Garter Belts and Cigarettes

Garter Belts and Cigarettes

Page One

It was the movement that first caught my eye.

That automatic sequence of movements done by muscle memory, repeatedly and without thinking, dexterous and complete - the red nail fingertips of her right hand, several silver rings on her fingers, flipping open the top of the box. One finger aligned the flipped up lid so the angle was right, then two fingers grasped the filter and pulled a cigarette out.

They could have been touching her clitoris, the movements so precise, the purpose so similarly exquisite.

I was three tables away with a direct line of sight.

My eyes followed her finger tips, focusing only on their movement, as she withdrew the cigarette from its silver-lined box. Red-lined would have been better, edges velvet smooth and seductive, smooth and warm with blood. Her left hand, her eyes elsewhere because she knew exactly where everything was - every item perfectly placed like a heroin fix - took the lighter, turned it around so her thumb was on the wheel. Her red tipped thumb ready to turn the flint.

To rub over the split on the head of my cock would be better, to press between my lips would be best.

Still in automatic, the hand with the cigarette - between her fingers now with her thumb resting on the filter - paused in mid air as if to check the geometry, the trajectory, before moving it upwards to her lips.

My eyes followed the cigarette, captured, entranced; I couldn't look away. Wouldn't want to, and I didn't even smoke.

Her lips were the same scarlet red as her manicured nails. I glanced down to her cup and yes, there was a lipstick kiss perfectly imprinted on the rim. On my prick would be better, on my lips would be best. She was entering that state of complete self-absorption, that suspended moment where nothing else mattered but the first inhalation of smoke. Nothing else mattered.

I was the same. I felt the weight deep in my gut that came before a heartbeat and the answering twitch of my penis. I was as addicted to this as she was.

She placed the cigarette between her lips and her eyes were blank, unfocused, seeing nothing. Her hand with the lighter came up. One preparatory click tested the flame. The sound of it pulled her from her trance and for the first time she focused on what she was doing. Fire burns, she was burning hot. She flicked the lighter once more and cupped the flame, protecting the cigarette's tip from any flickering breeze with her fingers curved around.

The cigarette lit and she took in the first long breath of smoke, pulling it down deep to the bottom of her lungs. Her eyes closed with the exquisite nicotine rush and her breasts rose. Time stopped and my heart beat and I was fully aware of my cock. She let the first inhalation go in a long stream of smoke directed up to the sky, and for the first time looked around, her petit mort over, the sounds of the cafe's courtyard seeping back. I heard voices from other tables, at least, so I thought she must have, too.

She glanced over and saw me watching. She took another drag. Her disdain was perfect. She didn't need anything or anyone in that moment, she certainly didn't need me. She had her cigarette. She didn't smile, still self absorbed. Just like me in my selfish pleasure, gazing at her. Self-absorbed. She could have been in my world, but I wasn't in hers.

As she smoked her cigarette I could see that her consciousness was slowly returning and she was becoming aware of the people and movement around her. She picked up her phone in her left hand, but that too was semi-automatic. She was still centred on the cigarette, centred on herself, not paying much attention to the phone, her finger idly skating on the screen. I took the opportunity to study her some more. The cigarette might have satisfied her, it no longer satisfied me.

Her hair was pulled back in a tight chignon, revealing an elegant neck and lustrous pearls on the lobes of her ears. She pushed errant strands of hair behind an ear, tucking it back, which drew attention to high cheekbones and an aquiline nose. She exhaled the smoke high into the air, and the tilt of her neck raised her breasts higher.

The movement stretched a small gap between the buttons of her blouse, and the angle was such that my eye caught a border of lace on her bra. It was white, which surprised me. I thought it might be red, or another vibrant colour, to contrast with her skin. But then, she wasn't dressing for me, although I'd willingly undress for her.

Looking around the café's outdoor piazza, she finally, properly, registered that I was watching. Holding my gaze with her own, she took another long drag, then stubbed the cigarette out. A tiny smile showed in the creases at the corners of her eyes, and she winked.

The gesture was so spontaneous, so genuine, so generous, that I couldn't help myself. Caught so blatantly looking, I smiled in return.

She mouthed, "Naughty boy," and I grinned, nodding at her accusation.

