Worth Sacrificing for, Part 5

This fictional account contains adult language and themes.  If such language
and themes offend you, please do not read further.  The persons and events
described in this work are purely fictional.  Any similarity to actual persons
or events is strictly coincidental.  Copyright 2001 by SSTORYMAN.  All rights
reserved.  Permission is hereby granted to reproduce this story in any form
and for any purpose as long as this notice is reproduced and no financial
remuneration is received, directly or indirectly, by the person reproducing
it.

WORTH SACRIFICING FOR


5.	Epilogue.

   Jenny and Mike continued to see each other.  After a month, they moved in
together at her place.  She indeed kept smoking Benson & Hedges 100's.  It was
more convenient smoking the same brand as Mike.  They shared cigarettes and
everything else.  She definitely preferred the full flavor tobacco taste of
his cigarettes.  She soon settled into a routine of smoking a pack and a half
a day.  Valerie was right; Jenny never considered turning back.  She was a
smoker by choice.  Everything she did now revolved around her beloved new
habit and her addiction to nicotine.

   Meanwhile, Valerie continued to struggle with her decision to return to
smoking.  After a few weeks she actually tried to quit.  It didn't work.  She
lasted six miserable days and soon was again joining Jenny and the others for
breaks.  But she began smoking Salem Ultra Lights 100's, a concession to her
health concerns.  It pissed Jenny off.  It was a chicken-shit way to smoke.
One night after work she and Kandi took Valerie out for drinks.  After they'd
had a few, Jenny sweetly cajoled Val into buying a pack of Salem 100's.  The
slightly tipsy Valerie began smoking the strong, full flavor menthols.  Of
course, she liked them better than her pathetic ultra lights.  Jen and Kandi
did their best to convince Valerie that resistance was futile.  Like it or
not, she was a smoker, just as they were, and so she might as well enjoy it.
From then on, Valerie smoked Salem 100's, though she needed periodic pep-talks
to refuse the temptation to quit.  Jenny had no intention of letting Val bail.
The friends she liked being with were smokers.  She worked hard to keep
Valerie entrapped in the grip of her nicotine addiction, and she succeeded.

   Kandi became one of Jenny's closest friends.  The pretty blond and Mike's
brother frequently double-dated with Jenny and Mike.  The two couples were
inseparable.  Each Friday night they bowled together.  Jenny learned to like
bowling, so much that she went with Mike to watch him bowl in his Tuesday
night league.  The fact that she could smoke, of course, made it more
pleasant.  A sport that once seemed far beneath her developed into a favorite
pastime.  She even bought herself her own bowling ball and shoes, and joined a
women's bowling league on Wednesday nights.  The wives and girlfriends of
several of Mike's friends were on the team.  Like Jenny, they smoked, every
last one.  It was a new life for Jenny, and one she enjoyed.  An activity
where everyone around her smoked was perfect, as far as she was concerned.

   Eric continued to date Sylvia Griffin, the blond bimbo.  Jenny felt sorry
for her, and for him.  How could she respect Eric?  He encouraged his
girlfriends to partake in an activity he was ashamed of.  She suspected Sylvia
would soon be traveling the same road she did.  And she was right.  Jenny felt
strangely vindicated the first time she saw Sylvia sneaking outside the
building to smoke on her break.  Poor kid!  She knew what Sylvia was going
through.  It wouldn't be long till Eric dumped her, too.  She told Kandi they
should invite Sylvia to lunch at Giovanni's sometime.  While Sylvia and Eric
were dating, she knew Sylvia wouldn't want to be with her.  But she also knew
that soon Sylvia would need new friends at Sargon, friends who understood her
new addiction and would support her in it.  Eventually, she guessed, she and
Sylvia would become friends, sharing the same, unusual experience of being
Eric Milton's smoking cast-offs.

   Sargon management announced a new assistant vice president in the finance
department.  A guy named Bill Glassman from her department was the new
assistant VP.  He wasn't nearly as good as she was, but internal politics
played a big part in the decision.  Charisse went to bat for her, but to no
avail.  The president wanted an assistant VP who fit a certain image, and it
was an image Jenny didn't have, because she smoked.

   Amazingly, Jenny wasn't upset.  She expected it.  She knew the political
reality.  If she wanted to be a vice president, she had to make concessions.
Most notably, she'd have to stop being seen behind the building with the
smokers.  It was a concession Jenny couldn't and wouldn't make.  Charisse had
made it, but in good conscience Jenny couldn't.  Unless she was willing to
quit altogether, and she most definitely wasn't, she had no choice.  She
absolutely _had_ to smoke during the work day.  Almost as important, the
smokers at Sargon were her best friends now.  She liked smoking with them on
breaks and over lunch.  If Jenny King the smoker wasn't good enough for
management to elevate to assistant vice president, well then, fuck them!

