Taste & Release

"Thanks, Rach." I shrugged out of her hold. "But I can speak for myself. I just... it's hard to figure out what to say. But I have things, and I want to say them."

I squeezed Rachel's hand reassuringly as I stood. She nodded. I walked around the coffee table, around the couch Louise was sitting on. She did not look back. I knelt behind her.

"Louise," I said.

"Shirby." Fuck, it was so much easier when I didn't have to see her face.

"I'm sorry," I said, "for that night. At the end."

"Are you kidding?" she exclaimed. "I was such an asshole. You know me... I'm so 'mature,' so 'realistic'... I wouldn't let myself make room for your feelings. Or for mine."

I looked out over Louise's head. Rachel shot me a thumbs up.

"I didn't see it that way," I said. "It might be true, I honestly don't know. We sucked at breaking up. We hadn't really gotten much practice at it."

"That's true," Louise said. "Vivian told me something like that, actually."

"I've been miserable without you," I admitted. "But I wasn't sure if that was love, or if I was just being... needy."

"Horny," Rachel corrected.

Louise stifled a giggle at that.

I placed my hands on Louise's shoulders, gently at first, then firmer when she moaned appreciatively.

"I've been very... needy," she said.

I rubbed a bit, up and down her neck, over her shoulders, tracing the golden chain she was wearing. The flimsy blouse wasn't the right texture for this, and I slid my hands under it.

"In the bathtub," I said, "in Grizzly. You said you wanted to figure things out together."

That was the night we'd gotten together. The night she'd laid it all out there, the night I'd found my enduring attraction to her, the night she'd given me three delicious orgasms. It was also the night Vivian and Rachel had gone down on me as part of a game, but that part had faded a bit.

"I liked the tub," she purred. "I was scared shitless, but I liked the tub."

"Yeah."

"This is awfully touching," Rachel cut in, with a slight smirk, "but if you explicitly want me to stay here for this, I have got to remind Shirby that she promised me shoulder rubs."

"Mm." Louise rolled her shoulders, shrugging me off. "Keep Rachel here, Shirby."

The directive felt like a veil lifting. Forgotten clarities returned: the knowledge that the six of us—well, three in absentia, but still—had the strength and elasticity to weather anything, because we loved each other. Somehow I'd lost sight of that over the summer. Louise and I had never apologized to each other, and we'd never clarified anything. We'd just acted like everything was chill in the group chat. But I'd assumed that the end of our relationship was the end of our love. What a thing to assume, despite everything the girls had shown me about love, and how it had so little to do with "relationships."

I took a deep breath. I felt my body opening up. My shoulders relaxed, my chest came forward, my hips realigned. Wordlessly, I obeyed the woman I loved. I walked around the room and began tending to Rachel's neck tension. Louise followed me with glossy eyes.

"Mm, lower," she said, after minute. "Get my shoulder blades, please."

I wanted to keep looking at Louise, but I had to pay attention to what I was doing. It's so easy to fuck up someone's neck if you go too hard or don't watch where you're pressing. Rachel relaxed into my rubs, prods, and circles. She moaned as I continued, and when I paused she whimpered.

Louise was running her hands over her thighs and knees, occasionally flexing her hips.

A year ago, I would have been holding up my X card. I would have been saying, "we need to think this through." "We need to check what everyone's comfort is." But after the pussy taste test in Grizzly last Thanksgiving it just seemed unnecessary. Whatever weird direction our group took, it would be okay.

I bent forward. Rachel's breath caught as my lips brushed her ear. "I seem to remember," I whispered, "that we mentioned an arrangement."

"Aw, I gotta pay up?" she asked.

"That's the arrangement."

"Fine," she said, "but only 'cause Louise asked me to stay, and is so deliciously horny."

I walked around the couch and plopped on the floor in front of Rachel, between her legs. I felt her knees and calves on my bare arms. They felt nice. Warm and reassuring. She leaned forward, put her hands on my shoulders.

"This would be easier without the tank top," she stated matter-of-factly.

Louise nodded fervently in her ethereal blouse.

I lifted my arms.

Rachel leaned further forward, spread her arms down my front, and grabbed my hem. She licked my ear as she retreated, bringing my top with her. Louise watched with that gaze she'd used on me during the taste test a year ago. She wasn't touching me—hell, she was across the room—but I felt her hands on me, pinning me in place. I knew I was wet, wetter than I'd been in half a year.

