Behind the Times, Part 2

Behind the Times, Part 2 of 6

This story is dedicated to Laura (LadySmoker) for her kind words of
encouragement.


2.  Romany Magic

The velvet curtain was swept aside by a many-ringed hand, revealing a back
room so smoke-filled that Grant could see nothing beyond the doorway.  The
hand was followed by its owner, emerging from the smoke like a developing
photograph.  It was a woman, Grant realized with growing interest.  Then as
he got a better look, his felt disappointment rising.  Amazingly, considering
the state of the shop, she was not smoking.  And she was hardly young.  He
continued to stare nonetheless, for she was a most unusual figure to be seen
in a downtown Columbus shop.

Her thick, abundant hair was night-black between gray streaks, falling to
either side of her somewhat gaunt and creased face, then down almost to her
waist.  She was festooned with costume jewelry; countless necklaces,
bracelets, rings, and enormous earrings.  Her peasant blouse and full skirts
were bright with many primary colors which should have clashed jarringly but
somehow didn’t.  Grant noted that despite her apparent age of about 60, she
had a pleasingly round though slender figure.  She must have been stunning in
her youth, Grant thought.

Her most arresting feature, however, was her eyes.  Black as her hair, those
eyes seemed to have depths behind depths, ageless, challenging, hypnotic.
 You could get lost in those eyes, Grant thought, as indeed he was becoming
lost.  Her eyes suggested secrets that belonged to some other time and place,
secrets that had no connection to anything he knew or had experienced.

"Good afternoon," she said.  "And what is your name, my dear?"  Her voice was
a sexy, deep contralto, softly accented.  Somewhere between Bela Lugosi and
Sophia Loren, Grant thought.  A Gypsy right out of central casting.  But not
play-acting…no, certainly not.

Taken aback by her appearance and atypical shopkeeper’s question,  Grant
remained silent for a moment.  It suddenly seemed immensely important to take
this situation at face value, to consider his words carefully, and not to
stammer out some pedestrian request for his planned purchase.  Somehow he
knew If he did he would get his cigarettes, but lose a precious opportunity.

"My name is Grant, ma’am," he replied.  With such miserable first and middle
names, he always tried to let "Grant" serve by itself.  "Just Grant"

"Please to meet you, Mr. Grant.  My name is Natalia.  What are you looking
for?"

Grant sensed this question had more than the obvious significance.  Without a
pause he replied "I’m looking for a place where I can feel at home."  A part
of him thought, She’ll think I’m a nut case for sure, now!

Grant has always felt like a man born too late, and smoking seemed to be at
the heart of it.  Or perhaps it was only what smoking represented to him;
 the savoring and enjoyment of life.  The spirit of the 90s seemed to be the
denial of such pleasures, of pleasant release, and not just for the
Spartan-minded but for everyone else as well.

He could barely remember the 1960s, but he retained many impressions of the
spirit of those times; the free pursuit of pleasure, the refusal to conform,
and not blindly accept what was distasteful or repressive.  Then, smoking was
acceptable, widespread, an almost inevitable part of growing up.  He often
fantasized about reliving those years at his present age (or maybe just a tad
younger).  No one then really appreciated the freedom they had to smoke. to
indulge in pleasure.  He, however, would appreciate it, would bask in every
glorious minute, knowing what was to come.

He continued to gaze into Natalia’s fathomless eyes as these thoughts crossed
his mind.  The intimate contact broke and he seemed to hear an echo of his
own voice, trailing off in the heavy air.  Had he spoken his thoughts aloud?
 He was sure he had not, but was equally sure that somehow Natalia knew
everything that had crossed his mind.

She smiled.  "Please feel free to smoke in our shop, Mr. Grant."  Gazing
around…lovingly?…at the drifting layers of smoke, she said "After all, we
could hardly object…."

