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From: LadyCyrrh@aol.com
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Subject: {ASSM} {REVIEW} The Annex Reviews, 7/7/02
Date: Sun,  7 Jul 2002 17:10:15 -0400
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The Annex Reviews, 7/7/02
by Lady Cyrrh (ladycyrrh@aol.com)
Website: http://members.aol.com/ladycyrrh 




The stories:

Summer Solstice Romance Festival: The Question (Rev. Cotton Mather): 
      Humor, no sex

Summer Solstice Romance Festival: POV (QSliver): M/F cons, humor

Summer Solstice Romance Festival: Chocolate Kisses (Gary Jordan): M/F 
     cons, rom, mild bond, impreg

Hilasko (Paul Stacy): M/M, reluc, rough, bond, fantasy

Taste of What You Want (Allison): F/F, humil, reluc, magic, true

The Venus Triangle (Allison George): M/F, M+/F, cons, humor




Summer Solstice Romance Festival: The Question [A]
Where posted: ASSM
When posted: 6/22/02
Author: Rev. Cotton Mather
Author address: revcottonmather@hotmail.com
Type: Humor, no sex

Chris and Dale are a young couple who are immediately attracted to each 
other at a cocktail party and decide to spend the night together. Two 
years later, the relationship going strong, they marry, working out the 
minor problems of family ties and where to have the wedding. The 
kicker in the story comes from the fact the couple are never gendered; 
they are never referred to as either male or female, so we don't know if 
they are gay, straight, or no couple at all, just an empty "pair of tuxedos 
at each altar:" 

>>>>>It doesn't matter, in the face of committed love, in the eyes of Dale 
and Chris, in the view of the two families on the two coasts. All that 
matters is The Question.

Do YOU believe in love at first sight?<<<<<

I'm always a sucker for gender ambiguous sex stories -- any erotica is 
very hard to write without male or female pronouns, and so I consider 
them a litmus test of the writer's skill. Less clear was what the author 
meant by continuously hammering the love-at-first-sight question. Did 
he or she mean that love at first sight crosses all gender orientations? Or 
that if we (the readers) believed, we might end up with someone as level-
headed and balanced as Chris or Dale?

For the record, I believe that love at first sight exists; but whether or not 
it is a wholly positive thing, or has legs, is another story.




Summer Solstice Romance Festival: POV [A]
Where posted: ASSM
When posted: 6/21/02
Author: QSliver
Author address: qsliver68@hotmail.com
Type: M/F cons, humor

A couple have hot sex in the afternoon. Nice, but look who witnesses it: a 
pair of pet birds, a dog, and a cat, the dirty business amusingly described 
by each pet: 

>>>>>He's starting to growl, almost.  Gosh, it sounds and smells and looks 
like fun.  I'm supposed to stay out of that?  I walk up but he speaks to me 
in a funny tone of voice.  Something about sitting, staying?  Aw, hell, I 
don't really understand.  Maybe he
actually wants me to play, too.<<<<<

This was a short story, almost a quickflash, and I liked it for the thoughts 
of the animals, especially the birds; they sounded as bubble-brained as a 
pair of cockatoos should be. The dog and cat were a little too human, but 
their reactions did remind me of my own conjugal bed, where, when the 
going gets heavy, the pet(s) present get covered by a towel, the towel 
then being whisked off when the business is finished. They are 
perfectly happy to remain covered, by the way.

I have very innocent pets, I know.




Summer Solstice Romance Festival: Chocolate Kisses [A+]
Where posted: ASSM
When posted: 6/21/02
Author: Gary Jordan
Author address: PJcocoa@aol.com
Type: M/F cons, rom, mild bond, impreg

A couple goes about conceiving a child in an unusual way: bondage and 
chocolate. The husband fetches sacks of candy from the store while, 
unbeknownst to him, the wife cuffs herself to the bed as a penance for 
an earlier disagreement. Unbeknownst to her, the husband has decided 
that this is the night to create their long-delayed fetus.

I liked this story a lot. The writer's style was smooth and engaging, and 
the actions of the characters were realistic with the story still being hot. 
It seems bondage stories are generally split into two camps: ones written 
by professionals heavily into the scene, and ones written by people not 
into the scene, but wanting to use the idea of bondage as a story element 
for some extra spice. This one was part of a third camp: the amateur 
scene, and it summed up the ethos nicely: 

>>>>>We owned and used no whips or clamps, pointy things or penetrating 
things save what god gave us (except one small vibrator, but that hardly 
counts).

The torture we performed was that of delaying sweet release, or 
repeatedly inflicting it, or both. The semblance of bondage merely 
allowed us the illusion of submission and dominance, to more freely 
express ourselves, and to experience what we might not otherwise have 
the courage to seek. <<<<<

The story had other good things in it, such as the equating of a chocolate 
candy's shape to that of a pregnant creature. Mounds bars will never 
look the same.




