Celestial Reviews 182 - May 17, 1997

Note:  One of the most frequent and valid criticisms of my reviews is 
that I give too many high ratings.  During one particularly good streak 
I gave 42 out of 100 stories straight 10's.  If my goal were to give you 
a way to find the absolutely best stories, this method would be 
extremely ineffective.

Some people explain my high ratings by saying that I am "too nice."  I 
think the better explanation is that I am looking for certain 
characteristics and a very large number of stories that catch my 
attention possess these qualities.  Indeed, since I go out of my way to 
find stories with these characteristics, it's not surprising that I find 
a lot of stories that receive a disproportionate number of positive 
ratings.

If you want to learn something about a story, I urge you to read the 
entire review instead of just looking at the ratings.  The narrative 
commentary is likely to help you decide whether you will like a story. 
But keep in mind that if you read a story with high ratings, you are 
likely to find that it's a good story.  

Please also keep in mind that I am NOT trying to be a grammar elitist.  
I do NOT believe that the person with the most perfect grammar is the 
best author; if I did, I would like Henry James a lot more than I do.  
Some critics have suggested that I should ignore grammar.  That's 
nonsense.  If the way a person writes makes it difficult to understand a 
story, ANYBODY (not just an English teacher) will be annoyed by that 
kind of grammar.  Likewise, if a person writes in such a way as to make 
it easy or fun to follow a story, ANYBODY (not just an English teacher) 
will appreciate that style.  If people make occasional grammar mistakes, 
I do not "dock" them points, even if I mention the errors for the 
amusement or edification of my readers.  

Second Note:  I was shocked!  You know how in the comics they use "Zzzz" 
to indicate that a person is snoring?  If you have Microsoft Word, type 
those letters and then run a spellcheck.  See what Mr. Gates offers as a 
suggestion!

Third Note:  Remember the Third Annual Celestial Writing Contest.  The 
rules are that the story must in some way be about sex and must be 
restricted to 500 words or less.  In addition, the story should include 
some sort of unusual twist - like the unexpected self-revelation Robert 
Browning's poem "My Last Duchess" or the surprise endings in several of 
Vickie Tern's "Teasers" or Deirdre's stories.  If you wish, you can 
submit several super-short stories together (as Vickie Tern has now done 
on two occasions), or you can post them separately under separate 
titles.  However, I'll give first prize to the best STORY, not to the 
best collection.  The deadline for submissions will be June 3, which my 
calendar tells me is the date on which the Catholic Church will 
celebrate the feast of St. Charles Lwanga and his companions. 

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

- Celeste

      "May" by Eli the Bearded (work break) 9.5, 10, 10
      "The Truth May be Hard to Swallow" by Renae Nicks (oral sex)
            10, 9, 9
      "Graham" by Ruthless (pedophile) 9, 10, 10
      "Rejected Again by Penthouse Magazine" by OddManOut (humor)
            10, 9, 9
      "Women Are Stupid" by Mike Hunt (pickup system)
            10, 10, 10
      "HypnoTV: Friends" by MAW (sitcom parody with mind control)
            10, 8, 6
      "At the Doctor's Office" by Frank McCoy (bizarre medical exam)
            9, 6, 6
      "memory of techno man" by Sweet Guy (mindless drivel) 1, 1, 1
      "Three's Company: ... All Cats Are Gray" by Uncle Mike (sitcom 
            parody) 10, 9, 9
      "My Dream" by Anne Bingham (erotic dreams) 9, 8, 9
    * "Caitlin's Tale" by Lysander (medieval romance) 10, 8, 8
    * "Summer Dreams" by Lysander (romance) 10, 10, 10
    * "Night of the Wolves" by Lysander (bestiality) 10, 9.5, 10
    * "Droit du Signeur" by Lysander (history & romance) 10, 8, 10

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

"May" by Eli the Bearded (usenet-tag@qz.little-neck.ny.us).  The man has 
been working too hard late at night, when the woman (May) arrives and 
takes him outside into the darkness for a quickie on a blanket in a 
grove of trees.  This is very sexy stuff - the sort of things Robert 
Frost skipped when he told us about New England.

