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Celeste's Top 15 Stories - August 1997

Note:  Even though guest reviewers write the posted reviews of some of these
stories, I read any story that I think may be eligible for a monthly or
annual award.  I personally take responsibility {and blame} for these lists.
 If someone else wants to publish an alternate list of awards, that's fine
with me.

Second Note:  Since many readers would like to read the top stories for each
month, I would appreciate it if authors would repost as many of these stories
as possible.  You may wish to repost the stories in
alt.sex.stories.moderated, as well as in alt.sex.stories.  If you wish, you
can label them as Celeste's #x for August: Name of Story.

Third Note:  I have had great success finding these stories on the World Wide
Web by using the Deja News Server (www.dejanews.com).  In addition, most of
these stories have been posted and archived through
alt.sex.stories.moderated.  You can even find past issues of my reviews
through these services.

- Celeste

Here's this month's Top 20 List:

1. "And Then I Fucked Her" by Mike Hunt
2. "Owning Corey" by Don Boettger
3. "High Rise" by Mike Hunt 
4. "Sister Mary Joseph" by BillyG
5. "Aunt Peg's Visit" by BillyG
6. "The Photograph" by JYM
7. "Passages in Life" by Jubal Harshaw
8. "The Shop" by Seurat
9. "Nottamun Town" by Mr Spraycan
10. "Wedding Gift" by Seurat
11. "Career Opportunities" by Parker
12.  "Slow Dancing With a Stranger" by Sarlim
13. "Cary" by daVinci
14. "Adrienne a la Mode" by Cynthia
15. "Temptation" by Mary Anne Mohanraj
16. "Mystery Flasher" by Phloighd
17. "Our Special Moment" by Ojo de Ella
18. "Find a Penny" by Jay Boswell
19. "Fortissimo" by Uther Pendragon
20. "Homework" by S.B. Douglass

"Adrienne a la Mode" by Cynthia (SLowhand@dial.pipex.com).  Guest review by
BluePencil.

A respected writer in another genre once said that plot ideas were one of the
easiest things to come by; it was turning them into a good story that
required hard work.

Unfortunately, this is one of the hardest things for aspiring writers to
absorb. Far too often they feel the need for an exotic plot, locale, or
characters.  In alt.sex.stories, this often translates into people with
unlikely physical measurements and unusual athletic attainments making  love
with each other, assorted relatives, and the occasional polar bear while
riding the roller coaster in their local amusement park. I'm exaggerating
slightly, perhaps - they probably wouldn't all fit in the roller coaster.
Perhaps the bumper cars.

There are at least two sorts of problems with this type of story:

First, it's usually a little hard to suspend your disbelief enough to forget
that it _is_ a story (if not, you and your dearest are probably scheduled for
one or more daytime talk shows in the near future).

Second, and far more irritating for the writer, is that if your story is
discussed at all it won't be for your masterful plotting, your command of the
language, or even your well-crafted sex scenes.  Instead, people will
remember it as "the one where the bald-headed woman got it on with a camel in
a pool of lime jello."  Irritating, unless you are willing to take this as a
tribute to your memorable characters.

Fortunately, there are writers out there, however rare, who are willing to
bypass the easy tricks and work at their craft.  And even, amazingly, post
the results to alt.sex.stories.

Adrienne is a teacher.  Tim is her businessman lover, who has trouble leaving
his work totally behind, even for an evening with the woman he loves.  She
sets out to distract him.  What happens?  Does she arouse his interest, or at
least his libido?  Does she succeed in driving work from his mind?  And does
she get what she wants in the end? Read the story.  Really.  

Cynthia has taken the familiar elements of far too many ordinary stories and
transmuted them as thoroughly as coal into diamond.  This is one of the best
written, believable, and appealing stories I have read on this newsgroup in
the past few months.  I don't recall seeing any of Cynthia's stories before;
I'd like to thank Slowhand Luke for posting this one for her.  I hope that it
is the first of many.

"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!"

"Aunt Peg's Visit" by BillyG (hayden@mindless.com).  Guest review by Michael
K. Smith.

I don't believe I've seen a story by this author before, but I hope he keeps
writing and posting. This is definitely one hot story! And, though the author
doesn't say, it seems to be the first part of a longer work (I hope).

