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...

Time to Pay
By Anna NaMaus

The story of a philandering husband and his wife's revenge. In this Chapter Jenny finds out exactly what her husband is up to and gets some advice.

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 Two

I’d been at Davenport’s for three years and married to Michael for four when my world began to fall apart. If I am honest with myself, I’d had my suspicions for a long time but, as always, I buried them under a blanket of excuses. Until the day I found a lipstick mark around the fly on his boxer shorts. It certainly wasn’t my lipstick, I have never worn purple, it doesn’t suit my complexion. Equally certain is that it didn’t get there by accident. I have tried to work out a way, you do things like that when you’re desperate not to get hurt and I was desperate. There is no way that it was an accident and that meant my husband had gone back to his old ways and was cheating on me. Again.

The incident must have played on my mind more than I thought it had because I found myself being called into Doctor Davenport’s office at work. In three year’s I had never actually met the woman in charge, rumour had it that she spent most of her time at a country estate where they did weird experiments on men. I never believed that, one of the girls I worked with told me it was a sanctuary for abused women. That idea makes a lot more sense to me.

I was told to arrive at her office at eleven and when I got there I knocked on Dr Davenport's office door.
"Come in Dear" called a voice from within.
Before I even had a chance to push on the door it swung open to reveal a well-dressed, well-groomed blonde-haired lady that I knew to be in her fifties but looked much younger. Doctor Davenport smiled when I walked in, I’d expected some sort of cold hard-faced business woman, but Doctor Davenport wasn’t like that at all, she was…nice.
"Sit down Jenny" she told me. I did, the tone of her voice, while it remained friendly made me feel a little nervous. "Your work hasn't been up to normal standards this last few days, is there something wrong?"
It was what I had feared and I sighed before answering, "Well, things aren't quite right at home but I am trying not to let it interfere with my work. Honestly I am."
I am still young and obviously have a lot to learn about people so I was surprised when Doctor Davenport leaned across the desk and placed her hand on mine.
"What is it, Dear?" she asked, sounding as though she really cared.
"It's Michael, my husband. I think he's having an affair."
"Oh,” the Doctor frowned what makes you think that?"
I told her about the lipstick and Michael’s past history, tears beginning to run down my cheeks as I did. Doctor Davenport listened intently, occasionally making notes on a pad of paper. At the end of the story she didn't speak to me straight away, instead she pressed a button on her desk and spoke into a microphone on her desk.
"Do you know if Danni is on the property at the moment, Cynthia?"
"According to the security logs she got in about fifteen minutes ago Madam. Would you like me to find her?"
"Yes please, Cynthia, and send her up to see me immediately."
"Right away."
"Oh and Cynthia could you get somebody to bring up some tea and cakes, enough for four please, I think I'd like you to join us as well."
"Yes Madam. I'll be as quick as I can."
Releasing the button on the intercom Dr. Davenport turned her attention back to me.
"I think the first thing we need to do is to find out if he really is having an affair or if there is an innocent explanation for all of this."
"Do you think there could be?" Even after everything a brief spark of hope flared in my chest.
"I'm sorry Dear, but no. I don't. But it is important to make sure. You wouldn't want to be wrong with something like this."
The brief spark was extinguished and the tears began to flow once again.
 
The woman called Danni came in about five minutes later closely followed by another woman with a tray of tea and cakes, that I assumed must be Cynthia.
Danni was a tall woman with short dark hair, tipped with bright blue. There was an air about her that immediately made me like her. I’d never connected to anybody the way I did to that girl, not even Michael. I knew, not thought, knew that she could help me.
Doctor Davenport introduced the two women and Danni told us that we were very lucky because someone called Mary had baked the cakes. They were very nice and made the whole situation a little surreal. I was in my boss’s office with three women I had never met, pouring out my problems and enjoying tea and cake.
Danni and Cynthia listened as the Doctor outlined what I had told her, asking me only a couple of questions.
“What can I do?” asked Danni when the Doctor had finished.
“I want you to follow Michael,” replied Doctor Davenport, “find out who this mystery woman is and bring us proof. If you need help take Emily, Angelina is working on a missing girl case at the minute.” Danni nodded, and asked if she could visit my house one day when Michael was out so that she could get some photographs. Of course, I agreed and arranged for her to come over the following day.
The meeting with Dr Davenport and the others seemed to help me get my mind in order. When Danni turned up the next day she asked me what I intended to do if she found proof of Michael having an affair.
“I’ll divorce him,” I told her.
“There’s no chance of you forgiving him and taking him back?” asked Danni.
“Not this time,” I replied, “I might have done it before we were married but not now.”
Danni had smiled at that, I don’t know whether it was a supportive smile or an ‘I’ve heard that before’ smile but I took support from it.
 
