Needless to say, my mother played an important role in why I’m like this. My earliest memories are of her smoking. I was five years old and I can remember her cooking breakfast for my father in her nightgown- a Winston dangling from her lips as she scrambled his eggs over the gas range. My father didn’t smoke, but he didn’t seem to mind Mom’s habit. Maybe I inherited these feelings from him. I should have outgrown this obsession, but its only gotten worse.
Mom is 55 and smokes about two packs a day. She says she started when she was 19 but I’ve heard my grandmother say she’s been smoking since she was 15. Grandma smoked too but she’s dead now.
I like the way Mom looks when she smokes. There, I admit it. I always have and I always will. I guess that makes me a sick. Smoking is supposed to be disgusting. It makes your breath and hair stink but I love every thing about it. My mother’s breath is sweeter than any perfume I ever smelled.
I’m not a closet smoker now but I was when this story began. I smoked my first cigarette when I was 15. It was every thing I expected and more.
I used to fantasize about smoking in front of my mother. I would imagine different scenarios with her discovering my habit. Sometimes she would catch me. Other times I would tell her. I enjoyed the look of disgust on her face as she watched me light up. Maybe I wanted to hurt her. It was her fault that I felt the way I did. I’ve seen children smoking with their parents and they always look so happy. My life could have been like that, but my mother wasn’t the kind of woman who would allow her child to smoke. It would be too embarrassing for her. What would the neighbors say?
My mother complains constantly about her habit. I once heard my father ask why she didn’t quit since it bothered her so much. Mom hit the roof and let Dad have it. In her holier than thou voice, she told my father that he didn’t have a clue as to what he was talking about. She told him he couldn’t fathom the feeling of being addicted to cigarettes because he didn’t smoke, and then she’d light another Winston.
That word “Addiction” used to bother me when I was younger. I knew what addicts were. Addicts were people who needed drugs to make them feel good or even normal. I had a hard time thinking of my mother or any other smoker as an addict. Addicts were supposed to hide their habits. Junkies didn’t shoot up openly but smokers like my mom lit up everywhere. Real smokers don’t care who sees them satisfy their habits. Junkies pay cash for their drugs on dimly lit street corners. Mom buys her cigarettes at the grocery store and writes a check for them. Junkies don’t look sexy or glamorous with a needles hanging from their arm but the smoke from Mom’s lungs could launch a thousand ships.
She was young once. There had to be a time when she didn’t smoke but I just can’t imagine it. I’ve often thought of what she must have looked like at 16 running around the house in her panties carrying her cigarettes. I found a picture of her smoking. She doesn’t know I have it. Grandpa must have taken it because it’s a picture of her with my grandma. They were both smoking in the picture. I showed it to my grandma. I didn’t say any thing about the cigarette. I just asked how old mom was in the picture. Grandma told me she was sixteen and asked if she didn’t look beautiful. I put that picture in my little safe that looked like a book along with some other things that were pretty important at the time- like teeth that my dentist had pulled and a necklace that I never got the chance to give to a girl when I was in 10th grade.
Smoking is an adult habit and my mother made damn sure I knew it. She hated kids that smoked. According to her, kids that smoked were evil and ignorant. I was not allowed to be friends with kids that smoked.
The necklace that I kept in my book safe was meant for a girl that smoked. We were both fifteen. Her name was Lisa and she was the first smoker I ever kissed. She smoked Virginia Slims Light Menthols. I still remember her sweet menthol kisses. I smoked my first cigarette with her. It was her idea. She asked me to try it. She told me I’d like it. She was right. I did. I guess mom was right about girls that smoke being dangerous. Lisa was my mother’s worse nightmare- an attractive influential teen smoker. Lisa gave me a pack of her cigarettes and told me to take them home. I shouldn’t have taken them but I did and I hid them in my book safe.
I didn’t know how easily one of those little locks could be picked but my mother did. She found the cigarettes and interrogated me with Gestapo tactics. She made me talk and I named names. I told her about Lisa and my friend “Short Fred”. Fred was confined to a wheel chair. I know it sounds like a mean nickname but he’s the one who made it up. My mother made it a point to call both their parents that night. She grounded me for a month. Neither Short Fred nor Lisa ever spoke to me again. Ironically, Lisa’s parents gave her permission to smoke after mom dropped the hammer on her. Its funny how things work out. Needless to say, I didn’t quit. I just got better at hiding it.
In addition to grounding me, my mother made it very clear how disappointed she was. Her guilt was thick and it stuck to me like glue. I felt terrible about my self. According to her, I was stupid and trashy. I disgusted her. She told me all of this with a Winston dangling from her lip.
