THE BARE BODIED Marlin was doing a series of graceful martial movements in the open ground field under the watchful eyes of the two women under a tree who were mindful of their house-arrest prisoner. Lee who was on guard was holding a rifle, she spat tobacco on the grass with animosity. "Fucking show off—let's see, if he can use his Kung Fu to dodge my bullets." She pointed her AK-47 at him and mimicked gunshots sounds. Both of the sister-boys then guffawed out after Lee did an impersonation of a dying Chinese.

Mrs Scott gazed out of her kitchen window and noticed Marlin outside doing his morning routine. She turned to peek at Joana sitting in her bathrobe and called out to her...

"Jo, don't just sit around—go and use those crutches and walk more to exercise that leg."

Mrs Scott guided Joana out from the front door into the porch. Joana saw Marlin doing his movements, "Grandma, what's that is he doing?"

"If you are curious, go ask him yourself."

Joana in bathrobe and flip-flops trudged with a single aluminium crutch and gaited towards the field. She reached Cynthia who was repairing a side-fence door while keeping an eye on their prisoner. The woman acknowledged, "Commander Gilman how is your leg?"

"Grandma told me to exercise it." She noticed Cynthia's eyes were on Marlin while her hands were busy at work, "Whatcha doing?" The sister-boy replied. "Whatcha think I am doing? I am fixing on this darn fence gate." Joana teased her, "no, you are not, you are staring and ogling at his buns." They both laughed.

"Open the gate, I am going out," Joana requested. Cynthia hesitated before she unbolted it. She cautioned the younger girl, "a bit of personal sisterly advice—he is an outsider, Jo, don't get too close to him."

Joana snuffled nearer towards Marlin on the bumpy field on her crutches. He stopped when she approached, he began wiping his face with a small towel. "Hi Marlin, is that some kind of Asian exercise—where cha learn it?" He replied, "I grew up in a boarding school since I was young. Yeah, I learned it there. We used to do this exercise before we started our classes."

Joana listened with interest, and she also shared, "Is it? I never went to a real school, Grandma home-schooled me here. So you can speak Asian?" Marlin smiled to the thought that people still perceive Asians as only Orientals while ignoring the other races in other countries, but he did not correct her. "Yeah, I know Japanese, and also some Mandarin."

She shambled closer and touched Marlin's tattoo on his arm, "Is that Japanese? What does it say?"

"Eat sushi."

That was what her sister Roxy said to amuse the sister-boys during her visit to the farmhouse some evenings ago.

He then walked away to a shrub where his t-shirt hung. He slipped it on and the laughing girl approached him again...

"You are shitting me, I have seen sushi on the You-tube, and I know what it is—some kind of rice thingy food wrapped in some leaf—and eaten with soy sauce, right?"

She sensed that Marlin mistook her as gullible about worldly things because she had mentioned that she was home-schooled. She persisted. "Marlin come on, what it says on your tattoo?" He paused a second and finally revealed...

"It is my girlfriend's name—Suki."

Joana responded in an excited tone of voice. "Oh, you got an Asian girlfriend too like John Lennon—Cool!"

There was one name that he has not heard for a long time. He knew a friend back in schooling at Matsuda in DC who was a big Lennon-Ono fan.

He heard Joana speaking again. "I heard you want to travel east soon, is Suki waiting for you there?"

"No, she is gone. She was sent back to Japan 5 years ago."

"Are you still in contact with her?"

"No..."

He was not in the mood to speak of his past, but he noticed that Joana was still persistent. She asked again. "Why not? You got a new girlfriend after that?" She was getting playful and tapped his bottoms with her crutches. "Now, where is the other girl's tattoo? Is it on your butt? Let me see it!" she laughed.

'Why is she asking me this?' Marlin was feeling crestfallen thinking of his past. He replied her forthrightly of his past for falling for a girl who was 'over-protected' by her diplomatic-clan that happened in Washington DC—that followed by an animus brawl in the mall which led to his arrest. He concluded by disclosing his story that he spent five years in an isolated cell in Block F until the Preacher liberated everyone in Tombscradle—and started God's Army to wage war against the Snake-woman Cory.

