ARACHNOPHOBIA
Jason and Sam have a squabble and Jason discovers a heretofore unknown fear.
Sam McCall Morgan slammed the door to the penthouse, enjoying the dying reverberations which helpfully echoed her inner distemper. She glared at the closed door as though she could see through it and out toward the foyer where the blonde woman, who had so recently had the audacity to threaten her in her own home, was mostly likely waiting impatiently for the elevator while she sent her own dagger-sharp stare right back through the same door.
"Bitch," she hissed under her breath, though she couldn't say why she didn't just scream the word aloud, after all, who was around to hear her? Certainly not Jason and, even if he had been, maybe she would have actually yelled the word out at the top of her lungs. Sam laughed, a rueful little chuckle of genuine humor rising from her diaphragm, "Well, I could just call her bluff and tell Jason myself." As this novel idea took unexpected root in her mind, Sam's body visibly relaxed and all the anger she felt from her confrontation of mere moments before, melted away as a mischievous grin formed upon her face. "I think it's time that I stop hiding in the shadow and instead, I should show Jason exactly who is boss around here after all." She murmured to herself as she pulled her dark, lustrous locks back into a quick ponytail before once again loosening them to fall in a raven mantle of soft perfection which framed her lovely face, though her eyes were distant and lost in contemplation.
"Maybe I just will," she said the words with a sudden confidence as she headed for the stairs and pulled her cell phone out of the rear pocket of her jeans as she walked. "Hey, Jason," she said, an unfamiliar authoritative edge to her voice, "I need you to come home and bring some Chinese food." She listened to her husband's uncharacteristically lengthy response, her head tilted as she stood motionless on the landing. "No," she finally said, brusque in her interruption, "I don't care about Sonny's crisis; he's a grown- ass man and can take care of himself. I want you home now and don't forget the Moo Shu Pork," she ordered, flipping the phone closed without allowing for a rebuttal. Sam resumed climbing the stairs as she hummed tunelessly to herself.
"Sam!" Jason slammed his much misused front door as he entered the penthouse, paralleling the abuse it had received earlier. His facial expression was rigid with anger as he tightly clutched a white sack from which enticing odors emanated. "Where are you, Sam?" He called out impatiently, not willing to look for his wife but instead expecting her to present herself and offer any necessary expiation, not that there could really be an acceptable one, to explain her earlier behavior.
"I'm right here, there's no need to yell, Jason," The coolly reasonable voice came from the stairwell. As Jason turned to watch Sam descend the stairs, the hand not holding the bag of Chinese food flexed in a rapid series of spurts of muscular contraction and relaxation. It was a desperate effort to get his sudden burst of all-consuming rage under control before it spilled out into regrettable words-or worse yet-action.
"What the hell, Sam," he asked, his voice taut and constricted, "Why are you dressed like that?
"Like it?" Sam asked, her dark eyes sparkling in the recessed light of the vestibule as she stopped in front of Jason and performed a little pirouette to show off her outfit.
"No," he growled reflexively, "Go upstairs and change into something sensible so that we can eat dinner before the food, that you," the single syllabic pronoun communicated volumes as he eyed his petite wife with disdain, "Requested me to bring home, gets cold." Jason's tone was laden with warning; he was in no mood to play whatever game Sam had set in motion.
"I can eat just fine dressed like this," Sam countered, her demeanor entirely unaltered by Jason's unappreciative reception of her appearance.
"Not until you change," Jason reiterated, easily moving the bag out of Sam's reach as she suddenly darted forward to grab for it.
"Nope," Sam said, her voice was husky with anger as she crossed her arms defiantly under her leather-clad breasts," I'm comfortable just the way I am."
"Sam, I'm warning you," Jason said, his eyes sending out bright sparks of exasperation as he frowned at his recalcitrant wife, "Change or else..."
"Or else, what exactly, Jason?" Sam asked, her own facial expressing matching Jason's exasperation, as she stared right back at him. Her hands were now resting upon her black clad hips in a pose which clearly indicated that she wasn't in the least intimidated. "You'll pick me up and carry me upstairs over you shoulder and put me to bed without dinner?"
Frustrated, Jason tilted his chin down toward his right shoulder, his mouth a thin, grim line. "Sounds good to me," he rumbled, "If you behave like a child then maybe that is exactly what I should treat you like"
"Child!" Sam sputtered in outrage, "I'm not the one behaving like a child that would be our visitor this afternoon."
