Quinn’s First (Maybe!) Sawing

Written for QuinnTheAssistant’s July 2017 ‘first sawing’ contest

Content warning: this story is based on the fantasy that stage magicians with real powers are - without most of the audience realising - actually sawing and slicing their assistants and volunteers into pieces for real, but with the aid of magic that prevents them suffering any lasting harm and which transforms their experience into one they can even enjoy. And of course they’re all restored at the end (eventually, anyway!). If you find that fantasy distasteful, do not read on. This particular story also contains sexual material. Oh, and a sprinkling of strong language too!



Quinn blinked. Why was the spotlight shining on her? She hadn’t raised her hand. But then if she hadn’t, why could she feel the soft touch of her baggy silk sleeve against her ear? Why were her arm and shoulder muscles aching like those of a school kid so desperate to be chosen to answer the teacher that they almost wrenched their shoulder reaching for the ceiling?

Ohhhh shit. She had raised her hand. Shit. Fucking shittity, shit. What was going on? How could she volunteer without realising?

Her chest tightened in fear, though what she was frightened of she wasn’t at all sure. It was only a show, after all. Only illusion. She forced herself to take a deep breath then tried to sink down into her seat, hoping against hope that all the turned heads would look away. But her body wouldn’t move, not one jot. She was trapped, frozen in a pose of eager excitement which she couldn’t remember feeling, her mouth stretched wide in a grin that totally belied the rising panic inside.

Then just like that she remembered. The hypnotist. Her desperate request to have him cure her of the sudden phobia of stage magic performances that was threatening her nascent career as a magician’s assistant. The sessions staring into an amber crystal as it lazily swung before her eyes. The failures, as time and time again she flinched from the blade. The realisation that she needed to give her misfiring reactions a full reset, and that that meant submitting to a hypnosis so deep that she would approach the performance as she had her very first time, albeit on a different stage and at the hands of a different magician, with no memory at all of the fears that had so unexpectedly surged to the surface six months ago.

She had to forget, so that she could learn anew.

And as if a switch had been thrown, she did forget. The tension vanished from her body and genuine excitement took its place.

She felt an elbow dug her in the ribs.

“It’s us!” Alice’s voice hissed. “They’ve chosen us!”

Quinn grinned. Yes. She’d dreamed of this for years. She knew that now. Dreamed of being one of the chosen ones. Of the long walk up to the stage. Of drinking in the applause, approval (and leers) of the audience as she was introduced to them by an elegant magician, all the time knowing they were hoping to see dreadful things happen to her. Oh how she’d dreamed of being restrained in front of hundreds of eager eyes, by strap or rope of chain (or all three!). Of faking alarm as the blades were brought out. Of the sharp sting of steel, which so quickly changed to the sweetest pleasure as the blades sliced deep…

She scowled. Where had that last thought come from? All this stage magic was just trickery. The blade would never come anywhere close to her, despite appearances, and if it did then it certainly couldn’t feel good. She shuddered then shook her head. The weird thought disappeared as quickly as it had come, and everything was alright again.

“Yes,” Quinn hissed back. “I can’t wait.”

Moments later they were being led towards the stage by a red-haired assistant in a long, figure-hugging dress. Quinn could feel the eyes of the audience on the three of them, as if the stares were a myriad of laser beams scanning her from head to toe, burning her with their intensity as she passed each row of seated onlookers. It was intimidating, but also rather liberating, and that thought prompted her to put on a bit of a show, swinging her denim-clad hips a fraction more than she normally did.

And yes, it did feel good.

But before she knew it they were up on the stage, the striking female magician stepping up to them. Mistress Finella wore the traditional white shirt and black tail coat of a stage magician, though her shirt was unbuttoned to reveal an inordinate amount of cleavage, and more than a sliver of lacy white bra. That, together with her skin-tight black leather trousers, left no doubt that she was a woman with an amazing figure. Her expression, though, was harder to read, due partly to the black masked ball style mask she wore.

“Good evening, ladies,” she said. “Could you tell me your names please, for the audience?”

Alice answered first, then Quinn, both women speaking loudly enough for the audience to hear.

“Great,” the magician said. “Now neither of you have participated in a magic show before, have you?”

Quinn and Alice both shook their heads. Quinn caught the magician watching her with a particular intensity through the small almond eye holes of her mask. Why was that? Did Mistress Finella not believe her?

