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From: celeste801@aol.com (Celeste801)
Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.d
Subject: Celestial Reviews 62 - Feb 17
Date: 18 Feb 1996 04:50:43 -0500
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Celestial Reviews 62 - Feb 17, 1996

Note:  Please do not ask me to send you copies of the stories I review.  I
cannot do it, and I do not have time to respond to everyone who makes this
request.

Second Note:  The proofreading service is in full operation, and people
are reporting successful use of it.  At least one of the stories posted
today has benefited from that process.  If you want someone to read and
comment on your story before you post it, contact me.  Do NOT send me the
entire story; I'll assign one or two proofreaders to your story, and you
can communicate directly with them.


- Celeste

      "Move" by Deirdre (weird sex) 7
      "Patient" by Deirdre (dominance) 7
      "Practice" by Deirdre (dominance) 7
      "Rain" by Damya (romance & passion) 10
      "Intimate with the Vampire 2.0" by Rocket88 (vampire
            sex) 10
      "Country-Western Style" by Unknown Author (music
            & sex) 8
      "A Guest of Celeste" by Ted (sexy tutorial) 10
      "Lips" by Mark Aster (lip fixation) 9
      "Falwelling Tracey" by Mark Aster (satire) 10
      "Pairings" by DJ810 (romance & relationships) 10


"Move" by Deirdre.  This is a _Stepford Wives_ story in the tradition of
Sherwood Anderson, pursuing the age-old question: "What do men _really_ do
when there are no women around?"  The first inkling of impending doom
occurred shortly after the husband accepted the new job: he was getting
cold feet after he first met his future employers, but his wife insisted
that he take the job.  The second clue came when the wife went for a job
interview of her own at the company: the secretary simply said that the
boss was busy and persistently tried to kiss the wife.  The third clue
came when the gang from the Welcome Wagon showed up, and one of them said,
"Isn't she pretty?  This is going to be great!"  If we need one more clue,
we can find it when Veronica shows up on the doorstep, starts unbuttoning
the wife's blouse, and says, ""You'll do just fine!"  With all this going
on, it wouldn't surprise me if the men were all gathered together in the
Board Room having the husband give them blow jobs!  (Rating: 7)

"Patient" by Deirdre.  How do some people exercise mind control so easily?
 Here we have a veteran nurse examining a very sexy woman who happens to
be wearing nothing but a smile.  After the examination the woman says to
the novice nurse, "Be at my house tomorrow evening at 7:30."  Of course,
the nurse follows instructions, and the story ends with her wearing a
skimpy little dress getting ready to take a whipping.  How do some people
exercise mind control so easily?  (Rating: 7)

"Practice" by Deirdre.  This is a story about people with "problems." 
Specifically, it starts with a man who has a problem of feeling
uncomfortable when asked to undress in front of a nurse who happens to be
his next-door neighbor.  The neighbor is willing to work overtime to give
him the practice he needs to overcome this problem.  Soon they progress to
other problems that require KY lubricant and even duct tape to overcome. 
(Rating: 7)

"Rain" by Damya (an128788@anon.penet.fi).  Damya's postings are almost
invariably well written, but the passages are often so short (for example,
"Phantom Lover" and "In the Middle of the Night") that they scarcely
constitute a complete story.  This one is more complete, describing the
quiet passion that a couple shares at a stage of life when others might
have fallen into a routine of taking each other for granted.  It is a
romantic and highly erotic story.  (Rating: 10)

"Intimate with the Vampire 2.0" by Rocket88 (rick84@ mindspring.com).  A
story like this has two strikes against it when I start reading it. 
Strike one:  I don't like senseless pain as a part of sexual relations. 
Pain and violence are reasonable under the right circumstances; and I'll
even grant that there are occasions when it can be pleasurable to be
either the giver or receiver of pain.  However, I think people who enjoy
being tortured by another person often have serious emotional problems. 
And so I expect the author of a story that involves pain or violence to
show me that there is a point to this activity.  Strike two:  I don't
believe in vampires.  I find "Dracula" so boring that I have never watched
the entire movie.  I think the notion of vampires is generally silly.

