Once upon a time, or in the beginning, (whichever you prefer your fairy tales to open with, makes no difference to me) there was sex. Well, of course there was! Where do you think you came from, eh? You think god or the great author, again your choice, waited a gabillion years and then snuck sex in as an afterthought? No way. If sex hadn’t been on god’s mind, how do explain the pervasiveness of it? Even trees fuck, for christ’s sake. (Oops, probably wrong phrase there.) “The birds do it, the bees do it, even educated fleas do it ….” (What, you never heard of Cole Porter?)
So, in the beginning, there was sex. A lot of sex. Things hadn’t gotten to the point where the folks who weren’t getting any decided to regulate those who were, out of sheer spite, so when I say a lot, I mean a fucking lot of fucking. There was a certain innocence and enthusiasm about the whole affair (yes, I meant to say it that way) and the refrain, “why does any creature/anybody ever do anything else?” was heard repeatedly across the planet. If you could make the words out over the grunts, groans, moans, shouts of triumph and oh, fuck, yeah, that’s so good, just like that, baby, just like that!
Nobody much cared — or noticed — who was doing whom, in what combinations, with how many or even over in that dark back corner down yonder what species was getting it on with what other species. A whole lot of fucking going on.
Eventually, though, the ones who were left to the less-than-spectacular resources of one-person sex decided that enough was too much for everyone else and some idiot who couldn’t convince even a tree to take an interest in Little Willie (and maybe that was the problem, that Willie was little) invented religion. I don’t mean the ass invented god, mind you. He’d always been around (and around, and back and forth and up and down — the dude’s obviously one for variety, cause have you seen how many different kinds of beetles there are?) in one form, or two, or a dozen, or another. No, I meant religion.
Religion: a system of beliefs whereby a group of people use the ability of humans to convince themselves that anything not demonstrably false is in fact true (and even some things that are demonstrably false, viz. the teapot tempest over a certain President’s birthplace), combined with shame, guilt, and the carrot of eternal bliss to control the thoughts and actions of others. (Note: not so much themselves. It’s always Mrs. Baker’s sin of gossiping or Mr. Thomas’ little Saturday night card game for pennies or Santa Claus’ real use for the naughty list that fills the religious folks’ jock strap full of menthol and itching powder.)
Once the fellows had religion firmly in place — and it’s nearly always the fellows, since women are generally far too busy wiping bottoms and making meals and seeing that shit gets actually done to bother with inventing yet another thing to be seen to, though they participate with a vengeance once the guys have in place the means to completely repress them, something which would have had Freud scurrying back to the ‘cigar is just a cigar’ hidey-hole if he’d ever given a second thought to why a group of people would want to support their own downfall wholeheartedly — once the fellows had religion firmly in place, sex took a nosedive in terms of ubiquity.
It was brilliant of the not-getting-any-so-you-can’t faction to figure out that if they controlled how, when, under what conditions, in what positions and even if everyone got their rocks off, they could pretty much extort anything they wanted out of the poor sods. Money, property, fucking rights, power — they could get it all. Mostly power.
Ah, power, the crack cocaine of the psyche! What a lovely thing, to take control of someone else’s life, from the grand sweep to the dust motes, as a substitute for having no control over one’s own life! Beautiful in its fearful symmetry, you’ll forgive me for totally fucking with a phrase some poetry dude spouted once in a fit of barely repressed bestiality. (Oh come on, a poem to a tiger? What images did you think were going through his head?) And what better power to exercise than destroying the self-image and besmirching the societal view of the very ones who wouldn’t spread in the first place?
Oh so carefully, so as not to spook the womenfolk, the pedestal crept out, just a tiny elevated spot at first, maybe so she wouldn’t have to stand on tiptoe to reach the jar of pickled beets on the top shelf of the pantry or some other innocuous sounding bullshit. But it got higher and higher all the time, that pedestal, that sundering line, that auction block. Those who stood there, being ogled and turned into objects and mock-venerated, they were the ‘good girls’, the madonnas, the ideal. The ones who wouldn’t get up there, or who jumped off the moment they saw the emperor’s ass, those were the ‘bad girls’, the whores, the used-and-discarded, the spat upon.
A heady and potent recipe for power, for the religious men. Stew for, oh, 5 millennia or so. Serves millions.
But then, something happened. Eve, the original beeyotch, the whore of whores, the mother of us all (isn’t that twisted, too?), the One Who Caused It All To Go Horribly Wrong, was in the ladies’ one night, probably at a showing of some avant garde film or the opening of a gallery show because, well, you know how those artists are. It just so happened that Mary was there, too. She must have been given the wrong address or something, because of course, the BVM would never go to a place like that, oh no, couldn’t be. There were Eve and the BVM (so look it up already, if you’re not Catholic) in the ladies, making small talk about raising sons and one thing led to another.
“Really?” the BVM asked. “Women are blamed for the fall?”
Eve nodded.
“And if women enjoy sex or take the initiative or in any way refuse to stay in that prison cell of a pedestal, they’re seen as wicked and worthless?”
