Broken Angels

by Gemma Liviero

my mother had died of puerperal fever several days after my birth, the subject of women was suddenly seen in a new light. Until then, they were part of the human race, just like men but with different working functions. The physical makeup of a woman had never been a question. But this tragedy struck in me a sudden yearning to learn the differences in detail. Women began to fascinate me, not as objects of desire but something enigmatic. The boys who brought to school illicitly purchased photo cards of women draped provocatively across chairs, wearing nothing but a string of pearls and stockinged legs, certainly appealed to my primal nature,

but overriding those feelings was more the desire to master the art and science of women. I deemed, by my own assumption and observations, that if they weren’t nurtured on both an emotional and physical level—both states completing the whole—then the human race was potentially doomed.