Ettie was the next to approach Donna, dancing up with her body mostly as it had been before.  She was transparent from breasts to hips, but the golden sand she’d been sporting had become something translucent that sloshed as she moved.  “Can you help me?  I wanted something more liquid, but still golden.”

Donna peered at her curiously.  “What on Earth?”

Ettie giggled.  “I think it’s beer.”

Donna laughed along with her.  “Well.  I see two paths ahead.  One is to turn you into a keg...”

Ettie contemplated that with a grin.  “Maybe another time?  I really want to get this right, all shiny and smooth inside.”

“Might be a health violation, anyway,” said Donna.  “So...  Something gold-coloured, but shiny like mercury?  But maybe not so heavy?”

“Oh!  Yeah, that’d probably be for the best.”

Donna turned her gaze inward as she mused on the subject, trying to think of a substance that had all the characteristics in question.  While she was doing so, Ettie cooed happily.  “Oh, that’s looking better already.”

“But...”  Donna watched the liquid inside Ettie change, eyes widening.  She’d only conceived of the parameters, not the substance.  It was still changing, becoming exactly as Ettie had asked.

Once the change had completed, and the golden fluid inside the hourglass was fully opaque and shiny as a polished mirror, Ettie started dancing, the liquid slowly sloshing as she did.  “Oh, it’s perfect.  Not too heavy, just right.  What is it?”

Donna studied the stuff, and started to laugh.  “It’s more or less pure magic, encouraged to act as you wanted.  I could turn it into anything else in a moment.”  The liquid flickered through copper, ruby, green and back to gold.

“Oh!  Can you make it cycle colours like that whenever it runs out?  That’d be cool.”

Donna grinned.  “Automatically?  Yeah, I think... yup, all set.  Go have fun!”

“I will!” enthused Ettie as she bounced toward the stage, the shimmering liquid inside her sloshing as she did.

Gwen grinned.  “Pretty.  She’s going to want something more in a bit.”

“Good,” chuckled Donna.  “She challenges me to come up with new ideas.  I like it.”

“Just like?” asked Gwen lightly.  “Because she’s going well past like.  I think she’s infatuated with magic.  And with you.”

“Ah, she’d be that way with anyone that can fulfill her fantasies.  Maybe I should have you do the honours from here on out.  You’d make a cute couple.”

“Yeah, but a couple of what?  I don’t need a...”  Gwen’s eyes went distant.

“A shapeshifty pet to play with?  Are you sure?” asked Donna, grinning.

Gwen grinned back, and at a gesture Donna shrunk down to a shining crystal cat.  Gwen picked the cat up and took a seat at the edge of the green room, placing Donna in her lap.  “I already have one of those.”

Donna mewed happily and settled in.  Gwen and Donna stayed like that as further requests came in.  Most of the dancers had used the power granted to them to make various little changes to themselves, and from time to time would timidly draw a little more to tweak a minor detail.  But for anything complex or requiring finesse, they’d approach Gwen.  Getting four breasts to look natural proved to be trickier than three of the dancers had thought, so they each approached Gwen for help in getting it ‘right’.  Each had a different definition of what that meant, to boot.

Ettie approached them after a few fantasies had been set up, and asked if they could set up her hourglass to do something “more interesting” when it ran out.  Donna and Gwen shared a look, then the cat nodded.

“Um, so... what will happen?”

Donna only mewed inscrutably.  Ettie giggled.  “I guess I’ll find out in ten minutes. Or more if I have a little lie-down before my next set.  I’m too curious to wait too long, but having it happen on stage would be so cool...”  She darted off to check her schedule with Neysa.

Gwen laughed.  “Think she’ll enjoy what you set up?”

“I don’t think it even matters what I set up, to be honest,” purred Donna.  “But yeah.”

Vanessa approached them next, and Donna changed herself into a white-furred catgirl to hug her properly.  “Thank you for the song.  What can I do for you?”

