This is an almost-romantic piece of fiction for Valentine's Day.

Michele looked at the reflection of her naked body in the mirror before drying off. It glistened until the mirror blurred with steam. Feeling empty and without opinion, she examined the silhouetted contours of her figure.

Wiping the mirror with a towel, she gazed a moment longer at the quality of her skin, and sag of her breasts. What was once strident with life had given in to use and time. Pinkish lines directed the eye to where life begins… to what Eve made.

Well over twenty years it had been since initiation, and probably decades to go still on this holy and disruptive journey. Expulsed from Eden at seventeen, Michele wondered what this history meant…if anything at all.

Frightened she’d been on the night she was inducted. Though she trembled, she quickly learned there was nothing to be afraid of. Part of her, as some part of everyone, was designed for this.

Beyond the act, she learned what no one ever mentions: what it’s really like to be in love. It is to be so vulnerable she cringed to think of it.

The first boy wasn’t the one she’d marry, of course, and many lovers later, she found who she was sure she’d love forever. Soon, they went forth and multiplied. Conception came easily, and her mate and she rejoiced in their fertility. After months of growing like a pumpkin, she’d birthed three babies in anguish and exhaustion, only to discover unimaginable fatigue caring for all of them.

Childrearing was a harvest of gourds a mother’s forced to carry on her back.

But babies grow into children, and children go to school. Soon the gentle rhythm of family life lulled her into sleep; until things changed again.

The man with her now, the one slumbering in the next room, was not her spouse, as she had expected it would be at her age. Her husband left for another. At first enraged at his leaving, she found defeat had its advantages, too. Re-partnering was just part of the experience, and to believe differently was naïve, she thought.

Dried off, she went through her lover’s cabinet drawers to find something to untangle her hair. Scraping a comb through dark, unruly locks, she grimaced. At home she’d use a brush. The shampoo here made her hair dry. The toothpaste tasted bad to her. Everything about the bathroom was wrong, she thought with irritation. Wanting to go home to her shampoo and dry off with a towel that smelled like her detergent, she thought of what to tell him.

Smiling into her foggy reflection, she was amused at how inflexible she’d grown with age. Twenty years ago, she would’ve been impressed if the guy had clean towels and shampoo at all. Now, she was put out at generic brands. Shaking off rigidity, she opened the bathroom door. Studying the man beneath the sheets, she felt warmth towards him, and something approaching kindness.

With ruffled hair and sleepy eyes, he roused at her stare. He held out a hand. Though crow’s feet framed his eyes and gray salted his beard, he reminded her of her first. Something guileless and true emanated from his expression. A languid moment passed between them.

Had Eve known what she was getting her daughters and granddaughters into, would she have listened to that damned snake? Whose fault was it she spoke parseltongue? Michele mused, but didn’t know the answers, and so she climbed back into bed.

Her shampoo and Tide-laundered towels could wait.

"What Eve Made," Maureen J Andrade, 2012