Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 Review: Dark Dreamer's "The Van Ride"

   By Little Bree

   REVIEWER'S NOTE:

   This is the first in what I hope will be a series of reviews of smutty
stories that I like and recommend.  I'm posting it both to my FTP site on
asstr.org, and to my website at lttlbree.blogspot.com (also accessible
through /~Little_Bree/).  If you have comments,
questions or concerns (or just want to say hi!) please feel to email me at
lttlbree@yahoo.com.

   As always, if you're not over 18, don't read this!

   _______

   When writing about internet smut, the word "classic" is usually out of
place.  The medium is too new, and the stories are too trivial.  People
like slapping the term on anything they happen to like that isn't entirely
brand new ("classic techno music",
(http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080911103723AAidYnQ ) or
"classic tweets" (http://stackedblog.com/news/classic-tweets) ) but I think
that cheapens the term.  A classic requires more than mere existence.

   In the sordid rape story genre, though, Dark Dreamer wrote classics.  He
disappeared from the scene in the mid nineties, long before I ever saw his
work (and, for the sake of full disclosure, before I could have read it if
I did see it), but anyone who gets into this sort of filth probably knows
his stories.  Tales like "Shower Rape,"
(/files/Collections/Old_Joe's_Collection/Rape/Dark_Drea
mer/rapeshwr.txt) "Farm Girl"
(/files/Collections/Old_Joe's_Collection/Rape/Dark_Drea
mer/FARMGIRL.001), "Phone Booth Rape"
(/files/Collections/Old_Joe's_Collection/Rape/Dark_Drea
mer/Phone%20Booth%20Rape%20-Dark%20Dreamer-inter.txt) and "Raping the
Twins"
(/files/Collections/Old_Joe's_Collection/Rape/Dark_Drea
mer/rapetwin.txt) are probably familiar even to readers who didn't know
whose work they were reading.

   My favorite Dreamer story has always been "The Van Ride."
(/files/Collections/Old_Joe's_Collection/Rape/Dark_Drea
mer/van-ride1.txt) It's a surprisingly smart first person account of a
sexual assault in the back of a van, told from the perspective of the
slutty but charming teenage victim.

   Superficially, this story isn't all that different from scores of
imitators.  The plot is neither compelling nor unfamiliar.  We know from
the beginning, without being told, that our narrator Meghan is going to
have sex with a group of boys in a van.  The story telling, too, lacks
refinement; before the action begins we're force-fed a straightforward
physical description of Meghan, complete with a long lamenting about the
sensitivity of her boobs.



   Don't let those seeming flaws distract you, though.  What makes this
story particularly arousing is not its unique content, but the way its
handled.  By teasing and tantalizing readers for pages, the author builds
up the sexual tension so methodically that you can't help but feel joyous
satisfaction when the flirting in the car finally gives way to sex.  It
feels, when you're done, like the best sort of foreplay.  (If the breaking
point for part one was deliberately chosen, it was similarly brilliant.  I
almost always climax at the end of that chapter).

   Dark Dreamer's work can be found on the usenet through Google Groups,
though the best collection is maintained by Asstr.org in Ole Joe's
Collection. 
/files/Collections/Old_Joe's_Collection/Rape/Dark_Dream
er/