At long last, independence is here. I stand in the middle of the one-bedroom apartment I am about to rent, half-listening to the landlord rambling on about the specifics and half admiring the spacious abode I was about to transition into after four years in a cramped dorm room. At $350 a month, I feel as if I was getting my money’s worth, even though that’s about the going rate in the middle-sized working-class town I’m moving to in southern Minnesota, not too far from where I grew up. The landlord then takes me outside to show me the garages and which garage will be designated for me. No more than two minutes after the two of us exited into the warm late summer day, I caught a glimpse of a familiar red 1994 Ford Thunderbird approaching and my attention was now completely diverted away from the landlord’s sermon. As the flashy, yet restrained, red car pulls into the lot with its drivers’ side window slightly cracked, I hold my breath in anticipation of being struck with the sight of beauty as the car comes to a stop and a wisp of smoke can be seen streaming from the crack in the window. Noticing my attention is everywhere but on his words, the landlord turns to look in the same direction as I am.
In what seems like picturesque slow-motion, the car door opens and a pair of smooth, tan legs exit the vehicle first. Both myself and the landlord stand mystified as the legs touch the ground and the intensely sensual person above the legs makes her first appearance. To the landlord, this was a mystery beauty, but the sighting to me is unmistakable. The sun shines down on a lioness-esque mane of curly natural blonde hair, a few inches past the shoulders, a skimpy white T-shirt enhances an incredible set of breasts, a skin-tight pair of cutoffs similarly enhances a perfectly toned lower body, and most striking of all, a freshly-lit cork filter Marlboro 100 dangles from a pair of full lips on the most beautiful face I have ever seen. There’s no mistake about it. My girlfriend Gretchen had just entered my line of vision…and the world stood still for those few joyous moments as she closed her car door and approached the two of us with a warm, but stunted smile, restrained from jubilation due to the cigarette protruding from the middle of it. A swirl of smoke surrounds Gretchen’s head as she comes to a stop next to me. The odour of stale smoke engulfed my nose as always with every inch closer Gretchen stepped towards me before she finally removed the cigarette from her lips and
gave me an engrossing open-mouth kiss. Once finished, we both turned to look at the landlord, still in a daze at the beauty he just encountered, and staring lustfully at Gretchen as if asking her, “Where’s my hello?!” Gretchen stares down to the crotch of the man at least 20 years her senior and notices how swollen it has become at the sight of her.
Finally, words escape his mouth. “This is your girlfriend?” he asks with just the slightest hint of a smirk.
“Yes,” I answer proudly, “She’s gonna be moving in with me…and attending the state college down the road.”
The landlord’s eyes indicate the first hint of a problem, which both Gretchen and I immediately pick up on. “Is there a problem?” I ask.
“Well…I see she’s a smoker. My building doesn’t permit smoking. I just assumed since I never saw you lighting up yourself that it was a non-issue. Unless she’s willing to take it outside every time she smokes, I’m afraid our deal’s dead.”
My heart sinks from the blow, but I quickly recover to respond for Gretchen did, eager for some damage control. “I don’t think that’s gonna be possible. Are you sure there’s no way you can make an exception?”
He shakes his head apologetically. “If it were up to me, it wouldn’t be a problem, but I know these tenants. They’re a conservative bunch. One whiff of cigarette smoke in my building and my phone would be ringing off the hook with complaints. I wish I could help.”
I shrug and say my goodbyes. Gretchen stands silent smoking her cigarette the entire time, assessing her ultimate reaction in the face of an anti-smoking message, which was always unpredictable and entertaining for me. Perhaps sensing the guy was sincere in his explanation, but still ultimate rejection, she lets him off easy. As I take her hand to return to her car in the lot, she leans forward to the landlord and exhales a long stream into his face before tossing the butt of the finished cigarette inches from his shoe. She then turns back towards me and we wrap our arms around each other’s bodies, walking towards her car. Gretchen keeps one arm free to remove her lighter and another Marlboro 100 from her shirt pocket, lighting herself up before we part ways to get into the respective drivers side and passengers’ side seats on her car. Gretchen starts the engine and drives out of the lot. Both of us check the rearview mirrors to notice the landlord still
eyeing us. A faint wisp of smoke escapes her cracked car window, leaving the man his final memory of the sexiest smoker he has ever seen.
