Tainted

What was it that made Adam bite that apple? A beautiful woman in all of her luscious flesh, a coiled snake wrapped sensuously around her waist as she, the woman, bit harshly into the crispness of the apple, the juice flowing down her throat. Did it make him howl? This woman was his, so shouldn't her mistake be his also?

Maybe the woman didn't have a choice after all. I mean, she was drawn from his body, maybe it was his sin, his lust, which coated her naked body with the sweet, tainted apple nectar as it slid down her neck, dripping between her breasts, intermingling with her hair. Maybe it wasn't her fault.

And maybe it wasn't mine.

Man and woman cannot live together peacefully. Sex is too powerful, too harsh, too painful to live inside a neat, sweet cocoon. It's meant to be brash, and bold...to rip out your heart...I can't tell, I do not know how to love peaceably.

Maybe the snake didn't know what it was doing. I know I didn't. But the seduction, the seduction is so important and so addictive that, even though you don't want to, you have too.

Power is as thrilling as it is painful, and once you've felt the pain, felt the rush, you cannot give it up. Not for love, not for hate. No matter what it is that caused you to taste it for the first time, you will never release it.

I never meant to cause you anguish. But when you hurt me, I struck back. After awhile, I enjoyed it. Oh, not your hurt, never that, but the yearning in your eyes. Your tears, as they fell down your face tasted sweet. As sweet as that first bite into an apple.

It's easy; it's so easy to believe the sweet hisses in your ear as they speak of

temptation, as they whisper of knowledge, happiness, fullness, nudity...and the stillness of the sky, when you look for answers promises you nothing. It denies nothing and the moon smiles down. It caresses your face gently, as if it approved.

A beautiful woman is summed up in her eyes. Adam lost that day, lost in the depth and the promises of a woman’s lashes, as they lowered, keeping secrets...keeping lies. Her eyes were the road to perdition, the end of innocence. I bet he went willingly. I know I did.

Sex is more than a physical act. It's an act of fire, an act of will and strength. And lust. You can lose yourself in the lust, in the will and the pain and the burn. It's the burn that lasts the longest, making you ache, making you wish, making you need. Adam had no will without his enchantress; he had promised it to her, handed it to her with a rib.

I bet her smile was velvet.

Enchanted creatures, enchanting even, aren't to be held to blame for what they do. It's the enchantress who holds the power. The sorcerer who carries the blame. I can't promise you I didn't enjoy it, but I can say I never meant it to be that way.

Every time a word pierced the flesh, every time a fist lands its mark, the nectar pours thicker and thicker down her torso, collecting in her pores, pooling at her feet, so thick it looks like blood, but her smile remains, and Adam takes a step forward.

I bet he loved her hair, wild and long, and after he took his first bite, I'm sure he wanted to wrap it around his wrist and jerk her to her knees. A powerful man, Adam, the most powerful the world had ever seen. She would have looked up at him with crystals in her eyes as she dared him to continue. As she begged him to stop. But the crystals would have mesmerized him as they mingled with the nectar.

I'm sure he told himself, told himself and G-d, that she made him do it. Made him want it. Made him take it. She offered him temptation, offered him the darkest of dreams...and then she coated herself in it...coated herself in the lust of an apple, with a serpent her only garment. I'm sure he swore that she asked, maybe even begged. And I'm sure he believed it himself. I wonder if her crystallized eyes ever melted. Did she shed real tears or just stare at him with crystal eyes? She taunted him, just as the serpent had taunted her. And in the same way, she wrapped herself around him, her hair his chain, her arms his prison.

Whether or not she wanted it, whether or not she pushed him to it, she got it all the same. And he became her rib...as they ate together, swallowing each other's sin.

When G-d came to walk with His clay He found crystal instead. Adam was confused and bewildered, ashamed and destroyed...but he wanted to start over, he wanted to taste her nectar, even there in front of his Lord. And she, she smiled the smile of serpents, a velvet heat made to melt.

As she stood, I'm sure the serpent slithered off; it's hissing a strange sort of laugh. And with a toss of her head, she held a man in her eyes. Hard eyes. Crystallized. She tasted her lips before nipping his neck. I bet she knew how to walk in way that makes a man think of silk and screams.

Adam thought of G-d and he thought of snakes. Confused, he had to choose. Following the sway of serpents’ hips, he heard his heart tighten and burst into flames.

She was an enchantress, and she was beautiful enough not to need the truth.

Turning your back on paradise causes pain. A rip, a burn, a tear. It's an ache that reaches so far into you that when it leaves, you hurt more than when it ached. The memory is bittersweet, as tempting to the soul as dried nectar on her flesh is to man. She was injury and she was salvation. And Adam was her vehicle to her own right of way.

Following behind her, he dragged her back to him. I can see his eyes, not crystal, but flame. Searing and scouring the woman that he had chosen, the woman who came from his side. He turned her into hate and love. And she turned him into need.

I wonder if they ever talked the woman of earth and the man of fire. We never did. I imagine that he never melted her crystals, and she never banked his need. Her hair would only be a handle, and his lust only a tool. They didn't trust, for they had come from perfection and weren't allowed to return.

If he left, if he turned back to the Garden and threw her off, would she have followed the serpent? Or would she have stayed, like a whisper, in the back of his head? Calling him out in the middle of the night when his fire was left to its own devices...he was addicted, and she was a perfect drug. Have I drugged you? Or have you drugged me?

Instead, she sings her serpents song...and he replies with a well-timed flame. Forever leads into eternity and we are all born with crystal eyes and burning tongues. Because that's the only way we know how to escape.

I never meant to hurt you, but the struggle is all I know. And as Eve dances for Adam, the flames ignite and my crystal glows.