The Hermaphrodite's Curse

PART TWO - CAMBRIDGE

- 6 -

Professor Jane Cavendish slammed the door of her small one bedroom flat. She kicked off her shoes and let her heavy shoulder bag fall to the floor. It had been quite a day. She had been confronted by murder, mystery and the return into her life or someone she had thought lost.

When she had first seen the reports of the Rokeby Venus murder, Jane had to admit that her thoughts had instantly gravitated towards her own fascination with the painting, her own theories. She had published a paper on the secret symbolism of the Rokeby Venus a few years earlier and it had attracted very little attention, yet the first thing she thought of when the painting appeared in the news was that it was related to her discoveries.

Like any rationally thinking person, however, Jane had dismissed this as projecting her own preoccupations onto the news story. And then her prodigal departed best student had walked back into her office and confronted her with the grisly symbolism she had espoused written in blood at the murder scene. It was really something to take in.

Saphy Cross had always been a troubled girl, set somewhat apart from the rest of the bright young things in Jane's classes, pretty, preppy kids brimming with confidence, keen to get ahead in the world. Saphy was different. Beneath that fiery exterior, brimming with piercings and tattoos, full of aggression, was a smart and sensitive girl who had never really had anyone to look out for her.

Saphy had learned to think for herself and to never take anybody else's opinion as truth. It had meant that she was always coming out with smart new ideas that hadn't even occurred to Jane, but that she was a nightmare to teach anything and get her to accept it without hundreds of questions. She was just the kind of student to frustrate any teacher and just the kind that the best teachers truly remember.

Jane knew that Saphy came from a fairly privileged background and had had all the benefits of an expensive private education. She also knew that the girl had a lot of troubles back home. She had obviously fallen out pretty seriously with her family. After a few months in which Jane felt she and Saphy had got close enough for Saphy to open up, she had tried to get Saphy to elaborate on her home situation, but the younger woman had just returned to her prickly former self.

She also knew that Saphy did not easily form bonds with the other students, her concerns were not the same as theirs. She knew that Saphy seemed unhappy with life in Cambridge and yet she was still shocked when Saphy had completely dropped out. She had mentioned no such doubts to Jane and Jane had felt a little hurt that her student did not consider her suitably wise or supportive to turn to for advice. She had felt that they had a connection, that under her guidance the smart, brilliant talents of the younger woman could have flourished. Instead, Saphy had just disappeared until that afternoon.

If she had been surprised and disappointed by Saphy's sudden departure, the professor was even more surprised by her former student's reappearance that afternoon, and by the story she had to tell. She had not lied when she had said that it was nice that she was still in Saphy's thoughts. She still hoped that the girl would make something of herself. She hoped that her appearance once more in Jane's office would signal her return to Pembroke, even though she quickly saw that was a false hope. However, even to talk with her on Jane's favourite subject for that one afternoon made her feel good. She was pleased to see Saphy remained interested and sharp, whatever new trouble she was getting into.

She had known Saphy get into more than her fair share of scrapes in Cambridge, but this seemed in a whole different league. A woman was dead and, if Saphy was to be believed, she could prove to be the next target. Jane knew that Saphy felt she could handle herself most of the time, so to ask for help like this she must be pretty worried. To team up with another person was equally unusual for her. Saphy's companion had not at first seemed much to Jane, a pale skinny boy with not a lot of brains, but the professor had begun to suspect that he too had a few hidden depths. However things went, she was pleased that Saphy had this boy tagging along with her. Something, however, was still troubling her and she could not quite put her finger on it.

Deciding to clear her head in the hope of dislodging whatever it was that lurked troublingly at the back of her mind, Jane headed across her living room, as lined with books as her office, and into the bathroom. She turned the taps until they ran warm and flicked the switch to make the warm water run from her shower. She slipped out of her skirt and blouse, leaving them in a messy heap on the floor, and stepped under the running water of the shower.

As she pushed her greying hair back from her face and let the warm water snake through it, dripping down onto her back, Jane felt her anxious mental jumble untangle. Her mind began to clear and she felt able to think a bit more clearly. She relaxed as the shower's waters soothed her aching body, running in streams and rivulets over and around her fleshy curves.