   She and Valerie sat in a bar after work discussing it.  Valerie lit up a
Salem 100 and held her lighter for Jenny, who put a Benson & Hedges 100 in her
lips and leaned to catch the flame.

   "A lot's changed in the last few months," Valerie observed, as she watched
her friend double pump on her B&H and suck the thick, rich, white smoke into
her lungs.  "You could've been an assistant VP.  It looks like that'll never
happen.  Are you sure you have no regrets?"

   Jenny smiled and released a long, drawn out stream of smoke through pursed
lips.  "Nope."  She giggled.  "No regrets whatsoever."

   "In the old days all you wanted was to get married," Valerie went on.  "You
wanted a man with money, prestige and status.  Instead, you have Mike Conrad.
Don't get me wrong.  Mike's great.  But he's not what you were looking for."

   Jenny gazed serenely at her friend.  "You know what, Val?  Most people
don't know what the hell they're looking for, till they finally find it."  She
returned her cigarette to her lips for another long drag.  "At first I wanted
money and status.  I cared what others thought about me.  I thought it
legitimized me if they thought I was cool."  She turned her head and did a
perfect mixed-nostril-and-mouth exhale.  "But that kind of thinking is fucked!
You never get fulfillment impressing others.  True satisfaction comes from
being happy with who you are.  Finally, Val, I know who I am.  I'm a smoker.
And I like being one.  I fuckin' love it.  There's nothing I treasure more
than lighting up another nice, long cigarette, like these B&H's, taking a real
long drag, and then pulling the smoke deep inside my lungs."  

   To demonstrate, she put her B&H to her lips, wrapped them around the
filter, and gave her cigarette a first-class, extended drag.  "Being who I am
is much more important than making others happy.  So what if they don't like
it?  Fuck them!  I'm in the business of making myself happy."  Smoke burst
from her mouth as she talked.  "This is what makes me happy!"

   "But really, Jenny, you can't help it.  None of us can in our little group.
Now you have to smoke.  You need it.  We all do."

   Jenny quickly agreed.  "That's right.  I do.  But you know what?  I love
needing to smoke.  Mike and I've talked about this.  It's the thing I like
best about smoking.  I love the desperate feeling of frantically needing a
cigarette.  It drives me crazy sometimes.  But I love it.  There's nothing
like it.  There's no better feeling than lighting up a full flavor cigarette
and then sucking hard, really hard, and drawing the smoke deep inside your
chest.  Right away, I feel the tension in my body disappear.  It's the best,"
she sighed, de-ashing her cigarette in the ashtray on the table.  "That's what
we smokers do, Val.  We smoke.  I love it.  You do, too, I know."

   "You're right," Valerie hesitantly agreed.  "I know what you mean.  It
always feels great to light up a cigarette.  But you've sacrificed a lot.
Don't you ever feel bad about that?"

   "I once said that some things are worth sacrificing for, Val.  I still
believe it.  But you're looking at it backwards.  As far as sacrificing goes,
_this_ is what's worth sacrificing for," she added, holding her cigarette in
the air.  "When I'm tempted to get mad by thinking about what Eric got me
into, and all the things I lost, like the assistant vice president job and the
respect of the management team, I think about everything I've gained instead.
I've got the best boyfriend ever in Mike.  He makes me happy, and that's what
matters.  If I hadn't started smoking, I'd never have gone out with him.  And
smoking's an activity I get pleasure from over and over, thirty times a day.
It's a habit that satisfies me each and every time I light up.  I also have
the best friends in the world, people like you, Kandi and the others.  Val, if
you think about it, I didn't sacrifice.  It's no sacrifice to give up
something you don't care about to gain something you truly adore."

   The waitress brought a second round of drinks.  Each girl sipped hers, and
they gazed at each other in silence for a few moments.

   Valerie smiled at Jenny.  "Time for another cigarette, Jen?"

   She laughed and nodded.  "Valerie, dear, it's _always_ time for another
cigarette!"

   Jenny King, the smoker, shook out another B&H from her pack and placed it
in between her lips.  Valerie held her lighter for her.  Sucking hard, Jenny
hollowed her cheeks.  Smoke traveled the length of her one hundred millimeter
cigarette and began filling her mouth.  She double-pumped, and as she did,
twin streams of smoke flowed from her nostrils.  She then inhaled, pulling all
the smoke deep inside her waiting lungs.  She sighed and smiled happily.  No,
this was no sacrifice.  She would sacrifice anything to keep doing this!  Some
things were definitely worth sacrificing for!

THE END

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