Getting Caught

Getting Caught

Lately I'm thinking more and more about smoking, every time I see someone
indulging in that glamorous and pleasurable act that is lighting a cigarette
I cannot hide my staring.

Every time I realize that I'm alone at home the thought hits me...because I
know that probably there is an open pack of cigarettes around, and I know too
well that probably there is no risk of getting caught, and I have known for
some weeks that smoking is really cool and pleasant. 

It's kind of strange the power that those apparently innocent cylinders gain
over you as soon as you cross the line and learn how you can get pleasure
from such a simple action. It's scary but funny as well...you take a
minute...you think about it...the pros...the cons...after some kind of
strange calculation the pros appears undoubtedly bigger than the cons...and
as soon as you realize it your eyes are already looking around for an open
pack...and a pack of Marlboro Gold 100's is on the small table by the sofa.

With a feeling of anticipation I check the pack, thinking I didn't get the
chance to smoke at all in the last two days and...oh, fuck! Only two
cigarettes in the pack! This means of course that I cannot take one...this is
a simple rule that I guess most of the closet smokers consider when they
start to steal cigarettes: never steal from a full pack or a pack with 18-19
cigarettes inside, nor from an almost empty pack because you can bet you will
get caught. The safe pack is the one with 10-15 cigarettes, no one would
think any are missing. And one thing is sure, I don't want to get caught! I
can't deal with all the stress that this surprise would create with her I'm
not sure myself if I really want to continue smoking, since I don't feel like
I'm addicted. I've probably smoked about 30-35 cigarettes in my entire life,
how can I be already slave to this vice? 

I sit there, looking at the pack, feeling miserable because I want to smoke
and I can't! It's not that I really need it...it's not like I can't stand
physically the absence of the smoke in my body, or maybe it's just that the
nicotine effect is so subtle you can get addicted without even noticing

These thoughts float around in my head as I shift uncomfortably on the sofa.
In these past days I tried to imagine myself at the mall buying my own pack
of cigarettes but I know I won't find the guts to do that, everybody knows
me, people talk, gossip starts and people will know very soon I'm not so
innocent as I appear

Then someone will find out.  Strangely, another wicked thought enters my
mind: what if I smoke both cigarettes in the pack and throw it away?
Wouldn't it be less noticeable? I guess if you are a committed smoker, as she
surely is, sometimes you forget about these "leftover" packs. What do you
think? I think so, frankly I'm worried by the ways I justify the risks I'm
taking, because the truth is every time I'm less and less careful and I know
if I continue like this I'm going to get caught. 

But I don't mind now.  Knowing I'm doing something wrong is kind of funny,
this feeling of naughtiness is...well, is definitely exciting. In a second I
take the pack, open it, extract the two long white Marlboros and rip up the
empty pack.

Now I can't go back. I savour the sweetness of this moment, the anticipation,
while one of the two cigarettes is already between my long fingers, and I'm
anxious to deliver its relief to my awaiting body. I hold the cigarette in
the most feminine way, just like her, moving it between the tip of my fingers
like an absolutely needed accessory, just like I have seen her doing so many
times. 

Then I put the filter between my soft lips and I leave it dangling, while I
look for a match. As soon as I find a lighter I switch it on and the flame
appears in front of my face. I fall into a recently acquired habit, and I
shake my head, moving away my long black hair from my eyes, and I move the
flame to the tip of the cigarette. I just concentrate, dragging slowly on the
Marlboro, my eyes at first fixed on the tip that's now glowing, then closed,
while the warm smoke fills my mouth and I get ready to pull it inside my
body, deep down in my lungs, where the chemical pleasure starts.

At this exact moment when I'm inhaling my first drag in three days, I don't
think about the rules I'm probably breaking, and when the smoke leaves my
mouth and my nose so slowly it seems to be created by me I'm not worried she
could catch me. It's so good, it's so fucking good! I play with all my drags,
I'm quickly learning all the tricks -  the double pump, the snap inhale, the
whole package! I'm not smoking in front of the mirror, I'm going to do that
with the second one.

I can get very narcissistic looking at myself while I'm smoking, because I
think I'm sexy when I smoke. I flick the ash in the ashtray every two drags,
and I don't have to worry, because it has been used this morning already by
her. I don't have to worry about the smell in the house either, because she
smokes all the time at home and she won't know if one more cigarette had been
smoked

God, I'm so relaxed now, the pleasure is so intense that I wonder how it
would be to enhance it with some manual stimulation.

I'm concentrating on my pleasure so much that I don't even notice the noise
of the key in the lock and when I realize what is happening it's too late to
do anything about it. 

I lazily turn my head as she enters the dayroom, smoke flowing slowly in an
endless stream from my nose. She looks at me with astonishment but I cannot
see any disapproval in her eyes.

"It was about time I caught you," she says, with a wicked smile, "So...what's
the story? Do you like it or do you do it only to be competitive with me?" I
look at the cigarette with only two, maybe three drags left in it.

"I absolutely love it! You never told me actually it was this good!"

"Well, it seems you did discover it by yourself. Can't say that I'm
surprised." She sat on the sofa and from her bag she took her newly opened
pack of Marlboros, extracting one and lighting it with a double drag.

I look at her, she is so beautiful and sexy, and she looks exactly like me,
only 21 years younger.

There she is, my little fifteen years old daughter, proud of me as much as
I'm proud of her.