Every August, my family goes on a trip to our state fair–the “family get-together.” In the past, this has always been a great venue for seeing girls smoke, but this year’s experience was particularly memorable. There is a bandshell financed by Grain Belt beer that provides concerts by up-and-coming country music singers at no charge, so this is a place where my parents and I sit and stay for awhile. We planned to sit through two shows in a row and sat in seats about halfway back from the stage. As we sat and waited for the shows to begin, I noticed a group of four attractive girls approaching the seats. The girls were the very picture of femininity. They looked about 16 years old. They had shoulder-length hair (two blondes, two brunettes), they wore strap shirts with bra straps showing, and very sexy denim shorts that fit their hourglass figures beautifully. Looking at their brand-name clothing and expensive jewellery, I figured the girls must come from upper-middle class homes. I was delighted as the girls sat in the bench directly in front of ours. I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that these sweet, angelic-looking girls couldn’t possibly be smokers, but their presence near me was enough to make me happy.
My heart raced with glee as the girls almost simultaneously reached into their purses and pulled out gold and white packs of Marlboro 100’s only seconds after sitting down. A couple of the girls reached their hands into the pockets of their tight shorts to pull out their cigarette lighters. I could barely contain my delight as the girls inserted the cigarettes into their mouths and lit them (again, almost simultaneously). I took a couple of quick glances at the people sitting around us and saw that several were annoyed at the fact that they were sitting next to all these smokers. My parents also seemed annoyed and I hoped they would not want to move to another seat to get away from the smoke. Luckily, they didn’t.
These doll-cute girls at first seemed awkward smoking, but they handled it so well, the cigarettes soon seemed like natural fixtures in their hands. The girls exhaled gorgeous streams of smoke out of their mouths and noses. By the time the first concert had started, there was a thick cloud of smoke hovering over the girls heads as four steady streams of smoke rose into the air from their burning cigarettes. The smell of tobacco was thick in the air and I found myself nearly choking on their second-hand smoke, but obviously, I didn’t mind. A couple with
two young children sitting next to me did mind, however, and the mother was giving the girls dirty looks at the smoke was drifting towards her children. I continued to worry that my parents would insist on leaving, but they must have been sitting in a place where the girls’ second-hand smoke wasn’t bothering them.
The girls either didn’t know or didn’t care that their smoking was bothering so many people around them. They continued to smoke and talk and listen to the music, which they seemed to be enjoying almost as much as their cigarettes. I observed as the filters on the girls’ white cigarettes grew blacker after each drag they inhaled. The girls did not let much of their cigarettes go to waste, smoking them to within an eighth of an inch of the filter. One by one, the girls were finishing their cigarettes, dropping them to the ground and squashing them with their shoes. I was hoping I had not seen the last of them smoking, and mercifully, I hadn’t.
As I watched the girls as inconspicuously as possible, I thought to myself how unfortunate it was to be burdened with the presence of my parents. If not for them, I could start flirting with the girls and possibly even start up something with one of them. After all, I was only three years older than them at the most. Within fifteen minutes, the girls all began to pull out their Marlboro 100’s packs and light up another cigarette (although not in unison this time, their second cigarettes were scattered over a five-minute interval). The best-looking girl of the bunch pulled out her last cigarette from the pack and lit it up, before she dropped the empty pack to the ground and crushed it. I hoped she had more cigarettes or would at least be able to bum cigarettes off of her friends. The whole time she smoked that second cigarette, I was tempted to ask her if I could buy her another pack, particularly if she was underage, as a means of coming on to her. Besides, I thought it would be downright sinful for this girl to be deprived of the nicotine she was addicted to even for a little while. If she needed cigarettes, I was determined to provide them for her if it meant she would have to go without nicotine.
The smoke cloud again became thick as the girls puffed copiously on their cigarettes. It was so sexy to see the cigarettes held between their fingers, next to their bare legs. As sexy as it was, I was nervous that the girls were holding their cigarettes to close to their smooth, tan legs. It would certainly be a tragedy if these flawless legs were accidentally burned by a cigarette, but the girls seemed to be experienced smokers that would not allow this to happen. I was most impressed when the girls would clap their hands after the singer finished his song and were able to applaud without knocking the burning cigarettes out of their hands.
The more I thought about the girls’ mature handling of their smoking, the more I imagined them smoking in other settings. Assuming the girls were allowed to smoke at home, it would be nice to see one of the girls taking a final drag off of a cigarette in her bedroom, then squashing the cigarette into an ashtray filled with dozens of cigarettes she had already smoked. It would be interesting to see how many cigarette butts lie in the girls’ lawns and front steps. Perhaps best of all it would be interesting to see the interiors of the girls’ cars to see how many accidents had resulted from past smoking accidents. It would also be lovely to see any of the girls light up a cigarette with her car lighter, and flicking her ashes out a cracked car window, then finally tossing the cigarette butt out onto the road when she finished it. As far as winter driving, I’d love to see her stop at a gas station and empty out her plum-full car ashtray into the garbage can. And, as always with me, I imagined the girls smoking cigars and how sexy they would look with a stogie between their lips. My digressions were endless as I watched these beauties indulge their habit, and enjoy themselves doing so.
