Like many others during the Covid era, my partner and I have looked to alternative or forgotten pastimes, given the inability to do so much of what we normally would. For instance, we now have Sunday night games evening, in which we get out one of the board games that were otherwise collecting dust in the cupboard. And it was one such Sunday evening recently where, mid-game, I was suddenly struck with a vivid but previously forgotten memory from almost three decades ago of another board game session; one which had a very different outcome for me.

I was around 11. My parents were very close friends with another family who had two sons, one of whom was my age and my best friend, and another son two years younger, the same age as my sister. We would often visit each other’ homes en masse, where the parents would eat and drink in the dining room, and the kids would entertain each other in the living room.

On this occasion, we were at my house. I had recently persuaded my parents to buy me a game that was the latest cool thing; a VHS game called Atmosfear. This was the first time we were trying it out and I couldn’t wait. For those who haven’ had the pleasure, Atmosfear is a 'beat the clock' game in which the players are trying to outwit a decrepit ghoul called the Gatekeeper (aka some actor in a cloak and makeup who appears on the VHS) in less than an hour. As you play the game, he variously pops up on screen to taunt, provide scares or challenges.

You can imagine this was great fun for kids our age, as we got each other more and more worked up, delighting in the cheap scares of the game. Occasionally too worked up to the extent one or other of the parents would yell at us to keep the noise down. I in particular was in a pretty hyped up state by the end, having just managed to win the game with minutes to spare. Not wanting the fun to end, I decided it would be really, really funny to keep the scares going. And so I hatched a plan. A really, really stupid plan, as mine tended to be at that age.

As part of the game, you have to write down your secret fear and put it in the middle of the board until or unless someone works out what it is. I was an incorrigible cheat at that age (which my family still won’t let me forget) and I happened to glance at what my sister had written down, making a mental note just in case it would prove useful later. "Scary man with a knife" was the answer, or something along those lines.

I crept out of the living room, still in half darkness after the game, into the kitchen to obtain what I needed. I returned, my friends and sister giggling and reminding each other of particularly enjoyable parts of the game. Ever so quietly, I crept around the back of the sofa where my sister was sitting, and after a short beat, launched myself up from behind with a loud blood-curdling yell, waving the kitchen knife in her direction.

Fair to say, it had the desired effect. My sister was terrified and I was delighted. What happened next is still the subject of some dispute between us. I maintain that my sister moved her hand towards the knife, in some kind of defence. She is insistent that I moved it towards her hand (my parents back her up on this, although they weren’t in the room at the time. Just saying). Either way, knife and hand had made a connection. As the old saying goes, it’s all fun and games until you stab your sister in the hand.

It could have been a lot worse. It really could. In many ways I was fortunate that it wasn’t. But it was bad enough. The knife made contact with the palm of my sister’ hand, enough to prick it and make it bleed. She gave a scream and burst into tears. I stood there in absolute shock, my delight having evaporated. My friend’s brother yelled at the sight of the blood, assuming I had sliced her hand open, whilst my friend yelled at his brother for yelling.

Obviously, the screams and yells drew the attraction of our parents who burst into the living room, and switched on the lights to find out what kind of trouble we had gotten ourselves into. Upon seeing the blood my mum rushed to the kitchen to get a plaster, whilst my dad comforted my sister. Our friends’ parents were intervening with their sons, who had by that stage gotten into a physical fight. It’s not an exaggeration to say that they managed to get into a fight every single time we played a game.

And there was me. Stood planted to the floor, unable to move, still clutching the knife for dear life. Looking at the increasingly chaotic scene unfolding before me, some part of my brain decided that I should respond in precisely the least helpful way imaginable. And so it was that I burst into laughter.

I’m not saying I found it funny. I didn’t find anything funny about the situation. I had hurt my sister and I knew exactly where this was heading (the last time I had done that, several years earlier following a misplaced game of "throw the brick" which left my sister needing stitches, it felt like I hadn’t sat down comfortably for a week). However, there’s some kind of instinct in me, particularly when nervous or in shock, that leads me to laughter. Laughter that only increases the more inappropriate it is.

I have never heard a room go so quiet so quickly. Even my sister stopped crying. They all looked at me in disbelief as I stood there shaking and giggling.

"It’s not... I’m not...it’s" I wheezed, almost bent over with peals of laughter, desperately trying to make clear that I really didn’t think it was funny, despite all appearances.

