Accidental Assistant

Alright, I'll tell you again, but this is the last time, right?

I am working on my tan by the pool, when I feel thirsty. I go in to find a drink. I am thinking I'll go to that bar on the Americas deck, you know, the one they call 'Boston', because it looks like the bar in Cheers.

I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, coz I end up going through a door into the Las Vegas showroom in the middle of a show. The weird thing is that everyone was looking at me; like they are expecting me to be there; and by everyone I mean everyone, the whole audience and the man in the black suit on the stage.

He is obviously surprised as if he is expecting someone else, but he says, "Please come up here." So I go down the aisle and onto the stage, while he pushes something backstage. As I go up the steps onto the stage, I can hear a whispered argument going on in the wings. The man in the black suit comes back on stage and makes an announcement.

"Ladies and gentlemen, sadly, my assistant Gemma had an accident during the last illusion. Nothing too serious; just a twisted ankle, but she cannot complete the show." The audience ahh to show their sympathy for Gemma or express that they are disappointed that that would be the end of the show.

The man continues. "Providence has provided a lovely young lady to help me. You'll help a magician who has just lost his assistant, won't you?" To me it doesn't sound like a question. The audience seems to think I should, because they applaud.

Not feeling I can disappoint so many people, I ask, "What do I need to do?" I am also beginning to feel a bit embarrassed, because I am dressed in my bikini and flip-flops; great for sun-bathing, but a bit underdressed for the stage.

"Just act normal and follow instructions!" he says.

He turns to the audience and says, "And now for a demonstration of card throwing." And he leads me to stand somewhere near the back right of the stage, where someone, a member of the stage crew, I guess, has set up a board. I stand in front of it, then the man goes to the opposite corner of the stage and takes out a deck of cards and begins throwing them at me. I guess I flinched, because he had a stagehand put a blindfold on me. After a few minutes of oohs and aahs from the audience the blindfold is removed. I turn to look at the board and see a lot of playing cards stuck into the surface; and I felt nothing touch me.

"And now for a further but different demonstration of cards throwing." He takes another pack of cards and holds it up, then sprays them at me; I don't think any of them hit me either. He asks me to come centre stage, while he gets four beach balls and throws them into the audience. When I get to him he asks the people with the beach balls to stand up. He asks the first person to name a card. They say the king of diamonds, then the man asks me to check my shoes and I find a king of diamonds under my foot and he asks me to state the card. The next card named by the next person with a beach ball was the queen of hearts and imagine my surprised when I find it in my top. I am even more surprised when I find the next card down the back of my bottoms.

The magician says the final card will be more difficult. I remember thinking, 'of course it is, you're running out of places to hide a card.' He has a helper take a marker pen to the last holder of a beach ball asks them to write the name of any card that we has not had already had on the beach ball, but keep it hidden.

The man says he would get me to name the card that the woman in the audience has just written on the beach ball. "Ok, take a deep breath and name any card that hasn't already been named in a clear loud voice."

I take a good deep breath and try to say the king of clubs, but find I can't speak, but end up coughing and cough out a playing card, which, by some miracle, I catch. He asks me to unfold the card and read it out. It turns out to be the seven of hearts; the woman with the last beach ball looks surprised and stands up to show that it is just that that she wrote on the beach ball.

While this was happening the target board has been removed and a cabinet has been put centre stage.

"And now for the finale of the show," he announces.

I look at the cabinet and think I recognise it, from the masked magician bloke. I'm not fat by any means, but I'm not as skinny or flexible as that guy's assistants. I don't remember the details, but I do remember that it involved them tucking themselves into impossibly small spaces while blades are pushed through the rest. I do not like the idea of being locked in a cabinet with the possibility of losing something because the guy on the outside pushes a blade through before I am ready.

"I can't do that! I don't know how it's done," I protest.

"There's nothing to it," he says in a quiet and calming tone. "You just stand in the cabinet and I'll do the rest; you won't feel a thing."

