Destroying Fantasies Pt. 01

He sighed and left, not wishing to confront her in the face of the inevitable trial that awaited him in school.

Will found his worst fears over the spread of news regarding Ashley's affair and the fight were realised the minute he stepped into school. The hallways were packed with colleagues and students, many of whom were openly staring at him and whispering to their friends. His colleagues looked at him like they would a freak show, the same mix of curious scorn and pity in their eyes. One told him quietly that the vice principal wanted to see him in her office once he appeared. The man looked uncomfortable as he spoke to Will, uncertain of what he could say to the poor cuckold who stood next to him.

Will groaned inside but made his way to the vice principal's office. After the usual polite small talk, the elderly lady had looked directly at Will and offered to reschedule his extra credit classes so he could take time to 'be with family and sort out some personal problems'. Will found his first public smile in almost 72 hours as the elderly lady reassured him that she would help him fill in the necessary paperwork explaining his unexpected absence from school the day before and that she would approve any leave he might feel was necessary in the next few weeks. Her last words of encouragement before he exited her office almost made tears rise in his eyes.

"Young man, it might seem like the end of the world now but one day, you'll look back on this as nothing more than a bump in the road of life. Take these as words of experience from one who has seen too much of this world."

Will had gone off to his classes feeling a tad better despite the stares and whispering that continued to be thrown in his direction all day long. He went through all his classes on autopilot, broken only by the breaks that afforded him time to think. He wasn't sure what he wanted in terms of his marriage. He was, however, sure he didn't want to give the adulterous pair an easy opportunity to further indulge themselves by divorcing her. Yet even that was dependent on his finding out how far their adulterous affair had progressed. He hadn't wanted to hear the details of her affair from Ashley which would have lacked credibility and ensured greater humiliation. No, he didn't trust her now but she was the only source of information he wanted and needed.

His conundrum had him frowning when he walked into the room where his extra credit class waited. He had always liked this class, it was mainly a bunch of the school's geeks. They were great at math and science, often topping the school ranks in those subjects but they lagged in the humanities and in writing. The school had wanted to remove the main obstacles in these students' path towards Ivy League university admissions and he had agreed to take them on. Most of the students had been distant, not quite trusting the handsome teacher who they guessed had been part of the popular crowd in school, the very crowd that often ostracised them. All that changed when rumours regarding Will's cheating wife and his humiliation spread around the school. Suddenly, the geeks thought of Will as a fellow human, not one of the invincible in-crowd creeps who bullied them. They recalled how he had reached out to them during classes and tried to help them better express themselves. And they found themselves empathising with the man who seemed slumped in defeat as he walked into class today after an unexpected absence the day before.

Will noticed the students were more attentive in class but didn't wonder about the cause. He noted their attitude towards him was less distant and more friendly. A thought struck him as several hung around after class to chat about their latest projects, mostly apps that allowed covert surveillance of individuals through their phones and computers. They offered a potential solution to his need for information that could be relied upon. Will found real interest in their subject of discussion for the first time. In any case, he wasn't too eager to get home and face his wife even though he knew he had to keep an eye on her.

"Guys, are there apps that could be installed on someone's phone or computer that would allow you to monitor their email, conversations and maybe even record them?" Will asked in as casual a manner as he could.

The students smiled cautiously and answered tentatively that it was probably illegal but not impossible. When Will showed no reaction to the potential legal consequences, the students relaxed and discussed keystroke logs, backdoors and spyware. Ultimately, the brightest one of them, an Asian American student offered to copy his latest app and software modification onto a USB drive that Will could pick up from him the next day in class. His fellow classmates, eager not to be outdone, had offered to order the recording devices and cameras that Will needed but was hesitant to order for delivery to his own address. Will promised to pay the students the cost of the orders and thanked them sincerely, sincerity that won over the last vestiges of caution they naturally had around adults.

****

When Will left school, he was feeling much better. He finally had some idea of the direction forward. While he had no idea where exactly he and Ashley were headed, he felt an easing of the rage borne out of helplessness. He was taking action and that was all that mattered right at that moment.

By Friday afternoon, Will had in his hands the USB flash drive and several recording devices, including cameras that the students had promised to set him up with. When he asked how they could have gotten everything so quickly, the quietest geek in the group owned up to being an online retailer of such "surveillance essentials". He also had in his notebook, full instructions for setting up accounts that would store and organise all the audio and visual recordings that he needed as well as meticulous notes on how to install all the devices and spyware. The Asian student had volunteered to help him install some of the cameras but Will, mindful of his nosy neighbours, didn't want further suspicion aroused and so had politely declined. The student laughed and reminded him to install and test the equipment, adding helpfully that "we're all ready to help if you find some things don't work, Teach!" The students were rewarded by one of Will's smiles, a sight rarely seen since the domestic incident made him miss school earlier in the week.

No one in the neighbourhood thought much of it when Will's car pulled into the driveway just before evening that Friday. There were few people around to notice the teacher who had often been home late break his pattern that day. Ashley had scheduled a grocery run after work and Cathy had promised to accompany her, or so the text message said. So no one noticed the teacher moving rapidly around the kitchen and the rest of the house, adjusting what looked like small bolts into the door frames while checking his laptop intermittently.

