Page 69 of Minha Dona

“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.

Caitlin turned to Isabella. “She has a lot of threesomes, does she?” There was a twinkle in her eye that told Helena she was highly amused.

“Oh, all the time,” Isabella joked. “Sometimes more. Much more. You heard about her and the soccer team at our school prom?” She shook her head in mock wonder. “Eleven of them plus the substitutes…”

“Isa!” Helena cut in. She turned to Caitlin and could feel her cheeks burning. “She’s joking. There was no soccer team.”

“Am I?” Isabella was laughing.

“Look, I’m just impressed is all,” Caitlin replied, straight-faced. “Did they take turns or…?”

Helena put her head in her hands. “Not you too.” She looked up when she felt the reassuring weight of Caitlin’s hand on her knee. “Look, if you must know… and Isa fully knows this… I went to the prom on my own and I left on my own. I was dating an older woman at the time and I couldn’t exactly invite her.” Helena looked at Isabella. “Happy now?”

“Deeply.”

And, to be fair to Isabella, Helena knew exactly what Isabella was doing and loved her friend all the more for it despite her mortifying embarrassment… Isabella was going all out in her efforts to make Caitlin feel welcome and part of their friendship, and what better way to break the ice than to tell Caitlin a story like the couple one, the sort of scandalous gossip they’d traded in for years.

Helena took a sip of her drink and settled into her seat… this was going well. Even if she ended up losing a bit of her mystique in front of Caitlin to make that happen, it was worth it.

Time to get her own back though.

“Caitlin, why don’t you ask Isa about the ice skater?”

Isabella’s mouth dropped open and it was her turn to give Helena a look that could kill.

Caitlin was laughing again. “Oh, you have to tell me. Who was the ice skater?”

***

It turned into an excellent dinner. Once Helena had got her revenge on Isabella the conversation settled down, and Isabella asked Caitlin a lot about Houston and what life was like there. Isabella knew Houston a little by virtue of a guy she’d been seeing a while back who worked in the oil industry and often had to visit Texas, so they had some common ground.

The topics flowed from there and Helena couldn’t have been happier… Isabella was being the perfect best friend, and there seemed to be a genuine rapport opening up between them.

Towards the end of the meal, Caitlin excused herself to use the rest room.

Switching into Portuguese, Helena waited until she was out of sight then asked, “What do you think?”

Isabella toyed with her wine glass for a moment, then grinned. “She’s perfect, isn’t she?”

Helena felt herself blush even as she smiled. “I think so.”

“All I’m wondering is why you waited all those months to go get her. If I met someone like that, I’d be on the first plane back there.”