I was wearing a sports bra under my tank top, and Rachel dispatched it without comment. I saw something pass over Louise's face as she watched my tits bounce free, and I felt proud. I may not have been taking care of myself, but I wasn't actually a surfer dude. I was feminine beneath all the trappings, a woman whose body very occasionally excited the woman I loved.

Rachel was rougher with me than I'd been with either of them. She pounded my shoulders, thudding her palms and fists up and down the knotted places. I was very aware of my breasts bouncing as she handled me, and even more aware of Louise's slack-jawed stare.

"You've gotten hotter," she said, after drawing some saliva back into her mouth.

"You've gotten hornier," Rachel said.

"Mmm," I hummed.

"Can we," Louise breathed, "can we switch?"

"You and her?" Rachel asked. "Or you and me?"

"Us," Louise said, which I guess meant her and Rachel, because Rachel clambered over me. Louise took her spot, somehow shedding her jeans along the way. Her bare legs squeezed me. I shivered.

There was a rustling behind me, and Rachel whistled. Was Louise removing her shirt? Rachel always whistled when girls took off their shirts. It was common courtesy, she insisted. The rustling grew closer, and then I could see very little of anything. Louise was tying the wet material around my eyes. It was too thin to fully block the light, but it was plenty to blur my vision and deepen my physical sensations.

"Do you remember, Rachel," she started, speaking over me.

"Yeah," Rachel said.

There was a whiff of fresh air and then a clang. I gingerly extended a leg. The coffee table was gone.

"I hadn't finished speaking," Louise said.

"Sorry," said Rachel. "It's just, I do remember. I've thought about it every fucking day for a year."

"Same," said Louise.

"Same," I said.

One year ago, when we'd just gotten together, Rachel and Vivian had mentioned wanting another taste of me. Louise had offered to hold me down for them. The offer never went anywhere. Or, no. That's not right. The offer hadn't gone anywhere. Yet.

"Are we—"

My words were cut off as Louise wrapped her hand around my mouth. Her signature move. I was a simple girl. I went limp. Not needing to talk was such a relief. Louise's strength around me, her control. Her love, expressed in mild but total domination. She didn't need gags or ties to secure me. With just that one hand around my mouth, I was hers to do with as she pleased, and she knew it.

Rachel knelt between my legs. I lifted my butt just enough for her to slip off my shorts and panties. I spread my legs and presented myself.

With one hand still holding my mouth, Louise reached down and pinched my right nipple, hard. I moaned into her hand. I envisioned the scene from a year earlier: Vivian, Fumine, and Deedoss sitting on the couch next to me, having just had Rachel's tongue in their pussies. Me, dying of anticipation for something I had never thought I would want.

"Rachel," I tried to groan, but it came out muffled. Why wasn't she licking me yet?

"That didn't sound like 'Louise,'" mused Louise.

"I think I've been getting to her," Rachel said. I could hear the smug. "I think she was pretty close to fucking me a few times."

I didn't try to object, though how close I'd actually gotten was unclear. My need had been a flickering thing. Now it pulsed, strong and urgent. Louise's touch made everything possible, all the little things my body wasn't sure it wanted. I tried to say Rachel's name again.

"Do this for me, Rach," said Louise.

The game we'd played in Grizzly had had rules: no talking, no hands... This wasn't that game. Rachel's hands started just above my knees. I gasped. They worked their way up my thighs, caressing my skin in big motions to prepare it for more.

"You're being nice," Louise noted.

"I'm always nice," Rachel protested. Her voice was coming from right over my pussy. "You don't always want what I'm putting down, but that doesn't mean I'm not nice."

And then she licked me.

Her tongue was broad, wet, and soft, and it passed over my vulva with a steady motion that made my breath catch. The sensation was deepened by the blindfold. I sighed, and Rachel continued, tracing her tongue up one side of my lips then down the other in deliberate acclimatizing strokes.

"She tastes good," Rachel said.

"I know," said Louise.

"You did this?" Rachel asked.

"Once or twice." Louise's grip on my face tightened slightly. "We would pretend... that I was you, or Vivian... It was easier, being someone else."

"Being a slut?" asked Rachel in a sing-song voice.

"God yes," said Louise.

"I should get a reward," Rachel chortled. "My ace friends pretend to be me to make sex easier."

"This is your reward."