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

"The Truth May be Hard to Swallow" by Renae Nicks (RenaeNicks@aol.com).  
Have you ever had that argument that begins, "Honey, what could I do to 
make sex better for you?"  Usually, it doesn't start as an argument, and 
the partner usually has the sense to respond with, "You do everything 
just fine."  When I want to avoid the issue, my usual line is, "Just 
keep doing what you're doing."  If it ain't broke, don't fix it.  
However, in this story the woman persists with her loving interrogation, 
and the guy finally says that "it would be nice if she would let him 
come in her mouth." But then he adds, "Of course, I don't think you 
should.  I mean, that's just too much to ask."  In fact, he honestly 
admits that if she were shooting the spermatozoa, he will not much like 
to swallow it himself.

Well, the truth may be hard to swallow, but she decides to take a shot 
at it, so to speak.  She discovers that she likes it just fine, and the 
next day she enjoys sex with her lover in her parents' kitchen.  The 
descriptions of sex are vivid and hot.

Incidentally, my husband and I have had this conversation and have 
enacted this sequence pretty much as described in this story.  I think 
it's important to realize that people vary widely in what they really 
want.  Our experience was that swallowing was over-rated; the sucking 
and tongue action that leads up to the cumshot is great for both of us, 
and so is the release of tension when he comes; but for us swallowing is 
simply not necessary and is likely to interfere.  Sometimes.

Ratings for "The Truth May be Hard to Swallow"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10

"Graham" by Ruthless (ruthless@nbnet.nb.ca).  The guy has been hired by 
the father to kill the young boy. The motivation is child support 
payments.  The father is a simple, rich asshole who would rather have 
the kid dead than keep paying for his support.  The murderer - a decent 
chap, I suppose, as murderers go - offers to throw in the sexual torture 
as a means of throwing the police off the father's trail. The kidnapper 
snatches the boy from his boarding school and takes him to a secluded 
cabin.  Some things turned out the way I expected; some didn't.

This is NOT a sexy story - at least I did not get turned on reading it; 
but it was a pretty GOOD story.  It WAS repulsive, but only because the 
kidnapper was a repulsive person.  In fact, this is a probably a 
realistic description of a complex, repulsive person who both likes and 
hates prepubescent boys.

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

"Rejected Again by Penthouse Magazine" by OddManOut 
(oddman0ut@hotmail.com).  Last issue I reviewed a similar posting by 
this author.  This is another satire of the letters published in that 
popular literary magazine co-founded by Oliver Wendell Holmes and Emily 
Dickinson, where the latter published her posthumous poem:

I'm cumming! How about you?
Are you cumming too?
That makes three of us.
Don't tell anyone.
They'll make us leave the library, you know.

How dreary to be a virgin.
How horny like a steamboat
That never stopped for sex.

The author does an excellent job of using convoluted metaphors and trite 
cliches to express an improbable sexual fantasy which he supposedly 
wants to pass off as a true story.  Here's a sample of the peerless 
prose found in this story: "Diving between her legs, I licked her clit 
like it was a tic-tac caught in a vice of flesh.  It wasn't long before 
I had Layla arching her back and calling for her ex-boyfriend."

This story also includes one of the few really vivid descriptions of 
nasal sex that I have ever read.

Ratings for "Rejected Again by Penthouse Magazine"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 9
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 9

"Women Are Stupid" by Mike Hunt (M1KE HUNT@aol.com).  The title sounds a 
bit controversial.  Let me ruin it for you: the title refers to the 
empirical phenomenon that women are stupid enough to have sex with a 
dumb fuck like the author without seeking appropriate rewards while they 
have him by the balls, so to speak.  I guess he may have a point there.

The gist of the story is that the narrator has the same first and last 
name as a person whose name appears on the masthead of Playboy Magazine, 
and so he passes himself off as that esteemed person.  Using this as a 
pickup line, he attracts women by the hundreds to his garret, and 
invariably they extend sexual favors to him in order to cast themselves 
in the best light.  This story creatively describes two of his exploits.

This is not the best thing ever written by Mike Hunt.  That honor would 
go to "The O'Stikkit Inn," which was apparently written by the OTHER 
Mike Hunt, who never speaks in a demeaning way about his favorite half 
of the population.

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

"Teacher's Pet" by Eli the Bearded (usenet-tag@qz.little-neck.ny.us).  I 
have recently read a couple of stories by this author that I liked a lot 
better than this one.  It's not a BAD story - it just leaves unanswered 
too many questions that I couldn't answer even when I went back to look 
for the information.  For example, the narrator mentions that she is 
describing a sexual experience with her first female teacher; but why 
would a young girl's first female teacher be in high school?  More 
importantly, is the lesbian sex described in the story exploitive or 
not?  I had no basis for understanding exactly what was going on.  The 
reader is left to infer too much in this story.  I found that annoying.

