The bachelorette party had been tame. Her friends were not about to hire a male stripper, or male anything else. They got drunk, but not too drunk, because they wanted her sober and aware and ready for her wedding. They had plans. Other plans, to make their point about how they felt, about her, about her traditional ideas, about letting her go (love, annoyance, not without one last try). She didn't know what she had been expecting but she went home feeling both relieved and unfulfilled, the latter having been what they were going for. Arriving at the church, ready to change, into the dress, in to a new legal identity, in to a new sexual identity (not that she had ever really had a firm sexual identity before, she was comfortable with a certain level of ambiguity, which her friends had always derided and had ultimately concluded was at fault for where she was today), she was more anxious than relieved, and still wanting something from the night before. So when she saw them, her three best friends (who we will call Andrea, Beverly and Colleen to protect their true identities), waiting for her in the dressing room, ready to undress her, to dress her, to prepare her for the future, she was less anxious, more comfortable, more at ease, ready to put herself in their capable hands. Which she did, as they said not a word, Andrea unpacking the dress and the shoes and the veil, Beverly and Colleen undressing her, brushing her hair, their hands familiar, gently caressing as they worked, unafraid of her neck, her breasts, her thighs, her face. She was starting to find herself relieved, but slightly aroused, and therefore again, somewhat anxious. Still, there was no reason to be anxious, nothing had happened and yet, perhaps that was the source of her anxiety, that nothing had happened and here was Andrea, slender, dark, short-haired Andrea, standing in front of her with the dress, Beverly and Colleen, blond and red, turning her, helping her in to it, Andrea kneeling in front of her, sheer white stockings and blue garter belt in hand, and she notices, no underwear, rolling the first stocking, and then the second on to her legs, her head up under the dress, her hands, having reached the top of the second thigh, around the second thigh, and then around her ass, clutching, wonderfully, pulling her in, wonderfully, familiar tongue to familiar cunt, Beverly's mouth on the back of her neck, Colleen, flaming red, large-breasted Colleen, in front of her now, naked (when did she get naked?) standing over the kneeling Andrea, veil in hand, over the head, then lifting and kissing, as her husband would kiss her, Beverly's arms around her now from behind, cupping her otherwise naked breasts through the dress, nipples hard with excitement, anxiety, familiarity, relief, one tongue on her neck, one tongue on her clit, one tongue in her mouth, she is coming. It is all too much, this intrusion of the past on the present and future, this claim on her identity as they take her in her wedding dress, as her husband will take her later, only one, and different, she will not, cannot forget them, will be thinking of them as they stand with her to take her vows, will be thinking of them as her husband fucks her, because this is who she is, whatever tradition may tell her. She is theirs, whenever they want her, for the rest of their lives, forever.