Celestial Reviews 38 - Nov 18, 1995

Note:  As I read the a.s.s. postings, I often find among the wannafucks a 
message or two bewailing the lamentable quality of stories on a.s.s.  I 
honestly don't see the point these people are making.  While I agree that 
there are numerous weak stories in the postings, there are also some really 
great stories on a.s.s. - enough to keep even the most prolific reader 
occupied during his/her relatively private sexual activities.  The stories 
that I review in this issue are evidence of that high quality.  In fact, I 
would venture to say that fully half of the stories that I am reviewing in 
this issue would be acceptable in good, reputable magazines, except that their 
content makes them unsuitable for general circulation.  Even the weakest of 
today's stories is a highly creative endeavor that happens to be flawed by 
serious grammar mistakes; and I personally find it reassuring that so many 
writers on this newsgroup work so hard to remove errors in grammar and style 
from the stories they post here.

I hope some of you keep that in mind when you read a good story.  Our authors 
don't get paid - except in terms of the occasional feedback they get from 
readers.  I now I enjoy friendly comments from my readers, and I imagine the 
other authors do too.

Writing Celestial Reviews and related stuff has continued to be fun.  The 
activity actually helps keep me sane - if that's possible. Now that I have 
reviewed my 300th story, I would like to comment on an interesting irony.  
When I first started writing these reviews, I used to draw on "normal" 
American and world literature to clarify points to the a.s.s audience.  (For 
example, I have had a lot of fun developing the theory that Deirdre is 
Sherwood Anderson reincarnated - more on that in a future issue!  Even if most 
of you don't know what I'm talking about, I did get a rise out of the only 
person in Clyde, Ohio, with an AOL account.)  But last week the situation 
reversed itself:  I found myself in front of a class of eager high school 
students and I wanted to take an idea from an a.s.s. story to clarify a point 
about "The Scarlet Letter."  No can do!

The paradox is that a large number of a.s.s. people (especially those who 
bother to communicate with me) are highly intelligent and creative.  Dare I 
say it - some of them are even brighter and more creative than some of my 
colleagues in the Teachers' Lounge!  I am finding the a.s.s. atmosphere in 
many cases to be more stimulating (no pun intended) than my ordinary academic 
life; and the result has been that I am (1) becoming a little more creative 
myself and (2) I can't tell anyone about this.  Well, it *is* an irony.  You 
can decide for yourself if it's interesting.

   - Celeste

      "Experiment" by Deirdre (mind control) 10
      "Field" by Deirdre (I'm not sure) 9
      "Fixup" by Deirdre (voyeurism) 5
      "Walk" by Deirdre (outdoor sex & voyeurism) 8
      "Droit du Signeur" by Lysander (history & romance) 10
      "Wet Dream" by Caesar (sex in the great outdoors) 5
      "Taking Chances" by Frank McCoy (incest with very young
            child) 7
      "NICE" by Vickie Tern (revenge & kinky sex) 10

"Experiment" by Deirdre (an65862@anon.penet.fi).  Ah! Another mad 
scientist is at work in the laboratory of Deirdre's mind.  This one 
finds out that one of her female students is attracted to a 
cheerleader, and the scientist promises to turn the cheerleader over as 
a sex slave if only the student will make love to the mad scientist.  
Sounds good?  Read on!  (Rating: 10)

"Field" by Deirdre (an65862@anon.penet.fi). A college girl shares an 
apartment with her girlfriend.  The girlfriend acquires a boyfriend, 
and he moves in with them.  The boyfriend and girlfriend split up, and 
the girlfriend goes home to mother, leaving the original girl and the 
former boyfriend living together - but not sexually involved.  The 
boyfriend decides to play the field for a while. Pretty soon there are 
women marching in and out of the boyfriend's room.  This confuses the 
original girl, because the boyfriend strikes her as rather bland.  
Pretty soon the boyfriend's women are multiplying faster than rabbits 
with calculators and are overflowing the apartment.  Then the 
girlfriend comes back and asks if the boyfriend has been seeing anyone.  
This story certainly held my attention!  (Rating: 9)

