The Scent of Deceit

Finny stared at the screen of her phone, showing 7:59 PM. When it changed to 8:00 PM, she slipped the phone in her jeans front pocket and started ringing the doorbell. She rang fifty-eight times in short succession, following the rhythm of Rihanna’s Work, only ceasing when she heard quick footsteps approaching the door.

“Sister!” Finny exclaimed as the door opened. “It’s been too long!”

She was about to extend her arms for a hug, but the whiff of woody cologne that met her nose made her freeze.

“Hello, you must be Finny!” said the strange man with a broad smile. The sort of smile that Finny knew could only belong to someone up to no good.

She swiftly put down her Rituals shopping bag and took out her pepper spray, pointing the nozzle straight at the guy’s face. The compact pink spray can had been rolling around in her purse for two years, and she was finally going to put it to good use.

“Who are you, and what are you doing in Nitra’s apartment?” Finny asked.

“I’m her boyfriend,” he stated nonchalantly.

“Her what?”

Finny dodged his incoming hug and walked through the door into the apartment’s hallway.

“I know Krav Maga, so if you try anything funny, you’re dead,” Finny threatened, turning herself back to face the stranger and making a fist with her left hand. Her right hand was still pointing the pepper spray at his head.

“Nitra, are you here?” Finny shouted while peeking behind the first door, the office. As per usual, the floor was covered in pieces of craft paper, ribbons, and flower petals.

“Yes, I’m here.”

Nitra’s voice was coming from the kitchen at the end of the corridor, muffled by the buzz of the exhaust hood. Finny ran towards it and found her sister concentrating over a pot of boiling bold red broth—grandma’s fish soup.

“Sister, it’s been too long!” Nitra shouted, turning towards Finny. “I see you met Grob?”

Grob? Finny thought. What parent would call their child Grob? Is he an ogre?

“You mean the guy who claims to be your boyfriend?” she asked.

“Well, he is! Sorry to spring it on you like this, but well, obviously, I couldn’t tell you over the phone.”

Finny gulped and dropped the spray can on the floor, where it rolled helplessly away just like her thoughts. She silently stared at her sister’s bright eyes, trying to process this catastrophe that was bursting into her life.

“I need to use the bathroom,” she finally said.

For over a decade now, the country was divided into women’s areas (red on a standard map) and men’s areas (yellow on a standard map). Finny was only twelve when it happened. Like everyone else, she had been taken to one of the black cubicles set up all around the city. There, she had her reproductive organs analyzed by a doctor. That examination determined which of the two genders you belonged to, regardless of how you identified. A red or yellow gender badge was issued accordingly. From that moment on, men were only allowed into women’s areas with an orange transversal permit, given solely under extraordinary circumstances.

Then, the government launched the Select Breeding Program. It was the whole reason we were doing this: cleaning up the genetic pool, becoming a smarter and stronger species. Relationships between people from different genders became strictly forbidden, except for those taking part in the Select Breeding Program. Finny and Nitra were precluded from entering the program, given their family history of diabetes and heart disease.

Finny never had an issue with the system. She loved being around women. She had always found men to be a rather disappointing lot—especially the chronically late, emotionally stunted moron with a droopy beard who called himself her father. She was happy he was not allowed to see her anymore. Women were more reliable, intelligent, and attractive. So any type of relationship with a man seemed like a ridiculous goal for anyone to want.

“So, Nitra tells me you’re a pilot,” Grob said.

The three were now sitting at the round dining table. The big pot of fish soup stood in the middle, releasing a sweet, rich tomato fragrance. Nitra and Grob were glued to each other, all smiles and flirty looks, while Finny sat across from them, stiff as a floorboard. She was uncharacteristically quiet.

“Uh… Yes... I… Am...”

“That’s so cool!” he added.

It was a transparent attempt to gain Finny’s favor, but it would not work. Finny could not stop finding flaws in every little detail of Grob’s being. Like the fact that his black curls fell over his eyes and mouth. How can he possibly live like this? Doesn’t it block his eyesight? Or itch his face?

“Grob’s an architect,” Nitra said in a high-pitched tone that Finny did not recognize in her sister. It was as if she was bragging about her kid.

“And you, still looking for a post-doc position?” Finny asked. Passive-aggressive comments could always get her mouth rolling again.

“Yes. But I’m doing my flower arrangements as a freelancer.”

Finny sighed and rolled her eyes. She had been hearing about Nitra’s lack of career focus for almost six months, and now she finally understood the root cause.

“The soup is delicious honey,” Grob interjected, placing a spoonful in his mouth and taking a tip of his hair with it. “I can tell you used fresh halibut.”

Finny shivered at the word honey. This was not right—it was as if her sister was being assaulted right in front of her eyes.

“How are Jonel and Harp?” asked Nitra, changing the subject yet again. It was like being on a minefield trying to find a safe place to stand.

Jonel and Harp were the two goddesses with whom Finny shared her life. She did not appreciate them being brought into this conversation, associating their names with this filth.

“Fine,” Finny answered shortly.

They slurped a few more spoonfuls in silence. Then Finny could not take it any longer.

“Nitra, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Finny was looking her sister directly in the eye, ignoring the presence of Grob. “You’re too smart. Why would you break the law?”

“I’m in love,” she said in her newly found obnoxious voice.

“In love? IN LOVE? Ugh. Could you be more cliché? That’s the kind of thing stupid people say. Stupid people who don’t think about the consequences of their actions. Stupid people who end up in prison for the rest of their lives!”

Grob, unsure where to look, took the soup bowl to his lips to hide his face.

“We won’t be going to prison,” Nitra said dismissively. “The inspectors rarely check this neighborhood. And when they do, it’s just the first couple of apartments.”

“Aren’t you afraid one of your neighbors will tell on you?”

“More than half of the girls around here receive male visitors. They throw mixer parties on the top floor—that’s how I met my Grob,” she looked at her partner in crime as if he was a puppy. “There’s even a couple of pregnant women. We’re sick of this better humans bullshit propaganda. We just want to live our lives. Nobody believes in the system anymore.”

“Nobody?” Finny got up from the table. “Well, I do. The system was put in place for our own good. How can you be so selfish? Do you want the species to continue getting weaker and dumber with each generation?”

Finny grabbed her coat and walked to the front door while rehearsing in her head the final words to her sister. If she had looked back, she would have seen a teary-eyed Nitra and an astounded Grob. But she did not.

“You’re my sister, so I won’t give you away,” she shouted. “But we are fucking DONE.”

Finny slammed the door with perfect timing for maximum dramatic effect.

How could she do this to me? she asked herself as she stood in front of the apartment, feeling her blood rushing to her head.

A few women were whispering upstairs, and the next-door neighbor came to take a peek. But Finny was too mad to care. She took the Rituals bag she had forgotten by the doorstep, grabbed the gift inside, and ripped open the white and pink wrapping paper. She emptied the four bottles of scented body lotions on her sister’s apartment door, screaming with a wave of primal anger she had never felt before. The dimly lit hallway now reeked of cherry blossom, Nitra’s favorite flower—a smell now forever ruined in Finny’s mind.

She ran out of the apartment building. That entire structure was rotten to the core. Those women had brainwashed her sister. They would all pay.

In the quiet of the empty street, illuminated by the full moon, Finny took the phone out of her front pocket and pressed the Stop Recording button.