The letter brought it all back:

Dear Dean,

I know it's been about a million years but it's time for us to emerge. Surprise!

It is just like Lydia to pop out of the blue. The last time I'd heard from the two of them had to have been five years ago, and the three years before that had been pretty spotty at best. I know, I know – that's what happens to college friends. Life goes on and moves you away and apart. You get jobs, go to grad school, enter the "real world"...that's what "growing up" means. Friends are often collateral damage.

It's damn complicated. Time. Life. Growing older.

That letter, though; that first sentence. Eight years melted away like nothing. I found myself right back to that summer after college. Me, Lydia and Jennifer. That house in JP. The summer between graduating college and starting grad school. The summer I planned to hang out and do nothing important.

Summers like that are supposed to be placeholders in between one huge rite of passage and another. But that summer, the summer between, that summer was the biggest thing in my life. I don't think I knew it then. It was just a good time had by all, over and out, handshakes all around. Then it was over, gone, poof, and get on with the real life stuff.

Now, though, I'm old enough to know better. Why hadn't I thought about Lydia and Jennifer in so long? Our relationship had been important. Really important.

That's why, I realized. It is because of how important they were to me that I hadn't thought about them for so long. It is just too painful. Losing their friendship had hit me harder than I knew. It only took eight years and an opening sentence to make me realize it.

Eight years of trying not to realize how important two people are to me. How had that affected me? Was that why I was such a workaholic? Why friendships often seemed superficial? Why my closest brush with romance was flipping past the Harlequin channel? What a load of shrink questions.

Probably not surprising, me being a shrink and all.

We may be coming back east because there's a job opportunity in Boston. The interview is coming up. Dean, I know I should have contacted you sooner, but it's been so long and I wasn't sure what to do. Jen finally convinced me to write. I'm not even sure this letter will find you. Are you still in JP?

I smiled, despite the pain of memory. Where else would I be? And it was so like Jennifer to be the decisive one when it came to something like this. When I first met her, I wouldn't have guessed it. She was shy to the point of timidity. But she grew into herself that summer. We all did. It was only afterwards that I got stuck.

So, yes, I am still in the house in Jamaica Plain. There are important differences after eight years. I now own it (that was the reason for my contact with Lydia five years before), and I had transformed it from a two-unit hovel into a single-occupancy hovel. The furniture was nicer. The place was painted. It was a "real person's" home, not just a post-college crash pad. It had improved with the neighborhood around it.

I sighed at the letter and kept reading.

I don't even know if I want to take the job, but I'll interview for it. The truth is Jen and I really want to see you. I'll understand if you don't want to, though. I know we haven't kept up with you very well. It's just been so strange out here in Seattle, a different world. Sometimes JP seems like a dream. The longer we didn't get in touch, the easier it was, especially after our last visit to Boston. But the less said about that the better...

By the way, Jen says she would not understand if you don't want to see us and would hunt you down no matter what. You know how determined she can be.

Boy, did I.

The dates they were coming to visit were just a few days away. At the end of the letter was a phone number.

It was still mid-afternoon in Seattle. I didn't want to think about it. Just do it, damn it! I picked up the phone, dialed the number, listened to the four rings, and then Jennifer's voice recorded on an answering machine – shit, talk about taking me back – and blabbered out a quick Hello. Yes, come visit. Yes, I'm still in the JP house. Come anytime you want.

I hung up, cutting the telephone connection. But not the memories of course. Those kept coming. Once I opened the envelope from Seattle, the memories just poured out. The summer between one big rite of passage and another. The summer that was really the biggest rite of passage of my life. I just needed to remember...

...the summer after I graduated from college was going to be easy. I had been accepted into a clinical psychology program in Boston. I wanted to spend the time before in the Boston area, just hanging and making some money. Low-end jobs in mental health were plentiful back then, and I had a friend in Boston who had already offered me an apartment.

Lydia was not the kind of person that you would think would be a friend of mine. Besides the fact that she was a guy magnet, she was a lot more outgoing and sociable than I was. There were less obvious things as well. I was a pretty stereotypical academic, never good at sports or social stuff. My brains and good grades were the key to my success. In fact, they were the key to starting a friendship with Lydia. It probably sounds pretty stereotypical, but I was her tutor. I had taken the required statistics course my sophomore year and done well enough that the professor asked me to TA. I needed the money and wanted to learn it better so I agreed. Lydia took the course as part of her business degree, and was struggling. My Teaching Assistant duties included tutoring, and thus I met my best friend in college.

Lydia wasn't dumb, but the academics didn't come easily to her. I think she probably has a subtle learning disability. That didn't get in her way, though, because what she lacked in obvious smarts she made up for in pure willpower. She pushed herself through college as if her life depended on it, which made sense, given her family's drive to escape their poverty. Her gonzo approach got her onto the Dean's list, got her scholarships, and got her a great corporate job right after school. She knew what she wanted and went for it. If something was useful, she kept it around.

It's not surprising I sometimes felt like that – something she kept around because I was useful. But that wasn't fair of me, and truth to tell I only thought about it when I was feeling sorry for myself. The reality is, I think we clicked for a few reasons besides the ways I could help her academically. I was about the only male who didn't come on to her; not because I wasn't attracted to her (I confess), but because I was smart enough to know it was hopeless. I think she at first found it a relief, but then I think we got to really like each other. She didn't make fun of me or pretend to like me out of pity. I think at first it was because neither felt threatened by the other. So, it was sort of a friendship of convenience at first – we didn't have to worry that there was anything else in the air.

After a while, I was glad. Mostly, we were friends because we could be. There was an easy chemistry between us. She'd bitch about academic struggles and I'd bitch about relationship struggles. We shared a similar cynical sense of humor, loved the same bad movies and shared the same view of politics. We'd hang out together on Friday and Saturday nights after studying. I half-jokingly needled her about wasting her weekends with a loser like me when she could have her choice of dates. She needled me back about using me as protection against all the creepy guys she seemed to attract. I knew my comments were bitter and self-pitying, but it took me a long time to realize hers were as well.

