Best of Both Worlds

It has been some time since I updated this story, but work and life sometimes get in the way. I appreciate the many comments I did receive asking for me to continue this story, and accept that some of you will enjoy it, while others will not.

I carried the birthday cake to the table, being careful to not let the candles burn out. There were only two of us there to share Jennifer's 11th birthday, with her, as we had invited her mother over for cake and ice cream. Tonight was family night, her big bash with all her friends would be held on the weekend. As I set the cake on the table, her mother in a cheerful voice encouraged her to blow out all the candles and make a wish.

Jennifer took a deep breath and blew hard, but one of the candles only flickered and didn't go out. I think both Sarah and I felt bad, after the candle blowing is important to a child, and started to commiserate with her, telling her it was okay.

After making a sad face for a minute, Jennifer spoke up saying, "It probably doesn't matter, after all I've made the same wish for the last few years, and we haven't become a family again, so I was probably wasting my breath."

I know I felt the sadness in her voice, and when I looked over at Sarah I could tell from the look in her eyes, that she felt it too. To her credit, Sarah spoke first, telling Jennifer that sometimes things didn't work out the way we wanted, and that sometimes things were just meant to be a certain way, but that both her mommy and daddy loved her.

The three of us sat around for a while, eating the cake and talking about happy things for Jennifer, the plans for her big party, her activities at school and how well she was doing on her soccer team. As we did, the mood brightened considerably, so that by the time Sarah left for her apartment, and Jennifer went to get ready for bed, all appeared to have been forgotten.

I finished cleaning up and went to watch some television before heading to bed myself. As I sat there Jennifer's comment came back to my mind. Thinking about it made me reflect on all that had happened since that fateful Saturday almost four years ago.....

Clearly, when I headed off to meet with the private investigator I'd hired to find out if my suspicions were correct about Sarah having an affair, I knew deep inside what I'd find out. As much as I hoped it wouldn't be true, there was just too much, too many clues to be anything but. Still, I had no idea as to whom she was fooling around with.

When he went through his report and identified the asshole who was cuckolding me, I recognized the fact that he was apparently a French glassblower, and recalled Sarah speaking about him many months ago, and how we'd teased each other about it. At the same time, I could recall similar teasing in the past, sometimes about a woman I'd met or noticed, sometimes about a guy whom she found attractive, or who appeared to notice her. I couldn't help but wonder if this was the only one, or had I been blind for years.

The pictures he handed me clearly wiped out any vestige of doubt, there she was, my Sarah, the only woman I'd loved or made love to, involved in every sexual activity with this animal. The looks on her face, the actions she was performing, things that I'd always assumed were reserved for me. Even though I'd been expecting this, the reality of the report, and the pictures blew me away.

Part of me wanted to find that bastard and rip his head off, cut off his cock and feed it to the dogs. But I knew I couldn't do that, as much as I might want to. I had met with my attorney a few weeks ago, to find out about my rights, especially as they related to our daughter. He pointed out that in our state, the non-cheating spouse almost always was granted custody, unless they were considered violent and dangerous. Clearly doing what I so desperately wanted to do, could allow me to be considered violent and dangerous, if not sent to jail for criminal assault causing bodily harm.

I loved my daughter with every ounce of my being, and couldn't risk losing her because of this vermin, who'd stepped in to ruin my marriage, and take away what I'd always assumed would be my one and only love. As for Sarah, the thought of her having custody of Jennifer, after destroying me through her actions, would have been too much. If I lost Jennifer now, I may as well kill myself, for my reasons for living would have been gone.

All this was running through my mind as I headed home for the confrontation, thankful only for the fact that Jennifer wouldn't have to see or hear it. Yes it would be hard to explain it to her, hell, I didn't understand it myself, why had Sarah gone and destroyed us, and what we had. Thank god that I had given this a lot of thought before I got home for the planned confrontation, or otherwise I may have acted a lot differently than I did.

