I’m sure it’s never been easy being the girlfriend of a stage magician — if you’re not double careful, before you know it you’re chained in a glass box wearing a thong and two pasties, being sawed in half in front of an audience of strangers. But unexpected sexual practices? In a word, yes.

In the July issue of Harper’s magazine, professional magician Alex Stone has a long article about his trip to the World Championship of Magic, where he competed in the “Olympics of Magic” against the best stage magicians in the world. Earlier in the article, he mentions his new girlfriend Rachel, whose frequent attentions kept him from practicing his routine as much as he perhaps ought to have. Then, he begins to describe his own competition routine, and gets to talking about the practice of palming coins:

After the vanish, I press the coin with the middle and index fingers into the center of my palm, where it’s held in place by a slight contraction of the muscles. This is the Classic Palm, the most important concealment in all of coin magic. Read the coin worker’s bible, J. B. Bobo’s Modern Coin Magic: “This is one of the most difficult of all concealments to master but one of magic’s finest secrets. The layman cannot imagine it possible to conceal a coin in this way.”

…

Part of mastering a palm involves learning to conceal objects while the hands are otherwise engaged. Following the advice of the masters, I go through much of my daily life with coins classic-palmed in both hands — on the subway, at dinner parties, and even during sex.

Emphasis added.

As I said, it must be a challenge to be a magician’s girlfriend. Some women, you come to bed with a dollar in each hand, they aren’t going to take it kindly. I’m just sayin’.