[This story is based upon a conversation I overheard the on the train to work in 2011].

“Hi Wendy. I’ve not seen you on this train for a while?”

“Oh, hi Kylie. Yeah, I’ve been at the branch in Slough for the past few months. I could drive there in twenty minutes from home. Now I’m working in Reading for the next six months. The assistant manager is off on maternity leave. So here I am on the commuter express that stops at every station!”

“How are your kids?”

“Davy is a real handful. All he wants to do is play football.”

Kylie giggled.

“Is he any good?”

Wendy laughed.

“Just like his dad. Two very bad left feet. Still wants to play for Chelsea though…”

“Did you hear about Barbara?”

“Barbara?

“Barbara Dodds. You must remember her?”

“Oh yeah. What has she done now?”

“She’s left Andrew. Taken the kids and moved back to her parents.”

“Wow. That was a surprise. Was Andrew having an affair? He never struck me as the sort to look at another woman. He only ever had eyes for Barbara.”

Kylie sniggered.
“No. Nothing like that.”

She leans forward and whispers, “Now that their kids are away at University, apparently she comes home from work one day and finds him wearing her clothes and wanting to be called Andrea.”

Wendy sat there stunned to silence.

She had to bite her lip very hard.

Then she sighed, “I’ve heard of a few cases like that.”

“The poor woman. Finding out that she’d been living with a poofter and a fairy all these years.”

Wendy sat in silence for a few seconds.

“What about Doreen Pace last year? Isn’t that just as bad?”

“Oh. I’d forgotten about her. Is she still shacked up with… what’s her name?”

“Sandra Flowers. Yeah and their six kids. They are still together, them and their six kids. Just because they got tired of living with men.”

“What a world we live in eh?”

The train slowed down for the stop at Reading.

“Bye Wendy,” said Kylie, “You and your hubby should come around for lunch next Sunday?”

Wendy didn’t reply but grinned back as a sort of non-committal maybe.

The last thing she wanted was for Kylie to meet her partner given that her ‘hubby’ was now a woman.

Wendy got off the train. As she stepped onto the platform, she wiped the smile off her face. She was on a mission. As she left the station, she got her phone out of her handbag and dialled a number.

“Hi Darling.”

“Yes, I’m fine. I ran into Kylie Adams on the train to work.”

“Yeah, that’s her. She told me a story about the Dodd’s. Barbara and Andrew Dodd, they use to live on Taplow Drive in Burnham. If you recall, we met them at the school parents evening last year.”

“Yes. That’s right, that’s them.”

“No, nothing like that. According to Kylie, Andrew now wants to be called Andrea and apparently, she’s left him. I thought Andrea might need a bit of support from you. After all we do know what she’s going through don’t we darling?”

She hung up the phone and walked off down Station Hill towards her office with a spring in her step and a smile on her face.

Life had been rather good since her Husband had come out and started living as a woman. It was as if a great weight had been lifted from his or rather her shoulders. Now, they only argued about what colours to wear when going out together and their love life had gone in directions that she'd never dreamed about.

[the end]
This story was written after hearing a conversation on a train to Reading back in 2011 when I was working in the town. Two fellow passengers were talking about the affairs that their husbands were having as if it was something that happened every day. They got quite an audience.
I thought I’d published it before but I found that I hadn’t so here it is.
Oh, and this is Reading, UK and not some other place by that name.