Web of Naiveté
Chapter 3: The Garden
Jennifer sat across from Susan at their usual lunch spot near campus. They ate together most days, but Jennifer had barely touched her food. She pushed a piece of lettuce around her plate while Susan watched her from across the table.
“You’ve been off since the career fair,” Susan said. “It’s been a few days.”
“I’m tired.”
“That isn’t all.”
Jennifer kept her eyes on her plate. Susan leaned forward slightly.
“You told me something happened when Rebecca shook your hand. Now you can’t focus, you look like you haven’t slept, and you’ve been scratching that same hand since we sat down.”
Jennifer stopped. Her fingers were pressed against the center of her palm beneath the edge of the table. She hadn’t realized she was doing it.
She lowered her hand into her lap. “It’s just irritated.”
“Let me see.”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly. Susan sat back and studied her.
“Jen.”
“Nothing happened with Rebecca.”
Susan watched her for another moment. “Then why do you tense up every time I mention Donna?”
Jennifer looked up. Susan’s expression had changed. She was no longer only concerned. She was watching Jennifer closely, waiting to see what the name would do to her.
“What does Donna have to do with this?” Jennifer asked.
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
Jennifer wanted to tell her. She wanted to explain the dreams, the sensation that moved through her whenever she thought about Donna, and the way her body seemed to make decisions before she did. But once the words were inside her mouth, she couldn’t force them out.
Instead, she gave Susan a small smile. “I just need to sleep more.”
Susan didn’t return the smile. “If something is happening, you can tell me. I won’t think you’re crazy.”
Jennifer nodded, but she couldn’t meet her eyes. She wasn’t afraid Susan would think she was crazy. She was afraid Susan would believe her.
Later that afternoon, Jennifer stood at her kitchen sink and looked through the window. Donna was in the garden next door, pruning the rose bushes along the low fence between their yards. She wore a sleeveless dark top, and each time she reached across the plants, the spider tattoo on her shoulder appeared beneath the shifting fabric.
Jennifer watched her longer than she intended. She ed Donna’s invitation at the fair.
The flowers always cheer me up.
She had decided not to go. She had meant it when she made the decision.
Then Donna looked toward the window.
Jennifer stepped back, but not before their eyes met. Donna did not wave. She only stood among the roses and waited.
The itching in Jennifer’s palm sharpened. A faint current followed it up her arm and settled beneath her ribs. She turned away from the window and stood there with both hands on the counter, waiting for the impulse to . A few minutes later, she was crossing the yard.
Donna looked up as Jennifer approached the fence. She removed her gardening gloves one finger at a time.
“You came.”
“I saw you out here.”
“I know.”
Donna said it without smiling. Jennifer stopped on the opposite side of the fence, close enough now that Donna could reach her. The fence was low, more decorative than useful, but neither woman stepped across it.
Donna’s eyes moved slowly over Jennifer’s face. “You look tired.”
“I haven’t been sleeping well.”
“I’ve been thinking about you.”
Jennifer felt her pulse in her throat. Donna stepped closer, and Jennifer knew she could still move back. She stayed where she was.
Donna reached across the fence and tucked a strand of hair behind Jennifer’s ear. Her fingertips brushed the skin beneath it, and the pressure inside Jennifer tightened.
“I meant what I said,” Donna told her. “You should come over more often.”
Jennifer looked at the spider tattoo on Donna’s shoulder. Its narrow legs curved over her skin and disappeared beneath the edge of her top.
“I might,” she said.
Donna’s mouth lifted slightly. “Good.”
Jennifer remained there for another few seconds, though there was nothing left to say. Then she turned and walked back to her house. She could feel Donna watching her until the door closed behind her.
Inside, Jennifer leaned against the door and pressed both hands flat against the wood. They were shaking. Donna had barely touched her. That was what frightened her.
She returned to the kitchen and looked out the window again. Donna had gone back to the roses, moving between them with the same measured calm, as though nothing had happened.
