The three of us were sad to be losing Sharyl. We lifted our glasses of Chablis, and Ionna said, “At least we’re not losing her to the other team!” We laughed.

It was true. Beautiful Sharyl, with whom each of us had previously had a relationship, was marrying a woman. Two of the three of us had slept with men at some point in our lives, but we’d all spent most of our time playing for Team Lesbian and were perfectly happy.

We were happy for Sharyl, too. It might seem unusual for a woman to have three former lovers as bridesmaids, but we’d each established deep emotional connections to Sharyl and had stayed friends after our physical relationships with her had ended.

Ionna, Cherise and myself had met for the first time only three weeks ago, when we were recruited for the wedding party. We had quickly formed a friendship. It was something like a club. To the three of us, Sharyl was “The One Who Got Away.”

Over the past three weeks we’d shared torrid tales of Sharyl and the great pleasures we each had known with her.

The posh Ionna, a beauty in her own right with chocolate-colored hair and skin to match, had started her relationship with Sharyl at a Caribbean resort. Cherise, the butchest of us with a crewcut and a gym-taut body replete with tattoos, had hooked up with Sharyl at a political rally and stayed involved with her for eight months afterward.

I was the most recent to have enjoyed Sharyl’s carnal wonders. We had broken up when Sharyl met Della, the woman who was going to become her wife.

“Let’s drink to Della!” This time it was Cherise proposing the cheerful toast.

As I tasted the Chablis, I also tasted the lingering tartness of my envy. I was indeed glad for Sharyl and wished her and Della every possible joy. But I had truly loved Sharyl, and had thought — maybe — we might go the distance. I knew Ionna and Cherise shared similar feelings, though we hadn’t harped on it. We had gathered at my apartment to drink our final private good-byes to lovely Sharyl.

After the toast there was a silence. I broke it with, “You know, they picked out some ugly dresses for us.”

“You ever seen a pretty bridesmaid’s dress?” Ionna asked.

“I feel like a princess in mine.” Cherise, wearing a tank top, flexed a tight bicep. “I hate feeling like that.”

I lay on my couch. “Hey — ” I said, musing through the wine, “wouldn’t it be nice to have one last go with Sharyl?”

Ionna sighed. “I think about that all the time. Especially lately.”

“Yep,” Cherise said. “I’d love one last raunchy fuck with her.”

“What if we did it?” I was suddenly giggling. “Suppose we cornered her in the vestibule before the ceremony.”

“What — all three of us?” Ionna sounded scandalized, but her eyes were wide and bright.

“Sure, why not?” Cherise pounded down the last of her Chablis and grabbed for the bottle. She was lying on a large floor pillow with one booted foot resting on my coffee table. “Can you imagine it?” She grinned wickedly.

Thing was, I could imagine it. In fact, I couldn’t stop picturing the situation.

“There we’d be,” Cherise went on, “done up in those stupid candy-colored dresses. We’re with Sharyl in the room off the main hall where the ceremony’s gonna start in twenty minutes. Sharyl’s nervous. She wants everything to go perfectly. You know how she gets. She’s biting her lip, pacing back and forth — ”

I could picture her, my memory vivid. I remembered times when Sharyl, who was tall and blonde and elegant and so very beautiful, would chew her lip and worry. My heart lurched at the image Cherise had put into my head.

“Sharyl’s in her own dress,” Ionna said. She was slung into my deep leather chair. “She looks so gorgeous. I tell her to calm down and say, ‘Don’t get yourself into a sweat, honey.’”

“But it has to be flawless,” Cherise said in a good imitation of Sharyl’s graceful tones.

“I tell her it’ll be fine,” I chimed in. “I reach out and take her hands to stop her from pacing.”

“And she looks into your eyes — ” Ionna said, her voice suddenly husky.

“And she brushes your cheek with her fingers — ” added Cherise.

I was no longer giggly. With my eyes half-closed, I could almost feel Sharyl’s touch. Dreamily I said, “She leans toward me with gratitude in her eyes, and — and she kisses me. Gently at first.”

“But the kiss lingers,” purred Ionna.

“Her mouth is so soft against yours,” Cherise continued. “Unexpectedly her lips are parting, and you feel her tongue. You meet it with your own. It’s all so natural. You don’t try to resist. Ionna and I trade a silent OMG look, but we watch closely, drawn to the two of you as you kiss each other deeper and deeper.”

“I reach up and touch Sharyl’s blonde hair,” Ionna said. “It’s like spun gold — so soft — and I comb my fingers through it. She breaks the kiss and turns to me, surprise and excitement lighting her face. Then she kisses me, too.”

“I step in on her other side,” Cherise jumped in eagerly. There was no way she was going to get left out. “I bite her ear, hard enough to make her groan. She turns and jams her mouth against mine, and I shove my tongue down her throat.”

I felt a heat accumulating in my living room, comprised of fantasy and wine. I didn’t pause to question what we were doing. This was just a harmless exercise of the imagination, after all.

“I want to touch her breasts,” Ionna said. I saw her own shapely mounds rising and falling as her breathing quickened.

