“Why don’t we go tomorrow and fetch your things? There is no sense in you paying rent, we fit well together. And in Sunday, I would love to teach you some climbing.” It was Friday evening and we had just returned from work.

“Are you sure?” There was a bit of conscience in the voice of Carlo.

“Yes. I… I like you. Like, really.”

“I could come for the weekends only, to not intrude on you—”

“I like you during the weekdays too… Of course, if you don’t like being a man with a woman, I will not force it, no matter what. But apart from that, I would really like us to live together.”

Carlo blinked a couple of times and I noticed that he swallowed.

“You… are you really sure? That you like a girl who looks like a pumpkin on a stick, and is so plain, and tomboyish and into IT? And on top of that all is a man most of the time? I know well enough that you aren’t into men… You deserve a lot better. Some… some real woman.”

“You don’t know how great you are. You are so cute and sweet that I wouldn’t abandon you for the most beautiful models. And you are so smart, kind and decent person that I would love to be your friend even if you were a man. It is not that I deserve better than you – you deserve a lot better than me. But I still hope that I can win you. You are the best woman in the world, I will never find a better one because she does not exist.”

A tear rolled on Carlo’s cheek. Just in time to remind me once again how sweet, vulnerable and nice girl was there inside this example of masculinity.

“Lexie… that is, Damiano… What a dumbhead I am!… Are you sure that you want to link your life with a girl from an orphanage? Who fears even her own shadow, who has been raped more than once, who is nothing like the happy and radiant girl that… that you are as Lexie? You, who are more a man than any other I know? And I know a few, trust me!”

“I am a wannabe man. So much of what I know about being a man I have learned from you. And you are the most beautiful, kindest, nicest, sweetest girl I have ever seen!…” All the rom-coms I have watched sprang up in my head, I rose up from the coach and tried to put a knee down. The skirt was too tight and I had to kneel with both legs, not caring for the tights. “Carlo… shit, Carla, would you be my girlfriend? And yes, also my boyfriend during the weekdays… damn these bodysuits!”

Carlo watched me with big eyes. Then suddenly burst into laughter.

“Whatever gods there may be, be my witnesses, I am sure that such a scene is not seen often!… But hey, this is not proper. An unbelievably beautiful girl kneeling to offer her heart to a man just isn’t right.”

“I don’t care what is right and not, and who is the girl and who is the man. My offer stands.”

“I have a better idea. You will make this offer tomorrow, when you are the boy and I am the girl.” Carlo got up from the coach, lifted me up by the shoulders like I weighted nothing and knelt before me:

“Sweet Lexie, love of my heart, sunshine of my eyes, music of my ears, would you be my girlfriend?”

My head already in turmoil, it took me an effort to get myself under control and respond in the proper vein:

“Of course, brave Carlo, love of my heart, joy in my dreams, power in my life!”

Carlo jumped up and grabbed me, and we both screamed with laughter.

Part of me was bewildered at what we were doing. Wasn’t it a complete insanity? An utter mess that words failed to describe? Playing on the strange playground we had found ourselves on, to the point where we nearly forget ourselves and become someone else entirely? Living our masks so deeply that we were becoming them?

Or maybe we were realizing that we have been wearing masks for all of our life, without understanding this at all. And that strange playground had shown us that we can swap these masks for other, very different ones, and learn a lot from it. And no matter how we changed our masks, we could still always be our true selves behind them, always keep our own value and essence. And this will show through every mask we wear…

Suddenly I felt the erection of Carlo.

“Um… do you…?

“I have set it on automatic reaction. The bodysuit has an erection when… when…” Carlo blushed.

“So you are… by me? I mean…”

Carlo inhaled deeply.

“You can’t even imagine how strange it is… You are so hot as a girl that even most women would feel a bit aroused around you. It is not enough to make me want sex with you, more a feeling like “if she only was somehow male, I would be dying for him”. But when I remember that you are actually male, and both the best lover and the best man I have seen, I am instantly ready for sex with you, no matter what sex am I and what are you… Gosh, I am saying that to a man…” Carlo blushed so deeply that his face became almost purple.

I felt a pity for him… her… And, if I had to be honest, I also felt aroused in a strange way. Somehow the femininity of my bodysuit that I constantly felt, and which even after months of experience continued to arouse me, combined with my sympathy and liking for Carla. And, exactly like her, I felt a need to have sex with her, no matter what sex we are at the moment. Not after eight hours. Right now.

“Where do you see a man, Carlo? Apart from you, I don’t see one here.” I looked around exaggeratedly.

“Lexie, if you don’t stop joking at my expense, I will punish you!” He let me carefully down and flexed his muscles in a bodybuilder pose.

“I deserve to be punished! I was a bad girl, if you don’t give me a proper punishment, I might become even worse!”…

“My landlady is not a very nice person, but that doesn’t matter. If we meet her, don’t get aggravated. We will take my things and never see her anymore.”

