Lucy Gilmartin smiled as stepped back in her new bedroom. The large mahogany dressing table taken out of storage by her dad last week, was finally installed in her new house. It just fitted in against the wall at the end of the bed.
She had worked bloody hard to get to her position in sales to afford to buy on her own the house, with a little help from her Mum and Dad with the deposit. As such with the financial help there was also some assistance with furniture for the house. There were things that her Dad emotionally just could not throw out when he cleared his parents’ house after his mum had died. A truck load of brown furniture and memories had been stored in a self-storage container for almost twenty years.
Along with the antique dressing table there was, matching chest of draws, along with an old pine Welsh dresser which was currently downstairs currently in the middle of the dining room, with a folded over matching dining room table, and of course one of these very items was the full wall length dressing table she was currently looking at. It was rather imposing in the fairly modern house, it could be said that it was almost too big, but Lucy did not want to disappoint her dad, seeing as they had given so much money to help with the deposit towards the house, so she eagerly agreed without looking at them that they would come with her.
She stood looking at the three stately large movable mahogany backed, brass lined mirrors and tens of small draws with weathered matching brass handles. It looked heavy and carrying up the stairs, it was heavy. Lucy puffed her cheeks out and ran her hands through her long strawberry blonde hair, another trait from her granny Gilmartin, and peeled the white fluffy hairband off her arm and put the hair up in a long ponytail. She was proud of her long hair, even if it was ginger and all the bullying she got, she had survived school eventually; but she enjoyed it when it swished and tickled her lower back when she walked.
She leaned forward and turned on the cheap little yellow lamp she had got a charity shop last week and glanced and studied the large mirror closely there was some foxings in the corner where the backing had disintegrated, she smiled her white teeth in the mirror as her ‘strawberry and cream’ complexion on her still young looking face smiled back.
With that she shrugged her shoulders, turned, took a deep breath for confidence, and headed down the stairs to start rearranging the living room, which currently consisted of four full cardboard boxes and her favourite large tatty cushion from her days at university.
That evening after spending a great deal of time swearing at the thermostat, she acknowledges that it was her dad in her, as she should have listened about how to work the boiler she eventually headed to bed, she sprinted up the dark stairs, one of things on her list was a new lightbulb for the fitting at the top.
She flicked on the lamp again and sat down on the almost ghastly flower-patterned matching stool and she again looked at herself in the mirror, her face was red and puffy from spending all evening head down, bum up, cleaning cupboards, and then emptying boxes of cutlery, pans, vases and a mountain of tea towels into the now spotlessly clean cupboards. Her mum and dad were again coming over tomorrow to help again move some more things around. She looked down between her legs and pulled out the supermarket carrier bag with all her toiletries that she had emptied from her rented flat and pulled out the face wipes.
Lucy studied her face again as she wiped the sweat and tears off her face, she instantly stopped and was taken aback by the triptych of her face reflecting back in the three mirrors, her face was lit from the uncovered energy saving bulb above her head and the lamp beside her but when she wiped her the mirror was ahead of her in time, it predicted where she was going with the cloth, her reflection was ahead of her actions, she was wiping her nose, whilst her reflection had moved on
to her neck, just before she did. It was as if her mirror knew what she was going to do. It spooked her. She had purposely not drunk anything alcoholic; Lucy shook her head and watched the reflection on three sides as carried on wiping. It sent a shiver down her spine, and then looking around realising she had not got a bin to dump the dirty face wipes in, she did a quick double glance at the mirror and got up and carried the carrier bag to the bathroom to do her teeth.
***
Lucy woke up early, it had again been a startled night of new house noises, every windowpane creak and water pipe groan was amplified around in her brain, being in the house on her own made things even more nerve wracking. The strange trick the mirror had done had played on her brain all night as well. She could not wait to get up.
She almost jumped out of bed, as she felt an inquisitive magnetism to the dressing table, Lucy pulled the stool out from the wooden cutaway in the middle and sat down she studied the mirror, and her face went in and out nothing strange happened, it acted as if it was a normal mirror.
As the morning sun brightly shone through the thin cheap curtains as if it were midday, the plain white walls looked almost magnolia in colour with the yellow light, Lucy brought her hands together and clicked her knuckles, and out of curiosity started to open the drawers. She had believed that they were empty, at least that is what her dad had told her as she had cleverly and correctly suggested taking them out before he had helped her carry it up the stairs yesterday. They had at least taken the mirror part off, as neither of them wanted twenty-one years bad luck.
Lucy tugged at the top left-hand drawer, she had to wiggle it, and it slowly opened, she shook her head, she tucked her hair behind her ear and looked in, there were still a load of old antique brushes, a comb, and a matching old perfume bottle, all with lovely plated silver handles and tops. Lucy chuckled and cursed under her breath it would have made the whole thing lighter if they had removed the tat from the draws. She opened the draw below and smiled it was clean old glass ashtray that she could remember seeing that her granny used to have. She picked it up and instinctively sniffed it, she could remember the old smell of cigarettes hanging around her granny’s old house, everyone used to bitterly complain about it.
She could remember the arguments between her mum and dad when granny was coming over to visit. It meant that Granny and her Dad had to have to take
frequent walks around their small garden. In winter there much consternation about hats and scarfs before spending five minutes in the garden. As a young child she found it hilarious, and as granny got older the walks got shorter and shorter until an old dining room chair was strategically put in the far corner of the back porch prior to her arrival, after that she didn’t come around much, if at all.
Lucy flicked her eyes up at the mirror before pushing the ashtray across the table with the tips of her nails as if it were from a Ouija board, as on the old wooden dressing tabletop, there was an old circular stain in the varnish which fitted the shape of the ashtray perfectly. Lucy giggled to herself as she lined up the marks, it was clearly showing how long it must have been there. She winced, as she determined that she must get the top sanded and polished off, another job for the list.
She looked to her right and pulled open the lowest left-hand draw, there was again a load of old make up. Why her dad wanted to leave all this in the drawers for years was beyond her. With a bit of grunt from the effort, she opened the top right- hand draw to find wrapped in an old white handkerchief a weighted gold plated lighter, she sighed and shook her head again. ‘What am I going to do with this?’ she asked herself as she examined it. The lighter was heavy in the hand, as she
looked closely it was engraved neatly Henry Gilmartin 1917, she paused and chewed the inside of her mouth, that was her great grandfathers’ name.
She coughed as the dust plumed out of the middle draw as she ran her hands through the other draw to find it empty, except for an 1980’s Sunday Times Magazine pages which had been used to line the draw she pulled out the sheet to study it, on one side was a day in life of some unknown celebrity from the 80’s full size advert for Silk Cut cigarettes, Lucy smiled at the dark mysterious purple swirls on the page pondering how silly they were to let people advertise cigarettes. As she had no time for the celebrity she didn’t know, Lucy pushed the paper back into place and straightened them up and looked up at herself in the mirror and sighed as by digging in the drawers the mirror was now covered in dust. She pulled open the other couple of drawers, each full of dust with a copy of the Sunday paper magazine, each with a different cigarette advert, Benson and Hedges with its yellow décor, Marlboro, and its red detailing. She concluded her grandma liked cigarette adverts.
As the room suddenly dimmed as a cloud crossed the sun outside Lucy looked down on the floor and nodded at her t-shirt from yesterday, she picked it off the floor and wiped the layer of dust off the mirror, only to be shocked at her face in the
reflection, she had to have a second look, as her Reflection now had a long white cylinder between her lips, Lucy she looked to the closed drawers and then back to the mirror, the orange filter between her pink lips matching the small freckles on her nose. Lucy shook her head and both her and Reflection leaned forward as she tried to study what she was looking at. She put her hand to her mouth and ran her finger across her lips, as was blinding obvious there wasn’t a cigarette there, she could see that with her own eyes as she looked down her nose, but as her hand went to her mouth the reflection used the gold lighter from the table to light the cigarette. Lucy shrieked as she panicked and very quickly wiped the mirror with the t shirt again, and finally let her breath out as her reflection was back to normal, she realised she had been holding it, and as she sniffed the air, she thought she could smell the faint remnants of cigarette smoke in the room.
Lucy got up still shaking her head and crouched down to her suitcase with her still unpacked clothes in and dug to the bottom and got her large fluffy yellow towel out and then with her naked frame headed to the shower.
Chapter 2
Lucy hummed to herself as she poured the hot water in to the mugs and then gently stirred the contents scared as if she was going to break the cups, before squeezing the teabags in the cups and gently carrying each one out separately and dumping them unceremoniously in the sink, before picking up and splashing the milk in the top she flicked her now dry long hair over her shoulder and then picked up two of the teacups and matching saucers and placed them in front her parents. They were practically shot glassed for hot fluid, compared to the large tea and coffee mugs she was used to.
“Thank you, mum, dad for helping me unpack and put away!”
The portly greying Graham Gilmartin smiled at his daughter. “It was the least we could do for you, other than cutting the grass at home, I didn’t have much planned, and the grass can wait until next week!”
“Graham, it will be sunny on Tuesday; you can do it then, Graham.” Wendy stated as a matter of fact “Thank you for the tea Luce!” She smiled and brought the blue dainty 1970’s flower print teacup to her mouth “We should take you to John Lewis and you can get some real mugs!” she shook her head and slurped.
“Maybe next weekend mum?” Lucy replied glancing at her dad who had kept them all in storage for all these years and then also took a sip.
“They are okay for her to get started with!” Graham responded defensively.
Wendy rolled her eyes as she had heard that before “So how was your first few nights in the house been?” she asked.
Lucy smiled at both parents “Oh not too bad, going to have to learn all the noises, which pipe groans, which window rattles, it will be all good fun, the wind blowing the letter box was interesting at three thirty!”
“So, you had a good night then Luce?” Wendy raised a recently died brown eyebrow which matched her recently styled hair.
“Yeah, I did.”
“Goody, we popped into town on the way in, as to get a replacement for that bulb at the top of the stairs you mentioned on the phone, we both thought you’d trip over in the night!” Wendy butted in.
Lucy chuckled “I was fine! But thank you.
“I will get up there and put it in shortly!” Graham nodded as he stroked his short moustache.
“Oh, thank you Dad, and I actually have rather random question for you, how much did Granny smoke?” Lucy asked before picking up and gulping her tea.
Wendy instantly turned to her husband “Grey, I told you we should have cleaned and polished all the furniture before delivering; it must all absolutely reek of the god dam smoke!” She snapped glaring at her husband and then sniffed the air.
“Hmmm, it’s been away from the smoke for years, I am sure it’s just musty Wend.” “Dad how much did she smoke?” Lucy asked holding the mug to her lips.
“Luce, I am sad to say a lot, she never got over dad dying with that surprise heart attack, and then her brother Ollie died a few months later.”
“Oh!” Lucy said and then nervously bit her bottom lips and put the cup down on the saucer.
“Yeah, she was never far away from her trusted pack of Silk Cuts, no…that was Uncle Ollie what where they now …what did she call them…B&H’s…that’s right… Benson and Hedges Golds, I can never remember even though I was surrounded by them for years, why do you ask?” Graham ran his hand through his greying balding hair.
“Oh, I don’t know, I just don’t really remember her too much, her dying when I was very young and all. I have her stuff and I can’t remember her much.”
“She was kind to you, spoiled you rotten, I thought she would love that you have got all her furniture, she was kind, wasn’t she Wend, but yes, I am sure there are pictures of you on her lap, now thinking back its awful she was there with her cigarette clamped between her lips or even in her hand. It was the late 80’s everyone still smoked, it wasn’t frowned upon. Wend, when we get back, we will dig in that cardboard box when we get home.”
“Oh, okay, I also just found her ashtray in the dressing table that we carted upstairs yesterday.”
Grahams eyes widened “I am so sorry, I thought it was empty as I went through and binned or given all a lot of that crap to a charity shop.” He glanced at Wendy as if to grovel as he spoke to say sorry for not binning it all.
Lucy chuckled “Its fine dad, I’ve even got your grandfathers lighter up there. Shall I go and get it?” She asked pushing the chair back.
“Oh, I remember, the gold one, mum showed me once, he got engraved before he went off the war. It was so different back then, everyone smoked.”
Wendy tutted “Right enough of this reminiscing about smoking, otherwise we will end up opening a bloody stinking tobacconist, shall we get on; this furniture isn’t going to move itself.” Declaring tea break over in her rather straightforward way.
Lucy gulped the last of her drink and noisily put the cup down and then corrected the position in the saucer, “Yes mum!” she saluted with a grin and stood up to attention.
