Personality disorder is the term they like to use.
It used to bother me. To fill me with rage.
Now I see it for what it is.
A strength. A lethal advantage.
I’m not burdened by the same constraints as most. Not limited by the need to justify every decision through a lens of socially acceptable morality.
Free to move about the world in a way that befits me.
I see things clearly.
I act accordingly.
And that clarity allows me to focus on what matters.
Like Ivy.
Not that she has any idea.
Even when I’m meant to be laser-focused on work, my mind can’t help but float to her.
When Ivy notices my posts, I can’t help but smile.
It’s not a reaction I indulge in often, or something that comes naturally. But when it comes to her, something shifts. Something lighter, sharper, almost unfamiliar. I find myself smiling like a man who doesn’t know better.
At first, the reaction was so foreign that it made me feel something uncomfortably close to sentimental, as if I were the type of man to be undone by something as mundane as attention. But now I’ve come to almost enjoy it.
Who knew it would be my spiders that would lure her into my web?
My black widows.
My girls.
I thought I was going to have to be more strategic. More deliberate. To force it by creating something compelling enough to catch her attention and hold it.
But it was almost too easy.
It happened naturally. Effortlessly.
Like it was meant to be.
People say spiders don’t have personalities.
They’re wrong.
I can tell my beauties from each other without hesitation. It’s not just their size or markings—it’s the way they move, the way they respond to stimuli, to food, to the subtle vibrations that ripple through their webs.
To prey.
They’re beautiful.
Precise.
Underestimated.
And I’ve always been drawn to females, so it makes sense that all my pets are.