“Of course,… Is that your building? Looks semi-abandoned.”

“It was the cheapest I could find. And I could use from here the free wi-fi of the pub in that building next to it… Second floor… The right corridor… Room 204.”

The room was tiny, almost half of it taken by a bed. A small wardrobe, a small table and a chair nearly filled the rest. No restroom – the inhabitant likely had to use a common one… Carla quickly opened the wardrobe and started taking clothes out of it:

“Give me a bag… Okay, the next one…”

“Running away, eh?” A screechy voice almost made me jump. I turned back. At the door stood a woman in her sixties, dressed in old fake fur coat and with an expression on her face that could turn milk sour. “I’m not returning you any money for the rest of the month, you should have warned me in advance. And forget about the deposit too! Letting that lover of yours to live here! Have you no shame?”

“He is not a lover, but my cousin. And I paid you more for taking him too—”

“Cousin, sure! Do you take me for an idiot?! What strumpets you young girls are! No decency, no modesty, no anything!… And while he is living here, you never come! Sleeping left and right while he is waiting for you here! Gosh…”

“I told you I am working in Turin, cannot afford to come during the weekdays. That is why I could let my cousin live here then, how we would otherwise both fit on that bed?!”

“The way to be expected, of course! And I guess you would do it even if he really was your cousin! You are lucky that I could not catch you both here, or I would throw you out on the spot! And would call the police to arrest you for indecent behavior!”

I ground my teeth, trying to control myself. This old crone had put me on the verge of calling her some names. To start with.

“Okay, I am leaving, and my cousin is leaving too, he warned me yesterday—”

“Does your ‘cousin’ know that you have found another lover? I will tell him the moment I see him, to know what a whore you are! Hope he gives you a good beating, that is what you deserve! And don’t you dare to take his clothes, I’m not paying him for them a penny!”

“He asked me to take them. He will come after work to take them from my new place.”

“If he comes and asks for them, I am sending all the police in Milan after you! I know them personally!”

Carla raised a brow but said nothing – just handled me three of the bags and took the other two. Her landlady however hadn’t finished with the invective:

“And you know what? You will very soon only be with this scoundrel here! I saw your ‘cousin’ yesterday on the street, chatting with a girl VERY happily! And she was a real beauty, you look like a floor mop next to her!… Smiling, eh? Not believing me? You’ll see!” She grinned nastily, turned her back on us and walked away.

After she disappeared behind the door at the end of the corridor, we almost ran away with the bags. I looked at Carla with admiration:

“You’ve got self-control. I barely held myself from responding to her in kind, despite that she said almost nothing about me… But I really liked her going on about how your ‘cousin’ found a girl and would abandon you.” I smiled.

“Who wouldn’t be confused by the bodysuits?” replied Carla distractedly. “And yes, she is nasty, but already has a punishment for it. Her stupidity and mindless conservatism are a punishment worse than I would give her…”

For some time, we just walked together, passing by the subway station without paying any attention to it.

“Did she offended you more than you admit?” asked Carla. “Or anything else?”

“I wonder about something. What might have made her see the world and the people in this way. What must have twisted her so badly… She is deplorable, but so many deplorable people just look it, they are actually victims, not villains…”

“Do you think many deplorable people are like that?”

“Before the bodysuit, I thought of Aunt Lauretta as an old gossip, good only for eavesdropping on people and then telling everything about them to everyone. But one day she met me as Lexie, stopped me for a talk and I was afraid to refuse her, to not attract her attention and gossiping. And during the talk found out that she is… well, whom she really is. A nice and decent person who deserved better from life than she got, and is horribly lonely, poor and desperate… I know other such people too.”

Carla sighed.

“My history teacher in the orphanage, Father Mauritio, was like this. Short, wrinkled, ugly, not a speck of charisma, always nagging at us to study well and be disciplined. We considered him a total twit and nuisance… When I was sixteen, he died. Turned out, he had cancer for years and was in pain all the time. And was rich, but didn’t live a posh life or even spend on treatment for himself, donated all of his money to the orphanage instead. Valued the roof and food for us more than his own life… When we learned this, we helped the workers on a building nearby in our free time for a week, in exchange for several wheelbarrows of bricks. Built from them a small memorial of him in the yard of the orphanage. Made his bust from clay, baked it in the kitchen oven and put it on the top…” She brushed a tear with the back of her hand.

“Umm…” Feeling that these memories are not easy on her, I tried to change the subject. “I noticed that most of your clothes are actually Carlo’s. Looks like you are becoming more a man than a woman.”

“Most of your clothes are Lexie’s too. Are you becoming more a woman than a man?”

