Script Doctor (Off Screen, #8) by J.A. Armstrong

Script Doctor by J.A. Armstrong

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I’ve read two stories by Armstrong days apart, both of them being the 8th work in their particular series. Road Blocks was about couples coupling up, family, decisions, and politics. This story here, ‘Script Doctor’ to be clearer, was about sex (oh, and family; and marriages/weddings/coupling up – mostly sex though).

As I mentioned in my status updates, this seemed like a text version of a porn film. Loose scenes linking together graphic depictions of a sexual nature. I didn’t count the pages of the actual sexual acts, though I did count the number of said acts (all but one involving Addy and Emma; the other involved Chris and Tam) – and I’d guess that there was about . . . oh, something like 80 to 90 percent of the pages were filled with something of a sexual nature (thinking about, talking about, or actual fucking). Possible there was as little as 60% of the pages devoted to such activity, but it did sure seem like the four or five fucking sessions took about 80 to 90% of the short story.

So, what else happened beyond Addy and Emma humping each other non-stop. Well, there was whining (‘my kids are away from me! Should I actually get married! Will she still want me after I actually marry her! My boss, Dick . . . erson is a dick! I don’t want to actually communicate with my wife, instead I want to scream and whimper!’), plus deep personal conversations between two characters; different characters; several times, and watching kids run around doing stuff, plus smirking . . . lots and lots of smirking, oh god the number of people smirking! More than 8% of smirking, because, as my status updates noted, there was 8% of the entire story that involved smirking that occurred between 31 and 39% of the story. Not sure what it means or says, or what, but the sex scene that occurred after the 8% of smirking was only 5% of the entire short story. As in, there was more smirking going on in that one scene than there was fucking in the other scene.

Right, sorry, distracted myself. Apparently Emma grew up enjoying spending a week of the year away from her parents (I think with an aunt and uncle, can’t recall) and wanted the same for her own children. She knows the baby won’t remember, but the 2 year old likely will – so she’s sent her kids off to spend a week in Kansas with her parents (sent off as in the parents came and got them).

With the kids away, Emma and Addy fuck. A lot. Almost non-stop but for the times they stopped – because, you know, work. Addy’s spin off show is gearing up and beginning filming during this same week the kids are away. I should call it Addy and Emma’s spin off show, since both are producers on it and both spend time writing on it (I think that’s what the ‘script doctor’ title is referring to – Emma editing, and outright writing new scenes despite ‘not being a writer’ (there’s a scene where one of the coworkers turned to Addy and told her the script for a particular show was the best she ever wrote . . . only she didn’t write it, Emma did)). Oh, and Tamara and Chris continue in their really long engagement until they stop due to wedding. Oh, and they also fuck, just to add spice to events and stuff.

Did I mention that there’s a lot of sex in this story? Oh, hehe – almost forgot, but noticed it on the shelving – at least one of the sex scenes includes a bit of BDSM (‘the only way you can show that you trust me is to allow me to tie you up’ – not actual words used, but implied by the BDSM scene; Emma is quite bad at communicating, apparently (evidence to the contrary – her talks with Tamara, with her mother, with her kids, with her coworkers, with her script editing and writing) and finds it easier to ‘show’ through action (not a new concept in this series in terms of Emma).

Despite my mumblings in the status updates, and my . . . um . . . nature, I still found the story to be good enough to rate 3.5 stars. Mostly due to everything else occurring, you know, the ‘filler’ between the porn scenes.

Rating: 3.5

May 18 2017



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