K's Keys

1.

For about a week now she's had this new little thing going on with a guy from work. Nothing much yet. They've only had coffee together a couple times. Some good long talks, and a little bit of kissing at the end ... He's pretty strongly into her and he's been real up front about that. Not pushy, but there's no iffy wishy-washyness like you get from dudes so many times. He's had a big crush on her since they first met. Definitely wants in her pants, and she's feeling fairly inclined to let that happen sometime pretty soon, provided he doesn't mess things up before she's decided she's ready. And scoring isn't all he wants. This guy wants a real girlfriend, and he wants it to be her. She just has to how figure out how far she wants to let this progress. Still not sure. She's ended up the iffy wishy-washy one, this time around.

In other circumstances, she'd give him a shot, like he wants. She'd be perfectly willing to take the boy for a test drive. Not just as a fling but as potential boyfriend material. Thing is, she's not exactly available for that. There are two issues, standing in the way.

Issue One ... She already has boyfriend, sort of. She's been dating another guy the last couple months, a guy she met in her grad program. It's nothing very serious—that's why she doesn't feel too bad about starting to see this other guy a little bit too. K never really got much fired up in the older relationship. Pretty much just been going through the proverbial motions, hoping things would improve as they went along. Usually they do ... she's never been the kind of person to go crazy about a guy, right off the bat. Starting new relationships is almost always a very slow and awkward process for her. A lot of hesitation and second-guessing goes on. Her feelings either gradually stabilize, or fizzle out altogether. This last relationship has ended up as one of the fizzlers. Only on her end, though. The guy hasn't realized it yet. Poor clueless fucker. He seems perfectly happy with how things have been going.

Then there's Issue Two, which is the fact that in another month and a half, she's leaving the country for most of the summer. She's kept putting off endings things with the current boyfriend because when it's time for her to leave, that's pretty much gonna take care of the whole sorry business anyway. Without her having to say anything hurtful.

Only at the same time it will also squash anything substantial that's started to grow between her and this other guy from work. His name's Graham.

Wonderful timing, huh?

The best, cleanest plan is just not to let anything substantial get going with the new guy. Not to say nothing can happen at all. She just better make sure it doesn't get out of hand, if anything does. Whatever goes on can't get too serious or too intense.

K did not expect that to become a problem, when she agreed to have a coffee with him. She never got serious or intense feelings about anybody, not this quick. Not even if she was really physically attracted to someone. That was a completely separate kind of deal.

2.

She was supposed to have met him at the theatre that evening. They were gonna see some foreign vampire movie together. She didn't know much about it—hadn't seen the trailer or anything. Graham was pretty excited about it. Told her it was supposed to be a big deal, far as that kind of shit went. A new take on the genre, whatever that meant. So whatever. She'd go see it with him.

Only it didn't work out. She had to stand him up. Didn't mean to. Just too much other stuff going on that day ... including a fight with her kind-of boyfriend. Who had decided to try to make things more officialized between them, all the sudden. Or actually—this was the really infuriating part—he seemed to have assumed they already were, and always had been. And then didn't take it very well when she objected to this opinion. He'd bought her a fancy locket, too. Hoping she'd wear it the whole time she was gone on her big trip, and stay committed to him. When she'd never considered herself properly committed to him like that in the first place. Or him to her. It wasn't supposed to have been that kind of thing they had going. Except somehow he hadn't noticed.

So yeah. That was a real fun discussion. Ate up her whole day.

By the time she got away from there, the movie was two thirds over. She drove around in random circles until it was done. Listening to a lot of loud music and pretty much hating the universe. Finally Graham texted her that he was out of the building, on his way home, if she wanted to talk "at some point". She knew he was walking—had to, 'cause he didn't have a car. Lived like a half hour trudge from the theatre. She found him real easy, five minutes later. Picked him up to take him the rest of the way back to his place. Didn't intend to stay with him long. Wanted to be alone the rest of the night and just think. Well, more like fume. But she'd take the few minutes during the drive to apologize and explain what had happened. He deserved to know what was up with her. Didn't want him thinking she deliberately ditched him or just flaked out and forgot 'cause she didn't give a shit about him. 'Cause she did, was the thing. Kind of wished she didn't, but it was looking more and more like she really did.

