Lisa opened the door to her flat and picked up the mail. In amongst the bills and unsolicited offers was a hand-written envelope. She dropped the rest on the kitchen table and took it into the bedroom, where she planned to change into a t-shirt and shorts to slob out for an evening watching TV; she had not decided if she would be bothered to cook or order in.
With the envelope open, two items dropped out onto the bed; a stiff piece of card and a note ripped from a spiral-bound pad. The card rectangle looked like a ticket. She read the note.
Dear Lisa,
Fancy volunteering tonight?
Ticket enclosed.
Arthur.
It took Lisa a few seconds to connect the dots, but with the help of the ticket, she deduced she was being asked to volunteer in Arthur the Archmage's magic show at the Maidens Theatre. She thought back to her last time she had volunteered to help Arthur; she had been divided into eight sections with glass dividers then each section had been penetrated by three rods and the resulting parts had been displayed to the curious audience. Did she really want to go through something like that again? You Bet!
All thought of lounging in front of the TV in her pyjamas with a pepperoni pizza and bottle of red went out of the window. She laid out her sexiest little black dress and a satin G-string, then went to have a shower. She knew she did not have much time before she needed to be on her way to the theatre.
As before Lisa was entertained by the show, particularly the antics of the three people that Arthur had helping with the hypnosis section. As the interval came and went, she was getting nervous, because she had not had any contact from Arthur or the theatre staff, except the raised eyebrow of the guy checking the tickets.
After Arthur had demonstrated his sleight of hand, he announced it was time to do something impossible with an audience member. There was a forest of hands, but Arthur picked out Lisa, as she knew he would.
Lisa had hoped to see some equipment on the stage that would give her a clue about what she was letting herself in for, but the only thing on stage was the screen at the back, which had a white towel draped over it.
Arthur made no pretence of not knowing who Lisa was, but talked to her long enough to assure the audience that she was not privy to his plans for her, beyond the fact that he had plans for her. He then sent her to get undressed behind the screen, specifying that she should remove everything, because he had discovered that she had expensive taste in underwear. To forestall her brewing protest, he said that she should cover herself with the towel until she was in the illusion, which he would go and fetch.
Lisa did not feel too bad about undressing behind the screen, peeking out when she heard the rumble of wheels, but not making much of the equipment that Arthur had returned with, because it was covered in a cloth. Once naked, she took the towel and discovered that it was smaller than she had hoped. It was just long enough to cover her from armpit to an inch below her crotch and wide enough that she could tuck it under her arms to hold it in place. She decided that this would not be a good way to carry on, so clamped the top edge to her chest with one arm and used her other hand to hold the bottom edge in place so that her modesty was protected. In the back of her mind, something said that she should be asking for a bigger towel or refusing to continue; somehow this did not reach her conscious mind.
Lisa emerged from behind the screen, slightly stooped from holding the towel in place. Arthur invited her to come forward and inspect the apparatus that she would soon be inside. When Lisa arrived at the place where the equipment had been parked, front and centre on the stage, Arthur whipped the cloth from it and in the process created enough draught to lift the corners of the towel; while nothing was revealed, the audience were left in no doubt that Lisa was only wearing the towel and nothing more.
The equipment consisted of a stand and a box. The stand was made of square steel tube with a two inch high ridge at the top to hold the box in place and a set of steps leading up to the top. The stand stood on small wheels, which were locked so that the whole did not move. On top was a cage of welded steel tubes, so that each wall was composed of square holes with steel rims. Lying across the bottom of the stand was another rectangle of welded steel tubes, the right size to be the lid to the box, which Lisa could see was open-topped at this point.
"I suppose you want me to get into the box, right?" suggested Lisa, knowing that was exactly what the magician wanted, but determined to string out the part where her modesty was protected, no matter how flimsily.
"Yes, of course. All you have to do is go up the steps at that end and step into the box; be careful as you step in, because the bottom has the same construction as the sides and the lid, down there."
