Celestial Reviews 251 - January 21, 1998

Note: It was the first day of school, and the elementary school teacher 
was establishing the fact that she'd take no nonsense from the kiddies 
this year. While taking the roll, she was told by one boy, "My name is 
Johnny Fuckhauer."

So she said, "There'll be none of that kind of thing this year, Johnny; 
tell me your REAL name!"

The kid  said, "No, really teacher, it IS Johnny Fuckhauer. You can go 
across the  hall to fourth grade and ask my brother if you don't believe 
me!"

Not wanting to be subjected to that kind of thing, the teacher went 
across the hall and knocked on the fourth grade classroom door. The 
fourth grade teacher had stepped down the hall to the front office for a 
moment, so she entered the room and directly asked the class, "Do you 
have a Fuckhauer in here?"

"Hell no!" replied a little  kid from the front row; "We don't even get 
a cookie break!"

Second note:  An author named "Gregarious" has lost contact with his 
proofreader, who seems to have moved to a new e-mail address.  If that 
proofreader could please re-establish contact with Gregarious, we would 
appreciate it.

Third note:  You may have noticed that someone has been reposting all of 
deirdre's stories.  I have previously reposted all of my reviews of 
those stories, and I don't feel inclined to do it again - there are 
about 150 of them.  If you are not familiar with deirdre, my advice is 
to read two or three of her stories.  If you like those, you'll like 
them all.  If you hate those, you should skip the rest.

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

- Celeste

      "Soccer Moms" by Mark Aster (casual encounters) 10, 9, 9
      "Johnny Stayed After" by Bymsap (adolescent fantasy) 
            9, 5, 5
      "Tempest" by Emerson Laken-Palmer (father/daughter 
            kiddysex) 8, 5, 3
      "Football Fantasy" by Maura Nelson (gang-bang) 9.5, 9, 8
      "Ginger-with-a-D and the Hunk-and-a-Half" by Erin 
            Halfelven (light bdsm) 8, 8, 8
      "The Visitation" by Lord Malinov (one nighter) 10, 10, 9
      "Janet in Training" by sfmaster (sex slavery) 9, 8, 4
      "Letter to the Staff ..." by Vickie Tern (TG) 10, 9, 8

Guest Reviews: 

      "The Reunion"  by Phil Phantom (dominance & incest) 9, 9, 8
      "The Accident" by William A. Lemieux (sci fi sex) 9, 7, 5
      "Katy" by Greatness (incest & more) 4, 4, 3
      "Letter to the Staff ..." by Vicki Tern (TG) 10, 6, 3
      "After" - by Ero-Tales & Adrian Hunter (sci fi sex)
            9, 9, 8
      "Pentaprism (Chapters 1-3)" by Mary Jorsay Gandmar
            (hot screwing) 8, 10, 10
      "Patricia and Her Son" by R. Wood (incest) 9, 9, 9
      "A Brother's Love" by Stephen Peters (incest) 8.5, 8, 7
      "Inamorata" - by Art Montage (intergenerational sex) 8, 7, 7

Reposted Reviews:

    * "Bird Watchers" by Anonymous (voyeurism & hot 
            romance) 10, 10, 10
    * "Gwen and Wendy - Amateur Astronomers" by 
            Jonathan Dzoba (emerging adolescence) 10, 10, 10
    * "JayCee" by Vickie Tern (transgender femdom) 10, 10, 10

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

"Soccer Moms" by Mark Aster (MyFrThAl@aol.com).  I guess it was 
during the American presidential election campaigns of 1996 that 
the news magazines started using the term "soccer moms" to refer 
to the young mothers who drive station wagons or minivans to 
transport their kids to activities like soccer practice and who 
apparently represented the crucial swing vote at that time in 
American politics.  In this story Mark Aster further explores the 
affairs <g> of the people in this sociological category.

Some of them are very creative people. For example, Wendy Jacobs 
used to bring handi-wipes to clean up after they did it in her 
Subaru twice a week all one summer, Tuesdays and Thursdays behind 
Kiddy City while her son was in karate class. But you don't often 
get soccer moms naked.  Mostly there's just enough time for a 
squeeze and a quick slick coupling, no time for undressing and 
dressing again.

What we have here is brief descriptions of lots of sexy 
encounters.  Kind of like "Hints from Heloise for Suburban Sluts." 
It's really pretty good reading!

Obviously, things like this don't really happen.  Soccer moms 
actually spend most of their time learning the rules of soccer, so 
that they can be more helpful to their children and to the 
officials during the games.  If soccer moms screwed around like 
this, America would have a pitiful presence in world soccer.

Ratings for "Soccer Moms"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 9
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 9

"Johnny Stayed After" by Bymsap (bymsap@aol.com).  Jill Simpson had 
almost been date raped back in high school.  As a result, from that day 
until this, she has been withdrawn - afraid of men and their mindless 
lust, but desperately in need of relief from the tensions her delightful 
body keeps sending her. Now she's a high school English teacher, staying 
after school with Johnny, who can't seem to get his mind on his work - 
primarily because he can't get it off Miss Simpson.  Fortunately, Johnny 
works up his courage and blurts out his love for his teacher.  She 
responds by leading him to the teacher's lounge next door, where they 
fuck gently and beautifully.

