My Awkward Phase

The Greatest Liar, Exposure, Disclosure

© Alexandra Rios 2019

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. But I needed to cross town and cross-dress to get them.

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 ho's."

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 knock-offs.

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.

As a child I reveled in my mother's porcelain beauty, flowery scent, and chic wardrobe, and was repelled by my father. I'd furtively paged through Victoria's Secret catalogs and stared at Marta out of envy, not lust. When the internet showed me that I could become a woman, I discovered my destiny: to be a sexual plaything, emulating the femininity that both obsessed and revolted macho men.

I was living that dream as a willing slut in a speeding van. Jose passed back a smoldering blunt. Salvatore took a huge hit and offered it to me. My Dexedrine buzz was fading, and I needed another brain ping, so I took a hit, and then another. We pulled up at a bright-lit bodega festooned with Mexican beer signs. I patted my purse.

"I'm broke."

"Here's a couple of twenties. Keep the change."

I went into the store as they cruised around the block. The clerk glared at me from behind bulletproof glass. The labels in the beer cooler started bleeding colors and vibrating. I grabbed a twelve pack, lost my balance, bumped a rack of Mexican pastries, recovered and steadied it just before it toppled.

Dazed by the weed, I wandered the shabby, disorganized shop, searching for condoms among garish packages of chips, jerky, and pork rinds. Their kaleidoscopic colors dazzled and disoriented me. I finally saw condoms on a shelf behind the clerk.

Cannabis paranoia overwhelmed my euphoria. I was buying condoms and beer to ride with, and get ridden, by a couple of Salvadoran thugs: vulnerable, outnumbered and overpowered. I counted the blunders that brought me to this precarious predicament. I had primped too long at home, gotten side-tracked by Sal, and wasted time and money buying trashy clothes instead of focusing on the hormones.

Now I was dressed like a hooker in Los Angeles's most dangerous neighborhood, with barely enough money for bus fare. Two stoned and potentially dangerous petty criminals expected to sexually use a girl. I was college bound, poised to escape from my male past and transform. Why was I trading my body and risking my life for fake IDs and a forty-dollar taxi ride?

But if I fled with their money they would chase and rape me. It was safest to follow through on our sleazy exchange. I pointed to a pack of lubricated Trojans and slid the money and my ID through the little tray beneath the bullet proof window. The clerk muttered "puta" and rang the register.

Salvatore opened the van's door, grabbed the beer and helped me inside. The interior was thick with marijuana smoke. I took another hit, and he passed me a beer. I gulped beer to calm my nerves and got back into character as Alexandra.

"Ugh, I hate beer. Got to get the taste out of mouth."

"Should have bought some chips."

"How `bout your special mouthwash?"

He dropped his pants and knelt next to me. I splashed beer on his penis and slurped it noisily dry.

"Much better this way."

"Oh, yea, baby. I like it better that way too."

I heard another can hiss open. Salvatore guzzled beer while I swallowed him. I looked up at him adoringly, paused, and smiled.

"That's what I call smooth and refreshing."

I heard his beer can clank against the wall the van and he pushed back.

"Want that booty now."

"Have to cover up."

"Whatever."

I reclined on flowered futon, slid my panties to expose my bottom, he thrust, I yielded, he rough rode me, our bodies collided as the van's worn shocks pounded the potholes and Jose gunned the van through traffic. Pain shot through me like fireworks. I started talking dirty.

"Like that little hole?"

"Tight, oh yeah."

"Love it, spank me."

He slapped my ass, and when I looked back at him, my face.

"Yee-hah, love to ride puta like a pony."

He tugged my hair like a horse's reins and pulled back my neck. I twerked back against his thrusts.

I tossed my head to yank my hair even more painfully. Pain was transcendent and transformative. I reveled in self-abasement, and bucked back at his thrusts, yelping like a porn star. He tore at my hair, beat and rode me so hard that my eyes watered.

"Fucking gringa puta, works her ass when she's on the rag."

"That's why God gives chicas extra holes," Jose said.