The protagonist -- whose name, oddly enough, is Billy -- goes to the San
Francisco airport with his divorced mother to pick up her sister, come to
stay for the summer. (My first thought was, "Obvious setup.") Peg is ten
years younger but similar in appearance, . . . which is nice, since Billy has
had the secret hots for Mom for several years. And Mom has to go back to work
right away, so Billy promises to look after Peg ("Don't call me 'Aunt,'
please. I don't want to be all grown up"), whose first wish is to try out the
genuine California hot tub. But first, Peg wants to have a little talk. About
frank conversation and the effects on her nephew of her taste for nude
sunbathing. He's willing but warns her that he just might acquire an
erection. (Yeah -- as if!)

Let's just say I was already feeling the effects myself before aunt and
nephew ever reached the hot tub deck. The author has a talent for word
pictures and literate description, and about the only "bad" words you'll run
into are a few "pussies" and one "cunt." I take this as the mark of a budding
erotician, not just another porn-scribbler. It is indeed a setup, but it's
also a lot closer to believable than most -- which, for me, makes the story a
good deal sexier.

Gotta pick a nit or two somewhere, though (the Reviewers Guild rules demand
it). Oh, yeah: "Billy" changes inexplicably to "Bob" at one point, and the
author has a tendency to forget the closing quotes in dialogue passages. And
I found one misspelling. Nothing that a bit more line-editing wouldn't have
caught. When I taught history, I was not known as an easy grader, but I give
this one straight 10s. And I'll certainly be watching for the next
installment!

"Career Opportunities" by Parker (Parker 11).  Guest review by Piper.

If you've read one Parker story, you've read 'em all.  They're all about the
same thing - controlling and degrading women.  Right?  

To put it bluntly, yes they are, but no they're not.  While the first line is
basically true in general, in detail it's like saying all Arthur C. Clarke
ever wrote was science and science fiction, or all Stephen King ever wrote
were thrillers.  If you actually start looking at the stories, you'll find
that details make all the difference in the world.

In this story, the central character is a woman named Barbara Dahlton.  She's
a corporate bigwig, one of the senior staff, and likes to throw her weight
around and step on those little people beneath her feet.  They're expendable.
 If they start making too much noise about being treated badly, make them
quit.  If a young, smart, beautiful woman starts with the company, do
everything you can to get rid of the competition.  So what if you destroy any
future she might have had working anyplace else at the same time.  She
shouldn't have dared to be so beautiful, smart, and vulnerable at the same
time.  Barbara is what people commonly call an executive bitch from hell.

Think about her name.  Think about one of the less flattering diminutives of
her first name.  Then remove one syllable from her last name.  Wonder who's
going to receive an unwanted makeover?

As I said, the differences are in the details, and Parker excels in making
all the details work in a tight, interesting story.  The sex is sometimes
hot, and sometimes disgusting.  At times, I wouldn't wish what happens to her
on my worst enemy.  If this was real life, everyone involved should either
end up in jail for a long period of time, or spend a long vacation in a
padded room.  Luckily, it's fantasy, and the reader can pick and choose which
of the protagonists to envision themselves being.  Or, possibly, the reader
could choose to be all of them at different times.

The main characters are very real, even if they do step beyond the bounds of
what's normal.  The situations are real enough that they only require a
modicum of suspension of disbelief.  The 'big bosses' are sufficiently blind,
stupid, arrogant, short-sighted, and misogynistic at the proper times that
they don't poke their noses into their subordinates' fun.  That's exactly
what the 'little people' have, too.  Fun.  At the expense, fortunately
(unfortunately for her), of a woman they think deserves everything they can
throw at her.  And in this story, like many of Parker's others, 'everything'
means a long, long fall down the business and evolutionary ladders.

Problems and errors are hard to find.  A few poorly chosen words.  Some
sloppy punctuation.  One or two misspellings.  In a story this long, those
are forgivable.  The only problem I had with the story itself was with
Barbara.  It was slightly harder to suspend enough disbelief to imagine that
a woman of her obvious intelligence and mental toughness could be
steamrollered without putting up a bit more of a struggle.  But, that's a
minor quibble, and I only include it because a reviewer is supposed to find
something that a writer can use to improve a story.

