Chapter NINE

"Russell! Barron! Boyd!"

The three playmates heard their names called. Their mothers must have driven up in the back driveway. Reluctantly they got up from the immaculate side yard, where they had all been sitting on the grass, and they began making their way to the porch of the Williamsons' red brick house. Russell led the way.

Although school had hardly been out a week, already his smooth skin was taking on the attractive tan that he acquired so easily. The very becoming outfit that he was wearing today--the short-sleeved navy-blue sports shirt, white tennis shorts, and white knee-socks with navy-blue bands at the tops-- did little to hide and much to accentuate the beauty and grace of his lithe, slender body.

As Russell proceeded, Barron and Boyd held back a bit. Noticing how they were falling farther and farther behind, Russell stopped, turned around, and said querulously:

"Come on! You fellas know we got to go!"

Barron who was the same age as Russell but somewhat small and skinny for his age, and whose striking beauty was often marred by a pained or peevish expression on his face, squinted his blue eyes at Russell and whispered:

"No! We don't got to go! We could always run. They could never catch us. Come on, Russell, let's run! You don't want to go to the doctor, do you?"

"No," Russell answered, looking and smiling indulgently at his little blond friend, (no doubt about it, Barron's mother also took care to see that her children were welldressed. Today Barron had on a pale yellow short-sleeved sports shirt, light green cotton shorts, and yellow-topped knee-socks with white tennis shoes. Boyd was wearing a green-and-blue broad-striped knit shirt, khaki camp shorts and white tennis shoes and socks.) "But, you see," Russell added,"if we don't go through all that stuff with the doctor, they won 't let us into camp. You want to go to camp. don't you?"

"Yeah," said Barron,"but, Russell, there's something else!"

"What?"

"You've got grass stains on the back of your pants!"

"RUSSELL! BARRON! BOYD!" Their mothers' voices called more insistently now."COME HERE RIGHT NOW! WHAT'S HOLDING YOU UP?"

"Oh, no!" Russell groaned. Then, getting Barron to turn around, Russell confirmed with a sigh: "You got grass stains too, Barron, and I guess Boyd does as well!"

This present consternation arose from the fact that the outfits worn by them today comprised not only their newest but also their only clean attire available, since their mothers, who had just returned from grocery shopping and other errands about town, had also deposited all their families' laundry at the cleaners for the day. Before leaving, they had direly warned the boys at all costs, NOT to get dirty that morning. Now at once Barron, Boyd, and Russell realized that they were in deep trouble.

Carefully they marched up Indian file on to the porch and stood in front of their mothers.

"Whatever took you so long?" Mrs. Williamson asked in her long-suffering voice. "You know we're due at Dr. Stone's in half an hour, and if we get there early we won't have to wait so long!"

Quite a different approach was forthcoming from Mrs. Reed, who, interpreting their silence suspiciously, now glared at the boys with her eyes that were rather beady and set somewhat too close together. To the Inquisition she added:

"What's the matter? Didn't you manage to stay clean?"

"Oh, yes ma'am!" Barron lied, too glibly.

"Turn around, all of you!" she then ordered in her too-masculine voice. The boys' hearts sank. They knew their last hope was lost. They did as told.

"Aha!" she exclaimed. "So you disobeyed us after all!"

"And you told a lie, Barron! Oh, how could you!" Beverley Williamson interjected in real exasperation. "Well, it's clear that you all three need to be punished right here and now!"

"I agree," said Mrs. Reed, seated on one of the painted wooden benches. "So, let's give them all a good oldfashioned spanking right here and now!" With that, she seized Russell, set him on her lap, and began unfastening his pants.

"No, Mommy! Please! Not with my pants down!" Russell protested.

"Please, Mommy! Let us go inside first!" Barron likewise pleaded with his mother. "Don't spank us out here on the front porch where everyone can see it!"

"Mommy, don't spank me on the bare bottom!" little Boyd added his voice to the chorus.

All protest was to no avail. In a few seconds Mrs. Reed had Russell lying face-down over her lap in the time-honored position, with his shorts at his knees and his underpants down to the middle of his thighs, so that all his smooth round saucy little bottom was exposed to the cool air of June and to the eye of anyone who might pass by and look this way at the moment. Her lean palm descended:

SMACK!--OWW! -SMACK!--OWW!--SMACK!--OWW!--MOMMEE! SMACK!-- OWW!--SMACK!--OWW!--"I'LL BE GOOD!"--SMACK! OWW!--"WAAHH!" SMACK!--OWW! SMACK!--OWW! ...

