She always made a point of looking in his eyes, letting him know that the show was just for him. She lay onstage and arched her back until her nipples pointed at the ceiling. She rode the pole with deftness and skill as he imagined she’d someday ride him. She accompanied him to a private room for the lap dance he desperately desired. And when he was done, he went out to the parking lot, prepared to return to the one-room dump where he slept on a cot.

It was worth it, he thought, as he crossed the parking lot at twelve fifteen in the morning, fumbling in his pocket for his car keys. After all, he loved Misty, and if the twelve hundred dollars a week he spent at the club wasn’t enough to show her that, he didn’t know what was.

He smiled as he thought about the swing of her hips during the lap dance, and he swallowed hard as he remembered the way she’d looked over her shoulder and licked her lips as he sat mesmerized by the view from the back.

He was whistling by the time he made it to his car. He knew that someday, when she came to her senses, she’d gladly leave the stage for the quiet life he was preparing for them. He’d already saved fifty thousand dollars as a down payment on the house he’d have built in Delaware, away from the grind of the city. She needed only say the word, and he’d take her away from those fools who were corrupting her. He told himself she would say the word soon.

When he reached his car and pressed the button on his security system to shut off the car alarm and open the door, nothing happened. He pressed it again. Silence.

“Oh, come on,” he said as he tried to stick the key into the lock. It didn’t work.

“Is something stuck in there?” he whispered, bending down to look at it.

When he stood up, he saw a dark reflection in the driver’s side window. He looked over his shoulder in much the same way Misty had looked over hers. There was nothing sexy about his gesture, though. In fact, the fear in his eyes made him look oddly pathetic.

He squinted and craned his neck to see if anyone was there. Though he felt like someone was watching him, he saw no one, so he turned back to the car and forced the key into the lock. Quickly, he got in, locked the doors, and drove to the next part of his ritual.