The Annex Reviews, August 2000
8/5/00 - Heaven in Leather (Knobbie Knobbs); Dear Agent Stanton (Jimmy Hat); Ice (Margie Donnadieu); Had to Happen (bjcochran); Website Review: Number 6
8/5/00
I love the name of this author. Even though he says it's inspired by a character in a fantasy book, I can't help but seeing...other things.
The story started out like a standard "this really happened to me" first
person tale, but soon rose above it, taking the reader along for a smooth,
seductive ride. A guy sees a beautiful woman in skin-tight red leather
on a motorcycle, and is naturally attracted:
He discovers she works at a local bank, and seeing her in a prim skirt and sweater, he's suddenly awkward. But she becomes the aggressor, casually inviting him out for a spin and an innocent "Fancy a walk?" in a deserted field...where the narrator finally gets his desire, and a mildly nasty trick. In sum, very well done for a short, basic M/F tale.
Dear Agent Stanton [A]
Jimmy Hat has written a humorous series of stories about Federal agents Stanton and Maytag, who investigate web crimes of a sexual nature. The previous story I read, "Unexceptional" had them investigating a poster on swingers' message boards who claims to be a well-hung black man available for interracial threesomes; instead of playing, though, he robs the hapless couple who solicited him. "Unexceptional" veered off into amusing territory when the two agents set up a sting to trap him and attract a real well-hung black man, who is out to prove that size doesn't matter, skill does.
"Dear Agent Stanton" handles the same sort of material: sexual cliches
that are turned around, but are still arousing. A teenage girl writes to
the two agents for help, claiming entrapment by a "weird" guy she's
been swapping bits with in an online chat room, even though what he
says to her is simply sage advice ("He says it's always been that way, that
girls mature faster than guys and that the boys just can't handle it
sometimes.") The girl's post-feminist cluelessness and naivete is
amusing at first ("He starts talking about stuff like the "madonna-whore
complex", and it's weird, because that sounds like some sort of MTV
weekend") then oddly spooky -- and arousing -- when talk turns toward
sex, and she turns out to be not a virginal young thing, but a Grade-A
Slut too dim to realize the primal bimbodom of her nature:
I thought about pulling the vinyl underwear aside and letting him fuck
me a little, but I could tell he was going to cum soon. I threw off the
"Prom Queen" and stroked him until he came over my tits. I wasn't going
to let him cum on my face, no matter how grateful I was.
I had the feeling the story was asking the question, "Who's the real pervert here?" but I wasn't sure; the teen's adventures are depicted a bit too lovingly for a nasty parody on the order of, say, Assmaster McStuff's "Girl Talk," which also featured cybersex complete with orders. Though it's obviously *some* sort of parody. Still, it was a worthy read, and the author has an excellent ear for depicting contemporary teens (though I'm not sure that teen boys would be as hot for facials as they are in the story.)
Ice [B]
This story, which is very short (about 750 words) is a stream-of- consciousness narration from a woman in her 30s, a counselor, who ploughs through a string of unfulfilling relationships and one-night- stands without really knowing why, and without connecting with any of her partners. She makes references to a witch in an old folktale who was entombed in ice for seducing other women's husbands, and the story's conceit is that the narrator identifies with her: she too seduces other women's men, and is cursed by the frostiness of her feelings. This wasn't quite a sex story, which celebrates sex (even if it's harmful sex) -- it's more an anti-sex story, or a therapy story, which some psychologists encourage patients to write as a means of dealing with their negative experiences. As such, I didn't exactly find it sexy, or felt it said anything new about a woman's sexual feelings, as the narrator seemed to have no feelings at all. As such, I can't rate it very highly, even though the writing was OK and it was organized well.
Had to Happen [B/B+]
Tom Paris and Chakotay are fucking like monkeys when Chakotay gets a bad feeling. Specifically, "...a horrible, horrible feeling about what was going to happen. That this was the last time for a long time. Maybe forever. He didn't want to think that way, but nothing in the Maquis was permanent except anger, and a niggling dread. " A day later, poor Tom flies into a Starfleet ambush and gets arrested, leaving Chakotay, we presume, coldcocked. The story was short but all the slashy elements were there: the jar of lube, the enthusiastically described but somehow clinical sex, the lack of emotional context, the sound-bite dialogue. As such, I got frustrated with it. On the whole I enjoy Treksmut, but just once, I'd like a little more background and more hard work and sweat on the part of the authors. But hey, I could say the same thing about a lot of ASS porn.
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