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mostlysignssomeportents · 7 months

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Amazon’s financial shell game let it create an “impossible” monopoly

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TUCSON (Mar 9-10), then San Francisco (Mar 13), Anaheim, and more!

For the pro-monopoly crowd that absolutely dominated antitrust law from the Carter administration until 2020, Amazon presents a genuinely puzzling paradox: the company's monopoly power was never supposed to emerge, and if it did, it should have crumbled immediately.

Pro-monopoly economists embody Ely Devons's famous aphorism that "If economists wished to study the horse, they wouldn’t go and look at horses. They’d sit in their studies and say to themselves, ‘What would I do if I were a horse?’":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/27/economism/#what-would-i-do-if-i-were-a-horse

Rather than using the way the world actually works as their starting point for how to think about it, they build elaborate models out of abstract principles like "rational actors." The resulting mathematical models are so abstractly elegant that it's easy to forget that they're just imaginative exercises, disconnected from reality:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/03/all-models-are-wrong/#some-are-useful

These models predicted that it would be impossible for Amazon to attain monopoly power. Even if they became a monopoly – in the sense of dominating sales of various kinds of goods – the company still wouldn't get monopoly power.

For example, if Amazon tried to take over a category by selling goods below cost ("predatory pricing"), then rivals could just wait until the company got tired of losing money and put prices back up, and then those rivals could go back to competing. And if Amazon tried to keep the loss-leader going indefinitely by "cross-subsidizing" the losses with high-margin profits from some other part of its business, rivals could sell those high margin goods at a lower margin, which would lure away Amazon customers and cut the supply lines for the price war it was fighting with its discounted products.

That's what the model predicted, but it's not what happened in the real world. In the real world, Amazon was able use its access to the capital markets to embark on scorched-earth predatory pricing campaigns. When diapers.com refused to sell out to Amazon, the company casually committed $100m to selling diapers below cost. Diapers.com went bust, Amazon bought it for pennies on the dollar and shut it down:

https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/13/18563379/amazon-predatory-pricing-antitrust-law

Investors got the message: don't compete with Amazon. They can remain predatory longer than you can remain solvent.

Now, not everyone shared the antitrust establishment's confidence that Amazon couldn't create a durable monopoly with market power. In 2017, Lina Khan – then a third year law student – published "Amazon's Antitrust Paradox," a landmark paper arguing that Amazon had all the tools it needed to amass monopoly power:

https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox

Today, Khan is chair of the FTC, and has brought a case against Amazon that builds on some of the theories from that paper. One outcome of that suit is an unprecedented look at Amazon's internal operations. But, as the Institute for Local Self-Reliance's Stacy Mitchell describes in a piece for The Atlantic, key pieces of information have been totally redacted in the court exhibits:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/02/amazon-profits-antitrust-ftc/677580/

The most important missing datum: how much money Amazon makes from each of its lines of business. Amazon's own story is that it basically breaks even on its retail operation, and keeps the whole business afloat with profits from its AWS cloud computing division. This is an important narrative, because if it's true, then Amazon can't be forcing up retail prices, which is the crux of the FTC's case against the company.

Here's what we know for sure about Amazon's retail business. First: merchants can't live without Amazon. The majority of US households have Prime, and 90% of Prime households start their ecommerce searches on Amazon; if they find what they're looking for, they buy it and stop. Thus, merchants who don't sell on Amazon just don't sell. This is called "monopsony power" and it's a lot easier to maintain than monopoly power. For most manufacturers, a 10% overnight drop in sales is a catastrophe, so a retailer that commands even a 10% market-share can extract huge concessions from its suppliers. Amazon's share of most categories of goods is a lot higher than 10%!

What kind of monopsony power does Amazon wield? Well, for one thing, it is able to levy a huge tax on its sellers. Add up all the junk-fees Amazon charges its platform sellers and it comes out to 45-51%:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos

Competitive businesses just don't have 45% margins! No one can afford to kick that much back to Amazon. What is a merchant to do? Sell on Amazon and you lose money on every sale. Don't sell on Amazon and you don't get any business.

The only answer: raise prices on Amazon. After all, Prime customers – the majority of Amazon's retail business – don't shop for competitive prices. If Amazon wants a 45% vig, you can raise your Amazon prices by a third and just about break even.

But Amazon is wise to that: they have a "most favored nation" rule that punishes suppliers who sell goods more cheaply in rival stores, or even on their own site. The punishments vary, from banishing your products to page ten million of search-results to simply kicking you off the platform. With publishers, Amazon reserves the right to lower the prices they set when listing their books, to match the lowest price on the web, and paying publishers less for each sale.

