When my brother and I were children, we were lucky enough to have our dad build a tree house for us in an old beech which towered above a remote corner of our back garden. Tony and I spent hours on end in that thing, and for the most part I only have happy memories of it – apart from one particular day.
It was the long school summer holiday, we were eight and 10 respectively, and we were bored out of our minds. I’m pretty sure it was Tony who suggested running doorbells – he was two years older than me and almost always the source of trouble. Anyway, this seemed like a pretty fun idea to me. Most of our neighbours had plenty of shrubs in their front yards, so there was plenty of cover for mischievous children!
For a few minutes we caused fairly harmless havoc throughout the street, ringing the doorbells and scurrying to the cover of the bushes. Unfortunately, around five ‘knocks’ in, our luck ran out. The owner of the house, instead of being innocently occupied elsewhere, was on the very point of coming through the front door with a package and we had only gotten about 12ft away in our flight when the door opened and he saw us. If we had been actually at the door, we could probably have bluffed something, but our intent was crystal clear.
The guy yelled something inaudible but clearly angry, put the package in his car and began to advance towards us. We needed no further bidding – we took to our heels and disappeared around the corner. A few streets later, we were back home, and were sitting on the garden wall, discussing the close shave, when the guy reappeared at the top of our streets.
We rushed into the garden and up the rope ladder into the tree house. We lay there quietly, hearts beating double, looking down at the ground from our hidey-hole. Inevitably, Mom eventually appeared in the garden, with the guy himself in tow. She had evidently seen us climbing up to the tree house.
“You two! You come down here right now! I want a word with you.” Tony put his finger to his lips in an order to me to stay quiet, maybe in the vain hope that Mom would think she had been mistaken. She and the man spoke quietly for a moment, then I heard him say more audibly: “Well, I’ll leave you to deal with them.” We couldn’t hear Mom’s reply but they went back into the house and he presumably took his leave.
Presently, Mom appeared under the tree again. “Trina, Tony – I know you’re both up there and I know what you did. I’m not risking my neck to haul you down but you’d better believe that whenever you come down from that treehouse, the paddle will be waiting for your bottoms!” With that, she went back into the house.
We held out for some time, probably a couple of hours as I recall. Mom kept an old Fli-Back paddle for our misdemeanours. It produced a hot, stinging bottom and a whole bunch of tears, and I had no doubt we would be ending up getting a taste if we went down immediately. Tony reckoned if we held out for a bit, Mom’s anger would subside and we might get away with just a good scolding. In actuality, of course, our deliberate disobedience and delay was only making a few good swats of that paddle ever more sure.
Eventually, it started to rain. The tree house wasn’t really very waterproof, and our clothes soon started to soak through with the wet. We were both wearing jeans and denim in particular is a miserable material to wear when wet. I finally turned to Tony. “Come on, we better go get this over with. At least we’ll get warm and dry.” Just where we were about to get warm was another matter, of course! Anyhow, by now Tony was as fed up as I was and we skulked through the back door into the kitchen.
Mom wasn’t there but the first thing we both noticed was the paddle out on the table ready. We heard the downstairs toilet flush and Mom came into the kitchen, having evidently gone for a pee. To our dismay, there was no sign that her anger had diminished in any significant way.
“So you decided to come down and face the music at last, like honest children would? Well, better late than never. I think you had better go and change into some dry clothes first – no sense in you dying of pneumonia. As soon as you’re ready, get your butts back down here in the kitchen – the paddle is waiting for them.”
We scurried up the stairs and dispersed to our respective bedrooms. I took off all my clothes – even my panties were soaked through, I remember – towelled myself down a bit then changed into a fresh, dry set. The last thing on earth I wanted was to go downstairs for a spanking, but I knew it made no sense to keep Mom waiting any longer.
When I got back down, Mom had put two kitchen chairs out, side by side, in the centre of the room. She already had the paddle in her hand. She tapped the furthest away chair with it. “Take down your jeans and panties, and bend over there.” Tony had yet to arrive but I could hear him coming down the stairs, and blushed at the thought that he was about to see his little sister’s bare fanny and privates. I did as I was told and bent over, feeling very vulnerable.
I heard Tony’s step on the kitchen floor. Mom must have pointed at his chair, because I heard no tap this time, just: “Bare your bottom for me and bend over the chair.” Tony came to stand by me and I saw his pants come down. I got a pretty good look at his privates, too, which made me feel better, like we were even somehow. Then his face appeared next to mine, as red as my own probably was, and we briefly glanced at each other.
“Tony, move closer to your sister.” My brother shuffled to his right and I felt the side of his bare bottom touch mine. “Right – hold still while I dish this out, and I hope it teaches you both a good lesson!”
There was a pause and then we both simultaneously gave out a yelp, and Mom’s strategy at making us bend over close was now clear, as the first swat was shared evenly between my left buttock and Tony’s right. For a few hot, tearful minutes, Mom paddled us efficiently and without mercy, varying the target as she went. Sometimes just one of us would get it right across our bottom cleavage; sometimes there would be a single, hard whack to our outer buttock, then Mom would come back to the centre again and the sting would be shared between both our young bottoms.
It seemed like an age but was probably only a few minutes. You can be sure that when we were finally allowed to pull undies and pants back up, we were both very soundly spanked children. Mom handed us a tissue each to dry our eyes and we fully expected her next move would be to send us straight to bed in disgrace. However, much to our surprise, she went to put the paddle away and came back with our coats.
“Put these on! You are coming along with me to apologise! Come along, quickly – or am I gonna have to make you drop your pants again!” Naturally, that was the last thing we wanted, as our backsides were already on fire. So we were marched a few streets to the house which had been our undoing. Mom rang the bell, the guy appeared and he invited us in.
“Trina, Tony – do you have something to say to this gentleman?” We both mumbled an apology, unable to bring ourselves to look him in the face. “Well, I hope we won’t be having any more of your naughtiness in our street,” he replied. “Did your mommy spank your bottoms like she told me she would?” My mouth was dry as a bone and I could only nod – Tony managed a ‘yes, sir’.
“What do you get when you are naughty children?” This catechism was awful, but again Tony managed a reply. “We get the paddle, sir.” The man put a finger under my chin and made me look him in the eye. “And do you get it bare bottom?” I really did blush deeply then but managed to nod my head.
To our horror, instead of bringing the conversation to a close, Mom said: “I’ve actually brought them here so you can see for yourself how well they’ve learned their lesson. Go ahead, you two – turn around and take your pants and underwear down.”
Almost by now in a dream-like state, we obeyed and slipped our underpants down just enough to reveal two well-paddled bottoms.
“Well, it looks like your mommy is a good spanker. Now then, you better go and I never want to catch you doing that again, do you hear?” We both nodded, pulled our pants up and, now thoroughly humiliated, we were marched home, where we were at last sent to bed with no supper.
Just when we thought the day couldn’t get any worse, when Dad got home he came in to see each of us in turn and the paddle was used again. This time I was bare bottom over his knee. The paddling we got from Dad wasn’t as bad as Mom’s punishment, but on top of an already very sore bottom it came keen indeed.