Growing Pains: Betrayal

Zoe groaned, she had this argument with Ezra often enough, but IVF treatment wouldn't pay for itself and she was not about to allow her husband to squander some of their savings on a toy, especially one that would possibly kill him. "Don't start," she replied ominously but Andy didn't take the hint.

"It is his birthday in a few months, can I get him one for then?" he asked and Zoe took a deep breath and put her hands on her head.

"No, Andy."

"We saw one the other week on the 'net. It was second-hand, 5000 miles on the clock, two years old, 1600cc, sports windshield and everything. It's a Harley and he has always wanted one of those, and it isn't a massive amount of money, either. It was only just in five figures. Oh come on Zoe," Andy needled her. Zoe closed her eyes and sighed.

"He is not having one. We can barely afford to run one car and still pay the mortgage, and save for ... stuff. We are not paying another set of insurance, road tax, maintenance for a cockmobile. Now shut up about it, you hear?"

"What if I was to pay for a years insurance as well?" Andy asked and Zoe waited to slow at the junction and then smacked his right arm as hard as she could. Why couldn't men just listen?

* * * * *

Andy scanned the documentation that Rhea had sorted in piles. Rhea had barely stopped crying since they had arrived, and Ezra was set to join them when he finished work.

"Sure, there is a lot of debt here. Even if you were to pay no interest, there is still years of repayments here."

Rhea rubbed her eyes. "How bad?"

"I've counted thirty grand and that's just what's in these piles. There are a couple of entries that suggest other sources of loans or money that aren't explained here, and if that is the case it's over thirty-three."

Rhea shrieked. "He better not have stolen money from work," she said quickly and Zoe shook her head.

"Oh I don't think he would have done that."

"Well I didn't think he would have done this but he has," Rhea snapped tearfully and then apologised.

"Of course, this is no problem at all," Andy told them dismissively. "I don't know what all the fuss is about?" Both girls stared at the bemused man who elaborated. "What? I can easily cover this. It's peanuts. I'll write you a cheque. I mean, if you two were struggling, why didn't you just ask?"

"The answer to all our problems is not always your money Andy," Zoe barked and Andy suspired wearily.

A tearful Rhea shouted at her brother. "And my partner has been squandering so much money and been keeping secrets and I'm making a fuss. How can you spend thirty grand, Andy? Horses? Other women? Drugs? This is my life that has been turned upside down and you call it a fuss. How can you be so fucking callous?" Rhea screamed and ran out of the room.

Zoe sighed at him and Andy shrugged. "What? You might not like it but Rhea and Izzy are about to be evicted. What is the point of me having millions if my sister is being made homeless over a poxy thirty grand? It's just a trivial amount of cash."

Zoe's eyes flashed dangerously. "Andy, please. Just ... don't."

"Well you go talk some sense into her then. This isn't a problem."

Zoe sighed. "Do you really think that?"

"Yes."

"Just ... Get out." Zoe snapped.

"What? It's nothing. And if she doesn't want to take it from me, Dad would help too."

"Fucking, get out. Now," Zoe yelled, her eyes flashing dangerously. "Go get some lunch. But if you stay here I will hurt you."

"What did I do?"

Zoe raised her eyebrows and pointed to the door. "Out."

"Why are all the men in my life absolute arseholes?" Rhea sobbed the moment her brother left and Zoe put her arm around the young mother to console her. "I mean I know he means well but he is a total cunt at times. Simon has been up to something and we are about to lose our property and he says it's nothing."

Zoe nodded in agreement. "Perhaps you should let him or your Dad help if it means you don't get evicted."

Rhea sighed and wiped her eyes. "Well Simon will be getting evicted no matter what happens."

Zoe nodded. "I'd do the same." They remained in silence for a few minutes and drank a cup of tea each that Zoe made. Andy returned with three fish and chip suppers.

"I have an idea," Andy announced. Zoe and Rhea both grumbled but Andy ignored their reservations. "You won't take my help with cash, why not come live with me. At least you won't be homeless and I guess you probably want to get out of here."

Zoe looked at Rhea who inhaled deeply. "I can't, Andy."

"Sure you can. I'll even hide the DVDs you don't like. It'll do you good to get out of here, won't it? If you won't accept my dough then you aren't going to have anywhere to live. I have a big house, plenty big enough and I can look after Izzy when you are working."

Zoe put her arm back around Rhea. "Actually Rhea, I think it's not a bad idea. Let the people who love you, help you through this. But I will clean it before you move in."

