My family was very strict – us children were expected to be respectful, and it was made very clear what would happen if we were not!
My Aunt Gracie was my dad’s older sister by about 12 years. She had three boys: Johnny, who was a year older than me; Patty, who was about six years older, and Joseph, around nine years older.
We loved each other very much and I would spend three or four days at their house several times a year. We were a large extended family and this particular weekend Auntie’s own aunt, Rosie, was also visiting them, with her daughter Catherine. Rosie was my grandma’s sister so she was my great aunt as well. Auntie loved Rosie and Catherine very much and considered Rosie a second mother, as they were all very close.
Rosie was always very critical of everything and very bitchy all day. Everyone else was able to deal with it, but I couldn’t. It was a Saturday late afternoon and when they got ready to leave, I asked Rosie: “Are you leaving now?” She replied that she was – and in particularly bratty form, I replied: “Good – everybody can’t wait for you to go home!”
Everyone was horrified and gave me a filthy look. After the visitors left, Auntie told me to go upstairs and get ready for bed because I was a very bad boy. I ran upstairs and stripped down to my briefs – I usually wore Fruit of the Loom, and we all slept in our underwear. That was all I was wearing when I heard Auntie summon me back downstairs.
I immediately obeyed and ran down the two flights of steps. Uncle John, her husband, yelled at me: “Stop running in the house! You’ll hurt yourself!”
Auntie was in the kitchen cleaning up – she ordered me to sit down. She told me: “Eddie, I love you very much and consider you one of my own, but you were a very naughty boy to have been so disrespectful to Aunt Rosie. Uncle John and all the other children are really shocked at what a bad boy you were.”
She took me by the hand and saying ‘let’s go’, she marched me into the living room, where everyone else was watching TV, including Uncle John. He regularly spanked his own boys but he was generally very kind to me and took me bowling and golfing. However, I knew he had told Auntie many times that she was too lenient with me compared with the other children. I think this must have been on Auntie’s mind when she decided to take the course of action she now did.
She walked me into the living room to her easy chair in the corner. Patty and Joseph were sitting on the sofa, Uncle John was in the other easy chair and Johnny was lying on his stomach in front of the TV. I didn’t know what was coming and I was very nervous.
Then Auntie put me firmly across her lap – I was shocked and let out a screech. She adjusted me so that my legs, shoulders and my bottom were exactly where she wanted them. I was facing Uncle John, away from Joseph and Patty. Johnny was to my side on the floor and all eyes were on me. I think this was a big surprise to them as well. Johnny sat up and faced me and his mom. Auntie told the boys turn off the TV, and they obeyed.
I held my breath because I was sure that Auntie was going to pull my briefs down – the last spanking I had been given by her was on my bare bottom, and I was positive she was going to expose me. Thankfully she didn’t, but instead instructed: “Eddie, put your hands behind your back.”
I obeyed and Auntie held both of them together with her free hand. Now I knew she was going to start, so I just looked away from Johnny, who had a big smile on his face. I closed my eyes and tensed up my legs and butt muscles. She squeezed my hands even tighter and I cried out: “I’m sorry, Aunt Gracie!” She replied: “I know you are, honey – but you have to pay for what you did.”
She started to gently rub my bottom to calm me down. It worked and when I went limp, Auntie began to spank me. I was so embarrassed at being punished in front of everyone, but I think Auntie did this to prove to Uncle John and the boys that she didn’t favour or baby me. If she had spanked me in private, they would probably have not believed it was anything significant. Now they knew, as seeing is believing! She kept squeezing my hands together and this kept me still. She spanked me very hard and many, many times.
I just lay there and took my medicine, like I had done dozens of other times with mom and dad. I was now being a very good boy and not resisting at all. This was hard, because when Auntie started the burning was mild but got hotter and hotter and spread out all over, even though she was only spanking the centre of my fanny, like my dad did.
Eventually my whole bottom was on fire anyway, and Auntie stopped and let me get off her lap. She rubbed me better and comforted me as I just stood there crying. Auntie showed me her smacking hand, which was very red from her efforts, and said: “Eddie, remember this for next time”.
She then told me to be a good boy and watch TV, so I walked over to Johnny and laid on the floor next to him on my stomach. I was glad I didn’t have to sit on my butt for a time-out!
Uncle John looked pleased with what Auntie had done, but the children looked very sorry for me. Auntie said something like ‘the show is now over’ and everyone went back to what they had been doing.
In retrospect, I think I would have preferred to have been spanked bare bottom privately. It might have stung more with each smack but at least the spanker see the effects on the child’s bottom immediately and hopefully stop sooner. With my little butt firmly in my underpants, Auntie had just gone to town until presumably her own hand hurt too much to continue the punishment.
We watched a bit of TV, then it was time for Johnny and I to go to bed. Auntie came and tucked us in, and she gave me one of the longest hugs and kisses I ever got in my life. It was much longer than what she gave Johnny.
After she left, Johnny said: “You really got it good! Good thing Aunt Rosie left already or she would have seen it. You should have started crying sooner, so she would have stopped sooner.”
I asked him if he had ever been spanked in the living room. “No – never.” I turned on my side away from him, as I didn’t want to talk anymore about it, and went to sleep with my bottom still very warm and tender.
The next day, my parents came to take me back home. Auntie informed them there had been a spanking and Mom was actually mad at Auntie for disciplining me, as she didn’t like Rosie much either. She told Auntie she had been wrong to spank me for my remark, but Auntie retorted that while I was staying at her house, I was effectively her child and she was in charge of me.
By contrast, Dad had no problem with it at all. Auntie had spanked him when he nine (she was 12 years older than him) and he felt that if it was good enough for him, it was good enough for me.
Contributor: Eddie