The Night the Three of Us Stopped Pretending

The veterinary clinic was called MILANO, and almost no one in the village knew that the name did not refer to the bird that flew over the northern slopes, but to the first two letters of each of its owners’ names: MI from Miranda, LA from Lázaro and NO from Nora. Three childhood friends who, once they finished veterinary school, decided to join their names into one, playing on the most typical bird of prey in that mountainous area to baptize the business they had dreamed of since they were children.

Miri, Laro and Nori, as they called one another, were all three just twenty-eight. They had been born in the same month and had been neighbors since before they learned to walk. Their parents were inseparable, and they watched the children grow up, fight, laugh and dream, almost always behind Nora, who from a very young age had been the boldest, the funniest and the most shameless of the three.

As children they bathed naked in the river without the slightest shame, fantasizing about being boyfriend and girlfriend one day. But around the age of twelve, when desire began to awaken in them, a new kind of embarrassment appeared, a distance that had not existed before. Lázaro was the first to notice himself excluded at certain moments, to feel that the two girls were avoiding him with a complicity he did not understand. Their affection remained intact; what changed was the confidence to name what they felt.

They studied in Zaragoza, sharing a small flat with three bedrooms and separate bathrooms that the mothers took care to arrange so the girls would have their privacy. Four years living together without a single disagreement, studying together, cleaning together, competing only at racing video games, where Nora almost always won. When they finished, each took a different path, but they decided to keep sharing the flat so as not to separate just yet.

And then, only a few days after Lázaro finished his final courses, his parents died almost at the same time: his mother from a chronic illness that suddenly worsened, his father from a massive heart attack in the hospital after learning she was gone. Miranda and Nora, as expected, did not leave him alone for a second.

***

The funeral, on a Thursday at the end of April, drew a huge crowd. His parents owned the neighborhood’s small supermarket and half the village came to say goodbye. After six o’clock, with all condolences gratefully received, Lázaro wanted to go to the house that, until that morning, had been theirs. Nora made it clear to both families:

—We’re staying with him tonight. We’re not leaving him alone with his grief.

As soon as they crossed the threshold, Lázaro sank into the living-room sofa and burst into uncontrollable tears. His two friends sat one on each side of him, hugged him, and kissed his cheeks with a tenderness that needed no words. After a long few minutes, he managed to calm down.

—Just when we had to start separating our lives, I lose my parents —he murmured—. You were all I had left. Please don’t leave me so soon.

—Don’t be an idiot —Miranda told him with a soft kiss—. Tomorrow I’ll ask for vacation and stay with you for a month, or however long it takes.

—I’m not going back to Zaragoza —Nora added, glancing sideways at her friend—. I’m still planning to open the clinic here. And your parents’ premises are in the perfect spot for it. The three of us could run it.

—There could be no better tribute to your parents than keeping their place open, with their son inside —Miranda said, a little self-conscious—. I’ve dreamed too of having a business the three of us share, here in this village.

—Fuck, girl, you’re amazing! —Nora exclaimed—. Of course that would be bloody brilliant. Right, Laro? You wouldn’t have to go anywhere, or take civil service exams, or be alone. You’d stay with your two loves, the blonde and the brunette.

Something changed in Lázaro’s face. His head was bowed, but he lifted his eyes and fixed them on Nora with a determination neither of the two had ever seen in him.

—I think it’s time to say what I’ve never dared to say —he let out—. Nothing would be more wonderful than the three of us staying together. And at last I can confess to you, Nora, that I love you, that I’ve been in love with you for years. Will you marry me?

A huge silence fell. Nora looked at Miranda, and tears began sliding down Miranda’s cheeks before she could stop them. Then Nora opened Pandora’s box.

—Laro, you know I love you a ton, you’re like my brother. But I can’t give you any hope, because I don’t love you the way you love me. And though it may hurt you, besides being shy and cowardly, you’re a bit of an idiot: you’ve got the wrong girl.

Lázaro looked at her in utter dismay, bewildered. Miranda, beside him, had turned red as a poppy, because she knew her friend and knew she was going to say everything without a filter.

—I can’t stand Miranda suffering because of you —Nora went on, her voice breaking—. I’ve known it for a long time. You could never hide the fact that you felt a kind of fascination for me, and I understand it: to you I’m everything you’re not. But deep down I’m the same as you, cowardly and timid. And that’s why I never dared to say mine.

She paused. Lázaro held his breath.

—Miranda has been in love with you for years. She’s confessed it to me a hundred times. To her you’re the most handsome and tender man in the world, and every time she’s touched herself thinking of someone, she’s been thinking of you.

