by Jack Geurts
“What?” she says. “I’m just embracing my role as queen of a liberal city.”
Abe grits his teeth and says nothing. There’s nothing he can say. He’s about to grab a Gatorade and head back into the harem when Sarah decides to push it a little further.
“What are we gonna do about kids?” she says. “If you’re in there banging dudes all day and I’m out here banging her, how are you supposed to become the father of a great nation?”
Abe stops. He hasn’t thought about it in a while. Too busy fucking and conquering to give it much consideration.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I guess I just assumed the big guy would figure it out.”
“Well, it doesn’t look like he is. I think we’re gonna have to figure this out for ourselves.”
“And how the hell are we gonna do that, huh? You’re barren. I’m gay...apparently.”
“What about Hagar?”
“What about her?”
“Why don’t you use her to have a kid?”
“Wouldn’t that be a little weird?”
“As weird as you having an all-male orgy and me out here scissoring my nephew’s wife?”
Abe thinks about it. “Good point.”
So Abe has Hagar brought up to his room that night and watches her disrobe. He can tell she’s trying to be sexy, but it does absolutely nothing for him. He closes his eyes and pictures one of his muscle-bound concubines until it’s all over.
Pretty soon, Hagar’s pregnant and she’s walking around like she owns the place. Sarah tells her to bring up some wine for her and Edith, and Hagar does it, but she’s got this look on her face like, “Yeah, bitch, I’m carrying Abe’s kid, not you.”
And Sarah isn’t about to just roll over and take that shit.
The old Sarah might have. But that chick is gone. Long gone.
In her place is the new, empowered, sexually-liberated Sarah.
And New Sarah don’t take no shit from nobody.
She grabs Hagar by the hair and yanks her head back, pressing a knife against her cheek. “If I see that look again, I’ll cut your fucking face off and feed it to you. See how high and mighty you are after that.”
Hagar says she’ll stop, and Sarah lets her go.
Nine months later, she gives birth to a boy, Ishmael, and this is probably as good a time as any to talk about circumcision.
See, shortly before Ishmael was born, God and Abe were having a beer, and Abe’s like, “So, when the fuck am I gonna take control of this land?”
“You mean Canaan?” God says.
“Yeah.”
“What, this city isn’t good enough for you?”
“You said I was gonna be the father of a great nation, not the king of some shithole.”
God’s like, “Sorry, I didn’t know you were having such a terrible time.”
Abe’s like, “I’m not, I just wanna know what’s going on.”
God drains his beer and gets another. “Look, it’s not as simple as I just give you the land, alright. I’ve got tenants in there at the moment, and what it basically comes down to is: their lease isn’t up yet.”
“Their lease?”
“Yeah. Pretty soon it will be and I’ll be able to move you guys in. I tell you, it can’t come quick enough. Those Canaanites are fucking animals, man. Party all the time, kill each other. I can’t wait to get some nice, even-keeled tenants in.”
“That’s why you chose me, because I’m nice and even-keeled?”
“Pretty much.”
“You saw how I tried to rape my nephew?”
“Yeah, but we can sweep that one under the rug. We’ve all been there.”
“Have we?” Abe says. “Seems like a pretty specific thing.”
God shrugs and takes a sip.
Abe goes on, “Just out of curiosity, when is the lease up?”
God does a few calculations in his head. “About...600 years.”
Abe spits out the perfectly-timed mouthful he just took. “600 years?!”
God’s acting like it’s no big deal. “Yeah, so what?”
“So...I thought you said I was gonna be the father of a great nation.”
“You are. But you were never going to be, like, the king of Canaan or anything. You’ll be long dead by the time that happens.”
Abe can’t believe it. “Jesus Christ!”
God laughs. “Is that what you thought? You were going to be king of Canaan?”
“Yes!”
The laughter continues. God’s shaking his head, like, “This fucking moron...”
Abe can barely contain his anger. “Then what the fuck have we been doing this whole time?”
