Laila Blake's Blog, page 5

A well-known organization that has been working for a few of years. The website has gained a wonderful popularity and an intensive shopper base as a result of a sensible strategy to business. Great for individuals of all ages ~ both younger women and divorced American mail buy bride is represented in this article. Moreover, the encourage reward lets you get some credit immediately after sign up.

A man may additionally search for free trial offers to try using the expertise earlier than choosing to pay for these people. Web websites, which offer mail buy star of the event services, happen to be appearing because an middleman between women and their potential husbands. The main thought of courtshipping, getting a fiancée distant and marrying internationally, is maintained in particular online providers for deliver order wedding brides. “A -mail order bride” term contains nothing to do with revenue of people, inspite of it sounds obscure. It is not possible to enslave a lady or generate her get married to by travel with this service. A lot of the websites of acquaintances proffer protected and authorized products. So , you have to be cautious when ever registering online sites of acquaintances.

But mail buy bride products are created absolutely for this purpose. For the reason that international relationships can need some additional documents, mail order bride providers do their particular greatest to produce a lot the method with their preparation. Continually have already chosen the women they like, a lot of services present help with seeing each other in every day life. For example , https://jetbride.com/mail-order-marriage-statistics/ they might help a girl to decide on airline tickets, or perhaps accompany her to your city.

To make an excellent impression in your date, you would probably wish to acquire and mail your star of the event presents and flowers. The majority of websites own a wide report on issues you ought to purchase and send.

As well as the very last thing to clarify—you don’t buy or purchase an Cookware bride. You wife finder day a girl on the net with all of the standard romance stuff like flirting, blossoms, presents, making an attempt to create her fall for you. Cookware mail buy brides will be well-known with regard to their quiet, humble, and shy character. On the other hand, Asian females know how to contain enjoyable and still have a fantastic humorousness. Nevertheless, they will by no means go beyond the bounds of decency and act properly in every state of affairs. You’ll remember not to really feel ashamed because of the girls’ jinks.

Signing up our webpage is free of charge and straightforward – really easy that in basically minutes we can easily open up thrilling prospects pertaining to meeting attractive Russian girls and perhaps a Russian star of the event. Order a woman service has become incredibly in style about 20 years before.

In the first twentieth hundred years Japanese settlers within the Usa Statesand Canada have been released to prospective brides—picture brides—through photographs sent through the submit. Through the centre of the 20th century, marital life companies would probably assist guys find young girls via the newsletter of catalogs containing descriptions of potential brides.

The post How To Make Income From your Mail-order Bride at jetbride. com Trend appeared first on Laila Blake.

An international marriage agency specializes in carrying two people along. They provide relationship immigration expertise and mental consultation. The website boasts above https://www.thecut.com/article/how-to-spice-up-your-sex-life.html two hundred, 000 members, and they contain a good reputation within their home country. If you are looking for a foreign special someone, consider getting in touch with a global marriage agency. These businesses offer a secure and friendly environment to help you find the soul mate. Besides providing you with the necessary information, these kinds of agencies can also arrange the first real life meeting, plus they can help you together with the legal requirements essential by your foreign spouse.

An international marriage agency with a substantial percentage of attractive girls should be suspect. These ladies are rare and will locate a husband very much sooner than people that have more common looks. Since beautiful girls are in high need, they will have more suitors and are apt to find a partner sooner than those with average or perhaps lower performances. This means that the better searching women could have even more difficulty changing the more popular kinds. Therefore , if an international matrimony agency boasts a lot of delightful women, you should be wary.

Another signal of a dependable international matrimony agency is a policy against harassment and discrimination. The Foreign Marriage Broker Regulation Function, which was exceeded in june 2006, is meant to ensure the safety of their clients. To prevent this, international marriage firms should certainly adopt a no-harassment policy. When this may look like an unnecessary measure, it is necessary to keep in mind which you can only get the woman of the dreams through the best agency.

The post Signs of a Trusted International Marriage Agency appeared first on Laila Blake.

I have this vision of myself, sashaying back into this space as if no time had passed and nothing ever happened. As if I hadn’t ignored this blog, my writer friends, my readers and my craft. But I don’t think it would feel right to come back without at least an explanation. It won’t just be a pity party, I promise.

