Jane has always been a tactile person, even before we started dating. I met her in a hole-in-the-wall bar downtown, the sort that either gave you salmonella or alcohol poisoning, and by the end of the night she was drunk as hell and draped over me like a blanket. Jane was my first girlfriend, and during those initial months of our relationship, any public affection made me bitter and panicked. My parents claimed to be the hate the sin, love the sinner sort of Christian, but they never managed to get over my sin.
“A lesbian,” my dad said, like it was a curse word. “You think you’re a lesbian. You’ll never find a husband if you say things like that.”
“Yeah, Dad,” I said. “That’s the point.”
I left that house as soon as I turned eighteen, and I never looked back. Even so, holding her hand where others could see sent me spiraling, years of ingrained hatred blaring inside my head. I told her, over and over, that I needed more time. I couldn’t handle the thought of people staring at us, judging us, not so soon after leaving my parents. She always apologized, and promised to do better, but she never did. Touching was an instinct for her, something she barely seemed to notice herself doing.
Other than that, though, we were perfect for each other. She brought me paper mache flowers because I was allergic to real ones, and I made her favorite weird Russian dessert from scratch because she didn’t like how the store-bought ones tasted. I didn’t make fun of her for unironically loving childrens cartoons, and she tolerated my habit of spending way too much money on tiny cat statues. I got used to her public affection eventually, and I was more in love than I had ever been.
Jane has always been a bit unaware of social niceties, a bit too rude and brusque, but the first truly weird thing happened after Jane had a bad day at work. She worked at a fancy coffee shop, and her days were far more likely to be bad than good, but this time it was especially awful. Apparently she had put too much foam in the cup, and a customer had spent a solid twenty minutes yelling at her.
I made all the appropriate sympathetic noises that any good partner makes, and got her some cookies from the cupboard. I thought that was the end of it, but she had a strange request.
“Can I give you a massage?” Jane asked, giving me her best puppy eyes.
“You mean… you want me to give you a massage.” I opened up a new pack of cookies and burrowed further into my blanket cocoon.
“No. I just like cuddling with you, seeing you happy. Please?”
I was a bit confused, but I believed her when she said that it would help, and a massage sounded nice anyways.
“Sure.” I wriggled until I was laying down on the couch, and took off my shirt at her direction.
She’d obviously had experience. Her hands were quick and sure across my shoulders, working me quickly into a loose puddle and pressing every muscle into submission. She talked as she did it, too, quiet words that I never quite managed to hear but were comforting nonetheless.
It happened when I was just on the edge of sleep, when everything was hazy.
“Almost ready,” she said, and took her hands away from my back. I groaned at the thought of her leaving, but she quickly started touching me again. This time, though, it was deeper. It felt like she was reaching beneath my skin and kneading me like a piece of dough. She pressed down hard on my shoulder, and I felt it flatten down further than it should have been able to go, bones cracking softly. Worse than that was when she reached through my skin and wrapped her fingers around my spine. She tapped it once, twice, and then withdrew as easily as pulling her hand out of a bowl of water. The whole time, I was frozen, still half-asleep and caught between terror and an overwhelming sense of rightness.
She continued her strange, invasive massage, and despite everything, I fell asleep. It was comforting, once I got past the weirdness, and I had barely ever been awake.
When I woke up, I was refreshed. My back didn’t hurt for the first time in years, and every part of my body felt new. I found Jane in the kitchen, making scrambled eggs and humming along to a song playing on her phone. She smiled at me when I came in, gave me a kiss, and quickly gave my butt an appreciative squeeze.
“What was that,” I asked, abruptly tired of her pretending that things were normal.
She gave me a confused look. “Do you not want me to touch your ass? I thought you liked that.”
“No, not—I meant last night! What the hell happened?” I wrapped my arms around myself and stepped away from her.
“Are you feeling alright?” Jane put down the spatula, stepping forward to put her hand on my forehead.
I flinched away from her. “Yes, I’m fine, I just…what you did last night, I don’t understand what you did.”
She was concerned by then. “I gave you a massage, darling. Whatever else you’re thinking, I need you to tell me so that I can help you.”
