Celestial Reviews 207 - August 13, 1997

Note:  We have a short issue this week.  I was gone to a family 
reunion, where nothing of an incestuous or sexual nature took 
place.  Except my husband suggested that one irritating relative 
perform a probably impossible sexual activity on himself.  
However, I don't think being instructed to go fuck oneself 
qualifies as interesting material for this newsgroup

Second note: Thanks to the many guest reviewers who made this 
issue possible.

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

- Celeste

      "The Old One" by the Real Megillah (geriatric romance)
            10, 9, 9
      "The Love Boat" by  Ann Douglas (ff romance) 9, 10, 10
      "Advanced Biology Lab" by Linda Loring (mechanical sex)
            9, 9, 9
      "Kittens Inspiration" by Kitten (writer's block) 5, 4, 4

 Guest Reviews:

      "Aunt Peg's Visit" by BillyG (teen romance with older aunt) 
            10, 10, 10
      "The Pool Girl" by Unknown Author (ff swimming pool sex)
            8, 9, 9
      "The Act" by Shvk Brar (bland sexual activity) 7, -, 3
      "Prize Pig" by Cobalt Jade (medieval femdom) 10, 10, 10
      "The Photograph" by JYM (poignant teen pregnancy)
            10, 10, 10
      "Wedding Gift" by Seurat (mild bdsm) 10, 10, 10
      "Bacchanalia" by T.J. MacAllister (revenge) 10, 9, 10

Reposted Reviews:

    * "Lab Partners" by WithSue (very hot, gentle threesome) 
            10, 10, 10

"The Old One" by the Real Megillah {posted by (Hawk Richards) 
(heminway@epix.net) for the actual author}.  The 35-year-old 
married man is doing research at a home for the elderly for a book 
he is writing.  He finds himself attracted to a woman more than 
twice his age, and he discovers that she is a very adept lover.  
He begins to think of his possibilities with other elderly women 
who live in this harem.

This plot doesn't quite ring true, but it's still a good story.

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

"The Love Boat" by Ann Douglas (anndouglas@aol.com).  This is NOT 
a parody of the American sitcom - which was pronounced "The 
Loooooove Boat," with a lovey-dovey cutesy intonation that's 
impossible to duplicate without sound.  No, this is a simple story 
about two woman who go together for a vacation {i.e., holiday for 
Brits} on a cruise ship that has been chartered for all lesbians - 
except for their naive little selves.  Let's see - Ann Douglas, 
non-lesbians in a lesbian atmosphere - I wonder what will happen!

Well, as you may have guessed, both women begin to wonder what it 
would be like to make love to another woman, and pretty soon they 
become involved in sapphic delights.  However, this is not a 
purely lesbian story.  While the women are clarifying their sexual 
identity, there are numerous flashbacks to their prior 
heterosexual escapades, and the mf snapshots are just about as hot 
as the ff scenes.

A grammatical note: A female person with light colored hair is a 
blonde.  However, her hair itself is blond.  That is, the "e" is 
properly added to the word "blonde" only when it is a noun meaning 
"a blonde person" or when it directly modifies an entire blonde 
person, not just a part of her body.  So my blonde friend has a 
blond pussy.  Well, not really; it's brown.  But if she were a 
real blonde, her hair would be blond not blonde. Lots of people 
spell these words differently, but the way I have sescribed is the 
way it's supposed to be. Men are usually blonds - without the "e."  
However, in this story we had an anomalously bearded blonde 
bartender.

This story had more grammatical errors than most of Ann's recent 
stories, but it was still a delightfully romantic and sexy story.

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

"Advanced Biology Lab" by Linda Loring (Red Dragon repost).  When 
I saw this title, I thought I had already reviewed this story; but 
when I checked my records, I discovered that I was thinking of a 
WithSue story entitled "Lab Partners."  The latter story has 
nothing to do with a sexy lab technician being masturbated to 
orgasm by one of those mechanical arms with which lab technicians 
handle untouchable substances.  This one does.  And when the 
narrator comes back to the lab late at night he finds this buxom 
lady (known by her colleagues as the "Ice Queen") naked and 
enraptured in the "arms" of the lab equipment.  As fate would have 
it, the lab is equipped with video cameras that cover every inch 
of the lab and can record for posterity anything that might happen 
in the room.  The way the Ice Queen is going at it, the 
seismometer in the next county might also record these events.

