Chapter 23: Performance
Chapter 23: Performance
The auditorium was filled. A beautiful female escape artist was a good draw in Japan, a country that
had a few good ones of its own. But the fact that she was an American beauty, taller than most
Japanese men and of radiant golden tresses, was something no red-blooded Japanese male could
resist. The surprising part was that there were a fair number of women in the audience as well.
A couple Japanese magicians did the warm-up, but the biggest apuse was when Ste came out in
that gorgeous skin-tight electric blue costume of hers. It was sort of like a one-piece bathing suit with
large diamond sections cut out on the nks and in the middle from the top of her breasts down to just
below her belly button. A goodly portion of her breasts was showing in that diamond. The nipples were
covered but easily seen trying to poke through the tight, thin material. The suit did not bother with
anything below her crotch, and the sides were slit upward so that what there was to cover her pubic
area was damned little. The high heels disyed her legs at their best, which was very good. Her long,
golden hair framed her smiling face and fell to mid-back behind her.
Tara, in a simr but less revealing costume, was standing by. One of the magicians came back on the
stage and was handed two pairs of handcuffs by Tara. Eagerly, he went to Ste and locked her wrists
behind her back in one pair, then secured the other pair on her arms just above her elbows. He made
sure that they were clicked down tightly enough to obviously be cutting into her flesh. He did not want
her to get free of them. National pride, or something.
Ste did a walk across the stage near the front, turning now and then so that everyone could see how
securely she was restrained. Returning to the Japanese magician, who was grinning something fierce,
she struck a pose next to him, then slowly walked around behind him but kept facing the audience. Her
walk was slow, true, but still she was behind him for only a couple seconds, and during that couple of
seconds her bound arms were totally out of view of the audience. When she emerged from behind him,
her arms were still behind her. But as soon as she was level with him, she brought them around in front
and handed him the handcuffs.
The audience apuded. Tara took the disappointed magician by the arm and escorted him off the
stage, the now empty handcuffs still in his hand. She returned with a handful of ropes, loosely coiled.
They were hemp ropes of the type popr in Japan for binding women. The announcer came out and
invited some volunteers from the audience toe up on the stage and bind Ste with those ropes.
He told them they could do it in any way they wished, and use all the ropes. Two middle-aged
gentlemen came up. Apparently they had been picked beforehand, both being local officials.
There followed a scene much like those early on in Ste’s career. When she was beginning, and
before she became famous, she worked the smaller clubs and theaters, doing simple escapes. But one
of the biggest draws was when she let people from the audiencee up and tie her. Then, in in
sight of all, she would free herself from the ropes. There was nothing magical about it, nor were the
ropes modified in any way. She simply counted on the fact that most people, usually men, simply did
not know how to tie a woman very well. asionally, she would run into a man who did know what he
was doing, and that would make the escape a real challenge. Only once did a man manage to tie her in
such a way that she could not free herself. The results of that failure were threefold. First, Ste
apologized to the audience and put on a strip tease that got rid of what little costume she had to begin
with. Secondly, she made careful note of the way he had tied her, and had her friend, but not yet part of
the act, Tara bind her that way repeatedly until she could defeat it. And third, she invited the man to
give her a private demonstration of that form of bondageter in her hotel room. She made numerous
mental notes about how he did it, where the knots were, how each winding of the rope was cinched
down, and such. Then she thanked him by telling him to go ahead and use her body any way he
wished.
Every time Ste was back in that city, that man always dated her on any night she was free. They
were still good friends to this day, and as Ste got better and better at escaping, it was partly due to
Roger’s inventive minding up with new challenges for her.
It was no problem for her to work her way out of those ropes. She felt sorry for those men’s wives if this
was the best they could do. The audience apuded those simple escapes but there was a certain
apprehension in the air. They knew that she would be doing a new, especially hard escape called the
Hanging Water Death Trap.