The truth is, though, that my most productive writing time was the absolute lowest point of my life. I loved writing, but it was almost literally the only thing I had left that gave any confidence, any feelings of accomplishment or joy at all. And when I go back and read some of my earlier work, that still resonates off every page for me. I was isolated, suffering from deep depression, social anxiety that made it hard for me to leave my house. I was afraid of my therapist, afraid of opening the mail. I was scared of people and being seen and most of all, I was afraid that I simply wasn’t built to function in a normal life.

Throughout 2015, I was working hard to change all that. I got a part-time job – translating and writing for a media analysis company – and although I sat in a corner hardly speaking a word to anyone the first few weeks, it really turned out to be much less scary than I thought it would be. I was – and am – good at my job and was quickly promoted to a full-time position. I’m deputy head of the editorial department now and while I still recognize and remember the person I was a few years ago, it’s also hard to imagine letting it get this bad. Letting me be so unhappy for so long.

I didn’t mean to stop writing. But there came a point, where other things became more important to fight for. And writing is a struggle – a wonderful one, but it takes commitment and showing up every day even when it hurts. Even when you hate every word you’re putting on the page, even when someone writes a terrible (or even just a “meh!”) review and makes you feel like you’ve been so right about hating yourself all along!

So when I started working full time, but hadn’t worked on any of my other problems, I usually came home exhausted. I sat in front of my screen and the word processor would blur in front of my eyes and I’d go have a nap instead. Or I’d go eat something. Which is the next problem I had to tackle.

I went to see my doctor in 2016, and he basically referred me to a specialist for gastric bypass surgery. Now, I shouldn’t have needed that wake-up call. But apparently, I did. Like I said, I was busy getting my life together and actively ignoring all the other construction sites… like my weight, which had skyrocketed all through my depression.

So that became my next project. I did not get surgery – because I was terrified and also, I didn’t feel like I had actually tried all that hard. And at least I wanted to do that. I wanted to try and fix this without carving up my body.

And so I did.

I went from this… (and you can only imagine how much I cringe showing you this. Myself, at my heaviest)

New haircut, sleepy at the office.

Ein Beitrag geteilt von Laila Balke (@lailajblake) am Jul 11, 2016 um 12:47 PDT

To this…

I spent the last 18 months losing about 140 lbs. And although I made a few attempts in that time to get back into writing, I quickly realized that I couldn’t do both yet. I couldn’t stay as focused on my weight loss journey as I needed to be when I split my focus. I’m still on that journey and far from skinny. But I’m not in any immediate health danger, I feel great. I have a lot energy and I realized if it was between being actually skinny or being a writer… I want to be a writer.

I’m still working to lose weight and build and strengthen those healthier habits.  But I’m also writing again and have been for a while. Even if I had (and still have) a lot of anxiety about sharing that with you in case I’d just go and disappoint again.

For those who are still interested – and believe me, I’d understand if there aren’t many people left – I’m currently working on finally finishing the third and last installment in the Lakeside Series. And the end feels almost tangible. Maybe three more chapters to go (and then a lot of editing). It feels good – in many ways because this series has been weighing on me for a long time. I don’t like unfinished things and I am super excited about sharing with you where my mind has been at throughout this time, and what Moira and Owain’s happy ending will look like.

And before I finally wrap this up (because it’s getting wooordy), thank you so much for sticking around and reading this. For your empathy and patience for something that really scared me to put into words.

The post So, what the hell happened? appeared first on Laila Blake.

Hello my lovely readers and generally all-time-favorite people. It’s that time again: I’ve got a new release for you! And this one is a personal favorite of mine.

By the Light of the Moon (Lakeside #1) was my first published book, and as you may or may not know, I couldn’t keep the promise I made, and the sequel didn’t come out later the same year as I said it would. I had problems with my publisher, then had to wait for my rights to be returned. And I didn’t want to rush it back out into publication. I wanted to make it better, edit it properly the way my publisher never did, give it a better cover than it had before.

And now finally, almost a year behind schedule, I can also release the sequel that’s been stuck on my computer for way too long.

It’s called A Taste of Winter, and it continues Moira and Owain’s story out in the wild after they ran away from Rochmond Castle. It also introduces some new characters, and of course Brock, the fae spy, is far from done spinning his plans and plots.

