And God Belched

by Rob Rosen

  A day went by, two. We ate. We moped. I missed Tag. I felt guilty, guiltier, guiltiest.

  I sat with Milo in a corner of our cell. We sat cross-legged, holding hands. “I’m sorry,” I said.

  He smiled. “You keep saying that.”

  In fact, I was on my eighty-seventh, give or take, I’m sorry, by that point. “I keep meaning it.” I squeezed his hands. “What are your people’s belief in the afterlife?”

  “Such a morbid question.”

  I shrugged. “Humor me, please.”

  He sighed, and said, “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the surface of the waters, and God said, ‘let there be light,’ and there was light.”

  “Um, yeah, I know all that already.”

  He smiled. “God doesn’t turn off the lights, Randy.”

  I nodded. I got his point. I prayed my light switch got it as well. “I love you,” I said.

  He smiled. “You keep saying that, too.”

  In fact, I was on my nine-hundredth, give or take, I love you, by that point. “I keep meaning it.” I squeezed his hands even tighter. “And I’m scared.”

  He turned and looked at our motley group. “Fate brought us all here for a reason, Randy. I say, just go with it.”

  “That easy?”

  He shrugged. “Easier than the alternative.”

  He had a point. I had a boner. To every season turn, turn, turn. In other words, I went with it. Like he said, it was easier. And I was nothing if not easy.

  § § § §

  On day three, they finally came and got us.

  They lined us up. They marched us down a long white hallway. No doors. No windows. All hall. Very unnerving. Very dead-man-walking.

  A wall slid open at the end of the hallway. We walked inside the room. Nine Cureans sat facing us, all of them dressed in green. That was it. Otherwise, like the hallway, everything was all white. Milo turned his face my way and whispered in my ear, “Your version of the Supreme Court. The highest court on Planet Six.”

  Nine utterly handsome and/or beautiful men and women stared our way. One stood and spoke in English. “You are accused of treason. How do you plead?”

  I gulped. “Um, innocent?”

  The one standing squinted my way. “Everything you’ve done, Earthling, has been captured on, as you call it, film. In other words, care to reconsider your plea?” He held up his hand before I could reply. “You blew up a prison. You blew up our control center. You fed the people. You pretended to be monks and nuns. You broke into several buildings, stole government ID cards, stole vehicles, stole food.” He’d been reading from a list on a tablet-like device. He glanced up. “Shall I continue, Earthling?”

  I gulped. I changed the subject. “You speak English quite well.”

  “Easy language. Picked it up in two days. We all learned it, all the judges.” He sighed. He looked bored. He looked like an older version of Zac Efron. “Now then, how do you plead?”

  My gulp regulped. “Innocent, but with extenuating circumstances.”

  “Such as?”

  Such as? Such as what? What was I to do? What was I to say? I turned to my friends, my family. They merely stared back at me. I again turned to the judge. I pointed at Milo. “Love, your honor.”

  He smiled. Then, one by one, smiles appeared down the green line of them. “Ah,” said the judge, setting the tablet down. “In that case…DEATH! Death to them all! Next case!”

  “Wait! Wait!” I said.

  The judge sighed. “What now, Earthling?”

  What now? What now? I snapped my fingers. “I’m the savior! You can’t kill the savior! I’m God’s messenger.” And yes, it felt both odd and douchey to utter those words. Still, what else did I have to go with.

  The standing judge sat down. All nine then conversed in hushed whispers. The seconds ticked by like hours. Sweat trickle down my forehead. My heart pounded. My head pounded. My dick pounded. Then again, my dick was always pounding. I chalked it up to that Z chromosome of mine.

  At last, the same judge stood. “Who, exactly, have you saved, though, Earthling?”

  Fuck. “The Earth? My family? My friends?”

  He nodded. “Exactly.” He pointed at me. “DEATH! Death to them all!”

  Fuck, yet again. Not how I thought this was supposed to go. I looked at my mom, at my dad. Where was that dawn I was promised? The darkness was here in, you know, spades. Dawn time! Hello, dawn! Only, dawn, it seemed, was still sleeping.

  The guards rushed in, weapons drawn. Death. We were to be put to death. This couldn’t be happening. Fate had brought us together. Fate was on our side, wasn’t it? My body was trembling, hands shaking. I’d killed my friends and family as sure as if I’d put a bullet through them. Did I already say fuck? Because fuck, fuck, fuck!

  A guard put his weapon to my mother’s head. I started to scream, but another shout beat me to it.