"That's what you tell them," I say, waving a shaky arm in the general direction of the audience. "But I think you've forgotten that I'm someone who turned up by chance, at a moment when your trained assistant twisted her ankle. In fact, I feel sure she can probably do this even with a bandaged up ankle."

I look into the wings in the hope that the woman I am replacing would hobble on stage with a brave smile and a limp. What I see almost freezes the blood in my veins. One of the crew people is holding a sign that says, 'Gemma's ankle broken!!!' Yes, there really were three exclamation marks.

Playing for sympathy, the magician relays the bad news to the audience. We are on the receiving end of lots of sympathetic noises, but that does not resolve whether I will let myself be put in the cabinet. "I'm still not getting in that cabinet," I say. "Maybe, one of them will do it."

To be fair to him, he does ask if there is a woman in the audience willing to volunteer. The only response he gets was some doofus, who shouts that his wife will do it, but he is soon coughing and spluttering, because his wife has elbowed him in the chest; very hard.

"It looks like you're the only person available for the finale after all. Please get in the cabinet," the magician pleads. He goes over to the cabinet and opens the doors in the front.

I go over to have a look, in the hope that it is obvious what I need to do. I am disappointed; there is no trapdoor or hidey-hole in the floor of the cabinet and it looks narrower than I had anticipated both side-to-side and front-to-back.

"You expect me to get in there and let your push blades through, right? So where are the blades?" it seemed to me if the cabinet did not have any tricks to it, the blades must.

The man seems reluctant, but calls for the blades. The crewman who has been holding the sign with the bad news on it pushes forward a trolley with a set of six square blades suspended between a pair of rails by their wooden handles. As he moves the trolley the blades swing and rattle against each other, removing any lingering hope that they are fake in any way, but I did note that they did not have sharp edges.

"So, you want me to voluntarily get into that cabinet and stand there while you push those blades through the slots between the doors?"

He nods. The audience laugh; it seems like they assumed that I am in on the act and pretending to be scared to get into the cabinet. The man reinforces that impression by getting a thick wallet out of his jacket and leafing through the twenties in there. But, this is not going to persuade me; there's no money in the world that will get me to put myself in any danger, ever. He soon realises this and puts his wallet back into the inside pocket where it does not show.

Then he has an idea. "You know that Gemma is out of action for the foreseeable, right?" I nod. "How about I offer you her job, at least until her ankle has mended. I'll pay you what she gets paid and arrange for all your food for the rest of the cruise to be free. That way I have an assistant at least until Gemma recovers and you get a major discount on your cruise and some money to spend or safe as you wish. And did I mention that the first date after we land will include Johnny Depp among the guests. All you'd have to give up is an hour or two a day to do the show and another hour or two to rehearse and, of course, your resistance to getting into a box."

I pause to weigh up this offer. This cruise is a severe strain on my budget and I've fancied Depp in almost every role I've ever seen him in and in the interviews I've seen he seems like such a nice guy. The clincher is that he seems to think that putting me into this box and thrusting blunt blades through would still leave me in a position to do it again. Some pessimistic part of me suggests that he is a serial killer cutting up girls with every performance and Gemma has not really broken her ankle, but succeeded in escaping; I dismiss this as fanciful and probably wrong.

"Ok, I'll do it, but if I feel anything nasty the deals off." The audience cheer, I cannot work out if it was that they are getting a finale or that the magician has persuaded me. "So, what do I do? Because there's got to be some trick to it."

"Nothing you have to do, except step up into the box and face forward smiling. I work the trick from the outside. You won't feel anything unpleasant; in fact, Gemma is always asking to rehearse this, because she says she likes how it feels."

I feel that I have been trapped into something; have I been incautious in striking this bargain? Too late now! The bed is made and it is time to lie in it. I step up to the cabinet and step backward into it. It is even narrower than I had realised, just a little above shoulder-width wide and I find the back by bumping my bottom against it before I expect to. I will need to stand up straight if the doors are not going to be pressed against my boobs when he shuts the doors. As I stand straighter I feel the roof of the cabinet against my hair.

