The Curves in Life

s i x - spiders and itches

A man appeared from a side door, with a green shirt printed with 'Sal's Spider Farm' on. "Larry will take you on your tour. Have fun, no flash photography, and tell all your friends about our amusement park."

Amusement park? Did he know what the definition of an amusement park was? Looking at spiders definitely wasn't it. Regardless Jason nodded and smiled, "Thanks, we will."

"No problem, hope you love birds enjoy!" He stated before quickly disappearing with Wendy and his box of bait. "We-" I started, before giving up. He wouldn't hear me. I knew Jason was staring at me. I could sense it.

We walked into a room that felt oddly as if it could suffocate us. It was too stuffy in here. The walls were lined with glass exhibits, three or four empty with lights turned off, but most of them I could guess held my worst nightmare.

"So this fellow over here is Archie, he's a Jumping Spider. He's also not too venomous." His eyes met mine, "wanna hold him?" He lifted the lid and I jumped back, dropping Jase's hand in the process. Larry brought out the hairy looking spider and I stopped breathing. His hands came dangerously close to my face and I nervously jumped behind Jason, my arms subconsciously wrapping around his waist from behind. "Man, she's scared of spiders." Jason grunted, pulling my arms loose and turning to face me. "Nora, they won't hurt you, you don't have to touch it." He told me calmly, taking my hand in his again and turning us back towards Larry who gave me a strange look. He shrugged and returned Archie back to the place he should be. Contained and far away from me. I gave Archie one more glance, feeling sorry for the little guy, trapped in a glass box instead of in the wild.

But then again, the wild could be in my house, and then Archie would be dead. So maybe his fake rock and crickets every two hours was a better life.

"And this babe is Darla. She's a common Southern House Spider, nothing too fancy, but she is our very first resident, and also my wife." Larry announced proudly, stroking Darla over the glass wall separating them. "She's the sweetest gal here!"

Jason looked down on me, barely containing his laughter. I shook my head. Larry the lunatic and Darla the house Spider. That was one heck of a romance story. "Anyway, moving on." Larry announced, pushing us along to other exhibits.
I did find myself relaxing after we passed a few more spiders, maybe it was the fact that they all had ridiculous names like, Barbara and Fergus the Viking that made them seem slightly harmless. And though my nerves had calmed, my skin hadn't. An itchiness spread over my limbs, my legs stinging with the desire to be scratched. My fingers caved to the strong desire, frantically scratching over my arms and hands.

We left once Jase remembered I had gotten myself a lovely case of poison ivy. He helped me into the car, and drove us home, to his house, but stopping by a drugstore on the way to pick up a pink bottle. "Calamine." He told me, handing me the bottle, "and Valium. Poison ivy can be a bitch." He sounded like he had experience.

"Stop scratching." Jason slapped my wrist away from my calf. I wasn't even aware I had been scratching in the first place.
"How?" I asked desperately. At first it was just itchy, but with every scratch, an unpleasant stinging feeling remained. "You can hold my hand. I'll distract you." He said, clearly teasing me. Was he teasing though? He had a smirk on his face that didn't reach his eyes. His warm eyes were serious. "You're blushing." He noted, with a quiet chuckle.

Both my hands came up from my lap, slapping over my cheeks, as I waited for the warmth to fade from my face. I didn't dare try and scratch myself again, scared that I actually might take up his offer and pull his hand into mine. He was joking, but I didn't want him to.