From: celeste801@aol.com (Celeste801) Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories Subject: Celeste's Top 15 Stories - April (1/2) Date: 3 May 1996 11:09:24 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Lines: 363 Sender: root@newsbf02.news.aol.com Message-ID: <4md7j4$8ke@newsbf02.news.aol.com> Reply-To: celeste801@aol.com (Celeste801) NNTP-Posting-Host: newsbf02.mail.aol.com Xref: news.primenet.com alt.sex.stories:150346 Celeste's Top 15 Stories - April 1996 (1/2) Note that this month I excluded D.H. Lawrence's chapter from "Lady Chatterly's Lover" from this list. It seemed inappropriate to compare a literary classic that's 70 years old to the stories specifically written for this newsgroup. 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. If you wish, you can label them as Celeste's #x for April: Name of Story. Here's the list: 1. "Scarlett's Cove" by Ann Douglas 2. "The Adventures of Me and Martha Jane" by Santo J. Romeo 3. "Do You Want It?" by Mark Aster 4. "Old Friends" by D.A. Ignatius 5. "Terri's Dilemma" by The Observer 6. "Lisa" by Dirty Dawg 7. "Let Your Fingers Do the Riding" by Solo Polyphony 8. "Infinity" by J.M. 9. "Travels with Aunt Paula" by Estragon. 10. "Occupation" or "Marie's Hospitality" by Wollstonecraft 11. "Term Paper" by BillyG 12. "The New Toy" by Mark Aster 13. "Ten Dollar Fine" or "You Ain't Never Gon' Forget" by Wollstonecraft 14. "The Storm" by Mark Aster 15. "Connecting Through the Wall" by Peter V. Principle Here are the original reviews, arranged in alphabetical order: "The Adventures of Me and Martha Jane" by Santo J. Romeo (73233.1411@compuserve.com). I first reviewed this story in CR 18, which was posted on September 9, 1995. At that time I gave it a 5. It was a good story, I said; but I was genuinely pissed off because it just ended in the middle of nowhere. I further refused to read any more parts of the story until the author would assure me that he was finished. I was tired of this neverending story crap. Well, the author has finished the story, and it has been worth the wait. I saw a message on a.s.s. that compared the author to Harold Robbins. That evaluation is not far from the mark. The narrator is presumably a man in his fifties, retelling a story of his youth. At the beginning of the story, the 6-year-old Steven (Speedy) harbored a wonderful, non-sexual admiration for Martha Jane, who was nine years older; and she showed a reciprocal respect for him. The two lived next door to each other in a federal housing project around 1950 and shared a common front porch. The focus of the story is the maturation and fulfillment of their relationship. Although the early lines of this story hint of sexual activity, the first several paragraphs are devoted to demonstrating that the protagonist of the story was a precocious child - not a sexually precocious child, but a run-of-the-mill precocious child. This full-life focus continues throughout the story, and it emphasizes that the hero and Martha Jane should be regarded as whole persons, not as simple sex objects. The development of non-sexual aspects helps set this story in a truly rich and interesting psychological and emotional environment. The story is one of the longest coherent stories I have seen on this newsgroup, but it is also one of the best. Certainly there is moral ambiguity in the story. For example, near the beginning the mother tells the young Steven that pregnant women get that way by eating too many popsicles and that babies come from storks. Shortly thereafter, Martha Jane corrects this stupid explanation by playing with his penis to give him a hard-on, while giving him an accurate biological account of the facts of life. If I had a son, I wouldn't try either of these approaches to sex education. It's interesting that normal society rejects Martha Jane's approach - to the extent that Redbook and the Sunday supplements would never even consider publishing an account like this without labeling Martha Jane a pervert; but sitcoms routinely laugh about the mother's explanation. I'm running the risk of preaching to the choir here: most readers of this review are likely to be predisposed to want to like a story like this. On the other hand, large numbers of equally civilized readers outside a.s.s. would react to this story as an example of perversion. Most of us will counter by describing these people as sexually repressed puritans. And so forth. I think we should be willing to simply admit but tolerate the moral ambiguity of the story. It's fiction and it's interesting. There's nothing perverse in setting aside our moral scruples and enjoying a good story. Millions of American high schoolers are required every year to read Edgar Alan Poe's tale about a pervert who tears the heart out of an old man and buries it under the floorboards in his house. We practically require these students to set aside moral scruples and to enjoy the beauty of this atrocity. I'm not recommending that we make "Martha Jane" part of the sophomore curriculum; I simply think adult readers can set aside moral reactions long enough to enjoy this story without taking a position that it would be "better" if all children grew up this way. When I myself was a young baby-sitter, I did not give head to any of the children I cared for; and I would hope that my own daughters likewise refrain from that practice. The psychologists and counselors who suggested to the narrator later in his life that this activity was abnormal are quite likely right (although, again, these sages would simply laugh about the goofy explanations of sexuality given by the mother and other adults.). It would be much better for little boys to receive accurate answers from their own parents and for young baby-sitters to have internalized a code of ethical conduct that enables them to understand their own and their clients' emerging sexuality and to rule out genital contact without resorting to primitive mythologies. But that still doesn't make this a bad story. One of my own favorite novels is Betty Smith's "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn." I would never raise my own children the way those children grew up in that story, but it's still a good novel (and an excellent movie). Again, I'm probably preaching to the choir. But someone is surely going to label this story "pedophilia." There are legitimate gripes against many pedophile stories; they essentially recommend the adoption of lifestyles that would be destructive to children. What we need to do is acknowledge that some stories that describe genital activities with children have the potential to be destructive - especially those that are simply unrealistic or that promote the exploitation of children. On the other hand, other stories that describe genital activity with or among children are either harmless or actually have the potential to lead to moral or emotional growth among readers. To take a sexually-related analogy, there are numerous examples of books and movies about adults having affairs. Some of these are badly written or stupidly conceived and seem to have as their only goal to degrade the value of marriage and other permanent relationships. On the other hand, many of these books and movies are well conceived and have the overall effect of enabling us to understand human emotions - and, indeed, marriage and other permanent relationships - more perfectly. Although the most important aspect of this story is the sexual relationship between the narrator and Martha Jane, it's not really a sex story. Rather, it's a story about the emotional development of two young people. Less than a third of the lines in the story are even remotely devoted to their sex lives. The non-sex scenes are extremely realistic and vivid, giving us information needed to understand the background and personalities of the two main characters. If a reader wants a source of information about how much fun it would be to have sex with a precocious little kid, this would be a good story for that purpose - although all the details about the child's emotions would probably be viewed as distracting. However, I really don't think this was the author's purpose. On the other hand, if a person (like myself) is reading this story to obtain sensitive insights into the personalities of two young people as they mature sexually and emotionally, this is a good source for serious reading. "Connecting Through the Wall" by Peter V. Principle (an347524@anon.penet.fi). Readers who are married with children will identify with this story. The man and his wife are vacationing with their children and want to have some romantic sex while the kids are sleeping in the same motel room. Many a time my husband and I have been glad to hear the air conditioner's compressor kick in to mask any noises we might make while we secretly fucked our brains out without letting our apparently sleeping daughters know that their parents were in heat. The protagonists in this story have the same problem, and they solve it the same way we did. Afterwards, the man awakens and hears noises in the room next door. Apparently another couple is making love there. The narrator vividly describes his own reactions and activities as he listens and imagines while these adjacent lovers consummate their union. It's pretty hot stuff. "Do You Want It?" by Mark Aster (MyFrThAl@aol.com). I've been lurking at my computer, ready to pounce on this author as soon as he makes a mistake. He patiently sends me each of his stories shortly before he posts it, and I eagerly devour each one - expecting that the string of good stories will have to end. After all, his plots are largely similar: hot sex between or among two or more friends or strangers of the same or different gender, usually with one or more persons watching and having sex while the featured couple or menage do their thing. That storyline eventually has to get boring, doesn't it? Well, not yet. Maybe it's because my computer was down for the last week or so, but I found this story to be one of Mark's most erotic ever. I live my real life in an interestingly boring world where I have not yet and probably will never will utter the sentence, "Do you want it?" under circumstances quite the same as those depicted in this story. Mark Aster writes about an imaginary world where there