Romance Fan Fiction / Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ A Facade of a Web ❯ A Facade of a Web ( Chapter 1 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

A shy spider demi-human tries to find a husband the way her mother taught her to, while a stubborn and cheerful young man with a glib tongue and a kind heart happens to be hiking nearby.

Miscellaneous: Romance Fan Fiction / Original Stories Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Fantasy / Comedy | Type: One Shot | Uploaded On: 09.25.2010 | Updated On: 09.25.2010 | Pages: 4 | Words: 16.3K | Visits: 745 | Status: Completed

Author's Note:

This work takes place in the Mamono setting. I think it stands well enough on its own, but if you'd like to learn more, check out Monster Girl Unlimited.

Don't let the name scare you off, things there are generally pretty tame (or at least non-freaky), and are all based around one Japanese artist's work as he compiles an encyclopedia of “conversions” of classical fantasy monster reimagined as pretty young women, called mamono.

You are free to go “What?!” at that last statement, but it works better than it sounds.

Anyway, I digress. This story will have some sex, and some of it will involve a demi-human. Just be forewarned.

Marika was practicing her weaving when the ARE-spell went off. Startled enough to rear onto her back legs, she dropped the half-finished shirt and rushed through the chambers of her cave to get it. Scrambling up a rocky ledge, the now-panting girl slapped a hand onto the brass-and-iron Articulatory Relay Engine's main lever. The shiny, insubstantial sphere of the spell sank into the Multipath Vocalization Cradle of the now-whirling machine, and several metallic parts sank into its surface, syncing it to another ARE.

"He... Hello?" Marika managed to gasp.

"What's shakin' bitter legs?" called a somewhat-distorted voice from the spell inside the machine.

"June!" Marika cried, simultaneously annoyed, pleased, and relieved. Thank the Prime God it hadn't been her mother again... "Don't call me that!"

"Don't take it personally!" chirped the voice at the other end. "I know it ain't your fault your mom went and saddled you with the Old Tongue for 'bitter.' Sheesh, what kinda marital spat would-"

"Please don't talk about that right this second," groaned Marika, folding up her legs to sit down.

"What? Your mom? Your name? Marriage?"

"Yes."

"Heheheheheh... How many times has she called you this week?"

"Three."

"Whew! That is pretty bad! The usual?" Juneau's spell-distorted voice adopted an eerily perfect imitation of her mother's. "Why haven't you gotten a man yet? Why isn't your weaving better? Who ever heard of a twenty-three year old virgin? By the time I was your age I-"

"If you keep swinging the topic back to this, I'll shut off the ARE."

"Sorry. Look, she's got a point. You've got to grow a backbone about this. Boys don't like shy demure girls who are afraid of men. Just ask my Ragnar. No, if you want to attract a husband, you've got to be... strong-willed. Merciless. Regal. Commanding. That's what men like. And as for you, well, any man with enough juice in him to fight back with a fiery temper as you heartlessly tie him up and tease him... That's a keeper."

"Can we please talk about something else? Anything else?" Marika pleaded. The voice from the machine cooed appreciatively.

"I can just see the cute little look on your face! How can I say no? So, what were you doing before I called? Something that... left you out of breath, perhaps?"

"Juneau!" cried Marika, blushing. "Nothing like that! I was practicing my weaving, and it's a long walk to the ARE."

"Whaddaya need to practice for? You've got to be the best weaver that I know!"

Marika's blush deepened modestly. She was unused to genuine compliments. "I'm not so good. Anyone else could be just as skilled if they practiced and worked on it as much as I do."

"Don't sell yourself short. You've got a gift. Anyway, I was just checking in on you. How are things, aside from you-know-who?"

"I'm managing fairly well. A bear wandered into the trap a while ago, and I've only just run out of that. I put the bait out this morning, so something should be along shortly."

"All the bait?"

Marika blushed down to her neck. "Yes," she whispered in a tiny little voice.

"WHOO-HOO! Go Marika! My little girl is all grown up!"

"J-Juneau, plea-"

"Okay, okay. Ah, the life of a young bachelorette. I miss it, sorta. Always nice to hear from my old childhood next-cave-neighbor." A quiet, far-off scraping and clanking sound became audible through the spell-engine. "Oooooo, that's my husband coming in." Juneau snickered over the ARE. I wonder if he'll notice the-" A soft SCHWIP poured out of the engine, and a man's roaring voice, distorted by distance, could be heard in the background. "Whelp, gots to go. Important 'family business' to discuss." The quotation marks could be heard right through the spell.

There was a clatter of feet, before Marika heard one last comment. "Oh, and if the bait does snare a man, you remember what I said!" Juneau cackled, and the spell fizzled in its cradle.

Marika sighed, and let go of the lever. Climbing back out of the communications chamber, she began to walk over to her weaving room, before stopping in the light of the many luminous fungi that filled the cavern and kept it bright.

No.

Marika had, embarrassing as it was to admit it, been practicing her weaving in an attempt to take the edge off her sex drive, and, with the images of what Juneau was doing right this moment springing to the forefront of her mind, it wouldn't be enough.

This level of frustration called for Gilbert Drake, Adventurer Archeologist! Just thinking about him made her blush and let out a little "Squee!" of girlish delight.

Climbing through the cave to her modest sleeping chamber, she settled down on the soft pile of spent material that served as her bedding, adjusted some of the fungi to focus their light, and began rifling through the plywood frame of an old box. There were many books inside, carefully organized. Marika considered the relative merits of each one, and so it was some time before she pulled out a single, dog-eared, clearly much-read and much-loved volume.

On the front cover was a powerfully built man, with a wide hat and a handsome mustache. In one hand he held a artfully-carved and shining crystal statue, in the other, a sharp fencing rapier. He was brandishing the latter at a beautiful woman, scandalously under-dressed, with a haughty, domineering sneer on her lovely face, one hand coiled beneath her jaw as if in appraisal. Her body seemed to change half-way down, becoming the legs and abdomen of a spider.

Marika smiled at her favorite book in the series. Oh, Gilbert Drake! She remembered how she had first come by these books, when she was only sixteen and just starting to live on her own...

*****

"Damn it! Gods damn it! What is this stuff? Where the hell am I? Where's my package? What's that ringing sound? Where-"

"Um... he... hello?"

"HOLY LIVING SCREWING GODS!"

"Eeeeeeek!" *skitter skitter*

"No wait! I'm sorry! Come back!"

"......Um... Yes?"

"Oh, thank the Chief God! You down there! Who are you?"

"My... my name's Marika. I live here..."

"Great! Here, could you help me down and show me how to get back to the road?"

"Um... sure." *skitter skitter*

"Thank you so much. Last time I ever take a cake run for a delivery. I tell you, every sender might insure his package, but who's insuring us? Can't even see a thing without my glasses, and they're down there somewhere. Stupid book collector. You know what's in there? Just a buncha pulp novels, that's what. Almost killed myself over pulp paperbacks. Some animal runs past, I get out of the way, freaking edge of the road just caves in on me, and now I'm stuck up here in this stuff... You doing okay?"

"Ye... yes. I've almost gotten you down now."

"You're a quiet one, aren't you? I bet you don't see people much up here."

"N... no. And... and I'm kind of scared when I do meet some."

