Magic Shorts: Showgirls

Martin walked onto the stage. "Welcome to my show, 'Glamour Illusions' and these are my glamourous assistants, Andrea and Annabella." For the wings came two elegantly dressed women to stand either side of the magician. "It has become a tradition of mine to select two glamourous ladies from the audience, to act as showgirl helpers for the evening. These two ladies will get to be up close with the magic and, in some instances, be part of the magic." He paused to let this announcement sink in, then called for the house lights to rise and any volunteers to stand up. As he did so, his assistants went to the front corners of stage, where steps led from the floor of the auditorium to the stage.

About two dozen members of the audience stood up, because they felt they had the potential to be Martin's showgirl helpers or because the wanted the opportunity to witness the magic from closer than their seats. There were even two men who had been persuaded to stand, much to the amusement of the rest of the audience and their own embarrassment. Martin's assistants soon selected a woman each and guided them to the stage.

"Welcome Ladies!" he greeted and shook each by the hand. "And your names are?"

The taller woman answered first, "My name is Violet." The shorter woman added, "And mine is Verity."

"Good! So, Violet and Verity, have either of you ever been a show girl before? And what do you do for a living?"

Both women denied any experience as showgirls. Violet worked in a car dealership as a receptionist and saleswoman, while Verity claimed a boring admin job.

"Do you have any idea what you volunteered for?" asked the magician.

"I thought it would be mostly standing around looking elegant in a skimpy outfit and, maybe, posing to enhance the display of whatever you do," hazarded Violet. She sang, "Ta-da!" and turned to Martin with one arm raised high and the other low. Verity quickly joined in adopting a mirrored pose on his other side.

"That's excellent, Violet. Is that what you thought being a magic-show showgirl would entail, Verity?"

"I was guessing it would be something like that, but I also thought that it would include a bit of helping work, like handing you stuff. You did also mentioning, almost in passing, that we might be part of the magic; I hope that that doesn't involve being in a 'cut you up' or 'run you through' illusion." The way she spoke indicated that she was more happy to be helping out with the illusions than she was about the skimpy outfit part of the deal.

Martin turned back to Violet, "Are you ok with that?"

Violet indicated that she was, but her tone showed that she had volunteered to be glamourous on stage rather than doing the fetching and carrying for the magician.

"Alright, shall we get started? Verity, why don't you take off your coat? Because we can't get started if you're wearing it." Andrea was at Verity's elbow waiting to take the coat.

"What?" asked Verity, "I thought we'd be taken backstage and given costumes to get into and brought back when we were ready, and, perhaps given some instruction on what we are supposed to do." Despite this protest, she shrugged off her overcoat and handed it to the assistant waiting to accept it.

"That is precisely why I need to transform you both into showgirls here on stage; so that the audience know that you have not been instructed in your illusions and are acting normally; well, as normally as anybody can act on the stage of a magic show. It'll also give the audience something to watch, because they came to see magic and if we spent five or ten minutes waiting for you to change, they'll get bored. And they'll get some idea of the effort it takes to become a showgirl for the evening." Martin raised and spread his arms in front of him, which the audience took as a cue to applaud their approval of the plan laid out. Some liked the idea of the two volunteers undressing on stage, others were for seeing the process, and some were in favour of having the assurance that there would be no backstage coaching of the volunteers.

"Well, that seems to be decided," said the magician. "Let's start by having you take off your shoes."

Both women slipped off their heels and passed them into the waiting hands of the assistants. Violet was now barefoot below the trousers of her trouser-suit, while Verity was in stockings or tights that enveloped her legs beyond the hem of her knee-length skirt. Both became shorter, but Violet was still taller than Verity, but by not as much, because she had been wearing higher heels, but that difference was still nearly three inches.

"Shall we sort out shoes, before we move on to the rest of the outfit?"  Both women seemed surprised by the proposal. Violet was thinking of the difficulty of get her trousers off over shoes and Verity was wondering about if she would need to take off her tights at some point. "You don't look like you think that's a good place to start."

