|
Return To the Celestial Review (This does NOT open a new window) Return To the Index (This does NOT open a new window) Note, to make reading multi-part stories easier, story links (links with dejanews.com or www.qz.to, NOT the review or profile links) will open up a new browser window. When you are done reading the story, or section of the story simply CLOSE the story window. |
|
"Sacrificial Lamb" by Tiffany (sexual degradation) 10, 10, 10
"Sacrificial Lamb" by Tiffany. Guest Review by Piper. {Note from Celeste: among some old notes I found this review that I must have failed to post. I reviewed this same story a couple of issues ago and gave it a much more negative rating. In the interest of fairness, I thought I should post this review as well.} This story starts with Gwen and her husband experiencing financial difficulties. No, worse than that, they have watched their life savings, and everything they possess, get flushed down the toilet of his crazy business venture, in dribs and drabs, over the course of many moons. Finally, they have almost literally nothing left except the clothes on their backs. No home, no car, no furniture, nothing. The husband jets off overseas where a job awaits, but money won't be forthcoming for several months. Maybe just in time to move back home and get their foxy daughter Ginger back into her old high school for the start of the next school year. Without a home, Gwen and Ginger are forced to beg for aid from Gwen's sister Gloria and brother-in-law Hank. Well, forced may be too strong a word for it. Gwen has somehow managed to alienate or distance herself from anyone else who might have offered assistance. Her filthy little imagination has been hard at work, and has been surreptitiously guiding her actions. You see, Gwen has a history with her sister, and not a pretty one. Subjected, sexually used and abused, and forced into virtual servitude is the type of history most people would try to forget, and they would try to avoid the perpetrator like the plague. Not Gwen. Especially since she knew Hank had raped one of their nieces. You see, she doesn't see herself in the role of abuse victim any more. Not with her sister or with Hank. No, she was a teenager when most of that happened. Instead, she sees her daughter in the role - raped by her brother-in-law, abused, misused, and probably (hopefully!) even made pregnant with Hank's bastard. Those images are in her mind the whole time, getting more vivid and insistent with each passing hour. But what about Ginger, the obedient, understanding, virginal, and very desirable young lady who just turned sixteen? On the long bus ride down from Cloverdale (somewhere in Canada) to backwoods Arkansas, Gwen explains to her daughter that things will probably be quite difficult. There will be strange events occurring. It's a different place, and she will have to develop some sort of fantasy, or story, or something, to help her cope with what Gwen knows will be happening. This might happen to her, and that will probably happen to her, and the other thing will definitely happen to her. Imagine the worst, she says. Well, the worst does happen, but definitely not in the way Gwen pictured in her perverted little mind. What happens to Gwen probably shouldn't happen to a dog. Well, maybe it should only happen to a dog. Or to a woman who offered up her daughter as a ... (read the title). I like this story. It's well-written, it's coherent, and it's one that made me want to read right to the end. Even through the disgusting bits. The few flaws I found were minor and in no way interfered with the story. Be warned - this is no warm, fuzzy romance. It's not a love story. No heroic prince comes to the rescue. The sex is difficult and mostly non-consensual, although it's not contested. Well, mostly not. That last bit out back of the trailer was very much vocally protested, even though Gwen couldn't fight back physically. And it was definitely disgusting. Oh, and I forgot to mention that Gloria has kids - four boys, hellions, aged 14, 12, 11, and 10. They don't figure in Gwen's imaginings. However ... As somebody-or-other once said, the best laid plans of something- or-other often go wrong (my modern English version - the original, I think, is gang aft agley). Be ready for a story that will haunt your dreams and fantasies. Ratings for "Sacrificial Lamb": Technical merit 10 Plot & character 10 Appeal to reviewer 10 |