Intimate Illusions 2: Sister Act

"Darling," breathed my wife into my hair.

"Mmmmm?" I murmured, to show I was listening.

"Would you tell me one of your fantasies?"

I am a man with plenty of imagination, so I have many fantasies in so many fields. "What kind of fantasy?" I suspected that she did not want to hear about fantasies of winning sports events or becoming a hero that prevented a disaster.

"A sexual fantasy, of course." She cuddle up to me under the duvet, pressing her breasts against my shoulders.

I have many sexual fantasies, most men do. I had stables of celebrities that I fantasised about bedding and an atlas of places I fancied as love making spots and several volumes of the karma sutra full of sexual positions and kinky things I would like to try with my wife. I put my mind in neutral and threw a dart at the catalogue. "Sometimes, I fantasise about making love to your step-sister." The censor in my brain having failed to prevent this utterance, swiftly added, "But that's all it is, just a fantasy. I would never do anything about it unless you and she wanted it to happen; I wouldn't do anything to harm our marriage."

"That's good," she muttered, leaving me in some doubt about whether the good thing was the fantasy or my denial of any intention to act on it.

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At breakfast, Joan asked, "Do you remember last night? You said you fantasised about having sex with my step sister. Why her? What's wrong with Julia Roberts or Emma Watson?"

"There nothing wrong with them at all, in fact, I have fantasised about both of those and many other actresses and TV stars."

"Then why mention Aditi?" Aditi is my Joan's step sister; her father had died when she was very young and her mother had remarried with a Hindu widower who already had a daughter.

"Why not? She's a lovely young woman and I can imagine that she would be a pleasure to make love to. But like I said, it's only a fantasy, not something I'd do in real life, unless you both wanted me to."

"So what is it about Aditi that makes you fantasise about her? Why not your secretary or Angela, next-door?"

"It's not like I spend every minute of every day lusting after Aditi," I protested, "Just a few of times since I first met her at our wedding."

"I just was curious to know why you picked Aditi of all the people you could fantasise about; maybe it's something I can learn from, perhaps."

"I don't think so, because of her size; she's one of the few women I know who is about my size. Most women are bigger than me. You know how you like it when I kiss your neck when we make love; what I'd really like to be doing is kissing your lips, but when I'm inside you I cannot reach."

"Oh," she said.

I glanced at my watch, feeling worried that this might develop into an argument. "I'm sorry, but if I don't get a move on; I'll be late for work. If you feel we need to discuss this some more, we can take some time this evening to talk about it. Love you!" I left for work.

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I did not hear any more about this for a few weeks, but I was later told about a telephone conversation Joan had with Aditi.

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"Hi, Joan. How are things?" answered Aditi.

"Ok, but..." replied Joan.

"That sounds like you've got something on your mind, so spill, to your nearly-sister, Aditi!"

"Well, my husband said something and I don't know what to make of it."

"So what has Paul been saying to get you so ... erm worried, concerned, whatever, that you call your unmarried step-sister for advice about your husband."

"I'm still trying to get it straight in my head, but he said he has fantasised about having sex with you."

There was a silence at end of the line.

My wife asked, "Are you alright, Aditi?"

"Yes, I'm ok, just a bit surprised."

"So? What do you think?"

"Well, it depends. Is it just a fantasy or do I have to be careful not to be left alone with him when I visit?"

"I think it's somewhere in between, because he said that he'd wouldn't really do it, unless we both agreed. I'm a bit confused by that bit."

"I have a guess how the fantasy may have started. I think it is probably something that most husbands with sisters-in-laws have a yearning for the 'one that got away'. You know, the question 'would I have been happier with the other sister?'"

"I suppose it could have been, to start with, but he said that you are one of the few women as small as him and something about wanting to kiss me on the lips during actual sex, but I'm too tall."

"Oh, and he told you that?"

"And I'm guessing there's something to it, because it's something he said without having taken any time to think about."

"I think you need to be looking at Google, although I can't imagine what you'd need to search for to find sexual positions that also allow a short man and a tall woman to kiss."

"Why didn't I think of that?!" Joan paused.

"Glad to be of help, but I can tell there's still something on your mind," prompted Aditi.

"Well, I not sure I should be telling you this, but I think I might want his fantasy to come true."

"What? You want your husband to have sex with me?" Aditi sounded shocked.

"Well, maybe, I don't know. I think it might be alright if he wanted to and you wanted to and I knew about it."

