Already from the time of inception, I know that I’m pregnant. Something shifts inside of me, something that doesn’t sit right with the rest of me. On our first visit to the hospital, Archie cries when he hears the fetus’ heartbeat. The midwife smiles like she’s in on the joke. ”First time?” she asks and I say yes, because Archie can’t get a word out.

”I didn’t think I was meant to be a mother,” I say to Archie, astonished at how my belly swells week by week. He laughs, not realising that behind those words there’s terror. How can someone who isn’t even human be expected to take care of a newborn? Scent ruled my life before, but now that I’m pregnant, smells take on even greater meaning. There are very few smells I can stand, and if there is a rotting banana peel within a hundred metres, I’ll sniff it out. My body is now more of a prison than ever before, holding me captive somewhere in its dungeons. Since becoming pregnant, I’ve been confined to our small apartment, eating crisps on the sly and drinking scalding hot tea. I’ve been throwing up daily, and I haven’t been able to hold on to my job.

When labour finally starts it shakes me to the core and somewhere in the middle of it, I check out. There is pain like I’ve never felt before. There is pinching and poking and rough hands and needles the size of knitting pins. And here I am, somewhere in the middle of it, trashing and turning and howling like a starving wolf. I know nothing of the C-section that eventually separates me from the baby, nothing of Archie who trembles as he sits there waiting, nothing of the bloodbath that the doctors and nurses emerge from as they rush a blue-tinted baby off to some room to be brought to life. I know only the peace that comes afterwards, the feeling that nothing matters for a while, that I have fallen into something that I can’t stay in but is nevertheless pleasant for its total lack of substance. 

”Are you sure you’ll be okay here?” Archie takes the baby from me after I’ve made another half-assed attempt at feeding him. I rush to the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet before I throw up. Tomorrow, Archie is going back to work. Tomorrow, it’ll be me and the baby back home. Tomorrow, it’ll be up to me to keep him alive. Tomorrow, it’s judgement day. All I’ve been able to do since coming home from the hospital is to stare at the little angry creature, this little waif of a child, this pitiful scrap that has managed to mark every centimetre of our apartment with its distinct smell. 

When Archie leaves, I try plugging my nostrils with cotton. I try doing the same with my ears to catch a few winks of sleep while the newborn wails at the top of his lungs. I try breathing into a paper bag while the newborn latches onto my nipples, chewing and sucking mercilessly until they bleed. I try leaving him alone in the bedroom and locking myself into the bathroom when the urge to hurt him becomes too strong. The smell of fear inside our tiny apartment follows us everywhere. When it threatens to flatten me, I scream into as many pillows as I can find. As soon as Archie walks through the door, I hand him the baby and shut the door to the bedroom. This goes on for weeks. I’ve lost the desire to leave the apartment, but staying cooped up is also having its way with me.

”I’m worried,” Archie says, almost on a daily basis. ”You’re vanishing. Look at your arms! This is too hard on you.”

”I’m doing okay,” I say flatly.

Archie stares at me. ”You’ve got black circles under your eyes.”

”Do I?” 

He nods. ”Your hair is falling out.”

”Is it?” I touch it absentmindedly. ”I think that’s normal. I think that’s supposed to happen.”

Archie shakes his head. ”I don’t think any of this is supposed to happen.”

This throws me. After he leaves for the day, I run around frantically, trying to do normal stuff. Wiping the fridge, throwing out food that could grow legs. Changing the sheets on the bed. Chucking in a load of laundry. I stop at grocery shopping, knowing I’d never follow through, but I make an attempt at boiling pasta.

When Archie comes back, I greet him at the door. ”Dinner’s almost ready,” I say, nodding towards the kitchen. The look on his face says it all. ”I know,” I giggle. ”I didn’t think I’d have it in me myself.”

He opens his mouth. ”Where is he?”

Who? I almost say but stop myself. ”Oh, him. He’s in the bedroom. Napping,” I add, when Archie looks a bit alarmed. ”On the bed?” I shake my head. ”In the crib.”

