After the Charity Dinner ch4

After the Charity Dinner: Challenge 4: part 1

By Vaughan


The coffee was ready, so another mug was brought to the coaster on the coffee table.

As he settled at the other end of the couch, mug balanced on his thigh, I decided to ask a question that I had wondered about since I first saw him at the charity dinner. "How come you haven't got an assistant?"

"That's a complicated question." He paused. "Well, actually, it's a simple question with a complicated answer."

I waited, thinking, 'we have a least the time it takes to drink freshly made coffee for answers.'

Seeing that I was not about to let him off the hook, he began, "Well, the simplest version of the answer is, 'I never found one.' And even that's not the truth entirely. I know one, but we wouldn't be able work together."

I remained silent and took a sip of my coffee, in the hope that he would expand on what he had just hinted at. Some men cannot hear a silence without feeling the urge to fill it.

"It's like this; there are five kinds of people in the world when it comes to magic. Thankfully the first sort, the un-magical are fairly rare. There was a guy at the dinner in this category and a friend of his was offering ten thousand if I would do the guillotine, with the head off; the full works. But sadly I had to decline, because the magic wouldn't work for him, he'd have been screaming blue murder and resisting putting his head back until someone shot him with a tranquiliser dart. Not the kind of thing you want to inflict on an audience you are trying to entertain."

"Go on!" I encouraged.

"The second sort, is most of the human race. They can accept magic, but not in large amounts. All my chosen assistants this evening fell into this group; with the possible exception of Monica, who performed so well in the escape illusion. Too much magic at one time can send them crazy.

"The third kind is us magicians. We can do magic, but don't have a great tolerance for magic done to us, although it's greater than the normal people. I guess we build up some resistance by being practice pin-cushions at college.

"Type four is the assistant. They're about ten times more common than us magicians, but that still makes them pretty rare. Assistants can generally take all the magic you can throw at them and then some. You're of the assistant variety; we've pretty much proved that. A 'normal' would have headed for the door after the first challenge."

"And the final type?" I prompted.

"The last type are the rarest of all is the magician/assistant. They can do magic and receive it too. I only ever met one; that was Charlie. We considered becoming a double act when we left college, but then we realised that while we like each other, we just couldn't work together. She would rehearse everything to the nth degree, but I like to improvise. I really like the way she thinks about magic, which is a creativity on my wavelength. That's why we keep in touch."

"Charlie? She?" I queried.

"That's what I've always called her. Properly she's Charlotte, but we called her Charlie; kind of made her one of the lads."

I used the pause while Jack took a slurp of coffee, to wonder if I felt any sort of twinge of jealousy towards this college friend of Jack's. I decided that I did not, for the sake of not being attached to Jack, but I was not sure I was being honest with myself.

He continued, "In fact it was Charlie who gave me the idea for how to do the fourth challenge. The others didn't take my question seriously and just said they'd look out for my reviews and boasted of good shows they had done."

The elephant in the room was now breathing down my neck. I had offered by body to be cut into lots of pieces and even at some rash moment specified that the number of pieces should be at least sixteen; I become conscious of the detail, that I had not, at any stage, specified I was to be put back together afterwards. Of course, a more logical part of my brain was saying there was no real risk, because Jack would not want to have around sixteen-plus pieces of a woman nagging him to put her back together; that would assume that I was in a position to do any nagging another part of my brain reminded me.

I spoke my thought, "You will put me back together again, afterwards?"

He seemed taken aback by the sudden change in direction of the conversation. He reacted as if he had had no notice of the question and given it no thought. "Of course, I'll put you back together and in the right order too." Then his more witty and arch side came into play. "How else am I going to collect my winnings? And besides that, looking after someone who is so completely helpless takes too much time."

"So now we've established that you'll be putting me back together in one piece." I paused, because he raised a finger.

"Did I say I'd put you back in ONE piece." I must have looked like a bit panicked, because he added, "Of course, I would, but I've never SAID I would." He smiled thinking he had been clever.

"Well now that that is established, how are you planning to divide me into lots of pieces, so you can put me back into one piece?"

"The good old buzzsaw will do the trick."

"The buzzsaw?" I queried. "The one with the big frame and the assistant strapped to the table that goes under the circular saw blade?"

"The very one," confirmed Jack.

"That's more usually a penetration effect, isn't it? I've never seen a buzzsawing that resulted in an assistant being separated, unless it was really a thin model sawing using a circular saw blade."

"I admit it'll be a novel use for the buzzsaw."

I contemplated my impending fate and sipped at the coffee. "So how is division meant to feel for the assistant? I know you mentioned it earlier, but a lot has happened since then."

"Well, some assistants say it tingles and others say the site of a cut feels numb. I'm guessing that it depends a lot on how they are being sawn or perhaps where the cut goes through, but I never did get the hang of whether a particular cut was tingly or numbing. I've never tried to think about it; so long as the assistant is not in pain it's got to be a win, right?"

I gave him a look that I hope expressed my general dissatisfaction with his attitude to assistant welfare and finished my coffee. He drained his mug and placed it on the coaster nearest him.