That means that suppliers who sell on Amazon (which is anyone who wants to stay in business) have to dramatically hike their prices on Amazon, and when they do, they also have to hike their prices everywhere else (no wonder Prime customers don't bother to search elsewhere for a better deal!).

Now, Amazon says this is all wrong. That 45-51% vig they claim from business customers is barely enough to break even. The company's profits – they insist – come from selling AWS cloud service. The retail operation is just a public service they provide to us with cross-subsidy from those fat AWS margins.

This is a hell of a claim. Last year, Amazon raked in $130 billion in seller fees. In other words: they booked more revenue from junk fees than Bank of America made through its whole operation. Amazon's junk fees add up to more than all of Meta's revenues:

https://s2.q4cdn.com/299287126/files/doc_financials/2023/q4/AMZN-Q4-2023-Earnings-Release.pdf

Amazon claims that none of this is profit – it's just covering their operating expenses. According to Amazon, its non-AWS units combined have a one percent profit margin.

Now, this is an eye-popping claim indeed. Amazon is a public company, which means that it has to make thorough quarterly and annual financial disclosures breaking down its profit and loss. You'd think that somewhere in those disclosures, we'd find some details.

You'd think so, but you'd be wrong. Amazon's disclosures do not break out profits and losses by segment. SEC rules actually require the company to make these per-segment disclosures:

https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3524&context=lawreview#:~:text=If%20a%20company%20has%20more,income%20taxes%20and%20extraordinary%20items.

That rule was enacted in 1966, out of concern that companies could use cross-subsidies to fund predatory pricing and other anticompetitive practices. But over the years, the SEC just…stopped enforcing the rule. Companies have "near total managerial discretion" to lump business units together and group their profits and losses in bloated, undifferentiated balance-sheet items:

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/publications/2021/dec/crouching-tiger-hidden-dragons

As Mitchell points you, it's not just Amazon that flouts this rule. We don't know how much money Google makes on Youtube, or how much Apple makes from the App Store (Apple told a federal judge that this number doesn't exist). Warren Buffett – with significant interest in hundreds of companies across dozens of markets – only breaks out seven segments of profit-and-loss for Berkshire Hathaway.

Recall that there is one category of data from the FTC's antitrust case against Amazon that has been completely redacted. One guess which category that is! Yup, the profit-and-loss for its retail operation and other lines of business.

These redactions are the judge's fault, but the real fault lies with the SEC. Amazon is a public company. In exchange for access to the capital markets, it owes the public certain disclosures, which are set out in the SEC's rulebook. The SEC lets Amazon – and other gigantic companies – get away with a degree of secrecy that should disqualify it from offering stock to the public. As Mitchell says, SEC chairman Gary Gensler should adopt "new rules that more concretely define what qualifies as a segment and remove the discretion given to executives."

Amazon is the poster-child for monopoly run amok. As Yanis Varoufakis writes in Technofeudalism, Amazon has actually become a post-capitalist enterprise. Amazon doesn't make profits (money derived from selling goods); it makes rents (money charged to people who are seeking to make a profit):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/#cloud-capital

Profits are the defining characteristic of a capitalist economy; rents are the defining characteristic of feudalism. Amazon looks like a bazaar where thousands of merchants offer goods for sale to the public, but look harder and you discover that all those stallholders are totally controlled by Amazon. Amazon decides what goods they can sell, how much they cost, and whether a customer ever sees them. And then Amazon takes $0.45-51 out of every dollar. Amazon's "marketplace" isn't like a flea market, it's more like the interconnected shops on Disneyland's Main Street, USA: the sign over the door might say "20th Century Music Company" or "Emporium," but they're all just one store, run by one company.

And because Amazon has so much control over its sellers, it is able to exercise power over its buyers. Amazon's search results push down the best deals on the platform and promote results from more expensive, lower-quality items whose sellers have paid a fortune for an "ad" (not really an ad, but rather the top spot in search listings):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/29/aethelred-the-unready/#not-one-penny-for-tribute

This is "Amazon's pricing paradox." Amazon can claim that it offers low-priced, high-quality goods on the platform, but it makes $38b/year pushing those good deals way, way down in its search results. The top result for your Amazon search averages 29% more expensive than the best deal Amazon offers. Buy something from those first four spots and you'll pay a 25% premium. On average, you need to pick the seventeenth item on the search results page to get the best deal:

https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/3645/

For 40 years, pro-monopoly economists claimed that it would be impossible for Amazon to attain monopoly power over buyers and sellers. Today, Amazon exercises that power so thoroughly that its junk-fee revenues alone exceed the total revenues of Bank of America. Amazon's story – that these fees barely stretch to covering its costs – assumes a nearly inconceivable level of credulity in its audience. Regrettably – for the human race – there is a cohort of senior, highly respected economists who possess this degree of credulity and more.

