Exposure, Disclosure

“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.