"So, how is this going to work?" I asked, partly hoping that I could find a flaw in his plan, leading to the postponement or abandonment of the challenge.

"Well, I set up the buzzsaw apparatus and put an eight by four piece of MDF on the table and clamp it down. Then I strap you to the board and run it and you under the saw. Unclamp, rearrange, re-clamp and repeat until there are enough pieces of you lying around or you say 'pineapple'."

I considered the plan and could not detect the flaw I had hoped to find. "Ok, set up and we'll see how it goes," I said grudgingly.

He stood. "You wouldn't do me a favour would you?"

"Try me," I responded.

"Could you move the cameras back so there's enough room for the buzzsaw? It's a big beast."

I went and shifted the cameras on their tripods. Then I watched Jack drag the huge frame from the freight elevator into the centre of the space we had been using; there was not much clearance between the top of the sturdy wooden frame and the ceiling. Once over the threshold of the lift it seemed to move smoothly enough and when it was in position he kicked it and it dropped an inch with quite a thud and some ringing from the circular blade.

"Now I've got it in place, you can position two of the cameras and I'll attach the other one to the frame so you get a good view when you review this afterwards." He grabbed the nearest of the cameras and with a twist removed from the tripod and had it clamped to the top of the frame looking down at the lowest point on the fixed saw blade. He was finished before I had placed the others where the little screens on back indicated was a good view.

He started to uncoil a power cable with a big circular plug thing of mid-blue plastic towards one edge of the mirror. "Do you want to take a look at the equipment before you are going under it?" Jack asked.

"Yes, of course," I replied. As I approached the solidly build wooden frame housing the blade, its drive motor and the table I was soon to be lying on, I asked, "What's with the big blue plug on the end of the power lead?"

"This?" he said, looking down at it as if had never had anyone ask for an explanation. "This is so that I can plug the saw into a high ampage socket. You get them in most theatres, in fact most stages." Had reached the edge of the mirror and moved the bunched up curtain aside, to reveal a socket on the wall. He raised the spring loaded flap over the socket and shoved the plug in. "This is a sixteen Amp outlet; I'd need to take extra precautions if I was going to use a normal domestic thirteen Amp socket, to prevent from blowing a fuse or tripping a circuit breaker or something. And it's weatherproof, for open air events, and a lot more secure." He demonstrated, by tugging on the cable. The plug moved fractionally, before one of the projections caught on the flap, stopping it from moving further. "You wouldn't want to accidentally have the power cut out in mid-cut, because magical cuts must be completed; there's no backing out once a cut is started."

"What about a power-cut, then? You cannot control that."

"You may have noticed a small petrol generator, when we were loading the van after the show." Actually, I did not remember any of the details of what he had loaded into the van, except to recognise some of the kit he had used during the show. I took his word that the generator was there and nodded. "That was for just that eventuality. For instance, if for some reason the venue had lost power while I was sawing my second volunteer, I would have plugged the jigsaw into the generator and completed the cut and done an immediate restoration; there's so much to think of when you're doing magic or even illusions."

"Are you done checking out the kit?" he asked. "If you are, I can turn on the power." He indicated a circular switch mounted beside the socket.

"Sorry, I was listening to you talk about high power sockets. Why don't you come and give me the guided tour?"

"Ok." He sauntered back towards me. "You've checked out the frame. It's made of light oak and entirely solid and it needs to be, because of the forces exerted when the motor starts up." He reached out and shook the frame, which barely moved. "The motor uses three and a half kilowatts," he said as he patted the motor, which is mounted on beams across the length of the frame. At the end of the motor was a pulley, which held one end of a substantial looking drive belt. "The power from the motor is transferred using this belt," he gave the belt a tug; there was very little slack in it, "to this steel blade," he tapped the blade so that it rang softly.

I interrupted him (maybe I was still stalling, but maybe I was taking an interest in the practicalities of magic). "Why are you using a belt to drive the blade, rather, say, a chain or driving it direct from the motor?"

"I shall assume you're not stalling, and say the main reason against using chain drive, and gears for that matter, is noise; people expect to hear the blade. Direct drive doesn't have the drama and mounting the motor that low increases the strain on the frame, besides not looking right. The belt drive has several advantages too. First, if the blade should jam on something, it's the belt that fails and a belt is much easier and cheaper to replace than the blade or the motor. And secondly, it adds a sense of movement and power to the illusion. You see this stripe painted on the belt, that's so that it obvious that the belt and everything else is moving."

He seemed slightly lost as to what to say next. "Erm, where was I?"

"You had just got to the blade."

"Ah, thanks. Yes, the blade. The thirty-six inch steel blade with half inch triangular, design to produce a neat cut. Anything more need to be said about that?"

I felt that I probably knew more than I wanted to know about the blade already, and was soon to know even more, so I said, "I don't think so."

"Ok, this end is deemed the head end, because this is where the controls are." He showed me what he called a knife switch and told that that was just for show, because all it did was generate a brief shower of sparks. The real start switch was a small button that the handle of the knife switch pressed once it was fully closed. He also noted the lack of any kind of emergency stop button, which he said was another precaution against incomplete cuts.

