Fist of the Spider Woman by Amber Dawn

Reaching down, she pulled her panties up over her thighs and rescued her jeans from the armchair. She tried to be as calm as possible as she brought their wine glasses to the sink. Their bases rattled together, and she almost dropped one. She rinsed them out and put them on the counter. Still holding her jeans over her left elbow, she padded down the hall to her room. The ivory sheets were turned down. She threw her jeans into the laundry basket and went into the bathroom for her pills. Her fingers struggled with the childproof lid before she could finally get the bottle open. She took out one tiny pill and swallowed it dry. Her face contorted against its sharp bitterness, and she caught the contortion in the mirror, seeing the person that Daniel left.
    â€œPlain Kate, and bonny Kate, and sometimes Kate the curst, but Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom.” These were the words that wooed her. He whispered them again in her ear tonight, knowing how she liked it. Whispered them with every pearly button he slid out of its hole as he kissed down her sternum to the valley between her breasts. She did not wear a bra.
    She liked the firmness and weight of him over her and her legs wrapped around his, on the sofa like teenagers. Except as a teenager, she had never done anything like this. It was hedonistic and heady, and her skin was a furnace. All her worries sparkled on the back of her tongue with the wine. She kissed him as she unbuttoned her jeans. He helped her pull them down her legs.
    He always liked her strong legs. Her stomach fluttered as his fingertips slid up her newly shaved legs, and she thought for a moment about closing her legs again, crossing them. But she was thirty-three and horny and a little drunk. She forgot just a few seconds too late.
    He had stopped with her panties caught at her knees. Stared.
    Between her legs, then up at her face, stared at the dilated horror in her eyes. His face changed colour as his emotions ran over it like water: confusion, revelation, disgust, betrayal, and revulsion. He stood up, grabbed his jacket and briefcase, fastened his trousers, and left.
    Daniel Foreman was her second boyfriend. After a year and a half of patience, Kate wanted to unveil. Daniel was a nice man.
    Her thoughts had skipped through each of the key phrases in her books: diversity, body image, positive thinking, love yourself, relativity. He thought her pretty, and that was more than she ever expected. They were adults, they were in love, they had been talking about engagement.
    Some boundaries, Kate thought as she stared into the mirror, are meant to be crossed. He had never given her a ring. At least he did not find out on their wedding night. And that’s when the tears started. She shrugged the rose-coloured blouse off her shoulders, standing there in her underwear with her throat swollen and her eyes turning red. Broad shoulders, flat breasts, and purple stretch marks on her stomach. She had good skin when it was clear, and she used moisturizers and exfoliated; she shaved everywhere.
    Grabbing a handful of tissues, she wiped her dripping nose, trying not to make a sound. Who she was hiding from?—it was just her and the cat in the apartment. All she knew was that she did not want to cry now. Before getting into the shower, she lit a few scented candles and shut off the lights. She could see enough. Everything looked better by candlelight. She slipped behind the shower curtain. She jerked the knob to the left until the water burned her, then shifted it back to the right, and it cooled down slightly.
    The last time she really looked in the mirror properly was at her best friend Judy’s tenth birthday party. Judy had a sleepover with three other girls, and they sat in the Jacuzzi tub with their bathing suits on, giggling in the bubbles. Kate wore shorts over her bathing suit because without them you could see. Eventually, the discussion turned to ghost stories, and Judy retrieved a book from