At school, I wasn’t exactly one of the popular kids. And by ‘wasn’t one of the popular kids’, I mean you could read about how big a loser I was in the first-floor boys’ bathroom, where my fellow students scribbled little love notes like ‘bug boyz got a tiny dick’ all over the toilet stall.
Those messages are still there today, right next to a battalion of crudely drawn cocks taking machine gun fire as they parachute into enemy territory.
The nickname ‘bug boy’ was definitely well-earned. If it slithered, scuttled, or crawled, I was basically balls deep in it. Ask me to give a presentation in class, you’re getting a thirty-minute sermon on ant colonies. Free reign over that spring report? Prepare for a 10,000-word dissertation about the reproductive habit of snails.
Hell, I even kept a pet Tarantula—this cute Mexican Red-knee called Stuart.
Now, this next part might shock, surprise, and possibly even startle you. I strongly suggest sitting down before you read any further…
I’ve never had much luck with the ladies.
One time a girl in my Art class, Abigail Spencer, sat beside me and faked an interest in the anatomically correct mosquito I’d sketched out. I thought I’d hit the jackpot, finding another insect enthusiast. What were the odds?
Turns out, not so good.
Abigail invited me over to her house after school where, the second I stepped through the gate, a barrage of water balloons pelted me across the chest and face. For a moment I felt like that giant graffiti cock.
Turns out the whole class had nothing better to do than plan the nasty prank out.
Do you wanna know what’s worse than getting drenched from head to toe with freezing cold water? It’s having to wander the streets in the biting wind until your clothes dried out, so your judgemental mother wouldn’t notice.
See, appearances meant everything to Mom. She often joked about how a distracted nurse must have gotten the babies mixed up. And by ‘joked about’, I mean she actually swabbed my mouth to do a DNA test on 23andme, then again six weeks later for ancestory.com, “In case the first one got it all screwed up.”
For as long as I can remember, she made a huge deal about the prom. Or rather, the prom photo. To her, it was the single most important thing in the entire universe. Why? I haven’t the slightest clue. Maybe she wanted to keep it above the mantlepiece as a conversation starter at dinner parties. Concrete evidence her only son had actually landed a date.
Honestly, given my status as a pariah, I’d planned on skipping the miserable event altogether, along with whatever practical joke my fellow students undoubtedly had planned. But then Mom promised one measly photo would count as her Christmas and birthday present.
I suddenly needed to find an escort. The only snag was…well, me. Dad walked out before my tenth birthday, and that meant nobody ever taught me about the birds and the bees. Metaphorically speaking, obviously. I knew everything about actual bees.
Still, my school had no shortage of weird girls. I thought at least one of them might accept a proposal; maybe Lisa, famed for spitting on substitute teachers, or Tanya, who galloped between classes making noises like a horse.
No such luck. Turned out even they would lose too much social credit by dancing with the notorious bug boy.
On Saturdays, I worked part-time in an exotic pet shop called ‘The Reptile Hunters’, and around mid-May, a girl my age wandered in and headed straight for the insect department.
Fascinated by all the creepy crawlies, she studied all the floor-to-ceiling tanks while I quietly admired her from behind the counter.
The girl had pale skin and beautiful, sharp features. A single red streak ran through her tangled, dark hair. She had a lot of hair.
I figured it couldn’t hurt to introduce myself. Approaching her from the side, I said, “Anything I can help you with?”
“Just looking,” she said casually, her gorgeous eyes fixed on a chest-high container housing a Chilean Rose.
Stepping a little closer, I said, “You know people call them the fire tarantulas? They make great pets because they’re—”
As if on cue, the arachnid rapidly scuttled back and forth across the enclosure.
“— normally quite laid back.”
“I know,” she said. “They have a 5 to 6-inch leg span. Females can live for up to 20 years and often eat their partners during sex, a bit like black widows.” As her palm pressed flat against the glass, the tarantula thudded itself against the tank again and again, as though trying to break free.