Anyway, the narrator seizes - er - manual control of the 
equipment.  For the rest of the details, you'll have to read the 
story yourself.

Ratings for "Advanced Biology Lab"
Athena (technical quality): 9
Venus (plot & character): 9
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 9

"Kittens Inspiration" by Kitten (Listed as "Leon" as a Red Dragon 
repost).  Leon is a writer who needs inspiration for his next 
story.  So Kitten hauls her ass up to his cottage and into his 
pool and copulates with him.  Then presumably Kitten left, and 
Leon wrote his story, and Kitten wrote this little ditty.  I 
suppose that's why Leon gets the big bucks for being the writer in 
the family.

Ratings for "Kittens Inspiration"
Athena (technical quality): 5
Venus (plot & character): 4
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 4

"Aunt Peg's Visit" by BillyG (hayden@mindless.com).  Guest review 
by Michael K. Smith.

I don't believe I've seen a story by this author before, but I 
hope he keeps writing and posting. This is definitely one hot 
story! And, though the author doesn't say, it seems to be the 
first part of a longer work (I hope).

The protagonist -- whose name, oddly enough, is Billy -- goes to 
the San Francisco airport with his divorced mother to pick up her 
sister, come to stay for the summer. (My first thought was, 
"Obvious setup.") Peg is ten years younger but similar in 
appearance, . . . which is nice, since Billy has had the secret 
hots for Mom for several years. And Mom has to go back to work 
right away, so Billy promises to look after Peg ("Don't call me 
'Aunt,' please. I don't want to be all grown up"), whose first 
wish is to try out the genuine California hot tub. But first, Peg 
wants to have a little talk. About frank conversation and the 
effects on her nephew of her taste for nude sunbathing. He's 
willing but warns her that he just might acquire an erection. 
(Yeah -- as if!)

Let's just say I was already feeling the effects myself before 
aunt and nephew ever reached the hot tub deck. The author has a 
talent for word pictures and literate description, and about the 
only "bad" words you'll run into are a few "pussies" and one 
"cunt." I take this as the mark of a budding erotician, not just 
another porn-scribbler. It is indeed a setup, but it's also a lot 
closer to believable than most -- which, for me, makes the story a 
good deal sexier.

Gotta pick a nit or two somewhere, though (the Reviewers Guild 
rules demand it). Oh, yeah: "Billy" changes inexplicably to "Bob" 
at one point, and the author has a tendency to forget the closing 
quotes in dialogue passages. And I found one misspelling. Nothing 
that a bit more line-editing wouldn't have caught. When I taught 
history, I was not known as an easy grader, but I give this one 
straight 10s. And I'll certainly be watching for the next 
installment!

Ratings for "Aunt Peg's Visit"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Michael K. Smith (appeal to reviewer): 10

"The Pool Girl" by Unknown Author. Guest review by BluePencil.

If you read alt.sex.stories long enough, you start to develop a 
set of mental filters for stories.  These can be personal - "I 
know NetNaziInBlackLeather _always_ writes romantic stories with 
SM and rubber chickens", genre - "I am _so tired_ of pedophilic 
midget lesbian nun stories" - or stylistic.

True confession time here, kids: it's the stylistic problems that 
_really_ keep me from enjoying a story.  Speling and grammar 
errors are something up with which I will not put.  You encounter 
a story written entirely in the second person and you shake your 
head and skip it.  Like any other corpus, the body of a story 
should end up in a plot.

But what _really_ irritates me are unnecessary (and improbably) 
exact descriptions of the participants.  This has lots of 
variants: the LARGER/ STRANGER THAN LIFE school, where the men and 
women have measurements more appropriate to horses and dairy cows; 
the smaller than life school, much favored by the authors of 
husband humiliation stories; and, most common of all, the Sports 
Trivia school, where being told a woman is tall and blond or a man 
short and dark is never enough - "John Henry, a 5'4", 130 lb 
brunette of Welsh/Egyptian ancestry, absent-mindedly stroked his 
8" long, 3" diameter cock."

Oops!  Sorry about that.  I was frothing a bit.  Ahem.  As I was 
saying before I sidetracked myself, I have a number of filters I 
use to decide whether I will bother to read a story.  Most of the 
time, it works, too - when I ignore the warning signs, I only 
rarely am pleasantly surprised.

