Intimate Illusions 3: The Receptionist and the Mincer

Being the receptionist at Intimate Illusions is not the most thrilling job in the world, but I find it has its moments. I have been with the company since it opened for business; Derek and Aaron took me on before they knew how I was special and when they discovered that, they did not sack me, like a few previous employers, but they offered me a secondary role which came with bonuses.

How am I special? I have a very high tolerance for pain and can endure a lot of it, in some instances it will cross the threshold into pleasure. This is because I have a history of abusive boyfriends and self-harming; but that is the past and I don’t want to go into that here.

My secondary role at Intimate Illusions is as a tester. I am the person that the new illusions that the event planners have concocted gets tested on; it would be irresponsible to send a magician out with untested equipment. I am also the person that is used to test new magician recruits.

We have a surprisingly high turnover of magicians; some find that it is not of them, others find it is a stepping-stone to a career performing for larger audiences, and a few use us as a training ground to learn the magic and go off to fulfil their magical kinks. I am part of the interview process.

The interview process for becoming a magician for us is simple. First Derek, Aaron and I talk to the candidate to get a feel of whether they are suitable to join us. Those who pass the obstacle of being able to talk to us and not putting anyone’s nose out of joint move on to the magical aptitude test, which involves the doves and rabbits which we keep around the office. This is usually done by Aaron. And finally there is the grand illusion test where the neophyte magician gets to try something on me, while Derek watches and stands by to sort things out if things go wrong; I suspect that he also moderates some of the pain, but usually only to prevent me passing out.

These sessions usually consist of the potential employee performing an illusion on me from start to restoration, while Derek assesses their performance abilities and I evaluate how they make me feel, because in about 90% of cases the customer is the assistant in the illusion. In this role I have been the victim in every illusion in our vast collection, except those that were abandoned when the client withdrew.

I think the best experience I have had was the practical section of the interview with Candi. Of course, her being an event planner, she was familiar with the illusions available and we already knew each other. She was the first, and only, so far, to offer me a choice of what I would like to take part in.

I chose the mincer, which was a project that never got passed the prototype stage, because the client got cold feet when told what the illusion she had ordered was going to do; it seemed she had envisioned getting into the hopper and tucking herself into a hidden compartment while her ex-boyfriend worried that she was dead and promised to love her forever if she could be brought back; being pulverised for real was not part of her plan.

Candi seemed shocked that such a piece of magic existed, but there was no reason for her to know, as this was a project for a client that Aaron was working with. Once she had read the notes that Aaron had left with the illusion, she noted that there was no prepared restoration (it’s not like you can push mince back through a mincer and get the original piece of meat back). She told me this and asked me to confirm that I still wanted to do it. I told her that, unlike most interview practicals, she was a known quality with an established record of creativity, so I trusted her to think up a way to get me back and pointed out that Derek was there to help her if she needed it.

“Ok, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. It says here that this likely to damage clothes, so I guess you’ll need to be naked, unless you want me to fish buttons, zips and shreds of cloth from your minced body.” This was another reason the client canned the project.

I think I shocked her a bit by starting to remove my business-like blouse; I guess it is one thing to think and plan that people being naked when the illusions are being performed, but another to have someone undressing in front of you. She would probably have called it a day at that point if I had not been so matter-of-fact about my disrobing.

“Would you like to watch yourself being minced? Or would you rather that your head went through with the rest of you? I understand that is likely to be very disorientating?”

More choices than I was unaccustomed to. But being beheaded is among my favourite magics and the manner of its execution being a good indicator of how the magician is going to treat clients in the field. I said that I would like to watch my body become a tray of ground meat.

I had expected that she would find one of our many decapitation devices; head choppers, guillotines and head movers, you get the picture. Instead she stepped behind me and laced a hand into my short hair then applied a machete to my neck. I suspect, in hindsight, that she had heard me talking about a failed interviewee who had tried to hack off my head with a machete and failed; possibly my worst experience at an interview, because he only got half way through before he declared he could not do it and left without restoring me; she wanted to prove that she could do better.

Candi stood back a little and ran the edge of the weapon again my neck; I felt a drop of blood run down my neck and blessed that I was already naked. “Fast or slow?”

“Slow, please.”

“Ok, you’re the boss.” Which technically I am, being the most senior of the office staff, but in this case I heard the implication that it would not have been her choice. She then began to carefully saw my head off with the machete, which thankfully was sharp. The first few tentative strokes brought forth a few more drops of blood which pooled in the hollow above my collar bone.

