Male/female alternating story word game!

..she proceeded to berate and nag him as women are prone to do. A thousand words ran through Suasn's mind and she knew she had absolutely no right to say any of them. She shuddered as the flurry of vile epithets flew from her lips.

Bill, standing there utterly stunned as the barage continued, developed a mental image of her head imploding has her bilge spilled forth. It was then that he realized, it wasn't the cats he hated at all. IT WAS HER! He studied her neck as she continued her irrational diatribe, recalling the thousands of ways he was taught to kil a person. Perhaps a fork to the jugular would be best? No.. Much to messy.. A quick twist of the head snapping the neck? No.. He'd have to touch her for that..

Slowly, Bill gripped the handle on his knife..

As she stood, silently thinking, Susan realised that poor Bill had, indeed, once again entered that world of tragic delusion he had occupied so often since his return from Yucatan and was working himself up into another one of his paranoid, irrational rages.

She knew the rages were not, to him in his deluded state, irrational at all - that his reactions made sense in that distorted, hallucinatory world.

As if in a dream she saw him begin to reach for a knife - and the words of his psychiatrist and the police she had had to call during his last outburst rang in her ears - "It is not safe for you to live with him - he is too unstable."

As she calmly evaded his lunge with the knife and connected with thatlittle secret spot in his neck that rendered him peacefully unconscious and called his psychiatrist, she knew that she would, despite her feelings for him, have to leave him, or he would finally have to be forced to confront what he had so long avoided, the secrets of his time in Yucatan...

It had been the best of times, it had been the worst of time for Bill. As the chief archeologist on the Maya 'dig', he had exulted in the plethora of artifacts his team was digging up. Shards of exquisite pottery. Jade jewelery fit for a queen. Also skulls and parts of skeletons, some with visible traces of trauma. These had apparently been human scarifices. It was all going so well, until...

Meanwhile - above Susan and the unconscious Bill, the spiderlings watched and waited.

They had not been so upset when the cats killed their mother - they were, after all, predators too - and they assumed the animals had left her body to soften, although they were surprised that the cats had not dragged it away to a safe den while waiting for their injection of digestive juices to do their work.

However - when the huge bi-pedal human male had kicked and then dishonoured their mother's body in a bizarre, disgusting, unnatural ritual - they had vowed revenge.

When the male had attempted to mate with the female - for such they had assumed his lunge with the knife to be - only to meet the accepted fate of so many spider males in this endeavour, the spiderlings had watched in fascination.

At first they believed the human female had exacted their revenge for them,and had cheered heartily - although a number of the male spiderlings had been a little sobered to watch another male creature succumb to the fate they all feared.

They were very surprised when the female did not proceed to prepare the male's carcase for later consumption, and were horrified when they noticed signs of continuing life in the him.

First-hatched, as was her right, spoke first: "He'll have to go" she said calmly but implacably.

"Ah, shut yer gob," said the eldest male spiderling. "The poor cobber's suffered enough, what wif a mate like that, one that 'ud karate chop a quite dacent fella. But, y'know somethin'? THis bloke looks familiar, 'e does. Now, why is that?" (They all spoke a strange dialect, coming, as they did from Belize, which used to be called British Honduras.)

Yes - the dig had gone so well - the treasures, both literal and scholarly, that were being uncovered were priceless; Bill knew that his not inconsiderable reputation would be raised even higher - then, those bones.

They were used to finding traces of human sacrifice, but there was something about the atmosphere around these bones - a looming dread, a darkness - that sapped their energy and enthusiasm. Then, the first of the diggers disappeared....

This was also the day that they began uncovering the huge, monstrous statue of what looked to be a spider deity - whose massive, semi-unearthed form already looked quite malevolent and terrifying.

Bill....

Coming out of the stupor induced by the expert karate chop he had received, Bill shook his head groggily. As was usual with him in these cases, he remembered nothing of what had preceded the altercation, had no idea of why he was lying on the floor, suffering from a mild headache. All that was in his mind at present was the image which haunted his nightmares -- that massive, colossal, titanic, gigantic arachnidform statue and face on that statue. That face which so reminded him of Susan. The spider-god WAS Susan!