This gave Lisa a dilemma; the steps, which were thin metal plates between diagonals of the square metal tube, would put her sideways to the audience if she walked up them. She decided that while it would look awkward, it would minimise the danger of having more seen than she felt comfortable with; she moved up the steps a step at a time, so that she remained facing the audience and keeping her legs together as much as she could manage, to reduce the intimacy of the view that Arthur was getting. Stepping into the box was another challenge, because while the box was knee-high, the last step was below the floor of the box, meaning that she had to make another awkward move to maintain her frontal modesty and not flash her private parts at the magician, who was standing there without comment.
Standing in the box was not as hard on her feet as she had expected, because the tubes that made it up had a layer of felt on the inside. She was actually surprised by the consideration that this showed.
"Good. Now that you are in the box it's time for you to kneel down. You'll need to have your shins on the floor of the box so just stick your toes though the holes. And for the sake of things that will happen later, I need you to be facing that way. And if you could sit back once you are knelt down that would be good too."
While Lisa struggled to change her position in the box, without showing too much of her nudity, or falling through the grid of the floor, Arthur charged off into the wings. He returned with a trolley loaded with flat green plastic sheets with square impressions in. It did not escape Lisa's notice that there was also a pair of handcuffs.
"Great, we've nearly got you in position. All you need to do is lean forward so that your neck fits in that gap in front of you and then stick your hands out of the rear and then I can put the lid on."
Lisa spotted the gap where the top edge of the box was missing so that the top middle section of the side she was facing was open. As she leaned forward, holding the towel to her front, the magician was lifting the lid from its resting place in the bottom of the stand. When she had her head in the gap, she heard Arthur rest the lid on the end where her hands were meant to emerge. She was distracted by noticing that the handcuffs were no longer on the trolley, then heard the lid being slid into place on top of the box; she felt the leading edge touch her shoulders and scrunched down, so that it would not scratch her. There were a couple of clinks and the familiar click of a padlock snapping shut, then the feel of Arthur reaching into the box and guiding her hands out through the top corner squares of the rear end of the box. Once they were in view he snapped the cuffs on her wrists.
Lisa tested how much movement the cuffs allowed and concluded that they were not only connected between her wrists, but to something else too. The audience could see that Arthur had the chain between Lisa's wrists attached to a clip that had been dangling from the box's lid.
"So, you've got me locked in a box again. What do you plan to do to me this time?" asked Lisa.
"The first thing to do is make sure that you are definitely in the box, as everyone can see, but we need to make sure that if you should escape, no-one will miss the fact, by suspending the box in mid-air." On cue some ropes lowered from the roof of the theatre, and Arthur guided them to the four corners of the lid and clipped them to the rings mounted there. He then connected two more ropes to the bottom rear corners that came from somewhere in the wings; he explained that these would stop the cage from swinging about too much. With the ropes attached, the magician gave a signal and the cage rose a couple of inches; just high enough for the bottom of the box to rise clear of the stand and allow him to scoot the stand to the rear of the stage.
"I am going to cover the faces of the box with these covers, because I have seen what this illusion looks like and I don't want to expose you to that horror." To Lisa he added, "I'm told that it feels quite good, so don't worry that you're in for an unpleasant time."
It soon became evident that the green plastic sheets were mostly rigid and the square sections fitted tightly into the squares of the box. Top, front and back went on easily with a click and each was 3 squares by 4 squares. The sheet for the base of the box had a couple of circular cut-outs, so that Lisa's toes remained visible. The plate for the rear end of the box was 3 by 3 and had holes for Lisa's hands. The final cover was for the front end and had a cut-out that fitted neatly round her neck. Arthur fitted this carefully, so as not to scrape Lisa's neck, but not before dragging the towel from between her torso and thighs.
"It's high time I had a helper. How about you; in the yellow shirt and the grey jacket. You can come up here and check things are above board, while I fetch the final pieces."