I didn’t see Danni again for almost two weeks and there was no smile from her when I opened the door upon her return. We went into the living room and she handed me a brown envelope.
“I’m sorry Jen,” she said, “there is no easy way to say this. Your husband is not just having one affair, he’s having several.”
People talk about being hit by an invisible sledgehammer and I never understood what they meant until that moment. All of a sudden, my chest seemed to explode into pain and I couldn’t breathe. Danni helped me over to a chair and sat me down before heading into the kitchen, I heard the tap go on and water sloshing into the kettle.
“Where do you keep the mugs?” she shouted.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to take control.
“In the cupboard above the kettle,” I managed, “so are the teabags.”
Danni responded with “Got ’em,” and the next thing I heard was the clink of crockery and the sound of boiling water. Once again, I closed my eyes and I rested my head on the back of the chair.
I know this might sound strange but I think I fell asleep because when I opened my eyes again Danni was sat on the couch with a mug in her hand and a second mug was sat on the coffee table.
“Did I…?” I began.
“Don’t worry about it,” she answered, “your brain just shut down for a moment to sort things out. It’s very common with abuse victims.”
“What? Michael never abused me.” I was shocked at the thought of myself as an abuse victim and denied it to myself as well as her.
“As far as I’m concerned you are.” She put her mug on the table and leaned forward, “I’m not saying he hit you or anything like that…”
“Good, because he didn’t.” I interrupted her anger beginning to take the place of sorrow. Danni backed down.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. With my job I see a lot of women that have been abused, both physically and mentally. That’s what this is, a form of mental abuse. Tell me why did you carry on seeing Michael when he cheated on you at university?”
“I don’t know, he made me feel good about myself, you know? Made me feel special. It wasn’t easy growing up the way I did, and there weren’t exactly hundreds of guys knocking on my door.”
“Really? I find it hard to believe that a bright, good looking girl didn’t have men interested.”
“Yeah but I’m not that good looking, I mean I don’t think I’m ugly or anything more of a plain Jane type. Or ‘Plain Jen’ as Michael used to say. Of course, he was only joking, but many a true word said in jest and all that.” Danni frowned at me, a real brow furrow. “What?”
She shook her head, “It’s nothing Jen,” she smiled at me, “like I said I’ve worked with too many abused women, maybe I’m just jumping at shadows.”
I had assumed that Danni worked at the laboratory somewhere but when I asked her she shook her head and laughed.
“God no,” she said, “I know absolutely nothing about science stuff. Despite Ms. Davenport’s best efforts, she seems to think I’m going to take over the family business one day.”
“So what do you do?” I asked.
“Oh I still work for her, just on the other side of the business. I work at the Sanctuary. That’s how I know about abuse, I deal with it every day. Some of it a worse than the rest but none of it good.”
As she spoke I saw the envelope sitting on the table still unopened, right next to my mug of tea. I picked it up and lifted the flap, there was a sheath of photographs inside so I slid them out.
Five 10x6 black and white photographs with the face of Michael smiling up at me in every single one. Of course, a photograph of your husband shouldn’t make you feel that angry, but that was precisely how I felt. Any trace of sorrow or self-pity vanished with what I saw. Michael was accompanied by a woman in every photo and it was never me, in fact it was never the same woman twice. Five photographs, five different women and five compromising positions.
Everybody that knows me would have expected me to be in floods of tears at the degree of this latest betrayal but I was too angry to be upset. In fact, I was probably too angry to even be described as angry. I was so mad that I don’t think I was really capable of rational thought. Danni tried to calm me down, she made more tea made all the right sympathetic noises and got nowhere. All I could see was the man that I had given my life to making a fool of me over and over again. I wanted to hurt him and I wanted to make him suffer, just like I had suffered for seven years. Seven years I had let this man manipulate me, convince me that he loved me, keep me as his pet at home just in case the latest bimbo couldn’t put out.
Maybe I was wrong, maybe I was so angry that I was finally capable of rational thought. Maybe, for the first time in years I was seeing things clearly. I thought of the tales I had heard about the Sanctuary, about the experiments and I asked Danni if she could help me get my revenge.
“We can give you sanctuary, keep you away from him and we can help you with one of the best lawyers around to sort out your divorce. With what we have here you could take him for pretty much everything he has now and most of what he’ll get for the rest of his life.” She paused and looked me in the eyes. “But that’s all. Ms. Davenport said we can’t get involved with a revenge mission. Despite the fact that she did herself.”
My interest was piqued. “Did what?” I asked.
“Well, not many people know this but Mr Davenport had an affair or two when they were married. When the Doc found out she was so angry she took revenge.”
“But I thought Mr Davenport was killed in a plane crash.” I replied, puzzled.
“So they say.” Was the enigmatic reply that served only to frustrate me.
I screamed at her, “Danni.”
She did a theatrical sigh and then told me that Mr Davenport was still alive and well and living at the sanctuary. She explained that he was no longer Mr Davenport and described a few of the things that the Doctor had done to turn Martin Davenport into Mary Shannon.
“Of course, they are a couple still and very much in love. Sometimes we accept our transformations if they are handled properly. If you handle it differently you can make it a real punishment. I’ve seen that done too.”
Something stuck out in what she said and my new, angry, super mind jumped on it.
“Wait you said we,” I shouted, “we accept our transformations. Are you…? I mean were you…?”
She nodded and laughed at my indecision, “I was transformed by Ms. Davenport as a punishment for some previous indiscretions,” she admitted.
“Wow, you look amazing. God Billie would be so jealous and she started transitioning as a young teenager.”
For a while we got off the subject of Michael and talked about my sister. It helped to calm me down a lot and we even managed to go out for lunch at a little café near to my house. Danni left me in the café after settling the bill. But as she left she placed a Davenport Pharmaceuticals key card on the table. I had one of my own, it let me into my lab and logged me into my computer. I looked at her questioningly.
“This is an anonymous master card that I have just dropped without noticing.” She told me. “It will get you through any door and into any computer file in the complex. If there is anything there that will help you do what you need to do you are welcome to it. But if you get caught you’re on your own. I can’t be involved in anything like this, it would cause problems for too many good people. Do you understand?”
I nodded and thanked her, she smiled and wished me luck. Then she left. A few minutes later so did I.