Yes - Susan shared with the serene, beautiful, full-lipped human face carved within the stone horror, the classic features of Mayan beauty - could it be that this uncanny coincidence was what fed Bill's traumatised response to his lovely partner? And what had happened in the terrible few days after the discovery of the statue - days of which Bill had only confused, nightmarish glimpses in his dreams.....

Meanwhile, the spiderlings above had stilled the dissenting voice of their brother - by killing and eating him. Yet, as they assimilated his body, they also assimilated his words - Bill, it seemed, did look familiar - not in their own memories, but in those experiences mysteriously transferred to them by their mother- their spider heritage - their racial memories....

After a cup of coffee and a chance to contemplate what had just taken place, Susan realized she had gotten a little carried away. Sure Bill went to see a psychiatrist once a month for psychotherapy and he took an anti depressant medication, but was he really psychotic? She'd been through this before with Bill and knew she had once again given into her fears that Bill would let her down. Standing behind Bill, who was cooking eggs in the skillet (the blow on the neck had cleared his mind of any guilt provoked self destructive eating of spiders) Susan kissed him on the neck and said, "why don't we go back to bed for a little bit?"

<he he Lola's a guy!>
In her mind thoughts of Bill's entrails flashed. She was the true psyco here. After all, she had been staying up at nights to subliminally insert nonexistent memories that Bill later thought had been repressed.

She decided that tonight was the night. She would kill him. She'd planned this for weeks and even tried on several occasions. Every time she wasn't brave enough to follow through. She'd injure him or knock him out and later claim that he was having an episode again. He always took full responsibility and this made her laugh inside.

This wasn't like the children she buried alive, or the old ladies that Susan had carved up. This was Bill, the man she onced loved. And she was going to kill him tonight.

A part of her sensed the irony at how the true psyco was the one making the other believe he was insane. She laughed to herself and started looking for the knife.

Yes, the knife, as she wanted to add vegetables to the tarantula omelet that she was cooking. She flipped on the Food Network and saw Emeril Lagasse preparing something in a skillet. Emeril flipped and stirred and yelled "Bam!" every few minutes, while tossing in more Essence seasonings.

It was then that Susan noticed that Emeril was also cooking a tarantula omelet. This was a good sign, as Susan had always fancied herself a gourmet cook.

"And don't forget to turn the flame down slightly before adding the cheese." said Emeril on the TV, cheerfully going to commercial as his band played the Who's "Boris the Spider".

Something - not a sound, not a smell, no, it was more like a feeling - made Susan turn around while cooking. It was Bill, naked and brandishing a garlic press. She fainted on the kitchen floor, the tarantula omelet hissing and popping in the skillet.

Up above, on the shelf with the canned chiles and sixteen types of cooking oil, the spiderlings waited.

What they saw next was riveting.

Bill had calmly walked up to offer Susan a garlic press for the omlet and she had a shocked look at him and promptly fainted. Ever the concerned and loving husband Bill cught her mid-fall and held her close to his warm jacket. He had planned to go out to buy her a present but this was more important.

Susan woke with a start and started screaming. She was seeing things again. Bill stifled the urge to complain to himself for marrying such an unstable woman. She was clearly psychotic.

Susan tore at her clothes and started pulling out her hair in clumps. Bill had see this routine before and knew what to do. He held her firmly against his jacket and tried to calm her thrashing. She must have been having her visions again. She called them "feelings" but then just went on to have more visions to "fulfill" the "premonitions" she ceaselessly boasted to have.

She would have none of it. She spat in his face and broke free. It was then that she threw the sizzling skillet at him. His face was seared by the hot oil. Susan screamed, "I am gonna KIIIIILLLLL YOU!"

...

It was sesame oil, and Bill was deathly allergic. Susan silently exulted, "I'll be free of the madman soon", she thought.

A spiderling glided down to the small portable kitchen TV. Its weight changed the channel (it was a well-fed spiderling) and the Food Network was replaced with CNN.

