The Tarantula is a poisonous spider.
It spins no web as a snare but catches its prey because it is fleet of foot.
Its home in the ground is lined with silk. Remember these things.
It is told in the villages that one who is bitten by this dreaded scourge falls to the floor as one dead. And only by the skilful use of magic can he be brought out of his deathlike trance. For then the subtle strains of music excite an overpowering desire in him to dance, until he falls to the floor bathed in profuse perspiration but secure in the knowledge that he has been rid of the envenomed virulence. City doctors from Madrid and Seville, they scoff at this statement. But the old men of the village who sit in the square after a siesta, in the sun, and soak in God's sunshine, they know far more about the bite of the Tarantula than do the august and revered doctors. For they have lived long. They know life. They know, too, of the human tarantulas that have infested our dear somnolent Spain.
They know of her whom men call La Tarantula.
And as these old men of the village soak the suffusing beneficence of the sun into their bewrinkled faces, they talk through their beards of the woman whom they knew in their youth as La Tarantula.
She, too, caught her prey because she was fleet of foot. For she was the most agile gypsy dancer in all of Spain. Like her dreaded namesake, she lined her home with silks and satins and varicoloured laces and shawls, there to ensnare her men in the oldest trap in the world, her vagina, her cunt, offering to her victims the million-pleasured joys of its throbbing, pulsating essences but insidiously marking them with the death's head.
For it is recorded that, of all the lovers that La Tarantula harboured to her bosom, not one there was who died a natural death, not one there was who in his deathbed was able to smile sweetly up to the ceiling and receive the prayers of his loved ones gathered around him. All of them died violent deaths, as men should die, by the sword, by the fire and by the beast.
La Tarantula was ill-starred.
She was born in Triana, the gypsy settlement, across the Guadalquivir in Seville. It was in this section of the city that the notorious Carmen worked in the cigarette factories for which that part of town is famous.
When La Tarantula was born, a porcelain factory close by burst into sudden flame. It was an ill omen. The world should have known that she was both for the pleasure and the death of man.
When she was ten years old La Tarantula became a woman. In the south the blood runs hot. Passions bloom in children like gorgeous hothouse flowers, before their time. Girls' breasts take on that roundness which makes them fit the eager palms of man. Their hips take on that snaky sinuousness that beguiles the male into ecstasies of expectancies. Their pubic sections become starry with faint hairs that do not hide the tiny pouting lips of their virgin vaginas but deck them as though with a filmy curtain of sheer mantilla lace, so that when one sees the jewel between their legs one's eyes grow wide with desire and one's breath comes in short laboured gasps out of sheer forepleasure.
It was when she was ten years old that she attracted the attention of her uncle, the notorious Chato Doble. He was a powerfully built gypsy famous for his strength and agility and cunning in driving a bargain.
As a horse trader he had no equal. It was told of him that he filled an old nag's ears with quicksilver so that they would not droop with age.
Once he stole a mule from a tavern keeper in Granada, clipped its hair and tail, and disguised it so perfectly that he was able to sell it back to the man from whom he had stolen it. It was this sort of a man who eyed La Tarantula when she first felt the pangs of womanhood creeping into her blood.
She had awakened one morning to find a few tiny specks of blood in her bed. At first she thought that it was the blood of some crushed bedbugs that infested the two rooms in which she and her father lived.
But they were much larger than the usual blobs of blood. And when she saw that there was blood, too, around the warm little hole between her legs she let out a shriek of fear and fell back against the wall.
Immediately, her father came rushing into the room from the outside where he had been sunning himself. Behind him was the towering figure of Chato Doble, her father's brother.
"What's the matter, child?" her father cried.
La Tarantula could say nothing. All she could do was point to the blood on the bed. Her father shrieked out a curse when he saw the blood. "Who! what mother's bastard raped you? Venga a Cani! come on, gypsy! tell me!"
La Tarantula could not understand her father. Nobody had raped her, she whimpered. She had slept alone all night. She did not tell her father that she had had a beautiful dream in which a beautiful Spanish don from across the river had kissed her and had fondled her and had made love to her. "I awoke from sleep," she said, "and there was the blood."