To be continued...

Time to Pay
By Anna Na Maus

The story of a philandering husband and his poor suffering wife. In chapter 3 Jenny goes in search of Michael’s other women. But what will she find?

© 2017 by Anna NaMaus. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any written, electronic, recording, or photocopying without written permission of the publisher or author. The exception would be in the case of brief quotations embodied in the critical articles or reviews and pages where permission is specifically granted by the publisher or author.
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 Three

I have a confession to make. I have never tried to completely destroy a person before. I wasn’t a bully at school and I have seen the damage that bullies can do to, not just their victims, but their whole family as well. Yet here I was, contemplating destroying the man that I had been married to for four years. I had given him seven years of my life and I was preparing to take away the rest of his. It wasn’t just him though, there were six other people involved in this situation. Six people I knew literally nothing about, well almost nothing. On the back of each photograph were some basic details; name, place of work, address. Not a lot but enough. I decided to find out exactly who these women were.

Maggie

Maggie Dell was celebrating her twenty first birthday when she first came across Michael Cole. He was, as we already know, absolutely charming and he had her completely smitten by the end of the night.
Jenny caught up with her at the local branch of La Senza where she worked as a shop assistant and had done since she left school at the age of sixteen. Things might have worked out differently if the first woman on Jenny's list had been some sort of tart, or a bitch or just plain horrid but Maggie was a sweet, kind young lady and there was no way Jenny was ever going to hate her.

Jenny showed her a picture of Michael that she carried in her hand bag and asked if Maggie knew who he was. There was no pretence, no hesitation she just said, “Yeah that’s Mike, he’s my boyfriend.” No matter what Jenny asked her about him she didn’t hold back, she was happy to tell the older woman everything. It was clear to Jenny that Maggie wasn’t the cleverest girl around and she was far too trusting. Exactly the sort of person that a predator like Michael would prey on. Maggie explained that Michael, or Mike as she called him, was a salesman from Durham who only came through Bristol once a week and he made sure that, no matter how busy he was, he made time for her. She admitted that she hadn’t asked him if he was married but she doubted it, Mike had told her that she was his one true love and she believed him.

