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The next two months passed uneventfully. They spent a handful of evenings talking, talks that would last late into the night. About how their relationship might change, how Damiano envisioned her future self, how they thought fans might react, how his family might react. The topic of Ethan’s own gender was touched on, though it had never been a secret. Everyone had always assumed he experienced his identity in a different way than most, but since he never brought it up himself it never seemed like a big deal. But for Damiano, now, it meant the world to hear that the love of her life understood, had been where she was now, could help her through this brave new world.
In her darker moments she reflected on how little she deserved him. He had gone out of his way to talk to friends of friends of friends to find her a doctor who could get her medicated without running to the tabloids. He had kept the world’s biggest secret from even their two closest friends because she couldn’t bring herself to tell them yet. She hadn’t even called about the pills yet because it was all just so terrifying. If she started medication there’d be no going back. She wouldn’t be able to pretend anymore. And it made her feel like a traitor.
Ambiguity had been her shelter for years. Even before her gender was a question, she had always kept herself safe in vague implications about her sexuality. Let the people think what they want because only the truth can be used against you. Go through a series of identically attractive girlfriends so the fangirls think they have a shot and won’t abandon you. How would they react? She wasn’t stupid, she knew how many people were only interested in her for their own sexual fantasies rather than her work. But could she cope with finding out exactly how many? Better to just maintain the status quo. A little more makeup than usual here, a less obviously edgy skirt there, enough to keep her from feeling sick onstage but not enough to raise any questions. There were people who would (and did) die for the opportunities she had and here she was pushing them away.
On a good day she could laugh to herself about how those under the illusion she could one day sleep with them would be disappointed in more ways than one. She had seen some of the things people wrote about all of them and they’d had many good laughs over how much fans pegged them wrong (sometimes literally). She doubted any of the screaming teenage girls would be thrilled to find out what she was packing. Or that she almost always bottomed, even with women. Or that her sex drive wasn’t nearly as high as she pretended. Everything was an act and that was okay. Until now, as the rift between her reality and her image grew wider by the day, increasingly irreconcilable and dangerous.
She’d have to come out eventually. A decision had to be made between transitioning (finally feeling like she could actually live, not spending her nights staving off breakdowns in Ethan’s arms) and being able to maintain her status. At the very least she had to tell Vic and Thomas. She already felt dirty keeping it from them for this long. She wasn’t afraid of them. She knew she could trust them and it wouldn’t even be a big deal. But the telling them would be another step towards telling the world and any momentum in that direction still felt like too much. It would be better to hear it from her than from Ethan slipping up and revealing the months she’d been hiding it from them. It wouldn’t matter that she did trust them, they would feel like she didn’t.
It wasn’t all agonizing internal conflict, though. Finding herself had been beautiful, too. It had opened a whole new dimension in her and Ethan’s relationship. He touched her like she was a whole new person, relearning every inch of her body now as a woman’s. She liked the idea of what she know knew was called being T4T. It was like they had their own little universe that only they could understand. She’d spend the rest of her life explaining herself to people, covering the complexity of herself in slogans and platitudes. But in their bedroom nothing mattered. She’d never need to dress up or perform or even be consistent in her identity. They knew her, they understood her in a way words could never replicate. She actually found herself thinking about her gender less and less when they were alone. The nature of Ethan’s sexuality meant it would never really matter to him, so why should it bother her either. With the weight of gender lifted, she was able to fully lose herself in him in a way she never even realized she was missing.
The rest of the world could wait a little longer. However wrong it might be, she wasn’t ready to give up their world of safety and peace. Here she could explore the type of woman she wanted to be, experiment with new facades without consequences. She could be a raging whore one day and a good housewife the next, secure in the knowledge that all he cared about was her. It was still awkward sometimes, especially surrounding her name. As much time as she spent contemplating her future as a woman, no name had ever come to mind for this new self. There were a few under consideration, but nothing had truly spoken to her. So she contented herself with the nickname she’d gone by for years. Familiar, still herself, but not quite where she wanted to be. For now she was Damià, as she’d always been, but a new version of him. Maybe tomorrow she would finally agree to be Amalia, or Livia, or, as they had often joked, Marlena (she would never).
One day she would give in. She would tell her friends, her family, the entire world. She would watch people turn away, no longer interested now that she wasn’t their sex toy. She might be in danger, Italy was never a safe place for people like her. She would change her name, she would cave and take her pills, watch her body rebuild itself in ways she couldn’t control. She’d get invited to pride events and have a generation of trans kids feel like they knew her. She’d grow out her hair again and learn how to be less rebellious in her femininity.
But for now she could just be. Damià. Herself.