Smoking, Grant knew, was illegal in retail stores in Columbus.  Arrest,
however, was the farthest thing from his mind as he withdrew his pack of B&H
menthols from a coat pocket and politely extended it to Natalia.  She
accepted a cigarette and held it charmingly at an angle near her face as he
withdrew one for himself.  She was incomplete, Grant realized, until she took
the cigarette.  It was a part of her that was missing.

She waited, ignoring the perpetual light, and Grant withdrew his Zippo.  No
damned child-proof lighters for him!  The thumbed the wheel and flame sparked
forth.  First time, every time 

He extended the flame to Natalia..  He felt he was being evaluated…tested in
some way, like in a job interview.  He was determined to pass this one with
flying colors.

Natalia bent slightly to accept the light, gently clasping his hand to steady
the lighter.  Not that his hand was unsteady.  No, this was too important.
 He must show no fear.  Her grip was warm and dry,  her skin smoother than he
expected.

Her cigarette lit, Natalia straightened and began to draw on the long white
cylinder.  The tip glowed red in the murky light.  She removed it from her
mouth and drew breath.  She pursed her lips and began to blow.  

Smoke billowed from her pouting lips in remarkable volume.  "Thank you, Mr.
Grant," she said, her words punctuated by soft white bursts from mouth and
nostrils.  "Now, if you’ll excuse me…"  
she turned and moved back though the curtained doorway, layers of smoke
parting to make way for her, swirling magically in the dim light.

Grant realized he was still standing with the flaming lighter extended, his
unlit cigarette held in the other hand.  He closed the Zippo, replaced the
cigarette in the pack, and laid both items on the counter.  He stood still
for a moment, stunned.  She was old enough to be his mother, but still he had
become aroused.  What a smoker!  But he worried.  Why had she left?  He
wanted to talk to her.  More importantly, he wanted to see her smoke some
more!

The spell for the moment broken, and he glanced down at his watch.  Still an
hour until the interview?  "Damn!" he said aloud.  The watch had stopped.
 How long had he been in here, anyway?  He glanced toward the door.  He
should go.  He couldn’t afford to be late for the interview.  He needed
money.  He needed…

He thought of those miserable, huddled people in front of the building across
the street, and the slashed cigarettes on the doors.  What did he need?  He
sure as hell didn’t need that!

He looked up as the velvet curtain parted again, and he saw Natalia emerging
from the gray smoke.  "Natalia, " he began, "I was wondering about…Oh, I’m
sorry!"

"That’s perfectly all right, Mr. Grant, it’s a common mistake.  I’m Natalia’s
daughter, Natasha," said the woman who was certainly not Natalia.  She had
the same voluminous hair (free of gray streaks), similar full skirts,
jewelry, and blouse, same deep voice and soft accent, but she was 30 years
younger…and beautiful.  Heartbreakingly beautiful.  Her pale flesh was
smooth, moist, and totally without blemish or wrinkle.  Her blouse was cut
low, revealing an ample cleavage.  Her waist narrowed enticingly just above
the place where her skirts blossomed forth, suggestive of treasures that
might lie beneath.  He was reminded of a Gypsy girl he had seen as a child in
an 1930s Lon Chaney, Jr.,  film, whose delicate beauty and helplessness in
the dark Transylvanian forest had inspired instant love in his adolescent
breast.

"Mother said you were interested in the items in the case…?" she said.  He
didn’t remember asking Natalia about anything in the case, but he wasn’t
about to say so.  Natasha removed a small key from a pocket in her skirts and
he heard a soft click from behind the case.  However, she made no move to
open the case.  Instead, she reached for his pack of cigarettes on the
counter.  "May I?" she asked.

"Of course!" Grant replied quickly.  He felt excitement building quickly, and
hoped Natasha could not see his pants through the glass case.  He watched,
entranced as Natasha withdrew two cigarettes from his pack and placed both in
her mouth, then bent gracefully toward the perpetual light.

As she approached the flame, he got a better look at her face.  Her
cheekbones were high, but her face was pleasantly rounded, with no trace of
her mother’s gauntness.  Her red lips were full and everted, the kind of lips
born to hold a cigarette and to blow smoke.  Her eyes were like her mother’s,
deep and dark, but with a capricious and mischievous light missing in the
older woman.