Jenny felt bad as she told the girl that she was Michael’s wife and that everything he had told her was a lie. Her whole life fell apart in that moment, the pain of betrayal could be seen in her eyes. Things went from bad to worse when Jenny took out the pictures of the other five women in Michael’s life and slowly showed each one to the rapidly crumbling girl before her. By the end of it Maggie was crying so much her boss had to send her home, which meant that Jenny wasn’t very popular in the shop. Jenny offered to give the girl a lift home to her flat, and made her a mug of tea to try and calm her down.
They sat in the flat and talked for a couple of hours where Maggie explained the rough idea of a plan that she had to get revenge. Maggie surprised her new friend when she offered to help and explained how she was going to do it.

Clarissa

Clarissa Clemence was a 24-year-old legal secretary that had moved to Bristol from South Wales when she was eighteen, first to study and then to work. Nine months ago, she had met a charming man over lunch and it wasn't long before she was sharing much more than a chicken salad with Michael Cole.
For the last few months she had been expecting her boyfriend to propose to her, such was her perception of their relationship.
Upon meeting Jenny, she too had desperately wanted to hate her rival for Michael’s attentions. But as Jenny herself had found out when she met Maggie some things are just never going to be possible. All she could see in the woman before her was somebody in as much pain as she was, and that pain was joined by a seething anger as photographs of even more women were revealed and the smile on the face of Michael began to look less charming and a lot smugger and leery.
Jenny was beginning to discover just how powerful hate could be and how quickly love turns to hate. So far there were three of them. Three women who had loved Michael Cole, all of them giving everything we had and all of them feeling betrayed.

Hilary

Clarissa and Jenny went together to meet the next woman on the list, Hilary Peters. Initially they waited outside her place of work, which was a big risk as she shared a building with Michael but he had told his wife that he was going away overnight for a conference, although Danni Wentworth assured her that he was meeting another of his girlfriend’s, so the women decided it was worth the risk. When Hilary hadn’t appeared after several hours Clarissa volunteered to in to the building to look for her, her face when she returned was not a joyous one.
“They fired her,” she reported, “and by the sound of it, Michael was involved.”
The two women drove out of the city to the village of Whitchurch where they found Hilary at home and there was no need to make her hate Michael, he’d done that job all on his own. Michael had been paired with Hilary on an important project at work and, true to form, it didn’t take long for him to persuade his new partner to join him in bed as well as online. Somebody at work had tried telling her that Michael was married but when she faced him he said that his treacherous wife had left him for another man. Naturally she believed him, whether you want to believe that the women are at fault for being gullible or if the man has a talent for deception the one thing that is certain they all believed everything he told them. As the three women talked to each other in Hilary’s home it became apparent that each of the women could spot the manipulation, deceit and the lies in the others lives; they just couldn’t see it when it was happening to them.

Just as her project with Michael was coming to an end rumours started flying around that Hilary was going to get a promotion, both Clarissa and Jenny remembered Michael complaining about ‘some woman’ at work was getting promoted ahead of him. Strangely, he never mentioned that he was having an affair with her. With just days to go some information had been found on Hilary’s computer that suggested she had been selling the work her and Michael had been doing to a rival company. As she knew that she hadn’t put it there, there was only one way that the information could have found its way to her hard drive and that was that Michael put it there. But as he was also the man who found the information nobody at the office would believe her and she was fired.
Meeting Clarissa and Jenny with their tales of philandering and deception simply made her hate for Michael even fiercer.

Cheryl

The fourth of Michael’s victims was easy to track down. Doctor Cheryl Cooke was a consultant at one of Bristol’s top private hospitals. She had met Michael when the hospital upgraded their computer systems and he had to install the new software systems for them. He had wined and dined the Doctor, slowly drawing her in until she was smitten.
Like all of his girlfriends, Cheryl thought that she was the only woman in Michael’s life and Jenny once again found myself comforting a woman that she had originally set out to hate. For over two hours they sat in one of the hospitals on-site restaurants and talked about Michael, how every about him had seemed so perfect and so easy to accept. Apart from Maggie every woman that Michael had sucked in was highly intelligent and down to earth, yet every one of them had fallen for his tricks.

Sarah

The final piece of the jigsaw was the hardest for Jenny. You see the woman’s name was Sarah Cole and she was Michael’s wife. At least, as far as she knew she was. About a year ago Michael had spent a week in Silicon Valley working with an American company to find an answer to a question that was beyond the capabilities of the English. He had asked Jenny to go with him but at the time she couldn’t get away from her own work at the lab so, telling her that he was going on his own, he took Sarah instead. Showing an impulsiveness that he had never shown before Michael took his companion on a flight to Las Vegas where they got married. As far as Sarah knew Michael had filed all the proper papers when they got back to England, but he never did.
Sarah was probably the only one of his girlfriends that he could have pulled of his bigamy act because, like Jenny she worked two or three nights a week and with Michael, supposedly, spending nights away with his work it just about managed to fit into place.