The man soon arrived and touched Lisa's hands and feet to check that they were not fake and connected to the head sticking out the other end, despite no-one being in any doubt that Lisa was in the box and alone inside. He was trying to peek into the dark interior of the box, but Arthur returned with a trolley loaded with square tubes; most of them were the same length as the width of the box, but a few were longer. The width of the tubes, which appeared to be made of thin steel sheet, was a little narrower than the size of the square holes of the cage.
"Now we get to the fun and amazing part," said Arthur, as he handed one of the tubes to the man. "Just pick a hole on that side and push the tube into it and see what happens!"
He seemed to consider his options before picking the bottom square nearest the head end of the box. He located one end of the tube into the shallow dip and pushed. The box swung a little on its suspension, then suddenly, at the point where the tube was precisely lined up to cross the box, the bottom of the shallow depression gave way and tube shot into the box breaking out of the base of the corresponding dip on the other side with the ends of the tube flush on both sides of the box.
Lisa felt a tingle in the knees that she recognised from her shopping trip with Arthur's nephew. She knew that her knees had been cut off, but were still there in an insubstantial and invisible way.
"So, erm... Sorry I don't know your name. But why did you pick that position of all the options you had?" asked the magician.
"Well, I thought if there might be a gap there in front of her knees; I guess I was playing it safe. And my name is Sam, by the way."
Before Arthur had a chance to chide his volunteer for being unadventurous, Lisa spoke up. "Thank you for being considerate; although you don't make it to the rank of a kiss and hug when I get out of here, because you did not ask me if I was alright with this; even though I am. At least I have some idea what this is going to be like, now."
Lisa glanced at the trolley and realised that there were a lot more than a dozen tubes there. She then was distracted by the feelings in her knees as Arthur pushed a peacock feather through the tube, which tickled her knees. When Lisa giggled, he seemed surprised.
Arthur handed Sam another tube and suggested that he be a little more inconsiderate about where he put it. The man dithered a bit, then pushed the tube against the square one row up and one back from the first. Lisa felt the tube cut through the fronts of her lower thighs and also the front of her mid torso. As Arthur stuck the feather through the newly inserted tube and congratulated Sam on an excellent choice, Lisa was giggling again as she felt the feather passing through her thigh and, more importantly, her lower chest.
The next few minutes followed the same pattern as Arthur passed a tube to Sam, who pushed it through the box and Lisa within. Then Arthur took up his peacock feather and waved it through the newly inserted tube, eliciting more giggles. At the end the box was more holes than box with the only evidence that Lisa was still inside being her hands, toes and head projecting from inside the green covers.
Arthur had Sam check that the appendages were still real, which he did by tickling the toes and watching the hands wriggle, while Lisa's head protested against this treatment. Sam then got a bit bolder and kissed Lisa on the cheek, muttering, "If you're not going to kiss me at the end, I might as well take this chance to kiss you."
Arthur drew everyone's attention to the tubes remaining on the trolley. Another round of tube insertions commenced; this time the tubes were shoved up through the box with the exception of the two squares where Lisa's toes continued to wiggle as she laughed, afraid that she might become hysterical before the process was complete. As it was, her laughter was shaking the suspended cage visibly.
One thing that the audience noted was that despite the vertical tubes appearing to line up with the horizontal ones, their view through the apparatus was still uninterrupted.
The second phase of tube insertions was followed by an awkward manoeuvre, which resulted in the box being temporarily turned on its side so that the audience could see that the tubes had indeed gone all the way through and provided a similar view through, except where Lisa's toes continued to wriggle.
With Lisa back upright, Arthur told Sam that they would be switching roles; that is Sam would be handing the remaining six tubes on the trolley to the magician. "We'll start with three shorter square-ended tubes then move on to the other three."
Arthur rested the feather on top of the cage and accepted the first tube which he first demonstrated was the same length as the box, then pushed through one of the lower holes at the front. Lisa felt some of the un-disappeared portions of her left leg become tingly, joining most of the rest of her body. More laughter followed as Arthur ignored the next tube until he had put the feather through the tube he had inserted. The next two tubes went through the remaining lower squares in the front of the cage.