Parker wrote some of the classics of this genre, and this is one of his best
stories.  Enjoy, if you've got a twisted enough mind.

"Cary" by daVinci (rmbte1@ix.netcom.com).  Guest review by DG.

Maybe the biggest challenge to writing an erotic story -  a good erotic
story, that is - is finding a way to keep it fresh.  There are only so many
ways that boy can meet girl, only so many things that boy and girl can do to
each other, only so many places they can do it.  One common solution is to
expand the possibilities:  boy meets three girls, girl meets German shepherd,
boy ties up girl and paddles her bottom- you get the idea.  These stories can
be quite intriguing to read, but the gains in originality are generally
offset by the loss of the romantic underpinnings of the fundamental boy meets
girl formula.  

Another solution, which the author of this excellent story uses, is to stick
to the old formula and make the characters vivid and unique.  The nameless
narrator of "Cary," by daVinci, is a burned-out classical pianist who decides
to take early retirement and live a quiet secluded life in the suburbs.   In
the third floor loft of his house he reads Kafka, listens to Mahler, and
works on writing a symphony - not your run-of-the-mill erotic hero.  We never
even find out how long his cock is.  

His next door neighbor is a beautiful woman with a troubled marriage.  She
has the opposite problem from the narrator: he lived the kind of life that
people fantasize about and finally found it unfulfilling, while she lives a
drab existence in the suburbs, feeling that there should be more to life.  If
you think you know where this is headed, you're right.  But that doesn't
matter - the enjoyment in this story isn't watching the plot unfold, it's in
the vivid characters and the realistic descriptions of their problems and
thoughts.  And when they do finally get down to business, the sex is very
hot, thank you very much.

It's not a perfect story.  Some (but certainly not all) of the character's
musings about the meaning of life are overly melodramatic, and the dialogue
and phrasings are occasionally awkward, particularly in the first half of the
story.  But these are relatively minor quibbles.  This is a story that
attempts to be both meaningful and sexy, and succeeds.

"Find a Penny..." by J Boswell (Ole Joe repost).  Guest review by BronwenSM.

We start with the narrator today, reminiscing on the beach in the Nineties,
and then go into flashback.... It's the Sixties, and our hero is a not-so-hip
freshman in a big Eastern city just before long hair and hash took over the
campuses. 

His group's moral code also predates the Summer of Love. Although loving and
responsive, his steady girlfriend wants to hold onto her virginity - and his
frustration is what drives the events that follow. It's a story about growing
up. Boy meets girl, boy cheats on girl, boy owns up, girl dumps him, second
girl was only playing games... 

"Life was simple and fun, and I had it by the balls and knew it," says the
narrator. By the end of this section he's beginning to see that life isn't
always quite that simple. (There's more of this story to come - for which I
am grateful!)

This story is well-constructed with interesting characters you can care
about. As an Englishwoman, I found the writer's powers of observation made an
essentially foreign scene vivid to me. Take out the most explicit sexual
passages and you could publish this story a lot of places. Personally,
though, I think taking the sex out would be a real waste - as it is horny and
authentic. This is a good story, but it as a story I will remember it rather
than a turn-on - though this doesn't mean it wasn't a turn-on, rather that
this wasn't its main appeal. 

"Fortissimo" by Uther Pendragon (anon584c@nyx10.nyx.net).  When I found a
"story" posted in a.s.s. last week labeled "Forceps," I was at first happy
(because I looked forward to another installment in the Brennan story) and
then sad (because it wasn't really a story at all, "just" a birth
announcement.)  Now that the story has actually arrived, I guess I should
send a virtual present or at least plan to attend the virtual baby shower.

As you may have surmised, the newest Brennan has arrived and Bob and Jeanette
are engaged in celebratory copulation.  Jeanette is concerned that Bob
considers her breasts, which have been exploited by Catherine as a source of
nutrition, to be unattractive.  Bob disabuses her of this notion.  Then, just
a foreplay is getting really good, they are interrupted by the "fortissimo"
cry of the baby.  And so it goes; lovemaking is delayed, but climaxes come
later.

