Web Weaver

Woman: Torino
Tarantula: Wikimedia

Now it shouldn't be thought that Xenia was cold-hearted, far from it. She just knew she was the sexiest and most desirable woman in the senior year and decided to take advantage of it. After all, if you can get any guy in the class you want, why settle for anything but the handsomest, richest and most athletic catch you can? Of course, being the number one catch meant she could play the field. After all, shy wouldn't she? The guys she toyed with had to know they weren't worthy of her. Any time she chose to spend with them was by her whim and they should be properly thankful for it.

Sometimes, of course, this attitude made enemies but all the other guys (who she'd not played with) were still available and would gladly pulp anyone with the gall to even so much as get angry at her. She'd become quite the actress and could call tears on demand. It was more than enough to get the other guys down on her current tormentor (or even worse, if rumour were to be believed). Of course, what happened to that stupid fool once she was finished with him was hardly her concern. There were dozens of girls who'd be happy to pick up her discards.

This would have gone on as long as Xenia could stretch it had she not been talked into volunteering to be auctioned for an evening with a guy for a local charity. What she expected, indeed deserved (in her mind), was an auction fight for her charming presence for the evening. She wasn't disappointed on one hand but strangely enough, one of the local nerd types (you know the kind -- all science and learning and other boring stuff like) managed to have enough money to beat out even Harold the son of the richest guy in town. Xenia was annoyed when Ulrich, smiling like the proverbial Cheshire cat, approached the auctioneer's stand and calmly paid out the $750 he'd bid for her company.

But to actually expect her to go out with someone like Ulrich? They couldn't be serious. Surely they knew what being seen with a Nerd like Ulrich would do to her social standing? But the people in charge were insistent. She'd volunteered, the auction had taken place, and now she had to fulfill her side of the bargain. Xenia decided to make the evening a short one by being the best example of a haughty bitch she could. She was sure that by making him so uncomfortable that he hated her company, he'd call it quits early and let her go, her duty discharged.

She started by demanding he take her to the most expensive place she could think of. He agreed and this surprised her completely. Where was this jerk getting all the money? By the time she'd put up with two hours of his company, he'd dropped nearly $1000 for the pleasure of her company. She decided to switch into high gear and began to make trouble for him by pretending a drunk and insulting other people in the posh restaurant. Instead of getting angry, he merely took her out into the foyer and told her that her acting simply wasn't good enough. He'd seen right through her! No other guy had...how could this nerd be so, so perceptive?

After four hours and two more expensive night clubs, though, Xenia was getting slightly drunk. So drunk that she soon had difficulty of walking and required assistance to stay upright. It wasn't the first time that she'd had too much, of course. She'd been one of the instigators of the punch spiking of the last school dance. Of course, someone else had been blamed, she'd made sure of that. It wouldn't do to sully her reputation with so common an antic. She was surprised at how quickly Ulrich arranged to have a couple of guys support her, though. But the alcohol fuzzed her thinking and all she managed was a "Hey peons, take me home!" before she passed out entirely.

She awoke in the bright sunlight in the middle of a mixture of sand and small pebbles. She only partially remembered the previous evening. She pushed herself up on her arms and tried to get her bearings. This wasn't her home. Just where was she? Then she caught sight of what she was wearing. The silky blue top she'd had on the night before was nowhere around. Instead, she had a cheap blue bikini top on. She couldn't remember having changed or why she'd want to change. And there was no way she'd ever be caught dead in a tacky thing like this! She reached behind to undo it and made a horrible discovery.

Her back was furry from her bra on down. She shrieked and tried to roll away from whatever furry thing was on her back. It was then she discovered that there were eight great furry things attached to her sides! When she calmed a bit, she discovered that she no longer had her legs! She was some kind of strange spider woman. Instead of her sexy bottom, she now had a great ugly furred spider's abdomen. What had happened? How had it happened?

A flutter of white off to one side caught her eye. Someone had left a letter under a stone. It only took a moment for her to scuttle to the paper and unfold it.

"By now you've made a few little discoveries. None of them are what you expected after an evening out, I imagine. I was hoping that you'd at least have the decency to honour your side of a bargain for that charity, but I feared that was beyond you. Had you been gracious about things, I'd have let you go but you made it clear from the beginning that you were special and I was beneath you.

I and every other guy you've snared in your web of lies and then tossed off like the paper wrapper on a hamburger. Oh sure, there were other girls, and they caught your discards and treated them well. But did you really think that your antics could always go on? Always get uncaught? Always be blamed on someone else? Peter is still serving his detention for the alcohol you poured into the punch he was serving. The punch that nearly got him expelled. Did you care? Not in the least. He was just another expendable male. A guy you could use and abuse to your hearts content.

I wonder whether you even knew where I, a middle class nerd, managed to get all the money? Dozens of slighted and discarded men have been hoping for your comeuppance. It was easy to get each of them to donate $5 to making you pay for once.

I had to promise to make sure that you'd disappear, too. Many of your girl friends resented you stealing their guys again and again. They, too, contributed. They were somewhat more insistent though. Their guys just wanted to see you have to go out with a nerd. They almost made me take you to museums and science exhibits as punishment. I talked them around, of course. I'd hoped you could be enough of a civilized human being to take your medicine and at least seem to enjoy the evening at night clubs and restaurants. But that was not possible, it seemed. Members of your own sex, though, wanted you gone. Disappeared. Never to torment them or their love lives again.

As you've discovered by now, I could arrange for that to occur. My scientific speciality is genetics. I've been winning school fairs since I've been in grade 9 with experiments in genetic recombination. Making you disappear was easy. I didn't want you to die or anything. A body causes too much inquiry. You were seen boarding a plane on a ticket to London, England yesterday. Oh, by the way, the evening was nearly a week ago. Genetic transformation takes time. The police were around several times but, with my friends vouching for the fact we took you home completely passed out that evening and with your landlady complaining to the police about the noise we made carrying you in, I'm no longer a suspect.

Everyone assumes that you couldn't face sticking around here after having had to spend an evening with someone not your social equal. They're pretty sure that you have bugged out and are going someplace else to start over. It's amazing what computer voice technology can do, too. One of your circle of toadies is sure she received a phone message from you stating exactly that.

You and I know the real truth. You can practice your webs of deceit on the only males that will have you now. I doubt the male tarantulas will be as gentle as most of the guys you've dumped were. But they were civilized, spiders (even human ones) aren't."

Xenia looked at the paper again and noticed its overlarge type. She frowned then looked around. Everything seemed strangely out of scale, too large. The plants were too big, the sand was even too big. It wasn't until a shadow crossed behind her and she caught sight of a coyote the size of a small bus that she realized more had changed than just her shape...