"Now I need the slightly longer ones," instructed the magician. "These are going to be trickier to put in, because they will be going in at an angle." Having received the tube he showed the audience that it was longer than the box, but the ends were angled so that once the tube was in the ends would be flush with the outside of the box.
He located the end of the tube in the square beside Lisa's head and away from the audience; taking the time to brush her hair aside, where a little got caught. He took a moment to build up some tension before pushing it in. With the tube in place, he tickled the feather down it, creating sensations in that side of Lisa's torso, until the tip of the feather emerged below Lisa's hand. The second tube was inserted with less fanfare with the feather showing that it penetrated from the nearside of Lisa's head to under her hand on the other end.
"This final one is probably the one requiring the most care." He turned the tube over so that the angled ends indicated that it would be going upward. It was fitted into the square directly below Lisa's head.
"Is that going where I think it's going?" asked Lisa. She had a feeling she might need to brace herself for this one.
As Lisa gritted her teeth, clenched her fists and curled her toes, Arthur gave the tube a shove and it was soon in place diagonally through the front of her torso; what little remained, given that much was intangibly present in the other tubes that criss-crossed the box she was in. The thrust of the tube was not so bad, but when Arthur went to the rear of the box to demonstrate the path of the tube using the peacock feather, Lisa nearly lost it as the feather could be felt from where it entered her crotch, stimulating her less lightly than she would have expected from a feather, up her torso to the valley of her breasts, and out through the hole below where her head emerged from the box.
"Of course, there are some of you who do not believe that what you see is real," Arthur announced. "There are others who don't feel they got a good enough view and still more that will just want a closer look. All of you are invited to come up and have a good look and convince yourselves that what appears to have been done has been done." He turned to Sam and said, "You will stay here and keep order and make sure that no-one abuses the privilege of seeing a perforated damsel up close."
Arthur left the stage, presumably to change his costume and line up whatever the next section of the show entailed. The theatre's stewards helped organise the members of the audience that wanted to get a closer look at Lisa and her predicament. She spent the next ten minutes having her hands shaken by people she could not see, having her toes tickled and nipped, and talking to the people; all will trying not to get too distracted by them putting any of the assortment of things provided on the trolley into the network of tubes transfixing the box.
When Arthur returned and shooed the straggling audience members from the stage, Lisa was feeling pleasantly exhausted from the attentions that had been expended on her.
"It is now time to get Lisa back out of the box," announced the magician.
"I hope you aren't planning on just taking all those tubes out and making me get out of here, because I haven't got any clothes on," protested Lisa.
In a tone between exasperated and teasing, Arthur said, "You give someone a night out at the theatre, for the small price of volunteering in a piece of magic; are they grateful? No! They start making demands." He paused as if in thought. "I suppose there's a way round this. Are you ok to help some more Sam?"
Sam indicated that he was very willing to assist. He was instructed to go into the wings and bring back what he got given. Meanwhile, Arthur pulled from his jacket pocket some hosiery, which quickly resolved into five individual stockings. The magician began fitting the stockings over Lisa's feet and then her hands. As he approached the other of the box, Lisa asked if he planned to put the last stocking over her head, which he said he did. Then she asked, "Why?"
"You object to getting out of that box nude, so I'm giving you some clothes."
"They hardly count as clothes; they don't cover the bits I want to cover and they are see-through." Lisa did not get any more objections out, because Arthur stretched the stocking over her head.
From the wings Sam emerged pulling a low wheeled platform on which stood a frame like a stick figure. At the ends of the arms and at the top of the torso were small shelves.
Arthur took hold of Lisa's fabric encased head and with a twist ripped it from the suspended cage that it was sticking out of. Lisa's squeak of protest was muffled by the thin fabric of the stocking and the fact that one of Arthur's hands held her jaw. In a few swift steps, Arthur deposited the detached head on the shelf at the top of the stick figure frame. The next two trips back to the cage netted the magician a hand; each of these he stood on the shelves at the ends of the arms. A further pair of trips transferred the feet from the cage to the raised platform at the base of the stick figure's legs.