Why is it that people like my mom and Barbara can smoke and they’re not trashy or stupid? As a matter of fact, they’re the farthest things from trashy and stupid. They’re attractive and respectable members of our community. They are adult smokers.
Tammy was my next real girl friend. She was smart and pretty, and of course she didn’t smoke. I think my mom would have approved of me dating a lizard as long as it didn’t smoke.
Tammy wasn’t a smoker but her mother, Barbara, was. If I think about this honestly, one of the reasons I dated Tammy was so I could be around her mother. Any way, one thing led to another and Tammy and I were having unprotected sex and she got pregnant. We were just 16. We thought we loved each other and under the circumstances, both our parents agreed to let us marry. After the wedding, I moved in with Tammy and her parents. Todd, our first and only child was born during our junior year.
I seriously considered telling Tammy that I smoked. I halfway think she might have understood and accepted me, but then again, I was a closet smoker.
My marriage was sexually satisfying. I was at that age where I couldn’t get enough and my wife was a willing partner. I loved Tammy and I loved our son, but I always felt as if I hadn’t fulfilled my destiny. Tammy was beautiful but she didn’t smoke. I was just 16. I couldn’t imagine living the rest of my life with a non-smoker. As it turned out, I didn’t have too.
As she fed me dinner, I realized something more than bathwater had passed between us and I was confused. I couldn’t help but stare at her beautiful 52 year old face as she alternated between smoking and eating. I quivered as I re-lived her touch though I knew she had only been doing her job. How could a 52-year-old woman have feelings for a 17-year-old boy? But this wasn’t her job. No one was paying her to give me a bath and if they were, no one paid her to give me a soapy hand job.
It felt strange sitting at the dinner table without Tammy and her father. Barbara noticed it too, which is why she brought up the funeral. We talked about the pole bearers and the preacher. We talked about the caskets. We talked about Todd who was asleep in his room and how he would never get a chance to know his mommy. The conversation became depressing and she changed the subject.
She asked what I would do with the money we’d get after our lawsuit with the trucking company was settled. I told her I didn’t know. I would probably just put it in the bank. She said she’d probably do the same with hers. She had every thing she needed except for a husband and a daughter.
I asked whether or not she would start dating again. I realized how crass the question sounded as soon it left my lips but I couldn’t take it back. She wasn’t offended. She laughed and took another puff from her cigarette and coughed. She was always coughing. Hardly a minute went by that I didn’t hear her clearing her throat or hacking out a lung. She asked what kind of man would have her. What do you mean, I asked?
Look at me, she said. I’m 51 years old. My best years are behind me. I’m a four pack a day smoker. No man in his right mind wants a woman like me when he could have someone younger and healthier.
Perhaps she was fishing for compliments. If she was, then I bit and she reeled me in.
She tried to smile but coughed instead. See what I mean, she said as she put out her cigarette and lit another. What about you, she asked? Are there any girls at school I should know about?
I shook my head no. It made me uncomfortable to talk about other girls in front of Tammy’s mother. Besides, I wasn’t interested in any one in particular. I told her I needed to think about Todd. I didn’t have time to be a kid. I was a father.
You’re too young to become celibate, said Barbara. I know. I was young once.
I blushed.
What about you, I asked? Don’t you need sex? It felt strange talking to my mother in-law about sex at the dinner table. But then again, the conversation would have seemed strange any where we had it.
Barbara didn’t seem to mind talking about it. She told me in a matter of fact tone that she and Bill hadn’t had sex in over five years because he was impotent. Then she put her cigarette between her lips and picked her breasts off the table. These were a waste of money she said.
Barbara put out her cigarette and lit another one. I didn’t know how to respond. I wanted to but didn’t know what to say. For several seconds there was an awful silence that hung in the smoke between us. She broke the silence by telling me a joke that went something like this.
It was a joke about an older couple that had been married for 40 years. The husband was impotent so his wife suggested he ask his doctor about Viagra. The husband took his wife’s suggestion and the Viagra worked wonders. A week later she got a call from her husband who said he was leaving her for 20-year-old woman. His wife told him that was OK, because she had found a younger man, and 20 goes into 60 more times than 60 goes into 20.
I don’t know if I repeated the joke correctly but I laughed when she told it to me and I realized she was dropping a hint. But what if I misunderstood? This woman was my mother in-law. I was afraid of looking like a pervert.
Barbara refused to let the conversation end and her words and meanings became more blunt. She told me that last night was the first time she had slept alone in over 20 years and that she hated it. She asked if I wouldn’t mind sleeping with her tonight.
