The Black Widow

Before me is a small cup of ink black fluid. Surrounding me are voices from other rooms. It isn't a party so much as it is just another day with "friends". These are the kind of friends you don't like too much but you're always glad to see them. They bring presents. Some are free, some come at cost.

"First taste is free," they say. This cup sitting in front of me, rather the thin layer of liquid darkness, was a present too. A special one. Just for me, he said, the others wouldn't know how to handle it.

He had drawn me into that side room just for this "taste". "Others would be jealous if they saw this," he said.

I had a tolerance to the house's lifestyle, but I was new here; new to this man but not his business. He had taken an uncommon liking to me from what the others said. I knew his game though, he thought his presents impressed me, I allowed him to believe that. That usually made his kind more generous.

He shitted me on quality constantly, thinking I wouldn't know the difference, and I thanked for it. It meant I got more presents.

This dark thing before me was unlike anything I had every seen, but very familiar. Into it I dipped my artist's pen, drawing back the plunger slowly to fill it evenly. The ink crept to about two-third of the up the pen's reservoir and I stopped. This was nearly half of the present, gone already, but if it was anything like his other presents, it would take all of it to scratch the surface of my feelings.

I had been a loner before coming to the house. Starving homeless, loveless artist. I was alone and had no one to gripe to. I liked it that way. I had some money, left in the settlement, and did well for myself. My purchases may not've been as large as an artist with a day-job. But I was consistent. That's what they liked about me.

By then, my skills were fading, my lovelife had gone with the tumbleweeds since the accident, and the friends I had left were fading away. With them, my connections to the more reputable art dealers. No one to sell my supplies to, inventive as they were, just inside the countries censorship laws meant to keep us artists down. No way to get supplies anymore than make my own.

That's how I met the others. The people in this house, like a rundown college dorm. And these were rundown college artists, trained in the old ways, they had never quite learned enough to be masters of the trade. I was new blood, unrefined, still inventive, young. They were like me, in that we were both outside of the regular system of things, but they had tried to become something and failed, too busy with their art to learn a trade.

Most of them were jobless, yet well connected. Always getting presents and supplies with whatever they could take from Uncle Sam or their folks. When I started staying there, they saw me as a user, like themselves. When they saw that I had money naturally, they made me into their newest victim.

I passed out my art. Some of them liked it so much that it became as natural as having a drink or being awake. Most of them thought it was weak, preferred the commercial stuff. At least now I had some fans back, some power. They thought they could use me. They never knew I was using them. Not long after I got there, he came, and the presents became more and more mine.

The ink that filled my pen was just an example. Enough about that, it is time for me to begin my art.

The sharp tip of my pen rested against my arm. I couldn't help but be reminded of how much the ink reminded me of tattoo ink. That was how I was going to use it. Tattoo myself from the inside out.

The pen sank into my arm. I could feel the ink inside me already, but I had to be sure, if i missed the vein I would have a puddle of ink under my skin. That was no good. A black splotch on your arm isn't art.

I pulled back on the plunger lightly, feeling it tug gently at the open vein. Crimson mingles with the black near the tip of the reservoir. I was ready.

I ram the plunger down, it sticks half way for a second because of the inconsistently thinned ink. The building pressure forces the blockage out and the remaining ink pours into my arm.

Looking down I can see the veins blacken, branching out from the shot. It was not at all the way blood should be flowing.

It branched out into a spiderweb like pattern on my inner arm. The center around the needle-tip of the pen darkened in a spot. I had left it in too long. With haste I withdrew it. A scarlet drop of my own blood formed at the center, where the pin-tip had been, and ran down my fore arm, the droplet rolling slowly and sadly, end over end.

I held my arm up to my face yet it continued to climb, until it escaped the puddle to ink forming under my skin. It climbed the web with it's eight spindly, ink laden legs until it had escaped even the web itself and climbed to my wrist.

I could feel the pain as it sunk it's teeth into a vein, sending ink web through my palm and wrist. I slung it from my arm and it landed with a splash on the floor. No, I was imagining this, I told myself, looking at the pen, it's just a last drop of ink and blood from the pin-tip.

I watched another fall from it. It landed with the same small splash. I bent down to examine them.

Each droplet had burst into nine runners, one always much bigger than the rest. And in the center of each was a droplet of my crimson blood. They reminded me of little black widows.

Forgetting the pen, I wiped at my eyes. The needle tip pierced my temple slightly. The pain of it opened my eyes. The spider droplets were gone.

Then I saw the branching black webs as they began to cover my vision. The very veins of my eyes had run black, until I could see no more.

All was black.

Until a little red dot appeared. A black widow, hidden in the darkness.