Celestial Reviews 208 - August 16, 1997
Note: An 8 year old boy walks home from school, each day passing
an 8 year old girl's house. One day as he is passing by carrying
a football, he can't resist taunting the girl. He holds up the
football and says, "See this football? Football is a boys' game,
and only boys can have a football." The little girl runs into the
house and cries to her mother, "I want a football. " Being a woman
of the 90s, her mother goes out and gets her one.
The next day the girl is waiting for the little boy, as he rides
up on his bike. She holds up the football and says, "Nah Nah Nah
Nah". The little boy angrily points to his bike and says, "Oh
yeah, well this is a boy's bike, and only boys get boy's bikes,
and you can't have one." She runs into the house for her mom.
The next day the little girl is waiting for the boy on her new
boy's bike. The little boy gets furious and pulls down his pants;
and pointing to dick, says "Look; only boys have these, and your
mom can't buy you one!"
The next day he walks by and says, "Well, I guess I showed you!"
She promptly pulls up her dress, points to her pussy, and
proclaims, "My mother tells me that as long as I have one of
these, I can have as many of THOSE as I want!"
Final note: Remember: even though someone else may be posting my
reviews for me, my e-mail address is still Celeste801@aol.com.
- Celeste
"And Then I Fucked Her" by Mike Hunt (very sexy humor)
10, 10, 10
"Parking with Jennifer" by Mr E (oral sex) 9, 10, 10
"Love, Insecurity, and Contentment" by The Lovers
(romantic interlude) 8, 5, 5
"Moonlight Again" by Mark Aster (romantic moonlight sex)
10, 10, 10
"Owning Corey" by Don Boettger (sex slavery) 10, 10, 10
"Slumber Party" by Amy and Larry (teen orgy with baby-
sitter) 9, 9, 9
Guest Reviews:
"I Dream Of Jeanniequin" by Robotdoll (robotic sitcom
parody) 9, 7, 6
"The Master's Ring" by ElSol (secret sex society) 8, 7, 5
"Billy F" by Jessica W. (voyeurism) 8, 5, 6
"The Hunger" by Story Master (male dominance) 8, 7, 4
Reposted Reviews:
* "The Bet" by John Carter (betting on bdsm) 9.5, 10, 10
"And Then I Fucked Her" by Mike Hunt (MrM1ke@aol.com). Fucking
Mike Hunt! I was reading this story, and Mike was quoting Michael
K. Smith's essay on "How To Write Sex Stories Good," which is one
of my favorite essays on that topic. Then I realized that he was
poking fun at Michael K.! Well, OK; humor I can understand. So
as I read on, I said to myself: "This is a really great story!
Look at all these long quotations and how well Mike Hunt has
handled the quotation marks!" This was especially gratifying,
since in one of my recent issues of CR (the one before I discussed
blonds and blondes) I had discussed quotation marks. But then he
left off an end quote! I was getting all hot and horny, and now I
didn't know who the hell was talking. To top it off, he spelled
the same person both "blond" and "blonde." It was like taking a
really cold shower during an orgasm. What next? Will he "lay
down next to the blond on the bed?
{Wow! The subtle irony in that last sentence overwhelms me.
Maybe I had better explain it....}
The bad news is that this isn't really much of a story at all.
The good news is that Mike Hunt tells a good story even when he's
not telling a story. And fortunately, this non-story is really
sexy. It's mostly about sex in a movie theater and at a butcher's
shop. Well, the actual story is about sex in and around a
dentist's office; but the real action takes place between the
lines - actually, above and below the lines.
I've given Mike Hunt a lot of thought, and I imagine you have too.
{Some sentences in this review don't have their full impact unless
they are read out loud, or at least loudly to one's internal
audience.} In fact, I have been suspicious about Mike Hunt's
identity. I had a theory that Mark Aster was in some way
connected with Mike Hunt, because I had never seen the two of them
in one place at the same time. However, just today I found newly
posted stories by both authors, and I doubt that Mike Hunt is
clever enough to use a deliberate subterfuge to throw me off
track.
I used to think that I could spot Mike Hunt's stories by their
style alone. For example, the present story uses the word
"baloney" two times: once immediately preceding "pony" and once
during a conversation with a blond(e) whom he hoped to fuck in a
butcher shop. {That sentence becomes less ambiguous if we put "in
a butcher shop" right after "conversation," but I think Mike Hunt
would prefer it this way.} Anyway, that's the way Mike Hunt would
use baloney. So I know this is Mike Hunt's work.
