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Yet another series in the saga: APPLE BUTT: AN AMERICAN TALE, seen also in the Sawyer and Skyler archives
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Apple Butt's Warm Homecoming:
The year was 1987, and I had just turned 11 years old. For the last couple of years I had lived with my uncle and his son in the south, while Mom got "her head together." It was a tough time, where I was shown both unconditional love and tough-handed discipline. While I loved my extended family, I really missed my Mom and felt the need to be with her. Finally my wishes came true when she returned to collect me, and we went to her the home she just bought up north.
I was so looking forward to my new life in Pennsylvania. Mother and I had been away from each other for quite some time, and we really were missing each other; when you are a pre-teen, two years is a huge chunk of your life.
At first we were both apprehensive on how things would be, because it had been so long since we were "Mother and son." Within a week of settling in, we found ourselves in the familiar (if still a little uncomfortable) roles we both had been missing.
Even though I never brought it up, I did have a nagging question in the back of my head reargarding DISCIPLINE and PUNISHMENT. Before I had gone to live with Uncle Rod, I was never spanked. Not even by my father. However, during my time with my Uncle Rod, my bare fanny became use to being swatted. Sometimes (during the early part of my stay) it was spanked almost every day. OUCH! He didn't care if my cousin or his friends (or my friends!) were watching, he would just take care of the problem right then and there. Once he had joked (with one of my friends, Alex!) that my naked buns looked as red as "two shiney apples." It was horrible! Especially afterwards when Alex started calling me "Apple Butt." Towards the end of my stay there, however, either Uncle Rod mellowed or I became a better child, because I wasn't paddled nearly as often.
So, I was wondering what would happen now that it was just me and Mom. Would I be able to get away with more, and have the run of the place? Or would Mom decide to pick up Rod's old practice? I was quite anxious, and for some time was obsessivly good because I didn't want to find out; as crazy as it sounds now, either way kind of scared me.
Finally Mom sat me down and talked to me. Even though things between the two of us were great, she could tell I was more anxious and nervous than a little boy should be. I told her that I wanted to be good for her; I didn't want her to feel she couldn't raise me. I didn't want her to leave me again for another two years because she couldn't handle me. I then broke down crying.
She held me, and assured me that she was much better and that she regretted the two years we were apart, but that she knew deep down it was the best for both of us. In a stern tone, she also told me that she was more than able to handle me, and that what SHE wanted most of all was for me to be a normal, happy, healthy child. She again promised me that she could handle me.
Slightly relieved, I began to allow myself to be a kid again. I started hanging out with some neighbor kids, and before long I had almost forgotten about all the questions that had been bothering my little brain since we were back together.
Then, one day it finally happened. It had to, eventually. I got in trouble:
Ben, a younger boy from next door was over at my place with his twin sister, Suzanne. The three of us were playing "Batman And Robin," but somehow Ben and I got into an argument and started pushing each other around. In the middle of it, I pushed Ben into a book rack holding a vase my father had once given to Mom. The vase fell, and (as if it were in slow motion)it shattered.
All three of us stood around with our mouths hanging open in silence. Mom came downstairs in a flash and was furious when she saw what had happened. Instantly I started yelling that it wasn't my fault, and how Ben had been running round and knocked it over after I told him to calm down. Naturally Ben started defending himself, saying that I had pushed him into the case to begin with. The two of us were franticly trying to talk over each other.
Mom looked at Suzanne and asked her what happened. Little Suzy had a crush on me, and I was hoping that that was enough for her to lie for me against her own brother. Unfortunatly, she sided with her family.
"Go upstairs to your room!" Mom snapped.
"NO!" I screamed. I have no idea why I did that, except that I must have been overcome by one heckova BRAT gene. Mom looked at me and told me again, this time in a scary tone I had never heard from her before, that unless I wanted my friends to see me get a spanking, I would get to my room - PRONTO!
I gulped, looked at Ben and Suzy, and quickly remembered the humiliation of being spanked in front of Alex all those times back in North Carolina. I turned, crying, and ran up to my room, where I collapsed on my bed in tears. I thought that if I put on enough of a show, Mom might simply scold me.
Ten minutes later, she came in my room. She told me she was very dissappointed in me, and I could cry all I wanted to, but that she would have to punish me. I was then told to strip down to just my underpants and come to her room immediatly. Then she left.
I laid there for a few moments on my bed, my bottom lip treembling, as a sinking feeling filled my stomach. It took everything I had to get my shoes, socks, pants and shirt off. I slowly marched down the hall to her room where Mom was sitting on the edge of the bed.
I stood in the doorway looking very humble. I started to apologize, but she said that could wait until after...THE SPANKINGS! My eyes bulged out; was that a plural, or were my ears deceiving me. Before I could get back into the blubbering and pleading, she told me to come over and get across her lap, and the look of anger told me she was tired of fooling around.
I shuffled across the room and assumed the familiar position. Then, before I could even think about it, I felt her fingers reach inside the elastic of my underwear and peel them down to my ankles.
"Your Uncle told me how well you responded to spankings, Tom," she admitted, answering my worst fear. "Let's see if he was right."
Then her spanking began. It wasn't very hard, but it did take forever. At least a good ten minutes of SPANK / SPANK / SPANK / SPANK, in a very steady rythem that was bringing quite and unpleasant heat to my seat. The other thing that was different was that she lectured during the entire procedure about how... SPANK / SPANK / SPANK ...I needed to be more careful with things...SPANK / SPANK / SPANK ... around the house.
I was crying and carrying on by the time she finally finished. I couldn't believe that Uncle Rod had shared with her his child rearing advice, but even worse was that she was FOLLOWING THAT adivice. And so well!
I laid there and wept for a few more minutes, then as I was getting ready to get up she told me, "Not so fast, mister. There is still the issue of you lying to me."
WHAT?! I was horrified at what I thought that meant...
Then I felt the familiar touch of a paddle resting on my glowing rump, and I started crying all over again: Uncle Rod use to save the paddle for those times when we lied, and obviously he also shared that information with Mom.
SMACK! The Paddle came down hard. SMACK!! I was wiggling and shaking all over her lap. SMACK!! But she was too strong. SMACK!! I started howling bloody murder. SMACK!! My bottom was so sore, I knew now that Mom was quickly becoming a pro. SMACK!! My legs started flying all over the place SMACK! ...my underpants were kicked across the room! SMACK! I collapsed back down, a beaten man... SMACK!!...in more ways than one. SMACK!!
After five minutes of sobbing on her lap, she told me I could go get dressed. I looked into her eyes as she hugged me, and I could tell she was crying. She didn't look liked she enjoyed it any more than I did, but I could also tell that she knew it was the right thing to do.
As it turned out my friends, Suzy and Ben, were still downstairs, watching television! They were told by Mom to wait for us to get done! I was so mortified when I found out they heard the entire ordeal.
It wasn't until a few months later that I learned (as Paul Harvey would put it), "The Rest of The Story" :
It was a friendly little note from by old buddy Alex in North Carolina, who (in the middle of updating me on his life and that of my cousin and Uncle) asked if my Mom had had a chance to use "the gift" he had given her.
Hmmmmm.
I was perplexed enough to go ask Mom, and that was when she told me that right before we left my Uncle's, Alex pulled Mom aside and handed her "Tommy's Paddle."
He had told he to "use as directed," then she showed me that (in Alex's handwriting!) it said, "Apply to Tom's Bare Bottom Whenever Tom Lies." My face got so red as she showed this to me. I could not believe how much fun everyone seemed to have with me getting spanked!