Sal reached between my legs. To divert him, I said "Play with my boobs."

"Not even a handful, like a skanky schoolgirl."

"Pinch them."

"Beat you like bitch in heat."

His hips shuddered, his breath quickened, he finished, his breath hot and ragged.

"Sal, you OK, buddy?"

"It's a workout, it. Pull over and have sloppy seconds."

Jose honked and swerved through traffic.

Salvatore swatted my butt goodbye and scrambled out of the door. Jose tilted my head back, kneeled, thighs beside my ears, pumped my throat until I was breathless and drooling.

"Too much," I said

"S'what you get, puta."

He flung me face down on the futon, bunched a bean bag under my belly and slapped my upturned ass.

The condom wrapper crinkled, and he pummeled me.

"Don't move-"

"Trying to help."

"Stop, Sal. Don't want pot holes ruining this ride."

The van pulled over. Sal turned up the blaring hip-hop and sparked up another blunt. I gripped the bean bag and smothered my face in its plastic folds. He penetrated me, my body went numb, then my senses burst into flames. Red sparks dazzled my retinas behind my squinted-shut eyes. A howl gathered in my belly and I screamed.

"Too big."

Jose reared back and plunged harder.

"Can't take it."

I heard a whoop of triumph from Jose and a cackle of laughter from Salvatore.

"Now the greedy West Side gringa pays full price."

I bit my knuckle to distract myself with a separate point of pain, our bodies synchronized, my suffering lessened, my mind relaxed and drifted.

I am a transitioned transsexual re-enrolled at Uni, walking in dazzling sunshine past a row of parked cars. A van's door bursts open.

"Need a ride?"

"I'm good."

But I'm dragged into the van, doors slam, it roars off.

My dress is over my shoulders, my panties are at my ankles, I smell a bittersweet aroma, feel the smooth texture of black skin, the power of an athlete's muscles. Thad Jones is atop me. My arms pinned, my legs spread, he plows my moist depths, he and the fulfilling my football gang rape fantasy.

I blinked my eyes open to see Jose's contorted face, and remembered this ride was not high school hijinks. I was the captive of criminals who thought they were doing a girl. My body was bathed with a dew of perspiration. Strands of my hair were plastered to my cheeks. Sweat dripped from Jose's chin and puddled on my lower back. The windshield of the van was steamed translucent. Marijuana smoke billowed from the front seat.

Our bodies got slippery with our mingled perspiration. I conserved my strength by listlessly absorbing his thrusts and withdrawals, but the battering shook my shrunken prostate awake. Then my body craved even more violent pounding. I banged back against his thrusts.

"Yeah, twerk that ass, bitch."

A long-idled engine inside me roared to life, demanded more fuel.

"More, more, harder."

A wet mist formed and fell inside me, washing away months of Spiro and HRT. My ass vibrated, my cock hardened and slid against my moist taint. I imagined it was a clit rubbing against labia. That image pushed me to completion.

"Oh, God, oh, oh, oh."

I orgasmed into the cocoon of tape that protected me from exposure.

Jose finished with a manic burst of energy, pounding my insides, flailing my ass with blows.

"God damn fucking whore."

When Jose's body stopped shaking and his heaving breath slowed, Salvatore passed back another smoldering blunt.

"Good to go now?"

Neither of us answered. I was speechless with anxiety. My pee break at Bonitos, combined with sweat and semen had weakened the adhesive securing my tucked genitals. They had fallen free and dangled down my thigh. I shifted myself to cover it, but Jose's hand had touched it. He sprang away from me.

"What the fuck? You're a guy-"

"No, transsexual, a ladyboy."

"Sal, you dumb fuck, you hooked us up with a shemale."

Jose lurched away as though my flesh was poison and looked at me menacingly.

"Let's kill this fucking faggot."

Sal laughed.

"That's why you wanted your ID?"

"I should have told you, I thought you knew."

I was scared, but more than that, I hated myself. I had misled them to prove I was passable and fuckable and failed. I was a fraud.

"Fooled me until the cock slipped. Let's kill him to prove we're not faggots."

