Destroying Fantasies 3 Part 2

Apologies for the delays in posting this. Hope readers aren't too miffed. Enjoy reading! 


Ashley's hands reached out to Will as her eyes reluctantly opened. She knew it was the last day of their cruise but Will had promised that the excitement hadn't ended and there was one last surprise. He hadn't revealed his plans and she didn't want to insist. The holiday had been a dream come true. The visit with her mom was a little awkward but the cruise was everything she thought it would be. Not that they had seen much of the ship since they were often holed up in the suite and fucking like rabbits. The time away from everything seemed to have sparked the passion that they had started the marriage with. The week they had back in their college town had been most magical. A smile curved her lips as she felt the tenderness of her breasts, she'd her suspicions but didn't want to raise expectations unnecessarily. Even if she wasn't already pregnant, she would soon be since they were going at it like teenagers and she'd stopped taking the pill soon after the nanny incident. Any recollection of that still made her grit her teeth. That memory was raw and every time she thought she'd started forgetting, something would trigger it and the wounds started bleeding again. A word, a thought, the sight of a blonde. There was no telling when she'd be reminded. That was the reason why she went along with Will's pace, even when he became increasingly rough in California and on the cruise. There was something slightly odd in the way Will behaved at times. It almost seemed as if he had detached himself, even as they made love. She had caught him looking at her sometimes like he expected her to say something to him. These little things crowded on the fringes of her mind but she refused to allow them to ruin her mood.


Her hands touched cool sheets and a small frown crossed her face. Perhaps he was just checking in on his writing assignments. That was usually the time she used to check her email and to log in her journal entries. When he was done, they would both log in to Cary's webcam to check in on the boy.

Ashley stretched reluctantly and got up. It was time to start the next part of her holiday.

****


Ashley was mildly surprised that Will was fully dressed and sitting at the dining table of their suite when she padded out in search of him.


"Darling, why are you sitting here?" Ashley whispered as she threw her arms around his neck and kissed his ear.


"Ashley, you should sit. We need to talk."


The quiet, unemotional tone of his voice sent the first flares of unease through Ashley's body. She took the seat next to Will, her eyes scanning his impassive face anxiously.


"Ashley, here's your ticket to the next part of the holiday."

"Where's yours? Aren't we going together? Oh god, something's happened back home? Is-is it Cary?"


He took pity on her, seeing her pale at the thought of something having happened to her son.


"No, nothing's wrong with Cary. He's fine. I just checked with Emma."

He watched as Ashley took a breath of relief before her brow furrowed with confusion.


"So why aren't you coming along?"


"Because this is your once-in-a-lifetime chance to find out what it's like to live another life."


He watched as shock followed realisation and she looked at the ticket to Florida like a coiled snake.

"Why?"

A whisper that sounded like a scream.

"Because it never really went away. Whatever it was you had with that neighbour never really went away."
Will held his hand up as Ashley tried to protest.

"Yes, you may not have continued your physical relationship and he may have moved. But he's been there. In your mind, your memories and your fantasies. And you have no intention of letting them go."

Will bit back a smile as Ashley's eyes widened with dismay and fear.

"But I've tried. I swear he's no longer in my heart or mind."

Ashley knew the moment the words came out that she'd made a mistake. Will's face hardened and her heart plummeted.

"So what part of you is left untouched by that man? Did he displace me at some point?"

"No!" Ashley almost shouted in desperation. "I-I was just confused and I...I thought I loved him. But when there came that decision to leave or stay, I stayed because I loved you more. Surely that counts for something!"

"Just not enough to stop you from fucking him and betraying me!"

Will hadn't raise his voice but Ashley recoiled as if the accusation had the volume of a rock concert. There was silence as each observed the other, Will with increasing cold calm and Ashley with trepidation.

"Here's the deal Ashley. You made the decision to forget and forsake your vows the first chance you had when I was away on work. At least own up to that."

Ashley's furious shaking of her head and even the tears brimming in her eyes didn't shake his resolve.

"You continued killing our marriage by running around behind my back. And then watched as your fuckbuddy publicly humiliated me when I confronted you. Your best friend and Mrs Thompson had to be the ones to inform me, the dumb cuckold, that my wife was busy banging the neighbour when I was all worried about your health. And what did he say when I asked him if he was in the habit of fucking other people's wives? That he did when he was asked to. You made the decision to shred our marriage and relationship."

Will found himself getting louder as Ashley started sobbing. He was determined to be heard.

"And after you broke it off and said your goodbyes, did he really leave? No. He was there. A contaminant that was eating away at us but you kept him there. And then you had help from him keeping those wonderful memories alive - that postcard telling you what you could have in another life. The modern day Romeo and Juliet. How you must have laughed at me, the poor fool of a husband who's only able to stand in for your fantasy, ideal mate!"

"N-no!" Ashley fairly screamed. "You're wr-wrong! I-I was just so d-down and t-tired and you-you were never there. I just needed-needed some thrill. I-I never thought I was risking our mar-marriage. I never thought I-I w-was hurting you. I'm so so sorry!"

Will watched as the woman he'd once loved so much he couldn't imagine living life without dissolve into a sobbing heap. His heart still ached but he wasn't sure if it was for her pain or his own. He did know one thing was certain; that his love had been so tainted by her callous betrayal and her selfish indulgence of her lust and fantasies that it was no longer something he could define clearly.


"Doesn't change the fact that you made a conscious choice, Ashley. Be honest. No one forced adultery on you. And even when you were pregnant and when Cary was born, you held onto those fantasies and that postcard. Did you really think I never saw you crying over that card?"

Ashley shook her head, unable to explain how she'd needed those fantasies back then. How she'd revelled in the memories and the experience of living a fantasy. How she took the pain she'd inflicted and suffered and transformed them into glorious battle scars that she could relish as trophies of an experience gained and enjoyed.

"Did you ever consider you were continuing to cheat on me, on our marriage, on Cary every time you relived memories of that affair? Every single time was a stab at a bleeding wound."

"But-but yo-u..."

"Had my share of affairs too? One night stands?" Will had been prepared for this evidently.


"I was never unfaithful to you, to us, till I discover your affair. Even then, I never let them linger. You, on the other hand, kept stabbing our marriage and offering fresh blood to that vampire of a fantasy lover. Now, now it's almost bled out."

Ashley watched with horror as Will tossed a thick envelope on the table, having removed two from his luggage which she just noticed was next to his chair.

"You made your choices back then and forced the consequences on me. Now I've made my decision but I'll leave you a choice.”

He watched as his wife opened the envelope with trembling fingers. The sobs started back up as she glimpsed the separation agreement.

"I'm giving you a chance to observe what another life looks like, Ashley. No strings attached. Spend three weeks with a friend of mine, Ellen. She'll help you understand the man you chose over your vows back then. At the end of three weeks, you can decide if you prefer to lead another life or if you prefer the boring married life we have had."

After a lengthy silence in which Ashley struggled to restore control over herself, she asked almost inaudibly, “And if I refuse this crazy plan?"

"Then you'll not be receiving this no fault separation agreement. The minute you step foot back home, the petition for divorce in this other envelope will be filed. Based on irreconcilable differences arising from adultery. Everyone, and that basically means most of our neighbours and the reporting officers on the day I confronted you and your fuckbuddy, who has the slightest knowledge of your affair will be summoned as witnesses. Though the evidence may not hold up in court, the scandal will be enough to destroy you. And I'll get the doctors to testify that your preoccupation with your adulterous companion makes you an unfit mother. You will not see your son for as long as this drags through court. Do you think Cary will recognise you when he next sees you?"

Will winced internally. He hated using his son but that last twist was necessary to push Ashley to the edge with no space for more thought.

"Y-you wouldn't!"

Ashley's eyes rounded with horror. She'd never seen Will act this way.

"Why can't we just leave that all in the past? I thought we were doing that. Wasn't that what this trip is all about?"

"Did you, Ashley? You made the past a present continuous. You took the past, renewed its glory constantly and made it a medal that you hung over our bed. You enshrined it in your mind. And I can't do anything about it because I can't reach you. So now I want you to deal with it. Make your choice. "

Will felt some satisfaction seeing how the truth of his words brought a grimace to Ashley's face.

"And if I agree to your deal?"


"Then you get these no fault separation papers and a trip to Florida. If you decide at the end of three weeks that you prefer another life, you just have to sign these papers and send them back. You'll have joint custody of Cary but he'll not be travelling outside of the state till he's 16. So you'll have to fly back to visit. I'll send you tickets each year if you wish. But I'll not allow contact between my son and your companion. You'll just have to visit him alone."

"Why are you assuming I'll leave?"

"Because I made the mistake of thinking you never would betray us. I never make the same mistake twice."

"And what if I choose us after three weeks?"

Will saw the hidden streak of defiance he'd known ran through his wife in the determined gleam in her swollen eyes and firm chin. He admired her confidence in her mind and self even if he didn't share that confidence.


"Then we really put everything behind us. Draw that line in the sand and try to build our marriage from the bottom up."

Ashley stared at him. Apart from the fear and wariness, he saw hope flare in her eyes. In that instant he knew she would agree.

"Just one last thing, Ashley. You'll get a chance to see what another life looks like. But if you decide to meet or reach out to that man in any way, if you decide to start another life even before the three week deal is up, have the decency to sign and return these papers."


With that, Will picked up his luggage and headed for the door.

"Where are you going?"

Will stopped, reluctantly reacting to the panic in her voice. "I'm going to see to the disembarking procedures. We're sharing the car to the airport."

****

It was the longest ride both of them had ever taken. Ashley couldn't take the silence for long despite Will's obvious reluctance to engage in conversation.

"Why are you doing this now? During this holiday that was our chance to get away from everyone and everything?"

"Because you weren't letting it go. And you clung onto your fantasies and other life. Tell me you didn't resent me or Cary at some point."

Her shamefaced silence was his answer.

"How long have you planned this?"

"Ever since I found out about the postcard. I'd planned something before that but then you announced your pregnancy so..."

"So Cary changed nothing. Just delayed it."

Ashley's hands clenched over her belly but Will didn't notice the gesture.

No I can't tell him. If I’m pregnant, it'll just mean postponement. If I'm not, he'll think I'm trying to deceive him again.


She sat there barely conscious of him opening the door and helping her walk towards the departure gates. Only when he turned to leave did she recover enough to grasp his arm. She looked hard at the man she loved and married and betrayed. She kissed him and walked through the gates. To the nightmare she now realised was the other life she thought she'd wanted.


****
Ashley walked out the arrival gates, hardly aware of where she was going, she just put one foot in front of the other and followed the mass of humanity that flowed out. It was only when she was stopped by a kind looking older lady calling her name that she realised she was in Florida.

“Ashley? Ashley? Are you okay?”

The lady smiled and shook her arm a little.

“You...do you know me?”

“Hi, I’m Ellen, Will’s friend? You’ll be staying with me while you’re here in Florida.”

“You’re helping Will in this-this crazy scheme of his, aren’t you?” Ashley glared accusingly at the older woman, allowing her anger at Will to flow freely at the one target that was a substitute for the husband who had forced her on this crazy journey.

The expression of sympathy on the woman’s face and her sudden realisation that Will had planned all this over the two years since her affair left Ashley feeling suddenly overwhelmed. Her knees almost buckled, her eyes burned with tears and all she wanted to do was to curl up on the floor and simply cease to exist.

Ellen was standing next to her in a flash, having recognised the shock and distress that was overwhelming the young wife and mother. In so many ways, it was so like her own predicament on that front porch of her former home that Ellen’s heart went out to the young woman next to her. Cheating wife or not, no one deserved this. She muttered several invectives under her breath at the young man she’d come to think of as a son of sorts. As she directed the younger woman towards her car, she noticed how Ashley was, for all intents and purposes, moving without much awareness of her surroundings and seemingly uncaring of where she was headed.

Nope, not well done at all, Will.

Ellen sighed not for the first time that day as she thought of what lay ahead in the upcoming weeks. While she had come to understand and empathise with the young man who’d approached her for help when he’d first discovered his wife’s betrayal, Ellen had disagreed with Will’s plan when he first brought it up almost half a year ago. Despite the arguments and persuasion she had thrown his way, it became apparent Will was not about to change his mind or course. She had agreed to help simply because she feared things would be even more complicated and might spiral out of control if she didn’t intervene.


Ashley leaned her head against the glass of the car and sat in silence as Ellen drove her towards God knows where. She wasn’t overly interested, she was still too shocked to deal with the fact that she was cruising the streets of Florida with a woman she hardly knew, who was aiding her husband in his madness.

Her overwrought nerves was making her feel nauseated and the humidity of Florida’s summer was starting to make her gag. Ellen handed Ashley a sick bag before the younger woman could even ask for one. After the younger woman finished her dry heaves into the bag, Ellen reached into the dashboard compartment and handed her a mini bottle of water. “Here, you should probably get some water down, it’ll help. Never had to deal with summer in Florida huh?”

Ashley’s weak nod answered her question and the silence stretched. Ashley was so out of it that she barely registered the fact that they'd arrived at their destination and certainly never noticed Ellen's sudden rush to get her into the building. So it was no surprise that she failed to recognise the familiar figure slamming out of the house across the street who rode his bike noisily out of the driveway. Then again, neither did the man recognise the married woman he'd had an affair with almost two years ago. The adulterous couple went past each other absorbed in their own thoughts with no sign of their magical connection in sight.

****

Ellen thought it best to let Ashley rest for a few hours before Will's plan started. When Ashley woke and walked out to the dining room, Ellen cleared her throat and asked her guest to sit down at the table for a talk.

"I'm not sure how much Will has told you about the idea behind your trip to Florida," Ellen began, heading straight to the crux of the issue.

"He wants me to observe Jackson for three weeks before making my decision," Ashley stated flatly, her voice devoid of any emotion.

