Author L.J. HOLMES' BOOKS 4 YOU: March 2011

"Bumps and Grinds?" She looked from the board game placed on the coffee table before her to the three waiting faces. "You two went out and bought this game?"

Her confusion was evident in her voice and in the wide dilation of her hazel eyes. The three people across from her, saw it, but ignored it. Not a single one of them showed any emotion. Blank screens, they were blank screens.

She wanted to scream at them, but couldn't figure out why. The game, still in its box gave no clue to her feelings of immense dread. But she trusted that inner alarm. Ever since she'd been a toddler, her inner knowing had ticked off her parents, while making her maternal grandmother prouder than the peacock her gender did not allow her to be.

Three against one. The odds were not in her favor, nor the logistics.

She wanted to run, but they'd catch her before she reached the front door. Even if she managed to leave the single-wide trailer her husband had bought right before their wedding...only two months to the day, ago, she had no car and her family lived a good forty minutes away.

"What is it?" she asked, her voice barely rising above a whisper. 'Please God, make me disappear!'

Naturally her prayers went unanswered. The tableau needed to be played out, but God help her, she knew this was going to be the beginning of a hell un-like any she'd already experienced.

Her husband, all six-foot-four inches of him, separated from the united front the three of them had formed and came to the couch lowering himself beside his wife. He never took his determined eyes from her face.

He reached for her hand; she moved it; his eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched. With renewed effort and determination, he grabbed her hand squeezing it with enough pressure to let her know not to try any more tricks.

"It's a game," he said in his cold, authoritarian voice, "and we're going to play it."

The other two had moved during the minor rebellion between husband and wife, to sit in the red leather chair, the only piece of furniture not part of the trailer's original design. Neither husband or wife noticed the others; the battle of wills between them absorbing their brains and their bodies.

"You two went to an adult bookstore and bought a game?" she asked unsure why they would do that.

While she and Maryellen had stayed behind to clean up the dinner dishes, Joe and her husband had gone out, allegedly for a bottle of wine, but returned with a brown paper bag, from which this game emerged.

"It's just a game," her husband growled. "You love playing games."

That was true; she loved playing Jeopardy, a game she consistently won despite her husband's rankling. She also loved playing the card games her Grandmother taught the ostracised somewhat psychic child she'd been.

Bumps and Grinds did not remind her of any of those games. What kind of games did one buy in an adult bookstore? Only nineteen, she'd never been inside one so had no clue.The way the other husband was looking at her, no drooling at her, she didn't think it would be a game she'd want to play, ever!

Over the next three hours, they took turns, dragging her into the small bathroom, badgering her into agreeing to play the sick game.

Bumps and Grinds where you play for time chips and then get to spend the time chips with one of the other players of your choice, alone doing whatever you wanted, naked.

Hour after hour...two husbands and one wife worked her over, not physically; they would not want to play with damaged flesh; they worked her over psychologically. She'd vowed to love, honor, and obey, they reminded her repeatedly.

Okay the love part was already a lie. Her marriage had not been for love...it had been arranged...yes in this day and age arranged marriages still exist. To her father, she had been nothing more than chattel to buy and sell as need be.

Honor...yes, she'd definitely said that during the priest's reciting of the marriage vows...Did she say obey? She'd been so nervous and yes angry that day, but this other couple were guests, guests she hadn't noticed, so huge had been the guest list, They assured her over and over again, she had promised to obey.

"It's just fun," Maryellen argued sweetly. "And you don't have to do anything you don't want. Joe's a good man. He'll take good care of you."

Maryellen's words made her inside's cringe even more. Her own husband would never make the front pages of GQ, his frame flabby though not fat. Joe, on the other hand, lived in a squat body that rippled where men his age, thirty-one, should not ripple, yet. Was his job as a state crime lab scientist so sedentary?

Joe stood on the other side of the washing machine she'd placed between them. She could feel his desire to reach out and touch her even through her clothes. Somewhere out there, beyond the closed bathroom door, her husband and Maryellen were doing whatever, while Joe was here using his turn to try browbeating her into submission; his eyes making her skin crawl.

