Do we love this so much that we hate it?

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Myke and Steve didn’t plan on trouble that afternoon, but trouble often comes disguised in glass bottles. The YSL counter gleamed under the fluorescent buzz, a temple of temptation wrapped in black lacquer. The sales associate, eyes sharp as razors, sprayed a cold mist of MYSLF L’Absolu onto a strip of paper. The scent rose like smoke from a ritual fire—bitter citrus, damp woods, something almost metallic. Myke’s nose twitched; Steve smirked like a man about to confess to a crime he didn’t commit. They leaned in, inhaling at the same time, and for a moment, it felt less like shopping and more like gambling with fate.

The fragrance shifted—first warm, then sour, then unsettlingly sweet. Myke whispered, “It smells like ambition gone wrong,” and Steve chuckled, though his laugh sounded nervous, like it might shatter under its own weight. Around them, shoppers moved as if unaware of the private interrogation happening between two friends and a bottle of scent. Was it genius or a chemical accident? Was it desire in liquid form, or the perfume of regret? They didn’t answer, couldn’t answer. The strip hovered between them, pulsing with possibility, while both men stood frozen in suspense, silently calculating whether to love it, hate it, or fear what would happen if they chose wrong.

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The air was thick with anticipation as Myke and Steve sat across from each other, the dim glow of the streetlight creeping through the window like an unwelcome guest. They leaned in, their voices low, almost conspiratorial. "You ever tried this one?" Myke asked, a sinister smirk curling at his lips. Steve's face contorted, the memory of it almost physically painful. "How could I forget? It was supposed to smell like an exotic garden, but instead... it was like inhaling a vacuum bag full of regret and missed opportunities." The room seemed to tighten around them as they both sat in a moment of silence, the weight of their shared betrayal hanging between them. How could something that promised so much be so... soul-crushingly wrong? The cruelty of it burned just as brightly now as it did that first disastrous spray.

The conversation twisted into darker territory as they ventured into another bottle, this is a fragrance that had promised sophistication but delivered only the scent of stale air and bad decisions. "I thought it would be like walking through a Parisian market, Steve," Myke continued, his voice dripping with mockery. "Instead, it was like someone bottled up the smell of expired confidence and unfulfilled dreams." Steve laughed, but it was hollow, the humor too dark to be anything but tragic. The laughter quickly died, replaced by the unspoken question: What’s the point of chasing something so fleeting if all it ever does is disappoint? Their eyes met—two men broken by the same unholy scent—and for a moment, it felt like they were trapped in a perfume bottle themselves, slowly suffocating under the weight of their own crushed expectations.

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Steve stood before his cologne cabinet like a general surveying fallen comrades—thirty-seven bottles, each with a story, none with a clear alibi. The vetiver reminded him of that ill-fated camping trip where a raccoon stole his pants. The citrus blend brought back memories of a Vegas bachelor party that ended with a black eye and an unpaid bar tab in three currencies. And the oud—God, the oud—smelled like horny mahogany and regret. His wife called from downstairs, asking if he was “still bottling up his midlife crisis.” He muttered something about pheromones and destiny, spritzing options onto both wrists until he smelled like a brothel on fire. He had room for seven scents in his toiletry bag, but none of them said what he needed them to say: “I’m still the man you married, but maybe also someone you’d cheat with.”

The clock ticked like a judge’s gavel. In the end, Steve narrowed it down to nine contenders—then ten—then back to seven with the brutal decisiveness of a man disarming a bomb. Each bottle was cradled like a newborn, wrapped in socks for protection, and kissed with a whisper of “Don’t embarrass me.” As the zipper of the suitcase groaned shut, he felt both pride and panic. What if he chose wrong? What if sandalwood was too presumptuous? What if musk screamed “I peaked in college”? The car honked outside. His wife was loading the kids. Steve took one final whiff of himself, exhaled with the weight of a man whose legacy now rested on scented alcohol... and realized he’d forgotten deodorant.

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They said it was a joke. A cologne bottled like a toilet and christened Pinnace, as if a perfume could escape ridicule by sailing under a name better suited for a sinking ship. But the first man who wore it—Frankie Dobbins, a retired mortician with a limp and no sense of irony—entered a deli in Queens and left with three phone numbers and a free pastrami. The smell, they said, was unnerving. Not because it was bad. Because it was beautiful. A haunting kind of beautiful, like jasmine blooming on a grave. People sniffed around Frankie like he’d rolled through a field of angels and shame.

The mystery only grew after the third incident: a florist’s widow in Baton Rouge claimed the scent made her cry like it was her wedding day—and her husband’s funeral—all at once. And so the legend of Pinnace spread. Sure, it looked like a tiny porcelain commode, mocking you from the shelf. But every spray was a dare. A gamble. A whisper of something sacred wearing the mask of a prank. Try it, and you’ll understand: the bottle is a warning. Because once it touches your skin, you won’t laugh. You’ll ache.

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No one remembered when the decree came down, but it was signed in gold ink and smelled faintly of bergamot—official enough. From that day forward, every citizen could only own five colognes. Not six. Not a sampler set. Just five. Myke and Steve took this as seriously as a will-reading. They met under the usual circumstances—mid-life males, existential dread, matching leather jackets—and began their quest like scholars assembling a sacred text. They smelled their way through boutiques, airport duty-frees, even one suspicious van behind a laundromat. Each scent was debated with the solemnity of wine judges: “Too citrusy, smells like optimism.” “Too musky, smells like betrayal.” There was one cologne—no bottle, no name, just a whisper in a candlelit perfumery in Prague—that neither of them could describe but both refused to forget.

Years passed. They each chose four. The fifth? Untouchable. Sacred. Their lives became a game of near-misses. A woman leaned in on the subway and said, “You smell like my childhood.” A barista once burst into tears after catching a whiff of Steve’s neck. Neither friend spoke of the fifth scent anymore, yet they wore their four like armor, like love letters they never sent. And then one evening, as the city stank of rain and regrets, Myke walked into their favorite bar wearing something new. Steve turned, nostrils flaring, heart catching. “You used it,” he whispered. Myke nodded. “She remembered it.” And just like that, the fifth scent passed into legend—unbottled, unspoken, unforgettable.

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He stood in the doorway of their now-too-quiet walk-in closet, surrounded by the ghosts of her shampoo scents and a thousand sarcastic echoes. The duffel bag on the floor glared up at him like it, too, was disappointed. The rules were simple: one cologne. Just one. He eyed the sleek army of glass bottles, each with a memory like it's own experience — Date Night in Tuscany, New Job Confidence, Apologizing Without Actually Apologizing. In the end, he chose the one he felt the strongest relationship with. Not because he loved it, but because it had never let him down before.

Thirty days later, he’s still wearing it. It’s practically a roommate now. He sprays it in the morning like armor, and by lunch, it’s marinated into his hoodie like some kind of pheromonal rebellion. He’s convinced the barista at the coffee shop flinches when he walks in. A friend told him he smells like a haunted locker room. But he keeps wearing it. Not out of spite, not really. More like… cologne Stockholm Syndrome. Plus, it’s comforting — a terrible little reminder that even when everything falls apart, you can still smell consistent.

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