"It's going to make the rest of the change a bit difficult," volunteered Violet. "These trousers are a bit tight to get on; with shoes on it would be impossible."

The assistants whisked the volunteers' shoes offstage and quickly returned with a pair of shoebox sized boxes each, which they placed on the floor between the wings and the centre of the stage, but not before showing them to be empty. Martin asked his volunteers to walk to the wings and return stepping in the boxes on the way back.

The volunteers did as they were asked and stumbled towards each other on the steps following their steps into and out of the boxes, because of the sparkling high heels that had appeared on their feet as they left the boxes. They met centre stage and hugged each other for support until they had adjusted to the presence of the high-heeled shoes on their feet. Both sets of heels were higher than the shoes they had handed to the assistants and once more the discrepancy between their heights had reduced, but was still a little over two inches.

The assistants picked up the boxes and went to retrieve more props from the wings.

With the volunteers stable on their new shoes. Martin came forward to talk some more. "So, what kind of costume do you think showgirls wear?" he asked.

Violet answered first. "Something like a bikini but covered in rhinestones and a headdress of feathers." Verity, not to be outdone, added, "And tights with a high sheen to emphasise their legs, because showgirls are meant to be leggy, aren't they?"

"That's the kind of thing I associate with show girl costumes," confirmed Martin, "Shall we get on with it?"

Verity blanched. "You're not going to have us strip in front of all these people, are you?" she asked.

"Not unless you both really want to." He paused, to allow the male contingent of the audience to hope that the volunteers would say yes, but both shook their heads. "So, that is why we have these changing booths." The volunteers looked back to see low square platforms with cloth around the bottom edge and poles to six foot at each corner. From the volunteers' points of view the platforms seemed to be covered by a sheet of black fabric.

"Ok, step onto the platform from behind and shuffle forward until your toes encounter the edge of the front piece of stretchy fabric then continue forward until your heels are standing on the wood. Once you're there we'll raise the curtain a few inches and you can position yourselves centrally. Is that clear?"

The two volunteers nodded and followed the instructions. Martin's assistants pulled cords that caused the cloths round the platforms to rise up the poles concealing the volunteers' feet. Violet and Verity shuffled to be central between the poles on their respective platforms.

"Verity and Violet stand still and cross your arms, while we raise the curtain to the next stage; waist height."

Andrea pulled on the cord that caused the curtain to rise up Verity's legs; as she did she leant forward and prodded the volunteer's skirt through the gap in the stretchy membrane. Annabella had no such trouble drawing her curtain over Violet's trousered legs. As the curtain tops reached waist height, the bottoms lifted from the platform showing the volunteers' feet; some of the audience noticed that they seemed shinier. The assistants pushed the ropes into clamps to stop the curtains falling.

Next Andrea reached into the curtained area through a slit at the side and pulled out a pair of plain nude tights. She placed these on the fabric in front of Verity and the audience could tell from her expression that she recognised them as hers. Counting to three the assistants reached in through the side-slits in the cabinets they were attending and swiftly withdrew a garment each. Andrea pulled a pair of trousers that matched the ones Violet had been wearing and Annabella had in her hand a skirt that matched Verity's. They acted puzzled then went to the centre of the stage to exchange the item they had for the item that belonged in the cabinet they were in control of. On their return to their cabinet they dropped the item of clothing onto the fabric, where both the volunteers clearly spotted that these garments were theirs. The two assistants coordinated their next reach into the area concealed by the curtain and removed an under-garment each. Before putting them on the fabric top, they displayed these to the audience; Verity evidently spotted her white cotton briefs and Violet seemed dismayed at her black lace thong being waved in front of the crowd.

"You didn't think you could wear your own underwear under your showgirl outfits, did you?" commented the magician. "On to the next stage. The girls will raise the curtains up to neck level and you should put your hand through the holes you find in front of you under the frame supporting the curtain."

