Martha had had an argument with her assistant, Andrew, about how to present an illusion that Martha had invented. He had accused her of being lazy, because it was easily within her powers and a little concentration to present the illusion as Andrew had suggested and the audience would get a better kick from it. Because they worked very closely together and knew the destructive power of an unsettled argument they agreed that during the next show they would try both presentations; Martha's in the first half and then Andrew's in the second act, where things got sexier and to prevent any accusations of not trying to sell the illusion properly, Martha would present hers and Andrew would present his.

Act 1

Martha announced that she was trying out a trick and needed a volunteer from the audience; she assured them that it was safe and that she had tried it out on Andrew, but he was needed immediately after the illusion for something else. She also promised that the volunteer would have unique closer view for the rest of the show. She had the choice of a lot of audience members of both sexes and selected a man from the third row.

As the man made his way to the stage, Martha felt she had her little contest with Andrew in the bag; the man was handsome and rugged which was her type and likely to appeal to the majority female audience.

The curtain closed behind Martha as she came forward to greet her volunteer, this had the effect of preventing the preparations for the illusion being seen and distracting the audience from getting to know the volunteer.

The handsome clean-shaven volunteer was called Victor; it seemed he was a reluctant attendee at the show, his girlfriend had brought him. That same girlfriend, Greta, had encouraged him to volunteer and was looking on this as a chance to please her and get a closer look at Martha, who was a striking beauty and would have been his type if she had been blonde; Martha had short black hair. Victor was dressed in jeans and a red check flannel shirt and had short curly hair in a pale brown shade.

Once she had discovered that his job in forestry fitted his attire, she moved on to the magic. "So, Victor, what do you think you have volunteered for?"

"Not a clue," was Victor's succinct response.

"Well, have a guess!" Martha encouraged. "No fantasy is off limits. If you wanted to be in an illusion what would you pick, perhaps."

Victor paused for a moment. "Most of my fantasies involving magic, have me as the magician and doing magic with Greta; so I guess that you could have invited me on stage to perform some magic on you." Martha shook her head, to indicate his guess was wrong. "Well the only things I can think of, you've done to your assistant; they are like having superpowers. I just hope you are not going to be cutting me into pieces."

"No. Let me show what I have in store for you." On this cue, the curtains opened to show the apparatus that had been assembled on stage, during the introductions. In the centre of the stage was the frame of a cabinet a little over seven feet high, three feet wide and two feet deep. This was held off the floor with legs so that bottom is a foot from the stage. Either side of this skeleton cabinet were sloped tracks leading up to some things that are covered by ominous black cloths. The only indication of what these things might be was that each is restrained by a short length of taut chain anchoring it to a mechanism that appeared to lead back to a lever at the base of the right-hand track.

"This was originally designed to be a 'failed-escape' illusion. I'm sure you know the kind of thing, where the magician pretends that he is being locked into a dangerous situation which he has to escape from, when in fact he is setting up for an unexpected outcome that appears to result from not escaping. But I'm not expecting you even to attempt to escape. And to make it look good I need you to take off your shirt and jeans, while I get another volunteer from the audience to keep an eye on things."

Victor was a little surprised to be asked to strip down to his boxer shorts, but having volunteered, he felt that it was his duty to comply with instructions as best he could; besides Greta kept telling him that he had a body that any stripper would be proud of.

Victor set about removing his boots, outer clothes and socks (because he felt that to stand there in his boxers was marginally less embarrassing than standing there in boxer shorts and socks).

Meanwhile, Martha selected another volunteer from the front row; she selected a stocky redhead, so as not to induce any worries in Victor's girlfriend that the volunteer might be competition. The woman was wearing a modest black dress. Her name was Susan.

The selection and introduction process took just long enough for Victor to be ready.

"Now it is time to put Victor where he can be seen by the whole audience." Martha led the volunteers to the cabinet. "Do you notice anything odd about this cabinet?" she asked.

"Yes," said Victor, "There isn't a floor, just a couple of foot-shaped places near the middle. I guess, I'm meant to stand on them, right?"

Martha smiled and said, "I'm glad I didn't have to explain that. So, if you would get into the cabinet and get up so that you are standing on the, erm, pedestals, I guess." she turned to Susan. "When he is in place I want you to fit these over his feet." She handed Susan two sets of straps and told her that they fitted to the buckles on the foot stands.

The magicienne climbed up onto the frame and put straps round Victor's wrists that she hooked to frame. "Do you think you can escape from these restraints?"

Victor tugged his wrists about for a few seconds, then said, "I guess that won't work." He tried to bend his wrists so that he could touch the catches holding his wrist-straps in place and did not have the flexibility to achieve that either. "It looks like I'm stuck until someone releases me," he commented.

Noting that Susan had finished attaching the strapping to the foot-stands, Martha asked if Victor felt that his feet were secure. "Well, I can't move them much," he said after attempting to do just that, "I guess, I won't be getting them free soon, so there's no chance of me using my feet to free my hands, even if I could do that, which I don't think I can."