are no sexually transmitted diseases and where casual sex is not likely to ruin some of the best things in life - in short, a world where recreational sex is almost always the wonderful fun that it is on the best occasions in my real life. I would LIKE to live in Mark's world; and I do live there in my imagination. If I did live there and if I came upon a really cute guy watching a really sexy girl masturbate, I'd look him straight in the eye and shock his socks off by asking him, "Do you want it?" Then I'd casually remove whatever clothing would obscure and impede his access to my ass and pussy, and I'd lean on the bridge in front of him, so that I could watch the lady do her work and so that he would have to look past me to see her. I'd let him fondle, kiss, penetrate, and generally do wonderful things to my anatomy. I'd let my pussy muscles return the favor without distracting me even a moment from the interesting object of our mutual admiration; and when the young lady that originally attracted his interest would eventually look up, I'd lock eyes with her and let her know across the distance that I was every bit as happy as she was As a final touch that the author did not think of, I'd wink when I managed to time my climax with hers. I don't live in Mark's imaginary world, but my husband has his Sports Illustrated swimsuit calendar near my computer. While I read Mark's story after school this afternoon, I found myself glancing at that calendar; and Miss April and I managed to merge Mark's world with my own in a way that made me very happy. As I'm writing this review, Miss April is still there, and I'm getting horny again; and as soon as I finish this sentence, I'm going to head for the bedroom, summarize this story to my husband, and see if he wants it. It's now morning; and he did want it - twice! That's a total of five raging orgasms in less than 24 hours from one story! I suggest you read it. It's now late afternoon. I made it through the day with all those sexy people in the teachers' lounge without giving way to my lust. As I glanced back over this story before writing the next review, I realized that there's one more idea that I wanted to mention. I have on several occasions commented on interracial sex. I think it's wonderful that people want to make love to people of other races; but I have expressed concern that so many of the newsgroup stories focus on people of one race humiliating those of another. Or Black men are often described as possessing animalistic qualities that make them distinctly different from their white counterparts. The present story handled interracial sex wonderfully. The woman who was masturbating while reading her book was a Black woman. There was no implication that there was anything abnormal about the woman - in the author's imaginary world all sensible people are sexy and sensuous and give pleasure to themselves and to others. But neither the woman's personality nor the color of her skin was irrelevant; rather these factors were treated as a natural part of a hot story. Skin color is not invisible. I like my own skin. I love to run my fingers over it, especially when I'm turned on; and I hate its blemishes - although my husband claims these make me more attractive. My skin happens to be white and my hair happens to be dark and my eyes brown. These are very sexy skin, hair, and eyes; and so were those of the woman in the story and of the model on the calendar. It's beautiful and natural to take all of these things into consideration when telling or reading a story about sexy people. What I am trying to say is that an unexpected extra of this story is that the author managed to introduce race in such a natural way that it simply became a realistic, natural part of what I would normally notice in a sexy setting. I really liked the way he handled that detail. "Infinity" by J.M. (LlIIllII). Educators consider it to be a good thing when their students integrate their school knowledge with their real lives. That's why math teachers would be impressed with this story. The narrator of this story had a custom of rating a particular part of a girl's anatomy on a numerical scale based on how many months he could keep its image clearly in his head while masturbating. He rated Naomi's tits a 2 and Betsy's underpants a 1. Maybe someday, he fantasized, he'd see an Infinity - something so hot, so sexy, that even if he were shipwrecked on a desert island, he'd be able to jerk off thinking about it for the rest of his life. Hence, the title of this story. His old record was a six for Mrs. Patterson; but that's another story The young narrator has liberal, progressive parents - the kind Drs. Spock and Ruth would be proud of. When they found him masturbating at age 10, they explained to him that masturbation was normal, as long as he did not do it publicly or too often. The term "too often" set a high upper limit. It was like telling him not to have too much fun or not to fuck a girl who's too sexy - there ain't no such thing! With his parents' approval the kid used to jerk off every morning before breakfast. One morning the poor lad was having trouble - the mental imagery