When the crying, squirming Russell was finally allowed to get up from her lap, he immediately clapped both hands over the glowing globes of his rear and danced up and down in pain. Although his jockey briefs still covered his privates in front, his white tennis shorts, in the process of his jumping up and down, fell down to his ankles. At the same time, Russell noticed Barron undergoing the same ordeal to which he himself had just been subjected.

Barron lay across his mother's lap with his shirttail turned up and his bottom bare' his underpants--the same kind as Russell's--were pulled down to the same extent. Only, to his greater chagrin, his light green short pants had been taken completely off. Moreover, squirm, kick, and wiggle though he may, Barron could in no way free his body from his mother's strong grip with her left arm around his torso), nor could he in any way protect his bare bottom from the hail of smacks from her punishing palm. In fact all he could do now was plead and cry in pain, embarrassment and humiliation: "Please, Mommy! Stop, Mommy! I'll be a good boy! I'll be the best boy you ever saw! Just, please, don't spank me any more now! WAAH!"

All through Barron's spanking, little Boyd stood wide-eyed with wonder, excitement, and trepidation. Whenever Barron got caught picking on him, he usually got spanked by their parents. At such moments Boyd greatly relished seeing his older brother with his pants pulled down or off and his round bottom slowly reddening under his mother's palm or his father's belt, while all the time Barron would be crying and pleading for mercy, Only now it wasn't so exciting, watching Barron get his bottom spanked, mainly because Boyd knew that his own little hind end was next in line for the same treatment.

So it was. And, though he did not plead and beg like Barron when his own turn came, before little Boyd's spanking was over, that youngster certainly did cry every bit as much and as loudly as his brother. However, if Boyd had stood wideeyed before punishment, he now stood even more wide-eyed in dismay, for as he sniffled and rubbed his reddened bottom, he heard even more appalling news:

Russell had paused only for a minute to rub his hind-cheeks, before pulling up his snug, white, single-seat jockey underpants. He was still young enough, and the pain of his punishment intense enough, that in these familiar environs his modesty was satisfied for the moment. Only after a few more moments had the pain subsided enough that Russell, a bright but rather absentminded child--quit clutching the seat of his underpants and, realizing that his actual pants were still at his ankles, finally reached down to pull them up. To his unutterable chagrin, his mother's voice cut him short:

"Oh, no, you don't, Russell! You aren't putting those pants back on!"

"What do you mean, Mommy?" he asked in disbelief.

"I mean, no boy of mine is going to run around this town in dirty clothes!"

"But Mommy," Russell pleaded,"all my other pants are in the laundry right now! I don't have any other pants to wear!."

"Then, you won't wear any," his mother decided.

"Just step out of those right now. Until we get the rest of your clothes back from the laundry, you can just go around in your shirt and underpants!"

His recent experiences to the contrary, Russell still protested:"But, Mommy, I can't go around without pants on! Nobody bigger than a four-yearold goes runnin' around in his shirt and underpants, not outside anyway!" (As he pleaded, Russell still clutched desperately the top of his tennis shorts, not daring to pull them higher than his knees.)

"And anyone bigger than a four-year-old should be able to stay clean, especially after being told how important that is!" Mrs. Reed retorted, ending the discussion. "So, step put of those pants right now unless you want another spanking like the sort you just got!"

"Yes, Mommy," Russell replied glumly and removed his outer pants completely. Barron's heart as well as Boyd's sank as they witnessed this scene. Although Barron had in fact gotten dressed again by now, Boyd had not dared even to pull up his underpants without his mother's authorization. Now both of them nearly died of shame when they heard their mother coo in approval of Mrs. Reed's action:

"Why, Sandy, what a wonderful idea! That's really just the thing to teach out boys the importance of having respect for good clothes from now on! All right, then, Barron and Boyd. you two take off your pants, and I mean right this minute!"

