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Dustin had lived with his Spider hosts some four months, now.

This practice of cuddling and bondage, it turned out, was a celebratory thing. Spiders did it to pick people's spirits up, and it was popular on special occasions. Most of the time, therefore, Dustin was left to his own freedoms. Or, as many freedoms as a graphic design student could have. When he snuck in a cuddle with Simon or Finlay (the ones with fur), they didn't seem to mind.

The spare room became Dustin's room. The five of them, Spiders and human, lived together peaceably. Dustin had worried he'd be a bit of a fifth wheel, what with the Spiders being a romantic quartet, but the basis of that romance was solid friendship and respect. There was no threat to them from an errant human living with them, and they could manage friendship with him at the same time.

His hosts never broke past Dustin's boundaries, and they had discussed in detail what those boundaries were the moment the human moved in. Dustin wasn't used to that. In his many encounters with overly-friendly Beasts, there had been an undercurrent of 'I'll get what I want'. It thrilled him, but if the domination he faced was completely uncontrolled, it was frightening. Typhon had been what he'd needed, then, right after the breakup. That sort of forwardness probably wouldn't work out well, in future, if indefinite.

Living with the Spiders, Dustin learned about their lives. They all had vastly different incomes, between them, which didn't seem to bother any of them. The four had lived together several years, after all.

Together, they all owned the apartment, and were comfortable. Dustin paid rent at the minimal end of the standard rate for their area, which was a godsend.

Finlay, the excitable Peacock Spider, was an accountant with Lionham and Doe. Amir the gentle Recluse was a freight train driver, and Jamal the hedonist Orb-weaver was a bus driver. Simon, the gym rat Tarantula, lived off a trust fund, but did portraits in oils to supplement that.

The Spiders' social lives were also vastly different. Simon had his gym buddies. Finlay organised board game nights with fellow nerds. Amir volunteered more than could be reasonably expected from him. Jamal's social circle was diverse, as he seemed to pick up new friends wherever he went, but that circle almost never met those of his boyfriends.

The main points at which these social lives converged were when they had parties in the apartment - like the one they first ensnared Dustin in - or when they all went out clubbing. This city was good for Spiders, so much so that there was an annual festival, where Spiders from all over came to meet old friends and revel with them. It was a sort of homecoming for them, even when they weren't from the city.

There were a few Spider bars, as a result of this, and two Spider gay bars. First, there was The Trapdoor, with spartan decor and a friendly atmosphere. Second, less well-known to uninitiated, there was The Funnel. This was an extremely sleazy and labyrinthine series of rooms where Spiders (and their admirers, of any specie) could attend... provided, of course, that admirers were accounted for and attached to a Spider attendant when they came in.

It used to be a cruising spot, Dustin's friends had explained, and it used to be more attended by admirers than Spiders. This had put many Spiders off, as it made them feel like circus attractions. These days, the Funnel made it clear that it was not a place to meet new people, specifically. Each admirer, as said, had to attend with a Spider, or they wouldn't enter.

For the first couple of months, the four hosts had teased Dustin about coming along to the Funnel, because of course they did. They talked about the sort of debauchery the human would let himself in for if he went. They'd whisper that they could just pass him to a throng of their ten-limbed people and he'd be carried off and bound and stimulated for hours. They joked that maybe this whole thing with Dustin moving in with them was an experiment, to size him up so they could sell him to other Spiders as a pet. What a good, loyal pet he made, they said.

The lewdness and innuendo just made Dustin redden and look away. The images were tempting, in a way. While he'd move home for his friends, however, he wouldn't give up his life, or his studies, or his dream of becoming a graphic designer. Dustin had his head on straight. While he'd happily take an eager, dominating lover, and had done so several times, that would have to be in bed, because Dustin still made his own choices. To curtail his independence deliberately, against his will, would just be abuse.

("So, how many guys have you played with, so far? Dustin?" Jamal asked him, once, as they all watched TV.

"I don't have to answer that," Dustin answered coldly.

"What was the word? 'Heteroflexible'."

"Yes," Dustin said, through gritted teeth.

"You're 'flexible' enough to be a fuckin' contortionist," Jamal said.

"Sure.")

That teasing changed, over the following months, to genuine invitation. Since admirers were always accompanied by a Spider, and because they were usually in a relationship with them, it was very rare for one to be 'poached' or harassed by another Spider or admirer on coming in. It had changed from a place where anyone could pick up anyone to a place where anyone who came in probably wanted to watch more than be touched.

Certainly, there were still orgies, but they were planned events. You had to sign a form agreeing to their behavioural conduct rules to even get into the Parlours.

Rooms set out for play were called Parlours, in the Funnel. There had been an incident ten years ago when a randy Spider had bitten an admirer during an orgy in one of the Parlours, and that admirer had sued, though it took a long trial to pinpoint exactly who had done the biting. It hadn't been a particularly venomous Spider, so no-one was truly hurt, but it had frightened both the attendants and the community.