Rhea sighed. "I don't like it. I can get a rental property ..."

"Well until you get yourself on your feet. You are always moaning you never see me when I live five miles up the road."

"For a week only, until I find a cheap rental property. I can't live off my family for my entire life."

Andy sighed and nodded. "As long as you need to."

* * * * *

Ezra loaded the last box into his Nova and got in the car. Andy had taken most of the important possessions of Rhea and Izzy in his large saloon car and had returned to collect Rhea and Izzy. Rhea had only taken the items that she and Izzy needed, and Zoe had to stop her from setting fire or damaging Simon's property on several occasions.

"Zoe is at the house, she is making tea for everyone with what she can find in my freezer and fridge."

Ezra smiled. "So that'll be alcoholic then?"

Andy groaned. "I have had enough of this with Zoe and Rhea. Don't you start. I told her to just get a takeaway but she thinks that's a bad idea. Something about empty calories and fertility." Ezra groaned.

Rhea came out and looked at their small flat from the outside with her daughter who was sent to sit in Ezra's hatchback, which then disappeared down the road.

"I'm just going to do one last sweep of the place," Rhea said to Andy and went inside. "I won't be a minute."

* * * * *

"Oh hi Andy. What ya doing here?" Simon asked as he got out of their battered car. He was weary, having travelled back from Watford having told the staff that they were being made redundant, but had taken boxes of whisky, vodka and beer from the warehouse after everyone had left and the CCTV disconnected. He had his job for another week sorting out the remnants of the store, but after that would be unemployed. He knew he had to start job hunting immediately, but from the look on Andy's face that one of his secrets was out.

Which one? He hadn't told Rhea about the store closure when he arrived home from Liverpool the day before, but Rhea was working through some figures from work for the pub owners so he had time to sit on the couch and contemplate what to do. He worked out, he needed a job and one that paid twice as much as his previous one, preferable with a years' salary up front and golden hello of ten thousand pounds.

Either way, it was fast approaching the day when he would need to speak to her and hope that they could work their way out of the mess he had created.

Chapter VI

Rhea had sent her brother to wait in the car and then bombarded her partner with a volley of ferocious tearful punches. Simon could barely defend himself and Rhea shouted abuse at her cowering boyfriend.

"What the fuck have you blown thirty grand on in twelve months? I'm homeless. My daughter, our daughter is homeless. We are bankrupt. What the fuck have you done, Si?"

Simon stared at her blankly and bit his lip. "I've been stupid," he muttered and Rhea swelled furiously.

"We lose the house and all I get is 'I've been stupid.' I fucking know you've been stupid. How fucking stupid?"

"I can't explain it ..." Simon stammered, tears streaming down his face.

Rhea clenched her fists and then grabbed her boyfriend by the shoulders throwing him back on the sofa. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a hunting knife holding it above his throat. "Tell me."

"Rhea, please put that down," Simon frantically begged and Rhea snorted.

"Tell me," she yelled firmly and the cold blade touched his skin. "Is it other women?"

Simon nodded and closed his eyes waiting for the white-hot pain Rhea was about to inflict but it didn't come.

"How many?"

Simon stammered again and Rhea gripped the knife firmly. Simon saw the fierce look in his lover's eyes and her flushed cheeks and was terrified. Rhea was not known for controlling her temper. "A few."

"Who?"

"People from work. Hookers."

"Hookers? You spent thirty grand on hookers?" Rhea screamed and moved the weapon above his face. Simon's eyes focused on the knife above him and then Rhea, who had tears running down her face and dripping off her chin.

"When was the last time?" Rhea screeched and Simon hesitated. "Fucking tell me," she yelled slapping her boyfriend across the cheek as hard as she could.

"Yesterday."

"Yesterday! How much of our money did you blow, Si?"

Simon hesitated again and Rhea raised her hand but Simon confessed before she could strike him. "Seven hundred."

Rhea climbed off of him and looked at him shocked. "Seven hundred pounds. You had all the sex you could want at home. Why?"

Simon shrugged and wiped his eyes. "She whips me," he murmured and Rhea howled. How could Simon do this to her? And Izzy? "But Rhea, please ..."

Rhea didn't wait for him to finish. She punched him, hard, in his solar plexus and tearfully ran out of the room to plunge the knife into the front wheel of their battered motor, and then jumped in to the waiting car of her brother.

