Being a Tabloide and fulsome account of the divers ynterestes and scandales of the King, in several sections, with appropriate apologies to biblical scholars and, indeed, the entire field of Theology.
I suppose you’re wondering how an autobiography can actually be “unauthorized”, and you are quite justified in doing so. I would only note that Solomon was a king, not a biographer or author, although he was a bit of a writer of erotic poetry. More on that later. Much more, probably. What is unknown to many is that he kept a journal of his exploits.
Scholars are divided as to the authenticity and credibility of the source documents, which were on scroll fragments found near the Dead Sea in a cave. All these sorts of texts are. Well, when I say, “scholars are divided”, what I mean is that I think they’re the best thing since some old scrolls gave Jesus a sex life, and all the other scholars think both these scrolls and I are frauds. Bastards with their university tenures and doctorates, I ask you, eh?
The text in the scrolls is written in the first person, highlighting things that Solomon found interesting in his own life. Most, but not all of his interest involved women. As such, the text is refreshing and frank, giving us a more intimate glimpse into what really drove the great king to do the things he did, and most of this, again, had to do with women and sex. I suppose that might be debated, if those twits in the universities ever bothered to read this, which they won’t, so I don’t know why I even bother. Really, it’s all I can do just to get up in the morning sometimes. But I digress. What is clear, and what I have to concede, is that Solomon kept these journals for his own purposes, not so that everyone would read them several centuries later, as we will be doing now.
Nevertheless, what we have in this text are the more interesting and complete excerpts from these scrolls – and there were an awful lot of them – which provide a more complete picture of the man who was considered possibly the greatest king of anywhere, ever. I will let you, the reader, take what you will from this work.
D. B. T. Jollyrei, Professor of Antiquities (dismissed).
University of Virgin Martyrs
Excerpt One
And David comforted Bathsheba his wife, and went in unto her, and lay with her: and she bare a son, and he called his name Solomon: and the LORD loved him. 2 Samuel 12:24
Dad (that’s King David, of course) was always fond of Mum. I think that’s pretty evident. I mean, my conception was pretty much a product of the fact that, even after the untimely death of the baby who would have been my older brother, except for some petty capriciousness of Jehovah (that’s our God), he still thought that the best way to comfort a grieving mother was to shag her into next Tuesday. Anyway, I understand that she didn’t complain. And I don’t want to complain. After all, without the shagging (which I really don’t want to think about – I mean, “ew!”, who wants to think of their parents doing the nasty) I wouldn’t be here. So thanks, Mum and Dad, for being the horny mourners that you were.
And the LORD (that’s Jehovah again), loved me, or so the official biography of Samuel the Prophet says. That’s both good and bad, by the way. Love is a wonderful thing, but sometimes it’s better to be ignored by gods, rather than loved too much.
My road to kingship, for example, was not the easy stroll up the path to the throne room that one might have thought, given all that love from Jehovah. In fact, Dad was pretty sure my half-brother, Absalom, would be king. Dad wanted me to be a great poet. Actually, what he said to me was, “Sol, you could be a great poet if you didn’t spend all your time looking up girls’ skirts and then writing poetry about what you find there.” He might have had a point, but some idiot seems to have thought some of my stuff was religious allegory and put it into the Bible. The “Song of Solomon” they call it, and I confess that it does represent some of the stuff that is on my mind. I encourage you to read it, even though some of the metaphors maybe could have used some work.
“My beloved is unto me as a cluster of camphire in the vineyards of Enge'di.”
I mean, what the hell is that? I must have been drinking. I don’t even like camphire, and I certainly don’t recall the vineyards of Enge’di, wherever the hell that is. Problem with an empire is that you have so much territory that every day is a geography lesson, and the only thing I could ever do with geography was get more of it, it seems. I knew where Judah was. That was where Jerusalem is located. As to the rest of it, Egypt was a pain in the ass, and Sheba, well, let’s just say I was more interested in its queen and various locations on her person than I was in the location of her country.
Then there’s this gem:
“Behold, thou art fair, my beloved, yea, pleasant:
Also our bed is green.
The beams of our house are cedar,
And our rafters of fir.”
