---

It’s the still black of night and I’m heavy and dull with sleep.

The fan is whirring ceaselessly above me, a constant, cooling gust in an otherwise sticky, muggy heat.

My husband comes into the room after I’ve drifted off to the formless land of dreams.  His rustling for pajamas and the glare of the light bulb poke holes in my slumber but not enough to fully disturb me and I’ve soon slipped back under.

Until he decides to put a bracelet on me.  That definitely wakes me up.

“Darling, why did you put a bracelet on my hand??”

The words come out just fine though my mind is still groggy.

A pause.

“What?”

Even in my soporific state, I can hear his eyebrows frowning and his mind puzzling; what the heck is she on about???

“Why did you put a bracelet on my hand???” I repeat, frustrated at being dragged out of sleep like this.

“What did you say beta???” he queries again, with his usual Hindi pet name for me.

I sigh loudly, the exhalation blasted out of my mouth by my annoyance.

“BRACELET!  Why did you put a bracelet on my HAND???”

There’s another pause in dialogue as he gropes around for the phone and a moment later, the blue sheen from its screen dimly lights up my side of the bed.

Blearily I sit up and together we peer around the bed, searching for the elusive ‘bracelet’.

“Oh Jesus!!!”

“What??” I ask urgently in response to his tone.  He turns on the phone’s torch at this stage, pointing it next to my pillow, the strong glow clearly illuminating everything.  And then I see it.

It’s the size of my hand.  It’s hairy and leggy.  It – well she – is carrying a massive white sack of hundreds of babies on her tummy.  It’s the unmistakable, eight-legged, primal-fear-engendering body of the enormous spider I saw in our bathroom the previous day.

Revolted with the realization that this creature was literally crawling across my body moments before, we both leap up out of the bed and switch on the main light, wide awake and wired!

“What do we do???” I ask Alex nervously, watching the massive  insect as she slowly tries to inch her way from the bed-post onto the wall.  For a creature that’s normally impervious to gravity, she seems to be having some difficulty maneuvering herself but that could have something to do with the precious sack of cargo attached to her front.

I shudder and instinctively rub my right hand repeatedly as I recall how I was utterly unaware while this arachnid was casually strolling all over me… I can literally feel the sensation of little feet running over my skin still and I have to shake myself hard a few times to rid myself of the creepy sensation.

“What do we do darling???” I ask again, tugging on my partners arm.  Me, the animal-lover, renowned as a kid for rescuing all kinds of little critters stuck in the home, has turned into a witless, squeamish, helpless damsel-in-distress.

Alex tentatively opens the door, a foot away from the creature who’s still trying to figure out her next move.  He darts out, returning a second later with a glass and holding it stretched out in front of him doubtfully.  We look at each other.  It’s not big enough to cover her sprawling legs.

Alex dashes back out of the room only to return again, this time with a large, porcelain mug.

“You can’t use that, you can’t see through it, she might be able to jump out without you realizing.”

Alex hesitates, glancing from me to the spider to the cup.  Then he sprints out of the room again.  This time he returns with a soft broom.

He reaches across timorously.  He stops, quickly tosses aside my handbag from its spot on the floor just next to the top of the bed.  He tries again.

What follows is a mad frenzy of wild sweeps and darting side-steps as he attempts to shoo out a now panicked, pregnant, giant, scrambling spider while I dance on the spot, adrenaline coursing through my veins, shouting out little words of encouragement.

“Get it!!  Careful!  Look out!!  Go on!  Go on!  Aaayyi!”

I love my husband dearly but I don’t follow him as he moves out of my sight, managing to direct the insect into the kitchen.  I hear some sudden bangs and bumps as he navigates the small room to get the door open and ‘release’ the creature back outside.  And then it’s quiet.

“Did you do it?  Is she gone?” I question in a high, breathless voice.

There’s the sound of wood knocking gently against wood and a latch sliding shut.

“Ah yeah, it’s gone,” is his calm reply.  I feel the rush of relief gradually fill my body.  He comes back into the room and we carefully remove all the sheets and clothes from the mattress, shaking everything out, rigorously assuring ourselves our bed is now safe again.

Alex glances at the open windows with the grid inside them, installed recently by the house owner as a measure of safety…

“I’m closing the windows!” he tells me in no uncertain terms.  I meekly nod in assent.  My stubborn desire for fresh, cool air with them open is not an option anymore.  Even I realize that.

Minutes later, we’re finally ready to go back to sleep .  One last inspection, a quick look under the pillows, a final flick of the sheets and we’re reassured.  We have, for now at least, a spider-free bed.  I reach up to switch off the light before snuggling down next to the firm warmth of his body.

“My hero!” I tease, leaning in to kiss his shoulder.

“Bloody bracelet!” Alex mumbles into his pillow and I giggle.  As I recall the event, my hands automatically reach for each other, my left one again roughly rubbing the top of my right, trying to rid itself of the recollection of those ticklish, hairy legs ambling their way over my skin.  I shudder one last time at the memory.

“We sleep with the windows closed from now on!”

I sigh, a little disappointed on the one hand but unable to argue otherwise in the face of the night’s events.

“No problem darling.  Good night!”

“Night beta,” he replies.

Bloody bracelet indeed!