I’m a lot of things. I’m shy. I’m a little thick headed, but I’m not stupid.
As she changed into her nightgown she asked if I had ever slept with an older woman before and I told her that I hadn’t. She lit a cigarette and walked toward me. I was wearing pajamas, which is something I usually don’t do, but Barbara had put them on me after she gave me a bath. She asked I usually slept in them. I told her I didn’t. She pulled them off of me and I followed her into the bed.
Up until then, she had done all the work. I made the next move. I placed a plastered hand around her shoulders and pulled her close and kissed my dream. She could have screamed, pulled back or even slapped me but she didn’t. It had been two days since my last cigarette and I was glad. Kissing her for the first time with tainted taste buds would have shortchanged the experience. I tasted her in all her glory as my tongue made love to hers. After what must have been several minutes, Barbara pulled away for another gulp of smoke. She turned her head and exhaled toward the ceiling, asking if her smoking didn’t disgust me. I answered her with another long kiss.
She seemed genuinely pleased by my response. She held her cigarette in one hand and my penis in her other. I kissed her cheek as she smoked and pulled my shaft. She turned her head and coughed more than once. She asked me to excuse her. I said I didn’t mind. She finished her cigarette with one last inhale as she put it out. Then she pushed me down and straddled me. She groaned at the point of penetration and threw back her head.
It was my first time on the bottom and I loved it. Barbara was only the second woman I’d ever made love to. I had done this hundreds of times in my mind but it was never as good as this. The view from the bottom was spectacular and I realized she was the dominant partner. She came first but kept grinding her hips into mine, giving me time to fire off a round of sticky semen. I had just cum inside my dead wife’s mother.
Barbara collapsed to my side in a coughing fit. Years of heavy smoking had taken its toll on her lungs. She was thoroughly winded. She assured me she would be all right. She just needed a cigarette. What an addict I thought, as I watched her pick up a pack of Virginia Slims from the nightstand. I wanted to light it for her, but my hands were useless. As she lit up, I knew I was in love.
She was right. Her coughing subsided with each deep puff she took. The sight of her smoking mesmerized me. I had never seen a woman smoke after she’s just had sex but needless to say I had thought about it a million times. So often reality pails to imagination but this just wasn’t the case. Barbara was bringing my fantasies to life, except for one. I should be smoking with her. We should be sharing a cigarette. As I watched her bask in the aftermath of sex, showering her lungs with thick relaxing smoke, I knew I should be joining her. But I was a closet smoker. What would she say if I asked her for a puff?
Barbara placed the Virginia Slim between her lips and hallowed her cheeks. She pulled it away, lowering her jaw and exposing a thick white cloud of smoke that disappeared down her throat. Her huge implants expanded with her inhale and sank with her exhale. The look of peace in her eyes was unmistakable as smoke billowed from her parted lips and hung in the air above us.
She looked at me with those soft wonderful eyes and said,
“You must think I’m some awful cliché smoking in bed after
we’ve made love.”
The woman could read my mind. No, I told her. Not at all, I said. I told her that she really looked like she was enjoying it.
She smiled as she took another deep puff and dumped her ash. “I am”, she said. “I know this must sound awful, you being a non-smoker and every thing, but it really does feel good. I wish I could describe it to you but I can’t. It would be like trying to describe the way an orgasm feels to a virgin. You know when you feel it, but you can’t find the words to describe it.”
I nodded knowingly. “I know what you mean,” I said as I cracked my closet door and peeked out.
“You do?” she asked with raised eyebrows as she took another puff.
Her question exposed my vulnerability. My closet door was open. I could step out and take my chances or I could slam the door shut. My head raced with thoughts for my next words. I honestly don’t think I knew what I was going to say until I heard my self say it.
“I smoke too,” I said.
The closet door slammed shut and I was locked outside.
What did you say, asked Barbara?
The look on her face told me that she heard me the first time. She just didn’t believe she heard it and neither did I.
“I said I smoke too.”
Barbara clutched her chest and coughed. Her huge implants jiggled like Jello as her lungs erupted. Through it all, she never dropped an ash. I put a plastered hand on her shoulder, helpless to assist, but wanting to all the same. The magnitude of what I said was beginning to sink in. I couldn’t take it back. I felt a pit in my stomach. If I couldn’t go back in the closet, maybe I could hide under the sheets.
When did you start smoking, asked Barbara?
It was then that I noticed how stiff and erect my penis had become. My skin crawled with excitement. Shiver pangs spiked through my groin as I told her about starting at 15. My breathing became shallow and rapid. My lungs screamed for smoke.
