Freedom, freedom, freedom!

My latest story is about sexual liberation, shrugging off the constraints of other people’s expectations and embracing your own unique needs and experience. The Education of Gloria Dean is a novel-length story about Gloria, a sweet girl who has a harsh sexual awakening one summer. In the springtime, her next-door neighbor teaches her how to give a blowjob (her first) and by the end of summer she is working in a strip joint. It’s filled with all the shameful sex you’ve come to expect from one of my stories, but it’s not a story about Gloria’s fall.

It’s a rising story of hope, forgiveness, and redemption.

It’s told by a nameless narrator who has a similar sexual history as Gloria. The story opens many years after her summer of wild abandon. They meet at a meeting for recovering addicts and fall hard for one another. The narrator discovers that his own coming of age was much like Gloria’s, but with one HUGE difference–where he is beat down and filled with shame about his past, she has learned to accept herself for who she is, all the harsh warts of her past as well as all the lusty needs of the present. These two are meant for one another, but there is one BIG problem. They’re addicts, and when they’re addiction rears its ugly head, they are hurtled head long into drug-fueled adventure. 

Large swaths of this story are true, but I’m presenting it as fiction so I can explore the bigger issues of sexual shame and redemption that I’m interested in without hurting anyone. I’m really excited about the work and can’t wait to share it with you!

When will it be ready? Soon!