Stronger

Tina looked out in the crowd. Dancing women everywhere. She had come to enjoy her new life. She was single, successful and extremely popular with both men and women. She wasn’t dating, she was hunting. Almost two years had passed since she had come out for the third time. Reentering the lesbian community had not been easy but her patience and fortitude had regained her, the respect that she had enjoyed first time out so to speak.

Her relationship with Bette still brought her moments of absolute frustration. She had come to find that her new and stronger self had had an impact on how Bette treated her which was sometimes confusing and most of the time extremely sexy. Bette had been a good friend to her when she had decided to move on from Henry and her being with Jodi had made their relationship stronger in many ways. She had found Bette more understanding and supportive than she thought possible. She had expected gloating and bitterness as the natural consequence of her once again acting out her sexual identity. She did not expect Bette to encourage her to enjoy her single status and at times Bette would even be suggesting partners to her.

Bette had also gone out of her way to ensuring that any sniggering and insulting comments had been stopped or at least muted when she was around. There was respect and sincere warmth, which was similar to how Bette had treated her when their relationship was still happy, but also there, was a feeling of equality that had been missing for a large part of their years together. Angelica was flourishing and tonight she and mamma B were spending quality time at home so that Tina could enjoy a night out.

Tina had found that her new lesbian self was quite different in many ways, the most obvious being her sexual preferences. Her time with Helena had given her the desire to be more assertive with the women she was with. She was experimenting more now. She liked pushing the boundaries of her own personality and that included her sexual personality. She wasn’t looking for anything permanent and therefore didn’t mind if her sexual partners had an equally casual attitude to where things should go after a night of orgasmic bliss.

Her main thrill was turning alphas. She enjoyed seducing them, lulling them in to thinking that they were the hunters and she would be their prey for the night, only to give them some of their own medicine back. She recognized, with the help of a good shrink, that it was a therapeutic process that would enable her to feel a new kind of autonomy and control over her life. And she was enjoying just that – control.

Taking a sip of her drink she saw Papi enter, they locked eyes for a short moment and then Papi moved on, her eyes on the floor. Papi had been her last victim and she sensed that the fact that she had kept Papi up all night begging for more until she begged Tina to stop had left Papi a little bit star struck and possibly a little bit insecure. She remembered the night with fondness but she knew it was a one off. She couldn’t see herself enjoying Papi’s company so much outside a bed and when she was being honest that was ultimately where her therapeutic sexual journey was supposed to lead her – into a new meaningful relationship.


Meanwhile at Bette’s house.

Bette had put Angelica to sleep and had just come of the internet chatting with Jodi.
It was over.

Jodi had taken a job in Mexico almost six months ago and as the intensity of the weekends they spend together down there had increased Bette had recognized the signs this time. They were saying goodbye.
They had been happy together for a good while but the fact that Jodi was a temporary partner had always been a part of their collective consciousness; it had kept it hot and it had kept it exciting and it had kept the emotional distance between them growing.

This evening they had agreed that Jodi would stay in Mexico for another six months and that when or if she returned it would be in the capacity of a friend. A sense of sadness had washed over Bette as she was sitting there thinking of what this meant.
She was free – or alone?

She thought about her life with Jodi and how freeing it had been. The love that Jodi had showered her with was of a kind Bette hadn’t known before and it had given her a new kind of energy – she felt relaxed and a peace. She knew that Jodi had diminished her emotional steel armour to a skimpy dress and that she was enjoying a lighter step because of it, but she also felt an immense amount of sadness that Tina wasn’t the benefactor of this new and improved edition of her.

She felt certain that had she only been able to be this new person to Tina, Tina would not have chosen to leave. She had however realised that the Tina she was cohabiting with in the last year of their marriage would never have inspired that kind of change in her.

But now she relished the looks that she ever so often caught Tina giving her. She knew that look because she had enjoyed it so many times before. It had however never filled her with such pride as it did now, because she felt that the look was given to her by a new woman- a stronger, more accomplished Tina than the one she fell in love with so many years ago. She felt pride because the look was one of wonder and surprise; being adored by Tina had been wonderful, but feeling Tina’s look of approval as she had witnessed her change was far more gratifying.

Tina, selflessly, had sent her begging for Jodi’s love at a time when Bette felt that Tina could have chosen to use her as a stepping stone on her way out of her relationship with Henry. They both knew without it ever having been spoken that Bette would have stayed for another emotional rollercoaster ride had Tina asked her. But she didn’t and that was, at least in Bette’s mind, why they had reached a higher ground together.
Tina had released her….. The trouble with that was that at this moment Bette felt like a boomerang that had just reached the point of return. She just really didn’t know if Tina would be there to catch her after all this time.

Bette had watched Tina venture back on to the gay scene, it had been a challenge to see her come in to her own, but Jodi had helped her to accept that the fact that Tina had gone back to women without going to her, was not a personal insult to Bette, but the first step for Tina on her new journey of self-discovery. And with that realisation in mind Bette had been able to become Tina’s friend and confidant.

Bette was rarely out when Tina was out because they both preferred that Angelica be with one of them in stead of a nanny. Bette also felt that her presence would sabotage Tina’s image as a free agent, seeing that they were still mistaken for lovers whenever they would hang out together with Angelica. They did however discuss some of Tina’s experiences which again had opened up a new dimension in their relationship, as Bette’s past as a predator on the WeHo meat market now could be used as a point of reference whenever they would talk about Tina’s dating life. Bette had always done her best to shield Tina from her past, but now they could freely speak of many of the things Tina used to wonder about without daring to ask. They had also spoken about the more technical aspects of their love life. The fact that there were so many things they hadn’t done together and the reasons behind that, had certainly given Bette some food for thought as to the reasons why they had stopped being intimate. It had also enabled her to explore new pastures with Jodi, something she felt had freed her in a way she didn’t really thought possible. She would miss Jodi and her touch for sure, but ultimately she didn’t feel able to take that relationship further, it simply wasn’t there – it being that feeling only one person thus far had seemed able to ignite. Would she be allowed to feel that way and have it be reciprocated ever again?
When she turned in that night it was a strange sense of hopefulness that slowed down her train of thought and released the tension in her body.


The next day Tina came over to Bette’s house to pick up Angelica. She had called Bette earlier just to say when she would pick her up and they had agreed that Tina would be there for an early Sunday dinner. A mercy meal as Bette had called it seeing that Tina was slightly rusty when they spoke on the phone.
They had enjoyed their family time and each others company and it wasn’t until Tina and Angelica were getting ready to leave that Bette casually asked her if she would mind if they got a sitter for the following Friday as she would like for Tina to show her the ropes on the gay scene. Tina was caught of guard and had a hard time processing what that would include. One thing was to see Bette with Jodi, another was to see her with a hoard of lustful women surrounding her with no weeding ring on to repel them with. She had composed herself and agreed as enthusiastically as she could, but she was not sure if she quite knew whether or not this was the best or the worst idea she had heard for quite some time.


Friday night came quicker than either of them had expected and when Tina met up with the gang at the Planet she found herself feeling quite giddy and nervous. She ordered herself an extremely large cocktail but that too went surprisingly fast. When she got back to their table with her second mega cocktail she looked over to the door and there she was, the most beautiful and sexy looking brunette anyone could imagine and all Tina could think was ‘I gotta have her’. With the fake courage from the first cocktail she locked eyes with the brown haired stunner, formerly know as her alpha-wife and to her surprise she saw nervousness and trepidation. Bette the former predator had just realised that she had indeed become the prey.