All's well that ends well

When I came home that day, Lea didn't greet me at the door like she did every day. Usually she would hear my car and wait for me right behind the door to give me a welcome back home hug and a kiss. I didn't give it much thought then, after all she may have been busy and jump in later. Not this time. She just sat there on the coach brooding and hardly looked up when I entered the living room. I noticed a post card on the table in front of her, but didn't give it much attention. She hardly answered my joyful "Hi". After three month of living together I knew better than to press the issue. Even before she moved in and we were just dating, she had on occasions fallen into a depressive mood, but usually her dark mood hadn't survived the day. She would be especially nice to me on the next day. Yet I felt this time was different.

I had met her half a year earlier in the most common way a man can meet a woman, at a coffee shop. We sometimes used to make fun about the similarity to a movie we both liked, where a guy meets a woman at a coffee shop and they instantly fall in love to each other. Unlike in the movie, we managed to keep in touch after that half an hour we had spent chatting in front of a couple of cappuccinos. Our conversation had started over the fact that smoking had been banned from the shop and how good that was. Being a non-smoker myself I agreed enthusiastically, even thou I had my secret reasons to regret that I couldn't watch women smoke over their coffee anymore. Well, she was such a cutie I would have agreed to anything she said. I fell for her the moment she started the conversation. She was a petite young woman with a lovely face, the kind I like the most. Not a Barbie like doll face, but with features denoting both intelligence and a sort of shyness that raised my protective instincts. Everything on her was petite but lovely, her breasts, her hips, her miniature feet, enabling her to buy her foot wear from the children's department, as well as her clothes. Within half an hour we found that we had many things in common, like our preference for sappy movies, for certain kind of music and who knows what else. One thing had struck me from the first time I met her. She tended to a sort of nerviness I couldn't place. On recurring intervals she would get restless, rubbing her palms or walking around with her hands tucked under her armpits, drinking one glass of water after the other. Nobody's perfect so I accepted that. She had such a lovely character otherwise and she turned out to be such a perfect match for me, that after three month of going out and staying over at each other's places, she gave up her apartment and moved in with me. She worked for a number of magazines and most of the time she did her work on her computer at home.

I did my best not to disturb her that evening. We ate together mostly in silence and after a futile attempt to watch TV, we retired to the bedroom. We both read novels till she reached for the switch of her lamp, another thing that we had in common, the passion for reading at night in bed. She would be the first one to go to sleep, but I always switched off my own reading light when she did. It had been a busy day and I fell asleep the moment the light was out. In the morning I woke up to find the place beside me empty. This had never happened before. I have always been an early riser and she would usually stay in bed long after I had made coffee and had breakfast or left for work on weekdays. I went down to the kitchen, curious what had driven her out of bed. The first thing that struck me was the smell of cigarette smoke. I couldn't believe it. The kitchen was filled with the haze of fresh cigarette smoke and I saw her standing there with a smoked down cigarette in her hand. I was speechless. Ever since I had first met her, she had acted like a total anti-smoker. By the way she took the last drag from her cigarette, the way she inhaled and exhaled before extinguishing the stub in the sink, I could see this wasn't the first time she smoked. She had the typical style of a long time smoker. I couldn't bring out a word. My hormones were boiling over. I was torn apart inside. One half of me wanted to jump on her, suck in her breath, kiss her, and rape her. The other half was horrified by exactly those feelings, afraid my attraction to female smokers would turn me into a rabid beast. I fled in terror to the bathroom. Numbed by my conflicted feelings, with an ice-cold lump growing in my stomach, I stepped under the shower. It had happened before and it didn't fail to happen now. Within seconds I jerked off. Yet I felt sick of it all. Within minutes I had finished the rest of my morning program and after a superficial shave I almost ran out of the house and drove off to work without even a cup of coffee. I must have had a guarding angel, as I hardly saw what went on beyond the windshield. The recurring image of Lea sucking on the stub of her cigarette, inhaling and exhaling a thick plume of smoke was all I saw before my eyes. The hours at work dragged on endlessly. Finally I could leave, but where to? I just couldn't bring myself to go straight home. I felt incapable to look Lea in the eyes. So I left the car at the company and went to the place that had once, till half a year ago, been my private watering hole. It was a bar not far from where I worked, Crazy Joe's. It was by no means crazy, just a bar like many, not yet touched by the spreading smoking ban. At the counter I met Jake, the bartender. He was practically part of the inventory. Whenever I had been there, he was behind the counter, cleaning glasses and serving people. With a pleased smile he greeted me.