God relaxes, sips his beer. “Laying the groundwork.”
“Were you ever gonna tell me that?”
“I’m telling you now. Cheer up, big guy – at least be happy for your descendants.”
“Fuck my descendants.”
“You don’t mean that.” God waves a hand dismissively, like you would with a pouting teenager. He says, “Listen, I’ve been thinking...when you do move in, I’m gonna need a way to tell you guys apart from everyone else. Now, I had this idea...bear with me...I’m thinking that you guys could cut your foreskins off.”
Abe just stares at him, his anger turning to horror.
“I know it seems a little excessive, but...”
“A little excessive?”
“Dude, trust me – it’s cleaner, you’re dick’ll look bigger, you’ll be less likely to get an STD. There’s really no downside.”
“What about the part where we have to cut off the end of our dicks?”
“Yeah, well, that’s momentary. Think about it long-term. No pain, no gain.”
“Why can’t we just get a tattoo or something?”
God’s like, “Na, man, tattoos are lame. Just get it over with. You’ll be glad you did. Trust me.”
So Abe lines up all his slaves and even sends someone to go get Lot so his nephew can be a part of the bloodbath, too. Once everyone’s in attendance and stripped down to their bare ass, Abe goes along with a knife and just starts lopping off foreskins, one by one. The men scream and protest, begging him to spare their uncut hog. But he’s the king, so they just have to stand there and take it.
Abe’s like, “You think I wanna do this?” – as blood sprays all over his face – “Jesus Christ!” – as he holds a severed flap of skin – “Oh, gross, it’s so slippery and warm...” – as he comes to terms with the sheer barbarity of his situation – “Why, God, why?! Why are you doing this to us?!” – then, pleasantly intrigued – “Wow, never seen that before...” – and finally, confused and angry – “Why are you aroused? What part of this is arousing to you?!”
By the time Abe gets down to Lot, he’s covered in the blood of thirty-odd penises.
He removes Lot’s foreskin with a now-expert hand, and then goes to put the knife away, but Lot’s like, “What about you, man?”
Abe’s like, “What about me?”
“Aren’t you gonna circumcise yourself?”
“I already did.”
“Bullshit. Show me.”
“No, I’m not showing you my dick.”
But Lot doesn’t move. “I’m not leaving until I see a circumcised cock.”
Abe looks around the room and sees all eyes on him. They’re waiting, too. If they weren’t all bent over double or writhing on the floor, clutching their bleeding wangs, it might even be intimidating.
Abe sighs and whips out his decidedly-uncircumcised dick. Trembling from the pain, Lot’s snatches the knife from Abe’s hand and proceeds to take great pleasure in cutting off the king’s foreskin.
When Ishmael is born, Abe circumcises the kid himself. God comes down as he’s doing it and sees this kid, and he’s like, “Who the fuck is that?”
Abe’s like, “What? Ishmael? He’s my son.”
“How the fuck did you have a son? Your wife’s barren.”
“Yeah, I know. You kept t
elling me I was gonna be the father of a great nation, but my wife’s fucking barren, so what was I supposed to do? It was actually Sarah’s idea for me and Hagar to...y’know...”
“You had a baby with the slave girl?” God says, mortified.
“Yeah...why?”
“Jesus fucking Christ...”
God rubs his temples like he’s suddenly got a migraine and Abe goes, “What’s wrong? I found a way to have a kid. You certainly weren’t being any help.”
“You weren’t supposed to come up with a creative solution, you fuck. You were supposed to have faith.”
“Faith?”
“Yeah, y’know...faith. Where you trust that I’m gonna come through for you.”
“Dude, you told me I was never gonna get to live in this great nation that I’m supposed to be the father of. Then, you had me cut the end of my dick off. Forgive me if I’m running a little low on faith at the moment.”
God lets out a long sigh. These fucking humans...
Abe says, “What were you planning to do, anyway?”
