“I don’t want to do this,” I said. But he was already lifting my dress. I tried to scream but it came out in a strange trickle of sound.

“Hey, stop that!” Clara stood up from Luke’s lap.

“You bitches tricked us.” I tried to break free, but his hand tightened on my arm.

“I said let her go.” Luke rose from his chair, a ridiculous erection tenting his shorts.

“What the hell?” Rob said. “What kind of customer service is this, huh? We pay for what we want, you give it.”

“Just go easy, man,” Luke said. “This is supposed to be fun.”

Clara reached for her shorts, stepped into them. I thought for a second she was going to put them on and leave. It would probably be what I deserved, I thought, after instigating this. Insisting, thinking of it all as an adventure, a kind of game, that I could make into something else—a wild story that I would tell at a bar in a few years. But then she fingered something in her pocket. I saw a flash and thought, ridiculously, that it was a piece of jewelry, that she was going to attempt a bribe. It wasn’t until she had stepped closer to Rob with the blade extended that I understood that she had a knife.

“What do you think you’re doing with that, little girl?” He reached for Clara.

“Get away from her. We’re leaving.”

Rob laughed like a man who had nothing to lose. “No, princess. I’d rather see you try something with that. I can play rougher than you think.” Clara cut her eyes in my direction and a second later she was lunging.

“FUCK!” Rob screamed, and let go of me, moving his hands to his leg. “You stupid little bitch. Are you insane? You fucking crazy bitch!”

“Lily! Let’s go!” The knife was still in her hand, shimmering with blood. I turned behind me to see Rob holding his calf, blood dripping into his socks. I grabbed my purse. Rob stood before us, his eyes glazed, his mouth hanging open. We ran out into the hallway, toward the elevator. I punched the down arrow over and over with my fist.

“Too slow,” Clara said. “Stairs.” I followed her around the corner to a metal door, pushed through it, and we plunged down, stumbling into the turns of the staircase, the acoustics of the stairwell magnifying everything so that the sound of our pounding feet boomed around us. We didn’t stop running until we reached the bottom, both of our chests heaving.