Eric, I
smell different.
I don't know how you trapped my scent, but yesterday I smelled like Angela and today I smell different. I think I smell like...Justine. I don't know why I smell like her now, but it certainly is your fault. I've never met any of the other girls you share your fluids with, and all thoughts of jealousy aside, all green herring envy and red eyed diversions, all honey-sweetie-darling lies about independance and freedom, polyamory and cheating, I really just want my smell back. Where are you keeping it now?
Is it in that box on your desk next to your collection of used envelopes? That box you told me not to open, never to open? Eric, is my smell in there? Did some hideous swap take place, as my smell flew in to mingle, and some faster and forsaken scent engulfed me? I didn't notice then, I thought it was yours. Do you keep the scent of every angel you lure into your candlelit domain? What if my smell prefers their company to mine?
Eric, did you really think I could resist such a warning? I will jump off a house when you tell me I can't fly. I will darn socks and bake cookies to refute a challenge to my domesticity. Why did you tell me to keep my nose out of that empty tiny cedar chest? Why did you keep my smell and leave me, unfamiliar, different,
Justine... Why not Lara or Antonia?
Justine smells like Calvin Klein and department store fabric softener. She smells like Starbucks and I don't even drink coffee. She smells like oh, oh, oh my god yes. She smells like a legal assistant.
Why couldn't you tell me it was a box full of pennies and let me keep my smell?
Eric, open up that box for me, and see if my smell is still in there. I don't really mind if you keep it, as long as you keep it safe. It smells like lanolin and beeswax, like green green moss on a rainy day, it might smell dusty, being in storage so long, but shouldn't the cedar keep it from going stale? It smelled quiet and clean back when it was still mine, and I hope you don't let it get dirty in there...
Eric, please just check for me, you don't even have to give it back.