She said it without conviction. The words came out soft, the protest of a woman who wanted to argue but had already sensed, on some level, that she would lose. She looked at their hands, at his thumb on her palm, at the slow, hypnotic circle.
She didn't pull away.
They sat.
The candles flickered. The dogs panted. SLAP SLAP SLAP. The sound continued, steady, rhythmic, filling the room with the primal percussion of mating. The spider woman's breathing was changing. Deeper. Slower. Her human chest rising and falling with each breath, her small breasts pressing against the tight black top, the nipples visible through the fabric, stiff and dark.
He watched her breathing.
She watched the dogs.
Both of them were leaning closer. The gap between them narrowing in increments neither acknowledged. His shoulder moving toward hers. Her spider body shifting, the legs rearranging, her human torso tilting toward him.
The dogs finished.
