Visiting Aunt Monica
“Hello Aunt Monica.” I’d practiced the simple phrase over and over while driving to her house. I wanted to sound confident and calm when I greeted her, but instead, my voice cracked and shot up in pitch when I finally saw her face to face.
Aunt Monica stood at the threshold of her front door and smiled. “William. Come in!” She clasped my arm and drew me into the warm entryway of her house. “My you’ve grown up. It’s been a number of years since you spent the holidays with me.”
I nodded. “Ten, I think.”
Aunt Monica looked me up and down. “I remember those visits quite well.”
Of course she did. I did, too. I nodded again, flushing.
“I was surprised when you called to say you were passing through town. I’m so happy you can spend the afternoon and have dinner together.” Aunt Monica moved to living room and settled on the sofa. She patted the seat beside her. “Here sit down and tell me what’s going on with you.”
What’s going on... It was easy for me to brag to her. I was now vice-president of a large company. I had lots of people working for me. I owned a Mercedes and a beach house and any other whimsical desire I could think of was fulfilled.
Aunt Monica seemed interested and quite proud of my accomplishments. But when I began to talk about some of the trips I’d taken, the ones which included long nights of partying, I saw her eyebrow rise and the smile fade.
Immediately I changed the subject. Even though I wasn’t a teenager anymore, I could tell Aunt Monica still felt responsible for making me the perfect gentleman, and I do mean perfect. When I was living at home, my mother couldn’t always get through to me. That’s where Aunt Monica came in.
My cousin had warned me about this by saying, “If you give Aunt Monica ten cents worth of trouble she’ll take a dollar’s worth of your hide and two dollars worth of your pride.” The first time she grabbed me by the ear and marched me to her bedroom for a spanking, I understood what he meant. The shame hurt twice as much as the pain.
I’d never discussed my childhood discipline with anyone, and although I admit it made me a better person, since I’d moved away I’d become my own man. I did things my way now. This year I decided it was time for Aunt Monica to know that.
Even as we smiled and exchanged pleasantries, I longed for a way to show her how grown up I’d become. How adult. How far out of her grasp I now was. I could tell her about the wild parties or anything else I chose to do, and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it.
A buzzer went off in the kitchen, and I jumped.
“William, I was baking some cookies. Would you like some?” Aunt Monica tilted her head toward me.
I stopped talking mid-sentence. The ‘Cookie Incident’ had earned me my first spanking from Aunt Monica.
I remember that humiliating event like it was yesterday. I was going out and I took a few cookies which were bagged up on the counter, even though I’d already been warned to leave them alone. When I got home Aunt Monica was waiting for me. She always knew when a boy did something even a little out of line.
“William, we need to talk,” she said, arms folded.
“Why?” I played dumb as long as I could. It always worked with my mother.
“Some of the cookies I made for the ladies’ club are missing,” she said. “I know you took them after I asked you not to.”
“I didn’t take your stupid cookies!” I shouted, trying to go on the offensive.
“And now, you are displaying a bad attitude.” Aunt Monica reached for the phone. “You go wait in the living room. I’m going to speak with your mother.”
Grumbling I stomped into the living room and flopped on the couch to wait, certain my mother would tell her that even if I did take the cookies, I deserved them. After a few moments, Aunt Monica appeared.
“William, your mother says that you have never been spanked. Is that true?”
“Spanked? What does that have to do with anything?”
“Answer the question, young man.”
“No, I have never been spanked.”
Aunt Monica raised her eyebrow. “Then you are way overdue.”
“I didn’t take the cookies!” I shouted again.
“All right.” Aunt Monica got up and went down the hall. She returned with a large oval hairbrush which she handed to me.
“Let’s have a serious talk, William,” she said. “If you took some cookies without my permission you will be marched to the bedroom for a good spanking over my lap.
You look like a big, tough boy so I’m sure a little sting would have been soon forgotten and lesson learned. But if you are lying to me it is a much more serious event. You will get a real spanking. By that I mean hairbrush to bare bottom.”