Chapter 3
It was early on Monday morning, the dim light of sunrise had started to show through the curtains and Lucy sat in front of the mirror in just her strappy pyjama top brushing her long hair, she had to get up earlier to remove ‘bedhead’ and then do her makeup. As she worked in sales, looking her best, whilst seen as sexist, was in her head still vitally important.
Lucy kept studying and checking the mirror, nothing untoward was happening, every stroke of the silver handle as it brushed down her long hair matched her own arm. She could not get her head around it. Lucy put her now silky-smooth brushed hair up in a high ponytail and removed the clumps of hair from the brush and for convenience dumped it in the empty ashtray, and then delved into her carrier bag, she pulled out her foundation cream and started to work it into her pale face, she closed her eyes as she massaged her whole face including her eyelids.
She opened her eyes and again studied the mirror, she played with the mirror and shook her head and poked her tongue out at it, nothing.
Lucy glanced down at the bag and brought out the primer and applied it to her face and slowly massaged it into her skin, she again kept checking. Nothing.
She pulled out her long makeup brush and twiddled it between her fingers, whilst watching the mirror with one eye as she dug out her concealer and with the brush, she got to work under the weekend bags under her eyes, as she was busy focusing on her eyes, she suddenly coughed as she rocked back on the stool, she gulped as clocked her Reflection suddenly had a cigarette burning brightly dangled in the corner of her mouth.
Lucy placed her fingers to her lips to double check that there was nothing there, as she did her reflection did the same put the fingers around cigarette in a large V and clamped them together and then removed it from her lips as the smoke drifted out of her lips and even to Lucy the cloud was sexily almost teasingly as the drift became a flood as the Reflection exhaled from her actual lips. She sat there open mouth staring at the mirror mouth aghast, as a gentle stream of smoke rising towards the ceiling from the cigarette between her Reflections fingers in the mirror in front of her, Lucy sniffed the air, and looked around there was no smoke in the room, she shook her head in confusion and the reflection copied.
Lucy pulled out her powder and brush and touched her lips, as she did the reflection dangled the cigarette in the corner of her lips. As she applied her powder, the reflection, reflected every move. With the cigarette still dangled in the corner of her mouth, smoke rhythmically breath for breath with Lucy drifted out her reflected nose as she got to work with her eyes, she leaned forward to apply her favourite light blue eye liner, once finished she again touched her lips, her reflection’s cheeks collapsed inwards and the face relaxed as the tip of the cigarette burnt bright orange as the lungs of her reflection pulled on the cigarette, and as her hands rested on the table her image in the mirror both of them tilted their heads slightly as the mirror image exhaled a cone of light grey smoke out of her mouth and up and away.
She glanced behind her at the alarm clock on the bedside table grimaced, it was taking much longer this morning as she was sitting there watching something like herself smoke.
Lucy rummaged in the bag one handed keeping one hand on the desk, for no reason other than her reflection had a burning cigarette between her fingers until she found the black mascara. She had an urge to touch her lips again with her spare hand and the reflection placed the nearly finished cigarette back between her lips.
With the mascara applied she shuffled back on the stool and looked her reflection either side to ensure her eyes looked good as she turned her head, she couldn’t see her eyes, as the smoke rising from the cigarette, she touched her lips, and the reflection removed the cigarette. They smiled at each other Lucy then repeated looking closely at her makeup.
With the gentle pink lipstick applied Lucy waved goodbye to her reflection as she got up and tutted to herself for waving at her own reflection as she glanced at the butt in the reflected ashtray. However, the dressing table one was clean, there was no ash in the empty ashtray, the room had no smell of cigarettes, but she had just watched her reflection smoke a whole cigarette as if it were a YouTube video on her mirror.
With the button on her black work trousers done up and her white work blouse tucked in, Lucy threw some of her makeup from the dressing table into handbag and slipped it over her arm and headed down the stairs, the bag swinging off her arm. She was completely baffled by what had just happened.
***
Lucy sang to herself as drove home from work in her little second-hand red Mini, she had to remind herself to turn off at the correct junction, as for the last five years she had been going the opposite way, and as she turned off the main road, she slowed down and started indicating to pull in as she clocked a corner shop up ahead. She been thinking about stopping on the way home to pick up some rice to go with the chicken dinner her mum had kindly left yesterday, but at first glance she could not see an empty parking spot and with a peek in the rear-view mirror there was car close behind, so with a shake of her head she flicked the stork the other way and reluctantly carried on home.
She was faced with her bare living room with four large cardboard boxes taking up most of the space in middle of the lounge. She sighed loudly dropped her black work jacket on the sofa and thought about the boxes before shaking her head and leaving them there and heading up the stairs unbuttoning her blouse as she went.
Lucy smiled at her finished bedroom, the dressing table, bed, curtains all looked good. She pulled open the mahogany chest of draws that matched the dressing table and pulled out a large green t shirt to wear whilst cooking as not to ruin her work blouse, so she could get away with wearing it again tomorrow.
She dropped her white blouse on the edge of the bed and pulled the t-shirt over her head and tugged it down over her white lacy bra, and then glanced to the side, and her bright blue eyes studied the mirror then they widened, she couldn’t see her own reflection in the glass, but she could see from the angle on the right-hand mirror that she was looking at a golden yellow pack of Benson and Hedges on the dressing tabletop next to the ashtray. She bit her lip, her Granny smoked those. She knew it wasn’t there in reality, as it was a clean top other than the perfume bottle, gold lighter, empty glass ashtray and a blue box of tampons that she had picked up off the kitchen table, carried up the stairs and forgotten to take to the further five steps to bathroom, there was nothing else on top, certainly no pack of cigarettes, was the mirror confusing the boxes sanitary products and cigarettes, she did a double check, but the reflection definitely showed a golden yellow pack of Benson and Hedges cigarettes.
Lucy ran her tongue across her lips and worriedly bit her bottom one. This was really starting to freak her out.
Chapter 4
With both her bedtime and morning routine over the next week, it drove her mad they all followed the same pattern as before, Lucy watched with growing confusion and anticipation of her Reflection calmly sitting in front of her smoking, the smoke dancing out of her lips and nose, her face muscles clearly showed how much she enjoyed the cigarette whilst Lucy busily got herself ready for bed and then again in the morning putting the make up on getting ready for work.
Sleeping at night was hard, as all she could think of was her Reflection and of the smoke drifting out her mouth, every time she rolled over, she could see a waterfall of smoke pouring out of her own lips. She was petrified.
Lucy was surprised how much older her face looked in the mirror, she had double checked in both the mirror in her bathroom and the mirror in the toilets at work, she definitely hasn’t aged ten years in the week since she moved in. She may have felt knackered carrying the furniture around, but it was not real. She pondered if it was something like a circus mirror.
Talking of mirrors, she couldn’t think of anything else, other than her new annoying mirror. On the following Wednesday she was sitting outside on the bricked wall surrounding some poorly looking plants in the courtyard at work as she was enjoying a brief dose of sun on her face at lunch before heading back inside, her long-term friend and colleague Tammy clicked her fingers and brough Lucy out of her mirror-filled daydream.
“Hey you, hello?” She giggled as she annoyingly waved her hand in front of Lucy’s face. “You look possessed!” she grinned.
“Oh, don’t you start” she grinned and then chewed on her sandwich. Tammy raised an inquisitive eyebrow and then took a gulp from her bottle of Iced Tea.
“Go on?”
“You know my new house?”
“Yeah, you have spoken of little else for the last six months, Yeah?”
“Well…actually its…it’s my….” she looked around and then nervously bit her cheek…actually…I am just thinking about my boiler. Boring hey?” She replied as the words ‘my mirror is possessed’ sounded ridiculous in her head.
“How difficult is the boiler?”
“Err, my Dad says its old, and I need to rip it out and replace it soon with a modern Combi boiler. Apparently!” she rolled her eyes.
“Oh…I see.”
“Yeah, tell me about it. I think the manual was written in Chinese and then translated in German and then into English. I just can’t understand how to get hot water.”
Tammy with her eyebrow still raised shook her head in disbelief “So when are we going to get to see the house?” Changing the topic away from things beyond both their knowledge and then taking a gulp of her can of Lipton Iced Tea.
Lucy bit her bottom lip “Oh not for a couple of weeks, it’s really not fit for a housewarming party yet.”
“Oh, okay, I was looking forward to having a nosy around!” Tammy replied.
“Yeah, got lots of work, painting and stuff!”
“Oh Right” she glanced at her silver watch on her wrist “We better get back in, or we will start of smell of Liam and Simons, ciggies if we are not careful!” she said glancing across at the two of them sitting on the other matching brick planter inhaling on their cigarettes, the smoke was drifting their way.
“Yeah…” Lucy said as she shuffled off the wall and turned her head and paused for a couple of fascinating seconds and watched as her two male colleagues both hurriedly pulled on their cigarettes.
She hovered by the wall as she dug in her handbag, flipped open her compact and reapplied her lipstick and then followed Tammy in.
***
Lucy drove home in her now quasi-permanent induced daydream; she tried to shake herself out of it as she knew she had to wake up soon when she started driving home in the wrong direction, towards her parents’ house. That made the commute home even more irritable than normal, especially as there was a yellow campervan tailgating her most of the way, however as she eventually got to drive
past the corner shop there was a convenient and drive-in parking spot, she quickly made the decision to stop. She was proud of herself as she manged to reverse park and as she put the hand break on, she turned the rear-view mirror and intensively studied her face, her makeup was fine, she lifted her lips clear of the teeth and they were free of lipstick. She was only going into the corner shop to buy a bottle of wine for the evening. But still appearance was everything. She thought she deserved the wine.
She mooched down the aisles of the small supermarket keeping an eye out for yellow sticker offers, living on her own again she got the feeling it was like being at university, that where she could, she must cut costs at every opportunity. Soon her little basket was loaded with rice, peppers, chicken, a bottle of white wine and a large chocolate bar.
As she made her way to the checkout she stopped. She looked at the tobacconist and lottery counter to the side. All she could think about was the goldy-yellow pack of Benson and Hedges on the reflected dressing table in the mirror, that wasn’t actually there. She just couldn’t get the picture out of her head. She twisted to the left and right on her heels as to which checkout to head to. The image implanted on the back of her brain jumped to that of the mysterious smoke enticingly pouring out of her mouth and nose that was pulling at her, she flipped her toes to the left and headed to the tobacco counter.
The shop assistant zapped her goods and dropped them in a bag, “Anything else for you?”
“Err,” she looked around her and saw a bright yellow advert beside her for the latest Bee themed scratch card “Two lucky dips on tonight?” Lucy asked trying to delay the inevitable.
“Sorry love, there is a draw on tomorrow?”
Lucy shook her head “Oh, yes that will be fine, not that I will win!” She frowned and then nervously smiled as she shifted her weight from foot to foot.
“Anything else for you today Love?”
Lucy knocked her toes together in her shoe as she actively thought of an answer “Err, a pack of… B&H” she asked nervously, doubting if that was what she was meant to say.
“Golds love?”
“Err, yeah of course, sorry!” She admonished herself and tapped her hand on her forehead.
With an audible gulp at the additional cost, Lucy paid up and made her way back to the car. She dumped the bag on the passenger side seat and then breathing deeply struggled to get the key in the ignition as she stared at it the plain white box with a dark awful picture of lung with a cancerous cell looking back at her leaning against a juicy healthy yellow pepper. She bit her lip ‘The one in the reflection was golden yellow, shite!’ she contemplated that it would be wrong.
***
Lucy got home, picked up the post addressed to the previous occupant off the thick horsehair matt, kicked her heels off and pottered into the kitchen to put the food in the fridge, and then poured herself a glass of wine. She held the pack of cigarettes firmly in her hand as she headed up stairs and attempted to get sorted eventually, she sat at the dressing table, with the now half full glass of wine in her hand and stared at the mirror, and her normal reflection stared back. She had spent what felt like ten minutes after moving the tampons box to the bathroom trying to guess where the cigarette pack had been previously in the reflection, as the mirror now was just being a mirror, whatever she moved, the reflection was normal. She turned off the lamp and with a shake of the head and defiant snort Lucy got up, unbuttoned her blouse, dropped it on the bed and picked up the large grey t-shirt and as she put it on, she headed back downstairs to continue getting her stir fry ready for dinner leaving everything in place on the dressing table.
Chapter 5
She had struggled to focus on watching television all evening because she kept glancing at the living room ceiling trying to work out what to do. When does she try the mirror again?
