Chapters I-IV
Chapter I
"Overture! Cut the lights!"
The sounds of the Bugs Bunny Show theme song. coming from the TV in the den, brought Andrew Carter fully awake with the annoying realization that he had overslept on Saturday morning--the one day of the week on which he absolutely hated to sleep late. This was when his favorite cartoons came on. Not bothering to get dressed or even to grab his clothes, the red-haired nine-year-old boy jumped out of bed and ran straight to the den in just his underpants.
His brother, twelve-year-old Jeremy was already parked like a big, bulky truck in front of the set. A bowl of cereal in one hand, he continued to watch the screen and eat, ignoring Andrew.
"Jeremy, you're blocking the screen," Andrew told his brother in a civil but matter-of-fact tone.
"Tough _s_h_i_t_!" Jeremy responded.
"Jeremy, you're not supposed to talk that way. You know Mom doesn't like it."
"Well, she's not home today--gone to her class--and you'd better not even think of tellin' on me."
"OK, Jeremy, just back up some or move a little to one side or the other, so I can see the cartoons."
"Say, please.'"
Andrew sighed, "Please!"
Taking his time about it, Jeremy moved himself over a foot to the left. Jeremy was chunky; he was soon going to be downright fat. Ashamed of his own corpulence, even around the house he always went about fully clothed. Unfortunately, the outfits that he favored--pullovers and sweatpants--did little if anything to conceal his dimensions.
Andrew, while by no means skinny or angular, was of no more than normal weight for his height and age. The only fat on his body was a bit of "baby fat," which gave an adorable softness and gentleness to the shape of his face, shoulders, tummy, bottom and legs. Andrew's little-boy good looks combined with his ready smile and affectionate nature made him almost irresistible to adults with any spot of kind disposition toward children in their nature. Jeremy hated this. People rarely hugged Jeremy, and never spontaneously.
During the station break after the final cartoon, Jeremy, noting that his little brother had shifted from a sitting to a kneeling position, abruptly swatted Andrew hard on the seat of his white cotton briefs.
"Ow! Don't slap my butt!" Andrew protested.
"Don't stick it out!" Jeremy retorted.
"I wasn't!" Andrew objected.
"No, you were just sitting around in your underwear minding your own business." Jeremy said derisively.
"OK, so now I'm gonna go get dressed," Andrew declared.
Suddenly Jeremy had an idea and made a decision.
"Oh, no, you're not," he said in a strangely calm voice.
"What do you mean, I'm not?"
"You're not going to get dressed today."
"But I'm in my underpants."
"That's right."
"But that's all I have on."
"That's right."
"But I have to put some pants on."
"No, you don't."
"What do you mean, I don't?"
"You're not going to put any pants on. You're going to stay just like you are, in your underpants, all day."
"How come?"
"Because I say so."
"Why?"
"Because you like going around in your underpants. You do it a lot. So I figured you need a chance to do it for a good long time. That way you can make up your mind and will either do it all the time or won't do it at all anymore."
"Jeremy, I don't like this!" Andrew started to whine.
"Tough _s_h_i_t_!"
"Jeremy, I don't want to do this!"
"Yes, you do."
"Do I have to?"
"You sure do."
"Why?"
"Because."
"Because what?"
"Because I say so."
"And if I don't?"
"You better."
"Why?"
"Because if you don't, I'll beat you up."
"I'll tell Mama!"
"No, you won't."
"Why not?"
"Because then I'll beat you up bad."
Little Andrew was at a loss for words.
"One more thing, Andrew," Jeremy cautioned him.
"What's that?"
"If anybody sees you while you're like that and asks you why you're going around in underpants, you better make 'em believe that it's because YOU like to, or it's how YOU want to go around. You don't, and you're in BIG, bad trouble , understand?"
"Yes, Jeremy," Andrew said dejectedly, and although he did not start crying audibly, a tear slid down his cheek.
At times Jeremy was a pal and a friend as well as a brother. Most of the time when their mother was out and Andrew was left in his care, if Andrew had known the term "benevolent dictator," he would have deemed that term applicable to his big brother. But once in a great while Jeremy would get in these strange moods and not only boss Andrew around but also make him do things that were embarrassingÉ humiliatingÉ Then he dreaded Jeremy. And no doubt it, Jeremy was in one of those moods today...
Chapter II
"Here," Jeremy declared. "Take my cereal bowl to the kitchen and wash it."
"But I haven't even gotten mine yet." Andrew protested.
"What did I tell you to do?"
"But-- OWW!!"