"Fucking me doesn't make you gay. Transsexuals are a kind of girl."

"Trannies are faggot freaks."

Jose slapped my face, I toppled to the floor at his feet. One of his filthy work boots pressed into my groin, as though he were trying to obliterate the tiny cock that had humiliated him, and me.

"My priest says trannies are homos."

I didn't want to die but begging for my life from an enraged transphobe was hopeless. But his subservience to priests gave me an angle.

"Kill me, put me out of my misery. I deserve it, for wanting guys like you, when I'm untouchable. Strangle me and dump my body in the mountains. I don't care, no one will care."

Jose looked away.

"Kill yourself."

I played my Catholic card, held up my mom's crucifix.

"Suicide is a mortal sin. If you kill me Christ can accept my soul."

Sal started up the car and looked at us in the rearview mirror.

"Jose, chill out, go to confession, you'll get off with a few Hail Mary's."

Jose's rage ebbed to self-loathing.

"Get out."

He flung the van's door open.

Salvatore laughed as he lit up a blunt.

"Now I can cross trannies off my bucket list."

"Fuck you Sal. I feel like a fag."

Sal blew out a cloud of smoke.

"You're not a fag `til a tranny fucks you."

I grabbed my shopping bags and purse and got out of the van. Jose chugged Tecates to dull his transpanic into a drunken stupor. Salvatore U-turned the van and rolled down the window.

"Always wanted to try a tranny."

"Your friend didn't."

"A few more Tecates and he'll get over it."

"Was I good?"

"Great, but too skinny. Get big tits and I'll do you again."

He rolled up the window and screeched away.

I walked home past the battered RV's of the itinerant, homeless veterans of camped out by the Veteran's Administration hospital. Would I end living in similar degradation? As a whore who sold herself on the streets, perhaps dying alone in a decrepit trailer was my destiny. Or would I die in trans-panicked bloodbath?

My parents' house was dark. I showered and went to bed in the quiet house that I would soon leave forever. My brilliant turn as a girl had ended in a fiasco which I'd barely survived. I was stranded in a no man's lands between the male and female genders. To escape that purgatory would I, like so many transsexuals before me, be forced to abdicate honors and achievements for a life of deceit and hustling?

I wasn't sure which life I belonged in, but I refused to retreat from transition. I would reinvent Alexandra and her world.

Take Off

My flight to Ann Arbor was booked as Alex, so I travelled dressed as a boy. My briefs ill-fitted my round behind and my jeans slid from my slim waist. I flattened my boobs with an ace bandage and wore a bulky Wolverines sweatshirt. I barely resembled the photo on my real California driver's license, my transition had taken a turn toward androgyny and beyond. Could I pass at TSA as Alex?

My mom had booked my flight with frequent flier miles, so I was routed through Las Vegas and Denver on an eighteen-hour odyssey. She helped me pack my checked luggage, so I stashed my girl clothes and shoes, hormones, jewelry, purse and makeup in my carry-on. I loaded a handful of DVD's and books on top as camouflage.

"Mind driving, dear? I have such a headache."

My dad was pursuing a foreign grad student and a job with a Swiss pharmaceutical giant. She had the forlorn look of a woman who had said goodbye, perhaps forever, to both her husband, and her only child. She rubbed her temples as I drove down the 405 to LAX. I glimpsed silent tears streaking down her cheeks.

"The life I imagined for you isn't-"

"But it's my life."

She started sobbing.

"If your dad had been more involved, and I played a smaller role, everything could-"

"My being transsexual isn't your fault unless you take the blame for the hormonal vagaries that altered me in utero. And dad's such an asshole that I'm glad he wasn't around."

"Don't hate your father."

"He ran off to Switzerland to escape both of us."

"I shouldn't have to live in an empty house."

"Better that I transition away from home. You'll only see only the final result instead of the difficult process."

"I'm afraid for you."

"UM has a program for transsexuals."

"Any mistake you make could be fatal."

"We've read the same websites. I'll-."

"Don't take chances with strangers."

