A Strong Independent Woman

Please note that while firmly a lesbian story, this contains significant elements of surrender and submission...

The townhouse was filled with the sound of conversation and laughter, the guests happy that Friday was here and the weekend stretched ahead, the warm glow of the host's assortment of period lamps casting shadows across the ornate Victorian features. Caitlin sipped her gin and tonic, surveying the gathering with the same analytical eye that she applied to a client's financial reports in her role as a strategy consultant.

Six months into her senior consultant position and on the fast track to partner while still in her twenties, her life was panning out just as she'd planned since her Cambridge days. Everything in Caitlin's life proceeded according to schedule and under her control, everything... professional, personal, all of it.

She maintained control, established boundaries, and never deviated from her carefully constructed path. Woe betide anyone who got in her way.

Single as she had been for most of her professional life, she didn't really mind... most men couldn't cope with a strong, fiercely independent woman like her. Those who tried to fight fire with fire were soon cast to one side, while those who were willing to take a more subservient role in a relationship didn't last much longer.

Fiercely loyal to her friends, she would go to the ends of the earth and back for them... but it took a lot for someone to earn that epithet.

"There you are!" Emma, her university friend and the party's host, appeared at her elbow. "Come and meet Virginie... she's just arrived from Paris. I've told you about her, remember? My friend from my year in France?"

Caitlin did remember. Emma's stories about Virginie, Emma's fellow student turned academic, had always seemed rather exaggerated, tales of a woman who lived entirely by her own rules, who commanded rooms without effort, who had both men and women falling at her feet. Caitlin had always found these stories ridiculous, the product of Emma's tendency toward dramatic embellishment, and felt something approaching pity for the men and women in the stories if they were really true.

"Of course," Caitlin said with a cool smile, allowing herself to be led through the crowded living room.

She spotted Virginie before Emma could point her out... it would have been impossible not to. The Frenchwoman stood by the fireplace, gesturing animatedly as she spoke to an enraptured small group. A similar age to Caitlin and Emma, her dark, almost black hair cascaded down her back, catching the firelight with each movement. She wore a simple black dress that somehow looked anything but simple on her tall, toned, elegantly curved frame.

"Virginie," Emma called, "this is Caitlin, my friend from university I mentioned."

When Virginie turned, Caitlin felt an unexpected jolt. The Frenchwoman's eyes, deep brown with flecks of amber, seemed to see right through her professional composure and her face... she wasn't just beautiful, she was beautiful in a way that you rarely encountered. Even as someone who had never had any interest in women, Caitlin could understand why many would be attracted to Virginie.

"Ah, the brilliant consultant," Virginie said, her accent strong. She extended her hand, but instead of the expected handshake, she clasped Caitlin's fingers and held them a moment longer than social convention dictated. "Emma tells me you're quite the force of nature in your work."

Caitlin withdrew her hand with deliberate casualness. "I work hard," she replied, her tone clipped and professional. "Success isn't particularly mysterious."

"Is that so?" Virginie smiled slightly in amusement. "Then perhaps you can explain why so many who work equally hard fail to achieve what you have."

"Better strategy. Clearer focus," Caitlin countered, irritated by the implied challenge. "And a refusal to be distracted by... irrelevancies."

"And what do you consider irrelevant, I wonder?" Virginie asked, her gaze too perceptive for comfort.

Before Caitlin could respond, Emma was called away by another guest, leaving the two women alone. The departure of her buffer left Caitlin momentarily wrong-footed, but she recovered quickly.

"I've heard quite a bit about you," Caitlin said, deciding to seize the initiative. "Emma seems to think you're something of a free spirit."

Virginie laughed... a rich, genuine sound that drew glances from nearby guests. "That's a polite English way of saying what, exactly?"

"That you enjoy... experimentation," Caitlin said, arching an eyebrow. "Particularly in your personal relationships."

"While you prefer control," Virginie observed, unruffled by the implied criticism. "In all aspects of your life, I imagine. How exhausting that must be."

"Not at all," Caitlin retorted. "I find it efficient. Effective."

"And satisfying?" Virginie challenged, her voice dropping slightly. "Does your efficiency leave room for satisfaction, Caitlin?"

