"Hell Hath No Fury" by Darkside. Guest review by Green Onions.

A driver has a flat tire on a lonely road. Spare to change? Sorry, none in the trunk. Night falls on the man without a plan.

The stars blink brightly in the clear black sky as his chances of surviving begin to flicker out. Snow appears. Lost and alone, he waits for the end of his life in the white darkness.

And yet when all optimism seems to have faded into the freezing wilderness there emerges (from behind a hidden chorus of weeping violins) a vision of hope that flies gracefully across the horizon of his dimming consciousness, singing its mystical song, ready to deftly snatch the hapless wayfarer from the drooling unflossed Jaws of Death.

Is it a bird? A plane? An optical illusion? No--it's Florence Nightingale: _after_ she graduated from medical school.

And so not a moment too soon is the Grim Reaper's task interrupted by the talents of a skilled, sensitive, tall, brilliant, blue-eyed, lithe busty rich young female physician with near-perfect abs.

She first asks the nurse to check his insurance. Then she saves his life.

And so the dream continues. They fall for each other; he proposes to her. Their engagement progresses like clockwork to the final misty moment as family, friends, and myriad onlookers gather to witness the anticipated instant when he will place the golden ring of their sacred unity upon her willing finger.

It seems that all is right with the world. Surely they will love out their lives in an era of peace, happiness, hot sex, low taxes, and white picket fences.

Well, as one of Douglas Adam's characters once said in _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_: "Sorry, wrong universe!"

As the sun beats down on the expectant crowd he explains that he does not love her and cannot marry her. Her parents are glaring hatefully, she is sobbing pitifully and he is shrugging philosophically. Better luck next time.

Or better sense, perhaps. Because the Doctor was a dream and he needs someone real. Not a vision but a spouse. Not a fantasy, but flesh and soul. And after two long years he finds and marries her with little hesitation. The second time is indeed the charm--even if her stomach isn't quite as flat, she is still young and attractive, affectionate, smart, tall and slim.

But what of his first love, of the brilliant blue-eyed shapely svelte angel of the steel table who had saved his life, savored his love, and was jilted--indeed brutally humiliated--in front of her friends and family?

Hell, if you thought biblical characters tend to suffer more than others for spurning the affections of the smooth-faced gender, read this story and think again!

And what could be a more fitting punishment for an ungrateful insensitive, thoughtless and callously cruel male jerk than to be forced to suffer the indignities of _becoming_ a woman? His fate will not be limited to the experience of being in a female body, but will also include the transformation of his mind.

Yes, She will have her way with him. She will make his dream into her nightmare. And in more than one respect.

This is not an ordinary TG (trans-gender) piece, nor is it a classic sex story or a typical tale of revenge, mystery--yes there is a murder--cumuppance (gee, did I misspell that?), or even an ironic, slightly humorous psychological sci-fi erotic thriller. It's all of those bound together with a tight plot and topped off with a tempting smorgasbord of diverse sexual blandishments.

In case you thought I might be blowing my load prematurely, I should also point out that this piece could be even better if the author diverged from some typical tendencies of erotica and romance writers (including most a.s.s. contributors). For starters I might occasionally prefer to see characters in longer stories developed with a third dimension--the sorts of accents, nuances, habits, hobbies, mannerisms, peculiarities and idiosyncrasies that we typically observe in real people. Such details can often be worked into plots with little effort.

While Darkside's prose is better than most, I also sometimes wish a.s.s. writers would pause more often to allow their readers to "smell the roses" (or hear the cadences) of their phrases and the rhythm of their sentences. Words can do more than convey information.

And although I am often at odds with the well-worshipped deity who is hosting this review, she and I agree on one thing: maybe there is room for protagonists whose bodies are not quite so heavenly. If one goal of erotica is to help us appreciate love and sexuality, then perhaps a.s.s. authors could provide us with a few (especially female) characters now and then who just happen to fall short of certain popular physical ideals.

Yet I quibble . . . this is an _excellent_ novella. Read it.