Of course, there's an easy way to settle the argument: Amazon could just comply with SEC regs and break out its P&L for its e-commerce operation. I assure you, they're not hiding this data because they think you'll be pleasantly surprised when they do and they don't want to spoil the moment.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/01/managerial-discretion/#junk-fees

Image: Doc Searls (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/docsearls/4863121221/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

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delopsia · 2 years

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Something Unholy | Rhett Abbot x Reader

Word Count: 3,600 Cross Posted on AO3 Warnings & Notes: 18+, Fem!Reader, unprotected sex in a church, mild size-kink, and a dash of Rhett having a corruption kink and getting off on the idea of cumming inside you.

"I sure hope you ain't tellin' me what to do, dollface."

Oh, the things you would give to wrap both your hands around this motherfuckers thick neck and—

"—Can you please, just put the paper towels on the shelf?" Speaking in the firmest tone you can muster, cheeks flaming so hot you fear they may turn cherry red.

"And why does this have to involve me?" God, Rhett just keeps going; the choir girls are starting to notice, casting wayward glances from under false lashes as they whisper amongst each other behind open palms.

"Because you're tall enough to reach the shelf, and I'm not," pushing the paper towels toward him once more, forcing him to take them, "and if God wanted me to put them up there, he would have made me taller, or he would have given me a stepping stool."

For the first time all morning, Rhett's quiet, and for as much as he's fussed about this, you'd think this momentous task would take him longer than three seconds to complete. You're starting to see why Cece doesn't drag him along to Sunday services more often.

He continues to loom in the corner, leaning up against the wall like some sort of hot shot whilst he just watches. Wild blue eyes follow your every movement as you finish setting up the coffee booth like he's getting some sort of enjoyment out of watching you mull about. Doesn't offer help, just watches.

Asshole.

As soon as you start to walk away, ready to settle into the corner of an old, stained church pew, he pushes off the wall and starts to walk too. Like a shadow, following each and every step until all of a sudden, you're sitting between the end of the bench and Rhett Abbott.

"Do you have to sit so close to me?" Grumbling, you try to scoot further off, but there's not enough space for you to do so.

Rhett's jeaned thigh presses harder against your own, "yes, I do, actually."

"You're an ass," it comes out louder than you intend to, but if anyone overhears, they don't mention it. Not yet, at least.

"Wow, swearing in church now, are we?" Smug.

You're still contemplating strangling him right here and now; an attempted murder charge sounds a lot better than sitting in this hell for an hour and a half. The bastard is probably into it, knowing his reputation. The only thing that actually stops you from finding out is the sudden booming voice from the podium, commanding all eyes and ears on him, silence falling upon the room.

Usually, the preacher's go-to is to have everyone shake hands and welcome one another, but you're thankful that he skips right over the tradition in favor of jumping straight into his speech. A direct continuation of last week's sermon, according to the woman whispering behind you. You're not quite sure how, but you know Rhett would have given you more trouble if you got up to greet people.

As if on cue, a calloused hand settles on your exposed knee, just below the hem of your Sunday dress. Maybe it's because the air conditioner is running in the middle of December, but his hand feels so hot you fear it may melt right through your skin.

"Rhett," whispering as quietly as you can, "get your hands off me."

It only serves to make your situation worse because he leans over to whisper directly into your ear, "seems to me you're in need of someone to keep you warm."

Teeth nip at the lobe of your ear, tugging on it for a fleeting second. His hand slides off your knee, if only for a muscular arm to drape over your shoulders instead. Great, absolutely wonderful.

But God, he's warm, and he's changed his started wearing that seasonal cologne he wears every December. Something bordering hot chocolate and vanilla, not overly sweet but so, so warm. It matches him in the strangest of ways, you conclude, as you reluctantly melt into his side.

Okay, this is...alright. There are several couples doing this very thing in front of you, nothing weird about this at all. It's not like you can argue when Rhett is practically a blazing furnace right next to you; this dress is cute, but it definitely was not made for the colder months.

