I had a plan, but it backfired. I like magic and illusion a least as much as the next person, perhaps more, but I'm not one of those crazies that will volunteer their bodies to be subjected to whatever the magician plans to do with them. When I got invited to a costume party which would feature a magician that would be doing costume-appropriate illusions with guests, I formed a plan which I hoped would get me an up-close view of some of the magic without being directly involved.
The plan was to go dressed as a nurse and have word with the magician between illusions, reminding him that having a 'nurse' on stage or near by was a traditional way to enhance the appearance of danger in the illusions he presented.
Before I put my plan into action I watched the magician, who called himself Luke, perform three illusions which I had no explanation for, especially as I was acquainted with the participants.
The first was Thomas, who came as the invisible man. He wore a Victorian style of suit with light leather gloves and had his head covered in bandages and a pair of cheap sunglasses that looked wrong with the rest of his outfit. Luke invited him onto the makeshift stage.
“So you're the invisible man, I guess.”
“Well, yes and no. I'm pretending to be invisible, but I'm not really invisible, and my name is Thomas and not Mr Griffin, like in the novel.”
“Would you care to show that you are actually visible?”
“Ok, but I'm not sure where this is going.” Thomas pulled up the leg of his trousers to show a bit of shin above his sock and then took off a glove, revealing a normal hand with very short fingernails (I could not tell if they were trimmed short or bitten down).
“Good, now would you like to be really invisible for the rest of the evening?” Luke offered.
“I guess that would be neat, you're not planning to make me invisible forever?”
“Of course not, but you would be invisible until you sleep tonight. I don't think that should be a problem, because you already have the head-bandages and the gloves to hide your invisibility until you get home.”
“Ok, that sounds interesting. What would I have to do?”
“Well, you can start by covering up. Lower your trouser leg and put your glove back on, then I'll get started.”
“Why would I need to cover up?”
“Trust me. The transition is quite unsettling to watch. Your skin going translucent, then clear, revealing you muscles and blood vessels and then they disappear from view and your bones and tendons are on display, which eventually... I am here to entertain and amaze, not make everyone feel uncomfortable.”
Thomas covered the exposed skin, then asked, “Now what?”
Luke placed a metal dome onto an empty side table, then lifted it again. On the once empty table sat a large glass half-filled with a bubbling fluid, which soon was mostly lost from sight as smoky vapours formed and flowed down the sides of the tumbler. “Drink that!” in response to Thomas' evident hesitancy, he added, “It won't hurt you and will have the slightly bitter raspberry flavour of cough syrup.”
The soon-to-be invisible man lifted the glass in a gloved hand and took a sip. This was followed by him chugging the rest of the glass; the piece of bandage over his nose was stained a dull pink. He replaced the glass on the table. “How long will this take? I think I feel it tingling.”
“That tingling is the invisibility potion working, when the tingling stops you will be fully invisible. That usually take a few minutes. So as not to bore people, I would like to show you a card trick.” Soon a card (king of clubs) had been selected, shown to the audience, but not Luke, and returned to the deck. The magician went through the charade of shuffling the deck and producing a wrong card and then a second wrong card, before pointing out the card sticking out of the breast pocket of his jacket. “How's the tingling?” Luke asked.
“It's mostly gone to be honest.”
“In that case, you should be invisible. Take off your glove and pick the card out of your pocket. The crowd should be doubly amazed, because not only are you now invisible, but that is your card.”
I suspect that most of the folk watching were so completely amazed when the glove was removed from the invisible hand, that they did not pay attention to the king of clubs that the invisible hand pulled from Luke's breast pocket.
Luke added to the pandemonium, by unwinding the head bandages, and showing whatever they had been wound round could not be seen, but could still support the hat that Thomas wore.
As the magic had finished, Thomas disappeared into the crowd of party goers and I did not see him again that night.
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The next act I watched involved a woman about ten years younger than me in a black dress and cape with green make-up and carrying a broom. Luke invited her onto his stage and asked her if the broom could fly.
