The tapping of high-heeled boots crept under the cowboys' skin when a certain, lone individual passed by. What made the men nervous was the lone human had an ability no man could control. Only it had the courage to say what was what, and how things were going to end up around their territory...

...After all, she was only a woman.

The towners knew her as a whore, seeking revenge with anyone stepping into her bounds. She never loved a man, and not once stopped to think about killing herself when she woke in the mornings.

Of course, there was a reason behind all the misguided thoughts. She was out on her own at a young age and never turned look back in her past. Not once. She never lived in one place more than two months and always used men as prey when needing pleasure, and that would be the extent of the relationship. But getting men in bed with her was never an issue; at least not to any dumb cowboy as she'd call them.

She had long, brown hair which she mostly wore in a tidy bun and vicious brown eyes that could burn a hole right through the outline on any face. She had long, luscious legs men could sink their teeth into, and a tiny waist that took one arm of a fellow to wrap around and embrace her for her dear life.

Sure...she was wanted in more than seven towns but no one ever thought to cross her path. She was by far the deadliest whore across the border of Texas.

"Rosalee McAdams...is that you?" asked the bartender, Jacks. The proper yet frightened old man, Jacks, with a scruffy blond beard ran the bar where Wyatt Earp and his brothers, Virgil and Morgan, spend most of their time; the brothers who gambled for the town's left over spending.

"In the flesh, baby," Rosalee cocked a grin as she clicked her boots on the wooden floorboards.

Surprisingly, the bar was nearly empty. Not quite the usual hooting and hollering many cowboys about town caused.

"I figured you've snatched some young drunk whiskeyin' off his feet at this time of night, Rose," Jacks said with a snort following.

"Not tonight, Jacks. Most of the young ones are too young for my taste," Rosalee whispered, disappointed.

She strolled past a loner sitting near the end of the bar. An unusual man, a cowboy, she inspected, taking a look at his cowboy hat and spikes on his boots, and red sash tied around his waist.

A lone cowboy, give or take.

The more Rosalee gawked at him, the more she wanted to stare into his dark, half closed eyes. He noticed her, just like she noticed him.

The lone cowboy sat supping his alcoholic beverage; the seventh glass that evening, and the evening had yet to age. His cowboy hat was black and unlike the others, he wore all black: vest, jacket, and pants. The only ounce of color on his body besides his faded cheekbones was the white cotton shirt he wore under his jacket.

As Rosalee took a seat at the end of the bar, just a couple barstools away from the lone cowboy, she noticed he looked up a slight to take a quick look at her before rolling his eyes and closing them. Deep inside Rosalee's mind, she knew right away who the lone cowboy was. Hell, if no one knew who he was they were damn near stupid if not killed off the earth.

Jacks wiped a sticky spot on the bar and made his way down toward Rosalee, who still had her eyes locked on the cowboy and did not bother to show interest to anyone else who was paying attention to her.

"The usual, Rose?" Jacks asked.

Rosalee took her eye lock away and looked at Jacks with a solemn expression, "Yes, the usual."

Hardly interested anymore, Rosalee went straight back to her normal attitude and began searching about her black, tightly fitted dress for her knitted bag, carrying her personal belongings.

"Damnit..." she cursed under her breath. Jacks set a shot glass of straight vodka in front of her. With success and pleasure in her brown eyes, she found her bag. With a satisfying grin, she reached down in her soft fabric pocket sized bag and pulled out a new pack of cigarettes.

She took a swig of her drink and scrunched her nose from the sour, tangy taste. "Oh, doggie!" she hooted. "Don't you just love that rush?"

Jacks laughed to the sound of her sweet voice, and threw a dirty rag from his shoulder in a barrel of water.

More men wearing red sashes walked through the bar doors. A short, raunchy man sat at the old-timer piano and started to play a western tune he heard a few days ago. It was normally Doc Holliday making all the noise with the piano but this evening he was nowhere in sight.

"Where's the Doc at?" Rosalee asked Jacks.

"He was in here about two hours ago. Don't know where he is now. Probably making trouble."

"Is that right?"

"Yeah, he was in here for nearly twelve hours straight just playing poker. Wyatt and Morgan had to drag him out. He was here for nearly-"

"Yes, Jacks, I can count. Thank you." Rosalee sneered.

