“I have to do this darling. It is really who I am,” I said as I pleaded with my wife.

I was dressed in a way that she’d not seen before. I was wearing a dress, makeup and all the rest including my first pair of high heels!

“Don’t give me that rubbish. These past few years it has all been about you. I don’t get a look in.”

“Really? I don’t think so.”

“Now you are just grasping at straws. If you think that I’m going to sit here while you go out all dolled up like a dogs breakfast then you have to think again. After all the things I do and have done for you…”

“Really? I never said no when you wanted to learn to sail? I never said no when you decided that I didn’t need a car. We have to save money, you said. So, I sold mine but you never thought to put me on the insurance for your company car… Then I never said no when you thought that it was a good idea to go pot-holing. Did I say no when I was left to pay off your hospital bills when you decided not to take out the correct form of Travel Insurance that would have covered you getting stuck and breaking your leg. Did I say no to paying for all those Taxi’s that ferried you about when you were getting better? Did I deserve to get an earful for spending Fifteen Quid on a haircut when your last one cost what? Close on a hundred quid? Well did I?”

“What! Have you been reading my private documents?”

“Not really. You were working on them when your mother called last weekend. Your credit card bills were right there in front of me. You spend more than I bring home on clothes and stuff yet it is me who pays all the bills for the house and the mortgage yet you earn how much? Oh yes, Seventy-Five grand a year. I earn… Well, you know how much I earn as there in generally nothing left at the end of the month after I’ve paid all the bills. If my paying all the household bill is what you mean by ‘me, me, me’ then yes perhaps you are right. It might help if you paid some of the bills from time to time but alas, nothing is forthcoming.”

She stood there imitating a drowning fish.

“So, my darling, I’m going out tonight to an LGBT club to be with friends. Oh yes, I do have friends that are not yours. You systematically drove all my old ones away when you became an account executive. And thanks for asking where I got this outfit from. It all came from charity shops. It cost me a grand total of forty-six pounds. That’s one tenth what you spent on those shoes you are wearing. Yes, the cost was right there on that credit card bill.”

With that, I picked up my coat and a purse both curtesy of the local Oxfam shop and left her alone.

It was well after midnight when I returned home. Her expense account BMW was gone as were all her expensive clothes and stuff.

I slept like a log that night. For once I didn’t have to be on edge in case I disturbed her oh so important beauty sleep as it might affect her job. For once, I could have the whole of the bed to myself rather than just a small strip down one side. For once I did not worry if I snored or not. Bliss, absolute Bliss.

I didn’t worry when I saw all my male clothes all cut up and scattered around the living room. I’d already secreted the ones I had that were half decent away and were in storage. What was left were pretty well only fit for the rag bin anyway.

The next morning, I made myself breakfast and didn’t have to worry about leaving a few crumbs on the table. I didn’t have to worry about not washing every item of crockery and cutlery up as soon as it was used. My darling wife was a total neat freak.

Just before ten and the phone call I’d been expecting had not come, I picked up the phone. It was dead. I sighed.

“Typical. Who paid the bill all these years eh? Not you but you have to be a real meanie and cancel it today.”

I rummaged in the bag I’d used the previous night and found a phone. It wasn’t mine so ‘she’ could not cancel it.

“Hello,” I said when the call was answered.
“Yes. She’s gone and had the phone line cut off already.”

“No, there will be more but she has to get her revenge somehow.”

“What’s next? The locksmith. He’s due to come in about an hour. She can’t cancel it as I paid him in advance but I expect all my cards are blocked and my bank account is empty not that there is much of anything in it. I took most of what was there out as cash yesterday.”

“I’d love to see you later. “
“What time?”

“I’ll see you then.”

I finished the call with a smile on my face. The real love of my life was coming to dinner.

I spent the rest of the day clearing up all the bits of my clothing that Denise had left behind. I also bagged up the clothes I wore the previous evening. All my LGBT friends had a good laugh at my get up but really didn’t think that I’d make a good woman but I thanked them for putting the idea of how to get rid of the thorn in my life. It certainly worked. I looked forward to coming out as a ‘Gay’ man. Denise would have never approved but I didn’t care. What should I cook for Thom?

[The End]
[Authors Note]
There I was watching a White-Tailed Sea Eagle soaring over Loch Carbost on the Isle of Skye when the ambience was ruined by a couple having an argument over what else but money.

He’d apparently spent a lot more than Fifty Pounds on a bottle of single malt Scotch from the nearby Talisker Distillery, and she didn’t like it one little bit that he’d wasted all that money. Then it all came out. Both of them let rip, no holds barred. I left before the argument had ended so I have no idea about how it turned out.

That gave me the idea for this little story. I settled on the theme of it as I rode north up the coast of Skye later that afternoon. The weather worsened with intermittent windy squalls rolling in from the North Atlantic and this was the first week of August not mid-winter for heavens sakes.

Then… I set myself another challenge. Write a story about a contrived breakup in 1000 words or less. There is an Australian TV series called ‘800 words’. The main character is Writer has a column that requires exactly 800 words. I gave myself 25% more and this is what came out.

The photo is of the harbour at Uig. This is on the north west coast of Skye. You take the ferry from here to the Outer Hebrides (Stornoway). The dark foreboding of the sky seemed to be perfect for this story.
I hope you enjoyed it.