Celestial Reviews 29 - Oct 18, 1995

Note:  I apologize for posting this set so soon after the last set of 
reviews.  My AOL server was dysfunctional on CR 28; and so that set was 
late.  I figured it was best to get back on schedule; so here's another 
set.

   - Celeste

      "Clean" by Deirdre (Sexy Housecleaning) 8
      "Clique" by Deirdre (bondage & dominance) 5
      "Closet" by Deirdre (D&s, whipping, etc.) 8
      "Letters to Jane" by Estragon (philosophy of
            female dominance) 7
      "My So-Called Sex Life" by David Kelly (emerging
            sexuality) 10
      "Not Really Cheating - Part 2" by Dave Schulte
            (Cheating) 5
      "Morning Orgasms: Spoons" by Backrub (romantic 
            vignettes) 8
      "ManDance" by Rajah Dodger (rock music & bondage) 9

"Clean" by Deirdre (an65862@anon.penet.fi).  In case you haven't 
figured this out yet, Deirdre delights in taking extremely mundane 
situations and turning them into unusual (even bizarre) but believable 
occasions for sexual adventures.  Here we have two young women who are 
roommates and who decide to hire someone to help with the 
housecleaning.  Sounds harmless; mom would approve.  The temporary maid 
offers to take charge and give orders; the girls agree; and a good time 
is had by all, as they engage in hitherto taboo activities.  And the 
apartment really did get a good cleaning. (Rating: 8)

"Clique" by Deirdre (an65862@anon.penet.fi).  A college freshman is 
determined to become popular by getting into the social circle of the 
most popular senior.  She feels that this will put her far ahead of her 
more mundane rival from high school.  The senior invites her to a party 
at which she will be initiated into a social group, but the narrator 
chickens out before anything kinky happens to her.  This story left me 
wondering what was supposed to be happening.  I could try to guess what 
was going on, but the story didn't motivate me to want to bother.  
(Rating: 5)

"Closet" by Deirdre (an65862@anon.penet.fi).  Deirdre tries to create 
surrealistic atmospheres that give fuzzy focus to bizarre sexual 
activities, and she is highly successful in this story.  The writing is 
so clear that it is easy to understand what is going on in the story, 
and it's all perfectly plausible; but at the same time it seems 
impossible to believe that this could ever really happen.  It's like 
one of those dreams where you dream that you're dreaming and then dream 
that you wake up but then dream that you're only having a dream that 
you're dreaming.  Oh, I almost forgot to mention - this is a strange 
story.  (Rating: 8)

"Letters to Jane" by Estragon (an356608@anon.penet.fi).  I gave this 
essay a relatively low rating because this isn't really a story; 
rather, it's a philosophical tract.  People who like stories and 
fantasies about female dominance (or who apply this philosophy in real 
life) will enjoy this essay; others will be bored.  My own feeling is 
that while I think there is a grain of truth in nearly all the 
principles that the author states, they are oversimplifications of 
sensible ways to relate to most men - even if dominating men were a 
desirable goal for most women.  (Rating: 7)

"My So-Called Sex Life" by David Kelly.  I have watched "My So Called 
Life" on television just a few times.  It must conflict with something 
else I do.  It was a good show, and my kids watch it regularly.  My 
impression is that the television show deals with emerging adolescence 
in a quasi-humorous fashion; and this set of stories is going to 
attempt to give a similar treatment to emerging sexuality.  So far this 
series is pretty good.  The first story starts out with the young 
heroine going to her parents bedroom to ask permission to go out.  When 
no one responds to her knock, she opens the door and sees her mom 
giving her dad head, while a porn flick runs on the television screen. 
"At least they weren't using handcuffs," she smiles, as she runs out of 
the house.  "What's that on Daddy's face?" asks her little sister.  So 
the author had my attention.

Episode 1 is mostly about an all-girl threesome, with Angela 
contemplating taking the plunge with Jordan Catalano, the young man who 
is the "object of her desires and thirty four separate masturbation 
fantasies."  The dialog is natural and sexy: "I gave Jordan a hand job. 
It was... nice." Angela said. "Nice?" Rayanne said, "you make it sound 
like a Hallmark card or something!"  

In the second episode Angela and Jordan do the deed.  It was indeed 
nice.  I look forward to more of these thoroughly enjoyable episodes.  
I may even watch the original show more often. 
 
Although lightheartedness pervades both episodes, there are some 
serious insights.  For example, after the all-girl mini-orgy, there's 
this passage:  "What does this mean?" Angela wondered. "It's not like I 
am attracted to women, but it was, um, good. What if I do it too much 
and become no longer attracted to guys? Time to re-think this."  This 
is an important thought.  Teenagers should be open to the idea that 
same-sex activities (and fantasies) are likely to be really enjoyable; 
and they should be able to think about this option without either (a) 
being filled with disgust over not being "normal" or (b) committing 
themselves to a lifelong designation as gay or lesbian.  Life is more 
complicated than that.