_The Pool Girl_ surprised me.

When Celeste passed this story my way, I didn't expect much.  The 
language, though reasonably grammatical, was sometimes labored.  
The first part of the story suffered from typos.  And the author 
has a mild case of the dread Sports Trivia affliction.  If I 
hadn't committed to reviewing the story, I would have quit 
reading.  I'm glad I didn't.

Despite its (mild) flaws, this is a good story.  A woman on the 
rebound from a tomcat husband finds solace with young woman from 
the pool service, on the rebound from a tomcat boyfriend.  The 
story develops believably, the sex is hot, and the 
characterization works.  Not a great story, but a good one with 
the promise of better to come; I found myself wishing that the 
author had a more memorable nom du net than 
an229873@anon.penet.fi, so that I would have a better chance of 
finding more of his/her stories. Recommended.

Athena (technical quality):      8
Venus (plot and character):      9
BluePencil (appeal to reviewer): 9

"The Act" by Shvk Brar (shvkbrar@aol.com).  Guest review by 
Tooshoes.

"The Act" has a cast of two generic characters: "He" and "She".  
No introductions are necessary. The plot is correspondingly 
uncomplicated. He and She undress each other, engage in foreplay, 
and have sex until the thrilling climax.

This really isn't a sex story at all. It is simply a description 
of the "act" of making love, with very little style or creativity. 
The Act occurs in the bedroom -- that's all we know of the 
setting. It might take place in the past or the future, in America 
or China. All 2722 words are focused on a simple objective -- to 
describe a single act of lovemaking from beginning to end.

And that is all the author, Shvk Brar, intended. Perhaps he wanted 
to show the act of loving making in it's purest form, as a sacred 
ritual, without connecting it with any sense of meaning or 
purpose. Or maybe he grew tired of reading so many erotic stories 
where a plot was simply tacked onto the main event, and decided to 
skip all the secondary stuff.

But rituals are meaningless when divorced from the people who 
perform them. Sex has no magic if the spells are not cast just 
right.

The Act has two things going for it: the writing is fluid, and the 
descriptions are precise. But the act in question might have been 
"eating a McDonald's hamburger" for all the excitement it 
generated.

Ratings for "The Act"
Athena (technical quality): 7
Venus (plot & character): Irrelevant
Tooshoes (appeal to reviewer): 3

"Prize Pig" by Cobalt Jade (Cobaltjade@aol.com). Guest review by 
Sven the Elder.

Let me quote a description from Cobalt Jade's story intro :

'"Prize Pig" is the second installment of a series of stories 
about the sexual adventures of two brothers in Washington State.  
The first was "Dad's Going to KILL Us!" which was posted on ASS, 
ASSM and ASSB back in mid-April'

She goes on to say that the stories stand alone - and I agree - so 
there is no need to read the other first.  Having read and enjoyed 
the first installment I was looking forward to the second and was 
not disappointed. The best description is that of a family weekend 
away from the ordinary hum-drum of modern life.  In short, the 
story is about participation in a Mediaeval weekend, complete with 
saucy wenches and adventures.  Having never been to such a 
gathering, I can only guess at the authenticity of the goings-on, 
but have to say that I have now started looking up the timetables 
for such events in my locale in Merrie Englande.  

The sex is hot and believable, the scene setting good, the femdom 
hilarious - perhaps that remark is unkind, but it amused me.  The 
story is enjoyable and well rounded, the hormones of the brothers 
spraying out their ears. One or two of the scenes might have been 
expanded - mother and father's particularly - but otherwise a 
well-rounded tale.  I noted with interest the ending, with the 
hooks nicely left in place for the youngest member of the family 
to join in at a later date.

Cobalt is right, you don't have to have read "Dad's Going to KILL 
Us!" first; but since I had done so, the characters of the boys 
fell together nicely.  My previous knowledge improved my 
understanding and enjoyment of "Prize Pig."

"Pardon - Oh the Pig?"  "Ah well you'll just have to read it to 
find out, won't you!"

Ratings for  'Prize Pig'
Technical quality: 10
Plot & character:  10
Sven (appeal to reviewer):  11 (I can't? - Oh! All right then 10) 
<sulk!>

"The Photograph" by JYM (GJ@SPRYNET.COM).  Guest review by Mark 
Aster.

