The crowds were modest traversing the halls of the Willow Creek Mall in the western suburbs of Minneapolis on this late October Sunday afternoon. Trevor McPherson was walking hand in hand with his sweet-as-honey dark blond girlfriend Lauren and exploring the ground floor with Lauren’s free hand holding a couple of bags containing clothing items she had purchased. They didn’t look that much different than any number of other teen couples walking through the mall, decked out in traditional fall fashions with Trevor wearing a sweatshirt and jeans while Lauren was wearing a sweatshirt and leggings. Trevor was watching an increasingly fidgety Lauren out of the corner of his eye and could feel her hand grasp his own more tightly over the hour or so they had been walking. They had only been a couple for a few months but he knew her well enough to know that she was going through some serious nicotine withdrawals by this point. Much as he loved seeing her smoking and knowing how much pleasure that her cigarettes gave her, the evil side of Trevor got a kick out of watching her squirm.
Lauren finally broke the silence hoping for an outlet to her escalating discomfort and that Trevor would accommodate, asking “Are there any other stores you want to go to?”
Trevor looked at her, pretending to ponder whether or not there were some stores he still wanted to visit and acting like he had no idea Lauren was asking because she wanted to step outside for a cigarette. He finally came up with an answer saying “Can’t think of anything right off hand but we’ll see if anything jumps out at me on our way out.”
Lauren looked like she thought she was in the clear before responding, “Good because I need a cigarette” unaware that Trevor had one more huge trick up his sleeve and was only about 25 yards away from the storefront where he’d make his big play.
Trevor locked his eyes on the neon sign for the House of Leathers, waiting till they were nearly parallel to the storefront window showing pairs of leather pants and miniskirts on sale for Halloween only days away before nudging Lauren and pointing to the display and saying “You would look so hot in leather!”
Lauren smiled and looked back at him, not appearing to be tipped off that he had been scheming this chance encounter all day, responding with a flattered yet hesitant “Ya think?”
“Oh definitely!” Trevor replied emphatically. “You would look so badass!” He then pretended to study the sign in the storefront window for a moment before adding “And look….it’s 25% off for Halloween. I think we should go inside and see if there’s anything in your size!”
Lauren looked at the way the leather items fit the fitting dummies in the window and seemed to like what she saw. “I just don’t know if it it’s me.” she first said before seeming to talk herself into it a little more by adding, “But your sister Courtney looked hot in those leather pants a few weeks ago when I visited your family”, referring to the seed Trevor had successfully planted when Lauren met his family for the first time and put on leather pants before she went out with her friends on a Friday night. Lauren smiled and looked at Trevor again before saying, “Okay we’ll check it out but no promises.”
Trevor had her exactly where he wanted her as they walked into the store, and in seconds, a familiar face would surprise Lauren but not Trevor. Standing behind the till was none other than Trevor’s older sister Courtney who Lauren had just referenced, decked out in a white blouse and sexy black leather miniskirt. Courtney smiled as she watched Trevor and Lauren walk in but Lauren was briefly taken aback, her reluctance briefly ramping up further knowing that she was musing this potentially uncomfortable purchase in the company of Trevor’s sister. Trevor could see the discomfort in Lauren’s eyes and knew he’d have to act fast before the mission backfired.
Thankfully for him, Courtney cooperated by asking “So did you guys stop to say hi while I’m hard at work?”
Before Lauren had a chance to respond, Trevor seized the moment and said, “Actually I’m trying to talk Lauren into buying something leather with Halloween coming” knowing that Courtney’s sales pitch would likely be more persuasive than his own.
Courtney’s eyes lit up. “That’s awesome!” before making eye contact with Lauren and adding “You would look great in leather, Lauren!” The two went back and forth in the moments ahead and Trevor had all he could do to suppress a smirk as he had successfully pit his girlfriend up against his sister for the eventual fulfilment of
another fantasy just as he had done when he exposed her to his smoking family a few weeks earlier and helped unleash a vixen in Lauren who was ready, willing, and able to indulge his smoking fetish.
After a few minutes of discussion and pouring over the selection, Lauren decided upon a pair of leather pants and Courtney led her to a display where she found the pair that captured her fancy best, a tight and shiny black pair that lit up Trevor’s eyes just as brightly if not more so. After a few moments of looking it over and despairing about the price, Courtney reminded her of the 25% off sale and Lauren decided to try it on. Trevor had gone with her into a couple other fitting rooms that day and was about to again, this time elated knowing that even if she didn’t make the purchase, he’d get to watch her put her leather pants on up close.
A flash of naughtiness appeared on Lauren’s face as she stepped into the fitting room with Trevor following, by this point realising she’d been set up to some degree. “You’re so bad!” she scolded through an I-know-what-you’re-up-to smirk before Trevor played innocent with an exaggerated “Whaaat?”
Lauren began to take off her leggings and Trevor couldn’t help letting his eyes wander southward and admiring her perfect lower body, a body that his lust for had greatly accelerated since their first sexual dalliance in his car that night when Lauren met the family. A combination of bad timing in search of that perfect moment, Lauren’s residual trepidation about officially losing her innocence, and methodical cock-blocking on the part of their parents who had made sure they weren’t able to spend much time alone together since that night all kept things from advancing to the next level in the ensuing three weeks. And seeing Lauren strip down to her panties, Trevor had all he could do to keep himself from pouncing on her right now. But priority #1 for the moment remained helping his sister make the sale on these leather pants.
Lauren broke Trevor’s lustful daydream with a request that was music to Trevor’s ears. “Help me with these”, Lauren requested, squeezing her left leg into the pants she could tell were gonna be very tight on her. “These are size 3. I hope they fit”, she added while beginning to put her right leg inside.
Trevor smugly responded “We’ll find a way to make these fit even if it kills us,” to which Lauren repeated her previous flirty protest with an even more exaggerated “You’re so baaaad!” As Lauren pulled the pants up to her waist, it became even clearer how tight they were gonna be. She shifted her left leg and accidentally kicked over her purse, a few of the contents pouring out including the pack of
Marlboro Lights 100s that only moments earlier had been the most important thing on her mind. Seeing the pack lying there on the floor her heart lusted for a cigarette again as bad as it had five minutes earlier and Trevor picked up on it by watching her eyes, briefly hoping she’d lick her lips at the sight of the exposed pack. Trevor always prided himself on thinking two moves ahead on just about everything, but here was a spur-of-the-moment situation that had been unplanned, and he was gonna seize it for an inappropriate gesture.
Trevor picked up the pack of cigarettes and the lighter next to it, extracting a cigarette and approaching Lauren’s mouth. Looking at him awkwardly, she asked “What are you doing?”
