The school year had ended on Tuesday, and by Thursday Gerry Keiffer had reached a conclusion, one that had been unimaginable only a week before: he was bored. But there was no escaping it - he was bored and it wasn't even his fault. He'd had plans, plenty of plans, but then Roger Bell had to go and ruin it all.
Not that it was Roger's fault; he hadn't even known. No one had.
The Keiffer and the Bell families were next door neighbours, but neither Gerry nor Roger had a clue about what was planned for the summer, not until after school on Tuesday. Roger's dad taught school (not the same school that Gerry and Roger - that would have been too weird) and his mom was a "consultant" (whatever that was), and they had planned a cruel trick. Something called a 'house swap'; Roger's mom had accepted a job halfway across the country, spending the summer in a stranger's house while the strangers (the Strobels) lived in the Bells' house. Tuesday night was spent packing, and Wednesday Gerry said goodbye to his best friend for the entire summer, all because Roger's parents thought that spending time in another area would be good for him.
Which wasn't fair! Gerry and Roger had made all sorts of plans for the summer, and Gerry was sure that if Roger wasn't halfway across the country then boredom wouldn't be an issue.
Life just wasn't fair!
Friday found Gerry just as bored. It was like a million degrees out, so he was under the deck, where it crowded up to the fence. He'd sat there hundreds of times, with his game machine in his hand while Roger had sat on the other side of the fence with his own game machine. They would sit close enough that their games connected and they played against each other - or co-operated, depending on the game. Most of Gerry's games were meant to be played two players, and without Roger, Gerry was only playing with himself, and he hated playing with himself. He was half tempted to go see Tom Lewis, but Tom Lewis had downloaded all sorts of mods and cheats for his game machine and didn't play fair and always rubbed it in when he won.
So Gerry sat there, under the deck and out of the sun, sulking and bored out of his mind. Sure, he was going for a high score in solo mode, but what was the point?
Gerry was zoning to the game when he heard voices. Raised voices. Loud voices. Voices coming from the other side of the fence. He tried to ignore them, until he heard: "I said it and I meant it! Now get your bum over here!", and that phrase broke through his game haze. Lex Kenney's stepmom sometimes used phrases like that, and everyone knew that Lex Kenney's stepmom was a psycho.
Then the words ended and a new sound filled the air. A smacking sound. Gerry couldn't believe it, he just couldn't believe it. Sure, there were those rumours about Lex Kenney's stepmom, but to do something like that outside? In the open? Where anyone might see and everyone could hear?
'But who would hear?' Gerry thought. 'Most of the neighbours are at work or inside with the air conditioning on.'
That was where he would be, inside with the windows shut and the air conditioner running, except that his mom wanted him to clean his room and Gerry would rather be bored outside in the shade then inside in the cool cleaning his room.
And it wasn't just one smack that he heard, or even five or six. The smacks just kept coming and coming. What Gerry was hearing sounded far worse than any rumours he'd ever heard about Lex Kenney's psycho stepmom. And the voice he heard squealing and pleading, well, that voice sounded old.
Gerry's hands put down his game machine. It was almost as if his body was acting on its own accord as he crept to the fence and put his eye to a space between the slats. What he saw made Gerry gasp out loud, but there was too much noise coming from next door for anyone to hear it.
What he saw was almost what he expected. There was Mrs. Strobel sitting on one of the Bells' lawn chairs. It was one that Gerry had sat in countless times. It was armless, but that had never meant anything to him before. Now Mrs. Strobel was sitting in it and...
And the girl over her lap wasn't a little kid. She had to be in high school, maybe even college, and her shorts and everything were bunched at her knees! Gerry could only see from the side, and the angle was all wrong, but Gerry could see the bare side of the girl's hip as Mrs. Strobel's hand crashed down again and again. Part of him wished he could stand and see the top of the girl's bum, but Gerry couldn't, not with the deck in the way.
The spanking seemed to go on forever and ever. Sometimes Mrs. Strobel would say something in firm voice, but Gerry couldn't really hear her, not with the constant smacking and the squealing and pleading filling his ears, so he couldn't guess at what had prompted this spanking. All he knew was that Mrs. Strobel was giving a spanking and didn't seem to know when to stop. Before long he found himself wincing with every smack that landed.
Finally Mrs. Strobel stopped. When Mrs. Strobel helped the girl off her lap, Gerry finally got a good look at her bare bum. It was red, and so were the tops of her thighs, but all he saw was just a glimpse, then the girl yanked up her clothes and then both of them were headed indoors.
Gerry had never seen anything like that, never even imagined that something like that could happen, but now it was over.
That night, at supper, Gerry was strangely silent when talk turned to the new temporary neighbours, but his parents put it down as him sulking over Roger's absence.
Gerry Then something his mother said caught his attention.
"... and their oldest girl, Deana I think her name was, said she was available for babysitting. She's heading off to college next year, and ..."
The rest of his mother's words washed over him as Gerry focused on those words. Deana must be the name of the girl he'd seen spanked, and she was offering to babysit? Not that he needed a sitter, not really, but if his parents got her as a sitter, would she...
Gerry told himself that she wouldn't. That she couldn't. That while her mom might do something like that in the Bells' backyard, that Deana would never dare do anything like that in Gerry's house.
Knowing that, it was still nice to put a name to the bum he'd seen.
That night, Gerry checked his email and discovered one from Roger. As he opened it, Gerry was thinking about what he would reply, but his mouth dropped as he read Roger's email.
"THe people here r CRZY! They r CRAZY!
INSANE!!!!! SPANKING!!! ;("Reading that left Gerry speechless. What did Roger mean, crazy? Were all the people where the Strobels came from as fond of spanking as the Strobels? Had Roger seen a spanking? But that last smiley... No, Roger must have just heard about spankings happening there, or seen one. There was no way that someone had... No, there was no way.
Gerry shivered as he reread that message. Turning from his computer his eyes went to his window - a window that overlooked the backyard, and provided a view of the Bells' backyard. If he had been in his room, and if he had glanced out, then Gerry might have had a better angle to see what had happened this afternoon. That set him wondering - would he spend his time sitting under the deck or hanging around his bedroom window?
With the Strobels living next door, Gerry knew one thing in his heart of heart of hearts - even if he never saw Deana's bum so much as patted again, this summer vacation would be anything but boring.
Goodgulf