Celestial Reviews 26 - Oct 7, 1995

Note:  It is a pleasure to announce the winner of the First Annual Celestial 
Writing Contest.  As you may recall, I reviewed a story in which a locksmith 
responded to his beeper and a woman answered the phone: "Are you the 
locksmith? Oh! Thank God! My friend has been handcuffed, and we don't have the 
key. Can you help us?"  After this nice set-up with great potential, nothing 
sexual happened in that story.  So I initiated a contest in which writers were 
required to develop that idea into a good story.  There were only two entries.  
I suppose I could be disappointed because of "low" participation; but both 
were *very good* stories.  The winner is Stephanie, whose story is entitled 
"The Locksmith."  The runner-up is Eu-Ming Lee, whose story (oddly enough) is 
also entitled "The Locksmith."  I encourage you to read and enjoy both 
stories.

- Celeste

      "Bet" by Deirdre (submission and slavery) 8
      "Birthday" by Deirdre (mf bondage & anal sex) 10
      "Bracelet" by Deirdre (spanking English teachers) 8
      "Katie & Lyn series" by Gina Marie (hot teen ff romance) 10
      "The Locksmith" by Stephanie (Celestial contest entry) 10
      "The Locksmith" by Eu-Ming Lee (Celestial contest entry)
             10
      "The Classified Ad" by Ann Douglas (hot ff sex) 10
      "Kevin" by Friar Dave (emerging sexuality) 10
      "Steven After Hours" by Backrub (hot sex with a 
            superstud) 10

"Bet" by Deirdre (an65862@anon.penet.fi). A guy happens to get invited 
to a party with his wife and friends and loses a bet; and so he and a 
woman have to serve dinner naked from the belt down.  It turns out he 
likes it, and so do his wife and the other woman.  They become more 
intimately involved; and then the story takes a sudden twist.  (Rating: 
8)

"Birthday" by Deirdre (an65862@anon.penet.fi).  I guessed the plot of 
this one!  Or at least I think I did.  At the end of the story, neither 
I nor the narrator can say for sure exactly what happened.  The female 
narrator (who has led a pretty straight sex life) decides to let her 
husband (who has spoken favorably about bondage) do anything she wants 
to her on his birthday.  Since she is embarrassed to bring the topic up 
to him, she conveys this message to him in a letter, which she types at 
the office and gives to her secretary to mail; and subsequently she 
receives a typed reply from him, giving her detailed instructions.  
"Aha!" says I.  "The secretary may have never mailed the letter at all.  
She may have read it herself and written her own reply.  I should be a 
rocket scientist!  The secretary is going to have her way with the 
boss!"  Well, maybe.  The woman follows the instructions, and 
mysterious but sexy things happen to her at the designated time and 
place.  But the husband never brings it up again, and their sex lives 
remain status quo.  So, was it really somebody else - perhaps even a 
group of ribald fun lovers known only to the secretary?  Or was it 
really the husband who fucked her brains out?  Is he playing dumb to 
make it more fun?

What's really great about this story is that even though I read it from 
the perspective that I thought I had figured out the secret, it's 
really impossible to tell what actually happened.  This impossibility 
arises not because the story is written in a confusing manner (as is 
the case with many stories), but because Deirdre has written the 
details in such a way as to support either theory.  This is a very 
clever and sexy story.

Incidentally, as you may recall, I have a theory that Deirdre is really 
Sherwood Anderson reincarnated in the body of a late 20th century smut 
writer (perhaps as either a reward or punishment for what he did to the 
people of Clyde, Ohio).  One of my readers has suggested that he sees 
more O. Henry than Sherwood Anderson in Deirdre's stories.  However, 
this reader's suggestion that I am wrong is misguided.  I'll stand by 
my Sherwood Anderson theory, but I'll admit that there is a distinct 
possibility of O. Henry's influence - perhaps in Deirdre's maternal 
ancestry.  This story exemplifies that influence.  (Rating: 10)

"Bracelet" by Deirdre (an65862@anon.penet.fi).  Two college students 
get called into the English teacher's office; she gets naked; and one 
of them spanks her.  What could be more normal than that?  Why is 
everyone always picking on English teachers?  Actually, the 
circumstances under which the punishment occurs evoke some interesting 
questions.  (Rating: 8)

"Katie & Lyn series" by Gina Marie (an242967@anon.penet.fi).  In 
response to huge popular demand the author is reposting these stories 
about two teenage girls (a high school freshman and a sophomore) who 
become disenchanted with their boyfriends' immaturity and enchanted 
with one another.  This is the hottest girl/girl teen sex I can 
remember reading.  It is hot not because the descriptions are explicit 
(which is also true) but because the author does such a good job of 
building anticipation.  Just knowing what's going on in Katie's mind 
makes the actual consummation more interesting and enjoyable.