Archie slips out of his shoes and sets off towards the bedroom. A few minutes later, he comes out. I smell something I haven’t sensed in him before. ”When did you last change him?”

Annoyance flares up inside of me. ”Am I on trial here?” I snap.

He reaches for me. ”No, you’re not. I’m sorry. But the onesie he’s sleeping in is all pesto-coloured. There’s some on the sheets as well.”

”Oh,” I wave it off. ”It happens. I’ve done laundry today.”

Archie sinks down onto the chair, still looking at me.

”Listen,” he says when I’m grating a piece of Parmesan over the pasta bowl. As luck would have it, I found it loitering in the vegetable drawer, sporting only one moldy corner that could easily be cut off. ”I think you’re going through post-natal depression.”

I don’t flinch as I serve the bowl. Plates and glasses are already on the table, so I sit down. It sounds like such a normal condition; it would be easy to succumb to it. But I can’t have a doctor prodding and probing inside my mind, trying to confirm a diagnosis. It’s too risky.

”I’ve read up on it,” Archie continues, sounding like he’s just getting started. ”It’s quite common. It’s a reaction to this entire… transition.”

”Salad,” I say, remembering the rinsed arugula now draining in a colander. ”I’ll get it.”

Archie’s hand shoots out, stopping me. I freeze.

”Please,” he says, ”come see a doctor with me.”

I remove my hand from underneath his palm, making an attempt to stand up. Then, the wailing starts.

”Oh for fuck’s sake,” I groan as I sit down again, covering my face in my hands. 

”I’ll get him.” Archie bounces off the chair, disappears into the bedroom. He takes his time and when he reappears, the baby in his arms is wearing a fresh outfit.

”I’ve changed him,” Archie says, holding him up like a prize. ”Did you get to eat?”

I scowl. ”No. I wanted to eat together.”

He cocks his head. ”Come on. It’ll be like this for a while. Here,” he hands me the baby, who has started up again. ”I think he’s really hungry.”

So am I. I stare at the baby, at the big gaping hole in the middle of his red face, and I want to plug it in the same way that I plug my nostrils. The scent is all over me now and it’s begging me to do something about it. I press my lips together since I can’t cover my nose, then I stand up so quickly the chair falls underneath me. Its back rattles against the floorboards.

”You feed him,” I growl, slamming the door to the bedroom. 

It gets worse. The next day, and the day after that, the scent invades my brain. There’s nowhere I can go now to escape it. It follows me into the bathroom, sits with me on the couch, lives in my clothes and on my skin. I try leaving him on the floor and opening a window in a last attempt to feed my brain some oxygen, but it’s fruitless. By nighttime, I can no longer think clear thoughts. Everything inside my mind is fuzzy, incoherent and frightening. 

”Take the couch tonight,” Archie says. ”I bought a breast pump on my lunch hour, so I can feed him.”
My head whips around. ”Breast pump?”

He nods, pointing at the hallway. Sure enough, there’s a tote bag out there – Archie never uses plastic – and when I poke around, it reveals an otherworldly machine with two suction cups attached to thin hoses that feed into two identical bottles. In the middle, there’s a round device that seems able to light up.

”It’s electric,” Archie says, at the same time as I ask ‘Why did you get a pink one?”

For a while, he stares at me, but says nothing. I plug it in and take off my shirt, but it turns out that sitting around half-naked with two cones that regularly squeeze my breasts is too much for my body to handle. At the end of a half-hour session, the bottles have only received a few drops of watery milk each. I feel ashamed. Not even this I can handle.

”Screw this,” I say, ripping the cups off my breasts, stomping off into the bedroom. For the first time, Archie doesn’t follow. I fall asleep with my black leggings still on but naked from the waist and up. He sneaks in when it’s dark, placing the baby next to me on the bed.

”Here,” he whispers, ”feed him lying down.”

