His breathing was as quick and shallow as you've ever heard it. It sounded like the people you'd murdered when you were about to murder them, or the lovers you'd had when you were about to make love. Mouth open slightly, firm, vernal chest trembling with air, he looked strong and weak at the same time, a fountain of repressed nervous energy, like a bird flitting around in a cage. His blue and green and hazel eyes — eyes of a deer in headlights, eyes that see death and cannot look away — stared wildly into yours, boring into you like always. And you could not tear your eyes away either, like always, for fear of missing one change in the hue; in his expression; in his maddening and fascinating soul, revealed in them as conspicuously as the value of a pair of coins. It repelled and attracted you at the same time.

He knit his eyebrows at the feel of your calloused hands tightening on his forearms, already pinned heavily to the mattress — your very own mattress — on either side of his head. You think you heard yourself ask the whelp if he had fallen asleep on your bed by accident and if he was that stupid, or if he thought you wouldn't mind. Uncharacteristically, he gave no answer, but you forgot your question in a matter of seconds anyway.

You became conscious of the fact that you were almost old enough at thirty-four that this young man could be your son, and you contemplated this. As you beheld the sight of him struggling faintly beneath you, his knees tightening then slackening, your mind fogged by strange designs, you realized he was spluttering something. What was he saying?

'If you're gonna kill me, kill me already, just do it! Do it, huh?'

Four-flushing was only going to goad you. Reaching behind you, you pulled your pistol out of the holster on your belt and shakily pointed it at his boyish face. The hand you had let go of twitched, but he daren't move it — you knew he was afraid you'd pull the trigger if he did anything except lay still. Taking advantage of this, you drew it closer and closer to his face, and his head fell back on the pillow as if on a drawstring connected to the gun, his neck arching away in an effort to avoid the weapon. You told him to look at you or you'd blow his brains out, and this succeeded: he returned your gaze. He whimpered once, then twice when you pushed the mouth of the gun to his, and his top lip fluffed against it. Instinctually, he opened his mouth wider and you slid the cold metal in and out, lingering. Speeding, your heartbeat caught up with his and you both grew excited, his eyes now watery, yours burning. You slowly withdrew the revolver, his spit sticking to it for a second, and restored it.

Your eyes met his and you felt your expression soften as his grew hard. His pupils dilated like spilt ink and it frightened you, Jesse James; it frightened you to see how dark they had become, and how pink his cheeks blushed from embarrassment, prettying his already epicene countenance. His harsh breathing lengthened and huffed. It sounded fuller and louder by the second, like walking nearer and nearer to the fount of a brook, and your lips parted of their own accord. Both of you knew now you weren't really going to snuff him, and both of you knew what he was fantasizing. You were anything but dumb, anything but naïve — Bob wanted you to have him. He was letting you hold him here for minutes in silence because he was hoping, hoping this would become the most intimate, meaningful, powerful, naked experience of his petty life.

What did Jesse James the character want? You were pretty sure Jesse wanted to squish this twitching insect beneath him. But who you were then, Jesse the man, didn't. You wanted to consummate this strange, wordless connection between him and yourself. You wanted to feel what Bob Ford felt, knowing he knew exactly what you felt, knowing you were finally truly sharing something with a fellow human being, or fellow selfish machine of a human being at least. After all, above all, he interested you.

You were kneeling above him, but you sat down now on his thighs to straddle him, and pushed your bent knees down to lay your whole body on his. While you settled your weight atop him, your left hand abandoned his arm for his hip, and it skated down his thigh and up again and across the swell in his pants, something you already anticipated, pressing and sudden. His throat squelched a curse word and his cheeks reddened, and you, only at that moment hearing the amplitude of your own breathing, warmed too.

For once Bob had nothing to say, and instead took to moaning in a deceivingly sweet and timid tone. Then you squeezed him through his pants as if grabbing your pistol, with no remorse for the human flesh in your hand and the wounded-animal pule Bob seemed to gag out. His hands pawed at your face and you were sharply aware of his pain, more than any other time you've caused it for another being. Your hand released him and his face was wet with a couple of tears now, his voice wheezing, hands held out still pushing your neck, the bird in the cage of his chest fluttering wildly.

'Quit shovin' me and maybe I'll let you touch mine.' You said it with your tongue in your cheek and he stared up at you, his face five inches from yours, with the most incredulous look. You could tell he was humiliated, and you reveled in the knowledge. 'So what were you doing here before I came in and put you…' your voice growled, 'in your place?'

'That's not for you to know,' Bob chirped, his light voice cracking from his eagerness to speak. 'And I'm not about to tell you. And you can make me suffer for it all you want.' The milksop had the tenacity to actually smirk. He was reveling in this too, you thought. The tables had turned. His nacreous skin stretched and breathed, his youth and health radiating from it, eliciting a pang of envy and lust. The blue and green and hazel eyes presented a challenge you could simply not continue to reject. What could you do but what you were going to do next?

'Bob, I'm not gonna make you suffer, as you say. What kind of a man would I be if I did that to you again when you're underneath me like this, helpless? A helpless little animal? I'd be a coward,' you lamented. His brain was ticking; you could hear it, see the hands turning in his eyes. But before he could figure you out, you got up off him, back straight, and unlocked your thighs, tight around his hips all this while. Sitting aside him and unbuckling your belts, he scrambled to a sitting position as well and quietly panted, like a dog called to attention. Hair mussed from rubbing into the pillow, he examined your surreal behaviour. You had unfastened everything and were examining him in turn, but while he stared at your face, you stared everywhere else, settling on his chest, still fair and soft where his shirt didn't cover. He sucked on his lip and shook his head slightly and his mature hands, the most aged thing about him, lifted to unsheathe his shirt buttons. Undoing them meditatively, your blind-blue eyes never left his fingers.

His ribs felt smooth and hard yet bendable, like soaked soap.

His mouth was as warm and wet as blood.

The bird in his cage was singing, singing, singing, singing...

First thing in the morning, Bob was going to try to kill you. You already knew this. But what was more, was you were going to let him do it.