I got to wondering if an incomplete cut was such a bad thing, then I imagined what life might be like if you had been partially cut through the waist and left like that. I shuddered.

"Sorry, did I scare you?" Jack said.

"No, not you. My mind went off on a tangent and I didn't like where it ended up. It's me who should apologise; what were you saying?"

"Nothing much. Just that the table has a groove that lines up with the blade so that the teeth go just below the surface and that it is moved under the blade using this handle here." He showed me by giving the crank a few turns in each direction.

"Anything else I should know about, before we get down to business?"

"Like what?" he asked back.

"How were you planning to strap me to the board? And how easy is it to put me back together? Will I need to be exactly lined up for it to work or something?"

"With regard to strapping you down, I was planning to use the material they use for luggage straps stapled to the MDF with a staple gun; that should hold you down enough without being too uncomfortable and it'll suit the rather ad hoc nature of the magic."

He paused to remind himself of the other questions I had asked. "Putting you back together won't be a problem. It's just a question of lining up the bits that have been cut apart and possibly giving them a jiggle so they line up better and then everything reconnects good as new." I must have looked a bit sceptical, because he added, "Once a bit of the cut lines up it helps to bring the rest into line as it restores, so there may be a bit of a twitch if you aren't particularly lined up; and it prevents connecting the wrong bits."

I followed the implications of the last comments to their logical conclusion. "Are you saying you couldn't attached my leg where my arm should be, or do a double sawing?"

"Of course I could, but I couldn't make it permanent. Switched limbs are possible on a strictly temporary basis; it takes a lot of magic to keep them in place, but I wouldn't even attempt it in public; it is too obviously real magic. As to the double sawing, if I ever felt I wanted to do it, I would use the illusionist's method, because no-one has worked out the technical issues involved in doing it by magic."

I paused. "Erm, I've running out of stalling tactics; I suppose we had better do it before I decide going home is the worth the grand it'll cost me to give in before we start."

He seemed relieved, as if he had felt he did not want to appear to be pushing me into this. "I'll grab the rest of the stuff we need then we can get on with it, because I'm getting tired too; I've rarely done so much magic in one night since I left college."

"Not too tired to do this safely, I hope," I called after him as he went to the elevator.

"No, not that kind of tired, but when I get to bed I'll sleep like a log from probably ten or twelve hours, while the magic recharges." He humped a large sheet of fibre-board under one arm and the strapping, staple gun and clamps hung from his other hand. He dropped the loose items on the floor beside the apparatus and heaved the large board onto the travelling table of the buzzsaw.

As he went about clamping the board to the table, I asked, "How do you want me?"

"Oh, I don't mind; either on your back or on your front, it doesn't matter that much from the magical point of view. It's just if you want to watch the first cut, I'd suggest face up; otherwise it's entirely up to you. But lose the wraps before you climb up."

Reminded of the fashion disaster I was wearing, I was glad to be rid of the garish wrap and the top that kept gaping open; although I was not too happy with the skirted bikini with the strapless top.

He finished fitting the final clamp and patted the board indicating it was time for me to climb onto the table.

I shed the flip-flops as I sat on the edge, acutely aware of the presence of thirty-six inches of serrated steel. I lay on the board face up and an idea came to me. "What about the bit of wood they usually put under the sawee to prove that the saw went right through?"

He had a ready answer. "I think this little bit of wood will do the job admirably," he said tapping the quarter inch thick board I was lying on.

"So, do I need to move a bit to get me lined up with the blade?"

"No," he said after briefly squinting across me to the blade. "The blade is lined up just above your bottoms, which is just perfect. It's now time to strap you down." He hefted the reel of luggage strap and the staple gun onto the table next to me, then he realized something and darted off to the kitchen area.

"Where are you going?" I asked, as he began rummaging in one of the drawers.

He help up a pair of kitchen scissors. "I just remembered that I need something to cut the strapping."

He returned and placed a length of the strap across my waist and with a thud stapled the loose end to the board; it seemed sudden, very loud and a bit too close to me. He took the gun and the scissors to the other side of the table and pulled on the strap, holding down to the board by my waist. "That's not too tight, is it?" he said as he pushed the head of the stapler along the strap towards me.

"No, not at all. I could withstand a bit tight if you think it would be better."

He pressed the stapler against me and gave the strap a quick tug, then pressed the head against the board and thud, the strap was stapled either side on my waist. I was now strapped to the board; I guess I could have wriggled free, but it would have been a struggle. Jack began hacking at the free end of the strap with the scissors.

Soon, he repeated process, putting a strap stapled tightly across my hips. "Are you ready for your first cut?"

I was a bit surprised; I was expecting the strapping down to go on for longer. "Don't you need to strap me down some more?" I wondered whether I was sounding like some bondage addict or just someone stalling.

"No, unless you think you might make some sudden movements or put any loose bits of your body in the way of the saw." The way he looked at me told me that he was serious; he was in control of sawing through my middle, but if I chose to put something else under the saw, that was my look-out and he was not responsible for the consequences.

"Ok. Go ahead. I don't think I can stall any longer; it's going to happen; better to get it over with."

"Alright," he said as he headed for the power switch on the wall.

