The Smell of His Lies

My husband always smelled like he'd caught the clap, down between his legs. But no matter how many doctors he saw, his physicals and his lab work came back normal.

I was born with a sensitive nose, and I hunted that smell for two solid months without ever finding the source. Then came his birthday, and I gave him a smartwatch.

That night, while he was in the shower, the watch buzzed and a message popped up on its own. Once I read it, I finally knew why my husband stank.

Chapter 1 Lately there was a stench on my husband. It was hard to describe.

Like the row of portajohns at the county fair after a full August day in the sun, with rotting fish mixed into it.

The closer he got, the thicker it came, and it turned my stomach. "Honey, can we tonight?" He had his arms around me from behind again, his breath warm on the back of my neck.

But what reached my nose first was that familiar stink.

My stomach heaved and I shoved him off me. "Gerald Blackwood, you really stink!" The heat on his face froze over and turned into irritation. "Madeleine, is there something wrong with you?

How many doctors have we seen? Every one of them says I'm fine. What do you even want?" I rolled my eyes. Sure.

The physicals and the lab work were all normal, not the faintest trace of inflammation anywhere. But my nose has always been sensitive, and I genuinely could not stand that smell.

It was like a septic tank. Gerald went into the bathroom with a face like a storm. The water came on. I sighed, restless and irritable.

It was his birthday, and I still couldn't stand to be touched by him. Until that smell was solved, we were never going to have a normal sex life.

I rubbed at the space between my eyebrows, annoyed. Then I turned and saw the smartwatch on the nightstand. It was the birthday present I'd given him that day.

Gerald was a materials science professor at Elmridge State. He ran flat out from morning to night. A middleaged man ought to be paying more attention to his health.

So I'd gotten him a smartwatch that could monitor his heart rate. I picked it up and turned it over in my hand, just idly poking around for features I hadn't found yet.

Then the watch buzzed and two texts popped up. [Professor Blackwood, can it not be in your office next time?] [It's still hurty.] My fingers stopped in midair. Professor Blackwood?

The office? Hurty? The words hit my brain one after another. And then it came clear. Oh. No wonder he stank. He was cheating. Well. Nothing wrong with him, then.

Looking back, Gerald had been off for two months. He was a professor at Elmridge State. All he'd ever done was teach and run his research.

A man who wouldn't bother straightening a crooked collar. Then, two months ago, he started caring how he looked. He started reading up on cutting sugar and on skincare.

Every night he stood at the mirror patting on toner like some gay guy. And the phone he used to leave lying around anywhere became the one thing he guarded with his life.

He took it into the bathroom when he showered. He slept with it under his pillow. He even took it to the toilet clenched in his fist.

When he looked at the screen his body tipped away on its own, curved into a shield.

Once I brought him a plate of fruit, and the moment I came a little closer he locked the screen like a startled rabbit.

When I asked about it, he always had an excuse. "Students message at all hours. If I miss one it holds up the experiments." Right.

All those years of teaching, and I'd never once seen him that dedicated.

Chapter 2 Gerald's replies came up on the watch a moment later. [Don't worry, nobody ever comes to that office.] [I'll get a few more cushions for the chair so it doesn't dig into you.] [Remember to put the ointment on, get the swelling down.] So there it was, nailed shut.

He was cheating. I picked up the glass of water beside me, gone cool, and took a long swallow.

The cold sliding down my throat just barely pushed back the sweet metallic surge coming up the other way.

Deep in my chest something was still clenched tight, aching in a thousand fine points. Gerald and I were the model couple who had walked off a college campus hand in hand.

Twentyfive whole years of carrying each other through.

We'd gotten through the lean years of our doctorates together, paid off the mortgage together, earned tenure and made full professor together.

To everyone outside, we were the example: two people who had built each other, perfectly in tune.

But while I was making a home inside this marriage, adding to it a brick at a time, he had been putting up a second house somewhere else.

I swiped into the message thread on the watch. All I could see was the student's display name: lil C doesn't scare easy. No real name saved. The picture was a cartoon kitten.

Young people all liked that kind of picture now. Our own daughter used something similar, a cartoon puppy.

