The lovely assistant strolled onto stage, her dark read beach towel wrapped around her body tightly. She was blushing a little, the crimson cheeks contrasting nicely with her blue eyes and black hair that hung down over her back, tied off to avoid falling more forward over her chest. She looked at the box on the stage, the short four legs and the deceptively simple container that went from her upper thighs to her neck open invitingly.

"Are you ready?" I asked her, knowing that whatever her answer was, she was going to enter the box. She glared at me, and tossed her head back in some non-verbal rejection. But she didn't physically refuse, and she stepped into the box, stepping cleanly into the side of the box, her bare legs visible through the bottomless part of the box. She ducked a little, holding her towel close as she stood straight. I closed the side of the box with perhaps just a little more force than was necessary, but she jumped cutely in shock at the sound. She glared at me, unable to stop me from doing what I wanted. "Thank you," I said without any honesty.

But standing in the four-sided box, she worried about what I had planned. And I had plans. "Now," I turned to the audience, "My lovely assistant isn't locked into the box, she's not in any sort of stocks or bindings," I waled around her and the box, she stayed facing forward, but her legs were fidgeting. "I'm not going to change that," I said aloud as I took advantage of being out of sight of the audience to magically summon to hand a white sword. Metal was so old fashioned. I was trying out these ceramics. Just as sharp, not as cold. And the white was different enough from the silvery metal colour of most other people that it drew attention to itself.

It also clashed nicely with the black box.

I showed it to the audience as I spoke. "A normal sword box hides the assistant entirely," I informed them, "but that's not what you want. You want to see her squirm." I smirked as I leaned forward, over the box, and she tightened her grip over the towel as I touched her cheek. It was a distraction as I took the sword and put it into the thin gap in the box I wanted. I pushed.

She screamed in shock as the blade pushed through her, coming out the front of the box! I looked down and saw that my aim had been true. Between her shoulder blades, and out above her chest, under her collar. I clipped the top of the towel, which was good for me.

She looked down, her breath hot and heavy and she realized what I had done. "Now," I said as I pulled back from her. She tried to move the sword, but nothing she did would matter. "I said nothing about pinning her into place for this trick," I informed everyone.

"ohmygod," she said aloud as she touched the sword with one hand, feeling where it came out of her as I used my hidden space to bring out two more swords, one for each hand. I strolled, unconcerned, around the front of the box. She saw them as I scraped them against each other for effect, and her face expressed the fear she felt. "Don't. Please." She tried to plead with me, but that wasn't something I was going to deliver on. The audience enjoyed every moment of her terror. "Now that she can't dodge," I told everyone, including her. She tried to fight against her current predicament to no avail.

I stood in front of her, and she started into my eyes, pleading with me to not do it. I would not deny the audience, and I stepped aside just to allow them to see as I pushed my right-handed sword into her right side, into her ribs below her chest.

"You missed!" she said, even through the sensation of being impaled.

"No, I didn't," I assured her as I spun around, whirring with the leftover sword in my hand to her left side, and this one I slid into the narrow gap near the bottom of the box on her left. Her leg twitched as her upper thigh was pierced. I stepped away and gave a ridiculous bow to the audience. "Thank you!" I told them. "Now, I know that as a Magician, especially one of my reputation, we are purveyors of misdirection and lies. So, to that end, I would like two volunteers to come up and help with the next part." I smiled at the audience and waited long enough to see for myself those who wanted to, but weren't too eager. "You, you," I said, pointing at two men from different sections of the audience who met my criteria. They came up, and I ignored the efforts of my assistant behind me to removed the swords in her. She had accepted they weren't going to hurt her, but she didn't like them one bit.

The two men came up, and I greeted them. "Gentlemen," I said, though they would be anything but. "The next part of this trick requires more hands than I have," I bid them come back to the Assistant in the box. "If you look inside," I gestured that they should do so, and they both leaned over the top, the woman making sure her towel protected her modesty even as she grimaced against their presence. "As you can see, the blades are through her. Now, there is a trick to this box," I said as I walked around behind it, and waved at the men to stand to the sides. They got to watch from much, much closer as I took the handle of the blade in my assistant's back, and slide it down.

She reacted with a shout of shock and despair as the blade didn't just slide down the box, but also through her. My two helpers looked down and watched it happen first-hand, their own witness just better. I stopped.

"Hey, I think you, you know, didn't go far enough," one of the men said.

I smirked right back at him. "No, I know where I stopped," I told them as I knew the blade was going down her middle, but had not yet finished its cut. My assistant knew what that meant and silently whimpered. "Now, what I need from the two of you," I ignored her, "is to take those two swords in the front," I indicated the left and the right, "while I take this one in the back, and go up and down a few times."

Both men came to the same conclusion at the same time, and then looked back into the box to check what was above their swords.

They stepped back, and I slid my sword upwards, above where I started, causing my assistant to jump upward again as she was cut. I was now just below the top of the box. The two men each took a blade for themselves, and stepped aside to allow the audience to see as they took the handles of their respective blades. "Don't you dare!" My assistant tried to stop them but to no avail as they moved.

