Eau Dear! I Doused Myself with Girly Perfume

I was rushed: late for dinner with my wife and a friend of hers. I had gotten off one stop early because I wanted to buy some cologne. I had finished my only bottle that morning and I knew there was a store near the restaurant. But inside the store I was rushed too. I didn't know which cologne I wanted, only that I wanted something new. In the end I saw a name that my wife said she liked. She had the women's version but she said she liked the men's one as well. So I told the Indian behind the counter the bottle I wanted. I paid for it and then plunged up the street to the restaurant. My wife and her friend were already there, halfway through their first drink. I dipped into a margarita on the rocks and relaxed.

I woke up the next morning hungover?I had kept drinking tequilas after getting home. I leaped out of bed with that unconscious first-thing-in-the-morning energy until I remembered that I was hungover, and then everything slowed down. I showered and checked Drudge on the Internet and drank a cup of coffee. Then I brushed my teeth and tied my tie and put on my new cologne. My wife would be waking up about now and I wanted to surprise her with it. She was coming out of the bedroom groggy and grumpy as she always was when she woke up. My wife looked hungover every morning until she had her shower, her coffee, her cigarette. I came up close to her.

"What do you think?" I asked.

She stepped back and gave me a terrible look.

"What's wrong?"

"Why are you wearing my perfume?"

"Your perfume? I just bought it yesterday. It's mine."

"It's women's perfume," she said. She went to her little shelf in the bathroom where she kept her miniature perfumes and showed me a miniature of the bottle I had just bought. She put some on her wrist. "Smell."

It was the same perfume I had just sprayed all over myself. My wife told me to take the bottle with me and go back to the store and try to change it.

Women's perfume is strong. I tried to wash it off before I left the house, but the smell followed me out the door and down to the subway. On the subway I felt like I was wearing women's clothing. I hid behind a magazine but could not concentrate on it. A girl stood next to me holding a big cup of coffee. I smelled the coffee in spurting wafts, but behind it all was the ladies' perfume I was wearing. I thought she looked at me strangely.

I changed trains twice hoping that I left a little bit of smell behind on each train. But it was still with me as I exited the subway. I had a 10-minute walk to work and hoped I'd start to sweat during the walk because even the smell of sweat was better than that ladies' perfume. I walked fast and tried to sweat.

I was the first one into our little section of the office. I went straight to the bathroom and washed my face again, and my hands. It didn't seem to help at all. I knew the smell was on my jacket too. Back in the office I hung up the jacket. I went to the morning staff meeting and sat in a corner. The smell sat with me. Nobody sat next to me, but I wondered if it was by accident or if it was because the smell created a sort of force-field of weirdness around me. I didn't register anything that was said in the meeting. I was thinking of what I would say if somebody asked me if I was wearing women's perfume. Perhaps lie that my wife had accidentally sprayed me when she was putting hers on that morning. Perhaps try to joke it away with a line like, "You should see my underwear!"

Most days I work pretty much on my own and I don't need to have much contact with people if I don't want to. Today, of course, was different. One of our clients showed up to give his final comments on a draft I had done. My boss called me to her office. The three of us went over the draft but the ladies' perfume seemed to be the fourth person in the room: loud and crude and embarrassing me like a drunk friend who doesn't know when to shut up. After that I went down to lunch. The elevator was a horror. It was crowded when I got in. I stood next to a woman and hoped the rest of the passengers would think that it was her perfume, even if she knew damn well it was mine.

I ate in my office and nobody bothered me. I had a salad that tasted like perfume. The smell seemed to sit on my lap. Every time I moved it came on strong as if moving out of the way, making room for me. I just wanted it to go away.

My colleague from next door came into my office. There was something happening on the street below our windows. "You have to look at it," she said. She called in one of the secretaries to look too. They were both looking out my window, just inches away from me. I was leaning way back in my chair, my neck scrunched against the wall behind me. They watched the scene for a while and left without asking questions. They hadn't asked so as not to embarrass me, I thought. But surely their unanswered questions left some serious suspicions. Was wearing women's perfume the first step to crossdressing?

The more time passed the stronger the smell seemed to get. The working day was coming to an end and I started thinking about the Indian who had sold me the wrong perfume. I had the receipt and was ready to do battle with him. I thought he might refuse exchanging it on the grounds that I had used some of it. When I left the office I was already thinking of a speech to deliver if he refused to exchange the bottle. I fine-tuned the speech on the subway. It was a masterpiece of indignant justice. I got out of the subway where I had gotten out the day before. I walked up the street purposefully, shoulders back and eyes straight ahead. Then I remembered that I smelled like a woman. As soon as I walked in the Indian would smell the ladies' perfume on me. He would probably burst out laughing. It kicked my confidence in the gut for a moment, but then it only made me angrier. I was good and ready to let him have it by the time I got to the store, even if I did smell like my wife.

The place was closed. Of all the storefronts I could see, up the block and down the block, this was the only one that was closed. A dirty steel shutter fell across the storefront, barring the flask-filled window display and barring salvation too.

I hung my head in frustration. I smelled the perfume again on my jacket where I had put it that morning, still there, still strong. The smell was all around me, sweet, soft and feminine. As if taking my hand. As if consoling: Never mind, then. Let's go home, dear. Just you and I.