Vanessa looked worried, and before her stammered explanation could become coherent, Donna put a paw on her arm.  “You can ask literally anything of me, without fear.”

Vanessa nodded, gathered her wits, and began again.  “My tail is still a person.  She didn’t want me to bring her to the club, because you’d ‘make her real’.  But it’s getting to me. I haven’t swum as a mermaid more than a couple times a week since she refused to come here last month. Can you help?”

“Of course I can,” Donna replied with a serene smile.  “Do you want a new tail, or the ability to turn Pat off in the old one?”

“Neither!  I want her out, able to…”

Donna nodded.  “She’ll just go right back to being a possession, you know.”

“That’s her problem.  I just don’t want to own her any more.  I can’t do it,” said Vanessa, wringing her hands.

Donna pulled her in for another hug.  “I’m sorry.  If I had any idea it would be such a problem…”

Vanessa shook her head.  “No, don’t blame yourself. When I thought it would just be a month, it was fun.  She figured out how to communicate, we had a great time.  Really.  But it’s someone else’s turn now.”

Donna nodded.  “I should visit Ray’s place anyway, I need to see Unit Kate.  I’ll take care of Pat while I’m there.”

“Oh, you don’t need to go to Ray’s for that.  I brought her with me tonight.  I realized that if she is my possession she doesn’t get to choose.”

“Oh?  I didn’t feel her here…” Donna sent her senses outward.  “Oh!  You used silver on her.  You know how I feel about that!”

Vanessa held her hands up defensively as if it would do any good.  “Sorry, I thought it would quiet her down.  It didn’t actually do much.”

“Of course not,” soothed Gwen.  “The tail was her real form, after all.  I doubt she’d mind being silvered for a little while.  Can you take it off and bring her here, please?”

Vanessa nodded and darted off.

Donna hugged Gwen.  “Thanks.  I was close to doing something rash.”

“I know.  Part of the service, keeping the wrathful Goddess at bay.  Or belly-skritched so she stays in a good mood.”

Donna was purring up a storm in Gwen’s lap when Vanessa returned, hauling the tail over her shoulder.  It was squeaking in protest at being at the club.

“Hush, Pat.  You know why she can’t keep you.”

“But I don’t want to be normal!” wailed the tail as a mousy form emerged from within it.  “Please…”

Gwen gestured to the mouseling’s feet.  The last part to emerge, they were made of brass, not flesh.  A wooden base held both fixed.  “Property of the Crazy Eights victor?” read Pat.  “That’ll work nicely!”

“Good,” purred Donna.  “I’ll make this your default form.”

“Until someone wins me?” asked Pat hopefully.

“That depends on what they want, not what you want.”

Pat squirmed in place.  “I can’t wait!”

Gwen tapped a button on the back of Pat’s base and the mouseling stopped moving, going still and silent as a brassy sheen overtook her.  “Ooh, nifty.  An off button.  Can she still think?”

Donna nodded.  “Yep, she’s in heaven.”

Gwen set the new trophy mouse on a nearby counter and turned back to Vanessa.  “Something is still wrong.”

Vanessa nodded guiltily until Donna reassured her that she wanted her “choir leader” to be happy with her gift.  She then admitted that the tail didn’t feel real enough when she wore it.  “I want the mermaid to be real, and this version whatever it takes to play at being human when I need to.”

“Modular legs?” suggested Gwen.  “Her top half can stay the same, and be fully biological.”

“Wait, would that mean my tail wouldn’t be biological?  That’s fine for the legs, but I’d prefer a real tail.”

Donna’s body faded out as she contemplated the problem.  It flicked back in as a crystal pillar beside Gwen.  “I can do it, but the tail would be a quasi-independent creature.  It’d have gill-fins to get air underwater, and be able to share oxygen with your human half.  It would need to eat, so it would have to have an independent mouth.  Where would you like it?”

Vanessa asked to see a few alternatives, and settled on a broad concealed mouth just below her hips that she declared “creepy as hell” but loved all the same.

