Late..., Part 5

"Late...Part 5"
(`Early-'  Part 3) by love_2_smoke@hotmail.com

   It was 10:30pm.  She was sure that it wouldn't be open.  It was too late 
but she knew that it wouldn't be right to buy the cigarettes-and cigars any 
place else.  It was symbolic somehow.
   She pulled up in front of `Treasured Vices' and sighed.
   The open/closed sign was turned to show the store was closed.  The store 
hours were listed as 10 to 10.  She'd just missed him.
   Jenny sat back in her seat and looked up at the fabric roof of her car.
   `Do I really want to do this?,' she thought to herself.
   After a moment of hesitation, she realized that she was more sure of this 
than she'd been sure of anything in a long time.
   Still, she'd have to wait.  Until 10 the next morning.
   When the knock came on her passenger side window, she jumped and screamed 
at the same time.

   "Can I help you?," the man asked.
   Jenny couldn't see the person's features very well in the dim, distant 
light of the nearest streetlight combined with the reflected light of her 
cars headlights.
   "I was just leaving," she looked at the man, trying to make out his face, 
"they're closed."
   "It depends on who you are," the man said, "I own the place."
   Jenny smiled.
   "Bill?"
   The man hesitated.
   "Do I know you?"
   Jenny used the driver controls and rolled down the passenger side power 
window.
"Yes, you do,"  Jenny could see him clearly now.  It was Bill Lamont.  A bit 
older and a bit more worn, but the same man.
   "I haven't seen you for a while then."
   "I used to come in with Sabrina."
   He looked at her for a moment, trying to identify her.
   "Jenny?"
   "Yep."
   "Well, I'll be damned.  You just about disappeared, didn't you?"
   "I'm back now."
   "Come on, we'll go inside."
   "Oh, good," Jenny said, anticipating.

   Stepping inside, Jenny noted that little had changed.  There was still the 
wall of cigarettes, the collection of cigars, and tons of other smoking 
related items.
   Bill locked the door behind him and turned on the lights.
   "Don't you have a wife to get home to?," Jenny asked.
   "Not anymore."
   "Oh, I'm sorry."
   "Don't be.  She ran off with some guy who drives trucks."
   Jenny couldn't help but giggle, he said it with such jovial sarcasm that it 
almost required it.
   "It's good to see you," he said with a smile, "considering that I haven't 
seen you or Sabrina in, uh, about 5 years.  Give or take a few months."
   "I haven't been around for about 6 years."
   He nodded.
   "You just move back?"
   "Nope."
   "Here for a visit?"
   "No."
   "I don't get it then."
   "I quit."
   "Quit wha-oh.  You quit smoking, eh?"
   "Yes.  That's all about to change though."
   "Jumping back on the bandwagon."
   "Oh, yes.  And, I said I'd buy cigarettes from you once I was ol-able to."
   He smiled.
   "Indeed you did.  Well then, what would you like?"
   "Lots," Jenny said with a deliciously evil look on her face.

   Jenny opened the door to her apartment and picked up the two large plastic 
bags she had set down to open the door.  With the bags dangling from her 
hands she crossed to the dining room table and set them on top of it.  She 
went into her kitchen and grabbed the closest thing she had to an ashtray, a 
glass coaster with some taller edges.
   Digging into one of the bags, she found what she was looking for.  She 
started to take it out and stopped, looking up at her clock.  Jenny was due 
to show up at the office tomorrow and it was two in the morning.  AND, she 
had plans.  She picked up the phone, dialed the number to the main office, 
and waited for the voice mail to pick up.

   "Lynette, this is Jenny.  I'm sorry but I'm not going to be able to make it 
in today.  I've got a-a personal situation that I have to take care of.  
I'll keep up as best I can from home.  You can page me or call me on my cell 
phone if you need to.  Thanks."

   With that, Jenny had 24 hours to herself to work or not work.  If it was an 
emergency, there were two junior engineers with the company who could shore 
up the dam until she went back to work.  She was only there two days a week 
anyway, so working from home wasn't a big stretch.
   She went back to the bag and pulled out a carton of Carlton 120s.  A little 
more digging revealed a double-holder.  Finally, a lighter.
   It had taken a supreme effort of will to wait until she got home to do 
this.  Bill had tried his best to get her to light up before she left.  She 
only said she'd buy them there, not smoke them, she reminded him.  Now, it 
was time.  Jenny was trying desperately to keep her excitement in check.  
She was physically, emotionally, and sexually excited all at once.  The 
whole thing was decided in her mind.
   Once she started smoking again, she wouldn't stop.  Ever.  If there was 
anyway to have a cigarette or cigar in her hand, she would.  The only 
exceptions would be sleep, shower, or the law.  All of them were open for 
consideration if necessary though.
   She opened up the carton of Carlton 120s and thought about the first time 
she'd ever opened a pack of cigarettes.
   She'd taken the cigarettes out of the drawer, a pack of Marlboro Lights 
100's.  Slowly she'd peeled the plastic off of the top.  Then the silver 
piece.  She had tapped the pack against her hand.  And again, bringing a 
cigarette out.
   Putting the cigarette in between her fingers, she had brought it to her 
lips.  There had been a funny taste then.  It was equally as foreign after 6 
years, and yet intimately familiar.  The first time there hadn't been a 
lighter handy, not this time though.

   A long moment passed.  All eternity perhaps.  It was the final defining 
moment in her time as a smoker.  She wouldn't be going back this time.  
Igniting the lighter, Jenny raised the cigarette with her lips and brought 
the flame to the tip of the cigarette.
   Jenny felt the smoke fill her mouth and smiled.  She inhaled and took 
another drag.  And inhaled again, and another drag and inhale.  Jenny was 
dizzy and reeling.  She began to massage her neck, holding the cigarette in 
between her lips---with her lips, taking drag after drag, exhaling only when 
she could no longer keep the smoke within.  Soon, she began to massage 
elsewhere.

   After waking up from a four hour nap at about quarter to 9, Jenny lit up 
the cigar next to the bed.  She inhaled every particle of the thick smoke 
and, (as she found with the two packs of cigarettes she'd smoked from 2 to 
quarter of 5), determined that it was just like riding a bike, only a lot 
more pleasureable.  Puffing on the cigar, walking around the house in just 
her underwear, Jenny lit up a cigarette and took drags off of it in between 
puffs off of the cigar.
She finished the cigar and a couple of cigarettes and immediately lit up two 
cigarettes in the double-holder.
   Jenny called Sabrina and let her know that she'd fallen off of the wagon, 
in a manner of speaking.  Sabrina told Jenny that she was surprised it had 
taken her as long as it did to go back.  Jenny said she didn't have to worry 
about it ever happening again.  They talked a bit about plans to visit each 
other respectively, Jenny chain-smoking one cigarette after the other, 
double-pump on top of nose exhale, cigar after cigarette.
   All day long, except for a shower and another nap, Jenny smoked.  It didn't 
seem as if there was any more than 30 seconds between any cigarette or 
cigar.  One after the other, again and again.  More than once over the 
course of the day Jenny took to the same type of massage that she had 
engaged herself in the night before.
When she went to bed that evening, having accomplished little more than a 
phone call to Sabrina, the absorption of a couple bad T.V. shows, and some 
quick dinner, Jenny had smoked a carton of cigarettes and 6 cigars.
   She fell asleep thinking of Mike.

More to come-

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