>Checking your watch for the umpteenth time that morning, you hurry down the decrepit hallway of your apartment building. Two-fifteen. Two-fifteen in the morning and you were rushing your ass to work. On a Saturday.
>A fucking Saturday. 
>Your boss had called you an hour earlier -- the dickcheese who was SUPPOSED to be pulling nightshift went and fell down a flight of stairs, and the guy who usually filled in for him had eaten some bad sushi the night before and was a little too busy spraying out of both ends to be of any help.
>And so here you are: dragging your dead-on-your-feet self to the elevator at two motherloving fifteen in the morning so you can beat pavement down to the local shopping centre and work guard duty until sunrise. 
>You check your watch again, if only to keep your righteous anger alive. At this point it was the only thing stopping you from falling asleep. 
>You reach the elevator, press the call button and stare holes into the peeling wallpaper as you wait for it to arrive. Above your head a lightbulb flickers before giving out with an electric fizz and a rattle. Wonderful.
>Honestly you couldn't say you were surprised; the maintenance around here was a joke. The water only ran when it wanted to and when it did it was never warm, satellite reception was practically non-existent and the heating was so bad that you may as well be sleeping on a park bench.
>And if that wasn't enough, you were sharing the place with bugs, and by that, you didn't mean an infestation. 
>You meant walking, talking, six-foot-five monstrosities that look like they've clawed their way out of the ninth circle of hell to shove an ovipositor down your throat and pump your chest full of little insect-babies that'd eat you from the inside out.
>Suffice to say, you weren't a fan of creepy-crawlies.
>That wasn't to say you didn't like any of the residents here. You'd moved in only five days ago, and the few people you've met so far have acted friendly enough. Hell, your new neighbour was a bee, and he gave you a load of free honey as a welcoming gift. Shit was delicious.
>It's just that they looked a little... Off-putting. 
>Take Sandra, the girl who lived two floors down from you, for example. Nice person. Helped you unpack when you first arrived, always had a compliment on the tip of her tongue and cooked a bunch of muffins the other day and shared them out in the lounge. 
>She's also a praying mantis, so her mouth looks like a pair of pliers and she's got fucking razorblades for arms. Safe to say you've kept your distance to at least an arms length.
>Once again you check your watch. Goddamn elevator's so slow that you may as well have just taken the stairs. You tap your foot impatiently, grumbling to yourself in frustration.
>This wasn't fair. 
>You used to live in a flat that DIDN'T look as if it were a second away from collapsing on your head. 
>You used to have a job that DIDN'T demand that you fuck up your sleep schedule and wake up at ungodly hours to stand around in an empty shopping mall.
>You used to have someone to wake up to in the morning.
>Used to...
*Crrrrrk...*
>An icy shiver runs up the length of your spine as one of the doors down the hall drifts open, the tinny creak of its rusted hinges eerily ominous in the otherwise silent hallway, tearing you away from your self-pity. The dirty yellow light cast upon the door flickers, and you catch something move -- something big. 
>Before you can make out the shape of it, it's out of the doorway and into the shadows, shambling towards you with a distinct sound you've recently come to recognize as insectoid legs skittering across a concrete floor.
*Tik... Tik tak tik...*
>A second sound joins the sharp tip-tap of bug footsteps: a horrible, wet slurp that sounded disturbingly like-
>The elevator door opens, and you throw yourself through it, jamming a button at random. You didn't care what floor you ended up on, as long as it wasn't this one. You'd seen enough horror movies to know that hanging around at times like this was a bad idea. 
>You huddle yourself into the corner of the elevator, and beg the doors to close as the encroaching cacophony of noise grows closer. 
*Shlrrrrk tik tok tak... shlrk shlrrrrrk tok tik...*
>'Relax,' you think to yourself, the voice in your head trying to stay calm and collected even as you rammed your thumb repeatedly into the ground floor button. 'It's just another resident working nights. No need to freak out.' 
>The slurping stops abruptly, halted by what sounds like a burp and an alien chitter of something that might or might not be satisfaction. 
>Okay, you were freaking out. 
>You ram a fist against the elevator's control panel, and finally the door begins to slide shut, sealing you away from whatever eldritch horror lurks back in the hallway.
>Just before the elevator closes, a bony, chitinous leg twitches around the corner with an unnatural speed, holding the door open. 
>Your heart leaps in your chest so hard that you swear you can feel it butting against your ribs. The limb emanates a ghastly noise as its owner shifts their weight onto it. Straining wood. Cracking knuckles. Something repugnantly... sinewy. 
>You retreat back into your corner as another leg follows. Then another. And another. And another.
>And then, in a wicked scramble of unnatural movement, the beast comes lurching into the elevator with you, addressing you with a cluster of rounded, black eyes and a smile flanked by a pair of mandibles and armed with a pair of murderous fangs. 
>It -- she -- removes the straw of her slushie from her mouth, and waves at you with a somewhat humanoid arm, gloved in chitin and coated in a thin layer of brown fur. 
>"Hi... I'm Gina."
>You reply in a dry wheeze of a scream, thrusting your back into the wall of the elevator in the vain hope that it'd somehow get you a couple more inches of distance on this fuzzy mass of legs, eyes and teeth. 
>You're pretty sure you've seen something like her in your nightmares before. 
>She shuffles through the doorway, briefly adjusting the furry mass of her abdomen to fit through the opening. 
>"Are you- *raaaahhssk* -okay?" she asks, interjecting her sentence with a chilling hiss of frustration -- Her abdomen shunts up against the wall opposite the door as she forces her way into the cramped box. "You look like you just saw a ghost." 
>"I'm good," you say, or try to say. What comes out of your mouth is a trembling mess of noise that could barely be construed as words.
>It seems good enough for her. "Well alrighty then!" she chirrups. Her chipper voice seems to reverberate in her throat, and comes out multi-layered and inhuman. 
>She reaches for the buttons with the jagged end of a leg. "Trouble with the elevator?  You've got to hold down the button for a little while before this stubborn scrapheap gets the idea," she explains, stabbing the tip of her leg into one of the buttons and holding it there for several seconds before your steel prison finally shudders to life.
>The door slides shut, and locks you away with the monster as the elevator begins its slow, shuddery descent. 
>Feels like you're going to Hell... 
>You pin your eyes to the wall and try to pretend she isn't there. Maybe that way you can stop yourself from shaking.
>"So I guess you're the new human on the block, huh?" she asks, the clammy breath on the back of your neck a terrifying indicator of just how close she was. 
>You force yourself to turn around and face her, and a block of ice forms in your belly. She'd craned her neck towards you, bringing her face mere inches away from yours. 
>It's features were human on only the basest of levels. The shape of the head, the presence of a somewhat human mouth and a head of creamy hair which came down to about her neck. 
>And that's it.
>The rest is chillingly arachnid. The twitching mandibles sprouting from her cheeks, the overbiting fangs, the cluster of eyes just above where her nose should be, all wrapped up in a fine layer of brittle-looking fur. 
>You picked a pair of eyes and focused on them, if only to avoid looking at the rest of her face. They were neither the soulless doll-eyes belonging to the average spider, nor the standard pupil-and-iris affair which most other animals boasted. 
>They were jet black, for the most part so dark that you could see your reflection in them, save for a single, orange pupil dotted in the middle. The pupil seemed to glow with a threatening bioluminescent flame. 
>"Yeah, that's m-me..." you stutter. "I moved in a few days ago. Name's Anon... H-hi, I guess."
>You briefly consider offering a handshake before mentally kicking yourself for even thinking of such a thing. There was no way in hell you were touching this fucking nopequeen.
>Gina, however, makes the decision for you, hand snapping forwards like a python snatching a rat into its jaws. The hard gauntlet of her chitinous hand snatches yours from your side and shakes it heartily. 
>It takes a whole lot of effort not to retch. Her palm is hard, giving only slightly to your reluctant squeeze. Christ, it feels like living driftwood. You go to pull away almost instantly, but Gina's fingers clamp around your hand like a manacle. 
>"Wow," says Gina, black eyes widening with surprise. "Your hands are, like, SUPER soft..." she gushes, releasing your palm mere seconds before you throw yourself into a blind, screaming panic. 
>Her multitude of eyes linger on your hands for a little too long before all switching back to your face.
>Scratch that, six of them were looking at your face, the other two were still locked on to your hand. 
>A rash of green glows behind the mandibles on her face, and you realise that she's blushing. "Aheh, I guess there's a reason everybody around here calls you guys 'squishies', huh?" 
>Right, 'squishies' was something the city's bug population had taken to calling humans. Apparently bare skin and soft flesh was considered an oddity amongst the insect community. 
>You'd have taken offence, if you weren't so shit-scared at the moment. 
>"Uhuh... We're uh, we're pretty soft..." you mumble. Gina stifles a feminine giggle -- the layered, low-bass of her voice mashes the sound into something out of a horror movie. 
>"Y'know, I've never met a squishy before," she says conversationally. You're only half-paying attention -- you can't help but notice that what you'd thought was a slushie earlier... Wasn't.
>You focus on the cup she'd been slurping from back in the hallway. You could just about make out the words along the side. 
>'Meat-Mocha Supreme: Sheep Flavour'. 
>Did you really want to know?
>Gina noticed your wandering eyes, and told you regardless.
>"Hmm? Oh, this is a meat-mocha. You HAVE heard of meat-mochas, right?"
>You shake your head numbly. The implications of the name alone were enough to make the blood drain from your face. 
>"Oh wow, seriously? They're, like, the best things since forever! You've GOT to try this!" She says, thrusting the plastic cup into your palm. You look over the brim and examine the contents. It's a crimson, soup-like slurry.
>"Wuh... What's...?"
>"Hmm? Oh! What's in it? Oh, y'know, the usual: blood, meat-chunks, liquefied organs -- they added a little bit of liver to the mix a while back and lemmie tell ya, it took things to a whole new level of awesome! Trust me, this stuff is dynamite!" she rants. You're not listening. 
>You stare into the murky red muck, stomach churning in equal parts revulsion and terror. 
>She was drinking melted animal. 
>Melted. Fucking. Animal. 
>The elevator door opens, and you bolt, setting the cup of gore down on a bench as you pass it in your hurried rush for the door. You hear the voice of Gina call out behind you as you break into a run.
>"Hey! Ah, I'll see you later, I guess..." 
>God, you hope not.
-

>It's six in the morning, your shift just ended and you feel as if you could lay down and die. Still, there was a slight spring in your step as you shuffle down the pavement in a groggy haze of weariness.
>Your boss had been texting you praises for the last couple of minutes -- apparently filling in for your two ill co-workers had saved him from going ass-first into the frying pan. 
>Crime around these parts was fairly high, and a mall without a security guard would be fair game to thieves looking for an easy haul. If the mall got robbed, then the shit emanating from the aftermath would flow directly onto your boss. 
>Considering how many robberies there were around here, an unoccupied mall wouldn't have stood a chance. You'd just saved your boss from a shit-sundae and now he was sucking your dick like you'd just turned water into 7Up 
>Feels good to be appreciated. 
>For once...
>A twinge of depression nips at your heels, and you kick it away almost instantly. 
>Nope, not today. Today you were going to be happy. You were going to go home, sleep like the dead and wake up a new man. No more tearing up at memories, no more dwelling on the past. 
>This dilapidated shithole of a neighbourhood was your home now, and by God you were going to make the best of it. 
>You make a detour towards the local coffee shop, suddenly deciding you're in the mood for something hot, sweet and full of artificial flavourings. Last you checked they were still selling those triple-fudge lattes, and you have a hankering for some heart-attack fuel. 
>It's still early, so the queues are relatively short. You get your drink, pick a table outside and take a long, satisfying swig, filling your mouth with the flavour of caramel, fudge, chocolate and caffeine. 
>The taste of the American dream. 
>You lean back into your chair and breathe in the crisp, morning air, closing your eyes as the sun crests the cityscape and bathes you in its refreshing warmth. 
>Then the scrape of the chair opposite you ruins the moment, and you open your eyes to a whole lot of nope.
>Gina is sat at the other side of the table, clasping a fresh 'meat-mocha' in her hands and leering at you in a way that would've been creepy even if she wasn't a massive fucking spider. "Hey, Anon!" she chirps in a happy-go-lucky fashion which you were starting to think was just her default voice.
>You grit your teeth and shrink into your chair, suddenly eager to leave. Gina leans towards you, resting her chin in her hands. "You come here too? Nice! They do the BEST arachnid drinks around here," she says, waving her cupful of liquefied guts in your face. 
>"Huh-hi..." you mutter through a dry throat. Holy shit, was she stalking you? What the hell for? Y-you didn't taste that good, really! "What, ah, what're you doing-"
>"Up so early?" she finishes for you. "Oh, well I work through the night, so this is sort of my after-work treat," she sighs, looking dreamily towards the sunrise. "It's nice to sit back after a hard night's work and watch the sun come up, y'know?" 
>"So y-yuh-you work nights too?" you ask in what you hope is a conversational manner. 