This had the unfortunate effect of giving me time to consider the situation I was in. I propped myself up on my elbows, trying not to move the strap across my waist and the saw blade of gleaming steel dominated my attention. It looked more terrifying now that I was strapped down in its path, than it had before; the saw's teeth seemed sharper and more dangerous. I took time to try and recall the reactions of buzzsawees I had seen and realised that they ranged from the petrified to the blasé. I wondered if I would ever become blasé about being sawn through, before some part of my mind that kept a watching eye on the way I was thinking pointed out that the question pre-supposed that I was likely to do this multiple times.

I was about to start an internal debate about whether I would ever volunteer for anything magical again, when Jack got back and closed the knife switch. I jumped slightly, because I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts that I had not noticed his return. This was compounded by the arcing noise and the spectacular shower of sparks that came from the switch. There followed a brief silence, followed by a squeal as the motor's pulley fought to gain traction on the belt. This faded to a quiet rubbing of rubber on steel as the teeth of the blade began to move. For a short while, I could see individual teeth, but they soon merged into a blur of half teeth-half air round the edge of the blade. The blade cutting the air made a breathy whistle which rose in pitch, before stabilising.

"Last chance to back out before I start," the magician offered.

"No. I said I'd do this, so I'll do this." My tone told me there was a certain amount of perseverance and some desire to get the maximum amount of experience from this bet I was inevitably going to lose.

I felt a faint jerking as the table, with me on board, moved towards the blurred edge of the deadly blade. I heard myself emit a surprised squeak. It took an eternal few seconds before the edge of the blade encountered the edge of the board, by which time it was also a few inches from my flesh. The saw-blade began to scream as its many teeth started to worry a narrow slot into the edge of the board. The journey to the blade seemed smoother now; I guess having some resistance helped Jack turn the handle that propelled me forward more evenly.

More hour-long seconds later, I began to feel the breeze caused by the saw's teeth on top of the noise of the blade chewing through the board and the vibration too. I wondered why I was not feeling flecks of sawdust against my side, then I realised that the edge of the blade nearest me was rotating downward, directing any chips and splinters to the floor; or rather into the groove in the table underneath.

My mind wandered off on a speculation about whether being sawn with an upward rotation would feel different; despite not having felt the blade at all, yet.

My mind's wandering was cut short, literally. My attention was forcibly returned to my current situation, by the fact that the blade had made contact. It felt like a scratch you might get from a bramble-thorn or the point of a nail that barely stuck out of a piece of wood and then it went numb. I looked and saw the edge of the blade carving a slot into my upper hip, fractionally above the bikini skirt's upper edge. For a fascinating moment, I could see the other side of the cut through the blurred region on the circumference of blade, then it was obscured by the solid part of the blade.

As the cut went deeper, I could feel the line of where the teeth were ripping through my skin and guts, and whatever else was being cut through, as a tingle that became a numbness as the cutting edge passed on. If a buzzsaw going through flesh has a sound, I could not hear it over the continued scream of buzzsaw through MDF, but as the slot across my abdomen approached my other hip there was a new sound, more felt than heard. I traced the tingle through my body and found that the blade was still on the entry side of my back. I realised that the added vibration and noise that I was feeling must be the blade making first contact with my spine.

It crossed my mind to think about the effects of spinal injury, but some optimistic part of me dismissed this concern as pointless, because if the saw was going to devastate my spinal cord, I would already be disembowelled by now. I felt the vibrations increase as more of the vertebra that was under the saw was being cut; they seemed to feel good in the manner of sitting on a washing machine during the spin cycle.

Soon the vibrations of cutting through bone receded and the line of cutting tingle left the back of my other hip. I was left with two parallel planes of numbness through my body, thorough which I could just perceive the rubbing of the saw-blade. I felt the table halt when the centre of the blade was directly above me, then the faint rubbing slowed. To my horror, I could tell that the blade was slowing and soon it halted.

I was strapped to a board with a circular saw blade through my middle and in that moment it seemed more terrible than the fact that I had been sawn to get it there.

"What's happening?" I asked.

"I realised that if I continued, you'd get restored, because that's what this does."

"I don't get it," I said, hoping for a better explanation than I had just received.

"If I had carried on moving you from under the blade, the cut that has just been made in you would have healed up and you'd have ended up in one piece again, which wasn't the point of the challenge, was it?"

"Oh, I get it now!" at least, I thought I did. "So what happens next? You're not going to get very far with the challenge if I'm stuck here with the blade through my middle."

"That's easy enough I back the blade out the way it went in."

"And that won't cause an unintended restoration?"

"I don't think so." he seemed uncertain. I felt I was pushing beyond the edge of his magical knowledge. All of a sudden I felt good that he could admit to me that he was at least a little out of his depth; it indicated that I was more than an experimental subject/victim, but someone with some, possibly tenuous, meaning in his life.

My thinking about whether Jack and me were more than an interesting diversion to him was cut short when I felt the table move back the way it had come. I eyed the gap between my waist and my hips and was unsure whether I was happy, neutral or disappointed that it did not disappear as the saw was withdrawn. Faintly I detected a horizontal scratching as the teeth passed back through me.