“Well, no, but… You see, Lexie is me. Maybe not the real me, the me I feel being, but still a me. So, statistically speaking, some part of me is Lexie. I don’t know how to explain it…”

“Same for me and Carlo. It is… A bit like I am actually Carla, but that is kinda sorta two parts. One that is a female body and has documents in Carla’s name, likes sex with men and such things. And one that is my memory and tastes, and emotions and habits and thinking, my personality. Both are like layers in a model.”

“Huh?”

“Hm… Do you see that building there, that is standing on columns?”

“Yes?”

“Like it. The part of me that is my personality is like the building from the columns up. The floors with the offices and the apartments and everything really important. And the part that is my body and identity and sexual preferences is most of the columns under it. Most, but not all, because some are Carlo, his identity and body, that is, the bodysuit.”

“And your sexual attraction as Carlo to Lexie?”

“Exactly. And I might be standing on the columns that are Carla or on those that are Carlo. I prefer these that are Carla, but these that are Carlo are okay too… But the other, the more important part of me, my personality, it is always the same. No matter which columns it stands on.”

“I think I get it. I feel the same. Damiano is the real me, I prefer it. But being Lexie is bearable too, and even has some advantages. And when you are Carlo, I am okay to be Lexie. It might not be the real me, but is… mmm… let’s say an appropriate me then. Maybe even the me that makes me happier then.”

“Same here… These bags are heavy, what about taking the subway to your place?”

“Not to my place. To our place.” I smiled.

“There is something I should have told you before I moved here,” Carla started when we dropped the bags and sat in front of the screen. “I was a bit afraid to talk about it, but now realize that I must. And if you are scared by it, I am moving out, no objections and no grudge to you. I can afford a decent living place now, don’t worry about it.”

“Whatever it is, if you feel something for me, no way you are moving out.”

“Listen first and then decide, okay?”

“Shoot.”

“I told you before that when I left the orphanage, I couldn’t find a job. Survived by cleaning the office and the home of a lawyer. Slept in the waiting room of his office, luckily he permitted me, money wasn’t enough for a rent… At some point, he needed some info about a possible criminal and couldn’t obtain it. he sent out a word that he will give a reward to whoever got it for him. I hacked into several places, learning from every one bits and pieces. The last place was a security camera that had recorded what he wanted to know, they had deleted the records but I managed to undelete them. The lawyer was really impressed, offered me to choose between the reward and him trying to find me an IT job. Naturally, I chose the job…”

Carla kept silent for a minute, then continued:

“Turned out, this lawyer worked for a mafia capo. The biggest one in Italy. Gianfranco Puglisi.”

“Huh?!”

“Puglisi met me in person. Told me he wanted to test me, gave me a place to hack in and obtain some info. I felt this would not be easy, so I went extra careful, doubly and then some more. Even took a dose of meth, to be top sharp during the run… Not only the site was a hell to hack, I had some luck and noticed it is a trap. Ran a fake hit from a proxy, good but not enough to avoid the trap. When the trap closed on it, I closed on the trap, managed to find an exploit in it, trapped the trappers myself.”

“Wow. I knew you are good with IT, but that…”

“I dare to think I am more than just good… Talked with Puglisi, showed him trapping the trappers. Turned out, this place is a testbed built by his hackers, they had a second trap for those who are good enough to avoid the first, had closed it on me without me even noticing. Still, I passed their bar, and became a part of their team, the only person ever who not only avoided the first trap but got a lock back on it. I learned tons of tricks there, those guys were brilliant, I didn’t even knew one could be so good… That was the job I worked for three years. Will not tell you what I did there, hope you get why.”

“Hacked and eavesdropped on people, collecting compromising info? Among other things? I remember you telling me that you listened to a lot of sex.”

Carla sighed.

“You might be too smart for your own good… Then, one of the team decided to cheat Puglisi. He ran away with a ton of money and was brought back a couple of days later.. Partially – only the head… I didn’t plan to cheat, but all things end. When Puglisi decided he doesn’t need me anymore, he would surely kill me too, I knew too much… I thought about the situation as thoroughly as I could, decided that my best chance is to meet him before I have learned even more, talk with him, ask him to let me leave, promise him I will never talk no matter what. Better a horrible end than a horror without an end… To my surprise, he was understanding. Accepted it, wished me well, gave me some severance money. Told me that if I reconsider at any time, I’m welcome again.”

“At first I couldn’t believe I was alive. I spent a few days gawking around until finding my footing. Then came to Milan… and you know the rest.”

“So that is why you were so tense when we met Puglisi?… Wait! You did not tense when you saw him. But did it when he announced his name. But you just said that you had met him at work more than once!… Something does not add up, Carla. You might think that it is better for me to not know it, but I don’t think so. Better to know something dangerous than to suspect you at lying.”

Carla looked at me with a dark expression. Then sighed and nodded.

“I don’t know if you will believe me. But the truth is, the Gianfranco Puglisi I worked for is not the Gianfranco Puglisi we met.”