I get the pizza out and start diving slices onto plates. “Ever see that Seinfeld where Jerry has that girlfriend that’s always naked?”
“Yes,” she says. “Please don’t open any pickle jars around me.”
“No promises.” We sit down on the stools at the kitchen island and nibble on our slices. Amanda keeps blushing and I can’t tell if it’s because of the good sex, the fact that we’re having sex, or the fact that I’m naked. I have a feeling her prat of an ex-boyfriend never walked around naked in front of her. She probably only saw his penis in the dark. Might have been a good thing.
I’m staring at her like a total dork, probably with a goofy look on my face, when she stops chewing, her mouth open, the pizza hanging limply from her hand. Her eyes widen, focused on a spot beyond me.
Then her hand starts shaking and the pizza is shaking and it’s like I’m watching that scene with the Jell-O in Jurassic Park.
I stiffen. “What is it?” I’m already whispering, preparing for a raptor behind me.
Her eyes dart to mine. “Um,” she says, voice squeaking. “Just how dangerous is a tarantula?”
Oh no. Oh no.
No.
My head whips around and I see Fluffy on the counter behind me.
I swear he lifts one of his hairy legs and waves it at me, giving me a wink with one of his many dark shining eyes.
There’s a split second where everything freezes. Fluffy in mid-wave. My heart. My lungs.
And then Fluffy suddenly moves.
And I don’t know if he’s flinging himself at me or just running away or what’s going on but I scream bloody murder and I jump to my feet, running clear to the other side of the room. Somewhere in this display of utter cowardice I remember I’m with Amanda. And I’m naked. And still I’m hoping she’s a bigger man than me.
But she’s also screaming, running down the hall.
“Are you okay?” I yell at her, shudders running through me.
“Yeah!” she cries out from around the corner. “Ahh, I feel like he’s all over me!”
“Me too!” I slap my hands over myself. My eyes dart all over the living room, the kitchen, expecting to see that fuzzy rose gold body anywhere.
“What are you going to do?” Amanda yells.
“I don’t know. Kill him?”
“You can’t do that, it’s Kevin’s!”
“Fucking Kevin,” I mutter. “Fine. I guess. We’ll. Capture. Him.”
I let out an embarrassing cry.
Amanda cries out too. “Okay. Okay. We’ll do it together.”
“We better or I’m calling the fire department.”
“I can’t believe you have a fear of spiders!”
“Why? So do you! And it’s a bloody tarantula! It’s as big as my hand!!”
“Yeah but you’re a man.”
“Well, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you needed tarantula-wrangling skills on top of a massive cock and orgasms to go. Want me to go into the jungle and wrestle an alligator, too?”
“Let’s just…get it.”
I sigh, trying to gather the courage. “Okay. You come from that direction and I’ll come from this one and maybe we can corner him.”
I take a few steps, taking stealthy glances around the room. At the moment, everything from the remote to a coaster to a shoe looks like Fluffy.
“Is he actually dangerous?” Amanda yells.
“I did a bunch of research,” I yell back. “Once I got him, I wanted to make sure he wasn’t a stowaway from Arachnophobia. I didn’t want to end up like Bill Pullman.”
“That was Jeff Daniels.”
“Or was it Bill Paxton? Anyway. He’s a Chilean Rose tarantula and they’re supposed to be docile. But I’ve seen him eat those crickets, I mean snap their bloody heads off. And I know he looks at me like he’s going to do the same.”
I creep forward until I’m just past the couch and now I see her head peek around the corner of the hallway.
“Are you carrying a weapon?” I ask.
She has a toilet plunger in her hands, holding it like a baseball bat. “I had to grab something.”
Damn.
I should have a weapon.
I grab a magazine from the coffee table and roll it halfway into a scoop.
We both edge forward.
Peer over the island to the kitchen floor.
There he is.
Sitting in the middle of the floor.
But I swear he’s on his haunches and hissing.
Like the bastard is waiting for us.
Come closer, he seems to say. Come closer, my friend.
Since he’s from Chile, he has the accent and everything.
“Now what?” Amanda asks, gripping her plunger.
“Well I guess since we can’t kill him, we can’t manhandle him.”
“So I can’t bat him across the room? Because that spider in Home Alone put up with a lot.”
“No,” I tell her with a disappointed sigh. “They’re delicate. If you were to handle him and drop him, he could die.”
“Accidents happen,” she says slowly.
Man, do I love this woman’s brain.
I’m smiling but I shake my head and quickly wipe it off my face.
“No. Think of Kevin.” I’m saying it more for myself.
I creep forward.
She creeps forward.
Fluffy turns to her.
She freezes.
He turns to me.