"Now this cage is in the way," said Arthur as he unhooked the tethers at the rear bottom corners. "Time to remove it," he added, giving a signal that resulted in the cage being hoist toward the roof.
"Where are you sending my body?" Lisa asked. "Well, no, not really. But it was; at least until you put my head here. Now it feels different; kind of numb."
"Don't worry! You'll get your body back soon."
"I'm not so worried that I won't get my body back, but that when I get it back I'll be naked. And I don't want to be naked in front of everyone."
"You won't be naked," the magician pointed out. "You have a stocking on each foot and hand and on your head."
"Didn't I tell you earlier that they aren't the bits I want covering; it's the rest."
"I'm sure that I can arrange for the rest to be covered." Arthur turned his attention to Sam. "I'll need some more help. You go to that end and lift up the end of the pole. Raise it slowly and try to keep it level as I raise this end."
Hanging from the pole was a cloth of a pale shimmery blue. About the time that the pole was waist height, judging by the stick figure frame, the hem of the cloth rose to reveal the stockinged feet standing where they had been placed.
The men continued to lift the curtain, showing that above the feet were nylon enclosed legs. Lisa was having a hard time not smiling at the feeling of her legs reappearing, but she felt she needed to remain alert and tough if the men were to be convinced not to expose her body to the audience.
As the pole reached chin level, Lisa felt the rest of her body appear. She tried to move, but found that she was held in place against the frame by rigid shackles. She found that she had enough freedom of movement to look down her body and her second worst fears had materialised; she might not be naked, but the only thing covering her was the sheer stocking material, as if it had grown from the five stockings that had covered extremities and joined together. She also had the feeling that she was totally enclosed in the material without any opening to extract herself from.
"Well, we have got your body back, Lisa. Shall we lower the curtain?"
"Don't you dare! I'm not decent behind here. And don't think of raising it either!" Lisa was uncomfortably aware of the lower hem of the curtain hovering at a level she considered to be not low enough relative to her crotch.
"Ok, Lisa. Sam, why don't you have a quick peek and see if Lisa is decent? And be careful not to move your end of the pole too far up or down."
Sam took a look round the end of the curtain, stepping round in the process. His stance and attention told the audience that he liked what he saw.
"Describe what you are seeing, Sam! Is Lisa decent?"
"Lisa is attached to the frame at her ankles, wrists and neck, and she is wearing an all-over one-piece body-stocking thing. She looks good, but she is definitely not decent, there's nothing to cover her sexy bits."
"I am here, you know!" said Lisa with heavy sarcasm.
"Ok, we have to get some more clothes on her. Come back out from behind the curtain, Sam! Maybe we can get her dress on her from wherever, it got put behind the screen over there.
As Sam emerged from behind the curtain, the audience noticed something about him; he was no longer wearing his jacket and did not seem to be moving quite as comfortably as before.
"That should do it," The magician announced and guided the pole with its attached curtain down to the front of the platform.
There was a mix of applause and groans of disappointment, when Lisa was revealed. She was standing with feet and arms spread, but she was wearing stuff over the body-stocking. Over her crotch hung a pair of male briefs, that threatened to fall down if her feet came any closer together, and her torso was partially shielded by the grey jacket threaded onto her arms, so that it gaped open showing her cleavage without exposing her breasts.
She was soon released from the shackles at her wrists, ankles and neck, and immediately made a beeline for the screen. She quickly changed into her dress and brought the jacket and briefs to Sam. She watched the rest of the show through the thin fabric over her face and after the show went backstage to see Arthur about how to get out of stockings. He made a cut across the top of her shoulders and helped her pull the released fabric from over her head. As she was leaving he suggested that if she wanted to keep it that a zipper installed along the cut would make it easier to go into and out of, and also prevent it from fraying.