Sarah opened her eyes as she heard the knock on her
bedroom door. She had been sleeping on the hospital
examining table her father had installed in her bedroom.
It was the same examining table her mother, Lori, had
died on just a few short years ago. The table allowed
Sarah to be comfortable with her legs spread, as if she
were getting a gynecological examination. Her torso was
tilted upward. She was bent at the waist with her knees
pointing up in the air and her feet resting in stirrups at
the
end of the table. This was the position in which she felt
the most relief from her now constant pain. She was a
grotesque sight as her bony, shaking arm reached for her
nearby pack of Marlboro 100s. She managed to shake a
cigarette loose and, with great effort, she lit it up. A
satisfied look came over Sarah’s face as she inhaled the
smoke from her cigarette deep into her sick lungs. The
warm feeling she felt in her tarry chest made everything
worthwhile, she thought. Sarah was only twenty-three
years old and she was dying of lung cancer. As she
reached for her nearby pack of Kool 100s, she realized how
lucky she was. She wouldn’t trade places with anyone.
Sarah’s stepmother, Mitzi, had gotten Sarah hooked on
Kools. She had been weaned on Marlboro 100s and would
never be without them. But, at this stage of her life, Sarah
felt she was certainly entitled to two addictions. Sarah
now alternated drags from her Marlboro 100s with drags
from her Kool 100s. She always lit up at least one of each,
and smoked them simultaneously. Her Marlboro 100s
gave her the rich tobacco taste she had known and loved
for as long as she could remember. The cool menthol from
her Kools felt good on her throat, raw and sore from her
constant coughing. It also felt good in her lungs, which
were now almost completely destroyed. As she felt the
rush of clean menthol in the back of her throat, she said
in a raspy whisper, “Come in.”
It was her father, Mark, with a familiar face. “Hi, Kitten,”
he said with a smile. “Remember Phil from Division F?”
Sarah’s eyes twinkled as she recalled her brief, but
passionate, encounter with Phil. Phil Morris was the head
of the top-secret Division F at Philip Morris. He and his
small, but loyal, team had secretly been filming thousands
of female smokers in the hopes of producing smoking fetish
videos and, maybe someday, cigarette commercials
for television. “Hi, Sarah,” said Phil. “I have a gift for
you.” He held out a carton of Marlboro Black 100s, the
special, tar-enhanced cigarettes produced by Division F.
“Thank you…Phil,” said Sarah, in short, gasping breaths.
“I loved the Blacks you gave me before. In fact, I still
have several cartons.” Sarah had to pause to take a deep
breath of oxygen from the mask attached to her oxygen
tank. “They’re real lung wreckers,” she said, momentarily
lifting her mask. She put it back on, took several more
deep, labored breaths, and then set her mask down. She
lifted her Marlboro 100 to her lips and dragged deeply.
The tip of her cigarette glowed for a full ten seconds as
tobacco quickly turned to ash. She inhaled all of the
smoke deep into her lungs and held it. She then took an
equally long drag from her Kool 100, sucked it all down
and held it inside, deep in her dark, black lungs. She could
feel the rich Marlboro smoke mixing with the mentholated
Kool smoke. It felt wonderful. “So, my father must have
told you about me.” Sarah’s eyes turned down. She
looked at the cigarettes burning between her deeply tar-
stained fingers. “Pretty amazing news, huh?”
“Amazing is hardly the word for it, Sarah,” said Phil,
trying
to suppress his bulging erection. “If you compiled a list of
all the 23 year-old women who have ever had lung cancer,
it would be a pretty short list. You’re in very exclusive
company.” Sarah moaned and reached for her crotch with
one hand. With the other hand, she lifted both of her
cigarettes to her lips and inhaled deeply from both at the
same time. Phil turned to Mark and said, “You must be
very proud.”
Mark could hardly speak. “Yes,” he said, choking back
tears, “my little girl has been a constant source of joy to
me.” He paused to blow his nose. “And, as if the gift in
Sarah’s chest isn’t enough, I’m about to become a
grandfather.” He started sobbing. Phil couldn’t help but
notice the bulge in Mark’s pants as Mark excused himself
from the room and closed the door behind him.