“You said you needed a cigarette, didn’t you?” Trevor said with a smirk, placing the cigarette in her mouth and then sparking it up with the lighter. All other considerations briefly vacated Lauren’s mind as her chest and cheeks inverted to ingest a substantial portion of tobacco smoke. Trevor listened to the paper crackle and watched Lauren’s eyes begin to squint as pleasure overcame her young body. Trevor savoured the moment and admired Lauren’s vulnerability in her partial state of undress and ingesting the forbidden pleasures of her cigarette in this smoking- prohibited setting. Locking in this visual for what seemed like several blissful moments but really only lasting a couple of seconds, Trevor was equally transfixed by the visual follow-up watching Lauren’s eyes open wide again and a triple jet of smoke rocketing out of her mouth and nostrils with the cigarette still dangling in her lips. Lauren’s smoking style had come a long way since the night they met back in June, but had notably come a long way further since the night in October when Lauren met Trevor’s family. Trevor hadn’t spent any more than the usual level of time with her in those ensuing three weeks but noticed that her cigarettes were coming more frequently than they ever had before and that her drags were lasting longer and her exhales were becoming cloudier as well. Everything he could possibly have hoped would come from that visit with the family had materialised and set him up for this moment watching her try on a pair of leather pants while dangling a forbidden indoor cigarette from her lips, puckering those lips around the filter for an equally fierce second drag that followed with the same exhale of carcinogens that were already beginning to fill up the claustrophobically small fitting room.
Having finally gotten the needed nicotine hit from her cigarette to press on with the original plan, Lauren broke the silence with a request through a talking dangle. “Now help me with these, buddy!” she flirtatiously requested of Trevor. Trevor pressed closer to her to help her slide the pants on, the intensity of the smoke
aroma growing exponentially with each inch closer he pressed forward towards her face and the smouldering cigarette projecting from it. After years of hanging around the chain-smoking McPherson females, Trevor was used to direct assaults of secondhand cigarette smoke, but even he was in for a sensory overload at this moment as Lauren lifted her ass off the bench to allow Trevor to slide the leather pants onto her midsection, giggling and repeatedly dangle-dragging from the cigarette as she did with a haze of cigarette smoke exiting her respiratory system and swirling in front of Trevor’s face. The sensation was already thrilling for Trevor before he even got to the point where he was able to complement it by stretching those leather pants over Lauren’s ass, feeling the unforgivingly tight leather expand nearly to its breaking point as he finally wrapped it around her waist. He stretched the fly together as far as it could as Lauren grunted with obvious discomfort. After three attempts he was finally able to fasten the hook together and then zip up the crotch. The impossibly tight pair of leather pants was now on Lauren’s body.
Trevor finally pulled away just enough to look at Lauren, at the end of another dangling drag, the latest from a dangle that had lasted at least 60 seconds and had now produced a significant granny ash about to fall to the carpet. A smiling Lauren removed the cigarette from her mouth and Trevor couldn’t take his eyes off of her beautiful face as a residual stream of smoky exhaust filtered slowly out of her nose. There was a look of physical exhaustion on her face along with a satisfied smirk that gave Trevor a brief window into what she might look like in the aftermath of copulation. For a few fleeting moments they were lost in each other’s eyes and Lauren bit her lower lip in a come-hither way that Trevor hadn’t seen since the night in his car right before they made out. But this electric moment of chemistry would have a starkly different ending as a stern female voice startled the young couple back to reality.
“Seriously guys!” exclaimed Courtney in what amounted to a shouting whisper of sorts. “You know there’s no smoking in there. Put it out before you get us all kicked out of here!”
A gleeful look of naughtiness returned to Lauren’s face as she said “Sorry!” before snuffing out the end of the cigarette and putting it back in the pack, nonetheless leaving a haze of cigarette smoke so thick in the fitting room that she and Trevor practically needed a foghorn to navigate their way out. But before they left, Lauren stood up and admired the way her lower body looked in those painted on leather pants, swivelling her hips from one direction to the other and showing off her curves as Trevor watched on, rendered speechless with satisfaction once again.
Lauren smiled at Trevor and he knew he had successfully closed the sale with her…at least the first of the two sales he hoped to close with her that day.
The couple walked out of the fitting room and approached Courtney near the register, escaping the haze of smoke Lauren had created and realising with each footstep they took towards fresher air just how much she had stunk the place up. Courtney gave them both a lighthearted scolding look before assessing the situation perfectly with the comment “I’m not sure which one of you two is the bad influence on the other anymore!”
Beaming smiles flashed across the faces of the young couple who were glad Courtney didn’t overreact to Lauren’s smoking in the store. Courtney looked over Lauren’s outfit and gave her a wink and an approving thumbs-up, knowing she was probably gonna make the sale.
“How much are they?” Lauren asked.
“Originally $400 but with 25% off $300 plus tax.”
Lauren’s eyes lit up as the figure was clearly higher than she expected, putting a moment of frightening doubt into both Courtney and Trevor’s eyes thinking the sale might not happen after all. “Wow that’s a lot.” Lauren added.
“Just put it on daddy’s credit card,” Trevor responded. “He probably won’t even notice,” pausing for a moment before adding for effect “and it would be worth it even if he did. You look so amazing in those pants!”
Lauren smiled in agreement and after a brief scare that the fish had fallen off the hook, he knew it was time to reel her in. “What the hell,” Lauren said, dipping into her purse to take out the credit card her dad left her with instructions to spend no more than $100.” She was gonna get her ass chewed but these pants were worth it…and were chewing on her ass already to the point that she may be numb to her daddy’s verbal haranguing.
Courtney smiled at making the sale as well, instructing Lauren to change out of the pants so she could ring her up. Lauren and Trevor had forgotten she was still wearing the merchandise but just as Lauren was turning around to go back to the fitting room to change back into her leggings, Trevor asked her to hold up, placing his finger on the tight waistline of the pants and pulling her back. She looked at
him with confusion for a moment before he grabbed her by the waist and thrust her body onto the countertop and placing her leather-draped ass next to the register.
Courtney gave Trevor another of her bemused smirks wondering what he was up to before Trevor cleverly responded to the girls’ silent interrogation with “As hard as these went on, they’ll probably come off even harder…and Lauren would probably need to smoke another cigarette to relax for it!”
Lauren giggled her wholesome girly-girl laugh as Courtney just smirked and shook her head, never picking up until recently just how devilishly crafty her brother was. Courtney grabbed the tag attached to the belt hoop on Lauren’s leather pants and scanned it. Lauren then proceeded to swipe her credit card through the reader from her seated position while making eyes with Trevor the whole time. After a few stagnant weeks, they had just had another moment…and both knew it was only a matter of time till they acted upon it.
