Celestial Reviews 139 - Nov 30, 1996

Note:  This is absolutely silly!  I have been complaining that I have too many 
good stories to read this month.  My Monthly Top 15 already has 22 stories on 
it.  I have delayed several stories until the December 4 issue, so that I 
won’t have to bump any more good stories.  So then the first three stories I 
read for this issue are all perfect 10’s.  What’s a girl to do?  You’d think I 
could at least trust Boswell.  I mean the guy is literate and all that, but 
there’s no way that a silly slutty wife gangbang is going to make my list of 
monthly bests.  But this story isn’t a gangbang at all; it’s an intelligent 
story interspersed with poetic lines from Bruce Springsteen.  I think I’ll 
read “Lez Slut Bride and the Maid of Honor” - or maybe one of those penis 
enlargement “stories” or one of those clever essays on “Why America is Best, 
Worst, or Really Sucks.”  The way things have been going, even an “Incredible 
2-Girl Nonstop Fuck-a-thon” will be an excellent story.

Of course, I’m being facetious.  I really DO find it frustrating to have 
to cull a list of 25 or so excellent stories down to a “Top 15.”  But 
it’s really a very nice form of frustration.  It certainly beats having 
to get a list of 15 when there are only 10 really good stories to pick 
from. 

Second Note:  There has been some discussion in this newsgroup under the 
heading “Modifying Others’ Work.”  Here’s my two cents worth:

Realistically, it is very hard for authors to stop someone from stealing 
or modifying their work.  That doesn’t make it right; it’s just reality.  
On the other hand, authors do have a legal right to their own work - even 
if they do not specifically state or register a copyright claim.  This 
right is theoretically enforceable (through the Berne Convention) 
throughout the entire civilized world.  The main reasons why this right 
is sometimes not enforced are (1) it’s difficult to do so (perhaps 
because the thief cannot be found, and (2) it’s not worth the trouble 
(perhaps because no one is making a profit anyway).

The problem is analogous to what might happen if I left my purse 
unguarded in a public place and someone stole my money.  Someone could 
argue that I should have known better than to leave the purse there if I 
cared about my money (just as authors should perhaps know better than to 
post on a.s.s. if they want to keep their stories), but common sense says 
that the thief would obviously be the guilty party.  The thief would 
probably get away with it because (1) it would be difficult to catch him 
in a large crowd and (2) it would not be worth the trouble to recover the 
small amount of money that is typically in my purse.

Also note that posting a story on this newsgroup is not the same thing as 
“putting it in the public domain.”  Public domain is a legal term with a 
specific meaning.  It refers to information that is specifically free 
from copyright restrictions.  As the little announcement says each week, 
the “descriptions and accounts” of Monday Night Football are not in the 
public domain, even though they come across the air waves or cable wires.

As someone has pointed out, it is NOT illegal to download and modify a 
story for your own use.  What IS illegal is to thereafter post the story 
(or a direct adaptation of it) as your own without the permission of the 
original author.

My own opinion is that “ethical” and “legal” are almost identical in 
copying or changing another author’s work. Antaeus Feldspar has argued 
that if someone writes a story, say, to express pride in his or her 
sexual preference, and you alter that story to change that sexual 
preference, you are robbing the author of the rewards of his or her hard 
work.  If the author were writing for publication, you'd be robbing the 
author of money.  Why would you think it any the less robbery because the 
rewards you're taking away are non-monetary? That’s a very good point.  
Authors who write to earn a living would seek different jobs if they 
could not protect their livelihood.  Similarly, writers who post with 
this newsgroup for other reasons are likely to give up if they are denied 
their legitimate rewards.

I have no doubt that some (perhaps many) authors are flattered when 
someone changes their stories and posts the modified stories.  You can 
find out if this is so by asking them.  But to assume that all authors 
are “flattered” when someone steals their stories is silly.  Feldspar 
says that’s like saying I should feel flattered if someone gropes me in 
the subway.  There is some sense in which I might actually be flattered 
to be considered worth groping, but rage (and legal recourse, if possible 
- or seeking a different mode of transportation) would be a perfectly 
legitimate and understandable reaction.

Sometimes it becomes slightly more complex to decide what is copying 
another’s work and what is not.  For example, in this issue of CR I 
review “Teachers’ Pets.”  The author takes someone else’s story, 
acknowledges that fact, and then inserts his comments in parentheses 
throughout the story - thereby giving the story an entirely different, 
satirical impact.  I think this author is acting ethically, and I think 
his approach would be legal if challenged in court.  That’s because he 
made clear what was his and what was not; his satire was legitimate, and 
the only way he could communicate it was by reposting the story in the 
same medium (alt.sex.stories) in which he found it.  TEX did something 
similar with “Raped Teen Burglar,” and I have defended him several times 
in Celestial Reviews.  An example of an INappropriate alteration was the 
“girl version” of Rondu’s “Double Trouble.”  In that case somebody simply 
went through the original story and simply made the little boys into 
little girls.

