"Trip" by Plainman (an10176@anon.nymserver.com). This story uses a completely narrative format to offer an excellent blend of hot and sexy romantic fiction with several levels of voyeurism and reality. By several levels, I mean SEVERAL levels: we even have critiques of other a.s.s. authors worked into the storyline. I simply HAD to keep reading to see if I came up. {Or as my husband put it, "God, you even smell sexy. Why don't you just use the search function to check for "Celest" and come to bed with me?" I did; Plainman did not; we did; but I got back up to finish the story after I exhausted my husband while I was describing a bisexual fantasy to him.}

In this story have two sexy married couples. In each family the husband and wife are passionate lovers in a predominantly monogamous but still open marriage. They enjoy incorporating fantasies into their love life; and as the story develops, they bring their fantasies into their real lives in very sexy ways. This author does a wonderful job of using the narrative format to blend flashbacks with present action in such a way as to fuse sexy events into even hotter images. In addition, the action outside the sack is often as hot as the actual lovemaking.

There are many interesting and sexy scenes in this story. Here I'll quote only the one that makes a point that I myself have tried to make several times in these reviews:

"Joe: ...She (Joe's wife) says it herself - most women are bi, more or less.

Princess: So are most guys, but you have more incentives to hide it from yourselves - so anyway, how bi IS Amy?"

My allegation has always been not that most people SHOULD have sex with people of both genders, but simply that most people COULD enjoy having sex with people of both genders if they wouldn't suppress those urges - and perhaps suppress them for perfectly good reasons, such as ethical believes or a commitment to a monogamous relationship. But if I enjoy diddling my own clit and having my husband eat me out, why in the world (aside from conditioned, emotional reactions) would I find it UNpleasant to have a beautiful woman do the same things to me while I returned the favor? And the same goes for guys - except, as Princess says, they have more incentives to hide or suppress their interest.

Oh well, my own commitment to this principle extends only to reading and enjoying both kinds of stories. As Joe and Princess put it, I'm hetero and monogamous in my real world but bi and polyamorous in my reel world. Anyway, I feel an urge to expound my theory at least once every six months. And this story is an excellent example of my theory in practice.

These couples represent a hedonistic lifestyle that I personally reject in real life because I know it would ruin something beautiful with my husband - but a story likes this presents the case for the temptation in a very persuasive manner.

I strongly recommend this story. It's a clever, narrative mixture of Mark Aster, Tom Trilogy, and Uther Pendragon in a SueNH atmosphere with about thirty-five Dulcinea stories blended into the plot.