As spring continued and summer approached, I had bought a mountain bike to cycle to work across the fields from our home so I didn't have to rely on Maise giving me lifts. Her work was taking her all over town, so it helped her to not have to schedule in driving me to and from Morior. In addition to running her family's chain of convenience stores, she'd branched out into supplying businesses with catering supplies and would travel around to meet with customers.

I had found a fairly direct route of about three miles cross country, it could be a bit muddy but as I had a hot shower and change of clothes waiting for me at either end that wasn't a problem. Every day I'd get out of bed into a pair of leggings and a sports top, tootle off through the fields and jump in the shower at Morior, ready to start the day. This routine became so efficient I began arriving at work before everyone else got there, so I took breakfast in a pack which I would eat on the pier looking over the lake, watching the world wake up around me with the freshly risen sun.

On this particular day, I stepped out on to the pier to realise someone was there already. She turned and smiled at me.

"Hello, Lexie," said Susan. "Come and sit with me."

I walked up the pier and uneasily sat down next to my former boss, who I now knew to be Morior's resident grim reaper.

"I'll tell you now, I'm not much of a chess player", I said.

Susan laughed at the Bergman reference, probably the first time I'd ever seen her show a sense of humour.

"Don't worry, that's not what this is. You're not going anywhere just yet, I just wanted a chance to talk. You've made quite an impact around here."

"These people are like my family," I said. "I've never belonged anywhere like I have in this place."

I looked at the reflected sun dancing on the lake, then back to my companion.

"Susan, what is this about? The last time we talked was just after you went psycho on us with the cement tank."

Susan smiled.

"That was just a little fun. I don't get many chances to join in the games and it's not like I can play the same way you do. It's pretty much my job description to be serious."

"That's OK," I said. "It actually added to it having someone scary pulling that lever. To be clear, you are actually Death, right?"

"Pretty much. Only around here, though. There are others doing my job elsewhere on this plane of reality, we're more like guides than reapers. We don't kill anyone, we just see them off when they're ready."

"Why am I here? I mean, really?"

"Seriously? You don't know? Look around you, Lexie. You said yourself you never really belonged before, but since you and your friends showed up you've changed everything. The whole choosing life thing that Uncle Morbid goes on about was never meant to be an indefinite thing, it's just to help people come to terms with being dead, finish up whatever issues they need to finish up and then toddle off to wherever it is they're going. But with you lot it's been like terraforming a planet. That crummy office job we had you and Chris doing was meant to keep it all grounded for you, stop you vanishing off into some fantasy land you'd never want to leave. Now look at what's happening. Suddenly everyone's being creative and we're building a bloody theme park."

"None of this was my idea though," I said. "It was Uncle Morbid that brought us all together, got us to do all this stuff".

Susan sighed.

"Yes, it was," she said.

She offered no further comment, I wondered what she was leaving unsaid.

"What do you want from me?" I asked.

Susan paused before speaking.

"You know, I don't actually know. Maybe I'm trying to understand what it's like to be you."

"You mean, mortal?"

She never answered that. I didn't even see her leave.

When I came out of the shower, Chris and Wilco were just arriving. They'd spent the night together and now looked inseparable. I remembered that first night when Maise and I first hooked up before total recall, that night in her room back at the shit shared house we were living in. The world looked very different the next morning, I was delighted Chris was finally getting that experience. And as an uncloseted t-girl to boot; she was presenting as a girl every day now, mostly in comfortable knee length dresses with tights or leggings.

Mid morning, Hannah and Jess called me over to see their first completed prototype for the shambler suit. It was built around an eight foot tall frame made from lightweight tent poles, bulging in a big ball skirt at the bottom tapering to a probing lily tongue at the top. It opened out at the front with a hinged opening leading into a bag like a giant pyjama case. The operator was hidden behind this bag in the folds of the costume, from where two horizontal poles allowed them to pull the opening closed once a victim had been lured inside.

They put me inside the costume to get the experience of operating it. I couldn't see a thing from inside there, but they told me this was a design feature – the operator would have to shamble about blindly, waiting to feel the victim enter the front of the plant where the bait eggs would be placed. Jess acted as test food, allowing me to close her in the jaws when I felt her in position.

