Horatio had always been a weird boy although - to be fair - it wasn't really his fault.
It wasn't his fault that, while other people were chatting amiably, he had a disgusted expression on his face. It wasn't his fault that, in the middle of a boring history lesson, while his classmates were bored to death, he sat with a blissful expression on his face.
You see, Horatio had a Nose.
No, not a "nose". A "Nose".
Horatio's nose was a super-nose, an uber-nose, a dog-like nose. He could tune into an odor three miles away. Scents that went undetected by others were thick, heady, almost palpable wafts to Horatio.
You'd never know it to look at him. His nose looked completely normal. In fact, that was probably part of the problem, for if he'd had a bulbous, oversized probiscus, others may have understood why his facial expression was sometimes completely at odds with human interaction taking place around him. Perhaps they would have sniffed a little harder and realized "Ah! He's smelling dinner cooking!" or "Oh dear. Horatio's picked up on the smell of that dead rat we cleaned out yesterday."
But, unfortunately for Horatio, his face gave no such visual clue.
Perhaps it wasn't the nose at all. Perhaps it was all in his brain. Receptors which, for the rest of us, lie dormant, may have been firing on all cylinders in Horatio's head.
Whatever the reason, you can see why Horatio ended up as a bit of an outsider. At a pleasant dinner party, he was scowling at the smell of burnt creme brulee. During intense political debate with fellow lefty college students, he succumbed to the blissful aroma of a neighbor's fresh baked chocolate-chip cookies massaging his facial muscles into a squidgy mass.
Because other's could rarely smell what he did, his expressions were always misinterpreted.
Even worse were the questions people didn't ask out loud, prompted by misunderstanding and insecurity.
And so, without him ever quite understanding why, people distanced themselves from Horatio. Even when he tried to explain his nasal prowess, or to develop a better poker face, the mitigations were never truly effective. Like anyone with a visible handicap, Horatio was "other." Different. An outsider.
Horatio took refuge in books and learning. He studied hard, he read prolifically and, the more he did, the more he discovered that chemistry was his favorite subject. Atoms and elements and bonds became fascinating puzzles which, when solved, helped Horatio understand the thing that had such a massive influence on his life... Smell.
And so our hero immersed himself in particles and how they bonded with each other.
I'm sure it won't come as a surprise to you that there was no other kind of bonding in his life. Friendships petered out after a few weeks, and so Horatio gave up trying. As for women, well... he didn't have a chance in hell. Wrinkle your nose at the wrong moment on a first date and you're done. Get distracted by perfume and sit through an initial conversation with an expression of ecstasy on your face, and that conversation isn't going to last very long. Word went around the college underground and Horatio was labelled, in large scarlet letters, with AVOID.
His academic career, on the other hand, flourished. Chemistry became his refuge, and he excelled. One of the professors, also interested in scents, took Horatio under his wing and, like all mentors, encouraged him to excel in an area where the professor himself had failed - to become a Nez.
Professor Blanchard explained that France held umpteen opportunities for Horatio to be the official tester and, eventually, creator of perfumes and scents that men would shell out inordinate amounts of money for, and women would use to seduce these men in the first place. (Blanchard was not the most progressive man when it came to gender issues.)
"I leave that crap to the hairy-pitted, Croc-wearing lesbian professors!" he'd spit.
But I digress.... Back to Horatio.
He was intrigued by the prospect of working in a parfumerie but, sadly, he absorbed more than just knowledge from Prof Blanchard. The rejection of his college cohorts created fertile ground for the professor's outdated views on women, and Horatio chose to embrace those too.
With that in mind, he didn't want to enable harlots to be more seductive. So many men like him, Horatio thought, falling prey to the seduction of these harpies, only to suffer rejection again and again, as he had.
No.
Horatio wanted to turn the tables.
Horatio wanted to make perfume for MEN.
It didn't take Horatio long to get snapped up by a major American brand. A combination of Prof Blanchard's contacts, Horatio's sterling academic record and a sample of a scent he had created himself (a spicy blend with notes of cinnamon and Ameroni), ensured an obscenely high salary, joining bonus and three months of luxury corporate accommodation. Horatio soon proved his worth, developing a best selling deodorant range, and an even better selling aftershave.
