Celestial Reviews 86 - May 22, 1996

Apology:  AOL has been jerking my chain again.  CR 84 was over 4000 
words (550 lines).  I pasted it a.s.s. in one part - no trouble.  This 
issue is 3000 words (450 lines).  I tried to paste it but was informed 
that it was too big for the paste area.  Is there something I am 
missing here?  Anyway, thats the reason for this weeks delay.  {Last 
weeks delay was because I got a message that said AOL would post my 
messages, but the messages simply disappeared into cyberspace until I 
posted them a second time.}  AOL is getting arrogantly incompetent.  
Im stuck with them for reasons unrelated to these reviews.  If you are 
looking for a service, I suggest that you look for a more competent 
provider.

Note:  In CR 84 I was searching for information on the derivation of 
the word masturbation.  I noted that many people spell the verb 
masterbate, suggesting a preliminary service performed by an 
apprentice for a master fisherman. A couple of readers have confirmed 
my suspicion that the word is derived from the Latin turbare, which 
means to agitate in a twirling sort of way. {This is perhaps why those 
lonely Maytag repairmen are known to be so good at this solitary art.}  
Mas is Latin for male, as in masculine. Mas can also mean the 
penis - the official symbol of maleness.  This derivation suggests why 
the adjective "female" is necessary when the term masturbation is 
applied to women.  Only Martial (late 1st century AD) uses the word in 
classical Latin, although St. Augustine is presumed to have been 
familiar with the activity.  {This gives new meaning to the term 
Martial Arts <great adolescent humor>.} Ill keep you posted if I 
hear more.

Second Note:  Here are the names and addresses of some people who 
archive their own or others stories:

Mark Aster has set up a Web site with all the Allens stories:  
http://users.aol.com/myfrthal/

There is a Web site for Deirdre stories.  If someone sends me the 
address, Ill post it.

Robot Fetish stories are posted at: 
http://users.aol.com/robotdoll/asfr.html

Celestial Reviews are posted at: http://www.emi.u-
bordeaux.fr/~jay/Celeste

Elf Sternberg stories are posted at: 
http://www.halcyon.com/elf/index.html

Sisters Ng stories are posted at:  
http://members.aol.com/deidreng/index.htm

Warthog stories are posted at: 
http://www.connect.net/linetwo/stories.html

If any of these are no longer current or if there are others I should 
add, please contact me.  I am interested only in free, non-commercial 
sites.

- Celeste

      A Sons Poem by Bazarov (poetic doggerel) 9, 7, 6
      Change by Swivette (bdsm) 10, 8, 8
      The Wicked Prince: A Fairy Tale (fairy tale with bdsm) 
            10, 8 9
      The Afternoon Feast by Frederick T. What (drugs & sex
            with a teenage girl) 7, 7, 6
      Surrender by Sandra L. Godwin (bdsm) 9, 7, 4
      My Teacher, Miss Malone by Unknown Author (oral sex
            with the English teacher) 7, 7, 7
      My Teacher, Miss Malone Part II by Unknown Author 
            (more sex with the English teacher) 7, 7, 7
      Lee High School by Unknown Author (occult sex) 9, 8, 8
      Bobbie's Barn, a Spring Idyll by Bobbie (anal sex & ice
            skating) 9, 8, 8
      Inaugural by Mark Aster (prepping for pregnancy)
            10, 9, 9
      Phantom Lover by Mad Cow (female masturbation)
            10, 10, 10
      Commencement by Vickie Tern (coerced feminization)
            10, 10, 10

A Sons Poem by Bazarov.  This is the second lengthy poem I have 
reviewed within a week. The basic plot of the poem is that Mom comes 
on to Sonny and decides to let him plow her field.  He has a good ole 
time complying with her wishes.

Though she'd come on middle age,
	And her breasts hung heavy low,
With energy she did engage
	To match me blow for blow.

Ah, the joys of a happy home life! I liked the other poem better. This 
one is more ponderous; the author seems to be straining to find rhymes.  
For example, I had trouble conjuring up the imagery of this stanza:

To see her so, so taut-stricken,
	So needful in her lust,
To see her lurch, her body quicken,
	Her tindery poise combust!