This story reminds me of the English teacher who was giving a lesson on 
double negatives.  She pointed out that two negatives make a positive.  
"For example," she said, "'I don't never cuss' really means that I do 
sometimes cuss."  She gave a few more examples, and then a bright young 
girl raised her hand and asked, "If two negatives make a positive, do 
two positive make a negative?"  The teacher replied, "No.  There is 
never a case in the English language when two positives make a 
negative."

"Yeah. Right!" muttered a student in the back of the room.

That's the end of the joke.  See - "yeah" and "right" are both 
positives, but when stated in this way, they evoke a negative 
connotation.

That's what I feel about this story. Yeah. Right.  We're supposed to 
believe that a 23-year-old woman who has been traumatized into sexual 
withdrawal can get over it by copulating with a teenager in the 
teacher's lounge.  Gimme a break!

Once we grant that this is a simplistic adolescent fantasy, I'll also 
grant that it's a pretty good one.  That's what we English scholars call 
"damning with faint praise."  What I mean is that if you are a high 
school boy who lusts after your English teacher, you can use this story 
as a basis for sex fantasies while you jerk off over the picture of her 
that happens to be the centerfold in the magazine you hide under your 
mattress.  Of course, if the preceding sentence describes you, you're 
not supposed to be here in the first place!

Ratings "Johnny Stayed After"
Athena (technical quality): 9
Venus (plot & character): 5
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 5

"Tempest" by Emerson Laken-Palmer (Sxjames@aol.com).  The narrator is 
married to a bitch who has let herself go.  The ole lady just doesn't 
like sex, and the guy isn't going to get any from her.  What's a guy to 
do?  Well, fuck their 14-year-old daughter, of course.  I'm pretty sure 
it says in the Constitution or in the Bible or someplace that a man has 
a right to do this, as long as he's nice and sweet to the little girl.  
For some reason not fully understood by psychologists, daughters who are 
used in this way by their fathers are protected from pregnancy and 
emotional trauma, and they grow up to be sexually vibrant rocket 
scientists or social workers who are particularly adept at spreading 
goodness and kindness throughout the world.  Yeah. Right.

Actually, the guy in this story doesn't do anything as sick as that.  He 
just goes over and stands by her bed and fondles her and sniffs her 
underpants and inserts his fingers into her pussy and then sniffs them.  
Real he-man stuff.

The kid - whose name is Tempie - says, "  "Daddy, don't do this..."; but 
he goes ahead and continues to be nice to her anyway. Then "the anxiety 
in her eyes is replaced by a glaze of sexual lust."  The father feels 
guilty, but hey - rocket scientists make good money.  But still, 
something should be done about this sort of thing.  I say, throw the 
wife in jail!  It's all her fault.

"Goodnight, Daddy," Tempie whispers; "I love you!"  

Imagine that.

The person who posted this story labeled it "intense."  I think the word 
we're looking for here is "insipid."

Ratings "Tempest"
Athena (technical quality): 8
Venus (plot & character): 5
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 3

"Football Fantasy" by Maura Nelson (sexylines@hotmail.com).  There's a 
sub-genre of stories in the a.s.s. newsgroup that could be labeled 
football gang-bang stories.  In most of them the guys gather to watch a 
football game, and the wife entertains them by taking off her clothes 
and getting fucked in every possible orifice.  I guess I'd put this 
story in that sub-genre, even though the man and woman are not yet 
married and even though the television is in a different room.

Norma has been looking for a good man.  She's also looking for a man who 
likes sex as much as she does.  There are two relevant sayings here, 
both attributed to either Mark Twain or Benjamin Disraeli:

(1)  A good man is hard to find, and

(2)  A hard man is good to find.

George is (1) but not (2).  Nevertheless, he has five friends who are 
visiting for the Super Bowl party, and they are willing to cooperate to 
satisfy Norma's needs.

The sex is not exactly poetic, but it's raunchy, which may serve the 
purpose just as well. The usual apertures and orifices get filled; and 
as usual, the boyfriend loves the girlfriend even more after she has 
banged the gang for him.  This is an interesting variation on the 
football gang-bang theme.

Ratings "Football Fantasy"
Athena (technical quality): 9.5
Venus (plot & character): 9
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 8

"Ginger-with-a-D and the Hunk-and-a-Half" by Erin Halfelven 
(erotonomicon@hotmail.com). This story contains a lightbulb joke with a 
wrong answer.  The question is, "How many men does it take to screw in a 
light bulb?"  The right answer is, "Just one.  But you need an awful big 
lightbulb to fit inside with him."  You can read the story for the 
author's answer.

This author has an interesting style.  She should probably upgrade her 
grammar by using more periods and semicolons, but the point I want to 
make here is that she uses //double slashes// to indicate emphasis.  The 
way the author uses these, I can almost here her talking like a 
stereotypical blonde bimbo.  Don't get on my case.  Some of my best 
friends are blondes, but the blonde jokes //are// funny.   For example, 
"Have you ever seen blondes making love on TV?  No, they keep falling 
off."

Anyway, Ginger has //red// hair, and these double slashes work a lot 
better if you switch to Times rather than New York font.  The title had 
me going, because I thought maybe the D was her bra size, but it's 
really her last name - Ginger Rodgers with a D, no relation.