So much for rational thought. Nothing, not even the pictures prepared me for the shock I experienced when I turned to look in our bedroom and found my wife, my supposed love, on all fours on our marital bed, with this bastard drilling his cock up her ass. In some ways now I can almost laugh, albeit bitterly, at the thought that I'd find her performing the one sexual activity she'd denied me, with her lover.

I've done my share of reading erotic stories online, after all, who hasn't. The stories that amaze, and almost sicken me, are those where a husband gets off on half the neighborhood screwing his wife, how he has to jerk off, join in or cum in his pants. Let me tell you, there was no such reaction as I'd stared at what was going on in front of me. To this day I still don't know how I held off being physically sick right then and there. After choking my lunch back down into my stomach, my first reaction was to kick him square in the balls and beat him to within an inch of his life. It took every ounce of willpower I possessed to overcome those feeling, constantly reminding myself about Jennifer, and how I couldn't let her down in the way her mother had let both of us down.

Even then, I didn't have any desire to hit or beat Sarah, I've never hit her or any other woman, and never will. At one point I think she tried to reach out to hug me, but I quickly recoiled and pulled away, never wanting to touch her again.

As I sat thinking about what had gone on, I realized that much of what happened I'd confronted them was a blur. I remembered her crying, wondering to myself if it was solely because she'd been found out, or did she actually regret her actions, but I can't remember much of what either of us said. I knew I needed to get out of there, the sight of the messed up bed, the smell of their activities being more than I could bear, so I remember telling her I'd be back the next day, and that she better be ready to move out before I had to pick Jennifer up.

By the time I'd returned the next day, I was again in control of my emotions, though overwhelmed with the hurt and pain of her treachery. Even know I can't believe how Sarah tried to explain it away as only 'sex', telling me that she still loved me, and that we could work thing out. Yeah right, her actions to date sure had shown me how much she 'loved' me, and where I fit in that competition with 'sex'.

One of the hardest things I had to do was to tell my daughter that mommy wasn't living with us any more, but that she would still see her from time to time. She couldn't understand it, and I wasn't going to explain why, she was to young and didn't need that. But I knew that it was important for her mother to be part of her life, and that mommy loved her. As much as I would have preferred never letting Sarah see Jennifer again, I knew I couldn't take her away from her mother forever, without it backfiring on me or more importantly, Jennifer in the long run. Even though I hated Sarah at that moment, I had to acknowledge that she had been a good loving mother to Jennifer, attentive and caring.

I must admit that those first few months were the roughest on me. In looking back, I'm not proud of the increased drinking. No, I didn't go and get drunk all the time, but I started having a drink or two after getting Sarah down for the night, and on a few weekends when Jennifer was with Sarah, I did sit and drown my sorrows, feeling sorry for myself as I tried to figure out what went wrong. Had I been the one that screwed up, or the old constant, why did she do it. Maybe it was fortunate that as we get older, it takes us longer to recover from a hard night of drinking, so I don't think there was a real risk that booze would take over my life.

Given a choice between macho pride, or doing what was best for Jennifer, I decided to swallow my pride, and work to ensure that Jennifer did get quality time with Sarah. I granted her every second weekend with Jennifer, along with other visitation rights. I also bit my tongue and tried to act polite whenever she came to pick up or return Jennifer, telling myself that it was in the best interests of Jennifer to act like a reasonable person, rather than pouring out my bitterness and anger.

I was somewhat surprised when about a month after our separation Sarah asked to speak to me, and even more shocked when she gave what seemed to be a sincere apology, accepting all the blame, sounding a little like the Sarah I'd known and loved. But at the same time, she was still the Sarah that had betrayed me, had lost my respect and trust, things I didn't think I would ever regain. I told her I accepted her apology, though in truth, only as a token apology. After all, should one moment of apparent sincerity overcome months of betrayal, months when she purported to act as my loyal, loving wife?