Apparently she wasn’t satisfied with my answer because she asked how much I smoked. I wanted to tell her. I’d tell her any thing she wanted to hear, but I wanted the smoke from her cigarette right then. “Please Barbara,” I begged, holding my casts to her face. “I haven’t had a cigarette since the accident. I can’t even work a lighter.” I pleaded with her to give me a puff from her cigarette.
Perhaps she saw the pain in my eyes and reacted out of sympathy. Or perhaps she was still confused and didn’t know what she should do. Regardless of why she did it, Barbara held her cigarette to my lips and I sucked on that filter for all I was worth. The smoke felt hot and flavorful on my tongue, as I pulled away and inhaled. Colors of red and black slammed against my eyes as the rich thick smoke filtered through my lungs, firing off the neurons and endorphins in my brain before proceeding back up my throat. I took another puff before she could pull it away or say something. The second puff was as good as the first and left me wanting more.
Regret spilled over as I realized what I had said and more importantly what I had done. I had allowed emotion and excitement to get the better of me. My secret was no longer a secret. I studied Barbara’s face for signs of disgust but saw none. Where there should have been anger, I saw curiosity and amazement. She was still reeling from the sight of me smoking from her hand.
I thanked her.
She told me I was welcome and added that I looked like I had needed it. She wanted to know if Tammy knew I smoked.
I told her that Tammy never knew but that I wanted to tell
her but I was afraid she wouldn’t understand.
Barbara chortled and coughed as she put out her cigarette and lit another one. It was always like that. As soon as she put out one cigarette she would light another one, never allowing her lungs an opportunity to recover.
She told me I was wise to keep my smoking a secret from Tammy. She told me that Tammy hated smoking and probably would have divorced me if she had found out. “What about your mother,” she asked? “Does your mother know you smoke?”
I told Barbara about Lisa, the girl in 10th grade. I told her about the safe that looked like a book and about my mother finding the cigarettes. I told her about Short Fred and the way my mother made me to feel worthless.
She gasped as I told her about the horror stories regarding my mother and her fear of my smoking. I told her about the conditional love I experienced at her hand. I was surprised by her reaction but ate it up all the same. I had always known my mother was on the passionate side of her causes, but I didn’t think others would see her as such a nazi.
Barbara took another puff. Without my asking, she put the cigarette to my lips and allowed me to nurse as she passed judgment on my mother. She called my mother a zealot and criticized her for being too severe. According to Barbara, my mother’s heart was in the right place but her words and actions crossed the line.
What Barbara said next, or rather the way she said it gave me Goosebumps. Using a mother’s tone of voice normally reserved for babies and small children, she asked if I wanted another puff from her cigarette. I had never heard Barbara use baby talk before. For that matter, I can’t remember the last time someone used baby talk when they had something to say to me. I’m sure it was a subconscious slip, probably triggered by the act of hand feeding me smoke the way a mother gives a bottle to her baby. Regardless of the reason, I liked it.
She coughed as I sucked on the filter from her hand. How much do you smoke, she asked in her baby talk voice?
“Not much,” I said casually. “Usually one or two a day.”
“What do you mean? One or two what” she asked? “Packs or cigarettes?”
I could have kicked my self for being so careless, but it was too late to take it back. How could I be so stupid? Here I was, lying in bed naked with my mother in-law. We just had sex. She’s hand feeding me cigarettes and genuinely feeling sorry for me because she can’t imagine the personal horror of going two days without a cigarette and having to hide it from my parents and wife. She was imagining my pain on her level and in the time it takes to sneeze, I lowered the level from four packs a day to one or two cigarettes a day.
I told her I meant one or two cigarettes.
Where pity had once flourished, there was only disgust. I felt as if I was looking into my mother’s face. She took another puff and ground the smoked butt in the ashtray without asking if I’d like another puff. She picked up her pack of Virginia Slims with adult authority and lit one in anger. I was no longer a fellow addict. I was just another stupid teenager experimenting with cigarettes, sneaking behind the adult’s backs. My penis went limp.
Barbara was livid. She wanted to know how I could be so stupid (a question that I had asked my self). She wanted to know what in the world would posses me to start smoking. Didn’t I know it was bad for me? Didn’t I know I could catch lung cancer or emphysema?
My big breasted dream had suddenly turn into a big breasted nightmare. She who had just moments earlier referred to my mother as cruel and insensitive was now defending her. I couldn’t look at her. I looked at my limp dick instead.