So Ginger is a big girl, and she needs a big man, one of which comes 
into her office at the bank, where everyone ogles her but shows no signs 
of sexual harassment, even though they seem to ask her to get things off 
high shelves more than the average American Bear.  So the guy asks her 
out to lunch, and she takes him to a restaurant with big boobs - er, big 
//booths//.  My mistake regarding the preceding word is understandable, 
since the size of the booth is irrelevant.  They don't fuck until they 
get to his apartment later that evening. It turns out the guy even has a 
big //tongue// for chrissake.  Well, a hard guy is good to find, 
especially a big, hard guy in this case.  So after the preliminary 
orgasms, when he says he'd like to tie her up for the next blowjob, she 
offers to tie //him// up instead.  //Dayem!// Do they have a good time!

This is not really a great work of literature.  I mean it doesn't have 
much of a //plot// or anything like that.  But I really like the tone of 
the story.  It's what my British friends might call //cheeky//.  I 
suspect that this author is going to do something creative {like have 
someone //proofread// her stories or maybe work on the plot a little} 
someday; and then we're going to be treated to some //really// great 
stuff.  However, I've had just about enough of the <<<double slashes>>>.

Ratings "Ginger-with-a-D"
Athena (technical quality): 8
Venus (plot & character): 8
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 8

"The Visitation" by Lord Malinov (malinov@mindless.com).  The 
narrator is left home alone while his more studly roommate spends 
the night out chasing women.  A beautiful woman shows up at the 
apartment door, claiming to be the roommate's sister.  Our Hero 
lets her stay; she comes on to him; then she cums onto him.  She 
goes her way the next morning.  It turns out that the roommate 
doesn't have a sister.

There!  I've told you the plot; but I guessed the ending and still 
enjoyed the story. So will you.

Ratings "The Visitation"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 9

"Janet in Training" by sfmaster (sfmaster@worldnet.att.net). This is a 
novel-length story.  If I am going to set aside enough time to read a 
whole novel, I have to have a reason to want to do so.  Since this story 
was purportedly about sex slavery, I couldn't see an initial 
justification to spend that much time on it; and so I decided I would 
read just the first and last chapters and then decide whether it seemed 
to be worth reading the rest.  I am telling you this because it is 
conceivable that there may have been something in the middle chapters 
that would change my opinion of this story.  However, I wouldn't bet on 
it.

This story is about Janet, whose sex life hasn't been amounting to much 
anyway, and so she has become interested in bondage.  To be specific, 
she has decided to have a fling at becoming the slave of Mistress Erica.  

What we learn from this story is that doms live in great wealth and are 
really generous loving people.  The apparent torture that they impose on 
their subs is for the subs' own good, since punishment is closely 
related to both pleasure and sex.  We also discover that it takes 
patience and training to become a good slave girl, but it's all worth it 
in the end. This story also has the twist of comparing a good mistress 
to a bad mistress. It also includes some additional unusual novelties in 
plot development, which you can discover these for yourself if you 
decide to read this story.

As I read this story, I couldn't help comparing the sex slavery 
portrayed here with American slavery, as it was described in "Roots," in 
"Amistad," and in reputable history books.  If you have read "Gone with 
the Wind" or if you have seen the movie, you know that slavery wasn't 
really so bad in America.  Slaves often loved their masters and 
mistresses, who treated them like their own children; and when slaves 
had a chance to go free, they often preferred to stay with their owners.  
That image of slavery is simply not true.  American slavery really 
sucked, in the worst sense of that word.  

I CAN imagine a world where kindly masters take care of their adult 
underlings and punish them harshly for their own good and where both the 
master and the victim benefit from these transactions.  However, such 
places don't exist in real life.  The simple fact is that nearly all 
sane people vehemently reject slavery and seek freedom at almost any 
cost.

In ante-bellum America, it WOULD have been possible for a slave to view 
a good master as a good thing.  A slave might have believed that Massa' 
Smith was a really great master, because Massa' Smith beat his slaves 
only rarely and with a smaller whip than other masters.  Slaves could 
legitimately perceive that there was no way they were ever going to be 
free or ever be successful at anything if they were freed.  Therefore, a 
person under these circumstances might honestly love his master and even 
decline an opportunity to become free.  It's reasonable to believe that 
some people could have similar perceptions about sexual slavery; and 
such perceptions could form the basis for a good story.  But there needs 
to be a better rationale for this kind of perception than was stated in 
the present story.

Like most authors of this genre, the author of this story would like us 
to believe, I suppose, that there is something different about sexual 
slavery.  I just don't buy it, and there is nothing in this story that 
makes me change my mind.

I don't know what it is that makes people believe that sexual slavery 
differs in fundamental principles from other forms of brutalization.  
Sure, sexual mistreatment may involve physiological reactions that are 
normally associated with pleasure, but the overwhelming reaction of 
normal people to rape is hatred toward the rapist - not gratitude for a 
good fuck.  What is the logic of assuming that sex slavery would be 
different?  People whom I have personally known who have been used and 
abused sexually have invariably either (1) eagerly sought their freedom 
or (2) developed severe emotional dysfunctions.  {Note that the 
preceding sentence does not refer to all bdsm - just to sexual slavery 
as it is described in stories like this one.}

I can even imagine deriving pleasure from engaging in bondage on a 
temporary basis.  I mean, if I can enjoy a movie like "Schindler's 
List," why can't I enjoy playing the role of a pitifully subservient 
creature - especially if the situation were structured so that I could 
play the role well?  But this story is not about role playing.  It's 
about a permanent change of lifestyle in which trust is defined as 
letting another person use the slave for her own gratification.  Nor 
does this story give me an effective gateway through which I can enjoy 
an unusual fantasy.  It's just plain contrary to common sense that a 
person would find authentic fulfillment under those circumstances, and 
the story does nothing to overcome my predisposition to feel this way.