“Of course, it can't; it's just an ordinary broom. I've got it to enhance my witchiness, because my black cat can get a bit nervous around strangers.”
“Would you like it to fly?”
“I guess, but I don't want to break it either.”
“So, you'd like to ride it? Now we are talking challenge.”
“Are you serious?” asked the young woman. I heard from a neighbour in the crowd that she was called Steffi.
“Of course! We magicians get very serious about magic. So let's get you airborne!” Luke bustled about collecting a pair of chairs and a cushion, then returned to Steffi. He enlisted her to place the chairs back-to-back about the length of the broom-handle apart and then balanced the broom across the backs of the chairs so that a couple of inches of the front (top end of the handle) was over one chair-back and the twigs that were the broom's bristles supported the rear end a few inches below the binding that held the twigs in place.
Luke then draped the cushion over the broom between the two supports, towards the rear by about a third. After a pause, he knelt by the construction and invited Steffi to use his upraised knee, mount the broom and sit on the cushion.
The woman in the witch costume hesitated. “I don't want to break my broom; will it hold my weight?”
“The magic will strengthen your broom and reduce your weight, please take your seat.”
Steffi took the magician's upraised hand and placed her other hand on the broom-handle, before raise her foot to the offered knee. With a little pressure on the knee she was able to sit on the cushion. She lifted her foot from the magician's knee and assessed her balance and whether the wooden pole was carrying her weight. After a few nervous seconds she released the magician's hand.
The magician stood. “Are you happy sitting on your broom, Steffi?”
Steffi considered her answer. “I'm a bit surprised to be saying this, but it is more comfortable than it has any reason to be, even with a cushion.”
“But you aren't flying, so let's remove the supports so that you can fly about.” The magician stood behind the broom-mounted witch and with evident care tilted the rear chair until it lost contact with the broom's bristles, then with less care, other than to avoid remaking contact with the broom or its rider, took the chair away completely.
Steffi's expression showed concern, but when she did not immediately fall to the ground, she gained faith in what appeared to be happening. The magician removed the front chair, in a similar manner to the removal of the rear chair. Steffi continue to float in place as if the chairs were still supporting her and her broom.
“How are you feeling to be floating on a broom?” Luke asked.
“I wasn't so sure at first, but now I think I like it. You did take it as a challenge to let me ride my broom, not just float on it, though.”
“Indeed I did, but before I let you fly off on your flying broom, we had better make sure you are competent to fly it and know some of the rules for having a flying broom. Let's try you moving forward a bit.” The broom-mounted witch slid forward a few metres. “It's probably a good idea to keep your manoeuvring slow to begin with, because indoors is not the best place to learn flying. Now let's try a bit of up and down and perhaps a bit of backwards; that's right keep it slow; we don't want you banging your head on the ceiling.”
Steffi floated about a bit, with every evidence of nervousness and wonder.
“Now for a bit of steering, just lean very slightly in the direction you want to turn with a bit of forward or backward; unfortunately brooms don't turn on a dime.” He congratulated her when she had flown a circle round him. “Now for the last three things that you need to know. First, and probably most obvious, is don't fly too high, because I can not guarantee that the magic will keep going and you don't want to fall from a great height. Second, the magic will last until you lose contact with the broom, so if you dismount keep hold of the broom or you won't be able to remount it, because it will be an ordinary broom again. And lastly, if you make it home with the magic still in the broom, I feel sure that your cat would love to be taken for a ride with you; it will either want to sit on the handle in front of you, or on the bristles behind you; you can never be sure, because no-one can second guess a cat, right? Well, have a good evening.”
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I approached Luke shortly after Steffi had flown out of the door, lying flat on the broom to avoid banging her head on the lintel, with the stated intent of getting a glass of something to drink and a plate of food.
I opened with, “What I've seen so far has been amazing, I guess you won't tell me the secret.”