The next morning, I can sense there’s been a shift. He’s given up on me. Archie eats breakfast quickly, as if he can’t wait to be out the door. I’m going mad inside the apartment, with nowhere to put the baby so my nose can have a few minutes of respite. At one point, I make a nest for myself on the bathroom tiles, cocooned by as many towels as I can find, the window wide open and music on high volume in my headphones. That’s why I don’t notice Archie coming in until the door opens. When our eyes lock, I know he knows. There’s nothing left to say but the truth, because he’s not going to say anything.

”He’s sleeping,” I say, then I start crying. Archie sinks down on the floor. He doesn’t take my hand, he’s just staring at the opposite wall.

”We can’t go on like this.”

I nod through the tears.

”I have to tell you something,” I say, even though I don’t want to. My teeth are chattering. Is this what it feels like to freefall, to jump into the unknown? My future from here will be one giant black hole, one depressing event after another. Archie will take the baby, which will be a relief at first. Then, I’ll lose custody and he’ll find someone else, someone much better suited to care for a family and create a normal existence. Someone who’s entirely human and not flawed like me. I’ll end up damaged, broken, dying in an alleyway like a stray dog.

”So tell me,” Archie says, sighing.

I swallow. Then I take the fall. 

”Remember back when I told you I didn’t think I was meant to be a mother?”

Archie nods and for a few seconds I imagine us back at that outside table, the evening balmy and the air scented with spring.

”It’s because I can smell everything. I can smell fear.”

He looks at me. ”Fear?”
I nod, trying to hold back my tears while I explain to him that sniffing out fear is easy because I haven’t yet met a person who doesn’t carry the scent on their skin. Most people don’t want to admit that they make decisions, walk around, take jobs and have conversations with others because of it. 

”What does that have to do with our baby?” Archie asks, innocent in his confusion. 

I tell him that I’ve never been able to handle the smell of newborns. I tell him of their scent: repulsive yet alluring, strange yet familiar, perfect while at the same time completely unfinished. I tell him that they’re so many things at once compressed inside a tiny, fragile little being that my senses are on instant overload. Everything about them is overpowering. They’re helpless; such easy prey that it takes all my efforts not to act on their signals.

”I haven’t ever met another person who has a nose like mine.”

Archie shakes his head, either in disbelief or trying to wrap his neurons around this new information.

”Why haven’t you told me this before?”

I’m not sure what to say, so I hope honesty will do the trick. I tell him that somewhere along the line, I’ve grown tired of being a curiosity. When I met Archie, I wanted to merge into his normal-ness. He seemed like the antidote to the shadow that had been beckoning me to follow ever since I was a moody teenager. He seemed like someone who might be able to keep me safe. Because I am what Archie would call intense, we had a whirlwind romance.

”I’m so fucking in love with you,” he groaned just a couple of weeks into our budding relationship. This wasn’t said in the heat of the moment. He’d rolled off me minutes ago and we were settling into the comfortable bed-nesting that is commonplace during beginnings. ”I’ve never really felt anything like this.” He reached out to cup my breast in his palm, like he couldn’t quite believe he had a thing like that within reach. I assured him that I hadn’t, either, which was also true. I had never felt so certain of having a future as I did when I was with him. Archie even looked normal. He wore chinos to work and completed the look with a checked shirt and horn rimmed glasses. In the office, he took diligent notes and wrote serious articles on nerdy topics, such as What Really Goes On Inside A Black Hole and Why There’s Definitely Life Out There. Every article took weeks or months to put together, then appeared in glossy print in a respected science magazine that had a small but loyal subscription base. He made decent money, though I’d never cared about that sort of thing. I cared about his scent, which was sweet and honest. 

On his invitation, I merged with Archie. It didn’t take long before I had abandoned my own dingy basement apartment, moved my few belongings to his place and started staying the night.

”No snake?” Archie asked when I appeared in the doorway, suitcase in hand. 

I shook my head. ”Did you want one? We can go down to the pet store later…”

He grabbed me by the wrist, pulled me inside and kissed me before I could finish the sentence. ”You seem like a woman who might keep a snake,” he murmured, pinning me to the wall. 