As the assistants reclaimed the strings to raise the curtains, some of the men in the audience expressed their enthusiasm to see what had happened behind the curtain. The revealed legs were in shiny tights. The assistants paused with the bottom of the curtain at mid-thigh, to allow the volunteers to push their arms under the fabric and put their hands out through the hand holes they found in the front of the curtains. The curtains then rose until only the volunteers' head poked out through the top, this revealed their hips, which were covered by high-waisted bikini bottoms mostly hidden by narrow strips of fabric studded with rhinestones that reached down to high thigh level, forming insubstantial glittering skirts. There were some whistles from the audience.

With the curtain raising cords returned to the clamps, Annabella and Andrea took it in turns to reach into the curtained section and pull out something. First Annabella extracted Violet's jacket, then Andrea removed Verity's blouse. Next to come was Violet's top and Verity's bra soon followed. Annabella reached in and came out empty handed, allowing the audience to draw their own conclusions.

"Ok, if you could step out and show yourselves to the audience. You just need to duck down and under the curtains."

The volunteers stepped forth and looked at each other, hoping to get a sample of what to expect when they looked down. At first glance, they saw each other as naked except the shimmer of rhinestones about their hips and chests, so they pressed hands to those areas lest they expose more than they wished to. With the confirmation provided by the sense of touch they relaxed enough to stand straight with their hands by their sides as the magician drew them back to the mid-stage area.

"What do you think of the outfits?" asked the magician.

Typically Violet was the first to answer. "If what I see on Verity is what I'm wearing, it looks gorgeous, and not quite as revealing as I had expected." Verity blushed, being very conscious of the amount of her cleavage and the upper slopes of her breasts that remained unhidden. "If I have one complaint, it that mine feels a bit loose about my chest. I guess this only comes in one size and my tits aren't as big as Verity's."

"I admit there may be some adjustments to make, but are they ok to wear for the rest of the evening?"

Violet's enthusiastic, 'Oh yes!' covered Verity's more qualified, 'I guess.'

"As I just intimated, your transformations are not complete. You've got the shoes and the dazzling costumes, what do you think comes next?"

"The feather headdresses, I've always thought I'd look great in one of those," squealed Violet.

"Any ideas, Verity?" asked the magician.

"Well, you seem to be working from the bottom up, so what about hair and make-up?"

"Precisely!" confirmed Martin.

"But, won't that take a long time?" asked Verity.

"Not the way I do it."

Andrea was standing next to Verity holding out a hand mirror, and behind her back a paper bag. Annabella was on the other side offering a mirror to Violet. The volunteers accepted the mirrors and held them up where they could see their reflections without preventing the audience from seeing the process of fixing hair and make-up. The assistants went round behind the volunteers and swiftly placed a bag over their volunteer's heads.

Both volunteers gave a squeak of protest as the assistants held the rims of the bags to their shoulders. This did not last long, because Martin placed a hand on top of each bag and pressed them down to the rims. He paused to acknowledge the applause from the audience and then grabbed the bases of the bags and lifted them from the confused volunteers' heads.

Both volunteers seemed on the edge of complaining about their treatment, when they glimpsed their faces in the mirrors. Verity was astounded that her auburn hair had acquired a sheen she had not seen in it since the last time she had treated herself to a trip to a hair salon. Violet's blond hair almost shone. They were both impressed by the difference to their make-up, emphasising eyes and lips and imparting a healthy glow to their complexions.

"Hair and make-up sorted," announced Martin. "Just two more things to sort out."

"I thought, it would be just the headdresses to do," said Violet.

"You seem to have missed an important thing about showgirls." In answer to puzzled looks from his apprentice showgirls, he added, "Showgirls match; in any particular production all the showgirls are the same height and have the same figure. We have a bit of a problem, because Violet is obviously taller than Verity, despite Verity being in slightly higher heels. And as Violet pointed out earlier, Verity is noticeably bustier. We need to get you to match."