At nine o’clock, after spending an hour being wound up on the phone to her mum, and there being nothing good on television, she couldn’t hold out any longer, Lucy clicked the light switch and tutted as she climbed the stairs in the dark with trepidation, as she looked up in the darkness and her shoulders sank, she was sure the switch worked this morning as her Dad had triumphantly put a new bulb in only the other day.
She climbed got to the top of the stairs and was about to head into the bathroom when she checked in on her room, she had to take a double take as the lamp on the dressing table was now remarkably on. She couldn’t remember physically turning it on when she came up to go to the toilet half an hour ago. She scratched her hair and then shook her head as she picked her pyjamas off edge of the bed and headed into the bathroom to start her bedtime routine.
Thirty minutes later she came back out of the bathroom smelling sweetly after showering and shaving, wearing her light blue strappy pyjama top and winceyette bottoms carrying her clothes and underwear and placed them on the end of the bed, her long hair was up as a turban in the towel, she growled as her green knickers fell on the floor, she bent down and picked them up and put them on the bed. She looked over her shoulder at her cotton covered bottom wobbling in the mirror and wobbled her pert ass again and frowned, the mirror was being normal again.
She turned around and sat down opened the draw and pulled out her hair dryer and untangled the cable and tutted, the plug was behind the mirror, she climbed down on to the floor and plugged the drier in.
Lucy unravelled her long, dank hair from the towel, it instantly splattered turning her light blue top dark with the moisture in her hair. She then jumped proving her nerves are on edge when she turned the noisy blower on, she used her grandmothers comb to slowly make her way through untangling and drying the layers of her hair, watching the mirror intently to see what her reflection did, as she was halfway through, she glanced up, and then turned off the hair dryer and placed it on the floor, and leant forward on her arms on the dressing table and smiled closely at the mirror, her reflection smiled back and as it glanced down at the pack.
‘Bingo’ she smiled as she thought as she sat there holding her comb halfway up between her index and middle fingers.
Lucy and her reflection nodded and smiled at each other as their hands moved in synchronicity towards the cigarette pack. As Lucy’s fingers touched the pack they recoiled in fear, she didn’t smoke, she glared at her reflection.
“Mirror, I am not a smoker, I do not smoke, nor should my reflection!” she almost chanted as she broke the silence as she shouted at the mirror, as her reflection sat calmly, and stone faced.
Her Reflection ignored her and picked up the pack and gently tapped it on the desk and then flipped open the lid and looked at Lucy inviting her to do the same. Lucy snubbed the pack and picked up the comb and tapped it on the table in the same rhythm of the reflection had just done.
The Reflection wryly smiled and then pouted her pink lips as pulled out the long white cylinder from the pack and placed the orange-coloured filter between her pouted lips. Lucy tilted her head as she studied herself in the mirror it looked so natural, yet Lucy was sitting there with a plastic comb between her fingers whilst her Reflection had a cigarette between its lips.
Lucy instinctively brought her hand to her mouth as her Reflection lit the cigarette, she watched as the face in the mirrors cheeks collapse hard twice in quick succession to get the cigarette alight and then removed the cigarette and pop there was explosion of smoke from then end of the cigarette and her lips but it seemed like she waited an age before tilting her head up to the side and expelled large quantities of smoke from the lungs towards the light above her head. Lucy wiggled her frame on her buttocks to stay comfortable as she was mesmerised. The reflection repeated the double drag and then exhaled directly at the mirror, she disappeared behind a thick cloud of exhaled smoke. And as the cloud slowly dissipated Lucy was left sitting there watching herself gripping a black plastic comb pensively between her teeth.
Chapter 6
Lucy yawned as carried her McDonald’s coffee cup into her open plan office a few seconds late as ever and shuffled down the hall to her cubicle and noisily swung her handbag down on the floor. Tammy’s brunette hair and then her stylishly made- up face popped up like a Meerkat from behind the office divider.
“Morning you!” she smiled.
Lucy grunted and then gulped from the yellow paper cup “Morning!” she replied after swallowing.
“Oh, what’s up Hon?” Tammy asked as she leaned on the glass office divider between their desks.
Lucy looked both ways “Oh just a shite night of sleep.” “Noisy pipes again?”
Lucy chuckled and gulped from her coffee. “Yeah, something like that. Just can’t get comfortable and It’s a brand-new mattress. One thing Dad let me buy new!” she shook her head as she
“It’s difficult living on your own, you need to find yourself a replacement for Chris. It has been like a year or so now?”
Lucy tutted her head “Not now, I am too busy and got far too much house stuff on my mind.”
“Fair enough, we have a meeting with Mr Simpson at ten, apart from that it’s all good fun.”
Lucy clutched her coffee mug at the dread of the meeting. “Great.” “It will be fine; he was in a good mood this morning.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I am!” she chuckled finished off her coffee and then took off her coat.
***
Lucy squinted at her face in the mirror of the toilets as the cistern behind her flushed and the door flung open, she smiled and gave Tammy through the mirror the once over from head to toe and did a double take as she walked out of the cubicle fiddling with her dark hear, then straightened her white blouse and finally tugged on light orange coloured pencil skirt as she approached the sinks “Hey Hon, having fun with the mirror, don’t get too close or you will head butt yourself!” she chuckled as she turned the taps on and squirted the soap and started to wash her hand as Lucy stepped back away from the mirror.
“Yeah, think the mirror at home is warped or something.” “Why is that?”
“Oh, it is just playing games with me and my head, just like the ones at the fair, you know the one that makes you look fat!”
“But you’re definitely not Hon!”
“I know, but the crazy mirror at home is making me look a little older, but I can come in here and I’m back to being thirty, the one at home I’m scarily forty or something.” She frowned and then leaned against the sink and pulled at her skin around her eyes.
“That’s just silly Lucy, a mirror can’t age you. Come on, how much sleep have you missed?”
“A bit, I tossed and turned till about three.” Lucy said as she leaned forward, so close that her breath steamed and clouded up the mirror.
“It’s Friday tomorrow, you going to come out with all? We are thinking of heading for a drink in the Kings and dancing in Shades. You can then sleep it off all weekend!”
“Hmmm, I still have the garden to look at, I think Simba is out there somewhere in the wilds.” She stated smearing the water droplets on the mirror with the palm of her hand.
“Rome wasn’t built in a day.” “I know, I know”
Both girls jumped as the door opened “Right better get back to it!” Lucy stated as she wiped her hands down on her skirt.
Chapter 7
Lucy drove home in silence and between changing gears her fingers where tapping incessantly on the top of the black pleather steering wheel, she was nervous to get home, every single set of traffic light’s that she encountered were just changing orange to red as she came up to them, the car in front was making a conscious effort to stop early, it made the journey frustratingly slow. She was never quite at the point of no return and had to stop.
The most irritating thing about the car she was following as she crawled home in traffic that it was it an old white Skoda diesel car and the smoke and soot was pouring out it every time it accelerated. She almost growled as she flipped the vent on the blower to recirculation to try and keep the air in the car clean. She didn’t fancy taking deep breaths of gunk in.
Eventually got home and picked up the junk mail post and put it on the bottom step and kicked off her heals and then climbed the stairs, she had only one thing on her mind, and that was to talk to her reflection in the mirror.
Lucy flumped down on the stool and leaned on the tabletop and studied the reflection. It copied her, it was a normal mirror, there was 30-year young women looking back at her. The ashtray in the reflection was clean and empty as was hers. She shook her head and slowly unbuttoned her blouse and her mirror image copied her until her blouse dropped on the floor behind her. She was sitting in front of the mirror in just her boring white work bra. Her practically china clay white skin with the exception of a dark brown mole just above the right breast, Lucy was proud of her slim figure. She smiled at the mirror and attempted to tease it by moving her white straps along her shoulders as if the bra were going to come off, but the mirror didn’t play ball, it was just a reflection of her moving her straps around. She shook her head and shivered and so spun her legs around to pick up her t-shirt off the bed, she picked up her blouse off the floor and threw it on to the bed. As she fought it and put her arm holes through it, she turned around and looked at the mirror again. Her Reflection in the baggy shirt smiled back, and their hands reached for the pack and pulled out a cigarette.
“Bitch!” Lucy swore at her reflection.
Lucy’s reflection shrugged her shoulders and placed a cigarette between her lips. The reflection intimated to Lucy to pick up her pack.
She slid her hand over the pack and both of them nodded in unison, her Reflections cigarette bounced between her lips. Lucy picked up the pack and was faced with the cellophane after a few seconds the wrapping was off and in the ashtray. Her reflection smiled at her as she patiently waited for Lucy to catch up.
Lucy pulled out the filter between her sunshine yellow painted fingernails and nervously placed it between her lips.
“Now what?” Lucy mumbled as the cigarette perched between her lips.
Her reflection looked down towards the lighter on the table and they both picked it up.
They flipped open the gold lighter and the flame instantly appeared and in synchronised harmony the flames touched the end of the cigarette, a perfect reflection, Lucy copied the two drags to get the cigarette alight. She kept her eyes
on the reflection as she smelt the awful burning smell and then felt the smoke as it rushed down her throat and hit her now waiting lungs. She waited for the cough, everyone always talks about the cough with your first cigarette, as she kept her blue eyes focused on her Reflection it never materialised. She felt the smoke in her mouth as she tried not to blink as kept her eyes on the reflection as the smoke then suddenly arrived in her lungs, they instinctively smiled at each other and then as per the reflection she tilted her head and exhaled the perfect cone.
“Fuck, I am actually smoking a cigarette!” Lucy and her reflection said together. “I needed that.” They said together this time with a slightly deeper voice. Lucy looked puzzled as to why she said that.
Her reflection in the mirror smiled at her and intimated towards her hand to go again.
The two of them placed the cigarette between their lips and their cheeks collapsed in perfect harmony as they pulled the smoke in to their lungs and then removed the cigarette from their lips as they held the smoke for half a second as they stared at each other. They then exhaled the smoke in a repeated cone. There was no coughing, no problems at all, Lucy was feeling the adrenaline and the nicotine doing their thing as she could hear her heart beating in the silence and was starting to feel a pleasurable wooziness come like a crashing wave over her.
They kept their eyes on each other through the smoky haze, Lucy trying to study the deeper crow’s feet in the corner of her reflection’s eyes, the slightly more pronounced wrinkles on her forehead, before her reflection distracted her again by looking across towards her hand. It wanted more nicotine! The reflection needed Lucy’s help.
Their arms moved again in time with each other attempting to outstare each other, the cigarette placed in the middle of the lips, their cheeks concaving together, the tip of the cigarette burning bright orange as the lungs pulled the smoke deep within the chamber. As the Reflection held the smoke in their lungs, Lucy did too, waiting for permission from her reflection to exhale. After the beat of one second the sound of a mobile phone ring tone belted up the stairs Lucy looked away towards the door, and from the mirror instantly losing eye contact with her reflection still with a lungful of smoke and then she spluttered and coughed hard. She dropped the cigarette in the ashtray as she bent over double, leaning forward on her legs and coughed between her legs, she sputtered, urged, and coughed again.
She unsteadily got up as she kept coughing, gasping for air as she glared at the mirror as she staggered towards the door and used her hand on the door frame for support, the ringing is getting louder she got down the stairs, she is wheezing trying to get oxygen in her now poisoned lungs, the phone is on the kitchen counter vibrating and clattering whilst ringing away, she stares at the screen, it’s an unknown local number, and she frantically swiped up twice to try to answer.
“Hi, we understand you have been in a car accident in the last three years that wasn’t your fault, please press 1 to talk to a trained operator….”
Lucy coughed, glared, and swore loudly at the phone screen and quickly pressed the large red button and dropped it noisily back on the counter and shuffled over and pulled a glass out of the cupboard and quickly filled it with tap water, chugging down the water, and instantly filled it back up again, the water was dripping down the side of her mouth splashing on her top as she poured water down her throat trying to remove the awful taste from her mouth.
She sat down on her sofa and as she took a deep breath, and exhaled air as she sighed loudly. Lucy was conflicted, her mouth tasted like coal, but her brain was certainly enjoying the nicotine rush. She threw her head back against the sofa as she cried out in frustration and stared at the ceiling whilst she panted desperately for oxygen.
Chapter 8
Five hours later, and yet another long conversation with her mum, it was dark, Lucy sat back on the stool looking at her reflection in the mirror. She was lit by just the angle light beside her, in the darkness it was just her and her mirror image, it had been driving her mad that the intensity and pleasure from that first cigarette was amazing and she was enjoying it until the phone wrang.