To be continued…

In chapter 4 Jenny and her new allies work together to get Michael into panties and out of (or should that be to) the office.

You can read chapter 4 now on my blog at

https://anna-namaus.wixsite.com/mysite/blog

Time to Pay.
By Anna NaMaus

Michael's punishment begins in such a small way, but we all know what little acorns turn into.

Chapter Four
 
Jenny always worked late on a Thursday which, in turn, meant that Michael got to spend time with Maggie. Maggie was a pretty, vivacious and kind-hearted girl but as far as she was concerned none of that mattered because she was plump. Michael could see that lack of esteem in the way she dressed and the way she walked and used it to draw her close. He would buy her sexy outfits, slowly revealing a little more skin with each gift and showering her with attention and complements.
After work that Thursday the pair retired to Maggie’s apartment and Michael was pleased to discover that his girlfriend was feeling particularly amorous. With a passion that verged on the edge of aggression the girl began undressing her boyfriend. A button ripped off his shirt and flew across the room, bashing into the wall with a small pinging noise. His belt followed soon afterwards, but when it came to his shorts the girl pulled a small, sharp craft knife from her pocket and swiftly sliced through the fabric, totally ruining the garment. Not that Michael cared, or even noticed, as Maggie continued to ravage his body. As his excitement began to get out of control the young girl took him into her mouth and sucked.
 
It was when Michael came to get dressed that the damage to his boxer shorts became evident, Maggie’s only response was a cute smile and a “Oops, sorry” but that didn’t help put his shorts back together. Going commando was not an option either, not because he didn’t want to but because Maggie wouldn’t allow it and the more Michael argued, the closer to tears his young girlfriend got. Eventually, rather than suffering the inevitable sobbing Michael agreed to the only course of action that had ever, really, been open to him. He put on a pair of Maggie’s knickers. Naturally the girl managed to manipulate him on the choice of knickers as well, after pretending to dig through her drawer for a few minutes she pulled out the pair that had been bought especially for the occasion and turned around with a big, happy smile on her face. The sort of smile that says I’ve done well, give me praise.
“Look,” she chirruped happily, “these are called boy shorts so you won’t even notice.”
Michael winced, boy shorts they may well be, but men’s underwear they were not. Pink and lacy, yes; tight and clingy, very much so; but masculine. Not a hint. But, rather than upset Maggie he put them on and quickly hid them under his trousers.
The drive across the city to his home was uneventful, but that didn’t stop Michael from panicking every time another car came close. The only thought in his mind the whole way was that people would see his knockers if he had an accident, the result was the slowest drive he had ever undertaken.
Things hit rock bottom when he arrived home to see Jenny’s car already parked in the driveway. Never once had Jenny arrived home before Michael but today, the one day he needed to be alone she was there waiting. He walked through the door with a fake smile plastered on his face ready to greet his wife, but the greeting stuck in his throat. Jenny was lying on the couch with the lights dimmed and wearing the revealing blue negligee that Michael had bought her the previous Christmas.
As soon as she saw her husband walk in Jenny stood up and walked over. She didn’t say anything, just walked across the room, wrapped her arms around his neck and started to kiss him. Michael was petrified, cursing the fact that his wife somehow managed to pick the one time in his life that he was wearing a pair of pink lacy knickers to make a move on him. Like a deer in headlights Michael didn’t know which way to turn.
Jenny pretended not to notice her husband’s discomfort as she slowly undid his belt and slid it out of its loops before throwing it across the room, she would later return to that belt and hide it to make a later phase of the plan easier to pull off. But for now, she was too busy kissing her husband to stop him telling her that he wanted the toilet, just so he could get the incriminating knickers off. Jenny carefully took hold of the button at the top of Michael’s trousers and pulled, hard. Before her husband knew what was going on the button had joined the shirt button somewhere across the room and his trousers were around his ankles. Satisfied, Jenny stood back admiring her handiwork. Of course, as far as Michael was concerned she was staring at the lacy pink boy shorts. While Michael was genuinely frozen with fear Jenny needed only a second to take in the scene that she had carefully planned for with Maggie. Starting to move she raced over to the sideboard and grabbed her phone, while Michael stood stone like in the middle of the room his wife snapped half a dozen pictures.
The man braced himself for the tirade that he felt sure was coming, his eyes were closed so that he wouldn’t see the scorn in his wife’s eyes, his back stiffened to take the slap to the face she was sure to deliver and then…nothing. Well, nothing that he was expecting, instead her fingers wrapped themselves around his dick, touching him through the lace. She was almost purring as she asked him where his panties came from, deliberately using the phrase ‘your panties’ to make her husband squirm. Before his brain returned to work he almost told her that he had ripped my boxers but that would have led to far too many problems so, instead, he tried to come up with a good reason for the panties. The first thing he discovered was that it’s very tricky to think clearly when your wife is playing with your dick, for some reason the lace made the whole thing feel even more intense and Michael suddenly found himself blurting out “I like them.” By that point Jenny had somehow managed to get the end of his dick, still wrapped in lace, into her mouth so all she did was make some positive noises. Michael plunged on with what his overexcited brain was believing to be a successful plan by repeating that he liked them, over and over again. He even told her that he should be allowed to wear whatever clothes he liked. Although the last part came out a little bit squeakily as he ejaculated through the lace.
 