"So, what are you asking? Do you want me to seduce Paul, or something like that?"

"No, definitely not. I know Paul enough that he wouldn't really believe I was ok with it unless I organised it for him."

"That sounds even worse. You'd pimp your step-sister to you husband?"

"That does sound terrible, but you're not saying that you wouldn't go to bed with my husband, I notice."

"Well you have always said what a good lover he is; and my bed has been a bit lonely for the last few months."

"That means, if I'm reading between the lines correctly, that if I could find a way of doing it that we were all comfortable with it, then you would probably be up for it, if you haven't found a new boyfriend by then."

"I guess so. What about bringing him along to that spa weekend we are going on next bank holiday. I feel sure you could engineer a situation in those circumstances."

"That's a great idea. I'll have to check whether he's organised something for himself that weekend, and try and work out a scenario, where he can be with you knowing I said he could, but I want to be there to see that his fantasy turns out well for him, but wonder if being there will kill the fantasy."

"You can't be there and not be there, which is impossible. Come to think of it, I heard from my neighbour three doors down that she had had herself divided into 9 parts and given to her husband as a birthday present, by a magician who took her to pieces while her husband watched. She said she had a whale of a time and so did her husband. She said the magician came from a company called, what was it now? Oh, yes, 'Intimate illusions'. I looked them up on-line and they really exist. Maybe they can magically shorten you so you are the right size for Paul."

"Sounds like I have some research to do on the internet. You're such a good listener. When I have a plan I'll discuss it with you so we know what we're doing. Ok?"

"Ok, step-sis, I look forward to it, but if I find something other than the dross I've been presented with so far this year on the boyfriend front, I'll let you know."

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The next thing I knew about anything was Joan asked me if I was doing anything on the bank holiday weekend.

I knew she was planning a pamper weekend at a spa hotel for herself and her step-sister, but I planned to enjoy a leisurely weekend of not doing much, except a poker night on the Saturday at a mate's. "The only thing planned is a poker evening at Denzel's, nothing special, why?"

"I thought you might like to come with us, to the spa, I'm sure we could get Aditi another room, instead of us sharing. You could relax properly, instead of wondering if I'll be satisfied with the results of the things I'm sure I can find for you to do while I'm away."

I knew that turn of phrase; it was a hidden threat to load me down with jobs to kill my weekend of freedom, unless I agreed to what she was proposing. As I did not fancy re-decorating the spare room for the third time this decade, I said, "I think that would be lovely. What kinds of things do they have at the spa for someone like me?"

She reeled off a list of treatments and sessions that would be available, but topped it off with, "The hotel has some sports facilities too. I gather there's a golf course and someone that can teach you archery if you want to try that." Consider me sold on the idea at that point, as, while I'm not a golf fanatic, I enjoy a round about once a month with a mate, who is a member of the local club and I have always wanted to try my hand with a proper bow and arrow. I, of course, did not say so straight away, but said that I would consider it, planning to agree to go in a couple of days' time (plenty of time to make the necessary arrangements, but not caving in to Joan's demands too easily; besides she would be dropping hints about the DIY she wanted doing, giving me hints how to please her on that front through the rest of the year).

When I had garnered sufficient hints at DIY and other things Joan wanted, I conceded that a trip to a spa hotel for the long bank holiday weekend would be a pleasant change of pace. When she teased me that I was only going to see Aditi in her bikini, I guessed something was planned, but I could not guess what. It turned out that she had already made the arrangements with the hotel, so I teased her about what she would have done if I had not wanted to go. She teased me back by mentioning a new guy at the office she had considered taking in my place.

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On the Friday, we picked up Aditi on the way to the spa hotel. Joan drove with her step-sister in the passenger seat; I was in the back seat playing something on my mobile.

I did not pay particular attention to their conversation, but I could detect that they were talking using cryptic phrases. This tipped me off that there was something planned, which I put together with wifely teasing about how excited I would be to see my sister-in law in less than she would usually wear in public, but did not come up with anything specific.

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Friday evening and night went as I might have expected. The evening meal at the spa hotel was excellent, but I felt the evening was slightly marred by Joan and Aditi exchanging significant glances or laughing for no obvious reason at something the other said. We had already booked what we would be doing the following day, but Joan had insisted that nothing that went on passed six o'clock in the evening, because she had arranged a special treat for the three of us, in the one of the hotel's smaller function rooms. I was completely in the dark what to expect and Aditi appeared to have some idea, but not be fully informed; Joan was refusing to give me any clue and only said to Aditi that she had been in touch with the people she had suggested and they would be there.

