Addiction: Pixie Dust

"I just can't get out of my mind the image of her smoking a long cigarette," he said one evening while sitting in Katie's living room when they were alone in the house. "She would look so fucking beautiful with a 120 between her fingers. I can think of nothing else whenever I masturbate." He was getting a hard-on even now.

"Welcome to my world," Katie said lighting a Capri, for she had bared her soul to Chris about the love she had long had for his girlfriend. "I know I can't have her, which makes me want her all the more. Some nights I just start crying after fingering myself into an orgasm thinking about her."

"Oh, man," Chris said with smoke pouring down through his nostrils, "that's really sad. I'm so sorry."

"Pfft," she responded with the wave of her hand. "No need to be. If you guys broke up tomorrow, nothing would change between her and me. The closest we'll ever get is me fantasizing about her while I dam the beaver."

Chris smiled. He'd never heard that expression before. "Pretty lonely, though, isn't it? I mean, I'm so horny some days that I feel ready to screw Buster," Chris deadpanned.

"That's a disturbing thought," Katie said with an awkward smile. She brought the Capri up to her lips but then held it just beyond her mouth. "Of course, it doesn't have to be such a lonely existence."

"What do you mean?" Chris asked as he tapped his Virginia Slims over the ashtray.

"Well, two horny friends with the smoking fetish love the same anti-smoking fanatic. We could commiserate together."

"Isn't that what we're doing now?" Chris asked before taking a cheek hollowed puff, oblivious to where she was going with these comments.

"You've heard of 'friends with benefits,' haven't you?" she asked with a sinful gleam in her eye.

Chris was silent for a few seconds as a long wave of smoke slowly creeped out of his mouth while he looked at her with a puzzled expression. "Ohhhhh," he then said. "Hmmmm. An indecent but interesting proposal." He was rock hard now.

"No commitment," she said moving towards him. "No hurt feelings about missed birthdays." She placed her long fingers on his crotch and slowly began moving them up and down along the zipper. "Just a relationship entirely based on lust."

"Would I have to buy you flowers on Valentine's Day," he asked with his bottom lip slightly quivering.

"Oh, please don't," she said, her face now almost touching his.

"Isn't this a betrayal of what we both feel for JoAnn?" he asked, looking for any excuse that might hold back his desire to stick his dick up Katie's pussy while breathing in her smoke.

"Not if we're both thinking of her when we do it," Katie said, her panties wet and sticky now at the thought of Chris' cock inside of her. "So there won't be any hurt feelings if one of us calls out her name."

They both took a puff on their cigarettes as they looked into each other's eyes...and then locked lips, allowing their tongues to swirl together as one while breathing in the smoke through their noses.

Chris then pulled back. "But you know this stops," he said moving his index finger back and forth between the two of them, "once JoAnn finally takes me into her bedchamber."

"Riiiiiight," Katie said as her fingers pulled down his zipper. "I think you know that that's never gonna happen," she added while reaching for his cock and stroking it with her hand up and down.

"Oh, God," Chris gasped before taking a long puff, "I hope you're wrong." But deep down inside, he feared that Katie was probably right. He couldn't wait forever, and now he didn't have to. He moved his hand into Katie's pants and began softly pressing the wet spot on her panties, imagining that it was JoAnn's garden which he was about to deflower.

PART FIVE

As was the case every weekday morning when Victoria walked out of her bedroom and down the hall, she saw JoAnn already sitting at her desk this Friday morning fully dressed in her school uniform and working on some sort of project for the Kicking Butts club. As the mother looked around the bedroom, she was filled with a sense of pride at JoAnn's devotion - some might say obsession - to the cause. Every inch of her walls was covered with anti-smoking pamphlets, posters, letters, data sheets, and kids' drawings from an anti-smoking club at the local grade school JoAnn served as an adviser to.

"Another petition?" Victoria asked as she looked over her daughter's shoulder at the computer screen.

"Yup," she said. "Katie and I want to criminalize parents smoking at home around their kids."

Victoria wagged her head slowly in awe.A lot of Southern and Midwestern jails will be full if that happens, she thought to herself. That her daughter would be a lawyer, Victoria had no doubt. She was accepted into Yale and would choose a major that prepared her for law school. But this mother envisioned bigger opportunities for her daughter should she choose to pursue them. Her social media presence on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and other sites was just a first step. This teen's videos were funny, biting, damning, and always effective. She relished her role as an influencer, and not for profit but for public health. She welcomed the hatred of the advocates for smokers' rights and brutally took them down in post after post.