"Awww. Don't worry, I'm not a scary guy. Besides, nice girl like you, what's there to worry about? Ooooff!" *thud* "Thanks again!"

"It... it was nothing. Are... are these your glasses?"

"Hey, thanks! Aw, crap they're... cracked... now..."

"....W...what is it?"

"OH CHIEF GOD NO NO NO MAMONO MAMONO SPIDERGIRL SPIDER GIRL!"

"Wait! Come back! You forgot your package!"

"ARACHNE! ARACHNE! Arach-"

*****

Marika sighed. She hoped that man hadn't gotten into trouble. But, he did say that the goods had been insured, and it had given her Gilbert Brown, Adventurer Archeologist!

With his brawny strength, sharp wits, and... *dreamy sigh*... mustache, he traveled the world, fighting agents of the Holy League and Demon Lord alike, while locking horns (and other parts, she remembered, blushing) with his haughty rival and on-again-off-again lover, the aristocratic artifact collector Dame Latrodectus, the Black Widow.

Quickly shifting part of her sensible work smock out of the way, she settled her lower half down onto the cushion of old, spent webbing, curling her legs up alongside herself as she did so. With a happy sigh, she began to read, careful not to let her sharp, pointy black fingers tear the paper.

*****

Tam O'Shanter, whose Scosian parents had had both a very poor sense of humor and a callous disregard for the trials and travails a young man might experience being named after a hat, was taking his vacation in the mountains, hiking and camping.

Tam, his friends and fellow clerks had cried, what kind of idiot are you? Who uses their winter vacation to go hiking and camping on the Ogryn Mountain Trail? Shouldn't you go somewhere warmer, get away from the cold?

But Tam, whose kind and well-humored nature belied his unbelievable stubbornness, had ignored them.

Fie on those whiners! He hated baking in the sticky heat, as he almost certainly would there. Besides which, Tam had never trusted boats or the ocean. After all, the many dangers inherent in sea travel (storms, whirlpools, equipment failure, engine explosions) had only grown of late as more and more companies tried to convert their ancient rotting vessels for new steam-belching monstrosities. And all beaches generally, in his mind, were hives for all manner of ill-understood wild mamono.

Tam may have been born and raised in Scosia, one of the Northern Free States , the parts of the Old League that hadn't joined the Holy League, but, like every other person in the Old World, he knew just how dangerous wild mamono might be. The Free States might tolerate their gentler cousins, but Tam for one had no wish to end up like his great-granduncle Angus, who, having taken leave of his senses, had run off to become a sailor, fallen overboard in a storm, and only contacted his family two generations later to tell them that he had been saved by a merrow he'd ended up marrying.

No, Tam was a sensible lad, and he'd keep well away from ships and the sea, thank you very much. Besides, he hated being hot, and the winter view was incredible, provided it didn't snow. If it did... well, he had enough experience hiking in the snow to get to safety.

This part of the wooded main trail was the most isolated of all. It was a good two days to a small settlement going forwards, and another three going back, and therefore easily the longest he'd have to travel if the snows came early that year. So, being a practical and stubborn man, Tam had taken a shortcut along the rocky side of the mountain. Some of the locals had decried it as a dangerously unstable path, and told of a half-crazy courier from the Holy League who had nearly died in a collapse and crawled out with crazy stories of giant man-eating spiders, but fie on them! Besides, the absence of the trees that surrounded the main path left the panorama of the Ogryn Mountains unobstructed.

Tam O'Shanter, who was in fact wearing a tam o'shanter, which he rather liked as a practical mountain cap, walked sure-surefooted along the rocky path, occasionally stopping to enjoy the breathtaking view of the mist-filled valley between the three mountains of Bone's Head, White Bob, and Gav Smith, upon whose shoulder he trod. The sky may have been heavy with clouds, but the sight still filled Tam's bones with joy. His heavy backpack bobbed on his back, and in one hand he held a simple length of wood he had appropriated as a walking stick.

As he walked the valley began to slope upward and become part of White Bob's shoulder. Suddenly, alongside the spicy smell of pine drifting down from the smoother wooded slope below him and the clean smell of rock nearby, Tam caught a whiff of a truly wonderful scent. He turned his head toward the direction he thought it had come from, and, sure enough, caught another brief whiff. It seemed to originate from something near the path's edge.

He slowly and carefully began to walk closer to it, inhaling deeply to catch more of the scent and keeping his eyes peeled for the source. As he drew closer, he noted that what looked like the broad mouth of a cave lay set into the slope of White Bob, about twenty or so feet down, with a half-shadowed pile of something deep within. Tam wondered if that was the source. Suddenly, he caught a truly gigantic whiff of that smell, and it made his mind go blank and the rest of him, just for a moment, go thoroughly stupid.

Tam stepped right up to the edge to smell more, and the edge gave way.

Rocky bits rolled and scattered as he slid down the slope. Fortunately, he was wearing long thick pants, a jacket, and gloves, so he suffered no abrasions or scrapes, but the slope, while not terribly steep, was not gentle enough to stand up on. Tam lost, in quick succession, his stick, his pack, and his tam o'shanter to the slope. He realized, partway down, that the concave angle of it was funneling him toward the cave.

His Scosian blood had left him with good knowledge of geology, and he supposed that the cave might even have originated that way, with the mountain throwing streams of meltwater down into the cave every spring, hollowing more and more out. Some part of him was still keeping his cool, and already that part was considering whether to climb back up or try to circumvent the cliff and catch the main path.

As a result, when the end came and he fell through the cave entrance, Tam kept himself right up until he realize the floor wasn't flush with the mouth. Sliding even further, he knocked over a pile of sweet-smelling hard fruits before skidding to a halt deep inside. The sweet smell was incredibly strong here, and luminous fungi glowed on the walls.

Tam attempted to stand up, but, as he did, quickly found his jacket stuck to some sort of adhesive thread. He tried to shrug out of it, but another stuck to his hand, and his pants, and his neck. They were everywhere, and he could do nothing to avoid becoming quickly tangled in them as he tried to escape.

What the...

Tam fought to tug away from them, but found that whatever the things that had caught him were they held him fast. Their matter was flexible, but amazingly sticky, and struggle as he might, he couldn't pull free.

*****

The tingling of a dozen or so bells filled the bed chamber. Marika was startled out of her reading, and looked up to see the bells attached to her web's thread jingling back and fourth. She stretched, then blushed to realize that one of her hands had been running up and down her...

She shook her head. Later, later! Something was caught in the web! Dinner was served!

Setting the book on a conveniently shaped rock next to her bedding, Marika skittered over to her Farsight Device, a cave-warming gift from Juneau. Activating it, she peered out of the Device's other half, which magically relayed an image of the web stretched across a narrow chunk of her cave's entrance in incredible fidelity.

Oh Prime God! A man!

She almost dropped the Device in shock and fear, but shook her head, her lower lip trembling as she steadied herself.

Okay Marika, she said to herself. This is it. This is the moment you finally shake off the bitter burden of virginity. This is...

She couldn't fool herself any longer. She was terrified! Oh dear, oh dear... What should she do? As her gaze flitted nervously about her room, she looked at the image of Dame Latrodectus, a haughty sneer on her lovely face, one hand on her chin in a suggestively appraising gesture.

What would she do in this situation?

