Warning: Disturbing content.
Nephlia spoke with such altruistic elegance that even the harshest dictators fell prey to her magical webs of seduction. She danced with such panache that silk ribbons seemed to form with every step and direction she visited. Her eyes bore such matriarchal sympathy that the one standing before would be decimated into their base desires and no further. Nephlia was the one to have in Light Street. There were none prettier… nor profitable than her.
“I’m in love with her! You can’t separate the two of us. We are meant to be!” The eighteen-year-old teen cried out as he was drawn away by his family. His mouth frothed like an addict. His eyes ogled like a timepiece. Nephlia laid on her bed; naked and used. An eighteen-year-old’s fury unleashed on her fissures. His family’s spit of disgust on her unwavering face. Another prey caught in the webs of the Aracne of Light Street.
“YOU SLUT! How dare you try and pollute our boy?”
I didn’t.
“Stop it! We’re in love! I love her!” he still cried.
No, you don’t. Nephlia replied silently. Liquids of uneven chemistry fell from her chin down through the crevices of her breasts. She had lost count of the number of eighteen-year-olds who lost their chastity to her vanity. She had forgotten that sixteen-year-old too… who… I don’t remember. How many such? How many more still? She asked not to herself, nor the hundreds of others on the Light Street. Yet, as Nephlia’s naked body lay supply conquered by the rage of youth, she wondered… A thought that mattered no longer.
“Nephy, your next customer is here. Wash up.” came Aemi with her serpentine vent. She too had just finished. Red marks of rebellion had clasped tight on her neck, thighs, cheeks, and places unknown. “He asked for you specifically,” Aemi added. Nephlia obeyed. Rose. And fell on the lap of another. Hours of “mindless” pleasure were promised by her new customer… Ten minutes later, he too fell face-first into Aracne’s nest.
“Nephy…” the call came again.
Nephlia rose from another concoction of lust, sweat, and disgust. “Yes?” she smiled. Her back ached like a thousand stitches. Her throat was sore till the red spilled over. “Who’s next?” she asked. There always was a next.
“Slut, we need you to train a new one,” the owner barked with his bullish groan. “We’ve got a fresh breed of stock. And this one…” he licked his cracked-dry lips. “Looks as if she has potential.” With his gaudy arms, he pushed a fragile sixteen-year-old to the ground in front of Nephlia. He had enjoyed every inch of exposed skin during the same. “Still… she’s two years older than when you started. Try to make her into a premium product.” the commandment came. Nephlia bowed her head. And rose up again to the blank stare of a mature teenager.
The girl wanted to open her lips. They shivered. The girl wanted her eyes to evaporate. They froze. The girl wanted to make noises from her throat. They denied. Yet Nephlia knew what she spoke… everyone knew but ignored.
“So unfair that only she gets Nephy’s coaching.” The new hire bawked. “I never got such good attention. Why?”
“There’s a reason why the boss likes her so much,” clawed Myli with her inflamed lips. “I bet she gives them all special sessions too. Very special ones.”
Nephlia didn’t reply. She knelt beside the shuddered fawn.
“Another one for the webs,” Hera whispered. Nephlia could feel the dozens staring at her bare back, along which, the black legs of a tantalizing spider grew from her spine. It was her mark of identity. The Aracne, Nephlia, of Light Street, was who she was. Everyone got their own. Aemi was the serpent. Hera was the hummer. Myli was the succubus. But the Aracne ruled over the un-named throne.
“What’s your name?” Nephlia called to the child.
“Lia,” said she with as much conviction as she had life in her eyes. “Please… He-” Nephlia covered her mouth with rushing hands and shook her head. She was about to speak the forbidden word.
“Come with me,” Nephlia added. And took the fawn to the Aracne’s nest.
When the doors opened again, the fawn cried no longer. Her eyes were blacker than obsidian. Her lips were firmer than black iron. Lia was now the spider’s child. And all others looked at their new competitor.
“She definitely is the best there is,” the boss whispered from afar. The smell of burnt cigarettes arose from his chamber, and from Havanna’s skin which ran out from it. “This year’s crop may have another wonder in it,” he rubbed his tobacco-stained hands like that miser from the storybooks.
The night fell into the abyss. The morning rose again through the vertice.
Nephlia took Lia out to skirts of Light Street. Where they were fully clothed, bathed, smelt, and burnt. “What do you want to eat?” she asked with the same coldness. Lia nodded simply. Nephlia understood. Two plates were brought in front of them. A thousand stares followed behind afterwards.
“What’s that slut doing out here?”
“She’s trying to pollute our entire society.”
“Why is she even allowed to go out from that horrid place?”
“Get up. We are not eating at a place with the likes of such a whore.”
Lia’s eyes wandered from comment to comment. From knife to lips. From north to south. Nephlia held her rippling cheeks to the palm and spoke, “Eat.” with as big a smile as her rigid lips allowed.
Lia ate. Until she stopped. A jar full of freezing liquid fell through the head of Nephlia, with the words “Die you whore,” screamed from the side.
“Nephy…” Lia mumbled. Until the lady’s stare shut her down. Nephy remained smiling.
“You bitch. Because of people like you, our husbands aren’t safe to walk out on the street. My faithful husband has to suffer from the smells of prostitutes like you.” She cried out loud. “Go to hell, bitch!”
Nephlia stood gracefully to her rabid opponent. She dapped down the downpour as much as she could. Leaving her bosoms exposed through the fabric of her clothes. “It’s just like this how your faithful husband showered me with his liquids too.” Nephlia gently said with a smile. “I hope I was able to serve your family gracefully.” And bowed down to the shell-shocked woman.