"Now that the blade is out, what happens?" I asked. "And what's happened to the bit of me where the blade went through? 'Coz I'm pretty certain that I haven't been spread apart, but a gap was cut in me."

"Well, I can either get a jigsaw and finish the cut of the board or just pull you from under the straps. Whatever happens we'll have to work out how we go from here."

"If it'll not hurt or cause problems later I think I prefer to be out from under the straps, rather than have you wielding a jigsaw that close to me; And before you ask I did see what you did to that girl's fancy frock and I'd rather not take the risk."

"Ok, you can do that yourself. I guess it might be a bit uncomfortable if you put pressure on the very edge, so go careful. I'll go and get a jigsaw, because I've got to finish this cut anyway."

He went to the door and I heard him descent the metal stairway several steps at a time.

I turned my mind to how to get out from under the straps. In the end it turned out to be quite simple. I rested on my elbows with my thumbs under the strap above each hip and leaned back, which lifted the strap and dragged the cut-off end of my torso out. I released the elasticated strap which slapped on the board and then I wondered what I should do next.

As I considered the pros and cons of attempting to raise my torso to rest it on the cut end, I saw the cut end of the other half of me. It looked like an out-of-focus cross-section of a real human body; a pink line around the edge, surrounding a purple and red area, with a bit of bone-white where my spine should be. To my relief it seemed to be staying where it was, rather than one might expect in non-magical circumstances, falling out and making a mess. I took a moment to ponder possible reasons why it seemed out of focus, but soon dismissed this as fruitless and decided to work on freeing my lower half from the strap across my hips.

Getting my legs from under the strap proved quite easy too, I got close enough the lift the restraint and pulled my hips out using the traction of my heels against the board.

By the time I had released myself, Jack was back with the jigsaw and was plugging it in. In short order and a cloud of saw-dust the board the two parts of me lay on was divided.

"So, now what?" I asked.

"Now we work out how to saw you into more pieces."

"And how long will that take?"

"Actually, I haven't a clue. I might work it out in a few minutes, it might be a few hours. Or I might, even, have to put you back together and admit defeat, because it seems like cheating to start and fail and then have another go."

I thought about this, wondering if I wanted him to fail the challenge. The money was, of course, an issue, but I was definitely beginning to like him and you never want to see people you like fail, unless you feel it is for their own good. But then, did I really want to end up in sixteen or more pieces, just to save his pride?

I decided to steer a middle course. "How about I give you an hour to come up with a way of finishing what you started? If you don't, you put me back in one piece and I win this stage of the challenge. If you do think of something, we'll see where we go from there. Ok?"

"That sounds fair, if not generous. But what if what I think will take a while to organise?" he asked.

"That'll depends, of course, on how long a while. I guess, if it's going to be more than an hour after you've thought of it, before I'm a pile of pieces, you might as well concede you were not really ready for the challenge. That would mean I win; and I thought you said that a bet against a magician was, pretty much, a lost bet." I smiled, it seemed like a small victory to be able to throw his words back at him.

"Point taken." Jack looked like he knew that some of the things he had said, could easily be taken for arrogance. "I suppose you'd like to be moved to somewhere more comfortable, while I think about it."

"Yes, please."

I was soon transferred to the settee, my legs seated in the middle, between Jack and my foreshortened upper half.

"More coffee?" he offered.

"No thanks, I've already had a lot more coffee than I'm used to. And it tends to go right through me."

We drifted into silence. I was about to reach forward for the remote control, when he said, "Do you mind if I think out loud? I think it would help me."

"Of course not! I like to listen to people thinking things through, it gives me an insight into the thing they are thinking about and them." I immediately felt like I had disclosed that I habitually listen to people to find out things about them that I was perhaps not meant to know. I blushed, but he did not seem to notice.

After a short while, during which he seemed to be gathering his thoughts and I was wondering whether I was annoyed that he had not noticed my blush, he said, "The main problem as I see it is that my chosen method of dividing you is not really designed to achieve that."

"Didn't I say something like that before we started?" I felt guilty for saying it; it felt like saying 'I told you so!' was adding to his worries.

He seemed more humbled than annoyed. "I guess you're right, but it's my fault, because I'm supposed to be the knowledgeable one here; not that you haven't displayed an enormous depth of knowledge, that wouldn't be expected of a lay person." He fell silent again; I could not work out if he was berating himself for getting into this situation or concentrating on how to get out of it.

It occurred to me that I was in the situation too, so I ought to do something to bring the situation to a conclusion; I did not relish the idea of just sitting out the hour I had given him to solve it watching the cross-section of my guts and wondering if that white bit was part of the chicken I had eaten at the dinner.

"So, what is it about the buzzsaw that makes it not designed for cutting people in two?" I asked. I did not know if this would distract Jack for his train of thought or potentially put him on the right track.

"Well, it's always been used as a penetration effect and people have never been separated on the buzzsaw table." Then a realisation seemed to come to him. "Now I come to think about it, there have been some instances where the blade was passed through and another blade was inserted in the slot cut by the saw, to demonstrate the two parts of the sawee were separate. Hey! That gives me an idea." He took a while to turn the idea over in his mind. Finally, he said, "That'll do the trick; it'll look a bit makeshift, but it'll do the job."