After what was probably no more than a few seconds, my father sprang to life. His eyes wide and nostrils flaring, he made his way towards me at a faster trot than I had seen in some time.

"PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER", he yelled, prising the knife out of my hand and practically hauling me off my feet by my arm. My laughter instantly stopped.

He pulled me across the room towards a sofa. I scrambled to keep up, my brain not having quite processed what was happening and what was about to happen. No one said a thing.

Dad set himself heavily down in the middle of the sofa and placed me in front of him. In an instant, he had reached for my tracksuit bottoms and yanked them heavily down to my ankles. He then reached towards my underpants. Oh no, I thought, as my eyes widened in horror. My brain had finally caught up with the reality of my predicament, and I realised what he was about to do. Now while I had never known a spanking that hadn’t been on my bare bottom, I couldn’t quite believe that this was going to happen now, in front of our guests. In front of my best friend. While I tended to be compliant when it came to being punished, I instinctively found my hands reaching out and gripping his wrists to try and stop him. With what seemed an almost animalistic growl, he shook off one of hands and smacked the other so I released my grip, before then roughly sliding my underpants down to join my tracksuit bottoms.

"No, dad. Dad, dad, no, dad!" I whined in desperation.

"There!" he said, almost triumphantly, as much to the room as myself, as my then plumpish white bottom was exposed to everyone present.

I began to reach for the hem of my t-shirt in order to tug it down to provide me with as much modesty as possible, but before I knew it, my dad literally picked me up from the ground and placed me across his lap. I was surprised by his strength and more than a little scared. My spankings at that point tended towards the more methodical and almost ritualised, yet the speed and physicality involved was unusual to me, and suggested an anger in my dad that I rarely saw, despite the many times he had expressed displeasure with me in the past.

Almost immediately, and without the usual careful positioning, he brought his hand down heavily across one of my bare buttocks. I gasped. I could tell he was using the full force of his arm and intended to give me a very sore bottom. Another hard smack against my other cheek and I began to worry how I would manage to take this. I decided to bury my face in the sofa cushion, as at least that way I could pretend we were alone.

He reined down the smacks across my bottom, making clear his frustration with me. My bottom was smarting much sooner than it usually was, and I prayed it meant that the spanking would be over soon. I was conscious that there was no sound in the room save for the loud cracks filling the room and my gasps in response, and an image came into my mind of what I must look like to my audience. I tried to block it out.

Again and again his hand came down across my bottom, and my gasps turned into groans and the occasional yelp. The sting in my bottom became sharper and more uncomfortable, and I began to shift across my dad’ lap. He increased the pacing and in response I almost turned on my side to avoid the blows.

Grasping my waist tightly with his other arm, I guess he knew then he was getting through to me. He stopped. Or, I should say, I wish he stopped but this was a pause.

"Apologise to your sister," he commanded, giving me two short smacks to each bare cheek.

"SORRY!" I managed to spit out, my mouth still firmly against the sofa cushion, muffling the sound.

Another direction was accompanied with another couple of smacks: "Now lift your head up and apologise to our guests for spoiling their evening."

I froze, horrified at the idea. To do this would be to truly acknowledge that this spanking, already difficult enough, was being witnessed. And not only did I not want to acknowledge that, but I feared if I did so, I would begin to cry. And girls my age did not cry even if they were getting a spanking. Of course, this wasn’t true at all. I always cried when I was getting a spanking. But girls my age definitely didn’t cry from a spanking in front of their friends.

My dad resumed spanking, as firmly as before. Multitasking, he told my sister to go to her room and fetch him one of her hairbrushes. He had to repeat to her what was clearly to both of us a strange request. He continued the spanking whilst she did what she was told.

On returning to the room, he told her to give him the hairbrush. There was a slight pause, and I was wondering what on earth was about to happen. Up until this point, all of my spankings had been by hand, and I don’t think I was really aware of the whole world of implements that could be used to punish naughty girls.

I soon became aware. With a loud crack, he brought the brush down upon my bottom. I squealed in surprise and dismay. Already this felt worse than his hand, experiencing a sharper and yet deeper sting. I would become familiar enough with this surprisingly small and soon to be despised piece of blue plastic. Few would expect how something like that could make a kid so thoroughly miserable.

It only took a few well placed smacks to get what my dad was after and an apology to the room was forthcoming. As I had anticipated/feared, so too were the tears. Unable to contain myself, I yelled as the tears started to flow in response to the increasing burn that the brush was causing to my defenceless bare bottom.