"That's true, but there are two things you need before that starts." Ellen pushed a stack of thick files towards Ashley.

Ashley looked at the pile of files in front of her with some puzzlement.

"What's this?"

"This is the information on Jackson gathered by the agency hired by Will. Including information on the woman he's currently with."

Ashley had expected to feel more emotional at hearing that Jackson was with someone else. So she was surprised that all she felt was that slight twinge of irritation or annoyance, that sourness at hearing one of her exes in college was with a new girl. She was keenly aware of the fact that Ellen was watching her closely but was still too unsettled by the recent turn of events to be too bothered.

"So, I'm to read this? This is part of the test?"

Ashley didn't like the rueful smile on the older lady's face.

"Let's just call it preparatory work."

By the time they broke for lunch, Ashley felt like she'd learnt more about her bad boy ex-lover than she'd ever wanted to know. Jackson had started getting into trouble since the senior year of high school. Going from hitting on the principal's daughter to the preacher's niece. There was a mention about his having caused some trouble for a married teacher but no real charges were ever brought and the teacher transferred away before he graduated. At one point, about a month before graduation, there was a record of a misdemeanour. Apparently, the town hospital reported a spate of vandalism incidents. And on one occasion, they had reported that Jackson was caught on camera not just vandalising hospital property but also puncturing the tyres of a doctor who had been his attending doctor a short while earlier. When asked why he'd done all that, Jackson simply said he wanted to punish that lying doctor. Charges were eventually dropped after his mother pleaded with the hospital and the authorities. A month later, Jackson graduated and left town. It had been barely weeks after his estranged father passed away due to an accident. From then on, it was a life of drifting, work and hanging with bikers. It didn't take long before he fell in with a biker gang whose local chapter ran guns and drugs. Jackson rose up the ranks and seemed to get along with the gang leader till things took a turn for the worse.

A week after Jackson paid his mother one of his infrequent visits, the FBI raided the hangout of the gang and arrested the chapter leader along with several senior enforcers. The FBI seemed really lucky, striking the jackpot almost literally, carrying out that raid just as the gang was completing a deal. In one fell swoop, they nabbed gang members, the leader and a load of evidence.

Jackson was pretty lucky too, he had ridden off to headquarters to ask for another load of goods just minutes before the Feds closed in. While there was some suspicion surrounding his lucky escape, the gang's attention soon turned to the local deputy sheriff who had been asking for a larger cut of profits in return for keeping a watch out for the authorities and ensuring gang activities didn't attract unnecessary attention. It helped that the deputy sheriff turned state witness, which completely exonerated Jackson in the eyes of the gang.

If anything, Jackson rose through the ranks at a phenomenal speed once he had relocated to the gang's headquarters. The old man running the gang, one of its founding members, took a shine to Jackson. Particularly after his son, the chapter leader, landed in prison.

The old man took Jackson under his wing and made him a deputy. Then one day, Jackson disappeared. Along with a bunch of the gang's money and the latest squeeze of the old man, a young woman just a year older than Jackson himself. Not that the gang took much notice of the whole affair since the Feds raided headquarters before anyone even noticed Jackson's absence. Jackson's part in the whole shit storm only came to light when he appeared in the witness stand on the part of the prosecution.

Surprisingly, the trial went off without a hitch till after the sentencing. Jackson had looked at the old man and screamed out in court, "Don't you want to know why? You old bastard! Remember Margaret Miller? Remember the child you left her with? The bastard has come back to roost, you old fuck! I'm fucking your woman like some cheap slut and she can't get enough of it! Neither can your son's whore!"

Jackson's outburst apparently brought nothing from the old man in way of reaction since the court reporter merely described the old man as giving a crooked smile and spitting at Jackson when he was led away while court officials tried to restrain the incoherent young man.

That episode was followed by a silence of almost three years, in which time it was assumed that Jackson had gone into the Federal Witness Protection Program. But the boy didn't seem capable of staying out of trouble. Leading a quiet life was something beyond Jackson.  He apparently retrieved some of his loot from the gang, resurfaced in a town and was soon involved with the pastor's daughter. It was scandalous since she'd married her high school sweetheart who was the mayor's son. Jackson had been in town barely a month before there was gossip that the mayor's son's wife was spotted taking rides on the back of the stranger's bike. Madison, it seemed, had a predilection for bad boys.

The flood of information that inundated her brain made Ashley glad when Ellen asked her to break for lunch. The older woman decided not to probe when she noticed Ashley's preoccupied state as both women picked over the salad and pasta that Ellen had prepared. All through lunch, Ashley pondered if she would have gotten involved with Jackson if she'd known just what kind of troubled past lay behind that bad boy.

Ok, I liked that air of mystery and danger that Jackson had. But I never thought he was really capable of anything seriously bad. Face it Ashley, you just want the bad boy vibe but not the real deal.

Ashley sighed and looked up from her salad to see the older lady look at her with some amusement.

"Must be a fascinating conversation in your head," Ellen chuckled.

Ashley merely rolled her eyes but relaxed for the first time since Will dropped his surprise on her. Ellen noticed the younger woman was visibly less tensed and decided to leave her to her own devices and the stack of files Will had the agency compile. She didn't think it would have done well to let the younger woman know that Will had called in twice to check on her. It was abundantly clear that Will still loved his wife. Equally clear was Will's inability to trust or forgive his wife. In some way she understood the young husband's obsession with punishing  his wife and testing her. If he never got the poison out of his system, their marriage was doomed and both were condemned to a lifetime of pain, trapped in a cage with shattered glass at every turn. She turned and looked at the young wife, praying the younger woman had the mettle to see a way through.

Ashley, meanwhile, was absorbed in the picture of Jackson's latest companion that she was beginning to assemble from the files that the PI agency had put together. What began as a curious sense of familiarity soon gave way to a disturbing realisation that Madison was a version of herself leading a similar but yet different life. A younger woman who had always been average; looks, grades and even lifestyle. Nothing stood out. They were both brunette, of average height and even shared the same penchant for bad boys which the pastor's daughter had wisely kept under wraps. However, gossip among her school friends had revealed that she'd dated the bad boys back in school and only stopped after her last boyfriend slapped her around. She was rescued by the town's favourite boy, also the mayor's son. She seemed to have decided to take the safe option from then and eventually married the guy after they graduated college.

Madison worked as a personal assistant to the town's most successful businessman, her uncle. While she kept her head down and seemed quietly contented with her life, she always seemed to be daydreaming and often went through her days with her head in the clouds. Ashley recognised with no small dose of irony the same signs of latent restlessness, repressed dissatisfaction and boredom that marked her own life before she encountered Jackson.

With that understanding, Ashley was hardly surprised that three days after Jackson rolled into town, Madison had taken notice of the stranger with that clear bad boy vibe and had been spotted chatting with him at the local supermarket. Perhaps it was the claustrophobia of her hometown, Madison fell hard for the stranger and was seen taking rides on his bike when she'd pleaded off work saying she'd a headache or wasn't feeling well. When she was spotted kissing the stranger, the elders of the town decided things had gone far enough. Some clearly warned the stranger to clear out of town and Madison's parents and friends staged an intervention. Her husband had been completely unaware of what she'd been up to, having been preoccupied by work and plans for starting a family.

Under the enormous pressure of family and friends, Madison broke down and confessed that while she hadn't started a physical affair with Jackson, she was close to capitulating. She'd actually packed a small bag and was about to leave town with Jackson when she felt unwell and visited the doctor. The news that she was two months pregnant had terrified her and proved to be the deal breaker for Jackson who left her to get home from the clinic alone. He'd returned to his rental to face Madison's father and brothers and left without much fuss.

Madison had apparently repented her scandalous behaviour and decided to become a good wife and mother. Yet, the aftereffects of her short adventure never waned. She moped for much of her pregnancy and dreamt of what could have been, according to her cousin whom she'd confided in when her depression got too much for her.

Looking at the timeline presented by the PI information, Ashley was mildly surprised that it was barely three months before he rolled into her neighbourhood.

So much for never having been with a married woman before me. Well, I guess it is technically true since Madison didn't sleep with me. No, just slutty me who couldn't keep from sleeping with the bad boy new neighbour.

Ashley groaned as she thought of how easily she'd fallen. Where it had been easy to disguise her misdeeds, seeing her behaviour mirrored in someone so similar to her made her realise both the shallow crudity that Will and perhaps others saw in her as well as Jackson's ability to spot and exploit the vulnerability of his female targets.

Damn, the counsellors and psychiatrists were right!

She swallowed that bitter realisation with difficulty as she sipped the coffee Ellen had offered her. It was hard to ignore what she’d seen play out in front of her, in that little mirror named Madison. The biggest difference was Madison took that leap and was now living her dream with Jackson.

According to what Madison's cousin revealed, Madison never truly got over Jackson and her fantasies over what could have been worsened after the birth of her daughter. Dissatisfaction, fantasies surrounding the bad boy and postnatal depression worsened by the bloated body shape she felt was the legacy of her ill-timed pregnancy made Madison all the more resentful of her family and husband who she blamed for trapping her and causing her misery.

Ashley found herself wondering at some point why Madison's family failed to get her professional psychiatric or counselling help. She figured that the shame the family felt at Madison's behaviour probably contributed to their blindness to the seething emotions and the suppressed anger that Madison was harbouring but which seeped out in tell-tale signs. According to other friends that the agents ferreted information out of, Madison was distant from her husband following the discovery of her elopement attempt. That distance extended to her baby daughter when the infant was born. Most friends noted that it was Madison's husband who took care of the infant while Madison often seemed annoyed by the wailing infant. Madison's cousin also revealed that any attempt by her husband to persuade her to see a psychiatrist or a counsellor resulted in angry refusals and a sullen Madison.

Things changed about two months after Madison's daughter was born. Madison became less emotional and was actively trying to lose weight. While she slept in a different room from her husband, she no longer treated him or the baby with hostility. In fact, she began to show some affection to her daughter, almost, as her cousin described it, as if she felt guilt over her bad behaviour.

Just when everyone breathed a sigh of relief thinking Madison was getting back to being the nice girl next door that she had been, she disappeared. Her husband and family were frantic. She had cleared out the bank account she'd solely in her name. She didn't leave any messages indicating any trouble. Only two weeks later did she send a postcard with a postmark indicating a location in California.

In that postcard, she'd said she was tired of obeying the rules all the time and decided to live the way she wanted with the man she loved. She asked her family not to look for her and that she didn't want anything from her marriage, not any money or even her own daughter. Her husband was devastated but had no choice but to focus on the little girl who had been abandoned by her own mother. The family never gave up looking for Madison but had little luck locating her. Only when they looked into the mailbox Madison had maintained on the desktop computer in the house did they discover Madison had gotten into contact with Jackson. He had sent her an email shortly after she'd given birth and they had rekindled their affair.

Over the last year, Madison had travelled with Jackson as he went across different states, dodging the pursuit of remaining members of the biker gang he'd betrayed years earlier. He'd made occasional trips to visit Margaret, his mother but never felt comfortable enough to stay. That changed almost six months earlier when Madison apparently wanted to settle down somewhere. Jackson picked Florida again, just as he had after his affair with Ashley had ended.

It was hard to swallow but Ashley felt strangely relieved that she now knew more about the man next door than she'd ever thought to find out. The air of enigmatic mystery peeled away to show the dents and scars of a complicated man she once had such strong fantasies about. Ashley wasn't sure if she truly saw past those illusions she had and saw the man behind the mysterious air. Yes, she'd had something for the bad boy type but this wasn't just some bad boy cliché, he was a criminal who dodged the law by betraying his fellow accomplices and what was likely his own family. She wasn't sure she'd have gone for that bad boy vibe if she'd known what he was really like.

Thinking about Madison was tough for Ashley. Sure, there was the slight twinge when she realised that it took Jackson almost no time getting over her and shifting back to Madison. Even shorter if she took into account the time between her receiving the postcard and when Jackson started back up with Madison. Then she reflected on the fact that it took Jackson less than three weeks before he fucked her on his couch. A familiar wave of shame hit her again.

How can I possibly judge that woman when I'm no better?

Ashley shook her head as she tried recalling the emotions and thoughts that drove her into the arms of the man next door. As she pondered, she realised it was the first time she'd ever been able to confront her adulterous affair without shying away from the truth of her actions. She was unhappy, she'd felt trapped, drowning in the mundane responsibilities of being a married woman and dreading the life of interminable humdrum drudgery that seemed to await her. Will was preoccupied with work and getting them more secure financially so they could start a family. They were fighting because Will didn't seem to have time to be with her and she was keenly aware that it seemed as if she was becoming less attractive. Her confidence had gone the way of her zest for life, crushed by the burden of middle class struggles.

Jackson had appeared and reignited her bad boy obsession. Along with that obsession came those memories of what life had been when she was younger, when she was back in school, before life became complicated and all its colours muted. She was reminded of the energy and desire for what life had to offer, a stark contrast to the enervated existence she felt she had at that point. Fairly or otherwise, Jackson, with all his enigmatic air of mystery and bad boy vibe, offered not just that freedom she felt speeding away on the back of his bike but also that other life she'd always imagined she would have as a teenager. A life that was exciting, fun, free. A life that didn't include having to work at a boring job, scrimping and saving and dealing with the frustrations of life. A life that she now realised was so exciting because it was undefined. And unrealistic.

Ashley sighed. Her penchant for escapism had coloured all of her illusions and fantasies surrounding Jackson and that other life that she saw herself living with him. All of that merely enhanced the quality of sex that she'd experienced with him. She'd thought she'd experienced the best sex and orgasms of her life with Jackson, fuelled as they were by her fantasies. And if she were honest with herself, the thrill of doing something she knew was wrong, when she'd been eager all her life to conform and gain approval, merely heightened the sexual excitement.

