Fetish Magician 2A: The Claustrophile: Hannah: Part 4

He suddenly changed the track of the conversation. “Are you ready to continue? Now that you know I can do real magic and you will not be harmed even if it may get a bit uncomfortable. You will go home with all your limbs and in the right places.”

I took me a moment to process this. Was I ready to continue? Had a dodgy mug of tea prepared me for what might be coming. I did not know; so I asked. “So, because forewarned is forearmed, what are you planning to do with me next?”

“My plan is to put you into the box over there that you seem to so admire.”

I was feeling cautious and had a feeling, backed up many stories, legendary and modern, of magicians saying what they mean, but not meaning straightforwardly. “And how are you going to achieve that, besides the obvious?”

“I have a plan, but I’m curious what you think is the obvious magician’s method of getting you into a sealed box.”

My mind raced to concoct a magician's method to get me into a sealed box. “I can think of two. The first, but on second thoughts perhaps least likely, is just make me appear inside the box. You know the kind of thing; disappear me from somewhere (under a sheet or inside another box) and then hide the box for a moment and appear me inside it.”

“Good thought, and something any illusionist and assistant could achieve (or appear to, at least)." I felt that I was being praised, perhaps beyond how good he really thought the idea was. "And the other idea?” he asked.

“You could hypnotise me and open the box and have me climb in, then unhypnotise me, not remembering the bit in between.”

“Also a good idea, but I will not use my hypnosis on you this session and the cameras would catch me opening the box. Not to mention the security labels over the bolts.”

So many factors I had forgotten, but then video editing is a thing and he could probably deal with the labels with a minimum of effort. “For a man who can tie his shoe laces by magic, security labels by magic shouldn’t be a problem.”

“How about if I tell you that there will be a sheet involved, but at least part of you will be visible to the cameras at all times. And I shall not interfere with the security labels until I get you out of the box. Any thoughts?”

He was challenging me to try and work out how else he might achieve his stated aim. “Hmm, nothing comes to mind, except, maybe, that you think you’re going to do something to me so I can fit through the slot in the top of the box. And perhaps it’s to do with this thing that looks like an ironing board.”

“I guess sticking it in the middle there was a bit of a give-away,” he admitted.

“So, how does an ironing board help you get me into the box? And why an ironing board?” Was I being a bit slow? But I could not see a connection between ironing and magic.

“It’s not really an ironing board, just constructed like one. Most ironing boards aren’t strong enough to bear the weight of a person and it looks bad if a prop collapses while you’re doing a show. It’s build to like that because everyone knows you can’t hide anything in an ironing board. Of course, it resembles the original I stole the idea from, which was right for the premise of the effect achieved.”

Not helpful! Then I thought about what ironing boards were for. “You are implying that you plan to iron me flat and post me through the slot in the top of the box and get me back to normal, so you can release me.”

“That is the plan in a nutshell, but I hope the experience will be ok.”

“Let me guess; you have never tried this before.”

“I’ve never tried it on a human,” he said.

“That implies that you tried it on something else. So, what happened?”

“It tried on Mr Snuffles. He’s my rabbit. The doves wouldn’t stay still enough and my cat seems to have an ability to sense when I plan magical experimentation and makes himself scarce.”

I suppose it makes sense that he would some animals, but I failed to keep the scepticism out of my voice. “You have pets?”

“Kind of, but the rabbit and doves are more livestock, they appear in my children’s shows. But Harvey, that’s my cat, he’s a pet and usually about for a bit of companionship. He’ll occupy my lap while I watch a bit of tele and stuff like that, but he’s independent enough that he doesn’t seem to mind that I don’t have regular hours.”

The fact that he looked after animals and had a feline companion, raised my opinion of him. The animals would need to be kept in good condition for his work, but a cat would not hang around someone who did not care. If he could keep animals, there was a good chance that he would treat me well too.

“And how did your rehearsal with Mr Shuffles go?” I asked partly out of curiosity and more to get the conversation on track.

“It exposed a flaw in the original plan, but it also allowed me time to think up a solution, which I tried and proved it worked in principle, after a hiccup.”

“What ‘Hiccup’?”