"And how long will it take to turn this idea into a reality?" I felt a bit guilty. "A girl needs to know if she has to pull herself together or prepare to go to pieces," I added, hoping a bit of humour might deflect any anger the previous question could have caused.

"Umm," he said and looked at me as if he had temporarily forgotten I was there. "I don't reckon it'll take more than forty minutes and the perhaps another five or ten to fit it to the frame, so you'll be well on your way to becoming a pile of minced morsels before the hour is out."

"Great!" I said in a tone that allowed the listener to decide for themselves if I was enthusiastic or resigned. "And will you need some help to make this idea?"

"Actually, some help might shorten the time by about ten minutes, maybe, but you're not exactly in a great position to help; I'd probably lose more time getting you into position than I'd gain. And I don't have extra sets of gloves or safety goggles. You'll be better off staying here and waiting, sorry."

"And what'll I do while I'm waiting? Besides falling asleep or wondering what being sawing half is doing to my digestion?"

"How about if I show you how to navigate the video system? You can watch some of my practice footage. And there are no known adverse effects of being sawn in half; Charlie managed to stay sawn in half for a month and aside from the technical difficulties of mobility and such, she was none the worse for it."

Mildly reassured, I paid attention to how to access the videos available on the TV. As he headed for the door I called after him, "You've got fifty-five minutes to get me back on the saw table or I win." He looked as if he was about to protest, but seemed to decide that the time would be better spent getting the job done.

I turned my attention to the TV and pick a practice at random. What I saw looked as good as the reports of what I'd missed at the dinner suggested. His card-work was excellent, as was the things he seemed to do with coins and the sponge balls.

Most impressive of his table-top tricks was his cup and balls routine. He use three balls of coloured paper; a white one, a yellow one and a pale blue one. This initially impressed me because using non-identical balls means either there are additional matching balls which need to be managed, palmed, etc. or he was using real magic. The climax of this trick started with the production of additional 'unexpected' objects from under the cups, including rubber balls the same colours as the paper balls, then the relatively standard potato, orange and lemon and then with a final flourish he produced a banana, a cucumber and a courgette, each of which was longer than the cup was deep. Examining the remote-control I found slo-mo and frame-step buttons and still could not spot how he had done the last bit, although I did spot a few poorly guarded sleights earlier in the routine; so it was not all real magic.

Growing a little bored of the skilful sleight of hand, I looked to see if he had anything else. From the workshop below I could hear sounds of workshop machinery and the clatter of pieces of metal being moved. I soon found a small collection of his street performances from when he would have been the right age to be at magician's college. Most of it was the usual street magic type stuff; card tricks where the card was discovered in odd places, small self-levitations filmed with bad angles and tricks at café tables using the stuff to hand there.

The one that most impressed me was one filmed from the second row of a crowd. A pretty young woman was pulled from the crowd and her hand was put into a brown paper bag. Jack put his hand into the bag and pulled out her hand by the wrist, before telling the girl to hold the bag around her mid-fore-arm. He then asked the shocked woman to confirm that the hand was hers, which she did. He then took the disembodied hand and showed it round the circle of onlookers. When the hand was shown to the camera it was obvious that it was not Jack's hand, mainly, because the finger-nails had a design painted on them, rather than Jack's well-manicured natural nails. He even passed the detached hand from one hand to the other. Before putting the hand back in the bag and re-joining it its proper place, he pulled the bag far enough up the girl's arm that it was impossible that there was any arm there beyond an inch or two above the wrist.

I was beginning to look for more of Jack's performances, when I realised I was feeling some discomfort. It took me a minute or two to isolate that I was needing to go to the toilet. I check my watch and worked out that Jack was not due back from his fabricating for at least twenty minutes (the continued bangings and crashes did not hold out the hope that it would be any sooner) and I was feeling very urgent. I also discovered that I had no way of calling him to help.

I resolved to sort this out for myself; but how? I considered moving my upper half onto my lower half, becoming whole again, but two things stopped me; first the nagging worry that I might not re-join or possibly worse, I might re-join wrong; and second that it felt as it would be somewhere between rude and cheating to join what Jack had spent so much effort to put asunder.

The remaining option was to get my lower half to the bathroom to use the toilet there, because peeing myself on the sofa, even in those bikini briefs, was not an acceptable choice in my book. I concentrated on the feelings in my legs and hips, feeling the floor under my bare feet and the sofa against the backs of my calves and under my thighs. I wondered if I could walk my legs to the bathroom, about ten yards away.

Before I could attempt to walk my legs anywhere, I needed them to stand up. I tried to think about standing and realised it was a bit like snapping your fingers, just something that comes automatically. So I tried to activate the stand-up procedure, but besides feeling my feet press the floor harder, nothing seemed to happen. A second attempt and I came to the conclusion that rising to ones feet involved some feedback from the upper half to measure progress and maintain balance. I was going to have to do this by the seat of my pants, because my internal auto-pilot had failed me.

