Armor Amour

by Brian
[email protected]
copyright 2000


The first time I saw Jabe Oakridge, I thought he was crazy. After I got to know him, however, I knew he was.  Crazy I mean.  Not that that's a bad thing, but....

I guess I should start at the beginning.

My name is Alexis McMoore.  You may recognize me from the cover of Sporting Illustrated's Swimwear Edition a few years back.  I met Jabe while we were filming that shoot in Florida.  It had been a rough day, you know, one of those days when nothing goes right.  Sitting in the tepid water in a dental floss bikini, sand in my suit, salt in my hair, trying to look subtly aroused.  'Subtly aroused?'  What the hell did that mean?  But that's what the cameraman wanted.

Quite frankly, I was getting a little sick of the whole thing.  Patrick Langstrom, the head photographer, seemed to think he was up for the Pulitzer for this shoot.  Everything had to be just so.  It was silly, all we were doing was making what amounted to soft-core porn.  Just skin shots for twelve-year-old boys to masturbate to.  

Finally, after fourteen straight hours of shooting, Patrick called it a day.  He hollered for the crew to start packing up the equipment.  

I pulled a bathrobe around me and headed for the trailer.  I wanted to get dressed and back to my hotel room.  I hoped that I could make a safe exit.  I didn't feel like getting hit on by crewmembers or running the gauntlet of swimsuit model groupies who usually hung out at the filming site.  All I wanted was a hot bath and a good night's sleep before shooting started again the next day...at 5:00 am.

I first saw him on the way to my car.  He stood with the rest of the crew of laborers whose job it was to do grunt work for the cameramen and makeup artists.  My eyes were instantly drawn to him.  He was a big guy, you might have even called him ripped; bulging arm, massive pecs, thick, powerful legs.  He was 6'2" if he was a foot.  

It wasn't his massive size that caught my eye, though.  When you are a well-known model, big guys aren't exactly hard to attract.  No, there was something different about this man.

The obvious difference was he only had one arm.  His left arm was gone above the elbow; from the scarring there it was clear that it wasn't a birth defect.  Still, the amputation didn't obviously stand out.  In fact he was single-handedly lifting a camera rig that seemed too heavy for a two-handed man to lift.  

Another strange thing was his eyes.  One looked perfectly normal, except that the iris was yellow.   His other eye seemed dead.  No matter where his right eye looked, the left one was fixed in place, staring at nothing.  It was rather disconcerting.

There were other strange things as well.  He had at least two broken teeth, more body hair than I would have thought possible, and absurdly large sideburns.  

I couldn't stop staring at him.  He was like the villain in a bad horror movie.  I didn't know a makeup artist who could create such a bizarre looking person if they tried.  He was what you'd expect a serial murderer to look like.  I wouldn't call him ugly, per se, but he was certainly not someone you'd call handsome.

I guess I gawked at him just a little too long.  His 'good' eye focused on me and he fixed me with a leering grin.  I thought I heard a deep growl from his throat.  I immediately turned and ran for my car.

That night I couldn't sleep.  It was useless.  The same old demons were plaguing me.  I needed to go for a walk.  I didn't feel like getting dressed, so I threw on one of the bikinis from the shoot, wrapped a robe around me, and headed for the beach.
The ocean at night has a calming effect.  I stood at the tide line and reflected.  Why was I so unhappy?

I was famous.  I had enough money to be considered rich.  I had nice cars and a big house.  I could have my pick of men.  What was missing?

Respect, that was what was missing.  Everyone, my friends included, thought of me as an empty-headed bimbo.  A pair of breasts.  A body.  Not once in the past five years had anyone asked my opinion on anything important.  Not once.  I was sexy enough to slobber over, but God forbid I should open my mouth.  No, I was a hunk of meat.  If one more guy told me 'not to worry my pretty little head over something,' I would just loose it.  Everyone treated me like a sex object.  Everyone!  Hell, even Patrick, the head photographer did, and he was a flaming homosexual!  

