Chapter 1: The Smell That Changed Everything

After I started applying capsaicin to my underwear, every time I pulled my underwear from the laundry, there was this sour, fishy stench clinging to the fabric. I suspected some creep had gotten into the dorm, but my roommates just rolled their eyes, claiming I was paranoid. One afternoon, as I passed the common room, I overheard a girl snicker, "Saw her getting into that Mercedes again—bet she’s got a sugar daddy." The gossip spread like wildfire, and suddenly everyone seemed to think I had some gross disease.

I couldn’t take it anymore, so I quietly smeared concentrated capsaicin all over my panties. That night, screams echoed through the dorm, shrill and satisfying.

For weeks, the air in our suite was thick with tension. Sometimes I'd catch the girls glancing at me over their Starbucks iced coffees, whispering into their phones and tossing glances my way. Each night, as I drifted off to sleep, the hum of distant traffic and the soft glow of streetlights through our thin dorm curtains reminded me just how alone you could feel, even surrounded by people.

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It seems like I’ve been targeted by a pervert. The panties I hang out on the apartment balcony always come back with a weird smell. It started about two weeks ago. I was collecting laundry on the balcony like usual. As soon as I took down my panties, a strange stench hit my nose.

Ugh—

I gagged and almost dropped the clothes in my hands. I didn’t think much of it at the time. It had been raining a lot lately in Toledo. Maybe my panties fell on the ground and got dirty. But three days later, I smelled the same odor on my freshly washed panties again. This time, it was even stronger.

The rain in northwest Ohio never lets up in spring—gray skies, the constant patter against our brick building, the muddy grass outside the dorms. I remember thinking maybe the balcony railing was just mildewed, or that some maintenance guy had used weird cleaner out there again. I even checked for leaks from the gutter above, but everything was dry.

I immediately asked my roommates. They all shook their heads, insisting they hadn’t touched my stuff. To figure out where the smell was coming from, I first went for a full physical at the campus health center. The doctor told me everything was normal. Then I started switching to different brands of panties. But weirdly, as long as I left them hanging on the balcony overnight, that smell would show up again.

I even tried asking the old lady next door if she’d noticed anything odd, but she just peered at me over her bifocals and muttered something about college kids being messy. Still, I ran out of detergent and ended up buying one of those expensive hypoallergenic brands from Target. No dice. The odor came back every single time.

That’s when I realized something creepy: the problem wasn’t the panties—it was the balcony. There might be a creep in our dorm.

I shivered, thinking about the stories you hear on late-night campus patrol emails—random break-ins, peeping toms, those warnings about locking your windows. For the first time, my own balcony felt less like a place to catch some sun and more like a crime scene.