Now, the man on her right, he had the advantage of being half-way down her body first, but he also had no sense of timing as he shoved the blade upwards until it was level with mine! My assistant closed her eyes with a whimper, but it wasn't done yet as the man on the left was a little more patient. Or cruel, or having fun with her as he pulled his sword upwards from her thigh, through her hips, then the side of her stomach. He paused and readjusted his grip to allow him to look inside the four walls as he pulled upwards.

The two men watched as the left sword rose higher, and my Assistant's futile efforts to stop it. The towel was being cut, but the lovely woman? She too was being cut, but it passed through her without leaving behind a physical mark. They got to see for themselves as the blade touched the underside of her breast, lifting it up for just a moment as she tried to do something to stop the inevitable. But it would not stop as while she covered her breast, the sword passed through her hand with the same ease. The guys loved it, and the man on the left stopped with his sword half-way through her sensitive part.

"Up, and down," I reminded them both, and with that, I took my rear sword and dropped it all the way through to the bottom of the box, parting her from sternum to the gap between her legs. Oh, she tried to protect her modesty inside the box, but she couldn't stop the two men and myself from taking out blades and running them up and down her body. She tried to hold it in, but before the audience, both immediate and in the distant audience, she failed, and I saw her brace herself against the sides of her box, her fingers gripping the upper lip to steady herself as she was repeatedly cut up and down the length of her body.

"OK boys, that's enough," I said, stopping the two of them after a short bout of fun. "I have to move on to the next step, but stick around after the show, I'll have something for both of you for your help." Honest help deserved honest reward. They left to applause from the audience, but I wasn't done with my assistant yet.

"Now, wise people among you may have seen something, or rather, didn't see anything," I said as the woman in the box to my right tried to regain her composure. I tapped the side of the box with the palm of my hand, a sharp rap that echoed right through everything. There was a moment's pause, then the red towel dropped out of the bottom of the box.

The audience exploded with appreciation, and my Assistant screeched as her last defense was taken from her. I laughed as I bent over, and fought with her feet for a moment as she tried to gather the cloth around her ankles, but I won.

I held it up for all to see. Red cloth, cut into pieces by the blades still in her. I tossed it to the side. "And yes," I said, "she's just as you think in there." I hit the box again to emphasize the point. "Now, for the next step!" I walked behind the box again, all casual-like, and as I did so, I came back around with a fourth blade. I moved the center blade down to her stomach,below her navel, and I waved the fourth around as I moved the left and right up to her shoulders.

"So, with what you've seen in mind, I know I have to escalate some more. Such is my sadness." I faked a sigh as I stood behind the box again. She couldn't turn around properly as I slid the sword into the front of the box, at waist height. Unlike the other three, this was aligned horizontally. I slit it across her waist, left to right.

"You should have started with that," she muttered.

No, it was my show. This is the cool-down moment before I went for the finale. She adjusted her stance, getting used to being pinned to the box and I took the opportunity to move this new blade to her middle. "You may think that," I told her for all to hear, "but I still have a trick or six up my sleeve."

I circled her again, and this time appeared with a fifth sword. This, I made no real play with, and I slid it into the top of the box, right through her neck. She reacted as though she was chocking for a moment, but I stepped to the side, and slid the blade back and forth, cutting through her neck back and forth a couple times before letting it rest though her windpipe, but she was unharmed by it.

"And one more," I informed everyone as there was now a sixth blade in my hands. This? This I had fun with. Every blade to this point was front to back. This one I slid into the side of the box at chest height. My assistant couldn't do anything about it as I had her arms in place now. "Forward or back?" I asked everyone, and they replied with an overwhelming forward.

So I made like it was difficult, and pulled the sword backwards with both hands, cutting through her and out her back. "No..." she pleaded, knowing what was coming, and I rewarded her anticipation by slamming the sword through her, back to front, all the way through and out her chest. "AHHH!" she yelled in pain and pleasure. The sword wasn't in her, but she felt it all the same. I yanked backwards, and she felt it, her body reacting to the cut that didn't seem to stay. "You...!" she tried to curse me but couldn't. I pushed the blade forward until it was inside her breasts, holding them upwards, though only I and her could see that.

I hummed and puttered as I moved the central blade downwards, coming to rest just inside her private gap, though you would need to be very close to see. The other vertical blades I dropped, one through the blade in her chest and into her stomach, the other staying above. I centered the other two horizontal ones in her neck and stomach, then stepped back.

I nodded in appreciation for something only I could see and then snapped my fingers. The lights flared up, blinding many people for just a moment as the lights faded back to normal.

My assistant was still there, however, the walls that contained her were now transparent. The Audience loved this as they appreciated her beauty and her peril and she realized what had happened as she just wanted to curl up and die.

I wasn't going to let that happen. "Everyone, I need to take a break! Come on up here and have a look for yourself!" I invited them all to do just that. "However, no touching the assistant, I need her for later," I told them all, so they cold keep their grubby hands off of her. "The swords, however? Have fun!" She looked scared at that, and then I leaned in to remind her of the truth, very, very quietly.

"Until your debt is paid to the Island, you work for me," I told her what she knew. And my instructions for the boss were quite clear about that. I would enjoy my work, even as my unwilling Assistant did not. And there was much to do.