You don't have to be a lesbian to enjoy these stories.  Too many young 
women (and, I would assume, young men too) get the irrational feeling 
that stories like this are dangerous because they might "become 
homosexuals" if they happen to enjoy the action.  Baloney.  Any person 
with hormones who does not have preset biases against these stories 
will enjoy them - just as any woman with hormones would enjoy Lyn's hot 
lips caressing her pussy.  The latter mode of experimentation would 
certainly be ill advised for many young girls, but I hardly think the 
same can be said for the former.  Fantasy can be fun - and 
understanding how *other* people react to sex can be informative.  This 
advice is probably extremely obvious to a large number of readers, but 
I think it bears repeating.  Neither enjoying the idea of homosexual 
stimulation or engaging in and enjoying real-life homosexual activities 
on specific occasions "makes" you a homosexual.  Don't label yourself 
so easily; life is more complicated than that.  I myself have no 
intention of engaging in lesbian sexual activities, because I am 
already devoted to a monogamous relationship. However, I found these 
vivid descriptions of two people growing in love and affection for each 
other to be intensely enjoyable.  (Rating: 10)

"The Locksmith" by Stephanie (an266891@anon.penet.fi) This story is the 
winner of the First Annual Celestial Writing Contest.  It is a clever, 
well-written story about a locksmith who gets a late-night call about a 
person who has been handcuffed and needs to be released.  However, 
since the story depends on some twists in the plot, I can't tell you 
much about it.  In fact, I urge you to read both this and the following 
story to see if you agree with my judgment that this is the better of 
two extremely good stories.  (Rating: 10)

"The Locksmith" by Eu-Ming Lee (euming@netcom.com). This story is the 
runner-up the First Annual Celestial Writing Contest.  It is a clever, 
well-written story about a locksmith who gets a late-night call about a 
person who has been handcuffed and needs to be released.  However, 
since the story depends on some twists in the plot, I can't tell you 
much about it.  In fact, I urge you to read both this and the preceding 
story to see if you agree with my judgment regarding which of these two 
extremely good stories deserves first prize.  It was a pleasure to 
stimulate these two authors to write these two excellent stories. 
(Rating: 10)

"The Classified Ad" by Ann Douglas (an309642@anon.penet.fi).  Because 
she is frustrated by her husband's lack of interest in her life, a 
woman posts a classified ad on a BBS.  In it she expresses a need to 
meet with another woman to explore her own sexuality.  A female doctor 
responds, and the two of them hit it off very well together.  By the 
end of the story the woman's self concept and lifestyle have taken a 
radical shift. While this is an excellent short story in its own right, 
it could also be considered an essay entitled "Lesbians Are Normal 
People."

My only problem with this otherwise excellent story is that I had 
impression is that the author rushed it to press.  Near the end there 
are several passages where  the punctuation disintegrates badly - for 
example, quotation marks and apostrophes disappear almost completely; 
and the author selects wrong words (e.g., sign for sigh).  At first I 
thought the author was omitting the punctuation to achieve a purpose; 
but then the story reverted to good punctuation again.  I'm convinced 
that the author simply wrote these parts last and did not proofread 
them carefully.  However, in spite of this annoyance, I truly enjoyed 
this story.  (Rating: 10)

"Kevin" by Friar Dave (friar.dave@teamhbbs.com).  Kevin is a 16-year-
old boy with raging hormones, who has the hots for the lady next door - 
along with anything else with breasts and a cute butt.  His almost-
twelve-year-old little sister asks him some questions about sex, and 
Kevin gives her a basic course in sex education:

"Wow. So a guy sees a woman with big boobs -- like Mrs. Howley or Carol -- and 
he gets a boner, and then he sticks it in the girl's... place... and shoots 
his semen in her, and then she gets pregnant and has a baby." She seemed 
amazed.

"Basically, but not all the time. She's got to be fertile. She has to be 
menstruating and at the right time of the month."

Sari nodded emphatically. "Some of the girls in my glass have monthlies. 
That's what they call them. So they could get pregnant?"

The best parts of the story arise from the conversations between the 
brother and sister.  Pretty quickly Sari discovers that she has power 
over Kevin's penis, and soon they begin experimenting.  They learn to 
like it and spend many pleasant hours together as they grow up.

First, let me point out that this is a really good story.  There are 
good reasons why society (and parents) balk at incest.  There really 
are genetic problems that are vastly more likely to occur when brothers 
and sisters have babies together, and so incest taboos have their 
point.  However, this story seemed more like healthy sexual 
experimentation rather than incestuous behavior.  (I would have been 
happier if this well educated young man would have slid a condom onto 
his penis before he inserted it into his sister.  Getting pregnant by 
your father or brother or close cousin is a really bad idea.)

