“Do you know how to get to the beach?” I ask Diana as she buckles her helmet snugly around her chin. I don’t know her name is Diana yet but she answers in a thick Italian accent and points me towards the grouping of hotel and residential towers piercing through an early morning haze in the distance. Her skin is as heavily creased as her black leather jacket and she hides her eyes behind heavily shaded wraparound sunglasses: tough stuff, but it’s that voice that does all the literal and figurative talking. “Do you want a ride?” she calls out to me a hundred yards down the road and I jump on the back of her black Ducati. “I’m not going to the beach but I’m going close…it’s your first time?” my cover blown by my awkward attempts to position my feet and hands correctly. “Second,” I answer, though I realize it may be the first time I’ve been so shy about my youth. She lets me off at a traffic circle and smiles, revealing a bottom row of weathered yellow teeth. “I’m David,” I offer, and extend my hand. “Diana,” she answers, again flashing a smile, and I wonder how many men she’s met like this before.