Victoria's only concern was how manic her daughter's behavior could be in fighting for this anti-smoking cause. But working as long as she had as a reporter, she also knew how to recognize the characteristics of a natural born leader. "We're lucky to have JoAnn on our side," she often told Ron, "because if she actually worked for the Tobacco Industry, she'd crush us."

"I'm off," the mother said to her daughter.

"Don't take any unnecessary risks, Mom,"

"Don't worry, honey" Victoria responded with a turn towards the hallway, "Auntie Jun will have my back."

"And remember," JoAnn said with a shout when her mom was ready to leave, "no inhaling."

"I promise," Victoria hollered as she picked up her keys and walked out to the garage.

JoAnn looked at her own watch and realized that it was time for her to leave, as well. Within about a minute, she heard Katie's car horn announcing her arrival.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

"You know I caught my Mom smoking yesterday," JoAnn said from the passenger's seat as Katie stared ahead behind the steering wheel.

Katie, of course, already knew this but went through the pretense of being shocked. "Oh, my God," she gasped (convincingly, she felt), and then listened to JoAnn tell her what Chris had already detailed the night before.

"So I told her," JoAnn said as they waited at a stop light across the street from the high school, "I said, 'I know you have to pretend to smoke at this undercover job, but you better not be inhaling....'" But then she paused, her eye caught by a young Caucasian girl wearing a Taylor Swift t-shirt sitting on a wall near the cross-walk who had just lit a long, brown cigarette. "I'll get out here," the zealot said, grabbing her backpack and opening the side door before Katie could say a word.

Of course, Katie knew there was no stopping JoAnn. "Hi," she whispered to herself, imagining the words the Swifty was being subjected to. "I'm JoAnn. I'm student body president, and president of the Kicking Butts club. You mind if I have a seat?" Beyond that, Katie couldn't guess what would be said next since JoAnn always used a different approach after sizing up the character of the teen smoker she was talking to. It was an amazing skill her best friend had. To her knowledge, JoAnn had no enemies at Robert E. Lee Academy, which itself was an amazing feat for any teenager.

Once Katie had parked, she walked back out to the street and saw that JoAnn was still conversing with the Swifty who appeared to have lit a second cigarette in the time that had passed since JoAnn got out of the car.

"What's going on?" she heard Chris say as he came up behind her, his backpack swung over his right shoulder.

"JoAnn's proselytizing again," Katie said with just a touch of irritation in her voice.

"How's she doin'?"

"The girl's on her second cigarette."

"Ouch, a tough nut to crack." Then he noticed the brown cigarette. "Hmm, a More smoker. You ever try those?"

"Nope," Katie said, dying for a Capri as she watched the Swifty exhale voluminous clouds despite JoAnn's continued efforts at persuasion.

"My Mom used to smoke 'em. Very rich. Even the Menthol is pretty strong. I was glad she went back to Virginia Slims."

The two stood in silence for a few seconds, never looking at each other directly.

"You comin' by tonight?" Katie asked.

"Depends if you wear your school uniform," Chris smirked.

"I can do that," Katie said with a mischievous grin but still kept her gaze on JoAnn. "Mom will leave for the club around 10 pm."

"Then expect me after 10," Chris responded, still staring at the love of his life across the street. "Hold on," he said as if he were watching a prize fight. "I think the girl's beginning to buckle."

The two watched the Swifty, a frown on her face, drop the half-smoked cigarette on the sidewalk and crush it with the tip of her shoe. Then JoAnn reached into her backpack and pulled out a white slip the size of a half-sheet of paper.

"The 'No Smoking Pledge,'" Katie said. "Took her a little longer this time."

"But she still got it," Chris said in admiration as the Swifty scribbled her name on it. "Of course, I signed one of those pledges," he added with a touch of irony.

"Me, too."

JoAnn and the Swifty stood up from the wall.

"And now the ritual crushing of the pack," Katie said as she watched the new convert drop the green pack of More and stomp on it with her feet.

"Such a waste," Chris said, slighting wagging his head.

"Totally," Katie agreed.

As JoAnn and the Swifty walked across the street towards the school, Chris couldn't help but imagine a long, white, freshly lit cigarette between his girlfriend's fingers.

