"You cannot be serious," My husband screamed; he had not taken the ultimatum well.

"I am serious, Harold," I reiterated. "I am now your assistant and you will teach me everything I need to know to fill that role. Then you will sack that floozy of an assistant; I'm sure she can flirt her way into another job. The most important thing is that we work on a unique illusion that uses the circus skills I've been learning while you've been away."

He stood there fuming.

"The alternative is that I will divorce you, and you'll be left with so little that you'll need to borrow money to catch a bus across town."

"I'll think about it," he grumped.

"You do that, but don't take too long, because my appointment with the lawyer to get the ball rolling is next Thursday."

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The next months were hectic with learning everything I needed to know to perform as Harold's assistant. It turned out that I was more flexible than Greta, so that while I was a few inches larger in places I could easily tuck myself into the various crevices that are required of an assistant.

I quickly mastered my role in the assortment of grand illusions that Harold owned, he even grudgingly admitted I performed better than the tart I was replacing. Naturally, there were changes made to the costuming; I might be flexible and agile, but my physique is not particularly suited to show-girl style of dental-floss bikinis. I began learning the illusions in t-shirt and shorts, but soon worked out that if Harold dressed as a circus ring-master I could assist in a range of outfits that were circus-related and tended heavily towards the leotards, tights and dancing slippers, although for the more comedy illusions I would dress as a clown.

After a month of intensive training, Harold admitted I was a better assistant that Greta had ever been; she was a box-jumper and eye-candy, I was a true partner in the act, especially as I brought the circus skills I had learnt, so could add juggling and fire-eating to the act.

After two months, we were out on the road together performing in the same venues that he had been to with Greta. The bookers for the venues seemed initially sceptical that I was an asset, given that I lacked her body and her willingness to flaunt it, but we soon showed that our enhanced act, with its extra elements was a greater draw than Harold's previous act with a prettier assistant.

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"Harold, I've had an idea for a unique illusion for me to do. If you don't help me do it, I've had some offers from other magicians who have seen our act and reckon that I'm the best thing in it."

"Ok," he replied, "What's this idea?"

I told him my idea.

"But that's impossible. If we can find a way to do that, we stand a chance of making it big. The trouble is that I haven't a clue how to do the first part, let alone that climax you're suggesting."

I looked him in the eye and said, "If you want to keep me, you will find a way. The good news is that I have been looking into this kind of thing and I have a few ideas; it'll be a question of filling a few gaps between my ideas and then putting it all together. Think about it!"

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Harold was clueless about where to start with inventing my idea into practice, which is hardly a surprise as the illusions we perform are off-the-shelf items with custom paint jobs and a script to suit our on-stage roles. Fortunately, with the ideas I had and his experience, we had a design. It took us several weeks to gather the materials we needed and after a few successful rehearsals, it was time to find out if the effort had been worth it.

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I am nervous for the debut of the illusion I practically designed with a little bit of help from my magician husband. Part of this was because despite three successful trials in private, this would be the first time in the public gaze. The rest was that there are parts that we could not rehearse, particularly the minor involvement of an audience volunteer, the only practice for which was a rehearsal with a bag of potatoes and the final one with our dog.

The space we were using was outdoors and appeared far larger than the show leading up to the debut of my illusion warranted, but we needed the height to do the effect justice. Harold filled in with a few smaller tricks while rushed off to change into my modified leotard and tights and change into the slippers I would use to perform the circus part of the illusion.

My husband announced, that we were going to show them a never before seen illusion and we needed a volunteer to help out and take a small role in it.

I appeared to wait while he selected a volunteer, but was signalling my approval or otherwise after he had dismissed a couple of people that, it would later become apparent, entirely inappropriate. We settled on a woman in her late teens, dressed in a long sleeved top, a short skirt and leggings. Her name, we discovered, was Debbie.

The laser was introduced on its little cart that allowed it to be parked almost anywhere and remain totally still as was required for my illusion. With the laser parked and plugged into the power, Harold switched it on. The beam cut through the haze in the air to find a mirror on a stand fifteen feet above the performance area. From there it reflected across the performance area to another stand then out of the performance area to a harmless spot on a nearby hill. With the darkness, I was a little surprised that the bush on that hill that was the laser's accidental target was brightly illuminated; during rehearsal the far end of the beam had shone on a wall.

With the laser beam in place and stable, we equipped Debbie and myself with dark glasses and had her inspect the set-up. It did not matter that she passed her hand through the beam causing it to blink out for the short duration that her hand was in its path.

Now was the moment of truth; could I do this for an audience? A block was placed next to the beam and I climbed onto it. The next step would be critical to the success of the whole thing. I paused to centre myself, both literally and metaphorically, then with the appearance of extreme caution, I stepped onto the beam. The soles of my tightrope slippers were brightly lit, but I did not fall through. The next step was the one I always found the trickiest; stepping my second foot onto the beam. I not only needed to move and maintain my balance with both my feet in line with each other, but I also had to put in a little bit of wobble to give the impression that standing on a laser beam required more skill than it really required; compared to a real tightrope wire, the beam was as steady as a rock, the downside was that it was much narrower, leading to the soles of my slippers for this illusion being thicker than my regular tightrope slippers.

I stood on the laser beam for a few seconds to give Harold a chance to move the mounting block away and hand me a small parasol, to aid my balance. I took my first few steps, before Debbie was asked to confirm that I was not standing on a hidden wire. Walking up a sloping wire is a difficult feat, but I was doing it and trying to make it look easy, because most acts seem better if the feats displayed get progressively more spectacular or difficult. While I climbed step-by-step up the laser beam towards the first stand, I could feel the audience watching my muscular back, which was exposed by the low back of the leotard.

