Keep it a secret

“We have to keep it a secret, Charles,” Raymond told me. “If your parents, your father even, knew that you were Charlene, he'd shut the position down to everyone else on X-Change. Maybe he was lenient towards the last guy, but if he found out his own son became a woman to help out the business, he'd imagined all the nasty things your cousin did to drive up our popularity.”

“You don't know that,” I argued.

“I don't. But what's the likelihood he'd accept you as a girl. You didn't really show any interest in being gay when you were a kid, so it would come as a big surprise. No, we shouldn't tell them.”

“Alright,” I concede, deciding that it would be best for everyone's sake that the truth that we would be the ones becoming the new hostesses at Orchid Karaoke Studios would be kept secret.

Raymond, as Rachel, was the first to apply. From what he told me, he put his female foot in the door, so to speak, so that his.... no, her, friend could also apply. My father reasoned that since she was young and there was only one position for hostess, he'd allow Rachel to work for only four hours. This was good since the pills we could afford on our paychecks, X-Change Classic, only lasted for four hours. If we needed more time, we could take another, as they stacked indefinitely.

I applied the day after, showing him only my secondary ID card, telling him I left my other ID at home. I thought he'd be hard to convince, but I guess he was thinking about the good of the business. He gave me the same conditions as he gave to Raymond and informed me that his son would show me around.

We had to make it look believable, as my father's willingness to hire our female selves was only a probationary matter. He'd be present to supervise. I made excuses to him that I would not be at the studio when Charlene was supposed to go on training, so he ceded and allowed Raymond to be Charlene's trainer. The training was mainly to keep up the appearance that we were doing well and to prevent my father, who was the big boss at the studio, from letting the young hostesses go too soon.

Once the probationary period was over, we made plans to always have a Classic pill on hand, just in case a customer needed the presence of a hostess. In time, once the customers got to know our female identities, they would call for them by name, just like how they did with my late cousin.