Chapter 12 #3
“Zoe could give me intensity. Technique. The dungeon weekend, the New York party, the full lifestyle. She was an expert at dominance.” Caitlin looked at Helena.
“What she couldn’t give me was room to breathe.
Room to be Caitlin… the partner, the force of nature, the woman who orders wine because she knows wine, alongside being her submissive.
With Zoe, the submissive had to swallow the rest of me.
With you…” She paused, her fingers on the necklace.
“With you, for that week the submissive lived alongside everything else. You never asked me to choose between who I was and who I was with you. You made space for both.”
“That’s because both of them are you,” Helena said quietly. “They were never in competition.”
“I know that now. It took Zoe to teach me, though. Four months including the restart of learning what I didn’t want so I could understand what I did.” Caitlin drained her glass. “I’ve been single since. Two months now. Focused on work, on settling into partnership, on being myself again.”
Single since. Helena tried desperately not to let her elation at the confirmation of that show… it doesn’t mean she wants to not be single with me, she reminded herself.
Caitlin had paused and was looking at Helena with an expression that was all of a sudden lighter, as if she’d unburdened herself of a great weight. Helena realised that she’d probably never told anyone else more than fragments of what she’d just told her.
“Now it’s your turn… and I’m hoping your past nine months haven’t been as much of a rollercoaster as mine.
” Caitlin grinned and Helena joined her.
“You told me about Juliana earlier, but you held something back. I could tell.” She tilted her head.
“What’s really been going on with you? Be honest with me the way I’ve been honest with you. ”
Helena nodded her head slowly. Caitlin was right, of course she was. Earlier had been the headline and, given what Caitlin had just told her, skipped over a lot of territory. She owed Caitlin the same candour that she’d given.
“Juliana, it really is casual. Friends with benefits but, I guess, not entirely conventional…”
Caitlin laughed. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
Helena grinned back. “She’s a couple of years younger than me, twenty-three.
She’s my sister Mariana’s closest friend.
I’ve known her for years. So… about three or four months ago she came to me and said she’d heard about some of the d/s things I was into.
God knows how, I’ve always been careful to keep that away from my family and friends as much as possible, but I suppose things leak out eventually.
“She’d been growing interested in the scene, she thought she might be dominant, and she wanted me to teach her. So I did.”
“Kind of like her mentor?”
“I guess so. My condition, and you’ll appreciate this if you remember how I think about it all, was that she learns both sides. She started as my submissive, learning what it was like to be on that side, then gradually I let her do more and more to dominate, building up her confidence.”
Caitlin’s eyebrows rose. “You switch? You let her dominate you?” Helena knew that to Caitlin she’d always been a dominant figure, despite their brief switch that last night in Houston, so her surprise was understandable.
“I do. She’s become very good at it, actually.
” Helena smiled fondly. “In recent weeks she’s become genuinely dominant.
I’ve enjoyed seeing her grow but… we’re casual, and while I’m enjoying being her casual submissive that’s not long term.
” She thought for a moment. “It’s been valuable for both of us.
She’s getting what she wanted, skill, understanding, experience.
And I’m getting something I need, which is someone I can let go with occasionally. ”
“That’s… healthier than I expected, honestly. I remember you saying that sometimes, rarely, you need to let go.”
Helena smiled again. “Sometimes. Not often, but yes. The thing with Juliana is she isn’t intense, she’s fun and playful.
We care about each other but there’s no drama or possessiveness.
We know what we are and we’re both comfortable with it.
” Helena paused, then added before she could stop herself.
“But she’s not you, Caitlin. Nobody has been you. ”
She’d meant to hold that back, to be more careful, but Caitlin’s honesty had drawn it from her… the simple truth that she’d been comparing everyone to Caitlin for months and everyone had come up short, even Juliana.
Caitlin’s expression changed, her eyes narrowing. I really hope I didn’t just blow this, Helena thought.
“I want to ask you something,” Caitlin said quietly.
“Anything.”
“Do you think about me?”
Helena smiled. “Every day.” This wasn’t the moment to be coy. “You?”
“Same.” Caitlin reached her fingers to touch the necklace. “It’s hard to forget with this.”
“I noticed at the reception. I noticed in your new headshot too.”
Caitlin looked down, her hand on the pendant. “I’ve worn it every day since you gave it to me. Every single day.”
“Even with Zoe?”
“Even with Zoe. She asked about it once, where I got it. I told her it was a gift from someone important.” Caitlin looked up.
“She wanted me to take it off. It was the one thing I wouldn’t do.
When everything else was going out of my control, when my world was getting smaller, the necklace stayed.
Nothing could have made me take it off.”
Helena felt her pulse surge. “I’m glad you kept it,” she managed to say.
“I couldn’t not. It’s you. It reminds me of a magical week, not to mention what real surrender feels like. Not a cage. An open door.”
They sat in silence for a long few moments, the weight of everything they said there between them. The bar had mostly emptied around them without Helena noticing… it was late, getting on for midnight, and the few remaining patrons were paying their tabs.
Helena looked at Caitlin. She looked at this woman who’d been through therapy and exploration, a Sarah, an Alex, a Zoe twice, and was sat here nine months later still wearing the necklace that Helena had bought her, still touching it like a talisman, still using Helena as her reference point for what surrender should feel like.
Helena’s subconscious made a decision that her conscious mind hadn’t quite caught up to yet.
“Sit up straight,” she said.
She said it quietly, gently even, but very, very deliberate.
Caitlin’s reaction was immediate and visceral. Her breath caught audibly, her eyes widened, and Helena saw her lips part.
“Sit up straight, Gatinha.”
The word detonated between them. Gatinha. Nine months since anyone had called Caitlin that. Nine months since that word had been said by the only person who had the right to say it.
Helena watched Caitlin’s face and saw the conflict. She could read every step of it.
Shock: being commanded in public in a hotel bar.
Recognition: the part of Caitlin that heard Helena’s voice and remembered responding to it beneath conscious thought.
Resistance: two months of reassessing and rebuilding herself after Zoe.
And desire: raw, desperate, the desire to obey, to surrender, to be Helena’s Gatinha again.
The moment stretched on. Two seconds. Three. Ten.
Caitlin straightened her back.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
Her shoulders went back. Her chin lifted. Her hands moved to rest in her lap.
She looked at Helena and her eyes were bright, fierce, stripped of every pretence.
“Good,” Helena said, a smile playing at her lips, trying not to let on that this was everything she’d wanted for months and more.
“I missed that,” Caitlin whispered. “God, Helena, I missed that. I missed you saying that. I missed how it felt.”
“I missed saying it. I missed you.”
“Not just the dynamic. You.”
“I know. You too. Not just the dynamic. You.”
They looked at each other across the low table in the near-empty bar, the Miami night dark outside the windows, the air between them charged with everything they’d said and everything they hadn’t.
“Your room,” Caitlin said. It wasn’t a question.
Helena held her gaze. “Are you sure? After everything you’ve just told me. After Zoe. I need you to be sure.”
“I’ve never been more sure of anything.” Caitlin’s voice was quiet but absolute. “Nine months, Helena. Nine months of figuring out what I want. And what I want is you. What I’ve always wanted is you.”
Helena stood.
“Come with me.”