“So, Michael, why did you put my head back on?”

Leia followed Michael into the Testing Room. Apart from the dried ring of blood around her neck, her hair was still in a bun, and she was still wearing her tank top, jeans, and pumps from earlier.

Michael went up to her and whispered something into her ear. Taking a step back, he asked her, “You in?”

“Absolutely,” Leia replied. “How do you need me?”

“Shush, no more talking.” With a snap of his fingers, Leia had been ball gagged.

With that out of the way, Michael brought out a spreader bar and secured her wrists in the shackles. Next, from the overhead hoist on the ceiling, he pulled down two chains with carabiners on the free ends. He clipped on the carabiners to the spreader bar, and with a few adjustments to the chains, Leia has now been hoisted fully upright and arms up and parallel.

“I keep forgetting how tall you actually are,” commented Michael as he looked Leia up and down. “Anyway, next are these stocks.” He brought out a set of stocks with three holes in them. “Chin up, please.” Splitting them into two halves, he locked the stocks over her neck and the two adjacent arms. She looked uncomfortable.

“Last is this box,” He wheeled out an open topped box the same dimensions as the stocks, with castors on each corner on the bottom, “but first, I need to make sure your clothes don’t get in the way.”

“Mmm?” was all Leia could utter as she watched Michael tuck out her top and fold it up. He then brought out a large metal belt with a small red button on its “buckle”. He wrapped this around her waist, just against the top of her jeans. After checking if it was placed correctly, he pushed the red button.

“MMMMMMMMMMMM!”  Smoke began to appear from the belt as Leia started to scream into the gag. Slowly, the belt began cutting into her body with intense heat. Skin, muscle, viscera—none of it was a match against the lasers chewing through her. The pain became unbearable; tears escaped her eyes. She tried kicking her legs in futility. Seeing this, Michael sprang into action.

“Oh… oh shit!” Quickly, he hugged Leia. His magic made her pain gradually subside. Her frantic flailing gradually subsided as well, while the belt continued its carnage. Her tears had stopped, and her gag had vanished. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” he kept repeating to her.

With a beep, the belt had finished its job. Almost in a panic, Michael immediately dropped to his knees and put his arms around her legs. With him pulling her legs back, they cleanly separated from the rest of Leia, the bottom of the belt marking where her torso ended. Lifeless as they now were, her legs were arranged in a kneeling position, a bit away from her dangling torso. Because they used heat to cut through her, both cross sections had been magically “cauterized”, keeping blood from dripping out and internal organs from falling out. That did little, however, to conceal her insides.

“Leia… Leia, I’m sorry.” Michael stood up, looking at her pained eyes with his own frightful ones. He tried his best to keep his usual composure, but she could sense the trembling in his voice.

“I… I think I made the pain tolerance too high. Are you okay?” he asked, with a hint of regret.

“I’m okay, Michael. No need to worry,” she replied. “I mean, with you around, I can’t really die, can I?” She gave him a smile to reassure him.

He embraced her again, with more feeling this time. “I’m so sorry.” He gave her a peck on her forehead. “Love you.”

“Love you, too, Michael, but seriously, I’m all right now. See?”

Through her limited head movement, she gestured toward her legs. Michael turned around, and he saw them face down, kicking their feet quite playfully in the air.

He turned to Leia again. “Hey, just because I said ‘love you’ doesn’t give you the right to tease me with your legs!”

“I know, but it cheered you up, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, yeah, we good.”

“Heh—mmph!” Her chuckle was interrupted by the snap of his fingers; she had been ball gagged again.

Back to the task at hand, Michael removed the metal belt of pain. Controlling the overhead hoist, he carefully lowered Leia’s torso into the open topped box from earlier that he wheeled into position. She fit in snugly, the stocks resting perfectly on top of the box. Finally, clamping the stocks in place, he sealed the box and unclipped her spreader bar from the chains.

While Michael went over to her legs and helped them stand up, Leia examined her situation. Her torso was so perfectly fit in the box that she couldn’t twist or bend inside, the stocks were so tight that she could hardly twist her neck and her arms, and because she couldn’t twist her arms, she couldn’t bend her arms down and were stuck straight up.

Now that her legs were standing, Michael grabbed her spreader bar and tipped her box back. With his free hand, he guided her legs out of the room while wheeling her torso out like a trolley bag with the other hand. Walking through the hallway, they entered another room and turned on the lights. Skillfully, he threw the torso box onto the single bed in the room. She landed on her back, her head forced to stare at the ceiling.

Michael sat on the bed beside her, admiring his work. Her legs stood just beside him.

“Okay, dinner is at seven. The stocks are connected to the box with four clamps, one for each side. The two halves of the stocks are also locked together by a clamp. The keys to the spreader bar are on your dresser. There are also a couple recommended articles of clothing to wear on there for tonight, so check them out.”

He got off the bed.

“And just to make things more interesting…”

He produced a pair of handcuffs, crouched down, and cuffed her ankles. He stood up and threw a key onto her dresser. He then walked to the door.

“See you at seven,” he said, closing the door behind him.