The problem is that Mike Hunt has imitators. For example, Taria
recently published "Soft Ball," which was a story about rather
than by Mike Hunt, and yet it sounded like something that had
really sprung forth from Mike Hunt. The word "sophomoric" has
been overused with regard to Mike Hunt's writing; but my online
thesaurus suggests no alternatives - just a misspelling for
"soporific," and Mike Hunt is certainly not soporific. So we'll go
with raunchy, sexy, titillating, humorous, and generally arousing.
But he uses the word "tits" only six times. Not good enough! As
the Sex Nazi said on Seinfeld, "No sex for you!"
Ratings for "And Then I Fucked Her"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10
"Parking with Jennifer" by Mr E (makw15@dial.pipex.com). When I
started this story, I thought it was going to really suck: two
spelling gaffes in the first paragraph. It did really suck, but
in a much more pleasant sense than I had expected. This story
disabuses the reader of the notion that English girls are morally
upright young ladies who are reluctant to give their boyfriends
really hot blowjobs.
Ratings for "Parking with Jennifer"
Athena (technical quality): 9
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10
"Love, Insecurity, and Contentment" by The Lovers
(lovers@unforgettable.com). Two people whose exact relationship
is unspecified are visiting Quebec City and then making love in a
hotel room there. This story is seriously disrupted by the second
person (you) point of view. In addition, the author somehow fails
to draw an effective word-picture. It's nice that the man cares
so much about the woman's feelings, but the existential angst and
lack of action at times slow the story to a crawl. I think this
is probably a very hot story for the person ("you") to whom it is
directed; but it needs serious revamping to appeal to me as an
outsider.
This same author recently posted a poem entitled "Lovemaking,"
which I consider to work much better as a poem than this effort
does as a short story. But I don't want to get into reviewing
poetry here....
Ratings for "Love, Insecurity, and Contentment"
Athena (technical quality): 8
Venus (plot & character): 5
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 5
"Moonlight Again" by Mark Aster (MyFrThAl@aol.com). The Allen
sisters have been on hiatus. It's good to see them back again.
There's not much I can say about this story, except that I found
it to be extremely romantic and sexy. Our Hero makes tender love
in the moonlight to one of the Allen sisters while the twin babies
are asleep in their bedroom and while the other sister is reading
in the living room. Like I said, it's romantic and sexy; but
you'll have to read the story to verify this.
Ratings for "Moonlight Again"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10
"Owning Corey" by Don Boettger (dbetger@tiac.net). The narrator
is conducting business with a man who gives him the services of a
sex slave for the night. The narrator is repulsed by the owner's
cruel treatment of the girl, and so he arranges to have her
released to him as part of the business negotiations. In effect,
he becomes her new owner; but his desire is to set her free. The
complicating factor is that Corey does not want to be free: being
a sex slave is really the only way of life she can remember.
This is sort of a reverse-slavery story: "If you want to be a
slave, and your partner knows your limits and respects them,
that's cool. But to coerce you, and twist your guilt and shame
against you, and work mind games -- that's truly evil." The story
presents and interesting problem: how possible is it to enable a
woman who has viewed herself as a sextoy to move from that
perspective to one where she views herself as a worthwhile person
who can freely give and receive love from a person she chooses?
The author explores this question in an extremely creative manner.
Ratings for "Owning Corey"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10
"Slumber Party" by Amy and Larry (critic@anon.nymserver.com). Bob
goes over to the house of his neighbor Joan to baby-sit for her
daughter Amy's slumber party. Of course, when the teenage girls
play strip porker - er, poker - they ask Bob to join them, and he
has trouble concentrating - on his cards, that is. Of course,
when the girls invite him to join them for an orgy after the game,
he realizes that his would be illegal and that he could go to
prison, and then he agrees to fuck the whole bunch. Actually the
rules are a little more complicated than that, and one girl just
wants to watch and keep time. The kids are very polite -
something you don't see too often in the world today - calling Bob
"Sir" and "Mr. Johnson" and helping him up when he occasionally
collapses from sexual exhaustion and even letting him keep their
panties. And the kicker is that Joan is so pleased with Bob as a
baby-sitter that she throws a little ass his way to convince him
to baby-sit for Amy again while she goes out of town for a
business seminar.
Ratings for "Slumber Party"
Athena (technical quality): 9
Venus (plot & character): 9
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 9
"I Dream Of Jeanniequin" by Robotdoll (none@the.moment). Guest
review by Kim.
That Celeste sure is a harsh taskmistress (but that's another
story): no sooner do I finish one review when another drops on to
my electronic doormat. After reading this one I will never be able
to view the folk who dress shop window dummies in quite the same
way. I'm convinced Robotdoll is in this line of work. I can just
imagine her/him pondering just how are they going to work their
particular quirk into a semi-rational story. "Hmmm", they think,
"I know - magic!".