Most men and many women who haven't had or nursed a baby have no idea how
sensuous the combination of nourishing a baby and making love to the baby's
father can be.  The author seems to have figured this out and has made the
connection pretty clear in this story.

"High Rise" by Mike Hunt (MrM1ke@aol.com).  You know, Mike Hunt is really
great.  I wish I had the nerve to say that sentence out loud in a bar.  It
would be a great pick-up line.  I mean, you might get an interesting reply:
"Your cunt is nothing compared to Emily Dickinson's."

Anyway, Mike Hunt is really great.  This time he writes from the perspective
of his other self.  The easiest way to explain this is that his original self
is probably still recovering from the drubbing he took from Taria in her last
story.  Life gets complicated when you start playing significant roles in
stories other than your own!  

Anyway, in this story Mike starts out by voyeurizing the lady who lives in
the apartment in the high rise next to his own in Chicago.  When he discovers
that she goes online with AOL, he arranges to meet her there, without her
knowing that it's him; and then the he who's online counsels the her who's
online with regard to her budding romance with the him who she thinks is not
online but really is.  I think I got that right.  It may be better if you
just read the story.

The basic flaw of this story is the tenuous assumption that two people can
deliberately and easily get onto an AOL chat line almost at will in a major
metropolitan area like Chicago - IN THE EVENING HOURS yet!  Yeah, right.  And
the Cubs may win the World Series this year.

What I liked best about this story was that the woman came with a "whoosh"
and a "thunk."  Actually, I'm just practicing quoting information out of
context: she came _off the elevator_ with a "whoosh" and a "thunk."  When she
came in the sack it was simultaneously with her lover, but with neither a
"whoosh" nor a "thunk."

"Homework" by S.B. Douglass (Repost by olifra@mbox.vol.it).  This is close
enough to how I got started to be almost nostalgic.  The boy and girl are
studying together in her dorm room for their college psych course, when they
discover their mutual attraction to one another.  They don't quite go all the
way, but they get very hot.  The author handles the combination of innocence
and passionate sexuality very effectively.

That's what I wish for my daughters.  If they can't meet their future True
Love at an old-fashioned orgy or church social, I hope they do so while
studying for their psych class.

"Mystery Flasher" by Phloighd (jroot@netmcr.com).  The narrator is working in
a remote section of a record and book store.  A very attractive woman comes
up to his counter and starts flirting with him.  The conversation is sexy and
seductive.  There's really not much to say about this story, except that it's
extremely sexy and seductive - and I've already said that.

This is this author's first story.  Either he got lucky or I want to see a
lot more stories from him.

"Nottamun Town" by Mr Spraycan (mrspraycan@mailanon.com). Guest review by
Kim.

Hey, I must be doing something right: Celeste keeps on sending me stories to
review. So without further ado here we go.  {Note from Celeste: I recently
read a disclaimer to a story that said, "Without further adieu...." Kim has
it right!}

This is not the normal type of story to appear in ASS - at least not the sort
I have read many of anyway.  This is a tale of sword and sorcery about a guy
who's at a party and has a bit of a fugue, and then wakes up two weeks later,
naked and singing on a London park bench. From there he's dragged off to the
funny farm, where he relates to a shrink that he's been to a place of magic
during the interim. The tale then launches into a flashback mode, and we
follow his trials and tribulations.

His adventures in a strange land begin when he is seduced by a passing witch.
After several close encounters with the witch our hero decides to journey on
to the eponymous town of the title, accompanied by the witch's talking cat.
Now I wish I myself had a talking pussy, but I digress (yeah, obvious I
know). On the way the cat explains the economy of the land: people get paid
for being publicly flogged and humiliated so that the local chief bad guy can
absorb all the psychic energy this gives off. Oh, and all the residents
wander around naked; and the native form of greeting consists of the
reciprocal thrusting of genitals at each other.

After a few more adventures our hero decides to confront the evil ruler and
challenge him and his even nastier lady sidekick to a duel of magic and
fisticuffs. Our hero's magic consists entirely of his ability to sing the
lyrics from a song by Fairport Convention. Enough magic by anyone's
standards, I think you'll agree.

It all ends in tears, of course, with the hero back in the company of the
shrink, who is admonishing him for consuming cheap alcohol and illegal drugs.
The story ends on a rather touching note, as we find our hero a year later
still pining for the love of the witch he first met {and bedded} at the
beginning of his odyssey.