He gave me an assessing glance. “You guessed right, so how else may I help you?”
“Well, I'd like to get a better look at the magic. Like from closer than the edge of the stage.”
“So, you want to be a magician's assistant. I think I have something that would fit that description.”
I took a step back waving my arms in front of me in a gesture of denial. “No, I don't want to be the person in the illusion. I want be nearer than the audience usually gets, to get a good view. That's why I chose this costume.” He seemed intrigued, so nodded that I should continue. “I've heard stories that in the golden age of magic shows, that magicians would hire people to act as nurses and other medical professionals, to enhance the perceived danger of the acts. I am offering my services as a token nurse, to enhance the appearance of danger, for the low price of nothing except being on the stage when the illusion is happening. If you ask nicely, I might even help out with a bit of fetching or pushing a blade into a box.”
Luke looked at me again while he weighed my proposal. He obviously liked what he saw, because he said, “That sounds like a great idea. I'll meet at the stage in about fifteen minutes and I'll see if I can't find a volunteer to take part in a dangerous illusion for you to watch from close up. In the meantime I can see someone that appears to be in need of some help with an illusion.”
I followed the magician's eye-line and saw the tallest character there; at least seven feet tall. At first I took him to be a pirate; the eyepatch and the skull and cross bones on his tricorne hat were a giveaway. It took only a few moments to realise that the pirate's head was fake and that it was an ingenious illusion costume, which appeared initially to be a tall pirate carrying a cage that housed an octopus woman. But observation indicated that woman who provided her upper torso to the captive octopus creature also provided the legs of the fake pirate.
While I was trying to work out exactly how she achieved the illusion, Luke, the magician, strode up to her, took her by the hooked hand of the pirate and guided her to the stage. “This is a fantastic costume, lets show our appreciation for Stella for coming along wearing it.” Everyone in the room applauded warmly.
“Of course, it must be a bit depressing to see the party from inside a cage, so I plan to do something about that.” The magician darted into the backstage area and returned moments later carrying a table which he place in front of Stella and invited her to rest the front edge of the cage on the near edge of the table. Standing behind the table the magician opened the front of the cage and invited Stella to come out from the cage. She seemed very reluctant to begin with, but some cajoling and a firm grasp on one of her hands, he had Stella the octopus-woman step out of the cage onto the table.
On the table, with a completely empty space below the sheet of plywood that formed its surface, sat the upper torso of a woman fringed from about an inch below her bust by octopus tentacles that writhed and moved her about a bit. There was not enough room behind the wriggling appendages to hide her down to her belly button, let alone hide her hips and legs.
The magician suggested the pirate part of the costume step back. At this point I noticed that her feet, in thong sandals, and lower legs were visible below where the raggedy trousers ended, just below the knee. Luke removed the cage from the pirate figure, allowing it to stand more upright, rather than the leaning back stance that allowed the costume illusion to work. Someone, I guess one of the hosts, had some control of the music; they put on a cheerful sea shanty, and the pirate character danced to it, much to the amusement of us in the audience and the amazement of the half of Stella that sat on the table, while her legs did their own thing.
After a short while, the magician took the pirate by the non-hook hand and guided it to stand on the opposite side of the table from where it had when Stella left the cage. He placed the hand on the table and invited the Stellapus to climb the arm. She climbed the arm, while Luke adjusted the arms in a crossed formation for her rest in.
“Now, isn't that a lot less claustrophobic?”
Stella agreed and began to leave the stage, with her costume in a new configuration. He let her go, after reminding her that she would need to collect the cage at the end of the party.
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I was getting nervous about being on stage with the magician, even if I was not the intended victim. What if things did go wrong and I was expected to save someone's life; I doubted that my very basic first aid skills would be up to keep someone who had been stabbed with a sword alive long enough for the professional paramedics to arrive. I tried to drown my nerves with a rum and coke at the bar before returning to the stage area.
