So, here's what the coming week at work had in store:

I was going to be shut in a large oven and baked into a loaf of bread, which would then be sawn up into slices with me inside.

This was happening to me so it could then be done to a good friend, who requested it.

Did I mention that my job is absolutely fantastic?

At this time I was nominally based in Wilco's workshop with him and Chris, but mostly floated between there and the main house as needs dictated. I contributed to idea sessions in the workshop and helped with research and planning, but when Chris and Wilco went deep into technical robotics I left them to it and went off to help Uncle Morbid and Scott, who always had some project or other on the go.

This time Scott was in the kitchen lab at the back of the house, where Craig and Rebecca had been baking a series of test loaves of increasing size, experimenting with oven temperatures to find the lowest operational baking temperature that would still produce a decent crust. The idea was to mix up the dough in the concrete mixer in hangar 2, then turn it out into a large tin which Debs or I would be lying in. The tin would then be wheeled into the oven for baking.

Between us we made up a final test loaf in a turkey dish that took up the entire kitchen oven. It took about half an hour in a preheated oven, after which it was still wet inside and not completely cooked, but it had a hard crust that made it good for our needs.

This done, we went together to Hangar 2 to see the rest of the apparatus.

The concrete mixer sat in the corner like an old friend, but now shared the room with a couple of other things.

The oven had been constructed along the opposite wall, a metal chamber about three metres on each side, with a glass window on the door. It was basically a large toaster oven with no shelves, the heating elements set on the back and side walls from about a third of the way up. There was also a vent fitted into the bottom left side wall that would blow a supply of cold air along the floor of the oven – the idea was that this would keep the person lying there at a survivable temperature while the heat of the oven rose up above them, baking the bread.

Next to the oven was a freaky contraption consisting of several long jigsaw blades suspended from a machine rail running over the space where the baked loaf would be placed for slicing. The blades were set to retract slightly into the machine once they had entered the loaf, passing over the person lying at the bottom and dropping back down when the loaf was fully cut through.

The final piece of the set was the baking tin, about the size of a tin bath with an insulated wheeled base and sides designed to unclip when the loaf had been baked, exposing the bread. The ends of the tin had holes cut in them, so the victim's head and feet came out either end. While Craig and Rebecca went to measure out the quantities of ingredients for the bread mixture I lay down in the tin to try it for size, it was quite snug in there.

Our first test run would be carried out with the aid of Johnny the test dummy, who I'd last seen going through the crusher on my first day working at Morior. When the dough had mixed and kneaded enough in the concrete mixer we turned it out over the top of Johnny's body. The dough was pretty wet and filled the tin just over halfway after Johnny's torso had been covered. We wheeled the tin into the oven chamber, which had already been heated to the required temperature, closed the door and settled in to watch.

It took about forty minutes of baking until we saw the bread rise above the top of the tin and settle into a golden crust. Johnny the Dummy lay impassively inside the loaf, his head and feet sticking out in a surreal visual. We turned off the oven, let it cool down a little, then opened the door to go in and get the tin. We removed the sides to reveal a nice crust, then left it to cool for another five minutes or so. This done, we wheeled the Johnny Loaf into position in the slicing machine, locking it into place alongside the fearsome row of motorised blades.

Now for the part of this that Debs had actually asked for.

We turned on the machine and with a loud rattle the carving blades began vibrating up and down vigorously. With the touch of another switch, they began their journey into the side of the bread, which shook under the pressure, Johnny's drawn on smile dancing about like a character in a rave video. Finally the sawblades emerged from the other side, leaving a fully sliced loaf with Johnny's head and feet sticking out either end.

We wrapped around a large ribbon to hold the loaf together as it was wheeled away; this would be taken off to the area behind Limbo, but for this test we only took it a short distance across the hangar. There we removed the ribbon and tore away the slices of bread to reveal Johnny the Dummy, in one piece, caked in crumbs of warm wet dough.

The test had been a success.

The human trial took place a couple of days later. Maise set the day aside to come and help bake and slice me, Wilco and Chris also came over to lend their support. Chris was wearing a long flowing dress and was taking to his new found gender expression like a duck to water. He and Wilco looked quite the couple stood next to each other – I wondered if technical work was all they were bonding over.

I wore a light grey jogging suit for the test. Under the guidance of Craig and Rebecca Maise helped cover me from head to toe in fire retardant gel, just in case our heat calculations went wrong – I certainly had no objection to being rubbed down with slime by the love of my life, who came away a little slimy herself after I pulled her in for a kiss. The noise from the fan on the oven mixed with that of the concrete mixer steadily churning and kneading the bread mixture to create a strangely relaxing soundscape, belying the crazy and dangerous deathplay I was about to put myself through. Scott had given me a small panic switch to hold in my hand, which I could press at any time if I needed to end the test and be taken out of the oven. Together, he and Maise helped me get into position in the tin, my arms folded across my chest and my head and feet sticking out through the holes.

They got the chute into position and began tipping the soft wet dough into the tin on top of me. From my point of view I could only see the sloppy mixture tumbling down the chute into the top of the tin, but felt it landing wetly about my body, slowly burying me. When all the dough had been emptied on top of me, it felt like I was encased in wet, heavy glue concealed behind the metal wall of the tin. I was completely immobile, save for the hand in which I held the emergency panic switch and my feet sticking out the other end. Being able to wriggle them and nothing else was a bizarre feeling.

Maise and Scott released the brakes from the wheels to trundle me into the oven. As Scott opened the door, Maise kneeled down to kiss me one last time.

"Good luck, lover," she said. "Bring me back my Lexie loaf!"