Jane was proud of the shape her body was still in, she felt totally comfortable with the nakedness of the moment. She ran her hands over the warm mounds of her breasts, tracing the course of the water as the tributaries joined in a cascade between them, tumbling down her cleavage. Her hair dripped water down the small of her back until it converged over the curves of her backside, it ran down between her thighs and over that piece of flesh that was decidedly less feminine.

As Jane rubbed the soap suds into the feminine orbs of her breasts and down to the masculine rod of her penis, completely cleansing all parts and sides of her, she smiled to picture the image of herself. There she was, the body of a woman, still, she flattered herself, fairly decent looking, with the curves of chest and hips you would expect of a woman, but with the reproductive organs of a man. Standing beneath the cascading waters of the shower, she was the image of the legendary Hermaphroditus washed over by the waters of Salmacis' Fountain.

With that image, Jane felt her mind begin to focus on the detail of her earlier conversation that had been troubling her. Like many people, she did all of her best thinking in the shower, when she was able to just let all of herself be, without concealing or dressing it up. Now, under the falling water, she began to sort out the many disparate threads of her earlier thoughts. There was something about that symbol that was bothering her. Something that she had not remembered to tell Saphy and her friend.

She stepped out of the shower and wrapped herself in a warm, fluffy, comforting towel as her mind reached for that missing piece of the puzzle. It was the image of Hermaphroditus that made her think of it. The symbol she had identified was the transgender symbol. She had seen it time and time again in both her personal and professional life and yet it seemed wrong here.

A sound from the next room momentarily broke her chain of thought. Still dressed in just a towel, Jane went back through from her bathroom to the living room, all the while deep in thought. The symbol was wrong, even though it was a transgender symbol. She remembered now seeing another symbol used sometimes, especially for intersex people, hermaphrodites. It was a circle with the same cross beneath and horns above, a mix of the signs of Venus and Mercury.

Venus and Mercury, these were the parents of the original hermaphrodite, Hermes and Aphrodite to the Greeks. He was literally a mix of these two. But the symbol in blood had not been Venus and Mercury. It had been Venus and Mars. Venus and Mars had had children too, not nearly so romantic as Hermaphroditus. No, the mix of Venus and Mars would symbolise something far more fearful...

Two men stood inside Jane Cavendish's living room, silent and unmoving, just waiting for her. She gasped in shock and her whole mind lost its focus instantaneously. Her horn rimmed spectacles remained in the bathroom. Without them, she could only just focus on the looming, threatening figures as they stepped towards her. Even so, she could be in no doubt that these tall, wiry, bald men were just the same ones that had attacked Saphy in London.

Out in the open, in the park, with the surprise assistance of her unlikely companion, Saphy had managed to escape them. Here, in the confined space of her living room, unaided and with no help likely to appear, Jane did not feel so confident. In fact, just looking at these two men as they drew out a pair of angry looking daggers, had her rooted to the spot with fear. Even if she wanted to try and run now, her legs just would not do it.

There was something about these men, their presence, the way they looked at her and moved, that caused terror to run right down her spine. Her limbs just turned to jelly. The towel held up by her arms dropped to the ground, leaving her body naked and revealed. That very nakedness that had seemed so right and natural when she was alone in the shower, now served to do nothing but make her feel horribly exposed. Seeing her ripe, sensual body, her breasts and penis together like that, caused both men to make a horrific guttural hissing sound.

"Unnatural beast," one said, advancing on her, "Monstrous creature. We will see that you do not remain among us."

"We will fill your last moments with horror," the other one sneered, a fixed frowning sneer on his face that matched his twin exactly, "Fear and dread!"

"Of course," Jane had a moment of revelation, finally realising what her mind had been reaching for, "The symbol. The spawn of Venus and Mars. Fear and dread. Phobus and Deimus!"

Phobus and Deimus, if that was how they had chosen to style themselves, simply grinned evilly at this. That was their sole method of agreement. They stood over Jane's naked, terror filled body and raised their ugly knives in unison. Jane's head span as the two sharp blades plunged deep into her chest and the blood began to flow. Her final thoughts flew to Saphy, fearful that her former student had got so far in over her head that her fate would soon be the same as Jane's own.