The Cold Cruel World

This is a wonderful psychological thriller written by RT Mason and published in Janus in 1982. I've made minor changes to suit my tastes but the crux of this story lies in the building of tension and the inevitability that poor Alison is going to get a severe, and frankly not well-deserved, trashing at the hands of this wily monster. Nice flashback too. The original was illustrated with these wonderful Hardcastle drawings which add a special magic (although he fails to show the lowered knickers in the caning drawing which is annoying!).

The Cold Cruel World

The infernal jangling of the alarm abruptly shocked her from sleep. That diabolical, inhuman, nerve-jangling that she always hated. But today it was ten times worse.
Before, in all those years of marriage it had been for Mark: Alison could at least put her head under the bedclothes and ignore it for half an hour longer. Now today it was for her. Mark wasn’t here; Alison was alone in the double bed. The nerve-wracking racket meant that today she, Alison Clements, had to get up and face the cold, unfriendly world.
They had finally decided that the only answer was a separation, at least a temporary one, because things had been going simply from bad to worse. Constant arguments, frequently about virtually nothing, or alternatively horrible, stony silences. Mark had suggested it and Alison in turn said she thought it was a good idea.
Groaning, Alison forced herself to get out of bed. She naturally had to get a job now if she was going to survive. Mark was giving her an allowance but not a lot and anyway she wouldn’t want it, would she? Alison had her pride and if she wasn’t being a wife for him she wouldn’t want to be kept.
There were tears in Alison’s eyes as she looked in the bathroom mirror.
It was an appealing heart-shaped face, delicate and not too self-assured looking at the best of times. The tears and the fact that she as yet had no make-up made it look distinctly waif-like. A poor little babe-in-the-woods. Alison wiped away too fat tears and blew her nose. She wasn’t a babe, next year she would be 30. And today she was going off on the first day of her new job. An independent young woman, fancy-free. That’s that she was supposed to be; but it didn’t match her feelings in any way. Alison felt a desperate urge to get on the phone and tell Mark to come back. She didn’t want to be independent and she would never argue or quarrel again.
But Alison knew she couldn’t do that, she couldn’t give up before she had even started. And she’d been lucky to get this job. She splashed cold water on her face to get herself properly awake. She couldn’t give up.
Alison slipped off the shortie nightie and got in the shower. Now that she was up she didn’t feel so bad and the warm water spraying her slim, shapely form felt marvellous. That job, though, was scary; new people, a whole new frightening world, with everyone eyeing her, watching her mistakes. In particular her new boss – what would he be like?
Cut it out, she told herself. Once the first day was over she’s be laughing at herself for being so frightened. Before she knew it it would be part of her life – and probably very enjoyable. Getting out and meeting new people was just what she needed.
Alison put on what she had already chosen. Her smart gray linen suit with the white buttons on the jacket. Underneath she’d put on her favourite set of pale pink bra and lacy knickers to make herself feel good. Smart but not showy, a suitable outfit for a sensible but modern young woman. And 29 was still young. You still had all the world in front of you and at the same time the maturity to go with it. Alison told herself this but that unfortunate hesitant side of her said that the only real experience she had was of marriage. Of shopping and housekeeping. Office life could be so frightening.
Stop it, Alison, she said. She was being stupid again. She put on some make-up, not a lot, she didn’t want to look tarty just nice and attractive.
A crowded train and then a crowded tube. And on the tube, packed little sardines, a hand on her bottom that Alison felt sure was deliberate, but there wasn’t much you could do. The world wasn’t really a very friendly place.
The building when she found it didn’t look too inviting either. The wall-plate in the dingy foyer listed Rudgefield Engineering as being on the fifth floor. Alison felt an awful urge to go out and catch the train back home. But she couldn’t do that. Glancing at her watch she saw it was five past nine. The letter had asked her to start at nine. Oh well...
* * * *
Frank Kirkham, up on the fifth floor, had been in his office since 8.15. He enjoyed getting up early, a habit he had acquired in the army. In the army, naturally, everyone had to get up early whereas in business that was not the case. But at least you’d think that 9 O’clock was not impossible. He gave his watch another impatient glance. Where was this new bint?
