Foster Forest (11): And the Rules Apply to YOU!

The past eight days had gone by as smoothly as possible. Though he wasn't exactly settling in, Cody was comfortable enough in his new surroundings. He had mostly kept to himself, though he liked the other residents just fine. It seemed that the little girl mostly read in the library, and Cody had left her to it. There were plenty of other places in the home to be alone, even if Becky didn't let him stay the entire time in his room. The kid, the little boy, was okay, but Cody thought he was a bit odd, clinging to Becky all the time and always so tearful. He didn't dislike him, but he didn't want the kid to stick to him like glue either.

There was nobody else at the Forest his own age, and as far as he could tell, nobody shared his interests. Since it was summer, there was no school so that he could get out of the place and meet some different people. The countryside was nice, but there was nothing for him to do, and he felt bored and listless. He needed his friends, missed his parents and most of all, he felt smothered by his new existence. There were too many rules, too many things to remember, and he found himself wondering what would happen if he got a failing grade in school.

Cody was sitting on the porch swing, his legs tucked up under him and his laptop on his lap. AOL instant messenger was open and his fingers were tapping away at the keys while he chatted with his girlfriend back at home. He didn't even know if they were going to be able to stay steady with him living in this place! He could never see her, and chances were that she'd find some other guy who was interested. Somebody local. The thought made him seethe, but he bit the feeling back and didn't say a word to Celine about it. Whatever happened was going to happen and there was no way that he could change it. The old bag had put him here, and he didn't think she was going to change her mind about it at all.

He hadn't told Celine much about the place he was living at. In fact, Cody hadn't thought much about the things he didn't want to say. Walking in the kitchen the first day he'd arrived had been an eye opening experience. He'd never been spanked much growing up, and when he had been it had only been a couple of swats here and there. Nothing like what he'd seen Becky doing to the little girl's bottom when he'd happened along. Both kids had bright red butts as they were standing in the corner afterward, too, and that made Cody nearly sick on his stomach. He couldn't imagine what that would feel like, and he was only glad that he was old enough to be free from the risk of a spanking!

Cody was pretty sure that the little girl had been avoiding him since he'd seen her spanking. The few times he'd walked into the library while she'd been in there reading, she had turned her head away from him and stared out the window until he left. The signals were pretty clear, and although he probably felt as uncomfortable as she did, he figured that it was best to give her the space that she needed. He couldn't imagine how embarrassed he would be if he got a spanking and somebody walked in on it.

Strangely, she seemed to be pretty close to the old man, and he'd been right there with Cody when they'd walked into the kitchen. The little girl appeared to like both him and Becky well enough, though Cody got the sense that she wasn't especially fond of the kid -- the little boy who's name Cody didn't know at all.

The little boy was entirely a different story. Cody thought he might be imagining things, but he thought it seemed as though Becky frequently rebuffed the little guy, and that the dude (good grief, what was his name?) didn't really interact with the kid much at all. What this amounted to was the fact that the little guy was always hanging on Cody, and it felt to the teenager as though he was hardly ever able to get a moment of peace. It amazed him even now that he'd had time to hop on the Internet to talk to his girlfriend.

"When do you get out?" Celine was asking him.

"Never, I guess," he typed. "lol"

That just about summed up the way that Cody was feeling, too. He hadn't talked to the hag about how long he had to stay here, but he got the sense from the conversations he'd overheard that this was the only place that would take teenagers long-term. And of course the grown ups wanted him to have a long-term place to go. Nobody had asked him what he wanted, about what his dreams were. He figured if he was lucky he could get emancipated within the next couple of years and strike out on his own, but he might have to get the hag's approve for that plan, and he doubted she'd go for it. There was the young, pretty woman, the one who had stood up for him in court while decisions had been made. He thought maybe he could appeal to her, but it would help a lot if he could remember her blasted name!

Cody glanced up and looked out across the property, his eyes scanning the pond and then the area where he'd heard Becky promising a play area for the younger kids. It was a beautiful place, and he liked the serenity of it all, but it wasn't home. The thought of Becky putting up a play area for the younger kids was nice, and it made him think that she must really care about them. She hadn't made any provisions for him, and he was pretty sure she didn't care much about what he did. It didn't matter in the long run, as far as Cody was concerned. He'd go on his own way and she could do what she wanted with the little kids.

