formula

The lift smelt a bit like that blood red perfume from Tommy Girl, mixed with an oddly tasty whiff of feminine perspiration; the remains of a hard day fused with the promise of a heavy night.
I decided it came from the tall girl in the white peasant top. Her hair fell on her bare shoulders just so, their soft touch oozing freshness despite where and when she was- in an office lift, at 8pm on a Monday. She was my ‘type’, I perceived (whatever that might mean, and anyway I wasn’t interested). Pretty, but ‘regular’, something confident and middle-class about her. Something assured and witty.

The lift pinged to a stop at ‘G’. I’d be going to B1. She paused, graciously smiling at the elderly accountant from my office as he moved out. Then she made to leave, gathering her red skirt around her. I could smell her as she swept past me, my nose and mind reeling at the surprising, harsh, repulsive odour of sweat.

I gasped discreetly as the doors shut behind her and on me. I smiled politely at the bespectacled, plump girl in an embroidered top, standing to my left. It was just her and me now, and the still invigorating smell of sweat and Tommy Girl.