The first stage was easy enough; plant my feet slightly spread at the base of the sofa so that my calves were pressed against it and it would provide support. Stage two was straightening out my knees; I found myself leaning my upper torso forward, as you usually would if you were standing, and gradually my bottom left the seat. I put my arm underneath to provide support if needed, but not touching; I was worried that contact with myself in a surprising combination (front of upper arm to back of thigh) would distract me and cause me to lose what tenuous amount of control I had.

Soon my legs were straight and near vertical, with my hips straightening up too. Most of the weight was on my feet, with a small amount being supported by the sofa against my calves.

Now what were my options? I could push back with my calves and hope I did not fall over and the 'walk reflex' kicked in; I did not feel that the odds of that working were great. The only other option I could see was the help my legs stand free of the sofa and be in a position to make a grab for them if the worst happened and they started to fall. It took me a few moments to move sideways to behind my legs, by pressing down with my arms and swinging my truncated body in the right direction.

Once I was in place, I reached forward, putting my hand on my hips. I cautiously attempted to raise my left foot, taking the weight in my left hand against my left hip and I pushed it forward about half an inch and replacing it on the floor. I repeated the process with the right foot and with care re-balanced my legs so that they standing free of the sofa and stable. Success! Half an inch forward, only ten yards to go!

Uh-oh! I suddenly realised that I could not continue this way, because I would soon be out of my reach to give the addition support to allow my feet to move. At least my legs were now free-standing.

How could I proceed from here? Fortunately, it came to me quickly. I had to lean my legs away from the foot I planned to raise and still be able to move the weight back once the foot was back on the floor. I practiced this way of moving for nearly a minute in the space between the sofa and the coffee table, so I was within arm's reach, which was just as well, because I nearly fell twice. Then the need re-asserted its urgency.

With much trepidation, I gradually turned my legs towards the still open bathroom door and keeping an eye on them, watched the exaggerated sway of my uncapped hips.

At this point I began to worry about Jack returning unexpectedly, either because he had finished quicker than anticipated or to check that I was alright. With the door open the lavatory was in full view of the room and I did not want to be caught on the loo with my knickers down, literally or figuratively. I also did not feel I had the skill or practice to kick the door shut once my lower half was in. It was not until I was turning my lower half to sit on the toilet seat that I noticed another problem; I did not know how I was going to get the knickers down in the first place.

I finished sitting myself on the seat and then began to concentrate on how to get my upper half there. I manoeuvred myself to the end of the sofa and gipping the arm lowered my torso stump to the floor, the rest of the journey was simply raising my body with my arms a bit in front and landing my sawn-off waist in front of my arms and repeating. Sadly, about half way there my bladder control failed me. Now, instead of trying to get there to close the door and pull down the bikini bottoms so that I could pee, I was trying to get there to clean myself up before Jack got back and hopeful find some replacement underwear.

Once I arrived, I shut the door and surveyed the scene. I needed to get my legs into the shower and remove the soaked bikini bottoms. The first problem was getting the shower running, with my upper body shortened as it was the controls were out of my reach. It took moving the laundry basket and clambering on top, then leaning across my legs which I had positioned upright between the moved basket and the shower controls. I stepped the legs forward under the stream of water and lowered myself from the basket and reached in to remove the soaked panties. Problem part solved!

Now to find something to re-dress my lower half in. I looked at the shreds of clothing on the floor from my last visit to the bathroom; nothing there that was wearable. For a moment I considered rooting though the laundry basket, but the idea of wearing a man's used clothes (particularly his underwear) put me off even making the attempt. I would need to go to the clothes rack on the other side of Jack's living space to see what I could find, maybe I could also find something to replace this hideous top too.

I had a little difficulty re-opening the bathroom door, but was soon shuffling in the direction of the costume rack on my body-stump. It took me a while to find a box I could move so that I could get reach the stuff to get a good look. As I climbed up (It's amazing how much you miss your legs when they are the other side of the room), I heard Jack clatter up the metal stairs. I realised I was out of sight and wondered how he would react.

"Abi! I know I should have checked on you earlier, but ..." he announced, before the fact that I was not on the sofa, or anywhere else visible, impinged. "Abi?"

"Hello? Abi?" he called. "I hope she didn't restore herself and leave; I forgot to mention that the restoration is only permanent if the magician is present." He seemed to be talking to himself at that point.

I reached up and spread a gap in clothes rack so that we could now see each other. "And when were you planning to tell me that?"

Relief and shock fought to be the dominant emotion on his face, neither quite managed it. It would have been comical if I had not been asking a serious question.

"And how temporary is not permanent?" I added, feeling I needed full disclosure if I was going to go through with the final challenge.

"I didn't even think about it until I thought you'd gone. I assumed you'd wait to see if I managed to meet you're deadline before going, so I could restore you properly. As to how long, it varies from about an hour to about six, and because you're the assistant type it'd be at the longer end of that range."

"And what would happen when the glue came unstuck?" I asked fearing the worse, which in my imagination was the cut became real and I would bleed to death trying to push my guts back into my two halves.

"Nothing much," He said, obviously not reading the fear on my face. "You be back in two pieces again, until a magician restored you; sorry, no further temporary re-joining after the first one."

"I would have to call you to get put back together. That sounds like you want to see me again." I was surprised how Machiavellian I made him sound.