Ratings for "Teacher's Pet"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character):6
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 6

"HypnoTV: Friends" by MAW (MS4EVER321@aol.com).  I have noticed a couple 
of stories recently with the HypnoTV label.  I assume they are parodies 
of various TV sitcoms and that they incorporate mind control through 
hypnosis into story lines where that theme would normally be absent.  In 
this case two itinerant hypnotists give Phoebe, Rachel, and Monica a 
post-hypnotic suggestion that will bring them back under a spell later 
that evening.  Then this Dynamic Duo visits the three women at Monica's 
apartment (where they are watching Sleepless in Seattle), and for two 
hours the five take turns making love to one another and eating each 
other out.  When the hypnotists leave, the other three awaken with no 
memory of the others having been there. They remember what has happened 
among themselves, but not the involvement of anyone else.  Wow!  Talk 
about existential angst!

Maybe my problem is that there are other stories in this series that I 
have skipped that have already set up the premise, but I found it to be 
really simplistic to suggest that people are likely to become sexual 
slaves through just a few seconds of staring at a magic ruby or candle.  
Maybe readers who are already fascinated by mind control or accept the 
notion of easy hypnosis-for-sex will greatly enjoy the image of the 
friends from Friends doing kinky things to one another.

Ratings for "HypnoTV: Friends"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character):8
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 6

"At the Doctor's Office" by Frank McCoy (mccoyf@millcomm.com).  I am 
aware that guys find it difficult to believe that the typical first 
visit to a gynecologist is not viewed by most women as a sexually 
arousing experience.  Indeed, I have a friend whose husband is a 
gynecologist, and when this fact is mentioned at reunions, another 
husband whom I don't know invariably grins rakishly and says, "Now 
there's a line of work I'd like to get my hand into."

Let me put it this way.  I understand there comes a time during the male 
physical checkup when the man is asked to turn his head and cough while 
the doctor grabs the patient's balls and checks for who knows what.  My 
husband goes through this experience every couple of years, and he has 
never enjoyed it.  He says he doesn't know anyone who does.  Apparently 
at military inductions doctors have been known to spend hours doing 
nothing but holding balls while guys cough and looking up their assess 
for hemorrhoids or missing parts, and neither the doctors nor the 
inductees get turned on.  Not even Klinger had an orgasm during his 
induction checkup.

What you guys have to understand is that the female gynecological 
experience is essentially on a level with turning the head and coughing.

Anyway, I became apprehensive about its realism when this story began 
with a nurse saying to an anxious 13-year-old, "Is this your first 
complete sex checkup?"  Only an alien posing as a nurse during a visit 
to the third rock from the sun would utter that sentence under those 
circumstances.

But we'll suspend disbelief and assume that if the girl has hormones and 
the doctor has a penis - well, chemistry or biology or sexology or 
something like that will make magic happen in the doctor's office. So 
after the initial awkwardness, this story becomes extremely realistic.  
For example, when Karen gets weighed, she goes naked into the hallway, 
where a young boy comments on her nudity.  Of course, when the doctor 
examines her, he himself is completely naked with his little soldier at 
rigid attention.  Since Karen seems to be shy in the presence of the 
naked doctor, he summons the nurse, who also appears naked and who grabs 
the doctor's balls, while he turns his head and coughs.  I'm making up 
part of this, but the following sentence is a verbatim description of 
Nurse Cindy: "The flood of brown hair cascaded down in smooth ripples to 
creamy shoulders, where it split; reaching partway down her back, and 
resting with just a hint of curl on a firm set of bosoms that 
Michelangelo would have mortgaged his soul to sculpture."  I guess this 
is excusable, since this is more of a medical than an artistic story, 
but sculptures with breasts in the middle of the back did not begin to 
appear until long after Michelangelo, who was fairly traditional in his 
interpretation of both human and angelic anatomy.  

When the doctor mutters, "Virgo Intactae," Karen ignores his linguistic 
ineptitude and merely responds with the customary " Oh!  Ohmigod . . . 
OH!  Oh, don't stop!"  The doctor eventually pops Karen's cherry and 
then instructs her to practice regularly.  Since her brother is only ten 
years old, he suggests that she ask her father to help out.  Some 
readers will find this combination of pedophilia and incest to be 
distasteful; but note that the doctor works very hard to impregnate the 
girl before the father, thus minimizing the possibility of genetic 
abnormalities - other than, of course, anything that the progeny might 
inherit from the doctor himself.

