AYJW

Parrot Trick Training

Poicephalus

Parrot Forum

       The porch was a dark, stained mahogany, new and hardly weathered when their secret first began. At night it was bathed in the artificial yellow glow from the overhead lamp, like a spotlight. But on the side of the house,  where the porch was swallowed by the boughs of the crabapple tree, there is was secluded, another universe entirely. That was their world.
       They didn‘t make sense. He drank too much, smoked to much, swore too much, and basically lived a life of excess. She was a straight-A student, National Honor Society, had never even had a boyfriend; she was every parent’s dream daughter. He was her brother’s friend; she scoffed at their habits and past-times. The only place they made sense was the dark side of the porch, that small stretch of world that no one else dared enter, that life that no one else knew about.
       The first night she thought it was an accident of the circumstances. He’d been drinking 90-proof all night, and she hadn’t exactly been her usual withdrawn self. She wore a lace top, entirely see-through, with a camisole underneath, showing just enough skin to feel sexy, but not so much her brothers took notice of her outfit. She’d taken extra care with her hair and makeup, knowing her brothers would be having a party, and knowing he would likely be there. At the time she thought it was innocent enough, a lace blouse and fitted low-rider jeans from the Gap.  And she wasn’t around him much, just to brush by him, barely touching his elbow, or to laugh a tiny giggle at one of his jokes. She wouldn’t respond to any heavy flirting, just subtle glances and body language. Anything else was too obvious and grating for her.
       So she brushed by him, turning just the corners of her mouth up in a slight smirk, lightly sweeping her shoulder against his, and enjoyed feeling his eyes on her as she walked away. No one ever noticed her, usually; it was too difficult to get her to put down whatever it was she was reading at the time: Vonnegut, Steinbeck, Irving. Tonight, the book was gone and in its place was a glowing, beautiful face. So he saw her that night, saw her for who she was, beyond the shelter of imagined worlds, the safety of star-struck crushes and homework. A smile a bit too forced, eyes a bit too weary, skin a bit too pale, a face longing for something, anything, but unwilling to settle for less than the fantasy. He saw this and he wanted to take her hand and make her world better, make her ok.
       When he took her hand and walked her out to the front porch that night, to the quiet isolation of the street, she went without thinking, looking over her shoulder once to make sure her brothers saw her. It didn’t feel good, necessarily, going onto the porch to make her brothers jumpy and anxious, but at the same time it didn’t feel good sitting around a fire and meekly accepting the criticism of her drunk brother and the cold indifference of her stoned brother. So she went with him, expecting nothing more than some slurred speech and maybe an arm around her shoulder. She went onto the porch with him, expecting nothing, and found everything she had been looking for.
       They talked for a long time, always touching, always getting physically closer. It was becoming harder for her to breathe with each passing second. harder to think, harder to keep her hand from finding his. By this time, she could see exactly where this was leading, could see what lay at the end of the path he was blindly stumbling down. Every time she opened her mouth to warn him, to break the spell, the only words that came were silence. And so silence was her enemy, as it had always been her ally, and her words failed her, as always they were bound to do, in the moments when she most longed to speak out in protest.
       It was awkward for her at first, being that close to another person, close enough to feel the energy coursing between them. Her brothers only made things more awkward, checking on her, sending their friends to check on her, threatening him with violence if anything happened to her.
       “I’m a big girl!” she wanted to scream, “I’m old enough to take care of myself and I have forever. Why should things be any different now?” She wanted to hurt them, to make them leave her alone, to make them not care. But she couldn’t. All she could do was slide an inch away from him, pleading him with her eyes to move closer again, knowing she could never disrespect her brothers.
       The kiss seemed accidental, as if he forgot who he was with, what he was doing, where he was. He had asked her to slow dance, and they were standing there, barely moving, pressing themselves against each other, her chin just reaching his shoulder and her cheek resting there, just lightly enough that he could barely feel it. Then he kissed her, drinking her in, feeling her warm against his body. His hand found hers and they stood hugging, just standing close, only touching. She loved the feel of him, his hand on the small of her back, his other hand closed around hers. She loved his hair tickling her cheek, just feeling him with her.
       When it was over, when the world came pouring back into their lives and the distance between them grew, she cursed herself, hating that she had closed her eyes when the end of the road was glaring back at her from reality.  She had turned around, burying herself in him so she did not have to deal with the truth she would eventually face, the way she had dragged him into her private mess of a world. She showered to wash him off her, turned the water up high to burn off his kisses, tears streaming down her cheeks and disappearing down the drain. Scrub as she might, her self-loathing and her longing to feel his arms wrapped around her remained locked firmly in place.
       As  improbable a coupling as it seemed, as many warnings as her brothers issued, as different as they were, they wanted to be together. She never called him and wasn’t offended that he didn’t call her. After every secret midnight tryst, she promised herself that was the end. But he was so tempting, the porch was so familiar now, his arms felt so right wrapped around her waist, and her fingers fit his so well, she couldn’t see what was coming anymore. She convinced herself that what she had foreseen was a mirage, a trick of her own nerves. She knew enough not to rely on anything, not to count on it being there forever, or even often, but she knew that when it was, it worked. Others would have asked her why she cared so much for someone she saw so infrequently, assuming others knew of her relationship. But they didn’t know. In the spirit of their relationship, she kept it secret, existing only in that small portion of the world, only in those small hours when they came together.
       It wasn’t often that they came together, nor was it ever for a very long time. And it never made sense that they did. But it worked. She couldn’t wait for her brothers to have more parties, couldn’t wait until everyone else would be too drunk or stoned to notice when he slipped away, disappeared until the end of the night. She loved him being there with her, feeling his mouth on hers, his hands in hers. She loved the way he looked at her, like she was the only other person in the world, and for him, she was. Months went by, weeks of dull solitude and then a chance to escape into the lives they created, the lives which worked, lives that made sense when brought together. Something in the stars aligned when they were together on that dark, lonely part of the porch. Somewhere the gods looked down at them and smiled, satisfied with their work, if a bit bemused and amazed. Somehow two suns married, a glorious union of power and beauty. For some reason, nothing else mattered by them but the feel of their arms wrapped around each other, the sound of their voices in each others ears. They told each other everything, whispering secrets to the other, sitting wrapped up within each other. And when the morning came stumbling forward, ruining the perfect blackness which enveloped them, when the day came running at them, as inevitable as the night, they parted, never with promises on their lips, but with them buried deep within their hearts. They never spoke of it, but they often thought of it.
       Eventually, as all good things are bound to do, as all perfect things melt away into the heat of the moment, time washed away at them, eroding not their foundations but their lives. While they loved not less, their lives took them even further in opposite directions, towards marriage, jobs, lives that left little room for the idealistic love of youth, such a sweet and perfect blessing. Tempest-tossed oceans grew where before there lay only a river rushing with the tempered currents of society and expectations, crossable, but not too often, for it left the soul weary with struggle and the heart weak with overexertion. The parallel shores lay in eerie synchronicity, plunging them both into lives they felt trapped by, jobs with no futures, marriages without lust or passion. At night as they lay dreaming, they lay upon that darkened porch, side by side. Gods grinned down at them and stars shone brighter in their presence. Two worlds fused, if only for one brief, shining moment, and two hearts cried out to each other across a darkened porch, looking for the love they dropped.