Heading westward on the Southern Minnesota freeway, my eyes are lost in Gretchen as she drives, cigarette dangling between her lips as always. She was talking with frustration about visiting her sisters, who had went to work on a farm in southwest Minnesota for the summer, but it very hard for me to concentrate on her words. She was muttering her reservations about visiting her sisters in the presence of her parents, who are always critical of Gretchen’s “bad influence” over her sisters. As she talked, the cigarette in her mouth was bouncing up and down as she effortlessly dragged on it between sentences and then started talking again as jets of smoke poured out of her nostrils and added to the cloudy haze of smoke in the stuffy car. Gretchen preferred the windows rolled up and the air conditioner on in the humid August weather. Although the smoke in the enclosed car bothered me a little, I certainly was not complaining about it. I looked in my rearview mirror to notice that Gretchen’s parents, who were following us, were nowhere to be seen, unable to keep up with Gretchen’s high-speed driving. As Gretchen continues to ramble on that “whenever the entire family meets, they all end up ganging up on her.” I stare at her, pretending to be interested in what she’s saying, but really am focused on the long ash at the end of her cigarette falling to her smooth tan legs. The ash lands about an inch from the fringes of her tight cutoffs, and Gretchen is oblivious to it.
After a couple more quick drags, Gretchen gets to the filter of her cigarette, removes it from her mouth, and extinguishes it into an ashtray in her cup holder, already filled with the butts of over a dozen cigarettes she has already smoked in the hour we’ve been in the car. I’m so mesmerised watching her that I fail to remember my responsibility. She finally looks at me cravingly and then peers down to the pack of Marlboro 100’s I’m holding in my hand and clears her throat in a “hint, hint” kind of way. Finally, my daydream is disrupted and I quickly act on Gretchen’s wishes, removing a fresh Marlboro 100 from the pack and inserting it into Gretchen’s mouth, then lighting it. After I light her up, Gretchen turns forward again, now able to concentrate on driving again. She takes an enormous double- pump on her cigarette before proceeding with voicing her frustrations. “I just know my sisters and partying and getting into no end of trouble at this farm, and somehow, it’s all gonna be my fault!” Gretchen stares down to the box of fine cigars she bought at a tobacco shop on her way, tempted to light one up, but is
able to resist. As she takes another intense drag on her cigarette, the long, unstable ash again falls to her lap, landing at the edge of her tight denim cutoffs and her perfectly-shaped calf. My desire gets the best of me as Gretchen begins another spiel, “What really pisses me off is that…” I then interrupt her by leaning forward and placing my finger over my mouth, motioning her for silence, then placing my finger over her mouth as well. Her initial reaction of insult quickly fades as I then lower my finger to her leg and begin to crush the cigarette ash on her shorts and leg, then arousingly twirling my finger around to smear the ash on her perfect skin. I run my finger up her shorts and onto her crotch, and can tell she is becoming intensely aroused as she drags furiously on her cigarette, flicking ashes throughout the car and the cigarette bounces between her lips like a yo-yo.
Gretchen looks forward to notice a freeway exit ahead and signals to exit. I knew what was on her mind as she gets off the freeway, disregarding the fact that her parents were following. She drives a couple miles through the countryside before turning onto a sparse gravel road and pulling over. She takes one final drag from her current cigarette, crushes in the ashtray, then forcefully takes the pack and lighter from my hands, pulls out two cigarettes, and lights herself up. I then watch with awe as she removes her T-shirt, bra, and shorts with a crazed lust in her eyes. I sit perfectly still, awaiting a wild performance which I knew I was going to get. She then leaps towards me and I view her perfect figure almost in slow motion. Her firm breasts, her beautifully sculpted face, and her lion-like natural blond hair running a few inches past her shoulders. She finally lands on top of me and the smell of stale smoke absolutely engulfs me, especially on her hair. As she removes my jeans and we begin to have sex, I am completely at her mercy.
An hour later, Gretchen and I arrive at the farm house where her sisters were staying to find that Gretchen’s parents car was already there. We approach the door and are greeted by the friendly elderly farm couple and discover Gretchen’s sisters standing behind them. As I was the other times I met them, I was temporarily speechless at the beauty, and the déjà vu feeling I experienced, as I looked at Gretchen’s sisters, 17-year-old Tina, and 15-year-old Melissa. The girls were dressed in virtually identical tight tank tops and short cutoffs as Gretchen was, each had absolutely perfect bodies, natural blond hair, and each stood with freshly-lit Marlboro 100’s dangling from their lips. While the girls did look like sisters, a closer look made it clear that they were not twins since each had unique, but equally gorgeous, facial structures. The always-friendly Tina and Melissa first greeted their sister, then turned to me and hugged me warmly. Neither girl removed the cigarette from her mouth even as they hugged me and their hair and
clothes smelled as much like stale smoke as Gretchen’s. I hugged them back and prolonged the hugs to savour the girl’s smoky odours for as long as possible.
