Sisterhood Of The Smoker Babes, Part 21

Writers Note---Those that enjoy a good science fiction story know that they
need to suspend their beliefs of the real world and allow for the possibility
of things that are out of the ordinary. You will need to do that when you
read this story. With that being said, while the science fiction stuff is
mostly a product of my imagination, many of the smoking scenes are in fact
based on real encounters and sightings that I've experienced throughout
my life. Some have been modified to fit the context of the story but others
remain mostly intact as they actually occurred. Lastly, when reading this I
suggest that you pay attention to the timeline as it is critical to how
you'll draw your conclusions over the story's ending. My email address is
hotelcalifornia14@hotmail.com if you wish to discuss or comment on the story.
I hope you have as much fun reading this as I did writing it.


          SISTERHOOD OF THE SMOKER BABES-THE SMOKING WAR CHRONICLES

CHAPTER 21 - October 10, 2011 - Another of Erin's many surprises
    Later that week I arrived home from work one night and immediately sensed
something was different about Erin. She had the day off but I knew that both
Katie and Melissa had just started their training on this very same day.
Normally Erin would have immediately pressed me for details on how things
went, especially about Katie, since it was her that had injected Katie with
the GS4268 and sent her on the road to nicotine slavery. But she didn't. She
didn't even bring up the subject of threesomes, which she had been doing
regularly, if only half jokingly since the day her and Katie met.

    Def Leppard was blasting from the speakers and Erin was bouncing off the
walls. She appeared to be cooking something, or at least trying to. There
were boxes and bowls scattered all over the kitchen and Erin had traces of
flour on her face. When I started relaying the details of Katie and Melissa's
day to her she said "that's nice" as she darted back and grabbed a box of
stove top stuffing and read the back of it. "Shit," she said, as she put the
box down.

    I watched this spectacle for another half a minute or so and then lowered
the music.

    "Hey, I love that song," she said.

    "What the hell are you doing?" I asked, somewhat amused. At that very
moment Erin's elbow knocked over a container of milk all over the counter.

    "I'm making a mess, obviously. I was trying to make you this casserole
thing my mom used to make but it ain't working and oh, by the way, I'm
pregnant. See when she, my mom makes the casserole it comes out thick but
mine's too soupy."

    I hadn't heard one single word after the "I'm pregnant" part. She
continued to babble on until I went over and took her in my arms.

    "Shh, shh," I said.

    "You heard me right, I'm pregnant," Erin repeated. I kissed her and just
held her for a second looking into her eyes and stroking her hair.

    "Honey, that's awesome," I said. We'd talked quite extensively about our
mutual desire to have kids someday. Someday had come sooner than expected.
Despite this, I was thrilled with the news.

    And Erin started babbling again. "I was wicked, wicked happy when I found
out. I almost called you, I dialed your number and was just about to hit send
and then oh-my-god, it hit me!"

    I still wasn't seeing where Erin was going with this but I should have.

    "When I first found out I'm thinking about what to name him or her,
whether him or her will have dark hair like you or blonde like me right." I
nodded.  "And I'm excited, no pumped really and I go to have a cigarette.
MIKE, I'M PREGANT, I CAN'T SMOKE AND I'M GOING OUT OF MY FUCKING MIND!" Her
eyes were reddening and she was starting to tear up.

    I felt really bad for her and moved her hair away from her eyes and drew
her close while stroking her hair. "I haven't gone this long without a
cigarette since I was like thirteen!" she sobbed.

    I led her over to the couch and sat down next to her. Something had crept
into my mind from my early days of training at RJT. I couldn't recall the
exact details as I skimmed over a lot of the textbook stuff they threw at me
in those early days so I called Decker and asked if he could meet with us
right away. He agreed.

    We met Falconeri in the War Room. Falconeri congratulated us on the news
and listened thoughtfully about Erin's dilemna. I hadn't mentioned to Erin
that there was something I'd remembered from my training, I wanted to make
sure I had all the facts first.

    "Deck," I said as Erin's nicotine starved body fidgeted, "Is there
anything you can do to help her? I mean, we know that GS4268 produces a
lifetime dependence on nicotine."