“It looks like I’ll have to work on bloodlessness; most clients don’t want blood; but this thing is not a magical prop so was not designed to be bloodless.” Candi said. She seemed to combine a running commentary, to show us that she was aware of what she was doing, with a ‘note to self’.

By this time, I was already breathing hard to control the pain, but Candi’s firm grip on my hair and the blade meant that my head did not move so that the only pain was the cutting and there was not the added discomfort of the flat of the blade twisting in the gash that was opening up in the side of my neck. Over the time I have been at Intimate illusions I have become a connoisseur of pain, learning the different sensations and their causes.

I noted that Candi was sawing through close to the base of my neck, which meant that once my head came off I would still be able to speak. This tallied with her having knowledge of the human body which she had gained in the two years she had spent in failing to get a medical degree; not something most people would expect of someone with her heavy-chested blonde bimbo appearance.

“How are you holding up, Emma?” she asked. “Not too much pain? Aaron gave me a bit of advice to reduce the amount it hurt.”

A quick glance, by shifting my eyes, at Derek, who sat in a chair watching the proceedings, elicited a shrug, which I took to mean that he was not doing anything to moderate the pain. “It’s bearable and I can tell that the cut is clean too. Well done,” I said.

“I only ask because in a few moments I’ll be cutting into your wind-pipe, which will make breathing and speaking impossible for a short time. I shall try to make that time as short as I can, but I thought I had better warn you, in case you find it distressing.”

I tried to nod my understanding in reply, but my head did not move; but evidently she felt my intent.

I felt the scrape of the machete against one of the vertebrae in my lower neck at the same time that I heard and felt the slight disturbance of my breath as the edge of the blade began to intrude into my trachea. For a moment I thought that she would be trying to saw through my spine and wind-pipe at the same time, which would slow her down, but a change in the distribution of pressure along the sharp edge within my neck told me she was changing angle to cut my airway before tackling my backbone.

As the angle of the blade through my neck changed it continued to scrape against my neck bone, while restricting, then occluding, my breathing. I managed to get a lungful of air before my supply was cut off. It was a relief that Candi did not slow down, as I do not find breath-play something that I enjoy; too many bad memories. It took about ten seconds for the machete to pass through and allow air to flow to and from my lungs; long enough to decide that I much prefer the quicker methods of losing my head, but not so long that it was worrying. I breathed a restricted sigh of relief.

By this stage the blade, which had started running front-to-back in my neck, was running side-to-side. It seemed she planned to cut round my spine then tackle that last. I was surprised and concerned when she lifted my still partially connected head up and tilted it slightly to the side, opening the cut she had made so far. I had a brief moment of panic, remembering the previous attempt with a machete, but this was stilled when she pulled the implement from the gap and briefly rested it on my shoulder, which I took as a warning not to move, but also a reassurance that she was in control of the situation. It seemed a bit awkward as she switched hands, transferring the machete to the opposite hand while maintaining a firm controlling grip on my head; I cannot be totally sure, but I think there was some levitation happening, being used as a third temporary hand to hold the weapon during the changeover.

With her other hand Candi applied the blade to the other side of my neck, it pricked a couple of times, which indicated to me that she was either more nervous that she was otherwise showing or she was trying to find the perfect level to make a deeper incision. Another drop of blood dribbled down the side of my neck.

Candi tutted to herself, disappointed that she had not started the second part of the cut without blood, but did not apologise. It did not take long to finish the cut she had started from the opposite side; but contrary to my expectation the cuts from both side lined up; maybe she learnt knife control at college as well as anatomy. That still left my head connected to my body by my spine. My expectation was that she would start sawing through the bone that had been exposed by the cut. Instead, she pulled up on my head separating the parts of my severed neck and in the process I could feel that section of bone that bridged the gap was being pulled from the upper part of my neck. She put the machete back into gap and slipped it along the upper surface; an unnerving feeling, because of the anticipation that there may be extra cuts made. Then there was a quiet grinding noise as she slide the edge between the top of the bone and the base of the one above it.

For a fraction of a second I lost feeling and control of my body as she severed my spinal cord, then, with a swift levering motion with the flat of the blade, everything was back to normal, except that my head was no longer attached, but held up by Candi’s fingers laced into my hair.

She stepped out from behind me and carried my head to a place where it was facing my body, which I posed in a relaxed stance after the tension of the last few minutes. She held me there for a few seconds, allowing me a view of my body; a view I rarely get to see, despite having spent an aggregate several hours with my head detached. I was pleased with the way I looked, but was unsure if this was due to a healthy-ish lifestyle or had something to do with the magic. I stood straighter with pride at my appearance, even if at the moment it lacked a head; replaced with a nub of clean white bone on the plateau of my lower neck.

