It was mid morning, when the city's biggest tech company was announcing a new CEO. Shakira-Shakira on the other hand, had been hired by Mr. Wasco, the founder of Wasco Tech, himself. She rushed in the building when the elevator was about to close. She wore the usual, short sleeve white button up, black dress pants, and booted heels. She had dark skin, brown hair that went down to her bottom, and these pale dead eyes.
"Hey wait!" A female voice cried out once the doors closed with only an inch or two left.
It pauses for a moment before opening back up again. There, a man who looked about late twenties, early thirties at most. He had formal attire. A pale blurple button up tucked under his leather belt, black slacks, and black dress shoes. Tan skin, brown soft curly hair, and dark brown eyes. He was obvious he was Hispanic or had Latino heritage. He stared straight at her, possibly in deep thought.
Shakira spoke up, "This isn't my best first impression, heh…" She paused before walking onto the lift. She stood there as the doors closed, "How long have you've been working here?"
The man looks back down at her. Dawn she's fucking tall…
*Ha ha! She has a wig on!*
"It's my first day actually." The man responded after a short while. "I'm Jacob, but im sure I won't be working with you. So there's no need in introducing myself anymore."
She looked at him a bit weirded out, "I'm Shakira."
*Like the singer?!*
"Like that one Brazilian singer?" Jacob asked.
"No."
*Ahh man…*
Just shut up already. He told that little voice in his head. It only spoke when it wanted. But really, it's just some bitch telling him what to do. And why would Jacob listen to a woman?
Okay, weirdo…, Shakira thought in her head. Jacob seemed a bit moody. Making faces and murmuring words out that sounded like whispers or something else. His voice sounded like it changed for a moment. Was he thinking aloud? Can't be… He's acting like a psycho!
The elevator opened to the floor where Shakira was meant to meet the CEO. Jacob marched out before she could even get a step in. He seemed to be going in the same direction.
Someone stopped to talk with him. Most likely another coworker. How could he have friends if it's his first day!
Shakira walked past and made it into the private lobby. There, a white woman, white blonde, red cheeks, possibly Irish only noticeable because of how blue her eyes were. She went by the name Christmas, which was on her name tag. "Hello! And welcome to Wasco Tech! How may I be at service?" Her joyful and high pitch voice made Shakira cringe.
She even felt bad for her. How can someone keep up a cheerful attitude in this dump. Paperwork. Printing. Even just talking to someone sounded difficult. "I have a in-person interview with the CEO. He said I have a special appointment especially with my background in finance." Shakira smiled only for show.
Christmas didn't buy it at all. Being happy all her life made her able to point out that fake white mouth. "Honey, the CEO retired. You'll need a new form if you want to meet with their current manager. Our CEO at the moment can't help you until next week. He has to get used to the higher ups first." She held out, what looked like a stack of papers.
Shakira took it and found out it was a packet. With terms and conditions of the transition form one CEO to another. "This looks pretty long…" It was obvious that she didn't want to go threw that process.
"You want to go back for another online meeting?" Christmas glared at her. "It's better this way. It takes months to just redo the whole thing, this will only take three business days." She tapped on the thick packet.
Once Shakira opened her mouth to speak, Jacob walked in. "Hey Christmas!" He smiled brightly as if he known her for years.
"Hey Jacob." Christmas looked at him up and down, clearly flirting. But Jacob was too much in his own world to notice a thing.
He went away into his office. Then Christmas spoke up. "He's the new boss. I always wondered who's the one higher than him. Mr. Wasco was very nice to the females. Only hired me for the looks. A big time pimp. You know he had multiple women in his office and his wife didn't even divorce him!" She leaned up against the desk to stare Shakira down.
She was surprised and took a step back. "Oh uh… why are you telling me this?"
"Just in case. I don't trust Jacob's father much. He has been in and out of the hospital. I feel bad but not enough to visit or give him flowers." Christmas started to type on her blocky computer. "Just between you and me…" She printed out a few papers, "Your hired on Mr. Wasco's behalf." She held out the warm printed files to Shakira.
Shakira felt the thick paper between her fingers as she thinks to herself. I'm hired… finally!
"I'll set a meeting with Jacob to confirm the documents. Come back next Monday, Jacob likes to keep them on useless days so he has time between Thursday and Sunday." Christmas smiled, "I hope I given a warm welcome to you, my friend!"
***
It was dark out as the city lights gleamed from below the penthouse's windows. There, Jessica was drinking tea. She looked somewhat like Jacob, except she has an eyebrow piercing on her left side, three extra piercings on both her ears, gapped teeth in the front, pinker skin, bleached blonde bangs, and long brown curly hair. Tonight, she wore a baggy shirt, and short jean shorts.
