6 comments/ 14676 views/ 14 favorites The Lady Inside Ch. 01 By: sophiaxxsophia I looked at the sinuous curves of her body. The long legs, the curling hair. She was built like my fantasy, every inch of her in pale ivory and inky black. Her pumps hugged the delicate curve of her feet—the arch and the heel. Her dress matched in deep crimson and swung light and silky around her narrow hips and broad back. I stared, unsure if what I was seeing was real or just Hollywood smoke and mirrors. When she turned to me and smiled—lovely white teeth glistening behind her red, red lips—I almost fell backward. I was beginning to think she was a mirage brought on by the heat of the Mexican sun or the parasites in the Mexican water. "Hi, Daddy," she said in a rich alto. She waved with her fingers and winked. I couldn't not speak to her then. "Anna Marie Clemton," she said as I approached. "David St. John." She looked at me so sweetly I thought for sure I was imagining it. My vacation was full of such imaginings. I had imagined that I could drink more than four beers without getting drunk, for instance. Something I'd never once accomplished in my life. I imagined that a stolen credit card was no big deal. The credit companies require a signature. I imagined that my girlfriend was only "talking" with my best friend in his motel room while I was alone watching re-runs of Lucy and wondering when I'd see her again. Surely, I was imagining this gorgeous woman with the soft Georgia accent smiling and winking at me like I was a prize. "I saw you looking at me," she said like a kitten. "Do you like what you see?" I didn't know how to answer that without turning bright, beet red. "Umm...yeah. You look really great. Wannahangoutsometime?" I blurted out. She giggled. "Let's go to La Casa Del Marcos and get a bite to eat then you can tell me all about what you see." I loved this woman. We walked there, side-by-side in the August heat of Cabo San Lucas. The streets glittered with the heat and the sun. Somehow, she wasn't sweating. God knows how she wasn't sweating. Maybe her sweat was just so beautiful that I couldn't see it properly. She glanced at me and talked about the city, her trip, and her friends back in Atlanta. She was a great socializer but she needed to get away from them now and then to really be herself, alone. "And you? What kind of trip are you on?" "Last-chance-before-the-fall-semester trip," I said. "Me and my best friend, my girlfriend, and a few others came out for one last party. The best parties are in Mexico." I was lying. Hiding my awful trip and the hollow ringing sound that filled my ears nowadays. My return ticket to Seattle wasn't due for another week and I was desperate to kill that time as quickly as possible. I think she might have known. She just said hmmmm and looked thoughtfully at me. "Here we are!" I hadn't noticed, so engrossed was I in our diverting conversation, but we were already there. La Casa Del Marcos is a huge, carnival-esque atrocity of human taste stuck in the center of the city. It attracts the most noisy, roughest, and flamboyant of the visitors to Cabo San Lucas. We slipped inside past a prospective employee who shouted, "Quinientos pesos, señor. Señorita." The restaurant was noisy and dirty. A mad-looking hostess led us to a tiny table in a dark corner that was barely balancing on its stand. It had burn stains and rings all over it, like something in my dorm room. She rattled off a list of food available but got called away by an emerging fight behind her. Anna giggled at me and smiled. "What's it like at Flescher's?" she asked. "Oh, boring. Teachers, classes. That kind of thing." "Got any girlfriends?" The question. And also, friend-S? "Ummm..." Our waiter had arrived with a click of his heels. He wore a black vest with gold trimmings and a little hat like a bell hop. "Drinks for you, señor y señora?" He had this way of tilting his head like a cocker spaniel with its ear up. I ordered a soft drink and Anna got a tequila with lime. He left and I was on my own again. "I had a girlfriend. She's in Cabo San Lucas," I said. "Now she's with Brian and that is the end of that." Anna's lips pouched into a moue and she made a soft cooing sound of sympathy. She didn't really look all that upset. Something in my groin kicked up with this understanding. And there was something about her that left me feeling strange—as if I was kind of sleepy and kind of high. I'd never gotten high off a person. It was really something special. "Maybe Brian and Anna will tear each other's throats out," she said brightly as the waiter returned to take our orders. "Our waiter is cute, isn't he?" Anna said as he walked back to the bar. He had a tight little butt and I felt myself heat up when I realized she had seen me watching it rise and fall. I even liked his little mariachi outfit and wanted to take him to my motel room with Anna. What was up with me? It was like the exposure of my girlfriend's cheating to the bright southern sun had opened up