Again Jeremy had slapped his nine-year-old brother on the bottom, this time quite hard. Almost simultaneously a particular neurochemical development occurred in both boys' nervous systems, not so much a new sensation as the realization of an old one in a new light.
Although many years would pass before he would ever admit it to anyone, it was at that moment that he first consciously understood that he was fascinated and gratified by the sight of his brother's body--the smooth, round, well-shaped arms, legs, face, hands and feet--but this sensation was epitomized by the sight, and just as much by the touch, of Andrew's bottom. Why was his eye drawn to the sight of those perfect hemispheres encased in the tight white cotton of the Fruitof-the-Loom briefs? Why did his hand want to linger, savoring their softness and roundness, instead of coming away right after it swatted them? These thoughts disturbed Jeremy and he repressed them almost immediately.
On Andrew's part, he sensed, amid the pain and shame, a peculiarly pleasant warmth in his bottom from the slap that Jeremy had delivered over his thin cotton briefs. To his amazement he realized that his little thing had grown half-hard...
Facing his brother, he said in a hurt tone, "Jeremy!"
"What did I tell you to do?" Jeremy persisted.
"But--OWW! OWWW!!" Spinning Andrew around in an instant, Jeremy delivered two stinging smacks now, one to each bottomcheek.
"The only 'butt' if you talk back to me is gonna be yours and it's gonna be sore. Got the picture?"
"How come you have to be so mean!" Andrew pouted.
"I'm not mean. I'm responsible for you when Mom's away. I just have to make sure you know who's in charge. Understand?"
"Yes, Jeremy."
"Good. Now what did I tell you to do?"
"Take your bowl to the kitchen and wash it."
"So, do it."
"OK." And Andrew did. Then he got himself a bowl of cereal with milk.
As he sat eating it at the kitchen table, the doorbell rang.
"Andrew! Come here now!" Jeremy ordered from the den.
With a sigh, the red-haired boy in white briefs got up from the kitchen table and padded over to his brother.
"What, Jeremy?"
"Answer the door?"
"Why do I have to?"
"(1) Because I'm watching this TARZAN movie, and (2) because I told you to."
"Jeremy, I'm in my underpants."
"We both know that already. So?"
"I can't answer the door like this."
"Yes, you can. If I tell you to, you will. I'm telling you to, so do it."
The doorbell rang again.
"Please don't make me do that."
"You're gonna make me do something that you're REALLY not gonna like, if I have to tell you again: Answer it now!"
Blushing redder than his lovely auburn hair and trembling in mortification, Andrew resolutely walked to the front door and reached for the handle, knowing that whoever stood on the other side was going to see him wearing nothing but his tight white briefs....
Chapter III
As Andrew might have expected when the doorbell rang just after eleven on Saturday morning, it was their neighbor Adam Pearson and his friend Casey Moran. Both were ten years old. Adam was a gentle, good-looking boy with short, straight light-brown hair and large, cheerful brown eyes. Casey was a drop-dead beautiful blond with sky-blue eyes, peaches-and-cream complexion, and a ready smile that showed perfect white teeth.
"Did we get you out of the shower?" Adam asked politely.
"No. Come on in," Andrew replied, stepping back for them. They entered and he closed the door. "Jeremy's in the den, watching the Tarzan movie," he added.
After their nodding to Jeremy and his waving to them in return, the two guests and Andrew likewise sat down on the carpet and watched the action movie. During the first long station break they discussed the major concern on their minds: Halloween. The four boys usually went trick-or-treating together and therefore needed to discuss and confirm their plans for the coming Thursday night.
"Why don't we go as super-heroes this year. Adam and I talked about it, and he said if I go as Aquaman, he'll go as Aqualad."
"This I gotta see!" Jeremy hooted. "What are you guys gonna use for costumes?"
"It's easy!" Casey replied. "I have an orange sweatshirt. I can paint the Aquaman logo on the chest. I have some green sweatpants and black Speedos to wear over 'em. I can get some green latex gloves. Then I'm all set. How 'bout you, Adam?"
"I'm all set too."
"Come on!" Jeremy declared skeptically. "They don't make Aqualad costumes."
"Who said they did?" Adam answered good-naturedly. "Like Casey, I'm making my own."
"Out of what?" Jeremy persisted.
"Well. I have a red sweatshirt, some blue kneesocks from my soccer uniform, blue Speedo swimming trunks, and I've found some blue latex gloves. So I'm all set too."
"Wait a minute!" Jeremy said incredulously. "You mean, you're gonna go up and down the street bare-legged, on Halloween night?"