I really missed her when she graduated and moved back to her home in Boston.

She did great there, quickly gaining employment in some faceless corporation (another difference between the two of us is that I just do not understand the corporate world). By the time I graduated a year after she did, she was already zooming up the corporate ladder.

She also already owned a house. Her father, another workhorse, had lent her the down payment and cosigned the mortgage. Lydia was paying the monthlies and her father back at the same time. The house was a pretty typical, run-down three-story pile in Jamaica Plain, one of Boston's more diverse neighborhoods. At that time, real estate was pretty cheap, and the house needed a lot of work. Lydia and her father kept the bottom floor as a rentable space and turned the top two floors into an apartment for Lydia and a possible apartment-mate.

Lydia kept me up to date with the place during my long senior year. She could barely live in the upstairs, and the first floor apartment was a real shambles. But by the time spring rolled around, Lydia told me that her place was shaping up and she even had somebody living with her. A good friend she had met soon after moving to JP named Jennifer. I thought it odd she hadn't mentioned her before, somebody she had known almost a year and was friendly enough to live with. I wondered, not for the first time, whether Lydia was gay. She never dated much in college, blaming how hard she had to work to keep her scholarships. Was that really the reason, or was she just not interested in boys? Our college was not that gay-friendly. It might explain why we were comfortable in our friendship. She wasn't interested and I had no expectations.

Once I was accepted into a Boston graduate program, the plan was for me to rent the downstairs apartment. I was really excited about that. Even then I knew part of the reason I was heading to Boston was because my best bud was there. "Bud" – there's a Lydia word. By the end of college, I was certainly more confident than before. Lydia had dragged me to the pool and into the gym, using the same tactics I had used to goad her through statistics. My senior year I went at it as hard as she had gone at the books (after all, I had more time on my hands without Lydia to hang out with).

A funny thing happened my senior year. I lost interest in classes, especially after acceptance to grad school. I also found myself building confidence along with muscle. My friendship with Lydia had something to do with it, even if I didn't realize it at the time. Lydia helped me find my way into physical activity so I felt better about myself. I learned to flirt outrageously with her. And the two of us learned how to open up and be close to another person. By the time she graduated, I was feeling a lot more positively about myself. And while it might be trite to say so, if you feel better about yourself, other people notice you.

So in the second half of my senior year, with graduate school dealt with, I began to get caught up in a bit of a "this is my last chance to be irresponsible." I dated, but never seriously ("date," in fact, was sometimes a euphemism). I slacked off on my academics a bit. I tried a few new pharmaceuticals.

But mostly I found myself growing more inpatient and excited about the move to Boston. Lydia seemed to feel the same way, and our e-mails grew more frequent. And more flirtatious. We'd always used flirting to avoid serious conversations about sex and attraction (attraction to others of course, not each other – and yes I am protesting too much), but e-mail makes that kind of stuff so much easier to do. And with my growing confidence and eagerness to get out of Dodge, I was definitely feeling frisky (at least in a virtual-reality sort of way). I'd ask her about her sex life, implying I couldn't wait to get a piece of it. She'd reply that she'd taken a vow a chastity to be "ready" for a "blast" when I moved to Boston.

Finally, the end of college and ready for the move. Graduation was no biggie for me. Walk across a stage, lunch with the 'rents and all that jazz. I kept waiting for it to end so I could toss my stuff into the car and head east.

The move itself was just a move. I didn't have much stuff. I left in the early morning after graduation and 12 hours of driving later I was steering my old clunker through the impossible streets of the Boston area into Jamaica Plain. JP looks like a weird mix of run-down inner city and suburbia. I pulled up in front of a butt-ugly three-story box with porches on the second and third floors. If you know JP, you know the house.

The engine was still dieseling when the door to the house burst open and Lydia rushed out. She grabbed me through the open window, landing a big kiss on my cheek.

"Baby! I'm so glad you made it!" I threw open the door and grabbed her. I'm not usually the kind of guy to grab beautiful women, but this was Lydia for goodness sake!

"Damn, you got pumped up!" She ran her hands up the new muscles of my arms admiringly. "What's with the hard bod?"

"Hey, without you around, I had to work out my sexual frustration," our ongoing joking flirtation. Ha, ha.

Her hands lingered on my shoulders. "Well, I'm glad you put your free time to good use. I hope you got a chance to work it out on somebody besides yourself." She cocked an eyebrow.

I wasn't even there two seconds and we were backing and forthing like old times. "Hey, nobody can match you baby."

"Ain't that the truth!" she agreed.

We spent the next few hours unloading the car and unpacking. As night fell on the beginning of my Boston life, boxes got unpacked and things put away into their new places. It was spare, but feeling like home.

Lydia and I were sitting on a couple of hand-me-down chairs she had donated to me when a knock at the door interrupted our yakking.

"Hey there." A large, red headed woman stood at the door. From Lydia's description, obviously Jennifer, home from work.

"Hey babe!" Lydia ran over to the newcomer and hugged her hello. "This is my best bud from college!"

We made introductions. Jennifer was a year older than Lydia. She had grown up in South Boston, gone to Boston College, and sort of drifted afterwards. Not sure of what she wanted to do, she worked in a coffee shop. She was a bit shy at first, which seemed at odds with her physical presence. She was taller than me and truly big boned. A big, red haired Irish stereotype is how she described herself (adding a terrible brogue when she did). But she was warm and friendly and fun. She and Lydia were obviously comfortable with each other and I again wondered about Jennifer's sexual interests. Sure, she flirted like hell with me, but that was because I was one of those "safe" boys.

"Hey guys," Lydia said after we'd been shooting the shit for a while, "It's already seven o'clock. Let's go upstairs, order a pizza and get blasted on tequila."

Tequila was my major alcoholic weakness, which Lydia knew of course. In fact, we developed a taste for it together. It somehow fits with our cynical views of life. Obviously, she'd been working on it with Jennifer as well. So it was a pretty happy party, scarfing pizza and throwing tequila down in their living room. I was sitting in a comfy chair and the two of them were on a couch. Jennifer kept asking me what Lydia was like in college and I kept embellishing stories for the humor factor. I found myself incredibly comfortable with Jennifer. She had a great laugh, even if she covered her mouth when it came out. As I said, shy. But it was the same sort of thing with Jennifer as it was with Lydia. Something about them both just felt comfortable and easy. Looking back, I think the word is fit – we all fit together like peas in a pod or something.

