Chapter 25
They’d finally slept around one in the morning and Tuesday’s alarm came much too soon for Helena. She forced herself out of bed though and, once she’d checked to make sure there was no surprise jewellery that Caitlin had slipped on to her during the night, she somehow got herself to work on time.
The day itself was mercifully quiet… they had a client presentation on the Wednesday, but Helena had never been a last-minute sort of woman and the work was done.
Instead of work, though, her day was punctuated by messages from two of her favourite people in the world: Caitlin on the one hand, giving updates on her day (she’d slept until gone midday, which made Helena irrationally jealous, before using Helena’s gym, and was spending the afternoon in and next to the pool that was part of Helena’s building), and Isabella who, it seemed, needed to know literally everything about Caitlin before meeting her that evening and was thoroughly enjoying winding Helena up while she did so.
What’s her job title? x
Helena shook her head in irritation. Twenty minutes since the last message and she’d hoped that Isabella had finally stopped. Apparently not.
Partner. You don’t need to know that.
Isabella wasn’t taking the unsubtle hint though.
Isabella: Yes, I do. This is the woman you’ve spent months lusting over. I need to be ready for everything x
Helena: I wasn’t lusting over her.
Isabella: Lusting, pining, all the same thing. I’m excited Helena, your presumably rich older woman coming to meet poor old me x
Helena: I don’t think you count as poor. You do a job in fashion that I still don’t understand and somehow can afford your own house at our age x
Isabella: ok ok so not rich, just older x
Helena: She’s only a few years older than us.
Isabella: Is she beautiful?
Helena: You saw her photo!!! You said she was hot x
Isabella: Sure, but is she beautiful? Is she going to turn me lesbian? x
Helena: leave me alone xx
Isabella: NEVER!! Remind me… you’re her dominatrix and she’s your slave, right? Do I need to give her any commands or will she know how to behave herself? x
Helena: Isa… please xx
Isabella: I want to get it right. Do I need to use a special tone of voice with her so that she knows I’m not your slave too? x
Helena: Just, she’s my girlfriend. Nothing else. Treat her like that.
Isabella: GIRLFRIEND?!? That’s huge, since when? x
…and so on. If there’d been much work to do Helena would never have managed it. But, in truth, Isabella’s excitement was infectious. Helena wanted her to meet Caitlin, to get to know her, to bring Caitlin more into her world.
The evening couldn’t come fast enough.
***
“Normally I’d ask for your number, but I seem to already have you saved under Minha Dona…”
Helena turned to see a grinning Caitlin walking up the sidewalk towards her.
They hugged briefly but nothing more… both women understood the need to be cautious lest they be seen by a colleague on the street, unlikely as that was in the teeming metropolis that formed S?o Paulo.
At the beach house they’d be able to be openly together, but not until then. She leaned back and took Caitlin in.
“That’s a bad line,” Helena said after a moment, “but you look amazing.” Helena looked her up and down again, taking in the dress, the heels, the hair and makeup, not to mention that necklace.
But… there was something else, something more to Caitlin that evening.
“You’re… glowing, I guess. Being on holiday suits you. ”
Caitlin pursed her lips and blushed a little. “Last night might have something to do with it too.” She lowered her voice to a whisper and leaned in closer. “I lost count after number seven…”
Helena simply grinned back at her. “I counted nine or ten in the end…”
“Nine or ten…” Caitlin was shaking her head in wonder. “I’ve spent the day recovering. It’s a miracle I can even walk. What are you doing to me?”
Helena laughed. “Come on, it’s a five-minute walk from here and Isabella will be there already.”
They fell in to step next to each other. “We’re equals tonight, right?” Caitlin asked after a moment.
“Yeah.”
“All night?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.” She leaned closer and lowered her voice again. “Because, Helena, I’ve got a surprise for you under this dress, I’ve had a whole day alone with my imagination, and when we get home I am going to focus everything on making you feel exceedingly good.”
Helena glanced at her. “Exceedingly good?”
Caitlin grinned and nodded. “Exceedingly. You like the sound of that?”
“Sounds terrible,” Helena joked, her own grin matching Caitlin’s. “But how am I supposed to get through dinner knowing I’ve got that waiting for me?”
Caitlin shrugged. “That’s entirely your problem.”
***
Isabella was already at the restaurant when they arrived, sat on the banquette in their booth and positioned, Helena strongly suspected, so that she could see them the moment they came through the door.