"So? I wear Speedos in public every weekend when my swim team has a meet or practice. Aqualad goes bare-legged, so I have to go bare-legged too. I don't mind. I'm used to it. Besides, till after Halloween it's supposed to stay real warm just like it is now ."
"OK, then, cool!" Jeremy conceded, getting into the spirit of the plan. "I'll go as Batman. I have some Batman winter pajamas, and a dark blue poncho that I can use for a cowl. I can cut up an old black piece of cloth into a mask--no problem."
"All right!" Casey and Adam agreed enthusiastically. Casey of course then suggested the next logical step: "HEY, SINCE JEREMY'S GONNA GO AS BATMAN, why doesn't Andrew go as Robin!"
"But I don't have a Robin costume!" Andrew objected with the most face-saving observation that came to mind.
"Just wait," Jeremy declared. "I bet we can find something... Hey, the station break's over, the movie's starting again."
This week's feature was TARZAN TRIUMPHS, probably the favorite of all the Weissmuller-Sheffield series and, not coincidentally, the film that shows the most and longest shots of Boy's bare bottomcheeks. During the closing credits, Andrew atood up, beat on his chest with his fists, and mustered the best imitation he could do of a Tarzan yell.
"What're you gonna do next--say 'Me--Tarzan!'?" Jeremy asked derisively.
Spirits undampened, Andrew grinned back, "No, me--Boy!"
"Yeah, you're sure dressed for the part!" Adam commented good-naturedly.
"Actually he's not...: Casey said with a pause, then finished as he approached Andrew from behind, "until now--WEDGIE!"
In an instant he had seized Andrew's briefs by the waistband and yanked them upward so forcefully that all the fabric in the rear was either buried in the little boy's bottom crack or closer to his waist than the the junction of his thighs and buttocks. Most of his behind was now showing.
"CASEY!" Andrew screamed and threw himself at him in fury.
Impotent fury. Gripping him firmly by both shoulders, Casey held the younger boy at arms' length. Andrew flailed his fists helplessly, on the verge of tears in his frustration. Finally he went limp. Casey then smiled and said, "Hey, take it easy. I was only kidding you. Can't you take a joke?"
"I don't like getting a wedgie!" Andrew declared. This evoked general laughter.
"I guess not," Adam, ever the conciliator, said. "You'd be weird if you did."
While Andrew pulled his underpants back into place to cover what they were meant to cover, Casey returned to the earlier topic of conversation:
"You were saying, Jeremy, about a Robin costume?"
"Oh, yeah," Jeremy thought for several seconds, then continued. "Andrew has this red tee shirt with green sleeves. Under the sink we have some new green latex gloves like yours. We have a yellow towel we can use for the cape. We don't have any green boots, but Andrew can wear green socks with his tennis shoes."
"What about the pants?" Casey asked with a grin. "You got any green underpants, Andrew?"
"Uh-uh!" Andrew answered, shaking his head vigorously.
"Well, then, I guess you'll have to wear white ones!" Casey persisted.
"Uh-uh!" Andrew objected more vigorously. "Not out on the street!"
"Hey, I have an idea," Adam ventured. "I bet I still have the green Speedos I wore on the swim team last year. You wouldn't mind wearing green Speedos, would you? 'Specially not if I'm right next to you wearing my blue ones? We'll look so cool--a real team of super-heroes!"
Everyone agreed, and soon Casey and Adam went home for lunch.
Jeremy and Andrew had peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches and milk.
After he had washed and put away the dishes, Andrew begged again:
"Jeremy, I want to go get dressed now!"
"You can want to all you like; you just better not do it."
"But Jeremy, Mom's gonna be home soon."
"She won't mind. You're her baby. You could be runnin around butt naked or in a diaper, and she wouldn't care. As I said, you're her baby."
"Well, you're a doo-doo head!"
Jeremy flashed Andrew an ominous look, but their exchange was interruoted by the sound of their mother's car pulling into the driveway.
Today when Libby Carter walked into the house, the expression on her face was not pleasant. Clearly she was irritated about something and lost no time addressing the issue:
"Andrew, I saw your teacher, Mrs Harridan today."
Andrew looked down at his feet in despair.
"Young man, I am just mortified!" she continued. "I thought I could let you be a big boy and do your homework by yourself this week. And when I asked you about it yesterday, you PROMISED me you'd done all your assignments. Now I happened to meet your teacher and brag about you--and she very calmly and quietly tells me that you haven't done one of your math assignments this week: NOT ONE!"
