Dr. Blacklung, I Presume?, Part 12

Dr. Blacklung, I Presume
By:  slimv

-----------------------------------------------
Chapter 12: A New Lease On Life
-----------------------------------------------

The double doors closed behind her and sunlight warmed her shoulders as she
took a deep breath of fresh spring air. The sensation of unimpeded breathing
astounded her and she rewarded her self with lung full after lung full of
fresh air. 

Off in the distance, the sound of rubber against gravel hinted that a car was
making it's way past the gate and down the drive.  She squinted and shielded
her eyes as Kenny's beat up green Volvo rolled into view.

She bounded down the porch steps to meet him as the Volvo pulled up in front
of the Bette, who was still greeting admirers with her steaming bronze
cigarette.  Her mother had ridden with Kenny and was waving nervously from
the passenger seat, cigarette in hand.

Katie was so excited.  She screamed her good news from the top of her lungs
as both the Volvo's doors opened.  "I quit smoking!" she screamed at the top
of her lungs.  The words boomed from her chest.  She couldn't remember the
last time her screams were louder than whispers.  She j umped up and down on
the gravel like the cheerleader she'd never been.

Kenny and her mom should have been excited, but the look on their faces said
differently.  But that didn't stop her from grabbing up her mother and
embracing her in a bear hug. Her mother's weak lungs contracted as she
squeezed.  The smell of her cigarette assaulted her nose and for the first
time in so many years she realized the awful reek of a smoker.  How horrid it
must have been for Kenny to have had to smell her, but that was in the past
now.  

Kenny closed the Volvo's door and walked around the front of the car.  Katie
let go of her mom and almost tripped in the gravel as lunged at him.  She was
too blinded by excitement and passion to see the look of hesitation on his
face.  His body conformed to the impact of her embrace and he fought to
steady his feet.

She jammed her fresh clean tongue past his lips and searched for his but was
denied access as he pulled away.   She was confused, but the onl y thing she
could think of to say was, "I don't smoke!" 

Kenny smiled politely, but he was tense and full of angst as he continued
past her, taking a place beside her mother and her cigarette.

"What's wrong?" asked Katie.  "Where's Dad?  Why didn't he come with you?  Is
he alright?"

A heart attack, a stroke or maybe it was a car accident- images of her
father's demise flashed across her mind.

"He's OK Katie," said Margie.  "It's not what you think.  He wants to see
you, but Kenny and I thought it best if we saw you first, so we could break
the news."

Now she was really confused.  If her dad was ok then what kind of news did
they have to break to her?  She searched Kenny for the answers but saw none.
Something was preventing him from looking her in the eye.

Time slowed to a crawl as Katie's mom took Kenny's hand.  He turned and faced
her as Margie lifted the cigarette to her lips.  Margie's eyes met Kenny's as
their faces drew closer.  She opened her mouth exposing a g ift of filtered
gray smoke that Kenny accepted when he pressed his lips against hers.  Katie
watched in horror as smoke escaped her boyfriend's nose while embraced in a
lip lock with her mother.  

Margie broke the kiss and turned to her daughter.  "I'm sorry," she said.
"We didn't know how to tell you."

"It just happened last night, and we knew then," offered Kenny.

"Knew what?" pleaded Katie.  "What's going on?" 

"We knew you'd quit smoking Katie," said her mother.  

"It's my fault," said Kenny.  "I said a prayer.  I prayed to Our Lady of
Eternal Apathy and asked her to make you quit smoking.  I thought it was what
you wanted and I thought it was what I wanted.  And she answered me.  I knew
she had answered me the moment I prayed to her."

"And then he came to the house to tell your father and I," said Margie as she
unleashed a lung full of smoke in Kenny's face.  "And that's when we knew."

"Knew what?" asked Katie.  "You're scaring me.  What in the fuck is going on
between you two?  Why were you kissing?   And why did you just blow smoke in
his face."

For the first time since he had arrived, Kenny looked Katie in the eye and
answered her question in a sheepish voice.  "I knew then that I could never
be in love with a non-smoker.  And when I saw your mom smoking, I knew that I
had to have her.  You don't understand how beautiful your mom is when she
smokes.  You used to be that way too.  And when we saw each other last night,
we both knew.  Your father knew too.  That's why he agreed to give your
mother a divorce."

"Isn't it wonderful," asked Margie?  "Kenny and I are getting married.  He's
going to be your new dad."

			-------------------------------------------

Nervous looking girls with lit cigarettes spilled into the halls trying to
decipher the commotion as the staff barked orders.  Who is it they wondered?
Is that the new girl they asked as an orderly pushed a rolling gurney past
them while Nurse Betty rode the body giving CP R compressions.

The gurney smacked against the twp way double door as the orderly rolled it
into the emergency room.  Dr. Ben Avery stood beside an operating table with
paddles in hand as the orderlies transported Katie's wasted body from gurney
to table.

A large buxom nurse, cigarette dangling from her lips, cut Katie's gown from
her chest as Avery directed everyone to stand back and then called for a
nurse to charge the defibrillator.  Another smoking nurse placed electrodes
on Katie's skin, attaching her to a monitor that whistled out the tune of her
flat line.