"Go," she shouted, her face soaked with her tears and the knife waving in front of her. A startled Andy put the car into gear and was about to pull out of the car parking space when Simon sprawled himself over the bonnet.

"Don't go Rhea. Don't go. Please. I'll change. Don't go," he wailed.

"Drive," Rhea said calmly. "Just kill the fucker."

"Rhea?"

"Go," she yelled, tears streaming down her face. "I never want to see him again."

Andy revved the engine, and Simon went to the passenger window.

"Rhea," he called but his partner ignored him and tearfully made the journey to Andy's house in silence.

* * * * *

"You still holding onto me?" Izzy squealed as Andy pushed her on her bike across his back garden. He had removed her stabilisers and she was nervous about riding her bike without them as she was scared of falling off (the same logic was not applied to her climbing the large tree at the end of his drive.)

"Yes, I've got you," Andy reassured his niece as she pedalled off away from him. His pocket vibrated and he retrieved his phone, just as Izzy cycled around the small cherry tree at the end of his garden and she saw that he was not supporting her.

"Look. I'm doing it by myself," she yelled as she whizzed past her uncle.

"Hello Zoe," Andy said into his phone and Rhea, watching her daughter play in the garden while worrying about her predicament, pricked up her ears. She had not spoken to Simon, and had put her phone on silent in the drawer, but this did not stop Simon ringing eighty times during the night and leaving twelve voicemail messages -- none of which she had listened to. She had resisted the urge to phone her phone company and request a new number, her brain wanted to but her heart told her not to.

"Is Rhea there?" Zoe asked and Andy muttered that she was in the house. "How is she?"

"Coping. She keeps staring into space and crying. She was throwing up this morning."

"Well that's natural Andy, she has just had a shock."

Andy snorted. "Well anyway, she is utterly miserable but won't admit it."

"Do you blame her? Simon told me everything last night. Even stuff he didn't tell Rhea. You know, Rhea is good to have got rid of him, he isn't the same person who was my brother. I just don't understand him any more 'cause he's changed in the last year."

"You mean, just like John?" Andy asked, referring to her youngest brother who was currently nearing the end of a prison sentence. Zoe went quiet for a moment and then agreed. The trial of her brother had hit her hard a couple of years ago but before she could reply, the phone shot out of Andy's hands and Rhea put it to her ear.

"Zoe?" Rhea asked and the phone went silent for a moment.

"Rhea. How are you?"

Rhea groaned and spoke in an abrupt tone. "I'll live. What's up?" Zoe paused again and when she didn't answer, Rhea continued. "I suppose I should ask how Simon is?"

"He's broken Rhea, utterly broken. But it is his own fault," Zoe told her. "He is staying at our house for a couple of days."

"I do need to see him and tell him something," Rhea finally admitted. "And I want to tell him, not him hear it from other people."

"Do you want to speak to him?"

"No. I want to kill him," Rhea replied calmly and sighed. "I'll come 'round later if Andy will give me a lift."

"I'll let him know." Rhea passed the phone back to Andy and wandered back to the house, almost tripping over her wobbly daughter.

* * * * *

"Stay in the car with Izzy," Rhea demanded of Andy as she got out of his car. Rhea knocked sharply on Zoe's front door, who let her in and they embraced. "He is in the garden."

"Cheers," she murmured, her voice devoid of emotion. Rhea spun round to face Zoe. "Look, I might be a bitch with Si over the next few days and weeks but I promise I'll do what's right in the long-run. OK?"

"He deserves everything he gets. You'll get no complaints from me whatever you do," Zoe replied and Rhea wiped her eyes.

"I, um, I have so many conflicting emotions, but in the end what Izzy needs has to come first."

Zoe nodded, and wiped a tear from her eye. "OK," she replied softly and Rhea walked through their small semi-detached house and onto the patio. Her partner was sat on the wall looking down the garden and she had to suppress an urge to kick him off of it. Ezra scratched himself on a garden chair and took a sip of his drink as Zoe walked past Rhea to sit next to him.

"Si," Rhea called out, her voice still cold and passionless and he spun around.

"Rhea, I'm so, so ..."

"Shut up," Rhea barked dismissively and he looked at the ground, his facing dropping.

"My daughter, well our daughter is outside in the car with Andy. Please go and say goodbye," she told him and he stared at her.

"You can't stop me from seeing my own daughter."

"Oh, I am going to make your life so difficult," Rhea promised in a low voice, her fists clenched. "Maybe you screwing all those women was worth it. Worth losing a family for."