"Everyone I meet will be a stranger."

"That's why I am so afraid."

"I'll deal with it."

I doubled parked in traffic at LAX, unloaded my suitcases and kissed her goodbye. I felt an almost unbearable lightness as she drove off, and I escaped the burden of her fears and tears.

I boarded the plane, stowed my carry-on, put on my Raybans, Dodger baseball cap and headphones and zoned out. I thought about the five fucks I had collected. I was in the mood for another, but I had to choose carefully. For every Seth or Salvatore, who accepted my transsexuality, there were others, like Miguel, whose transsexual compulsions were mixed with revulsion, or Jose, whose homophobia intensified against trannies.

I dozed off to mental slideshow of images of fantasy fucks. I jolted awake when a fat white guy squeezed into in the seat next to mine. His belly bulged over his belt and stretched his polo shirt. His flaccid forearm dislodged my elbow from the arm rest. He opened a smelly 12" Subway pastrami and Swiss and started chewing on it noisily.

"Bring your own food, son? This airline will starve you."

"I'm good. Aren't we stopping in Vegas?"

"That's where I get off. Straight to the buffet, and then the slots."

"Have good times, and good luck."

I flipped down my shades and put my phones back in my ears. Behind my closed eyes, I was getting fucked by a muscular jock in the airliner's bathroom, 6 miles high. I dozed off while the plane was still taxiing and woke up as we began descending.

My neighbor was snoozing, so I could look around without him noticing. Two rows ahead on the other aisle I spotted a tall, blonde guy in camos, but all I could see was the back of his head. Then he got up and loaded his laptop into the overhead. He was ruggedly built, 6 feet, with tanned skin, a squared jaw and brilliant blue eyes, the living embodiment of my bathroom fuck fantasy. I looked out the window before he noticed me staring. Why couldn't I have gotten him as my seat companion instead of fatso?

The plane landed, and my obese neighbor left with the other Las Vegas passengers. GI Joe stayed behind until the through passengers were counted. Then he and everyone else got off during the lay over, probably to drop coins in the airport slots.

But I stayed on the plane, for I was laying a different kind of bet. I had gotten Sal and Jose to go for me, but my accomplishment was tarnished by my gender fraud. And beneath their good looks they were a couple of petty criminals. I aimed to seduce GI Joe as a transsexual.

In the cramped bathroom I kicked off my Nikes, changed out of my jeans and jockeys, pulled off the Ace bandage and sweatshirt. I swallowed a Ritalin for confidence, and my daily doses of Premarin and Aldactone. I scrubbed my face, applied light foundation, blush, two colors of eye shadow, a faint trace of eyeliner and mascara, and luminescent pink lip gloss. I pulled my hair from beneath the Dodger cap and brushed it out so it flowed flat and silky to my shoulders, replaced my boyish silver studs with dangly hoops. I lacquered my nails pink to match my lips, slipped on silver bangles and a slim gold ring.

I put on flowered panties and a foam enhanced push-up bra, and a flowered sun dress whose spaghetti straps gave a peek a boo glimpse of my white lace camisole and bra straps. I hung a simple gold chain around my neck and spritzed my neck with cologne. My transformation startled me. I looked like a waifish school girl on vacation. I stuffed my boy clothes into the bottom of the carry-on and took the window seat next to the soldier's spot.

The passengers began drifting aboard and taking their places. He was one of the last to board. He took his seat, smiled and said hi. I smiled, pretending to be preoccupied with my music.

I bobbed my head and hummed a chorus. When he glanced at me, I pulled out my ear buds.

"Sorry to disturb you."

"No worries, I love that song."

"Me too."

"What else do you like?"

"Green Day, and Nirvana and Pearl Jam of course."

"We have a lot in common."

"Do you like Vegas?"

He shook his head.

"Only checking email, no gambling."

"Where would you go if you could go anywhere?"

"Where we're going, Colorado, to the mountains. Pack a tent, sleeping bag, fishing pole and rifle. I could show you how to live off the land."

"Sounds like an adventure, but I'm on my way to college."

