Celestial Reviews 78 - April 24, 1996

Note:  As an aftershock from my hard drive problems, I have a backlog 
of stories to review.  This has become an absolutely delightful 
problem.  I am overwhelmed with really good stories to read!  I’ll 
catch up as soon as I can.  Meanwhile, keep ‘em coming - if you’ll 
pardon the expression.

Second Note:  My work for this newsgroup is not the only thing that got 
backed up with my computer problems.  I’m getting a little behind - if 
you’ll pardon the expression - in my work at school too.  Sometimes I 
want to grab a student (by the shoulders, of course) and shout, “Here!  
Read this story!  Why can’t you write like this?”  You people are 
keeping me sane right now!

- Celeste

      “The Adventures of Me and Martha Jane” by Santo J.
            Romeo (emerging adolescence and romance) 
            10, 10, 10
      “Woman of the Apaches” by V.N. McCoy (sex in the wild
            west) 10, 8, 8
      “Infinity” by J.M.  (sexual satire) 10, 10, 10
      "One Night" by D.A. Ignatius (romance) 9, 9, 9
      “Xenophobia” by Grimbo (TG science fiction) 9, 10, 10
      “Up on the Roof” by Solo Polyphony (outdoor sex &
            voyeurism) 9, 9, 9
      “On the Roof” by DHouseh734 (voyeurism & 
            sexual reminiscing) 7, 8, 8
      “Ten Dollar Fine” or "You Ain't Never Gon' Forget" by
            Wollstonecraft (rape) 10, 10, 9
      “Lasting Impressions” by Richard Baudouin (matter-of-fact
            sex) 9, 9, 9

"The Adventures of Me and Martha Jane" by Santo J. Romeo 
(73233.1411@compuserve.com).  I first reviewed this story in CR 18, 
which was posted on September 9, 1995.  At that time I gave it a 5.  It 
was a good story, I said; but I was genuinely pissed off because it 
just ended in the middle of nowhere.  I further refused to read any 
more parts of the story until the author would assure me that he was 
finished.  I was tired of this neverending story crap.

Well, the author has finished the story, and it has been worth the 
wait.  I saw a message on a.s.s. that compared the author to Harold 
Robbins.  That evaluation is not far from the mark.

The narrator is presumably a man in his fifties, retelling a story of 
his youth.  At the beginning of the story, the 6-year-old Steven 
(Speedy) harbored a wonderful, non-sexual admiration for Martha Jane, 
who was nine years older; and she showed a reciprocal respect for him. 
The two lived next door to each other in a federal housing project 
around 1950 and shared a common front porch.  The focus of the story is 
the maturation and fulfillment of their relationship.

Although the early lines of this story hint of sexual activity, the 
first several paragraphs are devoted to demonstrating that the 
protagonist of the story was a precocious child - not a sexually 
precocious child, but a run-of-the-mill precocious child.  This full-
life focus continues throughout the story, and it emphasizes that the 
hero and Martha Jane should be regarded as whole persons, not as simple 
sex objects.  The development of non-sexual aspects helps set this 
story in a truly rich and interesting psychological and emotional 
environment.  The story is one of the longest coherent stories I have 
seen on this newsgroup, but it is also one of the best.

Certainly there is moral ambiguity in the story.  For example, near the 
beginning the mother tells the young Steven that pregnant women get 
that way by eating too many popsicles and that babies come from storks.  
Shortly thereafter, Martha Jane corrects this stupid explanation by 
playing with his penis to give him a hard-on, while giving him an 
accurate biological account of the facts of life.  If I had a son, I 
wouldn't try either of these approaches to sex education.  It's 
interesting that normal society rejects Martha Jane's approach - to the 
extent that Redbook and the Sunday supplements would never even 
consider publishing an account like this without labeling Martha Jane a 
pervert; but sitcoms routinely laugh about the mother's explanation.

