“Are you going to stay in here all afternoon?” Carol demanded from the door of the
record store, “It’s the first sunny day we’ve had for weeks and the boys are getting
restless.”
Martin looked up reluctantly from the shelf of rock CDs through which he had been
browsing. “Listen,” he said, “why don’t you take them over to the park and I’ll join
you there in a few minutes?” He watched as his wife shepherded their two sons
out of the shop and turned back to continue his search for 1960s West Coast
music to add to his collection.
Then he saw her.
She was studying a display of chart DVDs, only a few yards from where he stood.
Her hair was cut shorter and she looked a little heavier in the bust and waist than
before, but it was unmistakably Anne, as smartly dressed and as carefully made up
as she always had been when he had known her so well. Martin’s heart was
beating fast. He looked down and pretended to study a Grateful Dead CD while
trying to decide what to do. Before he could look up again, he heard a familiar,
husky voice beside him say: “I see your taste in music is no better than it used to
be.”
He turned to find himself looking into Anne’s beautiful dark eyes. His diaphragm
contracted and he could only manage a nervous smile.
“Hi,” he said, “long time, no see.”
“Yeah, must be, what, almost ten years? Was that your family who just went out?”
she inquired. “Nice looking boys.”
“Yes, thanks, it was.” Martin tried not to look too obviously for children
accompanying Anne. There didn’t seem to be any.
“Well,” she said with a smile, “after all this time, do you have ten minutes free for a
cup of coffee?”
“I’d love to,” he replied, truthfully. “But I promised to go and play with the boys in
the park. How about lunch one day this week? Are you still working for the
magazine?”
“No, I was head-hunted a few years ago by Chanel to work in their London PR
department. We’ve an office just off Piccadilly. Lunch would be very nice. How
about Tuesday at Bertorelli’s?”
“That’d be great. I’ll reserve a table. It’s really good to see you again, Anne.”
He watched as she disappeared into the crowd in the street outside, one question
dominating his thoughts: Does she still smoke??
* * *
For Martin, the years following his break-up with Anne had been a voyage of self-
discovery. He had begun the journey by confronting and eventually accepting the
shocking truth that he had been sexually aroused by Anne’s smoking, a habit
which he had always regarded with distaste and even contempt. Once he was
finally prepared to admit this to himself, he began to replay in his mind scenes from
their time spent together. It became clear to him that, from the outset of their
relationship, his hostility to her unhealthy addiction had been tinged with a sharp
edge of sexual excitement. But why?
Before he met Anne, he had spent little time in the company of girls who smoked.
Ever since university days, his social life had mainly revolved around sports clubs
and related activities, and none of his close friends were smokers. The
accountancy firm for whom he worked as an auditor had enforced a non-smoking
policy for many years and he had never worked alongside anyone who smoked.
Sometimes, however, he would join his work colleagues for a drink after work,
especially on Friday nights. On these occasions he often noticed a group of girls
from his office’s filing department who frequented the same bar but kept
themselves apart from the others. They were all smokers and Martin’s attention
was usually drawn to one in particular: a small, attractive blonde girl named Diane,
who would chain smoke cigarette after cigarette from the moment she entered the
bar until she left, as if trying to make up for time lost while she had been at work.
Martin once counted eight cigarettes within the space of an hour. The girls made it
clear that they were not interested in approaches from the male professional staff
and Martin never exchanged more than a few words with any of them. Yet there
were nights, while in bed making love to his (non-smoking) girlfriend at the time,
when he would suddenly and involuntarily find himself visualising the pretty blonde
Diane in the bar, crushing out the remains of a cigarette with one hand while
reaching for her pack and lighter with the other. Why?