I DO believe that there can be a wonderful charge in subordinating 
myself to the control of another person who will take care of me, 
perhaps even by inducing me to do things that are initially contrary to 
my will but will be good for me in the long run.  However, that does not 
include submitting myself to the domination of a capricious master or 
mistress who will use me to enhance her own personal gratification.

In short, if you are a person who already buys into the notion that sex 
slavery is one of the greatest of all possible lifestyles, then this 
story is likely to be one that you'll enjoy.  This story does a good job 
of implementing the ritualistic beliefs of sex slavery advocates. On the 
other hand, if you are a person who is skeptical or even non-judgmental 
about sex slavery, I doubt that this will either convert you or even 
appear to be a very interesting story.  It came across to me as a sort 
of adolescent fairy tale: wouldn't it be great if we could dominate 
people and make them our sexual playthings and have them enjoy it every 
bit as much as we do?  Actually, my answer to that question is, "No, not 
especially."

I HAVE read bdsm and sex slavery stories to which I have given high 
ratings.  Examples include "Owning Corey" by Don Boettger, "Birthday 
Present" by OddManOut Anywhere, and "Box Office" by Cobalt Jade, as well 
as "Chosen" and "Deck" by Tom Bombadil.  Each of these stories 
challenged me by asking me to do something other than blindly accept the 
notion that sex slavery can be fun.

In case you're wondering - no, I did not read the rest of this novel.  
It seems to be a simplistic sex slavery story based on the usual 
formulations, and I can find better things to do with my time.

Let me conclude by saying that I do NOT consider the author of this 
story to be a misguided pervert.  I'll bet he doesn't even own a 
dungeon!  My assumption is that he would like to write better stories, 
and the detailed discussion that I have supplied here may help him or 
other authors in their efforts.

Ratings "Janet in Training"
Athena (technical quality): 9
Venus (plot & character): 8
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 4

"Letter to the Staff ..." by Vickie Tern (VickiTern@aol.com).  I 
sent this story to Fiddler for guest review; and when his ratings 
came back negative, I decided to take a look at this story myself.  
The main question in my mind was: Are the low ratings warranted?  
The answer is yes and no.

I am not going to restate a summary of the plot here.  For a 
slightly sardonic summary, see Fiddler's review later in this 
issue.

Fiddler uses one of my favorite tests for stories that are 
potentially "in-group" material: does the story make good sense to 
a person who is not a member of that in-group?  In the preceding 
review I rejected as a bad story a sex-slavery story because it 
just didn't ring true to me as a non-sex-slaver.  There are people 
who think that sex slavery stories are really great, but I am not 
a member of that in-group.  That story may appeal to those people, 
but if the author is writing for a larger audience, I think that 
story falls short.  Fiddler is saying the same thing here.  There 
are people who thrive on transgender stories, but he is not one of 
them.  He says that this story may appeal to TG people, but not to 
him.

I see Fiddler's point, but I myself am not a TG groupie.  I think 
the very notion that a person can change sex really quickly and 
easily is a stretch of the imagination.  But if I grant the 
possibility that hormonal treatments and behavior modification are 
considerably more effective than I have found them to be in my 
personal experience, then the story IS logically sound.  In short, 
I am willing to say that this is a pretty good story both for in-
group and out-group readers.  I guess the difference between 
Fiddler and me lies in the ease with which we grant this 
possibility.

This is not one of this author's best efforts.  I think the format 
has something to do with this shortcoming: the author functions 
better in beauty shops than in memos.

One reason I have added my own review in addition to the guest 
review is to emphasize the subjective nature of these ratings.  I 
think Fiddler and I are both intelligent readers and reviewers, 
but we diverge sharply in our evaluations of this story.  But note 
that the main divergence is in the NUMERICAL ratings.  If you read 
our narratives, you will see that Fiddler and I are giving very 
similar advice with regard to this story.

Ratings "Letter to the Staff ..."
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 9
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 8

"The Reunion" by Phil Phantom (slutmissy@hotmail.com). Guest review by 
Wherryman.

Twenty years after they left school Jenny and Arnold and their teenage 
children are visited by an old school friend. Brent had been Jenny's 
boyfriend but dropped out to join the army.  Arnold stepped in, and he 
married Jenny soon after.  All Brent got was a 'Dear John' letter.  
Since Brent had been the school bully and had been very dominant in his 
very sexual relationship with Jenny, it is a visit they have been 
dreading. 

In the main I enjoyed the ensuing tale of Brent's take-over and sexual 
domination of the whole family.  It's told well, characters are fleshed 
out and have motives, and the sex doesn't just take over as it sometimes 
does in m+f+ situations.