Say what? Ah, but tis good clean fun we have here.  I am reminded of 
the student I tutored whose father called him a stupid mutherfucker 
when he saw the boys report card.  The kid replied, Is that a 
negative evaluation or an invitation to share?  I wont tell you the 
rest of that story, but I will mention that I encountered this young 
man in a juvenile rehab program to which his parents had referred him.

Ratings for A Sons Poem
Athena (technical quality): 9
Venus (plot & character): 7
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 6

The Wicked Prince: A Fairy Tale by Swivette (swivette@aol.com).  By 
labeling this a fairy tale, the author is exonerated from having to 
develop a complex and believable plot.  Instead, we get a childishly 
simple story about a darling daughter of Dothatagain who is taken to 
The Castle by the Wicked Prince, who is actually a nice but lonely guy 
who just wants to give pleasure to one of his loving subjects.  And so, 
by meeting the princes prurient needs the darling daughter of 
Dothatagain frees the other boys and girls of Ohmygod to live a happy 
live, free from fear of being accosted by the previously unsated wicked 
prince.

Ratings for The Wicked Prince: A Fairy Tale
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 8
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 8

Change by Swivette (swivette@aol.com).  The narrator is a young woman 
who has suddenly begun to see life differently - much more pleasantly 
than before.  All of life has taken on a new meaning!  Why?  Well, 
because she has given herself in bondage to a Master who is allowed to 
have his way with her.  Bondage has always sounded kind of grotesque to 
me; but the way this lady experiences it, bdsm is a bargain.  The guys 
only intention is to please her by teasing her body in such a way as to 
enhance her pleasure.  Realistic?  I seriously doubt it.  But certainly 
interesting reading.

Ratings for Change
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 8
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 9

The Afternoon Feast by Frederick T. What (an580405@anon.penet.fi).  
This is a Willy Tamarack Adventure.  In fact, its the first Willy 
Tamarack Adventure ever written.  It was listed in the postings as 
Willy Tamarack - Adventure One.  In it Willy asks an interesting 
question: If I'm going to sell a high school girl dope, what's the 
harm in having fantasies about fucking her brains out too?   The 
answer is that theres nothing wrong with having the fantasies.  
However, the penalty for the combination of selling the dope and acting 
upong the fantasies would be about 20 years of hard time with a 
cellmate named Bubba.

Willy is what you might call a mellow guy.  He seems to be about 35 
years old and a bit of a jock.  He gets stoned at least once a day.  He 
recently lost his entire family in an automobile accident in California 
- but shit happens; and so he has moved to Las Vegas.  He grows his own 
marijuana in one of those growing contraptions that you can hide in the 
closet.  In this episode he develops a meaningful relationship with 
Karen, a high school senior who obtains marijuana from him and then 
takes him for a ride in her fur-lined canoe.

I suspect well see more of Willy.  The author is not a grammatical or 
linguistic genius.  For example, he has a prolong where I think he 
meant prologue; but maybe this was a Freudian slip, or maybe he was 
being clever.  However, hes not illiterate either, and he tells an 
interesting story.  I recently saw Leaving Las Vegas, and Willy makes 
a lot more sense than that movie did. I guess this kind of behavior is 
fairly normal for that part of the country.  Maybe they dont have girl 
scouts or moral values in Nevada.

Ratings for The Afternoon Feast
Athena (technical quality): 7
Venus (plot & character): 7
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 6

Surrender by Sandra L. Godwin (www.slgodwin@ct.ne).  This is a story 
of an emotionally disturbed woman who takes delight in being abused and 
tortured by the man she loves.  The premise is that she is writing this 
narrative as a sort of tribute to him.  The story is fairly well 
written - although readers would benefit if the Master would instruct 
his little slave to use verb tenses more consistently. 