It hadn't always been like this.  I thought back to college.  Yes, I had gone to college.  Graduated Magna cum Laude with a degree in English.  I used to write poetry.  Good poetry, people had said...

Ah, hell, what was the use?  Poets don't make money, models do.  And modeling was the path I had taken, no use crying over how things might have been.

I wandered out onto a deserted pier and regarded my reflection in the becalmed waters.  I let my robe fall over and studied the bikini-clad reflection.  Behold the bimbo, ladies and gentlemen!  Blonde of course, with huge knockers.  Big hips, starvation-diet midsection.  Long legs, pretty face.  No brain.  Age 28.  Past her prime.  From here on it will be moisturizer commercials and charity balls before she marries some has-been rock star and slides into obscurity...

I was interrupted from my self-pity when a hideous, loathsome sea creature shot up out of the sea and with a bellow, flopped onto the pier at my feet.  I let out a piercing scream before I recognized the one-armed crewman from earlier.

"Er, sorry," he said.  "I didn't mean to startle you."  He had a deep, raspy voice, like someone with a chronically dry throat.

"What were you doing down there?" I hollered at him.

"Uh, I was swimming.  I like to swim at, uh, night.  Didn't think anyone was out here."

"You scared the hell out of me!"

"Yeah, I have that effect on people."

"You nearly gave me a heart attack!"

"I said I was sorry."

I began to calm down. I really had no right to yell at him, he was just swimming.  Jesus, looking like he did, he was probably used to people screaming when they saw him.

I sat down next to him.  "It's okay.  I'm just a little high strung right now."

There was an awkward silence.  I couldn't get up and leave or it would look like I was avoiding him.  On the other hand, I couldn't think of anything to say, and to be honest, I really did want to get away from him.

He finally broke the silence.  “Why was six afraid of seven?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Why was six afraid of seven?”

“I...I’m not sure.”

“Because seven ate nine!”  He contorted his grotesque face into something resembling a smile.  I suddenly realized he had just told a joke.  

“Very funny,” I said with what I hoped was convincing laughter.  For lack of anything else to say, I introduced myself.

“I know who you are,” he replied with his grimace-like smile.  Of course he did.  We worked on the shoot, it would be impossible for him not to know me.

“Do you have a name?”  I asked, hoping to gain a little control in the situation.

“Jabe Oakridge.”

“Jake....?”

“No, Jabe.  With a B.”

“That's an unusual name.”

“I'm an unusual guy."

"So do you always swim at night?"

"No, sometimes I fish.  Last week I caught one, I swear it was this big!"  He extended his good arm out to his side as if he were measuring something between his right hand and his missing left one.  I had no idea if he was joking or not.  I let out a small laugh and he chuckled.

"So what brings you out here in the middle of the night?" he asked.  "Gonna take a dip too?”  he said, glancing at my swimsuit.

“No, I'm just out for a walk.”

“Wanna talk about it?” he asked.

“About what?”

“About whatever is bothering you.”

“Why do you say something's bothering me?”

“Because people who are at peace with themselves don't go walking in the middle of the night.”

I was starting to get annoyed with this guy's presumptions.  He was right, but I was still annoyed.

“Normal people don't go swimming in the middle of the night!” I retorted.

“Never said I was normal,” he replied, unfazed.  “But I am a good listener.”

I was about to tell him that I never confide in complete strangers when a thought hit me.  No one took me seriously, so why not confide in a stranger?  Like most men he probably just wanted one thing, but it would be nice to unburden myself to someone who I wouldn't have to talk to again.

I motioned for him to sit at the edge of the pier.  I sat next to him.  “God, where to begin?”  I asked out loud.

“Begin,” he rasped, “at the beginning.  Just like Sherlock Holmes said.”

“There's not much to tell, really.  I guess I've just been looking at my life and realize that maybe I gave up my dreams too early.  That I took my life in a direction I shouldn't have and now I'll never be able to have the kind of life I want.”