‘Bint’ was of course the army term for members of the female sex and it did not imply any great admiration for them. The philosophy of the barrack room was that women were useful in only two places, in bed and in the kitchen, and if they didn’t perform satisfactorily in those areas you took the belt to their arses. Frank Kirkham looked at his watch again. Five past nine. What this new bint undoubtedly needed was Frank Kirkham’s belt across her naked arse as soon as she stepped inside the door.
He had in any case viewed her coming with some foreboding. His previous secretary had decided to retire and personnel were sending this Clements bint. Twenty-nine and ‘a pretty young thing’ according to that stupid woman on the phone.
Frank Kirkham knew what he’d like to do to a 29 year-old pretty young thing who couldn’t even make a 9 O’clock start on her first day. Bend her over his desk with her little knickers down and lay into her bare arse with his supple belt. Or that cane.
This stimulating reverie was interrupted by at last a hesitant knock on the door. He got to his feet glancing at his watch. 9.08.
‘Come in’ he barked.
Alison entered – a gloomy masculine sort of office with dark gray walls and an equally dull, non-descript carpet. Standing behind the central desk was a frightening-looking man, late fortyish. Heavy set, his craggy face wearing a decidedly unfriendly expression.
‘Uh...Mr Kirkham? She stammered ‘I’m Alison Clements’
‘Have you got a watch? He growled.
Alison mumbled ‘Yes’. ‘Perhaps then you don’t know how to tell the time?’ he queried sarcastically. ‘For your information it’s ten past nine’.
She flushed scarlet. ‘I’m sorry...The train..’
‘There are plenty of trains, young woman. I can get in at 8.15 so that’s no excuse. One thing I insist on is punctuality. Not the only thing but certainly one of them’.
Alison stood in front of him trembling, her hands nervously twisting the straps of her handbag. This was simply dreadful. This bully with the hard grating voice and the contemptuous gaze was going to be her boss. He was clearly going to be worse than anything she had ever imagined.
At last Mr Kirkham grudgingly invited her to sit down. Clearly she should have come for a personal interview; then she could have had a chance to say ‘no thanks’, and she would have done. But stupidly Alison hadn’t. Alison could feel herself sweating.
Across that big desk Mr Kirkham was going through her file. Why the patchy job record, his grating voice wanted to know. What had she been doing? And why did she suddenly want a job now – if getting in at ten past nine did mean that she wanted it?
Alison found herself stuttering out the facts – that she and her husband had separated, temporarily at least. As soon as she said it Alison knew it was not a good idea. Anything this awful man knew might be used...
Why had they separated, he asked, eyes glinting.
‘We...we kept arguing’, Alison whispered. Although clearly it was none of his business.
‘Arguing? Your husband must be a bloody fool; you don’t argue with a woman. You tell her what to do and if she doesn’t like it you give her something to think about’.
The bull-like head was thrust out across the desk at Alison ‘A touch of the stick, Mrs Clements, that’s what you modern young women need. A sharp stick across your backsides. Or a man’s belt. That’s the answer to arguments.’
Alison found herself studying her handbag with great interest. It was unbelievable.
‘Look at me, Mrs Clements. I hope you’re not planning any arguments with me?’
Briefly Alison met his eyes and then looked away. The incredible thought of what he was suggesting flared hotly in her mind.
‘Answer me, please’
Frantically Alison shook her head. Mr Kirkham persisted, evidently spurred on by her cowed, submissive reaction.
‘Didn’t your husband ever take the belt to you?’
‘Please...’ she whispered, blinking rapidly. Much more of this and Alison would be openly in tears. That was probably just what he would love.
This frightening man was suddenly on his feet and striding over to a bookcase full of catalogues and things. ‘Let me show you something,’ he said as he reached in behind the books.
When he turned Mr Kirkham held in his hand a long thin straight stick. A bamboo cane. ‘Do you know what this is?’ he demanded.
Alison felt too weak, too terrified to speak.
