by Phil Stern
DAVE MILLER
You see, here’s what I think. Steve’s parents were in the middle of a huge, awful divorce right then, and the idea of anyone getting married really frightened him. And since Sophia was all super-religious, she was probably hinting about getting married, so my shotgun wedding really put him in a spot with her.
But right then they started making out, and since I wasn’t into feeling Steve’s fucking tongue down Sophia’s throat through her back, while she was shoved up against me, I suddenly stood up to get a beer.
“Hey, Mr. Canton!” Steve yells out kind of nasty, as Sophia fell back and Steve landed kind of on top of her, in between her legs. “That wasn’t very nice.”
“My name’s still Miller, Steve,” I shot back. By this point he was really annoying me.
“Whatever,” he laughed, half-fucking Sophia right there on the couch.
So anyway, Marauder had set himself up on the keg as some kind of guardian, and people were afraid to go near him. So I threw him off and drew some beers, turning around to hand them out.
“Thanks Dave,” Brooke laughed, taking two plastic cups. “Rachel and I were just dying of thirst.” Giggling, she hands a beer to Rachel, who then put an arm casually around her waist.
SOPHIA DANTON
Look, I need to be honest here. Yeah, I would have enjoyed having a threesome with Steve and Rachel. But what I really yearned to do was make love to Brooke.
Oh, how I loved that girl! She was so sensitive and kind. And so real! And just so raw and exposed, just like I saw myself.
But I knew Brooke would kick anybody out of her life who upset the equilibrium even a tiny bit. Then I’d just be “over” for her, like so many other people from her past.
But I felt things couldn’t stay as they were. I just had all these urges and emotions! But I really didn’t know how Brooke felt about me. That way, I mean. Once I’d caught her staring at me, but I wasn’t sure. It was all very confusing.
And here was another problem. Brooke and Steve didn’t always get along. And I think she was beginning to lose a little respect for me for being with him. But I loved Steve so much…the inner Steve, I mean…but Brooke couldn’t see that. I was being torn in two different directions.
And even though I loved Steve, he didn’t always understand me completely, the way Renia, my beautiful Italian lover, had. This was beginning to bother me a lot. I’d even written Renia a month before, but hadn’t gotten a reply. For the last week I’d run out to the mailbox every afternoon, imagining a wonderful letter with overseas postage stamped all over. But so far, nothing.
And so Steve begins talking around then about a threesome with Rachel because she looked like Wonder Woman. And you know what? I really wanted to feel close to Steve, and Rachel kind of looked like Renia, so I went along with it. But then Brooke heard about the plan, and thought I was selling out and doing it just for Steve…well, I could tell I was losing her. Brooke, I mean.
I even began thinking of doing a threesome with Brooke and Steve. But even if they wanted to, how could the three of us make love and leave Dave out? And we couldn’t include Dave. I mean, the guys wouldn’t go for that. And I loved the four of us together. It was very frustrating.
So there I was, wanting for all the world to take Brooke aside and make passionate love, just like with Renia, all while Steve’s jumping on me in public, practically molesting me on the couch. And this was after Steve’s attitude on Dave’s wedding was already pissing everyone off.
So I look over and see Brooke standing by Dave and Rachel holding a beer. She’s looking at me in disgust, like, how could you let him act that way? Suddenly, I felt very afraid.
So I pushed Steve off. “Hey, you’re being a jerk!”
“How’s that?”
“Dave’s doing the right thing!” I said, now sitting up. “And if you believed in God, like a normal person, you could see that for yourself!”
STEVE LEVINE
That was a mood killer, let me tell you.
“Wow.” Sitting up, I looked at Sophia, feeling several pairs of eyes staring at me from around the smallish living room. “Where’d that come from?”
“Well, it’s true!” Sophia could be very childish at times. “You don’t believe in God!”
Which, in a literal sense was true, but I didn’t see what it had to do with the here and now. “So what?”
“So what?” she shot back, eyes blazing. “Without God, you’re lost in this world! You have no center. No morality. Nothing!”