My grammar checker threw up a few "sexist phrase" warnings, but in 
a.s.s.m what do you expect? Other mistakes were minor and certainly 
didn't interfere with the story.

My reservations are purely personal.  I don't have trouble with the 
incest or teen sex aspects - but I didn't like the threat of violence 
that pervades the story.  It's entirely necessary, and it's to the 
author's credit that it's there, just not to my taste.

I've not come across Phil Phantom's stories before; so I have no idea 
how typical this theme is.  I'll be interested in seeing other Phantom 
reviews myself, since I now have several stories in my possibly-to-be-
read folder.

Rating for "The Reunion"
Technical merit 9
Plot & character 9
Appeal to reviewer 8

"The Accident" by William A. Lemieux (Reposted by Ole Joe).  Guest 
review by BillyG.

"The Accident" is a long, often tedious story that has little to do with 
eroticism.  First, I suppose, it's a science fiction story with BDSM 
elements, specifically, fetish wear.  Oh, there are brief and limited  
descriptions of sexual activity, but they're rendered with the same lack 
of passion and eroticism as is say, the account of the accident that 
altered their physiology and consequently their lives, never to 
normalize.

For those who are fans of bondage and fetish wear, specifically total 
body latex, there may be an appeal.  Too, for those who find it easy to 
make the science fiction leap of acceptance of improbable, even 
impossible plot lines, there may exist a significant mine of enjoyment 
in the nearly 20,000 words of first-person story telling.  That was not 
the case for me.

The husband-wife protagonists in "The Accident" come across as largely 
featureless.  The story's plot is best described as a series of science-
fiction situations while the ending of the story has the feel of that 
place where the author became bored and stopped.  I didn't last as long 
and was reduced to skimming just to see if it ever went anywhere.  It 
did.  From bad to worse.

This is not to imply that science fiction story about bondage can't be 
erotic. One has only to read the classic "Shapeshifter" to appreciate 
the substantive eroticism that can be brought to the genera.  However, 
this story doesn't make it.

Ratings for "The Accident
Athena (technical quality): 9     A spell checker would have helped.
Venus (plot & character): 7      
BillyG (appeal to reviewer): 5

"Katy" by Greatness (great@3-cities.com). Guest review by Anne747 
(Anon747@aol.com).

I almost told Celeste I didn't want to review this piece.  First the 
ages of the characters are a little out of my comfort zone (I prefer my 
characters probably 21+, okay with 18+, marginal with 16+).  One of the 
girls in this piece is 15.  So first, along with the self coded intro of 
`f/exhib, f/mas f/vacuum' it should include teen.  Also, incest and 
spanking would likely be appropriate too, since at one point daddy 
spanks our main character to orgasm.

Putting personal preferences aside, I thought I could probably still 
review it with some detachment.  I was wrong.  However, not for the 
reasons most people think.  First, let me say, if the author's first 
language is not English some of the following does not apply.  It takes 
great commitment to write a piece in a language you don't have a 
complete grasp of.  However, having said that, it wouldn't hurt to have 
someone who knows more than you to proofread it.  If you are looking for 
an English speaking audience, you need to clean up the story.

Personal opinion though is that this piece has been written by a high 
school student who frankly needs to spend more time in school than 
online.  The story is filled with pieces like the following:

"I picked a cutest guy and pulling him onto the dance floor."
"The reach out and tried to catch me."
"I new what had happened, but I pretended not to notice."
"The song stop and the stood there, with my breasts hunging out and 
sweating running down between them."

And the above lines were in the first page.  I honestly can't give you 
an opinion on the `heat' of the piece because it is close to impossible 
to read.  Some of the lines just don't make sense.  I tried my best to 
find something good to say about the piece.  I don't know, thinking it 
was maybe written by a teenage boy (regardless of the introduction), 
maybe other teenage boys would get a kick out of it.  I'm not sure that 
the story would even hold up if the obvious errors were removed, it just 
reads poorly.

Ratings for "Katy"
I'm going to cop out and not give any
Ratings from Celeste for "Katy"
Athena (technical quality): 4
Venus (plot & character): 4
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 3

"Letter to the Staff ..." by Vickie Tern (vickietern@aol.com). Guest 
review by Fiddler.  

Andy and Kate are housemates and bedmates.  Andy has even proposed to 
Kate.  Then she discovers his fetish of wanting to be a sissy-slave.  
Will the discovery destroy their relationship?  It will certainly 
destroy _that_ relationship.

She demands that he submit to her and allow her to do whatever she wants 
with him.  When he agrees, she shoots him with two hypodermic loads of 
material that she happens to have around the house from her job as a 
nurse.  One tranquilizes him, and the other is a potent load of 
estrogen.  When he wakes up, the weekend has passed, he has new breast 
implants, and his feminization is well on the road.  Exit Kate's 
boyfriend Andy, enter Ms. Katherine's sluttish slave Annie.

Right here, we run into the problem of a general review system for this 
newsgroup.  It may well be that this is a masterpiece within the rules 
of TG stories;  I wouldn't know.  It is certainly written well on the 
grammatical level.  It does nothing, however, to persuade an outsider.

There is the slightest hint at the end of the story that this 
transformation might have been plotted beforehand, but nothing to 
suggest how the dominants have selected their submissive.  We are told 
that Andy had always dreamed of this form of submission, but also that 
he entered the weekend thinking that it would be a weekend game.  He had 
not expected the breasts, much less that his genitals would be rendered 
inoperative.
 