So we come to the story. It's basically Jeanie and Major Anthony
Nelson, from the old TV series "I Dream Of Jeannie," getting it on
in a quite remarkably bizarre fashion. Now married, the Major asks
Jeanie on their wedding anniversary if she would create a life
size plastic replica of herself for him to get intimate with.
Quite why anyone would want to screw a plastic doll instead of a
perfectly good, and available, real woman is beyond me; but hey,
this isn't my story.
With a blink of her eyes Jeanie shrinks to tiny proportions and in
her place now stands a full size dummy wearing a wedding dress.
The Major then proceeds to strip and grope the dummy and whimper a
bit. The dummy is jerkily animated remotely by Jeanie, who for
some reason is so stimulated by the sight of her husband
slobbering over a dummy that she fingers herself repeatedly to
orgasm.
The action then moves to the bedroom where the Major has stripped
the dummy and is proceeding to bite down on her plastic tits. This
in turn so overwhelms Jeanie that she accidentally blinks herself
into the dummy, becoming a sort of hybrid rigid plastic human.
Some more fucking and sucking ensues to the benefit of all
concerned.
After it's all over, the Major has to squish the dummies eyes for
her as she is now unable to blink for herself. This part was
actually quite interesting, as it briefly touched on the dilemma
of having vast magical power and yet being a total submissive.
Which is something I've never understood myself about the original
show. If I had Jeannie's powers then I sure as hell wouldn't be
ass-kissing to some dumb Major; I'd be out there ruling the world
<heh heh heh>... er sorry about that, got carried away for a
moment.
So, did I like the story? Hmmm, not sure. It certainly opened my
eyes to yet another quirk of human sexuality. It's well enough
written; but I'm sorry, I just can't bring myself to imagine Larry
Hagman and Barbara Eden masturbating. It's a bit like trying to
imagine the Queen of England going for a dump - it just doesn't
happen does it? (Somebody has just told me it should be the Queen
of Britain, but you knew who I meant anyway didn't you?).
Ratings for "I Dream Of Jeanniequin"
Athena (technical quality): 9
Venus (plot & character): 7
Kim (appeal to reviewer): 6 (not my cup of tea - but I liked
its weirdness)
"The Master's Ring" by ElSol. Guest review by Mike Hunt.
Not that you give a shit, but when a long story starts out "This
is Part 1-3", I usually just close it back up. It's the 90's. I
don't have time for Part 3. And not that you give a shit, but I
don't generally bother with stories about Masters and Doms and
Subs, because it's not how my world works. I know it does for
others, but I also know people who swear that Jesus is landing in
a flying saucer next Tuesday, and I don't pay much attention to
them either.
So maybe I'm a bad person to review this story. But I saw Anne747
review a rape story a couple weeks ago, and if she can do that,
shit, I'll try something out of my realm too. The recent Quin
inspired controversy about reviewers' personal prejudices
notwithstanding, and with these reviewer's disclosures noted, here
we go. (Shit, now I'm doing disclaimers for reviews!)
The Master's Ring has parts which I totally enjoyed, and portions
which induced severe eyelid droop. The sex scenes were quite
excellent, slow and delicious, teasing and tantalizing, just the
way I like them. The longish parts in between left me cold. And
the absurdity of some of the situations made the whole thing
unbelievable.
In one scene the campus priss comes to the hero's dorm room and
masturbates by humping the bed while watching "Bambi". Our hero
sits next to her and pretends not to notice. Oh, and our hero's
roommate is in the room, and he doesn't notice either. OK.
The "mystery", which wasn't much of a mystery, revolves around the
protagonist's incipient induction into a secret society, which the
members keep secret by wearing big gaudy rings that attract
everyone's attention. See, there are only 22,000 members of this
society in the whole world, making 1 out of every 250,000 people
on the planet a member. Luckily there are at least four members on
this college campus alone!
Well, I could go on being snide and sarcastic, and I probably
shouldn't. The story is not badly written, although for the life
of me I can't understand why it's so fucking hard for writers to
run the spell check once before they post something. And as I say,
the sex scenes are quite enjoyable. As for the rest of it, well, I
just don't get it.
Ratings for "The Master's Ring"
Athena (technical quality): 8
Venus (plot & character): 7
Mikeus (appeal to reviewer): 5
"Billy F" by Jessica W. (jessika15f@aol.com). Guest review by
Bookman.
