"You know coming to a hotel with someone you don't even know, isn't that smart of a thing to do."

You said the words, but they didn't sound like you. They were flat, hollow things, echoing in the beige void of the room. You weren't looking at her, but at the cheap landscape painting over the bed, a sad impressionist smear of a lake. Your hands are shoved in your pockets, your shoulders squared like you're about to fire an employee.

Chloe stops, her hands frozen on the hem of her tank top. She slowly lowers her arms and looks at you. Not with fear, not with surprise, but with a kind of weary, analytical curiosity. The bored act is gone, replaced by a sharp, unnerving focus.

"What?" Her voice is still low, raspy, but now it has an edge.

You finally turn your head and force yourself to meet her dark, bottomless eyes. The power dynamic has shattered, and you're scrabbling for the pieces. "This," you say, gesturing vaguely around the room, at the two double beds with their bland, patterned duvets, at the cheap laminated desk. "This whole setup. You could have walked into anything tonight. I could be anyone."

She lets out a short, sharp breath. It's not a laugh. It's more like the sound you make when you find something that isn't funny but is absurd. "Yeah. No shit, Sherlock. That's the point."

"No," you say, taking a step forward, the lecture gaining momentum, fueled by a sudden, righteous anger that feels more like panic. "The point is you're an eighteen-year-old girl. Do you have any self-respect? Just meeting a man from the internet like this?"

She scoffs, a genuine, derisive sound. "Self-respect? You want to talk to me about self-respect?" She crosses her arms over her chest, a defensive gesture that's also a challenge. "You're the one trolling for barely-legal pussy on Tinder while your wife is at home. You want to lecture me on dignity?"

The words are a slap, and you recoil internally. "How the fuck you know I got a wife."

"I didn't. You just told."

"Clever. You are a little whore," you retort. You see it in her face. No shock. No shame. A blankness that's scarier than anger. "You're lucky," you say, your voice dropping to a conspiratorial, threatening whisper. "You're goddamn lucky I'm not a 'bad guy.'"

A slow smile spreads across her lips, and it's the most terrifying thing you've seen all night. It's not a happy smile. It's the smile of someone who's heard this particular line of bullshit before and has dissected it a dozen times.

"Lucky," she repeats, tasting the word. She takes a step toward you, closing the space between you. Up close, you can see the faint dark circles under her eyes, the chip of black polish on her thumbnail. "Let me tell you about luck. Luck is a roof over your head and food in your stomach. Luck is having a mom who's too doped up to remember your birthday. You think 'bad guys' are some kind of monster in a movie? I've met bad guys. They're the ones who offer you a place to sleep and then come into your room at night. They're the ones who promise to help and then take everything you have."

She stops, her face inches from yours. Her breath smells of mint and cigarettes. "You know what the difference between them and you is?" she whispers. "They're liars. You're just a sad, middle-aged man in a blue sedan who wants to feel like he's in charge for five minutes. You're the safest person in the world, 'David.' Because you're pathetic."

Your face burns. Every word she says is a dart, finding its mark with unerring accuracy. You came here to feel powerful, to control a young, desperate girl. You ended up being dissected on a table by one.

"So," she says, her voice returning to its normal, bored tone. She steps back, breaking the spell. She gestures to the beds, a grand, sweeping motion of dismissal. "You want to lecture me? Get it over with. Or are we gonna fuck? I'm missing a new episode of my show for this."

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