—And I had to put up with her, smiling like an idiot, holding back the urge to kiss her! —Nora exploded, and now the tears were pouring down her face—. Without daring to tell her that she turns me on too, that I also masturbate alone, but thinking of her, not you, Laro. Because the one I adore, the one I’m crazy in love with, is Miranda.

She broke down crying and covered her face, ashamed. Lázaro and Miranda looked at each other, and without saying a word they knew what they had to do.

He was a big man, almost six foot three, with black hair and blue eyes. He lifted her in his arms with surprising gentleness and set her down on the sofa between them, and the two of them began kissing the cheeks of that petite blonde with green eyes, until the bold Nora slowly began to calm down. When she finally looked up, she flashed a crooked smile.

—Honestly, Laro, you’re an idiot. Miranda is taller than me, she has brown hair that turns reddish in the sun, she’s infinitely prettier, smarter, more sensitive. And on top of that she’s fucking gorgeous. She’s got tits that keep you up at night and an ass you’d want to bite. Have you really never noticed her?

Miranda turned even redder, and Lázaro let out a nervous laugh.

—Damn, Nora, how did you hide this for so many years? Of course I’ve noticed Miranda, she’s spectacular. But I was in love with you, and I would never have made a move on her without first telling you what I felt.

—Well, you just told Miranda you’d bite that huge ass of hers —Nora replied, malicious despite the tears—. If mine turned her red, now she’s going to explode.

Miranda took a deep breath and, from the quietest of the three, took the lead.

—Let’s leave the misery aside and face the future together. I’m shocked by all this, I’m not going to lie, especially knowing that my best friend likes me, when we’ve stripped naked so many times without imagining what she thought. But it also turned me on to know. And even more when Laro said he’d do the same.

She stood up and began speaking from her feet, determined.

—We’ve just turned twenty-eight, we’re going to set up a business among the three of us, we love each other all three. And unless I’m mistaken, I think we’re all sick of keeping our desire bottled up. If Nora agrees, we could finally be happy. Right now I’d like the two of you to eat my ass, and then we eat hers.

—Well, sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not a virgin —Nora laughed, wiping her face—. I’ve got a collection of dildos with which I lost my virtue a long time ago. But I’m with you: sick of not using what I’ve got.

—And you, sweet soul? —Miranda asked Lázaro, emboldened—. Are you making your debut tonight with your two lifelong friends?

—I never imagined this in my wildest dreams. I’d marry the two of you if you let me —he said, head down—. But first I have to confess something. I’m not a virgin either.

The two women stared at him, mouths open.

—Do you remember the professor, Adela Brunet?

—Well, fuck! —Nora sat up, amused—. You’re not about to tell us you fucked such a woman? When? How?

—It was her —Lázaro explained, flustered—. She called me to her office to help her carry a heavy piece of furniture to the car; she said I was the strongest of her students. One weekend when you were both in the village. She asked me to go with her to unload it at her house, near the beach. And once the furniture was in place, she told me she was getting comfortable. Getting comfortable meant getting naked in front of me and asking whether I didn’t feel like fucking her.

—And what did you do? —Miranda didn’t blink.

—I told her I was a virgin, and she went wild. I spent the whole weekend at her house. Truth is, I loved it, I’m not going to lie. And that went on for four years, until six months ago. She herself encouraged me to declare myself to Nora, told me I could make the two of you happy. She taught me... well, she taught me a lot of things.

—This guy is fucking incredible! —Nora exclaimed, fascinated—. You’ll disappoint me if that’s not true about the formidable cock you say she praised. Come on, show it to us.

—But Nora, how am I supposed to pull it out just like that, out of curiosity? —he protested, fearful—. I might disappoint you; it’s nothing special.

—What’s not right is leaving us wondering —Miranda backed her up—. Come on, Lázaro. If it’s like you say, tonight you’ll finally get your dream: fucking Nora, her fooling around with me, and me being yours at last.

—Don’t you realize today is the saddest day of my life? —he said, almost in tears again—. I’ve just lost my parents, and in their house...

—My mother encouraged me many times to tell you what I felt —Miranda interrupted gently—. Your parents were convinced you were involved with the two of us, and they were proud of it. Don’t you think that if you want us tonight with everything you’ve got, it would be a way of honoring them? I’m sure that if they could see us, they’d be happy for their Lázaro.

—My mother used to say the same —Nora added, softer—. That our relationship was unusual, but we shouldn’t lose something so beautiful. Maybe this is the only way for the three of us to get the love we’ve been hiding for years.

