Hugh, My Aunt, and I (M/m - F)

This storyline was inspired by a suggestion from a reader of this blog. A boy being caned by a man whilst a woman watches. Always looking for twists so happy to oblige. Might be the last new story for a little while as other projects will be taking up my time for the next month or so. I shall naturally find space in my busy schedule for occasional CP activity but writing about it is unlikely. In the interim I shall search my archive for a suitable old one for your entertainment. If I fail I can always give myself six of the best on your behalf. Perhaps I can find a woman to watch. Alfred Roy


Hugh, my aunt, and I

I lived with my aunt for three years. Three wonderful years from the summer of 1972 to the spring of 1975. It would have been for longer, much longer, but she died unexpectedly shortly after Easter of my last year. A minor operation, or it seemed minor at the time, went wrong and she never recovered. It threw my life into turmoil and I joined my parents in New Zealand. That had been the original plan when I was thirteen but, on reflection, they placed me with my mother’s sister until I was eighteen. I never knew the reasons, other than educational ones, but I didn’t mind. I loved my quirky aunt and we had those three wonderful years referred to. And then she died and at sixteen, rather than eighteen, I emigrated to the land of sheep and kiwis. But I never forgot her, never forgot her sense of fun, her outrageous habits and friends, and her all embracing warmth. Those three years were the best of my young life.

We lived in her rambling cottage on the edge of the town where I went to school. Here she indulged her two passions, or the two I knew about, horticulture and writing. She combined both and earned a healthy income from various magazines and books. Purely for pleasure she took a stall at the local market once a month and these Sundays were a constant highlight for me. Eager to help I piled sundry flowers and fruit and vegetables into her rickety old van, she also had a very posh car, and accompanied her. Except in really bad weather the four hours on the stall were great fun. She knew everybody and sold an awful lot of her stuff. Partly because it was very good and partly, as I soon realised, she was a bit of a local celebrity. Her gardening books sold well, locally and nationwide, and the folks of our extended village took extra pleasure at her personal camaraderie with them. And she had no fancy airs about her. Always immaculately dressed, even on market days, and beautifully made up my aunt oozed success and charm. A striking tall brunette of around forty five with a lovely smile and sharp wit, the men of any age were eager small boys when she was around. It is hardly surprising that this impressionable young teenager fell heavily in love with her. Before a month had gone by. My aunt was the perfect woman. And never more so than at the end of those long and tiring Sundays when she cooked a sumptuous meal and served up an intoxicating wine. And allowed me to share it. My mother would have had a fit but, as my aunt said, my mother was in New Zealand. Doing things with sheep.

Given her busy life there did not seem much room for personal relationships. But I knew she had some. I had been living with her about three months when her daily help, a middle aged and taciturn lady named Thelma, told me that my aunt had been married. Once. A long time ago. Didn’t work out. Left him after three months and eventually saved enough to buy the cottage we were living in. Seeing as Thelma was generally very pleasant but uncommunicative I was grateful for this sudden abundance of information. It came about during a conversation I had with her about Hugh. I asked if she thought Hugh was special. To my aunt. No idea, she said, your aunt has many male friends. She said it in such a way that I knew that further information would not be forthcoming. When I persisted, supping the soup she had made on a forced absence from school, she said my aunt was a very independent lady. Always had been. And that is when I discovered she had once been briefly married. But I learnt nothing more about Hugh.

I had reasons for asking about Hugh. He was almost as taciturn as Thelma but seemed very nice and about the same age as my aunt. They got on very well and he had clearly known her for a number of years. He lived in the village and was deputy headmaster of a local school. Not the one I went to. He came to us once a week for an evening meal and helped out in my aunt’s enormous garden most weekends. So I got to know him quite well. At first I was a bit nervous of him but if he had a school manner he never brought it to the cottage and I gradually relaxed in his company. Most weekends I helped him in the garden, doing jobs that my aunt found too difficult or tiresome, and occasionally did some work on his. He always paid me for that and gave a much needed boost to my pocket money. After a while I got to enjoy the midweek evening meals with him. My aunt was a great cook and great fun. And wine flowed liberally even if, just turned fourteen, I was only allowed one small glass. Hugh and my aunt consumed the rest of the bottle and by the time we had filled the dish washer everyone was thoroughly relaxed. So much so that on one particular evening Hugh commented on it. I so look forward to these evenings, he said. So nice to get away from kids. My aunt laughed. And then you get this one plonked on you, she said. Oh he’s different, Hugh said, much older and so grown up. And, thankfully, not in awe of me. My aunt laughed again. I think he was at first, she said, till he realised that you were just a silly sausage. She gave him a peck on the forehead and for a moment the room went silent. That’s because you told him I was a deputy headmaster, Hugh said. You should have told him I was a bricklayer. He looked at me and winked. Either that or a chimney sweep. My aunt laughed again. And why is that, she said, is it because chimney sweeps are not renowned for caning schoolboys and your profession are? Hugh winked at me again. Better ask him, he said. I said nothing and fifteen minutes later went to bed. They were still talking and laughing when, much later, I fell asleep.