Martha jumped down from beside Victor and asked Susan to go to the covered section on the right as the audience saw it; she went to the left. "Ok, on three pull the sheet from the apparatus," Martha instructed. Then she counted to three and both women pulled on their respective sheets. What they revealed took most of the audience a few seconds to work out, but soon they were wondering what the point of having two large blocks of glass was. Each block was seven feet tall by two feet deep by two feet wide.

Martha pulled a marker from her cleavage and tossed it to Susan with the instruction that she was to sign her name on the glass block and cross the stage to write something else on the block that Martha had uncovered.

As Susan crossed the stage, Andrew came out of the wings with a stool and placed it near the front and left corner of the stage. Once the writing was done, Martha asked Susan to sit on the stool to make sure she was safe and did not need to return to her seat, only to be recalled after the main action of the illusion.

"As most of you will have noticed, this block has a yellow tint and this block has a bluish tint." This she emphasized, by circling round the rear of the equipment and waving a white cloth behind each block. She returned to the front and stood by the lever.

Andrew climbed onto the frame and pulled down a plain white roller blind obscuring Victor from view, then hooked it to the base of the frame. A light was switched on behind the apparatus throwing a silhouette of Victor onto the blind. Andrew left the stage, because they had agreed that if he was out of sight, he could not influence the audience's perception of the magic by, for instance, bored expressions or faking yawning.

"When I pull this lever the blocks of glass will slide down the tracks and pass through you without causing you any harm. Three... Two... One..." The lever was pulled and, as they had been told the blocks began to slide towards Victor trapped in the fast diminishing gap between them.

As the blocks reached the frame in which Victor was held, the light behind winked out and there was a noise. No-one in the audience knew how to describe the sound after, but someone did formulate a way to know what sort of distress it caused; he said, imagine the sounds of fingernails on a chalkboard combined with the wails of a hungry baby, then remove any comfort you might derive from knowing that the fingernails will stop and the baby is alive.

The glass blocks passed into the frame and stopped with their edges sticking out from opposite sides of the cabinet frame. After a few seconds the blind released. Again the audience took a few moments to assess what they were seeing and applaud their amazement. What they were seeing was a pair of glass blocks, fused together on the opposite sides from which they had been released. And embedded inside, like something in a paperweight, was Victor.

Martha called Susan forward to verify that her writing on the glass was still there as she had written it; the volunteer confirmed that her writing was in the correct places on the correct blocks before being returned to her seat.

The magicienne then had Victor demonstrate that he was still there by wriggling his fingers and toes. She then assured the audience that he would be able to breath because there was sufficient space around his body for the air to get in through the gap where his feet stood on the pedestals.

The audience clapped, hooted and hollered, as Andrew returned to the stage and helped Martha move the apparatus to the side of the stage; they told the audience that Andrew would be able see rest of the magic from his place in the bi-coloured glass block and that they could admire his physique for the rest of the show.

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Act 2

Andrew moved onto the stage with the caution of a burglar, giving the impression that this section of the show was clandestine. He acknowledged Victor, still embedded in the bi-coloured glass blocks. "Quite impressive that, wasn't it?" he commented.

The audience responded with muttering that agreed with the sentiment.

"But not exactly subtle," Andrew added. "I wanted Martha to do a less dramatic, and more intimate version of that, but she thought that was better. I'm supposed to be performing a version of the Chinese linking rings, but wouldn't you rather see something more exciting."

Most the audience indicated for the more exciting magic, particularly the few that remembered the linking rings being performed by Martha during the first act.

"Well, I'd better get on with it. And I'll need a volunteer from the audience." The auditorium lighting brightened to allow Andrew to see and select a volunteer from the several hands that were raised. He chose Greta, Victor's girlfriend, and went backstage to fetch the equipment, while Greta came forward and mounted the stage.

The frame he returned with was marginally smaller than the one Victor had been attached to and did not have the ramps and glass blocks to the side, but instead had sheets of glass at the front and the back. A brief inspection showed that it also had a similar pair of places to stand allowing the occupant to be mostly isolated from any means of escape.

Andrew found out that Greta had been with Victor for a little over two years, during which time she had been working as a secretary in the local forestry department. He also discovered that a friend of Greta's had brought her boyfriend to the show and been pleasantly surprised that he had been sufficiently aroused by the show that the rest of the evening had been more sexy fun than she had anticipated; Greta had brought Victor along in the hope it would have a similar effect on him.

"Shall we get on with the illusion? We don't have a lot of time before Martha gets back and discovers what I'm up to." Greta nodded.

Andrew gave her a marker pen and asked Greta to get the back of her hands signed by a member of the audience, while he did some last minute adjustments. She soon returned to Andrew with Susan's signature on the back of one hand and the word "Wow!" written on the back of the other.

