I'm back. I didn't think I would update this, but the idea came to me yesterday, so here I am. Hope you don't think this makes me a weirdo. The Outsiders belongs to SE Hinton and the plot idea kind of came from that too. This story is rated for bad words and spanking. Reviews welcome – thanks for the others.

Wend

Chapter Three

It took me two weeks to get up the nerve to ask Melanie out, and imagine my surprise when she actually said yes. I met her at the Nightly Double, but instead of staying there, we got food from the A&W and went to the park and had a picnic. She had beautiful eyes. I didn't know what she was saying half the time from staring in her eyes.

It was getting late. It was also getting chilly, so I gave her my jacket. She snuggled against me. "Stay out with me," she whispered. "Let's stay here. Let's watch the sun come up."

I should have said no. I should have told her I had to be in by twelve. I should have remembered. I should have said to myself every single day, "Darry spanked you once, and it sucked, and he might do it again, so watch your step."

But I didn't. As the sting in my backside faded, so did the memory. And even though my brothers had teased me that following morning, surely it was a one-time thing. Soda would never lay a hand on me, I was sure, and Darry … well, I'd just be careful, is all. And not even Darry's hard hand could keep me from this pretty girl.

Darry always says I don't use my head.

We were kissing when a harsh light shone in our eyes. We both jumped. Mel hid her head in my shoulder and I squinted.

"What you doin' with that girl, boy?"

It was a cop. Behind him stood five Soc boys. "See, officer," one of them said, "he just dragged her out behind here."

My jaw dropped. "I did not," I protested. "Melanie, tell them!"

But Melanie had gotten up, straightened her blouse and gone to stand next to one of the boys. "I'm sorry," she mouthed at me. I couldn't have been more surprised if she'd turned invisible. She was just like all the others.

One of the boys stepped forward and smiled at the cop. "No harm done," he said, as if he and the cop were old friends.

"I ought to haul him in," the cop said. "If he tried to rape this girl …"

Blessedly, Melanie finally opened her mouth. "No, it wasn't like that," she said. "I just want to go home."

The cop didn't want to leave, but the Socs talked him into it, saying they'd take Mel home. One of them seemed to know him, like he was a relative or something. The cop finally left and he wasn't even around the corner when them boys came at me.

"You need to stay with your own kind, grease," one of them said, backing me up against the roundabout.

"Hey!" someone shouted. "Hey!"

I was never so happy to see Dallas Winston in my life. At least it evened up the odds. At least, that's what I thought, until two of them pulled out switchblades.

In turn, Dallas pulled out his gun. No one but me knew it wasn't loaded. The Socs all backed up immediately. Melanie's face turned white. I guess I wasn't what she thought neither.

"Go get that cop," one of the boys whispered.

Dally pointed the gun in his direction. "You better not," he threatened. "Y'all best just go."

They all backed up a little more, then one of them screeched, "Help! Police! He's got a gun!"

They all took off running after the cop. Dallas grabbed my arm and we ran in the other direction. He led me through the woods and the back lots of the worst neighborhoods and we finally ended up in Buck Merrill's backyard.

Dally climbed the steps. "Come in until the fuzz cool off," he said.

"I can't go in there," I said, what little sense I had finally coming back to me. "Darry'd kill me."

Dallas actually chuckled. "Kid, Darry's gonna kill you anyway. Or don't you think that pretty little Soc is going to give up your name?"

I followed him blindly inside. I sat in the corner, chewing on my fingernails, while Dally drank beer and shot some pool and chatted up the cheap girls drunk on whisky. Hours later, he decided it was safe to venture out, and he took me home the same way we'd gotten there – sneaking through yards and over fences.

The sky was starting to get light when we climbed our front stairs. Soda came out the front door as he heard us, looking frantic. "Where have you been?" he cried. "The cops were here, they said something about an assault – were you assaulted?"

Dallas laughed. "Nope. They thought lover boy here did the assaulting." He moved his jacket to show the gun in his waistband. "We scared them boys off and I didn't let him stick around. We been at Buck's, hiding from the fuzz. I took right good care of that."

"You have got to be fucking kidding me."

Before I could register the fact that I had never, ever heard that word come out of Soda's mouth, he grabbed my arm and hauled me into the house, snarling, "Dallas, go home," over his shoulder. Dally, who looked as shocked as I was, obeyed.

When we cleared the doorway, Soda yanked me around to grab both my shoulders and gave me a hard little shake. My teeth rattled. "You're hurting me," I hissed, trying to pull away.

"What the hell were you thinking?" he shouted, and I flinched in spite of myself. I didn't like the rageful look on his face. "Don't you have a lick of sense at all?"

There seemed no right answer to that, so I kept my mouth shut. Soda kept glaring at me, and a moment later, I realized we seemed to be alone in the house. "Where's Darry?" I finally asked weakly.

"He's out lookin' for you, and he's mighty pissed," Soda said. He let me go, shoving me onto the couch. "He swore when he found you he'd take a strap to you, and I'm going to let him."

