The Annex Reviews, April 2000
4/8/00 GI Joe Sexual Missions #1: Scarlett's Training (jzelger); DeLaurio's Bar: A New Conception (Alexis Wilder); Praying Mantis: Black Window (Lotuseater); Fuad's Hareem (Frenchy the III); Kelly's Transformation (mark_la688); Fighting Words, Parts 1 and 2 (Trilby Else) 4/15/00 Floating (Rino Rino); If You Spank Me...(Lady Casaloma); Professor Octagon's Wild Ride (Ludwig Octagon); Titanic: Gentleman's Agreement (little Alex); The Saga of Blanche, Parts I, II, and III (Saynesberry) 4/30/00 The Kiss of Fire, Parts 1 and 2 (Juxian Tang); Wendigo (Dorian Runninghawk); Fuck Club (Edward Rider); Cold (Terri Madison); The Heir (Bliztenschnell); Tarzan and Terk (Argent AJ)
4/8/00
I've been doing some spring cleaning on my site lately as regards checking links, and I've come across several good websites that are MIA. Does anyone know the new URLs for Lord Malinov, Dean Lidster, Giffstein Productions, November Tuesday, Uther Pendragon, Sneakley's Pages of Peril, Superheroines in Bondage, or Nova's The Secret Logs of Mistress Janeway? If so, please let me know. I am almost all done checking the others, and they should be all in place and updated a day or so after I post this. Also, acting on a suggestion a reader made, I will be mailing out copies of these reviews to the writers of those stories who have received an A or A+ rating. As to why I won't do this with everyone, well, I'd rather not get shot as the bearer of bad news; but if an author asks for feedback as part of their review request, I will give it to them, unadulterated, as it appears here.
I have neglected to give my 1999 Annual Report for a number of reasons, chief among them that I wasn't on the net that much last year, and so had nothing to say; but I intend to remedy that now, partly, after two weeks of intensive web searching on the topic "fanfic." Fanfic, in case you don't know, is any kind of fiction written by fans, for fans, of a particular TV show, movie, cartoon (generally known as 'toons), anime/manga, comic, or, increasingly, musical group. Before the net these stories used to be self-published in 'zines. With the growth of the webm however, they have entered a truly colossal period of growth, with literally hundreds, perhaps thousands, of sites, and hundreds of thousands of stories. Why should the average reader of the ASS newsgroups care about this? Because many of the sites and stories offer truly excellent erotica, much of it gay and lesbian, with varying degrees of kinkiness and angst. When I first began writing these reviews in 1997 there were plenty of sites out there, but most of them stuck to the major Fandoms -- which were at the time Star Trek, Highlander, Sentinel, JAG, Xena/Herc, and the X-Files. Well, fanfic writers are nothing if not an artistically fickle bunch, and as one show is creatively overmined (or goes off the air) their loyalties switch to the newer, better models, and new Fandoms spring up. For example, the Highlander and JAG Fandoms seem to running out of steam, with fewer stories and sites each month, while last years' Star Wars: The Phantom Menace movie has spawned innumerable slashy (M/M) fanfic stories, most of them dealing with the relationship between Qui-Gonn Jin and young Obi-Wan. On the same note, Todd Hayes' eminently "slashable" glam-rock movie Velvet Goldmine has inspired at least ten sites, and I've also seen many stories for the Matrix. (The key to the latter three, I think, is the sexual appeal of these movies' leading men on the mainly female writers.) Other Fandoms have crawled out of the woodwork in recent months. I have seen sites and stories for 1970s shows like Emergency! and a good number on the rock groups Savage Garden, the Cure, the Monkees, N'Sync, and the Backstreet Boys. Video game fanfic is increasing every day, but it is only the little brother of the rapidly growing Fandom anime, which, like a many-tentacled Power Rangers monster, offers everything from lemon (explicit) and lime (romantic) yaoi (slash) to hentai (kink) from hundreds of different shows, most of which are available in America only at specialized video stores. Anime fanfic writers have a specialized lexicon of their own by which they rate and class their stories that is so opaque it baffles even oldtime anime fans like myself. So watch that sucker; it's getting cancerous. But, there are also growing Fandoms for daytime soaps and nightime WB fare; ones for BBC fare such as Inspector Lovejoy and BlackAdder, and a small but notable showing for "literate" genres in the form of Les Miserables and The Jewel in the Crown stories. In sum, it's a feast now more than ever. If you haven't tried fanfic before, give it a taste now.
