The Greatest Liar Ch. 02: Exposure, Disclosure

Author's Note:

This is a continuation of the narrative which commenced with "My Awkward Phase", which I posted here previously. Readers may wish to read that before continuing, although I have written them to stand alone.

*****

Natives say that life cannot exist in LA without a car and money. My last days in LA proved those truisms.

I'm from Brentwood, "OJ Land", a privileged enclave nestled between Westwood and Santa Monica. My parents bought their three-bedroom bungalow when it was a quaint bedroom community for the faculty of nearby UCLA, before home prices went sky-high.

The professors cashed out their equity, now my parents' ranch house was surrounded by the towering McMansions of hedge fund managers whose kids went to the pricey, private Brentwood School instead of attending nearby Uni High. The future of Brentwood was private equity for the wealthy new residents and private schools for their children. We were the poorest family on our block, a throwback to Brentwood's past.

Range Rovers, BMWs and Benzes crowded the parking lot Whole Foods on San Vicente, where paparazzi stalked celebrities as they shopped. The nearby restaurants thronged with Pellegrino-swigging trophy wives and yoga matt-toting slackers with ponytails, living large off alimony, residuals or inheritances. Botox and silicone mingled with aromas of putanesca sauce and Porsche exhaust in this land of plenty.

Brentwood was ill-suited to a transitioning transgender teen. Its self-absorbed sybarites ignored the androgynous scarecrow in ill-fitting Gap khakis and hoody who browsed its shops, fantasy shopping and role modeling on the starlets. Only the homeless veterans from the nearby Veterans' Administration facility noticed me, and then only to beg.

After breast implants and bottom surgery, I could sit at the front table of Toscana, sharing sizzling sea scallops and chardonnay with a tanned, silver-haired sugar daddy. But now as I walked out of Jamba Juice, I heard the clerks snickering about the tranny.

Ten miles east, in Hollywood, my androgynous looks would have scarcely attracted notice. Trannies easily blend into that Babel of sexual diversity, but three years in prep school and a year in the closet in Brentwood had left me without the street smarts to survive that jungle. I needed experience.

Boudoir

My dad confiscated most of my hormones, trashed my girl clothes, cancelled my credit card and closed my post office box. I was cut off from the internet pharmacies and from the illicit supplies I had stolen from his hospital. I dreaded starting college with my supplies of HRT drugs decimated. From internet research I learned that under-aged Latina trannies scored their hormones from swap meets near downtown LA. I decided to splurge on a hormone resupply as a 19th birthday present to myself . But I needed to cross town and cross-dress to get my gift.

I was car-less and didn't want to involve my erstwhile friends in a contraband hormone escapade. I looked at Seth's crumpled phone number, called, got voice mail, and hung up. He probably would have fucked me and then begged off because he was in the wrong gang for the neighborhood where I was headed. My only option was taking LA's infamous mass transit dressed as a girl.

I retrieved a pink clutch purse holding the last of my hormones from the crawl space beneath the garage. I jabbed a needle into the hidden patch of skin between my thighs and choked down a Spiro. I showered and squeezed my soapy boobs together into a décolletage that disappeared as soon as my hands slipped. I slid three soapy fingers in my hole, drilled in deep, and splayed them apart. I inserted an enema bottle in my ass and squeezed and refilled it until my colon was flooded. After the swirling inner tsunami gushed down my colon I power-washed my hole in the shower's spray.

I compared my face and naked body to a year-old picture to measure my feminization. My pubic hair was plucked, my waist was tapered, my butt had broadened, my nipples had expanded, and my boobs bulged into discernable mounds of pliable flesh. My skin's tone was a shade lighter and was soft and blemish free. My arm and leg muscles lacked cut or tone. My shrunken genitals easily tucked invisibly into my perineum.

Estrogen stifled my cock, but not the new erotic zone in my ass. But my last sexual submission had turned me into a gender refugee. There was no safe sex for me in West LA.

I poured my nervous energy into my makeup. Without Marta's guidance, my first attempt made me look like a clownish whore. I wiped it away, along with tears of frustration amplified by the hormones coursing through my veins.

I started over, using concealer slightly darker than my natural complexion, less eyeliner and mascara, and lighter lip gloss. I primped in the mirror and put some blush on my cheekbones. My face looked feminine and exotically ethnic, a perfect camouflage for my mission to MacArthur Park.

I painted my nails with luminescent white polish and blew out my hair straight and shiny. I moisturized all over with lavender skin lotion, perfumed with my mom's cologne.

