“What?”

“Start-ups? Risk-averse? I’m starting to get you now, doll. You’re scared. You don’t think you can do it.”

“Do what?” I started on the sixth press, but my arms shook badly. She moved in and spotted me, pushing on the machine’s arms to help me complete the motion.

“All this high-and-mighty bullshit about not wanting to turn tricks, you think men wouldn’t be attracted to you.”

I let go of the press. The weight dropped, the arms snapped back, and she barely got her hands out of the way in time. Oops.

“That’s what all this steely professionalism is about.” She walked around in front of me as if to take in the whole view. “It’s all over you. It’s in how you dress, how you do your hair.” She could have been referring to my dowdy running shorts and raggedy Bruce Springsteen T-shirt from a concert ten years ago. “The way you move. You don’t know how to use your body. You have no idea what it’s like to walk into a room and have every man in the place want to throw you down and have his way with you.”

“Sounds romantic.”

“Sex is never about romance, darlin’. Don’t you know that? It’s about power. It’s about one person getting over on another.” She shooed me off the seat and added yet another ten pounds. This time, when she pressed, it was all about showing off her strength and not her cleavage. She had to work it. The effort raised the muscles in her neck and throat and distorted her face into an angry grimace. “Make them your victim before they do it to you.” She dropped the weights, finishing the last press with a loud clang, a fitting exclamation point.

I stood to the side and watched her catch her breath. “I’m not looking to make any victims,” I said. “I’m looking to make some money and stay out of trouble.”

“Well, they do say this is a victimless crime, so maybe we can do some business.”

“Good.”

“All you have to do is tell me about the last man you fucked.”

“What?”

She gave me a breathy smile and a wink. “If you want me to show you mine, you have to show me yours. Come on, sugar, a few little details just so I know we can be friends. If you can’t do that, or maybe you don’t want to, we’re done talking. Besides, I want to know that you can get your nose out of the air long enough to put it someplace useful.”

She moved off the press and over to a corner where the large exercise balls were stored on a rack. She took one down, sat on it, lay back, and started doing situps with her hands behind her neck.

“The last man I was with was the trick in Chicago. Is that what you want to know about?”

“Oh, God, no. Tricks don’t count. The last man you cared about.”

So, this was how it was to be. She liked making people strip with their clothes on, which was not that surprising when I thought about it. She was an exhibitionist herself. She wouldn’t trust anyone who wasn’t. I could make up a story, but I had the sense her bullshit detector was pretty sensitive. Or I could take something that really did happen and spin it into something she might like. I went over and took down a ball for myself.

“The last man I was with held a powerful position in the company where I worked.”

“At Majestic? Ooooh. This sounds good. Tell me everything, because you know you want to. Give me all the sweaty details. Was he worth it? Was he good? Did he have a big dick?”

“It ended badly, at least for me. I lost my job.”

“Was the sex good?”

“Yeah.”

“How did he like to do it?”

“Why do you need to know this stuff?”

“I like to hear you say it, because I know you don’t want to. Why did you do it? What was it about this man?”

“He liked to take what he wanted, and he lived his life as if there were nothing he couldn’t have. He could be a real bad boy, which could be very appealing. He was smart and sexy and charming. And I liked his power.”

“There it is. That’s what did it for you right there.”

“Maybe. Until he used it to threaten and humiliate me. Eventually, he fired me. When I told him I’d sue him for sexual harassment, he told me he would have his lawyers turn me into a public joke. I knew he could do it. I knew him well enough to know he would. I backed down. I lost my career and everything I had invested in that company.”

“You made a mistake.”

“Obviously.”

“I mean, in how you came at him.” She rolled her ball closer, until our knees almost touched. “You can’t threaten a man like that with a lawsuit. It wouldn’t scare him.”

“There wasn’t much that scared him.”

“Everybody has something to hide, and everybody has something to lose. You have to find what it is, those deep, dark desires that a man-or a woman-has no choice but to give in to. For some men, it’s young girls. For others, it’s boys. Some get off on getting beaten or dressing in women’s lingerie. When you know those things, that’s when you truly have control. You find what it is that can hurt them, and then you squeeze until you get what you want.” She curled her fingers into a fist to demonstrate. I looked at her face, and I knew there was nothing in this world she would not wrap those fingers around and squeeze to get what she wanted.

“I’m guessing you’re not a big fan of romantic love.”

She laughed. “Love is for losers, darlin’. It’s nothing but another form of payment, when it comes down to it.”

“Payment for what?”

“Sex. ‘I’ll let you screw me if you love me.’ How is that different from ‘I’ll let you screw me if you pay me’?”

“Because love is more than sex. It gives you things you can’t get from a purely physical relationship.”

“Like what you got from that big dick boyfriend of yours at Majestic? You loved him, right?”

She smiled at my awkward hesitation. She had a way of creeping up on you one slow, silent step at a time, until she was upon you and it was too late.

“Everyone has their own way of looking at things.” I said it, even knowing how feeble it sounded.

“This is my way of looking at things. We all have our price. For some, it’s love. For others, it’s less. It’s always good to know what it is for you. Now…” She reached toward me, and I flinched. But all she was after was a dry corner of my gym towel. Without taking it from around my neck, she used it to dry her forehead.

“Let’s go do some business.”

ANGEL SLAMMED HER CELL PHONE CLOSED and flung it into her gym bag. Then she picked up the bag and flung it into the corner, nearly knocking the smoothie right out of its tall, soda-shop glass.

“What’s the matter?”

“I just lost another one,” she snapped.

“Another what?”

“One of my gals just got her transfer to LA. They’re like cattle thieves, picking them off one by one. Picking me clean is what they’re doing. I should brand their butts.”

We had settled in the Sports Club juice bar at a table isolated in one of the corners. It was called a juice bar, and it did serve juice. It also served baked cod with pineapple salsa-not your usual juice bar fare.

“That’s where we need to start. What do you call the women who work for you?”

“Grubbing, griping, greedy bitches.”

I looked at her. She looked right back. She was steaming.

“Why don’t we call them your assets?”

“Asses?”

“Assets. In your business more than most, your people are your assets. When they walk, they take their clients with them, and the clients take their revenue stream.”

“I can replace both. It’s just a goddamn pain in the ass, is what it is.”

“It’s more than that. You might be able to replace the business, but you can’t do anything about what it does for your competitor. That’s business they don’t have to develop on their own. You might as well stuff a bunch of bags with hundred-dollar bills and send them over.”

She put her elbow on the table and leaned her head against her palm. It mussed her hair, which was loose around her face. It made her look like a young girl. “I hate this already.”