I was cordial, almost pleasant when we met to exchange Sarah, or at school functions when we met face to face. But that was only when I had to put on a pleasant public face. Whenever she picked up or dropped off Jennifer I would appear to be almost friendly, but in truth this was still an act designed to avoid adding any hurt to Jennifer.

There were a few times that first year I ran into her while out and about town. I could see the hurt in her eyes when she would approach me, with a hesitant smile, saying hello, only to see me stare at her, then turn away with a look of disgust on my face.

Every time I saw her it was like she was sticking that dagger into me and ripping out my insides. I saw that face, the one I'd loved, the eyes that had looked at me with love for all those years, wondering now if in fact it had been love. I saw that body, the one I'd know so well, and remembered her giving it to that asshole. I say the smile light up her face, and wanted to rip it away, how could she smile? The only consolation was that if I saw her before she saw me, I saw some of that same defeated look on her face that I felt.

You get the point, I was bitter, but heh, didn't I have the right?.

Conversation when we were around Jennifer, was polite, though awkward. Not much was ever said about what was going on in our own private lives, after all I didn't care or want to know what Sarah was doing.

One major change that occurred shortly after I left Sarah, was the sale of our home. I couldn't face going into our bedroom without visualizing that final action of Sarah disproving her love, or for that matter, the rest of the house without bringing up to many other memories. So Jennifer and I had gone house hunting, finding a nice place in the same area to allow Jennifer to keep her friends and not have to change schools. After all, it was enough to have her mother move out and to move to a new house.

I must admit that first Christmas was one of the more awkward times, we had agreed that we would share the overall Christmas holiday, and that first year, I had the first half, including Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I don't know what Sarah felt, but I know I hurt watching Jennifer opening presents, in a new house, without her mother that morning. But I did my best to keep things upbeat, as hard as it was for me.

Of course, Jennifer had been my saviour for these past years. Without her I couldn't have coped with Sarah's treachery. But fortunately she was there, and gave me focus to my life. It was tough at first, but her presence made me realize that I couldn't sit there every night with a bottle. If nothing else, I had to live for her.

As well, I had another focus that helped me get through those early days, Jacques Hamel, No matter how much I might want to get him out of my mind, the memory of walking in on them that fateful day, and the smug look on his face as he dressed and walked by me was forever printed on my mind. I'd vowed that someday I'd get even with him for his role in destroying my life. There were moments when I sat there alone late at night, a glass in my hand, I couldn't help but think of performing acts of torture on him, imagining him screaming in pain. However, I knew it couldn't be physical, after all while a judge may sympathize with me, or how good I might initially feel, I would be guilty of a crime, and Jennifer had already been hurt enough without losing me to a jail cell.

I remembered how I finally decided to contact my investigator and hired him to find out whatever he could about that bastard. Finally, early in that first new year, he got back to me, indicating his report was ready. He confirmed, as I'd already known, that Jacques seemed to have quite the thing going with a number of married women. Without my asking, he advised that it appeared that Sarah was no longer seeing him, not that I cared anyway. Apparently he had no trouble in replacing Sarah in his stable of willing women. Of more importance, he provided a number of pictures of Sarah's erstwhile lover in action with his harem, and the identity of these women.

I had to admit that he was clever, his fiancee, yes he was engaged, was going working on her doctorate and only was able to get home to Jacques every couple of weekends. This left him all the time he needed to explore his extra curricular activities without the knowledge of his girlfriend.

Of more interest was the fact that much of the work that Jacques sold as being created by him, had in fact been produced by others and was merely sold under his name, again I doubted that the producers of the work knew that this was happening. The supposed fact that he was producing and selling his own work was a major factor in the success of his business. Apparently Jacques had some ability to work with glass, but most of what he produced was more junk then quality.

It was this piece of information that allowed me to start to put a plan in place. The region where we lived was very arts conscious, and took steps through an annual awards program to recognize and reward area artists. To my pleasant surprise I learned that my good 'friend' Jacques had been awarded a major prize, based on his skill in the design and production of the 'amazing' works he produced. The trophy and accompanying monetary award would be presented at an awards gala.

