She opened her eyes and she could hear the television set going full blast and she sat up, grinning a bit idiotically at the others. Lily was watching the western movie with enormous eyes and the twins were lying on the floor, their heads propped up with cushions. Lennie and Carol were sitting at the kitchen table and they seemed to be talking business. The western faded from the screen and a pretty girl began talking about suntan lotion and Lily turned to look at Norma. She smiled at her and then she tried to wake up so that she could talk with Lily.
"You must have had a wild dream," Lily said. "You were squirming and moaning. We thought we should wake you, but Carol said to let you sleep. You were probably dreaming."
"I was," Norma said. She wrinkled her forehead and she struggled to recall some of the details of her dream but she could not. She put her feet on the floor and then she tried to stand. Her knees were shaking and her legs were weak. She could feel a sudden wetness that was between her legs and she knew that she had drenched herself. She often did that if she dreamed about sexual things. She had difficulty dealing with sex and its pleasures when she was awake, but experience had taught her that she did fine when she slept.
She could feel aches and pains in her loins and in her body openings and she wondered why that should be. She had never felt anything like that before.
The others watched her as she began walking toward the bathroom and she could see that Lily was concerned about her. She wished that Lily would not worry about her and she wished too, that she could tell Lily what she was like, but she wasn't at all sure that she knew herself.
It was almost time for her to help Carol with their dinner but Carol told her to take a hot bath and soak in the tub for a while.
"You probably got stiff from sleeping on the couch," Carol said.
"Soak in a hot tub and you will feel ever so much better. I will get Lily to help me with dinner. You just relax and take it easy. Come back to us when you feel better."
Carol was in the bedroom with her and she watched Carol go off to work at preparing food for everybody. Then she went into the bathroom and began running a tub full of hot water.
She sat in the soothing water for a long time and she tried to remember some of the things that she must have dreamed. She knew that her dream had to have sexual overtones, or actions and activities that could arouse her to the state of copious concupiscence she had arrived at. Perhaps she had dreamed of Adam Wright and the sweet ecstasies that she had known with him. Thinking about Adam was extremely pleasurable and she hated to stop doing it but it dawned on her after a long while, that her water had grown cold and her aches and pains had disappeared. She stood up and then she began toweling herself dry and she spent a lot of time fixing her face.
When she joined the others at the dinner table she was feeling fine and she knew that she looked exceptionally pretty and desirable. She wondered if Adam would get to see how pretty she looked when she met him again at the old carriage house. She hoped he'd notice.
Lennie wanted her to work with him and Carol in the library and he wanted to sort of go, over the things that they had catalogued and evaluated, things that he had not yet disposed of, but would in the next few days.
She had some more lists for Adam after spending a few hours with Lennie and Carol. She could see, too, now that she knew what they were really like, that there was not much to like about either of them. Carol was very pretty, of course, but she was not very well educated or talented in any way. But, then Norma wasn't either. It was just that she didn't like Carol, probably. Thinking about things, she knew that she wanted to help Adam Wright and she might be a bit miffed with Lennie and the twins and Carol for fooling her so easily.
She would have to think of what she and Lily would do after Lennie and his people went off to jail. She would have to find another place for them to live. She would have to get another job, so that she and Lily could eat. Bleakly, she wondered if Lennie would pay her any money at all for the work that she was doing for him. Somehow, she suspected that Lennie would not pay her anything.
She worked with Lennie and Carol in the library and when Carol went off to the kitchen to fix them some coffee, Lennie leaned back in this chair behind the desk and he smiled at Norma, very openly liking her.
"You've been a big help to me," he said. "Now, you and Carol can begin on some of the other stuff and I will unload all of these fancy books. Maybe in the next few days we will get rid of all of the books. I got a guy that's willing to buy anything that I bring him. He's a very rich merchant and he knows a good thing when he sees it."
Norma smiled at him. She didn't feel like saying anything. She felt a bit like Judas.
"You should have some money," Lennie said. "Maybe you will be able to use it when you go into town again."
He took a big roll of money from his pocket and he handed her two hundred dollar bills.
"I haven't really done enough to earn this much," she said.
He grinned at her. "You let me be the judge of that."
She put the money into her bra when he was not looking at her. She was sure that it was all a pointless bit of business because she would have to return the money to its rightful owners. Lennie was just a man who stole everything. Any money that he gave to her would most certainly belong to someone else. But, she would tell Adam about the money and give it to him if he told her to.
She was a bit relieved when Carol brought their coffee in to them and she sat with the two of them, sipping the hot coffee, nibbling on cookies and the prosaic character of the scene struck her and she was suddenly close to tears. It was all such a shame, because she was sure that Lennie and Carol could be happy together if they tried to live a normal life. She wondered why Lennie hated work so much that he had to steal. And she wished that she had the nerve to ask him about it, but she knew that she would not.
The others were in the living room watching the television set and she wished that she could do something nice for the twins. She could never tell one from the other but she knew that Lily liked the boys and she did, too. She wished that she could keep them from going to jail. They were not innocent, of course, but they were too young to be sent off to prison. They were innocent dupes in the hands of Lennie and Carol. Maybe she would talk to Adam and see if he could do something to spare the boys from a life in a prison. She would at least do what she could.
When Carol and Lennie talked of going to bed and getting a good night's sleep, she was glad. She wanted to go to bed and think about Adam and the things that they would probably do again. She could feel a new and special heat in her cheeks as she thought of the things that she and Adam did together and she decided that they would probably do them again.
Carol stood up and she yawned and she grinned a bit self-consciously as she looked at Lennie.
"I am exhausted," she said. "I guess I'm not as young or as sturdy as I used to be."
Lennie laughed as he yawned, too. "You had a very busy day," he said. "How many little times did you have for yourself?"
Carol laughed softly. "I have no idea," she said. "But, admit it, isn't that stuff wonderful?"
"It sure is," Lennie said. "And, there is a well-equipped dark room in the basement. I can develop pictures and we can look at them so the whole thing is just a bonanza."
"Fine," Carol said, yawning again. "Now can we go to bed?"
Lennie got up and they left the library. She went along to help Carol put the coffee things away and then she heard Lennie telling Lily and the twins that it was time for bed. She and Carol went into the living room and she sat down after the twins and Lily went off. Carol and Lennie were going to have a goodnight smoke and they invited her to join them.
They sat and watched the late news and Carol and Lenny kept yawning and when she learned back in the big armchair that she was sitting in, she got the shock of her life. She did something to a control and the whole back of the chair fell backwards and she went with it. It was something that startled her and frightened her a bit.