>I's not that you want to talk to her or anything, but right now she's eyeing you up as if you were a prime joint of beef, and you REALLY didn't want to be spider-chow. Hopefully getting her to talk about her job would get her mind off of how human-meat would taste.
>Sure it was a leap to think that she'd actually eat you, but hey, this bitch was sucking on liquefied guts. You weren't gonna write off cannibalism just yet. 
>"Yup," she replies. "I do pizza delivery on three or four nights a week, but it's only a part time thing. Come the morning, I work on my one TRUE passion," she says with a zealous flair, puffing out her chest. "I'm a dressmaker!"
>For a moment you forget your terror completely and just stare at Gina as she wallows in her pride. "A dressmaker?" you say, as if you'd had to hear it from your own mouth to believe it. "You're a dressmaker?"
>"Mmhmm," she answers with a happy slurp from the straw of her meat-mocha. "Only the best tailor in the whole neighbourhood! Of course I don't get that many customers because... Reasons... but it rakes in enough dough to keep the SS Gina afloat."
>A dressmaker. The giant spider who guzzled innard-slop for sustenance was a goddamn dressmaker.
>Looking at it from a certain perspective, it made total sense. Spiders were known for weaving webs after all, and Gina's long, elegant fingers looked as if they belonged around a sewing needle. 
>Still, you were expecting something a little more... Sinister, you suppose.
>"So how's about you?" she asks with a slight yawn. You didn't notice earlier, but now that you look closer, you can see that her many eyes each sport a small bag beneath them. Looks like working nights had taken its toll on her as well as you. 
>"I work at the mall. Security and stuff. It's not much, but I haven't really had the chance to look around for anything else, what with just moving in and all..."
>The words come off of your tongue easier than they should. Out here in broad daylight, tired and worn out from a busy night's work, Gina seemed a whole lot more human that she did back in that dark hallway. More approachable.
>That didn't mean she wasn't still creepy as fuck, though.
>"Aaah, so you're a security guard?" she says with a painfully faked interest. "That's... Cool."
>You can't help but smile, despite your fear. "Yeah, it's a pretty boring job. I'm, uh, hoping to find something better after I settle down. I-I still haven't finished unpacking all my things yet and-"
>"Oh, I can help!" she offers, bouncing out of her chair with a little hop of excitement. "With the unpacking, I mean. I'm free for the rest of the day and all so, why not?" 
>"Ah geez, I dunno..." you begin, before eight pleading puppydog eyes stop you dead in your tracks.
>"Aww, c'mon, we can make a thing out of it and everything! Look, I've got a BUNCH of DVDs at my place. How's about I bring a few over? We unpack your stuff, get your place in order, and then... I dunno, maybe we watch a movie or two..."
>You desperately want to say no -- the very thought of having Gina's fuzzy arachnid form scuttling around your home like an oversized closet spider sent chills down your spine -- but the hopeful lilt in her voice and the pleading in her strange, alien eyes holds your tongue.
>Yeah, she was creepy as fuck... But dammit she was still a person, and you weren't about to shit on her lap for wanting to help. 
>Besides, she lives a few doors down from your apartment and probably had some real nasty shit in those fangs. The last thing you wanted to do was piss her off.
>"A-alright, I guess."
>"Suh-weet!" whoops Gina, pumping a fist and wiggling her abdomen in what appears to be something of a victory dance. "This is gonna be so cool! I have, like, the BEST movie collection. You want me to bring snacks, too?"
>You glance down at her meat-mocha. "T-that's okay. I'll deal with the food."
-
>It's a long trip back to your apartment -- not because it was far away or anything, but because Gina practically insisted on showing you around since you're new to the block. 
>She seemed particularly eager when showing you the way to the local cinema, taking the time to gush over the advertisement for Slaughtersphere 3: Battle Dome. Looks like Gina was hooked on the silver screen.
>Eventually, after a whole bunch of chatter on Gina's end, the pair of you walked through the door of your apartment. It wasn't much to look at. The apartment itself was a small, three room setup with plain walls and a leaky ceiling. It'd been filthy when the landlord had first handed the keys over to you, but you'd since scrubbed it into an immaculate state.
>Being a clean freak had it's benefits, you suppose. 
>There were boxes piled on the tables and tucked away into the corners, the last remnants of your old life packed within them. 
>Behind you, Gina gave a low whistle as she laid her eyes on your television. "Nice," she comments, taking in its impressive screen-size. "The dinky little thing I've got in my place isn't HALF this size." 
>"Thanks. It's, ah, something from my old home. Used to be that I had the money for expensive things." 
>"Yeah, expensive is the word for it. Something like this is WAY out of my pay-grade. So what did you do for it? Sell a kidney?" 
>"N-no, I just... Used to have a better job." you say, suddenly not in the talking mood.
>"Oh? What were you, a tax-man? Stuff like this doesn't exactly cost pocket change." she replies, switching it on and fiddling with the remote. "Hmm... Not many channels, but something like this'd be GREAT for watching blockbusters on. Especially considering it supports Blu-ray."
>"Well, if you wanna use it, just, y'know, come on over and I'll-"
>"*Urk* REALLY?" she exclaims, snapping around to bring her face to yours with that terrifying, unnatural speed that all spiders seem to have.
>You curse yourself for opening your big mouth. Granted, you were warming up to Gina, but letting a giant, scrambling eight-eyed spider to come into your home whenever she pleased wasn't something you were prepared to do just yet.
>Folk could call you racist all they liked. If being afraid of a blood-drinking, wall-climbing, giant bug that's known for puking stomach acids onto its prey and then slurping up their melted faces made you racist, then you were Johnny Fucking Rebel. 
>Still, it was pretty hard to tell her no now. She looked moments away from screaming in childish glee. You know that look kids give you when they wake up on Christmas, run downstairs and find the living room loaded with presents? Well Gina was giving you that look with all four pairs of eyes.
>Try as you might, you couldn't say no to that. You give her a small nod of confirmation, and the girlish squeal of joy that follows is enough to make the inevitable hassle of having the world's biggest tarantula over on a day-to-day basis completely worth it.
>"Look, as much as I'd love to stand here and talk about how awesome all my stuff is, we've sort of got something to do." you jab a thumb towards one of the boxes. 
>"Huh? Oh, right, the unpacking!" Gina exclaims before practically leaping onto a nearby box and tearing it open. "C'mon, hurry up! The quicker we get this done the more movie-time we've got. C'mon, Anon, move that ass!"

>You move that ass. 
>Unpacking goes a lot easier than you expected it to. Gina, frightening as she was, was a godsend. Mainly because of how much help an extra pair of hands was in emptying the boxes, and partly because this job was boring as hell and it was a blessing to have someone to talk to.
>Or rather, get talked at by. Turns out Gina was a regular chatterbox. In the space of thirty minutes she'd briefed you on her hometown, hobbies, favourite brakfast cereal and tastes in music. You'd barely managed to get a word in edgeways, which is fine by you. You were always more of a listener than a talker. 
>She's halfway through listing off her hundreds of siblings to you before she stops abruptly, hands deep in one of the boxes. "Oh... You have a girlfriend?" she asks, and although you might've imagined it, you could swear that there was a twinge of dissapintment in her voice as she spoke.
>She lifted her hands out of the box. they were wrapped around a picture frame, a memento of yours from happier times. In it you were stading on a tropical beach, your arm around a vibrantly blue bird in a pink bikini who nuzzled into your neck affectionately. Anya.
>To see that picture again is like a fresh knife to your already battered heart. You close your eyes and turn away -- away from the pain.
>"Not... Not exactly." you manage, busying yourself with emptying a nearby box. Dammit, you knew you should've tossed that picture in the trash the day she left you. 
>Gina brought the frame closer to her face, reading the text in the corner. "'From Anya to Anon: love you, baldy'... Wait, are those wedding rings? Anon, who's Anya?"
>"Anya... Didn't really love me."
>...
>Gina's steady stream of conversation is halted dead in its tracks, and suddenly things were so quiet that you could hear the gears cranking in her head as she put one and one together. Finally her eyes lit up with realisation, burdening themselves with pity as they all eight of them fell upon you.
>"Oh."
>"Yeah," you sigh. Great, that's the rest of the day ruined. Just when you were starting to enjoy yourself, too. Now she was going to ask you if you wanted to talk about it, you were going to say no and everything was going to get awkward. Just like it always did.
>You think of the peppy blue bird you'd loved so dearly and give her the biggest mental middle finger you could muster. She'd taken your home, your heart, your pride and she was still finding ways to shit on you. It wasn't enough for her to fuck up your old life, she just HAD to weasel her way into your new one and screw it up as well. 
>"Ah geez. I, uh, I shouldn't have asked, should've I?" says Gina, firmly placing the photo frame on a nearby table, face-down. "Know what? Let's talk about something else. You choose the subject this time; I'm pretty sure I've been running my mouth non-stop since this morning."
>"I... Yeah. Yeah, okay," you reply with a grateful half-smile. Your relief was palpable. Your divorce had cut you deep, and the false platitudes and comforts of friends and colleagues had done nothing but salt the wound. Gina's 'Fuck it, change the subject' solution was a pleasant change. 
>"So... Movies. You seem like a real screen junkie. Got any favourites?" you ask. 
>Personally you didn't give two shits about cinema, but you knew for a fact that Gina did, and right now you wanted nothing more than to listen to someone else blather away about anything that wasn't related to your pathetic failure of a marriage.
>Gina perks up at the question. You get the feeling that she was waiting for you to ask her about that. "Depends what mood I'm in. I mean I've got this top-ten list in my head, but which of those gets first place is all up to how I feel. Personally, though, I'm always up for a little bit of..."
>The talk comes in a furious river of words as Gina fires off title after tacky movie title, pausing only to praise solid acting performances, good soundtracks and 'Moments of pure kino' (Whatever the fuck that meant). 
>Most of it went over your head, but you didn't care. Gina seemed to be having a fun time, and by extension you were too. Her happiness was oddly contagious. 
>"... And this girl I know over the internet? Her name's Rachel or Rudy -- look, I can't remember, it's something with an R-"
>"Gina?"
>"Well SHE thinks Slaughtersphere 2 is better than 1, even though 1 had CLEARLY better camerawork and its practical effects were far and away superior than its sequel's-"
>"Uh, Gina?" 
>"Between you and me, she's totally bias. Apparently her then-roommate got with her for the first time while she was watching it, so now it has some crazy sentimental value in her eyes because he, like, married her a year later. It's textbook unprofessional criticism, if you ask me-" 
>"Gina!"
>She finally notices you trying to get a word in edgeways, and her mandibles clamp down hard on her mouth, as if it were the only way she could shut herself up. "Hmm?" 
>"We're done," you say, jabbing a thumb at the heaping mountain of empty cardboard boxes the two of you had left neatly stacked into a corner. "Job's finished."
>"Ohhh... I, aheh, hadn't noticed," she says with a bashful smile. "I tend to get into a rhythm when I start talking about stuff I like and kinda, y'know... Forget about everything else. My Mom says I talk at people, instead of to them. I uh, I'm not that great with the whole 'social interactions' thing."
>"Yeah, no shit. You got a motor hidden behind those fangs or something?" you joke. She replies with a forced laugh, forgetting to add a smile to the mix. Something in her insectoid, alien face falters, and her peculiar, fanged mouth wilts into something that might be a grimace. 
>You realise that she thinks you're mocking her, and the sharp and the pang of guilt which follows is so intense that it takes you by surprise. "Kidding! Just kidding. Anyways..." you nod towards the television. "You wanted to try out the TV, right?"
>And just like that, Gina's back, grinning and hopping from leg-tip to leg-tip like an excited tap dancer, bursting at the seams with excitement. "Oh yeah, right! Wait right here, I'm gonna go grab a movie." she blurts, nearly tangling her many legs as she rushes towards the door. 
>Heh, for a spider, she's actually sort of cute.
>She stops herself in the doorway, head snapping around on her shoulders at an unnatural angle as she turns to look at you.
>Cute, and creepy as fuck. 
>"Ah... Any preference?" 
>"Preference?"
>"Yeah, you know: Sci-fi, slasher, action..." she lists. "You name it, I've probably got it." 
>"Uh, surprise me? I don't have work or anything tomorrow, so don't worry about picking something too long."
>Her monstrous mouth peals into a grin, mandibles twitching and clicking together in a morbid imitation of an applause. "I was hoping you'd say that. Just hold on a sec, what I've got is gonna blow your mind." she brags as she disappears around the corner. 
>You lean back into your couch and sigh. 
>You're spending a night with a giant spider. That sounds like a scenario straight out of your worst fucking nightmares. 
>Was it weird that you were looking forward to it so much?

>You finish setting up the DVD player just as Gina comes barging back through the door, cradling a small bundle of movies in her arms and clasping another one of her meat-mochas in her hand.
>"I'm baaaaaack! Sorry for taking so long; I had to heat up my steak-sundae," she gives the cup in her hand a wiggle. "I know you said you'd handle the snacks and everything, but, uh, I don't really do the whole 'solid food' thing." 
