Part 2

Lifeline, Part 2

The summer was wasted on me. If my parents hadn't been so understanding I don't know what would have become of me. They didn't ask any questions but they took care I didn't fall down completely. I had always been skinny but in fall, when I went to a prep school, my bones shimmered thru my skin. I had grown a wild beard and looked like an escaped convict. To my surprise I found myself in the focus of the attention of the female part of the students. Even some boys took an instant sympathy to me and those two years have been the best of maybe my whole life. I left the school with a reputation of an expert lover and a good pal too, the perfect party animal. What had isolated me before, my quick whit when it came to learning, now drew admiration upon me and from a nerd I turned into a sort of universal genius, the guy everybody would ask about anything. Not that it reflected in my grades, I was just average, but it enabled me to take studying lightly. Of course my one time dream of graduating at MIT was out of reach but little did I care. Deep down I still mourned for Celine, but I did my best not to let it bring me down.

At home again, I decided to drop college and instead fulfill my dad's dream and start working in his shop. He owned an electronics store and had successfully fought attempts of big chains to drive him out of business. Whatever new trend seemed to announce itself he was the first to smell it and in his store people could admire all the new gadgets from Japan or home long before TV commercials made them widely known. Whether it was the Gameboy or the Playstation or any other new contraption, he had it.

I was determined to learn his way of thinking like the average customer, to foresee what would be a success and what not. As my father paid me quite good, I was able to afford an apartment and I lived on my own. It wasn't hard for me to find a date, now that I had gained a lot of chuzpe. Two years of prep school had taught me that the key to a successful love life aren't broad shoulders or muscles but the right attitude.

I met Laura at my favorite watering hole, a nice place outside town with pool tables and the odd band on their way thru, sometimes good and sometimes bad. As people there hardly ever listened to the music it didn't matter anyway.

My nerd times being long gone, I hung around with one or another of my former school mates and we had a good time. Laura came with another group, girls and guys, and at first I thought they were all pairs but more and more often our eyes crossed. Except that she alone of the girls smoked and constantly too, she wasn't very remarkable. A bit small and stubby but in a graceful way, with a nice face, she looked interesting enough to raise my attention. After a couple of glances, she started to smile at me. If she hadn't smoked, I wouldn't have noticed her, but as she did have a very sexy way of smoking, I made up my mind to give it a try.

After a year we were still together, still living in separate apartments but spending a lot of time together, mostly in bed. She wasn't exactly my dream of a woman but it was nice to be with her. I loved to hold her naked in my arms and caress her ample forms. She was young and her flesh firm and inviting. If not happy then I was at least satisfied and had a quiet life. We did quarrel sometimes on trivial things but as we always ended in bed afterwards, it didn't really matter.

One Saturday night, I was expecting Laura to drop by so we would go out with no predetermined destination, the bell rang. I opened the door and it hit me like a hammer. Celine stood there with a small bag in her hand and a bruised face. Like the last time I had seen her, she fell into my arms, only this time she started to sob instantly. After a while she calmed down a little and I took her bag and made her sit on the coach.

'Goerge, can I stay here for a while?'

I had half expected her question from the way she looked.

'Who did this to you?' I asked her, sure of the answer,

'Aydan, my husband.' She started to sob again. I took her in my arms and felt her tears wetting my shoulder. I stroked her back gently and couldn't but notice how skinny she had become.

'Please can I stay here for a while? I have no place to go and no money.'

My answer came quite naturally. I had forgotten Laura completely.

'Sure, you can stay as long as you want. Can I offer you something?'

'No, I don't need anything, except maybe, you wouldn't have a cigarette?'

She knew me as a non-smoker. In fact in my last year in prep school I had turned into a sort of social smoker. I had found that I could smoke an occasional cigarette without turning green. After a couple of beers it came quite naturally and I also enjoyed the cigarette after but I rarely smoked on a normal day. This of course meant that I had cigarettes handy, also because Laura often ran out of cigarettes when she stayed over the night. In my drawer I always had a pack or two of Marlboro Lights 100, the brand of Laura. I took an almost full pack out of the drawer and gave it to Celine. With shaking hands she took one out and lit it. After a couple of deep hits, combined inhales and exhales, she coughed slightly and lent back with a sigh.

'Thank you so much. You saved my life. That bastard forbade me smoking on the very first day. I was stupid enough to give in at first. When things started to turn bad, I sometimes sneaked in a cigarette or two when he was away but he caught me one day and slapped my face for it.'

I was shocked. Of course I had at first been mad at her and had cursed her marriage and all that, but now I felt guilty. I realized how much I still loved her and felt enormously sorry for her. I laid my arm around her and she cuddled into my side and smoked in silence. Suddenly the noise of a key in the lock of the door made us both startle. Celine gave me an inquisitive look but I had no time to give her an explanation. Laura had a key to my apartment and she had come to take me out.

'Hi, G.' as much as I hated it, she insisted on calling me G.