"I won't hurt you," he said calmly, coaxingly. "Will it help if I promise not to penetrate? We'll just play."

She wanted to scream No! at the top of her lungs, but all she could manage was to inch further away, the wall behind her crushing her back solidly. Maybe her eyes gave her away. He shurgged and left.

She sagged to the floor, her heart pounding out her fear and disgust. Could they force her to do this? Why would her new husband want this?

She's got big boobs, her inner voice sneered. Compared to Maryellen she was petite in every area except height. At five-six she was taller than Maryellen's five-two, but that was the only area she possessed stature over the long haired brunette.

She'd seen throughout dinner the way her husband's eyes had gravitated to Maryellen's thirty-six double "d' chest.

The door swung open. Yes, she could have locked it, but it would have only made her husband angrier when he kicked the door in.

Locating her on the floor, he came around the washing machine, squatted down so close she had no personal space anymore.

"You're going to play," he said evenly, coldly. "So stop this, get up and come out into the living room so we can get started."

His eyes were filled with ice chips. He wanted this and that was all there would ever be. If she continued resisting, she would pay a much higher price. He and the others were finished coaxing her into thinking she ever had any say in this.

Rising to his gargantuan stature, he extended his hand. She ached to have a hole open beneath her, but the floor remained intact.

Lifting her own hand, she barely winced when his meatier paw enfolded her own and yanked her with such force to her feet she stumbled hard against the evidence he'd been doing more than talking with Maryellen when Joe was in here.

Like a meek and broken child, she followed her husband out into the living room and a new level of hell on earth.

Today is

the one year anniversary

of Muse Publishing, Inc.

I knew I came on board early with my first contract for

SANTA IS A LADY back on March 29th, but until today, I didn't know exactly HOW early.

I totally DID come in on

the ground floor! How cool is that?

I've known all along how fortunate I am to be here, and the events since

March

29th

have proved how right coming here is. But on this very land marking

celebratory day, I really want to tell the world what makes

Muse the very special place it is.

Muse is not merely a publishing house molded from the same cyber

clay and

templates so many other

e-publishing houses build from that I have observed and had to interact with over the past two years.

From its very inception, it has been so much more.

To tell its story and do it

justice, I must begin by telling you about the two powerhouse women behind Muse's creation,

Lea Schizas and

Litsa Kamateros.

Back before

the dawn of Muse, these two women co-wrote a book called

AUTISM EPIDEMIC-SHAKING THE SYSTEM. For far too many reasons to elaborate, they suffered greatly trying to get this important ground-breaking book out to the public that truly needs it.

They were forced to self-publish to get it out here where parents, teachers, and law makers needed the information researched and documented within.

So how does that story fit in with the advent of Muse?

Autism is a subject very dear to

the hearts and

minds of these two dynamic women. Now that Muse is open and their book finally available, Lea and Litsa have taken their commitment even further.

Anyone operating a new business can tell you how much work is involved with keeping it moving onward...e-pub house are no less fraught with issues requiring 24/7 attention. Without shirking one millimeter of their duties, Lea and Litsa spend much of their time ALSO promoting Autism Awareness.

Here they are at an all day Autism Awareness Expo mere weeks ago in Canada, an Expo that will now become an ANNUAL event, in part due to Lea and Litsa's commitment to this issue.

Because of their exemplary example, many of the rest of us donate our time, efforts, and yes, even our

royalties to help Muse get the word out here to the reading world and in our personal worlds.

We tackle many of today's topics, promoting

community involvement as well. One of our authors sponsored a comprehensive

literacy program in her local schools that got the youth to write, read, and participate. More is coming.

Muse encourages us to think not like individual contractors out to undercut on another in the search for those coveted sales. We are all in this together.

I do cover blogs, my own free promotion, now dubbed STATIONARY TRAILERS, because every author is my brother and sister. Their success makes this