The author says, "This story is based on the Marvel Comics version of G.I. Joe." That is news to me, for the last time I encountered GI Joe, he was being blown to bits by black cats in the dirt-hill forts of the little neighborhood boys I grew up with. Childhood memories aside, Joe's had a second plastic reincarnation in the Reaganistic 80s as a special op of sorts, followed by an animated series in the early 90s. I guess comics weren't so far behind, and following them, a Fandom (note the capitol F) tailor-made for adult content. In fact I was rather pleased to see him get a sex life. In this story, though, the "Joe" refers to an elite group of paramilitary professionals, and Scarlett is their new hand-to-hand combat trainer. Yes, she has long red hair, and she quickly whups all the men's asses, winning their grudging admiration for her skills (they already had it for her body.) Afterwards, she notes the session has made her more than a little turned on:
So she takes on all of them, barking orders all the time. I liked this story; it was unique (for a male-oriented comic story that is) in that the female lust object was neither a victim nor a slut but a very strong, very self-confident, very horny woman capable of being the controlling party in a gangbang, and enjoying it. Despite the machismo of its title, I strongly recommend it to female readers, as a way to share in the main character's adventures without feeling demeaned.
Radio plays have gone the way of the rotary telephone these days, but there once was a time (so my mother told me) when families gathered together to hear the tales of the Shadow or the Lone Ranger. As that form of drama is now dead or dying, I give Lotuseater high marks for attempting a loving spoof of one of those 1940s serials complete with sound effects, outrageous accents, and "stings" (a burst of music, or jarring chord, inserted in the play to heighten the dramatic effect.)
As this is a sex story, the altar ego of the heroic Preying Mantis, Kitt
Meade, a socialite, is surprised in her office by the Black Widow, a
French criminal who proceeds to work her over:
Kitt: "What - what are you -- hey - mmmmm! Mmmmm! Mm!"
Arachne: "Ahh, what divine treasures you 'ide beneath all
Kitt: (gasping) "You...you...have me at a disadvantage,
Arachne: "Zen we've lots of time. First I slide your
Kitt: (moaning) "Uhh...your...tongue...is...extremely...
The ending comes too soon, and is typical for a sex story; but I encourage the author to attempt more radio-recreations, as this one was quite entertaining. It left quite a bit to the imagination, you see.
"Dellaurio's was a combination restaurant, rest house, and bar. It was the only place at Luna station offering "all" the services--including the setting for various trysts--that a space hound of any sexual preference might want."
This sets the stage for what may be intended to be a new series of
voyeurism in an SF setting. The narrator is an A/V aide whose job it is to
supervise, and sometimes tape, what goes on in all the various trysting
rooms, and for this night, he begins to tape what is a fairly normal
romantic encounter in a romantic Terran dining room:
This is pretty standard fare for most readers here, I'd guess, and I continued to read on, waiting for the SF element to pop up -- that one of the partners is an alien, or something. But the romantic encounter soon turns into stroke, as the modest, romantic lovebirds suddenly break into language the likes of "Oh, God, I have all your stud meat. I want all of it. I want your cum in my pussy. I've never had a cock so deep before," and "Jeez, Laurie, the waves of pleasure are washing over me, as you rub my jewels," as if they've been reading one too many bad ASS stories, or had swallowed a thesaurus of sexual lexicon. Now, I've got nothing against dirty language in bed; I like it myself. But cliched dirty language out of the blue, and out of character for the two people we've just been introduced too, is just lazy writing. Not only that, but the story ends on a rather lame revelation that had nothing to do with SF. Why go to the trouble of creating this otherworldly environment, if you don't introduce otherworldly elements into it? That said, I can't knock *too* many points off the story for the above issues, as it was well written otherwise, and delivered the sexual goods. But for me, it turned out to be a disappointment.