Rachel hummed happily and dove back into my pussy. She parted my lips with her tongue, at first, then used her fingers to keep them spread as she probed deeper, occasionally brushing upward to hit my clit. I trembled from the start, overwhelmed by the sensations and the intense energy in the room. We were finally doing the thing, and it was amazing.

When Rachel pushed two fingers into me, curling upward to hit my g-spot, I couldn't help myself. I bit Louise's hand, hard.

"Fuck," she moaned.

She scooted forward on the couch and held the back of my head against her crotch, still in her underwear by the feel of things. And then Rachel fucked me against her, each thrust into my pussy knocking my head against Louise. She held gamely onto me and began grinding between thrusts. Rachel shifted her tongue almost entirely to my clit. My face was wet, some combination of my tears and drool.

"You getting there?" Rachel murmured into my crotch.

"MMmmmMmm," I said, through Louise's hand.

"I've wanted this for so long," Rachel said. "Louise, can you get there like this?"

"I'm there," Louise panted, "oh, fuck, Rachel, I'm already—SHIRBY—FUCK—"

Rachel sucked my clit into her mouth and rubbed my g-spot frantically, and I writhed between my friends, and then I was coming, too, squeezing down hard on Rachel's fingers as the world shuddered in and out of existence. Louise's hand slid from my mouth, retreated to her crotch.

"Wow," Rachel said, drawing back from my pussy.

Still seeing stars, I twisted around to look at Louise. She'd stuck her hand, the one I'd bitten, the one I'd slobbered all over, the one that could control me, deep into her underwear. She was rubbing away furiously, eyes closed, squealing little squeals.

Rachel and I just watched her, dazed, I think. The sight of perfectly composed, immaculately dressed Louise losing her shit so bad she needed to keep losing it did something to me, and I grabbed Rachel's shirt.

"You're too dressed," I said.

"Oh," Louise gasped. "Oh. Shirby. Shirby, Rachel—" Her delicate chest heaved, her legs twitched. "Oh, fuck, you guys, you have to. You have toooo—"

She was coming, and still rubbing herself. Rachel hadn't moved to take anything off, and I just pinned her to the floor and pressed my lips to hers. I could taste myself on her, an admittedly pleasant tang. Mostly, though, I noticed Rachel's lips, lips that had smiled at me so many times, lips that had offered me so much. Soft, warm, ever-inviting.

"You're kissing the wrong girl," Rachel grinned, when I came up for air.

"There's no wrong girl," I said, and then I kissed her again.

She returned the kiss, purring happily into my mouth. Fuck, why hadn't we kissed two nights ago? Or on the plane? Or—I stopped.

"What's wrong?" Rachel said.

Louise was half-passed out on the couch, watching us through lidded eyes.

"I think I want you," I said.

Rachel chuckled. "Yeah, news flash, you've been wanting me."

"I wasn't sure," I said.

"I know."

Louise rolled off the couch, flopping onto the floor between us, and pulled us both into a big hug.

"I love you," she said, to me, to Rachel, to no one.

"I love you," I said, responding to her but locking eyes with Rachel.

Rachel didn't say anything for a moment.

"We all love each other," she said. "All six of us."

She stood abruptly and brushed off her knees.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"Need to use the bathroom," she said.

And then it was just me, and Louise, snuggling on the carpet.

"Rach is weird about love," Louise whispered. "Love love, you know?"

I nodded. I knew. It was a threat to her open door policy.

"Be patient with her," Louise said, suddenly more alert, looking me dead-on. "She needs you."

"Why me?" I asked.

"Because you're the one going home with her," she said.

"We live a twelve-hour drive apart."

"She'll visit, if you ask."

"Why are you saying this, Louise?"

She sighed and leaned back against the couch. "I feel so helpless here, Shirby. I can't do anything for you, for the group. I can't help Dee, I can't help V, I can't help Fumine. But you and Rachel—"

"We're friends," I said.

"So are we," she said.

The room was quiet. My head was quiet, too. I didn't know what I'd been expecting, but I felt calm. "Just friends?"

"Friends who love each other," she said, taking my hand in hers. "But nothing's changed. I have to be here, you have to be there."

"I'd stay here," I said. "If you wanted." It was true: I'd stay if she wanted. But it wasn't a plea this time.

"I don't want that, amour." Louise put her other hand on my face, caressing my cheek. I knew I was crying, though I couldn't hear or feel it. She was crying too. The tears were okay. "We're twenty-three. We have our whole lives ahead of us. I'll probably love you for a very long time, but we'll love other people, too. And with Rachel, maybe, you won't be miserable."

