Secret Shorts

by Mike Ward

There they were. Neatly folded on my bed. Pristine and freshly ironed. There they were on my bed. I could feel my heart thumping. My mother had smiled at me when I came in from school. She had asked me how my day had been, had I learnt anything new. And then, straight faced, she mentioned that there was a surprise waiting for me in my room. A surprise! Well more of a shock really when I saw them. There they were, a neat pair of grey schoolboy short pants. And the real surprise was that they were mine. Which is to say that until this moment they had been my well-hidden little secret.

How many boys have already acquired a shorts fetish at fifteen? For six years now, since I had turned nine, I had steadfastly refused to wear shorts in public. My father had argued with me and bribed me and insisted that I wear shorts at least during the summer holidays if not during the hot schooldays through May, June and September. And every year I had refused and screamed back at him and slammed doors and told him that no self-respecting guy would be seen dead in shorts nowadays. Yes, he might have had to wear them every day until he left school, but now we were in the nineteen eighties and things had changed; shorts were for sissies. And every year my parents had given in. And every year I kept my disappointment to myself because they hadn't realised that I had to refuse to satisfy my honour and keep my friends, even though I kind of liked the idea anyway. But they wouldn't force me and so every summer I wore my jeans and secretly wished that I had nut-brown knees like Dick in the Famous Five, and could have a life of adventures and discover new worlds.

Then, last September, I had been in town on my own. I had wandered around a few shops and picked up some stuff for school: Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, a couple of pens, a very small water pistol with a very powerful jet, that kind of stuff. Then I had to call into Marks and Spencer and buy a couple of grey school shirts that Mum had given me the money for. And there, among all the school clothing, were some very traditional looking grey shorts. I looked at them and dreams of parent-free camping holidays and boarding school antics swept into my mind, a mind brought up on Just William, Jennings, Swallows and Amazons, and the Famous Five. I was fourteen years old and had spent another summer holiday refusing to wear shorts. But secretly I thought that shorts were the symbol of freedom and adventure.

I touched them and read the label; 7 - 8 years old. I looked along the rail. 9 - 10 years old. 11 - 12 years old. 13 - 14 years old. I couldn't believe it. I didn't think that they still made school shorts for teenagers but there they were. I had some money of my own left over. It was enough and before I had really thought about it I was at the till with my two shirts and a pair of grey school shorts. The cashier didn't even make any comment about a boy my age buying them, for her it was just another end-of-holidays school-rush transaction.

On the bus home I thought about it. If Marks and Spencer was stocking school shorts for fourteen year old boys then there must be fourteen year old boys going to school in shorts. That seemed pretty obvious but I had never seen anyone over ten years of age in shorts at school, and if I had I would have teased him mercilessly. But the evidence was there. Somewhere, maybe at some posh boarding school, boys my age were wearing shorts as part of their uniform, even in 1981.

At home I had stuffed my new secret shorts into my special hiding place under a floorboard beneath my desk, and there they stayed most of the time for the next few months. If my parents and my brother were out of the house for an hour or two and I had the place to myself, I would put them on with a grey shirt and my uniform blazer, and admire the traditional schoolboy in the wardrobe mirror. Then I would imagine myself being sent up to the headmaster's office to be caned for some misdemeanour. Sometimes I would do my homework wearing my special short pants and casting frequent admiring glances at the way my knees were exposed under the desk. I was always very careful and made sure that I was never caught wearing them; the humiliation would have been too awful, and anyway, how could I ever explain the reasons I loved them so much.

My shorts had been my special secret for seven months and now here they were, freshly laundered, neatly ironed, and carefully exposed on my bed. I looked at them and for the first time since I had bought them I felt really, really, scared of them. Fifteen year old comprehensive school students from Yorkshire in 1982 simply would have died at the sight of such a childish garment in their bedroom. So long as they had been my secret I had loved them. Now that they had obviously been placed there on my bed by my mother, I hated them. Oh the fickle nature of teenage romances!

And then I got really frightened. If the shorts had been discovered then everything else in my hiding place must have been found, and let's face it, every teenager has things that they would prefer to keep well hidden. I lifted the shorts off the bed.

Sure enough there was a tidy little collection of contraband lying there. A, now empty, half litre vodka bottle. A cigarette lighter. Two very old and very battered magazines that had been the subject of my recent wanking fantasies. Nothing else, but then there had been nothing else to discover. Everything that I needed to keep hidden from my parents was now lying on my bed and I felt as if I had been given a good kick in my balls, followed by an even better kick in the teeth. Nothing here would have been easy to explain on its own. Together they were a trap of doom. I could already hear the disappointed tone in my father's voice as he lectured me on the dangers of alcohol, the dangers of smoking, the shame of pornography. And then I could imagine him trying to work out what he should say about the grey school shorts.

Beside the bottle there was a note in my father's handwriting. It simply said, 'Change into your shorts and wait for me to call you. P. S. Yes, you are in trouble'.

I couldn't think of anything way out of this so I took off my trousers and pulled on the shorts. I went to hang up my trousers in my wardrobe and got yet another shock. The wardrobe was empty. Everything, my jeans and shirts, my favourite sweatshirt, my Leeds United tracksuit, everything had been removed. I went over to my drawers and there I found the same story. I couldn't work out what it all meant but I guessed it was some form of punishment and that all would soon be explained. But knowing that didn't really help. I sat down on my bed, held my face in my hands, and started to sob quietly to myself.

Just before six o'clock I heard my father's car pull up. Then he entered the house and I could hear my brother, Sam, talking to him. Then I heard my mother joining in. I listened and waited, but I didn't have long to wait. I could hear my Dad coming up the stairs and approaching my bedroom door where he seemed to wait for a moment before coming in. I looked up into his face and he was grim and worried looking.

'You've seen the evidence Michael', he said, ' and you know that I know what you didn't want me to know'.

So far, so true.

'Your Mum and I have had a talk about this and we've made some decisions that you are not going to like. First, you've obviously been doing some hard drinking with those so-called friends of yours. I'd suspected as much before and now I know for sure. For that you will be punished. Second, I guess you've been smoking a bit too, and for that you will also be punished. The porn magazines are not something that I can approve of. They are sick and humiliating to all women, and for that you will be punished. But the shorts, well the shorts are a different matter altogether.'

I continued to look at him and tried to work out what was going to come next. My guess wasn't far wrong.

'Every summer you've insisted that you wouldn't wear shorts when I asked you to, and now I find you seem to have some special reason for keeping a pair hidden in your room. Well, I can't punish you for doing what I've suggested you should do. So instead the shorts will be your punishment for the magazines. You like to see other people being humiliated, well now you're going to be the one who is humiliated. I know well that you will hate wearing them to school but that's just tough from now on.'

I didn't like the sound of that, 'from now on', but I remained silent. I figured that the mess I was in was big enough already and didn't need any extra support from my mouth. I just looked down at my knees and felt another tear slowly slide down my face.