a sex drive in me that I hadn't felt before. Anna sat across from me with her legs crossed and her ankle bouncing up and down. She wasn't watching him. She was watching me. She had a secretive smile on her face. A knowing kind of smile. "So, let's say you and me go back to my motel room—" I started to say. "How about we go to my hotel. It's the Imperial," she said. I laughed. "Okay, let's say we go back to the Imperial. Is there anything I would want to know about? Boyfriends? Husbands?" She drank an ounce of tequila. "Girlfriends?" I posited hopefully. "I'm single. Single for real, in Atlanta and here. I'm heading back tomorrow and I'd like one more night to be me. Let's say you and me don't be single tonight." She looked over at the waiter who was returning with our lime-drenched shrimp. I smiled at her and we finished dinner without ordeal. Things were happening around us. Noisy things. But I didn't hear them. Her voice covered up the drone of the crowd and her face was lit to me like the moon against the night sky. She nodded and flirted. There was something about her, shy and confident at once. I couldn't put my finger on it but she made me want to leap out of my chair and wrap my arms around her. I can't even remember what I ate. We walked back to her hotel. It was by the shore—empty this time of night except for an occasional giggling couple who knew they weren't supposed to be there. The inside of the hotel was white—white walls, white ceiling, and white carpet with shades of pale silver white curlicues running through them. We stepped into a white and gold elevator and rode to the second floor. She showed me her suite proudly, as if she had built it. It was impressive. Three rooms, all in white and silver grey with the same gold trimmings that furnished the whole hotel. She had a veranda hanging over the beach with sliding glass doors leading to it. The moon was rising over the water and filled the room with soft light. It was so bright she hadn't even flicked on the overheads. "I'm dying to see what you've got under there," I said and pulled her close. "Ah-hah," she said with her hands up and blocking me. What had I done? "Did I misread—? I thought you wanted—" "I'm not like other girls," she said softly. "I have—" She leaned in close to me and whispered. "A penis." She clapped her hands over her mouth as if she had said a dirty word. Her eyes were wide. I took a deep breath. I had to. "You have a penis. Like a man?" I said a little bewildered. She pursed her mouth and nodded. I could see her eyes glistening with tears that threatened to fall onto her lovely pale cheeks. "Well," I said and paused. "Well, I have a penis, too, and I think it's just great." She looked up and laughed a little but not enough to stop a single tear from leaping off her eyelashes and onto her cheekbone. "In fact, I love dicks. They're the best," I continued, sounding dorky to my own ears but desperate to make her stop crying. "You do?" she trilled out. "I never would have thought. I guess this makes us both dicks, huh?" She was laughing now and I took the opportunity to grab her and haul her close to me, the way I'd been wanting to all night. Her mouth was watery and soft and I kissed it with every ounce of my hard-driven longings rising out of me. I could feel her dick pushing against mine from in her pants and the feeling turned me on. I swept her over to the white bed in the white moonlight and fell on top of her. "Baby, is it really okay?" she said. "I'm never like this when I have sex. It isn't okay where I'm from, the people I live with. I don't even have sex, really." I nodded as I drove my head into her neck. She wrapped her arms around my shoulders like a baby. I slid my hands up her skirt and straight onto her cock. It was large and hard in a pair of silk panties that seemed cut to hold it. I stroked through them, relishing the feel of her hardness under all that silk. Her balls were swelling underneath and I rubbed them gently and lifted them up. She was breathing deeply and making small whimpering sounds that turned me on even more. "You can move to Seattle," I said as I stroked hard, pulling her dick and balls up and massaging them like a sore muscle. "People in Seattle don't care. You can do whatever you want." I kissed her chest and belly, driving downward onto her legs. She ran her fingers through my hair. "My money," she whispered softly and then moaned as my mouth met her cock. I let her cock fill up my mouth and I sucked hard, the way I liked it. She was arching backward and making noises that must have carried through the walls and down the beach. I licked the soft head and sucked on the skin between her dick and her nutsack. She didn't come but pushed me off. "Do me. Can you do me like a woman?" she said. I breathed in deeply. I could do her like a woman. I stripped off the last of our clothes. She had been wearing a padded bra and underneath she had a skinny chest with a small tattoo of a rose on it. I turned her around. Her