After the Charity Dinner: Challenge 4: part 2

By Vaughan



I was planning how to get my upper half back to the sofa, when the elevator began to come back up again; I did not have time to give the impression of being nonchalant about my legs wandering off on their own, so I went with appearing to be whole again and see how he reacted. I did not have much time to plan where I got seen and was not confident enough that I could do more than a gentle walk in my current divided condition, so I just headed across the room so that I was away from any obstacles.

As the lift rose I turned to face it. Jack seemed not to notice me until he had the shutter doors open.

"You haven't gone and restored yourself, have you? And where did you get that skirt?"

"No, I'm still in two pieces. And the 'skirt' isn't a skirt; I draped the cloak thing, from after the sword box, over my legs so I wouldn't join up." I took a stable stance with my legs and placed my hands high on my hips and pushing until a visible gap had opened between the cloth draped over my hips and my naked torso stump. I lowered myself quite quickly, because I could feel my hands beginning to slip on the fabric of the cloak.

"That's impressive! That kind of thing would be great if I could include in a show, but I've never seen anyone adapt to being in halves as quickly or as well as you."

"Compliment accepted, but aren't you in the middle of something?" I was glad he seemed impressed, especially as it was something I was better at than Charlotte, and by a long way.

I did my best to head for the sofa with as much grace as I could muster; I was now feeling a little unstable; I guess that when I had done the raising my upper half thing, I had replaced it a tiny bit out of line, so my body was not facing quite where my legs were stepping. When I got there I stood my legs by the arm of the sofa and transferred my upper half, before walking the legs round the front of the couch, by reversing the process I had used to stand them up in the first place. During this manoeuvring, I heard Jack swear under his breath; it felt good that I was effecting his concentration.

I looked over to see what he had come up with to adapt the buzzsaw for divisions. Under the rather ad hoc looking framework that attached it to wooden structure of the buzzsaw was a sheet of metal held in place lining up with the saw blade.

"So, how's that meant to work?" I asked.

"It's quite simple, really. This bit," he said tapping the vertical metal plate, "keeps your parts separated so they don't re-join. There is only one downside that I can see, which is that I'll have to remove the cut off parts and then wind the remaining parts back before rearranging for the next cut."

"I don't see that as much of problem, unless I'm missing something with my non-magician-trained brain, running on too much coffee and not much else."

"Oh, it's not a technical problem, just I was apologising in advance that this won't be as fast as I had hoped."

I laughed at him. He made a face that said that he did not understand what was so funny. I enlightened him. "If I was worried, at this stage, about a few extra minutes I would have called this challenge a fail before you could think up that adaption to your buzzsaw and insisted on being restored and driven home." He gave me a wry smile.

"I'm ready for you, if you're ready for me to continue your division challenge."

I helped my legs stand up and watched them walk over to the buzzsaw. "You might as well get started with my legs; I'll watch from here."

While half of me was walking over to him he undid all the clamps and removed the part of the board my upper half had been lying on, leaning it against the end of the structure. He started removing the lower board.

"How good is your control of your legs, Abi?" Jack asked.

"I didn't think I could run, but so long as I watch, things seem to go as I intend. And they stayed upright in the shower, even though I wasn't watching, but all they were doing was standing there. Why?"

"I wondered if you might step on a box, so that I can put the board behind you and strap you back in place; I don't want to sour things by lifting them and getting it wrong by putting my hands in the wrong place. You seem a bit touchy about the touching stuff, sometimes."

"Well, apart from stepping over the lip of the shower tray, I haven't dared lift my feet far off the floor; so I think you'll have to take a chance and lift me onto the board. Just be careful, 'coz my knees and my feet are a bit ticklish; and that is not permission to see how ticklish I am!"

He re-positioned the lower board on the table of the buzzsaw and then I almost laughed as he contemplated how to pick up my legs including a couple of exploratory gestures that did not come to anything when he realised that either he would be touching something that he probably should not, or that it would make putting my legs down on the table difficult.

His final attempt was to stand a little behind me and lean over at the waist, then he put one arm across the front of my thighs and the other across the back. He pulled my hip against his chest and stood up again, so my legs were now sticking upward. He placed the cut surface, just above my hips, down on the board and then gently guide my legs back to the horizontal. I cooperated by pushing my heels in so that my hips were once more under the strap that had held them in place for the previous cut.

"That seemed to take a lot of thinking about," I commented. "Especially for this time of night." I looked at my watch to see the time; even if I went home now I wouldn't get a night's sleep in; fortunately, I did not have anything important planned for tomorrow, which by then was later today.

As I watched, he moved the board so that my feet were either side of the line of the saw blade. "Hey! What you doing? You'll ruin the bottoms and they're not the cheap ones." I had visions of the saw blade ripping the bottoms off and exposing bits of me I did not want seen and if he went further than that I did not want the initial scratch feeling, that I had experienced when the blade made first contact earlier, applied to that most sensitive part of my anatomy.

"I wasn't going to go anywhere near that far. I just wanted to make an initial cut so that when I make the horizontal cuts the lower parts of your legs are on separate sections of board."

"Well, I don't want a buzz saw between my legs, so we'll have to make do with some bits being on the same bit of wood, so long as they are definitely not connected."

He turned the board through ninety degrees and began the operation of strapping all the parts of my legs down; one strap across the tops of my thighs, stapled in placed either side and in the middle and then individual straps over the bottoms of my thighs, across my knees, calves and shins and finally a pair of straps across my feet.

