Lethal experiences 3 - Perseus Red

Louise looked into the bottom of the box at the head of the stairs. The only key remaining was one with a red key-fob. Briefly, she wondered why nobody had chosen it. She took the key to the door with the matching red plate on the door. Through the door she found a simple hotel type room with a double bed, but did not make it that far, because she diverted into the bathroom to use the toilet.

When she emerged, she found that the bed was draped with a fancy-looking historical dress and an envelope. The envelope contained instructions on where to put her clothes and to wait for someone to come and help her to put on the dress. Louise removed the skirt, blouse and shoes she was wearing and sat in the comfy armchair in her bra and panties to await the promised help in putting on the dress.

She had time to look over the heap of pale blue satin and cream and gold lace that would become her costume for the evening. There was a knock on the door and a young woman entered.

"Hi, I'm Jenny," she announced. "I have come to help you with your costume, because it is virtually impossible to get it on without help. So pop off your underwear and we can get started." Without further introduction, she went to the dress, turned it over and began loosening various cords and strings.

Louise stood and removed her bra and panties. Jenny turned briefly. "Nice figure, getting you into this shouldn't be a problem if you don't mind showing a bit bosom above the neck line."

Getting Louise inside the dress took very little time, but it took many minutes of adjusting and pulling strings to get her figure shaped to conform to the dress which was corseted under the outer layer of the bodice. She was soon resplendent in the azure satin dress narrow at the waist and wide at the hips with the help of panniers. The sleeves reached to her elbows, but the cuffs reached most of the way to her wrists. The square neckline showcased the upper slopes of her breasts.

Jenny fussed with tidying the knotting and hiding the cords, then said, "One last thing to do before I can send you off for your meal." She opened a deep drawer in the dressing table and pulled out a wig that was a profusion of white ringlets. Another minute or two was spent attaching it to Louise's head before Jenny gave her directions and a warning not to hurry on the stairs, because of the danger of tripping on the skirts.

When she arrived she found a man waiting for her. He was wearing tight britches with knee socks tucked in, a ruffled top under a fancy jacket that matched Louise's in material and colour and topped off with a luxuriant wig that flowed below his shoulders. He introduced himself as Antony. Further chat was interrupted by the arrival of the waitress, who Louise was surprised to see was the same woman who had help get her into her costume and she had changed into a serving maid's outfit to match Louise and Antony's.

Antony and Louise flirted outrageously, while they ate their pre-ordered three course dinner and watched the first two potentially lethal magical acts play out, resulting in one woman being trapped in a tank of water, but not drowning and another being flatten and reinflated as a love doll with a human head.

As they wondered what the next destructive act would be, the magician invited them to come forward and participate.

The magician discussed their lack of clue with the couple. He hinted that the costume was appropriate to the lethal illusion that he planned to perform. This did not help them, because beyond being aware that their costumes were historical and indicative of high social rank, they were not sure of the exact period or rank.

During this discussion, Jenny wheeled on a tall prop covered in a mottled brown cloth.

"Would it help of I told that your costumes are the typical attire of the French aristocracy in the late 1780's."

"Here's another clue," added Jenny, who tugged on the cloth which swiftly fell from the frame supporting it; the frame of a guillotine.

The magician looked annoyed. "Thank you, Jenny. That means we are going to have to do this the hard way; doubled."

Jenny looked unrepentant.

"The plan was; I offer you a choice of the easy way or the hard way, depending on whether you guessed the illusion from the hints you already had. But now you can not guess what the illusion is, because it is there; plain to see. At least I get to punish Jenny for her premature revealing of your Lethal Experience."

"I get that this is a guillotine, and I guess you plan to put me in the stocks down there and drop the blade through my neck." Louise paused for the magician's nod of confirmation. "I guess the result will be ..." she made a squick noise as she ran a finger across her neck. Another nod from the magician. "So what is this about an easy way and a hard way? And double?"

"'Double' is easy to explain. You can see that lunette has two neck holes; one above the other. That is to show that the blade up there really goes through stock. We even have some vegetables on hand to add a bit of chopping drama. 'Double' is instead of us putting a marrow in the hole you don't chose, Jenny's neck goes in there instead. It's a bit fiddly arranging two people one above the other, but she needs to be taught not to break the flow of the build-up to the reveal of the illusion." He turned his attention to Jenny. "Go and get the upper bench!" he said sternly.

Jenny tried to put on a frown of worry, but as she positively skipped into the back-stage area, it became apparent that this piece of drama was planned.

"That sorts out 'double'," commented Louise. "But what about 'easy' and 'hard'?"

"I'll explain that once you are in place." The magician began lifting the multiple parts of the stocks from the frame. "Where would you like to be? Bottom or top?"

"Does it make any difference?" queried Louise.

"The only difference, with two on a guillotine, is that, for reasons of space, the bottom person will be facing down and the person on top will be facing up and get to watch the blade coming down."

"I don't think that I've got that kind of courage. I'd scream the place down if I could see the blade coming. I'll go on the bottom."