Her uncle Chato Doble pushed his way in past his brother who was standing in the doorway. He looked down at the bloodstains. Then he looked down at the shapely young body of the girl, his niece. He saw the well-rounded breasts budding into bloom like a pair of flowers. He saw the well-rounded loins of a young girl shaping out from what had previously been an adolescent's slim, ugly shanks. He realized that the child that had once been a spindly-shanked girl was blossoming out into a woman. And his heart told him that, although she was his niece, she was still a woman and she was beautiful. And his penis between his legs told him that her cunt was beautiful to see and, what was more, more beautiful to fuck. "Cristo!" he swore beneath his beard as his eyes glittered for her.
Then, taking his brother aside, he whispered something into his ear, the while the girl lay back against the wall and eyed the two men fearfully. She saw a gleam come into her father's eyes. Then a look of relief settled into his features. "So that is all," he sighed.
"What, father?" she enquired anxiously.
Her father advanced toward her and seated himself on her bed. "Cover yourself up well, my child," he said, "for there are men in the room with you. You have already become a woman."
And she was glad. For she knew now that she was no more a child. That she could flirt with the bu'ne who came from across the river to see the gypsy girls dance. That she would be dancing herself soon, feeling their hot eyes piercing her to the very marrow of her soul.
But Chato Doble had seen her naked. He had seen many women naked in his life. His prick was as long as his life and as active. He had snaked it thousands of times into the quivering quims of Spanish ladies and gypsy girls. But never before had he seen a woman's body that compared to the body of his young niece. There was a velvety smoothness to it that almost hypnotized the hands, begging the fingers to touch of its sleekness. There was a curve to her loins that promised a thousand love tricks. And although he realized that he could be guilty of no greater crime, in fucking the daughter of his own blood-brother, he still coveted her in his heart. In fact, he remained at the house of his brother for a much longer time than he had ever done before. Usually, he dropped into his brother's hovel in Triana for only a short visit. In no time, after a repast of gazpacho and a glass of oloroso, he would be off again to Castile or Granada or wherever his heart so willed. But now, now his heart willed him to remain. To remain in his brother's house where he might feast his eyes on the loveliness that was his brother's daughter.
Night after night he would turn and twist on his pallet in the kitchen, dreaming fitfully of the beautiful body that he had seen in the gloom of the room, but nearly always unable to close his eyes in sleep because he knew that less than ten feet away from him there reposed that same glorious body of which he dreamed and for which he ached. Hours he would spend in sleepless nights detailing to himself the marvels of her beauty, going over each of her charms like a monk fingers his rosary, reluctantly allowing each to slip away and avidly seizing another charm and fondling it in his mind until he almost grew mad with desire.
But there were two things that deterred him from getting up and slipping into his niece's room. One of these deterrents was the heinousness of the crime of incest. Another was the custom of dido among the gypsies. He realized that when a gypsy girl was married she must show proof of her virginity by staining the white sheets of her marriage bed with the virgin blood of her maidenhead. This bloodstained sheet would be paraded around the streets so that all would know that she was a virgin. He realized that if he stole his niece's virginity, his brother would be forced to avenge this insult by killing the deflorator of his child.
And all the while, La Tarantula would walk around the house attired only in a thin, torn dress. And when she would kneel sometimes, her uncle would see the tiny notch of hair that covered her delicious cunny. And he would clench his fists and suck in his breath and bite his lips to keep himself from seizing hold of her and throwing her to the ground, there to puncture her with his prick that was demanding entrance to her loveliness.
Once, Chato Doble thought he would try to forget the young girl who had bewitched his senses. He went into the city across the river. There he picked up a lumia, a woman of the streets, and took her to a cafetin, a low-class cafe. He got himself thoroughly drunk on aguardiente. He got his senses inflamed watching a Spanish wench swing her hips and breasts in a baile flamenco dance. But when he tried to fuck the lumia he had taken in from the streets, he saw only a shrivelled-up body with thin bony legs and an enormous hole of a cunt, a golfa if ever there was one, instead of the well-rounded shape of his niece with her tiny quim nestling in its maiden hairs. With a roar, he pushed the dazed lumia away from him, sprang out of bed and ran stumbling down the street.