Under these circumstances you may be surprised to know that I really liked
this story.  Strike two evaporated first: lots of things that are
generally silly can become interesting if I suspend my disbelief and if
the author does a good job of presenting the story.  That's what science
fiction is all about.  For that matter, that's what most of this newsgroup
is about.  My other objection evaporated just as easily: sure, there was
pain and violence in this story; but it occurred in a surrealistic context
that seemed to have a point to it.  If I granted that there may be
preternatural beings that have the power to seduce people and steali their
souls, then this kind of activity made perfect sense.

If the author's goal was to give me nightmares or to make me live in fear
or anticipation that things like this might happen to me, then he has
failed (I hope!).  However, if he wanted to entertain me with a damned
good story, then he has succeeded.  Now, here's my favorite part: this
story was originally submitted about two months ago.  Here's what I said
about it in CR 45:

"As I have said before, I am not an aficionado of vampires, werewolves,
witches, or other preternatural forces.  Nevertheless, I think this story
has considerable potential - especially for people who understand the
ground rules of vampires better than I do.  The problem with this story is
that it lacks even rudimentary proofreading.  The author is obviously
intelligent, and so he/she attempts to use fairly sophisticated ideas and
sentence structures to convey his/her plot.  But the mistakes are so
glaring as to convince me that the author simply doesn't want to spend the
time to make the story reader-friendly.  I mean, does the author really
think that it makes sense to "lye" in a motionless embrace?  Lye is a
chemical that cleans my plumbing.  And then near the middle of the story I
read these lines: "The fire grew more intense. MailFirst....Save As... She
said. MailTheres pleasure.Save As... And with out another word she opened
her mouth and gently covered mine."  This garbled writing may be the
result of a faulty mailer rather than poor writing skills; but it
certainly is annoying.  In addition, throughout the story the verbs are
frequently screwed up.  As I said earlier, the author is obviously
intelligent; and so he/she sometimes starts using a past perfect tense or
the subjunctive mood correctly, but then all of a sudden we're in the
present tense and indicative mood.  There are several instances of
misplaced modifiers, like this one (which also contains a comma splice):
"It was if she never used these feet to walk, scented and soft, I put her
toes into my mouth using my tongue to wet them."  Literally, this sentence
means that the guy sucking the toes smelled nice and was soft; and I doubt
that's what the author intended.  A few lines later we hear about "the
beating of her hart."  A hart is a male deer.    What does the author
really mean here: "...my mind soured as I clung tightly as the sweat that
gummed my body to hers was causing my arms to slide."  I think the guy's
mind *soared*, but the sentence clearly says that it turned sour!  Here's
one more that I kinda liked: "My flesh was ripped and I needed to explode,
I wanted orgasm, I started to beg to her. Mailplease dont stopSave As..." 
Finally, I think a succubus is a ghostly visitor that goes under the
person being visited; this critter sounds more like an incubus. {Note: I
was wrong about this; the author was right. I checked.}

"I don't derive sexual satisfaction from making fun of authors' mistakes,
and I don't mean to give the impression that I want to humiliate this
author.  For me to say that a vampire story has potential means that it
*really* has potential.  I myself recently spelled "waist" incorrectly in
Celestial Reviews (although I was actually copying the words of a
different writer).  Mistakes happen.  But when mistakes accumulate,
readers get annoyed and wonder why the author hasn't gone to the trouble
of preparing the text properly.  Creative ideas are the most important
part of a story, and I think this story may have creative ideas.  But
there's no reason why creative ideas cannot be presented more coherently
than this.

"It's not just English teachers who get upset at this.  English teachers
may be the only ones who know why they're upset; but readers in general
will find this presentation to be annoying.  I urge this author and others
like him/her to take advantage of my offer to find free volunteer
proofreaders.  This could possibly have been an excellent story if the
author would have given it the care it deserves. (Rating: 4)"

As you will notice from the title, this author accepted my invitation to
receive proofreading assistance; and that's why this is labeled version
2.0.  There are two major differences between the present and the previous
version of this story.  First, the grammar and style no longer stand in
the way; the reader can now react to the ideas of the author and can feel
the emotions that the author wanted the reader to feel.  Second, I don't
know this for certain, but I imagine the proofreader challenged the author
by asking him to clarify some of the ideas that originally seemed unclear.

