Monday 5 February 2018

Memories of Gerry (M/m)


I have an old friend who regularly deals with my bottom when I visit him. We oldies can still have fun. He enjoys my stories, the male ones, and I often read one to him over an evening tipple. Due a visit shortly and realised I did not have a suitable new one. So dashed this off, total fiction except for the caning. Hopefully when I sit down to entertain him with it my own backside will be suitably tingling. A late Happy New Year to you all. Alfred Roy


Memories of Gerry

 
I never did forget that summer of 1957. I didn’t forget it for a number of reasons. My parents divorced after years of acrimony, my grandmother died, and I spent two weeks in hospital recovering from some unspecified bug. Food poisoning someone said, but it seemed a lot worse to me. I was fifteen and miserable. Family and health had induced ill humour. But I recovered and that recovery was helped, nay enhanced, by a hospital bedside companion who remained a close friend for all of the following sixty years. He was the main reason I did not forget that summer of 1957. Gerry. Outrageous Gerry. Fun, anarchic, irascible, witty. Call him what you will. Diminutive Gerry Robinson was irrepressible. Same age as me, and as I found out due to go to the same small private school, and instantly likeable. He lifted my spirits far more than any medicine or medical ministrations. When we were discharged, fortuitously on the same day, we vowed to meet up at school. Hopefully, we both said, in the same house. Roll on September I thought. That long gone summer would become memorable, mainly because of Gerry.

We got into trouble almost from the first day. A pompous housemaster with spiky ginger hair had what I discovered in later years was a rotacism. He could not pronounce the letter R. Inevitably, although he directed nothing at us, I took to calling my friend Gewwy. We giggled and those giggles were seen and registered. An enemy of ginger haired was made on day one. And on day three we discovered he was to be our housemaster. He will find an excuse to cane us, I said somewhat ruefully. Gerry laughed. It will be ‘Bend over Wobinson’, he said, and we giggled as only fifteen year boys could.

Surprisingly he gave us a pretty easy time for the first month or so. We didn’t see him that often as his few teaching duties were mainly Latin and Greek, two subjects both Gerry and I had opted out of in favour of German and French. Our paths mainly crossed outside teaching hours when he did his best to maintain discipline among twenty or so young teenage boys. By the end of that first month we were well aware of how that discipline was maintained, this was 1957, as two of our fellows made early evening visits to his study and returned ruefully rubbing behinds. Eager questions followed and information, followed by unseemly displays, elicited. The marks on small behinds were impressive, no wonder they had ruefully rubbed. ‘So he only gives six’ Gerry said, ‘Or that seems to be the minimum. And on the bare bot. The wotter.’ We both laughed but the warning was registered. Neither caned boy had done anything particularly heinous as far as we knew. One had been caught smoking and the other returned half an hour late from a sanctioned afternoon in town. Do something very wrong, especially in the eyes of an enemy, and it might be eighteen with a rod wrapped in barbed wire. I amplified these thoughts to Gerry. ‘A wod wapped in barbed wire. Weally?’ We both laughed a little bit, knowing, I think, that such taunts were getting a little thin. Especially when repeated a day or so later, Ginger Spike overheard. He did not say anything then but we knew he had registered our mocking tones.

We got our next warning just before the Christmas break. I am unhappy with you two boys, he said. Quite mild really, considering that we had blown an electrical fuse on the lighting box for the schools’ festive theatrical production. Three minutes of blackout does not sound much, except when it is in the middle of a bit of old Shakespeare. Not totally our fault but we were assisting and found it quite funny. Gerry particularly so. ‘Oh wherefore art thou Romeo, has an extra piquant zing when the poor sod is completely in the dark.’ Ginger Spike, consumed in the seriousness of theatre, abhorred our levity. But not a caning offence, thankfully. You don’t whack boys for laughing, not even in 1957. It did not occur to us then that he was biding his time, saving up his corporal investment. Nor, stupidly, after a more direct threat of future retribution. That was a caning offence, at least for Gerry if not for me.