I stared at her, horrified. Did she say bare-bottom? Was she going to pull my pants down? Why didn’t I just say I took the cookies in the first place? A spanking for that would have been embarrassing enough, but now, with the lying and attitude accusations, I was in real trouble.
“Since you’ve never had a spanking, I guarantee, you’ve never felt anything like this before. You won’t enjoy sitting down for a few days afterward, either. So think about it, and think about it hard. Are you going to tell me the truth, William?”
I looked down at the wide, flat back of the brush and shivered.
“William...William...” Aunt Monica’s voice snapped me out of the unpleasant vision. “I asked if you’d like a hot cookie.”
“Oh...sure.” I followed her to the kitchen and watched as she took a sheet out of the oven, then slid the cookies individually onto a cooling rack. They looked good, they smelled great. I reached.
“When did you last wash your hands?” she asked.
“On the plane.”
“You’d better wash again before you eat. You know what happens to boys who show up at the table with dirty hands.” She gave me a stern look and waved the cookie spatula in my direction.
I rubbed my palms together. “I’m fine.” I said. I didn’t come here for her to boss me around. Quite the opposite. I came here to show her that she can’t.
Aunt Monica looked at me as if I were ten again. I felt like I was ten again and she was asking me... “Are you going to tell me the truth, William?”
“I didn’t take the cookies.” In my young mind I’d decided if I held onto the lie hard enough, eventually she would believe me.
“Then what’s this doing in your pocket?” She picked up my coat from where I tossed it on a chair and pulled out a crumb filled baggie decorated with green and red ribbon. Matching full packages were still lined up along the table.
I caught my breath. I could not speak. I was caught.
Aunt Monica grabbed me by the ear and marched me to her bedroom. She pulled my pants and underwear down in one swift motion, and then she dumped me over her lap. She scolded and spanked with the brush until I was kicking and squirming over her lap. My bottom felt like fire, and soon I started to cry.
“Not such a big boy now, are you?” she said, standing me upright. No boy wants to cry over anything, and the humiliation of that hurt more than the brush.
I gulped back the memory and grabbed a cookie. Aunt Monica watched me take a bite.
“Haven’t you learned your lesson yet?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean manners. I asked you to go wash up, and you ignored me.” She walked around the table. “You’re never too old for a spanking, young man.”
Before I could protest, she grabbed me by the ear, and marched me to her bedroom. She sat on the edge of the bed and spun me around in front of her. “Pull down your pants,” she commanded.
“But Aunt...”
“You’re only making it worse.”
My face burning with shame, I unzipped and let my slacks fall to my ankles.
“Underwear, too,” she said.
I gulped, but complied.
Aunt Monica took my wrist and dumped me over her lap. With my hands on the floor and my bare bottom up, I felt like I’d never left her charge.
She picked up the hairbrush and smacked me hard, once on each cheek. “Naughty boys get spanked,” she reminded, and peppered my bottom until I was howling and bucking. She wrapped her free arm around my waist and held on tight, spanking harder and harder. How such a little woman could deliver such force, I couldn’t quit comprehend. All I knew was that my bottom was sizzling.
The spanking didn’t stop. Not even after a few tears spilled down my cheeks and splashed onto the floor. Not little boy tears, but grown up man tears. Not entirely tears of pain either, but tears which rose from swirling emotion. The lack of control drove the shame down deep into my belly until I sobbed.
That seemed to do it. Aunt Monica paused. The sharp staccato reports of the brush smacking my bottom ceased. The only sound in the room was my wailing. I lay across her lap, chest heaving, bottom throbbing, until exhaustion set in and I went limp. But to my amazement, in spite of, or maybe because of the pain and the shame, I felt better.
I’d come here in an attempt to prove my independence to Aunt Monica, but instead, managed to realize how much I needed guidance. I needed to be spanked from time to time, and not over something as trivial as cookies or hand washing. I needed to surrender my ego, my stress, and the weight of my responsibilities to a strong, no-nonsense woman.
Aunt Monica was the perfect lady to provide what I craved.