“We can start doing stuff,” I said, bewildered. “Whatever you want. There’s plenty of time.”

She shook her head again and didn’t reply.

Women baffled me. I kissed her temple and waited there with her, giving her time to work through her emotions. She turned to me at last and gave me a watery smile. “Want to see if we can charm the guard into letting us inside?”

“It won’t work,” I said.

“I bet you ten dollars,” she said.

“Okay,” I said. “You’re on.”

* * *

I didn’t see her again for several days. I tried, but she was always at work. Finally, fed up with texting her and being rebuffed, I decided I would visit her at the club.

It was a stupid idea. I knew that even as the thought occurred to me, and as I exited the subway at 14th Street, having come directly from work, I knew that Sasha would be unhappy with me, and that I would regret it. But I didn’t turn east and walk home, like I should have. I walked to the club.

It was close to 6 by the time I arrived, and the evening was in full swing. A half-naked dancer spun around the pole on the main stage, and the gathered men watched, rapt, slack-jawed, as she spread her legs above her head and slowly sank toward the floor. It was an impressive display of strength and artistry, and I felt nothing as I watched it. She was beautiful, and she had perfect breasts, and she aroused me as much as a well-constructed piece of furniture would have.

I was truly fucked.

I took a seat toward the back of the room, far from the stage. When a cocktail waitress materialized at my table, silently waiting for instructions, I ordered a gin and tonic. It amused me to think of myself as a colonial gentleman, here among the natives. Racism at its finest: the inhabitants were good for fucking, and not much else.

The girl on stage disrobed, finally, stripping off her g-string in a slow tease, and tossed it into the audience. A man caught it and brought it to his nose, inhaling dramatically. The girl beamed, curtsied, stepped down and made her way through the audience, accepting caresses and cash in equal measure.

This was what Sasha did, when I wasn’t with her. This was her daily existence: anonymous men, full of desire and thwarted longing.

The thought made me sick.

I told myself that I would get up any moment and leave, ideally before Sasha emerged from the dressing room and caught me flagrantly in the act, but I didn’t move. I ordered another drink. I watched another girl take her turn on the stage. She was as lovely as the last one, with dark skin and bright eyes. The club employed the best. The men were enraptured. I was slightly bored, and yet, I still didn’t leave.

It was masochism, really. I was torturing myself by imagining Sasha up there, pirouetting and posing for the watching men, letting them grope her as she moved through the audience to collect her tips. She had every right to do it. She was a grown woman, and she made her own decisions.

That didn’t mean I had to like them.

Finally, after the third dancer, and my third drink, my disgust with my actions managed to overwhelm my twisted urge to keep torturing myself, and I stood to leave.

And then Sasha came out.

I didn’t notice her at first, not until the spotlight shifted across the floor to illuminate her. She must have been waiting at the edge of the room, keeping out of the way until it was her turn to go on stage.

I sank back into my seat.

She mounted the stage and waved to the audience like a 1940s starlet entertaining the troops. With her blond wig and red lipstick, she looked like she had stepped directly out of that decade, but her corset and frilly bustle hinted at something more Victorian. She had an enormous feather boa draped over one shoulder and trailing on the ground behind her. She was stunning, and I wanted to rush onto the stage, cover her with a blanket, and hustle her out of there.

I couldn’t do that, of course. I couldn’t let her see me. I would just have to sit there, burning with jealousy and shame, until she had finished and returned to the dressing room.

It was torture. She was an engaging performer, and her burlesque routine made for an interesting change of pace after the more ordinary pole routines of the previous dancers. Her bustle was short and open in the front, revealing her ruffled panties, a barely-there bit of froth and lace that revealed more than it concealed. I looked around the room at the other men in the audience. None of them noticed my inspection because they were all staring fixedly at Sasha, their eyes tracking her every movement as she gyrated around, swishing her boa this way and that.

Jealousy roiled in my gut, sour and hot as bile.

My intellect was at war with my primal, possessive heart. Sasha was mine. She belonged to me, and I wanted to kill every man in the audience for daring to look at her.

Fifty thousand years ago, I would have murdered all of them with a rock. But it was the 21st century, and men were expected to be sensitive and enlightened, and I couldn’t simply grab Sasha by the hair and drag her back to my cave. She was a thinking individual, capable of making her own choices. I had no right to tell her what to do.

But by God did I want to.

I sat there, stewing in misery and thwarted anger, while Sasha slowly disrobed. Her corset came off, revealing her magnificent breasts, and she trailed the boa across her nipples, a small, Sphinxlike smile tugging at her lips.

The man at the table beside me shifted, tellingly, in his seat.

I sympathized. I was aroused despite myself. I wanted to fuck her and kiss her and keep her safe from the exigencies that had forced her into this role. For all her bravado, I knew she thought less of herself because of her work. She shouldn’t have to, but that was life. And, as she had pointed out to me, our hypocritical society.

I sympathized, but I still wanted to punch the man in the face.

On stage, Sasha let her boa slither to the floor, and reached down to pluck at the waistband of her underpants. She looked up through her eyelashes, silently asking the watching men what she should do next. They way they leaned forward in their seats, waiting with bated breath for her next move, was answer enough. She peeled the panties off and slowly pushed them down her legs, daintily raising each foot in turn to step out of them.

She hooked the scrap of fabric with one finger and raised it above her head, dangling it like a flag. None of the men spoke, but one of them must have moved or signaled to her in some way, because she tossed the panties into the audience.

A man sitting near the stage caught them and brought them to his nose.