Wait! That was it! That's how she would act! Like Dame Latrodectus!

Looking into her room's mirror equivalent, a polished sheet of metallic rock, she first pulled her long white hair back into a ponytail like the Dame's on the front cover, pinning it with one of her few ornaments, none of which she wore too often. Then, taking a deep breath, she closed her all eight of her eyes.

Marika would have to act. She knew how to act. She'd been in a few plays during the years of communal school she had endured as a child. Make up a character and slip into its skin. That would work.

After all, she wasn't Marika Araneae, she was... Lady Marika Araneae...us, ruler of this cavernous... cavern... territory, she rallied. Her eyes opened, and her face twisted into a beautiful sneer. Her hand came up, and covered her chin and cheek in the same gesture Dame Latrodectus had on the cover of the novel.

Yes!

No! She couldn't try to seduce a man wearing her plain work smock! Who could find a woman attractive wearing absolutely nothing but an apron-like nightgown? But what else did she have to wear?

Suddenly, her recently sneering face blushed pure red right down to her neck and beyond. Unbidden, the memory of her mother's cave warming gift popped into her head.

For when my spineless coward of a daughter finally grows the ovaries necessary to act like a woman.

Oh, no! Not that! She could never wear that! It would be too embarrassing. It would be.. It would... It...

*****

Tam had hung in the air for a good half an hour, having given up pulling himself free after the first fifteen minutes, when he heard her voice.

"So," it spoke in a sexy hiss, its words echoing softly in the cave and rattling him right round the nethers, "a little fly has crawled into my web."

A soft scuttling noise, one that reminded him of nails tapping on tile, sounded out of the dark and a vague form resolved itself in the gloom. It was moving closer and closer. Feeling a brief stab of terror, Tam O'Shanter struggled and pulled on the strands of the web, but it still held him fast.

"Mmhmmhmm," the voice murmured sexily. "This one's got quite a bit of juice in him. Such a lovely little morsel..."

The speaker emerged from the gloom into the dim light provided by the distant mouth of the cavern and the glowing fungi that lined the walls. Tam felt his jaw drop and a brief pang of arousal shoot through him before he shook his tangled head to clear it.

The woman in question was striking, with pale milky skin, bright red eyes, pointed ears and long white hair clipped up into a pony tail with a strange, web-shaped clip. Her soft lips were pulled into a lofty and scornful smirk, and one silk elbow glove-covered hand was stroking her chin and cheek in an appraising manner.

Tam looked at her face because he was trying hard not to look at the rest of her. Her... he guessed it was *technically* a dress, revealed more than it hid. It's fabric, what looked like silk ornamented with bones, ran from her neck to her collarbone, before halting to showcase the full range of her expansive cleavage. The only things keeping her expansive breasts from spilling free were a set of what looked like a set of leather wrought into the shape of claws. The dress there seemed to almost resemble the hands of a beast, maintaining her... modesty... with its palms beneath and its claws covering their tips. Beneath, it was composed of what seemed to be a spiderweb corset, which revealed the whole of her midriff. A ring of black fur wrapped around her hips and a long flag of black silk and bone covering her groin completed the outfit.

He couldn't see her legs in the gloom, but he did accidentally give her incredibly attractive body another once over on the return trip. Tam could have sworn he saw her face blush scarlet for a moment as he did, but she was turning to circle him. He tried not to admire her bonny profile as she did, and missed the clicking sound coming from beneath her.

"So, how did a little fly like yourself come to crawl into the parlor of Lady Marika Araneae... us?" Wait, what? He could have sworn that she had paused a little between the Araneae and the us, almost as if she wasn't used to-

"Aphid got your tongue?" she teased staring at him from the corner of her... Her eye... Eyes! He suddenly realized that she had multiple eyes! Two where they should be, and a whole mess more scattered across her forehead.

Not a bad forehead either, commented a random and stupid part of Tam's mind while the rest of it panicked.

Wait. Multiple eyes, skittering sounds when she walks, that incredibly keen and salacious outfit's web motif-

"Arachne," Tam whispered. "You're a mamono, a spider-girl."

"Bright one, aren't you?" mocked Lady Araneaeus, still staring circling him apprasingly. He caught a glimpse of her long abdomen and multiple legs as she briefly moved against the outline of one of the fungi, before she moved further to the side than he could see by turning his head. Her voice came from behind him now. "Still, it is good to know that you can talk."

A hard hand wrapped in soft silk, touched Tam suddenly on the shoulder, making his whole body jump in surprise and only tangling him worse, as her soft lips suddenly began to whisper against the shell of his ear. "I'd hate to think you couldn't even scream in pleasure as I take you again-" -the hand crept to his neck, and stroked it, feeling oddly pleasant against his bare skin- "-and again-" it trailed across his cheek and lips, and Tam could feel the hard points of her sharp, chitinous fingers on his flesh- "-and again."

This last word came out in a sexy hiss that went straight to Tam's knickers, and left him rather embarrassed at how eager his little soldier was to die the little death for its proverbial fatherland. "Lassie," said Tam, determined with all his stubbornness to let some of the hot air out of her haughty attitude, "that's a fair many agains. I thank you for the compliment, but my stamina and I reckon you're doing me a gob service more credit than I deserve."

Tam normally didn't speak in the distinctive Scosian accent, but it came out when he was frightend, emotional, or aroused, and Great Lord if he wasn't all three. Still, even if the little mood-killing guff had come out in what he thought was a bit of a hick accent, he hadn't expected her to gasp, or to recoil backwards from him and scuttle away. It gave him a moment to mull over things.

Tam had always known, intellectually, that sooner or later that bizarre and sticky thing called sex would happen to him. He hadn't been too enthusiastic. For one, his prospects weren't great at the office and he, a strict Immacularian, abhorred strong drink, so meeting girls in taverns was out.

He'd always liked Elena, the beautiful dryad his parents had befriended, but she married a traveling swordsman before he could make a go at it. Sally Pass, the honeybee from the hive next door had been a good childhood friend to Tam, but she had gotten close with his other neighbor, William "Choppy Bill" Hicks, and the two of them had gotten married before setting out to start their own hive. And Rebecca Undiniser, the cute girl from the Holy League he'd met through work hadn't been interested, saying that the religious differences were too strong. And... yeah, that was about it.

Tam had, in short, never had a lot of experience with girls, and while about half of him was pretty sure something was up with the pretty lady, a quarter was looking forward to getting laid, and another quarter to feeling rather ashamed about that. After all, hadn't he turned up his nose at Lisa Bilks, that girl with the mockery of a nun's habit from the Church of the... no, Order of the... Great God, something to do with a Fallen God and worshiping sex and whatnot. Fer cryin' shame. What a crock of bull that all was. Who'd ever want to do that?

As his thoughts rambled, Tam missed hearing "Lady Araneaeus" take several deep breaths and try to get back into character. He didn't miss however, her voice snap angrily, "Think you're funny, do you?" A rapid skittering sound echoed through the cavern as she *ran* in front of him, her face twisted with regal anger and wounded pride. Her gloved hands were raised, and her wicked claws all too visible right through them. She extended one, and pointed a sharp fingertip at his crotch. Tam gulped and stared in fright, but some miserable part of him was even more aroused by this.