—Come on, Laro, show it to us already, for fuck’s sake! —Nora cut in, completely unrestrained now, starting to undress without the slightest shame—. And you, Miri, strip, because this shy guy needs to be provoked the way Brunet used to do it.

Miranda took off even her panties and sat on the sofa completely naked, and Nora copied her at top speed. Offering themselves both without reserve to their childhood friend, Lázaro, a little self-conscious, finally pulled down his pants and revealed his erection pointing at the ceiling. The two of them looked at it with curiosity, and also with some disappointment, because it was a normal cock, nothing exceptional, just as he had warned.

—Well, I don’t know what Brunet saw that was so formidable —Miranda laughed—. It’s hard and pretty, but nothing to write home about either.

—I told you —he replied, finishing undressing—. But according to her, where I’m really good is in stamina, in staying power, in how fast I recover, and in the brutal amount of semen I shoot compared to the size. And, above all, in the art of eating a cunt until it’s ready to come. Spread your legs; I’m going to prove it to you.

He knelt on the rug between the two of them and began caressing their thighs, slowly sliding his hands upward from inside until he brushed their sex. First Miranda, then Nora, he gave them a soft kiss on the lips, drawing from them separate sighs that soon turned into ever filthier moans. While he alternated his tongue between the two with skill they hadn’t expected, they ended up kissing each other’s mouths between gasps, until they both came at the same time in a tremendous, simultaneous orgasm.

They convulsed in each other’s arms, not only from pleasure, but from the release of so many years of fear and silence. When they recovered, they looked at each other with a mischievous smile and threw themselves on him. They knocked him onto his back on the rug; Nora sat astride his face and Miranda over his pelvis. He began licking the hairless sex of the blonde he adored while letting Miranda ride him, taking him all the way in, faster and faster, while the two women kissed desperately on top of him.

Another almost simultaneous climax arrived, and Lázaro was still hard as at the beginning. They switched positions so he could attend to both equally, and again they came while he endured as if he had just started. Recovering for the umpteenth time, Miranda licked her lips.

—Damn, then Brunet was right. You last like a champion. Now we’re going to check out the quantity. We’re going to give you a two-handed blowjob you’ll never forget.

The two of them knelt on either side of his cock and took turns with astonishing dedication. Lázaro stroked their heads, almost out of breath.

—I think I’ve always been in love with both of you —he confessed—. I’d like to marry you, even if we have to invent a legal way to do it...

—Shut up and concentrate! —Miranda interrupted him before going back to work.

A few minutes later, when he warned he was close, Nora began stroking his balls and Miranda doubled her effort. He came for so long, and so much, that Miranda couldn’t swallow it all and ended up with some on her face, in her hair, on her breasts. She gathered the streams with her finger and sucked them like a delicacy, and Nora, curious, copied the gesture.

—Well, it’s not bad at all —Nora said, tasting it—. Salty and strong. I think I could get used to it.

Between the two of them they cleaned up the rest, but the semen on Miranda’s breasts Nora gathered directly with her tongue, in long licks that made Miranda moan and, incidentally, revived Lázaro’s cock. The brunette didn’t hesitate: in one leap she mounted him again and rode him like a madwoman, while the blonde ate her nipples.

After an endless gallop, Miranda had the strongest orgasm of the night and collapsed limp on the rug. Nora took her place without thinking, with her back to him, pinching her nipples and howling with pleasure. When she felt her womb begin to receive his heat, instead of pulling away she clung to Lázaro’s calves so as not to separate even a millimeter, until she fell back against his chest. He held her, his hands on her belly.

—I think your mother’s advice has gone to hell —Miranda smiled—. If he’s shot even half of what we’ve swallowed, you’re definitely pregnant.

—Well, as soon as he recovers, it’s your turn —Nora said, still panting—. I want to share the pregnancy with you, walking the two of us through this village clinging to Lázaro’s arms, showing off our bellies. Let no one ever doubt what we are again. From today on we’re a marriage of three, like it or not.

—Legally, the three of us still can’t get married —Miranda reasoned—. But we can sign a private document, acknowledge that what belongs to one belongs to the three of us, and that any child, even if registered in Lázaro’s name and the mother’s, has the other as guardian. I looked into it a while ago, just in case.

—Then make that rifle come back to life and let him shoot a couple of rounds into you too —Nora laughed—. You don’t know how happy you’ve made me by confessing you always wanted me to be part of your life with him. I love you, guys. The three of us are going to be more than happy.

—Don’t hold back on my account, Miri —Lázaro said, all fired up, already recovering—. I love what Nora said: walking around with one of you on each arm, both of you pregnant, and in a few months pushing two prams. Let the whole village mutter whatever it wants. We’ll know what we are.