“I know exactly how you feel," he said, with feeling.  I got the impression he had a story to tell as well.  

"What do you mean?" I asked him.

"Well, up until a few years ago I was trying to become a professional guitar player.  Obviously that can't happen now."

"Why not?" I asked, just as I realized why his musical career had ended.  I blushed, feeling every bit as stupid at people took me for.  Fortunately, Jabe only laughed.

"So what was your dream?" he asked me.

"Promise not to laugh?" I asked, warily.  He nodded, curtly.

"Well...it was an impossible dream, I guess.  I wanted to write.  To write poetry.  But I haven't written in years.  And now if I tried to have anything published, people would just think I'm some bimbo trying to exploit her fame."

"Don't call yourself that," he said with surprising vehemence.  "You are not a bimbo."

I was touched by the big man's defense of me.  "Thanks.  Too bad more people don't think like you."  He smiled, more of a genuine smile this time.

"I'm sorry to whine like this," I told him.  "It's just that I finally realized that all the magic is gone from my life."

He looked at me strangely.  "You believe in magic?" he asked, warily.

I wasn't sure how to respond.  "Well, I mean, love, life, that's a kind of magic...”

"No," he interrupted.  “I mean real magic.  Vanishings, levitation, transformations...like you see magicians on TV do, only for real."

I looked at this hulking man.  He was still wet and shirtless from his swim.  He looked very, very, crazy at the moment.  But not violent crazy.  Mad scientist crazy.  I decided to risk honesty.

“A lot of my poems are about magicians.  I guess I should say 'were,' about magicians, I haven't written in years.  I guess...I dunno....I always kind of hoped that there was magic...real magic...somewhere."

"There is," he replied simply, as if I had asked him if there was a dry cleaner's in town.

"What do you mean?"

“I mean, I am a magician.  A real one.  Would you like a demonstration?"

I didn't know what to think.  Surely he didn't really believe....  "Yeah, okay, show me what you got."

He faced me.  “Why, what's that behind your ear?” he asked, reaching behind my head.  I inwardly groaned.  The old ‘nickel behind the ear’ routine.  I was disappointed, I had half-hoped that...

I nearly fell of the pier when I saw what he had extracted from behind my ear.  It was a bowling ball.  An honest to God, real, standard bowling ball.  I tapped it.  It was genuine.

Jabe had been clad in nothing but his swim trunks.  He couldn't have had such a large object hidden anywhere.  But then how...?

“How the hell did you do that?” I fairly shouted.

“I palmed it.”

“Palmed it my ass!”

“Okay.  It was magic.”

I suddenly began to sweat.  This was getting surreal.  Maybe I should leave...

“Would you like to see more?  All my really good tricks are back at my place.  I live right over those hills.”

“Run” I thought.  “Get out of here.  You don't know this man, he could be a murderer, a rapist, anything!  Don't go to his house alone.”

But I couldn't resist.  Not that he had some strange magical charm, but, for the first time in too long, I had seen the magical side of life.  The impossible.  The dreamworld of my past, all compressed into a fourteen pound, black, ceramic sphere.

“Lead the way,” I told him, my voice barely a whisper.

It was a short walk over some grassy dunes to Jabe's place.  It was a small, wooden house.  Jabe opened the door and turned on the light.  It was small, sparsely furnished.  The striking feature was that most of his furniture was made out of cinderblocks and wooden planks.

“Make yourself at home,” he said, tossing the bowling ball to the floor.  “I'll be right back.”  He then disappeared through the one door.

I had little time to reflect on what I had gotten myself into, as he returned almost immediately, wearing dress pants and a tuxedo shirt and bow tie.  The left sleeve was pinned shut.  A top hat completed the traditional magician's costume.

With a flourish, he lifted a trapdoor on the floor.  "Step into my lab," he said with a grin.