Dammit.

Only then she couldn't say anything. Couldn't find the right words to get started. Just let him rattle on and on about the vampire movie, the parts he thought she would have dug and the parts he thought she wouldn't. And then they were pulling up outside his apartment. She hadn't said sorry or explained anything. Completely choked. While he kept acting like absolutely nothing was wrong.

It was sort of nice, sort of ideal and sort of horrible. All at fucking once.

She shut her car off and looked at him. He frowned at her thoughtfully for a moment, and then shrugged and just swooped on over real sudden and aggressive and smooched her. Fine then. She let him keep doing that. They kissed and kissed for several minutes.

Not real hot and heavy, though. They didn't suck face. It was just light and easy and nice. Like nothing was wrong, nothing was riding on it, one way or another. Like they were just kissing because kissing was nice to do, and that was all. Like that was all it needed to be. If only that were true.

Then finally he pulled back and said good night and thanks for the lift and got out of the car.

It wasn't 'til after she'd watched him go inside and went to start her engine that she saw her keys were gone. He must have nabbed them from the steering column while they were kissing. The whole set.

So she couldn't leave yet. She was gonna have to go up there to his apartment. Get them back.

Well fuck. She knew it was only a lame spur-of-the-moment joke. He was messing with her to try to keep her mind off serious and shitty things a few more minutes longer. And possibly give her another chance to talk it all over, if that was what she decided she wanted. Still, that fucker. The effrontery! She was gonna have to kick his ass when she got in there.

3.

"Why would I want to let you have them back?" Graham said, "What's in it for me? If I hand over the keys, you'll leave and go home. Then I'll be sitting here all by himself again. Like I was in the movie. Lonely and forlorn."

"I'm sorry about that," she said, "I'll try to make it up to you."

"Good."

"Except maybe I won't. Maybe you don't deserve that anymore. Stealing my keys wasn't a very nice thing to do."

"Standing me up wasn't very nice either. Makes us even."

"Fine. If we're even, you can give them back now."

"I don't think so. Not gonna be that easy."

"Well, what's it gonna take then?"

"I'll trade you for them. Fair exchange."

"Trade them for what?"

"That's the question, isn't it? Lemme see now. How many keys we got here? Looks like half a dozen or so." He counted them quickly. "Yep. Six keys."

In addition to the car key, there was the other extra car key the dealer gave you that either opened the trunk without letting you start the engine, or started the engine without letting you open the trunk—she could never remember which, 'cause she never actually used the damn thing. Then of course there was her apartment key, and her mailbox key. And the key to her parents' house. That made five. So what was the fucking sixth key? Oh yeah—it was for the storage cage in the basement of her apartment building. Again, she never used that one. Didn't like storing stuff in basements. Shit always got moldy and ruined, when you did that. Happened to a whole bunch of her favorite books from when she was little. Never forgave her mom for that one.

"I only really need the car key," she announced, "You can hang on to the rest, if you want." She had a spare key to her front door hidden next to it inside the porch light, and replacements for all the rest in a drawer in her kitchen.

"But how can I tell which key is for your car? It's too dimly lit in here."

"So turn on that other lamp next to you."

"No, that'll hurt my eyes. It's much too bright. I never use that lamp."

"Got an answer for everything, don'tcha?"

"I do my best. Let's keep your keys together. Package deal. Pain in the ass anyway, picking individual ones off the ring. So, six items. That's what you're gonna have to give me. Six for six."

"Six what's? Six dollars? I don't have any cash on me."

"I'm not interested in cash. I want you to give me six items of clothing. Paired item like shoes count as one. And accessories don't count at all."

"Why not? That's not fair."