Caitlin felt a flash of anger at the presumption. "I don't require advice on my personal fulfilment, thank you. Particularly not from someone who..."

"Who what?" Virginie interrupted calmly, stepping closer. "Who lives authentically? Who recognises that power and surrender are two sides of the same coin?"

"Who mistakes impulse for authenticity," Caitlin finished, holding her ground despite Virginie's proximity. "Control isn't a limitation. It's a strength."

For the next hour, they circled each other verbally... matching wits, challenging assumptions, neither willing to cede ground. With each exchange, Caitlin found herself simultaneously irritated and exhilarated. It had been years since anyone had matched her so effortlessly, had pushed back against her assertions with such confidence. She realised, with surprise, that she was enjoying being challenged so much more than usual.

"You're smiling," Virginie observed after a particularly sharp exchange about corporate ethics. "You enjoy the battle."

"I enjoy being right," Caitlin countered, though she couldn't deny the unexpected rush of pleasure she felt in their sparring.

"You enjoy the engagement," Virginie corrected. "The push and pull." She paused, then said, "The tension."

Something in her tone made Caitlin's body react, her heart beating a little faster. "You make it sound rather suggestive."

"All meaningful encounters are suggestive of something deeper," Virginie said, her gaze unwavering. "The question is whether we have the courage to explore what lies beneath the surface."

As the evening progressed, they migrated from the main room to a quieter alcove where bookshelves lined the walls. Virginie moved with confidence, selecting a bottle of wine from Emma's collection.

"Do you always help yourself to other people's belongings?" Caitlin asked pointedly.

"Emma and I have an understanding," Virginie replied, unperturbed. "Some friendships transcend ordinary boundaries." She poured two glasses without asking if Caitlin wanted one. "Much like our conversation tonight."

"We're hardly friends," Caitlin said, but accepted the glass nonetheless.

"Not friends, no," Virginie agreed. "Something far more interesting."

"Opponents?" Caitlin suggested with a sardonic smile.

"Dance partners," Virginie corrected, stepping closer. "Moving together, even in opposition."

Caitlin forced herself to stand her ground, though some instinct urged her to step back from the sudden intensity between them. "I don't dance to anyone else's choreography."

"Don't you?" Virginie asked softly. "Then why are you still here, engaged in this conversation, when you could easily have re-joined the main party?"

The question struck uncomfortably close to thoughts Caitlin had been avoiding. Why had she allowed this conversation to continue? Why did she feel simultaneously compelled to challenge and impress this woman she'd just met?

"Perhaps I find your presumption amusing," Caitlin said, her voice not quite as steady as she would have liked.

Virginie smiled, not a polite social smile but something wilder, more knowing. "Perhaps you find it compelling. Perhaps you wonder what it would be like to surrender that iron control, just once, with someone strong enough to match you."

"I don't surrender," Caitlin said sharply, the wine glass suddenly unsteady in her hand.

"Everyone surrenders to something, Caitlin," Virginie said, taking the glass from her and setting it aside. "The question is whether you choose your surrender or whether it chooses you."

"That's absurd," Caitlin said, but her voice had lost its certainty. "I've never..."

"You've never met someone who sees through your carefully constructed façade," Virginie completed the thought. "Someone who recognises the fire you keep hidden beneath all that control."

Virginie reached out and tucked a strand of Caitlin's light brown hair behind her ear, her fingers lingering against Caitlin's cheek. The touch was as light as a feather but sent an electric current racing down Caitlin's spine.

Caitlin jerked back, her heart hammering against her ribs. "What are you doing?"

"Testing a theory," Virginie said calmly. "Your mind is always working, analysing, calculating. But your body... your body knows what it wants before your mind will admit it."

"You're being ridiculous," Caitlin said, but her voice caught, betraying her inner thoughts.

"Am I?" Virginie asked, stepping forward again, crossing the distance that Caitlin had created. "Then why are you trembling?"

"I'm not..." Caitlin began, but the lie died on her lips as Virginie's hand came to rest lightly on her waist.

"You can continue to fight this," Virginie said softly. "You can maintain the fiction that you're unmoved, uninterested. Or you can acknowledge what's happening between us and discover where it leads."

