Celestial Reviews 249 - January 14, 1998

Note: Two statues have been standing in a park for 100 years. They are a 
pair of young lovers, reaching their hands towards one another, not 
quite touching. They've been that way for 100 years, reaching out, but 
never quite touching.

An angel flies over and takes pity on them because they've been reaching 
out for so long and never quite touching. The angel summons all his 
strength and powers and brings them to life.

The angel tells them, "I have brought you to life, but I can only do 
this for half an hour. My powers cannot give you any more. But for that 
half-hour you may do whatever it is you've been wishing to do for the 
100 years you've been there, reaching out to one another but never quite 
touching."

The pair thank the angel and disappear into the bushes. There is much 
grunting, groaning, and rustling of leaves. After 15 minutes the couple 
re-emerge, looking very happy. "You've only used 15 minutes and I gave 
you half an hour," said the angel. "Why don't you go back and do it 
again?"

"Oh, yes," said the young man to the young girl. "Why don't we? But this 
time you hold the pigeon down and I'll shit on it."

Second note: For you classical scholars: Iago in _Othello_, Act 1 Scene 
1 line 128f.: "I am one sir that come to tell you your daughter and the 
Moor are now making the beast with two backs."  Imagine that.  I 
certainly don't remember seeing that verse when I read the play back in 
my Catholic college days.  I suspect I was dealing with an expurgated 
virgin - er, version.

Final note: Remember: even though someone else may be posting my reviews 
for me, my e-mail address is still Celeste801@aol.com.

- Celeste

     "Bulls" by Lord Malinov (sexual exploit) 10, 10, 10
     "Stolen by Illusion" by Morgan Preece (first time) 10, 10, 10 
     "A Treat for Marshall" by Proculus (schoolgirl fetish) 10, 7, 7
     "Upstairs" by Generic Joe (quickie with atmosphere) 10, 7, 7
     "The Biology Lesson" by Proculus" (sex education) 9, 5, 5
     "Reset" by Sam Hammer (interracial sex) 7, 6, 6
     "Jerry's Girl" by Phil Phantom (family gang-bang) 9.5, 8, 7

Guest Reviews: 

      "Reckless" (Parts I, II and III) by David L (hot sex for fun)
            8, 9, 10
      "Cheerleader With No Panties" by Johnny D. (spam parody) 4, 3, 3
      "Conventional Warfare" by The Harkness (sex at convention) 
            7, 5, 7
      "Jailed Girl" by Bill Majors (punishment of wife) 7.6, 2.0, 6.0
      "Photo Orgy" by Unknown Author (blackmail) 10, 9, 5
      "Our Thrilling Weekend" by The Lovers (very mild sex) 8, 1, 1
      "Autumn Sonata" by David L (romance) 9, 10, 9
      "Sorrows End" by Sandman (romance) 10, 10, 10

Reposted Reviews:

    * "Flying High" by Tiffany (mile-high ff sex) 10, 10, 10
    * "Brown Nosing" by Phil Phantom (fun-loving incest and
             child molestation) 9.5, 9.5, 10

* = Repost of previous review (because the story has recently been
      reposted)

"Bulls' by Lord Malinov (malinov@mindless.com). This story is set in the 
context of two guys having a desultory conversation in a bar, with one 
of them bragging about his sexual exploits with a nymphomaniac he had 
fucked recently.  That element of realism makes the plot of the sexual 
escapades hard to follow, but no harder than when we have a similar 
conversation of our own in a bar or library - depending on our level of 
sophistication, I guess.  This was a nice quickie.

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

"Stolen by Illusion" by Morgan Preece (morganpreece@anon.nymserver.com).  
I'm on a bit of a spree of really simple stories.  This is another good 
one.  It's not a whole story - just an anecdote about the time the 
narrator gave her virginity to her boyfriend who was on his way to 
Vietnam.  The sex is not all that sexy, but it's very realistic and even 
touching.  There's even a nice twist at the end - of the story, that is.