“So, you like spiders?” I asked.
She faced me, nodding. “My dad was super into them.”
As we chatted about our favourite species, I mentally began wedding preparations (did the insectarium do catering?) but before I could get down on one knee, my supervisor appeared and shouted for me to go clean the python enclosure.
“Excuse me,” I said.
At closing time, Mom marched into the store, ready to drive me home. She leaned over the counter and nodded in the direction of the girl from earlier. “Who’s that?”
Ut-oh. If Mom knew I had a crush, she’d only embarrass me.
I shrugged. “Some customer.”
“She’s cute. A little spindly, maybe, plus that hair needs work. But cute.” Suddenly excited, she brightened up. “You should ask her to prom.”
“No,” I said, already blushing. “I couldn’t.”
“I’ll ask her then.” Immediately she made her way along the aisle.
After dragging her back and making her promise not to humiliate me, I ducked into the storeroom where I killed time by restocking heat lamps. Periodically I peeked out front to check whether it was safe, only returning to the counter when Mom wandered off, and the girl came over to purchase a tub of live crickets.
All bashful, I quietly rang up her order.
“It was nice talking with you,” she said.
Somehow the words, “Don’t mention it, I’m always happy to chat with the pretty customers,” slipped out of my mouth. Did that sound weird? That definitely sounded weird. I tried to save it with, “Although I help the ugly ones too.” Then, “I mean, you’re definitely one of the pretty ones, which was why I helped you. But I’d have still helped you if you were ugly. Which you’re not.”
She smirked and brushed a strand of hair behind her left ear. Wait. Did she like bugs and painfully awkward losers? She couldn’t possibly be real…
At the far end of the store, past the girl’s shoulder, my eye happened across Mom, who mouthed the word ‘prom’, over and over.
Okay, maybe not such a terrible idea. But these situations required delicacy. Care. Finesse.
“Would-you-like-to-go-to-prom-with-me?”
Argh, idiot! I practically barked the words at her. Who invites a complete stranger to their prom? At least ask her on a date firs–
“Sure.”
Holy crap.
The two of us exchanged numbers and agreed to work out the details later. “By the way, my name’s Andrew,” I said.
“Gemma.”
The second she left, Mom charged over and gave me one of those hugs where you get scooped up off the ground. She may have had her heart set on a measly photo, but I’d picked out a house with a white picket fence and a huge garden teeming with Giant African Land Snails.
There was just the pesky matter of getting to know my new lady friend first…
The two of us started dating. And by ‘dating’, I mean we talked non-stop about insects and played tonsil hockey. At one point I brought her by the house to meet Stuart, who scuttled up her left arm, across her shoulders, and down the right, back and forth.
When I tried to put him back in the tank, he literally jumped out of my hands, onto Gemma’s chest.
“He likes you,” I said.
“I can tell.”
In late June, during a trip down to the beach, I whipped out my phone and told her to pose for a selfie—something to show the pricks at school who shit-talked me for having an ‘imaginary girlfriend’ who ‘went to another school’.
“Y’know, if you let your hair fall past your shoulder it’d give you a nice ‘wind-swept’ look.”
Gemma’s hands immediately shot up, shielding her skull and batting my hand away. “Don’t touch my hair. I hate it when people touch my hair.” It sounded like she wanted to bite my arm off.
Hey, no sense stirring up the hornet’s nest. A cute, interesting girl actually liked me. That’s all I cared about.
Over the next few weeks, Gemma told me intimate details about herself—like how her dad died before she was born, and that she sorely wished she could have met him. I told her my father still hadn’t returned from ‘going out for cigarettes’ and how much it still stung. I’d never told anybody that before.
What can I say? She’d ensnared me.
In my bedroom one evening, right as things got hot and heavy, I pulled my trembling lips away and sat up in bed.
“Everything okay?” Gemma asked.
“Yeah. It’s just—” Eyes fixed on my feet, I said, “I’ve never…y’know…done it before.”