He went further back, remembering the girls in his class at school during the years
when he was struggling to deal with the onset of puberty. He had known some of
these girls since the age of five. Now, apparently overnight, they had acquired legs
and breasts and, most astonishingly of all, some had even begun to sprout
cigarettes between their fingers. To Martin, this represented a victory for the power
of tobacco marketing over common sense. He remonstrated with the girls,
reminding them of the sound advice about smoking which they had all received: it’s
easier to start than to stop; women find it harder to quit than men; and so on. They
smiled back, acknowledging his concern for their wellbeing, and moved away to
chat to the older boys. What had annoyed Martin most of all was that it was always
the sexiest girls who started smoking. Now, with hindsight, he realised that he had
been wrong about this: he’d been confusing cause and effect. It wasn’t that the
sexiest girls had smoked; rather, it was that he personally had found the girls who
smoked sexier than the ones who didn’t. But why?
He went still further back. His earliest smoking-related memories were a jumble of
conflicting images and messages. He remembered the anti-smoking lessons to
which he had listened carefully at school; but he remembered also the half-
concealed pack of menthol cigarettes in his young teacher’s handbag. He recalled
his parents’ confident assertion that when he grew up he would be too sensible to
contemplate taking up such a destructive habit; but he recalled also that during
visits by his mother’s sister, who smoked, the cigarette ends in the ashtrays
seemed to be more numerous than his aunt could have been solely responsible
for, and the filters were of more than one type. He remembered the elderly
smokers on buses and trains with their tobacco-impregnated clothes and their
nicotine-stained fingers; but he remembered also the girls in the Bond movies, who
sat at roulette tables elegantly breathing out cones of smoke which they had
inhaled from long cigarettes held confidently between polished nails. One thing
was clear: there was some kind of war going on here between good and bad, and
he resolved to do what he could to fight on the side of the good guys.
Thirty years later, it didn’t seem so simple.
* * *
“What kept you?” asked Carol, when Martin caught up with his family in the park.
“Sorry, I bumped into someone. Do you remember Anne, the girl I was dating when
we first met?”
“Oh, yes.” replied Carol. “Wasn’t she the girl who smoked all the time? I’m
surprised she’s still alive. Or has she seen sense and quit?”
“I don’t know.” Martin said, “But I’ve arranged to have lunch with her on Tuesday,
so I may find out.”
“Well, at least you won’t have to put up with her cigarettes polluting the restaurant,
thanks to the smoking ban.” Carol pointed out, with satisfaction.
‘She’s right.’ thought Martin, suddenly alarmed. He hadn’t thought of that. After all
these years, he might never find out at all!
Chapter 2
Anne was a few minutes late in arriving for lunch, so Martin was already seated
and studying the menu when she walked in and sat down at his table. They
ordered their meal and began to catch up on the last ten years.
“So, how’s your family life? Are you married?” Martin asked.
“Was.” Anne replied. “Divorced last year. No children. My husband left me for
someone he met at work. He complained that I cared more about my career than I
did about him and that I was never at home. Ironic, don’t you think? Isn’t it
supposed to be the other way round?”
Their first course came, and they continued to chat about friends with whom one or
other had lost touch. But Martin found himself thinking more and more about the
question which he most wanted to ask: the issue which had divided them before
and which was looming large in his mind now. There was a pause in the
conversation and Anne looked up at him, as if challenging him to ask it. He
decided that he couldn’t wait any longer.
“And do you still smoke?” he inquired, as casually as he could manage.
She continued to look at him coolly. “Yes,” she said, “I still smoke. Does it still
matter to you?”
If you only knew, Martin thought to himself, how much it matters to me. But he
said: “Well, obviously I still care about how you’re treating yourself. So, er…no ill
effects?”
“You mean apart from the five minutes I spend coughing after I’ve smoked my first
cigarette of the morning? Or the fact that I can’t pull on a pair of jeans without
getting out of breath?” Her tone sharpened. “Smoking’s bad for me, Martin. It’s
screwed up my health. You were right. Is that what you were wanting to hear me
say?”
“No, not at all,” Martin replied, hurriedly. “In fact, quite the opposite. I was just
thinking that you look terrific – same as ever, really.”
