Maltese Escape
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

They called ours a family, but it was not as you understand that word. A family is supposed to be a safe place to bring a child into the world, to nurture that child when very young, and to support him or her in at least the first part of a journey through life. That is what a family is supposed to be – not a money-grubbing enterprise where every member is expendable.

But this was Sicily, and I was Sicilian, and of a certain lineage where my family demanded respect – respect and tribute. That was the way it always had been in our little corner of the island, west of Palermo.

My father and his brothers and cousins said that we needed to be brought up tough. That meant a childhood without love except for my mother’s smothering affection. She was a beauty – a prize my father pursued. It was said that he killed to get her, but who or why was never discussed. Like him, I suppose, I worshipped her. I used to watch her getting herself ready to go into the city. I never imagined that what I learned from her would turn out to be of use.

But I craved love. I felt that I could give love with intensity, but they say that love and hate are two sides of the same coin. I could hate with intensity too. I had a cousin that deserved all the hate I could muster. He had wronged me many times and I was supposed to take it. I did, but I was boiling inside. It had to blow up.

I could never beat him physically, but I had hard evidence that he had committed a serious crime. I did not want to involve the family in any way so I thought that leaking the information to the police was no betrayal of the family – it was just justice for me and punishment that he deserved. But as they say in Sicily, a rat is a rat, and that is what I was. Rats are vermin and must die, and that was my fate.

Of course I was discovered. Police records are an open book to the true power in our town, even those held in Palermo. I just had the advantage of having a warning through my mother and that meant a small head start in running away from the only home I had ever known.

But where do you hide? Palermo has a port and an airport but everybody in that town would be looking for me. The east part of the island has other ports and cities with airports as well, but calls would be made and descriptions of me would be out there – a small and slight young man not yet 20 years old, long scruffy black hair and light brown eyes. That could describe many on Sicily and that was my best hope.

I ditched my car in the countryside and climbed in the covered back of a truck heading southeast. I had hoped it would take me further, but when it parked up for unloading it was getting dark and I was able to sneak out unseen. I found that I was in the seaside town of Pozallo on the south coast. It was a port, but with limited destinations.

In the darkness I was able to get aboard a small ferry headed for the island of Malta in the morning. Malta is a small island in the Mediterranean Sea close to the south coast of Sicily and is its own nation state. The official languages are Maltese and English because the island had been British territory in the past. That worked for me because I had been the best student of English at my high school. All I had to do was to survive the 40 mile journey to the island undiscovered and then wait for the chance to sneak off the boat and enter Malta unofficially.

I had to wait until dark again to do that, and by this time I was very hungry. I did my best to conceal myself with a hoodie and went to a small café to buy food and drink. I listened to a conversation in English between two local people and from their complaints I soon learned that while Malta is its own country, its government could be easily bought. That would mean that I could be in danger here too, and unlike Sicily, Malta has only one international airport and a tightly controlled seaport. You need a passport to get out, and for me that would mean being identified as a rat, and being dead soon after.

I figured it my only hope was to hide out in Malta, and because I knew nobody who could give me shelter, that meant hiding out in plain sight with a disguise second to none.

It turns out that Malta is famous for a few things, and just one of those is its transgender community, something that I found out by accident. I was in a desperate state, and sometimes desperation spawns some crazy ideas. Maybe this was one of those. But what better disguise than a change of gender? I may not have been big but I had always enjoyed women, so it would seem impossible to believe that I could actually pretend to be one.

The woman serving at the café had clearly not always been that. She was not unattractive, but she was heavy boned and slightly awkward in her manner, so I decided that I would ask her if she was trans. I quickly added that my reason for asking was that I was trans too, and running away from my angry parents who did not understand me.

“I will find you a place to stay upstairs and you can work in the bakery to pay your way,” she said. “Nobody will find you here.”

Not only did I become invisible, but I immediately found myself surrounded by supportive friends of hers sharing her predicament, all of whom understood that leaving my past identity behind was so very normal.

It is just that, as I learned, transfolk don’t do things by halves. They expected me to follow their lead and get on with transition.

“You have the added advantage that with a face like yours you could be pretty,” they all agreed. “So don’t insult us by being less beautiful than you can be.”

Before I knew it I was transformed into Maria, plucked and shaved, with hair extensions and semi-permanent makeup, and with hormone shots and deportment classes every week. And all of this was in English, which soon became my language. I never spoke Italian and even pretended not to understand it.

Even before the most drastic effects of the hormones began, I had become a convincing woman. Plenty of my new friends said that they were amazed how well I was able to “pass as female”. Some may have even been a little jealous, but the general view in our little group was that – “The success of one of us is good for the whole local trans community”.

Once I felt able to step outside I found additional work and a new place to live. My second job was at a nearby salon and started after I had finished baking in the morning. I learned how to do manicures and makeup and I did that through the day before heading home for some sleep and starting a new day in the bakery behind the café before dawn.