She had plugged the phone in to plug near the bed to charge overnight and purposely turned it on to silent, she needed to focus. She sat there staring at the mirror, the pungent smell from the half-smoked cigarette still emitting from the ashtray ticking her nose, she had been too cross to throw it out just yet. She sat there impatiently and frustratedly waiting for her reflection to change. Nothing happened. It was still her. She tried turning her back, she tried pulling her t-shirt on and off, took her bra off and dropped it on the floor nothing changed. She sat there topless in front of the mirror, her smallish perky C cup white breasts, with light pink mammary with small nipples reflected back
Lucy huffed loudly and leaned on the tabletop as she went to move to get up, but her topless Reflection stayed put and grinned back at her.
“You are a Bitch!” she shouted at herself in the mirror as she sat back down.
The eyes of the Reflection looked down at the open pack. “Okay, let’s do this again!” Lucy stated as both her and her Reflection rubbed her hands together confidently.
Within seconds Lucy was staring at her Reflection, the white cylinder with the dark almost mysterious tobacco stuffed in end looking back at her in the reflection. Again, she was mildly surprized and taken aback by the heat and brightness near her nose hot flame from the lighter that in perfect harmony in the mirror touched the cigarette and as she followed her reflection her cheeks collapsed as she pulled the thick grey smoke in to her lungs.
They removed the cigarette from their lips allowing an initial cloud of smoke from the filter to appear in front of their faces as the deep suction was removed, they looked at each other almost gaming who was going to exhale first, as the barrage of smoke hit her lungs the flood nicotine again started to be pumped around Lucy’s blood stream as they tilted their head and exhaled a backlit cloud of smoke into the darkness of the room.
Lucy kept her eyes on her reflection the whole time even as they tilted, she didn’t dare lose sight of her again. She ran her tongue across her lips to deal with the bitter taste she could feel on her tongue, and desperately tried to see if she could find a drink, but before she could move, her reflection again looked at the cigarette burning between her fingers, the steady stream of smoke leaving the tip and heading straight up, she was demanding another drag.
Lucy gulped and submitted to the request, and her Reflection smiled at her as she placed the orange filter back between her lips and Lucy smiled too, she was transfixed by her reflection as the tip of the cigarette fizzed as they both inhaled.
For the next three and a half minutes Lucy and her reflection worked in harmony, as the ash on the cigarette grew, her reflection would look towards the ashtray beside them and they would flick the long greying ash off, before returning the filter to their lips.
Like dancing without music her Reflection led them a waltz around the smoke-filled dancefloor until finally they were at the butt. With one final exhale Lucy followed
her Reflection as they triumphantly stubbed the cigarette out in the ashtray. Lucy looked up and smiled, and her Reflection smiled back too as she watched a little more smoke drift out of her nose as she breathed out.
With that her face in the mirror was normal, it had morphed back, she leaned forward, nope, it was her again in the mirror, the glass clearly showed the two butts rather than the ten in the ashtray.
She sat there staring at herself as all that could hear in the silence of the darkened room was the fast beat her heart thumping loudly as it pumped the nicotine around her bloodstream. She felt elated, but with the buzz she got up and felt the queasy and giddiness, she felt as if she was drunk, she stumbled in just her black thong as she headed desperately to the bathroom to gargle mouthwash to try and remove the putrid taste in her mouth.
Chapter 9
Lucy slept soundly, only to be rudely woken by her alarm. She winced as she could smell the smoke in her hair that lay across her face as she sniffed it, she shook her head and climbed out of bed and headed to the bathroom to start her morning ritual.
She sat down in front of the mirror in her towel around her chest and unravelled her hair, she wouldn’t normally wash her hair so frequently, but she was nervous about the smell of cigarettes in the office.
She bent down and retrieved the air dryer from the under the dressing table and started to dry her long hair after five minutes she was happy that it was dry, she pulled it up out of her face with a hairband on the dressing table and started to look at her make up.
Her Reflection cheekily grinned at her and glanced down at the pack of cigarettes.
Lucy’s heart sunk “No not now, please, not before work, that is not fair, I have just had a shower!” she glared at herself.
The face in the mirror again stared at the pack, asking for Lucy to open it.
“You did it all by yourself the other day!” Lucy begged as if she was talking to a toddler, rather than herself.
Her Reflection continued staring at the pack.
“Oh, are you sure?”
Her Reflection stared at the pack and then back at her and smiled kindly.
Lucy’s shoulders dropped “Oh, go on, I think I have time for just one!” She relented far too easily.
As their hands in symmetry went for the pack and extracted a cigarette.
The cigarette was lit, and the smoke inhaled, the mirror teased her holding the smoke for what seemed like ages within her lungs before letting her exhale only a small pathetic steam of smoke. Lucy was surprised as to where it had gone, but her body was soon enjoying the rush again.
They repeated the process once again, Lucy desperate not to lose eye contact on the reflection whilst inhaling and exhaling. With the whisps of the exhale still drifting out of her mouth, the reflection looked down at the makeup, and smiled.
“You want me to smoke and do my makeup?” Lucy asked.
The Reflection nodded.
“I kinda guess I need to get ready!” Lucy said to her reflection and picked up her foundation cream and placed the cigarette in the ashtray and started to cover her face in cream. As she smoothed it in the reflection stared at her as if she were doing something wrong and looked at the cigarette burning on the ashtray.
“Oh, you want me to smoke whilst a do this, can I?
Lucy instinctively flicked the cigarette to knock off the growing ash and her reflection copied her, and she then placed the cigarette as instructed in the corner of her lips.
She tried to focus on the makeup, trying to add layers, the reflection was kind to let her take it out of her mouth to breath normally ever couple of drags, but with the cigarette dangled the smoke kept going up her nose. She eventually stubbed the cigarette out and focused on getting the makeup done.
She finished with her lipstick and dropped it on the table and was about to get up and her Reflection glared at her again.
“Look, I need to get to work!”
Her Reflection looked at the pack on the table and back at her again and flattered her eye lids.
“You want me to have another cigarette?”
And with that she reluctantly but quickly sat back down like a good girl that she was and flicked open the pack.
Chapter 10
“Morning Lucy!” Tammy said as she popped up from behind the grey desk divider.
Lucy grinned as she made her way into the office “Morning Tam!” she then took a large gulp from her McDonalds coffee cup, desperate to remove the lingering taste of the last cigarette from her mouth. She then removed her jacket and settled down on her chair. She looked up at Tammy still leaning on the office divider. “You okay Tam?”
“Yeah…” Tammy looked down as Lucy wiggled her mouse to bring her computer alive, she then loudly sniffed the air and Lucy looked up pensively “…Oh is that a new perfume?”
Lucy relaxed “Yeah, well, it was actually my grandmothers, goodness knows how old it is, but I found it in an old draw, and there was some left, it is really sweet and fragrant, it almost takes me back to being a child!”
“Great, there is nothing scary overnight in the emails this morning.” Lucy rolled her eyes and smiled “That’s a relief!”
“Do you want another coffee?” Tammy asked as she headed towards the kitchen carrying her white mug.
“Nah, I’ve got this one thanks!” Lucy lifted to McDonalds cup and took a gulp and watched Tammy stride off towards the kitchen.
As she turned to focus on her computer, which still hadn’t come to life and all she could see was her face reflected in the computer screen, she frowned and wiggled the mouse yet again and then looked up as Simon walked past, she got the noticeable smell of a freshly smoked cigarette permeating off him. Her nose unusually followed Simon as he walked past, he stopped and looked back at her.
“You okay Lucy, do you need anything from me?” he asked as she stared at him.
“Oh, I would…sorry, in a daydream, need more coffee.” She said and took a gulp “Have a good day Si!” she grinned and nervously waved before cursing and hiding behind her computer. She nearly said she would like a cigarette…
Tammy waked back in carrying her mug in both hands “That’s better warm the fingers up before attacking the keyboard.” Lucy nodded and twiddled with the end of her hair. “Are you going to come out with us this evening?”
Lucy nodded “Yeah, why not, nothing on telly tonight is there!” “There is nothing ever interesting on Telly!”
“Are we jeansing or dressing up tonight?” Lucy asked as Tammy sat down behind the divider.
“Oh, thinking we could dress up a little, got a new top and skirt last weekend!” Tammy stated, her voice appearing as if from nowhere.
Lucy nodded to herself as the stared at the blue homescreen on her computer and typed in her password. “Great, are we meeting at eight as usual?”
“Yeah, why not!”
“Wonderful…” Lucy replied as she lost her train of thought as she started to read her emails “Oh hell Mr Halliwell as emailed a snotty complaint again.”
Tammy laughed “Have fun hon!”
Chapter 11
Lucy poured herself a glass of wine and sat down on her sofa. She swirled the wine around and smiled as she caught her elongated face in the glass before taking a gulp. She looked up towards the stairs and hummed to herself, she
wiggled her bottom into the sofa and pulled up her legs and tucked them under herself and took another gulp of wine, she had an hour or two before she had to leave.
After five minutes of being unsettled on the sofa she got up, she just couldn’t get comfortable. She carried her wine glass up the stairs and opened her wardrobe and between gulps of wine looked through her now hung-up tops and dresses. She picked out a couple of options and then promptly sat down in front of her dressing table. She looked at the mirror sat there and offered the tops to herself. ‘I need a full-size mirror’ she mused as the alternated between the red halter neck style red dress and the strappy purple number top and jeans.
As she put the red halter neck top in front of her the Reflection nodded in approval. “Oh, isn’t it a bit posh for Shades?” She seriously asked the reflection
The Reflection shook its head.
“Oh, I will trust you. It’s good to know you are here now, that’s early for you?” Lucy asked as she looked on, “Are you sure that one is the best?” asked with the red dress folded on her lap on front of her.
The Reflection again nodded and then smiled at Lucy and looked again longingly at the cigarette pack.
It was Lucy’s turn to smile and shrugged her shoulders as then both her and the Reflection took a gulp of her wine, as she put the glass down on the tabletop Lucy hesitantly pulled out a cigarette and placed it between her lips, she then panicked, and then hung her tops up on the old brass handle of the dressing table and it was then just the both of them smiling with the cigarette between their lips that they quickly lit up.
They alternated drag on the cigarette and sip on the wine, Lucy enjoyed that the wine washed the taste of the cigarette away rather nicely, but also enjoyed the buzz from the cigarette.
Lucy matched the reflection inhale for exhale, she was mesmerised watching the smoke bounce off the mirror, rise the to the ceiling, flow out of their noses. She was almost giddy watching herself do it. She couldn’t believe she was. The wine was certainly helping her mouth taste better after each drag.
Lucy went to stub the cigarette out as it got hot between her fingers as it reached the filter and noticed that it was back to being her mirror image. There were only five butts in the ashtray in front of her as well as in the mirror. She smiled; she now knew how to spot when the dressing table was playing games.
She got up and sighed through her nose, she could smell cigarette emitting from within, it spooked her little. Lucy carried her now empty wine glass downstairs and quickly topped it up, looked in the fridge and pulled out the microwave lasagne for one.
With the TV on in the background, Lucy quickly demolished her tea and poured herself the last glass from the bottle of wine. She didn’t care, she was getting a taxi in an hours’ time.
***
Lucy got undressed and briefly stood naked in front of the mirror, before bending over pulling up her large white compression knickers and then put on her strapless bra. She didn’t need the Spanex pants, but it made her feel better in the tight-fitting dress.
She pulled the dress over her head and the pulled it down to her knees, it looked stunning, ‘The dressing table has taste’ she smiled at it
Lucy then sat down in front of the mirror to try and tie the halter neck up. After faffing for five minutes in the mirror she eventually got it tied so it wasn’t going to fall down and reveal her boring white bra.
She glanced at her phone the taxi was coming in twenty minutes, she had to rush, she got ready to touch up her make up, and her hand reached for the pack of cigarettes, and she glanced at the mirror, but it was just her mirror image, the ashtray still only had the five cigarettes in it. Lucy frowned and sucked her lips thoughtfully before removing her hand from the pack and continued putting on her make up.
***
Lucy climbed the stairs in the darkness slowly giggling to herself using her hand to support herself as she focused on putting one foot in front of the other as she made her way up the creaking stairs. It has been a great fun; they had drunk far too much and danced the night away. They had even bumped into Liam and
Simon, but she had lost them when they had headed off to the smoking area in the nightclub at some point.
She stumbled into the bathroom and like a cat playing it took her a couple of attempts to grab the pull cord, and to turn the light on, she then focused on her face in the little mirror, her make up as predictably smudged as she had drunkenly attempted to reapply throughout night. She pulled, tugged, and fought the halter neck knot and eventually it fell loose and with a couple of goes it dropped to the floor, her bra and her huge knickers eventually followed suit as she stumbled around the bathroom, she then she sat down on the toilet.
