Celestial Reviews 62 - Feb 17, 1996

Note:  Please do not ask me to send you copies of the stories I review.  
I cannot do it, and I do not have time to respond to everyone who makes 
this request.

Second Note:  The proofreading service is in full operation, and people 
are reporting successful use of it.  At least one of the stories posted 
today has benefited from that process.  If you want someone to read and 
comment on your story before you post it, contact me.  Do NOT send me 
the entire story; I'll assign one or two proofreaders to your story, 
and you can communicate directly with them.


- Celeste

      "Move" by Deirdre (weird sex) 7
      "Patient" by Deirdre (dominance) 7
      "Practice" by Deirdre (dominance) 7
      "Rain" by Damya (romance & passion) 10
      "Intimate with the Vampire 2.0" by Rocket88 (vampire
            sex) 10
      "Country-Western Style" by Unknown Author (music
            & sex) 8
      "A Guest of Celeste" by Ted (sexy tutorial) 10
      "Lips" by Mark Aster (lip fixation) 9
      "Falwelling Tracey" by Mark Aster (satire) 10
      "Pairings" by DJ810 (romance & relationships) 10


"Move" by Deirdre.  This is a _Stepford Wives_ story in the tradition 
of Sherwood Anderson, pursuing the age-old question: "What do men 
_really_ do when there are no women around?"  The first inkling of 
impending doom occurred shortly after the husband accepted the new job: 
he was getting cold feet after he first met his future employers, but 
his wife insisted that he take the job.  The second clue came when the 
wife went for a job interview of her own at the company: the secretary 
simply said that the boss was busy and persistently tried to kiss the 
wife.  The third clue came when the gang from the Welcome Wagon showed 
up, and one of them said, "Isn't she pretty?  This is going to be 
great!"  If we need one more clue, we can find it when Veronica shows 
up on the doorstep, starts unbuttoning the wife's blouse, and says, 
""You'll do just fine!"  With all this going on, it wouldn't surprise 
me if the men were all gathered together in the Board Room having the 
husband give them blow jobs!  (Rating: 7)

"Patient" by Deirdre.  How do some people exercise mind control so 
easily?  Here we have a veteran nurse examining a very sexy woman who 
happens to be wearing nothing but a smile.  After the examination the 
woman says to the novice nurse, "Be at my house tomorrow evening at 
7:30."  Of course, the nurse follows instructions, and the story ends 
with her wearing a skimpy little dress getting ready to take a 
whipping.  How do some people exercise mind control so easily?  
(Rating: 7)

"Practice" by Deirdre.  This is a story about people with "problems."  
Specifically, it starts with a man who has a problem of feeling 
uncomfortable when asked to undress in front of a nurse who happens to 
be his next-door neighbor.  The neighbor is willing to work overtime to 
give him the practice he needs to overcome this problem.  Soon they 
progress to other problems that require KY lubricant and even duct tape 
to overcome.  (Rating: 7)

"Rain" by Damya (an128788@anon.penet.fi).  Damya's postings are almost 
invariably well written, but the passages are often so short (for 
example, "Phantom Lover" and "In the Middle of the Night") that they 
scarcely constitute a complete story.  This one is more complete, 
describing the quiet passion that a couple shares at a stage of life 
when others might have fallen into a routine of taking each other for 
granted.  It is a romantic and highly erotic story.  (Rating: 10)

"Intimate with the Vampire 2.0" by Rocket88 (rick84@ mindspring.com).  
A story like this has two strikes against it when I start reading it.  
Strike one:  I don't like senseless pain as a part of sexual relations.  
Pain and violence are reasonable under the right circumstances; and 
I'll even grant that there are occasions when it can be pleasurable to 
be either the giver or receiver of pain.  However, I think people who 
enjoy being tortured by another person often have serious emotional 
problems.  And so I expect the author of a story that involves pain or 
violence to show me that there is a point to this activity.  Strike 
two:  I don't believe in vampires.  I find "Dracula" so boring that I 
have never watched the entire movie.  I think the notion of vampires is 
generally silly.

Under these circumstances you may be surprised to know that I really 
liked this story.  Strike two evaporated first: lots of things that are 
generally silly can become interesting if I suspend my disbelief and if 
the author does a good job of presenting the story.  That's what 
science fiction is all about.  For that matter, that's what most of 
this newsgroup is about.  My other objection evaporated just as easily: 
sure, there was pain and violence in this story; but it occurred in a 
surrealistic context that seemed to have a point to it.  If I granted 
that there may be preternatural beings that have the power to seduce 
people and steali their souls, then this kind of activity made perfect 
sense.