Hilasko [A-]
Where posted: ASSM
When posted: 7/2/02
Author: Paul Stacy
Author address: purpleherald@hotmail.com
Posted by: editors@OUTRAGEallme.com (remove OUTRAGE to send email)
Poster website: http://allme.com
Type: M/M, reluc, rough, bond, fantasy

A young soldier is lost in a snowstorm and tries to find shelter. He 
receives it from an unusual rescuer: the legendary Lord Melanion 
Hunter, god of the dead, and hunter of animals and men, who goes about 
in the form of a wolf. Having no choice, he takes it, and finds out the 
Lord expects a price for his hospitality: "I fear there is but one bed in my 
home. Will you share it with me?" What follows is rough semi-bestial sex 
that leaves the soldier in mingled pain and ecstasy.

This story was in one of my favorite genres -- fantasy -- and showed a lot 
of imagination in the setup of the sexual encounter and its deployment, 
but the third of the prose that went before was backstory that didn't 
make a lot of sense. I understood that the soldier was in thrall to his 
sadistic commander, a woman with a taste for BDSM, and that she used 
him as an unwilling spy in the war of two neighboring nations... and 
that the affair culminating in her whipping him bloody over a pit of 
fire. But it was way too much history for too little story, especially one 
that ended as abruptly and inconclusively as this one did. I think the 
writer was reaching for some point about submission and sacrifice, but 
whatever it was, it was lost on me.




Taste of What you Want [A]
Where posted: ASSM
When posted: 6/30/02
Author: Allison
Author address: purpleherald@hotmail.com
Type: F/F, M/F, reluc, humil, magic, true

A straightforward lesbian narrates this story ("People assume lesbians 
are a separate species.  They either think we are girls having endless 
orgies with each other or they think we are  women who have yet to 
meet the right man.  Some think we all write poetry while others think I 
must have had a tattoo by now... I am a lesbian but I am also a person 
with strengths and weaknesses.") of a hopeless crush and its 
consequences. The narrator has the hots for another woman at work, but 
suffers in silence, unsure of how her love object will react. When the 
love object announces she's getting engaged the narrator is crushed, 
and sends out a desperate prayer to the cosmos: "Whomever listens to 
those in love or lust, please answer me.  I love a woman who doesn't 
know me.  I feel a consuming hunger for someone who would recoil at 
my touch.  Please don't let this beautiful creature get married to a man." 

Later that night she has a very strange dream about a male god with two 
heads and two penises who will grant her the love she wants, but again 
there's a sexual price to pay: she must submit herself to him. As she finds 
male/female sex repulsive, the sacrifice is a true one... the irony being 
she must experience sexual distaste to know what she will be inflicting 
on her potential partner, who doesn't share her gender orientation.

I liked this story a lot and, as in the story above, it seemed to be reaching 
for some kind of mythic truism. However, the ending disappointed me. I 
expected the narrator to make the right decision and let her crush go; 
instead, she reveals she's as ruthless as a man, a shame because she 
seemed like a likable gal in the beginning. But maybe that was the 
author's point.




The Venus Triangle [A]
Where posted: ASSM
When posted: 7/5/02
Author: Allison George
Author address: allison_george@hotmail.com
Type: M/F, M+/F, cons, humor

Don't know if this Allison is the same is the one above.

Two Southern belle trophy-wives-in-training meet for lunch and a tete-
a-tete. (The story is told entirely in dialogue.) In between cocktails and 
crab salad they talk about their conquests, boob jobs, bikini waxes, and 
the effect of alcohol on the sex lives of the alcohol-intolerant:

 >>>>>There was Dawn lying splayed out on the bed, covered with  jizz, 
mumbling incoherently, diddling herself.  I swear to God Ceci, she  
looked like she had been used as target practice by a set of high  
testosterone come missiles. I mean this was really major league stuff, the  
kind of wet dreams that a bunch of frat boys might have.<<<<<

This story was more anecdotal than plot-driven, but it did have nice 
descriptive passages in it, like the one above, and this later one, a 
satirical (I hope) look at pubic electrolysis:

>>>>[The doctor]  said that most women like to  leave a little something; his 
recommendation is that the shape and size  should depend on how big the 
woman's hips are.  A long thin stripe tends to  make the hips appear 
smaller, while triangles of various sizes can lead to  the illusion of fuller 
hips.  Well, this was just what old beanpole Chantal  wanted to hear.  I 
told him that the triangle sounded like the right plan  for me.  So we 
masked out a nice shapely isosceles triangle that would  appear to be 
floating delicately just above my honey slit, pointing the way  to my 
little pleasure pot.<<<<<

This is the Venus Triangle of the title.

I liked parts of this story -- enough for an A -- but thought the whole 
thing went on too long. It would have made more sense to take only one 
of these conversational subjects -- smashed girl, tits, female conquests, 
or electrolysis -- and spun a story out of it, with pithier dialogue. I also 
didn't identify much with the characters. Even though the story seemed 
to be satire I had the feeling the author was admiring the empty-handed 
narrators rather than laughing at them. I felt like I was trapped at a cafe 
table next to some mildly obnoxious guests who wouldn't shut up.


_____________________________________________________________
Comments to: ladycyrrh@aol.com
Website--->  http://members.aol.com/ladycyrrh

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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