With her elbows leaning on her knees, her hands supporting her head she looked through the open door at her bedroom, the desk light was on. She shook her head then regretted doing that as the world swirled, she was sure that she had turned everything off when she left the house. She can still hear in her head her mum and dad shouting at her “turn the bloody lights off” whenever she leaves a room.
Her focus was now urgently on the bedroom, she got up and forgetting to flush bounced off both bathroom and bedroom door frames before landing triumphantly at the dressing table.
At first glance in the mirror she smiled, her Reflection and nodded happily, Lucy had to take a double look as her hair and makeup was still perfect in this mirror, yes, she and her Reflection were still very naked and very drunk, but she looked a lot less of mess, she looked gorgeous. “Mirror, I like you a lot, I do!” she drunkenly pronounced with all seriousness as their hands went straight to the pack and “And Shh you, as I also might like a ciggy!” she giggled as pulled a cigarette out of the pack and unsteadily placed the filter between their lips.
Chapter 12
Lucy groaned as she rolled out of bed and stumbled back towards the bathroom, she turned on the taps and guzzled as much as water as she could, her mouth felt awful. Then sat back down on the toilet and moaned. Again, she with her hands supporting her head she looked up towards her bedroom, and as she did her angle light came on all by itself, her shoulders dropped, and she shook her head and sighed loudly and stood up and lent of the flush and then crept back into the bedroom.
She put her arms on her naked hips and looked down at the desk. There were now nine butts in the ashtray. No wonder her mouth felt awful. How many did the evil mirror force her to enjoy last night?
As such Lucy sat down and on leaned on the dressing table and looked at her Reflection, bed head and tired looking face was reflected, but where she thought she was frowning in her sorrows, her Reflection was smiling brightly back.
As Lucy then forced a smile back her spare hand instinctively creeped along the desk and pulled the cigarette out of the pack it dawned on her that there now only eleven left. “Mirror, you are making me smoke too much!”
Her Reflection shrugged her shoulders and they both reached for the lighter.
Within a few minutes of repetitive and large clouds of intense, but delightful smoke filling her lungs, the cigarette was nearly finished. Lucy had inhaled deeply and removed the cigarette from her lips and had exhaled a cone to the ceiling, she leant forward as if to stub it out and her Reflection glared at her and again glanced down at the pack.
“What, hang on, are we having a second one already?” Lucy asked her Reflection who smiled and nodded enthusiastically, as they placed the butt between their left- hand fingers, and with their right pulled out another cigarette from the pack, smiled at each other and placed the filter between their lips and her reflection reshowed her how to chain light a cigarette, with another powerful double pump inhale. It was reshowing, seeing as they had sat there just like this and smoked three others like that the night before.
***
Lucy sat on her sofa trying to look natural holding a mug of coffee and watching the rolling news on the television. Once dressed she had spent the last half an hour running around the house with air freshener spray, like the air stewardess do with the bug spray in the cabin when leaving a tropical country, she was desperately trying to remove any hint of cigarette smoke. Her dad had texted to say that they were coming over again. The ashtray and the pack of cigarettes were hidden in the back of the bottom drawer, she didn’t dare throw the contents in the kitchen bin, she was sure her mum would check.
She looked up as her dad unlocked the front door with their spare key, and they made their way in. Lucy frowned and chewed on the inside of her cheek, and bit her bottom lip, she could well have been naked or something.
“Morning Luce, how are you doing this glorious morning, we have even been shopping for you, didn’t want you to starve!” Graham almost boomed as he walked uninvited into the house carrying four Waitrose bags for life. “Come on Wend!” he stated as he turned at looked back into the little porch as she hurriedly followed on carrying a bucket full of cleaning sprays and polish.
“Morning Dad, Mum, thanks for the food…” Lucy smiled as she untucked her legs from under her and stood up holding her mug firmly in both hands and looked quizzically at the cleaning items and intrigued by what food they had brought.
Wendy looked at Graham sternly before turning to Lucy “Well seeing as your stuff reeked of Granny Gilmartin’s cigarettes, we thought, well I thought we should at least scrub it clean for you!”
Lucy chuckled “Mum, its fine, I have had the windows open all evening seeing as it has been warm, and I really haven’t noticed it.”
“Luce, she has spoken of nothing else since last weekend, please just let her clean something, she has been suggesting that granny has been stinking your house out from the grave. I was then thinking I could take you all out to the Fox and Hounds for lunch. How does that sound?”
Lucy smiled and nodded “That sounds ideal, shall I boil the kettle, I really could do with another coffee?”
Graham glanced as Wendy made a beeline to the Welsh dresser with her bucket of polish and cloths. “Yes, I think you better.”
***
Lucy flaked out on the sofa; she was knackered. She had manged to keep her parents out of the bedroom, but they had gone around every item of furniture and given it a good polish and even vacuumed the carpets again.
She had suggested that the dressing table was fine as she had covered it in her own perfume enough times by now, and that she hadn’t tidied up in there since she got up rather hungover and really didn’t want them both nosing around.
Her purple dads face suggested he thought there was a vibrator left out or something, which made her grin.
After they dropped her home on the way back from lunch, she eventually collapsed on the sofa. She was full, but the chips and burger certainly helped with the hangover, as well as a pint of lemonade and lime, she had been tempted by a pint of shandy, but had thought against it. As she lay crashed out on the sofa, she stared out the front window and caught her reflection of herself as she ran her tongue across her lips. She shuffled up off the sofa and headed back up the stairs.
She pushed open her door and looked at the dressing table in the dull afternoon light. She sat down and with some gentle internal persuasion opened the drawers and put the ashtray with the extinguished butts in and the pack back in their spots on the table and looked at her Reflection.
Lucy gulped as the flipped open the pack on her own accord and winced as she counted the nine cigarettes remaining in the pack. She instantly shook her head as admonished herself to determining how many cigarettes she had, but she confirmed to herself as long as the Reflection turned up, a couple more for today, and then some for tomorrow, and if she was lucky maybe one more before work on Monday.
Lucy again looked at the mirror, she poked her tongue out, it was just her, the Reflection wasn’t playing games. She looked pulled her phone out of the back pocket of her blue jeans, it was three-thirty, maybe it was too early. Her other hand tapped the cigarette pack impatiently waiting for something to happen as she looked around the room.
She tapped the pack once more and looked intently at her mirror image, shrugged her shoulders picked up her phone, got up and headed towards the stairs as her Reflection sat, still in the mirror and frowned in disappointment as Lucy disappeared through the door.
Chapter 13
Just half an hour later, Lucy sighed after climbing the stairs as she sat back down on the stool, she just had to look at the mirror again on the off chance the Reflection was back, there was literally nothing on television, she had already seen her mum and she was bored of Facebook stalking her customers.
Lucy bit her bottom lip, looked at the open pack, took a deep breath and then herself pulled out a cigarette and placed the filter between her lips and stared at her mirror image. She was scared that she had just done that all by herself- put a cigarette between her lips, but she felt as if she needed, almost right to have a cigarette just there. As she stared as her neatly plucked eyebrows raised twice. They smiled at each other as they calmly brought the lighter to the tip, her Reflection smiled and battered her eyelids as the reflected ashtray in the mirror was now filled with butts.
Their rosy red cheeks collapsed in unison as the smoke was pulled into the lungs.
Lucy exhaled a cone and found herself saying “Thank you” to her Reflection as the smoke continued to drift out of her mouth.
Her reflection shrugged its shoulder just as Lucy would do as they manicured the initial ash, before in unison taking another drag on the cigarette.
Lucy exhaled as she had done the three dozen times she had done before, but her reflection started to let a little smoke out of her mouth and then inhale it back up her nose. The smoke was like a grey twisting curtain funnelling up her cute philtrum as the smoke slowly escaped the mouth and disappeared up the nose. Her reflection then exhaled the cone from her lungs. Lucy sat there in front of the mirror opened mouth as she watched the trick.
Her reflection nodded as if it were to be repeated, they took a gentle drag as if not to inhale properly and then together they left the smoke drift out their mouths and hoovered it up their noses. With the final exhale, Lucy was bouncing on her seat with the accomplishment. She couldn’t wait to go again, she led this time and her Reflection followed as the repeated the exercise, over and over again. She was mesmerised playing with the smoke drifting from her mouth, and then smelling the pungent smoke as she drew it in, with bam, the pleasure as the smoke eventually hit her lungs.
With that cigarette nearly complete, the Reflection and Lucy took a short final drag and exhaled towards the mirror, the two clouds collided at the mirror glass, before the reflection smiled and again looked towards the pack, they beamed at each other full well knowing what was going to happen next, as the fresh filters were placed between the lips and the double pump inhale conducted to light the fresh cigarette, with the ceremonial stubbing out of the completed butt in the ashtray as the smoke of the fresh exhale clouded the space between them.
The Reflection then conducted a quick double eyebrow raise and a smile, Lucy knew that her reflection was going to lead again. She sat and watched, the cigarette burning brightly next to her face. Yes, she could be getting on with doing her washing, so she had clean clothes for work, or cooking tea, but no she sat as she watched her reflection take the cigarette between her lips, briefly draw on the cigarette, and almost hamstered the smoke in her cheeks. She opened her mouth with an obvious O and with the creamy smoke being briefly held in the dark void between her pink lips and white teeth as slowly clicked her jaw, the smoke left the mouth in perfect rings and drifted across the mirror. Before her reflection pulled the rest of the smoke in her mouth down into her lungs and then exhaled her small cone.
It took Lucy a couple of goes to get it right, the first attempt she inhaled the smoke properly, forgetting to hold it in her mouth, and the second attempt the smoke escaped before she could make the O’s.
However, on the third drag, Lucy and her reflection were mirror images of each other as the fourth, fifth and subsequent drags produced a medley of cloudy rings of smoke that combined as they crashed into the mirror in some Olympic ring dance before dispersing across the glass.
The taste of the smoke within her mouth was lingering and Lucy and her reflection ran their tongues across their lips and teeth as an attempt to clean them before taking a long deep final drag on the cigarette before stubbing it out.
Lucy’s shoulders dropped as she bit her bottom lip as the smoke seeped off the stubbed ash in the ashtray as she looked up at her smiling Reflection.
Her Reflection looked again down at the pack; Lucy winced as she turned the pack to see how many were in there, six, and then she turned it to the mirror so the Reflection could see, as if to highlight to it her problem. Lucy’s eyes widen when the mirror image of her pack clearly showed a full twenty cigarettes. Lucy smiled, there was no requirement for the reflection to get more cigarettes, she couldn’t leave, she could just sit there permanently taking cigarette after cigarette and enjoy each and every single one of them. Lucy paused her train of thought at the word enjoyment and shook her head again as her reflection tilted her head and raised one of her shoulders and almost did puppy eyes as if to say go on, just one more.
***
Lucy slowly walked down the stairs to her kitchen and boiled the kettle, whilst waiting for the kettle to boil she poured herself a glass of orange squash and quickly guzzled it down. Her mouth felt disgusting, the rings, holding the smoke in her cheeks, looked amazing, but ugh her tongue felt like leather. The squash did little to wash the taste away as she shovelled three teaspoons of instant coffee into her mug and poured the boiling water in.
She was feeling amazing, almost giddy three cigarettes in quick succession were making her almost want to bounce. She would have done, if she didn’t feel as if it would make her cough, her lungs seriously felt as if they had smoked the three cigarettes she had just done.
She looked at the black coffee, hoping without milk that the strong taste of coffee would counter the strong bitter residue of smoke in her mouth. She picked up her mobile phone and mug and headed to the living room to try and calmly enjoy her smoking induced buzz.
Chapter 14
Her Saturday night in on her own watching television with a glass of wine finished with a devouring final cigarette with her Reflection before going into the bathroom and washing her teeth, there were four left, her parents had done the shopping, there was no need to head out on the Sunday.
When she woke on Sunday morning she didn’t get far before stopping and kneeling on the stool in front of the mirror, and then after thinking for a couple of seconds, she sat down properly at the dressing table and tapped the cigarette pack waiting for her Reflection to catch up, and once she received the nod, both of them promptly put a cigarette between their lips. She even said “Good Morning” to her Reflection who nodded back with a smile as they both quickly grabbed the lighter.
She was enjoying the company of her Reflection, even if it was not being very communicative, it was highly expressive. Especially when it suggested another cigarette. However anxiously there were now only two solitary cigarettes in the pack, Lucy declined the offer and pulling another one out of the pack once she stubbed the first cigarette of the day out, she knew she had to pace them.