>"I-it's no problem, really," you console, trying not to cringe as the metallic, coppery smell of her beverage fills the room. Ugh, it smells like blood. You tear your attention away from her gruesome drink and focus on the small collection of movies she's brought you. 
>You consider telling her that you wanted to watch A movie, not partake in a motherfucking cinema-marathon, but frankly you can't find it in yourself to do anything that'd piss on her fire. 
>"So what've you got?" You ask.
>"Only the most kickass lineup EVER! Here's the idea: we start off with a decent murder-mystery to get the hemolymph pumping, and then we crack out a couple of thrillers to keep the ball rolling, and theeeeen-"
>She struggles with the DVD's, eventually fishing one out with a hand and presenting it to you proudly. "MURDERSPHERE: THE BEGINNING! Oooohohohoh man, you don't know the meaning of action unless you've watched THIS baby. A hundred and twenty minutes of big-budget bloodshed... Anon, you're in for a treat."
>"Nice," you say. You mean it, although you have no idea why. You've never really given much of a shit about movies before, or even TV in general, but Gina was doing a hell of a good job at peaking your interest. "You want a drink or something? I got a case of beers in the freezer, if you're interested."
>Gina looks about ready to piss herself with excitement. "S-seriously? Hell yeah! Ah man, this is gonna be the best night EVER!"
>... Okay then...

>There's a question on the tip of your tongue, but you bite it back before it makes its way out of your mouth and ruins the whole evening. Cracking open the fridge you haul the case of beer onto the table in front of the sofa as Gina picks up the remote and works her magic on the DVD player. In under a minute she finds her way into the settings and optimizes the resolution.
>"Wow, it'd usually take me all day to do shit like that," you joke. Well, half-joke. You WERE pretty bad with anything telivision related. Anya had once called you 'technologically retarded', and you reckon she'd had a pretty good point. 
>"Oh, I've had, like, LOADS of experience. My parents were the old fashioned type who could never wrap her heads around anything more complex than a transistor radio, so I sort of became their go-to cable girl."
>She cracks open one of the DVD cases and slides in the disc, giving her abdomen a little wiggle of exhilleration before bounding onto the sofa next to you. You have a pair of beers at the ready, offering one to Gina. 
>She takes it with a gracious smile, cracking the tab and setting it down on the table next to her meat-mocha. "Okay, you ready?" she asks, levelling the remote with the TV and hovering a thumb over the play button. 
>"Hold on a sec," you say, taking a moment to skip on over to the switch on the wall and kill the lights. You settle back down next to Gina and give her a thumbs up. "Okay, ready."
>"Eeeehehee, this is so awesome!" she squeaks, a little too enthusiastically, before pressing the play button. "It'll be like a sleepover, but with MOVIES!"
>A sleepover? A sleepover. First helping you out with the unpacking turned into watching a movie, then watching a movie turned into watching three, and now watching three films back-to-back became having a sleepover. before you knew it you'd have a ring on her finger and a baby on the way.
>...
>Ew.

>The night moves on, and as much as it surprises you, you actually begin to enjoy yourself. Gina had been interjecting every two minutes to give you a kind of running commentary over the film, discussing features you didn't really take any notice of -- lighting, camera angles, the tiny details that would've snuck under anybody else's nose -- nothing escaped her scrutiny. 
>Half the time you had practically no idea what she was talking about, so you simply winged those parts of the conversation with 'Mmhmm's and 'Ah's and nodded as if you knew exactly what she meant. 
>You took advantage of the rare breaks in her sentences to tell her more about yourself, withholding the details of your marriage and divorce. That was a can of worms you were more than happy to leave unopened. 
>"So, how long you been here?" you ask, the three cans of beer in your belly taking the edge off of your wavering nerves. "You grow up in this part of town or..."
>"What? Pfft, no. I'm country-bred, through and through." she states proudly. "My parents run a weavery down South. Remember how I said I made dresses for a living? Well, it's sorta a family trade. I moved down here a couple years ago. I WOULD'VE stayed at home and made a living out of the family business, buuuuut I've got, like, four dozen siblings and they all had the same idea."
>You choke halfway through a swig of beer. "F-four dozen?!" you sputter between coughs. 
>"Eeeyup! Heh, you should see some of our get-togethers. Me and the rest of the family rented out this restaurant for Mom and Dad's twenty fifth anniversary, and lemmie tell ya, the place was packed wall-to-wall." 
>You try to picture a building packed wall-to-wall with giant arachnids slurping the liquified tissues of desceased animals, taking the initial horror you'd felt upon discovering that Gina drank gore-in-a-cup for breakfast, lunch and dinner and then multiplying it four dozen times over.
>Lesson learned. Stay the fuck away from spider family reunions. 
>"Well that's... Interesting." you comment, shuffling as far away from Gina as the breadth of the sofa would allow. It gives you an agonizingly small distance between you and her. Every now and then an elbow would nudge your side or the hard, spindly length of one of her legs would brush against yours and you'd have to stop yourself from tumbling into a panic.
>Granted, you weren't half as terrified as you were when you first met her, but that doesn't mean that touching a giant spider didn't still scare the shit out of you.
>Granted, you weren't half as terrified as you were when you first met her, but at the end of the day she was still a giant spider. Honestly you still weren't all that keen on staying in the same room as her, let alone making any kind of physical contact.
>It takes another beer to calm yourself down, and one more after that to get back to having fun.
>The murder mystery ends with a plot twist you couldn't make heads or tails of, despite Gina giving it her all in a vain attempt to explain it to you. She gives up when she realises that all she's going to get out of you is blank stares, and slots the next DVD in her collection into the player.
>"Alright, next up I've got Slaughterhouse. You ever watched Slaughterhouse? It's a home invasion flick. Straighforwards and scary, just how I like my horrors. Lead actor is one 'Douglas Dhole', ever heard of him? He used to be massive in the porno industry before he made the jump to the silver screen... Not uh, not that I'd know anything about that..."
>You decide not to comment on how obvious a lie that was.
>"A-anyways This is a classic, trust me. I know my horror movies -- it's my favourite genre, y'know." 
>Of course it was. 
>"I always preferred romcoms, myself," you admit, yanking another beer from the case on the table and offering it to her. She takes it with a grateful smile before plopping herself back down onto the sofa. Closer to you. 
>Uncomfortably close.
>The mass of her abdomen shunts up against your side, warm and pulsating in rhythm with her heartbeat. 
>Whereas the rest of her body is hard and armoured with plates of chitin, her abdomen is soft. Pudgy, almost. Its surface is coated in the same thin layer of silken brown fur that covered the rest of her body, only shot through with zig-zagging stripes of black
>The abdomen presses against your arm, and you wonder if she can feel you shudder.
>You spare a glance at her face -- The luminescent, orange pupils of her eyes are transfixed on the TV screen, mesmerized by the opening credits. The pair of mandibles on her face grind against each other in giddy anticipation, parting just long enough for her to fit her beer between them and take a swig. If she'd taken any notice of you, she didn't show it. She just didn't take notice of personal space.
>Because naturally, the giant, terrifying spider who's crashing over at your place for the night has trouble understanding the values of personal space. 
>"Romcoms?" she says incredulously before rolling her eyes. "Pffft, puh-leeeze. Watch one and you've watched 'em all. Horror's the TRUE kingpin of cinema. Or maybe thrillers... On second thought, probably thrillers."
>Gina's smalltalk helps ease your discomfort, despite being full of shit; romcoms were ace. "Oh come on, EVERYBODY loves romcom. It's the ultimate feelgood genre." you argue, all the while trying to ignore the throb of Gina's abdomen (seriously, why the fuck was it doing that?)
>"Ugh, I dunno, they're just so... Formulaic," she explains, leaning back into the sofa with a content sigh and emptying the rest of her beer can into her mouth, finishing it off with a little 'hic'. "Kinda like dance movies. Or just, y'know, plain old romances. I swear, there's never been a romance flick I've liked."
>Now it's your turn to roll your eyes. Sounds like somebody's never watched Casablanca. 
>Oh wait, Casablanca doesn't exist in this world. Fuck. 
>Nevertheless, you're calling bullshit. "Sounds like somebody's bias. Tsk tsk... and to think you call yourself a movie critic." you playfully chide.
>Gina erupts into a small fit of chittering giggles that goes on for just a bit too long. Seriously, it wasn't that funny. "It's not bias if it's the truth. There's only so many times you can make a story on 'guy falls for a girl' before it gets old." she says, wiping a tear of laughter from one of her eyes.
>"I dunno, love can be... Pretty wild. I mean, it's a pretty relatable subject, right? We've all had our share of lovers, right? Everybody's met that special someone who made us feel-"
>Anya.
>"-special." 
>Recollections of coddling, blue-feathered embraces and kisses stolen on the far-away beaches of you and Anya's honeymoon shank at your heart, as cold and as efficient as a switchblade. The hail of memories is as sudden as it is relentless.
>Meeting her for the first time in the vegetable isle of the grocery store. The hearty smooch she'd laid on your lips as you walked her home after your second date. Making love in the backseat of your car and crying her name as she rode you. Her eyes welling up with tears of joy as you took a knee and offered up a wedding ring...
>The complete devastation you'd felt when you'd come home early from work and found her... With him... And...
>'Don't cry you little bitch. Don't you dare fucking cry.' 
>"Actually, aheh, I kinda haven't." Gina interjects, and the surprise that follows gives you the chance to slam the lid on your emotions and lock them away back down deep inside, where they belonged. 
>"I'm sorry, what?"
>Gina looks drained. Pale. Her expression is one of dawning regret, the face of a girl who'd just said something she damned well knew she shouldn't have. She opens her mouth, closes it, and then opens it again, clearly grasping for excuses. 
>Finally, hanging her head in defeat, she finds her voice. "I've never had a boyfriend. Like, ever."
>"That's..."
>You look her over, from the skinny daggers of her legs, to the twitching mandibles of her face, to the horde of eyes scattered around her head -- each as deathly black as the void of space save for the hellish, glowing orange polka-dots of her pupils. 
>...Unsurprising.
>"... Unbelievable." you say. You fake the surprise in your voice, but the pity is more than real. 
>"Yeah, I know, I know. My Mom always said the same thing. It was always 'Why haven't you found yourself a nice boy' this, and 'don't you know you're not getting any younger' that." she plucks another beer from the table and turns it over in her hands, her expression grimly pensive. 
>"She was always nagging me about being such a loner... Hmph, I never had the guts to tell her that it wasn't through lack of trying." she mumbles, cracking the can's tab and promptly chugging it.
>Loner.
>Slowly but surely, the clues and hints cobble together into a depressing mosaic. 
>Gina's lack of social awareness, her near-rabid excitement over something as simple as watching a movie with a neighbour, the fact that out of all the inhabitants of this shitty little apartment block, she was the only one you hadn't seen talking to anyone else other than you...
>You harken back to the question you had on the tip of your tongue near the start of the night, and decide to chance it. "Gina, don't take this in the wrong way or anything, but do you have any friends?"
>Gina doubles over, spluttering through a mouthful of beer. "What?" she chokes, a shroud of encroaching dread sweeping over her face. "Ah, w-well I uh... Aheh... That depends... Do you count?" she asks jokingly through a thin veneer of a smile. 
>Ouch.
>Gina's plastic smile does nothing to hide her shame, and she knows it. She lets the smile drop, and the rest of her wilts along with it. Her bouncy, hyperactive demeanour comes apart before your eyes as she slouches into the sofa with a pessimistic sigh of defeat. 
>"I know it's weird," she says finally. "Like, how can someone live in an apartment building packed wall-to-wall with people and not be on a first name basis with any of them, right? Well... Look, I have issues, okay? I grew up in a mainly mammal town, and folks around there were pretty slow to befriend the weird girl who spat digestive acids onto her school lunches and moulted her skin off halfway through puberty."
>She dabs at an eye on the top-left of her head, and you realise, to the dismay of your aching heart, that she's wiping away a tear. "Not to sound like an edgelord or anything, but a childhood like mine... It leaves its marks. I saw you across the hall the other day, and I thought 'well, fuck it, why not give it a try' and frankly I'm kinda surprised I've made it this far." 
>She avoids your eyes intently, as if she were afraid of the judgment they might bare. It hurts you more than she'd ever realise. 
>Hers was a plight you'd suffered through before. After being tossed head-first into this topsy-turvy land where dogs became tax attorneys, pigeons did part-time work as postmen and hippos played golf on Sundays, there hadn't been nary a soul to confide in. 
>the loneliness had been crushing, and the complete alienation damning. Overnight you'd gone from average Joe with a family and friends to the one furless freak in a town chock full of animal people.
>You look at Gina, and beneath the questionable amount of appendages and disturbing number of eyes, you see yourself.
>"It's cool," you say, reaching out a comforting hand. It hovers above hers for a moment before you steel your will and lay it palm down across her bony, chitinous fingers. "I wasn't exactly Mr Popular either, you know."  
