Celestial Reviews 39 - Nov 22, 1995 As a reviewer for alt.sex.stories, I am privy to some information even before the newspapers and tabloid television shows get it. During the recent shutdown of government services an idle NASA worker shared this with me. We are all familiar with Neil Armstrong's famous quote from the moon about One Small Step and Mankind; but what we forget is that Armstrong actually made several statements from the moon, mostly technical jargon among himself, the other astronauts, and Mission Control. Before he re-entered the lander, he made the enigmatic remark "Good luck, Mr. Gorsky." This really happened. You can look it up! Many people at NASA thought this was a friendly remark concerning a rival Soviet Cosmonaut. However a closer check revealed that there was no Gorsky in either the Russian or American space programs (nor even in the French program). Over the years, many people have asked him who Gorsky was.. This year, on July 5, in Tampa Bay, to be exact, Armstrong finally answered the 26-year-old question. Gorsky had died, and so Armstrong felt secrecy was no longer an issue. It seems that when he was a kid, Neil was playing baseball with his friends in the backyard. His brother hit a ball that came to rest near the neighbors' bedroom window. As he leaned down to pick up the ball, Neil heard Mrs. Gorsky shouting at Mr. Gorsky: "Oral sex? Oral sex you want? You'll get oral sex from me when the kid next door walks on the moon!" - Celeste "Flight" by Deirdre (mile high fantasy) 8 "Foreign" by Deirdre (mind control & sex slavery) 7 "Honeymoon" by Deirdre (Honeymoon) 5 *"Freebie" by Deirdre (spontaneous oral sex) 10 "Leggy Neighbor II" by Jaemee (voyeurism & threesome) 8.5 *"Strip Chess" by Delta (Hot, hot time at the chessboard) 10 *"Dreamwalk" (erotic dreamlike gentle sex) 10 * = Repost of a previous review (because the story has been recently reposted). "Flight" by Deirdre. The husband and wife go on a plane ride, and the husband casually inserts his hand inside his wife's clothes. The stewardess notices. Now what will Deirdre do with this setup? Actually, it was pretty tame. Not a bad story, just tame and peaceful sex. Are we going to tolerate this? No! This calls for the Second Annual Celestial Story Contest. Simply write a short story based on the following premise: Once in flight, we flipped up the arm rest between us and I lay against Jay who lay against the wall. It was nice like that and I spread Jay's coat over us like a blanket. We had hours of night-time flying in front of us. Jay held me in his arms. I felt him slip his fingers into the waist of my pants. He slowly fingered me. I opened my eyes. I felt that feeling growing inside me. The stewardess walked by. It was so strange to have Jay fingering me right there in front of someone. Jay withdrew his fingers and I could tell he was sleepy. Soon I could feel that he was sleeping. I slipped my own fingers where his had been. I fingered so slowly. I wanted that feeling, more and more. The stewardess came back and stopped. I stopped my fingers, laying there frozen. She looked right at me and then smiled. Rules: Enter as often as you like. If you enter early, I'll try to give you feedback to help you revise. You CAN alter the exact wording; as a matter of fact, I think it would be NECESSARY to modify the text to suit a particular story. The key components are man and wife on plane, woman fingers herself, stewardess notices. Send entries to Celest801@aol.com. Winner will be announced on December 9. The last time we did this we got a couple of excellent Locksmith stories. Don't get me wrong. The story is already a good one; and there's nothing wrong with quiet, peaceful sex. But this just sounds like a setup that someone would like to finish in a different wat. (Rating: 8) "Foreign" by Deirdre. A woman finds herself attracted to the Asian teenager who lives next door and who has been a guest in her swimming pool. She fights the urge to act upon this attraction, but then the girl's older sister intervenes. Those Asian babes are impossible to resist! (Rating: 7) "Honeymoon" by Deirdre. When she posted this story, Deirdre included an introduction that mentioned her extreme concern for her privacy. She is so obsessed with privacy that any e-mail directed to her is destroyed before it reaches her, and she doesn't send e-mail to individual correspondents. I can live with that; and as long as she remains my personal sex slave, I won't reveal any of the information that I have acquired that suggests her actual place of residence is Sulphur Springs Texas rather than Clyde Ohio. On a more practical level, I think I'll stop posting her address along with these stories. In the same introductory message, Deirdre stated that she enjoyed my reviews but that she was somewhat perplexed by my ratings. It seems that her favorites sometimes receive lower ratings from me. (Now, you have to remember that the "low" rating she cited was a 7 for "Key.") She also wondered what my favorite was among her stories. Off the top of my head, I would say the answer is "Freebie," which is reviewed next and which is being reposted this week. I like its combination of romance (which is like me) plus extreme danger (which is not like me) and twists in the plot. The present story is about a man and woman who are on their honeymoon. The man waits for his wife in the bar of the hotel to which he and his wife have gone, and he is accosted by another woman who comes on to him. It's a truly excellent setup, but then we are left wondering what's going to happen. We have no clue. The other woman could be anything from an innocent Avon lady who is selling dildos on the side to a vampire who has gained control of the wife's mind and is making preparations to turn the couple into sex slaves. Open-ended endings are sometimes good; but this one goes too far. Perhaps Deirdre was perturbed that I had been guessing her endings too easily and decided to fix my wagon by omitting the ending from this one completely. It is interesting to note that Deirdre wrote this story over a year ago, when she still lived in Clyde, Ohio, and was more directly under the influence of Sherwood Anderson. (Rating for "Honeymoon": 5) "Freebie" by Deirdre. A woman gives her husband for his birthday five coupons that say: "Give this ticket to Jeannie Greene and she will immediately and silently perform one oral sex act on her knees, any time, any place, no questions asked." Interesting premise! Read the story to find out what happens to the tickets. (Rating: 10) "Leggy Neighbor II" by Jaemee (an407944@anon.penet.fi). This story picks up where "My Leggy Neighbor" left off. The narrator sees his wife being seduced by his hot neighbor, who had previously seduced him. He enjoys watching. The neighbor finds out that the wife's sex life has left something to be desired, and she offers help by forming an ad hoc instructional threesome. One suggestion I would make to this author is to make a better distinction between relevant and irrelevant details. Many beginning writers have this same problem. Many readers (myself included) like stories that supply interesting background, but not in minute detail. Here's an example: "Hello, Henry," Linda said, without the slightest sign in either her voice or her eyes of what had occurred between the two of us just one week ago. "Please come in," I offered, somewhat assured by her obviously detached demeanor. "The coffee's fresh if you'd like a cup?" "Yes, I'd love a cup of fresh coffee, Henry. How've you been, Jinny?" she asked. "Oh, all right, I guess," Jinny answered. "It's been a pretty boring winter and I'm anxious for some warm weather and the chance to get outdoors more." I think this kind of dialogue adds little to the story and could be greatly abridged or omitted. This is not a major problem. However, the author requested feedback; and I think other beginning writers could benefit from this same advice. The Usenet author whom I consider to be best at not wasting words is Deirdre. In fact, Deirdre might overdo it. If she mentions that the guy tied in shoelaces, I find myself thinking something like this: "The shoelaces. Why is he tying his shoelaces? Why isn't he wearing sandals? I know! The lesbian hypnotist is going to trick him into a sex change operation before she has his former girlfriend flog him with a wet shoestring." A second problem with this story lies in the point of view from which it is told. Nearly all of the story is told from the perspective of the husband; but the author occasionally slips up and relates events that the husband could not possibly have seen. In technical terms, the author inappropriately alternates between the first person and the omniscient author. This is a bad idea. The husband cannot possibly report what the two women said when he was no longer eavesdropping, nor can he relate what his wife is thinking. Overall, this was another good story. The descriptions of sexual activity were genuinely hot. (Rating: 8.5) *Note: Delta has informed me of plans to repost all her stories over the next two weeks or so. Her stories are long but good. I just checked my database, and I have never given her less than a 10. (However, since her stories are long, I have not reviewed them all.) I am reposting my reviews of her stories. I'll try to time my reviews so that they come out shortly before she posts them. Here are the first two reviews. (As I say in the review, "Strip Chess" is one of my all- time favorites. I dabble in chess; and since I read this story I have been unable to sit down at a chess board without having erotic thoughts. Actually, that's not all bad; if you think about it, I'm lucky. According to Pavlov, the association could have gone either way. I mean, it could have happened that every time I have good sex I would get a wild urge to play chess.) *"Strip