After a few – okay, several – shots of tequila I had decided that they were lovers and I felt comfortable because there would be none of that horrible heterosexual wondering What if? to worry about.

Boy, was I wrong.

The three of us had put a large pizza and about a bottle of tequila away and were pretty buzzed. It was already around midnight, but I was going on a second wind. We were playing the toasting game – for each shot, somebody new had to come up with a toast. The more cynical, weird or (as the night went on) sexual, the better.

"Here's to figuring out how to drive in Boston!"

"Here's to my life as a nameless, faceless, heartless corporate drone!"

"Here's to the my favorite fragrance: eau to cafe!"

"Here's to going to psychology conferences and having one-night stands in cheesy hotels with students from Wisconsin!"

"Here's to emptying the bottle so I can masturbate with it later tonight!"

In between the toasts we told stories from our lives. Mostly funny, but serious as well. I realized that, strange as it seemed for me, the three of us were quickly growing as comfortable together as the crappy old furniture we were draped over.

"Are you telling me you guys weren't going at it?" I had just told a story about Lydia falling asleep in the pool and almost drowning (an exaggeration) after the all night study session for the statistics final.

Lydia answered for me, "No way! He was the only guy who didn't hit on me. Hey, why is that?" she turned towards me.

The never-asked question. It hung in the air for what felt like twenty years, both women looking curiously (and drunkenly) at me, my face probably as red as Jennifer's hair.

I put on my most serious expression. "Lydia? I've never told you this...but...but...but, I'm gay. I've moved to Boston to come out of the closet. You guys are the first to know."

I held her gaze, but wasn't prepared for her to take me seriously. Her face was frozen and eyes opened wide. She so obviously believed me that I couldn't help but crack up. My laughter broke the tension.

"You shit!" she yelled at me. "I actually fucking believed you for a minute!"

"It's the tequila," I laughed, breathing a silent sigh of relief because I didn't have to answer her question.

"Yeah, well I obviously need more," she replied grabbing the bottle and turning it upside down over her empty glass. A last drop out of the bottle. Lydia sniffled.

"Shit! I was just getting started." She was actually a bit shaken up. Had she believed me? Was she about to come out to me? I suddenly did feel like a bit of a shit.

"Don't worry," Jennifer interrupted the beginning of some self-flagellation, "I've got an emergency bottle!" She jumped off the couch and stumbled to what I assumed was her bedroom.

I turned to Lydia, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to piss you off. She's pretty cool, you know." Silently telling her I knew they were lovers and I approved.

"Yeah, I think so too." Silently acknowledging me. "And she likes you too, so I forgive you." Lydia smiled at me warmly.

"You know," she said, suddenly shifting the topic, I thought. "You really are pretty fucking sexy. And it's not the tequila or your new bod that makes me say that. I've wanted to tell you that for a while. When you said you were gay I was just upset about the lost opportunity."

What the hell was she playing at? Was she coming on to me? That's something she had never done and I thought would never do. And she was a lesbian, damnit! Was she yanking my chain to get me back for yanking hers? I didn't get to ask her about it though because Jennifer returned with the bottle.

Little did I know that I was about to get an answer to my questions.

Jennifer poured Lydia another shot and gave me the bottle. I poured myself a shot and put the bottle on the floor as Jennifer handed Lydia her glass back. As she did, she let her hand stroke Lydia's arm and shoulder. It was an intimate gesture, and she suddenly pulled away, realizing I had caught it.

"Pulease!" I said, relieved to finally have my suspicions confirmed, "I figured out hours ago you guys are lovers. Don't stay celibate on my account." Damn, I was a bit beyond buzzed.

Jennifer smiled at me, a bit guilty and embarrassed. Lydia just giggled and then pulled the larger girl onto the couch. "You're right," she laughed. "Why hide it?" She crawled onto Jennifer's lap, straddling her hips and gave her an open-mouthed kiss. There was my punishment for tricking her.

I admit it. I was shocked. I figured that they were going at it, but to actually see this, right in front of me, when I was drunk after a twenty-hour day. Damn, I was thrown for a loop and a half.

I tried to recover. "Hey, like I care if you're a couple of lesbians?" I asked in my most put-upon tone. Even rolled my eyes. Lydia turned around in Jennifer's lap and leaned back against her.

"We're not just into women, you know," she said, just as haughty as I had been.

"Yeah," Jennifer agreed, "Right now we're just really into each other." She landed a kiss on Lydia's neck. Lydia responded with enthusiasm, turning her head back and kissing Jennifer hard. They pulled apart just enough for me to see their tongues twirling around. Lydia captured Jennifer's, sucking it eagerly into her mouth. I think they were a bit into the exhibition. I'm sure they knew I was responding to them.

Jennifer tightened her arms around Lydia, pulling her closer. Lydia turned her head, facing me again, eyes closed, panting as Jennifer ran her hands over the smaller woman's chest. Both moaned as Jennifer pinched Lydia through her shirt and Lydia pushed back into Jennifer's crotch. Now they were definitely showing off.

Things suddenly felt like they were moving along too fast for me. What was going on here? I didn't think I could handle it; going from four years of struggling to keep the word "friend" uppermost in my mind in relation to Lydia to what felt like a sudden belly flop into a live porn show. Wasn't she my friend? Did she want me to join in? Or was she just into exhibitionism? I didn't think my mind could keep up with it all. On the other hand, my cock could. I felt it pop to life at this incredibly sexy sight. Fuck it, I said to myself. Just go with it! The tequila certainly helped me make the choice.

"Hey!" I complained, "No fair not sharing! I'm feeling left out here!"

Lydia's eyes flew open and they both looked at me in mock disgust. "Nobody's sending you home packing," she replied.

"Yeah," Jennifer agreed. "What do you want, a gold sealed invite?"

