Shin Ji slipped out of his robe and stood naked, his head bowed, before Liang Ji. His 12-year-old body was slim and graceful, and his older brother, aged 17, looked at it admiringly as he flexed the supple bamboo rod. Shin's shoulders were a little wider than they used to be, his arms a little longer. He was still entirely hairless, but his scrotum was a fat plum where once it had been a tiny sack with two peas; his penis, now slightly stiff with apprehension of the punishment to come, was longer and more graceful. And his bottom was simply beautiful: his buttocks round and full and firm and smooth, soon to be striped and stinging.
Shin Ji felt an anxious tightening in his belly.
"You thought our father's words meant nothing when he said you were to obey me?" asked Liang, his voice harsh.
"Please. I am sorry," said Shin.
"His words on his very deathbed. You thought they could be ignored when he was gone. You dishonor his memory."
Shin said nothing.
"I am now the head of household. You must obey me. This morning you did not. I told you to help Hu Lao with the garden work and you went off to play with your friends instead. I promised Hu Lao your assistance and you made a fool of me. I will punish you and you will know then what it means to disobey."
Shin's continued silence incensed Liang.
"Do you defy me still?" he said angrily.
"No," said Shin. Haltingly, he continued. "You are my brother. I have dishonored our father and you and brought shame upon myself by disobeying. I beg to be allowed to do penance to win your favor again."
"And how do you propose to do penance?" Liang flexed the bamboo rod again.
Shin's gaze never left the ground in front of him. Liang noticed that Shin was breathing quickly and his penis was now fully stiff in front of him.
"Please," whispered Shin. "Chastise me with the rod. Chase the demons from me. It is what I deserve. Show me no mercy."
"I accept your plea," said Liang slowly. "Put your hands on your head."
They stood in the yard behind the family home. The servants were at the windows. Neighbors and their children watched from their own yards. Lian had decided the humiliation of public punishment was necessary to establish once and for all his authority over his younger brother.
Shin lifted his hands to the top of his head and stood up straight, looking directly out in front of him and trying not to cry. He saw that Lao Tsi, the beautiful little girl who lived next door, his playmate since early childhood and now the object of his fierce crush, was watching the scene intently. The shame was too much and his face crumpled as tears spilled onto his cheeks.
Liang brought the bamboo cane swishing loudly down and around and it slashed into his bottom. Shin gasped and hopped up and down, conscious at the same time that his stiff little penis was bobbing ridiculously in front of him.
"Be still!" barked Liang. "Take your punishment honorably, at least!"
Shin placed his feet wider apart to make it easier not to move, and tried to control his shameful sobbing.
The rod slashed into him again. And again. As Liang whipped him, Shin managed to stand still but not to stop crying. He didn't know what was worse, the pain of the flogging or the shame of being the object of attention of the entire household and much of the neighborhood as he was subjected to the humiliation of a naked whipping outdoors in the yard. The knot of anxiety he had felt in his belly all morning grew tighter; that was what made his little penis grow rigid and remain that way, another mortifying circumstance. He felt he would never be able to look Lao Tsi in the eye again, knowing she had looked on his nudity, his punishment, his paradoxical arousal.
Meanwhile Lao Tsi stood with her brother Hong Tsi, Shin's schoolmate and best friend, and watched Liang methodically whipping Shin's bottom. She felt very sorry for her friend, but at the same time glad to have her curiosity satisfied as to Shin's body, which she had never seen unclothed.
The whipping continued. Some of the other children jeered as Shin bawled like a baby. The hiss and wicked pop of the bamboo on his bottom continued at a regular pace. Shin jerked his hips involuntarily forward with each stroke of the rod but managed to stay in place.
"Why is his thing standing out straight?" Lao Tsi asked Hong.
Hong shrugged. "It is the fear of the punishment, I think. It happens to me when father whips me."
She considered this. "So it is fear that makes it go big?"
"Not always, goose," said Hong with a laugh. "And it is not so big. Mine is bigger!"
"That is because you are a donkey," Lao Tsi said heatedly. "And used to being beaten."