Hugh was right. I had been in awe of him when I first realised he was part of my aunt’s life. An important part it seemed. The discovery that he was a local deputy headmaster unnerved me. The only time in my life that I had been caned was by a deputy headmaster when I was eleven. A painful three strokes across my short trousers for playing truant with two friends. We probably deserved it but it made me cry and a bit fearful of such figures. I took a while to accept Hugh purely as a friend and no threat to my person. Hugh is lovely, my aunt said to me after one hectic market day, and desperate to marry me. He knows it will spoil what we have but he still persists when he has had too much wine. Usually apologises the next day. The day he doesn’t apologise I shall worry, she said. Means he is serious. She laughed and looked at me in an adult way. But he knows I have many friends and that you can be special without being exclusive. I thought I understood. Thelma had, with much prodding, told me a little more about Hugh. Married to my aunt’s best friend, also a schoolteacher, who suddenly upped and left him about seven years before. Bit of a shock. Took him a long time to get over it but now besotted with my aunt. Men, she sniffed, and her sniff spoke volumes to my tender ears.

I had been living with my aunt for about a year when we had our first emotional crisis. There were only two and this first sets the scene for what followed, more painfully, a year or so later. A boy at school, he was much older than me, had been caught in possession of drugs and it caused a right stink. The staff searched the whole school and many more were found. Including two sinister looking pills in my desk. The boy, a sixteen year old, was caned and suspended for a month and the rest of us were issued with warning letters and suspended for a week. Eleven boys were sent home to face the domestic consequences. I can’t speak for the other boys but my half an hour with my aunt was distressing. Not so much for what she said but for the fact that she was clearly upset. Knowing I was the cause was more painful than anything she said. The fun loving woman I revered and loved was clearly hurt and I, briefly, loathed myself. She read the letter, she had to sign it, and sat down. For the first time since I moved into her cottage I saw a sorrowful face.

‘Drugs.’ she said, ‘How could you?’

‘I didn’t. I didn’t take any.’

‘Then why did you have them?’

‘I don’t know. He gave them to me.’

‘Gave?’

‘Yes. For five pounds.’

‘So you bought them?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Don’t be stupid. You must know why you bought them.’

‘I don’t. I suppose it was because everyone else bought some.’

‘Everyone?’

‘Most of them.’

‘So not everyone was stupid?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Just you?’

‘No, lots of us.’

It went on like this for about ten minutes. The constant questioning. Why I had bought them, what I had intended to do with them, did I know what they were? I told her that they were called speed, amphetamines, and her overreaction moved to a new level. Did I know what they could do? Did I know how harmful they were? Did I know the misery they could cause? I mumbled something in inadequate defence but it had little effect. She was just glad that they had been found. I said I should have thrown them away when teachers started getting boys to turn out their pockets. Putting them in my desk was a daft thing to do. So that would have made it better, she said. She didn’t shout or raise her voice but anger was being added to distress. Not being found out, this time, would mean everything was all right. I didn’t answer. Given how she felt I reckon I had used up every excuse. I went to bed with a heavy heart.