Things had become more artsy and less sexual since, Finlay told Dustin.

Another reason Dustin was considering it, of course, was the pleasure he got from playing with his friends, and the chance of new, stranger pleasures at The Funnel. Dustin knew Spiders had all manner of tricks that could entrap or enchant people. He was curious what else was available to experience. In the Funnel, he wouldn't have to worry about the Spiders feeling fetishized by his gawping.

Or his participation.

Eventually, inevitably, Dustin decided to go to the Funnel for a festival.

This event that he attended was the smaller of two big parties bracketing the homecoming festival. The larger one packed the Funnel's entire floor, walls, and ceiling with attendants, he was told. That was called 'Cluster', and this smaller one was 'Clutter'. Dustin never asked why, but one word did seem a bit grander than the other.

Clutter differed culturally from Cluster, besides that it had a smaller crowd. Cluster was about community, and after a couple of hours, the DJs would just leave, and the entire Funnel would be filled with however many dozen Spiders singing folk songs in unison. It was about celebrating their sort of ethnic identity. Clutter, on the other hand, was more explicitly sexual, and had non-Spiders specifically catered for, DJs throughout the night, and special performances.

It was more like a cabaret with the odd cruising area than a club night.

Clutter was, therefore, perfect, if only Dustin could calm his nerves.

"What are you scared of, exactly?" Finlay asked him in the line to get in. "No-one else here's going to do anything to you without your permission. Or they'll answer to us."

"I don't know," Dustin said, honestly. He'd had so much fun (gentle and rough) from his four hosts that you'd think he wouldn't mind anything by then. "I guess it's just not knowing anyone. I was never good with clubs."

"He doesn't know what it's like," Simon said, wrapping two burly, heavily-furred arms around the human. It was late Summer, and the weather was dry, so he was just wearing a t-shirt and jeans. "Clutter's unique, remember? It's not like a normal night here."

It was a little patronising, talking about him as if he wasn't there, but Dustin allowed it, as he always did.

"Let's tell him about it, then. There's another Peacock here, one of the performers," Finlay said, having been quiet for the journey over. The silver Peacock Spider had, since the first night, not often shown off his peculiar magic: he could share the effects of drink or other substances with others, just by wiggling his tail in the air. "There's a one-drink limit in there tonight. The closest to drunk you can get in there tonight is through us Peacocks if we get plastered. You all go into a room, he gets fucked up on something, and does the dance."

"Oh! And the 'admirers' aren't allowed to dance in the main floor," Amir added. "You have to be webbed up to the ceiling, along with the others, by whoever brought you. I'm told it's really relaxing."

"That does sound kind of fun," said Dustin, for whom the thought of being mummified on the roof of a dancefloor was somehow not that new.

Simon bundled the human closer and nuzzled into his hair. Yet another pair of his tree-trunk limbs wrapped around Dustin's middle.

"You don't have to stay, and we don’t, either," he said. "We're going to keep checking on you all night, okay? Even if you think you're alone."

They could hear the music from the club, now. Irritating but catchy EDM. He'd seen Simon do calisthenics to this very track.

Dustin snuck his hands out of their bonds and sunk his fingers into Simon's shaggy fur, just noting the familiarity. The athletic Tarantula murmured into his hair:

"No-one's gonna harm you, or they'll answer to everyone else in the club. There's Wi-Fi in there, so you can message us if you get scared." Yet another pair of arms wrapped around Dustin, around his shoulders and neck this time, and he almost felt himself falling back into the familiar hug he'd slept in so many times...

...but the door staff, a bored-looking blue Spider and an excited red one, coughed together.

"Oh." They were at the front of the line already.

The red and blue duo took the quintet's entry fee and painted (one of) each of their wrists with lovely neon purple paint.

"Be good, boys," the red one said, waving to them as they entered. The blue one looked unimpressed with the red one's enthusiasm.

The entry hall of the Funnel was, contrary to what Dustin expected, not funnel-shaped. It didn't even approach a cone shape, and it wasn't especially round, with high vertical walls curving to a point at the top like a church window. Not that you could see that point clearly, with the ceiling lined with cocoons and silk ropes. To their immediate left upon entry was a little desk manned by a human with the Clutter event shirt on, handling people's coats. On Simon's insistence - and after a few months of his pressure to work out even more regularly - Dustin handed over his shirt to the other human.

"We can make you another," Jamal said, almost lecherously, "if you get cold."

"You're too kind," Dustin said, and yawned despite himself. Besides the breeze from the door behind them, it was clearly very, very hot further into the club. He could feel it come out at him from the darkness like a bonfire.

"We're gonna leave you to it for a while," Amir said, all of a sudden. "There's catching up to do. Give us a ring when you need us to put you on the roof of the dancefloor, okay?"