'Long time no see, buddy' was his welcome speech.

'Hi man. Yeah, it's been some time.' he didn't press the matter further. Like a real good barkeeper, he never asked too many questions. Instead his ears where like black holes, absorbing everything one told him. I ordered double Bourbon. He raised one eyebrow, but served me without a comment. I gulped down half of the drink. It had surprised him, as in the old days I had been drinking mostly beer. Yet he didn't ask any questions. Finally it was me who broke the silence. Apart from an occasional beer I don't drink much, so even half the drink went straight to my head. No wonder, I hadn't eaten much all day. The lump of ice that had installed itself in stomach took good care of my appetite.

'Hey Jake, do you still have that record? The one with the way home?' I asked Joe. It was a song we both liked and he used to play it for me on and off. Whenever I was in a blue mood I loved to hear sad ballads and songs back from my high school days. Show me the way just seemed the thing I needed

�� Show me the way to go home,

�� I'm tired and I want to go to bed.

�� I had a little drink about an hour ago...

When I was in the mood, this song never failed on me. Jake and I always ended with moist eyes after hearing the first part of it. The virile but also incredibly sensitive voice of Greg Lake all but finished me off. It took the rest of my drink to help me regain my composure. I pushed the glass towards Jake and he refilled it on the spot.

'This one's on the house, Pete. You look like you need it badly.'

'You bet.' I didn't feel like talking. Not yet.

'Hey man. I haven't ever seen you down like that before.' another gulp of the Bourbon and suddenly I needed to share my grief with Jake. The bar was practically still empty. Too late for the drink after works and too early for the night flies.

'Oh, what the heck. I might as well tell you. But it's a long story.'

'I ain't going nowhere, not till two in the morning anyway.'

So I started to tell him. Maybe not quite all of it, but enough. Over the years we had sometimes been into the issue of sex and smoking. I hadn't revealed the intensity of my feelings ever before to him. He wasn't feeling the way I was about women and smoking, yet he too admitted that a woman can look extremely sexy when smoking. The alcohol removed most of my inhibitions and I told him. About how miserable my puberty had been, how I never had succeeded to find a girlfriend till late in college, how smoking always mingled up with my love life. I had tried with non-smokers. I had tried to fight my feelings for female smokers. I had acted as a militant anti-smoker, even thou my heart cried out for girls that smoked. Yet most of the non smoking girls I had met seemed so plain and unattractive. Kissing them never did much to me. Then, when I gave in to my feelings and started to date smokers I made a complete ass of myself. Either I was so hot and uncontrolled I scared them off, or the only thing attractive on the girl was her smoking, so I grew tired of her after a few dates. Then again I tried it with non-smokers. That may have worked out, as over the years I had grown more self-confident. I had been a late bloomer in my virility. Earlier to my twentieth birthday I saw myself as an unattractive slob and the girls sensed that. The better looking ones never gave me a second glance. As I grew out of my gawky appearance, I dared to try it with some good looking ones too. Yet when I finally got one into my bed, I often failed bitterly. Till the day I met Lea. She was all I had dreamt off. She was incredibly cute and lovely and she didn't smoke. She had been very patient with me and after a few futile attempts we managed to make love quite successfully. She never complained and even if we never had the fuck of the century thing, love making with her had been most satisfactory to both of us. From the first time I managed to stand my man with her we had always reached our orgasms both and if not simultaneously, still close enough. It was the best I could hope for. Till now.