Quickly she reached forward, placed her fingertips on my chin, and steered my head toward hers. “Hey…me neither.”
My anxiety instantly dissolved. This was perfect, I simply had to get that dreaded first time out of the way.
“So when do you think we should…” My voice trailed off there.
“How about after prom?” she said. “We can book a nice hotel room. That way it’ll be all romantic.”
“Works for me.”
And so, the stage was set for the greatest night of my life. I’d march into that ballroom with my head held high, make the pricks who’d tormented me for the past seven years jealous by parading Gemma around, and then climb into a King-sized bed with sheets made from 100% Egyptian cotton.
Things didn’t quite work out that way…
We’d arranged for the limo driver to pick us up from my place. My crotch nearly had an aneurysm when Gemma waltzed through the door, her hair done up in a giant ‘bride of Frankenstein’ style bun. A purple satin gown draped over her left shoulder.
I told her how beautiful she looked as I fastened a pink rose corsage to her right wrist.
“Okay, over here.” Camera in hand, Mom ushered us toward the staircase. “Gemma, you hold the banister. Andrew, let your arm fall around her waist.”
“What’s happening?” Gemma asked.
“Mom wants a picture,” I groaned.
Mom took a few steps back, analysed the scene, then said, “Gemma, that buns a mess. Let’s straighten it out and maybe get a strand of hair to dangle over your cheek.”
“Not a chance.”
“What’s the problem?” the shutterbug asked, offended.
Stepping between them, I said, “Gemma’s got this thing about her hair. Let’s just leave it the way it is.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, that things an eyesore. I want this photo to be perfect.”
My date clenched her fists and jaw.
“Mom,” I said, in a more serious tone. “Just take the stupid picture.”
She held up an index finger. “Now listen here—”
A horn blared, somewhere outside. Our driver had arrived.
“We’ve gotta go,” I said, offering Gemma my hand.
The unofficial photographer made a barrier by propping her hand against the wall. “Will I just keep my money then?” she said, eyes locked on my date. “Because if I don’t get my photo, exactly the way I want it, you’re not getting paid.”
“What?” I said, confused.
Mom craned her neck to look past my shoulder. “Oh, you didn’t tell him?”
“Please,” Gemma grumbled.
Chuckling, Mom said, “Your little girlfriend here, I’m paying her £500 to go with you to prom. We set the whole thing up in the store that day.”
That came as a major gut punch.
Quickly Gemma laced her coarse fingers with mine. “Andrew, this isn’t how I wanted you to find out.”
“You’re only going out with me because my mom bribed you?”
Flustered, she fumbled for the right words. “No…I mean…yes. It started out that way. But then I got to know you.”
“Oh please,” Mom said, hands on her hips. “I asked you to take him to prom so I could tell the girls at bingo my loser son could get a date, but you won’t even pose for a stinking photograph.”
“Let’s just go. I’ll explain everything later.”
Mom stepped forward. “Let’s just go? What, you think his crummy part-time job paid for that limousine and your fancy corsage? If you think I’m sponsoring a romantic night out on the town without getting something in return, then you’ve got another—”
Before she could snatch the spray of flowers, Gemma reeled her hand away. They stared each other down for a few seconds, a showdown, then they were going at it, Mom grabbing for the corsage, Gemma fighting her off, the two of them waltzing awkwardly around the hall.
At one point my girlfriend went careening back and tumbled backward onto the floor. Locks of hair now lay spread out around her head. The bun had come apart.
As I wrestled Mom away from behind, Gemma’s chest went up and down in great heaves, her eyes rolling so far back you could only see the whites.
The photo Nazi and I froze watching my date’s arms and legs jerk around like an electrical current was passing through her. Suddenly that nest of dark hair inflated like a balloon, quickly becoming a bulbous, tumor-like growth. And then something emerged from the messy tangle: legs. Hairy, thin, segmented legs that shot out and spanned the width of the landing, eight in total.