Jacks huffed and walked away from the sneering whore. Rosalee looked at the ceiling when she felt a raindrop slap her index finger of her left hand. She cursed under her breath again, but this time no one made clear to what she said.

"Jacks, your place is falling apart. I'm getting wet over here," she shouted down the bar.

"That's what you're suppose to do, little girl," Ike Clanton said from the gambling table after overhearing Rosalee.

Rosalee paid no attention to the browbeat, looking like he hadn't showered for decades.

Ike scratched his forehead, looking as if he was going to make the next move and walk up to Rosalee but she quickly caught him and put her hand up to stop him from touching her. She turned to meet his eyes staring back at hers. She then put her wet finger from the raindrop into her mouth and slowly slid it out seductively for Ike to catch. It was just the way she was. Always playing with men's minds.

"Hot mama! That's what I'm talking about!" Ike hollered out loud, throwing his hat off in a fit of excitement.

Rosalee's interest faded quickly and she turned around to face Jacks and the lone cowboy again. The noise in the bar caused by Ike Clanton's fake galloping and soon the other cowboys joined in on his fun, causing Rosalee's head to spin. How could men be so immature when it came to sex with women?

"They're all the same," she said to herself.

The lone cowboy sitting close to her side caught it. He wanted to say not all but with the next breath he took, he changed his mind. He tilted the rim of his hat further down to cover his entire forehead and most of his eyes.

Rosalee shook her pack of cigarettes, took one out of the pouch, and connected it with a longer piece of plastic so the soft paper of the cigarette would not incise her fingers or pink lips. She searched for a candle on the bar but the only light was the chandelier hanging from the ceiling. She searched her bag for one but came with nothing.

"Jacks, you gotta light?" she asked, taking the cigarette out of her mouth, and took another swallow of her drink. She hardly paid attention to her surroundings and when Jacks was too busy to aid her, she heard a match scratch and the aroma of burning fire. She looked slantways from her stool, and found a lit match in front of her face.

The lone cowboy did not speak. He just let the match blaze freely between his finger and thumb. Rosalee accepted the flame with a crooked smile. As she narrowed her face closer to his hands, he could see the lust in her eyes: her watery, feminine skin, and the outline of her cheekbones with a tint of a pink shadow.

"It's uncommon for a woman to smoke," the cowboy murmured.

Rosalee pulled away and blew out a path of smoke. "What is uncommon is why is Johnny Ringo being so well-disposed to a woman?"

Swiftly, Johnny Ringo shot out of his barstool and shoved his heavy, silver pistol in the middle of Rosalee's chest.

The outrage knocked everyone out of their conversations with the other to watch the duo and the pistol. Rosalee couldn't help but laugh, not caring if she was about to die.

"Do be kind, good sir, and aim for my heart." Rosalee attempted to be a good-hearted woman by taking the end of Johnny's pistol, moving it directly over her heart.

"Johnny?" Ike asked with a pant of laughter escaping his lips as he stepped beside him. "Johnny, now, put down your pistol. You don't need to kill this gorgeous looking woman."

Rosalee was suddenly ready to tease. "Oh," she puckered her lips and started to whine like a baby. "Don't bother with him, Ike. If he wants to kill a gorgeous woman like you say, then he is more than welcome to."

Ike crossed his eyes after looking from Johnny to Rosalee. "You mean you ain't scared because he'll kill ya, woman."

"If he's planning on killing me, why hasn't he done it yet?" Rosalee sipped the last drop of vodka in her glass. "Come on, Johnny Ringo, I knew you were fast to whisk it out, but I never thought you were this slow to pull the trigger." She cocked an eyebrow, "After all, it is women you scare, right?" she laughed then, "Or are you just scared of women period?"

Johnny Ringo clicked his pistol, ready to fire at any given moment. "Don't tempt me."

"I already have. And here you still stand with that damn, dirty pistol shoved in my chest." Rosalee narrowed her eyes. "Do you not have any brains to know that a woman hates to get dirty?" She stood up and her high-heeled shoes clacked on the wooden floor. Johnny Ringo was silent as usual. "Well, goddamn, Johnny, if you're gonna kill me, kill me. Otherwise, let me have another drink and cigarette, okay?"

Ike Clayton could not believe the sound of the lady's voice in front of him and Ringo. She was more confident than Curly Bill with Johnny Ringo, than anyone else he knew or could think of. And he knew many cowboys and towners. No one ever had the guts to look at Johnny Ringo in the eye the way she did, let alone insult the quiet, dangerous cowboy.

