Message-ID: <2326eli$9707271447@qz.little-neck.ny.us> X-Archived-At: From: Celeste801@aol.com Subject: {ASS}Celestial Reviews 202 - July 26 Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.d,alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d Path: qz!not-for-mail Organization: The Committee To Thwart Spam Approved: X-Moderator-Contact: Eli the Bearded X-Story-Submission: X-Original-Message-ID: <970727094353_1181194850@emout17.mail.aol.com> X-Is-Review: yes Celestial Reviews 202 - July 26, 1997 Note: I recently posted my Celestial Summaries. There are four of these - two segments arranged by title and two arranged by author. If you notice any corrections, I would appreciate knowing about them. I'll wait a week to obtain corrections, and then I'll repost a revised version. Second note: Here's a brief discussion of reposts. First, I didn't mean to scare Tommy away. When he started "advertising" the CD-ROM that he hoped to sell for $19.95 or something like that, I posted a note wondering if this was legal. I think Tommy reposted some very good stories in his THC Archives. Several other people are performing a similar service, and I appreciate what they are doing. The reason I mention this now is because just today I saw what I thought was a spam notice posted over 200 times on a.s.s., saying "1000's of Erotic Stories at http:// fox." I downloaded one of these messages just so I could ask the poster why he/she felt the need to mess up our group with this advertisement; but I discovered that it was a repost of "Oh What a Trip" by James Boswell, a spouse watching story that I reviewed in CR 192. Apparently all of the postings labeled in this fashion are genuine stories. The problem is, how can a reader know what the story is? Are there really people out there who are so desperate for a sex story that they will download anything, just because it's one of THOUSANDS OF STORIES? It would seem that most people would like to know something about the story - like its title, maybe; and this information doesn't appear on my AOL listing, because the title line is already too long. In short, if people want to repost stories, I think it is nice that they do so; but it is also important that they let readers know what stories they are reposting. I guess readers WOULD find these stories through DejaNews, but they would have to have some reason to enter the proper search words. In this case, "alt.sex.stories boswell trip" would find this story - but how would a reader know to use those search terms? Finally, there has been a brief debate about posting zipped and encoded files. My online service (AOL) unzips files for me automatically when I sign off, and so I personally don't mind zipped files. I occasionally find files encoded in some way that AOL won't decode, and I just skip them, because there are plenty of good stories that I CAN read. Apparently lots of readers cannot unzip files. I suppose there are three solutions: (1) don't post zipped files, (2) tell everybody how to unzip files, or (3) screw the people who complain. I don't know much about this, but it seems obvious to me that a zipped file DOES take up less space - until, of course, it is unzipped. On the surface, that sounds like a good reason to zip - files can be transmitted more quickly and they take up less space when stored in that format. On the downside, some people cannot read them, PLUS they don't show up in DejaNews searches, unless the key words are in the title lines. In addition, since the reposter often labels these files in a cryptic manner {"fxcv.zip"}, it's often difficult to figure out what the story is without downloading and unzipping it. I personally am grateful to people like Spamhater {who I used to think was Spermhater} for posting these stories, but I think we can find a way to share these stories more efficiently. If I can serve as a conduit to sort out repostings more effectively, I will be happy to do so. Although my own expertise is limited, I can probably find experts who read my reviews and are willing to help solve this problem. Incidentally, the best locations for storing good stories seem to be (1) alt.sex.stories.moderated (which I think is working extremely well) and (2) personal web sites maintained by authors and people like Mr. Double. I keep a list of these sites and I'll repost it soon with my personal FAQ. Third note: The guest reviews are going well. I hope you enjoy them. I know that I certainly appreciate the work of these guest reviewers. I have selected persons who I think will write good reviews. So far I have been very much impressed by the quality of these reviews. If I have failed to invite you to write a guest review, it may be an oversight. Contact me if you want to be a reviewer, and I'll let you try one. One rule that I try to enforce is that I myself try to review any story written by a guest reviewer. My goal is to avoid any sort of "buddy system" in which one reviewer would be tempted to go soft on another in order to get as better review her/himself. If other reviewers want to review one of these stories, they should feel free to send the extra review to me; I'll post it for them in CR. A major result of the guest reviewer system is that I am able to review more stories in each issue of CR. I am usually able to assign a story to a guest reviewer as soon as I decide to review it. When I was working alone, I used to spot good stories and put them on the back burner. Eventually it would simply become too late to bother reviewing the story. With the new system such delays and cancellations are much less frequent - although occasionally someone offers to review a story and then forgets or decides not to complete the