This flustered him. "Umm! Err! I was definitely not planning anything of the sort; not that seeing you again, even in a non-magical context, wouldn't be something I'd avoid."

I was about to make some snide remark asking if I was on the snog or marry list, when it got through his thick skull that I was not where he had left me. "What are you doing over there?" was his first question and hot on its heels came, "And where are your legs?" He noticed the noise of the shower in the bathroom and took a step in that direction.

"Uh-uh!" I shouted. "My legs aren't decent, so no peeking. I was looking for a replacement costume." I began to blush. "I needed to go to the loo, but when I got there, I had an 'accident' before I could get the bottoms down." My fingers made air-quotes, to emphasise the euphemistic nature of the word 'accident'. "So while my lower half is washing down, I came out to see if I could find something to wear once I was dried."

He goggled at me as if I'd grown an extra head; there was something about what I had said that shocked him and it did not involve a toilet near-miss. "What?!" I demanded.

He looked at the sofa, the bathroom door and my position on a box behind the clothes rack. He opened and closed his mouth soundlessly a couple of times, before he managed to let a syllable fall from his lips. "How?"

"'How?' What?" a little nettled by how inarticulate he had suddenly become.

"How did you get your legs to the bathroom?"

"I walked them there, how did you expect?" His jaw dropped visibly. "Surely, you must have seen legs walking about on their own; you said your precious Charlotte spend a month sawn in half."

"She did, but she never managed to get her legs free-standing, let alone walking; she used a wheel-chair throughout. When we mentioned it to one of the professors he told us it was impossible; something about no sense of balance in the lower half, so it would inevitably fall over."

"But isn't magic all about the impossible?"

"Yes, I suppose, but there have to be limits."

"Why?" I countered.

That put him on the spot. "Err. The two reasons I was told at college are: - If magicians had no limitations they would be gods and we certainly aren't, and - if magicians had no limits we could feed the world with the rice bowl illusion. Neither of which sounds all that convincing now that I say them out loud."

"They do sound rather like hogwash to me," I commented and went back to looking for the replacement costume. As I found a stylish black bikini that I felt suited me a lot better, I asked, "How's the building project?"

"Umm, fine. I had a pause where I couldn't do anything else while I wait for some glue to set. I'll need to go down again in a few minutes to finish it off and then there's just fitting it and finishing the final challenge. What did you think of the videos I left you watching?"

"Pretty good," I said as I put the new top on over the nasty one and slipped that from underneath. "The magic was great, but the sleight of hand could do with a bit more work. Speaking of 'sleight of hand' I found one of your street performances, where you cut a girl's hand off and showed it round the crowd."

"That was Charlie; she's such a great actress. The college authorities wouldn't have allowed us to do that to just anyone. That was the day I discovered that we couldn't work together long-term. I was supposed to do the hand guillotine, that we had rehearsed, on her, but the crowd was so big a lot of people wouldn't have been able to see what was going on, so I improvised. She gave me such a balling out afterwards. I'd forgotten I still had that video."

"Alright," I said; I was not sure if knowing what Charlotte looked like made my feelings toward Jack or her any clearer, neither did hearing about her reaction to having a body part 'borrowed' in an improvised way, because they were obviously still on speaking/emailing terms. I decided to turn my attention to more immediate concerns. "Where can I get a dry towel? 'Coz the one I used earlier is still damp."

He strolled to the wardrobe and pulled out a towel, which he dropped by the bathroom door. He then headed for the door out to the rest of the building, but paused for a moment to watch me start off for the bathroom; hand over stump, before continuing to leave.

Once I was in the bathroom I walked my legs out the shower and used the towel I had picked up on the way in. I was soon dry and had the bottoms in place. Another climb up the laundry basket allowed me to turn off the shower. From this vantage I wondered if I could ride my legs back to the sofa, because my body stump was feeling a bit sore from the journey both ways across the room outside. I considered whether it was a good idea and concluded that so long as I did not re-join or fall off it was a good idea.

Looking around I spotted the cloak that had been used to protect my modesty after the sword box challenge, lying by the sink. By leaning my legs against the sink I managed to lift it within reach of my perch with my foot. It took some effort to position the cloak over my hips in such a manner that it seemed unlikely to cause me to trip and then with a blind leap I moved myself back onto my legs.

For a short while I practiced in the confines of the miniscule bathroom, where I could easily reach something to restore my balance if needed. As I opened the door, I heard the lift descend; that gave me a few moments to decide if I how I wanted to impress Jack when he next saw me; did I want him to 'catch' my legs walking by themselves or my separate halves walking about as a unit?

I was planning how to get my upper half back to the sofa, when the elevator began to come back up again; I did not have time to give the impression of being nonchalant about my legs wandering off on their own, so I went with appearing to be whole again and see how he reacted. I did not have much time to plan where I got seen and was not confident enough that I could do more than a gentle walk in my current divided condition, so I just headed across the room so that I was away from any obstacles.

As the lift rose I turned to face it. Jack seemed not to notice me until he had the shutter doors open.

"You haven't gone and restored yourself, have you? And where did you get that skirt?"