"Well done, you caught me," came her voice from the other side of the dark, cloth wall.

"Now what?" I asked.

"Well, I'd stay here to be digested. We put a self-fastening lock on which can only be released from the outside, so if you wanted you could park up, sneak out the back and leave me here trapped while you go off to do something else."

"How do I know you won't get out?"

"I'm in a sealed bag right now, there isn't much I can do. I could tip the whole thing over, but if you look at the inside of the bottom skirt, you'll see some anchoring pegs sewn around. Push those down into the ground and it should be enough to keep the thing upright and planted in place. Once the plant's been fed there's no need for it to keep wandering around."

Despite the darkness in the back of the suit I could make out the positions of the anchoring pegs. I unhooked myself from the costume, pushed down the pegs so they hit the floor, then unzipped the back of the plant to climb out. Hannah was there waiting for me.

We went around to the front, where Hannah undid the catch to release her friend, who looked a little damp.

"Following Wilco's designs," explained Hannah, "the walls in there have a layer of damp sponge covered in mesh, which is how the victims will get slimed with digestive fluid. I hear you have Craig and Rebecca working on that?"

"They've come up with something, but it smells horrible", I said. "You wouldn't know to see them frolicking about in it like a pair of mermaids, though."

Hannah laughed.

"Did they invite you to go and get messy with them?" she asked.

"Yes, I believe they did."

"Us too," said Jess, "that's kind of their thing. Anywhere else they'd be a bit weird. But then we all are, aren't we? That's why we're here."

She gave me a conspiratorial wink.

"It turned out my dream job involves getting my head chopped off."

I spent the rest of the day in the workshop helping Chris and Wilco with the crafting. When Wilco popped out for something, I got to talk with Chris alone for a moment.

"So, how was your evening?" I asked.

"Amazing," she said. "Wilco and I went out for dinner, he treated me like a lady. We ended up back at my flat where we watched movies together, cuddled, talked, then... how much do you want to know?"

"I get the picture," I smiled. "To be honest it's about time. Not just you finding someone but coming out as trans. Why did you never say anything when you were alive? Maise and I would have loved having you as our girlfriend."

"Partly I wasn't sure that I was," said Chris. "I mean, I enjoyed wearing your school uniform and imagining what it would be like to be one of the girls. It had to be better than being around the boys."

I thought of the catty bitches that had made my life hell at school.

"It's overrated," I said. "But you had me and Maise. She'd have given you makeovers in a heartbeat."

"Yes, she would have. But I didn't want to just be her dressing-up doll."

I understood that. Maise treats me that way sometimes, I let her because I love her but I wouldn't take it from anyone else.

"So, let's work out the timeline. You and Maise died, you wound up here..."

"I didn't remember anything back then, I was just wandering around town looking for a job and got one at Morior Studios. That's where I found out about the Mortal Masquerade, when they put me on angel duty for the first time and let me choose which uniform to wear I went straight for the girly one. The same thing happened when I got the chance to come up with an avatar – Didi just formed as an image of who I wanted to be. Maise was coming to the Masquerade as a spirit, but I didn't remember who she was. I just knew her as the person with the amazing tuxedo avatar who let me win the tournament."

Yeah, I thought. Steve was something alright.

"So then I came along and we were all together again," I continued. "Did you hit total recall before I did?"

"A little. I had my suspicions when we met in the office the first day you started working here, a feeling we'd known each other long ago, though I couldn't place when or where. We'd just built the car crusher prototype and Uncle Morbid wanted to know how you'd respond to it. The coincidences snowballed from there, by the time I did the swansong as Didi I'd pretty much worked it all out."

"So, Didi the Doll died, and you were back with us," I said. "But she's not left you entirely, has she?"

"No, she hasn't," said Chris. "My next avatar would have been some variation of her, to be sure. Didi was the manifestation of my inner self. And when I wore your school skirt again to be buried with you and Maise, I realised she'd been there all along."

"And that's what Wilco saw in you," I said. "He knew you were suppressing something about yourself, and wanted you to let it out."