This story is strictly for those who have internalized the premise.  Of 
course, every woman wants a sissy-slave and every man wants to be one;  
so there is no need to explain the coincidence of these two with the 
matching desires getting together on another basis.  There is no need to 
deal with the question of a malpractice suit, since everyone knows Andy 
will come to just love it before he can find the listing for lawyers in 
the Yellow Pages.

The reader must swallow more than the premise, however.  My last review 
was of an afternoon penile implant, after which the man went cruising 
intending to use it that night;  but it was _meant_ to be funny.  Andy 
spends one weekend doped up and awakens the following Monday with a 
breast implant, more sensitive nipples, and virtually no pain.  I doubt 
that Vickie Tern has had surgery.

This one is meant for the true believers.

Ratings for "Letter to the Staff ..."
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 6
Fiddler (appeal to this reviewer): 3

"After" - by Ero-Tales with additional material by Adrian Hunter ().  
Guest review by Kim.

Before I start I would like to say that if anybody wishes to say 
anything unpleasant about my reviews then kindly direct them to me at 
Ghost@nym.alias.net and not harangue Celeste. She doesn't need or 
deserve hostile treatment for something she didn't write, ok!

Well, here we have long and unusual story. It's not so much a sex story 
as a conventional story with sex scenes in it. The majority of it was 
written by Ero-Tales who left it as an unfinished work that Adrian 
Hunter liked so much he felt obliged to add a concluding chapter. It's 
also a Sci-Fi story set in the reasonably near future. A future 
recognizable from many present day conventions and realities, but with a 
slightly more advanced technology such as flying cars powered by super 
powerful, yet small and lightweight batteries. You still with me, after 
what must be the most boring intro to a review ever written? <sigh>.

Anyway, a nuclear missile exchange has just happened and our hero, 
David, staggers out of the rubble wearing only his boxers and having 
been saved by a pool table. Wandering about the destruction that had 
been his city he happens across a poor woman, Wendy, trapped under some 
rubble. To complicate matters, she had been indulging in some bondage 
with her now squished boyfriend, and is hog-tied and gagged with chains 
(ouch!) and stark naked. With some struggling he frees her and she and 
David set out to survive in the post apocalyptic wasteland that North 
America has now become.

It's obviously just not a very good day for the couple, as all sorts of 
trials and tribulations befall them before journey's end.

Well... as a piece of story telling it's not at all bad really. At times 
I wished the plot would move on a bit faster. The author goes to town on 
some vivid set pieces but I kept thinking "Oh for God's sake get on with 
it will ya!". Which I should add I was talking to the characters, so if 
and author can suspend my disbelief to that extent then s/he ain't doing 
a bad job!

Sure it's easy to nitpick the highly unlikely plot elements, I mean a 
nuclear war between Canada and the USA hardly seems likely now does it 
<smile>. And gagging Wendy for the entire length of the story just seems 
a good way of avoiding having to write any convincing dialog. As a final 
letdown, I think Adrian added reasonably well to the story up until a 
particularly silly final exchange between Wendy and David. If I were 
Ero-Tales I wouldn't be best pleased, but hell, maybe it's what s/he 
would've liked, who knows? <shrug>.

Bottom line: I liked it a lot, but it had some silly things in it, and 
the sex could best be described as superfluous. It will be interesting 
to see if Ero-Tales ever returns to finish it her/his way. This was an 
enjoyable way to spend an hour or so.

Ratings for "After"
Athena (technical quality): 9 (Very good, maybe should be a ten?)
Venus (plot & character): 9 (Set pieces unbalanced the main
      narrative)
Kim (appeal to reviewer): 8 (Not bad as an "end of the world" story.
       Zero arousal though.)

"Pentaprism (Chapters 1-3)" by Mary Jorsay Gandmar 
(maryjg@finebody.com). Guest review by Mark Aster.

A five-sided prism, five images, each a little different, but 
essentially the same.  She is a young upper-class woman in India, firm-
bodied, breasts pendulous, cunt dripping, lips smiling, face in ecstasy, 
the gold chain around her neck slithering over her rich brown skin as 
her servant fucks her energetically from behind.  They do it again and 
again, in all positions, all orifices, and they whisper and shout tender 
filth to each other as they fuck for hours.  "Do it to me," she wails, 
"fuck me like a whore!"

This is pure stroke-stuff.  I've read only three of the chapters, but I 
assume from the title that there are five. In the first we see Anuja as 
a grown and married woman, being fucked repeatedly by the servant 
Bharat.  Some video cameras and her mysteriously-aloof husband are also 
involved. In the other two, she is young and unmarried, first showing 
off her young body in some wonderful masturbation while the servant 
Baban watches through the keyhole, and then inviting him to deflower 
her, and finally fucking four of his friends more or less 
simultaneously.  She is the classic insatiably lustful woman, a standard 
dish on the porn menu, and either a tool of patriarchal domination or a 
symbol of woman's essentially uncontrollable and free sexual nature, 
depending on your politics.