'Hey you've got company!' then she realized what she saw. Without a word, she hurled the key in one corner, turned around and ran straight out of my life never to show up again. Celine gave me a very sad and guilty look, but I tried to calm her down. Even if she had been the reason for it, I wasn't very sad of Laura's sudden departure. Lately our relationship had not worked very well. As sweet as she had been in the beginning, in time Laura had shown a bad temper more often and I wasn't always comfortable with her views on certain topics. I told Celine all this and she understood.

I managed to persuade Celine to eat something and then, while she smoked up what was left of the pack of cigarettes, she told me about her marriage or at least as much as she was repaired to. From the first day he turned out to be a real brute of a man. I learned that she had hoped her cousin, the son of her father's sister, would have the same kind and friendly nature like her father. To my surprise she told me that unlike the whole school had assumed it wasn't her father that had held her tight but her mother. The very first night with her husband had shattered all her hopes for a happy life. Aydan, her husband, had no sensibility at all and was full of contempt for the whole womanhood. He treated her like a slave to be at his disposition. His lovemaking was not much more then an ongoing rape. She had tried to make him change his attitude but in vain. Only because of her mother did she stay with him. Then she found herself to be pregnant. Naturally she assumed this would soften him up but the contrary was the case. He was sure of her now and more than once did he hit her, not bad at first but the day came when she cooked a dish he didn't like. That night he beat her so bad she miscarried. That was the beginning of the end. Even thou Aydan was responsible for it, he blamed Celine and mistreated her more often, till the day came she could take no more and fled.

'Oh God, my throat hurts from all the talk and smoke.' she said finally. �I�m afraid I smoked up all your cigarettes.'

'Don't worry about that. I'll go get some more. Why don't you take a bath till I'm back?'

'That would be wonderful. Can you imagine that idiot forbade me to use the tub? He said a shower once a week is all a I need! And the clothes he bought me! All cheap plastic stuff...'

I asked her if I should buy her the VS120 she used to smoke in high school but she said she'd rather have some Reds 100. That was the brand her husband had smoked and the ones she had been snatching from him behind his back. Her hate for him did not extend to them.

When I came back with two cartons of Reds Super Long, I heard her singing in the bath. I changed the bedclothes and arranged the coach for me. She came out of the bath, her face hot and gleaming. The bruises she bore looked even worse now but still underneath the old Celine from our teenage years shone thru. She had lost the slight slouch and the attitude of a hunted deer from before. Only her eyes still showed the ordeal she had been thru.

'I don't know how to thank you, my dear little Georgie. For the first time in two years I'm beginning to feel human again.' she said after giving me peck on my cheek. Her musky smell overwhelmed me. I was far from arousal as the horror she had gone thru forbade that. Yet it was Celine, my Celine, and for the first time I got a faint notion of what the bond between as that would hold all our lives.

'You know you can ask me anything anytime, Celine. You are an "old friend". You know, like in "Noble House".'

I alluded to a novel we both had immensely enjoyed years before, where the author explained the meaning of old friends in the Chinese sense of the word. She laughed heartily and gave me another peck and a sisterly hug. A sweet musky smell rose from under my old bathrobe she had taken on after her bath. No other woman I had met had smelt like Celine. It was the smell of my childhood yet more intense and womanly.

'What would I do without you? Hey, you've bought quite a supply here. God old Georgie. I really am abusing your hospitality.' and after a pause she made to light up:� 'And you have to sleep on the couch. Why don't I sleep here?'

'Mainly because I don't want to wake you up when I go to work.'

'I really don't deserve this.' She sighed deeply and took a long hit on her cigarette, holding the smoke down interminably. When she finally exhaled, there was no visible smoke on her breath, like her body had absorbed it all. I was tempted to kiss her hard on her lips, but I knew that if there was the slightest chance I was to achieve anything I would need all the patience I could bring up.

She rose and stretched with a yarn.

'This will be the first night in two years I won't have to fear his foul breath and his hard stick rasping in me like sandpaper.'

She wiped away a single tear from the corner of her eye.

I woke up early even thou I still had two hours till my father needed me at the shop. After a slice of bread with a bit of cheese and a cup of instant coffee, my usual morning routine, I cleaned up and went to see after Celine. I hadn't heard anything thru the night, but as I have a very sound sleep, that didn't mean much. On my toes I carefully opened the door to the bedroom. It smelt of stale smoke and I saw four or five buts in the ashtray near the bed. Obviously she had had hard night. She turned around and I could see dark shadows under her eyes. Her eyelids fluttered and she opened her eyes. With a slurred voice she said:

'Good Morning, Georgie.' she slapped her mouth in mock embarrassment.

'I really should be ashamed of me. Look what I did to your neat little apartment! It will take weeks till the smell is gone.' then, more seriously, she added:

'I fear it will take some time till I'll be able to sleep soundly like before. I wake up in the middle of the night because I dream he reaches for me. I'm so scared it takes a cigarette or two to steady me down again. Then I slowly drift away and again the nightmare comes back.'

She looked deeply into my eyes and asked:

'Do you mind if I ask you a favor? I know I need to clean up and brush my teeth, but please could you come over and hold me for a while?'