I have to say, even in my tequila- and lust-fueled state, I was taken aback. I mean, sure, every heterosexual guy's fantasy. But it's just that for almost all of us – a fantasy. I could see they liked playing exhibitionist in front of me – and I sure as hell didn't mind – but wow. For a second, I almost ran out of the apartment; like most men I'm basically chicken shit. Watching is one thing, but participating took commitment. And we all know guys and commitment don't always go hand in hand. Questions (fears really) flew into my mind. What if I wasn't good enough? How could I handle two women? What reality can match the fantasy? And aren't they lesbians?

To this day I'm not sure what kept me there. Maybe it was the tequila, or just how comfortable we had grown with each other. Definitely it was how damn sexy they looked together. Whatever got me to do it, I found myself over at the couch, sitting down next to them. Then there was that awkward second – who does what first?

What the fuck, I thought to myself, and just went on in for Lydia's lips. Her mouth was parted slightly as I pressed my lips to hers. Our first kiss after four years of friendship was one of the biggest turn-ons in my life ever. Her lips were soft and warm from the kissing she'd been doing with Jennifer. Wow – kissing a woman who had just been kissing another woman. She was a great kisser too. I felt her tongue in my mouth, searching. Suddenly it was like we both realized this four-year-old attraction burst into the open and was about to be consummated. We pushed harder into the kiss and moaned.

I felt another mouth moving down my neck – Jennifer. I broke my kiss with Lydia and planted one on Jennifer's wild red hair. She tilted her head up and our lips came together. Damn tasty; her lips were fuller than Lydia's, but warm and inviting. We both turned to Lydia and started kissing her, sharing the woman we both obviously loved and who obviously loved both of us right back.

The three of us spent a few minutes with this new experience – just kissing each other, sharing saliva and tongues. Feeling the two of them kiss me at the same time almost made me blow my load. We weren't even doing anything else, but it was incredibly sexy. Lydia was still on Jennifer's lap, she was squirming by now. We each had an arm around the other two, pulling into a single embrace. Breathing was heavier. A quiet moan or two.

"Fuck, I could cum just from this," Lydia spoke for all of us.

Jennifer leaned back for a breather. "I would so love to see that baby," her eyes filled with lust looking at her lover. "I'm so wet I can't believe you haven't slid off my lap." Not something I had expected to hear from the shy woman.

Lydia read my mind and explained in an overly-sultry voice (if that was possible), "Once she warms up, my baby loses her shyness! That's why I like to get her drunk – she's an easy lay."

"You are such a bitch!" Jennifer laughingly complained, reached around Lydia's t-shirt, grabbed a breast and twisted it.

Lydia screamed in surprise, but then laughed and ground her ass into Jennifer's crotch. Jennifer moaned, "Shit, I can not believe how hot I am." Lydia looked at me. "You should know Jen and I have been wanting to do this for a while. We've been talking about it since you decided to move here. I've told her how much I love you and trust you. I didn't even realize how attracted I was to you until after I'd graduated."

I admit it, I was shocked again. Not for the first time. And certainly not for the last.

"We weren't sure you'd be into it, and we weren't sure it'd be as fun as we'd hoped. But it sure is fun, and" she added, " you sure seem into it." Her eyes dropped to my pants, we're my hard-on was bulging in a very obvious way.

"It is the stuff of porn fantasy. Never thought it'd really happen, not to someone like me anyways." Hey, I was realistic about myself. I'm not totally ugly but I'm not all that noticeable. Also (if you haven't guessed it yet), I was pretty shy back then. But there was something about that moment that everything just came together in the right way – the dark feel you get when it's late at night, you've been drinking tequila and listening to black-hearted music with two cynical friends; the loneliness when you're just out of college, don't know what you're doing, new to a city and don't know many people; how the chemistry between the three of us had been great from the beginning; and of course the lust. Funny how all sorts of unexpected, seemingly random things can fly together into a life-changing moment. What's the probability of all that happening (still thinking statistically, even in the middle of all that)?

My reverie was interrupted when Lydia put her hand under my chin and turned my face to hers, looking me straight in the eye. "Anybody who can get me this wet without going any further south than you've gone is fucking sexy in my book." I smiled, wanting to believe her but smelling exaggeration in the air.

"Humph!" she seemed to have read my mind again. Funny how we could read each other so easily – that chemistry thing I guess.

"I have a new rule!" Rule? "Anybody who makes a self-disparaging remark has to pour shots for everybody! Starting now!"

"AAAhhh!" The bottle was a million miles away on the floor next to the chair I'd been sitting in, "How can I tear myself away from you guys?" I guess I was afraid of finding out my fears were right and that this was a big joke or mistake or something. And a bit afraid that any move meant I was taking steps into something that was dark and unknown and I wanted so much I was only beginning to admit it to myself.

Lydia's turn to laugh. Her laugh was so genuine it evaporated my immobility. "Hey baby, we've got all night. And that's just for starters. I'm thinking my Jen can use a bit of liquid courage." She looked at me appraisingly, "So, I think, can you. This is sexy as hell and I really want to do it, but I don't want interference from any second thoughts. So, go pour, maestro!"

Just for starters? As I poured, Lydia turned around again, facing Jennifer, her legs spread on either side of the red-head's lap. They were deep kissing as I came back with the shots. They stopped for a moment, taking their glasses. "What's the toast now?" Jennifer asked.

"I think the pourer should come up with it," Lydia replied.

"Sheesh, all this work!" I thought quickly; another What the fuck moment, care of Señior tequila: "Here's to screwing up our friendship with so much sex we can't move afterwards!"

"Here! Here!" they both replied, and three shots went down the tubes.

"Now back to it!" Lydia demanded, heading straight back to Jennifer's eager, open mouth. I started kissing the back of Lydia's neck, standing behind her as she sat straddled on Jennifer's lap. I pushed up against her back and drew my hands around Jennifer. Pulled them both closer to me. "Mmmm" from one or both of them. The two of us ran our hands over Jennifer's arms and back and chest. She sighed and pulled Lydia even tighter into her lap and into the kiss.