This was undoubtedly the worst spanking I had had to date, and I became increasingly desperate for dad to stop. I think this was perhaps the first time I had experienced that sensation where you feel you cannot carry on taking it, yet having to find some way to do so. Finally, after my dad peppering some hard swats to my upper thighs (also new, and also very unwelcome), he stopped.

Before I had even had the chance to catch my breath, and the tears flowing freely, he hauled me off his lap, stood up, then pushed me towards the corner of the living room. Normally I would be given instructions to comply with, but not this time. Instead it was as if every move was controlled by him. I stumbled towards the corner, my tracksuit bottoms and undies getting in the way of a dignified walk, and felt him roughly pull up my hands, one by one, and place them firmly on my head.

The spanking over, the corner offered the opportunity to reflect on what had happened. I became overwhelmed with embarrassment. There was no denying that I was now standing in front of a room full of people showing off my bare red bottom. I wanted the ground to swallow me up. I was at that key age when a spanking wasn’t just bad because of the pain it caused; it was bad because it conflicted with my sense of self-image. My ideal version of myself was not the one who got his bare backside spanked and put in the corner. And yet that’s undoubtedly what had happened.

Unsurprisingly, our guests soon left, the mood very subdued, and I heard my mum offer her apologies for my behaviour. My dad sat himself down on the sofa and turned on the TV. I thought it best not to ask how long I had to stay there for, although I was dying to retreat to the safety of my room, not least so I could give my poor bottom a good rub.

Eventually I was allowed out and instructed to go to my room. I raced upstairs and got myself ready for bed. Whilst undressing I took the opportunity to check out the damage done to my bottom and was both horrified and amazed to see a darker crimson colour across my cheeks than I had been used to previously. I winced as I pulled on my pyjama bottoms and could only speculate how long I would be feeling the effects.

After a while, the door opened and my dad walked in and sat down on the end of my bed. I was relieved to see that he was notably calmer than before. He asked me how I was. I mumbled that I was ok, even if I felt a long way from OK.

"I know that was rough for you, my girl, but you deserved it. Not only what you did was beyond idiotic, but you found it funny. I don’t understand it. This isn’t who we’re raising you to be," he complained.

Overcoming the frog in my throat, I tried to explain. "I didn’t find it funny dad, honestly, I was scared and I tried to stop and I, I.."

My dad looked into my eyes and could apparently see that I meant what I said. I guess he knew that as naughty as he thought I was, I wasn’t going to lie to him after what I had just been through.

"OK. Well, good. We may need to work on our reactions, but I’m not going to push the point tonight. There is just one last thing" and with that he pulled out my sister’s hairbrush from his trouser pocket.

"Dad!" I wailed, "I can’t take any more, I’m sor-" He raised his hand and cut me off.

"Don’t worry, you’ve had your punishment, but in this house we put things away when we’re done with them, don’t we?" he asked.

I resisted the urge to mutter that I hadn’t been the one using it, but took it from his hand.

"Good, now I want you to go to your sister’s bedroom, put the brush back and give her the proper apology you couldn’t manage earlier, okay?" He then stood up, and we walked to my sister’s room where he stood in the doorway.

At a speed much faster than I usually navigated the house, I walked to my sister’s desk, slammed down the hairbrush, spun on my heels and said "I’mreallysorryIhurtyougoodnight" as I left hurriedly. I had no desire to look at her or acknowledge her presence, a wave of embarrassment resurfacing in me.

My dad looked amused as I left. I think next time you’re going to have to return the brush with a little more good grace and sincerity, but I’ll let it pass for now.

I wanted to ask what he meant by next time, but thought it best to leave it. I returned to my room and put myself to bed. I realised I was exhausted, the adrenaline of the night long since departed. I managed a few gentle rubs to my surprisingly hot bottom and before I knew it I was asleep.

My unasked question as to what was meant by next time was answered more than soon enough for my liking, as for the next two or so years, before we 'upgraded' to the wooden hairbrush, my sister’s plastic hairbrush made all too frequent visits to my bottom. I’m not sure I ever managed to return it with much grace.

Nor did I ever really manage to overcome my inappropriate reactions. For there was a reason why that incident from three decades ago came back to me so vividly. The look in my husband’s eyes, I realised, was almost identical to that of my dad all those years ago, as I laughed helplessly and uncontrollably at the sight of him cleaning up the red wine I had managed to spill across the board. At least I was too old for a spanking, right?