The boy glared at me as he removed his suspenders and lowered his trousers, slipping them off his bare feet and casting them to one side, in a gesture meant to convey to me his unconcern over the strapping he was about to receive. He was wearing a pair of dirty, torn undergarments, which didnt do much to conceal his sixteen year old manhood. He was well hung, and partially erect, either from fear or excitement. His dark, unkempt hair matched his brilliant black eyes, which sparkled and glittered like the lamps in a lighthouse. He had beautiful, work-hardened legs, the legs of a farmers son, slim, muscular and tanned. He did not seem at all embarrassed at being half naked in front of a stranger, a man of whose existence he had no idea before that morning. He stood there like a southern version of Michelangelos David, leaning casually on one hip, his piercing, luminous eyes never leaving my face, daring me to do what we both knew I intended to do, and do thoroughly. I was going to roast his rump like it had never been roasted before. I intended to make this proud young man sing and dance at the end of my strap, sobbing and pleading for forgiveness like a well spanked five year old. But he paid no attention to the razor strap I was holding, which was itching to brand his insolent buttocks, not once or twice, or twenty times, either. I intended to whip the insolence out of him, but I could see that he was going to be a challenge.
I ordered him to stand in front of the desk. He obeyed without a hint of fear, stepping jauntily to the place I pointed out to him. His posture and his attitude remained infuriatingly casual. This boy was daring me to whip him, and whip him hard. But his provocative behavior convinced me he needed to be more than whipped. He needed to be broken. He WANTED to be broken. This boy was desperate for a real man to make him submit to a will more powerful than his own, and a strength he could not escape or defeat. It was a challenge I intended to take, with pleasure, and over which I intended to prevail. I grasped the well oiled old razor strap with firmness and determination. "Step out of your underpants, boy." He turned around, placed his thumbs inside the tattered underwear and bent over as he removed it, kicking it off his bare feet and giving me my first good look at the backside I was about to teach respect. He even wiggled his bottom a bit, as further evidence of how little he cared for me or for my strap. He had a plump, smooth, well-proportioned rump that even David might have envied. His body was that of a laborer, but his sumptuous behind belonged on an aristocrat. Good democrat that I am, I looked forward to introducing those elegant orbs to the Reign of Terror. "Bend over the desk, boy. Grab hold of the other side and dont let go." He did as he was told, presenting his bare bottom as coolly as if he expected it to be kissed, not leathered. But I noticed that his bare toes were clenched and grasping the floorboards firmly, just in case he underestimated me. I couldnt help smiling at the sight. Good boy. Never underestimate your opponent.
I waited for a moment, studying the target area, like an artist examining the canvas he intends to paint. It was covered with the unmistakable traces of an earlier strapping, I imagined from his father. The marks appeared fresh, perhaps even from that morning. That would explain why his behavior was so surly and resentful. He didnt want to come to school, but his father whipped him to make him do as he was told. And now he was going to get his second strapping of the day. The haphazard, crisscross pattern of the strap marks told me his father was inexpert at chastising the lad. He obviously strapped out of frustration or anger, which diminished the effectiveness of the punishment. I frowned in disapproval at the signs of such shoddy workmanship. But it explained to me why the boy appeared so nonchalant. He thought he knew what the strap felt like and that he could take it. He had never been punished by a professional, until now. It would be an illuminating experience. In fact, I intended to leave his pretty rear end so illuminated it would serve as a lantern in the night. In a few precious minutes, tears would extinguish the lighthouse in his eyes, and the brightest thing in the room, in the whole county if I did my work properly, would be his naked rump.