When he had himself ferried over the Guadalquivir he gave himself over to thoughts of his niece. And the more he thought of her the more he desired her. His drunken brain refused to voice the fears that had stopped him from raping her before. He became potvaliant and, encouraged by the drunken proddings of his heart, he stumbled out of the boat, down into the depths of the Triana into the Cava Vieja district where his brother lived with his niece.
The fates conspired with him. On that same night, his brother had found it necessary to remain the night with his own woman whom he was fucking at her home. He dared not bring her to his own home because he did not want to contaminate his lovely daughter. And so, that night, of all nights, he remained away from home leaving his daughter alone in their house, sleeping peacefully, dreaming perhaps of a black-haired young Spanish don who was stroking her buttocks and kissing her wildly on the lips.
Her uncle, meanwhile, had stopped outside in the street and was debating with himself whether he should go up or not. A faint glimmer of sense in back of his head had warned him to continue onward. But a stronger surge of passion coupled with the force of his drunkenness tugged at his heart and at his penis and painted beautiful pictures in his mind of what would happen. He saw himself stroking the lovely girl's limbs. He felt her cool body next to his inflamed one. He could almost feel her tongue insinuating itself into his mouth, searching every nook and cranny for some spot to titillate. Was there no wonder that he chose to do as he did?
A wine shop was next to the house in which his brother lived. In the moonlight, he saw the slender necks of wine bottles glinting like jewels. Wrapping his hat around his fist, he looked cautiously around first and then sank his fist into the window. A thin tinkling sound broke the night air. He remained quiet for a while listening for sounds. None came. Not even in back of the shop was there anyone stirring. With satisfaction, he swept up a number of bottles of choice wines and ducked into the hallway at the side of the wine store that led up to his brother's rooms. In the distance he had seen the glint of the patentleather cocked hats of a pair of the constabulary.
Craftily, he ascended the dark stairs, making no sound. The bottles in his arms clinked as he took each step. Their contents of wines gurgled merrily. A brand like grin came to Chato Doble's face. He would ply his brother with wine and get him drunk. And then, when he would fall off to sleep in a stupor, he, Chato Doble, would slip into the girl's room and there partake of that for which he had thirsted, for which his parched tongue now clove to his palate.
He pushed the door open slightly and listened. There was no sound. All he heard was the faint clicketyclack of the constables' heels on the cobblestones in the street below. Soon he heard the sounds grow fainter and fainter until they were no more. He was surprised not to hear his brother's deep stentorian snores. And when his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, he looked around. He saw the same bare room he had left before. His pile of clothes lay in the corner. The charcoal brazier smoked lazily against the wall. A plate of beans and potatoes, his dinner, had grown stiff on the table and was covered with hardened fat. A gleam came into his eyes. His brother was not home. The gleam was changed instantly to a perplexed frown. Perhaps he had gone out with his niece? Perhaps she, too, was not home. His heart beating like mad, his breath labouring, Chato Doble edged over to the door that separated the two rooms. For a second he heard nothing but the beating of his own troubled heart. Then, faintly, he heard the calm, beautiful breathing of a young girl.
He stepped into her room.
The bottles of wine still rested in his arms.
In the bed, he saw her, for whom his manhood yearned. Not daring to breathe for fear of waking her, he stood staring down at her young body partially uncovered of the quilt which she had drawn over her.
Directly in a thin, tremulous shaft of moonlight that had slithered into the room from the window above her head, he saw her left breast tumbled out from the confines of her shift, standing out from the darkening gloom of the rest of her body like a ghostly breast of carved Carrara marble. And pointing up from this breast, surrounded by an aureole of pink-tinted flesh, he saw the tiny undeveloped nipple of the girl, standing up as though erect with passion.
Chato Doble could control himself no longer. Sinking to his knee, with a moan, he dropped his mouth to the firm breast and gently tongued the nipple, caressing it subtly with his lips, occasionally feeling its tender flesh stiffen almost imperceptibly under the manipulations of his ardent organ.