Avery plunged the paddles against Katie's motionless chest and pulled the
trigger.  Her body jumped as voltage coursed through her dead heart.
"Again!" he shouted, as he applied another jolt.  

Katie's body lurched and the monitor went from whining to beeping as the flat
line on the screen evolved into a series of flashing angles.  

		------------------------------------


Margie had been dozing in the chair beside Katie when her daughter's muffled
screams from beneath the vinyl oxygen mask brought her to her feet.  

Katie's eyes flashed wildly.  Her pupils were dilated and full of terror as
she groped at the mask on her face.

Margie wrestled with her, trying to hold the mask in place as she called for
help.  Katie kicked and flailed.  She was completely disoriented. The
screaming outburst had left her winded but she still fought as the nurses
arrived to assist her mother.  They surrounded her bed and applied constraint
straps to her wrists and ankles.  Dr. Avery's be speckled face loomed above
her, beside her mothers, urging her to relax.  Her arm stung with pain and
she twisted to see a nurse extracting a long hypodermic from her vein.

"This will help you relax," said the nurse in a calming a voice.

Her body went limp as the tranquilizer quelled her system.  Her breathing,
while labored, began to slow and Dr. Avery gently removed the mask.

"It's OK," she heard her mother' s voice repeating from somewhere in the
room.  "You're going to be OK now.  Every thing is alright."

The last thing she remembered was seeing her mother passionately filling her
boyfriend's lungs with smoke and him devouring her smoky kisses.

Her memory of being a non-smoker came flooding back.  So why was every nerve
in her body writhing in anguish and torment?  The feeling in her lungs wasn't
right.  They were no longer fresh and clean.  They felt black and dirty and
were starving to be fed. 

Through the haze of her mind she could make out Dr. Avery's thin lips moving
and thought she heard him asking her mother for a cigarette.  She watched as
her mother gave the doctor a pack of Benson & Hedges.  He opened them and
pulled a long white cigarette from the pack.

"I need a light Nurse," he said as he pried Katie's lips open with the
filter.  Katie turned her head and tried to resist as a nurse bent forward
and lit the cigarette between the doctor's fingers.

"Smoke it!" c ommanded Dr. Avery.  "Smoke it or you'll die in this bed."

Tears streamed down her cheeks as she tried to tell Dr. Avery that she had
quit and that she was better now.  But the doctor would have none of what was
she was trying to say and commanded her again to smoke.  His voice was so
stern that she gave in and closed her lips on the filter as Dr. Avery held
the burning cigarette to her mouth.  

His tone became gentler as he urged her to inhale.  He said it would help.
He said it would make her feel better.  He told her it was important.  He
didn't understand she was no longer a smoker.

Katie's mouth filled with delicious but noxious fumes of tobacco smoke.  Dr.
Avery's head nodded at her, urging her to inhale.  He pulled the filter away
from her lips and she opened her mouth and breathed the smoke in.  

The reaction of the smoke as it mixed against her hardened and tar coated
lungs was violent, causing her body to wretch and heave against the abuse.
The stiff dark org an beneath her breasts shuddered as it struggled to adjust
to the toxins assaulting them.  She could feel the tar from the sides of her
lungs congealing with the mucous as it combined to become phlegm.  She tried
taking a breath but the phlegm blocked her air passage.  She felt herself
suffocating in lung snot as instinct came to her rescue.  She wheezed in and
the phlegm gave just enough for her lungs to reverse them selves.  A small
forced cough followed by a larger more productive one ejected the sticky
substance from her lungs, catapulting it through her windpipe like mortar
shell where it splashed across Dr. Avery's face.

He squirmed as the stiffness between his legs begged him to taste her.
Nurses groveled with Kleenex as the mother of his patient apologized
profusely.  Avery shook off their concerns with a polite smile while
carefully concealing the dark glee in his heart.

He accepted a Kleenex from the nurse and wiped the sticky phlegm toward the
corner of his lip s where he discretely sampled it with the tip of his
tongue.  He gingerly folded the tissue and asked for a plastic bag.

"Nothing to worry about," he said in a matter of fact tone, "But I'd like to
run a few tests on the mucus when I get back to my lab."  He then turned his
attention to Katie whose eyes were now bulging with angst.

"Lets try it again, shall we?" asked Dr. Avery as he held the cigarette for
her to take another drag.

This time Katie didn't argue.  She greedily coverd the filter with her lips
and began suckling it.  The pain in her chest was immense but it slowly faded
as she pumped puff after puff of smoke through her lungs and back out her
mouth.  She had smoked it to the filter within seconds- not minutes.

She winced when Avery removed the burnt but and handed it to a nurse to
extinguish.  

"That felt good didn't it?" asked Avery with raised brows.  "I bet you'd like
another one."

Katie nodded.  What was she thinking?  She couldn't help her self.  How could
this have happened to her?  Dr. Avery took another cigarette from her
mother's pack and placed it between her waiting lips.  Katie wiggled her toes
in anticipation.  The nurse fumbled with the lighter but eventually got it
going.  Smoke began coursing in and out of her frail lungs as nicotine found
its way into her blood stream giving her a sense of realism and relief.