just wasn't working; and so his mom stepped into the room and gave him a boost. Things worked themselves out quickly, so to speak. Coincidentally, that very day Mr. Dulles (also known as Mr. Dullest) discussed Infinity in math class. Because of his pre-breakfast adventures, our hero understood the concept better than most of the other students. Dad met Eternity shortly after his son discovered Infinity. He died in a traffic accident. He lost control of the car and crashed into an abutment because he got a little too excited while masturbating behind the wheel. MAMD - Mothers Against Masturbating Drivers - would not like that part of the story; or maybe they WOULD like it, since it shows what can happen to guys who let masturbation get out of hand. MAROP - Mothers Against Really Old Puns - wouldn't like that last sentence at all. The story has a surprise ending, which I won't disclose to you. My main difficulty with the story was with some of the strange characteristics in the text I downloaded. There was a large O with two or three dots, which I think stood for ellipses. There was an I with an accident mark, which I think was a fancy apostrophe - except that in some chapters the apostrophes were omitted completely. I have seen these characters before, and I have been told that they occur because the author is using "higher ASCII characters," which do not automatically occur on all word processors. My problem is this: even though my word processor (Word 6.0) CAN deal with them, they get lost in the translation somewhere on the Internet. My advice to authors is to avoid using these characters. Since authors will ignore this perfectly sensible advice, my recommendation to readers is to use a global change strategy to get rid of these unintelligible characters. For example, you could load all five parts of this story into a single file, move your cursor to the beginning, select the "i" with the accent mark, copy it, go into your replace function, paste the strange sample into the "replace what" area, type an ordinary apostrophe into the "replace with" area, and then choose "replace all." By doing this with about five weird characters - actually I think I reviewed a story recently about somebody doing something else with about five weird characters - by doing this with about five weird textual characters you can make the text readable. I spontaneously interpreted this story as satire - kind of like "Cat Ballou" or "Naked Gun 69." The author has a really interesting style. He pulls absolutely outlandish ideas out of nowhere. In the past I have speculated about authors being someone else reincarnated. It is not necessary to conjure up reincarnation to explain the true authorship of this story. If you really want to know about it, this story is obviously written by J.D. Salinger, who is now 77 years old, living in New England (where this story takes place), and reliving his further adolescent fantasies through cyberspace on alt.sex.stories. I think that if Zeno would have had access to this story, he would have had another paradox about Infinity. Approach this story as excellent satire, and have fun. "Let Your Fingers Do the Riding" by Solo Polyphony (solo.polyphony@teamhbbs.com). OK, so here's the story. A woman is riding alone in a subway car late at night. It is very cold. She pulls her arms and hands inside her jacket and hugs herself to keep warm. One thing leads to another, and pretty soon she's masturbating. After all, she's alone in the car. She is rapidly approaching orgasm, when she looks up and sees a man was standing in the aisle about ten feet away, his eyes riveted on her crotch, the bulge in his pants registering his interest. Their eyes meet. "Sorry to disturb you," he says, in the most incredibly gentle voice, "I saw what you were doing from the next car, and I just couldn't resist coming over to this one for a better look." What can you do when you're faced with a gentlemanly apology like that? She does the ladylike thing: "Why don't you have a seat?" Then she continues with the show. But first she says, "Perhaps you'd like to open your pants and do likewise?" What can a guy say after a show like that? "Hundred and Tenth!" the man exclaims after he ejaculates. "Oh, shit! My stop was 96th!" Ah, the vicissitudes of life in the Big Apple! "Lisa" by Dirty Dawg (drambo@primenet.com). Jeff has finally come to the realization that he is in love with his best friend. The only problem: she is getting married to somebody else. He has missed his chance: he now realizes Lisa would have been interested in him, but he has acted uninterested too long. and she has fallen in love with someone who loves her in return. What's a guy to do? Well, I guess he could drive the two hours to her house, show up unannounced, send the fiance away, profess his honest feelings to his true love, and then fuck her brains out. This plan is so crazy, it might just work! The last story I reviewed by this author was "Marjorie," which included lots of action - including a sequence where the hero blew the brains out of the villain who was attacking the heroine. The present story, on the other hand, contains a lot