“No I haven’t,” Quinn added emphatically. Mistress Finella’s expression softened and Quinn felt a surge of relief. Maybe the magician had just mistaken her for some other volunteer she’d invited up many shows ago, someone who’d looked a bit like her. Whatever it had been, it wasn’t anything to worry about.

“OK,” the magician said. “So you’ll be wondering what I’ve invited you up here for.” She paused while Quinn and Alice nodded. “Well I needed two people to help me saw Janice here,” she nodded towards the brunette assistant, “in half. And since I seem to be running short of assistants...”

There was ripple of laughter from the audience at that. The magician had started the show with four glamorous assistants but was now down to just the one. The others had… well… Quinn suppressed a shudder. After all none of it was real. But behind that instinctive reaction she felt a twinge of disappointment. She was only to help? She’d wanted to be the one who was cut in two!

The magician must have sensed her disappointment. “Ah, so you would have preferred to be the one facing the saw?” she asked. “I should have guessed it from your outfit.”

The audience laughed outright at that. Quinn blushed at having been caught. Not that she’d been subtle in her choice of clothing for the evening. Her cropped top left an inch of bare stomach showing, practically inviting her selection as a victim for a sawing in two. She could hardly have been more obvious unless she’d drawn a dotted line all the way around her midriff!

She nodded, her cheeks flaming.

The magician smiled. “Well maybe I’ll grant your wish. But for now we’ll continue as planned. You just do as I say. After all, I need to see that any prospective assistants can take direction well.”

She winked at that, and Quinn felt a flutter of hope.

Then Mistress Finella turned to the wings, beckoning. Two black-clad stage hands wheeled out a long, narrow table with a dividing line down the middle while a third man brought on a rack from which hung and saw, some slender wooden stock, and steel dividers. The men locked the brakes then left, as quietly and efficiently as they’d arrived.

Mistress Finella motioned to Janice, who took up position beside the table. She reached for the tiny bows at the side of her dress and undid them before gaving a graceful shimmy. The dress slid down her hips to pool at her feet, leaving Janice clad in nothing but a bikini set, in scarlet with crimson sequins around the edges.

After posing for the audience and drinking in a few whistles of appreciation, Janice kicked off her shoes. Then she hopped up onto the table top in a single, fluid, well-practised motion. Slowly she lowered herself down, until she was lying flat, her feet hanging off the bottom and her raised arms hanging off the top. The dividing line came, unsurprisingly, exactly level with her waist.

The magician beckoned Quinn and Alice over. “There are straps at each end for Janice’s ankles and wrists. If you would be so kind as to bind her ankles, Alice? Quinn, you do her wrists.”

Alice walked over to the foot of the table and immediately began doing up a pair of leather straps around the unprotesting Janice’s left ankle, pulling the buckle tight. Quinn moved to the opposite end and reached for one of the straps she found there. She carefully placed the end with the buckle on Janice’s left wrist then threaded the longer end through it. But when she came to tighten the buckle she realised that the prong was missing and there was nothing to poke through the holes in the leather strap to secure it!

She looked round at the magician, who came over to see what was wrong.

“Oh!” she said. “That’s a nuisance. Still, just do them up as best as you can then keep a tight hold of her hands. It’ll be up to you to stop her from moving.”

Quinn complied as best as she could, then took hold of Janice’s hands. They were surprisingly cool. How could the woman not be hot under these lights? She was certainly a cool customer. But then she’d need to be, given how vicious the saw looked, with its wide, coarse teeth.

Quinn watched as the magician lifted a thin wooden sheet from the same rack that held the saw. The sheet had an arch cut out, large enough for a woman’s waist/ She carefully placed the arch over Janice’s midriff, pressing down until the pegs on the bottom slid into holes on the table top and clicked in place. Then she added a second sheet, almost touching the first, making a set of waist stocks with a gap of not much more than the thickness of a piece of cardboard between the two halves. Quinn watched the process like a hawk, trying to work out how the illusion worked. The boards were so thin that barely half an inch of the assistant’s waist was hidden from view. Certainly not enough for her to lower her waist down into some concealed cavity and thereby avoid the saw. Quinn frowned. It looked convincingly lethal so far.