If the author's goal was to give me nightmares or to make me live in 
fear or anticipation that things like this might happen to me, then he 
has failed (I hope!).  However, if he wanted to entertain me with a 
damned good story, then he has succeeded.  Now, here's my favorite 
part: this story was originally submitted about two months ago.  Here's 
what I said about it in CR 45:

"As I have said before, I am not an aficionado of vampires, werewolves, 
witches, or other preternatural forces.  Nevertheless, I think this story has 
considerable potential - especially for people who understand the ground rules 
of vampires better than I do.  The problem with this story is that it lacks 
even rudimentary proofreading.  The author is obviously intelligent, and so 
he/she attempts to use fairly sophisticated ideas and sentence structures to 
convey his/her plot.  But the mistakes are so glaring as to convince me that 
the author simply doesn't want to spend the time to make the story reader-
friendly.  I mean, does the author really think that it makes sense to "lye" 
in a motionless embrace?  Lye is a chemical that cleans my plumbing.  And then 
near the middle of the story I read these lines: "The fire grew more intense. 
MailFirst....Save As... She said. MailTheres pleasure.Save As... And with out 
another word she opened her mouth and gently covered mine."  This garbled 
writing may be the result of a faulty mailer rather than poor writing skills; 
but it certainly is annoying.  In addition, throughout the story the verbs are 
frequently screwed up.  As I said earlier, the author is obviously 
intelligent; and so he/she sometimes starts using a past perfect tense or the 
subjunctive mood correctly, but then all of a sudden we're in the present 
tense and indicative mood.  There are several instances of misplaced 
modifiers, like this one (which also contains a comma splice): "It was if she 
never used these feet to walk, scented and soft, I put her toes into my mouth 
using my tongue to wet them."  Literally, this sentence means that the guy 
sucking the toes smelled nice and was soft; and I doubt that's what the author 
intended.  A few lines later we hear about "the beating of her hart."  A hart 
is a male deer.    What does the author really mean here: "...my mind soured 
as I clung tightly as the sweat that gummed my body to hers was causing my 
arms to slide."  I think the guy's mind *soared*, but the sentence clearly 
says that it turned sour!  Here's one more that I kinda liked: "My flesh was 
ripped and I needed to explode, I wanted orgasm, I started to beg to her. 
Mailplease dont stopSave As..."  Finally, I think a succubus is a ghostly 
visitor that goes under the person being visited; this critter sounds more 
like an incubus. {Note: I was wrong about this; the author was right. I 
checked.}

"I don't derive sexual satisfaction from making fun of authors' 
mistakes, and I don't mean to give the impression that I want to 
humiliate this author.  For me to say that a vampire story has 
potential means that it *really* has potential.  I myself recently 
spelled "waist" incorrectly in Celestial Reviews (although I was 
actually copying the words of a different writer).  Mistakes happen.  
But when mistakes accumulate, readers get annoyed and wonder why the 
author hasn't gone to the trouble of preparing the text properly.  
Creative ideas are the most important part of a story, and I think this 
story may have creative ideas.  But there's no reason why creative 
ideas cannot be presented more coherently than this.

"It's not just English teachers who get upset at this.  English 
teachers may be the only ones who know why they're upset; but readers 
in general will find this presentation to be annoying.  I urge this 
author and others like him/her to take advantage of my offer to find 
free volunteer proofreaders.  This could possibly have been an 
excellent story if the author would have given it the care it deserves. 
(Rating: 4)"

As you will notice from the title, this author accepted my invitation 
to receive proofreading assistance; and that's why this is labeled 
version 2.0.  There are two major differences between the present and 
the previous version of this story.  First, the grammar and style no 
longer stand in the way; the reader can now react to the ideas of the 
author and can feel the emotions that the author wanted the reader to 
feel.  Second, I don't know this for certain, but I imagine the 
proofreader challenged the author by asking him to clarify some of the 
ideas that originally seemed unclear.