She took me by the ear and forced me to look at her. She held her cigarette in the air as if it was a loaded gun and then she coughed violently. Is this what you want, she asked? She told me to look her in the eye when she talked to me. In her martyr’s voice she told me she smoked four packs a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year! She asked me if I wanted to wind up like her. She told me that she had been smoking for almost 40 years and regretted it every morning she woke up and every night she went to sleep.
Her passion had gotten the best of her and stirred up a violent reaction in her chest. She thumped her chest and coughed. She was choking on her own thick black phlegm. At last it came out or at least I think it did because she stopped coughing and swallowed hard. Had it been a piece of her lung?
Tears began to form at the corners of her bloodshot eyes. She was crying. Had she really coughed up a lung? Was the pain that terrible? She put out her cigarette and wept behind her hands.
I shrank at least four feet. I wrenched my guilt-covered casts and wiped them on the sheet. I pulled her close and told her how sorry I was. All this pain because I came out of the closet. Was it worth all this for four or five puffs of her cigarette?
Absolutely. This was drama at its finest and I devoured every second of it.
I put my arm around her. She tried to shake me off but I insisted and pulled her closer. I rubbed my cast across her shoulder as she cried on mine. The sobbing began to slow and she was beginning to regain her composure.
She apologized for losing control. She said she shouldn’t have acted like that but she was very upset. I rubbed her shoulder and told her I understood.
She looked at me with tear-stained cheeks and asked if I really understood. When I didn’t respond immediately, she launched into her lecture.
She sat up in bed and lit another cigarette as she
struggled to find the words that she could use to make me
understand.
“I think I love you,” she said. “I think I’ve been in love with you since the first time Tammy brought you home to meet me and Bill. Up until now, I thought it was lust. But when I saw you smoking that cigarette and I learned you had just started, I got angry because you were hurting your self. And I was mad at my self because I was the one putting the cigarette in your mouth. That’s when I knew it wasn’t lust. That’s when I knew I loved you.”
She looked away and took a drag from her cigarette and dumped her ash. I was blown away by her confession. My penis began to wake up and I shifted uncomfortably in the bed. I told her that I loved her too and I think I really meant it as much as 17-year-old boy can love a 51-year-old woman.
She responded to my words and turned to face me. The tears were drying up. She wore a tired smile and I kissed her. She kissed me back.
She took another puff and continued her lecture, but this
time she was much more rational and calm.
She told me that I was about to make a decision that would affect the rest of my life. She told me I could choose to quit while I was still able, or I could choose to become a slave to cigarettes like her and my mother.
Barbara took a deep puff as she considered what to say next. I watched as her lungs expanded and pushed up against her great breasts. I watched as she pursed her lips together and exhaled a long thin stream of smoke. Did she have any idea how sexy she looked?
I kissed her on the cheek. For one brief second I thought that was it. All I had to do was tell her that I wanted to smoke. But it wasn’t that easy. She wanted to tell me her story. She wanted me to know what it was like to be so addicted to cigarettes that quitting wasn’t an option. She thought she could talk me out of it but all she did was increase the blood flow to my penis.
You like to smoke, she said. Right? You like the way the smoke feels inside your lungs. Maybe it makes you feel lightheaded or even buzzed. You like to look in the mirror and watch the smoke come out your mouth when you exhale. You think it would be fun to smoke whenever you want. You think people would think of you differently if they knew you smoked. It would make you special.
I didn’t argue with her. I don’t know if I ever thought of it that way, but she wasn’t far from the mark.
You’re 17 years old. When I was your age, I smoked two packs a day. I started when I was 12 and my parents gave me their permission when I was 14. I’ll never forget that day. I felt like a grown-up the first time I smoked in front of my parents. I felt so proud of my self but they weren’t proud of me. They were sad and I didn’t know why. But I know now. My parents knew they couldn’t stop me or talk any sense into me. I probably can’t change your mind either, but I’m still going to try.
What can I say? Barbara had my full and undivided attention. It wasn’t that her lecture was getting to me. I just enjoyed hearing her talk about her habit. I watched with great fascination as she put her cigarette out and a lit another.
Barbara took a deep puff from her freshly lit Virginia Slim and put her pack back on the nightstand. She didn’t offer me a puff but continued her story where she left off.
I remember feeling like a big deal smoking in front of my friends. Before my parents gave me their permission, I was a closet smoker like you. As a matter of fact, I only smoked two or three cigarettes a day. Some times I’d go several days in a row without smoking. Does that sound familiar?
I shrugged my shoulders and nodded.
Having my parent’s permission meant I didn’t have to worry about getting caught. It wasn’t that I wanted a smoke a lot, but I could smoke a lot. Instead of worrying about people seeing me, I started worrying about how good I looked while I was smoking. I didn’t want to look like a kid. I wanted to look like a woman.
