Packing Heat: Femdom Strap-On Stories

First Date with Strap-On ^{by Kelly Shaw}

“So you like it, then? Anal sex?”

His face reddened as he asked the question over the remnants of dessert.

She looked at him over the rim of her glass, half of his face colored red with the wine, his eyes still blue through the glass.

“What kind of a question is that?” she said playfully, to cover the fact that she didn’t know the answer.

It wasn’t that she didn’t know whether she liked anal sex—quite opposite. Truth be told, though she rarely told the truth, she preferred it to the “usual” kind, if anything could be called usual in San Francisco. She loved everything about it—that it was dirty, that it was taboo, that it made her a slut and, not least, that men wanted it so bad they would do just about anything for you once you’d let them fuck you in the ass—or, if you played your cards right, to get you to let them fuck you in the ass. She’d heard numerous female acquaintances talk about how men always loved it and women always hated it. She felt some obligation to educate those women, but it was an obligation she never, ever fulfilled. Her preference was a secret she kept between herself… and, well, every man she’d fucked since college, actually.

She rarely came from vaginal intercourse unless there was a vibrator involved. She always came from getting fucked in the ass, no vibrator needed or wanted. She occasionally mused that buried somewhere in her slutty little back door was a prostate no one knew about except her and her lovers. She didn’t seem to have a G-spot, or if she had one it wouldn’t come out to play, so she figured God had accidentally given her a man’s asshole, which was fine with her since he’d kindly remembered to give the rest of her ass a feminine shape.

But the thing she liked best about anal sex was something that meant there was no way—not nohow, not nowhere—that she was going to tell Bill the truth. Not for a little while yet, at least.

“I’m sorry,” he said, reaching across the destroyed tableau of white chocolate petit fours to take her hand. “Maybe I’m being too forward. I mean, we’ve only been together once.”

Simone took a sip of her wine and smiled.

“It’s not that,” she said. “I just mean, it’s not a real question. Do I like anal sex? Sure. I would love to fuck you in the ass, Bill.”

Bill stiffened, probably in more ways than one. Simone could feel the tension in his hand that came from such a response. She could see his eyes all but spinning, cartoon style, in their sockets. Little cartoon birds might have been cavorting around his head.

Surely she would have told him the truth—that she loved being fucked in the ass, that the one time they’d been together she had been wishing the whole time he would go there, but had been too blessed out on the feel of him inside her to really care where he put it. Surely she would have told him, except that wasn’t the kind of relationship they had.

Simone was a switch, sure, but she’d had a lot more experience as a submissive. It was only recently, upon a recent breakup, that she’d decided she wanted to try focusing on the other side of the mountain. She wasn’t going to blow it all now with this new conquest, who liked to call her “Mistress,” who wanted to be spanked and have his balls tied, who liked to be called nasty things in bed and kiss her high-heeled shoes, who liked to be cuffed and forced to his knees and compelled with the threat of corporal punishment to go down on her until his salivary glands were swollen and red and he had to eat oatmeal for three days. She wasn’t going to just let him flip her over and beg him to plow her back door, because said plowing always put Simone into the most deeply submissive space she ever experienced, turned her into a woman so insanely compliant and accommodating that she would do anything—anything—for the man whose cock she had in her ass.

Bill was a switch, too, that much was clear both from their conversations and from the long night together—well, actually, a night and morning, and most of an afternoon. But he’d answered her online ad headlined “30something professional woman wants to be your dominant bitch,” not the online ad headlined “30something professional woman wants to be your submissive slut.” Given that the dominant bitch had gotten thirty responses, fourteen of whom had turned out to be cross-dressers and eight of whom had been ex-boyfriends, whereas the submissive whore had gotten, at last count, one thousand, four hundred and eighty-seven responses, Simone wasn’t going to flip that easily, even if she wanted to.

“Did I stop the conversation?” smiled Simone, caressing Bill’s hand with hers. “Don’t worry,” she added, “I’m not going to force you. Well, all right, I am going to force you, but only because that turns me on. You’ll have to sign off on it first.”

“A notarized statement?” he said weakly, referencing an earlier conversation about the cops busting in while one of them was tied up.

“Consent to abuse, baby,” Simone purred, an evil look on her face. “This is California. We’ll get away with it.”

“Don’t I know it,” said Bill.

“I don’t think that’s what you meant, was it?”

