Changing Room Epiphany
Copyright© 2026 by PostScriptor
Chapter 2
The next errand on Ollie’s little mental list would be difficult but satisfying.
He walked into the lobby of the gym and approached the receptionist.
“My name is Oliver Morgan, and I want a refund on my membership here.”
The young, fit, woman at the desk asked Ollie to sit for a moment until she could talk to the manager.
She put down the phone and asked him to follow her. He did and she led him to an office off to one side down a short corridor. She knocked and a voice said, “Come in.”
Ollie entered and found himself facing the woman who he believed was the American partner the business. Also, the source of the new ideas, like the unisex changing rooms.
“I understand that you want a refund on your membership. May I ask why?
“Absolutely. I purchased a ‘family gym membership’ for my wife and I, and only afterwards did I discover that the showers and changing rooms were unisex and filled with naked people parading around. Understand, I have no issue with nakedness per se, but I was uncomfortable with the situation, and I want out.”
“Hmmm...,” she hummed, “may I see your membership card?”
“Of course.” Ollie handed her the card.
She scanned the card and then looked at her computer screen.
“It says that you and your wife have been members for two months?”
“Yes, that’s about right.”
“Why didn’t you bring this up before?”
“I was trying to see if I could fit in and become accustomed to the situation, perhaps lose some of my inhibitions. I don’t blame the other people who are comfortable with it, but I’m not, and had I known from the beginning, I would never have signed up.”
“I see,” she replied.
“Well, if you feel that way, then let’s look at what we can do for you. You paid £5000 for an annual membership, which is, shall we say £417 per month, so if we deduct £834 for the two months...”
She paused.
“I see your wife is Ella Morgan or Burchard, or whatever she is calling herself?”
“Yes.”
“And she is Marc’s newest friend?”
“Yes.
“Does she know that you are shutting down the membership?
“No. But at this point, she has left me for Marc, so my opinion is that he can pick up her membership expense, not me.”
“Yes, I see.”
She paused again seeming to mull over the situation.
“I am going to refund the entire amount to you. Unlike you, I am completely at ease with people voluntarily being naked. But I am opposed to a situation in which, to my understanding, someone’s spouse, whether a man or a woman, is forcing them to do something against their beliefs, their morals or even their preferences.”
With that, she took my card that I had used two months earlier to pay for the membership and refunded the entire amount.
“Thank you so much for your understanding.”
“Thank you for coming to me first and allowing me to try and mitigate the damage done to you, rather than siccing your lawyers on my business.”
With that, she and Ollie parted.
Ollie came away with the feeling that she was lying to him. She didn’t give a shite about Marc and Ella. It was all about protecting herself and leading Ollie off in the wrong direction.
She had no idea of what Ollie was thinking or what he could do. Worse by far than lawyers.
~~&~~
As Ollie waited for a table for lunch, he checked his phone, seeing if Ella had sent any messages. Nothing. Not a surprise, but still, a disappointment.
His table was outside under the patio cover. It was a sunny, warm, pleasant day, so he was content with his meal, if not his life.
His mind picked up again from the night before.
Ella’s boss was promoted to head the entire European Division of the consulting firm. He had recommended Ella to lead the London branch, with the full support of the other members of their group, even those who were senior to Ella.
As soon as she got the promotion to Managing Director of the London office at the firm, suddenly she was making slightly more money than he was, not a huge amount but more, she began her process of tearing him down.
She insisted that her promotion, while Ollie kept writing, without a seeming upward path, without ambition for some grander goal, wouldn’t make a difference in their relationship. The lie came off her lips easily.
It started with what seemed to be reasonable requests, still within the context of the two of them making up a team, but there was a pattern that emerged.
She no longer asked, she commanded.
“Hey sweetie, I need you to pick up/drop off my clothes at the cleaners today.
“Ollie, stop at the store and pick up some things. The list is on the counter.
“Why don’t you do the vacuuming this week? I’m so behind at work, and you can control your time, since you are home most days.”
Ollie, alas, without realizing it, slipped into a pattern of simply saying, “Yes, dear,” never contesting or challenging her.
In her mind, her time was so precious; he was just a hack writer. She had lofty goals; Ollie was willing to go on writing. Her work was so important; no one would even notice if Ollie’s writing was to disappear from the earth.
Then there was the increased lack of intimacy, not just the diminution of sex, but also a lack of touching, kissing, wanting to know about his work, an across-the-board show of a fading interest. He’d thought that the decline was a natural result of being together for so long; now, he wasn’t so sure anymore.