Cigarettes are deceptive. I don’t think I realized how much I was smoking until it was too late. After a while it becomes a part of every thing you do. I smoked when I drove. I smoked when I talked on the phone. I smoked while I did my chores. I lit up after dinner with my parents. Later I started smoking during dinner.
I turned a blind eye to the changes. After my parents gave me their permission to smoke, I started coughing. By the time I was 15, I had a smoker’s cough. I didn’t notice my voice getting husky. I pretended not to see the yellow nicotine stains on my fingers and teeth.
I went on my first date with a boy when I was 16. He took me to dinner and he lit my cigarettes, even though he didn’t smoke. I felt like such an adult. And then he took me to the movies. I sat in that theater for two hours without a cigarette. I can still remember how good that cigarette tasted when I lit up in the parking lot. It took almost two hours for me to feel the craving of withdrawal. Now a day I can’t go ten minutes without a cigarette.
The more you smoke, the easier it becomes to smoke more. That’s one of the things that make cigarettes so deceptive. By the time I went to college I was smoking three packs a day. That’s where I met Bill. Back then smoking was considered attractive and socially acceptable. I was proud of my three-pack a day habit. After we got married I became a housewife. And that gave me even more time to smoke. I’ve been smoking four packs a day for almost 30 years.
I tried to quit after I got pregnant with Tammy. By then I knew it was bad for me but by then it was too late. I lasted less than half an hour. That’s when I knew I was a slave to my cigarettes.
It didn’t matter that I got winded when I walked to the end of the driveway to get our mail. It didn’t matter that that I had to sit down and have a cigarette after I carried a load of clothes up stairs. Being out of shape was something I learned to live with because I had no choice.
Your mother acted like a bitch when she caught you with cigarettes, but all mothers feel that way about their children, especially mothers that smoke. We love our kids and we don’t want to see them make the same mistakes we did. It was always in the back of my mind that Tammy might start. Thank God she didn’t. But I had this speech all prepared for her if it happened. And I’m giving it to you.
I wish I could give you my lungs for a day. I wish you could feel what it feels like to hack out a lung. I wish you could know what its like to lose your sense of smell and taste without having to suffer permanent damage.
I know it feels good now, but you have to think about how you’ll feel when you’re my age. You’re only 17 Honey. You’ve only been smoking for a couple of months. Besides it being bad for you, you’re not old enough to smoke. You’re breaking the law and I’d be breaking the law if I allowed you to smoke. If you have to smoke, at least wait until you’re 18.
I told her I didn’t want to wait because I knew in my heart that I wanted to smoke and I knew I’d always want to. I waited for Barbara to put her cigarette out and light another. As far as I was concerned, there was nothing left to say. I had made up mind.
Barbara exhaled a plume of smoke in my face. It would have been sexy if she weren’t so angry. OK, you win, she said as she dropped her pack of Virginia Slims and a lighter on my naked lap. Smoke your lungs out. Catch cancer. I don’t care. And with that said, she left the room.
She shut the door on her way out leaving me alone with her cigarettes. I didn’t feel as if I had won. Perhaps I belonged in the closet. Perhaps this was a bad idea. I decided to think about it while I had a cigarette.
I reached for the pack but nothing happened. Full hand casts can have that affect. I had won. I could smoke in the house. I didn’t have to hide any more. There was only problem. I couldn’t hold a cigarette and I sure as hell couldn’t light one. Needless to say my handicap hadn’t been on lost on Barbara.
I got out of bed and went to the door. It was closed. I hated closed doors. I put my casts together on the brass knob and tried to turn it. The casts just slipped off. I called to Barbara to open the door. She told me she was busy.
Barbara left me alone in the bedroom until it was time for dinner. As she fed me, I realized how dependent I was on her. For the next four months I would be completely at her mercy. I apologized to her.
Barbara accepted my apology and we watched TV until it was time for bed. She could have sent me to my room but she didn’t. She invited me to hers and I sat on her bed and watched her take off her make-up at the vanity. A cigarette burned in the ashtray beside her as she stretched her cheek and rubbed it clean with oiled cotton.
I pulled the sheet over my legs as I watched her undress and take a red negligee from her dresser drawer. I don’t know much about lingerie except that I like it, but I wondered if this hadn’t been custom made for her. She put it over her gray head of hair and pulled the lace hem snug around her small waist. I was still in awe of her implants. My penis grew thick as her breasts bulged against the red lace. Tammy had had a teddy like this, but she couldn’t fill it like her momma.
