Another teaser for a tale to be included in my upcoming anthology. But it may confuse the reader and cause vertigo-like symptoms, excessive lust and a fetish for experimenting with paint brushes.

Janus Girl
By
Frances Penwiddy

Copyright © Frances Penwiddy 2017

Janus Girl is a work of fiction and any resemblance to people, living or dead is coincidental.
There is strong language and sexual references therefore it is not considered suitable reading for children or young adults under the age of consent.

Chapter 1

I opened my eyes and took a moment to reconcile myself to the fact that the ceiling was a different colour, the light pendant was purely functional, unlike the decorative wrought iron one with the pale pink lampshades I had been staring at just a few seconds ago. I focused on my hearing but the gentle sounds of breathing were my own and the man who had just brought me to a star filled climax was not lying beside, under or on top of me. He simply wasn’t there, And he had been well built and tall and couldn’t have hid in a wardrobe unless he emptied one nor was there room under the bed and the echoes of his cries of passion as he erupted inside me were replaced with silence.

Something else bothered me, there was a blackbird or possibly a song thrush singing its heart out on top of the beach tree at the bottom of the garden and it was daylight. Even the sun was fooled and was sitting on the horizon bathing my bedroom windows with a pale dawn sunlight and yet, just a few seconds ago, the ink blue sky had been occupied by a waning quarter moon and a few million stars. I closed my eyes but the sun didn’t go away, I squeezed them tightly shut and it did but the moment I relaxed my eyelids that reddish tint appeared suggesting that the malevolent yellow eye was still lurking outside my window. I opened them fully, gave the single pendant hanging from the ceiling a second glance to ensure it hadn’t turned into the triple chandelier that had been there earlier and reached out for the antique silk curtain that surrounded my four poster bed and froze. The curtain wasn’t there! I moved my arm and hand sideways searching for it and then noticed that the lace silk cover above me wasn’t. Above me I mean, which wasn’t surprising because the corner posts of the bed had gone so there was nothing to support it.

I swung my legs from under the white satin duvet with the large pink and pastel yellow fairies and hearts which just a short while ago had been deep red satin, over the side of the bed and sat up. Now I discovered something else; normally I am a quiet sleeper, as often as not I will lay on my stomach with my head turned to the right and stay there in much the same position all night. This results in my nightdress being fairly orderly in the morning and covering me at least as far as my calves but now it was ruched up around my waste and further my panties weren’t fully pulled up and had a stain on them and when I touched it, the stain was wet and sticky.

I still wasn't fully awake and needed to ponder these odd happenings. First I had woken laying on my back whereas, as I have already stated, I sleep on my stomach. Secondly, the ceiling was a different colour and the ceiling light different from the one I had expected to see. Now this business with a different duvet and a nightie bunched up about my waist and a pair of suspiciously stained panties at half-mast and furthermore, whatever had caused the stain had been of sufficient quantity as to infect a fairly large area of those panties even when making allowances for their briefness.

The thinking led nowhere, I was still seventy five percent asleep so I eased out of the bed, wriggled my bum and hips a bit to allow the nightie to slide down my legs to my ankles and sort of walked (stalked would have been a better word because I had to grip the waist band of the panties through the nightie to prevent them falling to my ankles), towards the bathroom. I turned on the shower and sat to pee, still puzzling over my current state of confusion. Normally, morning pee time is an excellent opportunity to contemplate the state of the world, the universe and what to prepare for breakfast but today this was not the case. I have obviously slipped into a parallel universe so contemplating the state of the universe I used to reside in was a waste of time. I rose from the loo, bent over and slipped my nightie over my head, wriggled my knickers down to my ankles and kicked them off and went into the shower cubicle and concentrated on washing, shampooing, conditioning, drying and powdering myself and left the universes to sort themselves out.

