Jennifer Bene's Blog, page 30

Music Monday – Slave

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Today I’ve got a great song from Ramsey called ‘Slave’, and it’s soft and seductive and has great lyrics. All the best to get back on track! Because… for the first time in months and months and months I missed a Music Monday last week, and I have to admit I’m disappointed with myself. Usually I am so much better at handling everything, but my edges are all frayed and uneven at the moment and I’m struggling to keep it all together. So, I’m sorry that I slacked off here, you guys are always so wonderful and supportive and this is the least I can do as we wait for me to finish the next books.

Lyrics

As I lay here, let me love you,

on a bed that isn’t mine – I ’m in the dark.

I would always dream you’d come to rescue me,

we’d run away before the monsters come to feed.



Love is painful nothing’s ever as it seems,

there is evil in this room that must be pleased…

If you trust me, I will give you what you need.

I will show you what it means to be a slave.

All the money we were paying just to breathe,

I could really show you what it means to bleed.

If you love me you will have to set me free,

I don’t wanna tell you all the things I’ve seen.

I will stay here, live inside your wildest dream,

in a world where our dreams are never free.

I will love you, I’m your little angel,

but I promise nothing here is ever as it seems…

As I lay here, let me love you,

on a bed that isn’t mine – I ’m in the dark.

If you trust me I will give you what you need.

I’ll show you what it means to be a slave.

You say you love me, but there’s so much you don’t see…

I’ll show you what it really means to bleed.

As I lay here, forced to love you,

on a bed that isn’t mine – I’m in the dark.

I would always dream you’d come to rescue me,

in a world where our dreams are never free.

‘Slave’ by Ramsey

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Thankful Thursday

It’s #ThankfulThursday and although real life got in the way this past week and I missed a bunch of my normal weekly posts, I’d never miss today, because the hotties of Thankful Thursday are just too damn important! Especially when this week I’m sharing the absolutely gorgeous inspiration for my current WIP (which won’t come out for FOREVER, meaning August, and I’m so sorry, but I needed to get it written before I lost these delicious characters). I will tell you the character’s name is Finn, and he’s ridiculously hot, and when I was looking for some designer clothes to dress him in I found this picture and did a girly squeal because I knew it was him. THIS IS FINN. And, trust me, lovelies, you will absolutely care about that in August. HA! But, really, I’ve got a lot of writing things happening right now that I’m not allowed to share yet, and this is one thing I can share with all of you. So, stare at this gorgeous man, imagine him saying filthy, dirty things to you, and then call him Finn. Let Finn take you into the weekend with scenes of wanton debauchery, and you’re slowly preparing yourself for the hotness on the way.

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Thankful Thursday

Yep, it’s #ThankfulThursday and it has been a BUSY day! I haven’t even been able to sit down at a computer until just now, but I am making sure you lovelies get your hottie for the day to help the weekend arrive a little faster. I was in off-site meetings most of the day at work, then had to run errands, and I have stumbled onto my couch after dark. Sheesh! I don’t know what’s been in the water this week, but it’s been nonstop craziness and I know the only answer to that is a little ‘V’ action. That’s right, bring on the abs and the magic hip dips that make us all go cross-eyed with joy. Mmmmhmmm… I wish I could put this guy on a cover!!

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Teaser Tuesday! ‘Delicate Scars’ by Alta Hensley!

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Alta Hensley is absolutely fantastic and I adore her for the way she has fallen in love with the dark side, because I feel like this is what she was meant to do! When I heard she was releasing a book called ‘Delicate Scars’ I immediately perked up and I think you will too when you read this sneak peek!

***

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Delicate Scars

Is it possible to pick that one defining moment in life that fucked you up? Can anyone look back on their life and pinpoint the exact minute it happened? I used to believe that I wasn’t fucked up. I had absolutely no reason to be.

Until I met him.

Axel Rye.

Yes.

He fucked me up.

He really fucked me up.

It all started so simply. I only wanted to write a book about the dark, gritty world of nightclubs, booze, drugs, and sex. I didn’t expect to be sucked in to the point where I could no longer see the light. But I became weak. Axel Rye made me weak.

He was wrong in every way. He was a drug dealer, a criminal, and someone your parents told you to stay away from. Yet, he became my drug, and I shook in need until my next fix.

I was delicate.

He was scarred.

But together…together we became delicate scars.

NOTE: this book is a greatly revised version of a previously released book no longer available titled Ruby Rose.

