Bill ignored his helper behind him as he approached the bowl.  The black-dressed male cleared the stage of the table and compressed cube, making preparations to display the latest assistant and her current situation off the stage and with the other volunteers.

Cranking his head and neck side to side, Bill waited for a moment before reaching into the bowl. "She did have a point, you know. About rising and falling action.  I think it's time for something a little more... rising?"  With that, he reached into the bowl and swirled it around.  "Would.." he picked a slip at random and read the name, "Angela please come up?"

Bill pocketed the slip to prevent him from drawing it again, and waited for his latest volunteer to present herself.  From the front of Stage left, Angela ascended, her vibrant blonde hair that was cut into sharp edges seemed to glow in the light.  She gave a quick twirl to show off her crop-top, the red and black pattern circling around under bare shoulders and over her open stomach.  She wore a tight skirt with the same pattern on it that reached from hips to halfway down her thighs.

From the front of Stage Right, Angela hopped up, red hair tied into a bun behind her head, held in place by two long sticks, her vaguely Asian features suggesting that it wasn't her natural hair color. She wore a black t-shirt and slacks, hands sticking into her hip pockets.

Bill looked left.  Bill looked right.  He looked straight ahead and crossed his arms to point in opposite directions.  "Uh... anyone else seeing double here?"

"Hey," the right Angela raised one hand and waved.  "Same name, huh?"

"It appears so," the left said, returning the wave.  "Cunningham."

"Tang," the right one also gave her family name.  "So, uh, how you want to do this?  Rock-Paper-Scissors?"

Bill stepped between them.  "You could," he raised hands to forestall their polite method of determining who got to stay, "both participate.  I had something planned later for two volunteers, but if I have both of you up here now..?"

"I'm good with that," the red Angela offered.

"Same with me," the other agreed.  "But, uh, Bill, can we look at that slip?  I want to see if it's my handwriting or not."

"Sure!" Bill fetched the paper from his pocket and handed it to Angela T.  "You check while I get my things ready," he said as he vanished into the back.

"Well, this isn't mine," Angela T said, passing it over to Angela C for confirmation.

"Yeah... this isn't mine either," Angela C said, holding it up to the light to examine it more closely.

"Does that mean there's a third Angela in the room?" Bill asked as he returned, pushing a long table, and a large cloth over his shoulder.  He took the slip back and pointed out over the audience. "Would any other person with the name of Angela please raise your voice?"

There was a moment's silence before a single "me!" came from the audience.  Bill dropped his shoulders, leaning his head forward in an incredulous expression.  "Really?" he called out.  "No!  No!  You stay there," he waved the third Angela off. "I don't need a third for this."

"Wow," Angela C said with raised eyebrows.  "Who'd'a thunk?"

"Not me," Angela T said.  "So, Bill, what are you going to do with us?"

"To us, you mean."

"Same difference really," Bill stepped back to his new props.  "Now, ladies," he indicated the table, "I need one of you to lie down on this for me," he indicated the table.

"Is there any trick to it?" Angela C asked as she stepped up first to the table, running a hand over the velvet surface.  "I don't feel anything out of place.  Soft though."

"Not this time, I'm afraid," Bill wasn't remorseful at all.  "And it's soft for your comfort."

Angela C hopped onto the table then shuffled to the side to lay down on it, feet facing Angela T's side of the stage, her head closer to where Bill stood.  "So, what next?"

"Next," Bill unrolled the sheet in his hands then flipped it over the Angela who lay down in front of him.  The white cloth covered her and the entire table, hanging over the edges for a couple inches on each side. "I do this!" He grabbed the edge of the cloth on his side, and yanked it away!

"I'm going to ask the obvious question," Angela T said as she approached the table, "but where did she go?" She pointed at the empty table.  Well, not quite.  There was now a very small cardboard box on it.  "In there?" She reached out to pick it up, but Bill beat her to it.

"Not quite," he said as he opened up the box, pulling out a deck of red backed cards.  Behind him, his helper appeared with a small camera.  And behind Angela T, a large high-def screen had been rolled out, a power cord running back stage, and another wire running to the camera.  "First, you all should pay more attention, he was able to roll that out while you were distracted!"

"Or we ignored him because you're the professional," Angela T challenged.

"Well, that's quite fine," Bill started to lay out the cards in a row, the helper using the camera and screen to let the audience see what he was doing.  Set out in a curve, Bill took the bottom card, and flipped it over, causing a cascade along the entire deck until all of them were face up.

Instead of normal faces to the cards, each held a picture of the recently vanished Angela in a different pose.  Some were casual, some were alluring, some were sensual.  "Nice," Angela T complimented as she leaned over.  The helper focused on the card at the end, where Angela A stood with one foot on her toes, and her arms held behind her back.  It had the notation of the Ace of Spaces in the upper left and lower right.  He panned down, showing all the pictures, and the whole deck properly noted.

Leaning on the table, Angela T put her chin in the palm of her hand.  "Neat.  So, card tricks, huh?"

"Yep!  But not the ones you're thinking of."  Bill flipped the deck back over and stacked them neatly before sliding it back into its box.  "Before I van get to that though, I need you to lay down as well."

"I'm going to be a deck as well?"

