Exposure, Disclosure

“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 The joggers had been replaced by hard-eyed gangsters, garish streetwalkers, staggering drunks and druggies.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.