Simon's arms - each long and segmented enough to wrap in a complete loop around Dustin, if he wanted - unfastened from him, and Amir gave him a little kiss on the cheek, and Dustin was left to it. His nervousness was almost gone, with their assurance, and he had grown to trust in the restraint of Spiders in general.

Dustin left his hosts to clamber up and along the walls to the Parlours of their choosing through gateways in the ceiling, and passed through a chain curtain leading to the main hall of the Funnel. There was one big central pillar, around which was a bar, mobbed with admirers of all imaginable species below. At the top of the pillar, in the roof, was another bar, mobbed by Spiders of all varieties. Dustin managed not to stare too much at how easily the Spiders held their drinks and supped on them while upside-down, and checked the drinks selection.

An unfamiliar, smooth hand closed around Dustin's bare shoulder, and he found himself face to face with an amiable Centipede. He was naked - like most Beasts were, really, except those whose genitals were too obvious - and his black and orange body was shaped very like a man's. His torso was segmented and 'armoured', though, and it had pairs of long orange limbs running down his sides to his hips. This was the bartender.

He wore a lanyard, and Dustin's eyes flicked down to see a little card that said JUSTIN.

"First drink for admirers is on the house," Justin said. Dustin couldn't see his mouth. The bottom of the Centipede's face was covered in a moustache-like pair of antennae, which stretched down his back, flicking petulantly. Justin's clawed, red hand hadn't left his shoulder.

"But there's only one drink allowed," Dustin said.

"You want a drink or not, kid?" the Centipede answered. Dustin could swear he was being laughed at. Justin tugged him closer - right up to the bar. Now that he could see past the bar and the taps, he saw that Justin's body didn't just stop with man-like legs at the hips, but continued down for many segments, like a Snake's lower half, and it disappeared down into the cellar below. "It might just be free because you're cute."

Dustin nodded, and grinned.

"Thanks," he said, then, "I'll have a bourbon, then!"

"Just a second, that's upstairs." The many-legged creature turned around, and raised himself up on his long body - above the bottles on the shelves. He crawled in a broad helix up the pillar to the bar at the top of the pillar. Finally, Dustin saw what the end of Justin looked like - his legs got a little longer towards the back, and the armour-like plating on the top got redder, until four long limbs curled out from the very last segment. The bartender's tail was about four times as long as his human torso, making him pretty enormous. Holding onto the pillar with his legs, somehow, Justin lowered himself down to the bottom bar, in front of Dustin. He cut the lime and handed it, the shot, and the salt to Dustin.

The bartender then watched the human lick his hand, drink the shot, and bite the lime.

"I'm about to get off," he said.

"Mmf?" Dustin replied, lime in his mouth.

"Let's hang out, I mean," Justin said, sheepish. His long antennae flicked nervously, one spilling over his shoulder to hang down the front, before self-consciously swinging back.

One of the other admirers at the bar, a scrawny Wolf, seemed to be watching them with interest. He muttered to an equally scrawny Boar beside him, something like "he's found another one." Despite how gossipy that was, there was something friendly about that.

"Sure," Dustin said. He held out his phone to the Centipede, who tapped his number and name into a new contact, and handed it back.

"Justin brackets cool handsome hot centipede," Dustin read.

"It's my surname," Justin said.

There was an awkward, silent moment, with Dustin looking very blankly at the bartender.

Then he called Justin's phone, and grinned and waved to him as he walked off down the purple-walled hall.

Now, Dustin had a plan. He was going to try every Parlour for at least fifteen minutes or so. Then, he'd 'dance' on the roof of the dancehall at the end of the night. The student had no expectation that any of the four Parlour performances available to him would take any longer than fifteen minutes, and anyway, the four hosts were on the other end of the phone. With time for queues and such, this would probably take him about two to three hours. (Dustin liked to leave clubs early.)

Unfortunately, the first Parlour couldn't hold his attention for more than a few minutes. It was a history lesson from a college professor, a decrepit Cellar Spider, with a decent public speaking voice, but... it wasn't really what Dustin wanted from this place. Dustin had, apparently, missed the part of the oration about Spiders' struggles, and wars, and now it was just a description of how silk-spinning practices had changed over the course of the last four hundred years.

Important to Spiders, but now wasn't the time.

The young human politely slipped out, and walked up the next hall to the next Parlour. The halls were numbered and had lit signs on their walls, thankfully, because otherwise it would have been impossible to navigate through the identical purple halls of this mazelike bar. Here, at door number two, he heard some pretty hokey synth music with a couple of sitars.

Huh.

It occurred to Dustin as he walked through the door that he was the only human 'admirer' he had seen so far, not counting the cloakroom guy. Hell, most of the admirers were Arachnids of some other kind - Scorpions and Whip Scorpions. It was a shame, really.

This second Parlour was more heavily decorated with webbing than the last, rather Spartan room. Coloured silk ribbons criss-crossed the walls and ceiling. It was a little bigger, too. The audience were sat on the floor in front of a stage with two nearly identical Orb-Weavers - they were both black and white, and far bigger and slenderer than Jamal. Between them was a very large silk cocoon.

