Weighty Problems, Part 3

Weighty Problems

Part 3

Around 4:30 Lanie decided to go another round with the exercycle. She
didn't like it much, but at least she found it fairly easy, unlike her mom.
She had just started a 30-minute cycle when Emily came downstairs to join
her. Emily didn't use the cycle anymore, but she had developed an
attachment to the old belt massager and would watch TV while using it. She
stepped into the circle formed by the belt, leaned back to make it taut,
and flipped on the switch while turning on the TV. Lanie thought the
massager was vaguely offensive, but at least it seemed like easier duty
than the cycle. Emily began to ignore the TV after a while and just closed
her eyes while the machine worked on her. Lanie was too absorbed in her
battle with the cycle to notice much until she smelled smoke and realized
that her mom had lit up a cigarette and was actually able to smoke while
the machine did it's thing. She watched as Emily's smoke was vibrated out
of her lungs by the machine in short bursts rather than the usual smooth
exhales. It occurred to Lanie that if she didn't know better she would
think that her mom was getting more out of this thing than exercise -- not
that it was much use for exercising if you could smoke while doing it, she
thought.

Lanie had decided that tonight was the night she would tell her father
about her smoking. She had tried any number of possibilities in her head,
but decided that the best route would be to wait until after dinner when
both her parents would always smoke -- a cigar for Joe, and several
cigarettes for Emily -- and just tell him outright. She was nervous about
doing it but she had promised to do it, so it had to be done. So when they
both were smoking she cleared her throat and nervously started in.

"Dad, I want to let you know something. I hope you won't be upset."

"Tell me what it is and I'll tell you whether I'm upset," Joe said. "What
is it?"

"Well, you know how I've been trying to lose weight and all. I figured that
I needed something to keep me occupied so I wouldn't be hungry all the time
and all... so, anyway, I thought I'd like to try smoking to keep my mind
off of eating. So I've sort of started to smoke. Only for a little while
until I lose the weight, then I'll stop. I told mom the other day, and
she's OK with it, so I was wondering..."

"If it was OK with me, huh?," he offered. "Well, geez... there's not a
whole lot either of us can say about it, is there? I can't say I'm pleased.
But I can't say I'm really surprised either. I always expected you'd end up
smoking since both of us do it. What the hell... go ahead. Let's see you
smoke, baby," he said, not sounding too disappointed. 

Lanie was shocked at how easy it was -- almost too easy -- but she ran to
retrieve her pack from the bedroom and brought them to the table. She
borrowed her mom's lighter and lit one of her cigarettes at the table,
joining her parents in an after-dinner cigarette for the first time. She
felt slightly embarrassed at first but that soon disappeared and she ended
up enjoying smoking with them. Sitting there with them, puffing and
inhaling like an adult, and being accepted as such by her parents, made
Lanie feel wonderful. Unlike her mom, who had 3 cigarettes while sipping
coffee after dinner as Joe smoked his cigar, Lanie had only a single
cigarette. But the hurdle had been overcome, and she no longer had to feel
like she was doing something illicit.
  
Now that smoking openly was acceptable, Lanie began to use it as another
weapon in her weight-loss war. At first it followed a pattern of a couple
after school and a couple each evening to take away her hunger pangs. She
found herself reaching for her cigarettes now whenever she felt the urge to
eat something. "No calories in these," she often joked with her mom as she
lit up. It seemed to work too, as she almost never felt the urge to snack
between meals any more. During the week she smoked no more than 5
cigarettes a day at first, although she would smoke more sometimes when she
was home all day on the weekends. Smoking in front of her parents seemed
strange to Lanie early on, and Emily also found it difficult at first to
watch her daughter smoke. She noticed as the weeks went by that Lanie
seemed to be smoking more often, that her puffs were longer than before,
and that she was inhaling more deeply too. Emily could tell that her
daughter was becoming more comfortable with smoking and knew that each day
she continued to smoke would make it more difficult for her to give it up.
Lanie had begun to eagerly anticipate having her next cigarette, and was
pleased that it seemed to keep her from being so hungry. But even though
all her measures to lose weight were working, it was still a very slow
process. 

