— Fiction —

I Am Tom Cruise, and I Love Women

“She’s an extraordinary woman … a very, very special woman … When I’m into my woman, I want to know about my woman.”

—Tom Cruise, on his new girlfriend,
26-year-old actress Katie Holmes, on Oprah

“I love this woman … This woman is magnificent.”

—Tom Cruise on Access Hollywood

“This is my woman … I want to share my life with this woman; this woman is exceptional.”

—Tom Cruise on MTV’s special All Eyes on Tom Cruise

“They smell good. They look pretty. I love women. I do.”

—Tom Cruise in Reader’s Digest

Oh, man, do I love Katie Holmes, who is a woman. And I also love women, in general. Imagine the Beastie Boys’ song “Girls,” but change the title to “Women,” and replace the word “girls” each time it’s used with “women,” and you’ll start to have an idea of how I feel about women. Although now I’m a one-woman kind of man. Because, for me, a man, Katie Holmes is the one woman.

Some cynics out there think this is a publicity stunt to cover up some unsavory allegations about my supposed liaisons with male porn actors, or just to drum up interest for my new movie, War of the Worlds, and Katie’s role in the new Batman. But I think it’s simply fate that our films are being released within two weeks of each other on June 15 and June 29. And it’s also fate that she’s a woman and I’m a man. Think about it: What if Katie were still who she is as a person, but was instead born a man? That would be … horrible. Really, really horrible. Thank God she has XX chromosomes, which are the only kind I like. Not XY, which is non-woman, or XXX, which I believe stands for pornography and is not something I’m familiar with.

Nor is our pure, completely unforced romance an attempt to divert attention in secular Hollywood from my increasing involvement with the Church of Scientology. Scientology is a scientifically proven way to help you surmount challenges, like when they helped me overcome illiteracy and cured my flaming hom— my homunculus complex. By giving me lifts for my motorcycle boots. I ride motorcycles and fly jets, by the way, which is totally unwomanly and, logically, is the opposite: manly. As for the outlandish accusations that Scientology is a cult—well, that’s as ridiculous as believing in the Big Bang and a universe based on quantifiable physical characteristics rather than in MEST (matter, energy, space, and time) as a subjective mental construct of Thetan emanations. I mean, woman-Katie isn’t even a Scientologist. Yet.

Besides, we have mutual respect for each other’s craft. She grew up wanting to marry me—when Risky Business came out she was just a four-year-old woman, how cute is that? And I’ve been a big fan of hers since she was on “Dawson’s Place, 90210.” The other day I showed her a bunch of clips from my old movies. My favorites were when I took on the role of a cocky yet charming fighter pilot in Top Gun and played beach volleyball with the shirtless, oiled-up pilots, and when I was the brash but winning bartender in Cocktail and hung out all the time with that older bartender dude, and when I really showed my Method chops as the overconfident though likeable huckster in Rain Man and slow-danced with Dustin Hoffman. And then there are those movies in which I somehow get sucked into an insidious, powerful cult, like in The Firm, where I’m a victim; Eyes Wide Shut, where I’m an innocent; and Magnolia, where I’m the leader. Who comes up with this crazy stuff? Not L. Ron Hubbard, whose philosophies were rational and humanitarian and based around vitamins as the panacea for all physical and mental ailments, I’ll tell you that! And if he did and the screenwriters of these films stole his ideas, we’ll sue them!

Katie’s pledged to remain a virgin woman until marriage, which I really respect and am grateful for, since that means I won’t have to do anything repellent. To her sense of purity and honor, I mean.

I’m ready to fall in love with a woman again. Nicole and I just didn’t work out—she was way too straight. Laced. Totally straitlaced.

Now watch me smile incessantly and laugh at my own jokes!

So, to sum up: I love all women; Katie Holmes is a woman; therefore, by the transitive property, I love Katie Hol—oh, fuck it. Katie, this is Teddy Wayne, not Tom Cruise. Forget this paparazzi-manufactured affair. I may not be a weirdly hyperactive, middle age-defying Hollywood icon, but I can give you two things he can’t: no coerced entrance into pseudoscientific clandestine organizations, and an unblemished track record of zero alleged sexual encounters with male porn actors. That may not compare to private jets and getaways in Rome, but sometimes—just sometimes—it’s enough to build a meaningful relationship with a woman, which I hear you are.