More than most bdsm stories, this one reminded me of the zealotry of 
the religious fanatics who have a sincere perception that God loves 
them and proves this love by sending them as much suffering as 
possible.  This outlook on life just doesnt ring true to me - whether 
its God or a lover selfishly inflicting pain on the loved one.  I can 
understand the value of suffering for a purpose and the need to be 
willing to undergo annoyance and pain as part of a loving relationship, 
and I can understand bdsm (especially its fantasy elements) playing a 
_part_ in a mature relationship; but turning ones personality over to 
a person who will abuse that power by using it for his self-
gratification contradicts my notion of common sense.  

Some readers will like this story a lot more than I did, because they 
will already buy into the notion that slave/Master relationships are 
really wonderful.  Those readers are likely to find this to be an 
excellent story.  However, the author does little to present a 
rationale that will make the relationship described in this story seem 
realistic to those of us who are not already true believers.

Ratings for Surrender
Athena (technical quality): 9
Venus (plot & character): 7
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 4

My Teacher, Miss Malone by Unknown Author.  The kid in this story is 
imbued not with a love of English but with a lust for his English 
teacher.  This sort of thing probably happens a lot to English 
teachers, since they are a as a group vivacious, intelligent, and 
generally glamorous people.  The teacher decides to give the boy a 
lesson in manners, which consists of locking the classroom door, 
undressing both herself and the boy, playing her furry fiddle, and 
eventually doing a virtuoso performance on the ole skin flute after he 
has pretty much shaken all her paint loose.  This is probably a good 
description of an adolescent fantasy.  Not many English teachers 
actually do this.

The author should sharpen his dialogue skills: Take your finger, move 
it next to your mouth, and, sliding it along my crack, find my cunt-
hole," Miss Malone exclaims in a really husky voice. Not even Jane 
Austen talked that way during sex!  The only people who talk like that 
are those numskulls who write easy assembly instructions for 
childrens toys.  Come to think of it, thats what most English 
teachers do after they get fired for having sex with minors.

This story presents a classic spellcheck blooper: My gauze locked onto 
her boobs, switching from one to the other.  It probably wasnt the 
gauze as much as that sticky stuff that holds it in place that caused 
the problem.  Heres another: As I approached her panties, my nose 
detected a faint, earthly aroma.  I think he meant earthy; but then 
the cliche is pretty much overused and meaningless anyway.

I had a student about five years ago who was obviously enamored with 
me.  At first I considered it flattering, but soon his rapture started 
interfering with any chance that he would ever have of learning.  In 
addition, I began to think it was creepy to have this kid lusting after 
me - sort of a Fatal Attraction in reverse.  I confronted him, and his 
answers and comments were almost verbatim what the kid said in this 
story.  Instead of giving him the Malone Lecture, I talked to the 
school counselor, who met with the kid and helped him get his 
priorities in order.  Last year I received an invitation to his wedding 
to a really nice girl.  I also received a very nice letter cosigned by 
his bride-to-be, telling me what a great teacher and person I was.  
Nice story - but boring, I guess.  Maybe Jeff is the anonymous author 
of this story, and maybe fantasizing about me has brought some joy into 
his life; but I think I handled this in a better way than Miss Malone.

Ratings for My Teacher, Miss Malone
Athena (technical quality): 7
Venus (plot & character): 7
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 7

My Teacher, Miss Malone Part II by Unknown Author.  The saga 
continues.  Out of respect to his horizontal lambada partner, Steve has 
actually decided to TRY to study English; and now Miss Malone has 
invited him home for more extensive private tutoring.  The second 
session begins with a brief discussion of pantyhose, followed by a 
review of the oral sex previously covered, and lessons on controlling 
his organism.  Organism, you say?  Thats right.  Either Miss Malone is 
the reincarnation of Miss Malaprop or she is a biology teacher in 
disguise:  My organism, which had threatened to erupt at any second,  
gradually was replaced with a slight numbing sensation, followed by a 
feeling of immense pleasure.  I guess thats possible, but this is 
getting kind of hard to picture.  Anyway, Steve is a fast learner, and 
Miss Malone has magical lotions that make almost anything possible.  
After some sublime anal sex, they clean off his pulsating pleasure 
prodder and Steve serves up sausage and eggs between her legs.  Way to 
go, Steve-O!