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After breakfast, the women went to some fancy therapy and went to try out archery. By the end of the morning I was consistently hitting the target, which had taken me over hour to hit once. I did hit the gold once, but I feel sure that any novice can do that with enough arrows and patience.

At lunch we ate gourmet rabbit food and talked about what we had done in the morning. I mildly exaggerated my prowess with bow and arrow, they told me about rejuvenating algae body rubs and how invigorating the steam room and the icy plunge after it had been.

In the afternoon, I joined a couple of the guys I had met at the archery, to shoot less dangerous things at smaller targets on the golf course. The ladies went for a top to toe pore cleansing treatment or something like that. We met up for tea and scones at about five, then they disappeared to the rooms to get ready for this mysterious thing that Joan had arranged. I was completely clueless about what was planned and Aditi seemed to have a few unfocussed nerves, as if she had a vague idea, but lacked any details.

I waited in the bar, as instructed, for my wife and her step-sister to change for what Joan only referred to as 'The Special Treat'. I was nursed a vodka and tonic while I waited, as I did not want to spoil the special treat by getting drunk, but also wanted to take some of the edge of the nervousness I was feeling. They soon arrived wearing the fluffy white dressing gowns that are typical of this kind of place and the slippers. They both seemed to have cases of the nerves too and readily took up the offer of a drink each; Aditi, who does not usually drink had a small glass of wine and Joan had a large gin and tonic.

About five past six, one of the hotel reception staff came to us and told us that, "Your specialist is set up in function room four and asked me to inform you that she is ready for you." Whilst his tone was polite, his eyes showed that he was curious about what we had arranged. He gave us directions to find the room and departed. We finished our drinks and went to find the room.

At the room a sign hung on the door stating "No admittance, except in the direst emergency!" Joan knocked and waited. A pleasant, but cautious, voice answered, "Who is it?"

Joan answered, "Aditi's step-sister," in a tone that made me think of those old spy movies where the agents use ridiculous pass phrases to gain entry to the safe house. The feeling that I was being brought into something a little clandestine was slightly exciting.

The door opened and we were invited in by the voice, which had less tension in it. It was not until I follow my wife and her step-sister into the room and the door was shut, with the sound of a lock being turned, that I got my first sight of the owner of the voice. She was a tall woman with a cascade of straight blonde hair and wearing a dinner jacket and ruffle-fronted short that failed to conceal her large bust. She still appeared to be a little on edge.

Joan was the first to speak once were in the room. "You're Candi, right?"

"Yes," said the woman in formal menswear. "You must be Joan, I recognise the voice from our phone conversations." She put out a well-manicured hand and shook my wife by the hand in a friendly manner. "And you must be Aditi; you're every bit as pretty as Joan said you were." She extended her hand and grasped Aditi by hers. "And you must be Paul. Pleased to meet you. I gather you are the prime beneficiary of this, but if what Joan tells me is right, but she and Aditi will gain a lot of pleasure from this too." I shook her hand and tried not to give away that I had no clue what she was talking about.

I looked round the room to see if anything gave me something to go on, so that I might work out why we were here. The tables in this room had been pushed aside to make an area where two tall rectangular blocks stood with the details hidden under large cloths that covered them completely.

All bar four of the chairs had been stacked in a corner and on one of the tables was a stack of three folders. Candi invited us to sit and took the chair facing the other three. Joan guided me to the centre chair and she and Aditi sat either side of me.

Candi tried to put on a serious face, but with a combination of nerves and excitement bubbling beneath, it did not sit right. "What we are about to do, may be technically illegal, but our legal department say that so long as no one gets hurts and all the participants are consenting, it is not likely to cause problems. But they did give me some sets of contracts and waivers, which I urge you to sign. The short version is that we are providing a service as requested and you are responsible for the consequences, unless the consequences are down us failing to do our job properly, when we are bound to sort things out."

She stood up and brought the folders over and handed us one each.

I flipped through the folder I was given and only gained the information that Candi represented a company called Intimate Illusions. There were three places to sign and pen included in the folder. Joan glanced over the papers, nodded and picked up her pen to sign the paperwork then handed the top sheet to Candi. Aditi and I followed her lead.