Simon buried his face in his hands and wailed. "I'm sorry Rhea. Please don't do this to Izzy."

Rhea breathed in deeply and clenched her fists. "Do this to Izzy? She is homeless thanks to you. You really are a selfish bastard, aren't you?"

"But ..."

"Shut up! I'm going to see the bank tomorrow and then my solicitor to relinquish my stake in the flat and ask for it to be sold. Andy reckons that we are in negative equity so we will still owe lots but I will be suing you. And the CSA will be on the line as well."

Simon shrugged. "They are shutting the store so I have no income."

"That's your problem not mine," Rhea replied cruelly.

"Rhea please can we just do this ..." Simon bawled and burst into tears. "I don't want to lose you."

Rhea puffed incredulously. "The moment you put your sick little games above me and your daughter you lost us. Oh, and one more thing, while you were out fucking our life up with your perversions, you also managed to get me pregnant."

"Oh congratulations," Ezra replied cheerfully. "Are we doing some sort celebration or ..." He trailed off as Zoe gave him an exasperated expression. "Oh shit, yeah, sorry. I think. Sort of ... I'll go and check on Andy."

"Rhea, that's ... well surely we can try ..."

"Not in a million years Si. And no I don't want to be carrying your baby and no I don't want to bring a child into a broken home."

Simon looked at Rhea and then Zoe open-mouthed. "No Rhea. Please not an abortion. Please."

Rhea sneered at her partner. "Are you going to see our daughter?" She hesitated as he shook his head, pleading with her to keep their baby, but she turned on her heels and left.

"Rhea. Rhea----," he cried after her but she was gone.

* * * * *

"Hey babe," the stocky Ezra cooed as his wife blew him a kiss from the bedroom door. Simon was sleeping on the sofa in their small terraced house and although she didn't want him to hear their sex, it was inevitable if they were to keep to the "schedule."

The "schedule," as originally devised by a fertility specialist at the Hospital, while delighting most men was leaving Ezra decidedly weary. He had been at a leaving dinner for a gentleman from work a few days ago, had had more than a couple of beers to drink, walked home and climbed into bed, completely shattered, only to be woken by an irate Zoe demanding a deposit of semen.

She had aggressively reminded him, during their intercourse, that alcohol reduces sperm count and his choice of underwear (Y-fronts) was not acceptable, as this also reduced his fertility. Ezra found it increasingly difficult to "perform" as Zoe passionlessly shouted at him and they had emotionless sex. After he had managed to squirt waves of his baby-making juice inside her, she confiscated all of his underwear so he could be commando and told him he was to be teetotal until she was knocked up.

The lack of underwear caused a large amount of resentment, until Zoe agreed to be without knickers also while she enforced it with her husband, although he had nearly caught his cock in his flies earlier in the day and was becoming more and more unimpressed with the idea.

He had broached the idea of borrowing the money for IVF from Andy, that Zoe suspected would be followed by a plea to buy a bike. Zoe had reacted angrily to this, and Ezra suspected if Andy had been a bit more sympathetic to his friend's feelings when he had suggested it originally, she probably would have taken it.

He remembered the fateful day, as Zoe had hysterically told him that they would probably need treatment and may never have children, he drunkenly told the distraught woman "that this wasn't a problem at all" and "where did she want the fuckin' wonga?"

Zoe was still annoyed with her husband for bringing up this again, and under any normal circumstances would have withheld all sexual pleasantries from him as punishment for his rudeness and unreasonableness, but she wanted a child and to give them the best chance she needed to keep to the schedule. Therefore Ezra could do and say what he wanted, and still get sexual intercourse that night; anal sex, Ezra's favourite, had been "off the menu" for several months.

Zoe had changed into her negligee that Andy had given her. He had bought it, along with a thousand pounds worth of designer lingerie and sexy nightwear for Amy, for her birthday, but they had split up less than amicably before the big day and as Zoe and Amy were the same size he had given it to her a few days previous.

Both Zoe and Ezra liked the silky garment, and it was Zoe's favourite. She felt most of the clothing Andy had given her was too explicit, although Ezra disagreed, but the black negligee was subtle and powerful. It hanged from Zoe's shoulders and traced her curves alluringly before finishing a few inches below her mons. The slit up both sides drew Ezra's attention as they flapped open as Zoe walked into the room.

Ezra turned off the football and allowed his sexy wife to pull his rugby shirt over his head. He beamed at her and she pushed him back on the bed, before sliding his tracksuit bottoms off of him.