Chapter 1

Beefsters and Puckheads

June 8, 20—

Marlow Street

Floor 3, Office 7

8:00 A.M.

It was a typical spring day in Eastwind, Pennsylvania, next to Lake Erie. The temperature was almost eighty, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and Jax Morrison was well-rested, dreaming of Prince Charming—the animated one from the 1950 Walt Disney flick—the night before. Three cups of coffee prepared him for his busy day as a psychiatrist and whatever the good Lord in heaven was going to throw his way.

Most of his patients deemed him a fair therapist. He couldn’t write prescriptions or hand out drugs to his forty-plus patients, but he could give them some reasonable advice and listen to their problems. Jax was twelve years old when he decided he wanted to be a therapist. Dr. Phil helped with his decision, since he liked how the celebrity listened to people, made direct eye contact, and assisted them with their lives. Now Jax was twenty-eight and doing exactly what he had always wanted to do: listen to and help the everyday Joe and Joanne with their lives.

Jax was a ruggedly handsome man with ginger hair, facial hair, a well-built two-hundred and ten pounds, and stood just over six feet tall. Most guys thought him a big cuddly bear, but Jaxford Peter Morrison saw himself more like a white-collar beefster with an ear-to-ear smile. His eyes were his best feature, a light green that knocked men off their feet and caused much wooing from strangers (both male and female) in his life. His lips were soft pink and narrow, better to kiss those wooing men with, he thought. And he wore a size thirteen shoe, which told those who were interested in him that his private parts weren’t puny and could generously suffice in the sex department, causing a good time in the sheets.

His office was comprised of an assortment of browns and tans. The floor was pine and its furniture was a black leather. Margaret Keene prints, all copies, hung on the walls. He didn’t believe in having a desk because he worked from a tablet, which offered a living room feel for his patients. Three windows overlooked Marlow Street in downtown Eastwind, which was two blocks away from Lake Erie. One wall was covered in paperback novels, which he loaned out to his clients on a regular basis, obtaining a feel and understanding of their likes and dislikes.

* * * *

One of Jax’s patients was Margot Beet. She was blonde, pretty, and of an age where she was financially comfortable in life. Margot had been married six times, was wealthy because of her previous husbands and her marriages, and was interested in marrying husband number seven whom she referred to as The Writer, since Ed Billington had written a coming-of-age tale about a young woman (Carla Tanzy) who had an affair with a middle-aged man (Peter Pupette).

The three hundred-page novel titled Miss Tanzy’s Petwas banned from every high school library and church-related book club in the United States. Those who had read it, which alone exceeded twelve million page-turning readers in the United States according to hardback sales, compared it to the modern day Lolita, a brilliant masterpiece that Billington had pulled off with literary skill. Christians called the piece devilwritingand a religious iniquity. Republican senators loved the book in secret. Gays thought it sassy and delicious. Middle-aged men were a little embarrassed to read the tome since it crossed questionable taboos, but they were intrigued nonetheless and devoured it in private, behind their wives’ backs. And women, young and old, thought it a positive and provocative masterpiece of literature that proved that women of any age (including a high school senior at eighteen) could get exactly what they wanted and keep it.

Bottom line: Miss Tanzy’sPetwas a success and had made Ed Billington a millionaire, which Margot Beet wanted to reap from, faking her love for the man and his famous work that she referred to as literary nonsense.

Of course, she had admitted to Jax on numerous visits to his office, “I like to get what I can about a man. Their love, money, materialistic items, or whatever else I can obtain from them. I’m a haunting woman, if you want to know the truth. Some men have called me horrendous. Not that I blame them.”

Jax knew that Margot had used a dozen men in the last two years, gained expensive diamond rings, two classic cars, trips around the world on yachts, and received checks from those “horny and middle-aged” men that she had philandered. Margot was not weak. Never did she back down when accomplishing something sinister and repulsive. If Billington’s money is what she wanted, then Billington’s money is what she would obtain, probably within the next few months, according to her track record.