‘I got this in Egypt; when I was in the army. They may be wogs but they know how to deal with their women. This cane is the kind they use on their wives’ backsides.
Frank Kirkham gave the cane a horrifying swish through the air as he went gloatingly on. ‘I was given a demonstration by this Egyptian fellow. He took us round to his place one evening. He had a pretty little wife, in western clothes, and he’d found out she’d disobeyed him so he gave her a caning in front of us. Me and two fellow soldiers. He bent her over a chair, yanked up her dress and pulled down her knickers. And then just let her have it good and hard across her bare bottom. Six of the best.’
Mr Kirkham’s cane whistled again through the air and he was almost licking his lips. ‘A cane exactly like this one, Mrs Clements’.
The tears were welling in Alison’s eyes. How could she have got involved with this monster? A vivid picture of what he had described floated in her mind. Mr Kirkham and his mates greedily watching as that Egyptian man caned his humiliated wife. What if Mr Kirkham...
He put the cane down and produced a sardonic grin. ‘So now we know, don’t we, Mrs Clements. Now we know we must keep very much up to the mark. No sloppy work or typing errors. Everything filed properly away. No complaints of any sort. And above all, we get in before 9 O’clock’.
Alison sat with bowed head. ‘Look at me’ he barked. She gave a quick, darting look and then turned her head away – but not before Frank Kirkham had seen real tears welling from the big grey eyes.
He experienced a surge of excitement. He didn’t want a silly young bint in his office but if he was landed with one – well, there was something to be said for one he could scare the living daylights out of. And also...He glanced at his cane. Frank Kirkham had been daydreaming before when he thought of using it. A potential recipient might well complain to husband or boyfriend but not this Clements bint...this frightened little mouse.
‘Right; now we’re clear on that I’d better show you what you’ll be doing. It’s reasonably straightforward and I’m not a difficult man to get on with’.
Frank Kirkham could say that and somehow believe it; he was not difficult, it was other people, especially young bints. He showed this frightened mouse what had to be done. It was general secretarial work. As he showed her around, Alison’s new boss had his sharp eyes open. She had a nice shape on her in that snugly fitted suit. A full, firm arse emphasised by a slim waist. Probably with her skirt and knickers off she would look very like that Egyptian bloke’s wife’s arse, in a different shade, of course. He could see the outline of her knickers right there under the skirt. Brief and tight.
* * * * *
Alison phoned Mark that evening. She made herself wait until she had had something to eat. She didn’t want to appear too desperate. Not that Alison felt like eating, not with the horrifying prospect of going back to that dreadful office tomorrow, and the atrocious Mr Kirkham who quite simply made her freeze with fright.
Mark asked about the job and, doing her best to keep her voice even, Alison said it was quite interesting. What else could she say? She tried not to think of Mr Kirkham’s cane. The cane or a man’s belt, Mr Kirkham had said, in that first stunning meeting. And she could quite imagine him doing it. That harsh, grating voice ordering her to take her skirt off. And then take down her knickers. It was quite impossible but she could imagine it all right. What would she do if he took it into his head to do that? Because he literally scared the living daylights out of her.
‘Quite interesting...’ she told Mark.
What Alison wanted to do was tell him, Mr Kirkham, that she didn’t want the job. She knew he could insist on a month’s notice that was in the agreement she had signed, but...perhaps she could offer to pay something. Quite frankly she didn’t even want to go back there in the morning; Alison didn’t want to ever see him again. Not that Mr Kirkham had done anything, after that first devastating blast, but Alison knew that at the slightest excuse...
The two letters she had typed she had read through about a hundred times and even then had been afraid to take them in to him. Afraid that there might be one spelling mistake that she hadn’t noticed. And then...that cane that he had put back in the bookcase...Who could tell with a man like that?
When the alarm once more jarred her awake the next morning Alison’s automatic thought was that it was for Mark. And then...it all came flooding horrendously back. She had to be there before nine. It was alright because, by tearing around Alison managed to catch a slightly earlier train.
