The women were polite, but persistent as hell. During the next week I managed to fend off the make-up lessons and the salon, but had to come most days to work in a skirt and heels, and promise to someday go with them shopping for clothes. I tried couple of times to pretend to very delicately check out men, so that the women notice it. Mostly Filippo – he had a rom-com star appearance and was nicknamed Casanova, surely had to be attractive for women. I would owe him for that too.

Lucia sold me some deodorant that she said to be “neutral, even almost unisex”, but putting it on in the mornings almost always resulted in a raging arousal. Somehow it went perfectly with the innocent sweetness of the face in the mirror, and the flawless body below it. No matter how I tried to avoid the sight, my hormones always managed to make my eyes steal a glimpse. I don’t want to remember what was the first thing I did Saturday, after taking the suit off. For several hours…

After that however I went straight to the high-speed train to Lugano. Deliberately manspreaded in the almost empty carriage – something I never did before. Spent the evening, the night and most of the Sunday happily climbing, naked to the waist during the day, saying to the stones around the few curse words I knew. Wearing mountaineering clothes and shoes… Felt male. Felt myself. For precious little time, before having to be back in the evening. To put on the damned bodysuit and the skirt, the tights and the heels, and become Lexie again.

Less than an hour after the lunch, there was a knock on the door of our room.

“Yes?” Mommy said. “Oh, Mr. Petruccio! Please come in! Can we help with something?”

“Actually yes. I need a custom data processing script.” He looked quizzically at me.

“Of course I will help! What it should do?”

“Come to my desk, I’ll show you…”

I followed him to The Cave. And noticed that he moved somehow… carefully.

“Just a moment, I’ll fetch another chair…”

I felt humiliated by the fact that a man more than twice my age was bringing and holding a chair for me. While maybe not feeling well… But the damned disguise had to be maintained.

“Thank you, Mr. Petruccio.”

What a woman ought to do if a man does not feel well? Offer politely to help? Somehow without humiliating him?

“For nothing. See, I want to test the hypothesis that SIDS in rural areas has different correlations than in urban areas. If so, the structure of the correlating factors set will, ugh… Change smoothly with the size of the community. There will also be… ugh… will be…” His voice trailed off.

I looked at him, startled. His usually ruddy face was pale and sunk.

“Mr. Petruccio, are you okay?”

“Yeah… It’s the ulcer, I forgot my pills at home… Don’t worry, I’ll do…”

Shit! I had seen twice tourists with perforated ulcers. Both were in risk for their life, and had to be evacuated by a helicopter… Hell with the disguise!

“What is the name of the pills you take?”

“Can’t remember… Big white ones…”

That was not of much use. Luckily, the mountain rescuers know other means for ulcers too.

I shot out of the room. Quickly opened the small fridge next to the desk of Fabricia – no milk! Without thinking much, I ran to the elevator. There was a diary shop right across the street. In less than ten minutes, I was back with a box of non-skimmed milk.

“If you can’t drink milk, take only a couple of sips, just to relieve the pain.”

“Thank you… I will be okay… Give me a few minutes…” He carefully sipped from the box.

“Call me when you want to continue.”

The door of our room turned out locked – I had to wait for a few seconds for Mommy to let me in. The reason turned out to be Lu eavesdropping on the men again. I quietly sat behind my desk and listened.

“—literally sprinted! I could hear her!” was saying Filippo Mastroianni. “In heels! My wife is as nice and caring as one can ever get, but even she would not run when in heels, even for me – and I am her husband!”

“Well, obviously Lexie would for Nicola. Aren’t you a bit jealous?” That was Tony, of course.

“She did for me way more than that, before she even knew me! She just really cares for everyone. A heart of pure gold.”

“Filippo is right.” The voice of Mr. Petruccio was still weak, but the pain in it had subsided. “She is a dream not only as flesh and blood… No woman I know compares to her. None would compare even if she was coyote ugly. Men don’t. She is… An angel incarnate. Whoever wins her will be in the heaven every moment of his life…”

The head of the stethoscope slipped from Lu’s fingers and fell on her desk. All women were looking at the floor.

What’s the big deal? Every mountain rescuer would run to help someone. So what?

But right now, I was not a mountain rescuer. I was a beautiful girl who could behave like a spoiled princess and no man would see anything strange, or blame her. Who was expected to do it. But had instead ran in heels, just to help a man she obviously had no interest in, and didn’t depended on him in any way.

If I knew such a girl, I too would be after her, even if she was ugly like hell. Knowing that I would always be able to rely on her. That she would deserve all the care and kindness in the world, precisely because she cares for everyone. Lives by the rules of a male mountain rescuer…

“They are right,” quipped Mommy. “Girls, looks like Lexie can teach us more than scripting.” I could hear the shame in her voice.