With increasing nervousness, I complied.  His 'lab,' as he had referred to his basement, was chock full of bizarre bric-a-brac: crates, boxes, costumes, chains, gurneys...it was like a cross between a magic shop and Dr. Frankenstein’s rumpus room.  
"So," I asked, nervously pulling my robe around my almost naked frame "what exactly do you have in mind?"

"I know just the trick."  He motioned to a strange object situated in a corner.  At first glance it appeared to be the bottom half of a statue, but upon closer inspection I realized that it was part of a suit of armor.  It was the leggings and hip coverings or whatever you call them.  They stood alone on the concrete basement floor, held up by no obvious device.

“Now,” said Jabe, “I'd like you to examine this piece of armor.  Tell me if you find anything strange about it.”

I touched it.  Immediately I noticed something that was odd: all the joints were welded together.  If you wore such a garment you wouldn't be able to move.  Not only that, the feet of the armor seemed to be anchored to the floor.  Still, try as I might, I couldn't find any sort of hidden levers or trap doors or whatever I was supposed to find.  I told Jabe as much.

“All right, then if you would be so kind as to step into the leggings...”

“Whoah, hang on.  You never said anything about that!”

“C’mon, it's a great trick!”

“Well, what exactly is this ‘trick’?”

“It's a surprise,” he said with a frightening smile.

“No, I'm sorry, I can't do that.”  If this lunatic thought I was going to let him trap me in those iron pants, he had another thing coming.

Jabe seemed resigned to this.  “Oh well, pity.”

“You can't expect a girl just to let you trap her like that!”

“No one's forcing you to do anything.”

“I mean, I couldn't move!  How could you expect me to get in there?”

Jabe sighed.  “Listen Alexis, I don't mean to be rude, but, as my father used to say, ‘I don't see any brass chains bolting your ass to the floor.’  The door's open and if you want you can leave.  I've had eighteen women down here.  I asked them all to try out the armor trick and all eighteen of them left.  I was hoping that you'd be different.”  He said the last part sadly, as if I had somehow fallen short of his expectations.

I thought about it.  Sure, it was insane, but I couldn't get that bowling ball out of my mind.  I could leave here, go back to the hotel, and continue leading my life.  But wouldn't I always wonder, ‘what if?’  Maybe this guy really did know magic...could I pass up a chance like this?

I opened my mouth, still not fully sure of what I was going to say.  “Jabe...uh, you promise me I won't come to any harm?”

“I promise.”  He sounded sincere.  Then again, so did most car salesmen.

“Jabe, I'll get in there, but you have to promise me one thing.  If I tell you I want out, then you have to let me out.  Give me your word.”

“So agreed.”

I hung my bathrobe on what appeared to be part of a grandfather clock and attempted to step inside.  I couldn't comfortably lift my leg over the hips of the metal pants.  Jabe lowered his callused hand which I used for a step.  Will a quick leap I was inside.

It was not as uncomfortable as I was expecting.  For starters, the insides were lined with some sort of padding so I wasn't being poked by the cold metal.  The pants seemed to fit me quite well, too.  It was almost as if they had been designed with me in mind...

Still, it wasn't the best feeling in the world.  I couldn't move below the waist, and I knew I wouldn't be able to extradite myself from this thing without his help.  I was at his mercy.  I began to wonder about the intelligence of my decision to participate in this.  

Jabe continued to prepare me for the trick.  This time he showed me a metal breastplate: a bit of armor that would cover my entire chest, stomach, and the front of my shoulders.  This joined with a corresponding back piece.  When he had dressed me in these garments, only my head and arms were bare.  He fastened the upper pieces to the leggings with a series of ominous-sounding locks.  I tried to squirm, but the torso coverings were as immobile as the pants.

Jabe then slid my arms into a pair of...well, arm coverings, and attached them to the rest of the armor.  It was almost scary how well they fit.  The metal gloves at the end of the arms fit me like...gloves.