A Taste of Winter is out today! How exciting! And it comes with bonus excitement. To celebrate the release, By the Light of the Moon (Lakeside #1) is discounted to 99c for a few days (that’s a whopping 60% off!)

Release Date: October 28th, 2014

Genre: Romantic Fantasy / Paranormal

Length: 80k words

Tags: medieval fantasy, forbidden love, shape-shifter, were-wolves, fae, fairies, mental health, prejudice, privilege

Buy on Amazon!

Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon CA | Amazon AU | Amazon DE

Goodreads | Lilt Literary

Pinterest Board

Follow Laila’s board Writing: Lakeside on Pinterest.

Blurb

Picking up where BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON left off, A TASTE OF WINTER is the second book in a romantic paranormal fantasy trilogy, set in alternate history medieval times. It follows the life of young Moira, a half fae noblewoman who fell in love with her shape-shifter guard and ran away from her ancestral home. 

Traveling the country, searching for a safe place to stay, the two of them soon realize that life is not as kind to them as they might have hoped. They feel the sting of prejudice and bigotry in each town they visit, and the reality of poverty and winter begin to erode Moira and Owain’s blossoming love. 

In the castle they left behind, darker plans are afoot. The fae spy Brody is slowly taking over, and he has no love for humans. He needs to be stopped before he can seize power and trigger another war between the races. But Moira and Owain are long gone, and Brody always seems two steps ahead.

Excerpt

It was almost nightfall when they dared to approach the small village at the edge of the forest. It seemed mostly rural much like many in the Rochmond fief but it benefited from the proximity to the excellent hunting grounds the forest offered in the region. Owain had bidden Moira to wrap a scarf around her prominent hair and was gently leading her through the darkening streets towards the small Inn.

He had hoped they would find it all but empty, ready to accept two strangers in the night if they had the coin. When he opened the door however, a flood of chatter came wafting out of the place like a bad smell. Moira stiffened in his arm. There were so many things they had never bothered to think about before they’d run away that night. For a moment, he squeezed her tightly and then led her inside. It wasn’t as dingy as he might have expected and a good number of men were sitting by the bar over a drink sharing exaggerated hunting stories.

“A room for the night?” He asked the bar-maid, who eyed them suspiciously. It was hard not to recognize Owain for what he was. With his stature, he towered over most men and there was a certain slant to Blaidyn features, a sharpness in the cheeks; the nose was large and elegant and they simply moved differently than humans. In completely rural areas he sometimes went unrecognized because the uneducated peasants still believed Blaidyn had claws and muzzles like their dogs, but it took only one glance at the woman behind the counter to know that she knew better. Carefully, she set down the mug she had been polishing with an old rag and her eyes fell on Moira. Anger boiled in Owain’s gut when he saw the hint of disgust she couldn’t hide.

“A room?” she asked, raising her brow, “for the both’o ye?”

Owain exhaled, his arm fell from around her shoulders and he took a step forward, allowing her to fade a little into the broad shadow he cast.

“I am tasked to accompany this young woman to her relatives in the capital,” he explained quickly, in that way Moira had come to recognize as an attempt to sound more human. It cut most of the growling grumble from the tone and he even managed to hide most of the Blaidyn accent she found so attractive in him.

The innkeeper took one look at their muddy clothes and the huge pack on his shoulders and then raised a brow.

“Yer far off the path, wolf, quickest way to Lauryl is down the river. Everybody knows that.”

A growl rose in his chest but he managed to control it.

“Our travels must remain hidden from certain people,” he finally said quite smoothly, “hence the expense of my protection.”

Again her eyes swept over both of them but when he pulled out their purse, she shrugged. She had a living to make like everybody else. He pulled out two coins and pushed them over the counter, in return she gave him a key. Owain exhaled a well-concealed sigh of relief. Even Moira managed a small smile.

“Oy, wolf-whore,” a voice suddenly sounded from off to the side. It was a drunk voice, slurred and wet. Moira spun around and Owain winced. It would have been better for their cover if she hadn’t reacted but his own anger was quick to rise as well.

“I for one…” the drunk continued loudly and a moment later all eyes were on them. The chatter had died down and Owain exhaled a silent prayer to the moon.