“Well, Sarah,” said Phil, “as you may recall from the last
time we spoke, I expressed a wish to make a documentary of
you when, and if, you were ever diagnosed with lung
cancer. Well, I have to admit, I never thought it would
happen so soon, but, well, here we are and…” Tom
cleared his throat. “God…I’m sorry, Sarah. I feel like a
total fuck. Here I am bursting with excitement when I
should be offering you sympathy and condolences. I
mean, you just received a death sentence.” Tears welled
up in his eyes.
Sarah whispered, “Shhh,” as she reached out and took
Phil’s hand in hers. Her bony fingers gently guided his
hand down to the warm region below her pregnant belly.
She placed his hand on her juicy, moist pussy and began
moving it back and forth. She let out a deep moan as she
pressed on his hand and dragged deeply from her twin
cigarettes. “Who’s…bursting…with…excitement…now,”
she said in short, breathless pants as she felt Phil’s
fingers
easily slide deep into her wet vagina.
With her trembling arm, Sarah reached out and tried to
unzip Phil’s pants. “I’m…too…weak,” she said in a barely
audible whisper. As Phil ripped his clothes off, Sarah
reached for her cigarettes. She lit up four cigarettes
simultaneously, a Marlboro Black 100, two Kool 100s, and
a Pall Mall Red, unfiltered, of course. She twisted the Pall
Mall into the tracheotomy hole in her neck. She forced the
two Kools tightly into her nostrils, one in each nostril. She
let the Marlboro Black dangle from her lips. As Phil
carefully inserted his firm, erect penis into Sarah, she
began to suck on the Marlboro Black as if it were a straw
and she was trying to get the last drop of a chocolate
shake out of a nearly empty cup. The tips of all four of her
cigarettes glowed brightly as cigarette smoke rushed into
her lungs from every possible opening. Sarah arched her
back and shuddered violently as Phil shot his hot load into
her. Her cigarettes stopped glowing momentarily as she
reached a glorious climax and let out a raspy cry of
ecstasy. She then sucked in deeply again and Phil watched
the four cigarette tips glow bright red. He continued to
pump his spent, but still hard, dick into Sarah and
marveled as she started a second orgasm. She
shuddered, moaned, squirmed, and smoked until there was
nothing left of her four cigarettes but three burned out,
dark brown filters, and a small plug of burned out ashes
clogging her tracheotomy hole.
Sarah let out a long, satisfied sigh and said, “Do you
still think I need condolences?”
Phil said with a sheepish grin, “I guess congratulations
are more in order.”
“Hell, yes. I’m going to be a mommy, you know.” She
patted her tummy as she simultaneously lit up a fresh
Marlboro Black and a Kool 100.
“That’s going to be the most nicotine-addicted baby ever
born,” said Phil, pulling his pants up.
“Nothing but the best for my kid,” said Sarah, double-
pumping her twin cigarettes. “Now, tell me more about
my death sentence.”
“I’m afraid you’re out of appeals, ma’am,” Phil deadpanned.
“Oh, my God,” Sarah moaned, “I’m getting horny again.
Tell me more.” She was rubbing her pussy.
“Sarah, you are too much,” said Phil, astonished. “How
can any man keep up with you?”
“No man can,” she said, filling her lungs again with her
special blend of smoke. “That’s why I will never marry…a
man. These are all I need. These are all I want.” She
picked up her cigarettes and held them to her breast. She
was the picture of a woman in love.
Phil had barely finished zipping up his pants when there
was another knock on the door. “Dinner time, Sarah”,
they heard a voice say.
“Come on in, Doc,” said Sarah, gasping for air with each
word.
It was Dr. Richards, Sarah’s uniquely talented heart and
lung specialist, making his daily house call. Sarah and Dr.
Richards had a closer than usual doctor-patient
relationship. The good doctor worshipped Sarah with
every fiber of his being. It was he who had done the honor
of making Sarah’s lifelong dream come true when he uttered
the words, “Sarah, you have lung cancer.”
“Hello, Phil,” said Dr. Richards. It was Dr. Richards who
had first learned of Division F and had sent Sarah to meet
Phil. “You didn’t waste any time getting here.”