Lucy got up and headed to the shower, and then got dressed in the grey jogging bottoms and white crop top lounge wear and headed down the stairs checking her phone as she went.
There was a WhatsApp message from Tammy suggesting that she and Rachael were going for a coffee at Carrington Woods cafe and then for a bit of a stomp if she fancied joining them.
Lucy nodded at the phone and flicked on the kettle and then replied. ***
Lucy waved goodbye to Tammy as she drove off, and then kicked off her muddy wellies in the porch and padded into the house, pulled off her woolly hat, letting her long hair fall down and then removed her coat, she shivered as she touched the cold radiator in the hallway and, then looked at the blank wall at the bottom of the stairs above the radiator where the coat hook should really go and mentally added it to her growing list of things that she needed to borrow her dad’s drill and make holes in the wall with. She folded the coat over and placed it on the back of her chair in the living room and made her way to the kitchen to again boil the kettle. Tammy had asked when she dropped her off to come in and see the house, but Lucy had again suggested next weekend.
She was still buzzing from coffee she had when they got back to the café in the carpark, but felt the needed more, she was not sure if was going to sleep that night, but they had walked miles and miles in the woods, chatting away the time, they didn’t realise that they had walked so far until they reached the end of the woods, and had to turn around and come back. Lucy concluded that she should be tired enough to sleep. Especially if she sees her reflection before bed.
It was the first time since she left the house, that she had even thought about the mirror, she glanced up towards the carpeted stairs and then across at the kettle, she again nervously bit her bottom lip as she thought about the two cigarettes left in the pack and then headed to the kitchen.
***
Before bed Lucy’s resolve and determination had long disappeared as she sat on the stool in front of the mirror with the silver hairbrush in her hand, she hadn’t done much brushing, as her Reflection had kept suggesting further deep inhaling on the cigarette.
Lucy smiled and copied, she deep down knew and needed that what Reflection requested was required, to have the nicotine rich smoke deep within her lungs. As her cheeks collapsed, her chest rose as she enjoyed the putrid smoke filled the waiting cavity, they then stared at each other as they held the smoke for what felt like an eternity before exhaling. The sudden delightful rush of nicotine flooding her bloodstream produced a euphoric feeling for Lucy, before the repeated the process, over, and over again.
Only after five deep drags did the Reflection let Lucy start brushing her hair to get ready for bed, the cigarette was then dangled in the corner of the mouth, the gentle exhales pushed out through the nose in almost perfect syncopation with the strokes of the brush kicking off dust particles in the air which then spun in the light produced from the lamp danced with the creamy smoke from her exhales as they bounced off the mirror.
The hair was brushed, and the cigarette stubbed out, the Reflection looked down at the pack and raised a cheeky inviting eyebrow, Lucy again nervously bit her bottom lip, there was a single solitary cigarette left in the pack. Does she have it now, or in the morning doing her make up.
She glanced towards the bathroom she still had to wash her face and teeth before bed.
The decision was made for her, as her Reflection pulled out one of her cigarettes, conducted a double pump inhale, held the smoke smiled and forcefully barrelled her exhale of smoke directly towards the mirror and as the smoke dispersed it was clear it was just Lucy’s normal self again in the mirror, with now nineteen butts in the reeking ashtray.
Chapter 15
Lucy lay there after dreaming about smoking smelling the almost still thick smoke- tinged air of her bedroom for a few seconds with her eyes shut waiting almost impatiently for the alarm to go off, she had already peeked the time and confirmed that it was about to go, it took what felt like years.
Eventually the green lines aligned to 6 00 and the incessant beeps started. Lucy smiled as she enthusiastically whacked the top to stop the noise, and then calmly reached around and turned it off.
She strode to her dressing table in the darkness, her hand riding along the bed as guide and turned on the angle light and stared at the mirror as she sat down. Her face was lit surrounded by the darkness. She leaned forward and with her nails flicked the sleep out of the corners of her blue eyes and smiled invitingly, waiting for her Reflection to arrive.
She rubbed her lips together as she studied her face, her moisturiser routine, and good sleep was doing wonders for her face, she was proud of her slim frame, her straight nose, soft pink lips and rosy cheeks.
As she stared intently and blinked a couple of times, and as she opened her eyes and focused again on her face she watched with a wry smile on her face as she could see her face slowly morph, her crow’s feet in the corner of eyes deepened, her cheeks became more pronounced, she smiled and her Reflection smiled back, the wrinkles on her forehead, and her dimples were larger, there was a small crease now extending from both corners of her mouth from continuously putting cigarettes between her lips. Lucy had aged as she watched. But still looked, to her absolutely amazing.
“Morning you!” they said to each other as they grinned as they pulled the final cigarette out of the pack. “Don’t worry, I will definitely buy some more for us on my way home tonight!” Lucy said confidently and nodded. “As I obviously can’t sit here every day and watch you tease me with cigarettes!”
Her Reflection grinned bashfully as if to say that sounds good with the fresh cigarette protruding from her lips, they brought the lighter to the tip, their cheeks collapsed in unison as they pulled hungrily pulled the smoke into their waiting lungs, and then after a count of two exhaled a thick grey cone to the ceiling.
Lucy copied her Reflection as they rolled the cigarette tip long the edge of the ashtray and watched as she gently knocked the tip of ash off and ran her tongue along her lips as she thought. “Hmmm can I wait until after work?” she asked the mirror as she studied herself in the mirror, she gulped at the suggestion of why she wanted to buy another pack as they then both instinctively took another long deep drag.
They exhaled and repeated the drags before the cigarette was soon finished. With a sighed exhale Lucy stubbed the cigarette out. Both her and her Reflection both gently coughed once finished. Lucy looked up her Reflection who just shrugged her shoulders. As if to say it happens as she naturally pulled another cigarette out
of her endless pack. Lucy looked in the empty one in her side of the mirror as her reflection lit the cigarette, exhaled a cloud of smoke and as it dissipated Lucy’s face morphed back to normal and the smoking reflection disappeared. With a sudden feeling of emptiness, Lucy got on with her makeup and daily preparation.
***
“Morning!” Tammy excitedly bounced up from her desk as Lucy walked into the office.
“Hey!” Lucy smiled. “It’s pouring out there. I am drenched!
“Tell me about it, I think my shoes are ruined just running from the car to here. Did you have a good evening?” She asked with over bounding enthusiasm.
Lucy raised her eyebrow “Yeah, Sunday night alone in house…if you call that fun?” she replied as she gulped her McDonalds coffee.
“Oh, you just seemed excited to get home after our walk…I thought you were doing something really interesting!” Tammy smiled trying to tease more out of her.
“I think you doth think too much Tam, other than sorting out some more drawers I didn’t do anything more exciting.”
“Ah, sorry Lucy, I thought that you might be, you know, seeing someone!” She grinned.
Lucy laughed hard and then shocked herself as she coughed and briefly wiped her nose with the back of her fingers. “No, silly, don’t think anything stupid like that.
Tammy looked with her concerned face “You feeling okay Luce. Sounds a little croaky, like you are coming down with something. We didn’t get too cold on our walk?”
Lucy chuckled and nodded, “I am fine, too much dust from cleaning the house, just had a bit of scratchy throat at times over the weekend, but I have taken a small dose of my medicine this morning, and I will be just fine. I just need to get another pack of…Lemsips…on the way home!” Lucy said slowly trying to convince herself and then paused as she realised what words had just tumbled out of her mouth and then shook her head before taking off her dripping wet coat and hanging it on the back of her office chair.
Tammy grinned as crossed her index fingers of both hands across to make an X and offered then up “Well, you seemed fine yesterday, but please stay away from me with your cough and sore throat, I don’t want them!”
Lucy put her hands up as if to say don’t worry I won’t come anywhere near you. “Anything exciting in the inbox?”
“Nah!” “Good!”
***
They both picked up their coffee mugs and slurped the drink and then chewed on their sandwiches as they glanced out the staffroom window as the black clouds made it look impressively dark even for lunchtime as the heavy rain battered the window.
Lucy leant her head against the window and sighed, her breath steamed and clouded up the window with condensate “I hate Mondays!” she grinned and wiped with window with the side of her hand and glanced down almost longingly at the smoking shelter down below.
“Just be grateful you can stay in here and that you are not a slave to ‘evil’ nicotine and can stay warm!” Tammy said breaking Lucy’s stare as they then both peered through the window at a huddle of people in the carpark hiding under coats and collection of large red and yellow golfing umbrellas whilst trying to stay dry whilst smoke drifted up from around them whilst they furiously smoking their cigarettes.
Lucy looked up and again caught her reflection in the window and gulped before looking back down at her colleagues. “Yeah…I guess we do have the benefits…” she said loudly and turned to the window “but they probably have some too?” she muttered questioningly quietly under her breath as she smiled and then ran her tongue along her teeth trying and failing to find the taste of the bitter remnants of her pre-breakfast cigarette , still wishing she could have enjoyed a second, as she then looked at the window with the raindrops streaking down outside of the glass and locked sight on her reflection again backed by the large yellow umbrella and winced, then raised her head off the cold window and quickly gulped her coffee and they sat there in silence as they both continued to eat their lunch.
Chapter 16
Lucy pulled down her hood of her raincoat as she walked around the corner shop, she did drop a pack of lemon Lemsips and strawberry Strepsils into the basket just in case the tickle on her throat was developing into something. She continued strolling around and put another bottle of Chardonnay into the basket, as well as some chocolate.
There was no decision to make as she reached the checkouts and with a glance around her, she headed straight to the tobacconist queue, as she stood patiently, she clocked the advert for the lottery and dug into her handbag and got the ticket from last week out that she completely forgotten about.
The girl behind the counter beeped through the wine and did that obvious eyeing up to check that Lucy was over age before putting the bottle in the bag. “Anything else love?”
Lucy handed over the ticket “Oh, just check this one, I don’t think I have won anything!” She grinned hopefully as the girl zapped the ticket. The machine beeped.
“Congratulations you’ve won…” the lady paused with anticipation with a big smile “…20 quid 80!”
Lucy laughed at the pitiful amount “In that case I will buy two packs of B&H golds as well please!” she grinned as she got her card out to pay the difference as she studied the counter and bit her bottom lip “Oh, and I better get another lighter as well” she said picking up the yellow Bic from the counter, she turned it so the lady could zap it with the barcode reader before dropping it into the bag. She paid up, pulled her hood up and headed out the door into the rain.
***
Lucy looked up at her rear-view mirror and again checked her face, she dug into her handbag and reapplied her lipstick, that instantly gave her little boost with her now pinker lips. She started the car and the windscreen wipers started to go with the heavy rain, the heat from her body had steamed up the windscreen, she turned on the blowers and as she waited for the screen to demist, she leant over, opened the glovebox on her car and dug into the bag on the passenger side and smiled as safely stowed the pack of cigarettes and lighter she swung the door shut and stared at it for second. Not one hundred percent sure why she put them in there.
She put her seatbelt on and ran her hands through her hair as the condensation was slowly blown away. She glanced back up and the mirror and confidently smiled at herself as she put the car in gear and slowly checking around, she quickly accelerated her car forward.
***
Lucy dropped everything in the porch except for the new pack of Benson and Hedges and ran up the stairs ripping the cellophane off as she went, it slowly drifted to the floor halfway up the stairs. Lucy took a deep breath of air as she sat down flipped open the pack, positioned it in the right place on the dressing table, tidied her wet and windswept hair and waited impatiently in front of her reflection.
She tapped her nails on the pack and noted in the mirror than the paint was chipped. She made a mental note to redo them again this evening. As she waited, she watched herself in the mirror, calmly getting her breath back from sprinting up the stairs. She looked down at the pack and shrugged her shoulders and thought about getting a head start so she pulled a cigarette out. She placed the filter between her lips again looking around in either mirror for a hint of her smoking Reflection. She leaned forward with the cigarette protruding from her face and then sat back, she removed the cigarette, bit her bottom lip, and picked up the lighter, placed the cigarette back between her lips and flipped open the lid to produce a flame. ‘Sod you!’ she said to herself as her cheeks collapsed around the cigarette as she pulled the smoke into her lungs, the first cigarette in twelve hours, she pulled again before exhaling towards the mirror. Her shoulder sagged as she relaxed as the wave of anticipated nicotine got to work. She looked through the exhaled cloud of smoke at her cheekily grinning Reflection.
