In her overwhelming desire to please, Bette barely felt three of Tina’s fingers that found their way into her until they touched her g-spot. She gasped then let out a loud moan as her ***** overtook her body at the same time Tina came again. The power of each woman’s ***** fueled the other’s *****, and it seemed to Bette that the intensity of their orgasms were in synch and caused them to last longer. When Bette finally pulled away from Tina, she was gasping for air and seeing more stars than were in the night sky. She withdrew her fingers from Tina as Tina removed her own fingers and pulled Bette into an embrace. She could feel both her heart and Tina’s heart pounding rapidly and felt Tina’s hard breathing on her neck.

After several minutes, Bette pulled back from Tina and felt the water settling into a calm ripple. She looked into Tina’s eyes and whispered, “So, what were you saying about being tired and me being out of my mind?” Bette noticed the desirous look in Tina’s eyes as she heard Tina exclaim, “Baby, you can be out of your mind anytime around my tired *****!!”

Hearing the echo of Tina’s words made Bette smile a little as that memory of that night flooded her senses. Her smile quickly faded when she heard the patio door open behind her.

“Bette?”

“What the ***** do you want?” Bette asked without turning around. Whatever joy she felt from her memory of happier times with Tina was replaced with anger at the sound of Tina’s voice.

“I will be moving out tomorrow.”

“Do the ***** what you want!”  Bette’s body remained rigid. She could not turn and face Tina. She was afraid that looking at Tina would cause her to fly into a rage.

“I will! I will be taking some of the furniture with me.” Bette could hear the hurt and anger in Tina’s voice.

Bette shrugged. “Take whatever you want. I don’t care.”  Bette did care but replaying the memory of Tina dancing in Helena‘s arms caused her pride to take over.

“Rest assured none of it will be yours.”

As Bette heard the door slam, she felt a sharp pain in her heart. Bette closed her eyes. Now, she felt stone cold sober. In less than a 24-hour period, she started the day with such hope of having Tina back and ended it with such despair and anger over losing Tina. With regret and sadness, Bette asked herself, ‘is it really over?’ From an emotional dawning, she realized that Tina was moving on by starting a new relationship with Helena and did so, right in front of her and their friends.   

Bette looked down at her hands resting in her lap. She noticed her commitment ring on her left hand. The white and yellow gold band once symbolized a seven-year relationship of oneness filled with strength, fortitude and fidelity. Now, that same seven-year relationship just disintegrated into nothing. She knew she was the instigator of its unraveling but was angry that she could not redeem herself with Tina. She spun the ring on her finger as she realized that what she and Tina had no longer existed. She kept spinning the ring until it spun off into her right hand. In her desolate emotional state, the ring looked to Bette like a piece of metal, cold and impersonal.

She looked out at the water in the pool. It was still. No ripple. On impulse, Bette threw the ring into the pool. She watched as the ring hit the surface causing a circle of water to violently part around it before the ring sunk below the surface. She looked at the tiny bubbles then the small ripples left by the submersion of the ring.  Soon the water was still again.  She sat back in the lounger and thought about where the ring was. It was stripped of its owner’s warmth and comfort as she was stripped of her life partner’s warmth and comfort. She felt bare. She put her head in her hands and wept at the realization that she just sunk everything that she once treasured.