On Friday morning Jenny never said a word about the previous night’s activities and neither did Michael. For him it was a huge relief and he went to work feeling a lot happier. He didn’t understand how he had gotten away with it but he was certain that I had. Even so, to be on the safe side, he cancelled his plans with Hilary for later in the day and went straight home after work. Jenny was so sexually intense, not just that evening but all weekend, taking her husband back to those first few nights after they got married. It was one of the strangest weekends that she had ever experienced, every time she touched him she felt dirty and horrible because of the way he had treated her, but at the same time she was incredibly excited at the plan she was putting in place and the knowledge that Michael would associate being caught wearing knickers with great and constant sex. By the time Sunday came around and with-it Michael’s weekly squash game with Rod, a colleague of his from the office, the poor man was almost exhausted and, predictably he suffered the heaviest loss he’d ever had. After the game, the two friends went for a pint, as they always did but Michael went home after just one, which was something he never did.
As he neared his house Michael prayed that Jenny was as tired he was but when he walked through the front door she seemed even more excited and animated than when he’d left. Grabbing her husband by the arm as he dropped his sports bag she dragged him up the stairs and into their bedroom. No matter how hard he tried to find out what was going on his wife ignored him, only telling him repeatedly how much he was going to love the surprise and how excited she was. He began to have doubts about that when she led him to his chest of drawers and could have died when she opened it. Every single pair of boxers, jockeys and briefs had gone and been replaced by wisps of lace and satin in pinks, purples and a range of pastel shades.
“I know you felt that you couldn’t express yourself because you didn’t think I’d approve,” she told him, “but I couldn’t be happier I think it’s really sexy. I’d always thought that you disapproved of Billie, but now I know you don’t and that makes me happy too. So I thought I’d surprise you and buy you a whole new drawer full of undies. Aren’t they great.”
Michael felt trapped, what could he do? It wasn’t as though he could tell her the truth and admit that he had lied earlier to cover up an affair, nor did he want to upset her so he pretended to be pleased. At least, he told himself, he could always pick up some new boxers on his lunch break the next day.

To be continued...

If you can't wait for Chapter Five then pop over to my blog where you'll find it waiting.

Time To Pay
By Anna Na Maus

The story of Michael continues. Having been tricked him into wearing panties, Jenny and her friends decide that the whole world should know about it.

Chapter 5

He did his best to pick out the least obvious pair of panties that he could find in his newly filled drawer but Jenny had been very careful to make sure that nothing in his underwear drawer could be viewed as anything less than one hundred percent sexy woman. Jenny insisted on seeing them at the breakfast table telling her husband how cute they looked and then she made things especially uncomfortable by giving him a little stroke through today’s white satin creation. Michael was more than a little embarrassed by his body's reaction.
By the time he got to work Michael was convinced that he was going to get exposed. Every time he bent over he was sure that the top of his panties would show, the same when he stood up from the chair behind his terminal. The man spent virtually the whole morning pulling his trousers up and his sweater down. The whole time watching the clock tick slowly nearer to his lunch break and a trip to M&S for some much-needed boxer shorts.

The allotted hour duly arrived and Michael tried to look casual as he bolted out of the office, for almost a minute he honestly believed that his nightmare was over. Until he ran into Clarissa.

