Under Her Wing, Part 6

 Ken was sitting in the dining room with Gretchen. They'd been on their fifth
date tonight.
   Or almost date.
   He hadn't given in yet. He was certainly close to it, but Gretchen had been
very understanding- in a way.
   They'd spent all of their free time together- and she certainly seemed to
have plenty of that. Yes, she'd been more than willing to spend time with
him. What she hadn't been willing to do was to allow their relationship to
pass beyond one of extremely sexually charged friendship. It seemed that her
rule was hard and fast.
   Among other things.
   They were both quite drunk right now. She'd taken it easy in the bar tonight
because she was driving, but they'd been back at the Inn for almost an hour
and she'd done an admirable job catching up, drinking Labatts in a way which
reminded Ken of college.
   It was hard to believe that this was his sixth day here.
   Six days without resolution had worn on both of them.
   "I never thought you'd last this long." Gretchen was saying, her voice a
sexy whisper. They were doing there best to keep it down because all the
girls were asleep, as far as they knew. Her voice was husky in a way Ken had
decided was pleasant. She lit a cigarette, doing it with a slow, measured
precision for his benefit.
   It wasn't until the third night that he'd told her the lesser half of the
truth. At the time he'd done it, he'd thought must be going crazy.
   He hadn't much changed that opinion. Nor had Gretchen changed the way she
smoked. She seemed to understand that part of the attraction was how natural
she looked smoking. He hadn't told her that he felt the same way- to a much
lesser extent, watching all the girls and their teacher smoke as well.
   She figured it out on her own.
   Gretchen exhaled a thick cloud of smoke which drifted lasily in his
direction, twisting and writhing in the backdraft of the ceiling fan. Her
hand snaked across the table and found his. Although she was clearly drunk,
the smile which bled across her face was not. Her fingers drew small circles
on the skin of the back of his hand, raising gooseflesh.
   "I really would love to start dating you, Ken," she said, her voice sultry.
   She paused to let him mull this over, taking the opportunity to inhale
deeply on her cigarette. She held the smoke, running her tongue across her
upper teeth with her mouth closed. She parted her lips and licked them, then
let the exhale begin. She pushed the smoke no farther than the outside of her
mouth and it built itself up like a wall between them.
   "What does dating involve that what we've been doing doesn't ?" Ken asked,
as though he didn't know the answer.
   Her eyes flared as she said "Sex."
   "And a cigarette when we're done ?"
   "Exactly. Before and after. Aren't you curious ?"
   "About sex ? Well, yeah."
   Gretchen's laugh was maddening. It made him want to bury his hands in her
hair and pull her close to him for a kiss.
   "That's not what I meant." She hesitated, taking another languorous inhale
on the cigarette which made Ken's heart stop.
   "Can I tell you a secret ?" she asked, her voice electric. A secret was not
what he wanted to share with her, but it would be a start. He nodded and she
leaned so close that her hair brushed his hand. The smell of smoke clung to
her, a mind-twisting aphrodisiac. "I've never told anyone this, but I feel
the same way that you do-"
   "About what ?" he managed to ask breathlessly.
   "About men who smoke."
   "I don't enjoy watching men smoke," he said smartly, enjoying the flirtation
as he had for the better part of a week.
   He expected a smart-ass sort of reply, but instead she brought her hand to
his face and stroked his cheek. "I'm serious, Ken. I've given you a lot and
now I'm asking for something back. I've seen you sitting here at this table.
You're in Nirvana. I would feel the same way-"
   "You're serious-"
   "I want to kiss you and taste it in your mouth."
   He looked at the cigarettes on the table. The lighter was sitting on top of
the box. Was she really asking so much ?
   Only if she knew his greater half of his secrets, she would understand just
what she was asking.
   "Light one for me," he said, knowing that this was going to change his life.
He couldn't imagine it being for the better but right now he didn't care. Any
more than he cared if he choked and coughed, if he felt sick- or worse. Even
the guilt would be worth it right now.
   Gretchen didn't hesitate. After stubbing out her own, she pulled one of the
long white cigarettes from the box, put it between her lips and lit it. She
pulled in smoke and then handed it to him. He took it between trembling
fingers and watched her eyes light up. Watched her hands migrate beneath the
table, one to the inside of thighs, the other to hers. She gently ran a
single finger along the length of his hardness, making him shiver.
   The smoke curling from the tip of the cigarette was dry, acrid. What was
pleasant- or pleasing- about it seemed lost on him now. But then he looked at
her and he saw a longing in her eyes which was very familiar. He wondered if
that was what he really looked like.
   Only now was she exhaling the smoke from the same cigarette he was holding.
She let it trail slowly from her nose, a seemingly endless stream.
   He moved his hand towards his mouth, wondering what it would taste like and
feel like.
   Ken did his best to imitate Gretchen. He placed his lips just over the tip
of the filter and closed them down around it. He then inhaled, pulling air
through the cigarette. 
   Immediately he sputtered and coughed, sure that he was going to disappoint
Gretchen, that somehow this had been his one big chance and now it was
ruined. But her hand never left his crotch, in fact the gentle stroking which
had been a single finger was now her whole hand and it was much stronger and
more insistent. He looked around the table and saw that her other was doing
the same sort of thing, but for herself.
   "We'll have to work on that a little," she said with a smile.
   He tried again, drawing a little less smoke into his mouth. He paused before
allowing the smoke to go any farther, trying to adapt to the taste. He then
let it go on to his lungs. The smoke still burned, but there was something
else.
   Something which made him understand exactly why he would do this for himself
as well as for her.
   He held the cigarette out to her as he exhaled and she took it with the hand
that she'd been using to pleasure herself. The other hand, the one working
inside his thighs, further intensified its activity as she took the sort of
cheek-hollowing inhale on the cigarette which would have normally put a bulge
in his pants. She timed the exhale perfectly, as though she could feel his
orgasm before it happened. A wave of milky white smoke crashed over his face
at the same time a dark stain spread across the front of his jeans.
   Ken decided it would it be a good time to kiss Gretchen. She didn't object.