As the tips of the two cigarettes touched the flame, her eyes locked on his.
 There was invitation, and a sort of challenge there.  She straightened and
leaned across the counter toward him as she drew on both cigarettes.  She
seemed to be dragging hard, especially considering that she was smoking two
at once.  She continued to lean as she dragged until her face was less than a
foot from his.  She withdrew a cigarette with each hand.  Curls of thick
smoke started from the tip of both cigarette, drawing a veil between their
faces.  She extended the cigarette in her left hand filter-first toward his
lips.  He leaned slightly forward to accept the cigarette with his mouth.  As
he did, Natasha’s lips rounded in a circle and her exhale began.

Smoke emerged gently, softly from her mouth and nose from the immense
double-puff she had taken. The emerging smoke, coming from lips almost close
enough to kiss, disturbed and merged with the layers already present in the
room. It soon enveloped both their faces in a scented cloud, and her features
blurred, becoming even more lovely in the process.

Grant didn’t move, didn’t blink, simply closing his lips on the cigarette as
she released it.  For him, this was an experience beyond hope, and he did not
want to miss a moment of it.

She continued her exhale, gently wreathing them in fragrant smoke, and
straightened slightly, increasing their separation by no more than six
inches.  Still expelling slim wisps of smoke from her nostrils, she brought
her cigarette to her mouth and began another puff.

In a trance-like state, Grant began to draw on his own cigarette
simultaneously with Natasha.  He tried to make his drag as long as hers, and
just made it.  As if partners in a smoky ballet, Grant and Natasha withdrew
their cigarettes and exhaled in unison.  The smoke pooled gently between
their faces, and Natasha’s eyes became dreamily unfocused, like a woman in
the grasp of a slow, intense orgasm.  Seeing her expression and the smoke
curling sensuously from pursing lips and flaring nostrils, Grant felt his
knees grow unwilling to support him and knew that he had, in truth, lost
control.  Unwilling to lose his delicious, smoky proximity to Natasha (and
certainly not wanting her to see what had happened), He locked his knees with
a supreme effort and held his upper body still.

Natasha at last straightened, holding her cigarette fetchingly by her cheek
as her mother had, and said "Thank you for the cigarette, Mr. Grant.  You
must excuse me, but its rare to meet anyone these days who appreciates
the…communications that are possible between true smokers."  Amazingly, she
still had enough smoke in her lungs that these words were accompanied by
gentle white wisps from her mouth and nostrils.

"There’s nothing to excuse, miss…Natasha" Grant said.  She had captured him
with her eyes again, and seemed to be reading him like her mother.

"Yes there is, Mr. Grant.  You must excuse me, because I need to talk to my
mother for a moment.  But please, stay right here.  You will be helped, I
promise…"  Something in way she said that last seemed to promise more than
sales help.  She turned and moved behind the curtain, vanishing into the haze
like Alice’s Cheshire Cat.

Grant wasn’t going anywhere.  Interview or no interview, he was alive with
excitement and anticipation, the discomfort of his wet shorts forgotten.  He
didn’t have a clue to the meaning of this strange ritual, if that’s what it
was, but he would see it through to its finish.

After Grant had finished his cigarette, the velvet curtain parted again.  The
emerging figure was yet another woman, a good head shorter than Natalia or
Natasha.  It was, in fact, a child…a young girl less than 15 years old.  She
had the same beautiful black hair, the same colorful dress (with less
jewelry), and a mature figure for her age.  Her cheeks, though, showed some
lingering baby fat, and her eyes sparkled with the humor and exuberance of
youth.  The depths were still there under heavy lids, but they were somehow
friendlier, less challenging than her two predecessors.

