Friday

A latex outfit grows out of some guy's body as his apartment changes around him. Mature.

One Friday, entirely by accident, George found he had kicked up the corner of the rug of reality.

Before then, it had been the sort of day that left him desperate for the weekend. A late shift at work bled into the bus ride home into the rain washing down as he walked to his apartment building. Cold and damp, George started climbing the stairs to his floor. As soon as he got in, he was going to peel off his clothes, dunk himself in the shower, and then crawl into bed until tomorrow afternoon.

When he stepped onto his floor, he spotted a woman leaned back against the wall opposite his front door. What caught his eye wasn't her posture or the way she was casually checking her phone or her unfamiliar face, but the fact that from her diamond- studded collar down to the tips of her toes, every inch of her was wrapped up in a pink latex catsuit. Her lips and her hair were so brightly pink they could have been made of candy. Next to all that, her plain black jacket looked out of place.

She didn't look up as George walked to his front door. Still, he knew she'd noticed him and was politely pretending to ignore him. He pulled his keys from his pocket. He could feel her attention boring into his back, but if he looked and she wasn't staring at him, he'd be the weird one. Something about him was interesting, but he didn't want to be interesting. He wanted to be warm, and dry, and asleep.

With the door swung shut behind him, standing in his kitchen-slash-living room, he felt comfortable again. What was someone dressed like that doing hanging around here? A neighbor he hadn't seen before, maybe, or someone's girlfriend. It was enough of an answer to put his mind to rest.

George peeled off his soaked clothes in the bathroom. Once the shower was running hot, he stepped in, pulled the curtain, and doused his head in the steamy water. At last, he could put everything out of his mind—work, the storm, the woman in the hall—and just savor the simple pleasure of a hot shower. He rolled his head and shoulders back and forth. In his head, he was already pulling the sheets up over his shoulders and sinking down into his pillow.

Might as well wash off, too. He gave himself a quick scrub with the soap, then ran his hands over his body as he washed off the suds: face, arms, torso, legs...torso, legs. He brushed up and down his chest and stomach again. It was slick beneath his fingers, like he hadn't quite gotten the soap off. He dipped his shoulders under the spray again and splashed the water against his sides until he felt sure all the soap would be gone.

Dripping onto the bath mat, George buried his face in his towel and ruffled it through his hair. His bathroom was small enough that the only place to stand was in front of the small sink and mirror. Tossing his towel back onto its bar, he looked into the mirror and ran his hand over his stomach. It wasn't soap. His skin was smooth. Not a just-shaved sort of smooth, but almost polished.

He pinched his stomach. His skin pressed back against his fingertips, elastic and thick. That was when he noticed his navel was wrong: a shallowed-out depression where his belly button should have been, like he was wearing a too-tight shirt. He didn't believe it until he prodded it with a finger. As far as he could tell, it was still there, but there was some smooth layer just beneath the surface of his skin.

From the top of his chest down to his legs, George felt that same satin smoothness wherever he moved his hands. He stared into the mirror. This couldn't be real.

Just then, the fluorescent light above the mirror burst like a soap bubble. In its place swelled up a row of round glass bulbs, washing the bathroom in bright, warm light. George stepped back, staring up at the new vanity lights while his sink sprouted a counter on either side, and the faucet stretched up into a tall, swan-like arch.

His bathroom had been curled up so tight for so long, it was eager to stretch out its shower stall and kick off its linoleum floor. Marble tiles spread underneath George's feet as he pressed himself back against the wall, wide-eyed. Fresh bottles of shampoo and moisturizer jostled for space as built-in shelves sprouted into being above a lavish bath tub. The walls rippled as they toasted themselves to a tasteful, creamy tan. The mirror grew wider on each side, reflecting George's shock in a well-lit panoramic view.

The sight of his own face brought George back from the dreamlike sight of his bathroom pampering itself. A dash of red had warmed his lips, and his eyes bore a thin trace of eyeliner. What was happening? Rubbing the back of his wrist across his mouth, he reached for the counter and stepped forward.

There was a taut tug between his thighs, pulling them back together. Confused, almost dizzy, George leaned back and reached down between his legs. His fingertips slid along the too-silky surface of his thighs, until they found where his skin rose up and thinned out, like some kind of membrane. Some kind of smooth, squeaky, elastic membrane.

Between his thighs stretched black latex, starting at the base of his crotch and reaching halfway down to his knees. There was no seam between it and his skin; it rose straight out of the surface of his legs, shifting smoothly from flesh to solid black rubber. A second flap of latex stretched behind the first, separated by maybe half an inch.