>"You're just saying that to make me feel better," she replies with a weak smirk, stiffening as your hand found hers. She doesn't pull it away. "I saw that honey in your fridge, and your stuff was half-unpacked when I first got here. I'm guessing Harry gave you the honey as a welcoming gift, and somebody else helped you out with your stuff, right? Lemmie guess... Rupert? York?"
>"Sandra."
>Gina lets out a single bark of laughter. "Hah! Figures... I see the two of you talking in the street from my window every now and then. Are you two...?"
>"Acquaintances. We're just acquaintances." you answer. In truth you barely knew her, but like Gina, she'd been trying to worm her way into your meagre list of friends-
>"She stares at your butt when you're not looking, by the way." 
>-Aaand maybe into your pants as well. You couldn't decide on whether or not to be flattered or terrified. On one hand a girl had the hots for you. Nice. On the other hand, said girl was a praying mantis, and you've watched more than enough Discovery Channel to know that having a female mantis lusting over your ass wasn't a good thing.
>You decided to settle on a halfway point between the two. Terri-flattered.
>"Well, look, just because it LOOKS like everyone likes me doesn't make it so. Like, take Rachael from two floors up, for example. I've known her for, like, what? Two days? She already hates my guts."
>"Rachael's a wasp. She hates everyone." deadpans Gina. 
>"Oh? So how's about Susan? You know Susan, right? Moth girl. I tried striking up a conversation with her yesterday and she just walked right on past me like I wasn't even there. I mean, that's pretty rude..."
>"Was she looking at the ceiling?"
>"Yeah, but what does that have to do with anythin-"
>"Susan gets transfixed on the lightbulbs," explains Gina matter-of-factly. "It's a pretty big problem for her, actually. Last week she nearly got smushed by a semi cuz' she couldn't stop ogling the streetlights."
>"Seriously? Well... Ugh, look, I've been here for all of five days, alright? Gimmie some time and I'm bound to piss somebody off." you say with a roll of your eyes. That draws a giggle from Gina, and emboldens you to press on with your pathetic attempt at a pep-talk. 
>"Really though, people are just interested in me because I'm the new kid on the block. Give it time and I'll be just another brick in the wall. Once you get to know me, I'm really not that interesting. YOU on the other hand, have all kinds of stuff going for you. You're talkative, you're friendly, you know your movies..." you list off her traits one by one, counting them on your fingers. 
>Gina giggles again, the bubbly cadence frothing back into her strange, reverberating voice. Strange, but not at all unpleasant. "Anon, I'm TRYING to sulk here, and you're making it really, really hard." One of her hands slips over yours, and you're surprised by how little effort it takes to stop yourself from recoiling. "But... Thanks. It's been a while since someone's said something nice to me."
>You shrug it off as if it were no big deal, all the while brimming with pride on the inside. "No problem. That's what friends are for."
>The fulfilled, nigh-on tearful smile that splits Gina's face tells you all you need to know. She looks as if she might burst into a screaming fit of glee at any moment, but instead, she settles on returning her attention to the TV, the last traces of her sadness dissipating with a satisfied sigh. 
>Strangely, as the night draws on and your eyelids begin to droop, Gina seems to find her way across the sofa, scooting ever so slowly closer to you. 
>Stranger still was that you didn't seem to mind. Not even as the movie's credits rolled and she huddled up against your shoulder, fast asleep. In fact, when you finally closed your eyes and laid your head back against the sofa's headrest, you slept better than you had in weeks. 
---
>You wake up in a daze, morning hangover threatening to crack your skull in two. It takes a while for you to pry your eyes open, and a while longer to find the will to get up. You can barely make out the sound of frying food through the throbbing of your ears, but the smell of cooking bacon is more than enough to entice you to your feet.
>"Anya... That bacon I smell, hon?" You mumble, dragging yourself towards the kitchen. Mmph, God, please tell me some of that's for me. Babe?"
>You round the corner, and instead of finding your wife, you find Gina manning a pair of frying pans heaped with sizzling bacon and eggs. Most of her eyes are glued to the pans, but one of her smaller, secondary eyes addresses you, and she fixes her lips into an awkward grin. "Aheh, no Anya here, I'm afraid. I'll take the babe compliment, though."
>Oh right, Anya left you for a guy with a bigger pay check. Silly you for forgetting. "Shit, I'm sorry..." you groan, shuffling over to a chair and collapsing into it. "Sometimes when I wake up I just forget that... Fuck. Sorry." 
>"It's no problem, really," soothes Gina, reaching over to place a plate in front of you. "And since you asked, yes. Some of this IS for you. Hope you've got an appetite."
>She empties your share onto your plate in a heap of eggs, bacon and a couple of slices of chorizo before scraping the rest into a bowl at the other side of the table. She takes a seat opposite you, props her head up in her hands and smiles politely. "Bon appetit! Hope I did okay. Cooking isn't really my forte, so..."
>"It smells great," you assure her with a groggy thumbs up before pointing to the bowl in front of her. "But, ah, I thought you didn't eat solid food?"
>"Hmm? Oh! I don't. Hold on a second." she says, leaning over the bowl, splaying the mandibles around her face and opening her mouth wide. You're about to ask her what she's doing before a wet *hurk* gurgles its way up her throat.
>A stream of clear, viscous fluid gushes from her mouth and into the bowl in a steady stream. The food hisses on contact with it, bubbling and frothing into soup before your very eyes. Melting, you realise with stomach-turning revulsion. 
>Gina closes her mouth as the stream turns into a dribble, wiping the last few drops of digestive fluids from her lips before rubbing her hands together with an innocent grin of anticipation. "Okay, I'm all set. Dig in!" 
>Funnily enough, your appetite just hit the road. Hard. Gina takes the bowl in her hands and raises it to her mouth, slurping back its contents with a hearty hum of approval. Tankfully she's a little too busy with her breakfast to notice you gagging.
>You force back your serving, if only to spare Gina's feelings. "So," you say between reluctant mouthfuls. "You doing anything today?"
>"Oh, nothing much. Maybe I'll go shopping -- my fridge is getting kinda empty, anyways. Why do you ask?"
>You shrug, prodding at a strip of bacon with your fork. "Well, I was just wondering... Maybe we could get together tonight and, I dunno, do some stuff again?"
>You swear to god that you hadn't meant for that to sound anywhere near as lewd as it did. You meant watch movies, go out to the arcade and fuck around on that rad Light Gun game you saw through the window, maybe grab something greasy from that fast-food place around the corner...
>Thankfully the unintentional implications soar over and above Gina's innocent, socially inept little head. "Really? YES! Eeeehehehee..." she chirps, bouncing up and down in her chair with girlish joy before realising that she could really do with toning the excitement down a couple of notches. "I mean, uh, yeah. That'd be pretty cool..."
>You smile back at her, finishing your breakfast and stowing the plate away in the dishwasher, and as she makes her way over to you to slot her empty bowl next to yours, a lock of her creamy hair falls across her face, and you realise that in a bizarre, alien way-
>-She's actually sort of pretty.
>Aaaand record scratch.
>No, really. Your brain just pulled a record scratch on you. If this were a movie you'd be stuck in a freezeframe right now, narrating to the score of Baba O'reiley whilst the camera zoomed in on your dumbfounded face. 
>In real life that translated to starting at a wall like a tard whilst your mind wrestled with the fact that you, the arachnophobic who'd screamed like a bitch at the sight of a fucking money spider, just called Zurgulon, Queen of the Arachnids, 'Pretty'. 
'Like seriously, what the fuck man? She's got fingers on her face. On. Her fucking. Face.'
>Yeah? Well, you kind of like them. They're very... expressive.
'Expressive? Oh I'm sure they'll be plenty expressive when they're chomping through your small intestine.'
>Oh, cut the bullshit. you know damned well that anthros don't eat anything that can talk back to them. To believe all that superstition about spiders eating their lovers in this world would just be stupid.
'I'M the one who's being stupid? Dude, you're getting the hots for a girl who's got eight eyes and pukes acid!'
 >To be fair, they're really nice eyes.
'Yeah, but... But... Eight legs!'
>Seven vaginas.
'...'
>The voice in your head draws a blank, clearly out of objections. You look back to Gina -- she's busied herself with cleaning away the cutlery, humming a pleasant little tune to herself as she works. She catches you staring, and throws you a warm, dopey grin in return
>Yeah. Pretty.
>A knock at the door tears you away from her. "Ah, h-hold on a second," you stammer, walking over to the door and throwing it wide. The honey bee on the other side nods smoothly in hello. Rupert, your neighbour. 
>"'Hey man, s'up?" he speaks, leaning his shoulder against the doorframe with a small flutter of his silvery wings. The two large, black orbs of his eyes address you warmly, their pupils glowing with some strange, bioluminescent light, not unlike Gina's. His thorax, however, is a great deal thicker. 
>The copious amount of fur around his body made his already impressive bulk look all the larger. Had it not been for the freakish stick-legs, bulbous eyes and the twitching pincers where a mouth should be, then one could easily mistake him for a bear.
>If a bear was black, yellow, and had literal eyes in the back of their head, of course.
>"Hey Rupert... Uh, not much, I guess. Anything I can help you with?" you ask. 
>"You could get your ass down to the longue tonight. Me and some of the other guys who shack here like to have this 'get together' thing there every now and then. It'd be nice for you to come along, get your face out there, know what I mean?" 
>"Uh, 'get together'?"
>"Yeah, a get together," he reaffirms. "We'll drink a few beers, play some music, shoot the shit... You know, have fun," He leans in, mandibles shifting into what you think is supposed to be a sly smirk. "Sandra's gonna be there~" 
>... Why was he saying that as if it was supposed to convince you?
>You were about to brush him off with a polite but firm 'no', but stopped yourself short as an idea began to form in your head.
>"Hey Rupert, you wouldn't mind if I took a plus-one, right?"
>He shrugs nonchalantly. "More the merrier, I guess. See you there?"
>You give it a moment more of contemplation before setting things straight with a nod and a smile. Satisfied with your answer, he bids you adieu with a cool "See you there, Anon," disappearing down the hallway, one of the three ocelli eyes on the back of his head giving you a wink as he leaves.
>"Hey Gina," you say as you toss the door shut and walk back into the kitchen. "I think I've got an idea on what we're gonna do tonight."
--
>To begin with, Gina was all nerves at the very prospect socialising with so many people, but after a lot of back-and-forth, you managed to eke her over into the realms of reason. 
>Gina'd thrown out every excuse under the sun, and you'd ploughed through each and every one of them with bull-headed determination. Her social anxiety wasn't going to go away unless she dealt with it head-on, and Rupert's party was the perfect chance to do so. 
>She didn't see it that way, so eventually you had to resort one of the oldest tricks in the book:
>Bribery.
>You'd given her your word that if she went to the party with you, then you'd go to the cinema with her, every Saturday, and pay for the tickets to boot. 
>It was a win-win for you. Your wallet was hardly brimming after your divorce, but you had enough to afford a night out once a week. That, and it gave you something to do with your weekend. 
>Gina, however, was less than thrilled. 
>Sure, she pretty much wet herself when you offered to make Cinema Saturdays an official thing, but that didn't change the fact that when she shook your hand on it, she did so with reluctance.
>Looking at her as she left your apartment that morning, you'd been struck with an odd sense of unease. For the most part there'd been nothing amiss. She'd smiled, waved goodbye -- even blew you a kiss from the doorway-
>-But when she finally turned and left, she'd walked like a spider on her way to the gallows.
---

>You pissed away most of the morning and afternoon vegging out front of the TV, not really watching it as much as you were distracting yourself from the rabble of your own thoughts. 
>Most of them were centred around Gina. 
>Why had she been so reluctant? Why'd you have to resort to bribes to get her to come to a goddamned party? Why couldn't you stop thinking about how nice she smelled? 
>You ignore that last part. 
>You glance at the clock on your wall, only to find that most of the day had slipped away whilst you weren't looking. It was coming up on 8 PM. Already? You look towards the window -- a silhouette of cityscape captured beneath the gloomy orange light of sunset -- Jesus, where did Saturday go?
>Throwing on some of your nicer clothes (read: jeans that aren't patchy as shit and a flannel shirt) you rush out of your room and down the hallway to Gina's front door. You give it a rap with your knuckles and it cracks open almost instantly, Gina darting her head through the small wedge of an opening. 
>You get the sour feeling that she'd been awaiting, perhaps even dreading, that knock. 
>"H-h-hey Anon!" she wavers, fingers clenching at the doorknob to stop themselves from fidgeting. Her mouth trembles into a doleful, sullen smile. "I, ah, l-look, about the party..." 
>You can spot it coming from a mile away: she was gonna bail on you. She'd chickened out, lost what little there'd been of her confidence, and now she was going to beg for a way out.
>Not on your watch.
>You present her the flower you'd been hiding behind your back before she can finish, and her incoming barrage of excuses comes to an abrupt halt as all of her eyes hone in on the dainty little rose you were holding up to her face. 
>For a moment Gina just stares, dumbfounded, before pointing to the flower with an inquisitive finger. "... For me?"
