There they were, newly created, naked and terrified in the Garden of Eden.
Strange cries emerged from the treetops, glittering eyes watched them from the darkness between the trees, and formless creatures lurked in the waters. The rich vegetation was no less threatening: sharp thorns pricked Eve's soft, unblemished skin; flowers exuded mysterious and soporific scents; the poison of a brightly-colored berry put Adam to sleep until he was awakened by the stings of fire ants.
Eden was no place for innocents.
Their Creator offered no assurances; He was too busy in those first days, creating the stars, the thunder, the rolling hills, the purple mist that lingered over the distant mountaintops, and the gold-tinged clouds at dusk.
Adam's first sight of Eve gave him pause, for she was a beauty. Gossamer hair fanned down past her shoulders; her eyes were a warm walnut brown; her lips round and sweet; her figure small with broad hips and small breasts. When he followed her through a bamboo maze, she eluded him in a few strides, vanishing into the dappled shadows, trembling, arms drawn tightly together, eyes wide and anxious.
After observing him from a distance, however, Eve became equally taken with Adam: his shoulders were so broad, his smooth torso descending to rounded, muscular cheeks and strong thighs. In spite of her attraction, however, she was cautious.
She asked God about the creature who followed her through the garden, and He laughed, and told her that she had nothing to fear, that he had been created to be her companion.
"To love and cherish?" she asked.
"Oh no," He replied with a frown. "Love and cherish Me, and Me only. I made Adam merely to keep you company while I attend to all my other creations."
When Adam asked the same question, God gave the same answer.
And so they kept company, neither speaking, nor letting the other out of sight, eating together by the fruit trees, making their beds in neighboring coves of dried grass while all around them the birds sang of courtship and the wild cats howled and moaned their passion in the darkness.
The trees and plants in Eden had their own motives just as the birds and beasts did. Some were predatory; they lured creatures to their deaths with narcotic fragrances and thorny embraces. Others sought more peculiar delights--the Tree of Knowledge, for example, inspired the most painful yearning in its victim. A solitary sloth climbed the tree, took one bite of one of its apples, and died instantly of despair and loneliness.
When Eve happened upon the tree, its branches reached out to her, offering fruit of the most pungent and hypnotic scent. She plucked one and turned the apple in her fingers. It set her pulse racing. She stole a bite; suddenly her skin felt prickly, then fiery, then chillingly cold and a strange new hunger filled her heart--a maddening void--full of yearning and frantic wishfulness.
Barely three steps away, Adam noticed the change in Eve. Her breast rose and fell with halting breaths, her cheeks flushed, her lips paled, and her eyes became wild and imploring. He asked if she was hurt; all she could do was extend the apple to him. He took a bite, and almost immediately felt the same awful and intense desperation. Desire was a new, unnatural feeling. He wanted her now, and kissed her on a spot below her ear. Eve gasped as he touched her in other places; then Adam cried out at the change occurring between his legs; and in the next instant, they fell upon each other.
The Tree of Knowledge began to flower as this was going on--enormous fleshlike blooms that sprayed a powerful mist into the air until the garden felt torrid and thick with desire. As the sun plunged down through the trees, turning a molten red, the moans and cries in the forest became fiercer and more wild than ever before; but the loudest cries came from the place where Adam and Eve lay.
Provoked by that perverse apple, they made love in a dozen different ways. They imitated the animals, the hare, the bull and the mantis, and the animals imitated them. The tree seemed to derive satisfaction from their union; its blooms retracted and its branches and roots extended miles in every direction, declaring dominion over Paradise. Adam and Eve lay in each other's arms, sated, spent, and sublimely happy, for they both felt they would have died of despair if not for the presence of the other.
At dawn, however, God came walking through the garden and noticed that the delicate balance between all his living creations had been upset. His earthly dominion had been sabotaged.
He came to a halt at the Tree of Knowledge, stared at its grotesque proportions: the thick gnarled branches extended to the most distant perimeter of creation. He winced at the gaudy fruits which overpowered His gentle hibiscus and sweet jasmine. At His feet, the roots of this hideous tree had plowed the soil, upsetting the gentle rolling meadows and pushing lesser trees askew. Finally, he noticed Adam and Eve asleep beneath its shade, arm in arm, smiles on their faces. Now His fury boiled.
They had promised to cherish only Him. And here they were, nestled together, in defiance of his One Rule. He wept over Eve's body, her perfect skin marred with blemishes caused by Adam's passion and His anger gave vent.
He roared and the skies darkened. He split the enormous tree from the trunk down to its roots, and Eden began to crumble, birds took flight, and animals fled in terror. He put his hands upon Adam and Eve and wiped from their memories all evidence of their evening, leaving them ignorant of the pleasure they had discovered together. He cursed the act of love with a thousand complications: shame, doubt, suspicion, betrayal and pregnancy. To Eve, he spitefully added the agony of labor, to Adam, the bitter envy of creation.
And so it was that God blasted paradise and left them in a harsher world where they would live out their days puzzling the purpose of their lives--for their original purpose, to please him, was lost.