Path: newsfeed.direct.ca!news.wildstar.net!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!feed1.news.erols.com!news.bbnplanet.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!portc02.blue.aol.com!audrey01.news.aol.com!not-for-mail From: celeste801@aol.com (Celeste801) Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories Subject: Celeste's Top Stories - Dec 1996 Date: 3 Jan 1997 15:25:00 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Lines: 592 Message-ID: <19970103152300.KAA16585@ladder01.news.aol.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: ladder01.news.aol.com X-Admin: news@aol.com Xref: newsfeed.direct.ca alt.sex.stories:136913 Status: N Celeste's Top 15 Stories -December 1996 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. If you wish, you can label them as Celeste's #x for December: Name of Story. Second Note: I have had great success finding these stories on the World Wide Web by using the Deja News Server (www.dejanews.com) and the service at www.reference.com. You can even find past issues of my reviews through these services. - Celeste Here's this month's list: 1. "For Now" by Uther Pendragon 2. "Marie" by Friar Dave 3. "For These Gifts" by Uther Pendragon 4. "July 4" by Mark Bastable 5. "Wagtail" by Uther Pendragon 6. "Bosom Bondage Buddies" by Brandy Dewinter 7. "Dick Van Dyke Show" by Shelby Bush 8. "Santa's Cumming" by Kansica 9. "'C' Is for Control" by Dulcinea 10. "Faerie Tale I" by Unknown Author 11. "Christmas with the Andersons" by James Boswell 12. "Chauffeur's Dirty Job" by Caesar 13. "Adult Christmas" by Abby 14. "Panties" by Tom Bombadil 15. "Memories of Summer" by Dulcinea Here are the original reviews in alphabetical order: "Adult Christmas" by Abby (abbywife@aol.com). This is going to be a little hard to explain: there IS a Santa Claus, but he comes only for selected families when the woman turns 40 and the youngest child has stopped believing in Santa. And he's not an old man; he's a virile 30-year-old with a wife that gives great head to male and female alike. And that's not all; but you really should read the story to find out about it for yourself. Don't let the brevity of this review lead you to believe that this is a weak story. It's really excellent! "Bosom Bondage Buddies" by Brandy Dewinter. Randy and Kelly are happily married but a little overweight. They need the motivation to lose weight, and so they set up sexual incentives. This is a very long story, and I'm not going to try to summarize it here. I will tell you, however, that they did both manage to lose a lot of weight and to maintain that loss. I have occasionally been critical of bdsm and sex slavery stories because they either (a) are written for an inside audience that doesn't include me or (b) appear to be about severely dysfunctional people who wallow in degradation. The present story avoids both of those pitfalls. To be perfectly honest, the sexual interests of the characters in this story do not overlap much at all with my own inclinations. For example, I have no great urge to see my husband wear pantyhose and I don't want him to shave anywhere except his face. Yet the author presents these and other activities in such a way as to make me believe they are sexy - indeed, I found it arousing to read about activities that I probably would be more inclined to consider ridiculous or even repulsive in real life. This is the mark of a very good writer - the ability to present a story in such a way as to appeal to outsiders as well as insiders. In addition, it was very clear to me that the people in this story are NORMAL. I suspect that most people who read and practice sexual bondage and cross-dressing are equally normal, but in many stories depicting these themes the characters come across to outsiders as really weird people. When I say that the people in this story are normal, I am NOT saying that I think most readers who enjoy these fantasies are ever likely to go as far in real life as these people do - any more than readers who enjoy more conventional fantasies are likely to imitate the studs and their companions in more conservative stories. Both bondage insiders and outsiders should be pleased to find a story that gives a respectful yet sexy treatment of such characters. I will repeat that this is a LONG story, and the sex to story ratio is lower than you will find in most stories on this newsgroup. Some readers will consider the ratio to be higher - for example, if you enjoy cross-dressing or have a lingerie fetish yourself, you will be likely to regard as sexy many of the passages that I found to be interesting but unarousing. This is an excellent story. It felt like a Vickie Tern story without the chicanery and intrigue motifs that Vickie usually employs. It's sort of like having Vickie Tern write her version of the Trinity Trilogy. "'C' Is for Control" by Dulcinea (Dulcinea97@aol.com). Dulcinea almost invariably labels her stories as "romantic," but she omitted the "rom" from the alphabet soup in the title line of this story. She should have left it in. Briefly, the man comes home from a hard day of frustration. His wife recognizes this; and instead of pampering him, she makes him indulge her by becoming her sex slave for the evening. A good time is had by all. This is my kind of bdsm. To be honest, I have never done it the way the couple do it in this story - I honestly find the spanking to be a bit of a turn-off. You can call it a hang-up, but I just don't like hitting or being hit. {Some people don't like anal sex; I do. Some people do like spanking; I don't. It's no big thing. It's simple preference, probably based on something in our backgrounds.