“That’s the one.”
“Well, we’ll just see about that, shall we? Give.” Mary held out her hand.
After a few more minutes, they made their way back to their dates. Adam and God had been in a deep discussion of the chances of the Ravens making it back to the Super Bowl, and had progressed nicely to the “you’re a stupid dickhead” stage.
“Come on, baby, let’s go back in,” both snarled through clenched teeth in perfect unison, which might have told them something about their kinship and similarities if they’d been interested in anything other than making the ‘mine is bigger than yours’ point. Loudly. Each snagged an arm in order to what’s been called ‘escort’ but would be more accurately served by ‘propel’ his woman back to the show.
Neither woman showed an inclination to move.
Again in unison, “I said come on, baby.”
Mary laughed. “I thought you’d never ask, honey, but are you sure you’re prepared for the fallout? Again?”
“What are you —-. Oh shit!” Adam dropped the BVM’s arm as if it were an open container of pissed-off fire ants who had anger management issues even before they pumped the steroids.
‘I’m sorry. I thought you were …,” echoed through the suddenly silent gallery.
God gave both women a good hard look. Yes, I meant to say it that way, and yes, God’s robe and Adam’s fig leaf both bore witness to just how hard that look was.
“You’re … you’re not wearing that wimple thing,” God stuttered. “I saw that robe and thought it was you, honest.”
Mary and Eve laughed. “Nope,” Eve explained. “We swapped. She’s in my little black dress, though it looks to me like she won’t be in it much longer, and I’m covering my charms. For the time being.”
“Unless you two are so fond of the clothing you’d rather do a bit more swapping?” Mary batted her eyes as she vamped for both men.
“Oh, fuck, yeah,” Adam agreed, “but let’s do a fourway. I want to watch the old man bang a hot chick and baby you are hawt in that getup.”
God nodded. “It’s been a while, Eve. Shall we?”
“What the hell do you mean, ‘it’s been a while’? Have you been screwing this deity?” Adam interrupted.
“About as often as you’ve come home with your fig leaf on backwards, asshole. Sauce for the goose …!”
“Oh. You noticed?”
Eve laughed. “Of course I noticed. I don’t have one of those impediments to rational thought like you do.” She pointed.
God stepped in, doing the bud-nipping number, “So where are we going for this fourway? The gallery probably wouldn’t appreciate the broken shit when we take it to the rough side.”
Once the decision was made, they hied them hence and started the Fuck Like a Stoat Festival. After a considerable period of time during which several major mountain ranges became canyons and vice versa, about the time God and Adam each decided they’d held back long enough thank you very much and it was time for the big finish, Mary and Eve’s eyes met and they smiled.
“Judas, I’m coming,” God growled and Adam grunted, “Unnhh, unnhh.”
Eve squeezed down hard of the base of God’s cock, shutting him down, as Mary did the same with Adam.
“No, myself, oh myself, please, I need it,” God protested over Adam’s near shout, “Nnnnnooooo, don’t, don’t!”
Mary nodded for Eve to take point. “Would you like to come, big guy?”
“Myself, yes, woman!”
“Then here’s what you’ll do ….”
“And you, too, or I’ll staple that fig leaf to your privates,” Mary assured Adam. “You’ll ‘fess up, and I don’t mean here with just the four of us. You’ll put a video on YouTube, tweet it, blow Facebook up, flood Instagram, tumble tumbl’r right off the cliff.”
“What do you mean, ‘fess up’?” Adam asked.
“You’ll say that it wasn’t my fault, that you wanted that apple as much as I did, asshole,” Eve put in, warming to the subject. “You’ll take your part of the blame and guilt, make it clear that we shared in that little venture into owning ourselves and our lives.”
Adam laid his hand over Mary’s and thrust. “And if I agree, you’ll finish me? Anyway I want?”
She shook her head. “Bullshit. I’ll finish you, yes, but it will be any way we both want.”
God groaned. “My balls hurt.”
Eve ran an unrelenting nail over the seam in his god-sized scrotum. “And so you’ll change things, too. You’ll author a new edition of your owner’s manual bible thing and this time you’ll make sure that the ones you dictate to aren’t wrapped around an axle of superiority and sexual frustration.”
Mary added, “And you’ll make sure that the women who played such an important role in that whole history get their stories told, too, and told right.”
God groaned. “All right, all right, but … Eve, don’t be offended, but while this has been fantastic, I want my woman for the finish.”
She smiled. “And I want First Man. We were, after all, made for each other.”
Adam moaned and reached for his mate.
A while later, after the atmosphere had shuddered back to nitrogen/oxygen and the earth’s mantle trembled the last steps of the Himalayan tango, a very sated God propped up on his elbows, cleared his throat and said, “There’s just one thing.”
Eve and Mary sat bolt upright. “Oh, no, no you don’t,” Mary demanded as Eve let out a long string of extremely inventive profanity.
God held up his hand for silence. “We need to get you a little black dress of your own, o favored one.” He smiled and cupped Mary’s cheek as she laughed.
“You’re on, boyo, you’re on.”
