[Continued from Part One]

        Mommy talked to Daddy in the kitchen for a minute or two, although I couldn't make out any words.  It wasn't long before the stairs creaked under his tread as he made his way up to my room.  Mommy had doubtlessly told him "everything" as she saw it.   I knew Daddy would listen to my side of the story.  I also knew that after weighing my words in the balance, he would side with Mommy, as he always did. 

        And then,  Daddy would spank me.

        I began to cry as soon as he came through the door.    He sat down on the bed and sat me on his lap, cradling me with his left arm and drying my tears with his handkerchief.    In his deep resonant voice, he gently commanded me to get ahold of myself.  And, almost as if a spell had been cast, the need to cry faded away.  When I told him I hadn't lit the matches and didn't know who had, his face darkened and I couldn't look him in the eye.  He pointed out that it couldn't have been anyone else, since Mommy and I were the only ones home and Debby was at hockey practice and hadn't been home all day.  Desolate, I nodded my head yes or no when he prompted me with questions, calmly laying out the logic which lead, step by step, inexorably, to my guilt.   Finally, I mustered all the courage I had and placed my palms tenderly on his chest and forced myself to look directly into his steel grey eyes.  "But Daddy... I didn't do it... I really really didn't!" I said, keeping my eyes fixed imploringly on his.  A moment passed.  Then his confident expression wavered and it was he who broke my gaze and looked away.   I was never a good liar under any circumstance.  And lying while looking Daddy square in the eye was more than I could think of doing.  And of course, Daddy knew this quite well.    Could it be?  Was Daddy actually going to believe me?  Had God finally come to my rescue?  My heart lept and I caught my breath as I awaited his next words.

        Daddy frowned to himself and looked downward, then back at me, studying my face.  I lowered my eyes quickly, unable to meet his probing gaze, though I knew I ought to.  Then he looked away again.  Several seconds passed.  His eyes closed and his breathing deepened, and I realized he was asking God for guidance.  So I offered a silent prayer of my own, begging God, as the only One who knew I was innocent, to please make Daddy believe me - and to please, please not make me have to get another spanking!

        Daddy looked up again.  There was sadness in his eyes, but the confidence had returned.   "Janet, in my heart I want to believe you.  But the facts speak for themselves.  I have never known you to tell a fib so convincingly as you did just now.  And that is a change in you which troubles me very deeply."   Ice fingers seized my heart.  Daddy didn't believe me.  I began to cry again but he hushed me.  He was not finished speaking yet.  "And even if you hadn't lit those matches, Janet, there is also the matter of your behavior towards your mother.  When she attempted to chastise you, she says you threw a tantrum and refused to submit.  Is this true?"

        Miserably, I shut my eyes, bit my lip, and silently nodded yes.  "I didn't mean it Daddy!  It just happened!  I didn't mean it!" I blurted.  "Oh Daddy," I cried, "I'm so sorry!"  And I really, really was.

        "But you did it," he said, with finality.  "I love you very much, Janet, far too much to allow the kinds of faults you have exhibited today to go uncorrected.  The Good Lord has commanded me to spank you."  As he lifted me off his lap and laid me face down across the side of the bed with my bottom centered over his left thigh, I thought numbly that God had caused someone to light matches, caused me to be blamed, commanded Mommy to spank me for it, and He had just now commanded Daddy to spank me also. 

         Daddy held my wrists firmly against the small of my back and clamped my legs into position between his.  Strangely, I felt no fear, only desolation.  Mommy, Daddy, God - all had abandoned me.   I didn't understand why this had happened, only that it must somehow all be my fault, and that I must be the most worthless little girl in the world to deserve it.  As I felt Daddy's cool, dry hand tucking up the skirts of my jumper and petticoat to expose the seat of my panties, I sincerely wished, for the first time in my life, to die.

         On previous occasions, the urgent fear I experienced when Daddy exposed my panties to spank me was leavened with embarassment at knowing that he was looking under my dress, and seeing everything there was to see.  Our mother placed a high value on ladylike deportment on the part of Debby and me.   We were strictly admonished never to allow our panties to show, especially when a male could see them, even Daddy.   Yet whenever Daddy spanked us, suddenly that rule didn't apply. Up came your dress and down came his big hard hand on the seat of your plainly visible panties.  But that afternoon, as Daddy turned up my skirts, I had already plummeted to a level of misery beyond fear or embarassment, a level of misery I had never known existed.  Daddy was saying something.  It was a question, but I didn't know what he'd said so I didn't know which answer to give.  And I felt too miserable to ask.

        WAP!  came Daddy's palm across my pantied bottom.   The force of the smack drove me into his thigh.  His hand continued to press against my backside, as if pushing the spank deep into my buttocks  Daddy was stronger than Mommy, and when he spanked you could tell!  He had always used only his hand to spank us.  He didn't need anything else.

