“ALLEGED MAN TRAP OIL” is maraschino cherry red. It stains your skin like a strong lipstick and smells like cough syrup jasmine.

The man selling it to me said that he’s been working at this botánica for 40 years. He told me that he helps people get whatever they want, but only for good. Then he winked. I looked at the other oils on the shelf. One of them just said “War”. I’d say about ½ of the candles and oils in his store were labeled to facilitate malicious intent.

I walked back to my new apartment with a cardboard box full of eight candles and my alleged man trap oil.

In my apartment, I lit each of the candles in the order he told me:

1. “Block Buster”
2. “Road Opener”
3. “Peaceful Home”
4. “Peace”
5. “Goddess of the Sea”
6. “Hummingbird of Love”
7. “Attraction”
8. “Control”

I poured my alleged man trap oil in the latter four. With each flame, I said my name, my birthday, and what I wanted—just like he told me to. I fell asleep with all eight candles lit. When I woke up, I blew them out, pinned up my hair, glossed my lips, and anointed myself with alleged man trap oil.

4100 was the usual pool-cue-yielding mustache men. You can only ash so many cigarettes onto the patio turf, so we hung around the food truck out front. A beautiful tall boy approached me. He complimented my outfit. I complimented his chipped pink nails and two belts. He showed me that he was wearing two pairs of pants. His name was Poly, like polyamorous. He asked for my number (I obliged) and invited me to Tenants (I declined).

He texted me the next day: “Also idk if you’re single (hoping so) but with the UTMOST respect I find you rlly attractive and would love to see u so soon”. I told him I would love to see him “so soon” too. “I truly need a disguise to hide the MASSIVE fucking smile on my face lmao”. I told him he’s too sweet. “You don’t know the half of it, actually could take my eyes off u”. I asked him if he meant to say “couldn’t”. “COULDNT*** omg hahaha sorry”. I texted my friends: “The fucking alleged man trap oil”.

I used to pray for moments like this. I’d spend hours scrolling through my “For You Page,” which was conveniently and consistently rich with TikTok Tarot Readers. Thousands of different videos all followed more-or-less the same pattern: they’d open by listing notably general and ambiguous “signs that this reading is for you” (and Oh My God it is for me) and then tell me that my crush secretly loves me / wants me so bad / would do anything for me / will text me in the next 14 minutes if I privately repost the video. I never reposted them. Maybe that’s why they never worked.

Back when I was still in college, I was down terrible for this medium attractive New York boy. We danced together once. He put his hands on my shoulders. It made me feel like a marionette doll, and I liked it. Someone sent me a Facebook invite for a Halloweekend party at his place. He shared this massive apartment with like ten other rich New York boys. They also loved blue LED lights, playing acoustic guitar, and DJ sets without lyrics.

During the week leading up to the party, I was just relentless. Wake up, TikTok Tarot. Go to the library, TikTok Tarot. Cook a meal, TikTok Tarot. Scroll myself to sleep, TikTok Tarot. For his party, I dressed up as a seal. In sclera contacts and a sheer white babydoll dress, I felt all my hope rise up to my throat when he told me I looked “so cute”. And then his nepo-baby roommate’s actual-celebrity sister showed up, and they fucked off together in his bedroom for quite literally the entire night. He did not, in fact, want me so bad, or at all.

I pretended like I didn’t even care; I was hot, I was a seal, and I was on the list. In the drunken pool of dancers, someone spilled their vodka cran all over my babydoll. I sobbed, I ran, and I forgot my white faux fur coat (which says a lot about both my drunkenness and desperation considering that New England is fucking freezing). Back at mine, I had the kind of meltdown only children and mental patients have. My friend came over to peel the sclera contacts out of my wet eyes. I promise that I knew it was all bullshit. But it’s hard not to listen to what you’re being told. That’s all to say, I no longer used TikTok. I used oil.

Poly replied to my bored-at-10pm text with an unsolicited and horrifically obvious ChatGPT description of his “A24-style romantic dramedy”. Then he double texted me. He’d stalked my Instagram. Apparently, I was a “genius,” and “From one genius to another, keep going”. I couldn’t get myself to respond, not even for the bit.

Two nights later, I didn't re-up on my alleged man trap oil. I subsequently slept through my first date with gorgeous and heavily tattooed Aiden from Hinge. He sat there for 45 minutes, waiting for me at a Venice dive bar, only for both of us to end up spending the night alone. I dabbed the oil on both of my wrists, and Daniel DM’d me: “Wanna get coffee next week?”