Ratings for "Stolen by Illusion"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10

"A Treat for Marshall" by Proculus (proculus@hotmail.com).  The nubile, 
buxom young girl casts herself in front of Marshall and places his hand 
gently on her naked breast, giving him a feeling like when he has his 
hair cut by his regular barber.  Really.  That's what it says.  Anyway, 
Marshall seems to be a confused, dysfunctional old man with a fetish for 
schoolgirls.  What we get, therefore, is a schoolgirl sex scene; but 
it's not at all clear how old Marshall or the girl is or what the 
relationship is between them.

An interesting moment occurs when the girl's "rigid legs locked 
Marshall's head in a vice-like grip." That word is usually spelled 
"vise" - although I guess vice, in the sense of moral turpitude, could 
also make sense here.

Ratings for "A Treat for Marshall"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 7
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 7

"Upstairs" by Generic Joe (genericjoe@vnet.net). The guy and his 
girlfriend are moving her into a new apartment.  They hear unusual, 
rhythmic sounds upstairs.  They speculate about whether the noise is an 
exercise machine or a man and woman making love or a prostitute or a 
nymphomaniac or whatever.  This gets them turned on, and they fuck 
nicely just thinking about it.  

This is the basis of a good idea, but it needs more development to 
become a really good story.  I hope the author keeps on trying.

Ratings for "Upstairs"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 7
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 7

"The Biology Lesson" by Proculus" (proculus@hotmail.com).  When the old 
biology teacher tells the class that the best way to learn is through 
experience, one of the cheekier sixteen-year-old girls blurts out, "You 
could show us, Sir!"  The previous sentence contains some terminology 
that may not be familiar to American readers. "Cheekier" doesn't mean 
that her cheeks are particularly large: it's just the way Brits say that 
the girl is bold in a sort of indelicate manner.  There is no comparable 
word in the American language, perhaps because American girls don't say 
things like that. In addition, "sir" is a word that polite British 
children use when speaking to a male teacher.  Imagine that.

Well, next thing you know, the old guy is asking for a show of hands to 
find out who has never seen a penis or an erection.  You can well 
imagine what the girls do with their hands once they show them.  Anyway, 
since Theresa "fancies} him, the old buzzard selects her to demonstrate 
the concept of sexual intercourse, even though this has the unfortunate 
effect of minimizing the ability of the other students to directly 
observe the phenomenon called "ejaculation."

That's about all there is to it:  an interesting concept, perhaps, but 
not much development.

Ratings for "The Biology Lesson"
Athena (technical quality): 9
Venus (plot & character): 5
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 5

"Reset" by Sam Hammer.  Ann is a tiny Vietnamese woman with big tits who 
gives great head, even though she dislikes the taste; but her ungrateful 
husband, Quin, has a tendency to fall asleep before repaying her for the 
favor.  Ann also enjoys her job in her workplace, especially the time 
she spends conversing with Roger, whose wife dumped him because his cock 
was too big for her to handle.  Right!  I forgot to mention that Roger 
is a black guy and Quin is a white guy, which tells you about all you 
need to know about the monstrosity factor of their respective cocks.  
What's a girl to do?

Of course, what Ann does is fuck Roger every which way except nasally, 
while he mistreats her and calls her a slut and such; and Ann enjoys it 
so much that she invites her sister Kat to join in as well.  There's 
even more, but you can read the story to find out what else happens.

As you may recall, I have a sister who is married to a black man.  As 
near as I can figure, he's pretty much like a white guy in the sack.  
His cock is apparently no more monstrous than my husband's, and she 
doesn't consider her husband to be a stud.  She DOES consider his skin 
color to be a factor in her relationship with him - she thinks it looks 
nice, much as he likes the clarity of her eye color. In short, although 
they do experience sociological problems from neighbors and coworkers 
who think the races should never mix, their romantic lives are pretty 
much like everyone else's.  I haven't shown this story to my sister or 
to my brother-in-law, but I am certain that they would consider it to be 
an example of perpetuating a stupid stereotype.