The shiny, heavy, silver pistol never left the resting place on Rosalee's chest, inches away from her beating heart. Johnny released his pistol, unlocked the trigger from setting off, and put it back in its holster on his belt buckle. Rosalee let out a careful gulp of air she kept in, staring dead into Johnny's cold, unconcerned green eyes.

"That's good, Johnny, that's good." Ike eased up after witnessing the confrontation. Johnny glanced at Ike, then closed his eyes and turned his back, heading out the bar. Still, the guests and groups of cowboys were silent as they watched the calming Ringo walk out with his boots clicking on the wooden floor.

Rosalee quickly grew irritated after noticing the stillness, "Come on, you people!" she raised her voice. "It's not like you've never seen a gun before in your life." She looked at White Peters sitting at the piano in the far corner of the bar. "Peters, play something for crying out loud. It's too damn quiet."

White Peters spun around as fast as he could into the piano chair and set his bony white fingers on the ivory, vintage piano keys. He began to play, and only a few moments later, everyone in the bar started to converse again.

"Jacks, another, please," Rosalee slid her shot glass down the bar counter and it knocked off the side, shattering on the floor.

Jacks shook his head, "You got some nerve, kiddo. Some nerve."

Rosalee closed her eyes, "You've got to live here in Tombstone. These people will eat you alive."

"Like that man you just insulted. He'll hunt you down, lady." Jacks laughed, "You got bigger balls than me."

"That's not saying much, Jacks. He's only a man. I've learned to care less each day about others around me." She shifted her weight in the barstool. Only she did care. She did not understand what came over her but she cared a great deal about Johnny Ringo, and always wondered what drove him to the brink of insanity. There had to be some kind of explanation. Bad childhood? Abusive past? Abused alcohol? Something. Ever since she came to Tombstone and laid eyes on the lone cowboy all dressed in black with just a hint of color around his waist, his shiny pistol, and the coldness of green shadows in his eyes, she knew she had to search him out, and she wasn't planning on leaving Tombstone until she did. But that was a year ago, and she had yet to close her case on Johnny Ringo.

Rosalee felt she was abusing alcohol the past few years herself. She had done nothing else except hook and drink. So many years ago, she never thought she would ever think about touching liquids that would intoxicated the body, but here she was, drinking, the number one cause of death at an early age, or a chance to age quickly.

It never used to be like that. Either way, Rosalee's life did not matter much to her as much as it did when she was young girl. She knew what happiness felt like then. She grew up with a respected, rich family on a farm back east on the outskirts of Tombstone. But that was all turned around once the clock struck midnight on a hot summer night. While young Rosalee walked home from a late Friday study session with a few friends, she was raped by an angry old man strolling by her on the dirt road.

After, she ran home, exhausted from kicking and screaming, ashamed of herself and angry no one could hear her scream, her clothes ripped and panty hose ruined, she fell upon her family's plantation in flames. The smells of burning flesh still haunt her in her dreams when she was alone or with some local cowboy she picked up.

Rosalee's entire family was killed. Burned alive in the home they could not get out. The doors had been locked and keys thrown away as well as the windows boarded up. Rosalee knew it wasn't an accident, but she was only fifteen and she had no idea where to start to search for her family's murderer. She had no idea why anyone would want to hurt her family, or even herself. What did she do to deserve the torment of being alone and on her own? What did she do? Her world turned upside down that night, and she never looked back to her normal life she had before rape and tragedy disrupted it.

That was nine years ago. She lived on her own ever since, moving around as much as she could, hurting people as much as she could, never letting her own pain leave the eyes of her victims. She saw to it that it wouldn't. She lived the way whores did, even finding the time to open up her own whorehouse in Tombstone where she moved just a year ago and where she first laid eyes on Johnny Ringo.

She related to Johnny Ringo in a way. She envied him. She was attracted to him like a woman was to a man but she was also fascinated with him because he knew what he was doing, where he was headed, and he did not give a damn where he would end up. He was different. She didn't know how or why but she wanted him. She wanted him bad and was still awaiting her chance to do something about it.

"Hey Rosalee," Ike interrupted her thoughts and the drink she was about to take. Ike took off his cowboy hat, tossed it on the bar counter, and revealed his brownish-yellow teeth to her. "How about you and I go take a walk and have a little talk. And if you're good and I like the way you behave, then maybe we can," he put his grubby hand on her thigh. "You know..."

