"Erin," John said, his manner changing suddenly from sympathy to seriousness, "The 'incident' has spread its contaminants across the world by now. Slowly but surely, still more people are changing, and the effect is genetic.
"Do you understand the implications of that, Erin? Genetic! It's hereditary! With almost a billion of us already, and more coming, eventually "plain boring old humans" will be a myth, like mermaids used to be. We are the future, Erin... "
"I don't care what the future of the species is," Erin responded. "I just want to be normal... I can barely even hold a job like this. And... I... " Almost afraid to admit it, she continued: "I don't want to be a monster. I mean... look at me, I have a tarantula for an ass. I'm disgusting."
John practically choked, and Erin couldn't tell if he was trying to supress a laugh or if he was genuinely startled. John poures himself a small measure from the bottle of liquor, and drank it. "You must forgive me," he said, "that was rude of me. But honestly I just didn't see it coming. Really... here I was figuring the only thing that was bothering you was the narrow-minded American public and its stubborn refusal to adapt facilities for us." He paused, holding a hand up to his temple. "Excuse me, I believe I've had a small aneurysm." He smiled reassuringly and took her hand in both of his. "For you to feel that way about your appearance, well, it's like someone with a Rolls Royce being jealous of a Volkswagen, from where I'm sitting anyway. In London you'd have to fend off the modeling agents with a stick, you see, so it never even crossed my mind that you'd be self-conscious."
Erin was a bit perplexed. True, she'd never been to London and had primarily stayed in small towns in her travels, but could it really be true that there were people who would find a drider like her genuinely beautiful? It was hard to believe. "Do you really think I'm attractive?" she asked, less concerned with the public than with John's opinion.
"Oh dear God yes," he said. "I suppose it wasn't as obvious as I thought. Hell's bells, how could I not?"
"You're serious?" She was still having a hard time, after all the rejection she'd dealt with since her transformation.
"Well I'm not exactly sure how I could be more explicit on that point, unless--and forgive my impropriety--you'd like to skip the film and find out just how serious I am, though I'm not really certain that's a wise move on the first date," he replied.