Once I was secured, the board was clamped and the next cut was made, just above the knobs of my ankles. Both ankles felt the same; a scratch then numbness on first contact and a tingle then numbness as the blade passed through. Then the section of board with my feet strapped to it was moved away from the blade before the table was return to its starting position. Three more reposition-and-cuts later my lower legs, my knees, my thighs and my hips were all attached to their separate pieces of wood.

"That's all I can do with your legs. Time to start cutting the rest of you."

"Ok, but how many pieces is that so far?" I asked.

"Two feet, two calves, that's four. Two knees and thighs that four more. Then there's your hips and the rest of you makes a grand total of ten pieces. It's not the sixteen or more pieces you asked for. I'll move the pieces I've made out of the way, so that there's room to saw the rest of you up."

He laid the sections of board on the floor so that they were in their usual order, but with six inch gaps between the parts.

When he finished, he looked up. I was still on the sofa. "I thought you'd have been over here, if only to get this over with."

"No, moving across the floor was uncomfortable; the end of my body was a bit sore from going from the bathroom to the clothes rack and back. So I thought you could carry me. It's not like I weigh a lot now; not that I did before."

"Alright, I'll be over in a minute." He pause long enough to lift the upper half of the board back onto the travelling table of the buzzsaw and the came over. "How do you want to do this? Cradled, hugged or piggy-back?"

"I guess 'hugged'. I assume by that you mean my arms around your neck and your arms around my back. I reckon it'll be safest."

So, he knelt down and I moved forward and put my arms round his neck, before he hugged me to his chest. We both cocked our heads to the left so that we were not face to face. It took him a few moments to find his balance, but I was soon on the sawing board tucking my torso stump back under the strap which had held it down for the initial cut.

"You know you missed a chance?" I asked.

Surprised, he said, "Sorry, what?"

"You missed a chance to kiss me."

"What?" He seemed flustered. "Erm, did you want me to kiss you? Is that what asking me to come and pick you up from the sofa was about?"

"No, moving from place to place on the cut end did make it a bit sore. As to, did I want to be kissed, I don't really know. If you had tried it, I'd have reacted with my gut instinct and we'd know where we stand; which would probably have been a good thing. Are you a good kisser?"

"No-one ever complained. But then aunts and grannies are going to complain, are they?"

"I suppose not. So, you never kissed Charlotte?"

"No, well, nothing more than a thank you peck on the cheek anyway. I may have been an adolescent at college, but my mind was much more focussed on my magical studies than boy-girl things. Charlie was a friend and study partner, who happened to be a girl; nothing more." Jack paused. I could almost see the cogs whirling in his brain as he processed the conversation. "Do you want to be kissed, now?"

"Er! No! The moment has passed; like I said, you missed a chance. Let's get on with the challenge and maybe see what else happens later, later."

His demeanour changed from confusion about whether we would have a relationship to the more matter-of-fact concentration on the challenge. "Before I strap you down, we'll need to do something about your hair."

"What's wrong with my hair?"

Immediately on the defensive, he said, "There's nothing wrong with your hair, I just meant it'll need to be held in place, erm, contained, something like that. If your hair gets caught in the saw blade, it'll rip it out and we don't want that, because it'll hurt like hell. And it'd probably need a trip to A&E, which would be bad. Magicians and A&E are a very bad combination; for an illusionist it's bad publicity, but when a real magician turns up at A&E, questions get asked that there are no normal answers to, not even reasonable lies. It makes keeping the secret that real magicians exist so much harder."

"Ok, got it. So, what do you want me do with my hair? It may not be short short, but it's too short to put in a ponytail or a bun or some sort."

This puzzled him for a moment, then he turned and headed for the bathroom.

"Hey, where are you going? You can't leave me like this!"

"I'm going to see if I can dig out a hair-net or shower cap or something, to cover your hair. Besides, you aren't the only one needing to use the toilet."

His absence gave me a chance to look at my feelings about the events of the evening and whether I found Jack attractive for more than his magical abilities.

This evening seemed to be the adventure I had long yearned for; not specifically this adventure, but an adventure with a series of out-of-the-ordinary occurrences and the avoided potential for disaster. I had spent most of the latter part of the evening enjoying being in peril, which to the office assistant part of me seemed absurd. I also realised that even just lying here I was in danger; what if Jack collapsed in the bathroom? What would I do then? I was a little surprised to find that I actually had the basis of a plan for that remote eventuality. I would re-assemble myself and use the few hours I had before my legs fell to bits again to call for help for Jack and contact Charlotte to arrange for my proper re-assembly (I assumed that the magician present to put me back together did not necessarily have to be the same one who divided me).

Regarding my feelings towards Jack, I was unsure. Why was I flirting with him? Was I still jealous of his friendship with the pretty and talented Charlotte? Did I want things to go further? Either magically or non-magically? Were we kindred spirits meeting by chance or was this part of some cosmic plan? Why did I like him? (Well, at least I had decided I liked him; that was a start)

And what were his real feelings towards me; they seemed as confused as mine. Was I just a willing victim/experimental subject; or perhaps a (potential) collaborator in plumbing the depths of how magic works; or possibly something more? Did his feelings towards me make any difference to my feelings towards him?

All this confused introspection was cut short when I heard the lavatory flush and Jack reappeared with a plastic shower cap in hand.

"Not exactly glamourous, is it?" I commented.

"Well what do you expect? We are doing a challenge here; if we were doing a show I'd be more prepared and you would have a swimming cap or something more glam. But this is what I've got, so take it or leave it and forfeit the challenge for preventing me from completing it."

I took the cap and tucked all my hair inside. "Any more excuses for delay?" I asked.

