Adam and Eve

(Author's Note: Easily the least original thing I've done. But I hope, at the very least, it was touchingly unoriginal.)

It was his fault he was there.

It was his fault he was in that camp, listening to a preacher cite passages from an old book he had never read. Perhaps he should've--perhaps it was more than just a yellowed tome on his father's bookshelf, growing a beard of dust and looming over him. Watching. Waiting.

"Or do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, 10 nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God." The preacher was fifty, perhaps older, and spoke like he was about to collapse at any moment. He clutched onto the podium, and in that moment, Adam saw himself thirty years later, clutching onto the same podium. Quoting the same verse. Lying, just as he did in the first eight years of his life. "I believe, wholly in my heart, that none of the young people in this room are any of those things. We are children of the Lord, and we shall return to the Lord. Each and every one of us has our spot in heaven." The shuddering preacher rotated around the room, constantly, eyeing the teenagers. "Each and every one of us has a home."

Lying was always the easiest choice.

"Lying only makes more problems, my ass," Vanessa told him when they were sent back to their tents. Adam was, of course, coupled with the girls. He had wished he told his parents about his sexual preferences, as well--being in a tent with three girls is one thing, being in a tent with three good-looking girls who like other girls is another entirely. "I swear, I should've shut the fuck up when I had the chance. You know what my mother said, right after shuttlecocking me into hell?" She tossed her black hair past her shoulders, rolling her eyes up. "You can trust me, sweetheart. Just be yourself!" 

The other girls laughed. Adam wasn't bitter enough for it.

He had cried when they tried to get him to dance with one of the boys in a dress. They could've bought a prettier dress, of course, but apparently femininity was inhumanly ugly--who in the right mind would turn the color of vomit into a dress? Torturous. Somebody call the human rights activists.

"You have to, Anne," the counselor told him, "This is all for your own good. You know you can't keep doing this to yourself."

Adam wrapped his blanket desperately over the tumors on his chest, biting his lip until it bled. "I want to go home," he sobbed. His father stood there, in his mind, snickering. Look there. You really are a girl, he knelt down to his ear, then, whispering hoarsely. No boy would ever cry. "Let me go home."

The girls stood in the distance, watching. The counselor kneeled down on the forest dirt, tugging at his blanket. In the corner of his eye, he saw boys flooding from their side of the forest, being pushed away by the other counselors. There was no longing in their gaze, no infatuation hotter than the pale sun streaming through the canopy. None of them liked girls, anyway. Even if they dressed up like boys. "You will be home, Anne," the counselor told him. "You'll be home with God, up in heaven, Anne. Just put on the dress, Anne."

Anne, Anne, Anne, Anne. Anne could go fuck herself, the harlot couldn't keep a secret if she tried.

What was an identity? It wasn't like it actually mattered to anybody. Sure, it hurt whenever he was called a 'she', and it was like he was a witch during the Salem Witch Trials whenever he was sent to a separate class during sex ed to be taught about the body parts he wanted to eat out, but they were just acrid sentiments. It could've been much worse. He could've just stayed quiet, couldn't he? He could've been his parents' perfect little girl, marry some bum, pop out three kids, go out on midnight trips in a suit and sweep a couple of whores off their feet. It would've been a good life. It would've been a better life, at the very least.

The dress was tight-fitting. The boy who stood in front of him was bald and lanky, wearing a suit and tie that didn't quite fit him, either. He was too pretty to be suicidal. "Evans," he said, not even faking a smile. Adam didn't mind. He didn't want to smile either.

"Anne." He wanted to rip his hair out. "Nice to meet you."

The impromptu ballroom felt like a funeral. The fairy tale marble floors sprouted grass, the chandelier was a crescent moon constantly blocked by black clouds, and the music was the soft pattering of raindrops, not hard enough for the counselors to be worried about the children getting a cold. Adam laid his head against his partners' shoulder, and it felt like some broken form of salvation. "What kind of sinner are you?" he whispered, listlessly. 

Evans moved forward, then he moved back. He was the better dancer of the two, but he wasn't feeling in the mood to do anything spectacular. From the look of the scene, nobody was. "I'm an abomination," he said. "I'm a naysayer."

Adam panned up. "What did you do?"

The look in his eyes said it all. No, not his eyes. Hers. "What's the name of your demon," he said, quietly, "Anne?"

That night, Adam kissed his first girl.

It was a desperate, hasty attempt at love, and he knew it would never last. But there was nothing stopping him. He was a girl, and she was a boy in the eyes of the counselors--they called it a success. Some of them cheered, others patted the two in the back. The others only stared at him, and he knew deep in his heart that he was a traitor to their kind.

Perhaps he didn't care. Perhaps he stood there, taking the praise his counselors were giving him, because he wanted to. "You're a good little girl now, Anne," the one who had ripped away his blanket told him, "You're God's little girl, now."

He was tempted to give God the middle finger, but it wouldn't matter then. It would never matter.

They stood at the podium, the next day, Adam in a skirt and Eve in jeans, side by side with a microphone to their lips. Vanessa glared into him, as if she could melt him if she wanted to. He wasn't sure if Eve had a Vanessa in his life--most of the boys looked too frail to be a Vanessa. "Last night, we were honored with a breakthrough," the old preacher said, his voice withering, "We have our golden couple, here and now. In love, thanks to the grace of God."

Eve crushed his hand in hers. "I don't love you," she whispered.

Adam chuckled.

The preacher turned to them, curiously, before his trembling frame turned to Adam. "Tell us, Anne," he said, "Do you have any words of inspiration to share with us?"

Go to hell. Nice people, warm and cozy. Burritos to die for. Greatest place in the cosmos. "It was tough," he admitted, dominating the stage, "It was excruciating, relatively painful. I was confused. I didn't know who I was. But you know," he looked to Eve, knowingly. "God works in mysterious ways."

The counselors clapped. Some of the boys chipped in. The girls all glared, menacingly, unwilling to shake off the sense of betrayal. 

When the session was done and the sermon delivered, Eve grabbed his shoulder, pulling him away to the silence of the woods. They sat against a bark, then, stiller than the trees. "I'm surprised," Eve laughed. "You didn't lie at all in that speech."

"Well, you know," Adam laid back, crossing his feet together. "The truth is always the easiest thing to say."

There was no heaven that would make them any more content than they were then.