“Sure. Run like this for a man and all men around will see you as too easy,” Grace bitterly noted.

“Did they?” Lu glanced towards the wall.

“For Lexie maybe not. For you or me…”

And it suddenly dawned on me.

Being a woman was not easy at all, I had learned it on my back. For them, it would be much harder. They weren’t nasty to men – they just tried to not be “easy” to save themselves from being nastily branded. I was safe from that assumption, because my beauty put me out of the league of the men around. But the other women… that is, the women here weren’t. They had no good move in such a situation.

“Ummm… You see, I just… It’s just what the mountain rescuers do, that is how I am taught…” Suddenly an idea how to explain that to women shot through my head. “And actually, you never know who might like you. Life is unpredictable, right? Even if you help someone who is not eligible, the other men around see it and understand that you are a woman of a value. Right?”

Lu suddenly smiled:

“Well, Lexie finally breaks that shell of hers and is becoming a smart huntress. There is nothing to blush about, girl. We are all women here and know how important is to find the right man.”

“Men valuing women for anything other than sex and home servitude? No way,” spat Grace.

“That is not true!” I jumped. “I… umm, I am sure that men don’t see women this way!”

“Really? Have you been married, to see what men really are?… Sorry to burst your bubble, but the world is not what you think. Most men are just pigs. With your appearance, you might find a better one than most, or at least a richer one. Most women cannot. Get that!”

“Grace, please calm down.” Mommy interjected. “Lexie has a point. Men might think of only one thing around women, but even they will eventually notice if a girl is a good person too.”

“Yep, sure. Is Vinnie a bad person? How’s that men don’t notice her?”

I was barely holding myself from telling Grace that she can’t find a decent man because she is a bitch. However, her words hit me like a slap. She was right. Vinnie was a nice, warm and caring soul, and men still hadn’t noticed her. Men indeed judged women mostly by appearance. I didn’t notice that because I was trying to lie to myself that I am not like that.

Was I the same too? Probably yes…

But I would learn not to be. And, when I married, I would really know how much support women need. And that they deserve it.

The next day we planned to start again with an hour of scripting lessons. However, a nasty surprise awaited us. All we could see on our desks was a big red message:

I had no idea how much exactly 1 bitcoin costs, but Tony said it is in the hundreds of thousands. The Boss was rabid. Took some red pill (Mommy informed me quietly that it is for his heart) and made a couple of calls. In about an hour there arrived a tall and lanky guy with an annoyed expression – the type that never takes any obligation and always has an excuse to not help you in the mountain. After half an hour of doing some arcane magic on a couple of the desks, he just sighed:

“Hm… I am afraid that it would be impossible to decrypt your data. The virus has done a good job.”

“Well, can you offer any help? After all, I am paying a subscription to your company,” The Boss said behind him.

“I am sorry, Mr. Montanni. You have only one antivirus on your desks, and it is sub-standard. No ongoing maintenance has been done for months. No tracking software is installed. Your OS is not updated properly. In this situation our company is not legally bound to do anything for you, it is in the contract you have signed.” He smiled smugly.

“I see. It is us who haven’t done all these IT things, right? So, please allow me then to free your company from the burden of supporting so sub-standard a place as my company.”

The IT guy almost jumped.

“But it is not our fault that—”

“Of course it is not, of course. I am not blaming you in any way. You are completely right, there is nothing that can be done about us. Please do not waste your precious time here anymore. Mrs. Amabile, please help this young, smart and educated man escape from our unworthy presence…” The Boss showed no trace of the menacing coldness I had seen in him after my altercation with Filippo, but his politeness was full of unconditional finality.

When the doors of the elevator clanked behind the guy, The Boss pulled a chair from behind a table and dropped on it.

“It would take us several months to recover all data. Meanwhile, we would probably bankrupt. Pay them? As far as I know, the sum is not small, and I have no clue in paying with cryptocurrencies.”

“I would advise against it,” said Nicola Petruccio. “I have friends whose workplaces have been attacked in this way. Three or four of them paid the ransom. They got only demands for more and bigger payments. No data was ever recovered, despite that they paid everything requested.”

“Gamers are also targeted by such viruses, gamer forums often discuss it, and say the same. You only are asked for more and more money, and never get your data back,” added Gab.

“Even if you are above Level 40?… I’m joking,” Tony nodded. “I hear the same stuff too.”

“Does anyone have a good idea?” The Boss asked and looked at us, one by one.