You know, my bed was green, well, one of them anyway, but why that was important in a poem, I don’t know. I know what I did in bed, or beds, and probably I was in a pleasant haze at the time. Describing the bed might have been okay in those circumstances, but the rest of it sounds like a list from a lumber yard, or DIY catalogue. Who really cares, you might ask, what the house is built out of? She must have been a special girl to get turned on by construction details. I can’t remember now. There were so many girls. More on that later.
Anyway, read the poems. There are some good bits.
But I really wanted to talk about how I got to where I am now. And that starts with my dad, King David.
Dad started out as a shepherd. He was the first of the great “born in a log cabin” leaders, only he was born in a thatched hovel. Then, as he told it, he was out with the sheep one day, and Samuel dropped in on Grandpa Jesse. Samuel was a prophet of the LORD, and was one of the only people that Jehovah actually talked to. He was loved by the LORD as well, and turned out to be one of the most bad tempered people in the history of the universe. You see? This love of God stuff isn’t all soft couches and cakes. Samuel was constantly annoyed with something, and could purse his lips like nobody else I knew, and I have known a few women in my time. Grandmothers purse their lips to let you know you’re in trouble, but Samuel could have captained the all Israel Olympic pursing the lips team. Anyway, there he was.
He hummed and hah’ed about the hovel for a bit, and complained that there were no biscuits to go with the tea, but then got down to business in his dour and unpleasant way.
“You’ve got some sons,” he said, as though it was a scandal. It wasn’t. Grandpa was a non-drinking, upstanding sort who had only slept with the women he actually married. He’d be a saint, if we had saints.
“Yes, O Samuel, mighty prophet of the Most High God, and ...” said Jesse.
“Never mind all that,” said Samuel. “Jehovah says I have to meet your sons, and he will show me which one is right.”
“Right for what?” asked Jesse.
“To be King over all Israel,” said Samuel.
“But we have a king,” said Jesse, a bit confused. “Saul is King, and he has an heir.”
“Don’t ask me,” said Samuel miserably, “I didn’t ask for this stupid job. Get the boys in, would you?”
Jesse shrugged his broad pious shoulders and lined up all my uncles (there were a few of them, and after this you never have to read about them again. Even I don’t know what happened to them.). Samuel looked each one over, staring each one in the eyes like a gimlet until they blinked (nobody could outstare Samuel), and then shook his head.
“Nope,” he said. “Nothing doing here. None of these guys is the chap I’m after. Got any others?”
“Well,” said Jesse in his slow thoughtful country drawl, “there’s the young’un, David, but you won’t be wanting him.”
“Oh?” said Samuel, as if what Jesse said was perfectly true, because he hadn’t wanted to see any of the others either, but knew he was in for the full count, because of the LORD, “and why do you think that?”
“You do want to see him?” asked Jesse.
“Honestly, no,” said Samuel. “He’s probably a total idiot. But the LORD says I have to meet your sons, and that means I have to meet this David creature as well. Bring him on.”
“He’s not here,” said Jesse.
It took some time to fetch my dad from way out in the hills, where the sheep were in the summertime. It was a few miles away. I can only imagine Grandpa trying to entertain Samuel while waiting. Never fails to bring a giggle. Anyway, somewhere around nightfall, Dad arrived at the hovel and Samuel got to stare at him.
He sighed in resignation and poured a bottle of some perfumed oil over Dad’s head.
“Congratulations,” he said, as if passing a death sentence. “You’re gonna be king. Don’t think it’s going to be easy.”
“Don’t want to be king,” said Dad. “I want to live in the country and live off the land, hunt, fish, herd sheep, you know. I killed a lion last week.”
“Being king is like herding sheep,” growled Samuel. “You’ll take the job and like it.”
“What about King Saul,” asked Dad, “who is, er, king.”
“He has fallen out of favour with the LORD,” said Samuel. “This day, the LORD has taken the crown from his head and given it to thee.”
“Where is it?” asked Dad, a bit confused.
“On Saul’s head,” said Samuel.
“I thought you said…”
“It’s a metaphor,” said Samuel. “Look, you’re going to be king someday soon. Watch out and try not to get yourself killed by Saul in the meantime.”
That was good advice, but easier said than done. Dad spent the next several years almost getting killed by Saul. Saul felt, rightly I think, put out that Jehovah had rejected him simply because he had spared the lives of the women and cattle of some conquered city. You’d think sparing lives would have been a good thing. Anyway, Saul wasn’t going to make that mistake again, and set about trying to kill Dad whenever possible.
