Dancing, Part 2

Dancing with the Devil
Part 2 of 2
an4@anon.lelnet.com

    Cheryl looked at the pack of cigarettes that Kelli had bought her. They had 
been driving for a while now- Kelli had wisely suggested going to a bar she 
knew about twenty miles from where they lived so that their fake IDs would 
draw less attention. She couldn't believe that she was going out to a bar. 
She was nervous and more than a little bit in a state of conflict about 
smoking so freely in front of her friend.
    Janette reached up from the back seat and put her hand on her friend's 
shoulder.
    "Listen, I'm not going to give you a lot of shit, Cheryl. I know I've 
been on your case the last three months and-'
    "What are you talking about ?"
    Kelli took her eyes off the road to look briefly at Cheryl. "Obviously, 
the fact that you've been smoking behind Janette's back and lying about it 
has you a little flustered. Get over it. If you like to smoke, smoke. If you 
don't, give me back those cigarettes."
    There was no hardness in her voice.
    "And either way, could one of you girls light me one ? The road's getting 
a little slippery from this rain."
    Janette did the honours, lighting two and handing one to Kelli.
    "Anyway, I'm the one who should be nervous. If I get caught with two 
sixteen year olds in a bar-"
    "You won't. These are the best ids my sister's money can buy. She used 
mine to get into a few bars at school just to make sure it would work. 
Fortunately she and I are dead ringers."
    Kelli drew on her cigarette, blew the smoke out the slightly open window. 
"And why did your sister get you fake ids anyway ?"
    "Just in case. I asked her to. She knows a guy at school, and she 
mentioned it one day and I said it would be cool to have them."
    "Well, I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to just getting 
out. My friends- well, most of my friends are his friends. He grew up here, 
after all. It's going to be nice just to sit down somewhere and drink a beer 
or two and people watch."
    Cheryl pulled the cellophane off the pack, tapped the bottom, and pulled 
a single cigarette out. She took Kelli's lighter from where it was resting on 
the stick shift and lit it, cracking her window so that she could blow the 
smoke out and flick the ashes away like her neighbour did. This was the first 
time she had smoked in a car. She watched how Kelli drove, holding the wheel 
in her left hand, the cigarette between the first two fingers, her right hand 
alternating between the wheel and the stick.
    She was a natural smoking and driving. Janette had tried it in her own 
car a few times and the results were far less secure.
    Or attractive.
    
    The bar was large, well lit, and smoky. It wasn't a bar in the exact 
sense that Cheryl expected. It wasn't some dingy dive where you kept one 
hand on your purse. There were people playing darts and a dance floor on 
which people in their twenties and thirties were looking silly bouncing 
around to eighties techno. It was loud and friendly and-
    These people were kind of old, but they seemed cool.
    The IDs worked like a charm. The girls were both on the tall side, close 
to five-eight, and they the sort of hair and pretty faces that passed for 
twenty-one easily enough.
    They'd sat down at one of three square bars and ordered beers and then 
Kelli and Janette had run off to the bathroom together. It had been a long 
drive and Cheryl would have gone as well but someone needed to watch their 
stools.
    It seemed like everyone was smoking.
    Cheryl took out one of her cigarettes and then realised she had no way to 
light it. There were matches on the bar, but none in easy reach and the truth 
was she was almost too nervous to move.
    Just then, a voice behind her asked if she needed a lit.
    She turned around, wondering if this was going to be her first adult 
encounter and then nearly died of mortification.
    "Mr. Browne," she said, her voice cracking.
    "If you don't want anyone to get suspicious," he said, leaning close, 
"you'd better call me Dave. I didn't know you smoked, Cheryl."
    "I just started, M- Dave."
    He produced a lighter, she brought the cigarette to her lips, and he lit 
it carefully but easily, as though he was used to lighting cigarettes.
    He then took a cigar case out, removed one, and snipped the end. He 
reached over the bar past her to drop the tip in the ashtray and his arm 
touched the curve of her breast casually. She didn't complain. He lit the 
cigar, carefully working it without singeing the end.
    "You look like you've been smoking for a while now," he teased as she 
drew deeply on the cigarette, fighting off the heady rush as the smoke filled 
her lungs. She lifted her head, exhaled, and brought the cigarette to rest by 
her face, angled upwards, smoke trailing from the end.
    "Just about everyone I know smokes," she said by way of explanation.
    "I hope you're not here alone," he said. He then smiled easily.
    He was so cute. Just twenty-four, fresh out of grad school on his first 
teaching job. A real heart throb. Usually, the girls looked at the teachers 
as dirty old men, with their lecherous looks and kid in a candy store stares. 
But not M-, not Dave. The girls had crushes on their new English teacher, and 
Cheryl had not been immune to the effect, although she didn't actually have 
him for any classes except a study hall.
    "No, I'm here with Janette and my next-door neighbour, who's like, super 
cool."
    "I wish my neighbours had brought me to places like this when I was your 
age. You know, you should get out on the dance floor. Relax a little. You 
look a little too tentative right now. I'd hate to see you get in any 
trouble."
    She saw Kelli and Janette emerge from the bathroom.
    "Is that an invitation ?"
    He extended his arm in chivalrous fashion. "Anything for a pretty girl-"
    