    "I need to make a call," Decker said as he picked up the receiver from
the phone sitting on the desk. "Can you page Dr. Enright and have him come up
here STAT?" he said to someone on the other end. He then said to Erin, "Just
hang on a little longer, okay." A short time later the door opened and in
walked Dr.  Robert Enright.

    I held Erin's hand as Dr. Enright dialed some stuff up in the computer
and images went up on the large wall screen. He started off as all doctors
do, speaking in medical terms that no one other than doctors can understand,
but then he brought things down to our level.

    "First and foremost, we know and understand that the baby's health is
paramount both to you and to us as well. That being said, I'm going to offer
you scientific evidence that proves that smoking during pregnancy causes no
harmful effects to the baby at any stage of development. In fact, there is
evidence that a mother who is heavily addicted to nicotine can actually cause
unnecessary trauma to the baby if she tries to quit."

    "What the fuck?" Erin said, squeezing my hand harder.

    Enright continued. "It's a scare tactic, one of the many put out there by
the anti-smoking groups over the years. Just one more way to get their
propaganda out there. These groups had the surgeon general in their back
pocket and they used their most powerful weopan, the media, to get their
message out there with things like health warnings on cigarette packs and
outright lies that cigarettes harm the developing fetus. What better way to
scare the public than bringing children and babies into the mix?"

    For the next half hour Enright stated his case, not only with supporting
medical evidence but with examples of other women affiliated with the company
who'd smoked during their entire pregnancy and not one single child suffered
any ill effects.

    Both Erin and I asked many questions. We were skeptical at first as
neither of us wanted to do anything to hurt the life we had just created.

    "I'd like to offer you the most compelling evidence of all," Enright
said, "Before the anti-smoking movements began in the 1960's, women smoked
during their pregnancies all the time, right? The population survived. Some
of us in this room are prime examples, Mike and Erin, both of your mothers
smoked didn't they and you seem to have come out ok."

    The door to the conference room opened and two women who I didn't know,
but who I'd recognized as RJT employees, walked in. Both were in their early
thirties, both had smoked throughout their pregnancies, and both of them were
happy to report that they delivered happy healthy babies and even showed us
pictures and Enright showed us their medical histories.

    Enright was about to put up some more slides on the screen and go into
another diatribe, but Erin interrupted him. "Umm, this is frigging torture. I
mean not you, Dr. Enright, sorry, but I can't sit here one more minute with
all this talk and pictures about smoking. I'm dying for one.  Mike do you
have any on you?" I did. I took a cigarette out of my pack and handed it to
her. Her hands were shaking from all the stress so I lit her.

    Erin took two drags without exhaling. When she exhaled she unconsciously
blew her smoke straight into my face. She took another deep drag, this time
holding the smoke deep in her lungs for what seemed like forever before
unleashing a curling cloudy exhale that filled the room. Her hands were still
trembling a bit but her color was starting to return to normal and she was
even smiling again. She rubbed her hand on her stomach and grinned from ear
to ear. "Here, feel." she said and took my hand and put it on her stomach. It
was obviously way to early to actually feel anything but at that moment I
never felt closer to her. We kissed each other, twice.

    "Well I see the crisis is over. Congratulations you guys," Decker said,
smiling. He and Enright gave both me and Erin a congratulatory hand shake and
left the room.

    Erin continued to power smoke, saying nothing as she let the nicotine
fill every corner of her body. "This feels sooo good," she smiled as she
butted out her cigarette. She motioned to me. "Another one." I handed her
another cigarette and she smoked this one in a more relaxed manner.

    "Sorry for being such a baby," she said. "Not smoking was making me feel
like shit but I'm ok now."

    "It's ok hun." I leaned over and kissed her.

    "We're pregnant, Mike, oh my God that's so incredible!" She started
welling up again but this time it was tears of happiness. "I just thought of
something totally wild!" she said as she reached for a third cigarette.

    "What's that?"

    "Well, the doctor said I'm four months along which means our baby was
conceived, well you know... on the night at my house after the cruise.
That's so cool. We made our baby in 1979 and she's going to be born in 2011,
how crazy is that!" She was grinning from ear to ear.

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