Her first and last memory of her mother was Mom giving her a meal when she
was three or four. Kelly’s mom died in a car accident shortly after. She
remembered her mom putting the plate down in front of her on her high
chair, smoke pouring out from her slightly parted lips, and a cigarette
hanging from the corner of her mouth. Kelly remembered her looking
incredibly happy after taking a deep inhale from the cig and putting the
food on the tray in front of her.
Fast forward to age 10. Kelly was a well adapted child. Her father had done
a great job being a single parent. He hadn’t remarried. He thought the best
thing to do was focus on being the best father he could be for Kelly and
working hard to provide for her. Her only memory of her mother still
haunted her, but also caused her to be fascinated with cigarettes. She had
learned at school and from TV commercials that smoking was dangerous and
bad for your lungs, but why had her mother looked so happy and like she
enjoyed it so much? She knew exactly why.
Kelly had a secret. She was a smoker, and planned to be one for the rest of
her life. She had started the previous summer. The neighborhood pool was
less than a block from her house and she walked there to swim and play with
her friends almost every day that the weather permitted. A few of the pool
workers and regular tanners from the neighborhood smoked. She saw them and
was curious about how it would be to smoke a cigarette herself. Kelly
sneakily started collecting cigarette butts and half smoked cigarettes from
the concrete at the pool and at an office building right behind her house.
There was a door where all the workers came outside to smoke and there was
an abundance of half smoked cigarettes in the ashtray outside the door.
Kelly remembers the day she took her first drag and fell in love with
smoking. Dad was at work. She lit the partially smoked cigarette on the
stove, sucked as hard as she could, and inhaled as deeply as she could
breathe.
Skip another three years. A new boy had moved in next door. He was 16 and
shortly after moving into the new house with his parents he got his first
job at the gas station on the corner. Kelly was 13 and finishing with
junior high. She had been a smoker since 9, stealing a pack from the
parents of her friends that smoked or finding cigarettes any way she could,
completely obsessed with the idea of being a smoker and smoking as often as
she possibly could. Last year, in Kelly’s seventh grade school year, a girl
she knew from her junior high cheerleading squad told Kelly that her older
brother had gotten a job at the nearby grocery store. She went out of her
way to meet him and convince him to sell her cigarettes. Daddy was wrapped
around her little finger and gave her all the money she needed when she
told him she wanted to go shopping at the mall with her friends, so money
was never an issue. Her friend’s older brother went away to college a year
later and she was left stealing and scrounging for cigarettes again. After
a year of smoking a few packs a day, this was like going through complete
hell. Kelly realized a great opportunity when she saw the new neighbor boy
walking past her house in his new work uniform. Cigarettes were sold at the
gas station. Maybe he could sell her some despite her age if she befriended
him.
“Hey! What’s up?” Kelly said as he walked by her house on the way to work.
She walked toward the sidewalk to meet him. He hesitated and realized she
was talking to him and returned her greeting.
“I just saw your family moving in. Welcome to the neighborhood. My name is
Kelly, what’s yours?” she said. Thick smoke punctuated every syllable as
she spoke. She tossed the spent butt on the ground and extended her hand to
shake his.
“Uhhh, Hi, I’m Dave,” he stammered nervously. “Yeah we moved in last week
from Indiana because my Dad got a new job.”
This girl looked his age or a little younger and was gorgeous. She was
dripping wet and still in her bathing suit, obviously she had just come
home from the pool. It was an effort just to keep his eyes on her face
instead of her boobs which were very well developed for her age and
prominently displayed by her tiny pink bikini top. Dave was intrigued by
the fact that she was openly smoking in the neighborhood.
The truth was she had been openly smoking for over a year now, although she
had never talked to her dad about it and never smoked in front of him, he
knew she did. He figured it was genetic or something. Her mother had been a
prolific smoker from an early age. He never told Kelly or talked to her
about her mother as he had never really gotten over the untimely demise of
his beloved chain-smoking wife, but figured there was nothing he could do
to stop her from smoking and turned the other way, never bringing up the
crammed ash trays lying around her room or interrupting her when she laid
on her bed doing schoolwork or chatting on the phone, smoking one cigarette
after another.
Kelly cut right to the chase. “Well nice to meet you, I live here with my
dad. Hey, I see you work at the gas station, you think I could buy smokes
from you while you’re working? I’m almost out and I hate being low on
cigarettes. I’m not 18 for five more years so I need somebody that won’t
card me.”
“Wow, you’re 13? It’s cool that we’ll be at the same high school next year,
I guess. I can give you a ride, I’m going to get a car soon. I would have
guessed that you were my age. I just turned 16. Yeah sure, come buy cigs
whenever you want. I mostly work alone since it only takes one person to
man the gas station, so it won’t be a problem.”
Dave stumbled over the words as Kelly pulled out another cigarette and her
pink Bic lighter from her near empty pack of Newport 100s that she kept on
her hip, held there by the string of her bikini bottom. She took a long,
hard drag and an inhale so deep and chest expanding that the fabric of her
bikini top seemed ready to burst. This caused Dave’s eyes to wander quite
obviously.