  “Wait!” It was Craig.

  Ironically, the judge rolled his eyes. Karma, it seemed, was quite the bitch. “Please, Earthling, no more wasting our time.”

  “No!” shouted Craig. “I…I think I can solve all of this.”

  The judge glared his way. “Solve? There is nothing left to solve. The puzzle is complete. Utterly, miserably complete.”

  An unexpected smile spread across my brother’s face. “No, sir, your honor. You’re still missing a piece.” He moved away from the others and approached the judges. He looked small. He looked tired. Oddly, though, his smile remained resolute. “Please, sir, just give me a minute. I promise, you will not be sorry.”

  “I already am, Earthling.” Since he seemed to enjoy sighing, he once again did just that. “One minute, Earthling. I give you one more minute. After that—”

  Craig held up his hand. “I know. DEATH! Got it, your honor. Just a minute. Promise.”

  He ran back our way. Surprisingly, he grabbed Britney’s hand. Even more surprisingly, he kissed her, thereby using up a good twenty seconds of that measly minute. Then he whispered something into her ear. She smiled. She seemed to think whatever he said over. She nodded, her smile growing even brighter. What had he whispered to her? What could he or she possibly do now?

  The minute passed. Craig returned to face the judges. He blinked. He clenched his fists. He raised his hand and pointed his index finger my way. “He is not the savior!”

  Several gasps could be heard. Most of them came from me. “Um, what?”

  He turned and faced Justin Timberlake. “You said it was fate, sir. All of this, my parents, my brother, all fated to be. My house held the portal, my mom was pregnant with Randy, the Z chromosome had to be injected into a fetus. All fate. You said it was God’s will.”

  J.T. nodded. “I did. And it was. Is.” He tilted his head—hotly. “And?”

  Craig again turned to the judges. “The savior, your honors. It was explained to us that your people would one day venerate him. That God would not have used a slave to populate his worlds. That Adam, so to speak, must be revered. Your government was unanimous in its decision.”

  The judge nodded irately. “Yes, yes. So what? Like I said, like you just said, your brother is not our savior.”

  Craig stood there, smiling broadly. He paused, probably for effect, as that was how he rolled. Thankfully, he rocked even better. At last, he pointed at his scrawny chest. “Adam, your honors.” And then he pointed at Britney. “Eve, your honors.” He dropped his finger. He stood there, arms akimbo. “Randy isn’t the savior, your honors…” There was that effected pause again. “Because I am.”

  Justin Timberlake rose. “Of course! I was simply a few years too early!” He nodded, you know, hotly. “My research has evolved these past twenty years. I can inject a Z chromosome into Britney, into the Curean female here. It will be passed down, as will the human’s Y, all on our side of things, not on Earth!”

  I c
oughed. “Wait. What?”

  Justin Timberlake pointed at Craig. “He, he is the savior! His offspring with Britney will have both a Y and a Z chromosome. He will produce viable offspring.” He stared at Craig. “Willingly, right?”

  Craig nodded eagerly. “Definitely. Willingly. For, um, sure.” He looked at Britney. “Okay with you, Brit?”

  Britney nodded. “Sure. Just not right now, dude. Still got some oats to sew. Once I figure out what an oat is.”

  The group of them laughed. As did I. Mostly out of nerves.

  “Your honors,” continued J.T. “This is the prophecy. This human will be our savior, freely, of his own accord, as God would wish it. He will have children. These children will spread the Y chromosome back into our population. Our people will no longer be sterile. We will once again grow. We will once again flourish.”

  I smiled at Craig. Craig smiled at me. “Way to go, little bro.”

  “Thanks, dude,” he said. “Guess I’m gonna be a daddy.” To which he added, “To a whole new world.”

  I shrugged. “Better you than me, dude. Better you than me.”

  § § § §

  So, clearly, we were not put to DEATH!—to quote a certain judge. In fact, we were released, given our own apartments. Heck, we got our own damned building. It was a towering boxy number. No windows. No doors. At least not yet. Still, we had plans. Man, did we ever have plans.

  We also had food. Lots of food. Lots of fruits and vegetables. Though I could never quite figure out which was which. As to the paste, once the people of City Northeast Nineteen had the alternative, there was no going back. Thank, you know, God.

  As to my brother and Britney, they had plenty of time to repopulate the planet. Heck, they had yet to go on their first official date. Plus, they were still teenagers. Meaning, Adam and Eve had a curfew. And separate bedrooms. For now.

