Chapter 10

“Welcome to your first day, ladies!” Eun said with a predatory grin on her face as she looked between the two dolled up teens. Revenge on Song was one thing, but she was actually starting to find a little joy watching the feminized boys get pulled further and further into their new girlish roles. When the two faced their warden she gave a slow shake of the head. It was Clear to Eun, they had the duo on edge. She wasn’t sure why they would even bother looking to Bianca for help. Obviously the white lady wasn’t about to do them any favors. Eun scoffed at how pathetic they were. It had been made clear that exemplary job performance was to be expected, and if not, then they already knew the consequences.

The redhead had to get back to work herself and check on Emmanuel, leaving the vindictive woman to take the boys into the back where they were assigned lockers to stow their purses. After filling out their new hire paperwork, and giving them their aprons, and name tags, she instructed, “Emery, you’re going to be training at the makeup counter with Mary, and little sister, you’ll be coming with me. Your mother wants you to start training as a nail tech today.”

Emer just nodded and walked out onto the floor, no clue where he was actually going, while Song meekly stood behind Eun as she collected a handful of supplies. It took him a minute, but he finally managed to summon up the courage to ask a question after a few false starts. “So, I’m going to be doing pedicures or something?”

“No, you’re going to be an apprentice. It takes one-hundred eighty hours to get certified as a nail-tech, so you’ve got at least two months before you’ll be trusted to do anything like that on your own. Until then, you’ll be painting nails while you observe, and occasionally you’ll be learning the more complicated tasks under direct supervision when we’re slow. Don’t be in such a rush little sister. You know in Japan, master sushi chefs spend ten years learning to toast seaweed before moving on to just learning how to make rice. If you work hard, and diligently you can get certified. No need to be in a rush.”

He almost said, ‘Yeah, but we’re Korean.’ before thinking better of it and keeping his mouth shut. ‘I’m going to be back in my boy clothes by then. Why would I need to know all this?’

A bottle of red polish in hand, Eun started walking and talking. She gave no indication that Song should follow, but he knew if he didn’t there would be hell to pay. “First we need to test your skills. Normally when a girl starts here, they at least have some experience, but given your…unique situation, well, we’ll try to be patient, but don’t expect any special treatment. Your first customer is already in the chair waiting, and I’m going to warn you now, she can be very demanding.”

Around the corner Song saw a row of elevated chairs with just as many stools lined up in front of them. In the very last seat, waiting impatiently was his first customer, the owner of the salon, and his mother, Grace Rim.

“Mom!” Song nearly shouted, startled by the sight of her.

The wealthy woman didn’t take her eyes off her cellphone, just saying, “Eun, tell your new trainee that she’s to address me as Mrs Rim when on the clock.”

“Of course, Grace.” Eun said, then immediately reiterating, “Little sister, you are to address her as Mrs. Rim when you’re here. That will not change unless you prove yourself to be an indispensable asset, understood?”

“Bu…” Song started to say before nodding, thinking it best to not speak unless being told to. ‘Keep your mouth shut or she might make you read poetry or sing again.’ he reasoned, making staying quiet feel more like his own choice.

“Okay, girl.” the boy’s mother said coldly, “Get to it. I have a meeting in two hours, and I’m wearing sandals so there better not be a single glob or streak.”

Not enjoying the way his mother was treating him, but not willing to voice the thought, Song unscrewed the little cap, and pulled the brush out along with it. He started to move it towards his mother, turned boss’ big toe, his nervous hand shaking like a leaf, when a drop of polish slipped from the brush, and fell onto the tile floor. A look to Grace was only met with a sneer, while Eun stood beside him, shouting to clean up the mess and start again. A second attempt left a sizable amount of polish streaked across the tip of the woman’s toe.

“Absolutely not.” the owner said, contempt dripping from her words. “Clean it off and do it again.”

