Celestial Reviews 107 - August 10, 1996

Note:  People are constantly asking me where to find the stories I 
review.  I do not have time to respond to that question individually.  
All stories are posted on alt.sex.stories.  In addition, here are the 
names and addresses of some people who archive their own or others’ 
stories:

Mark Aster has set up a Web site with all the Allens stories:  
http://users.aol.com/myfrthal/

Ann Douglas has a home page at 
http://members.aol.com/gajcom/annd 
and will soon have a secondary site at
http://www2.inow.com/~jfjellst/AnnD/ 

Most of Deirdre’s stories are available at this web site:
http://serv1.tech-one.com/~bill/deirdre/

TG stories by several authors are archived at
http://satchmo.physik.TU-
Berlin.DE/~zirzlaff/nienor/pub/Stories/Nostrumos_Book/

Simon bar Sinister has a Mind-Control Story Archive at 
http://www.galaxy.net/~simon/

Robot Fetish stories are posted at: 
http://users.aol.com/robotdoll/asfr.html

Some hot femdom stories can be found at
http://www.webcom.com/~akasha/

Vickie Tern has told me that her stories can be downloaded for 
free at 
http://library.gaycafe.com/nifty/transgender/by_authors/Vickie_Te
rn
I assume other TG authors could be located at the same site by 
dropping Vickie’s name and using the index.

Celestial Reviews are posted at: http://www.emi.u-
bordeaux.fr/~jay/Celeste

Elf Sternberg stories are posted at: 
http://www.halcyon.com/elf/index.html

Sisters Ng stories are posted at:  
http://members.aol.com/deidreng/index.htm

Tooshoes, the author of the Supergirl stories, has a site at 
http://www.netcom.com/~tooshoes/PenPartners.html

Warthog stories are posted at: 
http://www.connect.net/linetwo/stories.html

Estragon’s stories are available at two locations
ftp://unix.tpe.com/pub/estragon
and at
http://www.tpe.com/~mule.

The Wulf stories (and apparently some others) are archived at:
http://www.teleport.com/~marawuti.

Mary Anne Mohanraj posts her own stories at
http://www.internet-ireland.ie/maryanne

The following web page contains my reviews of the Top 100 Stories of 
1995 along with the stories themselves:
http://proffa.cc.tut.fi/~k113973/

If any of these are no longer current or if there are others I should 
add, please contact me.  I am interested only in free, non-commercial 
sites.  However, I’ll also plug the following organization; although 
they charge for membership, they GIVE stories away to non-members.  (I 
suppose they hope you’ll eventually join.)

The BackDrop Club  offers a service of helping people who are looking for a 
specific file, story, or a chapter or section of a story. If you are an adult 
and know the name of the file you wish to receive, send a request using the 
following format:

TO:       file.archives@backdrop.com
SUBJECT:  (the name of the file you wish as a single word)

I HAVE used this service myself, and it is my opinion that it is NOT a 
rip-off.  If you need more information, contact robin@backdrop.com.  
The BackDrop Club also has a Web Page at http://www.fantasies.com.

Finally, Deja News is a search engine available on the World Wide Web.  
It is possible (without additional cost beyond your service that 
accesses the Web) to find most of the stories I review by entering a 
few key words into the search box.  To expedite matters, I suggest 
using “alt.sex.stories” as part of your search strategy.  You’ll get a 
short list of “hits,” one of which will include the story you are 
looking for.  You then click on the story’s brief title, and the whole 
text pops up on your screen, where you can save it to disk - even if 
your service does not give you access to the a.s.s. newsgroup.