Mollified, Anne gave a smile. “You forget that I’m a professional in the art of
camouflage. The signs of the damage are there, if you know what to look for.” She
lifted her bag and stood up. “And now, since you’ve brought the subject up, if you’ll
excuse me I’ll just step out for a cigarette before they bring the next course.”
“No problem,” said Martin, “I’ll come and keep you company.”
“There’s no need for that,” Anne replied, surprised. But Martin had already
instructed the waiter to delay their food, and was walking with her towards the door
of the restaurant.
Outside, it was a cold, blustery October day. Martin watched as Anne took a pack
of Marlboros from her bag, selected a cigarette and, with some difficulty,
succeeded in getting it lit. He pretended to look in a neighbouring shop window to
conceal the effect on him of watching Anne smoke, having fantasised about it for
so many years. She smoked her cigarette quickly, taking deep drags with short
pauses between, exhaling clouds of smoke as she complained about the
inconveniences of the smoking ban. Eventually she crushed the cigarette out with
half an inch remaining unsmoked.
“That’s enough to keep the cravings satisfied for now.” she observed, and they
returned inside to continue their lunch.
As he called for the bill, Martin had a plan in mind. “There’s a café just off Covent
Garden which has a terrace with these patio heaters which destroy the ozone
layer. Why don’t we go there for coffee and you can have a cigarette in comfort?”
Once again, Anne was surprised by Martin’s apparent keenness to accommodate
her nicotine habit. Was he trying to make up for having caused their break-up by
his attitude to it in the past? Whatever the reason might be, she was wanting a
cigarette and had no objection to his proposal. They walked round the corner to
the café, where they found a warm seat on the terrace and Anne brought out her
pack and lighter. Martin was able to observe her a little more closely this time. Her
smoking style was much as he remembered. As she placed the cigarette in her
mouth, she would make a pout, smothering the brown filter with the dark red oval
of her lips. Her cheeks caved in as the cigarette tip glowed red. Then her chest
expanded as she drew in the smoke before turning her head to the side to exhale
a large plume.
They drank their coffee and Anne finished her cigarette. “I suppose I should get
back to the office.” she said unenthusiastically.
“Do you have to rush?” Martin asked. “I haven’t finished my coffee yet. You’ve time
for another cigarette before we go, if you want.”
This time Anne’s curiosity was thoroughly aroused. As she took a cigarette from
her pack, she looked at Martin quizzically. “Anyone who didn’t know better would
think you were encouraging me to smoke. You’re not…are you?”
Martin hesitated. This was a crucial moment. For the one and only time in his life,
he could confess his fetish and take a chance on what Anne might think of him
when he told her about it. Or he could play safe and keep his dark secret to
himself, probably for ever, if he didn’t mention it now. But he had already waited
too long before answering and he realised that his mind was made up.
“It’s a long story. Too long to tell here.” He thought for a moment. “You’re not free
on Saturday night, by any chance? Carol’s taking the kids to her parents for the
weekend.”
“I think I have a gap in my busy social calendar this weekend,” Anne said, dryly, as
she lit her cigarette and exhaled a cloud of smoke, “Where do you want to go?”
“Well, is there somewhere we can have dinner where you can smoke without
having to leave me to go outside every time?”
“Not unless you’re thinking of taking me to Belgium.” Anne smiled. “It’s too late in
the year now to eat out of doors. You’d better just come round to my place – I’ll
cook us something for supper.” She dictated the address, a house in an attractive
and sought-after Surrey village.
Martin was impressed.
“Bit of a step up from the old apartment in Putney, isn’t it?”
“Like Zsa Zsa Gabor, I’m a good housekeeper.” Anne replied, with a grin. “When I
got divorced, I kept the house.”
She stood up and, leaning over, kissed him on the cheek. He caught the familiar
heady scent of her perfume mixed with tobacco smoke. “I have to go – see you on
Saturday.” she said and, cigarette in hand, walked off along the street.