Ratings for "Reset"
Athena (technical quality): 7
Venus (plot & character): 6
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 6

"Jerry's Girl" by Phil Phantom.  Jerry and Pam are on their way to the 
Junior Prom.  Pam is a "nice girl" from the right side of the tracks.  
Jerry is a very decent fellow, but his family lives on the wrong side of 
those tracks.  Not only that - they also have some unusual habits.  For 
example, when Jerry and Pam stop by for pictures before the prom, Dad 
swings Pam onto his lap and asks her if she's still a virgin.  The rest 
of the family gathers around, and the kids say things like, "Show us her 
pussy, Dad!"
After Dad tries her out and they take some pictures (the sort that 
appear on Usenet with captions like, "Chearleeder Cunt Begs for Cum!" - 
in all capital letters), the kids go to the prom.  Afterwards Pam 
insists on returning to Jerry's house, where the family gang-bangs her.  
Jerry does it kind of badly at first, but after sufficient 
demonstrations, he finally gets it right.  Dad gets all the action on 
tape.  Of course, Dad sells porn videos, and Pam's father - the judge - 
is his biggest customer.
Aside from some minor typos, this author writes pretty well.  However, 
the story requires a considerable suspension of disbelief.  The notion 
of a nice kid bringing a nice girl home to his horny and disreputable 
father could be the basis for a great plot; but the author stretches 
things with the simplistic assumption that the girl would simply catch 
on and enjoy the good clean fun. 

Ratings for "Jerry's Girl"
Athena (technical quality): 9.5
Venus (plot & character): 8
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 7

"Reckless" (Parts I, II and III) by David L (dhl@sysun.com). 
Review by Mark Aster

I don't generally like long sex stories.  It's hard to keep the 
sex integrated into the rest of the story for that long, and all 
too often the sex feels artificial, or the rest of the story gets 
tedious, or the sex itself gets repetitive and obvious.  The two 
best ways to avoid these problems are to make the sex an important 
part of the story, but keep the sex scenes rare and high-impact 
(as in Rivers' recent "Journey to the East"), or to string 
together a variety of sex scenes in a generally-enjoyable story.  
David L seems to be quite capable of the latter, if the first 
three parts of his novel-in-progress are any indication. It 
reminds me somewhat of the "Trinity Trilogy" (or even that 
"Allens" thing) with a somewhat sluttier atmosphere.

Three main characters (so far!): a slutty 18-year-old, and two 
adults from her school.  MF, FF, some voyeurism, some spanking, a 
little bd.  Lots of dirty talk and the usual sort of taunting.  
But what makes reading this enjoyable, at least for me, is that 
the characters seem to be ENJOYING it.  All too often dirty talk 
in sex stories seems to reflect a lack of respect, and even a 
positive contempt, between the characters; that's an instant turn-
off for me.  In this story, the characters are doing it because 
it's fun, and it feels sexy, not because it satisfies some deep 
dark pathological need to hurt or to be hurt.  I can see these 
characters (in fact I'd like very much to see them!) lying around 
after a hot sex session, talking and laughing about the wild 
things they thought of to call each other this time.

A few typos ("once again came again"), a few misplaced apostrophes 
("Theirs'"), a little trouble thinking of new descriptions for the 
characters ("the lewd school employee" probably would have read 
better as just "Pam"). And one oddity that I've done myself: the 
slutty teen is named "Kristy Whitman".  Now it's possible that it 
will turn out later in the novel that she grows up to be the 
governor of New Jersey, but if not, the coincidence of names is 
just a distraction!  (The first draft of my "Black Oak" had a kid 
in it named "Randy Quaid", which is apparently the name of some 
actor or something; a friend who read an early draft (Hi, Mat!) 
pointed that out to me.)  These celebrity names have a way of 
getting lodged in our heads, and jumping out when we're trying to 
think of a random character name...

