The Late Night Sexy Show: Through the Looking Glass

Angelica Thrust and Martin Staithe are sat on the sofa and hear the saxophone and heavy breathing signature tune of the show they co-host come to its end. They begin their customary relay of presentation.

"Good evening and welcome to the Late Night Sexy Show and a special beauty edition."

"Yes, tonight we will be focussing of being beautiful and sexy."

"In a moment we will see what happened when our 'frequently nude' reporter, Mary Plenty took viewer Hannah, who we saw a few months ago, to the 'Beauty Spot' for an all over beauty treatment."

"After that and the video reviews, we will be finding out the beauty secrets of your favourite adult movie stars from the person how should know, their make-up artist, Franny Dalton-Hart."

"And to round off the show, Unreal, magician Gabriel and his assistant Annika, will be doing some magic on the theme of beauty too."

"You may remember Hannah the young woman who was involved in one of Gabriel's illusion and spent the rest of the show in a body painted version of her own clothes that had been originally painted on Annika. Well, we offered her the chance to accompany Mary to the 'Beauty Spot' salon for an all over beauty treatment, and this is what happened."

The report is introduced by Mary and we watch as she and Hannah get progressively more nude through massage, algal skin toner and neck to toe mud-pack treatments, and topping this off with a body enhancing make-up session.

After the break, Martin and Angelica do the video reviews of the meagre crop of releases and then interview Franny Dalton-Hart, make-up artist to the up-market end of the adult film industry, who gives some valuable sexiness make-up tips, somewhat hidden among sleazy anecdotes from behind the scenes of some of the films she was make-up artist on.

After the second break, they continue to interview Franny, but get a more practical demonstration of her skills as she makes-up a staff member.

Drawing the interview to a close Martin says, "Thank you, Franny, but we need to move on now, to find out what Gabriel and Annika have cooked up for us on the theme of beauty."

The presenters moving to the demonstrations area is covered by the show's logo and its saxophone and heavy breathing riff.

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The demonstrations area has been set up with a background of crimson curtains. In the centre of the area, behind the waiting magician and his assistant, is a large mirror standing vertically from a small platform on casters. Leaning against the mirror's frame are two narrow frames covered in stretchy black fabric; one foot by four feet. Gabriel is dressed in smart-casual; dark grey suit and white shirt, but no tie. Annika is wrapped in a fluffy white bathrobe and seems to be bare-foot; also her hair seems to have been done into two braids, one on each side thus giving her a severe centre parting.

"Welcome back to the Late Night Sexy Show, Gabriel and Annika. I gather that you have prepare some magic on the theme of beauty."

Taking this as his cue, Gabriel begins speaking, partly to shut the presenters up so he can get on with the magic. "Yes, I was reading recently that scientists have been trying to quantify beauty, in a more precise way than the joke unit of beauty, the milliHelen; which is the amount of beauty required to launch a single ship." Someone in the studio is heard to start laughing and then stifle it. "That, of course, would be the Troy unit of beauty and the scientists are looking for a metric way to measure beauty."

"Well, they seem to have come to the conclusion that, in general, the more symmetrical a person is the more beautiful they are perceived as being, but perfect symmetry doesn't to work. They think it's the minor deviations from symmetry that do the trick. In the mood of scientific research, we thought that we would test this out live on the Late Night Sexy Show."

Gabriel could see Angelica preparing to ask how he was planning to perform this test, but continued speaking before she could open her mouth. "So, we are going to take the beautiful Annika and try to make her more symmetrical and see if it detracts from her beauty."

He picks up the frames that were leaning against the big mirror and hands them to the presenters. "Please check the mirror is solid and fix these centrally on mirror; Angelica you check this side and Martin can check the other side. You'll find a rectangle marked on the mirror in marker pen; just wet the suction cups in the corners and stick it onto the mirror. The alignment does not have to be totally precise, but try and get the frame pretty much inside the marked rectangle."

Annika addresses the camera, "Of course, just reflecting me in the mirror will not prove anything."

Gabriel explains, "That would only move what little asymmetry Annika has to the other side, which would, if the theory is right make the reflection equally beautiful; which after all is the point of a mirror."

"So, we've come up with a way to reflect me IN the mirror."

"I'll go and check that Martin has stick his frame properly to the back. You can check Angelica's work." Gabriel goes round the back of the mirror and soon calls out the things are ready back there.