Cody was about to turn back to the screen when he heard the voice of the man, Paul? shouting for him. "Cody Aaron York!"

The tone in that voice knocked the breath out of Cody instantly, and before he could think about what he was doing, he was slamming the lid on his laptop. "Shit," he muttered, scrambling to his feet. He tripped over his foot and nearly went down, grappling for the swing and the laptop so that it wouldn't smash to the ground. He knew that tone of voice, it was one he'd heard his mother use on several occasions when he'd been in real trouble and about to get grounded for a week, or sometimes even two!

Immediately Cody's mind began to reel. What had he done? He could think of nothing that they may have detected, other than his being on the Internet. He'd had to hack into the wireless network in order to access AOL instant messenger to talk to Celine, but he couldn't figure how they would know he'd done it, unless they had a way of monitoring which machines were currently logged on at any given point in time. He didn't think that the grown ups had that much knowledge of how to work the Internet, and therefore he was pretty sure that he was safe in that regard.

Moving quickly, Cody stood up and started for the door. "I'm coming!" he called into the house as he scrambled to get inside. What could the guy want? He couldn't think of anything, and so far the grown ups had mostly left him to himself. He ate dinner with Becky every night, and the guy was around more on the weekends than he was during the week, but Cody hadn't been there but eight days, and getting used to names wasn't his strong suit. Especially when he didn't see someone often.

The man was standing by the desk that had been his welcome to the Forest. He looked agitated, and he had a big laundry bag in one hand. The expression on the man's face set Cody's heart to beating even harder, and he frowned as he approached the man and put his computer on the desk. "Yeah?" he asked, trying to keep his tone calm and wondering what on earth the guy's problem was. He'd much rather be outside chatting with Celine on his laptop or even upstairs in his room and playing his guitar and daydreaming than dealing with this guy. He'd mostly left the grown ups alone and stayed out of their way. He hadn't asked for anything, and he had hoped that they'd leave him alone in return.

The guy had an odd expression on his face and Cody felt his stomach pitch. He'd thought of Paul... Pat? as being a pretty easygoing guy, laid back and not stressing out so much. But the way he was looking at Cody right now made the fourteen year-old's blood run cold. He stopped moving, his hand on the laptop, and turned to meet the man's cold blue eyes. "Uh... What's up?" he asked, withering quickly under the intensity of the man's gaze. He tried to keep his tone casual, avoiding the confrontation that he knew was coming, but there was a lump in his throat that made him sound less than confident, even to his own ears.

"This," the guy said, lifting the bag beside him, "is the problem. I distinctly recall Ms. Becky telling you that you were to keep your room clean, and that laundry was done on Fridays. Well... Here it is Friday afternoon, and I go into your room to pick up your laundry bag, and it's... empty. The clothes are scattered all over your floor, the bed is unmade, there's a guitar on your desk... The room is a mess!"

"Umm... Yeah," Cody said, a wave of relief washing over him. At least this wasn't all that big a deal, right? He could rush up to the room, do a quick tidying job and get the laundry put together. "I was going to get to that. I just had some other stuff I wanted to get done first. It's okay, I'll go do it now."

Cody was about to grab his laptop and move away when the guy put a hand on his chest to stop him. The youngster froze, and for a moment he felt as though he couldn't move. His heart was pounding harder than ever, and he could hear the thunderous roar in his ears. "Don't touch me!" he exclaimed. Fear was like a punch in the gut. Struggling to breathe deeply, Cody added, "I'm going to do it. Just let me go. I'm going to do it."

"No," the guy said. "You aren't. I've already picked up your room for you," he added. "What you're going to do is march yourself right into the kitchen where we will discuss this matter at length."

The guy stood back, and Cody couldn't help but stare at him. What could he possibly mean "discuss this matter at length?" Cody didn't like the idea of discussing anything with this guy, especially not in the kitchen, where he'd seen the two little kids getting paddled by Becky. Sure, she'd mentioned cleaning his room a few times, and Cody had kind of brushed her off. He could understand why this guy might be ticked off at him, but come on! He was fourteen years old. He didn't need to be told again. He'd get to it next week, when it was time to clean up the room and get the clothes put together. No discussions needed.