I was afraid of that. "You can't --"

"And if you don't shut up I'll do it myself," Soda said coldly. He folded his arms. "You want to get yourself hauled out of here and to a boys' home, you go ahead on. But maybe you could wait until I'm of age, if it's not too much bother, since I ain't itchin' to go anywhere, and we're kind of a package deal."

"It's not like that. I was with Melanie -- it happened so fast --" I poured out the whole story. Soda was at least looking a little sympathetic when the front door opened. Darry looked bigger somehow, which of course was impossible. He saw me sitting there and his face went from relieved to happy to furious, all in a second.

"You're all right?" he asked.

I nodded.

"Want to tell me where the hell you've been?"

I kept my mouth shut. After a minute, Soda told him the story.

Darry fixed me with a stare. "Them Socs didn't hurt you?"

"No."

"They keep you there against your will? Kidnap you, or somethin'?"

"What? No."

"Are you sure?" I expected Darry to be screaming, but his voice was quiet and tight, which was way more scary than if he'd been hollering his head off. "Because I figured you had to be tied up or halfway to dead to pull a stunt like this."

I forced myself to look at his face. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, you will be," he said evenly. "Soda?"

"Yeah?"

"Lock the door. No sense in having someone walk in and embarrass him."

With my eyes on Sodapop, I never saw him coming. He moved quickly, with the speed and agility that had made him captain of the football team in high school, pulled me up, grabbed the sides of my jeans and yanked. They were Soda's old jeans, still too big for me, and they went down easily, my underware going with them. Darry had me across his lap on the couch so fast I didn't have time to run. He pulled me tight against him with one arm around my waist and his other hand came crashing down on my naked ass.

His blows came hard and fast and there was nothing I could do. I gasped out a couple of objections but it was as if he'd gone stone deaf. I tried to put my hands back for some sort of protection but Darry just grabbed my wrists and pinned them behind me, just as easy as if he was swatting a fly. Then he kept spanking. He showed no signs of slowing down. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't even think. He just kept swatting me and it seemed his hand got heavier and heavier. I was determined I wasn't going to cry like the last time. It hurt worse than anything, somehow it hurt worse than getting beat up in a rumble, but I wouldn't yell. The only noise was his hand coming down and the little gasps I couldn't stop.

After what seemed like hours later, he stopped. I'd managed to keep pretty quiet, but my jaw ached from clenching my teeth and I'd kicked my jeans and briefs clear off my legs in protest. He laid his hand on my back, rubbing for a minute as I caught my breath, then said quietly, "Sodapop?"

"What?"

Soda was still there? I wanted to die from pain and shame and embarrassment.

"I need you to go into my room and get me Dad's strap. It's hanging in the back of my closet."

"No!" I began struggling anew. The movement took Darry by surprise and for a moment I thought I might get away, but he tightened his hold on me and cracked me again to make me stop.

I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder and I knew it was Sodapop. "Darry," he said quietly, "you tanned him right red. Maybe that's enough."

"I want him to remember this."

"He will."

I felt Darry hesitate, then he said, "What would Dad have done to him? To either of us? Hell, even Mom would have whipped him silly for this, and you know it."

A moment later, I heard Soda walk out of the room. Traitor, I thought bitterly. My ass was burning and throbbing. I tried to pull away once more, then gave up. "I hate you," I hissed.

"Hate me all you want," Darry said. "But you ain't goin' to jail or a boys' home."

He didn't say anything else. I lifted my head and watched Soda hand Darry the strap. He wouldn't look at me. Darry folded it in half and didn't pause before bringing it down hard on top of my reddened backside. He only strapped me four times, but I couldn't be quiet anymore. I howled to wake the dead.

The pressure on my butt woke me up the next morning when I rolled over on my back. The bed was empty. I crept into the bathroom and twisted sideways to see how bad it was. It still hurt. There was a deep, dull ache, almost an itch, and I was surprised to see there was only a small pinkness to my posterior. No bruises. Not even a welt.

I'd expected my whole bottom to be black and blue, like I'd seen Johnny's backside and legs after a beating from his father. Suddenly, I realized the difference – Johnny's father beat him. Darry spanked me. Johnny never did anything to deserve it. While I wasn't happy to have been bent over Darry's knee for the second time in a month, I had to admit I could follow his reasoning, at least. And that was why it had hurt more than a punch in the face at a rumble. I didn't give one damn about those Socs. But Darry was my big brother.

I went into the kitchen to find a piece of cake and a note on the kitchen table. My brothers were both at work. The cops had called. Melanie, I guess, had pretty much told the truth, but they wanted to talk to me anyway. And they wanted to know about Dally's gun. Darry would be home by one and then we were going down to the station.

Good God, what a mess.

With a heavy sigh, I pulled out a chair. A minute later, I was eating my cake standing at the kitchen counter. I'd never thought it was possible to really spank someone so hard they wouldn't be able to sit down. Apparently, I was wrong.