Pulchritude

At least two of the women in my noir novel, and one of the women in Justice in Season suffer from chronic pulchritude. The terrible disease brings a great deal of unwanted attention to the afflicted. However, the malady confers distinct advantages upon the sufferer. The three characters capitalize on those advantages. They just need to remember that chronic conditions can become terminal.

Although "pulchritude" sounds like a reference to some swollen, pus-filled wound, its meaning is quite the opposite--by which I do not mean a puckered, but healed hurt. Pulchritude refers to physical comeliness. The word comes from the Latin pulchr, -pulcher meaning, or referring to beauty.

The protagonist in the noir novel, Noah Vale, also known as Duncan Kane, ponders the aforementioned affliction when he reads a passage from Charles Dickens' Great Expectations; it says, “Moths, and all sorts of ugly creatures, hover about a lighted candle. Can the candle help it?”