"Nay lass, 'twas just an observation. Please oh please don't do anything to my-"

Lady Araneaeus swung. Tam closed his eyes and clenched, waiting for the pain... nothing. Nothing but the sensation of a slightly agitated breath on his face.

Curious, he cautiously opened one eye. Lady Araneaeus was staring at his face, all of her many eyes half closed and heavy lidded, her expression an almost sleepy one of distracted arousal and needy excitement. He noticed that she had a cute little set of fangs, like his old mate Bill Hodgeskins back in Scosia. A pretty blush covered her cheeks. Looking down, he noticed that her sharp gloved fingers had only wrapped themselves around the buckle of his belt. His eyes caught her nose, and he thought she might be... smelling him?

"Uh, lassie?" Tam asked, inquisitively, stubbornly armoring his mind from terror with a good healthy dose of joking.

Lady Araneaeus blinked once or twice, with all her eyes, then shook her head. When she finished, she glared at him. "You dare to resist me?" she snarled, her claw undoing the buckle one-handed in an instant.

"Crivens! And on your first try too! That's right impressive!"

"Cease your mockery! I will show you who your mistress is, insignifiEEEEEK!"

As she had spoken, Lady Araneaeus had been undoing and pulling down his pants and underpants in one fell swoop, tearing the near-unbreakable strands of web with a single pull, but upon actually seeing a still-quite-enthusiastic Tam Jr. staring her in the face, she had suddenly backed away with both hands over her mouth and a truly adorable look of fright and shock in her multiple eyes. Tam, not being an idiot, noticed immediately.

"You... you haven't done this before, have you?"

"You... You're wrong! I am... L... Lady Marika Araneae...us... I'm... not afraid of some... b-big scary... male... thing. I'm not some spineless coward... I'm not... I'm not..."

Tam remembered what little he knew of arachnae culture, remembered all the little blushes and hints throughout the encounter, and managed to put two and two together. "Look, lassie, I can see you're trying your best, but some women just ain't cut out for the haughty temptress act. If you'd just let me out of this stuff, we can talk about this, maybe-"

"NO!" cried Lady Marika Araneaeus, who Tam could clearly see was just Marika underneath. "No! I am Lady Marika Araneaeus, and I WILL NOT BE MOCKED!" Marika snarled in rage and charged at him. Her hard, gloved hand caught him by the full attention, so to speak, and, staring at the look on his face, her regal, condescending sneer returned. "That's a more fitting position for you, mocking fool of a jester! I'll make you regret being born with such a glib tongue in your head." Marika's beautiful face leaned within inches of Tam's an evil grin stamped on her face. "And make you regret being born as aman."

Tam gulped. Hard. Then, she slipped a blindfold she had been weaving out of her spinneret with her back legs right over his eyes, leaving him with only the physical sensation of her touch on his bare lower half.

Marika's hand began to stroke him, moving up and down his shaft, and he found that, while the tips were hard, the hand as a whole had a pleasant amount of give to its chitin, and was quite smooth. The silk gloves probably helped too. Her other hand rested on his thigh, holding his legs open. Just as Tam was, cautiously, starting to enjoy himself, Marika let go of his member and let it stew for a long moment.

It wasn't fun. Tam tried his best to feel around with the part of himself he could to find her soft skin, but she was nowhere to be found. He struggled in frustration, his ready member just sitting there, unable to use it. Just as he felt he might cry out in frustration, Marika leaned down, pulling apart his legs with her hand. She pressed her chest against the fork of his thighs and stuffed his aching bit of sausage inbetween a fine set of buns.

Great God, but that felt nice. He sighed in relief as he felt the pleasant sensation of her generous breasts sliding up and down along his rod, sending shocks of pleasure along his spine.

"No witty remarks now, little fly?" she taunted.

"Savin' 'em for when you take this blindfold off," Tam answered. "After all, I reckon you've got one on to touch that... what did you call it? 'Big scary male thing'?"

"Why you... How... how could you?" Her voice seemed to crack, becoming higher, more frantic. "I'm not a spineless coward! I'm not some... some scared little girl who doesn't know how to be a woman!" Tam thought he could hear her sobbing, and felt something wet slide down through her breasts and around his thing. He realized she was crying, and felt a stab of pity for her right through his stubborn desire to take her down a few pegs. "I'm not..." she mumbled pathetically, her voice trailing off.

"Great God, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt your heart. You must listen to me lassie, I never wanted to-"

"I'm not... I'll... I'll show you!" Marika cried. She ripped off his blindfold, so that he could see her tear-streaked face glaring at him, then watched as she pulled his cock out of her cleavage and jammed it into her mouth.

Tam obviously had no basis for comparison, so he had no idea if her technique was good or bad. That said, the sensation was certainly very enjoyable, with the sudden wet mouth and squirming tongue bobbed up and down, down and up. Tam threw his head back as she frantically gobbled him like a kid with a popsicle, conspiring to start him a-leaking. Marika obviously got a taste of his fluid and enjoyed it, because he could see her eyes all widen and feel her pace stop for a moment as it washed over her. That sexy, distracted look came over her face.

This time, she began actually trying to suck on him instead of just moving her head over his cock, and oh Great God if it didn't blow her first effort out of the water. It was slower too, more thorough, and Tam began a flailing his legs about in joy. All this activity had made her quite aroused too, and as his legs flew here and there, sometimes scraping over her breasts and making her squirm, sometimes trailing through her hair and making her gasp, one caught her right on the crotch, hitting her just right at a perfectly delicate moment. Marika screamed around the fleshy thing in her mouth, juice soaking both the foot in question and the cloth over her secret place, her orgasm causing her to suck and push Tam as she never had before.

Tam finally gave up and came.

Marika felt it in her mouth, warm and squishy, almost like salty jelly. A human woman might not have enjoyed the taste much, but Marika did. She enjoyed every single shot he fired off, gulping each one down, and sucked the rest out of him when he had no more.

Feeling him droop in exhaustion, and feeling a little worn out herself, Marika let go of him.

Both of them lay there for a minute, panting and sighing, before Marika began to cry in earnest. Her legs splayed out all around her, some out the the side, some under her hips or abdomen, she had gathered up her face in her hands and bawled. Tam, being a kind man before a funny one, let her. He waited until she was calming down, before asking, "Lassie, why're you crying?"

Marika sobbed as she answered, "Because I'm a failure! I... I can't keep doing this. I can't keep this up anymore. I'm just not good enough to attract a husband like a real woman. I'm not regal or haughty or commanding, or anything else a woman should be. I'm just a stupid, careless, spineless..." she all but spat the next part out, "bitter cup of tea of a little girl, and I'll be a girl until the... the bitter day I die." Still weeping from all of her eyes at once, she sat there, crying and looking as sad and forlorn as any girl he'd ever met.

Tam felt something stir deep down in his soul as he watched Marika pour out her heart to him. If he'd had the use of his arms, he'd have given her a hug. As it was, he stretched out his foot as far as the web would let it reach, and touched his toe to the leg nearest him.

"Ah, lassie," said he. "There's no need for such things as that. There's all kinda people in the world, as Ol' Calvan the Prophet'd say, and there's no use trying to be anyone else. You're a fine young lady, and there's no need to think you ain't just a'cause ya happen to be pretty in a different way."