- Celeste

      “In/Out Law" by Michael K. Smith (romance) 
            10, 10, 10
      “Trinity Trilogy Novel 5/14” by Tom Trinity 
            (miscellaneous orgies) 10, 9.5, 10
      “Memories of Underdevelopment” by Estragon (emerging
            sexuality) 10, 10, 10
      “Sarah and Sister Theresa” by Ann Douglas (romance) 
            9.5, 10, 10
      “BiGirls” by Vickie Tern (transgender femdom) 10,10, 10
      “Taking Chances” by Javahead (threesome with wife
            watching) 10, 10, 10
     *"Tell Me a Story" by smoot2 (fantasy plus live sex) 
            10, 10, 10
     *"Churche House" by Deb Atwood (romance) 10, 10, 9.5

* Repost of a previous review (because the story may be 
      reposted soon).

“In/Out Law" by Michael K. Smith (mksmith@metronet.com).  This is my 
kind of short story.  Actually, I have grown to enjoy stories that 
include more unusual forms of sexual activity; but this story describes 
the simpler kinds of events that I like to imagine happening in my own 
life or in the lives of my friends.  Tom has been married and divorced, 
and during this story his sister-in-law tells Tom that his brother has 
been cheating on her.  Instead of fucking her brains out right then and 
there, he tries to help her solve the problem and then makes gentle 
love to her.  Instead of having sex with the children, he converses 
with them and helps them do well in school and adjust to the problems 
of their life.  Instead of suggesting a sex-change operation, torturing 
the husband and his lover, proposing a threesome or foursome, or 
resorting to mind control, he marries the lady; and they live happily 
ever after.  The author even makes all this boring stuff sound 
interesting and romantic.

Ratings for “In/Out Law”
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10

“Trinity Trilogy Novel 5/14” by Tom Trinity (stbush@iglou.com).  In 
this segment Tom meets the twins.  Teri and Toni are so identical that 
a man would have to be very lucky to find the secret to telling them 
apart.  By the end of the first day of the convention, Tom could tell 
them apart, but only under certain, specific, preorgasmic conditions.  
However, Tom doesn’t deal with these twins alone (or alone together, I 
guess) but rather as part of a fivesome that includes his bosom buddies 
<heh, heh!> Judy and Candy.

In bygone days I would have tried to count the orgasms.  I have long 
ago abandoned hope of enumerating the Trinity Trilogy orgasms.  The 
only way to keep track of these people would be to put a seismometer in 
the room.

In another chapter we witness Tom performing one of his most important 
services to society - deflowering another virgin.  With the assistance 
of the other two girls, he initiates the overweight woman tenderly.  
With any luck, she’ll become an aficionado of sex just like Candy - or 
was it Judy - whose cherry Tom popped back in Chapter 1.

As I have read these weekly segments, I have been impressed with the 
quality of the writing.  Whenever I started to say to myself that this 
was too much of the same thing over and over, something new would pop 
up.  This week we had the twins and an emphasis on anal sex.  However, 
as I said above, I have found it to be futile to try to keep track of 
the orgasms.  

So last night I asked my husband if he’d like to have sex more often 
and with a wider variety of people.  “Sure!” he said, as he removed his 
pants.  But he was just being macho.  When I pressed him 
(metaphorically), he acknowledged that we were doing just fine.  We 
have been married a long time, and we have pretty good sex about five 
times a week.  Comparisons with others don’t really matter; but the sex 
surveys say we’re above average in frequency of intercourse.  I simply 
don’t WANT to do it five times a DAY.  That would be thirty-five times 
a week, for godsake.  With all due respect, I’m not even sure my 
husband CAN do it that often.  In fact, I can tell when he’s planning a 
special surprise for me; because before a real binge he always abstains 
for a couple of days so that we can fuck like rabbits for the special 
occasion.  Me?  I can just spread my legs and....

I think at some point excessively frequent sex would become analogous 
to having steak every day - after a while, steak would no longer be a 
treat - or like having a birthday everyday, so that birthdays would no 
longer be special.  As it is, we do a lot of interesting things 
together (as well as apart), and then we have these really special 
moments together.  I dunno.  Maybe I’m in a bad mood.  I hear my 
husband in the shower.  I think I’ll join him and see how he responds 
to a blow job.