“I was on the first plane I could get after Sarah’s father
called me,” said Phil. “I am hoping, with Sarah’s
permission, of course, to make a documentary film of
Sarah’s last days. Um…it will be strictly
for…um…educational purposes.”
The doctor cleared his throat and said, “Yes, it will be of
great value in the war against…uhh…the dreaded killer,
lung cancer.”
“Don’t forget emphysema,” said Phil, winking at the doctor.
“How could I ever forget emphysema?” said the doctor,
grinning.
“OK, cut with the clowning,” said Sarah after completing a
cheek-hollowing drag from her two full strength cigarettes.
“I know damn well what you two want this video for. It’s
nice to know I’ll be remembered after I’m gone.” Two
thick jets of smoke shot from Sarah’s nostrils as she took
a second long double-drag.
“So I take it I have your permission to start filming?”
asked Phil.
“Be my guest,” said Sarah. “But, I have to warn you, it
will be pretty boring. What you see here is what ninety
percent of my day is like. I get up to move around in my
walker a couple of times a day, to go to the bathroom and
to make sure I don’t get bed sores. But most of the time
I’m right here, in bed, smoking and coughing up blood.”
Phil couldn’t help staring at the speckled bloodstains all
over the front of Sarah’s nightgown. “Sarah, just let me
worry about what’s boring and what’s not.”
“Pretty soon, I won’t even be able to get out of bed,” said
Sarah. “I can hardly pull myself up into my walker
anymore.”
Both Phil and the doctor felt boners forming. Dr. Richards
decided to change the subject. “Well, Sarah, it’s feeding
time.”
“Oh boy,” said Phil. “What’s for dinner? Meatloaf and
mashed potatoes?”
“This,” said the doctor, holding up a clear plastic bag
filled with a clear liquid.
“I can’t eat solid food anymore,” said Sarah. “I can’t keep
it down.” As she tried to breathe, she made a horrible,
deep wheezing sound and appeared to be having trouble
catching her breath. She placed her oxygen mask over her
face and inhaled deeply a few times. She put her mask
down, dragged deeply from her Marlboro 100, inhaled the
smoke deep into her lungs, held it, then placed the oxygen
mask over her face again. She repeated the process, but
with a Kool 100 this time. She took a few more deep
breaths and took the mask off. “I get dizzy if I get too
much oxygen–my lungs just aren’t used to it,” she
explained. “I wish they could make these oxygen tanks so
they were filled with fifty percent oxygen and fifty
percent
cigarette smoke. That would make it so much easier for
me.”
Phil and Dr. Richards just stared at each other, smiling,
each thinking, “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Anyway, as I was saying, I can’t eat solid food anymore.
I don’t care, though. I can’t taste food anyway. I never
could. My taste buds were long ago deadened by my
smoking. I like eating this way better. Eating meals was
always such a nuisance for me, anyway. It interfered too
much with my smoking. This way I can smoke and eat at
the same time.”
Dr. Richards discreetly adjusted the large bulge in his
pants and attached the fresh intravenous feeding bag to
the tube connected to Sarah’s arm. “Eat up,” he said as
he watched to make sure the nourishing liquid was dripping
into Sarah’s intravenous feeding tube.
“Well, I’ll leave you alone now so you can enjoy that
dinner, Sarah,” said Phil. “I’ll have my crew start setting
up cameras all over the house.”
“Save yourselves some work,” said Sarah, lighting up a
fresh Kool 100. “Just put a camera in here and in the
bathroom. That’s all you’ll need.”
“You never venture into the kitchen or the family room?” he
asked.
“They’re too far away,” she said. “Besides, everything I
need is right here.” She picked up a full carton of Marlboro
100s from her nightstand and cradled it to her bosom.
“Welcome to my universe.”
Both Phil and Dr. Richards longed to part of this universe.
They envied this bed-ridden invalid who was in constant
pain and who would soon be dead. Either one of them
would have gladly traded places with Sarah, if only to
experience briefly the ecstasy Sarah felt when she filled
her lungs with smoke.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
After just two weeks Phil and his crew had put together a
film using the footage of Sarah they had collected. Phil
was anxious to get something out before Sarah died, so
she would be able to see it. There would be plenty of
time, later, to create several outstanding fetish videos
from the hundreds of hours of Sarah they had filmed.
