“My husband would kill you if he ever found out about us,” they like to usually tell me afterwards, after-the-fact, nakedly holding each other.

What do they want me to do with this information? Worry? Fuck worry. Get fearful? Fuck fear. It’s not my first time hearing these exact words.

I sometimes think about being honest. “You think he can handle it? It’s not easy. Fucking a wife is one thing, but killing a dude is leveling up.”

“It takes one to know one, you know. I know he’s rough and all, but I don’t think your boy has what it takes. I bet he pees himself holding the gun.”

“You think he ever pulled a trigger with a trembling hand? The fucking sweat in his palm so crazy, making it almost impossible to hold the gun?”

“Thoughts racing… gotta stay present, in the moment, because one lapse in attention, and the fucker might take over. Dude may take the gun.”

“My suggestion is to commit. You’re in the situation for a reason, only one is going to walk away, so make for fuck’s sure it’s you. Pop. Pop. Pop.”

“I carry a revolver. I got balls. I don’t need ten rounds. I can sort it out in six. No hesitation. I can pull through a double action like lava thru butter.”

“Light up the place, you know. That beautiful haze of gunpowder. My eyes stinging from the smoke, with the metallic smell of blood in the air.”

“Fuck! Makes my dick hard just thinking about it. Totally in control, you know what I mean,” I inquire, now with a deadpan tone and piercing eyes.

“You ever see that movie, Mr. Brooks? Kevin Costner and Demi Moore? Costner is a well-respected businessman with a serial killer dark side.”

“The movie is ultimately about pain and struggle. Mr. Brooks’ pain and struggle living with an alter ego. An alter ego that takes on dimension.”

“It takes on form. It takes shape. Mr. Brooks gives him a name. Marshall and Mr. Brooks engage in shenanigans. A thirst that becomes a habit.”

“A liking. An affection. A loud hunger that demands attention. Truly tasteless. They become animals. Doing and saying horrible things.”

“Brooks leans into a 12-Step Program. He needs a spiritual solution. No different from our lovely narrator in Fight Club holding Bob’s bitch tits.”

“A rat doesn’t drown in a bucket of water. A rat dies from exhaustion while fighting to get out of the bucket of water. A rat never gives up.”

About this time, I can see a look of confusion in her face. She’s wondering what these things mean. I begin to touch her naked body as she thinks.

“I think living is like being a rat in a bucket of water, always scratching and struggling to stay alive. Best we can do is find moments of peace.”

I think about my words while gently touching the outline of her face, noticing her in the morning light for the first time. Our first sleepover.

“Certain things people remember forever. Some say those things play like a movie in our head moments before we die. I hope they’re right.”

“I hope moments like this play in my head moments before I die. I hope they comfort me, make me smile, because I’m scared to die.”

“I’d like to think, in that moment of paralyzing fear, when my heart is about to stop, that you’ll be there, if only to give me one more kiss.”