"Fixup" by Deirdre (an65862@anon.penet.fi). The boss's wife seems to be 
jealous of the female employee.  She invites the employee over and 
tries to fix her up with a date.  When the boss takes the employee 
home, they double back and peek in through the window and see the wife 
and the other young man making out.  Just when the story starts, it 
stops!  It certainly leaves a lot to the imagination.  (Rating: 5)

"Walk" by Deirdre (an65862@anon.penet.fi). "It's so dark and lonely out 
here at 3:00 a.m. that I could dance naked in the street and no one 
would notice!"  That's not the sort of thing a woman says out loud in a 
Deirdre story - at least not unless she expects some consequences.  
(Rating: 8)

"Droit du Signeur" by Lysander (Lysander@vnet.net).  This posting of 
Chapter 8 represents what I'll call the rejuvenation of one of my 
favorite long stories.  In my original review of this story, I reported 
being wonderfully excited at its beginning and then disappointed as it 
seemed to loose its steam.  Eventually, it just seemed to stop.  
Lysander reports that he had written the beginning of a garden 
rendezvous between Tomas and Esmerelda immediately after she leaves 
Kirsten and Heinrich in Chapter 6.  It was supposed to be tender and 
uplifting, a life-affirming act between two people who needed each 
other; but it was also incredibly cloying. Nevertheless, he stubbornly 
stuck with that plan from the middle of '93 until two nights before he 
posted Chapter 8.  Then he took a 90-degree turn and it practically 
wrote itself.  The result is much darker than he had intended, and it 
will be interesting to see how the story eventually fulfills its 
original potential

HERE'S WHAT I HOPE:  I hope Lysander breaks with the a.s.s. tradition 
of "improving" stories by just adding new chapters.  He wrote four 
brilliant chapters and then three chapters that seriously limped.  
Instead of just adding eight more chapters, he should go back at some 
time and revise the weak chapters.  In some aspects of life it is 
necessary to live with our mistakes and to correct old weaknesses by 
merely adding new strengths; but this is not necessary with electronic 
publishing.  All an author has to do is revise an old chapter and push 
a button and <poof!> the bad parts of the story are gone and the story 
becomes much better.  The only authors I know of on a.s.s. who 
consistently do this are Backrub and the Ng Sisters.  These are some of 
the best authors on the newsgroup: there's a lesson in this.

The elderly among you will perhaps remember the old "Dallas" TV series.  
The writers of that series wrote once themselves into a corner when 
they killed a major character.  Then the character came back to life 
the next season, and they tried to reconcile this contradiction by 
saying that the death had been only a dream.  Since evening soap 
viewers are not as sophisticated as a.s.s. readers, this approach 
worked.  But on the Internet this approach is not even necessary.  It's 
perfectly fair to simply revise the earlier episodes - don't kill OJ or 
JR or whoever in the first place.  Lysander has some serious weaknesses 
and contradictions in Chapters 5 through 7.  If he both (1) finishes 
the story and (2) gets rid of these problems, he will have written one 
of the best sex stories ever.

Let me be clear about one thing: Lysander is already one of the best 
and most versatile authors on a.s.s.  He doesn't just repeat one plot 
with minor variations; his stories range from the thrilling and even 
brutal to the sentimental.  I have given him high ratings for other 
stories.  But this story has the potential to be his very best - IF he 
will revise it as well as finish it.  The reason I am saying this in a 
public review instead of in a private letter to the author is because 
numerous other writers can benefit from the same advice. Consider 
revising and altering your stories to improve them when you repost 
them.  I advocate treating the stories like successive versions of 
computer software.  I eventually want to see Droit du Signeur 2.0.  
This strategy has worked for Bill Gates and for numerous software 
developers.  Believe me; it will work here too.

Anyway, since Lysander has reposted the original episodes, here is my 
original review:

Nice story!  That was my reaction after I read the first chapter and 
plunged ahead into the second.  This tale takes place in Germany during 
feudal times.  In those days the lord of the serfs had the right to 
have sexual relations with a new bride on her wedding night.  The hero 
and heroine in this story initially resist this as a barbaric custom; 
but eventually they comply.

