Anne's Choice, Part 4

ANNE'S CHOICE
by Richad
 
Chapter 4
 
 
After their return from Spain, Anne no longer made any attempt to conceal
from Martin how much she smoked.  It was a great relief to her to be open
about it and not to have to search for opportunities to smoke behind his
back.  She saw her honesty as a new and promising development in their
relationship, and hoped that Martin saw it this way too.
 
Martin, however, was privately appalled to discover the true extent of Anne's
habit.  To a man who spent his life doing everything possible to maximise his
physical fitness, her heavy smoking seemed to be little short of self-abuse.
He tried to tell himself that this was the same girl he had been dating for
the last two months, but he found himself seeing her through new eyes.
Sometimes he would covertly observe as she sat smoking while she read a book
or a newspaper.  Her cheeks would hollow as she drew on her cigarette, and
then, after what seemed a long time to him, she would allow the smoke to
escape gradually through her nose and mouth, more wisps continuing to appear
with each breath until she was ready to take another of her deep drags. 
 
Martin could not stop himself thinking about the damage which he imagined
each of these drags doing to Anne's slim body.  He reminded himself how
perfect she was in every other way, and did his best to ignore her smoking.
But the more he tried to ignore it, the more he seemed to notice.  He would
lie in bed in the morning after she got up, listening for the click of her
lighter as she lit her first cigarette of the day.  By the time he had
showered and shaved and made his way to the kitchen for breakfast, the air
would be thick with smoke as she lit her third or fourth cigarette of the
morning.  In the evenings, he noticed that when she was putting on her
make-up to go out she would sit and smoke one cigarette after another, and he
wondered how she had acquired that particular habit.  The hint of huskiness
in her voice which he had found so alluring now took on a more sinister
overtone.  At night he would usually go to bed before her and then lie
waiting for her to finish her final cigarette of the day before she came to
join him, the smell of smoke strong in her dark hair and the taste of the
cigarette's last, tar-concentrated half inch on her lips.
 
 
One night Martin and Anne had been making love in typically boisterous
fashion in Martin's bedroom.  Anne lay for a while, out of breath, and then
got up and walked through to the kitchen.  She re-appeared holding a
cigarette and sat down on the edge of the bed.  Martin lay watching her as
she sat smoking, naked, her cigarette in one hand and the dish which she used
as an ashtray in the other.  Anne became aware of his gaze.
 
"Sorry," she said.  "Do you want me to take this back to the kitchen?"
 
"No, there's no need," replied Martin.  "It's not that.  I-"
 
"Is something wrong?" Anne inquired.
 
"It's - well, it's difficult to explain.  It's all to do with how I feel
about you.  I watch you smoking cigarettes and I can't help imagining the
effect they're having on you inside.  I just hate the thought of you hurting
yourself so badly with them.  It's almost as if- this may sound crazy, but
it's as if every time you put one in your mouth I feel a physical pain, like
it's hurting me too.  When I see you reaching for them and opening the pack I
have this sudden surge of anger.  I want to rush over and grab them and crush
them and save you from them somehow.  Does any of that make sense?"
 
Anne laughed.  "Don't be silly," she said, tapping ash into the dish.
"You've been reading too much anti-smoking propaganda.  It's all exaggerated.
Not everyone who smokes dies of it, you know.  People smoke for years without
doing themselves any harm.  The fact is that only a small minority get lung
cancer.  There's no reason why I should be one of those.  Stop worrying about
it - the statistics are on my side."
 
"Are they?" replied Martin.  "What do the statistics tell us about someone
who smokes forty cigarettes a day, and inhales every one of them right down
to her toes, the way you're doing just now?  If you ask me, I think you're
fooling yourself.  I hear the way you cough in the bathroom in the morning.
And not only in the morning, either.  It's started, Anne.  You're only
twenty-nine, but it's affecting you already."
 
Anne did not reply immediately, but sat looking down at the cigarette burning
between her polished fingernails.  There was admittedly some truth in what
Martin said.  She didn't like her cough, which seemed to have got worse in
the last year or two.  But in all other respects, she reckoned that she was
about as fit as could be expected, considering that she did not have time to
take as much exercise as she ought to.
 
"So what are you suggesting?" she said at last.  "I hope you're not going to
nag me to quit.  I've told you I don't want to."
 
"No," Martin agreed, "I can see that that would be pointless.  But I did
wonder about something else.  Tell me, how do you decide when to smoke
another cigarette?"
 
Anne thought about this.  "It's not a question of deciding," she replied.
"You don't decide to be hungry or thirsty, do you?  My body tells me when
it's time for a cigarette."
 
"Yes, but I guess there must be times when you enjoy it more than others.  I
mean, aren't there some which you really look forward to, and others which
you just smoke out of habit?"
 
"I suppose so," said Anne, taking a last drag from her cigarette and putting
it out in the dish.  "Why?"
 
"Well, say you were to choose the ones you enjoy the most - let's say the
best five each day - and cut out the rest, you'd still get a lot of the
enjoyment but at a fraction of the health risk.  How about that?"
 
Anne pulled on a t-shirt and went through to the kitchen, where she sat down
at the table to drink a glass of water and to think over what Martin had
said.  It was true that there were certain cigarettes each day which she
particularly enjoyed.  The one with her morning coffee, for example.  The one
after lunch.  The one with a drink when she came home from work.  The ones in
her car before and after her dance class.  The last one at night.  Above all,
the first one in the morning.  It was also true, she supposed, that there
were others which were less important to her.  She opened the pack which was
lying on the table and discovered that it had just one cigarette left in it.
She tried to remember what she had been doing while she smoked each of the
other nineteen, but could recall only about five of them.  Maybe Martin was
right: maybe the truth was that some of the time she was just smoking out of
habit and could cut out those cigarettes without missing too much enjoyment.
There was little to lose by giving it a try.  And there might be something to
be gained.  Her relationship with Martin was getting quite serious: this
could be a good way to demonstrate her long term commitment to making things
work out between them.
 
Anne took the cigarette out of the pack, lit it and walked back through to
the bedroom.  Martin looked up at her expectantly.
 
"Only five a day is out of the question," she said.  "Could you live with
ten?"
 
Martin grinned.  "It's not my life we're discussing.  Do you think you can do
it?"
 
"Why not?" replied Anne, as she exhaled a plume of smoke.  She laid her
cigarette down on the dish and took off her t-shirt.  "Now, are we going to
talk about my smoking all night, or do you want to do something more
interesting instead?"

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