I don’t see many examples of good stories being changed on this 
newsgroup, and I certainly don’t consider it to be my job to enforce the 
copyright law on alt.sex.stories.  “Double Trouble” is the only example 
that has come to my attention.  As I have said, I don’t think it is 
likely that legal sanctions will be invoked against violators; but I 
think we should use our own force of moral persuasion to try to prevent 
the theft of stories.  For my own part, I will decline to review any 
story that I know is an improper alteration of another author’s story; 
and if I make a mistake, I would appreciate it if you would call this to 
my attention.

- Celeste

      “A Love Deeply Missed” by James Boswell (emerging 
            adolescence & sexual obsession)  10, 10, 10
      “Pickles” by Dulcinea (sexy eating) 10, 10, 10
      “Post-Coital” by Mark Aster (sex & childbirth) 10, 10, 10
      “Teacher’s Pets” by SarcasmX (satire) 10, 9, 9
      “Doppelganger” by Unknown Author (TV parody)
            10, 10, 10

    * "Tryout" by Deirdre (bdsm) 10, 9, 9
    * "Tutor" by Deirdre (sexual training) 10, 9, 9
    * "Twin" by Deirdre (identity problems) 10, 10, 10
    * "Upstairs" by Deirdre (spanking) 10, 9, 9
    * "Visit" by Deirdre (oral sex & sex slavery) 10, 9, 9
    * "Wait" by Deirdre (fantasy) 10, 8, 7
    * "Waitress" by Deirdre (spanking) 10, 10, 10
    * "Walk" by Deirdre (outdoor sex & voyeurism) 10, 9, 8
    * "Wife" by Deirdre (spouse watching) 10, 8, 7
    * "Work" by Deirdre (birthday surprise) 10, 8, 7

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

“A Love Deeply Missed” by James Boswell.  Since about the age of 10, the 
college-age boy narrating this story had been in love with Stacy, the 
beautiful woman who cut his hair.  His father and he had grown close 
after his mother died; but to his dismay his father started dating Stacy 
shortly after he himself went off to college.  When Dad married Stacy, he 
couldn’t stand it.  He began to hate his father; and a conservative 
statement would be that he began to obsess over Stacy.  First he went 
through her drawers to examine all her clothes; then in order to make 
himself feel closer to Stacy, he began to jerk off into anything that 
would go onto her skin - face cream, skin lotion, suntan oil, etc.  Sound 
weird?  Actually, it sounded fairly normal the way the author introduced 
the activities.

I was frankly surprised by this story.  I’m used to Boswell’s slutty wife 
stories, and this is not like that at all. The sexual activity is largely 
suggestive, but very hot. It’s an interesting situation: boy falls in 
love with girl who becomes his step-mother.  What would YOU do?  I think 
the author handles it realistically, but you’ll have to read the story to 
see what happens.  To top it off, the author beautifully “illustrates” 
the story with lyrics from Bruce Springsteen.

Ratings for “A Love Deeply Missed”
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10

“Pickles” by Dulcinea (Dulcinea97@aol.com).  It’s very difficult to 
accomplish what Dulcinea does in this story.  We all know that bananas, 
carrots, and cucumbers have phallic significance; but Dulcinea manages to 
convey the excitement of turning a lover on _over the telephone_ by 
eating a pickle.  I got wet just reading the story, and I was just 
munching on a chocolate chip cookie.  How could that be?

Ratings for “Pickles”
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 8
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 8

“Post-Coital” by Mark Aster (MyFrThAl@aol.com).  I remember being a 
little shy when I asked my doctor the Big Question when I was pregnant 
with my first daughter: “How close to birth can my husband and I have 
sexual intercourse.”  Her answer: “As close as you want, as long as he’s 
not in my way when I deliver the baby.”  I also had the theory that it 
was good for the baby to know that Daddy loved Mommy.  I’m not sure our 
children ever actually recognized Daddy in utero, but they certainly must 
have known that SOMEBODY loved Mommy!

In this episode, Our Hero is making love to both Pat and Julie; and when 
he withdraws from gravida Pat, more than his cum follows his cock.  No - 
not the baby! Pat’s water has broken, and the blessed event is underway.  
The story ends with cameo appearances to visit the newborn twins by 
numerous sexual playmates of the parents - Aunt Kate (who’s having a good 
time with Pat and Julie’s father in the guest room), Jake, Tanya, Midori, 
Alani, Sondra the cop, Daphne via telegram from France, and several 
others - see how many of the episodes you can recall in which these 
people appeared.

