My parents always spanked me soundly whenever they felt it was necessary. I can’t remember what age I got my first, but it was well before I started school. Mom would generally spank me hard with her hand. However, sometimes she would take off her slipper and give it to me with that, and sometimes I got her hairbrush. My spankings were always a private affair – with the exception of one occasion. We often met with a friend of my mother’s, who also had a daughter. Alice was the same age as me but in every other way my opposite. Even as a child, Alice was always precise, perfect, tidy, obedient and polite. In my mom’s eyes, she was the perfect daughter. I just couldn’t stand her – in fact, I hated her. Alice didn’t do anything against me, but I couldn’t stand the constant comparisons my mother made between her and me. The unbearable thing was that despite the fact that I hated her, since my mother was very close to her mother, we happened to hang out very often. Another thing I despised about Alice was that, despite being the same age, she looked older than me. I definitely looked younger than my age while Alice looked appreciably older. She was taller than me, and at this age I was jealous One Sunday afternoon, like many others, we were in the park. While the mothers were chatting and having coffee, we were playing ball with other kids, in spite of the prohibition signs in every corner, the threats of the caretaker, and above all the recommendations of our mothers, who had expressly forbidden us to play with the ball. At one point, the ball rolled out of the park fence and landed on the street. Alice rushed into the road to get it, forgetting to look for cars. The first car suddenly braked so as not to run over my companion. However, the car behind rear-ended the first, and the same thing happened with the following vehicle. In an instant, all the other kids had gone, and it was just the two of us, with the ball in our hands, surrounded by angry drivers. Pretty soon the police arrived and handed us back to our mothers. As dinner had been planned for that evening at our house, and our mothers decided it wasn’t fair to scrap it on account of our misbehavior. So as soon as we got into Alice’s mother’s car, we were told that once we got home we would receive the most memorable spanking of our young lives. This caused new tears in us. All the way, we listened to lectures from our mothers, coupled with the promises of sore backsides to come. It was the first time I was going to be spanked in front of someone who wasn’t a member of the family, and it was even more irksome that it was to be right in front of that little girl I hated. The prospect of seeing Alice spanked, however, was very interesting. I knew that her mother spanked her because our mothers often talked about corporal punishment. Truth be told, it was usually my mother who talked about my punishments because Alice rarely did anything bad. As soon as we got home, our mothers sat on two chairs in the kitchen and called us. “Adrianne!” “Alice!” The tone of their voices made it clear they were not expecting any reply except complete obedience. Sobbing and trembling, Alice and I went to be punished. My eyes were full of tears and I dared not look towards the other girl, who I could hear sobbing not far from me. I hadn’t reckoned that mom would spank me in front of Alice and her mom. At home, I was use to being spanked, but never in front of anyone. My mom spanked with her right hand, while Alice’s was left-handed, so she was lying over her mother’s lap the opposite way to mine. With the chairs lined up, we could look at each other if we lifted our heads off the floor. Without further lecturing, the spanking began. That time we were really spanked a lot. We were both screaming loudly. My resolve to take my swats in silence lasted only very briefly, and Alice also quickly succumbed to screams and tears. We weren’t very different in taking our spanks after all – just as our mothers didn’t seem very different in spanking us. After a while, Alice’s mom stopped and asked my mother for a wooden spoon, because her hand ached. My mom made me get up for a moment and handed her friend the spoon, while Alice, between sobs, begged her to stop. Perhaps to equalize things, my mother took off a slipper and made me return to her lap. Then our spankings both restarted, markedly more painful than before. After this second round of swats, which seemed like an eternity to me, our moms both stopped at the same time. As soon as we had calmed down, they made us get up and we were each put in a corner of the kitchen while the mothers cooked. When dinner was ready, we were at last allowed to leave our corners. Then they made us sit at the table to have dinner. They also had the kindness to put a double cushion on our chairs. I ate my meal without taking my eyes off the plate. From that day on, things changed between Alice and me. When we next met, we were a lot closer. The experience of finding ourselves facing each other, over the knee of our mother to be spanked formed a new bond. We had looked into each other’s eyes, seen each other’s tears, screamed, and prayed in unison as our backsides were heated up more and more. It was a memorable experience – and that day, a very special, exclusive, intimate, and complicit friendship was born between me and that girl.