My Dad went out of the room for a minute, returning with a shopping bag.

'As you're going to be wearing shorts all the time you will need another pair, and you'll also need these socks'.

He dropped six pairs of long grey knee socks onto my bed beside me along with another pair of grey school shorts.

'I hope that you appreciate that it wasn't easy finding a shop that had a supply of knee socks with your school colours on the tops', he said sarcastically. 'Put on a pair of them now, and remember that you have to keep them pulled up and folded over neatly at the top. If I see you with socks sliding down to your ankles you'll get a good spanking'.

I looked up at him and said, 'What? You never spank. You always say that spanking kids is just stupid and makes them violent'.

'Well, I guess I was wrong about that because not spanking them seems to turn them into cheeky, vodka swigging, fag smoking, sly little masturbators! Now get those socks on quickly.'

The socks were weird. I had never had a pair like these. They were long and grey with red and green stripes woven in at the top. 'Just like a proper schoolboy's' I thought as I pulled them up over my calves. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw that my Dad was now holding his wooden clothes brush in his hand.

He signalled me to stand up and I stood there before him at attention.

'There will be plenty of other new rules in this house, and not just for you but for Sam as well. Your Mum and I have obviously been way to lax about discipline. But that all ends now. Bend over the chair.'

I slowly walked over to the desk and pulled out my chair. Then I put my hands on the seat and bent over.

'Not like that. I want you to bend right over the chair. Get your hands on the floor.'

I had to stand on tip-toe to reach over and I could feel my shorts getting quite tight over my bottom.

'Good. This is a position you are going to find yourself very often from now on'.

Again I didn't like the ominous way he said, 'from now on'. It sounded like this was going to be a never-ending punishment not like the week long groundings that I had had before.

'This is your punishment for drinking alcohol. As it's your first spanking I will spank you on your shorts but for all future spankings you will have to drop them and bare your bottom. That will include the spanking you're going to get later this evening for smoking'.

Then it started.

Whack!

I cried out, '_f_u_c_k_, that hurts'.

'Don't you swear at me young man. Just for that you've clocked up another punishment session.'

Whack! Whack! Whack!

'As I said. This is going to be a very familiar position for you from now on.'

Whack! Whack! Whack!

'And we will have a strict new set of rules from now on.'

Whack! Whack! Whack!

'You will wear shorts every day until the end of October.' Whack! Whack! Whack!

'You will not be allowed out except to go to school or when supervised by adults'.

Whack! Whack! Whack!

'You will not be allowed to watch telly'.

Whack! Whack! Whack!

'Instead you will spend your evenings studying.'

Whack! Whack! Whack!

'And you will be in bed by nine o'clock every night'.

Whack! Whack! Whack!

'I will write out a full set of rules at the weekend, but in the meantime you had just better make sure that you behave yourself and start being an obedient little boy. Do you understand me?'

'Yes', I replied quietly though my tears.

'Yes what, young man?'

'Yes Dad'.

And at that he smacked me across my bare thighs with his hand.

'From now on you live in a strict household and you call me Sir. Now do you understand?'

'Yes Sir'.

'That's better'.

With that he took me by my hand and marched me downstairs to the kitchen like a little boy instead of a fifteen year old teenager. And believe me I really felt like a little boy with my bottom in more pain than I had ever had in my life, and the tears streaming down my face.

I had even forgotten that I must have also looked like a little boy in my neat grey shorts and my long grey knee socks. But I realised that as soon as we got into the kitchen and there was my Mum putting dinner on the table, and there was my younger brother sniggering at me.

'Sissy pants', he whispered as I sat down very carefully.

It was enough to set off another stream of tears. I could hardly believe what had happened to me in such a short space of time. But then neither could my thirteen year old brother when Dad snapped at him.

'There's no need for you to be so cocky either young man. Michael will be going to school in shorts tomorrow, but you will be getting shorts at Easter. And both of you will be staying in shorts every day until the Halloween break in six months time'.

That was enough to silence Sam for the rest of the meal which must have been the quietest dinner ever eaten in our house.

Later that evening my father gave me my first bare bottom spanking with the clothes brush and afterwards I went to bed and cried myself to sleep. It had been my secret dream to be sent to school in short pants. But I had always meant it to stay secret, and I was quite certain that the next day at school would be far more humiliating than my first two spankings.

As my hand reached out and hit the alarm clock I was turning over onto my front and wondering where the ache came from. Then with a rush it all came back to me and the sheer horror of being awake and alive came to me. I reached down inside my pyjama bottoms and felt my backside. It was still throbbing from the two spankings I had been given the previous evening. I found myself thinking, as if this was some interesting experiment on a third party, that my bottom really was warm, radiating the kind of deep heat that was not unlike the heat from a winter sports muscle rub. Yes it ached but it was not an entirely unpleasant ache and I figured that I would be able to live with it.

What I could not imagine living with was the realisation that today, if my father carried out his threat, I would be wearing shorts to school, the very shorts that had been my downfall. I just sank my face into my pillow and imagined the taunts and jeers of my school mates. It was not difficult to imagine what this would be like because I was sure that I would have joined in if it had been one of them who turned up at school wearing full school uniform but with the entirely unique substitution of grey shorts for grey trousers. It was an all boys school and pretty cruel at the best of times and I knew that today was going to be a total humiliation for me.

Nobody, absolutely nobody, wore shorts at our school. Even on the football pitch and at gym we all preferred to wear tracksuits, only ever showing our knees at school matches or maybe on really warm days. The youngest eleven year olds at our school wore long trousers even during the summer term. I had never ever seen another boy go to school in shorts since I had been in primary school. And now I was fifteen and long-legged and about to begin the first day of my absolute humiliation and unending shame of being forced to wear shorts. Today would be awful and indeed every day of the foreseeable future as my father had insisted that I would be wearing short pants every day without exception for the next six months. Unless, that is, he had slept on it and decided that this was far too extreme a punishment to be carried through.

I heard my brother moving about in his room. I would have to start getting a move on or there would be even more trouble for me. I swung my legs out of the bed and just as my feet reached the floor my father entered the room and smiled down at me.

'Come on now, hurry up and get washed and dressed quickly. I'll be giving you a lift into school today; I want to make sure you get there instead of bunking off.'

And with that, he left and went downstairs.

That was it then, there was obviously not going to be a reprieve from this ordeal. I wandered out to the bathroom and wiped my face clean. This was going to be awful. Putting on my school uniform felt like the last moments before execution.

