Boiling over

Another plane ride but this one was different. This was the first plane ride where I was going back home to ... nothing. No wife. No family. Just ... nothing. There's a message in there somewhere but I don't know what it is.

I'd finished the six month contract in less than three. I probably could have done it in even less but my mind wasn't totally on my work. I had ... other projects that were taking up a substantial part of my time. Projects that, I hoped, were soon to come to fruition.

The weekend before Thanksgiving is a horrible time to fly. Not as bad as Christmas, but damn close. The plane was full of people happily going back home to their families to celebrate.

I hated them. I hated them with a jealous hate that burned white hot.

Fuck 'em.

That had been my attitude on a lot of things for quite some time now. Fuck 'em. Fuck it. Fuck everything.

I had taken the window seat in the last row in first class this time; gotta love frequent flyer miles. I had a gazillion. They let me upgrade on damn near every flight I took.

Most people take first class because they're looking for creature comforts. Not me. Not this time. This time I was scrunched with my back to the window, my laptop in front of me so that no one else could see it. I was looking at a homemade porno, courtesy of Johnny Diamond.

Johnny wasn't much of a roommate, as I recall. He was sloppy, dirty and not prone to frequent showering. I had to give him credit, though; he was one hell of a private dick. The movie I was watching was high quality with very little pixilation; high definition, even. My ex-wife and her fucking brother were not being very careful.

Why should they? It was all over right? I'll admit that they'd surprised me when they hadn't taken a penny. They'd surprised me even more when they hadn't even taken the house and car. Amber just moved out, taking only her clothes and some furniture and stuff – stuff that had once belonged to her grandmother or great-aunt or something. She'd taken her shit and moved right into her brother's home with Maddy.

Of course, they'd probably worried about what I'd do when I got the paternity results and found out that Mikey wasn't my son. They were probably scared to death of my reaction when I found out that Mikey shared a few too many genes with his mother's family to be anything but the product of an incestuous affair.

I have to admit, that had hit me right in the gut. I still wasn't sure how I felt about that ... I mean it wasn't Mikey's fault who his parents were, right? Suffer not the children and all that. I guess it was just too hard to let go of nearly four years with the little boy. Somewhere, on some deep level, I still had to admit that I loved the kid. That I missed him, even. Or maybe I just missed the idea that I had my own family. I couldn't be sure.

It's what had finally decided things for me, though. It was the pebble too many; the fucking straw that had broken the camel's back. I was ranting and raving before, angry, upset, hating the world. Possibly, though, maybe even probably, I would have eventually calmed down. I would have eventually found it within myself to let go and forget Amber and Dave. Finding out that the little boy, my little son, wasn't my little son ... well, that had focused me. My anger had turned to rage and then beyond, way into something I'm not sure even had a name.

So, there they were, fucking each other without a care in the world. It was over, right? They'd gotten caught and shit but it was over and they were free to live their fucking incestuous lives and laugh behind their backs at that fucking idiot Marc Breuster. They were free, with a freedom that I would never again be able to feel.

I'd given them three months. I'd wanted them to think it was over. I wanted them lulled into a nice sense of security. I wanted them to think they were just coming out of the end of the tunnel ... a tunnel I'd be stuck in for the rest of my fucking life.

Oh no. It wasn't over. I hadn't even fucking started.

I smiled as I took a screen capture of a nice close up of Amber and Dave in flagrante delicto, as it were. Amber's legs were wide with Dave thrusting right between them. I liked this picture because it showed their faces, a little distorted as they reveled in fucking each other, but you could clearly see who they were. Of course, I had to make a few adjustments ... couldn't very well put this on a billboard with her tits showing like that.

That was part one of my plan. I'd wanted to put a full page ad in the local newspaper and the newspaper of Amber's hometown but I couldn't. Both papers refused on some kind of morality clause. They can report all they want about murder, rape, gang warfare, real warfare, and all the other sordid mess of society, but they wouldn't run a little newspaper ad of two naked people hugging with the banner "Amber Creston screwing her brother, Dave". I even told them that I'd black bar out all of the salacious parts of the body, but they still wouldn't go for it.

It's funny, but the outdoor advertising execs hadn't seemed to give a shit WHAT I put on their billboards. As long as the money was there, they could care less what I advertised. I probably could have gone whole hog and just threw up the straight, X-rated screen caps I'd collected, as long as I paid for the privilege. I thought that might have been a bit over the top, however, and I instead blacked out the parts I needed to in order to keep a soft R rating.

So I'd rented 30 billboards for 3 months, 10 in Amber's hometown in a kind of circle around her parents' house, 10 around Dave's house, 5 around the factory where Dave worked including one right on the side of the fucking building, and 5 around where Maddy worked. It was costing me quite a bit of cash, actually, but I didn't really fucking care. I could always make more money.

The billboards were actually a godsend; it let me also put a good sized, legible photo of Mikey's paternity test in the lower right corner with the caption " ... and she fathered a child with him!" The paternity test actually worked out quite well in there as it covered up Dave's naked ass; I don't think anyone would have the stomach to look at that every day for 3 months.

I know, I know. I promised Amber I wouldn't release the paternity test. I promised her it would be confidential. She'd promised me fidelity. I think it kind of partially evened out.

The billboards would be up on Wednesday, just in time for the joyous festivities of Thanksgiving; a holiday I wouldn't likely ever enjoy again. What the fuck did I have to be thankful for? Amber and Dave would be giving thanks for each other and their family. I would be giving thanks for the billboards that their family could enjoy. It wasn't much ... but she'd taken my whole family from me. I hoped I could return the favor.

Which is a rather nice segue into part two of my little plan. While the workers were hard at work Tuesday night, plastering Amber and Dave's fucking faces – literally – on billboards all over this city and a suburban city, the United States Postal service would be working hard to ship a few packages. One was bound for Child Protective Services, one for each of the two newspapers still found in the city, one to police headquarters, one to the district attorney's office – it being an election year and all – and one to the mayor's office. Inside these gift baskets were assorted papers, DVDs and what not detailing the incestuous lives of Amber and Dave Creston, including the full genetic makeup of their son, Michael.

Johnny Diamond had come through in more ways than one. Sure, he'd managed to get me the nauseating photos, videos and even a few phone conversations but more importantly, he was hiring a few people to make repeated calls to each of the package recipients claiming to be the Associated Press, police department, and various other organizations to make sure that the packages were opened and examined. I'd been waiting three months, I didn't want to have to wait for those lazy bums to get off their fat asses and get around to opening my care packages.