The Annex Reviews, February 2003
2/21/03 She Was Beautiful (Lost Boy); Ganymede (Nathan Foster); Plain Brown Wrapper (Sara H); Incubustular Seduction (Jennieigh); Slavery (spycexxx)
2/8/03
Some people say I don't review vanilla stories, or that I only like kinky stuff. For shame! The fact is I do try to read romantic M/F stories, but the problem is there's not a lot of them out there. On the ASSM newsgroup, for example, the majority of the fiction is about rape, incest, gangbangs, bondage, and all that other fun stuff. And of the romantic stories that do appear, many are amateurish and poorly written. Of course, so are many of the kinky stories, but the novelty and shock value of the latter is often enough to keep me interested, not to mention the fantastic nature of the plots. With vanilla fiction, because everyone knows the score (most of us have fallen in love with a person of the opposite gender, or seen it on TV) writers have to work harder, finding new ways to express an age-old theme. This story, I'm happy to say, rose delightfully above run-of-mill romance. The narrator, a young college guy, is pestered by an insistent young woman named Barbara, who is assuredly not his dream girl: she's crass, stocky, and plain-featured. But she shows a disarming lack of coyness and is very direct about what she's after -- him -- and in the end wins out over her more pretty, slender rivals by sheer persistence and chutzpah. And the narrator, too is touched: read that last line, which says it all. Varangian has posted several other stories recently, including "Lesya," which is also an excellent story. Worthwhile reading for a break from the kink, and they say something worth hearing about real people, and real affairs of the heart.
Memory [A+]
Jordan Shelbourne is one of the more "adult" writers of neterotica on ASSM, meaning he writes about mature men and women most people can identify with, and if there is a kink is dwelt on in passing, not the rationale for the entire story. So I feel somewhat edified when I read one of his stories, like it's something that's supposed to be good for me, like flossing my teeth and putting money into a 401K. Being as I read a lot of what people would consider silly trash it's an odd feeling, but one that definitely makes me feel more grown-up. This story, which is very short (around 1,000 words) is told in first person by a male narrator to his doctor- intern wife. He is frustrated by her rigorous schedule which leaves no time for lovemaking, and for him; he's also bitter that she fails to appreciate the sacrifices he made for her career. So he tells her he's had a fling with one of her oldest friends. The dynamic between the three of them (the narrator, the wife, and the female friend, who remains offscreen) forms the story, and gives it a hell of an ending line that totally changes everything that's gone before. This was a near-perfect story, both as porn and as literature; its execution was almost flawless, and every word was used well and without waste. My only nit was that the narrator came across as a passive-aggressive twit. He states the sacrifices he's made for his wife's career ("But the job in the glass plant paid for med school and keeps food on the table still. Yeah, I'd rather be an English teacher, but your degree was more important, and the shop floor still beats asking, 'You want fries with that? '") with a sense of entitlement, and even whines "I jerk off and count my blessings." Gee, guess he's forgetting all about the megabucks full- time doctors make. And although most of that may go to student loans, it's still a hell of a lot more than your average English teacher's salary, and carries considerably more social perks. In sum, the story was grown-up, but the narrator wasn't.
A Widow's Life [B]
Poor Subita has the misfortunate of not only being born poor and female in India, but also of being a widow at the age of 18. As custom dictates she stays with her late husband's family but she's stale goods, taken advantage of by both her father-in-law and brother-in- law, who uses her as a whore. Her father urges her to suck up the abuse and remain there to avoid a scandal; but she finally can take it no longer and flees to a so- called marriage broker, who in reality is nothing more than a pimp selling subservient young girls to the highest bidder. This was a depressing story, not the least because some aspects of it are probably true. I liked the style better than the subject matter, which caught the flavor of Indian fiction quite nicely. (Unfortunately, Americanisms like "OK" "buddies" and "eraser head nipples" broke the mood.) I was actually feeling pretty amiable about the story when events took a silly turn: while hanging in chains in the marriage broker's bedroom the heroine's old 8th-grade science teacher just happens to turn up to torment her, followed by her dirty-minded pre-teen cousin. Talk about coincidence. So in the end, eh... not a bad idea, but needed more thought.
