"Now!"

 "Yes, Aunt Felicia," Marek sighed.

He quickly undressed and pulled on the long underpants that his aunt had brought. The underpants were very uncomfortable, made of thick coarse cloth. They were tight in the boy's groin.

"Very well," said Pani Felicia appreciating how her new clothes fit on Marek, "turn your back."

The young man turned obediently.

 "There are special ties here. You can't untie them and if you do, you won't be able to tie them again."

The aunt tightened one of the cords at Marek's waist, then the other.

"You can't take these underpants off until morning. Until I come and see if you're all right," the aunt said. "And if you disobey me, Marek, and take off your underpants… and God forbid to take up manual labor…"

"Yes," Aunt Felicia.

 "I will punish you," Aunt Felicia promised, and her eyes flashed menacingly. "I'll whip you right in bed! You will be hurt and ashamed."

"Yes, Aunt Felicia."

 "Good night, my angel."

 "Good night, Aunt Felicia."

 Marek couldn't fall asleep for a long time. Outside the window the wind was blowing and branches were beating against the glass. The rough material of his underpants rubbed his skin. The groin itched. But the young man endured. He didn't forget that his aunt had promised to punish him. Towards midnight Marek fell asleep, and woke up at dawn because of the fact that his penis rose, hardened and rested against the thick fabric of his underpants. Marek groaned and tried to pull off his underpants. Then he remembered about the strings. He put his hands behind his back and began to untie the knots by touch. Marek quickly finished with the knots because his aunt tied the laces in a bow. The young man pulled the hated underpants and habitually took the hot penis in his fist. Marek remembered Katarzhina's scratched knees and her sly smile. The boy groaned, arched up on the bed and poured semen over the sheet.

 "I should hide everything and remember to put on those damn underpants," Marek thought and fell asleep. The young man was sleeping so soundly that he did not wake up in the morning when Pani Felicia went into his room and pulled the blanket off him.

 "Oh, how disgusting! What a nightmare!" Pani Felicia exclaimed and pressed her hands to her face.

Her cheeks were flushed with indignation and anger. Pani Felicia left the outhouse and returned almost at once, in five minutes. She carried several long willow rods in her hands. The bars glistened with salt water. The two maids followed her. The lanky Gracia and the short, solidly built Alisha. Alisha had an expressionless broad face, narrow eyes and blue-black short-cut hair that lay on her small head like a helmet.

Three women were standing in the room next to Marek's bed, looking at the naked boy and the semen-stained sheet.

"Hold the boy by the legs and arms," the aunt told the maids, "and hold him tight!"

Standing at the head and foot of the bed, Gracia and Alisha gripped the young man's wrists and ankles tightly. Marek mumbled something in his dream and shook his head but he didn't wake up.

"Good morning, Marek," said Pani Felicia and with a low wave of her hand she struck the young man on the buttocks with a willow rod.

 Marek, still half-awake, jumped up in bed. A cherry stripe appeared on his white buttocks and began to darken quickly. And the aunt hit Marek with the rod again and again. The young man screamed. The stinging pain of the rods snapped him out of a warm sweet dream in an instant. Marek's eyes were wide open and he looked around in alarm. Near the bed the young man saw Pani Felicia with a rod in her hand. The young man tried to jump to the floor but Gracia and Alisha held him tightly.

 "Pani Felicia, why?" Marek shouted.

"You know why," said his aunt.

Pani Felicia whipped him slowly and counted out loud.

"Four!… Five!… Six!…"

Trying to avoid the rod, the young man twisted on the bed and wobbled his buttocks. He tried to suppress a scream and mumbled, biting his lip… Gracia was leaning over Marek at the head of the bed but the young man didn't know who was holding his legs. Turning his head he saw Alisha. The maid was smiling and staring at Marek with her narrow black eyes.

"Eight!… Nine! I will wean you from this sin!"

 "I won't! Never again! Excuse me, Pani Felicia!" Marek shouted swallowing his tears.

"Ten!" the aunt lashed out with the rod one last time and threw it on the floor.

Probably Pani Felicia lashed the rod with all her strength to sum up the punishment. The young man jerked his whole body and even screamed from the unbearable pain.

The maids let go of Marek and walked out of the room. Pani Felicia held out her hand to Marek and the young man kissed her strong fingers with dark cherry-colored nails several times.

 "Thank you for the spanking, Aunt Felicia," Marek said.

"Get dressed quickly and go down to the living room. I'll expect you for breakfast."

The aunt left. Marek was lying on the couch. His buttocks were burning unbearably from being whipped by the rod, and Alisha's smiling impudent face was in front of his eyes. Resentment, pain and humiliation almost made him crying. And for some unknown reason, Marek felt a strong sexual arousal; his penis began to rise and hardened again.

On that June evening Pani Felicia was sitting in a corner of the garden in an old arbor covered with ivy. Red sunlight glinted in the apple trees. Pani Felicia was reading a novel by the Russian writer Nikolai Leskov. The woman forgot the time reading it and heard neither the gate creak nor the light footsteps of a girl on the garden path.

"Pani Felicia, good evening!" Katarzhina called out.

The aunt looked up from her book. She saw a slim girlish silhouette and red hair spilling over her shoulders in the evening light.

"Katarzhina, good evening! I'm so glad you've come to visit us. Let them bring us the samovar."

Pannochka sat down on a chair and placed a bundle on the other side of her.

 "Alisha, my dear, bring us the samovar!" Pani Felicia shouted.

Katarzhina looked back over the carved fence of the gazebo and saw the lanky maid Gratia who was cutting long twigs from a young birch tree growing in the garden.

 "Is this for the rods?" asked the young pannochka with interest.

 "And why," sighed the aunt, "Pan Kazimir will come to teach Marek tomorrow. He always requires the fresh rods to be."

Katarzhina was thinking about something. She looked wonderful this evening, in a white blouse and cream-coloured long skirt. Katarzhina was wearing soft-soled sandals with three leather laces on her narrow feet.

"I keep wondering whether corporal punishment is good for Marek," Pani Felicia confessed, "and I feel sorry for him! Sometimes the boy gets down! I can't watch without tears when the master Kazimir thrashes him, and when I punish him myself…"

Meanwhile Alisha brought the samovar, cups and a bowl of jam to the gazebo. The maid was wearing a modest dark ankle-length dress and a white apron with lace trim. The aunt and her guest began drinking tea.

 "Pani Felicia, that's why I came," said pannochka a little embarrassed, "your nephew, Marek, has offended me…"

Pani Felicia's beautiful ruddy face turned pale.

 "What has he done again, he rascal?"

Katarzhina sighed. She took the cup and sipped carefully the hot tea. She was looking through the aunt at the garden, at the fence between the bushes. Katarzhina smiled sadly.