"Better use of time. By the way, my name's Jake Aldridge."

"I'm Alexandra Rios."

"Pretty name, for a pretty girl."

I blushed. "You have a strong name, for a strong man."

"I'd better be. I'm going to the Hindu Kush of Afghanistan."

"So exciting, but dangerous. Did you volunteer?"

"Needed money for college and didn't want to borrow or flip burgers. ROTC paid my tuition, room and board, but I owe them three years of active duty, shipping out to Bagram Air Base in two weeks. Just emailed my parents and my girlfriend about my deployment."

"Oh, you have a girlfriend?"

"Had. Didn't want to waste a year, so she dumped me."

"Her loss."

"Not really. The only Afghan girls who'll come near me will be wearing explosive vests, so I'll be celibate anyhow. Where are you going to school?"

"Michigan."

"Figured you as a California girl."

"I need a change."

"Got my degree at Michigan. Need to party hearty to keep the blood from freezing in Ann Arbor."

I faked a shiver.

"How does a sunshine girl like me keep warm?"

"No such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes. The locals will tell you what to wear. Friendly people, nice town and a great school. And Detroit has a great museum, though it's a burnt-out, post-industrial cesspool."

He told me about all the best programs and professors, the little theaters and cozy coffeehouses. I resisted the temptation to quiz him about the sin centers of Detroit.

"Paradise in a barren Midwest tundra."

"A rare gem. Travel west from Ann Arbor and the only signs of intelligent life `til Seattle are Madison and Minneapolis, and they're even colder."

"I need a break from LA."

"Why? Perfect weather, great food, creative culture."

"Most of my high school classmates were zombies or criminals."

"Nobody's high school is-"

"Everyone's obsessed with appearances, diversity as a fashion statement, not because they believe in the right to be different."

"Liberty means you can earn the right to be different."

"It's not fair to ration freedom and reward the rich."

"You're complaining about capitalism."

"What do my clueless classmates or my parents' phony friends have to do with capitalism?"

"Corporate America needs low cost conformists. It would be happier if they could replace them robots, which it doubtless will, eventually. That's what K-12 education provides."

"Robots would have been preferable to my classmates. Some of them were evil."

"Not everyone fits on the conveyor belt. If the education machine can't smooth off the corners, it spits them out, and the rejected kids know it. When they realize they've been marginalized, they retaliate against those who beat the system."

"Been there, done that."

"The top bracket goes to elite colleges, where competition triages them into the professional and managerial classes. When you make it through the mill, it's your turn to be boss."

"You sound like my father, defending the status quo."

"All critiques and praise of capitalism converge, because it's both been on a long winning streak and left a lot of wrecked lives behind. Anyhow, you must have been in the top 1%, if you got into Michigan. Pick the right program and you'll be set for life. Have you decided on a major?"

It was premature to tell him about my plans, so I changed the subject.

"I feel like such an egotist, we've only talked about me. What's next after Afghanistan?"

"Can't plan that far ahead. Maybe I'll come back to Michigan for a Masters."

"Or visit now, show me around?"

The plane hit turbulence as we crossed the mountains and began our descent toward Denver. Jake looked at me and clasped my hand.

"I'm under orders to stay put until I ship out. But knowing you're at UM gives me something positive to think about."

"I'll think about you, too."

"Can we stay in touch?"

"I don't even know where I'll have housing."

Jake scribbled his name, unit number, serial number and email on a scrap of paper. "I'll be off the internet mostly, but you can snail-mail me through my unit's home base."

"I'll volunteer and serve with you."

"Girls don't get into combat."

I stared out the window, annoyed that the success of my gender tromp d'oeil was wasted.

Layover

The sound system crackled with the pilot's voice.

"Detroit air traffic control announced an extreme weather closure. Detroit passengers, push your call buttons, the attendants will register you for hotel vouchers."

I feigned a frown.

"Ugh, air travel-"

"Thank you, Mother Nature."

"For stranding me?"

"I've got twenty-four hours' leave."

"Then let's hope the storm lasts."