They obeyed, and then they too were dressed just like Russell. For one of them, though, there was more discomfiture as Mrs. Williamson remarked:

"Why, Boyd! Your underpants aren't clean at all! Didn't you put on clean underwear this morning as I told you to?"

"No. Mommy, I guess I forgot! But just let me go upstairs, and I'll change them right now."

"No! There's no time for that. We're due at the doctor's in fifteen minutes. Just take off your underpants and go without them."

"But, Mommy, then I'll be naked!"

"No, you won't. You'll still have your shirt, and your socks and shoes."

"But everybody can see my bottom and my peenie!"

"Oh, well, you're only a little boy, so that won't bother anybody!"

"But, Mommy, it'll bother me!"" little Boyd protested, blushing with shame at the thought of what was at hand.

"Well, that's too bad!" she replied vehemently. "You should have thought about that before you got into trouble!"

Blushing much more deeply now, Boyd peeled off his underpants and followed his mother and the others to the car.

"Oh, darn!" Mrs. Reed exclaimed in exasperation. "The car won't start, Beverley. I think it's the battery."

"Well," Mrs. Williamson replied,"it is a nice day, and we can walk. We can get there in fifteen minutes if we hurry.

"NO, MOMMY! PLEASE!" three little boy voices wailed at once: "We can't--we just can't--walk down there like this!"

"Oh, yes, you can, and you will, too!" both mothers replied, seizing all three children by the arm and forcibly pulling them out of the car. which they then locked in order to prevent them from using it as a refuge.

"Now, come on!" they directed, adding the threat of paternal displeasure reinforced with even more forceful punishment if they did not comply. This tactic silenced all resistance for the time being. Meekly the three little boys followed their mothers around the corner and down the street--six blocks--to the doctor;'s office.

All along the way Russell and Barron felt as though they might die of embarrassment. Both of them wanted to fall through the earth, or disappear in a crack in the sidewalk, or vanish up in smoke-- anything else at this time seemed preferable to their present fate. What could be worse than having to walk down Walnut Avenue in broad daylight, with their mothers and without their pants? Anyone and everyone in town could have seen them! Russell in fact wondered whether it wasn't all just a bad dream. Some nights he had had dreams in which he had forgotten to put his pants on in the morning and gone to school in his shirt and underpants, and he realized this incomplete state of attire only after having arrived at school, where his teacher and classmates all pointed and laughed at him; at this point he would wake up, thankfully realizing that the whole experience had been only a dream. In the present instance, however, the brightness of the sunlight and the pressure on his left hand (as his mother held it tightly in her right hand) left him ruefully convinced that the situation was no dream but all too much a reality.

As Russell walked and his free arm swung naturally, his shirttail inched upward, revealing Russell's very shapely round bottom encased in the tight white cotton fabric which left very little to the imagination. As Barron walked beside and slightly behind his friend, Barron of course could not help noticing how Russell's buttocks bounced and rolled delightfully with every step. Barron felt a vague delight in the shapeliness and suppleness of his playmate's body; however, lacking tenderness and eloquence, he said in the cruder idiom of his age:

"You know, you sure do have a fat butt, Russell!"

Thereupon he gave Russell a playful swat on the behind.

Instead of being more ill at ease because of this, Russell merely giggled, and, copping a good feel of Barron's more slender but also shapely bottomcheeks, he now swatted Barron on the seat of the underpants and declared:"No, Barron, it's just that you have such a skinny one!"

This time it was Barron who blushed.

"My, my!" cooed the receptionist when they walked into Dr. Stone's pediatric clinic. "It certainly must be hot out there. I knew women's clothes were getting scantier all the time, but I had no idea that the same thing was happening in boys' fashions!"

"Actually it's not," Mrs. Reed replied,"though I do think it's nice when little boys show off their legs, especially when they've got such pretty legs as Russell's. But the truth of the matter is, our boys have shown how little they appreciate the clothes which we buy them with our hard-earned money: Russell got grass stains all over the seat of his new white tennis shorts! Can you imagine that? So, we decided to let them see what it's like to do without pants altogether for a while--as the poorest children have to do all the time!"