I pulled on the socks. These were new, bought only yesterday, and had my school colours in two stripes at the top. I had seen them, or at least socks like them, in pictures illustrating school stories. There was also a row of photographs on a corridor at school. These were huge panoramic pictures of the whole school taken in the 1950s and 1960s, and in them the front rows were always of first years wearing shorts and neatly pulled up socks. I was pretty certain that nobody had worn socks like these to our school during the last ten years or more, and indeed my Dad had said that they had been hard to find. Just not the sort of thing that clothes shops had much call for in 1982. The guys in my class were going to get a good laugh at the sight of them pulled up over my calves and folded over at the top.

Then I reached for the shorts. I had left these until last as if wishing that they might turn into proper long trousers if I left it long enough. But there was two ways about it; these were shorts. And not the longest shorts either, certainly not bermudas, and could never have been mistaken for casual wear. They were neatly ironed, grey, lined, schoolboy shorts, with some elastic at the back, and a very formal crease running down the front. And they were tight and short, afterall I had bought them myself last year and I had grown a bit since then. Tight, short, grey, schoolboy shorts; these were going to be my own personal hell. And the worst of it was that it was my own pocket money that had bought them so rashly last September.

Typical, I thought. It was typical of my Dad's thoroughness and knowledge of how my mind might be working, that he had decided that he would be driving us to school today. As I descended the stairs and went into the kitchen for breakfast I could think of no possible escape from what was about to befall me. Sam, my younger brother, gave me a wink as I sat down. Not exactly a friendly, 'brother, I know this must be awful for you', type of supportive wink, but a straightforward sarcastic wink. 'See my big brother, the shortie pants little boy' was written all over his face. Well at least that would not last too long. The Easter holidays were only a week away and Dad had said that Sam would also be in shorts from then on. But Sam had obviously decided that he was going to milk this for whatever entertainment he could while he still had his knees discretely covered by his long trousers. Maybe he also had some inkling that there was going to be yet more entertainment very soon.

My mother wasn't being very supportive either, but then she had always been the first each year to suggest that it would be good for us to let the air and sunshine at our legs. So she had had to endure years of my furious refusal to wear shorts even during the holidays. It must have seemed to her that it was about time I was put back into shorts. And I guess that nearly every mother must like the idea of her sons being dressed to look like good and obedient little boys instead of the denim-clad wild boy image that we preferred. She barely said a word to me over breakfast and disappeared fairly quickly.

I should have taken that to be some sort of warning. As I said, Sam may have been expecting some more entertainment at my expense, and it came in my father's next words.

'Right Michael, we have some unfinished business from last night, and it's going to be finished off now. I let you off with only two spankings last night and you have a third spanking due, so get over here, drop your pants and bend over this chair'.

'But Dad,' I said, 'what third spanking? You said that wearing shorts would be my punishment for the magazines'.

'You obviously need to do some more work on your maths young man. We agreed: one spanking for the drinking, one spanking for the smoking, and a third spanking for cursing at me last night when I was dealing with you'.

I certainly wasn't sure that 'agreed' was the right word in this context but I didn't feel that it would be good for me to say so. And I remembered him saying that I had earned an extra spanking when I screamed out in pain and said 'fuck'. Language was going to be yet another thing to be controlled in future. I walked over to the chair undoing the fly on my shorts as I moved. Then I pulled them down to my ankles along with my white briefs.

I bent over the chair the way I had been instructed the previous evening, with my body arched over the seat, my hands touching the floor, and my feet rising close to tip-toe. I was fully stretched and obviously presenting a perfect target. As I waited for the first blow from my father's clothes-brush I could feel my school shirt slide towards my neck, exposing yet more of my fifteen year old bottom. This clothes-brush had proved itself as a spanking instrument during my first two meetings with it. It was made of wood, and had a long handle like a hair-brush. Even with living in a household that had been free of corporal punishment until now I was aware that hairbrushes had been a favourite tool for asserting parental control. Well, my father's clothes-brush was just like a bigger version of one of those hairbrushes, and it delivered a very direct and simple message to my body. I could sense my father getting ready and taking aim, and out of the corner of my eye I could see Sam standing by to witness my pain and shame.

It just wasn't fair; two years younger than me and he was the one wearing long trousers, and he was the one who got to watch my spanking instead of being on the receiving end. I knew well that he was no angel himself and that if Dad knew only some of the stuff that Sam got up to then I wouldn't be the only one in this situation. But who ever said that life was fair? I would just have to put up with life in my new personal hell, and accept too that this was a hell of my own making. If only I had never tried to keep stuff hidden at home. If only I had dumped that vodka bottle when I was finished with it.

'Right young man, this time I want you to count out each smack, and be sure to tag on a good and respectful 'sir' to those numbers.'

'Yes, sir.'

If only I had had the sense to keep the cigarette lighter somewhere else like in the ruined chapel a few fields away from our house where I had conducted most of my illicit experimentation.

Whack!

'One, sir!'.

The force of the blow to my bottom had nearly pushed the words out of my mouth. This was going to be worse than my previous two spankings.

Whack!

'Two, sir!'.

I could already feel a couple of tears gathering in my eyes. I had been wrong to think that the pain from last night's spankings had subsided. It was as if I had been continuously spanked through the entire night.

Whack!

'Three, sir!'.

If only I had given those magazines back to Jim, the schoolmate who had lent them to me.

Whack!

'Four, sir!'.

There was simply no way that I was going to be able to hold in these tears and yet I really didn't want to give Sam the satisfaction of seeing me break down and cry.

Whack!

'Five, sir!'

If only, if only, if only, I hadn't bought these stupid grey school shorts. If only I had left them hanging there in the shop. If only I could rewind time and go back to that fateful day last September. If only ...

Whack!

'Six, sir!'

My tears were flowing freely now and I was gulping in air and sobbing ferociously. This was pain and agony like I had never known. I couldn't move from the cramping in my legs. Which was probably just as well as it turned out that this wasn't going to be a traditional six of the best.

Whack!

'Seven, sir!'

Whack!

'Eight, sir!'

Whack!

'Nine, sir!'

Whack!

'Ten, sir!'

And then nothing. Nothing but the sound of my own sobbing. I was well and truly reduced to a humiliating and painful state. I gasped for air, and began to get some breath back.

I heard my father turn to Sam and say, 'there's one of the hidden benefits of the metric system, counting in tens instead of sixes.'

I could hear Sam laugh but I thought that it was one of the most pathetic jokes I had ever heard. I took another couple of breaths and recovered myself. I might have broken down, cried out like a toddler, and been in floods of tears, but I would show them that I was well able to handle this. I was tough enough to take it. I could recover.

Dad told me to get up and pull up my shorts. Then he sent me up to the bathroom to wash my face and gave me orders to be out at the car within five minutes. Sam followed me up the stairs. As I splashed water on my face he looked into the bathroom and giggled.

'I just love the way that the backs of your legs are so much more colourful than anywhere else beneath your little shortie pants, sissie cry-baby!'