Andrew checked the writing and then asked Greta to step up onto the foot plates between the glass plates. "Now, we need to do some safety stuff. First, I need you to stand with your arms beside your body, but not touching and, secondly, you'll need to wear this mask. For reasons that may become apparent later, you will need to hold it in place by biting down on the pegs stick out on the inside."

"Ok, when you feel ready," Andrew said addressing Greta, "I would like you to nod you head, then I will count to three. If I start counting and you decide that you are not ready raise your arm and I will stop. Have you got that?"

Greta nodded. To the amusement of the audience, Andrew began to count. Greta straightened and took up the pose she had been asked to in a flustered and hurried manner. On the count of three, Andrew pulled a lever on the rear left of the cabinet. The audience could not see much happen until a moment later when there was a crash and the tinkle of falling glass shards.

The masked Greta remained in the cabinet and appeared to be totally still. Andrew reached into the cabinet and pulled on her hand. He seemed to be encouraging her to try stepping out of the cabinet and back onto the stage avoiding the tray full of glass fragments below the cabinet. Greta remained rigid.

Andrew gave Greta an experimental tap and received a clunk. He hurriedly dragged the tray of shattered glass from under the cabinet and stepping into the cabinet tapped the area where the mask showed. There was a tinkle of glass and the audience saw some scintillations as fragments fell away from Greta's face-mask. These were soon followed by the mask, which fell to reveal Greta's face.

"What happened? I was having trouble breathing and I can't move."

"Um, I think I have encased you in glass; like Victor there." Greta tried to turn her head, but failed.

Andrew lifted Greta from the footrests and stepped out of the cabinet to stand her on the stage.

"Ok, so I'm encased in glass, what happens next? Do you let me out somehow?"

"Sadly not. The procedure would probably involve too much flying glass to be safe with all the audience here, so we'll have to do it after the show. What we do now is prove to the audience that you are encased in glass, because at the moment all they can tell is that your hands are in rigid glass gauntlets and your head is in a glass helmet."

"And how are you going to prove than? I guess, as I won't feel it, you could tap me all over and they would hear that you are hitting glass everywhere," Greta suggested.

"That might be ok if everyone believed what they heard. But in these times people are aware that noises can be easily faked. In fact there an entire profession based on making real-sounding fake noise; they're called Foley artists; you may have seen them in film credits and wondered, but that's what they are."

"So what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to undress you until we get to the glass layer and everyone here can see that you are really encase in a thin layer of toughened glass."

"But won't that be embarrassing?"

"Not for me. If you knew some of the things I have done that I would be embarrassed have discovered, you would know that undressing an immobilised woman on stage would barely register."

"I meant for me," Greta insisted.

"But you are the one who volunteered to come up on stage during a show that you should have been aware was adults only in nature and mentions of nudity on the poster and in the program." While he spoke Andrew drew Greta's jacket down her rigid arms and added it to the basket of clothes that Victor had shed earlier. It became evident that the glass coating Greta's hand continued unbroken up to the her shoulders and possibly beyond.

There was a zipping noise and the black dress she wore under her jacket bagged a little. Andrew tried lifting the dress up her body, exposing a glass-plated lower torso, before noticing that her rigid arms would be in the way. He turned to the pull the dress down the body method, but discovered that the dressed was sufficiently tight and Greta's arms sufficiently spread to foil that method too. The audience were mildly shocked when Andrew produced a knife and cut the dress down the front. Naturally Greta protested, but she was assured that they would find something for her to wear to go home and be compensated for the damage. Andrew added the dress to the basket of Victor's clothes and then ripped the tights Greta was wearing from her glass encased legs.

Lastly, the bra was easily removed, but the panties destroyed. This was not before Andrew had canvassed the audience's opinion about whether they should be removed and received a near unanimous vote that they should.

While this had been happening stage hands had removed the cabinet and the tray of shattered glass, giving Andrew the space to move the rigid Greta to the side of the stage opposite her boyfriend. This gave space for the show to continue, while Greta and Victor spent most of the time gazing at each other's exposed physiques.

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At the end of the show Martha thank all the 'brave and sexy' people that had taken part in the show and the rest of the audience for coming. She then wished them a safe journey home.

"Finally, some of you who have been to the show before will be aware that the glass illusions were new." She indicated the still encased Victor and Greta. If you have the time before you leave please come up on stage and check that they are what they seem and we would like to know which presentation you preferred and any suggestions for improvements.

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After the rest of the audience had left, Martha dispersed the glass and returned the volunteer couple their clothes; Greta's dress tights and panties were in the same intact condition they had been when she mounted the stage.

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The survey did not resolve whether one of the presentations was better that the other and many responses suggested that the fact that they were a pair of illusions and a couple had been used in their performance had enhanced both. They decided to continue presenting the glass illusions, but made sure that they picked a couple that was up for the exposure elements beforehand from the crowd in the foyer and the bar.