>You nod, and she slowly plucks the flower from your hand -- delicately, as if she was afraid that she might break it. Raising it to her face, she rolls the stem in her fingers, each of her eyes seeming to find a different petal to focus on and admire. "It's beautiful..." she breathes before extending one of her bony legs through the door and brushing the rose along the fine hairs which resided there. "And it smells lovely!
>'Smells'? But she just-
>You know what? Fuck it. You weren't even going to ask. 
>She cradles the flower to her chest. "But why...?"
>You reply with a bashful shrug. "I dunno, I thought it'd be a nice way to start off the night... That is, if we're still-"
>"We're still on!" assures Gina. "Just, ah, gimmie a minute, alright?" She says before fading back into her apartment. A moment later the door swings open, and there in the doorway stands Gina, in all her arachnid glory.
>The creamy brown locks of her hair are bound in a short, plain yet sweet ponytail, and the orange pinpricks of her pupils are accented with a fine dash of eye shadow beneath each of her individual eyes. The bargain-bin attire she'd been sporting from earlier had been scrapped in favour of a simple but oh so elegant red dress which hugged at her body in just the right way as to present her curves without shamelessly flaunting them. 
>Straightforward, uncomplicated, yet simultaneously classy. 
>And... Something else. Your eyes wander from the gentle, feminine line of her shoulder, past the small but certain bulge of her breasts, down across her firm curvature of her waist to the fuzzy mass of her abdomen and her thin yet sleek legs-
>'You're ogling a spider, Anon. A fucking spider.'
>For once, you take heed of the voice in your head, and force your eyes back towards Gina's face before she can notice you... Exploring. 
>"So, uh, how do I look?" she asks, wincing in preparation for harsh judgement. 
>"P-pretty good," you lie. She wasn't 'pretty good', she was full-blown fucking gorgeous. There, you said it. This massive fucking tarantula was giving you a hard-on. You. The guy who screams like bitch when he finds anything bigger than a money spider in the bathtub. 
>This couldn't be healthy. Guys like you were not supposed to get stiff over girls like her. There was something broken in your head. A pair of wires were crossed in your brain. Your Mom chugged a litre of Jack Daniels when she was pregnant with you and holy shit Gina just took a step closer and her perfume smells fucking incredible.
>"Really?!" she asks, the green blush in her cheeks burning away the doubt and insecurity from her expression. 
>"Trust me," you assure her, forcing the beast of your arousal back into its corner. "You're beautiful."
>And you've officially got the hots for a spider.
>An arachnophobic falling for a spider.
>You'd laugh if you weren't the punch line.
>Gina hunches her shoulders with a shy smile. "Thanks. Y-you look pretty good to." she meeps, offering you her hand. You take it, entwining your fingers with hers and loathing the fact that you enjoyed it so much. You hadn't noticed before, but her skin... Carapace... Whatever... wasn't as brittle as you'd first thought. 
>Her palm gave slightly to your squeeze. Not as much as a human's would, but it gave, nonetheless. Like hard flesh -- no. Like... Metal? Smooth, soft, firm-yet-slightly-flexible metal? No, that didn't do it justice. Honestly this had to be the weirdest hand you'd ever held. 
>You push it to the back of your mind, promising to contemplate it later before leading Gina towards the stairs. "So this is the first time I've been to a party in, like, a REALLY long while," she says, clasping your hand as if it were her one and only lifeline. "I'm-" she interrupts herself with a shaky, calming breath that doesn't seem to calm her worth a damn. "I'm a little nervous, I guess." 
>"It'll be okay, don't worry about it. We'll grab a few drinks, meet a few people, and five minutes in you'll be laughing at yourself for being so nervous in the first place," you soothe, giving her hand a comforting squeeze. "Trust me, it'll be fine."
>Your assurances do little to bolster her spirits. She wilts like a dying flower the further you lead her down the stairs. If she had heels, she'd probably be dragging them right about now.
>It's almost enough to make you skip the party and treat her to a night out someplace else, but you know in your heart that this was for the best. If she didn't tackle this here and now, then she might never get over her social anxiety. 
>Heh, this must be how your Mom felt when she made you eat your vegetables...
>The two of you close in on the ground floor, and as the ramble of thumping music and nattering voices echo up the stairwell to greet you, Gina's hand begins to tremble in yours.
>She'll be alright. So you tell yourself, anyways. You lead her down the last couple flights of stairs, and you can hear Gina's breath catching in her throat as the two of you enter the packed lounge.
>It was a whole lot more crowded than you thought it'd be.
>Everywhere you look there are things with too many legs and too many eyes. The room is alive with the sound of skittering chitin feet and clicking pincers. By all rights it should've terrified you, but you'd long since grown used to the more... Colourful... aspects of your neighbours biology.
>Rupert spots you from his seat on a sofa, a few playing cards spread out in one hand and a cider in the other. He's halfway through a poker game, and judging from the fat stack of chips piled up in front of him on the table, you'd say that he was winning. He points to you before waving you over with a boyish grin. 
>"Wanna go say hi to Rupert?" you ask Gina.
>"I-I'm not sure that's such a good idea," Gina wavers in a voice just above a whisper. She sounds petrified. So much so that you seriously consider turning around and walking her back to her apartment. Then you spot Susan, the moth girl, seated on another couch and staring owlishly at the communal television your landlord had set up in the lounge. 
>A secluded, dozy moth girl who didn't say much. Perfect. 
>"Alright then, how's about Susan?" you ask, gently guiding her towards the moth. "You two know each other, right?"
>"No- well, ah, barely? A little, I guess. I mean, we say hi to one another when we pass in the hallway."
>"Weeeeell how's about you just go and say hi now? She's watching the TV, right? Kick up a conversation about TVs! You know plenty about that kind of stuff."
>"Ah jeez, I dunno-"
>"Trust me, you'll be fine. Just... Do what you did when you met me. Find something to talk about and talk. It's not hard." 
>Gina looks about ready to object, but before she can you've already dragged her up next to Susan. "Hey Susan!" you greet the moth. No response. "Uh, Susan?"
>Next to you Gina steels herself with a deep breath. "Here, let me," she says, reaching over and tapping Susan on the shoulder. She tears herself away from the television, staring at you and Gina through half-lidded eyes. Gradually her brow furrows in confusion, and with a thorough shake of her head she seems to wake herself up. 
>"Hmm? Oh, Gina, hi! I spaced out a little there, did I?" she says with a sheepish, apologetic smile. "Sorry. It's just, y'know, the rooms kinda dark and the TV's really bright-"
>"It's okay. Don't, uh, don't sweat it," replies Gina shyly. "I was just..." she sneaks you a pleading look with one of her side eyes, and you give her a thumbs up in response. She swallows the lump in her throat, and keeps on talking. "Just wondering what you were watching..."
>"Honestly? I'm not too sure. After a while of watching the box I kind of just switch off. You know how I get." Her eyes wander to Gina's clothes. "Hey, nice threads! Looks nice. A little expensive, but nice."
>"Expensive? Pfft, nah, this is just something I made in my free time," says Gina with a casual wave of her hand. 
>"Wait, you MADE that? No way!"
>"Yes way, I do tailoring as a side-job so..."
>You back away, leaving the two of them to chat, enriched with a righteous sense of achievement. Sure, getting Gina to talk to another girl whom she'd passed in the corridor for the last few years wasn't exactly much of an achievement, but every journey began with a single step.
>Proudly you make your way over to Rupert and the other insects gathered around the poker table. "Ladies and gentlemen, our resident squishy has arrived!" cheers the bee with a mocking little applaud. "Glad you could make it, Anon. Want me to deal you in? Here," he throws a handful of chips your way, along with a few cards. "We ain't betting anything, so don't get your panties in a twist when I beat your ass." 
>"Yeah, keep on running those mandibles, big guy. It'll make it all the sweeter when I clear you out," you jest in return.
>The table has three occupants: Rupert lounging on a sofa, somehow managing to take up almost the entire thing with his fuzzy mass. Rachael the wasp was opposite him, propped up on a stool and holding her cards close to her chest, eyeing you as if you were made out of disease. You'd had exactly one conversation with her before tonight, and in that conversation she'd offered you exactly two words.
>'Fuck' and 'off'. In that order. 
>And finally, there was the bug you'd been dreading to see all night. Sandra the praying mantis sat on a couch made for two, patting the seat next to her invitingly with one of her freaky, razorblade-looking hands. "Heeey Anoooon~" she purrs. "You can come and sit down next to me, if you'd like."
>It's not like you really had a choice. All the other seats were taken. Reluctantly you sit yourself down next to Sandra, wincing as she shunts her lime-green carapace up against your side. 
>"Sorry, there's not much room. You don't mind, do you?" she asks innocently.
>It's bullshit (there's so much room on her end that you could probably squeeze Rupert between the two of you and still have space to spare) but you decide not to call her out on it, if only to spare her feelings. 
>Despite her... Promiscuity... Sandra had been nothing but decent to you ever since you'd moved here. Shutting her down in front of her friends just wouldn't be proper.

>You squeeze in between her and the arm of the couch, and Sandra wastes no time in getting touchy-feely. 
>She shuffles ever close to you, limber green shoulders rubbing up against yours. The digit-less scythe of one her 'hands' weaves its way around you arm, and the unusual, chitin folds of her mouth brought themselves close to your face as she spoke.
>"Anon, I can't hold cards without any fingers. You don't mind if we play together, do we?"
>"Uhh, sure." you reply, holding out your hand so that both of you could see them. Sandra rests her head on your shoulder under the guise of doing so get a better view of the cards. 
>Likely story. 
>You try to ignore Sandra's not-too-subtle advances -- Not because you didn't like her, but because you didn't really KNOW her. At least, not well enough to be comfortable with having her grope at you like a bitch in heat. Insofar the two of you had... What? Shared a few of passing "good mornings" in the street? Had a couple of mild conversations here and there? 
'Right, because you're one to judge. You spend one night watching movies and swapping stories with Gina, and now you're aching to pound some spider pussy. Newsflash, you're arachnophobic, dickcheese. Doing a one-eighty and scrambling after arachnid ass after one night isn't normal.' chides the voice in your head.
>'Shut up. And I'm NOT "aching to pound some spider pussy." I just... Wanna get to know her a little more.' you rebuke to yourself.
'Uhuh, sure. Just don't come crying to me when the eight-legged freak sticks her egg-tube down your throat and pumps your belly full of embryos when you try slipping her some tongue, bugfucker.'
>'I... Spiders DON'T do that.'
>A prod from one of Sandra's sharp mandibles pulls you away from your argument with yourself. "Anon? It's our turn." 
>"Ah, o-okay..." you say, putting internal struggles aside and focusing your attention on the cards. 
>Oh wait, you don't know how to play poker. 
>"Uhh, y'know what? How's about you choose," you reply, offering your had up to Sandra. With a light-hearted giggle and a roll of her eyes, she taps a couple of cards, and you lay them down on the table. 
>"Face UP, assho-." grunts Rachael from across the table, only to be silenced by a solid foot to the shin from Sandra. They stare daggers at one another, both ready to explode at one another at moments notice until Rupert steps in and disarms the situation, stretching over to flip your cards up into the correct position. "So Anon, you're pretty new around here. You had a chance to meet everyone, yet?" he asks.
>"Almost everyone," you say, flashing Rachael an apologetic smile. She doesn't smile back, instead simply narrowing her eyes at you. "I, ah, only met Gina last night, actually."
>"Gina?" asks Rupert quizzically.
>"A girl?" asks Sandra attentively.
>"The spider." answers Rachael, leaning back into her chair with a grumpy 'hmph'. "Thought you two were supposed to know everyone." 
>"Oh right! your, uh, 'plus one'." says Rupert with a cursory wave of his hand. "Yeah. I... Kinda know her, I guess?"
>"'Kinda know her?' HA! Bullshit, you avoid her like the fuckin' plague, just like everyone else." barks Rachael with a humourless smirk. "Can't say I blame you. Girl looks like she crawled straight out of a fuckin' nightmare..." 
>...
>The fuck did she just say?
>"Mmhm. It's the eyes, isn't it? Like, they're so soulless, right? Ugh, they're like dolls eyes, I swear -- and there's so many, too." agrees Sandra. Her tone is coldly indifferent, as if she were commenting on the weather. "Ugh, just looking at her makes me feel... DIRTY, know what I mean?"
>You... What the hell is happening? Insofar Sandra had been nothing but friendly to you, and now all of a sudden there was poison flowing out of her mouth. You stare at her, shocked, feeling as if you've just been slapped. You realise that you're waiting for Rupert to rebuke her-
>-Only he doesn't. In fact he's nodding in agreement. 
>"Yeah, I know what you mean. Props to my man Anon here for managing to hold his lunch in; Saw the poor sunuvabitch holding her hand earlier," he visibly shivers with revulsion. "I mean, can you imagine? Ych."
>He shakes his head whimsically, leaning forwards to casually place a card on the table. "So what's the deal between you and her? Hold on, lemmie guess. She jumped you in the hallway and wouldn't get out of your face, and then she pretty-pleased her way into your apartment, right?"
