The Nutcracker
by Robyn McCoy
Novella Five
of
The Erobotica Series
Also by Robyn McCoy
Novella One: The Love Machine
Novella Two: Sleeping Beauty’s Spring Awakening
Novella Three: And All the Queen’s Men
Novella Four: Some Assembly Desired
Copyright© 2010 by Doublethumb Press at Smashwords
Smashwords Edition
License Notes:
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You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
– Francis Pharcellus Church
Clara paused in her last-minute dusting as she fingered the nutcracker standing on the fireplace mantle. She’d put it out every Christmas since she was six years old.
“Look,” she said to her husband. “Auntie Marie gave this to me for Christmas thirty-five years ago.”
Franz raised his eyebrows in mock fascination. “No kidding?”
She nodded happily, used to ignoring her husband’s sarcasm. “She used to make things like this for a living. Daddy said it was because she’d always been a nut herself.”
“Your dad was a fruitcake himself.”
That was harder to ignore. It had been only three months since his heart attack. Her first Christmas without him. “I haven’t seen her since,” she said, as if he’d said nothing.
Franz glanced at the grandfather clock next to the fireplace. “What time is she supposed to be here?”
“Any minute.”
He sighed. “I guess it wouldn’t be Christmas without a member of your family here.”
She started dusting again.
“You owe me,” he continued.
She nodded.
“Now.”
Clara turned to see what he meant. His eyes motioned down to his zipper. There used to be a hint of a smile on his face when he did that. Years ago it had turned into an expectant frown.
“Auntie Marie will be here any moment,” she complained.
“Then the quicker you start, the less likely there will be any embarrassing moments for you and your auntie.”
Which is exactly what he was hoping for, she assumed. He had purposely embarrassed her in front of her father on many occasions. Clara set the dust cloth on the mantle, dropped to her knees, and unzipped her husband’s pants. He was still very flaccid. Franz seemed to prefer that she do the work to get him aroused. She held his limp penis in between her forefinger and thumb and began to lick and suck, occasionally turning her head to nose through the tangle of pubic hair and lick his scrotum. That especially made him take notice. Time was of the essence, so she began licking and holding his balls gently in her teeth. She heard him make a noise and his penis stiffened enough to where she could work more proficiently.
Clara worked quickly, working her tongue in long strokes up the front of the shaft while wetting her finger and stroking it up and down the other side, then moving up to put the head in her mouth and begin a combination of sucking and licking that always got him off quickly.
This Christmas Eve was no exception. She felt him begin to climax and started to move away, but he held her head tight. The initial shot of semen struck the roof of her mouth, almost triggering her gag response. The subsequent shots dribbled onto her tongue. She felt tears welling up. He knew how much she hated it.
“Didn’t want to get the floor sticky,” he explained as his hands released her head.
She moved her head back from his cock, stood up without looking at him, and hurried to the kitchen to rinse out her mouth as best she could. Before she got there, the doorbell rang.
“Can you get that?” Franz asked.
Clara spat into the sink even as she turned the faucet on, then cupped her hands to start scooping water into her mouth and spitting it out.
“I think it’s your auntie,” he continued. “I hope she didn’t see us through the window.”
His wife came out of the bathroom a minute later and tried to gather herself as she walked to the door. She paused before turning the handle, dabbing her eyes and practicing a smile. She turned the knob and swung the door open.
“Clara?” asked the elderly woman on the porch.
It turned out Clara’s practice smiles had been wasted. Though she hadn’t seen her in more than thirty years, there was something about the grinning old lady with sparkling eyes that rekindled those warm memories of that Christmas and so many others growing up in a loving home.
“Auntie Marie!” she cried, throwing herself onto the frail woman. “I’m so grateful you came.”
Marie held her niece tightly. “I stayed away too long.”
Clara separated, and nodded sympathetically. “Daddy missed you. He talked about you so often, and read all your letters out loud.”
“He was a sweet man,” Marie said, taking her by the hand and leading her reluctant niece back into the house. “And he loved you so much. I wish I could have been out here.”
Clara reached back to slowly close the door, delaying the introduction as long as possible. “Daddy understood. Trips from Germany to California are expensive. He wanted to take me out to visit your home and where you two grew up, but money was always tight here, too.”
“Money hasn’t been tight for you in years,” came Franz’s voice as he neared them. “Not since your wedding day.”
She still didn’t meet her husband’s eyes. But Clara motioned to him. “Auntie Marie, this is my husband Franz.”
Marie nodded at him. “Guten Tag, Franz.”
He returned the nod. “How were you finally able to leave Germany?”
She smiled coyly, her eye caught by the sight of the nutcracker she’d given her niece the last time they’d met. Marie walked over to the fireplace and sighed, touching the soldier’s hat and round head and the jaws designed to crush nuts. She gazed into his black eyes.
“I’ve put him out every year,” said Clara behind her. “He always makes me think of the good things in life.”
Marie nodded at the nutcracker, and then at her niece. “As you do for him.”
Clara cocked her head a little. “What’s that?”
“That’s enough,” interrupted Franz. “Let’s eat.”
As she’d grown accustomed to doing, Clara ignored her husband. Instead she smiled at Marie, remembering how eccentric she’d seemed long ago. “How do you know what the nutcracker thinks?”
Aunt Marie turned slowly, her eyes dancing with an excitement that Clara hadn’t been around in years. “Because I know him, Clara. And he knows you. He’s watched you every year. And he loves--”
Both women jumped at the crack and clatter on the hardwood floor. That was where the mangled nutcracker now lay scattered. The black eyes on his disembodied head staring up at them. Clara’s disbelieving eyes turned from the mutilated Christmas present to the man who had broken it.