January 14, About that Woman Scent: HealthyPlace.com Dieting, Weight Loss Community

January 14, 2000 --- 12:35 PM EST

Ok, the near daily dose.

While at Denny's restaurant Wednesday night, the waiter told me he liked my perfume (Calgon Hawaiian Ginger cheapie smellies from Target) and asked if it was like a botanical?

"No, it's not all that botanical. It's got a touch of ginger essences but there is a lot of alcohol in it because it's not very expensive."

"It smells really nice... very natural. Intriguing. It's good on you. I like that. A lot." He babbles at us while collecting our dishes and writing our check.

Meanwhile Paul is stifling the giggles and I'm glaring at him. The waiter goes away and I whisper at him.

"Stop laughing! You know what he is smelling. You are smelling it too and that's why you decided to wear some of my perfume today!"

Men NEVER say anything about my perfume. Women, sure. Men NEVER. And suddenly they are smelling it and telling me how great it is all the time when it isn't the perfume. It's me. It's been happening now for a little while.

I've noticed lately that I smell. Not like stinky BO smell. But it's this deep, basic.... WOMAN.... smell. And I don't mean like a vagina WOMAN kind of smell. It's part of that, but not. It's hard to describe. But I can smell it, because it comes out of my skin. It's hard to catch under my deodorant stuff, my shampoo stuff, my soap stuff, my perfume stuff, all those things we use as products that have smells. But it's there. This deep, dark, mysterious, underlying smell. And I have to be smelling it all the time!

I got out of the shower a few weeks ago and I had taken extra care to really wash under my arms and I gave it like 10 minutes so I wouldn't smell so much like my body wash. Sniffed the pits. It was back! That smell!

"Smell my armpits!" I tell Paul.

"I don't want to smell you armpits," he replies.

"If you don't sniff them I am going to grab your head and stuff you in there and make you sniff them. So rather than be smooched it's better you sniff them on your own because you are going to be smelling them regardless whether you like it or not! Sniff!" I demand, with my arm upraised and the other hand on my hip.

He leans in, puts his nose in my armpit and takes a deep breath.

"What do you smell?"

"Um.... you clean?"

"Yes, but can you tell the difference or am I crazy? Besides me there's this other smell there?"

He sniffs again. "Hrm.....Yes, now that you mention it. Kind of....earthy."

So I am not crazy. There is a smell. Paul and I have talked about this and he knows what it is just as well as I do.

It wouldn't matter what perfume I am currently wearing. It could be Coco, or Chanel No. 5, or one of those little cheapie spritzes. I currently wear the Hawaiian Ginger so it's the Hawaiian Ginger he spritzes on one wrist to remind himself of my other underlying smell. It's cute, but it's also weird.

I was talking to Shawn last night and he started laughing when I was trying to tell him I smell.

"Remember in Panama when those mangoes would fall on the ground off the trees and crack open and they'd smell really strong and really sweet?"

"Yes." I remember I used to be driven wild by that smell and so did everyone else in my school. I knew exactly where he was heading and I tried to ward him off from saying it. "I know... I know.... I know... Ack!"

"You're ripe, babe. This is your time. Totally natural thing, but you are ripe" he cackled.

"Oh, shut up!"

ARGH! I don't want to be ripe. It feels weird. I don't want my body to be kicking up the hormones and putting out the pheromone smells. I don't want to run around all day catching whiffs of myself and getting all horny, and I don't want stranger men to notice it and then tell me my perfume is intriguing. It's fun, but it's distracting.

Actually, that's not so bad. I kind of like that. It's sort of cool to have nature work the way it does and it's kind of funny that men just feel drawn to me when they catch whiff and then they want to tell me how great my perfume is. Sometimes they ask what it is so they can get some for their girlfriends or something. I'd be lying if I said the attention isn't ego-stoking when it is. It's flattering to be noticed again even though I am attached and happily so. But everyone likes compliments and to be noticed. So while it sometimes startles me to have some stranger tell me I smell so great, it's kind of cool. You feel goddesslike.

