted to his punishment. Alvin trembled but tried to be brave, his bare toes clenching and unclenching in silent panic, but at the same time he knew that what he was about to receive was for his own good. He wanted to be a good Christian, to please Jedidiah, and if God insisted that his bare rump be roasted over a few moments of self pleasure, who was he to question the will of God? Besides, the priests taught him that a burning bottom was the natural consequence of self abuse. It would feel odd and incomplete somehow to masturbate without being whipped for it.
Jedidiah lifted the tail of Alvins shirt, exposing the snow-white mounds of his "sons" rear end. He gazed down at them for a few moments. It was, he had to admit, an awesome sight, like the sight of the burning bush to barefoot Moses. He was transfixed. Alvin had the most perfect set of man mounds he had ever seen, plump but firm, large but at the same time perfectly proportioned to his otherwise slight frame.
Jedidiah was the oldest of seven brothers. His father died when he was fifteen, and it had been his job to take the strap to his younger brothers when his mother asked him to take them out to the shed for their punishments. He was familiar with the sight of naked male bottoms, and the howls of repentant young men as his strap lashed their blistering rear ends. It was rare for a week to go by without Jedidiah having to take at least one brother (or two or more) out to the shed, and soon the surrounding farmland would echo to the familiar sounds of a razor strap roasting young male rump, while the owner of the rump in question roared in painful displeasure. (On one never to be forgotten occasion he had to strap all six of his siblings posteriors for breaking into a neighbors still. Afterwards, he didnt know which was in worse shape, their butts or his arm. But he was back to work in the fields the next morning. None of his brothers could sit down for the next two weeks. And as far as he knew, none of them had ever taken a drink again to this day.) Furthermore, before his father died, he had danced his own share of bare bottomed ballet at the end of a wrathful parents relentless strap, hopping like a jack rabbit from one bare foot to another, in futile hope of escaping, even for a single second, the inescapable agony. Jedidiah knew how much the strap hurt, but he also knew how important it was for teaching confused and sinful young men to keep to the straight and narrow. It wasnt possible to raise a boy right without the help of the strap, and he was determined to raise Alvin right, even if the "boy" was 25.
But none of his brothers had backsides like Alvins. He couldnt resist placing his right hand gently on the firm but pliant flesh. He even let his fingers explore the secret place between the mounds, fingering the soft and vulnerable opening. He felt a strange sense of power and aching need. Power because he knew he owned Alvins bottom, like he owned the farm and the strap. But at the same time, he loved it more than he loved anything else in the whole world, more than he loved himself or even (though he could never admit it) his God. In fact, those magnificent mounds were his God, and he was about to worship them, harshly, with the strap. Alvin, despite his impending punishment, responded to the touch like a love starved animal, lifting his buttocks to meet his adoptive fathers gentle hand. Tears got caught in his lashes. "I love you, Brother Jedidiah."
"I love you too Brother Alvin," said Jedidiah as he reached for the razor strap. But a sudden cold rage possessed Jedidiah as he held the strap. He wanted to prove his mastery of the boy whose bare mounds were stretched out in front of him, and he would prove it, as long as it took, bringing the strap down again and again and again on those beautiful helpless cheeks, until the boy knew who owned him. And until HE knew. Until he really believed that he was in control. Alvin sensed the rage in Jedidiah, and he steeled himself for the terrible whipping he knew he was about to receive.
Sometimes, Jedidiah had wicked dreams, in which he saw Alvin strapped naked to the sawhorse. In these dreams, he was naked too, but he wasnt carrying the strap. Instead, he would get down on his haunches and plunge his tongue into Alvins throbbing manhole, while the boy moaned. He filled the hole with his tongue and his spit, over and over again, as if he wanted to devour it, or even lose his tongue entirely inside Alvins beautiful bottom. He nibbled on the gorgeous mounds, while Alvin gasped in ecstasy. And after Alvins manhole was drenched in his saliva, he would stand up and thrust his erect manhood into the wet, waiting hole. Alvin would scream, like he screamed when Jedidiah whipped him with the strap. But this time there was no pleading for him to stop. As soon as he penetrated the hole he would wake up drenched in sweat, his penis erect and throbbing. He could feel his heart beating in his penis. Usually, Alvin was asleep like an angel in the bed next to his, unaware of his fathers evil fantasies. But sometimes Alvin would be awake too and staring at him and on those nights he had the awful feeling that Alvin had awakened from the same dream. Neither of them ever spoke of it.