Unlike the rest of the armor, the arm-coverings allowed movement.  They were jointed at the shoulders, wrists, elbows, and fingers.  

Jabe reached from behind me and showed me a chain that appeared to be attached to the ceiling.  This he hooked into a small eyehole that was built into the wrist of the armor.  He snapped it into place, and attached a similar chain to my other hand.  The chains allowed me much less movement.  I almost backed out and asked him to free me.

Finally, Jabe pulled another chain into my line of sight.  At the end of this chain was the helmet of the suit of armor.  It was unusual looking, though.  There were no vision slits in the visor; when it was pulled down the wearer would be unable to see.  Jabe pulled it onto my head and affixed it, visor-up, to the rest of the armor.

I was now trapped.  Other than a little movement at my shoulders and neck I was pretty much immobile.  What was this guy going to do to me?  And why was I letting him?

Jabe placed a dusty, full-length mirror in front of me.  He sat another beside it.  That one reflected into a mirror that seemed to be behind me, so I could see my backside.

"I want you to be able to see what the audience would see," explained Jabe, "if we were performing in public."

Jabe faced the mirror in front of us, and addressed it as if speaking to an audience "Ladies and gentleman," he began, "as you can see, my lovely assistant, Alexis, has been secured in the suit of armor.  She cannot move, nor can she escape."

I began to sweat.  Jabe went on.  "Now, to remove any doubt you may have as to the authenticity of this trick, allow me to show you Alex's front!"  with that he pulled open a hinged door on the front of my armor.  In the mirror I could clearly see my busty, bikini covered chest, and my tanned, flat stomach.  "Back!" continued Jabe and opened a door in the back of my armor.  In the other mirror I could see my shoulder blades and lower back.  "Legs!" Jabe removed the tops of my metal boots, revealing my naked feet.  "And hands!"  Jabe removed the metal gloves.  I could now move my hands, though the chains around my wrists prevented any further action.

Jabe shut the doors covering my front and back.  “And now, as I say the magic words: Sol!  Tecate!  NEGRO MODELO!....viola!”

I experienced a slight chill.  It was weird, like the feeling you get when the roller coaster makes an unexpected decent.  It then passed.  Jabe slowly reopened the front and rear doors to the armor.

At first I didn't notice anything different.  Then, as I focused on the mirror, I saw the truth.  Where my torso had been, there was nothing!

I could see all the way through the armor to the other side!  There was a hole from the front door of the armor to the rear.  Inside, there was no trace of my body.

I began to panic.  Could he really have done it?  My head, feet, and hands seemed to be in good condition, it was just that I no longer had anything in between.

I tried to flex my stomach.  It felt like I was, but then again, I could no longer feel the pressure of the restrictive suit of armor below my shoulders or above my waist.  What had happened to me?

It was a trick, that was what had happened.  There was no other explanation.  You can't survive without a body, therefore I still had one.  He must be using mirrors or something, that was it.  My body still existed, it simply looked like it was gone.  A damn good trick, fooling even me.  I tried to look down to see my actual body, but I didn't have enough freedom of movement to see anything but my reflection.

Jabe must have sensed my thoughts.  He stood behind me.  Much to my horror, I could see his reflection through the hole in the armor.  He then bent down and stuck his arm through the hole.  He reached up, and tapped my nose with his finger.  I could see it clear as day:  him standing behind me, his arm right through me, his finger lightly touching my face.  As if that weren't enough he ducked down and stuck his head into the hole.  He grinned at the imaginary audience from inside me, and then tapped the inside of the armor.  There was a dull ringing sound, as if he had struck a hollow suit of armor.

Jabe stood up and spoke again.  “And now, if I could just ask the lovely Alexis to wiggle her fingers and toes...”  I groggily complied.  My digits reacted true to form.

Jabe slammed the two doors to the armor.  “And now, with the magic words, Victoria!  Corona! DOS XX!”  There was the sudden chill again, and Jabe opened the two doors.  Much to my relief my front and backsides appeared in the holes, perfectly normal.  Jabe bowed to the mirror.