Upon penetration, Steve shouts, This is the first time I've ever did 
this to anyone.  This is the first time Ive ever DONE this to 
anyone, replied Miss Malone.  Holy shit! shouted Steve; Were both 
fuckin virgins!  Actually, the reply and rejoinder are my clever 
additions.   No Self-respecting English teacher would be able to 
concentrate on sexual arousal in the face of such an egregious 
grammatical error!

If we ignore grammar and usage errors and set aside moral scruples, 
this is actually a pretty hot adolescent sex fantasy.

Ratings for My Teacher, Miss Malone Part II
Athena (technical quality): 7
Venus (plot & character): 8
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 8

Lee High School by Unknown Author.  This is the last of a set of 
three stories that attracted my attention because they purported to be 
about the teaching profession.  Actually, this story consists of two 
unrelated episodes in Lee High School, which is haunted by ominous 
forces.  In the first story, several sexy but sinister students 
surround Mr. Martin and turn him into a panther while one of them fucks 
his brains out.  This is as good an explanation as any for that common 
phenomenon.  In the second episode Miss Smith meets her maker while 
wrapt in the tentacles of a huge plant, apparently designed by a 
demonic student from whom she has confiscated a porno magazine.  Im 
not much into the occult, but the first of these stories was actually 
pretty sexy.  

Ratings for Lee High School
Athena (technical quality): 9
Venus (plot & character): 8
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 7

Bobbie's Barn, a Spring Idyll by Bobbie (an335328@anon.penet.fi).  I 
was able to find only Parts 4 and 5 of this five-part story.  Normally 
I would wait till I found all five parts before reviewing the story, 
but that seems unlikely to happen.  As I read what I downloaded, I 
found nothing about a barn and little that was idyllic, but along with 
some interesting anal activities I did find the Secret to Skating 
Success and its relationship to sexual bliss.  Have you ever wondered 
how those cute little skaters move so swiftly backwards across the ice 
with their sweet little tushes so perfectly poised?  This story reveals 
the secret, which is usually revealed only to the skaters themselves, 
to their coaches, and to the rich benefactors who come to masturbate 
while watching the girls practice.  It seems that the girls aim for a 
target with a spring-loaded prong that feels oh so good if the ass 
smashes into it at 5 Gs exactly on target but rewards imperfect 
landings with nasty bruises.  You can learn a lot by reading these 
stories, and some of it may be true.

Ratings for Bobbie's Barn, a Spring Idyll
Athena (technical quality): 9
Venus (plot & character): 8
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 8

Inaugural by Mark Aster (MyFrThAl@aol.com).  As you may recall from a 
previous episode, Pat has decided to have a baby, and Our Hero has 
agreed to supply the male component for impregnation.  The present 
episode opens with Pat, Julie, and Our Hero fucking away in a drunken 
orgy stimulated by champagne dumped on the girls bodies, which (of 
course) must be licked clean by the girls themselves while Our Hero 
does his manly duty.  I forgot to tell you that Pat is now off the pill 
and has proclaimed herself Fertile.  With this in mind, she sobers up 
and celebrates a more solemn, extremely ecstatic fertility rite one-on-
one with the Father-to-Be.

Ratings for Inaugural
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 9
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 9

Phantom Lover by Mad Cow (swati@wam.umd.edu).  My computers word 
count tells me that this story is only 315 words long, and my 
spellcheck tells me that two of them (yours and ours) arent really 
words.  But this meditation by a woman about her real or imaginary 
phantom lover is well done.  Since a review should never be longer than 
the story, Ill stop here.

OK.  I couldnt resist.  I ran this excellent but short piece of 
writing through my Grammar Checker (GC).  I want to stress that I am 
doing this for fun and more to evaluate GC than to critique the 
authors writing ability.

In the second paragraph GC says not to begin a sentence with but and 
to get rid of the semicolon.  GC also suggests replacing restless 
with restive in yearnings of my restless body.  These are all bad 
suggestions.

GC advises leaving out the hyphen in slightly-rough tongue.  When I 
clicked for an explanation, GC told me that adverbs ending in -ly 
normally do not need a hyphen to indicate that they modify the 
subsequent adjective.  I myself would have skipped the hyphen, but 
possibly Mad Cow is trying to achieve a legitimate nuance here.  I 
would let a student use the hyphen.