Ettie bounced back into the room, giggling up a storm.  Her head was dangling between her legs, and her hips were where her shoulders should have been.  “You made my body flip over when I ran out!  Will that happen again?”

Donna and Gwen giggled.  “Mmmaybe,” said Donna.  “Maybe something different will happen.”

“Cool!” exclaimed Ettie, who hurried off to find Neysa again.

“I thought you set it up as a one-shot,” said Gwen once Ettie was out of earshot.

Donna became feline again just so she could smirk with maximum effectiveness.  “Not any more.  Though we’ll have to keep an eye on her after the second upcoming change.  She’ll be helpless.”

“I doubt she’ll mind,” said Gwen.

Donna purred softly.  “I want to see how she reacts.”

After a few more minor transformations, Rowan approached the two of them.  “Your presence has been requested at the Crimson Kitten.”

“Oh?” asked Gwen.  “C’mon, you should see what Ray’s done with the place.”

“But I haven’t had a chance to do anything to it yet!” protested Donna as Gwen tugged her hand, leading her toward the door between the club and the restaurant.  “I thought he wanted me to work on it like I did with the apartments.”

“Everything was ready a couple weeks ago, so Ray moved a bunch of his less-racy art in and called it good.  He might have some ideas on how to tweak it later, but it has a fun vibe as it is.”

Donna laughed softly.  “Why am I disappointed by that?”

“Don’t be.  You still have work to do there.  On the waitresses.”

Gwen pushed the door open, revealing a second door offset by a few feet so that there were no direct sightlines between club and restaurant even with both open.  She hesitated before the second door.  “Um, maybe you should be wearing something other than just fur.”

Donna became human again, clad in a shimmering white dress.  “Right.  Not the club.”

Gwen snickered.  “Not yet, anyway.  I don’t think the health department will go for clothing-optional restaurants.  But after hours, Ray has said we can use the space for fantasies.”

Donna pushed through the second door to see the space in question.  It was as big as the main floor in the Blue Vixen, with room for seventeen tables in the middle, and nine booths around the edges.  It looked fairly quiet, with only a half dozen tables and two booths in use.  Two waitresses were busy, one bringing out a bill, the other clearing a table.  Both were wearing bright red cat-ears on hair bands.

“Oh.  Yeah.  We could do amazing things in here.”

“Careful girl, don’t go starting the changes just yet.  This place is getting a rep as a family-friendly restaurant.  Heck, there are even some kids over at the corner booth right now.  They’re up late...”

Donna shrugged.  “Eh, kids are adaptable.  And those two look like they’re almost teens.  Ugh, I suppose that’s another problem, making sure nobody underage wanders over to the other side.”

“Probably.”  Gwen pointed to the ‘Employees Only’ sign on the door they’d emerged from.  “You’d be surprised how effective that is.”

“Better than a ‘danger, sexy shapeshifty women ahead’ sign, I’m sure.”

Gwen giggled and took Donna’s hand once more, leading her to the kitchen.  “Rowan said you wanted to see us?”

A narrow-faced man with salt-and-pepper hair looked up.  “Oh!  Is this Donna?  I’ve heard a lot about you, but never had the pleasure.  You’re the one that turns Neysa into Marilyn Monroe from time to time?”

“Yeah.  Though she’s learning how to do that herself, at least when I’m near.”  Donna reached for his outstretched hand, and was surprised to be pulled into a hug.  “So I take it you’re Angus?”

He nodded.  “The rest of the place may be your domain, but this part is mine.  No magic in here, save the culinary kind.”

“What about the wait-staff?” asked Donna.  “The ears are cute, but could be real.”

“Marsha’s our hostess.  The waitresses are her responsibility.”  A shout from behind him made him half-turn away from Donna.  “I should get back to work, it was a pleasure meeting you at last.”  He strode over to where an assistant was fretting over a pot of soup.