} What Dulcinea does well is present mild bdsm in a context that makes the story appear sexy both to people who are already bdsm hobbyists and to those who have reservations. The preceding paragraph may have been needlessly preachy. This is a very good story! "Chauffeur's Dirty Job" by Caesar (caesar@bigrock.com). When the chauffeur is asked to drive the intoxicated wife home, she comes on to him by masturbating wildly in the back seat of the limousine. By the time he pulls the car over to have sex with her, she is asleep in her drunken stupor. He screws her anyway, and she wakes up mumbling the name of a third party - neither the chauffeur nor the husband. This is an edited version of a story that originally included a large number of typographical errors (usually correctly spelled but wrong words) that were often extremely distracting. This story proves the value of proofreading. Those errors are now gone, and this has become a very good story. "Christmas with the Andersons" by James Boswell (Jaybos@cris.com). Bobby is lonely and depressed, because he has to wait around to take his last exam after all his college friends have gone home for Christmas break. Readers of this story don't suffer, however, because Bobby spends his time rehashing a sexy scene from earlier in the school year. When he finally catches his plane and goes home, he is met at the airport by his sensual mother and sexy sister - or maybe it's vice versa. Then things rapidly become more and more interesting. I chose this story because its title had a Christmas theme, and 'tis the season. Actually, it's not all that seasonal. True, Heather gives Bobby a simple blowjob rather than a complete enfuckment because she has already gone to confession and doesn't want to have to go again before going to communion on Christmas; but I think that's theologically ambiguous at best. {Heather must have had different nuns than I did.} But when Laurie boinks the boss at the office while she's still full of her husband's cum from the wake-up call - well, that could have been opening day of baseball season as well as a few days before Christmas. On the other hand, the wild session with Stan the Man in the station wagon did at least start at the office Christmas party; and the drunken orgy that included Stan's little brother was really an extension of what had started earlier. Meanwhile, back at basketball practice, the lesbian coach has become attracted by the combination of sexy innocence and sweet sluttiness exuded by Bobby's 14-year-old sister, Amanda. And then we find Bobby wondering if his sexy mother is naked while he hears her grunting on the exercise machine in her bedroom. Certainly Sherri's big tits and the way she bangs the hell out of Robert at the office don't qualify as a Christmas story. To be sure, Mr. Dawson is deeply interested in the youth of his community; but since that's really just a euphemism for liking his girls a little on the young side, it hardly qualifies as a Christmas motif. Ah, here's a connection: when Laurie is kneading the dough for the Christmas cookies, she's really needing a couple of cocks. Then there's father O'Sullivan - a kind of Bing Crosby or John Black {for you DOOL fans} with raging hormones, leading the girls' choir in practicing carols. In his bed at night, as he whips his hand up and down his turgid flesh, lost in lust and guilt, his thoughts have often turned to doing indecent and indescribable things to sweet Amanda Anderson. What would father O'Mally say about that? Maybe I'm being too rough. After all, Mrs. Stone does say "Merry Christmas!" to Bobby after she lures him away from the party and before she pulls a Mrs. Robinson with him. And when Mrs. Stone's daughter catches them in the act, Bobby and Mindy do go at it like reindeer in heat; and Bobby does explain his absence from the party as "checking out the Christmas decorations." Well, it all comes together when they exchange Christmas presents. And later that night, after all the festivities, while Amanda is gently masturbating in front of a glowing fire, visualizing in her mind's eye the special efforts she had put in to get just the right presents, generally reviewing her year's sexual exploits, looking up in the midst of an orgasm to see her big brother looking down at her.... If the mother's name had been Carol, we would have a clear musical connection: "Here we go a' caroling!" As it is, we'll just have to settle for that other Christmas favorite: "Yes, I need a little pussy, "Right this very minute...." This is very hot reading for a cold winter's night. It has some minor stylistic flaws, but it's an excellent story. "Dick Van Dyke Show" by Shelby Bush (stbush@iglou.com). This author recently posted segment one of two of "Bewitched," the two