Moments later, Gretchen and I approach the entrance of a restaurant, hoping to catch a late-afternoon meal before the dinnertime rush. We approach the entrance and Gretchen crushes out her cigarette at the foot of the door before the two of us enter, waiting for our waitress to seat us. As the seconds drag into a couple minutes, I feel Gretchen’s nicotine-dependent body start to shake as I hold her hand. One look into her eyes indicates to me that she is dying for a cigarette, less than three minutes since her last. Finally, a cute and petite brunette who looks about 17 years old approaches us with an inviting smile and begins to introduce herself. Before she even begins her question about seating preference, Gretchen chimes in, “Smoking please.”
The girl grins and motions us to follow her into the backroom smoking section, which like the rest of the restaurant, was virtually empty at the early hour. While walking, Gretchen places an unlit cigarette between her lips and wastes no time lighting up the second she sits down in the booth. The waitress grins as she places the menus in front of us and tells Gretchen, “Let me get you an ashtray for that.”
Within less than a minute, the adorable young waitress returns with an ashtray and places in front of Gretchen. “Thanks,” Gretchen responds warmly, flicking a long ash from her already half-smoked cigarette into the ashtray. Sensing immediately that the girl was a smoker, Gretchen reaches into her shirt pocket, pulls out a cigarette and holds it up to the girl. “Take a break, hun.”
The girl smiles from ear to ear and happily accepts the cigarette from Gretchen. Gretchen slides over in her booth and approaches her lighter to the girl’s cigarette. The girl inhales deeply and follows through with a cloudy exhale, indicating herself as an experienced smoker. Being used to sightings of the goddess Gretchen and her chain-smoking was the ultimate fetisher dream, but to see such a cute pony- tailed waitress share Gretchen’s addiction was a wonderful change-of-pace as well.
However, the serenity and silence is broken by a fateful set of words from the mouth of the waitress. “Better enjoy these smoke breaks while I still can.” she mutters.
Having read the newspapers in this town for the last week, I knew exactly what she meant, but Gretchen is still in the dark, and responds, “What do you mean?”
“The asshole city council is gonna try to make all restaurants smoke-free.” she responds casually, followed by a second long drag on her cigarette.
Gretchen doesn’t respond and becomes almost totally silent the entire time the girl sits there, finishing her cigarette. I am forced to converse with the girl by myself, not an altogether unpleasant situation, but I can see Gretchen in the midst of a slow burn out of the corner of my eyes at the news given to her by the waitress.
We order steak and shrimp dinners. Although the food tastes good, the meal is all but ruined as I can sense Gretchen smouldering in the same way as the endless chain of cigarettes she smokes with her meal. We converse casually, but her mind is too preoccupied with anger to make any meaningful conversation. In the moments that we prepare to leave the restaurant after finishing the meal, every waitress in the restaurant finishes her cigarette break in booths surrounding us and begin to seat the incoming crowd of patrons. As we get up to leave, Gretchen and I observe the smoking section nearly filled with smokers of all ages, actively indulging their habits. We then proceed through the still sparsely-populated non- smoking section of the restaurant en route to the exit. I can see the wheels grinding in Gretchen’s mind as the same thoughts cross her mind as were mine-or at least I thought they were the same. It was a few days later I found out otherwise, however.
I sit in my new apartment, a less appealing place than the first place I looked at, but one that would allow its tenants to smoke. I have just returned from my second day on my new job and am feeling stressed, but the sound of my apartment door being opened puts my mind at relative ease. The odour of cigarette smoke engulfs me and I turn to find that Gretchen has entered the building-our new home at that. She removes the cigarette from her lips and when the cloud of smoke clears, the revelation of Gretchen’s mischievous grin is noticeable, a grin that always signals me that something is up.
“Well, I got some news that’s gonna surprise you.” Gretchen says in a taunting way as she plops herself down on my lap. The odour of smoke on Gretchen is so strong it still affects me like a punch in the face, but I quickly recover to dig deeper into the mystery she was setting me up to solve.
