His lip-line lacks finesse, but He's a Heavenly Body who knows the libido

I'm elbow deep in dirty dishes, savouring the empty house's rare silence when I feel a tap on my shoulder. I jump, scream, swing round.

"Oh God! Don't do that! You nearly gave me a coronary!"

"Sorry," God giggles. He adjusts the hem of his garment - a Versace strapless, boned evening gown - and puts on His unrepentant face: "I shouldn't have given in to temptation."

I gasp the obvious question: "What are You doing here?" God gives the world His tinkly laugh, seats Himself at the kitchen table: "Here, there, everywhere. That's Me." He teases Big Hair, kicks off shiny stilettos, tugs at sheer stockings: "John, are these seams straight?" "Yes. Are You?" "What?"

I can't contain my exasperation: "God, what are You doing here and why are You in ..." I flap my hands about. "Drag," God supplies. "The word is drag." "No, really, is it? Bless my soul." God produces a compact, applies a pat of powder: "Respect for your elders - and your soul - young man."

I fold my arms, assume a stern expression.

God rolls His eyes to Heaven (or, as He prefers to call it, Home): "All right, all right. I'm seeing a teenage transvestite next and I'm ensuring the poor wee lamb's aware that he was created in My image. OK?" "No, not OK. I mean, lime green! You're hardly..." "A Vision?" "Very cute. Can't You find one look and stick with it?" "Maybe this is it." "With those legs? I think not."

God checks his gams: "I guess I could have shaved." "Why are You here?" God is innocence itself: "Oh, no special reason ..."

Fabulous. One of His Moving in a Mysterious Way days.

God coughs, continues airily: "Actually, I heard you were one of the speakers at the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement's 20th anniversary conference at Southwark Cathedral on Saturday ... " "Always the last to know," I mutter. God rushes on: "And I naturally wondered, as One would, what you would be, hmm, huh, talking about."

I know Him so well: "By which You mean, is the subject You?" The tinkle again: "Ha ha ha ... Yes." "Might. Might not." God is Good - he admires the freshly painted ceiling ("Hardly Sistine, but lovely, John, lovely"), flips through Nigel Slater's Real Fast Food - "I told them they couldn't live by bread alone" - and waits. He has the patience of all the saints.

So I confess: "I was thinking of speculating about your sexuality." I look Him up and down: "And apparently not a moment too soon." God clutches his (cultivated) pearls, pretends mock-shock: "You wouldn't!" I agree: "No, I wouldn't." God stands, sways, begins to bump and grind: "Very wise. Being everywhere, I am also - ready for this? - everything. Everything loving and mutually pleasurable, that is." The hips shake. "I play no favourites. Gay, straight, bi, trans-gender, into leather, into lace, age, colour and creed regardless. I am pure libido." He spins, thrusts, punches the air, finally proving that Elvis is not God, but vice versa: "I'm raw sex."

I'm blushing: "Stop that immediately. I mean it. Go and sit down. Really, it's like watching my Aunt Sadie get pissed at the works party." God protests - "Your problem is that you're a puritan" - but returns to the table and elaborately redefines His lip-line.

"What are you going to talk about then?" He asks in that moment before quiet yields to discomfort. "I'm not sure. The subject is Over The Rainbow - what the future holds. And who knows what the future holds?" "I do," God says coyly, peering from under inch-long lashes. I bite: "Are you about to tell me?" God pouts: "Might. Might not." I make Him an offer He won't refuse: "You tell me and I'll tell you what's wrong with your get-up - what will further trouble your teenage transvestite."

God's heart rules His head, as usual: "It's a deal." "You first." "Certainly. The future is what I just said." I clench and unclench my jaw: "And what did You just say?" "About libido. How libido simply is - how it is the same even if it manifests itself in a multitude of ways. That no one manifestation is intrinsically more valuable or moral or better than another. The future is the realisation of that. Promise."

"Are you certain?" God has a glint in His eye: "As certain as an evangelical vicar's wife." "Well, I see no evidence." God is patient - "Look at the current religious hysteria - it's not about you being different any more, not about filthy corrupting queers trolling the margins, consigned to stereotype. It's more and more about you being like them - which is what they smugly demanded, right - and vice versa: wanting to wed, wanting children, wanting partnership rights. Reason is rapidly running out of, well, reasons to exclude. Treating you as Other, or less, is an obviously untenable position, which is why ..." I get it: "Which is why the battle has today shifted to blind faith. The Bible as absolute is the last defence. The final defence."

"Faith," God muses. "One of My favourite words ... until it overtook `intelligence'. Now it generates more hate than light." I say nothing. "Isn't it funny," God sighs, "if they had less faith and more intelligence they would realise they're becoming their own fabricated nightmare - this strange, foul minority that rants, raves, demands everything its own way." God shrugs: "That's their future, that's their fatal flaw. My fatal flaw is ... ?"

I take His hand: "The nails. You want Jungle Red. No one, but no one, is wearing Blazing Fireball." God shrieks, His pride hurt, His plans gone awry: "Bloody Hell! Wait till I get hold of that Mary Magdalene"n