Annika briefly tugs on the frame put in place by Angelica and says the things were ready there.

Gabriel brings Martin from behind the mirror and takes him and Angelica to the side. "Time for you to do stage one."

Annika undoes the tie round the bath robe and slips it off. She tosses it out of shot and stands the naked of a few seconds. "Ok, director, have you got a picture of Annika at her normal level of beauty?" After a pause and obviously responding to some affirmative signal from behind the camera. "Ok, Annika, time to reflect yourself IN the mirror."

Annika, already moving having seen the same signal, approaches the mirror and taps it above, below and to either side of the frame and then taps the mirror through the frame of stretchy fabric. She then lifts her leg and puts her foot through the opening where the fabric's edges meet. There is some more fiddling with her foot, then her leg begins to disappear through the framed stretchy fabric further than the mirror behind would normally allow. Soon she is high-thigh-deep through the frame and she turns sideways as her hip passes through the gap in the fabric and seemingly through the mirror. Annika puts her hand into the gap and uses it ease her hip through, before raising the hand to allow her to move half her torso through until the stretchy fabric covers everything beyond a line from her groin to her shoulder, without bulging. Finally she bends down slightly while holding the gap open at the top to put half her head through and a quick adjustment is made to permit her breast to go through.

The nett result is that Annika seems to be standing through the mirror with the plane of the mirror down her centreline.

"Now we can check if Annika's left half combined with her reflected left half is as beautiful as the whole Annika." Gabriel advances to the mirror and turns it forty-five degrees so that Annika is facing more towards the camera and asks the director to put up a side-by-side comparison of what the camera is seeing at the moment and the image that was captured earlier. Gabriel squints passed the camera. "Oh dear, we can't tell because the frame is in the way of the reflected part of Annika. Well we can solve that." He approaches Annika, "You alright there for a while?" She nods and he pulls of the stretchy fabric frames with the accompanying suck and pop of the suction cups coming away from the surface of the mirror.

He manoeuvres the frame down Annika's body until the only part through the fabric is her foot as he rests the frame on the platform. The mirror seems to be perfectly aligned with the centreline of Annika's body so the visible half of her body and its reflection seem to make a whole.

Gabriel seems more satisfied with the new situation, until her realises that the angles of the live image and the recorded image are different and turning the mirror to get them to match will not work either. Pointing out this limitation, he asks the hosts whether they think that the recorded whole Annika is more or less beautiful than the Annika composted of real and reflected left halves.

Martin seems not to know, but Angelica says, "I think I like the whole Annika better, but that may be because the two-halves-Annika has the two halves moving in an odd way; they seem too oddly synchronised."

"Maybe, it's just that the more beautiful part of Annika is her right side. Fortunately, we are prepared for that possibility. As Martin already knows, this a double-sided mirror." Gabriel rotates the mirror a further ninety degrees exposing Annika's right side to the camera's gaze. He soon has the frame of stretchy fabric, that Martin put there earlier, off and only covering Annika's right foot. He seeks the presenter's opinions once more.

Angelica again expresses her reservations about the half-reflected Annika.

"Maybe if we could compare all three versions of Annika it would possible to say which is more beautiful." The magician goes to the back edge of the mirror and pulls a pin, and then pulls the mirror open until the camera can see both halves of Annika. He then comes back round the front and pulls another pin from the front edge and separates the two mirrors completely. He rotates each mirror completely so that the plain empty backs can be seen, but leaves them with Annika's separated halves facing forward.

"What do you think now?" Gabriel asks.

"Wow! That is totally amazing," exclaims Martin.

"I agree that it's certainly..." Angelica seeks out a word to express her amazedness and settles on, "Wow! But I still can't get passed the problem of the unnaturally symmetrical movement interfering with my ability to assess if either half is more or less beautiful that the original."

Gabriel mimes having a bright idea and instructs each host to take the hand of one of the half Annikas, while he replaces the frames with the stretchy fabric onto the mirror. "Ok, now pull!" he instructs.

The two presenters pull on their respective halves and each pull a whole Annika from the mirror via the fabric covered frames. As they line up, with Gabriel flanked by left- and right-handed naked Annikas and then by Martin and Angelica, the floor manager is making wind-up gestures.

The presenters thank the participants in this show and trail the planned items for the next. As the credits are shown the screen is split into three, each showing a version of Annika and invites viewers to visit the show's website to vote on which they find more beautiful.