In the weeks following the announcement I continued with the rest of my planning, wanting to ensure that Jacques got as much as possible out of everything that would be happening. Finally the big night arrived. I was pleased to see the flustered look on Jacques face as he noticed the presence of at least three of his flock, along with their husbands, a couple of whom were prominent members of the community, and who like me, were not aware of their wives infidelity. However the arrogant look I'd seen in my bedroom soon returned as person after person congratulated him on his award.

Soon it was time for the formal presentations. Jacques sat there beaming as the first speakers praised him on his work, the skill and craftsmanship he showed and suggested that soon his work would be priceless. It was only as the third speaker got up that his appearance changed, and sweat appeared on his brow, listening as the speaker was introduced as another craftsman who would comment on Jacques' work.

I wish I'd had a camera, not only to focus on Jacques, but on everybody else who knew him, and praised him, as the speaker exposed him as a fraud. You see he could do this, because much of the work Jacques sold was produced by him. The real artist had understood Jacques was selling it for him and paying him a commission on his sales, which he did in fact receive. However, until my man had contacted him, he wasn't aware that Jacques was selling sell it as his own. It had been a bit tricky arranging for him to be among the speakers, but to me, it was well worth the effort, in fact, you could say that it was priceless. The muttering from the crowd, the people pulling away from him did wonders for my morale. I did feel a little remorse for the organizers who were watching their event blow up, but it was more than overcome by the satisfaction I felt as I watched Jacques's little world disintegrate.

The public exposure wasn't the only thing I'd planned for that night. Just before the real artist was introduced, I'd arranged for an envelope to be delivered to his fiancee, containing pictures, all nicely dated, of Jacques performing with his flock, including Sarah. After all, I didn't owe her any favours. To bad I hadn't sent her a ticket too!

I had to admit she was pretty smart, she appeared to recognize some of the gals as those who had flocked around Jacques prior to the start of dinner. I'm not sure if the daggers coming out of her eyes were intended solely for her soon to be ex, or those who may no longer feel that the sex was that great after all. Similar envelopes were given to his soon to be former playmates. Their reactions were interesting, two of them appeared mortified that their apparent secret was no more, and worse, that they weren't the sole love interest. The third gal seemed to take it more personal, recognizing and glaring at first the other women, then Jacques, then trying to compose herself while her husband was watching the activity around Jacques.

It was hard to contain a smile when I approached him, as he sat alone, ashen faced, soaked from the drink thrown in his face by his now ex, and told him "No hard feelings, Jacques, after all, it's just a game, isn't it?" Even now I must admit I still feel the glow of satisfaction that ran through me that evening, it didn't make up for what I'd lost, but still, at least it was something.

The fall out from his exposure added to my twisted satisfaction, with the loss in business and ridicule forcing him to close his shop, just ahead of the landlord. I also heard that his fiancee took out her anger against his sports car, taking a hammer and knife to it, along with a bottle of sulpheric acid. I only wished that I had a picture of that, rather than those of Jacques and Sarah.

Its funny, only after I got the satisfaction of Jacques' public humiliation, did I finally start to think about sex and women, despite the fact that a number of my friends, and for that matter, friends of Sarah had tried to set me up in the months following our separation.

But now that my fixation with getting my revenge against Jacques had been taken care of, I did start to notice attractive women as they walked down the street, or sat at a restaurant table exposing their long legs. I began to think that I didn't need to be a hermit to be a good father to Jennifer, and that by living a normal life I would in fact help her adjustments. By then I'd also been to a doctor, advising him that I needed testing for STD's because my former wife had been active with an overly indulging asshole. Fortunately for me, the tests came back clear.

So finally, to the surprise of one of my buddies, I agreed when he suggested for about the tenth time that I should go out on a date, and let him set me up with Pat. I couldn't believe how nervous I felt when I pulled up to her door, surely it hadn't been that bad when I was in high school, before Sarah.