A Story for KurvyKate

The Gala Ballroom in the city wasn’t a ballroom all the time, once a week they hosted magic nights when the programme would be a mixture of local and guest magicians. The locals were usually quite bad, but that was part of the joy in it. It was as much fun to heckle and laugh at the poor souls whose tricks didn’t work as it was to be enthralled by some of the guests. The best ones were often invited back. It was always informal and fun.

The relaxed atmosphere encouraged liberties and the acts would include lots of audience participation. Nothing unusual in that except that those called upon to suffer all sorts of mysterious and surreal indignities were usually young women and the liberties taken were undeniably lewd and simply for the titillation of the audience.

Not all the acts were in the best possible taste of course. Some of the less professional magicians were popular only because of the blatant exploitation of their temporary assistants, encouraged up onto the stage by the cruelty of their friends or partners, anxious to see them humiliated. After a while in the bar before hand they were courageous to the point of later regret!

However, some of the real magicians were stunning, literally, and would leave the audience bewildered by their breathtaking skill. My favourite, billed as Rod-erick, performed his illusions with a serene and enchanting presence on stage. He would reduce his assistants to near nakedness with such confidence and charm that they were always willing to allow it. It was always obviously an essential part of the illusion, mostly because his magic acted intimately upon the exposed bodies of his subjects, or should that be victims? Did he hypnotise them somehow?

It mattered that Rod-erick’s young ladies were not hauled out of the audience but selected in an interview shortly before the show. Was that to ensure that he found someone suitable, someone particularly susceptible to whatever it was he did to them?

More than once I watched transfixed as his young woman that night obeyed him without question, instantly carrying out his instructions as if she was honoured to do so. “If you like” he would say but they always did. I saw the look on their faces as his magic touched them.

I’ll admit I wanted to play. I found their submission erotically powerful and I wanted to submit too. I wanted him to strip me in front of a hall full of people and experience the same blissful acceptance his other girls had. I wanted the same ethereal calm, the same strange adventure, the same thrill. I wanted him to intoxicate me with it too. Sometimes his assistants were even restrained, necessary to convince the audience they remained in place. Oh how I wanted that!

When I discovered he was performing again I was determined to be chosen. I shaved my armpits and my legs, trimmed my bush and wore matching, pretty black underwear under my dress, to present myself as worthy. That night the ballroom staff directed me to a room behind the stage I’d not been in before.

I waited there with my heart pounding

----------

I remember him asking my name and why I had put myself forward as a potential volunteer. I replied that I was Kate and I had seen him at previous events and thought that being a subject in his illusions would be fun.

The next thing I remember was him shaking my hand and saying that he would see me on stage.

Whatever happened between was a mystery. I was still dressed, so I guessed that I had been hypnotised, but I was not sure. This made me a little nervous. While I had speculated that some hypnosis was likely to be involved, to not have been aware of it, at least peripherally, felt spooky. To calm my nerves I went to the bar and ordered a drink. When I got my purse out, the barmaid told me that Rod-erick had paid for it.

Once in the Ballroom I found a seat near the edge of the central cluster of seats facing the stage; I usually go for a seat in the middle, because it would seem that a lot of the less polished magicians practised in front of a mirror straight on and think that is good enough. The show was the usual mix of local and guest magicians and from my wider angle it was easier to spot the deficiencies in their performances.

Towards the end of first act, Rod-erick came on and put most of the preceding magicians to shame with a dancing cane illusion that imbued the cane with more than the ability to float in the air. He gave it the personality of a disobedient and mischievous schoolboy. Rod-erick also shamed the others by his attire; full dinner jacket, bow tie and top hat, most of the rest looked like they were in whatever they had thrown on that morning or tried for the gothic or hippy looks and missed the mark.

At the end of the dancing cane routine Rod-erick was no longer wearing the top hat, because the cane had knocked it off several times and once had even worn it. While the cane had danced, a stagehand had pushed some apparatus onto the stage behind him, but, as this was not in the spotlight, I could not tell what it was.

The magician handed the cane and the top hat to the stagehand with a thank you. Then he came forward to the edge of the stage. "Could Kate make herself known please?" I stood up and waved. "Would you come up to the stage please." he instructed, politely. I was glad I was at the edge of the seating, because it would have been time-consuming to play musical chairs with the laps of the rest of the audience in the same row of seats. While I made my way up he told the rest of the spectators that he had interviewed me before the show to determine my suitability and willingness to be his volunteer. I didn’t remember any of it. Neither had I been told what was about to occur. I confirmed that when I arrived.