For a long minute, all you find yourself doing is curling into Rhett Abbott's side and listening to the preacher's voice as it grows louder and louder. A relaxed conversation about coming clean to those around you devolves into a rant about sinners and sex before marriage. The longer it goes, the stiffer Rhett becomes next to you, until all of a sudden, he's drawing away from you.

Without a word, he gets up and walks out.

Strangely, you don't hear the front doors squeak open, nor do you feel the icy draft that always sneaks inside. For a minute, you reckon he's just gone to the men's room. The more time passes, the more you don't think that's so true.

Fifteen minutes after Rhett vanished, you excuse yourself and quietly venture out into the hallway.

"Rhett?" You try, but your voice vanishes under the preacher's louder one.

Even so, the felt brim of a cowboy hat pokes out from behind a door, dark brown in color and a little ripped in the front. You only know one man with a hat like that. It seems he didn't hear you because he's eyes brighten at the sight of you like he's been waiting on you to come looking for him this whole time.

"There you are," he breathes, struggling to fight off the shit-eating grin that's working its way across his face as he reaches for you. "Did I even manage to get under your skin?"

"I thought you were kidding when you suggested this shit," you hiss, but you don't stop him from guiding you into this tiny little office space with its large mahogany desk and beat-up loveseat. "Of course, you got under my skin, you ass!"

Rhett shoves you down onto the couch with a soft thump and drops to his knees so swiftly that you hear them hit the floor. The force of it jostles his hat, but he's not concerned in the slightest with readjusting it, "good."

There's no teasing or beating around the bush in the way he pulls your hips toward the edge of the couch, rucking the skirt of your dress up in the process, "then I suppose you won't mind me making it up to you?"

Hot breath ghosts up your cold thighs, sparks a newfound heat directly between your legs. Okay, that, that...

"Was this your plan all along?" Leaning into the cushions of the couch, this is all so sudden, but you're not one to complain when his nose is brushing against the only fabric he hasn't pushed to the side yet.

"Do you expect anything less from me, darlin'?" Long lashes bat themselves up at you as he speaks, bordering devilish in tone and something soft in gaze.

A hot tongue drags up the front of your panties, forces eye contact as he does so. So much all at once, but not enough. The vague pressure of his tongue isn't enough when there's such a thin layer of cotton separating him from where you want him. Only when you're about to pull them off yourself does he reach up and hook his fingers under the thin elastic waistband.

"Bring your hips up, doll," murmuring into your thigh, and you're just barely able to muster the strength to do so.

Finally, finally, he pulls your panties off, neatly folding and tucking them into his back pocket like a trophy. Sure hope you get those back; those are one of your current favorites.

Your thoughts are cut short by the sudden sensation of a dripping tongue swirling at your clit, sloppy and oh-so-wet. It's so abrupt that you find yourself jolting away, only to be drawn back in by steady hands on your hips, holding you in place as he licks you up and down in fat stripes.

"Rhett," gasping for a breath you can't seem to catch, "fuck, did you forget we're in church?"

He hums into you, sends a shock wave up your spine with it. His wandering tongue finds your entrance, lapping at it incessantly but not quite pushing inside at first. The tip of his nose bumps against your clit, "been thinkin' of havin' you on my tongue since that alarm went off this mornin'."

"So that's why you volunteered to come along?" Whining as he nods his head, "bastard—ah!"

Just like that, Rhett's tongue slips inside of you, working in and out in languid thrusts as his nose presses harder into you. This little room is so quiet that you can hear the slick sound of his tongue working itself into your quivering cunt, his mouth so wet that it feels like he's drooling.

Reaching down, he gets ahold of your thigh and guides your leg up over his shoulder, gives him better access to your writhing body. Practically fucks you open with his tongue, the soft tip of his nose bumping into your clit over and over. Enough to make you squirm, not enough to get you off.

"Rhett, if you don't," the beginning of your threat is shaky, not intimidating even in the slightest, "get off that floor and fuck me right now."

His eyebrows raise, and his tongue slips out of you with the wettest noise you've ever heard. Fuck, he really must have been drooling, swollen, spit-slicked lips and wet chin glistening in the light, "yes, ma'am." The bastard just has to say it with a smile, too.

He makes no move to come up, though, and as his dominant hand lowers between your legs, you realize he's planning to lick you as he works you open. But you really, really want to kiss him right now.

