A ‘real magic’ story featuring Assistant Ann, in response to her call for magical impalement stories.

Content warning: this story is based on the fantasy that stage magicians with real powers are – without most of the audience realising – actually sawing, impaling, transforming or vanishing their assistants and volunteers for real, but with the aid of magic that prevents the subject suffering any lasting harm and which transforms their experience into one they can even enjoy. This one has a smattering of strong language, and some nudity too. Enjoy!

Ann’s hands were shaking. Heck, her entire body was shaking. Not even the strong hands of Finella guiding her from behind could stop Ann’s tremors from transferring into the massive steel hook she held, making the chain it was suspended from sway and jingle.

“Easy now,” Finella whispered into her ear. “Back a step.” The female magician’s breath tickled Ann’s neck, but the words were calming, and her strange, soporific scent even more so.

“Don’t look at the hook,” Finella continued. “Concentrate on the target.”

Ann swallowed, but did as she was told. The ‘target’ was a large melon, sitting on an iron hoop atop a pole. All she had to do was to line up the heavy hook, then let it go. If she got it right, it would swing across the stage and hit the melon, impaling the fruit on the sharp hook and yanking it clean off its stand to swing free, ruined and dripping pulp.

Finella had made it look easy when she had demonstrated the technique to Ann a couple of minutes before. Of course the magician had the advantage of hours of practice, whereas Ann was just someone picked at random from the audience – and a someone who just happened to have very poor hand-eye co-ordination.

Bad aim notwithstanding, it was important she got it right. When Finella had demonstrated the technique, the pole with the melon atop it had been in the centre of an almost empty stage, with plenty of clear space around it. Now, though, it was sandwiched between the prominent chests of Finella’s two female assistants, who faced each other less than a foot apart. Scarcely more than half of the melon was visible between their sequin-covered bosoms. If Ann was even a few inches off in her aim, she risked impaling one of the women, instead of the fruit that was her target. And it wasn’t like they could jump out the way either; behind each assistant was a pair of upright poles, to which the woman was held by leather straps around calves, thighs, waist, and upper arms, each closed by a strong buckle that Ann had personally tightened only moments before. Neither woman could move more than an inch, of that Ann was sure.

Of the two assistants, the brunette seemed the most calm. Her eyes were open, gazing at – or through – her colleague. Her lips bowed in a gentle smile and her breathing seemed even. Her counterpart, on the other hand, was clearly nervous. Jazz – Ann thought her name was – was pressing back against the poles as hard as she could, and she kept sucking in her chest to minimise the part of her most at risk, sneaking sideways glances at Ann. The third or fourth time she did it, Finella let out a grumble of irritation.

“Oh for heaven’s sake,” the magician groused, letting go of Ann and striding over to the nervous assistant. Finella clicked her fingers in front of the woman’s eyes. The assistant sagged slightly, her eyelids drooping.

“That should sort you,” Finella said. She reached into her jacket pocket and took out a paper bag. “But for good measure…”. She slid the bag over the brunette’s head, pulling it down until the open neck rested on the woman’s shoulders, then patted the top in a patronising manner and walked back over to where Ann still stood with the hook.

“OK,” Finella said, “Let’s get this show on the road.” She placed her hands on Ann’s shoulders again, drawing her back a step, making a final adjustment to Ann’s aim. “Wait to the count of three, then let go.”

“One.”

A drumroll began.

“Two.”

Ann shook, then steeled herself.

“Thr…”

Everything went black. Ann wasn’t holding the hook anymore, but neither could she remember letting go. And what was that strange pressure against her chest?

She felt a rush of air, punctuated by a dull thump and a sharp sideways yank. Then the paper bag was being ripped off her head and she was blinded by the stage lights.

She blinked. Tried to focus. There was the brunette assistant right in front of her, her eyes shining with excitement. A trickle of melon pulp dribbled down her neck and Ann suddenly realised her own cleavage was likewise splattered.

Not that she could wipe herself clean, however. Not with the leather straps holding her tight against the twin metal poles pressing so hard and cold against her back.

The audience erupted with applause, though whether for that was for the split-second switch of assistants or just relief that the moment of peril was over a dazed Ann couldn’t begin to guess. She blinked again, then looked off to the side.

The hook was safely in the hands of a burly male assistant, the melon impaled on it. The vicious spike glistened with the juice of the ruptured fruit. Juice that so easily could have been her blood!