This novella-length story is a cross between a political thriller and a
captive slave girl/BDSM piece. The narrator has been tricked into
served as a security aide to General Abdel-Kerim Fuad of Iraq, and part
of his job is preparing kidnapped American girls for his "hareem,"
which the General shares with his favorite officers. So there's plenty of
bondage, training, D/s, and piercing; but there's also an espionage
subplot in that China is planning to attack the General's bunker in
revenge for holding some Chinese scientists against their will. All the
James Bond action made an excellent backdrop for the slave scenes in
this story, which were by turns humorous (in a dark vein), detailed,
arousing, and frighteningly plausible. But more than that, the story had
good characterization. From the egomaniac anti-American General
("When we win the war, I shall own a grand whorehouse outside of Las
Vegas. I will permit you to run it for me. All that American women are
good for is to be whores. We will stock it with the most beautiful
survivors.") to the chauvinistic dim bulb narrator ("I do remember true
love number one insisting that since she was swallowing my come and
letting me fuck her in the ass, when she wasn't even having a period, I
shouldn't be seeing any other women. How was I to know I was
supposed to take a comment like that seriously. Women! Go figure!")
and, the most well-drawn of all, Charlotte, once a down-home southern
girl, now the General's favorite slave. Here she gives the other girls a
description of what they are to do at one of his parties:
What set this story apart from the run-of-the-mill slave factory is the sense of sympathy shown for the slaves, most of whom have been sexually exploited or damaged even before they became a slave. It's an interesting tone for a torture sex story, which by its nature is out to exploit and dehumanize its victims. The author has stated in his forward: "I apologize to the A.S.S newsgroup that this should have been a much longer story, but I ran out of willingness to keep going "back into the bunker" to finish it. It was some sort of a mental escape from what had become a rather depressing story, in some parts at least. " Well, that's as maybe, but it's still an excellent piece of work.
Many of the sluts I read about in sex stories have the first name of Kelly. I often wonder why this is so. Why is Kelly so closely interconnected with slutness, and not Kristy or Karen? Whatever, this was one of those magical transformation stories where an average young woman receives a strange drug/item/medical treatment/brainwashing that causes her to gradually metamorphosize into a Slut. (To make us aware of the importance of this, slut is capitalized throughout the story.) As Kelly works for a computer company, the means comes through a flashing email message. The transformation starts with high spike heals, short skirts, and see- through blouses, and progresses through clit piercings (with a bell attached), tongue extensions, and breast implants that squirt whole milk from the right and chocolate milk from the left, with a tattoo on each that says "TITTS," our gal's new name as the official company fluffer. (Boy, I love that word "fluffer!" Not only does it imply a certain irrelevancy and disposableness, but it's the same word my English riding teacher used when instructing us how to give "leg" to our mount.)
If all this sounds batty, it is; but I admit I'm fond of this kind of junk,
and I enjoyed it, the same way I enjoy an earnestly cheesy,
overproduced movies such as, oh, Dino de Laurentiis's "Flash Gordon."
Even the writing, though atrocious, had a certain charm in its typos and
mistakes, and a lot of the entertainment I got from the piece came from
gleaning them out. Here are a few of them for you:
"Kelly takes it off and puts on a thin white shit"
"Kelly's boss came to Kelly' desk "Hay Slut, Aren't you supposed to be
leaving for a weeks leave a noon."
"Hello! I'm TITTS the company sex slut, can I offer you my pussy, ass,
mouth or tong?"
"She new that she had been turned into a wonton 14 year old sex slut." [I'd love to see an illustration of *that.*] It all only got worse towards the end, as if the author was by then too sexually excited to keep his or her hands on the keyboard. I should also note they had no idea how to use quotation marks properly. In sum, if you want a good laugh, read this; but as it wasn't intended to be humorous, I'm forced to give a C, for the general low quality.