This pair didn't say anything, but only mimed out a series of strange motions that made no sense to Dustin without context. He took a seat with the rest of the viewers, and watched.

After a a moment, the twin Spiders' actions started to make sense: they were gesturing to the cocoon, maybe pretending to cast some kind of spell on it. It was probably a magic show, like sawing someone in half.

After another minute, Dustin noticed that the cocoon was throbbing. Someone was, actually, inside, and this wasn't a prop. One of the magician-Spiders used his claw to slice down the covering... and out spilled a silver-furred Wolf.

A Wolf with eight eyes.

A Wolf with ten limbs.

A Wolf with a thick, bulbous tail... if Dustin had seen this somewhere else, or perhaps a year earlier, it would have revolted him. Now, it was just fascinating. He wondered if this was some practical effect, and the new Spider-Wolf clambered up onto the roof, attached a silk thread to it, and slowly descended, hanging down just by its tail and that web.

The audience clapped, and Dustin clapped, too, confused.

He watched in amazement as the Wolf (most of his face hadn't changed, and he seemed real, seemed alive) spun a reasonably-sized web across the stage. He clambered and leapt and laughed throughout. The only sound anyone in the Parlour was making was the Wolf-Spider's laughter and wet silk-making noise. He seemed to feel free. Dustin envied him.

Eventually, the music stopped.

The Spider-Wolf stopped what he was doing, looked at the twin Orb-Weavers, and nodded. Reluctantly, he padded back into the cocoon, and the twins scuttled around him, wrapping sheet after sheet after sheet of webbing over him to seal it up again.

The funny hand movements returned. This drew a couple of giggles from the crowd, further adding to the ambiguity. Was this a magic trick, or a real biological wonder? The cocoon shook, and there were wet, moaning sounds coming from it now, slurping, before a soaked-through Wolf tore a slit with his claws and collapsed out of the cocoon. Instead of hitting the floor, he fell into the waiting arms of the twin Weavers.

"Fuck," the Wolf said, panting. His tongue lolled out. He had the 'right' number of eyes, arms and legs, now, and his tail was a bushy brush again.

The spiders bowed, to another round of applause.

The wolf waved his hand blearily, to a bigger one. A green Spider - his lover, probably - took that offered hand, and the other, and lifted the Wolf up for a kiss. Everyone turned away - well, pretty much everyone. Dustin was fascinated, and stared at the Wolf's happy, limp movements against his lover's segmented body, wrapped in his many arms. Whatever had just happened, it completely satisfied the Canine, and it was beautiful to see that happiness.

The small crowd - ten to fifteen people - were ushered out, to make room for the next lot. Just before he left, at the end of the line to leave, one of the Weavers tapped his shoulder.

"Huh?"

The Weaver pulled a coin from behind Dustin's ear -- offered it --

-- and the door closed in Dustin's face. Hm.

Dustin ambled towards Parlour number three. It looked like the rest of the crowd from the last performance were dispersing to different Parlours. Dustin was the only one doing this in order. The human opened the door, and found a room identical in size and shape to the Orb-Weavers' magic room. There was a raised stage towards the back half of the room, and some space in front of it for an audience to sit down in. This one had a lot less silk decorating it, and a lot more candles.

The audience this time had a surprising number of humans in it. (So, this was where they were hiding.) Dustin sat down, and from a hole in the ceiling crawled down a Peacock Spider at least three times as big as Finlay.

Dustin blinked a few times to make sure he wasn't imagining it, but this guy really was a giant. He was fully half a Dustin taller than Dustin. Where Finlay's fur was a red-striped silver, and his tail-fan vivid blue and yellow, this guy's fur was almost completely black, lined with the odd green highlight. His tail - Dustin couldn't clearly see his tail, behind the guy's body, but the pink fur fringing it was relatively longer than Finlay's, and it dangled like ostrich feathers.

"Hi, everyone," the Spider said.

The audience mumbled.

"Hi," Dustin said.

The Spider took out a vape pen, and inserted a brightly coloured cartridge.

"Are you guys ready?" the Spider said.

The audience awkwardly nodded.

"Yes," Dustin said.

"Cool," the Spider said, taking one deep suck, and blowing out a billowing cloud of... something. It smelled strange and unfamiliar - it was very definitely not weed, nor any drug Dustin knew of. "I like you, shirtless guy."

"Thanks," Dustin replied, grinning.

A couple more puffs, and another cartridge was inserted in.

"So," the gargantuan Peacock Spider said, "any of you guys see the game?"

The audience glanced about at one another.

"Trick question," the Spider said, though it was clear his heart was imploding from the tension in the room. "I'm no good at warming up audiences," he added, and there was a definite slur in his voice now, as whatever was in the pen was starting to take effect. "I'm usually a backup dancer for Foxbarrel."