According to the author's web page, a semi-commercial site incidentally, this
whole story was inspired by a bad drugs experience he once suffered.

*** Warning - pointless moralizing by reviewer ***

Remember folks just say NO. If you want a mind altering experience then go
read a book!

*** Pointless Moralizing Mode Off ***

Well, what did I think about it? I have to say, I thought it very well
written and engrossing. I was quite sad when it was over. I wouldn't mind
reading some more of the adventures of the magical Nottamun Town and its
surroundings. I would point out however, that to my mind, it was virtually
devoid of anything erotic, but as an interesting piece of story telling it
was first rate. If you can't stand fantasy, then you're not gonna agree with
my ratings; but then it's my review, so there.

"Our Special Moment" by Ojo de Ella (Voracious Reader repost).  This story
describes a hot lovemaking session during which the woman tells the man to
just relax and enjoy it.  And he does.  Twice.  This is a very hot story.  It
reminds me of Dulcinea's work, and that's a real compliment.

I suspect that this story started out as one of those second-person (you)
narratives that people often write for their cyberlovers.  This is an
excellent example of the value of changing to the third person before posting
the story.  Try reading this story with "you" mentally inserted for "him."
 On second thought, don't. It's not nearly as hot or intense that way.

"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.

"Passages in Life" by Jubal Harshaw (jubal@flash.net). Guest review by Green
Onions.

Ah . . . the joys of church summer camp. Fresh air, tall trees, silly skits,
roasted marshmallows, clear spring water,  and--um--the other stuff. 

No, I don't mean sneaking out at midnight and managing to put all the camp
superintendent's furniture out on rowboats tied to the pier or any of the
other clever stunts that bored kids do in order to while away the first time
in their conscious lifetimes in which they must somehow survive bereft of the
blandishments of computer games, the vidiot box, and the local cruising
strip. (Well to be frank: this is a.s.s.--not a 'Leave it to Beaver' rerun on
cable TV--so you can bet that the "other stuff" I was talking about is the
forbidden fruit normally denied to kids young enough to be denizens of these
would-be gardens of Eden.)

But <ah-hem> this is not a child porno story <amen!>; in fact the protagonist
is an almost unbelievably mature seventeen year old boy whose brilliantly
planned and skillfully executed pranks of several years ago have since become
legendary at the camp.  His lover is another counselor who happens to be
scarcely nineteen herself and the job they both have ahead of them is to make
their relationship fully functional.

Well, what is there to a boy's 'first time' anyway?  Is it a gradual process,
one that begins with a lot of groping, giggling, cuddling and caressing and
that eventually ends all-too-quickly in a juicy sticky splattered mess?
Actually our hero's baptism is a long drawn-out affair, one that the author
studies reverently in a remarkable number of sensual and psychological
dimensions through the mind of an unusually reflective protagonist. This is
_anything but_ a story of a 'quick fuck.'

Indeed this piece isn't principally about sex at all, even though there's no
shortage of hot scenes. It has much more to do with romance and the recovery
process from a short lifetime of failed youthful expectations--AKA: 'growing
up.' As the plot develops, we discover that he and his lover have met before;
both have an intricately developed past that turns out to account in large
measure for mysterious ways in which they move.

What does it mean to cross the sacred threshold between childhood and
adulthood in the context of romantic relationships? What does it mean to have
a love affair based on more than superficial attraction or hot passing
passion? How does a sensible person (or to be more precise, _two_ sensible
people) deal with the molting of their adolescent fantasies and the emergence
of integrated romantic, sensual, and spiritual desire? And how will our hero
step out of the shoes of a boy in order to don the vestments of His Lover's
Man?

This is not a story for the impatient or intellectually feckless reader: at
something in the neighborhood of 35,000+ words, it almost qualifies for the
label 'short novel.' Most of the time I found myself enjoying the author's
slow, painstaking and loving style of careful psychological development--but
at other moments I occasionally wondered which of the myriad details
presented in the first few chapters would turn out to be important.