The author sent me a note requesting that I review this. I've been slow in doing personal requests, but now I'm going to try to do one per ish.
Wendy is a young woman taking a self-defense class to start a new
career as a bodyguard. She begins to experience a strange attraction
toward her teacher, Bonnie, who uses hypnosis techniques to help her
female students relax:
As time goes on Wendy suspects she is having more than just dreams, and decides to investigate. It's a tribute to this writer's skill that I was truly disturbed by what happens next. The author states in the beginning, "It's more about mind control than sex. I'm a fetishist: point isn't using MC to get sex, it's sex being something interesting to do with MC. " I disagree; I thought the story was very erotic, and if it wasn't quite the pumping organs of stroke, it evoked a sensual, sinister mood equal to the best psychological horror and suspense. The story also made good use of a number of contrasts, such as the one between the womens' wish to defend themselves against rape and "take control of their lives" and their eventual mass- hypnotized fates. It was also a raring good short story as regards plot, character, development, and build-up -- is Wendy having erotic daydreams, or is her kindly teacher up to something sinister? -- that kept me hooked. Lastly, the author had one of the best writing techniques I've seen for depicting the conscious/unconscious actions of a hypnosis victim. All aspiring MC authors should take a look at this for a good example how it's done, and done well.
4/15/00
This is the first time I've seen a story labeled as "sexfight." I thought it might be similar to "catfight" where two sexy women try to beat the crap out of each other; if there's sex in a catfight, it's the D/s or rape kind, with the spoils going to the victor. But sexfight, as I understand it from this story, is a kind of role-play recasting sex as a battle, with the victor being the one who creates the most pleasure in their partner. Sounds positive to me.
This story also caught my eye because it was SF, and the sexfight takes
place in zero gravity on a space station. Cynthia and Katherine are two
gorgeous, substantially-built (so nice to see a description of women with
meat on their bones) mission specialists who are conducting a torrid
affair aboard the International Space Station. When their supervisor
orders them to get some exercise, they use it as an excuse for the kind of
sex that they love, beginning with a strip:
The story was more encounter than plotline, but this didn't bother me because it was so well done. If people had sex in zero-G, it *would* be like this, and for that it gets an A+ -- that and the creative use of language, especially that winking clit.
Here a novel move is attempted that leaves one chick twirling on the
fingers of the other like a six-shooter:
If you like SF or F/F, give this one a look.
A businesswoman daydreams during a boring meeting of the spanking
her husband gave her that morning. That's it, but this was pretty hot
stroke that goes into detail:
Lacey moaned.
Pulling the nipple outward, he again start pulling it further and
further out. Lacey could feel the skin of the breast itself stretch
as he continued the steady pressure outward. There was an excitement
growing inside of her at the same time. She had read stories about
this type of game and she was determined to play it out. Despite the
pain, she was feeling very excited.
"Tonight, I am in charge," Mark said. "Your body is all mine!" Soon follow multiple **Swat**s and **Whack **s as Lacey is turned over his knee, followed by anal sex that was also pretty hot. Recommended if you want something consensual, but hot and nasty.
Professor Ludwig Octagon is a Doctor of Sexology and a rather befuddled
old gent. He's also an inventor, working hard on a patented Fuck
Machine. When two young neighbors of his, identical Siamese twins (!)
stop by after church, he invites them to try it out. Apparently they're
all had good times together before, and have no qualms about having a
good time again after Confession:
"Just sit here," I said, pointing to the saddle. "The machine will do
the rest. Get up on it, that's a good girl."
She slowly sat on it, letting the point of the hard rubber head slide
deep inside her, both she and Sally gasped as it filled Molly's pussyup
[sic].
"It's not as big as you are," sighed Molly, "but it still feels
good..."
"I want one, too!" pouted Sally.
"Okay," I sighed. "I should've known better than to not build the two-
headed model just yet. This was an interesting idea, but it felt very truncated to me; I had the feeling the author hadn't developed it as much, or gone as far with the idea, as he or she could have. The story *was* pretty short, even for a continuing series, which this seems to be. I suggest to the author that they round out the character of the Professor AND his playmates a little more.
