He’d been spraying the spray again. They sprayed it in the bathroom, but it floated out and through the door into Nicole’s room. That stuffy stink, the chemical sweetness of sticky drying spray. His Lynx deodorant. Reeking and seeping into her room, making her cough and cry.
“Please don’t spray your deodorant outside my room,” emailed Nicole. They used to be friendly - he’s borrowed her vacuum in the past. “I have trouble breathing when you spray it. I think I might be allergic to it.”
“I’ll do what I want,” replies the guy.
She woke in the night with a headache and her throat tight and dry. He’d been spraying again.
“I don’t care what you do in your room, but please don’t spray it close to my door,” Nicole emails. “It’s making me sick.”
“You need to see a doctor,” says the guy.
The spraying goes on. Nicole is trying to study so she takes desperate measures. She buys a roll of wide tape and sticks it all round the edge of the door, sealing herself into the room. It works, and she is happy. She does her study in peace until she gets a knock on the door. It’s the guy. He wants to borrow her vacuum again. The door is locked and sealed shut. She ignores him and keeps studying.
Half an hour later she hears laughing outside her room. There are people out there. She’s wondering what they’re doing when she hears a hissing noise and finds herself coughing uncontrollably. Her throat is closing up. She looks at the door and sees a white spray coming through the keyhole, spreading and filling the room.
The windows aren’t big enough to get out of, so Nicole is trapped. She finds her keys, covers her mouth with her sleeve, and manages to unlock the door. Then she pulls the tape off, choking, and gets the door open a crack.
A blast of deodorant hits her in the face while her attackers laugh. It hits her eyes and she is blinded by the pain. She falls backwards onto the floor and a crowd descends on her, spraying and spraying bottles of Lynx onto her face and all around her. Nicole’s throat clenches shut and she can’t breathe. She blacks out.