Silhouette of an Owl

A barn owl swept through the sky; its silhouette, for a moment, blocked out our view of the moon through the skylight. I sighed with the beauty of it all. The night sky was lit up by the moon and stars above our heads. Candlelight flickered on the wood-paneled walls. My lover sighed as she nestled further in my arms.

The sight of the owl nagged at me. There was some symbolism to owls that I couldn’t quite remember.

I turned my head and breathed in the sweet scent of Phoebe’s brunette hair. I kissed her cheek. She awoke and turned to me with a smile.

This time was so precious. We both knew our time together was limited and that it would have an end. We both knew that the end would probably come sooner than either of us would like. That’s what happens when you fall in love with the other girl your ex-boyfriend dated.

Phoebe was so lovely and she had no idea. In the candlelight, she nuzzled my nose as I embraced her. We were wearing nothing but the sheets in this borrowed room. We only had a few nights before I returned home across the country and they needed to count.

As my hands lovingly traced a line down her back, she practically purred. Her blue eyes were practically luminescent, looking at me with such desire. I’d never seen blue so piercing or so beautiful. No wonder he loved had loved her.

Phoebe was so self-conscious of her body. As her lips met mine, I wondered how I could make her more comfortable in her own skin. I know that my own self-conscious hatred of certain parts of my body – like the stubborn fat on the lower part of my abdomen – had simply melted away when I found out how lovely Phoebe’s body was. We are all programmed to have such a critical view of our own bodies, but it wasn’t until I saw Phoebe’s that I learned that was all foolishness. Women are lovely beings in their entirety. Phoebe’s stretch marks from her two pregnancies didn’t make her any less lovely or absolutely wondrous. She was a wonder to me.

She had brought the candles. I wasn’t experienced enough – I had only slept with two men before her – to have perfected the art of lovemaking. She had perfected it. But neither of us had ever been with another woman before one another.

I kissed down the soft, silky skin of Phoebe’s neck as I remembered the first time I had done so. The candlelight had been the same. Phoebe had been trying to seduce him one last time. She and I had gotten drinks that night, and he was supposed to stay with me that night before I left town. Within a week, he was going to be following me. By that point, they hadn’t slept together in months; Phoebe was desperate. She loved him in a way that he had never loved her. Now I felt for her. I knew they weren’t right for each other, but now her pain was mine. But back then… back then, I had simply been trying to understand.

My dad, riddled with cancer, had been in surgery that fateful night Phoebe and I got drinks. Despondent as I was, she invited me to stay over with her, should I want to. I needed the comfort. And when Phoebe proposed a threesome – since he was supposed to stay with me that night anyways – I readily agreed. Phoebe and I had already had hilarious, passionate conversations about our respective sexual encounters and I already felt that I knew her better than I ever had any woman.

When we three got to her place, she showed me around, as I had never seen Phoebe’s house before. She light several candles and proceeded to hug me and hold me as the lights went off. He, of course, had stayed over countless times before. The nudge of jealousy told me not to think of how many times he had slept in this very bed with Phoebe before.

By the time he had climbed into bed, both Phoebe and I had noticed that each of our breathing had become more shallow. I’d never had this feeling before with another woman. I don’t even remember how, but I do remember that first kiss had been the spark of firecrackers shooting into the night sky. It was luminous and joyful and free. Within moments, we couldn’t get enough of each other. By the time Phoebe and I broke away from that first kiss that fateful night, we both knew we were lovers.

And now, here we were a month and a half later. We only had a few sacred nights and we had to make the most of it.

Phoebe assured me she had never felt this way about another woman. I never had either. But here we were, gifts of phoenix necklaces and love letter exchanges down the road, kissing passionately in the glow of the moon and stars and the tiny fires of candles surrounding us. And as much as neither of us wanted to admit it, we both knew it wouldn’t last.

I didn’t live here. She couldn’t move. She had children in school, and I had a job and a life across the country. Regardless, we had planned. What if she sold her house? She had been planning on it anyways. What if we moved to Houston together? I knew there were marine law jobs there. It was the one of the six largest port cities in the country.

We hadn’t said the words “I love you” yet, but they had almost slipped out a few times. I know what I felt, and it was love.

Her lips moving down on my body brought me back to my senses. God, she was beautiful. She had no idea how beautiful she really was. Those eyes, that hair, that body. Her mind was sharp and its curves and corners were just as wondrous to me as her body. I loved her like I had never loved before.

We made love multiple times that night, under the stars.

Just as the dawn was breaking, I remembered what the symbolism of an owl meant. Owls warn of death. In this case, our owl could only warn of the death of our relationship. Little did I know then that Phoebe and I would never hold one another again. But I would never stop loving her.