He had me bring forward a piece of apparatus while he dragged a small table forward. The thing I brought forward was a tall pole, about my height, mounted on a circular base, with a couple of small wheels on the base of the pole, so that leaning the whole thing back meant it could be wheeled about. Whatever was under the cloth on the table rattled.

Rod-erick had me park the thing about three feet from the edge of the stage and then began passing me steel rings with threaded bits welded on, and wing nuts. I was invited to attach the rings to the post by putting the welded bolt through holes in the upright and fastening them in place with the wing nuts. Soon there were eight rings in place and he had the ninth in his hand. He called me over and asked me to stand facing the audience with my arms by my side. He lowered the ring over my head and down my body; he needed to push it down with a hand in front and another behind, to get it to move down my upper arms, but otherwise there was no problem.

He fitted the final ring, once I had stepped out of it, an inch below the top of the pole. He commented that while I might not have the slender physique of the stereotypical, waif-like gymnast or magician's assistant, it would be a pleasure to perform magic with a real woman. I thought of my friend Tam, who would have been pleased to hear such a thing.

Between us we lowered an oval hoop with a black curtain over the device we had constructed and untied the ribbons that held the fabric to it. He had me stand inside its perimeter beside the column of steel rings.

"Do you think that you could get inside the rings on the column?" Rod-erick asked.

"I don't think so," I replied. "Well, not without undoing a lot of nuts and some help once I got up to chest level."

"Would you like to give it a go?"

"Maybe. I think it would have to be done by magic though, because you're not going to get me in there by any other way."

"Challenge accepted!" he said. He stooped and raised the curtain to waist level. "Are you ready?"

"Ok."

He raised the curtain to obscure me from the audience completely and began to shimmy it, then I noticed he was pushing it and me toward the column with the rings. I quickly stepped round behind the apparatus and took up position on the other side where there was a space opening up. The curtain was lowered.

The audience sniggered.

"And there we have it," announced Rod-erick, "Kate has been into the rings and come back out."

Of course, there was an element of the audience that expressed their scepticism that I had been inside the apparatus. I was now part of the 'vanished and returned, without proof of vanishment' gambit that a lot of magicians indulge in. When questioned about whether I had spent any of the time while concealed by the curtain, actually inside the rings, I said, "Of course," but failed to hide that this was an out and out lie.

The audience challenged Rod-erick to show that I had really been inside the rings by showing the intermediate stage of me being in the rings before I got out again.

"Do you mind showing these people that you were inside the rings, by doing it again? And remember to stop once you are in the rings."

I nodded; I remember thinking that if he wanted to play that game again I was willing.

The curtain was lifted and shimmied again, then the area in which I stood began to shrink as he moved my side of the oval hoop toward the rings.

----------

About five mysterious seconds later I stood inside the rings; how I got there, I don't know; how I knew it was only five seconds, I don't know.

The first thing to strike me was that I could not move my upper body with my upper arms pinned to my sides by two rings; one at the top of my arms and the other just above my elbows. Then there was the minimal amount of space by my hips where my hands were. I could move my feet a bit, but that would not do me much good, except to adjust the exact points where I could feel the pressure of the constraining rings.

The applause from the audience then impinged on my attention. I would have liked to know if they were applauding the magician for getting me inside the rings, as he said he would; were they applauding me for squeezing myself into this impossible situation; or were they anticipating the next section of the act and the impossibilities and indignities that might follow from my entrapped position. This was the thrill I was seeking when I volunteered; being trapped, vulnerable and with no way to prevent whatever the magician planned to do to me.

While I recovered from my astonishment, Rod-erick was demonstrating that the rings that held me were neither loose nor fake. He even went so far as to lean the whole thing back and wheel me on a circuit of the stage back to the same spot. This was a little uncomfortable, as it forced me to brace myself harder within the rings. The most unnerving parts were the bumps as he ran the wheels over the curtain hoop on the way out, and again when he parked me back in the curtain circle.

"How are you doing in there?"

"Ok, I guess. But it is a bit tight in here; I can hardly move."

"Are you ready for the next bit?" he asked, as if I was in a position to say 'no'.

Instead I said, "I don't know. It depends on what the next bit is."