The "pentaprism" idea is interesting (I'm inferring the idea from the 
title and the layout of the stories; I haven't read anything directly 
from the author about it).  In a way it's fun, and very sexy, to see 
this woman's devouring sexuality from five slightly different angles.  
On the other hand the angles are perhaps not different enough: we see 
that chain rocking at least five times, which is not a bad image, but we 
also get told about the kajal around her eyes three times, we see a cock 
described as "ramming and reaming" three times, we read the adverb 
"erotically" TEN times, see "spoot" used to refer to semen five times, 
four different penises which are such-and-such "inches long, and 
correspondingly thick", and a number of similar repetitions.

But that's probably beside the point for all but the most analytical of 
critiquers.  This is porn, people fucking, orifices penetrated and 
people cursing and screaming as they come over and over again.  A young 
woman masturbating by fucking the smooth wooden knob on her bedpost.  
Bodily fluids all over the place.  Lots of sex.  Very hot screwing, just 
enough plot to hold it all together, and sufficiently well written that 
it's mostly a smooth and easy read (although the one really bad typo, 
"her cock", really MUST be fixed!).  Prime masturbation material for het 
males at the very least.  If the "pentaprism" idea is carried out to the 
full five faces, and some of the more mundane repetition removed in 
favor of more shifting reflections, this will be a most memorable piece 
of erotica: a stroke-story that is also an elegant little carving, neat 
as the smooth wood that Anuja hungrily anoints with her hot inner 
juices.

Athena: 8 (nice language, some sparkling, some repetitious)
Venus: 10 (sizzling sex, just enough plot)
Mark: 10 (yum!)

"Patricia and Her Son" by R. Wood. Guest review by James.

This is an excellent story of incest between Andy and his shapely and 
rather innocent 41-year-old mother, Patricia. Well timed but non 
intrusive interruptions from Karl, Patricia's work-occupied husband, 
also feature.

The story has a laid back, devious, sense of humor. It also features 
multi-perspective interaction among the three characters and enjoyable 
descriptions of female clothing and figure.

For me, this story has only minor failings. I felt Patricia's seduction 
to be over too quickly, and it was not physically complete. I would have 
liked more dominance and control. Even though the story takes about 40 
minutes to read, it was over too quickly.

Ratings for "Patricia and Her Son"
Technical Merit: 9
Plot & Character: 9
Appeal to Reviewer: 9

"A Brother's Love by Stephen Peters (SxJames@aol.com).  Guest review by 
BillyG.

There's a certain grimness, a compelling and frightening reality to the 
forces that are unleashed in an alcoholic household.  All too often 
they're the elephant in the living room about which everyone steps in 
unthinking denial.  It's an oft-repeated story.  Dad loses his job as an 
engineer in an aerospace company when NASA downsizes and is unable to 
find another.  The treatment for failure and depression?  Booze.  Dad 
becomes a drunk.

After six months of Dad's dysfunction, mom has left, and Dad turns to 
his 16-year-old daughter Jamie for comfort.  An apparent drunken rape-
in-progress is interrupted by her "big brother" David who then stays 
that night and several more, comforting sister in her understandable 
dread.

The title of this story may give you a clue as to the subsequent plot 
line.  Eventually David wakes up with a hard-on and what else can he do?  
He jerks off.  Jamie sees him and becomes interested.  They talk about 
masturbation and quickly move into see-one, do-one.  David goes down on 
Jamie and she loves it!  Thereafter, she's the aggressive one.  She 
wants what she wants and lets David know it.  He capitulates. (What 
else?)  

The story's a bit scattered and disjointed and the ending has the flavor 
of a story a chapter short.  Indeed, there's a hint that it may be 
continued.  It almost makes it as an erotic story but there's a certain 
cookbook formula to it that, coupled with a jagged plot line, leaves me 
a little disappointed.  

Still, the father's drunkenness aside, it's a sweet little vignette 
that's several notches above a non-consensual, brother-abuses-sister 
incest story.

Ratings for "A Brother's Love"
Athena (technical quality): 8.5
Venus (plot & character): 8
BillyG (appeal to reviewer): 7
 
"Inamorata" - by Art Montage (from Gem*Boy <gemboy@hotmail.com>).  Guest 
review by Kim.

This is a relatively short story of intergenerational sex. Our lead, Mr. 
Salzburg, is a fifty something year old who comes home one day to find 
his son's eighteen year old ex-girlfriend waiting for him in the 
driveway of his house. Uh-huh, hands up anyone who can tell me where 
this is gonna lead? Yep, and you'd be right too.

It seems that the son, Dale, has gone of to the city and has left the 
homely Mora behind, their four year old romance having come to an end.

Distraught at the split, Mora comes to quiz the father about why Dale 
might have dumped her. She can't understand because hell, hadn't they 
screwed often enough, etc. And as if to prove the point that she knows 
her way around a male body, she proceeds to seduce Mr. Salzburg senior.

Putting up a spirited defense initially, the divorced Mr. Salzburg 
overcomes his reticence and is soon filling Mora's mouth and pussy with 
cum. And then it stops...

So, as a story it fails on the grounds that no explanation is offered 
for Mora's behavior, or what if anything was the result of this 
unexpected union. We'll never know if Mora and dad Salzburg lived 
happily ever after, or if Dale returned and picked up with Mora again, 
or what.

