|
Caught! And spanked By J. G. Knox Love, Truth & Life Publishing PO Box 65130 Vancouver, WA 98665 United States 360-690-0842 © Copyright 2008 by J .G. Knox All Rights Reserved No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic or electronic process, or in the form of phonographic recording, nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, translated into another language, or otherwise copied for public or private use, except brief passages quoted for purposes of review, without the written permission of the author. This short story details a case of corporal punishment. Corporal punishment is a useful tool of correction. Nations teaching and using physical discipline have much lower rates of violent crime than nations that proscribe it. However, it cannot be used in anger or incorrectly with good results. It is a tool, not a philosophy. It is the purpose of this story is to illustrate the correct way to discipline. If you use spanking or paddling be sure you do it with love, the purpose of helping the recipient, not just punishing them, and never of hurting them. Life, Truth & Love Publishing PO Box 65130 Vancouver, WA 98665 360-690-0842 1st Edition November 2008 Part 1,
Caught
Guilty “Mrs. Johnson?” A deep voice on the phone says. “Yes, do you know it is 11:30 at night?” I say. “Yes, this is Deputy O’Hollaran at the sheriff’s office. Do you have a daughter, Carley Johnson?” “Yes,” I say. I sit down. “You need to come down and get her. We picked her up on Mill Pond Road.” Mill because there was a mill; Pond because when the mill was running there was a pond; and road because there was a traveled road, used by her father to check the water flow once each shift. Now Mill Pond Road is traveled only by lovers, and sheriff’s deputies searching for young lovers doing things they should not be doing. “Thank you, I’ll be right there!” I start to hang up. “Wait, where are you?” I have never been to the sheriff’s office. This is the kind of thing Jim should be doing, but rarely does. No work for him in our town after the mill shuts down and a family to feed, he has to work. With two adults and six children, it takes more than a job at WalMart. We need money. Five years ago he gets his commercial driver’s license and has been driving long haul since then. Three weeks on the road then six days home, life is hard, harder than we want, but necessary if our children are to have a life. “Behind the court house, the corner of Washington and 2nd Street. Do you know where it is?” “Yes, thank you.” 30 minutes later, an embarrassed teenager in the passenger’s seat, we head home. “Carley, what in the world were you doing on Mill Pond Road?” A stupid question, I know, but one a Mother asks. “We weren’t doing anything, Momma. We were looking at the stars.” “That is what Deputy O’Hollaran said, lying on a blanket in the back of Bill’s pickup looking at the stars. What was your dress doing tangled around your waist?” Carley is silent. “Well!” I say. She is going to say something! “Mom!--- I, we weren’t doing anything!” “Kissing?” “Yes we were kissing.” “Your dress?” “It sort of got tangled up. We were moving around.” “And where were his hands? Did his hands help it up?” “Well--- I didn’t mean to do anything, Momma.” “Did you?” “No!” “Would you have if Deputy O’Hollaran hadn’t stopped you.” “No!” “Are you sure?” “I’m a good girl, Momma,” she says. Can I hear her over the engine? “I didn’t hear you, Carley. Why are you whispering?” “I’m a good girl, Momma,” she whispers again. “Are you a good girl because Deputy O’Hollaran stopped you?” This time, silence answers my question. I stop pulling off to the shoulder to look at her. Turning on the light inside the car I wait for her to look at me. She looks down. She looks out the window. She looks at her feet, everywhere except to her left hand side and me. “Well?” I say. “I’m sorry, Momma. I really am. We didn’t do anything! “Have you done anything?” “No, Mom, I’m a virgin, OK!” She is talking, defending herself. She is a good girl. I know she is a good girl, or hope I know she is a good girl. In our church virginity is expected, valued and encouraged. She knows our values, what her father and I expect of her. I put the car in drive and look back; nothing coming, I pull out. “We need to talk more when we get home,” I say. A short drive, our town is small, big enough for one high school, two grammar schools, two supermarkets, a once prosperous downtown replaced by a WalMart three blocks from our house and a lover’s lane, Mill Pond Road. I push the button on the garage door opener. We are home. “Everybody is asleep, Carley. Let’s go in the study.” “Momma, we didn’t do anything!” She follows me, more emotional this time. She knows what a talk in the study means. Jim’s study, he uses it for writing. A history major, his hobby is writing historical fiction. In his absence I use it for my sewing room. For the children it is a quiet room unless a child is ordered to the study. A command to go to the study is for something serious, something they do not want to discuss, something wrong. Then the privacy is not for quiet, but crying. Under Jim’s desk hangs the paddle. Never leaving the study, the paddle is a gift from Jim’s Sunday school teacher. He designed it from a thick, but soft piece of leather. A flexible impact, it never bruises and imparts more heat over a larger area than a wooden paddle. Steam vents through several rows of neatly trimmed holes concentrating heat, leaving small, round, rapidly disappearing blisters, a reminder to young buttock owners of their misdeeds. A handle triple folded and stitched for control, the paddle is a craftsman’s tool for giving pain and avoiding injury. It came out for Carley’s benefit on its first outing, four years ago. Almost a teenager, she needed a more intense paddling than the hand swats required by her younger siblings. Wiping dust from it before paddling her, years of accumulation came off on the moist cloth I was using. Was I being a good mother, not wanting to use a dirty paddle on my girl, or trying to put off the inevitable? I knew she needed the paddle to change her behavior. I didn’t want to use it. As I rubbed off the last of the dust, she said, “Momma, you don’t have to paddle me. Why don’t you ground me or something?” “What you did was yell at me in the kitchen for the forth time today. If I ground you, you will be yelling at me until your grounding is over. Besides it’s all clean now.” “Momma!” she said looking at the paddle. “I know you are a good girl, Carley. I know you are upset because your father is not here, and are doing things you wouldn’t do, if he were. It has to stop, Honey.” She bent over Jim’s desk. Her hands were shaking. As disrespectful as she was in the kitchen, she needed a good cry. My first time using a paddle, what did she need to give it to her? Did she need two pops or ten? I did not want to hurt her, but had to give her enough pain to cry and change her behavior. Two solid pops and the tears started. With the third and forth, she let loose, was sobbing. I stopped. She kept crying. “Carley, are you going to stop yelling at me?” “Yes, Momma,” she sobbed. “I know you will do better, be the girl your Daddy has raised you to be. I love you, Carley.” “I’m sorry, Momma.” “Carley, why don’t you stay in here till you get your crying out, and while you are here, the paddle is too dried out. The leather is cracking. I want you to put a coat of linseed oil on it before putting it away, OK?” “Yes, Momma.” “Carley, you will do better, or I will give you another paddling. It’s up to you.” I kissed her forehead, she hugged me and went back to the kitchen. Four of them old enough for its use now, and my role strained by Jim’s absence, dusting was over. I stopped having the children oil it. The last time I used the paddle, it put an oil stain on the back of my son’s blue jeans. In the study, I sit on Jim’s desk facing my daughter. Being under the desk, waiting to come out, the paddle adds tension to conversation, adds an octave to Carley’s pleas. “Mom, we didn’t do anything!” She stands on the carpet trembling. I shake with anger. The paddle hangs on its nail. “Carley, you were in the back of a pickup, laying down, your dress up with a young man.” She glances up at me then looks down at her feet. |
