The Second Key

The locksmith said the second key would cost eight dollars, which was less than the price of the coffee Nora had been avoiding for three days.

She stood at the counter while a machine cut teeth into a blank strip of brass. In her pocket was the original key to the little weatherboard house on Lorne Street. It had been hers for nine years. For most of that time, it had also belonged to a marriage that had ended so quietly the neighbours still asked after her husband.

The second key was for Ben. That was the problem.

Ben had never asked for one. He had a habit of waiting outside with two coffees, knocking once and then studying the climbing rose until she opened the door. He knew which step on the porch creaked. He knew her elderly dog needed a minute to recognise visitors. He had never once suggested that knowing a house was the same as owning a place in it.

“Do you want a ring?” the locksmith asked.

Nora blinked. “Sorry?”

“For the key.”

“Oh. Yes. The blue one.”

She took the little circle of blue plastic and walked home in the thin winter sun, rehearsing a conversation she had no intention of having.

Ben was already there, crouched beside the front fence with a screwdriver. The gate had been catching on the post since autumn.

“You don't have to fix everything you see,” she said.

“Then stop owning things that squeak.”

He stood, brushing dirt from his knees. He was forty-six, with greying hair and a face that showed exactly when he was pleased to see her. The openness of it still made her suspicious.

“Bad morning?” he asked.

“Strange morning.”

“There's soup inside. I made enough to qualify as a commercial kitchen.”

She followed him in. Her dog, Arthur, greeted Ben with a theatrical sigh and returned to his blanket. On the kitchen table lay a grocery receipt and a paper bag of bread rolls. Ben had brought flowers once, early on. After discovering that Nora preferred food, he had switched strategies.

They ate soup and talked about work. She managed the accounts for a community theatre. He taught carpentry at a technical college and spent his weekends rescuing furniture that nobody had asked him to rescue. They had met when a collapsing stage prop sent her to his workshop. He had rebuilt it in a day, then spent another hour explaining why the original was dangerous. She had thought him insufferable until he offered to carry it back without being asked.

“I'm away next weekend,” Ben said, tearing bread. “Mum wants help clearing the shed.”

“I thought your brother was doing that.”

“My brother has developed a sudden allergy to responsibility.”

Nora smiled. Then she remembered the key, heavy as a coin in her pocket.

After lunch Ben washed the dishes. She stood by the window and watched the rose press its branches against the glass. Her former husband had disliked the plant. He had said it made the place look untidy. When he moved out, she had let it grow wherever it pleased.

“Can I ask you something?” she said.

Ben turned off the tap. “Always.”

“Does it bother you that you have to knock?”

He looked confused. “At the door?”

“Yes.”

“No. You live here.”

“You spend half your time here.”

“And the other half I spend looking for my reading glasses.”

She did not laugh. He put the towel down.

“Nora, what's happening?”

She placed the key on the table. Its blue ring made it look like a tiny, ordinary gift. Ben stared at it, then at her.

“I had one cut,” she said. “And now I don't know whether giving it to you is a lovely thing or a foolish thing.”

“Why would it be foolish?”

“Because the last person who had one stopped asking before he came in. Then he stopped noticing I was there.”

Ben pulled out a chair but did not sit. “That's not a key problem.”

“I know.”

“It's still a good reason to be careful.”

She hated that he had understood her without demanding a better explanation.

“Do you want me to take it?” he asked.

“I want you to want it.”

“I do.”

He said it without ceremony. She found herself looking at the scratches in the table, at the tiny ring of water beneath his glass, anywhere but his face.

“Then take it,” she said.

Ben picked up the key and closed his hand around it. He did not put it on his own ring. Instead he laid it beside his plate.

“There's one thing,” he said.

She stiffened.

“If I use it, I'll still knock. Unless you've asked me not to.”

“Why?”

“Because having a key should make things easier. It shouldn't make you disappear.”

That evening they went for a walk with Arthur. The dog took his time at every fence. Nora told Ben about the first year after her separation, when she would leave the television on simply to hear another voice. Ben told her about the months after his father died, when he kept calling the old number and hanging up before anyone answered. Neither story required fixing.

At the park they stopped beside a pond where two ducks were arguing over a piece of bread. Ben took her hand. She noticed that he always waited until she reached back.

On the way home the rain began, sudden and cold. They hurried down Lorne Street, laughing as Arthur refused to hurry at all. At the porch Ben reached for his pocket, then stopped.

“May I?” he asked.

Nora nodded.

He used the new key. The door opened on a warm hallway, the familiar smell of old timber and the sound of the kitchen clock. He stepped aside and let her enter first.

Inside, with the rain still ticking on the roof, Nora turned and kissed him. It was not careful. Ben's hands went to her waist, then under her coat, and she pushed him back against the door. His cock was already hard against her hip through his jeans. She reached down and palmed it, feeling the shape of him, and he groaned into her mouth.

“Bedroom,” she said.

They left Arthur in the hallway with a towel. In the bedroom Nora stripped Ben's jumper and shirt, then his jeans, and took his cock in her hand. It was thick, warm, the head already slick. She stroked him slowly while he worked her out of her clothes. When she was naked he sat on the edge of the bed and pulled her between his knees. He kissed her stomach, then lower, and licked her cunt until her thighs shook. Nora braced a hand on his shoulder and ground against his tongue. She came with a short, sharp sound, her fingers in his hair.

Ben stood, turned her, and bent her over the bed. He pushed into her in one steady thrust. She was wet enough that it slid deep. He fucked her with long strokes, one hand on her hip, the other reaching around to rub her clit. Nora pushed back to meet him. The bed creaked. She came again, clenching around his cock, and he followed, spilling inside her with a low groan against her shoulder.

They stayed like that for a minute, breathing hard. Then Ben pulled out, fetched a cloth, and cleaned them both without being asked. They lay under the blankets with the rain still falling.

The next morning Nora woke to hear him making coffee. She lay still, listening to a cupboard open and close, a spoon tap against a mug, Arthur's claws on the floorboards. These were small sounds, none of them dramatic. She realised she was not bracing for anything.

When Ben brought her a cup, he set it down and asked whether she wanted the curtains open. She said yes. The room filled with a pale strip of morning.

The blue key lay on his bedside table, separate from the rest. She reached for it and slipped it onto his keyring herself.

“Now it looks official,” he said.

“Don't get carried away. You're still responsible for the gate.”

He grinned. “I was hoping you'd say that.”

Later, when he left for work, she heard him turn the lock and test the handle. Then came one gentle knock from the other side, just to make her laugh. She did. For the first time in years, the sound of someone leaving did not feel like the beginning of an absence.