Phil decided to throw a premiere party for Sarah, right in
her bedroom. He set up a movie screen and a projector
and invited those closest to Sarah. Present were Mark,
Mitzi, Dr. Richards, and Tom, Sarah’s sometimes
boyfriend. Tom Ansante was a smoking fetishist whom
Mark had introduced to Sarah in the hopes that Sarah
would become pregnant. That was Mark…always looking
out for his daughter. After all, what are fathers for?
Even though Mark’s ultimate fantasy had already been
realized the night Sarah told him she had terminal lung
cancer, he knew that once Sarah was gone, he would long
for another smoking female in the family. Of course there
was his wife, Mitzi, the chain-smoking Kool addict. But, it
was entirely possible that Mitzi would beat Sarah to the
grave. She had advanced emphysema, was confined to
her wheelchair, and required oxygen 24 hours a day. Even
if she were to live for a while longer, she was too old to
produce a baby.
That’s where Tom came into the picture. Mark purposely
got Tom and Sarah together, hoping they would become
close, very close. Sarah liked Tom very much. They hit it
off right away and were soon enjoying marathon smoke-
sex sessions together. But Sarah never let herself get too
close to Tom. Ultimately, she used him, as she used all
men, for her own pleasure. They were great for a fuck
when she felt aroused, but she had no use for them
otherwise. Her only real passion was for her cigarettes.
Nothing could ever change that.
Mark knew this, but didn’t care. As long as Sarah was
pregnant, he was happy. No one, not even Sarah, knew
who the father of her baby was. She had more important
things to concern herself with.
As soon as everyone was assembled in Sarah’s room, Phil
started the proceedings. “We are here to present the
world premiere of the latest production of Division F,” he
said. “It is a brief but powerful film, starring the one and
only Sarah Polmoni. Ladies and gentlemen, we proudly
present ‘Choices’.”
Everyone cheered loudly. Mitzi exerted herself too much
and went into a prolonged coughing spell. No one in the
room seemed to mind.
“We will present this film to television stations, and to
schools, as a PSA, a public service announcement. It will
be, essentially, an anti-smoking message.”
Everyone booed, except Mitzi, who was still coughing.
“Hold on, everyone,” said Phil. “As with any controversial
subject, there are two sides to the issue. Each viewer will
get out of the film whatever he or she wants to get out of
it. Before you make a judgment, let’s all watch the film.”
With that, Phil clicked off the lights and turned on the
projector.
The film opens with a close-up of Sarah’s face. For a few
moments we can hear her labored breathing. She
wheezes loudly with each breath she takes. Then she
speaks, “Hello. My Name is Sarah Polmoni. I am twenty-
three years old.” She speaks with great difficulty. She
makes a gasping sound between words as she tries to
catch her breath. “I know that will shock some of you. I
look much older than twenty-three.” She is wearing no
makeup. Her face is ashen. Her eye sockets are sunken.
The skin on her face is dried out and drawn tight. Her
cheeks are hollowed. Her badly yellowed teeth appear too
big for her face because the skin around her mouth is
drawn so tight. Except for the long, dark hair flowing
down over her shoulders, Sarah could easily be mistaken for
a skeleton.
We see Sarah raise her oxygen mask to her face. She
takes a couple of deep breaths and puts the mask down.
She continues, “I will not live to see my twenty-fourth
birthday.” She pauses for a moment, wheezing as she
breathes. “In fact, by the time you see this film, I may
already be dead.” Again, she pauses and we hear her
labored breathing. “You see…I have lung cancer.”
Each of the men in the room is glad it is dark. Each has a
full erection.
“My doctor has told me my lung cancer is inoperable. He
says there is nothing he can do to save my life.” There is
a trace of moistness beginning to show around Sarah’s
eyes. “I am going to die…soon…because of a choice I
made…a choice I made as a young girl.” Again Sarah
pauses to take some oxygen. She continues, “I chose to
smoke cigarettes. I thought cigarettes were great. I
thought smoking was cool. Yes, I chose cigarettes.” There
is another pause, so Sarah can catch her breath. “Was it a
good choice?” she asks. “You decide.”
