Especially since she tolerates...my weakness.

My other love.

My secret shame.

Men are weak creatures, she understands, sometimes seeking...variety. Even the most faithful of men are weak. There are evolutionary urges that send us to...other places.

Other pleasures.

What makes it even more shameful is that I pay for the privilege. Paying for pleasure! That is contrary to everything I've ever been taught.

But I can't resist.

The sweet darkness...Shakespeare had his "dark lady". Perhaps I can be forgiven my own failings.

She's dark in appearance, but so sweet inside...a minty smell and taste to her, an aroma so enticing...

I see her everytime around this time of year. Barb understands. She even gives me the money to have her.

She knows that, if I have a brief fling, if I get it out of my system, the rest of the year I'll be hers, and hers alone.

How's this for irony? It's someone from church who always approaches me with the temptation. Who arranges this. Who we pay.

What would the preacher say, I wonder, if he knew what was going on under his very nose? If he knew the sort of transaction we were making...

The person who sells the services to it---who arranges it---can give us a wide array of pleasures, in almost every imaginable...flavor. Yet there's only one thing I want.

One thing I crave.

My dark,beatiful, mint-scented... pleasure. I return to her, again and again.

I'm like a madman for a few weeks. It's a constant orgy. I don't think my body can take any more, but it looks so tempting...and deep within me the hunger grows...and must be quenched.

It's embarassing how much I give myself over to this. As I shed inhibitions, and give in to my grosser instincts, I can scarcely recognize myself.

I'm not thinking when I'm indulging. I'm not considering, I'm not thinking of my children, of my beloved wife...I'm only thinking of my own needs, my own lusts, my own wants, my own cravings.

I give in to the dark side. I know I will pay for this indulgence, yet she is so made that she is pure pleasure, and guilt is a matter of weeks away.

It's a sort of madness.

No, I make my confession here:

You all knew I couldn't be that totally devoted to any one love, didn't you? Men are fallible; men are all-too-human; men like variety.

As much as I love Barb, I cannot resist a fling with my dark love, my yearly orgy, where one after another pleasure is flung at me---and as greedily consumed.

I sometimes, to my shame, even share this pleasure with those I love. It's not Barb's first choice, but she oblidges me, and even finds a certain pleasure in it also. So I've corrupted even her, to this---addiction. This...sinful, shameful act...

My deep...

Secret...

Shameful...

Love....

That's right. It's time for...

Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies.

Barb got us five boxes this year.

I've let them eat some, but I've eaten the lion's share, and...

What?

Why, what did you think I was talking about?