segments forming part three of a three-part crossover story, the first two parts being "The Munsters" and "The Addams Family", respectively. Since I prefer to review stories when they're finished (especially when the posting is the penultimate segment of a three-part crossover story), I decided to set this story/segment aside and reward the author by reviewing his previously written "Dick Van Dyke Show," which has recently been reposted on alt.sex.stories. A correspondent has recently taken me to task for confusing a parody with a pastiche. The difference is that a parody is meant to satirize the original work, whereas a pastiche deals more seriously with working out the implications of changing the basic assumptions of the original (as by letting Rob and Laura have sex, which could never have happened on the original show). The distinction becomes nebulous when both the original and new work are humorous. I think the author considers the Porno TV series to be examples of pastiche; but since I usually laugh so hard when I read his stories and since people are more familiar with the term parody, I am going to continue to refer to these stories as parodies. Imagine that! The present story employs the episodic structure of the original show. When critics talk about the evolution of sex on television, they often cite the fact that Rob and Laura always slept fully clothed in separate beds. In the first sequence Rob and Laura break that stereotype. The only similarity with the original show is that after they both come, Laura (Mary Tyler Moore) sighs, "Oh, Rob!" The main plot consists of Rob, Buddy, and Sally developing a script for the Alan Brady Show on which Gina Broccilucci will be the guest star. While working on the script, they hang out the "Do Not Disturb" sign and take a horny break. Then, as research for the show, Rob takes Laura to see one of Ms. Broccilucci's movies, "The Bondage of Brenda"; and Laura naively thinks that maybe it's going to rain because so many of the men in the theater are wearing rain coats. And so it goes. We discover Mel's monster cock. Laura and Millie exchange intimate pleasantries. Rob consults with Gina Broccilucci about the script. We even have a surprise ending that suggests why the Broccilucci script was never aired. The plot is actually not all that sexy, but I thoroughly enjoyed imagining the TV characters performing the acts described in this little pastiche. "Faerie Tale I" by D-Singer. While I was looking for Christmas stories for this issue, I came upon this THC repost - fairies, elves - close enough, I thought. 'Twould be more appropriate for St. Patrick's Day, but a delightful story this is. The lass who narrates the story has returned from America to Ireland, where she goes skinny dipping in a bucolic wilderness stream and is accosted by a brawny lad who mistakes her for a water nymph. Well, to meet a nymph is good luck, but to have intercourse with one means death; but the young man figures, "What a way to go!" They don't actually SLEEP together, so I suppose the guy lived happily ever after. "For Now" by Uther Pendragon (anon584c@nyx.du.edu). It was almost exactly six months ago that I reviewed "Forever," the first story in the Bob and Jeanette Brennan saga. I astutely said it was a good story, expressed a wish that the author would post more stories, and rated it 9.5, 9, 10. I was also pleased as punch that I had recognized Uther Pendragon as the name of the king who established the Round Table on Merlin's advice and who subsequently found his true heir (King Arthur) through the ole sword-in-the-stone test. Since that time, this author has not only reposted a revised version of that story - cleaning up the imperfections and earning a 10, 10, 10 rating; he has also posted six more stories in this series, in addition to a half dozen unrelated stories. At the present time I am going to say that this is the best story in the series; but I think that may be comparable to my daughter's annual statement that "This is my best birthday ever!" which is invariably followed a few months later by "This is the best Christmas ever!" What I mean is that each successive story (a) is excellent itself and (b) makes the whole series better. As I read this story I saw Bob and Jeanette in a completely new setting, and I learned things about them that made sense, but which I had not thought about before. The present story is only indirectly about Bob and Jeanette. It's told through the eyes of Bob's sister, Vi, a bright 16-year-old who wants to be a psychoanalyst some day but who is at the present time overwhelmed with her own problems with her boyfriend. The sexual activity is equally indirect: we infer only what we can learn from Vi's descriptions of Bob and Jeanette, while she listens in the room next door while her hot brother and sister-in-law go at it in his old bedroom. This is an excellent Christmas story. I loved "The Gathering" episode of the Waltons, and this is the sexually explicit version of it - except, of course, that the Brennans are a smaller family and that Bob is Bob's first name rather than the ubiquitous Walton middle name. The interpersonal and family relationships ring true in this story; and even the