It is important to point out that these improvements are not just
something that please English teachers.   Ordinary readers - no, I'll go
further - even borderline imbeciles who themselves communicate only by
grunting and yanking on their penises would have been mainly confused by
the original version but will enjoy this story in its present format.  If
this sounds like an advertisement for my proofreading service, so be it! 
(Rating: 10)

"Country-Western Style" by Unknown Author.  Isabelle Stiles is a rapidly
rising country western singer.  Ian Kaehler is a local guitarist who hires
on for a recording session.  The two hit it off sexually after the
session.  Although the story needs some more polish, the author does a
good job of blending the atmosphere of a recording studio with an
impulsive sexual encounter.  

This story was reposted by The Red Dragon, who posts a large number of
stories.  You can spot them because the titles are usually all capitals
and the author is often listed as (***). Many of his stories are posted
without any indication of who really wrote them.  I don't think it is the
Red Dragon who strips these stories of their authorship; I think he just
finds them this way and reposts them. However,  I think it is unfortunate
that the authors so often cannot get credit for what they have written. 
(Rating: 8)

"A Guest of Celeste" by Ted (an477638@anon.penet.fi).  Veteran readers of
these Reviews may recall that in CR 52 I reviewed a story entitled "An Ode
to Celeste; or, Meeting the Muse" by an author named Ted   The premise of
that story was that Celeste is an author of a highly respected series of
reviews for a.s.s. who maintains a cabin in a secluded mountain area where
she goes to check out possibly fraudulent story lines with sexy young men
whom she solicits through the Internet.  A young man named Ted shows up
for his appointment with fate and is invited to join his predecessor in
exchanging pleasures with the Grammar Goddess of Usenet.  It was a really
hot, well-written story.

Well, Ted is back; and he's in fine fettle - whatever that means.  If he's
as good in the sack as he is with his word processor, I would bet that
there's a lucky lady out there somewhere.  The main premise of the present
story is that Ted has been invited to meet with the REAL Celeste; and this
time she is giving assistance to a greenhorn author named Amy, who needs
to make her sex stories more realistic.  Actually, Amy is allegedly the
author of "A Weekend on the Island" (a very hot withSue story to which
your humble servant gave a rating of 10 in CR 44); and so one might be a
bit skeptical about her actual need for enlightenment.  In short, the
story consists of an orgy in the context of a writing lesson.  An
interesting element is that Ted follows in this very story some of the
advice that he has Celeste give to her student.

To a certain extent, Ted's treatment of Celeste is realistic.  For
example, she assiduously makes notes on Amy's manuscript and helps her
develop her writing skills even while Amy is in the process of giving head
to Ted.  Such scholarly devotion to task is a mark of a true teacher,
critic, and sex goddess.

On the negative side, the author spelled Deirdre's name wrong.  He spelled
it Deidre as in Ng, rather than Deirdre as in Sherwood Anderson.  I'll
skip past his Celestial use of "ain't," which was in poor taste.  However,
at one point the author has Celeste say, "...would you like to read it, so
you know where we're at?"  Now, I don't mind ending the sentence with a
preposition, but I never use the expression "where at."  I guess I could
use these errors to accuse Ted of faulty research, but that would be
tantamount to inviting a third story.  Actually, that's not a bad idea. 
Your research sucks, Ted!  It sucks dinosaur dildos!  (Rating: 10)

"Lips" by Mark Aster (MyFrThAl@aol.com).  This is a story about a time
when the male narrator was completely obsessed by women's mouths and lips.
 I once had a similar experience myself.  My husband and I had been
watching a romantic movie, and we started talking about how lips could
turn us on.  We kinda lost track of the plot, as we demonstrated to each
other how lips could turn us on.  The next day I was in a graduate English
class, and you wouldn't believe what the instructor's lips did to me!  I
still have pleasant associations with Lord Byron.

A major problem with a lip fixation is how do you talk about it?  I mean,
if I were fixated on your lips and you asked me why I was acting strange,
I'd have to look in the general direction of your lips in order to listen
to you; and in order to communicate I would have to use my own lips, which
I happen to know are capable of making men (and probably women) cum just
by power of suggestion.  