        The pain came a fraction of a second later, like hornets stinging deep into my buttock muscles, still tender from the hairbrush.  I shrieked and then sobbed and sobbed deeply,  desperately drumming my feet against the floor, helpless to escape the intense smarting from my behind.    It was normal for Daddy's spankings to hurt this much, but not after only the first swat!  I didn't feel him remove his hand from my bottom, but about ten seconds later, just as the sting was beginning to ease just slightly, WAP! came another spank, like the thunderclap on the Day of Judgement. Oh, how it hurt!  My mind cried out for escape, my body tried to flee, but all I could do was kick my legs against the floor from the knees down and wail into the coverlet.

        WAP! came Daddy's punishing hand once more.  And then my heart swelled with hatred.

        I hated God for making this happen to me, all of it.  I hated Him for making a world where things this awful, this unfair, this monstrous, could happen to poor little girls.  My loathing filled all space until even the pain from my bottom was barely noticable.  My hatred  ripped the earth asunder and set fire to the sky - blasting God, killing God, as Daddy's tireless hand continued to swat the seat of my panties.  But as spank after slow, measured spank landed on my bottom and the pain grew and grew, eventually it drove out even the hatred until I was no longer shaking the earth and igniting the sky.  Suddenly I was just a helpless, wailing child, face drenched with tears, receiving a very sound spanking from her Daddy.

       And at that moment, Daddy stopped.  The sound of my crying must have changed, indicating that my Will had broken and that my heart was now prepared for Repentance.  He turned my skirts back down again to preserve my modesty and released my wrists, allowing me to rub my bottom while I cried and cried across his lap.   Minutes passed before I unsteadily managed to stand up,  still sniffling and crying softly, but ready to listen to directions.  In a deep kindly voice, without anger, he instructed me to stand facing the corner and think about my sins.  I sniffled a timid "yes, Daddy" and promptly obeyed him.

        The bedsprings creaked as he rose from his seat.  Then came the sound of his footsteps.  Then the door closed behind him.

        And in that moment, alone in my room,  came the terror.

        Never had I sinned so grievously as I had done just a minute earlier: those awful, awful thoughts I'd had about God!  Surely there could be no forgiveness for me, ever!  My soul was forfeit.  In the corner of her bedroom stood an obscenity, an abomination in the eyes of the Lord.  I was falling, falling, falling ever faster into a dark endless pit - falling away from daylight and family and friends and from all that there was to love.  In my mind I screamed out for help, but there was no salvation for a miserable, undeserving wretch like me.  There was only The Lake of Fire which cannot be quenched, in the Realm from which The Lord God hears no prayers.

       Daddy had taught Debby and I to think of damnation as a spanking which never ended, except that the pain was all over your body instead of just your bottom, and it was much, much worse.  And there was no forgiveness and love afterwards because there was no "afterwards."   But even the agony of the flames was not the greatest torment of Hell.  Worst of all was being cut off forever from Jesus, with no hope of salvation.  And now, that was to be my fate.  Hatred welled up in my breast anew, but not hatred of God.  I hated myself.  I deserved to be in Hell... belonged in Hell... forever and ever and ever...

        The door opened and Daddy came across the room.   He placed his hand on my shoulder and turned me to face him.   Was I ready to repent my sins?  I said yes.  I said that I was a terrible, terrible sinner, and that God would never forgive me.  Then I began to cry - deep, heaving sobs of despair.  Daddy gathered me in his arms and held me close as I cried.  As he comforted me he explained that we are all sinners, that we have all missed the mark and fallen short of the glory of God.  He said that no matter how great our sins, God will forgive them all, provided we ask His forgiveness with a truly repentant heart.

        Looking up into his eyes, I asked, "Daddy, is there anything so bad that God will never forgive you no matter how much you repent?"

        He smiled, and tenderly brushed a stray wisp of hair from my face.  "No, Janet." he said.

        And suddenly, it felt as if Daddy's hand had reached down into the pit and pulled me back to the world of light.  Without another word, I knelt beside my bed and prayed aloud, pouring my heart out to God, telling him how much I wanted to give myself over to Him, and telling him how very, very, very sorry I was for my sin.  After awhile, I actually began to feel as if maybe God really had forgiven me for my bad thoughts.   And for the first time in hours I felt almost good inside.   Still kneeling, I looked up at Daddy.  He was beaming down at me with love in his eyes.  The fervor of my petition to the Lord had clearly moved him.   Joy swept through me.  At last, now the world seemed right again!

        I sprung to my feet and gave him a hug.  He hugged me back and told me he loved me very much.  It felt so wonderful to be loved, so wonderful to be saved.