Once my hair was dry I donned my bathrobe and returned to the bedroom and switched on the kettle and stood waiting, my fingers tapping lightly on the sideboard. Then I noticed something else was wrong, not so much wrong but different. Last night there had been an ice bucket standing next to the kettle, that ice bucket had held an almost empty bottle of Dom Perignon and next to it, two champagne glasses and my clutch bag. They had vanished, all that stood there now was the teapot, my breakfast cup, the milk jug, sugar dish and a little box of breakfast tea bags. I leaned over and looked at the floor beside the sideboard and then stepped back and glanced around the bedroom. Not a sign of champagne, the nearest to a liquid of any sort was the glass of water on my bedside table standing next to my pill box but the drawer above the small cupboard was partially open and half of a suspender belt was dangling from it. Then I noticed the bra and one tan stocking on the floor beside the bed and when I looked around the room there was a skirt and blouse carelessly tossed into my armchair and a second tan stocking laying across them and yet I had been wearing a wool dress, my burgundy one, a basque with a black silk thong and fully fashioned black nylons and they were nowhere to be seen!

I made my tea and carried the cup across to my dressing table and sat down and shuddered at the reflection of medusa that stared back at me from the mirror. I dropped my eyes and picked up the cup and took a sip, then a large sip and then a gulp and felt the hot, sweet flavour wake up my taste, scent and caffeine receptors. And as soon as they were awake, they detected another anomaly. There were no expected aromas lingering in the bedroom just a hint of my yesterday’s ‘Charlie’ and the faintest hint of the lavender from my lingerie drawers. A man always leaves his scent behind, an aftershave, a deodorant, whatever he had been drinking or eating, even pheromones but there wasn’t a suggestion of their presence.
Last night we had been pretty physical in our love making and I refused to believe he could have taken part in all the things we did without leaving some evidence. I panicked and opened my jewellery drawer and breathed a sigh of relief, my gold, silver, platinum and assorted precious and semi-precious stones were all present so he hadn’t robbed me and stolen away into the night. Still not sure I got up and went to the door and took hold of the doorknob and turned it, opened the door a crack and listened. Silence. Very slowly I opened the door a little wider and peered out into the corridor, nobody lurked so I walked barefooted to the top of the stairs and stood still. No sounds from the kitchen, dining room or sitting room. My study was equally silent and so was the studio. There was nobody in the house, the street door was firmly closed, the burglar alarm showing a peaceful green light and the grandfather clock in the hall was reassuringly ticking away. I was about to return to the bedroom when I remembered I had tripped the alarm on the first floor landing. I had fifteen seconds to get to the alarm and I had already wasted about eight checking the place out. I flew down the stairs and close to panic I just managed to punch in the eight figure code to switch it off before all hell broke loose. Panting from my dash down the stairs I climbed back up the stairs and returned to the bedroom, sat at the dressing table and took my hairbrush in hand and started brushing Medusa’s snakes into the soft waves that belonged to me.

“Awake now are we? Fully functional? Ready to take the world on?”

I nearly dropped the brush I jumped so high. “How long have you been awake? Come to think of it, how long have you been here?”

“All night of course."

“All night! You’ve been here all night. You’ve been present whilst everything was happening?”

“Of course, it was terrific, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world."

“You bloody perv, you sick depraved, sex starved perv.”

“Oh come on, you’re overreacting, since when have you been little Miss Goody Two Shoes? By the way, before you do your makeup, you don’t need any blusher. In fact the very opposite, a touch more foundation than you usually use will hide the strawberry cheeks a bit.”

“Mind your own damned business and get lost, no, I’ve a better idea. Go into the bathroom, flush the loo and dive in head first and wash yourself down into the foul sewer, you’ll feel at home there.”

“That’s not a very nice remark. May I remind you that it wasn’t me who spent the night copulating, practising fellatio, having her nipples sucked, breasts caressed and buttocks slapped, caressed and legs spread apart to facilitate the tongue of Mr. Super Stud, nor was I the one who regularly used expressions like ‘shag me silly’, ‘fuck my brains out’ and ‘get it up me’, that of course is when you didn’t have your mouth full of male primary sex organs. There are times that make me wonder if you’re not a touch bi-polar. You are so polite most of the time. Ladylike, well dressed, graceful, a witty conversationalist and ever mindful of the feelings of others and then pop; a good looking man appears and you lose it and become the slut of the month and then make nasty remarks about loos and sewers to me. When did you ever hear me describe a phallus as a prick, rampant cock or mind blowing pussy pounder?”

