dessicated

I've talked of something like this before. I'm a Bitch err Dog: I can't help the obsession with the olfactory.

Hours later, entering a friend’s washroom, I swear I suddenly sense the scent of T’s cock in the air. And with it the secret, fresh memory of having just held it in my hands. Of having breathed onto it, taken it into my mouth, felt its warm skin on the wet inside of my bottom lip, heard it gurgle for a moment against my trapped tongue. Of having laid my body flat and rubbed it in my fist with his pushing body above me, let it spurt into my palm, wiped the residue off, brought the tip of my fingers to my nostrils to smell it still…

But not on my hands this time. In the air. Pervasive. Close to me.

Impossible.

Reaching over to turn on the tap, the scent only seems to intensify.

I spot the clump of roses and sprays of babies’ breath, dried, all in a pearly vase next to the sink.

I lean over near the wheat-colored, paper-curl edges of the rose petals and take a whiff.

It is not just my imagination; sweet with a uric edge, a note of his announces itself through the mix like a brass bell, clear and compelling. Cloying and concentrated.

Persistent and preserved.