Ratings for “Trinity Trilogy Novel 5/14”
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 9
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10

“Memories of Underdevelopment” by Estragon (an573847@anon.penet.fi).  
Erica and Leila are two fifteen year old girls who are beginning to 
discover their own sexuality. Little by little, they start with what 
they know about boys just from instinct, and then imagine things 
together, out loud, that they would only have let themselves imagine in 
private before; and then they try some of those things out for real, on 
real males; and then they build on what they have learned.

One day Erica says, "It's strange. Girls let all kinds of guys they're 
going to break up with in a week touch them and learn all about them, 
and their best friend who they'll love forever has no idea what their 
nipples or slot look like...."  And so they head for Leila’s house, get 
naked, and explore each other’s bodies.  Sounds normal to me.  Like 
many of Estragon’s stories, this one starts with perfectly normal, 
sensible activities and emotions like these and builds to the point 
where readers will suddenly realize that they are accepting as normal 
activities that they would previously have viewed as bizarre.

In other words, Estragon has fiendishly combined the Socratic dialogue 
with the short story and feminist ideology. 

Careful research shows that males outnumber females on this newsgroup.  
I can’t explain this, although I’m sure Erica and Leila could 
demonstrate that it is this way because women want it this way.  My 
point is that large numbers of male readers will read this story and 
wonder whether young girls really do lie around playing with each 
other’s bodies, giving pleasure to each other and devising plans for 
subjugating males to be pussy whipped.  {The story gives a delightful 
discussion of this term.}  On the surface, most men probably reject the 
idea as foolish; they know their girlfriends and lovers, and these 
people are nice to their male friends.  But isn’t it possible that 
that’s just part of the facade?  Maybe the girlfriends and lovers are 
smart enough to not let the dumb males know that they are being pussy 
whipped.  Maybe there really is this huge conspiracy going on, but 
maybe we women are just smart enough to keep our slaves happy by 
letting them foolishly believe that they are the masters.  Makes sense 
to me.

I truly love Estragon’s writings, and I don’t want to betray the 
Sisterhood; but I’m going to tell you a secret.  When I was an 
adolescent girl, I did NOT sit around with a girlfriend and devise ways 
to subjugate males.  I never once stuck a boy in the balls with the 
backside of a spoon, nor did I pee on a male of the species who was 
begging me to do so.  However, as I grew older, in dorms and locker 
rooms we girls did metaphorically do these things.  Although I don’t 
know anyone who actually did cut off a boy’s or man’s testicles, I do 
know lots of girls who took delight in emasculating their boyfriends in 
more socially acceptable ways; and I myself often enjoyed giving one of 
these assholes a metaphorical kick in the balls.

What I am saying is that I doubt that many young girls literally do the 
things that Erica and Leila do; but a very large number of mature women 
(myself included) read this story and say, “That’s not an entirely bad 
idea!”  

In short, this story is sort of a thinking person’s “Thelma and 
Louise.”

Most of my correspondents think that Estragon is a man.  I have no 
direct knowledge to the contrary, but I suspect that she is a woman.  
If Estragon is a man, he’s a genius to have insights like this into the 
female psyche; and as Estragon herself would point out, men just aren’t 
all that smart.  Ergo, Estragon must be a woman - and a damned good 
writer besides.  On the other hand, Aristophanes was a man, and he 
wrote Lysistrata.

Don’t be scared off by my references to Socratic dialogues, to feminine 
psyches, and all that technical jargon.  And don’t you guys be afraid 
that you’ll become emasculated by reading this story.  And who cares if 
this IS reality?  If Estragon is right, you guys too dumb to realize it 
anyway.  Just read this story and enjoy it!  If you do so and then ask 
real politely, maybe a nice lady will let you get naked for her.