Marika kept sobbing as she looked him in the eye, tears streaming from all eight of hers. "You... you really think I'm pretty?"

Tam looked somewhat embarrassed. "Weeelllll..."

Marika smiled through her sobs and tears, a gentle, happy smile different very different from the false, proud ones she had been wearing a moment ago. "Thank you," she whispered, climbing shakily to her feet. "Thank you."

"Could you see as to let me out of here lassie?"

"S... sure," said Marika shakily. She skittered over to him, and began undoing the sticky threads that surrounded him.

"My, but you must be strong," Tam commented as she worked, staring at the snapped webbing that was still attached to his pants. "Great God knows I could never break this stuff, and I've been trying for a while."

"W-well," Marika stuttered, blushing cutely, unused to compliments, "I made this web, so I know where it's sticky and where it's weak and things like that."

"Hmmm," murmured Tam. Truth be told, he was now trying not to look down her immodest dress as she worked on the fibers stuck to his neck. Marika was too engrossed in her work to see. She had pulled the silky gloves off her black, shelled forearms, and would stick her sharp fingers into her mouth before using them to remove the thread by inches.

Once she had pulled most of his head and shoulders free, Tam quickly sat up, pulled his hands out of their gloves and into his sleeves, then began unbuttoning his shirt from the inside.

"W... what?" stuttered Marika.

"Eh, these're cheap clothes anyway, and I'd just as soon be up and walking as soon as possible. I can get 'em later. Could you start on my bum, if you please?"

Marika blushed scarlet, but began to start removing the threads stuck to the exposed flesh of his lower half with care. As she finished and scuttled back, Tam finally finished with his shirt and carefully stood up stark naked, climbing out of the web with care and trying not to get stuck on any other fibers.

Looking up, he noticed that Marika had turned around, and was frantically scrabbling in the dirt to find his things. Tame suddenly realized that she was probably embarrassed to look at Little Tam again so soon, and began hunting through the dirt for a less-sticky pair himself.

As the two of them were searching, neither one looking anywhere near the other, Tam, not realizing just how close to her he really was, got a whiff of that same sweet smell that had gotten him into this mess. It smelled very close, close enough to touch. He stretched out his hand and tried.

Something soft and wet touched his hand, and he heard Marika cry out in sudden shock and pleasure. The wonderful smell got stronger.

"Huh?" Tam grunted, trying to straighten up and look, but slipping as the pants on which one of his knees rested slipped away. The hand touching the soft, wet something jerked forward, two of his fingers ending up stuck inside. Marika all but screamed as Tam managed to get his balance, pull his hand away, and take a look at it.

His hand was now covered in a sticky, semisolid white mass. Tam smelled it, then blanked for a moment as that heavenly scent assaulted his brain again. Looking up, he noticed that Marika had collapsed, her legs flying akimbo every which way, and saw that same sweet smelling white fluid dripping from the back tip of her abdomen.

Oh dear. He had accidentally grabbed a lady's backside. A spider's... spinnerox? Spinster? Spinnerets, that was the word! He had accidentally grabbed her spinnerets! "Sorry!" he cried "Oh Great God, I'm sorry. I never meant to touch you there, it was a sheer accident, I..." Tam trailed off as her face turned to look at him.

It had that same look Tam had seen before, that distracted, lustful, needy, pleading look in all eight of her eyes, in her flushed cheeks, in her quick, puffing breaths. Slowly, Marika began to climb to her feet, still staring at him. Hypnotized, he could only look back, straightening up to stand on his knees. That wonderfully sweet smell still poured from his hand, and Tam dimly realized it must be some kind of aphorismy... aphordizzy... aphor-

Before his confuzzled brain could string together the word "aphrodisiac," Marika pounced on Tam. She pushed her arms under his armpits, caught him up in a hug that squished her bosomy chest against his own, naked one, the leather chafing him uncomfortably, and pulled him into a kiss. Tam, in the heat of the moment, promptly hugged her round the trunk and kissed her back. Neither of them was very good at it, but neither one cared. The two squirmed and groaned as they held each other.

Marika moaned cutely as he managed to pull away part of the leather top and gently squeeze one of her breasts. The other hand was running down the back of the garment, undoing the leather clasps that held it on. She struggled against it, trying to keep the strange dress from falling off as he unclasped it, before he broke the kiss.

Staring into her main eyes, feeling her hot rapid breaths on his skin, Tam spoke. "No, lassie. I want to see you. I want to see all of you, plain and clean."

Marika, still puffing heavily, flushed even further, but waved away his hand and began to remove the strange black garment herself. Shrugging out of it and letting it pool in front of her, she also pulled out the ornate clip holding her hair back and let it stream messily behind her head. Tam stared, entranced, at her naked figure, shapely and curved, her milky pale skin and soft upper portion forming a pleasant contrast with her dark, smooth lower half.

"Beautiful..." he whispered, causing her flushed face to smile demurely. Tam wrapped his arms around her body again and, as he ran his hands up and down her back and over her broad abdomen, he enjoyed how sensitive she was, how she jumped an moaned, clearly being turned on by every place on her he could touch. Tam smiled to himself, for he had suddenly remembered the Zipangian wisdom of the Book of Li Po about arachnae, something he hadn't read since college.

"Being each one given to aggressive and fierce displays of dominance in the sensual arts, the Daughters of the Web are, while defending themselves from attacks of this nature, weak and unused to suffering them, such that a lover might easily subdue one with the lightest of caresses and touches. It is for this reason that they choose to tie up their husbands with unbreakable threads soaked in the valuable substance named Spider's Kiss by the Illustrious Heavenly Chemist Zi Lao, that they might put them..."

Wait. Waaaait. "Tie up?"

Indeed, while holding her body against his in reverie, and enjoying the quakes and moans of need from Marika as his naked chest ground against hers and his hands explored her back and bottom, Tam had failed to notice her arms around him or her lifting and dragging him so that his legs lay along the belly of her abdomen, or that her back feet had been spinning a set of silky cuffs around his legs, calves to ankles, so that he couldn't walk.

"Lassie, why are you-" Tam didn't get to finish. Marika, moaning with pleasure as his legs trailed along the bottom of her big lower half, her eyes still lidded and pleading with lust, pulled him into a deep, needy kiss and dragged him further into the cavern. Before long, she had picked him up with her deceptively strong hands, and was running full tilt, her many nimble legs scrambling easily up steep inclines and through the chambers of the cavern lit only by the bright lights of the fungi growing from the walls.

All the time, Marika was kissing him, again and again, that same lustful, pleading, distracted look on her face. Tam, overwhelmed by his situation, simply relaxed and enjoyed it.

Finally they ended up in what he guessed was her bedroom, or as near an equivalent as he could divine. Old, used up webbing had been piled and piled in the center of the room making a high and wide sort of bed. It was soft too, as he found when she laid him on it before scrambling up over him.

"Please," she whispered, caressing his face with one of her smooth, sharp hands. "I know that we've only just met, but I..." Marika hesitated for a moment. "I just feel... some... strange..." She closed all of her eyes, took a deep breath, than looked him square in the face. "I'm ready, and more than anyone else in the world, I'd like you to make me a woman."

Tam gulped, and stared back. A thousand reasons to say no raged through his mind all at once.