“I for one,” the drunk repeated, “think it’s a bloody disgrace… yer a perfectly adequate maid. I bet lots of real men would have ye.”

“You think if we bring ‘er down to the stables, she’d fuck them horses, too?” another voice could be heard and one of the tables erupted in harsh, loud cackles. Almost too late, Owain took a threatening step between Moira and the men. He could feel her shivering behind him, gasping for air every now and again. Strangers, always strangers. It was hard to believe sometimes that she was genuinely happy to be alone with him in the woods for days and days but in that moment it was easier to fathom.

He pinned them down with his gaze for a few long heartbeats, and then he let his eyes flicker into the wolfish silver. Once they flinched, he turned back to Moira and led her towards the stairs. They didn’t linger to find out whether the innkeeper had changed her mind.

The post New Release: A Taste of Winter (Lakeside #2) appeared first on Laila Blake.

Just in time for valentine’s day, we’re bringing you a new collection of stories of L.C. Spoering and myself. Now, for my part, I don’t have a date tonight and where I live, more people indulge in Cologne’s Stree Carneval this weekend than make mention of Valentine’s day, but so we have the have the finer things – the books, and films, the music and the secret thoughts :).

We put together this anthology of couple’s stories, stories of lasting love because I think we all need such tales and remember.

Everybody knows the lure of what’s new and exciting, but sometimes it’s really the passion that lasts and builds in intimacy that captures the imagination. In Your Atmosphere celebrates the sexy side of romance and commitment in six sizzling stories about love, kink and the happily ever after.

Purchase here:

The post New Release: In Your Atmosphere – 6 #erotic stories appeared first on Laila Blake.

There is something liberating in writing erotica about only women. I always hesitate to call it lesbian fiction because more often than not at least one of my protagonists is bi, questioning or curious, and I like to feature that for what it is. But no worries, I won’t go all “bi-visibility” on you, no matter how to true it is that most of the time we are in a committed relationship with a person of any gender, we end up being labeled accordingly :).

I like how liberating it is, though. When I write m/f erotica, in the back of my mind there is always a whole catalogue of gender roles and expectations, which I don’t want to succumb to completely but still have to pay attention to because it’s hard to make a complete role reversal sexy to the mainstream erotic reader. Then there’s my penchant for power exchange stories and with a male dominant, I always take extra, special care not to give him the slightest whiff of an abuser. And I’m not saying that there’s no abuse between women, there is. But it’s less of a genre cliche and the freedom to explore the person behind the expectations exists in a way that hard to access in straight erotica.

With girls, with women, I get to choose and play with the expectations. It’s not so different in the nitty gritty, but it feels like there are more options, more ways to go. More creative options, a lot of fun to write.

Harper Bliss of Ladylit Publishing has been giving me the opportunity for that a lot lately, not just in a series of small anthologies (Sweat, A Christmas to Remember, Bossy and Cougars) but also my publishing my Breaking in Waves series. And of course when she offered to put some of my stories together in a small anthology of my own, I jumped at the chance!

Here is the blurb for Girls in Love

Childhood friends turn lovers in a snowy cabin, a student seduces her teacher in her own class room, and together two women overcome the prejudice of her family once and for all. These five lesbian erotica stories by Laila Blake are about laughter, kink and above all: about Girls in Love.

Table of contents

Bird of the Summer

House-Broken

Midnight Clear

Doll-faced Demons

The Corner Chair

And it’s available from these retailers

Direct from Ladylit

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Amazon CA

Amazon DE

Amazon AUS

All Romance

Smashwords

Kobo

iTunes US

iTunes UK

You can add Girls in Love to your Goodreads shelf here >>

The post New Release: Girls in Love appeared first on Laila Blake.

Amazon is changing its royalty policy for borrowed books from a per-book system to a per-page-read system. It’s a move that is widely supported by KPD Select authors (you know, the people it affects), but – like any decision Amazon has ever made – criticism hails from a variety of camps. One of them is the grand league of cultural patronage, who apparently believe that literature is far too high-minded a thing to be judged (or paid) according to how much of it readers can get through, before they throw their Kindle against the wall.

What is the world coming to, after all, if books are written to be read, instead of as pieces of art, cultural observation and a testament to humanity?