Chapter 3
Anne stepped out of the shower and began towelling herself dry as she examined
her reflection in the bathroom mirror. I’ve been putting on a few pounds recently,
she thought ruefully. I really ought to get more exercise. But she knew that,
realistically, there was little chance of this happening. She no longer kept up her
membership of the health club, having stopped participating in dance classes
some years ago. Latterly she had been getting so breathless and winded that the
classes had become more of an ordeal than a pleasure. Noticing this one evening,
her instructor had suggested gently to her that the time had finally come to give up
smoking. Anne promised to consider it. Back in her car after the class, she lit a
much-needed cigarette, drew the smoke deep into her lungs and concluded, not
without regret, that the time had finally come to give up attending dance classes.
Since then she had relied mainly on her Marlboro habit to keep her weight down, a
strategy rendered more difficult by the recently-introduced smoking ban. She
resolved to be more careful in future not to substitute snacks for cigarettes.
Not that that had been a problem today. She was unaccountably excited by the
prospect of entertaining Martin to dinner that evening, and had been calming
herself with an almost continuous stream of cigarettes. Feeling the desire growing
for another one now, she slipped on her bath robe and walked through to the
bedroom, where she lit a cigarette from her bedside supply, sat down at the
dressing table and, with the cigarette smouldering in the ashtray beside her, began
to apply her make-up for the evening ahead.
* * *
“That was delicious,” Martin said enthusiastically, as he put down his knife and fork
on an emptied plate. He smiled appreciatively across at Anne who was dressed, as
he had noted with delight on arrival, in a black cocktail dress of the low-cut style he
particularly liked.
“Oh, it was just a kitchen supper.” Anne replied, modestly. “Glad you enjoyed it; I’m
a bit out of practice.” She had been waiting for him to finish and, picking up her
cigarettes and lighter, inquired mischievously: “Do you mind if I smoke?”
Martin did not need to reply. Over dinner he had done his best to explain to Anne
how, after they had split up, he had belatedly come to realise that as well as being
horrified by her addiction to cigarettes, he had been turned on by it. Anne had
listened in astonished silence. It was a very long time since she had thought of
smoking as sexy or glamorous – any such idea had been banished during years of
making excuses and finding justifications for her habit. But wasn’t that why she had
started smoking in the first place? Perhaps the 14-year old Anne who had taken
the trouble to accustom herself to cigarette smoke in order to attract boys was right
after all?
“So it comes to this,” she had said, with wry amusement. “For more than a year I
was dating a man whose button I could push every time I wanted a cigarette, and
neither of us knew it?”
“I suppose, deep down, I did know it.” Martin had replied. “I just wouldn’t admit it to
myself, far less to you. If I hadn’t discovered through the internet that there were
lots of others like me, I still wouldn’t have admitted it to you or to anyone else. But
don’t get me wrong – I wasn’t pretending when I tried to persuade you to quit. I did
genuinely hate what you were doing to yourself by smoking so much.”
Anne brought the lighter to the tip of her cigarette. Martin allowed himself the
luxury of observing her closely as she took several drags, filling her lungs with
smoke and then slowly letting it escape through her nose and her mouth. He
noticed that when the cigarette was in her hand, her fingers held it lightly by the
white paper shaft and not by the filter.
“I like to put most of the filter in my mouth when I drag,” she explained when he
asked why. “It’s maybe just force of habit, but I think you get a fuller flavour if you
smoke that way.”
Martin continued to gaze at her as she smoked contentedly. “It’s a puzzle to me,”
he confessed. “Aren’t there lots of times when you’re desperate for a cigarette but
can’t smoke? Don’t you wish then that you weren’t so addicted?”
“No,” said Anne, firmly, recalling old conversations to the same effect. “I can put up
with the cravings for a while if I have to, because I know that when I do get the
chance to have a cigarette I’ll enjoy it all the more. I only ever get panicky if I think
there’s a risk that I’m going to run out of cigarettes. As long as I know I’ve got a
supply constantly available, I’m alright.”