  Justin Timberlake was given a new lab. He would ensure that my brother’s Y chromosome would properly make the rounds. He also gladly accepted the role as the government’s head scientist and architect, brought back from the dead, as it were. And he did all of this—last time, promise—hotly.

  Mom and Dad retired. They had an entire new planet to explore, after all. Plus, they’d raised me and Craig. Meaning, they deserved a little break. And then some.

  We explained to Sonny and Cher who the real Sonny and Cher were. Milo’s parents, it quickly turned out, loved their music, once we played it for them. And if they could learn English in just two days, you should’ve seen what they could do with a bit of harmony. All that is to say, Sonny and Cher soon hit the road as, well, Sonny and Cher. On a side note, it’s often been said that when the world ends, all that will be left will be Cher and cockroaches. Turned out, when a world begins, Cher will be there, too. Thankfully, the planet didn’t have any bugs, just six-legged kitties.

  As for me and Milo, well, now that Planet Six had an Adam and Eve, all it needed was a couple of randy snakes in the grass. And yes, randy the adjective. Big time. In other words, the people needed to learn subversion, rebellion, revolt, not to mention debauchery. A little sedition goes a long way, after all. And who better to teach them all that than us: the kings of treason—or maybe make that queens.

  § § § §

  A month went by. We remodeled our apartment. We now had a front door, with a doorbell and everything. Nothing slid out from a wall anymore. We had furniture that wasn’t made completely out of metal. We had art on the walls. We had houseplants. We didn’t have any pets because, well, who wants a pet with a dozen eyes staring at you all day? Plus, all my love poured into Milo. Like a geyser. Shooting and spewing. Graphic, but true.

  We were sitting in the kitchen, eating fruits and/or vegetables. We now had grains as well, rudimentary cereal. Cap’n Crunch was soon to make a major comeback. And since Cureans loved long words with impossible sounding strings of letters, Häagen-Dazs was next. Vanilla, at first, but chocolate chocolate-chip was definitely in the pipeline. Once we invented chocolate. You know, again.

  The doorbell rang. I looked at Milo. “Are we expecting anyone?”

  He shrugged. “My parents are on tour; yours are sailing in the southern quadrant; Craig and Britney are, well, yuck, I don’t even want to think what those two are up to.” He moved to the door. “So, no, no idea.”

  He opened the door. A handsome male stranger stood in the hallway. Then again, every male on the planet was handsome. Still, something about this one was especially striking. And familiar-looking.

  “Can we help you?” I asked.

  He nodded. He smiled. “Usually, it’s the other way around, Randy.”

  I gasped. I recognized the voice in an instant. “But how?” I squeaked out.

  He walked into the apartment—on two legs, on two feet, nothing floating, nothing see-through, nothing glowing. “Justin Timberlake designed it.” He gave us a twirl. “You like?”

  I ran up and hugged him. Finally! My hands wrapped around solid…well, it seemed like flesh. It even smelled like flesh—with a little cologne spritzed on for good measure. “I love it, Tag!” I pulled an inch away. “But again, how? You were burnt to a crisp, last we saw you.”

  “Hardware is destructible, Randy,” he said. “Software is not.” He smiled. I smiled. Milo smiled. “New hardware is, suffice it to say…” He tapped on his broad expanse of chest. “Indestructible. Tag 2.0, as it were. Though I like to think that I’m now a perfect ten.”

  “Oh brother,” I said as I once again hugged him good and tight.

  “Is Craig here, too?” he asked, handsome face looking left and then right.

  I laughed. I laughed into his chest that smelled like cologne and flesh and wasn’t the slightest bit burnt or see-through. “No, he’s not,” I replied. “But I have a feeling that wherever he is, his eyes are most certainly rolling.”

  Thank you for taking the time to read And God Belched. If you enjoyed it, please consider telling your friends or posting a short review. Word of mouth is an author’s best friend and much appreciated. Thank you. Rob Rosen

  About the Author

  Rob Rosen (www.therobrosen.com), award-winning author of the novels Sparkle: The Queerest Book You’ll Ever Love, Divas Las Vegas, Hot Lava, Southern Fried, Queerwolf, Vamp, Queens of the Apocalypse, Creature Comfort, Fate, Midlife Crisis, and Fierce, and editor of the anthologies Lust in Time, Men of the Manor, Best Gay Erotica 2015, and Best Gay Erotica of the Year, Volumes 1, 2 and 3, has had short stories featured in more than 200 anthologies.

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