“It is really beautiful,” I said, looking at the small statuette in my hand. Made of glass, it didn’t resemble anything specific, but was definitely stylish.

We were striding leisurely on the street. The setting sun was illuminating the puffy clouds that took most of the sky, and occasional gusts of wind played with the Carla’s hair.

“Yes,” she nodded. “This crazy adventure came to a happy end…”

“Do I sense a ‘but’ in there?”

Carla walked silently for some time. Then sighed:

“Less than twenty-four hours ago, I was almost panicked by having to wear the bodysuit. I was ready to almost anything to part with it… But now, when that is done, I suddenly start realizing that it wasn’t so bad.”

I kept silent.

“I gained a bit of comfort now, and it gave me the opportunity to think about it calmly. Being Carlo was not being me, but… it wasn’t bad. It was an unbelievable freedom and privilege. Being male, strong, good-looking, authoritative, accepted… I think I will sometimes miss it. Maybe enough to even want to sometimes still feel it, be it. Not always, not even for most of the time, but sometimes yes…”

I nodded:

“I am getting it. Well, I still don’t want to be a woman, but…” I felt blushing. “I can see the advantages of being Lexie too. Not because a beautiful girl is entitled to everything, I tried to not abuse that… Frankly, I think I will miss it too. The incentive to think, observe and understand the others. The freedom to be compassionate and nice without the others thinking you are not a real man. The ability to lift up the heart of someone with just a smile… It might be paradoxical to you, but some men would like to be able to do that.”

“It doesn’t seem strange to me at all. I am amazed how much good a girl who is not a spoiled brat can do. I never had thought about it before, it was a great lesson to me. And I am even more amazed that if that girl is actually a boy, she will put all women around to shame…”

“Well, maybe not to shame, but… You see, men want to prove they are better than one another, than women…”

“And some of them succeed. You won’t believe how much it helped me having Lexie as a role model, despite the differences in the appearance. What a mountain of self-confidence emulating her gave me… But the ability to appear male helped me get rid of some insecurities, too. I will miss that.”

“Well,…” I tapped on the bag. “If you miss the bodysuit, you can always use it. I won’t have anything against that. You know how much I enjoyed climbing together with you as Carlo.”

Carla threw a look and me. And suddenly smiled:

“Thinking of it, you could do it too. Tell me honestly, would you like to sometimes be Lexie? It has upsides too, you just said it. And I will only gain from having your example.”

I felt myself blushing again.

“Well,… I might… Probably will. But… wouldn’t you see it now as perverted? When I do it not out of necessity?”

“What?!… Come on! What perversion you can gain from it? Feeling what a woman feels during sex? Great, you will understand me better! You will see a perfect female body in the shower? As if you can’t see on the Net as many as you like, and much more sexed up than Lexie!… And, you know, a girl sometimes just needs female company. Can I hope for something better than having my boyfriend for this too? I won’t force you on anything, but I would really like you do it sometimes!”

“Ditto for men needing sometimes male company…”

Carla giggled so happily that my heart melted.

“And I can be both the female company and the male company for you! Wow!… So, when we did not feel forced to wear the bodysuits, we could stop fearing them and think more objectively. And we will find that they aren’t as scary… You see, I read a lot about these things. People changing sex, trans people and so on…”

I waited for some time for her to continue.

“What about them?”

“Scientists say that nobody is only male or female, exactly one hundred percent. So, maybe everyone is a tiny bit trans. And with enough help, in the right situation, this might show up. And make them want to feel what is to be of the other sex, for a change. What do you think?”

“Some people might benefit from that… Thinking of it, for example everyone.”

“Yes. And using the bodysuits sometimes might actually be good for us. Give us understanding of the other one, more closeness one to another… So we might come to work in them sometimes. Or use them during a weekend.” She smiled.