He closes the first door at the bottom it comes to a little above my knees. I notice that I could fit in that section, if I was already in there to begin with, (I would have to sit on the floor and tuck my head between my knees) but with the door shut and latched there is not enough space for me to bend my legs enough to get my upper legs from hip above knee to knee above hip. I am already stuck and only one door is shut. Why did I agree to this? I try thinking of Johnny Depp and having money left at the end of the cruise. It does not seem as good a deal at this point.

"You're looking nervous," the magician comments. "You are supposed to be smiling." I put on the most insincere smile I've ever given anybody. "I guess that'll have to do," he says. I almost smile genuinely at his remark, but the slamming shut of the second door reminds me of my predicament. At least if my nerves effect my bladder control, nobody will notice, because I am hidden from the waist down. This very small mercy is no compensation for feeling very vulnerable and endangered.

"Keep your arms above your waist," He whispers to me as he shuts the third door, which covers me from waist to the top of my shoulders. I can feel the door pressing gently against my boobs, but he is acting as if he has to make a special effort to latch the door so that it does not spring open. Should I be flattered?

"Now remember to keep smiling, because we'll be checking on you as things progress and these good people will get worried if you aren't smiling." He indicates the audience. Given that none of them had volunteered to take my place, I am doubtful about the term 'good'. He shuts the final door, which feels uncomfortably close to my nose, and after a moment when I hear the scrape of the latch being fastened, he opens a circular hole in front of my face.

I guess I must have been expressing surprise at the door being shut on my face and reopened before I could compose myself (I was certainly not feeling composed in any way at all). "You're supposed to be smiling," he says. He puts his fingers through the open hole and tries to raise the corners of my lips. This seems to amuse the audience, but I am not going to be treated like that. I raise a hand and smack his hands away and gave another very insincere smile and raise a finger to him. He gives a shocked look towards the audience, but as he turns back to me he flashes me a smile and whispers, "You're doing great, keep it up and we could make something of it."

Before I could have replied, even if I had had a reply ready, which I did not, he shuts the door over my face again and I am left standing in a tight cabinet in near total dark, with no clue how I am meant to avoid being cut to pieces by the obviously solid blades that he has says will be pushed through the box I am in. A little part of me wonders why I was not panicking and trying to burst from the box before the blades arrive.

I am trying not to breathe too much so that I might get some clue about what was going on outside the box. He is talking, but what he was saying I cannot tell, because it is muffled by the box and further obscured by the rushing of my blood in my ears; while I am glad my heart was still pumping, now does not seem like the best time for me to so totally aware of it. I nearly jump out of my skin when I hear the crash of two metal plates being bashed together; I suppose there is something to be said for confined spaces, although not a lot.

There is what seems like too long of too quiet; I am beginning to wonder if I have been abandoned, but I feel time stretch out longer than it should. Then there is a brief scraping noise I think that it is probably at my waist height, but I cannot be quite sure until I feel something touch my waist; I certainly cannot see, with it being dark, confined and my boobs are in the way.

I reach down to check out what has nudged against my waist. It is the end of one of the blades. I follow its surface and find the tracks built into the rear and the door to guide it; they go all the way across with another set below. There is more scraping noise from the other side. I take my chance and push the first blade out of the cabinet. I hear it hit the floor with a thump.

I quickly discover that the new scraping is another blade in the lower slot. I try to push that out too, but it resists, as if he is holding it in place, then the other blade is back and this resists my attempt at ejecting it a second time.

With both blades in place and pressing against my waist, I remember that he had warned me to keep my hands above my waist, so I raise them to prevent them being sheared off when he pushes the blades through. A small piece of me observes that it seems pointless to preserve my hands when I am about to be cut in two.

I can feel the pressure build as the blades' blunt edges are pressed against the skin of my waist from both sides. Then there is a strange sensation, a bit like a static shock, but nicer; this is followed by a couple of taps on the outside of the cabinet, again at waist height, which I guess is the blades handles hitting the sides of the cabinet.