non-sexual details contribute to the sexuality that Vi observes in Bob and Jeanette. If this author does not have a degree in psychology, I hereby bestow an honorary degree upon him. If you have not read the previous stories in this series, do a favor for yourself or a loved one this Christmas. Log onto DejaNews on the Web (www.dejanews.com) and punch in the search words "alt.sex.stories pendragon." Download all the stories you find there. The ones that begin with "For" are the Bob and Jeanette stories. They'll give you a warm feeling on a cold winter's night. "For These Gifts" by Uther Pendragon (dustman@athensnet.com). It's Thanksgiving break at Bob and Jeanette Brennan's house, and it's time for games. These "games" are choices of sexual behavior, new positions on the days when he chooses, mostly old ones when she makes the choice. In fact, she called her first game "Missionary." Tonight she has a genuine need for Bob to "be gentle"; and so they play Cherish, which is actually a variation of Missionary. Compared to some of the scenarios we see in this newsgroup, this sexual activity is no big thing - but a very nice no big thing. For Bob's turn they make love sitting down - and standing up. Between the two games, this story even includes a prayer - in fact, the title refers to the prayer that people often say on Thanksgiving, when they give thanks for the gifts they have received during the past year. What I like about this series of stories is that the lovers are intelligent but ordinary people. Bob is going to school (majoring in history) and Jeanette is working full time to make Bob's academic career possible. They are looking forward to a happy future, but they are also trying to enjoy a happy present. They sometimes have riotous sex, but it's in the perspective of a full life. Another way to say this is that a typical episode in this series is like three or four Dulcinea stories cohesively joined together. "July 4" by Mark Bastable (markb@aboy.demon.co.uk). The British are civilized people. If you ever visit a Civil War battlefield in the United States, you have to be careful how you use the words "enemy," "loser," and "bad guys." You see, the South lost the Civil War, but they're still pissed about it; and almost all the battlefields are in the South. The British, on the other hand, lost the Revolutionary War; and what do they do? They have fireworks on the 4th of July. When I was in the eighth grade, a hormonally imbalanced boy who was considered sexy, sat down next to me at lunch and asked me, "Do they have a 4th of July in England?" Sexy boys did not usually talk to me, and so I was taken aback. I tried to think quickly, but all I could manage was the notion that since the British had LOST the war that the 4th of July seemed to have started, then they'd have to be damned fools to celebrate it; and I told him so. "Well what do they do, then?" he answered. "Go straight from the 3rd to the 5th?" He laughed uproariously. Still thinking that this joke had to have something to do with sex, I was thoroughly confused. This review may seem disjointed, but that's because so is this story. All that matters is light and sound. The rest is just details. That's the conclusion the narrator drew when he acted as a beard for his lesbian friend at a 4th of July party at the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square and an unknown assailant from behind pulled his dick out of his pants while he fondled her clit and the fireworks exploded overhead. The important thing to remember is when a Brit says he's pissed, it means he's drunk. When an American is pissed, he's mad. Thus, the saying, "'Tis better to be pissed off than pissed on" is more likely to be meaningful to an American than to our friends across the Pond. "Marie" by Friar Dave. When she was a little under 11 years old and had a body that was a bit advanced for her age, Marie made an important discovery. She could become close to and even have sex with nice men, and she could turn them on and still have them treat her right, and it could be fun and sweet and pleasurable and not hateful or hurtful or scary. The problem was that soon she loved sex, and she was used to getting it pretty much when she wanted it. And she was often horny as hell. To use Marie's own expression, she was making Lolita look like a nun. Marie's initial sexual contacts were with boys near her own age. She quickly graduated to more mature boys and to adult men. Once she had experienced the more mature partners, she lost interest in younger boys. She progresses to numerous hot, sexy adventures. If we accept this as fiction - a nice story - then we're OK. If we look at it as a case study - which is the format the author uses - then our choices are to regard this story as either (1) a very unusual set of circumstances or (2) a far-fetched fantasy. The FACT is that there is an overwhelming tendency for girls who become sexually active this young to have adult lives that are at best far below their potential at and worst just plain miserable. I have worked with kids who have been sexually active. I am not talking about "kids" who get married and start a family when they are 17. I am talking about kids who start having constant