"Wait, really?" Leigh asked disbelievingly, her friend's story pulling a small grin out from beneath her normally dour exterior.
Alicia nodded in response, the ready smile she always wore splitting her face from ear to ear before it turned mischievous. "And she still doesn't know."
That shocked a laugh out of Leigh before she clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes screwing shut as she tried to regain her composure. Alicia turned, pink skirt swishing with the motion, and skipped a few steps down the street, the blonde exulting in her victory as always when she got her reserved friend's serious front to crack. It was a dynamic the dark-haired English Lit major enjoyed as much as her friend did, though admitting that would ruin the game for both of them.
Sophia hadn't caught the rest of Alicia's story, though she normally enjoyed them. She'd been too distracted cursing her tiny bladder and looking for a building that might have a bathroom. Suddenly she spotted a diner further along the street and started power-walking towards it, calling back to her friends that she'd be back in a second. The heavyset dark-haired girl in a hoodie looked at the petite blonde in a light blouse and they both shrugged before returning to their conversation.
The sign proclaimed the name of the diner as Thickshakes, which Sophia had never heard of before, and had another logo in the corner, "the True Beauty Corporation," written in flowing cursive. She was pretty sure there had been a different building there the last time she'd come this way, too, but questions were for people with empty bladders.
She pushed through the front doors, started walking up to the counter, and froze halfway there. The inside had everything one would expect to see in any diner ever - windows and booths along one wall, a bar along the opposite, tiled floors - but the waitresses were a sight Sophia had never expected to be confronted with. Each one was a bombshell, with a perfect hourglass figure, flawless skin and expertly-applied makeup, their yellow and red uniforms hugging their curves and coming just low enough to avoid scandal. How the hell had this place managed to find so many women like that to be waitresses? On that note, why did it have so many waitresses at all? She counted at least seven, almost one for every two tables, but that was where she had to stop counting because she still hadn't peed.
"Excuse me," she asked the blonde woman behind the bar, "hi, can I use your bathroom? Please?"
"Of course," the woman replied immediately with a dazzling white smile. She was just as stunning up close, but it was a level of beauty that was almost
too
perfect. Her skin had a synthetic sheen to it, like plastic. On closer inspection, every employee in the place seemed more made than born. The woman pointed her to the toilets and Sophia almost walked away like the hairs rising on the back of her neck were telling her to, but her bladder was still calling the shots.
She rushed to the bathroom, ignoring the way every waitress she passed had the exact same beaming smile on her face, and shoved through the door, only to stop in her tracks. The bathroom was clean, and smelled fresh, and only one of the stalls was occupied, but the clapping, banging, and moaning sounds, in both a male and a female voice, left nothing to the imagination regarding what was happening in there. Again, she almost walked out, and again, her bladder wouldn't be denied.
She chose the stall as far away as she could manage from the occupied one and opened and closed the door behind her as loudly as possible. This had no effect on the sounds coming from the other stall.
"Hey!" She yelled, banging on the side of the stall. "You're in public!"
That shut them up. Finally, she managed to get some relief, and a long minute later, she pulled up her pants and exited the stall. As she was washing her hands, it caught her eye that she could see a bit under the door of the occupied stall, and she rolled her eyes at seeing the lower legs of a girl kneeling in there facing away from the door. She finished washing up quickly and left, throwing a look back over her shoulder as she was opening the door to check something she'd thought she'd noticed. The girl in the stall had that distinctive plasticky quality to her skin that marked her as an employee.
She had no time to process this information, as not looking in front of her while opening a door meant she crashed straight into the person outside. She tripped up and would have landed on her face, but the waitress caught her smoothly and righted her, seeming completely unfazed. Sophia instinctively grabbed on to the waitress' arm and her yelp of surprise turned into a noise of confusion. The waitress let go of her quickly and started speaking.
"Are you alright, miss?"
Sophia nodded to the smiling woman, staring involuntarily at her arm where she'd touched her.
"Very good. Do you mind if I get past?"
"Wha- oh, right, sure." Sophia stepped aside to let her pass and the waitress slipped into the bathroom. After a second, Sophia hurried towards the exit. Not only did all the employees here look like dolls, but when she'd touched that one's arm, it had felt like latex rubber. She saw Leigh and Alicia hanging around outside and rushed out to meet them.
Sophia woke up in a cold sweat. She'd been dreaming about... the diner? Those creepy waitresses. Ugh. She checked her phone. 3am. A slight shuffle confirmed her bed was soaked and she winced; she was going to need to change the sheets. After throwing her wet sheets in the laundry basket, she headed to the bathroom to shower. As soon as she closed the door, however, a pulse of energy hit her in the face and she stumbled as the world seemed to tilt. She had just enough time to see a big-titted masked figure covered entirely in black latex fade into existence right in front of her before everything else turned black as well.
She woke up with a headache and dry eyes, but the feeling of metal bands wrapping around her ankles, wrists, waist and neck lent urgency to her attempt to take stock of the room. It was dark and blurry, but eventually the blurs resolved into something unsettling. A row of modified dentists' chairs covered one wall, most of them occupied with women in a mix of street clothes and pyjamas with full-face helmets covering their heads, and, minus the helmet, that was the same position she was in. A voluptuous, synthetically beautiful woman in a yellow-and-red skirt walked along in front, writing notes in her tablet. One of the waitresses from Thickshakes.
She started screaming for help. She coughed on her first attempt and looked at the waitress, worried she would come over and silence her, but she seemed not to have noticed. She gave no reaction even when Sophia started yelling properly, just calmly continuing to take notes without even glancing her way. Not that it did any good. Sophia's yelling achieved nothing except to make her throat hurt and when the waitress eventually reached her, she changed tack.
"Hey," she tried greeting the woman, but she was ignored.
"Hey, what is this?" She tried again. "What is happening here?"
The waitress continued typing on her tablet.
"This is kidnapping! My friends will know I'm missing and lead the police right here."
The waitress reached over her and lowered a helmet onto her head.
"Hey!" She tried to squirm away, but the bands held her head in place and the helmet went on without difficulty, cutting off her view of the room.