She smiled too, then efficiently packed her belongings into her bag. She stood up and quite deliberately smoothed down her skirt, sharing the shape of her backside, giving me the pleasure. She walked past my table, didn't say a word, but ever so briefly touched my shoulder. She didn't look back.

She didn't need to. She knew I was watching.

Page Two

I went back there the next day, and the next. She wasn't there.

Page Three

On the third day she was already at the café, sitting at the same table under the same shading tree.

I sat down at my table (it was becoming my usual table), unfolded a newspaper and began to read. When the waitress came with my coffee I acknowledged her.

"Thanks, Lizzy." I knew her. We exchanged a few words, and I watched her walk away.

Glancing over to the woman, I saw that my brief conversation with Lizzie had caught her attention. Her eyes followed the girl, then she turned her eyes to me. Quite deliberately, she tapped her red fingernail tips on the cigarette packet there on the table before her.

I nodded, very briefly, then placed my coffee cup on the table and turned its handle with a push of my finger, as if to set up a special alignment.

She repeated exactly the same movements from the other day, but this time her gaze stayed on me, not in some subconscious place, not without thinking. Then, after her first long drag and its long exhale and her rising breasts, she continued to smoke, dreamily looking up into the tree above her head, the fingers of her non-smoking hand just inside her collar, touching her neck. The movement of her fingers was slow, almost curious, as if she had found some softness on her own skin and wanted to explore it. My lips would be better, my hand holding her throat would be best.

Then, as a gift, but she never looked directly at me when she gave it, she undid the top button of her blouse, revealing the high curve of a deep cleavage. She shifted a little, and I became aware of a long leg, a slim calf and a shoe swinging.

I wondered what her smoky breath would taste like, and remembered another woman from a long time ago whose breath I didn't mind tasting, but I could no longer recall the exact taste. Mints in the mornings, perhaps, or extra time with a toothbrush before coming to my bed. The cool taste of mint, but really, I didn't mind the smoke, the catch in the back of my throat like a log fire in winter, burning hot.

I turned the handle of my cup, breaking the sacred alignment. Smoke would most likely overpower coffee when it came to a lingering taste. But I was getting ahead of myself. All she was doing was smoking a cigarette on her morning break.

My reverie was broken by the scrape of a chair, and my eyes focused. She walked towards me, belly and long thighs sheathed in a grey corporate skirt, and this time she stopped, her fingers light on my shoulder.

"Next time," she said, "we should share a table."

"Next time, yes, we should."

"Until next time, then?"

"Yes," I replied.

"Good. I'll look forward to it."

Her voice was sexy and rough. I wondered if she drank whiskey, would that smooth it?

Page Four

I didn't see her for a week, but the next time I made it to the café there was a reserved sign, black on gold, on my usual table.

"That's for you," said Lizzie. "Ruby reserved it."

Lizzie assumed I knew the woman's name. I did now, and wondered if Lizzie had given her mine. I sat down on my usual side of the table, leaned back and looked around. I looked at my watch, a pointless gesture, since we'd not agreed a time. It gave me something to do, for a second.

"Adam, hello. You're finally here."

Good for Lizzie, so discrete. I should appoint her my agent, my procuress, my agent provocateur. God knows, my cafés: I need someone to keep my affairs in order.

"Ruby." Just so she knew I knew her name. I wondered how many days she'd come here, when I hadn't.

"That girl! Doesn't she save us time? She's a darling."

"Yes, she is. I like her."

"I'll like her too, then." Ruby's voice was husky, deep and sexy. Her eyes were dark and her gaze was steady.

My eyes narrowed ever so slightly as I processed the surety in her look. She was a woman used to the male gaze, and a woman who gave it right back.

"But you don't know me. Why would my opinion matter?" I was curious why it would.

"Well, I see the way you look at the waitress. You like her, she likes you. I can see that. I spoke to her yesterday about this," she tapped the reserved sign, "and she seemed eager to please. She gave me your name - I suppose she thought we knew each other, but I'd only said I wanted to reserve this table and no other."

Ruby ran her finger over the engraved letters. "It doesn't really matter though, does it? What either of us think of an attractive young woman? She's not why we're here."

Ruby was finished with that part of the conversation.

"Do you mind if I smoke?" She began the next part, leading a partner to a dance.

"Of course not."

"I didn't think so, but these days..." Her voice drifted away with the thought.

"I like the ritual of it," she continued, "the attention it brings." Ruby held her hand out the way women do, admiring the length of her fingers, the perfectly manicured nails.