***
Meanwhile, at the primary entrance of the Willow Creek Mall, Trevor’s younger sister Haylee exited through the glass doors along with Jarrod and Joshua, the young boys she regularly babysits and spent much of this afternoon in the mall’s play area with. Haylee, decked out in her usual ensemble of a pink top and white shorts in defiance of the mid-autumn calendar, drew attention from nearly everyone else seated in the general area for her beauty, her nonseasonal attire, and the young boys accompanying her, as she hastily approached a series of benches, one of which had a smoker’s pole next to it. As much attention as Haylee and the boys were already receiving, they were about to attract even more as Haylee extracted a pack of Camel Pink No. 9s from her purse that matched her outfit, then removed a cigarette from the pack and lit up, taking a gigantic dangling drag off the light-up and spilling a geyser of smoke from her mouth and nose.
Haylee was largely oblivious to the shocked gazes of onlookers to see such a young and wholesome-looking girl publicly smoking this day and age, and nobody was more shocked and dismayed as a father-son duo at the bench about 10 feet adjacent to her. Haylee dragged from her cigarette copiously, clearly getting her first nicotine fix in quite some time and making the cigarette disappear quickly with frequent pulverising drags and cloudy exhales punctuated with a couple long- distance dangles that produced back-to-back dangling drags. Watching this with escalating disgust was the middle-aged man who represented the father of the duo of onlookers, particularly with the young boys so close by. Watching with more
mixed reaction was the mid-teen son who looked similar in age to Haylee and clearly had a more complicated response to seeing this open display of tobacco consumption from a beautiful girl his age, something he had never seen before to this extent. And despite his deficit in years, five-year-old Jarrod was a grizzled veteran of witnessing Haylee’s smoking performances and sat there quietly and fawningly sneaking glances at Haylee as she smoked and trying to ignore the pleas of younger brother Joshua trying to get him to play. Haylee had not yet even realised it but she had three generations of males transfixed by her smoking performance this afternoon for entirely different reasons.
Haylee made quick work of the cigarette and in less than three minutes had it smoked nearly to the filter. She extracted the pack of Camel Pink No. 9’s from her purse again and took out another cigarette. She finally made eye contact with the father-son duo eyeballing her at the exact moment she used the butt of her first cigarette to light the second one. She rarely paid attention to other people’s responses to her smoking but couldn’t help but take note of the conflicting reactions of disgust and intrigue on the respective faces of this father and son who appeared to be doing the same thing she was generally….waiting for other shoppers to leave the mall. After letting the new cigarette dangle for a couple drags, Haylee took the cigarette out of her mouth, and having already forgotten she was being watched she proceeded to ignore the smoker’s pole next to her and fling the spent cigarette butt a few feet in front of her and then spit a lugie in the same direction that splattered to the pavement a few inches away from where the still-smouldering all-white butt landed.
The concerned father had finally seen enough and broke his silence, asking “How old are you anyway?” with obvious contempt in his voice.
Haylee looked his direction after finishing a drag and gave a snide retort of “14….why?” through a talking exhale in a mind-your-own-business tone.
“Wow, even younger than my son and already smoking. I’m sure you think you look really cool but can you at least have the decency to not smoke in front of your brothers like that?”
Haylee felt personally attacked in a way that happens to her from time to time but which she has never been able to understand given how normal smoking was and had always been for the McPherson family. Rather than getting into it with him, she simply said “They’re not my brothers” and then took another deep drag from her cigarette.
“Whoever they are, you’re setting a terrible example for them and exposing them to secondhand smoke. It’s really appalling to witness…” As the father drones on with his scolding words for Haylee, she picks up on the nonverbal cues of one younger male while completely missing those of another. The teenage son is mortified with embarrassment about his dad confronting this teenage girl he didn’t know and was shaking his head with a degree of sympathy and even admiration for Haylee that diverted Haylee’s attention away from the father’s finger-wagging sermon. But while this confrontation was ensuing, Haylee and the father-son duo completely missed young Jarrod’s little power play. He had been eyeballing Haylee’s discarded cigarette butt ever since she tossed it and used the moment of distraction to quietly approach it, peeking to his left to make sure nobody was watching him and then picking up the still-smouldering cigarette butt. He approached the bench with the cigarette cupped in his hand, stealthily crushing out the cherry and then sticking the butt into his jeans pocket. Over recent weeks, Jarrod’s secret infatuation with Haylee had escalated to the level of trophy-taking, and he had swiped several of the cigarettes Haylee left behind in her ashtrays at home to keep as collectibles. He felt pretty proud of himself for scoring himself another one right under everybody’s nose.
Meanwhile, Haylee continued to smoke her cigarette, not letting the father break her will in the least and ultimately winning the game of chicken as he looked at his watch and shook his head in frustration saying aloud “Where is your mother?” before standing up and looking both directions. Completely out of patience, he told his son, “Just stay put Grant…I’m gonna see if I can find her,” before he walked back into the mall. Haylee looked over to the son and the two engaged in a bashful cat-and-mouse game of eye contact for a few moments. Haylee thought “Grant” was kind of cute and liked that he seemed to defend her, at least with his eyes, as his dad was scolding her. Grant and Haylee finally made sustained eye contact as Haylee took another drag from her cigarette. Haylee smiled as she exhaled a stream of cigarette smoke through her lips that was scattered by the same light breeze that was casually whipping around Haylee’s curly light brown hair. Grant smiled back and Haylee could finally tell that he was to some degree interested in her.
***
As much as Trevor and Lauren looked like just a typical teenage couple walking through the mall before they went into the House of Leathers, they had a whole different energy walking out, with Lauren’s shiny, skin-tight black leather pants and
the entire process of trying them on and purchasing them contributing to that energy. There was a zip in the young couple’s step as they walked hand in hand for about 20 yards out of the store, but Lauren flashed a come-hither look towards Trevor with a flash of evil in her eyes. Before Trevor could fully process it, Lauren let go of his hand and instead placed his arm in the direction of her waist. Trevor was briefly confused as he began to follow Lauren’s lead and move his arm around her waist, but she stopped his progression and instead lowered his hand towards her right asscheek. Lauren’s evil grin turned into a giant flirty smile as she could feel Trevor’s hand groping her leather-draped ass right in front of hundreds of people walking through the mall. A month ago, Lauren could never have imagined herself wanting to be the center of attention but something about being with Trevor made her feel special and she just loved letting the whole world know it at the same time as she was getting him excited. And she was by no means done as she looked ahead and could see the mall exit on the distant horizon with still a football field’s walking distance left….