George tugged at the latex with a finger. The sudden shifting tensions across and between his legs were strange and sensitive and enough to send a chill down his spine. Now that he was watching, he could see that they were growing, too. The edges stretched down further, squeezing out of his skin to form more latex as they inched further toward his knees. At the same time, the latex spread outward, moving toward the tops and the backs of his thighs. Inch by inch, his legs were growing into a latex skirt.

"Oh god," George breathed as he rose back up. The counter had populated itself with a small assortment of creams, while a golden-tan hand towel now hung just within reach. Maybe it was the bathroom doing this—it was changing, and it was dragging him along, too. Maybe if he got out, it would stop. But just as he turned to leave, something in his reflection caught his eye.

Bumps. A series of ridges, each about an inch long, ran like ripples around his chest. They wrapped over his left shoulder and underneath his right. He ran his hand over them. The smooth, undulating texture at once fascinated and worried him. Before his eyes, the ridges were slowly creeping longer, their crests rising higher. Though it escaped his notice for now, the same texture was emerging on the side of his left leg, too, just above the knee.

George made for the door, but his stride was too long and tugged the latex tight between his thighs, which yanked his legs back together in retaliation. He stumbled up against the wall, then tried again, walking with a smaller, more careful step. Opening the bathroom door, he slipped back into his bedroom.

Whatever was happening to his bathroom had left his bedroom alone. He anxiously paced around the space between the foot of his bed and his desk, trying to form some plan of action. What could he do? Dig out his phone and call someone? Just say, 'Hi, I've got latex growing out of my skin and my bathroom just exploded into a fancier bathroom. Can I get an ambulance?'

Bits of static drifted in the corners of his eyes. He was hyperventilating. He needed to sit down. George plopped onto his bed and tried to breathe evenly. Every time his chest rose, he felt the ripples stretch tighter, and his elastic skin squeeze his ribcage back down. It wasn't stopping, it was getting worse. Stop looking. Calm down. He had to think about this rationally.

Maybe that woman in the hall was some kind of rubber witch?

So much for thinking rationally.

While George tried to reason his way out, the latex kept spreading along his legs. On the left side, it had reached the corner of his knee and seemed to halt there, while on the right, it kept on stretching down the side of his calf. Behind his back, it had grown far enough that it stretched between his ass cheeks, and felt like he was actually wearing something instead of sitting naked on the bed.

A tugging sensation at the base of his crotch brought George out of his thoughts. The latex had risen up high enough to reach his package, and was now beginning to swallow it up. He clutched the sheets and grasped at his crotch, but his groping did little to help. The latex stretched and flattened his balls as it passed over them, squeezing them, melding with the skin until they were a bulge on the surface of the latex. Was this what getting shrink-wrapped felt like? He grit his teeth and squirmed and ground his palm against his crotch, but the latex kept rising across his loins.

The surface met the underside of his penis. His fingers balled into a fist around the sheets, one knee bent up toward his chest. The shape of his shaft stretched and sunk into the latex. The skin turned smooth and glossy. It was strange and tender and sensitive, but with each moment, the feeling grew more and more diffuse until he couldn't feel it at all. A few tingles lingered in the space where his cock should have been. One last shudder struck his shoulders as the latex slipped up past his crotch.

Panting, George frantically tried to probe what he now had between his legs, though he could take a guess. The ripples around his chest were a full two inches long now, their shape more pronounced the further down they went. Starting from the bottom, his fair skin was giving way to a darker, glossier shade. One or two of the ridges popped free from his chest, leaving a little hole he could have wiggled his finger under, though he fought the compulsion to do so. They were ever-present; where they dipped under his right arm, he kept brushing them, and he was constantly aware of their faint weight against his chest.

More ripples rose out of his skin where the skirt met his knee, growing longer and more layered than the ones on his chest. The pattern stretched far enough to spread to the latex itself, forming slow, rippling pleats that swept down toward his ankle on the other side.

George bit down on the edge of his lip and scratched at the strange texture on his chest. They wobbled as his fingers ran over them, and a few more slipped free to hang loose from the upper edge, but their shape still grew rounder and more pronounced by the minute.

Meanwhile, his room had decided to give itself a thorough makeover, and it wasn't wasting any time. George noticed he was sliding backwards; he hopped up to his feet and spun around just in time to see the whole mattress slam back into the wall. His closet disgorged an entire rack of clothes, and his window dropped down to the floor to grow into a full-length mirror. Above his desk, his monitor transmuted itself into a vanity ringed with bright lights, and before his eyes, his keyboard fell apart into a pile of cosmetics.