"Hm, that sounds like an effective treatment," the secretary replied. "And, anyhow, we certainly don't mind your bringing them here like that! God knows, it would be better if all the mothers would! You have no idea what irrational ideas about modesty little boys have when they're brought here! Too often they just absolutely refuse to undress for the doctor, and sometimes it takes three or four of us just to get their pants down! Your idea will make things much easier for Dr. Stone today, especially since Nurse Green is on vacation and he has no one but Dr. Carson to help, and you know he can't call on Dr. Carson to help him all the time, since Dr. Carson has patients of his own to see, but then, he's younger and stronger than Dr. Stone, so he can usually handle these young'uns, no matter how feisty they get. Well, you're lucky today: Dr. Stone is ready to see you. Do you want to send the boys in by themselves, or do you prefer to go in with them to the examining room?"

"I think we'd better go in with them," both mothers agreed.

"Hello, boys," both doctors greeted them. "Who wants to be first?"

All three boys shook their heads.

"Well, then," young Dr. Carson said, still cheerfully, "let me put it differently: Who'll be brave and volunteer to go first?"

"I will," Russell said at last.

"Good boy! Now, unbutton your shirt and sit up here on the table."

Russell did as directed. The doctor tested his reflexes, looked into his eyes, ears, nose and mouth, listened to his heart with a stethoscope and measured his blood pressure. Then, removing Russell's underpants completely, he directed the boy to cough while the doctor felt first one then the other of Russell's tight little nuts.

"No hernia," he concluded. Now for your temperature. Lie on your tummy, Russell."

"But, Dr. Carson!" Russell exclaimed in dismay. "I'm old enough to take it in my mouth!"

"Yes, son, but the form requires your temperature as taken at this examination, and unfortunately, all our oral thermometers have already been used, our sterilizer is broken, and we don't have Nurse Green on hand to sterilize the thermometers by washing them. So we'll just have to take your temperature rectally. Besides, that's the most accurate reading anyhow. Be good, Russell, and cooperate."

"All right," Russell consented. Lying on his tummy on the leather-cushioned table, he felt the doctor's hand on his bare bottom, parting his nether cheeks, then the sensation of the cool smooth glass thermometer being adroitly pushed into his rectum.

"Oo!" Russell exclaimed as the thermometer was inserted.. Suddenly he realized that it didn't hurt at all; in fact Russell felt his little rod growing stiff with the rather pleasurable sensation. He blushed at this realization and fervently hoped that the condition would go away before he had to get up from the table.

CHAPTER TEN

"Well, now," Dr. Stone. who had just finished the preliminaries in examining Barron and Boyd, declared as he saw Dr. Carson free to assist him for the next three minutes,"since Russell volunteered to go first, he gets the table. You two have to take everything standing up. First you, Barron, get your temperature taken."

"Please, sir," Barron protested, wrinkling his nose in distaste,"don't take it up my butt!"

"Why, shame on you, Barron!" his mother reproached him. "You know better than to refer to your bottom with such a term!"

"I'm sorry if you don't like it, Barron," Dr. Stone remarked,"but that's where we have to take it."

"No, please! I'm a big boy! I can take it in my mouth! I don't want my temperature taken in my butt!" Barron whimpered in protest as strong Dr. Carson half-held, half-embraced the struggling little boy in his arms as Dr. Stone parted Barron's bottomcheeks and pushed the thermometer up a good two inches into Barron's rectum, so that only the last inch or so still protruded.

"Ohh!" Barron groaned in frustration.

"And, Barron," his mother admonished,"don't you dare try to push or pull it out, but wait for the doctor to do so when the time's right."

By now it was time to remove the thermometer from Russell. "Well. Russell," said Dr. Stone after wiping off and reading the extracted thermometer,"as I expected, your temperature's normal."

"Uh, sir, can I please get up and get dressed now?" Russell asked expectantly.

"Why, no, son, not yet," old Dr. Stone replied. "We still have to give you your shots for summer camp."

"But don't you want me to sit up for that?" Russell asked in growing bewilderment.

"No. Usually we have to give you two shots in your arms, but this year a new vaccine has been perfected so that we can take care of all your immunization with just one injection. Oniy, it does have to be given in the hip. I'm going to have to sting you in your bottom just a little. So, hold still now for a minute."

As Dr. Stone talked, he had been preparing something at the counter. When he turned around again, Russell could see that he was holding a long hypodermic needle in one hand and in the other a ball of cotton with the unmistakable reek of strong rubbing alcohol.

