Authorpreneur Dashboard – Marietta G Cobb
Tangled Web
Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
Quincy couldn’t believe the words on his paternal twin sons’ birth certificates. According to the legal documents, the boys had two different fathers, Quincy just one of them. His wife, Madge, has betrayed him, although he’s not surprised by her affair. She cajoled him into marriage through drugs and sexual assault—an assault that created the twins. Now, Quincy is resolute in discovering the identity of the second father. Imagine his horror when he finds it to be Adam Collier, his own best friend. The betrayal is twofold as his wife and friend were once lovers. To make matters worse, Adam has asked Quincy’s sister, Olivia, to be his wife; how can Quincy break the news to Olivia without breaking her heart? With the terrible truth out on the table, Quincy is unwilling to let Madge anywhere near their children. He will raise them himself, but to do so, he must move beyond incredible past pain and become the father the boys need, even if only one of them is his biologically. He will give them a good life, but first, Quincy must remember how to live again.
Book Bubbles from Tangled Web
Depraved Deportment
Usually, women admitted to mental hospital often experience excessive stages of viciousness and sexual assaults. In this chapter, it was necessary to bring together Madge’s dysfunctional upbringing and her offensive sexual behavior. Madge lived in an environment where sexual abuse was commonplace. She couldn’t distinguish between rape and an act of love. I wrote this chapter so everyone could get a glimpse of her perverted mind. Many times, she didn’t care whether her mark was a willing participant or not. Whenever she wanted sex, she would offer herself to any man willing to have her. In her twisted world, the word—no—wasn’t an unacceptable answer. This scene was an example of how her depraved mind worked.
Spousal Betrayal
Before his marriage, Quincy usually showed an abundance of compassion for the people he loved. When he was cajoled into a loveless marriage, his whole demeanor changed completely. Quincy was well aware of the damage the lewd pictures would do to his name and reputation. He felt trapped and the only way out was to marry Madge. To make matters worse, she told him that he was the father of her unborn child. After his marriage, he knew Madge never considered his feelings at all. Quincy tried to love Madge, but he was always suspicious of her motives. Upon learning his twin sons were fathered by two different men, he felt a deeper sense of betrayal that was worse than any offensive thing she’d done to him in the past. Unable to quell his rage, a new Quincy arose from the pain of being cuckolded by his scheming wife.
Sisterly Skirmish
It was very important to show a contrast between Quincy Bryce’s and Olivia Collier’s personalities. Quincy was a quiet man with an introverted persona. Olivia was an extremely outspoken person with a short-fuse. Quincy was prone to letting Madge get away with a lot of unnecessary drama, but Olivia met problems head-on. She couldn’t believe the chaos her sister-in-law had created in order to get Quincy Bryce to marry her. Olivia didn’t know whether Madge was crazy or not. But there were countless indicators she was a little unstable. Most of all, Olivia knew Madge lived a dangerous and scandalous lifestyle. From the onset, Olivia realized that Madge was a drama queen who loved attention. She didn’t want to get involved in Madge’s never-ending turmoil. First and foremost, Olivia was concerned about her brother’s heart condition. She didn’t want to do anything that would cause him undue stress. She kept her distance from Madge. She knew if her sister-in-law didn’t watch her step, she was going to deal with her personally. Olivia was determined to stop Madge from destroying her brother completely.
Calculating Woman
It was important to show how a calculating woman pulled off the ruse of making love to a man she drugged. Her drug of choice was a Mickey Finn cocktail. Madge was seeking respectability and wealth by any means necessary. So she devised a plan to get Quincy in a compromising position to further her agenda. While Quincy was unconscious, she took lewd pictures of him in various stages of undress. She had to make sure he never balked at likelihood of marriage between them. Four months later, she told him about the pregnancy. She noticed that he wasn’t capitulating like she wanted, so she produced the pictures. Madge thought she had covered all her bases. Little did she know Quincy was a man of strong character that seldom exhibited anger. After seeing the pictures, he realized no one would believe he wasn’t intimately involved with her. He was trapped. Quincy knew the shotgun wedding he was facing would keep the Bryce name from embarrassment. A loveless marriage wasn’t what he planned for his life. If the child was really his, he had to make sure his child was never labeled a bastard by other people.
The Predatory Doctor
Dr. Perry’s character was a difficult one to write. But it was necessary to show how child abusers managed to participate in a forbidden love that society frowns upon and condemns. He was an unethical predatory doctor who didn’t maintain a clear understanding of doctor-patient boundaries. He crossed those boundaries by using his private practice to procure flesh for the men in his clandestine society who loved prepubescent girls. Walter Calhoun was a co-conspirator and a child abuse enabler of the secret clique. After getting in lock-step with Calhoun, Dr. Perry knew a sexual encounter with Madge was imminent. To get closer to the young girl, Dr. Perry became one of Calhoun’s money-lenders. In exchange for his loan repayment, Dr. Perry was allowed use Madge’s undeveloped body for his erotic pleasure. To make Madge more compliant to his demanding sexual fetishes, he drugged her repeatedly with a Mickey Finn cocktail. Dr. Perry had crossed a slippery slope by engaging Madge in his sexual exploitation. His heartless and voracious sexual behavior contributed to Madge’s scandalous adult lifestyle.