With that he ran off and out to Dad. I twisted around and had a look in the mirror. He was right. My short pants were so short that they didn't cover all of the marks of my spanking. There was a good two inches of bruised flesh exposed beneath the hem. 'Brilliant', I thought, 'that's really all I need right now. Forced to wear stupid tight grey short shorts to school at fifteen years of age, and with the evidence of a thorough spanking on show for the whole world to see'.

There was simply no way I could imagine myself getting through the rest of the day. Afterall, the spanking was bad enough in itself. Being made to wear shorts was terrible and humiliating. Having to wear these shorts to school was unbearable and shaming. But having to display spanked thighs, exposed by little-boy grey school shorts, to over seven hundred laughing teenagers, was the final indignity. The only reason I was able to go down those stairs and out to Sam and Dad in the car, was because I figured that there really wasn't much room for life to get any worse. I didn't even care that Sam had taken the front seat and I had been demoted to the back. I was totally numb for that short drive to school; both numb with the throbbing pain in my bottom, and emotionally numb. I don't know how it happened, but I was away in a different world of fun and happiness in my own thoughts and I knew that all I had to do was to take it one minute at a time and I would survive.

I might be the first and only teenager to wear shorts to my school in a very long time, but I would be stoical, hold my head high, show my stiff upper lip, join the ranks of British Bulldog heroes, and live through it.

My hands massaged the bare skin of my legs and my mind drifted away to holiday adventures with the Famous Five, and school fun at Linbury Court with Jennings and Darbishire. Short pants might be a badge of shame in April 1982 but I wasn't going to forget that the kids who had the most fun in the books I used to read were all made to wear shorts well into their teens. I was in another world for that journey.

Until we drove through the school gates.

And once again fear and shame settled in my stomach and I was no longer so sure about my chances of surviving the next seven hours of school.

'Cheer up', I told myself. 'Afterall, it's Friday and you've got the whole weekend to look forward to'.

As if.

I could see crowds of boys making their way towards the assembly hall as my father pulled into a visitor parking space.

'Right, we're here'.

As if I hadn't noticed.

Sam climbed out of the car and opened the child-proof locked back door to let me out. I took a deep breath and my shoes found their own way to the gravel on the driveway. He smiled at me, gave me a light little smack on the back of my thigh and whispered into my ear. 'Cheer up shortie-pants'.

I was a totally and utterly broken and defeated little boy as the three of us walked towards the hall-door. I could see groups of boys turning to stare at my bare legs. I could see their faces crack into smiles. I could see a few younger boys actually pointing at me. I could almost hear every word of their whispered taunts.

At the door Dad put his hand on our shoulders and smiled. 'Have a good day now boys'.

As if.

Then he turned and went back to his car to drive off to work, and I was left totally defenceless. The only boy wearing shorts in the entire school. Far from my snatched moments of secret shorts wearing over the last few months, I was now wearing what had become, very public shorts.

The whole school was gathering for assembly, the first thing on our timetable every day. I made my way over to the spot where my friends and I usually stood. It was strange that even though I knew that everyone was looking at me and laughing and giggling, I still found myself compelled to walk tall with my shoulders thrown back. It was if my short pants were taking over my body and making me improve my posture. I tried to slouch and fade into the ground but instead I was walking properly.

I got to my friends, the guys I drank the vodka with in the old ruined chapel where we hung out. We had smoked cigarettes there, talked about the girls we liked to imagine were lusting after our adolescent bodies, and on a few occasions we had even measured up and compared the distance covered by our ejaculating spunk. It was, we liked to think, the very height of teenage friendship and we were by far the coolest gang around. These guys who had shared so much with me and who had pledged their undying loyalty to each other were my closest allies and I figured that I would be safe among them, that they would sympathise with my plight and protect me from the jeering mob.

How wrong I was. Instead of their usual welcome I was greeted with guffaws as they laughed openly at my bared legs. Jim, my closest friend and the guy who had let me borrow his porn collection sniggered at me, 'Go on, do a twirl little boy'. I was twisted around as they remarked on every feature of my legs; the whiteness of my thighs, the length of my knee socks with their purple and green turnover stripes, the tightness of my little shorts, and most of all, the obvious evidence that I had been spanked recently. I looked into their eyes and all that I could see were tears of laughter. When they had done they pushed me forward shouting, 'Go and stand with the little boys up front'. With that I was pushed from group to group until I found myself among the first years. Even they looked as if they wanted to push me on but there was nowhere else to go.

There I was standing head and shoulders among eleven and twelve year olds and they too, safe in their long uniform trousers, were giggling and jeering at the shortie pants bigger boy who had just joined them. The headmaster looked down at what was now a chaotic scene, a hall filled with 700 laughing pupils. I looked up at him and reckoned that he at least would have to put a stop to this. And he looked straight back down at me.

He began to speak and the whole school was suddenly hushed and silent. 'It has been my unfortunate experience over the past few years to have found that wherever there is trouble and mischief there is a hard-core of trouble making hooligans who think themselves superior to everyone else. And at the heart of this particularly obnoxious little gang it is inevitable that in their midst you will find a certain master Michael Ward. And so it is no surprise to me that when I stand here before you this morning and find myself standing in front of the most chaotic assembly that it has been my misfortune to have to preside over, I should eventually find that the root cause of this disruption is none other than that self same master Ward.'

The entire school, including teachers, broke down again in laughter at this. I couldn't believe it, even the headmaster was making a point of picking on me today. I tried to turn away and get out but I was being prodded and shoved by first years who had decided that the head's joke meant that they had his permission to treat me as their own plaything, like some sort of human football.

Assembly settled down again and ended with the usual notices about house exams prior to the Easter holidays. As soon as I got out of that hall I ran straight for the toilets where I hoped that I might be able to snatch a couple of minutes privacy before class. But Jim and the gang were there ahead of me, standing round the hand-basins as if this was exactly what they had expected me to do. A circle was formed with me in the middle, and now the guys weren't laughing.

'Ward, you're dead'. Jim had assumed the position of spokesman. 'If you think that you're going to get away with showing us up like this then you are very, very, wrong. We'll be seeing you again at lunchtime'.

With that they disappeared off to class and I was left with a whole new set of worries. I had known that wearing shorts was going to be terrible, but even last night as I had agonised over what might happen, I hadn't imagined that my closest friends would turn on me like this. I splashed some water on my face in the hope that the cold water would wake me from this nightmare. Then I followed them into class for the first lesson of the day. Naturally I was last into the classroom and had to take my place under the stares of twenty other fifteen year old, and sniggered remarks about 'sissy shorts', and 'baby legs'. It was obviously going to be a long time before any of these guys grew tired of this new joke in their midst.

