Along Came a Spider Who Sat Down Beside Him

Posted on Fri 24th Jul, 2020 @ 9:34pm by Lieutenant JG Kellian Michaels

1,299 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Resolution
Location: Orchids and Jazz
Timeline: MD-05, 1730

Reon stood at his duty station at the entrance to Orchids & Jazz, ostensibly welcoming customers, but also keeping an eye out for trouble. He chatted amicably with Jenna Clark, assigned to seating and hostess duties for the evening.

"Miss Lantz gave me a printout of reservations this evening. Have you seen it?" he asked.

"Yes, but I don't know recognize many of the names. We're getting a lot more traffic lately, and there's less time to get to know our customer base," she responded.

"Then let me warn you, so you aren't startled. We have an unusual species visiting this evening, according to the boss ... an Arachne."

Jenna raised an eyebrow. "A spider?" she asked. "That seems ... unlikely."

Reon shook his head. "No, that's arachnid, an earth insect. This is an Arachne, a female, in fact. Her species name comes from the resemblance to that insect, perhaps. I'm not really sure. It would be a little indelicate to ask, and when I looked the species up on the database, it didn't say. There was a photo however, so you might want to take a quick ..." he looked down the corridor. "Never mind, I think our guests are heading this way."

Jenna peered around him and then drew back. "Oh ... unusual, indeed."

* * *

"...So I was sent to boarding schools after age ten," Kellian said to Muffet as the two of them walked down the corridor toward Orchids & Jazz. "What about you?"

"Would you like the flippant answer, or the in-depth... oh, howdy." Muffet waved at the pair of Humans at the door.

"Good evening, Sir and Madam," Reon responded, glancing at his reservation list, as he would for anyone he recognized who walked in the door. "I see you have a reservation, Lieutenant Michaels." He looked up with a smile at both of them, but addressed himself to the man's companion. "Miss Lantz noted that the reservation includes a choice of two locations for you, one near the dance floor, and one in the loft, but with the dance floor visible. Do you have a preference?"

"I don't know," Muffet answered in a considering tone of voice. She looked to Michaels. "Are you willing to dance with a girl with three left feet?"

Kellian's eyes widened. "Absolutely, if you're willing to dance with a guy who only has two."

Muffet smiled. "I think we'll figure something out." She looked at the host again. "Put us by the dance floor, please."

"If you'll follow me, I have just the right table waiting for you," Jenna Clark murmured. She led them to a table a little back from the dance floor but with easy access between two closer tables. Elijah had just slid the special soft-cushioned bench on the side facing the dance floor and was heading away.

"Since the tables on the edge of the floor aren't booths, I'll leave this menu PADD for you to look over and be back to take your order shortly. Would you care for something to drink?" she asked as they sat.

"Iced tea for me," Kellian said. "I might want a glass of wine in a bit. What would you like, Muffet?"

"Milk, please. Cow, whole, no ice." Muffet smiled, and looked at her date. Her heart sped up a little at the thought. She was on a date! "Milk! it does a body good!"

"I'm curious," Kellian said as Jenna made note of their drink orders and left their table. "Which do you prefer, ricotta or mascarpone?"

Muffet laughed. "You say that as if there's one perfect cheese," she teased. "Behold! The Holy Cheese!" she posed as if holding up a cheese wheel in veneration. After a moment of staring at the imaginary object with a worshipful gaze, she laughed and dropped the pose. "You have to clarify. Prefer for what? If I'm making a casserole with rice and spinach, then ricotta is the better choice. If I'm making a dessert mousse, then it's mascarpone."

Kellian grinned back at her. "There is one perfect cheese--Asiago. But I agree with you; it doesn't go well in a dessert mousse." He thought about it and began to laugh, too. "Can you imagine how bad that would taste?"

Muffet chuckled at the idea and shook her head. "Let me tell you something about the power of cheese. Centuries ago, Humans from Earth... yes, Mr. Michaels, your distant ancestors... believed that their moon, Luna, Sol III-b, was made of cheese. In old-style calendar one-thousand, nine-hundred and sixty-nine postmortem, Humans from North America made a heroic effort to reach it, only to discover it was made out of rock. They didn't return for almost another century."

"It was such a crushing disappointment, the governments of the time weren't willing to fund further missions," Kellian agreed, nodding sagely as he laughed uproariously in his mind. "Kind of like chocolate diamonds. If it hadn't been for the entrepreneurs a couple of generations later, we might never have achieved warp drive."

Jenna returned with their drinks and set them down, asking, "In case you're interested, the daily dinner special is Baked Mac & Cheese with smoked mozzarella and butternut squash, sprinkled with 4 slices of crumbled bacon. It comes with Caesar or house salad, and fresh baked sweet brown bread. Dessert is included, and it's lemon cheese cake bars with whipped raspberry topping, drizzled with semi-sweet chocolate. Do you need a little more time to decide?"

Muffet stuck her arms straight out in front of her, hands hanging dead from her wrists. She cocked her head at an odd angle, and intoned, "Baaaaaaaaaacon!"

Kellian laughed. "She and I are in agreement. Bacon sounds lovely." He glanced at Muffet. "So two dinner specials?"

Even Jenna smiled slightly as she waited for their final decision. She'd have to make sure the Arachne woman had just a little bit extra, if she liked bacon that much!

"Well..." Muffet fiddled with her menu, looked over at the dance floor. "I mean..." she looked at the menu again, and sighed.

"Dance first, order later?" Kellian asked, grinning.

"Huh?" Muffet said, trying to follow the shift. She quickly realized where she'd looked away to, and laughed quietly. "No. I mean, yes, but let's order and dance while we wait for food to come. No, what I was being evasive about is this... Kellian, I have easily twice the body mass of anyone you've likely ever dated. Maybe more. So I'm going to shock you; I apologize." She turned (most) of her gaze to the waitress. She paused, searching her memory. Had the young woman given her name? She had not. "Miss, I'm going to need three of the dinner specials, in addition to whatever Tiny here would like to eat."

"This is the first time anyone has ever called me tiny," Kellian said, snickering. He looked over at Jenna. "Four dinner specials, then." He returned his attention to Muffet. "I should have figured that out, now that I think about it, because you're always nibbling on something. I just never did the math. Or, as Sherlock Holmes would say, I saw but didn't observe."

Muffet smiled, just a touch sadly. "Most people focus on my torso and ignore my abdothorax." She shrugged. "I guess I can't blame folk for focusing on what's familiar, instead of what's scary."

Jenna felt bad for the woman. It must be hard to be so different. "Four dinner specials coming right up. And for what it's worth," she tapped the table, "I don't find you at all scary." She smiled before hurrying toward the kitchen with the order. Extra bacon on three orders. Oh, heck, might as well make it all of them, and give Tiny a treat, too. She snickered as she entered the kitchen.

 

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