The camera shifts to a scene of Sarah struggling to move
with the help of her walker. She narrates, “Here I am,
walking across my bedroom. This is the most strenuous
activity I am now capable of. It takes all the strength I
have just to move a few feet. I can no longer walk on my
own. My lungs cannot provide enough oxygen to my body
for me to do normal, everyday things. I can’t ride a bike.
I can’t ice skate. Even with my walker, I can only walk for
a few minutes at a time. Then I become so out of breath
that I have to stop and rest.”
Sarah pauses and we hear a hoarse, raspy wheezing
sound. “You have probably noticed that I am also
pregnant.” Her voice breaks slightly as she says the word
‘pregnant’. “I found out I was pregnant the same day I
was diagnosed with lung cancer. Needless to say, I had
very mixed emotions that day.”
“Here are some things I will never do.” The scene shifts to
a montage of healthy, glowing young mothers frolicking in
fields with their young children, pushing their babies on
swings, tucking their healthy kids into bed at night. “My
doctor doesn’t know if I will live long enough for my baby
to be born. Even if my baby survives, I will never see it
grow up. I will never do what the mothers in these
pictures are doing. My baby will grow up never knowing
its mother. I will never hear my sweet child call me…
‘Mommy’.” Sarah’s voice cracks noticeably on the word
‘Mommy’. For several moments all we hear is Sarah’s
heavy wheezing as we watch a laughing young mother playing
basketball on a playground with her two young children.
The scene fades out and fades back in to a shot of Sarah in
her bed as the camera zooms in on her feeding tube.
“Here I am, eating. This is how I take all my meals now. I
have to be fed intravenously because I can’t keep solid
food down. My body is too weak to handle it.”
“Here I am, coughing,” she continues, as the scene shifts
to a close-up of Sarah in the midst of a horrible coughing
spell. “This is what I do most of the time. I sometimes
cough non-stop for twenty minutes or more. I never go
more than a few minutes without coughing. You can see
bloodstains on my nightgown if you look closely. This is
because I am beginning to cough up small bits of my own
lungs as they deteriorate. This will only get worse in the
weeks ahead.”
The scene shifts to a shot of Sarah breathing with the help
of her oxygen mask. “Here I am breathing,” said Sarah.
“Even the simple and automatic act of breathing I can no
longer do without help. My lungs can’t provide enough
oxygen, on their own, to keep me alive. I need the help of
this oxygen tank. As my lungs get worse, I will need my
oxygen tank more and more. Eventually I will not be able
to breathe without it. Finally, even the oxygen tank will
not be able to help me. As my lungs break apart, they will
become unable to supply any oxygen to my body at all.
Can you guess what will happen then?” There is a pause
and we hear Sarah wheezing heavily. “If you
guessed…that’s when Sarah will die…you guessed right.”
The men in the room are now squirming, trying to get
comfortable with the enormous erections in their pants.
Mitzi, who has finally stopped coughing, is covered with a
shawl and is fingering her pussy, unseen by the others,
while she chain-smokes her beloved Kools.
The camera shifts back to an extreme close-up of Sarah’s
ghostly face. “So, I ask you again,” she says, “did I make
a good choice?” She pauses to take a few wheezing
breaths. “I chose cigarettes over health. I chose sick,
dirty lungs over clean, pink lungs. I chose smoking over
life itself.” She puts her mask to her face and takes a few
more deep hits of oxygen.
She puts the mask down and says, “I know many of you
will be faced with similar decisions. You will see friends
smoking and they will try to get you to try it. Will you
make the same choice I did?” The camera slowly begins to
pan out. “Take a good, close look at me.” As the camera
pulls back, rising smoke is clearly visible, billowing
around
Sarah’s head. “If you want to end up just like me, you,
too, can choose to be a cigarette smoker.” There is
another pause and a long wheezy sound from Sarah’s
lungs. “The choice is yours.” As the camera pulls back
more, a burning cigarette can be seen between Sarah’s
yellow fingers. Her bony, shaky arm slowly lifts the
cigarette to her cracked lips. The camera slowly zooms
back in on Sarah’s face. Her mouth wraps itself around
the filter of her cigarette. Her cheeks indent deeply. The
tip of her cigarette glows brightly for a full ten seconds.
