"Cary" by daVinci (rmbte1@ix.netcom.com). Guest review by DG.

Maybe the biggest challenge to writing an erotic story - a good erotic story, that is - is finding a way to keep it fresh. There are only so many ways that boy can meet girl, only so many things that boy and girl can do to each other, only so many places they can do it. One common solution is to expand the possibilities: boy meets three girls, girl meets German shepherd, boy ties up girl and paddles her bottom- you get the idea. These stories can be quite intriguing to read, but the gains in originality are generally offset by the loss of the romantic underpinnings of the fundamental boy meets girl formula.

Another solution, which the author of this excellent story uses, is to stick to the old formula and make the characters vivid and unique. The nameless narrator of "Cary," by daVinci, is a burned-out classical pianist who decides to take early retirement and live a quiet secluded life in the suburbs. In the third floor loft of his house he reads Kafka, listens to Mahler, and works on writing a symphony - not your run-of-the-mill erotic hero. We never even find out how long his cock is.

His next door neighbor is a beautiful woman with a troubled marriage. She has the opposite problem from the narrator: he lived the kind of life that people fantasize about and finally found it unfulfilling, while she lives a drab existence in the suburbs, feeling that there should be more to life. If you think you know where this is headed, you're right. But that doesn't matter - the enjoyment in this story isn't watching the plot unfold, it's in the vivid characters and the realistic descriptions of their problems and thoughts. And when they do finally get down to business, the sex is very hot, thank you very much.

It's not a perfect story. Some (but certainly not all) of the character's musings about the meaning of life are overly melodramatic, and the dialogue and phrasings are occasionally awkward, particularly in the first half of the story. But these are relatively minor quibbles. This is a story that attempts to be both meaningful and sexy, and succeeds.