I sighed, letting my arms drop. Suddenly, I wasn’t sure of myself. I hadn’t exactly been thinking clearly, after all. It was probably just a dream.
“Nevermind. It’s fine.” I sat down to eat the eggs, and after a moment, Jane joined me.
I had almost managed to convince myself that I had imagined the whole thing. Weeks had gone past with nothing out of the ordinary, and the memory of that night faded. Really, though, I couldn’t have fooled myself forever.
We always took our time with sex. It was more about being together, for us, than the physical pleasure, although of course the orgasms were nice. On that day, we’d just gotten a new dildo, bigger than any we’d had before. It was halfway inside me, and I was already panting, about five seconds away from tapping out.
“Jane,” I whimpered. “Jane, I think we should have gotten a smaller size.”
She looked up from where she was sitting between my legs. “Nah,” she said. “You got this.”
She pushed it another inch, and it was like something in my body gave way. It wasn’t natural. It was like my whole lower body had become putty. Everything felt soft, my legs, my uterus, my abdomen, and Jane slid it the rest of the way with no resistance at all. Then it all stopped, like a rubber band releasing. Everything snapped back together.
I shoved backwards with a gasp and sat up on my forearms. “I knew it,” I said. “I knew.”
“Why are you being so weird today?” she snapped, stepping back and crossing her arms.
“I can’t. I need to leave.” I got dressed quickly, and was gone within a minute. Jane never tried to stop me. She just stood there with an unhappy look on her face and watched me go.
Jane started texting me as soon as I left, saying that she was sorry. That she didn’t know what was wrong, but she’d be better.
I dreamt of her that night, sleeping on the couch at my friend Sam’s apartment. In the dream, she stood over me, melted me into a puddle and then swam inside me. She told me that she loved me, that she’d never had a home as wonderful as me. I woke up screaming.
It was four in the morning, but I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to go back to sleep. There was cereal in the kitchen, but no milk, so I ate dry Cinnamon Toast Crunch and tried to ignore the calls from Jane that came every hour.
I think Sam was worried about me. She was a good friend, and told me I could stay as long as I needed, but she kept side-eyeing me whenever I flinched because of my phone going off.
“Did you guys have an argument?” San asked hesitantly.
I sighed and put my head down on the table, next to my cereal. “I think there’s something really wrong with her.”
“What did she do?”
“I’ll tell you later.” I got up to wash my plate, and didn’t pay attention to Sam staring holes into my back.
The calls had stopped coming by nightfall, and I took that as a sign that Jane had given up.
Sam told me to watch some television and relax, but I couldn’t focus on it. Sam was upstairs, long asleep, and I was playing some mindless word game on my phone.
The text alert came before I saw the message, but there wasn’t enough time to throw the phone away from me. The message was simple.
I’M OUTSIDE :)
The door was locked. I knew it was locked, I had watched Sam do it. But still, the knob turned slowly, and Jane stepped into the house, hunched over. All the lights were on, because I had seen monsters in every shadow, so I got a perfect view of her. She was kneeling in front of the door, her tongue stuck into the keyhole. She turned to face me, pulling her tongue out. It was still in the shape of a key.
I tried to speak, to call Sam for help, to tell her to stop, and she blurred across the room faster thanI could see and pinched my lips together. They grew into each other, sealing my mouth shut. I still spoke, though, mumbling through my own flesh. She moved away, just a little, and I took my chance. I kept up and sprinted for the door, all of my thoughts focused on getting away.
I only made it a step before she melted my legs together, leaving me floundering.
I’m a mermaid, I thought hysterically.
She walked over to me slowly, a predator in every movement.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “I’m so lucky to have you.”
She pressed her tongue against my thigh, and my bones twisted around themselves. When she bent her head down to kiss me, her lips fused into mine and my protests were muffled by her tongue. She pulled back slightly, our noses still stuck together, and breathed my air.
“I love you,” she whispered. “I just want to be with you forever.”
She moved forward again, draped herself over me like she had when we met at the bar. I was paralyzed, expectant. Our muscles melted together, our bones splintered and then reformed as one. She nestled herself in every bit of fat and tendon. Jane fell into me, and we wore the same skin.
I can feel her in me, even now. I’ll never be alone again, even if I desperately want to be.