The Star Student, Part 2

THE STAR STUDENT
Part 2 of 2
by Somers


It was January. Here she was in the kitchen in the middle of the week, and 
there it was on the table, but she wasn't going to touch it, of course.

It was the fresh pack of cigarettes that Sharon had left for her.

Catherine stared at the bright gold color and the shiny cellophane wrapper, 
imagining all the long, white cigarettes that lay within. It made her mind 
drift off to the club and the weekends that she and Sharon had been sharing 
together. As she gazed at it, she absently twirled her hair in her fingers. 
She had been growing it out, and it was just reaching her shoulders now. It 
was an adjustment getting used to the tickling on her neck, but she felt it 
was a more appropriate style for someone who was supposed to be a senior in 
college.

It had become a weekly ritual. The girls would go out to the club together, 
either with or without Hugh, and chat and enjoy the music and the fun. 
Sharon had introduced Catherine as her older sister, not her Mom, and this 
delightful deception was so much fun for Catherine that she just could not 
stop thinking about it all of the time. During the week, she now frequently 
concentrated on her appearance, doing a little eyebrow plucking sometimes, 
and experimenting with new eyeshadows and lip liners of much bolder color 
palettes than Sharon' Mom would have ever tried.

In their first few visits to the club, Sharon often would have her Mom hold 
her lit cigarette when she went to dance, and Catherine would play with it, 
just taking a few tiny puffs. She had to admit that the little light-headed 
feeling the cigarettes gave her was rather pleasant, and she found herself 
inhaling the smoke more often and more deeply, as week after week went by. 
It was a very satisfying sensation. One cigarette for the evening out had 
become two, then three. Then she had begun taking them from Sharon's pack 
whenever Sharon would offer them to her, allowing her daughter to regulate 
her consumption. She learned to light them comfortably by herself. But, she 
wasn't really a regular smoker, she told herself.

Catherine was just adoring the colored lights and the music and all the 
excitement of the club, and she would always look forward to those Saturday 
nights with her new younger sister. Smoking was just an illusion, wasn't it 
? Just two young girls sitting and smoking and having some drinks together 
while enjoying the sounds of laughter and watching all the loving and happy 
people. No, Catherine certainly wasn't a regular smoker at all, just an 
imposter pretending to be young and glamorous again.

She fingered the smooth pack on the table, tracing its outline with her 
nail, imagining herself watching everyone's smiles, the blue cloudy air, the 
good feeling of breathing out a little bit of smoke into the light...

"Oh, hell.." she said, then quickly peeled open the pack.

In a few minutes, she had located the book of matches, struck one and looked 
at the flame with the cigarette dangling from her lips. She then stopped, 
took the unlit cigarette from her mouth and blew out the match, smelling the 
acrid sulfur of the smoking matchhead.

"What am I doing ? This is silly. I'm not a smoker," she said, looking at 
the long, white cigarette in her fingers.

She then held out her hand absently, admiring the burgundy color of the 
polish that she had gotten at the nail place yesterday. They do such a fine 
job there, she thought, just right for the club, and nicely contrasting that 
new black spaghetti-strap top she had bought. They had filed nice, rounded 
ends and applied a hard, shiny clear-coat. Catherine was being much more 
careful to avoid breaking her nails lately, because she liked the look of 
the long, smooth red tips next to the long, white cigarette. Just another 
sexy college girl at the club, she would be. She could hardly wait for the 
weekend to come.

The cigarette was still in her fingers, beckoning to her. Catherine noted 
that it didn't look quite right there, because it wasn't burning. The 
appearance was unfinished.

"Well, just this once. That can't hurt," she mumbled to herself, justifying 
the act as a thorough check of her manicure.

She put the cigarette back into her lips then, picked up the matchbook once 
again and struck a flame. This time, she lit the end, pulled lightly and 
puffed without inhaling, thus expertly expelling the match taste. She shook 
the match out, watching the thick puff of smoke drifting away from her 
mouth, saw the familiar burning cigarette in front of her nose, just as if 
she were at the club with all the friendly voices and the clinking of 
glasses and the lights.

She took another puff, then opened her mouth and inhaled the smoke deeply 
into her lungs. She sat at the table and propped her elbow up as she exhaled 
a thin stream of smoke across the kitchen, thinking of the music and feeling 
that friendly and now-familiar feeling inside of her body. She imagined the 
strains of that old song that the DJ liked to play as she put the smooth, 
white filter to her lips once more and closed her eyes, pulled strongly and 
then inhaled, letting the nicotine begin to work its magic.

"Something happened to my heart,
The day that I met you.
Something that I've never felt before..."

