Keyword of the Week -- Ulterior Motives

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Ulterior Motives

Steven had ulterior motives for sliding into Holly's DMs. It must have been obvious that something was up, after the bitterness of their relationship's end, when he said so harmlessly: "Don't you think it's high time for us to catch up? Let me buy you a cup of coffee."

How could they catch up now, after the bridge between them had already been blown to smithereens? How could he buy her a cup of coffee, when she only drank tea? He knew very well.

They met at Starbucks. He came, bearing a small gift, neatly wrapped in green and white striped paper with a red bow. She could not accept the gift, but she did anyway.

"Open it," he said. "Now."

"I'll open it when I get home. I insist."

She discarded the gift, wrapping and all, in a roadside garbage bin, on the way back to her car. There! She was done with his silly gift, and done with him, until the next time he might find the nerve to reach out for a catch-up.

But when she arrived home, you can imagine the fear she felt when she found the same gift, untampered, waiting for her on her dining table. Her heart was booming violently in her chest, as she searched every square inch of her apartment, saying, "Hello. Hello. You better not try anything. Hello."

But no one was there, besides her and the gift, waiting.

She ripped it open spitefully, letting the bow fall haplessly to the floor.

"Aaaah!" she screamed, as a large black spider with a red hourglass on its back skittered out of the package and into the shadowed recesses of the kitchen area in her apartment.

Underneath where the spider had been, there was a small card with a few words in all caps:

NAME: MAMBA
AGE: 111

She picked up her phone, brimming with an extreme indignance, but instead of sending him back a taunting message, like, "You missed me. Haha.", she found herself searching the average life expectancy of a black widow spider. There's no way that thing could be 111.

She was afraid to go to sleep, but couldn't justify renting a hotel on account of a spider. Eventually she succumbed to her own tiredness. And when she slept, she dreamt.

She was trying to run, trying to move at all, but she couldn't, trapped as she was to a sticky band of silk. A giant black woman with eight hairy limbs appeared, towering over her helpless form. "Don't struggle, young one,". said a shrill voice in her mind. "I'm not here too kill you."

"Mamba?" Holly stuttered.

"Yes, you can call me by that name. My real name is inutterable to your human tongue."

"Who...what...are you?"

"Your ex, Steven, thought I was a mindless assassin, and he sent me to you to kill you. Little did he know who was actually pulling the strings, or that I had ulterior motives in finding you.

"You see, I am an ancient earth guardian and benefactress to spirits like yourself. I have a special task for you, one that will reward you a thousandfold."

"What do you want from me?" she asked. But with that, she woke up in a cold sweat. Life resumed as usual for Holly, for the next week, until she met Mamba in a dream again.

"How can I trust what you say? You've already admitted to having ulterior motives."

"Because you are my child."

"Impossible. My mom died in childbirth."

"So your father had to tell you. You couldn't know who you are while you were too young to know what to do with the knowledge," Mamba said. "I want you to visit your father."

"If you knew my father, you'd know that he is dead."

"Then you know where to find him. All that you cannot forgive of him is holding his spirit back from its release. Maybe I do have an ulterior motive. I want my lover back. But I also want my daughter to be happy."

The next day, she went to Boulder Ridge Cemetery and found her old man's headstone. At first she didn't know what she was doing there, but then a flicker of light in the distance caught her eye, and as she looked up, she felt something like a spiritual wave pass through her, and the tears started pouring from her eyes soon after. "I forgive you, Dad. It's okay. I forgive you. You were a drunk and a fool, but that's okay. I forgive you."

She looked down at his grave-marker, and in her hazy reflection on the granite stone, she saw a black spider looking back at her.

The rain came soon after. To rinse the lies off her burdened soul.

THE END

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#ulterior-motives #steemexclusive #story #art

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