I lower my hands to the blades and nearly stub my fingers against the flat metal surface that surrounds my waist. Then I realise that it cannot be surrounding my waist, because the blades did not have holes and even if they had, there is no way to get me through the hole by pushing from the side. I am forced to conclude that I have been cut in two; mercifully without pain and not all that much discomfort, but still not something I would put on my list of things to recommend to friends.

I am trying to feel what is happening where blade meets flesh, when the mini-door in front of my face opens. I quickly put on a smile, which, while not particularly natural, is a good deal less insincere than the previous two efforts. Judging by the noises that the audience make they are both relieved and surprised to see me; but where would I go? There is another click and feel something touch my left foot. I kick out with my foot to stop whatever it is continuing. The audience cheer and laugh.

As the click down the bottom of the cabinet happens again, followed by the door in front of my face be shut again, I am left with a couple of puzzles. If I am cut in half, how am I able to feel something touching my feet? And if I am not cut in half what is happening at my waist where a couple of thick metal sheets are doing a very good impression of being pushed through me.

I try pulling up on the skin on the side of my waist. An internal thought suggests that if I am cut in two, it is probably only the pressure of my weight on the blade that was keeping what blood I have in my top half and my guts in, so breaking that seal, is likely to be a bad idea. The rest of me ignores that undercurrent of worry. I pull up with one hand and feel with the other hand.

What I feel surprises me, and is a bit of a relief, but fails to answer the question of what has happened to me. The bit I lifted ends at a corner, or perhaps a curved edge, and beyond that is what feels like skin in a flat section that has been pressed against the blade; it feels a bit tender, but not painfully so; but enough to get me to leave it alone.

I am distracted from my exploration by the feeling of a blade pressing against the base of my thigh. I press my knees outward in an attempt to push the blade back out, but it only pushes part of the way, before he stops it and pushes it back again; he has learnt that trick, but allows it to start to amuse the onlookers. Quickly after the first comes the second blade from the opposite direction. There is a short period of pressure from both sides then nothing, except my knees do not want to move any more.

It is at this point that the implications of the previous events penetrate to a point where they can surface from among my other preoccupations. There are two blades left and the only place to put blades left in the cabinet is level with the top of my shoulders; he is planning to cut my head off.

I scream "Stop!" as loud as I can; it hurts my ears in that tiny space. A positive effect is that it gets him to open the door in front on my nose.

"Is there a problem?" His tone says that he is mildly concerned that there might be one, but does not expect there to be anything that he considers a disaster.

"Yes, there's a problem." I state, in a tone I hoped would not be dismissed out of hand. "You're going to chop my head off and I don't want you to."

"Oh," he says, feigning interest. "And what makes you think that?"

"Well, you've got two blades left, right?"

"Yes," he says. He goes out of sight for a few moments and returns with two blades. "These blades." He pauses and crashes them together leaving me and the audience in no doubt as to how solid they are. "What about them?"

"You've only got two slots to put them in."

"Erm, yes," he says. He leans down and I hear the tap of one of the blades being rested against the cabinet I am in. Then he goes out of sight and I hear a scraping sound and out of the corner of my eye I see the edge of the blade enter the cabinet and stop short of my neck. "That one and the one opposite?" He passes across my limited view, ducking to pick up the last blade, which I soon detect nudging along the last guide track towards my neck.

I look down at the gap between the edges that have invaded the area of my neck and it is narrower than my head; if I could have ducked, which I cannot because of the lack of space, I would have to leave my ears behind.

"So, what's the problem? It all seems quite logical so far."

"If you push those blades much further they'll cut my head off. And I don't think that is a good idea."

"You're worrying too much," he says. I briefly hear the amusement of the crowd, before he slams the viewing hole shut and quickly pushes the blades either side of my neck fully into place. There does not seem to be the same build-up of pressure before the painless cutting through. I try to scream, but screaming appears to be something you cannot do with your head cut off.