'Oh man, you sure got a problem!' Jake exclaimed. 'But tell me one thing. What bothers you? I mean let her smoke. Isn't that what always turned you on in women? You say you love her, why don't you just go home, take her in your arms and tell her you don't mind? Maybe in time you can even confess the whole truth to her.'

'I wish it were that simple. First of all, I fear to loose control. I can't just jump on her every time she lights up. Things don't work that way. She may not be in the mood for love making and I run around with my flag pole up all the time. Then I don't know if I want to live in a smoke filled house. I just don't know how to react. I love her too much to want to degrade her to an object of my unnatural lust. I have once made a total ass of myself trying to explain a girl how I felt about her smoking. She never spoke a word to me again. I don't want to loose Lea that way. Besides she cheated on me in a way. She hasn't just picked up smoking today. She must have been quite a smoker before. I'm pretty sure she has never smoked since I met her, I would have smelled that, but the way I've seen her smoke, no way she's a first timer.'

'Did she tell you she never smoked?'

'No, actually it was I who assumed she never smoked, the way she talked about smoking and how she always avoided to even getting near the smoking areas in restaurants. At parties she always kept away from smokers as best as she could. But true enough I never asked if she had ever smoked. I must have been afraid of the answer, I guess. The natural cause for her avoiding cigarette smoke never occurred to me till today. She was simply afraid of a relapse. Something must have happened yesterday that threw her off the track.'

'C'mon man, go home and make up with her. If you love each other, you'll find a way. You can help her quit again and you'll be happy together.'

'If it were that easy! Now that I know she is a smoker, I don't want her to give up. I'm disgusted and enchanted at the same time. Gimme another drink.'

'I'll give you a last one, but that won't solve your problem.' right he was.

I took a cab home. It was late and I didn't even see her. The house smelled of stale smoke. She must have smoked the whole day. Yet part of me loved the smell. I fell on the couch and slept thru. I had weird dreams of her kissing me, smelling deliciously of smoke and some time I dreamt of making love to her. The wetness in my pants woke me up at first daylight. My head was killing me. A handful of aspirins and a long hot shower turned me half ways into a human again, even thou the pain had just moved from my head into my stomach. Luckily I found some clean clothing outside the bedroom. I just couldn't meet eyes with her.

The day passed easier then the one before. This time the evening approached faster then I wanted. I didn't want to get drunk again, so I just wondered around a couple of hours, yet I had to go home sooner or later. I decided to take the bull by the horns. I found her where I should see her mostly the next days, near the sink in the kitchen, smoking. I mumbled a faint greeting. On her face I could make out a mixture of feelings, partly guilt, partly defiance and a deep sadness. She didn't look me in the eyes. I noticed a carton of Marlboro Reds 100 on top of a cupboard. It was torn half open and I couldn't but to notice it was half empty. She must have smoked at least four packs and started on the fifth in two days. A wave of heat passed over me and I cursed my fate. Sometimes in the past I had wet dreams on having a lover or even wife that would smoke two or three packs a day. The idea never failed to help me jerk off in no time. Yet now, confronted with the reality things were different. I was still half aroused half horrified. I left her there and went upstairs to move my stuff to the spare dormitory. Either way I looked at it, I couldn't sleep in the same room with her now. I was afraid of assaulting her as much as I was afraid of starting a fight. But how the room smelled! The wonderful flavor of stale smoke. She must have smoked in bed too. What a dream! Yet I saw no way of going for it. Already she must think I was mad like hell at her. How should she know that her smoking was giving me hell? One minute I was ready to lift her in my arms and kiss and hug her, the other I was prepared to tell her it's all over.

Two other days passed like this. Sometimes she would give me a look like she was on the verge of starting to talk to me, but she never actually tried to and neither did I. We circled around each other without the courage to speak up.