I’m going to admit something here: I love literature. If pressed, I’d even admit that I love lit fic above all genre fiction, and that’s what I write! In the debates on the value of lit fic versus genre, I regularly come down on the side of literature and I do genuinely believe in its value for humanity as a whole. A value that does go beyond that of most genre fiction.

But literature is written for readers! In a big, big way! The moment it stops being written for human consumption, or only to be read by literature professors to torture their students with, then what’s the point?

As numerous studies show, reading high quality literature increases empathy, intelligence, the ability to communicate and understand the world. Yes. It does all that. But the emphasis is on READING literature. The mere fact that it exists as some kind of abstract piece of art means nothing to anybody, except possibly the self-involved, post-modern writer who truly believes his genius shines too bright for any reader to understand.

All the greats wrote stories for readers. The fact that a book is enjoyable is really not in any way a contraction to quality. Shakespeare himself wrote for the lowest, least educated group of his time, after all, commoners, looking for a good time drinking ale in a packed theater. Jane Austen, although maybe a little challenging to today’s reader, was well-loved by her readers and a great commercial success. And yes, the lit-scene is full of snobby idiots. Case in point: Fantasy and sci-fi can be just as literary as the great realists are — read some Vonnegut, Philip K. Dick or Ursula K. LeGuin for great examples.

But literature is a great thing. It’s a great thing because we read it, and we fall in love and throughout its pages, it changes us, it helps us to understand, finds words for all those feelings and ideas that have been clanking around unnamed in our subconscious. And I’m not saying it doesn’t take work sometimes. You sort of have to train yourself to become good at reading lit fic — but that’s really not a problem, cause you also have to work on playing video games before you’re any good, or on sports or painting or any fulfilling hobby people might have. And still they are all there to enrich human life, to exist in a vacuum for the ultra-educated.

So listen culture snobs, the best literature has always been the books readers also connect with. Bringing the focus of writing – yes, even writing literature – back to the people is the best thing that could ever happen to it. People are smarter, more emotionally intelligent and better equipped to understand the big questions than you will ever know. And don’t you effing throw Twilight and 50 Shades back at me. People are also horny, so what? Nobody is just one thing.

The post Another hard blow for culture: Books are written to be read appeared first on Laila Blake.

After a series of collaborative anthologies (like Anything She Wants, Sweat, A Christmas to Remember, Cougars, Bossy, Forbidden Fruit and Opposites Attract), my latest work for the wonderful ladies at Ladylit Publishing is all my own. A 15.000 word/ 50 page novellette about a woman who discovers her attraction to a very unlikely partner.

Polar Shift is about overcoming prejudice and finding unexpected treasures, it’s about tenderness and gender identity, orientation and all that goodness. And yes, it’s a little bit about bdsm, too.

Kaylah Shaw is everything Megan never wanted: impatient and abrasive, too tall and groomed to an unnatural perfection. One encounter is enough to last the failed photographer a lifetime. When she moves into Megan’s apartment building, however, Kaylah shows up at her door, with her smooth, long legs and a compelling smile, and surprises her with the request for a photoshoot. Finding some undeniable quality at the bottom of her dark eyes, Megan agrees, never expecting that Kaylah would take control of the shoot, with gentle but unerring dominance, and open her up to a world never explored before.

 

Price: $2.99

Available from

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Amazon CA

Amazon DE

Amazon AUS

[More to come]

Add it to your Goodreads shelf >>

The post New Release: Polar Shift (a lesbian novellette) appeared first on Laila Blake.

We talk about triggers a lot, us the women and the queer folk and the people of color, us who would like the world to be a little bit better, a little bit more equal (not just a bit god damnit!) We often mean those little warning labels at the start of possibly inflammatory blog posts or articles.

I still rarely use them. Mostly because there many times when it feels like advertising instead, because we live in a society in which violence is entertainment and sexual violence doubly so. And I can’t even be preachy about it, really, because it works on me too. I also am lucky not to get triggered by blog posts, and when I do end up feeling bad, anxious and lingeringly icky after consuming an article or video, it’s usually because of subtle, strange things nobody would think of warning against.

But that’s not what I want to talk about today.