"Yes," he whispered, finally just as nervous as her. "But first, I'd like to know... What's your name?"

"M-marika," she answered, her nerves jittery and taut. "I wasn't lying about that. It's... it means 'bitter'."

"Ah, that's unfair, lassie." Tam raised his still-web-covered hand, and licked it. "This wet stuff coating the web tastes just as good as it smells. Better in fact."

Tam took in her shocked look, and suddenly realized how stupid that had been. Oh, Great God, he'd just put some weird chemical into his mouth. Immediately, he could feel its effects. His body felt hot and needy, his mind fogged up with lust, and his brave little soldier recovered from its glorious battle wounds in an instant and stood to attention. Knowing that these effects were mamono in origin, who knew how long they'd take to wear off?

"Be... besides," he panted, stubbornly fighting the effects of the Spider's Kiss, "I've... got... a daft... name... too. Tam O'Shanter, like... like the round hat. What kind of... parent... would... name... name..." Tam gulped a heavy breath, trying with all his stubborn will not to think about the strangely pretty spider-girl staring at him. "A kid..." he rallied, "after a hat? Incidentally... did you... happen to see where-"

Finally taking pity on him, Marika leaned so that her body was nearly parallel to her abdomen, and kissed him again. Oh Great God, it felt good to give in at last. Her smooth black hands and sharp fingernails slid over his back, her soft human lips pressed against his, her wet sticky tongue suddenly pressed against his teeth as Marika whimpered urgently, sighing in pleasure as Tam responded.

Tam reach out with his hands, the clean one to her back and the one still messy with her webbing grabbing her by the breast. Mmmmm, oh Great God it felt nice. Soft and warm, with her bright nipple poking into his palm as it rolled over her bosom. The hand on her back ran up and down the curve of her spine, enjoying the soft skin that hid a wonderful cushion of pleasantly springy muscle.

But Tam had forgotten just how sensitive his bedmate was, and winced in slight pain as her sharp fingers suddenly bit into his back at the abrupt sensation. Fortunately, the Spider's Kiss cushioned the worst of the pain.

And oh Great God was there a lot of Spider's Kiss to go round. Its scent seemed to be stronger all the time, soaking into the gently cushion of the bedding. The last inhumanly stubborn vestiges of full rational thought in his otherwise-generally occupied mind decided that while it generally only went on webs when the arachnae was husband-hunting, the stuff must also come out of their mouths, sweat, naughty bits, everywhere during the act.

Tam pulled his head away from her lips and leaned forward to take one of her breasts in his mouth, his web covered hand falling to caress the smooth lips of her inhuman labia. Marika shuddered again, accidentally slicing rows of red, bleeding lines in his back, but he didn't even flinch by this point.

"Does- does it bother you," she panted, feeling his fingers slide over her entrance, formed of a pair of now-slightly opened shell plates, smooth and hard and absolutely soaked with sweet-smelling pheromonic juices, "that I'm not like human girls down there?"

He pulled his head away from her breast, where he had been licking his way up and down the top of the firm, soft fold of flesh, long enough to say, "Only if it bothers you, lassie. I've no idea what a human girl's like down there."

Marika yelped happily and threw her arms around his head in joy, crushing it against her chest. "You always know just what to say!" she cried, pressing and grinding her wet and slick lower part up against his. "Please," she panted, "I need it. Are you ready? Please tell me you're ready."

"Your a right impatient lass," Tam mumbled, his mouth muffled by her breasts. He put both his hands on Merika's back and ran them down to her hips, where her human upper half met her spidery abdomen. Pulling his head free, Tam scooted himself into a more upright position as best he could with his legs lashed together and Marika's lovely body squirming atop him, and kissed her on the lips.

Fumbling around, he did his best to try to push against her, but found that it was trickier than it looked. Both of them had to fiddle for a minute before he suddenly slipped all the way into her.

Ah, Great God! That was a wonderful feeling, being inside of her. Soft and wet and fleshy, squirming and squeezing all around him...

Tam moaned happily, and did his best to try to move a bit. She didn't seem to have a hymen, which was just as well. He wasn't sure what he'd have done if she began to bleed and cry.

Marika was a mess of sensations and hormones. Her hot, rapid breathing sprayed over Tam's face, and while Tam had some difficulty trying to move or thrust, Marika had none. Holding him close, she began to, with the aid of her legs, ride him crazily, easily sliding up and down his length, gasping heavily at every little bump that ground over the inside of her tunnel.

The human woman has got a focus for pleasure during the act of sex: the clitoris. Arachnae don't. They instead have nerve endings directly linked to their openings, in part because they don't birth live young.

And the further in a penis goes, the more densely packed these nerve endings become.

Marika, much sooner than Tam had heard was normal, suddenly quivered with orgasmic bliss, and came, gushing sweet-smelling lubricant from deep inside and squeezing and milking at his member. He tried to hold back, but didn't know how, and still grinding against her lovely body, soft flesh and smooth carapace, he gave in and gushed out into her. The two of them rode out the consummation of their joy, Marika's body squeezing shot after shot out of Tam's, their lips buried against one another's, until, finally, it came to an end.

Both of them lay on the webbing bed, panting and sighing. Marika smiled up at him, then froze when she saw the blood on her sharp black fingers. Her face screwed up in horror. "I hurt you," she whispered, her voice full of misery.

Tam noticed and looking first at her face, then at her hands, then back over his shoulder at the shallow little cuts she had accidentally sliced into his flesh, he understood. "No... need to trouble... your pretty head, lassie," he told her, still panting, as he patted her head with one hand. "With all this these phertoamins... pherosoams... PHEROMONES, pheromones in my body, I barely felt a thing."

"You..." Marika started to cry. "You're always so nice!" She kissed him, still weeping. "Nothing ever seems to scare you or shock you or put you down or..."

Her body was sliding against his, and oh Great God, how the bloody hell was Tam already up and ready again? Why did he still feel achy and ready to roll? Distracted by her sexy body, he failed to notice that she was absent-mindedly tying down his midsection with sweet-smelling string from her spinnerets. When he did notice, it was too late.

"Lassie, why-" Marika cut him off by kissing him.

"It's better this way," she explained, panting, her face once again fully of distracted, needy lust. "Better..."

Her voice trailed off as she mounted him again burying her face in his shoulder as she did.

"So you do have a bossy side," Tam sighed, enjoying the sensations of her slippery tunnel, before reaching out with his un-webbed hand to pinch the un-carapaced skin of her abdomen. Marika bit his shoulder in surprise as the sudden sensation caused her to yelp, and Tam groaned in pleasure as the Spider's Gift in her saliva soaked directly into his bloodstream, burning away that last stubborn bit of his brain that was clinging to reason. In a haze of pleasure, he kissed her on the lips and gave himself over to the lust burning in his flesh.

They made love again, then again after that, and again after that, each time a little slower and more gently, each time with a little more of his body ending up wrapped up in her webbing. All the time, Tam could always feel his plums-in-a-sack heavy and bloated with seed no matter how much they fired off, his carrot fresh and crunchy rather than soft and limp no matter how long it sat out in the damp. Marika too seemed insatiable, and so their lovemaking went on and on and on...

*****

A good long time later, Tam, sore and more thirsty than he'd ever been in his entire life, woke with a groan. He was lying on something soft, but still felt too worn out to move.