“Helena!” She found herself wrapped in a tight hug by Isabella the moment they reached the table, even though it had only been a little over a week since they last saw each other.
“You’re looking great. We’ve got so much to talk about,” she said in Portuguese.
Isabella broke the hug and looked at Caitlin, who was standing patiently next to them.
“Aren’t you going to introduce me?” she asked, switching to English and flashing a conspiratorial smile in Caitlin’s direction.
“Isa… meet Caitlin. Caitlin, Isa.”
Isabella wrapped Caitlin up in a hug just as tight and familiar as the hug she’d given her and she couldn’t help smiling to herself when she saw Caitlin tighten up instinctively for a moment before she returned it properly.
Americans always think they’re the most open, tactile people in the world… until they come to Brazil, she thought.
“Come, sit.” Isabella was waving her hands vaguely at the table. “I ordered us drinks, they should be here in a minute.”
Isabella slid back onto her side of the table. Caitlin and Helena took the opposite banquette.
“I love the decor,” Caitlin said, looking around the room. “You’ve been here before?”
“It’s one of our favourites,” Helena replied. Modern Brazilian food with a wicked cocktail list and a vibe that got rowdier as the hour got later, she’d had more than a few nights there where dinner turned into drinks and more.
“We’ve had some good nights here,” Isabella added with a wink in Caitlin’s direction.
“You definitely can’t just leave it at that…” Caitlin replied. She was glancing between the two women, clearly hunting for some gossip and thrilled that Isabella was starting off on that tack.
Isabella laughed and looked at Helena. “Have you told her the story about the couple yet?”
Helena shot daggers back at Isabella with her eyes, and Caitlin saw. She started laughing. “She hasn’t,” Caitlin answered for Helena. “And judging by Helena’s reaction you’ve got my attention now.”
Isabella grinned back at Caitlin. “What?” Isabella said to Helena. “It’s my job to make sure that your new girlfriend knows the real you?”
“Isa… Caitlin doesn’t need to know about that.”
“Oh, I absolutely do.” Caitlin took Helena’s hand under the table and gave it a reassuring squeeze, which was nice but didn’t do anything to assuage the gnawing feeling of dread… this wasn’t a story that Helena necessarily wanted Caitlin to hear just yet. “Isa… tell me.”
Just then the drinks arrived, cocktails for each of them, and there was an amused silence that accompanied it. Helena suddenly feeling very exposed, Caitlin with an air of happy anticipation, Isabella practically bouncing in her seat in her excitement to tell the story.
When the waiter had gone, Isabella launched into it. “It was about seven or eight months ago…”
“Eleven,” Helena interrupted. “When matters.” She turned to Caitlin. “It was just before I came to Houston on my secondment.”
“Eleven then. So this place turns into a club later on at weekends, and a group of us had come for dinner and stayed. There was a married couple at the table next to us on their date night, and we’d been talking to them a bit as the night wore on…”
“You’d been talking to them. The rest of us had been letting them get on with their date.”
“Pah.” Isabella waved her hand dismissively and grinned again at Caitlin, who was listening intently. “Details don’t matter.”
“Yes they do.”
“Are you going to let me tell the story?”
“No. I’d rather you didn’t.”
Isabella shrugged. “You want to hear it?” she asked Caitlin, who nodded enthusiastically, albeit with another squeeze of Helena’s hand. “Good. So…”
And Isabella launched into the story properly while Helena cringed.
She wanted to kick Isabella under the table but stopped herself.
Caitlin’s smile grew broader and broader as Isabella told her about how the wife in the couple approached Helena on the dance floor late on and propositioned her, how Helena thought she was joking until she went with her to the bar and got talking to the husband, and how she ended up leaving with them.
“A threesome?” Caitlin interrupted to ask Helena, incredulous.
Helena squirmed in her seat. “You could call it that I guess… but… Isa why did you have to bring this up?”
“Because it’s a great story.”
“It was more…” Helena hesitated. The truth was it ended up more of a hookup with each of them in turn and was nowhere near her own list of top ten nights.
The husband had watched while Helena and the wife had sex in their hotel room, then vice versa.
It had been more about them than Helena, she’d realised halfway through, but it had been fun regardless.
“Yeah, a threesome.” Keep it simple, she thought.
Helena shrugged, trying to act as if it was no big deal, like it happened all the time.
Actually though that had been the only time she’d tried it, and it didn’t leave her wanting more.
She loved the intensity of one person, not the competing attention of more than one.
As a one-off, though, she was glad she’d tried it.