When I returned Luke was waiting. “I was worried that you'd thought better of your offer to help make an illusion seem more perilous. By the way, what's your name? I can't introduce you as just a nurse, I need to be able to say something like 'Nurse Judy'.”
I was amazed that he picked the right name, but later while I thought about what happened that evening, I realised it would have been easy enough for him to find someone who knew me and ask 'What is the name of the woman in the nurse outfit?'
Luke stepped onto the stage and reached out a hand to help me up. A couple of taps on the microphone drew the attention of the crowd. “Now, as a climax to the evening, I shall be performing a dangerous illusion; in fact an illusion so dangerous that I have procured the services of a nurse to help out in the event that something should go wrong.”
My first reaction to that was, 'He's not selling it well; he'll never get someone to volunteer.' my second thought was, 'This is brilliant; he is pre-emptively bigging up the bravery of whoever volunteers.'
“That's why we have 'Nurse Judy', so that if a mistake gets made, she will make sure that whoever volunteers will survive to be patched up by the hospital. While I try to find someone brave enough to volunteer, Judy will go back stage and bring out some equipment, because we don't need her medical help at the moment and she promised to help out in other ways.” He turned to me and said in a quieter voice, “Please go back stage and bring out the two 'zed'-shaped tables. I'll try and get a volunteer.”
I nodded and headed in the direction where Luke had collected his equipment. There was the table on which Stella had first set tentacle outside her cage as a stellapus, with the cage stacked on it. There were the chairs that had been used as support for Steffi's broom, but I could not tell which of the four pairs stacked seat-to-seat had been used; it seemed that they were here to make more room for the party guests. I spotted the side table with the glass on it; a quick sniff confirmed that the contents did indeed smell like cough syrup, so likely tasted like it; I was not about to try it, because I did not like the idea of ending up with transparent skin.
The 'zed'-shaped tables I was meant to be finding were easily found. I pulled out the nearest one and looked it over. It moved smoothly on small wheels at the corners of an open tubular frame about four feet square. From the corners on one side pairs of diagonal bars supported the matching square frame by the opposite corners. The upper frame had a square of plywood attached on top and a pair of mechanical catches on the outside where the sloping support bars met the corners of the top. From the side it looked like the three strokes of a capital 'Z'. While I was pushing the first table onto the stage, I spotted a line of four holes a quarter inch in diameter in the wooden top.
I heard Luke cajoling the audience. “Come on! All I need is just one brave volunteer. If this goes right you'll get to be the person everyone mentions when this party is talked about. And if it goes wrong, you get to receive the kiss of life from Nurse Judy.”
He paused his talking to the audience to help me position the table a little beyond the centre of the stage, with the upper part of the zed pointing back the way I had come. I went to collect the second table, which I discovered also had four similar holes, but less spread out in a line closer to the middle of the table.
When I got back to the stage, he is still talking to the audience. He saw me and came to help set the second table into place. As the upper points of the zeds met, the mechanisms at the corner made contact and snapped together, firmly attaching the two tables to form one longer table.
“Sorry, Judy, it's taking longer than I expected to find a willing volunteer, so you could help out a bit further, by bringing the equipment trolley with the red handle. I should have it worked out by the time you get back.”
Next to where I had found the tables was the trolley I had been asked to collect. I looked at the items on the trolley to see if it would become obvious what the volunteer would have happen to them. The biggest items were a pair of metal sheets; squarish but with rounded corners, these were hung from the end of the trolley opposite the handle; they looked blunt. On the surface were four slightly stretchy bands with metal arrow-head shaped things on each end, and a roll of stretchy fabric with a metal rod down the middle and another one where the cloth finished on the outside of the roll. I grabbed the handle and dragged the trolley behind me as I went back to see if Luke had a volunteer yet.
I looked round. “Have you found a volunteer?”
“I haven't managed to get a volunteer from the audience; maybe your idea of playing up the danger aspect has frightened them. But I think I have found just the person to perform the illusion with.”