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

“Sarah and Sister Theresa” by Ann Douglas (AnnD55@Pipeline.Com).  Nuns 
have always interested me.  In my days as a Catholic school student I 
hated the bitches because they were so petty and self-righteous and 
admired them because they were so pretty and so dedicated.  In my adult 
days I have easily reconciled these conflicting images by realizing 
that the nuns I knew had individual personalities just like anyone 
else.  One of my closest friends became a nun (actually, a sister - 
there’s a difference, she tells me) and subsequently quit her order and 
got married.  She’s about as normal as anyone else.  She still goes to 
meetings of ex-nuns and continues to meet with her friends who are 
still nuns; and she says that ex-nuns are about the same as ex-golfers, 
ex-engineers, and ex-politicians.

She assures me that the stories about secret passages between convents 
and rectories and about aborted children of illicit unions between 
priests and nuns being buried in secret basement cemeteries are 
essentially vicious rumors.  However, she hastens to add that she knows 
very little about bishops and popes, and so these rumors may be true 
about the upper hierarchy.  {My friend has very little respect for 
upper hierarchies}.  My friend tells me that there seem to have been 
two main reasons for women her age (currently 40+) entering the 
convent: dedication to the service of others and an inability to get 
along with men.  Actually, my friend feels that the reasons acted 
jointly: many women who had trouble getting along with men would find 
the convent an honorable way out - becoming a dedicated nun seemed a 
lot more honorable than becoming a lesbian or an old maid.  My friend 
thinks that lots of young men became priests for the same reasons.

My friend tells me that ex-nuns (and presumably real nuns) are not 
especially inclined to be lesbians.  She believes that about 20% of her 
friends who have left the convent are practicing lesbians; the rest 
have either remained celibate or have entered heterosexual 
relationships.  While in the convent, nuns are required to avoid 
relationships with men (because of their vows of celibacy/virginity), 
and so whatever relationships they do develop are likely to be with 
women.  However, genital contact is considered sinful; and an active 
lesbian would be booted out of most orders.  They’re supposed to 
sublimate (as Freud would put it) or be a bride of Christ (as mother 
superior would put it).  My friend maintains that the avoidance of sex 
or the clandestine practice of sex turned some women into real bitches; 
but many others were (and are) exceptionally intelligent and dedicated 
people.  It is my own opinion that lots of ex-nuns read the stories on 
this newsgroup; they just don’t advertise that fact.

I told my friend she should write a book.  She says maybe she will; but 
I don’t think she’ll post it on this newsgroup.  So I thought I should 
share this information with you as an introduction to this repost of 
Ann Douglas’s excellent story.  Too often people post stories about 
nuns in which either (1) the nuns are in heat, trying to seduce little 
kids, or (2) a bunch of sinister studs rape the nuns.  These stories 
may be enjoyable in their own right, but I like an occasional story 
about normal people who are in love.  The character portrayed by Ann in 
this story is more in line with the dedicated nuns my friend knew.

In this story, Sarah is a young woman who teaches in the same school 
with Sister Theresa, a young nun who had been Sarah’s teacher several 
years earlier.  In fact, it was partly because Sarah had spied on 
Sister Theresa in the shower that Sarah had come to the conclusion that 
she was herself a lesbian.  At the end of a long school day Sarah’s car 
breaks down; and she has to spend the night at the convent, sharing a 
room with Sister Theresa.  In the middle of the night, Sarah awakens to 
find Sister Theresa masturbating and calling out another nun’s name in 
her sleep.  You’ll have to read the story yourself to find out what 
comes next.  Right now I’ll just assure you that it’s hot and romantic 
but not sleazy.

Ratings for “Sarah and Sister Theresa”
Athena (technical quality): 9.5
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10

“BiGirls” by Vickie Tern (VickieTern@aol.com). Craig has stumbled onto 
a group of women who call themselves the BiGirls.  They are bisexuals 
who enjoy giving pleasure to each other as well as to their husbands or 
boyfriends; and they take pleasure from each other the same way, and 
see no harm in doing so.  But their husbands might not understand.  So 
they don't want Craig snooping around to take pictures of them to use 
to blackmail them into not blackmailing him, so that he can blackmail 
them into selling insurance to their husbands. From now on, when 
they’re meeting, they'll want to know exactly where Craig is. And 
that'll be right there with them at their little sex session. Thus does 
Craig become an honorary member of the BiGirls Club.