That stopped me, she was right, there are times at night, particularly when I am feeling a tadge frustrated, that my mind does tend to linger on such adjective, verb and noun inspired thoughts. But I couldn’t let her get away with this one; “What do you call voyeurism then, romantic television? Now sling your hook and leave me alone. I have a day in the studio, a painting to finish, a load of clearing up and if I can find the time, I need to shop for more ultramarine blue, cadmium yellow and brown ochre and just about every type of white. That bloody unicorn has got me to the stage when I was thinking of re-priming the canvas and starting over.”

“No don’t do that, this work is the best you’ve ever done, I can’t fault it. There is symbolism, beautiful brush work, superb content and construction and by far the best full length self-portrait you have yet painted.”

Her voice had a touch of mollification in it but I simply didn’t have the time to sit here and chat and stood up, “Go back to sleep, I’m having breakfast then I am working and I’ll thank you to stay away from me, go find somebody else to play with.”

“Take a leaf from your book, is that what you’re saying?”

I ignored her, opened my knicker drawer, pulled out a pair of fairly innocent looking white panties and a pair of mid tan tights and took two steps towards the chair where yesterday’s skirt and blouse lay, changed my mind and opened the wardrobe, selected a white cotton blouse and a dark green A line skirt and got dressed and then put on the 2”, dark green, heels and paused for a moment, I could have sworn that last night they had been 4” black, strappy patents.

I went into the kitchen, switched on the percolator, poured cornflakes into a plate, recovered the second half of a grapefruit from the fridge and for good measure, stuck a cocktail cherry on top and once I had my caffeine enriched coffee ready I sat and started eating. For a moment my thoughts wandered back to last night and the wild love-making. It had been like riding a roller coaster through a twister and I’d be embarrassed if I had to describe my orgasms… Hastily I pulled my mind away from the memories, well I tried to but when I attempted to gird up my loans my mind took this as a signal to return to last night and I began going over the number of times I had girded my loins only to have him ungird them rapidly.

I pushed myself away from the table, went into the hall and thence into my studio forcing my mind to think of artist’s size, fixative sprays, gum Arabic and sable wash brushes whilst I slid my smock over my head. I walked over to the easel and carefully eased the dust cover off my self-portrait and took a step back. I went over it a little at a time and then returned to the easel, turned it round to catch the light from my large north facing window and took three paces back and returned my attention to the central figure or more accurately, on the white unicorn upon which she was sitting. She was sitting? Yesterday it had been me sitting? Had last night affected me that much? I shook myself mentally and turned my attention to the unicorn upon which I HAD BEEN SITTING and almost immediately spotted what had been bugging me about the unicorn. It was just a few strokes of white and fewer still of a very pale grey to correct it. I had painted the sunlight filtering through the trees behind and to the right of the central figures and the suggestion of shadow I had painted to define the sun side of an ear was just a tadge at the wrong angle and a little too heavy.

I walk over to the bench and picked up a pot of hogs hair brushes and returned to the painting. It was my morning for making mistakes that were related to my previous night’s antics. I leaned in towards the picture and studied the ear and as I did so the stiff tips of the hogs hair brushes poked me in the lower right boob so I moved the pot a little forward whilst my left hand reached for the brushes as I kept my eyes on the ear. The hogs hair tips poked me just under the right nipple and it had been a little chilly when I came into the studio and my nipples had reacted in the normal manner. The hogs hair tips then seemed to caress my nipples and got them a little excited and they became confused and mistook the oil brushes for a man’s fingers and sent an emergency call to my brain. Despite having had a caffeine reinforced coffee only a few minutes before, my brain also became confused. It was receiving a message from my nipple that there was a randy man paying me too much attention, though my eyes, ears and nose had not, as yet, confirmed the nipple message and the presence of a man. The subconscious part of my brain decided not to take chances and sent out a general alarm. The conscious part of my brain suddenly found itself having to deal with hardening nipples, shaking knees and trembling hands and thought this might be a symptom of a cardiac malfunction and sent back a message that oxygen was needed PDQ so I started hyperventilating…

“What on Earth is going on? Look at the state of you! Have you been taken ill? Here, sit down, put those paint brushes on the bench, in the state you’re in you couldn’t paint a cross on the wall.”

She was right and I didn’t have the strength to argue with her anyway so I left the paint brushes and went to a sofa I kept in the studio and sat.