of brooding introspection that could become boring; but it doesn't. There were a few screwed up verb tenses that annoyed me, but I remained interested to the very end. As I said in my last review, this author is long on relationships and romance. The sexual sequences cover about a third as much space as those in the previous story, but the context makes these few words very, very hot. As a final point in comparing the two stories, I might add that I have to give the author of "Old Friends" credit for taking more chances with the story line. Dirty Dawg uses his same old formula - a formula which he uses very well. Now for something completely different, we'll look at another story - "Terri's Dilemma" - that in many ways represents a combination of the styles of these first two authors. (Continued in Part 2) From: celeste801@aol.com (Celeste801) Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories Subject: Celeste's Top 15 Storis - April (2/2) Date: 3 May 1996 11:09:22 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Lines: 320 Sender: root@newsbf02.news.aol.com Message-ID: <4md7j2$8kf@newsbf02.news.aol.com> Reply-To: celeste801@aol.com (Celeste801) NNTP-Posting-Host: newsbf02.mail.aol.com Xref: news.primenet.com alt.sex.stories:150345 (Coninued from 1/2) "The New Toy" by Mark Aster (MyFrThAl@aol.com).. This story begins with these words: "I didn't know they MADE double-ended strap-on vibrating dildos!" This statement is elicited when Pat and Julie receive via UPS an example of this device from Miranda Brannigan, just as Sondra Hernandez (a comely police officer) arrives to return a cup of Folger's coffee. One could get almost a full education reading stories like this. Just look at this excerpt: "Naked and completely unselfconscious, Pat and Julie stood for a moment looking at each other. I sat on the couch, my penis coming quickly to attention, and my skin prickling. Sondra plopped down beside me, her thin muscular haunch up against my hip." This veritable cornucopia of properly placed participial and absolute phrases - all correctly used - would make almost any non-dysfunctional English teacher come on the spot. And look at the cultural anthropology: Sondra Hernandez fucks almost as well as she sounds. Wait a minute! I spy a grammatical problem! "Pat bent down and kissed her delicately on the smooth skin of her inner thigh, then again on her labia. She sighed." It's not really clear who's sighing now - "Who's Sighing Now?" - Isn't that the title of a song by Patsy Cline? The lessons in positional geometry are abundant. Even theology plays a role in this story: ""Oh, God, Pat, oh God just put it IN!" See if you can find the one sentence in this story that brought to my mind my favorite Tom Swifty: "The newlywed was fucking his wife with abandon." This story is a good example of hot sex, but it's also a good example of good writing. I poked fun earlier in this review at the participial and absolute phrases, but aspiring writers could benefit from taking a good look at how this author uses those parts of speech to make a good story even better. Of course, aspiring writers might also benefit from Pat and Julie's lessons on how to handle their new toy. "Occupation" or "Marie's Hospitality" by Wollstonecraft (an285729@anon.penet.fi). Some of you may already know this, but Mary Wollstonecraft was an early British feminist author whose 237th birthday is celebrated today. Her "Vindication of the Rights of Women," a polemic essay that rivaled the work of Edmund Burke, influenced many 19th-century suffragists. She married the writer and philosopher William Godwin in 1797; but died just a few months later, 11 days after giving birth to Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, the future author of "Frankenstein" and wife of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. It seems likely that the author of the present story is named after the latter, who eloped in 1814 with Shelley to Europe and married him after the suicide in 1816 of his first wife. Never say that you don't learn useful things here in Celestial Reviews. In this story Marie is being molested by a soldier, while her husband literally sits by and lets it happen. The soldier is from the "army of liberation"; and the husband reasons that the least Marie can do is be hospitable to the poor guy, since he'll probably get his brains blown out the next day fighting for their freedom. And besides, it's not good policy to say no to big guys with guns, especially when the guy's army is occupying the town. This is an interesting, thought-provoking story - sort of a combination of Mary Shelley and H.H. Munro (Saki) - which means that it has a surprise ending. "Old Friends" by D.A. Ignatius (jash@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu). This is the longest and most complex story I have yet read in the DarkNites series. I see similarities between this story and the typical Dirty Dawg story. Since I am going to review the Dawg's "Lisa" next, I'll compare the two. Both stories center around a friendship or love relationship that had been incomplete or had gone bad in the past; and now the former lovers are