Suddenly George was struggling to breathe. He doubled over, bracing himself against the desk and clutching his stomach. Beneath his fingers, his skin was smooth and polished and squeaked against his nails. Stretching upward and outward from his legs, the latex was spreading over the rest of his torso. Its tighter-than-skin-tight grip slowly enveloped his thighs and hips, squeezed around his stomach, and constricted his chest all the way up to his shoulders. It bound him so tightly he was left gasping for air against the mounting tightness.

He wasn't just growing a skirt, he was growing a whole dress. And it was sculpting him into a perfect fit.

George dug his nails into the slick rubber surface and tried to pull it away from but it clung to his stomach so tightly it could have been vacuum-packed. The thwap as it snapped back into place nearly knocked the air out of him. Turning his back to the vanity, he glanced over his shoulder and groped for a clasp or a zipper or anything that would help him strip off his dress. All he could see was the smooth latex, rising higher and higher along his spine.

The dress squeezed again. It bore down tight across his midsection, while dragging at either side of his hips with its suction-tight grip. No matter how he tugged or pushed or squirmed, he couldn't stop it from reshaping him in its image. The curves of his new figure played off the asymmetrical hem of the skirt and made it cling all the tighter to his thighs.

That was it. No more sitting around, no more worrying what to do. He had to get out and find whatever help he could, before whatever this was changed him completely. Standing up straight and smoothing out the front of his emerging dress, he began to march, with short careful steps, toward the door.

As his bedroom got comfortable in its new role as a changing room, a frame sprouted from the wall, then blossomed out into a big brass case large enough to hold a poster—which promptly rolled down into the frame. 'TONIGHT ONLY' it said, in letters that framed a gorgeous woman's face, her red lips nearly brushing the chrome of the microphone she cradled in one hand. 'FRIDAY'.

George's eyes lingered on the poster, then shifted slightly. He could see his reflection in the glass: the bolder makeup that brought out his soft lips, the sweep of red hair tumbling down one side of his face as if it was styled, the same sparkle behind those long lashes as the woman on the poster.

After a moment of surprise, George resolutely decided not to think about that at all, and to focus instead on getting out. He set out again for the door, hoping that, at least, he'd still be in his house when he opened it.

With each step, the ruffles of his dress bounced against him. As they grew rounder and heavier and more striking, they began to bounce against one another. If they were silk or satin, their swaying might have added a faint swish to the sound of his steps; being rubber, it was more of a soft fllp-fllp as he walked.

George gripped the doorknob, took a breath, and pushed the door open. For a moment, his same old boring apartment was there, and he felt a small wash of relief. Then, the far wall began to retreat, and the kitchen counter stretched longer and longer to make room for the multiplying stools filling its length. Velvet curtains slipped down the walls as the ceiling shot up so fast, it nearly gave him vertigo. The TV spilled open into a stage, stretching out into the room and unfurling both a microphone stand and a tall, polished pole.

With a scowl on his red lips, George set his sights on the receding front door and strutted toward it as quickly as he could in his dress. The brisk pace set the latex frills bouncing again, swishing back and forth until at last they blossomed into a thick bouquet of rubber ruffles, draping against his body, swinging with every step, and trimmed with a fetching blue to accentuate their outline. Their flouncing flourish added a air of elegance to the skin-tight ensemble.

Halfway to the door, just as he'd come up alongside the kitchen-turned-bar that was dutifully stocking its mirrored cabinets with liquor, George stumbled. His feet slipped beneath him. He managed to catch himself, a little sore but no worse for the wear, but as soon as he had sat up, he was tugging at the hem of his dress, trying to get a look at his feet.

From the undersides of his heels descended a pair of thick black spikes, while a chunk of polished black sole stretching from the balls of his feet had curled his toes into a tight arch. Smooth black shoes filled in the gaps between his toes, smoothed them out, and swallowed them up, like wet sand on the beach bubbling up around his feet. Straps emerged from his ankles as arches curled from heel to toe, forming a pair of polished, high-heeled black pumps.

As soon as he could get his feet beneath him, George was perched up on his new shoes, swaying and clicking and swishing toward the door with a careful tiptoe step.

Finally, he reached the door. While the rest of George's apartment was busy tidying itself up into a high-class establishment, complete with a chandelier sprouting from the ceiling like a time-lapse tree, the front door was the only thing that had remained unchanged. It was still there, brown and scuffed at the corners and entirely out of place against the velvet-curtained wall, like it had been put there as a prop.

