Realistic black widow spider tattoo with red hourglass markings and shaded legs, placed on a shoulder.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Black widow spider on a shoulder

Realism · Shoulder · Mixed · Photo

A large black widow spider is tattooed on the shoulder and upper chest, seen from above at an angle. The body is shaded with soft grey gradients to give a three-dimensional look, while the legs are drawn with fine outlines and grey shading. Small areas of red mark the hourglass pattern on the abdomen, and the rest of the design is black and grey against the pale skin.

Realism Shoulder Spider Hourglass Leg

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Maureen,

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Don't laugh, but I've had to call Ron off the shed. Monday morning he went for the hoe behind the water butt and came back white as a candle, saying there was a widow in the potting bench. I went myself with the jam jar and the postcard you sent from Skegness, and there she was, sat in the corner of the cobweb as if she'd paid the rent.

She was bigger than I expected, black as a wet slate, with that red hourglass on her belly, two blots that looked like someone had pressed a thumb in paint. Her legs went out long and thin, each joint like a bit of bicycle chain, and the light came through them. I didn't kill her. I didn't have the stomach. I slid the jar under and carried her down to the bottom of the allotment by the compost heap, where the brambles are thick enough to hide anything.

Ron says I'm soft. Maybe. But the old fella who had this plot before us, Mr Ashdown, left a note in the shed drawer that said Leave the widows be, they keep the greenfly off the beans. I found it while clearing out the tins. I thought it was a joke until I read the rest, which was about the hourglass and how it's supposed to mean the sand is running out for whatever she's caught. I told Ron that's rubbish. He didn't argue.

Anyway, the beans are the best they've ever been. Come up in August and I'll show you. Bring your good secateurs, the blue ones, I've lost mine.

Love, Pat