This author has written better material than this.  In this story he 
frequently confuses Karen and Cindy, and when the doctor is forced to 
eat a box lunch the author doesn't even notice the pun.  I don't think 
the author spent a lot of time developing this plot.

Ratings for "At the Doctor's Office"
Athena (technical quality): 9
Venus (plot & character): 6
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 6

"memory of techno man" by Sweet Guy (edmondj@usa.net).  Have you ever 
read something that was so badly written that it was charming?  Well, 
this "story" meets half of that description.

Ratings for "memory of techno man"
Athena (technical quality): 1
Venus (plot & character): 1
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 1

"Three's Company: ... All Cats Are Gray" by Uncle Mike (Red Dragon 
Repost).  In this week's episode Jack rushes into the  bedroom to save 
Janet from a rapist, but it turns out to be her boyfriend, who departs 
in anger.  To make amends, Jack is required to finish what the boyfriend 
had begun - a sort of surrogate coitus no-more-interruptus.  Well, this 
event changes their lifestyle; but since Chrissy is such a demure young 
lady, Jack and Janet feel obligated to avoid scandalizing her.  What 
Jack really wants is to boink Janet's cute little asshole, but she won't 
permit that, but one day Janet and Jack blow a fuse while they are 
making love and a casserole, and Jack goes to fix it, and Chrissy comes 
back from someplace, and Janet goes someplace else; and so Jack sees 
Chrissy's asshole in the dark and thinks it's Janet's and starts fucking 
it, but then the lights come back on and Janet says, "What's this?" and 
they all laugh and fuck like bunnies in heat.

Ratings for "Three's Company
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 9
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 9

"My Dream" by Anne Bingham (anne018bi@aol.com).  Most people have 
recurring erotic dreams.  I have described my own ad nauseam.  My 
husband has one that deals with finding himself naked in public places - 
like after he takes off his warm-up pants for racquetball.  This story 
describes a similar series of erotic dreams.

The imperfect ratings for this story occur because (1) there are some 
minor but annoying proofreading errors and (2) it isn't really a 
complete story.  However, the story has the virtue of being short and 
easy to read.  In addition, it is likely to remind you of your own 
erotic dreams. 

Ratings for "My Dream"
Athena (technical quality): 9
Venus (plot & character): 8
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 9

* "Caitlin's Tale" by Lysander (lysander@bitsmart.com).  This is a 
historical romance - in the loose sense of both words.  Many of 
the events are indeed plausible, but I'm not sure that historians 
would say that things really happened quite this way.  It seems to 
me that the author may be projecting back into a historical 
context modern notions of sexual domination and submission.  
However, even though I'm skeptical about some of the historical 
accuracy, I liked the setting.  It gave a rationale other than 
pure cruelty or petulance for treating a woman like an object - 
after all, Caitlin was literally Robert's slave.  And her reaction 
of loving her tormentor became understandable in this context.

I really don't enjoy stories about mindless sex, but I did enjoy 
this one.  Talk about mindless sex!  In this story we have Caitlin 
eating the asshole of her former best friend who has become her 
mistress (or maybe it was vice versa), swallowing about a gallon 
of her friend's urine while eating her pussy, fucking a whole 
small army of men either two or three at a time (depending on how 
many orifices were available), getting an enema before a beating 
and then being punished for crapping all over the place, taking it 
in the pussy and then in the ass from one giant dog before giving 
the other dog the blow job of its life, and being bound to a rack 
while getting fucked with the hilt of a giant sword before getting 
really fucked by its owner and everyone else who happened to be 
around.  And that doesn't even include what the master himself did 
to her.  I don't want any of this to happen to me; and if I were 
on a jury, I would recommend severe (non-sexual) punishment for 
people who did this to Caitlin.  So why would I enjoy this story?

One reason I enjoyed it was the historical context, which kept me 
constantly aware that I was in a fantasy world.  I could enjoy it 
without succumbing to the feeling that I was actually recommending 
this kind of activity.  Science fiction sex stories have the same 
advantage for me.  When stories are more contemporary, I feel 
inclined to react to them more realistically - which means I am 
inclined to dislike what is brutal or demeaning.  I think a lot of 
people react this way.  Other people have different ways to 
differentiate between reality and fantasy.  (If you don't have any 
way to make this distinction, you should probably find one.)