asshole was small and pert. I pushed into it a few times to test it out. "Lube," I said into her ear. She reached under the bed, into a small bag with what looked like sex toys and bottles of different lubricants. She picked one out and handed it to me. "You have a lot of boyfriends?" I asked. She shook her head. "My people. They don't like it when boys have boyfriends." "You aren't a boy," I said and started to rub my cock and her asshole with the lube. She liked this and closed her eyes as she fell on the pillow. I penetrated her easily. She was hot and tight. Her moans filled my ears and made me feel strong—a way my ex had never made me feel. Sweat ran down my abdomen and onto her small, tight ass that bounced up against me as I pumped. It wasn't long before I came. I could feel her ass closing down on my dick as the jets of semen shot up inside of her. She was doing it on purpose. I collapsed onto her back and just stayed like that until she rolled over, pulling me out of her while she did it. Her dick was still hard and it pressed against my hip. I inched down and took it back in my mouth. Now, I didn't give porn star head but sucked like it was a baby bottle—trying to squeeze out some precious drop of cum. She raised her hips to meet me and I was driven into her hairless pubis. I swallowed with her big dick deep in my throat and she started to jerk. I held her hips up and sucked harder, swallowing her head and raising my mouth almost to the tip before plunging down and swallowing again. She came with a furious thumping of her cock and a slow, hot pooling of her cum on my tongue. I dropped her hips and she threw her head back. I climbed next to her and said, "So, about Seattle. Maybe you don't need your money." She looked over to me and smiled, running my hair through her fingers. "Maybe I don't, baby. Maybe I don't." The Lady Inside Ch. 02 "My brother called me a faggot," Anna said to me over the phone. Her voice echoed in the empty receiver and it sounded like a ghost. "Before that, I used to have sex dreams. I would lay on my bed and think about being held down. I wanted a man to use me. To enslave me. I thought about him calling me a faggot and making me weep when he shoved his oversized cock up my tiny virgin cunt. I wanted to be pushed around and beaten. Then my brother found out that I had asked out a boy and he called me a faggot. I couldn't use that word after that. He ruined my fantasy. He made it real." "Did you beat the shit out of him?" "Yeah. I slapped him and called him a whore." She burst out laughing and I joined her. I was safe, alone in my dorm. My roommate hadn't shown up yet and the other half of the room lay silent and empty. I hoped he would never show up. Anna was the length and breadth of the country away in sunny Georgia and I was in gloomy Seattle waiting for her to figure out some excuse to come here. Speaking of... "I've been talking to some people and they say that Seattle's a nice place to visit. They say that there's even a museum. I was thinking that I might take a long trip there, maybe even start something. A business, graduate school. Something." "You have to," I said. "There isn't an option, Anna. I'm in love." * * * Anna had left me in Cabo San Lucas alone after we met, made love, and parted ways. She was everything I wanted in a woman and something—one thing—extra, she had a cock. A lovely long one to match her arms and legs. I had my first experience with a sexual encounter that I couldn't name in her posh hotel room and I came out of it fabulously in love. She wouldn't let me see her off at the airport. "I don't want you to see me without my make-up," she said with her mascara running off already. "I don't want you to see me like that." I knew that back in Atlanta, she was with her family—her wealthy antebellum family—pretending to be a man just because of her genes. I knew that she was suffering there. Every part of me wanted to climb into a plane, fetch her, and bring her home with me. Now she was talking about visiting. If I could just get her to marry me while she was here— "Baby, I'm checking the prices and they aren't good," she said. "They're fantastic. I'm booking them now. Will you meet me at Seattle-Tacoma on the 30th? 9 pm?" Halleluiah and praise Jesus! There was a God after all. * * * I met Anna at the airport. She wore a neatly androgynous pair of slacks and a man's shirt, over which she had hastily thrown a poncho. When I looked close, she wore her make-up. She must have put it on in the airplane, the fox. I was curious, I won't deny it. I wanted to know what she looked like without it. We rode giggling to her hotel room. The Marriot was booked, so she got a suite at the Huntington. She ran her fingers through my hair in the cab and told me about the constellation Cygnus and the archer. I'm not sure what she meant but her voice was so quiet and dark in the small car that I just wanted to hear her. Her room was right at the top of the small hotel. She had six bags and we enlisted