George, Donna and... Charlie?

Thanks to Randi for editorial advice (all subsequent errors are mine) And thanks to Literotica for being here for writer and reader.

George awoke. He felt a little strange. He looked at the bedside clock and it said 9AM, which was unusual as he never overslept, especially not on this day, as it was a very special day for him and his wife, Donna, and her two daughters. Mary and Clara always, but always, put on a very special day for his birthday, as they had ever since they had come into his life six years previously.

Donna had been married to Charlie for 16 years, they had brought two delightful children into the world, had operated a highly successful business together until Charlie had, apparently, decided that he was tired of being a husband and a father, had left a major cash payment to Donna, had signed the business over to her and had, in effect, simply abandoned Donna and the girls and run away to "find himself."

Several years later and after extensive counselling for Donna, mutual friends had brought George and Donna together on a blind date, and after dating for nearly a year (and getting the approval of Mary and Clara, something that George had acknowledged as being very important), they were officially a couple.

George had asked Donna to marry him, but she had tactfully declined his invitation. The reasons that she gave him sounded quite sensible and reasonable to George: trust issues, once bitten twice shy, etc, so he took her refusal with very good grace. However, as Donna had pointed out, that didn't mean she didn't love him, and she invited him to come and live with her and the girls at their large apartment. That is what happened.

From his first birthday with him they treated it almost as if it was the birthday of a minor member of a royal family. They'd treat him to a cooked breakfast that they'd prepared themselves, then there would be gifts or tickets to a concert or a game. Nothing was too good for George.

Obviously, George was not a replacement for Charlie, nor did he try to become such, but Donna and the girls made sure that they knew he was loved and appreciated by them all.

This was why he was puzzled as to the lack of activity in the apartment. He got up, abluted, dressed and walked into the kitchen. Donna was sitting at the table and she had a look on her face that was both determined and pensive.

"Morning, Donna," he said. "Sorry, I overslept. Where are the girls?"

Donna replied "Morning, George. The girls went out early today. I asked them to go out, as I wanted to have a private talk with you.

"Please, sit down. The reason you overslept is because I gave you one of my sleeping pills last night. This was so you'd get a good night's sleep, also so you'd be asleep when the girls went out.

"I wanted the girls out of the apartment because I have something very important to say to you. It's like this... Charlie, my husband, is coming back home to be with myself and his daughters."

George felt stunned by this totally unexpected development. "Don't you mean your ex-husband, Charlie?"

"No, George. I never, actually, got around to divorcing Charlie, so we are still married. Still husband and wife."

George looked at her, at this stage he was bewildered but was becoming angrier by the second. "So, where the hell does that leave us, Donna? I thought you and I were happy together? Or wasn't that the case for you?"

"Oh, George!" she sounded sympathetic, "Of course I was happy with you. As were the girls, as are the girls, I should say. It's not that I wasn't happy with you, it's just that you aren't Charlie."

"I never tried to be Charlie, I never tried to replace him, I only ever tried to be me for you and the girls."

"Yes, that's true and I know that, I appreciate what you did for me and the girls, but Charlie is coming back home."

"So that means that there's no place for me in your lives? That I just have to get the hell out?"

She nodded, a sympathetic smile on her face. "That's a harsh way to put it, George, but, yes, ultimately that's the situation."

"Any reason why you chose today to do this?"

"Not really. Why do you ask?"

"Because today is my birthday and..." before he could finish, she let out a small shriek. "Oh, shit! In all the excitement I guess the girls and I overlooked that. I know we have made a long tradition out of making your birthday a very special day for you. Damn. I'm so sorry. Look, we'll arrange something for later this evening, if that's okay?"

He shook his head. "To be honest, under the circumstances I can't quite see the point. Why bother yourselves?"

His anger that had been brewing had abruptly become replaced with feelings of loss and despair. "What was it I got so wrong, Donna that you feel the need to throw me out of your lives like this?"

Donna looked distressed. "No! No, George! Please don't think like that! It's not your fault, there's nothing you did, or didn't do. It's just that you aren't Charlie, our Charlie, and our Charlie is coming back and..."

"I see. So, yeah, I guess I should be pleased that I was an adequate substitute, a placeholder until your real man came back into your lives."

Donna began dabbing at her eyes. "George, please understand that you were never a substitute, or a placeholder, you were our George. I hope you accept that?"

He shrugged. "But now I'll always think that this is why you never accepted my proposal of marriage because you always hoped that King Charles would come back and the Pretender, George would then be made to skulk away." He noticed that Donna flinched a little so he realised his remark had struck home, somewhat. She never corrected his impression.

"How long do I have, Donna?"

"Well, Charlie won't be back for two weeks, so you have two weeks to look for a new place to live. If you like, the girls and I will help you choose an apartment and help you fit it out."