By now Libby had put her things away and was seated on the couch, facing her younger son as she continued speaking:
"Well, I have the list of all last week's assignments for you, and I can assure you, you're going to be very busy tonight and tomorrow, and tomorrow night if necessary, making up all that work. That will take care of that, but as for your not telling me the truth--that calls for something else, and I think you know what it is..."
"No, Mommy, please..."
"Come here, Andrew."
When he made no move, she reached out and, gently but firmly grasping his upper left arm, drew him to her.
"Please, Mommy, don't spank me!"
"I'm afraid that's exactly what I have to do."
Little Andrew trembled in shame and dread, but did not struggle as she pulled him into the time-honored position, face down, over her lap. In a barely audible voice he begged:
"Please, Mommy, not on the underpants."
Too late he realized that that was exactly the wrong thing to have said.
"Of course not on the underpants!" she affirmed, taking his briefs by the waistband and sliding them down in the rear even as sha spoke. "this spanking will have to be on the bare bottom!"
And with that--SMACK!--she delivered the first stinging slap across trhe middle of his smooth, round little bottom. She then proceeded with the technique she had found most effective over the years: after the initial smack on the center of the bottom, she would then spank in a repeated series of three slaps: right, left, center; right, left, center; right, left, center... until she felt the desired effect had been achieved.
What was this effect? Submission and contrition on the part of the child. How did she know when it had been attained? It varied, but in heneral it was realized when the bucking and struggling subsided into limp submission, and the stacatto "OW!-OW!-OW!" corresponding to the SMACK-SMACK-SMACK finally gave way to an unbroken soft moan and a steady stream of tears.
By the thirtieth smack she had brought Andrew to this state of contrite subjection. Nevertheless, at the tenth he had tried to protect his bottom with his hands. This had compelled his mother to hold his wrists together behind his back.
Jeremy watched in fascination as Andrew's little bubble-butt turned from creamy white to coral to rose-pink under the relentless smacks of their mother's hand.
Then Libby paused. She did not release Andrew, however, because his ordeal was not over. Turning to her older son, she directed: "Jeremy, go to my bedroom and bring me the wooden hairbrush."
She did not see the gleeful, knowing smile on Jeremy's face after he turned to follow her instructions. Andrew, who had been wailing softly, suddenly became articulate again:
"No! No! Mommy, PLEASE NO! NOT THE HAIRBRUSH!" he bawled.
"Hush, Andrew," she told him resolutely. "You know that you must never try to cover your bottom or block my hand when you're getting a spanking. Any time you do, you know you are going to have five licks with the hairbrush added to your punishment."
"Does that mean I have to do 'cool-down' too?" Andrew asked dejectedly.
"Yes, dear, you know it does. Any time I have to use the hairbrush, you have to have 'cool-down' afterwards."
Andrew quietly shed more tears at this revelation.
In the Carter family the term "cool-down" meant that after a spanking with a hairbrush or belt, the child so punished had to leave his pants off and his underpants pulled down in the rear until the redness was gone from his bottom. Thus, the term denoted not only that it was the time that it took for his bottom to cool down from the heat of the spanking, but also that the child's underpants had to stay down in the rear for the duration of that time.
Jeremy returned with the wooden-backed hairbrush, which he handed to his mother. Raising it for action, Libby admonished Andrew:
"Now remember, you're getting five licks. You can yell or cry all you want, but don't you dare scream, kick or wriggle. You do--and we'll start over. Is that clear?"
"Yes, Mommy."
"All right, then. Here it comes."
SMACK1 -- "OW!" SMACK! -- "OWW!" SMACK! -- "OWIE!" SMACK! -- "OWIE-OWIE-OWIE!" SMACK! -- "WAAHHH!"
Libby handed Jeremy the brush to put away. Then with a gentle pat on his scorching little bottom, she signaled to Andrew that he was now free to get up. As soon as Andrew was on his feet, he clutched and rubbed his bottom frantically with both hands, and as he did so, he danced around the room like a wild man, grimacing and moaning the whole time. Meanwhile, Jeremy, who had lost no time returning from the bedroom, stared enraptured and watched his little brother's agony in ecstasy.
Andrew jerked and twitched about so vigorously that his underpants fell down in front as well and had slid almost to his knees before he managed to grab them with both hands and pull them up again--to cover his _d_i_c_k_ and balls, that is; they had to stay pulled down in back, leaving all his bottom exposed to the air-- and the view of anyone present.