I had spent ten years mastering the science of the strap. Unlike his father, I was furious, but not frustrated. The prospect of what I was about to do caused me to become cool as a Mississippi morning in March, concentrated and collected, like an athlete in competition, or even like a monk at his devotions. I was going to teach this young man, who thought he knew all about what the strap could do to his exposed and vulnerable behind, that he had never received a real whipping before in his life. I stepped forward to lift his shirt to the center of his back, removing the last remnant of protection that shielded his shapely bottom from its painful but now inevitable fate. Taking a step back, poised like a dancer on the heel of my right foot, I lifted the strap at a careful angle over his bare, but still maddeningly relaxed buttocks, determined to teach this young man a lesson he would remember for the rest of his life, and that I would remember, and treasure, for the rest of mine as well.
I have been teaching in this small, one room schoolhouse for a decade now, and one of the first lessons I learned is that there is ONE way to win the respect of these farmers sons, and that is to apply the strap to their asses at the first sign of disobedience. Not the second. Not the third. The first. Their parents had told me as much when I first accepted the position. They seemed less concerned about my ability to teach their sons to read and write than about my willingness to whip their behinds soundly. Learning does not count for much in this still almost medieval world of wealthy planters and poor farmers, but obedience, deference, and good manners are everything, and that is what the parents expected me to instill in their half wild, obstreperous youngsters. And for generations it was understood and accepted that nothing teaches good manners like the regular application of a razor strap to the reluctant but receptive male behind. (God endowed the masculine rear end with a remarkable capacity to absorb severe pain, and for thousands of years now, parents and teachers, judges and magistrates, have taken the hint God help us whenever it is forgotten.) To this day I believe that I was offered the job not because I graduated first in my class at Bathed in the Blood Bible College, but because I was well built and had a strong right arm, obviously capable of swinging a strap forcefully enough to make even the most obstinate youngster howl and jig as the razor strap called the tune.
My trim, athletic figure, well groomed, wavy black hair, clean shaven face (sprinkled with eau de cologne), and preference for dressing in the best fashions that a teacher can afford, sometimes deceives the boys into thinking I am the kind of man that city folk refer to as a fairy. But as soon as I roll up my sleeves, exposing the bulging muscles in my forearms, and take the strap down from its place of honor on the wall, they realize their mistake. Of course, at that point, its too late to correct it without first shedding humiliating quantities of hot, scalding tears, and spending several nights sleeping on their stomachs, with the windows open, hoping the night air might cool the smoldering flames in their aching backsides. I might dress like a dandy, but I swing a strap like the country boy I really am.
At first, I hated the idea of relying on the strap to assert my authority. I was fresh out of college, an idealist. Not that I didnt have a good deal of painful, personal experience of the straps pedagogical effectiveness. I was raised to manhood by my fathers ancient razor strap, which he inherited from his father, who inherited it from his, for who knows how many generations of burning male bottoms. I well remember trembling expectantly in the barn, even when I was a student in college, bent over a sawhorse or bale of hay, naked from the waist down, the long tails of my shirt lifted up to expose my squirming ass cheeks, as Pa took the strap down from its hook, intending to whip some well needed sense into my bare posterior. He often strapped me with little or no provocation, just to keep me from becoming big headed because I was the first man in my family to attend college. It is hard for a young man to get too impressed with himself for being the big man on campus when he has vivid memories of leaping frantically from one bare foot to another, tears of pain and humiliation cascading down his face, begging and pleading for his dad to show him some pity, while three feet of leather relentlessly scalds his tender bottom. I often made the whole trip back to school on the train standing, because my tortured rump was too tender to take a seat.
Pa assured me that he never whipped my ass half as hard as his father whipped his, and that I should be grateful to him for his "lenience." I know Pa would never lie to me, but it was hard to put much stock in his "mercy" when my ass was swollen to twice its normal size, and still turning the kitchen into a steam room the next day, when I tried to take a bath. The water literally sizzled on my battered behind. In fact, I believe my chastised fanny could have been used to power a steamboat half the way up the whole length of the Mississippi. It didnt help that I was cursed with such broad, bountiful mounds of butt flesh, which Pa, with his customary thoroughness, insisted on whipping until every inch was red and sore and suffering. None of my brothers possessed backsides that were apparently so satisfying to punish, and, although all of us were well acquainted with the cruel kiss of dads terrible strap, none of them spent as much time in the woodshed as I did. I think it gave Pa a certain fatherly satisfaction at being able to cover my big rump, not to mention both my thighs, with well-placed, painful welts that lasted for days, and often longer.