"Sorry about being so serious to begin with," apologised Candi, "but I want to get this as right as I can. I've been training for this for three months and this is my first assignment. I don't want to muck it up and be demoted back to answering the phones and making arrangements and all that boring admin."

"Paul, you should read the 'overview of operation' section in the manual. I'll get these things adjusted to the ladies. If I don't get this bit right you'll have compatibility problems, so I'm going to have to be precise. Then comes the fun bit. Ok, Joan, may I start with you?"

I rummaged in the folder and found a slim volume titled 'Manual: MM2017.1.5'. The diagram inside the front cover matched device revealed by Candi as she tugged at the cloth over one of the cuboids. It was a frame consisting of four tall rods connected by square sets of rods at various levels.

Joan had also revealed what was under her dressing gown, it was a bikini, but one I had not seen before; the top was strapless, being little more than a wide ribbon across her chest with a shaping to keep it in place, and the bottoms were more normal, but very low waisted.

Candi did something to the frame and the front opened up like a door. At gesture from Candi, Joan stepped backward into the frame. Candi began making adjustments to crossbars. I saw from the manual and the actual object that the each crossbar was a pair rods separated by a narrow gap and connected at each end to an adjustable fitting that held it in place on the vertical corner rods and connected it to the next crossbar round the corner; meaning that each set of crossbars formed a square when the door was shut.

Starting at the bottom, Candi began fiddling with the sets of crossbars, moving them up and down by small amounts; she muttered to herself as if trying to keep in mind some procedure that she had been taught and she felt was important to get right. The crossbars at the base of the Joan's shins was soon in place, then was another set at the top of her thighs and the next set was a little below waist level, just above the low-riding bikini bottoms. Candi asked Joan to raise her arms and hold onto the vertical rods at shoulder height, while she adjusted the next two sets of cross bars at the base on her ribs and tight under her armpits. The final two sets of cross bars were set at the top of Joan's shoulders and just under her chin.

With Candi's adjustment work in place, she turned to Aditi. The step-sister had more idea of what might happen next, which clearly increased her nervousness. Candi seemed to have some sympathy for Aditi's nerves as she was not entirely calm herself. "You are anxious, aren't you, Aditi?"

Aditi gulped before she spoke. "Joan, told me about what you and she planned, but not the details of how you planned to do it. Having seen what you've set up with her and knowing something of what you do, I don't know if I can go through with it."

The vagueness of Aditi's protestation of failing courage in the face of the partially known, made me fully aware of how ignorant I was of the intent of the device that Candi had so carefully fitted round my wife. "How about we demonstrate on Joan part of achieving the plan and see how you feel about it when Joan is, at least partially prepared for the plan to come together." Candi suggested. "Is that ok with you, Joan?"

Joan response was a little unexpected. "It had better be, because I was the one who came up with the plan in the first place." Her arms were beginning to show the strain of being held up level with her shoulders, even with the support afforded by holding onto the front corner rods. "You do really know what you are doing and it won't hurt like you said it wouldn't, right?"

"Of course, I know what I'm doing; they wouldn't let me out if they thought that I wasn't fully trained and competent." Candi seemed mildly offended at the suggestion that she might be insufficiently skilled and it had a knock on effect on her confidence. "And it won't hurt in the slightest; we may have some clients that want it to hurt, but I was trained in the methods that produce least discomfort and no pain. Granted, we have some clients who actually volunteer to be practice subject for new trainees, because we haven't mastered the no pain thing, but thankfully, I got away from those creeps after the second session, because I wasn't being painful enough." Candi suddenly realised that she should not have said that. She blushed. "Can we pretend I didn't say that? And just let me assure you that there will be no pain."

"I can't stand any more suspense," said Joan. "Can we, please, get on with it before I lose my nerve?"

Candi quickly pulled a square box from under a table and placed it on the table top and a pot of sticks. The box was a square marginally large than the base of the frame containing Joan, but a couple of inches deep; it seemed to be light enough that Candi had no difficulty lifting it. She pulled a stick from the pot with one hand and opened a side of the box with the other. She placed the rod against the opening and then used it as a handle to pull a very thin, rigid sheet from within the box. It made a noise like metal scraping on metal, but looked non-metallic; in fact, if life was a sci-fi movie, the technicians responsible for this thing would only need to track the rod and model a plain black square with a slight sheen attached to it, to get the effect right.

"What's that?" I asked, more from reflex at seeing something that looked like that, than anything else.

