A television's blue glow flooded Kerry's third floor apartment in the Cow Hollow District of San Francisco. She lounged on her couch flipping channels and in frustration turned off the television and threw the remote to the side. Quietly staring out her living room window with its view of a fire escape ladder and narrow alley, she regretted the two thousand in monthly rent and her view of San Francisco -- a brick wall.
If she leaned out her window she could see a glimpse of Union Street with its restaurants, bars and expensive shops. With the windows open, she would have heard the echoes of passersby leaving the closing bars. As she gazed out and almost nodded off, a pair of a woman's legs in high heels stepped down into view descending the fire escape ladder from the floor above. Kerry noticed dark stockings and a short tight black skirt. As the woman continued to carefully negotiate the ladder step-by-step, Kerry became aware of a bright white large fluffy cottontail attached to the woman's rear.
The legs stopped half way down the ladder, hesitated, and then climbed further down. The woman took a moment standing on fire escape landing in front of Kerry's window. She held herself, arms crossed in her white silk blouse, shivering in the San Francisco cold wind. She leaned over the metal railing to see further down the alley. A plastic bag hung from her right hand. There was no purse. She turned around and was startled to see Kerry inside. They made eye contact. The woman was obviously scared.
Kerry suspiciously walked over and opened the lower window sash. "Are you OK?"
Loud voices came from Union Street and the woman appeared cornered and confused. She turned to Kerry, "Can I come in?"
Kerry thought for a second. It seemed only proper to help. "OK. Be careful. Who are you? What are you doing out here?" Kerry held out a hand and guided the woman inside.
"I'm Amanda," the woman said as she extended a leg over the sill. Her tight skirt hiked up her legs as the tip of her foot touched the floor. She paused briefly to make certain her tail made it inside without brushing the side jamb of the window frame. "Close it quick. Please," she said in a panic.
"Are you hiding from someone? Here, I'll call the police."
"No. No," Amanda replied starting to tear-up. "No one will believe me given what happened to me."
"Tell me Amanda. I'll help you. I think I've seen you before. You live in the building, don't you?"
"Yes. I'm upstairs from you. I thought I could get my costume, but then I realized that if I stayed any longer they would come find me. You see they turned this one girl into some kind of bimbo bunny and were going to come back to do the same to me, but somehow I was able to get away. The other girl wouldn't move. She stood there like a statue. I had to leave her behind." Amanda began to sob.
Kerry didn't know what to think. Probably best to just address the basics. "We should call the police Amanda."
"I don't have time! You see this bunny tail?" She twisted her hips to show her rear and the bright white tail the size of a cantaloupe. "It's stuck itself to my skirt. They said if I take it off it will get angry and it may accelerate turning me into whatever the other girl Cindy was turned into." She rested her hands on Kerry's shoulders and took a very serious tone. "You see they dressed her in a complete bunny uniform that changed her body and erased her mind. This tail is from the same kind of costume. If I take it off it will grow back. But if I just wait, my clothes will transform anyway and I'll turn into a bunny just like Cindy. I don't know what to do."
"That is utter nonsense. Nothing is going to happen to you." Kerry took Amanda by the arm and pulled the frightened creature to the couch.
"I saw it," Amanda said. She began to sit on the couch, but then jumped back up. "The tail! I'll push it off sitting on that cushion. I'll sit here." She sat on the flat surface of the coffee table making certain she was not sitting on the tail. Her silly appendage hugged her skirt just high enough that it only brushed the table's surface as she shimmied her derrière across the polished wood.
Kerry sat across from Amanda. Was this woman unhinged? "Maybe they drugged you. Gave you something that made you hallucinate. Look, tell me what happened from the start."
Amanda took a deep breath. "It started when I went to this party wearing this cheesy bunny costume I have in this bag." She held the plastic bag up and set it back in her lap. "I met this girl, Darby. She was dressed in a perfect authentic looking Playboy Bunny outfit. Mine is this stretch material with a tiny cotton ball tail. Hers was the full sized tail like I have on now. She had a bright yellow satin suit and ears and shoes. You could tell her costume was high quality. It pulled her waist in, had the proper boning, it was custom tailored to her and everything.
"Darby -- Bunny Darby -- saw me and we posed for some pictures together. I asked her where she got her costume and how much it cost her. That's when she told me about this private club that would give me a costume just like hers. All I had to do was work there serving drinks in costume for a weekend. They were having a bunny meet-up the next day one block over at a Union Street bar. Darby said she would sponsor me and that a dozen other girls would be there trying out too.
"So I went. I mean I always secretly wanted to be a bunny serving tables. I met Darby outside the bar right after I finished work. I was dressed as I am now -- minus the tail -- and Darby had a pretty cocktail dress on. We went in and headed straight to the back. Some loud guys at the bar were trying to peek into the backroom and asked if there was a bachelorette party going on. Darby just ignored them and closed the door leaving us alone in a narrow hallway. She told me I had to be blindfolded so if I didn't make it, I couldn't bother the girls who were chosen since I would never have seen them. She also had me press this bunny tail against the back of my skirt using both hands. She said not to let it get pulled away or I wouldn't make it past the first step. I also had to really truly want to be a bunny. I had to keep saying that to myself and keep pushing against the tail firmly.