A second reason is that the author takes advantage of the 
historical context to make the story interesting as well as sexy.  
I remember criticizing a story called "The Tugboat" a while back 
for failing to integrate the sex with the context.  That story 
just had lots of sex for no apparent reason and with little 
relation to the things that would have been unique to that 
environment.  Lysander avoids that mistake.  We're pretty much 
constantly aware of the context, and that makes the story more 
riveting.

While I found parts of the story to be sexually arousing, I found 
more parts to be just interesting.  My reaction was often, "Yeah, 
I guess that would be possible."  I truly believe that the author 
had to be laughing while he wrote parts of this story: "I wonder 
if I can make them believe this!"  

This tale reminded me in some ways of the first great American 
historical romance, "The Last of the Mohicans."  That novel was quite 
popular among rich, stylish ladies in Europe, who thought it would be 
"romantic" to go the American West with the "noble savages."  The actual 
realities of the American west were quite different from these 
fantasies.  Mark Twain wrote a delightful essay on "Fennimore Cooper's 
Literary Offenses," and it would be possible to find even more egregious 
offenses in this story.  But it was still a pretty good story.

Ratings for "Caitlin's Tale"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 8
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 8

* "Summer Dreams" by Lysander (lysander@bitsmart.com).  I get more 
than a little annoyed by people who say there are no good stories 
on a.s.s.  The people that call us all sick weirdoes I can at 
least understand and ignore.  But no good stories?  I'm 
desperately trying to keep up with all the good stories on this 
newsgroup.  Certainly there are some weak stories here (and some 
genuine garbage); but I find a.s.s. to be a good source of high 
quality recreational reading for adults.  This set of reviews 
should provide evidence of that quality.  And this story is what 
pushed me to make my comment.  

Lysander has written several good stories; but I think this is his best.  
I have previously enjoyed Lysander for his action stories; but this one 
is almost poetry.  He integrates the narrator's fantasies with his real 
life in a unique and moving manner.  Because the enjoyment arises from 
the unraveling of the story, I can't tell you much about it.  Just take 
my word for it: if you're interested in romance with healthy doses of 
sex and genuine human sentiment, this is a really good story for you.  
And don't be afraid to stop and think after you read this story - and 
read it again.

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

* "Night of the Wolves" by Lysander (lysander@bitsmart.com). 
"You'll be fine, Judith.  As long as you let your instincts guide 
you."  The band of women have been engaged in an orgy of dancing 
and sex with one another; but all this is simply a preparation for 
the arrival of the wolves.  The monthly ritual consists of the 
women fucking with the wolves from the time of the animals' 
arrival until the moon goes down.

I have never been an enthusiast of bestiality stories, but this 
one was interesting - to say the least.  Before I read this story 
I knew, of course, that Romulus and Remus (and probably Wolfman 
Jack) had been raised by wolves, and I had read "Call of the 
Wild," but my knowledge of wolves as potential sexual partners was 
limited.  Now I am much better informed.

The story is well written.  The author says this is his most 
popular story.  However, I don't think it is his best; I think 
"Summer Dreams," "Grey," and the unfinished "Droit du Signeur" are 
all better.  Nevertheless, this is an excellent story.   While 
reading it, I found myself mumbling internally, "This is silly! 
Why would a wolf act like that?"  This is exactly what the author 
wanted me to think.  By the end of the story everything had fallen 
into place.

Ratings for "Night of the Wolves"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 9.5
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10

* "Droit du Signeur" by Lysander (lysander@bitsmart.com). 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.

The posting of Chapter 8 last year represented what was then 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 in 1996.  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 - if we ever see 
Chapters 9 and later.

Anyway, Lysander wrote about six chapters and then added a seventh 
and eighth.  The story does not yet appear to be complete.  If you 
prefer to have an entire story before you spend your time reading 
it, you may want to skip this one.  It shows great potential, but 
you may be frustrated by the fact that it's not really complete - 
although it is closer than it has been at some times in the past.  
In other words, although this is an excellent story, you may 
become frustrated that it just plain doesn't end.

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.

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 on a.s.s. whom I can think of offhand who 
consistently do this are Uther Pendragon, 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.

Ratings for "Droit du Signeur"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 8
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10


