Author's Notes
This was written a long time ago in some kind of haze. I think I was planning on doing more with it at one point, but after reading over it, I've decided I quite like it the way it is.
The Key
By Persephone's Nautical Nun
I turn the key over and over in my hands, the metal long since having warmed to my body heat. The grooves are leaving tiny marks in my fingertips. I drag my fingernail through the horizontal groove running along the length of the key. I could identify it based on feel alone.
It's not on a keychain. It doesn't need one. It's its own entity, and I like it that way. It will forever be kept separate from my other keys. They're keys that go to useless things, like my car, or front door.
She gave it to me a while back, but I can't bring myself to use it. The implications are too much to bear.
My mouth is dry, and I slide the key between my teeth, letting the metal help water my tongue. The metallic taste excites me, and I can't help but run my tongue along the grooves my fingers traced just moments before, reveling in the tiny pain I get from pressing against them a little too hard.
My feet are cold from the rain. It seems odd that my feet are the only things cold, regardless of the fact that I'm completely soaked. There are a few drops of water clinging to my bangs, and I'm sure that if I leave them there, they'll freeze. I'm somehow okay with that.
I make it up a flight of stairs and slide the key into a lock, surprised at how easily it fits, and how I didn't fumble with it, even though this is my first time using it. I don't know if it'll be my last time. I don't even know if I want it to be.
“I knew you'd come eventually,” I hear her say before I even get the door open. Her voice is cheerful, but soft and serious at the same time. I step inside just enough to close the door behind me, and I hate myself for getting her apartment wet as water drips from my jeans.
“Jesus, you're soaking.” Her voice has switched over to concern, and my legs buckle beneath me. I'm aware of my knees hitting linoleum, but I can't seem to feel the pain that should be shooting through my limbs. My head is bowed, and my back is arched at an almost impossible angle, and I know I must look like a sacrifice to a god.
I see her feet in front of me, and I can imagine a small smile on her face. Somehow, my body lowers even further and a fist slams into the floor. I think I want the floor to give way to my force, but it doesn't, and a sharp pain flies through my upper body. Arms are suddenly around me, and my head is being cradled in her warm lap.
The tears that I didn't know were building come freely as she rocks me back and forth. Her hand is on my face, pushing the soaked hair from my eyes and forehead, and she's mumbling something in my ear. I have no idea what it is, but it calms me down enough to raise my arm to her.
She cradles my silent offering in her hands, gingerly rolling up my sleeves to reveal deliberate cuts, and smeared blood along my forearm. I expect a gasp, or some other form of negative reaction, but get none, and I find that I've never been more thankful of anything. Her fingers are tracing the fresh wounds, and the contact makes my tears stop, as if her fingers were closing my wounds, and my eyes dried as the bleeding stopped.
We stay like that for seconds, minutes, hours, days. It doesn't matter. Time has no bearing here. I lose track of it as easily as I lose track of how many breaths I take in a day.
Her arms never leave me as I'm picked up and moved into the bathroom. Logically, I had to have walked, but I have no recollection of it. Maybe she is strong enough to carry us both. My face is pressed against the mirror, and my eyes are closed, soaking up the coolness of the glass, and the warmth of her skin at the same time. There's a rag gently rubbing my arm, and I know she's washing my sins away.
And, then I'm in a mess of blankets, and pillows, and arms, and legs, and I realize that I need this. I need to be held, and touched, and treated as though I'm a normal person, regardless of how much I don't want to be.