Lauren reached into her purse and pulled out her pack of Marlboro Lights 100s. As on cloud nine as Trevor was walking through the mall with his hand on Lauren’s leather-draped ass, he still found himself distracted and wondering what she was up to as she pulled out her quarter-smoked cigarette that she had lit up and later snuffed out inside the fitting room. Lauren placed the remainder of the cigarette between her lips and dangled it as she walked, muttering through a talking dangle a chant of “I need a cigarette! I need a cigarette! I need a cigarette!” for the benefit of Trevor and everyone watching. Heads had already started to turn just after seeing Trevor with his hand on Lauren’s ass, but suddenly everybody Lauren crossed paths with was looking her way now that she had a partially smoked cigarette dangling from her lips that looked lit from a distance, complete with her chant which she repeated all the way to the exit. Lauren had never felt such a thrill knowing that everyone within 20 feet of her was staring. Trevor’s initial bashfulness about her performance art yielded to sexual excitement as well, knowing he’d get a chance to feed the nicotine beast raging inside Lauren in mere moments when they stepped outside the mall….and thinking he had his best chance in weeks to get down those pants of hers that he already had his hands on.
Trevor and Lauren walked outside, immediately drawing the attention of Haylee who took instant notice of Lauren’s leather pants and Trevor groping her ass in them. She also noticed how Lauren handed Trevor her lighter which Trevor quickly used to fire up Lauren’s cigarette. While Trevor was busy watching Lauren’s cheeks collapsing to ingest as much smoke as her young lungs could possibly take in on that first drag off the light-up, Haylee was exhaling a snootful of her own
smoke and feeling yet another twinge of jealousy at seeing her invisible older brother suddenly having this pretty girl constantly doting on him. In more than 14 years of living, Haylee never remembered herself being jealous of her older brother….but now she found herself jealous of him all the time. Much as she liked Lauren generally, she couldn’t help resenting her a little for taking away her brother’s innocence and making her feel less complete about herself because of her very limited romantic experience. Haylee took another drag from her cigarette and from out of the corner of her eye noticed that Grant was still eyeballing her. She smiled his way and pursed her lips to exhale a stream of smoke his direction. Grant smiled back and Haylee now had official confirmation that he was very much into her.
But before she had time to make her next move, she noticed Trevor and Lauren were approaching her and the boys. “Ready to go?”, Lauren asked the trio collectively to which the restless boys emphatically agreed. Haylee could see this opportunity slipping away from her, took a look towards Grant, and then made her request…
“Would you mind taking the boys home and watching them till their parents get back?” Haylee asked. “I’d like to stick around here for a while.”
A confused look emerged on both Trevor and Lauren’s faces after hearing Haylee’s request. Lauren asked, “What’s going on here?”
An adorably bashful look emerged on Haylee’s mildly freckle-specked face for a second before she shifted her eyes subtly to her left, leading both Trevor and Lauren to look Grant’s direction and quickly identify that Haylee was trolling for a boy. Trevor just smirked but Lauren’s eyes lit up with excitement for Haylee, whispering “he’s cute” in a girlish squeal that only made Haylee more embarrassed as they both made eyes with the cleancut light brunette boy in the jacket and jeans. “Go after him”, Lauren encouraged Haylee, pausing for a second to add “… before I do!” winking at Trevor as she said it.
Grant sat there not knowing what to make of the situation, now feasting his eyes on two beautiful smoker girls his age aggressively attending to their cigarettes. But he was about to run out of time to assess the situation as he began to notice Lauren, Trevor, and the boys walking away at the same time as Haylee was walking towards him. Grant was already a little intimidated by her being this beautiful young girl publicly smoking cigarettes, but watching her perfect early teen body draped in the pink tank top and white shorts approaching him with her light
brown hair gently whipping with the mild breeze and getting closer with every footstep, he was suddenly freezing up with apprehension until she sat right down next to him. Grant had never been this close to a young girl smoking a cigarette and the odour of smoke on her hit him like a freight train. He didn’t find it offensive, but definitely found it different…and even though he would deny it if ever asked, he definitely found some sex appeal to it.
“Hey I’m Haylee.” greeted Haylee with a perky jubilation that successfully camouflaged her anxiousness approaching this boy cold, something she rarely did.
An even more nervous Grant introduced himself as well, trying to avoid shifting his eyes to the two-thirds smoked cigarette between Haylee’s fingers but being unable to control himself. “Sorry my dad was being such a dick earlier,” Grant said, apologising for his father’s scolding lecture and then looking over his left shoulder hoping his dad wasn’t gonna be returning any time soon but knowing that he probably would be.
“No worries,” Haylee responded, “I get it all the time!” she further exclaimed an instant before taking another deep drag which Grant couldn’t resist watching from close-up. As he studied her smoking technique with a boyish curiosity, she enhanced the experience further flashing a deep smile as she exhaled her smoke in the general direction of his face but avoiding a direct hit. Grant could feel a tingle flow through his body watching this strangely erotic display. His very limited previous experiences in the presence of cigarette smoking was generally negative and he was in no way prepared for this feeling of exhilaration he was experiencing in the presence of a smoker whose profile didn’t at all match the profile he had ever associated with smoking before. Haylee broke the silence with “You seem way cooler than your dad.”
Their awkward introductory back and forth continued for a few more rounds but both of them were visibly nervous about the imminent return of Grant’s father. They were connecting though and Haylee didn’t want to see him drift away, leading her to force a first date on the spot, abruptly asking “Wanna go see a movie?”
Grant froze in place for a moment, partially because he was being asked out by this hot smoker girl generally but also because he didn’t know how it could be pulled off logistically given that he was traveling with the family. But something about this rebellious girl was contagious and he agreed. She took him by the hand and began to walk away before Grant’s parents returned, but she took one final drag from her Camel Pink No. 9 and tossed it to her feet as something of a calling
card, hoping that when Grant’s father came back outside and saw her still- smouldering cigarette butt right where his son was sitting, that he just might realise she was the one responsible for his “abduction”.
***
Meanwhile, Trevor’s car began to load up with young people with Lauren sitting in the passenger seat and Joshua and Jarrod climbing into the back seat. Trevor sat behind the wheel and carefully studied Lauren’s form in those tight leather pants as she sat down, the leather tightening even further on her waist and lap. Seconds after sitting down she reached into her purse and pulled out her pack of Marlboro Lights 100s, handing Trevor the lighter and appearing to be in quite a hurry for him to spark her up and feed her nicotine craving. Watching Lauren’s cheeks go concave and the release of another blast of smoke inside the car without any of the windows down yet, Trevor quietly marvelled how only a few weeks after experiencing the smoking culture in the McPherson home, Lauren was now lighting up a cigarette in a closed car with two very young boys in the backseat without even giving it a second thought. And while getting lost in her eyes making this observation, Lauren flashed Trevor a bubbly, come-hither smile that reflected both her intensifying attraction and her bodily satisfaction the fresh nicotine jolt was providing her. Trevor reached an epiphany at that moment as he evaluated how the rest of his day might go, knowing that his mom and dad would be away until early evening. A familiar mischievous smirk emerged on his face as he told Lauren, “Stay put with the boys for a couple of minutes. I gotta pick something up in the mall.”
