My dad wasn’t very subtle. To him the shortest distance
between two points was a straight line. Always. Get under his feet and you got
a clip around the ear, spend too long in the bath and he would pull out the
plug and run the cold tap. Make him angry and he’d threaten you with his belt. He
was either too busy or too stupid for fatherly negotiations. Seeing as he was
deputy manager at the local bank I assume it was the former. That and the fact
that he didn’t like boys. Or that is what I thought. I had three sisters, all
around my age, but he never clipped them around the ear, never ran cold water
in their baths. And he never threatened them with his belt. That was saved for
me. And it wasn’t an idle threat. I had felt it and feared it. If the shortest
distance was a straight line then, when angry with me, my dad saw my behind and
his belt as the two telling points. He would reason with my sisters when they
transgressed, he would see their point of view, and he would readily forgive.
With me when I went too far it was upstairs, pants off, and belt across my
bottom. Practically before I had time to draw my breath and protest. If I
cried, as I did, it was as much for the injustice as for the pain in my burning
behind.
I reckon I was about eight the first time he took his belt
off to me. Sounds shocking now but you must remember this was the 1950s. Things
were different then, both at home and at school. Boys feared teachers for their
canes and slippers and fathers for their belts but it did not stop them getting
into mischief. Being whacked was normal, part of growing up. And soon
forgotten. I feared my father, even though I got to like him in his old age,
because of our different sizes and that belt around his waist. A constant
reminder of pain it was thick and strong and the first time he undid it for me
and slipped it out of his trouser loops I realised its special significance. He
had often threatened me with it. About time you felt my belt boy, he would say.
And I would run away and pray that he didn’t follow me. His hand, occasionally
used, had been bad enough. Suddenly, in anger, he would hold me by the arm and
give me six or so hard whacks across my short trousers with his hand. A quick
lesson for something I had done or not done. But never the belt, even though
threatened. Until, one day, when I crossed some divide and the points between
the straight lines crystallised in ultimate disciplinary fire.
I can remember what I had done. And remembering I suppose I
deserved what I got. I had bitten my six year old sister on the arm. And she
screamed. And no one, not even Hammer horror film stars, could scream like my
little sister. If there was an Oscar for overreaction she would have won it.
Every time. Can’t remember what led to it but given that my slightly older
sisters backed up the constantly screaming sibling, I was tried and condemned
almost before my flush faced father arrived to investigate the fuss. I saw his
belt being drawn out of his trousers and I joined in with my own pitiful cries.
The last thing I remember before pitifully running to my bedroom was my father
saying that this was not before time, to whom I do not know, and my younger
sister’s screaming suddenly ceasing. Nice actress, but her timing was awful.
I threw myself down, still sobbing, onto my bed which was
probably a stupid thing to do. As I have said my dad did not waste time. He was
in my room in seconds. And there were no lectures, no standing to respectful
attention, no this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you. No gathering of
the facts which may or may not be how they momentarily appeared. This was him
in full flow and a father’s belt would now do to his boy’s behind what it would
do many times over the next few years. He pulled down my short trousers, elasticised
waist so no difficult task, and did the same to my underpants. Lift up your
shirt he said, he always said this, and keep your hands away. I think he had a
theory that me holding on to my shirt made his task easier. Whatever the theory
it certainly presented him with a completely uncovered bare bottom. And the
moment the shirt rose he whacked his belt across my offered behind with a
frequency and intensity that created a fire that only eight year old boys can
understand. I screamed and screamed and screamed. Pleading for a forgiveness
which I knew would not come. Not from him, not my sisters, or unseen neighbours
who must have heard. A boy is having his behind belted; he must have done
something very wrong. He whacked his belt into my bottom about twenty or thirty
times, that was the usual number, and my only consolation is that I never let
go of the shirt. I struggled, I turned away and was pulled back, and I begged
to be let off. And I pulled the shirt down only to have it and my arms pulled
back. But I never let go. If this was a special, traditional, battle between a
boy and his dad then at least I would have that small victory.
He had trod his straight line and his belt returned to its
alternative use and I tried to ease my wounds. Little hands rubbed into an
equally small behind in a futile attempt to ease the throbbing and lessen the
fire. I remained in my room for about half an hour, sobbing for most of it, but
eventually recovered. Within hours it would almost be forgotten and by the next
day it was as if it had never happened. Until the next time. And it was always
the belt, not like at school with canes, and always on the bare. And if I can
remember the first time the belt left his trouser loop for my correction I
cannot remember the last. But it happened, infrequently, for a few years. My
eldest sister says it stopped when he caught me looking at the results in the
bathroom mirror when I was about twelve. This was many years later and I can’t
remember if it is true. But it sounds as if it ought to be. Bare behinds being
whacked was an essential, if unwelcome, part of my childhood.
To Come :- The Deviant Duo (An FF/M kidnapping tale.)