But anyway, a nice start to what could be a very nice novel.  
Nothing amazing in the literary sense, but that's not what this 
author's after!  <grin>  Lots of nice hot sex, and highly 
recommended for those who like to see people who basically like 
each other doing things that make everyone involved feel really, 
really good.

Some numbers, keeping in mind that I'm a pretty hard grader:

Ratings for "Reckless"
Athena: 8 (above average, some typos and cliches)
Venus: 9 (hot sex)
Mark: 10 (I really liked it)

"Cheerleader With No Panties" by Johnny D. - reviewed by James

In reviewing this story I carried out a little research - I visited 
Johnny's web site: http://www.cryogen.com/JohnnyD/. If I hadn't done 
this then I would never have found out that Johnny is capable of writing 
a good story...

"Cheerleader With No Panties" is, to me, like its spam inspiration: 
almost instantly forgettable. The story, which takes no more than ten 
minutes to read, is centered around a bank robbery that's foiled by our 
flying superhero "Cheerleader With No Panties". Yet, is that really all 
there is to this story?

In fact, this story has left me with a nagging question. Why does 
someone who can write a story like "I Am The Rapist", write something 
like "Cheerleader With No Panties"?

Ratings for "Cheerleader With No Panties":
Technical Merit: 4
Plot & Character: 3
Appeal to Reviewer: 3

"Conventional Warfare" by The Harkness (tharkness@hotmail.com). Guest 
review by Wherryman.

This is an anecdote rather than a story, told by a delegate at a 
convention. An attractive woman buys him a drink and after some 
conversation she escorts him back to his room for a round of great sex. 
Names are apparently not exchanged, although the woman does leave her 
business card before leaving.

Since this is an anecdote, you don't expect deep characterization 
(unless it's *very* good, by Mark Aster perhaps) and you don't get much 
time for plot; so there has to be something else to lift it out of the 
pack. Unfortunately this doesn't have it;  the sex is straight vanilla 
and making it an extruded plastics convention isn't enough.

Technically there was little problem.  It went through the spell-checker 
without problem - after I remembered to change to the US dictionary. 
Nevertheless getting a third party to read it first might have smoothed 
out those areas where odd style overlaps with poor grammar.

Rating for "Conventional Warfare"
Technical merit 7
Plot & character 5
Appeal to reviewer 7

"Jailed Girl" by Bill Majors.  Guest review by Jubjub.

Plot:  Husband and wife are divorcing.  Husband sets up wife with fake 
arrest and humiliates her with strip search and spanking by "police".

This story had serious problems from top to bottom.  I have a checklist 
that I use to rate various aspects of the stories that I review.  Every 
point had major deficits. 

First off, the punctuation, spelling, and grammar all had small errors 
of omission.   End quotes were dropped, commas misplaced, letters 
dropped out of words ("is" instead of "his") and words dropped out of 
phrases.  But, except for one homophone error ("throws" instead of 
"throes"), none made the story unreadable.  Still, a good proofing would 
have helped.  The writer used sentence fragments as a vehicle for 
descriptions.  This can be a legitimate style, but he didn't use them 
very effectively.  My overall rating indicates a readable story, but not 
near perfect .

The lack of characterization really hurt.  The two questions facing any 
writer are:  Are the characters deep enough to care about (one way or 
another)?  Do the characters present a cohesive whole?  The author 
needed to show that the wife "deserved" this punishment because of her 
bitchiness and general unpleasantness.  Opportunities did present 
themselves to make her out to be some kind of "Zsa Zsa Gabor" type of 
woman who slaps policeman around.  But the wife did little but scream 
"No, don't do that" and other stuff like that.  She was also incredibly 
naive not to realize halfway through that maybe those really weren't 
policemen.  Especially since she was supposedly the wife of a defense 
attorney.