I was relieved to arrive at the first stand and step off the beam; the first phase of the act had passed without incident.

While I took a breather, Harold persuaded our volunteer to climb the ladder on the other stand about ten or twelve yards away to check that the visible beam that reflected from that first stand to the second was exactly that and did not hide a solid wire to walk on. Debbie was rewarded for having the courage to climb up to the stand by appreciative applause and cheers when she reached the top.

What happened next was Harold's idea and I am still not convinced that we should be doing it. The ladder Debbie had climbed collapsed, leaving the volunteer stranded on a small platform on the top of a tall pole.

It took Debbie a short while to check that the only things between the platforms where we each stood was open air and a bright, but insubstantial, beam of laser light. Once she had called down that there was nothing up there. I stepped back onto the laser and slowly crossed the space between us. As I got closer I coached her on how to stand on the platform out of the way of me standing there too, without the risk of falling off.

The next part of the stunt was to carry Debbie back to the first platform, which was why the first few selections were rejected; too heavy for me to carry. Persuading Debbie that getting onto my back was the quickest way to get back down to terra firma was not as simple as I had hoped; I also reckon if the ladder had not been removed as an option, her sense of adventure would have fared better against her instinct for self-preservation than her plain desire to get back down to the ground.

It was fortunate that I had a microphone with me, so that my encouragement and Debbie's eventual agreement entertained the audience and they could add their cheers to make it known that they would like to see me carry Debbie across the laser-highwire, which helped push Debbie in that direction.

The manoeuvring to get Debbie with her legs around my waist and her arms around my neck and one shoulder probably looked comical from ground-level, but it had some heart-stopping moments. I took a few moments to find my altered balance and transfer my parasol into my free hand. I whispered my final advice, "Stay as still as you possibly can, but don't go rigid," before stepping out onto the laser beam. I was totally ready to step back to the relative safety of the platform, if she should react in a way that increased the risk of us toppling to our dooms fifteen feet below.

There was one hairy moment on the way across, when she asked if she could wave to her friends. I told her that she may, but not to wave energetically, because I would need to compensate. She waved and I had to flex to keep us balanced, then I told her to hold on again and traversed the last couple of yards to the platform. When I lowered her to the top of the ladder down, she seemed highly relieved to be returning to the ground.

With Debbie back on the ground, I was able to step back out into the laser beam without fear that she might cause the tower to flex and move the beam. In the centre of the gap between the two platforms I lowered myself onto the laser beam so that I straddled it, then lay back on it.

Meanwhile, Harold was setting up the necessary equipment under the laser beam. This was a pair of clear boxes each with six foot high tube of fabric on top supported by a wire framework. The tubes were opaque and made of an elastic material; so they narrowed to almost nothing in the middle of their length. The boxes at the base were semi-circular in cross section and stood several feet apart with their flat sides facing each other, so that the audience could see between them.

The next thing had taken a lot more practice than I had expected because it involved breaking the beam for a fraction of a second. The problem was that switching between the two lasers mounted in the base unit needed to be very precisely synchronised. It had taken me some weeks to get over the burns that occurred if both the supporting beam and the cutting beam were both under me simultaneously. But the cutting beam needed to be in place before I fell more than its width when the supporting beam was removed.

The next second was full of interesting sensations coming so fast in sequence that it was difficult to seperate them. If you can imagine being burnt and sliced by the laser and falling from a height, then add in the, originally, unexpected pleasure of the magic sealing your halves against the blood-loss that would have happened if the laser had not been powerful enough to cauterize the cut it was causing. There was always a moment of anxiety as my two halves fell that Harold may have placed the catching apparatus wrong; fortunately he realised on which side his bread was buttered and made every effort to get it right. The worse I had experienced in rehearsal was touching the top supporting ring with the side of my arm, which I did my best to hold against my side.

Things were a lot less terrifying, but no less busy, once I could feel the fabric of the tubes against the halves of my body. First, there was spreading my arms to slow me down and make it clear to the audience that I was alive and functioning. Then there was the slide down the tube to get my cut down the middle aligned with the flat sides of the receiving cabinets below. In rehearsal I had discovered that was easier if I did one half at a time. It turned out to seem more dramatic too. The trick was to hold out one arm to slow that half while I kicked with the other leg to rotate that half so the seam on the outside of the tube lined up with my arm, before allowing that half to drop into its cabinet, then repeat the kicks needed to align the other half in the same manner, then mentally count to three before dropping my second half into place.

Harold's next job, after cutting off the laser, so that a stray beam did not cut some unsuspecting soul, was to open some doors through which I poked hands and feet, to show that I was in the two cabinets. He then displayed my predicament to the audience.

The cabinets were then placed with flat sides together and the internal wall they became removed. There was a short moment for me to recover from the intense pleasure of rejoining and reconnect my costume's halves, before Harold separated the halves of the cabinet and I stepped from inside to receive the applause that lasted far longer than even I had hoped.

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Since that day we have performed that act dozens of times, but occasionally need to cancel the laser-highwire due to weather; it is not an piece of magic that can be performed in high winds, rain or mist.

I had hoped that there would be a queue of magicians clamouring to know the secrets of the magic and licence it, but the few that contacted us, soon withdrew when they discovered that the circus skills part of the act were real circus skills. So to this day, we are the only act performing my illusion.