Having been to so many fanfic sites lately, I snapped this up right away when it appeared on ASSM. Though fanfic is fairly common on this newsgroup, seeing slash -- as this piece is -- is fairly rare, and seeing slash based on "Titanic" is rarer still. In about 60 sites, I've come across only 3 or 4 other stories. Anyhow, the story begins when Jack Dawson -- Leo DeCaprio -- is handcuffed to a pipe below deck as the ship is sinking, but when Roses's evil fiancee Caledon Hockley comes in to gloat ("Was she good?") the story takes a radical departure -- he rapes the kid as the price of his freedom, then reneges on it. The author handled the scene well. I've seen the movie, and could actually imagine the characters acting this way, which is the point of good fanfic, and you could tell the author enjoyed wallowing in the pathos of the scene and the negative emotions involved. But. What seems like a good idea is often not strong enough to make a good story, and that's the problem with a lot of the fanfic I see. The authors are being storytellers, as if they are seeing the story on a movie screen in their heads and are telling it to a group of like-minded friends rather than writers who seek to hook readers and draw them into their private worlds by any means necessary. The former assumes the audience will always be attentive and friendly; the latter, that the audience is indifferent or hostile. It's a big difference, and leads to a certain blandness and sameness on the part of the fanfic. All the stories sound alike, as if they were written by the same author for the same audience, whereas for non-fanfic erotica it's very easy to tell, say, an Ann Douglas story from a Dimitri one, even though both may be about Batgirl, take place in a comic-book world, and have the same plot. Another thing that got on my nerves were the ever-changing tags for the two men involved. Leo was boy, blond, Jack, Dawson, young man. Evil fiancee was thirty-year-old, Cal, older man, Caledon. There's only two people present. Make up your mind. And since when to rapists pause to lube up their victims? Even if Leo *does* wind up enjoying it... That said, I do admit I read the story to the end, and it may be of interest to fans of boy rape stories, even though the rape is somewhat romanticized.
Coyreen, the Porn Queen, is a fading-fast triple X movie star who rose to fame because she was underage (think Traci Lords); she's all ego, lips, and toilet mouth. One day she is offed, and it's up to the detective narrator of this story to figure out why. Clue: Coyreen was insanely jealous of a beautiful rival named Blanche Snow, and has a computer that tells her, in a cappella gospel harmony, she's "the finest queen we've ever seen..."
If all this sounds like a certain fairy tale, you're right, and the fun in
the story came from the transposition of the traditional elements to
modern Los Angeles. There's a woodsman analog who sounds
suspiciously like Arnold Schwarzeneggar (he even drives a humvee)
and instead of a dark, creepy forest there's Watts, complete with a boys
n' the hood gang called The Devil's Dwarves And let's not forget the
Chandleresque tone of the narrator, which adds to the cartoony mood of
the piece. All this adds up to a very enjoyable read. Here Coyreen puts
her henchman up to the task of getting rid of her rival:
Loads of fun, and a good mystery too. I'm looking forward to the next chapters.
4/30/00
Since my comments about fanfic in the 4/10/00 Annex I've delved deeper into the steamy underside of slash, and slash writers, and in the process discovered what amounts to a new fetish, or genre of sex story: the M/M rape/abuse/pain tale, written by mostly straight females, for mostly straight females. Leaving off, for the moment, what that "says" about the secret fantasies of some women, the genre is a growing and popular one, and as always when I discover a new fetish, I'm happy as a clam. What wonders exist in the rapidly mutating petri dish of pop culture!
This story was set in the DS9 universe and involved a sexual encounter
between Benjamin Sisko and his nemesis Gul Dukat, who is an oily-
tongued, scaly-faced, spoon-nosed Cardassian. Dukat has been gravely
injured in a shuttle accident and he has been brought into sickbay,
after which he will be put on trial; for what crime is not clear. Sisko
comes in to visit, and as he regards his enemy, the reader becomes
aware of a dark secret the two men share when Dukat makes a dying
request:
I shook his hand off from me even before he finished, even before I
fully realized what he meant - but he didn't try to stay with me. In fact,
he moved it away eagerly, taking the sheet and pulling it slowly away
from himself.