"I imagine you see them differently. The colours, I mean, not the smoke. The turn of my fingers, what they'd hold."

"Ruby red lips, Ruby?"

She chuckled. "Perfect. A man after my own inclination."

My cock stirred. My eyes must have darkened, going darker, for Ruby's eyes blackened too. She leaned forward to turn the cigarette packet towards herself, and when she leaned back, the cigarette going to the place in the air so she knew where everything was, her blouse pulled momentarily tight and I saw that her nipples were hard, dark nubs.

My cock thickened.

Ruby lit her cigarette and sucked the first drag deep into her lungs, all the while gazing at me with a wry smile. She tilted her head to the side and blew a long plume of smoke into the air where it quickly faded away.

"Ahh, that's better," she said, "that feels good." She brushed away an imaginary thread from the side of her blouse, two strokes of her hand so that, if I hadn't known her nipples were hard, I did then. The gesture was obvious, yet somehow she pretended it was not.

My cock filled nicely, feeling heavy, pressing against the cloth of my trousers. I leaned forwards just a little, and began to mirror her.

"I know it's a filthy habit and I really should stop," she said, ashing the cigarette, "but it gives my hands something to do. When I'm bored." She looked at me. "When I'm not."

"Which is it today?" I asked, intrigued to hear her reply.

She smiled, and suddenly was serenely beautiful, whereas previously she'd been rather severe.

"Adam," she said, taking possession of my name. "I'm sitting with a stranger, a man I've only just met, a man who doesn't mind me smoking. That's unusual, these days."

"I suppose it is," I replied. "But I like your red nails too. And your red lips... they're rather lovely."

Ruby took a drag and looked at me with a smile. She exhaled, and as she did so, turned her face towards me so the last drift, the last sigh of smoke, wafted directly at me. I breathed it in, savouring the faint burn at the back of my throat.

"My lips, huh?" She ashed the cigarette again. "My ruby red lips." She leaned forward, mirroring me in return. "What about them?"

"Glistening red, their shine. Pouting. They're full, plump like strawberries, wet with juice from your kiss."

She smoked, enjoying my word poem for her lips, her eyes moving slowly from my eyes to my mouth to see my words spoken, and back to my seeing eyes look.

"Soft, I imagine, to be taken between my lips and gently bitten. Your tongue, the tip of it red. Lipstick in its little tube applied in the mornings, freshened up in the bathroom before lunch."

Ruby exhaled a long stream of smoke. Her eyes sparkled. Her cheeks pulled in slightly as she sucked in the smoke, and she licked her lips quickly when the cigarette went from her mouth, a little dart of her tongue, just the tip.

I smiled, and continued. "Your make-up, that tiny hint of blusher on your cheeks. It's all rather artful, a carefully crafted look."

"You make me sound like a painting," Ruby said, blowing another stream of smoke away from the table, keeping the space between us clear.

"Or a character in a book."

She nodded. "What does she do, this woman in this book of yours?"

"Whatever she wants, I imagine."

Ruby looked straight at me, smoke drifting carelessly from her mouth, drifting up like breath on a cold winter morning. She stubbed out the cigarette and let go her last breath, full of smoke. Her smile, as it broadened, was so full of delight that I yearned for her already.

"That sounds wonderful. An imaginative man." She put her cigarettes and phone back into her bag. "Do you have to go back to work?"

"No."

As we passed the door of the café, Lizzie came out.

"No coffees?" she asked.

"Not today, darling," Ruby said. "Maybe next time."

As we walked side by side down the street, Ruby's steps matching mine, she turned to me and said, "We can ask her another time. Do you think she'd join us?"

"I imagine she might, if we intrigued her," I replied.

"My god," said Ruby, "your imagination! How many pages are there in this book of yours?"

Page Five

Ruby lived five floors up in a small, cosy apartment near the river. Below her balcony - crowded with a comfortable chair and a small cast iron table for when she smoked - there was a small pier where little ferries came and went, chugging their way up and down the water.

We'd stood side by side at the rear of the boat - our only touch so far her light fingers on my shoulder back at the café - watching the wake unfurl behind us. We didn't pay the ferryman, as we both had metro travel passes and had paid in advance.

It was somehow unspoken that we'd delay a closer touch, even though the moments in the café were intimate enough.

