by Lewis Stone
Anyone watching Henry and his mother Annabelle walking down the street hand in hand might have assumed a nice young man was just making sure his aging mother was well looked after. Henry wore an expensive business suit, while his mother was wearing a long flowing dress and a summer hat that made her look years younger than her actual age of sixty-two. The summer's day was warm with not a cloud in sight. The two of them appeared to be in no hurry, simply walking along with a purpose in mind, but with no intention of rushing to get anywhere.
Had anyone interested in human behaviour taken a closer look at the mother son duo, they might have observed behaviours not normally reflected in such a relationship: firstly, Annabelle was in the lead, with Henry following half a step behind her; secondly, the placement of Annabelle's hand on Henry's was significant ... their fingers were not interlocked but Henry could not have released his mother's controlling grip without her cooperation. If he started to lag behind, she would pull him into place, keeping him positioned slightly behind her, ensuring he remained in step with her as they walked. Thirdly, it would have been apparent that there was little communication between these two; indeed, beyond Annabelle giving an occasional order with the intention of being obeyed immediately and unquestioningly, there was no talking at all.
Of course such signs were not noticed by the crowds of people minding their own business on the busy city streets. There was no reason for anyone to pay attention to the pair other than to move to spots on the sidewalk in order to get past them. Henry and his mother did not make eye contact with anyone or indicate a desire to interact with others.
The two of them had taken the light rail transit to a downtown location and Annabelle decided they had enough time to walk to their location rather than spend any money on a taxi. Henry would much rather have ridden a city bus, but such a decision was not his to make, particularly as their money was held in his mother's purse and would only be given out if she thought it prudent. He was glad when she decided to take a small break and stop by a fast food restaurant for a coffee, but he was to find out later that she only so because they were ahead of time for their upcoming appointment.
Henry was used to his mother being in complete charge of his life. Born the youngest of four children, he had been a surprise because Annabelle thought she was well beyond childbearing age at forty-two. Her three other children were at least nine years older than Henry and had left home years before he had come of legal age. For over half a decade he was raised as a single child, with a father who had skipped out of having anything to do with his mother or him after the age of twelve. This situation had left him in the house with a mother who had grown to hate the thought of being tied down to raise a child by herself in her older years.
For the twelve years that Henry's father was in the house, life was not too bad for Henry. Having determined that her husband had been cheating on her, Annabelle had focused on making her spouse's life as miserable as possible, and nothing he could do or say could change her mind. Henry had been woken many times during the night by his parents' screaming matches; they made so much noise Henry thought anyone within a mile radius could hear every swear word spoken. As Henry listened to those arguments he learned that his mother won most of them, or at least his dad would end up leaving for a couple of hours, effectively conceding the fight to Annabelle. From the age of thirteen up to when he was eighteen, Henry's mother had for all intents and purposes passed the task of raising him to his sister, Mabel.
When she started sitting Henry almost full time, Mabel was twenty-two and attending university in a nearby community. Mabel started off the first few months determined that Henry would have a better family life than she or her other siblings had got, but in spite of her resolve, Mabel frequently felt herself slipping into her mother's example of dealing with a teenager, mostly because of the frustration of raising a child which was not hers and not wanting to be doing so in the first place.
Mabel remembered the punishment she and her older brother and sister suffered at the hands of their mother. Once the three older siblings were in their teen years, punishment for any level of disobedience was always the same. First would come the screaming and accusations of doing things on purpose to make their mom's life more miserable than it already was; then the strap or the paddle would come out of the closet and the teens had to strip in front of everyone except Henry (who was considered too young to witness such things) and they would get whacked until they bawled and begged their mother to stop. Many times it took all of the teenagers to beg Annabelle to stop punishing Mabel's brother; he was the oldest by two years and thus Annabelle held him chiefly responsible.