***

Teaser

I wasn’t in the mood to be at Wicked or any club at all. It was the second time this week for this club, but the fourth time being out on a request by owner. Even the line of coke I snorted before entering the club wasn’t helping my mood of feeling forced like a god damned prisoner to be there. Request by owner meant I got paid for even walking through the doors. Treated like fucking royalty all because I walked on the dark side and played the sick game. I only mingled, shook hands and gave false hugs to strangers because I got paid to do it.

I got paid a lot.

Unlike my father who was famous for his music, I was famous for one thing: I was a drug dealer. Always having a constant supply of good shit caused me to be in high demand at every bar, club, and trendy restaurant in town. What once used to be very secretive, behind-closed-doors, and hush-hush had recently become very visible. There was no secret I dealt. After my last arrest and the media circus around my hearing, when it came to trendy drugs for the rich, the famous, and the cool kids, I was seen as the face of it. Media took hold of the idea, and the rest spiraled out of control. Being a bad boy was hot, and I was about as bad as they got right now. It was fucking nuts.

***

I know I want to know more about Axel Rye, and I’m sure you do too! Don’t miss your chance to snag a copy because it’s OUT TODAY!

Amazon: 1-click now!

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Want more of Alta Hensley?

Alta Hensley is a USA TODAY bestselling erotic romance author who has had #1 top-selling books in dark, contemporary, BDSM, erotic science fiction, humor, suspense and historical. She writes the hot, dark, and dirty romance.

Being a multi-published author in the romance genre, Alta is known for her dark, gritty alpha heroes, sometimes sweet love stories, hot eroticism, and engaging tales of the constant struggle between dominance and submission.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AltaHensleyAuthor/
Amazon: http://amzn.to/2e4R1ii
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AltaHensley
Website: www.altahensley.com
Join her mailing list: http://www.subscribepage.com/i0n8g9

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Music Monday – Worst in Me

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This song, ‘Worst in Me’ by Unlike Pluto, was one that I fell in love with over the past week while listening to a YouTube station called ‘Trap Nation’ that my friend Myra Danvers loves as well. It’s just got the best rhythm, I love the lyrics, and the video is COOL. Honestly, I don’t know if this is their official video but it is awesome. Enjoy!

Lyrics

I saw you standing there and I knew,

I’m done for, it’s over, I’m through.

Playing games from the start.

Sinking your nails in my heart. 

You bring out the worst in me,

You bring out the worst in me.

Looking back in my rearview.

Nothing, no, nothing can change you.

I decided to play when I knew you were fire.

It started off warm but now I hear the choir.

Who do you think you are?

Leaving your keys in my car.

You bring out the worst in me,

You bring out the worst in me.

Oh, oh, oh, oh…

You bring out the worst in me,

You bring out the worst in me. (x2)

‘Worst in Me’ by Unlike Pluto

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Ask Me Anything: Late edition! When your brain doesn’t agree with your body.

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This is another post from the Ask Me Anything series and it’s late because I’m still a little unsteady at the moment. Hooray for anxiety! Curious what the #AskMeAnything normally is? Check out the first post over here.

Q: This post is late because of anxiety, and I’m writing it because of anxiety, aaaand because due to anxiety I got to have the fun moment where my body (my kink and my sexuality) did not agree with my brain.

A: Ahhhh, anxiety. It fucking sucks. When I was younger anxiety used to come with bouts of really intense and violent depression, but I’m kind of glad to say that at thirty I’m just experiencing the panic attacks and total meltdowns (which in the scheme of things are not anywhere near as bad). This weekend was supposed to be me back to normal. I had a to-do list to tackle of pretty awesome stuff, I had my weekend planned out well, and started it off on the right foot on Friday by ticking absolutely everything off on my list.

On Saturday I didn’t do as well, but I did get 4k words down for my next book and I was damn proud of myself for that. In fact, I left in a pretty good mood on the way to the Dom’s house. We had dinner, had some sexy fun, and crashed.

Then, on Sunday morning (mere minutes after I woke up) the Dom started talking to me about how we hadn’t seen much of each other during my stressed out/panicky weeks, and that he wanted to spend more time with me. Now, we’d had some spectacular sex, a lot of fun, a delicious dinner, and my body/my kink/my appreciation of the relationship we have/allll of that was saying “Yes! This sounds great! I like this idea!”.

But as he kept talking my brain started to spiral. It started listing all of the things on my to-do list for that weekend (of which I wasn’t even 1/3 of the way done), then it started to list all of the things I need to do this week, this month, this year, and calculating what would happen to me if all of the times HE was listing for us to spend together actually happened.

So, I did what any normal sub/girlfriend does when her Dom/boyfriend says he wants to spend more time with her because he enjoys being around her – I hyperventilated, starting crying, and walked around the house completely nude trying to choke in air while waving him away every time he tried to touch me.