Granted: a certain amount of seemingly 'irrelevant' information is desirable
in any story to paint the scenes in the reader's mind, to frame the events,
and to develop the characters. And one so often hears from the _literati_
that a typical weakness of erotica inheres in the inability or unwillingness
of so many writers to weave their protagonists' actions into the subtle
complex tapestry of human needs, desires and motivations--a criticism that
certainly hits the bulls' eye for all too many a.s.s. submissions.

Yet although the author's gift for careful description tended to make the
story a bit slow at the beginning (for example, we learn the names of nearly
a dozen different subdivisions of the camp in one of the early chapters: none
of which is used later), it turned out to be a solid foundation on which to
base the unfolding of the plot--the basic outlines of which are probably
familiar to nearly everyone who has legitimate access to this newsgroup.

Overall this is an extremely thoughtful, well written and remarkably
sophisticated piece that might have been even better if the writer had kept
in mind that in art, less can sometimes be more. It's also one of the
sweetest emerging sexuality/emerging romance stories I've had the pleasure of
reading and one that I think most patient straight or bisexual readers will
find both charming and delightful.

"The Photograph" by JYM (GJ@SPRYNET.COM).  Guest review by Mark Aster.

A very short but very lovely story.  No sex happens on stage, but the story
is very much about sex, and love, and bodies, and hearts.  And about how
beautiful a pregnant 16-year-old can be, naked and shy in front of the
camera.  And how something beautiful can be utterly tragic also.

It takes some daring to make a story this short, and to post a story with no
actual fucking to a.s.s.*.  The author of this one has that daring, and
enough talent to pull it off.  I recommend this story highly; don't be put
off by what I've said so far even if you're just looking for sex stories. The
Photograph is highly erotic, as well as all those other things.  The ending,
while maybe a tad obvious, is effective and moving.  A couple of
misspellings, awkward phrases, and an odd capitalization might cost it a
point for technical perfection, but it deserves at least solid tens in them
other categories.  A keeper.

"The Shop" by Seurat (dantedibby@aol.com) - Guest review by Sven the Elder.
 {This story is listed as Twighlight Zone Stories #2.}

They say that first impressions mean most, a principle I have found to be
true in most things of my life.  Reading a new story is no different.  The
old gag of the "It was a dark and stormy night" cliche to start a story is
legend.  But it does something: it paints a picture, a scene in mind; it
conveys the writers mood.  Seurat excels.  His opening couple of paragraphs
should be studied by some students of the art of storytelling.   Before books
and the written word was the spoken story, where the a wandering storyteller
would amble from hamlet to hamlet, or village to village.  These visits were
 long-awaited affairs and the storytellers were made welcome because of the
'magic' they could convey with words.  Word painting is not easy: not just
anyone can do it, and few can do it well - this opening rates amongst the
best.

Carol wishes to surprise her husband with something a little different on
their 10th anniversary. Where better than to look than the local purveyor of
things erotic? Carol wishes to surprise, but doesn't know with what or how.
The shop assistant can help her choose and she does, and you, dear reader
must follow the rest of the story yourself to learn how.  I am not into
bondage in my real life, and have to say that I thought I might not like this
story. Thank you Celeste for asking for my help: I might have missed an
excellent story with a twist in the end.

I have one minor complaint: I mentioned first impressions for a reason.
 There appear to be only seven paragraphs in six pages.  However, and I
refuse to 'dock' marks for poor layout, this may be as a direct result of the
encapsulation of the story to me by e-mail from Celeste.  It could also be
the way it was transferred by me from e-mail to WP on my Mac; but the format
was annoying.

I do intend to keep this story, and so it will undergo a little layout
editing to enhance the pleasure I will get from rereading it.  I will alter
its appearance in short. Eating a meal in a good restaurant is about
presentation: we like the meal to appear appetizing - piling it on the plate
does not achieve that effect. Likewise, placing the dialogue from the
participating personnel in a narrative is helped by splitting it into
manageable chunks; for me that is most easily achieved by using separate
lines as each person speaks.  The 'white space' on a page of hard copy
enhances its appearance and, like good spelling and grammar, makes it easier
and more enjoyable to digest.

Enough!  - This is a great story, read and enjoy!