Then the weekend came, our usual shopping day. We had settled into a routine of making a tour to the mall, buying all the supplies for the next week and having lunch at the food court. This Saturday I went to the kitchen to fetch some coffee. Like always the kitchen was filled with smoke and she was at her usual place near the sink, smoking. The carton of Marlboros lay crumpled in the dust bin, so she had finished another five packs in past two days. I managed to press out a Good Morning and went for the coffee maker. The kitchen being rather smallish, I brushed her unintentionally when I passed her. The touch sent an electric discharge thru my body, the likes I had never felt before. Yet I just took a couple of deep breathes, involuntarily getting a full load of second hand smoke. My dick twitched. Still I found enough composure to calm down again. I helped myself to a cup of coffee and then with as much of an even voice I could bring up, barely whispering, I asked her if she wanted to go shopping. She nodded. She didn't smoke in the car, but as soon as she stepped out of the car in the parking lot, she had a cigarette going and smoked forcefully till we reached the entrance. Without noticing I hesitated on the way, to give her time to smoke up. This came quite naturally, as if we had done that all the time.� We made out shopping, speaking only when necessary. On our way out, she stopped at a tobacco shop and bought three cartons of cigarettes. Another shockwave thru my body. She meant it! It hadn't been just a side step. Well, things couldn't have been worse anyway. Of course she lit up as soon as we were outside. She smoked while we packed our stuff in the trunk and she smoked while I pushed the shopping cart back. She was on her second cigarette when I came back. I stood there beside the car and gave her the time to finish her cigarette after which we returned home. Neither of us had made a move to go for lunch at the food court. The thought that smoking was not permitted inside and it wasn't yet warm enough to stay outside passed my mind as naturally like I had been living with a smoker for years. The car filled with the smell of her. Even thou she wasn't smoking inside, she still had all the aromas on her and it overwhelmed me. I hoped she wouldn't notice, but I had a hard one, palpitating against the zipper of my pants. I had to clutch the wheel hard, as my hands were shaking and I was lucky no policeman saw me, as I drove more than unsteady. I had my eyes glued to the windshield and somehow I managed to calm down sufficiently till we arrived home. The bulge in my pants had softened up and I hoped it would go unnoticed. Somehow we managed to carry all the stuff inside without talking and without getting near to each other. After we finished, she made something that yet again surprised me. I had just finished filling up the fridge, when she came in, burning cigarette in hand. With a loud thump she placed a bottle of vodka on the table. Then she reached for two glasses and said with determination.

'This can't go on. We've got to talk.' she poured herself a stiff drink and gulped down almost half of it. I stared in disbelief. I had never seen her drink alcohol before. Still staring at her, I reached for the bottle, filled my glass and drank of it.

'Don't stare like that. You don't really know much about me. I'm not the clean little girl you thought you know. I tried to be one, not on behalf of you, but try I did. I smoke and I drink. I bet I can drink you under the table.' her voice had an almost nasty undertone, like she was deliberately trying to sound like a bad girl. Yet it didn't sound like her real self.

�'Now I did it to you. You're disgusted. I've ruined everything, I know, but I just couldn't live like that any more. Something happened that thru me off the track. I love you like I've never loved any man before, but my old self took over. I had a piece of bad news and I just had to have a cigarette. That did it, now I'm on my three packs a day again and I don't want to go thru the ordeal of quitting again. I'm sorry. It's not a question of will. I just can't. The ugly truth is, I started at fourteen and have smoked three packs a day for ten years, till eight month ago, when I decided to quit. There's no way I can bring up enough will power to do it again. I had my reasons then, but now it's different. I know you'll throw me out. You're such a clean man. It'll brake my heart and I'll probably smoke myself to death after this, but I don't know what else to do.' she paused to refill her now empty glass and drank again. Her eyes swam. She didn't cry, but I could see she would soon. She sat there slumped in her chair, miserable, waiting for my verdict. 'All I ask you is to give me some time till I find a place to live in.'