Poor Andrew! He would have to do at least an hour of corner time because it would be at least that long before he would be able to sit down. Even then he would not be able to sit down comfortably. And since even then his little bottom would still be very pink, he would still have to keep his underpants down. Maybe the first few hours that he did his lessons he was going to be sitting with his bare bottom on a hard, wooden kitchen chair. He was going to feel so strange and look so silly sitting there in just his underpants, and those only covering him in front. He sure hoped he didn't get any splinters in his bottom...
But even before that, he had to do an hour of corner time...
Chapter IV
Corner time... Andrew hated it. There was nothing more boring that having to stand in the corner, with one's nose right against the line where the two walls met, for a whole hour. And as if boring wasn't bad enough, it was also humiliating: he had to stand there with his underpants down in the rear. He had to LEAVE them like that. If they had been taken off, he would have been more exposed (his thing and his little nuts would be showing too!), but there would have been nothing he could do about it--then it would have been totally out of his control.
As it was, at any second he could reach down, take the waist band of his Fruit of the Loom briefs on both sides, and pull them up. At any second it was within his physical power to cover his bare reddened bottom, which was now prominently in view to anyone who walked into the kitchen. It was within his physical power... but he dared not exercise that power: to do so would only ensure consequences such as another spanking with the hairbrush and even longer corner time!
Still, it galled him to undergo "cool-down" in the corner. They might get captured or tied up, but Batman and Robin or Tarzan and Boy NEVER had to stand in the corner with their bottoms bared! They always found a way out of every situation, so why couldn't he? Probably because that was the movies and this was real life.
To make matters worse, Mom had had to go to the grocery store and do some other errands--and she had left Jeremy in charge again. Well, at least he was busy watching TV again. Maybe the great Couch Potato would stay in front of the tube all afternoon and leave him alone.
Uh-oh! Andrew heard a click, then silence, then Jeremy's footsteps swaggering into the kitchen.
"Well, well, what do we have here!" Jeremy declared in an affected drawl. "The kid's gonna be Robin Redbreast for Halloween, but just now he looks a lot more like Robin Redbutt! Haw-haw-haw!"
Of course Jeremy guffawed at his own witticism. Andrew said nothing.
Jeremy went to the cupboard and got a drinking glass. Opening the refrigerator, he took out the Kool-Aid pitcher, then got an ice tray from the freezer compartment. Andrew heard the clink of ice cubes and the gurgle of liquid poured into the glass.
"Hot day!" Jeremy muttered. "Nothing like a cold drink to cool me off."
When he had slurped the last of the beverage from his glass, he continued his musing:
"Now I'm cooled off, but I see somebody--or PART of somebody--that's still mighty hot. So, instead of pouring this perfectly good ice down the sink or letting it melt in my glass, I think I'll just put it some place where it can do some good!"
Although Andrew had heard every word spoken by Jeremy, he had utterly failed to grasp their import. Now to his surprise and horror he felt a half-melted ice cube thrust into the depth of the cleft between his bottomcheeks. Immediately Andrew shook himself and spread his legs. The cube thudded onto the linoleum floor.
"Quit it, Jeremy!" Andrew yelled in annoyance. "Oh!" he suddenly yelled in pain as his brother's fist hit him in the shoulder blade.
"Shut up!" Jeremy ordered in an unnervingly calm voice. "Don't make another sound."
"But, Jeremy--" he began, then finished with, "Oww!" as Jeremy's fist hit him on the other shoulder.
"I said, not another sound!"
Then Jeremy inserted another half-melted ice cube in the depth of Andrew's bottom-crack.
"Jeremy! What are you doing! It's COLD!"
"Big Duh! Sure it's cold. And you're gonna keep it there for the next five minutes unless it melts first. If you shake it out or let it drop before then, I swear I'll stick the next piece not in your crack, but all the way up into your hole. Then if you want to get it out you'll have to get on the pot and grunt it out. Is that what you want?"
"No," Andrew said miserably.
"Then you'd better keep that ice cube in place."
By keeping several fingers on the cube and moving it arould, changing hands when necessary, Andrew kept any place in his crack from getting frostbitten. Still it was about the most miserable five minutes Andrew had ever spent in all his young life of nine years. And at the end of it, Jeremy just said:
"Now get a paper towel and wipe up the water from the floor. Then get back with your nose in the corner."
Andrew did all this.
Andrew really was a good boy. He believed in God, went to Sunday School each week, and said his prayers every night. Today he prayed silently long before bedtime. He prayed right then. He prayed right there in the corner. He prayed that their mother would come home soon, and he prayed that Jeremy would be paid back for the mean things he had done today. Both of those prayers would be answered...
(CONTINUED)