process. Someone asked me if I read all the stories that the guest reviewers review. The answer is, no, I do not read ALL of them. That would take too much time and would partially defeat the purpose of having the guest reviewers. I DO read many of them. For example, I read any story the guest reviewer makes me think might be eligible for monthly or annual honors. In making up To 20 and Top 100 lists, I base my decisions on my own judgment, but my judgment can certainly be influenced by what other reviewers say. In addition, I sometimes make suggestions to help reviewers revise their reviews, and this makes it necessary for me to read major portions of other stories. Finally, sometimes a reviewer makes a story sound so interesting that I just have to take a look at it myself. Final note: Remember: even though someone else may be posting my reviews for me, my e-mail address is still Celeste801@aol.com. - Celeste "The Sesame Street Gang Learns Something New" by Unknown Author (TV parody) 5, 1, 1 "Smurfs!" by Dimitri (humor, I suppose) 4, 4, 4 "The Elevator" by Tremaine (gay slutty sex) 10, 10, 10 "Beware: Horny Cute Girls Fart on Your Food in Restaurants" by Spinner (flatulence fetish) 7, 7, 7 "Appalachian Spring" by Jim Fix (romance) 9, 10, 10 Guest Reviews: "Go Team Go" by Squire (cheerleader sex) 8, 6, 7 "Lovers" by Jim (young love) 9, 8.5, 9 "Cherry Picker" by The Carnal Quill (very young first timer) 10, 10, 10 "Bea's Bored" by Bea Fischl (first ff experience) 10, 9, 10 "Lovers One" by Katie (romantic prostitution) 10, 9, 9 "Incubus" by DG (sci fi sex) 8, 8, 8 "The Riding Lesson" By Domino (cons D/s & S/M, with a twist) 7.5, 8.5, 7 "Paying for It" by J. Boswell (slut wife) 9.5, 9, 10 "The Sesame Street Gang Learns Something New" by Unknown Author (lightedge@aol.com). If you're going to write a parody of "Sesame Street," you should at least have the people engage in sexual activities while they're doing things that normally happen on Sesame Street. In this story we just have Grover humping Maria and Bert screwing Ernie in the ass or vice versa. The most clever line occurs when somebody proclaims 69 to be the number of the day. This is not a creative story. I cannot imagine why you would want to read it. Although this was a truly bad story, at least it brings up the topic of muppets; and Tickle Me Elmo is a muppet, I think. Anyway, did you hear that quality control actually backfired and almost ruined the Tickle Me Elmo sales last year? It seems that the company used to put everything through a single test, but the Quality Control people wanted to be extra careful with Tickle Me Elmo, and so they doubled the test process. Instead of tickling each Elmo once, they tickled each one twice. Therefore, there was a movement to remove Elmo from the shelves of toy stores, because each Tickle Me Elmo now had two test tickles! If you didn't get the joke, read the last line out loud and think real hard. This joke is far better than anything you will find in this story. Ratings for "The Sesame Street Gang Learns Something New" Athena (technical quality): 5 Venus (plot & character): 1 Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 1 "Smurfs!" by Dimitri (dimitri@ihug.co.nz) Dimitri has written several pretty good stories. This is not one of them. The plot has something to do with toxic waste being dumped through a time machine and changing the personalities of those cute little smurfs who are disgustingly nice to one another. The sex is almost non-existent in this story. On the upside, even though it is very badly proofread and has a silly plot, this story is much better than the "Sesame Street" story that I covered in the previous review. Ratings for "Smurfs!" Athena (technical quality): 4 Venus (plot & character): 4 Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 4 "The Burgulars" by A.D. (Red Dragon repost). I'm generally suspicious of stories where the author can't even spell the title right. This one turned out better than I expected. The theme is a common one: the guy catches two teenage girls burglarizing his house, and they are willing to do ANYTHING to keep him from calling the police. And they do. It's not the greatest ever, but it's actually a fairly sexy story. Ratings for "The Burgulars" Athena (technical quality): 7 Venus (plot & character): 7 Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 7 "The Elevator" by Tremaine (tremaine@MINDSPRING.COM). The narrator is a straight heterosexual guy riding an elevator. Suddenly he feels someone fondling his ass. Assuming it is a woman coming on to him, he gets a hard-on. By the time he realizes it's a man, there's nothing he can do about it, because if he makes a scene everyone will notice his erection. Pretty soon he is having regular rendezvous with the man on the elevator, even though he still has never seen him. Eventually he goes to an adult bookstore for homosexual activities with several people he does not know. This is a well written story about a seriously dysfunctional man. I don't review many gay stories, and I don't want to be accused of being anti-gay - I use the term "dysfunctional" as I have used it to describe many characters in other stories I have reviewed. It means that most gays engage in more adaptive activities than those depicted in this story. Ratings for "The Elevator" Athena (technical quality): 10 Venus (plot & character): 10 Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10 "Beware: Horny Cute Girls Fart on Your Food in Restaurants" by Spinner (spinner@inter.net.il). Until today, I had never knowingly reviewed a story written by an author from Iceland, nor had I knowingly eaten a dessert upon a sexy Nordic beauty had imposed