The story line to "Billy F" is pretty straightforward. The late-
teen female narrator gets too drunk at a party to leave, and slips
into a bed upstairs to sleep it off. The eponymous Billy
(someone, of course, for whom she's lusted for years) gets into a
drunken fight with his regular girlfriend and comes on to our
protagonist. Their tryst is interrupted when the equally soused
girlfriend returns, and our narrator gets to watch the two of them
screw for, by the clock, an hour and eight minutes. Morning
comes, narrator walks out, vignette over.
The author dubs this a true story, and it has one of the
attributes of truth, in that the scale of importance enclosed in
the events told is pretty small. That's not in itself a fault;
there are some very finely crafted short stories that deal with
minuscule events and still hang in the memory like the tone from a
silver bell. This, unfortunately, is not one of them.
One of the axioms of storytelling is, "show, don't tell". That
is, don't tell us, for example, that 'so-and-so was evil'. Show
us his acts, or, better yet, take us into his mind, and let us see
his evil for ourselves. In writing erotica (and this for your
class, Celeste), the axiom becomes paramount. We don't want to be
told that someone's having a good time, or that something feels
good. We want to be taken into their minds, hearts, and bodies,
and feel with them what they feel. Let us feel with them, and
make up our own minds as to the meaning of what we've/they've
experienced. That way, we take the experience into ourselves and
it becomes personal. (Friar Dave and Ken Nestle are experts at
this, which is one reason why their stories are favorites year
after year.)
The difficulty with "Billy F" is that, except for the brief moment
before girlfriend arrives, we're observers to the entire incident.
We're outside and disconnected. Even when the narrator
masturbates along with the coupling couple, it's still almost an
aside. There's no visceral connection.
One more problem with "true" stories. If the storyteller truly
lived it, they're almost always compelled to tell it just the way
it really happened (or the way they remember it happening). The
memory has an emotional investment for them, an intrinsic
importance. It has no such importance to the reader. I could
tell you a lot of stories, and I guarantee every single one of
them really happened to me. I can also guarantee you'd be bored
to death in 30 seconds. Truth has no intrinsic value of interest,
in fact, it's often the other way around. I remember a movie that
started with the words, "The following story is true. Only events
have been changed to make it a better story." And that is the
storyteller's art. By all means, if you've got an interesting
true story, tell it. But tell it in such a way that we get past
the truth of the story and get to the Truth *in* the Story.
There aren't a whole lot of typos and misspellings, but enough to
rob "Billy F" of much of whatever interest it has.
Athena (technical quality): 8
Venus (plot and character): 5
Bookman (appeal to reviewer): 6
"The Hunger" by Story Master (velvet@znet.com). Guest review by
BillyG.
"The Hunger" can best be characterized as an extreme non-
consensual, anti-feminist, science-fiction scenario. It's a bit
difficult to regard "The Hunger" as a story; for aside from the
cameo appearance of four two- dimensional men at the outset, there
are no protagonists. There's just a scenario that has a bare-
bones beginning and no real ending.
In brief, an extremely contagious virus is purposely let loose by
these four faceless men to spread over the entire world. This
virus is a man-made invention that changes women's basic
physiological functioning, making all of them over the age of five
extremely hungry for a man's sperm, even dependent on that fluid
for their lives. If they go more than 72 hours without their
supply of semen, they die a horrible death, fortunately not
described.
As we might expect, this virus serves to enslave the entire female
population to men. Women lose their freedom and all their
fundamental rights. Laws governing child molestation and incest
are thrown out as moot. However, killing a woman, while not
punishable, is considered bad form. Actually, the expression
employed was "unrefined behavior." This little fact is a throw-
away line to assure you that men aren't all bad. <Groan>
The technical and grammatical aspects of the story are good, but
even if I liked non-consensual stories, I'd have to fault this one
as being superficial and lacking identifiable characters and a
plot. As erotica it falls flat on its face. There is no
titillating or scintillating aspects to it. There's no
sensuousness or real sexuality in this story and certainly no
tenderness or love to be found. The last half of the narrative
reads like a government report, and that doesn't give this
reviewer a woodie, I assure you.
Ratings for "The Hunger"
Athena (technical quality): 8
Venus (plot & character): 7
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 4
* "The Bet" by John Carter (jvogel@DGS.dgsys.com). The story
begins with the woman bound in the bed with her legs apart. Near
the bed is a chest with a combination lock. The bet is that the
husband cannot get her to tell him the combination to the lock.
The husband is allowed to do anything that won't leave a mark,
with the understanding that whatever he does can't have as it's
basic purpose causing pain. He can swat her ass, but only as part
of something else, not to cause her to disclose the combination
because of the pain. His theory is that he can make her come so
much that she'll do anything to get him to stop.
This is my kind of bondage!
Ratings for "The Bet"
Athena (technical quality): 9.5
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10