The Magic of the White Spider

The same frantic rush continued over the next three days. We did eat when we camped after the second day. Biabo felt safe stopping earlier and caught a few fish in a trap he fashioned from sticks and vines. They were hung over the fire on small, green sticks until mostly cooked. Neither Mandy or I liked the taste, but hunger overpowers taste when one is starving.

The afternoon of the fourth day, Biabo steered the canoe to the dock in Chiriaco. We unloaded and then went to the same hotel. Biabo waited in the lobby until we had cleaned up a little and changed clothes. We went then to the same restaurant and ate until we were stuffed. We said good night to Biabo at the hotel. He promised to be on the docks to help us find a boat going down river the next morning.

He was at the docks just as he'd promised, and helped us book passage on a boat going to Manaus. We thanked him for all he had done and paid him half again as much as he'd asked when we started. We also left him what remained of our food supplies. He was still standing on the dock when the riverboat pulled into the current and waved when he saw us standing at the rail.

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After dinner that night, I was reviewing my notes when there was a knock on my cabin door. I opened it to see Mandy standing there

"I couldn't seem to fall asleep. Can I come in and talk to you for a while?"

I closed the door as soon as she was inside.

"What do you want to talk about?"

Mandy didn't say anything. She just started unbuttoning the front of her khaki shirt. She wasn't wearing a bra, and when she pulled it off her shoulders and tossed it on the floor, her breasts jiggled.

She unbuttoned and then unzipped her shorts, then pulled them to her knees. She wasn't wearing panties either. As she stepped out of her shorts, she looked up at me. The look on her face was almost pleading.

"I don't want to talk. I want to have sex again."

"Are you sure about this?"

Mandy slipped her fingers through the mass of blonde hair on her mound. The fingers disappeared for a second and came back out. She held them up in front of my face.

"Yes. I'm ready right now. See."

Her two fingers were coated with a milky liquid that formed thinning strings when she separated them.

"How...I mean, in the village you said it was from watching that other couple. Why now?"

Mandy felt the front of my pants for my cock.

"I don't know why. I just know I need you to make love with me again."

That night was a repeat of the night in the village. Mandy was erotic in every move and sound she made from the little moans I caused by sucking her nipples to the spasms that tightened her body when her climax came. Her climax spurred mine, and we lay there afterwards, Mandy still impaled by my cock, and both of us breathing hard.

The doctor in me came back once I rolled over on my back beside Mandy.

"Mandy, when did you start feeling like this, wanting sex I mean?"

"I'm not sure...no, yes I am sure. I remember having a dream before I woke up in the village. Well, I don't really remember it, but I do remember a dream with naked people having sex. I was one of them, I think, because when I woke up, I felt wet down there. Sometimes in the mornings I am a little, but not like that. Why?"

"I've been trying to figure out what caused it, that's all. If you'd started feeling like that sometime during the day you woke up, I'd think it was something you ate or drank. The healer might have put something in it to help you get well, or maybe whatever it was just does that."

"You ate and drank the same things I did. Do you feel any different?"

"No, and if you woke up feeling like that, it has to be something else, something that happened only to you. I can think of only one thing, or maybe a combination of two things."

"My spider bite?"

"Yes, either the venom of the first one or that of the white spider. When we get back to Chicago, I'm going to have to do some research into spiders."

Mandy stroked my belly and then moved her hand down to stroke my cock.

"Well, whatever it was, I'm glad it happened. I'm still not sleepy. Do you suppose..."

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The rest of the trip down river was a joy for Mandy. For me it was an experience I knew I'd never forget. When Mandy had come to my office that day her uncle passed away, she seemed to be a strong woman but a lot distant. She was still a strong woman, but now, she was everything except distant.

When we walked the deck together, I'd usually feel her slip her arm in mine. When we stood at the rail watching the shoreline go by, she would always find a way to be touching me with some part of her body.

Mandy would lean over the rail to look at the water and put her hand on my shoulder to steady herself. As she leaned, I'd feel her breast pressing into my arm. If we sat together on one of the benches on the deck, her thigh would eventually end up against mine. Her hands were always touching me to accent something she was saying.