“Look, I’m only going to show you this once, so pay attention.” Eun said, snatching the little bottle from his grip. She demonstrated, while explaining, “Apply a slight pressure so the brush fans just a little bit above the cuticle and then push it down to the bottom before pulling it back in one smooth stroke. Make sure to maintain the same speed, and don’t rush. That should prevent any rough spots or globs from forming. No naked spots. Not one.” She then cleaned off her work with another paper towel, and handed the nervous youth the bottle once more. “Try again.”

Song did just that, his hand still not quite steady, but the method he was taught helped the polish go on smoothly, and after the first stroke, he looked up to the two women for approval. His mother still hadn’t taken her eyes off of her phone, and Eun stood there silently. He decided to take the lack of admonishment as a good sign, and continued. It took ten minutes, but he managed to get on the first coat, his hand cramping a little from the unfamiliar task. The second coat went on with only one errant stroke, but it was minor, and Eun explained that that could be cleaned up with a cotton ball and some acetone. If Song didn’t know better, he’d have sworn she almost sounded encouraging.

Once finished, Grace finally broke away from her emails, and inspected the fruits of her child’s labors. To Eun, she said, “That’s satisfactory, but she’ll need to be doing it in a quarter of the time by tomorrow. I trust you’ll make sure of that, Eun. Don’t let me down.”

“I never do, ma’am.” the senior esthetician replied, while Song did his best to not show how much it irked him to be talked about as if he wasn’t there, let alone being referred to as a girl.

The store owner slipped on her shoes, threw her purse over her shoulder, and without another word walked out of the store, leaving Song behind to dwell over the fact that this was only the beginning of what was shaping up to be a very long summer.

After Emer walked out of the back office, he stumbled around the floor with no clue where to go. “Hey, Blondie!” someone shouted, bringing his attention over to the little glass counter on the far end of the shop. There stood the same pink haired girl that had done his makeup on that first visit to the salon, waving both arms over her head to get the dense boy’s attention. “Get over here, girlie!”

The pretty boy strode across the floor with the grace of a wounded sloth, his heels clicking on the glossy tile. At his destination, he leaned on the counter, and channeling his inner Joey Tribbiani of Friends, asked, “How you doin’?”

The petite Asian-American girl giggled, flirtily brushed her colored hair behind her ear. She picked up a sign that read, “Please don’t lean on the glass” and then bopped him on the nose with it.

“I’m Mary, your new supervisor. Any questions?”

Emer was confused. He asked, “Aren’t we, like, the same age?” He couldn’t comprehend how one of his peers could possibly be in charge of anything, when he struggled to match socks.

Mary started pulling items from the display case, and set them out in front of a small mirror, while she explained, “Say what you will about the old witch, but this place is a meritocracy.”

“Meroacrcy?” Emer said, butchering the word. “What does the government have to do with your job?”

“Oh god!” The mischievous makeup artist laughed with a small snort that brought a happy smile to the feminized boy’s face. She said, “You’re going to be a lot of fun, I can tell.” before going back to retrieving an assortment of products.

Mary first got her job at Rim’s not for the paycheck, but because she needed a sponsor for her Youtube channel. That and quality cosmetics were expensive. The firstborn daughter of Vietnamese immigrants in a house containing four generations, she fell in love with makeup while watching her aunt get ready for work as a bartender every evening. Unskilled as one would expect a child to be, she practiced her craft on her little brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles, and anyone else who would dare sit still long enough in front of the precocious child.

MarySue, the name of Mary’s social media, named so because she loved the idea of actually being the trope of a girl who was good at everything. The account had been steadily growing over the course of a year when she hit a plateau in her subscriber count, and the newer and trendier products’ price tags kept going up, so she formulated a plan to get things moving again. She’d shopped at Rim Beauty plenty of times before, it being one of the few boutiques that catered to women of Asian descent. It was the only shop she could find a few choice imported Korean cosmetics she couldn’t get anywhere else without having to pay ludicrous shipping costs. After a long day of googling she got a good idea of the kind of woman the store owner, Grace Rim, was, as well as a look at a picture in some article from a business magazine she normally wouldn’t have cared about in the slightest. Armed with this knowledge, she camped out on the bench in front of the shop until she finally saw the elusive owner standing behind the desk.