She was standing in front of the bed when she lit her cigarette. Most women would have waited until they got in bed, but Barbara wasn’t one to waste smoking time. The woman is like a steam driven locomotive. She doesn’t move unless her lungs are being stoked. Her mouth is like a chimney. She was a nicotine machine.
The air beside me moved when she climbed into bed. I know she was holding a lit cigarette but the smell of smoke that clung to her hair and skin brushed past my nose. I could smell her from five feet away even if she wasn’t smoking. And I so loved that smell. She took a deep puff and blew her smoke toward the ceiling then she kissed me.
What do you think people would say if they found out about us, she asked? I told her that they would probably think I was one lucky guy. She laughed but the laugh became a cough. When she caught her breath, she asked about my mom. She asked if my mom would think I was a lucky guy? It was my turn to laugh. I told her I didn’t know but my dad would think so.
You’re mom trusts me to take care of you, she said. I don’t think she’d be too pleased to hear I took advantage of you last night.
I told her that she didn’t take advantage of me, that I had wanted it too. And then I told her that I liked her a lot, more than she knew.
She took another drag from her cigarette and smiled as she threw her legs over the bed. She took my hand and led me to the mirror. We looked at our reflection in the mirror. I saw the cigarette in her hand. I saw the reflection of her thick exhale as it bounced off the glass. I watched her massive breasts push against the red lace.
I’m 51 years old she said, and I don’t look young for my age. You’re 17. I’m old enough to be your mother but I look like your grandmother. When we were together last night, didn’t it bother you that I was so much older? I kissed her on the cheek as I discreetly sniffed her smoky hair. I told her that I thought she was beautiful. She must have felt a cough coming on because she turned her head and thumped her chest.
I waited patiently for the coughing fit to end. When it did, I kissed her softly on the lips and led her back to bed.
Making love to Barbara was so much more intense than doing her daughter. Tammy was a sexual novice, not that I wasn’t, but Barbara was an expert and I was the benefactor of her experience. She knew things about my body that I didn’t know. There was simply no comparison.
We lay together for about five minutes, which is about the longest I’ve seen her go without a cigarette. She pulled her self up on the pillows and picked up a pack from the nightstand. She was saying something about something but I wasn’t listening. My eyes were glued to the pack of Virginia Slims in her hand. It’s hard to explain but I was mesmerized. The pack fit perfectly in her hand. I watched her extract a single cigarette from her pack. She held it high between her angled fingers at the filter. She smoked like a lady and I loved her for it. I would have given any thing to light it for her but I couldn’t hold a damn thing with my casts. I wanted to participate in her addiction but my injuries relegated me to watching status. Even more than that, I wanted a cigarette.
Barbara got out bed to go to the bathroom. I thought she would have taken the cigarette with her but she didn’t. I watched it smolder in the ashtray and I lusted for it. If not for the casts I would have picked it up and took a quick puff. As it was, I wondered if I couldn’t just lie down and position my lips over the filter. My body shivered in anticipation of the coming smoke as my lips stretched for the filter.
The toilet flushed. I jerked away hitting my head on the nightstand, knocking over the ashtray, spilling butts and a lit cigarette to the floor. Barbara screamed and rushed to my side. She picked up the burning cigarette and the ashtray and put them on the nightstand. She asked if I was OK as she examined the growing egg on my forehead. I told her I was. She asked what happened.
I couldn’t tell her the truth, not after this morning. Perhaps I could tell her I had an itch and was trying to scratch it, but that didn’t make sense. I moved my lips and listened to the words as if some one else were speaking them. I told her that I was trying to smoke her cigarette. She gasped. The muscles in her face contorted. She raised her eyebrows and opened her mouth to speak but coughed instead. I saw another lecture coming.
How could you, she asked? She shook her head and looked at me with disgust. Move over, she said. And I made room for her.
I felt like a kid. I was a kid. I felt smaller than a kid. She would never trust me again. I’d be lucky if she didn’t send Todd and I back to live with my parents. How could I have been so stupid? I had a good thing going. Barbara was the woman of my dreams and she was fucking my balls off, but I had to have my cigarettes and smoke them too. I deserved whatever was coming next. I hung my head and waited for the lecture to begin.
Despite every thing we talked about, you still want to
smoke?
Was that a question or a statement? I didn’t know so I didn’t answer.
She told me that she didn’t want to be the tobacco police and was tired of fighting with me over it. She took a deep puff and sighed and then she put the cigarette to my lips. I should have been happy. My dick should have been hard but the victory wasn’t sweet.