"What visitor?" Jason asked. He immediately channeled his rage away from his wife and instead projected it onto whomever had the audacity to enter his happy home and disrupt the usually peaceful equilibrium of his marriage.
A sly smile spread across Sam's lips as she looked up at her husband, reading his every emotion as they chased one another across his face like clouds in a stormy sky. "Carly," she replied, her tone sweet with the foreknowledge of triumph. She hesitated for a moment before adding, "She said she'd make sure we'd be divorced within the month."
Sam kept her eyes avidly fixed on her husband's face as she delivered the coup d' grace. In response to some thrillingly primal part of herself, Sam felt an upwelling of pleasure deep within her abdomen while she savored the shock in Jason's eyes as he absorbed her words.
"She said what?" Jason asked disbelievingly, the tension suddenly melting out of his body. It was obvious to Sam that her husband thought this was just another nonevent in the long litany of interminable cat fights between his wife and his best friend.
"She threatened to tell you something about me that would be sure to end our marriage." Sam pretended to study her nails, carefully hiding the sharp glance of curiosity that she sent Jason's way from beneath the dark sheeted fall of her hair.
Jason laughed, a low sound owing more to relief than humor, "That's all?" he asked condescendingly as he walked over to the coffee table and set down the contested bag of food. "Carly does something like this with clockwork regularity," he added reassuringly as he looked over his shoulder at his wife. "Don't worry," he said consolingly, "I'll talk to her. Meanwhile, come over here and get something to eat." He sat down on the couch, his foul mood seemingly having evaporated as he invitingly patted the seat cushion next to him.
Sam replied to his offer with a small tight smile while she thoughtfully wound a broad strand of silky hair around her finger and then, as though making up her mind, let it go to be allowed to rejoin its multitudinous comrades. "Okay," she responded, her voice oddly bright as she walked over to the sofa. "I am hungry," she added, her voice a sultry rasp. Sitting down she picked up the nearest carton and, upon opening it, inhaled the enticing aroma emanating from within. "Yum," she said, grabbing a set of chopsticks and ravenously scooping up noodles, vegetables and slivers of meat into her mouth, "Moo Shu pork, my favorite," the words came out indistinctly around a mouthful of food.
"Yeah, well you were kind of insistent about me getting it," Jason said dryly as he quirked an eyebrow at her. "So," he added as he leaned back into the couch. and eating companionably out of his own cardboard container, asked casually, "Tell me, why are you dressed like some lady spy out of one of Spinelli's thrillers?"
Sam cocked her head inquiringly at Jason as though unclear as to the meaning of his question. Then she looked languorously down at her own body taking in the tight leather suit which accentuated her curves and fit her like a second skin. The suit was an inky-black color which exposed a creamy décolletage and created a perfect tonal match to her shiny, stiletto-heeled boots. Around Sam's left thigh was tied a commando knife and a black holster was strapped around her impossibly tiny waist. The leather casing held a shiny nine millimeter Beretta, an apparent twin to Jason's own preferred weapon of choice.
"Oh, this old thing," Sam said lightly, licking her lips to catch some errant sauce, "I thought I'd go out this evening, after dinner."
Jason sat bolt upright on the couch as though Sam had just poured a pitcher of ice cold water down his back, "Out!" He said, his voice rising in displeasure which indicated that his hard gained composure was once more vanishing due the clearly stated intent that his heretofore compliant spouse was determined to test the status quo of their relationship. "You're not going anywhere dressed like that." Jason's voice dropped to a harsh whisper, he leveled his ice cold eyes at Sam, the threat in them clearly evident, "It's not too late for me to follow through with your earlier idea," he said slowly, each word distinct, "Taking you upstairs and locking you in the bedroom until you come to your senses."
Unperturbed by his outburst, Sam stared back at Jason, her gaze level. "You haven't asked me about the information Carly is threatening to tell you," she said softly as she took another bite of her meal.
"I don't give a fuck about Carly and her crazy schemes," Jason shot back, his voice, despite his best attempts at control, began to rise again as his next words came out in a near shout. "I won't have my wife out parading around Port Charles like…like she's auditioning to be Cat Woman!"
Actually, Jason probably wouldn't have even known about the existence of Cat Woman if he hadn't lived with Spinelli for so many years. The younger's man never silent infatuation with various comic book characters had reached its pinnacle of adoration with the black-suited, feline anti-heroine.