“What is it?” I finally respond, but become sidetracked by Gretchen dangling her cigarette in her lips only a few inches in front of eyes, while running her hand up and down my chest underneath my T-shirt.
“Well, I’m gonna keep it a surprise until the city-council meeting tonight. You and the rest of the town will all find out at once.”
Gretchen’s mischievous grin now resurfaced even with the cigarette in her mouth obstructing it, and as I attempt to interject with more questions, she places her finger in front of my face, motioning for my silence. She then removes the cigarette from her lips and holds it in her right hand while falling into me for a well- needed make out session. The last thing I wanted after a long day at work was to go to a city council meeting, but Gretchen had a way of sweet-talking me into it without saying a word.
At 7 pm, the seven-member city council is engaged in a heated dialogue in front of a medium-sized crowd of mostly elderly onlookers. The debate ensues for nearly an hour on the issue of prohibiting smoking in all city restaurants with four of the council members appearing to be for the measure, and the other three against it. Gretchen sits with me, desperately wanting to chain-smoke while listening to the rhetoric on the floor, but prohibited from doing so in city hall. Every 10 minutes or so, she jets outside to take a few drags off her cigarette, then races back in to keep up with the debate. Gretchen’s odour and beauty diverts attention away from the debate every time she enters or leaves the building, giving a lot of older men some eye candy they never expected to see at the usually stuffy city-council meetings. Ward 4 councilman Brian Jordahl voices the strongest support for the restaurant smoking prohibition, a fact Gretchen takes in as she observes. Finally, the senior councilman ends the discussion and puts the subject up to questions from the audience. Along with a number of people, Gretchen lifts her hand without displaying the intensity she holds on this subject. Drawing the attention from the senior councilman, he says, “Go ahead, young lady!” with a relatively condescending tone, not expecting the outburst he was about to get.
Gretchen stands up and the room goes silence. “I’d like to direct this to all seven of you, but you in particular, Mr. Jordahl. If you think you’re gonna get away with dehumanising smokers with one after another prohibition, you’re gonna have to live with the consequences. Smoking is a legal activity, yet the culture is so poisonous towards smokers that my boyfriend couldn’t even rent an apartment because I’m a smoker. Now you want to tell us we can’t engage in a legal activity in a restaurant either, ignoring the will of even the restaurant owners who overwhelmingly support keeping the current smoking standards in their own places of business. Well, I have news for you, Mr. Jordahl, my boyfriend and I moved into a new apartment that just happens to be in Ward 4, and I’m announcing my
candidacy for the Ward 4 council seat right here tonight,” Gretchen pauses to reach into her shirt pocket and pull out a cigarette and a lighter, then proceeds to light her cigarette amidst a sea of moans from the disbelieving crowd. “It’s time that the smokers start fighting back, Mr. Jordahl. You’re my target…and I don’t intend to miss,” Gretchen closes with a finality that appears to put fear in the heart of Jordahl at the podium.
Meanwhile, the senior councilman attempts to restore order, bangs his gavel, and calls security to escort the lawless beauty out of city hall. As the security gently (and merrily) grab Gretchen by both arms to physically remove her from the premises, Gretchen blows a long stream of cigarette smoke in the direction of the podium, a symbolic wave of the Grim Reaper drifting towards the middle-aged men. As I follow Gretchen out of the building, my heart beams with pride for her as about half of the audience snickers in support of the daring college girl, while the other half guffaws at her audacity to make such a scene. One thing was sure. City council meetings in this town would never be the same again, no matter what the outcome.
The next day, the local media swarmed Gretchen and she formally announced her candidacy for the Ward 4 city council seat at a mini-press conference, but one that would undoubtedly be broadcast on local television given the novelty of the situation. Standing at a podium in her usual sexpot attire, Gretchen speaks into the microphone, cigarette held in her right hand as she gives an off-the-cuff statement filled with borderline inflammatory rhetoric spoken at a very high volume. As Gretchen’s vocal exertion begins to make her wheeze, I cringe at the bad first impression she’s giving the voters. I realise she was going to need a good campaign manager for damage control and help Gretchen to grow as a candidate, and I know that I will have to be that person. She ends the press conference and walks toward me, cigarette back in her mouth. As I watch her approach me, a million scenarios cross my mind on how this girl will be perceived by voters in this blue-collar community. To call her a breath of fresh air would be an oxymoron, but this town was looking for a change, and Gretchen certainly qualified. The camera caught a shot of her giving me a warm hug, and I felt this ploy negated all of the bad moves she made in the press conference. From now until November 4th, every move the two of us make will be under a microscope.