“YOU UNGRATEFUL SLUT!” The boss’ mighty hand fell like a thunderbolt on her raw cheeks. “How dare you make us lose a customer? YOU BITCH!” his epic boots fell upon her stomach again and again till blood spat out of her craven lips. A small rivulet ran down the tattoo on her spine. Lia traced the path of it with her craven eyes. Yet she only shivered slightly.
“FEED HER TO THE DOGS.” The boss ordered. Sighs of pity, jealousy, despair, and prostitute-empathy evolved from her partners.
“When was the last time someone survived the dogs?” one of them asked. No one knew the answer.
“If anyone could, it’s this witch,” said the others about Aracne.
The dogs came for her. Rabid, frothing, and hungry. The four of them took Nephlia into their room. An hour, two, three, and five passed. The eyes of her fellow inmates looked on with pity. Lia joined them unknowingly.
The dogs came outside past the sixth hour. One of them fell on the door itself. His gigantic body couldn’t handle the weight of the burden he took on. The other fell short of heavy breaths. And the rest survived to tell the tale. It looked as if they were all connected by one giant web of shadows. Their breaths were in sync, their motion were out of line. Beyond them, from the darkness, emerged her. The queen. Aracne. Nephlia. Naked, torn, and still herself. Covered in red and purple patches from the tip of her navel to the groan of her throat. Dribbling red blood mixed with liquid vile from her half-broken lips. With pink-blue nubbins in places where her breasts once situated. And cuts, scrapes, bruises, tears, filth, and whatever unleashes from hell laid all over her body. Yet… her legs walked like cats on a string. The Aracne came out of the room from which none did. The rabid dogs fell silent to her gracious walks. Their naked machado fell short of her elegant traps. Her new preys surrendered to her feet. Their eyes filled with adoration, admiration, and seeking charity of the great goddess whom they tried to demolish. Try they did. To break her bones, throat, thighs, insides, and all of her outsides. Yet fail they did… for she was Aracne, and they… mere dogs.
The boss huffed his way back into the room. The others looked at the naked monster walking to them with terrified eyes and shivering souls. They could all see the blood seeping between her glisening thighs. Yet they wondered… why is her step still unwavered?
“Come, let’s go?” she asked Lia. The little girl happily took Nephy’s purple hand and walked into Aracne’s chamber. The others… they stared at her bare back. Below which, her hind was decimated. Above which her hair was torn. Yet on it, the spider stretched her legs almighty. Holding her new prey like trophies on a podium up high.
“How must I train to be like her?” asked the new hire.
No one replied. No one knew.
“Do you wish to know, Lia?” asked Nephlia once they closed the doors. Even still her elegant feet led the way. “Do you wish to not suffer from any pain, any boon, or any hatred like me?” she added.
Lia nodded. Her sixteen-year-old body shivered timbers once the door closed. “I was so afraid… I was afraid they would kill you.”
Nephlia touched the fawn’s cheeks. “Nothing can kill me.”
“Teach me… please. I beg you. Or else I will die inside this place.” Lia cried to the blood of her mentor. “Please.”
“I will.”
The Aracne took to her bed. She washed herself with the pleasant smell of lavender and rose. The sharp crass of vile blood evaporated into gentle kisses of floral zeal. Donning herself yet again in black like she is supposed to, she walked to her little fawn with not a single fault in her step.
“How can you survive such torture every day and still stand?” Lia asked.
Nephlia smiled.
She took to the enchantress’ cupboard and pulled out that which had no name. The black powder dissolved in pure water. Solidifying it till the Aracne’s reflection vanished off the surface’s sights. In a golden chalice, with nothing but the love she bore for her victims, the mother spider gave the young fawn the black-boon. Her prized jewel.
“Drink this and you shall never suffer again,” Nephlia confessed. Her magical eyes began their duty. Seducing even Lia… her young future temptress. “This will ensure that you shan’t feel pain here. It is my secret. It is no one else’s.”
Lia took the golden chalice. Surely it isn’t possible. Surely magic doesn’t exist. She thought. Inside of it she saw no reflection. In front of it, she saw Nephy still upright. Through the six hours she heard stories about those who encountered the dogs. About their horrifying deaths. About their ravaged carcasses. And about their hopeless dilemmas. Yet there she stood. Nephlia. Aracne. Upright. Still bright. Proudly standing after her prey submitted within her magical web of shadows. It is possible. Lia concluded and drank the black wine of life.
“The only way to live… is to die.” Nephlia added, as Lia fell from her chair without another breath escaping her teenage breasts.
The Aracne fell. Her body ached, cried, screamed, perished. Purple scars blemsihed into black voids of pain. Aching wounds deepened into final forms of rain. Her thighs, her insides, her hind, all tore down into the bloody puddle they were. Yet she smiled… she smiled at Lia’s corpse. Knowing her magical spell still worked wonders.
Nephlia fell to the ground. Yet her eyes aimed high to the ceiling. There she saw it… Another version of herself. Catching preys with magical silk. Crawling with eight legs, scaring another eighty. Her preys cried for mercy. Her children begged for literacy. To all onlookers she looked strong. Sewing yarns only she could. Drawing borders only she followed. They saw the brave warrior hanging upside down to catch her new prey. Yet only one saw it… Nephlia alone. The lonely spider, the aracne of nature, hung upside down from the neck in its own webs. Unable to die. Unable to survive. Its legs dangling mightily. Hoping for the second it stops forever. It never came. And it never will. She concluded.