"Jabe!"  I shouted, stunned.  "That was incredible!  I've never seen anything like that!"

"Thank you."  Jabe smiled modestly, I think he was just slightly embarrassed.

"How the hell did you do that?"

"It was magic, I told you."

"Magic my ass.  What did you use, mirrors?"

"Mirrors, give me a break!  You saw it with your own eyes."

This was getting silly.  The bowling ball was one thing, but I refused to believe he had made half of me vanish like that.  I figured if I wore him down enough he'd tell me the secret, or at least admit to trickery.

"So is there a camera behind the mirror?  What's the deal?"

"The deal, Ms. McMoore, is that it was magic, plain and simple.  Or don't you believe me?"

"Quite frankly, no I don't."  The armor was really beginning to feel restrictive.  "Now get me out of this ridiculous thing."

"Fine, let me take it apart.  Here."  Jabe shut the doors in the front and back of the armor and grabbed me around the waist with his one arm.  He then pulled.  There was a metallic grinding sound and a click.

I felt strange again, as if two ice cold streams of water were running around my torso; one in a circle under my armpits, another around my hips under my navel.  Then it stopped.

Jabe stepped away, carrying something.  At first I thought it was the front piece of the armor.  Then I saw my reflection in the mirror.

Above my armpits, I looked perfectly normal.  Just a pretty woman, encased in armor, only her face and hands visible.  Below the waist, I likewise looked normal, though all that was visible were my feet sticking out of the bottom of my immobile pants.
BUT THERE WAS NOTHING IN BETWEEN!  Nothing!  No armor, no flesh, not anything.  My head, arms, and shoulders swung slowly at the end of the three chains.  My legs stood rigidly on the floor.  Between them there was nothing.  

I looked over at Jabe in a panic, and at the large, metal tubelike object he was holding.  It didn't take long for me to realize that it was the middle section of the armor.  Were my middle parts in there?

Jabe grinned and sat my middle on a table.  "Still believe this is all a trick?" he asked, smugly.  I was too stunned to answer.  

Jabe opened the front and back doors to the torso section.  There, almost three feet in front of me, I could see my bikini-clad torso.  Dimly, in the mirror, I could see my back.  I heaved my stomach and saw it move across the room.  How was this possible?  Seeing my own breasts so far away?  Looking at my stomach straight on?

Jabe ran his finger along my bare back.  I got goosebumps, it tickled.  He placed his palm flat on my stomach.  I began to breath heavily.  He then walked over to me (well, the most of me), bent over, and tickled my toes.  He stood up, ran his arm through the space where my body should have been, and pushed my upper part, causing me to swing gently back and forth.

"Still not convinced?" he asked, with a bizarre smile.

"This...this...is not happening."  I couldn't think of anything else to say.  

Jabe shook his head, resignedly.  He then pulled on what appeared to be a chain hanging from the ceiling.  I felt a yank on my head, and then a 'pop!'

I knew what had happened before I saw the reflection.  My head had dissattatched itself from my shoulders.  It now dangled free from its chain.  My arms, connected by my shoulders, hung under it, supported by the wrist chains.

Jabe stood right in front of me, his face inches from mine.  "Now," he said, very slowly and deliberately, "do you believe in magic, or shall I continue to disassemble you?"

"I believe! I believe!" I shouted.  I certainly didn't want to wind up in more than four pieces.  I felt faint.  All my life I had wondered if there was a such thing as magic.  Now I was sure of it.  I prayed that this was the end.

Jabe's face was still uncomfortably close to mine.  "Jabe," I asked, "can you put me together again?"

"No, I don't know how."

"WHAT!"

"Sorry," he said defensively.

"Why did you take me apart if you couldn't put be back together again?"

"You're so gullible!"  Jabe laughed.

"Very funny.  Put me together, you psycho!"

