Lockdown! 25

Sat tapping his acrylic nails on the arm of an uncomfortable plastic chair with one pantyhosed leg neatly crossed over the over, Tim stared blankly at Alma, the store manager, wishing she would hurry up. Morning meetings were boring at the best of times, but her meetings seemed to go on forever with nothing useful ever being said.

Today’s topic was, how to upsell. Essentially, how to make customers buy more by offering them some sort of accessory to go with their purchase.

“So, Kylie, why don't you and Kay roleplay what we've been discussing,” Alma suddenly announced. “Kay, you be the customer and kylie, you’re going to upsell to her.”

Rolling his eyes and sighing quietly, Tim rose to his feet, feeling his calves stretch in the monster heels he had been forced to wear as part of his uniform recently.

Tim had always hated doing roleplay, and in this environment, it was just plain humiliating. He never seemed to get anything right, whereas Kay, who never did any work, seemed to get away with murder.

“Good morning, miss,” Tim announced, smiling only to be instantly interrupted.

“Kylie, you know better than this. We always give the customers a few minutes before we approach,” Alma declared, tutting. "Come on, you know this!"

Tim bit his tongue and kept his puffy lips closed. He wanted to protest but knew it would only lead to a lecture.

“Ok, girls, let’s try this again,” Alma stated, nodding her head.

This time Tim stood perfectly still, looking on with disdain as Kay smirked back at him. Twenty seconds passed before Alma once again started screeching. “Kylie, what are you doing? Are you taking this seriously? You’re just standing there doing nothing!"

Perplexed, Tim glared at her with his mouth hanging open. “But… I was just doing as you asked.” He protested.

“Come on now. You need to use a bit of common sense here,” Alma answered in frustration while looking at her watch. “This is just roleplay. A few seconds is long enough to make the point. It's too late now anyway! it’s almost time to open.”

Nodding, Kay looked towards Alma. “Thank you for the informative training session, Alma,” She said cheerfully. “It’s definitely going to help boost our productivity. Can I make you a coffee as a thank you?”

“Thank you, Kay. And yes, a coffee would be lovely. Kylie, why don’t you go open the front door and set up the till?”

Watching as his two colleagues skipped off towards the small kitchen at the back of the store, Tim shook his head in disbelief. He knew the next time he saw Kay would most likely be when she came out for an hour while he took his lunch break.

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With the clock on the wall showing the time to be just after six, Tim made a noise somewhere between a sigh and a grunt. There were only thirty minutes to go until closing, but in his mind, that seemed like an eternity away as he stood switching his weight from one leg to the other as his muscles cramped up.

Glancing up at his reflection he noted how professional his top and pleated skirt looked. And he had to admit the maroon coloured platform pumps, currently punishing his poor feet, did complement the rest of his outfit. The problem was, they were just so impractical for his kind of work.

Leaning against one of the display tables, Tim looked around, debating whether or not he would get away with taking off his shoes for a minute or two. He was 99% sure he’d get away with it with Alma or Kay very unlikely to make an appearance. But what if a customer came in?

Hearing the door open, Tim quickly pushed himself away from the table and hobbled forward a few steps. Regaining his composure, he put on his game face and smiled towards the approaching customer. But his smiling face didn’t last for long, swiftly changing to a puzzled expression as the customer stared back with an equally perplexed look. As the young woman advanced towards him, time seemed to stand still as they both scrutinised each other's outfits.

“Who are you?” the woman demanded, stopping in front of Tim, and scowling at the nervous-looking sales assistant.

“Ky... Kylie,” Tim stuttered as he felt the blood drain from his face.

Curling her lip and squinting, the woman continued to glare at him. “Tim!” she muttered, “Is that you?”

“Tim? Who’s Tim?” Tim answered nervously giggling. “Come on, Kim? Do I look like a Tim”? As soon as the words left his mouth, he knew he’d messed up.

“Oh, my days!” Kim screamed, bringing her hand up to cover her mouth. “Do you work here?”

(See image 34)

Nodding, Tim bowed his head and looked down at the ground wanting it to swallow him.

“I can’t believe this,” Kim announced, still in shock. “This is super crazy! You look so… so feminine. Are you transitioning?”

Closing his eyes and holding them tightly shut, Tim stood like a statue as Kim continued. “How can you wear shoes like that all day? Oh my God! Look at your nails! Look at your lips! Are those real?” She said, firing question after question before pointing at Tim’s chest.

With the room falling silent, Tim opened his eyes and slowly looked up at his little sister who was looking back at him like he was an alien. “Kim, I can explain everything but please not here. I'm at work now, and I can’t lose this job. I finish soon. There’s a café two doors down. Can we meet there in say 45 minutes?”

Blinking and shaking her head confused, Kim smiled. “Sure thing, KYLIE!!! I’ll be there, but I don’t know how you expect me to wait that long!”

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Placing down her coffee cup, Kim looked across the table at her bimbofied older brother and shook her head from side to side. “And you just went along with all of it?” she announced, unconvinced, having listened patiently while Tim told her his story.

“I didn’t have much a choice,” Tim shot back. “It all escalated really quickly. Before I knew it, I was in over my head and being told I had committed a crime!”

Kylie smiled. “So you’re telling me. All of this! The outfit, the cute hairstyle, the kilo of Botox in those lips. It was all against your will. You didn’t want any of it”?

“No,” Tim stressed. “I hate all of it. This long hair is annoying, these shoes are killing me, and I don’t even want to think about the damage done to my face. It makes me sick to even think about how much of a freak I’ll look when I go back to my old life.”

Seeing her brother getting worked up, Kim decided to change the subject. “You know what's really strange? You ending up working in that store. Do you know I work as a sales assistant too? In fact, I used to work in that very store, but that was a few years back.”

“Is that why you came in today?” Tim asked nervously while folding his arms across his body.

Kim laughed. “Hang on a second,” She replied while rummaging around in her bag.

Pulling out her phone, it didn't take her long to find what she was looking for. “Here, take a look at this!” she announced, thrusting the phone into Tim's face.

Covering his mouth in disbelieve, Tim let out a little squeak as he stared at the image on Kim’s Insta account. It was him! And he stood in the store where he worked with his arm around some random man.

“Yeah, I was shocked too, when I saw that some guy I’d hooked up with last year had tagged a random Asian girl as me on his account,” Kim said while giggling. “It's my day off today so I thought I'd finally go over to the store and find out who the imposter was. And you know, If you’d given me a million tries. I never would have guessed that that glammed-up salesgirl in the picture was actually my judgmental, sexist brother. The same one who used to ridicule and belittle me for wearing a little makeup and trying to look nice. It's funny how things work out, right? Some might call it karma. But anyway, this gives me an idea. One where we both could make a little money.”