of nurture’s wildness - a novella (ch. 10)
by Tom Stuckey
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A week had gone by and James had started to actually enjoy life at the retreat, as he now liked to refer to it as. Most days he managed to spend quality time with Gloria, either taking walks or in joining some of the groups. They were becoming as close as lovers could before actually making love.
Up until then Gloria had resisted spending the night in James room, maybe because it was a little too liberal, even for their non-traditional paradigm. So one afternoon after running James decided to go to Glorias room, it was the right time in their relationship, a lover’s call- to-arms. He knocked on her door and she answered and let him in. She had just taken her morning shower and was still wet with the steam’s heat, dressed in simple dressing gown which she immediately let down as James dropped to his knees and began to lick and taste her. HER—the lips pink and brown with a small bush of hair above it—the legs shapely and raised out, making her vulva hidden a little, like a nest. James rested his hands on her legs and then moved them to around her bum, so he could press his face further in. Gloria held his hair and moved her hips a little—on tip toes—to help as she came and shook a little as she did, James reached up with his hands and cupped her breasts, as she threw her slick, wet head of hair back and looked up at the ceiling, that began moving in patterns like a gyroscope. As soon as she had regained herself, she raised him up and dropped to her knees and took out his penis which was full and thick and put—as much as she could into her mouth—James hung onto the shower railings, and felt as if God was blowing life into him—looking down he saw her pretty green eyes, sphinx-like, looking up at his—cheeks full and delicate—lips pushed out—until he could hold back no longer—holding a clump of wet hair—and came.
They fell in unison onto the bed. “I take it, now that I’m wet on your face and I have the taste of you in my mouth, that you have chosen to remain amongst the living?” James liked the way she talked dirty, and that it was going to be something reserved for just them, a secret life was beginning, James thought. “Yes,” He smiled, unable to contain his excitement, in a cool way, but it was also mixed with a sort of self-betrayal, or pride, in that he was less a man for not going through with his own execution. Gloria noticed this confliction in his eyes. “It’s normal to have residual feelings.” She looked into his eyes whilst she talked and James found this to be a new experience. “Thank you, yes I do feel a sort of tension of opposites, but I am starting to realise that there will always be fear and love in a cycle that is as normal as breathing.” She looked like she might start to cry, like she too had realised something, or that someone else mirroring her belief made it more real. “James, I just ask one thing of you.” James nodded. “Remain faithful to me.” With this James hugged her and simply replied, “I will.”
They carried on like this, in good faith, and their relationship was one of mutual respect, excitement and love. There were no major dramas, in that way they got lucky. James often saw that really they had more in common with the seasons and flowers, than of anything that had been indoctrinated by psychologists, religions and the media.
*Read Tom Stuckey’s next installment of Of Nurture’s Wildness on July 15, 2025, at 6PM CST.
BIO: Tom is a writer from Devon in England. His work can be found at A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Bristol Noir, Nut House Press, and Pulp Magazine. He is the author of The Canary in the Dream is Dead and The Sun Marches upon Us All. Learn more about Tom Stuckey at www.tomstuckey.com.