***

It was May, and the end of the school year. Warm weather had finally 
arrived, and the windows in the house were open to admit the gentle 
springtime breezes. On this Saturday afternoon, Catherine had just finished 
brushing her hair. It was now over her shoulders, and she parted it in the 
center, letting the long strands hang straight down on both sides of her 
face. She smiled at herself in the mirror, put the hairbrush down, then 
almost skipped over to the closet in excitement.

She removed the brand new dress from its hanger and held it up to let the 
rays of the setting sun illuminate it fully in front of the window. She 
might not have bought it for fear it was much too young for her, but it was 
on sale at the department store and the price made it hard to resist. The 
nearly middle age woman within her suggested that she not wear it at all, 
perhaps give it to Sharon, since they wore the same dress size. Yes, that 
was the reason she had purchased it; it was for Sharon, wasn't it ?

Sharon, of course, was in her room at the moment, readying herself for their 
night out. Sharon already had a beautiful outfit, and had many other 
beautiful clothes, too. Someone else ought to wear it, because it would be 
such a shame to let it hang in the dark closet all alone. Perhaps Sharon' 
big sister might like to use it tonight. Of course! That was the reason she 
got it. It was for the older daughter, not for Sharon. How could she have 
forgotten ?

She pulled it down over her head and stood in front of the mirror, adjusting 
the fabric of the dress to fit the contours of her body. Catherine made a 
mental note that she ought to get into the sun and start to work on a tan 
soon because her skin looked so white. Then again, perhaps it just seemed 
that way because she was not accustomed to seeing so much of her skin still 
showing after the completion of dressing.

A small chill rocketed up her spine, and she began to giggle. She stopped, 
regained her composure, and then admired herself in the mirror. She often 
became drunk with the joy of her new look, basking in the tantalizing 
sensations of a rebirth, a new person, a strong and young person, assuming 
her rightful role as the dominant and vibrant personality. Gone was the 
aging, lonely mother. Gone were the days of housecleaning and watching soap 
operas.

The dress she wore was a short, strapless, black velvet beauty, starting 
generously above the black nylon-stockinged knees, sweeping snugly over the 
contour of each hip and drawing in to follow her slim waistline. It then 
flared, stretching out to cradle each breast and leaving an absolutely 
sinful amount of cleavage up top.

"OOO! Thanks for the dress, Mom! Bye, gotta go get another cigarette now!" 
she exclaimed to the figure behind the mirror, throwing a kiss at the 
departing matron.

It was still early, and Sharon was not quite ready yet, so Catherine 
reclined on the bed, running her hands down over her shape and admiring the 
way the dress clung to her body. She reached over to the nighttable to 
retrieve her cigarettes. Busy with makeup and dressing, she had not smoked 
in almost an hour, and felt the need coming on very strongly.

With the pretty, silver lighter she made a licking, yellow flame and used it 
to light herself up. The click of shutting it off echoed in the room while 
she pulled deeply, causing her cheeks to collapse and making the tip of the 
cigarette glow brightly in the now-twilight bedroom scene. Her mother was 
gone now, and Catherine admired herself in the mirror as she opened her 
mouth and wrapped her tongue around the thick ball of creamy smoke. She 
snapped it down deeply into her lungs, and felt the edge of the strapless 
dress stretching across her chest.

She exhaled a dense stream of pure white smoke and watched it curl and swirl 
across the room in a witchy way. She had come to really love smoking, 
because it made her feel so alive and full of energy. Morning, noon and 
night she now smoked, each and every day, and enjoyed all of the puffs to 
their fullest. Catherine had become dependent upon her cigarettes, and was 
so grateful for what they had done for her. She knew that, like Sharon, she 
would never be without them. The music played through her head while she 
looked lovingly at the burning cigarette in her fingers.

"You are always on my mind,
No matter what I do.
And every day it seems I want you more..."

As she lay back and took a longer and more luxurious pull from the burning 
tobacco, Catherine contemplated how much she appreciated her new life, so 
pleased with herself and all she had become over the past school year. 
Catherine the co-ed. What better way to go through college than to simply 
enjoy the weekend life without any books and studying and classes during the 
week? All of the pleasure and none of the work, she thought, as the heavy 
puff struck her lungs and gave her that comfortable, magical tingle. It was 
the perfect and most wickedly delicious deception, now become completely 
real for her, and she owed it all to her beloved daughter, Sharon.

Catherine tilted her head back, closed her eyes and let the clouds of thick 
smoke roll out from her nose, no longer thinking back to the little girl's 
tea party as she used to, but to another day in the living room last 
March....