Promotion was rapid, and Horatio found himself, at 28 years old, running the Men's Toiletries department.
Ben, the CEO and face of the brand, asked to meet Horatio and, being somewhat of a gormless geek himself, stepped into the shoes of Prof Blanchard and became Horatio's new mentor. This new friendship, however, was a lot different to the relationship with Blanchard. Horatio found himself at swanky promotion parties, attending New York Fashion Week and strolling down the red carpet at movie premieres.
Of course he didn't jump straight into the social big time. Ben tested Horatio in a few low risk situations, and then advised him on how best to fit in in future. Horatio began using the company's facial products, having regular manicures and pedicures and consulting a personal stylist.
But the facial expression issue remained. Horatio had made considerable progress developing a better poker face, but his brain was not wired to ignore overwhelming wafts of scents, good or bad. Ben watched closely and put two and two together. When Horatio grimaced, if Ben tuned into his surroundings, he too would pick up on the offensive odor. If Horatio zoned out, Ben isolated the source - steam from a hot apple pie, perfume on a female companion or the glug of a fine wine being poured.
And so Ben took Horatio aside and offered a solution. So simple, so obvious, but still genius.
Botox.
Overnight, Horatio turned from someone who would scowl or smile inexplicably, to a man at the top of his game who was "understandably" aloof. This had the added advantage of making others try even harder to please him. His staff worked harder, and his social interactions improved immensely. It was a win-win.
Ben, noticing this improvement, took Horatio with him to more and more social events, both public and private. Horatio became a regular at Ben's monthly poker game. They played golf at least once a week. And then - the ultimate endorsement - Ben sponsored Horatio to become a member of his Whiskey and Cigar club.
Horatio was "in."
Although Ben had witnessed his prodigy's rapid ascent to ubermenschdom, he noticed that there was one area in which Horatio was still rather lacking - women. No amount of paralyzed facial muscles and snappy dressing could heal the scars of years of rejection. Horatio just didn't know how to talk to women.
But, as with everything else. Ben had an answer.
One Friday night, after a pleasant dinner with a supplier, Ben bundled the amiably inebriated party into a limousine and instructed the driver to take them to an exclusive and secret location. In the ornate lobby, they were met by an impeccably groomed woman in her forties (sixties, actually, but not that you could tell) who greeted Ben enthusiastically and then turned to introduce herself - in a soft, slightly accented voice - as Veronica.
The men were ensconced in a lounge area and served drinks as the room was slowly invaded by beautiful women. Even two sheets to the wind, Horatio got it immediately. Brothel.
It didn't take long for him to end up in a room with an impossibly leggy and busty woman. Horatio didn't leave until late Sunday afternoon.
On his way out, Veronica beckoned Horatio into her office, where his credit card was extracted, charged and returned with the speed, subtlety and grace of a pickpocket. Horatio learned that he could access Veronica's buffet of delights at his convenience, in the location of his choice.
On the way home, Horatio did some rapid mental calculations and realized that, due to his well compensated job and Ben having funded his entire social life so far, his disposable income was substantial. Substantial enough, in fact, that he could indulge in the buffet every weekend.
And so he did.
He worked his way through blondes, redheads, brunettes, A-cups, D-cups, flowing curly locks and shaved heads. But most of all, he worked his way through smells. Armpits, necks, hair, feet, asses and, of course, vaginas.
The complexity of smells from a woman's vagina fascinated him. More and more he concentrated his time with the women on contemplating, analyzing and enjoying that one specific area. He looked, he sniffed and, eventually, he licked.
And then something amazing happened.
One of the women came.
The gush of fluid was unlike anything Horatio had ever experienced in his life. The notes in the scent were so complex that he was utterly and completely overwhelmed.
He nearly passed out.
