I worked for a US contractor for thirty-two years, with the last twelve in Africa, and finally, as the continental MD. Management in the US sold our ‘non-core’ division, although it was profitable. They found a buyer, and I worked with them during the handover, when I requested to leave and received a generous payoff for my long service. An unusual thing happened. The managing director of the state airline took me out for...

My first year on a tough science degree course had ended. My year in a hall of residence finished, and I looked for accommodation for the next year. I found a landlady with a room to rent within reach of the college. She said on the phone that I sounded like the lodger she sought. "Please, come for a face-to-face." When I arrived, the sophistication and beauty of the (I guessed) mid-forties lady were delightful. I was alm...

“Neil, I am annoyed. Amirah had no right to cane poor Mary. I made light of it the next morning with Mary, but I must speak to Amirah. I’m going to invite her around when Mary is out. It might be better if we could be alone.” “Mary and Janet will be out during the day on Saturday, helping with the otter census in the waterways. Saturday in the office is what I need to deal with the latest project.” “Mary’s headteacher ran...

Julia, who was in her mid-twenties, had been my partner for six months. Her previous boyfriend had been a wealthy merchant banker I knew socially, and I had noticed Julia warming to me. Everything changed when I returned from one of my foreign trips looking frazzled and with my hair turned grey overnight, despite being thirty. Terrorists armed with AK47s had chased us and we had narrowly escaped their grasp. Out drinking...

Life carried on. Schoolwork was going well for Mary, and she was getting the low fifties in her test results, which were now down to the routine half-term and end-of-term checks. She looked a little embarrassed when one evening, she said to us, “Please, can I talk over something with you?” “Yes, of course.” “It’s my friend Janet. She’s been doing not so well in her tests. A few weeks ago, she saw my caned bottom in the sh...

I got a promotion, a payment for securing an enormous deal and a higher salary, so I indulged Josie and me with a large motor-sailor catamaran. There is a secure marina where we keep the boat, which is connected to mains utilities. It’s large and comfortable enough to live aboard, and Josie (twenty-three) loves it. In the winter months, once heated, we can have sex and spanking in the cabin, with the sound of the water sl...

I had been the Operations Manager of a major contracting company in South East Asia’s head office for several years and was single in my late thirties. I spent time in the local head office and travelling around most remote site areas. The term ‘Operations Manager’ meant that if a difficult or potentially dangerous operation would take place with a high level of attention to HSE required, I would be there on an extended v...

I was nineteen and worked for an electronics and electronic warfare company in test and development as a senior technician. Uni was not for me. At the local technical college, I got an HNC in electronics and carried on with an Open University degree whilst working and earning money. Working damn hard affected my outlook, I hoped, in a good way. My older brother had taken a similar route and was approaching the end of his...

My time with Joan had steadied me and I made it through the rest of the term and my mock exams. One of my more perceptive pals at college said, “Pete, you seem much happier and relaxed. That awful look in your eyes has gone. What happened?” “It’s OK,” I said, “All life is change,” marvelling at it! My mother was more perceptive than my father. “There was such a change in you, which I noticed when we returned from the reun...

I was the head teacher of a private girl’s school in England from the early seventies until the mid-eighties. Corporal punishment in schools is still legal and accepted by many parents. I had joined the school, having worked in a similar school, where there were discipline problems. This showed itself as drug-taking and promiscuous sex when girls visited the local town. The school had a lax disciplinary policy which focus...

I was eighteen, and in the summer before I went to uni, I was working on garage fuel pumps in the days before self-service. One of our regular customers was a lady in her mid-thirties whom I will call Vera. She always smiled and was very forward and provocative in the way she acted whenever I served her (with petrol, you understand). She would stick her shapely breasts out; make sure I got a good look at her beckoning bot...

I had been a sailing club member since I was thirteen, and I was now seventeen and doing my A-level studies at a local technical college. Joan was the Commodore of the sailing club following the last committee meeting. Joan had divorced and owned an old traditional keelboat racing yacht with a varnished hull above the waterline and wooden decks. There was an enormous amount of work required to maintain these boats every w...

I had a chequered time as a teenager, partly because I suffered physical abuse from my father and mainly because my mother could not control me. My mother split up with my father, and by the time I was seventeen, I had made several court appearances for offences such as shoplifting and breaches of the peace, underage drinking, etc. Too many of my friends were ‘the wrong crowd,’ and I had become hardened. I was intelligent...

I had been wondering if my young wife, Cindy, had been cheating on me with my best friend when I was away on business. I had been very busy at work and away from home on business for two months. Sometimes she had switched off her mobile phone for a few hours at a time. There was a lack of enthusiasm from her on my return home. I paid the bill for her mobile phone, which was registered in my name. I asked my service provid...

Think back to those days in the immediate aftermath of WW2 and their attendant problems. Not the least of these was tuberculosis (TB). I was an age nineteen student nurse in training at a TB sanatorium in England. The sanatorium had been a stately home and had grown in size with the construction of temporary wards. They built these from specially insulated service barrack huts with gloss-painted walls and a false ceiling...