Kinda catches your attention, doesn’t it?

Of course there are catches and conditions.  For example, Craig has to 
wear female clothing during the meetings and has to act as much as 
possible like a woman.  This may sound humiliating; but the way the 
author presents it, Craig actually enjoys it immensely.  The activity 
even improves his sex life with his wife. A Club rule is that a BiGirl 
who is unoccupied at a meeting can never refuse another member's 
request, and Craig soon begins looking for interesting things to do 
with each of the other ladies.  Anything at all is permitted, as long 
as it is something one woman can do with another.

Oh - and Craig also takes medication, so that his erections become 
fewer and softer.  At BiGirl meetings all danger of inadvertent 
penetration eventually ends.  Craig progresses very well, and the other 
girls practically applaud the first time he takes a dildo up the ass.  
The other girls become openly affectionate toward Craig.  The 
experience brings out his feminine side - making him a better person.

Eventually Craig is seriously considering going for full rather than 
honorary membership in the Club (without surgery, of course); but then 
his wife throws in a monkey wrench, so to speak.  Things get very 
complicated. As usual, the last quarter of the story is full of 
surprises; and this author does a great job of making even the most 
bizarre events seem perfectly sensible by the end of the story.

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

“Taking Chances” by Javahead (an217242@anon.penet.fi).  I came across 
this story in the THC archives under the enticing title “Guy Shares His 
Wife with a Friend.”  That title summarizes the story all right, but it 
leaves out the nuances that make the story interesting.

When his wife asks him to tell her a sexy story while they make love, 
the man’s suggestions reveal to her that their fantasies overlap: he 
would like to see her being fucked by another man, and she would like 
to make love to another man while her husband watched.  These are not 
ordinary swingers.  At first they are stymied when they try to bring 
their mutual fantasy to realization; but then Rich, an old college 
friend of the husband who is obviously attracted to the wife, comes for 
a visit.  They perform sex in a variety of wonderful ways; then Rich 
goes home and they all live happily ever after.

This is a very good story.  The author employs a refreshing blend of 
informality and literacy to tell a really hot story.  Although I found 
this plot to be extremely erotic and enjoyable, I would not want to do 
these things in my actual life - even if I could be assured of avoiding 
diseases.  The way I value sex in my relationship with my husband, it 
simply does not make sense to involve a third person.  Our relationship 
is necessarily possessive and exclusive, and I cannot imagine that 
working with a third party - who might accidentally become more 
involved with me (for example) than we had planned - or vice versa.  
Maybe some of you are stronger emotionally than my husband and I are or 
maybe you have a different kind of relationship with your spouse; and 
in that case this story may represent an ideal for you.  For my part, I 
think there are some things that are fun to think about but just aren’t 
worth doing in real life.  

I have on several occasions made love to my husband in the same general 
area - even adjacent beds - where another couple was making love; but 
we employed a hands-off policy with regard to the other spouses.  This 
was wonderful.  I have also watched others making love while my husband 
fondled and even made love to me. This was wonderful.  But if we were 
to involve the others in our own lovemaking, we would be running the 
risk of hurting someone, and that might not be so wonderful.

That’s one of the reasons I like these stories on a.s.s.  I can read 
and enjoy these stories and fantasize about them and even act them out 
with my husband.  There’s no risk that anyone will be hurt.  On the 
other hand, if I were to hit the chat lines and present myself falsely 
to someone else, then there would be a chance that something would 
develop that would hurt me, that person, our spouses, or our children.  
It’s not worth the risk.

I don’t mean to give a moral lecture or to try to talk anyone out of 
chat lines, cybersex, threesomes, or anything else.  We all have to 
figure out what’s right and good for ourselves.  I’m just singing the 
praises of stories like this one.  They offer a low-risk environment 
for enriching our own lives.