"You won't know until you get down!" Bill tapped the table.  Angela T shrugged and rolled onto the table, face up with ankles and arms crossed.  Bill flipped the sheet over her, displaying her profile before tossing it away, leaving another deck of cards on the table.

This box he opened up, showing off the black backs.  Just like before, he displayed the faces of the cards, Angela T posing in similar manners to the other Angela.  Once Bill was finished showing them off, he pulled out the other, red, deck.

"Now," he said as he placed both decks side by side, his helper focusing on them even as his voice needed no help to be heard, "I can do some card tricks," he plucked the top few cards of each deck up, and set them in their own piles to one side.  "Like cutting a deck."

Bill held up the sheet, and hid the two smaller stacks of cards from view, flipping it out and over to reveal that the cards were no longer there.  In their place were the heads of both Angelas!  "Hey!" Angela T said, blinking at the change in orientation.

"What happened?" Angela C asked.

"He turned us into decks of cards!" the other one responded.

"More than that," Bill informed them, leaning down between their heads to smile at the audience.

Angela T took stock of their predicament. "So we're just heads now?"

"For the moment." Bill took the sheet and covered up the two heads, pulling it away to restore the two stacks of cards.  He moved them to one side, then cut the primary stacks again, this time flicking the cloth to reveal the chests of the two Angelas, one in red, the other in black.  "I think I've proved my point?"

The audience applauded in agreement.

"Very well then!" Bill proclaimed as passed the sheet to his helper, who caught it and slug it over his shoulder while keeping the camera on the cards.  He took the black half-deck and put it in front of him, then stacked the red cards associated with the body on top, then the black head.  On the other deck, he stacked them red-black-red.  "Who wants to see this?"

With the crowd's approval, he set the two stacks side by side, then whisked the sheet off his helper, over the stacks, then off again, revealing the two Angelas with their bodies and arms switched!  Angela C now wore the black shirt, while Angela T looked down at her red top.

"Hey!  Nice!" Angela C said as she tugged at her shirt, looking down.  "And you didn't wear a bra!" she stated to the woman sitting beside her on the table.

"Neither do you," Angela T confirmed, rolling up the bottom of her new top to reveal the bottom of her new breasts.  "See?"

"Those are mine!"

"Not any more!"

"LADIES!" Bill put a stop to the impending argument.  "You both put your names in the bowl, you both volunteered.  Which means that *I* get those bodies of yours - for the time being," he added.  "Though if you're going to keep arguing, I'm going to have to do something about that."

Once more, he covered the two Angelas, and once more, turned them into decks of cards on the table.  He spread the two out, showing where the colors changed, and carefully returned the errant pieces to their appropriate deck.  "Did you know," he asked, looking up at the audience, "that places like Vegas have paid people smarter than me to figure out decks of cards."

He gathered up the red deck and patted it down on each side.  He then cut it in half, and shuffled the two halves together again.  "According to people who do math for a living," he shuffled again, "in order to assure randomness in a deck of cards before diminishing returns," - another shuffle - "is seven times."

He put the red deck to one side, and picked up the black one.  "Now, as I am a magician, and card tricks are my speciality," he completed the first shuffle, and started on the second one, "so I can do all the usual stuff."  A third shuffle.

"However," Bill said as he picked up the red deck, "sometimes you just have to expand your horizons."  With that, he shuffled the two decks together before cutting them, shuffling the halves, and then shuffling the two parts back together.  He kept doing this, hands firm and fast, the camera recording it all until he stopped with two decks in front of him, one topped in red, the other in black.

He spread out the two decks to show that they were well and truly mixed, not just on the backs of the cards, but the order of the faces were all wrong as well.  "Quite completely mixed up," he admitted as he re-stacked the two decks.  He picked up the sheet from where he had left it, and covered up the table to show off the two small bumps where the cards were.

"You know," he said at this point, "I have no idea what's going to happen next!"  With that, he whipped off the sheet one last time!

Two nearly identical women sat cross-legged on the table.  The one on the right had red-sheened hair that turned blonde near the ends.  Her skin was lightly olive, and she wore a black crop-top with red slacks.  Beside her, the other Angela's hair started as blonde, but quickly turned red, her red t-shirt matched her short skirt.

As one, they turned to look at each other.  "Uh..."

"Angela," Bill said with a clap of his hands, "meet Angela!"

"Huh," the right Angela said, reaching out to check her arms.  "This feels really weird."

"I know," the one on the left agreed.  "I am you and me at the same time..."  She reached out and squeezed one of her fellow volunteer's breasts while feeling up her own.  The other Angela mirrored this after a moment.

Bill bowed as the audience applauded.  "Now, Angela.  Angela." He nodded at each of them, "If you want to check out your shuffled bodies, please do it on your own time.  Which would be as soon as you follow my helper of the stage here so I can clear it for the next volunteer."  They stood up, hands returning to their respective sides.  "And if you do want some help checking out your bodies, I'm quite certain someone in the audience will be willing to help," he added with a wink.

Once they were off the stage, Bill took on a thoughtful look on his face.  "You know, I don't know if they're shuffled or blended at this point.  Oh well, once the evening is done, I can put them back to normal.  Or if they ask very nicely, leave them like that for a while."

He turned his attention to the bowl with the names of those who risked themselves at his hands.  "Now, I had something in mind for one person," he reminded himself.  "Who shall it be?"