    "Where'd Cheryl go ?"
    "Is that her out on the dance floor ?" Kelli answered as she flicked the 
wheel of her lighter and caught a light.
    Cheryl was just finishing taking a strong pull on her cigarette, dancing 
the whole time.
    "Oh my god," Janette said. "That's M- that's Dave." She leaned close. 
"He's an english teacher at our high school."
    "They make a cute couple. He's gorgeous."
    "Holy shit."
    "She works fast, I'll give her that."
    The Safety Dance ended and, the music shifted to a slow tune, Journey's 
Faithfully. Cheryl reached out and deposited her spent cigarette in an 
ashtray at the side of the dance floor and looked to move off, but Dave said 
something to her. She nodded, made a wait gesture, took out a cigarette which 
he lit for her and then he guided her back onto the dance floor. He put his 
hands on her waist she put her arms around his shoulders.
    She held the cigarette in her right hand, carefully keeping it away from 
his head. They danced, keeping space between them at first, but as the song 
went on, that space slowly disappeared while Cheryl carefully smoked her 
cigarette, wrapping them in smoke as they slowly melded.
    Janette watched her friend with amused amasement.
    "I always knew that she would start smoking, but I never thought she'd 
put the moves on one of our teachers. Holy shit, that's cute."
    "I think he's just being nice," Kelli said.
    "I don't suppose you're kind of hoping that's what's up there."

    Cheryl was sorry when the song came to an end. She'd done her share of 
slow dancing at school dances- in fact, she'd been holding out the hope of a 
slow dance or two with Kevin at the Snow Ball- but it had never felt like 
this. It was actually sexual, and that was new. It was also totally 
disturbing, since she had been dancing with a teacher. Maybe not really one 
of her own, but a teacher none the less.
    "I-"
    Dave smiled. "I want you to know that I don't make an habit of dancing 
with my students."
    "I certainly hope not."
    "Well, they don't usually show up miles from school in my favourite bar, 
and they aren't usually so adorable."
    They moved off to the edge of the dance floor, and Cheryl pulled out her 
cigarettes. Dave was there to light her up as soon as she had the cigarette 
lifted to her lips, and he smiled as she drew deeply on it and clearly 
savoured the smoke.
    "Can you tell me something ?"
    "Anything," he said.    
    "Am I more attractive to you because I smoke ?"
    "Ah, that's quite a loaded question. First, let me ask you something very 
important. And remember, I'm just an english teacher, not a psychology 
professor."
    Cheryl drew on the cigarette and enjoyed the way the smoke seemed to 
expand her very consciousness.
    "Shoot."
    "Are you comfortable with the fact that you are attractive ?"
    That was an hard question.
    But the answer needed to be digital. One or zero. She knew that.
    "Yes, I am. Maybe," she said, trying to keep it light, "maybe my boobs 
haven't quite finished filling in, but yes. I have my mother and sister to 
use as baselines. I'll do all right. I won't be a supermodel, but I could be 
a cheerleader if I had a different brain."
    "Well then, I can answer your question honestly, I guess."
    "What if I had said no ?"
    "Well, if you're not comfortable being attractive, there would be no way 
I could possibly in good conscience tell you that you are far more attractive 
as a smoker than a non-smoker. Does that make sense to you ?"
    He took the sort of strong pull on his cigar that made her think 
correctly he'd done it many times before.
    "Yes and no. What I don't fully understand is why smoking is so se- so 
attractive. I mean, I watch my sister smoke and I can see it. I mean, I would 
never jones for my own sister, but-"
    "But you understand. I was sixteen when my girlfriend- who'd been smoking 
since she was fourteen, asked me if I'd ever smoked one of my father's 
cigars. I asked her why she would ever think of such a thing and she said I 
would look so cool- and I realised two things- the first that she was 
attracted to that, and second, and this was the one that hit me like a brick, 
was that I had been attracted to her, from day one, in part, because she 
smoked."
    Cheryl inhaled deeply, held the smoke, and then exhaled through mouth and 
nose.
    "But why ? It's not like being attracted to a woman with large breasts- 
there's a biological imperative there."
    "Yeah, one which makes no sense. Supposedly that's about a woman being 
able to better provide for her young, but- and god knows what rule I'm 
breaking discussing this with you- but it doesn't matter whether a woman is a 
b cup or a d cup, she can still nurse the baby just as well. The smoking 
thing makes more sense."
    Cheryl automatically trimmed her ash in an ashtray, drew again.
    "How so- it seems silly to me."
    "Yet you acknowledge it and you don't strike me as silly."
    "Well-"
    "What is it ?" He watched Cheryl draw on the cigarette, lift it from her 
mouth to an alluring hold to the right side of her head, and nose exhale. Oh 
yes, he was jonesing for her and there were no two ways about it. "It's 
physical and psychological as well. The second may be the most important- the 
fact that you can stand there and confidently draw smoke from your cigarette 
and enjoy it- that says a lot about you. You're aware and self-assured, you 
like what you enjoy. Smokers are more passionate."
    If only he knew how nervous she was.
    "And it's just plain physically attractive. A female smoker- well, I 
don't enjoy watching men smoke, but women- they know how to make love to a 
cigarette. That's a simplification, but an attractive woman who treats a 
cigarette properly, oh god, that's the ultimate head rush for a knowing man."
    "So it's not about the woman," she teased, "any woman with a rack and 
shaped legs will do as long as she has a cigarette between her fingers."
    "No," he said, pausing to work the cigar long enough to keep it going. 
"The woman has to be attractive first, and that's more than a pretty face or 
nice- accoutrements- there's the intellectual component."
    "Yeah, I'm one of the world's great brains."
    He reached out and touched her shoulder and it was like and electric 
current passed through her. 
    "You are a very smart young lady and I don't ever want to hear you sell 
yourself short that way again."
    She finished the cigarette, stubbed it out, and instinctively reached to
light another one, even as she said "I'm not the least bit sure I'm 
comfortable with what you're saying. We came here hoping that our friend, 
who's going into a divorce, would hook up-"
    "She's very attractive. I can call my brother, who's home from grad 
school, and he can be here in fifteen minutes. He has a things for divorcees 
who smoke-"
    "And you didn't bring him along ?" she teased.
    "He's working on his thesis, the damn bookworm."
    She brought the cigarette to her lips and waited for a light.
    "If you're not comfortable, you shouldn't do that."
    He lit her cigarette. "Remember, the cigarette is about the woman, never 
the other way around." And then he took out his cell phone and called his 
brother.