“Oh good. How long do we have to wait for them to turn up?”
“They're here, so we don't have to wait for them.”
I looked round to see if I had missed someone on the stage or heading toward the stage from the door. “Who?”
“You!”
“Me? No, that's not right! I only volunteered to help out, not be in the illusion.”
“You did say you would help, right?”
“I guess, but I meant that I would watch and hand you things and maybe push a sword into a box, or something like that.”
“Well, now you get to be part of the illusion; what better way of watching it from up close?” He turned to the audience and asked, “Do you think that Judy should help out by being in this dangerous illusion?”
An assortment of cheers, shrill whistling and yells that echoed the sentiment of 'yes, she should do it!' bombarded the stage. Enough to give me the impression that if I left the stage before being the victim of Luke's big illusion, I would meet with a generally hostile reaction.
For a few moments I thought of making a run for it, but could not see anywhere to run to. With escape cut off, I fell to negotiation. “Is it going to hurt? Will it be embarrassing? What would I need to do? How will I get to watch if I'm have magic done to me?”
“Let's start with you taking your shoes off, while I try to answer your questions, without giving away too much of what is about to happen. It will not hurt in the slightest, but that is not guaranteed; there are about one in a million people that experience pain during this illusion, but I doubt you'll be one of those eight thousand people in the world; and even if you are we can stop immediately with no harm done that can't fixed with a sticking plaster.”
While he told me and the audience this, I put a hand on the table to help me balance while I used the other hand to slide a shoe of my foot. The stage was not as warm as I would have expected, even when insulated by my black tights. I turned to repeat the process opposite handed.
“There are similarly few that find this illusion so exciting that they orgasm during it, but that is about as embarrassing as it gets; there's no risk of ending up with more skin showing than is showing now, unless that short skirt rides up a bit while we get you into position and that shouldn't be a problem unless you're not wearing underwear. There are some people that get so terrified that they want to be blindfolded, but I reckon that you're made of sterner stuff, but I have a blindfold on hand just in case. You may not be watching from the ideal position, but you will be able to see what happens.” He looked down to see that my shoes were off. “Now what you need to do is climb onto the table and lie face down. I will take a little time to make sure that you are in the optimal position and then the magic can begin.”
Feeling boxed in by the situation, which I had engineered without considering what would happen if there was no victim to be nurse for, I turn my back to the table and sat down. “Any particular way round?”
“Sorry, but I want you with your head at this end,” he banged the first table, “and your feet towards this end.” he banged the second table.
I turned sideways raising my legs to be on the table, then lay down on my back. I raised myself on my shoulders and heels to make sure that the mid-thigh length skirt of my nurse outfit had not ridden up, then rolled to being face down. Raising my upper body with my elbows to see what he was doing by the trolley of equipment. He had picked up the short straps with the arrowheads on the ends.
I was nearly central on the double table-top, but he had me shuffle an inch or two to the side and a couple of inches forward, so that I was 'in the perfect position'. What he did next surprised me. He took one of the straps and pushed the arrow head through the hole which was on the audience side of my leg; the arrow-head squeezed down to fit through the hole and then when the bar that attached it to the strap touched the wood of the table top, there was a noise that indicated the re-expansion of the arrow-head; this was confirmed by the magician giving the strap a tuck and showing that it did not move. Before I took in the significance of this, he laid the strap over my lower thigh and pushed the arrow-head at the other end through the hole on the other side. With these simple actions my leg was attached to the table. It took me long enough to realise that my leg could not move enough to get away from whatever was to come, that he had time to repeat this for my other leg. Now both my legs were trapped unless someone released me or I got my hands on something to cut the straps.
“Now, normally I would have Judy make a pillow to lie her head on with her fore-arms, but because you wants to watch, I suggest that you support your upper body with your fore-arms, like you are.”