her flatulence for ten minutes. Now I've done one of those things - just one, I hope. I guess if some people sniff bicycle seats to get turned on, a guy could get turned on by watching his girlfriend fart into a cream pie. I dunno; it's hard to imagine. As Mark Twain (or was it Disraeli?) said, "One man's fetish is another man's asswipe." I had chili for dinner tonight, but I don't have a cream pie. So I can't try this out on my husband. I think something like this might have been behind George Bush's well-publicized distaste for broccoli. The author says this is a true story, but I have my reservations. The alt.folklore.urban people raise serious doubts about similar escapades that are supposed to have occurred in army mess halls and in kitchens manned by disgruntled employees. I guess maybe this sort of story would be of particular interest to those thousands of sperm berping prom queens doing it doggystyle that I read about in the a.s.s. spam. Ratings for "Horny Cute Girls" Athena (technical quality): 7 Venus (plot & character): 7 Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 7 "Appalachian Spring" by Jim Fix (jimfix@earthlink.net). This is a romantic story about a young boy whose father is a moonshiner in the rural American South. He meets a woman about twice his age who is staying at a nearby cabin, and he checks her out to make sure she's not an agent sent to investigate his father. Before long he finds himself falling in love with her, and she returns his love. Read the story yourself for the details. This story would have benefited from some proofreading, but it's still an excellent story. It's long on plot and character development, but a lot of us like that sort of thing. This author should take advantage of my free proofreading service. If the little kinks were worked out with the help of a competent outsider, this would be a really outstanding story. Ratings for "Appalachian Spring" Athena (technical quality): 9 Venus (plot & character): 10 Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10 "Go Team Go" by Squire (Mr Double repost). Guest review by Kim. This is a story for which the word "fantasy" was surely invented. It details the "trauma" suffered by a football captain when he is kidnapped by the opponents' cheerleading team and is forced to make love to them in relays for twenty four hours before the big game. The purpose, obviously, is to tire him out so that their side will be certain to win. The football player gets lured to a hotel room and lets them tie him to the bed where the plot is explained to him and the action commences. Eventually, after many, many bouts of lovemaking he falls asleep and awakes to find himself alone and untied. He staggers down to the bus that takes his team to the game. As he reaches out to shake the hands of the opposing team, he notices... nah, that would be telling. This may sound strange, but the word that seems to me to sum up this story is "cute." I know it's not often that you get to describe a story involving kidnapping and multiple gang-rape as cute, but cute it is. Just suspend your belief or sense of morality, and assume that gang-rape can be cute. The guy doesn't fight when they tie him to the bed because he doesn't want to hurt anyone. Many of the girls are almost apologetic for what they are doing. Everyone is just so nice to each other. Even when some semi-stern lesbians turn up they end up being nice to him. Awww, it's all sooo sweet. Now for the niggles. First, it's written in a combination of present and present perfect tenses, the sort that some news anchor types adopt when they want to add a bit of tension or that Celeste uses to summarize stories. This sort of thing is excellent for summaries, but bad for making the action interesting. That's the major problem with this story: it sounds too much like a summary. This problem could be almost completely solved simply by changing to the past tense. I expect you're all scratching your heads at this point; but hey, I know what I mean even if you don't :) Just read the story and see for yourselves. Second, because of the nature of the piece it is kinda one dimensional and repetitive - meaning it skirts perilously close to becoming boring, only narrowly avoiding it. I think a bit of judicious editing would have helped (now where have I heard that before :). I did like the ending tho' - if not exactly a twist, then certainly it was unexpected. Ratings for 'Go Team Go' Athena (technical quality): 8 (lost one for odd use of tense) Venus (plot & character): 6 (did you say plot?) Kim (appeal to reviewer): 7 (gained one for unexpected ending) "Lovers" by Jim (Mr Double repost). Guest review by Mark Aster. Your sister falls in love and marries a man who has a young son from a previous marriage. Soon after, the couple is tragically killed, and you take the 13-year-old boy into your home. Not long after that, you discover that he and your 11-year-old daughter are having sex. Do you (a) experience lots of soul-searching, alternating between pride and amusement and horror and fear, or (b) call the two mischievous young people into the living room, say "you are playing with fire and what we are going to try to do is to furnish you with potholders and pokers so you won't get burnt", and encourage them to continue as long as they're careful? In "Lovers," Julie and Bob do the latter. This is a sweet, if somewhat dry, story of young love. The characters are the sort of ideal rationalists that populate the works of Robert Heinlein, Elf Sternberg, and our own Uther Pendragon. Most of the story is taken up with background, prelude, and aftermath; Julie and Bob are very well prepared, having on hand a just-pee-on-the-stick