You know… the sexiest of all responses.

It was a fucking mess, and it took a long while for me to calm down, which meant that by the time he coaxed me into a shower like some kind of feral creature he discovered roaming the woods behind his beautiful new house … I’d wasted most of the morning. So, I couldn’t stop crying in the shower. I forgot how to shower for a few minutes and just stared at the shampoo/conditioner completely overwhelmed by the idea of washing my own hair. He made us coffee and breakfast while I managed to remember the basics of hygiene, and I left the shower like a damn catatonic zombie because somewhere in the depths of my non-responsive brain I was doing what I usually do when I’m in full-on meltdown mode…

I was calculating.

Calculating the number of hours I’d spent crying that morning, calculating my average word count per hour which told me how far I was behind on my word count for the weekend. Then I started calculating that if I left his house right then how long it would take me to get home, and if I should run some of those errands on my to-do list, or get to my writing to try and catch up. Which resulted in me standing in a towel in his living room frozen because my brain couldn’t calculate the greatest ROI (return on investment) for the time I had left on Sunday.

What ended up happening was my Dom worried about me, he felt terrible for sending me into a damn tailspin when I was just coming back to my functional level of being a real person, me refusing to eat/drink, and by the time I did get home I was so fucking useless that I literally curled in a ball in my bed and watched Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt on Netflix while doing absolutely nothing else. (Which is a fantastic show btw, and I give it a 10/10 for watching during a mild nervous breakdown, or re-breakdown, or whatever). 

And now you know why I didn’t post an ‘Ask Me Anything’ yesterday, which was definitely one of my to-do list items that did not get done.

I had some people surprised last week when I shared my struggles, because mental stuff is something we don’t often address, but I had even more people reach out to tell me it helped. So instead of writing something clever or funny on why I missed yesterday’s post, or haven’t replied to messages/emails, I decided to be honest.

I’m better than I was during my social media break, I promise, but if yesterday taught me anything it’s that I’m not completely well yet – but that’s okay. It is okay. And I will be okay… eventually. The Dom has been checking on me all day, I’ve had friends cheering me up with good news and messages, and I’ve got a ton of work done at the day job today.

Personally, I’m looking forward to the day when my brain steps back from the edge. I’m sure it will happen when my to-do list is a little lighter, and I get out some of the BIG writing projects I have this year that are looming over me.

I adore you lovelies, especially for caring about my crazy. It’s pretty awesome to have.

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Thankful Thursday

It’s #ThankfulThursday and I’m very glad I shared the hottie earlier because (as I suspected) I’ve been in non-stop meetings at work all day since then! Of course, I’d never forget to give you guys the REAL hottie of the day who’s going to help us slide into the weekend. I have had so many people reaching out to me this week to talk about their own struggles with anxiety, depression, panic attacks, and just generally being overwhelmed by life and I have loved every conversation. I just want to say that there is absolutely no shame in any of that stuff, when our brain turns against us sometimes we have the energy to fight the demons off and still be badass, and sometimes we just need to curl in a ball and have a panic attack and shut out the world. No matter where you are on that spectrum… I want you to know that you are cared for, you are appreciated, and this amazing community of authors and readers we’ve all built on the base of some really sexy characters and stories is REAL. Our friendships on here are just as tangible, just as valuable, and just as important as the ones we have with the people we can reach out and touch. And sometimes it’s our “internet friends” who help us the most (how many times has your local friend been inside your living room at 3am in the morning while you’re crying in your underwear? Probably never. But the internet friends are there!). Anyway, I know this is a serious post for a very very sexy image, but I’m using this chance to tell you guys that it’s okay to give yourself a break, cut yourself some slack, take a nap, pull back from a responsibility that is pushing you too far – and fucking show yourself some love. We all deserve it just as much as we deserve the weekend.  Take care of yourselves, lovelies. I need you to stick around!

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COVER REVEAL!! ‘Reunited’ has a sexy new cover!

Sooooo, I was a busy bee on my week of mental break and so I’m going to have several fun announcements over the next week’ish… but one of them is that after some “meh” results during some promotional events for my book ‘Reunited’ I got some feedback that it might be because the cover didn’t make it clear it was menage erotica! So, even though I loved my old cover, I get to do a COVER REVEAL today! Look at the hotness, lovelies!!