“Obviously, I was gonna let Sarah get pregnant.”
Abe throws his hands up. “How is that obvious? You never told me that.”
“No, asshole. That’s where the faith part comes in, you impatient fucking prick.”
“Well, fuck...” Abe says. “So, what now? We just kind of...throw Ishmael in a river or what?”
God is horrified. “Jesus. No.”
“What, then?”
“Just...get your wife pregnant.”
Abe stops. His blood runs cold. A part of him wishes he had to drown the kid instead.
That night, he goes in to see Sarah.
They’re sharing separate beds by this point in the marriage and she’s reading a scroll before lights out. As you do.
She looks up at him when he enters, like, “What the fuck are you doing here?”, but he goes over and sits down beside her.
“Listen...” he says. “I might’ve fucked this whole thing up. Apparently, God meant that you’re the one who would have a son.”
Sarah lowers the scroll, surprised.
“How?” she says.
“I don’t know.”
“Jesus...why’s he gotta be so goddamn mysterious all the time?”
“You’re telling me.”
They stop, and look at each other for a moment.
Sarah’s like, “So...we gotta have sex then, I imagine?”
Abe nods. “Seems to be the case.”
“You sure you can stomach that?” she says, with a smile.
“I’ll try.”
He puts his hand on hers, thinking he’s saying all the right stuff, but judging by the look on Sarah’s face, whatever tender moment they were sharing is gone.
She blows out the candle and they get to work.
Meanwhile, up in heaven, Enoch’s packing a bong while God vents about his day.
“I mean, can you fucking believe that guy? After all the shit I’ve done for him.”
“It’s despicable,” Enoch says, and leans over to take a hit.
God looks at the guy and shakes his head. He’s surrounded by fucking assholes and he’s had just about enough of it.
So he goes down to see Abe and tells him that’s it, the deal’s off.
“Fuck do you mean the deal’s off?” Abe says, mid-way through an orgy with at least fifty other guys.
“I’m sick of this shit,” God says. “You don’t do what I tell you, you bitch, moan and complain. Add to that the fact that you’re clearly gay. You’re just not what I’m looking for in a patriarch.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” says Abe, as he continues to thrust away. “You’re gay.”
“I’m a lot of things,” God says. “But I keep my shit on the down low. You’re too open with it, man, and I can’t have a gay patriarch. It’s not what I’m going for here.”
“What are you going for?”
“You know....husband and wife, kids. The whole ‘nuclear family’-type deal.”
“The what?”
“Never mind, just...look, I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”
He goes to leave, but Abe’s like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold it. What’s gonna happen now?”
“I gotta find a new patriarch. Might go ask Lot if he’s interested.”
Abe’s eyes bulge with anger at the thought. “What about Sarah? She’s fucking pregnant with the kid you forced me to put inside her.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m gonna destroy the city.”
“What?”
“Yeah...remember that whole fire-and-brimstone thing I was telling you about.” He pauses. “That.”
God goes to leave again, but Abe says, “Wait, wait, wait...”, and with some difficulty, removes himself from the orgy. Up until this point, he’d been balls-deep in some guy and now he stands fully-naked before God, pleading for his life.
“Dude, please don’t fucking kill me. I’ll do anything. What do you want, huh? You don’t want me to be gay? Done. I’m not gay anymore.”
“You can’t just switch it off...”
“Yes, I can. I just did.”
“Look, even if I did believe you, it’s not just that. You’re a power-hungry maniac. Not to mention this city’s a fucking rat’s nest of crime and violence and all kinds of evil shit. It’s gotta go, man. And so do you.”
“What if I get rid of all that?” says Abe, growing more and more desperate by the second. “Look, I’ll start with these guys.”
He takes the guy he was just fucking and cuts his throat, drags the body over to God and dumps it at his feet. God has to step backwards to avoid the widening pool of blood.
“See?” says Abe. “Now will you let me live?”
