I grew up in the Midwest during the early 60s and corporal punishment was widely practised at the time, especially by the mothers in the neighbourhood. On more than one occasion, I ended up bare bottomed across my mother’s knee getting a good dose of her infamous hairbrush.
When I was 12, my mother died suddenly and that left me and my father on our own. Since my father worked and sometimes had to travel for business reasons he asked Miss Tucker, our next door neighbour, to take care of me after school and when he was away on business. She was a good friend of my mother’s and especially fond of me, so she agreed to do it.
Miss Tucker was a teacher at the local high school. She was in her mid 30s but had never been married. I found this strange since she was very attractive; a sentiment that was shared by many of my friends in the neighbourhood. When they found out that I was going to spend so much time with her, they started razzing me but deep down, I knew they were just jealous.
Right after I turned 13, I started hanging around with a more rowdy crowd. I started to get into more trouble at school and my grades started to deteriorate. I had many discussions with both my father and Miss Tucker about shaping up, but it just went in one ear and out the other. I figured that since I was 13 now, no-one could do anything about it. Then, one day, all of my problems came to a head.
My father was out of town on business and I had got into a fight at school. The school principal called Miss Tucker that night and told her what had happened. After she hung up the phone, she told me to go upstairs and get ready for bed, and that she was going to call my father to see how he wanted to handle it.
I went upstairs and got into my PJs. About 15 minutes later, I heard Miss Tucker call me downstairs. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I was a bit puzzled. I didn’t see her in the living room. Then I heard her call out: “In here, Jim”.
As I walked into the kitchen, my jaw dropped. Miss Tucker was seated on one of the kitchen chairs with my mother’s hairbrush in her lap. Evidently, my father had given it to her before he left on his business trip.
She looked down in her lap and said: “Do you recognise this?” I looked at the hairbrush and nodded. “Good – then you know what it’s for, don’t you?” Again, I nodded – I was speechless.
She told me to come over to her, which I did. For some reason, I didn’t seem to have any control over myself. As I was standing in front of her, she reached out to grab hold of the waistband of my PJs.
I pulled away from her and said: “Not bare!” She told me that she had talked with my father and he told her that my mother had always done it that way, and it had evidently worked well in the past and should work just as well now. She told me that if I didn’t accept it, she’d tell my father and he promised he’d whip my butt with the belt every day for a week when he returned.
When she motioned me toward her, I had little choice but to comply. She reached out again and this time I didn’t interfere. She hooked her fingers in my PJ bottoms and pulled them down to my knees. My face turned beet red. She just smiled and guided my over to her side.
She then picked up the hairbrush and patted her knee. I knew only to well that this was my cue to lie across it, which I reluctantly did. She lectured me for about a minute while I was across her lap, which was even more embarrassing. She then wrapped her free arm around my waist and proceeded to turn my bare bottom the colour of two ripe tomatoes.
I was bawling like a baby by the time she was finished. When it was over, she helped me off her lap and gave me another short lecture before pulling my PJ bottoms back up and sending me off to bed.
Needless to say, that little episode put me back on track.
Contributor: Jim