The thought that my husband's lover was the same age as our daughter made it that much more disgusting. The water in the bathroom shut off.

I quickly put the watch back on the nightstand, lay down, and pretended to be asleep. Gerald came out trailing steam.

The body wash had knocked the stink back a little for the moment, but it still came threading into my nose, thin and constant. The other side of the mattress dipped.

I felt him lie down. In the dark I lay with my eyes open, nowhere near sleep. Who was this lil C doesn't scare easy? I started running through it. A last name that began with C.

Carver? Cantrell? Chastain? That was it. Gerald had taken on a new student this year, a woman, and I was fairly sure her last name was Chastain.

The gender ratio in Gerald's field was lopsided. It was famous across campus for being a roomful of men. And he himself was sexist down to the bone.

I'd argued with him about it more than ten times. "Women are perfectly capable these days. In engineering and the sciences they're every bit as good as the men.

You can't keep looking at them through that filter." Gerald always scoffed. "Women don't have the logic for it.

Their undergrad grades look fine, but put them on real research and they don't measure up to the men." He'd even said this: "By the time a girl has a PhD she's an old maid, her mind left the work a long time ago.

Taking one in is wasting a funded slot." "You're a humanities professor. You don't understand how things go on our side." Which was why every student he'd ever taken was male.

But this year, for the first time in his life, he took on a woman. Last name Chastain. Angelica Chastain. And once she was in, he couldn't say enough about her.

He brought her up more than once, always the same words: "careful and responsible at the bench, keeps her data in perfect order, miles better than those clumsy boys." At the time it warmed me.

I thought he'd finally broken his own prejudice. Now I had to wonder whether any of that praise had ever been about her work. I pictured Angelica.

A girl with a bare, scrubbed face and clear pale skin. Always in blackframed glasses, quiet in her bearing.

Anyone who looked at her would have said: a cleanminded, hardworking, steady student. Back then I'd envied Gerald for landing a student like that.

Chapter 3 I'd told him to mentor her properly, not to let his prejudice waste a promising student. Now all I felt was how ironic it was. Why do it?

It's hard enough already to be a woman in engineering. What was wrong with just doing the work, steadily, honestly?

Going the crooked way only ruins you, and it ruins every girl coming up behind you. The next morning Gerald was rushing and forgot to put the watch on.

While he was bent over his shoes I slipped it into my bag. We drove in to campus together. We taught at the same university. Just in two different buildings.

Once we parked, Gerald headed off toward his office without looking back, the way he always did. I stood and watched him go. I didn't go to my own building.

I carried my bag straight over to the engineering research building where Gerald worked. If I knew he was cheating, then obviously I was going to catch him at it.

His office was on the seventh floor. I turned into an empty conference room on the sixth. The watch could still get messages here, and he wasn't likely to find me.

The window looked right down on the treelined walk below. A perfect spot for watching who came and went. I sat down, set the watch on the table, and waited patiently.

The minutes crawled by. The watch stayed quiet. Gerald and his "C" both seemed to be busy with actual work today. Then, at twelve thirty, lunch hour, it finally buzzed.

From lil C doesn't scare easy. [Professor Blackwood, are you in your office?] My heart skipped. There it was. Gerald answered in a second. [Yes, just got out of a meeting.

Come up.] The hunt was on. I went to the window and locked my eyes on the walk below.

A few minutes later the watch buzzed again. [Professor Blackwood, I picked up the sandwich you like from that place.] [I put the ointment you bought on yesterday and it's much better now.

It goes on cool, it feels really nice. Thank you~ 😊] My stomach rolled over again.

Going at it on the chair I gave him, then thoughtfully telling his lover to go buy medicine for it afterward. Gerald, you really are an advisor for the ages.

Just then a slim figure came into view. It was Angelica. She had a folder held against her chest and a takeout box in her other hand.

She looked like she'd just come from the dining hall, walking toward the engineering building.

A little later Gerald wrote back. [Come on up, I'll take a look and see if it's still swollen.] [Mmhm, Professor Blackwood, I'm at your door.] I didn't move yet.

I counted, quietly. Five minutes. Ten. Let them lock the door. Let them get started on each other. Let them… About time.

If you're going to catch them in the act, how can you do it without an audience? I