“Are you sure that this will not gradually entice us to stop being ourselves? You see, they are still superhuman and we aren’t—”

“They aren’t anything. WE are superhuman with them… Not just physically. I have been through a lot of things, but nothing taught me more about being a decent human than the short time I was Carlo… Or about the other people. And most of all, about myself.”

How true was that for me too!

“But wouldn’t we start liking and wanting to be the other sex? It looks to me impossible by now, but with the time…?”

“At most, we might stop associating ourselves with one sex only; might start perceiving ourselves as humans first, and might consider the sex as changeable as clothes. If you take the climbing clothes off, does this make you on the inside non-mountaineer? I don’t think so. You wore a skirt for several months, and this didn’t make you less of a man. If anything, the opposite.” She smiled again and hugged me.

“And enjoy the sex as the opposite sex?” I tried to goad her, but felt blushing again. Was I joking about her… or about myself?

“Who suffers if we do? Or loses anything? If nobody, what’s wrong with it?”

“Sounds right…”

“And not only…” She blushed slightly. “Thinking of it, I see I don’t worry anymore if I am a girl or a boy. I can live and be happy as any of the two… What I really need is not so much to be of the sex I prefer.”

The blushing strengthened.

“It is being with you. No matter if you are a boy or a girl, as long as that is you.”

She smiled, stopped and hugged me. And I felt happier than ever. More than I thought possible.

“Me too.”

“This place is cozy.” Carla looked around. The interior at Salazzo’s was simple, he didn’t have the money for luxury or modern furniture, but kept it clean and nice looking. “And the salmon was a treat… What about ice cream for a dessert?”

“Yeah. Will you just excuse me for a while?” I got up and went to the restroom.

How much the things had changed, I was thinking while relieving myself. Several months ago, I relied on the leftovers from here to survive. Now I was ordering the costliest thing in their menu, just to have a pretext to pay them more. Salazzo deserved it…

When I approached the small booth we had reserved, I noticed that some girl had taken my place and was speaking with Carla. I quietly sat in the booth next to it, so that I could be aware when my place is free.

There was something about that girl that tugged at my memory. A couple of seconds passed before I could put a finger on it. She looked a lot like that actress… Marylin… I forgot her family name. The stereotypical blonde from the old movies. I had watched her in several ones.

“—can’t believe it,” Carla was saying. “What did I fix in your shop?”

“The cash register. And you didn’t want to take my money for a payment. I barely convinced you to take the bodysuit instead… Now do you believe me?”

“Yes… I heard that your shop was closed?”

“Who did you hear it from?”

“Calm down, not someone you should fear. He will be here any moment…”

Was that possible?!… There was only one way to know.

“Hello.”

The girl almost jumped when she saw me.

“What?! How that is possible?… You two go together now?!”

“Ask Damiano about probabilities, he is the statistician here. Damiano, meet a girl you know. Just not with this appearance.”

“You are the girl from the sex shop?”

“Yes… And you are the guy who bought me a kebab with his last pennies.” She smiled.

“What happened with you?” Carla asked her. “Tell me, please. We are as much in all this as you, there is no sense in hiding anything.”

“Well… After that day, I was tempted to try a bodysuit too. Had my eye on the ‘Actress’ model. Maybe looking more attractive would help me sell better. And, you know…” She winked.

“I took it home and came in it the next day. Had tweaked my appearance to look a bit like Audrey Hepburn in ‘Breakfast in Tiffany’. While unlocking the shop, suddenly some goons grabbed me and pushed me in. Initially I thought they are burglarizing the shop or maybe mugging or raping me. Then saw that the boss of the mall is with them too and they are ordering him like an errand boy, and got really scared. Good thing that I’m imaginative.”

“They had a photo of me, saw I didn’t look like it and asked who I was. I told them I am the roommate of the girl who works in the shop. And that she did not feel well that day and asked me to fill in for her… Then they started asking questions if I know her and so on. I spun that we both are illegal immigrants, but my roommate was luckier and could steal the documents of a girl who looks like her. That is, the real me is innocent and never knew anything about the bodysuits. Never worked in a sex shop at all, some unknown immigrant pretended to be me, go after her.” She smiled mischievously. “They watched me, but this model bodysuit hides the signs of lying, they believed me.”