"Telling you would spoil the surprise, but you might want to consider removing your dress, because there is some risk that it will be damaged and the same applies to your stockings. And maybe you would like to find a more comfortable position too?”

Remove my dress! In front of the audience? Even though I had no idea how I might accomplish such a thing trapped within the rings, I knew Rod-Erik could do it magically. He was only asking me to for the sake of theatrical drama, to show that only his magic could strip me! I felt my pulse quicken at the thought of my exposure and how humiliating it would be.

I tried to turn but the grip of the rings on my upper arms made it impossible. While I demonstrated how stuck I was, he lifted the curtain to waist high and when it became evident that left to my own limited devices moving would be a slow process, if possible at all, he raised it all the way and dragged hoop and curtain away from the rings.

The audience's whoops of surprise and amazement seemed overblown as I had not moved much. Rod-erick gathered up the curtain to the hoop and gave it a shake. Out dropped my dress, shortly followed by my stockings and then my suspender belt. I did my best to look down my body, which made it clear to me that my dress was gone.

“Oh wow, that’s impressive!” I thought. I felt horribly naked although of course I wasn’t completely, I still had my underwear but if he could take the rest so easily it would be no problem for him to take that too. How on earth had he done it? I felt so precarious! My heart was really pounding then. My assistant experience certainly was giving me the feelings of vulnerability and powerlessness to avoid what the magician wanted to do!

Someone shouted from the crowded seats that the magician should put my dress back on me, calling me fat. Rod-erick rounded on them, saying, "Kate may be plumper than the average stick insect they call a magician's assistant, but she showed more guts in volunteering, then you show by insulting her from the anonymity of the crowd." He glared into the audience daring the heckler to come back at him, but all that was heard was the uncomfortable shuffling of feet.

Rod-erick cast aside the curtain, then picked up my dropped clothing and put them in a mesh bag. He then pulled on the rim of the bag, ripping the Velcro seams sending two doves into the air. My clothes appeared to have vanished.

It occurred to me then that my clothes really had flown away and I’d face the prospect of travelling home in nothing more than the bra and panties I was left wearing. He wouldn’t do that to me would he? The thrill of humiliation like that would be an adventure too exciting to bear!

Rod-erick came over to me. "You can collect your things after the show, if you want, but for now I need to make a couple of adjustments." He put a finger under the shoulder strap of my bra and began to drag it over my shoulder and down my arm. I was a little worried about how far he was going to go. In the event he stopped once the strap had been pulled through where my arm was tight against the ring, then repeated the process on my other shoulder.

"Now that we're ready for the next thing, would you like to do it the 'easy' way or the 'hard' way?"

"Do what?" I asked, hoping to get a clue about what he had planned and how hard or easy the 'ways' were.

"The next illusion," he said. So much for finding out what he had planned. "The easy way is quicker, but less impressive; the hard way will impress this lot, but will require a bit more courage from you.”

Rod-erick's tone and the wink he made towards the audience, suggested that he expected me to choose the 'hard' option. I felt inclined to satisfy him and a murmur of delighted anticipation spread across the audience. I pulled myself up short; was this a result of something he had done during the blank part of our interview working? Then I remembered the magician's comment about me showing guts in volunteering.

I blurted, "I'll go for the hard way, please." Guessing that he wanted to saw me in half, or something like that, and was giving me a blind choice of which apparatus he would use on me. I then asked, "So, do I get out of here?" I was assuming that I had been left in the rings so that the magic used to remove my clothes would be that bit more amazing.

"If you had opted for the easy version, yes; but you chose the hard version, so you get to stay there, while I build the rest of the equipment around you."

He went over to the rattly table and opened a drawer. He pulled out what looked like an extra large roll of cling-wrap with a handle. It proved to be exactly that as he found the end and attached it to the post and wrapped it round the bottom ring, twice. He continued circling me keeping some tension on the roll of film to keep the wrapping smooth. As he went round I could feel the column sway; a swaying that increased as he wound the film up the confining rings.

It did not take him long to cover the rings, surrounding me in cling film. The effect from my point of view was to distort what I could see, rather than obscure it all together; I assumed that, the audience could see I was still there with no chance of escape, but not clearly.