Mabel recalled one afternoon when her older brother had been caught skipping afternoon classes by the head teacher; he received three strokes of the cane at school. Nothing was said about informing his parents. The rule was that the school only informed parents if the caning was for a repeat offence and expulsion was a possibility. Annabelle asked the boy several times over the evening if anything had happened at school. Mabel realized she should have picked up on the hint that their mother knew about the caning, but at the time none of the three teenagers thought about it. Thirty minutes before bedtime Annabelle told the boy she knew about the caning and he would be punished for not telling her. The two sisters had to watch as their brother went over his mom's knee for a long session with a heavy wooden paddle, followed by six from the cane whilst being bent over the back of the couch. The example set by his siblings over the years did not bode well for Henry.
All four children knew the punishment for any misbehaviour around the house was going to be some form of corporal punishment from their mother. When the child was under twelve the punishment was almost always given by hand, followed by the number of smacks from a paddle corresponding to the age of the child. After twelve, punishment was given with a paddle and any additional implement like a cane or a heavy leather strap depending on how bad the act of disobedience was viewed by Annabelle. Mabel never saw her mother forgo a punishment no matter what the circumstances.
Mabel barely punished Henry for almost a year, but close to his fourteenth birthday she'd had enough of his poor school grades and his bedroom resembled a pig sty regardless of the fact she had told him to clean it for over a week. Henry was in his bedroom in his pyjamas playing video games when Mabel came in carrying something behind her back.
"Hey Mabel. You got a present for me?"
She sat beside him on his bed and pulled his report card out of her pocket. "This present came in the mail today. It's addressed to Mom, but I managed to grab it before she saw it, but you need to explain why your marks have not increased from last term. I told you at your last report card I would let you slip by, but you have not improved a single mark. You know Mom holds me responsible for you getting marks like this. Are you trying to get her to punish me?"
Henry looked at the card and knew he was in trouble. "Come on Mabel. You know I hate school. It's so boring and the stuff they teach doesn't even apply to the real world today. I will try harder this term and you can show Mom my next card where I promise the marks will go up by at least fifteen percent. How about it?" He knew Mabel was in her rights to spank him if she decided not to let him off again.
She sat and looked at him, almost giving in, but then the condition of his room caught her attention. "I thought I told you to get this room cleaned up yesterday. Did you even pick anything off the floor?"
Henry shook his head. "I was waiting for the weekend. I know it needs a really good cleaning."
"Your room needs a really good cleaning and you need a really good spanking!"
As she spoke, Mabel grabbed the back of his neck and flipped him over her lap. Her fingers below the elastic on his pyjama bottoms let him know that it would be a bare bottom whacking. He could see from of the corner of his eye that Mabel pulled a wood paddle out from behind her and raised it to smack his bum. He was bawling like a baby before she stopped that night, but it was still much better than any paddling he would have gotten from his mother.
Although Mabel was mostly responsible for Henry's discipline during his teenage years, his mother Annabelle was still involved in his life. As Annabelle led her youngest son through the streets to their appointment later that afternoon, her thoughts went back to when he was a few years younger and had earned one of the hardest spankings he had ever got from her.
Henry had been smoking dope for over three months before Annabelle finally had the proof she needed. She had often suspected he was doing drugs, but with no absolute proof, it was hard to act based only on suspicion, or rumours she had overheard from other mothers.
During the first two months he smoked, Henry never brought any of his stash home, and he always wore a plastic raincoat over his clothing when he smoked or was in the presence of others who did. His friends thought it was weird of him wearing the raincoat, but his clothes never smelled of any kind of smoke ... something that had got several of his dope-smoking friends caught. Those first two months he also rinsed his hair as well as brushing his teeth and using mouthwash before going anywhere near the house. But after a while, he started getting sloppy.
Henry could tell his mother had heard rumours from other mothers that he was smoking. With no proof beyond rumours, he knew his mom would not act on things based on others say so. When Annabelle had asked him directly whether he was smoking or not, he had denied everything. Yes, he had been at a party where there were some who smoked, he could not deny that as some of his friends in attendance were caught, but he had not taken a single puff according to his story. When one of the people at the party, who barely knew him, said he was smoking as well, he claimed they were trying to shuffle the blame off themselves. With no physical proof to connect him with smoking, Henry managed to hide his habit for just over three months.
Then perhaps because of over confidence or maybe pure laziness, Henry made a mistake. He had been given a small bag of pot at the end of the evening when he was feeling the effects of smoking over several hours.
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