Getting Ready for the Night (an introduction).
“Come on people! We only have an hour before opening!” cried Karl from the stage. He always got a little edgy before a performance, despite his experience, and this tended to show while setting up. His employees didn’t mind though, overall he was a good man and they were paid well. If there was one thing Karl wasn’t short of it was money.
Karl was owner and performer here and the Club was sold out for every performance. With up to a three-month wait for tickets, Karl made sure the workforce was looked after. Still there was a lot to do in the last hour and that always made him a little skittish.
This is Devant’s, known locally as Double D’s, not so much in homage to the legendary magician but to the average size of the staff. It boasted the finest magic show in Europe, some may have said the world but Karl was a modest man and would smile at such a suggestion.
“Selena, Michelle, we need you now!” Karl shouted, and two assistants came trotting on the stage. Selena was a pale coffee half-caste with black hair while Michelle had pale white skin with a blonde hair to match. Both wore tiny red bikinis.
“Table duty tonight, you know the drill.” Said Karl, and the ladies jumped up on two sets of tables that were on stage. Each set was made up of five cubes of crystal clear plastic, which sat on dark wooden legs, butted up to one another to form one long table.
Michelle and Selena stretched out and crossed their arms across their chests.
“Sorry boss, ’Chelle couldn’t find her top.” Said Selena
“That’s okay girls,” replied Karl, “are you ready?”
Both girls nodded, so Karl counted slowly to three and then clapped his hands at which signal both girls suddenly dropped into the tables so that their lower legs and feet were in a section, their hips and thighs in the next, stomach in the middle one, chest in the one after that and the heads in the last cube. Karl called for his other assistants to come and help and quickly there was a horde of people on stage pulling the cubes and the bodies contained within apart and distributed them randomly round the floor in front of the stage.
A large round top for each section was then brought out, to form the complete table. These were the most expensive seats in the house, but many were willing to pay for them just for the novelty of having a disembodied arm wave at you, or see the bodiless toes wiggling.
“You two okay in there?” asked Karl and both girls nodded.
“Right next up, waitresses.”
Eight more assistants came on stage carrying a silver tray apiece. Another wheeled out a strange looking cabinet, which was a square section tube with no top and a door at the front, supported on legs about three feet long.