"And now I'm his girlfriend," said Chris. "This is the me he wants. I have to be a girl now, for him."

Ah. Now this was awkward.

Chris had always had confidence issues and struggled with doing things just for herself, it had to be in order to please someone else. So while Wilco had encouraged her to come out of her shell, Chris had to justify it as becoming what Wilco wanted. In a way she was, but I worried what would happen if after all that she found out that Wilco was actually first attracted to him as a guy.

Oh well, that was for them to sort out, when and if the time came.

—

When I got back home, Maise met me at the front door, still in her work suit.

"Hi Sexy," she said. "Don't go in the living room yet, I'm setting something up in there. I've left you something for you to change into once you've freshened up, I'll get changed while you're in the shower. See you soon!"

We kissed and I headed for the bathroom while she went into the dressing room. I stripped off my muddy cycling gear and washed off, thinking excitedly of what Maise had planned for us. I toweled off, put a robe on and made my way to the dressing room to see what she'd picked out for me.

Neatly laid out on the guest bed was a full tailored tuxedo, similar to the ones she'd worn as Steve and then again when she sawed me in half that first, amazing time. As I put on the neatly pressed shirt and trousers, I could tell it had been cut to my exact size. Maise must have asked Debs to make it in secret from the measurements she took for Larkin's costumes. There was a long black tailcoat, a satin cummerbund in deep burgundy and a real black bow tie which luckily I knew how to do up – you don't hang around with Maise and Debs for any length of time without learning how to dress properly. On the floor were a pair of black patent leather shoes. Sitting in the centre of the bed was a little black velvet jewelry box containing a pair of silver cufflinks, neatly engraved with hearts. When I put it all on and saw myself in the full length mirrors, looking back at me was a strong, confident figure combining masculinity with feminine guile. This was not like Angel Lexie, Larkin, Sofia or any of the dressing up games we'd played, this was everything good that Maise made me feel about myself. My heart pounding in anticipation, I went to join her in the living room.

She had set out a candlelit space around a table covered with a deep red tablecloth. She was wearing a silky two-piece silver evening dress which draped like liquid from the curves of her body, her long dark hair cascading around her shoulders, her eyes and lips dusky, deep and enticing. She looked absolutely ravishing, more so than I had ever seen her.

"The suit looks good on you," she said. "I thought it was time you had your own. And we don't dress for dinner enough."

The table was set out for two, with elegant silver cutlery, china plates and wine glasses. A pair of covered casserole dishes were in the centre of the table, which turned out to contain rice and khoresh, a flavoursome stew which Maise was incredible at cooking. She'd selected a red Barbaresco wine to accompany the meal, which we followed up with orange and lemon sorbet. The entire setup was perfect, the only unusual aspect being the table itself; I was pretty sure we'd never had a dining table set up in this spot, and this one seemed to be an unusual shape, thick and deep. I set that thought aside and enjoyed the meal.

When we had finished we cleared the table and sat for some time in the candlelight, just enjoying each others' company. Then, when the time was just right, Maise made her move.

"OK, now would you like to know what's special about this table?"

She whisked away the tablecloth to reveal a large box set on eight legs, mounted on a pair of trollies. The box was elegantly decorated with a seam at the centre filled with a different kind of wood. I knew immediately what it was.

"Are you volunteering?" I said.

"You know I am, Sexy".

From the side of the room she retrieved a couple of objects wrapped in black crushed velvet, which she laid out on the chairs. Both were flat, one fairly large and square, the other long and thin, slightly tapering at one end. I had a good idea what that one was. Finally, she took out a cylindrical hat box covered with black silk.

"This is for you," she said. "You said you wanted one."

The box contained a beautiful silk top hat. She took it out and placed it on my head, completing the outfit. We looked at our reflections in the mirror on the wall, her in her two piece silver evening gown and myself looking every inch like an old style conjuror. She kissed me on the lips.

"OK, sweetie, let's do this. Saw me in half."

We lifted the two lids on the box to reveal a dark interior. The two ends were head and foot stocks that lifted up out of their slots, leaving a long channel. Maise sat on the edge of the table at the foot end, kicked off her shoes and let me help her back into the box, sliding through so her head and feet protruded either end. I put the stocks back into place over her neck and ankles and closed the lids, shutting her in. She wriggled her feet and smiled at me as I did so.