Rim beauty only accepted inquiries on their website, but that didn’t stop her from finding a template for a job application online, writing up one of her own, and filling it out like that was a thing people did. Confidently, though half faked, she strode up to the intimidating woman and slapped the piece of paper down on the desk. Grace looked at the brazen teen incredulously, and Mary’s first instinct was to turn around and run, but she stood her ground, and placed her cellphone on top of the piece of paper. The phone was playing a video from her channel, the girl gushing over her most recent haul from Rim. What caught Grace’s eye was the over two-hundred thousand view count on a video posted only a day before. She was impressed, but she certainly didn’t show it.

“So you want a job. What can you bring here that I haven’t already got?” Grace asked.

Mary never once broke eye contact. She’d been accused by family members for being intense before, but now it took much of her effort to not look away or start fidgeting. The girl knew the worst possible answer she could hear was no, and that would definitely be the case if she turned tail and ran like her nerves were telling her to. “You have a great shop, but as far as your makeup sales go, you’re cutting out a huge chunk of the market.” She picked up her phone, and typed in a few key search terms and then showed the results. “Rim has a great selection if you’re Asian, or white, but black girls are probably the largest demographic in the youtube beauty scene right now, and I know that with the quality of service, and products here, they’d shop at your business before anywhere else if you carried their shades. Expand your inventory, and I guarantee the return on investment will be well worth your effort.”

“I see.” Grace said, scrolling through the girl’s phone. “You start Monday afternoon, but if I don’t see the kind of profits you’ve promised then your first paycheck will be your last, understand?”

“Yes, ma’am!” the excited teen squealed, momentarily forgetting the professionalism she’d displayed just moments before. It goes without saying sales went up, the previous department head was canned, and within two months, Mary found herself with the title of supervisor.

“C’mon pretty girl, I need to see what you can do?” she said to the baffled youth. “Your makeup could use a touch-up. Show me what you’ve got.”

Emer fumbled around, picking up each of the cosmetics and staring at them like they required a doctorate to use. “Ummm…This is lipstick…for lips, right?” He had seen girls spread it across their lips countless times in real life, on tv and in movies, but he’d also heard girls he hung around with talk about lip gloss, lip balm, and lip stain as well, and didn’t really understand the difference, but he knew he liked the effect. Holding the little container he pursed his own lips. They still felt funny after what was done earlier that day.

Mary laid across the glass case, and watched the hapless boy struggle, finding the whole situation incredibly hilarious. She knew it was going to be a lot of work, teaching her new employee things girls learned at the edge of their teen years, but she found the whole thing thrilling. It was going to be a hoot, and if anything, taking the bumbling himbo turned bimbo and turning him into a proficient artist would make great content for her channel.

"You know, if you had a button nose you could pull off working for Disneyland as one of the princesses. Hmmm, I could do that with the right contouring." She thought to herself, calling a blonde Barbie was too obvious. "I think I'm going to call you Princess."

“You know, I’d rather be called Prince.” Emer replied, disheartened, not understanding why his usual charm seemed to have no effect on the pink haired girl.

“Ha…yeah, right! You’re far too pretty for that. We’re gonna have to clean off your mess and try again a dozen times I’m sure, so get to it. When I’m done with you, you’ll be the second best makeup artist in this shop, mark my words.”

*

It had been a long day, but Emmanuel scraped by and made it through without any major incidents. Bianca only poked her head in briefly before disappearing again for a couple of hours, not having been much help at all. His legs hummed with the day's exertions, a welcome ache that eclipsed the dull gnaw of worry that usually clung to him like a second skin. Eight hours ago, this prospect had filled him with dread, a conscription orchestrated by the iron-fisted Bianca, but somewhere between deciphering the auburn-haired tyrants scrawled inventory codes and wrangling unruly hangers, something miraculous happened. He'd swum, not sunk.

The cash register, once a looming sphinx, had yielded its secrets one sale at a time. He'd fumbled, sure, cheeks burning as he counted change with clumsy fingers, but he hadn't drowned in a sea of angry customer glares. And by some stroke of blessed fortune, not a single soul had attempted the dreaded return, that retail hydra with multiple receipts. By lunchtime, he was humming along to the store's tinny playlist, the rhythm of folding sweaters a hypnotic mantra.