Catsuit [A]
This story is from way, way back. I thought I'd review it because it was pretty good, and didn't seem to have found its way into any of the current BDSM archives.
Kindly Master UrLord runs Chattel Castle, a home for
collarless subs. (Guess it's like one of those animal
welfare leagues.) Selflessly he devotes himself to the
twin goals of giving "shelter and soul-ease to those who
had lost their Masters, and [helping] them find new ones
if they wished." Are you laughing yet? But then he takes
a shine to Rose, one of the homeless subs, and gives her
tight red leather catsuit. Thus attired, he takes her
out on the town to a swanky doms n' subs party where
she's chained, bound, used and abused:
A worthwhile BDSM story of the "cum-flying-everywhere" variety, teetering nicely between pleasure and pain, terror and affection.
2/21/03
There's a type of sex stories known as ASFR wherein people are turned into, or are turned on by, statues, robots, mannequins, and other human-shaped objects. It's a wide-ranging subgenre that combines aspects of mc, transformation, and bondage fetish fiction with fantasy, horror, and SF themes; most popular among the petriphiles (as the turned-into-a-statue faction is known) is the Greek legend of Medusa. She's the gal with snakes on her head who likes to get her visitors stoned, permanently that is.
In this story a young man becomes fascinated by a
beautiful female sculptor named Euryale, only to
discover too late that being her model means being
turned permanently into one of her artworks.
Interestingly, she goes about it not with her hair but
her mouth:
This story was more delicately and creatively written than most of the ASFR fiction I've read, dwelling on the sensations and feelings of the male victim involved. Refreshingly it was a love story instead of one of those "Ha-ha! GOTCHA!" ones that revel in the victim's fate, which usually ends with them on sale, as a statue, in a sex-art gallery in Amsterdam. Sort of a love story, that is: the mind control component was very strong, indicating the gorgon does more than a little magic to lure her victims to their fate. But in the end, both stoner and stonee are happy with it.
Ganymede [A-/B+]
This story was also ASFR, in its way, though no magic or
gorgons were involved. A gay elderly sculptor with a
thing for Greco-Roman statuary sees a good-looking young
man enter his garden and walk amongst his creations. The
intrudor seems to appreciates them as much as the
sculptor does; he shows his ardor, in fact, by lubing up
and impaling himself on a nearby marble phallus for lots
of squishy anal sex. The youngster returns the next week
for another visit, and then another; but this time the
sculptor confronts him, presenting him with a marble
phallus carved expressly for his pleasure:
After that there's a three-way between sprite, sculptor, statue, and dildo, in which the writer's love for marble comes through loud and clear. This was a good, unusual story, but more porn/fetish than ASFR.
Plain Brown Wrapper [A+]
I've been meaning to review Sara H for a while; like Trilby Else, she specializes in MC stories, specifically F/F mind control stories, a genre which is fast becoming one of my favorites.
Jeanine is a hard-working receptionist for a prestigious
law firm and completely average in every way, except she
lets herself be talked into ordering a complicated sex
toy from a persuasive co-worker. The contraption
consists of "a dildo, butt plug, tiny nipple cups,
sitting among a few other things that weren't familiar
at all" which the protagonist eagerly applies to
herself, only to be disappointed:
She closed her eyes and waited, her lips twitching
nervously, body trembling.
She tensed as the control unit began to hum and then...
then...
Nothing.
Not one jolt. Not one hint of anything.
*Shit,* she muttered under her breath.
Seems, in her eagerness, she's neglected to read the instructions, a trait many of us who purchase new computers and DVD players have in common. This was perhaps the most amusing part of the whole story -- grappling with complicated technology that promises wonders, if only we get it working properly.
In the end she has no choice but to watch the
instructional video that came with the device ("My
name's Christy, and I'll be showing you how to properly
set up your Modulator!") not realizing that it's part of
a recalibration process in which her mind is altered,
via the mind-blowing orgasms of "The Control Unit," to
become the perfect slave slut. More amusement follows
when, after fucking herself silly with the device, she
returns to work:
Alice and Dee, the office whores, walked by and smiled
at her. She smiled back, barely managing to keep it from
falling into an open sneer. Bitches. Funny she'd never
seen it before. She'd even thought of them as friends.