I got dressed for coffee with friendship in mind. I had asked Daniel on a date 3 weeks prior. He had replied that “since we’ve messaged last I started seeing someone so unfortunately I can’t go on a date :/ but I’m def not against hanging out platonically :)”. The “unfortunately” was a nice touch. I said sure.

In the coffee shop, Daniel asked to sit next to me instead of across from me. The TV behind him had a clip of Jaws on repeat. The big shark just obliterated a little boy (again and again and again). It was only mildly distracting because Daniel was obscenely hot. He wasn’t only smooth-skinned and 6’6, but also an unsuccessful musician (possibly my most humiliating vice?). He worked at Erewhon in Silverlake. That’s how attractive he was.

I was platonic at coffee because I wore a big sweater over my mini skirt. I wasn't platonic at coffee because I used my alleged man trap oil with intent. Two hours in, I still hadn’t asked about the girlfriend, so he brought her up instead. “I broke up with her last week”. I asked him why. He told me that LA is too sexy for the old ball and chain. We said we’d wine bar together. We never did.

A few days later, I wore black-and-white polka dot pants in a movie theatre. The pants were almost pornographic. My wrists were stained red with alleged man trap oil. Side by side in red velvet seats, I kept glancing at the thick blue-black tattoos across Aiden’s forearms. The movie’s love story ended with both of them dead. Before Aiden left the theatre, he said he wanted to see me again later that week. Then he texted me that he had “too much on [his] plate” for anything more than a friendship, which meant that he didn’t care if I lived or died.

So later that night, I asked a sexy tan bartender, “What’s something you can make me that’s fun and sweet?” Everyone at this house party went to one of the five important LA private schools. As a result, I was sloshed. He made me an extra sweet margarita. He told me that he liked the way my polka dot pants looked on me. We were chatting while he was being flooded by 5’9” white boys who wanted tequila sodas. I said, “You’re obviously busy right now, but maybe I can have your number and we can talk more later?” He said yes.

He told me his number three times. I wrote it down wrong every time. My friend overheard and intervened. She wanted to write it down for me because I was clearly incompetent. The involvement of a third party in our flirtationship made him remember that he’s married. I told him “I wish you and your wife the best” before walking away.

At 4am, I poured a few drops of my alleged man trap oil into the bath. Like blood, it turned the water pink. I recited the incantation: my name, my birthday, and my aim. Candles labeled “Hummingbird of Love” and “Attraction” made the tiled walls glow orange. My bathroom was my confession booth. My back slipping down the bathtub wall, I could almost taste God. Almost.

Suffocated by heat and desire, I thought to myself, this is probably what dying feels like. I couldn’t help but surrender.

Awaiting the promised man-trapping, I visited a wine bar alone on weeknights. The caramel colored walls glowed like my bathroom. I drank pink wine and listened to various hands pass over and through the piano keys. A woman with long dark hair sang beside it. Shoulder to shoulder, her spectators created a warm cloud of body odor.

I drifted to the bar. A mid-thirties Italian man smelled the perfume off my neck. I’m sure I reeked of alcohol and amber. Even though I personally wanted nothing of him, I didn’t make a scene when he so coincidentally wanted a cigarette at the same time I did. In the back-alley, I could hear the woman’s melodic sound vibrate through the walls.

I closed my eyes and listened to her sing while his hand ran underneath my dress. Feeling my body, breathing hard, he yanked my hand towards his crotch. His fingers wrapped so tightly around my wrist, he asked, “Do you see what you do to me?” I remember how his foul breath felt in my ear. I remember holding mine. I never went back.

Deep into the night, I gathered two candles: “Peace” and “Control”. And again, my name, my birthday, and what I wanted. I lit the match. The candles burned like a forest fire. They always did. “Control” sitting beside me felt ironic. The oil beamed red on my countertop.

I scrubbed my body with soap until I was the color of cooked salmon. My skin glistened with suds as I stepped out of the bath. I wrapped myself in a towel. I unscrewed the cap of the alleged man trap oil. The red oil flowed a steady stream into the bathwater. It seeped into the drain, leaving glistening hot pink residue in the ivory basin. Before the last drop, I lifted the bottle upright. Alone in my confession booth, there was more to be gained, more to be lost.

Violetta Balkoff is a twenty-two-year-old essayist from Los Angeles. She has lived in Los Angeles for her whole life — other than her four years living in Providence, RI while attending Brown University, where she studied English Creative Nonfiction and History. Her preferred genres are roman à clef (although pretending it’s “autofiction” is generally understood to be more socially acceptable) and/or historical nonfiction.

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