Ste performed a couple more escape, each harder than thest. She was done up in a ck leather
straitjacket, the straps being pulled and buckled by another couple of male volunteers. Tara attached
some padlocks on the buckles and then Ste was sat down and the overhead hoist lowered its cable
and hook. Her ankles were tied together and then she was lifted up by them until she was almost lost in
the top curtains across the front of the stage. She was a good twenty feet off the stage, hanging upside
down, with her long blonde hair hanging straight down. Then she escaped from the jacket in about two
minutes, demonstrating exceptional flexibility.
Having used the increasingly harder escapes to build up the hype, she was ready for the finale. The
back curtain of the stage was opened and the water tank pushed out to center stage. It took four men
to push it, and they had to go slowly so as not to slosh out the water. They then rolled out tworge
mirrors, positioning one on each side of the tank and behind it. They were turned so that the audience
could see behind the tank.
When the tank and mirrors were in position, Tara rolled out the cart with therge clock. From the back
of the cart, she pulled out coils of rope, this time white cotton rope that Ste preferred over the thicker,
coarser hemp rope, and began binding Ste in the extra tight manner they had rehearsed. The
audience watched in fascination as the ropes were expertly and very tightly applied. They were not
used to escape artists using ropes instead of carefully constructed props. The incredibly tight binding of
Ste was a treat for them.
The final touch before Ste was lifted up by her ankles was the adding of the ball gag by Tara. That
was also a nice touch, because other escape artists never used gags. It added a more personal touch
to the act.
Up she went, again her hair trailing down. As she rose up, those in the back rows had a good view of
how she was bound. Then the hoist was moving her over the tank. She paused there, her head just
above the top of the tank and her hair already trailing in the water. Then she was lowered. As her body
came lower in the tank, her hair fanned out like a cloud in the water. When downward movement finally
stopped, her head was just above the bottom edge of the tank, and her bound feet were visible just
under the top of the tank. A little water sshed out as her body elevated the water level.
For a few seconds, Ste did nothing but hang in the water. Outside the tank, Tara started the clock
running and the second hand began its circles. Then she went to the tank and pulled the curtain across
the front. She returned to the clock and stood there, already looking worried but trying to smile. Truth
was, her expression was both show and for real. She worried about her very close friend (and lover)
every time she did an escape, especially one that was as dangerous as this one.
Compared to the minute hand, the second hand seemed to rush around the face of the clock. Most of
the spectators kept their eyes on the covered tank with only asional nces to the clock. One
minute passed. All that could be seen of Ste was the cable holding her by the feet. It moved back
and forth some, and asionally shook a little, leaving the observers to wonder what she was doing in
there. It had not gone unnoticed that the tank was so slender that she could not have bent her body in
half to get her head above water. The only way she could get to the air that she would soon be in
desperate need of to stay alive, would be to free herself of those ropes.
Two minutes.
Three minutes.Please check at N/?vel(D)rama.Org.
The cable shook harder for a few seconds, then stilled.
Four minutes.
Tara was looking more worried. Some of the audience were fidgeting in their seats. The tension in the
room was increasing.
At the five-minute mark, when some of the audience were making worried sounds, Tara slowly walked
to the curtain and pulled it aside. There was Ste, upright in the water, just kicking thest of the ropes
off her ankles. Then she kicked off the bottom of the tank and, grabbing the cable, lifted her head
above the water. She pulled one leg up and put her foot in the hook, and then the cable began lifting
her out of the tank. With one hand, she reached behind her head and unbuckled the ball gag. She
tossed that down to Tara and lifted that hand triumphantly as the hoist lowered her to the stage.
Tara brought her towel, but as she toweled herself down she made sure that most of that fine body was
not covered for long. A man came on with a microphone in his hand, announcing something that could
barely be heard over the ovation from the crowd. When he handed the microphone to Ste, the crowd
quieted. She thanked the people in Japanese: “Arigatou gozaimasu.” Then added that it was a
pleasure to perform in their country and that she wished the best for the survivors of the disaster. She
did not speak Japanese, but had memorized the words carefully and spoke them almost without an
ent. The audience apuded even harder.