In the present story, while he's in the throes of lip fixation, the
narrator meets Rachel at an office party, and her wet and moist lips
immediately arouse him. Rachel asks him if there's something going on that
she should know about.  To add to the sexual electricity, her tentative
smile does not exactly conceal the shape or potential of her lips; and I
happen to know that when the observer is possessed by this problem, the
smiler really is wearing nothing but the smile.  The two resolve the
discomfiture by going to a secluded room and fucking their brains out.  In
the post-coital afterglow, Rachel comments that while she understands his
lip obsession, she has been having an identity crisis - she hasn't had a
male lover for a long time.  The narrator tells her not to worry, and he
invites her to dinner with the Allen sisters, both of whom have great lips
and are willing to share them with other lips of either gender.  A great
time is had by all.  (Rating: 9)

"Falwelling Tracey" by Mark Aster (MyFrThAl@aol.com).  I've been too busy
grading papers and writing reviews to download a copy of the
Communications Decency Act, but I'm pretty sure it's full of popycarp
anyway.  The author of this story has set out to write a cute little tale
without using any of the Seven Dirty Words You Can't Say On The Net. 
Hence, in the title he has replaced the F-word with an even more odious
but still permissible F-word.  Actually, what the author did was write a
story that would have been deemed indecent because it contained "filthy
words," and then he used his word processor to replace each bad word with
the lowercase name of a prominent politician who can be associated with
the CDA.

On a serious note, what I don't understand about these legislative
attempts at censoring the Internet is what do they expect all the sexual
perverts to do after the law is passed - just stop being perverts?  Right
now, all the people with these nasty notions can post to their hearts
content right here on a.s.s and on related newsgroups. Like most of you, I
have learned to recognize headings that indicate really moronic writing,
and simply ignore them.  Internet readers have to go out of their way to
find these perverse postings; and parents can use "parental control" type
programs to keep their kids away from nasty things.  If I were a sex
pervert, and somebody tried to close down my forum, I think I would react
by posting my depraved postings on, say, alt.religion.  As Confucius says:
Squirrel who runs up woman's leg not find nuts.

Anyway, this is by no means a great short story, but it is extremely
clever humor.  (Rating: 10)

"Pairings" by DJ810 (an446077@anon.penet.fi).  After I read a story, I
often try to express in one sentence the main idea I got from it.  In this
case, it would be a long sentence.  Two people can share their thoughts
and feelings intimately over a long period of time but still not actually
know the other person, because they filter what the other is saying
through their own personal experiences and expectations.  Oddly enough, I
remember watching a televised movie with my daughter that I summarized to
her in almost exactly the same words.  The only difference is that the
present story uses sexual activities and feelings to exemplify this theme,
whereas the movie focused on racial differences among teenagers.

This story differs from many of the typical a.s.s. stories in that its
main impact is not to titillate, to propagandize, or to amuse the reader,
but rather to arouse some serious thoughts about the meanings of
relationships.  The erotic content (which is actually pretty vivid and
sexy) is actually the background in this story.  I have no inherent
objection to titillation, propaganda, or amusement; but I found it
enjoyable to read a story that made me wonder why apparently decent people
would act like that.  (Rating: 10)

GRAMMAR TIP OF THE WEEK:  An understandably anonymous reader has submitted
the following sentence.

      Suitors with cocks less than eight inches in length
         (shall, must, will, would) wait until the others 
         (are, will be, would, were) finished.

He originally wrote this sentence to discuss less/fewer; but he had become
convinced by the overwhelming power of my reasoning in a previous CR that
"fewer" would be inappropriate in this sentence.  His remaining question
is which pair of the words in parentheses should be used to complete the
sentence?

The answer depends on the purpose of the sentence.  Is it
 - laying down a rule?
 - describing a rule?
 - describing the normal state of affairs?
 - describing a hypothetical state of affairs?

If it is supposed to have the force of an ordinance, I would write
      Suitors with cocks less than eight inches in length
         shall wait until the others are finished.

If it is intended to report "what the law says", then I would choose
      Suitors with cocks less than eight inches in length
         must wait until the others are finished.

If it is intended to what usually happens when the wimps compete with the
real men, then I would choose
      Suitors with cocks less than eight inches in length
         wait until the others are finished.

If it is intended to suggest that all males are well endowed and to
describe what would happen in the unlikely event that a wimp showed up,
then I would choose
      Suitors with cocks less than eight inches in length
         would wait until the others were finished.