It was 8.55 when, after a nervous knock, Alison entered the office, for her second day. Frank Kirkham was, of course, already behind his desk.. She was on time, he noted, which meant that he had put the fear of God into her. Or more likely the fear of his supple cane. In a way he was sorry she was on time because he would enjoy having another go at her. She was scared of him, a scared little mouse, and a scared little mouse without a husband. If he put the screws on she would fold up, have no defence.
Like that Egyptian bint. A scared look round at those three eager-eyed visitors and then back at her husband who was ranting away and then simply submitting. Lifting the pale yellow dress and meekly sliding down those little white knickers underneath.
Kirkham’s eyes followed Alison as she went into her little room. The same tight-skirted suit as yesterday. Tight over trimly rounded buttocks Again, he could just make out the hemlines of her panties. Were they also white like the Egyptian bints? Quite probably. White seemed a suitable colour for a frightened little mouse. Or maybe something slightly sexier with a little floral pattern or polka dots? Yes, he quite regretted the fact that his new bint was on time. But still...
As Alison opened the door to her office Mr Kirkham’s voice grated out behind her.
‘Glad to see you’re on time, young lady. I daresay the thought of that cane made you hustle yourself?’
Scarlet-faced, Alison sat down. It was true but by spelling it out like that her dreadful boss had brought it out of the shadowy realms of possibility to become a clearly stated fact between them. What she should do was immediately challenge it: Say even if she did happen to be late there was no way she would accept such an outrageous suggestion. But Alison was too scared to speak.
By not speaking she knew that she was tacitly accepting that horrendous possibility. That if she did anything that her boss thought was wrong she was giving him the right to physically punish her. To take down her knickers, expose her bare bottom and....
Somehow she got through the day, keeping in her depressing little room, a quiet little mouse, while Mr Kirkham got on with his business of phoning people and seeing clients. At lunchtime he said ‘strictly one hour, Mrs Clements’ He didn’t say ‘or else’ but his hard stare seemed to say it. Or else, Mrs Clements, I shall have you bent over my desk and I shall very much enjoy thrashing the daylights out of that tight little arse of yours...
The afternoon was a repeat of the morning. Some typing and looking things up in catalogues. All the time Alison in a panic that something would be wrong and then...She was still thinking about saying she wanted to leave, trying to summon up the courage. When it’s time to go I’ll say it, she told herself. I can’t stand it here; i’d almost rather be destitute. And at 5 O’clock Alison almost felt she could find the nerve. But then Mr Kirkham got in first.
‘So, you’ve never had the cane?’ he inquired.
It simply took the wind out of her sails – what little wind there was. She looked at him like a dummy.
‘Not at school? No sensible headmistress putting the cane across the palm of your hand? Or across that bottom?’
No answer came.
‘Not even the strap or the tawse? Didn’t your father take his belt to you? Not even a good hard spanking with your knickers down over your mother’s knee? Good God, girl, no wonder you have no self-discipline’.
Colouring like a beetroot, Alison shook her head. Any thought of what she had been planning to say just disappeared.
Mr Kirkham pursed his lips. ‘It’s never too late’.
Going down in the lift Alison told herself: He’s just waiting for an opportunity, I know he is. Any excuse. Her pert little bottom trembled inside her briefs at what now seemed somehow inevitable.
Kirkham’s opportunity came the very next morning. Alison caught the earlier train than usual but ten minutes before its destination it ground to a halt. There was a 20 minute delay. She was feeling almost hysterical by the time she got in. The tube seemed to wait an hour before every stop. Alison didn’t dare look at her watch as she ran along the street as best she could in her high heels.
She did look at her watch as the lift made its leisurely ascent to the fifth floor. It was 9.12. She felt sick in her stomach.
Alison had her explanation ready but the words seemed to stick in her mouth; she was struck dumb with fright. Not that Mr Kirkham would take any notice of explanations.
He was standing behind his desk as he had on that very first morning, his face set and hard. But was there now a look of gloating anticipation as well?
He said, ‘You’ve heard all I’ve had to say about punctuality, Mrs Clements. Yet here you are, a quarter of an hour late on two of your first three mornings.’