It was some consolation knowing that ours was not the only homestead in the county where the razor strap spent less time on its nail than it did nailing our butts. Far from it. The fathers of all my friends had similar family heirlooms in their barns too, and used them regularly. Walking past a neighboring farm, I could often hear one of my buddies squealing like a pig being slaughtered, while his Pa whipped his rear end good. I have to confess I took a certain amount of pleasure in listening to my friends get their bare bottoms beaten, and, sometimes tried creeping up to the barn, stealthily on bare feet, to watch the whole show. It was always an intoxicating sight, seeing one of my pals bent over, his bare butt already red and blistering, as his Pas strap continued thrashing the broad, muscular hide. Best of all was when I could watch their faces while they were being strapped. I loved seeing their eyes squint tight as the strap was lifted high above a furious fathers head, and then burst open so wide, it looked like they were about to pop out of their heads, when the strap came down, making that awful sound, and inflicting that even more awful suffering. And the pleasure of watching a big, broad shouldered country boy sob and plead and beg for mercy like a little baby made me almost light headed. WHACK!!!!! "Please daddy Ill remember to slop the pigs!!!" WHACK!!! WHACK!!! "OWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!! Daddy, Ill be good from now on!! Dont whip me no more, daddy!!" WHACK!!!!! Afterwards, when my sobbing friend was massaging his battered buns, and his dad was replacing the still smoking strap on its rusty hook, I couldnt wait to rush back home to the outhouse, drop my trousers, and feverishly commit the sin of self-abuse.
I have to confess that it was on one of those occasions that the thought first occurred to me that I might like to become a teacher. Fathers were not the only men whom time honored custom granted carte blanche to whip the backsides of mischievous boys. Teachers owned straps too, and used them on a daily basis. Being a good student, I wasnt often whipped in school, but I regularly got to see my classmates ordered up to the front of the class, made to bend over the teachers desk, and submit to a thorough tanning in front of all their gloating peers. I loved watching the soles of their bare feet cavort and dance to the music of the strap across their wriggling rumps. And the glow of satisfaction on the teachers face during the whippings made a profound impression on me, almost as profound as the impression his strap made on my friends asses. Yes, indeed, teaching was an honorable profession, and the perfect outlet for my talents and ........ interests.
There was no shame in getting a hiding. A lot of pain and embarrassment, but no shame. We all took peculiar pride in our fathers talents with the strap, and each of us boasted that his father was the most fearsome ass whipper in the county, if not the state. Gathered naked around the swimming pond, we would all bend over and compare the condition of our whipped asses, describing in gruesome but enthralling detail the events that led up to our butts becoming red and blistered. Looking back, it is curious how events that were so painful at the time can become so entertaining to recount later. I often carried off the dubious honor of being the boy with the most impressive set of welts on his rear end, an honor in which I took considerable pride. We must have sounded like a gathering art critics, comparing the color and the texture of our respective rumps, except that most art critics arent rock hard standing in front of the Mona Lisa. These "seminars" often ended with us reclining on our sore bottoms in the cool grass, and vigorously stroking our teenage tools.