I ran my hands back up Lydia's arms and down her sides. She gasped as I ran along her legs and then down Jennifer's sides. From one woman to the other in continuous strokes. That more than anything made me realize what we were doing. And it was fucking sexy. For the first time in my life I just let the experience take me away.

My cock was hard as anything. Painful almost. Yearning for more pressure. I found myself pushing it up against Lydia's back. "Oooh, what's that?" she asked interrupting her kissing. "It feels like you've pumped up more than I realized!" She pushed back hard against me. A groan just popped out of me. She reached back behind me and grabbed my ass on both sides, pulling me closer, grinding my cock into her back. Painful, yes. But incredibly sexual. I could feel my cock spasming in my pants. I kissed her neck, wanting to sink my teeth into it as hard as possible. I was restrained, though, biting down with some force but not enough to hurt her. She groaned and pushed back against my mouth, forcing her neck harder against my teeth. My hands went around to her stomach and moved slowly upwards towards her breasts. They were small but felt firm. No bra, thank the gods. I covered them with my hands and squeezed through her shirt, biting harder against her neck. I pulled her to me by her breasts, kneading them through the material.

"Oh gods, yes that is good!" Lydia's voice was hoarse.

I peeked over at Jennifer and found her looking at us with unveiled lust. She wrapped one hand around Lydia's ass to hold her in place and sent the other one to her crotch. She cupped Lydia's cunt, thumb above what I guessed was her clit, and suddenly ground her hand hard into it. Lydia's body jerked and she started moaning even louder. Jennifer was twisting her hand into the other woman's crotch, jerking her off through the sweatpants. I grabbed her breasts with even more force and found her mouth. Kissed her hard, feeling the moans intensify. Jennifer and I had Lydia stretched between us – I was pulling her up and supporting her against my chest while Jennifer held her down with an arm around her ass. Lydia had reached back around my shoulders and pulled herself even tighter between Jennifer and myself as we pleasured her. She was connecting the three of us together through her sex. I ran my hands under her shirt and up her taut belly to her breasts. They were small and firm, the nipples hot and tight. I tweaked them as Jennifer ground her hand even harder into Lydia's cunt, feeling for the clit underneath the material.

"Uh, uh, uh...yes...do me..do me!" Her legs jerked hard around Jennifer and her body spasmed, twisting forward into the larger woman. Jennifer was shoving one hand into Lydia's crotch and holding her ass tight with the other. Lydia spasmed a few times and then went limp. I ran my hands around her in a hug and laid her into Jennifer's waiting arms. Her eyes were closed and a smile was on her lips.

"I don't think I've ever cum so easily," she mumbled. Shook her head and opened her eyes. "Get me another shot!" This time I complied with no complaints, pouring the tequila three more times and handing the glasses back. Lydia was leaning onto Jennifer, still in her lap.

"I think the orgasmagirl should make this toast," I said.

Lydia smiled. "Here's to so many orgasms we lose count!" Needless to say, we all drank to that. "Hey, let's move to my bedroom. I'll bring the candles. Jen, can you bring the music? And you, sir, bring the Tequila."

We brought our bounty into the bedroom. Jennifer busied herself setting up the music and putting on some mellow, sexy tunes. Lydia put candles around, lighting them. Me, I was suddenly nervous. Getting naked in front of a sex partner is bad enough, but two? One who I had known for years, the other only for hours. I also realized Jennifer was feeling nervous – she was taking extra time getting the music going. Lydia seemed fine. Maybe she was totally comfortable with her own body (not that I'd blame her). Maybe she was just mellowed out from the drink and orgasm. Whatever, she did notice the two of us getting hesitant.

"Hey you guys. You don't need to be shy! Come here." She held her hand out to Jennifer, who took it. Then her other out to me. I took it, a bit hesitantly. She pulled us both to her. "You guys are my best friends. And I think you are both incredibly hot. Dean, do you think Jennifer's hot? Truth now. Think about it."

I looked at her as she stood uncomfortably in my gaze, eyes cast down. She was kind of large in a tavern wench, big-boned kind of way. Fiery red hair that fell wildly around her face and shoulders. Big breasts. "Yeah, she's hot."

"And Jennifer, what about Dean?" Jennifer looked at me appraisingly. A bit embarrassing I admit, getting judged for my sex appeal.

I seemed to pass Jennifer's muster, though. She arched an eyebrow and cracked a smile. "Yeah, I'd fuck him."

"And you vill," Lydia responded with a fake Germanic accent. "Okay, I'm going to obviously have to break the ice here. So I will." She let go of our hands and pulled her shirt over her head, tossing it across the room. Then pulled her sweat pants off and threw them in another direction. Damn, no panties.

"Tah-dah!" she announced, arms up to the ceiling, pushing her small breasts out, legs apart, not a stitch on. Proudly showing off her body to the universe.

"Fuck, you're shaved!" I stupidly blurted out before I could think. I think my face turned red faster than her clothes went flying. She laughed.

"Yes I am," she announced, turning towards me. She wrapped her arms around me and ground her cunt into my crotch. "Let's see what we can get going here." It got going all right. I'd never been with anybody who'd shaved her pubic hair. It was yet another sexy first of this incredible evening.

My stupid comment was slow compared to my cock coming back to life. Lydia's bare pubes barely touched my pants before my hard-on was pounding to come out. She laughed with delight as she felt it grow against her sex. She kissed me deeply, our tongues moving back and forth. Jennifer came behind her, grinding us into a Lydia sandwich. I broke my kiss with Lydia and stretched behind her to Jennifer.

As we kissed, Lydia moaned, "Shit, it is so sexy to watch you two. Yeah...I want to watch you go at it!" She slipped from between us, leaving Jennifer and I staring curiously at each other. I shrugged and drew her closer to me. We started kissing again, enjoying the feeling of lips and tongues and heat and moisture.