home pregnancy test (they weren't that easy five years ago, let me tell you!), a morning-after pill, and a doctor who is apparently willing to counsel the under-fifteen couple on their sex lives. Lucky people! No angst here, no worry to speak of, no irrational fear. The young lovers have no apparent thought that what they're doing might be wrong or dangerous, and they never fight or misunderstand each other or anything nasty like that. The sex scenes between the kids, of which there are two or three short ones, are mostly respectful and not especially vulgar. Everything works fine, and neither bodies nor feelings get hurt. There's no particular pandering to readers looking for porny pictures of children fucking; the descriptions are mostly as respectful as the premise calls for. Which isn't to say that this is a completely convincing description of touching and innocent sex; the prose is somewhat bland, and not as amazed and sensuous as I would have liked. Perhaps Michael (the boy, the narrator) is remembering this from a distance; the voice seems to be that of a grown-up. I didn't myself find the love-scenes particularly arousing; I'm not sure whether or not the author intended the reader to. So this is a fine story as it is, but rather unambitious. By having everyone rational and all of nature in on the conspiracy, all conflict is removed; for me, this also removes a good deal of the excitement. Jim can write; I'd like to see him tackle a darker and/or a richer setting next, with some red-meat adult sex, or some fear or hatred or obstacles to be overcome to sweeten the ultimate victory. I'll guess that Celeste would give this a 9 for technical merit (one point off for "she raised to meet me" and maybe one or two others), an 8.5 for Venus, and an 8.5 to 9.5 for appeal, depending how she feels about perfect rationality and kidsex this week... Ratings for "Lovers" Athena (technical quality): 9 Venus (plot & character): 8.5 Aster (appeal to reviewer): 9 "Cherry Picker" by The Carnal Quill (Mr Double repost). Guest Review by Mike Hunt. Oh boy! At last a story that I don't have to say a single thing bad about. Whew! What fun. How many times have you downloaded some random story with a sexy title, only to be disappointed by an unrealistic scenario, bad writing, or stupid dialogue? Yeah, me too. You won't be with this story. Assuming, of course, you just like short, straight ahead sex stories. You do, don't you? Yeah, me too. "Cherry Picker" is the story of a 12-year-old boy in the process of losing his virginity to, well, Cherry, a teenage hooker who specializes in 12-year-old boys. There are no strange plot twists and no overdrawn set-up, the sex just rolls from the top to the bottom. A fun read. Well written. Good visual depiction. Sexy. All in all, I'd give it a "30". (That's 3 "10's".) Uh, on second thought, I can write a funnier review of a real piece of shit story. Don't send me any more like this; OK, Celeste? Ratings for "Cherry Picker" Athena (technical quality): 10 Venus (plot & character): 10 Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10 "Bea's Bored" by Bea Fischl (BF4play@aol.com). Guest review by BluePencil. At first glance, "Bea's Bored" is a fairly ordinary alt.sex.stories offering. Bea's husband is out of town; so she invites a couple of her friends over to share the hot tub. They're lesbians, and Bea's always been curious, and is feeling a bit frustrated and lonely . . . As I said, a fairly ordinary premise for a story. (In the alt.sex hierarchy, that is. I imagine it would be a bit out of the ordinary for "The Watchtower" or "Christian Science Monitor". It might get the Jimmy Swaggart seal of approval if he has someone to help him with the more difficult words. You know, the ones with more than one syllable or those tricky "ie" and "ei" combinations.) What distinguishes this story is the author's skill and humor. Her grammar is impeccable, her characterization nearly so; though she keeps the tone deliberately light, she manages to maintain a balance between overseriousness and overt flippancy - and to lard the narrative with suspense, surprise, and ample alliteration. Refreshingly, we don't get lists of improbable anatomical attributes. We learn that all are female, Sheryl and Nancy are lesbians, and Bea is straight leaning-slightly-to-bi. We learn that Sheryl has shaved her pubic hair while Nancy keeps hers trimmed. And we learn that Bea has brown pubic hair - before Nancy and Sheryl help her shave it clean. Oh, yes - we do learn that Bea has nice breasts. Though the author concentrates as much on plot and characterization as on raw sex, this is a very sexy story. She has taken what could have been three or four paragraphs and made a story of them. And she has managed to make those three or four paragraphs worth of action a great deal more stimulating than many of the more directly action- oriented writers can manage in an entire story. I hope we see more of Fischl's work. Athena (technical quality): 10 Venus (plot and character): 9 BluePencil (appeal to reviewer): 10 "Lovers One" by Katie (slowhand@dial.pipex.com). Guest Review by Jordan Shelbourne. So there she is, all alone on the street, a little nervous, and this guy comes along. She opens her blouse and says, "Want a date?" and he doesn't refuse. So they go back to the flat and have sex. Despite this, it's romantic. And there's a twist ending. It's a nicely-written vignette, but it's not really a story (hence the 9 for plot). Part of the problem is that twist endings are very difficult to do well -- I figured out the twist by paragraph 5. The approach Katie has chosen twists the story structure so it's very difficult to become involved