GC suggests that Mad Cow may have meant clinch instead of clench 
with reference to her spasming cunt muscles.  Yeah, right!

Three more times GC suggests not starting sentences with and or 
but.  I could more easily defend Mad Cows usage of the initial 
conjunction if she used the technique only rarely. I agree with GC that 
a few of these should be replaced by some other structure.

Three times GC suggests not using actually.  Actually, this is a good 
suggestion.  Mad Cow has sinned and would benefit from following this 
advice.  Really.

Mad Cow accidentally omitted the word of from one sentence, but GC 
did not notice this prepositional phrase sans preposition.

My overall evaluation is that Mad Cows prose is better than GCs 
advice.  On the other hand, Mad Cow could benefit from following a few 
of GCs suggestions.  Likewise, GC would probably be a better person 
if he/she imitated some of Mad Cows behaviors described in this story.

I ran this review of Phantom Lover through the same Grammar Check.  
GC told me that I wrote at somewhere in the 6-9 range of grade levels.  
Thats a nice touch: 6-9 for a review of a sex story.  Mad Cow was in 
the same range - as long as I rounded generously.  GC got on my case 
about my overuse of contractions; so I turned that rule off.  Then GC 
told me there was no such word as spasming.  So I turned GC off.

Ratings for Phantom Lover
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10

Commencement by Vickie Tern.  The four pairs of husbands and wives 
have gathered at one of their houses to celebrate Super Bowl Sunday - 
the men in one room doing manly things like watching the game, 
drinking, belching, and making fun of their wives; and the women in a 
nearby room doing more cerebral things but hearing and being offended 
by the coarse discussion in the adjacent chamber.  Something needs to 
be done to teach these assholes a lesson.

So how do we get from what Ive just described to Commencement, the 
title of this story? The women develop a strategy to educate their 
husbands - not just to get even with them, but to rehabilitate them; 
and the completion of an educational program calls for a commencement.  
Hence the title.  Im not going to try to describe the entire 
rehabilitation program to you, except to say that it involves both 
hormones and careful training.  And a butt plug - for those of you who 
know about such things.  Its an ingenious program; read about it for 
yourself. The plan worked so well that one of the wives eventually 
began thinking she might rent her husband out as a call girl for 
perverts when the project was finished.

The story is presented in the context of one woman talking to another.  
While telling the story, the narrator is functioning in a world in 
which stereotypical male and female roles have been reversed - for 
example, shes running the business that her husband used to operate, 
while she gives orders to an effeminate male secretary who is kind of 
dimwitted but functions well if she instructs him carefully and while 
her husband stays at home and keeps himself and the house pretty.

The manuscript contains several typos, which I easily ignored.  In 
addition, verb tenses were sometimes confused; but I assume the author 
was doing that on purpose to simulate the erratic conversational 
context in which the story was being presented.  I have learned to 
expect from this author really clever plots with an eccentric feminist 
twist; and this story did not disappoint me.  The plot is farfetched, 
but its so crazy it just might work!  The part I found hardest to 
believe was that the women could do this to their husbands without 
laughing in their faces.

This is the fourth story I have read by this author, who has also 
written Sooo Sweet, Nice!, and Girls Night Out.  I liked all 
three of the others better - but thats pretty high-class company!  {I 
liked Julius Caesar best of all of Shakespeares plays; but I wouldnt 
want him to feel that I was saying the plays he wrote after Caesar were 
bad.  Some acts are hard t ofollow.}  My favorite has been Nice!  
What this one lacked was the surprise twists in the plot that I found 
in the eralier stories.  Maybe Im just catching on to the authors 
style and am not so easily surprised any more.  

One thing this author does extremely well is cover all the possible 
explanations for what is happening in an exceedingly complex plot; and 
she accomplishes this without making the story tedious.  This is not a 
turn-me-on story; but it is a highly enjoyable, funny, thought-
provoking tale.

Another excellent story!

Ratings for Commencement
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10