"Go," the man said. His voice was stern, and though Cody would have much preferred to retreat to his room and the comfort of his music, he instead began what seemed like a very long trek into the kitchen.

Cody could feel tension in his shoulders, and a headache was beginning to brew at the base of his skull, the back of his neck where a knot always formed around term time in school. His mind flashed briefly to the time that his father caught him with a cigarette. He hadn't even lit it, but his dad had gone ballistic, all red in the face and yelling at Cody. He'd been grounded for a month that time and had never even thought about picking up another cigarette until his parents had... Well, he wasn't going to think about that now. His mind was too much occupied with the man who stalked along behind him as they finally reached the kitchen.

Going straight to the sink, Cody turned around and put his palms up on the counter. He was about to heave himself up onto it when he realized that he'd be putting his butt right into the sink. He glanced around the kitchen and then finally moved his gaze back to the guy's face. The blue eyes seemed to be staring deeply into him, and Cody gave an involuntary shudder. The guy sure did know how to make somebody uncomfortable!

"So what do you want to talk to me about?" Cody asked, trying to sound much braver than he felt.

"The rules," the guy said. He reached into his back pocket, and a moment later Cody realized that the man had been carrying a small but cruel-looking paddle in his back pocket. The man put it down on the table and then turned his gaze back to look at Cody.

The teenager tried not to look at the paddle. Maybe the man just carried it around with him everywhere he went, stuck by the handle in his back pocket. If he was going to be sitting down, he'd be a lot more comfortable without some piece of wood sticking out back there. Or maybe he'd just been dealing with one of the younger kids. After all, Cody had been outside, and he wouldn't have heard anything, he shouldn't think. It was just as likely that their rooms were a mess, right?

"You see, we have rules here," the man was saying, gesturing toward a poster board with hand written rules on it. "There are several of them, all of which you were told the day that you arrived. I remember, because I told them to you. Right now we're dealing with rules five and seven." The man gestured toward the poster board. "Why don't you read those for me?" he asked.

Cody felt his blood run cold. He hated anything to do with rituals. His aunt had once put him through his paces, making him recite off her rules when he'd stayed with her for a week in July when he was ten. He hadn't broken a single one of them, and therefore hadn't been forced to face punishment, but the ritual of it still made him nervous.

He braced himself against the counter and turned his head toward the list of rules. "Um..." Cody said, blinking several times. His vision wasn't clear, almost as though there was some kind of a fog across his eyes. "Five says 'Always do as you're told.'" He paused, struggling to swallow the lump that was forming in his throat. It seemed to him that Ms. Becky had told him something about picking up his room, just a couple of days before. And it seemed to him that she'd mentioned something about Mr.... Whatever his name was... not liking a mess at all. Cody had to figure it was meant as a warning, but it was too late for him to pick up on that now.

Number seven was the rule that really had Cody worried, now. He was sure that once he was done reading it out he was going to find out that he was restricted to the house for the next week until he could prove himself. It wasn't much of a grounding, of course, because where was he going to go? Maybe he wouldn't get dessert on Friday nights for a couple of weeks along with the rest of the group. It was impossible for him to comprehend that he paddle might be intended for him, and although there was a niggle at the back of his mind, he pushed it aside. "Seven says to always keep the home clean and to pick up after yourself," he said. He spoke slowly and with some deliberation, and then, finally, turned back to face the man. With a great effort to appear flippant, as though nothing mattered to him at all, as though the man's angry visage didn't worry him, Cody shrugged his shoulders. "I didn't figure that meant my own room. I mean, that's my place. What's it matter to you?"

The man blinked several times, and Cody noticed that it seemed that his cheeks were becoming terribly red. The redness engulfed the man's ears, and if Cody could have taken a step back, he would have done so. There was no question that the expression on the guy's face as he reached out and grabbed Cody's arm was pure fury. Cody tumbled forward as he was tugged, his body falling hard against the table. He let out a grunt, instinctively preparing to push himself up into a standing position again, but before he could do anything, the man was pummeling his butt. Cody didn't know if he was using the paddle he'd brought with him or the palm of his hand. All he knew was that he hurt.

All appearances were lost. Cody kicked up his right leg, his foot falling back down to the floor with a thud. He stomped both of his feet as though doing so would stop the flurry of swats to his backside, as though it would put out the dull burning ache that was already beginning. The guy was talking to him from behind, and he could barely make out the words. "Rule two says that you will treat other residents with respect, and that includes me! You will not speak to me that way again Cody Aaron York!" the guy snapped angrily.