Dad got saved from assassins on one occasion by Michal, one of Saul’s daughters, who Dad had married. Instead of letting her dad kill my dad, she got him to flee. She’s the one who gave birth to Absalom, if I recall. Absalom was going to be king after David.
I rather liked Absalom. He was tall, good looking, and could wear a beard and long hair almost as well as Cat Stevens. The girls loved him.
But there were lots of half-brothers, most of them bastards (literally and figuratively). There were also half-sisters galore. Dad was almost as randy as me. It was my half-sister, Tamar, that did Absalom in.
Tamar was a pretty girl, a few years older than me, she was always singing songs, and she liked my poetry. She always dressed in colourful dresses. I liked her. I also had a half-brother Amnon, who was total git. Anyway, Amnon was always mooning about Tamar – weird things happen in Kings’ houses. Believe me, I know.
So, I was just 18, and was writing a juicy bit of poetry about some girl whose breasts were like towers or something, and Absalom burst into my room. He was sore wroth.
“You know what he did?” he shouted.
“Who?” I asked, “and no,” I answered.
“Amnon, our brother,” he said. “He raped Tamar!”
“Your sister?” I asked.
“Our sister,” he emphasized. “He made out like he was sick, and asked her to visit him to cheer him up. She baked him some cakes or something. When she got there, he grabbed her, and tore off her dress and raped her!”
“Good LORD,” I said. It was a bit shocking.
“Right,” said Absalom. “She kept telling him it was wrong, but he threw her down on the bed, and then his hands were up her thighs, and he tore the top of the dress to get at her breasts, and then he stuck his hard…”
“Stop with the details!” I said. “I don’t need the details. She’s our sister, for Jehovah’s sake!”
“Oh, right,” said Absalom. “Anyway, apparently that ass Jonadab put him up to it.”
“What? Dad’s advisor, Jonadab?”
“The same,” said Absalom ominously. “I have Tamar safe now in my apartments, but I’m going to kill Amnon.”
“You’re saying that our half-brother, had sex with our sister?” I asked again. “Isn’t that sort of wrong?”
“This is what I’m telling you,” said Absalom, “and what I’m killing Amnon about.”
“Isn’t Dad doing something?” I asked. “You’d think he’d be upset. Tamar is his daughter, after all. Don’t fathers get all fussy about daughters?”
“He tore his clothes and collapsed on his bed, moaning about “poor Tamar and poor Amnon,” growled Absalom. “Fat lot of good that does. Clearly, I’m the one who has to do something.”
Absalom went out and invited us all to a party.
I thought it was odd, since he was sore wroth, that he would even have a party, but he did. There was food. There were dancing girls. There was wine. There was music. Did I mention the dancing girls? I think all 20 of them wore enough to cover one complete girl. Fantastic!
And then, when most of us were pretty smashed, and I was completely besotted with one of the girls and was just getting to know some of her good bits, Absalom yells, “NOW!” and his servants all grabbed daggers and down went Amnon like a pincushion. Absalom fled the city and lived in exile for several years, always being chased by Jonadab, who Dad sent out after him. In the end, Dad got tired of this and said we were all supposed to forgive Absalom, and let him come home.
But the damage was really done, I guess. The people thought that Absalom was right, and he was pretty handsome, and he was a clear favourite with the ladies, more than my dad who was past his prime. They started making noises about how Absalom should be king, and Absalom even had another of his famous parties to celebrate how he was going to be king. Dad’s general, Joab, got annoyed and went off with Dad’s host (that’s an army), and there was another civil war. We used to do those, seemingly on weekends, there were so many of them.
In the end, Absalom got his hair caught in a tree while riding away from a battle with Dad’s army. Absalom had an army. Who knew? Anyway, Dad was loved by the LORD, which means you don’t lose battles against sons, or Ammonites, whoever they are. Absalom was defeated and fleeing again, when his hair caught in a tree and there he was, hanging from his hair. Dad wanted Absalom home alive, but Dad’s general, Joab, had other ideas. He saw Absalom in that tree, and threw three darts at him, killing him stone dead. Dad went into mourning, but didn’t do anything much to Joab.