"God, I wished she smoked," he whispered longingly.

"Great minds think alike," Katie responded.

When JoAnn and the Swifty had reached the curb, Katie and Chris heard her say brightly to the girl, "I'll see you at the club meeting today." The girl nodded her head vigorously with a smile and then ran off.

"Saving another lost soul?" Chris said as he took JoAnn by the hand and lightly kissed her on the lips. The friends then turned and began to walk to class, JoAnn between the three of them.

"I can't believe she's a freshman!" JoAnn said in shock. "Luckily she only just started last week, so I think she'll stay quit."

"What'd you finally say to convince her?" Katie asked.

"I told her that Taylor Swift was a huge anti-smoking advocate."

Chris had never heard one way or the other as to whether Taylor Swift was an 'anti.' "That true?"

"No idea," JoAnn said with a smile as she walked confidently on ahead of her two friends.

Chris and Katie stole a glance at one another in recognition of what they both knew to be true: they absolutely adored this woman.

PART SIX

For the first time in twenty years, Victoria lit a cigarette while driving. After all, if she was going to play the part of a smoker, she had to smell the part. But when she brought the flame to the tip of that 120 as she was driving, she was filled with an exhilaration which she also had not felt in 20 years. How ironic that she began smoking as a teenager because she felt grown up doing so, but smoking now made her feel young. She did, however, try to keep her promise to her daughter that she would not inhale, and so she let most of her puffs simply float out of her mouth and fill the cab, giving her clothes the odor of a pack-a-day smoker.

It took less than 30 minutes to reach her new job. Victoria was grateful that she didn't need to relocate to Wilson, North Carolina where Phillip Morris' official R&D lab was. She was surprised, however, upon reaching the location of the Black Ops lab in a Richmond suburb to see that it was housed in a non-descript mini-mall which, ironically, contained a smoke shop, empty office space, and a Starbucks. In the parking lot, Auntie Jun, wearing a white lab coat and holding a long cigarette between her fingers, was waiting for her.

"I don't have to tell you how dangerous this is for both of us should you get caught," the gray haired women with glasses said after taking a puff on her Virginia Slims. "And for God's sake, don't forget that your assumed name here is Susan Chao. If anyone finds out your real name or that you work for theAdvocate, they'll never let us leave here again."

Victoria assumed that her Auntie was exaggerating, but she noticed that the old woman was clearly nervous as she took a final long puff on her 120 and held the smoke in her lungs before dropping the spent cigarette onto the blacktop and crushing it with her shoe.

"Don't worry, Auntie, no one will know you helped me," Victoria said with a tender pat on her shoulder. "Shall we go in?"

The old woman led Victoria through a side door that had no company name, and immediately met an armed security guard sitting at a desk at the beginning of a long hallway. On the table was a small black ashtray filled with crushed cigarette butts and an all-white Marlboro smoldering atop them.

"ID, please," the African American male said in a very businesslike manner. Jun handed him her badge, as well Victoria's new employment papers. The security guard looked up at Jun before staring at her ID badge. With Victoria, he took even longer, scrutinizing her appearance and then comparing it to the photo in the employment documents. "You both have a good day," he then said without a smile as he handed the items back to Jun.

"It doesn't matter how many times over the last 40 years that I've come through this door," Jun whispered to Victoria as they continued down the hall, "the guards always treat me like they've never seen me before."

"So the security is pretty intense here," Victoria said as they headed towards an elevator at the end of the hall.

"Frighteningly so," Jun said with a glance. When she reached the elevator, she was submitted to a retinal scan which only then opened the doors. Once inside, there was only one button to push which took the occupants down in a trip that lasted nearly 30 seconds, during which time Jun reached into her purse for the pack of Virginia Slims and lit a cigarette.

"Auntie, you smoke too much," Victoria said with some concern. After all, the woman's husband had only just recently died of lung cancer.

"I've smoked too many years to stop now, dear," Jun said with a sad smile before taking a puff at the side of her mouth. "I'm just going to enjoy whatever time I have left."

Victoria found the old woman's argument counterintuitive since quitting smoking would no doubtlengthen whatever time she had left; but she also knew that pointing that out would fall on deaf ears. Her own mother never quit smoking, accepting the inevitable after her diagnosis and deciding to enjoy every puff for as long as she could. It was that kind of insane thinking that contributed to Victoria's own decision to stop smoking twenty years ago.

