Foreplay: Although I don't hate spiders I wouldn't pick one up without a cloth or tissue. They usually do a good job, trapping and / or eating other little nasties but I'm always cautious of the bigger ones. Maybe I shouldn't have watched Arachnophobia.
Incy wincy spider climbed up the waterspout.
Down came the rain and washed poor Incy out.
Out came the sun and dried up all the rain,
So Incy wincy spider climbed up the spout again.
Except ... this ain't no ordinary spider!
*
"Shit!" Ben snarled, amongst other expletives. He'd just been bitten.
It was just one of those days, a lazy summer Saturday. It was a day to unwind, a day to chill on a garden lounger with a cold can of beer, a day to enjoy one of the best days that the limited British summer could afford.
Bollocks! It was one of those days that went wrong from the very start.
"Daddeee!" shrieked Charlie from the bathroom. Ben rushed upstairs, thinking his daughter had seen a monster lurking in the bathroom cupboard. When he arrived there she had the tap handle in her left hand and water was flowing out of the part where the handle should have been. He dived back downstairs, tugged a multitude of cleaning equipment - washing up liquid, stain removers, dust cloths, pan scourers, car wash-n-wax, you-name-it - from the cupboard under the sink until he could finally reach the water stop tap.
"It's OK darling," he offered to his distraught daughter, "It's not your fault. I should have fixed it weeks ago." That was an understatement. Although the tap's inner workings had become very loose, 'it still worked' so in Ben's mind it didn't need fixing.
Charlie (never Charlotte, her given name at birth) was in tears, but calmed a little once she was sure the water had stopped. "I only turned the tap to get washed," she pleaded, red eyed, still clad in a far too thin nightie, for the temperature in her bedroom hadn't cooled much during the night. Her matchstick body showed very little in the way of womanly charms despite the fact she had now fully progressed through college and with the looseness of the fabric her breasts could hardly be seen - not that her daddy would have taken much notice. He hadn't even noticed as she hugged him, pressing her small but very firm breasts against him, drying her tears on his shoulder. Her face and hands would remain unwashed for a couple of hours until Ben had the parts needed to rectify the problem. She went back to bed.
*
That's where the spider came in. In a hidey hole the damned creature had spun its temporary home until disturbed by a hand wielding a wrench invaded its space.
"Shit," Ben snarled again as the arachnid sank its fangs painfully into his finger. Having defended itself in the only way it knew, the spider dropped to the bathroom floor, scooting away as fast as its half dozen legs could carry it, disappearing into a hole hardly big enough for it to pass through ... a hole that had been filled a while ago, except that the filler had worked loose within a couple of weeks and hadn't been replaced.
"Daddy, it's only a spider," pleaded Charlie, a fully qualified and banner waving vegan and totally opposed to any arachnid, fly, moth, insect of any shape or form being harmed by human intervention. Considered by her as just an extension to her vegan beliefs Charlie vigorously defended her views that no living non-human creature should ever be killed. Period.
"If you'd been helping me, instead of spending all day gossiping on the Web, (OK, a poor pun) then I might have got this fixed before now."
"If you'd done as mum said and got a plumber in to fix it, it wouldn't still need fixing." She had point; the innards of the tap had been working loose for several weeks but Ben would never pay a £70 call-out charge plus £30 an hour plus parts for work he could attempt himself. It looked so easy - he'd watched enough videos on-line to convince himself he could do the job as well as any rip-off plumber.
"Just hold the tap steady while I tighten the nut," asked Ben, already frustrated with the vengeful attack of a cowardly creature that sped away from the scene.
"Like this?" asked his dutiful daughter.
Ben moved his head from underneath the washbasin to where Charlie was holding the tap. At least, that's what he intended. Perhaps it was Charlie's fault she was wearing a short nightie. In fact it wasn't even that - it was an old, thinning, long tee-shirt. Perhaps, he reasoned, she chose to sleep minus panties because it had been so hot, and that was solely her choice. Perhaps also it was her choice to stand legs slightly parted, possibly believing that her daddy would never think of letting his eyes wander. Shaking his head, Ben regained his senses. Fuck, he'd never before have dared seek a peek, hell he'd never even given thought to seeing his daughter - his 19 year old daughter - in a sexual way.
"Yes," he said, finally focusing on her hands, "Just like that until I tighten it up." His eyes continued to flick a sneak until finally the new tap was in place. He went back downstairs to the stop tap, turning it slowly, waiting for the scream that water was leaking out. It never came.
*
All through his rather late breakfast he sat, idly rubbing at the puncture mark on his finger. The pain had eased but the finger had reddened. The warmth was reassuring at first; his body chemistry was fighting the spider venom. But the warmth was now spreading, slowly into his hand, his wrist and now the end of his arm. It was an itchy feeling, not the same as a nettle rash or even a bee sting. It was different, but the itching was not to ease for several hours.
"Is the tap OK now?" Ben asked Charlie.
"Well, yes ... but it doesn't match the other tap," she replied. There wasn't even hint that she'd seen him view her stubbled pussy lips or her butt.
"As long as it works," said Ben. Carol, his wife - Charlie's mother - was used to the phrase. Whilst Ben wasn't a miser, he would cut every penny he could from the family budget. The store had insisted he bought a matching pair of taps. Ben had argued that he needed just one and asked them to double check their stock. Needless to say they refused, but he had the consolation of fixing it himself and he would 'save money for a rainy day.' It was pointless arguing - if Ben had fixed it 'so that it worked', it meant that he wouldn't discuss it further. By storing the surplus matching tap, it could be changed as soon as he had the time and the inclination. And the inclination was, if Carol didn't constantly harass him, that he could fix the second tap only when it too went faulty.