thrown back together with a chance to set things right. A major difference is that Dirty Dawg views life more simply; when people screw up a relationship, they should simply realize what they were missing and be nice to each other - very nice to each other. The present story, on the other hand focuses on the struggles for power that are so often present to screw up relationships - and to make them really interesting. The story is full of ebb and flow - ying and yang - that shifts in rhythm with the events of the story or when the author creatively changes perspective. Taken in isolation, the present story has hotter sex. By that I mean that if you want to get your lover going, you could probably find a couple of paragraphs that you could read out loud until he/she would interrupt you by jumping your bones. But taken in its context, the Dawg's sex is pretty hot too. That is, you may not be able to find a short passage that is equally amenable to bone jumping; but when I read the whole story I came away with a warm, wet, and wonderful feeling that helped make me and my husband about as happy as the quicker fix supplied by the present story. I don't want to overemphasize the importance of the power struggles in the present story. There's much more to this story than power struggles. There's the focus on the difference between young love and mature love. There's the man's sudden realization of his own beauty when his beautiful lover finds him to be desirable. And there's much more. This story could have benefited from a final proofreading. The omitted apostrophes and missing articles are a minor annoyance - even grammar goddesses make petty mistakes. In one case, however, I was seriously confused by the verb tense. The author shifted into a flashback without making it clear to me that she had done so. Only after I had read several paragraphs did I say to myself, "Wait a minute! This has been a description of something that happened ten years ago!" When I checked back, I discovered that the author was right: if I would have read more carefully, I would have caught the flashback. But this isn't a reading test to separate the Honors Students from the less inspired students; and so I think a simple shift in verb tense - in this case saying "She HAD BEEN wearing a maroon sundress...." instead of "She was wearing...." - would have made the timing crystal clear. There was no need for this confusion; this author is a brilliant writer. Had she simply made one more careful swing through this story, she would probably have noticed this herself. Even better, she should capture an intelligent potential sex partner and make him proofread the story before she agrees to do to him some of the interesting things that transpire in this story. "Scarlett's Cove" by Ann Douglas (AnnD55@NYC.Pipeline.Com). As I understand it, Ann Douglas has become nervous about the possibilities of censorship and related repression on the Internet and has withdrawn from posting stories with this newsgroup. I heard she has started her own newslist, to which she circulates her stories, and so I thought she wasn't going to post on a.s.s. anymore. Therefore, I was surprised to find this story in the postings. I don't know how it got there, but I'm glad it did. The story centers around the visit of two friends to a Caribbean Club Med type resort that caters to lesbians and bisexuals. Although both are lesbians, they are not habitual lovers - just friends. After some preliminary fun, Jeanette finds that Arlene has entered her into a sort of charity bachelor auction - the other women will bid to have Jeanette for their date for the evening. I think I have told you enough about the story. It's a hot plot with hot sex. I might add that Jeanette is a high school teacher and many of us wish we could touch our favorite students the way she does - but somebody might take that comment the wrong way. Ann writes many different kinds of stories, and I enjoy them all; but this story is a good example of what Ann does best: an interesting and sexy plot woven into an exotic environment embellished with accurate information about varied cultures. In addition, the author enriches the narrative with sexy flashbacks and side plots that heighten the tension and allure of the main storyline. As I have said many times before, although I suspect that all sensible women would enjoy sexual activities like those described in this story, I myself have never engaged in full genital lesbian or bisexual activity. However, after reading this story, my defenses have begun to crumble. If by some chance I would ever be bereaved of this wonderful guy that humps me like Mark Aster's studly hero and then found myself on an exotic Caribbean island with a beautiful, rich former student who was professing her love for me after purchasing me for an exorbitant price in a charity auction - well, I might give it a thought. Hell, I think I'll give it a thought right now! I'm reminded of the words of my daughter, who every year proclaims that "this is my best birthday ever." This is the best story ever by Ann Douglas. "The Storm" by Mark Aster (MyFrThAl@aol.com). A sudden storm strikes, and