“That doesn’t prove you’re not gay anymore.”
“Sure it does. And it proves that I’m gonna clean up this city. Get rid of all these goddamn queers. Come here, you.”
He takes another guy, cuts his throat, and throws him on top of the first.
God sighs. “Dude...”
“No, wait. How many’s it gonna take? Will you let me live if I kill five of these guys.”
“No.”
“How about ten?” he says, cutting another few throats.
“No.”
“How about twenty? Will you let me live if I kill twenty of these guys?”
And so it goes, until every single one of Abe’s concubines is stacked up in a huge, gruesome pile in front of God.
Exhausted, covered in blood, Abe says, “How about fifty? Will you let me live now?”
God’s just standing there, staring at him. He should be horrified, but he’s seen enough of what humans are willing to do to each other that he’s just kind of speechless. He goes to say something, then thinks better of it. He turns around and leaves.
Standing beside his pile of corpses, Abe calls after him, “Was that a yes?”
GENESIS 19
Burn ‘Em All!
God’s playing Xbox with Raph and Gabe.
The two have patched things up since Raph accused Gabe of sleeping with his wife. Partly, because he found out she’d been sleeping with someone else. Partly, because Gabe had helped Raph get revenge on her and the guy she was banging.
So there they are, playing Call of Duty, when God goes outside for a cigarette and notices something down on earth.
“Oh, Jesus Christ...” he says, and goes back inside.
He tells the guys he’s got a job for them. They bitch, moan and complain, but pretty soon, they’re down on earth, wandering through the gates of Sodom.
It’s here that they meet Lot, who’s been drinking since noon and it’s starting to show. By starting to show, I mean he’s full-blown throwing up in the gutter, slipping over in his own vomit and lying there.
People either laugh or avert their eyes, embarrassed for him. Lot just picks himself up and hurls obscenities at whatever ma
n, woman or child is currently passing by, then slips over again.
By the time Raph and Gabe get there, he’s picking himself up for another round, targeting a guy walking past with his daughter.
“Don’t you fucking look sideways at me, Amos. I’ll kick your ass.”
Amos is like, “Fuck you, man. Get off the street.”
He hustles his daughter along.
She’s like, “What’s wrong with him, daddy?”
“Don’t worry about him, sweetheart. He’s a fucking bum.”
The girl, about six years old, comes up to Lot and kicks him square in the nuts. “Take that, you fucking bum.”
Lot crumples to the ground with a whimper.
Amos laughs. “That’s my girl.”
He gives her a hug and they keep moving, passing Raph and Gabe on their way in.
Amos eyes the strangers up and down, then turns to look back as they approach Lot, writhing in his own vomit. Amos frowns, suspicious.
We’ll get to that.
Raph’s like, “You alright, man?”, and goes to help him up.
Lot smacks his hand away. “Get the fuck off me! I’ll kick your ass, too.”
“Look, I don’t want any...”
But Lot gets right up in his grill, like, “You wanna go?”
And Raph does not wanna go.
The only thing he wants to do is get away from this vomit-drenched maniac. He turns his head away so he doesn’t have to smell the guy. “Jesus Christ...”
Gabe’s like, “Look, man, we just wanna talk to you. We’re on urgent business from the big guy.”
Hearing this, Lot calms a little. “He sent you?”
“Yeah, man. What, you think we wanna be here?”
Back at Lot’s place, they wait while the guy’s daughters clean him up. He sits naked in an old-timey bath while the young ladies scrub every inch of him. There’s something vaguely sexual about it.
Actually, no, scratch that. It’s not vague at all.
They’re very clearly turned on by the act of bathing their dad, going so far as to moan and rub themselves up against him.
Off to the side, Raph and Gabe are super uncomfortable.
They also can’t look away.
Finally, Raph goes, “So, uh...where’s your wife?”
“She left,” Lot says. “Turns out she’s a lesbian.”
“Forget her,” says one of the daughters.