"Sister Mary Joseph" by BillyG (hayden@mindless.com).  I guess sex-with-nun
stories are interesting mostly because nuns are taboo. It's fun to fantasize
having sex with a person normally considered to be off-limits or to imagine
these presumably asexual beings having dirty thoughts.  I am a graduate of
Catholic education, and I have a close friend who was a nun for a long time;
and I enjoy some of these nun-sex stories immensely.  

Having said that I enjoy these stories, I also hasten to point out that they
are mostly fantasy; that is, they require an extreme suspension of disbelief.
 For example, last month I gave my top rating to a story called "Conventional
Sex," in which a teenage boy gets stuck for the night in a convent and has
wild sex with the nun in whose room he hides.  I truly doubt that  the author
of that story had first-hand or even-second hand information on which to base
that story.  In other words, it was a hilarious and sexy fantasy, but I doubt
that anything close to it has ever happened.  Ditto for "Temptation," the
next story in this issue of CR: to "believe" that story you have to accept
the notion that a critter called an incubus can appear and disappear, change
forms, and exercise physical and spiritual control over an emotionally
distressed nun who can't think of any way to avoid the danger.  In other
words, it's a thought-provoking, borderline blasphemous fantasy that has just
about as much relation to reality as the movie "E.T."

The present story is different.  From what I know about nuns {we'll call it
second-hand experience}, this one is actually a real-life possibility.  The
nun bums a ride on a sailboat to the Virgin Islands.  She falls into serious
conversation with her male companion, discloses that she is taking a leave of
absence to "find herself," describes her past experiences, and eventually
makes hot and tender love to him.

When I say that this story is realistic, I don't mean to suggest that it is
autobiographical.  I doubt that the author really "fucked a nun and lived to
talk about it."  What I think happened is this:  The author is a person who
enjoys writing about emerging sexual feelings and the sexual explorations of
children and adolescents.  One day he watched a movie like "The African
Queen," and he said to himself, "Wouldn't it be interesting if these two
people were on a sailboat to an exotic place and if the woman were a nun and
if the sex were explicit rather than implied?  The nun could talk about her
adolescent and pre-convent sexual experiences and about her current feelings.
 The guy could be understanding and supportive and reveal his own feelings
and experiences.  We'll see where things go from there." And thus this story
was born.  

It may not have been "The African Queen"; maybe it was "Heaven Loves Mr.
What's His Name" or one of those other stories where a relatively naive woman
is marooned with or travels with a more worldly man.  My point here is that
this is a good way to generate stories: find a good plot and "steal" it.
 It's not plagiarism or a copyright violation to adapt someone else's basic
story, as long as you really do make it your own by diverging from the basic
idea and developing the plot and characters along unique lines.   Some of the
most "original" stories in both world and erotic literature (and in the
movies) have been developed in this way.  Give it a try!  But meanwhile, read
and enjoy this story.

"Slow Dancing With a Stranger" by Sarlim (sarlim@aol.com). Guest review by
BluePencil.

Hotel bars are one of the staples of erotic literature.  Patronized by
strangers both to the locale and to one another, they offer easy anonymity,
lowered inhibitions, and a somewhat structured meeting ground for lonely
people far from home.

When our narrator enters the bar alone, it is almost inevitable that he will
meet someone.  Our narrator is in no hurry; it is only after he has found a
table, sipped his drink, and started to relax that he pays attention to the
people on the dance floor.

Soon enough, his attention has focused on the tall, dark-haired beauty who
seems to be accepting only a single dance with each man.  But alas, just as
he readies himself to ask for the next, her most recent dance partner sits at
her table.  Discouraged, our hero sadly orders a fresh drink . . .

I shan't continue the rest of the story in such detail.  Almost casually,
Sarlim maintains the depth of characterization through their meeting, several
surprises, some very well-drawn sex, and an unexpected but well-fitting
ending.

Though many possible cliches are present - the hotel bar, the mysterious
stranger, a possible voyeur - they are handled deftly, a nod to the
conventions rather than a reliance on them.  Sarlim is one of the best
authors currently posting to a.s.s, and this story is a fine example of his
work.