“Me,” suddenly said Fabricia from the corridor. “My daughter works for a small hotel chain. When they need some IT thing, they pay some freelancer to do it. What if we also seek one?”

“I know well how hard is to break a good encryption. Statistically speaking, the chances that someone will be able to do it are negligible.”

“What do we have to lose? Let’s post a challenge on the Net” objected Tony. “Offer some of the ransom these bandits want as a reward for decrypting our data. They might pose as freelancers and actually decrypt it, or some talent might be able to. No harm in trying.”

In less than an hour we had the challenge typed, and a couple of encrypted data files attached to it as samples. Gab and Tony took to posting it everywhere on the Net. I used the opportunity to concentrate with the women on theory-only scripting lessons.

On the next day the girls renewed their push to take me shopping for dresses, using the lack of work as an excuse. I was saved only by Fabricia suddenly entering the room:

“Some guy has decrypted the files we posted! The Boss just talked to him. He is in Milan too and will be here in about an hour to try and decrypt the rest!”

We all exploded in cheers.

“Is it possible that he is actually one of the cybercriminals who sent the virus?” asked Grace.

“The Boss said that he considered it too, but the talk convinced him that he is not.”

I was still afraid that the women will try to drag me to some shop and make me buy dresses, an hour was plenty of time, but apparently the joy had made them forget the idea.

An hour later there was a knock on our door, and Fabricia invited inside a guy about my age:

“Here are some of the infected desks, Mr. Gatti. Girls, could you please make some room for our savior?”

“Carlo, please.” I think he blushed slightly at Fabricia’s compliment. Just above average height, muscles moving under his shirt – he obviously was into lifting weights or some other sport. His face was good-looking, even more than Filippo Mastroiani, and there was an even stronger air of openness and honesty about him. The kind of person who might not be an experienced climber, but will never abandon someone in need, and you can rely on him to hold as on a rescuer.

He sat at Mommy’s desk and started carefully probing some things. After about ten minutes, he looked at us:

“I think I will be able to decrypt everything. This type of encryption has flaws, there is a breaker for it.” He powered the desk down, took an old-fashioned thumb drive out of his pocket, plugged it in and turned the desk on again. “Just give me about an hour here, I have to clean the virus first…”

At the end of the day, only my desk remained busted. The next morning Carlo fixed it too and moved to the room of the men, leaving me to check if all data is recovered properly. After the lunch he cleaned the desk of Fabricia and that of The Boss, who insisted to be the last one saved. About 3pm, they both came out of his office, and The Boss called everybody in the corridor.

“Dear Mr. Gatti, you saved our company from a possible bankruptcy. Breaking a good encryption is incredibly hard, and you did it. This makes you a rather rare talent.”

“It is just that making a good encryption is not easy too, Mr. Montafun. The guys that made this virus hadn’t done its encryption properly…”

“Even so, your presence here is an honor for all of us. Dear colleagues, please thank Mr. Gatti for his skills and readiness to help!”

We did.

“Now, Mr. Gatti, I had promised certain sum as a reward for recovering our data. If you prefer it to be transferred to your bank account, I will do that immediately. If you prefer it in cash, please come with me to the bank office in the mall, I will withdraw the money. Also, please name all other expenses of yours – travel, accommodation, any tools or consumables you had to buy, and I will reimburse you for them separately. That breaker you used is not cheap, I guess?”

“I got it for free… I… I have an offer, Mr. Montafun.”

“Yes?”

“Your desks are indeed a bit unmaintained, and your data appears to be very valuable. Would you consider hiring me instead of giving me that reward? I think you might really benefit from having an in-company IT support, and the reward money will pay a typical salary for over six months – enough to evaluate if I justify a job here.”

The Boss didn’t hesitate for long. The company had no tech support anymore…

“To me, three months are enough to say if you justify being hired. So, you will receive half of the reward now… Dear colleagues, please meet our newest colleague! Welcome to Montafun Statistics, Mr. Gatti.”

“Carlo, please.” His eyes glowed with happiness.

“Well, Carlo it be. You proved yourself in the best way possible, and I hope that we both will enjoy working together.”

Damn! My hope to abandon the disguise was destroyed. I just stood there, trying to not show my disappointment.

And how easily The Boss hired that Carlo, compared to me… that is, not to me, to Lexie! And questioned her more strictly than me, despite that he needed her, and was seeking a reason to decline offering the job to me… If I had any doubts that this is men’s world, and is not fair to women, they were wiped out.

Still… I am a mountaineer. We don’t fear the challenges. We overcome them. We must be the example what a man should be.

… Even when masqueraded as women.

… Maybe especially when masqueraded as women.