"No," he whispered. "I wouldn’t have, and I am sorry."

Looking contrite, he turned to Tina. "I think I should go."

"Now just wait a minute!" Tina said with her hands on her hips. "In case you have forgotten Bette, this is my house too! And, you told me to explore my feelings for men, which is exactly what I am doing, in my own house!!!"

"Exploring?" Henry asked. "This is just an exploration?"

Ignoring Henry, Bette and Tina were locked into a stare, neither one wanting to be the first to look away. "Oh, forgive me Tina, I forgot, your name is on the Deed to the house. I put it there out of the goodness of my heart, because I loved you and thought we would spend our lives together. How silly of me!"

Finally disengaging from her stare down with Tina, Bette turned to Henry. "Let me tell you a little something Henry, just so you know what you are getting into. Tina’s right, her name is on the Deed to this house. However, she is not on the mortgage. Do you understand what that means.

Henry’s eyes widened in surprise at hearing that.

"That’s right Henry, it means that Tina owns half this house, but is not responsible for paying for it. Since the mortgage is only in my name, I am the one responsible."

"But, that is how you wanted it!" Tina said in her own defense.

"I wanted it that way Tina, because when you moved in with me, I wanted to give you the world, not saddle you with dept. I wanted you to live a comfortable life, and have all the things you had ever wanted, so I didn’t want you to have to use any of your income for something as dreary as a mortgage."

Standing up straighter, placing one hand on her hip, she raised her eyebrow. "Which brings us to the question Tina, what exactly did happen to all that money you made while we were together?"

"What do you mean?" Tina asked as she could feel sweat prickling in her scalp.

"Well, let’s think about this shall we? We lived together here for what, seven out of the eight years we were together?"

"Yes," Tina answered weakly.

"And for six of those seven years you were the Head of Development at Alphaville. Isn’t that right?"

"Yes," Tina whispered, knowing where this was going, and not knowing how to stop it. She snuck a peak at Henry, and felt dread when she saw how keenly he was listening to Bette.

"Now, I know that your salary increased throughout the years, but let’s just use what you were making when you moved in here, okay?" Not waiting for an answer Bette moved forward. She was on a roll now, and didn’t want to stop.

"So, when we met, you were making $120,000.00 a year." She put her finger up to her chin in contemplation.

"Let’s see, $120,000.00 a year, times six years, is $720,000.00. Now, I know that is gross income, so let’s say your net per year was what Tina?" Bette calculated in her head. "Oh, let’s use $75,000.00 as your NET income. Sound about right Tina?"

Tina could only nod as she watched her world spinning out of control.

"So let’s see Henry, $75,000.00 annually is..." You could almost hear the calculator in Bette’s head working it’s magic. "That’s right, $6,250.00 net income per month, every month...for six years. That I believe adds up to about $450,000.00 Tina has spent during our time together. That of course doesn’t include the money I spent on things like vacations, our retirement portfolio, emergency savings account and so on."

Shaking her curls, Bette stared at Tina again. "So Tina, I will ask again, what happened to ALL that money?"

"What do you mean?" Tina burst out, not knowing what else to say, and trying to BUY some time.

"Well Tina, when you moved out the first time, you complained that you were totally and completely broke. You had no money whatsoever, even though you were taking money pretty regularly out of our joint checking account." Bette stopped and looked over at Henry.

"You see Henry, I always believed Tina and I to be married, just like any straight couple. So, I put Tina’s name on ALL my accounts. Her name is on everything I own, whether it is an asset from our time together, or an asset I earned before we met. She is on everything. And, I can promise you that there is none of that $450,000.00 in any of our accounts."

Bette raised her eyebrows and smirked at Henry. "Now that is a woman who can spend some money, wouldn’t you agree Henry?"

Henry could practically see the money flying out of his pocket and into Tina’s hands.

"Bette stop it!" Tina complained.

"Well Tina, I am just telling Henry the truth."

"God Tina, did you really spend that much money? On what?" He asked incredulously.

"I didn’t spend it all!!" Tina burst out, not thinking about what she was saying, just trying to defend herself in front of these two.

"Oh really? And, pray tell, where is all that money then."

Knowing she had let the cat out of the bag, Tina lowered her head, and whispered. "I saved it."

Surprised, and deeply hurt, Bette whispered back. "You saved it?"

"Yes."