    "I tried to call you last night," Brea said, "But no one answered."
    "We were out. Mom, can I tell you something now, before Carrie Anne comes 
home and-"
    "Sure, honey. I've had two cups of coffee right here in the room. I'm 
ready for anything."
    "You might not want to be so flip, Mom. This is serious."
    "Oh, honey-"
    I made out with a teacher last night.
    That wasn't where she was going.
    "Mom, I've started smoking. I hope-"
    "Well, that explains the fact that I've lost about a half a pack of 
cigarettes over the last month, one at a time. Honey, I smoke, Carrie Anne 
smokes, Janette smokes, why would I expect anything else from you."
    "You sound disappointed."
    "No. Not at all. Hey, why do you think I was trying not to smoke around 
you ? Because I didn't want you to smoke ? Hell, I just didn't want to 
influence your decision, that's all. We're still five by five. Now where 
were you last night ? And go right on being honest."
    "I was out at a bar."
    Now her mom sounded serious. "Tell me you didn't drink and drive."
    "No. Kelli drove."
    "Those divorce papers must have come through."
    "You knew ?"
    "Oh, the writing was on the wall. I hadn't said anything, but she and I 
have talked a few times. She probably wandered over looking for me."
    Janette lit two cigarettes and handed one to Cheryl, who took it gladly.
    "You're not mad I went out to a bar ?"
    Brea laughed. "Honey, if I didn't trust you, I wouldn't leave you alone. 
I know you pretty well. There are plenty of teenagers that I would not trust 
to go hang out in a bar and you are not one of them, okay. You're going to 
have to come up with something a lot worse than that to upset me, and Carrie 
and I are meeting some very nice, very younger men for breakfast downstairs, 
so I'd just as soon you didn't try."
    Cheryl looked out the front window and saw that Dave's brother's car was 
still in Kelli's driveway.
    Out with the old and in with the new.
    "Now, you have a school bus to catch. I don't want you playing hooky. I 
love you- and one more thing. You're the lady of the house now. Don't let 
Carrie Anne boss you around when she gets there tomorrow, okay ?"
    That was an impossible request, but Cheryl said she would try and hung up 
the phone.
    "Let's grab the bus," Cheryl said to Janette.
    "It's only two miles. Let's walk."
    "You just want to smoke," Cheryl said. "But that's okay. So do I."
    The two girls smiled and started walking.
    "So, do you still want to hear about Kevin ?" Janette asked.
    Cheryl didn't quite know the answer.

Previous part | Next part