"This," said Candi as she carried the thing toward my caged wife, showing a definite care to avoid touching anything other than the rod, which seemed to take the role of a handle, and the flat surface of the square, "is the latest model 'Blade 2000'. Yes, I know, the name is pathetic," she smirked, "but back when the original version was developed in the early 1990's, it sounded cool and they have updated the product and forgot do anything with the name."

Distracted by this seeming nonsense, I did not follow what she was doing with it, until she had positioned it between the rods that crossed in front of Joan a little under chin level and made the beginnings of a move to push it through the cabinet. At the point I connected the moves with the word 'blade' and leapt from my seat to prevent Candi from her attempt to decapitate my wife.

I had moved two paces when blade's handle made contact with the framework around Joan.

Another two steps later I registered that Joan was smiling at me. I stumbled to a halt and tried to work out what had happened. I added the question, "Are you ok?" to the quest for information.

"I feel ok, I think." She look towards Candi and asked, "Am I ok? I didn't feel a thing, was I meant to?"

"Of course, you're ok; we would be out of business like that," she snapped her fingers, "if you were anything other than ok, or better. And you weren't meant feel anything. Early versions of the blade, I'm told, gave a pricking sensation on contact, but they engineered that out some time in the noughties; the pricking is now an option, mostly used by professional magicians as a means of cueing assistants, but this set has the feature disabled."

Candi walked round me to return to the box. I took a look what was happening at the frame surrounding Joan. From where I stood Joan's neck seemed to rise up to the black square that seemed to fill the area bounded by the rods Candi had taken such pains to position. I stepped back a couple of steps and could see her head above. The thing that seemed wrong was that there was no gaps between the black of the blade and the skin of Joan's neck.

By the time I had come to this realisation, Candi had returned with a second blade and pushed it through between the rods level with the base of Joan's neck; Joan seemed not to notice. From my point of view, it looked like the black edge touched the neck, and passed through with no resistance. What little of Joan's face I could see was smiling.

Candi appeared to be doing her best to ignore me at the moment, beyond not bumping into me. Joan seemed to have lost her initial nerves and said to her step-sister, "See there's nothing to it and it really doesn't hurt a bit, Aditi."

"Yeah, ok, but that's not the only bit I'm worried about. The next part that you talked about seems as terrifying as this part, maybe more."

Candi responded, "I could demonstrate the next stage too; if you're ok with that, Joan?"

"I thought you said that we couldn't move onto stage two before stage one was complete." Joan said in a questioning tone.

"Well, actually, it turns out I was wrong. I had misinterpreted something I had been taught. When I checked with my mentor, he told me once a division is in place, it will work independently of any other division in the same body, with the exception (which does not apply here) of intersecting divisions which must all be in place before they can work together, in short you can't divided a divided surface unless the other division was in place at the time of division."

"Does any of that make any sense?" asked Aditi. If it did not make sense to Aditi, what hope did I have, without even any context?

"Well, it makes sense to me, but it should, because I'm the one that needs to understand it. I'll demonstrate. Joan you might want to close your eyes from a moment." Candi took a grip on the left front and right rear vertical rods and lifted. A gap opened up between the top horizontal rods of the frame and the stick handle split lengthwise. It looked as if Candi was lifting the section above the top of Joan's neck from the top of the framework. She turned and stepped towards a table. It was then that I noticed that I could not see Joan's head above the black plane that top the shortened framework.

Candi placed the part of the framework on the table and stood aside. What Aditi and I saw in the frame on the table was something that looked very much like Joan's head, with her eyes shut.

I was confused and trying to reason about what was happening, when the head said, "Is it alright to open my eyes now?"

"Of course," answered Candi. "You wouldn't want to missing the rest of the magic on you, would you? Then we can do the same to Aditi and finally teach Paul what he needs to know to make for fun for all of you."

Aditi went over to Joan's head and they started a whispered conversation. I decided that as Candi appeared to be in charge of the execution of whatever was going on, I needed to talk to her to get some answers, even if the plan was Joan's. She continued to pick sticks from the pot, use them as handles to pull the black square blades from the flat box and then push them through the frame holding the rest of Joan's body; her head seemed mostly unaware of the continuation of this process as she talked to Aditi.

"So, what's the plan?" I asked. "I don't see how, removing my wife's head is supposed to be fun for anyone; even if she seems to be almost blasé about it, rather than screaming or dead. What's all this for?"