Don't know if it was the magic or something to with there being a barrier between my head and my heart, but I can hear him more clearly. He is explaining that he has divided my into four sections, pointing out I am actually in five parts, because my lower legs are no longer connected to my body or each other. Naturally there seems to be some disbelief that his statements were true, so he says that he will demonstrate my divided state.

I do not like the sound of that, because it implies that I am about to be separated by space as well as metal blades. It sounds like making an already bad situation worse. Admittedly I am not in pain or even much discomfort, but having blades through neck, waist and base of thighs is not a natural position to be in, especially when I left my sun bathing to get a drink and I still do not have a drink and I am not a trained assistant.

I hear his hands make contact with the outside of the box surrounding my head. I shout, "Don't you dare!" but he dares and I am not in a good position to prevent it or retaliate. I feel the box tilt slightly then it becomes level again, but I can feel my head is moving. I do not know whether to bless the darkness in the box or the blades through my neck for not feeling nauseous, as I might have been. While the journey my head is taken on is mercifully short, I have a feeling that it is making it alone; I cannot feel any motion in my body. The motion I feel in my head stops with a light thump at the base of the box.

I soon feel the motion I have been missing in my upper body, but this time without any corresponding movement in my head or upper legs. I feel the stopping of the movement in my upper torso as a slight shock and simultaneously hear a bump somewhere to my left.  The same kind of thing happens with my upper legs, ending with a bump somewhere to my right. Then there is some less definable feeling of motion in my lower legs; I guess that the bottom section of the cabinet was spun round.

The audience seem to find all this impressive, but if, as I am coming to suspect, all they saw was the magician moving sections of a cabinet about, I don't see what there is for them to be so enthusiastic about.

When the cheers have died down I feel more movement, first in my head, then my torso and finally my upper legs, each ending in a soft thump and a slight bit of tilting. It does not take a genius to work out that things cannot be back in their usual places. I hear a click just below my head and then feel something touch my foot again; I twitch my foot as best I can, which is not much. Next there is a click above me and I feel a movement of air against my belly. I reached forward to feel what I assume will be the opening where a door had been in front of my upper body. I feel the edge of the door and fumble round it until it was clear to me that my bikini top is visible through the door.

The next click I nearly miss, because it is further above and the audience are making noise, I also feel the movement of air across my thighs. Lastly, the door in front of my face opens. While I have guessed what has happened, it does not prepare me for the view from mid-thigh level.

There is a short period during which I smile and frown. He touches my nose and I try to wriggle it to get his finger off me. The spectators seem to find all this hilarious. I fail to find any words that I feel are appropriate and suitably express my dismay at the situation I find myself in. So I keep silent and try not to look as put upon as I feel.

He soon tires of displaying me to the audience and quickly shuts the doors. I was expecting to feel my parts unstacked and restacked, but that does not happen. Instead I feel the blades leave my body and I have a short moment of fear that I might be left as a pile of pieces or my upper torso and hips will fall on my head from above.

I don't know what actually happened, except that a confusing moment later I am standing in the narrow cabinet with all my parts connected and in the correct places relative to each other, which felt such a relief. Moments later, the doors on the front of the cabinet were swing open and he is posed in a gesture inviting me to exit the cabinet.

I take a step forward and almost stumble; somehow my flip-flops have been replaced by shoes with a moderate heel. He holds out a hand which I grab to steady myself. On my next step I nearly trip on the hem of the dress I am suddenly wearing. I have to stop mid-step. I look down, while the crowd clap like lunatics. Only to have them increase the noise they are making, when they notice with me that I am no longer wearing the bikini I arrived in, but a white strapless gown. I can also feel that there is no underwear underneath. I feel myself blush, but nobody seems to notice.

When I am steady, he leads me in a bow and then guides me to step backwards as the curtain swishes in from the sides.

The curtain shuts and he says, "Thank you, my dear; you rescued a magician in a dire situation." Then he hugs me.