Ashley felt shame turning her all red as she recalled how she'd silently rejected Will sexually after her first fuck session with Jackson. She'd compared her lovers and thought her husband lacking. Yet, the threat of the threesome that Will had initiated on the day she said goodbye to Jackson and her discovery of Will with Lisa had made her more attuned to Will’s attractions, something she’d forgotten in all the years they had been together. As much as she hated to admit it, Will had become a different man after his discovery of her affair and in many ways, that and the threat of possibly losing him to another woman brought a new edge to their lovemaking.

Yes, that was the difference! We make love, with anyone else it was just fucking.

Ashley never told anyone but for a time after Will resumed having sex with her, she felt he was merely fucking her. Gone was the gentle, loving Will. The new Will was rough and less considerate. Sure, he gave her pleasure but also took his without worrying if she was comfortable or not. There was a part of him that he kept turned off and shut out from her. Some of that sweet Will had returned when she was pregnant with Cary though she suspected that it was largely because of the baby.

A frown creased her brow as Ashley recalled Will's distance and behaviour during the cruise. She almost facepalmed herself.

How could I have missed the warning signs? Will was so obviously putting distance between us before he set me this test.

Ashley's heart sank as the thought of Will having made his mind up and writing off their marriage struck her.

No! Calm down. If Will had decided that, he would have served me divorce papers. No, he just wants me to see the truth of what I had wanted for so long, the other life.

Now that she was looking at that other life, Ashley wasn't too sure she really wanted another life. She ached to return to her husband and child. Why did the life she once despised look so out of reach now?

****

Ellen silently regarded the younger woman who sat staring at the coffee and toast that lay before her on the dining table. She'd been mildly surprised by the silence that surrounded Will's wife as she sat reading. Perhaps she'd expected the young wife would have been more upset by the news that Jackson was with another woman. Yet Ashley had had little to no reaction whatsoever. It bode well for her marriage.

Abruptly, Ashley asked the question foremost in her mind.

"So what are we doing today? Will mentioned weeks of this test."

"Well, we're going to meet someone once you're done with breakfast."

The younger woman's shrug told Ellen she wasn't curious about the person they were meeting.

"Whatever," Ashley muttered. Then she fidgeted before looking up and asking with some hesitation in her voice, "Can I please log in and see Cary first?"

Ellen smiled. "Of course. You’ll need the login details Will gave you."

Ellen marvelled at the bright smile spread on the young wife's face as Ashley smiled at her for the first time since she arrived in Florida. An hour later, that smile had turned into an uncomprehending gape of puzzlement that was accompanied by the slightly swollen eyes of the young mother.

"Who are we meeting?"

"Margaret Miller."

****

Five minutes later, Ashley found herself standing in front of a door in an upper floor in the same condo that she and Ellen presently lived in.


Ashley sat in her former neighbour’s living room in the awkward silence that enveloped the three women after Margaret opened the door to them. The questions that flooded her mind the minute she heard they were visiting Jackson’s mother were on the tip of her tongue but nothing it seemed could move them past her teeth and into the heavy air.

Margaret cleared her throat.

“I know you’re probably wondering why I agreed to talk to you about my son,” the older woman started abruptly, breaking the stony silence.

“I didn't want to do this when Will approached me a couple of months back. But he made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. You probably know some of Jackson’s ‘issues’. My boy has always had the devil in him. Came from his father, not from me.”

As much as the older woman wanted to appear detached, it was clearly difficult for her to talk about her son and neither of her audience members missed the defensive tone that had crept in.

Margaret’s nerves started to get the better of her and her eyes flitted restlessly around the room.

“Now, I know people say I’m to blame for Jackson’s bad choices and behaviour. I didn’t make the best choices but I did what I could for that boy. Ain’t no one can tell me otherwise.”

No one said a word in response but Margaret continued on a defensive note.

“I was married at a young age. We were high school sweethearts. Everyone assumed we would get married and we did. Life was tough but we made it through the first few years when there was little. Then he did well and got promoted. Started working all kinds of hours. We wanted to wait to have kids because we wanted to have more money before those young ‘uns started coming.”

Margaret’s eyes started to look unfocused, almost as if the past had pushed aside the present.

“I don’t want to say that was what caused me to make mistakes, but that was what it was. We had no kids, he was always working, and I had nothing to do. When he got back, he was always tired. At some point, I just thought, ‘This is what it’s gonna be like for the rest of my life’. And I just accepted it. Because what else could I do?”

Ashley caught herself almost nodding in sympathy with the older woman. She had never been close to Margaret even when they were neighbours. Yet, she felt that uncanny sense of comradeship as her feelings just before Jackson rolled into town came pouring out of her ex-lover’s mother’s mouth.

“Then he came into town. That foul mouthed, dirty Irish biker. The type I had always avoided. The type I had always been warned about. I was always protected from that kind of danger and I didn't like those types back in school. Hell, I was the preacher’s daughter and brought up to be the good girl. But you know what they say, what’s forbidden is always sweeter. It just started off as someone to take some edge off the boring day. Someone to talk to. Someone who had something interesting to say. Not just work and life. Then he invited me for rides. And it was exciting. My husband had never ridden a bike and neither had I. The danger, the wind, the feel of another man’s hard body… it just became impossible to resist. Then my husband heard talk around town and he confronted me but I denied it all. We had a horrible fight and I cried when he left for work. Then he came round. He knew I was weak and he took advantage. I had never slept with anyone else apart from my husband and it was exciting. He was different, he wasn't gentle. He took what he wanted and he was rough but I thought that was alright because.. Well, because he wasn’t my husband. I wanted something different, you know?”

Margaret spread her hands in a gesture almost touching in its helplessness.

"I just wanted something different. Something exciting. You know how you may like vanilla ice cream but sometimes you just long for mint?"

Ashley could hardly look her former neighbour straight in the face. She never thought the yearning for something different and exciting resulting in adultery would be the hidden connection between her and the woman next door.

"Anyway," Margaret continued after a long drag on the cigarette she'd lit as the talk took its toll on her nerves. "It wasn't long before my husband found out. He was furious and he threw me out. That biker was leaving town and I had nowhere to go so I followed him. He didn't like it much. Found out later he had an old lady back home, couple of states away. I was just a fling. When I clung to him, he started getting annoyed. Soon, he started sharing me with the rest of his gang."

Ashley swallowed past the lump in her throat as the older lady looked down, her pain radiating through her tense frame and trembling fingers that left ash strewn around the table. She didn't like her former neighbour much but she felt the pain of the older woman.

"I didn't like it but what could I do? It became worse after that, a week later I started getting sick and after I started throwing up, I had to see some doctor in the town we passed through. He told me I was pregnant. I thought it would make him treat me better. Boy was I wrong."

Ellen and Ashley winced at the bitterness that leaked from the caustic laughter of the other woman.

"He railed at me like it was my fault for getting pregnant. I wasn't sure if it was his kid or my husband's. So I kept quiet. Then the next day, the bastard disappeared with his gang. Coward didn't want no burden of another child. So he left me at the motel. I had no money except for a few dollars I'd scraped together. The motel owner allowed me to make some calls and I called everyone I could. My friends wouldn't help me, they were afraid of gossip. My mother told me that my father had disowned me and would throw her out if she helped me. I had no help from nobody. I pleaded with the motel owner and was allowed to stay a few days in exchange for me doing some cleaning. Two days later, my husband turned up. The guy who had thrown me out had come to my rescue when no one would. My mother had pleaded with him and given him the address of the motel that I'd told her. He took me back home and got me to the doctor. I wanted to get rid of the baby but he told me that the kid was innocent. And maybe it was his."

The shuddering breath Margaret drew told the other ladies how the memories were stirring emotions she'd buried for a long time.

"I had nightmares about the gang for weeks and my husband was there, just quietly helping me. I saw the man I betrayed doing things for me he didn't need to and that was more effective than a thousand preachers. I prayed so hard that the baby was his. Then Jackson was born. It was such a nightmare that I was sure God was punishing me for what I'd done. But the punishment came later. When Jackson was a year old, he looked so much like that biker that both my husband and I knew he was not his child. One day he sat me down and told me that he no longer loved me and had found someone new. So we divorced."

At Ellen's curious stare, Margaret merely smiled bitterly and sighed.

"Ironic isn't it? The man I thought I didn't love anymore was leaving me and I loved him more then than I ever did. But what could I do? I'd hurt him and he deserved better."

Margaret blinked furiously, battling the tears that rose unbidden to her eyes.

"And he found better. She was a widow who had a young child and had fallen for the quiet hardworking man who was mine but whom I'd thrown away. Although he soon started a family with her, he helped whenever he could. He'd let me stay in our house, helped me find a job and was paying child support though he didn't have to. She was kind too and never begrudged the time he took to spend with my boy."

A rueful smile crossed Margaret's face as she flicked the ash from the cigarette into the ashtray.

"She was probably kinder to Jackson than I was. I didn't want to resent my boy but I did blame him for making my relationship with my husband irreparable. Maybe without him, I could have made things work again. But Jackson was always there. A constant reminder of my mistakes, how I'd wrecked my own marriage and life."

Ashley looked at her former neighbour and wondered if part of the enigmatic appeal she'd felt emanating from Jackson came from the hurt and issues he'd with his family.

"Jackson never understood why there was this distance between us. He didn't understand that every time he acted up and he looked at me with those eyes of his, I remembered his biological father and the hell he put me through. My husband tried to get me to resolve those issues but I couldn't get over them. As he grew up, Jackson was also increasingly aware that he and his father didn't seem to share the same camaraderie that my husband shared with his other children. He never understood. Not until the month before his high school graduation."

Ashley wondered at the flash of pain that appeared in the woman's eyes.

"There was this terrible accident. Some biker had been a nuisance and obstructed my husband's car. The biker distracted my husband and a truck came out of nowhere and hit his car. His children were in the car with him but he took the brunt of the impact because the truck struck the driver's side. He was brought to hospital and they tried to stem the bleeding. He had a relatively rare blood type and his children were injured so they couldn't donate blood. Jackson had rushed to the hospital the moment he heard about the accident and had offered to donate blood. They did a test and told him he was not a match. So he could do nothing but watch the man he'd thought was his father, and who treated him more like a son than his mother did, die. That changed something in my boy. He never spoke to me about that accident or what happened at the hospital. He ran away soon after. Only years later, when he suddenly turn up and asked me about his real father did I find out what had happened when my husband died."

Margaret stubbed out the cigarette and ended her story.

"I never forgot my husband, he'd been more decent a person than I deserved. But life had to go on. I remarried a few years after that. There wasn't love, it was just for companionship. I had to leave that house, that state. Couldn't deal with the memories any longer and my present husband, well, he was my boss and was looking to retire in Florida. He knows this isn't love but it beats being alone in a cold bed. So here I am."

It was obvious Margaret had nothing else to say so Ashley asked the one question she'd wanted to ask from the start.

"Why would you speak to us, to me? You didn't have to reveal all that."

"Well, your husband drives a hard bargain, my dear. In return for him not revealing the location of my boy to those who are looking for him, I have to dish the dirt on Jackson's past. Would have never thought young Will capable of that."

****


Ashley almost collapsed on the chair she'd largely claimed for herself since she arrived two days earlier. The events of the last three days from the time Will dropped his bombshell of a surprise drained her of all her energy and she was convinced nothing could surprise her further.  She wasn't quite sure how she'd made the walk from Margaret's apartment back to the one she shared with Ellen. Both women were silent as they picked at the salad and sandwiches that Ellen had put together.

"So Will came here when he claimed that he had that work trip some months back?"

Ellen had been startled when Ashley broke the awkward silence that had enveloped them when they were back at the apartment, but she nodded her head.

"How is he able to afford this?" A frown furrowed her forehead as the young mother started worrying. "We should be saving all this money for Cary's education."

Ellen hid the smile that rose to her lips as she heard the younger woman worry aloud over her child's future. This was a different Ashley from the one Will had described just a year ago.  The reckless and selfish young wife who threw everything away for an adulterous affair. The accountant who didn't give a damn about the boring bits of life like the bills and expenses.  Ashley had done some growing up. Little wonder then that Will had hesitated over carrying out his plans. Yet his fears and inner demons had driven the young man, overcoming any qualms he might have had over putting his wife to the test.

That young man is too stubborn for his own good.

Ellen silently sighed. She felt for her friend's rage and pain but knew they were dangerous for the marriage he seemed so ambivalent about protecting.

Knowing Will had not been upfront about his career status with his wife, Ellen decided to reveal further details of Will’s plan, if nothing else, as a way to distract the younger woman from her thoughts on the finances of her husband.

"Actually Ashley, Will wanted you to have a more close up view of the other life you could have," Ellen said, ignoring the noticeable wince of the younger woman as she heard another reference to her former fantasy of another life.

Ellen led Ashley to the study that she had barely noticed when she first arrived.

“Actually, Jackson has been living very near Margaret for much of the last six months.  And this is why Will decided to rent this apartment. This is your front row seat to Jackson's life..."

Ashley stood slack jawed as she looked at the camera and screens that stood beside the window that looked over a row of houses across the street. The only thought that crossed her mind was how literal Will had been when he said she'd have a close up view of 'another life'.

Over the following 72 hours, Ashley felt she had more insight into Jackson than she had when she was having an affair with him. Perhaps it was the effect of the information gathered by the PI agency. It could even have been the effect of seeing him without the filter of her illusions and fantasies. The only thing that was certain was Ashley was seeing Jackson in a whole new light.

She saw the same attractive bad boy biker, but she also saw the man who treated the woman who had abandoned her family and marriage to be with him with a level of crude callousness that alarmed her. Ashley witnessed how the thrill and excitement of living with this enigmatic man transformed into helpless resignation on the part of Madison. In Madison's tears and sadness, which she only indulged in in Jackson's absence, Ashley saw the potential outcome of "another life". The friction of living together with another person and the vicissitudes of life had taken off the shine of what had been new and exciting, leaving only mutual resentment and exhaustion in its wake.