I'm running the risk of preaching to the choir here: most readers of 
this review are likely to be predisposed to want to like a story like 
this.  On the other hand, large numbers of equally civilized readers 
outside a.s.s. would react to this story as an example of perversion.  
Most of us will counter by describing these people as sexually 
repressed puritans.  And so forth.  I think we should be willing to 
simply admit but tolerate the moral ambiguity of the story.  It's 
fiction and it's interesting.  There's nothing perverse in setting 
aside our moral scruples and enjoying a good story.  Millions of 
American high schoolers are required every year to read Edgar Alan 
Poe's tale about a pervert who tears the heart out of an old man and 
buries it under the floorboards in his house.  We practically require 
these students to set aside moral scruples and to enjoy the beauty of 
this atrocity.  I'm not recommending that we make "Martha Jane" part of 
the sophomore curriculum; I simply think adult readers can set aside 
moral reactions long enough to enjoy this story without taking a 
position that it would be "better" if all children grew up this way.  

When I myself was a young baby-sitter, I did not give head to any of 
the children I cared for; and I would hope that my own daughters 
likewise refrain from that practice.  The psychologists and counselors 
who suggested to the narrator later in his life that this activity was 
abnormal are quite likely right (although, again, these sages would 
simply laugh about the goofy explanations of sexuality given by the 
mother and other adults.).  It would be much better for little boys to 
receive accurate answers from their own parents and for young baby-
sitters to have internalized a code of ethical conduct that enables 
them to understand their own and their clients' emerging sexuality and 
to rule out genital contact without resorting to primitive mythologies.  
But that still doesn't make this a bad story.  One of my own favorite 
novels is Betty Smith's "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn."  I would never 
raise my own children the way those children grew up in that story, but 
it's still a good novel (and an excellent movie).  

Again, I'm probably preaching to the choir.  But someone is surely 
going to label this story “pedophilia.”  There are legitimate gripes 
against many pedophile stories; they essentially recommend the adoption 
of lifestyles that would be destructive to children.  What we need to 
do is acknowledge that some stories that describe genital activities 
with children have the potential to be destructive - especially those 
that are simply unrealistic or that promote the exploitation of 
children.  On the other hand, other stories that describe genital 
activity with or among children are either harmless or actually have 
the potential to lead to moral or emotional growth among readers.  To 
take a sexually-related analogy, there are numerous examples of books 
and movies about adults having affairs.  Some of these are badly 
written or stupidly conceived and seem to have as their only goal to 
degrade the value of marriage and other permanent relationships.  On 
the other hand, many of these books and movies are well conceived and 
have the overall effect of enabling us to understand human emotions - 
and, indeed, marriage and other permanent relationships - more 
perfectly.

Although the most important aspect of this story is the sexual 
relationship between the narrator and Martha Jane, it's not really a 
sex story.  Rather, it's a story about the emotional development of two 
young people.  Less than a third of the lines in the story are even 
remotely devoted to their sex lives.  The non-sex scenes are extremely 
realistic and vivid, giving us information needed to understand the 
background and personalities of the two main characters.

If a reader wants a source of information about how much fun it would 
be to have sex with a precocious little kid, this would be a good story 
for that purpose - although all the details about the child’s emotions 
would probably be viewed as distracting.  However, I really don’t think 
this was the author’s purpose.  On the other hand, if a person (like 
myself) is reading this story to obtain sensitive insights into the 
personalities of two young people as they mature sexually and 
emotionally, this is a good source for serious reading.

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

“Woman of the Apaches” by V.N. McCoy (http://users.aol.com/specpress).  
The people at Spectrum Press have begun posting excerpts from their 
published novels on the a.s.s. newsgroup.  These selections follow this 
format: “SP Fiction: NAME OF THE STORY.”  I suppose Spectrum’s theory 
is that if they give away one chapter, readers may be inspired to 
purchase the entire novel.  Fair enough.  I’m going to review some of 
these stories when I have time.  My review will be based on what I know 
about the story - that is, the portion that Spectrum gives away on 
a.s.s.  If somebody from Spectrum sees this review and decides to send 
me the excerpts of other stories before posting them on a.s.s., I’ll 
try to post my reviews while the excerpts are still alive in the 
postings.

This selection is about a couple of cowpokes who ride into a mining 
town in the old west.  They need to slake their thirst, have a bath, 
and get some pussy.  The meet Sybil Morgan, the manager of the hotel, 
and she takes them both on.  I read this story because the title 
suggested that there would be an Apache woman in it or at least that a 
main character would be living with the Apaches.  This is not the case 
- maybe the meaning of the title becomes more obvious in a later 
chapter.  