Olivia's Best Friend
After explaining all the characters, it was important to bring some balance to Olivia’s good-natured personality. Being a pediatric nurse was a rough and tiresome job. Every day she went to the same place and did the same job—caring for the babies. She knew that becoming friends with a coworker was a tricky thing. Her place of employment was a continuous gossiping mill. The hospital wasn’t the best place to discuss her private life. If the person was a gossiper, things could become problematic. After working ten years in the same department, Olivia Bryce and Reba Warren had become more like sisters and confidants than coworkers. They talked for hours about their lives, but Olivia kept her intimate details out of their chatter. Even though Reba didn't mind discussing her multiple lovers and kids by different fathers, Olivia never judged her. Olivia and Reba were the nurses on-call when Madge’s and Quincy’s twin sons were born. Reba was privy to the boys’ medical records and Madge’s scandalous behavior. Reba understood the seriousness of the problems, but she often brought levity to the situation. Her contagious sense of humor often soothed Olivia’s troubled mind.
The Judge
Tobias Masters’s personality brought a crucial balance to the story. He was the long-time friend and solicitor for the Bryce’s family. Once I exposed the shady side of Walter Calhoun’s and Madge Calhoun’s lives, I needed someone who had personal knowledge of their criminal activities. Tobias was the only judge for the entire region around Back Forty. While sitting on the bench, Walter and Madge Calhoun had been in and out of his courtroom many times. He knew first hand that Calhoun was well-connected to the organize crime boss in Chicago. Each time Calhoun or Madge appeared before him, he ended up dismissing the charges. The strength of the evidence wasn’t substantial enough to build the case by the prosecuting attorney. Secondly, a new witness always came forth and gave them an alibi which contradicted the prosecutor’s original information. For years, Tobias felt that Walter Calhoun had orchestrated his friend, Joshua Bryce’s murder. The judge knew that Calhoun was protected by unscrupulous politicians or crooked cops who were on his grandfather’s payroll. .
The Narcissistic Personality
When I created Walter Calhoun’s character, I needed someone who had a narcissistic personality and very checkered past. Calhoun had an inflated sense of his self-importance, deep need for admiration, and lacked empathy for others. For his criminal sense of place, it was important to give it legitimacy. Calhoun was the product of an illicit affair his mother had with a light-skinned black man who was passing for white. To keep the family secret, Calhoun was raised by his crime boss grandfather. During his youth, Calhoun learned that his grandfather belonged to a clandestine society which catered to men who loved prepubescent girls. Many times, Calhoun saw his grandparent performing forbidden love acts with his household staff’s young daughters. Whenever a worker threatened to go to the authorities, the person disappeared without a trace. In his grandfather’s world, a dead man can’t tell any tales. Seeing someone killed or young girls molested, it had become commonplace to Calhoun. When he orchestrated Joshua Bryce’s murder, to him it was business as usual. His narcissistic personality caused many problems with his only daughter. Walter Calhoun never molested Madge but used her as a pawn to appease his money-lenders when one of his get rich schemes didn’t pay off.
Jezebel Spirit
After being raised in a dysfunctional home, it set the perimeters for Madge Calhoun’s scandalous adult life. The antagonist in the story had to be a woman with a Jezebel spirit. Any gender could possess this type of mind, but it was crucial to my description of her total makeup. Having a Jezebel spirit, Madge believed she was never wrong or admitted her guilt in any situation. The only time she temporarily admitted her guilt it was for her gains with someone she was trying to snare into her tangled web of deceit. While she had a robust trait of Jezebel, but she never took responsibility for her wrong actions or behavior, but she hastily takes credit for rewards for which she never contributed any effort. Madge’s Jezebel spirit always used information as leverage. If she learned any incriminating information, she would use it against her prey if necessary. It gave her a sense of power, even to the point of trying to impress her victims by “knowing things” that others do not.
Best Friends
Quincy’s and Adam’s friendship had an interesting dynamic to the story. Adam filled that gigantic hole in Quincy’s heart after his father's untimely demise. Both men had been friends since they were kids. Their adult friendship remained strong because they never shared confidential information with each other. That line they never crossed. Quincy and Adam looked more like brothers than best friends. The only difference in their physical appearance was Adam’s broader shoulders, light brown eyes and melodious voice made him popular with the ladies. Although Adam preferred to keep to himself and wasn’t aware of the attention he got. Quincy was six foot three and had a buff body and callused hands from working in the fields all day. His soft brown eyes and dimpled right cheek were his best attributes. Where Adam was very outgoing, Quincy had an introverted personality. Also, Adam was in love with Quincy’s sister, Olivia.
Sibling Bond
The sibling bond between Quincy and Olivia was essential to the story-line. There was a vast contrast between their personalities. Olivia was very outspoken and had the tendency to be bossy. Her brother, Quincy was an unassumingly reserved deep-thinker. He weighed all the consequences before he made any decisions. As children, they learned how to accept each other’s differences. Sibling rivalry between them never existed. Olivia was very protective toward Quincy, and she would lay down her life for him. Since she was his confidant, she knew his quietness wasn’t a sign of weakness. In her heart, she knew her brother had the heart of a lion when it came to protecting the people he loved.
The Matriarch
The matriarch of the story is Quincy’s mother, Queen Bryce. She gives a detailed description of the events or histories about the people, places, and things that made up her story world. She explains all the events that transpired before I created the actual main story concerning Quincy’s life to invite my readers into my imaginary community called Back Forty.
Nightmares
The first glimpse of Quincy’s nightmares needed to be explained. In order to begin living a normal life, he needed to remember the facts about his father’s murder on his eighth birthday. After thirty-five years of suppressing those terrifying images, his nightmares have begun once again.