“So what about the damage that thirty or forty cigarettes a day for twenty-five years
have done to you? Doesn’t that make you wish now that you had never started in
the first place?”
Anne shook her head. “You still don’t understand,” she replied, raising her cigarette
to her lips for another drag. “You seem to regard damage to health as the card
which trumps everything else. I don’t see it that way. Smoking gives me more than
it takes away. Sure, there are a lot of things that I can’t do because I smoke too
much to be physically capable. But in exchange I get hundreds of moments of
pleasure every day.”
She finished her cigarette and, having put it out in the ashtray, looked across at
Martin challengingly. “If you’re so keen to understand what it’s all about, don’t you
think it’s time you tried it for yourself?”
Chapter 4
Taken aback, Martin began to shake his head, but then changed his mind and
shrugged. “After all, one cigarette isn’t going to do me any harm, is it?”
Anne did not reply. She offered him a cigarette from her pack, lit it for him and then
lit one for herself. Martin drew some smoke into his mouth and blew it back out
again, observing that the taste of the smoke was not at all the same as its smell.
“Okay,” she said. “This time take a mouthful of smoke, open your mouth slightly
and then breathe in.” Martin did as he was told and was relieved to discover that
he did not cough. “Good,” said Anne, encouragingly. “Hold it in there for a few
moments and then breathe out.” Again Martin obeyed and this time he noticed the
hit as the nicotine entered his bloodstream. It was quite a pleasant sensation, he
had to admit. He took several more similar drags to repeat the effect, before
crushing the cigarette out in the ashtray.
“I’m not sure I like the taste much”, he reported. “I quite like the head rush
sensation. But don’t you lose that when you smoke regularly?”
“Up to a point,” Anne admitted. “But there are other pleasures to take its place.
There’s nothing quite like the first drag of a cigarette when you haven’t smoked for
a while.”
“That doesn’t sound to me like smoking for enjoyment at all,” Martin objected.
“That sounds like smoking to avoid having to face the consequences of not
smoking. If you have to smoke to get rid of the symptoms of not smoking, don’t you
think you’ve lost the ability to decide whether you really want to smoke at all?”
“No, I don’t think so.” Anne paused and her expression became serious, her playful
mood temporarily subdued. “About a year after I got married I became pregnant.
As soon as I discovered, I stopped smoking. It was very hard, as you can imagine,
but I wanted to do it. For three months, I didn’t have a single cigarette. Paul, my
ex-husband, quit at the same time to make it easier for me.” Her eyes were
suddenly moist. She stubbed out her cigarette and immediately lit another, the last
in the pack as it turned out, before continuing. “Unfortunately, I fell down some
stairs one day and had a miscarriage. Afterwards, Paul stayed quit. I didn’t. In fact,
I bought a pack on my way home from the hospital.” She sighed and wiped away a
tear. “It was just one more thing we didn’t have in common towards the end. But
the point is that for three months I wanted to not smoke more than I wanted to
smoke, so I didn’t. That’s why I’m sure that if I really didn’t want to smoke now, I
wouldn’t. The reality is that I enjoy feeding the addiction in spite of what it’s doing
to me. I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
She began to relax and smile again and stood up. “Enough of that. Let’s continue
the conversation in the lounge where it’s more comfortable. Why don’t you open
another bottle of wine while I go and find some cigarettes?”
Martin took his time selecting a bottle from Anne’s wine rack and uncorking it. By
the time he entered the lounge, she had kicked off her shoes and was seated on
the couch with her legs curled beneath her. She had lit another cigarette and the
smoke drifted up from it in wispy question marks highlighted against her dress.
Martin thought that he had never in his life seen a woman who looked so totally
desirable. He put the bottle down on a table and walked slowly towards her,
allowing her ample opportunity to discourage his approach. Instead, she took a
drag from her cigarette, placed it in an ashtray and looked up at him expectantly.