Lauren was confused but could tell by Trevor’s smirk he was up to something. “What are you gonna get?”
“It’s a surprise!” Trevor responded, raising his eyebrows suggestively before getting out of the car and hastily progressing back towards the mall entrance, leaving behind an intrigued Lauren in the car watching with wonderment about what he was up to as he sprinted to the mall. She took another drag from her cigarette and as the car was filling up with smoke, she finally realised she hadn’t cracked the window and proceeded to put it down only a half inch or so.
Trevor hustled on through the mall en route to his secret destination, passing by the House of Leathers and not realising his older sister was being interrogated. Courtney’s middle-aged boss Kurt had just returned after a late lunch, decked out in a button-down shirt and black pants with a bit of an early 40s paunch around the
belly and looking like the cliche of a customer service manager who takes his job way too seriously. He immediately got a whiff of the still-lingering cigarette smoke in the store that originated from Lauren in the fitting room. He sternly looked Courtney’s way and asked “Seriously? You’re smoking inside the store now?”
Courtney figured Kurt would smell the smoke but a visibly annoyed look emerged on her face based on the accusation. “It wasn’t me,” she said shaking her head exasperatedly. “It was one of the customers smoking in the fitting room. I told her to put it out and she did.”
A still-skeptical look emerged on Kurt’s face as he smugly said “Uh-huh”. Courtney couldn’t tell if he was messing with her or not but tried to articulate her response in a way that would be appropriate either way, taking out her pack of Marlboro Light Menthol 100s under the counter and extracting one with her lighter. “I’ll tell you what. No that you’re FINALLY back from lunch, I’m gonna go out and have a cigarette. My menthols smell a lot different than the smoke in her right now. If you don’t believe me, you can come out and smell for yourself.”
Kurt’s poker face broke into a bit of a smirk and Courtney began to realise she wasn’t really in trouble and her own expression relaxed a bit before she started walking away to make good on her promise to have a cigarette. Kurt couldn’t help but watch her chiseled ass framed in that tight leather miniskirt walk towards the employee exit at the back of the store before she disappeared.
***
Encircling the perimeter of the mall on foot en route to the movie theatre, Haylee held the hand of the very apprehensive Grant who clearly had no idea what he was getting into with this hot girl who was unlike any other girl he had ever met before. Reinforcing that distinction, Haylee reached into her purse with her free hand and once again produced her pack of Camel Pink No. 9’s. Not even inquiring about Grant’s comfort level with her smoking, she extracted a cigarette and lit it up. Grant was taken aback by her boldness and the blast of smelly cigarette smoke emanating from her facial orifices that quickly invaded his airspace. Grant was looking to make small talk and couldn’t resist any longer touching upon the issue that intrigued him most.
“Wow, you sure smoke a lot. Do your parents know?” Grant asked.
Haylee shrugged and answered “Of course”. As much as she loved smoking, it had been part of her own lifestyle and that of her family for so long she never really gave it much thought. But Grant was about to give her an interrogation.
“And they don’t mind?” asked Grant.
Haylee took another dangling drag and then looked at him with smoke spilling out of her mouth and nose as she responded through a talking dangle “Nah, a lot of people in my family smoke. They got used to it pretty fast.”
“How long have you been smoking?” “Since I was 11.”
“And you’re 14 now?” Grant asked, confirming the age she heard her mention to her dad when asked, to which Haylee nodded. “How much do you smoke a day?”
Haylee paused for a moment and said “Hmmmm….” as she pondered the question, never really having taken stock of her daily consumption rate. “Probably like a pack and a half on school days but more on weekends.”
“Wow,” Grant said, feeling another tingling sensation of arousal down his pants that he wasn’t quite able to reconcile.
“You sure are interested in my smoking aren’t you?” Haylee asked with a giggle, briefly connecting the dots in her head as to Lauren’s possible appeal to the nonsmoking Trevor as well.
Grant was a little bashful about responding knowing he had been busted and didn’t want to dwell on the matter any longer, simply half-heartedly shrugging to her inquiry and then changing the subject. “So what movie do you want to see?”
“Not sure yet,” Haylee responded while pausing to take another drag from her cigarette. “We’ll see what’s playing when we get there”, removing the cigarette from her mouth and then using the cigarette to point in the direction of the theatre which was on the horizon, a gesture that really turned Grant on as he appreciated the extent to which her cigarette was an extension of her body every time she smoked.
The intensity of the cigarette aroma lurking around Haylee’s person was overwhelming and sexy in a way Grant never imagined it would be until 15 minutes earlier when he first saw Haylee sit down. As lost as he was in her presence, Grant had forgotten that he had abandoned his parents until his phone started ringing. He took the phone out of his pocket and saw “Dad” in bold black letters on the caller ID. He didn’t know what to do and just let it ring until it went to voicemail.
Haylee flashed him a pretty smile before asking “Your dad?”
Grant nodded nervously. “Not sure what to say to him”.
“Give me the phone,” Haylee said authoritatively, placing her cigarette between her lips for a very lengthy dangle as Grant handed her his phone, wondering what this mystery girl was gonna do to shake up his world next. She just started texting furiously on the phone and Grant kept looking up from the phone to her face, watching the cigarette intermittently stiffen in her lips when she took a dangling drag before loosening up and letting the smoke spill from her mouth and nose, blurring the visibility between Haylee’s eyes and the phone. Once Haylee finished texting the message, she showed the phone to Grant and asked “How’s this?” through another talking dangle.
Grant looked over the message reading “Saw a couple of friends from school while waiting and they wanted to see a movie with me. I’ll take the bus home. Talk to you later.” Grant was impressed with how quickly Haylee thought on her feet and he nodded approvingly before she clicked send. A follow-up text by dad quickly ensued affirming Grant’s departure. The con had worked….and just in time as they approached the entrance to the theatre and looked over what was playing.
Grant was thinking logically and was asking if she’d seen this action film or that comedy that were on the list of movies. But Haylee caught him off guard when she used the stub of her cigarette to point to the name of a movie with a foreign title that neither she nor Grant had heard of before. “I want to see this one! I’ve heard really good things!”