Alison could feel herself shaking with terror.
‘I think you’re trying it on, Mrs Clements. I think you think I’m bluffing. Well, I shall show you that I am not. I’m going to give you a taste of that cane. You deserve no less.’
Alison heard herself whisper ‘You can’t’ It seemed like someone else’s voice. And anyway she knew that he could. And would.
‘You’re not arguing with me are you? In that case I’ll give you something else to think about as well. I’ll warm up that cheeky arse of yours with a good hand spanking first.’
The cold force of Mr Kirkham’s voice made Alison shiver. No, she wasn’t going to argue. Plead perhaps...
‘Please....’ More like a squeak form a mouse than the remonstration of a mature woman.
Mr Kirkham handed her a shiny key. ‘Get in your room and lock the door. Then take your skirt off. And take your knickers down. Then stand at your desk until I come. I’ve warned you what I’d do and you’ve chosen to deliberately disobey my warning. Now you’ll see - and feel - what the consequences are.
Alison stood there wondering if she could refuse. He couldn’t really....
‘Get in there!’
And Alison found herself walking, stumbling...
‘And if you’re not how I want you when I come in....’
She put down her handbag and looked helplessly round. It was impossible but there was no way she could stand up to him. Tears brimming in her eyes. Tears of hopeless impotence. Alison’s shaking hands went to the zip of her skirt. She was shaking all over.
Frank Kirkham was trembling too, with strenuous excitement. He had sensed him dominance over this young bint at the outset but you could never be certain. He had been pretty sure with this frightened mouse, though. He walked over to lock his other door and took out the cane. Eyes gleaming he slammed it down across the top of the desk with a fearsome CRACK!
Alison in the outer room almost jumped out of her skin. She had taken her skirt off. She was standing there in stockings, suspenders and with her knickers still up. She was wringing her hands in mental agony.

Kirkham went to glance through the half-open door. Christ! He felt a furious urge just to stride straight in there, but he restrained himself. Let her sweat a bit. Let her stand there half-naked and stew. He went back to his desk, head full of what he had seen. The little mouse standing there submissively at her desk. Her back towards him, her skirt off and her pale blue knickers tight around the curvy cheeks of her fine little arse.
‘Get those knickers down like I said’ He roared and Alison leapt to obey the order – her fingers inserted into the waistband as she then peeled them down to the tops of her thighs. Her ripe, pale rump now softly gleaming.
His mind went back to the Egyptian bint and the times he hadn’t mentioned to Alison Clements.
Because the next day the three of them had got on to Ahmed, with an offer of money. If they could go back...and use the cane themselves. It was an offer he wasn’t able to refuse. They had gone twice. She hadn’t really objected though she had made plenty of noise each time the cane landed. The cane now in Frank Kirkham’s hand was the cane he had used on her. That was twelve years ago. He had always kept it in his office and always dreamed of using it again. But circumstances had never been quite right until now. Now with this Clements bint. A pretty little thing...
Frank Kirkham looked at his watch. He would give her ten minutes then he would give her what she deserved.
Alison stood shivering. She had expected him to come straight in, cane in hand. She blinked away the tears. It was quite unbearably humiliating, standing there at the side of the desk with her skirt off and her knickers down. In her suit jacket and suspender belt and nylons – and her little blue knickers humiliatingly lowered round her thighs. This was the worst nightmare of them all. She started quietly sobbing.
It seemed to go on forever. Alison’s mind playing tricks, making her think her legs were going to give way and she would collapse on the floor. Why am I doing this, she asked herself, why don’t I just refuse? Put my clothes back on and sit down. What then? But Alison knew she wouldn’t.
At last....
‘Right, let’s deal with you then. You’re getting a spanking for being slow and then six strokes. It’s six for unpunctuality’
The harsh voice, the hypnotically intimidating presence. He made it sound as though this was a punishment laid down in some staff handbook. As if he had no option and it was perfectly normal.