Secondly (and much less seriously), I have some concerns about the 
realism of Kevin's bobbing cock.  I think I am an attractive woman, and 
I teach boys in Kevin's age group.  I don't doubt that they make sexy 
remarks about me in private and that they may even jack off while they 
fantasize about me.  But unless I've gone blind (perhaps from 
masturbating) they don't get raging hard-ons when I talk to them.  Even 
if I assume that I have excessively grandiose opinions of my own 
beauty, I know other teachers and girls who are certainly attractive, 
and the guys (including most of the faculty) manage to engage in social 
intercourse with them without excessive perturbations in their loins.  
My husband (a veritable stud) is definitely capable of talking to 
attractive women without getting a hard-on.  I asked him about this, 
and he assures me that this is because I "take such good care of him."  
(And he says he appreciates this service very much.)  I asked him if 
when he was 16 he could talk to sexy teachers without going into heat.  
He said he could; but then he added that he didn't have me for a 
teacher!  I guess my point is that we're engaging in a little bit of 
exaggeration in this story - and in many of the other a.s.s. stories.  
I think we need to keep that in mind when we consider a story like this 
to be "natural" and "beautiful."

Finally, near the end of the story the author himself gives a good 
reason why big brothers should not have sex with their cute little 
sisters in real life: once you start having hot sex, it's hard to stop.  
And there's all kinds of evidence that little girls who spend their 
time humping little boys don't do as well in school or have adult lives 
and families that are as happy as those of their peers who approach 
sexual intimacy with a little more restraint.  I'm not making this up; 
ask a social worker or school counselor.  These are not objections to 
the story - just comments about its implications in real life.  It's an 
excellent story.  (Rating: 10)

"Steven After Hours" by Backrub (BCKRUB@aol.com).  I strongly urge that 
authors revise their stories when they repost them.  I have reviewed 
something like 175 stories so far, and I think four of them have been 
revised - all by Backrub.  (Backrub even revises *other people's* 
stories! The revisions all earned ratings of 10.  So there's probably a 
lesson in this somewhere.

Here's what I wrote in my review of the unrevised version in Celestial 
Reviews 3: "...at my present level of mature sophistication (yeah!), I 
would *not* be interested in having sex with a person as shallow as 
Steven - a sexy stud with a nine inch cock who thinks he's God's gift 
to women just because he drives them out of their mind with sexual 
ecstasy while he's satisfying his own lusts.  But in our fantasies we 
can excuse a few minor personality flaws.  Seriously, if you're a 
mature person interested in reading about the romantic relationship of 
your dreams, you may not like this story at all.  But if you're looking 
for literate and hot descriptions of oral, vaginal, and anal 
heterosexual activity that make it all sound like a helluva lot of fun, 
this one's for you.  

In the revision Backrub cleaned up a few minor problems in the original 
and added a final section with a bondage theme.  This is the kind of 
bondage that anti-degradation Celeste enjoys: the dominator is simply 
taking charge and the person being bound knows that she's in for a free 
ride if she's just willing to have it in the non-harmful way he wants 
to give it to her.  Another good story! (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.  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 issue's Tip:

RUN-ON SENTENCES.  When you are finished with a sentence, use a period and 
begin a new sentence.  Sometimes this becomes complicated, because many 
sentences contain more than one idea (like this one.)  The easiest way to deal 
with this is to read the sentence and see if it expresses a coherent thought.  
If you are uncertain, turn it into two or more separate sentences.  A specific 
problem is the COMMA SPLICE, which refers to the mistake of joining two 
separate sentences with a comma (rather than a more suitable form of 
punctuation).  For example, this is a comma splice:

      "He sucked her cunt like a madman, she could hardly think straight."

There are really two sentences in this example, and they should be treated as 
such.  The easiest way to correct a comma splice is to insert a period 
(followed by a capital letter) in place of the comma:

      "He sucked her cunt like a madman. She could hardly think straight."

Or it would be possible to add the word "and" after the comma.

      "He sucked her cunt like a madman, and she could hardly think straight."

However, if you use these two strategies too often, you'll sound like Ernest 
Hemingway, who became famous in spite of this simplistic approach.  To convey 
the meaning more accurately, it's often better to rewrite one or the other 
part of the sentence.  This enables you to show the *relationship* between the 
two ideas, as in the following examples:

      "Because he was sucking her cunt like a madman, she could hardly think 
straight."

or

      "He sucked her cunt like a madman, so that she could hardly think 
straight."

The point is that even extremely unsophisticated readers of a.s.s. (Dan 
Qualye or Andy Rooney, perhaps) will get upset at writing that is full 
of comma splices.  They don't care how you solve the problem. Just get 
rid of the splices.