Candi quickly found a table with a small top and a single spindly leg, which she placed next to Derek’s chair. With care she lowered my head until my neck stump touched the surface then disentangled her fingers from my hair. There was a feeling of pressure in the lowest part of my neck, not supported by a vertebra, but I was surprised that it felt a bit like being seated on a hard chair, rather than anything more uncomfortable. She then fussed a little adjusting the table instead of my head to make sure I got a good view of the remainder of the performance.

“Now that we’ve taken care of Emma being able to see what happens to her body,” Candi said as she walked back to my body which stood there waiting, because I had been concentrating on the feelings from my head. She stood beside my body and placed a steadying hand on my shoulder.

“Alright, we’ve decided that this body is going through the mincer, would you like to go in a single piece? Or a limb at a time.”

Again I was confronted with deciding my own fate. Given that my beheading had been well managed and a lot less painful than it could have been. I decided that being dismembered by Candi might be a pleasant experience and would give more chance to assess how she handled the magic and my body.

“I think a piece at a time would be good, it means that if the mincer is too bad I’m not totally committed and I’d like to see you pulling my limbs off.”

“That sounds good and sensible,” Candi commented. “Shall we start with a leg or a wing?” She briefly touched my thigh and upper arm in turn to make her meaning clear. I was not sure I liked being referred as if I was a roast chicken, but I noted it to let her know to be more careful with her language, rather than spoil the flow of what she was doing.

“Legs first.”

“Ok. You’re alright to stand there while I get you a chair?” In response to me inclining my head a little she looked round and made a bee-line for a wooden stool which she brought back and placed behind my legs. “Would you like a hand with sitting on that, or would you rather I get out of the way and let you sit down yourself.”

“A guiding hand would be appreciated, because I’m seeing it backwards from how I’m feeling it at the moment.”

Candi held my forearm while I lowered my butt to the stool. The steerage from her was barely noticeable unless you knew what to look for.

“Now that you’re seated and stable, which leg would you like to lose first? Left or right?” Again she touched my thighs a little above the knees to clarify which limb she meant by which designation. I noted that she named my legs as I felt them rather than as I saw them, which I felt was the client-friendly way to do it; many people get confused by left and right on stage.

“Left,” I said. I lifted my left leg and waved my foot for a moment to confirm that I had the correct left leg.

“Alright. Please bear with me, as this may take some time; I haven’t had a lot of chance to practice tearing people limb-from-limb.” She took hold of my ankle and with a firmness that I had not expected, she lifted my leg until my knee was near my shoulder and my foot above my head. “This might hurt some, but I’ll do my best to make it quick and not too bad; so brace yourself.”

I had a fraction of a second during which I gripped the seat of the stool with both hands and planted my right foot as firmly as I possibly could onto the floor. Candi was changing the positions of her hands; one moved to the inside of my ankle and the other to the inside of my thigh an inch above the knee. She pushed my leg outwards from the side of my body and down to stick out horizontal and sideways and was rewarded with a squelchy popping sound as my hip was dislocated. She followed this with a twist of my foot which caused a ripping sound and then stood back up holding my detached leg by the ankle.

“Well, that went well, I thought,” she opined. I had to agree; the hip end of my thigh was smooth and rounded and there was a minimal stump where the leg had been attached; a very neat job. The pain involved had been worth it to see my leg pulled off with such control and finesse. “This begs two more questions. Namely, should I finish dismembering you before I put your parts through the mincer? And do you want this put through foot-first or –last?”

The decision was back with me. “I think put each part through as you pull it off, because if the mincer turns out to be something I don’t want to continue with, at least I’ll save you the effort of pulling all my limbs off.”

The magician stepped over to the hopper of the mincer. “Ok, foot up or down?”

“Foot down, but if we get that far hands up. I hope that’s the right choice.”

“Given the nature of this prototype, I doubt that there are any right choices, only what is better for you.” She lowered my leg into the hopper of the mincer and I felt my foot slip between the spiral turns of the auger.

Candi went round the back of the mincer and called out, “This isn’t going to be as easy as I hoped; there’s a handle back here to turn; I had hoped for something I could plug in and push a button. The joy of working with half-finished projects!”