Without waiting for her to exhale, he leaned forward and began to kiss her. She
responded by putting her arm round him and pulling him closer. He tasted the
smoke in her mouth and could think of nothing except how much, more than
anything else, he wanted her right now. As they continued to kiss, his hands
moved down to his trousers to find hers already there. They undressed one
another with more urgency than efficiency and, galvanised by sexual excitement,
made love energetically on Anne’s fireside rug.
When she had recovered her breath a little, Anne sat up, wheezing and coughing
from her exertions, and began to gather together items of clothing scattered across
the floor. She reached for her cigarettes and lit up gratefully. “Want one?” she
inquired.
Martin reflected that, in the roll-call of tonight’s misdemeanours, a second cigarette
wouldn’t make much difference. “Sure,” he replied. “Why not?”
Chapter 5
Martin woke first the following morning and climbed quietly out of bed. As he
dressed, he contemplated Anne sleeping peacefully, dreaming perhaps of their
more unhurried love-making which had carried on late into the previous night. He
went downstairs to the kitchen and drank a glass of orange juice while reflecting on
what had happened the night before. Guilt would arrive later, no doubt, but for the
time being he could feel only a euphoric sense of release caused by having, after
so long, revealed his innermost secret to a beautiful woman smoker and having
then made love to her. Whatever happened now, life would never be quite the
same again.
He could still faintly taste the two cigarettes he had smoked the night before, and
wondered whether Anne, with her two pack a day consumption, ever really tasted
anything else. His attention was diverted by the sound of coughing from upstairs.
He listened with concern as it intensified and then began to subside. Another part
of the trade-off for the pleasures of smoking, he supposed. He hoped that Anne
would not discover one day that the price which she had to pay for these pleasures
was much higher than she had calculated.
She appeared in the kitchen doorway, dressed in a fluffy white bathrobe and
holding a freshly lit cigarette – not, Martin guessed, her first of the morning. At the
sight of her he was immediately aroused again. She read his expression.
“Cool it, stud,” she laughed, her voice cracked and deepened by the previous
night’s heavy smoking. “I need coffee.” She put her cigarette between her lips and
busied herself filling the machine with water and coffee. The morning sunlight
streaming through the kitchen window caught the small plumes of smoke which
escaped from her nose to the rhythm of her breathing. Having finished with the
coffee machine, she took the cigarette from her mouth and exhaled.
“And how is the apprentice smoker this morning?” she inquired.
Martin laughed. “Wishing he hadn’t been tempted last night. Does the taste always
stay with you for so long?”
“I’ve no idea,” she replied. “I don’t usually leave enough time between cigarettes to
find out. But these Reds are quite strong. You might find the Lights more enjoyable
to begin with.”
“There’s no question of that,” he assured her quickly. “I just wanted to try to share
what you experience when you smoke – nothing more. I don’t suppose I’ll ever do
it again.”
They drank coffee and chatted about trivial matters, avoiding the issue which was
in both of their minds. The conversation tailed off, and Martin asked, hesitantly:
“So, where do we go from here?”
Anne stood up. “Let’s go for a walk through the village. The autumn colours are
wonderful just now.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.” he said.
“I know.” she said.
* * *
They walked in companionable silence down an avenue of chestnut trees. The
spiky green fruits lay all around them, some having split open to reveal the shiny
brown nut inside. At the end of the avenue there was a wooden bench. They sat
down and Anne retrieved her cigarettes from her coat pocket. She lit up, exhaled a
long stream of smoke and said: “Where do you want to go from here?”
Martin shook his head slowly. “I don’t know.” he said helplessly.
Anne sat for a while contemplating the autumn scene around them. “In that case,”
she said, “I’ll just have to do the thinking for both of us. To be honest, I’ve no desire
to start an affair with a married man. That’s what messed up my marriage and I
don’t intend to do the same to someone else. And deep down, it’s not what you
want either.” She turned to look earnestly at him. For once she seemed to have
forgotten about the cigarette which she was holding and the ash was growing long.