He heard his niece sigh and then suck in her breath as though she were experiencing an orgasm. Immediately he refrained from tonguing her nipple, anxiously watching her eyes for fear she should awaken before he had fully aroused her passion. But she sank once more into her deep slumber. But this time, instead of dreaming that her dark lover was only kissing and fondling her, she felt him gently insinuate what was between his legs in between her own legs. In her dream, she realized now what the thing was for that dangled between her father's legs. It was to go into her own thing between her legs. That's what it was for.
And as she felt her dream lover inserting his into her, she felt a quiver of pain go through her. But it was a different sort of pain because, although it hurt her, behind the pain there was a sort of pleasure that made her gasp with joy and shiver with fright at the same time.
Suddenly she opened her eyes.
Over her, she saw the dark, bearded face of her uncle, Chato Doble.
Unable to control himself any longer, he had lifted the quilt from off her legs, drawn away the thin shift that covered her nakedness and had inserted his finger into her little cunny, skirmishing meanwhile for the little button of pleasure. It was at that point that he saw his niece's eyes open. But he saw that there was no fear in them. He noted that she did not shriek. Instead, she stared calmly up at him, wondering why he had stuck his finger into her hole but knowing that it felt good, that it seemed to be that for which she had been waiting for all of her years.
For a moment, neither said a word. Chato Doble allowed his finger to remain in her cunny. Then he said in a low tone, his voice quivering with emotion, the words scarcely spoken, "Are you afraid, my child?"
She shook her head from side to side.
And her eyes widened.
Chato Doble withdrew his finger. Then he took up a bottle of wine from the floor where he had dropped it. When he pulled the cork out the pop resounded against the walls eerily. The odour that emanated from the neck came up to his nostrils. He sniffed it. Muscatel. Sweet wine. Intoxicating wine. He leaned over the bed to his niece and offered her the bottle. Her eyes still wide, she took the bottle from him and put it to her lips and threw her head back. She felt the liquid splash into her mouth and course down her throat. She felt a suffusing warmth gliding into every vein of her body. She felt a gentle throb worm its way into her head, like a small headache. The wall of the room fluttered like a moth crazy with light. The ceiling pulsated like a rabbit's heart. A ringing came into her ears like the sound of church bells miles away. And, as though he were as many miles away, she saw her uncle's face, emerging from a mass of indeterminate features.
Closer and closer she saw the face come, taking on recognizable features all the while. Then she felt his lips touch hers. She felt his avid fingers caressing the stiffened nipples of her breasts. She felt an enormous stiffness brushing up against the spot between her legs. She wanted to let out a cry. But the wine in her withheld the cry. She wanted to seize hold of his busy fingers at her breasts. But the resultant reactions of his expert fingering made her forget to object. She wanted to contract the opening of her legs so that he could find no entrance for the big thing that he was rubbing against her cleavage. But her own desires made her throw herself open to him. And she felt the tip of his prick go gently into her, rubbing against the little projection that had already stiffened like a rod. And she found a delicious warmth glowing up all around her midsection. But there was pain there. The further in she felt the thing going the more pain there was. She tried to scream in terror and pain. But no cry came. Only a deep sigh and a moan. She clutched her uncle's buttocks in a frenzy and sank her teeth into his cheek. But he continued to sink his prick down deeper into her.
Suddenly, she felt something deep within her break down. An excruciating spasm of pain tore through her like a jagged spear ripping through her innards. And she did cry out, like a wounded thing, moaning, weeping and wailing.
Chato Doble immediately withdrew his penis. It was still swollen and enlarged like an enormous cudgel. The tip of it was splattered with blood. He looked down at his niece's gaping cunny and saw a thin trickle of blood issuing from between the pulsing crevasse. No wonder she was so wild. She was a real virgin. He looked down tenderly at her, tears almost coming to his eyes, a sob catching his throat when he saw her weeping into her hands.
"A thousand pardons, darling! I'm so sorry!" he said, and he stroked her loins gently and kissed her forehead and eyes, tasting the bitter tears between his lips.