I was certain she wasn't aware of doing these things. They happened too naturally for her to have planned doing them. She'd just changed.

We had separate cabins from Chiriaco to Manaus. At Manaus, Mandy had touched my arm and asked if I would mind if we shared a cabin. The evenings between Manaus and Afua were an experience in how completely and in how many ways a woman can give herself to a man.

It wasn't just that she enjoyed sex. Mandy seemed to need sex. She needed to be touched, caressed, and kissed. She needed to feel my shaft penetrate her body and she needed to feel the orgasms that wracked her body like no other woman I'd ever been with.

It was the way she completely lost herself when we joined. The act wasn't me trying to excite her to an orgasm. It was both of us slowly enjoying every sensation, every electric tingle, every little spasm that would take us to the height of pleasure and then leave us gasping when that pleasure exploded in the waves of release.

She wasn't what psychiatrists of the time would have called a nymphomaniac, at least by the definition I'd learned in my psychology classes. She didn't crave sex all the time like a drug addict craves the next fix. She just needed to feel the shattering release of tensions sweep her away and then lie in my arms and cuddle for a while.

Doctors tend to be clinical-thinking, but I couldn't be that way when we had sex. She was much too erotic for me to think about anything but the pure ecstasy of being with her. During the day, though, I would marvel at the change.

I realized there must be more women like Mandy, women who wanted to enjoy the attentions of a man, or maybe even another woman, but couldn't. If I could find the cause, maybe I could help those women. I wasn't thinking about the fame and riches I could achieve by doing so. Mandy had shown me how happy a woman could be when that problem was resolved, and I knew that would be enough.

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We arrived in Afua a day earlier than planned because of our hasty retreat down river. We booked a room at the same hotel and retrieved our cash and other items from the safe, then took in the sights and did a little shopping. After eating an evening meal at the same restaurant as before, we went back to the hotel. I made love to Mandy for what I figured would be the last time.

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We landed at O'Hare after another series of flights, and walked to the cab stop together. It was with more than a little mental pain I watched Mandy get into a cab and leave me. She'd said she needed to get back to her office and make sure everything was as she'd left it. She did say she'd call me when she had everything in order to just talk. It was almost like the old Mandy had come back. She was distant again, and I couldn't figure out why.

I wasn't happy at all when I got back to my apartment. Every time I turned around, I expected to see Mandy standing there, but she never was. When I rolled into bed that night, I unconsciously felt for her beside me. When my hand touched nothing except the bed sheet, my heart sank. I finally fell asleep after wondering what had happened. Had it just been the stress of the trip that changed her, and now that we were home that was all over?

I took a day to rest up before going back to the hospital. It was a miserable day of thinking about Mandy and wishing she was there with me. I missed feeling her hand on my arm. I missed hearing her laugh. I missed everything that I'd felt when she was with me. I thought about calling her several times, but talked myself out of doing it. She'd just think I was after more sex.

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I was still missing her when I took my notes and samples to the hospital. It would take another day before I was back in the routine of making rounds and seeing new patients, so I took my samples to Dale. He grinned when he saw me walk in the door.

"I figured your shrunken head would be hanging on the wall of some native hut by now."

"No, I didn't see any headhunters, but I did find out what that yellow powder is."

Dale grinned again.

"Good, because it's still foofoo dust to me. What the hell is it?"

After I went through the explanation, Dale nodded.

"I hadn't thought about an organic process, but it makes a lot of sense. It must be the fungus digesting the wood fibers that causes the compounds to form and then crosslink. Did you bring any samples back?"

I gave him the bag with the fungus samples and the method the healer had used to turn them into powder. Dale didn't hear me leave the lab. He was already putting some of the samples in his desiccating oven to dry.

That afternoon, I left the hospital early and drove to the university campus to see three department heads. I had the leaves and a few of the fruits from the samasama tree in one bag. The fruits had started to decay and the leaves had dried out, but I hoped someone in the botany department could identify the tree. I left those samples with the request to call me if they could identify them.

