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"Dinner at Six - The Picnic" by Krieg Lite (hedonistic romance &
adolescent sex) 10, 10, 10
"Dinner at Six - The Picnic" by Krieg Lite (critic@anon.nymserver.com). This is actually Chapter 5 of "Jenny," which has who-knows-how-many chapters. Normally I get pissed off when I open what I think is a story and discover that somebody has foisted off on me a single chapter from the middle of a longer story: usually such excerpts just start nowhere and go even more nowhere. But this time I had no choice. As I read this story and write this review on my laptop computer, my students are seated in front of me taking a test; and I need something to do while they write their essays, secure in their knowledge that their teacher is contacting the Smithsonian on the Internet or something like that. Besides, the first hundred lines of the story have successfully caught my attention. What struck me as unfortunate about this story is that the author seems to think it essential that Jenny be a very young teenager. Stories about child molestation are usually a turn-off to me, and so as I read the beginning of the story, I just chose to believe that the hot chick in the shower with the narrator was of legal age. Given that assumption, it was a really hot scene. What I think is unfortunate is that the author assumes that something is GAINED by having the sexy episode be with a very young teenager. The basic plot (continued from previous chapters) seems to be that Larry is hot for Helen, whose two children are also hot for Larry. After a rousing game of Monopoly with Helen, Jenny, and Ashleigh (apparently Jenny's sleepover friend), Larry is invited to spend the night in the guest room, so that they can get off to an early start for their picnic in the mountains the next day. Nothing happens all night long. So when Larry takes Ashleigh home the next evening, she says: "Anyway, Larry, I would really like the chance to do it before Jenny tries to teach me. And since that's going to happen tomorrow afternoon, do you suppose that you could come in and let me try it now?" The narrator adds that he "could her the tension in her voice, and I could feel it in my entire body." Now, in spite of my personal predilections against kiddysex, I have to admit that this was a good chapter. In fact, based on what I have seen here, I would bet that they whole "Jenny" story is pretty good. If in real life it were possible for barely pubescent kids to innocently acquire sexual sophistication by fucking with a kindly ole guy who is dating Mom in between watching Jeopardy and playing Monopoly, the world probably wouldn't be a bad place to live. The girls simply would not have to go to British boarding schools in order to become those delightful young ladies who enrich society and perform brain surgery. The problem in real life, of course, is that this sort of arrangement is really, really unlikely to work out. Little girls with these feelings should almost certainly seek outlets somewhere else, and grown men that think they can perform this service are almost certainly lying to themselves. But granted that this is a fantasy, it's a pretty good fantasy. Ratings for "Dinner at Six - The Picnic" Athena (technical quality): 10 Venus (plot & character): 10 Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10 |