“They asked me to take them to the girl who works in the shop. I led them to the room I rented – luckily it has a second bed. Of course nobody was there. I pretended to be really surprised, told them that she was in the bed this morning and felt so bad she couldn’t get up. That I don’t understand how it is possible that she isn’t here anymore, and her luggage has disappeared too… They decided she has learned somehow of the trap and have tricked me to get caught instead of her, and ran away immediately after I left. They had me promise that I will notify them if she pops up, gave me a phone number to call, told me that I should never mention about her or the sex shop to anyone. I even begged some money out of them, to survive while I find a job, said I hadn’t found one yet and she supported me.” She smiled again, this time with a bit of pride.

“Since then, I am on the run. This model can switch its appearance in seconds between half a dozen programmable ones. I had them all tuned and changed my appearance often. Looks like they lost track of me.”

“More like they stopped caring about you,” Carla said. “About us too. I think that if they really wanted to know who and where we are, they would know it. Maybe already do. But so far nobody has disturbed us. Calm down and live your life.”

The girl sighed.

“There is a problem with that. A month ago, I sat on the bodysuit remote and broke it. Now I am stuck in the bodysuit, with this appearance.”

“It is not a bad appearance,” Carla smiled. “Do you still keep the pieces of the remote?”

“Yes. That is why I dared to disturb you and tell you who I am. Do you think it might be possible to fix?” The girl took out of her purse several pieces of plastic and handled them to Carla.

Carla examined them carefully:

“All pieces are there – good… And what is even better, the case is broken, but the electronics board looks okay. I think I can adapt a case for it from an ordinary universal remote. They are easy to find and judging by the button sensors, should work. Tomorrow evening you will have it back and working.”

“Thank you! If you can do that, I will be more grateful than I can express!”

“It is just returning a debt,” I interjected. “We are grateful to you too.”

She looked at us:

“I just can’t believe it. You not only found one another, but are an item now. And I barged on you too. Looks like something totally improbable to me.”

“Statistically speaking—” both Carla and I started at the same time. Then looked one at another and erupted with laughter. The girl looked at us, not getting the joke, then joined.

“Looks to me that you two have a lot to tell.”

“Oh, there is nothing special—”

“Come on, please, tell me! I gave you these bodysuits, it is fair to share!… Tell me, didn’t it feel a bit perverted to use them?”

Carla and I exchanged glances. How to explain it to someone who hasn’t been through it and felt what it is? That the very question is idiotic, to start with?

“Well, we got used to it and stopped paying attention to that.”

“Do they make you sexually attracted to children?… I guess it is not true, but so many people on the Net say all sexually different people are pedophiles, so I was curious… Okay, did you managed to convince people in them? Was it hard? Did you managed to put out an acceptable example of the other sex?”

Carla and me looked one to another and smiled.

“Did you finally learned that being a woman is not easy?” she turned towards me.

“Ask Carla how easy it was for her to be a man,” I smiled.

“There’s no need, I know very well what a privilege it is. Isn’t it?”

Carla rolled her eyes, but the girl didn’t notice it she was busy looking victoriously at me.

“Did you used it to sneak at women’s room and see them undressing? Don’t tell me you didn’t, I won’t believe it! Women want places for them only for a reason!”

“If I want to see women undressing, I have my girlfriend,” I pointed to the obvious. “And I can put the bodysuit on and watch myself in the mirror as much as I want. Not to even speak about how much free porn is there on the Net, showing way more than any dressing room.”

She just blinked for a moment. Then leaned towards us and whispered:

“Did you try to meet with the bodysuits on?”

“We did. In fact, that is how we met—”

“And did you like one another with them too? Yes? Did you… you know?”

Gosh, is that what people always think of? Yes, before I likely would think about it only too, but…