“B***h”

Sections: Information | Plot Description | Reviews

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Information

• First published:
  • July 1974 issue of Playboy
• Connections:
  • Features same protagonist as My Uncle Oswald and “The Visitor,” noted lover Oswald Cornelius

• Related books:
  • 5 Bestsellers Including Over 40 Tales of the Unexpected
  • Lust
  • Switch B***h
  • The Collected Short Stories of Roald Dahl
  • The Complete Short Stories: Volume Two
  • The Roald Dahl Omnibus
• Magazine publications:
  • Playboy (v21 #7) - July 1974
• Audio Books:
  • “B***h” read by Derek Jacobi and Richard E. Grant
  • “Milostné rošády – Čubka” read by Jiří Lábus

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Plot Description

This very adult story is from Dahl’s book Switch B***h and probably shouldn’t be read by any children without the consent of their parents. With that in mind, I’m going to keep the plot/description rather simple and vague.

Spoiler warning! Oswald meets up with an olfactory chemist (a scientist of smells) who wants to isolate the human sex pheromone. They accomplish this feat and successfully test the new perfume, which they label “B***h.” Unfortunately the scientist’s lab assistant steals almost all of their supply and then Henri, the scientist, dies of a heart attack during exertions brought on by the pheromone. Armed with only a small remainder and unable to make more, Uncle Oswald decides to have some fun. He plants the liquid in a large flower corsage to be worn by an obnoxious woman sitting next to the President on live television. His plans derail, however, when she unknowingly releases the perfume in his presence in her hotel room. A spectacularly surreal sex scene concludes the story.

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Reviews

• “The Art of Vengeance” by Joyce Carol Oates (The New York Review of Books)
• “Getting Even” by Stephen Amidon (The Nation)