I drank more vodka too. I don't really like vodka, but it helped somehow. I was half drunk already. I don't know if it was the alcohol or if the fetish side of me had gained over the reasonable one, but then and there it happened. I couldn't let her go. Was I insane? I loved her and what if she was really a bad girl? Her smoking just made her a thousand times more attractive to me. So what? Maybe she had secretly dreamt of a bit more passion herself. Somehow there always had been the slightest hint of a volcano of passion, hidden under that blanket of a nice good girl. What if? Was I to drive away the maybe single chance of my life to have both a loving companion and a smoker that drove my hormones thru the roof? What was wrong with that after all?

I did the only thing that I hoped could save us. Without a word I stood up. I went over to her side of the table, waited till she inhaled, then bent down and started to kiss her. She was taken completely by surprise and tried to draw away, but I held her head against mine and she finally gave in and opened her lips. That kiss blew our minds. In no time we were tearing on each others clothes and finally she was naked on the floor and I on top of her. Somewhere on the road she had stubbed out her cigarette, but I groped for her cigarettes and the lighter and placed one between her lips. She looked at me almost shocked.

'You really want me to do this?' I nodded. Her eyes filled with tears, but she accepted the light and took one endless drag. She must have sucked the smoke in undiluted. She sealed my lips with hers and we kissed again like mad, sucking at each other, smoke drifting out between our lips, out of her nose and into my own mouth. My erection was so strong now I couldn't but to ram my dick into her. To my surprise she was as wet as she could be. In less than a minute I shot off. She hadn't even been near an orgasm, but the smile that transfixed her face was worthy of an angel. I had never seen her radiate like that. She gave me a slight peck on my lips and said:

'Is this the way you tell me, you don't mind I smoke?' her voice was hoarse with suppressed emotion.

'Darling, it's not a question of minding or not.' and there I went. I had to tell her all of it. 'I have loved you before, but seeing you smoke drives me nuts. I can't help it. When a woman smokes, she looks a lot sexier to me. Geesus, girl! Ever since I saw you the first time smoking, I hardly cold hold my self. I could have raped you then and there.' she gave me the sweetest look.

'Oh my Dear, you couldn't ever rape me. You have just to look at me and I'm wet. If I have to smoke to turn you on, so much the better. I am a compulsive smoker anyway, I know that now. Maybe it was good I had quit, else maybe we wouldn't have met, but now that I know you don't hate me for that, the only thing I have to fear I'll have to give it up for health one day. Till then, you are my smoking master. I'll smoke whatever and whenever you want me to.' She kissed me again. She had gotten the message and from then on, every passionate kiss of her was also a smoky kiss. In a matter of minutes my flag pole was up again. This time I stood my man. She finished six cigarettes till we were both riding high. The sight of her struggling to drag on her cigarette while she was on the verge of an orgasm drove me crazy. When my orgasm sat in I almost fainted. She too was crushed. The cigarette but she had dropped burned a whole in the floor of the kitchen, but little did I care.

'Will it always be like this?' she asked, still panting.

'I don't know, but even half of it is a lot better than the way it has been before your outing.' she asked me for a cigarette and I gladly gave her one and a light too. Her smile as I did so drove away whatever remnants of dark clouds still lingered on my mind.

'Look honey, you have opened Pandora's box. I have feared that one day I will loose control when making love to a smoker. I have had some unpleasant experiences because of my love for smoking women. It looks like you are the cure for it. You love to smoke and I love to see you do it. In fact I love all of it. Even the way your breath smells, or your clothes or your hair.' another smoky kiss from her was the answer. Then she sat up and said:

'Peter, I want to celebrate this. Don't worry, I've never been an alcoholic. I never drank on a regular basis even before we've met. It's sometimes I just feel like getting drunk. Right now I feel like getting drunk with you. Let's find out if alcohol can really remove all inhibitions.' what was I to answer? She would probably smoke more intensely while drinking. Alcohol works that way on most people.