the aid of the bell hop to bring them there. His presence in the elevator only just stopped us from stripping down and making love. It was with enormous pleasure and squealing elation that we unlocked her door and crashed into her suite. Anna looked at me, her arms on her chest and seeming to shiver. "I'm so cold, David. Haven't you got heat in this town?" I laughed. "Your bedspread looks warm." We stripped fast and dove under the covers. She was right—it felt like the AC was on. I pulled her close and pushed my nose to her neck. Her hair was soft and dark. I reached around and ran my fingers across her taut abdomen, tracing the lines of pleasure from her groin to her belly button. She shivered again but not from the cold. "Baby, I want you to take me now," she said. "Before we go out or do anything." I couldn't say no, her voice was so soft and seductive. I pulled her hips toward me and pressed her hard buttocks against my groin. They were tight and bouncy under my fingers. I let my hands slide around her hips to her cock and down around her balls. I lifted them up and made her gasp. Even swollen, they fit in my hands. I massaged them and she closed her eyes and lay her head against my chest. "I need something," I said. "Some lube, okay?" I spoke softly and almost didn't want to do it, she was so lost in her pleasure, but she came to and murmured assent. She left the bed and dug into one of her bags. I lay back, my dick growing and bobbing as I watched her bent over her bag, her neat little asshole displayed between her two perfect butt cheeks. She turned back to me with a little purple bottle of lube and said, "Sweetie, this is all I've got." It was almost empty. I took it and unscrewed the cap, determined to shake every ounce out onto my hand. She giggled at me. "You've going to have to come here, baby," I said. She grinned and crawled along the bed toward me. Her skinny chest and hard dick made me start to shiver, too, in anticipation. I rose and turned her around with my dry hand and grabbed my dick with the other. Slippery, slippery wet. I loved this lube. I found her asshole with my head and started to penetrate. She was ready to take me then. Her asshole was so hot, tight. I just loved it. The slick wetness of the lube and her bouncy tightness came together over my cock and made me moan. I had to go slow or I'd cum in her before we'd even fucked. I held her hips as she leaned forward onto the foot of the bed. She was bent over my hands. I pulled her cock out from the fold and started to rub it. I didn't jerk her off, just rubbed gently while I pushed in deeper. She made noises like a kitten beneath me. I was massaging her abdomen and her balls, too, and I felt her suck her breath in to give me more room. I tightened my fist around her and started to thrust at the same time. Her asshole clenched and loosened over my cock and I rested my head on her back in the pleasure of it. I started to feel her cock throbbing. I could feel her heartbeat. I started to tingle in my nipples and rubbed them against her as I thrust a little harder. She gasped and said, "David! David, I'm going to cum!" I hmmm'd my acknowledgement but kept steady on my hand and cock. Slow, gentle. She gave out a low growl and threw her head back. I didn't speed up. Her hips started to dance and she involuntarily humped my wet hand. I still didn't speed up, even though I started to feel a rising orgasm myself. I kept pace even as her hot cum spurted all over my hand. I held onto her cock as I kept thrusting. Her asshole spasmed and tightened around my dick. I thrust harder now, looking to cum, too. "Can I cum in you?" I whispered into her ear. "Yeah. Yeah, you have to." Her voice was husky and it drove me crazy. I went fast, now, and shallow. I could feel the hard ridges of her pussy on my dick and the deep soft interior and it made my nerves sing. I clutched onto her dick even though it had long gone soft. I pressed it up against her thigh and fell onto her shoulders. A wave of heat rushed through me and I felt like I was going to melt against her body. I came hard into her ass and then just rested there for a minute, letting my shrinking dick pull itself out. We rolled to our sides—me spooning her—and she snuggled up against me. I couldn't stop running my still slick hands over her gorgeous body. I ran my hands over her tight nipples and down her ribcage. She shivered in pleasure and I felt goosebumps growing. I pulled her in closer and wrapped us in the blankets. We fell asleep like that and woke up an hour later, full of energy and ready to go out. * * * "How about we go to Cracker's?" Anna said. I almost fell off the bed where I was trying to put on my socks. Cracker's was the most expensive restaurant in town. It was famous for serving high-profile politicians and celebrities—the kind who can afford to spend $400 on a single meal, plus a tip. I looked up at her. "Have you ever been to Seattle before?" "No, but my mother has. She recommended Cracker's. She