And then 1-click a copy for yourself, it’s just 99 cents! http://amzn.to/2mCgVcv

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Music Monday – Before You Snap

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For #MusicMonday I’ve got a weird one for you, but it’s been on repeat all week for me as I did lots of stuff. One guess as to why I was listening to a song called ‘Before You Snap’ by Yonderboi… and you probably won’t even need the one guess if you read my #AskMeAnything from yesterday. This song is one of those cleverly done mixes of audio from other things, overlaid on a cool music track, with some fun editing to bring it all together into a great story. It may not be your cup of tea, but I’m a huge sucker for these types of songs. (Another great one is ‘A Hair on the Head of John the Baptist” by Santillo which has quotes from Hamlet that made my literary nerd side swoon) Anyway, I do hope you at least enjoy the song in the context of my crazy last week. I promise I’ll be back to my fun self in no time!

Lyrics

Well, clean up the dirt

There’s just more dirt to clean up tomorrow

Make the beds you just have to make tomorrow

Wash the dishes, more to wash tomorrow

Make dinner, it just gets eaten. doesn’t it?

The world keeps growing and feeding

Doesn’t feed you, does it?

But, uh, how much can you take?

How much can you take before you snap?

How much can you take?

How much can you take?

How much can you take?

How much can you take before you snap?

Lying on your bed looking at the ceiling

Waiting for something to happen

And knowing all the time that you were meant

For something better

Feeling it

Wanting it

But, uh, how much can you take?

How much can you take?

How much can you take before you snap?

‘Before You Snap’ by Yonderboi

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Ask Me Anything: Where’d you go? What’s going on?

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This is another post from the Ask Me Anything series and it’s in response to the texts / emails I’ve received this week since I’ve been on a break from Facebook (and really all social media) since late night on Monday. Curious what the #AskMeAnything normally is? Check out the first post over here.

Q: Where’d you go? What’s going on?

A: Obviously, those questions are the combination of a lot of very kind and wonderful messages that I’ve received over the last week, and the first thing I want to do is say thank you to each of you. Whether you sent me a message out of concern, or didn’t send a message because you thought it might bother me – I am grateful for both. I promise.

Aaaaaaand, now I’m going to answer the questions in more detail than I managed via text/email this week, and strangely enough this might be one of the most personal posts I’ve ever written because it’s about me as a person, and not me and my sex life, or me and my books, or me and my opinions on kink. I’m sort of taking a page from the book of one of my favorite people on the planet (and also one of my favorite musicians) Amanda Palmer. She’s well known for sort of baring her soul in her blog posts and on her Patreon and in her mailing list emails, and that’s what I’m going to do today.

So, where did you go?

Well, I took a Facebook break, which turned into an almost total social media break, late in the evening on Monday, 2/20. I think the more important question is the why.

Okay, so what’s going on?

If you’ve been following me for a while, and especially if you’ve been one of the ones supporting me and my bevy new releases in the first part of this year, then you already have a good idea of just how much I’ve had on my plate. I spent the end of 2016 in a fever dream of writing one full-length book (Black Light: Exposed), and one novella (The Tower in The Dark Forest boxset), but writing wasn’t the only thing going on in my life. I have a full-time day job, I’m a single mom, my mom has stage 4 cancer, and I had a huge certification exam that I took in November for the day job (where I’d also spent the previous 13 weeks in an intensive online study program).

When January hit I was already stretched too thin, and I knew that, my Dom knew that too and could see the edges of my sanity fraying, but I held myself together through sheer Type-A willpower, mostly because we still had another anthology to get out. But before I could even think of the next one, I had to promote my release in the Black Light universe, and then help in promoting The Dark Forest. For someone with a day job and a kid, that meant I got up at 5:30 or 6, worked all day, came home and took care of the kiddo, and once she was in bed I would sit down to whatever task was on my to-do list. In mid-January I wrote most of ‘Wet’ (from the Black Light: Valentine Roulette anthology) in a single wine-fueled kid-free day of writing, and then immediately dove into editing the other stories for the boxset to make sure they all aligned, that our world worked together as seamlessly as possible, and it just so happened that in an apocalyptic alignment of BS at the end of January my mom went into the hospital for chemo-related complications for 9 days.

So, I did what any self-respecting psycho type-A person would do when my plate was suddenly cracking under the weight of being too full – I stopped sleeping. I stayed up late, broke my bedtime rule with my Dom over and over (my punishments are stacked high for when my brain works again), and worked.

I worked because crossing things off my to-do list was the only thing that made me feel good.

That’s the curse of being Type-A, with an added spice of some OCD-like behaviors. When things get impossibly hard, it becomes the fuel for me to function to accomplish the things anyway. Even if it means sleeping 2-3 hours a night. Even if it means that I can feel the pieces deep under the calm, collected surface coming apart. I can fake it, and hold myself together, for as long as I absolutely need to.

And… that’s what I did.

