Exposure, Disclosure

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.