Sunlight wipes the sleep from cobblestones

[sovay]

I have had an absolutely wretched day. I resort to BPAL for therapeutic purposes.

(Cut for Bluebeard. Paging Angela Carter.)

Description
A scent swirling with dark rage, unbridled jealousy, and murderous intent. Violet, lavender, white musk and vetiver.

Vial
I have to say, this is the first perfume in the vial that has reminded me of sushi. Well, the sidebar to sushi. There's the usual floral this-that-and-the-other, and then there's a prickly sweetness that after a moment I placed as pickled ginger. Yeah. I have no idea how that works.

Wet
So far I can't detect either the violet or the lavender, which are at least two scents I can recognize, and what I have right now is an almost loam-like odor: is this the vetiver? The ginger has subsided into a variant on the cloudiness I associate with musk. There are flickers of crushed green stalks. It's a weird scent. Every time I decide it's actively repugnant, there's some stray note that changes my mind. I suppose that's not an implausible interpretation of a sociopathic husband, but I'm not sure that I should be so fascinated.

Drydown
Still no flowers. I smell like earth and musk and rotted leaves. Forget "The Bloody Chamber," I'm wearing "The Erl-King."

Later
The flowers are AWOL. Rather than fading, the rest of the scent has warmed and intensified and does not smell sweet at all: green bitters and, for once, dark; an almost queasy richness. I suspect other people might ask what the hell I doused myself in, but I keep compulsively sniffing at my wrist. Damn. It's like crack for the nose.

. . . okay, that simile failed on all levels, but the perfume's a keeper. And now I am out of BPAL. Ototoi.

Comments

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Both the odd prickly sweetness and the loaminess are vetiver, though the sweetness is probably aided and abetted by the violet.

We should get together, and you should try some of my imps.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

I'm wearing "The Erl-King."

Love that metaphor.

Nine

[sovay]

though the sweetness is probably aided and abetted by the violet.

Hm. And the lavender? I may simply have not been able to find it through the vetiver and the musk.

We should get together, and you should try some of my imps.

That would be awesome. Do you want me to bring the ones I have, or have you tried them all already?

[fleurdelis28.livejournal.com]

Wearing the Erl-King needs to be a title of something. Though people might imagine it a bit too literally...

[sovay]

Though people might imagine it a bit too literally...

Given the source material, that might not be too inappropriate:

He strips me to my last nakedness, that underskin of mauve, pearlised satin, like a skinned rabbit; then dresses me again in an embrace so lucid and encompassing it might be made of water. And shakes over me dead leaves as if into the stream I have become.

. . . The candle flutters and goes out. His touch both consoles and devastates me; I feel my heart pulse, then wither, naked as a stone on the roaring mattress while the lovely, moony night slides through the window to dapple the flanks of this innocent who makes cages to keep the sweet birds in. Eat me, drink me; thirsty, cankered, goblin-ridden, I go back and back to him to have his fingers strip the tattered skin away and clothe me in his dress of water, this garment that drenches me, its slithering odour, its capacity for drowning.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

That was a cool story break from work.
Now, back to the word mines.

[sovay]

Angela Carter is always good for the brain. Although you may experience flashbacks later on in life.

How are the word mines these days?

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

Better, as long as I remember what I am trying to do. If I try to write the story, fill in my outline, advance my plot, and flesh out my characters, I fail. If I try to imagine good things and magic them into this square headed spouse, I fail less.