"Make yourself comfortable," Ruby said, when we were inside her apartment. "I'll just be a moment."

She disappeared into a room and half closed the door. I glimpsed a bed, and heard drawers sliding, opening and closing.

I went to the balcony and looked out. After a minute or two I heard a movement behind me and turned to look. Ruby walked towards me in a short black skirt that clung to her thighs, revealing her glorious legs. I could see the ridge of garter straps. She wore black lace stockings and red high heels, and was easily my height. An off-white blouse clung to her high breasts, her deep cleavage pushed up with a lacy black bra, its cups just visible. Her hair fell down in a long twist to her shoulder.

She turned once, to show me the curve of her backside in the tight clinging skirt, with a long slit right up the back. "Will I do?"

"Come here," I said, and she did. "More than enough."

As I thought it would, Ruby's mouth tasted of smoke, the taste of tobacco. I didn't mind at all, holding the back of her head as I kissed her, both my hands running through her hair. I pressed her against the wall and dropped one hand to the firm curve of her ass. Pulling her towards me, her hip ground against my thick cock.

"I need a smoke," she said, reaching for her pack, her voice a sexy rasp.

"Go ahead," I replied. "I won't stop you."

We stepped outside onto the balcony, and she cupped a hand against the slight breeze to shield her cigarette. She leaned forward against the rail with one hand, and stood with her feet maybe fifteen, sixteen inches apart. Ruby's skirt rose up, inviting me to follow. She looked back at me, looked me straight in the eye, then took a deep drag on the cigarette.

"How's that imagination of yours?" she asked, exhaling a long plume of smoke out into the air where it vanished.

I smiled, and reached for the zip at the side of her skirt. I tugged the garment down over her ass and those long thighs. She didn't help me at all, she was smoking. Ruby leaned forward and rested her elbows on the railing, looking down on the mingling people below. I ran my hand up her leg. She stepped out of the skirt, and I flicked it back into the room.

Ruby was bare-ass naked from the waist down, just her stockings and high heels. She wasn't wearing knickers or a thong. Two garter straps pulled tight across the cheeks of her delectable ass, her pale skin a contrast against the black of the stockings. I snapped one of the straps against her flesh, lightly, but got no reaction. I reached around to undo all the buttons on her blouse. Her breasts hung heavy, barely restrained in the half-cup bra. Ruby continued to smoke, as if being undressed was merely an interruption to her self-contemplation. It was almost as if she took me for granted.

Below us, commuters were getting off the next ferry. A woman looked up and saw Ruby. The woman looked down, then glanced up again when she realised Ruby had a man behind her and was standing behind a glass barrier, nearly naked.

Ruby let out a long stream of smoke.

I ran my hand around both her ass cheeks, feeling the warmth of the skin. I stood beside her, looking down at the commuters below, my fingers lightly exploring the heat between her thighs. Ruby sighed.

She shivered, and stubbed out her cigarette. "I don't want to get a chill," she said. "I'm going in."

I didn't think she was cold at all.

Inside, with the balcony door closed, the apartment was hushed, the world outside gone quiet. Ruby pulled curtains shut and turned on two corner lamps, creating a soft ambience.

She was a contrast of a single primal colour and photographic black and white - her red shoes, fingernails and her red lips, her creamy white skin, the black of her hair and her long stocking-sheathed legs. A narrow strip of darkness graced the base of her belly - in the low light it was almost black.

"Why are you dressed, Adam? Join my nakedness. Let me see you."

Ruby was straightforward with her request. I enjoyed watching her watching me as I stripped clothes from my body, displaying myself for her look.

"My dress-ups, they're a cliché. They're so obvious," Ruby continued, watching me take off my shoes and socks, placing them by the couch. I took off my jacket and undid the buttons of my shirt, one by one.

She smiled in appreciation.

"It's all plumage, isn't it?" She gestured down at herself. "All this."

"It works," I replied, pulling my pants and underwear down in one single movement, as a girl when I was nineteen taught me to do.

"God," Ruby replied, when she saw me. "It does. Is that all you?"

She reached for my erection, which was rock hard up against my gut, hard and full.

"That's very nice, Adam. I trust you know how to use it?" Her eyes challenged me, her smile creasing their corners. "It doesn't matter. Just fill me when you fuck." She gripped my cock. "This should do it."