>He's right, as much as you want to say he's wrong. His mandibles chitter with a darkly amused giggle. "Look man, she tried that shit with all of us. Only difference is that WE all told her no. Girl's a freak, dude. I mean, shit, just LOOK at her..."
>He jabs a thumb towards Gina. She's talking animatedly with the Susan, the moth, seemingly having the time of her life. She spots you looking your way out of the corner of one of her eyes, throwing you a happy wave complimented by a goofy, joyful smile.
>Then she notices who your sat with, and her smile rots away into a grimace of dismay and you get the horrid feeling that this wasn't the first time she'd been bullied by this trio. 
>Her not wanting to go to this party was beginning to make a lot more sense
>>"Can you really say you WANT that thing in your home? I mean, eight eyes, man." says Rupert.
>"Eight legs!" says Rachael.
>"It's not right." finishes Sandra with a steely note of certainty. "Like, seriously. I heard that she can spit ACID. Like, actual ACID. That's some movie-monster shit, right? Anon here must be real brave to let something like THAT into his home." she swoons, cozying up to you and crushing her body up against yours seductively.
>Gina sees it all, and from the looks of it, hears it all, too. Rather than march over here and put a stop to it however, her fragile confidence folds, and she retreats into one of the more lonely corners of the lounge, clutching her arms around herself and dragging her legs as she went. She spares a shamed, longing glance over her shoulder towards you, and you're just about able to make out the tears smarting in her eyes. 
>And then you get angry. 
>"No, some 'movie-monster shit' would be kitchen knives for hands and a fucking puzzle box for a mouth. In fact, you know what? Get off -- I said get the FUCK off of me!" You snap, roughly shunting Sandra away from you. 
>She flinches back from the sudden and scalding heat of your anger, her expression one of wounded confusion. A stunned silence lingers around the table for all of five seconds before Rupert pipes up in Sandra's defence. "Anon, what the fuck, man?"
>"I was about to ask you the same thing, asshole. What the hell have you got against Gina?" you spit. "You're really gonna shit on her for looking weird? You, the guy with three eyes in the back of his fucking head?"
>"Jeez Anon, calm down. We were just, y'know, talking..." he placates disarmingly, ever so quick to pass it all off as 'just smalltalk.' For some reason that just pisses you off all the more. 
>"Yeah, and saying some real nasty shit you hypocritical douchebag!"
>"Dude, chill the fuck out, you're making a scene," warns Rupert, glancing around the room and cringing to himself as the eyes gather on the two of you. You don't even notice them.
>"I mean, you don't think she knows she looks different? Man, she's been dealing with that shit-talkers like you every day for the better part of her life. Like, what, did your mother never give you that 'it's what's inside that counts' spiel?"
>He leans in close, mandibles grinding against one another in frustration, and whispers. "Anon shut the fuck up or I swear to god I'll-"
>"You'll what? Refuse to pollinate my garden? Cut off my honey supply? Get a bunch of your bee-buddies to hug me and vibrate real fast?"
>You don't see the fist coming until it's far too late. 
>It connects with your belly, and feels as if it drives all the way up into your chest cavity. Your legs give you from underneath you as the air is forced out of your lungs and you collapse to your knees, doubling over in pain. Christ, the guy hit like a sledgehammer. You swear that you could feel the imprint of his knuckles on your small intestine...
>It takes what feels like a solid minute for you to stop dry heaving.
>"I said shut up!" Rupert yells, grabbing you roughly by the collar. "Shut up or I'll beat the shit out of you, you squishie turd!" 
>In retrospect, you really should have listened.
>"Make me, asshole."
>He tightens his fingers around your collar, readies a fist, and fires a hook towards you that's no doubt capable of cracking boulders. Everything slows down as the adrenaline powers through our veins, giving you ample time to regret being such a mouthy cunt. 
>Rachael sits on the edge of her seat, looking on with an eager smirk. Sandra sits cross armed with her head held high and proudly, as if this were some kind of grand execution where justice was being served. In the blink of an eye you're able to take in the entire situation and conclude that you're up shit-creek without a paddle.
>You squeeze your eyes shut, and wait for the inevitable impact to shatter your nose. 
>Only it never comes.
>When you open your eyes, Rupert's fist is millimetres away from your face, frozen in time. Then you notice the familiar hand clamped around his wrist in an iron grip. 
>Gina.
>Neither you nor Rupert are able to fully comprehend what's going on before a vicious uppercut catches the latter under the chin and sends his stumbling backwards, drunkenly tripping over his own feet and collapsing into a heap on the floor. 
>Gina marches over to the crumpled, groaning mound of Rupert, towering over his whimpering form. She reaches down, gathers two great fistfuls of his chest fur in her hands, and to your surprise, hoists him effortlessly to eye-level and mutters through bared teeth:
>"You ever touch him again and I'll show you just how scary I can really be..." 
>Jesus, where the hell did THAT come from?
>And with that she flings him backwards onto the sofa he'd been sitting with such force that the entire thing toppled onto its back. All you can see of Rupert are his four legs dangling over the edge of his upturned seat, twitching in pain.
>Gina turns to you, and her murderous expression softens into that of a worried mother. She hurries to your side, wrapping her gentle hands around your arm -- so gentle that it puzzles you to think that not a second ago there were beating seven different shades of shit out of a guy twice your size.
>"Easy, easy..." she coos, helping you to your feet. "You okay?" 
>I'm fine, just fine," you wheeze, still a little too shocked to notice the churning pain in your gut. "Uh, thanks." you look around the room and find eyes everywhere, owlishly wide and staring at you and Gina in astonishment.
>You single out both Rachael and Sandra, both of whom look on slack-jawed, pants-officially-shat terrified. You clear your throat, just to be certain that you have their attention, and speak. "If either of you two want to apologize to Gina here, then now would be the time..." 
>Your words seem to snap them out of their frightened stupor, and they blurt out quick, begging apologies to the spider before scrambling for the exit. If they found Gina 'creepy' before, then they must've found her nothing short of petrifying now. 
>If Gina took any notice of them, she doesn't show it. Her attention is all on you, face heavy with concern. "Anon, that was... R-really stupid! You could've gotten hurt!"
>Actually, there was no 'could've' about it. You hurt plenty at the moment, but there was no need to worry her with that. You cast your glance back towards Rupert as he ekes out a low moan of pain. "Trust me," you say. "It was worth it... Come on, lets get out of here." 
>Gina seems to be all for the idea, locking a gentle but firm hand around your arm and leading you back up the stairs towards your apartment, shunning the wide eyes and murmurs of the crowd as she led you to safety.
>A room full of insects looking, talking, speculating, and maybe even insulting her, and she didn't give a shit. 
>If nothing else, getting your ass kicked had done wonders for Gina's social anxiety.
--- 
>"It's really not that bad, Gina. Seriously, you're acting like I got shot. It was just a punch to the gut." you grumble as Gina carries you up the stairs -- she'd gathered you up in her arms the moment the two of you were out of sight, carrying you effortlessly as if you were some maiden in peril that she'd just rescued from a tower, or perhaps some newlywed wife whom she was carrying over the threshold. 
>Did you know that the average spider can lift eight times its own weight?
>Because up until now, you sure as hell didn't. 
>"'Not that bad?' You just took a fist to the gut from RUPERT! The guy's almost twice your size! I mean, what the heck were you even thinking?" blurts Gina, caught halfway between anger and worry. Anger over you being so reckless as to throw yourself into a fight with a giant fucking bee, and worried because it felt as if Rupert's fist had popped one of your kidneys like a party balloon and you were currently shedding manly tears of pain. 
>"Christ, I dunno... He started saying all those shitty things about you and I just, y'know, lost it."
>"So you start a fight with him and try to get beaten to a pulp?" she seethes. "I mean honestly, how could you be so stupid!?" 
>"Hey, give me a break, alright? I was TRYING to stand up for you, and frankly chewing me out is a pretty shitty way of showing your appreciation." you reply shortly. 
>"It's not -- !" she pauses, collecting herself with a calming breath. The next time she speaks, her voice wavers, as if she were balancing on the cusp of crying. "It's not that I don't appreciate it. It's just... God, I was afraid this was gonna happen..."
>She turns her head away to hide her welting tears -- a useless endeavour, considering that she had eyes in the side of her head -- and wheezed out a dry, wracking sob.
>"Gina?" you say, timidly placing a hand on one of her mandibles and gently angling her face back towards you. "Hey, come on, don't cry. Look, you were right. I was stupid. I shouldn't have started a fight-"
>"Don't apologize!" she snaps, regretting it almost instantly. "God, I-I'm sorry... Just please, don't apologize." 
>She places you down on your feet as the two of you reach your floor, intending to busy her hands with covering her tearful face instead. You decide not to give her the chance, and take her hands in yours in what you hope is a comforting way. "Gina, what's wrong? C'mon, you can tell me."
>"It's -- I've --, aw shit, Anon, I've ruined everything for you!" she wails, enveloping you in her arms and squeezing you into a hug. She trembles around you as her sobbing reaches a peak, filling you with a confused pity.
>"Gina, what are you talking about?" you ask, returning her embrace. She tightens her arms around you as yours wrap themselves around her back, crushing you into the warm, chitinous mass of her torso. Her chin rests itself on your shoulder, and you reach a comforting hand up to run your fingers through the soft, sandy brown locks of her hair. 
>I mean I fucked it all up! I-I got you into a fight with the popular bugs and now everyone's gonna hate you and it's gonna all be because of me!" she wails inconsolably. 
>"Hey now, don't be like that. What happened there was all me, and I don't regret any of it." you assure her. 
>"B-but-"
>"But nothing. If anyone wants to hate me after what happened tonight, then they can hate away. I wouldn't have wanted friends like them, anyways." you say, meaning it. 
>You'd never claim to be some kind of almighty moral compass, but you knew right from wrong, and if sticking up for a nice girl meant turning yourself into a social outcast, then so be it. Momma raised you with a conscience, and you weren't going to turn your back on that just so you could hang out with the cool kids.
>Gina says nothing, she simply hugs you tighter, burying her face into the crux between your shoulder and your neck and waiting for the tears to end. "... I've never had someone stand up for me before..." she whimpers as her eyes finally run dry. "Why'd you do it? I mean, I'm just some creepy-looking spider. M-most people won't even come near me..."
>"You're not a 'creepy-looking spider'. You're just a girl with good taste in movies and a talent for making dresses," you console her. "And for the record, I think way more beautiful than you are creepy... I mean, yeah you're a little creepy, but only a little. Thirty percent creepy, seventy percent beautiful."
>"Gina shudders in your arms again. This time, thankfully, it's with laughter. She lifts her head from your shoulder and looks at you with a tearful smile. "*snrrk* J-just seventy-thirty?" 
>You 'hmm' to yourself, pretending to inspect her face. "Okay, make it eighty-twenty. Ninety-ten when you smile like that." you joke, raising a hand to her face to wipe away a tear.
>"You really mean that?" she asks, nuzzling at your fingers as they wipe her cheeks dry.
>"'Course I do. Hell, your looks could give my ex-wife a run for her money, and trust me, I KNOW you've got her beat in terms of personality. Those guys downstairs? You shouldn't trust what they say. You're different, not ugly. Some people just have trouble telling the two apart."
>"... Anon?" she asks, face blossoming into a green blush. "I don't wanna be weird or anything, but..." she sucks in a breath and holds it, wincing as if awaiting an impact. "Would it be weird if I kissed you right now?"
>...
>You're waiting on that little voice in your head to make an objection -- for your inner arachnophobic to grab hold of the reins and steer you clear of 'danger', but all you get is silence.
'Hey, you said it yourself, man. Ninety percent pretty, ten percent creepy. That's good enough for me.'
>And it's more than good enough for you. Raising yourself up onto your tip-toes, you take hold of her by the shoulders and bring your mouth to hers.
>It's... Different from what you were used to. 
>For starters, none of the girls you'd kissed before had a pair of furry mandibles coming out of their cheeks. 
>You can feel them spasm in shock as your mouth meets hers. In fact, it's as if her entire body tries to jump out of its own chitin; her shoulders hunch, her arms tremble and her chest shudders against you as she gasps with surprise. 
>For a minute she's frozen, as if she were held prisoner by the wet touch of your lips, unsure of what to do. You begin to worry that you've done something wrong, but Gina soon strikes those worries from your mind as her hands find their way up your back and the mandibles on her face paw hungrily at your cheeks as she haphazardly returns the kiss.
>Not at all to your surprise, she's dreadfully inexperienced, but what she lacks in skill she makes up for in sheer weight of passion. 
>Her lips move eagerly yet awkwardly around yours, and she doesn't have a clue what to do with her tongue, only that she wants it in your mouth and she'll pry open your jaws just to get in there. 
>Her hands hunt down the softer parts of your waist and squeeze at whatever they find as you lay yours gently around where her hips meet her thorax, and whilst you accent the kiss with a small hum of passion, she growls down your throat like a tigress in heat, as if she were barely restraining herself from pinning you to the floor and claiming you there and then.