This story borders on greatness.  At the end of the third chapter, I 
was truly impressed.  But then the author gets sidetracked on tales 
about warfare and torture. These chapters are not bad; in fact they're 
good - but perhaps a little too detailed.  The problem is that the 
author never gets back to a full treatment of the sex and romance.  All 
of a sudden the story just ends, and we are informed that Heinrich 
married Esmerelda (who is barren) after miraculously rescuing her from 
Assan and that Kirsten will have Heinrich's baby.  There's a lot more 
room for development and resolution here.  For example, how will Tomas 
(Kirsten's husband) react to this state of affairs, and how does 
Kirsten feel about her husband?

When sex occurs, it is really hot.  In addition, the plot allows room 
for real sexual tension and creative character development.  Assume 
that there really is a rule that the lord gets the bride on the wedding 
night and that the bride can help her husband (who has attacked the 
lord) only by making the lord as happy as possible.  She expects the 
lord to be an asshole; but instead he turns out to be a responsible 
ruler and kind lover, whose happiness apparently arises from making her 
happy.  How should she react?  There's an important moral and emotional 
angle here, which is worth developing: should she let herself go and 
enjoy the pleasures she has been offered, or should she hold back her 
true affection for her husband?  If she does react favorably to the 
lord and if she does conceive a child, how will this affect her love 
for her husband?  And then there's Esmerelda.... These and many other 
dilemmas could make this into a story that is not only titillating, but 
also just plain good literature.  

The author starts with a great plot for the first few chapters - a plot 
that involves real personalities - and then settles for a war story, 
purely hormonal sex, and an ending that leaves us hanging.  At the 
beginning, this story reminded me a lot of the movie "Indecent 
Proposal," in which Demi Moore's husband was offered a million dollars 
if he would let her sleep with a rich guy who looked a lot like Robert 
Redford.  But "Indecent Proposal" maintained the moral and potential 
ambivalence all the way to the end of the story.  In addition, Demi 
Moore's sexual activity was not purely hormonal.  I hope the author of 
this story realizes what he has here and goes back and turns it into 
the work of art it could become.  (Rating: 7)

"Wet Dream" by Caesar (jsharpe@access.awinc.com).  This is a really 
weak presentation of a really interesting idea.  An older adolescent 
boy comes upon a younger adolescent girl in the woods.  She starts to 
masturbate but becomes aware that someone is watching.  The boy remains 
unseen but gives the girl instructions to continue masturbating.  The 
problem with the story is that it is full of simple grammatical errors 
that are terribly distracting.  I simply do not understand why creative 
authors cannot take the trouble to make their stories presentable 
before releasing them to a wider audience.  (Rating: 5)

"Taking Chances" by Frank McCoy (mccoyf@millcomm.com).  Here we have a 
story about a man with a frigid wife and a hot daughter whom he starts 
humping when she is nine years old.  The wife is actually a nice 
person, whom both the husband and daughter love, and so they try to be 
discreet.  But then it becomes obvious that the wife, who is sterile, 
is thrilled at the idea of the little girl becoming pregnant by the 
father.  This heats up everyone's sex life.  Eventually the family 
visits an unnamed, utopian city in an unspecified, out-of-the-way part 
of the United States, where down home hospitality is a way of life, 
where incest is the norm, and where Mom, Dad, and Marlene could raise 
their children/grandchildren in blissful harmony. The sad thing is that 
they leave this Walden-like paradise behind; but the good news is that 
Mom's sex drives are coming alive, and they always have the 800 number 
of the Society For the Preservation of Incest in America.

I guess if we function in a science fiction world where there's no such 
thing as harm from genetic inbreeding and where nine-year-olds suffer 
no psychological trauma from being boinked by their daddies but 
actually have their personalities enriched by becoming pregnant before 
they are teenagers, then this is a kinda sexy story.