I want to talk about triggers in my offline life. The life we used to call the “real life,” before I grew up and realized my real life gets to be what I choose it to be.

He was sweet, which is unusual for a street flirt. I had an inkling he was about to ask me out when he slowed down as I approached, when he changed the side of the road to match mine when I tried to get out of the situation. I didn’t want him to chat me up, but the sun was shining and I’d had a really nice day at work and so when he did, I wasn’t quite able to shut it down. Being cold and dismissive is something I had to learn, and still have to prepare for, or the good old people please inside me rears its smiling Manic Pixie Dream Girl head.

But he was sweet.

He spoke English better than German, which tends to win me over. He asked me what I do and how I like it, he asked what I enjoy in my spare time and showed an interest. And he a sweet, smiling face that didn’t look threatening.

For the sake of fairness, I should say right now that this is not a story about how I was raped. Nothing quite so dramatic and horrible and important. But it is a story about how we got to talking about the tv shows we liked and why not hang out some time this week and watch one together, get to know each other.

I’m an introvert, a tv-hang-out session is my dream first date. And he said he was one, too. I still don’t know if that was the truth. But he gave me my number. He wasn’t pushy for mine, like most of them are. And so I texted him, and we arranged a date.

In hind-sight, maybe I could have been smarter. My alarm bells could have run sooner, like when he acted like I was probably surprised he found me attractive and wanted to go out with me. Or when I finally figured out in one of his texts that he’d followed me out of the train just to talk to me.

He showed up 15 minutes late – which given Cologne’s public transport really isn’t a big deal – but he immediately said, “I bet you’re surprised I actually showed up, aren’t you? I know you’re surprise. I could have texted but I thought I’d like to surprise you.”

I smiled and shook my head. I wasn’t surprised; there’s nothing surprising about a man who finds me attractive and wants to get his hands on me. In fact it is the most annoyingly predictable part of dating in general.

I offered him something to drink. He looked around, at my photos and my books and my DVDs. You know, intimate stuff like that. And he immediately hated my cat. Now, my dad doesn’t like cats either, and it’s not an issue of like-me-like-my-cat, but the way he flinched and aggressively shushed her away was unattractive. And it also put me on the defensive; he had me apologizing five times before we even started to watch something.

That at least started out fine. He took my hand after a while and it was warm and large, and for a second I managed to forget about his hatred for pets and thought that maybe, just maybe, I could be a normal person with a nice date with someone who’s actually interested in me, not just my boobs or my ass, and both of them as fast as possible, please.

It’s not that I am shy or prude (even though neither of these things are bad in any way). But I’ve had sex or intimate touching too early before, and it has always felt to me like I was the girl selling tickets at the box office: For a while, we are both in the same place. We interact, maybe exchange a few niceties, which end up designed to make me smile and hand over the ticket. And in that moment, he takes my body into a dark room with him and I am left on the outside, hardly even able to look in, and definitely not part of the experience.

It’s when he does all the pushing. I let him hold my hand, so it’s probably okay if he wants to put his arm around me, if he wants to kiss me before we’re 15 minutes into the show.

At that point, I told him I really just want to hang out together. I have no interest in having sex or anything like that. He plays offended for a second and then reassures me. We get a little more comfortable and the show continues. He starts kissing my neck, licking it, scratching me with his beard.

I don’t feel anything. I’m not invested in him enough, not turned on enough, just not in the same room.

“I want to touch your skin,” he says as he pulls up my shirt. I pull it down and so he weasels his hand under it.

“Oh, do you?” I ask. I raise my brows and sigh. No. I didn’t stop him. I didn’t say What about what I want? People pleaser. I hate that girl.

I stopped him when he straddled my lap, pulled up my shirt and started peeling away my bra. I said, “Hey. I’m not into this.”

He grinned, made puppy eyes and went, “Awww come on. Just five minutes.”

That’s when I pushed him off me. Hard. It felt good, for one glorious second it felt good.

And then he got angry. I don’t know if you ever tried to explain to a man who’s never even heard about feminist theory or rape culture, that no, I am not accusing him of trying to rape me. But yes, he’s doing something wrong.

It’s not fun. As you may have expected.

I asked him to leave, which he made me repeat I think a total of 6 or 7 times. Always asking whether I’m sure. His voice got loud and aggressive.