She grabbed his arm and dragged the bleak vapid eyed Marlin. "Come on, Marlin, cheer up—let me take you to my secret place!"

Cynthia looked up at them both walking away. Mrs Scott also spied on her granddaughter walking with Marlin from her kitchen. She smiled to herself noticing they were holding hands. She knew it was because of the uneven field ground for a girl in crutches, but yet they looked like a nice perfect romantic couple.

She also discerned to where they are going to—the girl's secret place—where Joana used to go with her best friend Lilya Devon at one time ago; and the two girls will get lost over there spending hours there during their growing up years—the memories of her Andrea will be kept alive...

They came to a barn with a closed door. Joana kept on talking. "It has been so long since I last went there since moving to my mother's house, and then to Roxy's Sisterhood training camp. But when I was growing up, my best friend Lilya and I found this place that filled with wonderful old things—and ever since that day it has been our secret place."

Marlin replied sardonically after the inhospitable treatment he experienced from the animus sister-boys since he rang the steps into the farmhouse...

"You sure about this, you sharing this place with me? Just a few days ago, you had put a gun on my face and called me a freak!" The red-haired girl laughed aloud. "If that turns you on, then, I will call you that again—come, Marlin, open that door."

Marlin was the first to enter inside the old barn. His eyes immediately searched the surroundings of the big interior and saw some milking cows and piles of hay bales. Some farm tools hung on the wall; nothing small to conceal as a weapon...

He finally saw what he was curious of in that few days staying over at the farm—there were two motorbikes covered under a canopy and a drum of gasoline. This will be a good escape alternative after seeing the car that he had driven in had been stripped of its tires. His bent mind went on strategizing an escape plan which he wanted to execute tonight...

His thoughts were interrupted when Joana poked his bottoms with the end of her crutches...

"I am showing you around because my grandma likes you."

"Yeah, she is a very nice lady, we spoke quite a lot in these last few days."

Edna Scott has told Marlin some of her darkest secrets; things that even her granddaughter does not know—like who her actual mother was—but he promised the old lady that he would not expose the truth to Joana.

"Grandma said that you could have abandoned me in New Orleans but you brought me back to her—she told me that I should trust you too. That is why I want to show you my secret place." Joana looked up and pointed with her crutches at a twenty-five-foot ladder that led to the attic alcove on top...

"We have to go up there now."

After seeing his ride to escape later at the wee hours, Marlin was now finding an excuse...

"Whoa, maybe some other time—your leg is busted and there is no way you can climb up over there." Joana placed her palm on his hard chest, her eyes were still fixated to the attic above, she alluded...

"Come on, you are strong—you can carry me up like how you did in New Orleans. Come, Marlin, you will love it once we get up there...please take me there."

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He was always the sucker who cannot say no to a girl...

She was awestruck by her trice of being alone with the opposite sex for her first time, amazed at how his bicep muscles flexed when his arm went to hold the next rung of the ladder; she had a closer look at his Japanese motif tattoo—she now wished at that moment that she was his Suki instead...

Marlin climbed halfway on the rickety ladder with Joana in her bathrobe clinging tightly on his back. He cautioned her, "Jo, don't ever let go, you will break your back if you fall."

"Don't worry—I will never let you go."

At the attic top, Marlin began sneezing, seeing cobwebs over many old dusty crates and junks from the turn of the century. He followed the barefooted Joana who was hobbling and holding on anything sturdy for support. She had left her aluminium crutches and footwear below. She gave him a tour comment on the attic.

"Most of the stuff is my grandpa's, he died here during the Medusa."

'Yes and no.'

He died alright, but not at the farm—your grandma divorced Franklin Scott back then because he was a reckless alcoholic. But Marlin could not tell these to Joana because he made a promise with Edna Scott to not divulge.

They moved through more antiques and junks which Marlin thought were a fire-hazard—the two teens finally reached the far end of the boarded platform of the attic.

There were two large wooden chests were there. The spot was a more cosy setting where two best girlfriends had once rearranged the place some years ago. Marlin discovered a stereo system with lots of CD collection. A dust-covered CD of John Lennon and Yoko Ono in the nude on the oyster case cover caught his attention. He smiled to himself recalling back seeing his school friend having that similar 'Two Virgins,' but in a vinyl album.