“About written statements?” said Bill nervously.

Simone cocked her head.

“Nooooo,” she sighed. “About your earlier question. You’re avoiding giving me a straight answer. Bill, that makes me very angry.” She fixed his blue eyes with her brown ones, and licked her lips.

“You’d like me when I’m angry,” she said.

Bill cleared his throat nervously. “I’m game,” he said.

“But you haven’t done it.”

Bill shook his head quickly. She loved the way he got nervous when he admitted how inexperienced he was as a bottom.

“That is so sexy,” she cooed. “I have a little virgin asshole to rape.”

Bill’s muscles tightened all over, probably in his ass, too. He always got so turned on when she used that word—it wasn’t right for men to use it in that context, or at least polite men like Bill didn’t use it outside the bedroom—and certainly not in forty-dollar-a-plate restaurants when discussing what was about to be done to their assholes.

“I love popping cherries,” Simone sighed, as if rubbing it in. “Now I can’t wait to get home. You did give me permission—remember? No changing your mind now.”

It was part of their game, an amusement that had developed over the course of their last dinner together and the time they’d spent in bed. Both of them had the same kink: once permission was given, reluctance was assured. Simone liked it that way. She was already wet.

“I’m having second thoughts,” he said, and Simone could tell from the way he shifted in his seat that his cock was implacably, unyieldingly rigid, probably to the point where he couldn’t stand up if he wanted to do it without social embarrassment.

“Good,” said Simone. “You’re buying dinner.”

She finished off her wine and stood up, letting the waiter help her on with her coat. Technically it was her turn—the way such things usually went—but forcing Bill to break out her credit card gave her an extra little jolt of arousal, especially given that he was about to become her bitch.

Or was she going to be his bitch? She’d never understood the use of that term. But then, for tonight at least, she didn’t need to.

She left Bill there squirming with his hard-on while the waiter delivered the bill. Simone winked at Bill. “Don’t keep me waiting,” she said playfully, and walked toward the door.

The valet was cute, and Simone made a point of flirting with him as she handed him the ticket. If she could have, she would have brought the poor boy home with her to watch; that thought made her press her thighs together and try hard not to drip on the pavement.

Standing on the street smoking one of her rarely-indulged-in cigarettes, Simone felt the dizzy spin of arousal that made her a little bit worried she would pass out or maybe just fall down. Her cunt felt so swollen and tight that it hurt. Her clit throbbed with every thought that went through her mind. Her nipples were as hard as the pencil erasers everyone always mentions in those porn stories she wanked to from the internet, and it wasn’t because of the late-evening chill.

Did she dare tell him that, at least as far as this particular activity went, she was a virgin, too? I mean, sure, a finger or two during a particularly enthusiastic blowjob, the occasional rim job that she always felt guilty about afterwards and worried about parasites for six fucking months—but she’d never given a man a whole fucking dildo. She’d never even worn the fucking thing. She could only hope she hadn’t thrown it away in her last flurry of spring cleaning.

No, she couldn’t tell him. She was the top, she knew everything, right? Her job was to run the fuck like she knew what she was doing. Bill’s job was to bend over and take it.

At least, she hoped that was the way it worked.

When Bill came out, she saw that he still had a lump in his pants, and his face was red with humiliation. That didn’t do anything to make her feel more steady; on the contrary, she thought she might shove him to his knees right there.

The valet pulled up in Simone’s Jetta. “You’re driving,” she said to Bill. His eyebrows went up, but he opened the passenger side door for her. Really, Simone just wasn’t sure she should drive, not because of the three glasses of wine she’d had to Bill’s two, but because she could barely focus her eyes, she was so fucking turned on. It felt deliciously dominant of her to make Bill be her chauffeur, anyway.

He drove slowly, respecting the fact that this was Simone’s car. That annoyed the living shit out of her, because all she wanted to do was fucking get the fuck home and fuck Bill’s fucking brains out. She opened her mouth several times to say exactly that, more or less in those words, but she couldn’t figure out how to say it without sounding totally out of control.

And control is what it was all about.

“Where to?” he asked as he pulled onto the main road. Right went to Simone’s place on West 51st, left to Bill’s in Tribeca.

“Right,” she said.

“My bed is bigger,” he said.

“But mine has all the strap-ons,” she said.

Bill swallowed nervously.

