There's a noise behind him. Yahweh turns. Mary stands there like Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, swaying, bottle in hand.

"Hon?" he says.

"How could you do thish to me," she says.

"You're going to have to be more specific, Mary," Yahweh says. "I'm not a mind-reader."

"After all theshe millennia," Mary says. The bitterness in her voice is tired, almost flat.

"If you want me to play guessing games," Yahweh says, "you'll need to give me a hint."

"Creator of the Univershe. Omnishhhient. Hah!" She goes to spit contemptuously, but coughs up a little ball of vomit instead. They look at it glistening there on the throw rug for a minute in silence.

"I'm guessing I hurt your feelings somehow," Yahweh says. "But look, if I've told you once, I've told you a billion times, desert gods don't apologize. Get over it."

"Get over you," Mary says.


"Uh, hon," Yahweh says, "maybe you'd better give the drink a rest. We can talk about this when you sober up. Hm?"

"Omnipotent, that'sh more like it," Mary continues. "He can't read minds, but he can stick his thing in anything that moves."

"Who can?" Yahweh says.

"YOU can!" Mary yells, and now it all comes up. Vomit sprays out of her in a bright rainbow fountain. "You--shon of a bitch!" she pants, wiping her mouth with her sleeve. "You--I hate you!"

"Wait," Yahweh says. "Let me get this straight. You think I cheated on you?"

"I know you did!" Mary wails. "Over and over and over! Why do you think I've been drinking?"

"You have got to be kidding," Yahweh says indignantly--though not without a tiny worm of guilt at lusting after other women in his heart. "I've never once had sex with anybody--not even you!"

"You musht think I'm shtupid," Mary says. "I've got picturesh!" And she pulls a manila envelope out of her bathrobe, hurls it in the vomit at Yahweh's feet. He picks it up gingerly.

What he sees makes his blood boil. A fairly good likeness of himself in compromising positions with hot teens, MILFs, grannies and trannies, of all shapes, sizes, and colors.

That slimy bastard Satan has done all this in the week since the election? He must've had the pictures taken himself, sent them to Mary--but why? What's his angle? Isn't he afraid of undermining his imposture with the Christian Right?

Yahweh guides Mary to bed, thinking: I have got to get that Yahweh suit away from him.

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 2:37 PM