My usual desk at the back of the class had been occupied and the only remaining place was at the front. It was a double maths class which was hateful at the best of times. Between my anxieties about what lunchtime might bring, the humiliation of feeling cool air around my legs, and the realisation that Mr Locke, the teacher, was constantly glancing at my bare knees and socks, I really wasn't able to follow the lesson at all. Suddenly I heard my name being called out and Mr Locke telling me to get up and demonstrate the theorem he was talking about by working it out on the blackboard. Misery seemed to be piled on misery as I stood before that board, chalk in hand, and not the slightest clue about what I should do next. There was a barely audible level of teasing laughter and I found myself staring back into Jim's eyes. He winked at me, a long slow, 'boy are you in trouble' kind of wink, and without any internal warning I found myself sobbing into the blackboard, an entirely broken and humiliated 15 year old.

I was called out to do things on the board in two more lessons that long morning. It must have been some sort of running joke among the teachers and no doubt they were having a good laugh at my expense in the staff-room. When the bell for lunch rang I found myself being whisked along to the refectory by my peers and dumped at the end of the queue of first years. I would be last in to get my lunch but I didn't dare try to take my rightful place. Even stranger though, was the fact that I didn't just run off and try to hide. When I got my tray and turned to find a table I found that everyone else had stood, up clapping their hands and chanting, 'shortie pants Wardie, shortie pants Wardie, shortie pants Wardie'. I found a place at the end of a first year table and gobbled down my food, hardly noticing the fact that the twelve year-old sitting next to me was constantly staring down at my thighs.

When I was finished I stood up to clear my tray away and get out of there, when out of the blue I heard two loud smacks and then felt the flooding pain that was becoming so familiar to me. The kid who had been sitting next to me had delivered a well aimed couple of slaps to the backs of my legs with his bare hand and was now standing next to me saying, for all the school to hear, 'little boys must always ask to be excused before they leave the table!'. I could feel the tears running down my face as I fled the refectory to the sound of yet more laughter.

However, I wasn't going to escape that easily. Within moments my old gang were standing around me once again having dragged me into the toilets. All five of them: Jim Fitsimmons, Paul Smyth, Martin Johnson, Paul Miller, and Pete Nicholls, were holding me at arms length and shoving me from one to the other. 'You've let us down badly Ward and you're going to pay for it. Now what do you have to say for yourself. What do you mean by showing up here at school in those shorts and socks? In case you've forgotten, we're the hard guys round here and we'll not be laughed at or made a show of by anyone, even if we used to let you hang around with us'.

The words hit me hard. It was clear that they regarded our friendship as history, a history they were even rewriting by saying that I hadn't really been one of their gang. I was just a kid they tolerated and let hang round out of pity or something. But they had asked, and for the first time that day I was being given an opportunity to explain that I was being severely punished for smoking and drinking, and keeping porn magazines in my room. Naturally I left out anything about where the shorts had come from. I figured that I had been shamed enough without having to explain that I had brought this particular punishment on myself. As I spoke I tried to imply that it could have happened to any one of us, indeed could yet happen to any one of them. Afterall we had shared those bottles of vodka and cider, we had passed our fags around the circle and shared our hidden caches of magazines. We had done everything together.

But I guess that that was precisely what they were afraid of. They were looking at my usual self from the waist up in dark green blazer, grey shirt, green and purple striped tie, and an entirely new person in short grey school short pants that fitted tightly around my bottom, and with my long grey knee socks still neatly pulled up with their smart green and purple turndown tops. Seeing me dressed like this must have touched off some primitive fear in them that they too might be forced into similar childish clothing. Maybe one or two of them were secretly thinking that it was a neat and smart looking outfit but I doubt it. They heard me out and then had a quick discussion about what should be done next. I guess that they had talked about this over lunch because sentence was quickly agreed.

Jim took the lead again. 'Right Ward, you've let the whole gang down. You've exposed the rest of us to danger and you've obviously been careless enough to let your parents confiscate my magazines. Your Dad is right, you're only a little boy who can't take responsibility for himself and be trusted to keep secrets secret. Do you really imagine that you're parents aren't going to be around talking to ours about what they've found out? You're a menace and a risk and we are going to punish you ourselves for what you've given away. Now drop your shorts little boy and bend over, because we think your Dad is right. The only way to treat little boys like you is to keep them well and truly spanked.'

I froze and just stood there staring at them. They couldn't really be going to go through with this. But then that was a thought that had gone through my mind several times in the past twenty four hours and each time I had been wrong. The one thing I could now be sure of in life was that if a threat seemed so extreme that it would never be followed through in reality, then it was pretty certain that it was going to be inflicted on me.

One of the guys had reached over and undone my shorts, they were not prepared to wait any longer for me to get a move on. In a couple of seconds I found myself with my shorts and briefs down around my ankles and I was being bent forward to present my bottom as target for their angry revenge. Yes, I was the only one who was being punished for things that we had all done together, but they seemed to feel that my being discovered was an act of treachery against them.

There didn't seem to be any order to what happened next, they certainly didn't bother taking turns to spank me but just went at it and hit me wherever and whenever they could. I didn't have to be held down or anything but just stayed in position and submitted to the pain.

Slap! Slap! Slap! Whack! Slap! Smack! Whack! Whack!

The gang settled into a rhythm and developed their theme. This was only a bare hand spanking but the intensity of it, the unrelenting number of smacks, and the pain of it accumulating on top of my Dad's three spankings, meant that in only a few seconds I was bawling in agony. It just went on and on and continued as if forever. The only thing that I noticed other than the increasing pain was that there seemed to be no noise in the room apart from skin hitting skin. There was no talking, no laughter now. These guys were in earnest and my bottom was taking the direct force of their wrath.

Whack! Whack! Slap! Smack! Slap!

After forever had passed and I had taken so much that the pain had reached a steady state of agony, the slaps began to become weaker and slower. Slap!

And then it was all over. I was one very sorry little boy lost in my own internal world of pain and shame. I stood up and slowly pulled my underwear and shorts back up. I felt so miserable that I really didn't care when I realised that my gang of five tormentors had acquired a large and very fascinated audience while I was being spanked. Even now that they had finished not a word was spoken. I went over to the washbasins and scrubbed my face clean in cold reviving water. When I turned the tap off I found that the room was entirely empty. The bell was ringing for afternoon lessons and I was on my own again. I looked into the mirror and fixed my hair and tie. 'Well', I thought, 'you brought it on yourself and you'll just have to put up with it'. And with that I made my way quickly to the classroom and reassumed my seat at the front of the class. If this was how it was going to be then I would simply have to learn to avoid as much trouble with teachers, parents, and peers, as was humanly possible.

The one thing, however, that was not humanly possible, was to maintain any sort of comfortable position at my desk. I tried lifting my bottom cheeks one at a time to relieve the pain, but that only left more pressure on the other. It took a while before I could really concentrate on the lessons but I guessed that having a throbbing backside was likely to be a pretty constant state for me for some time to come.