Ratings for “Post-Coital”
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10

“Teacher’s Pets” by SarcasmX (wgungfu@alpha2.csd.uwm.edu).  This is the 
sort of thing I have been tempted to do with an occasional story; but I 
have been too polite.  The person to whom I’ll refer as the Commentator 
has taken an insipid adolescent fantasy and has inserted comments in 
parentheses to spice it up.  The basic plot is the traditional story 
about the 33-year-old, horny, divorced teacher with a 38D breast size 
letting some guys from the football team work out in her basement gym and 
then taking them upstairs for a shower and post-game analysis.  The 
Commentator’s satire in parentheses is a lot harder to explain; so you 
should read it yourself.  It was a lot of fun!

Ratings for “Teacher’s Pets”
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 9
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 9

“Doppelganger” by Unknown Author.  A doppelganger is a sort of a ghost 
that duplicates an existing person.  For example, if there really were 
such a thing as a doppelganger, I could probably watch X-Files and still 
have time to read these stories and write these reviews.  I would 
accomplish that by having my doppelganger watch the television, while I 
worked on the Internet.  Of course, if I had a doppelganger, I’d be a 
damned fool to waste it on X-Files.  Indeed, if I had a doppelganger, I 
guess I could - in a limited sense, of course - literally follow the 
advice of a very angry student and “go fuck myself!”  I suppose not 
everyone can have a doppelganger.  If doppelgangers were ubiquitous, the 
O.J. Simpson case would be even more confusing than it already is.  
Imagine that!

Since I don’t have a doppelganger (nor am I a doppelganger myself), I am 
unfamiliar with the TV show called “The X-Files.”  Based on what I have 
learned from the story, I would surmise that Scully and Mulder are FBI 
agents on that show.  Scully is a very attractive doctor or medical 
technician of some kind, and Mulder is a very serious man who possesses a 
certain charm and some kind of paranormal powers.  They apparently have a 
very straight, almost stoic relationship. I say this because the satire 
in this story seems to be directed toward the idea that it would be 
unusual for Scully to passionately jump Mulder’s body.  The key element 
of the story is that while they are attending a boring seminar at a 
university in Cathedral Hill, North Carolina, without the agent’s 
knowledge Mulder’s doppelganger makes passionate love to Scully two 
nights in a row, and then Scully is perplexed over the fact that her 
partner has no recollection of their mutual affection on the mornings 
after.  As the story evolves, we learn a few additional interesting facts 
about doppelgangers.  This was a very good, well-written story.

A very good English teacher once told me that if I used a word correctly 
ten times it would be mine for life.  I have now fulfilled that 
requirement, and so a doppelganger is now mine for life.  I’ll let you 
know if my sex life improves.

Ratings for “Doppelganger”
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10

* "Tryout" by Deirdre.  The woman knows her husband is interested in 
bdsm, but she herself does not want to participate in such practices.  
She decides that it would be OK with her if he did it with another 
woman, but she doesn't want him to go out trolling on her own; so she 
decides to select one for him.  She finds a good candidate, gives her a 
brief tryout, and finds her to be acceptable.  When she mentions this 
to another friend at lunch, that friend says that SHE would like to be 
her husband's partner!  The plot thickens; it seems that the friend 
already has some sort of relationship with the other candidate.  You'll 
have to read the story to see what happens.

Ratings for “Tryout”
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 9
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 9

* “Tutor" by Deirdre.  Jim is not living up to the narrator's 
expectations as a lover, and Charlene offers to go to bed with him to 
teach him to be a good lover.  That may sound like a harmless idea.  
However, the moral of the story is that things can "get complicated 
when we get past 18...." This story validates my personal belief that 
surrogates may not always be a good idea.  On the other hand, by the 
end of the story the narrator was having more orgasms than she had ever 
had before.

Ratings for “Tutor”
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 9
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 9

* “Twin" by Deirdre.  Many moons ago, I stated in this column that 
Deirdre deliberately writes with several different styles.  I made that 
observation because the style of the narrator in the story I was 
reviewing was not one of my favorites.  In her disclaimer to the 
present story Deirdre herself says: "It's possible that you have 
noticed that for some of my main character/narrators, the elevator 
doesn't quite reach the top floor. (If you are just now learning 
English, then there's an idiom you can study)  The problem is that I 
prefer to write stories with the main character narrating, but I also 
like to keep secrets from the main character.  Thus if I let the reader 
in on a secret, then the main character isn't thinking things through 
very well. If I'm lucky, they just seem distracted.  Otherwise . . ."  
Deirdre put it better than I did (elevators usually are better 
metaphors than moons), but for once I was more succinct.  This subtle 
aspect of Deirdre's style (adapting the language and logic to that of 
the narrator) is one of the strengths of her writing.