I might add that in real life if I clearly believed that this was 
happening to a child for whom I was teaching I would be required by law 
in my state to report my suspicions to an appropriate agency. I have no 
problem with this law.  As an educator I am aware of the very real 
effects that genetic inbreeding can have on the intellectual ability of 
the cute little offspring of incestuous matings.  (The problem is one 
of increased probability of double recessive genes, which would be much 
less likely to occur among unrelated sex partners. People often make 
crude jokes about parts of the country in which fathers are reputed to 
have children by their daughters; and while these jokes are certainly 
rude, they are not entirely fiction.)  In addition, in real life (as 
opposed to this story) incestuous relationships often do entail an 
abusive use of power that results in personality dysfunctions.  I've 
seen these very real results and am not amused by them.

The preceding paragraph does not mean that I think the author is a 
pervert or that this is a bad story.  In my American literature classes 
I require my students to read a short story about a maniac who kills an 
old man because he doesn't like the ways his eye looks, then chops up 
his body and buries it under the floor, and then sits on top of those 
very floorboards and casually talks to the police officers until the 
beating of the telltale heart becomes so loud that he blurts out that 
he committed the crime.  I require them to read another story by the 
same author in which a man gets revenge on his enemy by burying him 
alive in a wine cellar.  I have a colleague (more sinister than myself) 
who requires his students to read a novel about a man with an 
incredibly insipid personality and vacuous system of morality who is 
nonetheless labeled as Great in the novel's title.  I have even tried 
to get my students to read a lengthy tome about a blasphemous ship 
captain who sails around the world and has nearly his entire crew 
killed while he tries to get revenge on a huge mammal that he 
incorrectly refers to as a fish.  Need I go on?  My point is that many 
of the finest leaders of our nation have read and enjoyed these stories 
without being corrupted by them.

I am not so blase as to believe that there is no potential for harm in 
this story.  Nor am I putting this story on a level with the stories to 
which I have alluded (except, of course, "The Great Gatsby").  What I 
am saying is that I think we can agree that reasonable readers should 
be able to read a well written story and refrain from imitating 
obviously inappropriate and socially destructive behaviors.  I know I 
can.  In fact, in the many years since I have read Poe, I have buried 
alive only two people (not counting lawyers and a lexicographer); and 
both of them were English professors anyway.

As for the author - I doubt that he's really a pervert.  In fact, I 
would be willing to let him babysit for my own children, as long as the 
surveillance cameras were working.

But I digress.  The story was clearly written and fairly creative.  
There were points at which it got to be just too much to believe, and 
toward the end it began to sound like an infomercial or a chamber of 
commerce pamphlet; but on the whole I found the story to be 
interesting.  Just remember: you can go to jail for doing things like 
this.  (Rating: 7)

"NICE" by Vickie Tern (vickietern@aol.com).  The title refers (among 
other things) to the fact that the husband wanted to be nice to his 
wife by engaging with her only in the nice kind of sex she wanted, 
which was generally placid and rare. Away from home he was selected as 
a sexual playmate by a coworker with decidedly anti-nice tendencies.  
That torrid and kinky affair came to an end and vanished into the past. 
However, from the very beginning of the story we know that the man's 
wife is a vindictive sort: to her a deal is a deal; and if she'll sue 
the painter for finishing a job late, we can just bet that she won't be 
very nice to a husband found to be unfaithful to the marriage deal. 

Now my Word Count utility tells me that I am 2929 words (259 lines) 
into a story that is 10858 words (1022 lines) long, and the wife has 
just found out that this sweet little husband has been unfaithful.  As 
you know, I like sweet cuddly sex; and I don't like stories in which 
someone is humiliated sexually. And you must certainly realize that if 
my husband were ever similarly unfaithful to me, I would simply pat him 
on the head, ask him not to do it again, and beg his forgiveness for 
failing to be the woman he deserved.  If you believe that, then you're 
a few french fries short of a Happy Meal and I have a snippet of 
Princess Di's cunt hair that I'm willing to sell you at a bargain 
price.  Au contraire!  This author has my permission to have the wife 
do anything she wants to this slimeball for the rest of the story; and 
I'm going to enjoy all 7929 words (763 lines) of it!

