Chapter Six
Muriel’s dreams were filled with vile pictures, her waking life colored by images from the private party bombarding her mind. She walked the street seeing the faces of the people in the penthouse—knowing that she must be seeing things, or was certainly paranoid. Valiant efforts to push the darkness from her mind failed. Two people resided in her single body, the goody-two-shoes who loved her Albert; and the slut who loved his brother’s tainted world—and perhaps the brother, too. Surviving her life was more difficult, the ‘great unknown’ of her unsettled psyche had taken form now: faces, implements, attitudes, behaviors and rules. Seeing Albert, she saw the brother, and never was at peace.
“You seem troubled,” Albert told her over dinner several nights after the party—the fir