After a few weeks Lanie had lost nearly 15 pounds, and was initially
pleased with her progress, but then seemed to plateau. The change was
noticeable to her friends, and she didn't quite know how to react at first
to the compliments they offered. But she liked hearing those things and she
began to try to make herself look more attractive. She convinced her mom to
take her to get a trendy new haircut, and she was able to talk her into a
few new items of clothing. But then things seemed to slow down. She weighed
herself every Monday morning and on this particular Monday was dismayed to
find that the previous week's efforts had resulted in her actually gaining
a pound. She realized that she had to redouble her efforts and as she came
into the kitchen for breakfast she felt discouraged. Emily was there,
sipping her coffee and having her second cigarette of the morning. Lanie
decided to pass on her normal breakfast, and instead just have coffee. She
had been addicted to coffee for a couple of years now, and even though her
new routine meant she no longer could enjoy it with cream and sugar, at
least skim milk was better than having it black. 

She sipped her coffee and watched her mom draw once more on her cigarette.
Suddenly she felt an urge for one too and decided that she would replace
her toast and cereal with a cigarette. Lanie got her pack from her room and
returned to the table. Emily noted the change in her daughter's routine and
commented on it. "Decided it's time to have one first thing, huh?," she
asked sleepily. 

Lanie nodded as she lit up. "I need to do something more drastic," she said
before taking a drag. "I actually gained a pound last week," she said
through her exhale. "I want to be down to 120 by spring." She took a sip of
her coffee, then almost immediately had another puff and quickly filled her
lungs again. The combination of the caffeine and nicotine was making her
wake up much more quickly than usual, and she realized the two things were
very complimentary. She began to understand why her mom liked smoking in
the morning so much, and really didn't miss her breakfast much at all. 

Mornings now were started off with a cigarette for Lanie, just like they
were for Emily. She would have one with her first cup of coffee, then soon
began to join Emily in having seconds of each before heading off to school.
It was now a part of her routine and she really enjoyed the combination. It
was perhaps inevitable that she soon began to apply the same logic to
lunchtime. That meant having to take her cigarettes with her to school, and
she cleared that with Emily before she did. Lindsay had seen her smoke at
home previously -- and was slightly amazed, given her own need to sneak
around -- and now the two friends would go outside the school at lunch and
smoke before eating, if they even ate at all. Lanie's smoking now usually
exceeded half a pack a day and Emily began buying several packs of Ultra
Lights at a time for her. After only a couple of months Lanie had already
developed a consistent pattern of smoking and she discovered she would get
antsy if she was unable to smoke at her usual times. 

She also discovered she really enjoyed being able to smoke. It wasn't at
all like she had thought it would be. In fact, aside from being surprised
at how much she enjoyed the physical aspects of smoking -- the puffing,
inhaling and exhaling of the smoke all felt heavenly to her -- she was
surprised at just how cool smoking made her feel. It gave her a confidence,
an aura of maturity, a sense of self that she had never felt before. Lanie
began to observe Emily's smoking more closely now that she was smoking too
-- something that she had seen, but never made note of, for all of her
life. She realized that Emily usually took longer puffs than she did, and
on occasion would take two puffs in a row or extraordinarily long drags.
She watched one day as her mom began a hands-free puff as she was carrying
some things to place on the kitchen counter. The items began to slip and
Emily had to carefully place them down, and with her hands full she was
unable to pull the cigarette from her lips. So as Lanie watched in
fascination, Emily took a puff of nearly 10 seconds duration, a huge volume
of smoke, and yet was able to inhale as she always did with no sign of
discomfort. In fact, It seemed to Lanie that her mom almost enjoyed
breathing in such a concentrated volume of smoke. She resolved to try and
make her style more like her mom's since she already enjoyed inhaling
anyway, and thought that if she could do what her mom did she would enjoy
it even more. Plus, it was helping her lose weight -- she had started to
drop a few pounds again the last few weeks -- and that contributed to her
newfound sense of self-confidence. A recent trip to LensCrafters brought
her a new pair of elliptical wire-rimmed glasses that did wonders for her
appearance, and combined with the other changes she was starting to draw
some attention from the boys around school, something she was quite
unaccustomed to but suddenly liked very much.