My obscured view did not last long, because Rod-erick ripped a hole between the top rings big enough to make my face visible. The audience saw my suspicious look as he poked a hole in the film behind my head and pulled my long hair out through it; he made some comment about not harming my lovely black hair; in sunlight it is dark brown, but I did not correct him. He then poked a hand in through the wrap by my hips and pulled my hand through the hole he had made; a process he repeated on the other side. I imagine that the spectators could see the outline of my body through the double or treble layer of film, mostly pink with patches of black where my bra and panties were. My feet in my low heels, my hands and face were more clearly visible at the bottom, middle and top.

Things took a more worrying turn, when Rod-erick came into view carrying two circular sheets of metal, the same diameter as the rings that constrained what little movement I could make. It did not settle my nerves when he clashed them together, making a noise that attested to their solidity. With one blade dangling he approached me holding the other blade horizontal. I heard a squeak and then pop as the leading edge of the blade was pushed against my film cocoon and then penetrated, sliding in across the top of the ring at upper thigh level.

My diminishing hope that the blade was fake vanished completely when it touched me on the fronts of my thighs; the edge felt sharp too. I could feel a pinching sensation as Rod-erick pressed the edge in hard, then there was a grunt and the pinching sensation was gone. It was replaced with a warm tingle, pleasant and a bit distracting. I tried to squint down inside my prison, but I could not see beyond where my wrists went through the film, because there was metal in the way.

The magician stood away for a moment, presumably to let the audience see that he had put a blade through the apparatus. This respite did not last long, because he stepped back in with the second blade held flat and I felt the pinch then a tingle as he pushed it through my lower thighs. The next two blades, after being clashed, were inserted across the bottom two rings; making a pinch and tingle sensation, a little below my knee and mid shin.

The following two blades slid across the rings around my lower torso, with similar sensations in my upper hip and lower arm, and then in the base of my ribs and just above my elbows, where they pressed against the ring. My mind was sufficiently distracted by the tingles I was experiencing that I did not wonder at the time how my hands stayed in place when the support from above was cut off; such is magic.

I did not much notice the next blade passing through my upper chest; the pinch was less and the tingle more. The last was the most terrifying; not only could I see what Rod-erick was doing, but he paused with the blade taking up most of my view downwards. He asked me to raise my chin. I took a gulp, realising he would push the blade through my neck! I felt the pressure on my throat but thankfully the pinch was barely a prick and the tingle's intensity was delightful. “How come I’m still breathing?” I thought.

I did not pay much attention as he declared to the audience that I had been sliced into nine sections and pointed out my face and feet, then stroked my hands, which I wriggled. Naturally for this audience someone suggested that all was not as it seemed; in this instance proposing that the blades were fake and I had not been divided at all.

Rod-erick spoke to me again. "Is it ok with you, Kate, if I prove to the doubters that you have been cut into nine sections?"

"I think so. So long as I am back in one piece before the end; ok?" I felt empowered in my powerlessness; I was in no position to stop the magician from doing anything he wanted, but he had asked. I wondered at my own audacity at placing a condition on him.

He stood to the rear of the apparatus and it shook a little; then it shook again, I felt that I had moved upwards. A few more shakes and my view over the audience had risen about four feet, then the shaking stopped and the applause came. From my limited view, I could tell that Rod-erick was waving his arms through the gaps that had opened up between my divided sections.

As the clapping died down, there was another shake of the column, then my point of view gently descended to its normal level. Then there was a puff of smoke and I was standing next to the column of rings again. I looked down, half expecting, half hoping, that my dress had been restored to me, but I was still in no more that my black lingerie.

Rod-erick took my hand and led me in a bow. Whether the onlookers were cheering Rod-erick's magic, my bravery or the fact that there was a near-naked woman on the stage did not much matter to me; I had experienced something that tapped on a good number of my kink-buttons and enjoyed it.

I stood there unsure whether the embarrassment of me standing before an audience in nothing but my underwear contributed to my rosy cheeks more or less than the exhilaration of having survived being sliced into pieces and the afterglow of the warm tingles that the blades had imparted.

"Would you like to see another piece of magic, Kate?" the magician asked.

"Yes, I think so. What would I have to do?"

“Nothing much, just take off your bra, but only if you want to.”

I hesitated; he was asking my to remove my bra with all these people watching, as if it was something normal.

“And you do want to don’t you?” he added.

I was reaching to unfasten my bra-strap, before I thought I can’t believe I’m doing it; this is nuts! I was planning to remove my bra in front of an audience, just to see a magic trick. I hesitated, then discovered that I couldn’t stop myself in spite of worrying that the audience would see my breasts uncovered.