“Bitch, you wanted me to go first!” She snarked at her Reflection as it grinned back, they replaced the cigarette back between their lips, and their cheeks collapsed deeply again in unison as they both pulled a large lungful of smoke deep into their chests. “But God I am sure I needed this!” she said to her Reflection whilst both were holding the cigarette up to the mirror and watching the smoke lit by the light drift off the tip up towards the ceiling. She looked away from the cigarette and to her Reflection and whispered, “But thank you!” as she smiled at herself and they both took another long drag, holding the smoke for what felt like ages before releasing large volume of smoke into the room.
That first cigarette of the evening very quickly became a second, which with no argument from either of them was swiftly followed by a third, But Lucy clocked that
her Reflection disappeared long before she had actually finished the third cigarette, but she was so lost in pulling and enjoying the smoke in her wanting lungs, that she really didn’t care. She stubbed it out with a stream of smoke still pouring out of her nose, as she was utterly delirious and giddy again, her head felt light and her feet like concrete as she slowly made her way down the stairs, she almost slipped on the cellophane on the steps but managed to catch herself on the handrail.
She got to the bottom of the stairs and realised she had dropped everything so headed to the porch and retrieved her shopping and then swiftly opened the wine and poured it into a large glass. She washed the taste of the now rather delightful bitter taste from her mouth with a large gulp crisp wine, before opening the fridge and getting a microwave cottage pie for one out.
Chapter 17
Lucy had felt almost disappointed smoking her two cigarettes before bed. Her Reflection just didn’t appear. It didn’t matter how many deep inhales, or smoke rings, or French inhales she did, the reflection just didn’t want to make an appearance. One side it didn’t matter, as Lucy still very much enjoyed the cigarettes, but it concerned her, what had happened to “it”, it was as if she was sitting there smoking on her own.
After spending a great deal of time whilst sleeping dreaming of her smoking Reflection she was relieved in the morning when she jumped out of bed and immediately sat down on the stool that once she positioned the cigarette between her lips her Reflection appeared with its huge, big grin, almost saying ‘Did you miss me?’ as they flipped open the lighter and got the cigarette alight with a couple of deep drags.
Eventually after yet another cigarette Lucy got herself to work, she was running a little late she explained to Tammy was because the queue for the Drive thru at McDonalds was longer than usual as she picked up her morning latte, she didn’t dare say it was because she just had to sit with her Reflection for yet another cigarette before leaving the house.
“Why are you so mopey?” Tammy asked in her usual bouncy way. “I am not!” Lucy hastily snapped back.
Tammy put her hands up defensively “Oh, wow, did you get out of bed the wrong side?”
“Tam, leave it, I am fine!” she grizzled as she angrily tapped away on her keyboard.
Ultimately at the end of the day, Lucy just couldn’t wait to get home and back to sanctuary of her bedroom.
For the next couple of days cigarettes would be smoked sitting in front of the mirror whether her Reflection was there or not, mornings and at night. On Wednesday on the way home she had to buy another pack for the house, as she finished the last one just before leaving the house, she was cross with herself as she had forgotten about the one in the glovebox until she had sat down in the car and looked in that direction. She had twisted the review mirror and rubbed her lips together and then looked at herself smiling back and then glanced down at the glovebox again. She opened the glovebox and removed the cellophane; ‘One here wouldn’t hurt before home’ she argued to herself as she pulled the filter out and placed it between her lips and with a drag on the cigarette whilst glancing at her face in the rear-view mirror she sat in her car and dragged hard on the cigarette. Siting in the small space she soon realised that the car was filling up with smoke and quickly wound the window down letting the smoke out, and the fresh air in.
With the butt nearly finished she looked around, shrugged her shoulders, took one last longing drag and then flicked it over the window, her exhaled smoke followed it out of the gap.
***
On Friday morning Lucy shuffled into the office again a little late carrying her cup of coffee. She may have sat in her car in the carpark and had opened the pack in the glovebox for just for one more before work as the one in front of the mirror had been a while ago.
Tammy bounced up from her seat “Morning you!” she smiled and sniffed the air “Christ you been to Debenhams perfume counter already this morning?”
Lucy laughed “No, I may have gone a bit mad with the body spray this morning, sorry!” she sheepishly grinned. As she took of her coat and hung it up on the chair.
Tammy smiled back “So are we going to go out tonight? Its FRIDAY!” she shouted. “Parrrtay!” she grinned and did a little jig.
Lucy looked up and bit her bottom lip “I’m knackered, it has been a hard week. I was actually thinking of a night in!” She frowned as she adjusted her skirt and then sat down and wiggled her mouse for her computer to come alive.
Tammy leaned over the officer divider “Oh, how about in that case can I come over and see your now house then?” Tammy asked with a hopeful face on. “We can have pizza or Chinese and stay in?”
“At mine?” Lucy asked confused.
Tammy looked at Lucy with a big grin “Well out of the two of us, you’ve got the new house and you live on your own!”
Lucy kept nervously biting her bottom lip and wiggled her head side to side as she weighed it up. “Er, yeah why not!”
“Whoop, Whoop, I will get the wine on my way home. Partay at Lucy’s!” Tammy exclaimed as she continued her little dancing jig, her large breasts bouncing up and down in their bra as she wiggled and jiggled. On her side of office divider Lucy quietly panicked noisily tapping her fingers in a rhythmic patter on her desk as she was worried about how clean her house potentially was for guests. “Shall I come around for seven?” Tammy invited herself.
Lucy looked up from giving the keyboard a death stare “Yeah, why not!” she forced a grin.
Chapter 18
Lucy had rushed home, even managing to smoke and drive at the same time, she felt proud of herself as she pulled up into the drive, then ran up the stairs and further smoked two quick cigarettes disappointingly without her Reflection in the mirror and then got undressed as to get ready for Tammy’s impending arrival. She got dressed in her black fitted jeans and a red top with some red sequins on the neckline, doused herself and the room in perfume and bodyspray ignoring and not putting away the dramatically now over full ashtray, pack of cigarettes and lighter by the mirror as they sort of lived where they did, and then headed to the bathroom, straightened her towels on the rail, putting the toothbrush in the old
glass holder and looked around making it presentable, she had one last glance in the mirror above the sink before heading downstairs.
She headed to the kitchen and winced at the piles of dishes, she glanced at the time and quickly put as many as possible into the dishwasher and tried her best to clean the counters. “Where is mum when you need her!” she exclaimed as bent down pick-up crumbs off the floor and then coughed to clear her throat and swallowed hard as she strained to get up and put them in the full bin. She then ran her tongue along her lips as she opened the fridge, twisted off the lid from the wine bottle and poured herself a glass of wine, before swishing calmly as she could into the living room.
Tammy arrived promptly dressed to the nines in a low-cut curve-hugging maroon dress whilst carrying two bottles of wine. Lucy audibly gulped when she compared her dress to her jeans and top.
“Evening you, let us get this party started!” she giggled as Lucy gave her a quick welcoming hug and then invited her in.
“I will put the wine in the fridge!” Lucy suggested helpfully, but I have got a chardonnay open, if that is ok?
“Hell yeah!” Tammy said distractedly as she was busy looking intently around the living room as she followed her into the kitchen. “This place is amazing; you are so lucky!” she grinned as Laura poured the wine in to clean glass and offered it to her.
“Thanks, Cheers!” Lucy grinned as they clinked glasses.
Tammy wiggled her hips to some music in her head “Shall we order the pizza’s? They take ages on Friday.” And then took a mouthful of wine.
“Yeah, come into the lounge, its more comfortable than this tiny kitchen.”
“Luce, the kitchen is incredible!” Tammy said with serious intent on her face as Lucy shrugged her shoulders.
Lucy turned the television on, and chose a radio station, and turned the music down to background, they then sat at either end of the sofa and between them on Tammy’s phone they managed to order the pizza on the app and then continued to drink, chat, and after the pizza arrived thirty minutes later, they continued to eat, drink and gossip.
“Are you okay Luce?” Tammy asked as she brushed the crumbs off her lap. “Yeah, why?”
“Oh, you keep looking at the ceiling, is there a huge crack I can’t see, I am worried it’s about to collapse on us!”
Lucy chuckled and picked up her wine glass and took a gulp “I am fine, I just keep thinking about something that I might have forgotten, but I can’t remember what it is!” she grinned.
“You go upstairs to fetch something, and then can’t remember why you went upstairs…you are getting old Luce!” Tammy grinned and took another gulp of wine.
“Yeah, something like that.”
“I’m worried about you Luce!”
“Why?”
“You keep forgetting things, like today you had to keep running out to your car at lunchtime because you forgot something!”
“Did I?”
“You know my desk looks towards the door; I can easily distract myself people watching.” She grinned and took another sip of wine.
“I didn’t realise I was doing it!” Lucy bit her bottom lip full well knowing what she was doing in the car.
“Yeah, you even went twice today.”
Lucy chuckled “Yeah well, you know…I forgot my phone… and then my purse.” She exaggeratedly rolled her eyes and winced, bit her bottom lip again, and then nervously looked to the ceiling.
“There you go again!” Tammy tilted her head and looked up to the area on ceiling that Lucy was looking at trying to see if there was large crack or something, and then back and studied Lucy who was still looking at the ceiling “Are you sure you are okay?”
Lucy nodded and now focused on Tammy “Yes of course I am, I will just pop to the loo, and then open another bottle?” she grinned trying to change the topic.
“Yeah, the night is still young, as are we!” Tammy grinned “I will go after you; I’ve still got to have a nosey around up there”
Lucy chuckled, “There is bedroom with an uncomfortable double bed, an awful 1970’s salmon pink bathroom and a small box room full of cardboard boxes, I can assure the is nothing to see!” she stated as she hopped off the sofa.
***
Lucy looked up into the darkness and swore under her breath as she climbed the stairs, the lightbulb that her dad replaced last week had blown again. She will have to get one his electrical mates around she determined as she got to the top following the handrail. She glanced at her bedroom door and winced; the soft light of the desk light was emitting around the door frame.
She opened the door to be faced with the pleasant lingering smell of her earlier cigarettes, Lucy quickly walked over to the mirror, and sat down. There was her Reflection grinning at her. She glared “Not now! I am busy, I really, really want to, but I can’t!” She muttered under her breath as they both looked at the pack of cigarettes. “I will definitely later!” she glowered as she watched her reflection take a cigarette from the pack anyway and with impressive gusto take what looked like a very enjoyable teasingly deep drag.
Lucy sighed as her Reflection exhaled a delightful large cloud of smoke, she shook her head and got up in a fouler, grumpier mood than when she sat down, and as she got up, she glared at the mirror, before again turning off the angle light off before firmly shutting the bedroom door behind her, she took a large deep breath whilst looking at her closed door and exhaled the air as she turned and headed into the bathroom.
***
Tammy sat with her knees together on the toilet, her purple dress bunched up around her waist and her thick black tights and the contrasting bright yellow thong down around her calves. She nodded as she looked around from her vantage point at small bathroom, and nodded in agreement with Lucy, the bathroom was incredibly dated, but totally functional.
As she turned her head back to in front of her, she looked to the closed white painted bathroom door, she did a double take, she was convinced that she just watched a light flick on in the darkness under the door. Lucy had warned her the main bulb had gone, but other than Lucy there was no one else in the house, at least that is what she assumed. Tammy slowly stood up and wiggled her thong up her legs and over a neatly trimmed dark bush and up to her hips and then pulled her tights back up, pulling at the above the knees to get them comfortably up and then dropped and smoothed out her dress, she turned flushed and then stepped across and washed her hands, whilst trying to keep one eye on the door. She distracted herself with the mirror and smiled at herself.
Then as she opened the door, the soft pop music from the radio was drifting up the stairs from the darkness, she sniffed the air, there was an obvious strong musty, potent smoky smell in the hallway, she winced as she could taste it on her tongue, she looked to her right and stepped across the hallway and opened the door in front of her, and flicked on the light and as Lucy said, it was a tiny room, buried deep in brown packing cardboard boxes. She turned off the light and closed the door and stepped to the side and looked down at her feet, she could see where the light was coming from, there was a bright yellow line running along under the bedroom door which as she grabbed the doorknob turned off leaving her in darkness
***
Lucy hugged her empty glass of wine as she sat on the sofa and followed Tammy’s movements upstairs once the toilet flushed. She couldn’t sit still as she shuffled to the end of her sofa and rocked her weight from buttock to buttock, she knew that Tammy was standing in front of her bedroom door, and she knew what was on the other side; she crossed her fingers and bit her bottom lip, she wanted to her find out, as much as she wanted to keep this her secret, she stared at the ceiling as she heard the bedroom door creak open. She took a deep breath and looked up.
