Tara gets the switch

Tara sat on the back porch with pruning shears clipping the stems off the branch then trying to slice off the lateral buds left behind. When she had it as smooth as possible she peeled the touch layer of skin leaving the slightly moist stem. She held it up next to her pinkie and confirmed the branch was slightly wider than her own finger. She put it aside, she heard a lawnmower a few houses away, as it retreated she could hear boys playing basketball on the street in front of the house next door. John was her age, a funny, tall kid and good athlete she heard his voice calling for the ball. The wind shifted and she smelled the freshly mown grass, the lawnmower came closer, its engine drowning out the yells and laughter of the basketball players. She sighed and picked up the second branch and repeated the process of trimming and skinning it. She took the garbage bag and cleaned up the leaves and stems. She ran each branch between her fingers one last time confirming no buds had escaped her attention. Satisfied each switch was as smooth as she was going to get it she picked up the bag, shears, and switches and walked into the kitchen. Her mother was at the stove stirring a pot of spaghetti sauce. The aroma of garlic, tomatoes, and fresh basil filled the kitchen. The tomatoes and basil had been grown in the same garden where she’d selected her switches, pruning them from the peach tree. Mom nodded at her and she laid the switches and shears on the table and put the bag in the garbage. Mom took the large wooden spoon out of the sauce and laid it on the spoon rest sparing the counter. Tara never thought she would wish she was going to be spanked with the wooden spoon but today she did. Mom wiped her hands on her apron and examined the switches she held each one up to her own pinkie ensuring it was as thick as ordered. Mom nodded her approval and swished each of them through the air a couple of times the sound sending a shiver down her spine. Then she added water to a large vase and after cutting about a quarter-inch off the bottom of each switch placed them in the vase. Capillary action would cause the water to flow up the switches keeping them supple and adding weight to them. Mom then placed the vase in the corner. “These will be for after dinner. Your father will be home soon - tell your brothers to get cleaned up and come down to dinner.” She passed the message to her two brothers. Her brothers and her father arrived at the table simultaneously. He kissed her and her mother hello and hugged the boys. As he seated himself he noticed the vase and raised an eyebrow in question to Mom. “Mrs. Parker came home from work for lunch unexpectedly and found Emily and her smoking in Emily’s bedroom.” She blushed at the indictment and swirled some spaghetti pointlessly on her plate. Dad’s face reddened and he nodded his understanding.

“No need to explain how upset and disappointed your Mom and I are?” He asked.

“No Dad. I’m sorry.” Her brothers looked at her mouths agape then one caught sight of the vase with the switches brining. He elbowed his brother and directed his attention to the vase.

“Two” he mouthed to his brother.

“I’m going to deal with it after dinner.” Mom said as if answering the boys. Dad looked at the vase then at her and nodded.

“I guess that will cover it.”

“Well, that and a couple of weeks of being grounded,” Mom added. Tara blushed at the additional punishment added to her sentence. A college girl home between semesters being grounded; the humiliation of that was almost worse than the other. Dad nodded his assent.

When everyone had finished eating Tara was relieved of having to clear the table and instead her mother instructed her to get ready for bed and wait in her bedroom. She walked slowly up the stairs. She took a clean pair of panties and an oversized t-shirt from her dresser and retreated to the bathroom. She stripped and examined herself in the mirror. She’d spent several days at the beach and had definite tan lines where her bikini had covered her breasts and bottom. Her legs and torso were brown and the covered area the purest white. She palpated her butt and ran her fingers over her trim thighs for the first time wishing she had a layer of baby fat to provide some protection tonight. She’d run and swam much of the summer and was trim and in the best condition of her life. That made this whole situation even more ridiculous. Why had she accepted the cigarette from Emily? Why? She didn’t smoke - she’d never liked smoking. She certainly didn’t plan on taking it up. She could have smoked cartons while away at school and never have been in any danger of getting caught - much less punished. Why had Emily offered her one? Why had she accepted? Why had Mrs. Parker picked today to come home from work. Why? Had she just gotten tired of being such a good girl? Did she just want to be bad for once? Was that why? Well if so she’d been granted her wish. She was being treated like a bad girl. She just lost two weeks of her vacation to being grounded. Having to make excuses to her friends about why she couldn’t go to the beach, to parties. Could she just tell them the truth? Tell them she was grounded? And there was still tonight to get through. She stepped into the shower, washed and conditioned her hair. She used the luffa to scrub her body and shaved her legs. She stepped out of the shower, dried herself, and stepped into her bikini panties. She felt her nipples stiffen as they brushed the soft cotton of the t-shirt decorated with the name of one of her favorite bands. She placed her dirty laundry in the hamper and retreated to her room. She looked around for something to distract her: a book or magazine but realized it was hopeless. She sat on her bed and waited. She could hear the sounds of the rest of the family doing normal after-dinner things. Her brother’s cell phone ringing, plates clinking in the dishwasher. Her stomach jumped when she heard steps on the stairs but realized it was just her father going to his room to get changed into comfortable clothes - another false alarm when one of her brothers dashed up the stairs. She glanced at the clock - 8:22; it wouldn’t be long now.