Early in April the scale told Lanie she was down to 133 pounds. At 5'4"
that was only a little pudgy, and 22 pounds lighter than she had been when
she first started her routine. Lanie's goal was still to get down to 120,
and she wanted to accomplish that by the time school ended. She became even
more vigilant about what she ate, and tried to spend more and more time on
the exercycle. She had noticed that lately the time on the exercycle had
been getting more and more fatiguing, and she suspected that part of the
reason had to do with the fact that she was smoking more. It was a little
shocking at first but was nothing she felt she couldn't handle, and she
persevered. She continued her walking routine in the evenings as well,
usually accompanied by her mom. Lanie had recently started to join Emily in
having a cigarette during the walks, more out of companionship than actual
need, but she liked the idea of walking alongside her mom and smoking with
her out in the open. They usually lit up together and managed to finish
their cigarettes at about the same time.

Emily continued to have very mixed feelings about her daughter's growing
smoking habit. She was happy that Lanie had been losing weight and making
herself more attractive, and whatever part her smoking played in helping
her do that was positive. But she watched with increasing unease as Lanie's
intake quickly passed 10, then 15 cigarettes a day. She watched her
daughter's puffs grow longer, and her inhales become deeper. Emily knew
from observing Lanie's slow, controlled nose and mouth exhales that she was
now  totally comfortable in her new role as a smoker. She saw Lanie now
required several breaths to exhaust all of the smoke from her lungs, and
her daughter often didn't even seem to consciously exhale anymore, but
rather just breathed it in and out just like she did herself. She was
distressed to note the development of an occasional slight cough, and heard
Lanie often needing to clear her throat many times during the day. 
Emily began to nag Lanie to control her smoking, and after some initial
resistance Lanie at least started to try. It surprised her how much she
missed the cigarettes she had become accustomed to having at certain times.
She found herself watching the clock, waiting for a time when she could
smoke again. She felt herself craving a cigarette during afternoon classes
when she tried to limit herself to have only one during lunch, and again
when she tried to wait until she got home after school before lighting up.
She would greedily gulp smoke into her lungs to try and satisfy herself
when she finally permitted herself her indulgence, and held it in for a
long time to try and absorb as much as she could. She finally even learned
how to do double-pump inhales and found that they helped on such occasions.
But she still found it very difficult and was thinking about smoking almost
constantly. She felt deprived.

One Saturday Emily and Lanie were shopping, and on the list of chores was a
trip to the drugstore to pick up cigarettes. Emily would buy a carton a
week for herself, and a carton every 2 weeks for Lanie. This was a week
when 2 cartons needed to be purchased, and as they entered the store Lanie
decided it was time for a change. She asked her mom, "I think I'd like to
try something different. Would you get me some Lights this time, not the
Ultra Lights?"

"What, B&H Menthol Lights?," Emily asked. Lanie nodded. "Do you want to try
a pack first?," she asked. "You may not like them."

"No, I'll manage," Lanie said. "I'll smoke them even if I don't like them
all that much. I just feel like trying something different." The truth of
the matter was that she was hoping the stronger cigarettes would help her
manage her cravings and allow her to keep her smoking in check. Emily
suspected that too but decided to say nothing and just made the purchase.

Once they got home Lanie opened her new carton. These were soft packs,
something she was unaccustomed to, and she didn't like that as much. She
opened a pack and tapped out one of the cigarettes as she wondered whether
the stronger smoke would be too harsh for her. She placed it between her
lips and recognized that these were thicker than her previous brand. She
lit up, puffed out some initial smoke, then pulled a long drag and inhaled.
She immediately felt the strength of the smoke as it was absorbed into her
lungs, and sensed the nicotine entering her system. She smiled as she
exhaled. These felt very good, not harsh at all but instead surprisingly
satisfying. She looked at herself in the mirror in her bedroom as she took
another puff and watched the tip grow a yellowish-orange as she dragged
hard, saw the ball of smoke in her mouth disappear down her throat as she
inhaled, then observed herself blow out a long stream after having held her
breath in for several seconds. Despite the depth to which she was now
inhaling, the smoke from these was denser, and looked just fine, she
concluded.

Lanie quickly adapted to her new stronger brand. She liked them almost
immediately and they did seem to help her control the number of cigarettes
she smoked each day... at first. But within a few days she noticed her
cravings were back, and before long she was just as anxious to smoke at
certain times as she was before. Soon she pretty much abandoned her effort
to cut back on her smoking, especially since she noticed she would tend to
eat when she couldn't smoke, and with her goal of 120 pounds now in sight
that was the last thing she wanted to do. Emily halfheartedly continued to
remind Lanie to limit her smoking, but it seemed clear that it was
hopeless.