"I haven't been told all the details (and even if I had there would be client-confidentiality to consider). But it seems that you told your wife about a fantasy and the reasoning behind that fantasy; this is meant to allow you to fulfil your fantasy or get you to a position where the reason can be addressed."

"So, who is the client?" I asked, trying to think back to having told Joan about a fantasy. The only one I could think of was 'Make Love to Aditi' Fantasy, which I might not have remembered if there had not been such a barrage of hints in the last weeks. At that point I had forgotten the rationale I had offered by way of explaining Aditi as my choice of lover.

"Joan, of course. I take it she did not warn you in any way."

"No, not as such. I guessed something was in the wind, when she decided that she wanted me to come on this weekend away, but I was expected some fun days and relaxing nights. This does not seem to fit that."

"Like I said at the start, I'm here to perform a service and troubleshoot any technical problems that arise, which if I get this right will be none. Exactly what you, your wife and her stepsister do once the service is performed is none of my business. (Although, if some of the hints she dropped, during the planning stages, are the way I interpret them, I feel sure that I would love to be a fly on the wall when you get back to your rooms)" Candi seemed to be smiling to herself as she bent nearly double while added the final blade to the framework through Joan lower shins and gave me a fine view of her well-padded posterior.

With the lowest blade in place, Candi announced that it was time to demonstrate the point of the framework and blade arrangements. Joan and Aditi ceased their talk to watch as Candi took hold of the vertical posts which were either side of Joan's neck and lifted the neck from the shoulders and in a few steps placed it on a table.

Returning to the now shorter frame, Candi invited me to lift the next section and carry it to a table. I was unsure, but Joan seem all for it. Candi gently guided my hands to diagonally opposite posts of the section containing Joan's shoulders and arms. "Always take a grip on opposite corners of the cabinet," the first-time magician said, "because while we have made this as strong as we practically can, that way is least likely to cause anything to warp, which will put a dent in your fun and kill my weekend, when I have to come back to sort the damage out." In a more encouraging tone she instructed, "Now you just gently lift and carry it to a table where you can put it down."

I took my courage in both hands and then did the same for Joan's shoulders. I had no clue how heavy a pair of shoulders and arms would weigh, so I started with too little force, the resistance seemed to be more than I had any idea of, but then with no warning the resistance stopped and I rapidly raised my wife's arms by a foot. The frame and its contents weighed less than the initial force I had used, which implied to me that there was something holding the frame together that released when the right amount of force was applied; a bit like pulling magnets apart.

The next section, with Joan's minimal bikini top, was used to give Aditi a quick lesson in removing sections from the frame. Then Candi took the belly section and asked me to get the hips. Between us we moved the legs section from on top of the feet and lastly Aditi lifted Joan's feet from the floor and put them on a table. During the transfer of Joan's legs to a table the other side of the room from her head, I spotted her 'butterfly' tattoo on the inside of her left calf a little below her knee; this was not a picture of a butterfly, but the Chinese characters for butterfly, which don't look anything like a butterfly to us.

I looked round astonished that I had been part of distributing the sections of Joan across several tables around the room. Candi broke the awed silence, by asking, "How are you feeling?"

"I can't quite tell. It's not like anything that I've ever experienced or even dreamed of. It feels quite sexy, but bit disorienting at the same time. Overall, it's not a bad feeling; I might try it again sometime, but at the moment, it's not 'Wow! I want to stay like this forever!'"

"That's good, because we've had experience of people who felt like that (that is the 'I want to do magic forever' people) they do not last long, because they ended up being vanished and never reappearing; quite tragic really."

We shared a sombre moment as we thought of people who had gone too far with magic.

Candi seemed to sense the mood turning downward and came to the rescue. "Ok, it's time to get Aditi ready. And you, Paul, can practice moving Joan's parts about and stacking them on top of each other, because there's a good chance that you'll be doing a lot of that this weekend; so you might as well get used to it and learn the rules."

Candi opened the door on the other cabinet, once she had dragged the cloth from it. Aditi approached it with a slow, almost reluctant, step, but she did enter the framework and allow the magician to close the door. This chimed with my observations of the comparison between my wife and her step-sister. My wife is generally more spontaneous and impulsive, but also more creative; Aditi is more cautious, but seemed braver, because she considered the risks before taking things on, so she had thought about the potential consequences. As she turned to step backward through the open door of the frame, she shrugged off her dressing gown; she too was wearing a strapless top and a low-riding set of bikini bottoms.