This was not really meant as a complaint, but a warning that this might take a bit longer than one might wish to perform for a client; for me this was unnecessary, because I was already voting for her because she made me feel like a human, when a lot of the magicians made me feel like a self-propelled or voice-activated prop. But I was not the only person with a vote.

There was a grinding noise as she began to turn the handle. This was accompanied by the feeling of my foot being dragged towards the front of the machine by the screw thread. After about ten seconds I felt my shin being pressed against the edge of the hopper where the auger disappears into the barrel of the device. This did not concern me until a thought through what was going to happen; my foot would be pulled in the barrel between the auger threads and be sheared from the rest of my legs as the edge of the spiral pushing my foot entered the barrel. I was going to be cut through my shin in two directions with blunt metal edges; a prospect I did not relish, despite my resistance to pain and the occasional times when the pain/pleasure boundary has been breached.

As the separation of my feet from the rest of my leg began in earnest, we heard Candi make a grunt as if she was making an extra effort to keep things moving at a steady pace; we have learnt from experience that the kind of things we do usually feel better (or less bad) if the forces are applied in a uniform manner. I bit my lip to avoid making any discouraging noises that might put Candi off from her attempt to make the operation of the mincer as smooth as practically possible. The pain from the pressure of the auger thread digging into one side of my shin and the edge of the mincer barrel on the other side began to build. I flicked my eyes towards Derek in the chair next to the table on which my head rested. He seemed to be watching the progress of the magic, but not making any effort to do more than sense what was happening; it seems that some magicians have an extra sense that allows them to know the positions and states of things that are beyond the senses of us normal folk.

The pain and pressure continued to build as the opposing pieces of metal cut into my flesh heading towards my shin bones. Candi made another grunt from behind the mincer which was quickly follow by a double snapping noise which I instantly knew was my shin bones breaking, partly because I felt the rest of my leg drop between the following pair of auger threads. I tasted blood as a tooth broke the skin of the inside of my lip. That was the last pain I felt for the rest of the session; the remainder of the sensations from being broken into limb-sized pieces and put into the mincer, were the same as the might have been without the inclusion of the pain part. I felt as if I was being given a none-too-gentle massage.

Soon shreds of my flesh and fragments of my bones were emerging through the holes in the front of the machine and dropping into the large box of clear plastic that had been positioned to catch me. It took about six or seven minutes to turn my body and limbs into minced meat, with pauses to break off another piece to replenish the hopper. Candi kept turning the handle at the back until there was no longer any of me coming out the front, then she scraped the residue worms of flesh from the holes of the mincer with the machete, allowing them join most of the rest of me.

“How does it feel being nearly a hundred pounds of mince?” asked Candi; I think, more to make me feel that my feelings were being consider rather than any desire to try it herself.

“I’m a bit surprised that it actually feels ok; more like an over-enthusiastic massage by an inexperienced masseur than being broken into smaller pieces, squeezed, chopped and extruded through holes in a metal plate. I was worried that it would feel a lot worse until my foot came off, then it was ok. Now that you have 95 pounds of ground Emma in a box, what are you going to do with me? I did promise that I would relieve Debbie from reception duties after lunch.”

“That depends on how quickly you want to be back to you usual self. If you want it quick, I could cover the box and reconstitute your body under there, but I think that would be like ending a story where fantastical things happen with ‘he woke up and realised it was all a dream,’ don’t you?”

Derek spoke for the first time. “I guess you have an alternative plan.” Candi nodded. “Will it take long to set up and perform?”

“I would need to find a few things to be able to do it, but I reckon that I should be able to locate them in five minutes or so. Then it will take maybe ten minutes to set things up and after that a couple of minutes or less to return Emma to normal.”

Derek glanced at me. “Given that this is a prototype with no pre-planned restoration, I think we can endure the preparation period.” I did my best to nod given my limited resources. “If what you come up with has the potential to become a proper restoration, it might become worthwhile to develop this further and see if we can find a magician to sell it to.” He paused a moment then added, “If you need some help with finding stuff or setting stuff up, you only need to ask.”

Candi thanked him and rushed off to find the things she thought she needed.

“So, what do you reckon? Has Candi got what it takes to represent Intimate Illusions in the field?”

“Yes, definitely. She can certainly do the magic and the medical knowledge she has seems to help. And, I guess, she has the magical equivalent of a good bedside manner. Also, the fact that she has been taking hints from Aaron, seems to indicate that she will probably stay with us for more than the few years that most of our magicians seem to stay.”