Now Mistress Finella beckoned Alice away from her station at Janice’s feet. The magician handed Quinn’s friend the saw.

Alice looked startled. “You don’t expect me to...”

Mistress Finella just looked at her. Then she raised her hand and waved it in front of Alice’s face. In a surprisingly deep voice she intoned, “You will take this saw, and on my say-so you will place it between the stocks and start sawing. You will saw right through the woman on the table. You will not stop until you are all the way through, no matter what happens. Do you understand?”

Alice nodded. Her expression was calm now, though Quinn could still see panic in her eyes. Was she hypnotised?

At a wave from the magician, Alice carried the saw over to the table and aligned the blade with the slot between the two halves of the waist stocks. The blade slid in then stopped, presumably resting on Janice’s bare midriff. Quinn flinched at the thought, imaging the cold metal teeth pressing against her own waist. She suddenly felt a tad queasy.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Mistress Finella called out to the audience, “watch on and wonder as our lovely volunteer, Alice, saws my assistant in half, right through her waist. And remember, this is no trick. There is no way for Janice to avoid the blade. What you see is real.”

She paused for dramatic effect, then turned to Alice. “Proceed.”

Alice put one hand on the table edge to steady herself and took a tighter grip of the saw handle, reading herself for the first stroke. Quinn tried to catch her eye, but Alice was one hundred percent focused on her task. Quinn took a deep breath. Any second now, the saw teeth would be yanked back and would slice through Janice’s bare skin. She felt the blood flow out of her cheeks and a clamminess settle on her forehead.

“Wait!”

The magician’s voice brought proceedings to a stop even before they had begun. She walked over and looked at Quinn.

“Are you feeling alright, dear?” she asked, with obviously fake concern.

Quinn nodded, unsure whether to admit to feeling off. She didn’t let go of Janice’s hands. At the moment, they were the only thing keeping her from fainting.

“I’m not sure you are,” the magician responded. “Maybe the idea of seeing Janice here cut in two before your eyes doesn’t agree with you?”

The magician didn’t wait for Quinn’s reply, but instead produced a white cloth, somewhat larger than a handkerchief, from under her jacket.

She waved the cloth with a flourish then turned again to Quinn. “That’s something we can fix. If you’ll allow me?”

Quinn didn’t know what she was being asked, but nodded. After all, she was supposed to be showing she could follow directions, wasn’t she?

With a further flourish, Mistress Finella threw the cloth over Quinn’s covering her head right down to her shoulders. The material was thick enough that Quinn couldn’t now see anything, and sounds were muffled too. It was actually rather comforting, she thought, as the blood returned to her cheeks.

Straining to hear, Quinn could just make out Janice’s miffed protests that she wanted her face covered too. After all, why should she have to watch herself cut in two when volunteers were protected from the sight should anything go wrong?

There was a short series of rustles, which Quinn took to be the production of a second cloth, followed by a satisfied ‘thank you’ from Janice.

Quinn waited for the magician to signal the sawing to begin. The wait seemed to last ages, and she was starting to wonder whether something was indeed going wrong, when...

Oh, that felt strange! Quinn suddenly felt as if she was toppling out of her body, though she could still feel the ground under her and the grasp of Janice’s hands. Then she seemed to be yanked forward into her own outstretched arms, rushing down them as if they long were pipes, passing someone – Janice, maybe? – on the way. Then suddenly she was herself again.

She felt a chill against her back. What was it? And why did she feel air brushing her arms and legs like they were bare? It was like... Yes. She was lying flat on her back on the steel table, looking up into the cloth that moments before had covered Janice’s face!

She struggled, but the stocks held tight over her waist. Her ankles were bound too, and her hands held firm, presumably by Janice.

Suddenly the cloth was whipped away from her face. Blinded temporarily by the lights above her, she was still able to see enough to confirm that she really was now lying on the table where Janice had been seconds before, bound just as the assistant had been, and that they’d not only changed places but changed clothing too! That is, if she could call the skimpy bikini clothing. She blushed as she realised how much of her body the onlookers could see. How embarrassing! Mortifying, even.

But then, if it really was so embarrassing, why were her nipples so hard and tight? Why did she feel a tingle down beyond the wooden stocks, where her crotch was? The light pressure of saw teeth against the skin of her belly only excited her further.