The husband is barely mentioned and given little motivation.  You have 
to assume that he wanted revenge against his wife, because the author 
never gives a clue why this is even happening.  He actually gives more 
character depth to the police (which really isn't saying much) but that 
only acts as a distraction.  The writer badly needed to use the inner 
thoughts of his main characters to drive this story.

There is no real conflict, no tension and no resolution.  The story ends 
and the writing stops.  The description of the events are good enough 
that I found myself responding.  In fact, that response is the sole 
reason the appeal rating is as high as it is.  A good set of 
descriptions in an erotic story can go a long way for me.  If only the 
writer had wrapped good characters around the story arc, I might have 
given this story very high ratings.

There is a whisper of possibilities in this story.  If the author 
continues to write, I would strongly suggest he at least start by giving 
us more than just the physical events.  A story can be made considerably 
more erotic if we follow the thinking of the characters.

Ratings for "Jailed Girl"
Technical:     7.6   Quite readable but has small errors of omission
Characters:   2.0   No depth whatsoever
Appeal:          6.0   Descriptions were very good but lack of story arc 
      hurt a lot.

"Photo Orgy" by Unknown Author.  Guest review by Anne747.

Okay, before the review - rant time about reposting.  This story was 
originally posted 10/16/97 by TheEditor <grobert@IDT.NET>.  The person 
posting it flagged it as NEW and stated they didn't write it.  The 
original post was divided up into twelve chapters.  On 01/09/98 it was 
reposted by "ass.reposter" without the chapter divisions or any comment 
about the original poster.  If TheEditor posted it as new, it's likely 
he/she has some knowledge of the source.  Removing that information is a 
poor choice - removing the chapter divisions makes the story harder to 
read.

The story is 50,000+ words long.  The chapter divisions are crucial in 
breaking it up to make it more readable.  The reposter has done a grave 
disservice to the author in screwing with the original post.  One of my 
first comments in the review was going to be `too long - should be 
broken up into chapters'.  But before I get into the review - even the 
original poster does the author a disservice - no offer to pass along 
comments or copyright notice.  Of course, I'm assuming that TheEditor 
had permission to post it - that they didn't just steal it from 
somewhere.

{Note from Celeste: The Editor has posted several of these stories, and 
I have reviewed several.  They are as long as published porn novels and 
the proofreading is good. It seems unusual that someone would put so 
much work into this sort of thing and then let someone post it without 
soliciting feedback.  If anyone recognizes these stories as coming from 
some published source, I'd like to know about it.}

Okay, the review.  It's likely going to be wordy, since technically at 
50,000+ words, it's closer to a book review.  First, the story was 
posted without codes.  It should carry a few really.  It probably should 
have marked teen and maybe even nc and incest.  I'll get back to that in 
a minute; but the story is predominantly MF, and adding more `codes' 
might ruin the story.  This is a well drawn out story that someone has 
spent a lot of time on.  The main character `Pete' is not the most 
likable guy, right from page one, but as you read on further it becomes 
obvious you aren't supposed to like him.

Pete is stuck in a life he doesn't see an escape from.  He's 23, working 
as a plumber, and figures he won't go much further in life. He spends 
his days unblocking toilets and fucking all the local bored housewives.  
During one of his `sessions' one of the women tells him she doesn't want 
him to screw her, but to deflower her 16 year old daughter.  Pete of 
course jumps at the idea; and even when the young girl is crying and 
screaming in pain, Mommy is urging Pete on.  Oh yes, mother is helping 
and snapping a few pictures for the family album (yeah right).

This gives Pete a great idea.  He's going to enlist the help of an 
accomplice and take pictures of all of his regular lays.  Then he'll 
blackmail them all for a while and save as much money as he can, so he 
can leave town and escape his fate.  I have a problem with the 
motivation at this point.  I mean, the hourly rate of a plumber is what 
- $75?  And he's going to blackmail these women for $10 a week?  He'd be 
better off doing a single job on the side.  The story has been fairly 
well developed, but the motivation is off.  I might even buy it if the 
women were richer, or nastier, and Pete had some anger at not having 
what the rest of the world had. There is also an attempt to make Pete a 
more sympathetic slug about halfway, but it doesn't work.  He feels 
guilty when blackmailing his first woman, even saying he would be paying 
her back once his business is going strong.  Again, I would think most 
people who are driven to blackmail someone feel some sense of justice in 
sticking it to the other person.

