CHAPTER 2: THE ABBOT

"Reverend Father Abbot:

"We are not a family of many means, I live off a modest business and for years I have sacrificed a lot, like many other parents, so that my son could have the best education and the best possible future. Pablo, my only male child, although he has always been a bit lazy, never gave excessive problems in his childhood, he has always been a loving and obedient boy, until a couple of years ago he started frequenting undesirable companies and arriving home late, disheveled, smelling of wine or cheap perfume from a woman... I suppose you understand me and I spare you, as well as myself, the embarrassment of going into more details. If the first time Pablito didn't show up for dinner and had his poor mother worried for several hours, I had taken my belt and given him a good beating, as I had thought of doing... but I made the mistake of expressing my intentions clearly to his mother, and she immediately intervened on his behalf. With the whipping, we would have probably avoided the second, the third, and all the other nights of drunkenness, drug use, waste of money and family patrimony, ...

"However, although late, the situation reached such extremes that I finally reacted recently, one day when he disrespected his mother; without even thinking about what I was doing, instinctively I slapped him a couple of times, took him by the ear to his room, and closed the door to punish him properly without my wife's or daughters' intervention. I finally did what I wanted to do from the first moment he started misbehaving; I made him undress completely, in fact, I myself took off his underwear because he didn't want to take them off himself, I sat on his bed (which he had unmade, of course), put him as the Lord brought him into the world on my knees, and gave him a long and forceful whipping. Despite Pablo's screams, sobs, pleas, and whimpers, and also those of his mother and sisters on the other side of the door, I didn't stop until the pain in my hand prevented me from continuing. It was immensely red, but nothing compared to the deep crimson color of the brat's buttocks, which had finally become the adorable child he had been before. He was crying disconsolately; I put him facing the wall naked and with his buttocks burning for a while to reflect, and then when I lifted the punishment, he himself threw himself into my arms asking for forgiveness, crying again and promising to change. After so much tension, we were finally father and son again and felt close to each other.

"But you can imagine that the purpose of amendment lasted little and this scoundrel is going back to his old ways... He has strayed too far from the path and it won't be easy to get him back on track, but I intend to fulfill my duty as a father to correct this boy and prevent him from ruining his life. To avoid problems with his mother and sisters, who sometimes recognize that I'm right but then soften and want to...