Candi set about setting the square rings of rods into their correct positions up the vertical rods. This seemed to take longer than it had for setting Joan's in place. While she did this I started by trying to move Joan's parts into pleasing arrangements. This showed me that the way I had been told to move the sections worked best. Holding the corners of the same edge felt unbalanced and dangerous and my fingers did not find any grip on the rods that made the horizontal edges of the frames. The stacking rules soon became apparent too; it would only allow me to place a frame section on the section it should be on; for instance, I could not place the neck section directly on top of the hip section, because there was a force that repelled like magnets, but if I tried to place it on the shoulder section, there was a moment when the sections were aligned near enough, when the force would take it out of my hand and to a position where it lined up perfectly either side of the blade. Candi mentioned that this was a safety feature that blades had had for at least five years, which prevented the sections being mis-ordered or stacked in the wrong orientation.

Candi was soon sliding the blades into places through Aditi; her worried expression, almost broke into a smile when she felt nothing of the first blade at the top of her neck.

Instead of waiting for the all the blades to go in, Candi had me move each part of Aditi from the rest of her almost as soon as the blades were in. She also had me experiment with stacking Aditi's parts on Joan's and vice versa. I discovered, and Candi confirmed, that as long as it was the right part on the right part, the parts would stack, even if one of the parts was Joan's and the other Aditi's, but incorrect stacking still did not happen.

In the next few minutes, I had placed all Aditi's divided sections on tables next to Joan's divided parts, but I still was in the dark as to what this magical intervention had to do with my fantasy, or even which fantasy this was intended to relate to.

"What's this got to do anything? Lovely though it is."

"Before Joan explains her plan," intervened Candi, "I think we should give you some practice putting the ladies back together. Please place the feet sections over here, where they can see what's happening."

I followed instructions and placed one set of feet on the floor facing the table Joan's and Aditi's heads were on and then placed the other pair next to them.

"Good effort, but you're going to need a bit of space to move round them," suggested Candi. "So, maybe, move them a little further apart and turn them to face inward a bit more."

With the feet put in place and positioned to Candi's liking I went to pick up a leg section. These were Joan's legs and the magician told me to set them down on the feet on the right. As I was setting the black square on the base of the legs section on the corresponding square on top of the feet, Joan began to smile while Aditi's face showed shock. I could not tell what had caused these reactions, but Joan and Aditi had a whispered conversation, in which Joan seemed to be trying persuade Aditi of something and in the end they seemed to agree.

The second pair of legs was soon in place on the other stack and Candi told me to move on to the sections with the bikini bottoms. Again I started with Joan's part and Candi told me to place it on the legs on the left. I knew and could see that Joan's hips belonged on her legs on the right. "Are you sure?" I questioned.

Candi looked as if she was about to make an attempt to persuade me that it would be ok, but Joan got there first. "Do as the lady says! After all that is part of the point of all this."

"Joan's right," confirmed the magician. "And there is no harm going to come to anyone by it. Besides, dividing someone into multiple parts and putting them back together may be magical, but dividing two people into parts and doing a little bit of switching of those parts is more magical, right?"

I was not quite sure I agreed, but was sure that I would likely end up on the losing end of this debate, so I shut up and placed Joan's hips on top of Aditi's legs. The instructions continued and I had soon constructed a pair of bodies with alternating sections of Joan and Aditi. The final parts to add were my wife's head and her step-sister's.

I was about to continue the trend and place Joan's head on Aditi's neck, when she said, "Hold on, I want my head on the other cabinet."

"Ok, but why?" I asked.

"Because all my important parts are over there," she said giving me a slow wink.

I was about to turn to comply, when Candi said, "Please, place Joan's head where you were going to, because there are a few things that you'll need to know before you get to that kind of stuff." I thought I detected a smirk on Candi's face.

I looked into my wife's face and she said, without much of grace, "Ok, what she said. I had hoped we were ready for something more interesting, already."

I placed Joan's face as originally planned and then placed Aditi's head on Joan's neck.

"Now that you have reconstructed the ladies' bodies, it is time to let them out." Candi was telling me as she demonstrated the trick to opening the door on the front of the framework. She opened the front of the frame which included Aditi's head and the black squares of the blades winked out of existence leaving a woman striped in tanned white skin and naturally browner skin. She stumbled a bit as she stepped from the frame. Candi caught Aditi and supported her as she told her that it might take a minute or two to get used to the changes that had occurred each time.