To tell you more would be to spoil the ending, so I won't.  Overall it's 
a well-written piece - this isn't something that was dashed off, someone 
worked hard on it.  I think that's why it bothers me that it's posted 
with no author credit.  Did I like it?  Hmm, not really; but that's me.  
I tend not to pick novel length erotica - even with published stuff, I 
prefer anthologies.  Also, my distaste for the main character 
overshadows the sex scenes.  Even before the blackmail comes up, Pete is 
pretty repulsive.  The women are just broads, and in his own words: "Of 
course, to really make it with these suburban broads you gotta have 
looks and a way with words.  And I got both up the ass.  In the last 
year alone, I been in and out of more holes than the Roto Rooter man."

So, even though I didn't like it, is it worth a read?  Might be.  It's a 
pretty good morality tale, even with the poor motivation.  Hey, and 
there is plenty of sex in it.  Now, a comment on the personal appeal 
mark.  For me under 5 - I hated it, over 5 - I liked it.  5 means I just 
didn't move me enough in either direction.  

Oh - and do yourself a favour.  If you are going to read it, get the 
original posting from Eli's archive.  That way you can read it a chapter 
at a time, as the author likely intended.

http://www.qz.to/erotica/assm/Year97/4942.txt

Ratings for "Photo Orgy"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 9 (I just don't buy the reasons for Pete's 
      actions)
Anne747 (appeal to reviewer): 5

"Our Thrilling Weekend" by The Lovers (lovers@unforgettable.com). 
Guest review by David Rills.

This piece is billed as a "true story".  That might explain why it 
is about as interesting as a shopping list.  The narrator starts 
out with a discussion of how he reformatted his computer and then 
goes into how he screwed his wife one weekend. His story contains 
nothing "thrilling" nor does it indicate any excitement.   
However, I don't see any major problem with his grammar or 
spelling. My suggestion: 

 SKIP THIS ONE !

Ratings for "Our Thrilling Weekend"
Athena (technical quality): 8
Venus (plot & character): 1
David (appeal to reviewer): 1

"Autumn Sonata" by David L (dhl@sysun.com).  Guest review by Dart.

This is a nice, but longish, story that examines in some detail 
the transformation of a friendship, during the course of a single 
evening, into an erotic relationship.

The heart of the story is a walk which two recent friends, David 
and Autumn, each recovering from emotional damage, take together 
on a cold, snowy evening. There is a third character in the story, 
Janet, a friend of David's and of Autumn's; but her role is 
relegated to the story's setup, and to watching over Autumn's two 
children the evening of David and Autumn's walk.

Their walk begins at Janet's home. Autumn has planned on spending 
the evening alone, but it's a ten block walk to her house and 
David thinks she's ill-prepared for the cold and the snow. Since 
his apartment is on her way and only four blocks away, he insists 
that they walk there so he can outfit her with an extra layer of 
clothing. After he finds extra clothing for her, and insists that 
she put them on before continuing her walk, he helps her into a 
second pair of socks and a pair of his older boots. She enjoys the 
touch of his hand on her leg, but suppresses the emotion. Since 
her disillusioning divorce, she has been denying or controlling 
many of her feelings.

When she's ready to leave, David suggests that he walk her home, 
since he was planning to go for a walk anyway. Autumn reluctantly 
accepts his offer. After they start off, David offers a modest 
alteration in their path. He'd like to take her by the house where 
he was raised. She accepts the alteration, but is saddened by the 
sight that greets them: A dark, empty house with a "For Sale" sign 
in the front yard. David's mother died six months ago, and his 
siblings want their share. David claims the house is too large for 
him anyway, but Autumn is saddened, and is reminded of tears in 
her own past life.