“You’re not really going to fuck me, are you?”

Simone sighed, laughed a little, and reached out to caress his face. Then she dropped her hand to his crotch and grabbed it, squeezing his cock as hard as she could.

Just then the light turned green, or Simone probably wouldn’t have been able to stop herself from bending down and sucking Bill’s cock—which would have spoiled everything.

“What do you think?” she asked him, and took her hand away. The car behind them honked.

It was a two-block walk from the parking space that Simone rented to her one-bedroom apartment. She walked with her hand in Bill’s back pocket, the way a particularly possessive metal-listening mullet-head might walk with his girlfriend.

Except that Simone’s cock was bigger than any mullethead’s.

“You’re sure you want to do this?” asked Bill as Simone handed him her house keys. On a “regular” date, it would have meant “Are you sure you want to sleep together? Really, it’s okay if you don’t. I like you as a person. We can just stay up all night and talk about the rainforest and French cinema. After all, it’s only our second date.”

But in this instance, it meant—and both of them knew it—“are you sure you want to shove your cock into my ass?”

To which Simone responded with one hand grabbing Bill’s cock and the other grabbing his ass—not one of his well-toned cheeks, but right in the middle, so her finger pushed firmly against his ass, right there under the klieg-light glare of West 51st Street.

“You’d better fucking believe I do,” she said. “And I’m going to, no matter what you say, so shut the fuck up and get upstairs.”

Bill’s cock gave a spasm as she said that—she suspected more because of the words than because of her hand on his cock.

Simone was a potty mouth—she never ceased to amaze her lovers with the rank filth that could pour from her mouth in moments of passion. Except that usually it was “fuck me in my fucking ass like I’m your fucking whore, Daddy,” rather than “I fucking said get the fucking fuck upstairs you fucking little bitch, so I can fucking fuck your fucking tight virgin fucking ass, bitch,” which is what she said, her body pressed up behind him and her lips against his ear, as Bill fumbled with the keys. In fact, she was rather impressed with herself, rarely being able to squeeze so many of her favorite word into one sentence. Maybe being a top was for her.

She punctuated her verbal filth with another firm grab of Bill’s ass, which helped camouflage the fact that she needed to hold on to him to keep from falling down.

Bill finally found the right key and unlocked the three locks of Simone’s apartment building. He stepped aside to let her enter first, which gave her a thrill—for an inexperienced bottom, he certainly knew how to be deferent. She gripped the railing and tried to make it look casual. She didn’t feel drunk at all, but if she didn’t get Bill into bed soon, she was going to fall down on the threadbare carpet and start twitching. She had never, ever been this turned on, certainly not after a second date.

She stepped aside and let Bill open her apartment door. He stepped aside and let her enter first.

As soon as the door was closed, she grabbed him and shoved him against it, planting her mouth on his. If she hadn’t been wearing three-inch heels, she wouldn’t have even be able to reach him. His cock, however, would have been right at mouth height—if she dropped to her knees. But fuck that, those were her old habits. Tonight, Bill was going to be the one sucking.

“Get your clothes off,” she said, pointing at the tiny bathroom. Bill scampered in there and closed the door behind him.

“And no stalling!” she said as she raced for the bedroom.

In fact, Simone hoped that Bill would stall, because not only did she have to get undressed, but she had no fucking idea how the strap-on worked. She had never worn it herself; it was a remnant of a bi fling she’d had five years ago, one of those things an ex forgets at your place when she or he leaves for the last time, like his Harry Connick, Jr. albums or her ancient, faded I Got A Blowjob On Bourbon Street T-shirt.

Simone stripped off her clothes in record time, kicking off her shoes, stuffing the coat, the blouse, the skirt and the bra into the black of the closet—she’d cleaned for six hours on the off chance that they’d come here instead of going to Bill’s place, and she wasn’t going to start throwing clothes around now.

She muttered one of her potty-words when she realized that she’d put her panties on over her garters. Should I wear my garter belt with a strap-on? she thought. No time to worry about it. She unhitched the garters, stripped off the belt and left the black seamed stockings. Thank God they were stay-ups.

Between digging under her old blankets and looking under the bed, she decided she should put the shoes back on. They gave her kind of a femme-fatale look, and besides, if she found herself standing up the last thing she wanted was to be a whole foot taller than her little ass-bitch, as she’d begun to affectionately think of him.

