The last time I received corporal punishment, I was 15. I made the foolish decision to smoke at school – literally behind the bike sheds, to be fully stereotypical. I was caught and summoned to the headmaster’s office during the next lesson.
The headmaster was very straightforward about it. He told me to lower my trousers (a very rare thing at my secondary modern) and bend over the desk.
I did, and he applied eight slow, scorching lashes of the cane across my bottom. The lowest one caught my thighs, and made me yell out, which frustrated me as I’d hoped I would get through without giving him the satisfaction of me yelling. After the punishment was over, the headmaster wrote the details down in the punishment book and handed me a letter for my parents, which I was to return duly signed the next day.
Now, my parents hadn’t smacked me properly since I was about 12, and I assumed I’d have to perform some menial task or labour as punishment. I was wrong! After Mum read the letter (which I later found out not only criticised me for smoking but commended me for my bravery while being caned!), she slammed it on the kitchen table and turned to me. “It’s just not good enough, Thomas. Get up to your bedroom and wait until your dad gets home!”
Until Dad walked into the room holding his slipper, I hadn’t even guessed I’d be in for another whacking. As soon as he walked in with it, I began to speak very quickly, begging him not to slipper me at my age, to no avail – I was ordered to bare my bottom and bend over the end of the bed.
Dad let out a slow whistle when he saw the stripes on my buttocks – I’d already checked them in the lavatory, and they were real corkers – but this didn’t seem to deter him. With one hand on my back, he gave me a properly slippered bottom.
Up and down, up and down, the hard leather sole absolutely tanned me. I was crying long before it was over, shame gone as I begged him to stop, wriggling and squirming and kicking. By the time he was done, bruising was already starting to show up where the edges of the slipper had dug into my skin. The stripes from my swishing were actually paler than the surrounding skin once he was done.
Finally, Dad dropped the slipper to the floor, put his foot back in it and calmly said: “Never get caught smoking again, son.”
Contributor: Thomas