My father told me to fetch the slipper from the green box in his bedroom closet. He also told Felipe to go to his room. As my brother closed his door, he whispered to me “Good luck,” which I really appreciated. When I had the slipper, I stopped off in my bedroom to resignedly remove my knickers, knowing I had no chance of keeping them on downstairs.

“Right, young lady. Ten swats for fighting at school. Same position as before. Don’t move.”

I bent over the table, and braced myself. It wasn’t as comfortable a position as the previous year. I was taller. I spared my dad the trouble and pulled my dress up to expose my bottom.

Crack! The first swat landed, terrifically hard. It stung and I remember wishing that Felipe was there too. We’d been punished together age ten and having someone sharing the experience had been comforting. This time, with my bottom receiving my dad’s undivided attention, it felt lonelier.

I gasped as the second stroke landed right where the first had. It was getting hot back there and no mistake. The sound echoed around the house. There was no way my brother wouldn’t be able to hear it. The fourth stroke landed higher, near my spine. My bottom was, shall we say, feeling very much alive at this point.

The slipper was hurting far more than I’d imagined it ever could. Perhaps my memory was playing tricks but this felt much worse than the first time. I closed my eyes. Stroke number six struck hard and low, and this time the floodgates opened. I began to cry. My dad saw my shoulders shaking and paused.

“Get on with it, please,” I whimpered.

The next was right across the middle of my stinging bum. I was crying, but my dad was not easing up. He was really going for it and striking me as hard as he could. Just a second later, I closed my eyes and tried to think of something else to take my mind off it, sort of tune out of the experience until it was over. I tried to imagine myself lying on the beach, but it didn’t work so I tried picturing Pilar bent over her kitchen table.

The next was so hard I was thrown forward and any illusion was shattered. I was still, unmistakably, being spanked. The last one landed with as much force as any of the others. The slipper had left the skin of my bottom feeling like I’d held it close to a fire for ten minutes.

I have only a dim memory of my dad giving me permission to stand. I slouched up to my room and closed the door to have a good cry.

Half an hour later, my brother knocked and I put a dressing gown on and let him in. He’d brought me some sweets and we hugged. I told him about the slippering and he told me, for the first time, what his second one had been like. He told me his bottom had been so sore he’d been unable to sit for two days. We agreed that we would try to make it the last time the dreaded black slipper appeared.