"But what about you?"

"I'm just happy you know I love you."

I couldn't take it anymore. I drew her into the tightest hug I could. We held each other, on the floor, crying, for what felt like a very long time.

"Is Rachel still in the bathroom?" I asked.

"I don't think so." Louise smirked, and I noticed the buzzing sound coming from one of the bedrooms.

"She shouldn't have to do that alone."

"I have to assume she wants to, right now," said Louise.

I began gathering my clothes. "What now?"

"Well," Louise said, following suit, "I think now we shower, and when Rachel's done fucking herself we can go get dinner on the town."

"And then?"

"And then bed, probably."

I thought of us each retreating to our own bedrooms. The thought felt wrong. "Can we sleep together?"

Louise smiled. "I'd like to."

"All three of us."

"Of course."

#

That night we had a slumber party. It wasn't sexual—I think the afternoon's events had squeezed me and Louise dry of what little drive we had—but it was romantic. We shared our dreams and fears, speaking with more intimacy and urgency than we did in the group chat. We held hands, giggled at each other's jokes, stroked each other's hair. We kissed each other at lights out, and we slept in a triple spoon configuration.

We spent the rest of the week doing tourist things, standing in lines and ogling artwork and eating strange foods. It rained about half the days we were there, and when a downpour caught us we would duck under the nearest awning and kiss each other. It was so easy, somehow.

And it must have been pretty obvious, because when we sent the group chat a selfie of us in front of Our Lady of Cauldron, Vivian immediately picked up on our body language and texted back, "so what have you three been up to?" Louise dissembled by saying "tourist things," and Vivian replied with "'tourist things'" in quotes and a GIF of three women taking turns kissing each other.

We didn't fuck again that week. Rachel needed it more than us, and took care of herself. We got to watch, once, but for the most part she kept it to herself. And that was fine. We all had our shit.

Louise took us to the airport when our stay was complete. She pulled Rachel aside just before security, gave her a big hug and a warm kiss, and said some things to her that weren't meant for my ears. I kept my distance.

Then she gave me the same treatment.

"I want you to know," she said softly, "that you were right to ask me to stay in Stewardland, and you were right to offer to stay here. It's never wrong to tell me what you want. I'm sorry I reacted poorly the first time, and I'm sorry the answer is still 'no,' but I am really glad you asked."

"Me too," I said, after a moment's consideration.

I couldn't have a life with Louise. It didn't make sense. But it was okay to want it. More than okay. I felt lucky that my heart had opened to her, that hers had opened to me, that we had taken our friendship to this point. I was grateful for the trip to Cauldron, for the chance to fuck her one more time, for all the ensuing warmth and clarity.

"I love you," I said.

"I love you so much," she said. "Thanks for taking a chance on a mean, sexually awkward Cauldronite."

I kissed her, hard, and then I walked away and got in line for the security check-in. When I was through, Rachel, who had been waiting on the other side, looped her arm into mine.

"You okay?" she asked.

"I think we just broke up," I said. "Properly, this time."

Rachel squeezed my arm against her side. "Does that mean you're available now?"

I stopped walking. Rachel made it a couple steps further, then turned to face me as our arms separated. She wasn't wearing her easy smile. Her cheeks were shimmering and her eyebrows were shifting and she was biting her lip.

"Why are you nervous?" I asked.

She chuckled. "Because I live twelve hours away from you and I'm not going to stop fucking whoever I want." That got some stares from passersby; we were not in a private place. "And because I want something I didn't think I'd ever want, and I don't know what you want, and—"

I stopped her with a kiss. I dropped my bags and threw my arms around her shoulders. She felt smaller than normal. Maybe she was doing the thing with her shoulders that I always did.

"I want," I said slowly, "for you to fuck whoever you want. That sounds perfect to me, actually, because I don't think I could keep up with you."

"What if you're one of the people I want to fuck?" she asked.

"Maybe we can come to an arrangement," I said.

She burst out laughing at the callback.

"You're crazy, Shirby." She shrugged away from my hug. "Get your shit, or we're gonna miss boarding."

Sitting next to Rachel on the plane this time was nice, not worrying about where things were going. Holding her hand didn't feel charged—just intimate. We nuzzled each other, and she kissed me a bunch, and it was all very, very nice.

Then it was back to Lady Solitude for one last night before Rachel returned to Springlet.