"Haha! I have secret power smells! If I get close to you, you too will fall to your knees and plead for my benevolence!"

I've done that. Just sort of stand a little closer than I need to at the ATM line to test this theory of mine and then the man there kind of looks around like he didn't know what hit him and he tries to figure it out and I am standing there laughing in my head and then he turns around and nods hello and then still looks around trying to figure out what goddess whispered in his ear. There is no one else around at all.

On the outside I don't look very obviously sexy or anything in my ratty sneakers and grubby jean cutoffs and one of Paul's T-shirts. Bad home haircut, no make-up, jingling the keys because I want my ATM turn to get my money so I can go get gas and do groceries and all that junk. I look like a young, harried wifey kind of person. Soccer Mom in training.

ATM man is looking for babe-a-licious because his Babe Magnet Sonar went off. Torpedo Tits. Little leopard jackets with black mini skirts. Where's the babe? The Sssssseeeex on Heels?

Zzzzzap! Muahahahaha! Fool! It was ME, The Undercover Secret Smelly Sex Goddess Astrophe! Tan-tada-DAAAAAH!

So I giggle and shove my card into the machine while he's scratching his head, peering around the parking lot as he goes to this car.

So, no the smell in general out and about on the street doesn't bother me. It the smell at home that worries me more. Not like worry worry. Just...weird.

Because if I am running around smelling it and getting horny, and Paul is running around the house smelling it and getting horny... I'm not knocking the sex, mind you. That's always fun. It's those other feelings that are a little unnerving. And what if his body starts responding to mine and then kicks out it's own pheromones and hormones and well.... smells? Because while scrambling stranger men's Babe Magnet Sonars is fun, Paul is the man who counts in my life. And his sonar is not being scrambled. His is right on target! Bleep! Bleep!

Kids? Sure! We have The Plan: Get a new car, build another room, fence in the yard, get a little fitter, kick back some money, let about 3-5 years go buy. Ok. Then it's Baby Time. All according to plan. We joke about it now, and we play with our baby relatives and all. That's all fine. Doesn't mess with The Plan. We get to try it out in our heads without any commitment to buy.

But if I am going to be smelly and all, and well...start being really RIPE, and he's going to start feeling really RIPE... are we going to get possessed and start acting like Galahad?

Sir Galahad, who is in heat, and all he wants to do all day long is beat his little claws against the door that separates him from the girl iguanas because he wants to get in there with them? He's not himself. He's a little glassy-eyed and he's bobbing his head all over the place and scuttling around all crazy and banging on the doors.

Are we going to give in to these natural prompts and urges and then start getting glassy-eyed and start beating on the doors to be let in to where the other is?

Too late. Do that already.

I have this huge compulsion to be around Paul now. A one woman glee club. Smelling him. (Glee!) Touching him. (Glee!) or at least have him in my sight like me sitting there on the step while he is working on his car. A dirty, sweaty man with no shirt on. (GLEE!)

He laughs because he says it makes him feel sooooo sexy and I laugh because it's funny and because he's doing the same.

Following me around.

We're both enjoying this stage of coupleness, marriage. I wouldn't mind staying right here in this stage for a good long while! Because it's like only one eye is glassy, the other one can still laugh and say "No way! That's enough!"

But man. It's making me CRAZY!

I thought puberty was pretty bad. Those desires and wants, and those panicked moments with my high school boyfriend. Wanting to go there and not wanting to go too far. Sweaty, sexy, frantic, crazy, moments trying to stay in control.

The guys all walking around with their binders in front of their pants so those sudden stiffies wouldn't be embarrassing and the girls getting all giggly about that. Walking around myself, a girl, and smelling some divine male creature and getting a hot, melting wettie on the spot and while easier to hide and no binder needed, you sit around in English class, shifting from one side of your seat to the other, feeling it damp in your panties and feeling yourself hot and vibrating and feeling all strange and wondering if anyone sitting near you can smell it because it is a very powerful smell and you certainly can smell it and then running out of class to find your boyfriend because dammit, you have needs and if he's not handy you are going to run right into a bathroom stall slam the door and unzip your pants and take care of it yourself because you can't wait, no! Can't wait! Can't wait! Now! Now! Ahhhhhhh!

