I suppose it was his sulky, withdrawn demeanor that drew me to him. Nothing about him was particularly obvious. And then, it was.
He took me on walks through the forest and taught me things. His knowledge seemed endless. And then he would leave. The bliss seemed so unfulfilling compared to the stark lonliness. Sometimes it felt like I could hardly breathe.
I fell in love with him on the laundry room floor at a dirty house party. I had known him before that, but never like this. I held his hand and he told me about his grandfather who collected keys; keys to boats and clocks and drawers. They all belonged to him now. Many of them were fashioned around his neck, giving off the impression that he thought he was a rockstar. And I suppose, in a sense, he was. I looked into his bright eyes and I could see his soul.
Sometimes when he would leave I would indulge; I would wander around the castle or throw lavish parties. But none of it mattered without him there. I needed more.
When he was close, my heart would pound. Harder than it ever had before. At his touch, it would soar. I had never wanted anything this badly. I taught him how to dance and asked him to whisper to me sweet nothings. "You smell like Easter", was his slurred response.
When he took me aside and explained he had to leave again, my insides burned. This abandoment was taking a toll on me. He handed me the keys to the estate, but this time there was one extra. A small, golden key. The key to the one room in the house that I could not enter. The key to his heart.
It was truly young love at its finest. In the middle of the night, I would pull him in through my bedroom window, and shimmy gracelessly out of his. We were told relentlessly what a mistake we were making; how wrong we were for each other. No matter how much I wanted to listen, my longing would not subside. This is all I would ever needed.
After a number of days, I could no longer control my curiousity. I needed to know what was behind the door. What it was that was so dear to him that he couldn't even share it with me, his one and only love. I needed him. All of him.
It was Christmas Day, and he handed me a black velvet box. I smiled softly and opened it. Inside was a small silver key encrested with diamonds and attatched to a thin chain. My very own key to keep around my neck. My very own part of him.
The key dropped as I lay my eyes on what was behind his door. The skeletons in his closet. They were dripping with blood and hanging from the wall. I held back vomit as I fled from the room, bloody key in hand. Upon his return, he found me with his once golden key, now stained with dark crimson. My heart ached more now than ever before. This was, in every sense, the end.
I liked how through the retelling of Bluebeard the story was made to seem more romantic to me. In addition to making the story less of a frightening tale and more into a romance I like how he was compared to a rockstar. It made me think of how rockstars use women like Bluebeard may have and in a sense kill them- in terms of losing things such as their dignity, lives, and a sense of self as they become attached to these figures that later dispense of them for whatever reason. The concept of keys holding more significant meaning in this story, especially the key to his heart, was an interesting since instead of simply the small gold one being significant they all had some meaning beyond the fact that they opened doors. I found it interesting that the small gold key that led to the bodies of dead women was the key to the heart. Since the story presents a couple that is madly in love, how can a room that houses death be equivalent to the key to his heart? I was also curious to know what her key opened and why was she given a key. Did he think she have secrets, relating back to his small gold key or did it serve more of sentimental meaning like the other keys he wore around his neck?
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