She gradually calmed down over the next few days and by the middle of my enforced week’s suspension she was back to her normal self. Her only reference to having me under her feet, trying to finish a delayed magazine article, was a half serious wish for an alternative punishment. Would have made my life easier if you had been caned instead of being kicked out, she said. I think she had mellowed because the day after the uncomfortable interview with her I bought her some chocolates and, apologising profusely, vowed that I would never take drugs. She smiled and gave me a warm kiss on the cheek but said nothing. Hugh filled in a few gaps for me a week or so later when we were repairing some broken fencing in her garden. Things back to normal are they, he asked, whilst rectifying my pitiful attempt to hammer in a new post. I nodded and he said something I suspected. My aunt had admitted to him that she had overreacted when reading my suspension letter. Can’t blame her though, he said, given her history. Lost a brother to drugs when she was in her teens and they were the main cause of her broken marriage. So my easy going aunt had one, understandable, blind spot. I was musing on this when Hugh added a small rider. Better be careful, young man, he said. Your aunt loves you to death but, last week, she was seriously wishing that the school had caned you as well as the other boy. That way there would be pain for both of you she said. He hammered in the post, laughing as he did so, and I noticed his strong arms.

I turned fifteen just before that Christmas and as a special, pre-arranged, treat we flew to New Zealand for two weeks to see my parents. They were based in Auckland as both worked at the university and it was a wonderful time of sightseeing and festivities. Spending Christmas day on a beach in swimming trunks seemed weird but fun. Even my folks, nice but serious academics, only frowned slightly when my aunt poured me some wine at an impromptu barbecue. He’s growing up, she said, and I am sure my mother looked a little sad at this obvious comment. It was the only time in all my formative years that she showed a hint of regret. I loved my parents, but I loved them in the way all dutiful, middle class, boys loved brainy parents. Unreserved but restrained. With my aunt it was different. She took life by the throat and squeezed out all its pleasures, all its fun. Two sisters were never so unlike. Their only common ground seemed to be me and for two weeks I was constantly torn. Much as I enjoyed being with them, especially my dad who loved sailing and fishing and was almost as quiet as the absent Hugh, I wasn’t sorry to come home. And England was my home. Both my parents sensed that. Dad even said so at the airport when they came to see us off. See you in the summer, he said, at your home. See where you are growing up. That was all. Then a weak hug and a tearful kiss from mother and we went to check in for the flight. My aunt slept for the first five hours of the journey. I sat next to her thinking of my parents and all the things that none of us had said. 1974 had started on a strange and unsettling note.

It was shortly after our return, about a week or so, that I saw the first hint of a strain between my aunt and Hugh. I suspected he had proposed to her again after too much consumption of wine and, this time, had not apologetically retracted the next day. The normally uncommunicative Thelma put me right on that. Trouble at his school, she said. And he was a bit soft on the culprits, she added, or so I gather from your aunt. She didn’t say anything else. One titbit from Thelma had to last you for a month. I can’t say as I was that interested but when Hugh didn’t turn up for the next Wednesday evening meal, or help out in the garden, I did ask my aunt if they had fallen out. She seemed surprised at the question as, apparently, he was on some Headmaster’s residential course. Thinking about my question she added that adults often disagree. Makes for healthy relationships, or should do. Hugh came back the following week and everything seemed to be as normal. He looked a bit stressed at first, school and seminars are a bad mix he said, but copious wine and my aunt’s food and personality soon relaxed us all. It was towards the end of the meal that I discovered what had caused the brief friction between them. Two boys at his school had been caught breaking in to the tuck shop and other than calling in the local bobby to give them a cautionary tongue wagging, Hugh had taken no action. He felt that was enough even though, as my aunt pointed out, the last boy he was soft on finished up in an offenders institution. My aunt, clearly right wing for all her hedonistic propensities, felt that the boys should have been caned. That might nip it in the bud, she said, just as it might have done for the boy sent down. Hugh’s a big softie, she said, that’s his trouble. She rose as she said it and kissed him affectionately on the forehead to indicate that, to her, the matter was closed. When she left to get the puddings Hugh said that they always disagreed on such matters. He paused, deciding if he should say anything else. It’s all to do with her brother, he said, the one who died. He got put in an institution, family black sheep, that’s how he got on to drugs. I was reflecting on this when my aunt returned. You two look serious, she said. Hugh, trying to lighten the mood, said that we were discussing naughty schoolboys and what to do with them. And what would you have done with them, my aunt suddenly said, looking at me. I looked at her, thinking of institutions and drugs and folks treading on a slippery slope if not stopped. I suppose, I said, I suppose I would have had them caned. See, said my aunt, clearly vindicated, and that’s from the mouth of a schoolboy. I went to bed that night convinced I was almost as right wing as my aunt.