But neither of them was dreaming now. Alvin stared down into the dirt. A few moments of awful silence and then the strap landed across his naked backside for the first time, sending him into that familiar place of pain and panic. The terrible sound of the strap lashing his bare butt registered a fraction of a second before the pain. But then the awful searing hurt registered, across both tortured buttocks at once, and he became a terrified animal. His wrists and ankles struggled against the straps. He let out a scream at the top of his lungs. The wrist and ankle straps freed him to struggle and yell as much as he liked because he knew he wasnt going anywhere. He had no choice but to take his punishment. He did not have to pretend that it did not hurt. He could give his emotions free rein. He was freer tied to that sawhorse than anywhere else in the world. Alvin had a lot of rage built up inside him, from the cruel treatment he had received in his short, sad life. And the sawhorse was the only place where he felt he had permission to vent that rage and release that anger. Maybe that was why he kept masturbating where he knew Jedidiah was sure to catch him. Maybe that was one of the reasons.
For the moment however Alvin was not feeling philosophical about his situation. All he could think about was the fire raging across his suffering rear end, and that Jedidiah kept stoking it with fresh applications of the strap. CRACK!!! CRACK!!! CRACK!!! And Alvin howled the whole time. Jedidiah was a master at the art of whipping boys bottoms, and before long the entire surface of Alvins rear, as well as the backs of both his thighs, was a dark and painful red, that would soon turn to other, even more ominous shades. Jedidiah managed to land a few skillful blows inside the crack, so that Alvin felt the harsh kiss of the strap on his sensitive manhole. He let out a higher pitched scream than usual when that happened. Jedidiah loved the sounds of those high-pitched screams, and scalded the inside of the crack as often as he could. But he never said a word. He kept strapping Alvins mounds like a man possessed. There was something tempting about Alvins bottom. It was disturbing to Jedidiah and suggested some unnamed evil. He whipped Alvins butt hard and long, because its owner committed the sin of self abuse, but also because it was so _d_a_m_n_ed beautiful and because the thought of it tempted Jedidiah to commit terrible crimes before God and man. He loved Alvin, but he whipped him with a cold and terrible fury, while Alvin screamed and sobbed and pleaded for forgiveness, promising never to pleasure himself again. He felt like he could die from the pain. But no matter how much it hurt, or how much he struggled, he still found himself, for some inexplicable reason, lifting his blistered butt from the crossbeam of the horse to meet the strap, as if he craved it, as if he were hungry for it, as if he couldnt get enough of it. He had always done that, without even knowing what he was doing, or why.
Finally, Alvin couldnt scream any longer. He lay prostrate and exhausted and sobbing, deep, soul wrenching sobs, while Jedidiah continued to punish him. He had no idea how long the whipping continued. Neither did Jedidiah. During these sessions in the woodshed it was if the world ceased turning and time stopped. Nothing existed in the whole world, nothing mattered, except Jedidiahs strap and Alvins bare, hurting bottom.
Finally, the strapping stopped. Jedidiah knew when to stop. He always knew. His anger was spent, and the boy was sufficiently punished, at least for now. For a few minutes he stood there, still holding the strap, and staring down at the sobbing boy. Then he untied the straps and allowed him slowly and painfully to stand up, when he was able. Alvin wouldnt put his trousers back on, or sit down, for several days. Taking a trip to the outhouse was an agony after a session with the strap. Jedidiah hugged him in a big bear hug. He loved him so much and he knew Alvin loved him enough to die for him. He looked lovingly into the tear stained face. "Let this be the last time we ever have to take a trip out here to the shed. You hear me, Brother Alvin. The last time."
"Yes, Brother Jedidiah. The last time," he answered in a choked whisper. And for the moment at least, the two of them actually believed it.