To be perfectly honest, I'd prefer that my own 15-year-old daughter 
discover that she enjoys *fantasizing* about doing it with other girls 
as much as she enjoys *fantasizing* about doing it with boys.  I'm not 
going to disown my children if I find out they've been having sex; but 
I really do like the idea of letting them grow up before they become 
active participants.  I myself graduated as a popular, heterosexual 
student athlete who happened to be a virgin; and I am absolutely 
certain that my virginity was not a personality flaw that impeded my 
future sex life.
 
So who's going to read these stories - the under-18-year-olds who 
comprise the protagonists or the older generation who are theoretically 
allowed to read this stuff on a.s.s.? I suppose the Christian Coalition 
would object - and I am not going to leave these stories on the coffee 
table for my children; but I would not really be upset to know that my 
children were reading stories like this.  The teenage movies and TV 
shows are filled with innuendo; these episodes just make explicit what 
is implicit in those stories.  My kids have already heard my lecture 
about how real-life differs from the movies.  (For those who are 
interested, here are the three big differences:  (1)  People have to 
fall in love and jump into the sack really quickly in the movies, 
because more realistic and desirable timelines are impractical in a 
two-hour movie or half-hour TV episode.  (2)  Indians really would not 
be so dumb as to ride around in circles, and some of the bullets would 
hit horses.  (3)  At least occasionally the Indians would rape the 
women (and men) whom they captured.)  So even though I encourage people 
to follow the laws of their state or nation, I'm not going to be upset 
if consenting adolescents occasionally see these stories.

The other major audience for these stories consists of "old" people 
(over age 18), who can remember what it was like to be a teenager.  
Even though I graduated from high school without ever doing anything 
like the activities described in this story, I can identify with them.  
Doing these things would be fun.  Even the Christian Coalition people 
would have fun doing these things.  They'd go to hell, maybe; but 
they'd have fun.  And that's what fiction is for - vicariously doing 
things that for some reason (in this case, a good reason, if eternal 
damnation were really a possible consequence) you would otherwise never 
experience.  All right - so that's not the only reason for fiction; but 
it's one good reason anyway.  (Rating: 10)

"Not Really Cheating - Part 2" by Dave Schulte (SchulteD@aol.com).  
This is a sequel to "Not Really Cheating," which I reviewed in CR 14.  
I gave that story a high rating, but suggested that it really *was* 
about cheating.  My opinion of the present story is twofold.  First, if 
you take it as a sequel to "Not Really Cheating," this second part is 
so anti-climatic that it should be omitted.  The other story was fine. 
It would make sense to refine it in some ways, but there's no point in 
adding to it in this way.  Secondly, if you take this story alone 
(without Part 1), it doesn't really make sense.  There are too many 
references to Part 1.  And so in its present format what we have is 
some hot sex that cannot stand alone and that doesn't belong with the 
original story.  My advice to the author is to take these scenes and 
put them into a new story with a distinct plot of its own.  (Rating: 5)

"Morning Orgasms: Spoons" by Backrub (bckrub@aol.com). In his prologue 
Backrub points out that one of his favorite activities is coming first 
thing in the morning.  He claims that whether alone or with someone 
else, he comes between 5 and 7 A.M. about 360 days a year.  He has 
decided to write a series of vignettes describing these events (or his 
fantasies about these events).  This is apparently the first in the 
series.  Although I don't want to discourage him from writing his full 
stories - which are invariably excellent - I have to admit that I 
enjoyed this relatively plotless description.  It's the kind of thing 
that comes in handy even the last thing at night - when a woman is 
alone in a tub full of bubble bath with candles burning and perhaps a 
touch of incense and maybe a cold drink.... However, he can't get a 10 
unless he writes a whole story!  (Rating: 8)

"ManDance" by Rajah Dodger (an179705@anon.penet.fi).  A man gets a 
bright idea: Why hit the bars, blowing money in each one until he found 
a girl who was in the mood, when there was one place sure to be stocked 
with horny women? So he heads for the male strippers club and waits 
outside at closing time.  He picks up three hot and horny young ladies 
leaving the establishment, goes to the house of one of them, and does a 
private show for them.  But wait a minute!  Suddenly he finds himself 
bound and handcuffed and forced to eat a cunt while someone fools 
around with his asshole and all kinds of vile things happen to him.  Oh 
well, forgive and forget!  (Rating: 9)

TIP OF THE WEEK:  In each issue of Celestial Reviews I present one of 
the guidelines from Celestial Grammar, which I have posted on alt 
sex.stories.d. and which I'll continue to develop and revise from time 
to time.  My theory is that if all of these tips were followed, about 
95% of the really distracting errors in a.s.s. stories would be 
eliminated.  I was going to name this part of the column TIP OF THE 
{something sexual}, but I thought the innuendo might detract from the 
sober serious business at hand.  Here is this issue's Tip:

6.  SEMI-COLONS.  Simply stated, a semicolon is a super-comma.  Use it 
to separate parts of the sentence that already contain commas.

      Exciting example: "While she continued to drive him crazy by 
fondling his balls with her free hand, she began to suck on his cock 
until he came in a wild explosion of excitement; and then he began to 
turn his own attention to her clitoris, which he had neglected until 
then."

Using a comma instead of a semicolon in this example would be 
confusing, because each half of the sentence already contains commas.  
A good author might instead just insert a period and omit the "and," 
especially if she is concerned about skipping a period.