"None, so let's get you strapped down. We don't want any slip-ups." He went to work with the reel of strapping and the stapler. In addition to a strap across the top of my belly, both my arms were thoroughly pinioned with straps above and below my wrists, above, below and across my elbows and a finally pair high on my upper arms. These straps held my arms on the board and out from my body; I guess I was posed a bit like a gunslinger ready for a shoot-out.

"Time for the next two cuts; these will have your head passing close to the blade so don't flinch too much. In fact, you may find it helps to turn your head away from the blade." He started moving the board and suddenly I realised what he was planning. The board was soon clamped in place with the blade to my right just outside the staple holding the strap at my waist and lined up with the outer part of my shoulder; he was planning to cut my arm off!

I do not know why I was so shocked, but the realisation worried me. I would soon be totally helpless.

The blade was restarted and I followed its progress gnawing a slot in the board inches from my side. When it was about to meet the flesh at the top of my upper arm I turned away and allowed the scratch, tingle and numb feelings to happen without the horror of watching; besides the blade seemed far too close to my face for comfort.

"And now the other one," Jack said as he positioned the board so that the saw would do the same just as close on the other side. A minute or two later my other arm on its separate piece of board was moved to the side.

Jack set to work dividing my arm into hands, forearms, elbows and upper arms, doing both arms at the same time. He made some comment about saving time.

"Ok," I asked, "How many pieces is that?"

After a pause to count up, he said, "I make it eighteen; that's four limbs in four pieces each, plus your hips and the rest of your body."

"Great! You've won the challenge; you've cut me into more than sixteen pieces. Now can you put me together again so I can go home and arrange to pay you your winnings?"

"Not so fast! The original challenge said, 'Chop me up into as many pieces as you dare' and I dare chop you into more than eighteen pieces. You work for an accountants, right?" I nodded. "There must be lawyers involved for those tricky grey areas where things are legal, but morally questionable, right?" I nodded again. "Well I don't want to lose this challenge on a technicality."

"But if you had said I wouldn't know so you still would have won."

"Ah, but I would have known and there's not much more uncomfortable than a prickly conscience. So unless you want to order a Hawaiian pizza, I shall finish what I started."

He moved the parts of my arms to the floor and the board my torso was strapped so that the circular blade lined up with the gap between the upper belly strap and the bottom of the bikini top. Then he went to the controls.

"Hey! Aren't you going to strap down my chest and head?"

"I wasn't thinking of it. Unless you've suddenly developed the ability to walk on your shoulder blades you can't move so you'll be safe." With that small reassurance, he started the saw and parted my belly from my chest. He pulled the board with what was left of me away from the still spinning blade and moved the table back, but only so far that the blade was spinning in the centre of the channel in the table designed to accommodate it. "Now I have a problem; how to do the last cut. I thought I'd go for the round twenty pieces."

It took me a while to work out the implications; he was planning to cut my head off with the buzzsaw. This prospect seemed even more horrifying than fact that I was already an armless and legless upper torso. I wondered if the prospect of being behead by a magician's guillotine was as terrifying; I suspected not. I decided acting brave and a bit defiant was what I needed to do. "What's the problem? Just strap me down and line me up and away you go."

"No technical issue, but an aesthetic one. If I line the final cut up too low, I'm likely to catch the straps of the bikini and that wasn't cheap and part of the reason I gave you the other one in the first place; it being strapless. If I go too high there is a greater risk of maybe catching your chin or hair, which would be bad. And if I go in between the blade will go through, or at least catch, your vocal cords, so you won't be able to speak, which might be a mercy sometimes, but I don't think now is the time."

Taking the last point first, I said, "Are you saying I talk too much?"

"No, of course not! But on my short acquaintance with you, I'm willing to bet there are some occasions when you wish you hadn't been able to say something you later regretted." Before I could formulate a response, he said, "Don't move! I'll be back on a minute." He was heading for the door before he finished the sentence."

"Hey! Where're you going?"

"I know how I'm going to make that last cut, but it presents another problem and I'm going to make something so that it won't be a problem."

"What?" I asked, but he did not hear me, because the door slammed and he was leaping down the metal stairway, before I finished the syllable.

I was alone again and more helpless than ever. How long was Jack going to be this time? I tried amuse myself, by trying to come up with a plan for if he did not come back. Fortunately, from my position on the saw table I could see all my parts, except my belly which was the other side of the whirling blade. It soon became apparent that I could move my joints and hands and feet, but this was of little use as they were all strapped to their various sections of the original board. I tried 'walking on my shoulder blades' and discovered that I could just about move with a tiny bit of help from the cut-off arm stumps, but it was not going to be enough to get anywhere unless I threw myself off the edge of the table; the chances were that I would literally land flat on my face, so with no means of moving and a broken nose into the bargain.

I was beginning to wonder about the possibility of moving myself and cutting my own head off with the blade that hummed a few feet away, when Jack returned with a block of wood with a large notch cut in it, which he placed on the coffee table. "Right! Now we're ready for the final cut."

"You speak for yourself!"

"Ok. I'm sorry I rushed off like that."

"And where would I have been if you'd tripped down the stairs and killed yourself?"

"Um, well, in the short-term exactly where you are now, but in the slightly long-term in the best hands. My unexpected absence would have been noticed in a day or so and someone would have come to check; we magicians are a small community that looks out for each other."

In the silence that followed I wondered if I would have survived a couple of days divided into nineteen pieces and not knowing if there was any help coming. Or if I would have solved the problem of using the sawblade to top myself.

"Right," he said, in a tone that told me he found the thought he had been thinking discomforting too. "Are you ready for the final cut, Abi?"