'Whatever you want, Dearest.' I kissed her, softly this time. I sat on a chair and took her on my lap.

We spent the afternoon drinking and making love. As we both got drunk, we went wilder and wilder. I don't have a very good recollection of all that happened, but I do remember some of it. I know that at one moment she smoked two at once, then started to rip of the filters from her cigarettes and finally she smoked a couple of cigarettes up her nostrils, one in each nostril, blowing incredible amounts of dense smoke. We made love several times and even did some kinkier stuff. I drank a lot but she drank more than me and at one point I had to carry her to bed. I fell at her side. The morning was hell of course and we both swore we won't do that again, yet neither of us regretted it. Her hangover couldn't keep her from smoking, even if she coughed a lot, as she had smoked almost six packs of cigarettes the day before. We spent half the morning in a chaste embrace, dazed but happy. When I felt strong enough, I left her alone and went out, back to the mall. The tobacconist there had a seven on seven service. Remembering how at times she had dropped her cigarette during her orgasm, I bought a pack of tipped cigars. Back home, we took a bath together. The tub was way too small for any special activities, we hardly could squeeze in both, but I wouldn't have missed the sight of her smoking in the tub for nothing in the world. She decided to end my misery and smoking lustfully, she worked on me with her free hand, till I jerked off. Cleaned and refreshed I showed her what I had bought. I was a little afraid she would recoil, but she was delighted. She confessed she had always been fascinated by cigars, especially by tipped ones, as those looked more feminine in her eyes. Well, we found that one of those tipped cigars lasted thru an average love making. She could bite on the plastic tip and wouldn't drop it easily during her orgasm. And an orgasm I gave her. For whatever reason, I managed to keep her up on her climax for endless minutes. Again and again her vagina convulsed around my dick while she inhaled drag after drag of the sweetish aromatic smoke of the cigar. This was heaven on earth.

The years have gone and even if she has cut down a on her smoking, still she turns me on like the first time I saw her smoke. She loves my fetish, she says, as it gives her leverage over me. We got married soon after those events and I haven't regretted a single day. My house smells like a burnt down tobacco factory and there are burn stains all over the floor in every room, vestiges of dropped cigarettes or cigars during one of our crazier fits of passion. She has tried to fulfill each and every fancy of mine. Whether it was about a huge cigar, of a diameter that almost tore her lips apart, a hookah, a briar or whatever form of tobacco smoke that had ever crossed my mind, she would do it. It almost felt like I would do her a favor instead of the other way around. I do recall one of the weirdest things we ever did and that had been her own idea. She had read of a doctor from the 19th century in the Wild West, who had used cigars to loosen up the sphincter of patients and that gave her an idea. She said she had always been sort of fascinated by an anal stunt, but had never dared, also because she was afraid of the pain not so much for herself but for me. Reading that book gave her the idea with the cigar. We never did that again, but we had big fun that one time. I still have the photo of her bare backside with the cigar protruding from her little asshole. Sometimes when we're too tired to make love, which still is a rare thing, we look at our private collection. The picture with the "ass smoking" is our favorite. We can laugh for hours over it, but we do have others almost as weird. I never took up smoking in earnest, but I have often enough puffed on stogies wetted with her juices. In fact she turned to cigars more and more, so much so, that she smokes cigarettes only in public, when we go to one of the remaining restaurants or bars where smoking is still possible, or at parties. At home she prefers her tipped cigars. They smell a lot better than cigarettes, being made of flavored tobacco. I love the amount of smoke they produce and Lea loves them because they last a lot longer than a cigarette. Whenever I get hold of a real Cuban I get it for her. Looking at her how she puffs, then drags and finally inhales, holding the smoke down a while, then exhales it right into my face, that never fails to raise up my flag pole, regardless of how tired I am.

She may have to suffer from her smoking one day, and with all that second hand smoke, I might get it too, but we talk often about it and neither of us regret it. The love life we had because of this is a thing few people will ever have.

The End