He came round the head end of the table and adjusted the position of my fore-arms and strapped them down in the same way he had done for my legs. I tested the restrictions this imposed. I could move my arms slightly, but there was no way to lift my arms.
“Now for the final part of the preparations.” I looked over my shoulder to see what he was doing. He went to the cart and picked up the roll of fabric, which he took to the catch on the audience side of the table and slid the metal piece in place so that it attached to the top of the joining mechanism. He then unrolled the cylinder of fabric towards my waist. From behind the table he reached over and unrolled the fabric over my lower waist and buttocks, then with a stretch connected the bar that had been in the middle of the roll to the catches away from the audience.
Looking over my shoulder I could see the fabric stretched tightly across my buttocks and what limited movement I had showed under the covering.
“Now for the magic,” Luke announced, “I shall cut Judy in two.” It suddenly hit me where I had seen this set up before; this was an illusion that is usually called the 'Death Saw' except I had not seen a tower with a big circular saw blade on my trips back stage.
I thought for a moment and remembered the blade hanging on the end of the trolley. “If you think you can cut me in half with those blades, you must be delusional; they're so blunt they couldn't cut cold porridge.” Yes, I had an imagination failure, because when I got to that part of my dismissal, The magician pressed a button on the trolley and pulled on the handle, which resulted in him pulling out a saw nearly four feet long and foot deep with a red handle. The reaction of the crowd was mixed, some took in a deep breath at the size of the thing, while others whooped that the sawing was going ahead.
“Now, this isn't going to hurt,” he said as he rested the saw in the middle of the fabric the stretched over my middle. “You might actually enjoy it.”
I could feel the teeth through the stretchy fabric and the cloth of my dress; they made a line across my lower back about half an inch above the waistband of my panties. Then I felt them move across; I screamed, more from the shock that this seemed to be happening, because looking back I felt no pain, just a bit of tickling, but I was too frightened by the movement of the saw to consider much else.
The audience that had been muttering among themselves took on a deathly silence. They watched shocked and awed as Luke ran the saw across the lower waist. The stretchy fabric split where the saw cut it tightening a little over my lower back. I could feel the teeth sharper and more present against my skin, which at that point had not been scratched by the moving saw.
The second stroke of the saw felt like someone running a spoon across my skin, even though I could still feel the presence of the teeth. I turned to see what was going on and the magician stopped.
“Could you please choose a position and stick to it; moving too much will make the time you are in two pieces more uncomfortable. You are welcome to watch, but please don't wriggle about.”
I turned as much I could to see over my shoulder and turn back again by a tiny bit to reduce the strain involved. “Is this ok?”
“Yeah, if you can keep it there for a couple of minutes.”
I nodded and tried to take in what I was seeing. After just two strokes with the gigantic saw the teeth that had been a little over a quarter inch deep could not be seen; they were too deep and were hidden by the restraining fabric and the rear of my dress. I was feeling a warm tingle across my back, I had to conclude that he was right about not feeling pain, but realised Luke had made no promises about my dress surviving the procedure. “What about my dress?” I asked.
He dismissed my concern with, “You are being sawn in half and you're worried about your dress?”
While he made the next back and forth stroke with the saw, I tried to console myself with the thought, 'He promised no embarrassment and losing the bottom part of my dress would be embarrassing and it's obviously too late to stop this, so I'm going to have to trust this guy, that it will end well, even if the signs aren't good at the moment.'
The second and third stroke saw the saw biting deeper into my waist and the warm tingle spread down to my hips and up to my belly.
“I'm sorry it's taking so long, but your spine seems particularly tough.”
“I don't think I actually mind at the moment because you're right about it no hurting.
With each following stroke the warm tingling spread up and down my body. When it reached my toes I bent my knees to raise my feet to where I could see them over the large, but lowering, barrier that was the saw. It seemed that the saw had to have cut through my spine by that point, which, if my knowledge of anatomy was correct, meant that I should be bleeding to death and not be feeling more than phantom sensations from my lower half and agonising pain; none of this seemed to be true.