I remember getting the news. I was lying in my chamber with a chambermaid. She was dark haired, and had big dark eyes, and a pretty dark triangle of hair between her thighs, and when I went in unto her she was warm, soft, wet, and willing. She made pretty little sounds during the going in. I was waxing poetic about that, and her breasts (like a flock of goats, I think I said, if you must know).
The chamber slavegirl was giggling. I didn’t see at the time what was funny about goats. But I think there’s an important point here about poetry. It’s not what you say, but the mood you create, and believe me, she was in a pretty nice mood, and her thighs weren’t half bad either. Even I started to laugh, and I got a bit turned on all over again. That was when another slave girl burst into the room.
With a shriek, the chambermaid slave girl took her pretty breasts and dove under the bed. I leapt out of the bed to face the interloping girl, with my lower appendage pointed happily directly at her. The new slave girl blushed bright crimson as I pulled on a robe, but she managed to collect herself enough to announce a messenger.
The messenger was a dour soldiery sort who mumbled that my brother Absalom was dead, and I was now the first in line for the throne, since Dad thought all my other brothers were either bastards (he should know) or cowards, or both. I felt sorry for Absalom, but hey, he wasn’t “loved of the LORD”, was he. It was really only a matter of time. The soldier fellow disappeared.
But I had a problem.
I had a raging erection (like a tower of ivory, admittedly with a purple knob on the end). There was one naked girl peeking out from under the bed, with wide dark eyes. There was another girl wearing a light slave shift standing in front of me, probably wondering whether she was seeing a scandal in the making, and whether gossiping about what she had seen the future king doing was worth anything. What to do?
Fortunately, I had learned that in every problem situation, there is often a solution right in the midst of the problem itself. In this case, the way to avoid gossip and scandal was to involve all parties in it. I took the blushing slave girl by the hand and led her toward the bed. I introduced her to the other girl. While they were getting acquainted, I pulled the ties of the dress at the shoulders and it dropped away as does fruit ripe for the harvest. She had, I noticed, a bottom like ripe peaches. I dropped my robe.
I thought to myself afterwards, with two sleeping girls beside me, that as king, I would want my enemies to drop away as easily as that dress. Might need a bit of wisdom for that. I wonder where you get wisdom.
To be continued…
I suppose you’re wondering how an autobiography can actually be “unauthorized”, and you are quite justified in doing so. I would only note that Solomon was a king, not a biographer or author, although he was a bit of a writer of erotic poetry. More on that later. Much more, probably. What is unknown to many is that he kept a journal of his exploits.
Scholars are divided as to the authenticity and credibility of the source documents, which were on scroll fragments found near the Dead Sea in a cave. All these sorts of texts are. Well, when I say, “scholars are divided”, what I mean is that I think they’re the best thing since some old scrolls gave Jesus a sex life, and all the other scholars think both these scrolls and I are frauds. Bastards with their university tenures and doctorates, I ask you, eh?
The text in the scrolls is written in the first person, highlighting things that Solomon found interesting in his own life. Most, but not all of his interest involved women. As such, the text is refreshing and frank, giving us a more intimate glimpse into what really drove the great king to do the things he did, and most of this, again, had to do with women and sex. I suppose that might be debated, if those twits in the universities ever bothered to read this, which they won’t, so I don’t know why I even bother. Really, it’s all I can do just to get up in the morning sometimes. But I digress. What is clear, and what I have to concede, is that Solomon kept these journals for his own purposes, not so that everyone would read them several centuries later, as we will be doing now.
Nevertheless, what we have in this text are the more interesting and complete excerpts from these scrolls – and there were an awful lot of them – which provide a more complete picture of the man who was considered possibly the greatest king of anywhere, ever. I will let you, the reader, take what you will from this work.
D. B. T. Jollyrei, Professor of Antiquities (dismissed).
University of Virgin Martyrs
Excerpt One
And David comforted Bathsheba his wife, and went in unto her, and lay with her: and she bare a son, and he called his name Solomon: and the LORD loved him. 2 Samuel 12:24
Dad (that’s King David, of course) was always fond of Mum. I think that’s pretty evident. I mean, my conception was pretty much a product of the fact that, even after the untimely death of the baby who would have been my older brother, except for some petty capriciousness of Jehovah (that’s our God), he still thought that the best way to comfort a grieving mother was to shag her into next Tuesday. Anyway, I understand that she didn’t complain. And I don’t want to complain. After all, without the shagging (which I really don’t want to think about – I mean, “ew!”, who wants to think of their parents doing the nasty) I wouldn’t be here. So thanks, Mum and Dad, for being the horny mourners that you were.