"Temptation" by Mary Anne Mohanraj (mohanraj@ella.mills.edu).  The story
begins with Sister Maria asleep in her convent, tormented by erotic dreams.
 Although the dreams are extremely sensual, they are not pleasant to the
young woman, who has taken a vow to forgo sexual pleasure  She confesses her
sins to Father Jose, who requires her (among other things) to contemplate her
sins, to do penance by wearing a hair shirt, and eventually to throw herself
at the mercy of Mother Superior.

The story is far too complex to summarize in detail.  It's a mixture of a
James Joyce novel and a Fellini film: the reader knows it's supposed to make
sense but can't quite figure out how.  But that's good!  Sister Maria is a
former prostitute who has abandoned the old ways but still remembers them and
has not quite figured out why some of the old things were wrong.  Her
priest-confessor is in cahoots with the Mother Superior, who seems to be
running a coven of fiends who.... Actually, it's a lot like having Mother
Angelica from EWTN in Stefano's role in "Days of Our Lives."

In a strange way, this story reminded me of "The Sound of Music." For
example, there's a song in that movie about "How do you solve a problem like
Maria?"  In the movie Maria solves her dilemma by leaving the convent to
marry Captain von Trap and to raise his eight children.  Maybe you don't see
the parallelism, but I'm sure W.C. Fields would.  Just make some minor
changes, like replacing the children with a satanic incubus who plunges a
knife into Maria's naked body, and you have the present story.

I have already descended to levity, but the rest of this "review" is even
more difficult to write.  I mean, Mary Anne Mohanraj is one of my favorite
writers; and she has written a serious, somber story that merges human
sexuality with religious themes.  It would be "almost blasphemous" to end
this review with a joke.  Ah, what the hell!  Her story is "almost
blasphemous" already!

Two lovers interested in spiritualism and reincarnation vowed that if either
died, the remaining one would try to contact the partner in the Great Beyond
exactly 30 days after that person died.  As fate would have it, a few weeks
later the young man died in a car wreck.  True to her word, his sweetheart
tried to contact him in the spirit world exactly 30 days later.  

At the seance, the surviving lover called out, "John, dear John; this is
Martha. Do you hear me?"  

A ghostly voice answered her, "Yes Martha, this is John; I can hear you." 

Martha tearfully asked, "Oh John, what is it like where you are?"

"It's beautiful.  There are azure skies, a soft breeze, sunshine most of the
time."

"Well what do you do all day?" asked Martha.

"Well, Martha, we get up before sunrise and eat a good breakfast, and then
there's nothing but sex until noon.  After lunch, we nap until two and then
have more sex until about five.  After dinner we go at it again, until we
fall asleep about 11 pm."

Martha was somewhat taken aback:  "Is that what heaven really is like?"

"Heaven? I'm not in heaven, Martha."

Martha was shocked.  Filled with apprehension, she asked, "Well then where
are you?"

"I'm a jack rabbit in Arizona."

See!  I can do surrealism too.  And that brings me to the end of this review.
 This is an excellent story.

"Wedding Gift" by Seurat (#1 Twilight Zone series) (dantedibby@aol.com).
Guest review by Wherryman.

I had already read Wedding Gift when Celeste sent it for review, but I was
pleased to have an excuse for another look at it.  The story is in the form
of a series of telephone calls between Tony and Bill.

Tony now works at the Twilight Zone, an erotic clothing and accessory store,
and has sent a wedding gift to Bill and Eileen.  In the first call Bill is
thanking Tony for the present but is wondering about the condition - that one
package should be opened each week for six weeks.

Tony seems put out by the way Bill is crowing - about his marriage and about
the good sex the first package precipitated - understandable when we learn
that Bill stole Eileen from Tony _and_ got him sacked from his previous job.
 Why would Tony be so magnanimous?  

The following calls chart the progress of the relationship between the
newly-weds and we begin to appreciate Tony's plan.

I am not a fan of the 'conversation' style of story telling.  There is a
fantasy series that is done entirely in that style - like reading a play with
no stage directions.  This story though is well crafted and is short enough
and engaging enough to more than make up for my initial misgivings about the
style.  Make sure you download this story.

I have since read more from the Twilight Zone series - all have a mild
sub/dom theme - and the standard is consistently high.  Sub/dom is not one of
my favorite genres - but if it's your cup of tea, or if you just like well
written stories, keep a look out for them.



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