And the plan for revenge that the wife outlines is ingenious.  I've 
never thought of this method of revenge before.  As the wife dictated 
her terms to the husband, I couldn't help thinking that the plot 
rivaled an Edgar Alan Poe story in its macabre thoroughness. But hark!  
The story has a surprise ending; and that's putting it mildly.  I 
cannot tell you more.  Read this story.  You'll love it.  (Rating: 10)

TIP OF THE WEEK:  In each issue of Celestial Reviews I present one of 
the guidelines from Celestial Grammar, which I have posted on alt 
sex.stories.d. and which I'll continue to develop and revise from time 
to time.  My theory is that if all of these tips were followed, about 
95% of the really distracting errors in a.s.s. stories would be 
eliminated.  (The other 5% will eventually be covered in Advanced 
Celestial Grammar.)  I was going to name this part of the column TIP OF 
THE {something sexual}, but I thought the innuendo might detract from 
the sober serious business at hand. Here is this week's tip:

THE SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD

In the present tense the subjunctive is usually the infinitive of the 
verb (that is, the form of the verb listed in the dictionary).  In the 
past tense the subjunctive looks just like any other past tense, except 
for "were," which is the past subjunctive of "to be."

The subjunctive mood states a requirement, a desire, or a suggestion; 
or it states a condition that is contrary to fact.


The previous sentences make the subjunctive sound harder than it really 
is.  The following examples will probably sound natural to native 
speakers of English.

     His wife suggested that he fuck himself. {suggestion}
     His wife requested that he lick her cunt. {suggestion}
     I insist that you be here for supper if you expect me to eat you 
out afterwards. {Requirement}
     I wish that I were a more competent cunnilinguist. {Desire}
     If I were you, I would be in love with me. {Condition contrary to 
fact}

There are really only two problems with the subjunctive.  First, many 
writers don't know about the subjunctive or feel uncomfortable with it, 
and so they "talk around" it.  For example, instead of the first 
example they may say:

     His wife suggested that he should fuck himself. {suggestion}

This is not actually a mistake; it just misses the opportunity to use 
the subjunctive, which I think is a little more elegant.

The second problem is a little more serious: many writers tend to use 
"was" instead of "were."  For example, in the fourth example they may 
say

     I wish that I was a more competent cunnilinguist. {Desire}

If someone says this to you, the socially appropriate response would be 
to make a quick estimate of whether you want this person to give you a 
demonstration.  If he/she looks like a major turn-off, reply

     "You mean 'were.' That's the subjunctive mood."

The person will leave you alone.  On the other hand, if he/she looks 
like a promising prospect, just reply

     Let me help you practice.

In some cases, the misuse of "was" for "were" actually gives the 
sentence a different meaning.

     If Melissa was behind the curtain with a gun, she could have 
stopped her sister from fucking him.  {This sentence suggests that 
Melissa was actually behind the curtain and therefore could have taken 
the designated action.}

     If Vicky were behind the curtain with a gun, she could have 
stopped her sister from fucking him.  {This sentence clearly means that 
Vicky wasn't behind the curtain, but she could have taken this action 
if she would have been there.}

If you want to use a more elegant expression, you can even omit the 
"If" and convey the idea by using the subjunctive with an altered word 
order.  For example, the preceding example could become:

     Were Vicky behind the curtain with a gun, she could have stopped 
her sister from fucking him.  {This sentence clearly means that Vicky 
wasn't behind the curtain, but she could have taken this action if she 
would have been there.}

It's good to know about this usage, because when you use it people know 
you're making an unusual point.  {Shakespeare does this effectively in 
Julius Caesar, III, ii, 237-239: "Were I Brutus, and Brutus Antony, 
there were an Antony would ruffle up your spirits....}  It lets the 
listener know you're "in the mood."  This line has worked for me:

     Were you as good a lover as Piers Brosnan, your tongue would be 
moving a little faster right now.

Use this approach sparingly.