>You decide to go with it, and part your lips wider so that her tongue can finally stop hammering at the gates of your teeth and get to work. It ploughs into your mouth with no care for subtlety or teasing, dancing between the insides of your cheeks, clueless on what to do but happy to be there all the same.
>You ease into her clumsy, groping embrace, caressing at the soft plates of chitin around her hips and calming the frenzied python of her tongue with yours as your heart rate quickens into a gallop.
>And then, all too soon it seems, it's over.
>Your lips part from each other's, and the two of you are left staring at one another, both shocked that that'd gone as far as it had.
>All you'd meant to do was give her a peck on the lips...
>"... Wow..." breathed Gina wide-eyed and slack-jawed. The blush that'd been colouring her cheeks earlier had enveloped her whole face.
>"Yeah, wow..." you reply numbly, still intoxicated by the heady rush of excitement. A myriad of questions push through the static filling your brain. When was the last time you had been kissed so deeply? Where did that even come from? Where had Gina been hiding all of that passion?
>You didn't know, but dear God, you wanted more of it. 
>Gina mouths words at you, unable to find her voice, before finally managing to squeak out a sentence. "W-was that too much?" she asks in a voice so feeble that it strained your mind to think that not a second earlier she was confidently mauling at your face like a hungry jungle cat.
>Taking your stunned silence for a 'yes', she flings herself into a rush of apologies. "I-I-I'm so sorry, I-I don't know what came over me, I just..."
>"I-it's okay," you stammer. Your hands still clung to the slim, feminine curve of Gina's hips. In the awkward afterglow of the kiss it felt all kinds of inappropriate, but for some reason you just couldn't bring yourself to let go. "I, ah, kind of liked it. A lot, actually..."
>"Oh," says Gina as her incoming word-vomit of sorrys screeches to an abrupt halt. Each of her eyes seem to take turns in blinking owlishly from left to right, as if they were the loading bar to her churning brain as it struggled to process what you'd just told her. "You... Liked it?"
>"I REALLY liked it," you reassure, and as you did so, you feel her hands tighten their grip ever so slightly around your waist. Your face flushes red and your body trembles with a cool jitter of excitement. Excitement? Christ, you can hear your heartbeat throbbing in your ears. There's electricity under your skin and pins and needles in your fingertips. 'Excitement' didn't do it justice.
>"I-I really liked it too." whispers Gina, her blush growing feverishly green and the ravenous spark that'd flamed in her eyes when she'd kissed you regaining some of its lustre. "I..." her hands move from your waist, down across your hips before gripping firmly at your thighs. "C-can I try it again?"
>
>You nod, and she dives back in, lips mashing against yours, soft mandibles caressing your face, hands groping at the across your legs and up towards-
>"Hmmph!" you grunt as she applies a vigorous squeeze to your ass. She sighs in loving relief as she shamelessly feels at your backside -- you get the impression that she'd been wanting to do that all night. It's almost too much for you to keep up with, but you make the effort to put as much fervour into the kiss as she does.
>You run your fingers through her sandy brown locks. Move a hand down the feminine curve of her back and along the warm circumference of her thorax -- it pulsated with the panicked gallop of her heartbeat. Push yourself into her mouth and wrestle with her tongue, eliciting a shaky moan of pleasure from her. 
>She breaks the kiss, and you busy yourself with her slender neck instead, showering it with pleading smooches. It must've looked nothing short of shameless, but then again, you were too drunk on lust to care. 
>"A-Anon?" says Gina, snapping you out of your aroused trance. She looks at you with frenzied, wide-open eyes, the orange stars of her pupils smouldering hot with desire. "I wanna... I mean are we... D-do you want to come inside and, ah, d-do some stuff?" she offers.
>At this point she's barely holding herself together. She shakes like a leaf under your touch, the mere brush of your fingertips along her back enough to make her breath hitch and her legs wobble. As her composure falls apart around her, the gnawing hunger which lies beneath becomes all the more clear. 
>The way her mandibles clamped tight around her mouth, as if she was restraining herself from kissing you again...
>The way her two front legs fidget restlessly, begging her to let them wrap themselves around your torso and squash you even further into the hug...
>The way her primary pairs of eyes stare deeply into yours whilst the others wander your body, ogling as they go, sharpening themselves with a primal thirst as they seek out your crotch.
>She wanted you more than life itself, and you were more than happy to serve yourself up on a silver platter.
>"Depends," you say, kissing at her shoulder. "Your bed big enough for two?"
>Another quavering breath, hot with excitement, breezes past your ear. "Y-yuh... *gulp* Yes..." she whispers, voice straining with anticipation. Slowly -- reluctantly -- she breaks away from the embrace, meekly shuffling up to the door of her apartment, unlocking it, and leading you in by the hand.
>It's...
>A pigsty.
>The first thing you notice is the wooden shelf next to the dinky TV in the living room, overflowing with everything from trashy grindhouse horrors and old box-sets to epic romances and blockbuster action movies. There's easily over a hundred DVDs, heaped atop one another in an order which makes your inner neat-freak want to bite through his own tongue. 
>The same goes for the rest of the place: vibrant in its diversity and hopeless in terms of neatness and order. The worn yet cosy looking leather sofas are jauntily aligned in front of the television, the kitchen is crowded with pots and pans, and the walls are plastered with movie posters stapled crookedly in place.
>Disorganised, messy, yet oddly inviting in its own cluttered, lived-in way. 
>The door clicks shut behind you, and Gina's sleek fingers tighten around your hand. "S-so this is me," she says, voice straining, as if it was a challenge to speak. "I know it's a little... *ahem* ... Untidy. You, ah, you don't mind, do you?" 
>"What? No, it's fine. Don't sweat it." you lie, if only to ease her anxiety.
>"Good. That's, ah, that's good..." she bumbles. "L-look, I don't wanna be, like, forwards or anything, but..." she swallows the lump in her throat, steeling herself. "What are we gonna do? Like, are we gonna kiss some more or are we gonna, y-yknow..." her voice drops to a whisper, her green blush kindling to emerald fire in her cheeks. "Go all the way?"
>Honestly, you had no idea yourself. You were just going from moment to moment here, dragged along for the ride by a spicy cocktail of lust, arousal and passion. "How's about this? We do whatever you're comfortable with," you offer, moving back into the sweet haven of her embrace. 
>Her arms welcome you more confidently this time, one of her slender hands finding your backside and gently squeezing. "No pressure. You wanna call it a night and watch movies together? I'm fine with that. You want to do... Other stuff... I'm fine with that too."
>Gina makes a small, bug-like chittering sound of panicked exhilaration at the back of her throat as her free hand cautiously drifts towards your belly. "Can... Can I put a hand under your shirt?" she asks, wetting her lips with her tongue.
>You smile, take her hand in yours and guide it towards the hem of your shirt, kissing her as her fingers worked their way beneath your clothing and felt their way up your bare skin.
>You still can't fully describe the feel of her chitin. Warm, living rubber? No. Latex? God, no. It's too smooth, too similar to the touch of a human woman to lump it in with anything like that, yet different enough to seem completely alien. The smooth gauntlet of her palm moves up your stomach and along your chest, testing you with small, kneading grasps here and there.
>"You're so soft..." mutters Gina as you break the kiss to breathe. You run your palms around her feminine waist, hesitating for a moment before reaching down and caressing her abdomen.
>It's like... A pillow? A pillow. A hot, fluffy pillow with a pulse.
>You drag your fingers along its surface, combing through the fur and teasing at the softer, malleable chitin beneath. Gina whines in approval, clasping you ever harder, crushing you into the sturdy mounds of her breasts.
>Deciding to test the waters, you reach up and gently grasp at one of the bumps of her small yet firm chest. Hard as they are, they give beneath your squeeze much like a pair of human breasts would. 
>Gina's mouth finds yours in another kiss, a rumble of approval burbling from her lips into yours as her hands slide down your torso. They leave pins and needles in their wake along with the strange sensation of electricity under your skin. Raw excitement. They come to a halt at your belt buckle, hovering over it, fingers curling and uncurling in anticipation. 
>You move to undo it for her, but she stops you before you have the chance.
>"Wait!" she huffs, breaking the kiss. Mustering up her courage she lays a palm on your crotch and grips you through your pants. It's like a gallon of gasoline poured directly onto the flames of your arousal. "Let me do it. I've... I've always wanted to strip a guy down. Th-that's not weird, right?"
>"What? No, no. Uh, go ahead." you say. Weird? Shit, you were about to fuck a giant spider. You were way past 'weird' at this point. 
>"Okay, ah, here we go," she replies nervously, licking her lips anxiously. Her trembling fingers fumble your belt open before popping the button on your jeans. With a tug on your pockets she unwraps you, pulling your pants down to your knees. 
>Heat rushes to your cheeks as your passion springs forth, barely restrained by the thin fabric of your underwear. 
>"H-holy shit," Gina whimpers under her breath. "Holy shit this is actually happening..." She swoons drunkenly, clasping at your arm for support. She looks moments away from fainting.
>Gina reaches out, brushing at the pitched tent of your boxers. The hairs raise on the back of your neck as her fingers graze inquisitively along your shaft. She makes a small sound of surprise as your member responds to her touch with an eager twitch, and she sways as her front four legs nearly give out underneath her.
>"You okay?"
>"Hmm? Oh, yeah. Fine. Just, uh, just nervous, is all. Really nervous. I've... Never really done anything like this before. Y-you don't mind if I take this dress off, do you?" she asks, reaching for the zipper at her back. "Just don't freak out if I look a little... Different... to what you're used to. Arachnids, well, we're pretty different to squishies." 
>An understatement if there ever was one. 
>Screwing her eyes shut, holding her breath and preparing for the worst, she unzips the back of her dress and lets it slip from her lithe form.
>She's...
>Stunning.
>Her thorax is like a living suit of armour, moulded to the template of a female figure. Plates of chitin fold elegantly into one another, expanding and contracting between breaths. They weave together flawlessly in intricate yet natural design, coming together into a magnificent, willowy mosaic of a woman. 
>"S-so this is me," stutters Gina, still refusing to open her eyes, no doubt in fear of seeing your face twist into an expression of disgust. "L-luh-like I said, we're kind of strange to-"
>"I think you're beautiful." you cut in, still enthralled by the completely foreign yet enticing contours of her body. How could something so alien be so...so...
>Sexy?
>"Oh." replies Gina with a few owlish blinks of surprise. "Really? Phew! I mean, I was afraid you were gonna h-mmph!"
>She doesn't get any further before you pull her back into an embrace, mashing your mouth against hers and holding her limber body against yours. The plates of chitin are warm beneath your grasping hands, coated in a fine layer of what you swear is the softest fur you've ever touched.
>Gina soon gets the idea, thrusting her whippet-thin body into you and returning an attentive hand to your crotch. Emboldened by your desire for her, she dares to slip beneath your underwear and wrap her fingers around your manhood, coaxing a needy moan out of you with a squeeze.
>This is uncanny. A spider. A spider was grabbing your dick and you were loving every second of it. She was so hungry for you, so exotic, so raw and loving and if you didn't go all the way tonight then the frustration might actually be enough to kill you. 
>Gina pulls away from the kiss, but keeps her hand locked firmly around your cock. She looks surprised, as much at herself as she is with you. For a while the two of you simply stay there, staring at one another in gormless shock, uncertain of where to go next.
>Gina decides to go ahead and answer that question, saying the words you'd been praying to hear.
>"Bedroom. Now."

Between each other's groping and kissing, it's a slow shuffle to her bedroom. Somewhere along the way you lose your shirt, much to Gina's approval. Your bare back is shunted up against the door as she crushes herself into you, the chitinous plates of her belly against your chest, firm breasts pressing against the underside of your chin and a leg grinding shamelessly against your erection.
>You paw aimlessly at the door before finding the handle and opening it, stumbling back into the bedroom. Gina lunges in after you with a lustful, insectoid chitter, and the two of you spill backwards onto her bed.
>Plunging into the depths of her duvet, the weight of Gina's form squashes down on top of you, kissing and feeling and moaning. Excited hands ravage your body, inexperienced in their caresses yet overpowering in their firm grips and squeezes, boundless in their desperation. Your desire strains against the boundaries of your heart, the want and the need all threatening to overflow.
>This must be what snorting raw testosterone felt like.
>"Can I... Can I try something?" Gina heatedly breathes into your ear, voice incensed with a horny passion. She doesn't wait for you to say yes. With her arachnid strength she clenches your underwear by either side and tears them away with a sharp jerk. Your erection springs free, pressing itself firmly into Gina's lower belly. 
>She gasps as your bare manhood meets her naked chitin, feeling at your shaft with a slim hand wobbly with excitement. She curls her fingers around you in a testing grip, marvelling at your twitching member.
>Christ, her fingers are smooth.
>"I've never touched one of these before. It's so hard..." she muses, moving her hand in a slow, meandering stroke. Up, and ever so slowly, down. "You must really like me, huh?"
>"Y-yeh..." you manage to burble. The butterflies in your stomach had riled themselves up into a whirlwind the moment Gina had wrapped her bony digits around your cock; right now it was taking all your willpower to stop your hips from bucking.