Will was glad he was nifty with his hands as he hurried around the house, installing all the cameras and listening devices. While the help offered by the students would have sped things up considerably, the risk of exposure would have been too great. Plus, the risk of the students talking and spreading rumours was one he didn't want to take. He did, however, make a mental note to thank the students who'd ordered the devices for their thoughtfulness in purchasing extra blocks of batteries which would last him for months.

He was tightening the receiver of the kitchen phone when he heard the sound of Ashley's car pull into the driveway. Gathering all the packaging and any items that might arouse suspicion, he stuffed them into his duffel bag and sat down in the kitchen chair, pretending to work on lesson plans.

Ashley's surprise when she saw him home early was muted by the same awkwardness that now haunted their interaction. Ashley prepared their dinner in silence and they ate in silence. Neither seemed willing to break the invisible wall that seemed to separate them. The scream of the bikes next door merely made Ashley wince as she saw Will tense up at the noise.

When Ashley couldn't take the tension anymore, she decided to take a bath. Will sensed an opportunity to install the spyware and asked to borrow her phone and computer to run checks on some issues he had with his laptop. Ashley, glad to be of any assistance to the husband she'd hurt so badly, unlocked her phone and logged into the computer before escaping into the bathroom.

Left to his own devices and knowing Ashley would not end her bath in any short space of time, Will carefully inserted the USB flash drive and installed the spyware on Ashley's computer. Synchronising her computer with his laptop, Will sent a test email from her mailbox to a dummy mailbox created by the students and saw to his satisfaction that an alert and a copy of the same email immediately popped up on his laptop. Within 30 minutes, the code that Will had loaded into Ashley's computer had indexed and tagged every single file she had on her disk and sent a copy to a cloud account the students had created for him.

Will smiled as he remembered how sceptical he had been when the students claimed he could lay his hands on every single file on the computer he wanted to spy on. He chuckled when he recalled the geeks' boast that "every future file and item created by the user will be tagged and a copy sent immediately, so even if they erase or delete it, you'll have a copy Teach!"

After he connected with the webpage the students had told him about, he downloaded on Ashley's phone the app that they had created and soon every single bit of data on that phone appeared on his account. He did a test call to one of the students and five minutes later found an audio file in his account that was a recording of the test call.

Pleased, Will sat back and started watching the live feed from the cameras installed around the house. It was surreal watching himself sitting in the kitchen on the computer but the experience seemed a fitting reflection of the nightmare his life had become after the discovery three days ago. Idly, he switched the view to the cameras in the bedroom and bathroom. He watched dispassionately as his wife sat in the bathtub and stared at her hand, a large tear rolling down her cheek as she rubbed the ring on her finger wistfully and a barely audible whisper came out of her mouth, "I'm so sorry Will."

Will fought back the pity and love that he felt welling up almost instinctively inside. Almost as if his body felt he needed a reminder, the wound on his left cheek throbbed. No, he couldn't let her off that easily. Will clung onto the rage and pain to keep off the weak thoughts of relenting and forgiveness.

****

Three weeks later, Will found himself screeching to a stop a few metres away from the steep drop in the more remote, hilly part of the county. At night, this was an ideal destination for young couples looking for privacy for a make out session. In the afternoon, it was a quiet place that attracted no one. No one except for a desperately angry husband. The cameras and recording devices around the house had turned up very little. There were occasions when they caught Ashley staring wistfully at the house next door, but she had made no move to contact the bastard next door.

When Ashley tentatively brought up counselling, Will had agreed since they were at an impasse. Their first session was awkward with little said by both who found talking to a stranger about their marital affairs difficult. Will realised he would never hear the full truth about Ashley's affair from her lips, given her reluctance to hurt him further by talking about it openly. Hence, he readily agreed to pay for extra individual counselling sessions for Ashley. The irony that the payment came from the extra money he'd earned taking on those extra credit classes and extra work that drove a deeper wedge between Ashley and him and gave her the opportunity to step out on him did not escape Will. He merely swallowed the bitter irony the way he swallowed his meals at home, quickly and without thinking. He was numbing himself with work, spying and clubbing. The last meant that he was out many nights but he justified it to himself - Ashley wouldn't react honestly if he was always there, so he was giving her opportunities to show her slutty self and if he had evidence of it, he could destroy her in court.

He had had several hook-ups, mostly women who had been attracted to him in the clubs and weren't averse to be getting laid in the backseat or at their apartments. It wasn't so much revenge as the need to prove himself a man after his wife demonstrated her need to seek satisfaction from her fuckbuddy. Ashley seemed to be oblivious to his activities despite him returning late and quite drunk. There were occasions on which she seemed ready to say something but bit back her words.

Among these "reassurances" Will found at the clubs was a young blonde whom he found strangely familiar but was unable to place. In many ways, she reminded him of his girlfriends back in college before he met Ashley. The blonde had been eager to please and had him down her throat before he even got the car door closed. The sight of those red lips wrapped around the base of his cock and the red nails caressing his balls was enough to get him harder than he could remember in a long time. When she lowered her tight pussy onto him, Will knew he was about to have the best lay of his married life.

