Mean Girl

Mean Girl

I ordered my cafe mocha grande and took my usual seat while waiting for my brother. As I looked out at the dreary backdrop that only a wintertime Seattle rain can provide, I contemplated our current position in life. Both of us are immensely successful in our careers, even if we are just a bit competitive with each other. Both of us acknowledge that our successes were due to our upbringing. We weren't a particularly rich family, but somehow our parents saw to it that we got a good education and my mother in particular, took pains to make sure we were exposed to the more cultured parts of life.

But it was more than education and a stimulating growth environment that turned us into the men we are today. Children so much these days have no discipline in their lives. They grow up with a freedom unknown to the youngsters of my generation. I remember quite vividly events of my upbringing as if they occurred yesterday. Children nowadays would spend many an hour in the corner with pants down, butts burning and tears streaming down their faces if they would have tried, in our household, only half of what they do today.

Today, such punishment is thought archaic and perhaps even, parents fear chastisement as child abusers if they were to consider corporal punishment for even the most major of infractions. It is not unknown for children to retain the services of a lawyer to sue their parents over disciplinary actions they deemed unfair.

In my day, even the slightest infraction was met with hairbrush or palm across raised butt. Punishment was swift, severe, and over with soon -- no grudges, no lingering memories, not psychological hang-up on either the part of the parent or the child. It was merely a fact of life. It was simply the way parents dealt with our transgressions, and we never questioned it. And it wasn't always your own parents who were the disciplinarians. Sometimes other relatives or even neighbors took quite a literal hand in your upbringing.

One particular incident sprang to mind vividly. It occurred when I was about 11 and my brother was 9. That was the period when my mother was in the hospital and dad was spending all of his waking hours between work and visiting her. My bother and I spent many of our afternoons in the care of my aunt Clara. On the particular afternoon in question, aunite also went to visit mother and my brother and I were left in the care of our cousins Emily and Pamela. Emily was a mere year older than me, and Pamela was a year on the other side of my birth date.

One year might not seem like such a difference as we reckon things today, but at the tender age of 11, it means a lot. She was on the verge of going into middle school, while the rest of us were grade school children. Besides, although I was a lot smarter than her in school, Emily knew things then about the world and how it works which I still do not understand.

My only exposure to the fairer sex at this time was by means of surreptitious borrowings of my father's Playboys. Unlike other boys of my age, I actually did read the articles. However, the pictures held a natural curiosity for a lad of my age whose hormones were developing faster than his brain. My younger brother also became somewhat precocious on the subject through his association with me.

On the morning in question, I had managed to purloin my father's latest issue. Unfortunately, my father did not leave for work until after my brother and I left for school, and I did not get the opportunity to thief, in reverse, the publication back into his lower drawer. I had no choice but to stash the magazine in my attache case. I managed to avoid getting caught with it in school by both the teachers and the bullies, but I let down my guard much too early as I reported with kid-brother in tow to my aunt's house for post-school activities and dinner.

Our parents, of course, insisted that homework be done before any idle pursuits. It was Emily's duty to see to it that us younger children discharged our duties faithfully. Therefore, I took up my usual station at the dining room table opposite Pamela. My younger cousin seemed to be particularly playful that day, and more than once was admonished by her older sister for her animated antics in the house.

"If you don't stop," Emily warned, "I'll have to give you a spanking."

These words played thrillingly on my spine. The thought of my prissy, 10-year-old cousin laid across her sister's lap in token humiliation invoked an exciting reaction in my stomach and other parts of my anatomy. There was something about watching someone else getting a spanking that was thrilling and forbidden. I never actually saw someone get a spanking, but I was ear-witness, through the bedroom door, to a number administered to my brother by dad. How embarrassing it must be to actually have someone else see you! Like the women in the Playboy, spankings were something I had never seen "in the flesh."

I contrived for Pamela's boisterousness to cause trouble with hopes that her sister would, indeed, be forced to live up to her word and spank her. I arranged my attache case in such a way that it obstructed the path by which she was running. She fell into my trap nicely. As she was imitating a cheerleader, Pamela knocked over my attache case sending the contents flying and dispersing them across the floor with a clatter.

It was then that I observed the weak point in my plan. Emily entered the room to investigate the commotion only to trip over the Playboy. I had contrived in my own downfall. The turn of events happened for the worse for me!.

The transgressions of her sister forgotten immediately, Emily seized the magazine. "What is this, young man," she asked. The purpose of her question was not immediately apparent -- the magazine was clearly titled. I read beyond the question and pondered if my rights under the 5th Amendment applied in this instance.

"Where did you get this," she said continuing her interrogation.

"I ... I ... I got it from dad?"

"Oh, and what did `dad' say when he gave it to you?"

"I ... err ... didn't exactly ... I mean, I just took it."

"You mean you STOLE it. Don't you?"

