Time to Pay
By Anna Na Maus

The story of a philandering husband and his wife's revenge.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Chapter One

I first met Michael when I was just eighteen years old. I was a first-year student doing my BSc in Pharmacology at Bristol University. Michael was doing a degree as well over at the University of the West of England, the other University in Bristol. To some people in the city it is still called the Old Polytechnic. Michael was doing a BSc in Computer Science.
I can remember the night we met, even now. I was out with some girl friends from the course, as all students do when they first arrive in Bristol we were enjoying the delights of Whiteladies Road. We had already sampled a couple of cocktail bars by the time we met these boys in the Jersey Lily so I was feeling kind of happy. There was this one guy that caught my eye, he wasn’t the best looking in the group but he had these eyes, these beautiful brown eyes that just drew me in. I guess I had a lot to drink because my memories are only patchy but I remember dancing at some point, outside some bar or another on the street, the memory felt very romantic. I also remember a goodnight kiss that felt absolutely amazing, and a decision not to call because we were at different universities so it would be difficult. That didn’t feel amazing, even if it made sense at the time.

Of course, when something is meant to be, it just happens; and it did. I bumped into Michael the following week, and the week after that. In fact, it seemed that ever where I went Michael was either there or turned up later and we always hooked up. I believed at the time that our love was destined to be, I was so smitten and I convinced myself that he was as well. For my birthday that November he had surprised me with a trip on the Eurostar and a weekend in Paris. We had dinner on the train, served in our seats not bought from a buffet car and there were roses waiting in the hotel room. I knew Michael wasn't rich and that this must have taken pretty much everything he had but that was Michael all over. The only things he seemed to care about were his studies and me. Whenever we were out with his friends, who only ever talked about computers, Michael would make sure that I was involved as much as possible. If the conversation got too complicated then he'd just ignore his friends and talk to me. Either that or we'd sneak out and go up to his bedroom, which was always my preferred choice. With my friends it was completely different, no matter what drivel we talked about, he always listened and somehow managed to join in. My Michael could talk chick flicks, make-up, he was even there when Sally's boyfriend dumped her and she cried for a week.

I remember our first summer. Rather than spend the whole twelve weeks apart I invited Michael to come and spend the week with my family in Norfolk. We weren’t rich but we were fortunate enough to live in a large house in a secluded location. The house was rented to us by a wonderful couple, both in their sixties, who had read in the local papers about the problems we were having with my sister and they offered us this place as a way of escaping. I remember my Dad telling them we’d never be able to afford the rent and Dominic, the owner, asked how much we paid at the old place. When Dad told him, he asked if we could afford that, Dad said ‘just about’ and Dominic said that that’s how much the rent is. Just like that. I’d never met anyone like him before. Ever.

Maybe I should explain about the issue we had with my sister. She wasn’t a problem, and none of the family had a problem either, it was just idiot neighbours and locals. You see my sister used to be my brother, but she didn’t want to be a boy. Bill was four years older than me and I idolised him, he was the best big brother in the world because he didn’t mind playing dollies with me. We’d sit for hours making up stories have having the dolls play the characters. Every year he bought me a new dolly for my birthday. He told our parents that he didn’t want to be a boy anymore when he twelve. Dad didn’t take it very well at first, Dad was a fireman and had wanted Bill to follow in his footsteps. Best thing is, Bill did, just as Billie. Of course, Dad had accepted Billie long before that happened, it only took a few weeks for him to come around to the idea. I think when you love your kids it doesn’t matter what they are, you always love them and my Dad was brave enough to show his love for Billie. Mum never had a problem with it from day one, she said that Bill had always been a sweet boy and it explained a few things. She also said that Gran had been convinced that Bill was going to be a girl all the way through her pregnancy and was quite put out when he came out as a boy. I always thought that it was a shame Gran died when I was three years old and never got to find out that she was right.
So, at home it was all right, but when Billie started going out wearing girls clothes people got really horrid. People that we’d always thought of as friends were calling him a freak and saying that Mum and Dad were bad parents. Even the school sent him home saying that he was inappropriately dressed and he could only go back if he wore proper trousers. Being eight at the time I didn’t think that was fair because the girls in my school were allowed to wear trousers so why shouldn’t my brother be allowed to wear a dress.
One night somebody painted ‘child abuser’ on my Dad’s car bonnet and somebody else through a brick through the house window. We moved to a new house a couple of times to try and escape but the haters always found us. Billie was getting very sad and I could tell Mum and Dad were worried that he’d hurt himself. That was when Dominic and Lynne got in touch and offered us this house. They owned a whole village, almost, and were very strict on the type of people that they let live there so, for the first time in ages we were able to relax a bit. Billie and I were both home schooled at first but Mum eventually got me a place at a local Primary School with a very nice Headmaster called Mr Edwards who knew about Billie but never told anyone else. Billie never went back to school but she did go to college when she was sixteen, by then it wasn’t so easy to tell that she had once been a boy.

