I don’t know how to put it any better: the lady just didn’t smell right.

She was central European, my age, multilingual, very well-read, smarter than I, and an all-round woman with whom to be reckoned.

I first spotted her at a dry, boring business reception in Zurich. It was filled with dry, boring Europeans busy congratulating themselves on being European, and on having something to do with business.

Marika wasn’t wearing a suit. She was wearing a very dark blue dress that managed to stay just this side of ohmygod.

I timed my arrival at her side perfectly. When she turned from the white-haired Italian bureaucrat, she met the vigorous, focused interest that was me. Hosannas galore! Unattached woman and man sharing close proximity and time. Things to talk about. Things in common – not least, mutual indications that additional communication of the non-verbal kind might be welcome.

We talked some, and that was good. We walked some, and that was good too, although Zurich is not my favorite place for a promenade. The problem arose in the taxi to her hotel. Marika slid over close, and she brought her fragrance with her.

Her perfume was horrible! It’s not that it stank. It’s not that it reeked. The scent didn’t bring to mind excretions or refuse or carrion.

But please try hard to understand this. Her perfume was de-arousing.

Imagine crushed flowers of some kind, mixed with cinnamon and… I don’t know… despair?

I’d never faced such a situation. I was at a loss. I have a normal-sized nose that punches well above its weight. My olfactory sense is acute. And much to my satisfaction, it is also as catholic as I am Protestant.

I like women who smell of many things, from intrigue to hostility, athletic sweat to baked goods, and from fine eau de toilette to Lady Speed Stick.

But for the first time in my life, I’d encountered an odiferous offensive I couldn’t abide. For God’s sake, one whiff of the woman conjured images of needlepoint, convalescent homes and lawn bowling. It made me feel complacent and lax. Flaccid and affectless. Her perfume was a testosterone-specific antagonist – which left me in agony!

That thrice-damned bouquet could be used for crowd-control, or to pacify the denizens of high security prisons. It’s like it was engineered to demoralize and deflate me.

I tried my best, I really did. I bought her a pretty bottle of Dior J’Adore (which I did but she didn’t). It seemed that Marika’s perfume, which she wore each and every day, was custom made for her by a master parfumeur in Paris. It was her signature scent. It helped define her, she explained.

Marika soon began to wonder why I was so eager to take her swimming. (Because she looked exquisite in a bikini, I claimed.) Why did I insist on long walks every time it rained? (What’s more romantic? I countered.) Must we always share a bath after dinner and before bed? (Yes, we must.)

As it always must, the truth came out eventually. And Marika was most displeased. She had painstakingly tested and selected the ingredients in her chosen fragrance. It expressed important things about her. If I were to embrace her, I must also embrace her scent.

That I could not do. We drifted apart. It was to my chagrin, but to the delight of my nose and to the factory that churns out the hormones that make me a man. I lost the opportunity to be with this most interesting woman. But I felt stronger again, more vital, and more eager to commit consensual sin.

Upon my return to New York, I called a longtime friend and occasional lover. She and I walked in the park and stopped on the street for a quick bite. Later, we made love. She smelled of Irish Spring and hot dogs. It was magnificent.

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