The hauntingly beautiful towers and spires of Perfume Hill loomed over me on every side. Their midnight shadows caressed the white, paved streets like a woman's hair does her lover's naked, aching body late at night when all the world has gone to bed and only they are awake, locked in each other's arms.
Lush, fragrant scents wafted over tall, graceful walls all around, emanating from a hundred thousand flowers of vibrant colors and graceful shapes. They smelled like every seductive, teasing, insisting perfume ever worn by womankind.
The silvery chain on the gate of the Flower Garden hardly produced a sound when I pulled it. There only came a sweet giggle and whisper from far off in the distance, like silk on skin, like kisses, lips on lips.
Above the wall, swaying gently in the late night breeze like the lazy, seductive movements of scantily clad dancers in some darkened chamber, were the innumerable treetops of this, the largest House on the hill. Behind them, far away, rose the Unicorn's Horn, the impossibly tall, elegant, slender, white Tower of the Sibyl, the chief Lady of Perfume Hill.
For a stranger, a man to boot, to ascend the Hill of Women was either like being let into his sweetest dream, or willingly walk into the most dangerous forest in the Wild, filled with vicious creatures that would eat you alive. And finding out that none of your usual weapons could protect you against them.
That was, of course, how I felt. The faint, exquisite feminine sound of the doorbell went on and on. Why didn't it stop? It was like when I was a kid and a gaggle of girls would look at me and whisper and giggle and I wouldn't know if they planned to make fun of me and my clothes or wanted me to ask one of them to be my girlfriend.
I clung to the spot on my belt from where my sword used to hang, even though it would not have done me much good when faced with arrows from burning eyes, tackles from heaving bosoms, ripostes from smooth thighs, and the coup-de-graces of sweet words whispered in husky voices across succulent lips. Why had the Captains of Glory Hill sent me here? I was totally unprepared for this. Why? Why?
-
"Thank the Lady! You finally came!"
The young woman that appeared had no idea she was supposed to let the tall cast iron gate slide open and peer demurely out at me. Instead she scared me witless by shoving it as if it were a sleeping cow she had decided to topple. On the other hand, I would have been scared no matter what she did, so it didn't really matter.
"I? Who?" I said while I licked my lips and looked around. You know, just to prove to her as well that I was utterly useless for this mission. At twenty-three I was too young and too inexperienced. With the world in general and the wily ways of women in particular. I wasn't confident. I wasn't charming. I wasn't suave. I couldn't churn out compliments on demand like I could fire arrows, couldn't kiss hands like I could whack people over the head with large, heavy objects.
"We've been waiting for you for months, even weeks! Days, at least!" It gave me some comfort that that she seemed as naive as me. Some, but not much.
One side of her black skirt rode noticeably higher on her thighs than the other, and she was barefoot. She had messed up the button order on her dark, blue blouse, and her long, honey hair had not been 'adjusted' in front of a mirror before she came running to open the gate.
"For me?" I said.
"Yes, you!" Her eyes were blue and sparkling like a clear forest spring when the wind creates small waves on the surface and the sun makes them glitter. "Do you know how many dresses there are in this House?"
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'Unadjusted' hair is even more irresistible than its more well-groomed counterpart. Take a woman's head where, for example, almost all the hair is caught in a ponytail. What happens? All the men around her will be aching to lift that single, runaway strand from where it tickles her lower chin and place it behind her ear.
She wears her hair in a loose bun? Men can't stop staring at it, waiting for it to unravel and come cascading like light or shadow down her back. Like most things they do, I suspected that those cruel, vicious, sweet creatures do it to us males entirely on purpose.
-
There was no way I could know how many dresses there were in this House. I didn't know anything about the Flower Garden except that I was to come here and ask for help from the Lady of the House.
I didn't know much about Perfume Hill either, having arrived just a few hours ago. Time enough to change clothes and a quick wash in my hotel room, and that was about it. Ladies like their men clean, and on this Hill it was all about what the ladies wanted. Even someone like me, who had never truly been able to feel the delight of a woman's touch, knew that.
"The Lady Deep Shadow has... eh, I don't know. Twenty of them? Thirty? Let's say forty. Then, there are us five apprentices. I have only two dresses, but I know that Blossom has circa seven, and the Lady only knows how many Flame has. Say fifty? And the maids each have two for work. I hope none of the male staff have any, but you never know. That makes... I don't know, numbers confuse me. Say a thousand! A thousand dresses! Do you know how important dresses are to women? Do you want me to tell you?"
I wanted her to tell me what it all had to do with me. I also wanted for her not to notice that I noticed how she bared her belly each time she lifted her arms to gesture. She was one of those women who express more of her opinions with her body language than her words. And I was, despite my problems, the kind of man who appreciated that. I tried to remember that her eyes were up there, resorted to a "Yes, please," and listened to a long explanation of the need to go to parties, weddings, and rituals. Of how important it was to dress respectably and, this was very important I gathered, look better than your rivals.
I wanted to say, in my awkward talking-to-women stutter, that she would always look good, but I chickened out. Totally unlike Sir Suave, whom Glory Hill could have sent on this mission. Oh, why, why me?
"Well?" She placed her hands on her hips, making her stunning body look like a lightning strike.
Eyes are up there, Weed! "Well?"
"What are you going to do about them?"
"Them?"
"Yes, them. The moths that are tearing through silk and lace like a fox through a chicken coop."
"Moths?"
"Yes! That's why you are called the mothball man. You kill moths. With your balls. Eh, sorry! That didn't come out right." She blushed.
There was no way in which she could blush that didn't touch my heart.
"I..." I said. "I don't know anything about moths."
"Then why do you work as a moth ball man, then?"
"I don't."