George leaned against the door and stretched up to reach the peep hole—even in his heels, he had to stretch, though it had always been at eye level before. Outside his door, in the hallway of his apartment, he could see the woman who'd been waiting there earlier—but now there was a whole crowd accompanying her, at least twenty people that he could see, all dressed up in one way or another, and all waiting. George pulled back. Waiting, but for what?

Above him, the bright overhead lights flicked off. The brand-new hall was lit only by the chandelier hanging high above, and the bar lights, and the underlighting along the walls, all of which cast the mood somewhere between sophisticated and salacious.

That was what.

George slipped off to the side, tugging again at his dress to try to squeeze out of it. Even though it was no longer growing out of him, no longer part of his skin, he just couldn't peel it off. If he pulled in one direction, it just squeezed harder against him in the other. His shoes were likewise so snug he couldn't wriggle his feet out of him. His eyes hunted all around the hall, searching for some other exit, but there was none. After all, his apartment only had the one door.

Maybe he could stay inside. The people outside weren't coming in. And he might be able to find his phone, if it hadn't gotten eaten in the renovations. Maybe he could just...wait this out.

And then that tight, constricting feeling struck him again, except this time, it wrapped all the way around him, from his feet to his head. He was squeezed and stretched, his lips plucked and pouted, his cheekbones pushed higher, his jaw kneaded and softened. In the corners of his eyes, he could just catch the red on his cheeks, the gloss of his lips, and the dark eyeliner that made his eyes seem to sparkle.

He knew how they sparkled. He'd seen it on the poster in the changing room.

When the tightness passed, he unclenched his fists and let out a sigh of relief. He couldn't risk waiting around here, letting who knew what happened to him. This was his plan: He was going to open the door and book it through the crowd. He didn't know what going on, what these people wanted, or what he had to do with any of it.

George straightened his back. He took a deep breath. He reached for the door and pulled it open.

In stepped the woman he'd seen waiting in the hall—first in line. Before he even had a chance to move, she threw her arms around him, squeezed him tight enough that their outfits squeaked together, and gave him a polite peck on the side of his cheek.

"Friday!" she said, as if she knew him somehow. "The place looks great. And I love what you've done with your hair!"

While George brushed his fingers through the wave of red hair falling down his cheek, pressed and brushed so smooth and silky it could have been latex too, the woman in pink slipped right past him into the club.

Stunned and trying to process what was happening, George watched her go for a few moments, until someone gripped his waiting hand and shook it. He turned back around to see a couple, arm in arm, both dressed in powerful black tuxedos that offered a peek at the glossy black accoutrement they wore beneath.

"You look wonderful this evening, Ms. Friday," the woman said, taking George by the hand and kissing his knuckles.

One by one, the hall filled up while George was practically trapped there, smiling and greeting everyone as politely as he could while being utterly, completely confused. They all seemed to know him, or at least, they knew this Friday that they seemed to think he was.

All the while, he felt the little tweaks and tugs of his new look settling in, hiking his heels a little higher, or giving his cheeks a bit more pop, or adding a splash of blue to his fingernails. To top off his outfit, a yellow blossom bloomed its way out of his hair, tucked just above her ear. Despite his attempts to discreetly clear his throat between guests, George felt a lump rising into his larynx, which squeezed his voice into something sweet and flowery.

He was going to be stuck there all night if he didn't get away from the front door. "You'll have to excuse me," he said to the woman dressed as a very convincing devil, down to the glowing eyes, swaying spade-tipped tail, and faint smell of brimstone. "I need to, uh, take care of something."

"Of course, don't let us keep you," the demoness said. "I'm sure we're all looking forward to the show."

George gave her an acknowledging smile, even though he didn't know what she was talking about, and slinked away from the front door as fast as he could. The club was filling up rather quickly; groups of people (at least, he presumed they were people) milled about while unobtrusive jazz played from speakers high above.

George did an admirable job of getting around despite his dress and heels, but it was still a relief to slip up onto one of the bar stools and take his weight off of his feet. He'd give everyone a few minutes to filter in, he decided, and then when he could get to the door without being intercepted, he'd slip out.

The bartender spotted George and came quickly over. She was dressed in a corset, bowtie, and white cufflinks that straddled the edge between sultry and cheesy; if she'd had rabbit ears too, it would have pushed the whole thing right over. "Uh oh," she said, looking down at George."You need a drink, Ms. Friday?"