“Close your eyes, think of a summer beach with gentle waves whispering on the sand, a warm breeze, the distant calls of sea birds as they circle the blue sky. Do it and control your breath-ing, steady the shaking hands and knees. Don’t worry about the nipples, they can handle things on their own once they realise there’s not going to be a need for super sensitivi-ty…That’s better, the hot flush is paling, your breathing is steadying but keep thinking of the beach, the sea, the gentle swaying of the palm leaves…That’s a good girl stay like that a while longer and then we’ll go into the kitchen and make a nice cup of tea and have a soft squidgy cream doughnut and get your sugar balance up a little and the vapours will go. Think of your painting, the best you’ve ever done, even Rossetti would envy your Pre-Raphaelite empathy. There we go…Don’t rush take it nice and easy, stand slowly and follow me into the kitchen.”

I made it into the kitchen and once I had the tea and had taken a bite from the doughnut I calmed down quickly. I had one of my collectors calling to view the work and needed to finish the painting so I rested, finished my doughnut and tea, returned to the studio, reclaimed the brushes and went to have another look at the ear. I picked up the palette, squeezed the yellow, white and black paint I was going to need and went back to the picture. I studied it for a while longer and then selected a finely pointed brush, a palette knife and started mixing the paint, my eyes switching back and forth between palette and ear and finally I was satisfied. I took hold of my brush, checked the tip and then started.

“What the blazes are you doing. You aren’t well, put that stuff down and get back into the kitchen and have another cup of tea."

“I have a buyer calling in a couple of hours with pockets full of money and he will expect to see my ‘finest self-portrait yet,’ as you’ve described it. He will expect to see it finished, reasonably dry and not looking like a half finished still life of someone’s breakfast and on top of that, he’s good looking, well built and stinking rich.”

“You fancy him, is that what’re your saying?”

“Very succinct, yes I do and it’s nothing to do with the fact that he already has three of my works and two of them are self-portraits.”

“He fancies you as well, he must do, why else would a handsome hunk with pots of money buy two self-portraits of you?”

“Thanks a lot. I had this silly idea he might appreciate my work as well as my beautiful face and body.”

“Well get on with it then, you’ve not had a lover for months so now is the chance to remedy it, cos the smallest provocation seems to get you aroused, which is not unknown amongst people who forget their biological needs.”

“What about last night?”

“That was a one-off and doesn’t count. You need to be more regular with your habits. Anyway I’m going and leaving you to it. By the way, wear the white silk blouse, the Gossard half-cup push-up bra and the little lace thong and matching suspender belt; encourage him a bit.”

“Aren’t you going to select a suitable skirt as well whilst you’re acting as my wardrobe mistress and fashion consultant?”

“I thought that was obvious, the two tier, full, soft petticoat and the full circle taffeta skirt and your three inch heels.”

“Why not the three tier petticoat?”

“If he tries to force himself on you it will get in the way. Stick to the two tier, just enough to give the skirt some body and make it whisper when you move. Don’t forget to think of an excuse to do a twirl or collapse onto the sofa so you flash your stocking tops and get him excited.”

“If he’s forcing himself on me, he’ll already be excited, won’t he!”

“I mean really excited and don’t forget to struggle a little, say silly things like; “Oh you mustn’t.’ ‘Ooh, stop it, don’t be naughty.’ And don’t forget to do it between kisses and when he slips his hand under your skirt, just bring your legs together, don’t cross them or he’ll think you’re being serious and may stop.”

As soon as she was gone I returned to the painting, picked a round tipped hogs hair brush from the pot and quite deliberately poked my nipple. Nothing happened, so I poked it again. Still nothing so I undid my blouse and tried again but the result remained the same, zero response. It seems my subconscious and conscious brains had got together and sussed out what was happening. I replaced the hogs hair and selected a size 3 sable water colour brush and tried that but the sable was too soft and the tip of the brush simply folded and collapsed, I barely noticed the pressure. I stared vacantly at the painting hoping perhaps to find inspiration there but my sex drive seemed to have died. It probably got fed up with provoking me and failing to have any success, it was something I had noticed before recently. It may have something to do with the lack of men in my life but there was an upside to it, I had done some of my best work over the past months so it seems that a disappointed sex drive resorts to tricks like work-alcholicism when this happens.