Sam shrugged, she was entirely indifferent to her husband's near apoplexy, "Well, I think I should just tell you what Carly intends to say." She said, as she casually placed her right index finger into the perfect round 'O' of her shockingly bright red lips and sucked delicately on the digit, lapping up the last of the spilled juices from her meal. "After all, she would probably tell you anyway or, even worse, try to blackmail me with it."
"Sam!" Jason nearly howled the word; all his self control was gone as he angrily reached for his wife.
He was not sure precisely what he was intending to do but was entirely determined to penetrate her impenetrable facade of indifference to his wishes. He proposed to set his house in order and get them back into their preordained roles of mob-enforcer husband and beautiful, but supportive and self-effacing, wife. If attaining that goal meant Jason needed to physically cart Sam up to their bedroom and strip her of every item of the disturbing clothing she was wearing, and perhaps even applying a hairbrush to her perfect little bottom in the process, well then, he was certainly the right man for the job!
Before his fingers could do little more than graze the slick surface of Sam's sleeve, Jason found himself lying on the floor and gasping for air. The ruins of the metal-ribbed coffee table, split into two equal pieces, lay on either side of him, providing quiescent company in his humiliation and defeat. Jason dully registering a fierce, all-consuming pain located in his lower back while his dazed eyes vaguely comprehend that his own black t-shirt was covered in the greasy remnants of their take-out meal.
Sam stood above him, calmly surveying her supine spouse and the wreck of the living room. "I'm not Cat Woman, Jason," she said with a little tinkling laugh that she punctuated with a sharp agonizing kick to his ribs with the front of her metal-toed boot. "That's Carly's gig." She turned away from him, contemptuous in her dismissal. "If you ever," she pulled a pair of tight leather gloves up over the sleeves of her suit, "Think to raise a finger to me again," now she was sweeping her hair back into a tight ponytail which left every bone in her face wholly exposed in their perfect symmetry, "Even a pinky," Jason struggled to rise from the floor, gasping in pain from the stabbing agony in his back, and the belated awareness that his right arm was most likely broken, while Sam calmly checked over her reflection in the mirror hanging by the coat closet, "I will cut it off and stuff it down your throat."
The doorbell suddenly rang and Sam quickly reached to open the front door. By now, Jason had managed to reach a semi-erect position. He stood hunched over by the edge of the sofa, his left hand reaching down to the couch which was providing him with much needed support and preventing him from ending up back on the floor. Just the mere thought of what such a tumble would do to his pain-wracked body, caused Jason to shudder involuntarily.
The opened door revealed a figure that was clearly feminine and dressed, much as Sam was, in a form fitting suit of black leather complete with black, high-heeled boots reaching up to her knees. The only noticeable differences between the two outfits included the fact that the gloves of the newcomer were tipped with what appeared to be razor-sharp, metallic claws and she wore a cowl which covered her head, hiding her hair, along with a small, curved eye mask. These last two features made her appear entirely anonymous to Jason as he gazed blearily at her through narrowed, pain-wracked eyes.
"Who the hell are you?" Jason asked, his voice sounding hoarse and regrettably weak to his own ears.
The woman, who was much taller than Sam, even in her stilettos, cocked her head curiously and stared at Jason. "What happened to you?" She asked and the rasp of her whisky-soaked voice immediately provided Jason with the stranger's identity.
"Carly?" Jason said, stunned and uncomprehending as to what was going on in his own living room, "Is that really you in that…that get up?" He tried to point with his left hand and almost lost his balance as he made a desperate grab for the rim of the couch. He just managing to catch onto it and narrowly avoided a disastrous fall.
Sam looked at Jason with an expression of irritation that almost verged on contempt. "Don't you get it, Jason?" She pointed first at Carly and then at herself. "This is what Carly was threatening to tell you about but I decided to beat her to the punch, so to speak." She smiled triumphantly at Carly.
Carly gave a little crow of approving laughter, "From the looks of Jason, it doesn't seem like he is going to be demanding that the little woman stay at home waiting for him anymore." Languidly, she reached over to her left hip and then, with blazing speed, unfurled a black leather whip that she cracked once into the silence of the penthouse. "Are you ready to get this show on the road, sister?" She said. her white teeth blazing in one of Carly's patented grins.
Sam laughed indulgently at Carly's antics, "You bet I am!" She affirmed as she started to step through the doorway. Suddenly, she stopped and looked back at Jason, still awkwardly standing by the life preserver represented by his living room couch. "Don't wait up, honey," she said with a demure smile, fluttering her fingers at him in cheery farewell. "Tonight is girls night out for Cat Woman and the Black Widow."