Eight Arms to Hold You

The first time you asked me to take off my shirt over the internet, I did so and a pea-sized spider fell out. I was surprised, but also not. Summer brings them out in abundance, interlacing their gossamer webs across my entranceway. I was reminded of a dream I’d once had in which my palms cradled a mass of infinitesimal spiders. I worried how I’d feed them all.

Early into our courtship, you sent me, with amusement, a link: An Eight-step Guide to Mastering Seduction.

Who seduced whom first? I snickered.

You said, I’m older. I had more time to set the trap.

Step 1: Choose the best victim. Flatter them.

Over video call, I tell you, Spiders are choosy. Toss an ant into their web and they’ll be ignored. Toss a moth in there and they pounce in a second.

Why do you care about spiders so much? you ask. But before I can answer, you say, You’re beautiful and precious to me.

It’s hard to resist such adulation. Trap set.

Step 2: Appear to be an object of desire.

Nowadays, no victim is out of reach. Thanks to the internet, old men can pose as teenagers to lure young girls. Everything is photoshopped, and everyone is accessible. One could spend nights flirting with that up-and-coming actor in New York, and the married lover in Bangalore would never know.

You post an attractive photo of yourself on the Instaface and the many comments underneath praise your good looks. #nofilter 

I engage in the same behaviour. Is there anyone on social media not crafting some sort of illusion?   

Stunning, you comment on the selfie I took to highlight my decolletage. It took a few attempts to get my head tilt right. Only you and I know that my cheeks are flushed from us sexting with each other moments before.

I write an email, You’re so handsome with those glasses and your mineral eyes. I press send. Then wait.

Step 3: Keep in suspense.

Refresh. Refresh. Refresh.

Delayed email responses are the modern way to tease.

Step 4: Tempt with indulgences to come.

Living on opposite ends of the globe, we depend on the internet to keep us entwined. Humans have come a long way from tin-can telephones. Staggered, pixelated video plays on our screens. Still, it’s something. A bit of a shoulder, a tongue. Lips.

Tell me how you want to fuck me, I say.

I’ll have to show you in person.

And there’s the question: Will we ever consummate this relationship, or are we doomed to cyber-fuck for however long we decide to be together-apart?

Step 5: Disarm with strategic vulnerability.

An email: What a horrible situation we’ve gotten ourselves into. I hate to write ‘I miss you’ but how could I not? It’s hard being apart from you, even if we’ve never really been together.

Oh, let me kiss the tender parts all better. Or, should I repeat Step 3?

Step 6: Use language to titillate.

Between bites of cereal, I read you a classic tale while you tuck yourself into bed.

“Come hither, hither, pretty fly, with the pearl and silver wing; Your robes are green and purple––there’s a crest upon your head; Your eyes are like the diamond bright, but mine are dull as lead. Alas, alas! How very soon this silly little fly, hearing his wily, flattering words, came slowly flitting by.”

You cough, or maybe it’s a laugh. You call this a bedtime story?

I grin, then continue. “At last up jumped the cunning spider––” What do you think happens next?

Step 7: Send mixed signals. Mix pleasure and pain.

This morning, as I woke, I noticed that I had just rolled over an enormous spider! It was still alive, but crushed.

You chuckle. That’s what you get for keeping spiders in your house.

Poor spider, I say.

Step 8: Make a grand gesture.

A knock on the door, and a delivery. In a box, a silk slip and a note: This was the closest to gossamer I could find.

The lingerie is gauzy enough to reveal my nipples. I’m delighted by your amorous gesture––the first physical souvenir I’ve received from you. 

I lay the garment in my dresser, next to the fishnet bodysuit sent from the Big Apple, the delicate celadon bowl, the typed poem on a square of paper, and the box of Nag Champa scenting my drawer of gifts.

Leanne Dunic is a biracial, bisexual woman who has spent her life navigating liminal spaces, inspiring her to produce trans-media projects such as To Love the Coming End (Book*hug/Chin Music Press 2017) and The Gift (Book*hug 2019). She is the fiction editor at Tahoma Literary Review and the leader of the band The Deep Cove. Her newest book is a lyric memoir with music entitled One and Half of You (Talonbooks 2021). She lives on the unceded and occupied traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish), and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. www.leannedunic.com

22 February 2022