"You can't do that!" said Verity. "There's no way to make me taller, or her shorter. And if you wanted our tits to match, why didn't you put some padding inside her top?"

"We'll address the first problem first." He pointed to a stool and a tripod with a cross bar on top that Andrea brought onto the stage; she also had a cloth draped over her shoulder. "Verity, please go and sit on the stool and we'll do the rest."

Verity gave the newly introduced equipment a doubtful look, but went over to the stool. She noted some straps dangling under the seat of the four legged wooden stool. Andrea helped Verity sit on the stool and then reached for the straps. The assistant assured the volunteer that this was so that she did not slip off the stool. Verity watched as Andrea lifted the strapping from it anchor point under the stool between her legs and separated the two parts taking a strap over each thigh and hip and clipping it to the back of the stool.

"There you are, secure on the stool," said Martin. "Now please raise your legs and we'll put this rest under your ankles so they stick straight out."

With help from Andrea, Verity's ankles we soon resting on the bar on top of the tripod and it had been adjusted so that her legs were straight out in front of her, sideways to the audience. The magician came forward and whisked the draped cloth from his assistant's shoulder and settled it over Verity's legs, leaving her hips and feet visible to the spectators.

"This may feel a bit weird, but not as weird as it looks." The magician stood facing Verity and took hold her upstage foot. He pulled; to the audience it look like he was making a huge effort, but to Verity it felt like he was massaging her foot, ankle and lower shin. After about twenty seconds he stood back. Verity's upstage foot was clearly visible beyond her other one by about two inches. The audience applauded the result. Another twenty seconds of effort was expended pulling the downstage leg to match. The result was that Verity's feet seemed to have been extended to rest a couple of inches further beyond the crossbar without Verity, the stool she sat on or the tripod-supported crossbar moving.

Andrea released the straps holding Verity to the stool and help her lower her feet. Violet was brought over and their heights compared; there was no longer a noticeable difference in their heights. The audience applauded; even those that had initial thought the effect had been achieved by Verity shifting on the stool.

"Now that Verity matches Violet height-wise, it's time to get Violet to match Verity in the bust department."

"What are you going to do to me?" Violet asked.

"I going to enhance your bust, but because I'm not a certified cosmetic surgeon, I can only make a temporary change; the effect will be gone by tomorrow morning. As will yours, Verity."

Annabella lifted a pipe about two feet long and three-quarters of an inch in diameter. In her other hand she held a funnel. The pipe had two side tubes evenly spaced between the ends.

"What's that for?" queried Violet.

"This pipe will introduce the extra material needed to plump up your boobs." In response to Violet's shocked expression, he added. "I hope you didn't think I was going to wave my hands over your chest and have it expand; this may be a magic show, but what we do also needs to be physically plausible."

"Ok, I think," Violet said in a dubious tone. "So who's he?" She pointed to a black suited man carrying a small handheld video camera.

"I'm glad you asked. This is Derek, he will be showing the audience things that would be otherwise too small to see from their seats, because everything the camera sees will be projected onto the big screen at the back of the stage."

"So, why's he here now?"

"Because nobody is going to get a proper view of you boobs expanding without Derek's camera."

Derek pointed the camera at Violet and the screen on the back wall lit up with the image of Violet from the waist up, flanked by Martin and Annabella.

"How does this work, then?"

"It's very easy and nothing for you to worry about. We place the pipe, here, so that the spurs touch the outside of you bikini top and then pour water into this funnel. The water will flow down the pipes and fill out your boobs until they match Verity's, so when the water starts to come out the other end your done and we can move on to the final stage of your transformation."

Between them Martin and Annabella held the tube across Violet's chest. Martin fitted the funnel in his end, while Annabella held a glass under her end, to catch any excess water. Martin was handed a large jug of water and commenced pouring it into the funnel.