"Were you Left Peacock?" one of the audience members asked.

"Yeah," the Spider said. "My fifteen minutes of fame, there." One last cartridge, and one last huge puff, and the dancer wobbled into the centre of the stage. "Um, more forty seconds of fame, but you know."

The audience tried not to breathe so they wouldn't be spoken to - but a bongo player in the back corner of the stage, previously hidden from view by the giant dancer, started a beat. The Dancer flicked out all his limbs to the side, steadily working his way around them to wiggle appropriately to the beat - before each gracefully descended, and he placed all his hands and all his feet on the stage, ass up. He unfurled his tail.

It was a mass of pinks, purples, and deep crimsons. The fur was somehow iridescent, like Finlay's, but more so.

It more than unfurled - it concentrated, like a satellite dish, to strike right into Dustin's eyes, first.

The ostentatiously thick plumes of pink hair around the fan no longer seemed so obnoxious. The pattern seemed to move as the enormous thing shook to the drumbeat, and Dustin distantly realised this was it, the Spider's power was working.

He - and the rest of the seated audience - followed the tail, before being drawn up onto their knees by its swaying, and before long, every single one of them moved in the same rhythm. The Dancer, from giving so much of his high to so many at once, was now completely sober. The designated driver, so to speak.

Or the puppet master.

The rest of the dance - well, Dustin had no idea how long it lasted. The high he felt from this tail was nothing like weed, which made him dopey, and nothing like alcohol, which made him uncoordinated, and nothing like Amir's venom, which made him sleepy or focused. It was a sort of forgetful, absorbing feeling, like when Dustin zoned out while... listening to music.

Dustin knew he could break out of this. As he'd discovered, Finlay's spell was extremely easy to escape, you just had to concretely make that decision. Dustin wasn't going to decide to escape this. When Dustin had heard of another Dancer, a professional one, he'd thought it would be cold and unintimate, compared with Finlay's private performances, but this was its own sort of intimacy.

He was talking with the audience, he realised.

He knew all about them, and realised that after it had happened. He danced with them, embraced them, smelled of them. They all danced with the Dancer and one other, perfectly in time --

-- well, they were all a bit magically stoned, so who knew if they were perfectly in time?

And who cared?

The end of the dance didn't seem to really happen, only it had to have, because Dustin realised he was sober, walking out of the room, and had thirteen new contacts in his phone. Dustin knew he was walking towards the next Parlour... ah, no, it was the dancefloor.

There would be another Parlour afterwards, and apparently that room was closed, right now. The performers must have been on a break.

"You're goin' up on the roof, then?" a golden-brown Camel Spider asked at the door to the dancefloor. The guy had an accent that marked him out as from this city, and a lanyard with his name - 'FIRUZ' - that marked him as one of the staff.

He was like a Spider, in a few ways. He had the extra limbs (though they were quite slim compared to his arms and legs), and he was segmented and chitinous, but there were differences Dustin now knew due to his intimacy with 'true' Spiders. Firuz did not have single-fanged, folded-back chelicerae: his mouthparts were like a pair of claws or callipers. From the side, Camel Spiders' jaws looked like those of lions, all fangs and serrating molars.

In the palms of Camel Spiders, there was a 'raptorial' organ: a short, retractable tentacle covered in sticky glue. In the old days, they used it to catch prey. Male Camel Spiders, Dustin was told, had two long, sticky tongues.

("What for?"

"I'll tell you when you're older," Amir said.)

"Yup," Dustin said, still high from the experience with the Dancer. "I'm going in."

"It's my job to clean you up when you get back down," Firuz said. His small black eyes were unreadable, and his tone was a little soft. "To take the webs off ye. You've got no shirt. Are you okay with us touching you like that? I got to ask ye, it's my job."

Dustin grinned, and nodded.

"Yeah, that's fine. Thanks!"

"You're welcome. C'mon in." Firuz opened the door, and the strange rhythm hit Dustin, so much that for a couple of minutes all he registered from it was a deep and throat-shaking staccato bassline.

He didn't even notice Jamal, his friend, whom he'd lived with for months, was right in front of his face.

Dustin's face broke ino a smile, and he hugged his friend, who said something in his ear that he still couldn't hear due to the loud music. The red and gold Orb-Weaver lifted his friend up with just one hand, and clambered up to the ceiling. Hanging from one thread on his tail, as always, Jamal began to wrap his silk sheets around Dustin, spinning the boy.

Being rotated in mid-air at home was very different to being spun around in a disco. At home, there was full lighting, and a gentle draft slowly being excluded by the mummifying silk. (They never could find where that draft was coming from.) Here, though, it was sweaty, it was hot, and Dustin could feel the dry ice smoke brushing over his torso... and being slowly excluded by the mummifying silk.

"You be good, now," Jamal said, giving him a little imitation of a kiss on his cheek. "No hanky panky up here."