I was to reflect on this conversation three months later. After Hugh caned me. You could say that I had talked myself into it. You could also say that, in a strange way, that he was trying to prove something to my aunt and I was the unfortunate victim. Either way, I probably deserved what happened. It was very painful and, given the circumstances, very humiliating. But it never happened again and was never referred to. Except by my aunt, two days after it happened. And then I truly understood. I had got into trouble at school again. Anything other than drugs and there would have been no repercussions at home. Drink, sex, gambling and blasphemy or obscenity she would have understood, if not condoned, and stealing or violence she would hope the authorities, including school, would take seriously. None were her direct concern. But drugs. That was my aunt’s Achilles heel, the one topic on which she was stoically intransigent. I didn’t buy any and I didn’t take any. But I did something which, in hindsight, was incredibly stupid. I supplied a boy who needed a fix. It wasn’t how it sounds. I was, almost, an innocent bystander. That’s why I got off with a caution from the police in my headmaster’s study. But it was drugs, and I was involved and my aunt got a letter from the school. I tried to explain the circumstances to her but she wasn’t listening. I tried to explain that the boy supplying them gave them to me to give to a boy who was being carefully watched, and he threatened me if I did not comply. I tried to explain that I only had them in my possession for about ten minutes and all concerned, when caught, confirmed this. I tried to make her understand but she wasn’t listening. All she said was that she would talk to Hugh and see what he said. I went to bed, crying because of the upset I had caused her, and stayed in my room until the next morning. The last thing I heard was her talking to Hugh on the phone. There was no laughter.

It was seven o’clock the following evening that I found myself standing in Hugh’s study. This was his home, not his school, and it was only the second or third time I had been there. If the first two visits were pleasant, Sunday lunches, I feared this one wouldn’t be. My aunt had made that very clear when she told me not to change out of my school uniform as we were going to Hugh’s house at seven. It wasn’t for a meal as we had an early one at home. My appetite was low because I knew the reason for the visit. I had no idea of what would take place there because my aunt did not discuss it but I knew I was in trouble. She had been exceptionally frosty over breakfast and only slightly less so over our early dinner. All she said was that we were going over to Hugh’s house and she expected my full co-operation. And then we were there. Hugh standing, uncomfortably, by his desk and my aunt sitting in an easy chair. I, not being told differently, stood respectfully in the centre of the room. Hugh might be a family friend but there, in his private study, he looked every inch the deputy headmaster. And when he spoke he sounded like one.

‘Have you anything to say about this letter?’ he asked.

I sensed the slight trembling in his voice.

‘I have explained to my aunt the circumstances.’ I said, as deferentially as I could.

‘I know. She has told me.’

Hugh paused, searching for the right words.

‘Why did you not hand the drugs over?’

‘I did.’

‘I mean to the authorities, the school.’

‘I was scared. I had been threatened.’

‘By a fellow pupil.’

‘By a hefty sixteen year old thug with a bad reputation.’

‘Would you have handed over a gun?’

It was my aunt, interrupting. I turned to her and her face looked almost as flushed as I am sure mine was.

‘No.’

‘Why?’

‘It might be dangerous.’

‘And drugs aren’t?’

I felt the ground shift under my feet. If I had a credible defence it had just collapsed.

Hugh coughed, and continued his questioning.

‘Did you know that the boy you gave the drugs to is an addict?’

‘No.’

‘Would it have made any difference if you had known?’

I was trapped. If I said that it would not have then I was showing a degree of callousness and if I said it would have I was therefore calculating my actions. I repeated the only defence I had.

‘I told you, he threatened to beat me up.’

‘Lots of boys threaten to beat each other up. It doesn’t make them all commit crimes.’

‘It wasn’t a crime. Not really.’

‘You were cautioned by the police. They obviously think it was.’

‘And so do I. Almost the worst sort of crime.’

It was my aunt again and, much as I loved her, in this unrelenting mood I almost feared her. Drugs were her bête noire and, with her help, Hugh was certainly getting into his stride. The veil of friendship was being lifted and the deputy headmaster was taking its place. Was it in the guise of one whom my aunt would approve? Suddenly, with this thought, I knew why I was there. They were going to cane me. Or at least Hugh was, with my aunt’s blessing and urging and, presumably, in her presence. That was the logical conclusion of all that had gone before. I was going to be caned for my minor misdemeanour. Because of the emotional baggage it carried in my aunt’s life and because it allowed Hugh to show he wasn’t soft. I was a sacrificial lamb in more ways than one and my bottom had to suffer for the cause. The enormity of this discovery made my legs tremble and my breath come in short bursts. I went for the jugular.