"I'm not sure, but I don't seem to have much option."

"Well, you could say 'pineapple', but it seems such a waste. You've come so far why miss out on the last step?"

"Do you need me to do anything? Not that I am capable of much at the moment."

"No, not really. Just stay as still as possible."

I was expecting him to move the board to present me to the blade in some way, but instead he picked me up. One hand went under my head, so that he gripped my skull, through shower cap and hair, a little above and behind my ears. The fingers of the other hand he slid under the edge of my back, with the just the top joints underneath me, and then he placed his thumb on the thin bit of fabric that joined the cups of the bikini. Once lifted he pulled me against his chest and made some minor adjustments to his hold, which now felt more secure.

I did not get the chance to ask what was going on, because he took a step sideways and held me towards the rotating saw blade. I could not see it, but I could hear the distinctive whistle far too close to my ear. I froze. I would not have been able to say 'pineapple', even if the thought had not been scared out of me. I did not dare move my head a fraction of a millimetre; if I had turned away the shower cap would have made contact with the blade and been ripped off (probably with a large chunk of my hair), if I had turned towards I would be putting my face in the way of the many fast-moving teeth that were so uncomfortably close to my ear.

Looking up I could tell from the bit of the frame I could see that I was being held at an angle to the blade. As I watched I was being moved towards the whirling saw teeth. Then I felt it bite, at the base of my neck where it met the shoulder. I heard, rather too clearly, the sound of circular-saw teeth cutting through flesh as the edge of the blade come into view, too near to my chin to even consider risking opening my mouth, let alone saying anything. Jack was pushing me onto the blade. Soon the teeth reached my breast bone, a little above the cleavage that the bikini promoted, and he stopped.

It was a mix of horror and relief that flooded through me when he pulled me back off the blade. Relief that I was no long being pushed onto saw's whirling teeth. Horror, because as the saw was withdrawn, the slice it had made remained numb, meaning I had a slot running from my shoulder to the centre of my breast bone.

Once I was completely off the blade, Jack stepped sideways again and put me down. The state of affairs did not last long enough for me to get over the shock, before he turned me round and picked me up again, but with opposite hands. This time he seemed to be being careful not to close the slot he had just cut. Once he had adjusted his grip again, the horror of extreme proximity to the revolving blade with its myriad teeth was repeated, right down to the making a cut on the other side towards my breast bone.

This time he did not back me out of the slot the blade formed, he continued until the two slots met and pulled my head and upper torso in opposite directions away from the blade. His grip on the base of my ribs seemed to be fragile; he almost dropped it on the section of board on which it had originally been lying. With my head still in his hand he walked to the controls and turned off the buzzsaw.

With the saw blade slowing he manoeuvred my head until he was holding me in both hands by the base of my skull below my ears. He took the time to give me a faint smile as if he was not sure how I was reacting to the ordeal I had just been through, but hoped I would forgive him.

He carried my head towards the sofa and placed the triangular stump of my upper chest in the notch of the wood he had so recently abandoned me to fetch.

He sat down and looked at my mounted head, as if he was trying to assess how I was reacting to having my head cut off by buzzsaw. He gave up and asked, "How was that for you?"

Somehow I managed to not hurl the stream of abuse, which was queuing up in my head, at him and went with a simple, "Utterly terrifying," in a tone that added, 'I'm glad that's over.'

His face implied that this was not the reaction he was anticipating. Did he expect me to be exhilarated? Grateful? Or what?

I felt the need to elaborate. "Do you have any idea how frightening it is to have your face that close to a running buzzsaw, when you are in absolutely no position to do anything about it at all?"

The light dawned in his face. "I suppose, I can see that that might be quite scary."

"QUITE SCARY? QUITE SCARY!!!!!?" I exploded. "Try 'blood-curdlingly horrifying' then multiply by several hundred!"

"But you're alright?"

"If you count being scattered about the room in twenty pieces, but still alive and with my face not smeared across a circular saw blade, of course I'm alright. What I'm not alright with is being scared half out of my wits by a magician who thinks he can get away with anything as long as he gets it put back the way it started. And that's not just about just now; that girl at the dinner, whose dress you ruined; not only did you rip her dress (probably her best one) but you compounded the fault by pretending to use sticky tape on it, (you have no idea!) she'll probably have nightmares about that for weeks, maybe months." His face showed that he thought that fixing it was enough. "No, fixing it wasn't enough. She'll have to live with the possibility that she'll find her dress wasn't fixed permanently and one day the rip will reappear. And if that gash in her dress had sagged much more we'd have found out what colour her knickers were (assuming she was wearing any); do you have any idea how embarrassing that would have been for her?"

His expression showed that a 'but' was about to pass his lips.

I pre-empted with, "but me no buts. What's done is done. Unless you can erase the memories completely, there is nothing you can do. Well, except be more considerate in future."

During the next several minutes, neither of us spoke. He made some moves as if he was going to speak, but I shot him glances that implied whatever he was about to say it had better be good; each time he decided that what he was considering saying would not go down well.

Then it hit me; Jack, an able-bodied man was being intimidated by a woman's head mounted in a block of wood on his coffee table. I started laughing.

This puzzled him at first then as I continued he became worried enough to ask, "Sorry, but am I meant to get what you're laughing at?"

"I'm laughing at you not being able to get a word in, despite me being silent for several minutes."

"Oh," he said.

"Um, I'm sorry for the rant, but I think I made some fair points and it does seem to have relieved some stress and tension caused by the way you cut my head off."