“You were okay with it! I didn’t do anything wrong! I respect women! I like you and I know you like me too, I just don’t need a month to decide whether I like someone! You didn’t say no!”

I did. But not very loud. And I certainly didn’t say yes. I didn’t say it with my mouth or with my body. I turned away, leaned away, squirmed out of his embraces whenever I could.

I guess it’s subtle – if it’s all about what you want, and I’m a means to an end.

When he left, I started to cry and I wanted to shower. It took me a while to realize that he reminded me all too starkly of my ex when I was 18. The boy who’d made sex a chore for me, something the man pressured, cajoled, begged, charmed out of me. Never the thing I wanted, desired. There was never enough time to get there.

I never actually said “No” to him, either. I said, “Really, again?” I said, “But we’re watching the movie…” I said, “I’m really tired, can we just cuddle?” I said, “I’m still sore.” I said, “I have to be at work in an hour and I don’t want to shower again.”

I guess all that was really subtle, too.

He also knew what he wanted. And when he wanted something the touching and the groping, the relentless pushing, that’s just something that happens. And when I push his hand away, that’s not saying “no” – I guess that’s saying “Try again in 2 Minutes.”

So I cried. A lot. And I sat, staring into space, going over everything I said and everything I did. And over the way his voice changed and his eyes weren’t cute anymore; they suddenly were the eyes of a man who could hurt me.

I had trouble falling asleep and when I did, I had nightmares and kept waking up bathed in sweat. In the morning, I was still staring into space, starting to come up with appropriate responses: the things I should have said when he belittled my feelings, when he snorted at the idea someone like me could tell him what to do and what not to do. After all, wasn’t I supposed to be grateful for his attentions?

I ended up forgetting my keys, and I cried in the bathroom at work. The service to open up my door set me back 200€ and there’s a part of me that is still sitting here, staring into space, trying to figure out what I could have done differently – yesterday and when I was 19. I’m still a hair’s breadth away from starting to cry again.

And so I write it down. It’s what I do.

The thing that gets me is… I could have wanted him, if he had given me a little more time. If he had talked and laughed and been a person with me, rather than a guy who’s after sex. It’s the least sexy thing in the world, the way their personalities glaze over and I don’t even recognize the fun person they were a few minutes before. And I’m just so, so tired of it sometimes.

The post Triggers and Tough Truths appeared first on Laila Blake.

That’s what the characters in our latest release – After Life Lessons: Book Two – are trying to find out once more. After Life Lessons takes you on the road with straggling survivors of a zombie apocalypse, as they try to heal first each other and then what is left of their society.

.

.

After Life Lessons is a Survival/Post-Apocalypse series with a Women’s Fiction bent. 

In the wake of a devastating epidemic, Emily finds herself alone, grieving and struggling to survive with her young son, Song. They encounter Aaron, an Army medic on a mission of his own.

After Life Lessons: Book One follows their journey from mere struggle to survive, into a life they slowly begin to recognize as worth living again. Once settled and fortified, they take to the road once more in Book Two in order to find Aaron’s family. Instead they find new enemies and new allies and a dangerous mission for the future of the region.

The Complete After Life Lessons Collection – $5.99

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Smashwords | iBooks

.

.

Years after the end of the world, the scattered survivors have begun to reconcile with their fate and are starting to build communities from the rubble. Life has been kind to Aaron and Emily, and maybe it is that infusion of hope that leads them on a winter trip to search for Aaron’s family. But the world outside their little haven has grown harsher, the conditions rough and dangerous.

Not everybody they meet on their journey allowed the grim realities to harden their hearts, however. Malachi and Kenzie – a easy-going drifter with a bum leg and amnesia, and a teenage girl who has lost everyone and everything – are on an ill-conceived mission to Mexico, while Iago and his band of nomads work to forge trading connections between the small settlements of the south. All of them will discover new nightmares on the road, far surpassing the threat of the last rotting zombies still roaming the countryside. And now they must come together to fight for peace and justice in the world they trying to rebuild.

After Life Lessons: Book Two — $3.99

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Smashwords | iBooks | AllRomance

The post New Release: After Life Lessons – Book Two appeared first on Laila Blake.