“Tam, do you want some chocolate ice cream?” Lucy shouted up. ***
Tammy frowned in the darkness, her face lit from the dull light seeping up from below, she released her hand from the bedroom doorknob and turned and walked to the top of the stairs. “Yeah, sure, sounds good!” she stated and slowly and
thoughtfully made her way down. “I haven’t had ice cream in ages!” she grinned as she found Lucy in the kitchen running the spoon under the hot tap.
“I know, it’s the delights of living in your own house…there is no one to say you can’t!” Lucy grinned as she opened the freezer and pulled out the ice cream tub and looked up at Tammy. “You okay hun?” She asked as she started scooping out the ice cream.
“Yeah, just spooked by your strange electrics, I guess, I am sure the lights flicked on and off up there?”
Lucy stopped scooping a bit her bottom lip “Hmm yes, I need to get my Dad’s mate Steve Uphill around, he is apparently good with electrics.” She continued to bite her bottom lip, until shrugging and continuing to scoop two large balls of desert into the bowls.
“How do you sleep at night?” “That’s a big problem, I don’t!” Chapter 19
Tammy stood up picked up her yet again topped-up wine glass and whilst holding it steady in her hand started to slowly dance in the living room. “Turn the music up Luce!” she smiled happily as she slowly and rhythmically moved her body to the music.
As Lucy followed the request she got up and danced for twenty seconds.
“Come on Luce, let’s go out and hit the town and go and chase some men!” Tammy grinned as she seductively wiggled her hips and took a gulp of wine.
Lucy glanced with one eye upstairs and snorted “Nah, I know it will be fun, but I am happy in!” she grinned and took a gulp of her wine and then wiggled her body out of rhythm of the music.
“Oh, I love this tune!” Tammy said as the music changed, she started to hop around in a circle and ruffle her skirt hem up and down at her thighs to the beat of the music.
Lucy looked on at her friend dancing “Do you know what, as it is getting a little late, I am going to go and change in something more comfortable!” she nervously grinned.
Tammy stopped dancing dropping the hem down her thighs “Oh, let’s go out, the night is young…” before looking solemnly at Lucy “…oh do you want me to go?”
Lucy smiled kindly as she shook her head, “God no babes, carry on dancing, I will come back and join in you in minute!” she grinned and gulped her wine, waved at Tammy as she turned and left her friend dancing in her living room lifting her dress high up her thighs as if no one cared and headed up the stairs and into the darkness.
***
No sooner had Lucy sat at the dressing table was the fresh cigarette between her lips, the angle light was on, again all by itself, and she stared at her Reflection who grinned back, they brought the flame to the cigarette and their cheeks buckled as they pulled the fresh smoke in to their lungs, the exhaled cone out the side of the mouth. “Wow!” Lucy sighed as she rested her elbow on the table and head in palm of her hand and replaced the filter back between her lips and drew again quickly and hard.
Lucy pulled hard on the cigarette half a dozen times, and then noticed it was almost at the butt, she almost leant into the cigarette attempting to take one last longing drag, trying to get as much smoke into her lungs as possible, as if it was the last cigarette of the day. She exhaled towards the mirror, and as the smoke dispersed, her Reflection was still there grinning looking at the pack as they stubbed it out.
“No, later!” she grizzled towards her Reflection as it again looked to the pack, she looked to the floor as if to give it the hint! She picked up her wine glass and washed her smoky pallet with a gulp. As her Reflection looked back longingly. “No!”
Lucy sat there staring at the mirror desperate to win, she bit her bottom lip and then crossed over her arms and pulled off her top and untangled her arms from her bra straps and spun it around and unclipped it. She unbuttoned her jeans and then stood up holding the dressing table with one hand tugged down her jeans, her knickers soon joining the rest of her clothes in a pile on the floor. She glanced at the mirror and clocked her lit naked white bottom reflecting in the glass and smiled
at its pert shape but with a double take convinced in this mirror is it was sagging more, she squeezed a buttock with her hand and shook her head in confusion, Lucy leaned on to the bed and retrieved her pyjamas and then promptly sat on it and bounced twice on the springy mattress and after leaning back on the bed and fighting her toes with the leg holes, she pulled them on.
She leaned on the tabletop and picked up her grannies’ perfume and squirted it twice in the direction of her neck and then wrists, turned off the desk light and made her way down the dark hallway rubbing her wrists together.
***
Tammy looked up at the ceiling as she bounced and boogied around the living room, she paused and gulped her wine ‘What is Lucy up to?’ she questioned to herself and then kept moving to the music. She smiled as she watched Lucy saunter down the stairs in her blue strappy pyjama top and little shorts, Lucy’s breasts where pushing against the top, her nipples protruding like marbles as she had just left the cold bathroom.
“Ah, there you are” she smiled “You took your time!” Tammy ginned as she gyrated her hips as Lucy got closer. She sniffed the air “Ohh your Grannies perfume, it smells gorgeous!” she grinned as they locked hips and danced together for a couple of beats before releasing and Lucy then fell back on to the sofa with a big sigh.
“Hey whats up?” Tammy asked as wiggled her hips and body closer
“Nothing!” Lucy grinned and pulled up her stray strap of her kami style pyjama top.
Tammy put down her wine glass and offered both her hands, “Come on dance with me again?”
Lucy looked up and then glanced at her wine glass. “Maybe in a minute!”
“Oh, okay, I will go and visit your bathroom then we can dance again!” Tammy groaned and finished off her wine and headed to the stairs as Lucy sighed loudly and coughed as her head fell back against the sofa, Tammy could have said let’s head to the moon, she wouldn’t have cared as she was tired, enjoying the tipsy feeling of plenty of wine along with the latest nicotine hit currently flooding her bloodstream.
***
Tammy came out of the bathroom and again pulled at her loose tights above the knees and wiggled as she tugged them up her legs again and sniffed the air and coughed, it was incredibly smoky, as if she had stepped back into a 90’s bar. In the dark dimness of the hallway, she glanced down at her covered toes, there was an audible click from behind the closed door, she gasped as the bright warm yellow light suddenly appeared through the small gap under the door.
***
Lucy bit her bottom lip and tapped her fingers on the glass in rhythm to the beat of the music as her shoulders sagged, she looked around the room looking for inspiration, winced and waited as she looked up towards the blackness of her stairs as she knew what was to happen next.
***
“Fuck!” Tammy exclaimed her eyes wide open as she looked through the wide- open door to stare at the bedroom with the extremely, fresh and potent wafting smell of cigarettes permeated the room, she instantly coughed as she tried to breath and gulped for fresh air, and failed. She looked at the dressing table the angle light was pointing at a large glass ashtray disgustingly full of brown stained filters and butts, there was an open white pack of cigarettes beside a gold lighter. Tammy felt sick to the stomach, she coughed again as felt as if she were going to urge, she put her hand across her belly, she couldn’t comprehend what she was looking at, but was almost stuck to the floor. She didn’t know where to turn. She saw Lucy’s clothes scattered on the edge of the bed and floor, she looked back towards the dressing table. Tammy suddenly jolted forward; she felt as if she was being pulled. She gawked at the dressing table and then her feet weighed down by what felt like concrete slowly creeped towards it; the floorboard loudly squeaked as her weight shifted which broke her thought pattern as she felt as if she was being drawn towards the flower patterned the stool.
Her heavy steel like legs negotiated the gap in the table and she sat down and stared at opened mouthed at her Reflection in the mirror.
***
Lucy winced and looked to the ceiling and then gulped her wine and slowly stood up as the scream reverberated around the house. “Fuck! Help! Lucy I am…
smoking” being stuttered and repeated between screams down the hallway. Lucy nodded as she heard Tammy shout “Luce, quick, Help, look my Reflection is actually smoking!”
With her bottom lip bitten, but with a wry smile she calmly picked up the bottle of wine and topped up the two empty glasses and then carefully carried them up the stairs, as the swearing and sounds of hypoventilation and freaking out got louder.
Lucy smiled as leant against the bedroom door frame, again bit her bottom lip and then took a gulp from her glass of wine and ran her tongue along her lip as she looked at Tammy brightly lit by the angle light sat in front of her dressing table now fully engrossed in the mirror, the way her hand was positioned and what her mouth was doing, she was clearly copying her Reflection exhaling smoke from a mirrored cigarette. Lucy carefully put the two wine glasses down on the edge of the dressing table away from the mirrors.
She leaned in whispered into Tammy’s ear “Tam, move up, we are both only small!” who without looking away from the mirror shuffled across the stool, so when Lucy sat down, they each only had one buttock on the cushion, but neither cared.
Lucy stared at the mirror and was briefly surprized by the much older looking, almost mature looking Tammy to her left all glammed up in her purple dress reflecting with a now tell-tale cigarette dangled in the corner of her mouth alongside her own normal morphed Reflection.
“What is going on?” Tammy asked quietly Lucy as the stared back at the mirror.
“I have no idea; I have just gone along with it…and the truth be told whatever it is doing, it’s bloody amazing!” Lucy responded with a huge grin on her face as they both watched Tammy’s Reflection power an exhale to the side out of the corner of her mouth as she stubbed her cigarette out.
“How?” Tammy gulped, looking at their two heads lit brightly by the angle light surrounded by darkness, the sequins on Tammy’s purple dress sparking under the light and in the mirror.
Lucy lips parted into a large smile as both her and the Reflection picked up the pack and offered it to Tammy and her Reflection. Tammy nervously tugged at the cylinder whilst her Reflection was far quicker as they pulled out a cigarette out between their long, bright red painted nails and placed it between their matching
red lips, taken over by events Tammy was sitting there alongside Lucy with a white cigarette protruding from her lips.
“What now?” the muffled voice of Tammy asked with the cigarette between her lips.
“All I know is just follow your Reflection and then enjoy the ride!” Lucy grinned as she picked up the lighter, flipped open the lid and brought the flame underneath Tammy’s cigarette. “Just go along whatever she does, but when doing this, please don’t take your eyes off her!” Lucy grinned as the hot flame slowly rose to the tip, and just as her reflection’s cheeks concaved, Tammy did too, the cherry burnt brightly as she pulled the smoke in to her lungs.
Lucy watched as under the bright light Tammy and her reflection inhaled the smoke, and then Tammy followed the exhale out to the side, the smoke twirled and danced in front of them as Lucy turned and grinned at her Reflection as they did exactly the same thing, for Lucy it had been a long ten antagonising minutes since her last one, and this was born out as both her and her Reflection dragged hard on the cigarette.
“Luce, look, we’re actually smoking!” Tammy stated with the smoke still drifting out of the mouth as it bounced of the mirror and dissipated as she stared in awe of her Reflection in the mirror.
“I know, and, Tam, and you look beautiful and stunning doing it!” Lucy replied as she glanced at her friend all lit up with the angle light with a burning cigarette elegantly between her fingers.
“Luce, but I look, like…older?” She said peering closer to the mirror as the grey smoke from her cigarette drifted past her nose.
“That’s what I told you, but I think we look so stylish!” Lucy grinned in unity as they distracted themselves from the conversation as all four of them moved their hands with perfect synchronicity and their cheeks dug in as they powered the smoke into their lungs. The large exhaled followed.
“That is crazy, but it’s also amazing, I never knew!” She stated as her first two waves of nicotine was flooding her system.
“It is, and the best thing, look at it, there is still plenty of this amazing smoke between your fingers to enjoy!” Lucy stated after glancing at each of their burning cigarettes, “Just keep following your sexy Reflection.”
Tammy nodded in agreement as in silence all four of them then dragged again unison.
As the smoke collided with the mirror Tammy grinned “Wow, I am doing this!” she smiled as leant forward and studied her Reflection “But Luce,” she turned and looked at her “Why am I doing this?” She asked as the particles of smoke from the two cigarettes swirled and danced together in together in front of mirror.
Lucy didn’t answer as she was focused looking at her Reflection, she mouthed ‘Bitch, thank you’ to it, who flicked her long eyelashes a couple of times in appreciation as Tammy turned her head back and locked eyes on her mirror image as they then almost gracefully put the cigarettes back between theirs lips and pulled hard on their filters as in the room it looked like four orange cherries burning brightly with the inhales.
Then with heads turned slightly to the side there were four large clouds of exhales, and surrounded by the darkness, you could look from one ashtray to the other in the mirror and back again and it was impossible to say which was which, as under the bright desk light they all powered through that cigarette and then one more, and then with Lucy encouraging she led Tammy the way into the next, they all soon disappeared from view under a large, thick, grey cloud of smoke.