“Then touch ’em,” said Cherise. “I want out of this fucking dress.”

“Take it off,” I told her. “By now we all know what’s going to happen right here in this little vestibule. It’s now or never. Our last chance ever with Sharyl. She wants to leave all of us with one last special memory. We help one another undress. Taffeta rustles wildly, and bra hooks are undone.”

“I’ve got on stockings. Fishnets. I’m keeping ‘em on.”

“You do that, Cherise. We get Sharyl out of the complicated dress. Her body comes into view a little at a time. We see her long legs, the lithe line of her naked shoulders. Her breasts are bared.”

“Those tasty pink-nippled tits.” That sounded like something Cherise would say, but Ionna had spoken the words. Her face was etched with lust.

“I squeeze one,” Cherise growled. I watched her hand drop to the crotch of her jeans. “Then I bend down and give her nip a lick, making it stiffen.”

“She’s naked now,” I said. “We’re all naked. We crowd around her, surround her. I kiss her shoulder, her throat. I cup her other breast. Sharyl moans.”

“I reach between her legs — ” Cherise started.

“Me, too!” Ionna cut in.

“And we both feel how wet she is. That slit is so moist and warm.”

“We take turns fingering her,” Ionna panted.

Cherise’s fingers were moving now, kneading herself through her jeans.

I didn’t remark on it. The excitation of the story had overtaken me as well. Sexual electricity snapped through my body. When I glanced at Ionna, I wasn’t shocked to see she’d reached beneath her halter to caress her breasts.

“I put my finger into Sharyl’s mouth,” I said, trembling with the thought, “and she licks it wet. Then I reach behind her, between the cheeks of her ass, and I slide it into her asshole!” I grinned wantonly.

The other two women howled. “Yeah, finger-fuck her!” said Cherise.

“I want to eat her pussy!” Ionna exclaimed.

“You’ll race me for it!” cried Cherise.

“Fine,” I said. “I guess I’ll feast on her ass all by myself.”

After that, our shared erotic narrative fell into an increasingly complex tangle as we fought to get in our fantasy licks on the woman we each had loved. We put Sharyl through orgasm after orgasm. We ate her holes and fingered her and kissed her and gave her all the sexual loving we could concoct with our marvelously inventive minds.

By the end, all three of us were shamelessly masturbating, though only Cherise had actually pulled her pants halfway down her athletic thighs to stick two fingers into her pussy. I merely rubbed myself through my sweats.

Finally, we had played out our group erotic hallucination. A new fraught silence descended.

When Ionna shifted off the chair and glided down onto the floor, the whole atmosphere of the room changed. Earlier, there had been an almost silly element to what we’d done. Just fun and games. Now I sensed we were on the verge of something more meaningful and active.

Cherise sat up, her face solemn, when Ionna reached for her. Ionna dipped her head, and Cherise met her mouth knowingly. I watched the two women kiss without closing their eyes. Cherise put strong arms around the slimmer woman and drew her down on top of herself.

Their mouths ground together. When they moved slightly apart, I saw the wet flash of tongues. The two appeared completely in tune with one another, like they’d been lovers all along.

I might have simply sat there in a daze of lustful wonder and enjoyed the literal floor show, but both women turned and looked up at me. Nobody had to offer any blunt invitation. The time for play-by-play commentary had passed. We were a trio of libidinous women who took pleasure in the female form. We were also united in a kind of cause. Or at least we shared a common background in the person of our erotic idol: Sharyl.

But Sharyl, strangely, wasn’t on my mind as I slid off the couch and joined the other two on the carpeted floor. Cherise hooked an elbow around my neck and kissed me first, and it was as fierce a mashing of lips and probing of tongue as I’d expected. Ionna’s kiss was softer, but I felt the high wave of passion in her.

Cherise cupped my tits, and I had to get a feel of Ionna’s sweet rack. We mauled one another for several minutes through fabrics, tweaking nipples into stiffened attention. Ionna was trying to pull my sweatshirt off over my head and got tangled in my hair, while I fought to divest Cherise of her tanktop.

We paused and stripped off our tops, which left us kneeling in a circle. Ionna had a lovely limber shape. Cherise’s tattoos of warring angels and demons stood out vibrantly on her porcelain skin.

I put my arms around their bare shoulders and pulled them into a three-way kiss. Geometrically, it’s not as awkward as it sounds. And the moment had a nice emotional component, like we three were sealing our bond.

“I haven’t done anything like this since college,” Ionna sighed.

“I haven’t done it since last week,” said Cherise. And we laughed.

Then we dove at one another.

It became a sudden intense entanglement. We writhed against each other. I pawed Cherise’s firm bare breasts. She bit my earlobe, echoing her part of the fantasy with Sharyl. Ionna nibbled on my right nipple. I caressed supple flesh.

When we collectively decided to get out of our pants, we got a little crazy in our urgency. My sweatpants went helicoptering and ended up hanging from a light fixture. Ionna tore a seam of her slacks. We had to wrestle Cherise to get her jeans off her, since she was too desperate to start fingering us to wait to get herself properly stripped.