Nearly a minute later Cody found himself breathing heavily, nearly exhausted from trying to struggle out from under the guy's grip. He had twisted and turned, but the man was stronger than he was, and much bigger than him, and he'd pinned him effectively against the table. Finally he felt a shove to his back and then the man backed off. Cody was left leaning over the table, his cheek pressed against it, panting from the effort he'd put forth to escape. There were no tears: however much the swats had hurt his butt, he wasn't crying; he wasn't a baby! After a moment, he started to push himself up. He closed his eyes, not wanting to look at the dreadful looking little paddle, and when he rose, he rubbed his hand against his hot cheek. "Geez!" he gasped, one hand reaching back to rub his butt. "You need to take a fuckin' chill pill, man. I'm way too old to get spanked like those little kids, and it's not that big a deal!"

Cody didn't meet the man's gaze in time to see the expression on his face. Instead, everything happened so fast in a whirlwind that he didn't have a moment to process what was going on. Before he could blink, his jeans had been unbuttoned and tugged down to his knees, just like he was a little kid. He felt the heat in his cheeks spread to his ears and his neck, and his hands instinctively lashed out at the man, trying to push him away so that he couldn't keep doing what he was doing. Worse than all that, the guy was still talking to him!

"You know the rules now, Cody York. There is no doubt in my mind that you need what you're about to get. If you didn't want to find out what it felt like to get a spanking from one of us, then you wouldn't be pushing every button!"

The guy stood up and stepped back. "Lower your underpants to your knees with your jeans, and then put your hands on the seat of the chair." He turned one of the kitchen chairs around and picked up the paddle. Cody couldn't take his eyes off the guy, even as he felt the heat in his face and neck spread down his chest and meet somewhere near his belly, which was churning with discomfort and what he thought might be real fear of this man. Worse than that, there was a stirring even lower, and he felt his mouth go dry. The gaze broke, and Cody looked down at the floor, trying his best to hide the expression in his eyes. He glanced at the table, cringing when he saw the paddle, and then shook his head vigorously from side to side. There was no way on earth that he was going to take his boxers down for this guy! There was no way! How did he know what the dude wanted anyway. A spanking was bad enough, but what if...

"Now," the man said. His voice was cold as ice, and Cody glanced over at him again. His hands were beginning to shake with the unfamiliarity of it all, and he hesitated as his fingers slipped into the waistband of his boxers.

"If you don't do it, I'll do it for you, young man, and I don't think you'll like where that takes us. Get the underpants down to your knees or you can take them off and serve corner time afterward naked from the waist down. Now."

Cody took a deep breath. Tears were stinging his eyes and he blinked them back, surprised by their presence. Holding his breath, he pushed his boxers down to his knees with his jeans and then, stiffly, he bent over the chair. His head was reeling, and he tried to focus on what was going on around him rather than the internal thoughts that were trying to break through and break him down. He shifted, trying to keep the guy from seeing what was happening to him beneath his belly. His back was stiff and tense, and the muscles of his butt were tense and tight as he clenched them together as though it would buffer the pain of what was going to happen next.

The dude wasn't talking now, and Cody could only sense the movement around him. The "clack" as the wooden paddle was lifted from the wooden table, then the feeling of the man's hand on his back. He tensed, his skin crawling as he struggled to keep himself in place and not bolt from the touch of the guy. He leaned forward, as though to keep his butt out of the way. "Stick your bottom out," the guy was saying now. "Way out. That's the way," he added, his tone almost encouraging. Cody wasn't even aware that his body had obeyed the man against his own will.

Then, before Cody could really get himself fully braced, it had started. The little paddle with all the holes that the teenager had hardly noticed before smacked against his backside with a sound that reminded him of a single firecracker going off. There was a pause, just long enough to allow Cody to process the heat and the burning sensation as it crept through him, and then the other side of his backside came alight with pain. He gasped, his breath sucking in deeply and his backside tensing. The paddle patted against his butt, and then he felt another hard swat to the right side. It almost reached his hip, and Cody let out a howl in spite of himself. His head came back, and his cry of agony echoed off the walls of the kitchen. He no longer cared whether or not someone else heard what was going on, but the pain needed to stop, to go away, and to go away right now! "Stop!" he cried, his voice breaking on the pain. "You can't! Stop! You're hurting me!"