I went over to Joan and released her from the cabinet and helped her stand clear of it.

"Now we put the ladies back in the cabinets," said Candi. "It's important that the ladies return to the cabinet that they most recently left because otherwise nothing will happen." With help from Candi, Aditi reversed into the cabinet she had just stumbled out of. Candi shut the door and the black squares rematerialized over the next five seconds in no discernible order. Moments after the blade under Aditi's chin returned, Candi lifted the step-sister's head from the stack.

Joan stepped backwards into the framework she had recently stepped from and I closed the door. This reactivated the blades and I was soon able to follow Candi's example and pick Joan's head from the pile. Candi brought Aditi's head over, placed it where Joan's had been and released the woman made of almost alternating sections; only the junction between her head and neck matched.

I put Joan's head onto the body that remained and assisted her in exiting the cabinet.

"One last thing to tell you before you go to try out Joan's new body." Candi waited for me to be paying attention. You can divided and recombine the ladies as often as you wish, in any combination you wish, until I come back to restore things to normal after lunch on Monday or until you decided to return them to their normal forms. Is that ok? That's part of the reason for the neck sections, so that you can put them together with only their necks swapped, which most people won't notice, which will allow them to take part in normal stuff without causing unwanted problems."

"I'm still not completely sure what this is all for," I admitted.

Candi had an answer. "Joan, why don't you take Paul to Aditi's room and explain it to him. Aditi and I will moved the equipment to your room, then I can go and enjoy my weekend on call." We turned towards the door. "Oh, and wear a robe or you'll be asked questions you don't have answers to."

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In Aditi's room I asked, "What's this all about?"

"Do you remember that a couple of months ago I asked you about a fantasy, and you said that you'd like to make love to Aditi?"

"Vaguely," I said. I was not sure where this was heading. I did remember saying that I had no plans on acting on that thought without the go-ahead from both Aditi and Joan.

"Do you remember that I asked you about it in the morning?"

That I had not remembered. "What did I say?"

"Well, before you rushed off to work, you said you chose Aditi, because she was about your size and that you wanted to be able to kiss me on the lips while we made love." That rang a bell to me. "Well I had a chat with Aditi about it and she seemed not to object to the possibility; she has been between boyfriends for quite a while now. But the point is that she had also heard of the Intimate Illusions people; she suggested that they might have a way of making me short enough that we could make love face-to-face. I called them and this is what we came up with."

She quickly shrugged off the robe and stepped up to me and we kissed. For the first time I did not need to stand on tiptoes with my head back and her leaning down; it was wonderful.

"So, what do you think?" she asked.

"What am I meant to think? You organised being divided into pieces and partially swapping bodies with Aditi, so you could make a fantasy come true. I love you. What are we waiting for?" I said as I began stripping out of my cloths and she dropped the bikini.

We made love, while I kissed her lips and stared into her eyes; until that evening I had not been aware of how many different expressions her face makes as we enacted our passion for each other and the looks of ecstasy that capture her face for frozen moments as orgasms hit. It did feel a bit different with another woman's arms and legs wrapped round my body, but that seemed like such a small thing compared to getting to see Joan's emotional reaction to our love making.

Basking in the afterglow of our mid-evening romp, my mind wandered into my fantasies collection to see what I had achieved and whether the dream come true, matched up with the dream itself. Face-to-face love with my wife and kissing during intercourse were definitely better than the dream; there was so much more to them than I had ever expected.

Then I thought about the fantasy that had kicked this whole scenario off. "What about Aditi?" I asked in the slow haze that follows the frenzied heat of passion.

"What about her?" asked Joan softly.

"What is she getting out of this?"

"Not much at the moment, I guess. But I did have ideas that if she was still up for it I might let you two get together; I might even watch or join in. Would you like that?"

A twitch at my crotch meant that I did not have to make a reply as we cuddled together on the single bed.

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When we returned to our room, Aditi let us in. She was wearing one of Joan's nighties that would have swamped her if she had been in her own body. The framework cabinets had been setup either side of the doors to the balcony.

There followed a little discussion, it seemed that which combination of body parts Aditi would have while I made love to her was the thrust of what we were talking about. A visit to the cabinets later and I was making love to Aditi, but the rest of her body had been replaced by Joan's. Joan soon went from observer to participant. After I had done my best to satisfy both women they both finished each other off with their heads between their own legs, but under the control of a different head.

While they recovered and made themselves decent, I rang room-service and ordered a light supper.