Rosalee rejected his offer quickly by hopping off her stool, jostled his hand away from her thigh, and pulled out her palm sized black pistol from her waist. "I advise you to not finish your sentence before I stick this pistol inside your mouth and blow a pretty little hole through your skull." She grabbed his neck and Ike's mouth fell open. She shoved the revolver inside his mouth, teasing him a bit.

"O-kay y-oou," Ike tried to speak.

"What was that, baby?" Rosalee baby-talked to him, pulling the pistol out of his mouth with a long string of fresh saliva following. "Aw shit, look what you did." She took the end of the gun and wiped it against Ike's stomach to free it from germs. "What's the matter with you?"

Ike didn't have anything else to say to the lady, and he slowly began to step away from her but he was moving too slow for Rosalee's taste and she aided him by shoving him out of her way and reached for her bag.

"I'll see you the next life, Jacks," Rosalee said. She turned toward Ike again and gave him a sexy wink, and slipped her pistol securely back into her lace thigh ribbons. Comfortable and ready to leave, she headed for the bar entrance doors.

Ike watched her as she left and like Johnny Ringo earlier, he listened to the clicking of her shoes until she was out of his eyesight.

"Crazy bitch," he mumbled but outside in the cool evening air, his voice carried and Rosalee heard. She turned back around and stuck her head above the opening of the bar swinging doors and found Ike laughing with his back to her. She swiftly pulled her pistol out again and aimed straight for Ike's stupid looking cowboy hat he put back on his head, and once she had her aim, she shot the black pistol right through the hat, sending a clean, small bullet hole right through the very tip, inches from the top of his head, knocking it far off his head to the dirty wooden boards.

Ike Clanton turned around as quickly as he could to face Rosalee in the doorway. The guests and cowboys caused an uproar of laughter and name calling. Rosalee once again winked at him, but a wink of 'you better watch yourself', and Ike looked as if he was about to cry. Rosalee got the last laugh and headed back on her way away from the saloon.

"Hey, that ain't funny, woman!" she heard Ike's voice screech as the fresh night breeze blew away her thoughts and other voices of people passing by. The breeze sent chills down her spine and blowing her long brown hair behind her shoulders. She wrapped her bare shoulders with her bearskin shawl. She threw her dead cigarette on the timber floorboards and looked about the landscape, finding candle lights on the other side of the civic lot. Pedestrians were about, taking midnight walks, enjoying the breezy weather in the usual scorching days, just trying to take pleasure in life.

Most towners were in small groups. The cowboys' verses gentlemen, whores and their pimps, and the normal men and women couples, hooking arm in arm with one another were of the usual evening every night. Rosalee sucked fresh air into her lungs. She closed her eyes, loving the cool air against her peachy crème complexion.

Someone touched her nose.

"You're a healthy puppy." She heard a deep moan of a drunk male say. The unknown man subsided her body as he walked right on by. She didn't get to see his face nor did she want to as he disappeared into the darkness of the night. She frowned, hating when people approached her without a warning. She tightened her arms around her torso and as she began to walk back to her cottage, and as she made her way down the town floorboards, her heart stopped as well as her feet when she found Johnny Ringo again. He leaned against a wooden post, his black cowboy hat cocked over his eyes as he puffed on a cigar.

Rosalee took her time in walking the short distance toward him. Where he stood, it was dark and almost inappropriate of her to interrupt him. The moonlight was gone off his shoulders; his black boots were not glistening from the twinkling stars, and the glisten from his green eyes was gone.

Being her rather confident self, she puffed in enough courage and air to approach him the way he looked but she was nervous to because she had insulted him and she was in a panic for what he would do to her if she spoke to him again.

She took a chance.

"You only live once, Johnny Ringo," Rosalee said in a whisper but loud enough for him to hear. Johnny turned away from the moonlight and tilted his head a slight to catch her staring at him. Once she found the softness in his eyes and the quiet way he looked at her, she stepped closer to him than she had in the bar.