She finally found the strap-on and its accompanying dildo on the third shelf of her closet, stuffed into a hat box full of dime-store porn. She was pretty sure she’d washed it last time she’d used it, but giving it a quick rinse was out of the question—Bill was still in the bathroom.

Luckily, her little ass-bitch was, in fact, stalling. That gave her the five minutes or so she needed to figure out the leather straps of the harness and get the frustratingly large dildo forced through the too-tight ring. When she looked at herself in the full-length mirror next to her bed, she made a confused face—was it supposed to fucking hang like that?

She heard the door of the bathroom opening and went to hop onto the bed, at the last moment remembering to dim the lights. The soft feel of faux leopard fur caressed her bare ass as she sank into the cheap mattress. She tried hard to affect a casual-looking posture, like she’d been relaxing there for hours waiting for some fine stud, preferably a lawyer, to come by and polish her knob.

She was out of breath, though, and couldn’t have looked casual if her life depended on it. Luckily, Bill didn’t barge in but knocked tentatively at the door. Simone had closed it when she was ransacking her room for the harness.

“Wait,” she said, taking a perverse pleasure at making him relax while she took deep breaths and tried to relax.

“Yes, Mistress,” came Bill’s small voice from the other side of the door.

“All right,” she said when she felt as properly situated as she was likely to get. “Come in, ass-bitch.”

Bill opened the door. All the frenzied searching and strap-buckling of the last few minutes vanished as Simone looked him up and down. He was naked, his cock still hard as a rock, pointing toward the ceiling much more than her dildo would have been if it hadn’t been laying against her belly.

What’s more, Bill’s eyes went wide as he saw the dildo, the size of it plainly troubling to him.

“What?” smiled Simone, her voice suddenly playful. “You beg me to fuck you and now you’re going to complain about how big my cock is? Come now, Bill, if a girl tried to pull that, do you know what her boyfriend would do?”

She didn’t even have to say the world—it was so politically incorrect for him to even think it, for her to imply it, that it gave an immediate boost to his cock. She could see it spasming slightly all the way across the room.

“Come over here,” she said. “And show me what a little bitch like you does to a nice big cock like this.”

Bill closed the bedroom door behind him—a good thing, because the walls here were paper thin and Simone fully intended to make a whole fucking lot of noise. Bill took tentative steps to the bed, his cock rising and falling slightly with the beat of his heart.

“Come on,” Simone said, teasingly cocking her finger. “Come hither, bitch. Show me what you do with a big fat cock.”

Bill clearly did not know what one did with a big fat cock. As he climbed onto the bed, Simone took him in her arms, and he gingerly wrapped his hand around it, like he was handling a dead rat.

“No,” she said patiently. “That’s not what a little fucking slut whore like you wants to do with a big fat fucking cock, is it, bitch?” She smiled sweetly, seeing the effect that the words had on Bill’s eyes. Something hungry pulsed in them, but it was when she took hold of his head and pushed him down to her crotch that she knew she’d found the right button.

Bill took the head of Simone’s cock into his mouth and began sucking it. Simone uttered a long, satisfied moan as she watched his mouth go gliding up and down on it. He could only take a third of it into his mouth, but the sight of him struggling to take more excited Simone enough to make her grab his hands and plant them on her breasts. He obediently pinched and rubbed her nipples as his head bobbed up and down in her lap.

“Deeper,” she said, and felt a wave of excitement building as he struggled with the head pushing against the back of his throat.

“Deeper,” she moaned softly, feeling the shudder of Bill’s body as he gagged. She loved that feeling herself, of being compelled to take cock as deep as it would go in her throat—so deep she gagged, so deep she choked. The last thing she wanted to do was choke Bill, though. But making him cry a little bit was still on the menu.

And as Bill struggled with his gag reflex, she achieved just that. Simone’s clit throbbed against the base of the dildo when she saw Bill’s eyes grow moist with gag-induced tears. She breathed hard and pushed his hands more firmly against her tits, encouraging him to pinch harder. But when the first tear leaked out of his mouth and ran down his cheek, dribbling warm and succulent onto Simone’s belly, she couldn’t wait any more.

She grabbed Bill’s hair and pulled him off her cock. Smiling, she kissed him.

“Ready to become my little whore?” she purred.