with the characters. The writer is always a little bit distant because there's this surprise she wants to spring later. (What a writer presents and _how_ it's presented tell you a lot about how the story will end. As Chekov said in his work on playwriting, "If you put a butt-plug on stage in Act One, it had better be used by Act Three." Or something like that.) There are problems with punctuation which I found distracting. Still, it's a well-written sex scene within a slightly stilted context. It's certainly worth reading and I hope Katie writes more stories. Ratings for "Lovers One" Athena Rating: 10 Aphrodite Rating: 9 Shelbourne Rating: 9 "Incubus" (X-Files) by DG (dionysian1@hotmail.com) Guest review by Tooshoes. The X-Files TV show poses many questions we may never know the answer to. Are close encounters real? Is the Government covering up the evidence? Does God exist? How about ESP? But the most important question to many X-Files fans is: Can Platonic relationships really exist between a woman and a man? The TV show posed the question by having two attractive lead characters spend all of their time alone with each other, to the point where they have no other life. They tease each other. They comfort each other. But they never say what they feel. They never take off their FBI masks. And of course, they never take off their FBI uniforms. Chris Carter (the shows creator) may never answer these important questions, but Internet writers are more gracious and informative. Fans have written hundreds of erotic X-Files stories, all debunking the Platonic relationship theory. "Incubus" is one such story, and it's a pretty good one. The author is faithful to the characters, and to the style of the TV show. Even the villain follows the X-File's tradition -- he's more of a misfit than someone seeking to do evil. (Only the government is truly evil.) He feeds on the sexual energies of others, much like a vampire feeds on blood, and he uses mind control to spark the sexual activities he craves. And of course, Fox and Dana are not immune to his influence. The problem with this scenario is that Fox and Dana are strongly attracted to each other, so mind control isn't really necessary. I would have preferred to see their relationship grow based on their own decisions. I think that's also what most X-Files fans want to see. But aside from that, I think most fans will enjoy "Incubus". It's a well written, well conceived story, with many colorful supporting characters, doing all sorts of things that Plato might not approve of. Ratings for "Incubus" Athena (technical quality): 8 Venus (plot & character): 8 Tooshoes (appeal to reviewer): 8 "The Riding Lesson" by Domino (domino6242@aol.com). Guest review by Piper. What we have here, at least in the beginning, is a relatively literate, playful, yet simplistic story about a woman who really seems to enjoy sessions of submission and punishment at the hands of someone she works with. Her lesson appointment is for 10:30, but she shows up at 10:32. Not a good thing, and he lets her know it. Then she doesn't get undressed properly. Definitely not a good thing. And after she obeys his orders and gets on her knees with her head down on the carpeted floor, she turns and looks at him. That's against the rules and is most definitely not a good thing. It would almost seem like she's looking to be punished. What do you think? Of course she is. She loves the pain. She loves the way he degrades her with his whip. She loves him - at least, during the sessions. And her fervent hope is that one day she'll be worthy enough that he will allow her to wrap her lips around his magnificent cock. Her short-term goal, though, seems to be making him happy enough so that he gives her the corner office that several people are apparently interested in. 'Nuff said? Appearances can be deceiving. While most of the story would mainly be of interest to those who enjoy reading about a happily submissive masochist receiving a much-desired whipping, being ejaculated all over, and then being ridden (Literally! She wears a bridle and he sits on her back!) and whipped to orgasm, there is a surprise plot twist at the end that brought a grin to my face, and raised my enjoyment rating by an entire point. Fantasy? Of course. Suspend your disbelief for a few minutes. When I said relatively literate, I meant it. Compared to many other stories in the S/M genre, this particular one didn't have very many writing or detail errors, and the author did show some imagination when describing events and setting the scene. I could even understand Victoria's (that's the woman's name) feelings and why she did what she did. That doesn't mean there aren't problems, or other stories that are better. This story was spell-checked. However, it wasn't proofread properly, and the errors do interfere somewhat with the story line. Small details like "He went to sit down on the large leather sofa facing her ..." followed a few seconds later by "Soon he was jerking back violently against the chair..." cause one to watch for other inconsistencies rather than becoming more deeply involved with what the author is trying to get across. Some advice that was given to me a while back may be appropriate for Domino and other new writers looking to write good stories. First, write the story. Set down your ideas into words. Play. Have fun. Then, when you think you've got what you want in print, comes the work part. Read everything critically. Look for the inconsistencies, the wrongly used words, the difficult passages. Make your writing comprehensible and understandable. Make it flow. Naturalize the spoken passages. Get someone else to read it back to you. Finally, read