Five minutes later she heard her mother’s unmistakable tread on the stairs her door opened and her mother stood in the doorway silhouetted by the hall light. “Are you ready?” Mom asked as if she had the option of declining. Her mouth suddenly dry she just nodded and began to rise from the bed. “I’ll take your cell phone and Ipad. You can have them back in two weeks.” Two weeks completely cut off? How would she survive? She gathered up the devices and placed them in her mother’s outstretched hand. Mom’s tone seemed to soften for just a second. “Ok, hon; let’s go.” Mom stepped aside to let her pass and she walked down the stairs, stomach fluttering her breath shallow, trying not to cry to maintain some dignity at least until it began. They paused when they reached the kitchen as Mom retrieved the switches. She shook them out over the sink and dried them with a dishtowel. Then she measured one at a time and cut them each down to about three feet trimming from the thin end so the business end was even thicker. She saw her brothers, uncharacteristically silent, watching from the family room where they had a baseball game on the TV. Dad just gave her a slight nod, glanced at the screen, and went back to his paper. How many times had she sat there watching one or the other of them being led to the den for a session with Dad’s belt or Mom’s switch? They were punished far more frequently - and usually more severely than she was - but their behavior was worse too. Sometimes she reveled in their pain, other times she felt a modicum of sympathy for them. What were they thinking now? She felt Mom’s hand on her shoulder guiding her into the den. She walked in ahead of Mom and heard the door close behind her. She turned around so they were face to face eyes full of tears and began one desperate plea.

“Mom, please, I’m sorry . . .”

Mom cut her off, shaking her head and closing her eyes. “No. Dad and I have always told you that we wouldn’t tolerate smoking. That as long as you lived here you were forbidden from smoking and there would be the most serious consequences if you did. It is not just you but your brothers I have to think about. I have to show them we are as good as our word - that if they are tempted they know what they’re in for if they smoke. You know you aren’t allowed to smoke. You know what the consequences are. You chose to smoke anyway. Now you need to face the consequences.” Mom laid one switch on the desk and kept one in her hand. “Take off your panties.”

“But, but two?” she implored. Two switches were reserved for the absolutely worst offenses. She’d been switched before but she’d never gotten it with two. Her brothers each had but not her. She’d learned that a double meant Mom switched with one until it was limp and the recipient's bottom and legs were on fire with stinging weals then she started again with a fresh, strong switch and crisscrossed the miscreants’ butt with a second coat of pain. She’d heard her brothers squealing as they were punished. Higher pitched squeals than they emitted when being strapped by dad with his belt. She would hear the belt land on their bare skin and then a yelp. But the switch itself was silent and all she heard through the door when Mom was punishing them was their own whines. She was far too smart and experienced to think she would endure even a moderate licking without crying out. And she knew her chastisement and reaction would soon be all over the neighborhood.

She reached under her shirt and shimmied her panties down over her legs and stepped out of them placing her hand on the back of Dad’s chair to steady herself. She picked up her panties, balled them up, and placed them on the desk. Mom nodded and motioned for her to turn around. She did slowly savoring the last few moments of being pain-free. “Bend over. Put your hands on the chair. Lift your shirt up.” Mom said this as she moved to her left. She did as instructed sucking in a deep breath, tensing, waiting. Mom measured the switch against her bottom lining it up so the end of the switch would land on the meaty - well as meaty as it got - part of her cheek. “I know it’s hard but try not to move - even if you anticipate the stroke coming. You could make me miss and land somewhere it will hurt even more.” Mom landed a couple of tentative taps, adjusted her grip, her stance, and then, SWISH! The branch she had prepared herself bit into her bare bottom a white-hot line of pain. The pain was shocking, like jumping into a frigid lake it literally took her breath away, and then she gasped for air. Mom left the switch embedded in her skin for a second drawing it out toward her scraping as she did so. Then Mom wound up again and landed a second cut just south of the first. She kept her breath this time and let out a high-pitched squeal in reaction to the two strokes. And so it went.


