When I was in my mid-teens I suppose, like most that age, I went through my rebellious phase. My mother was a school teacher and was very keen on discipline, both in terms of self-discipline and also it’s administration where necessary.

On this particular day, I had been in town with a couple of girl friends from school and we had experimented with smoking a cigarette. I think we all went green around the gills, to say the least. My friend, Daisy, was physically sick and we swore never to touch them again. However, on the way home, as I had the packet in my bag, I did try one again and to be fair the reaction, though not pleasant, was not as horrible as it had been earlier.

I got home around five or five-thirty, and my mum was cooking dinner while my sister was doing some homework at the kitchen table. I gave mum a kiss on the cheek and was about to go upstairs to change when she called me back. She asked me if I had been smoking. Of course, being put on the spot like that, I would have to deny it but she said she could smell it on me and my breath. Being a school teacher, she really hated children lying to her and had always expressed a zero tolerance view on smoking to boot.

She said she would give me one more chance to come clean. But, lying through my teeth, I continued with my denial. I had to really. Having just dug myself into a deep hole, I just kept digging. Mum then told me that she did not believe me and asked me for my handbag.

I said, “No, mind your own business and leave it alone.”

She ignored me and grabbed it, opened the clasp and tipped its contents onto the kitchen table. I screamed and shouted in protest, but to no good. On the table lay a used bus ticket, a packet of mints, a comb, a small purse and handkerchief. She then opened the zipped side pocket inside and out fell a lip-stick, a card of matches and a packet of ten cigarettes which was both open and half empty. My protestations had gotten me exactly nowhere.

She then told me I was going to get a smacked bottom, both for lying and for smoking. I tried to run away but she grabbed my arm and I tried to wrestle my way free. Her grip was vice-like. My younger sister made as if still doing her homework but was obviously watching, with great glee.

Mum pulled me, still cursing and struggling, across her ample lap as she sat herself on a kitchen chair. Clamping my legs between hers and pulling me forward so my bottom was sticking straight where she needed me, I was trapped, helpless and completely out of options. My skirt swished up and was trapped above my waist. My panties, green with a lace trim, were stretched tight over my bottom and would offer little protection for what was likely to follow.

Her hand struck sharply on my left buttock three times, and then likewise on my right. She spanked like this for around 30 seconds quite rhythmically, then I saw my sister smirking openly. I swore at her, and as the words were still travelling through the air I instantly regretted it. Swearing was another one of mum’s cardinal no-noes.

She brought her hand down to rest on my right buttock and it stayed there for a second or two before she asked my sister, in a very calm and measured way, if she would mind popping upstairs to her bedroom and bringing her the flat-backed wooden hair brush. She had used this on me only once before and it hurt like I could not believe. I pleaded and begged her not to, but she told me I had smoked, lied, bitched and now sworn, so what I was about to get was richly deserved.

My sister ran back downstairs and dutifully handed the brush to mum. She took a firm grip and tapped it on my bottom a couple of times, presumably to get used to the weight, and then brought it down with a terrible smack on my poor bottom. I exploded into tears right from the first spank. Eleven more followed, alternating left and right and up and down my bottom. It was so, so painful.

After the twelfth whack with the brush, she carefully put it down on the table behind her and told me I had been punished enough and to get upstairs and stay in my room until I was called for dinner. I very carefully regained my feet and, walking like an old woman, climbed the stairs slowly, one at a time, tears still streaming down my face. Once in my room, I dropped my skirt and eased my green panties off of my bottom, looking at it in the mirror. My entire bottom was pink or red, but where the majority of the smacks with the hairbrush had fallen, there were ovals of bright red which I dare not touch right away, not even to rub it better.

I had learned a hard and lasting lesson. I never lied to mum again, well, nothing serious anyway, and I never swore in front of her either. I did consider hiding her brush, but she’d know it was me and only buy another one and probably try it out at some point.

Sheila (as told to JG)