The blindness she had to her own self failed to function when she observed Madison, a girl who so resembled her in ways other than physical appearance. The shallowness, selfishness and confusion exhibited in this mirror of sorts made her cringe involuntarily.

By the end of the third day of observing the couple, Ashley felt like she'd overdosed on a reality TV series exposing the mundane lives of young couples. She saw the petty squabbles, the dissatisfaction, the struggle to maintain some sort of civil relationship. Above all, she saw the anger created by unrealistic expectations and the caustic effects of regret. Madison's joy in the new life growing inside her was muted by the guilt she felt over the child she abandoned. The guilt manifested itself in her obsessive poring over photos which she kept hidden in her luggage. Madison only dared to indulge in tearful sessions of staring at the photos when Jackson left the house.

Jackson's cold attitude towards Madison's pregnancy also dismayed Ashley. It seemed almost as if he resented the fact that his lover was pregnant and often expressed his dissatisfaction with her pregnant body. Over a period of mere days, Jackson's image was tarnished beyond repair in Ashley's mind, making her wonder once again what she saw in her fuckbuddy.

By the end of that week, Ashley was increasingly restless. Given the choice, she would have flown home to be with her baby. Yet she remembered Will's insistence on her completing the plan before she made her decision. Aware of her restlessness, Ellen tried to interest Ashley in the work she was doing for 'couples in recovery’. The young mother started off with some resistance and indifference, disliking the constant reminder of her own mistakes. However, the more stories she heard from Ellen, the more Ashley appreciated the work Ellen did. After hearing Ellen's own story, Ashley understood why the older woman was so eager to help Will and her. When Ellen told Ashley how Will had first approached her for help, the younger woman's devastation was apparent. Ashley was subdued for most of the next couple of days as she pondered how desperate Will must have been to ask for help from a stranger. Ellen was secretly impressed as Ashley had never shown any sign of considering the impact of her actions on Will. The more empathetic Ashley was a different creature from the self-indulgent wife Will had led her to expect.


****


Ashley had just logged into her email account and was preparing to access the portal for Cary’s video feed when she noticed an email titled:  crushing revenge of a husband. Not understanding how such an email landed in her inbox, she opened the email and saw a list of video links. At first, the shaky images confused her, but just before she was about to click off on the video, she saw an image that brought her heart up her throat. It was Will and he was instructing what looked like a demolition crew on what they were about to do that day. Her heart pounded with fear though Will’s instructions were not really audible, the direction he pointed was clear though. He had pointed at the house next door. Margaret’s and Jackson’s old house. When the clip ended, Ashley found herself clicking impatiently on the next link and gasped as she saw the demolition crew drag out the furnishings and fittings from the house next door.

“Noo!”

The cry of distress brought Ellen running, fearful that something had distressed the younger woman. Ashley, she noted, had appeared lethargic and lacked appetite. Coupled with the stomach upset she appeared to be nursing, Ellen was starting to wonder if she should suggest the younger woman test herself. The images playing on the screen made no sense to Ellen as she struggled to figure out what had the younger brunette holding her hand to her mouth. Only when she saw Will in a hard hat, brandishing an industrial sledgehammer did she comprehend what was going on.

Will’s going through with his plan. Dang! There ain’t no stopping that young man!

Both women watched as Will went loco on sofa set that was dragged out of the house and placed on the driveway. The almost feral expression on his face coupled with the ferocity of his attacks on the offending piece of furniture was matched by the silence of the crowd that had gathered to watch the demolition. Ashley recognised faces in the crowd shot taken by whoever was holding the video camera, they were all her neighbours. Only Mrs Thompson seemed to be missing, which led to her surmising that the neighbourhood gossip was probably the one doing the shooting of the video. A voice was heard asking, “Wow, what has he got against that sofa?” Another voice, sounding like the lady from two houses up the street, said in an almost conspiratorial whisper captured by the video camera, “Don’t you remember what happened almost two years ago? That no good biker son of Margaret’s and that sweet quiet wife of Will’s…”

The abrupt ending of the second clip did nothing to assuage the hysteria rising in the chest of one of the subjects of that conversation. Ellen could do nothing but hold the shaking younger woman’s shoulders in an effort to calm her.

“Are you sure you want to continue watching this?”

Ashley barely got out a nod, she had been shaking like a tree caught in gale force winds. Her trembling fingers moved the mouse over to the next link and both ladies watched grimly as the next clip loaded. Will’s stony expression took on an eerie glow as he threw matches on the doused remains of the sofa set and watched. With an audible ‘whoosh’, the flames leapt to life and engulfed the sofa in minutes. The relevant town authorities were present, watching the scene with the same grim detachment as Will. The scene bore testament to the detailed planning and effort Will had taken on for this task.

The video ended with Will walking, sledgehammer in hand again, towards the bathtub which stood nearer the porch of the house next door.

“H-he he knows! God! He knows!” Ashley cried brokenly. The thoughts that ran through the young wife’s mind were not the delicious memories of her affair with Jackson, centred on those pieces of furniture. Rather, her mind was swamped by the awful panic and fear that came with the revelation that Will knew every last detail of her adulterous fling.

Ashley barely recognised the ragged sobs filling the room as hers. She stared fearfully at the screen as Will reduced the bathtub that she had adored in Jackson’s house to little more than debris in minutes. Again that fierce gleam in his eyes made him seem ever more dangerous. The rage pouring off him was almost visible and tangible, making the audience collectively edge away.

Ashley was little more than a weeping heap as the final clip loaded. Will operated the wrecking ball as safety officials, who had issued a licence which was taped to the crane, gave the final go-ahead from the sidelines of the neighbourhood circus. And within minutes, there was rubble where the house next door once stood. It seemed to be an anti-climactic end for the audience of neighbours who had gathered but the tight smile of satisfaction across Will’s face was unmistakable.

“He k-knows...h-he k-knows...Ellen! Wha-what a-mm I going to do?” The young wife sobbed helplessly. “H-he w-will n-never for-give m-me!” stuttered Ashley.

Ellen could only hold the distressed younger woman as she sobbed out her fears and pain at the clearest sign that the hope of saving her marriage seemed as precarious as sandcastles in the face of an incoming wave.

****

Hours later at lunch, Ellen looked with concern at the dazed young mother who sat staring listlessly at the food on her plate through eyes still red and swollen. When Ashley bolted for the bathroom and unmistakable sounds of retching were heard coming from behind the locked door, Ellen sighed and decided to bring out the test kits she’d purchased at the drugstore when she picked up ingredients for lunch from a nearby supermarket. Ashley had remained in the car, silent and still like a statue. Ellen had been too worried about her emotional state to risk leaving the young woman alone in the apartment.

When the young wife opened the door of the bathroom, weakened by the vomiting and emotional stress, she was faced with the concerned older woman she’d grudgingly come to regard as a friend.

“You should get tested, Ashley.”

“I suspected it on the cruise,” Ashley muttered brokenly, her eyes shifting uncomfortably to the ground.

“And you didn’t tell Will? Oh, Ashley,” Ellen tut tutted.

Eyes flashing with that brief spark of anger and frustration, Ashley asked, “Would that have made any difference?”

Ellen privately agreed with her, having been familiar with Will’s plans and how Ashley’s earlier pregnancy merely meant a postponement and not the cancellation of his plans. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to quash the brief spark of hope she thought she saw flash through Ashley’s eyes before anger and frustration clouded them.

The two women stared at each other for a while before Ashley mutely took the tests and locked herself in the bathroom. Time seemed to crawl until Ashley finally unlocked the door and almost staggered into the embrace of the older woman.

“What am I going to do?” The distressed wife wailed. Ellen had no answers.

****

“So how’s she doing?”

“As well as could be expected.”

“What do you mean by that?”

For a brief moment, Ellen felt tempted to tell Will that he had just fathered a second kid.  She remembered Ashley’s stubborn insistence that she not reveal her condition to anyone, least of all Will.

“...I don’t want him pulling this again in another couple of years,” Ashley had begged. “Please just let me get through this.”

Ellen sighed and changed the topic.

“Why did you allow your neighbour to send those demolition videos to Ashley? She saw them and she’s really upset.”

“What!”

Will’s outburst confirmed Ellen’s suspicion, Will had no idea Ashley had been sent the videos. Well, at least he was not so cruel as to want to hurt Ashley in that way.

By the time Ellen got off the phone, she was at once relieved and frustrated. Her relief came from an understanding that Will had not tried to pile further emotional stress on his wife while her frustration stemmed from the expectation of both parties that she keep secrets from the other.

****
 Ashley went from an almost catatonic dazed state to irritated restlessness after lunch. She spent almost an hour pacing in the apartment.

"Why? Why can't he just get over it? It's been so long?"

It was clear her frustration was boiling over to anger.

Ellen looked at her for a long while before shaking her head.

"You still don't understand how Will feels do you?"


"No, I just don't understand how he could do this to me, to us! "

Ellen sighed and explained at the speed of a teacher dealing with a recalcitrant student.

"So do you think you can forgive Will completely in three years and never resent him for that affair with the nanny?"

Ashley’s lip trembled as she muttered, "Maybe... well, at least I'll try."

"So what happens if you discover Will is secretly cherishing memories of her and replays them again and again? Of course, never with the intention of hurting you. Just you know, in the privacy of his mind."

"Is that what he's doing? How could he!"

The gasp of outrage that escaped Ashley turned into red face silence as she realised Ellen was describing her behaviour.

"So what can I do? How can I help Will get over this and save us?"

"Honestly, I have no idea.”

Ashley found no peace, the restlessness making it impossible for her to do anything other than pace the apartment like a caged animal. She felt the need to do something, to understand but not knowing what. She stopped as she recalled what Will had said when he handed her another package before she got out of the car at the airport.

“If you ever feel the need to try to understand how I’ve felt about this or why I needed you to do this, read this.”

He’d crammed the package into her carry-on bag and apart from a brief look at the package when she was searching for the login details for Cary’s camera feed, she’d forgotten about the book she’d glimpsed in the package. Curious, she opened the volume and started reading what she vaguely recalled was the bestseller people had been talking about.

The bottom fell out of her stomach as she read what sounded like a transcript of her affair coloured by the emotions of her betrayed husband. The initial outrage she felt at the intrusion upon her privacy was tempered by her realisation that Will knew there was no way she’d ever openly confront him for that since it would involve her having to openly admit she was the cheating wife. One look at the forums that had sprung up discussing the novel had her realising she would be crucified if she ever outed herself. Will had her caught in a web. She cringed at all the vitriol poured out against the character representing her and felt the burn of shame by ironic proxy.

The tale within a tale that packed the sting of a scorpion

Ashley struggled against the chaos of emotions and impulses that ran through her mind. There was elation; Will had worked so hard to realise his dream of becoming a writer but had always lacked that one element. Years earlier she would have said it was luck. Now as the pain radiated off the pages of Will's novel, she recognised it for what it was; the emotional connection. Her betrayal had not only sharpened Will's observation and analytical skills, it had brought out that emotions he had always had to suppress because he was the level-headed, adult one out of the pair of them. Yes, she'd stabbed him with her betrayal but that wound stripped him of his armour and he stood with his emotions proud and raw. He was writing and he was trying to heal. While his rage was partially expelled in the little bits of revenge he'd enacted against her, a good part of it fuelled his writing.

Ashley winced as the pages went by and she became increasingly engrossed in the story that was essentially hers. She wanted to hide from the ugly truth that was seeping from the ink on the pages but knew that would be futile. She could close her eyes and hide in her fantasies and anger at Will, but she could not un-see, she could not un-read what she had already seen. It was as Will noted on the page where his alter ego Bill wondered when his unfaithful wife bade goodbye to her adulterous fuckbuddy that spring morning in their backyard.

After such knowledge, what forgiveness?

Her head hurt as much as her heart did when she finally finished the book. Ashley knew in that instant that her marriage as she knew it was dead. She had cut the head off and Will had subsequently staked it in the heart. Will had flayed her in front of millions without laying a hand on her and she'd gutted the man she professed to have loved for half her life. They had hurt each other; she because he was a convenient target for her selfish frustration with life, he because his quest for revenge against her transgression was leaving that wound raw. The writing was helping him heal but every bit of action he took against her was opening those wounds again and making him bleed out.

Because he still loves me.

That thought brought bittersweet memories to Ashley - all the times she'd caught Will with that strange expression on his face - that mix of bitter hostility that spoke of hate that carved itself into that clenched jaw tempered by the almost painful tenderness that lurked in his eyes. She didn't understand it then. She certainly was beginning to understand it now.

Without meaning to, Ashley drifted off into sleep. Her mind haunted by images of Will and Cary. Someone was chasing after the two men she love and she was running, hoping to save them. Just when they were finally putting some distance between them and their pursuer, she tripped and pulled Will down with her. Their pursuer caught up and was drawing a sharp knife to stab them, the cold metal glinting ominously. Cary was screaming and Will was trying to put himself between the knife of their assailant and herself as well as Cary. Before the knife came down, she caught a glimpse of their mysterious assailant and screamed as she recognised Jackson. His lips peeled open in a death's grin, his hand closed about her wrist and made her clasp the knife that was aimed at Will's chest.

"No!"

Ashley was wrenched from the depths of her nightmare with her own scream reverberating in her ears. Still numb with fear, she accepted Ellen's comforting hug after the older woman got over the shock of seeing her guest in tears and shaking nervously as she sat in her bed.

She knew what her nightmare was trying to tell her. Will would slowly die as their marriage dragged out its existence, itself dead in everything but name. He would never be the one to end it. She had to do it. She had been the one to deliver the first blow and now it was up to her release them both.

Hatred would end it all. One last act that would seal Will’s hatred of her and while it would hurt now, it would put a stop to the long term pain.