As a description of a pleasant way to spend an hour between two adults, 
albeit they're thirty five year apart, this story pleasing enough, I 
suppose. But with zero originality, zero explanation of character 
motive, or even any sort of conclusion, I can't say it did a lot for me.

The writing is pretty good, but a few typos were still evident, as was 
some loose English that a proof reader might have been able to 
eliminate. Still, none of it was bad enough to detract from the flow of 
the piece, which was generally good.

Now if Art had managed to explain quite why Mora would throw herself at 
Mr. Salzburg and what happened afterward, then I would have liked it a 
whole lot more. Playing word games with the title (a female lover) isn't 
really enough.

Ratings for "Inamorata"
Athena (technical quality): 8 (slightly sloppy, better proofing 
      would have helped)
Venus (plot & character): 7 (Characters were well drawn but 
      motiveless)
Kim (appeal to reviewer): 7 (Sex was ok, but not very exciting 
      or meaningful)

* "Bird Watchers" by Anonymous.  I originally reviewed this story 
back in CR 53 as by Unknown Author.  The present version also has no 
author's name.  However, somewhere in between I have come to the 
conclusion that it was written by Anonymous.  However, as far as I 
know, Anonymous may be Italian or Portuguese for Unknown Author.

This story is about a man and a woman who accidentally view each other 
in moments of private sexual arousal (i.e., masturbation).  Even though 
the man uses his binoculars to zoom in for detail, he doesn't consider 
this to be an invasion of her privacy.  {He differentiates between being 
a Peeping Tom and voyeurism of opportunity.}  In fact, as a friendly 
gesture he sends her a gift: a pair of binoculars with a note reading 
"from one bird lover to another."  The voyeurism is itself very sexy, 
and the direct sexual contact is even hotter.  I strongly recommend this 
story.

A problem with this posting is that if I have no idea who the author is, 
I can't read more stories by this writer.  I find that a lot of people 
who repost stories from their archives remove the names of the authors; 
and it's hard to tell who really wrote them.  This one bears a closer 
resemblance to the Sue-Backrub-Ng school of authors than to the Deirdre-
Anderson or Victorian schools.  I'm pretty sure it was not written by 
either the Dirty Dawg, Shakespeare, or Francis Bacon.  It's really hot 
sex with good character development and twists of plot.  The author is 
especially adept at viewing the action from the perspectives of 
different characters and using flashbacks to add excitement to current 
situations.  I know the year is just beginning, but this is a good 
candidate for story of the year.  So if someone knows who the real 
author is, please let me know.  

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

* "Gwen and Wendy - Amateur Astronomers" by Jonathan Dzoba.  The 
heroines are high school seniors who go to a cabin on a lake to 
study the stars together for a week.  On the first night out one 
of them lowers her scope to the cabin across the lake, where a 
young woman is fucking the brains out of her young lover.  This 
erotic scene stimulates Gwen and Wendy to mutually explore each 
other's bodies.  The next day the man and woman come over for a 
visit.  Wendy goes for a walk and serious talk with Alisa, while 
Gwen stays behind and eventually has sex with Jack.  Later, Jack 
fucks Wendy too. The sex is hot, realistic, and sensitive.  

What I liked most about the story is that the girls didn't go to 
the cabin just to have sex; it simply happened as a normal part of 
their friendship and adolescence.  It would be ideal to get laid 
by a guy for some reason other than to stop being a virgin; but 
life doesn't always work that way, and this story does a good job 
of representing reality in a relatively pleasant manner.

How does a person with a name like Jonathan Dzoba know so much about the 
emerging sexual feelings of young girls?  After I wrote that sentence, 
it occurred to me that I had written the same sentence six months ago - 
in a review of "Susan and Becky" by this same author

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

* "JayCee" by Vickie Tern (VickieTern@AOL.COM).  When she was very 
young, JayCee had wished she were a boy, because boys had all the fun; 
but as she grew into adolescence she discovered that girls had it made, 
because they could get boys to worship them and do almost anything to 
please them.  This is a restatement of the basic femdom philosophy that 
pervades most of this author's stories, including this one.

This story has several fascinating subplots, but the main plot involves 
the next-door neighbor Jane, who is turning her son Marion into a girl, 
who will eventually become Marianne.  This is the sort of thing that 
inspires JayCee, and she becomes an eager co-conspirator. JayCee gets 
paid for her assistance, and Marianne even likes it.  As I read this 
story, I felt that it was a good one; but what was missing was the 
element of surprise that Vickie Tern always includes in her stories.  
This one was simply about a boy who wanted to become a girl and who did, 
in the end, become a stunningly beautiful and sexy girl.  Surprise!  
That's not the way it turns out after all.

This week's issue of Time Magazine includes a transgender article 
entitled "The Boy Without a Penis."  It describes a boy whose penis 
became mangled at a very young age, and so his parents had him 
surgically altered and made a serious attempt to raise him as a girl.  
It turns out that this strategy was disastrously ineffective: the guy 
eventually had another operation and is now a happily married man 
raising a family of adopted children.  One conclusion would be to say 
that this factual article suggests that stories like the present one are 
merely exercises in fantasy - that it is highly improbable that gender 
can be altered as easily as many TG stories suggest.  Of course, the 
other conclusion would be that the people who attempted the real-life 
transformation should have read some of these TG stories first, so that 
they could have done it right!

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