If I thought that leaving home for college would liberate my rear end from the rule of the strap, I learned I was mistaken. It was also not unknown for Pa to show up at college unannounced, to monitor my performance at school. And God help me if he was not pleased. In that case, the other residents of the dormitory, upon returning to their rooms, would hear my dads old razor strap introducing my behind, from which every stitch of protective covering was removed, to all the torments of a very hot hell. And they would also hear a remorseful sinners raucous wails of too-late postponed repentance. Some of them smirked, but not many, because it was not uncommon for other fathers to show up at school for similar reasons, and with identical results. I wasnt the only undergraduate who knew just how hard and unforgiving a wooden lecture room chair is, after one of my fathers impromptu visits. Sometimes two scarlet bottomed scholars, of which I was always one, would attend the same lecture. We would smile ruefully at each other, with a look of profound mutual understanding, fellow feeling, and real affection, such as only the painfully and regularly spanked can know, observing ourselves ease our tortured, tender rumps into our chairs. I realized then that the strap is not only an instrument of punishment. In an odd but genuine way, it is also an instrument of brotherhood, the world wide fraternity of battered bottoms. To this day, I feel greater respect and fondness for a man whenever I learn that he is also a member of the "fraternity." And of course, at this point in history, during the middle decades of the nineteenth-century, it is safe to presume that most men are, especially down here in the south.
But when I left college and entered my career as an educator, I wanted to believe there were kinder, gentler methods of maintaining discipline and encouraging academic excellence. I wanted to make an impression on the boys brains, not their backsides. But it didnt take long for me to realize that the parents knew their children better than I did. Reason and logic were all well and good in planters homes (and even there Ive noticed quite a few razor straps hanging in the kitchens in case more civilized methods of persuasion failed), but in the country there was only one argument that won universal assent. The premises were a well-oiled razor strap and a bare, bent over behind, while the conclusion involved a weeks worth of welts and in most cases a repeat performance back home when the parents learned what had taken place at school. I mastered that argument and soon was the most respected teacher in the county (among the parents) as well as the most feared (among the boys).
Rare was the lad who left my tutelage without learning first hand what a masterful motivator the strap can be. I know how to reduce even the toughest, most brick-bottomed adolescent to tear-wracked pleas and open sobs. And I have to confess that I have really come to find satisfaction in my work. There are few sights more satisfying than watching a big, brawny, barefooted teenager return to his seat, whimpering like a baby, his red face coated all over with tears and snot, his big, calloused hands struggling to rub some of the fire out of the deep welts covering the whole surface of his raw, even redder posterior. Just the thought inspires me to wax poetic. And watching them sit their burning bottoms down on the those hard wood chairs, with their dozens of cruel splinters, was as entertaining as it was aesthetically satisfying. Those chairs are like mine fields for strapped bottoms, and I looked forward to watching the inevitable detonation, as the insidious fragments of wood penetrate their trousers, tickling the fiery flesh inside. Their reaction never varies. Eyes shut, mouths gape, hands reach furtively for their hindquarters, and they lift themselves gently but not too obviously from their seats, in hopes of removing the tiny tormentors that are now embedded deep in their burning bottoms. It is almost like giving a boy two lickings in a single day, which, incidentally, I have often done. Of course, there were girls in the school too, but I never used the strap on them. I notified their mothers, who did the honors for me at home. But disciplining the boys was my responsibility, and in ten years I havent met one red-necked barbarian that I couldnt turn into a literate, responsible, well-mannered citizen, even at the price of turning his rear the same color as his neck on a weekly, sometimes daily, basis.
Billy, the backwoods David bent over bare bottomed in front of me, was new to the county. His father owned a small farm, and at first wouldnt send his son to school. He and his three sons, of whom Billy was the youngest, moved into the area a couple of months ago. I had seen the four of them often, but had gone out to their place for the first time last week, in order to introduce myself and to suggest that Billy might benefit from attending school. Billys father was only a few years older than I was, but looked as if he could be my grandfather. His slight stature, gray features and battered expression made it clear his life had been hard, too hard for him to handle. And from what he told me, it was also obvious he felt helpless to handle his youngest son. Billys father told me he had tried sending the boy to school before, in other towns, but that it had always been a disaster. The boy was insolent and uncontrollable, with no desire to learn. No teacher was ever able to command his respect. The only thing that kept him out of trouble at home was the strap, and even that was beginning to be less efficacious, now that he was older and bigger. I tried to imagine this little, wizened man taking the strap to a big, powerfully built lad like Billy, but it was impossible. The contest was too unequal. No wonder the boy was out of control. I sensed a challenge, and I love a challenge.