Afterwards, Horatio thought for a very long time about his experience. In life full of scents, this one had struck him like never before. Was it like this for other men? And, if it was, how did they function? Why were they not with women every second of every day trying, in every way they could, to milk that juice, that smell, from a woman?
Wait.
Maybe it was just THIS woman. Maybe it was different for every one.
And so the experiment began.
Horatio took two weeks vacation and spent each night with a different woman. Veronica had to sub-contract to find him new stock. He hid sample bottles at the side of his bed and, once the woman was in the throes of ecstasy, collected some of the excretion from her labia.
In an impromptu lab set up in his study, he documented the scents. He described the notes, rated the overall experience and looked for common elements.
The vacation time had to be extended with a lie about a family emergency to continue the experiment. Variables had to be controlled, and so the women were asked to fast for 24 hours before meeting him.
Horatio eventually had to go back to work, but all this did was slow the pace of the research. He continued evenings after normal work hours, and narrowed the women down to four types (it was on racial lines, but Horatio didn't really even realize this), choosing a representative for each, and then experimenting with inputs.
"This week," he instructed Veronica, "they must eat only pineapple for 24 hours before they see me."
"This week, only pancakes, with a lot of sugar and cinnamon."
And so it went on.
Horatio was sleeping less than four hours a night, he had to dip into his 401K to keep funding the women, but he didn't care. The end was almost in sight... formulae don't lie.
Horatio had isolated four essential scent groups which could be added to a standard toiletry pack - aftershave, deodorant and cologne. They each contained common notes from his samples, infused with some of the more appealing dietary additions - cinnamon for group 1, vanilla for group 2, five spice for group 3 and licorice for group 4. Finally, to honor his four favorite women, he added the specific essence which belonged to her, and her alone, to each of the groups.
And this was his fatal mistake.
Adding the scent groups to a new line of toiletries was easy. He created samples and took them to Ben, who authorized him to proceed immediately and get the products out in time for Christmas. Operations made his creations a reality, the Product Design Team made manly packaging and Marketing pulled a nationwide launch together in record time.
January figures showed that one in every 14 houses in metropolitan areas in the US had bought one of the new product ranges during December. The line was a hit, and Horatio was the conquering hero.
Until March.
The first complaint sounded so ridiculous that Customer Service filed it away with a special code - 999 - which meant "crazy person."
"Some guy said his wife slapped him when he got home and he wants a refund!" scoffed the Call
Center Operator, enjoying finally being the one to have the funniest story at lunch break.
But the volume of complaints increased and, finally, they could not be ignored. It became very clear that, although men loved the range, women hated it. Even gay male partners hated it, and said so very loudly, all the while never daring to voice the nagging doubts which they'd never think to link to an aftershave - that their man was secretly bisexual.
By mid-February it became clear that production would have to stop, and the dreaded "Product Recall" phrase was whispered in watercooler conversations.
Ben called Horatio into an emergency meeting and, for the first time, found his mentee's impassive facial expression to be utterly infuriating at best, and sociopathic at worst.
Horatio assured Ben that he could fix things. He knew exactly where he'd gone wrong. Putting in the unique identifiers of Sasha, Chloe, whatsername 1 and whatsername 2 was the mistake. Women could obviously pick up, on some subconscious level, on the scent of another woman. It must be an evolutionary survival thing. He ought to have known that women were still so unevolved, so utterly primal under all that bouffant hair and make up.
He explain things to Ben in those terms, of course. He spoke in chemistry terms, and tried to sound confident and professional.
But Ben was hundreds of thousands of dollars in the hole and facing pending law suits. He wasn't in the mood to listen to science geek babble from a man who didn't seem to give a rat's ass about the shitstorm he'd caused.
Horatio was accompanied by 2 burly security guards to his desk, closely observed as he collected a few personal belongings, and escorted from the building.
A week later, Horatio received a notice from the Whiskey and Cigars club which said that, regretfully, due to a member vote, his membership could not be renewed.
Horatio was out.
If you'd like to read more in the Short Story / Unfinished Novel series, click the Tag below or the Category link on the left.
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Friday, October 29, 2010 at 10:07AM 
