The erotica of Salon
Ah yes, the fable of the miser who buries a lump of gold in a hole, and the neighbour who declares it matters not if there is a stone or a lump of gold in the hole, either will do the miser the same amount of good. Or is the neighbour making an observation of the fundamentals of modern religions, or the underpinning of the modern economy. Well, it matters not, I will launch into a story with these elements: a field, gold and a buried treasure mostly told to me by Mike on an afternoon Jenna was away at a conference. This story involves Salon who you can also see at the table from time to time, she is sitting there today.
On the aforementioned evening Mike said to me: let me tell you how the story began. There was a field of golden flowers, exquisitely beautiful delicate flowers waving in the gentle breeze, their complex petal patterns spiralling and beckoning you to come frolick, float and drift and frolick with the gentle breeze that is caressing the petals. The delicate petals, so delicate the first thought is to remove the violent walking shoes that have stepped across hill after abandoned hill to this isolated place of natural beauty, the very beauty which encourages the total abandonment of clothes. Naked wading through the field of golden flowers until a violent trip crashes the vulnerable skin down to the earth. More embarrassed than hurt, an examination of the offending mound reveals a pile, beneath the pile is a corner of a buried box, and in that buried box is a, not a lump of gold this time, but something even better: a diary. So lying back naked on the bed of soft golden flowers a frisson of excitement in opening the private words of another person’s diary leads to a fully charged erotic encounter from the power of the lust and licentious acts described in the text.
I am pretty sure you have the image in your mind Mike was hoping to arouse in mine, and, to be fair, he had been successful. At this point Mike admitted the story was not his, all of it was a paraphrase of a story he had stumbled across, not when naked in a field but in the office on a shared computer, accidentally left open after being printed. Now as you know Mike is not in the business of publishing erotica, so in his flushed and aroused state he investigated a little to work out whose file it was. Simple enough to do, just tried Save As and discovered it was in a staff folder of Salon’s.
Well, Salon had suddenly moved from the group called people at work I enjoy chatting to to a group called exciting people I would like to get to know better. He printed out the story to read completely at his leisure and closed the document for he knew that Salon had already left for the day. He spent the afternoon excitedly reading the complete story before coming to the pub bursting with the need to talk to someone, and that someone was, as it so often is, me. Isn’t it funny how people talk so much to me even though they must know I never keep their tales to myself.
What had caused Mike to become so worked up was the complex emotions weaving between desire, erotica and intent. Was his desire to discuss Salon’s erotica with Salon in a literary, not erotic, way, of course, still in some way cheating on Jemma. I told Mike he was being a fool, there is nothing wrong with celebrating a colleague's creative endeavours. Indeed, Mike should be asking Salon if she were happy for him to share her erotica with his friends, myself, for example. Or more to the point, if he is concerned that Jemma might be threatened by his discussing erotica with Salon he should talk to Jemma about it. Perhaps even read some of the erotica to her, or with her. I am a firm believer that erotica should be enjoyed erotically, and what is more erotic than enjoying erotica with intercourse.
My little conversation freed Mike to chat to Salon about her erotica, and she has shared her erotica with me, and it has been appreciated in more ways than one. However, I am of the belief that like the miser in the fable, Mike is stubborn and dogged in his habits, and Mike has not discussed Salon’s erotica with Jenna. And lying, even if it is a lie of omission, for me falls squarely in the realm of cheating.
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