Lowering your leg from his shoulder, you seize him by the collar and pull. It takes him a moment to comply, and for a brief second, you think he's glued himself to that thinly-carpeted floor. With the softest whine, he rises, settling into the empty space next to you like a big ol' puppy. His eyes wide and confused, and it's not until you curl your fingers into his hair and drag him in that he realizes what you're doing.

"Kisses?" Whispering directly against your lips, surprised, but oh, does he just melt right into it.

Soft, at first, just the simple mesh of lips that haven't touched each other since you first woke up, but then Rhett's finding his footing. Kisses you with a dizzying intensity, one hand cradling your cheek, the other slipping between your legs to tease the pad of his finger against your dripping entrance.

You can taste yourself on his tongue. Your fingers grip his hair, pulling him closer, impossibly so, and it's so sloppy that you can't tell who's in control or who's calling the shots here. His thick finger presses into you, working in and out until he's knuckle deep, but he kisses you so softly, following your motions like a shadow.

"Is that you clenchin' on my finger, or have I really not fucked you in a while?" His finger works in and out of you so slowly, a soft, simple motion that drags his knuckles against a gooey spot inside of you. Shit, when was—when was the last time you actually...?

"Both," you blurt, breathless, "I think this is the longest we've gone." Coincidentally, you think the last time you had sex was also on a couch. Given it was your couch and not some dingy thing in the back office of a church.

It's only been a few weeks, three at the most, but it's been long enough for there to be a little bit of an ache as a second finger works into you. There's no way you're going to be walking out of here without a slight waddle in your step.

In and out, over and over, until he can work in a third. A thumb on your clit distracts you from the stretch, rubbing soft circles for every centimeter he eases into you. You're squirming, not sure if you're running away from the stimulation on your clit or chasing the feeling of those thick fingers delving in and out of you in short little thrusts.

"Why are your fingers so fucking big?" Gasping as he kisses down your neck, those fingers curling against that little spot again.

"Are they big?" And he's nibbling at the meet of your jaw, almost speaking directly into your ear, "or are you just small?"

He's just big.

Shaky, you fumble with his belt, absolutely relieved when you find that he isn't wearing one of those oversized rodeo buckles that are so hard to get open in times like these. Rhett chuckles against your skin, makes no effort to help or stop you as you pop the button to his jeans open. His fingers only quicken, properly fucking you with them now, and it makes it that much harder to reach past his waistband.

"Shit," he hisses, jolting as your hand wraps around him and draws him out. Only letting him go to spit into your palm, wetting it just enough to stroke him smoothly. He's hard as a rock in your hand, heavy like one, too. Slow, he eases out of you, and with how empty you're feeling now, you hate to imagine how it's going to feel in a little bit.

Your back hits the couch with a soft noise, the furniture creaking under the sudden placement of your weight. Then, Rhett's between your legs, the tip of his cock teasing against your freshly stretched rim but not pushing inside yet.

"Didn't bring a condom," he breathes, "sure hope that ain't a problem, sweetheart."

He sure doesn't sound apologetic.

"Has it ever been a problem?" And there's more you want to say, but it's hard to speak when he presses into you, makes your back arch as he splits you wide open.

Your legs clamp down around his lithe waist, lungs burning as you try and fail to regain your long-gone composure. Don't quite realize you had made a noise until he's shushing you, easing deeper inside until you feel his head fully enter you. Moves so, so slow that it's agonizing.

Rhett pauses for just a second, chest heaving, "so tight, baby."

"Can you move any faster?" You're intentionally leaving out the part that the longer he takes, the harder it is for you to keep your thighs from shaking around him.

"Hold on, darlin'," seizing your hips in his hands as he speaks, holding you still as he just about fucking stops, "I'm a little big for you, ain't I?"

Big is a fucking understatement. Rhett's only about halfway in you, and you already can't fucking breathe. Never can. No matter how many times he's fucked you, slow, hard, it doesn't matter; you can never seem to get used to how big he is.

His hands aren't big just for show; they're a fucking warning.

Finally, finally, finally, his hips come flush to yours, and you don't think there's any room for your lungs even to function anymore. Panting so hard that you don't realize Rhett's dropping to his forearms, kissing sweetly at your cheek. Such a stark contrast to the devilish roll of his hips between your legs.

"Such a good girl for me," he soothes, "takin' every single inch just like that."

His hips roll in tight little circles, getting you used to his size until you can catch your breath, long enough for your head to stop spinning, at least. All you have to do is nod your head once, and he's drawing back out of you, so familiar with your cues that he knows exactly what you're asking for.