****

Destroying Fantasies Part 3 2/3

Apologies for the delays in posting this. Hope readers aren't too miffed! Enjoy!


Ashley's hands reached out to Will as her eyes reluctantly opened. She knew it was the last day of their cruise but Will had promised that the excitement hadn't ended and there was one last surprise. He hadn't revealed his plans and she didn't want to insist. The holiday had been a dream come true. The visit with her mom was a little awkward but the cruise was everything she thought it would be. Not that they had seen much of the ship since they were often holed up in the suite and fucking like rabbits. The time away from everything seemed to have sparked the passion that they had started the marriage with. The week they had back in their college town had been most magical. A smile curved her lips as she felt the tenderness of her breasts, she'd her suspicions but didn't want to raise expectations unnecessarily. Even if she wasn't already pregnant, she would soon be since they were going at it like teenagers and she'd stopped taking the pill soon after the nanny incident. Any recollection of that still made her grit her teeth. That memory was raw and every time she thought she'd started forgetting, something would trigger it and the wounds started bleeding again. A word, a thought, the sight of a blonde. There was no telling when she'd be reminded. That was the reason why she went along with Will's pace, even when he became increasingly rough in California and on the cruise. There was something slightly odd in the way Will behaved at times. It almost seemed as if he had detached himself, even as they made love. She had caught him looking at her sometimes like he expected her to say something to him. These little things crowded on the fringes of her mind but she refused to allow them to ruin her mood.


Her hands touched cool sheets and a small frown crossed her face. Perhaps he was just checking in on his writing assignments. That was usually the time she used to check her email and to log in her journal entries. When he was done, they would both log in to Cary's webcam to check in on the boy.

Ashley stretched reluctantly and got up. It was time to start the next part of her holiday.

****


Ashley was mildly surprised that Will was fully dressed and sitting at the dining table of their suite when she padded out in search of him.


"Darling, why are you sitting here?" Ashley whispered as she threw her arms around his neck and kissed his ear.


"Ashley, you should sit. We need to talk."


The quiet, unemotional tone of his voice sent the first flares of unease through Ashley's body. She took the seat next to Will, her eyes scanning his impassive face anxiously.


"Ashley, here's your ticket to the next part of the holiday."

"Where's yours? Aren't we going together? Oh god, something's happened back home? Is-is it Cary?"


He took pity on her, seeing her pale at the thought of something having happened to her son.


"No, nothing's wrong with Cary. He's fine. I just checked with Emma."

He watched as Ashley took a breath of relief before her brow furrowed with confusion.


"So why aren't you coming along?"


"Because this is your once-in-a-lifetime chance to find out what it's like to live another life."


He watched as shock followed realisation and she looked at the ticket to Florida like a coiled snake.

"Why?"

A whisper that sounded like a scream.

"Because it never really went away. Whatever it was you had with that neighbour never really went away."
Will held his hand up as Ashley tried to protest.

"Yes, you may not have continued your physical relationship and he may have moved. But he's been there. In your mind, your memories and your fantasies. And you have no intention of letting them go."

Will bit back a smile as Ashley's eyes widened with dismay and fear.

"But I've tried. I swear he's no longer in my heart or mind."

Ashley knew the moment the words came out that she'd made a mistake. Will's face hardened and her heart plummeted.

"So what part of you is left untouched by that man? Did he displace me at some point?"

"No!" Ashley almost shouted in desperation. "I-I was just confused and I...I thought I loved him. But when there came that decision to leave or stay, I stayed because I loved you more. Surely that counts for something!"

"Just not enough to stop you from fucking him and betraying me!"

Will hadn't raise his voice but Ashley recoiled as if the accusation had the volume of a rock concert. There was silence as each observed the other, Will with increasing cold calm and Ashley with trepidation.

"Here's the deal Ashley. You made the decision to forget and forsake your vows the first chance you had when I was away on work. At least own up to that."

Ashley's furious shaking of her head and even the tears brimming in her eyes didn't shake his resolve.

"You continued killing our marriage by running around behind my back. And then watched as your fuckbuddy publicly humiliated me when I confronted you. Your best friend and Mrs Thompson had to be the ones to inform me, the dumb cuckold, that my wife was busy banging the neighbour when I was all worried about your health. And what did he say when I asked him if he was in the habit of fucking other people's wives? That he did when he was asked to. You made the decision to shred our marriage and relationship."

Will found himself getting louder as Ashley started sobbing. He was determined to be heard.

"And after you broke it off and said your goodbyes, did he really leave? No. He was there. A contaminant that was eating away at us but you kept him there. And then you had help from him keeping those wonderful memories alive - that postcard telling you what you could have in another life. The modern day Romeo and Juliet. How you must have laughed at me, the poor fool of a husband who's only able to stand in for your fantasy, ideal mate!"

"N-no!" Ashley fairly screamed. "You're wr-wrong! I-I was just so d-down and t-tired and you-you were never there. I just needed-needed some thrill. I-I never thought I was risking our mar-marriage. I never thought I-I w-was hurting you. I'm so so sorry!"

Will watched as the woman he'd once loved so much he couldn't imagine living life without dissolve into a sobbing heap. His heart still ached but he wasn't sure if it was for her pain or his own. He did know one thing was certain; that his love had been so tainted by her callous betrayal and her selfish indulgence of her lust and fantasies that it was no longer something he could define clearly.


"Doesn't change the fact that you made a conscious choice, Ashley. Be honest. No one forced adultery on you. And even when you were pregnant and when Cary was born, you held onto those fantasies and that postcard. Did you really think I never saw you crying over that card?"

Ashley shook her head, unable to explain how she'd needed those fantasies back then. How she'd revelled in the memories and the experience of living a fantasy. How she took the pain she'd inflicted and suffered and transformed them into glorious battle scars that she could relish as trophies of an experience gained and enjoyed.

"Did you ever consider you were continuing to cheat on me, on our marriage, on Cary every time you relived memories of that affair? Every single time was a stab at a bleeding wound."

"But-but yo-u..."

"Had my share of affairs too? One night stands?" Will had been prepared for this evidently.


"I was never unfaithful to you, to us, till I discover your affair. Even then, I never let them linger. You, on the other hand, kept stabbing our marriage and offering fresh blood to that vampire of a fantasy lover. Now, now it's almost bled out."

Ashley watched with horror as Will tossed a thick envelope on the table, having removed two from his luggage which she just noticed was next to his chair.

"You made your choices back then and forced the consequences on me. Now I've made my decision but I'll leave you a choice.”

He watched as his wife opened the envelope with trembling fingers. The sobs started back up as she glimpsed the separation agreement.

"I'm giving you a chance to observe what another life looks like, Ashley. No strings attached. Spend three weeks with a friend of mine, Ellen. She'll help you understand the man you chose over your vows back then. At the end of three weeks, you can decide if you prefer to lead another life or if you prefer the boring married life we have had."

After a lengthy silence in which Ashley struggled to restore control over herself, she asked almost inaudibly, “And if I refuse this crazy plan?"

"Then you'll not be receiving this no fault separation agreement. The minute you step foot back home, the petition for divorce in this other envelope will be filed. Based on irreconcilable differences arising from adultery. Everyone, and that basically means most of our neighbours and the reporting officers on the day I confronted you and your fuckbuddy, who has the slightest knowledge of your affair will be summoned as witnesses. Though the evidence may not hold up in court, the scandal will be enough to destroy you. And I'll get the doctors to testify that your preoccupation with your adulterous companion makes you an unfit mother. You will not see your son for as long as this drags through court. Do you think Cary will recognise you when he next sees you?"

Will winced internally. He hated using his son but that last twist was necessary to push Ashley to the edge with no space for more thought.

"Y-you wouldn't!"

Ashley's eyes rounded with horror. She'd never seen Will act this way.

"Why can't we just leave that all in the past? I thought we were doing that. Wasn't that what this trip is all about?"

"Did you, Ashley? You made the past a present continuous. You took the past, renewed its glory constantly and made it a medal that you hung over our bed. You enshrined it in your mind. And I can't do anything about it because I can't reach you. So now I want you to deal with it. Make your choice. "

Will felt some satisfaction seeing how the truth of his words brought a grimace to Ashley's face.

"And if I agree to your deal?"


"Then you get these no fault separation papers and a trip to Florida. If you decide at the end of three weeks that you prefer another life, you just have to sign these papers and send them back. You'll have joint custody of Cary but he'll not be travelling outside of the state till he's 16. So you'll have to fly back to visit. I'll send you tickets each year if you wish. But I'll not allow contact between my son and your companion. You'll just have to visit him alone."

"Why are you assuming I'll leave?"

"Because I made the mistake of thinking you never would betray us. I never make the same mistake twice."

"And what if I choose us after three weeks?"

Will saw the hidden streak of defiance he'd known ran through his wife in the determined gleam in her swollen eyes and firm chin. He admired her confidence in her mind and self even if he didn't share that confidence.


"Then we really put everything behind us. Draw that line in the sand and try to build our marriage from the bottom up."

Ashley stared at him. Apart from the fear and wariness, he saw hope flare in her eyes. In that instant he knew she would agree.

"Just one last thing, Ashley. You'll get a chance to see what another life looks like. But if you decide to meet or reach out to that man in any way, if you decide to start another life even before the three week deal is up, have the decency to sign and return these papers."


With that, Will picked up his luggage and headed for the door.

"Where are you going?"

Will stopped, reluctantly reacting to the panic in her voice. "I'm going to see to the disembarking procedures. We're sharing the car to the airport."

****

It was the longest ride both of them had ever taken. Ashley couldn't take the silence for long despite Will's obvious reluctance to engage in conversation.

"Why are you doing this now? During this holiday that was our chance to get away from everyone and everything?"

"Because you weren't letting it go. And you clung onto your fantasies and other life. Tell me you didn't resent me or Cary at some point."

Her shamefaced silence was his answer.

"How long have you planned this?"

"Ever since I found out about the postcard. I'd planned something before that but then you announced your pregnancy so..."

"So Cary changed nothing. Just delayed it."

Ashley's hands clenched over her belly but Will didn't notice the gesture.

No I can't tell him. If I’m pregnant, it'll just mean postponement. If I'm not, he'll think I'm trying to deceive him again.


She sat there barely conscious of him opening the door and helping her walk towards the departure gates. Only when he turned to leave did she recover enough to grasp his arm. She looked hard at the man she loved and married and betrayed. She kissed him and walked through the gates. To the nightmare she now realised was the other life she thought she'd wanted.


****
Ashley walked out the arrival gates, hardly aware of where she was going, she just put one foot in front of the other and followed the mass of humanity that flowed out. It was only when she was stopped by a kind looking older lady calling her name that she realised she was in Florida.

“Ashley? Ashley? Are you okay?”

The lady smiled and shook her arm a little.

“You...do you know me?”

“Hi, I’m Ellen, Will’s friend? You’ll be staying with me while you’re here in Florida.”

“You’re helping Will in this-this crazy scheme of his, aren’t you?” Ashley glared accusingly at the older woman, allowing her anger at Will to flow freely at the one target that was a substitute for the husband who had forced her on this crazy journey.

The expression of sympathy on the woman’s face and her sudden realisation that Will had planned all this over the two years since her affair left Ashley feeling suddenly overwhelmed. Her knees almost buckled, her eyes burned with tears and all she wanted to do was to curl up on the floor and simply cease to exist.

Ellen was standing next to her in a flash, having recognised the shock and distress that was overwhelming the young wife and mother. In so many ways, it was so like her own predicament on that front porch of her former home that Ellen’s heart went out to the young woman next to her. Cheating wife or not, no one deserved this. She muttered several invectives under her breath at the young man she’d come to think of as a son of sorts. As she directed the younger woman towards her car, she noticed how Ashley was, for all intents and purposes, moving without much awareness of her surroundings and seemingly uncaring of where she was headed.

Nope, not well done at all, Will.

Ellen sighed not for the first time that day as she thought of what lay ahead in the upcoming weeks. While she had come to understand and empathise with the young man who’d approached her for help when he’d first discovered his wife’s betrayal, Ellen had disagreed with Will’s plan when he first brought it up almost half a year ago. Despite the arguments and persuasion she had thrown his way, it became apparent Will was not about to change his mind or course. She had agreed to help simply because she feared things would be even more complicated and might spiral out of control if she didn’t intervene.


Ashley leaned her head against the glass of the car and sat in silence as Ellen drove her towards God knows where. She wasn’t overly interested, she was still too shocked to deal with the fact that she was cruising the streets of Florida with a woman she hardly knew, who was aiding her husband in his madness.

Her overwrought nerves was making her feel nauseated and the humidity of Florida’s summer was starting to make her gag. Ellen handed Ashley a sick bag before the younger woman could even ask for one. After the younger woman finished her dry heaves into the bag, Ellen reached into the dashboard compartment and handed her a mini bottle of water. “Here, you should probably get some water down, it’ll help. Never had to deal with summer in Florida huh?”

Ashley’s weak nod answered her question and the silence stretched. Ashley was so out of it that she barely registered the fact that they'd arrived at their destination and certainly never noticed Ellen's sudden rush to get her into the building. So it was no surprise that she failed to recognise the familiar figure slamming out of the house across the street who rode his bike noisily out of the driveway. Then again, neither did the man recognise the married woman he'd had an affair with almost two years ago. The adulterous couple went past each other absorbed in their own thoughts with no sign of their magical connection in sight.

****

Ellen thought it best to let Ashley rest for a few hours before Will's plan started. When Ashley woke and walked out to the dining room, Ellen cleared her throat and asked her guest to sit down at the table for a talk.

"I'm not sure how much Will has told you about the idea behind your trip to Florida," Ellen began, heading straight to the crux of the issue.

"He wants me to observe Jackson for three weeks before making my decision," Ashley stated flatly, her voice devoid of any emotion.

