The story that Killed the Story

Has this ever happened to you?

You're reading/listening/watching an original piece of fiction. It's good, it has merit in a number of humanistic ways, it makes you think, the characters are intriguing, the plot is winding in that good way. Then, BOOM! You get into fan fictionary daydreaming, and start to run the plot off in a different direction inside your own mind.

At first this is not a problem. After all, you've already done that a dozen times in the same story, and you've gotten back on track without incident. This time, however, you're in trouble. Because now you don't really want to go back to the story, in case it blows your scene.

I'm two! thirds! through! East of Eden. (It's long!) And suddenly I'm madly yearning for slash between Adam Trask, that broken, sweet man, and his servant (who is really far superior) Li. Love! Devotion! It's all so beautiful, and broken-yet-perfect. Sex! I *know* there could be sex. Nothing in canon has really made me think it isn't happening in the story.

Only, now I don't want to read more. Li and Adam are so happy, in ~billybrain. The two twins are frolicking through the valley of the San Lorenzo River, full of joi de vivre and wild as bushtits. And Li is making Adam glad he's still relatively young, and it's spring.

Aw, c'mon, Steinbeck. Give the boys a little love.

So what if it's classic literature. I want man sex.