“You don’t want to know. But I assure you that it’s sorted and won’t be a problem for you.” Was he hiding something important? I stared at him to determine if he was minimising a disaster or dramatising something trivial. He noticed my look and added, possibly too hastily, “If you really want to know, I’ll tell you afterwards, because I solved that little problem and Mr Snuffles has appeared in six shows since, none the worse for it.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” Did I really want to become acquainted with the inside of the artful conceived box enough to go through with this? On balance I did, once weighed with his charm and consideration, but any negative moments and I would have been out of there fast enough to make his head spin. “So how do we do this?”

“First I have to fit you with the solution to Mr Snuffles little problem.” From his pocket something that looked like it was the valve from a tyre; a small metal tube with a mechanism inside to allow the flow of air or not. “Hold this between your ring- and little- fingers and I’ll tape it into place.” While I took the device and placed as requested, he pulled a reel of medical tape from another pocket; the kind that does not rip your skin off as it is being removed. He looked at the valve and removed it and re-presented it the other way round. With the valve back in place and snug against the flesh between my fingers, he made a quick, but secure, job of taping the bases of those fingers together, so that I could feel the thread pressing into the flesh.

“Ok, I hope the rest is more impressive,” I commented, smiling slightly. “What next?”

“Next you get on the board and get into a comfortable reclining position.”

“Do want me to undress first?” I had remembered that if there had not been the break to discuss things, I would have still been naked at this point. As he was about to go back to being in charge again, I needed to ask if he needed that part of the previous status quo to be restored.

He seemed briefly puzzled by the question, then his face lit up with an idea. “No, but you’ll need to be naked for the final illusion, so maybe I can do something about that on the way.”

I could only assume that he meant me to start this illusion clothed, but finish it naked.

I moved over to where the fake ironing board stood on a low platform over the chalk mark indicating the centre of the chalk circle that was my boundary. A swift press and push assured me that the top was safe enough to trust my full weight to. Turning my back to the board and putting my hands on the edge, I made a little jump and pressed with my arms to end up sitting on top; I felt as solid to sit on as it had when I checked; that was a relief.

Tom had said that I should recline, so I lifted my feet onto the board and, despite him having seen all there was to see, I adjusted my skirt. I lay down, but propped my head on my hand so that I got some sort of view of what he was planning and doing.

As he came from a short trip beyond the chalk circle, I spotted he had some cloth in his hand. It was a small table cloth. He waved in the air so that it settled on my legs. This seemed at odds with it promise that I would be visible throughout the process.

“I thought you said that I’d be visible throughout.”

“I don’t recall saying that all of you would be visible at all times,” he pointed out. Checking back on the tape proves that he had even implied that I might be partially covered; not an implication I had taken at the time.

“Fine." It pained me to agree, but I did not really have much choice. "Are you going to iron me flat from my feet up?” I asked; better to know, than assume. He might have intended to iron me from the middle outward, for all I knew.

“That’s the plan," he confirmed. "If I started at your head and you didn’t like it?" he was sketching out a scenario that he assumed I would like less. "This way I can reverse it and move on to the final illusion I had planned.” He seemed open to giving up on an illusion if I did not like it and moving on.

“So, where’s the iron you plan to press me flat with?” Ironing without an iron does not work, but he could be planning to use rollers to mangle me flat or something else that I had not thought of.

“Here.” He hefted something resembling a Victorian flat-iron in shape, but it was obvious not the cast iron that a genuine one would be. The way he handled it suggested that it was made of wood, but painted to look right; another give-away was that it was too big. The effect was comical and I failed to completely suppress my amusement at the oversized prop.

He lower the iron onto my feet and pressed until is seemed that the iron was flat on the board. I could not feel much more than contact through the cloth and a oddly pleasant sensation that began where my shins abruptly ended.

“How did that feel?" he asked. "Because Mr Snuffles isn’t exactly talkative about his feelings.”

“It’s, I’m not sure, I think warm describes it; like the sun on my feet.” Or it might have been more like a relaxing foot bath.

Taking my admission that it generated pleasant feelings he continued ironing up my legs, gradually my shins, calves, knees and lower thighs disappeared from being humps under the cloth. The feelings increased as more of me was flattened; I may have made some noise of pleasure.

With me sitting reclined on the board like an amputee missing most of both legs, he swung the iron out of sight, placing it on the platform. He stood back a bit, probably to give the cameras a good view, then returned to drag the cloth up my body. The top edge of the cloth reached the base of my ribs before he let it settle again. This should have expose my feet, but I could not see them.