the two travelers seek shelter in a nearby house, which they barely reach as their car dies in the driveway. If our travelers were named Larry, Curlie, and Moe, we would find a mummy lurking within secluded hidden passages in the house. If one of the travelers were a kindly but bemused mystery writer, a murder would be in order. But here we have Julie Allen and her faithful stud of a traveling companion; and so we can expect a somewhat different story to evolve. To make a long story punfully short, the travelers are not only invited to come in out of the rain but also to cum in out of the rain. The story raises an interesting question. It is my understanding that Miss Manners of syndicated newspaper fame is a regular reader of my column - though not, of course, of the stories reviewed herein. Perhaps Miss Manners could answer a question regarding social etiquette. Imagine that the host and hostess have accompanied their visitors to the guestroom, after the hostess - a lady whose breasts and bodily curves give the clear impression of wanton nakedness even though she is fully clad and has done nothing more lascivious than give the male guest a passionate kiss while her husband and the other guest were chatting casually in the next room - imagine that this lovely hostess asks if there's anything at all that she and her husband can do for the weary guests. Then imagine that the female guest nervously but hopefully replies, "What I'd really like is for your husband to let me take his cock in my mouth and suck him until he's stiff and hard, and then for him to fuck me until I scream, and him come inside me." The question for Miss Manners is this: what should the male guest do to make his host and hostess feel at ease during the ensuing awkward silence? The author handles this social dilemma by having the male guest say to the hostess, "I'd like you to open your gown and let me bury myself in your sweet naked body." The hostess complies, and everyone has a jolly good time - actually, several jolly good times. It's a good story. The author displays his usual ability to maintain a vivid picture of two couples happily copulating while everyone stimulates everyone else. I think the author wanted to create a surrealistic atmosphere that didn't quite make it for me; but that's like saying I ordered a chocolate sundae but the waiter brought me a great eclair by mistake. "Ten Dollar Fine" or "You Ain't Never Gon' Forget" by Wollstonecraft (an285729@anon.penet.fi). As the author says in the disclaimer, this is a _very_ ugly story, but that's how the story wanted to be written. A budding movie star named Mary Pickford had refused to pay a ten dollar fine in a small southern town. She would just spend the next ten days in jail instead. To her horror, she realizes that she is going to be raped. The sheriff sends into the cell with her an unruly Black prisoner. Not wanting to get pregnant by him, she tries to suck him dry, while the sheriff watches; but as soon as the blow job is finished, the guy fucks her in the cunt as well. And then the story gets really violent. The author was right. This really is an ugly but well written story. "Term Paper" by BillyG (billyg@hooked.net). The older male student is working with the younger female student on a joint term paper in a class on Erotic Themes in Contemporary Theater." They retire to his apartment for practical verification of their theoretical research. The main emphasis in this story is on flirtation, and the author carries it off very well. "Terri's Dilemma" by The Observer (lsummers@onramp.onramp.net). The narrator has been keeping company with Terri as a sort of favor to the family. Her boyfriend is in the army, and somebody has to hang out with her. The story opens with Terri giving the narrator a ferocious slap for no good reason. He responds with a grim determination to take the bitch home and dump her for good. However, as every British schoolgirl knows, when a girl slaps a guy for no discernible reason, it's because she loves him. And if the recipient of the aggression would simply get a grip on himself, he would realize that the emotions are reciprocal. I'm not going to retell the story; the fun is in finding out what's going to happen. I'll only say that in many ways this story is a fusion of the previous two stories in this review. Like "Old Friends" this story is built around power struggles; and like "Lisa" it describes the fruition of a relationship that began badly. Oh - I almost forgot. The sex scenes are some of the hottest ever; and their heat is intensified by the chemistry of the context. One thing I had trouble with was the anal sex scene. I have come to the conclusion that anal sex is uniquely personal. This story and several others describe it as painful. I have had anal sex, and I have experienced no pain. The guy in this story seems to want to dominant his lover and she wants to be dominated. I like it because it's a violation of a taboo that needs to be broken; it's a way to be nasty without being nasty at all. I think the secret lies in having a gentle lover who has rimmed the asshole tenderly and has finger fucked it on previous occasions and who uses plenty of lubrication when he finally rams his dick home. Remember, the ass doesn't naturally lubricate, and it may be useful to withdraw and add some extra KY before finishing the job. I guess the other part of the secret is to relax and enjoy it; if you're tense, I guess it might hurt like hell. I have learned to relax and enjoy it so much that once when I had to have a barium enema I was afraid I would have a sexual climax in the doctor's office through association with anal sex. We engage in anal sex less often than in other forms, but I would describe the feeling as slutty (in the best sense of the word) and very filling. {In my fantasy life, I would like to have one cock in my cunt and one in my ass.