This is a work of fiction. All persons are intended to be age 18 and above.
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This story starts with a key, as the title suggests. Duh.
For some reason the previous owners of the house I'm currently living in had a shed built in the back yard - not one of those flimsy aluminum things you see at every Lowe's or Home Depot but an honest to God stick-built structure with a lockable door, shingled roof and even a window. If this were New York City I could rent the thing out for a thousand a month.
It occurred to me one day that if I lost the key, which I was currently searching for in a drawer cluttered with batteries, sewing kits and matchbooks, I would be up the proverbial creek without a paddle. It was the only copy. I could call a locksmith, which would set me back a hundred or so dollars. But wouldn't it be smarter to have a backup key made?
I finally found it and decided yes, I needed to have that key made right now.
I headed out to the Lowe's across town, where a girl eyed the key, then looked over the jillions of blanks on her revolving key stand until she settled on one and inserted it into the cutting machine. After a brief period of fingernail-on-chalkboard screeching, the machine finished and the girl handed me my new spare key. It cost less than $3.
Aaaaand, it didn't work.
I swore at myself. The big boxes were great for selling mass-produced shit for cheap, but when it came to something like cutting a key they sucked to high heaven. How many times had I gone to Lowe's or Home Depot for a key, only to have the damn thing not fit the lock when I got home?
I took it back to Lowe's and got a refund - hey, $3 is $3. I decided I would try a locksmith, but before that I'd risk having one made at Home Depot. Who knows? Maybe I'd get lucky.
Little did I know.
Home Depot was on the other side of town, as luck would have it, but it was near another store I wanted to visit, so I didn't mind the drive. The lot was mostly empty so I had no trouble finding a parking spot.
The key kiosk was about halfway down the row of aisles, right up front. Problem was, nobody was there. I wandered around wearing my "I'm lost and need help" face, when suddenly this kid appeared. He was an odd-looking boy of, I'd say, 16 or 17, about 5-11, maybe 150 pounds, and thin blonde hair on an oversized skull. When I say "odd" I don't mean to imply "unattractive" because he was fairly cute, just in a different way. I think maybe it was the size of his skull, which was disproportionately larger than his body. It gave him a strange, child-like aspect.
"Watcha need?" he asked. His voice was deep and masculine, which further contributed to the weirdness. It was as if somebody had grafted a boy's head onto a man's body and somehow retained the man's voice. I gave a quick glance down below. He had a fine, muscular ass hiding beneath those blue jeans, and the hint of something in his crotch. I wondered if that too would be disproportionately large.
I told him my tale of woe and he said, "Gotcha" and beckoned me to follow him. We went around the corner and held up at a strange machine I'd never seen before. Apparently you insert the key to be copied into a slot, and a computer exams it and picks out the perfect blank. Then, you insert the blank into an adjoining slot and the machine cuts it.
I gave him my key. When I pressed it into his hand I made a point of extending the contact. His skin was amazingly soft, almost silky, and perfectly dry. A lot of men's hands are sweaty and sticky, as if they'd just been shafting their cocks. But not Bighead Boy. Another bit of weirdness.
The machine immediately picked out a blank and the kid fetched it from a rack and stuck it into the slot. As the machine cut it, I made a joke about the sound reminding me of a cavity being filled. That struck a chord with the kid, who went on about how he hates having cavities filled, and the sound of the drill on his teeth, the vibration traveling from the bone into his skull, and if it weren't for the Novocain, how bad would that hurt?
The machine finished cutting. He now had to insert it into a different slot where it would be smoothed and any filings removed by a revolving wire brush. While he was doing that, I asked him which of the three local high schools he was attending. He told me, and as we chitchatted he mentioned he was 18, and a senior, and already applying to colleges for admissions.
He removed the key from the slot and searched for one of those small, white paper bags to put it in. As he did that, I told him to have fun at college. And, looking back on it, I'm slightly amazed that I said the following, although I don't know why I should be. I have a habit of making outrageous statements.