We got the Valentine Roulette boxset out, and the release was an incredible success. We had a week FULL of takeover events to celebrate the release, with one takeover or another literally every night of the week. I was also involved in a ton of other cross-promotional opportunities in January / February with other authors, and those all went well, but it took a lot of time as well. During the not-sleeping I also worked on getting paperbacks of my novels prepared, getting my tax documents together, found a preschool for my kiddo, and generally just ignored the fact that I knew I was dancing a dangerously thin tightrope over a very deep, very dark hole.

It’s a game I’ve played often in my life, and it always ends the same way. As soon as the “must do” list gets finished (the list of stuff where people are depending on me to make things happen) … I lose it.

I remember shaking at the computer on Monday night as Livia and I finalized the Black Light giveaway, I remember opening up my to-do list and double checking it. Reviewing my email and the FB notifications queue. I remember checking my calendar to make sure nothing was looming on the horizon that I had forgot about, and when I realized it was actually all done, that the three books were out and doing well and I had met all of my obligations – I finally let myself feel the pain in my chest. The place where I couldn’t really draw a full breath, and I knew I was about ten minutes out from a full-blown panic attack.

That is when I posted on FB that I was going to step back for a week, I talked to my Street Team to make sure they knew, and then I turned off the computer and had a mini-breakdown. Anyone who has had panic attacks knows what it feels like, sort of like drowning even though you’re not even near water. Your lungs get tighter and tighter, your brain finally cracks open like some overripe fruit, and all the stress pours out into your consciousness like poison.

A panic attack is the moment when all your worst fears / anxieties come out to play. Only, they don’t play nice.

I know this. I’ve had full-scale breakdowns before because of doing stupid shit where I take on too much and eventually lose it. I’ve done the super fun sleeping in my closet for days kind of crazy, but this wasn’t that intense. For this mini-breakdown I crawled into bed and just succumbed to it, because I knew that no matter what I still had to get up and go to work. I still had to be a parent, but that this middle-of-the-night mindflaying was going to help me do all of that. To be quite honest, I don’t really remember much about Monday night after I got into bed. I know I talked to my Dom on the phone and apparently said some really disturbing and fucked up things that had him wanting to come over, but my hyperventilating hysterics let him know that the only thing that would really help me was panic-sobbing my way into a catatonic sleep.

Which, I guess I did.

I really don’t remember the discussion, but he told me about it last night when he came over. Or at least shared what he thought he should, and demanded I not put myself that close to the edge voluntarily again (and he’s right, this was a choice, and had the rest of my life not lost its shit at the same time I might have been able to handle it, but life happened and I will not try and do 3 full scale releases in 45 days ever again).

The good news?

I am coming out of it. I can breathe again. My chest doesn’t hurt anymore, and I haven’t had any more panic attacks since Monday night. I know that people have been worried / sad / confused about where I’ve been, but I’m writing this today to explain that I just needed some time away from the constant humming “need” of Facebook. If I’m online I see the notifications every minute or so and want to go read them / check them, even if I have other things to do. It was worse than usual due to all the takeovers, and the feeling of failure for not getting other things in my life done combined with the ever-present social media buzz was too much. I’m quite sure if I hadn’t stepped back when I did the breakdown would have been much worse.

I have accomplished a fucking ton in my week away from authory duties, lots of stuff I’ve needed to get done for a while, and with each checkmark on my life’s to-do list I’ve felt a little better. I even did some research for characters in upcoming books I need to write, and I actually planned out my writing this year. The commitment is still a lot, and I won’t be taking on anything else for 2017, but I’m pretty sure I can do it as long as I don’t lose my mind again.

In conclusion, thanks for putting up with me even though I’m crazy.

I say ^that same line^ to the Dom all the time, and he usually has something clever and charming to say in response, he likes to call me wonderful whenever I comment about how fucking psycho I am, but for some reason he seems to like me. And you guys seem to like me too. I can only hope you like me in spite of the fact that sometimes I do too much and lose my mind. I wish I could promise this wouldn’t happen again, but with my mom not doing well I’m sure I’ll have another freak out when she passes.

The world is hard for everyone, and I know I’ve got a lot of #FirstWorldProblems that my neuroses cause me to snap over, but I felt the urge to answer the questions that I’ve been asked this past week since it’s kind of a tradition on Ask Me Anything.

Basically, I adore you all and I’m so grateful to have you, even though I probably don’t deserve you guys.

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PS – the anxiety demons in my brain are telling me not to post this, but I am anyway. Amanda Palmer says we have to trust each other, and while I still have spectacular trust issues, I’m trusting you guys on this one. Hopefully, you’ll all still be there in a few days when I log back on.

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