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Re: Story: ALL IN THE FAMILY- Part 5
 Author: slimv July 25, 2001 at 20:08:38 
in reply to: Re: Story: ALL IN THE FAMILY- Part 4 posted by slimv on July 25, 2001 at 20:07:35
    Part 5

I told her I meant one or two cigarettes.

Where pity had once flourished, there was only disgust. I felt as if I was looking into my mother’s face. She took another puff and ground the smoked butt in the ashtray without asking if I’d like another puff. She picked up her pack of Virginia Slims with adult authority and lit one in anger. I was no longer a fellow addict. I was just another stupid teenager experimenting with cigarettes, sneaking behind the adult’s backs. My penis went limp.
Barbara was livid. She wanted to know how I could be so stupid (a question that I had asked my self). She wanted to know what in the world would posses me to start smoking. Didn’t I know it was bad for me? Didn’t I know I could catch lung cancer or emphysema?
My big breasted dream had suddenly turn into a big breasted nightmare. She who had just moments earlier referred to my mother as cruel and insensitive was now defending her. I couldn’t look at her. I looked at my limp dick instead.
She took me by the ear and forced me to look at her. She held her cigarette in the air as if it was a loaded gun and then she coughed violently. Is this what you want, she asked? She told me to look her in the eye when she talked to me. In her martyr’s voice she told me she smoked four packs a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year! She asked me if I wanted to wind up like her. She told me that she had been smoking for almost 40 years and regretted it every morning she woke up and every night she went to sleep.
Her passion had gotten the best of her and stirred up a violent reaction in her chest. She thumped her chest and coughed. She was choking on her own thick black phlegm. At last it came out or at least I think it did because she stopped coughing and swallowed hard. Had it been a piece of her lung?
Tears began to form at the corners of her bloodshot eyes. She was crying. Had she really coughed up a lung? Was the pain that terrible? She put out her cigarette and wept behind her hands.
I shrank at least four feet. I wrenched my guilt-covered casts and wiped them on the sheet. I pulled her close and told her how sorry I was. All this pain because I came out of the closet. Was it worth all this for four or five puffs of her cigarette?
Absolutely. This was drama at its finest and I devoured every second of it.
I put my arm around her. She tried to shake me off but I insisted and pulled her closer. I rubbed my cast across her shoulder as she cried on mine. The sobbing began to slow and she was beginning to regain her composure.
She apologized for losing control. She said she shouldn’t have acted like that but she was very upset. I rubbed her shoulder and told her I understood.
She looked at me with tear-stained cheeks and asked if I really understood. When I didn’t respond immediately, she launched into her lecture.

She sat up in bed and lit another cigarette as she
struggled to find the words that she could use to make me
understand.

“I think I love you,” she said. “I think I’ve been in love with you since the first time Tammy brought you home to meet me and Bill. Up until now, I thought it was lust. But when I saw you smoking that cigarette and I learned you had just started, I got angry because you were hurting your self. And I was mad at my self because I was the one putting the cigarette in your mouth. That’s when I knew it wasn’t lust. That’s when I knew I loved you.”
She looked away and took a drag from her cigarette and dumped her ash. I was blown away by her confession. My penis began to wake up and I shifted uncomfortably in the bed. I told her that I loved her too and I think I really meant it as much as 17-year-old boy can love a 51-year-old woman.
She responded to my words and turned to face me. The tears were drying up. She wore a tired smile and I kissed her. She kissed me back.

She took another puff and continued her lecture, but this
time she was much more rational and calm.

She told me that I was about to make a decision that would affect the rest of my life. She told me I could choose to quit while I was still able, or I could choose to become a slave to cigarettes like her and my mother.
Barbara took a deep puff as she considered what to say next. I watched as her lungs expanded and pushed up against her great breasts. I watched as she pursed her lips together and exhaled a long thin stream of smoke. Did she have any idea how sexy she looked?
I kissed her on the cheek. For one brief second I thought that was it. All I had to do was tell her that I wanted to smoke. But it wasn’t that easy. She wanted to tell me her story. She wanted me to know what it was like to be so addicted to cigarettes that quitting wasn’t an option. She thought she could talk me out of it but all she did was increase the blood flow to my penis.
You like to smoke, she said. Right? You like the way the smoke feels inside your lungs. Maybe it makes you feel lightheaded or even buzzed. You like to look in the mirror and watch the smoke come out your mouth when you exhale. You think it would be fun to smoke whenever you want. You think people would think of you differently if they knew you smoked. It would make you special.
I didn’t argue with her. I don’t know if I ever thought of it that way, but she wasn’t far from the mark.
You’re 17 years old. When I was your age, I smoked two packs a day. I started when I was 12 and my parents gave me their permission when I was 14. I’ll never forget that day. I felt like a grown-up the first time I smoked in front of my parents. I felt so proud of my self but they weren’t proud of me. They were sad and I didn’t know why. But I know now. My parents knew they couldn’t stop me or talk any sense into me. I probably can’t change your mind either, but I’m still going to try.
What can I say? Barbara had my full and undivided attention. It wasn’t that her lecture was getting to me. I just enjoyed hearing her talk about her habit. I watched with great fascination as she put her cigarette out and a lit another.
Barbara took a deep puff from her freshly lit Virginia Slim and put her pack back on the nightstand. She didn’t offer me a puff but continued her story where she left off.
I remember feeling like a big deal smoking in front of my friends. Before my parents gave me their permission, I was a closet smoker like you. As a matter of fact, I only smoked two or three cigarettes a day. Some times I’d go several days in a row without smoking. Does that sound familiar?