But the girl was a true gypsy. She had seven and one half ribs under her flanks, as all real sons and daughters of Egypt should have. Stifling her tears, withholding her sobs, she reached up and took her uncle's head between her little hands and drew his face down to hers. Then, almost instinctively, she seized hold of his lips with her own untutored lips and glued them together, forking her tongue lasciviously into his mouth, entwining it around his tongue and, with nervous fingers, reaching downward between the soft fuzz of his bush and seizing hold of his stiffened prick.
"Give it to me! give it to me, uncle!" she cried.
And he gave it to her. Now that he had already broken her maidenhead, there was no bar guarding the way of his rampaging cock. Inserting the tip of it into her hole, he first skirmished around its narrow entrance, touching her clitoris from time to time, each contact sending delicious thrills coursing up her spine, like lightning thrusts.
"In! in!" she insisted, her voice scarcely able to speak the words, so intense was her passion, so ardent were her emotions.
In he went.
Up and back he pumped his gun, first sending its entire length to the hilt into her cunt and then withdrawing it until only the tip rested on the ledge of her vagina. And then, when she could not stand its absence any longer, he would send it ramming into her. And with each cruel thrust she would give a cry. And with each cry she would catch herself from sobbing. She seized hold of his flesh and dug her fingernails into his flesh as she felt his prick course into her, the pain almost overpowering her sometimes. But she held on to him, helping sometimes as best she knew how, with a sure instinct for cooperation, taking each violent thrust with a valour that was worthy of any soldier on the battlefield, because, in her virgin state, the fucking that she was getting from her experienced uncle was simply tearing the insides of her tender vagina apart. But she held on grimly, sometimes biting her lips to keep herself from shrieking, sometimes biting her uncle out of sheer passion, seizing hold of his lips at times and biting his lips and tongue and feeling him bite her.
Before she knew it, she came.
She felt a curious overloading in the vicinity of her loins. She felt a strange whirling, bubbling inside of her. She felt a choking hot wind come up to her mouth and nostrils and seize her in an iron vice. Madly she rotated her hips not knowing what she was doing. Wildly she rolled her eyes. Panting, her breath came to her like the heavy breathing of one dying for air.
And she came.
Bubbling over inside of her she felt something in her overflow itself and fill herself with its boiling essences. And then she went weak. She fell back onto her pillow sobbing pitifully because it was all over, because her climactic emotions were slowly ebbing away and away until it seemed that she had never experienced them at all.
Then she felt a great splashing within her. She felt a series of great spurts. And the emotions of herself returned partially. And she seized hold of her uncle and wrapped her limbs around his back and glued her lips onto his lips.
They lay that way together for ten minutes, neither saying a word, both resting in their own thoughts, each wondering what the other was thinking of.
It was in that position that Chato Doble's brother found them. He himself, returning home from his paramour's rooms, was sadly ruminating on the fate that forced him to leave the warm comforts of his love's bed. Hearing noises in his daughter's room, he stepped into it to see the enormous back of a man lying over his daughter's naked body. A red film came over his eyes. He saw nothing-only the hateful back of the man who was deflowering his virgin daughter. His hot Spanish blood seethed in him. His gypsy sense of justice came to the fore. Hastily looking around for a weapon, his eyes fell on the wine bottles his brother had dumped onto the floor. Taking one of them he smashed its neck against the edge of the wall. The red wine came spurting out like blood from a severed artery. The top of the bottle neck flew off, leaving a jagged series of knifelike edges around the bottle's neck.
Raising it high above his head, he sank his improvised dagger deep into the back of the rapist. Blood gushed forth from the gaping wound and mingled with the red of the wine seeping out of the bottle. The rapist gave one cry of terror and then sank limply onto the girl's body, the blood streaming over her white nakedness like spilt wine.
When her father turned the body over in order to extricate his daughter from the filthy mess, in the shaft of eerie moonlight he saw the face of his own brother Chato Doble grinning up at him, as though the whole affair was a huge joke.
"Chato Doble!" he cried out.
But the girl who was to be La Tarantula, she gave vent to a loud shriek.
The Tarantula had made its first strike.