Wandering the Magician's store room, Ann pondered the next trick for her personal edification. After enjoying the sword cabinet, she didn't know what would tickle her fancy. The air was warm against her skin, and the ground wasn't uncomfortable beneath her feet, so she wasn't exactly in a rush. She wandered, losing track of time in this place.

Seriously, no clocks on the wall. And she left her watch in her room.

She wandered away from the boxes and tables of various stripes, towards performance props of more exotic and esoteric design. One such open space drew her attention not for what was in it, but rather the lack of contents.

A large open metal frame rose up a good dozen feet into the air, harsh black metal that wasn't warm or welcoming. From the center of the frame hung four chains, the thin links ending in curved silver hooks. She touched the points, and jerked her finger back from the pin-prick. "Sharp," she commented quietly before she turned away from it. Ann took one step, two, then she turned back to the prop. "Let's do this," she said aloud.

Instantly, she felt herself float into the air, Ann gasping as everything started to lose the bonds of gravity. "Eh!" she called out as she was rotated to lay flat on her back - assuming of course that there was anything for her to lay on. She relaxed a little as she was gently pushed under the chains, one just above her head.

There was a slight clinking sound and Ann tilted her head to see the far hook-and chain lower down. This was between her legs, and Ann couldn't move them. But whether this was because she couldn't, or didn't want to was something she didn't care. The hook swung back a little and Ann watched, eyes wide, as the long sharp point slid into her sex, piercing her with a gasp before the hook turned, and Ann watched as the point then poked out of her stomach.

It was as gentle as anything she had ever experienced, even as she giggled. She tried to kick out with her feet, but they refused to move, hanging limply as the middle pair of hooks descended.

Ann didn't try to stop them as under her watchful gaze, each hook - left and right, slipped into the gap between her breasts and her chest under them until they could go no further outside her and twisted upward, punching up through her breasts with the points missing her tips by a small margin. She felt little as her arms refused to move to examine her body, instead hanging limply from her sides.

The last hook descended, and Ann tilted her head back. She felt the hook touch her under her jaw, painlessly pushing into her mouth, where she rolled her tongue out of the way. The hook twisted to go out her mouth.

Then gravity gently took a hold of her again, her weight being distributed across her four points of support. Yet, despite that, she didn't feel awkward or uncomfortable even though she should have. The hooks were going through soft tissues, which shouldn't have been holding her weight up.

A thought went through the back of her mind, that this could be so much more intense under other circumstances. She didn't mind at all as she tried to look around her body, yet couldn't move her head as the hook through her jaw kept her face tilted back.

Which is when the mirror slid down from above, angled to allow her to see her body, Ann was grateful, even as she couldn't enunciate that around the metal in her mouth.

It was weird, with everything being so quiet. Normally the magician would be filling in the silence with his or her prattle, explaining everything and teasing her and the audience with expectations of things to come. But there was none of that there, just the cold actions of a magical prop.

From under her, where she knew nothing was, a sword floated out and to the side. It swished back and forth, reveling in the sharpness before it laid across her stomach, above her belly button. The sharp edge of the blade rested against her skin, then the sword flicked up then down again.

Ann felt a shiver, then nothing as the sword passed through her. She started to swing as the mirror showed that she had been gently cut in half, and now her lower body was swinging freely by the hook in her sex, legs folded down. Her upper body moved a little as the lack of a lower weight was felt, but the chains didn't swing for long.

The sword floated above her, this time, the edge was against her neck. Ann's eyes stayed wide as the sword didn't chop at her, but rather it slowly, caressingly, began to play at her neck like a bow on a violin. Ann could feel herself slowly come apart, but it was quiet and calm even as she felt her wind pipe close, then into her spine. But the sword did its work, and with a final flourish, Ann's head fell free.

She swung away from her body, the weight of her hair and the hook in her jaw assuring that her head would be upside down. But that motion was enough to cause the chain she dangled from to begin to spin around - or maybe it was the magic, and slowly, ever so slowly, her torso came into view, now 'upright' for a given value of that given her angle of view. Her arms were limp at her side, and her beautiful breasts were being pulled by the conflicting forces of the hooks in them and gravity.

Somehow, Ann realized, she had picked the 'casual' version of the trick, and not one of the two more intense ones. She let herself go for another revolution, then closed her eyes.

Ann opened them again, hale, whole and healthy, restored in the blink of an eye. Or perhaps hours later. She didn't know. At her back was the hook-prop, awaiting its next victim or volunteer.

"But you know," she said, "this would be so much more fun if I had a friend to have fun with."