“All good reasons to take her on. I was thinking that we would not lose her as a planner either and if she can rescue the money we sank into making the mincer in the first place, it seems that we’ll be winning on all fronts.”

“So, we’re agreed. We offer her a magician contract, even if her restoration attempt fails.”

A few minutes later, Candi returned. She was carrying a carrier bag of stuff and a couple of microphone stands. She gave the mincer a shove to make space in front of us and placed the stands about six feet about and tied a piece of rope between them, before adjusting them to about five feet high.

“Thank you for your patience. If I had known what I would be doing I could have had the things I need ready. Derek, there was one thing that I could not find, but I think you can help me with.”

“Ok?” said Derek, evidently unsure of what he might be able to find that Candi could not.

“I hope it is not too big an imposition, but may I borrow your socks?” Derek looked surprised but nodded his answer and leant down to undo his shoes. “I hope you don’t mind if I continue with my other preparations.”

While Derek bared his feet, Candi pulled a pair of white cotton gloves and a see-through body-stocking with a zip up the back. The body-stocking she pegged to the line between the stands and unzipped the back. She collected Derek’s sock and took them with the gloves and a scoop to the box that contained my macerated body. She took a scoopful of my body and filled each sock and glove with the mess; bloodstaining showed on the gloves, but not on the black socks.

The gloves she pegged to the line at the ends of the sleeves of the sheer stocking and the socks she placed on the floor at the ends of the legs.

There was a scraping noise as she dragged my remains behind the stocking and started scooping me into the body-stocking; first down the legs then the sleeves before working to fill the torso section of the garment and doing up the rear zip as she did so. I could feel the textiles of the confining fabrics, but not in the corresponding parts of my body; it was a bit odd to feel the cotton of the glove with a section of buttock and my knees and the woollen socks with my shoulders and the nylon mesh with the rest on me, including some internal parts that had no business feeling anything.

It did not take the full ten minutes she had originally estimated to reform my heap of meat and bone splinters into a human shaped thing, but all that it appeared to have achieved was to rearrange my severely disordered body into another incorrect order.

I was surprised when she started massaging the socks and then moved up to the shins of the literal meat-puppet. As she reached the calves I could feel and see what she had accomplished; instead of the bottoms of the stocking legs containing raw red meat they now showed the pink of flesh through the sheer fabric.

As she massaged up my legs more of my legs transformed from the lumpy meat to my smooth flesh. She continued up to my hips and gave my behind and crotch a cursory rubbing; I was surprised that my groin was revealed as being featureless and sexless. When I queried this she answered, “I did not want to rub there too much, because I am not that way inclined and from some of the stories I’ve heard neither are you, but I’ll be around to provide continuity of magic so you can rub your bits into place, once we have finished restoring the rest of you. If this was ever to become something we offered, it would make sense for the victim, client, whatever you call them in this situation, erm. It would make sense for their significant other to perform the rubbing back to normal.”

She asked me to lift my feet and removed the socks to return to Derek; I noted that he did not put them on immediately. Candi moved to massage my hands and arms into shape then removed the gloves. She removed the pegs holding my arms up against the rope between the stands, but not those holding the shoulders. As she massaged my back from raw meat to flesh with skin on, she invited me to rub my front back to its usual form, being careful not to the spring the clips holding me up.

When she had finished my back, I was still working on my front, particularly my bust. I was trying to see if I could do something to enhance my breasts, but they seemed to insist of coming out the same shape they went in; I like them that way, so this was no great loss. But it would have been nice to try what it would be like if they were perter or positioned a little higher on my chest for a few days; then of course most of my bras would not fit properly.

While I fussed with my boobs she collected my head and with an ease I have never experienced before set the two inner surfaces of my neck together and my head was reconnected; it usually takes an experienced magician a small swivel and twist to get the alignment just right.

“That’s all I can think of to do, shall I leave you to make your finishing touches, while I go and let Aaron know that you’re ready to discuss whether you think I’m good enough to be a magician, then I'm sure that there’s work I can be doing while I wait for your decision.”

I was baffled by the sudden end of this experience, but Derek thanked her for the demonstration she had just given us and suggested that she might find Aaron in his office or near the hutches.

Between us we agree that Candi was probably the best candidate we had ever had the good fortune to meet. I suggested that we include in her training something to make her more comfortable around a naked person and touching them; Derek agreed. Aaron concluded that we should offer her a part-time magician’s job and the training to refine the talent she seemed to have and keep her on as a planner and illusion designer too.

You rarely see anyone jump for joy in high heels, but Candi managed it and accepted the offer on the spot.