"Hi, Mr. Grant," she said.  "Please call me Nikki.  My mother Natasha wants
me to learn to help customers, so she sent me out to see you."  Her voice was
higher and less accented than her mother’s…her mother?  Natasha looked no
more than 30…if Nikki was 15, or even less, than Natasha must have had her at
a very tender age.  Of course, in many parts of the world that was nothing
unusual…

For a moment, Grant felt himself slipping into "90s think" about smoking…he
wondered if such a young girl, with still-developing lungs, should be working
in such a smoke-filled place.  Angry at himself, he dismissed the thought.
 Looking at Nikki’s fresh scrubbed face and plump cheeks, any fool could see
her health was not suffering.  Defying the common wisdom, he lifted his pack
of cigarettes from the counter.

"Ooh, Mr. Grant, could I have one of your cigarettes?  Please?"  Nikki asked.
 Grant stopped in mid grab.  There was no way she was of legal age.  And if
she was a smoker, there were shelves crowded with open cartons of cigarettes
right behind her.  Why ask for one of his?  This was clearly a key step,
perhaps the final step in this odd ritual.  Maybe this time he was supposed
to refuse, or ask to talk to her mother first.

No, Grant thought, that hasn’t been the pattern here.  He didn’t like or
respect tests with trick questions.  If she wasn’t supposed to smoke, she
would hardly ask a stranger for a cigarette in her mother’s shop, with her
mother right in the next room.  "Sure, Nikki," he said, and extended the pack
to her.

Nikki withdrew a cigarette and Grant took one for himself.  The long, white
cigarette looked immense in her small hand.  He lifted the Zippo and thumbed
the wheel.  He loved his old Zippo.

Nikki leaned forward to accept the light.  Like her mother and grandmother,
she pulled heavily on the cigarette.  Grant counted a full five beats before
she withdrew it.  Where, he wondered, was she putting all that smoke?  Her
mouth looked too small to hold it.

As if in answer, Nikki opened her mouth as she withdrew the cigarette and
showed him a mouth filled with opaque, white fog.  For a long moment, the
smoke curled out to form an almost round shape before her face, as if she was
blowing a bubble with gum. Then the smoke flashed down her throat, with some
wisps captured by her nostrils as she inhaled with an audible, soft gasp.  He
saw her small breasts rise as her chest expanded to accommodated the large
volume of smoke.

Like her mother, she puckered her lips as she began to exhale.  Unlike her
mother, she exhaled the smoke playfully, alternating mouth and nose exhales,
watching the smoke curl with a dreamy fascination, then snapped off a couple
of perfect smoke rings.

Then, when Grant thought she had finished the puff, she planted her elbows on
the counter, leaned toward him, and blew a thick cloud of smoke right in his
face.  She giggled, remnants of the puff still escaping in small white
chuffs.

Grant blinked and smiled at this charming exhibition as her smoke enveloped
his face.  It smelled somehow different…younger, fresher, with a hint of
naiveté.  "Well done!" he said, not sure exactly what he was complementing.

Nikki took another drag and inhaled.  "You’re not happy, are you?" she asked,
smoke billowing forth with her words.

Grant’s smile faded.  "No," he replied seriously, "Although I have certainly
had an enjoyable time here in your shop."

"We can see that!" said Nikki, as her young face was again obscured by a
swirling cloud of smoke.  Thoughtfully, she took another puff.  "I know what
will help, though!"  she brightened, smoke accompanying her every word.  It
looks, Grant thought, almost as if she couldn’t speak unless she was forcing
smoke through her vocal cords.

As if to reinforce the illusion, Nikki continued to take a drag each time she
spoke, so she was always exhaling thickly while speaking.  "I think this is
what you need."  She opened the case that her mother had unlocked earlier,
and took the battered Zippo from its velvet stand.  She held it before her
face and blew smoke on it, as if that would have some cleansing effect on the
bright metal.  She handed the lighter to him.

Grant felt some hesitation as he examined the lighter.  He liked his own
Zippo.  It had belonged to his grandfather who had carried it during World
War II.  This lighter was clearly older, and in worse shape.  As he turned it
in his hand he saw an odd rainbow sheen to the metal, as if the lighter was
coated with some oily substance.  However, it was dry to the touch.