Chess" by Delta (an248969@anon.penet.fi). This is one of my favorite ever stories. Some people resist downloading stories that are nine parts long, but this one is worth it. A group of college kids get together for an evening of fun, and someone suggests playing strip poker. Knowing she has no chance at the card game, one of the girls suggests strip chess instead, with the winner getting the body of the loser. (The observers make side bets and do things to distract the players). The only bad part about this story is that I had serious problems with my concentration the next time I tried to play chess. Really! You don't have to know chess to love this story, but the chess will make sense to good chess players. And the sex fantasies make sense to good sex players. (Rating: 10) *Dreamwalk" by Delta (an248969@anon.penet.fi). Have you ever had one of those dreams that seemed so vivid that you weren't sure whether you were awake or not? And then you decide to wake up and you think you have awakened; but you're not sure, because maybe you only dreamed you woke up. The man in this story is approached in the middle of the night by a mysterious, beautiful neighbor who informs him that he is in her dream - and a nice, hot dream it is. Delta maintains the necessary mixture of reality and unreality beautifully. Where does she get ideas like this? Another excellent story. (Rating: 10) 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. (The other 5% will eventually be covered in Advanced Celestial Grammar.) 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. This week we're right up against Thanksgiving, a time at which I have certain non-sexual responsibilities that make it difficult to dwell on grammar. So instead of a grammar lesson, you get a lesson on ODD WORDS THAT SOUND ALIKE. DISCRETE/DISCREET DISCRETE means separate or distinct. DISCREET means being judicious or circumspect in one's conduct or speech. Although lexicographers acknowledge this distinction, few other really sexy people seem to know about it. Almost every time an author on a.s.s. means DISCREET, he/she says DISCRETE. I had sex with her in a discreet corner of the restaurant, where only the waitresses, the cooks, and customers leaving through the back door could see us. {This is a correct usage of the word - assuming that it is judicious to act in this manner.} I made love to him three discrete times that weekend. {This means they fucked, they stopped, they fucked, they stopped, and then they fucked again.} A DISCREET orgy would be one that is conducted in such a way as to avoid upsetting the neighbors. A DISCRETE orgy would be one that occurred separately from other orgies. A person who had several DISCREET orgasms while listening to the preacher would be much less likely to disturb the service than one who had several DISCRETE orgasms. YAHOO, YAHOO. If you're having robust sexual intercourse with someone and that person shouts YAHOO!, should you be triumphant or upset? It depends on how the person pronounces it. Pronounced yay-hoo (accent on first syllable), this is a moderately derogatory term to call someone. It implies that the person is stupid, like the "cavemen" in Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" (where this usage of the word originated). "You yahoo, that's not my cunt, that's my asshole!" On the other hand, when it is pronounced ya-hooooo (accent on second syllable), it means whoopee or "This sure is fun!" Yahooo! Let's do it again! By knowing this distinction, you have an advantage over sex partners that have not read this issue of Celestial Reviews. You can insult sex partners without hurting their and without minimizing the chances that they'll have sex with you again if you cannot find a better partner. Or you can convince a reviled asshole who holds the affection of your True Love to shout the wrong pronunciation during the throes of passion, causing that person to be rejected by the recipient of the comment, who will understand the meaning and return to his/her true love (i.e., you). This is its most common usage in American soap operas. FOREGO, FORGO FOREGO means to go before or to precede. Almost nobody uses this word nowadays. If you read the right version of the bible, however, you might discover that John the Baptist forewent Jesus. We have a leftover of this word in "foregone," as "a foregone conclusion." FORGO is a word that people often use today. It means to abstain from. For example, I can forgo sex until the end of the meal (at least usually I can). Anyway, here's the value of knowing this esoteric distinction. Assume you're a woman whose husband knows only the more familiar of these meanings. Your husband says to you, "Those two studs who moved in next door have been flirting with the women at the pool. I hope you don't plan to hang around with them." There are two possible responses: "I think I'll forego." "I think I'll forgo." Have a Happy Thanksgiving!