Ann swallowed. She looked around, as well as the straps around her upper arms allowed. Finella was behind her right shoulder, still holding the paper bag. Of the assistant Ann had involuntarily replaced, there was no sign. Jazz must have fled.

“Relieved?” Finella asked. Ann nodded wholeheartedly.

“Feel like sticking around for the next bit? I seem to be short one assistant.”

Ann pondered. Although it had been over in the blink of an eye, she could hardly believe what a rush it had been to be put in peril in front of an audience. Why not try it again? And this time she’d be ready to enjoy every second of it.

Ann gave herself a moment to be sure of her choice, then nodded, blushing as she realised her tightening nipples had already telegraphed her choice to the other two women.

Thankfully, Finella’s return smile was kind and understanding. However she made no move to unstrap either woman. Instead she turned to the audience.

“Well, ladies and gentlemen,” she said, “Now that I have a replacement for Jazz, the show can go on. Or it can, after I have a fresh volunteer to wield the hook.” There was no shortage of candidates, so within moments the audience was being introduced to a redhead called Clara.

The next stage of the trick apparently only required one assistant, so Finella gave the audience a choice of whom Clara would swing the hook at. To Ann’s relief (after all she’d already made her choice) the audience selected her. The brunette assistant was quickly unstrapped and ushered away, the poles that had supported her being folded flat to make more room.

Finella had Clara place a fresh melon atop the stand in front of Ann, though this time the stand was lowered first so that the melon set in front of her belly rather than between her breasts. Ann was so engrossed by this that she almost missed a clanking noise high above. Without being obvious about it, Ann rolled her eyes around just in time to see the stagehand with the hook shuffling round from her right side to a position behind her. She swallowed. That would put her body firmly between the swinging hook and the melon. Was Finella intending to impale her on that spike, along with the fruit?

Finella chose that moment to catch Ann’s eye and smile reassuringly. OK, maybe Finella was going to have her vanish just before the sharp hook struck. That would OK. Frightening, but OK.

Ann’s assumption was reinforced when a stagehand brought out roll of white sheeting. Finella had Clara fix the loose end to one of the poles behind Ann then unroll the fabric all the way around Ann and the melon. Looking down, Ann saw it covered her all the way from mid calf to neck, the stretchy material conforming so tightly to her body that, rather than being hidden, her erect nipples were highlighted. She looked naked below the sheet. Naked, and pregnant!

That was the last thing Ann saw, for Finella produced a matching white hood and dropped it over her head! Now Anne would just have to had to rely on her other senses. Ann concentrated. What she could hear was the clacking of heels on stage boards and the clanking of chain as Finella guided Clara into just the right spot to release the spiked hook. What she could feel was the frantic beating of her heart and the weight of several hundred unseen pairs of eyes on her clearly delineated and helpless body.

After what seemed like an age, she heard Finella start her countdown, heard the rising drumroll.

“One!”

She was still trapped inside the stretchy white cloth, strapped to the poles, a melon incongruously against her belly.

“Two!”

No change. But she didn’t expect anything yet. Finella would wait until the very last second. Or split second, even.

“Three!”

A sudden silence. Then a whoosh.

Now. Surely, now!

Ann felt a whack in the small of her back like she’d been kicked by a mule. A sharp splintering pain. A ripping thrust that pierced her from back to belly then kept on going, yanking her forward almost beyond the strength of her bonds. Ann was too shocked to scream. Something had gone wrong. The vanishing magic had failed and she’d actually been run through!

Time slowed. Her life flashed before her eyes. When Ann regained her wits she realised that no-one was rushing to help her. Why? Had this been Finella’s plan all along?

And how come she wasn’t dead? Was it actually magic? Real magic? If Finella could teleport her across a dozen feet of stage and into the place of an assistant who was strapped to poles then maybe she also had the power to suspend those laws of nature which said that a human being whose spine had been smashed and whose gut was currently transfixed by several feet of curved steel should be dead or dying. She didn’t feel dead or dying, after all. She felt… well, once the initial shock wore off she realised that she felt positively exhalant.

Now the clip of high heels was approaching again. Finella, she thought. She felt the tension of the sheet lessen slightly. Then both it and the hood over her head were ripped away. The audience, silent after that first gasp of terror, exploded into a crazy mix of sobs, cheers, and gasps. Finella threw her a quick questioning glance to which Ann responded with a dazed grin.