My next stop was with the head of the language department I'd spoken with before. I had made copies of my notes at the hospital and gave them to him. He looked at them, shook his head, and said he'd never seen the words but he'd ask his professors to take a look.

The last stop was one I was a little concerned about making. I wanted to know about spiders in Peru. If both could be identified, it might be possible to analyze the venom and determine if that was the cause of the change in Mandy. It would also probably mean a lot of analyzing of Mandy. I wasn't sure she'd ever agree to that.

The head of the entomology department directed me to Professor Art James. She said he was the best source of information about arachnids in the US.

Art was a weird sort of guy, but it was obvious he was an expert on the subject. His office walls were covered with specimens of spiders pinned to framed boards behind glass, and it was a bit difficult to understand his explanation because he was using a lot of Latin names.

"What did this spider look like", he asked.

"I didn't actually see it up close, but our guide said it was brown and had black hairs on its legs and body. He called it the spider with no web "

"Ah...no web...Probably one of the spiders of the genus Phonetria. I think I have a few specimens."

He walked to a frame on the wall and pointed to the spider in the center.

"Did it look like this?"

The spider could have been the one I saw leaving Mandy's boot. This one looked larger, but it was closer.

"I think that's what I saw, but it was farther away. I can't be sure about the size."

"It was probably one of the Phoetria genus, and considering you were in Peru, probably Phoetria Fera or possibly Nigriventer. Be happy you did not pick one up. Nasty fellows, the Phoetria's, well, the females actually. It's the females who have the most potent venom. The Phoetria's are all aggressive, and they're deadly. They kill more people in South America than snakebites.

"They are of some interest in medicine. The venom of Phoetria Nigriventer has been observed to cause intense, long-lasting, but painful erections in males who suffer the bite. I have a few contacts in the pharmaceutical industry who ask for my advice occasionally. According to Wanda, apparently they are studying the venom as a possible cure for the inability to develop or maintain an erection."

He chuckled.

"She called it the boner builder study."

"Would the bite have a similar effect on a woman?"

"Well, she wouldn't grow a penis and have an erection, if that's what you mean. The erection thing doesn't happen every time either. Usually both men and women just die."

"Is there an antivenin?"

"There is supposedly a plant extract used by the native healers, but it has never been clinically tested. Other than that, none of which I am aware. There's really no market for an antivenin here because there's no need. Poetria does not live this far north so there's no economical justification for an American company to develop one. I don't know of any labs in Brazil working on one either."

My next question for him was one I hesitated to ask. He would probably want to know why I asked it, and I wasn't sure if I should tell him.

"Is there such a thing as a white spider?"

He appeared to think for a moment and then smiled.

"Yes. They're not really white-white. They're more of a cream or silver. I have one or two over here.

He stepped sideways three boxes, and pointed to a spider in the upper right corner.

"This is a male cupiennius salei, the cane spider. The one to the right is the female. They are native to parts of South America."

The spider didn't really look like the one I'd seen bite Mandy. That one was larger and was truly almost white. In the same case was another spider that was at least closer in size and shape. I pointed to it.

"The one I saw looked more like this one except it was white and not brown."

"That's Pleorotus braueri, one of the huntsman spiders. You wouldn't have seen one of these in Peru."

"Why not? The one I saw sure looked like this one except for the color."

"Two reasons. Pleorotus braueri was native to Mahi Island in the Seychelles. It was also declared extinct in 1909. There's no way it could have gotten to Peru. I'm pretty sure you saw something else, though I have no idea what it might have been.

"The Amazon rain forest is one of the most diverse habitats on the planet and new species are being identified every year. Maybe it was some spider we don't know about yet. Why are you so interested?"

It was probably the wrong thing to do, but I was afraid if he knew the truth, Mandy would be turned into some kind of lab experiment. I'd seen that happen before if a person had a rare cancer or other rare disease.

"I'd never seen or read about white spiders until I saw that one. I was just curious."

I thanked him for the information and then left.