Then there was the implicit threat that one day she would leave him.
He had never been the most assertive man, never one to walk into a room his back ramrod straight, his head held high. He had always been quiet, giving off body language that screamed his timidity. As Ella went on, she made him almost collapse in on himself.
“If you really loved me...” would be followed with demands. “I love you, but if you were a REAL man...” would lead onto a conditional statement that only made his worst fears rise to the surface.
His great fear: she didn’t really love him, and it was only a question of time before she would leave him for another man.
The result was, if she was chiding him to encourage him to be more assertive, had the opposite effect. He had felt his body almost shrinking in on itself.
In a way, her cajoling him to join this new gym seemed to be a self-fulfilling prophesy.
If he was already feeling like he was being tortured and almost driven insane, the changing room at the gym, unisex, naked, revealing all his worst flaws, his weakness and uncertainty, elevated things up yet another level. She was perfectly happy to go prancing around naked as a baby, while he found it embarrassing and demeaning.
He’d always known that she didn’t mind being somewhat risqué in her dress, but he’d never thought of her as a closet exhibitionist. Now he knew better.
There were also the intellectual put-downs that had become her practice.
Ollie would ask her about her projects, and she would respond with a “Oh, you would be so bored by it,” or worse, she had recently begun saying things like, “Oh, it’s too complicated for you,” or “You wouldn’t understand, it’s a very sophisticated mathematical approach.”
All her excuses, refusing to communicate with him, hurt, but the last one was absurd. At Uni, Ollie had only been one class away from a double in English Lit AND mathematics. He was probably as knowledgeable in maths as anyone in her group, and knowing what she had studied for her MBA, he knew that he was more knowledgeable than she.
Anyway, no one in her group was doing any sophisticated math themselves. Everything was done on spreadsheets where the equations were built in and the only thing the people in her group needed to do was to copy in the data into the correct cells. Trivial.
Indeed, on one occasion when he joined Ella and her group at a pub after working hours, a couple of her co-workers got into a discussion about encryption, and were surprised when Ollie joined in. He clearly knew more about RSA encryption and knap-sack algorithms in general than they did. He even raised the possibility, when they started going on about how secure RSA public key encryption was, how it would take computers thousands of years to break one message, that with a new generation of ultra-fast quantum computers, what had been an impossible task might become possible.
Ella was oblivious to their conversation.
It was his sad conclusion, that Ella had stopped respecting him, and began considering him beneath her, long ago.
He still had some faint hope that she would come back, even if he had to share her with Marc as distasteful as that would be, but his brain told him that there was no coming back.
~~&~~
One thing that came out of his conversation with the banker was the thought of selling their flat and keeping the increased amount that real estate was going for currently.
He knew one thing for sure: he was NOT going to go back to the agent that he and Ella had used before. She and Ella had become friendly and the last thing he wanted was for the agent to let Ella know.
He checked his phone once again, and there were still no messages from Ella. It was clear that being fucked by Marc drove any thought of Ollie from her mind.
He looked through his contact list for a name he thought he could use. She was not an estate agent herself, but as an independent mortgage broker, she might know someone he could trust to go to.
His call went first to an answering service.
“Annabell Smith Mortgages, This is her service,” came the voice on the phone.
“Yes, this is Ollie Morgan, and I spoke to Annabell once for an article on mortgage rates in the greater London area. Could you leave a message that I called and have her call back?”
“Yes, sir. And what is your number?”
Ollie gave it and signed off.
By that time, Ollie had walked back to the flat and was going up the stairs to the front door, when his phone rang.
“Ollie Morgan.”
“Ollie, it’s Annabell. It’s so good to hear from you again. Do you have another article on interest rates and mortgages to write?”
“No, but I WAS hoping you could help me in a different way.”
“Not a problem. What do you need?”
“Do you have the name of an estate agent who you’ve worked with and who you absolutely trust?”
There was a melodious laugh on the other end of the phone.
“An estate agent who I completely trust? You know that estate agents are just above used vehicle salespeople on the low levels of trust scale. But,” she reflected, “Still above Members of Parliament!” She laughed again.
“But I do have one, my sister. If I can’t trust her, then there’s no one I CAN trust. Here’s her number, give her a call. She’s working today. Let her know that I steered you her way.”
“Thanks, I will.”
After a few additional passing pleasantries, they ended the call.
From inside the flat, Ollie called Annabell’s sister, Donna.”
~&~
Donna Freeland answered her phone on the third ring.
“Donna Freeland.”
