“She’s not serious. Am I supposed to fuck you right here?”

“I think it will help.” Tina says as her anxiety increases. If nothing else perhaps Bette could help her relax.

Tina is naked under her hospital gown, her knees are bent and her feet are placed firmly in the stirrups at the edge of the bed. Bette is highly offended by Dr. Wilson’s blatant suggestion but with Tina’s urging she begrudgingly starts to perform oral sex on her wife. After a few minutes Bette stops the oral stimulation. She raises her head above the gown and rests her chin on one of Tina’s raised knees. She laughs nervously as she’s blabbering. “This is just too weird for me. I … I mean … I just … you know. I really … I find it incredibly inappropriate that she even suggested it. You know … I mean I bet she would never do that with a straight couple.”

Tina indulges the rambling from her alpha partner for a few minutes then she motions with a slight nod of her head and a look which Bette understood to mean “stop rambling and continue what you’ve started”. Bette re-positions herself between Tina’s legs and just as she gets back to the task at hand there is a knock at the door. Tina is clearly frustrated but Bette almost looked relieved. Bette brought her head up from under Tina’s gown once again, wiped her mouth and said “come in” loudly enough to be heard through the closed door.

When the doctor entered, she spoke directly to Bette with just a cursory glance at Tina. “Can you come here for a minute” gesturing towards the door.

Bette followed Dr. Wilson out of the examination room after giving Tina a reassuring pat and kiss on the knee. As Tina awaited Bette and Dr. Wilson’s return, she tried not to think about why Dr. Wilson asked Bette to step out of the room, and why she was excluded from the conversation. Instead Tina allowed her mind to drift to an LA Magazine article that Alice had shared with her and the girls that morning.

According to the article, renowned therapist Dan Foxworthy was quoted as saying “…that in a lesbian relationship, a kind of symbiosis can develop. It especially happens between two women who are doing the work of making a serious commitment to one another.” He said “when that merging occurs, the intense mutual dependency can be a deterrent to sexual intimacy”. No doubt this scenario would be fodder for Alice’s inquisition on couples who had the “urge to merge” as she put it.