sex when they are under 12 years old. In general, when they become adults, they have no idea what real love is about. They've lost their childhood. They almost invariably either drop out of school or just sit in a desk until the law permits them to leave. They enter into a series of shallow sexual relationships as adults, and they almost never have what a sensible person would call a stable family. My guess is that by their fiftieth birthday half of the kids I have known like this will be dead after an unhappy life. I also serve as an informal counselor to a large number of well-adjusted teenagers (by being the sponsor of various organizations), and my impression is that the sexual experiences of these kids begin much later in life. Articles and case studies published in scientific journals confirm my perception. It's possible that I'm getting a biased sample in my real life contacts. I work with kids who are dysfunctional, and so maybe I just don't see the well-adjusted kids who have been having frequent sex since they were 11 years old. It's POSSIBLE that the world is full of wonderful children like Marie who become sexually active before they turn 11, who are never sexually exploited, and whose lives are not permanently screwed up because of their early sexual experiences. These kids would not come to my attention, because they look like normal kids and don't advertise the fact that they're fucking one another's brains out when I'm not looking. It's also important to note that even with the dysfunctional kids it may be the problems in the rest of their lives that lead to early sexual behavior rather than vice versa. What I most emphatically want to say is that I do NOT believe that any of you readers who started your sexual careers at a really early age are necessarily scarred for life because of this. On the other hand, I hope you have the honesty to admit that maybe life would be better were it not for some early problems and mistakes. Marie discovered early in this story that sex could be fun and sweet and pleasurable and not hateful or hurtful or scary. I learned the same thing from my mother and from the happy environment in which I grew up. Mom didn't let me look at porn magazines when I was really young, because they would "give me a wrong impression of sex and love." My father and mother were very affectionate in front of us, and I knew that someday I might get lucky and have a similar relationship. She knew what kinds of movies I watched and casually offered me advice, including the encouragement to "save myself" for somebody I truly loved. I had a full childhood and a happy athletic career in high school; and I cannot imagine my sex life being much better than it is right now - except when I get interesting ideas from these stories. My advice to my own daughters has been similar; and had I ever suspected that one of them was engaging in precocious sexual behavior I would have done what I could have done to lead her to a more adaptive lifestyle. Having stated my personal philosophy in the previous paragraphs, now I'll say that this is still an excellent story. It's "realistic" in the sense that these events COULD happen to a person that would grow up to be a normal, functioning adult. And if you read the whole story, I think you'll discover that Marie's eventual opinion of her life story is not all that different from my own. The story is also just plain enjoyable - even to a person like myself who would discourage such behavior in real life. I have close friends and relatives who adamantly insist that anything that's immoral, unwise, or unrealistic cannot be enjoyable. That's just plain stupid. When I watch Star Wars, I don't worry about the impact on their families of killing the storm troopers of the Evil Empire. When I watch a movie about a clever bank robbery, I don't worry about the fact that such activity would ultimately influence how banks would operate and probably cause hardship for families with marginal incomes. Get real! It would be fun to rob a bank and get away with it (although I would never do it and it couldn't really be harmless in real life), and it would also be fun for a 12-year-old to pull a train with a bunch of friendly 16-year-olds. Not wise, perhaps, but certainly fun. Some people cite this as Friar Dave's best story. I liked "Inger" better, but this one is still an excellent story. "Memories of Summer" by Dulcinea (Dulcinea97@aol.com). The couple share memories of the past summer while they look at the photographs that she just picked up. The favorite memory focuses on a refreshing encounter in a very cold lake. This is a brief, well-written, sexy, romantic story. It's interesting that extremely cold water has a positive effect on a woman's nipples and a negative effect on a man's penis. You math teachers out there ought to think about this as an example of an inverse relationship. When she learned from my FAQ that I have athletic proclivities, a reader sent me this comparison of running and sex. The first line after each heading describes running, and the second line describes sex. I thought this was somehow pertinent to the present review, since the story features athletic activity of sorts. Useful Fabric