“I hear a touch of sarcasm in your voice, Suzanne.”  Bette arched an eyebrow daring Suzanne to deny it.

“Not my intention.  Just trying to hear what you’re saying.  Bette, you talk about control as if it were this entity that makes choices on your behalf.”

“It feels that way lately,” she said wearily.  Bette reflexively rubbed her left shoulder.  A tension headache was making its presence known.  She squeezed her shoulder while Suzanne continued her thought. 

“This creature called control tells you that you have to be the decision maker at work and everyone must come to your way of thinking; later at home, the creature tells you that you must be the dominant one in your relationship—intellectually, perhaps emotionally, but definitely physically.  You’re older than Tina, more experienced in ***** relationships than she.  In many ways, Tina admired and looked up to you because of the worldliness that you possessed.  That control must have felt powerful?”

Bette simply listened without answering.

“On one hand, you blame yourself for the failings in your relationship, while on the other, you’re telling me that you had no choice in your decisions.  Bette, spend a few minutes and think about it.  Did you maintain control and choose to act on your attraction for Candace, did you relinquish control, or was it something you truly had no choice in?”  Suzanne emphasized each part of the question by tapping the forefinger of her left hand against her smallest finger on the right. 

Bette cocked her head, but was unable to answer.  Choice had been more abstract to her until that moment.  She had been unfaithful to Tina and had made some bad decisions, but in her heart, she felt that there had been this presence that had pushed her along.  Her rationale for the past six weeks and those days leading up to her betrayal had been that it was really beyond her.  The whole time she was in the situation with Candace, she regretted it.  Even when she was going down on Candace, when she was pushing the carpenter’s fingers against her, opening herself up, so that Candace could go deep inside of her, when she felt their tongues swirling against each other, she regretted it and wanted to stop.  That’s what she had wanted to believe.