I could feel the heat of the air above me and the glowing elements on the wall were fearsome to behold, but once I was in position the blast of cool air at the bottom did a pretty good job of keeping me safe, especially with the layer of retardant gel on my face. I'd like to say it was like a sauna, except you don't take a sauna fully dressed, encased in a tin of sticky dough and coated in fireproof goop. For future reference, we needed to know whether the gel was actually necessary – I hoped it wasn't, but was stuck with it for now.

I could make out the shapes of my friends and colleagues watching through the window of the oven, a hazy rippling blur through the warm air currents moving around me. I knew roughly how long I'd be in here for (I was pretty confident the plan was working at this point so didn't imagine I'd be pressing the panic switch), but couldn't guess how much time had passed. I could feel the dough expanding around me with little fizzy bursts as the soda rose. It was getting much hotter inside the tin, even as my head was cooled by the fans outside. Eventually I caught a glimpse of the dough rising up above the edge of the tin and suddenly worried about a bit of hot wet dough falling down from there on to my face – luckily that didn't happen, but I reflected that might be one situation where I'd be very glad of the heatproof gel. I had no desire to have my skin burned off.

Slowly the line of dough at the top of the tin turned brown and the salty smell of the soda bread rising gave way to the appetising smell of freshly baked bread. The dough my body was encased in felt airier and springier than before, but still held me fast. The heating element at the back of the oven slowly began to fade and I saw the people outside approaching the door. They were coming to get me out.

Maise came in first, wearing heavy protective gloves that made for a striking ensemble with the front of her dress still slimy with heatproof gel from when I'd pulled her in for that kiss. What must we look like, I thought, her looking like a Silent Hill monster and me baked solid into an actual loaf of bread.

"How do you feel?" she asked, with barely a trace of concern. That's my Maise. She'd have known immediately if anything was actually wrong.

"Pretty good, actually," I replied. "I barely felt the heat at all, truth be told, the oven design definitely works."

"That's good to hear," said Scott, over by my feet. "Let's get you out, then we'll see how the loaf turned out".

They wheeled me out into the hangar, where Chris and Wilco were waiting.

"That is totally amazing," said Chris. "Getting baked in an oven, that is. You missed your calling as a stunt performer, Lexie."

I thought of my spell as guinea pig for Didi the Doll, Queen of the Car Crusher. Chris had performed a few crazy stunts of his own since coming to Morior.

"You dream it, I'll try it out for you," I said. "How long do we have to wait for the tin to cool?"

"Not long," said Scott. "It just has to be cool enough to get over your face and feet without burning you."

A few minutes later they dismantled the sides of the tin, carefully manoeuvring the left hand side over my head.

"Now THAT is amazing," said Wilco, as he saw the freshly baked loaf with my living head and feet protruding each side. "And you say Debs dreamt this up?"

"This part was Uncle Morbid's idea," I said, "but Debs sort of suggested it without realising. The next part is all her, though."

They wheeled the loaf, with me inside, over to the waiting blades of the slicing machine, which was casting hideous shadows from the afternoon sun streaming through the hangar door. I surveyed the row of steel sawblades ready to slice me into pieces – there was only one person present who should have the honour of operating those.

I smiled up at Maise.

"Time for me to volunteer again?" I asked.

"You betcha," she replied. Scott took her over to the controls.

Every relationship has recurring set pieces that keep coming up. Some couples have a special dance that is all their own. Others have a song, or a particular place to go to. For Maise and myself, it seemed that one of our things was her cutting me to pieces with motorised jigsaws. She'd sawn me early on in our relationship, then quartered me as a part of her roleplay with Debs. Now she got to unleash a whole row of them upon me.

Maise flicked a switch and the sawblades burst into life. With another lever pull the row of chattering blades began their advance, biting into the side of the loaf inches from my face. I watched in awe as they tore through the loaf, even knowing how this worked the knowledge that they were passing right above my body made it easy to imagine them passing through me, dividing my body into a dozen slices trapped and unable to move baked inside the bread. The saws passed out the other side, the slices of the bread fell apart and I threw back my head to play dead. They tied up the loaf with the ribbon just as we had done in the dummy test, this time taking the trolley all the way around to the area behind Limbo, where they tore apart the loaf to let me out. My clothes were caked in dried flour, soda and heat retardant slime and my muscles ached from being unable to move for so long, but it had been another amazing adventure. Maise and I went up to Limbo where she joined me in the shower.

"I was thinking," she said as we cuddled beneath the falling water. "This is the third time I've sawn you into pieces. It's like it's our thing."

"Yeah, I thought that too."

"You did that thing to me with the head chopper and it was awesome, but you still haven't sawn me in half. It nearly happened last Masquerade, but then Debs and Rafe did their thing and it ended up with them sawing both of us instead. It was great, but I want to be sawn by you. And I want it to be just the two of us, just like when I jigsawed you that first time".

I pulled her closer and kissed her. This was my Maise.

"Of course I will. How do you want to do it?"

"First of all, I want you to use a handsaw. I want to feel all the power coming from you directly."

"OK, we can find a way to do that. What else?"

"I want a proper old school grand illusion. We get a big ornate box and build a whole theatre routine around it, you the well dressed magician, me your glamorous assistant. It can be a deathplay or a magic trick, I don't care which. I just want to be sawn in half by the Amazing Lexie."

We kissed passionately as the shower ran down over our faces.

"Get me a top hat like Steve had and you're on," I said. "Do you want me to talk to the guys about making us a box?"

"No, you're all busy getting the Jungle ready. Leave it to me, I know someone."

Of course she did. I wondered who it would turn out to be this time.