Kelly left the cigarette dangling on her freshly glossed lips and let the
smoke pour out of her mouth and nose as she responded, freshly lit
cigarette bouncing as she talked. She giggled first because Dave was
intently staring at her boobs, and as they were a fairly recent development
she was quite proud of this.
“What time will you be alone today? I need cigarettes like right now, I
only have four left!”
Dave snapped out of his cleavage induced haze and replied, “My manager goes
home at four, and then I can sell you some.”
Kelly gushed with happiness and cigarette smoke, giggling out the rest of
her previous monstrous inhale and sucking another giant, cheek collapsing
drag down to the bottom of her lungs. “Ohhhh, thank you SO much, see you at
four! That’s a whole two hours I have to make it on only four cigarettes,
but I think I can do it. Have three cartons of Newport 100s ready for me at
four on the dot! See you then, Dave.” She turned and headed back into her
house, a trail of smoke behind her hanging in the still summer air. Dave
watched in amazement until she waved goodbye and shut the front door, then
he continued on his way to work.
Sure enough, Kelly walked in the door at 4pm sharp to purchase her three
cartons of Newports. She took a final drag from her cigarette, burning off
the last half inch right to the filter in one giant drag, crushed the butt
under her sandal, and walked in the door, smoke pouring out of her nose and
slightly parted lips with every breath as she walked up to the counter.
“Hey, Kelly,” Dave greeted her jokingly, “did you make it on those four
smokes for two whole hours?”
Kelly gave a cute little giggle, releasing the last of her drag from
outside.
“No, I got nervous about running out of cigarettes so I smoked my last four
in a row. I had to open my emergency backup pack. I was bored, just laying
in the backyard working on my tan and went through half of this pack
waiting for four o’clock. Thank god you’re alone here and can sell me some
cigarettes. I’d go crazy if I ran out. Now I get to go home and keep
tanning with these fresh cartons, and I won’t have to pace myself.” She was
still in her pink bikini with the nearly two hour old and over half
finished “emergency” pack jammed under the string wrapping around her hip.
Dave placed the three cartons of Newport 100s on the counter and Kelly put
down a wad of cash. As Dave counted and made change, Kelly put another
cigarette in her lips and impatiently tapped her lighter on the counter.
“God I hate any time I’m not smoking,” she dryly commented and she stared
lovingly at the three cartons on the counter. Dave laughed and reached into
the register.
“Well you shouldn’t have to worry about that for a long, long time, you
just bought 30 packs of cigarettes. Here’s your change Kelly.”
Kelly brightened up from just hearing the phrase “30 packs of cigarettes.”
She laughed and picked up her plastic bag full of Newports from the
counter. “Thanks a lot, Dave. Thank god I met you. I like to buy in bulk,
when you’re only 13 you never know when you’ll run out of a cigarette
connection so I get at least enough to last me a week. Bye, bye, see you
around.” Kelly turned and walked toward the door, lighting the dangling
cigarette before she was even outside. Dave was fascinated that 30 packs of
cigarettes will only last her about a week.
“Holy shit,” Dave thought aloud. “That is a ton of cigarettes.”
Kelly walked home from the corner gas station elated that she had a new
provider of cigarettes. She came in the front door and was surprised to be
greeted by her dad. She had the three cartons in her hand. He must have
come home from work early, she thought.
“Hi Kelly, how was your day?” Her dad asked, not acknowledging the lit
cigarette hanging from her lips or the three unopened cartons in her hand.
“Crap, you caught me dad.” Kelly panicked. She fumbled over her words and
took a hard, deep drag to calm her nerves and find the right words. “I’m
addicted to cigarettes, I love it, and I’ll never stop, no matter what you
do to me dad!”
Her dad looked at her in a puzzled way for a minute as if she were joking,
then broke out laughing. Kelly power smoked the rest of the cigarette and
lit another with the burning butt of the previous one, still not having
exhaled her drag from the last cigarette. She was worried and angry that
her dad was laughing at her and not taking her seriously.
“Honey, I’ve always known you were smoking.” He calmed down from the
laughter enough to speak. “How could you think I didn’t know you’re a
smoker? Sure you never smoke in front of me, but your room has three punch
bowl sized ash trays constantly overflowing with Newport butts, the waste
basket that I empty on garbage day every week is full of empty packs, and
you always smell like smoke. I don’t know why you’re uncomfortable with me
knowing that. You can smoke in front of me any time. I don’t know why you
haven’t asked me to buy them for you either, it must be hard for you to
find somebody who will sell them to you without an ID.” Kelly was shocked.
“Oh my god, you are the best dad in the world!” Kelly squealed with
excitement and threw her arms around her dad, smoke still pouring out of
her lungs. “Thank you so much. This means the world to me.”
Her dad smiled and hugged her back. She smelled like a full ashtray. He
felt depressed for a second. The smell reminded him of his beautiful
deceased chain smoking wife, who always smelled like she had just bathed in
smoke, even after showering. The moment passed and he cheered up with the
thought of how much he loved his daughter and how great she was. He thought
of the coming of fall and how she would start high school. His little girl
was growing up.