We held hands at the cab stand and cuddled back seat in the cab, my first romantic kiss as a girl. Our lips met, our tongues fluttered, and his hands were all over my butt and my boobs. When Jake slid his hands between my thighs I resisted.

"Dinner before dessert."

"An offer I can't refuse."

I used my fake ID to check in as Alexandra, felt empowered and emboldened by my first hotel room. My breasts ached and my ass tingled, hungry for rough sex. I knew Jake wanted the girl he saw. I needed him to take the girl I was.

I showered and stared at the nymphet in the foggy mirror. My flea market hormones had nauseated and bloated me but Premarin had induced a growth spurt in my boobs and butt. I rolled my shoulders, and they jiggled. I bent over and peered through my legs. My shrunken balls and cock barely blocked the view of my pear-shaped butt cheeks or the pink star at their center.

I refreshed my make-up, blew out my hair, slipped on a pair of skintight white Capris, a snug black turtleneck and some new pink sneakers. I added a silver necklace with a turquoise pendant that dangled between the subtle mounds of my boobs, accentuated by a padded, push-up bra. I put on a distressed denim jacket that tapered to accentuate my modest curves and decided I looked perfect. Would Jake take the bait and stay on the hook after I revealed my special problem?

I arrived first at the restaurant and selected an outside table to enjoy the sunset. A local loser approached, wobbly after a long happy hour, and pulled up a chair.

"Come here often?"

I affected an indifferent look.

"Meeting my boyfriend."

"What's your sign?"

"No trespassing."

"I'm Cancer."

"Like the disease."

I pointed to his smoldering cigarette.

His leer turned hard.

"Cunt."

He blew smoke in my face and railed to his friends, who ridiculed him and threw me flirtatious glances. I glared back, both to discourage their overtures and to see if anyone had clocked me. But their banter suggested that I was a girl worth hitting on.

Jake arrived wearing camouflage and combat boots.

"The drunk with the cigarette came on."

Jake shot him an ominous look and their table quieted down. I ordered a salad, which I left largely uneaten to keep my ass fresh and clean for our after-dinner feast.

He spoke expansively as he ordered a second, and third beer. He was the first in his family to graduate from college, and third generation military. After 9-11 he had been looking forward to active duty, but now that America was embroiled in a bloody occupation of a hostile land, he'd begun to doubt our leaders.

I encouraged him with positive comments and polite questions. I knew how much guys liked to talk about themselves, since I had been one. And that kept the conversation off the delicate question of my background.

After dinner, we walked in the cool evening holding hands, our fingers interlaced. I worried that my hand would sweat or feel too big. But when we paused he raised it to his lips and kissed it.

"Our hands fit perfectly. Does that mean we are a match?"

We leaned into one another and watched the distant Rockies backlit by the sunset. The sun's rays lit the layered clouds fiery scarlet and fuchsia, then flickered and disappeared, leaving a pink afterglow. He wrapped his arm around my shoulder and drew me close, so his lips brushed mine.

"Heaven's answered," he said

I shivered, as much from anxiety as from the chill of the night air.

"I'll warm you up."

He squeezed me close and massaged the chills from me. I tilted my head, and his lips met mine. I clung to his broad shoulders, yielding to his embrace, and drawing him into me.

He was built like a marble statue. My body molded to his, my nipples tingled as they brushed his pectorals. His tongue penetrated is lips, and I let it tango against mine. After what seemed an eternity, his lips broke contact with my trembling mouth.

"I'll never let you go."

I forced a shiver, so my boobs vibrated against his chest, and nodded my head.

"Cools off fast a mile high."

I pointed my hotel's neon marquee.

"I need a warm bed."

"With me?"

I answered with my smile.

Full Disclosure

The clerk glanced up and smiled as we passed her desk, holding hands. We shared a kiss on the elevator and he circled his arm around my waste as I led him to my room. He flipped on the TV and I went to the bathroom to freshen up my cologne and tush. I tingled from my self-inspection and trembled with desire. But before I could get the cock that I craved, I had to make the disclosure I dreaded.