>She adjusts herself atop of you, so that your back rests against the headboard, and the warm, fluffy mass of her abdomen pins you from your ankles all the way up to your thighs. Her eight legs sink comfortably into the mattress, sprawling in every direction and encompassing most of the bed with their impressive length.
>You're starting to understand why she splashed money on a kingsized bed. Fitting all of those limbs onto anything smaller would be hell.
>Reaching down to the point where her thorax meets her abdomen, you try to return the favour, only to encounter a problem.
>404, vagoo not found.
>... The fuck?
>It was either your fingers pawing at the spot where her womanhood should be or your expression of profound confusion gave you away to Gina. "What're you -- oh. Aheh, uhh, t-that's actually a little... Lower down." she explains meekly. 
>At this point, stuff like this just ceases to surprise you.
>"Don't worry, y-you can do me after," she says, gradually increasing her rhythm. Up, and down. Up, and down. She leans in for another kiss, mandibles gently tugging at your lips, requesting entrance. You give one of the strange, facial digits a teasing flick with the tip of your tongue, and Gina bites back a giggle. "Careful! They're ticklish..."
>She stretches her mandibles wide, out of the reach of your playful tongue, before closing the rest of the distance between your faces and locking her smiling mouth with yours. 
>Meanwhile, the rhythm of her fist pumping around your shaft only gets faster. Up and down up and down up and down. Your hips spasm as a rogue bolt of pleasure slashes up your back. Shit, you're not sure you're going to be able to hang on for much longer... 
>"Gina," you huff. "Gina I-I'm not gonna last-"
>"That's okay," she pants, breathless with excitement. "Just lemmie keep going. I wanna finish you off..."
>It doesn't take her long. The frantic *fap* of her hand around your cock filled your ears, nearly loud enough to drown out your hiking gasps and whimpers. She's obviously trying for results now. She eagerly licks her lips as a fat drop of pre-cum rolls from your tip, only to be caught up in her rushing palm as soon as it drips past your head.
>"*huff* I... I can feel it coming. Y-you're almost there, aren't you?" she mutters, more to herself than to you. Her orange eyes catch alight with anticipation as she forces you towards a climax, giving you a determined squeeze as she rubs away the last of your resistance. Updownupdownupdown-
>"Hah... Haaaah..." you moan, hips thrusting and knees shaking as the gratifying rush of orgasm floods your senses. 
>Gina gasps as you reach your crescendo and erupt between her fingers. "Oh... Oh wow..." she peeps. "I-it's just like the pornos..." sowly -- subconsciously -- her abdomen begins to grind against your legs, the damp lips of her vagina brushing against your lower thigh, swelteringly hot and needy for attention.
>"N-NNF!" you grunt as the last of your load explodes out onto your belly, the ecstasy reaching a climax so high that your face goes numb and the air freezes in your lungs and black spots dance around the corners of your eyes. Jesus, you haven't came this hard since... 
>Well, ever.
>It's so intense that you can barely hear Gina giggling over the ringing in your ears. she smiles at you apologetically. "Sorry," she says, "I-it's just that you make a funny face when you cum. It's kinda cute, actually." 
>"Muuhunyuh..." you retort, sinking into the cosy warmth of the bed's pillows, drowning in the afterglow. You couldn't do 'speech' at the moment; the sheer elation you felt would've churned anything you said into word-soup. 
>This was... Shit, you don't even know. There's a thousand thoughts and feelings stirring around in your head in the light of your post-nut clarity, and you couldn't safely label a single one of them.
>Gina leans forwards, and the soft touch of her lips against your cheek pushes its way through the fog in your mind and firmly flips the off-switch to your brain. 
>No more thinking, only love.
>You sweep your arms around her waist and hold her to you, enjoying the simple pleasure of her embrace as you basked in the comfortable warmth of your afterglow. 
>Gina sighs, lying down atop of you and letting the more brittle shape of her body ease into your soft one. Furry chitin plates come to rest against your belly, inhumanly firm breasts crush into your chest and a forehead littered with glowing, orange, half-lidded eyes comes to a rest against yours.
>Two days ago this would've terrified you so much your hair would have turned white and your mind would have cracked like an egg.
>Now it just got you hard.
>Concrete evidence that the best way to conquer your fears was to fuck them, you guess.
This is so unreal..." says Gina, unwittingly speaking your mind. "I mean, I feel as if I'm dreaming! I spend my life a kissless virgin and then out of nowhere YOU come along. It's like I'm in a doujin or something."
>"A what-now?"
>"A Doujin? It's -- you know what? I'll tell you later." she utters dismissively, ferreting her head between our shoulder and your neck and resting it there, humming contently.
>It's been a long while since you've actually cuddled with someone, so long that you'd forgotten how soothing the effortless act of putting your arms around somebody else could be. There, in that bed, snuggled up next to a giant, acid-puking, flesh-drinking spider, you felt more comfortable and at ease than you had in a very long time. 
>"Anon?"
>"Mmhmm?"
>"Could you... I mean you don't think that you could, y'know..."
>"Return the favour?"
>Her limbs stiffen around you as muscles tense beneath her furry, chitin casing. Her breath shivers excitedly against your neck as she gulps and burbles out a reply. "Y-yes please... I-I mean, if you're okay with that."
>"Course I'm okay with it. Stop being so nervous, alright?" you placate, caressing the feminine line of her jaw. Your fingers stroke at one of the mandibles on her face, and the stress drains from her as if you'd just turned a faucet. You hold mandible between your thumb and forefinger, gently rubbing. "What do you have in mind?"
>"I... I... Mmmph..." she moans as you involve a couple more fingers in massaging her mandible. "I want you inside of me."
>"Oh yeah?"
>"Hnnyeaaaah," she groans with a heavy sigh, eyes rolling upwards and her tongue lolling out of her open mouth. "And, ah, if you could just go ahead and keep doing this whole face-rubbing thing? Yeah, that'd be great."
>"Nice try, but I don't think that I can reach from down there." you observe with a regretful smile. Her womanhood is roughly halfway down her abdomen, and Gina wasn't exactly a small girl, either. In fact, you still hadn't quite figured out what position you were supposed to use. 
>Thankfully, Gina solves that one for you. Reluctantly pulling her mandibles from your kneading fingers, she turns herself around on the bed, legs scuttling as she shifts her abdomen towards you. "Uhh, usually, when a squishie and a spider... get together... It's from behind. I presume. I-I mean I've never done it before but I've done some, ah, 'research' on the matter."
>"Research?"
>"I watch porn," she admits weakly. "Like, a lot."
>Right.
>Standing yourself up on your knees. Gina raises her abdomen to you, presenting, and a swathe of musky heat coupled with the dizzying scent of arousal hit you so hard it's like charging headlong into a brick wall. Her vagina glistens wetly in the middle of her abdomen, slick and desperate for attention. 
>You plant a hand on the soft, pillowy mass of Gina's behind, drawing out a symphony of 'mph's and 'ahn's as you make your way towards her slit. You draw a finger lightly along her sopping lips, and she trembles all over with an urgent whine.
>"O-oh fuck..." she mewls, swallowing hard. "Ah, Anon? Be gentle, okay? It's my first time so just, you know, be gentle."
>"Don't worry, I will," you assure her, lining your erection up with her opening. Her abdomen throbs with the rushing beat of her heart, so much so that, coupled with Gina's nervous trembling, you have to hold her bulbous backside in your arms to stop it from getting away from you.
>You can't describe it. It's like hugging a warm, furry cloud.
>Bracing yourself, you push forwards with your hips, and your tip slips between her wet, fiery walls. You grunt in surprise; holy shit, she was hot. Swelteringly hot. It's like thrusting your dick into an oven, although you're pretty sure that wouldn't have felt anywhere near this fantastic. Barely you resist the urge to buck yourself in all the way -- 'slow and gentle, Anon. Slow and gentle.'
>"It's in, oh God, it's in!" moans Gina as you inch your manhood into her. "Okay... Ooookay... Just, ah, *ulp* n-nuh-nice and slow..."
>She's so tight it's unreal. The hard, almost cartilaginous texture of the rest of her body is just as prevalent in her womanhood. Her walls are smooth and slick, yet beneath their velveteen texture there were stiff plates of -- chitin? Muscle? At this point you simply didn't know anymore -- squeezing in on every side, vibrating with the tremors her racing heartbeat sent through her abdomen. 
>"Nhhf, yes! J-just a little more, AAHAAhaahall the way in!" whines Gina, wrapping her legs around the bedframe for purchase and gripping fistfuls of bed sheets in her balled hands
>It's a struggle to push yourself in the last couple of inches and hilt yourself, but Gina's begging convinces you to go the extra mile. She buries her face into the mattress to muffle another throaty cry of pleasure. Her abdomen pushes back against you with enough force to crush you down onto your back, pinned between the bed and the lusciously soft cushion of her backside.
>The unyielding and firm confines of her passion crush down on you as she tenses, as if locking you in a hard and desperate embrace.
>"Uh, Gina?" you call. You push against her abdomen in a vain effort to lift it off of you. No use -- the thing weighs a ton. "Gina? Don't mean to ruin the mood or anything but I'm stuck beneath you're ah... Thing." 
>The crushing weight of her behind gradually lifts, un-pinning you from beneath her abdomen.
>And then it comes back down. Hard. 
>As quickly as your manhood was freed, it's imprisoned once again between Gina's squeezing, silken walls. You barely have the time to cry out in arousal before she raises her backside once again, only to unceremoniously slam it back down on your member. Stars explode behind your eyes and your toes clench all on their own as pure, electric pleasure attacks your senses. She's riding you. Holy shit she's riding you and it feels like heaven.
>Gina burbles out another wet moan as she pounds you. "Hooooh God, I'm close. Anon? I-I'm almost there. Just... *ulp*... Just keep pushing against me - *hnnf!* - Uhhnyeah, just like that..."
>The bed creaks and strains as Gina does her best to snap it in two, hammering you into a sweaty, whimpering mess. You're hanging on by the tips of your fingers, barely resisting the urge to cum. 
>"Gina, s-slow down! I'm... I'm gonna... Oh my god I'm gonna-" 
>You move to pull out as you reach your peak -- holy shit, it feels like you're going to explode -- but Gina denies you your freedom, tightening her legs around the bedframe and mercilessly thrusting her womanhood down around your shaft.
>"Inside! I want it all inside!" Cries Gina as your member twitches against the firm grasp of her inner muscles. "Ahh! I'm almost... A-almost...-
>"HAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"
>The plates within her walls clench and squeeze around you vigorously as Gina arcs her back and screams in rapturous orgasm. It pushes you so far over the edge that you don't even try to resist. You simply wrap your arms around her abdomen and hold on tight as you experience what might be the strongest climax you've ever had. 
>The gratification you feel is so intense that it takes a genuine effort not to pass out. Your vision blurs, your body goes numb and your ears ring to the point where all that you can hear are the screams of you and Gina, mingling together somewhere off in the distance. 
>It's almost as if you're drowning in pleasure. Ecstasy piles upon ecstasy as you empty yourself into Gina, pushing you down into the depths of unconsciousness. You fight your way back up, eventually breaching the surface with a satisfied sigh of sweet surrender. 
>Numb from your head to your toes and far, far too exhausted to do anything other than stare up at the ceiling and smile like a moron, you let your body go limp and do exactly that. 
>Gina collapses face-first into a mound of pillows and bed sheets, her abdomen still pinning you to the mattress. You weren't complaining -- you had no intention of moving from this bed for at least the next twelve hours. 
>"That was... Wow," wheezes Gina between heavy exertions. "Just wow." Her abdomen slowly rises, freeing you from beneath her. With great effort, you clamber across the bed before slumping back down next to Gina with your head next to hers. 
>You smile at her weakly. "So... Good first time?"
>She flops an arm around your shoulders and tugs you closer. A moony smile plays across her lips as you place a peck on her forehead, between a pair of lidded, lazy eyes. "Great first time," she huffs before wheezing out a few exhausted chuffs of laughter. "Never... Never thought it'd be with a human."
>"Yeah? Well, I never thought the first girl I'd get with after my ex-wife would be a spider," you reply, reaching out to gently caress the surface of a cheek, grazing your fingertips across the length of one of her mandibles. "Glad it was, though."
>Her smile widens, and she nuzzles into your hand before settling her head back into its small nest of pillows. Six of her eyes lid themselves, the remaining two struggling to stay open yet, unwilling to take themselves off of you. It was as if she was afraid that if she closed her eyes, she'd fall asleep, and this sweet, precious moment between the two of you would be over.
>"You're gonna stay with me, right?" asks Gina. "Overnight, I mean."
>"Mmhmm," you assure her. She sighs contently, relieved, before closing her last pair of eyes and drifting off to sleep. You huddle closer, and close your eyes, joining her in slumber. 
>After so many nights alone, it sure feels good to go to sleep knowing that you'll wake up next to someone who loves you.
>You dream of spiders, and for the first time in your life, the dream doesn't turn into a nightmare.

THE END