‘Over my knee, young woman’
She hobbled over, constrained by her panties round her legs and bent over his trouser covered knees. Her buttocks were perfect peaches – nicely framed by the lowered knickers and stocking-tops. His left hand fell hard on her right cheek with a crisp spank. It was to be the first of many as she squirmed and squealed never having had so much as a finger laid on her. After a good few minutes of raining down some fearful swats, Kirkham was rewarded by the bright pink glow of the freshly-spanked bottom. By the way the arse coloured so nicely it was obvious that the bint had not been lying when she had said she’d not been chastised before.
‘Right, that’s warmed you up. Now clear one side of the desk and lay yourself over it.’
Alison wanted to scream. She was already smarting with pain and she desperately wanted to hide her naked bottom from Mr Kirkham’s steely gaze. Her hands came protectively behind her. She wanted to rub the pain away. Then she yelped as the cane struck sharply across her palms.
‘Cut that out and do as I say. At once’
Alison did it: hands clumsily responding, stinging like mad, pushing things aside, and clearing a space. So that she could lie down and be caned. Thrashed like a naughty schoolgirl in another era. She was crying again, tears falling on the desk. Kirkham told her to grip the other side.
‘And keep still...stick your bottom up and out higher. Higher, you disobedient girl’.
Alison now sobbing, with sheer fright. Her soft, defenceless bottom exposed, thrust up over the edge of the desk, obscenely raised for punishment. This couldn’t be happening....
CRACK!
A red haze before her closed eyes. And the pain...it felt as if she had been cut in two. She’d thought the spanking had hurt but it was as nothing to having a pliant rod lashed into her bare backside. Alison held on for dear life as the pain welled, pulsated through her. It was killing, utterly ferocious. She hung on as with a second fiendish CRACK! The thin bamboo that was used in Egypt for caning wives sliced in again.
Alison heard herself shriek. Six he had said. No. She couldn’t....Four more like that was not...
CRACK!....
She stood up and put her hands to her wretched backside. She needed to rub.
‘How dare you? I told you to stay down you wanton hussy. I can see I’m going to have to beat some decent behaviour. That’s two extra for disobedience. Now bend down and bottom up. Now’.
Mr Kirkham sounded genuinely angry and the thought of more extra strokes further terrified the poor Alison. Slowly she bent back over the desk and pushed her backside as high as she could.
CRACK! Down came the cane five more times. Her boss may not have used the cane for twelve years but he thrashed like a well-practised headmaster. The lines were clearly visible and he managed to place the sixth just where the buttocks met the thigh-back – a devastatingly tender spot which produced an particularly loud yelp from the weeping Mrs Clements.
‘Now, just the two extras’. With vicious accuracy, Kirkham placed the final two lashes at a diagonal from the previous six bring each and every stroke back to life in exquisite pain.
* * * *
When the final agonising stroke had been delivered, Frank Kirkham sharply told his tardy secretary to pull her knickers up, get dressed and get down to work. What could she do? She couldn’t tell her husband. It was as if by the mere act of conversing he would be able to see those eight very red stripes still very much in evidence on Alison’s previously untouched bottom.
Alison was feeling numb. When she got home she wasn’t really tired but she did want to go to bed. She found herself wondering if perhaps her train would be late again in the morning. If it was...well, there was nothing she could do about it. Mr Kirkham would presumably just cane her for lateness. Those were his rules. It hurt terribly and was horribly humiliating but....
Mr Kirkham was going to thrash her again anyway, whether Alison’s train was late or not. He had told her he also had an old school tawse, with two tails. He’d fixed her with those fierce eyes in that hard face that she guessed was contemptuous of women.
He had said she wasn’t filing things away properly. And he thought he had better deal with her in the morning. He’d told her to wear white knickers and had specified that they be ‘brief and dainty’. Alison had given him a quick darting look and then turned away. Mr Kirkham’s hand had spanked her smartly across the bottom as she went out. Reliving the unbearable stinging yet again.
As she went to sleep the stripes still glowing on her backside constantly reminded her of the humiliation and pain she had received at her boss’s evil hands. She trembled at the thought of what would happen tomorrow.
.