When they continue their walk, Autumn offers her own modest 
alteration, and David accepts. They walk to the highest point of 
the town's park, and when there, Autumn informs him that this is 
the spot where she had buried her wedding ring. David needs to be 
told why she has told him this, and she tells him; and with the 
telling a crack appears in her carefully controlled emotions, her 
reserve falters, and she grows almost loquacious.
 
When they finally reach Autumn's apartment, her mood has altered 
significantly from when they left Janet's home, and consequently, 
she invites David up for something hot to drink. He accepts, and 
builds a fire while she prepares the hot drinks. And then all 
those layers of clothing need to come off, and they do, in a long, 
caring and passionate sexual encounter.

There's a wealth of detail in this forty-page story that the 
author uses adroitly to develop several interesting characters and 
weave their lives together in a realistic plot. It was a nice 
story to read. And it's clear that a story this long and this well 
written took a considerable amount of effort. The author, David L, 
kindly acknowledges the proofreading assistance of his wife and 
additional unspecified help from Kristen. I would suggest that he 
also enlist the assistance of one of Celeste's proofreaders. Not 
because the story is badly written - it is not as I hope I've made 
clear above; but because readers close to the author - I speak 
from personal experience - sometimes are, along with the author, 
too excited with the story to catch every little flaw.

Ratings for "Autumn Sonata"
Athena (technical quality): 9
Venus (plot & character): 10
Dart (appeal to reviewer): 9

"Sorrows End" by Sandman (sandman@bitsmart.com)
Guest review by Anne747 (Anon747@aol.com)

I'm almost tempted to use the author's own introduction to tell you what 
the story is about.  In fact, his own summary is, `A plane crash forces 
a hermit to share his cabin for a long arctic winter with two women.'  
Now that might give a misleading idea of what the story is about; 
however, the author goes a little further and says:

"Considering that I had the chance to explore incest, pregnant sex, and 
an interesting threesome, the story and characters evolved in a very 
tame manner. I think I am probably as surprised as anyone that what 
sprang forth was a rather quaint love story with nothing even remotely 
approaching taboo.  This is a story yes, there's sex in it yes, but sex 
isn't the end all and be all of this tale."

And he's right.  What we have here is a sweet romantic tale that deals 
far more with two people falling in love than anything else.  The only 
change I might suggest is a section at the beginning of the lovemaking 
scene.  We almost slip back into the `sex story' mode when she notes his 
`well sized organ' and his hands roam across her `her ample breasts'.  
Up until this point it has been an emotional piece.  These two lines are 
very close and tend to pull you back to a `physical' impression.  The 
characters have a very real feel to them, this almost brings them back 
to the usual celluloid feel of sex story characters.

Now, I'm not a romantic at heart. I normally wouldn't pick them to read.  
Also, I might have preferred a slightly different ending, but this is 
just a personal thing.  Overall, this is a well-written, poignant story, 
and I did enjoy it.  I was going to knock a point off on the personal 
appeal simply because romance pieces aren't my thing, but looking back 
at some of the other reviews I've done I decided that wasn't fair.  
Interesting note: after 29 reviews - this is the first straight 10s 
review I've given.

Ratings for "Sorrows End"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Anne747 (appeal to reviewer): 10

* "Flying High" by Tiffany (claytonj@SkyBest.Com).  Maybe I should just 
say this is a good story and let it go at that.  This one is a bit hard 
to explain.  As the unofficial librarian of the Mile High Club, I 
collect stories about sex on airplanes.  According to my records, I have 
previously reviewed nine stories that fit this description.  The five 
best ones have been "Adventures on Flight 109" by Ann Douglas, "La 
Salope" by Joe Parsons, "American Airlines Cockpit" by Mary Anne 
Mohanraj, "Wonderful Journey" by Kid Dynamite, and "Airscrew" by Pete 
Fox.