Jake sat on the bed, eyeing me expectantly. I sat down beside him, took his hand in mine I stared at my pristine pink sneakers. I couldn't bear to look at him as I spoke what I knew could be my last words to him.

"Remember what you said about earning the right to be different?"

"You'll earn it for sure."

Tears streamed, and emotions choked my throat.

"I'm different from other girls."

"Sure, beautiful but modest, brilliant but humble."

He put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me close. Would the next moments bring revulsion and rage, or compassion and acceptance? I clamped my hands over my face to hide my shame. I spoke in a halting voice.

"I was born with a boy's body."

I convulsed with involuntary sobs. My eyes were blinded by tears, my ears deafened by my pounding pulse.

Would Jake would dash out of the room, beat me senseless, or accept me into his heart? As I surrendered my secret I almost lost consciousness, and hope.

His arm loosened, and dropped away, and I sagged to the floor to crawl away. But he had let go momentarily only to draw me closer. He hugged me and pressed my tear-streaked face to his chest.

"S'OK, baby."

He rocked his body against mine. I lifted my face from his chest and our lips met in a tentative, quivering kiss. My lips parted, and his warm tongue entered and trilled against mine, like the first steps of dancers on a stage. His lips traveled to my neck. I tilted my head back and yielded and melted in his embrace, collapsing to the bed and pulling him atop me. I opened my eyes when his kisses paused.

"You look, feel and kiss like a girl," he said

He unhooked my bra, lifted my sweater and kissed my breasts.

"So hot."

My estrogen-softened body molded against Jake's well-muscled frame.

"OK?"

"We still fit."

I lifted my arms and he pulled my top over my head, tousling my long hair over my face like a gauzy veil. I wriggled out of my Capri's and he tugged them to extract my legs from their tight bottoms. I coyly covered my boobs and panty-clad cock as he stripped naked. He reclined beside me, alternated kisses of my breasts and lips. My nipples hardened into rosebuds, but his hand flinched when he touched my panties.

"Let me pamper you."

I knelt as though in worship, he guided my head lightly, and I let him teach me.

"Your lips flutter like the wings of an angel."

I kissed his bulging knob.

"You taste like the nectar of the gods."

He hooked his thumbs over the waistband of my panties and slid them down, and I wriggled my ass to help him. His eyes momentarily widened when my secret was revealed, then he lofted my panties across the room onto the dresser.

"Two points," he said.

"From here, it's a three."

"Plus, a free throw."

The scrub of his whiskers on my skin and the wet tug of his of his mouth on my flesh me squirm with sensation. His fingers traced the curve of my ass to the crevasse between my cheeks.

"OK?" he asked.

My previous male sex partners had been rough and hasty. I had been used rather than pleased. Jake was making love to me. Waves of exquisite sensation and emotional ecstasy swept through me.

"Wait here while I freshen up."

Virtual Virginity

I cleansed, lubed, brushed my hair, glossed my lips, and grabbed a condom, but then put it away, deciding that Jake posed a negligible risk.

"I'm ready, take me."

He looked nervous.

"Never done this, have you?"

Guys love to think they're number one. I was virtually virginal, this was my first sex untainted by coercion or commerce. I nodded.

"Waiting for the perfect man."

"Don't want to hurt you."

"Start slow, see if I can handle it."

"I'll try."

I closed my eyes and controlled my breath.

"OK, go."

I blinked away blinding pain, breathed rhythmically, then a napalm blast erupted and engulfed me, incinerating my masculinity, scorching away the ghosts of my past and my fears for my future. He hammered and kneaded me like a sculptor shaping rough stone into a statue of a goddess. My eyes signaled him onward, and to transport me with him.

I'm Jake's maiden bride; my agony the pangs of my broken hymen. I summoned a tear, and Jake kissed it away like a caring husband sharing conjugal bliss on a honeymoon, not a quickie on an accidental layover.