A mutual passion we had discovered when occupying adjacent hospital beds was horseracing, especially National Hunt racing. His father had owned a couple of point to pointers and used to ride in his younger days and Gerry was often taken to race meetings. My parents did not have the same involvement but regularly attended top meetings in a business capacity. Aintree and Ascot were often dinner table discussions in our house. So I subscribed to Gerry’s enthusiasm. His father’s friend owned a horse which was running in a valuable handicap hurdle at Newbury early in the new year. Gerry was keen to back it but had little money and no means of placing a bet. So he did the next best thing. He took bets on the other horses in the race from other race keen school fellows. In other words he made a book. A heinous offence both for him and the boys who bet with him, if found out. Worthy of any caning. My only involvement was to act as Gerry’s studious ledger clerk. Never liked sums, he said, ignoring the obvious fact that betting on horses involved little else. We, or he, would have got away with it if one inconsiderate and overloud oik had not subsequently blagged about his substantial win. The father’s friend horse had lost and this one irksome schoolfellow had placed one pound with Gerry on the 15/1 winner. He was delighted, as was Gerry who made a profit on the book he had created, until the celebrating blagging reached the ears of housemaster Ginger Spike. The blagger was caned, severely we heard, but puzzlingly repercussions for us seemed curiously delayed.

By the third day after Gerry’s only winning punter had received his scholastic desserts we were completely on tenterhooks. Why had we not been summoned, or at least Gerry, and thrashed on our deserving behinds. Having a bet was clearly much less heinous than running a book. We found out on the fourth day, immediately after a dreary day of rugger. Ginger Spike ran some of these sessions and he was on duty, whistle happy as always, on the first inter house game following the Newbury race. He timed his acknowledgement of our involvement in the clandestine betting exceptionally well. Always had my suspicions of him after that. We had just come out of the showers and, catching us both naked, he issued his strange summary of events. I think he took much pleasure in making us squirm whilst we were in a state of unwanted nudity. ‘I have caned one of your class fellows, as you know. For betting on horses. And I have confiscated his winnings. I have my suspicions as to who acted as his bookmaker. If I find any pwoof of that, or any other misdeeds, then he or they shall suffer as none other has at my hands.’ He could have been saying this to any in the changing room but Gerry and I, and he, knew it was directed at us.

All of these events should have told us that Ginger Spike was merely biding his time. It would have taken little effort for him to get the proof, or pwoof, he needed. The blagging boy who pocketed £16 was no hero. Promise to reduce his sentence, six of the cane we heard on his bare backside, and he would have sung like the proverbial canary. But pompous Spike of the ginger persuasion was a patient man. This is all hindsight of course, honed with sixty years of life’s perspective. He could have been an idiot, but I do not think so. No, he was content to bide his time. Catch Wobinson and his limpet like friend in something particularly dreadful and slates of mocking tones, theatrical mishaps, and clandestine bookmaking would be wiped painfully clean. He had our bottoms very much in his sight and we, who should have known, blissfully ignored the signs. All we said, pleased that he had left us naked and subdued, was ‘Bugger.’ Or at least Gerry did. ‘Bugger’, he said, ‘Confiscated the winnings. Wish I had only given the oik odds of 8/1.’ I laughed.

A week later, a cold wet Wednesday early in February, that laughter faded. Big time. This will take some explaining. The school had a trainee teacher, learning the ropes. Or learning the wopes, as Gerry took delight in saying when Ginger Spike made the announcement. The trainee had been around for about a month and regularly got played up by boys who knew no better. A school tradition I was reliably, or unreliably, informed. I felt a bit sorry for him. Tall and gangly, and not much older than us, he seemed totally out of his depth. No idea of how to control a class of combustible fifteen year olds. On that fateful Wednesday he was in charge, a loose phrase, of the physical education class. Not my favourite activity. For some reason, purely fortuitous I think, Gerry and I were chosen as opposing captains for a red and blue team game of basketball. Seven a side. It all went well until the incompetent trainee left us alone for a few minutes with an airily instruction to carry on playing. That seemed to be a signal for two opposing lads who detested each other to start a fight. Within five minutes all was chaos, not diluted by the returning trainee who appeared incapable of dowsing schoolboy flames. It was left to me and Gerry, diminutive Gerry, to try to prise the main protagonists apart. By now this was most of the opposing teams, boys being boys, as some fight and ask the reasons afterwards. Order could not be restored, or not until Ginger Spike appeared. Tall, pompous, and full of flaming nostrils. The two fighters were singled out and ordered, immediately, to his study. As they were, he stressed, meaning in their PE kit. No need to change, he said, and that said all we needed to know. A whacking was on the cards. And then he dropped his bombshell. ‘And in half an hour, you two as well.’ he said, pointing to me and Gerry, ‘You and Wobinson. And no need to change either.’ And with that he left the gym leaving four boys to contemplate an inevitable fate. And two of them could not see the justice of it. Only an opportunity not denied.