I tucked my privates into my perineum and secured them with surgical tape. I flipped up my hem, looked in the mirror and enjoyed the view. My taped-back cock compressed my scrotum into vulva-like valley. I covered up with a mini pad and bolstered the adhesive wings with more surgical tape.

My dad purged by my feminine wardrobe after Prom Night. The best fit in my mom's closet was a little black dress. My tiny boobs barely showed, but its tight fit emphasized my waist and butt, and scalloped hem showed four inches of my thighs. I slipped on a pair of Steve Madden platform pumps. I looked like cute teen ingénue dressed for the red carpet.

I put on a pair of my mom's Oscar de la Renta shades to avoid being clocked by my frightened eyes. From her drawer of costume jewelry, I selected a wristful of silver bangles, dangly Swarovski earrings, a dainty silver crucifix, an opal ring. I preened in her mirror, judged myself passable.

I hadn't walked in heels since Prom Night, and my first steps were wobbly. I practiced my female gait by walking the center hall from her bedroom to the foyer. My first appearance in my childhood home as a girl made me feel alien and eager to leave.

Our gardeners were leaf-blowing the walk, and although I wanted the hot new helper to fuck me on the garden table, I couldn't risk doing so as Mr. and Mrs.'s new daughter. I primped in the mirror until they had loaded their blowers and mowers into their battered pickup. When the block was clear, I opened my parents' front door and stepped into the cul de sac. I blinked into the dazzle of the Los Angeles' sun, and took my first steps from my front porch into my future.

Crosstown Traffic

Near San Vicente, a grimy group of homeless veterans lounged in the shade of an office building near Whole Foods, like litter amid the glitter. Would they recognize and taunt me?

"Hey, sweet thing, got a dollar to make an old veteran happy?"

I smiled and reached into my clutch. I forced my voice into the feminine up-tones that Marta taught me.

"Of course, to honor your service."

I dropped some change into his outstretched hand.

He smiled through gapped teeth. I could smell the beer on his breath.

"Thanks darling."

"Don't mention it."

I was thrilled. The addled old beggar had perceived me as a pretty girl. I'd passed.

The bus stop at Federal and Wilshire was crowded with Latina domestics commuting between their East LA homes and West LA jobs. In the morning, they flowed west, and in the evening, east, like a tawny tide. Now, I floated with them in that current, an alien crossing the border into their world.

Two overcrowded buses lumbered by the frustrated crowd. After forty-five minutes, I squeezed aboard a packed bus, and stood, holding a pole. A squat laborer took his place behind me. He brushed against me, and when I turned, he smiled. When the bus ground to a halt, his body pressed against mine. He ground his crotch into the soft flesh of my ass. I could feel his organ pressing through the front of his jeans into my behind.

When I turned to scowl, he leered at me. I bumped my hip into his groin, and shook my head, but he kept touching me at every turn and stop. The slut inside me secretly enjoyed being the victim of his lewd attention, but he was too grimy and paunchy to offer the blow job that I would have given a hotter guy.

The bus rumbled past the gleaming office towers of Westwood, the stately high-rise condos of the Wilshire Corridor, the leafy expanses of the Los Angeles Country Club, the glitz of Beverly Hills, the cultural palaces of the Museum District, and the quaint beauty of Hancock Park. Then, the orderly calm of the West Side was supplanted by Korea Town, inscribed with indecipherable characters, Filipino Town's shabby shops, and finally, the grubby, third-worldly MacArthur Park district. I pulled the cord and the bus pulled to the curb at my stop.

Fake ID

The sidewalk was dense with shoppers, beggars, and hustlers. I had taken only a few steps when a well-muscled Latino accosted me.

"Chica, need a fake ID?"

I responded in Spanish, "Not necessary, thank you."

I wasn't planning on underage beer-bashing at Michigan. I would be at the center of a new intellectual mafia, speeding through finals, exploring higher consciousness and adventurous sexuality with acid or Ecstasy. Beer was for frat boys for whom transsexuals were anathema. After a few more steps I had an epiphany, that a female ID would bolster my female identity.

I turned around. He was already hustling his next mark. I started to leave, but he broke away from that encounter.

"So, you want it?"

He swaggered, thrust his hips and leered, a bad boy on a lucky streak. I backed away, partly anxious, partly playing hard to get.

"How long and how much for the ID?"

"Take a picture, an hour of processing. Two hundred bucks."

"Too much."

"Party with me, it's a hundred."

"What kind of party?"

"420 and beer, hanging out, whatever."