it one more time to see if it still says what you wanted to say in the first place. If you follow both steps, then, and only then, will you end up with a story that someone else will have as much fun reading as you did writing. I'm not sure, but this seems to be Domino's first attempt at writing a story. At least, I don't have any other stories by him/her, and couldn't find any through the newsgroup archivers. If so, it is a decent first effort. Rating: Technical merit 7.5 Plot & character 8.5 Appeal to reviewer 7 "Paying For It" by J. Boswell (Hot wife) (Posted by Ole.Joe@poboxes.com ) Guest review by Piper. If you're at all familiar with Boswell's other works, you know that he mainly writes hot-wife/slut-wife stories, where the wife suddenly discovers a deeply buried craving to have numerous large cocks deeply buried in her various orifices. This is a rather good variant on the usual theme. First off, Tim and Jessie (the narrator) are a happily married two-income yuppie couple with 2 cars, a townhouse in the 'burbs, and no kids. They've been together for years, and she has never cheated on him. One day, Jessie is in a rush to go see some old friends, and she's short of cash. Rather than taking time out to find a bank machine, she asks her hubby for some money. "How badly do you need this cash?" the horny hunk asks as a joke. He gets his answer when she whips out his cock and sucks him dry on the spot. That gets her all hot and bothered too, but she heads off to see her friends anyway, with her newly-earned cash in hand. That's the start of a developing play theme for the two of them, with her acting as his personal hooker. Any money she gets, whether for herself or for the house, she has to earn. On the flip side, if he wants any, he has to pay. They both like the fantasy, in and out of the house, and it leads to some really hot times in various exotic locales, like the front seat of his car in the mall parking lot, and a local hooker hangout. All right. No problem so far. Just a 'normal' couple with a rather well-developed fantasy life. So where's the "Boswellian" part of the story? That comes when hubby heads off on a business tour and leaves wifey high and dry, without relief and without fantasy play, for six whole weeks. Jessie can't take that! No woman starring in a Boswell story could! "Just one time," I imagine her muttering to herself. "Nobody will ever know. I'll dress up a little classy, head down to the sleaze bar, and hang out a bit. Nothing will happen. I can control myself. Really! Just one little drink, and then back home again." Yeah, right. Those words fit right in with "Just one more smoke and then I'll quit," or "Don't worry, baby, I'll pull out," or "You can't get pregnant the first time." So what happens when hubby finally gets home from his business trip? If you know the genre, you know the answer. I like this story. It's hot, it's fairly imaginative, and it has a good build-up to an inevitable (at least, for Boswell) conclusion. It's also a revamped version of the original, with most of the writing errors eliminated and the dialog and plot smoothed out. While there are still a few minor gaffs, they can be ignored. You don't have to be a fan of slut-wife tales to enjoy this story. Rating: Technical merit 9.5 Plot & character 9 Appeal to reviewer 10 Grammar Tip of the Week: QUOTATIONS. Several people have asked me to give some advice on the use of quotations, including quotation marks and punctuation. This is a first draft, and I would appreciate any help on getting it into better shape. DIRECT QUOTATIONS: In general, when you quote someone exactly, put the quoted words in quotation marks. {An exact quotation is often referred to as a "direct quotation."} He swaggered up to the lady at the bar and said, "What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?" She leaned over so that he could see her naked breasts with the nipples pressing out against the bright yellow material and whispered, "Wanna fuck?" Ordinarily, you should use a comma to separate introductory or concluding words from the direct quotation. This is true whether the words that describe the statement come before the direct quotation (as in the preceding examples) or after the direct quotation. When the quotation comes before the explanatory statement, the comma replaces a period. When she realized that he could hold back his orgasm no longer, she said to him, "Come on my tits." "Come on my tits," she said to him, when she realized that he could hold back his orgasm no longer. If the statement precedes the explanatory statement and ends in an exclamation point or question mark, keep that punctuation mark INSTEAD OF the comma. "Wanna fuck?" she asked. She purred, "Wanna fuck?" As she gently fondled his testicles she continued to lick and suck his penis, causing him to shout, "Eeeeeeeiiiiiiiiii!" "Eeeeeeeiiiiiiiiii!" he shouted, as she gently fondled his testicles, while she continued to lick and suck his penis. "How badly do you need the money?" the horny hunk asked. If you want a more formal introduction of the quoted words, use a colon instead of a comma. This more formal introduction will almost always be a full sentence. She spoke thus: "Wanna fuck?" As she gently fondled his testicles she continued to lick and suck his penis, causing him to shout one word: "Eeeeeeeiiiiiiiiii!" Also, if a quotation is extremely long, use a colon instead of a comma. "Long" means different things to different people, and authors vary in their application of this rule. In general, if the quoted statement is a single sentence, use a comma to introduce it. If it is more than a single sentence, use a colon - unless the sentences are extremely short. She said: "You look like a guy who needs a woman to understand him. By the looks of that bulge in your pants, you are happy to see me. My mother told me a hard man is good to find. I haven't had a good or hard man in a long time. Wanna fuck?" She said, "Wanna fuck? I sure hope so!" If the quotation is extremely long - that is, if it goes on for more than one paragraph, put quotation marks at the beginning of each paragraph. However, put an end quotation mark only at the end of the final paragraph of the quoted statement. The absence of quotation marks at the end of the other paragraphs signifies to the reader that the conversation continues in the next paragraph. If you have a quotation within a quotation, rotate between single and double quotation marks. {Use an apostrophe for the single quotation mark.