At the end of the afternoon the bell went and was drowned out by the roar of seven hundred teenage boys welcoming the weekend. As was usual on Fridays the school emptied of both teachers and pupils within a few minutes. There was no hanging around for after school football or even detentions. Nobody wanted to be in that building for any longer than was necessary. My preoccupation with my aching bottom slowed me down and I was last out and found myself left alone to walk home. It was a fairly painful journey but I welcomed the fact that I was free from my tormentors for the first time that day. Perhaps even boys in short pants could hope for some freedom from humiliation at weekends.

I turned in at our garden gate, tired, hungry, and still in pain. Even though home was where it had all started I was glad to be back. Once inside those walls I would be safe from the eyes of others. I couldn't help but notice as I had walked that nearly everyone I passed was fascinated by my legs and turned to stare. Some were clearly remarking the rare vision of a teenage boy in school shorts, but in all truth I was past caring so long as they weren't actually hitting me.

An old saying started to go round and round in my head like some sort of mantra. 'Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never harm me. When you're dead and in your grave you'll suffer for what you called me'.

I reached the door and was let into the house by my mother, who took one look at me and exclaimed, 'Michael, what were you told about keeping your socks up?'

I looked down and sure enough both of my socks had worked their way down to my ankles. My mother told me to get into the kitchen and I didn't really need to be told what was going to come next. 'Afterall', I listed in my mind, 'since breakfast I had been spanked by my Dad, slapped by my brother, slapped on the backs of my legs by a first-year, spanked to tears again by my old gang, and all of that was on top of the countless other humiliations that had been piled on by teachers and pupils'.

This might not be the welcome home that I would have hoped for but it seemed to fit in with the new pattern of my sorry life. I was about to get my first spanking from my mother. She walked over to the cutlery drawer and withdrew a simple wooden spatula. That at least couldn't be as painful as the brush I thought, but oh, how wrong I was yet again. Instead of pulling my pants down my mother reached over and pulled up the leg of my shorts and delivered a few swift smacks to the inside of my left thigh and then repeated the exercise on my right leg. This was an entirely new kind of pain, more stinging than the aching throb produced by the brush, and it was very effective. I guess that I just didn't have any more tears left inside me but when my mother was finished I was back, yet again, to a state of infantile sobbing.

'Maybe that will help you remember that we really do expect you to look neat and smart at all times from now on'.

Remember! How would I ever be able to forget that day. Teenage boys in short pants could obviously expect a swiftly delivered spanking for even the slightest misdemeanour or mistake. A few more days of this and I knew that my life would be changed forever. There certainly would be no return to the carefree days of illicit drinking, smoking, or even wanking; at least not without the knowledge that retribution would be exacted for every moment of pleasure. I went up to my room and thought back on the events of the day. The stinging continued to be distinctly noticeable on the inside of my thighs.

My brother, Sam, came into the room. 'Well I hope you learnt something today mister oh so big brother. Don't you forget that I'm going to have to suffer the same after Easter when Dad makes me wear shorts too. And it's all your fault. You get into trouble and I end up having to obey the same new rules that Dad's going to give us tomorrow'.

He was clearly very angry with me and he really did have a point. Both of us would be living under a new regimen of strict rules, and all because I couldn't keep my most secret secrets secret. I buried my face into my pillow and tried not to think about the new rules that Dad had promised he would draw up on Saturday.

Saturday morning saw me awake quite early, lying in my bed and still reflecting on how radically my life had changed in just two days. On Thursday afternoon I was an average teenager hanging around with his friends and having fun, a guy who lived in a very ordinary 1980s household where discipline was relaxed and never involved corporal punishment. I had moved from that happy state to being a fifteen year old boy whose parents made him wear shorts to school, indeed the only guy in shorts in our school. I had been spanked by my father, mother, and even the guys who had been my closest friends. Even my thirteen year old brother and a twelve year-old first year had been unable to refrain from slapping the backs of my legs. It was as if a guy who wore shorts was required to accept discipline from anyone older or in long trousers.

Of course it was really all my own fault. Even I could see that. If it hadn't been for my secret fascination with short pants then I doubt that my parents would have thought up this form of discipline. I recalled some of my stolen moments wearing my grey school shorts in the privacy of my room when the rest of my family were out of the house. Those had been blissful moments and nearly always ended up with me stroking my penis.

As my mind drifted over my favourite fantasies - I was particularly fond of one where I was sent to boarding school and had to fag for a prefect who insisted that I wear shorts all year round and who liked to have me relieve his adolescent tension - my hand drifted quite naturally down to my penis once again. I stroked it carefully and caressed it into an erection.

Then I heard movement in the hall outside and suddenly my father was in my room telling me to get up right away. I complained, 'but Dad, it's Saturday'.

'Don't you give me any cheek young man. I don't care what day it is, you're not lying here all morning wasting time that would be better spent studying for your end of term exams.'

With that he whipped the duvet off my bed and revealed my swollen state. 'You better not have been playing with yourself Michael because if I ever find you masturbating I'll inflict some very special punishment on you'.

I didn't like to think about what a very special punishment might be, not after the severity of the spankings I had already suffered. With that I was out of bed and heading for the bathroom. When I got back to my room I found that Dad had laid out the clothes I would be wearing for the day. Instead of the grey shirts that I wore for school there was a navy blue polo shirt so that wasn't too bad. But I was still going to have to put up with my tight grey school shorts and the long knee socks with the school colours of purple and green on the turnovers. It was also obvious that I wasn't going to be allowed to wear my usual weekend trainers as the only footwear in the room was my black Clarkes school shoes.

I joined my parents and Sam, my younger brother, in the kitchen for breakfast. Sam was looking very relaxed and casual in his jeans and a t-shirt, the very image of a typical teenager in 1982. I really envied him, but then the uncharitable thought entered my mind that he would have to make the best of it today as Dad had said that he would be joining me in shorts from Easter, and that was only a week away. My Mum was also looking pretty relaxed. In fact she looked happier and more cheerful than I could remember her being for at least a couple of years. My Dad cracked a few jokes and asked us for our predictions about the day's football games. If it wasn't for the fact that I was wearing these stupid little-boy shorts I would have thought that it was going to be one of the most pleasant days we had had together in a long while.

After breakfast both Sam and I were told to go to our rooms and do our homework and revision for next week's house exams. Dad reminded us that he and Mum were going to spend the morning talking things through and working out a list of new rules that we boys would have to obey. I had kept hoping that this new strict thing of his would only last a couple of days and that we would quickly get back to normal but I guessed that he really meant it. These new rules were going to dictate my life for some time.

I arranged one of my pillows on the chair at my desk and settled down to work. My bottom was still throbbing a bit from time to time; that much spanking takes a long time to heal. I got a lot done that morning as I was sure that I didn't want another punishment session with Dad's clothes-brush. Just after one o'clock we were called down for lunch and then Dad announced that we would have a family meeting immediately afterwards for a presentation and explanation of the new rules.