At nine Russell knew better than to struggle against a shot. He remembered a number of occasions when, at ages 6 and 7, he had been sick and Dr. Stone, making a house call at his parents' request, had determined that the appropriate remedy for Russell's ailment was a penicillin injection. Sick though he had been at the time, upon hearing this decision, Russell had jumped out of bed and run for the bathroom in hope that he might lock himself in and stay there long enough that they would all change their minds about the prescribed treatment for him, or that they would get tired and go away long enough for him to plan and effect a more permanent escape. Whatever Russell's hope had been, his father caught him before he got halfway across the room. Then, despite all the little boy's most valiant struggles, his father, mother, and grandmother had all held him down on the bed until he had received his shot, during which (and for quite some while afterward) Russell had cried inconsolably, not so much from the pain of the needle as over the humiliation of having had his pajama pants pulled down in front of all his family, so that they all saw him get a shot in his bottom. He didn't mind his father, mother and the doctor so much, but he really didn't think that his grandmother and his brother Ronnie had the right to watch his ordeal or to pat him on the bare bottom in such a condescending way as they had done afterward. Now, at nine, Russell knew that he would do best just to submit to the needle with as little fuss as possible.

Still, after the contact of the cold wet cotton, as Russell felt the long needle plunge into the upper, outer quadrant of his right buttock, the stinging became formidable, and the little boy began to cry and plead:

"OW! OW! OW! It really hurts bad! Please take it out!"

"Calm down, Russell! Just a few seconds more, and it'll be all over!"

"Waaahhh!" Russell cried.

At the sight of Russell's plight, Barron absolutely panicked and bolted for the door. Only when he was already halfway across the waiting room (which was no longer empty, but now half-full of parents with reluctant little patients) did Barron remember what he was wearing,- or, rather, what he wasn't wearing--for the receptionist smiled at him and chirped cutely:

"You didn't forget anything, did you, honey?"

At once Barron wheeled around and raced back to the examining room, not, however, before he heard a little girl remark to her mother:

"Gee, Mommy, that boy sure looks funny with no pants on! He shouldn't be running around like that with a thermometer stuck up his bottom, should he?"

At this, Barron nearly died of shame, and his face was beet-red with embarrassment when he returned to the examining room.

"Shame on you, Barron, for running away like that!" his mother admonished him. "It's a good thing you came back. I would have taken a switch to you if you hadn't! Now you stand still and behave yourself."

"Yes, ma'am," he answered meekly.

Little Boyd, however, had not learned the lesson of his older playmates. When Dr. Carson, taking him gently by the wrist, instructed him:"Now turn around and spread your legs so that I can take your temperature," the child adamantly refused, replying:

"No! I won't! 'Cause I'm almost six, and old enough to take my temperature in my mouth."

"Why, shame on you, Boyd!" his mother scolded him angrily:"Dr. Carson knows I haven't taught you to take it in your mouth yet! You always have your temperature taken in your bottom, so what are you making such a fuss about now?"

The littlest boy began to cry:"'Cause, soon's I turn around, he's goin' to stick me in my beehiney just like he did to Russell!"

That, unfortunately, was exactly what they did. And also, because Boyd farted several times and the thermometer came out dirty, the doctors decided to prime his bowels and send him home cleaner than he had come, by giving him an enema. Boyd did not like that at all and nearly turned purple with rage when the doctors made him sit on a little porcelain potty and do his business in front of everyone like a two-year-old.

Barron took his shot with only slightly more protest than Russell. After that, the ladies paid the doctors and thanked them for their trouble. Russell had hastily donned his underpants as soon as he had been able to get up from the table. Barron wanted to do likewise, but his mother was seriously provoked with him and actually considered making him walk home bare-bottomed like his younger brother. At length, however, she was won over to Mrs. Reed's opinion: that having Barron and Russell running around without their pants was embarrassing enough for the boys, and that while it was all right to make Boyd go barebottomed in town that day, it really wouldn't do for people of their status in town to let sons as old as Russell and Barron go around without some sort of garment over their privates.

Hence, Barron and Russell were allowed to wear their underpants on their "long walk" home, and at least for that, they were very, very thankful.

(To be Continued...)