I asked Billys father if any teacher ever tried giving him a good, old fashioned whipping. He told me all of them had, but Billy just laughed at their feeble efforts, and in some cases turned around and punched them. One poor schoolmaster who tried to whip Billy ended up in the hospital with a black eye, a broken arm, and a shattered kneecap. It took a real man to win Billys respect. (A real man with the United States Cavalry at his back and the Texas Rangers in reserve, I speculated, but kept the thought to myself.) The strap alone wasnt enough. A lot depended on the caliber of the man wielding it. I could tell he was sizing me up. Unruffled at these startling revelations, and still confident of my ability to break any boy with a bottom to bare, I asked Billys father to give me a chance. I had a good reputation, and understood what it took to break a spirited colt like Billy. I looked him hard in the face and put special emphasis on the word "break." He appeared skeptical, but said he was willing to let me try. At this point, he was just about desperate. He knew the young heathen needed to be taken down a peg or two, and, studying my broad, muscular chest, and my strong right arm, I might be just the man to do it. Might be, mind you.
Billy showed up at school the next morning. I knew immediately he had come for one reason, to size me up and find out if I were as contemptible as all his other would-be male authority figures. From the moment he entered the classroom, he was surly and rude, with a chip on his shoulder as big as Sisyphus rock. He took a seat in the back of the room. When I asked him to introduce himself, he just glowered at me and mumbled his name. "Billy Finley." I asked him if he had attended school before. He spat out that he could read and write "a little," but didnt see much point to it. "School was for sissies who like to take it up the ass." A shocked silence descended on the schoolroom. Billy shot challenging glances at the other boys, and I saw a few of them bristle. The girls blushed and giggled. I stared at Billy coldly. "Are you calling me a sissy who likes to take it up the ass, boy?" I quickly discarded my customary mask of benevolence, and tried to make it clear to the boy that if he wanted to descend into the gutter, he would find me there, fists raised and waiting for him. But, unimpressed, he looked me straight in the eye and responded. "You are a school teacher, arent you........boy?"
The sense of tension in the room mounted, and I could feel the blood pounding in my forehead. "Yes, son, I am, but you are within inches of learning I havent been a boy for some time. You have a lot to learn about schoolteachers. I have never taken it up the ass [in fact I had, numerous times, but there was no need at that moment to go into all the details of my personal life], but I admit I am well acquainted with the bottoms of the boys I teach. In fact, I know most of them more intimately than their own parents do. You see, son, one of the benefits of being a teacher is that I get to spank the naughty backsides of little boys who smart off to me." I deliberately used the word spank, not strap or whip, to remind him that as far as I was concerned, he was no better than a snot-nosed kid, about to take a much needed trip over his daddys knee.
"See that razor strap over there on the wall, little boy?" I pointed to the strap, which was hanging from a nail. It was the same strap my Pa once used on me, which he gave me as a gift for graduating college. (In fact, he gave me one last whipping to go with it, so that my copious tears that morning were not all of gratitude.) It was three feet long, three inches wide, and a quarter of an inch thick. That strap had put fire into the fannies of literally dozens of stubborn boys over the years. I oiled it lovingly every evening, so that it glistened like a snake. And every boy in that room (including me) could tell you its bite was ferocious. Billy directed a casual glance in the straps direction, and nodded, but I saw his fists clench at being called a little boy. "There is not a young man in this room (except for yourself) who does not know how bad that strap can hurt when I use it to blister his disrespectful butt. Isnt that so, boys?" Embarrassed, the other boys nodded and looked down, studying their bare, dirty feet. One muttered, "Busted my butt so bad last week I had to milk the cow on my knees." Another boy whispered, "I tried to hold it in for three days because I couldnt even stand to sit down in the outhouse. I ended up ruining my good work clothes. Daddy almost whipped the tail off me for it, too."