Coolmax Latex Best place to do it Outdoors Outdoors Reasons to do it alone High-Quality reflection time Don't have to buy someone dinner Length of typical session 30 to 60 minutes 30 to 60 seconds Mystical connection If done right, see God If done right, say "God" Teenager's view When can I stop? When can I start? How to get better Read about others Watch others Longtimer's frequency Daily Monthly Goal Go faster Go longer Good shoes Essential Optional Solution for tight leg Take day off Take clothes off Body fat Too much gets in the way Too much gets in the way Questionable source of advice Jim Fixx Dr. Ruth Stretch Frequently Marks Crosstraining Equipment NordicTrack Nordic Blonde Ultimate goal Peak at the right time Peak at the right time What to do between sessions Have sex Run "Panties" by Tom Bombadil (stbush@iglou.com). The title refers to the fact that various people (the ones who are not constantly naked) often have to change their panties, because they have become severely moistened through sexual stimulation, usually resulting from observation of ambient nudity and concomitant fantasies but sometimes from more direct involvement in the action. The protagonist takes a job as a sort of governess for a rich family. Her main responsibilities are to look after the children and occasionally to administer discipline. In America, such people are known as teachers. The author says he tried to write a deirdresque story. In a way, he has come up short, because Deirdre would never write a story this long. That is, there tends to be an inverse relationship between deirdreness and story length. Other than that, the story does a good job of expressing the logical irrationality of a Deirdre-style story. "Santa's Cumming" by Kansica (Kansica@aol.com). On a whim, the beautiful blonde lady decides to have her picture taken with the mall's Santa Claus. When he asks her what she wants for Christmas, she replies, "Well, mom thinks I need a man. Could you bring me a gorgeous specimen of a man?" {At a recent Christmas party, the Santa Claus asked my husband what he wanted. He replied, "Can I have a copy of your list of naughty girls?" When Santa demurred, my husband said, "OK. I'll settle for your list of NICE girls." I think I'll keep him!} When Santa asks her if she's been a good girl, she replies that she has been quite slutty, and she feels his ears with dirty but delicious details. Of course, she is sitting on his lap during this part of the narrative. Anyway, Santa assures her that it's sometimes nice to be naughty and asks her to meet him after work. It seems that Mrs. Claus no longer has much interest in sexual activity other than missionary style once a month. Santa needs relief from his hectic life, and he'd like Jennifer to help out. Mrs. Claus has no objections, but she has insisted that Santa never have missionary-style sex with another woman. {No wonder Santa laughs so much!} Santa is free to engage in sexual intercourse in any other position, with the further stipulation that he videotape each encounter to protect himself from being sued or arrested for rape. Got your attention yet? Check this story out for yourself! Oh! I forgot to tell you - Santa is looking for the right woman to give to his helpers as a reward for their good work throughout the holidays. They so seldom have time to indulge in the pleasures of the flesh.... This is a VERY creative and stimulating story! "Wagtail" by Uther Pendragon (anon584c@nyx.net). The keynote speaker for the Shriners' convention was at the podium, delivering the opening address. He asked, "How many of you have ever seen a ghost?". There was a showing of perhaps forty hands, to which the speaker asked, "How many of you have ever spoken with a ghost?". This time twenty or so conventioneers raised their hands. To the next question, "How many of you have ever actually touched a ghost?" only about ten hands filled the air. The speaker paused for a moment, and then delivered his final query: "How many of you have had sex with a ghost?" In the very back of the auditorium a lone hand remained aloft. "Would the ushers please escort that gentleman to the stage?" After a couple of moments' delay the man was brought forward. When the man arrived on stage, the speaker asked him, "Well Sir, tell us what it was like to have sex with a ghost.", The man replied, "Ghost? I'm sorry, I thought ya said goat!" Which brings us to the subject of this story. Or at least as close as I can get. In my index at the beginning of each set of reviews I try to use a short phrase to describe each story. Right now I have no idea how I'll describe this one. The narrator is King of his Family, which he runs with an iron hand. When he catches the family dog, Wagtail, with his tongue licking his teenage daughter's pussy, he paddles the girl severely. He enjoys the spankings, even though she hates them. Activities escalate. To complicate matters, the man next-door is a shut-in who uses binoculars to look at the world and a computer to communicate with it. The sexual descriptions are not at all vivid, and even though the story contains bestiality, incest, and rape, it's not predominantly about any of those topics. It's just a good, creative story.