“I think I can still feel my feet. Would mind touching them? But no tickling!”
He paused in his sawing to think about my request. He let go of the saw and I felt pin-pricks inside me at about the level I thought the saw had reached. He stepped sideways and gently took hold of a foot and ran his thumb firmly down my sole, I had to resist the urge to laugh, but I could definitely feel it and the stretching that was pulling the toe of my tights tighter against my toes. He smiled at me, then let go of my foot and returned to the saw.
I am glad that it took only a few more saw-strokes before the saw scraped on the tables beneath my waist. I was beginning to worry that the warm tingles were reaching my head and might negatively impact my ability to think clearly enough to get out of this absurd situation in one piece; or maybe it was already too late.
Luke fetched the first blade from the trolley and raised it above the split in the stretchy fabric covering my waist and buttocks. For a moment I felt the blunt edge rest on the numbest and tingliest area of my back just the other side of the saw that still seemed be through me. With the nearest hand holding the heavy blade in position, he placed hand on my tail bone. With a whisper that I felt sure that no-one else heard, he said, “I'm sorry, but it's the only way I know to do this.”
I gave him a smile, that tried to convey that I was not offended by his touch, especially as he was apologising for it. I felt the pressure from his hand increase very slightly and the become directed away from the saw. As I watched he guided the blade down until something stopped it from descending further. With the first blade in place, he carefully extracted the saw and returned it to its hiding place in the trolley, before picking up the second blade. While he did this I checked that my stockinged feet were still under my control; they were, despite the expectation to the contrary created by a two millimetre thick plate of steel being through my middle and presumably preventing the transmission of nerve impulses in either direction.
The magician returned with the second blade and lined it up against the one already standing up through me. I could see the two hooks at the edges of the blade, which would locate in small holes that I had not spotted and stop the blade from falling through the slight gap between the tables. He careful lined this one up to slide down the back of the other one, but as it touched my back it stopped. He changed his grip on the blade to something that gave me the impression of holding the second blade against the first more for maintaining alignment that holding the two together.
“Judy, would you mind leaning forward a bit, so this blade can slide into place?”
I kept looking at what was going on at my waist, but leaned my shoulders a little towards the far end of the table. The weight on my back disappeared and the blade slid into place, the force of gravity being counteracted by the friction of the other blade to make the movement smooth rather than a sudden drop.
Luke walked round the table to stand between me and the audience. “Does anyone not believe that I have cut Judy into two pieces?”
The audience was muttering their opinions to each other, until someone that I could not identify shouted, “It's done with a fake saw and trick blades.”
“Well, we can't have him believing that, can we, Judy?”
I was beginning to think that I was not really sawn in two, but I guessed that I was meant to side with the magician, even if I thought the heckler was right. I offered up a non-commital “No, we can't.”
“I thought as much,” he said and pressed something on the catch on his side of the table and came behind the tables and pressed a button on the other catch. There was a small lurch as the two sections of table moved about an inch apart.
“That good enough?” Luke challenged.
A lot of people cheered, but the heckler had other ideas. “We can't see between the blades. You'll need to move the halves apart by more than that.”
“You asked for it!” Luke said. He went to the end of the table on which my legs rested and dragged it four feet further. I could see my feet, which I still could feel and seemed to control, move away from me. Then he turned the table so that my legs pointed towards the audience. He returned to the rest of me and turned this table so that if I faced forward I was looking at the audience. The audience applauded, but I was not paying them any attention; I was looking at my legs wishing that the good looking legs over there were really mine.
Luke took hold of my foot and firmly ran his thumb up my sole; I could definitely feel that.
At this point I was distracted when Steffi flew over the crowd to get a better look and I spotted Stella somewhere towards the back of the audience climb her tentacled upper torso up the arm of the pirate character to perch on its shoulder to get a better view. When I returned my attention to my immediate surroundings I could not see Luke anywhere. What I did spot was a note that I do not remember being pushed into my hand.