"Make your life worth living." The whore was coming out of her. "Look forward to tomorrow, and never look back into the past." She touched the red sash tied in with his gun buckle. "Reach for tomorrow, and the next tomorrow, and the next until you can't reach anymore." She took the cigar out of his closed lips and threw it in the gravel. "And when you finally know you're going to die..." She stepped closer to him where he could smell her scent seeping in his nostrils. She stuck out her tongue and licked his closed lips. "Remember every man you've killed and ask yourself why you did it." She grabbed the collar of his black jacket. "If you don't, then you'll feel foolish because then the pain you'll feel you know you caused to many men you looked dead in the eye and shot to their grave." And then she kissed him.

The kiss was gentle, never hasty. She allowed Johnny Ringo to sink into her lips, and when his bottom lip covered her own, he allowed her the pleasure to explore his mouth with her tongue. He latched on quickly.

Johnny moved his hands up her corset, to her breasts, and then to her neck. He wrapped a hand firmly around her neck, and squeezed. He pulled away from her warm lips with a look of rage in his eyes.

Rosalee opened her eyes to look into his. She began to say something but he tightened his grip around her neck, choking her.

"Stop," she did manage to say. She tilted her head back to look in the black skies to ease pressure of his grip. "What's the matter, Ringo? You can't allow yourself to become human for an evening? It's not gonna hurt cha." She tried to use her words wisely so he wouldn't give up altogether and snap her neck.

Johnny tightened his grip further, feeling her neck pulse in his hand. She yelped for breath, but did not struggle much from his grasp. She looked back down into his eyes, and watched him. She watched him for as long as she could before she started to freak and pound what strength she had at his chest.

Curly Bill and a few cowboys walked out from a shadow behind the bed and breakfast quarters. Curly Bill had a huge smile from ear to ear. The smile quickly faded as he turned to face Johnny and Rosalee nestled against the wooden post, with Johnny slowly taking Rosalee's life.

"Easy Johnny," Bill whistled from across the lot.

Johnny's grip began to tremble. Rosalee's brown eyes were turning bloodshot red.

"Johnny..." Rosalee gasped as tears fell down her face. Her bottom jaw dropped, as she was losing air every second, knowing her soul was slowly slipping away from her body.

Johnny stared at her coldly, but the bitter taste of the kill changed quickly when he found her eyes roll into the back of her head. She grabbed for his hand wrapped around his neck, trying her last chance to pry him off.

"No, Johnny!" Bill shouted as he jogged across the town.

"Jo...hn...ny, plea...se..." Rosalee closed her eyes. Johnny looked away from her and closed his eyes also, finally loosening his hand around her neck. Once he did, Rosalee helped him hurry it up and she threw herself away from him, coughing and taking gulps of fresh air.

"Goddamn you!" She screamed as she finally regained her life back. "You could have killed me!" she then ran toward him and pounded on his chest as hard as she could. He didn't flinch. "What the hell were you trying to prove, huh?" She kept at her hitting. In one smooth swift, Johnny gripped the back of her neck this time, and covered her lips with his again. He sucked on her bottom lip hard, tasting her. Rosalee was heated and baffled at the same time. She tried to draw away from but with every thrust of his tongue in her mouth, the resistance turned out to be quite difficult.

Curly Bill laughed his loudest and hardest cackle into the serene night. It was all a funny story to him. Even though, he thought Johnny was really going to kill the innocent whore, he never would have thought he'd make a move like that.

"Come on, boys. There's nothing to see here," he said as he led his cowboys into the saloon.

Johnny Ringo and Rosalee never freed each other as other cowboys walked by hootin' and hollerin'. Rosalee reached for his collar again and pulled him into her...


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The space was cramped but very comfortable. Many bearskin duvets covered the bed and lace material sheets embraced the six pillows and feather mattress. The lighting of the small bedroom was dim. Only a few candles were lit, giving off a warm vibration to the air. Rosalee scooted on top of Johnny Ringo, seductively. With every motion of her being, Johnny never lost eye contact with her. She fumbled with the buckle on his black pants.

"I'm going to make love to you," she whispered in his ear as she unzipped his pants. "Make you reach for the stars." His pants were free and so was his perceptible bulge. She touched him over the material of his drawers but not going in depth with too much touching. Tease was the name of the game, but as Rosalee found herself looking more into his eyes each time she looked up from his manhood, he never dropped his gaze from her. He loved looking at her. She touched his lips then gently kissed him. "I'm gonna fall in love with you," she said after pulling away. "You don't have to love me back. I'm giving you my whole heart." She graced the side of his face with her hand and then whipped the red sash away from his waist, and it slipped to the wooden floorboards.