Over the course of the next couple weeks, Gretchen and I spend our nights studying up on the other issues at hand, all of which we found hard to take seriously since local politics on a whole was pretty small potatoes to both of us. Even though I’m a very political person myself, I never discussed politics with
Gretchen before, largely because I feared her upper-crust background had most likely instilled far different social values in her than my own, so we kept the topic off-the-table. I sense an overwhelming feeling of apathy from Gretchen on the position in general, except for the smoking issue, something we were gonna have to fix to be taken seriously. Easily distracted, Gretchen would attempt to seduce me away from the goal at hand at towards her sexuality. Her advances are difficult to resist, especially when accompanied by her stylish cigarette smoking. The girl can do more arousing things with a cigarette than I ever deemed possible, and she never ceases to amaze me how her slightest action can evoke irresistible temptation in my heart. Thus, it was futile to resist the majority of Gretchen’s advances, but we still somehow managed to finish all our work by the last few weeks before the election.
By mid-October, Gretchen is hounded nearly every day by not only the local media, but even by national media sources that have taken notice to this most unusual candidate and the cause she believed so deeply in. She still can’t avoid the occasional outburst, but she has, for the most part, toned down her rhetoric and played the politician-in-training role well, but she is never seen without a cigarette in hand or mouth and in her sexually-charged outfits. The two of us made several concessions and what image she would and would not portray to the public eye in the campaign, but she was firm that she would not play down her personal smoking or her choice in wardrobe for the camera’s benefit.
There is no real way of gauging voter sentiment on Gretchen by reading the Sunday newspaper two days before the vote. Most people either loved her or hated her. I feel that she’s either one scandal or one smart move away from electability and only time would tell. My primary fear was that Gretchen’s privileged background would be discovered and it would kill some of the support she has built with her primarily working-class appeal. I read the newspaper to see conflicting comments on her, but one quote in particular gets my attention from none other than Brian Jordahl, Gretchen’s opponent. Jordahl has thus far simply dismissed any questions reporters have asked him about Gretchen, but his printed response in today’s newspaper represents his first vocal recognition of her. Asked his feelings towards Gretchen, he responds, “I respect the girl’s conviction on this one issue, but that seems to be the only issue she has any time for. I represent all of the concerns of this city’s fourth ward and I don’t think the voters are gonna be compelled by such a divisive figure.” Reading this, I don’t know whether the comments will work to Gretchen’s advantage or disadvantage, but would find out even sooner than Tuesday.
Monday after work, I return home to find a flashing light on my answering machine. I play the message and listen to Gretchen’s voice proclaim: “If you make it home in time, drop by the front of city hall at 4:30. I’m making an impromptu statement to the press. Hope to see you there.” I check my watch to see it’s 4:25, just enough time for me to catch her press conference if I hurry. On the short drive to city hall, an anxiety creeps into my heart about Gretchen pulling such a stunt the day before the election without having me write a prepared statement or even consulting me. I arrive at the scene just in time to see Gretchen arrive at a podium in front of city hall with a handful or reporters and news cameras focusing on her.
Gretchen stands there in the brisk fall air in momentary silence, appearing not to even feel the chill of a Minnesota fall as she wears her trademark T-shirt and cutoffs. With a cigarette dangling lazily from her mouth, she begins to speak. “I’m just here to make my final appeal to voters in the 4th Ward. Yesterday, my opponent labeled me a ‘divisive figure’. The irony was stunning. Here is a guy telling you he wants to take away your option to smoke in a restaurant who is calling me a divisive figure for wanting you to keep that option. On the contrary, I’m the candidate who wants you to keep your existing rights. I’m also the candidate who wants to bring this community together. Waging war against smokers does not achieve this end. It merely creates hard feelings at one end and encourages further segregation at the other end. Clearly this is my big issue. I don’t dispute that. But I have to start somewhere. And this issue has major symbolic implications for how I’ll conduct myself as a council member. Unlike Mr. Jordahl, I will fight for this community to come together, and I will not push anybody away. Mr. Jordahl’s support for this restaurant smoking ban is proof that he can make no such guarantee. I realise I’m not a traditional candidate for this position, but aren’t you ready for a change. That’s all for today and thank you for your time.” Gretchen walks away from the podium, with only the stub of her cigarette left in her mouth. I stand there thinking she probably just won the election, depending on how many people see her on the news tonight.