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The next day I was back in the swing of things at the hospital. I made rounds and then saw a few people with upper respiratory infections and one broken finger. When I got back to my office, there was a note on my desk to call a Professor Milo Anderson, and a phone number. He picked up on the second ring. I introduced myself and asked the reason he wanted me to call him.

"Harry gave me a listing of words this morning and asked if I knew what language they were. He said you gave him the list. May I ask where you got them?"

I said in Peru on the east side of the Andes.

The line was silent for a few seconds and I heard paper shuffling in the background. Then, he spoke again.

"That's not really possible. You must have made a mistake when you wrote them down."

"Well, I was writing down what the words sounded like. I have no idea if that's how the words would actually be written. The people I heard using them didn't seem to have a written language. Why isn't it possible?"

"I assumed the spelling was phonetic. You wouldn't hear the inflections like I would. The reason it's not possible is the language is Samoan."

"Are you sure?"

He sounded a little offended.

"Yes, I'm sure. The Ph.D. after my name doesn't stand for 'pounding his dick' you know. I'm positive it's Samoan. "Fanu ala sami" means people of the sea. "Apogaleveleve" is Samoan for spider. Pa'epa'e means white woman. Tagata faʻamaʻI is the phrase in Samoan used for both sick person and for healer. These last words, when put together in the right syntax, are togafiti faataulaitu o le paʻepaʻe papaʻe apogaleveleve. That translates to magic or witchcraft of the white spider. There are a lot of idioms in Samoan, but I've never seen that phrase before. Any idea what it means?"

I smiled to myself. I thought I had the answer I was seeking.

"No, I just heard it a few times."

"You're sure they were natives and not tourists?"

"Unless Samoan tourists run around in bark skirts with tattoos on their legs, they were natives."

He said he'd talk to the anthropology department about how Samoans could end up in Peru. I thanked him for his information and went back to my office.

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I was getting ready to leave for the day when there was a knock on my door. When I opened it, Mandy was standing there looking just as desirable as ever. She was smiling, but her smile looked a little forced.'

"Are you busy?"

"No, I was getting ready to leave."

"I uh...I was wondering if you'd like to have dinner sometime."

"You came to the hospital just to ask me that? You could have just called me."

Mandy looked at the floor.

"Well, I was thinking we might do it tonight."

I had a flicker of hope.

"Sure. Where would you like to go?"

Mandy looked up then.

"I was thinking we might eat at my house. I ordered a pizza and...but it you don't want to, that's OK."

I locked my desk, then stood up and walked to the door and took her hand.

"I'd love to have pizza with you at your house. I've been going nuts thinking about you for the last two days."

The pizza, a true Chicago pizza, was great. The wine Mandy opened was great. Sitting with Mandy on her couch afterwards was wonderful.

I told her what I'd found out about the spiders and the words I'd jotted down.

"It had to be the white spider the healer used. That's what the people in the village were saying when they saw us that morning. They were saying it was the magic of the white spider."

"So I got bitten by a spider and that made me want to have sex?"

"It's the only explanation that makes any sense."

"Will it last, or will I have to keep getting bitten?"

"I don't know. Do you feel any different?"

Mandy put her arms around my neck and kissed me. She pulled gently away and then pulled her top off over her head.

"Yes I do. It's been three days since you made love to me. I've been going crazy too."

In her bed, Mandy was sensuality and eroticism fired by a need I felt too. It was a need to feel her body pressed tight against mine. It was a need to feel her responding to my touch and then being aroused just as she'd aroused me on the Amazon. The need was more primal than anything else that time. She needed to be excited until she couldn't wait to be impaled on my cock. I needed to feel her body moving under my hands until I couldn't wait to penetrate her depths.

When my cock slipped slowly inside her, Mandy moaned.

"Do it fast. I'm almost there already."

She was. She moaned again when I began stroking my cock in and out, and wrapped her arms around my back. Shortly after that, she began rocking her body into every stroke. All her little mewing sounds and low moans were taking me there fast, but she was right there with me. I felt her pelvic muscles contract, then she gasped, "now", and heaved her body up off the bed. She hung there shaking like a leaf in the wind as I filled her with seed.