Johnny allowed her take complete control over his body, doing whatever she pleased. Rosalee pulled her face away from his lips and began to slowly unbutton his navy blue cotton shirt. She again looked him in the eyes after his shirt was undone all the way and untucked.

"Johnny, let me be yours tonight. Only think of me."

Johnny at last took his eyes off her gleaming face and took her hands in his, guiding them to his now bare chest. He placed her hand over his heart and she felt a roughness to his skin. It wasn't rough like chest hair, but rough like a deep scar. Rosalee opened her eyes more and found a long, deep gash over his heart.

"What happened here?" she asked.

"My father always told me to never stick up for myself growing up. One day I did, he grabbed the butt of his pistol and gnawed it right into my chest like he was digging for my heart to be ripped out. Didn't know why he just didn't kill me. Suppose it was too learn a lesson," Johnny said.

Rosalee looked back down at the scar, mortified. "He did that to you? Bastard."

"He's dead now. I made sure of it."

The evil in his voice started to come back and Rosalee moved quickly to remove it again. She bent down and kissed the ugly, aged scar from so many years ago. She leaned back up, finding his lips and sinking deep into his chest with as much love and care she could give and remember she had once. She hiked up her thin, crème undergarment and straddled Johnny till he couldn't as much as move his legs if he wanted to. She never left his lips as she found her weakness and his vulnerability deep as she sat upon his already throbbing member.

It took a few seconds to adjust this new feeling Johnny never felt before with a woman he much admired than just someone to sleep with. He knocked his forehead into the nape of her neck. Rosalee pulled away from his lips, and wrapped her arms around his neck as he reached for her hips to control her thrusts.

The sweet surroundings of misery, pain, heart-pounding, bones aching with desire, and walls clenching as if there was no tomorrow. Johnny made his way of thinking his own and flipped their connected bodies over as Rosalee hit her back on the blankets. He took charge, and spread her thighs wider so he could get a better look at what he was doing. He thrust harder into her and she clutched onto his back with pleasure. She then removed his loose cotton shirt off his torso and explored his nude back. He reached for her hands and rested them above her head, pulling them together as he wrapped a hand around her wrists.

Johnny opened his eyes to stare deep into her brown eyes as her mouth hung open and sweat beads surfaced on her forehead. He smiled wickedly as he watched her pleasurable face, thrusting harder. She was able to loosen her hands from his grasp and hold his face to bring him down to kiss her. Johnny tried to deepen the kiss then, but she tilted her head away back on the pillow again. He tried to kiss her lips again like before, but she repeated the same action. Johnny made no fuss, and decided instead to lean his face downward and suck on her neck, sending fresh waves of lightning pleasure through-out her body.

Rosalee gripped his bare back again, as he thrust deeper and deeper, making her respond to him with to his every motion. The smell of the tiny room filled her nostrils with desire, and she never wanted to let go of Johnny Ringo; the dangerous, lone, quiet cowboy in her arms.

She sat up, causing Johnny to leave her neck to become closer to him. She wanted to be extremely close to him. His body sweat dripped onto her bare, glowing chest. She opened her mouth and then closed it with every thrust Johnny committed between her thighs. She desired to be one with him. She wanted him to fill her up godly that she could taste it. Her inner walls of her thighs were tingling. She just wanted every inch of him.

Somehow, he had to drop out of her and she managed to twist on her stomach and then allowed him to enter her from behind. Rosalee grabbed the pillow above her head, and then felt pressure on her back as Johnny covered her body again. She could feel his happy trail against her spinal cord base and couldn't help but laugh from the light tickle. Johnny covered her body completely, putting as little pressure as he could into her wanting body. Rosalee buried her face into the pillow and Johnny grabbed the bed frame above her head to receive further control with his thrusts. With her head buried in the pillow, she scrambled her hands up, searching for his hands above her. She found his hands then and they mingled together like puzzle. Johnny grabbed her hand hard, squeezing and pulling as she did just the same.

Rosalee finally lift her head out of the comfort of the pillow and threw her head back on Johnny's shoulder. She licked her lips and bit down on her bottom lip as she managed to once again turn around, lose Johnny from within her, and meet face to face with him. Johnny dropped his body on top of hers again, putting his weight on her. She kissed his forehead and then Johnny buried his face into her flattened hair.