The four of us went into the sitting room where Sam and I promptly sat down at either end of the sofa as far from each other as we could get. Straight away Dad was snapping at us.

'There's obviously two things that we need to get straight before we begin, Michael and Sam. First is that neither of you was told that you could sit and secondly you are to sit on the floor. I'll explain why in a minute.'

Well it sounded like a very strange demand given that there was plenty of comfortable furniture in the room but neither my brother nor I was really prepared to start arguing at this stage. So down we got and sat on the floor, me with my chin resting against my bare knees. I was still not used to seeing my knees so much but I was beginning to like the feeling of air moving round them. It felt sort of freeing, as if any moment now I could be up and away on an adventurous hike or just playing football on the green. Dad started,

'You may not realise it boys, but the past year or more has been really very difficult for your Mum and I. Things have not been easy and the fact that neither of you has been any help or tried to make life easier for us certainly hasn't helped. Your Mum and I have agreed that it's time we got some life of our own back instead of being constantly worried about what you two were getting up to.'

This was plainly going to be a very long lecture and high in the emotional blackmail stuff. I had heard it all before of course but this time was slightly different. Afterall I was now wearing grey school shorts and had received several spankings, both of which were entirely new developments in my life. Dad continued,

'We've not been able to invite friends around or even go out much together because we've always been worried that one or both of you would get into really serious trouble. That gang that you've been hanging around has been a nasty influence on you Michael. I've been around to some of their parents and they agree that it's high time that gang was broken up. You've built up a pretty vicious reputation; hanging around smoking and drinking. I suspect that there's even been some thieving going on but I'll overlook that for the moment because it's not going to continue in the future now that your Mum and I have decided to put a stop to it.'

Well, I considered that pretty low and mean, especially the stuff about us being vicious. We'd never beat anyone up or got into fights except for the occasional bit of rough and tumble amongst ourselves. As for the thieving accusation that was entirely unfounded. It was true in a very minor way but Dad had no evidence for it so it wasn't fair drawing that in.

'Anyway', said Dad, 'that's all in the past and we are going to start afresh now. We're going to take this chance to start a new life together as a family, and for you two that means that there will be quite a few new rules and some changes to how things are done in this household.'

Mum and Dad must have planned this discussion very carefully because this was where Dad stopped outlining the general approach and Mum began giving us the practical details.

'The first change', she told us, 'is that your father and I have decided that we are going to have a proper guest room again for visitors. So you will be sharing a room together from now on. After we're finished here Dad will help you move Michael's bed into the room that Sam is in now.'

'No way', cried Sam who had taken as much of this as he could bear. 'It's just not fair. Michael's been going round getting into trouble with that gang of his and now you're making me share with him. Punish him, why don't you? I don't have to take this.'

'Well, take it is precisely what you will do young man, and if there any more outbursts like that from you, you will be getting a taste of what your brother's already had.' Dad was clearly getting worked up about this and about to blow his top. 'And don't imagine for one minute, Sam, that we haven't discovered a few nasty truths about you as a result of our chats with other parents around here.'

Sam must have decided that it would be diplomatic to avoid any further confrontation, and Mum continued.

'You will be sharing a room together from now on but that's not all. We've decided that too much bathroom time is being taken up with you two fighting over who gets to it first. And what you get up to for all that time when you do get in there is something I prefer not to think about. So from now on you will be given a shared bath every other evening, and the door of the bathroom is to be kept open at all times when either of you is in there.'

I certainly didn't like the idea of sharing baths but I was particularly worried about the word 'given' in that sentence. Little children and babies were 'given' baths, surely Mum couldn't really mean that! And not even having privacy to go to the toilet or do all the other things that I preferred to do without being seen. This was a lot worse than I had expected.

'You both know that you will be dressing alike from next week onwards. Your father has told you that you will both be wearing shorts every day until Halloween. Well you might as well know now that I still disagree with him there. I think that you should have to stay in shorts until after you leave school; that way I'm sure that neither of you will be getting into so much trouble. So, think of yourselves as being on probation. We will have a review of your behaviour towards the end of September and if it doesn't match up to what we expect of you, then you will not be getting longs again for several years.'

Now this really couldn't be serious I thought. I was already the only teenager in town who was being made to wear shorts to school. I just couldn't begin to imagine what being forced to wear shorts at eighteen would be like. And surely she couldn't mean that we would have to wear shorts in the winter as well! It was taking a lot of effort on my part to stay quiet and listen to this. I suddenly realised that I was biting into my knee with the tension, and I could see that Sam's mouth was open wide in disbelief. This was totally bizarre; what could have got into the minds of our parents if they imagined that this kind of treatment could be inflicted on teenagers in 1980s England?

But obviously that wasn't all that my mother had to say. 'You will both have a nine o'clock bedtime from now on. In fact you will both be in bed by five to nine every night so that your father and I can watch the news in peace. We're fed up being told by you two that we can't watch what we want to watch on our own television in our own sitting room.'

Mum was clearly on a roll now because the words were streaming out and with every sentence I could see a whole bit more of my old life disappearing. Nine o'clock was pretty serious, especially seeing as how we had stayed up as long as we liked until now.

'You will spend every evening between six o'clock and half past eight in your room studying and doing homework. In addition there will be study periods set aside on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, so you can forget about having loads of time to go off with your friends frightening the living daylights out of people.'

'You will only be allowed out to go to school, or to take part in after school sports, or otherwise with adult supervision. There will be no running around on your own. If you decide after summer that you would like to do so then you will be allowed to join the scout troop at the parish church. But other than that you are both to make sure that your father and I know exactly where you are and what you are doing at all times.'

I could see that a couple of tears had escaped from Sam's eyes by now and I wasn't far off from crying myself. This was really too awful.

'Speaking of church, your father and I have neglected your spiritual upbringing for too long now and that has clearly had a detrimental effect on both of you. So starting next week with the Easter services we will be going back to church as a family every Sunday. Both of you will of course be properly dressed for church in your full school uniforms including ties.'

'And now that I've got on to your uniforms may I remind you that there is a golden rule that must always be followed by boys in short pants. Michael got a little taste yesterday of what happens when that rule is broken, didn't you Michael.'

'Yes, Mother'.

'So what is the golden rule, Michael?'

'I have to keep my socks neatly pulled up all of the time, Mother'.

'Good boy. You will have no excuse either as I have sewn some garters for both of you'. And with that Mum handed a pair of bands made of strong black elastic from her sewing kit to each of us. 'You wear these at the top of your socks and fold your turnovers over them. That way your socks will stay up better at all times.'

Sam was particularly horrified at being given these garters. He hadn't been given his first pair of shorts yet and here he was being handed symbols of the clothes he was going to be made to wear from next week on. He totally flipped his lid at this. His rage just boiled over as he shook the garters in my mother's face and screamed that she was never, never, ever, going to make him wear stupid little sissie shorts.