A very short but very lovely story.  No sex happens on stage, but 
the story is very much about sex, and love, and bodies, and 
hearts.  And about how beautiful a pregnant 16-year-old can be, 
naked and shy in front of the camera.  And how something beautiful 
can be utterly tragic also.

It takes some daring to make a story this short, and to post a 
story with no actual fucking to a.s.s.*.  The author of this one 
has that daring, and enough talent to pull it off.  I recommend 
this story highly; don't be put off by what I've said so far even 
if you're just looking for sex stories. The Photograph is highly 
erotic, as well as all those other things.  The ending, while 
maybe a tad obvious, is effective and moving.  A couple of 
misspellings, awkward phrases, and an odd capitalization might 
cost it a point for technical perfection, but it deserves at least 
solid tens in them other categories.  A keeper.

Ratings for "The Photograph" {Added by Celeste}

"Wedding Gift" by Seurat (#1 Twilight Zone series) 
(dantedibby@aol.com). Guest review by Wherryman.

I had already read Wedding Gift when Celeste sent it for review, 
but I was pleased to have an excuse for another look at it.  The 
story is in the form of a series of telephone calls between Tony 
and Bill.

Tony now works at the Twilight Zone, an erotic clothing and 
accessory store, and has sent a wedding gift to Bill and Eileen.  
In the first call Bill is thanking Tony for the present but is 
wondering about the condition - that one package should be opened 
each week for six weeks.

Tony seems put out by the way Bill is crowing - about his marriage 
and about the good sex the first package precipitated - 
understandable when we learn that Bill stole Eileen from Tony 
_and_ got him sacked from his previous job.  Why would Tony be so 
magnanimous?  

The following calls chart the progress of the relationship between 
the newly-weds and we begin to appreciate Tony's plan.

I am not a fan of the 'conversation' style of story telling.  
There is a fantasy series that is done entirely in that style - 
like reading a play with no stage directions.  This story though 
is well crafted and is short enough and engaging enough to more 
than make up for my initial misgivings about the style.  Make sure 
you download this story.

I have since read more from the Twilight Zone series - all have a 
mild sub/dom theme - and the standard is consistently high.  
Sub/dom is not one of my favourite genres - but if it's your cup 
of tea, or if you just like well written stories, keep a look out 
for them.

Ratings for "Wedding Gift":
   Technical merit    10
   Plot & character   10
   Appeal to reviewer 8

"Bacchanalia" by T.J. MacAllister (Red Dragon repost).  Guest 
review by Purple Shade.

Dyan Thomas was a bastard and proud of it.  His motto -- fuck `em 
and leave `em.  So it wasn't surprising when Sheila Severson 
became just one more notch in his bedpost.  Just a nameless body 
to masturbate into and get his rocks off.  One more forgettable 
broad.

Unfortunately for Dyan, he didn't know how dangerous a game he was 
actually playing or the consequences of constantly thinking with 
the wrong head.

While I would've liked to have seen more of a story development 
given an interesting premise, this still remains a good if too 
short tale.  A gentle reminder in keeping with the motto of "Those 
who live by the sword, die by the sword." 

Ratings for "Bacchanalia" {added by Celeste}
   Technical merit    10
   Plot & character   9
   Appeal to reviewer 10

* "Lab Partners" by WithSue.  Sue was kind enough to send me a 
copy of this story before she reposted it.  When I saw it posted 
this morning, I was upset, because I hadn't finished it yet.  So I 
dug into the rest of the 24 pages (11,188 words, according to my 
word count) and was late for breakfast.  It was as good as Sue 
humbly said it would be.  (Now I have to put this out of my mind 
and concentrate on summer school.)  

The deal here is that Sue loves fantasies and in real life 
encourages other authors to respond to her fantasies by finishing 
or adapting her stories.  A few paragraphs into the story, I 
realized that Sue herself was the lab partner working with the two 
guys.  The buildup took a while; but even our anti-Jane-Austen 
critic would enjoy the result, I think.  (I'd really like to know 
his opinion of this one.)  This has to be one of the longest 
orgasms in a.s.s. history; and I stayed glued to the screen for 
every minute of it.  This may be a chick story - but what a chick!

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