The sex is not all that hot, but the old west ambiance helped hold my 
interest.  I suppose if I needed something to read and if my docket 
were not already overloaded with stories from this newsgroup, this is a 
novel that would interest me.

Ratings for "Woman of the Apaches"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 8
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 8

“Infinity” by J.M. (LlIIllII).  Educators consider it to be a good 
thing when their students integrate their school knowledge with their 
real lives.  That’s why math teachers would be impressed with this 
story.  The narrator of this story had a custom of rating a particular 
part of a girl’s anatomy on a numerical scale based on how many months 
he could keep its image clearly in his head while masturbating. He 
rated Naomi's tits a 2 and Betsy's underpants a 1. Maybe someday, he 
fantasized, he'd see an Infinity -  something so hot,  so sexy, that 
even if he were shipwrecked on a desert island, he’d be able to jerk 
off thinking about it for the rest of his life.  Hence, the title of 
this story.  His old record was a six for Mrs. Patterson; but that’s 
another story

The young narrator has liberal, progressive parents - the kind Drs. 
Spock and Ruth would be proud of.  When they found him masturbating at 
age 10, they explained to him that masturbation was normal, as long as 
he did not do it publicly or too often.  The term “too often” set a 
high upper limit.  It was like telling him not to have too much fun or 
not to fuck a girl who’s too sexy - there ain’t no such thing!  

With his parents’ approval the kid used to jerk off every morning 
before breakfast.  One morning the poor lad was having trouble - the 
mental imagery just wasn’t working; and so his mom stepped into the 
room and gave him a boost.  Things worked themselves out quickly, so to 
speak. Coincidentally, that very day Mr. Dulles (also known as Mr. 
Dullest) discussed Infinity in math class.  Because of his pre-
breakfast adventures, our hero understood the concept better than most 
of the other students.

Dad met Eternity shortly after his son discovered Infinity.  He died in 
a traffic accident.  He lost control of  the car and crashed into an 
abutment because he got a little too excited while masturbating behind 
the wheel.  MAMD - Mothers Against Masturbating Drivers - would not 
like that part of the story; or maybe they WOULD like it, since it 
shows what can happen to guys who let masturbation get out of hand.  
MAROP - Mothers Against Really Old Puns - wouldn’t like that last 
sentence at all.

The story has a surprise ending, which I won’t disclose to you.

My main difficulty with the story was with some of the strange 
characteristics in the text I downloaded.  There was a large O with two 
or three dots, which I think stood for ellipses.  There was an I with 
an accident mark, which I think was a fancy apostrophe - except that in 
some chapters the apostrophes were omitted completely.  I have seen 
these characters before, and I have been told that they occur because 
the author is using “higher ASCII characters,” which do not 
automatically occur on all word processors.  My problem is this: even 
though my word processor (Word 6.0) CAN deal with them, they get lost 
in the translation somewhere on the Internet.  My advice to authors is 
to avoid using these characters.  Since authors will ignore this 
perfectly sensible advice, my recommendation to readers is to use a 
global change strategy to get rid of these unintelligible characters.  
For example, you could load all five parts of this story into a single 
file, move your cursor to the beginning, select the “i” with the accent 
mark, copy it, go into your replace function, paste the strange sample 
into the “replace what” area, type an ordinary apostrophe into the 
“replace with” area, and then choose “replace all.”  By doing this with 
about five weird characters - actually I think I reviewed a story 
recently about somebody doing something else with about five weird 
characters - by doing this with about five weird textual characters you 
can make the text readable.

I spontaneously interpreted this story as satire - kind of like “Cat 
Ballou” or “Naked Gun 69.”  The author has a really interesting style.  
He pulls absolutely outlandish ideas out of nowhere.  In the past I 
have speculated about authors being someone else reincarnated.  It is 
not necessary to conjure up reincarnation to explain the true 
authorship of this story.  If you really want to know about it, this 
story is obviously written by J.D. Salinger, who is now 77 years old, 
living in New England (where this story takes place), and reliving his 
further adolescent fantasies through cyberspace on alt.sex.stories. 

I think that if Zeno would have had access to this story, he would have 
had another paradox about Infinity.  Approach this story as excellent 
satire, and have fun.

