Serving Girl (Maggey Byrde TG/MC)

Victor Kudo decided to spend the day wandering around the Vitamin Square, as he’d done every day for the past few months or so. In the past, he would have gone for a javaccino at that French place nearby, but the place was closed, and because its owner was arrested for being an accomplice to murder, no less. Armstrong was the person's name, if he remembered correctly. Not that it mattered any more. The place was closed.

At least, it was until today. As Victor walked by where the restaurant used to be, he looked over at the closed-down building and saw lights from the inside. Victor’s eyes widened.

Maybe the place is opening back up!, Victor thought.

He bolted to the door and shook it violently until a large man(?) opened the door for him from the inside.

“Bienvenue! Welcome to Trés Bien!” said the owner, Jean Armstrong.

“Is this the same place as before?” Victor asked. “You got javaccinos and such?”

Armstrong smiled. “Z’is is la place! I recognize you, Monsieur Kudo!”

“You still got the same serving girl as before?”

Armstrong looked down. “Non. She ‘as left us while I was... absent,” Armstrong said sadly. But suddenly, the owner looked back up and held a hand out to Victor’s. “But I ‘ave la idea plus merveilleux! Come wiz me! You will be able to see la waitress whenever you want!”

Whenever he wanted? That didn't sound half bad! Victor grabbed the hand and followed Armstrong as he was led into the back room.

“Z’is is la simple procedure. You just stand still right z’ere,” Armstrong said.

Victor stood right in the middle of the room as instructed, quietly waiting for him to find out what the owner had in store.

“Now, close your eyes, oui? If la oil gets in your eyes, it would be very bad.”

“La oils”? What did the oils have to do with anything? Either way, Victor closed his eyes. He listened to hear the sound of approaching footsteps, and then the sound of something… spraying? Before he could think about it, his face began burning with a pain he’d never before felt. He could barely make out the feeling that his face was softening somehow before he lost consciousness.

As his unconscious body lie there, it began to shift and contort and grow younger. His hair regained a dark brown color and grew out to be about shoulder-length. His eyebrows shrunk as his eyes grew larger and browner. He grew three inches taller, his skin smoothing out from the stretching that gain in height entailed. And finally, his sex changed, with changes to his proportions to match. Armstrong picked his body up off the ground and prepared for the second step.

Victor woke up that night. Before he even took in his surroundings, he couldn't help but notice how young he felt. He didn't feel a day past twenty-five! How had that happened? The burning in his face before he’d passed out just made him feel older than ever.

But anyway, that wasn’t important. He took in what he could about his surroundings. It seemed to be the same room he passed out in, but he was lying down, and he… couldn't move? He looked down at his feet and saw three important things. The first was that he was tied down by ropes on a metal bed. He struggled to move his arms, but the ropes were way too tough to budge. The second was that he seemed to be wearing the Trés Bien uniform, the kind the serving girls at the place wore. It was an orange maid-like uniform with a skirt that went halfway up the knees. Why was he wearing that? And why did his legs look so smooth?

His question was answered upon seeing the third, most important sight of all. It was a mirror that showed his reflection. It was the serving girl! He had been turned into the serving girl!? How did that even make sense!?

“What the hell’s going on here!?” Kudo shouted. His voice was high pitched and a bit nasally. He stopped shouting.

“Z’at was la DNA oil, Monsieur! Or, Mademoiselle!” Victor could hear Armstrong say. It was strange. Armstrong didn’t seem to be in the room. “La oil makes your body into la person z’at la DNA is from. It was from la last waitress, Mademoiselle Byrde!”

“Well, what have you got me tied up for!? What’s going on!?” Victor yelled, trying not to pay attention to his new voice.

“All will be explained, Mademoiselle. Just look at la screen and pay attention…”

The screen? Victor looked around for the screen. The screen was actually directly above his head, which was more difficult to get out of sight than to intentionally look at. He started to hear some kind of music fill his mind. It relaxed him. He stared at the screen and waited for it to turn on.

The screen began to show a series of images in rapid succession. Images of Armstrong, of the restaurant, of the serving girl he now looked like, all while the music echoed in his mind.

He’d seen enough movies to know what was happening. He was being brainwashed.

And yet, despite the obvious panic that should have caused in him, he didn’t try and do anything about it. All he could really think about is how unlucky he had been to have landed himself in this situation in the first place. How unlucky does a person have to be to be randomly kidnapped by some weirdo, get a weird transformation potion sprayed in his face, tied up, and hypnotized? He’d have to be the unluckiest person in the world! It’s not like it was the only bit of misfortune that befell him, either. Like, this one time, he saw a woman about to cross the street, and he went to help her, and then they ended up having dinner at his house! His whole life had been a string of bad luck and failures, really. Ever since he was a little girl and dropped from the ninth floor of her apartment building, she’d been caught up in all sorts of disasters, failed almost every test she’d ever taken… Although, she could consider herself lucky she was able to listen to the nice music and watch this nice slideshow. But anyway, she’d really earned the name “Lady Luckless”.

That was weird. Certainly her nickname wasn’t “Lady” Luckless, was it? After all, she was male. Or… was she? She felt like she was a man, but something kept telling her that she’d been female her whole life. And those pictures kept displaying her, and she certainly looked female. But she just couldn’t shake the feeling that she was forgetting something important piece of information -- something that proved she was a man.

The music got louder. No, she wasn’t forgetting anything like that, of course not.

Was she forgetting anything else, though? It was weird, it felt like there were a lot of missing pieces. Like, even though she knew her name was Maggey Byrde, she couldn't help but feel like that was wrong, and that she was…

The music got louder. The feeling subsided. She was definitely Maggey Byrde.

She closed her eyes.

“Oh, la video ‘as worked?” said Jean Armstrong’s voice in her ears, as the music grew quieter. “We will do a test, oui?”

“Who are you, Mademoiselle?” Jean asked.

“Maggey Byrde, Mr. Armstrong, sir!” Maggey replied.

“Oh, merveilleux! And where do you work?”

“Trés Bien, sir!”

“And what do you think of it?”

Maggey thought about it for a moment. What DID she think of Trés Bien? The music grew louder. Oh, of course!

“It’s the best restaurant in the world, sir!”

“Ah, perfect. Bienvenue!”

The subliminal music stopped playing on Maggey’s headphones, and the screen turned off.

“Just go to sleep, Mademoiselle Byrde! We are going to start work tomorrow!”

Maggey didn't even mind being tied down any more. She forgot that it was supposed to bother her in her reverie, thinking about working at the restaurant, her favorite place in the world. “Yes, sir!”

Maggey went to sleep,  ready to wake up the next morning and start her first day back to work. Here, she felt… bienvenu.