This isn't weird.

Sex Palace

A single rap against the bedroom door disturbed Millie from her sleep. Paul, she thought. She'd overslept. It must be time for checkout. She lingered a moment, trying to hold onto the absurd dream she'd been having, commit it to memory—the weirdness of it all was sure to appeal to Paul's sense of humor. She opened her eyes, not to the dingy old motel setting she expected to see, but the beautiful blue room from her dream.

No fucking way.

Millie climbed out of bed, stumbled her way to the adjoining bathroom, and turned on the shower. She didn't even undress before stepping into the freezing water. The shock of cold provided her with the snap of lucidity she was seeking, but it didn't wake her.

But of course it didn't. She was already awake.

It was all real. Noah Wexler's house. Noah Wexler's wife. Noah Wexler's impending arrival.

Oh, god.

Feeling foolish, she turned off the water and clawed her way out of her soaking nightgown. What exactly she should do with it from there, she wasn't sure, so she wrang it out half-heartedly and slung it over the shower door as she stepped out, imagining Rebecca's reaction if she were to enter the room and find it later. Maybe she would presume that Millie had wet herself in her sleep, like the hapless child she had intermittently treated her as the day before. The hypothetical embarrassment was as scalding as the shower was freezing.

The bath towel she had used after her shower the night before had already been replaced with a fresh one, hitting Millie with the alarming realization that Rebecca must have come into her room while she was asleep—and suggesting a high likelihood that she would enter it again at some point in the day to further maintain the space to her exacting standards. Did she really do such menial tasks herself, though? Surely a house like this employed a maid service. Though Millie certainly hadn't seen any such staff between then and now. Fuck.

Shivering, she wrapped herself up in the towel and crept back into the bedroom to fetch something to wear from her bag... but it wasn't on the chair where she had left it. Dismayed, Millie looked around to find that in the ten or so short minutes she had spent in the bathroom, the bed had been made, and a fresh set of clothes laid out on it. It had a similar sensibility to yesterday's assigned outfit, but today's sweater was chocolate brown, with a higher neck, and the skirt a plaid khaki, a little longer and less tapered. Were women disallowed from wearing pants in this household? Worse yet, the ensemble even included fresh undergarments, plain and beige, with a bra that fit disturbingly well.

Millie dressed herself resentfully, planning to stomp down the stairs and demand the return of her things, but upon stepping out into the empty hall, she was cowed by the churchlike silence. Her actual descent was decidedly mouselike, and still, it seemed to her that every step reverberated through the halls like the crash of a gong. When at long last she reached the bottom, the floor beneath her bare feet proved much quieter, provided she tiptoed. As she neared the kitchen, she heard Rebecca's voice, her tone tersely conversational. The correct course of action was obviously to turn around and hurry away, to respect the privacy of her host, and more importantly, to avoid her potential wrath. But Millie couldn't stop herself from inching closer, until she could peek around the corner to glimpse Rebecca sitting at the table, legs crossed, phone pressed against her ear.

"Absolutely not," she was saying. "It's barely the start of semester!... Yes, but these weeks are vital to her social development... Honestly, Noah, haven't you done her enough damage already?... Then don't behave in ways you don't want thrown back at you ... If you don't treat her education as a priority, then neither will she... Yes, and that's your fault.... Oh, of course, you so love to put me in this position... You know exactly what position!... You know what? Fine. Go right ahead... No, no, I simply couldn't stand to see them disappointed again... Not in the least, darling. I insist. Give my regards to Rufus."