Meanwhile Mona (Spider and Fly 9)

Mona was middle aged.

She was six months old.

Every spider month is equivalent to seven years of human life. In human terms Mona was forty two. The last of her spiderlings had balooned away. Her mate died right after mating with Mona. Such is nature.

If you've seen Spiderman, you know what balooning is. The spiderling projects a single thread of silk which sticks to a nearby object. The spider then swings to that object and baloons again. Depending on how far they want to get away from their mother, the spiderling continues to baloon and baloon.

As a mother, Mona paid attention to the spider parental creed. Make sure the spiderlings get webs and wings. This creed meant that it was important for each spiderling to feel a sense of security so that they would be willing to leave the web and establish a home of their own. The stronger the sense of web the stronger the sense of wing. The more that a spiderling loved his mother's web, the further he would distance himself from it when he finally balooned. The further away he got, the less competition his web would be for the web of his momma.

Mona's spiderlings were far, far away. They had been well raised and they loved their mother. 

Mona was an empty webber.

She was acutely aware of the double disturbance in her web as she sat in her den. Her experience had taught her that it was very unlikely for two disturbances to occurr so simultaneously. She figured the commotion could be traced back to one of two possibilities. The disturbances, soon to become prey, then to become liquid then to become food, must have been romantically involved. That's why they were fluttering so near to one another.

And flying blind.

Or else the Giant had delivered them.

The Giant had been feeding Mona since she was a girl, before the mating and the spiderlings and all that jazz. She had grown to trust the Giant.

Most urgent, however, was the hunger.

I should be more specific.

Mona wouldn't take a nibble. Mona would take a suck.

Before sucking, Mona would inject either Ray or Lisa or both with venom that would turn their insides into liquid.

She would go back to her den and wait for the innards of her prey to liquify. Then she would begin to suck. Sometimes, the sucking took place right out in the open. Other times, Mona would take her silk wrapped supper into her den where she could suck in private.

I've tried to imagine what it must be like to feel my insides turning into liquid. I had food poisoning once and that did some serious liquefying. 

Maximum diarrhea mixed with technicolor yawning.

I have experienced emotional liquification more frequently than physical liquification over the course of my life. When I am injected with the contempt of another person, my convictions tend to liquify. Contempt is a powerful venom. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Resentment is the natural reaction to contempt.Here's the equation to avoid.

You have contempt for me, I have resentment for you.
Or vice versa.

If turning someones insides into liquid can be viewed as a physical manifestation of contempt, then I suppose the prey being liquified must be pretty resentful. 

Resentment resembles jealousy and jealousy is the green eyed monster that mocks the meat it feeds upon.

Contempt is an eight eyed, eight legged empty webbed widow
who injects whatever she has trapped with a poison that turns their convictions into liquid so she can suck them dry and ignore their resentment.

Does contempt poison itself when it inadvertently sucks up poisoned convictions concealed within resentment?

I wondered if I would be able to pick up on any of these emotions or answer any essntial questions as I patiently sat and watched and wondered
what the spider might do.