"Unless you want a good, stiff taste of that strap, I believe you owe us all an apology for your bad manners and your foul mouth." Billy just glared at me, his mouth tight as a misers purse.
I saw no need to postpone the inevitable, and told him to stay after school so we could discuss this matter further. There was an audible gasp from the other boys. They all knew what it meant when I told a boy to see me after class. Whippings during school were administered with trousers raised, whippings afterwards were always given with them lowered, on the bare rump. Punishments in class were painful as well as humiliating, because the other students witnessed the victims suffering, leaning forward in their desks, their faces shining at the solemn but entertaining spectacle of razor strap whalloping the dutifully proffered posterior, while its unhappy owner howled and pleaded and danced. But, given the choice, my students all preferred taking three strappings in a single day, in full sight of their gloating peers, but with the protective covering of thick trousers to muffle some of the pain and preserve a modicum of dignity, rather than submit to one bare bottomed beating. My bare bottomed beatings were legendary. This was Billys first day at school, and he was going to return home after a painful strapping, and the added humiliation of having to drop his trousers to receive it. But the announcement of his impending punishment had no visible effect on Billy. He just nodded at me grimly, and glared. It didnt take a genius to realize that this was exactly what he had come to school for, and now that the die was cast, all he needed to do for the rest of the day was sit and wait. But Billys days of sitting comfortably were about to come to a fiery conclusion. I observed his tight rump reclining casually in its chair, and looked forward to making it flinch at the very suggestion of sitting down. Billy wouldnt be sitting comfortably again for at least a week.
The rest of the school day was difficult. The atmosphere in the room was electric. I tried to remain calm, delivering a lecture on the evils of abolition and the benefits of slavery, but it was hard, with Billy sitting there silent as a post, staring at me, his long, lanky legs stretched out nonchalantly in front of him, his bare soles directed at me in one of the most ancient and universal forms of insult. He was like a black hole in the back of the classroom. Several times I wanted to snatch him from his seat and leather his fanny till the blood ran down his legs, right then and there, with the other boys cheering me and egging me on. But I knew it was better to wait. It would be a victory for Billy if I lost control. But inside I was desperate to get at his insolent ass and give it the worst whipping I had ever given, or he had ever received. This was going to be a thrashing for the history books, and I couldnt wait to win a place of honor in the annals of the strap.
When I finally dismissed the other students, the release of tension in the atmosphere was palpable. The girls left quickly, almost stumbling over themselves to escape the impending line of fire. The boys were a little more reluctant, for obvious reasons. All of them wanted to stick around and watch me whip the white ass off the smart mouthed little bastard. But the rules were clear. Any boy caught hanging around to watch me whip the butt of another would get his own rear end blistered, and twice as bad as the whipping he stayed to see. Since this promised to be the worst licking that even I had ever administered, none of them wanted to take that risk, and, a few minutes later, Billy and I were alone.
We stared at each other wordlessly for a minute or so. Finally, I rolled up my sleeves carefully, took the strap down from its nail and ordered Billy to stand up. He could see my forearms, which normally put the fear of God into even the most intractable boys soul, but appeared unimpressed. Slowly, he lifted himself from his seat, and stood in front of me, six solid feet of adolescent arrogance. I wasnt as tall as Billy, but it is remarkable how a razor strap puts inches on even the most unimpressive man. The preliminaries finished, I raised the strap over his bare backside, and our warfare commenced. I was determined to win, as determined as he was not to lose. But I knew Billy better than he knew himself. Deep down, he was hoping I would be the man to break him. He had spent his whole life aching for a man to make him admit he was just a boy. And even though it would probably be a while before he could bring himself to admit it, this was Billys lucky day. Because I was the man Billy was searching for.