said they have a duck with plum sauce that's to die for. It's a meal for two. A hungry two. Are you hungry?" My mind spun around this idea of being treated to duck with plum sauce by a wealthy transsexual who I just came inside of. I tightened my eyebrows. "Did your mother...Nevermind." "You don't like duck?" She was gathering up tools and clothing into her arms. There were makeup bags and lacy underwear with pre-made breasts. I even spotted a garter belt. "Anna," I said after a long pause, "I've never even had duck. I'm really in love with you, but I feel..." I didn't know how to say it. I felt wrong taking money like that from her. I wanted to marry her, which I was pretty sure I could do in Seattle (if not Georgia). I didn't want to be her sponge. I tried to think of a nice way to ask if she thought of me as a whore or a leech. I couldn't. She looked at me quizzically as I roiled inside over this thing. My stomach growled. "Okay. I'll try duck." Her face split into a grin and she took her bundle into the bathroom and shut the door. She was positively perky. I couldn't be a drain, could I? She re-entered the room looking like a queen. Her hair was up in a French knot and her satiny legs were brushed by a black skirt. She had her figure on, now, and I looked up and down her curves. I was ready to take her to bed again and I said so. She laughed and maybe even blushed a little. Our ride to the restaurant was exciting—it was raining and we slid over the road as our mad cabbie rushed to get us there before our reservation. Apparently, Anna had already reserved us a table before she even left Georgia. Cracker's was huge—with a high ceiling, exposed timbers, and big panes of glass looking out into the gradually darkening grey pool that is Seattle in autumn. We were seated near a window overlooking a deep ravine, thick and lush with shadowy greenery. The lights were low and, in spite of the ample space, it felt quiet and private. A pair of waiters came over and smiled and nodded as we picked out our courses. Anna was beaming at me. I studied her. I couldn't figure it out and then it hit me. She was showing off. She wasn't worried about me using her. She wasn't thinking of me as a prostitute. She was trying to impress me with all of this. I looked over at her, pretty and feminine with her white skin and long dark hair, with new eyes. She was so small. It hadn't occurred to me that she was anything but royalty. We ate our eggs and salads and duck with relish. The food really was good. I didn't know if it was several hundred dollars good, but it was good. We washed it all down with dry white wine from California and chatted animatedly as it warmed us up. "I'm thinking of what to do here. Seattle pretty much has all the basics covered. I thought I might open up a shop or something little. I'd actually like to live outside the city. It makes me restless," she said over her plate of prawns. "What kind of shop? Are you into shop keeping?" I asked with my mouth full. "I'm not sure if I'd like to manage it myself. It'd be a good excuse to stay here without pissing off the elders." She smirked. "I've always thought it'd be pretty cool to own a business. I'm partial to bikes. It isn't much of a business here, though. It's too cold." "Hmmm, no. I had a guy do some looking and he says that Seattle is in deep need of another art gallery. Also, art galleries are wonderfully easy to run—as long as you have lots and lots of petty cash for the parties," she said and smiled. Another pretentious art gallery cluttering my city, huh? "So what kind of art?" "Oh, you know. Modern. Boring. Maybe interesting. I'd like to see some art by more people like me—on the outskirts. Of course, Mama and Papa will want to see the place, so I ought to plan to have a few things they'd like—like old furniture." "Isn't that a museum?" She laughed into her soup. "You have no idea," she said as our waiters returned with more wine and a bowl of cherries for us to suck on. "Anna," I said after a while. "I'm serious." I tried very hard to look serious through the cloud of white wine that was settling on me now. I wasn't much of a drinker. "I really want to be with you. I'm still in school, though. Are you actually moving here or are you just teasing me?" She bit her lip and her expression closed. "I'm not lying that I want to, David. I'm not sure if I can convince them. They'll want to know why, first of all. I'm working out a reason for why here, why this. I'm making up numbers. My father will want a full business plan and extra explanations for the place before he funds me." It was strange. She almost sounded like a man for a moment, but I couldn't place why. Her tone was sad and I got the impression that she was hoping more than planning. "I'm really trying. I want to be with you so much. I'm worried about just leaving without something in place, though. I'm a demanding woman. I need things that other women don't. I'm not okay on the street." "I wish I had a place for you," I said