"Well, it was the only way to divided head and chest without cutting the bikini straps or your vocal cords; although maybe you not having your voice just now might have been better."

I gave him another warning look, 'Let's not start that again.'

"Ok, I think I've won the final challenge. I've cut you into as many pieces as I dare. So, do you want to be reassembled before or after we discuss how you are going to reimburse me, then I'll give you a lift home, or I can call a taxi, if you prefer."

"We'll see how I feel on the lift against taxi situation once I'm in one piece, but I don't know if I'd be in a better negotiating position when I'm in twenty pieces or just one. Any ideas?"

He gave the question a little thought. "I reckon, at first thought, you'll be in a more powerful position, once you are whole again, because you then have the option to walk out if things didn't go your way. At the moment, I don't know where you live, so I'd have to try to find you using the two useful pieces of information I have; namely, you are called Abigail and you work for an accountants."

"You sound like you can see something that'll work in your favour, if I'm whole."

"Well, the nice feelings you'll experience when I put you back together might soften your negotiating position."

I tried to think back on how pleasant the restorations had been for the magic I had experienced so far this evening. The first illusion had produced a sexy adrenalin buzz, where as I was somewhat distracted after being brought back from 'The Nowhere', relieved to be back in reality and not paying attention to my feelings. After the multiple stabbing, I was too unwell to feel whatever buzz there might have been, unless I would have felt even more ill without it. And I had no idea what the re-joining of all my cut pieces would feel like.

"I think I'll take my chances with that possibility and waiting until I'm whole to decide what to do next. But what are we negotiating anyway? You won three of the challenges and the third one was called a draw, so I owe you three and half thousand. All you need to do is give me your bank details and I'll transfer the money, simple."

"That would be quite simple, but you may remember that I said, before we started, that I'd be making a counter-proposal."

I had forgotten, until he reminded me, but I nodded to give the impression that I did remember.

His face showed that he saw through my act, but he just continued. "Well here it is. Would you like to become my assistant? I'd let you off the three-thousand-five-hundred if you did."

"Why would you do that? Let me off the money, if I became your assistant, that is. And what would being your assistant entail?"

"Well, I've been thinking of trying to find an assistant, for a while now. The main disincentives were the costs; you know, advertising, hiring a venue for the interviews (because I couldn't do them here) and the drawing up of contracts (Magician's assistants' contracts are complicated, what with non-disclosure clauses and such, so they don't come cheap). And then there's the magician's assistants' course you'd need to go on. And I wouldn't know if the person I chose was someone I could work with and I'd have to go through the process again, because once you are a 'magician with an assistant', you need to stay a 'magician with an assistant' because many of the bookings you'll have will have been booked on the basis that you have an assistant." He paused. "Sorry, I seem to have lost track. What was the question?"

"I think you were saying that if I accepted your offer to become your assistant, I'd saving you more than the four grand you donated to the charity to get me here. And having done various things to me, you know I'm not only a proper 'magical assistant' type, but think that you could work with me longer term. Right?

"Right," he confirmed, "and I bet one of your bosses could save me some tax on the money, not only as a charitable donation, but as a recruitment expense too."

"I dare say they could. So I come back to the other part of the question. What would I have to do? As your assistant, I mean."

"It wouldn't be much to start with. A couple of evenings a week, here, to 'rehearse', by which I mean trying out illusions and putting a show together. I'd need to book you on the magician's assistants' course at the Magicians' College; I assume you'd be able to arrange a break from your work for that; it's only a week, but quite intensive, I gather. Once you had your certificate, I could start booking gigs for both of us; we'd need to work out how to organise that, but I doubt initially there'd be more than once a week, probably less than that to start with. After that you may want to go full-time. But let's take this a step at a time; you haven't even said 'yes' yet."

"And I'm not going to, until I'm in at most two pieces. I might decide that I need to sleep on it, which given the time now means not until after tomorrow night. For a start, I need to know you can do something more constructive than chopping a person to bits. Besides, I'll need to able to drink another cup of your coffee before I go, to help me make it through the morning. And I can't do that if my hand can't reach my mouth."

"Is that a round-about way of saying you want me to put you back together?" I nodded. "Any preference for what order I put you together?"

"Not really, but I'd like to be able move and do things as soon as possible, please."

"Right," he said as he got up and put on another flask of coffee to brew, then went and pushed the strips of board that he had laid out on the floor together, so that they were together and the pieces of my legs and my hips were touching. I could feel the various parts of my legs making contact with their corresponding parts from the other side of the cut, but I could still feel the cut. Jack also looked surprised too. "Did you move?" he asked.

"Well, I had to make sure that they were still my parts and you hadn't smuggled them away and replaced them with fake parts while they were out of sight, the other side of the saw blade." I knew this did not make sense, because I was on the sofa while my legs were sawn to pieces. I followed up with, "Besides what else did I have to do while you went off to get this, um; what would you call it? A head-stand, I guess; but that sounds stupid."

"It's not a major problem. Your movements put everything out of line. I'll just have to touch you to get the lining up, alright?"

"Hold your horses, Mister!" I called, realising at this point that I could not see any of the rest of me, because the sofa was in the way. "What do you mean by, 'Touch me'?"

"All I mean is touch, you know, like make physical contact so that I can move and adjust your parts so that they will join together again." Suddenly the penny seemed to drop for him. "Oh! No! I wasn't planning to do anything inappropriate."

I half expected him to add, 'well, not unless you wanted to me to,' but he did not. His next sentence told my why.