He heard a skittering sound, then the distinctive trickle of pouring water. Tam opened one bleary, tired eye.

Marika was there, filling a tall stone glass with water from a big pitcher of the same material. She skittered over to him, and held it under his mouth. "Drink," she said gently. "The Gift used up a lot of your body's water to... to..." she blushed as she watched him sip gratefully from the glass in her hand, "to make more of that white stuff."

It was teeth-achingly cold, and probably the best drink of Tam's life. He looked up at her as he drank, and noticed that she was wearing a simple grey smock now, one that had clearly seen a lot of use, unlike the exotic outfit she'd been wearing earlier. Upon noticing that she wasn't wearing anything underneath or below, Tam would probably have been aroused if sex hadn't been about the last thing he wanted to think about at that moment.

Finishing the drink, his voice cracked a little as he spoke. "What... what happens now?"

Marika blushed, and looked a little ashamed. "Um... well, the snows started early while you were asleep. I managed to find all your things when I went to put up the guards and keep the snow from sliding into the cavern, but otherwise I think you're stuck here."

"Great God! How long was I asleep?"

"Well, by the time we finished up," she looked embarrassed, "it had been about four and a half hours. Then, we both fell asleep. I got up at about twelve o'clock and that was about six hours ago, so I think it's been about a day and a half total since you fell into my web."

"So I'm stuck here till the first blizzard of the year comes to an end, am I? Crivens!" Tam mumbled. "Well, I guess things could be worse. My stuff ain't lost, and the company isn't bad, for one."

Marika blushed. "I'm... I'm sorry for everything. I... I really forced myself on you. That's... I mean..."

Tam straightened up, groaning, and was pleased to note that she had dressed him in his long johns in his sleep. "I can't say I appreciate that lassie, but I will say I enjoyed it." Stretching out his sore and cramped body, he looked around the lightly furnished bedchamber. "Well, if I'm to be here till things are clear enough to walk in, the least you could do is show me around."

*****

Marika did indeed show him around, and Tam was honestly impressed. Her cavern had many pleasant magical and technical conveniences acquired from friends and relatives who visited human settlements more often than she. Tam studied the simple magical systems that kept the cave warm and cozy in the winter, chuckled at her antique ARE, and marveled at the many beautiful things she had made with her weaving.

"This is prime stuff lassie. Why do you have so much?"

"Oh, I sell them to the black harpies on Bone's Head, and to the goblin tribe that trades with the human settlement at the foot of Mount Gav Smith. Most of the arachnae in these mountains do, except for Mistress Brynwyn the Seer, who works a wizard."

*whistle* "I never knew there was a whole society of you ladies out here."

Tam O'Shanter was also pleased to find his tam o'shanter with the rest of his things in the weaving room, and quickly put it on. He looked over the big wooden handloom she spun her clothes on, and tried to figure out how to work it. "Don't suppose a clerk was meant to be a tailor," he chuckled, as he failed to make it produce anything near as fine as her beautiful weaving.

Marika also showed him her most treasured possessions, her collection of Gilbert Brown, Adventurer Archeologist novels.

"That's all well and good lassie, but what about the rest?"

"Rest?"

"Oh, aye. You're about ten books short of a full collection, and haven't even got the grand finale to-"

Tam quickly covered his ears as Marika let out a delighted "Squee!" of fangirlish delight.

A whole two weeks they lived together, growing closer and more comfortable with each other every day. They didn't have sex, and Marika seemed embarrassed whenever the situation came up. On the whole, they just went about the simple pleasures of everyday life. Tam helped her with her weaving, made some simple board game pieces and taught her to play Nine Man's Morris and checkers, read all the Gilbert Brown books, which he had never really gotten around to before.

They ate mostly the meat of whatever animals wandered into the web after her bait roasted over a magically sustained fire, plus Tam's provisions for getting stuck in a blizzard. He had laughed to see her childlike wonder upon eating things like canned soup or peanut butter sandwiches for the first time.

He got a little sick when he saw her easily clean, gut, bone, and joint the various creatures she snared in her webs to eat using only her fingers, and teased her that she could be so practical about that and still a little afraid of sex. A week ago that would have made her cry, but Marika was a stronger woman now than she had been then, and could see that there was no malice in his words.

Time seemed to crawl by in a pleasant haze, and Tam was just reflecting that he hadn't wasted his vacation when the blizzard stopped and travel became possible again with snowshoes.

Marika had been busily working on something that she hadn't wanted to let him see for the last few days of his stay. Once the snow settled down, she showed him.

It was a jacket, but only in the sense that a queen's dress is technically a blouse. It was beautiful, made of warm silk thread that managed to be light as air. Lovely patterns had been embroidered into its surface with threads dyed in a variety of pleasant colors. "Lassie... you've outdone yourself," Tam said, admiring himself in a mirror.

He turned to see Marika coughing and looking at an interesting patch of floor off to her left with all but a few of her eyes. Her hands were clasped nervously together, her many legs were shuffling uncomfortably across the ground, and a luminous blush lit up her embarrassed face. "We... Well, you see... When an arachne makes a coat for a man, it has a... a special sort of meaning," she mumbled.

Tam stared at her for a moment. He thought about it for a while. But the warm coat wrapped around his body felt so soft, and it smelled nice. And he realized that it smelled nice because it smelled like her, not like the sweet scent of her Spider's Kiss, or Gift as she called it, but because it was simply her scent, and he loved it.

It was that thought that made him realize it. He loved her. Not the wild, passionate kind of love most young lovers have and may someday lose, but with the simple comfort in another's presence that most couples take years to find, and which never goes away with time.

"Well, my answer's yes," Tam told her. Marika's face looked up in sudden hope, and her mouth split into a radiant smile full of simple, untainted joy. She cried out in wordless bliss, and suddenly scuttled over to him, snatching Tam up in a happy, loving embrace as she tried to smother him with excited kisses.

"Ock," he tried to say, struggling to keep talking, "Let me finish lassie!" Marika pulled back her pretty face, still smiling happily and keeping her arms round his neck. "I'll do it if you'll let me take you to my homeland in Scosia, and let you meet my parents and brothers and sisters, so that we can have a good honest respectable wedding."

Marika looked suddenly scared. Tam saw this, and hugged her gently. "I won't force you to do anything you wouldn't like to," he whispered in her ear. "But I don't want you to live all alone in a cave all your life. I'll take you with me, and show you that you've nothing to fear from the ordinary people here."

"Do... do you promise?" she whispered.

"A course," he answered, running one hand down the back of Marika's cute and inexplicably sexy little smock, speaking with a voice that rang with sincerity. "I'll do everything in my power to make sure that nothing ever hurts you for the rest of my life. Though," he added, with his more habitual joking manner, "I'd like to point out that you could take me apart rather easily if you ever chose to, lassie, and quite literally too, given how good you are at pulling the meat out of animals."

"Oh, Tam," she whispered, smiling.

"Besides," Tam added, still joking, "you could finally pick up the rest of those pulp novels you're so fond of, and see just how everything shakes ou-" She put an end to his rambling by kissing him, more gently this time, but also more insistently.

Marika felt his hands working on the buttons that held her smock closed, and cooed as his hand gently reached inside to touch her breast. Marika could feel that same horny, needy sensation that had seized her when first they had met, and she smiled a gently sexual and womanly smile as she began to undo his pants.

