Charlotte thinks about Melody.

With her hand in her panties, Charlotte found her mind wandering. Usually, she had a laser-focus: get the orgasm and get out. At her best, she had managed to make herself cum three times in only five minutes. That particular evening had been achieved thanks to a memory of a crazed drunken foursome back in her senior year of college.

But tonight, she was thinking about other things, even as she stroked her clit in tight circles. She was thinking about how this bachelorette cruise was the last time that she and her friends would be really together like this for a long time-- because after Melody got married, everything was going to change. Her best friend would disappear to some godforsaken Midwest state to live with her in-laws. Charlotte wouldn't see her again for a very long time, if Melody ever came back to visit New York at all.

For one, that was something Charlotte didn't like because she was going to miss her best friend.

But for another, it was something Charlotte didn't like for a very different reason. Melody was Charlotte's golden goose, her white whale.

Charlotte had been with close to a hundred people over her life, most of them since she and Melody had started to share a room during their college days. Nearly everyone that Charlotte wanted, she got. She had been with so many different people, men and women, younger than her and older, from all walks of life. She had sampled every kind of person the world had to offer. Except one.

That one was her best friend, Melody Zhang.