"That would be unprofessional." He seemed to be under the impression that he needed to be on his best behaviour if he wanted to have me fill his vacancy for a magician's assistant. Maybe he did; I was not quite sure myself. It would probably only take something small to swing my thoughts from fancying the idea of seeing him on a fairly regular basis (as seemed to be my inclination at this point) to never wanting to hear from him ever again (and 3,500 would be cheap at twice the price).

I decided to let him off the hook, a bit, by suggesting, "Why don't you bring all my pieces over to the sofa, where I can actually see what you're up to, as well as the miracle of my body being re-built right before my eyes."

"Great idea! Safer for me and more interesting for you. By the way, that was a great turn of phrase you just used, just ideal for a magician's proper assistant, rather than just a box-jumper; it had a bit that carny style to it."

He came round the end of the sofa carrying two boards, one with my feet strapped to it and the other wider one had my lower legs. A few pulls of the straps and my feet and calves lay on sofa in no particular order. Jack sat next to them. He picked up my right foot and placed it on the floor and then picked up one of the lower legs by the knee-less end and began to rub the foot-less end against the cut surface that was upmost on my foot with small circular motions.

"That's not working. Have I got the right leg?" he said.

"How should I know?" I asked, a little surprised that he was having a problem.

"You should be able to feel where I'm touching you."

"Hmm, I can feel you are touching me, but things are a bit jumbled at the moment; what with nothing being in line with anything else. And I'm not exactly used to being in many parts."

"You did very well, in such a short time, when you were in half. I'll tap on your calf if it makes it easier, or would that just be distracting?"

I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate. "I think you are holding my left leg, but to be sure tap me once at the top, middle or bottom of that part and if I get it right, we can be pretty sure that I have identified the correct part."

I tapped me gently on the bottom of the lower right leg, which still lay on the seat of the sofa. "That's the bottom of the other leg and it still feel you're holding my left leg." I opened my eyes. "Why did you touch the wrong leg?"

"I reckoned that an unexpected test would be more conclusive than an expected test; you know, like an unannounced fire drill."

"So now we know you were trying to get my right foot to join onto my left leg. Does that ever work?"

"I don't think so; in general it'll either go back right or not at all. But I don't knew everything; some magician may have worked out how to do it."

"And what about the double sawing?" I asked.

"That's an illusionists' illusion, real magicians don't do it, other than the illusionists' way, because body parts from different people never join, because it's impossible to line things up that were never lined up before."

"There you go with that word, 'impossible' again," I teased.

"I did hear of one magician who tried it, but it was too cumbersome getting the assistants to clamp the other assistant's lower limbs to their upper torsos and then remain balanced on the other assistant's legs which were still under her control. He gave up and did it the way the illusionists do."

"So you couldn't swap peoples' heads, or something like that?"

"I certainly couldn't, at the moment, but who knows, maybe someone will work out a way to do it. And if they ever do, I might be able to learn how. Would you like to try it, if it is ever done?"

"I don't know, it sounds a bit creepy using someone else's body. But I might want to if I knew for certain that I could come back to my body; it might be an adventure. Talking about my body, you're no further forward putting me back together."

He put down the leg he was holding and picked up the other leg section. After a brief period of rubbing the corresponding surfaces together I felt a minor twitch as my feet moved round slightly (just a few degrees). It seemed like, as things got sufficiently in line, they attached producing a force that moved more stuff to be in line and quickly like a chain reaction everything was in line and attached. The reason my foot moved rather my leg twisting, I guess, was that Jack was holding tighter that the friction stopping my foot from moving on the floor. This rationalisation actually came to me after a minute or so, because my immediate feeling was a great wellbeing radiating from where the cut had been in both directions; my whole lower leg (including my knee several yards away) felt as if it had received an intense, but relaxing, massage. I think I zoned out for a short while.

When I returned to being present in the moment, I saw Jack face was a picture of uncertainty.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Nothing, I hope," he replied. "You got a funny look on your face and I couldn't tell if that was good or bad. So I was waiting to find out."

"Well, it felt good. Maybe too good. I guess I was savouring the experience."

"I've never seen anyone go funny like that before."

"You mean what's-her-name, the girl with the dress, the one you jigsawed earlier didn't 'go funny'?" I felt my fingers making the air-quotes somewhere on boards on the floor.

"Not really, but she did smile for about half a second. Mind you, I wasn't exactly making notes; I was busy performing."

"So, you've never had anyone react like I did?"

"A few have commented that they like the restoration part of some illusions, but I always thought that was more about get back to normal, rather than any excess of good feeling. It's not like this stuff has been studied much."

"So, what was Magician's College for?"

"It's mostly about teaching you to control the magic, making it safer and how to perform using it. In fact, we were warned about trying to push the boundaries too far; there was some story about a 'research witch' who died while trying to determine how many bristles her broom could lose and still fly, which they used as an illustration."

"I think I get it; you're not encouraged to push the envelope in case something goes wrong. I guess that that would make a mess that it would be hard to keep secret. By the way, why do you keep the existence of real magic a secret? And how do you know I'll keep that secret?"

"I remember being told at college, that we keep the secret, because if we didn't, there would be a lot of girls dying of being sawn in half by their kid brothers, while trying to find out if they were magicians." I must have frowned, because he added, "Yes, it does sound like an excuse, and a feeble one at that. I reckon it's more the secret society mentality, from the days when ordinary folk would be executed for being suspected of using magic, but the rich people, the nobility, I suppose, could hide what they did and get away with it, as long as they kept it mostly hidden."

"And how do you know I'll keep your secret?" I prompted.