"Well, it'll let you win too easy. Girls always have plenty of accessories. Your headband, your earrings, your bracelets, your necklace. Heck, including your glasses, you'd just about end the game right there, without uncovering any more skin. Oh fuck, you've got a belt on too, haven't you? See what I mean? No good. But I'll tell you what—just 'cause I'm such a nice guy and I like you so much, I'll let all accessories count together as one. That make you feel better? Aren't I accommodating? Heck, a pushover is what I am. You don't even have to go to the trouble of taking them all off. Too many little bits and pieces to keep track of. We'll just wave 'em off and say you've earned one key already. Just like that. It's in the bank, so to speak. One down, five more to go. Cool?"

"Hand it over then. Make it the biggest one." Which was the car key.

"No, I told you before. That's not how this works. Come now, work with me. I made you a concession, but don't push your luck. You gotta earn the whole set before you get them back. We already established that. I'm not picking apart the ring. Anyhow, think of how annoying it would be to have to put them all back on it, after our game gets done."

"Is that what we're doing? Playing a game?"

He shrugged. "We are if you decide to play along. Are you gonna play with me or not? Up to you."

That was the moment she could have put her foot down, if she wanted to. He gave her the option to say "fuck you" if she wasn't comfortable with going any further forward. She knew from the boyish, hopeful-but-questioning look on his face that if she told him to stop this bullshit, he would have stopped and tossed her the keys on the spot.

She didn't, though.

"Five items, huh?" she said.

He nodded. "Five of your choice."

She slipped off her soccer cleats, for starters. Obvious and easiest place to begin. Then her hoody, of course. Two items she would normally take off, anyhow, just to get comfortable in the room. Not that she'd ever spent any time with him in a private setting like this, before tonight. Except perhaps for the inside of her car, if that counted. Which it kind of did and kind of didn't. Anyway, she'd never taken her shoes or her jacket off, those four or five previous times she was hanging out with him. Not to say it would have been any kind of big deal—it wouldn't have been. It wouldn't have mattered at all. Just hadn't happened to have happened until right then. When it was given slightly extra significance as part of the silly game.

"Not like that," he said, just after she shrugged her shoulders from the hoody and let it fall to the floor.

"Not like what?" She was puzzled. Didn't have the faintest idea what he was objecting to. The matter-of-fact way she took off the jacket? Did he expect her to make a dance out of it? With no music?

"Hand me the things," he said, reaching out, "Don't just drop them. You gotta give them over for each piece to count."

"All right." She didn't see the point of it, but whatever ... A little later on, this would make her feel pretty stupid—not realizing the significance. Totally shouldn't have missed it, no excuses, but she did.

She scooped up her hoody from the carpet and tossed it to his lap in a bundle.

"Shoes too," he insisted, "Gimme."

She just kicked them closer to him. He bent and picked them up, only to set them right back down on the floor again—except behind his chair instead of in front of it. Then put her hoody there next to them. Took a moment first to untangle it and then fold it nicely. Freak.

Now what next? Now that the easy basic starter stuff was out of the picture ... What should she pick?

4.

Obviously most girls in her position would have opted for their socks next. The safest choice—and still not outside the bounds of basic propriety. Nothing yet that was gonna raise anybody's eyebrows ... or any other body parts, for that matter. K, however, found herself a little hesitant to make this move.

She knew Graham was a foot man. That made it a bigger deal than it would normally be. Stripping off her socks would be a pretty major thrill for him—and she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to give that to him ... Not just yet, anyhow. Not that easily.

He'd complimented her on her feet a couple times before. Called them cute on the first occasion, and later referred to them as "perfectly shaped". When she challenged him about it—"Are you one of those weirdoes?"—he had flat-out and with no hesitation admitted to being, as he himself had called it, a "foot man, as well as a legs and ass man, as opposed to a boob man". Which, hey, was good to know and also made sense, since K had never got much at all going on in the torso department. Never thought her feet were anything special, either, and she never put any time into prettying them up, painting the nails or wearing toe rings or getting a tattoo on one of them, like more and more girls seemed to be doing nowadays. Still, Graham wasn't the first guy she dated that had taken a particular fancy to them, as a matter of historical fact.