They made love, less violently and lengthily than that first time, but still in a very exhausting way that left a trip the following morning out of the question. Instead, Marika shared the good news over her ARE with her friends, especially Juneau, who near whooped with joy to hear it, and her mother, who had outright cried at the news, surprising her.

"I... I was so afraid..." sobbed the matriarch, who Marika had never heard weep before. "I was so scared that my oldest daughter would never get over all the terrible things that had happened after your father left me. All the complaining, the criticism, the... the unjust blame, I put it all on you."

"Mom, I-"

"No, you need to hear this. I... I'm sorry that I never gave you any peace, but I wanted you to... to have a normal life... and I'm so sorry that I've been so picky and critical to you for this last year, and I know there's no way I can ever make up for that, but... I just worried that the clock was ticking, that you'd always be too shy and timid to ever find a husband because of what I'd done, but whenever I tried to say things, the words always seemed to come out wrong and hateful and... Just hearing that you're finally going to be happy, I'm... I just..."

"Mom... thank you, mom. I... I love you! I'll always love you!"

"Oh, Marika, my bitter little cup of tea..."

*****

The next day, the two of them set out. Marika had packed up many of her possessions in hampers she had made for the two of them to carry, and had contacted some goblins with the ARE to try to get the rest taken to the town and posted to Scosia.

"We don't need to live someplace else," he had told her, reasonably. "I'd feel right terrible making you pull up roots and leave that comfy little cave you had."

"My home's with you and your home with me," she had told him, that soft streak of hidden stubbornness he found so appealing coming to the surface for a minute. "Besides, it's not a fit place to raise a daughter in."

"Getting a little ahead of ourselves, aren't we lass?"

So, they traveled across the snow to the small town. Marika, bundled up in lots of warm clothing including cute little leg-mittens for her many feet, led him along the shoulder of the mountain and back to the Ogryn Mountain Trail, her light step traveling easily over the snow as he slogged along in snowshoes. She had been shocked and spooked by all the people, more than she'd ever seen before, and the tall buildings. Tam laughed, pointing out that where they were going, this would be looked on as a tiny little hamlet of a village.

"There... there are that many people in the world?"

"Just wait and see, lass. Just wait and see."

So, after buying as many Gilbert Brown books as the local bookshop held and the best engagement ring his savings could afford, the two of them had gotten onto the northernmost locomotive in the world to travel to Scosia. They met his parents and brothers and sisters, all of whom ceaselessly mocked Tam's good luck in catching her, and, with his mother's help, sent out invitations to all their separate acquaintances as they set up the wedding.

Marika had seemed busy during those days, and Tam had had to meet all her friends and family, mostly other arachnae and their husbands with a sprinkling of a few other mamono, as they came to Scosia for the ceremony. In particular, a young arachne named Juneau and her husband, a fiery-tempered northerner named Ragnar Wolfhammer had made a strong impression on Tam, and he had found a kindred spirit in Juneau's joking and teasing ways. The two got on famously.

Her mother was the most daunting of these meetings: she was a commanding and regal woman, who demanded respect and criticized everything. Tam suddenly had a good idea of why Marika had been convinced that she had needed to be haughty and domineering to show that she had grown up. Her husband and Marika's step-father, a quiet but strong-willed man, often had to derail her lofty dismissal of everything around her.

But Tam had met women like her before, and he could tell that she acted the way she did out of love, so that was that. He had been pleased when he had heard that Marika and her mother had begun to repair their estranged relationship.

And when the day of the wedding came, and Tam stood in a suit next to the altar of the Prime God, the pastor ready to perform the ceremony at its head. Tam was nervously waiting to see her come up the aisle. His little brother was behind him, wearing a suit like himself and carrying their rings, his great-grandparents' old rings, on a little pillow.

"Don't worry, lad," whispered the pastor out of the corner of his mouth. While the Order of the Chief God in the Holy League may have frowned on mamono-human relationships, the various Churches of the Prime God that dominated the Northern Free States did not. "I've done this many a time, and I've a pretty good idea of when the brides're like to make a run for it."

The hall suddenly went quiet as Marika made her entrance. Tam saw in an instant what she had been working on.

Marika's silken white bridal gown shimmered with beautifully embroidered patterns as she walked up to join him at the isle, her youngest sister tossing handfuls of flowers in front of her. It was draped over all of her, with a broad back specifically designed to offer room for her legs and abdomen beneath it. Her many eyes sparkled behind her veil, her hair drawn out behind her in a stream of white. Silky white gloves came up both her arms to the shoulder, and she held her flowers with both hands over her chest.

Tam stood speechless, and was only shocked out of his reverie when the pastor noisily cleared his throat and began the ceremony.

Both of them had heard this before, at the rehearsal, and were only half listening as he spoke of how the Prime God, in his wisdom, had given all his creations the gift of love. Tam took Marika's hand in his, and the two waited for him to finish. At that moment, the two only had eyes for each other.

"...And whatever the opinions of his servant, the Chief Power, we know that the Great God of our world has blessed your union this day. Tam O'Shanter," and a few of the younger watchers giggled before their parents could shush them, "will you take this young lass to be your wife in spirit and in law, to serve and be served, to live beside as a husband and father through all the trials and travails of life, such that only death shall part you for a time?"

Tam swallowed quickly, trying to put some moisture in his dry and nervous throat as he looked into Marika's eyes. "I will."

"Then, Marika Araneae, will you take this young lad as your sole husband, through any of the miseries and troubles of life, devoted and devoted of, filled with a wife and a mother's love, all the days of your lives?"

She could feel his hand in hers, and though frightened and nervous, she was happier than she could ever remember being in her life. "I will."

"Then, by the powers vested in me by Our Great God, I affirm, assert, and declare thee husband and wife. Give the lass a kiss, my boy."

And he did.

*****

And I won't say they lived happily ever after. Finding a town half-way between his homeland and hers with some nearby caves to live in wasn't a walk in the park, and setting up a small weaving business was tricky with only one worker and one clerk, and Marika had to learn about the "joys" of egglaying and monthly hormonal surges that left her suddenly emotion now that she was finally sexually active, and oh Great God if Tam wasn't sad to learn that an arachne's eggcase was full of eggs absorbing one another for nutrition, such that only one or two ever hatched, and raising twin daughters wasn't a job for the weak in spirit, and great heavens, but Marika had trouble dealing with some of her unpleasable customers.

And I won't say that they never fought or disagreed or argued about anything, or that sometimes words that shouldn't have been said never got said or that jokes that shouldn't have been made never got made.

But I will say that they loved each other, honest and genuine, and that they had on the whole more good times than bad, that they enjoyed the work they did, and enjoyed reading and talking and playing board games together, and making love with and without Tam getting wrapped up in thread and pumped full of pheromones and aphrodisiac, and that every month or so Tam would convince Marika to put on that outfit he'd met her in oh so long ago so as they could play the Haughty, Hungry Spider and the Scared Little Fly Caught in Her Web for a long, happy night of mutual enjoyment.

So, on the balance of things, I'll say that they may not have lived happily ever after. But they lived happily, and that, I suppose, is the most anyone can expect out of life, or, at least, the best that this life has to offer.