The magician guided Louise behind the guillotine and helped her down onto hands and knees with her head in the cut-out in the lowest, fixed section of stock. The magician fitted the mid sections of stock over Louise's neck and fixed in place each side with a plate over a metal loop and a wooden peg to hold it there.

Jenny returned with what looked like a table which she wheeled to the back of the guillotine. The wheels of the table passed either side of the trapped Louise and the surface stopped over her back. Jenny locked the wheels and lay on table with her neck in the top cut-out of the middle section of stock. The magician promptly fitted the final section of the double stock and locked it securely with another pair of wooden pegs.

"Now we get to the easy way. That would be if I take control of the rope and let the blade drop at a time of my choosing. The hard way requires a bit more courage and fortitude on your part, Louise. This is because, you will determine when the blade drops because I'll give you control of the rope. I takes a certain amount of courage to release the rope, but fortitude to not release it."

The magician pulled on a ribbon that decorated Louise's wig.

"Now what are you doing?" asked the lower victim.

"I shall use this ribbon to tie your heads together. That way if your head comes off, Jenny can support you and if her head comes off, you can support her; you notice that we don't have a basket to catch any stray heads."

"What if both their heads come off?" asked Antony.

"In that case, tied together they won't roll far and will be easy to retrieve. There is also the added benefit that it will quieten Jenny a bit, because she is a bit of a screamer when face-up on the guillotine.

"Now to give Louise control of when and if the blade falls." The magician unhooked the rope from the cleat on the side of the upright and careful not to release it fed the loose end down round a pulley and across the base of the lower stock. "Hold this, Louise!" he commanded as he raised the rope to place it between her teeth. "Now when you are ready, all you have to do is open your mouth to start the blade plummeting on both your necks."

Louise could feel the tension in the rope between her teeth dragging her head sideways, pressing her neck into the slight mismatch between the alignments of the upper and lower sections of the stock holding her neck. Louise had three options that she could see; let go of the rope immediately, possibly an anticlimax; wait some time to build up a satisfying amount of suspense, then release the blade; or try to keep hold of the rope until her ability to hold the tension disappeared or the magician got bored and released her. Given that most of these options end with the blade dropping into her neck, she decided on the one that offered the small hope that she might be able to survive this ordeal; hold on until her jaw gave out or the magician took pity or got bored.

It soon became clear that Louise was intent on not dropping the blade if at all possible. "I seems that Louise lacks the courage to release the blade of her own accord. So, Antony, it is your duty to the entertainment of the rest of the audience to encourage her to open her mouth."

At first Antony had been impressed by Louise's determination to hold the blade from her neck, but then began to wonder what fun was to be had spending the rest of the night with a headless woman and her head. He quickly concluded that with the victim promised survival, he had better do what he could to hasten the moment when magic would be needed for that survival. What this meant for their waitress, Jenny, he thought of as the magician's problem, although the thought of spending the night with two headless women and their heads did cross his mind.

His attempt to induce Louise to release the rope from her teeth by tickling her were woefully ineffective, because of the several layers of stiff fabric between his fingers and her constricted waist. He was considering going for tickling her feet, which would entail lifting those voluminous skirts, when he remembered a classic way to get a woman to open her mouth and scream. He went behind the skirts and and began to lift them. Louise protested, but with her teeth clamped on the tense rope these protests were incomprehensible. Antony soon discovered that he was not going to have to contend with any underwear and Jenny was cooperating, by lifting her legs and skirts, so that they were not an impediment to his access.

The audience could not tell exactly what was happening until the guillotine began to shake to the rhythm of Antony fucking Louise. They saw Louise's initial uncertainty about what was going on, followed shortly a deepening of her resolve to not relinquish the control of the blade to her enemy, gravity.

For a minute or two the guillotine shook to Antony's pounding and beads of sweat began to appear on Louise's brow, then Louise climaxed and lost control. Both women locked into the stocks screamed; Louise screamed her orgasm, while Jenny screamed at the fall of the blade that had been suspended above. Both screams were cut short; Louise's, by the sensation of the blade passing through her neck and and Jenny's by the fact that the ribbon that was passed across her lips was suddenly pulled in by the weight of Louise's head.

The audience could not see that much had happened until the magician, invited Antony to the front of the guillotine to accept his prize. The magician untied the ribbon supporting Louise's head and then handed it to Antony.

The magician quickly released Jenny, who rolled from the table she had been lying on and helped to removed the table before guiding Louise's headless body to the dining alcove where Antony was thanking Louise for the chance to fuck somebody in front of an audience. The head had been placed on the table facing Antony so that they could converse.

Having watched the remainder of the magical acts on the other people they had seen in the entrance hall, they retired to the Perseus Suite, where Antony made best of use of a woman with a detached head as he could imagine; he even tried the two holes in the top of her neck stump, but found her windpipe too short and caused Louise to have difficulty breathing and the inside of the oesophagus felt a bit dry and acidic.

In the morning the magician arrive in the roof and took Louise's head and put it a large paper bag. He crushed the bag onto Louise's shoulders, then raised it to show Louise's head was attached in the accustomed position of the last twenty-something years.