Suddenly I felt a pair of arms behind me, beneath my shirt, pulling it up. A whisper in my ear, "You two obviously need help," and Lydia pulled me away from Jennifer long enough to pull my shirt off. "Go back to it," she instructed, and I did. She unbuttoned Jennifer's blouse, pulling it off. Getting undressed by her was turning Jennifer and me on even more. Our kissing was hotter and heavier. Moans and sighs were coming out of all three of us. Lydia pulled Jennifer's arms away from me in order to slide her out of the blouse. Her arms were right back to my back and chest and sides. Unlike Lydia, Jennifer was wearing a bra, containing a pair of huge breasts. Lydia unhooked it from the back and started to slip it down Jennifer's arms. Suddenly, Jennifer broke our kiss and pulled her arms together blocking Lydia from stripping her of the bra. I was confused.

"Don't worry, honey," Lydia's voice was soothing, "you know how much I love your tits." She turned to me, "Jen's pretty shy about her body, even when she is drunk." She smiled. "You're a pretty lucky boy, you know, getting a look at it."

Hell, I understand being shy about one's body. She had really big breasts, even bigger than they appeared bound up in her bra. I stroked her cheek, looking at her. "Jennifer, you are so sexy. Sheesh! Why are we so embarrassed by our bodies?" Talking to myself as much as to her. "Feel this." I moved her hand down to my hard cock. "This is what your body does for me. This all feels good, doesn't it? Why can't we just fucking kick this stupid inhibition habit?"

"Now that's the most fucking smart question I've heard all night!" Lydia heartily agreeing with me.

Jennifer, shyly at first, let the bra slide down her arms. Then she held out her arms and raised them slowly to the ceiling. Said in a small voice, "Tah-dah?"

Her breasts were magnificent. Big and firm and asking to be loved. The nipples were actually small, but hard with her excitement. I think I drooled.

"Tah-fucking-dah!" Lydia was still agreeable.

"Hey," I asked, "did that trying to stay in her bra thing count as self-depreciating?"

"Hmm," Lydia pretended to ponder the question, "Why yes. Yes it did."

Jennifer walked over to the bottle, which was getting seriously low, and poured three more shots. Handed them out. She thought for a moment. "Here's to getting the fuck rid of all our fucking inhibitions!" Down the drain. "Yeah," she said. "That's smooth. And here's something that's not as smooth as Lydia's" She pulled her pants off and then her panties, standing back up. Thrust out her crotch and tits for our enjoyment. In a word, she was a natural red-head. Another first for me. I wondered if it was true that red-heads were fiery fucks.

She came back over to me and pulled me tight into an embrace, her bare breasts rubbing against mine. What, I ask you, is sexier than tits rubbing against tits? I moaned into her mouth and jerked against her crotch. My cock was seriously uncomfortable, but I was too busy running my hands over her smooth skin. Okay, maybe naked smooth skin is sexier than tits against tits, but it's kind of the same thing.

I ran my hands to her front, over her breasts. I could not cover them like I could Lydia's. Two hands wouldn't cover them. But she groaned as I touched and squeezed and played with them. I lowered my mouth to a nipple and suck it in. It tasted like woman. She moaned louder as I slurped and nibbled from one breast to another. I guess I'm a tit man because I felt like a kid in a candy store.

I felt hands around the front of my pants, undoing the button. The zipper going down. Then the pants going down. Painful over my erection as Lydia pulled them down – I think she did it that way purposely. Her fingers around the band of my underwear, pulling it over my cock and down. A painful snap as she let it go and it smacked my cock. "Ooops." She laughed. Again, on purpose I think. But then down and off.

"Come on, break it up. You saw us in our glory. Show us yours." Talk about potential embarrassment. But then I remembered Jennifer's toast. My arms to the ceiling and my crotch out for inspection. "Tah-dah!" I stated with a bit more certainty than I felt.

"Oh, that is nice. I can't wait to see what it can do," Lydia said with admiration. "Or how it tastes." She bent down, reaching out to my cock and pulled it into her mouth. Fuck my lack of certainty. I almost shot a load down her throat. She sucked hard and long, moving down the shaft, trying to stuff my cock down her throat. It was bigger than I ever remember, and harder. She couldn't get it in all the way, but I couldn't imagine it feeling better. My cock was enveloped in a hot, wet mouth, sucking hard. The pressure and pleasure building so fucking quickly. I grabbed the back of Lydia's head and groaned.

She was moving up and down the shaft, trying to get more cock into her mouth. Her hands grabbed me by the balls, pulling me in, then around to my ass, trying to shove more of me down her throat. Jennifer pulled her up.

"Let me show you how a real woman does it." She pulled me over to the bed.

"Oh, la-de-duh!" Lydia retorted.

Jennifer lay down on her back, her head over the side. "Come here. I want to taste you." She pulled me into her mouth. I felt my cock slide smoothly into her mouth and throat. She moaned and the vibration nearly threw me over the edge. I could feel her sucking me deeper and deeper. The angle allowed her to take more of my cock into her. She reached behind to my ass and pulled me closer. Then I felt her lips against my pubic bone. What a cock sucker! She sucked like she was trying to swallow me down to my balls. I felt her tongue curl around my cock, adding to the pressure. Groaning with each breath, deep throating me. She pulled on my ass and then pushed me back in. Wanting me to fuck her throat. I got the message pretty quickly.

I started pulling out slowly and then back in slowly. "Mmmmm" she moaned in what sounded like frustration. She pulled me back in with more force.

"Harder?" I asked. She nodded. "I'm afraid I'll hurt you."

"Mmm-mmm" she shook her head and pulled my ass again.

I was nervous – inhibited I guess – but incredibly turned on. I tentatively tried a harder shove. When she didn't gag, I pulled out and went in harder again. She moaned louder, urging me on.

"Yeah, do her. She likes it hard. We both do." I looked over to find Lydia's gaze fixed on us, one hand twisting her own nipple, the other moving down to her cunt. The smell of sex was heavy and intoxicating. Much more intoxicating than the tequila.

I started to thrust in and out of Jennifer's throat with more gusto. Fucking her face. Her arms locked around my ass, holding on as she was shoved back and forth by my assault. I was not longer afraid of hurting her.