The sensation had settled lower now. Jennifer pressed her thighs together and hated the small relief it gave her. She turned away from the window and went upstairs, telling herself she only needed to lie down. The encounter at the fence had meant nothing.
Instead, she entered the spare room where she kept her old art supplies.
The room smelled faintly of paper and dust. Her sketchbooks were stacked in a box beneath the window, exactly where she had left them years ago. She pulled one out, sat on the floor, and held a stick of charcoal over the empty page.
For a while, she did nothing. Then her hand began to move.
The first lines meant nothing—dark strokes crossing an empty page. Gradually, they formed stems and leaves. Roses crowded the margins, and thorns crossed one another in sharp black angles. A fence appeared through the center.
Jennifer stared at it, but her hand kept moving.
Donna took shape on the other side. Jennifer drew the tilt of her head, the stillness of her mouth, and the way she had looked across the fence as though Jennifer’s arrival had already been decided. The charcoal pressed harder into the paper. Donna’s hand reached forward.
Jennifer added the spider tattoo to her shoulder, giving it longer legs than it had in life. They spread across Donna’s skin and disappeared behind her back.
When Jennifer finally stopped, her fingers were black. The woman on the page did not look like Donna anymore. She looked like something wearing Donna’s face.
Jennifer closed the sketchbook and pushed it away. She went into her bedroom and lay on top of the covers, but her body would not settle. She kept seeing the drawing—the roses, the fence, the spider unfurling its legs across Donna’s shoulder.
She told herself it was only a sketch. She told herself it did not mean anything.
She knew she was lying.
Eventually, exhaustion pulled her under.
In the dream, she was back in the garden.
It looked like her drawing.
The roses towered above the fence, their stems black and their thorns long enough to catch at her clothes. The fence had become a series of hard charcoal lines cutting the garden in two. Donna stood among the flowers, watching her without smiling.
Jennifer tried to speak, but Donna raised one hand and curled two fingers toward herself.
Come here.
Jennifer’s feet moved. She tried to stop, but her body carried her through the roses until she stood directly in front of Donna. The thorns closed behind her without making a sound.
“There you are,” Donna said. “You just needed to stop pretending you weren’t coming.”
Jennifer tried to step back, but her legs would not move. Donna touched her face and traced one finger down the side of her throat. The burned wherever it ed. Jennifer’s breath shortened. A sharp, involuntary throb answered between her legs. She hated the way her body leaned forward into the touch before she could correct it.
Donna’s fingers slid down Jennifer’s arm and closed around her wrist. She turned Jennifer’s hand palm-up, as if inspecting something written there. For one terrible second, the itching in Jennifer’s palm flared hot and bright. Then Donna let go, and the sensation moved lower, settling between her legs with a purpose Jennifer could not mistake. Her hips shifted once, small and helpless, chasing pressure that wasn’t there.
Donna leaned close enough that Jennifer felt her breath against her ear. As she did, the spider tattoo shifted.
One leg lifted from Donna’s skin. Then another.
The spider crawled slowly across her shoulder while pale strands stretched from its body. They crossed the space between the women and wound around Jennifer’s wrists and ankles. The strands never touched her skin, but she felt them tightening anyway. The restraint only made the ache worse. She pulled against the impossible web and felt her own wetness with every useless movement.
“You aren’t fighting anymore,” Donna whispered.
Jennifer’s face burned with shame. She could feel how ready her body was, how little of that readiness belonged to any choice she had made.
Donna’s voice dropped beside her ear.
“You’re waiting to be caught.”
Jennifer woke with a broken gasp. The sheets were twisted around her legs, and sweat cooled across her skin. Her heart struck hard against her ribs while the last pieces of the dream clung to her—the thorns, the web, Donna’s hand, and her own body moving toward it.
She curled both hands into the sheets.
Something was wrong with her.
For the first time, the thought did not bring only fear.
Part of her wanted to close her eyes and return.