Grant looked at her with puzzlement and wondered if she was serious. “I’ve never heard of it before.”
Haylee winked at him and said “You’ll just have to trust me on this one,” before taking a final drag from her cigarette and flinging the butt to the sidewalk. She
tightened her grip on his hand and said through a final talking exhale “Let’s go in. It starts in 15 minutes!”
Grant let Haylee lead the way and watched her tight package of a body walk in front of him through the entrance of the theatre past several others looking at the movie listings, a couple of whom could smell the fresh smoke on Haylee and briefly wrinkled their noses. Over the course of the next few minutes they bought their tickets and went inside the theatre. It was nearly empty, and Haylee again led the way to the theatre’s remote back corner where nobody was within 20 feet of them. Grant had an idea what Haylee may have had in mind but didn’t want to build his hopes up as he sat there next to her. The naughtiness of the smile on her face confirmed his suspicions of her motives and they both knew that their first experience with a French film was likely to be very memorable no matter how good or bad the movie was.
***
A half hour passed before Trevor pulled into his parents’ driveway. He made sure he opened the trunk first to extract the bag that he picked up at the last minute. Once that bag was in hand, he let Lauren pick up the bags full of her purchases from the trunk as well and the two of them approached the home with the excited young boys leading the way. Trevor and Lauren continued to exchange lustful glances and they walked inside the empty McPherson house with that distinctive tobacco aroma that hits Lauren like a punch every time she walks inside. Trevor and Lauren both knew today was the perfect opportunity to consummate their relationship, but had no idea how it would be logistically possible with the boys around. But Trevor had a plan…
“I got something to show you guys”, Trevor said, motioning for the boys to follow him into his bedroom. The boys were excited by the sound of it and Lauren followed, knowing that Trevor was once again up to something. Lauren had never been in Trevor’s room before and before she even got there heard Jarrod exclaim “Cooolll!” at the site of something. Lauren turned the corner to see a very elaborate electric train set circling around the room. Trevor’s dad inherited this train set from his dad, an old railroad conductor, and passed it along from son to son. Trevor remembered playing with it as a boy and recently mentioned it to his dad that it might be fun to break out again for a nostalgic trip down memory lane. Trevor put much of the track together and had messed around with it for a little to get it out of his system, but quickly lost interest in it as he had in the past. Now he
was gonna be in a race against time to hold the interest level of the next generation of young boys introduced to the train set here and now.
Trevor explained to the boys how to run the train, and more importantly to load the silo with little plastic pellets representing coal that empty into the open cars of the track as they go by. Given how elaborate the train set was and the boys’ excitement over seeing it, he was hoping as he turned over the reins to them that they’d be amused just long enough for him to have the freedom with Lauren he’d been seeking for weeks now. Trevor watched the boys playing with the train set with excitement in their eyes and closed the door behind them, leaving them alone with it.
“Trevor McPherson!” Lauren playfully scolded Trevor in a subdued voice, trying not to draw the boys’ attention through the door. “How dare you use those poor young boys to make your naughty fantasies with me come true?”
Trevor smirked back. “You’re right. We should forget about making out and go back inside to help the boys out.”
Lauren giggled and shook her head with pretend scorn, just before biting her lower lip. Trevor had by now grown to recognise that that lower lip biting gesture was Lauren’s tell that she was about one second away from kissing him. This time was no different as she approached her mouth to Trevor’s and they began making out, her breath still having enough residual tobacco taste to it that it sufficiently stimulated Trevor. He lowered his hand down her back to those tight leather pants and began rubbing her asscheek while they made out. But it was time to take the big gamble and proceed to the next level. Trevor began leading Lauren down the hallway towards another bedroom in mid-kiss. She went along until they were at the end of the hallway and turned right into what was clearly his parents’ bedroom.
Lauren pulled apart from him once they stepped in and Trevor was eagerly anticipating her response. “In your parent’s room??!?!” Lauren asked playfully but with obvious hesitation. “You’re baaad!!!”
Trevor always loved when Lauren used that line as he never felt like a “bad boy” before until he started seducing her and getting called out for it. He could tell Lauren was a little apprehensive and creeped out by the prospect as they got to the bed and Trevor started pulling the covers off. The logistics that Trevor had already thought of were starting to become real to Lauren, and Trevor could see it in her eyes as she softly reminded him, “You know I’m a virgin, right?”
Trevor nodded, knowing exactly where she was going with this when he added “So am I.”
“Well…” Lauren began to add, feeling embarrassed as she pointed out what she thought Trevor hadn’t thought of before, “…I might leave some stains on your parents’ bed sheets.” blushing as the words came out.
That familiar sinister smirk re-emerged on Trevor’s face as he responded, “Be back in one second.” Lauren made her familiar “you crazy boy” face in response, knowing Trevor once again had something up his sleeve as he walked out of the room. She was wondering what on Earth he was up to this time as she could hear him briefly rummaging through the hall and then returning with the mystery bag he made a special trip back into the mall to pick up. Trevor opened the bag and pulled out a plastic case containing a set of tan bed sheets. He laid the plastic package on the top of the bed and had Lauren look at them. The new set was identical to the bed sheets already on his parents’ bad.
Lauren looked back at him sitting on the bed and said “You’re sooooo baaad!” and lunged towards Trevor with the beginning of another extended make-out session that Trevor knew was about to lead to the promised land.
***
Fifteen minutes into a jaw-droppingly boring French movie with English subtitles in a very thinly populated movie theatre, Grant sat next to Haylee in their particularly sparse back corner making increasingly frequent eye contact with her and coming to terms with the fact that she brought him to this movie because she wanted him to make a move. Grant nervously took the bait and put his arm gingerly around her shoulder, slowly intensifying his grasp around her shoulder as he measured her response. He quickly got the response he wanted and Haylee’s head crashed onto his shoulder. A couple of minutes passed as the two of them got increasingly comfortable in each other’s embrace when Grant pushed the limits a bit further as he leaned down to give Haylee a kiss on the forehead. She raised her eyes up to him approvingly and then took a much bigger gamble of her own….
As Haylee reached down to her purse and began fidgeting around, Grant’s first instinct was that she was reaching for her cigarettes, but then he let that thought drift from his mind as no way would this girl be brash enough to try that. But Grant was only able to latch onto this denial for a couple of seconds before Haylee’s
pack of Camel Pink No. 9’s made another appearance. Grant sat speechlessly as Haylee slipped an all-white cigarette into her mouth and lit up, taking her first drag and sneakily exhaling the smoke down to her lap while holding her cigarette hand below the seat to disguise it as best as possible.