George's head perked up. He'd been called that enough in the past ten minutes that he couldn't help the reflex. He took a deep breath, then said, "...yeah." Batting his hair away from his face, he turned to take another look around the club. He leaned over the bar and lowered his voice to ask, "Who are these people?"

The bartender tipped her head to look past George while she mixed up something quick. "Lot of regulars tonight. Oh, I do see some new folks, though." She pointed. "Might be your neighbors."

Two women in matching tall-booted, long-sleeved white latex outfits, each holding a leash attached to the steel collar around the other's neck, were chatting with someone in an Anubis mask. George didn't recognize them at all, but then neither would anyone else if they saw him now, looking for all the world like...Friday.

George picked up the shot glass and gulped it down: vodka, flavored with pineapple and coconut, like some kind of stripped-down piña colada. "Why does everyone think I'm this Friday person?" he asked.

The bartender, looking thoughtful, leaned an elbow on the bar. "Well, you are," she said. "At least while you're here, you are. First time hosting, huh?"

George only had more questions, but a cry of, "Friday! Ms. Friday!" cut them short, and was soon followed by a young woman jogging up to George's side. The demure look of her fetish maid's uniform was somewhat confused by the clipboard she hugged to her chest and the small headset tucked over one ear. "Oh, thank goodness," she sighed, then switched immediately to a stern pout. "It's two minutes before you're supposed to be on stage and you're drinking? Come on, mistress, let's go."

The maid-slash-stage manager snagged George-slash-Friday by the elbow and dragged him away from the bar. Once he'd been hauled backstage, she pushed a cup of honey tea into his hands, then buzzed around while George sipped the tea and wished he could have slipped out while he had the chance.

She came to a stop in front of George again, checking the watch on the inside of her wrist. "All right, Friday. You're on in twenty."

"Wait. What should I do? I don't...I don't know—" George gulped back the crack in his voice.

The maid gave him a reassuring smile and clapped him on the shoulders. "It'll be fine. It's you they're here to see. Just go out there and let loose."

Then, all at once, George was pushed out onto the stage. The house lights dimmed to highlight him and him alone, his figure, the gleam dancing over the curves of his dress and bouncing across each fold of his ruffles. Everything was quiet now, except for the clicking of his heels against the varnish and the fllp-fllp of the dress swishing back and forth.

He could leave. He could leave. All the social pressure in the world didn't have to keep him here if he wanted to leave. But he wasn't leaving. He was nervous, but he wasn't leaving, and he wasn't sure why, but the answer was at the end of the stage.

Out in the audience, there was the woman in pink who'd been waiting in the hall, and the couple in the tuxedo suits. There was the sulphurous demoness and the matching pair with their collars. There were figures of featureless white latex, sitting stiffly with their blank faces toward her; there was a three-headed beast stretched out in a chair in nothing but straps and belts and clasps. They were all waiting.

George rested his hand on the microphone and brought it to his lips. He dug down deep inside himself and found Friday there, where she'd been all along, and let her loose right on cue.

Friday was a hit. So was her show—she kept getting compliments on it for the rest of the night as people passed by her, but in person, she outshined even her own performance. She was curious, she was eager, she was passionate, and being tonight's host, everyone was eager to meet her. She got to know quite a few of the guests, and she really got to know a select few, including the woman in pink and the pair who might have been her neighbors. (She didn't want to bring it up; it felt rude to ask.)

The night stretched out long and lovely, and Friday enjoyed as much of it as she could, though at last, tired out from her trysts, she politely draped herself along a couch and drifted off an hour or two before the party was over. Still, everyone agreed she was an excellent host, especially for a first-timer.

At two-thirty in the afternoon on Saturday, George woke up, bundled snugly in his sheets. No groggy grumbling, no tossing and turning, no stiff neck or sore back. He almost didn't believe he was awake. Since when did he wake up feeling good?

He remembered having a dream. A really weird, and extremely horny dream, but it had to have been a dream, because he was in his normal bed, in his normal room, in his normal apartment, in his normal body, wearing a pair of normal boxers. But sitting on his bedside table was an envelope that hadn't been there before, with writing on the front in a smooth hand that read, "For being such a good sport."

George leaned over and picked up the envelope. There was nothing but a business card inside, with three lines written on it, but they made his skin prickle with a sort of excitement that made every last moment of last night come surging back to the forefront of his mind.

On the business card was a random address, a date and time next week, and the words, "Host: Evelyn. Come as you wish to be."