She blinked again, her vision clearing completely now. The magician was gesturing towards her with one hand, and to Janice with the other, as waves of applause washed over them.

The rapturous approval of the audience gave Quinn strength. When the magician looked down at her for confirmation that she was OK she nodded. Yes, she was OK with this. In fact she was surprised just how OK. It was almost as if she’d done this before, though of course she hadn’t. At least only in her fantasies.

The magician gave an almost imperceptible smile then turned to the audience once more.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Mistress Finella began afresh, “watch on and wonder as our lovely volunteer, Alice, saws my other lovely volunteer, Quinn, in two, right through her pretty little waist.” She paused, before continuing just as she had only minutes ago. “And remember, this is no trick. There is no way for Quinn to avoid the blade. What you see is real.”

That reminder sent a surge of panic through Quinn. What was she meant to do? Where was the hidden trapdoor or cavity or whatever that would give her room to avoid the deadly saw? She looked up wildly, trying to catch the magician’s eye, but the woman wasn’t looking anywhere near her. She tried to catch Alice’s gaze and made contact, but the look of helpless panic she saw there convinced her that Alice was still tight in the grip of the magician’s spell and had no control of her body, indeed that Alice would be forced to watch on, powerless, as her own hand drove the wicked saw blade through her friend’s waist!

Quinn tried to open her mouth to call out, but found she’d lost control of that too. She couldn’t utter a word, or even lift a finger!

“Alice, proceed.”

Quinn watched in horror as Alice drew the blade back, the teeth slicing into Quinn’s flesh. She drew in a breath against the surge of pain... which never came. Yes, there was a short sting, but it was almost instantly followed by a warm, numb sensation that made her want to relax.

Was she in shock? She felt none of the chill that she’d felt when she’d been hit by a car at the age of eight. This was different. This felt... well... it almost felt good. And strangely familiar.

Could it be that this magician practised some form of sorcery whereby the effects – the cutting and impaling – were real, the magic being that no harm befell those finding themselves on the sharp end of the illusions that really were no illusion? That was ridiculous, but then this whole situation was ridiculous, and there was no denying that the warm sensation of divided flesh was sliding deeper and deeper through her waist with every stroke of the saw that Alice – however against her will – made.

If she thought about this too much, Quinn decided, she’d go insane. Better to relax and let it happen. If she was going to die, at least it would be in front of so many witnesses that the magician would never evade justice. There was some comfort in that, at least.

Again the saw tore forward, and again Quinn felt the blade tug at her body, the teeth widening the rip in her flesh and deepening it. Every stroke was eliciting gasps from the audience, now, as they tried but failed to see how she could possibly be evading the saw. If only, Quinn thought, they could feel what she was feeling and know what she knew.

The blade had now cut right through the gym-toned sheet of muscle that underlay Quinn’s enviable set of abs. Quinn now felt the queasiness return as the wall of her stomach was breached. Would her last meal pour out, she wondered abstractly? It had been chicken biriyani, and rather a good one too. Shame to waste it.

But somehow the magic kept everything together. Sweat beaded Quinn’s forehead as the blade bit deeper and deeper, the nausea coming and going in waves, but thankfully everything seemed to be staying in place down there.

Quinn craned her neck and risked a look downwards. Janice’s hands kept too firm a grip for Quinn to do more than lift her head an inch off the table top, but that was enough to peer down the V of her cleavage (which looked damn good in that red bikini – maybe she should get herself one afterwards). Beyond that she could see right along her pleasingly firm tummy (thanks again, gym) to the wooden stocks which hid her lower half from view. The saw was over half way down the slot now. No wonder the audience were in such a state of astonishment. But how much more surprised they would be if they knew what was really happening!

Quinn’s gaze settled on the saw, watching it as it moved back and forth, feeling repeated tiny nips in time with the motion. Each stroke sliced another quarter of an inch of skin and muscle away, spreading warm numbness behind it, exacerbating the waves of nausea that surged through her now almost completed severed belly.

Then suddenly there was a jolt and a grinding noise. Oh! Right. Her backbone.

She looked up and saw Alice brace herself for a more powerful stroke. She closed her eyes in anticipation.

Tingles! Sharp sparkling tingles running from head to toe and back again. Was that the sensation of key nerves being severed? And if so, why could she still feel her legs?