"What happened?" she asked.  "Why am I in the hospital?"  "Why am I smoking?
I quit.  Didn't you know?  And mom!  What the fuck are you doing here?  You
bitch whore?"

Margie gasped.  Did Katie really call her a bitch whore?

Dr. Avery put a comforting hand on Margie's shoulder.  He told her not to be
upset, because Katie was still disoriented and wasn't in control of her self
yet.

"I know you're confused right now," said Avery to Katie.  "You've been
through quite an ordeal.  We even thought we lost for you a while but I'm
certain you'll make a grand recovery.  You had a heart attack Katie.  Your
hea rt stopped and we had to revive you.  You've been comatose for two days.
That's why you feel so bad.  You haven't had a cigarette for over 48 hours
and you'll probably need to smoke several packs before you'll regain your
mental balance.  Nicotine withdrawal is never pleasant and should always be
avoided but with your situation being so precarious, we had to wait until you
were stable before we could reintroduce nicotine to your system."

Nothing Dr. Avery said was making sense but she continued to smoke placidly
on the cigarette between his fingers.  Margie watched in stunned disbelief as
her daughter sucked the cherry of her cigarette down to the filter.  Ashes
fell in a pile against her neck but she didn't seem to notice or care.  Her
hunger for nicotine was relentless and within moments Dr. Avery had her
nursing from a freshly lit cigarette.

"You don't understand," explained Katie between her monstrous inhales and
exhales.  "The last thing I remember is that I quit smo king and I was so
healthy.  I was doing push ups and running in place.  I was healthy!  And
Mom, you were there with Kenny.  You told me that you were divorcing Dad and
marrying Kenny.  Kenny said he didn't love me because I didn't smoke any more
and he said it was his fault.  He said he prayed to Our Lady of Eternal
Apathy."

"Take it easy Katie," said Dr. Avery as he held the cigarette to her lips in
one hand and smoothed the hair from her face with the other.  It sounds like
you had a Smokygen induced nightmare.  I understand they can be very
realistic, and considering what happened, it must have seemed very real to
you and probably still does, but it was just a bad dream.  That's all it
was."

Dr. Avery removed the burned down filter from her lips, gave it to a nurse
and replaced it with a fresh one.

"You had a bad reaction to the Smokygen," he said.  "The dreams seem so vivid
because the nicotine enhances the brain's imagination.  Unfortunately, your
Smokygen device ma lfunctioned during the night and you received an overdose
of nicotine.  It's never happened before.  We were stunned.  The machines
have always worked flawlessly until this happened."

"She's going to be OK.  Isn't she Doctor?" asked Margie.  "The nicotine
overdose didn't do any permanent harm, did it?"

Dr. Avery grimaced.  The Smokygen machine's malfunction had been accidental
and purely unintentional but his penis pushed against his zipper as he
remembered the readings he had taken from the machine.  What had happened was
beyond his comprehension, but he had to be careful so as not to expose his
joy and excitement to those in his attendance.

"Katie will recover but the massive nicotine overdose she experienced caused
major addictive damage.  In layman's terms, she'll be OK but she'll need to
smoke a lot more just to feel normal."

"After you were stabilized, I had the malfunction on the machine analyzed and
the results were amazing.  Katie, I don't know how to tell you t his but
during the six hours you were connected to the machine, you smoked the
equivalent of 30 packs of unfiltered cigarettes.  I don't know how it
happened and I don't know you survived the overdose, but you're lucky to be
alive.  There are no other incidents I know of to compare this to.  And I can
only speculate on how your body will respond, but by judging from the way
you're smoking right now, I'd say you'll need to smoke at least 10 packs a
day from now on to feel any comfort.  And of course filters are out of the
question."

She was too stunned to speak.  But even in her current nicotine deprived mode
she could hear the truth in his words.  She finished the last puff from the
cigarette and allowed Dr. Avery to remove it while she anticipated the next
one.

"Let's try something," said Dr. Avery as he broke off the filter from the
Benson & Hedges and inserted it between her lips.  "You'll feel loose tobacco
on your tongue.  You won't like it at first but you'll be than king me in no
time."

Dr. Avery was right, the loose tobacco stuck to her tongue and scattered in
her mouth but she didn't care.  She just wanted the nurse to hurry up and
light her.

"You think she should thank you?" asked Margie.  "Let me get this straight.
You think Katie should be thanking you for what you and your machine did to
her?  When you admitted her to the center she was smoking two packs a day.
We know you said she'd need to increase her smoking, but you were talking
about maybe three or four packs a day, and now you're saying she'll need to
smoke 10 packs a day?  You'll be hearing from our lawyer Dr. Avery."

Katie said nothing as the smoke from the unfiltered cigarette flowed through
her lungs.  The pain in her chest and in her body subsided giving way to a
feeling of peace and bliss with each unfiltered puff she inhaled.  "Let it go
Mom.  Dad signed the release forms?  Remember?  If you want to help me you
can start breaking off some more filters, OK?"

Previous part | Next part