Destroying Fantasies Pt. 03

"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.