Hot summer day and I was looking forward to going to Chad’s house. Even though it was a short bike ride, I’d be sweaty by the time I got there and couldn’t wait to get into his pool. We didn’t have one; dad was too cheap to buy a house with a pool and cost-prohibitive to have one put in. No matter, Chad and I were best friends and his house was like a second home to me as mine was to him. And since he had a pool, we always hung out at his house in the summer and mine in the winter.
There were cars in the driveway I didn’t expect to see. One of which belonged to Jill, Chad’s older sister. I was disappointed; we were supposed to have the house to ourselves, our parents had just begun leaving us alone without a sitter. I let myself in through the gate following the sounds of voices and laughter; his mom was outside too. Chad’s mother was sitting at a table in the sun with drinking daiquiris with another mom. She greeted me warmly as always, saying Chad would be out soon.
Chad’s mom was really pretty, and it felt good that she always seemed to be happy to see me. Everybody likes their friend’s parents better than their own. Mr. and Mrs. Garrison just seemed cooler than my mom and dad. They were fun people and always had a party going. Mrs. Garrison introduced me to Mrs. White, who was just as pretty as she was. I could smell the alcohol in the drinks and both were smoking cigarettes. She was always smoking.
Chad came out and we immediately went into the pool throwing a nerf football and splashing around like kids do. Once in the pool, I had a ground level view of the two moms sitting at a patio table and Chad’s sister lying on a chaise in the sun with her friend. Both the younger girls were already well-tanned and soaking up even more rays, the unmistakable Hawaiian Tropic coconut smell filling the air. Jill had just turned 16 and mostly ignored me and Chad; young as we were at the time she might have well been 25. We just stayed out of her way, no real forum to interact or have a conversation. We were just kids to her and were content to play around in the pool for hours like always.
A powerful and fresh scent of menthol smoke washed over the pool, stronger than was coming from the moms, who were farther away on the other side of the porch. It got my attention so I looked over and was stunned to see Jill and her friend with freshly lit cigarettes, smoking openly in front of their mothers. I waited for Mrs. Garrison to react but she didn’t seem to notice or even care that her teenage daughter was smoking just a few feet away from her. The girls were too close for me to say anything to Chad.
We took a break from throwing the football and were just idly sitting still beneath the water up to our chins. I couldn’t stop staring at Jill, nervously wondering if she could see me through the dark lens of her white-framed wayfarers. I cut my eyes over at Chad as we talked about summer plans and baseball but make no mistake, my focus alternated between the moms and the daughters. It was an odd sight and did something to me.
I’d been coming to Chad’s house as long as I could remember but something was different that day. I didn’t realize it at the time but my early stages of puberty were quickly descending on me at that very moment. There was a tingly feeling throughout my body, making what little hair I had stand up and the stiffening that sometimes made its appearance some mornings lately had returned. It was as if for the first time, I was realizing just how hot my best friend’s mom and sister were. I’ve always held a boyhood fascination with Chad’s mom but was now seeing it for what it was. The incessant entry and exit of the cigarettes from their mouths followed by smoke streaming out into the breeze combined with the view of full breasts busting out of skimpy bikinis, even the red toes and soles of their feet facing me at eye level were ravaging my budding libido. It was full sensory overload. Chad and I had just seen Ghostbusters and the scene where they crossed streams to create one powerful force entered my mind. In a weird analogy only I might get, that’s what I was feeling. The combination of four beautifully made up faces, the breasts, legs, bodies, even their toes – but especially the cigarettes were combining into one single overpowering feeling of arousal that flowed through my entire body. My heart pounded and I was actually dizzy. The four separate sets of lips puckered around individual white tubes, the small thick clouds of milky white smoke disappearing into their mouths and coming out in streams filling the air were what captivated me; especially as the process caused their barely covered breasts to rise and fall. I was hypnotized; mesmerized; everything-ized.
***
Mrs. Garrison called over to her daughter, asking if she wanted anything from
inside. Okay, she saw it and clearly didn’t care. I watched as the statue that was Mrs. Garrison saunter inside like she was gliding. Jill set her cigarette in an ashtray her mother walked over to her as she went inside. Jill flipped over onto her stomach, pulling her bikini bottoms between her cheeks to minimize the tan line. Add beautifully tanned round asses to the list.
Chad accepted his mother’s offer of afternoon snacks, striking fear into me; no way I could get out right then. I was at least old enough to know that. But I was able to get myself under control. This moment in time was the first time in my life I was turned on. The show continued; four gorgeous women in bikinis smoking incessantly on a perfect summer day as the music of the day blasted on Jill’s boombox – Prince, Springsteen, Madonna, Huey Lewis and the like.
The girls went inside first; to shower and take off with the freedom a 16 year old with a new car enjoys. The moms followed with Mrs. White going back to her house and Mrs. Garrison going in to do whatever. Chad went inside to go to the bathroom leaving me on my own for a few minutes. With nobody around I surveyed the two shared ashtrays, counting the butts that displayed various shades of pink and red lipstick. The girls’ only had four, two for each girl and the moms’ was overstuffed with white and orange filters lying on their sides and sticking up vertically. Why was I so fascinated? And why was I finding it so arousing? It was supposedly a dirty, gross, nasty habit that smelled bad. Not to me though, I was growing to love the smell of fresh smoke – but only from women. I realized now I had done the same thing when my mom had friends over. I’d just never had the physical manifestation of my arousal to connect it with until that day.
My own parents didn’t smoke; never had. Aside from Chad’s mom the only exposure I ever had were times my mom had friends over. Several of them smoked and I was remembering how curious I was at how some did and some didn’t. I was a good kid, quick to help mom clean up after her parties. Mom would go into the kitchen to do dishes and the first thing I’d do was clean out the ashtrays, trying to match brands with moms by where they were sitting and the shade of lipstick. I can’t explain it, it was just weirdly interesting to me; I keep going back to the word ‘fascinated’ in my mind. It was the only word that seemed to fit. That day in the pool a few years later, that fascination was being pulled into parity with my attraction to girls as my sexual awakening began. They had become one- and-the-same.
***
Nobody in my grade smoked yet; not that I was aware of anyway but I began to wonder. Once I was old enough to have a girlfriend, would she smoke? Maybe; hopefully. Anyone I would be sexually attracted to would have to smoke; it was part of the equation now and would be for the rest of my life.