It was back in the forties, a more innocent time. It was the summer after I graduated from high school and I was eighteen. I was not as worldly and knowing as most young men are today.
Mrs. Bronson hailed me from across the street. "I just made me a fresh squeezing of lemonade. Stop in and have a drop."
When walking uptown, I always waved to Mrs. Bronson when I passed. I was planning to take in a Thursday night double feature. Sometimes, if I was not in a hurry, I crossed over and we sat facing each other in her old fashioned chair swing.
Mrs. Bronson was not particularly careful about her appearance. At times she crossed and uncrossed her heavy legs and let them drift apart, revealing vast expanses of milky white flesh further up than a young man should look. Those exposures never revealed much beyond, but in a young, inexperienced man's thoughts there existed possibilities.
Aunt, who was friends with the lady, always cautioned me, "Be nice to Mrs. Bronson. She's strange and brazenly outspoken but she's got a good heart."
I was eighteen, agonizingly shy with most people. That summer, I worked in the greenhouses where I acquired good muscles in spite of being almost painfully thin. Not wearing a shirt had made me as brown as a berry from the waist up.
I crossed the street to her small front yard. Her chair swing let two people sway gently, back and forth in relaxed conversation. I sat opposite her, holding a cold, sweaty glass. I liked Mrs. Bronson. She never talked down to me.
She asked about my working in the greenhouse, about Chuckie and Bobby, who had been my friends forever. I said we were too old to play kids games anymore and anyway Chuckie's parents had moved to the far side of town.
She asked if I had a liking for girls and if I had a girl friend.
At eighteen, I secretly admired girls but I was mostly too shy to talk to them. "I haven't got a girl." I blushed. "I'm too skinny for anybody to like me."
"I don't think that's so," said Mrs. Bronson. She fanned herself with a folded section of the evening paper. "If I was younger and a bit prettier I'd be flattered having you for a boyfriend."
I sipped on my lemonade. I could not imagine old Mrs. Bronson being pretty.
She drew forced, deep breaths in the hot, breezeless gloom of early evening. Beads of sweat trickled between sun tanned breasts trying to escape from the gaping scooped neck. Her voluminous print dress crept over dimpled, bare knees forced apart by solid, meaty thighs and revealed six inches of pale flesh squashed together. Occasionally she lifted the thin material, when she thought I was not looking, to fan her legs and whatever was hidden further up.
I cannot say why surreptitious viewings of those thick slabs of thigh held such fascination. She was not an attractive or well built woman. In her loose house dress, she appeared shapelessly plump. She was, in my young eyes, old, well into her forties old. Still, there remained the challenge. Something hidden there, I knew, was not for my eyes. I liked the lady but she did not precipitate those chicken-choking fantasies I had when imagining pretty sophomore Anabel Waterson naked.
Her movements caused a twinge at my groin. I hoped Mrs. Bronson would not notice. My friend, Chuckie, swore Mrs. Bronson did not wear underpants. It was so, he said, because none were ever hung out on her line on wash day.
A slow smile crossed Mrs. Bronson's face. "Now Boy, you wouldn't be sneaking peeks at an old lady's parsley patch,would you?"
"Huh?"
"Of course you wouldn't." She laughed so loud it sounded indecent. "Not much. Not if you're an honest to God boy."
I know my face turned red. "I. . . I don't. . .
Suddenly, Mrs. Bronson let out a gasp as though she were in pain.
"Is something the matter."
"I got me a bad cramping. That's all."
"You sure?"
Mrs. Bronson gritted her teeth. "I shouldn't a got myself in this condition."
"What 's that?"
"It's not a fitting subject for talking about with a young man."
"I'm eighteen. I'm not a child."
"Of course you're not."
"Then what's wrong?"
"I got me a bad case of the constipates. That's all."
"I have to take castor oil when I don't go for a while."
"I hate the awful taste and I been putting it off too long."
"Aunt threatened me with a switch when I wouldn't take it."
"Maybe somebody ought to warm my butt. Would you like to do that?"
"I don't think so."
"You wouldn't like swatting an old lady's hind end?"
I swear her knees moved further apart. It was getting dark. I was uncomfortable. "I don't know, ma'am. I've never done that."
"Don't call me ma'am. This is grown-ups talking."
"What will you do if you don't go?"
"It ain't healthy, not doing your daily. I ain't passed a thing it's been four or five days now, no matter how I strained. "
"I guess you best take your castor oil."
"Or you'll take a hand to me?"
"I don't think you'd like that."
"No telling what I'd like if I knew you wouldn't talk."
"I've never told. Not even when I got whipped."
"Is that so?"
"Yes, Ma'am."
It was darker now. I don't know where I found the nerve. I picked up a rubber tipped flyswatter. "Stand up," I murmured and I'll give you your medicine."
"Well now. There is some spunk in you, boy. You'd whup this old lady's butt to make her do what she should ought on her own."
"Go take your medicine," I begged."
Mrs. Bronson stood and turned her back. "Make me."
I swatted her on the broadest part of that big, rounded bottom. The sound was unreal.
" Mrs. Bronson rubbed the place. "You wield a healthy swat. My ass, I mean my butt, burns like fire."
"You can say ass. I know what an ass is."
"I just bet you do, honey, but not a big fat one like I got."
While she wasn't looking, I adjusted my crotch. One swat on that broad butt and I had sprouted a boner.
She tugged at my hand. "I'm tingling. Come inside afore I lose my nerve."
"Are you sure?"
"You got make this lady behave like she ought."
She switched on a dim light in the living room and proceeded to the kitchen beyond, where it was darker.
Mrs. Bronson placed her hands on the seat of a high backed chair and bent forward. Her broad butt projected toward me. "Punish me."
"For what?"
"For thinking the thoughts I'm thinking. Whop that ass. Whop it good."
"You tell me if it hurts too bad."
"Honey, you got no idea what you're doing for me."
I whacked her a good one. After two more, I thought I heard a sigh. I knew they stung. I let her have another.
"Wait a minute," hissed Mrs. Bronson. With both hands she tugged at her dress until the hem rested in the small of her back. She was a dark form in the near darkness. I made out the outline of tree trunk thighs forking downward from the bulbous cheeks. "God forgive me," she breathed hoarsely, "now, lay it to me."
With each crack, I let the vibrating flesh settle before letting the next stroke fly. I swear her legs parted more each swat. I heard her moan.
.
"Should I stop?"
She spoke through gritted teeth. "No, damn you."
I aimed the flyswatter in an upward arc, catching the lower projections of both cheeks. Her legs parted wide. "There! Smack it! Smack it in there!"
I prodded the handle between her legs, touched the shadowy place. I dropped the swatter.
"Smack it, damn you!"
I brought my hand up hard. The sound was muffled. It must have hurt.
"Again!"
I slapped the same place and felt the crinkly hairs.
"Again!"
"I'm hurting you."
"You should hurt so good!"
Two more slaps and she slumped to her knees. She croaked, "Enough."
"Are you all right?"
"Honey, I never hurt better. I'm still clogged up but you sure slapped one thing out of my system."
"What was that?"
"Something I been craving a long, long time."
"A spanking."
"That's a part of it."
"I don't understand."
"You will someday."
"Now, take your castor oil"