I looked down at my toes blushing. By this time my kid brother was drawn into the tableau, his curiosity and baser desires piqued by my demise. Even Pamela was giggling in surpressed mirth.

"Answer me, boy!" Emily commanded.

"Yes, ma'am" -- MA'AM! So commanding was her voice that it seemed natural to address her as "ma'am" -- a mere girl barely 12 months my superior.

"Do you have any idea of what your father will do to you when he finds out?"

I had more than an idea. If memory served me correct, and at that age, it always did, dad could be quite stern when he had a matter of discipline to dispense.

"What have you got to say for yourself?" My interrogatrix continued.

I had nothing to say other than, "Dear God! Please send us an earthquake right now to open the ground I stand on and swallow me."

Divine intervention was, however, not forthcoming and I stood, seemingly alone, awaiting my consequences. I noted a sudden devious glint in my cousin's eye and it sent shivers down my back.

"You know," she said apparently choosing her words carefully, "There's no reason for your father to ever find out about this."

I looked at her with hope. Salvation was at hand.

"Your father would probably give you a whipping ... if you're going to get one, why not get it now and get it over with?"

My mind fathomed the possibilities ... but who would do the spanking? As if reading my mind Emily said, "Pamela caught you, and Pamela can punish you." I noted that the younger girl's eyes flared as if to say, "Can I sis? Please, I'll show you what a good job I can do spanking him."

I contemplated my predicament, and considered that Pamela was merely a young girl who, although in relatively good physical condition, could not hit as hard as my father. So I opted for immediate punishment. Besides, neither Pamela nor Emily had an economic impact on my allowance.

Emily lead Pamela and me to the davenport in the living room. She directed Pamela to sit and told me to prepare to receive my punishment. I assumed my position over the girl's lap. At this very moment it occurred to me how humiliating this was. Dad, a man, had always been the one to inflict corporal punishment on me. Now I was about to be spanked by a girl ... not only a girl, but a younger girl!

"How worse can it get," I thought. I soon found out. Emily helped her sister get me draped over her lap and then jerked down my pants! The spanking was going to be bare-assed. I glanced at my brother. He was watching with a mixture of glee at seeing me humiliated, and of shock and shame at seeing me humiliated by a girl. For all he knew, he could be next.

It seemed like hours before the spanking began. I had a lot of time to think about the predicament I was in -- half naked over a 10-year-old girl's lap. My entire body was confused with sensations. My rear-end felt so exposed and cold, yet the rest of me was sweating.

Emily broke the silence, "What are you waiting for, girl? Give it to him."

SMACK! Pamela's hand met my left cheek squarely. It was painful, to be sure, and I could feel the heat rising to the surface even as she pulled her hand away. But the physical pain was relatively minor. Dad could hit much harder. Yet Pamela's smacks hurt more. They didn't hurt my body so much as they hurt my spirit. Dad had a right to spank me. Pamela ... well, I just didn't know,

SMACK! She landed another spank on the opposite cheek. I looked over to Emily and noted the self- satisfying smirk on her face. She was offering encouragement to her sister. "That's the way, Pamela. He deserves this. He's been naughty, and a proper punishment is in order."

Emily's words hurt more than the spanking. She continued, this time addressing me. "You've been a very bad boy. I don't know what you were thinking about looking at pictures of naked women, but I am sure it wasn't nice. Well, you know what? That girl only had to pose for the camera. Sure, her *picture* will be seen by millions of men, but she won't. She'll never know who has seen her and who hasn't. You have to live with this every day from now on. Every time you come over here or every time we go to your house, you'll remember this day."

"How prophetic," I thought. Emily still has that little smirk around me at family gatherings.

Emily's words simulated a cacophony of thoughts in my mind. My mind couldn't reconcile the mixture of emotions it was experiencing. I was naked. I was naked before my brother, a younger boy. I was naked before Emily, a girl and I was naked before Pamela, both younger and a girl. I was also on the end of a very humiliating exercise. Yet there was a certain thrill in all of this.

SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! -- countless times Pamela's hand met my buttocks. She seemed quite pleased at her position as my disciplinarian. My audience, even my kid brother, a member of my own sex who should have sympathized with me better, were enjoying themselves in my misery.

My logical mind tells me that my punishment consisted on only a dozen or so strokes and had a duration of mere minutes. However, at the moment of accepting these strokes I could have sworn that the number approximated a thousand, and the duration was days. Was there to be no end to Pamela's spanking?

How could this happen to me? Perhaps I should have accepted punishment over my father's knee rather than at my younger cousin's knee. To be spanked by a young girl! How could I be talked into such a thing?

Yet there was something about the experience that was exciting. I can't think about it today without feeling a certain thrill. It's about wishes and getting them. Sometimes they hold surprises that are both terrifying and exciting all at the same time.

I was so deep in my thought, musing over my mocha, that I was only vaguely aware of the figure standing before me. In slow recognition, I raised my head and greeted my brother, "Niles!" "Frasier!" he responded.