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

“One Night” by D.A. Ignatius (jash@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu).  If I weren’t 
predisposed to like the DarkNites series, I might have hated this 
story.  This tale of a single hot night of passion leaves too many 
questions unanswered.  For example, during their lovemaking the woman’s 
mind flashes back to a previous occasion when she had been raped.  Does 
her partner know about this?  We can’t tell.  After the lovemaking, the 
woman sneaks away into the night.  Why does she do this? We can’t tell.

If this were a first story by a different writer, I possibly would have 
flamed the author for leaving these and other questions unanswered.  
Instead, I simply used my imagination and supplied my own answers.  I 
guess it pays for authors to have a good track record.

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

“Xenophobia” by Grimbo (grimbo@acpub.duke.edu) A space creature has 
arrived on earth via meteorite and has taken up a dwelling place in 
Tim’s body.  It absorbs energy from Tim’s orgasms; in fact, it has 
become addicted to human orgasms.  By analyzing Tim’s brain, the alien 
entity has discovered that it woould have been better tp have taken 
possession of a woman’s body instead of Tim’s, because women’s orgasms 
are more nutritious (at least for the diet of this specific brand of 
space creature). The dilemma is that if the alien leaves Tim, both Tim 
and the space creature will die.  Can you see the basis for a creative 
TG story yet? The space creature is going to have to figure out how to 
achieve a nourishing female-style orgasm inside Tim's body.

A few more details: Tim’s sister Pam is visiting, and the alien manages 
to get some of her DNA and uses it to transform Tim into a female.  The 
female TIM is required to have one orgasm a month, in order to supply 
the energy needed for subsistence the alien inside him/her.  Anything 
beyond that will be surplus.  Pam helps Tim make the transition to 
female.  

The term “Xenophobia” refers to the irrational fear of that which is 
foreign - in this case to Tim’s resistance to his enforced 
feminization.  You’ll have to read the story to find out more.

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

“Up on the Roof” by Solo Polyphony (solo.polyphony@teamhbbs.com).  The 
man and his wife go up to the roof of the New York building.  The 
restaurant located there has just closed, and so they sneak off to a 
secluded spot and engage in romantic, semi-public but still private 
sex.  Ooops!  Somebody saw them; and so they invite him to join in.  
The sex gets pretty hot.  I enjoyed this story.

Ratings for " Up on the Roof "
Athena (technical quality): 9
Venus (plot & character): 9
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 9

“On the Roof” by DHouseh734 (dhouseh734@aol.com).  I downloaded this 
story mostly because its title was so similar to that of the previous 
story.  I thought it might be fun to compare them.  Actually, the two 
have little in common.  This one’s about a guy sitting on a rooftop at 
a Christian camp when he is joined by a woman who seems to be one of 
the camp counselors.  They don’t have sex, but he reminisces a lot.  
This would be an excellent story, but it’s largely incoherent because 
of faulty proofreading.

Ratings for " On the Roof "
Athena (technical quality): 7
Venus (plot & character): 8
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 8

“Ten Dollar Fine” or "You Ain't Never Gon' Forget" by Wollstonecraft 
(an285729@anon.penet.fi).  As the author says in the disclaimer, this 
is a _very_ ugly story, but that's how the story wanted to be written. 
A budding movie star named Mary Pickford had refused to pay a ten 
dollar fine in a small southern town.  She would just spend the next 
ten days in jail instead.  To her horror, she realizes that she is 
going to be raped.  The sheriff sends into the cell with her an unruly 
Black prisoner.  Not wanting to get pregnant by him, she tries to suck 
him dry, while the sheriff watches; but as soon as the blow job is 
finished, the guy fucks her in the cunt as well.  And then the story 
gets really violent.

The author was right.  This really is an ugly but well written story.

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

“Lasting Impressions” by Richard Baudouin (ribaud@cycor.ca). This story 
takes the form of a written report from a man who just has become the 
lover of a rather worldly woman.  The guy has had an “assignation” with 
the woman, and she has asked him to give her a full report in writing.  
Sounds like something an English teacher would demand!

This is an interesting approach to telling an erotic story.  I think I 
would have changed the title to “Minutes of the Meeting of My Cock with 
Your Cunt.”  The author tries to be very matter-of-fact about matters 
that are very arousing, and the effect is quite interesting.

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