He was coming on, and he was cute. My nipples and ass tingled.

"No time to hang out. Must shop, hurry back to the Westside."

"Ah, a gringa who speaks good Spanish."

I tossed my head and fluttered my eyes, Marta's advice for encouraging an advance.

"I have many talents."

"Then fifty for you."

"Still too much. Comp me, I'm worth it."

"Come see my set-up."

We entered a cluttered bodega. Two old guys playing checkers ignored us. My new friend pointed me toward a battered door. I walked into a narrow room crammed with tripod, a computer desk and chair, a photographic light and a blue background the precise shade of my California driver's license.

"What's your name, chica?"

"Alexandra Rios, and yours?"

"Call me Sal. Where's your down payment?"

I smiled and knelt on the floor by his chair.

"This down enough?"

He punched the air, unzipped and rolled the chair toward me.

I put my sunglasses on top of my head, and pursed my lips, blowing him for barter, transacting my first trick in the backroom of a bodega, the sleazy slut of my wildest fantasies, and passing as a girl. I only regretted not bargaining for a fake school ID too. But I'd saved my precious cash for wardrobe and hormones.

I gave him a sample, then kissed him goodbye.

"Save it for later."

He seized me, force my face towards him.

"Don't stop, need to-"

"First finish my ID, then finish here."

"Cockteaser. No wonder Westside suits come to this hood for hos."

I took a compact out of my purse, checked my makeup, glossed my lips, and smiled winsomely as he took my picture.

"Maybe they're bargain hunters like me."

I rose and twerked my ass, and he spanked me.

"Who's getting the bargain?"

"It's a win-win."

He put his arm around my waist, pulled me close and gave my butt a little squeeze. He ground his member against me.

"If I wait, you swallow."

"Throw in a University of Michigan ID."

He checked his computer and nodded.

"Add it to my order."

"For that, I get that."

He grabbed my ass.

"I'll hurry through my shopping list."

"Ready in an hour."

The checker players played on, undistracted by our transaction. Sal had probably bartered fake IDs for sex before. I'd upsold myself to intercourse but gambled that Sal would settle for sodomy when he saw my mini pad. But what if Sal discovered that he had blown by a ladyboy? Stories abounded about beatings and murders of unmasked trannies.

The lures of proving my passability and getting a girl's ID's overpowered my anxiety. While I scored hormones, he'd sweat over his laminator to fulfill his part of our sexual contract. I felt as irresistible as a girl as I had been inadequate a as a boy. Alexandra was passable, and with a female's ID even greater adventures would be possible.

I'd spoofed him. Now I had to maintain the pretense.

Pharmacia

I wended down the crowded sidewalk to Bonito's swap meet. Traffic stuttered beside me on Alvarado, horns honking, tail pipes spewing, motorists cursing. Joggers still outnumbered hookers and drug dealers across the street in MacArthur Park, but as the sun sank the low-life population would rise. I needed to leave this nasty neighborhood before nightfall.

Inside Bonito's the tables were piled high with merchandise that had a rumpled, picked-over look. I found a jumbled stack of garments and accessories of dubious provenance labeled with slight variations on brand names: Kelvin Cline camisoles, tank tops, and jeans, Juicy Culture sweat suits and T-shirts, and Vicky's Secrets miniskirts, sundresses, panties and bras and Jimmy Shoes wedges, pumps and sandals. For a fraction of retail, I abandoned authenticity and bought knockoffs.

I needed to pee (Spiro does that) and I didn't want to stain my mother's clothes with sex residues, so I ducked into a filthy ladies' room. I carefully disassembled my tuck, peed and water bottle douched, and re-taped my cock-cocoon. I replaced my mom's dress and lace panties with panties emblazoned "Hot Stuff." I pulled on a short, ripped denim skirt, black fishnet stockings, a skin-tight leotard and towering espadrille wedges.

A Latina T-girl approached the Pharmacia's counter. Her 38 D boobs overflowed her tight tank top, her butt bulged with injected silicone, and her eye-catching bleached blonde hair mismatched her Morena complexion.

Her eyes met mine, flashing mutual recognition. We'd clocked each other. I looked around nervously. Had anyone else noticed our non-verbal exchange? The crowd bustled by, oblivious. The pharmacist handed her a bag. When she was out of the pharmacist's sight, she motioned me.

"You spying me, bitch?"

"Trying to learn-"

"The "T"?"

"How you get hormones, look like you."

She squeezed her boobs together.

"Don't get these with 'mones, they're implants?"