I tried to sit up, but the normal interplay of forces from the various parts of my body did not seem to be producing the expected result; missing legs meant I was missing some. I could feel the warmth in my legs, but I found that I could not feel anything else. I was on the edge of panic and asked, “What have you done?”

“I thought you knew what I was going to do. And I've done it up to mid-thigh.”

He picked up something that was lying on the board a little beyond the edge of the cloth. If I had not been able to feel something changing with my feet and a tickling sensation that I barely managed to contain, I would have assumed that the strips of thin stuff he showed me was a life-size photo of someone's feet printed on thin card. As he lifted it for me to get a better view, the continuation that went under the edge of the cloth raised the cloth's edge. He first showed me what would be the top of my foot; it looked oddly familiar, especially the pink pearl nail polish. Then he turned it round to show the other side which was a sole, on the way showing that it was as thin as the card I had originally taken it for. The sole showed a small and faint scar less than a centimetre behind the ball of my foot. Was the real reason for the delay between requesting the show and it happening, so that he could get photos of my feet to pull off this trick?

He caught me looking at him dubiously and by way of a demonstration that the foot in his hand was mine he turned over the toes to touch the sole. There was more contact feeling, but this time between my toes and the middle of the sole of my foot.

He moved the feet (I was still struggling to come to terms with them really being my flattened feet) and draped them over the edge of the board. The iron-shaped prop was picked up and he applied it to my thighs and hips up to my waist. I could not tell if he was acting it, but it seemed to take him more effort to squash my hips flat than it had for my legs.

As my hips disappeared under the iron, the support my hip bones gave to my reclining pose diminished and then vanished. It also created uncomfortable pressure against the side of my belly.

Tom alleviated this by helping me to lie back on the board. He then moved the cloth up further. I was able to glimpse the hem of my skirt on the board beyond the far edge of the covering cloth. He fussed some more with my legs so that more hung over the side of the board.

Taking up the iron again he flatten my belly, which I like to think is flat enough already and pulled the cloth up to my chin. I reached under the cloth to feel the difference between the solid parts and the flattened parts. I had barely got my arms under there when he put the iron onto my arms and I could not feel much except the growing warm sensation. He reached under to drag my arms out and dangle them from either side of the board.

Without my arms in the way to prevent it, he lifted the top edge of the cloth, saying "You’ll probably not want to see this,” before covering my face. I do not know why I smiled, because the prospect of being turned into a life-size cardboard cutout of myself did not thrill. I am guessing that the warmth I was experiencing had some influence on my mood. I felt the pressing of the iron on my chest and shoulders. Then I had the brief sensation of a touch on the nose, which would not have been quite so terrifying if it had not been combined with an increasing shadow seen via the cloth. I tried to scream, but I did not get very far.

Intellectually I knew that I had been flatten, but it felt more like being in a sensory deprivation tank; very relaxing to start with. I was dimly aware that my thinned form was being handled, but the pleasant warmth and the faintness of the sensations did not encourage me to expend the mental strength to work out what was going on. I did notice that after some time (precise tracking of the interval also escaped my attention), there was more contact feeling, but for the most part this too was ignored.

More time later, I felt my first positively physical feeling. The tactile sense of my hand returned. Compared to all my other sensations at the time it felt odd, in the same way a black and white patch would stick out in a colour photograph, but it drew my attention. It was lying on a cool surface, there was a little pressure across the back of it and the valve and the tape holding in place were still there.

Something touched the back of my hand. I spread my fingers cautiously, because I was worried too much movement might be bad for my situation. The pressure across the back of my hand seemed to hold me in place; it appeared that Tom had done something to prevent it from moving too much.

The expansion of my sense of touch flowed up my forearm and paused at my elbow. There was a whisper of contact with, what I had to assume was, my still flattened body, then suddenly proper tactility was restored to the lower part of my upper arm. The feeling of not being flat reached my shoulder soon after that. Whatever was across the back of my hand holding it in place also seemed to be resisting the addition force that my de-flattened arm produced.

There was another touch that started in the middle of the back on my hand and moved down my middle finger. This was repeated. At this point I realised that my hand was being stroked. I guess Tom was trying something to reassure me, in case I was feeling stressed. I was coming to like Tom despite the rather strange things he had been doing to my body.

Time moved on. I could feel the valve between and the thing attached to the valve twitch. Each twitch returned feeling and volume to part of me. Across the tops of my shoulders and down my other arm until I could feel my fingers pop back to life. I waited a few moments to see if there would be a pins and needles tingle, but the senses went straight from being asleep to awake. Another thing I noticed while this was happening was that the extra all-over contact feeling seemed to intensify.