Self-discipline was the obvious answer. I must train myself to make a decision every morning. Should I spend the day working, should I allow myself to be controlled by my subconscious and spend the day as a man-crazy, randy, slapper or go about my business as I seemed to be doing at the moment, in a haze of indecision. Now that presented me with another problem; currently there would appear to be two of me, the artist and the lover and in constant competition with each other. Would there now be a need to have a third me, the ‘Practical One,’ a subconscious that when necessary was capable of controlling the other two.

Three of me! I was having enough trouble at the moment with just two of us and if a third me suddenly appeared, my life would be hell. I could just picture the situation where, after a prolonged argument, the slapper me became dominant and I had pulled a bloke and just at the point where he had me stripped naked and panting with lust the practical side took over and pointed out that I had made a decision earlier to spend the day working. “Just a minute, before you ram it into me, I need to do some dusting and then clean my brushes.” I could see what the result would be. He, (the bloke I had pulled,) would be doing his nut trying to get it in whilst I was rolling around trying to dust the bedside tables, plump up the pillows and straighten the duvet despite his having a firm grip on my tits and was trying to hold me down on the bed.
It would start an argument.
How does a tri-polar person have an argument with somebody else?

Chapter 2

“Well let me see then.”

“You look in the mirror like I have to.”

“This is no time to go into a sulk. You’re meeting a prospective customer, you are selling a painting that’s worth at least twenty five thousand and if it’s necessary, you’re going to seduce him. You have to take power dressing to a new level. Now let me see so I can check you over.”

I did two fast twirls, “That’s it, that’s all you’re getting as a demonstration, if you want to check anymore, you’ll have to look in the mirror.” I stepped back to the mirror and gave myself a final check; a touch of ‘glamour,’ a touch of ‘sex,’ a touch of ‘innocence.’ I must admit she’d given me sound advice, the blouse did show enough of the pattern and lace of the bra, the skirt and petticoat just enough fullness and the taffeta whispered and the shoes were glamourous enough to accent my legs without being too bordello, three inch heels were both elegant and practical. I checked the blouse once more and nodded. If I undo another button later in the evening, if it turns into one of ‘Those Evenings,’ then that will suggest I’m up for it if he plays a careful game.

“It’s perfect, absolutely perfect but there is one little piece of advice, well two really. When you do twirls for him, just a little more speed, the twirls you did a minute ago showed a flash of stocking top but stopped just short of revealing a suspender. The other piece of advice is; when you go downstairs, make sure the sofa is not cluttered up with your coat, magazines or painting stuff.”

“He’ll be here soon, I’ll spotlight the picture with the soft-glow. Conceal it behind the mobile partition and when he comes in, I’ll make him stand at the door and then roll the partition out of the way and ask him to walk slowly towards it and as he does, I’ll lower the spotlight until it falls directly on the picture and highlights it against the black background.”

“Yes, very dramatic, yes I can’t fault it, I love a bit of drama. What about asking him to stay for dinner?”

“I haven’t anything prepared.”

“What about sticking a bottle of champers in the fridge. Ask him to celebrate the deal in that seductive voice of yours, get him a little bit tipsy, that should do it.”

“You’ll be asking me to do a strip next and that’s too bloody obvious. I’ll play it by ear and I’ll thank you for not bothering to stay this evening, I mean it and if you don’t understand exactly what ‘not bothering to stay this evening’ means, I’ll translate; Sod Off!”

“Temper, temper, can’t you just say goodnight and I’ll see you in the morning after he’s left?”

“Late morning, very late.”

Author’s Note:
Just what is going on here, is she or the other woman TG? Are both of them TG or neither?
Two lesbians perhaps but that can’t be the case because there is a man involved.
There is the possibly that we are watching a pair of TGs who are lesbian and bisexual but if that is the case, how on earth did it slip through the security team who are there to ensure that only TG stories appear on Big Closet, has Erin slipped up?
You’ll just have to wait until the full anthology, of which this is a part, is published and of course buy a copy. That of course suggests that the two in the story have written a dual biography and this whole extract is simply a publicity stunt. But which is the TG girl?

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