When Flo caught a fly in her web, it was a happy accident.

Her lines were sloppy; her trigger threads broke easily and her stubby legs made it difficult for her to walk half the distance over a web bridge without ending up on the forest floor far below.

The other spiders ridiculed her efforts.

"Hey, Legs. You know how Flo eats so well, don't you?"

"Tell me, Twiggy."

"She just waits for some fat morsel to wander a little too close to her tree then she sits on it."

"Ha ha! She could kill birds without lifting a fang!"

"When goliath beetles stand next to her, they get mistaken for ants."

She often stumbled at the front porch of the trapdoor spider, ignoring her giggles as she struggled to right herself. The funnel spider would rig small pebbles to come flying out the end of her clever trap, pelting Flo with stinging bits. The jumping spider would use her for target practice, nearly squashing her to the forest floor than darting away before she could so much as wave a leg in protest.

She tolerated their taunts. What else could she do? She was slow and clumsy. She always had been. What hope was there for the world's least predatory spider?

Then she met The Widow.

She was scurrying to the end of her favored branch, trying to reel in the strands of a web that had been obliterated by a frog. The soggy bits of web kept slipping out of her grasp, tangling up her legs and threatening to send her toppling. Two slender black legs tipped with red entered her line of vision.

"Let me give you a hand with that, Cousin. Wet web is a fabulous lure for mosquitos, you know. They're my personal favorite. Low in calories and high in protein, just the kick I need to get me through that last workout of the day.

Flo looked up into the deadliest, most gorgeous pairs of eyes she had ever seen.

The Widow's body was long and limber with fiery red marks on her abdomen that added allure to her midnight-black body. Flo looked down at her own rotund curves, ashamed to be surveyed by this sultry stranger.

The Widow was not the least bit disconcerted by her blushes. "Would you like the first cast, or may I?"

With much fumbling of both legs and tongue, Flo granted this stranger her blessing.

The Widow moved with a grace that brought the chatter of the local insect population to a dead silence. Her dance embraced life and defied death, netting a few dozen mosquitos in less than a minute. The Widow speared each of her catches and savored the flavor as she brought one struggling mosquito after another to her lips. The thickest catch was offered to Flo, subtle thanks for sharing her thread and hunting zone.

"Will you...teach me that?"

The Widow's bland smile became sultry. "You would learn the dance of death, Child?"

"Um...yes?"

"Ah...we shall see. Meet me at the stump by the pond at this time tomorrow."

Flo met the Widow there every day for many moons. Her rotund body became sleek and strong. Every stretch was defiance of the critics that had stomped her nest to rubble or shaken a few mites onto her head to make her squirm. Every move perfected was more proof that beneath her former layers of blubber lay a spirit of steel waiting for its release from the trap of self-doubt.

Now the trapdoor spider shuts her door tight, the funnel spider quivers hard enough to make his trap fall on his own head and the jumping spider will launch herself into the water to get away from the terrible beauty that dances with the grace of a black widow and devours the best morsels the forest has to offer as readily as she devours her many mates.
Credits
Pet art by Ankoku
Pet page by HPY
Pet story by Pureflower
Background image from wpnature.com
Flo name font from Fontmeme.com
Coding help from Hongske