“No,” said Bill nervously, but the flash in his eyes told Simone everything she needed to know—that, and the fact that he had not yet said “rutabaga,” or even “marching band.”

She grabbed his arm and threw him bodily onto the bed, face down—something that would have been damn well impossible if Bill hadn’t been under her spell.

Simone knelt behind Bill on the full-size bed, running her hands up the backs of his thighs. “Lift your ass,” she growled. “Up on your knees, bitch. Face on the pillow.”

She realized after she said them that she had heard those exact same words, spoken by more than one lover with her in Bill’s position. What the hell? They worked.

Parting Bill’s cheeks with her thumbs, she saw the tight pink hole she was about to ravage. The sight of it made her hungry.

“Get me the lube,” she told him. “It’s in the nightstand.”

The “nightstand” was actually a plastic office caddy, but Bill got the idea. He found the tube of thick lubricant, his hands shaking as he nervously handed it down to Simone.

A thick dollop of lube made him gasp with the coldness as she caressed his asshole with her thumb. She stroked him in small circles as she felt him relaxing, the tension going out of his ass as he gave himself up to what was to happen.

She slipped first one finger—her middle—then two—middle and index—into Bill’s ass. He grunted and pushed back against her. She added more lube and fucked him some more. Bill shivered and ground his hips against the bed. “Up!” she snapped. “Up on your knees. Face in the pillow. Hands at your sides.”

Bill obeyed; Simone adored this position. It made one look so small and vulnerable. Of course, it was usually her in this position, but that only turned her on more. She growled “Higher!” and Bill obediently raised his ass as far as he could while Simone’s lubed fingers slid deeper into his ass, taking their time, opening him up. She added a third finger, with just a tad more lube, and Bill began to gasp obscenities.

She spanked him again, never taking her other hand out of his ass. “I’ll tell you when to curse, bitch!” she barked. “I’ll tell you when to fucking curse, and right now all you do is fucking moan and fucking whimper, you got that?”

Bill nodded, complying with both instructions as he wriggled and pushed against Simone’s hand, his hips working rhythmically. She got all three fingers in deeper, adding lube. The feel of his ass, tight and virgin around her fingers, had her so wet she could feel the moisture dripping down her thighs.

As she fingered his ass, Simone reached between his legs and felt his cock. Still hard—if anything, harder than ever. He moaned as she stroked his cock.

“You like that, bitch?” she purred. “You like having your fucking ass plowed while I fuckin’ jerk your cock, bitch?”

“No,” he moaned softly. “Please… please don’t.”

She spanked him on the ass, hard.

“I’ll tell you when to beg!” she snapped. “Just for that you’re not getting any more lube! You’re going to take my cock dry!”

“Yes, Mistress,” whimpered Bill pathetically.

Of course, Simone had already added a healthy dollop to the head of her cock, smearing it around so the implement glistened in the dimmed lights. But the threat was worth it; Bill squirmed and whimpered with arousal as Simone gripped his cock harder.

She withdrew her three fingers from his asshole and wiped them on his back. Her cunt pulsing with arousal, Simone nestled up behind Bill and snapped at him to spread his legs wider. He did, straining to lift his ass as high as he could

“Now, this is going to hurt you more than it does me,” she said breathlessly, fitting the thick head of her cock into the notch of Bill’s ass.

But in fact, when she pushed it in, it didn’t seem to hurt—which was the whole point. She could tell—the moans he gave were not the real-pain moans when she’d tweaked his nipples or spanked him hard last weekend, but the faked-pain moans when she’d suckled on his nipples or spanked him softly.

That only made her shove her cock into his asshole harder, burying the thick member deep inside Bill.

“Oh, fuck,” gasped Bill, his back straightening as he was forcibly filled up.

Simone slapped his ass hard. “What did I tell you?” she snarled. “Did I tell you to curse?”

Bill shook his head emphatically, and went back to moaning and whimpering—exactly what she’d told him to do.

But he also pushed himself back onto her cock, his cheeks spreading around the thick shaft as he ground against her.

Simone began fucking him. It was a difficult matter at first, requiring her to get on one knee and one foot, driving into him at a cockeyed angle. But she got the hang of it within a dozen thrusts. Bill groaned as she started fucking him harder.

She reached under him and found his cock hard. “You want to touch it? You want to fucking jerk off while I fuck you? Answer me, bitch! I asked you a direct question!”