Suddenly I wanted to taste her pussy more than anything else. I bent down over her and shoved my face into her fiery pubic hair. It was wet – her pussy was already dripping. I sucked and pulled at her hair like a fury. Loving the strands of hair in my mouth, mixed with her cunt juice. Tasting that salty, slutty juice pouring out of her. I found her clit and sucked it into my mouth, tonguing the nub, feeling it swell. She moaned again, adding even more to the incredible feeling in my cock. Her cunt was lubricated with her own juice and my tongue, and as I sucked on her clit I slipped two fingers deep into her. She moaned again clamped her legs around my head. Suddenly Lydia was there, pulling her legs apart, joining me for a pussy feast.

"Let's do her together," she whispered.

I attacked her clit again and Lydia's tongue went to her slit, flicking around my fingers. Our tongues crossed and caressed each other, the taste of all three of us back and forth. "Grab her tits. Give them a real work out!" I pulled my fingers out of Jennifer's cunt and ran my hands to her breasts, grabbing them and using them as leverage as I pushed as hard and deep into her mouth as I could. The mounds were hot and sweaty. I twisted them hard, pinching her nipples between my finger and thumb.

"MMMMM!!!" was the only response Jennifer could give with my cock down her throat. Her whole body spasmed into the bed as Lydia and I worked her over.

I was still on her clit. Lydia had replaced my fingers with a few of her own. She pushed Jennifer's legs up and apart. She glanced at me and I took the clue; ran my hands around Jennifer's legs and pulled them up against my shoulders, giving Lydia better access to her treasures. Lydia ran a finger down my cheek to my mouth. I let go of Jennifer's clit long enough to suck the finger deep, saturating it with my saliva and Jennifer's juices. Lydia pulled it out of my mouth and ran it down to Jennifer's ass, now vulnerable to attack. I watched her twirl around the puckered opening, teasing it.

Jennifer was heaving, her cunt clamping around Lydia's inserted fingers, her ass starting to flutter open under the latest ministrations. Looking right at me with a mischievous smile, Lydia slowly sank her finger into Jennifer's ass. I watched fascinated as it disappeared into the opening. Lydia steadily pushed the finger into Jennfier's ass up to her hand. Then she started pumping Jennifer's ass and pussy with her hands, pulling and pushing together.

I felt my cock released for Jennifer's throat as her head fell back to the side of the bed.

"I can't suck it...too much...oh gods...oh crap...fuck me...fuck me."

Lydia's smile grew. She sucked on a second finger and added it slowly to the one already deep in Jennifer's ass. Jennifer was now babbling without making sense. My arms were still hooked around her legs, pulling her open to us. I could feel her head between my legs, shaking back and forth,

"Ugh...shit...fuck me...gods...ugh..mmmm!"

Lydia pulled her two hands almost all the way out of Jennifer's cunt and ass, and then shoved them back. She started pumping, in and out. Each shove in brought a new grunt out of Jennifer. "Go after her clit!" she hissed at me. I'd almost forgotten.

I went back down to Jennifer's cunt, feeling Lydia's fingers moving in and out past my lips. The clit was huge. I pulled it into my mouth, sucking gently, whipping my tongue around it. Lydia and I got a rhythm going, Jennifer's moans and babbling getting louder. I held her legs up and spread wide, bent over her cunt sucking away. Lydia was pumping her ass and cunt with both hands. Sweaty grunts, moans, sex.

I could feel Jennifer's body tightening against me, trapped on the bed by our sexual assault. Lydia's mouth to my ear, "When she cums, bite down on her clit. Do it hard." I felt Lydia's tongue in my ear and then her teeth clamp down on my earlobe. She moved back down to Jennifer's cunt and thigh, kissing, licking, biting.

Jennifer suddenly went rigid, I could feel her cunt clamping down on Lydia's fingers. "UUGGHH! Cumming! Cumming!!!" It felt like her whole body was one big spasm.

"Bite her now!" Lydia hissed a reminder. Without thinking I did it – bit hard on that overly sensitive bit of flesh. Jennifer screamed; her hips shot up with a vengeance and I lost hold of her. With her head already over the side of the bed that last move threw her off entirely, pulling me with her. We were on the floor, tangled up, me face to face with her cunt. I watched it pulsate, her juices running out of it as her orgasm stretched on. I couldn't resist a last long, slow lick. She shuddered and moaned.

"Oh baby, that was fucking incredible," Lydia commented above us from the bed. I untangled myself and scooted around to make sure Jennifer was still alive. Just to make sure I kissed her on the mouth. Her tongue found its way to mine, tasting her own juices. My cock, which had gone down some with all the distractions, twitched back to life against her. She sighed and rubbed against me. She was still alive all right...and feisty.

"You two come back up here." Another order from on high. "I for one am just getting started and if I'm not too drunk to count, I don't think our boy-o here has had a chance to cum yet."

Jennifer and I, still lip-locked, got onto the bed. The three of us lay down, kissing, stroking, pinching. The only light from flickering candles, some sort of pagan-goth music in the background, the three of us drunk on tequila and sex. I didn't know or care who was doing what to whom where. The room spun in a haze of heat, sweat, alcohol and lust. The smell and taste of sex permeated everything. It was incredible. My mouth found a nipple and I sucked it in and bit down...a gasp followed...something warm and wet engulfed my cock...I felt hands running all over my body...One of my hands found a smooth, hairless cunt and pushed in...with my other hand I grabbed the other cunt, playing with the hair wet from sex and then sliding fingers in...starting to finger fucking two cunts at once.

I felt the cunts pull off of my hands and move away. My legs were spread apart I was on my back and bent my head to look down my body. The women were on either side of me on hands and knees reaching for my cock. Seeing and feeling one mouth go down on me and then another join it was indescribable. They passed my cock back and forth, sucking on it one at a time. Then both licking the shaft up and down. Both went down on my balls, each one sucking a ball into her mouth. Lydia was jerking my cock off as they sucked hard enough on my balls to hurt. I couldn't stop the moan. Jennifer maneuvered herself between my legs and attacked my cock from that angle. Lydia kept at my balls with a hand around the base of my cock. Jennifer started sucking down from the top to Lydia's hand. I watched as my cock disappeared into her hot, wet mouth and she slid down, eyes looking right into mine. She stopped when she hit Lydia's hand and then started sucking up and down the shaft. Lydia was squeezing and moving her hand while torturing my balls one at a time in her mouth. She rolled them around with her tongue and then clamped down, increasing and decreasing the pressure until I thought they would explode.

