You Smell Nice

TW: SA, CSA.

As a child, there was always an innate fear of some ghastly odour stalking me, one that seeped from the holes in my purity and left room for those around to point and stare at every given opportunity. If ever there was an offensive smell, my mind would claim it as thine own; flustered and conscious, the foul scent forcing noses to upturn and bystanders to shy in disgrace surely had no other cause but my simple self.

And so, at the age of 8, I began dowsing myself in off-brand perfumes and deodorants. More chemicals than polyester, the labels of my school uniform read bare come winter term. Shower bills to cost us plates at the dinner table and half-filled cups of tea at a slant for my mother. Still, I had arm-bands to wage the lukewarm waves pouring over, so long as no one could detect the smell of Saturday evening come Monday registration.

A quandary for my younger self; perhaps never clean for the root cause never acknowledged. Wiped but not scrubbed, dusted but not polished, guided but not groomed, touched but not raped, father but not friend.

Business finished with forced forgiveness.

I tell this younger self, I’ve since migrated to more established brands of perfume, Liz Earle No15 to be precise. Only a decade or so has taught me the value of ‘less is more’, or of the value for more or less nothing.

Today, ‘you smell nice’ is a compliment wealthy in meaningless meaning. You await to hear the established brand of perfume I wear whilst I ponder on how you haven’t yet detected the scent of Saturday evenings long since gone. For, on occasion, when the day’s worth of Liz Earle No15 has worn away, I still smell them. And I only wonder how no one else can.