[Steven Lyle Jordan]

5: Curse of the spider woman

Okay, I admit it, I was surprised when Martin opened the door to the part of the basement he called “the studio,” and turned on the lights. I expected to see fake dungeon walls, ratty cots, wall racks of weird sex toys that would scare—well, Gail—and I didn’t know what else.

Instead, I saw a taping studio. A white room with one of those corner-smoothing things against the wall, big lights on stands, two microphones on boom stands, three beefy-looking cameras on mounts, a desk with a computer seated on it, and some cabinets by the door. Another door, just by this one, had a plaque with the universal man and woman icons that usually meant “bathroom.”

“Surprised, aren’t you?” Martin said. “See? No dungeon walls, ratty cots, weird sex toys or whatever else you were expecting.”

Ah. I wondered how soon my thoughts would start leaking. That was probably a good sign. “So, okay, looks legit enough. Even though it isn’t. Where’s this tape you want me to see?”

“Actually, I’ve got it on the hard drive,” Martin said, walking over to the computer desk. He booted up the computer, and one of three portable drives he had sitting next to it on the floor. Then he sat down, logged onto the PC, and started combing through files. In a moment, he seemed to have found what he wanted. “Okay, take a look.”

He double-clicked on the file, and a viewing screen filled the monitor. And on it were two people, a man and a woman… excuse me, a boy and a girl. The boy looked like he could have been 21 or more… but the girl…

The… girl…

No… that wasn’t a girl… it was a… human spider! This girl was doing the yoga poses with the boy, both very close and intimate, without being… intimate. And it was a good thing, because I probably would have had to leave the room. That’s because this girl was waif-thin, almost skin and bones… and based on her poses, clearly a contortionist, to-boot. She had short-cut black hair and the kind of heavy makeup that kids do, and… I dunno, there’s something about contortionists that’s just plain freaky… but when they are built this thin, they just look… supernatural!

After a moment, I heard Gail say, “Breathe, Mike.”

I did. I hadn’t realized I wasn’t. And when I did, I said, “Okay, that’s just wrong. Turn that off!”

Martin did as ordered, and said, “Now do you see how serious this is?”

I tried to imagine Martin—hell, anyone—trying to have sex with that… that… I swear, my mind was yelling, La-la-la-la-la-won’t-go-there-la-la-la-la! Then something occurred to me. “Hold on… that tape is how old? A few years?” Martin nodded. “Well, she can’t possibly still look like that! …Right?”

“No, she doesn’t,” Gail admitted.

“She’s lost weight,” Martin said.

I swear, I wanted to throw up. Good thing I hadn’t eaten anything in hours.

“It gets worse,” Gail said.

I pointed at the now-mercifully-dark monitor. “What could be worse than that?”

“There’s something about Veronica,” Martin said, and choked on his own words for a moment.

Gail continued for him. “Veronica has this… physiological… we don’t know what it is. It’s been said that no doctor has ever found out what causes it. But within a year of having sex with her, your…” Gail swallowed in discomfort. “Your junk just goes bad.”

“Bad?” I repeated. “How bad?”

Gail did not want to use the words. Slowly, she raised her hand to her throat. She extended a single finger, and used it to do a back-and-forth motion under her chin.

I gulped. “That bad?” Martin looked like he was about to faint. If he did, there was a good chance I would’ve joined him. “So… uh, okay, you get yourself to Mexico, and—”

“Don’t you understand?” Martin said. “She’ll come find me! She’s got friends! Ukrainian friends! They’ll find me! She’ll make me have sex with her!”

“Oh, God... That would be worse than death!” Gail wailed, and I wasn’t sure I could say she was overstating things. “He can’t sell out! He just can’t! What she’ll do to him… it’s just not right!”

So many nasty things were running through my head at that moment, not the least of which was a plague-carrying spider-woman forcing herself on a guy, that I could hardly think. In fact, even breathing was proving to be challenging. “Well,” I said, “suppose you gave Esmeralda everything but Veronica’s tapes? Like she’d even want them…”

“Of course she’d want them,” Martin whined. “Do you know how valuable Veronica’s tapes are?”

Ever have one of those moments when you were sure your eyes were about to pop out of your head and go rolling across the floor? I was so there. “You can’t be serious! She’s popular? She’s practically an alien! And I mean an Alien alien!”

“You don’t know the biz, dude,” was Martin’s reply. “It takes all kinds…”

Actually, I do know the biz. And he was right, of course: The most popular stuff on the web is always the deviant stuff. And that Veronica… well, watching her willingly couldn’t get much more deviant. My eyes presently stopped popping, and visions of rotting junk presently started dancing in my head. I can tell you, it was not a happy dance.

“What am I gonna do?” Martin moaned.

Gail looked at him sympathetically. Then she looked at me. “There must be something we can do to help him?”

I tried to think a moment. But lord help me, I could only come up with one thing.

“Get me to a Starbucks,” I said, “before I pass out.”