There was no answer from behind, but instead the paddle continued to fall. The fire was fierce, and Cody felt as though his arms were going to buckle. He stomped his feet hard against the floor, thinking that somehow doing so would somehow alleviate the pain. His butt was dipping lower and lower, his knees beginning to buckle to the point where he thought he might as well kneel on the floor. He could no longer hold himself up, and great sobs were ripping from his belly. He'd never felt anything like the heat in his bottom now, and he was convinced that whatever he had one, this man hated him!

A sharp swat of the paddle to each of Cody's thighs had his attention refocused. He let out a howl of pain and raised up onto his toes, his knees straight again. "You keep that rear end stuck out where it belongs or I will be forced to put you over my lap like a little child and make sure that your thighs are just as red right down to the knees!" the man said, his voice sharp.

Cody was already breathing hard, almost panting, his head hanging so low that it finally bumped against the back of the chair. He let out a cry of surprise at the man's words, and though his knees and elbows threatened to buckle, he pushed himself back up again, determined to do his best to see it through. He cried out again, shifting his hips to try to avoid the blows, but the man was unpredictable, and just when Cody least expected it, another crack would land against his butt or the backs of his legs. Any stirrings were gone now, and he felt ragged, used up, as though he could do no more, eventually he couldn't even find the breath to speak, and he stopped pleading with the man to stop it all.

"Hold still," the man snapped, the paddle cracking against Cody's leg again.

The teenager buckled, his knees giving way and his whole body coming to a little pile on the floor. He drew his hands up and covered his face with them, sobbing into them. He could feel the puffiness in his eyes, the heat in his cheeks. He didn't care what he looked like now, though. All he cared was getting rid of the intense burning pain in his rear end. He let out a cry of protest as a firm hand grabbed his arm and dragged him back up, physically putting his hands back on the seat of the chair. "We aren't done yet, Mr. York," the man was saying.

Snot was running down Cody's face, and he could taste salty tears. "No..." he groaned, his head coming up, his puffy eyes coming open just for long enough to catch a glimpse of the young red haired woman leaning against the door frame into the kitchen. He felt the heat rage back through him, through his face, his ears, and through his groin. Cody moaned softly and shook his head from side to side. "I'm sorry!" he cried. "I'm sorry! I'll... I'll pick it up, I'm sorry!"

"Better," the man said, even as Cody's head dropped, his forehead now nearly touching the seat of the chair.

Only two more cracks of the paddle, but Cody felt as though they were setting him on fire, burning through him. He was sure that he could feel the burning pain deep in the muscle of his butt, and he swore to himself that he would never do anything to deserve another one of these again.

He felt the hand on his back disappear, but Cody kept his position, holding himself up stiffly on shaking knees.

"You may go to the corner," he heard the soft, feminine voice say. "You and I will have a talk about obedience later on," she went on, even as Cody hobbled into the corner of the kitchen that the kid had occupied just last week. He didn't even make to pull his boxers and jeans back up; he couldn't imagine what it would feel like to have the fabric brush against his raw backside.

How long had she been standing there? Cody wondered. How much had she seen? Had she seen what was going on below his waist? Ashamed, he lowered his head and leaned against the wall, letting the thoughts evaporate as he dissolved into deep sobs, his entire body wrenching with the effort it took him to breathe. It seemed like forever that he heard the din of their voices in the background, and then he felt a soft, small hand on his shoulder. "Go ahead and get dressed. You can go to your room to get cleaned up and to calm down," Ms. Becky was saying. "Mr. Peter wants to talk to you later on. Without the paddle, I promise," she said. The same hand gently patted his shoulder, and then Cody had the sense that he was very deeply alone.

Talking to Peter (that was his name!) wasn't high on Cody's list of priorities, but he was relieved to pull his shorts up over his bottom (though it was a painful experience!) and then to follow them up with his jeans. He moved slowly and stiffly as he went to pick up his laptop from the desk and head upstairs to his room, where he would stay until the Peter guy wanted him. There was no way he was going to go looking for the man who had just spanked him as though he was just a little kid....