"OK, lover, I think you know what to use next."

I turned to the long package and unwrapped the velvet to reveal a thin handsaw just over a metre long. It glinted in the low light, the blade giving off musical sounds as it vibrated in my hand.

"Do you see the channel in the middle of the box where the wood's slightly different?" said Maise. "That's the bit you need to saw through, along with me."

I took up position behind the box and placed the saw into the groove. There was a deep scraping sound as the teeth passed across the balsa wood inside the grooves, sending vibrations throughout the entire box. Maise gasped at the sound and wriggled her stocking feet excitedly. OK, so those are real, I thought. She's still stretched out in there.

I began sawing into the balsawood channel, spilling little clouds of sawdust on to the top of the box each time the saw withdrew. Deeper and deeper it went, the sound of the sawing becoming lower and more echoey as it entered the inside of the box. Maise was looking up at me with a huge grin on her face.

"Keep going," whispered Maise. "Keep sawing with deep, strong strokes. I'll let you know when to stop."

I was at least a quarter of the way through the box now. There had been no blood – fine, we did gore all the time, it was nice to do clean for a change. Maise's feet were still moving about and very clearly real. I carried on sawing in big, deliberate strokes just as she asked, pulling the saw almost all the way out of the box before plunging it back down for another deep cut, Maise panting with delight all the way. As I was about halfway with the saw at the top of the stroke, she suddenly gasped with a loud intake of breath and her feet visibly tensed.

"Maise, are you OK?" I asked.
She settled herself a little.

"Yes, fine," she said. "Give me a moment, then carry on from exactly where you are. All the way, sweetie!"

I pushed the saw back into the box and carried on. There was a thick pile of sawdust forming on the carpet beneath the box, my arm starting to ache a little as I plunged the saw up and down, through the box and my lover inside. Maise was still smiling and wriggling her feet all the way until the saw reached the final corner of the box, cut away the last of the balsa wood and came out the other side.

"Quick," said Maise. "Go and open the other package."

I turned to the flat square package lying on the chair and unwrapped the velvet. Inside were two stainless steel plates.

"Those slot into the middle," called Maise. "But of course, you know that."

Sure, I knew how this routine played out, I'd seen it a million times. I never expected to be doing it, though, not like this.

There were slots set into the two lids close to the section I'd just sawn through, so I slotted the two plates down into each of them. Maise was still smiling up at me. So there, I'd sawn her in half. Tada, trick over. Because there was no way we'd be separating the boxes, surely?

Maise laughed, reading my mind.

"Of course we are, sweetie," she said. "You'll find catches holding the two trolleys together at the bottom of the boxes. Undo them, please."

I found the two catches and undid them. The two halves of the box containing my Maise came apart a little.

"OK, spin me around," said Maise. "Let me see my feet".

I pulled apart the two trolleys, turned them both end to end. There was my Maise, in two separate boxes. In two separate pieces. Still looking ravishing.

"Now kiss me," she said.

I bent down and did so, deeply, passionately and utterly.

My Maise, my love, my everything. The woman who can mindfuck me even when she's lying in a closed box.

After we'd kissed I pulled up a chair and we chatted for a while with her still in two pieces. She told me she'd bought the illusion from one of her business customers, who ran a magic shop with a small attached theatre somewhere in town.

"He'd like to meet you," she said. "We have an open invitation to take a group down to see his show, I was thinking we could go next week."

"Sounds good," I said. "But do you think maybe we should put you back together first?"

I rolled the trolleys back, fastened the clips and removed the steel plates. As my back was turned putting them away I heard a noise and turned to see Maise's stockinged feet wriggling about again. I opened the lids to reveal her lying in the box just as before, in one piece. I released her from the neck and foot stocks, helped her up and out and gave her a big hug.

"I suppose you're going to explain to me how we just did all that?" I asked.

"If you want me to, sure," said Maise. "But don't be telling anyone else."

She gave me one of her mischievous winks.

"You're a magician now, Amazing Lexie."