Then he's pushing back into you, and it's not even a long stroke, but it's enough to have you whimpering anyway. So thick that the head of his cock effortlessly massages the gooey spot inside your stretched pussy; you think you could cum just from this alone.

"That preacher don't know what the hell he's talkin' about," and it's only now that you realize the sermon is still going, muffled but very audible through these old walls, "every little lady deserves a man that can fuck her right."

Rhett punctuates his sentence with a harder thrust, sending stars sparkling behind your eyelids like a light show. Well, you can't argue with that statement. Not when he's doubling down and drilling into you in sharp, deep strokes that bullies his fat cockhead right into your sweet spot, kissing it with each and every stroke inward.

"Rhett!" Fingernails dig into his shoulder blades, threatening to tear right into the thin material of his dress shirt. It's a kiss that smothers the whimper that boils out of your throat, dizzying but so, so tame compared to how his hips are working between your legs.

"Look at you," leaning back until he's on his haunches, "innocent little thing gettin' fucked good by the big, bad cowboy."

With that, he draws his hips back, snapping them back into you with a force that has you yelping. Hope nobody could hear that. Rhett's pace is changing, unrelenting, as he punches each and every breath out of your burning lungs. Feels so, so good that you can barely keep your eyes from fluttering shut, and it's all you can do to keep quiet when he licks his thumb and presses it into your swollen clit.

"Oh, your hips are buckin' like mad now," and he has the absolute audacity to chuckle as he says it like he isn't in the middle of ruining you, "damn, girl."

"Hard to keep still when—" you can't finish your sentence, cut off by a wickedly sharp thrust, and he just holds it there. Grinding into you and eliciting this wet squelch that sounds absolutely sinful.

It feels so good that the edges of your vision is starting to go white, and you don't know when you've started shaking, but you can't stop. Pussy throbbing as he settles down atop you again, legs just barely able to stay hooked over his hips. Rhett's moaning into your ear, deep and breathy, and you're not doing all that much, but it sounds like you're making him feel just as good as he's doing to you.

"Do you wanna feel me cum inside you?" He whispers, biting at the shell of your ear, "do you wanna feel that?"

All you can do is hum, barely able even to nod your head. The simple notion of Rhett cumming inside you is enough to have a coil tightening between your legs, clamping down impossibly tight around his thick cock.

"Oh god," he's just barely able to keep talking, and the longer he goes on, the closer you can feel yourself getting, "so bad," punctuating it with another heavy thrust, "so bad."

You want to reach down between your legs and urge his thumb to rub you a little bit faster, but you're not even sure you can take any more than what he's giving you. Not when he keeps whispering dirty things in your ear, with these breathy little grunts that keep adding to the fire burning up in your lower belly.

"So bad, but you make it so good," no, no, now you're batting his hand away from your clit, because if he keeps rubbing it while he's talking like this, your orgasm is going to his you right this very second. With another little grunt, Rhett starts talking again, "oh, baby, I'm gonna fill you up."

His thrusts are quickening, hips getting twitchy and messing up his rhythm in the most delicious of ways, "'m gonna fill you up with my cum."

All of a sudden, you can't breathe anymore, your body going taut as you cum around his twitching cock. Eyes rolling into the back of your head, heart pounding so heavily it just might break its way out your ribs. Everything's spinning; you can't fucking think; all you know is Rhett's grunting quietly into your ear, and his hips are stalling. Filling you with hot spurts of his cum, until there's not a single millimeter of empty space left inside you.

"That's right," you can just barely hear him, but he's there, "that's fuckin' right, takin' every last drop of me."

You're not sure how long it takes you to come back, to get your head out from the clouds and back down to earth, but when you do, Rhett's already eased himself out of you. Tucked away inside his jeans again, hair stuck to his sweaty forehead as his thumb pushes his cum back inside your swollen cunt.

"You alright?" He asks sweetly, kissing the inside of your knee.

It takes every fiber in your being to bring yourself to nod your head. Yeah, yeah, more than alright.

"How 'bout I carry you outta here before they start lettin' folks out," he's so soft compared to just a few moments ago when he was drilling into you and whispering such filthy things, "get all settled up in a bath and have a nice, lazy day."

All you have to do is hum your consent, and he's gathering you up into his chest, lifting you like it's the easiest thing he's ever done. It's hard to be cold when he picks his coat up off the rack on the way out, draping it over you like a big blanket. Yeah, a nice, lazy day sounds better than whatever the hell you had planned.

And if anybody notices your sudden disappearances or the unmistakable sounds that came from the preacher's old office, they don't say a damn thing.

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