Whatever," he muttered. Was he being disrespectful? He damn well hoped so.

He would get justice against Donna, as he always repaid slights with considerable interest.

Eventually, Donna stood up. She approached George and tried to kiss him, but he pulled away. "I'm sorry you are taking this so badly, George. I realise now that you will not have to go to work, because you always book your birthday off. I have to go to work, I have some very important meetings, however, I'll be back here at five, along with the girls and we can all discuss the situation together to work out the best way forward. For what it's worth I am very, very sorry."

After she had left, George pulled out his smartphone and used it to book a service called Instant Movers. Normally, he'd have to wait several days for an opening, but as luck would have it they had a cancellation at one PM that afternoon.

He quickly bagged up all his clothing and found a couple of boxes into which he put his iPod, which held all his music, his computer, his tablet and some important paperwork.

In the meantime, he had put in a call to a friend of his who rented out apartments. Could he help him with an apartment rental? Yes, he could. The only thing was, he hadn't had time to have it cleaned to his high standards, would George mind doing his own cleaning, cleaning up the mess left behind by someone else?

George laughed, a little. After all, wasn't that what he was already doing, cleaning up the mess left behind by someone else?

The thing about George, as his many friends and acquaintances would attest, once he made a decision he worked hard to ensure it was actioned immediately, if not sooner.

So it was when later that day Donna and her two daughters were sat in a coffee shop wondering how to sandbag George to make him somehow accept the unacceptable, George was giggling to himself about using a wooden floor cleaning spray with the intriguing name of Bona, some Goo Gone (what HAD that family who had the apartment before him spilled?) and some Lysol wipes.

There were tears at both venues. Finding out that you are being, willingly, replaced by your wife (for such did George think of Donna) and your step-children by the fucking loser who had just dumped them over a decade ago and done a runner to South America, or so George had heard, is enough to make any grown man cry at least a little.

Over the next two weeks everyone reached a "new normal" with varying degrees of satisfaction.

Donna and the girls had howled and cried a bit, too. After all, George was a kind, loving man, who certainly didn't deserve any of the shit they were busily shovelling on him, right?

They accepted they needn't have done this. It was all their fault, what was happening to George. But It would be worth it, after all, because Charlie was coming back, right? The girls could barely remember what Charlie had been like, though Donna had kept his memory alive in them, even though he'd shown almost no interest in Donna or the girls since he had abandoned them.

Still, the fact that they had had to sacrifice George's happiness for their own expected future happiness with Charlie, of sainted memory, was something that the three females had tried to bury deep. George would make out; George would do okay, but if only he would let them know he was doing okay. He had cut off all communication with them, and for good reason they realised.

George was doing fine without them. In fact, whenever his treacherous heart turned to thinking of Donna, Mary and Clara he would put his music on and rock out The Pasadenas - "I'm Doing Fine Now." "Without you baby!" he'd sing along. Okay, so his singing wasn't the best, but it was heartfelt and in the groove.

He realised the fact that Donna had never married him was a blessing, because (after having STD tests, well you never can be too careful, can you?) he was able to start dating again. It was only simple, baby steps at first, but when the story of what Donna had done to him spread round the office, he found that there were plenty of single women who would want to at least go out for drinks and a meal with George

Finally, the day came when Charlie asked his family to come and meet him at the airport.

As she waited in the airport post-security arrivals area with her daughters, Donna's mind was a whirling kaleidoscope of mixed emotions and thoughts: "Now! Now I have the chance to have my family back together, me, Mary, Carla and Charlie. My Charlie." Suddenly, unbidden, she saw an image of George and her heart, just for an instant, broke for him. "I'll have to make it up to George." She thought, though she knew this idea was just a delusional sop to her conscience.

She heard some footsteps in high heels clack-clack-clacking unsteadily on the tiled floor. She saw her... it... Him... her? Tottering toward them. It was obviously a transsexual; it wore a lumpen figure-hugging dress and above its disaster area make-up job was a dreadful hideous blond wig.

As it approached them, damn, Donna realised she must use better pronouns, she reached toward them and said in affected and exaggerated tones: "Don't you want to come and hug your husband and your daddy, Charles? Though I must admit that I prefer to go by the name Charlotte, after I had the last of my sex reassignment surgeries down there in Brazil."

The lyrics to the 1980s hit "Karma Chameleon" began to play in Donna's mind, as she slumped to the ground in front of her horrified daughters.

When the story of the over 6 foot tall transsexual having "Man! She ugly!" having to explain to airport security why she he or they (preferred pronouns mean nothing to an embittered female security agent who didn't give a damn about preferred pronouns) had a woman spark out on the floor before him got back to George he couldn't stop laughing until he was in tears. That, he decided, would be karma enough. Unless he could get bodycam footage? He grinned at the though.