And the LORD (that’s Jehovah again), loved me, or so the official biography of Samuel the Prophet says. That’s both good and bad, by the way. Love is a wonderful thing, but sometimes it’s better to be ignored by gods, rather than loved too much.
My road to kingship, for example, was not the easy stroll up the path to the throne room that one might have thought, given all that love from Jehovah. In fact, Dad was pretty sure my half-brother, Absalom, would be king. Dad wanted me to be a great poet. Actually, what he said to me was, “Sol, you could be a great poet if you didn’t spend all your time looking up girls’ skirts and then writing poetry about what you find there.” He might have had a point, but some idiot seems to have thought some of my stuff was religious allegory and put it into the Bible. The “Song of Solomon” they call it, and I confess that it does represent some of the stuff that is on my mind. I encourage you to read it, even though some of the metaphors maybe could have used some work.
“My beloved is unto me as a cluster of camphire in the vineyards of Enge'di.”
I mean, what the hell is that? I must have been drinking. I don’t even like camphire, and I certainly don’t recall the vineyards of Enge’di, wherever the hell that is. Problem with an empire is that you have so much territory that every day is a geography lesson, and the only thing I could ever do with geography was get more of it, it seems. I knew where Judah was. That was where Jerusalem is located. As to the rest of it, Egypt was a pain in the ass, and Sheba, well, let’s just say I was more interested in its queen and various locations on her person than I was in the location of her country.
Then there’s this gem:
“Behold, thou art fair, my beloved, yea, pleasant:
Also our bed is green.
The beams of our house are cedar,
And our rafters of fir.”
You know, my bed was green, well, one of them anyway, but why that was important in a poem, I don’t know. I know what I did in bed, or beds, and probably I was in a pleasant haze at the time. Describing the bed might have been okay in those circumstances, but the rest of it sounds like a list from a lumber yard, or DIY catalogue. Who really cares, you might ask, what the house is built out of? She must have been a special girl to get turned on by construction details. I can’t remember now. There were so many girls. More on that later.
Anyway, read the poems. There are some good bits.
But I really wanted to talk about how I got to where I am now. And that starts with my dad, King David.
Dad started out as a shepherd. He was the first of the great “born in a log cabin” leaders, only he was born in a thatched hovel. Then, as he told it, he was out with the sheep one day, and Samuel dropped in on Grandpa Jesse. Samuel was a prophet of the LORD, and was one of the only people that Jehovah actually talked to. He was loved by the LORD as well, and turned out to be one of the most bad tempered people in the history of the universe. You see? This love of God stuff isn’t all soft couches and cakes. Samuel was constantly annoyed with something, and could purse his lips like nobody else I knew, and I have known a few women in my time. Grandmothers purse their lips to let you know you’re in trouble, but Samuel could have captained the all Israel Olympic pursing the lips team. Anyway, there he was.
He hummed and hah’ed about the hovel for a bit, and complained that there were no biscuits to go with the tea, but then got down to business in his dour and unpleasant way.
“You’ve got some sons,” he said, as though it was a scandal. It wasn’t. Grandpa was a non-drinking, upstanding sort who had only slept with the women he actually married. He’d be a saint, if we had saints.
“Yes, O Samuel, mighty prophet of the Most High God, and ...” said Jesse.
“Never mind all that,” said Samuel. “Jehovah says I have to meet your sons, and he will show me which one is right.”
“Right for what?” asked Jesse.
“To be King over all Israel,” said Samuel.
“But we have a king,” said Jesse, a bit confused. “Saul is King, and he has an heir.”
“Don’t ask me,” said Samuel miserably, “I didn’t ask for this stupid job. Get the boys in, would you?”
Jesse shrugged his broad pious shoulders and lined up all my uncles (there were a few of them, and after this you never have to read about them again. Even I don’t know what happened to them.). Samuel looked each one over, staring each one in the eyes like a gimlet until they blinked (nobody could outstare Samuel), and then shook his head.