The long wound openings were not gaping any more, with the
regenerators working on them - but the dark gashes and burns still
looked frightening on the pale skin. Dukat was naked under the sheet -
I could see his broad chest revealed, his washboard abdomen - and then
I grasped his wrist and yanked the sheet back over him
abruptly.
"You are sick," his wrist was delicate in my hand and yet steel-strong.
My voice was stiff with fury - with contempt I tried to put into it. "Don't
try to do it again!"
All this is a veiled way of saying Dukat forcibly cornholed his Commander and, out of guilt perhaps, is requesting the same so his soul can rest easy. Then follows a flashback to the said rape, after which Sisko acknowledges his twisted passion for the alien and returns the favor. The story was so highly keyed I imagine it would be very difficult for the non-fan to understand, as it was not porn so much as passion. As you can tell from the above passage there was also a lot of dwelling on pain and physical trauma (the two endure assorted bruises and broken bones) and the feel of it is similar to the h/c (hurt/comfort) slash I've seen, wherein one partner is injured and the other tries to assuage his pain -- or wallows in it. But outside of this incident, the larger context of the story was obscure. We know neither why Dukat was in the shuttlecraft, or why he was going to be put on trial for it; likewise, we never find out where and why Sisko's rape took place. This is fairly common in both slash and fanfic (as if the scene in question occurs between two commercial breaks) but in a story, it leaves me unsatisfied. If the fanfic is referencing an earlier episode, it should at least be touched on, so readers aren't totally confused. But to be fair, I can see how the lack of background information serves to heighten the drama and pathos, in the same way lack of background in a hard-core stroke story serves to spotlight the sex. I admit, though, that I can't even remotely imagine Sisko and Dukat getting it on, nor does this story convince me that this is how they would act if they actually did. But then, the main reason for reading stuff like this is for the sheer drama of it.
Here we have another male rape story, written from a male's point of view this time. The differences between this and the slashy stuff were subtle, but there. The rapee's male attributes are dwelt on more explicitly, and the naughty bits are organ-related rather than holistic. There's more of an emphasis on what can euphemistically be termed "male smells" which a straight female wouldn't really know about unless she chances to sniff a spunk-filled male asshole. And the lovers are less monogamous, preferring to share their partners or take their sex in clumps or three or more.
Anyhow, the story is set in the Aztec empire before the Spanish
conquest, and is told by three different characters: a young Indian
brave, an escaped slave; the evil priest who is chasing him down, who
has supernatural powers credited to the Wendigo, the Indian spirit of
myth; and a captain in the Spanish army who falls for the slave and
later rescues him. Here the brave pauses in his flight, observed by his
enemy:
The Aztec Empire must be fertile ground for barbaric male fantasies, as I've read one another story with this setting ( ), and I'm sure there are more. But though the author stated the story was written in collaboration with a history professor I found several historical inaccuracies. For example, Montezuma is the name the Spanish gave to Moctezoma; he was never called that by his own people. Also, the Indian brave is described as Cherokee, in which case he's a little far from his hunting grounds. But I suppose the author was choosing to use artistic license, and on the whole it works, even down to the sexual terminology: "man-snake" for cock, and the wonderfully evocative "manmoons" for buttocks. That's a thing to chew about with the girls: "Gosh, doesn't that cute waiter have such squeezable manmoons?" I certainly plan to make it part of my vocabulary. In sum, though, the story didn't quite hold together for me, and I think it just needed more discipline on the part of author; it was more than a little over-lush. However it made a nice contrast to the story above.
