Page 33 of Minha Dona

“I did, but it wasn’t clean.” Caitlin took a drink. “I left. I was done, I was certain. And then four days later Zoe showed up at my house, unannounced. She’d been crying, she looked awful, and she told me that she’d been thinking about everything I’d said and that she was willing to try. To pull back, to give me space, to find a version of the dynamic that worked for both of us.”

“She must have had strong feelings for you.”

Caitlin nodded. “And me her, I have to be honest. I hadn’t felt like that after breaking up with someone since high school. And when she came to my house… you have to understand, Zoe was infuriating and suffocating, but she was also the most magnetically sexual person I’d ever been in a room with. I couldn’t resist her. I didn’t want to resist her. I wanted to believe she could change.”

Helena said nothing. She understood, she’d been on both sides of the same thing with partners before. She’d read somewhere that on average it takes a woman seven attempts to break up with a partner, and while that sounded a little on the high side there was a kernel of truth to it… the pull of someone whose body your body responds to, the way physical chemistry could override every rational objection. It was real.

“We tried again. Two weeks we lasted. She genuinely attempted to pull back, fewer check-ins, no comments about my plans, an effort to be less controlling. And in the bedroom it was as extraordinary as it had always been.” Caitlin paused. “But you could feel the effort. Zoe was fighting her own nature every day, trying to be someone she wasn’t because I’d asked her to, and it was making both of us miserable. Everything but the physical side was awkward and tense. It was wrong.”

“How did it end the second time?”

“Quietly. We sat on her couch one evening and both of us knew. She said, ‘I can’t be who you need me to be.’ I said, ‘I know.’ We held each other for a long time and then I left.” Caitlin’s voice was steady. “It was sadder than the first ending, because the first time I was angry, I had momentum, I could tell myself she was the problem. The second time I knew it wasn’t about fault. She wanted a full-time submissive. I wanted to be a full-time person who happened to submit. Neither of us was wrong. We were just wrong for each other.”

Caitlin had clearly spent a lot of time thinking about this. Not a villain and a victim. Just two people whose true needs were genuinely incompatible, who’d tried twice because the desire was real, and who’d had the maturity, eventually, to let each other go.

“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?”