Gwen and Donna got out of the way, heading to the front of the restaurant instead.  “Marsha?” asked Gwen to the well-dressed woman up front.  She looked to be in her early thirties, with long chestnut brown hair and a runner’s build.

Marsha nodded, and asked “You’re from the club?”

Gwen introduced herself and Donna.  “You’ll probably see a fair bit of us, especially if we’re going to upgrade the waitress outfits.  Those ears are cute, but we can do so much better.”

“Oh, you mean like Beth’s bunny ears?   How did you manage that, anyway?”

Gwen opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again.  “Uh, we’ll have to show you instead of telling.  Which one of your waitresses is most adventurous?”

“Other than Beth?  Kaylee, I think.”  She waved to the waitress that had been clearing a table and gestured her over.

At Gwen’s suggestion the four of them retired to the break room, where another waitress was changing into street clothes.  Beth waved in passing as Marsha sent her to cover the front desk.

“So what are you going to show me?” asked the hostess, eyes alight with curiosity.

Instead of answering, Donna asked Kaylee what her favorite animal was.  Kaylee immediately replied “tigers”.

A moment later, real tiger ears were sprouting from her head.  Kaylee stripped off her cat-ear headband and stared at her reflection as her new ears twitched back and forth.  “They’re real!  So Beth…”

“Has been transformed into a number of things, by us,” said Donna, taking Gwen’s hand.  “Last month she spent a while as a towel.”

“So we get to be real catgirls while we work here?  Awesome!” enthused Kaylee.

“How many of the others would answer the same way?”

Kaylee looked over at the other waitress who was staring at her ears in wonder.  “Rikki, would you like real cat ears instead of fakes?”

The blonde nodded eagerly.  “Does it have to be cats?  I’d love fennec ears.  Oh!”  She put her hands to the sides of her head where her ears were shifting and growing.  “Cool!”

Donna cautioned all of them about ‘magic censorship’ and how it would prevent them from going out in public with their changes visible.

“The restaurant itself isn’t public?” asked Marsha.  “It can’t be, Beth shows her ears.”

“But she has to wear a hat outside.  Others with changes even more extreme than her can’t leave at all.  Ray, the owner of the building, has some apartments for rent here, simplifying their lives.”

Kaylee thought that sounded like a great idea, but her friend fretted about not being able to meet her family or other friends outside work.  “I’d hate to be shut in like that, and... honestly, other than Beth and Kaylee, most of the others would probably react the same.  Can you change us for work every day?”

Donna shook her head, briefly explaining the role of the Moon and its phases.  “I can set you up with much more realistic ears on hair-bands, though.”  She summoned a clear plastic hairband out of pure magic, and formed pretty red cat-ears on it.  They flicked toward Rikki as she cooed over them.

“They’re really cute, and they’d be a huge improvement,” said Rikki.  “But...”

“I want to be a real catgirl.  Fur, tiger-stripes all over, a tail, claws.  The whole nine yards,” said Kaylee.  “But maybe not all the time.”

“I’m not sure that fur would be a good idea,” mused Marsha, watching as it grew over Kaylee’s body.  “Health code issues, you understand.  Shedding on the food would be a problem.”

“I could make it so that it doesn’t shed,” said Donna.  “But that won’t keep people from worrying... perhaps patterned skin would be enough?”

Kaylee sighed.  “I guess.  Claws and tail?”

“And muzzle, digitigrade feet, eyes…”

“That’ll have to do.  The feet sound like trouble, where would I find shoes?”

“I could make your paw-pads tough enough that you wouldn’t need shoes at all.”

Kaylee looked disappointed.  “But I love shopping for shoes!”

“Going shoeless would be a health code issue, to boot,” added Marsha.

“You’re taking all the fun out of this,” huffed Donna.

Kaylee and Marsha accepted the rest of Donna’s proposed changes, and soon the hostess was stalking around her tigergirl waitress, nodding.  “Beautiful work.  I wish all the waitresses could look so good.  Different species, of course, but it’d really jazz up the theme.”

