Scent of a Woman

[Part 4 of the "Voices of I" series]

Her name is Caprice and her scent lingers long after she has gone elsewhere. The smell of her perfume is no more and no less than what it is and what it should be—a smell, one that easily drifts with the wind. But her scent, it hovers over memory for a while and sinks into its embrace, like an aftertaste of the pleasantries during dinner, the fine wine being a mere decoration to all that is sweet on the same night, even perhaps everything else that there has been in all those encounters. Her scent repeats itself time and again almost everywhere, and not even her absence can dissipate what it leaves behind on sunny days and lazy afternoons, the more tender evenings notwithstanding. It is strangely recognizable but is never really understood for reasons that any mind, entrusted at the mercy of passion and longing, cannot begin to comprehend. I could kiss her neck, lavish its warmth, and let her scent consume whatever is left of my desires.

If intimacy is as familiar as air is to lungs, her scent may well be my oxygen. I would breathe her memory and feel every second of her life racing down my arteries. I would be alive and her absence will kill me.

But I have lived.

On many occasions, the midnight sky is our ceiling, earth our heaven, and the moon our witness. My fingers would trace the edge of her chin as I gently let my lips touch hers, slowly but without a trace of hesitation. She would hold me close and tight; I would return the favor and she would let loose a soft moan, as if she suddenly discovered her instincts after a lifetime of solitude of maybe a hundred years or so. We would close our eyes then and, for the longest two minutes of our lives, the world is ours without us begging for it. Perhaps, when you have everything in your arms, there is nothing more to ask for.

Caprice would try to regain her composure for a moment and I would kiss her again. But before she could take command of my lips, I would withdraw. Less than a refusal, it is a ploy she pretends not to be fairly acquainted with. She would look me in the eyes in a shy attempt to find an explanation she could wrestle her thoughts with. All temporary retreats being impermanent, I would resume my display of affection for her, purely sincere as it was from the start, and let my hands fall wherever they may roam.

Still, she would lead the way. It is this which brings her an unspoken delight. Like a vassal owing allegiance to the sole lady of the manor, I would follow without question and my demeanor would be domesticated to her ideals, like a creature by its own but is tangled on its leash throughout. The way she would let her hair fall as she arches her back and reveals the full glory of her neck is an open and exclusive invitation, mine and mine alone, much to the exclusion of the universe. The grantee must comply therewith, and I would soon find myself in complete submission to Caprice. Every inch of her skin is porcelain I could not resist.

But her scent, above all, is a fragrance that is ineluctable for a man too strong to be meek. It cuts across this heart like a crescent scythe, a heart emboldened by a spirit that has almost conquered life's little but perennial troubles, and this one scent it can hardly shield itself from for no armor will suffice. It is a scent that refuses to wither, if not one that denies its abject decay by reason of its very being. It is a scent that can shape a heathen into a priestly sinner overnight without the need for a novena or the intervention of the saints. Nowhere has there been such a colder compromise for the sheer pleasure of indulging in something that is not there but is there, still. Like the Siberian breeze in the middle of May finding itself pushing down the tropics, but far more enticing. Like a god, only more divine and less forgiving.

Caprice, you are lovely; your scent, all the more.



Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6