The morning sun crept through the gauze curtains of the Korsakov residence, painting golden stripes across the hardwood floor of the upstairs hallway. Outside, the neighborhood of Val-d'Oise stirred with the ordinary rhythms of a European suburb—car engines coughing to life, the clatter of rubbish bins, the distant bark of someone's terrier. Women in silky robes collected newspapers from their front steps, their bodies betraying the impossible genetics of this particular corner of the world. Every female resident of this commune possessed the kind of figure that existed only in the fantasies of men who had never touched a woman—generous hips that swayed with hypnotic fluidity, impossibly narrow waists, heavy breasts that defied both gravity and modesty. They were mothers, wives, professionals, and each one of them belonged, in ways their husbands could never comprehend, to a single shy young man currently hiding beneath his duvet cover.