"No."

"Why not?"

"The trick isn't over yet.  There's one more part."

"I don't care!  I'm scared Jabe, stop this!"

Jabe looked me right in the eyes.  His good eye bored into mine and I tried to look away.  He then put his hand on the back on my neck and pulled my head toward his (a very disconcerting feeling, since I could feel my shoulders stay behind) and kissed me.

It wasn't a passionate kiss, but it was long kiss.  It wasn't the kiss of a man who was trying to get me warmed up for sex, but the kiss of a man who simply wanted to kiss me.  Finally he let me go.  My head rocked gently back and forth, like a yo-yo on the end of a string.

"One more trick?" he asked.  "I promise I'll restore you right after."

"One more trick," I whispered, my voice barely audible.

First, Jabe pulled my head down and carefully reattached it to my neck.  He then stepped over to the part of the armor that held my middle.  He patted my stomach, and shut the built-in doors again.  He opened an even smaller door in the front of the armor, over my breasts.  This door was no larger than a postcard, through it I could just discern my cleavage.  Jabe opened another tiny door in the front of the armor, through this one I could see my navel.

He picked up my midsection and turned it around, so that now my back was facing me.  He opened a door at the top to reveal the cleft between my shoulder blades.  Then he opened a lower door to uncover my lower back.

"Ready?" he asked with his husky voice.  I whimpered an assent.

Slowly and deliberately he flicked the door over my chest shut.  Then the one over my belly.  Then my upper back, then the lower.  Finally, he walked back over to my head.  He reached towards me again, and for a second I thought he was after another kiss.  This was not the case, however.  He simply flipped down the visor to my helmet.

The visor, as you recall, had no slits in it, so for a second I was in the dark.  A strange sensation flowed over me, as if I were submerged in hot butter; it was like the world outside my skin had no consistency, no real form.  The feeling quickly passed.

Light flooded into my eyes.  For a moment I thought Jabe had opened the visor, but I soon realized that this was not the case.  My face was uncovered, but not by much.  I was looking out of a very small, rectangular hole.  Then I focused on something on the other side of the room that gave me a pretty good idea of what was going on.

There, a good distance away, stood the bottom half of a suit of armor, my painted toes jutting out of the feet.  Just above it, suspended from three chains, hung the armor's helmet, arms, and shoulders.  My hands poked out of the metallic sleeves.  Well if the armor was over there, then where was I?  Or, more to the point, where was my face?

I figured it out even before I located the mirror.  I was looking out of one of the tiny door in the armor's midsection.  I smiled at my reflection, at my stunned face staring out of the hole that had revealed my navel a few seconds ago.  My face was now where my stomach had been.

Jabe pinched my nose, gently.  Then he opened the door that, last I had seen, had been in front of my chest.  I'm sure you've guessed that it now held a different part of my anatomy; my lower back to be precise.  Jabe ran his finger along my spine, I think he enjoyed giving me the chills.

Jabe repositioned the metallic torso so that I could see the mirror that showed what was going on behind me.  He opened the door over the lower back.  'upper back, breasts, or stomach?'  I vaguely wondered.  Upper back as it turned out.  Jabe ran his callused fingers from my left shoulder blade to the right one.  He then opened the last door.  My breasts were now visible where my upper back had once been.  Jabe seemed about to caress them as well, but I growled at him and he made as if was just going to adjust his hair or something.

Finally, he opened the visor on the helmet.  As expected, the only feature that looked back from the faceplate was a belly button.  I breathed in and the face-turned-stomach responded.  Jabe poked me softly in the gut.

So now I was not only disassembled, I was also scrambled!  Face and stomach changed place, breasts on my upper back, shoulder blades on my lower back, and lower back on my chest.  I hoped this was as weird as I would get, I didn't want to think there was more to the trick.  