"Marlin, this is my secret place—in there are things that belong to my Aunt Andrea."

Joana told while pointing at the wooden chests on the floorboard. "She was a fashion model back then in New York before the Medusa Virus came." She reached and opened the lid of the chest.

"Look here, all her expensive fashion clothes, the other chest is all her shoes and her other stuff—her photographs mainly."

Marlin saw the dresses were wrapped in plastic see-through covers. Lots of neatly packed shoes were on the other chest. He retreated on a two-seater couch and he observed the child in Joana at play. She turned around and passed him a stack of photo albums and sat beside Marlin.

He flipped to see Andrea's modelling pictures while Joana said. "She was a very beautiful woman and I always wished I was beautiful like her."

Joana stood up by supporting onto Marlin's knee. She hobbled towards the chest with the dresses. She picked her favourite ardent black one and removed the plastic cover. She placed it in front of herself, looking into a full-length mirror and she continued saying.

"These dresses are more than 20 years old but yet they are still so elegant—I like this one the best, it is a Gucci."

She waited for Marlin to speak but he was focused on the photo album. "You are so quiet—are you familiar with the label Gucci?"

"Yeah, Suki likes Gucci too," he replied nonchalantly.

"She has got good taste," Joana giggled and looked back at the mirror...

'Yeah, very expensive in taste,' thought Marlin; she was the daughter of one of the wealthiest family in Tokyo and her aunt was the Japanese Ambassador in Washington back then and even now. He recalled Suki receiving huge allowances to party with her rich circle of friends in school but instead she wanted to be with him. She even dyed her hair blond like his.

While in isolation, he amorously thought a lot about Suki and how he doesn't deserve her because of his secret double-life as the son of a Russian research scientist who became a fugitive. His mother was accused of being partially responsible for the group that creating the deadly Medusa virus pandemic and was now still in hiding.

He needed to focus now into finding her—so tonight, he has to escape from Mississippi and head to Washington D.C.

Joana's voice snapped him out from his reveries. "Hey, I am going to put on this dress on for you and you tell me how I look, okay?"

Marlin closed the photo-album. "Some other time Jo lets go down before your Sisterhood buddies start looking for us." Joana giggled and teased...

"Just ignore them. I am going to wear it anyway; so you turn away—I am changing now."

Marlin modestly looked down, he picked another photo album—it was filled with artistic nude shots of Andrea Scott. He peeked up when Joana dropped down her bathrobe and she was only wearing her panties beneath. She slipped the Gucci dress over her head—he admired her rounded butts a few seconds and at her full breasts with puffy pink nipples that reflected on the mirror. He turned the next page, see more of her aunt's naked photos.

She tried to match high heeled shoes for the dress. She almost tripped before she chose a pair of flats. Joana came over and sat on Marlin's lap and he fastened the zipper behind for her.

"How do I look?" while parading herself. "It looks really beautiful on you, Joana." He saw her giggly in embarrassment and she turned back looking at herself again on the mirror.

Marlin remembered Roxy had hinting sarcastically that her grandmother had raised her as a girl and not as a sister-boy...

"My best friend Lilya and I used to dress up in all of these dresses and we talk about our modelling careers when we were growing up—she was about 14 and I was 12 then. I was a little scrawny back then but I am so glad the dress fits me so well now," admiring her now developed boobs in the mirror.

She went on talking about Lilya who she felt was a talented sculptor and now having her own small art gallery business. She pointed at one of her mesh wirework which was one foot by one cube at a side table—Marlin observed the meshwork on a closer look and finally made it out the kitsch sculpture as two figures of women with their limbs stretched into a shape of a cube—and was engaged in a 69 position...

He couldn't help fantasizing about the 'Two Virgins' back then—Lilya and Joana engaging the similar licentious act on the couch that he was now sitting on...

"Marlin, do you think I can have a modelling career like my Aunt Andrea?"

He smiled at her, "Sure why not, you are a woman now, the world is your oyster Jo—if you wanna model, just go for it.'

The smile on her face vanished, "but my mother and sister will definitely not let me go, they want me here to serve the Sisterhood."