“Ms. Freeland, this is Ollie Morgan.”
“Mr. Morgan, my sister texted me that you might be calling. How may I help you?”
“I want to sell my flat and look at some other residences further out from the city.”
Within a couple of minutes Donna had gotten Ollie’s address and told him she would be at his flat in half-an-hour.
She didn’t actually arrive for 35 minutes. Traffic, she said.
Donna, like her sister Annabelle, was a ginger. She was about 1.6 meters tall, enough shorter than Ollie that he would still be taller if she was in heels. She had a trim, athletic body, with modest breasts that ‘fit’ her. Ollie was disturbed by the thought that SHE wouldn’t be embarrassed by her body in the unisex changing room, although she might object for other reasons. He found her pert ass, rounded enough to be notable, but not grossly large, and her long, shapely legs, so attractive that he had to consciously avoid staring at them.
Then there was her voice. It was more alto than soprano, smooth and melodious. Ollie wondered if she was a singer.
Ollie estimated that Donna was a similar age to him and Ella; young enough to still look like she was in her 20’s, but experienced enough to project a mature, business-like attitude. She was perfect.
Like all estate agents, Donna was quite anxious to list the property, but she decided that she definitely needed to talk to Ollie first.
Shortly after she arrived, she and Ollie both had cups of coffee in their hands and mutually agreed to be on a first-name basis.
“Ollie,” she started, “this seems to be a bit of an impulsive decision to sell your flat. May I ask why? I don’t mean to be too forward, but I don’t want a client who reconsiders what they want to do, and we have to cancel things. I’d rather you take a day or two to think about this, if you have any doubts in your mind.”
“That’s very wise of you Donna, and I appreciate you asking. But I’ve become convinced as I thought about it today, and there is no point in dilly-dallying once one has made their mind up is there.”
Ollie then took her on ‘the tour’ of the flat, through the rooms, as she took notes.
“Ollie, I’m so sorry, but I must ask. I noticed quite a lot of women’s clothing, shoes and makeup and the like. Do you have a wife? And if so, shouldn’t she be here and part of our plans to sell the flat?”
“In answer to your first question, Donna, I do have a wife—technically speaking. We are separated; in truth the reality is worse, she abandoned me to be with another man, someone she met at the gym we had started using.”
Ollie blushed with shame at his confession, but he felt compelled to tell this woman the truth.
He then related how Ella had been promoted at work and began, months before, treating him more like a subordinate, or a servant even, demeaning him, humiliating him, psychologically torturing him. He clearly understood now that he had always loved her more than she him, and she had left him after hurting him in the most brutal way possible.
“But” Ollie added, “she is not a signatory on the deed to the house, and I’ve made all of the payments since we’ve lived here. Consequently, I think that I am on firm legal ground that I can sell it if I so chose. I may have to pay her some of the gain, which has been substantial since we purchased the property, but that would have to be part of the divorce settlement.”
“So, there is a divorce in process?” Donna asked.
“Not that I know of; not yet anyway.”
“Well, that answers my question. I must say, I’ve never heard of a more vicious, nasty, way for a woman, not just to leave a man, but to humiliate him as well.”
With that, Ollie signed the reams of forms (well, not really reams, but many) that would put the flat up for sale. Then they planned how they would sell it and how much they would ask for the property. It was a property in a highly desired area (“Location, location, location!” Donna explained, ) and they were pricing it realistically.
Ollie did ask that no sign should be put up in front of the house, but it was fine to put it onto the multiple listing service.
“We won’t ask too much and then have them trying to get the price down, but we will also make it clear that you are not desperate to sell it either. In fact, I have several clients in mind who would be interested in seeing it.”
Donna arrived the next morning with a crew of people to prep the flat. They carefully boxed and labeled all of Ella’s clothes, shoes, and other personal possessions. Those would be put into a storage facility and Ollie paid up-front for six-months’ rent.
The only exception was Ella’s jewelry. Ollie did sort through her box and picked out the things that he had purchased over the years that had some intrinsic value. The rest went with her other possessions. No point in supplying her the classy, expensive baubles to wear for Marc. Let Marc buy her fancy jewelry if he wanted.
Ollie was interested to find out that Ella had already taken her business-related computer and files away. He assumed she had taken them to Marc’s abode, wherever that was. There was also a large suitcase missing and some of her clothes as well, which Ollie assumed she had taken with her when she left. It was revealing though, that her abandoning him was not the spontaneous, spur of the moment, thing she presented. It was planned and executed behind his back. More pain.