In the Garden

You liked to call me 'Eve' when the lights went out.

We would romp together, caught in the smothering darkness that rolled us together and apart like a memory of memories. Somehow the darkness made it all better, allowed us to smile and pounce and kiss like there had never been anything or anyone between us. Let us forget that if it weren't for the darkness outside, we wouldn't be together.

I remember how you liked to pin me to the bed. I could feel you smiling above me, the expression somehow more honest and real when not tortured by the light, and would always reach up and pull you down. You would gasp then, the remnants of your innocence rushing out to brush against my lips. So I would kiss you and smile while doing so, ignoring our tears.

You whispered the name, 'Eve,' to me at night, and between layers of satin we would reenact Creation. You were my Adam, though I never called you that. The name stuck in my throat, worse than 'Eve' did in my ears; you were never anyone but Harry to me, even as you ran from yourself, ran from us.

Sometimes you would run your fingers along my thighs, testing their curves with your calluses, and it was never a surprise when you pulled me near and pressed your mouth up, in. I think it would startle you to know I never liked that; that your lips between my legs were nothing but an invasion. Less than a pleasure but not quite pain as you bludgeoned me with your tongue. I suppose I could have helped you, taught you; but there was no reason for it.

'Eve,' you called me, and Eve you thought me to be, trapped in your garden as the world outside cycled through death and birth, every passing second a new apocalypse. But we were too caught up in our grief, too encapsulated in our fantasy of immortality to notice the seasons shift and people leave. Sadness was the god that had sculpted us, pain the doors that barred our path, and we wallowed in the Garden, unwilling to let go of then and him.

I think it was in our sixth year together when I noticed the change, finally saw the marks you'd leave on my skin from clutching me too tight. It was like I woke up one day (the day of his death) and realized that his picture on the mantle was only that. Not a shrine or a symbol or a God to be worshipped. Just him, just Ron, now long dead and gone though you'd never have known it from our actions. He smiled at me, framed in cherry wood, and it was nothing more than a beloved echo, though his cheeks were capped in red as he clutched us to him.

That night you whispered 'Eve' to my belly, worshipping the cauldron of my sex, and I had to keep myself from clawing you away. You took your due as always, but it was never enough to fill you up. And for all that you filled me I was never anything but hollow. You emptied me with your demands, leeched away the 'me' that was left until I knew that if you continued I would become Eve in truth.

So I left. I packed my bags and walked out the door, shoving past you as you refused to let me go. You shook and grabbed at my arm, saying that you needed me, loved me- couldn't live without me. The lies dropped from your horrified lips, their hollow masquerade finally revealed, and I left. I kissed you on the cheek and left, knowing you would stand and watch me leave, knowing how your cheek must burn. My lips burned.

You used to call me 'Eve' and wrap your hands in my hair, mumbling things about schooldays half forgotten (forcibly repressed). Then you would draw me over and onto you and, hiding yourself in its fall, talk about waterfalls and silk and perfume of roses as your fingers caught in its knots and snags. You loved my hair, loved it like a symbol or a cross and it was the easiest thing in the world to cut it all off. It tickles at my jaw now and brushes at my lips and the back of my neck (which is cold more often than not). I left you the braid, beside Ron's photograph, but I don't doubt it's gone now, thrown away or burned like all of the things I left behind.

I see you around; it's hard not to in our positions. And you seem happy now, happier than you were with me, at least. I can only hope your second wife is better for you than your first- healthier and warmer and more giving. Because I could never give you what you needed, was never truly able to become your Eve. I never wanted to. So when she comes to see you at work I smile, if a bit pityingly, and watch as you run your fingers through her long hair, whispering things of waterfalls and burnished copper and perfume of violets. I watch her lean into you and wonder if you call her 'Eve,' if she welcomes your lips between her legs. I see how she bends to you, bowing under your will, and I know.

In days past you liked to call me 'Eve.' It was a pretty conceit and shallow, because we both knew that I could never truly be your Eve. And, to be honest, I would never want to be. I am too free, too myself, and neither Ron nor you could ever change that. I am beyond gods and men, and am proud of it.

So here I sit, staring out through my office window into the rain and watch you two huddle under an umbrella, giggling innocence as lamplight makes monsters of your shadows. I do not envy you her limpid gaze, or she your tender kisses. Instead I look out the window, past you both, and wait for the coming of my fallen angel.

I am not Eve, but you may call me Lilith.