“Hey!” protested Rikki, “I can’t go home with a tail showing, or… Am I growing a muzzle?”

“Wishes tend to come true around me,” grumped Donna.  “Be careful what you wish for.”

“She can get cranky if it’s abused,” cautioned Gwen.  “If you ask nicely, she won’t twist the wish too much.  Unless it’d be funny.”

“I like looking like this, and working here as a real fennec-girl would rock,” said Rikki carefully.  “But I would like to be able to go home human.  Can you please arrange for that?”

Donna looked to Gwen.  “I think we can come up with something.  We could arrange for you to have two bodies, one furry, one not.”

Rikki agreed to try it out, and was soon staring back and forth between her two selves, one human, one part-fennec.  “This is weird,” both said.  “How do you handle it?”

“Most people go for an off-switch.”  Gwen touched the back of the fennec-Rikki’s neck, and that instance of her went still.

“Oh!  Well, that works.  I guess.  I don’t have an off switch for me, do I?” asked Rikki worriedly.  At Donna’s head-shake she continued to fret, “How can I use the other body if this one is on too?  It’ll be so confusing.”

“Sensory deprivation tanks?” suggested Gwen.  Then she looked around the break room. “Yeah, it’d get pretty crowded in here with even a few.”

“Could we make headbands that control the bodies?” asked Kaylee.  “It’d be cool if we could swap things up from time to time.”

Donna and Gwen put their heads together to confer for a time, and came up with the seed of a design.  Donna explained to the waitresses that they’d need a receiver implanted into their brains to transmit the sensations from the headband.  Kaylee was game, but Rikki worried that the crystal could act as an off-switch for her body.  Donna and Gwen soothed that concern by making the choice to limit the real body’s senses entirely voluntary.  

After a little testing, both Rikki and Kaylee were proficient at swapping between their headband-controlled bodies and their own - the trickiest part was timing the shutoff of their own bodies for shortly after the headband was in place.  Rikki got her mind-crystal changed so that it would only shut her down when a headband was attached and she’d ordered a shutdown, and that worked like a charm.  Kaylee kept her crystal in ‘Mark I’ mode, which let her shut her body down whenever she felt like.  Donna went a little further for her, and gave her the option of turning on and off individual senses as well.

Kaylee hugged Donna to thank her when it was done and the changes were made persistent.  “Being able to turn off my sense of smell will help so much when changing my niece’s diapers.  This is great!”

Rikki shook her head.  “I’m almost tempted to ask for her version.  I bet there’ll be takers for both options.  We’ll need more bodies, too.”

Marsha went to find the other waitresses, sending them in one at a time to get their choice of furry serving forms.  Two chose feline forms and one went for a red fox.  At Marsha’s suggestion, Donna also added a couple of red-furred catgirls to the growing rank of furry bodies.  One had black-tipped ears, paws, and tail.  The other was pure red, except for jet black eyes, pawpads, and tongue.  Both had generic builds, unlike the other furry bodies that strongly resembled the server who’d asked for them.

Donna grinned at the row of furry bodies when she was done.  “Now we’re talking.  If you get other waitresses interested, we’ll do them next month.  I can do a temporary version of the crystal later in the week, but it won’t last.”

Marsha thanked the two of them for their help.  “This is going to be so much fun.  I hope the customers like it.”

Donna giggled. “Maybe we should figure out something for the customers to wear, too...  I could make some really nice animal-ear hairbands for those that want to borrow them while here.  Even to the point that they’d enhance the person’s hearing...”

“Next month.  Let’s see how this goes.”

Donna nodded, and headed back to the club with Gwen.  Beth caught up to them at the door, and they promised to give her a full bunny body to match the others if she wanted.  She promised to come by with Clarence once the restaurant closed and clean-up was done.

Back in the green room Donna came face to face with Rowan.  “Did you forget someone?” the older woman asked, archly.

“Ettie!  Oh no!”