I looked over my body, both what I could see and what I could only glance in the mirrors.  If I was watching this I would naturally assume a trick.  Even from my point of view it was hard to accept what had happened.  Only when I moved my fingers and toes, compounded with Jabe's soft touches, did I realize it was impossible to have faked something like this without my knowledge.

"So how do you feel?" ask Jabe, as if I had been getting over a cold.

"How do you think I feel?  Let me out of this thing!"

"Suit yourself," said Jabe, and moved as if he were about to remove the helmet.

"Put me back together first!"

Jabe grinned, and picked up the torso section.  He slid it gently into place between the top and bottom of the armor.  I saw myself in the mirror (top to bottom: navel, hands, lower back, face, toes).  Jabe shut the tiny doors in the armor, leaving the one over my face till last.  I felt the warm butter feeling again.  When Jabe opened the visor I knew I had been returned to normal.

Jabe undid the chains, then removed my helmet.  In no time at all he had disassembled the armor and helped my out of the leggings.  I ran over to the mirror.

I was intact, the same.  True, I was a little sweaty and wild-eyed now, but more or less the status quo.  I adjusted my bikini and turned to Jabe.  He looked at me expectantly.  I didn't know what to say.

"Jabe...why?  Why did you do this?"  I eventually managed to get out.

"You said you wanted to see real magic."

"But so do a lot of people.  Why me, specifically?"

"Well, you're awfully pretty, it was a good way to break the ice.  That's why I brought the other women down here, you know, the ones who chickened out."

"Oh."  I admit to being more than a little disappointed.  Once again, I was just another pretty face.

"But, I confess, with you it was more than that.  You said something that struck me, back at the pier.  You said that you wanted to be a poet, but it was impossible."

"So?  It is impossible.  At this point in my life I..."

"Alexis," he interrupted, "if I had come to you earlier today and told you I could take you apart and then mix you all up and you'd be fine, what would you have said?"

"I'd have said that it was...."  I broke off.

"Yes?"

"I'd have said it was impossible."

"Maybe nothing's impossible.  Maybe 'impossible' is just an excuse we hide behind."

I don't know why I did what I did next.  The sensible thing to do would have been to politely leave.  The romantic thing to do would have been to fall into his arm.  I, on the other hand, turned and ran like hell.  I didn't stop until I was safely locked in my hotel room.  I guess the strangeness of the evening had caught up with me.  

I stayed in my room all that day and refused to come out.  Us supermodels are permitted to do that once in a while.  My mind was running a mile a minute.  Strangely, it wasn't the magic that was at the forefront of my thoughts, it was what Jabe had said last.  'Impossible is just an excuse.'

The following day I was the first one at the shoot.  I had to talk to Jabe.  I had to apologize for running out, but more importantly, I needed to talk to him.  I was having strange thoughts, thoughts only he could help me make sense of.

I was crushed when his boss told me that he hadn't shown up for work since the day before yesterday.  I knew even before I checked his house and found it empty that he was gone.

Epilogue:  two years later

You'd be surprised how easy it is for a supermodel to find anonymity.  Most of the so-called 'beauty' comes from makeup and PR, take it away and we're all just a bunch of women, no prettier than your neighborhood waitress or beautician.  A name change and a move across the country and I was pretty much a new person.  There'd be others to fill the scantily clothed vacuum I'd left.

To say it's not easy to become a poetess is an understatement.  It's thankless work, and most often you are unappreciated.  This Midwestern college town has been good to me though, and I've been well received at most of the readings I've been invited to.

Today, in fact, I got two amazing things in the mail.  One was a letter from a publisher confirming that they were, in fact, going to print my first book of poems, titled 'Impossible.'  The second was a package.

The note on the package was brief.  Congratulations,' it read.  'I'm sorry I haven't been in touch, I just wanted you to know you could make your dreams come true with no one's help, including mine.  I hear you're giving a reading next week.  Maybe I'll stop by.'

Maybe indeed.  He'd better if he knew what was good for him.  I opened the package and placed the bowling ball it contained on my desk.

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