Mom delivered her licks with workmanlike concentration. She switched with the attention a painter would give a wall or a carpenter would to a board. She was carrying out an important task and she treated it with the gravity it deserved. Mom approached punishing her children with the care she attached to cooking their food or tending to their injuries. It was another task of parenthood - an important task. Tara squealed or yelped after each lick and cried in between them. Still, the switching continued. Mom laid the used switch aside and picked up the new one. Mom sucked in a breath and exhaled noisily. She examined the damage she’d already inflicted on her daughter’s behind. The overall redness was punctuated by thin weals and little bites where the end had bitten into her flank. Mom shook her arm out and flexed her fingers. She watched her daughter’s shoulders shudder as she sobbed. Mom fought the urge to let pity get the best of her and steeled herself to continue the punishment. Her Mom had decorated her own bottom and legs with switches more times than she could remember growing up. And, she knew she had never been whipped for the same offense twice. One session was enough to help her resist whatever temptation had earned her a licking. She was determined to make sure that the next time her daughter even thought of lighting a cigarette her bottom would tingle remembering today’s licking. She took one more breath and prepared to finish the punishment. she lined the fresh switch high on her daughter’s tanned thigh.


“Nooo.” Tara pleaded. “Not there Mom. PLEASE!”

The switch cut through the air with an evil whistle and landed right where she’d telegraphed it. “Arrrgh!” the girl cried out in agony. Somehow through the haze of pain, she had another disquieting thought - the marks of the switch on her thighs would be visible if she wore her short denim cut-offs. She wondered if they would fade by the time her confinement was over. Mom tapped a few fractions of an inch lower on her thigh and sizzled another stroke into the tender flesh evoking another cry from the recipient. She repeated this eight more times. Ten licks decorating the backs of her slim legs.


Mom paused and surveyed the girl's bottom now a light shade of red crisscrossed by thin tracks that had appeared as white lines but were now filling in with a deeper red. Mom knew that these were the lines that would make it uncomfortable for the culprit to sit for the next several days. She adjusted the position of the switch and aimed it diagonally across her daughter’s buttocks the wicked end aligned with the very bottom of the curve of her right cheek. When she was satisfied it was properly aligned she delivered the stroke. It intersected with many of the previous tracks cutting diagonally across the parallel marks left from the first coat of pain. The end of the switch continued its forward motion as its body found its motion interrupted by the meat of the girl's buttocks. The body of the switch pressed as far as physics allowed it to embed itself and compress layers of skin beneath it. The tip continued and centrifugal force made it bend around embedding itself in the soft underbelly of her asscheek. Four more licks like this were delivered. Four times the painful intersection of switch strokes formed. Four times the evil tip bit into the soft underside of her right cheek. The girl was crying, her hips were swaying, her feet stomped out a staccato rhythm of pain.


Mom took a step and a half to her left and aligned the switch with the parallel marks on the girl's left asscheek. Again the tip of the switch hovered over the curve of her buttocks. Tara let out a wail. “Noooo! Pleassse!!” But her mother was undeterred. The only semblance of mercy she showed her daughter was to deliver these five licks slightly more quickly, though with just as much force as those she had laid on to the right side. Drawing the switch out from the fifth slice into her right cheek Mom observed her daughter. Her trim brown thighs were decorated with five parallel lines - as her daughter surmised these would be visible if she donned her cut-offs before the marks faded - as her mother intended. Mom’s eyes worked their way up to the punished girl's bottom. It was now a dark shade of red with the griddle pattern of intersecting tracks. She knew that right now it burned and ached and stung all at the same time. She knew her daughter wanted nothing more than to reach back, grab both of her bare buttocks in her hand and do a war dance around the room. Mom knew that any thought of maintaining her dignity stifling her cries so her brothers wouldn’t hear them and report them to all of their friends, had long fled her mind which was consumed with the pain her burning, aching buttocks was tending to it. But, mom wouldn’t give her even that little solace. She put the switch down, though it could have administered another 10 or 15 licks before becoming too limp. She ordered her daughter to stand and the girl knew, without being told, to keep her hands at her sides. Mom placed a hand gently on her shoulder and led her to the corner of the den. The corner that was known from when she and her brothers were toddlers as the “naughty corner” and placed her nose in the vertex. Then Mom lifted her T-shirt to examine her bottom. Satisfied she had adequately carried out her maternal duty she finished the chastisement as she had every punishment since they were old enough to be spanked: with an admonition not to move until they were summoned punctuated with a firm spank to each bare, aching, cheek.