The tingles merged, like strands being woven together to form a rope, and that rope was one of... well... of pleasure. Sexual pleasure that converged between her thighs.

She felt herself flush as she recognised the familiar knotting of muscles, the familiar build up of tension that could have only one end.

She was going to climax, on stage, in front of hundreds! Quinn could only hope that the spell which was stopping her from moving or speaking would prevent her from crying out. It was embarrassing enough that some in the audience might work out what was happening, but if her friend sussed what was happening beneath her very eyes... No, that would be truly mortifying.

Quinn closed her eyes and tried to erase that possibility from her mind. Don’t think, she repeated to herself, like a mantra, just feel. Don’t think, just feel.

Thankfully, what she was feeling was damned good. And her body, to judge from the moisture flooding her sex, agreed wholeheartedly. Yes, each stroke of the saw set her teeth on edge as steel rasped against bone, but the vibration just added to her arousal. And the saw was almost through her spine anyway. When that happened, would she...?

A snap, as the last sliver of bone broke, followed by a sharp tug and rip as the saw surged through the remaining scrap of muscle and skin. Quinn came apart, literally and figuratively, the tingles in her legs exploding into stars behind her eyes, the tension in her belly and groin releasing in the most glorious climax she could remember ever having had.



Quinn came to.  She opened her eyes. Nothing had changed. No-one had moved. She’d probably only been out for a few seconds.

She looked down and saw the magician reach for two sheet steel dividers, which she slipped between the wooden sotcks. Quinn shivered as the cold metal slipped through her, but the chill was really rather pleasant after the heated intensity of her climax.

Next, the magician undid some clasps either side of the table. She tugged. Quinn heard the rumble of wheels and suddenly her legs felt odd. Fainter, somehow. She closed her eyes. She tried to wiggle her toes and was relieved to find she still could, but it took a lot more effort.

Then the rumble changed direction and she began to feel herself coming together, though somehow it still felt wrong. She opened her eyes and realised why. The bottom half of the table had been wheeled up beside her, but turned through ninety degrees so that when she tilted her head she was looking right at the soles of her feet!

She concentrating hard, visualising her left big toe wiggling, then her right. The corresponding body parts did indeed move, even though her eyes told her they were completely separated from her top half and no nerve signals could possibly be passing to them from her brain.

Wow, she thought. I really am sawn in two.

Just for the hell of it she wriggled the rest of her toes, enjoying the novelty of watching from this angle. Then her lower half was moving again as the magician wheeled it back to its correct orientation and shoved it back home with a thump.

The steel dividers tickled as the magician withdrew them, a strange sort of tickle in that it radiated from the inside outwards. Strange, but yet familiar. But yet how could that be?

Next the magician unbuckled the straps from her limbs and lifted the thin stocks away from her waist, leaving her free once more. Janice guided her through sitting up and sliding off the table. Her legs wobbled at first, and something felt off. Her viewpoint. As if she were, well, shorter.

Dreading what she might find, she looked down. Yes, there were her legs, back in denim again. But... no, those weren’t her jeans. Hers were full length skinny jeans, not these three-quarter length ones. And those weren’t her legs! She didn’t have a butterfly tattoo on her ankle. Quinn looked round just as Alice stepped out from behind the table, wearing Quinn’s jeans... and Quinn’s legs!

The audience burst into rapturous applause as Janice led the two volunteers through a series of bows, then guided them off the stage.



Back in the dressing room, an hour later, Quinn slowly opened the letter the magician had given her.

Dear self, it began.

If you are reading this, then my plan worked and you made it all the way through a performance without panicking. You are ready to pick up your career again.

I am sorry for the deception. I can only say that you (well, I) agreed to it!

As for the leg swap, it was the price Alice’s demanded for playing along with it all. She’s always been jealous of your butt and your legs and wanted to take them for a test drive, so to speak. The agreement is that she gets to keep them for the rest of the weekend. She’s promised to give them back on Sunday night, none the worse for wear (well not much anyway!).

Your memory of your life before the hypnosis will come back bit by bit over the next week. Try hard not to freak out. It’s all good, really. I really want me/us to get back into it and become the best magician’s assistant ever. I hope you’ll agree in the end that it was all worth it.

Hugs,

Me/you/us

P.S. I’m kinda jealous of you. You got to lose your magic performance virginity a second time. Not many girls can say that!