Malin and the Shorn Women

I know... I'll tickle a woman's fancy. Most of all on these special days when she feels quite the little devil. I'm a man's man, you see. Square jaw, firm lips, commanding chin. Definitely not your silk painting instructor-more your mountain cabin intruder. Right now, Ida and Madeleine are gazing over my body as they would over an edge-of-the-world landscape. Their stares immediately flee the steel blue chill of my eyes, overclouded by thick, dark eyebrows. As their own eyes glide down the crest of my strong, slightly arched nose, they sense the raw power of the other, hidden end of the reptilian appendage. A promise further certified by biceps carved to hold and possess, and thighs sculpted to clamp and thrust. Unfortunately, I don't think that Madeleine and Ida feel the least devilish at the moment, so it looks like I'm spooking them more than anything else. And I have yet to speak... God knows I do my best. Yet, puppeteering these two dolls freshly battered and spit out by the war has turned out to be a bit more challenging than I expected. I ended up reeling them into a forsaken villa, deep inside a vast forest of eastern France. Had the birds not fled the area upon my arrival-as they always would-the place could have felt almost merry. A retreat of sorts; only for those more in need of hiding than finding. Ida was first to arrive-in bad shape. Madeleine joined her two days later-less emaciated, but just as disoriented. They were branded by the same crudely shorn skull, even though they had just been ejected from distant compartments of World War II. I took little pride in the fact that I had attended every station of their downfall. All in a day's work. Malin is as malign does.