The rational part of Caitlin's brain, the part that had guided her through degrees and promotions and careful yet short-lived relationships, signalled frantically that this was the moment to reassert control, to put this presumptuous woman firmly in her place. Instead, she found herself frozen on the spot, caught between conflicting impulses.

"I don't do this," she said weakly. "I'm not interested in women. I never have been."

"Perhaps not," Virginie acknowledged. "Or perhaps you've never permitted yourself to explore the possibility. The question is whether you're brave enough to find out."

Caitlin felt as though she were standing on the edge of a precipice, looking down into depths she had never allowed herself to contemplate. Every instinct for self-preservation urged her to step back, to retreat to familiar ground. Yet something else, something new and undeniable, kept her rooted in place.

"I'm not easily led," she warned, her final attempt at resistance.

Virginie's smile deepened. "I would be disappointed if you were."

For a long, long moment they stood regarding each other, Virginie looking confident and certain, Caitlin looking uncharacteristically unsure of herself, her cheeks flushed. The tension between them was palpable.

Then Virginie spoke, her voice gentle but firm. "Come upstairs with me."

It wasn't a question, but neither was it a demand... it was an invitation, offered with absolute confidence. For Caitlin, it represented everything she had systematically removed from her life... spontaneity, risk, surrender.

"Why would I do that?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Because you want to discover what exists beyond the boundaries you've drawn for yourself," Virginie said simply. "Because for once in your life, you want to know what it feels like to let someone else take the lead."

Caitlin stood balanced on the knife-edge of decision, her carefully constructed certainties crumbling around her. Then, with a sense of stepping off a precipice, she made her choice.

"Yes," she said, a single syllable that somehow felt like both defeat and victory all rolled up into one.

Virginie held out her hand. "Follow me," she said.

And Caitlin, for perhaps the first time in her adult life, followed without calculation, without analysis, guided only by the unfamiliar but undeniable certainty that she wanted... no, needed... to discover what lay beyond the boundaries she had drawn for herself.

The third floor of Emma's townhouse was quieter, the sounds of the party reduced to a distant murmur.

Caitlin caught sight of herself in a mirror as she walked down the landing and was almost surprised to see that it was her looking back... the same tall, slim figure, the same smart, figure hugging dress and high heels, the same strawberry blonde hair cut to shoulder length, the same attractive, friendly, even cute as she'd been told several times, face that had taken so many men by surprise when they'd discovered the controlled, fiercely independent woman beneath.

Virginie led Caitlin to the end of the corridor, where a door stood partially open. Warm light spilled out onto the hallway's polished wooden floor.

"Emma let me stay in her spare room for the last week," Virginie explained, pushing the door fully open. "I fly back to Nice tomorrow."

Caitlin hesitated at the threshold, her mind racing. What was she doing here? Following a virtual stranger to a bedroom at a party? This wasn't like her, wasn't anything like the carefully controlled life she had constructed.

"Second thoughts?" Virginie asked, her voice carrying no judgment, merely curiosity.

"I should go back downstairs," Caitlin said uncertainly, but making no move to leave.

Virginie stepped into the room, leaving the choice to follow entirely up to Caitlin. "You are free to do as you wish. That's the irony you haven't yet grasped... true surrender begins with complete freedom."

The paradox in Virginie's words tugged at Caitlin's intellectual curiosity, pulling her forward into the room despite her reservations. She had always prided herself on her logical mind, her ability to dissect complex problems. Perhaps she could approach this as an intellectual exercise, understand this woman's philosophy, then return to the comfortable certainties of her own life.

The bedroom was simply furnished but transformed by Virginie's presence. A silk scarf draped over the bedside lamp cast the room in amber light. A bottle of perfume and several books were arranged on the dresser. A leather jacket hung over the back of a chair.

"You've made yourself at home," Caitlin observed, remaining near the door.

"I inhabit spaces completely," Virginie corrected, moving to stand by the window. "Another thing you might learn to do."

Caitlin bristled at the implied criticism. "I'm perfectly capable of inhabiting my own life, thank you."

"Are you? Or do you merely administer it?" Virginie turned to face her fully. "There's a difference between living a life and managing one."

"That's presumptuous," Caitlin said sharply. "You know nothing about my life."