It is important to point out that these improvements are not just 
something that please English teachers.   Ordinary readers - no, I'll 
go further - even borderline imbeciles who themselves communicate only 
by grunting and yanking on their penises would have been mainly 
confused by the original version but will enjoy this story in its 
present format.  If this sounds like an advertisement for my 
proofreading service, so be it!  (Rating: 10)

"Country-Western Style" by Unknown Author.  Isabelle Stiles is a 
rapidly rising country western singer.  Ian Kaehler is a local 
guitarist who hires on for a recording session.  The two hit it off 
sexually after the session.  Although the story needs some more polish, 
the author does a good job of blending the atmosphere of a recording 
studio with an impulsive sexual encounter.  

This story was reposted by The Red Dragon, who posts a large number of 
stories.  You can spot them because the titles are usually all capitals 
and the author is often listed as (***). Many of his stories are posted 
without any indication of who really wrote them.  I don't think it is 
the Red Dragon who strips these stories of their authorship; I think he 
just finds them this way and reposts them. However,  I think it is 
unfortunate that the authors so often cannot get credit for what they 
have written.  (Rating: 8)

"A Guest of Celeste" by Ted (an477638@anon.penet.fi).  Veteran readers 
of these Reviews may recall that in CR 52 I reviewed a story entitled 
"An Ode to Celeste; or, Meeting the Muse" by an author named Ted   The 
premise of that story was that Celeste is an author of a highly 
respected series of reviews for a.s.s. who maintains a cabin in a 
secluded mountain area where she goes to check out possibly fraudulent 
story lines with sexy young men whom she solicits through the Internet.  
A young man named Ted shows up for his appointment with fate and is 
invited to join his predecessor in exchanging pleasures with the 
Grammar Goddess of Usenet.  It was a really hot, well-written story.

Well, Ted is back; and he's in fine fettle - whatever that means.  If 
he's as good in the sack as he is with his word processor, I would bet 
that there's a lucky lady out there somewhere.  The main premise of the 
present story is that Ted has been invited to meet with the REAL 
Celeste; and this time she is giving assistance to a greenhorn author 
named Amy, who needs to make her sex stories more realistic.  Actually, 
Amy is allegedly the author of "A Weekend on the Island" (a very hot 
withSue story to which your humble servant gave a rating of 10 in CR 
44); and so one might be a bit skeptical about her actual need for 
enlightenment.  In short, the story consists of an orgy in the context 
of a writing lesson.  An interesting element is that Ted follows in 
this very story some of the advice that he has Celeste give to her 
student.

To a certain extent, Ted's treatment of Celeste is realistic.  For 
example, she assiduously makes notes on Amy's manuscript and helps her 
develop her writing skills even while Amy is in the process of giving 
head to Ted.  Such scholarly devotion to task is a mark of a true 
teacher, critic, and sex goddess.

On the negative side, the author spelled Deirdre's name wrong.  He 
spelled it Deidre as in Ng, rather than Deirdre as in Sherwood 
Anderson.  I'll skip past his Celestial use of "ain't," which was in 
poor taste.  However, at one point the author has Celeste say, 
"...would you like to read it, so you know where we're at?"  Now, I 
don't mind ending the sentence with a preposition, but I never use the 
expression "where at."  I guess I could use these errors to accuse Ted 
of faulty research, but that would be tantamount to inviting a third 
story.  Actually, that's not a bad idea.  Your research sucks, Ted!  It 
sucks dinosaur dildos!  (Rating: 10)

"Lips" by Mark Aster (MyFrThAl@aol.com).  This is a story about a time 
when the male narrator was completely obsessed by women's mouths and 
lips.  I once had a similar experience myself.  My husband and I had 
been watching a romantic movie, and we started talking about how lips 
could turn us on.  We kinda lost track of the plot, as we demonstrated 
to each other how lips could turn us on.  The next day I was in a 
graduate English class, and you wouldn't believe what the instructor's 
lips did to me!  I still have pleasant associations with Lord Byron.

A major problem with a lip fixation is how do you talk about it?  I 
mean, if I were fixated on your lips and you asked me why I was acting 
strange, I'd have to look in the general direction of your lips in 
order to listen to you; and in order to communicate I would have to use 
my own lips, which I happen to know are capable of making men (and 
probably women) cum just by power of suggestion.  