At last, though, we were all nude.

I groaned as Cherise immediately slotted two fingers inside my flowing pussy. I ground down on her knuckles, my clit aflame. Ionna bumped her head on the coffee table. We shoved the furniture well out of the way, leaving our trio ample floor space. I seized Ionna’s hips and pulled her on top of me, so that she was straddling my face.

Looking up at her shaved cleft, I burned with desire. The rest of her was a blur somewhere above as she lowered herself onto my hungry mouth. I spread her nether lips with my tongue, savoring that first tart womanly taste. She was as fragrant as a rosewater bath — and just as damp. Her juices spilled over my chin. I stabbed my tongue up into her, meeting her swollen clitoris. Very gently I nibbled her nubby jewel. She responded with convulsive wriggling. She smeared her honey all over my face.

Meanwhile, Cherise was reaming me with what now felt like three fingers. She was ruthless about it. She pounded my pussy, starting off a chain reaction of pleasure that forced me inescapably toward a wicked orgasm.

When Ionna let out a howl and poured a new surge of love cream into my mouth, I shuddered in orgasm. It was the sort of ecstasy that could be mistaken for pain. The intensity buzzed in the marrow of my bones. I drank Ionna’s outpouring and drenched Cherise’s hand.

Afterward, Cherise wanted her turn with my tongue. I was happy to oblige. The muscular woman pulled me up and over onto my hands and knees. She stood in a bent-kneed squat before me, grabbed a fistful of my hair and, grinning wildly, shoved my face into her crotch.

Maybe just to be a contrarian, Cherise sported a full pubic bush to offset her nearly shaven skull. I inhaled the intense scent of her arousal and felt the tickling curls against my nose as I eagerly slurped at her furrow.

As I was lapping away, I felt fingers parting the halves of my ass and a whisper of warm breath on my backdoor. Before I could react, Ionna’s mouth was on my pucker. Every nerve in my body jumped, and I let out a joyous squeal that was smothered against Cherise’s needy groove. Cherise’s hand stayed wound in my hair as the strong woman started humping hard at my face. If she’d had a cock, it would have looked like she was giving me a thorough face-fucking, with me deep-throating her every thrust.

Ionna whipped her tongue back and forth across my rear opening. Incredible pleasure radiated outward from her fearless ministrations. She grazed her teeth over my sensitive ring, then stuck her tongue tip into me. I bucked back against her penetration like a wild bronco. And like a skilled cowgirl, Cherise gripped the reins of my hair and rode my mouth. I drank Cherise’s delicious juice as she let loose with a crazed climax, shouting obscenities at the ceiling. When she toppled backward, I gasped for air and thundered my way through my second orgasm caused by Ionna’s tongue in my asshole. It was a sweet, fitful eruption of bliss, moving through me in rhythmic stages and wringing joy from my deepest levels.

I collapsed facedown on the living room carpet. I heard Ionna panting as she recovered. My holes tingled, and sparks of pleasure hopped across my flesh.

After a few timeless moments of that hypnotic post-pussyfest haze, I felt gentle hands on my body. I let out a soft groan. I was being coaxed onto my side by my two fellow bridesmaids, who were now much more than that to me, of course. I would let them do what they wanted. My eyes drifted closed.

I was warm and safe and perhaps even loved. When I heard the two women exchanging giggles, I didn’t try to guess what they were up to. Neither did it entirely surprise me when they moved into their positions. Someone pushed my knee toward the ceiling. Two mouths touched me simultaneously, one on my pussy, one on my spit-slick asshole.

My two lovers proceeded to eat me ravenously.

I understood. This wasn’t sexual overkill. They wanted to thank me. I had inadvertently gotten this party started with my little fantasy about the three of us with Sharyl in the vestibule.

We all knew that imagined scenario would never actually happen. Tomorrow we would put on those dreadful dresses and dutifully see Sharyl off into what we all hoped would be a happy and lasting marriage. Della was good for Sharyl. I’d seen the two of them together — we all had — and they were a perfect match.

I realized I didn’t even know who was giving me cunnilingus and who was doing the rimjob. It didn’t really matter, I supposed. Both of the lovely women were extremely talented. Their tongues probed, their lips moved hungrily. They drew inevitable pleasures from me.

After a while I reached down between my open thighs, curious, and brushed Ionna’s full hair. Then I groped Cherise’s hard, fuzzy skull. I heard muffled feminine cries, and I added my own, louder, unfettered ones. I was coming. I clawed weakly at the rug, feeling helpless as a double-barreled climax consumed me. One orgasm for each hole, I thought deliriously. The rapture was almost unbearable, like I’d reached some new sexual height — scaled a carnal mountaintop I hadn’t even known existed.

I also felt purged. I could finally, truly let Sharyl go. When my new lovers finished with me and disengaged their mouths and rose to cage me between them in their embrace, I felt certain that they, too, had made their breaks from tomorrow’s bride. Sharyl was the woman who had unknowingly brought us together for this exquisite erotic jubilee, and we would always love her for that.