“You can’t smoke in here!” Grant exclaimed in as restrained of a whisper as possible. Haylee put the index finger of her free hand up to her lips to make a “shoosh” gesture while beaming a come-hither smile at Grant. They were lost in each other’s eye contact for a good 10 seconds and both extremely turned on. It took Grant a little longer than Haylee preferred to muster up the courage to dive in, but he finally took the bait and they locked lips. Grant and Haylee both had very limited experience with making out and this was definitely as intense as either of them had gotten, slipping each other’s tongue into the mouth of the other intermittently while pressing their lips together, with Haylee pulling apart every 45 seconds or so to slip another stealth drag from her cigarette. Grant’s complex feelings towards Haylee’s ashtray mouth made the situation that much more invigorating as he was both turned on and a little repelled by Haylee’s smoking, yet every time she took another drag, the intensity of their oral exchange became that much more tangible for both of them.
***
The House of Leathers along with most of the rest of the stores at Willow Creek Mall were closing at 5:00 that Sunday afternoon and Kurt was lowering the screened gate at his store’s entry. It was closing time and he turned around to see Courtney with her familiar pack of Marlboro Light Menthol 100s in hand, extracting one and dangling it unlit from her lips. He began to approach her and with a stern, scolding voice confronted her again, saying “What did I tell you about smoking in the store?” walking closer and closer until he was clearly violating Courtney’s space.
A playful smirk emerged on Courtney’s face as she answered, “That I can only do it in the backroom.”
Kurt nodded affirmatively as he grabbed Courtney by the waist and led her towards the backroom of the store, closing the door behind him and beginning to make out. During the brief makeout session, the usual twinge of guilt overwhelmed Kurt’s conscience. Even though Courtney was 17 and the age of consent in Minnesota was 16, he knew the world would not see their relationship as appropriate and at the very least his 43-year-old ass would be fired if anybody learned of their sexual
dalliance. As he pulled apart from the kiss and looked in Courtney’s beautiful eyes before taking the opportunity to study her long blond hair, perky young breasts, and incredible lower body draped in that leather miniskirt while she was lighting up her cigarette, and that was all the reminder he needed that it was more than worth the risk to regularly molest Courtney. And as Courtney’s swollen lungs released one of her typically tight and monstrously voluminous exhales of menthol cigarette smoke several feet skyward, Kurt had the last bit of motivation he needed to get it on.
Courtney let out a girlish yip as Kurt lifted her up by the waist, getting his hands on that skirt made of the leather he works with every day but who he had never seen anyone wear as amazingly as Courtney did. He sat her down on the edge of a table that served as a de facto break room in the back of the store and Courtney cooperatively spread her legs apart as Kurt reached up her skirt and latched his finger around the underside of her panties, feeling her already-moist genitals as he used the finger to pull the panties off of her. Courtney’s intensifying passion was released through amplifying moans and with continued drags on her cigarette, released in tight skyward jets that launched out of her mouth and nose like rockets. She was unzipping the fly on Kurt’s pants and pulled them down at the same moment as Kurt was hiking up the leather skirt over her waist, exposing her privates to his for a brief couple of moments before he pulled her tight and thrust himself into her.
The feeling of Kurt’s had cock inside of her was like heaven to Courtney, at least as satisfying to her insides as the cigarette smoke had been. She tried to contain the loudness of her moans as he violated her and taking frequent drags from her cigarette proved helpful on that end. While continuing to take in the forceful yet pleasurable thrusts into her vagina, Courtney had flashes of guilt of her own, putting this older man who happened to be her boss in some potential jeopardy and keeping their forbidden romance a secret from absolutely everybody. Courtney had been telling her parents that she was going out with friends for months now but more often than not when she got decked out in her seductive leather outfits she was actually going to Kurt’s place for sordid sexual relations. She had no idea what her attraction was to Kurt as he was not conventionally attractive in either body or mind while dozens of guys her own age had been trying to get down her pants for years, but something clicked during the many hours they had worked together at the House of Leathers over the last several months and led to where they are now.
And where they were now was right on the precipice of orgasm, their physical union approaching its climax with a mutual exchange of bodily fluids. They exploded into each other and Courtney had just finished a drag from her cigarette when she felt an eruption between her legs, a geyser of male fluids the belched into her and the pleasure distorted the trajectory of her exhale, with the cigarette smoke she was about to release skyward instead spilling out of her mouth for a direct blast into Kurt’s face. Kurt was shy about his fetish and didn’t want Courtney to know about it, so pretended to be grossed out by the haze of her menthol smoke hovering in front of his face that he exaggeratedly waved away before smiling at her over their latest amazing round of intercourse. Courtney smiled back as they looked into each other’s eyes lovingly and let their bodies relax from the workout they just endured.
***
Trevor was a little concerned that his master plan may be poised to blow up in his face as he worked and worked to get Lauren out of those tight leather pants and fuck her before he lost his erection. And he still had to slip the condom on too! Gahhh…this was all going wrong. But he finally got some momentum in slithering those leather pants off Lauren’s waist and everything else fell in place as she climbed atop him on his parents’ bed, continuing to make out. The condom he’d been keeping in his pocket for weeks went on and Lauren was quickly naked and flat on her back on the bed, the first time Trevor had ever seen her or any live girl naked. This was about to happen!
Trevor had heard enough from friends and cousins who had lost their virginity that this would likely be a quick encounter, so he made sure to savour in his first penetration of Lauren, whose face lit up with ecstasy at her first experience with sex. Trevor was having his own first experience with sex as he repeatedly thrust himself into her virgin vagina, and watched her eyes closely to watch the mixed reaction, noticing that there was at least as much pain for her as there was pleasure. But right before the pain got the better of Lauren, Trevor’s rookie manhood had reached its own limit. He pulled himself apart from her and they laid there breathing heavily.
Trevor was a little concerned watching Lauren sit there quietly and asked “So how was it?”
“It hurt!” Lauren said while trying to catch her breath. “But I still loved it”, she added, putting Trevor’s mind at ease as she pulled him down to kiss her. After
they pulled apart, she reached for her purse and took out her cigarettes. Trevor lit up her Marlboro Light 100 and then looked to the nightstand where his mom’s butt bucket was overflowing with cork filter Marlboro Red butts.
“Be sure to flush that butt when you’re done,” Trevor warned. I wouldn’t want us to get caught because my mom sees the wrong cigarette butt in her ashtray”.
Lauren giggled in agreement while pursing her lips to exhale a stream of cigarette smoke larger than anything Trevor had seen from Lauren before. “Totally agree”, she added, taking another massive drag from her cigarette and making really intense eye contact with Trevor before exhaling another equally large blast of cigarette smoke directly into his face.
Trevor was lost in her eyes in a way he never had been before to that degree when he almost involuntarily let it slip, “I love you, Lauren.”