On to the present story: "Twin."  One night, the narrator's usually 
passive girlfriend starts fucking his brains out in an unusually 
aggressive, passionate manner.  This is fine with him; but midway 
through the second performance, he hears a noise in the house.  He goes 
looking for a prowler, but he finds a naked woman bound and gagged in 
another room.  His girlfriend hastily explains that this is her twin 
sister, who has come to town and would do anything to keep her (the 
girlfriend) from being happy.  "Best to leave her gagged and teach her 
a lesson by fucking her in the ass," says she.

Now, go ahead and guess the rest of the plot.  Under these 
circumstances, were I the boyfriend and granted that we have twins 
here, I would at least entertain the possibility that it is the 
girlfriend who is bound and gagged on the floor and the evil twin 
sister who has been fucking my brains out.  Instead the guy says to 
himself, "Gee, my girlfriend sure is talking different!" and proceeds 
to sodomize the damsel in bondage.

Well, I've given away the secret to the story; but that's because my 
elevator goes higher than this guy's has gone in many moons.  But you 
would have figured out the secret yourself anyway, and there's still 
another half of the story to go.  Here's another secret: according to 
her disclaimer Deirdre _expected_ you to figure this out; and for the 
rest of the story you get to participate in a sort of dramatic irony by 
knowing something the boyfriend doesn't know - or do you? It gets 
pretty interesting trying to figure out whose bones the guy is jumping, 
whom he's marrying, and who it is that has him tied spread-eagle on the 
bed.

Ratings for “Twin”
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10

* “Upstairs" by Deirdre.  An adolescent boy is caught by his sister 
going through her diary.  Since their mother had expressly forbidden 
this, the boy is scared and agrees to let the sister punish him 
herself, if only she won't tell Mom.  The sister enjoys this and 
expands the enterprise, so that she is able to spank him long after he 
has paid for the initial offense.  She simply gives him a nod, and a 
few minutes later he's upstairs in the bedroom, naked buttocks exposed, 
waiting for his punishment.  And now, years later, he's visiting his 
parents with his wife, and he sees his sister give him that nod....

Ratings for “Upstairs”
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 9
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 9

* “Visit" by Deirdre.  What should a middle-aged, married woman do if 
the beautiful daughter of her best friend suddenly shows up at the 
door, mentions that her college roommate is a lesbian, pushes her 
against the wall, kneels, and licks her cunt in such a way as to give 
her the orgasm of her life?  And what should she do if this happened 
several times in the next few days?  The correct answer is this: check 
to see if she's recruiting sex slaves for her roommate before you 
decide to continue the relationship.  As Mark Twain said, "There's no 
such thing as a free orgasm."

Ratings for “Visit”
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 9
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 9

* “Wait" by Deirdre.  "*You* go upstairs and get undressed; *I'll* get 
rid of them... lie on the bed on top of the covers, on your stomach and 
wait."  What's a girl to do?  Why's he taking so long?  Why on the 
stomach?  I thought this one ended too abruptly.  Just like this 
review.

Ratings for "Wait"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 8
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 7

* “Waitress" by Deirdre.  What is there about this story that makes me 
like it even more than most of Deirdre's other stories?  Connie and 
Rachel have ordered their meal from a cute little waitress, and Rachel 
says to Connie, "What do you think of her?" and then "Would you like to 
spank her?"  I think the beauty of this story lies in its economy of 
words; in a very short story Deirdre makes an extremely unusual outcome 
seem so perfectly natural.

Ratings for “Waitress”
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10

* “Walk" by Deirdre . "It's so dark and lonely out here at 3:00 a.m. 
that I could dance naked in the street and no one would notice!"  
That's not the sort of thing a woman says out loud in a Deirdre story - 
at least not unless she expects some consequences.

Ratings for “Walk”
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 9
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 8

* “Wife" by Deirdre.  A coworker's wife invites the narrator out to 
lunch and mentions that she'd like to watch her husband make it with 
another woman and that the narrator would do just nicely.  The woman is 
taken by surprise, but she gives the proposal some thought and before 
long agrees.  Then she promises to do exactly what the wife tells her to 
do.  Why do people in Deirdre's stories say yes to such all-encompassing 
conditions?  Well, anyway, everything works out all right in the end; 
but I didn't quite see the logic of this story.

Ratings for “Wife”
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 8
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 7

* “Work" by Deirdre.  The woman has told her husband that for his 
birthday she would do anything he wanted for 24 hours.  She describes in 
detail to her coworker what she has done for him so far.  Why is she 
revealing all this to her colleague?  It turns out that his orders that 
morning were to go get a woman and bring her back to him.

Ratings for “Work”
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 8
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 7