She removes the cigarette from her lips and opens her
mouth. For a brief moment we see an enormous ball of
thick white smoke in Sarah’s mouth. Then, in an instant, it
disappears as she sucks the smoke down into her pitiful,
beautiful, pathetic, glorious lungs. She closes her eyes
and holds the smoke deep down in her blackened chest.
The scene slowly fades to black.
For a moment, there was nothing but silence. Phil turned
on the lights. Mark, who had been carefully massaging his
penis with his hands in his pockets, had a large wet stain
on the front of his pants. At the moment Sarah’s smoke-
ball had disappeared into her lungs, Mark, unable to
control himself, had ejaculated into his own pants. He
didn’t seem to mind, as he knew the other men were on
the verge of ejaculating, as well. Mitzi, with a satisfied
look on her face, was sucking hard on the freshly lit Kool
dangling from her lips. Finally, Phil said, “Well, what do
you think?”
Mark spoke first. “I only wish they would have shown a
film like that to me when I was in school.” The others
echoed their unanimous agreement. Suddenly, all eyes
turned to Sarah. “What did you think of it, sweetie?”
asked Mark.
Sarah reached for her cigarettes. She methodically placed
a Marlboro 100 between her lips and lit up. She took
several long, deep drags as she searched for the right
words to say. “Well, you know,” she began, “the whole
film is a fraud, really.”
Stunned, Mark looked at Sarah and said, “What do you mean?”
“The whole premise of the film is false,” she said. “I tell
the viewers that my present condition is because of a
choice I made as a young girl.”
“Yes…so?” said Mark.
“I think we all know I never made that choice.” Sarah lit
up a Kool 100, triple-pumped it, and held all the smoke
deep in her ruined lungs. “The choice was made for me.”
She followed up with a triple-pump from her Marlboro 100.
“I knew how to smoke before I knew how to speak, for
God’s sake. By the time I was old enough to make an
informed decision of my own, it was probably already too
late for me. My lungs were never given a chance to
develop. I probably had emphysema when I was in the
sixth grade. Remember how loud my wheezing was by
then?”
“God, do I ever,” said Mark, reminiscing. “You know how I
loved that sound, as well as the beautiful sound of your
morning cough. I always thought you loved it too, baby.”
“I did, Daddy. I loved it more than you can imagine. I
just never realized, until I watched this film, just how
much I had sacrificed for my cigarettes. It’s kind of
overwhelming.” Sarah took a direct-lung inhale from both
of her cigarettes at the same time. She held the smoke
deep in her lungs and said, “I always wondered why I
couldn’t keep up with the other kids when they were
running. Mommy would tell me it was because I was
special. That was good enough for me. By the time I
knew the real reason, it was too late for me to do anything
about it.” She took another deep drag from each of her
cigarettes. “All I’m saying is…I never had a choice.”
Mark took Sarah’s hand and looked deep into her eyes.
“Are you sorry we made that choice for you, honey? Do
you regret the life you have lived?” Mark’s voice was
cracking. Tears were rolling down his cheeks.
Sarah triple-pumped the remainder of her cigarettes and
crushed them out in her ashtray. She pulled Mark close to
her and hugged him with all the strength her frail body
could muster. “Daddy…I want you to know…I love you
more at this moment than I ever have in my life.” Tears
were now rolling down Sarah’s cheeks, as well. “I want to
thank you for giving me the most wonderful life anyone
could have imagined. There is not a moment I regret.”
She stopped to blow her nose. “Most of all, Daddy…my
dear, sweet father…I want to thank you and Mommy for
making the most important choice of my life for me…at a
time when I was too young to choose for myself.
Because…if I would have been forced to make that choice
on my own…I can’t be certain I would have made the right
choice.” Tears were now streaming down Sarah’s cheeks.
Mark, sobbing, said, “Hey, what are fathers for?”
The others quietly left the room as Mark and Sarah
embraced. They heard the familiar click of Sarah’s lighter
as they shut the door.