“That wasn’t me you were making love to last night. It was the fantasy woman
smoker you’ve been dreaming about all these years. I just happen to fit the
description. The real problem is that you can’t reconcile your fantasy with the
reality that you still hate the fact that I smoke so much. You wouldn’t be any
happier with me now than you were before. You’d always be torn between wanting
me to smoke and wanting me to quit. It would be no fun for either of us. You’ll be
much happier at home with your nice, healthy wife where you can escape from the
conflict.”
Martin was silent, thinking this over. “You’re wrong about one thing,” he said,
eventually. “I can never escape from the conflict. It will always be there for me,
whether I’m with you or with Carol. I’ll just have to find another way of dealing with
it, that’s all.”
Anne finished her cigarette and deposited the remains in a litter bin. They walked
slowly back to her house and Martin got ready to depart. He looked at Anne
questioningly. “How about one more smoky kiss before I go?”
She picked up the red and white pack with a laugh which, as usual, turned into a
cough.
* * *
Anne stood at the garden gate and watched Martin’s car disappear round the
corner of the street. The day had turned colder and there was an air of late season
melancholy about the village which seemed to reflect her own mood. She did not
find it at all unpleasant. Although the night with Martin had been an enjoyable
interlude, she was content that it would not turn into something more prolonged.
With a smile to herself, she wondered idly how she might go about meeting more
of those men, apparently out there somewhere, whom she could arouse simply by
lighting a cigarette in their presence.
Into her thoughts there intruded a familiar sensation. Nowhere precisely identifiable
in her body; not exactly in her mind, either; a little of both, perhaps. Not a craving,
although she knew that the sensation would eventually develop into one if she took
no action in response to it. There was little chance of that. She turned and walked
back into the house, in search of a cigarette.
* * *
Martin was in thoughtful mood too as he drove back to town. He felt that he had
been allowed a tantalising glimpse of nirvana which had then been snatched away
from him. He had said to Anne that he would have to find another way of dealing
with his conflict. How would he do that? He tried to visualise Carol lighting a
cigarette as she got out of bed in the morning but the image was so preposterous
that he abandoned the attempt. Anne was right, in any case – it wasn’t what he
wanted. So what did he want?
As he approached home he stopped to buy a Sunday newspaper. Having parked
near a general store, he was about to open the car door when he noticed a woman
with long ash-blonde hair coming out of the shop. He recognised her as the mother
of a child in his younger son’s playgroup, but what caught his attention was the
pack of cigarettes which she was carrying in her hand. Although he had met her on
a number of occasions, he had had no inkling that she was a smoker. He watched,
fascinated, as she unwrapped the pack, took out a cigarette and lit it, taking
several deep, cheek-hollowing drags while standing outside the shop. Despite the
chill in the afternoon air, it was obvious to him how much she was enjoying her
cigarette: her half-closed eyes as she drew in the smoke and the upward tilt of her
head as she exhaled told the story graphically. Martin, observing from his car, was
rock hard: he had always regarded the woman as quite attractive but her sex
appeal now suddenly skyrocketed. Eventually she let the cigarette end fall to the
ground, crushed it with the heel of her boot and got into a car which was parked
nearby. As she drove off, he wondered why she had felt it necessary to smoke
outside. Perhaps her husband objected to her smoking in the car; or was she
simply concealing her habit from her children, or from him? Not that it mattered: as
Martin got out of the car and walked towards the store he was still intensely excited
and aroused by the show he had just witnessed.
While he stood waiting to pay for his newspaper, Martin studied the display of
cigarettes behind the cash desk. He remembered the buzz which he had
experienced when he inhaled the smoke from Anne’s Marlboros the night before.
He thought of her description of hundreds of moments of pleasure every day and
of the playgroup mother’s expression while she enjoyed some of those moments.
What if….? After all, one pack wasn’t going to do him any harm, was it?
“That’s one pound fifty for the paper.” said the girl at the cash desk. “Anything
else?”
“Yes,” said Martin, “there is.”
by Richard