"That's true, but there are two things you need before that starts." Ellen pushed a stack of thick files towards Ashley.

Ashley looked at the pile of files in front of her with some puzzlement.

"What's this?"

"This is the information on Jackson gathered by the agency hired by Will. Including information on the woman he's currently with."

Ashley had expected to feel more emotional at hearing that Jackson was with someone else. So she was surprised that all she felt was that slight twinge of irritation or annoyance, that sourness at hearing one of her exes in college was with a new girl. She was keenly aware of the fact that Ellen was watching her closely but was still too unsettled by the recent turn of events to be too bothered.

"So, I'm to read this? This is part of the test?"

Ashley didn't like the rueful smile on the older lady's face.

"Let's just call it preparatory work."

By the time they broke for lunch, Ashley felt like she'd learnt more about her bad boy ex-lover than she'd ever wanted to know. Jackson had started getting into trouble since the senior year of high school. Going from hitting on the principal's daughter to the preacher's niece. There was a mention about his having caused some trouble for a married teacher but no real charges were ever brought and the teacher transferred away before he graduated. At one point, about a month before graduation, there was a record of a misdemeanour. Apparently, the town hospital reported a spate of vandalism incidents. And on one occasion, they had reported that Jackson was caught on camera not just vandalising hospital property but also puncturing the tyres of a doctor who had been his attending doctor a short while earlier. When asked why he'd done all that, Jackson simply said he wanted to punish that lying doctor. Charges were eventually dropped after his mother pleaded with the hospital and the authorities. A month later, Jackson graduated and left town. It had been barely weeks after his estranged father passed away due to an accident. From then on, it was a life of drifting, work and hanging with bikers. It didn't take long before he fell in with a biker gang whose local chapter ran guns and drugs. Jackson rose up the ranks and seemed to get along with the gang leader till things took a turn for the worse.

A week after Jackson paid his mother one of his infrequent visits, the FBI raided the hangout of the gang and arrested the chapter leader along with several senior enforcers. The FBI seemed really lucky, striking the jackpot almost literally, carrying out that raid just as the gang was completing a deal. In one fell swoop, they nabbed gang members, the leader and a load of evidence.

Jackson was pretty lucky too, he had ridden off to headquarters to ask for another load of goods just minutes before the Feds closed in. While there was some suspicion surrounding his lucky escape, the gang's attention soon turned to the local deputy sheriff who had been asking for a larger cut of profits in return for keeping a watch out for the authorities and ensuring gang activities didn't attract unnecessary attention. It helped that the deputy sheriff turned state witness, which completely exonerated Jackson in the eyes of the gang.

If anything, Jackson rose through the ranks at a phenomenal speed once he had relocated to the gang's headquarters. The old man running the gang, one of its founding members, took a shine to Jackson. Particularly after his son, the chapter leader, landed in prison.

The old man took Jackson under his wing and made him a deputy. Then one day, Jackson disappeared. Along with a bunch of the gang's money and the latest squeeze of the old man, a young woman just a year older than Jackson himself. Not that the gang took much notice of the whole affair since the Feds raided headquarters before anyone even noticed Jackson's absence. Jackson's part in the whole shit storm only came to light when he appeared in the witness stand on the part of the prosecution.

Surprisingly, the trial went off without a hitch till after the sentencing. Jackson had looked at the old man and screamed out in court, "Don't you want to know why? You old bastard! Remember Margaret Miller? Remember the child you left her with? The bastard has come back to roost, you old fuck! I'm fucking your woman like some cheap slut and she can't get enough of it! Neither can your son's whore!"

Jackson's outburst apparently brought nothing from the old man in way of reaction since the court reporter merely described the old man as giving a crooked smile and spitting at Jackson when he was led away while court officials tried to restrain the incoherent young man.

That episode was followed by a silence of almost three years, in which time it was assumed that Jackson had gone into the Federal Witness Protection Program. But the boy didn't seem capable of staying out of trouble. Leading a quiet life was something beyond Jackson.  He apparently retrieved some of his loot from the gang, resurfaced in a town and was soon involved with the pastor's daughter. It was scandalous since she'd married her high school sweetheart who was the mayor's son. Jackson had been in town barely a month before there was gossip that the mayor's son's wife was spotted taking rides on the back of the stranger's bike. Madison, it seemed, had a predilection for bad boys.

The flood of information that inundated her brain made Ashley glad when Ellen asked her to break for lunch. The older woman decided not to probe when she noticed Ashley's preoccupied state as both women picked over the salad and pasta that Ellen had prepared. All through lunch, Ashley pondered if she would have gotten involved with Jackson if she'd known just what kind of troubled past lay behind that bad boy.

Ok, I liked that air of mystery and danger that Jackson had. But I never thought he was really capable of anything seriously bad. Face it Ashley, you just want the bad boy vibe but not the real deal.

Ashley sighed and looked up from her salad to see the older lady look at her with some amusement.

"Must be a fascinating conversation in your head," Ellen chuckled.

Ashley merely rolled her eyes but relaxed for the first time since Will dropped his surprise on her. Ellen noticed the younger woman was visibly less tensed and decided to leave her to her own devices and the stack of files Will had the agency compile. She didn't think it would have done well to let the younger woman know that Will had called in twice to check on her. It was abundantly clear that Will still loved his wife. Equally clear was Will's inability to trust or forgive his wife. In some way she understood the young husband's obsession with punishing  his wife and testing her. If he never got the poison out of his system, their marriage was doomed and both were condemned to a lifetime of pain, trapped in a cage with shattered glass at every turn. She turned and looked at the young wife, praying the younger woman had the mettle to see a way through.

Ashley, meanwhile, was absorbed in the picture of Jackson's latest companion that she was beginning to assemble from the files that the PI agency had put together. What began as a curious sense of familiarity soon gave way to a disturbing realisation that Madison was a version of herself leading a similar but yet different life. A younger woman who had always been average; looks, grades and even lifestyle. Nothing stood out. They were both brunette, of average height and even shared the same penchant for bad boys which the pastor's daughter had wisely kept under wraps. However, gossip among her school friends had revealed that she'd dated the bad boys back in school and only stopped after her last boyfriend slapped her around. She was rescued by the town's favourite boy, also the mayor's son. She seemed to have decided to take the safe option from then and eventually married the guy after they graduated college.

Madison worked as a personal assistant to the town's most successful businessman, her uncle. While she kept her head down and seemed quietly contented with her life, she always seemed to be daydreaming and often went through her days with her head in the clouds. Ashley recognised with no small dose of irony the same signs of latent restlessness, repressed dissatisfaction and boredom that marked her own life before she encountered Jackson.

With that understanding, Ashley was hardly surprised that three days after Jackson rolled into town, Madison had taken notice of the stranger with that clear bad boy vibe and had been spotted chatting with him at the local supermarket. Perhaps it was the claustrophobia of her hometown, Madison fell hard for the stranger and was seen taking rides on his bike when she'd pleaded off work saying she'd a headache or wasn't feeling well. When she was spotted kissing the stranger, the elders of the town decided things had gone far enough. Some clearly warned the stranger to clear out of town and Madison's parents and friends staged an intervention. Her husband had been completely unaware of what she'd been up to, having been preoccupied by work and plans for starting a family.

Under the enormous pressure of family and friends, Madison broke down and confessed that while she hadn't started a physical affair with Jackson, she was close to capitulating. She'd actually packed a small bag and was about to leave town with Jackson when she felt unwell and visited the doctor. The news that she was two months pregnant had terrified her and proved to be the deal breaker for Jackson who left her to get home from the clinic alone. He'd returned to his rental to face Madison's father and brothers and left without much fuss.

Madison had apparently repented her scandalous behaviour and decided to become a good wife and mother. Yet, the aftereffects of her short adventure never waned. She moped for much of her pregnancy and dreamt of what could have been, according to her cousin whom she'd confided in when her depression got too much for her.

Looking at the timeline presented by the PI information, Ashley was mildly surprised that it was barely three months before he rolled into her neighbourhood.

So much for never having been with a married woman before me. Well, I guess it is technically true since Madison didn't sleep with me. No, just slutty me who couldn't keep from sleeping with the bad boy new neighbour.

Ashley groaned as she thought of how easily she'd fallen. Where it had been easy to disguise her misdeeds, seeing her behaviour mirrored in someone so similar to her made her realise both the shallow crudity that Will and perhaps others saw in her as well as Jackson's ability to spot and exploit the vulnerability of his female targets.

Damn, the counsellors and psychiatrists were right!

She swallowed that bitter realisation with difficulty as she sipped the coffee Ellen had offered her. It was hard to ignore what she’d seen play out in front of her, in that little mirror named Madison. The biggest difference was Madison took that leap and was now living her dream with Jackson.

According to what Madison's cousin revealed, Madison never truly got over Jackson and her fantasies over what could have been worsened after the birth of her daughter. Dissatisfaction, fantasies surrounding the bad boy and postnatal depression worsened by the bloated body shape she felt was the legacy of her ill-timed pregnancy made Madison all the more resentful of her family and husband who she blamed for trapping her and causing her misery.

Ashley found herself wondering at some point why Madison's family failed to get her professional psychiatric or counselling help. She figured that the shame the family felt at Madison's behaviour probably contributed to their blindness to the seething emotions and the suppressed anger that Madison was harbouring but which seeped out in tell-tale signs. According to other friends that the agents ferreted information out of, Madison was distant from her husband following the discovery of her elopement attempt. That distance extended to her baby daughter when the infant was born. Most friends noted that it was Madison's husband who took care of the infant while Madison often seemed annoyed by the wailing infant. Madison's cousin also revealed that any attempt by her husband to persuade her to see a psychiatrist or a counsellor resulted in angry refusals and a sullen Madison.

Things changed about two months after Madison's daughter was born. Madison became less emotional and was actively trying to lose weight. While she slept in a different room from her husband, she no longer treated him or the baby with hostility. In fact, she began to show some affection to her daughter, almost, as her cousin described it, as if she felt guilt over her bad behaviour.

Just when everyone breathed a sigh of relief thinking Madison was getting back to being the nice girl next door that she had been, she disappeared. Her husband and family were frantic. She had cleared out the bank account she'd solely in her name. She didn't leave any messages indicating any trouble. Only two weeks later did she send a postcard with a postmark indicating a location in California.

In that postcard, she'd said she was tired of obeying the rules all the time and decided to live the way she wanted with the man she loved. She asked her family not to look for her and that she didn't want anything from her marriage, not any money or even her own daughter. Her husband was devastated but had no choice but to focus on the little girl who had been abandoned by her own mother. The family never gave up looking for Madison but had little luck locating her. Only when they looked into the mailbox Madison had maintained on the desktop computer in the house did they discover Madison had gotten into contact with Jackson. He had sent her an email shortly after she'd given birth and they had rekindled their affair.

Over the last year, Madison had travelled with Jackson as he went across different states, dodging the pursuit of remaining members of the biker gang he'd betrayed years earlier. He'd made occasional trips to visit Margaret, his mother but never felt comfortable enough to stay. That changed almost six months earlier when Madison apparently wanted to settle down somewhere. Jackson picked Florida again, just as he had after his affair with Ashley had ended.

It was hard to swallow but Ashley felt strangely relieved that she now knew more about the man next door than she'd ever thought to find out. The air of enigmatic mystery peeled away to show the dents and scars of a complicated man she once had such strong fantasies about. Ashley wasn't sure if she truly saw past those illusions she had and saw the man behind the mysterious air. Yes, she'd had something for the bad boy type but this wasn't just some bad boy cliché, he was a criminal who dodged the law by betraying his fellow accomplices and what was likely his own family. She wasn't sure she'd have gone for that bad boy vibe if she'd known what he was really like.

Thinking about Madison was tough for Ashley. Sure, there was the slight twinge when she realised that it took Jackson almost no time getting over her and shifting back to Madison. Even shorter if she took into account the time between her receiving the postcard and when Jackson started back up with Madison. Then she reflected on the fact that it took Jackson less than three weeks before he fucked her on his couch. A familiar wave of shame hit her again.

How can I possibly judge that woman when I'm no better?

Ashley shook her head as she tried recalling the emotions and thoughts that drove her into the arms of the man next door. As she pondered, she realised it was the first time she'd ever been able to confront her adulterous affair without shying away from the truth of her actions. She was unhappy, she'd felt trapped, drowning in the mundane responsibilities of being a married woman and dreading the life of interminable humdrum drudgery that seemed to await her. Will was preoccupied with work and getting them more secure financially so they could start a family. They were fighting because Will didn't seem to have time to be with her and she was keenly aware that it seemed as if she was becoming less attractive. Her confidence had gone the way of her zest for life, crushed by the burden of middle class struggles.

Jackson had appeared and reignited her bad boy obsession. Along with that obsession came those memories of what life had been when she was younger, when she was back in school, before life became complicated and all its colours muted. She was reminded of the energy and desire for what life had to offer, a stark contrast to the enervated existence she felt she had at that point. Fairly or otherwise, Jackson, with all his enigmatic air of mystery and bad boy vibe, offered not just that freedom she felt speeding away on the back of his bike but also that other life she'd always imagined she would have as a teenager. A life that was exciting, fun, free. A life that didn't include having to work at a boring job, scrimping and saving and dealing with the frustrations of life. A life that she now realised was so exciting because it was undefined. And unrealistic.

Ashley sighed. Her penchant for escapism had coloured all of her illusions and fantasies surrounding Jackson and that other life that she saw herself living with him. All of that merely enhanced the quality of sex that she'd experienced with him. She'd thought she'd experienced the best sex and orgasms of her life with Jackson, fuelled as they were by her fantasies. And if she were honest with herself, the thrill of doing something she knew was wrong, when she'd been eager all her life to conform and gain approval, merely heightened the sexual excitement.