When the girls parted along with the smoky smell, but nose cleared to smell the unmistakable odour of chicken being fried in the kitchen. Nine places were set at the table and the elderly housewife exclaimed, “Well, dinner should be ready soon, so go ahead and sit up.”
We all did exactly that and as we were sitting, Gretchen’s father looked at her and said, “What happened to you two?”
Gretchen looked at me with a mischievous grin before answering, “We had to take a detour.”
Her father looked puzzled. “Really, we didn’t run into a detour.”
“I know.” Gretchen answered with another naughty smile, which finally tipped her father off to what she meant. It made me uncomfortable that she was so willing to tell her father about our sexual escapades, but that was the way she was and would always be.
Gretchen, Melissa, and Tina sat at the table smoking cigarettes, with ashtrays sitting right next to their plates. It struck me that the farm couple was most likely non-smokers and I was surprised that they would be so accepting of allowing the girls to smoke in their home, which was clearly being affected by the girls’ heavy smoking. The tobacco odour was almost as thick as Gretchen’s car, home, and dorm room from college and a faint yellow nicotine stain could be seen forming on the couple’s white walls.
Moments later, the woman brought a platter with fried chicken and all nine of us were soon feasting. The three girls continued to smoke through their meal. Conversation soon ensued as the housewife and husband complimented Gretchen’s parents on what fine daughters they have raised. This struck Gretchen and her parents who had known the girls to be quite a handful. The conversation then proceeded and we found out that these chickens we were eating were actually butchered and feathered by Tina and Melissa. The more this conversation went on, the more shocked Gretchen’s family appeared to be to hear that Melissa and Tina were actually taking this farm job seriously and were really being put to work. Everybody had originally believed the girls’ motivations for this job was to get away from home and be free to party and have sex and generally be
irresponsible. However, whenever the girls spoke, their maturity and growth was very clear and their family could not believe how much the girls had changed.
When we finished with our meal, Gretchen pulled out dessert-the box of cigars she had bought earlier. Since her parents didn’t know about the purchase and disapproved of their daughters smoking cigars, they gave Gretchen an unhappy look as she showed the box of fine cigars to her younger sisters. Oblivious to their parents disapproval, the girls wasted no time lighting up their cigars and I was in heaven watching the three of them drag on the large cigars as heavily as they had been dragging on their cigarettes. The conversation continued among the group, but I contributed little since I was the outsider of the bunch and was too perplexed by the sight of the beautiful cigar smokers to find much interest in the conversation. Tina and Melissa went on to explain their work routine, which varied day by day. They had a very physical and demanding schedule of taking care of animals, removing rocks and debris from a pasture about to be converted into a crop field, and other varied tasks in the fields. While it was easy for Gretchen and I to listen to this with a distant interest, it was the farmer’s next comment that finally got our full and undivided attention.
“I hope you kids are listening hard because you will be joining them tomorrow.” he said with a grin, that soon spread to everybody else at the table except Gretchen and I. It was obvious that this had been planned for some time by the others, and while we didn’t raise a fuss about it, we were not exactly happy at the idea of going on what we thought would be a fun and relaxing vacation, only to find out we were gonna get put to work.
The dinner party soon subsided and Gretchen, her sisters, and I proceeded to the bedroom where the girls slept and talked for a couple hours. The girls bragged about increasing their smoking consumption to four packs a day while on the farm. Gretchen countered that she was still working at an office job at her dad’s company, had talked him into lifting the smoking ban in the office, and was now smoking five packs a day. It was evident by observing the girls that even though Tina and Melissa were smoking more and inhaling more deeply than when I had been with them before, they still could not compete with Gretchen on either of the two. The girls talked and smoked, including me in their conversation frequently, until we went to bed at 10:30. This was too early for Gretchen and I, but we knew we would have to get up early to do the farm work. Gretchen and I slept in a cozy cot that the couple brought in for guests while Melissa and Tina each slept on a bunk bed. Being a light sleeper, I found myself lying awake long after Melissa, Tina, and Gretchen went to sleep. I was used to Gretchen’s noisy sleeping
pattern-a combination of snoring and wheezing as her smoked-out lungs were struggling to function properly without the constant intake of smoke that they were used to. However, I noticed that Melissa and Tina made the same annoying noises as they slept. They were cute at first, but the thought of facing the hard workday with little or no sleep was bothering me. When I finally did start to nod off, one of the girls would inevitably wake up to a coughing fit, then desperately rise up to reach for a cigarette to satisfy an intense craving. I would give a silent smile to whichever girl got up for a smoke when she noticed that I was awake.
