Celestial Reviews 57 - Jan 31, 1996

Note:  The proofreading service is in full operation, and people are 
reporting successful use of it.  IF YOU WANT FREE HELP AND FEEDBACK 
BEFORE POSTING A STORY, contact me, and I'll match you up with some of 
the reviewers.  

Second note:  I have had so many complaints about people not finding 
the postings of either my reviews or of other stories that I am going 
to make it a policy to repost all of my reviews at least once.  This 
week I am reposting CR 56

- Celeste

      "Teacher" by Deirdre (exhibitionism) 9
      "Tech" by Deirdre (dirty doctors & nurses) 6
      "Try" by Deirdre (anal sex) 9
      "Hidden" by Deirdre (voyeurism and domination) 9
      "Other" by Deirdre (voyeurism & seduction) 10
      "My Friends the Allens -- French Kiss" by Mark Aster
            (hot sex & voyeurism) 10
      "My Friends the Allens -- Julie Bound" by Mark Aster
            (torture) 5
      "Fifty Dollars for Full Service" by Affable Al (stud service) 9
      "Paying the Price" by Javahead (role playing) 10
      "Journal Entry 136 / 0068  [ The Kittenin' ]" by Elf Sternberg
           (mythology/science fiction) 10


"Teacher" by Deirdre.  As I neared the midpoint of this story, I was 
more than a little irritated.  This was too easy.  I had easily guessed 
from the very start that when the sweet young narrator went to the 
office of the school nurse after school for a massage, the 
"ministrations" would become erotic.  I was not at all surprised that a 
blindfold was involved, and at mid-story it was obvious to me that 
those hooks all over the place would play a role in bondage.  The 
problem, of course, is that Deirdre is only a mediocre storyteller when 
the story contains only predictable events.  But wait!  The first half 
was only a setup for a completely different story line.  All is right 
in the world.  I wasn't even close in my prediction of the ending of 
this story.

While reading "Teacher," I was hit by a possible story line for a great 
story.  In it the typical Deirdre ending would be presented as the 
normal environment at the *beginning* of the story.  Then normal, well-
adjusted sex would be the ending.  For example, a young girl would find 
a feeling of amazing sexual liberation in the fact that she visited her 
grandmother and the old lady gave her cookies and milk and talked to 
her about sports and schoolwork instead of blindfolding her and 
caressing her clitoris while forcing the girl to lick the cleaning 
lady's cunt.

At any rate, even though this story describes events that would be 
extremely improbable in any school I know of outside of Clyde or 
Sulphur Springs, this was a thoroughly enjoyable story.  (Rating: 9)

"Tech" by Deirdre.  The "tech" is a medical technician, whose friend 
convinces her that they could get their kicks by having patients go a 
little further than necessary with regard to nudity and other sex-
related activities.  It turns out that her friend runs a bdsm service 
in her basement where people drop in to have their sexual fantasies 
fulfilled in a simulated medical environment.  Even Deirdre nods, with 
this Freudian slip: "The poor man was so embarrassed, leaning over the 
table with Rose's gloved finger right in his rear. I felt for him." 
Puns are usually not part of Deirdre's repertoire.  This story seemed 
to lack plot or coherence; it was just a series of quasi-sexual events 
chained together.  (Rating: 6)

"Try" by Deirdre.  Try. v. (1) to attempt; (2) to put to the test (as 
patience); (3) (law) to evaluate through a process of legal evidence; 
(4) (naut) to lie to under just sufficient sale against the wind; n. 
(5) (rugby) a play that scores three points; (6) (as in "old 
college...") a sincere effort.  As the preceding excerpts from my 
dictionary show, there are several possible meanings for the title of 
this story.  Before starting the story, I'm pretty sure the nautical 
definition will be irrelevant.  I'll initially go with definition 
number 1, as in "try to get some ass" - in a fairly literal (anal) 
sense.

Oh, wow!  My guess is looking good.  Deirdre's disclaimer concludes 
with, "This one is about a shy woman who has a secret desire for anal 
sex."  If you think about it, though, definition 5 might have been more 
fun.  After all, it takes leather balls to play rugby.

Well, I was right about the anal part, but the meaning of the title is 
still ambiguous.  A shy woman's friend asks her bluntly if she has ever 
TRIED anal sex.  The woman says no, and so it becomes the friend's 
crusade to TRY to get her to TRY it with a dildo.  The friend talks her 
into taking a dildo home with her, into reading a magazine with letters 
involving anal sex, and into visiting a video store with anal rentals.  
Eventually, the friend and her boyfriend make a house call, and they 
score - but I don't think the activity involved leather balls or three 
points.  (Rating: 9)

"Hidden" by Deirdre.  It's bonus time again!  In addition to the three 
reviews of her reposts, we have two new Deirdre stories this week.  
This one is about a young boy who hides in the closet in her parents 
room to find out what kind of weird things they do when they have sex.  
It turns out that Mom has assumed a dominant role over Dad as a 
punishment for his ogling the fair Ellen at the party which they just 
attended.  Mom catches the child, punishes him creatively, and 
eventually turns him over to the neighbor lady, who makes him into a 
sex slave for her daughter, whom he will eventually marry.