} In addition, there's the side advantage of making me look forward to my next GI series. This is an extremely creative and generally well-written story. {It has a few grammar glitches that supplied the examples for this week's Grammar Tip of the Week.} The author uses a nice variety of stylistic techniques. I especially liked the way the narrator's perspective kept changing as Terri's behaviors changed in response to his own actions. I also liked the wide variety of writing styles that the author blended into an integrated story. "Travels with Aunt Paula" by Estragon. Paula is the guardian for her ten-year-old nephew, the child of her deceased sister. Since she generally requires Cal to appear naked in her presence, we might suspect that she is a dirty old woman. Not true! Paula's every desire toward Cal is indeed maternal, even her long-established insistence on his naked humility. It is all for his own good. She has always known in her heart that a worshipful man is a happy man; and an adored and well-served woman is happier still. All she wants for her sweet nephew is as much happiness as a life of early sorrow can still afford. We learn several important Hidden Truths from the Feminist Catechism - a few things that make one go "Hmmmm." For example, why does it feel good for a boy to have his penis become hard? Answer: Because the erection shows that the nearby female has power over him, and it's good to be honest and respectful in that way. We also witness a detailed description of circumcision - that sacrament (best conferred when young girls are holding the boy's legs apart) which is designed to humiliate and shame a young boy and to enable him to find his place in the world designed for women. After his circumcision, young Cal became popular with the local girls, many of whom had been present at his gala circumcision and who had told their friends that here was a lad who was willing to become obediently naked for instructional or conversational purposes. They could ask him questions about his boy things and even touch them if they wanted. His aunt didn't mind at all, and nobody even knew whether he did. Nobody asked him. Nobody really cared. The girls who heard all this said it was incredible but they'd believe it when they saw it. Cal had many visitors. The censors might be suspicious of this story - thinking, for example, that there is something unseemly in the idea of an 11-year-old girl gazing at and touching the newly circumcised penis of a 6-year-old boy. That would be the perception of a person with a filthy mind; most readers of this story will easily see that this is simply an example of a lower-order member of the species offering his genitalia as an educational tool for a young member of the Super Race. For, as every British schoolgirl knows (with apologies to Thomas Babington Macaulay), "The battle of the sexes is lost before it even begins. Ladies just happen to enjoy being reminded of this fact." Like most of Estragon's writing, this story is a fictionalized version of a feminist philosophical tract. Some readers will find the ideas a bit exaggerated or even bizarre. "Who could ever believe crap like this?" they'll say. Well, my old Aunt Emma, for one. I escaped from her clutches long ago (I think). She's dead now and can no longer reach me (I hope). But she had these weird ideas about religion that ran exactly parallel to Aunt Paula's sexual theories. Aunt Emma's books did not emphasize physical circumcision or sexual humiliation - just spiritual versions of the same themes. I haven't looked at the "Imitation of Christ" lately - and I doubt that it's high on the reading list of most a.s.s. readers - but my recollection is that it seriously argues that humans become more perfect by becoming better slaves of God. My point is that if otherwise sensible people have been known to apply this dominance/slavery theory to the relationship between God and humankind, it should hardly be surprising to see it applied to the relationship between men and women. Estragon writes extremely well, and this is another good story. Every time I sit down at my computer to review one of Estragon's stories, I say to myself, "This female dominance stuff is nonsense. I want men to be my equals, not my slaves." Then, as I read the outlandish but interesting events in the story, I find myself realizing that there's a huge kernel of truth behind what Estragon is saying.