This choice: Just a few days to go visit your brother • Go Back...Chapter #4Just a few days to go visit your brother by: Yote   Even though he lives only a few hours away, the last time you saw your brother was at the christmas family get-together. You make an effort to keep in contact with him - things have been... emotional for him of late. Sam has always been a tough guy, been the protective big brother for as long as you can remember, but nearly going through a divorce had really dealt a blow to his confidence and the long road to rebuild his marriage had not been easy.
A little over a year ago, his wife Angelina had caught him with another woman. Sam still insisted to you that the affair had been unconsummated, just a few drinks with a coworker at a bar, that the other woman simply provided him with an emotional connection that Angelina was sorely lacking. Regardless of the truth, it had been enough for Angelina to threaten divorce. As if that wasn't enough, a few months later your brother had come out as transitioning. He was becoming a woman.
It was the reason why you hated the feminine fad so much. Okay, one of the reasons. You couldn't stand all the posers pretending to be women when your brother had spent his entire life wanting to actually be one.
That's not to say that he'd mentioned it before. It had shocked everybody, especially you. Sam loves playing rugby, fixing motorbikes, and drinking. He's the typical man's man. In fact the only person who hadn't seemed surprised had been Angelina. She had been the model of a supportive wife, always encouraging him with his goal of becoming a member of the fairer sex, as though the indiscretions of the months prior were all but forgiven, albeit certainly not forgotten. "There'll be changes of course, but that's all part of the adventure. We'll adapt," she had said at the christmas party, her hand clutching supportively to your brother's shoulder.
A very ordered woman, you make an arrangement to meet-up and spend the monday driving up. Their house is a fine, old detached property paid for mostly by her salary as regional pharmacy manager. She brings home most of the bread in the relationship, no doubt one of the reasons the threat of divorce had scared him so. Without her, he owned nothing.
As you go to ring the front doorbell, you hear footsteps behind you. Angelina stands there in her running gear, breath puffing in the morning air, perspiration running down her face.
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She plucks an earpod from one ear and fixes you with a critical look. "You're five minutes early."
"Yeah, sorry, traffic was light." Why am I apologizing? you think. It's only five minutes. But there is something about her that always puts you on the backfoot.
She clucks her tongue in displeasure. "I was hoping to have a shower before you got here. I suppose it gives you chance to catch up with your brother. He'll be doing chores somewhere around the house." She brushes past you to unlock the door.
And there's the other reason your brother was so terrified of divorce, you think as your eyes take in as much of her sportswear-clad body from behind as you dare. She is a fitness fanatic with a body that is well-earned. Though her temper would undoubtable be savage if she caught you peeking, you can't help but quickly freeze the image of her leggings-clad ass in your mind for later. She tosses her keys and iphone aside and heads upstairs, freeing her long, tied-back hair. "I'll be down in ten minutes. Remember to take your shoes off.
Heaven help the man who walks through Angelina's house in muddy shoes. You slip them off and step into the living room. She has always kept a neat home but today it is immaculate. There is a faint whiff of antiseptic in the air. There have been changes since you were here last, an immediately noticeable de-Sam-isation. The mantelpiece that had once been chock full of the rugby trophies he had won in his high school years was now bare, the motorcycle magazines that had sat beside the couch were gone. Either Sam had made concessions of late, or perhaps he was just moving on from such pursuits. Perhaps those aspects of his personality were always nothing more than a front.
Hearing a sound from the kitchen you step through to find...  | Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
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