Dad's response was as swift as it was efficient and before I knew what had happened my thirteen year-old brother was lying across our father's lap and Dad's hand was rising into the air ready to deliver a spanking. And not just any spanking but the very first in Sam's life. To say that I was delighted at this development would be an understatement. Sam had been really mean to me when I was spanked and put into shorts the other day. Well it just seemed to me that he had it coming to him, and as the first solid whack landed on his trouser clad backside it was obvious that he was going to get everything that he deserved.

Sam must have been really shocked by this. Not having had time, even a few seconds, to prepare himself for this, he hadn't steeled his mind for the pain that was about to be inflicted on his thirteen year-old bottom. The sound of Dad's hand smacking into Sam's trousers was pretty amazing. Not so much a 'whack' as a 'whok', and the blows were coming fast and furious.

Whok! Whok! Whok! Whok! Whok! Whok! Whok! Whok!

On and on for what seemed like ages and the noise was made louder by the fact that Sam had only lasted a few seconds before he started bawling. This was incredible and I was really appreciating the scene. The little sod had made sure that I was constantly reminded of just how shaming it was for me to be put into shorts and spanked. Now that he was getting a taste of that medicine I couldn't bring myself to sympathise with him. I just sat there on the floor, hugged my knees into my chest, and gloated.

Whok! Whok! Whok!

Then just as suddenly as he had started Dad stopped, looked over at me, and told me to go and fetch the brush. I didn't need telling twice. I was out the door and up the stairs in a thrice. If anything it now looked as if Sam's first spanking was going to be even more sustained and more painful than mine. Excellent!

I got back down to the sitting room and found that Sam's shoes, trousers, and underpants, had all been stripped off him and he was back over my Dad's lap. I handed the clothesbrush to Dad like an altar boy serving a priest. This was a sacred moment. Those last few seconds between being a boy who was never spanked in his life, to being a boy who, even as a teenager, was going to receive his fist bare bottom spanking. And what a bottom! Even at only thirteen Sam was quite well developed. In fact, if truth be told, he might even have been more physically mature than I was at fifteen. He might have been my brother, and I might never have seen a spanking before, but I could see that his was a bottom that had been made for spanking.

And wow, Dad spared no time now before resuming the ritual.

The dull sound of hand on cloth had now given way to a full and much more satisfactory 'whack'.

Whack! Whack! Whack!

'Don't you ever argue or speak back to your Mother ever again', Dad shouted over the sound of the continuous spanking.

Whack! Whack! Whack!

Sam was absolutely bawling by now. Forget any idea you might have had of a selfconfident, arrogant, teenage boy. This was nothing but a howling toddler lying on his Daddy's knees.

Whack!

It was over. Dad looked exhausted. Sam looked as if he would never recover. And in a way, like anyone who has ever been properly spanked, he never would. From now on he would be a boy who gets spanked.

He stood up shaking and crying, and Mum, Dad, and I, waited while he got his breath back.

'I'm sorry I was cheeky Mum, I'll be good, I promise.'

His first words as a spanked teenager were the contrite words of a punished child. I was delighted at the way he had been humbled. I know I should have felt more sympathy for him but he was a guy who had needed bringing down a peg or two.

And then Dad snapped at me.

'Stand up Michael and take those shorts off now!'

What had I done? I didn't dare ask. If Dad was in the mood for giving out spankings then I wasn't going to provoke him. A day or two ago I would have protested, but not now. I jumped up and took off the grey school shorts that I was wearing, not that they offered much protection or coverage anyway. This was the pair of secret shorts that I had bought last year and kept hidden away, the very pair that had landed me in most of this trouble, and they were quite tight and short on me. I pulled them down along my legs and over my black Clarkes school-shoes, and then looked at Dad to wait for orders about what he wanted me to do next. His words were just as much a surprise as anything else that had been said or done that evening. He simply told me to hand my shorts to Sam, and then he turned to Sam and said, 'Put these short pants on you now. You weren't going to be put into shorts until the Easter holiday started next week, but boys who get spanked in this house, wear shorts'.

Meekly, and still sobbing quietly, Sam pulled on the dreaded and shameful shorts. He didn't even try to get his underpants on first. Some inner voice, perhaps an instinct passed on from previous generations of spanked ancestors, told him that it would be best for him if he simply obeyed every order exactly. Even though Sam was nearly as well developed as me the shorts still looked less tight on him. His fourteenth birthday was only a few weeks away in May whereas I'm a November baby, so there isn't a full two years between us. The shorts he was now wearing were the very ones that I had bought last September and had been my secret shorts, hidden away until only two days ago. The very shorts that had been my downfall. Still, they were a much better fit on Sam than on me, although they were still quite tight and rather short. As he fastened the fly I could almost see the penny drop in his mind, as he realised that not only was he a well-spanked teenage boy. He was also a teenager in grey school-shorts. Life would never be the same for him.

Dad looked over at me and told me to go upstairs and put on the new pair of shorts that he had bought for me at the school outfitters on Thursday afternoon. The pair that he had picked up along with my new school uniform knee-socks. I pulled them on for the first time. They were a bit looser than the other pair, a much better fit. And they were longer too with the hems just a couple of inches above my knees. I checked my knee-socks and then pulled on the new garters my mother had made. As I folded the tops of my socks over the garters I caught sight of myself in the mirror. Gone was the denim-clad youth of last week, and in his place was a much nicer looking boy. A boy any mother would have been proud of, in his very traditional schoolboy garb of blue polo-shirt, grey shorts, and smartly pulled up grey knee-socks. A much more polite looking boy, one of a very rare breed in April 1982; a teenager who was made to wear shorts, even to school. A teenager who came from a family where rules were to be obeyed at all times, and where disobedience was swiftly and firmly punished.

I smiled at the guy in the mirror. It might be a more painful and more humiliating life than the one I had led before, but I kind of liked the new me. He looked like a decent enough kind of a kid. I guessed that he would get lots more spankings but I reckoned that I could live with that.

Then a quite strange thought struck me. I would have died of shame if I had been told to wear these shorts a few days ago. But now, after two days wearing much shorter and tighter short pants, I felt that being allowed longer shorts was a recognition that I was growing up. So I really didn't mind wearing them at all. Mum and Dad seemed to be threatening to keep Sam and I in shorts for a few years yet and that was a frightening thought. But in the meantime, I really liked my new school shorts.

I picked up a pair of knee-socks, brought them downstairs with me, and gave them to Sam. He smiled and thanked me, and I smiled back and told him that he was welcome. Afterall, despite it all, he's my only brother, my not-so-little brother. A boy like me; both of us boys who got spanked.

And boys who get spanked are kept in short pants.

And boys who are kept in short pants have to wear proper knee-socks and keep them pulled up at all times!

 

© Mike Ward 1997 & 2004