Gretchen went to school the next day just like any other day, then returned home with me to wait for the election results. In a role reversal, I attempt to entice Gretchen into a sexual tryst, but couldn’t tear down the wall on election day. The world of politics that she’s never given a thought to before three months ago was completely consuming her tonight, as she excitedly watches the returns roll in at the national, state, and local levels. She nervously chain-smokes at an even faster pace than usual and holds my hand tightly as the 8:00 hour arrives and the local polls close. Watching the TV for several hours, struggling to see through the smoky haze Gretchen has created, the local returns trickle in a few votes at a time, and
finally begin to appear on a scroll on the bottom of the screen. By 1 am, 100% of the vote in the city’s 4th Ward has been counted and the results indicate Gretchen has won with 764 votes to Jordahl’s 752 votes.
Gretchen cuts loose an excited scream with the same chain-smoking influenced huskiness of her regular speaking voice. For the first time since she got home that evening, she places her cigarette in the ashtray on our coffee table and embraces me with an intense fervour. She seals her lips to mine and I give her a deep, sensuous victory kiss, even though I’m the one who feels rewarded by tasting her smoker’s breath for the first time tonight.
Through the course of the next week, Gretchen gives a gracious acceptance speech and handles her numerous critics with the deft of a lifetime politician, having developed a degree of necessary civility yet still keeping her intense hard- line on the local issue that matters most to her. Within a week, Gretchen attends the first city council meeting of the next session, the only newcomer of the bunch. Not disappointing the crowd or the media in attendance, Gretchen doesn’t avoid controversy by attending the first session dressed in her usual informal attire and takes it upon herself to rewrite the city hall’s smoking policy. She sits behind the podium and surprises nobody by lighting her first of many Marlboros of the night as the debate ensues. Although many of the councilmen feel obliged to confront Gretchen about her lawbreaking, they hold off, realising what happened to Gretchen’s successor when he attempted to tangle with her. The restaurant smoking issue is on the forefront and the debate becomes unusually heated with Gretchen present. The smoky atmosphere created by Gretchen herself brings back images of the old smoke-filled political conventions that the media always romanticises. With Gretchen now in politics, they just might get to return to those days. Of course, many of the council members and audience seem offended by the ever-present smoke, but nobody’s mind has changed about this issue. The issue comes to a vote and the restaurant smoking prohibition is rejected on a 4-3 vote, with Gretchen being the swing vote. The final vote draws about an equally positive and negative reaction from the crowd as well, but I’m too busy watching my beautiful girlfriend beaming with pride at the podium. She lights the last Marlboro 100 in her pack and takes her deepest inhale of the night, revelling in her first of what would hopefully be many political victories.
That night, we return to my apartment, both with the intention of expressing our joyful feelings in a sexual manner towards each other. We barely make it in the door when Gretchen already starts to take off my jeans. We undress each other in the way we always do when we are the horniest. I fall backwards naked on my
bed, and Gretchen leaps atop me and sits on my stomach, wearing nothing but her bra and a freshly-lit cigarette in her mouth. She wryly comments, “I sure hope you don’t have a camera on me right now. The last thing I need is a sex scandal to sink me.”
I laugh out loud at the thought of Gretchen with her week’s worth of experience in elected office already thinking like a career politician. It was obvious by the fire in her eyes that this girl was going a lot further than a small-town city council. However, the future becomes a blur to me as Gretchen removes her bra and exposes her breathtaking naked body and then presses it to mine. As my senses of touch and smell are equally aroused by Gretchen’s body and the aroma of smoke that covers every square inch of her body, the present tense is the only thing important to both of us.