Then the she was being rotated by an invisible hand, letting the audience see her from all angles. Only when her back was to the audience did Ann risk a look down.

A wave of dizziness hit her. Emerging through a rent in the front of her dress was the front half of the hook: eighteen inches of curved steel, as thick as her wrist where it emerged from her belly, tapering to a point so sharp that caught the light. Other than the tear, her clothes were intact, still moulded to her body in a way that made it clear there was no room for trickery. That spike really was emerging from her slender stomach. She really was caught on the giant hook – caught like a fisherman’s worm.

The mechanism rotation her locked with a click as Ann completely her turn, leaving her facing the audience once more. Was Finella going to help her off the hook now? Surely. Surely there was nothing more the magician could do to her?

But there was. Finella clicked her fingers and immediately the chain behind her started to clank. Moments later, Ann felt a tug as the retracting chain pulled the hook she was transfixed on up towards the stage roof.

Her first thought was that she was going to be pulled out of her bonds and hoisted into the air, impaled on the giant hook. But the straps proved too tight. And it was then that a feature of the hook she’d noticed earlier but dismissed came into play. The hook was teardrop in cross-section, narrowest on the inside of the hook, the top as it passed through Ann’s belly. That edge wasn’t as thin as a knife blade, but it was serrated. Ann was sure it would tear through her if the hook was pulled hard enough, ripping not cutting. She didn’t like that idea one bit.

Desperately, Ann tried to raise herself up onto her toes, but the straps around her limbs were too tight to give her more than half an inch of play, and even that was soon overtaken by the relentlessly rising hook.

Ann felt her insides part as the hook ripped through her belly up towards her ribs. Presumably Finella’s magic would stop anything spilling out, but just to be on the safe side she tensed her abs. As expected, it made not one jot of different to the progress of the hook.

Nor was there anything she could do about the damage to her dress. She could hear the fabric tear as the hook sliced it in two. The hook was too wide for her to see what was going on below it, but she could feel the a lack of tension indicating that her tight sheath dress was now hanging loose.

A grating judder signalled the arrival of the hook against the underside of her ribs. Ann felt the bones resist the serrated hook for a moment or two, but then her sternum gave with a crunch. Resigned to her fate, Ann decided instead to speed it up, bearing down on the serrated edge, rocking back and forth slightly in an attempt to make it saw through her.

Oh my God! Oh! My! God! Working with the magic, rather than against it, was a revelation. It felt good. Damned good. Ann had to work hard to keep her expression from signalling her growing arousal. Heat built between her thighs as another set of ribs, and then yet another, broke away from her rapidly failing sternum. The hook was cutting into her lungs now, making it hard to breath, and that was probably the only thing that stopped her from crying out.

She snuck a look downwards. From this angle the serrated edge of the hook was just visible between her breasts as it ripped through her cleavage. Any moment now it would reach the low neckline of her dress, and then not even her curves would prevent her ruined dress from tumbling down to pool around her waist, exposing her breasts to hundreds of eager eyes. Just the thought of it pushed Ann over the crest and into her first small orgasm of the evening, small as it was. Several more followed, of increasing intensity, but the big one remained beyond her reach.

Determined to get there, Ann bore down harder against the still-rising hook. Suddenly her rib cage gave way completely. The hook jerked up into her neck, and the sudden constriction of breath sparked Ann’s climax. She came apart emotionally, even as her body came apart, her head ripped free from her shoulders as a whimper finally escaped her lips.

= = = = =

Finella ran her gaze over the wrecked headless body sagging from the supporting poles. The long rip from belly button to neck had closed almost as soon as it had been formed, but the rough, scar-like edge to the torn neck would make it a right pain to stick Ann’s head back on. Probably best to leave it until after the show, when she’d have time to do it properly. And the audience didn’t seem freaked out by the sight either, which to be fair was erotic in a grizzly sort of way, Ann’s ruined dress having slipped down far enough to give the audience a peek of her lace panties as well as the full-on frontal of her bare breasts.

Finella nodded. She’d leave Ann like that for the remainder of the show she decided – a horrific but thrilling backdrop to the rest of the stunts she had planned.

The only problem was that it might make it difficult to get another volunteer. Then again, there was a gleam in Clara’s eye that Finella thought promising…

THE END