} In the United States, the double marks go with the outermost quotation; in Europe the single marks go with the outermost quotation. Peggy Sue said, "I love it when a man comes up to me and straight out says to me, 'Wanna fuck?' I don't like men who beat around my bush." An INDIRECT QUOTATION usually does not quote the exact words, but rather paraphrases what the speaker said. An indirect quotation is usually introduced by "that" and does not employ quotation marks. Note that with indirect quotations, the verb tense and some other elements of the original statement change to give the right impression of the timing of the quoted material with regard to the explanatory material. Sometimes the word "that" is omitted from an indirect quotation. Direct quotation: He said, "I want to make love to you." Indirect quotation: He said that he wanted to make love to me. Indirect quotation: He said he wanted to make love to me. Direct quotation: Jethro said to Maribeth, "I'd like to bury my beef bayonet in your haystack tonight." Indirect quotation: Jethro said to Maribeth that he'd like to bury his beef bayonet in her haystack that night. Indirect QUESTIONS often begin with "if" or "whether." In addition, they may begin with any word that ordinarily asks a question. Indirect questions do NOT end with a question mark. Direct question. "Wanna fuck?" she asked. Indirect question: She asked me if I wanted to fuck. Indirect question: She asked me whether I wanted to fuck. Indirect question: She asked me how often I wanted to fuck. Indirect question: She asked me how desperately I wanted to fuck. Indirect question: He swaggered up to the lady at the bar and asked what a nice girl like her was doing in a place like this. Although quotation marks are generally not used with indirect quotations, sometimes it IS proper to use them in order to emphasize that the portion within the quotation marks represent the exact words of the original speaker. He swaggered up to the lady at the bar and asked what what "a nice girl like her was doing in a place like this." She asked me "how desperately" I wanted to fuck. Note that in the first of the preceding examples the writer changed the speaker's words slightly - "is" became "was." This is normally considered to be acceptable. If you are uncertain whether you have the right to alter the speakers words, use a direct quotation. OTHER WAYS TO HANDLE QUOTATIONS: In addition to using quotation marks and indirect quotations, it is possible to quote people in other ways. When you are formally quoting a long passage (say, a whole paragraph from a book or a major portion of a speech), it may be desirable to set the material off in the text by indenting it. If you do this, introduce it with a colon. Then indent all the quoted material. A format like the following is often desirable: While she waited, Peggi read the church bulletin that she always carried with her. The pastor had a sense of humor: It seems that two brothers died and went before St. Peter. The first was a politician who had voted for legislation that enriched himself at the expense of the poor and downtrodden. St. Peter sentenced him to a very hot part of hell, where his job would be to clean up excrement deposited by animals. As the man was leaving, he saw his brother, who had been an unscrupulous lawyer, but who now had a voluptuous blonde in a low-cut dress on his arm. The man was startled, because he knew that his brother had made his living largely by suing churches and poor people. The outraged man turned to St. Peter and said, "Hey! That's not fair!" St. Peter replied, "Who are you to question that woman's punishment?" In the preceding example, the whole quotation from the church bulletin (beginning with "It seems that... ") is indented, so that readers know where the quoted material begins and ends. Quotation marks are not necessary: the indentation serves the same purpose. Within that lengthy quotation, other direct quotations follow the normal rules. In some cases, - for example, when you are quoting a lengthy dialogue - it is also possible to omit the quotation marks altogether by using a play/script format, as in the following example from my story "Virtuous Reality": Madonna: Well, let's see, the names of the people that I have had sex with recently... Who's the name of the guy I slept with last night, What's the name of the guy I did in the park this afternoon... Oprah: That's what I want to find out. So tell me. Madonna: I just said Who's the name of the guy I slept with last night, What's the name of the guy I did in the park this afternoon.... Oprah: You've had sex with these guys? Madonna: Yes. Oprah: And was it good? Madonna: It's always good. Oprah: And you talked to them before, during, or after sex? Madonna: Yes. Oprah: And you still don't know their names? Madonna: Well, I certainly do. Finally, some authors of fiction