When I first opened this story, I thought “I’ve read this story 
before!”; but a quick check of my database revealed that I had reviewed 
five stories by this author (none with a rating below 9, incidentally); 
but none with the word “Chances” in the title.  But I KNEW I had read 
the story.  As I looked at the first line - “Tell me a story....” - I 
assumed that the husband would tell the wife a really sexy story that 
would lead to really sexy sex that kind of mixed in with the really 
sexy sex in the really sexy story.  That wasn’t quite accurate for the 
present story.  To make my own long story short, I checked all five of 
the Javahead stories, and none of them matched the present story.  Then 
I tried popping “Tell Me a Story” into my database.  Voila!  A match!  
I had the culprit.  But no, “Tell Me a Story” was written by Smoot2.  
It had a similar story line; but it was clearly a distinct story.  In 
fact it was rated number 30 on my list of the Top Hundred Stories of 
1995.  Although Smoot2 may have been influenced by Javahead, these were 
two separate creative endeavors, not duplication or plagiarism.  I’m 
taking the opportunity to repost the review of the Smoot2 story (since 
I have just reread it).  Maybe Smoot2 will repost it for us.

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

*"Tell Me a Story" by smoot2 (smoot2@ix.netcom.com).  After a session 
of good sex, a woman asks her lover to tell her a story.  He responds 
with an erotic tale.  While she listens, she brings him and herself to 
an even better orgasm.  Ummm!    Tell me another story!  I could handle 
about 1001 Nights of This.

This story is by the author of "Lyrical Fantasy," which I reviewed in 
CR 27.  That story, I said, was a good story that was ruined by faulty 
proofreading and bad formatting.  I added that if this author ironed 
the kinks out of his writing, his work would be in a class with the 
writings of Deidre and Tammy Ng - which is a pretty good class.  See!  
I was right!  This is a wonderful story.

I would like to take credit for this improvement, but unless smoot2 and 
I did some time traveling or mental telepathy, he did this on his own.  
However, my point is still valid: the main difference between this 
story and the author's previous attempt is that this one is presented 
better.  It's not that the author's exceptional creativity is 
unimportant - it's just that by cleaning up his final draft of this 
story he lets us see what he really has to say.  With "Lyrical Fantasy" 
I was constantly distracted by the way the story was presented to me; 
in this story there still were grammar mistakes, but I skipped right 
past them and was distracted only by a warm, moist feeling in my pussy.  
I like this kind of distraction much better.

Ratings for “Tell Me a Story”
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10

*"Churche House" by Deb Atwood.  This story from the THC archives one 
is about a college woman and a slightly older male graduate student who 
live in some sort of residence associated with their school.  At the 
beginning of the story the woman has started writing an erotic story of 
her own, and her first meeting with the guy occurs when he glances over 
her shoulder while she is typing in horny rapture.

After they have dinner and while the guy goes to a meeting, the girl 
finishes her story, prints out a copy, and puts it under the guy's 
door.  "This is my kind of woman!" says I to myself.  "She's hoping 
he'll proofread it, correct the errors, and give her constructive 
feedback."  Actually, she's hoping to get laid.  I've never thought of 
that; I suppose someone could write erotic stories for some ulterior 
motive rather than for the intrinsic motivation inherent in giving 
birth to a work of literature.  Also, this story has one of my favorite 
pickup lines: "You're beautiful when you're having an orgasm."  I guess 
it isn't really a pickup line when my husband says that to me.  To be 
an official pickup line it would have to be, "I'll bet you're beautiful 
when you're having an orgasm."

This is a very good story, but it reveals one of the shortcomings of 
reposts.  This repost was labeled Chapter 1; and THC posted only this 
single chapter.  After I originally posted this review. its author (Deb 
Atwood) contacted me and said there are no more chapters.  I guess it’s 
hard for reposters to keep track of that kind of information.

Ratings for “Churche House”
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 9.5