DAVE MILLER
“What on earth are you talking about?” At this point Steve sat back, staring at Sophia. I was still standing by the keg with Brooke and Rachel. “I need to believe in some mythical deity to be moral?”
“Mythical deity? Fuck you, Steve. There’s nothing mythical about God!” Now Sophia was really going. “Where did the Bible come from if there’s no God? Where did we come from?”
“Circular logic,” Steve volleyed back. “The Bible is proof of God, God is proof of the Bible…we’re here because of God, God’s here because of us…it’s all nonsense!”
“God is all around us!”
“Where? I don’t see Him.” Now Steve laughed in that infuriating, we’re all assholes if we don’t agree with him, kind of way. “You’re speaking of nothing more than a vague, vestigial mythology.”
“Vague vestigial mythology!” No one even knew what the fuck that meant, but Sophia was properly incensed. “Then what about Heaven and Hell?”
“They don’t exist.”
“They don’t exist?” Leaping up, Sophia stamped her foot in frustration. “Of course they exist! The Bible says so!”
“Where are they then?” Shrugging, Steve sipped his beer. “We’ve been up into space. No Heaven there. Though sound waves and stuff we’ve explored most of the inner earth. We didn’t find Hell. So where are they? In the real world, I mean.”
“Maybe they’re in an alternate dimension?” I offered. “Or maybe another solar system?” Look, I was trying to support Sophia in all this, but there wasn’t much to say.
“Fuck you, Dave!” Whirling on me, Sophia’s finger shot out in obvious condemnation. “This isn’t a science fiction show! It’s real!”
“Look, Sophia, Steve does have a point.” Though sounding all sweet, Brooke’s voice had an odd edge to it. “Organized religion is just the mythology of our age. It’s no different than the Greeks believing in Zeus or Athena, or thinking the sun was actually in some chariot driven across the sky.”
“Brooke. Stop it!” Sophia stamped her foot again. “Don’t encourage Steve!”
“Why not?” By now half-sloshed, Brooke shrugged. “You seem to encourage him all the time. Don’t you, Sophia?”
“What does that mean?” Whirling about, Sophia put her hands on her hips in that oddly sexy now-I’m-really-exasperated pose of hers.
“Yeah. And what about those cat gods the Egyptians prayed to?” Steve continued, seemingly oblivious to the byplay between Sophia and Brooke. “Can you imagine, God is really a fat, gay cat? I mean, what the fuck?”
Brooke’s eyes went wide. “Steve, stop it! I will not listen to homophobic remarks!” And so saying, she scooped up our grumbling black cat. “You’re upsetting Marauder!”
“Naw. That’s a pussy-loving machine, that Marauder.” Thoughtfully, Steve took a sip of beer. “At least, he would have been if we hadn’t cut his balls off.”
“All right. That’s enough!” Now nearly shouting, Sophia grabbed Marauder from Brooke, flouncing down next to Steve once more. “If there’s no Heaven and Hell, where do we go when we die?”
“Nowhere. We cease to exist.”
“Is that what you really believe?”
“Sure.” Tossing Marauder aside, he then grabbed her around the waist. “That’s why we need to get all the pussy we can while we’re alive.”
“You’re disgusting, Steve!” Shoving him away, Sophia settled back out of reach. “I don’t even kn
ow why I go out with you.”
“Hear, hear,” Brooke commented. By now standing next to me, I was the only one who heard her over the loud music. “I don’t know why you go out with him either, you stupid bitch. ”
Brooke’s comment disturbed me very much. Suddenly panicking, I put out a placating hand to everyone. I really wanted us all to be close this night, my last night of freedom.
“Look, guys, let’s not argue,” I said. “Religion has served a very important purpose throughout history. At one time it was the primary purveyor of literacy and education.”
“Damn straight,” mumbled fat and now drunken Ed. “Literacy and education.”
“And the moral codes served a practical purpose,” I continued. “No sex before marriage made all the sense in the world before effective birth control, and when pre-martial females were all children anyway. Hell, religion even had health codes! Things like no cheese with meat made sense before refrigeration. And farmers would have driven themselves to death if someone hadn’t flat out told them not to work on Sunday!”