She scratched her fingertips up and down the length of his moist back. His skin was smooth, much like a newborn. No other scars were visible proving he was the fastest gunfighter there was. He proved it by not having any bullet scars.

Johnny pulled away and jolted his body upright again. Rosalee yelped with delight. She smiled, sinking her face into his neck now. She crept her hand into the back of his head, grazing through his tangled brown hair.

"Johnny?" Rosalee breathed.

Johnny didn't remove himself from her embrace. Rosalee pleaded for him to answer her as she gripped his back with her nails again. He squint his face and thrust another hard thrust. He was far inside her as he was going to get. He felt as if he was on his knees, and he thrust as hard as he could. Rosalee bit her lips, feeling pain now. She dropped her head back on the pillow as Johnny again sunk his head in her neck. He never wanted to let go. Not ever.


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The sun began to rise through the ragged curtains in her bedroom quarters. The sunlight shined on Rosalee's flushed tired face as she leaned her body against Johnny's upright back.

By the time the rooster crowed for morning break, Johnny was already dressed in his navy blue cotton shirt, but it was unbuttoned and black pants. He took slow, relaxing puffs on a fresh cigar. His eyes were closed as he felt the cool breeze right outside the door blow in the compacted room.

Rosalee hung her body on him like a rag doll, resting her chin on his shoulder and draping an arm across his back. She felt gross. Dirty. But she was clean as a newborn. She hated herself for what she had become. She knew she could had stopped it a long time it ago before it got out of hand, but once that man took control over her body and swept her away after the rape, it was all she knew and would know. She left God. She despised him. She left her body. She left her heart and soul back in the fire that killed her family.

"Nothing is easier to do than to destroy yourself," she mumbled still dwelling on her thoughts and past and the many lives she took without a reason. "What is done is done. Whatever you do now can never be changed. I can never change for what I've done in my past. It's over. I'm through."

Johnny cocked his head to the side and looked at her puffed face, sprawling with a fresh batch of tears. Rosalee could see the single drop of innocence left from his green eyes. He was a killer himself; she knew that. But all she saw in him from last night's events and new morning was a man who was lonely. A man who had little love in his life. She knew his mind was far from sane, and all she could offer was a smile. The saddest yet coldest look on his face appeared bright. She knew what he was thinking, and he knew she knew what he was thinking. She did not know it herself but she was crying.

It became real quiet that not so much of the outside world of early risers was heard just outside the locked door. Johnny puffed on his cigar some more, minding his own business again while Rosalee dropped her body behind him. She wanted to speak her mind, but the only one she'd talk to was herself. She was the only one who'd understand.

She looked about her bed and found Johnny's pistol twisted in the blankets. She took a long, soothing breath.

It clicked at once.

"It goes real quick, I hear." She said. "But what do they know? Going down with a straight bullet through the brain, how can anyone react to it and say it doesn't hurt? You gotta do it yourself and then you'd know." She ran her fingers through her long, tangled hair. "This world is full of hatred, and not enough love to help the victims of broken hearts." Rosalee closed her eyes. She knew she wasn't making much sense. She bit down on her bottom lip, trying to regain sense back into her head. "I need you to leave." All else failed.

Johnny turned around and found her staring at him with a look of relief. He then looked at his gun on the bed, in her hand. He knew what she was thinking as she clicked his gun ready for action at any given moment. He simply nodded, and never considered to change her mind as he stood to his feet.

"Wait." Rosalee pulled her face into his and kissed his lips one last time. The kiss seemed to last for a while, but it was only a good few seconds when they locked lips. But Rosalee pulled away just before she became too involved in his lips again.

"Go," she whispered, staring into his eyes. Johnny didn't move. "Go," she repeated, and wiped her tears away. "Go before I fall in love you with, Damnit."

Johnny reached down and grabbed his hat from the bedpost and the rest of his clothes on the floor. He set his hat back on his head and cocked the rim of it at her. As he stepped away from the bed and when she looked up, Johnny was standing in the opened door. He watched her. Rosalee gave a quick wink, knowing she had to end her nightmare of living each and everyday with her pain.

"Goodbye, Johnny Ringo." Rosalee smiled with sadness. Johnny held his distance, and as no other words were passed, he left the quarter with his pistol still in her hands. He waited outside the door for the fire.

Once the door shut, she pressed the pistol to her temple and pulled the trigger.