The second week of June, Lanie gleefully bolted from the bathroom one
Monday morning. "Guess what?," she shouted to her mom as she bounced into
the kitchen. "120 pounds! I did it!!!" 

Emily embraced Lanie in a hug as she congratulated her. "I'm so proud of
you, honey," she said. "You look so much better, and you seem so much
happier now. I'm so glad you did this... except for that," she said as she
watched her daughter light up her customary morning cigarette. "Are you
going to quit now, I hope?"

Lanie felt guilty as she blew her exhale across the room. She knew she had
said it would be a temporary thing but she knew that she certainly didn't
want to quit smoking. In fact, she wasn't at all sure she even could, not
now. "Oh, I don't know, mom. I'm afraid if I do I might put the weight back
on. I think I should keep on smoking, at least for a while. I know I said
I'd only do it to help me lose the pounds and all, but... well, I kind of
like it now," she said, smiling sheepishly.  She felt a reaction in herself
as she said the last sentence, admitting to herself that her mom had been
right all along in telling her she would get hooked. She realized that her
mom's prediction was correct.

Emily sighed. "I suspected that almost from the start, honey. I could tell.
I guess I was the same way myself when I first got a taste for cigarettes,"
she said as she lit up herself. "At least you can't say I didn't warn you. 
I told you these things would get to you. But all right then, if you're
asking me whether it's OK for you to keep on smoking, then I guess I'm
saying that it is. But at least try to keep it under control then, OK?,"
she pleaded, and Lanie nodded in apparent agreement. But her immediate
thought was "Oh wow, great... the pressure's off... I can smoke all I
want."    

She did just that over the course of the summer. Being at home all day
meant that she could smoke whenever she felt like it, and by the 4th of
July weekend Lanie was a consistent pack a day smoker. Lanie was amazed
when she realized that fact at how easy it all seemed, and how smoking
seemed so natural to her now. It was part of her life now, and she truly
loved to smoke, just like her mom. Lanie smoked all day long and made sure
that she was never without her cigarettes. She felt uncomfortable if she
had to go more than an hour or two without smoking, and going a whole day
without a cigarette was totally out of the question. She craved them deeply
now, but that was a part of what she enjoyed so much about her habit. She
no longer felt at all reluctant to smoke in front of family members or in
public. After all, she thought, she was a smoker now, so why should she
worry about who saw her when she smoked?

In August came the final part of her transformation into a junior version
of Emily, when she smoked the last of her Lights one night and had to open
a pack of her mom's full-flavor B&H Menthols to get her through the
evening. Mindful of her early experience with them, she rather dreaded
having to smoke them. But all that changed when she tried the first few
puffs. At odds with her memory of them, they didn't seem harsh any more. In
fact, they seemed quite good. If anything, they seemed smoother than her
lights, but much more satisfying. They gave her a bit of a kick when she
inhaled, and she liked the return of the full, almost breathless sensation
in her lungs they gave her, almost like when she first started. And she
actually felt a bit of a head rush at first, something she hadn't had in
months. After she had a few more, she asked her mom to just get her a
carton of those next time, if she didn't mind. 

By the time of her senior prom the next June, Lanie had to choose from 3
different boys for her escort. She had proved to be quite a popular girl
since her transformation. After about a year and a half as a smoker, her
habit had finally stabilized at more than a pack a day. On balance, Emily
was fairly pleased with the whole thing, even though she still felt
slightly guilty each week when she bought the 2 cartons of B&H Menthols
they went through between them every 7 days. But she rationalized that it
was a part of her daughter's growing-up process, and a necessary trade-off.
As for Lanie, she sometimes worried about her smoking now. She tended to
cough a little when she got up in the morning, and her gym classes this
last year were hellish at times. Not that she was ever much of an athlete,
but she got winded now much more easily. That more than anything had led
her to give up the exercycle a few months back, because she found that she
had begun to struggle a bit for her breath now when she attempted intense
physical activity. But she had made her deal with herself, and she resigned
herself to her fate, whatever it might be. If being the way she was now
meant slowly sacrificing her lungs, right now it seemed worth it to her.
That feeling was confirmed to her every time she smoked a cigarette and
felt the sensation of mentholated smoke inside her body. She had developed
a passion for smoking that she shared with her mom, and like her, knew that
regardless of whether she ever did manage to quit smoking someday in the
distant future, that she would always be a smoker. 

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