“Nope,” he said. “Nothing doing here. None of these guys is the chap I’m after. Got any others?”
“Well,” said Jesse in his slow thoughtful country drawl, “there’s the young’un, David, but you won’t be wanting him.”
“Oh?” said Samuel, as if what Jesse said was perfectly true, because he hadn’t wanted to see any of the others either, but knew he was in for the full count, because of the LORD, “and why do you think that?”
“You do want to see him?” asked Jesse.
“Honestly, no,” said Samuel. “He’s probably a total idiot. But the LORD says I have to meet your sons, and that means I have to meet this David creature as well. Bring him on.”
“He’s not here,” said Jesse.
It took some time to fetch my dad from way out in the hills, where the sheep were in the summertime. It was a few miles away. I can only imagine Grandpa trying to entertain Samuel while waiting. Never fails to bring a giggle. Anyway, somewhere around nightfall, Dad arrived at the hovel and Samuel got to stare at him.
He sighed in resignation and poured a bottle of some perfumed oil over Dad’s head.
“Congratulations,” he said, as if passing a death sentence. “You’re gonna be king. Don’t think it’s going to be easy.”
“Don’t want to be king,” said Dad. “I want to live in the country and live off the land, hunt, fish, herd sheep, you know. I killed a lion last week.”
“Being king is like herding sheep,” growled Samuel. “You’ll take the job and like it.”
“What about King Saul,” asked Dad, “who is, er, king.”
“He has fallen out of favour with the LORD,” said Samuel. “This day, the LORD has taken the crown from his head and given it to thee.”
“Where is it?” asked Dad, a bit confused.
“On Saul’s head,” said Samuel.
“I thought you said…”
“It’s a metaphor,” said Samuel. “Look, you’re going to be king someday soon. Watch out and try not to get yourself killed by Saul in the meantime.”
That was good advice, but easier said than done. Dad spent the next several years almost getting killed by Saul. Saul felt, rightly I think, put out that Jehovah had rejected him simply because he had spared the lives of the women and cattle of some conquered city. You’d think sparing lives would have been a good thing. Anyway, Saul wasn’t going to make that mistake again, and set about trying to kill Dad whenever possible.
Dad got saved from assassins on one occasion by Michal, one of Saul’s daughters, who Dad had married. Instead of letting her dad kill my dad, she got him to flee. She’s the one who gave birth to Absalom, if I recall. Absalom was going to be king after David.
I rather liked Absalom. He was tall, good looking, and could wear a beard and long hair almost as well as Cat Stevens. The girls loved him.
But there were lots of half-brothers, most of them bastards (literally and figuratively). There were also half-sisters galore. Dad was almost as randy as me. It was my half-sister, Tamar, that did Absalom in.
Tamar was a pretty girl, a few years older than me, she was always singing songs, and she liked my poetry. She always dressed in colourful dresses. I liked her. I also had a half-brother Amnon, who was total git. Anyway, Amnon was always mooning about Tamar – weird things happen in Kings’ houses. Believe me, I know.
So, I was just 18, and was writing a juicy bit of poetry about some girl whose breasts were like towers or something, and Absalom burst into my room. He was sore wroth.
“You know what he did?” he shouted.
“Who?” I asked, “and no,” I answered.
“Amnon, our brother,” he said. “He raped Tamar!”
“Your sister?” I asked.
“Our sister,” he emphasized. “He made out like he was sick, and asked her to visit him to cheer him up. She baked him some cakes or something. When she got there, he grabbed her, and tore off her dress and raped her!”
“Good LORD,” I said. It was a bit shocking.
“Right,” said Absalom. “She kept telling him it was wrong, but he threw her down on the bed, and then his hands were up her thighs, and he tore the top of the dress to get at her breasts, and then he stuck his hard…”
“Stop with the details!” I said. “I don’t need the details. She’s our sister, for Jehovah’s sake!”
“Oh, right,” said Absalom. “Anyway, apparently that ass Jonadab put him up to it.”
“What? Dad’s advisor, Jonadab?”
“The same,” said Absalom ominously. “I have Tamar safe now in my apartments, but I’m going to kill Amnon.”
“You’re saying that our half-brother, had sex with our sister?” I asked again. “Isn’t that sort of wrong?”