Long after the girls had finished their second cigarettes, the first concert ended. I continued to worry that they would leave their seats or that my parents would want to. Luckily, we all stayed in our places. During the intermission, I was able to listen to the girls’ conversation with the blaring music overpowering their feminine voices. Besides talking about the concert that just ended, they talked mostly about typical teenage girl stuff (malls and boyfriends came up more than once). There was no talk about smoking—a very minor disappointment. Even when the girls were not smoking, the lovely stench of tobacco lingered on them. Every once in a while, I would lean forward to pick up my beverage on the ground and smell one of the girls from only a few inches away. Her hair and her shirt smelled as if they had been drenched in smoke, easily overpowering the smell of her perfume.
Before the second concert got underway, the girls had begun to light up their third cigarettes of the hour, one by one. The last holdout was the really pretty girl who had finished off her pack earlier. But right before the second concert began, she reached into her purse and produced a fresh pack of Marlboro 100’s. She tore off the plastic and opened up the pack. As she talked to her friend, who was already smoking, she casually tapped the fresh pack of cigarettes several times until one of the cigarettes popped partially out. She pulled the cigarette completely out, inserted it into her mouth, lit it up with her lighter, and inhaled her first drag. I was energised as the second concert began and all four girls were smoking again.
A new bunch of people were sitting near the girls for the second concert, and one woman was noticeably upset about sitting near the girls smoking. She repeatedly
gave the girls dirty looks, used her hand to keep the second-hand smoke from her face, and even began a choking cough after breathing in some smoke. The girls seemed oblivious to the woman’s blatant signals and kept on smoking in as carefree of manner as possible. Finally, the woman nudged her husband and said, “I’ve gotta get away from these smokers.” The girls laughed as she left and talked about her dirty looks. One girl said, “I don’t give a shit. If she doesn’t like it, she can leave.” I had a new respect for the girls, refusing to cave into the anti-smoking zealots among them.
At this point, I think the girls had sensed that I was watching them from behind in awe (and my parents had probably noticed me watching them, too). The girls seemed to be flattered to have an admirer as their smiles increased and they begin to whisper amongst one another in a bubbly fashion. Not wanting to look like I was too obsessed with them, I tried to pay more attention to the concert and stare around at the rest of the crowd. I soon noticed that most of the smokers in the crowd were teenage girls, but none as attractive as this bunch.
The girls kept on smoking as the second concert continued and they also seemed to be flirting with me. One of the girls turned around and smiled at me and I smiled back. She then nudged her friend and they giggled. Within a couple of moments, the best-looking girl turned back to me and smiled after inhaling a deep drag off her cigarette. As I smiled back, she exhaled a stream of smoke my direction before turning around, as if blowing me a kiss. My heart nearly skipped a beat as I watched the smoke stream out of her mouth and nose towards me. I did my best to accept her kiss by inhaling the smoke that she blew at me. I wanted so much to lean forward and give her a real kiss. Her breath would undoubtedly taste like licking a filthy ashtray, but there could be no better taste in the world to me at that point. If I could kiss her, I would attempt to suck in as much of her stinky breath as possible.
From this point on, the girls smoked as sexily as possible, taunting me with their smoking. If only my parents weren’t there, I kept thinking as the concert was about to end. Much too quickly, the concert did end and the girls left almost immediately after, but not without giving me a couple more inviting glances. As the girls walked by me, I inhaled deeply and could smell the odour of tobacco smoke embedded into their attractive clothing. The girls left a smoky trail behind them until they were almost out of sight. Two of the girls had smoked four cigarettes and the other two had smoked five cigarettes through the course of these two concerts (about an hour, forty minutes). However, it wasn’t until after they left and I looked under their bench to see all those squashed cigarette butts that it hit me just how much
tobacco the girls had smoked. I figured out that if the girls kept up this pace, they would average between a pack and a half and two packs a day—a very impressive amount for girls their age.
My parents soon left, but I snuck back up to the bench to pick up the empty Marlboro 100’s pack on the ground and a handful of cigarette butts and stuck them in my pocket. I had hoped I’d see the girls on the fairgrounds again that day, but I didn’t. I even walked a loop around the midway by myself that afternoon hoping to find them. I saw literally dozens of pretty girls smoking, but not them. Luckily, I do have the souvenirs to remember these incredible girls by. May they continue to smoke and prosper in life.