The silence was shattered as the strap landed for the first time across Billys waiting bottom. The moment the strap collided with his posterior, I saw his back stiffen. Both his buttocks clenched so tight it looked like it would take a crowbar to pry them apart. The searing pain in his rump coerced from him a faint but audible gasp of shocked surprise that was the sweetest music I ever heard in my whole life. His head shot up so fast I was afraid he would break his neck. His bare right foot lifted slightly but perceptibly from the floor. Reluctantly, and obviously with great mental effort, he lowered both his head and his foot, bracing himself for what knew he was coming, but was now uncertain he could handle. I thought I detected a tiny bead of sweat forming at the base of his spine. A dark red stripe illuminated the center of his beautiful backside, blazing like a flash of lightening across both his taut buttocks. It was as welcome and as inspiring a sight me to me as the rainbow was to Noah. Despite his surprise at the razor-sharp pain in his ass, Billy still presented his bottom for the strap, like a bad little boy who accepts what he needs and deserves. I am sure he still thought he was being brave, but I knew better. He was offering me his butt because he knew what he needed, and that I was the man who could give it to him. Sometimes it just takes one flick of the wrist to change a boys life forever. As I raised the strap a second time, I smiled and said to the visibly shaken lad, "Son, this is the beginning of a long and beautiful friendship."
I was still smiling when the strapped landed again, igniting Billys ass a second time. This time, instead of clenching, his mounds opened wide, like a gaping mouth, or a red rose in full bloom. For a tantalizing instant, I could even see the tender rosebud at the center of his blossoming backside. The first two blows both landed dead center in the middle of his rump. I could see that he was struggling to withstand the pain, to defeat it if he could. But of course he couldnt, at least not for long. The muscles in his calves were bulging and tight as a drum as he strained to remain in position. But despite his best efforts to trick me (and himself) into believing he could take it like a man, his heaving chest, his trembling hands and white knuckles hanging grimly to the edge of the desk, made it obvious how much he was hurting. I admired his courage and his resolve, but I knew now that I was going to win. Billy and I were both going to win. But first I had to teach the boy that sometimes, you need to lose first in order to win.
For a few minutes (the longest of his whole life), he continued struggling to keep from breaking into open sobs, as the strap kept up its relentless drumbeat all over the surface of his suffering posterior. I have to admit I respected him. He was the proudest, most stubborn boy I ever punished, and before long I was sweating profusely, till it felt like the strap was about to slip from between my fingers. I lifted the leather with all the strength I could muster, but without losing the control that is so essential to administering an effective strapping, and brought it down across his ass with a thunder to waken the dead. He still wouldnt let go. His butt was almost purple, but he held onto his tears, and made as little sound as possible. But from his ever more audible grunts, I knew it wouldnt be long.
I shifted the terrain of the campaign, concentrating the next series of blows on his sensitive sit spot, in the hopes that this would finally do the trick. It did. The sit spot is a disciplinarians best friend, and a bad boys worst enemy. The assault on the tender borderlands between his bottom and his thighs was more than Billy could take. Against his will, and in a state of total humiliation, he released the pent up floodgates, sobbing wildly like a newborn baby. It sounded like a mighty river breaking through an ancient dam. Sixteen years of fear and unhappiness came pouring out. In an instant, the arrogant young man was turned into a spanked little boy. Now he was raucously vocal, the words and half-words rushing out faster than he could form them. H was begging me to stop lashing his crimson bottom, assuring me hed learned his lesson and would never cause trouble again. I could hear him choking on his sobs, struggling to get out the act of contrition that his tears and the terrible pain in his bottom made it impossible for him to articulate properly. "Please, sir! I promise Ill be good! I promise I wont be bad no more! I wont give you no more sass, sir!!! Please dont whip me anymore, sir!!! I promise, sir!! Please, sir!! PLEEEEEEEEEASE!!!!!!!!! OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!"
