REVENGE seems to play a major role in my life. My sister, Lisa, took out revenge for my girlfriend on my bare butt, as you may have read in "Sister's Revenge." And, my girlfriend and her new boyfriend, Terrance, took out revenge for the way I treated her, as you may have read in "Revenge Again." Some of the guys at basketball practice got revenge for my causing us all to have to run extra laps by blistering my butt during our after-practice shower. It just seems that some people like to "get me back" with pain to my butt. Today's case is no exception.
It just so happened that a group of us guys in Mr. Harris' history class decided that we would cheat on our next test by going to his desk to ask questions and then mouthing answers that we would see on the answer key that he kept on his desk. Mr. Harris wasn't real bright and he had no idea what we were doing. We all made A's on the test as a result of our efforts and most of the participants were proud of themselves, but not me. I didn't feel good about it and felt ashamed to even go into class each day. I had been taught better than to steal and cheat and I knew I was a better person than to do that sort of thing. Becoming a Christian just a year ago had changed my life and becoming very active in my church helped me to become a better person, most of the time. We all sin and fall short and I knew that this was one of those times of "falling short."
It just so happened that one of the girls in the class that normally makes A's had made a B on the test and decided that Mr. Harris needed to know of our little cheating project. She wrote him a note. We were called to the principal's office that afternoon and everyone, but me, denied the whole thing. I knew the other guys were getting irritated at my silence as the principal kept looking towards me for some truth. It was all I could do to keep from crying out loud throughout the whole confrontation. It was pure agony listening to Jimmy, Don, and Greg lying over and over and striving to get us out of the mess we had gotten into. Why did I do something so stupid? Mr. Farrell and Mr. Harris eventually sent us out of the office and decided to talk to us alone. It was a sickening feeling when they called me in first and proceeded to quiz me and refer to me as the only one of the four that they could believe and trust. It worked. I folded. I cried. I admitted to the whole thing and apologized over and over. Wow! I was totally relieved and the burden was lifted almost instantly. Jesus had already forgiven me and now I was getting forgiveness from the teacher and principal. They actually commended me for my honesty and repentance and said they would lighten my punishment because of it.
By the end of the day the other guys got a paddling, a zero on the test, and were suspended for 3 days. I got a paddling and a zero but was excused from the suspension as a reward. If given a choice I would have taken the suspension and forgone the paddling because it hurt so bad, except for the fact I didn't want my parents to find out about the incident. Mr. Farrell made us bend across his desk and gave us 10 licks that led to tears. It was not a pretty site with 4 tearing macho guys in the office.
It was quite obvious that I had lost Jimmy and Don as friends, not that I cared much, and Greg was borderline with our friendship. I had been trying to get them all to turn their life over to God and become Christians but Greg was the only one getting warm to the idea. It was Jimmy that decided to get revenge and make sure that my mother found out about the incident. He decided to call my house the next day during school and ask for me. That, of course, led my mother to inquire why I would be at home during school. Jimmy told her that he thought I had been suspended as well because of our getting in trouble at school. What a liar! I knew, deep down, that I should have told my mother about the incident. I had planned to do so but couldn't get up the nerve.
Lucky for me mother came to the school and inquired about the incident and got the whole story from Mr. Farrell and then proceeded to check me out of school during PE just before basketball practice. Our ride home was with complete silence and I knew my butt was in for a major bruising, even though it had been years since my last spanking from a parent. Silence prevailed until we got into the house and we just walked towards my room at a rather fast pace. Once we arrived mother started looking around my room for my belts as I just stood there not saying a word. She opened my closet door and saw a row of them and looked them over carefully before choosing a big leather one that I mostly wore with jeans. She pulled it off the hanger and faced me. "Oh Lord," I prayed, "please help me through this."
Once mother felt comfortable with the belt in hand she looked at me and finally spoke. Her exact words were "get your pants down and lean across that bed." I froze for a moment. I didn't want to pull down my pants in front of her, and, I certainly didn't want to pull my underwear down also. "Do I need to repeat that?" she said sternly. I turned around at that point and pulled my basketball shorts down and leaned across the bed. She spoke again. This time it was "underwear too, Jay. We're not playing games here. Now!" I hesitated. She swung the belt and hit my legs before repeating "Now." Down they came. The strikes began. She hit and hit and hit. No breaks. No hesitation. She swung that belt all over my trembling butt, that you may recall is normal size and somewhat hairy. She kept on swinging and even aimed at my lower back and lower butt cheeks occasionally. She was hot and so was my butt. I was crying, of course, and she was swinging away. My little mature butt was bright red by the time she finally stopped, hung the belt up, and left the room. It took 10 minutes for me to stop crying and get up off the bed. I washed my face and rested a few minutes before mother appeared and said it was time for basketball practice to meet her at the car. We drove back in total silence and I proceeded to join practice when Coach Dixon made me run laps for being late. Apparently Mr. Farrell had told the coach about my mother's arrival and had warned him not to even expect me today. I think the coach was relieved to see me return but knew he had to punish me in some way. The laps were a welcome relief from having to see anyone up close at the time. But, I was a man and had to face up to life and put the whole incident behind me, so to speak. Practice went on as normal and enabled me to forget the butt beating I had so earned.
You would think that once practice was over I'd have to join my team mates in the shower and expose my reddened buttocks and receive more ridicule and attention. Not so. My coach, also a Christian and fellow church member, knew what I was going through and kept me and my best friend, Jake, after practice to practice free-throws, claiming that we had missed entirely too many during practice. We were taking turns catching and throwing and the coach was riding us hard the whole time. The other guys left the gym relieved that they weren't being forced to endure even more personal attention and special coaching. When the coast was clear Coach Dixon said we could go on home and that we'd be better at free-throws tomorrow. He didn't really expect us to hit the showers but Jake and I were accustomed to that and we headed that way. What was I to do when I got there? Jake went immediately to a toilet stall to take care of business and I looked at my butt in a mirror. It was still red, but not excessively. I went on in the shower and hoped to get through before Jake arrived. When he appeared at the shower I was facing him so he didn't see my butt, thank goodness. When he faced forward I quickly spun around and finished and turned the water off. I grabbed my towel from the shower head next to mine and dried off facing Jake and then wrapped myself before leaving. I had made it and I could thank the coach for his intuition. When Jake came out he asked if I was okay and I starting tearing up and told him the whole story. If you can't tell your best friend your secrets then you don't really have a best friend, do you? He was very understanding and supportive. He proceeded to get dressed and didn't even ask to see my butt. When I asked if he wanted to see the damage he said "naw, you're hairy ass doesn't excite me red or white." We both laughed, patted each other on the back, and walked out together.