Let me say that I found this story to be grotesque - in the best sense 
of the word.  The difference between this one and "Julie Bound," which 
is reviewed later in this issue is that this story was grotesque but 
fascinating.  I have long enjoyed Deirdre's stories, even those about 
people engaging in activities in which I myself would never partake.  
After all, the stories were only fiction; the people in them were 
generally consenting adults; and the activities were strangely 
fascinating.  However, every once in a while I have wondered, "Don't 
these people ever have children?"  In this story, the answer is yes, 
and we get to see how a sexually bizarre person handles the sex 
education of her adolescent son.  I don't recommend this strategy, but 
it did seem realistic - given the constraints of the story.  (Rating: 
9)

"Other" by Deirdre.  Where does Deirdre get her ideas for these 
stories?  This one is kind of hard to summarize.  The next door 
neighbor wants the woman to have sex with him, but she resists, out of 
a misguided feeling that fidelity to her husband is important.  His 
theory is that the woman must surely be suffering by not having sex 
with him, and certainly her husband would not want her to suffer like 
that; but the woman resists the temptation.  So one day she comes home 
and finds her husband tied up, blindfolded, and masturbating.  The 
neighbor leads her into the room, confuses the man about who is jacking 
him off, and then manages to fuck the wife while the man fantasizes 
about what is really happening in front of his blindfolded eyes.  
There!  That's not so unusual, is it?  (Rating: 10)

"My Friends the Allens -- French Kiss" by Mark Aster. "L'amour, c'est 
one cock, and one pussee, no?" These words express in Franglais the 
moral theory of the lovely Daphne, who is the amorous target of both 
the narrator of the story and his two traveling companions, Pat and 
Julie  (the Allens, I presume).  "Oui, ca marche bien." That should 
work!   This is a very hot story, with the primary focus on 
heterosexual activity in one hotel room while the girls go at it in the 
adjacent room, which happens to be connected by a peephole.  The author 
shows an excellent gift for using language (especially dialogue) 
effectively.  (Rating: 10)

"My Friends the Allens -- Julie Bound" by Mark Aster. As the clan 
gathers, we find them happily involved in torturing Julie, Pat's 19-
year-old sister.  Although they burn her with an electrical implement, 
they do so benignly, because they have the device set on "hurt" rather 
than "scar."  Likewise, when they draw blood, they apply antiseptic 
cream - partly to prevent infection and partly because it feels nice to 
get the feel of her body while they rub her.  Julie, of course, enjoys 
this whole process and is almost constantly engaged in one prolonged 
orgasm.  It's a wonder Pat doesn't demand the right to trade places 
with her.  A basic premise of this story is stated as follows: "While 
at one level the subject is in ecstasy,
at another level desire becomes pain.  More and more, the
body wants penetration, wants COCK, wants something big
and hot plunging deeply within.  The more that is denied, the
more unbearable the outer orgasm becomes."  This probably isn't true, 
of course, but it's difficult to understand the story without at least 
temporarily suspending belief and buying into this concept.  When she 
is eventually released from captivity, Julie shows her gratitude by 
smothering her sister with kisses and eventually driving her to orgasm.  
If you are already convinced that torture is sexually stimulating to 
both victim and ogre, then I suppose this may be an arousing story.  I 
lack this conviction, and so I was largely confused and turned off.  
The story is clearly written, I just didn't see the point to it.  
(Rating: 5)

"Fifty Dollars for Full Service" by Affable Al (affableal@aol.com).  A 
woman takes a tip from her friend and has Dominic over to cut her 
grass.  In reality, the fifty dollar fee is a charge for stud service - 
it's not the lawn that he's going to plow <heh! heh!>.  She gets 
nervous as the time for fucking gets closer, and things don't go 
exactly the way she expected.  My problem with this story is that it 
presents a Black man dominating a White woman, perhaps perpetuating the 
stereotype that Black guys are nothing but studs lusting after White 
pussy.  However, as I say that I have to hedge a little, because on 
this newsgroup being a stud or dominating a woman are by no means 
second-rate skills.  And women regularly beg for sex from guys with 
huge cocks, and so I guess putting a Black guy into the story is really 
a step toward racial equality.

This is a good story.  It's clearly written, and the emotions seem to 
be realistic (although I myself would prefer a society in which White 
women didn't think of Black men as intrinsically different from White 
men).  (Rating: 9)

"Paying the Price" by Javahead (an217242@anon.penet.fi).  This story 
describes an interracial relationship; but its tone is quite different 
from the previous story.  The man is happily married to an Oriental 
woman, who goes for a month-long trip to Hong Kong.  When she returns 
she ad libs the role of a mail-order bride, and he plays along by 
assuming the role of the Western purchaser who is going to make the 
young woman comply with his every demand.  The overwhelming tone of the 
story is that the man and woman regard one another as equals, and their 
enjoyment of the hot sex activities derives largely from their 
awareness that they are acting out phoney stereotypes rather than 
actually treating one or the other as inferiors.  I liked this story a 
lot!  (Rating: 10)

"Journal Entry 136 / 0068  [ The Kittenin' ]" by Elf Sternberg 
(elf@halcyon.com).  My guess is that a lot of readers skipped this one, 
because the title looks kind of lame.  I downloaded it mostly because I 
recognized the name of the author, who is a highly respected guru over 
on alt.sex.wizards.  I'm glad I caught this story.  It's about a deity 
of sorts whose daughter (also a granddaughter of sorts ) wishes to give 
him the present of herself on the Felinzi equivalent of her sixteenth 
birthday, at which time she will become a caiss instead of a kitten.  
The sexual interactions are an excellent blend of human and imaginary 
activities.  This is a highly creative story.  Elf apparently has more 
of these, and I hope he posts them.  (Rating: 10)