Mystery Fragrance.

A woman came into work today wearing the most alluring thing I've ever smelt. It reminded me of lines of mid-morning sunlight cutting into a living room, and those floating specks of dust you see now illuminated, and of dry, unvarnished wooden floorboards, and of saliva and lips, and peeks of underwear under clothes, and of being 11 years old and in lust.

It had a very peculiar saliva-like note which seemed to come from a rotting rose or the like. It might have had a type musk I wasn't overly familiar with (it had that musk-y depth and texture). But it never felt like it was trying to be overtly sexual or even attractive - it didn't announce itself at all, only had a small sillage and stuck very close to the skin.

The most attractive people are those who seem not to see how attractive they really are - thereby, nothing they do is an act or pretence. Attractiveness is merely a casual by-product of their other traits, but one which does not concern or affect them. They are completely innocent to their own charms, and this blissful, un-cynical, unfamiliarity is just so intensely desirable. Because they don't see it themselves, we feel, perhaps a little arrogantly, that we then are privy to this area of their personality so intimate that they themselves do not have access to it. It intrigues without obtuseness. This is what this fragrance was.

I don't know what this fragrance was. I didn't ask her what it was.

You know why I didn't ask her what it was? Honestly? It was because I was afraid she wasn't wearing any fragrance at all, and it was merely her natural smell, and that would mean I would be completely and terrifyingly in love with this woman, this stranger, this person who I would never meet (or smell) again. Le sigh.