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“I think I’d better go,” she said finally and threw back the sheet.

Bayer reached out and wrapped his arms around her, then pulled her back beside him on the bed.

“I’m sorry I asked.”

She sniffled again and nodded.

Bayer thought, I need to turn this back around….

“Tell me what you find so exciting about those explosions?” he said.

“Nothing, really.”

“C’mon…”

She shrugged loose of his arms and sat up.

“Okay, I’ll tell you,” she said, looking down at him, her voice hard. “I see power in them.”

“Power?”

“Yeah, like if I could do what they’re doing I would have power.”

“What would you do with the power?”

She looked out the window again, deciding if she should answer…and answer truthfully.

“Look,” she said, her tone softened. “I like you. A lot, you know? Like I said, you’re very nice.”

She paused, then swallowed hard.

“Not every guy is,” she went on.

“What do you mean?”

“When I was fifteen, my boyfriend—he was twenty. And he had an older buddy who ran a club over on Route 17 in Lodi, and they said I could make some really sweet money by dancing. Just warm-up stuff. No nudity, you know?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And at first that’s what it was. The money was great. But then I began having a drink or two while dancing, and then more, and my boyfriend said he didn’t mind if I tried it topless—said he liked that customers knew I was his girlfriend and how they had to pay to see what he got for free….”

She stopped and looked toward the bedside table. Her glass from the bar was there, mostly melted ice, and she took a sip.

“And then the money got better,” she went on, “and the audience, you know, the rush you get from them, so I was doing more and more. And then—I guess I’d just turned seventeen—I started doing private dances and couldn’t believe the money. My boyfriend said he didn’t mind the private dances and I found out why—the bastard had gotten himself a new girl….”

“Jesus,” Bayer said softly, stroking her hair.

“So next thing I knew, with my boyfriend out of the picture, his buddy said that I owed the club so much for my drinks—which I had always paid for—and half my tips. And he said there was a way to make up the difference….”

“This way.”

There was a long silence. “I didn’t do it till they beat me up pretty good. Lots of bruises, and I couldn’t work for a couple months. So I still owed the money but couldn’t pay it off. But then I healed up….”

Now Bayer took a sip of his watered-down drink.

“I can see why you’d want that power,” he said softly as he put the glass back on the table.

“Uh-huh.”