She rode him fast and hard, massaging his sensitive cock with her tight grasping walls. It was such an overwhelming experience that Will only remembered he'd not had the opportunity to use the customary condom he'd insisted on using with his other hook-ups seconds before he came in her. The blonde shrieked at the hot geyser that hit her cervix and tightened inexorably around him, milking his cum to the last shot.

He was puzzled by her last words as she pulled up her thong and pulled down the blouse that was bunched up under her armpits. She had kissed him wetly on his lips and whispered in his ears in a breathy giggle, "You don't remember me Will but I guarantee you'll remember this night. See you around sometime. And don't tell my parents you saw me tonight."

Then she had left, her high heels clicking awkwardly as she tried to hold the cum inside her while walking back to the club. That encounter had been the last of his hook-ups since the thought that he may have fucked the daughter or sister of someone he knew brought him to his senses. He couldn't risk everything to blow some steam and get back at his cheating wife.

The sexual release was fine, perhaps a good bit better than the release that masturbation offered. But Will needed much more. What Ashley did wasn't just physical or sexual.

No, she had made me question my adequacy as a man, a lover and a husband. From the moment she stepped out and got strange, she'd thrown me away. She'd thrown us away. And now, I'm not sure where to look or find myself again.

The bitterness Will felt at Ashley's betrayal grew and ate at his very soul. There were times he wanted to simply just divorce the cheating bitch, but that stubborn devil inside him protested that such a move would be letting her off too easily.

Deprived of this sexual vent, Will's frustration grew. It was compounded by the details of Ashley's affair that were emerging. Just before Ashley went for her first individual counselling session, Will had presented her with a new bag as a make up present for his smashing her grandmother's ugly chintz. The guilt on Ashley's face increased Will's secret delight since she evidently had no idea that he decided to present her with the new bag because he'd asked one of the students to equip it with a recorder and pinhole camera. It would be perfect for his spying on her counselling sessions. And to ensure she would use the new bag instead of the old one, he conveniently spilled coffee and milk soaked cereal all over her old bag the morning of her first session. His delight was short-lived as Will heard over the course of the next few weeks details of Ashley's affair.

Ashley had been unwilling to connect with the counsellor and seemed ill at ease revealing details of her affair during counselling sessions. The counsellor understood her reluctance.

"Ashley, I can understand why you would feel uncomfortable revealing intimate details of your affair to relative strangers like me. But unless you understand why you did what you did, we can't hope to resolve this and there will be little hope of salvaging your marriage."

After some thought, Ashley agreed to the counsellor's suggestion that she keep an audio journal detailing her affair with Jackson, sending the journal entry files to the counsellor so she wouldn't feel overly exposed or judged. As the weeks went by, Ashley became more comfortable and started revealing more details, unaware that all the files she sent from her personal accounts and computer made Will front row audience of her confessional performance. He heard in excruciating detail how Ashley had experienced the "best sex" and "best orgasms" of her life with Jackass. Ashley had even claimed that she and Jackass shared a special connection, something she felt she wouldn't ever feel again in her life; the adulterous pair got each other in a way no one else did. Will's knuckles turned white gripping the steering wheel as he recalled how Ashley had described "resisting" his lovemaking after he'd returned from the chaperone trip the weekend she'd first fucked the bastard next door. Somehow the poor husband was now the "invader" and was the poor fuck compared to her dickhead lover. So poorly did he compare to Jackass that she had to fake an orgasm.

His growing rage was matched only by his anguish at the thought that he had truly lost to that bastard. Will ran out of the car and stared into down the drop. For a moment he contemplated simply ending his life. It would be so easy stepping over, into thin air. After all, Ashley's betrayal already did him in.

Then he imagined what would happen after they discovered everything. The answer sobered him up. Nothing. Oh sure, there might be some guilt on the part of Ashley. But that guilt would be hardly enough for her to ever break things off with Jackass. Instead, she would probably take the chance to officially hook up with that bastard. He would simply be paving the way for them to legitimise their adulterous relationship. And it would be literally over his dead body.

No. Fucking. Way.

He wouldn't put it past the selfish bitch he'd married to let guilt be no barrier. After all, it sure didn't stop her from having the affair in the first place! Will stepped back from the edge.

No, I'm going to punish the pair of them in the worst way possible.

A range of violent and illegal acts ran through Will's mind, all of which ended in him either dying or suffering in the state penitentiary.

But why should I suffer along with them? I've done nothing wrong. As if it isn't enough that they betrayed me, now I have to suffer for putting things right? No. There has to be a better way. There has to be a way which satisfies me but hits them where it hurts.

Casting around for a solution, Will idly searched for a cheated spouse forum or website that could offer some clues. He clicked on the first link and landed on the page of a forum on a website offering guidance for spouses who had been betrayed by their partners. The website owner had offered a hotline to call for spouses who needed immediate or urgent help. Will dialled and within minutes was speaking to an older lady who reminded him of an old aunt who offered a listening ear and practical advice.