Susan straightened up and collected herself. "My gosh, I think that's our neighborhood on television."

Bill replied, "Yes, I recognize Joe's Bar, the Starbuck's, the Victoria's Secret and the Day Care Center, all lined up on Main Street. But what I don't recognize is that large octopus with laser cannons firing from each leg!"

The spiderlings all replied in unison, having somehow learned English from their collective Yucatan racial memories, "That's no octopus! That's the Lord High Tarantula! We are saved! Step aside, humans!"

Bill tossed the garlic press at the spiderling on the TV, and Susan threw the spatula. The TV screen shattered in a shower of sparks. The spiderlings, seeing their chance, rappelled down the cabinet doors, past the free-range chicken broth and the bag of organic brown rice, murder in their 80 tiny eyes.

They knew that now was the time to seize their reward. For they had just seen their fearless leader on T.V and it gave them strength to carry out their deed, it would make daddy proud. They struck with such riveting vengance that as they at first slowly crept now they were on top of them bitting away which prompted the weaker to come forward and join in the feast of victory. They now found themselves covered and did not know how to escape this moment at which Susan first, and then Bill found themselves with their life flashing before their eyes, trying to block out the memories of a past life and things they wish they had done different, and realizing the real true love they had for each other, for they knew they needed to fight.

Susan suddenly sat up in bed........... oh what a crazy dream. She looked lovingly at Bill sleeping beside her........Poor Bill, he was tossing and turning fitfully........

Susan kissed him on his cheek and shook him a bit, "Bill wake up, you're having a very bad dream."

Bill opened his eyes and smiled at his loving wife. Oh, I was dreaming the most ricidulous dream I've ever had!

As Susan and Bill sat together in their cozy bed, the talked about what they should do with the rest of their day. Susan's sister was coming over for dinner and Bill was a little annoyed about this. Susan's sister was a very irratating woman...........

Sister Daisy was so irritating, in fact, that she had acquired the nickname of D-Day. The 'D' did not stand for Doris. Susan and Daisy's mother had named all her girls after flowers. Susan's full first name(s) on her birth certificate read Black-eyed Susan and, in fact, she had been known as Blackie by her schoolmates. Daisy's full name was Shasta Daisy, but nobody called her Shasta -- just D-Day. Some of her irritating eccentricities included...

wearing large hats at all times, whistling while others were on the phone, and a simply appalling lack of good sense when it came to men. She'd never, ever, managed to bring home a man with teeth.

The family always wondered where she found all of these toothless men. Susan had once asked her about the apparently endless source of these toothless wonders that kept appearing at the homestead.

Without a pause, D-Day replied ...

"Oh, shucks, they's gots teeth when I meets up wif 'em, but if'n they gets too fresh, I knocks their friggin' teeth right down their gullet. Don't nobody mess with me." D-Day Daisy spoke a rich patois.

Susan reflected that her sister had always been a bit different. Even speaking a different dialect from the rest of the family. Perhaps there was something about D-Day that Mother had neglected to tell them.

Susan picked up the phone, and began to dial ...

Bill listened to Susan on the phone with her mother. Yap Yap Yap. He knew his attitude wasn't condusive to a close relationship with Susan, but what was he supposed to do about the fact that he hated her sister? He had a momentary fantasy of dropping D-Day out the second story window and listening until she went splat on the pavement below. He really did not want to put up with Susan's sister tonight. And now he had to listen to Susan talking to her mother about D-Day's parentage. He'd really rather go out to dinner with Susan and go to bed early. He'd been working hard lately and not getting enough sleep. Why should he have to spend the evening on his only day off putting up with D-Day. It was impossible to carry on a conversation with her anyway.

Bottoning his shirt, Bill went to the kithen to talk to Susan. She was still on the phone.

"Susan," say Bill politely, "will you please stop talking in circles with your mother?"

Susan looked up at Bill and he said, "cancel dinner with D-Day tonight, we're going out to dinner." Susan ignored Bill and continued her conversation with her mother.

"I know, Mom, but as I said already, D-Day is just very different, stop trying to deny it........."