"How would I even do that?"

"I'm not going to tell you," Jamal said, imperiously, "because you'd do it if I did." He attached Dustin to the morass of sticky grey webs lining the roof, and fastened Dustin's cocoon to the network by a few more straps.

"Thanks," Dustin said. "And if I get a cramp, I get down how...?"

"Wriggle a bit, or speak into it. One of the staff will hear you. You good?" Jamal was never very intimate in public, nor did he let his emotions show easily. Anyone listening to them might have thought they were just acquaintances, or had met that night.

Dustin nodded, and Jamal blindfolded him. While he could breathe easily through a single sheet of Jamal's silk - he was very skilled at making extra-thin web sheets - it was a rule at the club that you couldn't gag and bind someone at the same time.

The song faded to silence, and a more sinuous one started.

What had been a bass-heavy electropop track was now a bass-heavy percussive work. Every kind of drum. Dustin thought it must be experimental track the DJ was trying out on the crowd, but there were whoops and hisses of recognition from the crowd, so this track must have been big among Spiders. The bassline was different: no longer a persistent thumping in time to the drums, shaking his jaw, but a simple, jumpy rhythm that ran over his spine and down his limbs, made him squirm inside his bonds.

He squirmed in perfect time, but he didn't know it.

They all did, every admirer in every cocoon. They all felt, and heard, each other's groans and happy laughter, wrapped up as they were in the sticky mess which conducted their sounds to one another. The next song drew even more excitement from the Spiders on the floor, and people were singing along this time, and some of the admirers hummed it - but not consistently. Dustin only wondered why that was for a moment before the vibrations of the music through his bones made him melt and squirm even more. There was no action to be taken here.

He realised that this effect on him was much like Finlay's - he could move his hand, he could speak. It was just easy to concentrate on the stimulus, instead of doing so. Dustin stayed where he was for another song, before he got a cramp in his knee, and said,

"Okay, let me down now, please."

The door to the dancehall opened, and he heard a scuttling as someone approached - his blindfold was removed first, gently. It was Firuz, who gave him a thumbs-up, and undid the ropes holding him onto the ceiling. The darkness and dancing lights were a surprisingly easy transition from darkness, and Dustin didn't strain much at all. Slung over the shoulders of the burly Camel Spider, Dustin felt (and heard) his great jaws snip open two fastening sheets.

The human was unwrapped like a healed wound.

There was a little more residue on him than normal, though. Silk had two components - the silk itself and the glue coating and filling it. Obviously, here, Jamal had put more glue into his webs, to guarantee his friend didn't fall down. Dustin's jeans were possibly ruined by that kindness. Firuz wrapped his big fists around Dustin's legs, and he felt the palms open, evert their raptorial organs, and suck strangely on his legs -- up and down --

"T-ticklish, don't..." Dustin murmured. There was also the issue that he needed to get used to holding up his own weight again.

"Sorry," Firuz said in his ear - the music was still very loud, but not so much so as to prevent any communication. "Next bit's worse. These hands can't take it off of skin, just fabric. I'll have to lick it off you. Can you deal with that?"

It would dissolve in the shower, when he got home, but hey, Dustin was here for the full experience. The human boy laughed, and nodded - too shy to say 'yes'.

Firuz lifted Dustin's chin to make eye contact with him. (He seemed only to have two eyes. Huh.)

"You're certain?" The tongues slid from his mouth as he said it, prehensile and reddish brown. Flat, too. Like broad, slippery ribbons.

Dustin nodded again, and smiled.

The student held out his left arm -- and the security guard's two tongues twined around his forearm, strangely dry for their slipperiness. They gripped him, and twisted on themselves, rolling the rest of Dustin's arm along them - somehow the silk-glue residue on his arm got lint-rolled up, but the hair on his arm was spared. Dustin peered closer, as Firuz drew the disturbingly long tongues back inside his mouth.

The big guy didn't say anything more, though. He just wrapped his tongues around Dustin's neck, and shoulders. In a rhythm that didn't match anything from the speakers, the broad ribbonny things crept all over, into his hair, again only pulling out spider-glue and not a single hair follicle. It was bizarre.

His right arm got the same treatment his left had, next, and Firuz took a short breather.

"You do this to everyone?"

"Everyone else goes up there with clothes and a hat, this is just what I do for shirtless dudes," Firuz said, though Dustin suspected that wasn't the entire story. (Perhaps that was vain of him.) Firuz' tongues came out again, and Dustin stuck his chest out and his arms behind him, king of the world.

Or king of the dancefloor.

Or king of the human carwash.

Firuz finished up around Dustin's belly, and as Dustin expected the motion there, there was no issue with being tickled. Firuz, golden skin glistening in the light, finally let go of Dustin - and he'd only been lightly touching him with his hands, but it felt like he'd been supported that whole time.

Then, the hands clamped on his shoulders again.