"Well, in short, I don't; but I think you will. But if you tell people that I've been using real magic, no-one will believe you. They'll think you're a fantasist or were hypnotised or some other more mundane explanation. Of course, if you come back, having decided that you want to be my assistant, there will be the assistant's contract, which you will have to sign. That will prevent you letting the cat out of the bag in any major way."

A tickle in my lower left leg, which I would usually just lean down and scratch, reminded me that I was in multiple pieces scattered across quite a wide area. "I think we've got a bit side-tracked. You were putting me back together."

"Yes, I was. Concentrating on the job at hand can be a bit tricky after more than eight hours." He let go of my right leg and picked up my left shin.

I watched in dismay as my lower right leg toppled onto its side. The slap as side of my calf hit the floor and the bump as the knob of my ankle landed did not hurt, but did a lot to undo the residual good feeling that remained. Jack did not notice. He picked up my left foot, by the heel and rubbed the ankle stump against the bottom of my leg, then suddenly it clicked into place and I was away with the fairies again.

By the time I had returned to awareness, he had placed both leg parts on the sofa side by side. He obviously recognised that I was back, as he began speaking. "I'm sorry I left your leg to fall over. I, kind of, assumed that because you can walk with your lower half that your legs could stand on their own."

Feeling quite good, I brushed it off. "There wasn't enough weight to hurt, so no harm done. So where's the rest of me?"

"I thought about fetching them, while you were, erm, 'experiencing the re-joining', but then you started shaking your head and I was worried that you might topple over and hurt yourself." I guess I looked more than mildly sceptical, because he added, "I'll go and bring more of you to re-assemble."

He hastily rose and moved to retrieve more of me. He returned with my knees and thighs, which soon lay in a jumbled heap beside my calves. "Which way would you like to be re-joined; knees to calves first then attach your thighs or knees to thighs first?"

"Do you think it'll make any difference?"

He shrugged, "I've only ever been cut in half once; and there aren't a lot of options for being put back together in that situation."

"Surely, you've had someone say that one way was nicer than another."

"Never. But then I don't do multiple cuts that often and on those rare occasions it is usually with someone who was new to it; so no previous experience to compare. Not that I'd have done it differently; we magicians have a tendency to stick with what we know works."

"And I got the impression that you were a bit of a maverick at college."

"I was, but you only have to stack a mismade girl in a slightly different order to be considered a maverick."

"So stealing busses is not maverick behaviour?" I asked.

"Thankfully, the college authorities never found out about that or I might have been expelled or worse."

I parked the question of what might a magician consider worse than expulsion from college in favour of becoming a whole person instead of a collection of scattered parts. "I don't really mind which order you try, but I would like to whole again and on my way home before dawn."

"Ok, I'll try each leg in a different order and wait for you to stop 'experiencing' to get feedback." Since when had 'experiencing' become a term for having such intense good feelings that you ignore the world for a while?

I nodded and he picked up a knee. I closed my eyes and said, "That's my left knee."

Before I had re-opened my eyes, he rubbed the lower end of the knee against the top of my calf and I 'experienced'. As I came to, he rubbed my left thigh onto the knee's upper surface and I 'experienced' again.

"How was that?" Jack asked as I returned to being concerned with reality.

"Wow! The good feelings were very good," I said stressing the word 'very'. "But I was expecting a pause before you put my thigh on."

"Well, I figured that you needed to get a feel for how knee to calf then thigh felt in as close a sequence as practical, so that you can tell the difference, if any, when the other way round is used."

"I guess," I replied, not entirely sure I agreed, but realising that I was going to be back in one piece quicker this way, so not objecting. "Give me a moment to try and put my feelings in some sort of order, otherwise I won't have anything to compare the other way to."

He waited until I nodded to attach right knee to right thigh and then, when I resurfaced, my right upper leg to my right lower leg.

As I surfaced again, Jack was dropping the four sections of my right arm on the seat of the sofa, between where he sat and where he had hooked my legs over the edge as if they were sitting there without me.

"Your 'experiencing' doesn't seem to be lasting as long; I had hoped to have both your arms here ready to re-assemble before you were back." He paused. "So was there any difference between the re-joinings?"

I took stock of what I had most recently felt and tried to compare it with what I had felt with the previous pair of attachments. "I, kind of, wish I could say that one was better or even noticeably different from the other, but truthfully I could not tell enough difference that was any bigger than the difference between attaching my different feet. It may be that it's masked by the pure intensity of the re-join; it may be that there's no difference. I just couldn't tell."

"Ok," said Jack, seeming a little disappointed that this question was unresolved. "Are you ready for your arm to be done? I was thinking of attaching all the parts in quick succession and hope it didn't make your experiencing go on too long."

"I'm game."

He picked up my upper arm and my elbow and rubbed them together. The good feelings were almost immediate and I saw him pick up my fore-arm, before my consciousness decided that the external world was unimportant. When I was back in the real world, my arm lay whole on the seat of the sofa, but I could not see Jack.

He soon reappeared with the parts of my other arm in a basket. "I think your experiencing is taking less time, but I can't be absolutely sure."

"Why might that be?"

"Not a clue. It could be your getting used to it, but equally it could be that the cause is getting weaker or even it might be related somehow to the number of pieces you are in at the time. It could be anything."

"In that case you might as well just put the other arm together and see how quickly I come back to my senses."

He did the re-joining of the arm in the same order as he had the previous one and this time I felt him pick up my hand before my consciousness lost interest in the real. The feelings as I came back were just as good, but not as intense.

"You were definitely not out of it for quite as long this time."

"And it took me longer to, er; I lost track of where that sentence was going. But the fact is I could, um, well, I was aware of things being done until just after you picked up my hand, but on the other arm I lost track at the fore arm. Am I making sense here?"

