"... okay, fine it is a cat-girl cafe. But there's a lot more to it than that!" Alice said finishing her sentence. Honestly Jake was expecting worse, what with all of the secrecy she had about it the last few weeks.
"Hmm. I'd like to see that? Do you have to wear a maid outfit?"
"Oh stop that. You perv."
"Hey I'm joking! But you are going to come let me visit right?"
"I suppose. But you need to promise not to be weird, or freaked out. It's just- it's just a weird place that's all."
"What? Strange clientele?"
"Well that's part of it. We cater to a very 'specific' sort of taste. But, again, there's more to it than that."
"Well with how secretive you're being with it, now I feel like I HAVE to see this place. You working tomorrow?"
"Yeah, noon to five. You want to swing by?"
"I might make time for it. You know me with my totally busy schedule." Jake remarked.
"Uh huh."
Jake was interested to see just what all the hype was about, and Alice promised him a good peek behind the scenes if he showed up just before her shift started. Now there he was, at the doorstep of a modest hole-in-the-wall cafe. From the outside it seemed like a pretty innocuous place, that was except for the name... "The Squeaky Kitty." An odd name for what appeared to be a very classy establishment. Even the font of the sign outdoors suggested a real high-end restaurant. But "The Squeaky Kitty", that just didn't seem to fit at all.
The restaurant from the inside was nothing bizarre either, in fact, it seemed like a very nice place. Wooden tables, an ornate carved bar, stained glass lanterns... it looked like it was something ripped right out of a mansion. Clearly a very high-end establishment by the looks of it... But there was no waitstaff to be seen.
That was until Alice walked out of the back room.
"There he is! You ready for this?"
"Ready for what exactly? This isn't really what I was expecting."
"I know, classy right? And that's not even the... gimmick of this place!"
"And what would that be?"
She reached into her bag and pulled out an item which at first was unintelligible to Jake. He soon realized what it was. "What the pair of cat ears? You said this WAS cat girl cafe right?"
"Well, that's part of it."
"Here, take a look." She said tossing over the headband.
Jake wasn't expecting it to be so... rubbery. "It's a lot lighter than I was expecting. And is it made of latex?"
"Very observant! They don't call it the Squeaky Kitty for nothing." Alice replied.
Jake toyed with the item in his hands for as long as he could. It seemed simple enough, an elastic headband with two bright red air-filled vinyl ears affixed. One of them even had an inflation valve. "Alright I'm stumped." He said passing it back off to Alice, "What's the gimmick?"
"Why tell you," She said walking over to a cabinet by the bar, "when I can show you."
She opened up the cabinet to pull out an air pump, no ordinary air pump either. This was installed in the building itself and seemed like something you would more find for car tires rather than pool toys.
"Just promise you won't freak out."
That statement certainly did not ease Jake's confusion.
Alice adjusted the headband on her head before opening the valve on the right ear and attaching it to the hose. Jake barely noticed at first, but soon after it appeared as if latex or rubber was crawling down Alice's face at an incredibly rapid speed. Her auburn hair had become a cartoonish firetruck red, the same colour as the ears, and her skin had this unnatural shine to it all. The changes continued to wash over he. Now, Alice sported a, quite literally, animated face. Her eyes had become much larger and bright blue. They looked more like drawings imprinted on her skin than any real eye. Her mouth was very much in a similar situation. Her nose was now just a round bump sticking out of her face surrounded by seams. In fact, the entire length of her face now had a seam going down the middle. Her hair had also lost all semblance of individual follicles and was now just a round rubbery mass, also crisscrossed in what looked like rubbery seams, a lot like what one would expect to find on a beachball or pool toy.
The rubber continued down her torso, eating up her t-shirt in the process. The latex was relentless as it converted her tanned skin to perfectly shined rubber. Rather than converting her clothing to rubber or leaving her stark naked, the wave of encroaching rubber left her wearing some stylized ballooned maid outfit. She now wore a white collar featuring a puffed out bow. She now had gloves which looked drawn on to her rubbery hands. Most notably, she now seemed to be wearing a maid dress ending in a round and rubbery bell featuring nothing more than a simple decal of a white apron. The skirt of the dress even ended with a tube of what looked like inflated rubber wrapping around the hem of the bell, emulating a look of ruffles hanging off the end. Her legs, shortly after, were also eaten up by the marching wave of rubber, this time leaving her with imprints of white thigh highs and puffed out inflatable boots, the whole length of them now sporting seam lines. Lastly, with a single pop, another inflation valve appeared on her torso just above her "apron", about where her navel should be.
The whole process only took about three seconds, and truth be told, Jake had no idea what he just witnessed. He knew Alice told him not to freak out, but he barely understood what even happened in the first place.
"Well... what do you think?" Alice inquired, putting her hands behind her back and toeing around like a proper maid should. Her voice was now slightly higher, and noticeably squeakier. It was as if she had inhaled a tiny amount of helium, but it also sounded a bit reverberated. Jake probably would've thought she was now in a suit, but the transformation had left her about five inches shorter, now just barely over five feet tall.
"uh... what?" Was all he could muster?
"You're probably confused," She said through her animated mouth, "Well that's the gimmick I was talking about of this job! The waitstaff are all inflatable cat-girl maids!"
Jake could only stare absent-minded at her after hearing that. "Inflatable? I don't think that's possible Al."
"Oh it's very possible! Just look at me!" She said as she batted her skirt leaving a hollow sound.
"It's a suit. That HAS to be a suit or something. Or nano tech. Or-"
"Nope! It's magic!" She said smiling with a grin too wide for any normal person to make. Jake couldn't help but thinking that all of this, as weird as it was, made Alice look pretty cute. She did look like an anime girl brought to life after all.
"Righhht... And is this getup worth the price they're paying you?"
"Oh. Absolutely!" She cheered. Alice came in close to Jake's ear. Whispering, she said "I'm not allowed to say, but I can tell you it's more than twenty an hour."
"TWENTY!?"
"Shhh." The cat-girl responded, "We're not supposed to talk about our work bonuses. But that much moolah... plus tips! It's pretty great!"
"And it makes all," Jake gestured to Alice's new appearance, "THAT, worth it?"
"Oh hell yeah! This is great! It feels weird at first but It's pretty fun! Never makes work feel boring, I can tell you that much."
"Hmph! Is your boss hiring?" Jake said this as a joke. He didn't actually desire a job here given the... circumstances. He figured Alice would understand he was joking too. Alice did understand he was joking, but she figured it would be funnier to play along. If foresight was 20-20, Jake probably wouldn't have made such a remark...