quote people directly without using quotation marks. They seem to make a distinction between quoted speech (which receives quotation marks) and quoted thoughts (which do not). WHAT ELSE GOES INSIDE QUOTATION MARKS? Titles of short writings or works of art are usually put in quotation marks. While he fucked her in the ass, she heard him humming "Both Sides Now" by Judy Collins. Most of what she knew about sex she had learned by "Friends" on TV. The titles of longer writings and more sophisticated works of art are usually italicized (or underlined, if italics are not available). Since underling and italics are impossible in text files transmitted through e-mail, it has become common practice to use quotation marks for ALL titles. However, some writers prefer to replace underlining with techniques such as the following: The seduction was like a chapter out of _Lady Chatterly_. The seduction was like a chapter out of *Lady Chatterly*. The seduction was like a chapter out of LADY CHATTERLY. Sometimes it is proper to put in quotation marks a word or phrase that you want to define. By "oral sex" I mean either a blowjob or cunnilingus. She, on the other hand, uses the term to refer to talking about sex but not doing it. Sometimes it is proper to put a word or phrase in quotation marks to show that you are using it in an unusual or special sense or to draw attention to the word. He uses language so cleverly that sometimes I think he's a "cunning linguist." {The writer is making a pun about cunnilingus.} He expressed his "love" for her by beating her severely and humiliating her in front of her friends." {The writer is suggesting that the word "love" is being used ironically - that is, the man calls this love, but the writer doubts that this term is accurate.} Avoid the overuse of quotation marks for this purpose. WHERE TO PUT PUNCTUATION. Put inside the quotation marks any punctuation that is actually a part of the quotation. "Did you learn about sex by watching 'TV sitcoms?" he asked, as she began to choke on his cum. Put commas and periods inside the final quotation mark, even if they are not part of the quotation. While she sucked his cock, he gazed in rapture at the picture of "Dogs Playing Poker." "I learned to do this from an episode of 'Beavis and Butthead,'" she said, as she swirled her tongue gently around the tip of his cock. When they are not part of the quotation, put other quotation marks (colons, semicolons, dashes, question marks, etc.) outside the final quotation mark. She had perfected her sexual technique through many hours of watching "Days of Our Lives"; but her partner's training was limited to "Beavis and Butthead." She said, "I want you to come inside me"; but he had already shot his wad all over her tits. Such decisions as whether to use direct or indirect quotations, whether to put the explanatory comments at the beginning, at the end, or in the middle, and whether to use quotation marks are a matter of preference and style. These decisions DO make a difference in the exact nuances conveyed by the quotations, but these distinctions cannot be discussed here. Quotations should be skillfully blended into the text, so that the words of the speakers sound natural. Here's an excerpt from "Virtuous Reality" that contains quoted dialogue. See if you can understand the logic behind how I handled each direct or indirect quotation. As she thought about these problems, Sue sighed deeply and uttered a barely audible murmur: "I'll never write an erotic story again. Dear God, I wish I had never written an erotic story at all." Suddenly, Sue was aware that there was someone else in the room with her. She spun around in her chair and was alarmed to see standing just inside the locked door a beautiful dark haired woman. She was dressed in diaphanous clothing that Sue associated with statues she had seen while cavorting in the Aegean Islands. The woman exuded a sensuous sexuality that made the room come alive. "Who are you?" asked Sue. "And what are you doing here?" "I'm Celeste. We've corresponded through alt.sex.stories. And I'm here to help you." "You're Celeste?" gasped Sue. "The goddess of alt.sex.stories?" "Well," replied the beautiful apparition. "I've been called that; but I'm more like an angel." "You're as beautiful as I imagined you'd be," said Sue, as she continued to wonder what in the world was happening. "And you're almost as beautiful as you say you are in your stories," replied Celeste. After a pause, Celeste continued: "To be honest, I'm not actually a full angel yet. I've met most of the requirements, but I still have to do one more good deed. I've been sent here as sort of your guardian angel. That bit about wishing you had never written an erotic story began with 'Dear God.' That constitutes a prayer. The Boss was upset by your comment, and she sent me here to help you get over your malaise or angst or whatever you want to call it." "Your boss?" replied Sue. When Celeste responded by merely folding her arms and raising her eyes toward the heavens, Sue began to get the message. "I've always heard your Boss referred to as 'he' or 'him,'" she said. "Actually, my Boss is neither a he nor a she," answered Celeste. "I just prefer the feminine pronoun, because so many men are assholes. Men write stories on a.s.s. that degrade women and describe harm to little boys and girls. But this isn't a theological essay. It's a sex story. Can I get on with what I came here for?" -- +--------------' Story submission `-+-' Moderator contact `------------+ | story-submit@qz.little-neck.ny.us | story-admin@qz.little-neck.ny.us | | Archive site +--------------------+------------------+ Newsgroup FAQ | \ .../assm/faq.html> /