"And then you can do this," Sharon said, letting the smoke pour over her top 
lip and into her nose.

"Isn't that really cool ?" Sharon laughed and exhaled.

"That's not bad!" Sharon said, watching her mom's first attempt at the 
french inhale. "Let's sit in front of the mirror so you can see yourself, 
and see how sexy you look !"

Catherine experimented, trying hard to confine the cloud, carefully 
controlling her breath to try and sniff all of it up her nose.

"Oh, my, that went right to my head," she giggled, as any college girl 
might. Catherine had been playing her part of the older sister very well, 
and Sharon was really coming to regard her Mom as a girlfriend instead of an 
elder.

"Then, you can do it the other way," Sharon said excitedly, then dragged and 
inhaled deeply. Catherine giggled as she saw her daughter go cross-eyed and 
look at her nose. Then, she was delighted with the appearance of long, 
double streams of smoke that came falling down and sweeping around from 
Sharon's nostrils.

"Let me try that!" she said, taking a lengthy drag and inhaling.

"Very good, Cath!" Sharon squealed as she saw an excellent copy of her own 
thick nostril exhale forming below her mom's nose. Catherine smiled.

"You know, you just called me Cath?"

"Oh..., I'm sorry, Mom. I was getting a little carried away. It's just that 
you've become so cool with your smoking, and I..., well....didn't mean any 
disrespect," Sharon looked embarrassed.

"No, no, no, darling! Call me Cath, oh please do! It's wonderful!"

Catherine hugged her and kissed her cheek. Sharon hugged her best friend 
back. The women then sat in front of the mirror and pulled on their 
cigarettes simultaneously, producing a pair of bright, orange tips in front 
of their faces. They inhaled together, then let thick, smoky plumes descend 
from their nostrils. Both of them felt that a new and wonderful relationship 
had begun.

***

In the middle of dancing, Hugh felt Sharon' body stop and stiffen.

"Honey, what's wrong?" he pulled back to look at her face. Sharon' eyes were 
focused far off across the room, so Hugh turned to look.

Catherine was still sitting at the table where they had left her, but the 
picture was different now. She gripped a long white cigarette in her 
fingers, and was holding it into her lips, bending forward into the flame. 
Across from her was a handsome gentleman, holding a lighter and smiling at 
her while she drew on the cigarette and then inhaled. They saw her smile and 
say something, then turn to exhale delicately into the light. She held her 
cigarette up next to her face, laughed as she listened to him, then returned 
the cigarette to her lips once more.

The man was dressed in a trim, earth-tone suit with an attractive, but 
subtle green tie. His face had a strong cut to it, and there was a small 
hint of dignified grey in his otherwise dark hair. He smiled and seemed to 
be captivated while watching Catherine exhale rich, white, smoky plumes from 
her nostrils.

Sharon led Hugh over to the DJ as the song completed. She whispered 
something in the DJ's ear, then they returned to the floor to start a new 
dance to the requested song, pausing often to look back at Catherine, and 
that loving way she gazed at the man with her. Her animated conversation, 
the beautiful dress with her long hair sweeping down and her vibrant pose 
were absolutely stunning.

"My love is warmer than the warmest sunshine,
Softer than a sigh.
My love is deeper than the deepest ocean,
Wider than the sky..."

They saw Catherine take a very strong pull on her cigarette, then sit up 
straight as she inhaled deeply and smiled, her eyes twinkling and shining. 
They caught the gentleman admiring her body, his eyes roving over 
Catherine's form and posture in the brightly colored spotlights of the club. 
He asked her some kind of question. They saw her wink at him and nod while 
she performed the most sensual exhale that Sharon had ever seen in her life. 
Clearly, mother had been practicing.

"My love is brighter than the brightest star,
That shines every night above,
But there is nothing in this world
That could ever change my love."

Hugh saw that Sharon was crying, and wanted to ask her what was wrong. Then, 
he stopped, realizing that these were tears of joy she shed, watching her 
mom walking arm in arm with this handsome gentleman, across the dance floor 
and over to the entrance. Hugh smiled and nodded at them, returning 
Catherine's wave from the doorway, then seeing her blowing them a kiss with 
the cigarette still in her fingers.

"She's so grown-up now," Sharon murmured tearfully.

Hugh kissed Sharon, rubbing his lips against hers and tasting the rich 
tobacco flavor that he found so delicious about this woman. The couple then 
returned to the table to retrieve Sharon' cigarettes and similarly bid the 
club farewell for the evening. They both felt elated, and wanted to 
celebrate this occasion in private.

Catherine had now graduated, with high honors!

THE END

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