“Yes, Mistress,” he grunted. “Please let me jerk off.”

“No!” she shrieked. “Not until I’m good and ready!” She was so turned on that she had to hold his hips to steady herself. That gave her the perfect handhold to slam him back onto her cock, making him groan each time the thick head reached its deepest point inside him.

Simone’s head spun. God, she wanted her little ass-bitch to come. She wanted to let him jerk off while she fucked him, but she should really come first, shouldn’t she? After all, she was in charge… wasn’t she?

“What are you?” she snapped, finally deciding she couldn’t wait another minute to see Bill twisting and writhing in orgasm.

“What?” he moaned softly.

She spanked his ass rapidly as she fucked him, matching the rhythm of her cock going into him with hard blows to his ass. “I—said—what—the fuck—are—you?”

She wasn’t going to just hand it to him—not now, not when he was so ready to come.

“I— I—”

“Say it! Tell me what you are!”

She almost uttered the words: “Are you my little ass bitch?” But she managed to stop herself at the last moment, because Bill blurted it out.

“I’m your little fucking ass bitch,” he groaned.

Simone liked the idea of saying it so much that she couldn’t stop herself. She growled: “Say it with me.”

“Mistress, I,” she began.

“Mistress, I,” Bill matched her.

“I am,” she said, louder.

“I am your—” he began.

“I am your little fucking—”

They both said the whole sentence together. “I am your little fucking ass bitch,” and Simone leaned as far forward as she could, grabbing Bill’s wrist and shoving his hand down between his legs.

Then she started to fuck him again, harder than ever, as she said “Show me how much it fucking turns you on to be my little ass bitch!”

“Yes, Mistress,” he groaned, wrapping his hand around his cock. Simone’s head spun as she felt his body bucking against her—it was ten seconds, maybe, no more, before he lifted his head, threw it back, spasmed all over like nothing Simone had ever seen.

He shot his load all over Simone’s faux leopard bedspread. She plowed him as deep as her cock would go, shoving the toy to its deepest point inside him while Bill’s orgasm tore through him.

She had never experienced it before—the way his asshole tightened and jerked around her cock as he came, sending unbelievable sensations into her body. God, she fucking had to come.

She managed to wait until he finished coming before she drew her cock out of him—slowly, forcing herself to go slowly, with overwhelming, intense difficulty—and shoved him forward with a firm hand on his lube-smeared ass.

The harness came off easier than it had gone on. Maybe it was because she just got one leg undone and then yanked the thing down her leg, throwing it vaguely toward the closet as she crawled up the bed and spread her legs.

“Fucking do me, you little fucking bitch,” she said. She thought Bill would be dull and listless after his orgasm, but his face went right between her spread legs—right where it belonged—with a swiftness that excited her. His tongue worked its way between her lips, molding to her clit. He began to service her as she twisted her fingers in his hair—it was a little too short to properly pull, but she had to do something with her hands.

Bill did something with his hands, too, without being told—he reached up to Simone’s breasts and firmly pinched her nipples, the way she liked.

“Fuck yeah, eat me out, you fucking ass bitch,” Simone was about to say, but it just blurred together into one long weird expletive that, had an outsider heard it, would have seemed like a mix of Russian, Turkish and caveman-speak. Her ass came up off the bed and Bill’s mouth rode her cunt flawlessly, his tongue working her clit as she cursed and thrashed in orgasm. Her thighs worked back and forth violently, so much so that halfway through, she was afraid she had boxed his ears.

But when she finally finished and relaxed into the bed, Bill heard her perfectly when she moaned: “get up here.”

She might have been afraid that the way she put her arms around his big chest, the way she snuggled into his flesh and drew a deep breath to smell him, the way she curled into a ball in his arms—it was all so fucking submissive. In that white-hot instant of her orgasm, she had gone from a 30something professional woman who wanted to be his dominant bitch to… well, to whatever. She didn’t care, about that or about the leopard-print bedspread that Bill had soiled with his come and now with his lube-smeared ass. She didn’t care about much, except the smell of his body and the feel of it against her.

Bill held her as she shuddered all over, her cunt still spasming from her orgasm.

“I’m your little ass bitch,” he said softly, with a weird kind of smile in his voice.

She didn’t even look up to see if Bill was smiling for real.

“Yeah,” Simone breathed. “You’re telling me.”