The extension of my areas of tactility halted. I took it as a pause that I might use to find out where I was now; I knew where I expected to be, but the plan could have changed while I was deprived of my usual senses. With my upper hand, the first hand to gain sensation, attached to something, for what I hoped was good reason, I decided to see if I could move the other hand. That also lay on a flat cold surface; I assumed that this was the inside of the glass and steel box. Carefully I braced the upper hand and tried to lift the other. This was successful. I managed to put that hand to my upper forearm and follow it up to my wrist and hand. On the way I encounter the edge of the slot in the top of the box; I became more confident that Tom's plan had worked and that I was inside the box, but with my hand restrained outside for some reason.

I felt over my hand. The restraint across the back was a strip of some heavy duty sticky-tape, justifying my caution not to disrupt it for the moment. Further exploration found the valve Tom had taped between my outside fingers was still there and attached to some fitting and the end of a hose of some kind. I thought for a few moments. It now made sense; the obvious magical magician's way to unflatten someone would be to inflate them, which also made the presence of the valve reasonable.

I speculated that Mr Snuffles' initial trouble may have been the lack of an air inlet and smiled mentally at the image of Tom trying to blow up a flattened rabbit. His second trouble may have been down to careless installation of the valve, resulting in his care to get it right with me.

This situation led me to the question, 'Why had Tom stopped pumping?' An attempt at self-examination made me conclude, based on little more than the lack of contact feel on the soles of my feet and base of the rear of my shins that I was tightly rolled up to get me through the slot and I was not unrolling and expanding, because I was too tightly rolled. I also had the feeling that the clothes I had been wearing to be ironed flat where no longer there.

If I was too tightly rolled, I would have to attempt to unroll myself and hope he took the hint and pumped me back to my proper dimensions when that had been achieved.

To that end I braced my lower elbow and upper hand to allow me to manipulate the outer part on my flattened self so that I could expand when the inflation needed was supplied.

I began to peel the outer layers from the roll, then I felt an unexpected touch. Before I had time to reason that Tom had reached into the box to help my efforts at loosening me, I had instinctively slapped his hand away. I did not feel an further help from Tom after that; at least the guy can take a hint, even if it is more instinct than what I really needed at the time.

As I loosened my chest expanded and my breasts could feel something. The nett result was that the expansion re-tightened the rolled up bit and I had to loosen some more. Soon my expanding body encounter one of the walls the box, by which time the rolling was sufficiently loose that I could enjoy the expanding sensation and only needed to help align a knee that had got twisted and was not letting the expansion through.

The last part of me to become unflattened was my head, which seemed to pop from flat to round. I heard a couple of extra pumps and felt my nose pop out. I was relieved to be back in the shape I started and an additional pump or two, made me feel bloated. I held up my hand to indicate that he should stop; which he did. I could have said stop, but at that stage I was not quite sure what effect opening my mouth would have.

I reached out through the slot and ripped the tape from the back of my hand. Thankfully it was not the kind that would rip my skin off. I then went to work on the medical tape to remove it and the valve that it held in place. In hindsight, that may not have been the most sensible thing to do, but the valve on Mr Snuffles had to have been removed at sometime for him to be part of the several shows since his flattening.

I looked around to check that things were as I expected. They were. I was my normal size and shape and naked again, but inside the steel and glass box, at last. I opened my mouth to say 'Thank you', but instead emitted a high-pitched belch instead; I felt much more comfortable afterwards as the belch seemed to dissipate the bloating I felt. I smiled from a combination of feeling less bloated, amusement at the unexpected noise I had made and then fact I was where I had desired to be since I had been introduce to the box; that is, inside it.

"So, how did I get in here?" I asked. "I'm assuming you did not open the side and lift me in. The last thing I remember properly is you having ironed most of me flat then covering my face, then things got vague until I knew I was here."

He had the hand-held camera in his hand and turned the display on the side towards me, to show me the bolts that held the side on the box, with the signed security stickers still in place.

While showing me the undisturbed bolts, he explained, "I finished the job, of ironing you flat, then I rolled you up and posted you into the box, before inflating you again. I did not go totally to plan, but we are where I thought we would end up, so no harm done and a lesson learned."

"So, are you going to do something with me in here? or do I need to get out?" I asked.