Not long after he turned eleven, he was sent off for two weeks of the summer holidays to an outdoor activity camp in the Lake District. A trio of ex-Army fitness instructors ran it like boot camp. Most of the boys spent the first few days in a state of shell-shock. They’d never been yelled at so much, never been expected to take responsibility for themselves and others, never had to face tests of physical endurance like it. For him, it had been business as usual. He wondered what all the fuss was about.

When he returned home, he discovered he had a new mother. While he’d been gone, his father had travelled to Thailand and returned with what the boy later discovered was a mail-order bride. This time, his father had chosen a wife who came much closer to his idea of perfection. Sirikit was subservient, polite, hard-working and eager to please. She never answered back, she cleaned house like a dervish and she never complained, even when his father criticised her for minor infringements of his regime. And she was a great cook.

By the time he hit fourteen he realised something else about Sirikit. Practically every move she made had the capacity to arouse him. Every meal became a kind of torture, his penis straining against the tight underpants he’d taken to wearing in a bid to control his rebellious body. Luckily, his father paid him almost no attention unless he’d broken the house protocols, which he hardly ever did these days.

As he lay in bed one night, engaged in his nightly ritual of wanking to mental images of Sirikit spreadeagled over the kitchen table, smiling flirtatiously over her shoulder at him, it dawned on him that this didn’t have to stop with fantasy.

The next afternoon when he came home from school, he found her in the kitchen preparing dinner. He approached from behind, reaching round to grab her small taut breasts. He pushed himself against her, as hard as he’d ever been. She squealed and squirmed, trying to break free. But he was strong and held her tight. ‘I’ll tell your father,’ she screamed at him. ‘And he will kill you.’

‘No, you won’t,’ he’d growled into her neck. ‘Because if you do, I’ll tell him you’re making it all up to cover the fact that you tried to seduce me because you’re tired of an old man and you want young flesh.’

She hissed at him. ‘He won’t believe you. I am his wife.’

‘And I’m his flesh and blood. He bought you. The bottom line is you’re a whore and I’m his son. And he’d love the excuse to beat the crap out of you.’