I had seen headlines, articles and stories about me. Hundreds. Going online and seeing my face alongside childish insults wasn’t a shock anymore. At the start of my career I would look for any mention of my name. I’d romanticize each word, and read them proudly. That was a long time ago. Now I have to apologize to my family. I tell them to avoid the news, stay off social media. Stay uninformed.

There’s a cool breeze I can feel coming through the open window in our kitchen. I’m staring at the cracks and dirt that run urgently across it, hardly noticing my gardener past it. My husband isn’t here. I haven’t seen him in a week, maybe longer. It was funny when he called to apologise. This time, he told me to stay off the internet. Our own freaky Friday. Then I saw the headlines. It didn’t feel that funny when I had to ask him if he was currently wearing his large breasts.

One article said that the size was not even available for purchase on Amazon. So just how big were they? How had I not seen them before? I stopped reading shortly after that. But I saw a dozen headlines. I saw it all. Half of an article was more than enough. I asked him how long I hadn’t been enough for him - how much of our marriage was a sham. He told me it wasn’t like that, and that I had always been enough, that this was just something else he was into. “If that’s true,” I asked him, “then why have I heard audio of you telling a dominatrix that you wanted to be a trans bimbo slut?” The line was silent.

José knocked on the door, poking his head around.

“Señora Noem?”

“Hi José.”

“You are ok?”

“Yes, I’m fine.”

“I see the news, I hear about your husband.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Just checking with you. I leave soon, around lunch time.”

“Ok. That’s ok.”

He turned, walking back to the flowers he spent so much time on.

I moved to the counter and rested against it. I looked at my wine glass, the stain of lipstick, the last drop of red inside. I poured another glass, then carefully brought the stain to my lips. A tear left my tightly closed eyes. I thought to myself, how fucking big do his tits need to be?