Lucy Stevens, a straight woman and a virgin a week or so ago, is on the 
way home by plane to visit her family after her marriage.  A kid ogles 
her, and she flashes him.  Then the woman next to her double dares Lucy 
to go further, and before we know it we have a veritable coven of card-
carrying lesbians having mind blowing orgasms with Lucy and ruffling the 
kid's hair.  The kid's mother wakes up and gets upset, but he's probably 
seen worse in the Swimsuit Issue of Sports Illustrated or on the Web.  
As part of the good natured fun, the lezzies destroy all Lucy's clothes 
except her dress.  And so when she meets the family, she has more 
'splaining to do than she had anticipated.  I told you: this is a hard 
one to explain.

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

* "Brown Nosing" by Phil Phantom.  Some people will dislike this 
story because it was originally zipped but now it's decoded.  
Others will object because it is about incest.  I think it's just 
plain funny.  Anyway, the man has just gotten a job, but he leaves 
his wife and family behind in the room with the boss during the 
final interview.  The boss fondles the man's daughter; and the 
man's son becomes turned on and begins fondling the mother.  The 
third child becomes so excited that "she didn't know who to 
watch."  That should be "whom," of course.  Some of these authors 
get so excited that they screw the hell out of their pronouns as 
soon as their hormones get going.

A lot of readers enjoy blackmail and pedophile stories; and this 
one combines both.  I usually don't like either element, but I 
enjoyed this one largely because of the grotesque perspective.  We 
see the first part of the story from the viewpoint of the father, 
who re-enacts everything that happens while his wife tells him 
about it.  The storytelling style is most interesting; it reminded 
me of the old Bert and Ernie sequence from Sesame Street ("Did 
anything interesting happen today?" "Nope."  "How did you tear 
your shirt pocket?"  "Oh, that happened when I was running too 
fast through the door at the circus... after Johnny said we had 
better go home... after the tent started to collapse... after the 
mime started yelling and screaming.... because the door to the 
lion cage had come open... after the tiger devoured the trainer... 
right after his partner had been shot by the homicidal maniac who 
was using me as a human shield... But don't worry; the S.W.A.T. 
team shot him.... right after he threw the hand grenade down my 
pants.... ) Actually, the Sesame Street version was a little 
different, but the idea is that the wife casually describes to the 
husband increasingly outrageous activities; and the guy just 
listens, tries the ideas out on his wife, makes her cum, and then 
says he'll have to have a talk with the kids.

Of course, if this would happen to you and your family in real 
life, you should go straight to a good lawyer. Make that an 
expensive lawyer - they're easier to find.  The lawyer will fill 
you in on the details regarding how you can become immensely rich 
by suing the bastard for child molestation.

But there's more!  After dropping Dad off at home, Mom goes back 
to get the kids at the movies.  She wants to have a talk with them 
- to make sure they don't lose respect for her, of course.  So 
while they're driving home, the kids essentially gang-rape her 
with hand jobs in the moving car.  They even argue over who gets 
what.  During a typical American car trip, when the children argue 
and get out of hand, the parent often screams, "Shuddup, you 
little motherfuckers!"  I suppose that would have been ironic 
under these circumstances.

But there's more!  Eventually the boss starts making night calls 
to the family's house and brings clients to go into the girl's 
room and plays sex and bondage games with Sherry and Sandy after 
using Mom as a warm-up course while Dad does paperwork for the 
company.  This pushed me beyond the limits of what I could endure.  
That should be girls' - it's s-apostrophe, not apostrophe-s, for 
plural possessives!

This was an interesting but bizarre story.  If any of you try this 
in real life, you deserve to be arrested. Then you will burn in 
hell and will be forced to live with an American politician for 
all eternity.

Ratings for "Brown Nosing"
Athena (technical quality): 9.5
Venus (plot & character): 9.5
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10