   The laptop's screen appeared to be glowing from Sarah's angle on the bed.
She was lying across it, smoking a cigarette and trying to organise her
thoughts. 
   Tremblay had given her a disk with three files on it, three different
sections of notes about what they  were doing. The story unfolded on her
powerbook and somehow, as absurd, even insane as it seemed, Sarah had a
feeling that Tremblay was probably on the mark. But all she could do was lie
there, smoking and sipping at a beer she'd opened two hours ago, back when
she'd been thirsty and waiting for Tremblay to come to her room.
   She smoked that cigarette and two more without saying a word, without even
sitting up. She finally finished the beer, tipping it upside down so that the
last few drops ran out of the bottle and fell straight to the back of her
throat. Only when the pack she'd opened this morning was empty did she
finally stand up, walk over to the powerbook, and shut it down for the night.
   The truth was, she felt a little silly, not having seen it coming.
   It was all about money. The rest of it- the health concerns and the second
hand smoke, all of it just excuses. Ends to a means.	
   It was really about owning the right stock, and then choking off the
traditional distribution method. It was about control.
   Sarah lied down again, tried to put it out of her mind, but there was no way
she could do that. Being honest, she supposed that she should be relieved.
They weren't looking to eliminate smoking. In fact, they were looking to
encourage it. In a way which would allow them to earn five dollar a pack
profits. But-	
   What was so monstrous about the whole thing was how simple it was, how easy
to see it when you held the right pieces in your hands. And yet seeing it-
   Did that make it any easier to stop ?
   Sarah didn't think so.
   How Tremblay had gathered so much information, and from so many sources, was
a question she hadn't been willing to answer. Nor had she been willing to
tell Sarah why she cared so much when she herself was not a smoker. All Sarah
was sure of was that if the information Tremblay had given her somehow hit
the mainstream, the backlash would put an end to all their well laid plans.
Which meant that neither she nor Tremblay were safe.
   Clutching the Cameo tightly in her hand, Sarah did her best to get past that
thought and fall asleep. All she remembered the next morning was not quite
seeing dawn.

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