I never did forget that caning. I never forgot it for a number of reasons. By itself it was definitely undeserved. But as Gerry and I recognised and agreed, it was going to happen one day so might as well get it over with. Ginger Spike had us on his list and our Captains day was the day of overdue retribution. So we resigned ourselves to our fate, even if resolve was a little less than steely as we saw two very subdued pugilists leave his study. But the main reasons I did not forget it was because of the impression it made on both my fifteen year old bottom and my equally fifteen year old mind. When we knocked on Ginger Spike’s study door the air was already rich in heady expectancy. When we left some twenty minutes later roads to adulthood and sexuality were clearly defined. Or at least for me.

We said little when we entered his study. An acknowledgement that we were there because we had been summoned and a registering of the cane on his desk. He glanced at both it and us, clearly relishing the situation. We were both a let down to the school, he said, ‘Clearly diswuptive and, it seems, incapable of taking wesponsibility.’ Gerry almost corpsed at this pronouncement but, thankfully, giggles from both us were mercifully suppressed. I think fear of what was to come eclipsed all other feelings. We knew damn well that we were going to get six, we did not want it notched up to twelve. He addressed Gerry first. ‘Wobinson, I shall deal with you first. Not because I think you are the lesser of two evils, but you are the smaller.’ If that was meant to be a joke it fell on unreceptive ears. ‘You will be given six of the cane on your bottom. Long overdue in my opinion. So kindly bend over.’

If that had been it, a cold and clinical bending over, and six whacks across Gerry’s PE shorts then I reckon things might have turned out different. I would have seen and heard his caning, sympathised with his pain, and reluctantly taken his place when all was done. But it was not like that. As I have said before this was 1957, or to be more accurate 1958, and this was a small private school. And this was a vengeful housemaster who had stored up many grievances. So he approached the bending Gerry, roughly pulled down his shorts to his knees and lifted his PE vest to the middle of his small back. A rule of our school was that you did not wear underpants for physical education. Considered unhealthy. So poor old Gerry was as bare as the day he was born. At least from waist to knees. His bare bottom stuck out like a small and gleaming early evening moon. And I was transfixed. I moved from being fearful of what was to come for me to being fascinated by what was to happen to Gerry. A caning on the bare backside was an experience beyond any normal understanding. And when Ginger Spike put words to the picture it both increased fascination and enhanced anticipation. I was becoming consumed by a desire I did not understand. ‘Six stwokes on your bottom, boy, I said. I did not say you would have any modesty. If ever a boy deserved his bare bottom to be caned, it is you.’ And with that he lashed his cane across the naked rear of my best pal, and a howl sprung from unseen lips as a savage line crossed the two nicest bare cheeks I had ever seen. I flinched. And I did so five more times as Ginger Spike’s cane did its worst. Gerry, to his credit, never moved in spite of his gasps and howls and by the sixth stroke his bottom was fiery red with weals which would take long to fade. Each one had been painted on his behind to perfection, and each one had etched me further along a road I would take years to understand. Gerry rose, sobbing quietly, and pulled up his PE shorts. A rueful rub of his bottom and he stepped aside. But not before an encouraging glance at me. It hurt, he seemed to be saying, but it’s over. And then he rubbed his bottom again, more vigorously it seemed. I gulped and waited, heart pounding and all inside stirring. ‘You now boy.’ Ginger Spike said, now in full flow, ‘Bend over and get what you clearly deserve. Six strokes.’

I did as I was told. This was inevitable and now I knew all that was to come. He would hardly cane Gerry on the bare behind and allow me some modesty. Fleetingly the thought crossed my mind that he might, after all he always saw Gerry as the more reprehensible. And with the thought came an inexplicable feeling of possible disappointment coupled with a surging of anticipation. Bent over, touching my ankles as I could in those days, I knew that I wanted Ginger Spike to take down my pants. I wanted him to cane me on my bare backside. And not just because that is how he had caned my friend. I just wanted it. I had a desire, there is no other word, to be bereft of my lower garments and exposed to the gaze of both present. The chastised and the chastiser. Somehow I knew the pain would be more bearable if my naked bottom felt the savage kisses of the cane.