I channeled pain into performance and conjured responses that he would never forget. I cried out for mercy to gods that I didn't believe in. I begged him to stop and then demanded more. I wept and whooped with pleasure in the same breath, he thrusted and parried like a swordsman in a duel until I was gasping for breath and spattered with his sweat.

I pursed my lips, and he leaned forward kiss me.

"Hurt?"

"So good."

New vistas of pain opened and transformed into avenues to greater pleasure. When he surged forward, I opened my inner spaces to him. My slender body shook like a rag doll as my torso absorbed shockwaves.

"So good, so tired."

"Combat training got me in good shape."

"I should work out more."

Our flesh slapped like waves of applause in a theater in which we were both the stars and the audience. I turned my face to meet his kisses, helpless and vulnerable, and for the first time, completely happy, frolicking in his arms like a wanton wood nymph.

The symphony of slapping flesh, cries, moans, grunts heaving breath reached a crescendo. Uncontrollable forces conquered both of our bodies. I heard my voice rise involuntarily from within me in a wordless language that only he could answer, with deep throated growls of his own as we simultaneously climaxed. Every neuron of my body electrified in response, then he slowed, sailing like a ship through the stormy sea that roiled inside me.

"I need to freshen up again."

Amy Vanderbilt hadn't recommended an open or closed door for a T-girl's toilette, so I compromised and left it ajar, and my butt sputtered. I laughed, embarrassed at my faux pas.

"I'll turn on the fan."

"No worries, natural to release gas after that. What's so funny?"

"The bigoted Republican senator who's the namesake of that cocktail."

"It's our toast to him."

"Alexandra, you're incredible."

"You bring out the best in me. Or is it the worst?"

"Whatever, you're superlative."

"You're great too."

"I think this bad boy needs a nap."

"A well-deserved rest."

Jake yawned, pulled a pillow over his head and soon was snoring. I was too preoccupied to sleep. I sleeplessly stared at the bad hotel art and the curdled asbestos ceiling. I imagined my future as an Air Force wife, moving every six months, living in crowded base housing and organizing bake sales for the benefit of war widows and orphans. During his deployments I would have to warehouse my sexual impulses, and afterwards subordinate my ambitions to the dictates of military orders. Was he worth it, or should I enter Jake in my back-catalog?

I slept in his arms until a text alert roused me.

"Detroit Airport reopened. Alexander Rios is confirmed on flight 563 at 8:00 a.m. Be ready in the lobby of your hotel at 5:00 a.m."

I had to fly to Detroit as Alex, and I didn't want him to see me that way, so I dressed in the dark and left without saying goodbye. I left a note with my cell phone number and email address encircled in a heart. In the crowded airport shuttle my night in Denver scrolled through my memory like a romantic fantasy. My future loomed like a blank page.

I phoned him from the gate and got his voicemail.

"Hi, it's Alexandra, boarding. Wish we'd had more time, maybe someday. Happy memories, though."

I couldn't call it love, for had I loved him, or the experience? He could be mutilated in an Afghan ambush, or the camaraderie of combat and the transphobia endemic in the military could change his mind. Love would burden both of us. We needed to be free.

"OK, that's all for now. Bye."

I wiped away a tear. I had been lucky to find Jake. Would I ever be so lucky again?

"Exposure, Disclosure" is the second chapter of The Greatest Liar (TGL), two versions of which are published in Amazon's Kindle Store

The Greatest Liar, Trans Fiction With A Purpose is found at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FSQ3M3M. It omits explicit sex descriptions. The excerpt above is from this edition

The Greatest Liar, Trans Erotica With A Purpose, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07NKXFW2J, includes explicit sex.

Amazon's terms of service prohibit publication in full here, but I priced both e-books at the nominal price of $2.99. Only the Trans Fiction version is available in paperback for $14.99, which mostly reflects printing costs (my royalty is even smaller on the paperback.)

Readers rave "an amazing novel that reads like a memoir, wonderful writing, eloquent, masterful, in-depth, incorporating research around everything."

If you buy and read it, please review it on Amazon. If you read only this excerpt, I would still welcome your comments. I cannot overstate the importance of your feedback to me as a writer.