“I never work on Sunday,” Steve agreed. “There’s too much sleeping and fucking to do.”
“Health codes? That’s what you think God is, some kind of over-hyped FDA inspector?” By now Sophia was getting really upset. Leaping up again from the couch, she stood there with balled fists, a tear escaping one eye. “Why are you all ganging up on me? Why aren’t you my friends any more?”
“Hey, Sophia, don’t listen to Dave.” Leaning forward, Steve patted her ass. “I eat cheese burgers all the time. And we use birth control! So clearly, Dave is all wrong.”
SOPHIA DANTON
Look, we were all drinking and overwrought. Dave was leaving for good, finals began in two days, and I was terrified at the thought of going back home to live in Scarsdale with my family for the summer. (The only saving grace in that scenario was the thought of being able to stay with Steve, Brooke, and even Dave for long weekends. After what happened, though, I wound up going to Vegas instead.)
Not to mention that my period was also about a week late, and I was absolutely petrified. What would Steve say if I was pregnant? Would he think it was just a crazy accident, that 1% chance they warn you about on the pill box, or would he think I’d fucked up like Jen had with Dave? Maybe he’d even think I’d deliberately trapped him?
And what about my family? My father hadn’t spoken to me at all since Virgin-Gate, though in my infrequent conversations with Mom things seemed to be thawing just a bit. But if I was pregnant? They’d both disown me, and this time permanently.
It all turned out all right, my monthly visitor coming the next evening. But at that moment, Steve’s birth control comment really sent me over the edge.
STEVE LEVINE
I could tell that last line really pissed Sophia off. Why, I don’t know. I’d said similar things before and she’d just laughed.
But now she whirled on me like someone possessed. “What the fuck, Steve! What are you? A Jew? An atheist? The Devil himself? Who the fuck are you!”
“I think he’s just an asshole,” Brooke added.
“Shut up, Brooke! That’s enough button pushing for one night.” By now I was just tired of everyone’s bullshit. I also began to dimly recall just how mean Brooke became when drunk. “Can’t we just have a good time?”
But Sophia was off and running. “Damn it, Steve! Tell me! I need to know.”
“I think he’s a Jewish atheist!” With this shit-eating grin Dave now came up to the couch, where I was sitting and Sophia was now standing before me. “That’s how fucked up he really is!”
“I’ve told you both…” I slowly began. “I come from a Jewish family, but I’m not religious…”
“God is good, and right, and moral!” Sophia now yelled, sloshing beer all over her shirt. “And if you don’t believe in God, you can’t be with me!”
DAVE MILLER
Well, about now things really got out of control.
“All right. I’ll bite.” Smiling, Steve now stood, coming to stand before Sophia. It was kind of like two gunfighters getting ready for a draw. “You want to argue religion, fine. So what’s so great about God?”
“God created everything! God created us!”
“Did He now?” Steve raised an eyebrow. “God created us with diseases, and faulty joints, and birth defects, and crime, poverty, rape, and genocide? Is that right, Sophia? Is He just a really bad Creator, or did God give us all those things on purpose?”
“What are you talking about?” she nearly shrieked. “God gives us free will!”
“Actually, Sophia, God is pretty specific on certain things.” Sauntering over, Brooke was now face to face with both of them. “One of them being no pre-marital sex!”
Stunned at Brooke’s flank attack, Sophia stared at her. “What are you saying?”
“I think she’s saying you’re a hypocrite,” Steve gloated. “If God is so good and so right, why aren’t you doing what He says?”
“I’m a good person!” Now shaking, Sophia began backing up, nearly stepping on Marauder.
“No one’s saying you aren’t!” Brooke sweetly replied. “But wouldn’t a real Catholic stay a virgin until marriage?”
“Shut up, Brooke!”
“You’re a hypocrite, Sophia!” Brooke laughed. “Or was it God that told you to fuck Steve and Rachel together?”