I need not have worried. Words that should have created fear strangely thrilled. ‘You will not be spared, boy.’ he said. ‘I caned your friend on his bare bottom, well deserved, and you will receive the same.’ It was said in a voice unfamiliarly clear, increasing my anticipation. And with that he put his hands in the waist of my flimsy PE shorts and pulled them down to my knees. I felt surrounding air brush my bottom and my genitals, sensed the exposure. And then my equally flimsy vest was roughly pushed up my bending back. There could now be no illusions, I was a picture of submissive nakedness. And all could see. My bottom was exposed and waiting and my private parts dangled freely and wantonly. I was a boy waiting to be caned and the way it was to be done, for those who witnessed and those who suffered, it would be glorious. Gloriously bare. I sighed and when the cane lashed into me, after a preliminary tap, I reckon my first unexpected howl was wrapped in that anticipatory sigh. I did cry, of course. I couldn’t help it. It hurt like hell. After the third stroke I almost, unlike Gerry, nearly rose clutching my burning bum. Rough hands pressing on my back and threatening extra strokes prevented it and, after a pause, I felt the three remaining cane whacks across my, by now, lacerated backside. The sting was indescribable and all thoughts of pleasurable anticipation were expunged. After the last, particularly vicious stroke, I rose. Copiously sobbing, woefully subdued, I pulled up my pants and rubbed those parts of me that I was convinced would never heal. I had been caned six times on my bare bottom. It was my first experience and the most impressionable. Such things happen when you are fifteen. Ginger Spike was not a sensitive soul but maybe he recognised something in me for he gave us a few minutes to recover. Minutes in which my senses moved from acute pain to confusing pleasure. The warmth of chastisement had pleasing compensations. By the time we left my spirits had revived. My bottom may have been throbbing for England but I felt serenely calm. Gerry had also recovered his generally irrepressible spirit. ‘Thank God he pulled my pants down without saying anything.’ he said. ‘If he had said dwop your shorts Wobinson I would have giggled so much I would have got twelve.’ That was the extent of our post whacking’s banter. A couple of hours later it turned more serious.

We showed each other the marks. Boys do that. Whatever the pain, the humiliation, displaying the stripes on otherwise virgin bottoms seemed to be as much a part of growing up in the 1950’s as the sneaky cigarette behind the chemistry lab or the passing around of dubious magazines such as Spick and Span or Naturist Monthly. I was transfixed both by the sight and the feel, he allowed me, of Gerry’s small bottom. He touched mine, almost obligatory but cursory, but my fingers lingered on his still warm flesh much longer. The weals fascinated and the contrast between the six livid lines against alabaster cheeks enthralled. If my tracing fingers could have stayed on his delightful bottom for a week it would not have been long enough. He sensed it and, sensibly pulled up his pants. ‘You are kinky’, he said,’ I guessed that when you were being caned. When old Ginger Spike pulled down your PE shorts your willy popped out. Standing up like a flagpole.’ Gerry Laughed and ruffled my hair, as if to diffuse the uncomfortable mood. ‘Don’t worry’, he said, ‘ We shall still be friends. Even if some who I will not mention would not appwove.’ And he laughed again.

We did stay friends. For another sixty years. Through school, university, growing up and ageing. He married and had four children and, at the end, eleven grandchildren. We didn’t meet often, my job took me to the USA a lot and Gerry spent most of his mature years nurturing a business always on the cusp of failure, so he told me, in Newcastle. We rarely talked of school or our perplexing youth, although he did occasionally in the early years teasingly allude to our caning by Ginger Spike and both our dawning realisations of my sexuality. ‘You are a strange one,’ he used to say, ‘That old bugger gave you a taste for the weird, no doubt about that. Do you still indulge?’ I just smiled and we let the matter drop. Never raised again until three weeks ago, just before he died. He was lying on his hospice bed, full of all sorts of mysterious things to kill his pain, and seemed strangely animated. One of his ministering angels had a rotacism and constantly called him ‘Mr Wobinson.’ It brought back old memories, long buried. When I arrived, sombre and fearful, he said he had been thinking about me a lot that morning because of his nurse. ‘Our early days’ he told me, and laughed as only he could. ‘Hospital beds when we first met and now hospital beds when we are to part. And that school. And dear old Ginger Spike.’ I remained silent, content with my suppressed tears to let him continue, if he wished. ‘Nasty bugger. Never liked him. But in a funny sort of way he sealed our relationship. Bend over Wobinson. I almost wet myself.’ And then he smiled and closed his eyes briefly. Remembering days past.

‘Bend over Wobinson.’ I place my flowers by his grave, speak briefly to his ageing widow, and walk slowly back to my car. ‘Bend over Wobinson.’ How many times over the years have I heard that phrase. I took it as my own a long time ago. You need a name for adult school play and parties and ‘Wobinson’ evoked both Gerry and Ginger Spike. So whenever I dropped my pants in various and far flung places I did it to that telling soubriquet. I have been known as ‘Wobinson’ in the disciplinary world for nigh on sixty years. Now that, if I had ever told him, would have truly made Gerry laugh.

 

Alfred Roy