Six Months Later...

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Tebow looked down from his plate of fried shrimp to the teenage girl under the table, her brown hair bobbing, her lips wrapped loose around his cock. This couldn't have been her first time, but her enthusiasm was impressive- she sucked like there was a prize inside.

The girl couldn’t have been any older than fifteen, but if Tebow was being honest he'd peg her closer to thirteen. She had found her way in with one of the whores, slipping beside him when she saw him alone in the booth, and sliding below when she saw he wouldn't strenuously object. And now she was nervous, over vigorous, pretending to enjoy the BJ when it was really just something she had to do, if only for the lifetime lease on the story... He felt filthy, and he knew he was finished.

This girl- whose name was never offered- gagged slightly as his head found the back of her throat, winking to assure him she was alright. He saw the scared bunny behind her eyes and found he could identify. It had been six months since the trade, six months of dirty New York crawling onto his plate, under his skin. Everyone in this city was the same: the introduction was all smiles and praise of his Faith, but each successive interaction was an invitation to Sin, a test of his weakness, a bribe… lying and cheating was the local pastime. He leaned over the table and snorted another white line, cumming, his legs jerking as he sprang, the eighth-grader swallowing for a souvenir.

She left without a word after he declined a kiss, the restaurant empty except for the VIP's, his teammates having the hardcore party in the banquet room. This was Rex’s place, a Red Lobster he had bought outright from his investment group and converted to a suite Satanic for the Jets' private flights. The big man was in the kitchen where a Jamaican waitress had one foot on his belly and the other ankle-deep down his throat. Tebow could hear the Coach’s choked moans through the steel double-door, and it made him so sick he popped in his headphones, pulling up a playlist on the iPod. But now it was more than the thought of naked Rex making him sick… it was everything he had become since coming to New York.

Led Zeppelin in his ears, warning about the levee’s gonna break, and Tim stood up to stretch his legs. A roar from the banquet room got past his earbuds, and he could tell one of the whores had done something spectacular, maybe three guys at once, maybe vomiting back into the bowl, maybe taking another heroic beating from that fucker Sanchez, who had stopped speaking to Tebow after he was benched as starter in Week 2. Fuck. This was not the way it was supposed to be. Six months ago he was living the word of Christ, forgiving, atoning... He had preached God's word every moment, ready to sacrifice himself for Muscular Christianity, those who believed and those who had yet to be saved. A tear fell down his face... six months ago felt like ten years gone.

It was great when he arrived, like a high-speed vacation. Back then it was just cocktails and late-night parties, and every celebrity who wanted to meet him. It didn't take very long for him to learn that these celebrities weren't good people- after the photo op they seemed to take a special joy in corrupting him, in staining him as payment for his fame, the way they had all been stained in paying for their own. Robert DeNiro had been one exception- a quiet man and actual human being- but the rest all slipped him something: pills, pipes, potions… until eventually getting high became understood. It was during one of those spinning binges when some fuck from the Isle of Manhattan pried his Amanda from his side and screwed her in an upstairs bathroom. That was why she had the abortion, and that was why she and Tim were no longer engaged.

It had been almost three months since he had seen her, three months since he had talked with Jesus. Tebow looked at the framed photos on the wall: grinning athletes who had the luxury of never knowing God. You can't be a martyr if no one wants you dead, and in a strange way it sickened him that not even the media in this town would expose his hypocrisy or reveal what he had become. They were just PR men on the team’s indirect payroll, all part of the same shit machine. If the fans could see their team right now, or their Coach, or their quarterback, they just might have a heart attack… or maybe they just wouldn’t care. Maybe no one cared about anything anymore.

Tebow said aloud, in spite of himself: “I’m going down,” and then he had a sudden, lucid thought: If he couldn’t be the Messiah he could be the Antichrist. He could bring Death to the wicked and let God judge their souls.

"And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life"

Matthew 25:46

He smiled just thinking about it, the holy organ of Zep’s “Your Time Is Gonna Come” filling his ears, inspiring…

And with that, dazed and determined, the mescaline just entering his bloodstream, Tebow took the 9mm Speer he had gotten as a gift from Jay-Z and Beyonce and walked from the darkness of the restaurant into the blinding white light of a Thursday afternoon.

He slipped the loaded gun in his pocket, wiping the sweat from his temples. It was only a ten-minute drive to the SNY studios and Amanda’s place was walking distance from there. He’d get out to Bristol later that day, if his mission wasn't completed by then.