For those stolen hours, the troubles that shadowed him like alley cats slunk away. His personal issues at home, the whispered rumors about his alleged criminal past, the ever-present weight of Bianca's blackmail, they all receded, replaced by the satisfying tang of accomplishment. His fingers, calloused from the day's work, felt strangely lighter, no longer shackled by anxieties. Emmanuel’s mother always told him that she didn’t want him to work, to focus on school and spend time just being a kid. People always complained about work, so even if he was the type to argue with his mom he wouldn’t have on the topic. What he found funny though was how much working distracted him from the thoughts that often plagued him.

Unfortunately that didn’t last long, as just as it was time to pull down the steel gate, and lock up, a process which he had no idea how to do, Bianca came bursting through the door with his two friends in tow. She gushed, “You’ve got to see the cute photos your girlfriends took for you today. Lock up and meet us in the office.” The redhead tossed him the keys, and pointed to the electronic lock on the wall for him to figure the rest out.

After wrestling with the mechanism for a minute, his mind distracted by just how much curvier his friends looked, he was finally able to get the gate closed. With that done Emmanuel poked his head into the office, to see Song, and even Emer sitting in two chairs, unusually silent. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but it seemed to him like the two feminized boys' dresses were clinging that much tighter to their bodies than when they left that morning, and he wanted to kick himself for finding Emer’s lips that much more kissable. That and the fact he couldn’t stop himself from checking them both out. Needing some answers he asked, “Did you guys get some new padding, or something?”

Bianca answered for her dolls, “They have some new assets for you to play with,” before turning her attention to the two blushing boys, “isn’t that right, girls?” She hadn’t felt that same rush Steph did when they helped Ari become a pretty coed, or at least not at first. Now though, just thinking about the before and after photos of the two and the control she had over them made her feel powerful. The ambition she had fresh out of college had dwindled, but now it was flying high with a new goal.

“They’re just temporary.” Emer said with a pout, while Song couldn’t make eye contact with anyone in the room. He just tried to cover himself, but every position he sat in only brought more attention to the nearly c cup breasts protruding from his diminutive frame, not that he could sit in many positions comfortably with the corset crushing his waist and his chest bouncing with every breath.

“Wait, those are real?!” Emmanuel shouted, exasperated, his eyes going wide as they were drawn unabashedly to their chests.

“Aren’t they nice?” Bianca interjected. “Come look at these photos. Some of my best work if I do say so myself.” She folded the four-by-sixes out like a hand of cards, the sweet picture of the two holding hands out front. “Don’t you think they’re pretty?”

“Ummm, yeah…sure.” Emmanuel answered, still not quite sure what to make of the sudden pubescent metamorphosis in his cohorts. Admitting that felt wrong to him, even if it was done so hesitantly, but saying otherwise would have been a bold faced lie.

“Oh no, girls.” Biance said, playing at mock heartbreak. “It looks like Emmanuel is losing interest in the two of you. Looks like you’re going to have to try a little harder to keep his attention. You need to learn, especially at your age, it’s easy for a boy’s eyes to wander if you let them. Why don’t you two put on a show for him? I’m sure he’d appreciate that, wouldn’t you, Emmanuel?”

“Umm, what?” he asked, with no clue what his absentee boss was even talking about.

“You’d like it if the girls would put on a show, isn’t that right?” she asked again, stressing each word.

“Yeah…sure…” he answered, his voice trailing off while internally he prayed he was giving whatever answer she wanted to hear.

“You heard him, girls. Get to it. Put on a show.”

“Huh?” The subtext was lost on Emer. He was exactly one of those boys that had a wandering eye, going from girl to girl and yet here he was not able to make heads or tails of exactly what Bianca was asking for. Song on the other hand understood exactly what the crazy bitch was saying, but all he could muster up in response was a pleading look, begging with his doll-like eyes not to suffer yet another humiliation.