They probed the floor, found their footing, and hoisted Gemma’s limp body up into the air. She dangled like a puppet on a string, supported by the spider-like abdomen sticking out from the back of her skull, completely black except for a red marking the shape of an hourglass.
Gemma’s lips stretched and shivered apart, exposing sickle-shaped mandibles coated with green ooze that produced a sharp hissing sound each time they clicked together.
Eyes whiter than egg yolks focused on my mother. In a raspy voice, the creature said, “You miserable bitch. I’ve been looking forward to this night for ages, and nobodies gonna take it away from me.”
Faster than lightning, the creature lunged at my mom and plunged its mandibles deep into her neck. She went totally numb, but before she could collapse in a ragged heap, two legs shot out and began encasing her with silk.
My feet wouldn’t budge. Ironically, I felt like a fly caught in a spider’s web. From within her cocoon Mom snored weakly, saliva seeping from the corner of her mouth. Already her skin had gone a jaundiced yellow.
When only a face poked through, the beast hoisted the bundle toward its widening mouth, but at the very last second, I whimpered, “Stop.”
Those pale eyes flicked toward me.
“She’s my mother,” I rasped, my throat impossibly dry.
For a moment, the monster paused as if contemplating what to do next. Then, eventually, it stuck the bundle against the wall.
As those disgusting legs curled up and withdrew back into the nest of hair, Gemma lowered onto the floor. Within seconds the creature became a beautiful woman in a glittery dress once again.
My gaze whipped between her and my mother, who snored inside her enclosure, suspended six feet off the ground.
“Oh, don’t worry about her,” Gemma said, already fixing her hair back into a bun. “She’s just sleeping. The toxins wear off after a day or two.”
Outside, the driver impatiently mashed the horn.
“Shall we?” she asked.
At that moment, my brain became a supercomputer calculating the different options. Run? Hide? Fight?
Gemma sighed deeply. “Look, I know this must come as a shock to you, me secretly being a giant spider, your mother bribing me to go to with you to prom, but I want you to know I really, really like you. Can’t we just have a magical night like we planned?”
Reluctantly, I held out a quivering arm, which she graciously accepted. Better to keep things sweet while I worked out a plan.
“You look sharp in your silk suit,” she said, on the way to the ballroom. As her left-hand spun circles across my chest, her stomach grumbled repeatedly.
Wait. During mating rituals, female spiders eat the males. Didn’t Gemma mention her Dad died before she was born?
That trail of rose petals I’d arranged to have leading up to our hotel bed suddenly seemed like a really bad idea…
The overwhelming sense of dread meant I couldn’t enjoy the look of surprise on my classmate’s faces as we took our seats. Bug boy actually had a date. That’s almost as unbelievable as an encounter with a giant spider monster.
Every ten minutes or so I excused myself from the table and dashed into the men’s room to get all this straight in my mind. Each time, Gemma followed me and waited right outside. She wouldn’t let me out of her sight.
There wasn’t much time, but what to do? As I sat in the middle stall with my head in my hands, two of the school’s star footballers walked in: Dan and Andrew.
Dan, the taller of the pair, said: “Okay, here’s the plan. Vote them best couple, then everybody spits gum into the bitch’s hair as she marches up on stage.”
“Think we’ve got enough?” Andrew replied.
Adjusting his bowtie in the mirror, Dan said, “Frank’s handing out packs and straws as we speak. Need some?”
Through the narrow gap, I watched him offer Andrew a stick of gum before the two of them made their way back outside, laughing.
Idiots. Gemma nearly killed my mother over a messed-up hairdo. They planned on destroying it completely. And hell, spiders detest the scent of mint.
But wait. Maybe that’s my ticket out of this? Maybe if she’s already full up on ripe, juicy teenagers, I can avoid chow time?
I’m still here in the bathroom. It’s not too late to call things off and take her straight to the hotel.
Or, I could let their horrible prank play out.
I’m so conflicted and I don’t know what to do. One things for certain, though…