For over two weeks Michael had avoiding Clarissa because she was constantly dropping hints about marriage and, with two wives already, that was the last thing he needed. As Jenny had done just a few days earlier Clarissa acted as though she couldn’t keep her hands off her boyfriend, telling him how much she missed him, and how desperate she was to reacquaint herself with his body. For a man like Michael that would not normally be a problem, he even had a quiet spot behind the offices for just such moments. Today, however, was not normal and. with his underwear hidden beneath the man fully intended to keep his trousers on. Clarissa though, had other ideas. She fully intended to take a small piece of vengeance against the man who had led her on for so long and wouldn’t take no for an answer. As Michael was cursing his wife for her stupid act of generosity he felt Clarissa’s hand slip down the back of his trousers and rub his satin, panty clad bottom. That was when she squealed and the whole square stopped to look in the couple’s direction. Utilising the lack of a belt to hold up his trousers she pulled them down to his knees and stood back pointing, calling him a pervert and a sissy, making such a fuss that, all around them passers-by pulled out their mobile phones and used them to take pictures. Some people even looked out of their office windows to see what all the fuss was about and Michael did the only thing he could, he pulled up his trousers, ran back into the office building and headed straight to the toilets where he hid for the remaining fifty minutes of his lunch hour. The whole embarrassing incident in the square having lasted for no more than five or ten minutes. For the rest of his lunch break, Michael was locked in a little cubicle and the whole time the only thing he could hear was people laughing. Had he paid more attention to what was going on as he ran inside he might have noticed that one of the photographers had actually been his own wife, Jenny.

Of course, being in the toilet meant that he didn’t get anything to eat, or drink and, most significantly of all, he didn’t get any boxer shorts.
At the end of his break Michael walked quickly back to the safety of his desk and his computer terminal even as he rushed, though, he was conscious of people pointing and staring as he went past. To his horror he saw that the screen saver on his computer had been changed to show pictures taken less than an hour earlier of him standing in with the square with his panties exposed for all to see. Horror turned into a building anger and Michael looked around the room to see if he could spot the person responsible. Instead he saw that every computer in the office not in use was showing the same image. From across the room somebody shouted, “show us your knickers love” making everyone laugh. Michael's temper was rising even further and he replied with a sentence full of expletives. Instead of making the situation better that did, as you would expect, make it a lot worse and a shout of “Don’t get your knickers in a twist” came from a different part of the office, then it was something about sissy tantrums from somewhere different again. At that point, the volcano that was Michael’s temper erupted and he went looking for the culprits.

Fifteen minutes later he was in his boss’s office with scraped knuckles and one of his colleagues was on his way to A&E with a broken nose.
Michael’s boss was a good man and he tried to be understanding but because of the manipulation that had led to the current position he completely misread the situation. He told Michael that the company would fully support him if he wished to become a woman, indeed, they had procedures in place and they would protect him from any problems that may arise with colleagues. All he had to do was inform Human Resources and an action plan could be put in place. As you would expect Michael told him that he didn’t want to be a woman and that’s when things started going downhill. Gregg, his manager, started asking why he was wearing women’s clothing if he didn’t want to be a woman and every answer that came into Michael’s head made him sound, to his own ears, weak, pathetic even. So in the end, rekindling a bit of his earlier anger Michael simply shouted at him and, using the same logic that had worked on Jenny a few days ago, told him that he could wear whatever he wanted and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Gregg’s response was to send Michael home telling him that it would be better if he worked from there while he sorted himself out. He also informed him that he was lucky not to be on a disciplinary for punching his colleague in the face. What he didn’t say, although both men understood that the implication was there, was that if Michael didn’t agree to work from home then the disciplinary would magically appear, and Michael would almost definitely lose his job.
To a backdrop of whispers, laughter and pointing fingers, Michael picked up the few personal items he kept at work and slowly made the long walk from his desk to the car park. Dejectedly, he climbed into his perfectly restored Triumph Spitfire and began the drive home.

To be continued...

Remember you can find Chapter 6 already published on my website. Right Now. Click here to read.

Time To Pay
By Anna Na Maus

Just a short chapter telling the reader what's going on behind Michael's back and letting him get home from a bad day at work.