Ignoring Song, Bianca popped her hip to the side and rested her hand on it. “Emery, what does a heterosexual teenage boy like Emmanuel want to watch two girls do more than anything?”

“Wait…Oh!!” The realization pummeled the blonde like a champion boxer, as he turned to face Song, who looked like he was about to cry.

The new nail-tech in training finally summoned up enough courage to fight back, though barely. “I’m not gonna make out with Emer.” he said, trying for firm, but landing on meek and childish.

Bianca raised an eyebrow at the feeble attempt at protest. It would have almost been amusing if it wasn’t so pathetic. “I’d think twice about that little Miss Song. I’d suggest you do anything I ask with Emery, no arguments, or neither of you will be getting those little cages off anytime soon. Shall we try again?”

“Cages?” Emmanuel muttered to himself, still completely ignorant to his new reluctant girlfriends’ ordeals.”

The idea of depriving Little Emer didn’t sit well with the now busty blonde so he stood from his seat, almost a little too quickly, nearly fumbling in the unfamiliar slingback heels. Once on solid footing, he grabbed Song by the arm and pulled him closer, his baby blue eyes meeting the shorter boy’s. Song begged him not to with his eyes and just a single word. “Please…”

Emer pulled a determined face, looked firmly at his terrified friend, and said, “Don’t make this weird.” then planted a big wet one on the Asian teens lips. The exchange, to Bianca, was amusing. Without context it sounded like the South Korean girl was begging her friend to makeout, while her bimbo friend was being dismissive, right before giving the girl exactly what she seemed to want.

At first the two struggled to find any kind of rhythm, Emer practically trying to ram his tongue through Song’s pursed lips, but eventually the boy in the red dress relented, and allowed his friend to explore. For Emer it was far more preferable than making out with Manny the day prior. Song wasn’t nearly as bad of a kisser as their quiet compatriot, more along for the ride than anything else. His soft lips, still extra puffy from the procedure earlier, and the scent of Chanel Number Five, generously applied by Grace that morning, didn’t hurt as it filled his nostrils and reminded Emer of a bougie girl who’d taken him to the movies just a few months prior. He closed his eyes, let his thoughts drift to those better times, making it easy to forget who he was actually kissing. “Hmmmm” The sound came from Emer as he started to enjoy kissing the girl he was holding, his hand raising up to cop a feel. When she didn’t pull back he gave it a gentle squeeze, moving his hand over the girl's chest, feeling her bra under the dress and rolling his thumb over her nipple beneath it.

“Oh, he definitely likes that.” Bianca encouraged, while Emmanuel stood off to the side, trying to shift and lean in whatever way he could think of to hide his steadily growing erection, but to no avail. “Touch her back, Song. Also, you should be talking to your boyfriend. This is for him after all.”

Emer broke away for a moment, his eyes roaming over Song’s body, trying to hold it in his mind that this wasn’t the person he knew. This was a pretty girl. Considering what he saw it wasn’t much of a leap in his imagination. Channeling from his spank bank, he turned to Manny and asked, “You like that, don’t you, Daddy?” then winked, closed his eyes, and went back to the difficult task of getting a satisfactory performance out of his petrified partner. He grabbed Song’s hands, and placed them firmly on his ass, before closing his eyes, and returning to his makeout session, groping and all.

Song for his part didn’t argue, but remained stiff as a board, eyes wide open while his brain struggled to process exactly what was happening. Emmanuel now pitched a full tent, hating how much he liked what he was seeing, but fortunately everyone else was preoccupied, the new girls with each other, and Bianca with her camera freshly loaded with new film, snapping picture after picture.

Moving his hand to the front of his pants, Emmanuel wanted to hide his growing problem, and to rub one out. His mind told him it was wrong to even be turned on by what he was seeing. Those were other guys. They just didn’t look like they were. All he saw was a pair of girls making out, one of them calling him daddy. It was like a wet dream, but he was awake. Swallowing hard, he wasn’t able to tear his eyes away from the softcore porn happening in front of him. Hating himself for it and yet desiring to join in at the same time.