Marlin pried even he knew her response will be like. "How about your grandmother—she will surely approve your ambition like your Aunt Andrea, right?"

"She does not know about my ambitions, nobody does except Lilya— I doubt my grandmother will let me go too. My mother said that my aunt ran away from here to New York, she then fell in love with the wrong man—and finally, she died of a broken heart when he left her."

Marlin listened to Joana's side of her spoon-fed truth...

She alluded more about herself. "That is why in the Sisterhood, we are warned about falling in love with anyone, especially to your kind, Marlin—the new breed. We are told to focus our ambition on the Aryan cause—and we have to serve the Sisterhood from the age of 15 to 30 years; then we are given an option to get pregnant and raise our daughters for the next generation of the Sisterhood."

Marlin nodded tacitly before he asked her back, "was this the reason Aryan girls were home studied and did not go to regular school?" She laughed out and shook her head. "No, it is not like that—most girls went to school but my silly grandma home-studied me because she feared that some government people will come here and take me away!" She was humoured by her grandmother's peculiar ways and even inadvertently called her silly.

'Of course, you are the granddaughter of the President of America—the Snake-woman, 'Marlin thought without saying out...

"So I was hiding in this farmhouse all my life until one day my mother took me away. Roxy then trained me to be a Sisterhood soldier to serve our cause."

She now envied the opportunities that Lilya was enjoying a better life after she ran away from Mississippi—and she ended by saying casually...

"I am stuck over here and she is now married to that famous hero cop Roberta Jensen whom we fought hard within New Orleans."

Marlin's jaw dropped when he heard that...

He sat up and before he can speak, Joana put his mind to ease, "don't worry Marlin, I am very close to Lil and our secret is safe—even Jensen does not know that I exist."

Marlin got into the debate. "Look here, both Roxy and Jensen knew each other from their Ohio days—and some bad blood may have happened along the way back then, and that was why Jensen has attacked your Sisterhood camps. Sooner or later she will fucking come back again with her e-SWAT to hunt for Roxy—and you too, Jo—because you are an Aryan Commander!"

He was contemplating to take her away tonight with him after he purloined one of the bikes—but will she agree to follow? He weighs it up—it was best if he escaped alone because it is more dangerous heading east to Cory's military playground in the capital—furthermore, Roxy Gilman will definitely find a way to protect Jo and her grandma...

That what families always do.

"Stop worrying." Joana came and sat beside Marlin and she was holding his hands before she can voice anything, Marlin alluded anxiously...

"I am now a inhouse prisoner here, Jo. What if Jensen comes in now and ambushed us all here, we will all be killed including your grandma. It is really not as safe as you think."

"Relax Marlin. If Roberta Jensen knew, she'd have come here a long time ago, don't you think so?" He still felt edgy with the present danger in being in the farm after the Battle of New Orleans' rebel assaults. He then asked how she communicated with Lilya.

She responded...

"Lilya and I share the same email account with the secret password that we only both know. We post messages in it and correspond from within—Lilya is like my other half, and she will never sell me out..."

Marlin noticed that she was failing to see that IP addresses can be tracked and hacked by the authorities. This was nowhere near to the high-tech government-issued cell phones that he once had in possession, and even having those untraceable phones had landed him in Tombscradle when he took things for granted—by arrogantly thinking before that he was a 'slippery as a fish' and can get away with anything...

"Does Roxy know that you are corresponding with Lilya?"

"No, she cannot know, or I else am in deep trouble," her voice shuddered.

They both jolted, looking up at towards the roof—there were sound coming from the skies above. Joana scurried off the couch in panic...

"Oh my god, that is Roxy— she is coming here now!"

She lurched towards the mirror and slipped off from the Gucci in front of Marlin. He stepped up to open the small dusty attic window...

He peered at the horizon at some crop duster-planes approaching...

"There are 4 planes coming!"

The topless Joana slipped back into her bathrobe. She hurried the Intersexual in an unnerved voice...

"Come help me down, Marlin. I think my mother is here too!"

Marlin anticipated more trouble. ..

Mrs Scott despised both her seditious daughter Sarah and granddaughter Roxy who was the current leader general of the Aryan Sisterhood.