Chapter Six

As Michael had been busy pulling his trousers up and his shirt down Hilary and Jenny had been busy working on his computer at home. Hilary had developed a software package that could plant suggestions in the operator’s mind.
"What I've done is set his computer to occasionally flash a microseconds worth of memes onto the screen. His conscious mind won't see them but his subconscious will. Over time these memes will become his thoughts." She explained to an eager Jenny.
"What are the memes going to make him think?"
"To start with I'll just make him do what he's told, mainly by you but, by the time I'm finished he'll do what any woman tells him to do. As long as it's within his parameters of course."
"Parameters?"
"Have you ever heard of the 'Three Laws of Robotics?'
"I think so, they were in that film with Will Smith, weren't they? Something about not killing humans, not putting humans in danger and…." Jenny struggled to recall the last one but Hilary stepped in to help out.
"and not putting themselves in danger." she said, "Well I've included a similar set of rules for Michael, he can't hurt any woman, he can't do anything that would cause any woman to get hurt and he can't do anything that will cause his own death."
"So, Michael can do things that will cause himself pain?" asked Jenny.
"and let other people do things to him that will cause him pain." Responded Hilary
"But he can't put his own life at risk?"
"That's right, he can't kill himself or let somebody else kill him. I assumed that you wouldn't want him to cut his punishment short."
"You assumed right,” smiled Jenny, “how will I know that it's working?"
"Well, with the way I've set it up just keep asking him to do things that he would never do under normal circumstances. As soon as he starts obeying you we know that we're there."
"That is brilliant, I'll get him to clean the toilet, I doubt he'd know where to begin. You are a genius Hilary. I love it."
"It might take a while so I wouldn't bother trying anything for at least a week."
Jenny paused for a minute before raising a query.
"Could we make him wear a dress?" she asked
"Of course, if you tell him that he should wear a dress then he will."
"No, I mean could we make him wear a dress without telling him to do it?"
"Oh, I get you." Hilary thought for a moment, "I can do that. If I had a specific dress to work with I could make him want to put it on at least. I'm not sure that he'll keep it on. He could do I suppose."
Jenny grinned, "I'd better buy him a dress then."
"Buy it online, that way I can have a digital picture of the dress to play with, I've already got Mike's head on my PC at home. I reckon I could make this work.”

Hilary had arrived at the house that morning with the whole subliminal messaging program on a single flash drive and took less than thirty minutes to put it on Michael’s computer. From that point on she would be able to access his computer from her own at home and make small changes to the software as and when she needed.
With the computer set up, Hilary gave had given Jenny camera that was capable of instantly uploading pictures into the cloud when they were taken. The plan was for Jenny to wait outside Michael’s office around lunch time with Clarissa. As the mistress embarrassed the adulterer the wife would get some pretty good photographs of him in his sexy undies. As soon as they were uploaded Hilary was going to put them on several fake social media pages and use a special algorithm to share them. She was convinced that she could make them go viral in less than thirty minutes.

When Michael arrived home from work several hours early the women knew that their plan had been successful. By that time the man was mentally exhausted, physically drained and his hand hurt. The last thing he needed was a confrontation with his so his heart sank when, for the second time in four days her car was in the drive when it should have been at the lab. Taking a deep breath Michael tried to gather his composure before going into the house and facing the inevitable questions.
If Michael thought he would have time to get ready he was wrong, he didn’t even make it inside Jenny had been watching for his arrival from a window and she opened the door to go out to meet him. Michael was ready for tears, he was anticipating shouting, he was even prepared to accept a slap around the face. What he wasn’t expecting was a kiss of his wife and a “Hey Hun, you’re home early. How was your day?”
"You mean you don't know?" he asked
"Know what? What's happened? Are you all right?"
"This girl molested me at lunch time. I think she must have been drunk or something. Anyway, she kind of pulled my trousers down in the square outside the office and everyone saw my panties."
Jenny shrugged, pretending not to care when the reality was that she was almost bursting with excitement. "So what, they look cute on you."
"I'm not sure the guys at work would agree. They've been giving me grief all afternoon, it's been hell, Jen."
"Didn't Gregg say anything?” she asked
Michael generally explained what had happened in Gregg’s office earlier, doing his best to make it look as though he was the victim and that his boss had been unfair. Again, his wife surprised him with her response.
"Oh Honey, that sounds awful, still at least you can wear whatever you want if you're working from home, and you could maybe help out with some housework as well. That would give us more time for fun things at weekends."
With the day that he had Michael was so relieved that there were going to be no arguments that he just accepted what his wife said as being a good thing and left it at that.

To be continued...

If you'd like to read Chapter seven before it arrives on Big Closet you can. It's already available on my website. https://anna-namaus.wixsite/mysite