I did manage to get a couple hours of sleep that night, but the 6 AM alarm went off way too soon. Seconds after the four of us awoke to the buzzing alarm, the room filled with the sounds of sexy feminine coughing as Tina, Melissa, and Gretchen each let loose a couple straight minutes of hacking smokers’ coughs. The girls wasted no time after rising before lighting up their first of many cigarettes of the day, and smoking it down almost with every breath. Gretchen in particular would breathe directly from her cigarette for her first couple cigarettes of the day. Within a half hour, the four of us were as ready as we would ever be for a long day of gruelling work that began with feeding animals. The four of us went out to the pig and chicken barns, all three girls carrying their own cartons of Marlboro 100’s with them wherever they went. They all were wearing jean shorts and had open packs of cigarettes stuffed in their back pockets, offering them easy access to new cigarettes as they worked. Gretchen and I listened to Tina and Melissa’s directions as we entered a barn full of pigs. As much as I tried to listen, I was struck by the dozens of cigarette butts lying on the dirt floor of the barn, all obviously smoked by Tina and Melissa earlier in the summer. The directions continued for a few more minutes until we each went our separate ways to conduct four different tasks. I was fetching water for chickens and hogs, each of which were being raised for slaughter at nearby meat and poultry-processing plants. Gretchen was responsible for getting the hogs their feed, while Tina and Melissa did other odds and ends, always with a cigarette comfortably planted between their lips. Gretchen and I both got a crash-course in milking cows after we finished our first tasks.
It was only 9:00, but the day seemed endless already. However, it was about to get worse as Melissa and Tina informed us that we would be spending the rest of our day clearing rocks out of a pasture that the farmer was preparing to grow crops in the following year. Feeling the 9:00 sun beating down so hard that we were already sweating, Gretchen and I knew we had a long, hot workout ahead of us.
The day wore on and proved me exactly right. I was definitely getting my biggest workout that summer. I had had summer jobs and grew up in an environment where I had done this kind of miserable work before, but it had been a long time. Gretchen, however, seemed to be getting the workout of her life as she struggled with the intense heat and her physically unfit shape. She never quit smoking the whole day, but was wheezing and gasping for breath and taking many short breaks as the day went on. Meanwhile, Tina and Melissa performed like professional athletes, working harder and faster than Gretchen and I, and making their workout seem almost effortless. The cigarettes they lit one after another as they worked didn’t seem to affect their stamina in the least. As I observed Gretchen when she took some of her breaks, I could see that I wasn’t the only person who was impressed with Tina and Melissa’s performance. Watching her sisters, I could almost read Gretchen’s thoughts, wondering why she didn’t take greater steps to keep her body in shape so that her smoking would not take so much out of her physically. She seemed to be admiring of her sister’s for realising this and the thought popped into her mind that she had just gotten the point of this gruelling workday planned by her sisters and her parents. The same thought ran through my mind, but as I looked at my watch to see it was only 2:00 and that I had two more miserable hours of rock-picking left, I wondered why I had to suffer to get this point across to Gretchen.
By 4:00, we were all noticeably beaten down and drenched to the core in sweat, none of us more than Gretchen, who had a certain sexy blue-collar appeal with dirt on her face and clothes and her normally perfect hair dripping with perspiration. If I wasn’t so incredibly tired, I may have acted on my lustful feelings towards Gretchen’s appearance. We all walked to the house in silence until Gretchen finally muttered, “Don’t think I’ll be going out this Friday night.” Nobody bothered to reply fully aware that we were gonna be back to work the next morning.
That night at supper though, Gretchen and I were in for a surprise when the farmer told us that the next day we would be going to town to sell sweet corn on the street corner. Tina and Melissa already knew this news, but Gretchen and I were elated to discover we would not have to endure a repeat performance of today. All three girls chain-smoked Marlboro 100’s throughout the meal and lit up another round of cigars after they finished eating, once again arousing me but drawing cringes from Gretchen’s disapproving parents.