Well, multiply those puberty feelings by about 10 or 20. That's what it is like now. It's not just sexual desire. It's not just smells. It's not just loving this person. Or wanting to think about creating a new life with them. It's not just coupledom. It's not just marriage. It's not knowing that close, hot feeling of having a man come inside of your body. You're an adult now, you know what sex is all about, you have a job, you have a nice home, you're not your mother with decades more life experience than you, but hey, you aren't so green or wet behind the ears anymore.

It's not just any of those things alone.

It's this feral woman feeling too. Not the feral woman-child feeling of adolescence. That was pretty close. But not the same. You have ARRIVED. You are all-encompassing WOMAN.

This feeling is much darker, deeper. If the feelings in puberty where this raging river, this other feeling is more like an ocean. Deceptively calmer looking, than a river running amok, but much bigger, beating with a pulse that's constant and if you get a good storm going on out there, whoa! Much more power than any river. Runs much deeper.

It's the source, man. Every fiber of my being wants to just run with it, go with it, be it.

It's not that I am not flexible. I am. I make loose plans and adjust them accordingly. About my career, my life, my goals, everything. I roll with the punches.

I just didn't count on going through another wacky, puberty-like hormone freakout until menopause! Nobody warned me there would be another freakout in between menarche and menopause. Am I going to have another freak out after this one? The ripeness freakout? How many more freakouts are there?!

I feel like running out to buy the newest edition of Our Bodies, Our Selves to see what other freakouts are in store!

Paul's got a new pet phrase now that we've had this big talk about the smell and urges and junk and how to handle me and my hormonal freakouts and him suddenly starting to feel responsive. He was standing in the living room holding a Coke and I was sitting on the sofa when I stopped him on his way to the music room with these questions. He says from his point of view he is getting all these fatherly feelings and these strange urges to keep me away from everything.

"What like, Caveman, ungh!?"

"No...."

"Like, Go Away! She's Nesting and I'm supposed to hold the fort! Scram!"

"Kinda but... no....."

"Then what?"

"Well, it is a little bit like that. Like I feel I ought to hover around while you feel all nesty, but then this other part of thinks about Droopy."

"DROOPY?!"

"Yeah the cartoon."

"What about the cartoon?"

"There is this one episode where Slick, that Wolf guy who is always trying to mess up Droopy is there. They are firemen in this episode and Slick wants to be the better fireman and he wants to get rid of Droopy so he sets this big awful condemned building on fire and entices Droopy to go in there and since the building is about to fall apart any minute..."

'... Droopy ought to get splatted?"

"Yeah, only when Droopy goes in he runs out with this beautiful, sexy girl and he puts her down. (And there was NOBODY in the building before.) And he brings another. And he brings another, And he brings another. Well by this time Slick is all het up and he can't stand it so he pushes Droopy aside and runs into the building..."

"... and he doesn't find anyone and it collapses all on top of him?"

"Yeah! And then he wobbles out all hurt and messed up and fall over on the ground and Droopy goes, 'Heeeeeey, Slick! Got any Baaayyyyyybes in there?'"

"I don't get it. Droopy?"

Paul bends over, leans close, and addresses my vaginal area.

"Heeeeeey, Ssssslick! Got any Baaaaaaayyyyyyybes in there?!"

I screamed and jumped up and started beating him.

"Nooooooo! No babes in there! You aren't going to be putting any in there either. Argh! Slick? Argh! That was terrible!"

"I got you! I got you! Hahahaha!" He danced around out of reach. He waited til I calmed down and sat back into the living room sofa before firing a parting shot from the foyer. "Got a wettie, now?"