"Now, get out," Firuz said.

Dustin was escorted out into the foyer again, and turned to the hall of the final Parlour.

There was a bit of a queue.

Apparently, the act in Parlour number 4 (which Dustin couldn't hear anyone name) was the headliner this year. Usually it was just the DJ. Some Spider DJs became celebrities on the circuit simply because of how small the circuit was. Dustin realised he'd never seen the poster for this year's Clutter.

Dustin felt a smooth, chitinous hand close around his shoulder again - then a long 'finger' of rubbery chitin curled around his belly, before it was joined by another four, and --

"Stop it, I'm ticklish," Dustin said, "I swear to God, Justin --"

But the predator had sensed weakness. Justin, the Centipede bartender, was now off work, and he coiled one loop of his tail around Dustin, shifting and wiggling his legs, and Dustin wriggled.

"What was that? It's so loud in here."

"S-stop!" The tickle-torture was getting to be embarrassing.

Justin stopped tickling him.

"You can do that if you ask me first," Dustin said, getting his breath back. Justin hadn't let him go, and Dustin hadn't really wanted him to, or he'd have asked.

"Can I?"

"Yes," Dustin sighed, exasperated, then he couldn't say anything more, for laughing.

Justin's arms - his first pair of limbs, and the biggest, and the only ones with hands - hugged Dustin's shoulders and neck.

The Centipede nuzzled into Dustin's neck, his long antennae - long as very long hair - slithered around it, and into his hair, tasting and smelling hm.

"I'm sorry," Justin said. "Can you forgive me?"

"Promise you won't do that again if I don't ask you to first," Dustin panted, with quite the air of finality for someone coiled in another person's body, at their mercy.

"I promise."

"Then I forgive you." Dustin finally saw the purple double doors open. "Now, let go, they're letting us in." Justin clambered off with a quick, friendly goodbye, and went off to get up to mischief elsewhere.

There was a deeply soothing blue light and a thick chandelier of silk inside this final Parlour. Dustin heard the Spiders and admirers around him humming a song he could swear he'd heard before. It must have gone mainstream, this act. He could make out segments of lyrics, which felt like the sort of teen pop ballad he'd devoured as a kid.

In fact, it had been one such band's logos that inspired him to go into graphic design. Some foreign boyband.

Dustin took his seat on the crowded floor, and once everyone else was sat down, what he saw on stage shocked him to the centre of his soul.

In centre stage, four Spiders stood, aligned from shortest to tallest.

Well - some crouched, towards the front, and were gradually less crouched until the one at the back stood straight up.

In front, a small Peacock Spider with silver and black fur was bowed forward, tail flaps open - but inactive. He wore a crown of gold.

Behind him, a hazel-furred Recluse about Dustin's height poked his head up from behind the Peacock's tail, his long limbs fanning out. In one left hand was a bronze orb.

Next, a yellow and crimson Orb Weaver stretched his own limbs out, long enough to curl a little between the Recluse's. In one right hand was an obsidian sceptre.

At the back, an enormous and athletic Tarantula stood tall, similarly spread, though his arm span far outdid the others'. He was tall enough to show most of his chest and neck, and he wore a platinum necklace that shone from his fur.

Dustin had no time to process this - or the lascivious way Simon was looking at him - before an atrocious 90s synth-guitar intro started up, and the Spiders around him clattered with excitement.

In time to the awful din, the Spider band clutched their stretched arms forward like a layered flower closing up.

Then the music changed.

Horrid non-guitar changed to thomping, unapologetic EDM synth, and the band separated.

It was just a little too slow to be properly danceable, at least by Dustin's standards, but ten limbs allowed for more creative motion and more varied times.

Finlay stepped back, slowly, turning around in midair over his friends' shoulders, and flashing his tail one spin at a time.

Once Finlay had stepped past them, each Spiders moved.

Amir crawled to the front of the stage on eight limbs, keeping his front pair of arms - his 'palps' - folded.

Jamal slid fluidly up into the complex chandelier, and began to spin more silk into it.

Simon walked forward on two limbs, and gestured to the audience, and the music became less complex.

Finlay continued his slow somersaults, flashing a tail that was becoming more psychotropic with every bar, and Simon sang.

He sang lowly, and sweetly.

His song almost didn't fit the beat.

It did fit, though.

It reached Dustin specifically.

It felt written just for him.

His eyes lit up, though he didn't know it, and while the other Spiders hummed and murmured the song around him, the human stepped forward.

Dustin's approach was stopped by the realisation he was nearly at the stage. He stood and swayed in time to the music for the rest of this song, feeling his soul get fed by it. It was like he was an adolescent again, idolatrous, and like each of the four - the caring, playful four - were his ideal lovers, all at once or one at a time. Both, somehow.

He'd never be with them... but that was somehow easier, somehow helped them be more perfect. They couldn't let him down as a perfect fantasy.