‘Are you going to cane me?’

‘Do you think you deserve it?’

‘No.’

‘Then why do you ask?’

‘Because I know my aunt wants it?’

‘But you don’t think you deserve it. You don’t think you deserve to be caned because all you did was accept drugs from a fellow pupil. All you did was give those drugs to another pupil, a pupil hooked on such things, and all you did was not tell the authorities. All you did, if you had not been found out, was to allow such things to continue. All you did, by your compliance and silence, was to let such matters carry on. Carry on to their inevitable future consequences. But you don’t deserve to be caned?’

I could not help thinking that my aunt would approve and silently applaud Hugh’s speech. He had wrapped me up like a Christmas turkey and I had nowhere to hide. I could feel the tears swelling as I considered the inevitable.

‘If you put it like that then I do deserve to be caned.’

I threw down my only, last, hope.

‘But you wouldn’t cane the boys at your school. In the same circumstances you would not cane them.’

‘This is not the same circumstances. You know that. Your aunt loves you very much.’

He hesitated.

‘You are the most important person in her life. More important than anyone, and...’

He hesitated again, carefully choosing his words.

‘And you are important to me. So much so that I agree, reluctantly, that your aunt is right. You may not think so, but a caning will do you good. It will make you think like no other punishment can.’

He turned away, exhausted by all he had said and for a moment there was silence in the room. Eventually my aunt spoke. Her voice was calm but stern.

‘Hugh is right. It will teach you a lesson that you will never forget. And hopefully you will learn from it. You are only fifteen; it is the best way boys learn. In a year or so it will be too late.’

She paused.

‘I want Hugh to cane you. I want him to cane you severely for what you have done. One day you will thank me for it.’

‘Yes aunt.’

I was resigned to my fate and all I wished now was that it was over. My aunt read my thoughts.

‘Then let us get it over with.’

‘Do you have to...do you have to be here when he canes me? Isn’t it enough to know it is being done?’

Hugh turned back to face us, me still standing and my aunt still sitting in the chair.

‘No. We have agreed. Part of your punishment is your aunt being here. Given the pain you have caused her we both think it right that she witnesses yours.’

‘So there is nothing else to say, is there? I am sorry, you both know that.’

I was finding it hard to hold back tears. I was frightened. I had not been caned since I was eleven and my aunt had said she wanted Hugh to do it severely. She used that exact word. Looking at his face, impassive and hard, I sensed she would have her wish. My bottom twitched in nervous anticipation.

‘It will hurt. I mean it to. In spite of what you and your aunt think I have some experience of caning boys. But your bottom is resilient; it will readily recover in spite of the pain. So take of your jacket and bend over the desk.’

He indicated the small desk he had been standing by when I first entered his study. I now realised it was cleared of all encumbrances. My sentence had been decided before any word was uttered. And then he issued a further instruction which made my head reel.

‘And lower your trousers before you do so. We have agreed that your caning is to be eight strokes with only your underpants for protection.’

I flinched.

‘Is that necessary?’

‘Very. You may not think so but what you did was a serious crime. The police were very understanding. Your aunt sincerely hopes this will never need to be repeated. It is her wish, and mine, that we make it as significant as possible. So lower your trousers before you bend over.’

I looked at my aunt and then back at Hugh. This was it, and by their expressions I could see that there was to be no reprieve of any sort. I took off my jacket and placed it on a chair and then, fumbling nervously, undid the buttons on my grey school trousers and allowed them to fall to my feet. I moved to the desk and bent over it, feeling its hard edge against my waist. Conscious of my presented bottom I gripped the far edge of the desk and waited. I was about to be caned and the woman I revered was going to witness it.