Everything seemed to be going well. Anybody looking for the man I had once been was going to be out of luck.

But it suddenly seemed as if my luck had run out. I was out with the girls at an outdoor restaurant one evening when I saw a man I recognized - Lorenzo Marino, an Italian-American who had visited our town. He had never been introduced to me, but I saw him looking at me from across the street.

I did my best to ignore him, but inside I was starting to panic. I resisted the temptation to duck for cover as that would clearly mark me out. I figured that my disguise was so good I could talk my way out of it.

Anyway, he disappeared after a while so I thought I was in the clear. Still, I decided to head for home, so I told the girls that I was tired and needed to be ready for an early start in the morning. But as it turned out he had found a place where he could watch me without being seen, and he followed me back to my place without me even noticing. As soon as I opened the door, he was behind me pushing me in.

“I know you,” he said in Italian.

“I am sorry, I don’t speak Italian,” was my reply. “And I don’t appreciate being man-handled in my own home.”

“You are the boy they are looking for,” he said. “The kid who ratted out his own cousin.”

“Excuse me! Talk about adding insult to injury. In case you hadn’t noticed, I am a woman!” I even had enough flesh on my chest and the right bra for a very convincing cleavage, and I made a point of showing it to him. But he seemed not convinced. “My name is Maria and I am Maltese. Now please leave my home before I call the police.”

“It is that cute nose of yours, Maria, if that is who you are now,” he said. “I always thought that it was too pretty to be on a man’s face. It looks perfect on you now.”

I wondered if I should drop the voice and grovel. People do, as I was always told. What person wouldn’t? What person, man or woman, would not beg for their life. It is just dressed as I was, and flooded with female hormones, I burst into tears.

Instead of laughing and making the call to the Boss, Lorenzo put an arm around me.

“I saw you with your friends tonight, even before you noticed me,” he said. “Now I understand you. Running away has given you the chance to become the woman you really are.”

It seemed like a glimmer of hope. I nodded furiously, and wiped away my tears. My makeup remained perfect.

“So, you are not going to tell them that you found me?” I was still simpering in my practiced girl voice.

“On one condition,” he said. “If you will agree to be my girlfriend, Maria, then we can both go home and forget Sicily. We can fly to London with you as my companion and then back to my home in New York from there.”

“I don’t have a passport,” I said. I did not refuse to be his girlfriend. It seemed as if I had not even considered that I had any other options. I was certainly not in a position to set any conditions, but this was just a statement of fact.

“I am told that you can get anything you like here and even a choice of British or European passport provided we can get you an identity card here,” he said. “Malta is so closely allied to Britain it is virtually a colony. Any document will do. I can arrange it, but you will need to move in with me. I find you very attractive, Maria, and the fact that you have not always been a woman I find strangely exciting. Don’t worry, I won’t force myself upon you, but I would like the opportunity to get closer to you.”

“It seems that I don’t have too many options,” I said to him. “And I find it hard to believe that you would not take advantage.”

“You don’t know me,” he said. “But I want you to. We will wait until it is dark and then head to my villa. It is not far. Nothing is in Malta.”
So, I went with Renzo to his villa overlooking the sea, and I stayed there with him for a few weeks. He explained to me that there were others in Sicily combing all over Malta looking for me, so I needed to make excuses to both my employers. Fortunately, “combing all over Malta” does not take too long, and by then he had a passport for me.

But those two weeks were all that he needed to charm the panties off me. I never would have thought that it would be possible. I had been a heterosexual male – at least while I was a male. The transsexual thing was just supposed to be a disguise, but the whole thing changed me.

I could say that it was the hormones. I had been on them for some time, in doses probably too big for my own health. I now had breasts and soft skin with not much muscle beneath it, and I was increasingly emotional. It seemed to create in me the need for intimacy and for protection. That is what he offered me and had done from the moment he met me.

It was just a matter of time before I fell into his arms and felt his hands on parts of me that seemed to have become sensitive in a very feminine way. Then there were kisses, then caresses, and then, ever so gently, penetration.

The other possibility was that I had been female in my very essence, all along. I had worshipped my mother and been distant from my father. The person I had been was a creation of him and his brothers and cousins. I was not that person. A true man would have taken on my cousin, but instead I took a devious path to see him punished – some might even say mine was a woman’s payback.

But that is all forgotten now, even though I am back in the city I started from, and occasionally, because of Renzo’s connections, I encounter my family in the street. But the person that I was is assumed to be dead. They would never recognize me. A little facial surgery was needed just to make sure, and some work on the voice box too.

And there has been other surgery too, because Renzo deserves to have a wife who can offer everything a wife should, except children – but those he already has from his first marriage.

To everybody I am Maria, his wife from Malta who has only recently learnt Italian.

The End

© Maryanne Peters 2026

Author's Note: My thanks to Eric from editing this story.