Looking back, I couldn't say why we both stood up as willingly as we did. I'm normally a pretty shy person, but I didn't even get a hint of nervousness as we advanced to the stage. I remember looking back out towards everyone and thinking the lights were much brighter than I expected. My face felt hot, and I could barely even see the audience.

"Ladies and gentlemen, if I may present to you Andrew and the lovely Cathy. These two young people will assist me in my next act, where I will illustrate the extent to which the magical arts may be performed using only the materials readily at hand. You will notice both are wearing jumpers with a hood attached - if the two of you would please pull up your hoods, we may proceed."

I complied, pulling the hood up of my grey college sweatshirt up over my head.

Andrew did the same with his, a black hoody with a skate logo on it.

"Now then, you have, so far witnessed the magical effects of both severance and of vanishing. This next demonstration will feature a third type of magic involving the human form, and that is the art of recombination. Observe."

He turned to me first, looking at my face with a calm, unsmiling expression. He pulled the string of the hood until it was tight around my head. Then, taking my hands he put them in the front pocket of my hoody. Attending to Andrew, he did the same.

The next part is a bit hard to describe. He took a pinch of the fabric over each of my shoulders, and then everything changed. I suddenly felt very loose, relaxed even and at the same time realizing I was powerless to move out of his gentle grasp. My arms dangled, I felt the air disappear from my lungs, and my head flopped backwards.

What had happened to me?

As mysterious as the sensation was, I almost immediately inferred what had changed. I had vanished. Or not exactly vanished. My upper body and my sweatshirt had been combined, or maybe I had vanished into my sweatshirt. In either case, from the waist up, I was now only an empty grey sweatshirt, which Marvin easily folded and set on the table behind us.

While he was performing the same magic on Andrew, I was able to catch up to what had happened to me. And I realized that the rest of my - that is, me from the waist down, was still standing there on stage. And I was still able to move my legs.

The rest of the audience, hidden behind the stagelights, burst into applause as he finished folding up Andrew and set him beside me. I took a hesitant step forward as if to bow, but - how?

Marvin motioned for the audience to quiet down.

"So you see, in more dramatic fashion now, the potential for using clothing as a means of vanishing. I would also like to draw your attention to the fact that this pair, while they have been dramatically reduced, are still in full control of what remains of their bodily form. If the two of you could please demonstrate this for us."

We walked forwards to stand beside him once again. It was absolutely surreal, not only to be only a lower half on a stage, but to be watching from behind, where I, or the rest of me really, had become suddenly only a sweatshirt. I wondered, for a moment, what kind of experience Andrew was having. Was he in a similar mood of detached awe, a sensation I might describe as a kind of meditation almost, a revelation on the nature of things, things once impossible now clearly happening to the two of us and yet, not a muddled dream but clearly real and present, the two of us as folded sweatshirts on a table on a stage, watching our lower halves receive applause, those seconds seeming to stretch to minutes as the material facts of things fell into place one at a time, that we were not our material bodies, but now something different, in two places, in two pieces, and that's when it got even more strange.

"And now," said Marvin, "The entertaining bit."

As I was picked up again, shaken gently until I unfolded and dangled limply again over his hand. He advanced a couple steps onto the stage, and the audience began to giggle. A visual cue from Marvin, or perhaps something else - I couldn't tell what was happening, but I was stretched a bit, and just as mysteriously as before I was re-appeared, suddenly feeling a return of my senses all at once, the tension of my muscles over bone, the sensation of skin, the taste of air, things I'd never consciously felt until they reappeared in that sudden moment.

I saw Andrew being restored next to me, and the chuckle had risen into a growing, tense laughter. Andrew and I looked at each other, simultaneously realizing what the audience already knew.

Our halves had been swapped. After the applause began to die down, Marvin casually motioned that we should return to our seats. Andrew and I were left there, just kind of patting ourselves down and wondering what the hell had happened.

We both sat down without saying a word. Then we looked at one another for a moment. Andrew looked down and back up, with an expression that can only be summed up as "WTF".

Both of us began to laugh. Nervously before we were pretty much convulsing, and of course, the performance was still going on.

"So is it weird," he finally said, "that I think my ass looks good on you?"

"You-" I pointed at him, not sure what to say. But I only started laughing again.

Our attention was captured again by Marvin, who'd found his next volunteer. She was a small, cheery blonde introduced as Summer.

"Everything you've seen so far, I'm going to tell you, it's elementary. Sorcerers, witches, warlocks and shamans have been duping you suckers with such hookum for ages. This next oddities I have come from the bleeding edge of mad science. It's a common and well known complaint that people are too tall. Summer. Has anyone ever told you that?"

"Um.. No."

Everyone laughed.

"Well, you're far too tall for our purposes. Do you know what that means?"

She looked nervously around, from the girl cradling her head in her hands, to the armless girl, then to us.

"Are you going to cut off my legs?"

"Cut off your legs! Of course not, who would ever do something as barbaric as that? No, what we're going to do here, is … well, I better not tell you. It would spoil the effect, wouldn't it.

"Now of course, as everyone knows, there are a number of ways to make a person smaller. You can shrink them in the dryer for example. Or she could be crushed, condensed, mashed, flattened, squished, or deflated. In this example, we're going to use a simple compression. Summer, if you could please stay right there."

Marvin walked across to the side of the stage, where he unhooked a long rope that went up to the celling.