The day Michael arrived at the house Billie and Dad were at the fire station showing a school class around. Neither of them were full time firemen, that sort of thing doesn’t exist in the countryside much anymore, but they were both given time off their normal jobs to carry out their duties as fireman. Most of the time Dad worked in a factory making vegetarian sausages and Billie was a barmaid, but fighting fires was what they loved and what they should have been allowed to do all the time. But, as I know only too well, life isn’t like that.
Michael turned the charm on with Mum, possibly a bit too much but she seemed to like him. He looked at the pictures in the living room, laughing at the one of me sat in a big tin washbowl in the garden on a summers day. He stopped when he came across a picture of Bill holding me when I was a baby.
“Is that a cousin or something?” he asked. I had already told him that I had a big sister, but I hadn’t told him about her past.
“No that’s my brother.” I replied.
“You never mentioned a brother before,” a look of concern came over his face, “did something happen?”
“What? No, nothing like that anyway.” I answered and then, without thinking of the consequences I carried on, “I used to have a brother but now I have a sister. Billie was Bill.”
My boyfriend went quiet for a moment.
“Are you all right, Michael?” I asked suddenly realising that, although Billie was perfectly normal to me she might not be to him. “Is there a problem?”
“What? No,” Michael tried to smile, “nothing at all. I can’t wait to meet her.”
By the time Dad and Billie had made it home Michael and I were unpacked and sat in the front room with a cup of tea and a very talkative Mum. Michael held back while I raced forward to hug my big sister and my dear old Dad. I simply assumed that my boyfriend was a little nervous at meeting Dad and wanted to give me a bit of space to get emotional. When I introduced him, he was very polite to my sister but I did notice that he didn’t catch her eye. I wasn’t worried, I just thought that he was a little bit nervous at meeting his first gender fluid person. I was sure that he’d come around, just like Dad did.

My first indication that things were not as perfect as I’d hoped came half way through our second year in Bristol. I’d wanted us to share a flat and be like a proper couple but Michael told me that he had agreed to move in with some of the lads of his course so that they could work together on projects. That wasn’t my problem, it made sense academically even if it spoiled my visions of a happy home. My problems began when a friend insisted I went with her to a pub in Portishead, a place on the outskirts of Bristol that I normally wouldn’t visit because I didn’t have a car. But she did and I assumed that she wanted to get away from something or someone so I agreed to go.
As we pulled up outside a Brewers Fayre with a big hotel attached to it Marie, my friend, turned to me in the car looking very serious indeed.
“Jen, I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t know how to tell you…so I thought I should show you instead. Now I’m not so sure it’s a good idea.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, clearly puzzled.
Marie took a deep breath, “Come on, we’re here now. As I said, I’m sorry.”
With that Marie got out of the car and I followed, with trepidation.
We pushed open the door to the pub come restaurant and stepped inside. The room, like all such rooms around the world was dimly lit and had a constant buzz of noise from the customers, music and fruit machines dotted around the walls. Marie was clearly looking for something specific so I did the same, even though I didn’t know what, or who, I was supposed to be looking for. Not that I needed to know when I saw him, my Michael in the arms of girl I’d never seen before. Marie must have felt my body stiffen because she followed my gaze and grabbed my arm when she saw where I was looking.
“I’m sorry, Jen,” she said for the third time since we’d arrived, “come on, let’s get out of here.” She tried to pull me away but I couldn’t move. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to leave, if I could have been anywhere other than that bar at that moment I would have, but my legs wouldn’t move. I stood there, frozen to the spot, watching my boyfriend snogging with another girl. I watched as his head turned, in slow motion towards me, I watched as his eyes opened mid-kiss, something I never knew he did, and I watched as his brain registered that I was standing there, right in his line of vision. I saw the horror in his eyes as he pushed the girl away and I regained my ability to move as he rose from the seat and ran towards me.
“Don’t you come near me.” I spat as he got close and he actually recoiled at the venom in my voice. “Don’t you ever come near me, go back to your new friend and I never want to see you again.”
At that point my legs started moving, possibly on their accord, and I turned around to walk out of the bar.

