Letters from the Dreamhouse is a suite of imagined correspondences written by MPS Simpson, inspired by three perfumes from Marissa Zappas. Each letter is told in the voice of a character shaped by scent - their desires, histories and inner landscapes unfolding through the materials that define the fragrance.

Rather than describing the perfumes directly, Simpson lets them speak for themselves. The result is a small dreamworld of longing, memory and sensory imagination, offering an alternate way of entering Marissa Zappas’ work beyond traditional olfactory language.

1807

Dearest one,

In the house of dreams, I felt your smile—that mouth like a trap door, leading to the very darkened recesses of the entire world, all those hidden parts that only you can see. You, the fearless one. You, the conqueror of that most untameable landscape. You, the bastion, the heralding trumpet of a new epoch. Within the hulls of your timber palace, you held within your bosom all earthly delights, all materials of envy. Beneath the serpent’s tail, a trail of gunpowder follows in the wake of your crossing.

In the belly of that wooden beast held the keys to enter heaven; the gifts bestowed with grace and received with subtle gestures of wonder. The treasured spices—the kisses of star anise, the delicate smoke of lit incense, that musky warmth of the orris root. The golden glow from the jewel of our lands, the budding osmanthus flower—that blossoming delight, the tannic apricot blooms in the salt-spray air.

The world gasped in your wake, in your power, in your singularity. Riches and treasures and jewels beyond comprehension under your helm, under the sweet embrace of your rock-hard smile. I hope that I have been able to capture the essence of your eternal infamy in the infallible project of the written word. The smell of your success lingers on the finger’s that have penned your triumph.

Yours, Jorge. 

1958 

I wanted you before I even met you. Before you, I found you in every party I ever danced at, in every sip of champagne that wetted my lips, in every silk-laden boudoir I found myself drifting through.  I wanted you to touch me, to hold me. Your embrace is like the kiss of peaches wafting through the sultry night air. You know darling, when the peaches are just ripe, when biting into the flesh causes streams of sticky sap to trickle down the chin, to trickle down the forearm into the elbow’s hinge. 

I want to breathe you in. To breathe in that subtle smell of moss and wood that seems to linger in your hidden parts. 

Why don’t you come to me. Let’s sit on the grassy lawn, and let that delightful summer’s eve breeze wash over our skin. Can’t you smell the waft of violets drifting in? Can’t you smell it in the light of the sun that beats down upon us? Can’t you smell the fur of those animals that roam our territory, our little children? I have never felt a love like the one we used to have, the one that used to drape across our senses like a chiffon-haze, making everything beautiful. Why don’t you come to me, my darling, my eternal honey-flower. 

I’ll be your cat—you can be the mouse. 

Eternally, Maggie.

1963

My loves, I hope that this letter finds you in good health—well sexed and well loved. When I think back to you, in our veritable garden of eden on the domestic mountain top, on the endless pillars of concrete and steel, I feel nothing but a warm glow emanating from the depths of my stomach. When, in weaker moments, I attempt to conjure the image of our love in my mind’s eye, a violet-shroud covers my senses. Our love cannot be captured in images. Only in that relentless cascade of things, that falls a summer’s downpour upon the senses. I’m the blonde cobra, you the black sheep that sticks cruelly out in a crowd. In you I saw myself doubled. In you I felt lonelier than when I had been alone. 

The sweet first kiss, the taste of sugared candy, the flesh of the orange fruit. That narcotic presence of desire needling into the very pulp of my flesh, down to those marrowed parts. I capsized myself in the fountain of absinthe that flowed from your mouth, in the mottling dreams produced by opening the door to the other side. In the field of night’s glory, the subtle song of that particular jasmine, you know, the lady of the night that we worship in our dreams, curls around the air and fills up my lungs. I feel the hum of the rum-soaked parties, waft of a just blown out candle, the inhale of a forest’s black hair. I feel you in every night unslept, in the current of the undertow that brings us closer to the gates of mystery. 

Let’s dance until eternity, in that never-ending charade of all things. 

Love always, Laura. 

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