I realised that I was too far into the process to pass the movement off as a different gesture. I wondered if my compliance was a result of whatever happened during the pre-show interview, but his comment about me having guts came back to me, so I continued and slid the garment down my arms; quickly clamping an arm across my bust while holding my bra out to the magician.

"Now, show them that there is nothing unusual about your bra."

I had to take the shoulder straps one in each hand to show my black bra, was nothing more and the only decoration was a bit of lace along the top edge of the cups.

"Now, hold on to the outer corners of the cups and put them together!" I complied, making an empty space contained between the cups. "Good! Now, hand your bra to me!"

He took my bra from my unresisting hands; they fell to my sides, making no attempt to resume covering my breasts. With a flourish he pulled bra open again and...

Just as they had burst from my dress earlier, two doves burst from the space that had been made the empty cups, did a circuit of the ballroom, returning to a perch that was at the back of the stage.

Rod-erick placed my bra down on the little table, as if I might not want it back.

He dismissed me with, “Off you go my dear, you were wonderful!” and gently pushed me towards the steps at the edge of the stage. I resisted slightly, thinking that I might pick up my bra before I went. “Go back to your seat.” he said, making it sound like a command, a polite one but an order nonetheless. I thought “Like this!” but as if driven by some irresistible force I couldn’t help but be obedient.

I walked away from the stage and up the aisle to my seat as the audience clapped and cheered their appreciation with my breasts bare and no idea where most of my clothes were. I sat down thinking “Now what?” Had the real magic been to somehow remove my clothing while I complied? Had I told him I fantasised about being humiliated like this? Is that what made me “suitable and willing”?

Would I get my purse back, with my taxi fare home in it, and my dress to wear in the taxi? I felt so frightened and dependent on him the rest of the show was quite a wild ride, and I hardly watched it!

Some of the more forward members of the audience wanted to inspect my body and approached me looking for evidence of me having been sliced up. Either that or they simply wanted to check out my body. I was spared the trip to the bar during the interval, by somebody from the staff bringing me a drink in my seat, saying that Rod-erick had paid for it; which was just as well, because I did not know where my purse was.

The second act was more amateurs, but it was gratifying to notice some of them fluff their tricks having caught a glimpse of my plump frame.

After the show, a member of staff guided me back to the room where I had first met Rod-erick. All my things were there and a red rose. I dressed and went home wondering if I would ever get to volunteer for Rod-erick again; because given the chance, I think I might.

Aftermath

On the way home in the taxi I must admit I felt euphoric. To actually be in an illusion and one performed so well was fantastic, particularly because, even though I’d been right in the middle of it, I still couldn’t see how it was done. Was I unaware because my mind had been tampered with? That thought scared me but Rod-erick had been so polite and professional and the audience so appreciative that it must have been all real illusion, if an illusion can be real!

Several times during the journey I checked my dress to make sure the stitching was still intact, that no one had cut slits in it or altered it somehow but it was always just as I bought it. How did he get my stockings off and not my shoes?

I felt so happy I giggled out loud at the thought of how I’d been stripped in front of all those people and how, because it was part of the show, I’d been allowed permission to enjoy the humiliation. It was something I’d dreamt of and tonight my fantasy had become real. I looked forward to going to bed and playing with the idea in comfort. I felt so wicked, oh those blades against my body!

But what if I really was still hypnotised? I felt more wicked still for imagining that and the awful consequences of what it might lead to. I had many nights of terrible humiliations to invent if I thought that was true. I almost wanted it.

When I got home I put the red rose he’d given me in a vase to keep it watered and alive, to prolong the memory of my night on stage as long as I could. About an hour later my phone rang, not called by a number I recognised and it was Rod-erick. I’d showered by then and I was ready to sleep. All he wanted was to thank me for my contribution to his act and to say he’d enjoyed me as much as the audience had. He apologised for not being able to see me out of the theatre himself and hoped I hadn’t been offended. Of course I hadn't.

All through his brief call I thought he might say the magic words, to switch me on, or off, or something. I put my phone down with my hands trembling, half expecting to suddenly want to take my dressing gown off. Nothing happened, I didn’t feel different, except for struggling to remember if I’d given him my mobile number. Had I? What about when I woke up tomorrow? Had he programmed me to do something then? I had to go to work. Would he still have some control over me even there?

What a beautiful thought!