"I can barely afford hormones."

"Used a credit card. Doubled my price and volume, paid for themselves."

"Don't have any credit."

More customers had gathered at the pharmacy counter now.

"Write what you want and rap your knuckles three times. Hand your list over like a prescription. Don't talk, he gets nervous, pay with cash, that's the T."

I studied her walk as she moved on, her hips swayed, and her shoulders rolled more than a typical girl. But she attracted looks from every guy in Bonitos, more eye-catching, and sexually provocative, than the real thing.

I wrote out my order, Estradiol Valerate, AldactoneR, injectable Depo-Provera, syringes. I approached the counter and rapped on it with the opal ring, clack, clack. The pharmacist looked at my note and scowled. He pointed to the Estradiol.

"Only Premarin."

Premarin is an oral hormone derived from horse urine. It had more side effects and required larger doses, but I was desperate. I nodded acceptance.

He wrote down $500. I crossed it out and wrote down $350. He crossed it out, circled the $500.

"You don't have what I want. Give me a discount."

"Pay or get out."

"I can't-"

He pointed across the street.

"Work the street, like that one."

He pointed to my mentor, who'd hooked a middle-aged shopper near the exit.

I edited my list: Premarin, Aldactone, Depo-Provera and syringes.

He scowled, took my money, rummaged his shelves, handed me a brown bag and waved me away.

The pharmacist, like Sal, he had appraised me and decided I would be worth paying for. Cross-dressed to camouflage my hormone purchase, I exuded sexual pheromones.

I retraced my steps through lengthening shadows down Alameda Boulevard, tempted to test my feminine mystique on the stroll. The joggers had been replaced by hard-eyed gangsters, garish streetwalkers, staggering drunks and druggies. I stared into the gloom at the shadowy commerce in the dark. Pimps returned my glances with whistles and gestures. If I dared, I could tiptoe into that world, make some money, gain some experience, and escape. Or I could be bogged in its mire of sleaze. I ruled out trolling tricks in MacArthur Park for now.

My bus stop had been overrun by a group of gangsters who passed around a blunt and a bottle. When I approached, their trash-talking grew louder. I detoured across the street, two of the gangsters broke away and followed me; I jaywalked through the traffic across Alvarado to Sal's. They were at my heels when I ducked in the door of the dark little bodega.

Sic Transit

The checker players had gone. The door to the little back room was ajar, and I pushed it open. Sal the street hawker had company: a tattooed, tautly muscled Latino with shaved head.

"Ayee, party's on."

"Wasn't this our private party?"

He showed me the ID's.

"Two perfect ID's, I bargain too. You do us both."

The new guy's bad boy look was just as irresistible as Salvatore's lothario style. My sex famine, speed buzz, and the pursuers on Alameda Street propelled me.

"OK, I'll suck both of you."

The new guy shook his head and glowered.

"I want pussy."

"Period."

"Ugh. Then give up your booty."

Sal waved the IDs.

Could I delude them? If they felt my twig and berries, how would they react? But that seemed less hazardous than getting robbed or gang-raped by the crazies in the park. I rolled with it.

"Throw in a ride to Brentwood."

"Awesome, a van party. Jose, get the wheels while we get started."

Jose grunted and bolted out the door.

Sal gestured me to kneel, but I shook my head.

"My IDs, please."

My ID's showed 21-year-old female, Alexandra Rios, whose smiling face was mine. I had never looked or felt more like a girl. I would prove it by servicing, and deceiving, Sal and his friend.

"Perfect. Let's settle my account."

He slid his pants to the floor and sat on a rickety office chair. I knelt between his wiry, smooth thighs. His quadriceps bulged like twisted ropes. His belly was flat, his abs defined and pumped.

I blew him, he vibrated with pleasure, gripped my neck and guided me, but I was in control. A horn honked outside. Salvatore pushed me away and pulled up his pants.

"Saving my pop for your booty."

"Need condoms."

"And beer. Try your new ID."

We got in the back of a battered blue Astrovan, furnished like a cramped apartment.

"Bienvenido. Mi casa es su casa."

He grabbed my butt as I got in. His hands grazed the Tampax that hid my pudenda.

"Jose, I touched her tampon. Should I cut my finger off?"

"Have her lick it clean."

I kissed his finger. Like most guys, Salvatore was schizophrenic about feminine sexuality, obsessed with pussy but repelled by female reproductive plumbing. To Sal and Jose girls were an inferior specie, to be used and discarded. My submissive boytoy tendencies meshed perfectly with their machismo.