"Fight Club" was a movie about the reaction of modern men to the soulless,consumer culture of contemporary America; instead of feeling emasculated, they opt to beat the crap out of each other. But in this story, they find a different way to handle their confusion: they emasculate themselves even further in service to a female dom and her two twin helpmates. This was the premise of the story, which reads more like an introduction to a longer series rather than a complete story in itself -- it felt like the author wasn't going as far with the material as he could have, and I missed the detail that could have been provided. Plus, wouldn't *women* be more likely to rebel against soulless consumer culture by letting loose their aggressive instincts, i.e. becoming dommes in their own club? But this was interesting and timely premise, and if the author develops it into a series, it could be entertaining.
Two sisters, ages 23 and 19, are driving out to a remote cabin to rendezvous with their boyfriends. It's the middle of winter, a blizzard is raging, and their car breaks down. Two guys in their late twenties stop to rescue them. The girls trustingly jump in their car, proving they haven't a brain cell between them. And when the guys do the "Take your shirts off, we wanna see what you've got" bit they react with shocked indignation, as if they'd never dreamed of such behavior from two suspicious guys on a deserted country road. That's the premise behind the story, and while it's short on imagination and hard to swallow, it was written grippingly enough. The sisters are raped and forced to give blowjobs and go down on each other, and it transpires that neither one was as sweet and innocent as we originally thought -- the elder loves to give head, while the younger, in anticipation of losing her virginity that night to her boyfriend, has thoughtfully shaved her pussy. Gee, I don't know...as long as it's hot and moist, what horny young guy would really give a damn? What difference does a fur coat make? The silliness eventually grated on me, and after the revelation that the boyfriends were the ones who set up the duo for abuse (the younger guy was sore because Little Miss Virgin made him wait too long) I felt like throwing the story across the room. I like rape/humiliation tales as long as they're delivered without tropes and with finesse, but the old "they're really sluts underneath, so they deserved it" cliche deserves to be shot. And buried.
Mike and Adam are roommates, and perhaps more. One day Mike receives news that his deceased father's stock portfolio is due to be distributed, and that Dad may have had several illegitimate children who will get a slice of the pie. Not only that, Dad kept detailed records of his sex life, and it transpires he was bisexual. The mystery of the story is thus set up: who are, and where are, these mysterious love children? And what was up with Dad? Though the prologue wasn't rated it was pretty clear the meat of the story is going to be M/M -- the list of major players at the beginning (all young, all male) bears this out. Female encounters are absent or off- screen; instead, the young men masturbate together over porno mags. Not untypical behavior for young men, but the smell and presence of the wasted spunk is always noted, as are what "studs" the other characters are. In some ways I liked this story; it had a good setup, the details sounded plausible and intelligent, and the warm small-town atmosphere mixed with family history and sexual secrets is worthy of a Mathis B. Rogers story. Most of the conversation was done well, too. On the other hand, the story was confusing in parts, and there wasn't much to distinguish one young men from another. Further chapters will tell its true quality, but I'm betting the story heats up and the mystery deepens.
This was the first 'toon story about Disney's "Tarzan" that I've seen, and the author requested that I review it. I haven't seen the movie myself, but I've heard a lot about it, and seen the clips of the good parts. Tarzan and his pal, the tomboy girl-gorilla Terk, sneak out to see the elephants mate. All the mounting and trumpeting gets Tarzan oddly excited -- and gets to Terk too -- so, they wind up mating themselves in a very enjoyable first-time experience. I wasn't sure I would like the story, but I wound up thinking it was delightful. The author has obviously seen the movie a few times and has gotten the playful Disney tone down pat while simultaneously adding explicit sex to the mix; doing the dirty under Uncle Walt's nose, AND making it seem entirely natural to the film, is a very hard act to pull off. The author also did a good job of imitating Terk's speech patterns. I could almost imagine Rosie O'Donnel saying the lines. On the other hand, there seemed to be some confusion on the part of the author regarding gorilla anatomy, as he or she asked for advice on it. To me, Terk came across as more human female than gorilla, but as she is a talking anthropomorphized gorilla, I feel authenticity isn't as important as the author seems to think it is -- it would ruin the Disney tone of the piece. And you have to admit it's probably impossible to find out what an actual gorilla's pussy would smell like.
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