I shrugged my shoulders and nodded.

Having my parent’s permission meant I didn’t have to worry about getting caught. It wasn’t that I wanted a smoke a lot, but I could smoke a lot. Instead of worrying about people seeing me, I started worrying about how good I looked while I was smoking. I didn’t want to look like a kid. I wanted to look like a woman.
Cigarettes are deceptive. I don’t think I realized how much I was smoking until it was too late. After a while it becomes a part of every thing you do. I smoked when I drove. I smoked when I talked on the phone. I smoked while I did my chores. I lit up after dinner with my parents. Later I started smoking during dinner.
I turned a blind eye to the changes. After my parents gave me their permission to smoke, I started coughing. By the time I was 15, I had a smoker’s cough. I didn’t notice my voice getting husky. I pretended not to see the yellow nicotine stains on my fingers and teeth.
I went on my first date with a boy when I was 16. He took me to dinner and he lit my cigarettes, even though he didn’t smoke. I felt like such an adult. And then he took me to the movies. I sat in that theater for two hours without a cigarette. I can still remember how good that cigarette tasted when I lit up in the parking lot. It took almost two hours for me to feel the craving of withdrawal. Now a day I can’t go ten minutes without a cigarette.
The more you smoke, the easier it becomes to smoke more. That’s one of the things that make cigarettes so deceptive. By the time I went to college I was smoking three packs a day. That’s where I met Bill. Back then smoking was considered attractive and socially acceptable. I was proud of my three-pack a day habit. After we got married I became a housewife. And that gave me even more time to smoke. I’ve been smoking four packs a day for almost 30 years.
I tried to quit after I got pregnant with Tammy. By then I knew it was bad for me but by then it was too late. I lasted less than half an hour. That’s when I knew I was a slave to my cigarettes.
It didn’t matter that I got winded when I walked to the end of the driveway to get our mail. It didn’t matter that that I had to sit down and have a cigarette after I carried a load of clothes up stairs. Being out of shape was something I learned to live with because I had no choice.
Your mother acted like a bitch when she caught you with cigarettes, but all mothers feel that way about their children, especially mothers that smoke. We love our kids and we don’t want to see them make the same mistakes we did. It was always in the back of my mind that Tammy might start. Thank God she didn’t. But I had this speech all prepared for her if it happened. And I’m giving it to you.
I wish I could give you my lungs for a day. I wish you could feel what it feels like to hack out a lung. I wish you could know what its like to lose your sense of smell and taste without having to suffer permanent damage.
I know it feels good now, but you have to think about how you’ll feel when you’re my age. You’re only 17 Honey. You’ve only been smoking for a couple of months. Besides it being bad for you, you’re not old enough to smoke. You’re breaking the law and I’d be breaking the law if I allowed you to smoke. If you have to smoke, at least wait until you’re 18.
I told her I didn’t want to wait because I knew in my heart that I wanted to smoke and I knew I’d always want to. I waited for Barbara to put her cigarette out and light another. As far as I was concerned, there was nothing left to say. I had made up mind.
Barbara exhaled a plume of smoke in my face. It would have been sexy if she weren’t so angry. OK, you win, she said as she dropped her pack of Virginia Slims and a lighter on my naked lap. Smoke your lungs out. Catch cancer. I don’t care. And with that said, she left the room.
She shut the door on her way out leaving me alone with her cigarettes. I didn’t feel as if I had won. Perhaps I belonged in the closet. Perhaps this was a bad idea. I decided to think about it while I had a cigarette.
I reached for the pack but nothing happened. Full hand casts can have that affect. I had won. I could smoke in the house. I didn’t have to hide any more. There was only problem. I couldn’t hold a cigarette and I sure as hell couldn’t light one. Needless to say my handicap hadn’t been on lost on Barbara.
I got out of bed and went to the door. It was closed. I hated closed doors. I put my casts together on the brass knob and tried to turn it. The casts just slipped off. I called to Barbara to open the door. She told me she was busy.

End of Part 5 		   
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