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April 1, 2003

Till Frommann

Translated from the German by Ronja Grimm

Spider-Man and his exceptional pleasures

It was in the middle of the night when i woke up from one of my gloomiest nightmares drenched in sweat. I glanced to the other side of the bed, but instead of my girlfriend, a huge spider was lying there. With a pleased expression on its face the insect smirked at me, then it burped but apologized right away – against all prejudices it seemed to have manners.

And did the spider really do it? Did it really dare? Had this hoggish beast munched my girlfriend as a midnight snack?

What women fear most: sudden gain of weight, aging and just these harmless, little insects which choose the homelike bedroom as their stomping ground.

»A spider!« my girlfriend cried. »A spider! In the bedroom! I will not sleep here tonight!«

I couldn't really understand this excitement. »It's just a spider.« I tried to reassure her »completely harmless. What harm can such a small insect do?« If only I had known before – I wouldn't have been that careless.

»Kill it! Kill it!« my girlfriend screamed. »Just bloody kill it!«

The hunting season was opened. I crawled through the bedroom, searched behind the laundry basket, focused on the bed. No spider in sight! I crawled closer to the hostile territory, my girlfriend gave me rear cover. But the enemy, the spider, did not show its face. An embedded journalist would be pleased with these adorable pictures, which his cameraman could have taken during my hunt after that beast – if this team of journalists had accidently lost their way into our bedroom.

The minutes went by, half an hour had rushed past us, and I got bored.

»It died.« I explained to my girlfriend »it starved under our bed.«

»Are you sure?« my girlfriend asked.

»Absolutely.« I answered, but I wasn't that sure.

And now I was in real trouble. The spider wiped the corners of its mouth with a napkin, thanked me for the delicious meal, lumbered out of the bedroom on its eight spidery legs, opened the door of my flat and stepped into the unlighted hallway. At the place where my girlfriend was supposed to sleep, 30 Euro were lying – apparently that was the value which the spider thought was appropriate, including the tip.

Drenched in sweat I wake from the gloomiest of all nightmares, and it's the middle of the night. A glance to the other side of the bed calms me and I smile fondly towards my sleeping girlfriend.

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