But I ignored his entreaties, and continued fanning the flames in his now scarlet sit spot, moving on eventually to continue strapping the rest of his fiercely heated fundament. His whole rear end now resembled a rich field of red, Georgia earth, planted, from the base of his spine to the tops of his thighs, with neat, parallel furrows of artfully placed strap marks. And still the blows came down like rain on the parched earth. The fiery downpour made him howl like a wounded animal. He didnt care if anyone heard his wails. He wouldnt notice if the whole school returned to witness his humiliation. The only thing that mattered to him was the indescribable inferno in his rump, and persuading me to make it stop.
Eventually, he abandoned all pretense of manliness. His fists pounded the desk frantically. His bare feet stamped and kicked, like an angry five year old. His free flowing tears, mingling with snot, gathered in an expanding puddle on the desk, but he was too caught up in the conflagration raging across his rear end to notice, or even care, that he was bathing his handsome face in it. I let him pound and kick and stamp, provided his bare bottom remained in position, which it did. Finally, he stopped trying to cut short his suffering. He collapsed in a defeated heap over the desk, submitting completely to his punishment, letting it work its magic, not merely on his bottom, but on the deepest recesses of his unformed heart and mind. (I wasnt wrong when I first set out to become a teacher. It is more important to make an impression on a boys brain than on his bottom, but I realized now that it wasnt possible to do the one without the other.)
When it was finally over I told him he could stand up. He obeyed, gradually and stiffly, but looking several inches shorter than he did before his strapping. His hands immediately shot back to his blazing bottom, trying desperately to rub the four alarm fire out of it. He turned around slowly to face me, but couldnt look me in the eye at first. His handsome face was all puffy and red. The snot was still dripping from his nose, and his eyes were almost plastered shut from crying. He stared down at his naked toes, sobbing convulsively and massaging his roasted rear. For a couple of minutes he stood there like that, caught up in his pain and mortification, unconcerned that I now had a front row seat to his now shriveled willie, which resembled that of a little boy, not an almost full grown man. After composing himself a little, he glanced up, looking me in the eye, and screwed up his courage to thank me for giving him what he needed and deserved, and promising never to defy me again. Hed come to school every day. Hed work hard. Hed make me proud of him. I would never have to whip him again.
And I knew, even better than he did, and I suspect that even at that moment he realized the painful truth, that he was lying. This was just the first of many long, golden afternoons spent punishing this beautiful bad boy, watching the strap come down to kiss his trembling mounds (like sunlight descending on two virgin hills), hearing his cries of pain turn into sobs and tormented howls, and then listening to the most wonderful music in the whole world, the awesome silence of absolute adolescent submission to the all-conquering strap. Billy was now, and would be for the rest of his life, a member of the "fraternity." He understood and respected the healing power of the leather, and, when the time came, I was sure he would pass it on to his own sons, blistering their bent over bottoms with the same loving savagery I used on him. But Billy would require more, much more, of the straps cleansing unction to become the man we both knew he could be. At that moment, I was profoundly moved, and on the verge of tears myself. I walked up to Billy, and put my arms around him. Such tenderness, after the violence of the strapping, shattered the lads remaining defenses. He laid his head on my shoulder and sobbed for several minutes, like a little boy who finally realizes that he is loved.
Finally, I playing smacked his burning fanny, causing him to wince, and told him to put his trousers back on and go home to his Pa and his brothers. Gingerly he eased his glowing posterior back into his trousers, flinching visibly as the coarse fabric caressed the inflamed flesh. I offered him my hand, so that he would know there were no hard feelings between us. He grasped, firmly and gratefully, the hand that had strapped his bare bottom, and shook it warmly. As I prophesied, he now realized this was just the beginning of a long, memorable, but excruciatingly painful, friendship. As I watched Billy leave, limping perceptibly and still rubbing his raw behind, I smiled. It is days like this that make me proud I became a teacher.