There's lots and lots of foot guys out there. It's a pretty widespread phenomenon, for whatever reason. It's weird—but not that weird. Both Graham and the other guys seemed to prefer the natural look she kept them, whereas most of these foot pervs are actually more into spikey shoes than the feet inside them. Whole other dealio going on there.

One time so far, on one of their funny little semi-dates or pre-dates in the coffee shop, when no tables were available and so they shared the couch in there in front of the fireplace, she'd let him rub her feet for a little bit on his lap. Just for a few minutes. Not minding it in the beginning, when he started doing that. Then she had to make him stop—using a trip to the ladies' room as an excuse. 'Cause she'd been unprepared for how good that had felt, when he did that to her. It had really got to her. Really worked her up, and real damn fast. Hadn't expected that to happen. Wasn't prepared to let that happen again. So from then on she'd made a point not to let his hands near them. Also was careful not to wear shoes that exposed them to view, when she was with him. Stuck to her old crummy soccer cleats, mostly. She could tell he'd been mildly disappointed about that, just from his expression when he'd glance down that direction from time to time, though he didn't question her or call her out about it. Neither of them had brought up her feet again in the course of their conversations, after that brief incident—if that was how you decided to classify what had occurred. And the weather hadn't really been right for sandals anyway, the last couple weeks. Too chilly and mucky. Kind of fortunate for her. Let her keep her feet guarded and hidden from him without it seeming like she was doing it deliberately. Which she was.

And she wanted to keep doing that.

He wouldn't expect her to make this move. He'd be ticked, probably. Serve him right.

Three items to go. Well, shirt and pants, sure ... Then that left her in her underwear and socks.

So either this would finish off with her barefoot in her bra and panties, or she could leave her feet covered and give up her bra instead. And she kind of liked that plan better. It was more thrilling for her, on a couple of different levels at once. Yeah, she would be showing her tits off, such as they were. Which would still be a big deal. It would feel really crazy and lewd and be real hard to find the courage to do without passing out or peeing herself ... Yet Graham would rather get to see her bare feet, given the choice—he'd get off on that more—and he wouldn't get to! Ha! In yer face, Graham!

Not that her tits wouldn't do anything to him at all. "Don't get me wrong," he'd said before, when they had that talk about this stuff, "I don't consider myself a boob man but I still like boobs. They're not quite as crucially important to me as they are for the boob men, and I don't need to see super big ones to get properly turned on. Like I told you, certain other womanly body parts fire me up much more. But I won't pretend I'm totally indifferent to boob power, either. I'm not sure any straight guys are."

There was something else K could have tried at this stage ... If she'd thought of it, at the time. She could have taken off her bra without removing her shirt. And the shirttails hung low enough that it would have kept her crotch covered safe like a miniskirt, after she gave up her pants. So then she could have stripped off her panties too, without letting Graham see her pussy. She'd have won her keys back without letting him see any of the special girly goodies! Not even her cute perfect toes! Take that!

She'd have totally outwitted him, fair and square! A glorious surprise triumph!

Except she didn't. Somehow this groovy idea never occurred to her. Not when it would have counted. Didn't pop up in her mind until late the following afternoon, while she was microwaving a frozen pizza, staring at the digital timer counting down. Got pretty pissed at herself, when the moment of blazing revelation struck all the sudden, bubbling up unbidden from her subconscious ... But that happens in the future, after our story has concluded ... You won't read any more about that.

K let him see her tits. Hell, she wanted him to see them and she showed them to him.

And she liked doing it. Felt damn good. Fuck yeah.

5.

There was this long silence between them. Pretty tense. Not exactly awkward, though. Not the sort of thing where either one of them was fumbling or flailing for something to say. This wasn't a time for words, at least not right off. They shared that understanding, somehow, intuition or instinct; both just taking a moment—taking this moment—to keep their mouths shut and study each other. Of course he was getting a lot more on his end to study than she was. Still, didn't make her feel as shy as she normally would.

Something in his face. Something in his eyes. Difficult to put a name to. Something powerful in it, whatever it was. Something that made her not just pleased to have played his silly game, but proud. Made her feel powerful. Supercharged.

"Well now," she finally said, "That's five articles for you. Happy?"