vagina
had a smell, but then I saw himkeep finding ways to put his hand up to his face, and I didn’t worry so much.
After the initial panic I felt reading Breville’s letter, other thoughts began to surface. I’d been caught off guard by the
intimacy of what he’d written— he had
smelled
me— but there was something forthright about the revelation. His words had a directness I hadn’t encountered on any number
of dates with men who’d answered my ad: a young engineer who wanted a woman to spend time with him on his boat on Lake Minnetonka,
and who was so lonely that the void in his life made his face tense and brooding; a gold trader who was smooth and amorous
on the first date, pressing his erection into my belly upon saying goodnight, but who made excuses every time thereafter about
why he couldn’t go to a museum or out to dinner with me; or even the grave digger, whom I actually met for coffee, and who
appraised me by saying, “You look pretty good even if you do have a few miles on you.”
I told myself that if my scent had such a strong effect on Breville, it didn’t mean I was vulnerable, but rather that I had
power. I had power over Breville not only because I could stop everything and never again come to Stillwater state prison
to see him, but also because of what I represented. I was a conduit for the entire outside world, or at least the bits of
it I could carry on my skin and clothing. I felt as though I embodied an entire sense, and the idea flattered me. I decided
the next time I went to visit, I would wear perfume. I didn’t usually wear any fragrance in summer— I thought it was cloying
in the heat— but I’d tolerate it for Breville and wear Saint Laurent’s Paris, sweet chemical rose. It would give Breville
something special to smell, and I could hide behind the fragrance.
Perfume. Colored water in a bottle. It seemed like a small enough thing to do, to plan to give Breville a scent to smell.
But of course it wasn’t. It meant something had changed between Breville and me, though it took me a couple of days to realize
it.
His pleasure had become important to me.
12
NEXT WEEK when I drove the four hours down to the Cities from the cabin, I stopped at the rest area in Rogers and doused myself with
perfume. When I walked into the visitors’ waiting room at Still-water, the scent was so heavy I was sure everyone would look
at me as I passed by, but no one did. Each person in that room had his or her mind on private thoughts, I knew, but it soon
became clear that I was not notable enough to draw anyone’s attention in that place. Though I couldn’t smell anything except
Paris, I figured I wasn’t the only woman there wearing too much perfume, and as far as drawing attention— well, that honor
went to a young woman with long, dark hair using what appeared to be a silver drum major’s baton as a cane. She wore a skimpy
dress with spaghetti straps, and she had a rough, hacking cough that made her seem old, even though she was probably just
twenty, or perhaps still in her teens. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw her, and I was so fascinated by her tubercular
cough and the troubled craziness she projected that when she got up to go to the bathroom, I waited a few moments and then
followed. She was already in a stall when I entered, so I stood fiddling with my hair until she exited. To wash her hands,
she leaned her drum major’s batonagainst the wall, but before she could even get the faucet turned on, she had to hack into her fist.
“That’s some cough you have,” I said. “It sounds like it hurts.”
“I’d get better faster if I stopped smoking,” she told me, but I could tell from the way her voice sounded she didn’t want
to speak to me, didn’t want to share a girls’ moment in the bathroom.
“It’s hard to quit,” I said, keeping on, in part because I wanted to go on looking at her.
“I’ve tried.”
I
Karen Russell
Sam Ryan
Lora Leigh
Melissa McPhail
Anthony Summers
Shana Burton
Jaimie Admans
Jack Batten
Maryse Condé
Adrienne Wilder