The next morning, the four of us went five miles into town to sell the sweet corn the farmer had grown at the corner of a mini-mall parking lot. Since we were stationed at the crossroads of two busy highways, the volume of cars was heavy, even in the
early morning. It didn’t take long at all for the gorgeous and shapely girls, once again clad in skimpy tank tops and tight jean shorts, to receive an onslaught of honking horns and whistles from awestruck male motorists, who were undoubtedly awestruck by the fact that the girls were also constantly smoking cigarettes. The girls sat a small picnic table they brought with and each brought their own ashtrays. The small ashtrays were each overflowing by noon and the girls begin to drop their cigarettes to the ground and crush them with their shoes throughout the afternoon. I volunteered to pick us up some lunch at a nearby McDonald’s and drove past a handful of other local sweet corn vendors operating in other parking lots who seemed to be getting little business. I laughed as I arrived back at Gretchen, Tina, and Melissa’s stand to find five customers standing in line to be waited on, and thought to myself what a shrewd salesman that old farmer was to have these gorgeous blondes on his payroll. The other sweet corn vendors seemed to be noticing too, ever time they looked our way.
As the day went on, the business waned slightly and the girls were able to smoke their cigarettes at a continuum lighting one with the butt of another the entire afternoon, and never going more than a couple seconds without a burning cigarette in either their hand or mouth. Tina and Melissa began to show their wild side a bit more in the afternoon as well, flirting with as many male customers as they could, no matter what their age. Guys would watch in awe as Tina and Melissa would stretch and bend to pick up and bag sweet corn for them, always keeping a cigarette between their lips as they worked. Towards the end of the day, Tina and Melissa appeared particularly interested in a couple of boys about their ages who stopped to make a corn purchase and the girls ended up swapping telephone numbers with the boys and making a double-date with them for that night. The boys seemed elated, as giddy smiles appeared and stayed on their faces and the crotches of their jeans expanded while watching the beautiful girls drag heavily from their cigarettes while flirting. Gretchen couldn’t help but giggle while watching her sisters in actions, reminding her of her own high-school days when she unashamedly exploited her own smoking habit to appeal to guys who she knew couldn’t resist.
By 4:00, we decided to close the stand for the day. As we were about to leave, I looked down to notice a sea of cigarette butts on the ground surrounding the table where we had been sitting. Seeing all of these cigarette butts, it finally struck me what an incredible volume of tobacco these girls smoke every day. I savoured the thought as I continued to help pack up to go back to the farm.
That night, Gretchen and I were still winded from the day before and from sitting out in the intense August sun all day today. We were not about to go out for a night on the town like Tina and Melissa were going to. Gretchen smiled as she watched her sister’s exit the house, dressed in sexy attire, Tina in tight red shirt and black leather mini-skirt, Melissa in a white short-sleeved sweater with black leather pants. The girls looked absolutely stunning and the cigarettes they were smoking only enhanced their appeal. Gretchen and I wished them a good, safe evening before they left, while we sat and watched movies for the evening, enjoying each other’s company as Gretchen rested her head on my shoulders and cuddled up to me the whole evening, smoking a steady stream of cigarettes throughout the evening. I could feel her body expand and contract every time she inhaled and exhaled off of her cigarettes, and I felt aroused every time I felt it.
On Sunday morning, we were getting ready to leave already. We all attended Sunday mass at the request of the devout farm family that had been graciously hosting us for the weekend. Then Gretchen, Tina, and Melissa spent an hour or so alone talking “sister stuff” while I sat outside watching TV, unable to quit thinking about what the girls might be talking about between drags on their cigarettes.
Within and hour, our convoy of two cars was back on the road headed eastward once again. Gretchen insisted on driving again and I didn’t object. The return trip was much more serene than the trip there however. Gretchen’s endless bickering about her sisters’ lifestyles from the trip there was replaced by a pleasant smile, a smile of understanding. Gretchen appeared to feel that not only had her sisters matured considerably from this summer on the farm, but that they had managed to mature her a little bit as well, a far different outcome than what she expected three days earlier. Gretchen drags effortlessly on her cigarette while staring ahead in a daydream. Once again, a long ash drops from her cigarette onto lap. I look ahead to see a freeway exit, then smile and approach the ash once again with my finger, confident that Gretchen will feel a desire to take the exit just as she had done three days earlier.