Lauren’s already beaming face erupted into an even brighter smile and she responded “I love you too, Trevor. So much.” They started making out again and Trevor was really appreciating the intense cigarette breath from their first-ever postcoital kiss, something he looked forward to doing many times in the future.
But as they continued to get lost in each other’s loving almost to the point of some encore copulating becoming a real possibility, they were brought to reality by a young boy’s voice as Jarrod called out “Trevor? Lauren? Where are you?”
The young couple jerked apart and began to scramble to clean themselves up and slip back into their clothes. A couple of minutes later, Trevor was dressed and as quietly as possible slipped out of his parents’ bedroom. Jarrod didn’t see Trevor come out so when he approached he was able to convince Jarrod that he was in the bathroom and quickly distracted him by asking how much progress they made with the electric train. In the meantime, Lauren was replacing the bloody bed sheets in Trevor’s parents bed with the new ones he bought, as well as taking her white-filtered Marlboro Light 100 out of the bedroom to be sure she removed any evidence of what she had done with Trevor in his parents’ bed.
Trevor could tell the boys had grown bored with the electric train but nonetheless sat with them on the bedroom floor asking them to show him their progress. This continued for a few moments before the flick of a lighter from behind drew Trevor’s attention. He turned around to see a disheveled but smiling Lauren standing in the entryway of his room with a freshly lit cigarette dangling from her lips and the
contents of her first exhale beginning to spill into the bedroom. They smiled at each other and even Jarrod was picking up on the electric body language when he casually shouted, “You two lovebirds!” before diverting his attention back to the electric train, having no idea the extent to which the two lovebirds had just connected.
***
The original make-out session between Grant and Haylee lasted at least five minutes but was by now a good half hour old. There was an awkwardness between them in the interim as they both appeared to be a little shy about what they had done. But Haylee was bored with the movie and wanted to break this silence. She also badly needed a cigarette and hoped that, like before, she’d be able to kill two birds with one stone as she reached for her purse and took out another Camel Pink No. 9. Grant just looked at her and shook his head scoldingly as she lit up again.
“What?!” Haylee whispered with pretend puzzlement, smoke spilling out of her mouth and nose. The ploy worked though as Grant pulled in for another kiss. And this time, their make-out session got more intense more quickly. Grant approached every move up to this point with apprehension but found that it was almost reflexive to ascend his hand up Haylee’s shirt as they made out. Getting no resistance at all from Haylee, his hand progressed up her stomach and onto her bra. Haylee had never had a boy touch her breasts before but it was living up to her fantasies entirely as Grant moved his hand from breast to breast, stroking them and occasionally reaching into the bra to touch her nipples. Haylee put her hand up his shirt as well and explored his upper body with her fingers. Again, they pulled apart only long enough for Haylee to take the occasional drag from her cigarette and then press together for another ashtray-mouthed make-out encounter.
Grant was about to muster up the courage to go to third base as he removed his hand from Haylee’s shirt and was now moving towards her waist, stroking her ass and progressing his fingers to the crotch of her form-fitting white shorts. But just as Grant was beginning to unzip the fly and attain unlimited access, the couple discovered they got lost in each other long enough to miss out on the approaching threat. A shrill female voice bellowed out, “That’s about enough. Time for you to get out.”
The young couple jumped in their chairs, startled to their core and freezing for a moment at having been so thoroughly busted. Grant’s face turned candy apple red with embarrassment as they pulled apart but Haylee’s face was brimming with naughty jubilation.
“And put out that damn cigarette!” adds the theatre worker. “You know there’s no smoking in here. What the hell’s the matter with you?”
Haylee smirked as she approached the cigarette to her lips for one final drag as the theatre attendant shouted “Out!” at a voice loud enough to turn every head in the theatre.
Haylee tossed the half-smoked cigarette into the paper soft drink cup that she had been using as an ashtray before standing up and sassing at the unamused theatre worker looking at her with the anger of a principal about to administer some serious discipline, “Let a girl get up out of her chair, would you?”
An embarrassed Grant walked out of the theatre with Haylee following, the theatre worker following both of them out the door of their screen and then completely out of the building. “I don’t ever want to see either of you in here again, got it?!?!” she added as they pressed onward.
Grant looked at Haylee as they walked out of sight. “Kicked out of the movie theatre on the first date,” Grant playfully scolded her once he got over his embarrassment. “What will we do on our second date?”
Haylee smiled as they stop and face each other. “Who knows…but I can’t wait to find out.” she added. They press together and begin kissing once again, knowing that the momentum from before was lost for now, but that the Grant and Haylee story was just getting started.
***
Three hours later and well after dark, Steve and Becky were home from their weekend getaway and everybody in the McPherson home was seated in front of the TV watching another Disney movie with Jarrod and Joshua. Steve and Judy’s eyes darted around the room picking up on a lot of strong body language that suggested plenty had gone on during their weekend away.
Courtney sat there in her chair, having changed from her leather miniskirt to a pair of leggings, lost in her phone as she texted away with a beaming smile on her face and dragging on one of several Marlboro Light Menthol 100s she had smoked since she got home. The smile on Courtney’s face as she read and responded to texts while filling the room up with cigarette smoke from her monstrous straight- ahead exhales was not the kind of smile that comes from a typical teenage girl who spent her Sunday at work and had to go back to school in a few hours.
Trevor and Lauren sat there on the couch a few feet away with Lauren also back in her leggings and resting in Trevor’s embrace, her chest expanding and contracting with every drag from her cigarette. All too frequently, she tilted her head upward to look at Trevor and the lovey-dovey eye contact between them which Steve and Becky had noticed for weeks seemed to be operating at a totally different level tonight.
And then there was Haylee, surrounded on both sides by two young boys forced to choke on the direct assault of secondhand smoke she continued to expose them to as one of many cigarettes that evening dangled from her lips. Haylee was also distracted to excess amidst a flurry of texts exchanged with the “new friend” she had just met a few hours earlier. Her face was positively beaming as well.
Eight people in one room and a Disney cartoon on TV…yet nobody was really watching. Everybody in the room was either distracted by their phones or observing the body language of others in the room. Steve and Becky looked at each other, a familiar worry evident in both of their eyes that their kids were growing up fast and some major headaches were likely on the immediate horizon. But the worry seemed to turn to acceptance rather quickly as they ran with the mood of the room and got lost in each other’s eyes remembering the highlights of their own weekend together which wasn’t that far removed from what their offspring had been up to in their absence. Steve knew exactly what Becky wanted and picked up the pack of Marlboro Reds sitting on the end table next to them, pulling one out of the pack and lighting it up for her.