"I know what I see," Virginie replied. "A woman of extraordinary capability who holds herself so tightly she can barely breathe."

Caitlin crossed her arms defensively. "And I see someone who confuses impulsivity with authenticity."

Virginie smiled, seemingly pleased rather than offended by Caitlin's retort. "Good. Hold your ground. Challenge me. I would expect nothing less."

She gestured to the small sitting area by the window, a pair of wing backed chairs with a small table between them. "Sit with me." She paused and smiled slightly. "Unless you're afraid of where a simple conversation might lead."

The transparent challenge worked exactly as intended. Caitlin moved forward and took one of the chairs, her posture rigid with tension. "I'm not afraid of a conversation."

"Of course not," Virginie agreed, taking the opposite chair, sitting in a much more relaxed pose than Caitlin. "You excel at verbal fencing. It's the unspoken that unnerves you."

In the amber light, Virginie's features seemed both softer and more intense. Her dark eyes never wavered from Caitlin's face, studying her with an interest that felt both clinical and intimate.

"Tell me something true about yourself," Virginie said suddenly. "Something you rarely share."

Caitlin let out a short laugh. "I hardly think..."

"Don't think," Virginie interrupted gently. "For once, just respond. Tell me something true."

Perhaps it was the unexpectedness of the request, or the intensity of Virginie's gaze, but Caitlin found herself answering before she could construct her usual careful response.

"I'm lonely," she said, then immediately wished she could recall the words. They hung in the air between them, more revealing than she had intended.

Virginie nodded, neither rushing to fill the silence nor offering platitudes. "Even when surrounded by people who admire you." She paused. "No man is ever enough for you, never worthy of you."

"Yes," Caitlin admitted, then with a spark of her usual defiance, added, "Though I don't see how that's relevant to anything."

"It's relevant because it's true," Virginie said simply. "And truth is the foundation of what happens between us."

"Nothing is happening between us," Caitlin countered quickly, yet even to her own ears, the protest sounded hollow.

Virginie leaned forward slightly. "Remove your shoes."

Caitlin blinked, caught off guard by the abrupt command. "I beg your pardon?"

"Your shoes," Virginie repeated calmly. "Remove them."

"Why would I..."

"Because I asked you to," Virginie said, her voice still gentle but carrying an unmistakable note of authority. "Because you came up here curious about what it would feel like to relinquish control, even momentarily. This is how we begin, with something small, something simple."

Caitlin stared at her, torn between indignation and an inexplicable urge to comply. "This is absurd."

"Is it?" Virginie's expression remained serene, patient. "Then you lose nothing by humouring me. And if it's not absurd, if there's something here worth exploring, then you gain insight you've never allowed yourself before."

The rational arguments Caitlin might have marshalled seemed to dissolve before they could fully form, her usually analytical brain addled by this presence before her. She found herself reaching down, removing her heels, and placing them neatly beside the chair. The plush carpet felt soft beneath her stockinged feet.

"Good," Virginie said, and the simple approval sent an unexpected shiver of pleasure through Caitlin. "Now, close your eyes."

"I don't think..."

"That's precisely the point," Virginie interjected. "You think constantly. You analyse. You calculate. For a few moments, I'm asking you to experience instead."

Caitlin hesitated, then slowly closed her eyes, feeling strangely vulnerable without her visual defences.

"Keep them closed," Virginie instructed. Caitlin heard movement, felt the subtle shift in the air that indicated Virginie had stood and was now moving around the room.

"What do you hear?" Virginie asked, her voice coming from somewhere behind Caitlin's chair.

Caitlin concentrated, becoming aware of sounds she had filtered out before, the distant bass line of music from downstairs, the occasional burst of laughter, the soft tick of a clock somewhere in the room.

"The party," she answered. "A clock. Your breathing."

"And what do you feel?"

The question seemed to open something in Caitlin's awareness. She felt the texture of the chair beneath her fingers, the slight chill of the room against her bare arms, and something else... an electric awareness of Virginie's presence behind her.

"I feel..." she began, then faltered, unused to articulating physical sensations without analysis.

"Honestly," Virginie encouraged, her voice closer now, just behind Caitlin's right shoulder.