A new song began. It was slower - a ballad. One Dustin definitely hadn't heard before.

And Amir pulled him up onstage, turning him to face the audience.

Amir wrapped four arms around his bare torso, and Amir kissed his nape, and Amir's enormous fangs unfurled from either side of his mouth, curling around Dustin's head - to poke into his lips.

Dustin, panting, nodded, and squeezed his hands around two of Amir's forearms. Whatever was going on, he trusted them all completely. Two thick pearls of venom plopped into Dustin's mouth, sour aniseed and liquorice, and he gulped, smiling. There were mumbles of encouragement from the audience... encouragement, and a little lust.

Dustin's face broke into a wide grin, and it had nothing to do with the spell the venom was putting on him. This was the happy, focused trance he'd sometimes asked Amir for when he was anxious about a deadline.

Just like with Finlay, if Dustin concentrated, he could always stop that trance from happening. He wondered, sometimes, if the effect of Amir's venom wasn't psychosomatic.

Now, though, the venom drink wasn't for anxiety, it was for... the dance. Their dance. Amir's lowest pair of arms crept around his waist... and undid his belt. The audience went silent, and leaned further forward.

With the soft sound of cotton on denim, the wide belt was slid out of its straps, and tossed somewhere else. Dustin's eyes glazed over, and he relaxed back into Amir's velvety hug - the Recluse struggled for a moment with his weight, then lifted him up and into Simon's waiting hands, which closed around an ankle and a wrist and pulled him even higher.

Simon was singing, mostly, for this song. The beat was simple, deep, and steady; the sort of emotionally specific song you'd expect would be done acoustically, but, well, they were a boyband. Simon's singing voice did things to Dustin, the way his speaking voice always managed to. There was a bit of every kind of love in knowing Simon - he was your dad when you needed to do something, your big brother when you were hurt, your husband when you were playful. He understood you.

Now, he was none of those, but it was still, strangely, loving, the way he showed Dustin off to the crowd and sung about it. As the chorus began, Dustin was rotated, slowly, by a hand on the small of his back, and his shoes slipped off. Simon's hands quickly grasped and slipped off Dustin's socks.

Holding onto his human friend's ankles and thighs, Simon held Dustin upside-down, and the four of them sang. Dustin felt the very vague lyrics about love and forever working their way into his heart like the kind of songs he hadn't been vulnerable to for so, so many years.

Dustin feebly sung along.

He felt as if he'd known the lyrics all his life. Maybe he had. Spiders were magic.

Simon tossed him straight up, like a human javelin, into the sticky, gooey chandelier, his jeans and legs becoming quickly ensconced and tangled in the webbing. It held him up where he was, and he didn't fall. He moved forward a little, maybe to reach up --

-- and realised it wasn't his own power moving him forward, it was Jamal, who gripped him in steady hands, sliding him effortlessly out of his jeans. Now only in his boxer shorts, Dustin dangled happily, swinging his bare legs in the warm air.

The second chorus had Jamal wrapping him up again, but not in a cocoon, and not binding him. No, he was only decorated in coiled silk ropes. Dustin's forearms and calves had cuffs attached, and carefully, a collar of silk was gingerly wrapped around his neck.

They were showing off most of his body, the absolute most skin they could get away with. And a little more than that, on occasion - some of the audience could see up the shorts, with Dustin so high up. A lot of the crowd could smell what was there, the sweat that gathered between his legs when he'd been mummified above the dancefloor, and the little bit of arousal and wetness.

For the third and final verse, Jamal's long legs lowered Dustin, who settled down onto Simon's warm and furry belly. He was out of his mind in the trance, and twitching to sway one way and then the next, guided by the Spiders' words. He gripped Simon's fur with his fingers and toes, and felt his sides being squeezed by the Tarantula's hands, in turn.

He was hard.

A whole room of Spiders and other people could see him, hard and helpless, and used as a prop in a silly dance for a silly song.

Dustin had almost never been happier.

He heard Finlay's tail unfurl behind his head, and saw the audience slowly fall into a trance, themselves. The song had slowed down considerably.

At the conclusion of the song, his eyes fluttered closed, and he fell back onto Simon's chest, instantly asleep.

The student woke up at home.

He woke up in his own bed, head clear, hangover-free, and still in the same boxers as the previous night. They hadn't bothered dressing him again, apparently.

A note on his dresser table told him they'd all gone out to buy a cooked breakfast and bring it back to him. Dustin grinned - and laughed - and choked.

The four Spiders would find him happily crying at the kitchen table, and embraced him very tightly.

"You guys," he said.

"Yeah," Amir said, "us."

"Shut up," Dustin said.

"No," Finlay said.

"Is this happy-crying, or...?" Because he couldn't reach into the mass of the other three's limbs wrapped around Dustin's torso, Simon opted for hugging his guest's legs.

"Yeah," Dustin said, smiling and sobbing, "yeah, yes, I'm happy."

It was completely true.