But now, she could see it all. She was surrounded by
nothing but fuckers and fuckees. Coworkers. Useless
maggots... The phone rang. She answered. "Nipples on
fire, how may I help you?" she asked cheerfully.
"What?" said an incredulous voice on the other end of
the line.
"Bickels-McGuire," she repeated.
"Oh... yes... Mr. McGuire, please."
"May I ask who he's balling?" inquired Jeanine, sweetly.
"Excuse me?"
"May I ask who's calling," repeated Jeanine, starting to
sound very perturbed.
By the time lunch rolled around, she was history.
Heee! After another session with the machine her transformation is complete: she becomes the slave of the co-worker who enticed her into ordering the device. The kicker comes when that it's revealed that her Mistress is in fact the slave of someone else, all of them trapped in the web of the Device. This was a hot, amusing, and very well done story. This author did not go as up close and personal with her main character as Trilby Else does, neither did she go the more generic but equally sympathetic route of Farleven. Her character was a sort of everywoman, and her story was told in a firm yet slightly detached way, allowing us to enjoy what happens to her without getting too upset about the nastiness of her fate. A lighter sort of mc fare, but still and very entertaining.
Incubustular Seduction [C]
I'm a bad person sometimes. There's absolutely no reason for me to take the time and energy to read a story like this and rag it, but I do, and it gives me some satisfaction. Not to mention a chuckle. The story was one of those first person ones where a narrator describes the sexual actions of a you-addressed lover upon her. Some fanfic writers have taken to calling these stories ABH, or anywhere-but-here, because they try so hard to put the read in the middle of the action, and fail. The female narrator is sleeping snuggly in bed when her "incubus" enters glad in a pajama top and green silk boxers. (There goes a whole grade, right there.) He watches her for a long moment, though how she can know this when she is still deep in REM sleep is a mystery. Then he climbs in, pushing his "member into the cleft of my soft alabaster buttocks" while "sleepily, unresisting, I follow your directions. My eyes seem but slits, barely seeing. My mind does not yet comprehend what is happening." Well if so, smarty pants, then how can you tell us the story?
The quotes above are actually pretty indicative of the
rest of the writing, which was all fluttery sensation
mixed with high romance, purple enough to make Prince
blush. Here's a selection:
"Your oral muscle is as an extension of your cock,
slipping into my wet slit ... and ... now you're slowly
licking me, from my secret anus, along my perineum to my
hypersensitized clit!"
" As your tongue darts repeatedly into my flesh and
folds, your hands massage my flat belly ... fingers
circle my navel's cup ... and I writhe and moan ... as
you spit forth a single pubic hair ..." (Oooh, a pubic
hair caught in your teeth... sexy)
"Butterflies and faintness nearly overcome me as my
green eyes fix themselves on your beautiful, swollen,
palpitating penis." (Did Mariah Carey write this?)
"Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ... aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh," we cry in
unison as your cockhead flares out and spills the warm
cream from your precious testicles. Holding each other
as if for dear life, we revel in our simultaneous
sensations ... Yes! I feel your jets of semen splash my
insides! Your sperm, YOUR seed! My gift!"
Bad writing! Bad! Lots of... ellipses...like this... not to mention that silly title! YES! Aaaghhhhhhhh!
Slavery [C+]
Here's another of those "you are there" stories. This
time you-the-reader, a trim woman garbed in white, joins
several other woman for a limousine ride to a special
retreat for female subs. With keen eyes they watch a
video that instructs them thusly:
Sheesh, I'm falling asleep already. The rest of the story was okay -- meaning average -- but severely hampered by that silly you-the-protagonist tone, and long passages given over to what color collars everyone is wearing and why. Everything about the retreat is far more fussier and tedious than anything real people, even subs, could be expected to put up with. Not only that, the writer misspelled "tongue" throughout the entire story ("Tounge her cunt," she told Marlene, and you felt just the tip of the girl's tounge against your labia. You moan, and wonder why she hasn't shoved that tounge deep inside your cunt. "Stretch that tounge. Reach for her juicy cunt with your tounge." Mistress Olivia says and now you understand. You are just barely in reach, and that beautifully long tounge can barely touch your aching pussy.") I wonder if they met any tounge lizards on the way. Or put their feet up in a comfy tounge chair.
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