Grant noticed a deep dent on one side of the lighter.  "A bullet made that,"
Nikki said.  "It saved a man’s life a long time ago, a hundred years I
think."  She was expelling the last puff from her cigarette as she spoke, and
exhaled the remainder of the smoke in a long plume.  The shop was so smoky
now that Grant’s eyes were watering slightly.  A small price to pay!

Grant doubted that lighters like this were made so long ago, but the dent
certainly could have been made by a bullet.  "How much do you want?" he
asked, knowing that it would be too much.  He had little money, and no real
desire to replace his lighter.

"No money," Nikki said.  "I’ll give it in trade for your lighter."

"That lighter was my grandfather’s," Grant said.  "I’d really hate to part
with it."

Nikki looked at him with an unusual, serious expression.  "That lighter can
only be earned with sacrifice.  Otherwise, it’s useless."

"Useless?  What do you mean, it won’t light?"  Grant repressed a chuckle.

"No, dummy!  It won’t make you happy!"

Grant was not inclined to trade.  The Zippo was one of his few possessions
that meant anything to him.  However, his visit to this shop certainly ranked
as one of the top ten experiences of his life, and he didn’t want to end it
on a negative note.  He thought for a long moment, gazing at his
grandfather’s Zippo.  Well, he thought, I could always return and buy it
back, I suppose…when I have some money.  He knew he would take any excuse to
return to this shop!  "OK, Nikki," he said.  "You’ve made a sale!"

"Oh, great!" Nikki’s face broke into a wide, eye-wrinkling grin.  She jumped
up and clapped her hands.  "Wait here," she said, grabbing both lighters.
 "I’ll have grandmother fill your new lighter!" Again, he saw the
disappearing trick as Nikki seemed to vanish in a cloud of smoke.

Grant shook his head, feeling foolish.  He took a cigarette and lighted it at
the perpetual flame.  It was half-smoked when the curtains parted to admit
Natalia, carrying his "new" Zippo.

She gazed at him with the most serious of expressions.  This, thought Grant,
was how Maria Ouspenskaya looked when she told Lon Chaney, Jr., that he was
now a werewolf.  Once again, he was drowning in her bottomless eyes.

"Four times, "she intoned, "four times you must use this instrument for the
benefit of a stranger.  Only then will you find what you seek.  There will be
joy in your quest, but also peril.  Not all wish for men to find happiness.
 If you are true to yourself, you will know when each moment comes…and when
it does not.  When all is finished, return here."  Unable to break Natalia’s
gaze, Grant felt the lighter pressed into his hand.  Before he could recover
enough to speak, she had vanished behind the curtain.

As Grant blinked and recovered himself somewhat, the overhead lights went
out, leaving the shop in smoky gloom.  He could no longer see the velvet
curtain.  Time to get the hell out of Dodge, I guess, he thought, and worked
his way carefully to the front door and out.

As he emerged into the perpetual twilight of an Ohio winter, Grant saw the
Borderlands Insurance building across the street.  The interview, he thought,
did I blow it?  Out of habit he glanced at his watch.  To his surprise, it
had started again.  According to the watch, a minute had passed since he
entered the shop.  A minute, my ass!  But maybe he could still make it…

As he walked up the short flight back to street level, he noticed the sign on
the shop door had changed.  "Sorry, We’re Closed," it now read.  

Risking a jaywalking ticket, Grant sprinted across Broad Street and up the
steps to the office tower.  Before he reached the top, he felt a gentle touch
on his coated arm.  "Excuse me," a pleasant but shivery female voice asked,
"But do you have a light?"  He turned to see an attractive female face, with
short blond hair, her gloved hand holding up an unlit cigarette.  Her cheeks
were reddened by the cold wind, her coat’s collar turned up to protect her
neck from the chill.

"Of course," Grant answered, and raised his new Zippo.  "We smokers have to
stick together."  He popped the top and thumbed the wheel in one smooth
motion.

Click.

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