and then it struck me. "What if I quit school and get a job, get an apartment?" I asked excitedly. The sadness deepened in her eyes. "That would be terribly unwise. You'll regret losing a degree. In fact," she looked at me with a growing smile, "I was almost thinking of getting a graduate degree. A reason, an excuse. I just need to find something that Seattle offers and Atlanta doesn't—then, ta-da, a reason to live again." She said that last part so brightly I almost missed it. "Esse offers a degree in remote sensing technology. I bet Atlanta doesn't have that," I said. "Remote sensing technology? Like, spies?" she said. Her humor was returning. "Like spies, Anna. You can be a spy tech." We broke down laughing and our waiters tried desperately not to join us. Anna paid the bill and left a tip for each of our waiters that was higher than my weekly pay from some of my old summer jobs. I took her by the arm and we waited in the rain for our cab. * * * "Can you stay the night?" Anna asked me as we cuddled on her hotel loveseat and watched another old movie on AMC. "Well, my roommate might wait up for me. I'd have to ask him to extend my curfew." Anna slapped my chest playfully and I grabbed her by the wrists. "And what do you think you're doing?" I said as I pulled her in for a kiss. "David, are you ready?" she asked. I pulled back, confused. "Ready for what?" She laughed and play swatted me again. "I'm ready." She looked down at her skirt and so did I. Her dick was making itself known by lifting the black satin of her skirt several inches. She must have taken that fancy underwear off in the bathroom. Minx. She eased open up her legs and lifted her skirt. I felt my own dick rising to match her as she revealed her cock to me, achingly slow. It was hard and veined, tender and swollen-looking. I started to unbutton my shirt but she rushed me. Her hands were on my lapel, my zipper, my boxers. I felt my genitals unleashed to the air as I was still trying to get my sleeves out of my shirt. I was swollen, too, and ready for love. I leaned into her. "I thought...you didn't...have...anymore...lube," I said between kisses. "I don't. Come in closer, baby," she said and opened her arms. I thought I was close. I moved in-between her legs and our dicks touched. The shock of pleasure was electrifying—something I hadn't expected. I reached down and rubbed my head against hers gently. I covered her mouth in my own and pushed up against her. She reached down and took my dick in her hand. "A little closer," she said. I moved in and she wrapped her hand around my and her dicks, both. She couldn't touch her fingers together, though, and she wrapped her other hand around too. "You too," she said as I paused from her kisses to breathe. So we met, hip-to-hip, with both of our hands wrapped around our dicks. I didn't know what was up but I started to hump anyway, fucking our hands and her dick as if they were a pussy. I felt hard fingers, soft head, stiff cock. I could feel the lip of my head catching on and sliding over hers. It almost brought me to tears it felt so good. She was lifting her hips and holding them still for me. Her hands were interlaced with my own and I loosened and tightened them so that I could roll around her cock and touch a new spot. I felt my head drive into the soft, hairless mound at the base of her cock. My balls swelled up and I felt an orgasm coming. "What do you want, baby?" I asked. "Tell me what you want." She squeezed her hands tighter and I got it. I reached under her dick—she was underneath me at the moment—and grabbed it. I pressed up on it. "Harder," she said with her mouth on mine. I squeezed harder and massaged my fingers into her. "I need you inside me," she said. It wasn't anything to slip my fingers past her balls and into her pretty pink pussy. I fingered my way playfully into her asshole and pressed on every lump and mound I found. She started to dance her fingers around as she squeezed my and her dicks together and I thrust. Something must have clicked. She made a soft noise as she sucked in air and lifted her hips higher. I furiously fingered her asshole. "I'm cumming. Don't stop, David. Don't stop." She sounded frantic. I kept at it, refusing to slow down even though my hand was starting to ache. She started to squirt hot cum onto me and it slicked up the side of my dick. I was still hard and I didn't give her a break. I pulled my hand back up and latched down on my dick and hers. I thrust my hips hard and she was still cumming onto me. Cum seeped from between our fingers. I came—not two seconds after her—with a loud groan. I couldn't stop moving even though I was already spent and my hips kept pumping. More and more cum spurt from me and our dicks were positively slick with it. I threw myself back on the loveseat and sighed. I looked up and Humphrey Bogart was talking to someone in a shadowy corner. "Did we leave the TV on?" I said and Anna broke out in a laugh, folding over onto my bare lap and gasping for breath.