She looked around before talking with herself. "You know, what if-"
*Not this again.*
Jessica scoffed, "You don't want to play eye-spy?! Wow, what a buzz-kill!"
*Im no buzz-kill!*
"Yeah, like you didn't see Christmas flirting with your ass."
*Wait? She likes me?*
"Heh, like it's not obvious…", Jess mumbled. "You know, Wasco Tech is supposed to be just mine. You don't have a college degree in marketing and technology." She seemed upset. She then pulled out a letter from her pocket and looked in it as it was already open. "Dad's dead… and you didn't bother to tell me."
*Was going to get into it later…*
"You WERENT!" Jessica stood up and kicked the glass table over. It shattered immediately on impact to the solid ground. Jess just stood there lercking over the mess. "When were you going to tell me…? You may not be over mom's death but not telling me about dad is another story. That bitch didn't have money for us!" Her spit blew out between her two front teeth as she huffed.
*She was poor. We were poor. You think her and dad even loved each other? They lived hours away and you think it's because of his work?*
She starts to cry and fell on her knees, scrapping her smooth skin on the sharp glass. The blood bled out as she sobbed. Now her hands down in front of her knees, causing more scars into her beautiful strawberry skin.
The sobbing stopped and her features changed into Jacob's. When she lifted up her head, she now had the face of Jacob. No. It was Jacob.
Jessica sobbed , only Jacob could hear her so it was a bit annoying.
"I'm sorry…", Jacob apologized sincerely. He felt bad since she was much closer to their father.
Jacob then thought of all the times when they were kids. How life was much different what it is today. They lived in their own body's and did their own things.
***
Jacob and Jessica were only six when they were packing up their things to leave the country-side for good. "Your not coming?" Jacob whined with pouted lips. He had nice thick fluffed up hair. Looked like he could careless of his appearance. Ragged clothes and old Converes that seemed to be beaten up from how much he ran in them.
"Don't worry about me." Their mother smiled down at Jacob. Clearly favored him more than his sister. She knelt down to his level so she could have a better look at him. His tears stained his dark tanned skin red, and even washed off the filthy dirt from his face. "I'll always love you. Even when you can't see me as much, I know you'll be able to care for your sister. After your father, you'll become the man of the house. No one can take that responsibility from you. Your sister…", she turned her head and looked at Jessica for a brief moment, "She will need you one day." Clearly sugarcoating the fact she doesn't in believe his sister.
Jacob nodded and wiped his tears. Not even five minutes later, the twins were crying out their goodbyes from the back of an expensive Lincoln. It drove off the rocky property, entering the flat dirt road to the city. Jacob still having his knees on the seat to look back at his mom, started to cry uncontrollably.
Jessica turned to him, "You know what this means?"
Jacob focused his attention back to his sister, "W-what?"
"We don't get to live in that crappy house. Mom said we're going to dad's for more than the weekend."
"W-what!" Jacob started to sob harder. If he wasn't sitting down, he could (would) have fell back.
Jessica felt like this didn't help at all. She brushed away her thick and healthy hair behind her face. "We need to forget about her and focus on our new lives."
"How can you just forget mom!" Jacob whined. Soon, they bickering the whole way to the city-side, which took up about a hour and a half.
***
Jacob woke up with a headache, having a bottle of whiskey by him near his bedside nightstand. Ahh fuck.
Jessica was clearly out since he didn't hear her voice.
Once he got on his feet, the horrors from when he came to Wasco Tech came back to him. How could one end up in his situation? Being permanently stuck in the same body and mind as someone else, wasn't fun at all. In fact, it ruined a lot of things. Everyday, he has to listen closely to conversations if Jessica is talking over them even without knowing it.
It was a curse or rather a slap in the face by their father for having an open laboratory that was shut down for their inhumane experiments and tests. Now Jacob and Jessica were able to change gender to who was in control and who wasn't. Their teenage and early college hood lives were much more different than they were today.
***
Shakira was getting ready in her tiny apartment complex that was over priced and much more crappy than the orphanage she lived in for only eighteen years. She promised herself that she would never let the past get up to her again. She stared to herself in the mirror. Her long sliver white hair flowed down her back as she tried to brush it out. Jessica was right about one thing, Shakira did have a wig. Because of this condition she was born with, it caused her natural wavy brown hair to become sliver white and straight from a young age.
She thought about her life beforehand. How she had beaten her sister with a rock. Her father leaving her family. Her mother constantly nagging how she wasn't like Maria-Maria. Double names were common in her hometown, and often celebrated twice as much if you name your new born within that social rule. How could she forget the time where she killed every single person in the population of her little town? It was common sense, she could have just kicked a rock but instead had smashed Maria-Maria's brains out onto the ground outside their very own home.
Shakira tied up her hair and placed on the brown wig from the day before. She placed on a thick wool coat and walked out her apartment.