Intimate passages, and tales best left hidden under the mattress...
For me, fiction is spiritual. Reality as I know it is infinite, filled with endless potential, and books are windows offering a glimpse into what has happened or what may happen, whether in the familiar world, or another time, another place, or another plane altogether. Anything is possible, anything and everything, in the boundless ocean of existence. And so fiction is but a taste of another reality, a hint of another perception, of elsewhere.
It's also quite a lark, innit! ;)