        Eventually, he stood me in front of him, smiling, and said, "Janet, I think it is time for you to go downstairs and apologize to your mother for telling her a fib when she asked you about the matches."

        The matches?!?  I had forgotten all about the matches!  "But Daddy," I blurted plaintively, "I didn't light them!  I-"

        The expression on his face turned me to stone.  Never had I seen such wrath in his eyes.  He must have thought that my whole prayer had been a charade, that I was making a mockery of sacred things, (although I didn't grasp that at the time).  All I knew was that in the space of an instant, everything had gone from being very, very right to horribly, horribly wrong.

          "YOU," he barked, his eyes drilling into me, "ARE GOING TO LEARN YOUR LESSON... NOW!"  And then he reached down to his waist and unfastened his belt.  The belt came free from the loops with a swish.  Then he grasped the buckle end and began winding the belt around and around his hand until just the last 18 inches or so from the tip was still hanging loose.  Daddy had never spanked either of us with a belt before, but I knew at once what was about to happen.  Some other kids' Daddies did this and I had wondered what it would feel like.  Now I was about to find out.

        "No Daddy No Daddy Please No Please!" I wailed as he sat down on my bed and turned me across his knee. In a flash, my legs were secured between his and my wrists were pinned against the small of my back by his left hand.  There came a gust of cool air against my bare thighs as my skirts were whisked up across my back.  And then Daddy did something he had not done since I was in kindergarten.

        He pulled down my panties.

       Added to the horror of the unfolding events, now came the utter mortification of being unclothed beneath my father's steely gaze.  All of my upbringing, all of the maidenly modesty instilled in me from my earliest recollections cried out to hide myself.  But I was helpless to do anything except wither helplessly beneath the ignominy of public nakedness.

        And then, for the third time that afternoon, I got spanked.

        The minute which followed was destined to be the most painful experience I 'd ever had, as Daddy whipped my bare buttocks, already sore and swollen from two spankings, again and again with the end of his belt.  I wasn't conscious of what sounds I made, although Debby later said I'd screamed and screamed.  I was only conscious of the pain.  Red hot iron bands were pressed against my flesh, searing and blistering it with intense heat.  Each time that cruel strip of leather lashed across my bottom cheeks, a new band of glowing iron scorched my skin.  I didn't count, but in the next room, as I later learned, Debby did: thirty eight licks.

        Long before the last lash of the strap, the pain of my punishment had blotted out all else.  No private inner core of Me remained.  All had been utterly swept away, broken, undone by pain.   Everything became simple.  I was ready to do anything, say anything, be anything Daddy and Mommy wanted me to.   If I could only  be their good little girl again, if  the world could only be made right again, nothing else mattered.  Nothing.

        At some point, I dimly became aware that my spanking had stopped, although Daddy was still holding me tightly in position and my panties were still down.     After awhile as my cries began to soften, I felt my panties being pulled back across my throbbing bottom.  The soft cotton chafed and felt itchy against my welted skin.  Then my skirts settled back down across the backs of my thighs.  Daddy released my wrists and my hands shot back to rub and rub my poor little thrice-spanked behind as I continued to sob.  Dimly, I felt my shoes unbuckled and removed, and then I was lifted and tenderly tucked into bed, fully clothed, the covers placed over me.

        Daddy must have left the room, although I never noticed him go.  After a long cry, limp with exhaustion,   I sat up in bed and looked around.  The sun hung low in the sky and its lovely orange radiance streamed through window onto the far wall.  I felt wonderously exalted.  Was this why God had caused today to happen to me... so I could arrive at this inner place of stillness?  For an hour or more, inutterable calm enveloped me like a womb.  As dusk slowly fell, faint sounds of dinner being served, and then cleared, floated up the stairwell.  I gave them no more thought than to the easy whisper of the wind in the tree outside my window, or to the ebb and fall of my own breath.   No thoughts or words flitted through my mind.  There was nothing which needed thinking about.  All was settled.  All was at peace.  I never wanted the feeling to end.

         Alas, the mood finally passed.  I became aware that my backside now itched most unpleasantly in addition to the dull, throbbing, ache which hadn't seemed to matter earlier, and also that I was ravenously hungry.  But I knew better than to call for Mommy or Daddy, much less leave my room.  In the Christensen family, when you were spanked and put to bed, you stayed there, and not a peep was expected from you until the next morning or until a grownup gave you permission to rejoin the family.

        Daddy had laid out my pajamas for me at the foot of the bed.  After I'd changed into them, I climbed out of bed and crept to the full length mirror.   Gingerly slipping down my panties, I turned and regarded my hindquarters in the mirror.  I had just gotten the spanking of my life, and it showed.  My bottom was deep red from the hairbrush and Daddy's hand, and crisscrossed with welts from his belt.  On my right buttock small, darker marks appeared where the tip of the belt had licked me.  Then Daddy's footsteps began to mount the stairs, and I hurried back under the covers.

