“I just want to know what the hell you’re doing! Have you had a fucking lobotomy?”

Helena’s eyes registered shock as Bette stormed through her house, rearranging furniture for no apparent reason and generally throwing things around.

“All right, you know, I think I’m going to leave,” Helena held out her hands in a defensive gesture as she walked toward the front door.

Bette stood still for a moment, breathing heavily, anger written all over her face. Everything was going wrong. Helena was supposed to have spent the last two weeks getting her life together—extracting herself from Catherine’s clutches, and finding her own source of income.  Instead, Helena left Bette alone in bed early one morning to go back to the luxuries of her life as a ‘kept woman’. This, after Helena had professed her love for Bette, and after Bette had done the same.  Bette felt betrayed, as though Helena’s slide back into wasteful opulence was a personal attack on her somehow.

Helena seemed to read Bette’s mind and stopped just as she reached the door. She turned on her heel and regarded Bette thoughtfully.

“You know, Bette, it is quite possible that I am fucking up my life for reasons which have nothing to do with you.” Helena’s calm thoughtfulness was the last straw—Bette hurled a mug across the room, breaking it against the wall. She sank to her knees. Her head was heavy with anger and frustration and she rested it on the floor as Helena walked out.

***

 Bette lay among Jodi’s art, staring mesmerized at hanging rusted chains.  Jodi was on her way to New York, away from Bette, seemingly out of her life. Tina and Helena and all of Bette’s friends were at a fucking concert—some music that Bette couldn’t stand. Tina would probably go home with that pretentious director. God only knew where Helena was going.

“Fuck!” Bette swore softly—even after hours, her sense of decorum kicked in around her workplace. She sat up straight, running her fingers over her temples.

***

“Hmmmm, just like that.” Helena rotated her hips gently, urging the woman laying between her legs. She reached down and pushed the dark haired beauty gently away before pulling her upward for a searing kiss. Karen was the woman’s name.  She was gorgeous and utterly boring.