Upon the opening of the elevator doors, Victoria realized how severely tested that decision was now going to be. Before her was a large room with 20 desks. Each person sitting at a desk was smoking a cigarette as they worked at a computer or analyzed reams of data reports. Along three of the walls were individual offices filled with a white haze hanging in the air as each of its occupants were smoking. The only smoke-free room was the large lab separated from the office with a glass pane, floor to ceiling window; but in the rest of the office space, thick second-hand smoke moved slowly through the airspace.

"Is there no ventilation in this office?" Victoria asked before pinching her nose from the odor.

"The ventilationis on, dear," Jun said as she took a puff and led Victoria to the office of the Vice President she would be working for. This was the only office that had no window to the main room, and was separated by an anteroom where a secretary, elegantly smoking a VS-120 Superslims, sat as a gatekeeper.

After introducing Victoria as Susan Chao to the secretary, Jun added, "We're here to see Mr. Bach," and she handed the secretary the employment papers.

"I'll be right back," the secretary said in a Southern accent as she got up from her desk and walked into the VP's office.

When the two women were alone, Jun whispered to Victoria, "Time to light up."

"Oh, right," Victoria responded, and she reached into her purse for the VS-120 pack.

"You can head on in," the Secretary said with a wide smile.

When the two women walked inside, Victoria felt bowled over as she saw sitting behind the desk an extremely handsome Vietnamese American who appeared to be in his late thirties. Initially assuming the name Bach was European, she was not expecting the director of the Black Ops division would be an Asian American.

"Ms. Chao," the man said in a perfect Southern accent as he stood up and walked around his desk to shake her hand. "I'm Kyle Bach." Clearly seeing the surprise on her face, he added, "If you're wondering, my parents were refugees from South Vietnam back in the 1970s who settled in Memphis." He gestured to a small couch with room only for two, "Hence the Southern drawl from my upbringing."

Jun took a seat at a table on the other side of the room and lit a fresh 120 cigarette.

"Auntie here tells me that you are the best person for this job."

Victoria was clearly impressed that he referred to Jun with such an affectionate title. If he was trying to build a cultural connection with her through their Asian heritage, it was clearly working. "Well," she said holding her cigarette just to the side of her cheek, "I hope so. I have a lot of administrative experience. I'm very good at organization. I never give up on a task until it is completed to the high standards I set for myself." She took a puff, held it in her mouth, and then exhaled a stream, hoping that it looked like inhaled smoke.

"Well," Kyle said as he glanced at Jun with a smile, "those are all important qualities, I'm sure, but I had a much more specialized job in mind for you, if you're willing to come on board. I'm sure that you know we aren't an ordinary research lab. The work we do is important, but also highly sensitive. It requires absolute loyalty, as well as a high level of discretion. You couldn't tell anyone about the work you do except those who are expressly authorized to know about it." He reached for a pack of Lark on the coffee table near the couch and pulled out one of the cork-tip filter cigarettes. After lighting it freehanded, he snapped back a white ball, cocked his head upwards and exhaled a luscious cone of smoke before placing the Lark in an ashtray. "Is that something you can commit to?"

"Absolutely," Victoria said, trying not to appear too eager while at the same time hoping that this handsome man could not see her nipples growing hard as she watched him smoke. "This is a job I was born for."

Kyle looked at Victoria for a few seconds, then once again glanced at Jun with a smile. "Okay, then," he said with the clap of his hands. "Let's get started." He picked up his cigarette, took a massive puff, and then inhaled with a snap after puffing out his cheeks. "Let's begin with a little science," he said with smoke pouring out of his mouth and nose as he placed the Lark back into the ashtray.

"There is a lot that scientists are still learning about in regards to the physiological impact of smoking, but they are pretty certain that the effect of nicotine essentially changes the brain in both behavior-arousing and behavior-reinforcing ways. For instance, the frontal lobe is where our reasoning originates," he said with a point to Victoria's forehead, "but nicotine appears to affect that reasoning by increasing stimulation to other parts of the brain. This is why addicts can know that smoking is harmful but still do it anyway. In other words, it just feels too good to stop." He paused, waiting to see if this woman had any questions, before moving on. "Now what if we can find some way to link nicotine to the same parts of the brain which regulate sexual desire?"