Her words wormed my heart. That after what she had been thru she still felt like being touched by any man was more than I had hoped. I did not expect anything to come out of this but it was a good sign at least. She lifted the blanket and carefully I slid down into the bed beside her. The odors of her body were overwhelming. The musky perfume of her skin was tenfold stronger now and mixed with the stale smoke around her and the tarry residues on her breath. Involuntarily my little friend showed flag. Celine started to cover my face with little kisses.

'God, you smell so fresh and clean! Can you hold your breath for a while till I'm finished?'

As an answer I pressed my lips on hers. She was reluctant at first but than she gave way and we kissed softly and gently with subdued passion.

She tugged at my shorts and soon we were engaged in a slow and tender embrace. I felt her slowly get moist, than wet and what had started as a careful explorative attempt now turned into a passionate embrace. I felt how her arousal slowly built up till her moans grew louder and culminated in a series of little shrieks. Soon after I felt my own climax setting in and I withdrew, afraid not to leave her pregnant.

Realizing what I had done she gave another soft kiss, her lips parted just a little so that the tips of our tongues could touch.

'Why didn't we give it a try when we had the chance to? I should have been more selfish. It's so heavenly good with you!' then she started to sob softly. I rocked her gently till she calmed down a bit and her shoulders stopped shaking. I had no answers for her.

The next night and the nights to come we spent together in my bed. I never pressed myself on her and there were nights I would just hold her in my arms and in others we would make love. We never reached the intensity of our first night but she bloomed up under my careful lead. In the two years in prep school I had time to learn from many girls. None of them had meant even a fraction of what Celine meant to me but at least I had learned a lot about feminine sexuality.

After two weeks we had spent like that, I was starting to hope this could be the beginning of something. Living together with Celine turned out to be just what I had missed. Except for her excessive smoking that had increased from one carton in the first week to twice as much in the second with a couple of cigarettes during the night and two or three in bed before she fully opened her eyes, she was the perfect companion. She was a very good cook and even thou I had myself learned to cover my modest needs and could get together a quite satisfactory meal any time, her expertise in using all sorts of exotic seasonings dwarfed my pride in my modest capacities. Her presence filled me with joy and I said to myself if I could bring her to moderate her smoking a little there was nothing more I could hope for in my life. I loved to watch her smoke and I loved the way it made her smell and how her lips tasted from it, but I feared a little for her health.

My timid hopes were shattered one evening when she said she had to talk to me.

'Look Georgie,' she began and her tone didn't sound of good news. 'We have gone too far already. I can feel you grow hopes I cannot fulfill. I have abused your good will and your pocket too. Yesterday I have talked to an aunt of mine and she's prepared to help me. She also told me that my mother is not ill at all. My aunt, her sister, told me my mother had been blackmailing the whole family even as a kid with faked heart conditions and still does that with my poor father, but she is in truth strong as an ox.'

She dragged furiously on her cigarette and went on.

'So my aunt wants to make up for what my own parents didn't do. She will pay for my college. You see Georgie, I'm not prepared to become a housewife. I want to know what's in me and be my own master.'

As she saw the darkness descend on my face, her eyes turned wet.

'Poor little Georgie.' she said with a voice hoarse from emotion and excessive smoking as she had dragged continuously on one cigarette after the other without a breath of clean air. 'I know you cannot forgive me.� After all you did for me I'm disappointing you again. But please understand, I can't be for you what you want me to. I've been oppressed all my life. Now finally I've got the chance to stand on my own feet. I won't ever forget what you did for me, but there's a new life out there that's waiting for me. Good Bye'

After a last long kiss, she took the bag she had already packed and went.

My father noticed that I had changed but like the first time instead of trying to make me talk when I wouldn't, he did the only thing he hoped would help me. One night after he had closed the shop he took me to his office.

'Listen son, I can see you'll never be a passionate shop owner like I am. I have contemplated what I'm going to tell you now for quite a while but I wasn't sure it will be the right thing till recently.� Now that I see the future belongs to things I do not understand, I'm forced to admit my time is over. You can't teach an old dog new tricks. I have on offer to sell out to a big chain of retail stores. As much as I hate those kind of supermarket like stores with cheap merchandise and underpaid and under qualified employees, I realize the future belongs to them.'

In my pain the full extent of his words took some time to travel from my ears to my brain, but slowly I began to realize where he drove at.

'They pay me more than enough to allow for a retirement in Florida for us and college for you. What do you think, do you want to give it another try?'

I hadn't thought of it, not lately anyway, but now I began to wake up. Prep school had helped me overcome that first wound Celine had inflicted on my soul. The same trick could work again.

Of course I had to accept one of the minor colleges, in the wild as I called it, somewhere in the Midwest. But, as my father used to say, some of the best heads in new technologies had emerged from these obscure colleges. MIT or UCLA may have the best reputation but many of the founders of Fairchild, Intel and others had come from the Midwest. I helped my parents move to Florida and emptied my own apartment. With two bags and a backpack I left my little hometown in Maine never to return.

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