The sensations were overwhelming. All feeling was centered in my cock. Pleasure, pressure, pain, sucking, jerking. The world was spinning. I heard myself moaning, a lot like Jennifer had been – "My balls...no...uhh.. ouch...fuck...fuck...fuck!" Then I felt a finger playing at the opening of my ass. I didn't know whose finger, and I didn't care. Every touch was almost unbearably erotic. The finger slid slowly into me. Then a sudden shove and it was like an electric current shot into my ass and right up my cock.

"Gnhhh....fuuuckkkk..aaaaahhhh!!" Real words were no longer possible.

I felt the pressure that could only mean orgasm wash over my cock. It built so quickly and powerfully it was almost painful. The spasms hit me like a mother-fucker, my cock pulsing in Lydia's hand and Jennifer's mouth. Jennifer pulled off and Lydia clamped her hand down as the orgasm hit. "AAAAHHHH!" a cry out of me as Lydia's hand momentarily stopped the locomotive of an orgasm. Then she let go and the cum shot out of my cock like a cannon, right into Jennifer's face.

"Yeeaaahh! Give it to us!" Lydia turned the cock onto her as it continued to pump sperm out. I was totally out of control as the orgasm kept going, jism spewing out onto the two hungry faces. Cumming all over the two of them was one of the sexiest sights ever, seeing the milky white spew in their hair, on their foreheads, across their cheeks.

Lydia milked my aching cock for the last bits of cum, dribbling down the shaft, and then licked it off. The two women then started kissing each other, licking my cum off of each other's faces. The then moved up and over me and started kissing me. It was weird to taste my own cum on their lips and tongues. Salty and slimy. But it was really erotic as well. It was an assault of sex – the smell and feel and taste of it were overwhelming. We were kissing and tonguing and sucking each other, sharing body fluids like there was no tomorrow. If it had been at all physically possible, I'm sure I would have gotten another erection right there.

The three of us collapsed, Jennifer on my left side, Lydia on my right. My arms underneath them, I pulled them to me. They both reached their own arms around and we had the best group hug of my life.

"Stay here tonight." Lydia asked. Hadn't she said she was just getting started?

"I can't do it anymore," I didn't think my cock would come back to life for a week.

"Just to sleep," she corrected my assumption. "This is our first night together. Like I said, I'm just getting started. I...I hope we're all just getting started."

I looked at her, and sensed a waiting silence from Jennifer. Just getting started – she didn't mean this night, she meant the summer. Just getting started with what? A summer fling? A friendship with benefits? A nontraditional family?

"Don't worry so much," she smiled, reading my face. Sounding sleepy, "I love both of you, and I'm attracted to both of you, if you couldn't tell." She looked meaningfully beyond me to Jennifer.

"Haven't you ever wondered why neither of us dated much, never went after each other, but fit together so well? And don't," she said, interrupting my thought, "blame your looks. You always were much better looking than you think.

"It was Jennifer who helped me figure it out." She smiled at the woman nestled up against my back. "'Normal' stuff doesn't do it for us. We've always felt like we don't belong in the world. Well, we don't. But," she said as she slid her hand into Jennifer's, grasping it, "we belong together.

"Admit it," this time looking me in the eye, "you're looking for something different. Something out of the main stream. Something darker. I realized my cynicism was just covering my weird desires and the fear of those desires. Hell, I'm still scared of them because I know what we did tonight isn't even the tip of the iceberg.

"So," looking at me again, "admit it – you have the same desires."

I suddenly had one of those total reality shifts; I saw myself and my place in the world differently. A perceptual change that was almost dizzying. She was right. After the initial excitement of first sex with somebody, relationships grew boring. Not because they were boring but because they didn't fit. I didn't know what it was I wanted.

"I...I don't know what I'm looking for. But...you're right, my desires are different than other people's I think. Darker somehow." I flashed back on one of my earliest memories of an erection – brought about by a comic book where the heroine had been chained up, helpless. And the stash of porn mags I had come across; the only pictorial I found sexy after any amount of time was the Nazi "torture" story. Tying and tickling, really, but it fueled countless masturbation fantasies. Most of which involved a lot more realistic torture. Sometimes I was the torturer, but sometimes I was the tortured.

I was beginning to understand.

"Lydia, what are you suggesting?"

It was Jennifer, behind me, who answered. "I realized a long time ago I was different. Attracted to boys and girls, but definitely not in a vanilla way. I crave...I don't know exactly. Neither of us do." She squeezed Lydia's hand. "Intensity? Experience? What it came down to was craving Lydia. The two of us exploring each other and figuring it out. Learning it was okay to want 'bad' things. She thinks you're the same way. She loves you, Dean, and she wants to share this with you. For the three of us to keep on figuring this out together."

"This isn't just about sex, is it?" I asked.

"No," a laugh from Lydia, "But sex is sure as shit going to be a big part of it!"

I laughed with her.

"Are you ready?" Lydia asked me.

I thought a minute, not sure what it meant. But even in my sleepy, sexed out, drunken state I had a moment of clarity. Fuck, this had felt so right. We fit together so well.

I added my hand to theirs. "I think I've been ready for years."

She smiled. "I thought so." She squeezed our hands together. "I'll make the final toast of the night. Here's to the three of us learning who we really are this summer."

She kissed me gently on the forehead and then the same to Jennifer behind me. I turned onto my back and pulled the two of them back to me. The three of us snuggled together as I allowed the exhaustion and tequila to wash over me. I sighed as I felt them do the same. Content. Warm. Comfortable. As I slipped into sleep with Jennifer's question "Are you ready?" swimming through my mind, my last thoughts were What am I getting myself into? and I can't wait until tomorrow.