The Annex Reviews, March 2000
3/30/00 Mother Goosed the ASS (Azil II); 18 and Puffy (anonymous); Raping David Duchovny (Cymmery); Correction of Attitude (gator hum ; Necessities (kay ley); Divertimenti, Parts 1 and 2 (Hecate); The 1998 Teen Cunnilingus Tournament (Daphne Xu)
3/30/00
It's been a long time since I was a little kid, tot, diaper dumper, whatever...but oddly, these porny versions of nursery rhymes brought them all back to me. The rhymes, that is, not the diaper dumping, though certain fetishists might remember otherwise. Besides the "One Two" rhyme recounted above, there's alternate versions of Little Miss Muffet, The House That Jack Built, and Goosey Goosey Gander. A chuckle- producing read, though I have the feeling someone else has done it before.
I thought from the title of the story that it might be about pregnancy,
or a girl suffering from severe PMS, or perhaps those oft-advertised
puffy nipples you occasionally encounter on spam file titles (though
why sexually aroused nipples would be described as puffy -- which
brings to mind blobby toasted marshmallows -- I still don't understand.)
So imagine my consternation when I begin reading and find out the
story describes puffy labia, in the cheapest pop-tart prose possible:
There was a lot that was laughable in this story, from the oddly named heroine (Afton!!?) to the run-on prose, the poor punctuation and grammar, and the dull-dull-dull by-the-numbers storyline (horny girl sprains her ankle in gym class, spinster gym teacher examines her and winds up muff-diving.) Now there's nothing wrong with cliched storylines as long as they're handled with wit and sass, but this wasn't, and as such I don't recommend it.
Four men in their forties are fed up with their wives, who are getting on their nerves ("money-spending, expensive clothes and jewelry, cars, holidays, plastic surgery, nagging, bitching, complaining, and everything concerning sex: a blank, a failure, a washout, a flop") so they decide to form a school for wives (NOT in the Moliere sense, though I presume it comes close in results) to correct what they feel is their insubordinate attitude. So, in time-honored tradition, when their wives are apprehended for a jewelry theft (the video camera rears its glassy- lensed head again) the men blackmail them and leave a list of 23 new rules by their dinner plates that night, some of which contradict each other (Rule 20: Never stop moving, unless told; Rule 23: Never move, unless told) The author states English is not his native language, which may account for the stilted tone of the story, but on the other hand, part of telling a good story is showing events as they happen, not telling the reader about those events as if they happened 20 years ago. Unfortunately, this story was telling galore, without any blood n'guts involvement. And the blackmail bit was not only cliched, but totally unbelievable as well. In sum, coulda been better.
David Duchovny scares me. He's the reason why I never watch The X- files. If the show was just about Dana Scully, I would like it fine, but Davy boy's mannequin-like demeanor, combined with a Brando mumble, really creeps me out. Also, the guy doesn't seem to know how to raise his head. However, I do like male rape stories, and the title of this one caught my eye. It turned out to be a competently handled tale of four women who kidnap poor David from a California beach and stash him in a hideaway cabin, where they take turns violating his body like "a Harley on a bad stretch of road." And of course they videotape the whole thing so he won't go to authorities; he fears being branded as a kinky weirdo, the common line of reasoning for victims of nonconsensual videotaping in sex stories. As I said, this was a competent tale, but I found it too short and lacking in detail. This was especially clear in the paragraph structure, most of which consisted of two or three sentences, max. Some more interplay and character development between the women wouldn't have hurt either.
As second-in-command of the Voyager, AND Kathryn Janeway's lover
(which is pretty much canon for Treksmut writers) Commander
Chakotay has a lot of responsibility on board the fair ship, part of which
concerns keeping the crew functioning smoothly as a team. When
Tuvok, the Vulcan engineering officer, begins to go into Pon Farr (a
form of male heat) Chakotay takes it on himself to restore his
crewmate's logical demeanor:
Hmmm...I wonder exactly what kind of "provocative clothes" he could have found on Voyager, where pill-free, slightly bell-bottomed polyester jumpsuits are the norm? Anyway, the plot proceeds pretty much as those old Kirk/Spock stories where Kirk must relieve Spock's Pon Farr frenzy by letting the Vulcan rape him. Though the sex is not shown in this story, the next day an exhausted but relieved Chakotay announces: "It may be her ship, Tuvok, but it is my crew to take care of, to protect. And that includes you." As a story this was well-handled, but to me it didn't say anything new. I would have liked to seen how Captain Janeway reacted to all this, not to mention more of that Vulcan mating.
Susannah is a spoiled rich girl who takes dance lessons from ballet
mistress Claire Stephenson to keep herself in shape as her Crystal, looks
on. One day her teacher smacks her on the bottom to demonstrate her
lessons should be taken more seriously, and Susannah discovers she
likes it:
What follows is a lesbian tale of lust as Susannah and her maid join the teacher in dominance and bondage games, which unfortunately don't have a lot to do with ballet. This was a major shortcoming in the story for me; why set up a situation with a dance teacher and student (in a studio with handy mirrors and tight leotards, natch) if an author doesn't take advantage of it? I myself love going to the ballet to see all those taut, toned bodies thrust and leap; it's not too hard to imagine the stylized plies applied to a more painful setting. Not to mention the see-through costumes, which show every little erect nipple and nutsack bulge. But, if the story didn't take advantage of its background, it was an enjoyable D/s tale, especially the second half. And the author did have a nice narrative tone, cultured and British without being too precious or crass.
I've been meaning the review this one for a while now, and I'm glad I did. I gave high marks to the last story I reviewed by this author, "The 1997 Teen Blowjob Tournament" for its stranger-in-a-strange-land sense of otherworldiness as the narrator, a college student from China, struggles to make sense of the bizarre competition she entered on a whim (and one that might be said, in allegory, to symbolize American culture in general.) This second story is even better. The detail is richer, the contrast between the heroine's modesty and budding exhibitionism greater, and there's a broad but amusing religious overtone as well: What happens when two of the contestants insist on going to church the Sunday morning before the second round?
And throughout it all Shuming Zhao, the narrator, evinces a modest,
compartmentalized attitude toward sex that is no less arousing for being
practical. Here she tries mightily to give herself over to the sensations
on the playing field:
Does she win a medal? Read it to find out.
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