        His face was still grim as he walked in.  For all he knew, I might still not have a repentent heart, and might need yet another whipping.  But I immediately told him I was sorry I had lit the matches and sorry I had denied it.  It didn't even feel like a lie.  I could actually see myself, vividly, standing in my room earlier that day playing with matches.  I could "remember" gazing raptly at the luminous blue halo around the wood, and the brillant yellow of the flame and its ragged, flickering, rim of orange.  I "remembered" shaking the flame away as it burned perilously close to my finger, tossing the spent match into the wastebasket, and lighting a new one - and another, and another.  These images filled my mind as I knelt beside my bed and asked God to forgive me for breaking Mommy and Daddy's rule about never playing with matches.  Praying aloud, I told God that I had been a very, very bad girl and that I had deserved to be spanked for it.  And I thanked God for loving me enough to command Mommy and Daddy to apply the Rod of Correction when I needed it.

        Next, Daddy and I went down to the kitchen where Mommy was finishing washing the dishes.  Hanging my head with genuine shame, I apologized for being defiant when she tried to spank me the second time.  I also apologized for being disobedient and dishonest, and I promised never  to play with matches ever again.  By this point three quarters of me believed I really had lit the matches, and I had no wish to heed that stubborn one quarter which still knew I hadn't.

        Then, at my own insistence, we went up to Debby's room.  She had obviously been crying earlier although her eyes were now dry.  At first she looked pale when Daddy and I entered her room.  But the fright faded from her countenance as soon as I began to speak.  Debby regarded me with wide solemn eyes as I explained how very sorry I was for playing with matches because children should never play with matches because the house could burn down and everyone could die.  I apologized for putting her in danger and told her I never wanted anything bad to happen to her because I loved her so.

        And that was that.  The matter was never spoken of again.  Mommy forgave me.  Daddy forgave me.  God forgave me.  I was given a soft cushion to sit on at breakfast the next morning.  The swelling in my bottom was gone by the next day, although the belt marks were still visible.  A few days later, only the marks on my right buttock where the tip of  Daddy's belt had landed still remained.  And before too long, even those disappeared, leaving my little rump just as pale and creamy as it had ever been.

Epilogue

        As the months went by, I very nearly convinced myself that I had lit the matches.  But for several years afterwards, sometimes, when I had trouble sleeping and lay awake late into the night, the part of me that remembered the truth returned uninvited, still wanting to know what had really happened. 

       Someone had lit them. 

       Perhaps the perpetrator climbed up the garden trellis and into my window?   But who?  Someone who wanted to get me in trouble, obviously.  I could think of two girls mean enough to play such a horrible trick.  But why go to such ends and why take such risks merely to leave clues which my parents could very easily have missed?  And neither girl gloated afterwards or gave even the vaguest teasing hint that they knew anything about it.   Around and around my thoughts would go, never settling onto an idea which made sense.  I didn't  like these thoughts.  When I told the truth about the matches, bad things happened.  When I took the blame for something I didn't do, everything became good again.  It was better not to think about it.   Eventually sleep overtook me, and by morning the dark wonderings had vanished once again... until the next time.

        As a child, I imagined I understood what God had wanted me to learn -  that some things are more important than always telling the truth no matter what - things like always being the girl Mommy and Daddy and God wanted me to be, no matter what the cost.

        But a decade later, when Debby was a freshman in college, she wrote me an anguished letter. 

        It was she who had lit the matches. 

        Hockey practice had been canceled so she came straight home to find the house empty, and seized the opportunity to do something forbidden.  She chose my room for her experiment with matches, knowing that if Mommy came home, she would be likely to go to almost any other room before that one.  Debby had meant to replace the matchbox in the kitchen when she finished playing, but our Mother came home before Debby had the chance.  So Debby stashed it under my bed and escaped out my window and down the trellis.

        Debby came back home again at her usual time, hoping the matches hadn't been missed and planning to put them back in the kitchen at a time no one would see her.  But as soon as she got in, the first thing Mommy told her was not to disturb her big sister, who had been a very naughty girl, who had been soundly spanked for playing with matches, and who had A Spanking From Daddy coming when Daddy got home.  Debby knew she should confess, but she simply couldn't find the courage.  And she was afraid that I would hate her forever for getting me into so much trouble.  As she lay on her bed in tears that afternoon, counting each terrible stroke of Daddy's belt across my bottom, guilt and fear pulled her heart in opposite directions.  And for the next ten years, that tug of war never stopped.

        Between two sisters, I wonder which of us the events of that day traumatized the most?