I gripped the desk even tighter as I saw, out of the corner of my eye, Hugh open one of its drawers and take out his cane. Was it his school cane or was it always there? It mattered not to me. It was long, shiny brown, and fairly thick. It would hurt. I knew that and, knowing it, closed my eyes. I sensed him move around me, moved to where my bottom protruded. Further over, he said as he lifted my shirt, further over and raise your bottom. It will make things easier. I did as he wished. Schoolboys in such situations are so dutiful. I was going to be caned; I might as well make his task as simple as I could. So I shifted my position, leaned further over, and invitingly presented my bottom to be struck. Severely my aunt had said. I closed my eyes even tighter. The room went silent and after a second I felt the cane placed across my cheeks. My underpants were thin and offered little protection. My skin was warm, sweating, and the cane was cold. I felt its tap, searching for the best area to strike. Hugh was skilled, I sensed that. This may be an unusual scenario but, to him, it was a familiar experience. He had caned boys before. He said so. And then, just before the expected first searing sting I sensed a movement from my aunt’s chair. She was rising and coming towards us. I felt her warm hands on my underpants and, deftly, she pulled them down to my knees. I was frozen in shock and humiliation. I have decided I want him to have them on his bare bottom, she said. And make it twelve strokes. This must never happen again, she said, so make it worthwhile. I did not hear anything they said or see anything that passed between them. All I was conscious of was an uneasy pause and the sensation of my own bare skin. I was naked, at least from waist to knees, in the presence of my aunt. She could see all I had, a dangling below and a twitching behind. I was mortified but I did not move. As tears welled I prayed only for it to be ended. Hugh, sensing this, placed the cane again across my bottom. Naked now, unprotected, wood against bare and virgin flesh. Again the preliminary tap, again the squeezing of my eyes and the gripping of my hands. Again the waiting. And then he caned me. A searing stroke that cut across the centre of my buttocks, my naked and shameless buttocks, and induced the first of many screams. My caning had begun.

My aunt and I hardly spoke to each other for two days. She had driven me home in silence shortly after my caning and I sobbed virtually the whole way. I went straight to bed and, being Saturday, stayed in my room for most of the following day. I only left it to go to the bathroom and whilst there checked the marks on my bottom. I couldn’t see all twelve weals but I picked out seven or eight and they were all flaming red with, at the edges, touches of a purplish black. In spite of the initial pain and the continuing soreness and throbbing they were beginning to fascinate in that age old schoolboy way. Hugh was certainly an accomplished caner and, paradoxically, after the event I had a sneaking admiration for his prowess. At the time all I remember was the excruciating pain. On Sunday morning I went for a long walk before lunch and when I returned my aunt had cooked a tasty smelling casserole and put some wine on the table. You deserve it she said. You have had a rotten weekend. I eagerly picked up the proffered olive branch. My backside and spirits had recovered, at least the latter had, and I had reasoned the justice of my caning and why it had happened. Resentment had long faded even if the marks hadn’t and I told her so. Exactly that. She laughed, almost her old self. I am so glad she said and so glad you seem to understand. Then for an instance her face went deadly serious and I feared the worst. I should hate it if you got like my brother, she said, with unexpected bitterness. Such a waste of a life. Anything is worth stopping that, she said. And then she smiled again and poured me a small glass of wine. The bleak moment had passed. All done and dusted she said, even if someone won’t be able to sit comfortably for a week or so. I gave a weak laugh and she went off into the kitchen to prepare the lunch. I heard her shout as she left. Something about discovering two things she didn’t know. I followed her to the kitchen. What were they, I asked. She looked at me with an amusing glint in her eyes. Are you sure you want to know, she said. And then she answered before I had a chance to say anything. Well for a start Hugh is not the big softie we thought he was. I know that, I said and winced, I think I know that better than anyone after Friday. And you, she said, have a very nice bottom. Just make sure that it doesn’t ever deserve another caning. I shrugged and went back to the dining room. As far as I was concerned Friday would never be repeated.