With no little difficulty, I unfolded the note and read the contents. “Sorry to leave you in such a predicament, but I'm need elsewhere, but should be back in an hour or so. Until then please enjoy being in two pieces and feel free to ask anyone to bring you food and drink; they should help without fuss, but I advise against getting anything alcoholic, because it will only effect your upper half, so seem twice as potent. See you when I get back. Luke”
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After an hour and half of being attached to two different tables four feet apart. Luke returned.
“Sorry about leaving you in two, but I had an emergency. I hope you were treated well while I was away.” He eyed the plate that was in front of me and the glass of wine that sat on the table in front of me untouched, because I could not reach my mouth with me elbows still strapped to the table. “Didn't anyone release your elbows? It's as easy as this.” He reached under the table and the end of the strap with the arrow-head on the end came out of the hole. “I guess no-one wanted to interfere, in case they made your situation worse.”
“Probably, either that or that didn't have any idea how to do that.”
“Well, what's done is done. Let's you back to normal.”
He turned my table to face away from my legs, then I could hear the little wheels of the other table and feel vibration in my thighs. There was a bump and a click that indicated that the catches on the corners of the tables had latched together. With some effort he dragged the blades out from between my two halves. The blades were soon hanging on the trolley again.
His next move made me flinch; he created a spark at the edge of the fabric still holding my waist down, which quickly ran across the gash in the fabric, leaving the fabric looking like it had never been cut. “I know what you thinking,” he said, “Did that mend my dress too? The answer is complicated, by the short version is that the fabric of your dress has been joined together, but unlike the cover, which is magically treated, the join won't be perfect, but it should be mostly unnoticeable, or at worst look like a flaw in the fabric.”
He detached the cover and rolled it up. “Now for the most important bit; getting you back in one piece. It'll go easier if you press back a bit with your body, then I can manipulate your lower half to make sure everything joins up right.” He put his hands on my hips and I could feel him pushing toward the rest of my body. I pressed backwards and after few moments, the warm tingle increased to an almost unbearable heat of a fraction of a second. “That should do it.” He bustled about releasing the straps over my legs and other fore-arm.
I stared as best I could as the small of my back and could trace the line of flaws in the cloth of my nurse outfit where the saw had cut me. I rolled a little to each side and was relieved when my buttocks stayed in line with my back. I rolled over to face up and levered myself to sitting upright.
“I hope you didn't mind too much being left in that predicament, but I really was need elsewhere.” he said as I turned to let my legs dangle off the table.
“Tell me about and I'll decide if I mind.” I patted the table beside me, inviting him to sit if the explanation was going to be long-winded.
“My apprentice, well my nephew; he got himself in a fix and as you seemed to be coping well with being cut in two and in a safe environment, I prioritised getting to him and helping him get his girlfriend together. It turns out that she is one of the few that experience pain, not severe enough to cause her to faint, but enough to make her unwilling to cooperate in the process of getting her back together. So I had to drive across town, calm the girlfriend, get her back together and drive back to rescue you.”
“Is she alright?”
“She'll be right as rain when the paracetamol I gave her kicks in, but I think my nephew has lost himself a girlfriend and may have trouble finding another for a while. Perhaps it's for the best, because at his age he really should be concentrating on his studies. So, how are you feeling?”
“I'm not a hundred percent sure, but at the moment I feel fine. I was worried that warm feelings I felt while being sawn in half might cloud my judgement and the heat of rejoining was a bit much, but other than that it was an experience I don't regret, but won't be rushing to repeat.”
“That's a pity, because I've been looking for someone to be my assistant on occasion and I thought that you might be up for it. You showed exactly the right levels of concern and confidence that you would be an asset to any magician that could persuade you to join their act.”
“I didn't say that I wouldn't repeat it; so what kind of money and commitment of time are we talking...?”