The Spanking Spoon and The Lakeside1

I was primarily raised by my aunt (my mother’s older sister) until I was older, when my mom got married to my stepdad and then had my step-sister. My aunt was the single mother of my cousin Jimmy, who was a year and a half older than me. My aunt had been in her early 20s when she had her child, so she was in a slightly better position to be a mother, and she was also a nurse.  Mostly she was great and I had fun with her, but she was also a no-nonsense, ‘what I say goes’ kind of lady and a firm believer in spanking, which was going out of style in the nineties. One day, in the summer,  my aunt took us to a lake near her house to go swimming. I had just stayed with my mother for three weeks, which was a rare treat for me and as an experience was more akin to spending time with an older sister than a parent. I can imagine I was quite the nightmare by the time I was dropped back off, having had no structure or proper food for the previous weeks. This pattern would repeat throughout my childhood and it was always a difficult transition back, so as such, I’d been pushing my limits all day – riling my cousin and generally being a nuisance.