"Well, kind of," said Jack. "You seem to taking all this magic very well indeed; especially as it's your first time. I kind of expected you to be saying 'pineapple' after the second challenge. I've heard that most newbie assistants need to be broken in gently, to get used to handling the amount of magic used on them. That's partly why I thought I would win the challenges; extreme magic and newbie assistant usually leads to the assistant wanting a day's break before continuing."

"Stop pontificating and bring the rest of me, so I can be fully put together!"

Jack scuttled off and returned with my hips, still strapped to their section of MDF. He put this down into the space behind my seated legs. I cooperated by lifting leg-stumps so I was sat behind my legs. I then pressed back with my legs and felt them make contact with the stumps. With contact made, I tried wriggling my hips and thighs. I felt the instants when each thigh began to join and the twitches as the alignment of the parts rippled out from the initial points of perfect contact. The good feelings were wonderful, but this time I did not lose interest in other stuff.

"Well, your 'experiencing' has tapered off a lot," he commented as he pulled the strap and took the board from behind my hips; this he added to the growing pile of MDF under the coffee table.

He rose to fetch my next piece, which was my belly. This time he pulled the straps holding it to its section of board and grasped it by the sides, gently but firmly; I think he was trying to avoid tickling me. He came to the back of the sofa and leaned over to place it on my truncated hips. I jiggled my hips to try and get it to join. I looked at the piece of me sat on top of my hips.

"You've got my belly upside-down, Jack. I can tell because my belly button is too high."

He leaned back over the rear of the sofa and flipped my middle and as he put it down he rubbed it across the flat top of my hips. The result was more good feelings and a lack of evidence that the parts had ever been separate.

He did the same with my upper torso, although he did seem to find it a bit of a puzzle; how to carry my chest without touching me inappropriately. He opted for lifting it to being vertical using my shoulders and then putting his hands under my arms-stumps to carry me to the sofa; it took some concentration not to wriggle, as I am quite ticklish there too.

As I watched he came round the sofa and completed the job by rubbing my arms against the arms stumps until they joined. I looked at my body sat on that sofa wearing a black bikini. The only thing I felt marred my good looks was the triangular notch between my shoulders where my neck and head should be.

"Do you want to put your own head on?" he asked.

I looked at him as if he had offered me a plate of wriggling worms. "I thought you said you had to do it. Are you trying to ensure I come back, because my head fell off part way through the morning?"

"Of course not. What I said was that I (or at a pinch another magician) had to be present; not that I had to do it. If that was the case your legs would come off too, because you did the pressing together."

"Oh," I said. "So, I just pick my head up and slide into the gap between my shoulders until it clicks into place?"

"Exactly, but you'll probably find it easier if I turn you round so that you are facing the same direction as your body; I understand that trying to juggle your own head can be quite disorienting, but you seem to adapt so quickly, maybe you could manage it."

"I think I won't chance it this time and I reckon I'll need you to guide my hands to my head."

Jack turned my head on its block to face the kitchenette and took my body by the wrists and guided me to lean forward and placed my hands either side of my head. Once he had let go, I pressed inwards until I was sure I had a solid grip and lifted.

It felt odd to be moving my head with my hands, rather than with my body and neck, but a small amount of experimentation gave me the hang of it. At this point I realised that my hold on my head would make it difficult to safely place it in the desired and usual position, so I put my head in my lap so I could adjust my hold, which took a bit of thinking about. Once a better hold was established, I lifted my head into the gap between my shoulders. When I put it down and let go, I found it was a little further forward than is the custom. I put a hand on the triangular section jutting from my upper chest and pushed backwards. As the jut became flush, I felt the section of re-joining, which not only provided a lot of good feelings, but added the bonus good feeling of being whole again. I sat there for a while just relishing the 'restored to wholeness' of my being.

"It feels good to be back in one piece," I commented. Jack visibly relaxed.

Jack paused for a while, in case I had anything else I wanted to say.

"Before we re-assembled you, we were talking about if you'd like to become my assistant." He paused again to allow me time to say something; I did not. "I don't really need an answer straight away, but, of course, it would be nice. If you want to sleep on it, I quite understand. In which case we should exchange email addresses, get you the coffee you said you'd need to get you through the morning and sort out getting you home."

"Well, I'm not going to give you my final decision now," I said, "but at the moment I am thinking that it wouldn't be the worst decision in my life if I decided to see you again. As you said, it is a big commitment becoming a magician's assistant, especially if that magician does real magic; so I think some careful consideration is in order. I'll write down my e-mail while you're pouring the coffee. I'll look at my sawing while we drink it and then you can take me home, if you've got something other the van to take me home in otherwise you'll need to organise me a taxi."

He readied the coffee while I noted my email on the post-it pad and began to review the footage of me being sawn to pieces. He took the pad over to the computer and put my address into his email. After coffee was drunk, he took me home in a hatch-back that had the rear seats folded down, as if he used the area for transporting stuff more than people.

Dawn was well passed when I got home and I promised Jack that I would let him know which way I had decided by the end of next week; he handed me a card with his email and a phone number on. "If you need to ask any questions or clarify anything, don't hesitate to call and if I can't answer straight away I'll get back to you. Goodbye." He drove off as I reach the door to the flats.

I swiped my card in the lock and went up the stairs to the flat. Linda emerged from the bathroom looking as if she was hungover.

"So, how did your after-show date go? And why are you wearing a bikini?"

Damn, I knew I had forgotten something. Now I'd have to get in touch with Jack to get him to return my good frock.