As the water was poured into the funnel, Violet's nearest breast began to swell to fill the cup of the bikini top. The audience could see the expansion on the big screen and Violet's shocked expression which also showed some element of it feeling good to her. When the first cup was filled, Violet's other began to fill out. Before long it matched its neighbour, then a trickle of water come from the tube to be caught in the glass held by Annabella. The magician stopped pouring.

Andrea accepted the jug from Martin and Annabella took the glass and the tube with the funnel still in the end. They went into the wings to put these things away and collect what they would need next. Martin stood Violet and Verity next to each other, demonstrating that their figures and height were close enough to get them mixed up if it were not for their hair colour.

"So while we set up for fitting your headdresses, how are you feeling?" Martin asked.

"A bit odd, but in a nice kind of way; I might even feel sexy," said Verity.

"Yes, I do feel peculiar, but it feels sexy and not at all unpleasant."

"So, why do you think showgirls wear headdresses, anyway?" asked the magician.

"I assumed that it was something to do with making them look taller and more slender, because everyone thinks tall, slender women are more beautiful," suggested Verity.

"That's a good theory and probably true, at least in part. Any ideas Violet?"

"I never given it any thought, but my guess would be that headdresses take up space; maybe the shows have showgirls wear headdresses, so they take up more space on stage. That way they don't have to employ as many showgirls to make a stage seem full. Does that make sense?"

Mike thought for a moment. "It's certainly possible that it is a ruse to use fewer showgirls, especially as finding a set of matching showgirls can be quite a challenge in the first place. Do you want to hear my theory?"

"Ok, what's your theory?" asked Verity.

"I think it's a posture thing. A headdress can be quite heavy, so once it's on your head you need to hold your head up straight or it is a strain on your neck; this encourages straight and upright posture, which is something expected of showgirls."

The two volunteers acknowledged that this was as good a theory as either of them had proposed.

Martin glanced back and saw that everything was ready for the final stage of the transformation of his volunteers into showgirls for the evening.

"Andrea and Annabella are ready; so please take a seat on the chairs and we can fit the headdresses."

Verity went to the seat that Andrea was standing behind and Violet went to the chair attended by Annabella, but paused to look at the headdress which was displayed on a model head. The headdress was mainly a large fan of long white feathers, the quills of the feathers were anchored into a smallish thing that had the profile of a Greek urn; the whole thing seemed to sit directly on the display head.

"Violet, Verity, I need you to get comfortable in your seats and sit very upright with you heads held high." He made some small adjustments to their positions by touching their shoulders and moving their chins. "Great, you're both naturals at this. Now hold that pose while we put the headdresses on you."

The assistants lifted the headdresses from the model heads showing that they had been held in place by a two and half foot spike that went through a hole in the display head through the tabletop and down the inside of the leg of the table. The assistant held the spike part about a foot from the tip and cautiously transferred the top-heavy weight until they had them hovering over the volunteers' heads.

At a signal from Mike then assistants rammed the spikes into the volunteers' heads. Both volunteers gave a yelp, but the assistants put their hands to the bases of the headdresses and pushed them down until they made contact with the volunteers' scalps, flattening their hair slightly.

The volunteers looked a little stunned by what had just happened, but not in pain. The magician directed Derek to capture an image, once he had help the volunteers to stand, which seemed a little awkward, but consistent with them having rods embedded through their heads and down their necks and backs.

Derek took the picture and it was displayed on the screen so that the volunteers could see the extent of their transformations.

With his added showgirls, Martin continued the show. At the end of the first act he posed the showgirls on plinths at the corners of the stage and told them to freeze in the positions he put them in. At the beginning of the second act they were still in positions that would tax anyone to maintain for more than a couple of minutes, much less twenty minutes.

During the second act, Violet was levitated. Verity was closed behind a free-standing door only to appear less than a second later from behind another free-standing door the other side of the stage, this was repeated several times, including a time where another audience member sighed her forearm and verified the reappeared Verity was still marked.

Both Violet and Verity left the theatre with good memories of the night they were showgirls in a magic show and became friends.