I wish I could tell you that I never saw Michael again and that I met a wonderful man and had a happy life. But that wouldn’t make for a very good story. I did manage to keep him away from me for three weeks, friends would answer the phone and turn him away from my door for me. But when he started sending gifts and dedicating songs to me on the radio I began to weaken. When a Mariachi band serenaded me under my bedroom window, I caved and let him into the house, vindicating myself by claiming I did it to shut the band up and save my neighbours. But the upshot of it all was that Michael was back in my life, albeit with promises he would never stray again. He did, obviously, two months later in fact. I surprised him at home because he’d told me that him and his roommates were working on a piece of software and wouldn’t be able to get out. I hadn’t intended to stay but, knowing them as I did, I thought it would be nice if I took them a few pizza’s so they’d at least get something to eat. When the door was opened by Phillip, one of the roommates, I could see from his eyes that I was the last person he wanted to see. Now I have to tell you that Phillip was a real sweetie and exactly what you’d imagine a computer geek would look like. After an initial, fruitless, attempt to stop me, the poor boy ran after me apologising. Why do people always apologise when you are about to find your boyfriend messing around on you? As I passed the living room I glanced in but only two of the five computers were switched on and one of those, I knew, was Phillip’s.
“Is he in his room?” I shouted, already storming up the stairs to Michael’s first floor bedroom. Phillip trailed after, no longer trying to stop me, just resigned to what was about to happen.
I didn’t knock, simply barging the door open, piping hot pizza’s still in my hand.
“You son of a bitch,” I shouted before, instinctively, hurling the food at him and the blonde he was sharing his bed with. I guess I was lucky that I didn’t burn either of them but at that point I didn’t care. I just threw the pizza’s barged past poor old Phillip and ran home, tears streaming down my face.
I was lucky, back then, because I lived with the most wonderful group of friends in a shared house in Redland. I’m also pretty sure that I tested their patience, and our friendship, to breaking point over my student years. They warned me, time and again, they told me not to give him another chance. But did I listen? Well, I did, but Michael can be very convincing and, once again he talked me around. It took longer than the first time, but I still caved and I still believed him when he told me it would never happen again.
By the end of my third year, and the end of Michael’s course he had cheated on me a further three times. I didn’t learn my lesson though, every time he did it he managed to convince me to take him back.
On the day of his graduation ceremony Michael pulled of the biggest con of his life. He proposed and, despite everyone I knew telling me not to, I accepted.

We were married in a small ceremony in the Church of St Michael back home in Norfolk. Billie was my matron of honour and Dominic’s granddaughter my bridesmaid. Michael had a friend from university as his best man but his family refused to attend. They did not approve of our marriage either it seemed. After the wedding, we returned to Bristol so that I could continue my studies and Michael took a job with a burgeoning software house. Marriage seemed to bring my new husband to his senses and there were no further dalliances, at least, none that I knew of. I worked hard at my studies and he worked hard at his job so that, by the time I graduated we were already in a relatively comfortable position. Things immediately jumped to another level when I landed a very prestigious job at the local Davenport’s Pharmaceuticals Laboratories. Davenport’s were reputed to be the world leaders in the field of gender reassignment, creating drugs and devices especially for those wishing to correct mistakes of gender that nature made. Because of my sister I had dreamt of landing a job with Davenport’s and now it had happened, my life was perfect.
 
To be continued...