Ashley felt shame turning her all red as she recalled how she'd silently rejected Will sexually after her first fuck session with Jackson. She'd compared her lovers and thought her husband lacking. Yet, the threat of the threesome that Will had initiated on the day she said goodbye to Jackson and her discovery of Will with Lisa had made her more attuned to Will’s attractions, something she’d forgotten in all the years they had been together. As much as she hated to admit it, Will had become a different man after his discovery of her affair and in many ways, that and the threat of possibly losing him to another woman brought a new edge to their lovemaking.

Yes, that was the difference! We make love, with anyone else it was just fucking.

Ashley never told anyone but for a time after Will resumed having sex with her, she felt he was merely fucking her. Gone was the gentle, loving Will. The new Will was rough and less considerate. Sure, he gave her pleasure but also took his without worrying if she was comfortable or not. There was a part of him that he kept turned off and shut out from her. Some of that sweet Will had returned when she was pregnant with Cary though she suspected that it was largely because of the baby.

A frown creased her brow as Ashley recalled Will's distance and behaviour during the cruise. She almost facepalmed herself.

How could I have missed the warning signs? Will was so obviously putting distance between us before he set me this test.

Ashley's heart sank as the thought of Will having made his mind up and writing off their marriage struck her.

No! Calm down. If Will had decided that, he would have served me divorce papers. No, he just wants me to see the truth of what I had wanted for so long, the other life.

Now that she was looking at that other life, Ashley wasn't too sure she really wanted another life. She ached to return to her husband and child. Why did the life she once despised look so out of reach now?

****

Ellen silently regarded the younger woman who sat staring at the coffee and toast that lay before her on the dining table. She'd been mildly surprised by the silence that surrounded Will's wife as she sat reading. Perhaps she'd expected the young wife would have been more upset by the news that Jackson was with another woman. Yet Ashley had had little to no reaction whatsoever. It bode well for her marriage.

Abruptly, Ashley asked the question foremost in her mind.

"So what are we doing today? Will mentioned weeks of this test."

"Well, we're going to meet someone once you're done with breakfast."

The younger woman's shrug told Ellen she wasn't curious about the person they were meeting.

"Whatever," Ashley muttered. Then she fidgeted before looking up and asking with some hesitation in her voice, "Can I please log in and see Cary first?"

Ellen smiled. "Of course. You’ll need the login details Will gave you."

Ellen marvelled at the bright smile spread on the young wife's face as Ashley smiled at her for the first time since she arrived in Florida. An hour later, that smile had turned into an uncomprehending gape of puzzlement that was accompanied by the slightly swollen eyes of the young mother.

"Who are we meeting?"

"Margaret Miller."

****

Five minutes later, Ashley found herself standing in front of a door in an upper floor in the same condo that she and Ellen presently lived in.


Ashley sat in her former neighbour’s living room in the awkward silence that enveloped the three women after Margaret opened the door to them. The questions that flooded her mind the minute she heard they were visiting Jackson’s mother were on the tip of her tongue but nothing it seemed could move them past her teeth and into the heavy air.

Margaret cleared her throat.

“I know you’re probably wondering why I agreed to talk to you about my son,” the older woman started abruptly, breaking the stony silence.

“I didn't want to do this when Will approached me a couple of months back. But he made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. You probably know some of Jackson’s ‘issues’. My boy has always had the devil in him. Came from his father, not from me.”

As much as the older woman wanted to appear detached, it was clearly difficult for her to talk about her son and neither of her audience members missed the defensive tone that had crept in.

Margaret’s nerves started to get the better of her and her eyes flitted restlessly around the room.

“Now, I know people say I’m to blame for Jackson’s bad choices and behaviour. I didn’t make the best choices but I did what I could for that boy. Ain’t no one can tell me otherwise.”

No one said a word in response but Margaret continued on a defensive note.

“I was married at a young age. We were high school sweethearts. Everyone assumed we would get married and we did. Life was tough but we made it through the first few years when there was little. Then he did well and got promoted. Started working all kinds of hours. We wanted to wait to have kids because we wanted to have more money before those young ‘uns started coming.”

Margaret’s eyes started to look unfocused, almost as if the past had pushed aside the present.

“I don’t want to say that was what caused me to make mistakes, but that was what it was. We had no kids, he was always working, and I had nothing to do. When he got back, he was always tired. At some point, I just thought, ‘This is what it’s gonna be like for the rest of my life’. And I just accepted it. Because what else could I do?”

Ashley caught herself almost nodding in sympathy with the older woman. She had never been close to Margaret even when they were neighbours. Yet, she felt that uncanny sense of comradeship as her feelings just before Jackson rolled into town came pouring out of her ex-lover’s mother’s mouth.

“Then he came into town. That foul mouthed, dirty Irish biker. The type I had always avoided. The type I had always been warned about. I was always protected from that kind of danger and I didn't like those types back in school. Hell, I was the preacher’s daughter and brought up to be the good girl. But you know what they say, what’s forbidden is always sweeter. It just started off as someone to take some edge off the boring day. Someone to talk to. Someone who had something interesting to say. Not just work and life. Then he invited me for rides. And it was exciting. My husband had never ridden a bike and neither had I. The danger, the wind, the feel of another man’s hard body… it just became impossible to resist. Then my husband heard talk around town and he confronted me but I denied it all. We had a horrible fight and I cried when he left for work. Then he came round. He knew I was weak and he took advantage. I had never slept with anyone else apart from my husband and it was exciting. He was different, he wasn't gentle. He took what he wanted and he was rough but I thought that was alright because.. Well, because he wasn’t my husband. I wanted something different, you know?”

Margaret spread her hands in a gesture almost touching in its helplessness.

"I just wanted something different. Something exciting. You know how you may like vanilla ice cream but sometimes you just long for mint?"

Ashley could hardly look her former neighbour straight in the face. She never thought the yearning for something different and exciting resulting in adultery would be the hidden connection between her and the woman next door.

"Anyway," Margaret continued after a long drag on the cigarette she'd lit as the talk took its toll on her nerves. "It wasn't long before my husband found out. He was furious and he threw me out. That biker was leaving town and I had nowhere to go so I followed him. He didn't like it much. Found out later he had an old lady back home, couple of states away. I was just a fling. When I clung to him, he started getting annoyed. Soon, he started sharing me with the rest of his gang."

Ashley swallowed past the lump in her throat as the older lady looked down, her pain radiating through her tense frame and trembling fingers that left ash strewn around the table. She didn't like her former neighbour much but she felt the pain of the older woman.

"I didn't like it but what could I do? It became worse after that, a week later I started getting sick and after I started throwing up, I had to see some doctor in the town we passed through. He told me I was pregnant. I thought it would make him treat me better. Boy was I wrong."

Ellen and Ashley winced at the bitterness that leaked from the caustic laughter of the other woman.

"He railed at me like it was my fault for getting pregnant. I wasn't sure if it was his kid or my husband's. So I kept quiet. Then the next day, the bastard disappeared with his gang. Coward didn't want no burden of another child. So he left me at the motel. I had no money except for a few dollars I'd scraped together. The motel owner allowed me to make some calls and I called everyone I could. My friends wouldn't help me, they were afraid of gossip. My mother told me that my father had disowned me and would throw her out if she helped me. I had no help from nobody. I pleaded with the motel owner and was allowed to stay a few days in exchange for me doing some cleaning. Two days later, my husband turned up. The guy who had thrown me out had come to my rescue when no one would. My mother had pleaded with him and given him the address of the motel that I'd told her. He took me back home and got me to the doctor. I wanted to get rid of the baby but he told me that the kid was innocent. And maybe it was his."

The shuddering breath Margaret drew told the other ladies how the memories were stirring emotions she'd buried for a long time.

"I had nightmares about the gang for weeks and my husband was there, just quietly helping me. I saw the man I betrayed doing things for me he didn't need to and that was more effective than a thousand preachers. I prayed so hard that the baby was his. Then Jackson was born. It was such a nightmare that I was sure God was punishing me for what I'd done. But the punishment came later. When Jackson was a year old, he looked so much like that biker that both my husband and I knew he was not his child. One day he sat me down and told me that he no longer loved me and had found someone new. So we divorced."

At Ellen's curious stare, Margaret merely smiled bitterly and sighed.

"Ironic isn't it? The man I thought I didn't love anymore was leaving me and I loved him more then than I ever did. But what could I do? I'd hurt him and he deserved better."

Margaret blinked furiously, battling the tears that rose unbidden to her eyes.

"And he found better. She was a widow who had a young child and had fallen for the quiet hardworking man who was mine but whom I'd thrown away. Although he soon started a family with her, he helped whenever he could. He'd let me stay in our house, helped me find a job and was paying child support though he didn't have to. She was kind too and never begrudged the time he took to spend with my boy."

A rueful smile crossed Margaret's face as she flicked the ash from the cigarette into the ashtray.

"She was probably kinder to Jackson than I was. I didn't want to resent my boy but I did blame him for making my relationship with my husband irreparable. Maybe without him, I could have made things work again. But Jackson was always there. A constant reminder of my mistakes, how I'd wrecked my own marriage and life."

Ashley looked at her former neighbour and wondered if part of the enigmatic appeal she'd felt emanating from Jackson came from the hurt and issues he'd with his family.

"Jackson never understood why there was this distance between us. He didn't understand that every time he acted up and he looked at me with those eyes of his, I remembered his biological father and the hell he put me through. My husband tried to get me to resolve those issues but I couldn't get over them. As he grew up, Jackson was also increasingly aware that he and his father didn't seem to share the same camaraderie that my husband shared with his other children. He never understood. Not until the month before his high school graduation."

Ashley wondered at the flash of pain that appeared in the woman's eyes.

"There was this terrible accident. Some biker had been a nuisance and obstructed my husband's car. The biker distracted my husband and a truck came out of nowhere and hit his car. His children were in the car with him but he took the brunt of the impact because the truck struck the driver's side. He was brought to hospital and they tried to stem the bleeding. He had a relatively rare blood type and his children were injured so they couldn't donate blood. Jackson had rushed to the hospital the moment he heard about the accident and had offered to donate blood. They did a test and told him he was not a match. So he could do nothing but watch the man he'd thought was his father, and who treated him more like a son than his mother did, die. That changed something in my boy. He never spoke to me about that accident or what happened at the hospital. He ran away soon after. Only years later, when he suddenly turn up and asked me about his real father did I find out what had happened when my husband died."

Margaret stubbed out the cigarette and ended her story.

"I never forgot my husband, he'd been more decent a person than I deserved. But life had to go on. I remarried a few years after that. There wasn't love, it was just for companionship. I had to leave that house, that state. Couldn't deal with the memories any longer and my present husband, well, he was my boss and was looking to retire in Florida. He knows this isn't love but it beats being alone in a cold bed. So here I am."

It was obvious Margaret had nothing else to say so Ashley asked the one question she'd wanted to ask from the start.

"Why would you speak to us, to me? You didn't have to reveal all that."

"Well, your husband drives a hard bargain, my dear. In return for him not revealing the location of my boy to those who are looking for him, I have to dish the dirt on Jackson's past. Would have never thought young Will capable of that."

****


Ashley almost collapsed on the chair she'd largely claimed for herself since she arrived two days earlier. The events of the last three days from the time Will dropped his bombshell of a surprise drained her of all her energy and she was convinced nothing could surprise her further.  She wasn't quite sure how she'd made the walk from Margaret's apartment back to the one she shared with Ellen. Both women were silent as they picked at the salad and sandwiches that Ellen had put together.

"So Will came here when he claimed that he had that work trip some months back?"

Ellen had been startled when Ashley broke the awkward silence that had enveloped them when they were back at the apartment, but she nodded her head.

"How is he able to afford this?" A frown furrowed her forehead as the young mother started worrying. "We should be saving all this money for Cary's education."

Ellen hid the smile that rose to her lips as she heard the younger woman worry aloud over her child's future. This was a different Ashley from the one Will had described just a year ago.  The reckless and selfish young wife who threw everything away for an adulterous affair. The accountant who didn't give a damn about the boring bits of life like the bills and expenses.  Ashley had done some growing up. Little wonder then that Will had hesitated over carrying out his plans. Yet his fears and inner demons had driven the young man, overcoming any qualms he might have had over putting his wife to the test.

That young man is too stubborn for his own good.

Ellen silently sighed. She felt for her friend's rage and pain but knew they were dangerous for the marriage he seemed so ambivalent about protecting.

Knowing Will had not been upfront about his career status with his wife, Ellen decided to reveal further details of Will’s plan, if nothing else, as a way to distract the younger woman from her thoughts on the finances of her husband.

"Actually Ashley, Will wanted you to have a more close up view of the other life you could have," Ellen said, ignoring the noticeable wince of the younger woman as she heard another reference to her former fantasy of another life.

Ellen led Ashley to the study that she had barely noticed when she first arrived.

“Actually, Jackson has been living very near Margaret for much of the last six months.  And this is why Will decided to rent this apartment. This is your front row seat to Jackson's life..."

Ashley stood slack jawed as she looked at the camera and screens that stood beside the window that looked over a row of houses across the street. The only thought that crossed her mind was how literal Will had been when he said she'd have a close up view of 'another life'.

Over the following 72 hours, Ashley felt she had more insight into Jackson than she had when she was having an affair with him. Perhaps it was the effect of the information gathered by the PI agency. It could even have been the effect of seeing him without the filter of her illusions and fantasies. The only thing that was certain was Ashley was seeing Jackson in a whole new light.

She saw the same attractive bad boy biker, but she also saw the man who treated the woman who had abandoned her family and marriage to be with him with a level of crude callousness that alarmed her. Ashley witnessed how the thrill and excitement of living with this enigmatic man transformed into helpless resignation on the part of Madison. In Madison's tears and sadness, which she only indulged in in Jackson's absence, Ashley saw the potential outcome of "another life". The friction of living together with another person and the vicissitudes of life had taken off the shine of what had been new and exciting, leaving only mutual resentment and exhaustion in its wake.