Tears ran from her eyes as I pulled on the filter. I wanted to wipe them away, but not with my casts. My smoking was tearing her apart. She really felt bad about it.
I love you so much, she said as she pulled away the
cigarette and allowed me to inhale.
The victory might not have been sweet but the smoke inside my lungs was. I told her I was sorry as I exhaled.
She sniffed and tried to smile. She told me it was OK. She told me she’d get used to it. And then she kissed me.
The next day went a lot better. At least the tears were gone and she didn’t lock me in the bedroom. Smoking incorporated it self into our daily routine. She’d help me pee. She dressed me. She fucked me. She fed me food and she fed me smoke.
As the days turned into weeks I understood my relationship with Barbara had become my first and only honest relationship. It was the first time in my life that I could be my self and not be afraid of what another person thought of me. She loved me unconditionally.
She kept my secret and helped me to become a real smoker like her. After the first month she was hand feeding me a pack a day. I would have smoked more if it weren’t for school but I wasn’t complaining. I enjoyed the way she hand fed me my nicotine and I think she liked it too.
She told me that she enjoyed having power over my addiction. I think that’s what swung her emotions the other way. She got off on being in charge. She was definitely in charge of when, where and how much I smoked.
Barbara had begun to think of me as a fellow smoker and not some closet smoking kid, even though I hadn’t smoked in public at that point. Her change in attitude meant every thing to me. I would have enjoyed smoking regardless of her feelings but knowing she was OK with it made it taste that much sweeter.
I quit school after the first month AB. I joking refer to my time at Barbara’s as BB and AB, Before Barbara’s Bed and After. I told Barbara that school was getting in the way of my smoking. She laughed when I told her that, but she knew it was true. She knew I loved to smoke. I wanted to spend every waking moment by her side sharing cigarettes with her.
Of course my parents threw a fit when I told them I was dropping out of school. I know it sounds stupid, but keep in mind that I had just become independently wealthy and so had Barbara. The trucking company that caused the accident settled with us out of court for three million dollars. We had the time and money to dedicate our lives to smoking and sex.
After two months AB, I was smoking two packs a day from Barbara’s hand. I had also developed an occasional smoker’s cough that Barbara quickly noticed. I was afraid it might trigger bad memories, but she was over that part of our life. She thought it was cute that I was beginning to cough like her.
After three months AB, I asked Barbara to marry me, and she said yes. At first she was worried about what people would think. Her husband had only been dead three months and she was getting married. Not to mention she was marrying her dead daughter’s 17-year-old husband. She said it worried her but I knew she was kidding. She thought whole thing was sexy.
My parents didn’t think it was sexy when we told them. As a matter of fact my mother was devastated. And just when she thought it couldn’t get any worse I asked Barbara for a cigarette.
My mother watched in horror as Barbara smiled and put her cigarette to my lips. My mother wasn’t disgusted. She was shocked and that was even better. My father asked me when I started smoking and I told them both the truth. I told them about Barbara hand feeding me two packs a day. And I told them I would smoke a lot more as soon as I got my casts off.
I’m 23 years old now. Barbara and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary two weeks ago. My hands have long since recovered and I can smoke on my own. But I still let Barbara hand feed me at least two packs a day. As I said before, she enjoys the power trip. Of course she has her own five-pack a day habit to tend with so she can’t feed me all day. And I’d die if relied solely on her to satisfy my addiction.
I caught up to Barbara last month. I’m proud to say we smoke a carton a day between us. Of course I don’t smoke Virginia Slims any more. I smoke Benson & Hedges. They’re a lot like the Virginia Slims but more manly if you know what I mean.
Once a week, we take Todd to the grocery store and buy our supply for the coming week. If it weren’t for the settlement money we wouldn’t both be able to smoke like this. Fourteen cartons a week between the two of us. We spend over $500 a week on smokes!
Todd is three months shy of turning eight. Barbara and I were both worried how the knowledge of our marriage would affect him. He asks a lot of questions, which is natural. None of his other friends’ grandmothers are married to their fathers so he realizes the situation is unique. He calls Barbara grandma and me his Daddy. It just sounds funny when he wakes us up in the morning.
Believe it or not, my parents have even accepted my marriage and my habit. I still get that warm and fuzzy feeling when I’m having a cigarette with Mom and Barbara. Dad can’t bear to be in the same room with the three of us when we get together.
I wish this could last forever but I know it can’t. Barbara hasn’t been to the doctor yet, but we’re pretty sure she has cancer. She shows all the signs, which predominantly include coughed up bloody lung tissue. It gets a little messy sometimes but that’s life.
Todd is going to miss his grandmother.