“This is what I’m telling you,” said Absalom, “and what I’m killing Amnon about.”
“Isn’t Dad doing something?” I asked. “You’d think he’d be upset. Tamar is his daughter, after all. Don’t fathers get all fussy about daughters?”
“He tore his clothes and collapsed on his bed, moaning about “poor Tamar and poor Amnon,” growled Absalom. “Fat lot of good that does. Clearly, I’m the one who has to do something.”
Absalom went out and invited us all to a party.
I thought it was odd, since he was sore wroth, that he would even have a party, but he did. There was food. There were dancing girls. There was wine. There was music. Did I mention the dancing girls? I think all 20 of them wore enough to cover one complete girl. Fantastic!
And then, when most of us were pretty smashed, and I was completely besotted with one of the girls and was just getting to know some of her good bits, Absalom yells, “NOW!” and his servants all grabbed daggers and down went Amnon like a pincushion. Absalom fled the city and lived in exile for several years, always being chased by Jonadab, who Dad sent out after him. In the end, Dad got tired of this and said we were all supposed to forgive Absalom, and let him come home.
But the damage was really done, I guess. The people thought that Absalom was right, and he was pretty handsome, and he was a clear favourite with the ladies, more than my dad who was past his prime. They started making noises about how Absalom should be king, and Absalom even had another of his famous parties to celebrate how he was going to be king. Dad’s general, Joab, got annoyed and went off with Dad’s host (that’s an army), and there was another civil war. We used to do those, seemingly on weekends, there were so many of them.
In the end, Absalom got his hair caught in a tree while riding away from a battle with Dad’s army. Absalom had an army. Who knew? Anyway, Dad was loved by the LORD, which means you don’t lose battles against sons, or Ammonites, whoever they are. Absalom was defeated and fleeing again, when his hair caught in a tree and there he was, hanging from his hair. Dad wanted Absalom home alive, but Dad’s general, Joab, had other ideas. He saw Absalom in that tree, and threw three darts at him, killing him stone dead. Dad went into mourning, but didn’t do anything much to Joab.
I remember getting the news. I was lying in my chamber with a chambermaid. She was dark haired, and had big dark eyes, and a pretty dark triangle of hair between her thighs, and when I went in unto her she was warm, soft, wet, and willing. She made pretty little sounds during the going in. I was waxing poetic about that, and her breasts (like a flock of goats, I think I said, if you must know).
The chamber slavegirl was giggling. I didn’t see at the time what was funny about goats. But I think there’s an important point here about poetry. It’s not what you say, but the mood you create, and believe me, she was in a pretty nice mood, and her thighs weren’t half bad either. Even I started to laugh, and I got a bit turned on all over again. That was when another slave girl burst into the room.
With a shriek, the chambermaid slave girl took her pretty breasts and dove under the bed. I leapt out of the bed to face the interloping girl, with my lower appendage pointed happily directly at her. The new slave girl blushed bright crimson as I pulled on a robe, but she managed to collect herself enough to announce a messenger.
The messenger was a dour soldiery sort who mumbled that my brother Absalom was dead, and I was now the first in line for the throne, since Dad thought all my other brothers were either bastards (he should know) or cowards, or both. I felt sorry for Absalom, but hey, he wasn’t “loved of the LORD”, was he. It was really only a matter of time. The soldier fellow disappeared.
But I had a problem.
I had a raging erection (like a tower of ivory, admittedly with a purple knob on the end). There was one naked girl peeking out from under the bed, with wide dark eyes. There was another girl wearing a light slave shift standing in front of me, probably wondering whether she was seeing a scandal in the making, and whether gossiping about what she had seen the future king doing was worth anything. What to do?
Fortunately, I had learned that in every problem situation, there is often a solution right in the midst of the problem itself. In this case, the way to avoid gossip and scandal was to involve all parties in it. I took the blushing slave girl by the hand and led her toward the bed. I introduced her to the other girl. While they were getting acquainted, I pulled the ties of the dress at the shoulders and it dropped away as does fruit ripe for the harvest. She had, I noticed, a bottom like ripe peaches. I dropped my robe.
I thought to myself afterwards, with two sleeping girls beside me, that as king, I would want my enemies to drop away as easily as that dress. Might need a bit of wisdom for that. I wonder where you get wisdom.
To be continued…
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