The blindness she had to her own self failed to function when she observed Madison, a girl who so resembled her in ways other than physical appearance. The shallowness, selfishness and confusion exhibited in this mirror of sorts made her cringe involuntarily.

By the end of the third day of observing the couple, Ashley felt like she'd overdosed on a reality TV series exposing the mundane lives of young couples. She saw the petty squabbles, the dissatisfaction, the struggle to maintain some sort of civil relationship. Above all, she saw the anger created by unrealistic expectations and the caustic effects of regret. Madison's joy in the new life growing inside her was muted by the guilt she felt over the child she abandoned. The guilt manifested itself in her obsessive poring over photos which she kept hidden in her luggage. Madison only dared to indulge in tearful sessions of staring at the photos when Jackson left the house.

Jackson's cold attitude towards Madison's pregnancy also dismayed Ashley. It seemed almost as if he resented the fact that his lover was pregnant and often expressed his dissatisfaction with her pregnant body. Over a period of mere days, Jackson's image was tarnished beyond repair in Ashley's mind, making her wonder once again what she saw in her fuckbuddy.

By the end of that week, Ashley was increasingly restless. Given the choice, she would have flown home to be with her baby. Yet she remembered Will's insistence on her completing the plan before she made her decision. Aware of her restlessness, Ellen tried to interest Ashley in the work she was doing for 'couples in recovery’. The young mother started off with some resistance and indifference, disliking the constant reminder of her own mistakes. However, the more stories she heard from Ellen, the more Ashley appreciated the work Ellen did. After hearing Ellen's own story, Ashley understood why the older woman was so eager to help Will and her. When Ellen told Ashley how Will had first approached her for help, the younger woman's devastation was apparent. Ashley was subdued for most of the next couple of days as she pondered how desperate Will must have been to ask for help from a stranger. Ellen was secretly impressed as Ashley had never shown any sign of considering the impact of her actions on Will. The more empathetic Ashley was a different creature from the self-indulgent wife Will had led her to expect.


****


Ashley had just logged into her email account and was preparing to access the portal for Cary’s video feed when she noticed an email titled:  crushing revenge of a husband. Not understanding how such an email landed in her inbox, she opened the email and saw a list of video links. At first, the shaky images confused her, but just before she was about to click off on the video, she saw an image that brought her heart up her throat. It was Will and he was instructing what looked like a demolition crew on what they were about to do that day. Her heart pounded with fear though Will’s instructions were not really audible, the direction he pointed was clear though. He had pointed at the house next door. Margaret’s and Jackson’s old house. When the clip ended, Ashley found herself clicking impatiently on the next link and gasped as she saw the demolition crew drag out the furnishings and fittings from the house next door.

“Noo!”

The cry of distress brought Ellen running, fearful that something had distressed the younger woman. Ashley, she noted, had appeared lethargic and lacked appetite. Coupled with the stomach upset she appeared to be nursing, Ellen was starting to wonder if she should suggest the younger woman test herself. The images playing on the screen made no sense to Ellen as she struggled to figure out what had the younger brunette holding her hand to her mouth. Only when she saw Will in a hard hat, brandishing an industrial sledgehammer did she comprehend what was going on.

Will’s going through with his plan. Dang! There ain’t no stopping that young man!

Both women watched as Will went loco on sofa set that was dragged out of the house and placed on the driveway. The almost feral expression on his face coupled with the ferocity of his attacks on the offending piece of furniture was matched by the silence of the crowd that had gathered to watch the demolition. Ashley recognised faces in the crowd shot taken by whoever was holding the video camera, they were all her neighbours. Only Mrs Thompson seemed to be missing, which led to her surmising that the neighbourhood gossip was probably the one doing the shooting of the video. A voice was heard asking, “Wow, what has he got against that sofa?” Another voice, sounding like the lady from two houses up the street, said in an almost conspiratorial whisper captured by the video camera, “Don’t you remember what happened almost two years ago? That no good biker son of Margaret’s and that sweet quiet wife of Will’s…”

The abrupt ending of the second clip did nothing to assuage the hysteria rising in the chest of one of the subjects of that conversation. Ellen could do nothing but hold the shaking younger woman’s shoulders in an effort to calm her.

“Are you sure you want to continue watching this?”

Ashley barely got out a nod, she had been shaking like a tree caught in gale force winds. Her trembling fingers moved the mouse over to the next link and both ladies watched grimly as the next clip loaded. Will’s stony expression took on an eerie glow as he threw matches on the doused remains of the sofa set and watched. With an audible ‘whoosh’, the flames leapt to life and engulfed the sofa in minutes. The relevant town authorities were present, watching the scene with the same grim detachment as Will. The scene bore testament to the detailed planning and effort Will had taken on for this task.

The video ended with Will walking, sledgehammer in hand again, towards the bathtub which stood nearer the porch of the house next door.

“H-he he knows! God! He knows!” Ashley cried brokenly. The thoughts that ran through the young wife’s mind were not the delicious memories of her affair with Jackson, centred on those pieces of furniture. Rather, her mind was swamped by the awful panic and fear that came with the revelation that Will knew every last detail of her adulterous fling.

Ashley barely recognised the ragged sobs filling the room as hers. She stared fearfully at the screen as Will reduced the bathtub that she had adored in Jackson’s house to little more than debris in minutes. Again that fierce gleam in his eyes made him seem ever more dangerous. The rage pouring off him was almost visible and tangible, making the audience collectively edge away.

Ashley was little more than a weeping heap as the final clip loaded. Will operated the wrecking ball as safety officials, who had issued a licence which was taped to the crane, gave the final go-ahead from the sidelines of the neighbourhood circus. And within minutes, there was rubble where the house next door once stood. It seemed to be an anti-climactic end for the audience of neighbours who had gathered but the tight smile of satisfaction across Will’s face was unmistakable.

“He k-knows...h-he k-knows...Ellen! Wha-what a-mm I going to do?” The young wife sobbed helplessly. “H-he w-will n-never for-give m-me!” stuttered Ashley.

Ellen could only hold the distressed younger woman as she sobbed out her fears and pain at the clearest sign that the hope of saving her marriage seemed as precarious as sandcastles in the face of an incoming wave.

****

Hours later at lunch, Ellen looked with concern at the dazed young mother who sat staring listlessly at the food on her plate through eyes still red and swollen. When Ashley bolted for the bathroom and unmistakable sounds of retching were heard coming from behind the locked door, Ellen sighed and decided to bring out the test kits she’d purchased at the drugstore when she picked up ingredients for lunch from a nearby supermarket. Ashley had remained in the car, silent and still like a statue. Ellen had been too worried about her emotional state to risk leaving the young woman alone in the apartment.

When the young wife opened the door of the bathroom, weakened by the vomiting and emotional stress, she was faced with the concerned older woman she’d grudgingly come to regard as a friend.

“You should get tested, Ashley.”

“I suspected it on the cruise,” Ashley muttered brokenly, her eyes shifting uncomfortably to the ground.

“And you didn’t tell Will? Oh, Ashley,” Ellen tut tutted.

Eyes flashing with that brief spark of anger and frustration, Ashley asked, “Would that have made any difference?”

Ellen privately agreed with her, having been familiar with Will’s plans and how Ashley’s earlier pregnancy merely meant a postponement and not the cancellation of his plans. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to quash the brief spark of hope she thought she saw flash through Ashley’s eyes before anger and frustration clouded them.

The two women stared at each other for a while before Ashley mutely took the tests and locked herself in the bathroom. Time seemed to crawl until Ashley finally unlocked the door and almost staggered into the embrace of the older woman.

“What am I going to do?” The distressed wife wailed. Ellen had no answers.

****

“So how’s she doing?”

“As well as could be expected.”

“What do you mean by that?”

For a brief moment, Ellen felt tempted to tell Will that he had just fathered a second kid.  She remembered Ashley’s stubborn insistence that she not reveal her condition to anyone, least of all Will.

“...I don’t want him pulling this again in another couple of years,” Ashley had begged. “Please just let me get through this.”

Ellen sighed and changed the topic.

“Why did you allow your neighbour to send those demolition videos to Ashley? She saw them and she’s really upset.”

“What!”

Will’s outburst confirmed Ellen’s suspicion, Will had no idea Ashley had been sent the videos. Well, at least he was not so cruel as to want to hurt Ashley in that way.

By the time Ellen got off the phone, she was at once relieved and frustrated. Her relief came from an understanding that Will had not tried to pile further emotional stress on his wife while her frustration stemmed from the expectation of both parties that she keep secrets from the other.

****
 Ashley went from an almost catatonic dazed state to irritated restlessness after lunch. She spent almost an hour pacing in the apartment.

"Why? Why can't he just get over it? It's been so long?"

It was clear her frustration was boiling over to anger.

Ellen looked at her for a long while before shaking her head.

"You still don't understand how Will feels do you?"


"No, I just don't understand how he could do this to me, to us! "

Ellen sighed and explained at the speed of a teacher dealing with a recalcitrant student.

"So do you think you can forgive Will completely in three years and never resent him for that affair with the nanny?"

Ashley’s lip trembled as she muttered, "Maybe... well, at least I'll try."

"So what happens if you discover Will is secretly cherishing memories of her and replays them again and again? Of course, never with the intention of hurting you. Just you know, in the privacy of his mind."

"Is that what he's doing? How could he!"

The gasp of outrage that escaped Ashley turned into red face silence as she realised Ellen was describing her behaviour.

"So what can I do? How can I help Will get over this and save us?"

"Honestly, I have no idea.”

Ashley found no peace, the restlessness making it impossible for her to do anything other than pace the apartment like a caged animal. She felt the need to do something, to understand but not knowing what. She stopped as she recalled what Will had said when he handed her another package before she got out of the car at the airport.

“If you ever feel the need to try to understand how I’ve felt about this or why I needed you to do this, read this.”

He’d crammed the package into her carry-on bag and apart from a brief look at the package when she was searching for the login details for Cary’s camera feed, she’d forgotten about the book she’d glimpsed in the package. Curious, she opened the volume and started reading what she vaguely recalled was the bestseller people had been talking about.

The bottom fell out of her stomach as she read what sounded like a transcript of her affair coloured by the emotions of her betrayed husband. The initial outrage she felt at the intrusion upon her privacy was tempered by her realisation that Will knew there was no way she’d ever openly confront him for that since it would involve her having to openly admit she was the cheating wife. One look at the forums that had sprung up discussing the novel had her realising she would be crucified if she ever outed herself. Will had her caught in a web. She cringed at all the vitriol poured out against the character representing her and felt the burn of shame by ironic proxy.

The tale within a tale that packed the sting of a scorpion

Ashley struggled against the chaos of emotions and impulses that ran through her mind. There was elation; Will had worked so hard to realise his dream of becoming a writer but had always lacked that one element. Years earlier she would have said it was luck. Now as the pain radiated off the pages of Will's novel, she recognised it for what it was; the emotional connection. Her betrayal had not only sharpened Will's observation and analytical skills, it had brought out that emotions he had always had to suppress because he was the level-headed, adult one out of the pair of them. Yes, she'd stabbed him with her betrayal but that wound stripped him of his armour and he stood with his emotions proud and raw. He was writing and he was trying to heal. While his rage was partially expelled in the little bits of revenge he'd enacted against her, a good part of it fuelled his writing.

Ashley winced as the pages went by and she became increasingly engrossed in the story that was essentially hers. She wanted to hide from the ugly truth that was seeping from the ink on the pages but knew that would be futile. She could close her eyes and hide in her fantasies and anger at Will, but she could not un-see, she could not un-read what she had already seen. It was as Will noted on the page where his alter ego Bill wondered when his unfaithful wife bade goodbye to her adulterous fuckbuddy that spring morning in their backyard.

After such knowledge, what forgiveness?

Her head hurt as much as her heart did when she finally finished the book. Ashley knew in that instant that her marriage as she knew it was dead. She had cut the head off and Will had subsequently staked it in the heart. Will had flayed her in front of millions without laying a hand on her and she'd gutted the man she professed to have loved for half her life. They had hurt each other; she because he was a convenient target for her selfish frustration with life, he because his quest for revenge against her transgression was leaving that wound raw. The writing was helping him heal but every bit of action he took against her was opening those wounds again and making him bleed out.

Because he still loves me.

That thought brought bittersweet memories to Ashley - all the times she'd caught Will with that strange expression on his face - that mix of bitter hostility that spoke of hate that carved itself into that clenched jaw tempered by the almost painful tenderness that lurked in his eyes. She didn't understand it then. She certainly was beginning to understand it now.

Without meaning to, Ashley drifted off into sleep. Her mind haunted by images of Will and Cary. Someone was chasing after the two men she love and she was running, hoping to save them. Just when they were finally putting some distance between them and their pursuer, she tripped and pulled Will down with her. Their pursuer caught up and was drawing a sharp knife to stab them, the cold metal glinting ominously. Cary was screaming and Will was trying to put himself between the knife of their assailant and herself as well as Cary. Before the knife came down, she caught a glimpse of their mysterious assailant and screamed as she recognised Jackson. His lips peeled open in a death's grin, his hand closed about her wrist and made her clasp the knife that was aimed at Will's chest.

"No!"

Ashley was wrenched from the depths of her nightmare with her own scream reverberating in her ears. Still numb with fear, she accepted Ellen's comforting hug after the older woman got over the shock of seeing her guest in tears and shaking nervously as she sat in her bed.

She knew what her nightmare was trying to tell her. Will would slowly die as their marriage dragged out its existence, itself dead in everything but name. He would never be the one to end it. She had to do it. She had been the one to deliver the first blow and now it was up to her release them both.

Hatred would end it all. One last act that would seal Will’s hatred of her and while it would hurt now, it would put a stop to the long term pain.


****