In the present story, while he's in the throes of lip fixation, the 
narrator meets Rachel at an office party, and her wet and moist lips 
immediately arouse him. Rachel asks him if there's something going on 
that she should know about.  To add to the sexual electricity, her 
tentative smile does not exactly conceal the shape or potential of her 
lips; and I happen to know that when the observer is possessed by this 
problem, the smiler really is wearing nothing but the smile.  The two 
resolve the discomfiture by going to a secluded room and fucking their 
brains out.  In the post-coital afterglow, Rachel comments that while 
she understands his lip obsession, she has been having an identity 
crisis - she hasn't had a male lover for a long time.  The narrator 
tells her not to worry, and he invites her to dinner with the Allen 
sisters, both of whom have great lips and are willing to share them 
with other lips of either gender.  A great time is had by all.  
(Rating: 9)

"Falwelling Tracey" by Mark Aster (MyFrThAl@aol.com).  I've been too 
busy grading papers and writing reviews to download a copy of the 
Communications Decency Act, but I'm pretty sure it's full of popycarp 
anyway.  The author of this story has set out to write a cute little 
tale without using any of the Seven Dirty Words You Can't Say On The 
Net.  Hence, in the title he has replaced the F-word with an even more 
odious but still permissible F-word.  Actually, what the author did was 
write a story that would have been deemed indecent because it contained 
"filthy words," and then he used his word processor to replace each bad 
word with the lowercase name of a prominent politician who can be 
associated with the CDA.

On a serious note, what I don't understand about these legislative 
attempts at censoring the Internet is what do they expect all the 
sexual perverts to do after the law is passed - just stop being 
perverts?  Right now, all the people with these nasty notions can post 
to their hearts content right here on a.s.s and on related newsgroups. 
Like most of you, I have learned to recognize headings that indicate 
really moronic writing, and simply ignore them.  Internet readers have 
to go out of their way to find these perverse postings; and parents can 
use "parental control" type programs to keep their kids away from nasty 
things.  If I were a sex pervert, and somebody tried to close down my 
forum, I think I would react by posting my depraved postings on, say, 
alt.religion.  As Confucius says: Squirrel who runs up woman's leg not 
find nuts.

Anyway, this is by no means a great short story, but it is extremely 
clever humor.  (Rating: 10)

"Pairings" by DJ810 (an446077@anon.penet.fi).  After I read a story, I 
often try to express in one sentence the main idea I got from it.  In 
this case, it would be a long sentence.  Two people can share their 
thoughts and feelings intimately over a long period of time but still 
not actually know the other person, because they filter what the other 
is saying through their own personal experiences and expectations.  
Oddly enough, I remember watching a televised movie with my daughter 
that I summarized to her in almost exactly the same words.  The only 
difference is that the present story uses sexual activities and 
feelings to exemplify this theme, whereas the movie focused on racial 
differences among teenagers.

This story differs from many of the typical a.s.s. stories in that its 
main impact is not to titillate, to propagandize, or to amuse the 
reader, but rather to arouse some serious thoughts about the meanings 
of relationships.  The erotic content (which is actually pretty vivid 
and sexy) is actually the background in this story.  I have no inherent 
objection to titillation, propaganda, or amusement; but I found it 
enjoyable to read a story that made me wonder why apparently decent 
people would act like that.  (Rating: 10)

GRAMMAR TIP OF THE WEEK:  An understandably anonymous reader has submitted the 
following sentence.

      Suitors with cocks less than eight inches in length
         (shall, must, will, would) wait until the others 
         (are, will be, would, were) finished.

He originally wrote this sentence to discuss less/fewer; but he had become 
convinced by the overwhelming power of my reasoning in a previous CR that 
"fewer" would be inappropriate in this sentence.  His remaining question is 
which pair of the words in parentheses should be used to complete the 
sentence?

The answer depends on the purpose of the sentence.  Is it
 - laying down a rule?
 - describing a rule?
 - describing the normal state of affairs?
 - describing a hypothetical state of affairs?

If it is supposed to have the force of an ordinance, I would write
      Suitors with cocks less than eight inches in length
         shall wait until the others are finished.

If it is intended to report "what the law says", then I would choose
      Suitors with cocks less than eight inches in length
         must wait until the others are finished.

If it is intended to what usually happens when the wimps compete with the real 
men, then I would choose
      Suitors with cocks less than eight inches in length
         wait until the others are finished.

If it is intended to suggest that all males are well endowed and to describe 
what would happen in the unlikely event that a wimp showed up, then I would 
choose
      Suitors with cocks less than eight inches in length
         would wait until the others were finished.