"I just pull this rope…"

He pulled the rope. Suddenly, from the ceiling a wrecking ball fell right where Summer had been standing. Before crashing through the stage, it was stopped by a chain, hovering a couple of inches above the cardboard box, which was miraculously untouched. Summer was nowhere to be seen.

"Okay then," said Marvin, pulling the rope again. The wrecking ball was gradually pulled back to wherever it'd been.

Marvin returned to the box, which he picked up and set on the folding table. He then gingerly extracted the "compressed" Summer from the box. All that was left of her was her head and feet up to the ankles. Looking a bit dazed, she took some tiny steps around the table, as the audience broke into applause.

"Summer, how do you feel?"

"Smaller?" Everyone laughed.

"Thank you," said Marvin. "You've done a great job." He lifted her up and set her down on the floor again, allowing her to baby-step back to her seat.

"She's so cute!" I said, pulling Andrew's sleeve. I'd completely forgotten about my own predicament, and I was now wondering what it might feel like to be squished down like her. She didn't look uncomfortable, and as her friends set her back on her seat, they gave her just a pat on the head before returning to watch the show.

Actually, there was something I was starting to detect in the audience - some of them, such as Andrew and I, watched with a wide-eyed awe, like anyone might when witnessing such impossible magic. But for the most part, the audience seemed rather subdued and casual about the whole spectacle. Regulars? Other magicians? I couldn't decide, but they seemed about the hardest people to impress on the planet.

"Alas, alas we are at the end of my performance tonight. This will be my final trick before we bring on my partner, Matilda. I have demonstrated to you, through a variety of methods, many different permutations of the human body. I have shown you how the body may be separated, vanished, rearranged and reduced. Now there is one other possible permutation. Some of you know what that is. I wouldn't want to spoil it for the uninitiated, so with that I will merely ask for two more subjects. You two, you were going to volunteer?"

He turned to two somewhat surprised looking girls sitting near the front. They looked at one another, as though waiting for the other to make the first move.

"May I present Leah and Trish," said Marvin gesturing towards the girls. Each of them stood up. Both were tall, leggy blondes almost indistinguishable under layers of makeup. Both were pretty but one of them was an absolute knockout.

A warm and unfamiliar feeling surged in my lap. Oh no, I thought.

"Now I'd like to apologize for this next bit. I'm about to use a device abhorred by true magicians the world over. Ladies, gentlemen, I'm quite sorry to say - I will be using a prop."

A good-natured booing spread through the audience.

Marvin went to the back of the stage to get something. The feeling began to get worse. And by worse I mean better. I looked down at my new bulge and tried to push it back down. That backfired - it only felt better and grew even harder.

I was turning bright red. Completely unsure of what to do, I gave Andrew a nudge.

"Um… We have a problem," I said and pointed with my eyes.

"I think you mean you have a problem," he said, stifling a laugh.

"What do I do? Go to the bathroom?"

"If you stand up, everyone's gonna notice."

"Okay, okay. I don't know how to control this. I was just looking at the girl on stage and-"

Marvin cut me off, as he came out rolling a large black cabinet.

Then Andrew did something I didn't expect. He reached into my pants. His pants. With a deft motion, he pulled it up and tucked it in between my belt and stomach.

"That's what you do," he said.

I just gaped at him, in between stealing another glance at the blondes on stage. My mouth was starting to water. I wanted him to grab it again.

"Wait a second," I said, grinning. "If I'm … then you're flipped too!"

"What are you talking about," he said.

"I mean, if I'm getting turned on by girls now, then - just admit it"

I stopped and just grinned at him. His smirk gave him away.

"Fine. Yes," he said. He looked embarrassed.

I poked him in the ribs and returned to watching the show. We both briefly made eye contact. I liked where things were going.

Meanwhile, on stage, Marvin had coaxed the two blondes into the cabinet. It was large enough for the two to stand side by side. He closed the door.

"Now," he began, addressing the audience. "While using a prop is rightly considered vulgar and uncouth by the magically refined, it has been a staple of stage magic for over a century. Now the precise purpose of a box such as this is typically to allow the assistants a chance to escape. Please be assured there is no escape for these lucky young ladies."

Marvin opened the doors and stepped aside. Both of the girls were missing arms and legs, and looking rather surprised. He gave just enough time for a laugh before closing the cabinet again. In an instant, he opened it again revealing them fully restored.

"In a true magic show, however, such a prop serves a different purpose. A number of different transformations can take place with less, shall we say, deliberation and more surprises. Now, to get on with things. I have these two young ladies in this box. And one more type of magic left to perform. And that is the combining of two bodies into one."

Marvin threw open the doors once again. The two girls stood looking as surprised as before, as they were now sharing the same pair of legs. They walked out to loud whistling and applause.

Their new form wasn't making it any easier for me.

"Admit it," jibed Andrew.

"Oh, I admit it," I said, grinning.

"And with that," said Marvin, "I must bid adieu. The second half of the performance, featuring the one and only Mademoiselle Matilda of Madrid, shall commence after a short interval. Goodnight."

He evaporated. I'm not kidding. He just turned into smoke, drifting up to the ceiling, leaving an empty tuxedo on stage. Everyone burst into applause once more, even though he was apparently gone. As people began getting up to visit the bar or the bathroom, a thought occurred to Andrew and I simultaneously.

Was anyone going to put us back like we were?