STEVE LEVINE
Now that was something. I had no idea Sophia had discussed her plans for me and Rachel with Brooke. Which wasn’t a big deal to me, but the revelation really seemed to send Sophia over the edge.
“Brooke, don’t say that!” she shrieked.
“But it’s true! That’s what the two of you are planning.”
“Well, so what?”
“So what?” Now Brooke bore in even harder. “It’s makes you a Catholic hypocrite, that’s what!”
“Fuck you, Brooke! I am not a Catholic hypocrite!”
“Then why do you have sex? If God is so important, and the Bible is so important, why aren’t you doing everything it says?”
“Because I’m a free thinker too!”
“Bullshit! You’re a hypocrite! You pick and choose just like everybody else!” Throwing an arm out wide, Brooke nearly clipped Sophia in the face. “You want to be ‘good’ and you want to do whatever feels right. That’s the problem with religion. It makes everyone into a fucking fraud!”
“I am not a fraud!” Now she turned back on me. “Steve, yes or no. Do you think I’m a fraud for believing in God?”
DAVE MILLER
“Not at all,” he replied. “Believe in whatever you want. Look, I like chocolate ice cream. You like rocky road. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“God is a little more important than ice cream!” Entirely frustrated, Sophia took a step back, glaring at Steve, Brooke, and then me in turn. “Fuck you all! I hate you! I never want to see any of you again!”
Here’s the thing. I was half-drunk, pissed at Steve for being such an asshole about my marriage, and very sad at having to leave school just a spare semester short of graduation. I wanted anything but to get in my moving van tomorrow and head back down to my new life with Jen. And now here was Sophia, looking as beautiful as ever, telling us all to fuck off. Even me, when I hadn’t done anything wrong.
And, well, I kind of said something stupid.
“Hey Steve,” I heard myself blurt out. “Why do you have to be such an asshole? Sophia can believe anything she wants, and she doesn’t need your permission!”
SOPHIA DANTON
So, at this point I was just trying to calm everyone down. I certainly wasn’t trying to start a huge fight or anything. But then, out of the blue, Dave attacks Steve.
“What the fuck, Steve?” Dave now bellowed. “Why can’t Sophia believe in God?”
“She can believe in anything she wants! What the hell do I care?” Now Steve tried to grab Dave’s beer. “Hey buddy, what the fuck? You don’t need to drain the whole keg�
��”
“Fuck you, Steve!” Now sloshing beer all over the rug, Dave stumbled forward. “You know everything, huh? Who I should marry? What God Sophia believes in? What’s right and what’s wrong? Who made you a fucking king, huh?”
For her part Brooke just stood back, watching all this with an odd satisfaction. I tried to catch her eye, to get her to intervene, but she just ignored me.
“Dave, you don’t believe in God either.” Steve scooped Marauder off the floor, tossing him onto the couch. “We’ve talked about this many times…”
“That’s not the fucking point, Steve!” And now, to my horror, Dave points a beer-soaked hand at me. “She is, Steve. Sophia’s the fucking point!”
“Dude, what the fuck are you talking about?”
“She’s always good to go!” Dave bellowed, grabbing my arm. “She gives you everything you want! Everything, Steve!”
Steve smiled, firmly taking Dave’s hand off of my arm. “Why don’t you go lay down somewhere and take it easy, all right?”
“Oh, you’d like that Steve, wouldn’t you,” Dave shot back. “That way you could fuck Sophia right there on the couch! In public! Just like you’ve been fucking all of us!”
STEVE LEVINE
Look, I didn’t know Dave had such a hard-on for Sophia. He always played it all cool about her. But now he’s grabbing her and yelling at me. I mean, what the fuck? I would never, ever, go for someone Dave was into, much less actually doing. That crazy chick Jen was his scene.
And here Sophia was saying I was fucking all of them? I didn’t get it. I still don’t, for that matter.
But now, just when I thought I could get Dave away from the keg and into his old bedroom for a nappy-nap, Sophia goes completely berserk.