When it came to sex, there was a kind of urgency in him that I suspected hadn’t been allowed to roam free before. Amused, I picked at my ripped clothes afterwards, trying to decide if they were worth saving. 

”It’s your doing,” he’d say, sounding embarrassed. ”Stop being so fucking sexy all the time.”

Living with Archie was easy. He didn’t have odd habits, or if he did he managed to keep them from me, which on fifty square metres was a worthy achievement in itself. Contrary to what my vicious mother always said, he didn’t start taking me for granted. Back when I was just one body and we didn’t have a baby together, we still went out for brunch, for afternoon strolls, and we still went to the movies and to bars for drinks.  

”I know this is it,” he said when he asked me to marry him, looking more vulnerable than I’d ever seen him. I kissed his eyelids, hoping it would have a soothing effect. ”Only one condition.” I stopped short. ”I want kids. Lots of them.”

***

On the bathroom floor, Archie and I are both staring at the tiles on the opposite wall. I don’t know if he gets it yet, so I decide to spell it out. No more shameful secrets.

”I’m a predator.”

He looks at me for a long time. ”I think you’re losing your mind.”

I shake my head violently. ”I prey on people.”

His mouth opens, then closes. I go on. ”It’s what I do, how I was raised. I sniff things out so I can go after them. And I’m so afraid I’ll do something that’ll hurt him because he’s so vulnerable.”

”So why did you have him?” He’s angry now, as he should be, as I knew he would be.

I avert my gaze. ”Because of you. Because I wanted you, and I wanted to be normal with you.”

He sighs. It’s not enough.

”Because I love you,” I add, and the words ring out in the depressing bathroom. ”Because I want to … stay with you. And him,” I add, even though right now it’s not true. ”But I don’t know how I can do that.”

Archie drops his head on his knees. ”I do want to help you,” he says quietly, ”but I don’t know how to, either.”

We sit like that for a while, the baby blessedly silent. Maybe today he will actually sleep.

”Newborns don’t have fear.”

At first, what he says doesn’t sink in. Then, I look up. 

”An infant doesn’t even fear death.”

It’s typical for Archie to know such things, so I don’t even ask him where he got it from. 

”It must be your own fear.”

Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t say anything because inside my slumbering mind, something is waking up. Perhaps it’s ancient knowledge, perhaps it’s an awareness of who I am that I’ve chosen to forget. 

”Look,” Archie says, placing his palm on my knee. ”You’ll have to come see a doctor with me.”

I nod because there’s nothing else to do if I want to hold onto this life. A doctor will prescribe a course of action presuming that I’m human, and perhaps I am because Archie – in his goodness – believes that I am. Perhaps that shiny piece of goodness is all I need to latch onto to survive. Perhaps his unflinching belief that I’m good, too, is going to be enough to pull me through. Perhaps it’ll be enough to sustain me while I learn to live without the smell of fear invading my nostrils. Perhaps I smelled this sweetness in him from the very start and latched onto it, not because the predator in me needed it but because I, too, wanted to love.

When he stands up, he reaches for me. I place my cold hand in his warm palm, and for a while, we stand still. He starts to move a second before I’m ready but I follow him anyway and together we edge towards the bedroom. Before we go in, I look at Archie. Does he see me differently now, knowing my nose is a hunter’s nose? Did he sense, even before he fell into the trap, that he became my prey? Did he go into it willingly or was it in a haze? Perhaps it doesn’t matter now. Perhaps with him on my side I can be a predator able to live among the smell of fear or sweetness or confusion or hope and and not pounce on it. Perhaps I can be a predator living among human beings trying to blend in, pretending every day until what I’m trying so hard to be is what I become. 

Archie presses the handle down but before we go in, he looks at me. I take a breath and brace myself for the smell. Then I nod bravely, hoping that one day I’ll feel the kind of courage that he lives by every day. The kind of courage he takes for granted. We tiptoe inside to see the baby that we’ve made, the being that’s here because of us, the creature that relies on the two of us to keep him safe from harm and do our best to lead him and love him in this strange, chaotic world that I have yet to make sense of myself.

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