Hugh was certainly no softie. My tender and small fifteen year old bottom and his forty five year old, rugby built, frame had fought an unequal battle. He had lashed down that thick brown cane with considerable force and accuracy and all had landed where he had intended. Mercifully most were across the centre of my rump and, in spite of my howls and screaming, I managed to stay down. I was determined to do so in my aunt’s presence. She had ordered the caning, increased it and added the final pants down humiliation. The least I could do was take it like a man. Albeit one still a schoolboy. Only a couple of Hugh’s strokes almost made me rise. About half way through he delivered one to the top of my buttocks and then two more to the part where the crease meets the thighs. These incredibly stung and I begged him to let me off anymore and released my hands from the desk. Four more, he said, all to the middle of your backside if you stay still. So lift it up and hold on. There was steel in his voice which surprised me and, fleetingly, I considered that he was enjoying caning me. If he was I hoped my copious tears and screams invoked some guilt. The last stroke, absolutely vicious, cut into my backside and I pleaded for forgiveness. I am sorry, I said, sorry, sorry, and sorry. But the caning had stopped. I had not known it was the last stroke. My counts had ceased along with my breath. Each fiery sting to my bottom had transmitted a searing pain to my brain that engulfed all my senses. Incessant throbbing behind me continued past a scholastic action long stilled. I rose and rubbed my behind vigorously as I moved around the room. Cooling air and gentle hands were more paramount. The lifting shirt as I rubbed was a secondary consideration. Until my sobs eased and I was conscious that Hugh, and my aunt, could see all displayed. I stopped and lowered my shirt to cover my bottom and my penis and, tentatively, pulled up my underpants and trousers. The soreness did not cease, the throbbing did not stop, but I could furtively rub a violated behind now decently covered. I was still rubbing, still quietly and involuntarily sobbing, when Hugh put the cane back in its desk drawer. Hopefully never to be seen again.

I lived with my aunt for another year. We had an incredible summer. Her new gardening book had been singled out by some TV programme as being particularly good and sales rocketed. The power of the box she said. Her publisher thought it worthwhile arranging a signing tour and, being the holidays, she took me with her. She said it was in compensation for my parents not coming over, my mother had broken her leg in a skiing accident. I did not see it like that. I saw it as a whirlwind tour of the country, staying at the best hotels, seeing lots of interesting and exciting places. With the woman I adored. Hugh joined us at a couple of the places. He had a conference in Scarborough which coincided and Padstow, he said it and winked, needed no excuse. I had long forgiven them my caning. I had not forgotten it, never would. But I bore no grudges. The more I thought of it the more I realised I deserved it. And a light tap on my backside would not have had the same effect. But it did change my attitude towards them both. You can’t go through the experience I suffered and feel the same about the people who did it. In my case though, the change was for the better. I had always liked and respected Hugh as a family friend. But now he was a friendly deputy headmaster who had undertaken an unwilling and unpleasant task for someone he loved. It created an unspoken bond between us and cemented our unequal friendship. My aunt realised this very soon after my caning. Boys are strange beasts she said one day when we all having a drink in the garden and Hugh and I were engaged in a stupid game of I spy. Boys are strange beasts she said, but she did not elaborate on it. As far my aunt is concerned, I reckon that spring and summer I was closer to her than I had ever been. She thrilled and fascinated me as no other woman in my young life ever had. Or ever would. She was both outrageously fun loving and rigidly strict in outlook. But if I learnt nothing else I readily learnt that the fun loving was ninety nine percent of her. In three years we had only crossed swords twice. Over that one per cent that filled her with fear and anger and loathing. And I had eventually learnt that. Even if, schoolboy fashion, it took a smarting backside to ram the lesson home.

Hugh came with me to the hotel my parents were staying at after my aunt’s funeral. They had rushed over quickly but too late to see her before she died. Hugh and Thelma were managing much of the arrangements and I stayed with them in the hotel before they flew back to New Zealand. Will make things easier for them, my dad said. I wasn’t surprised. I was grief stricken by the suddenness of it all. Some bloody minor infection they had said. No one really knew what to say or do until Thelma, uncharacteristically chatty, came up with a temporary solution to me. I could lodge with her and her husband until the end of the school year if it suited. Give everyone time to sort things out. So I did and it was very cosy and pleasant. Thelma’s husband was a nice old stick, mad about horseracing, and I missed him and her when I finally joined my parents in New Zealand for the fresh school year. New start they said. Hugh said virtually the same thing the day before I left. New start, he said, you’ll soon forget us. I won’t forget you Hugh, I said, I couldn’t really could I even if I wanted to. He laughed and gave me a gentle punch on the nose. No I don’t suppose you could, he said, and we both knew what we were talking about. And then I looked at him seriously and felt the tears welling in my eyes. And I will never forget my aunt, I said, never. And I repeated it. Never. Over and over again. Never, never, never. As if the more I said it the less likely it was to happen. Eventually I stopped and Hugh silently hugged me. I loved her, I said, I will always love her.

Forty years have passed and I still do.

Alfred Roy (2013)