Keep Rehearsing and Keep Performing

"I thought you could be like my 'smoking trainer'!" Rachel exclaimed as a joke to try to lighten up the mood.

Grant's eyes widened before a stuttered chuckle appeared. 'Smoking trainer! Wow, that sounds amazing!' he hurriedly thought trying to decide how to play his cards. There was no chance in the world that he could pass on such a golden opportunity!

"Rachel, yes, of course!" he spurted out as quickly has his tongue would move. Not only was he going to be able to witness Rachel's smoking style progress, but he was given the best seat in the street to properly observe her. Finally, he wouldn't need to steal glimpses from behind the curtains. He was expected to watch openly and attentively. He almost wanted to slap himself to make sure he wasn't dreaming!

"Thank you so much!" Rachel grinned. "You are a star!"

"Rachel, our aim is to make you the star!" Grant cheesily replied. "A smoking trainer. It's almost like a contradiction in terms. Don't worry, Rachel. I will gladly help if think I can be of any support for you. I usually don't do much in the evenings anyway, so I can come over when you want me here."

"Oh, that it great! I don't know how to thank you!" Rachel cheered with sincere gratefulness.

'If you only knew! You can't thank me more than offering me this opportunity!' He thought.

"Please don't mention it. It's really no big deal. I think we will both have fun!" He declared trying to not rub his hands together with quite so much glee.

Scene 4 Act 1

"The theatre infects the audience with its noble ecstasy."

Rachel took Grants words genuinely to heart and as such settled down following his instructions. She now focused on her new smoking routine. Every morning, she would get up and with excited trepidation smoke her two cigarettes, one either side of the healthy yoghurt and orange juice breakfast. She would then go and wash her teeth ready for the day. To be doubly sure she would chew gum on the bus, so that she could not taste anything hint of the cigarettes by the time she got to work. After the academy and she was home she would focus on two cigarettes after dinner at night. She made sure her throat was washed down with plenty of water, wine, or beer. She was pleased that she could not taste any hit of smoke before she went to bed.

There were some occasions where she had to go out in the evenings, to the pub, cinema, or theatre with her friends. But she did not think Grant would mind her missing a couple of cigarettes a day. She however made sure that she definitely had her morning cigarettes.

As the days went on with Grant's words of positivity bouncing around in her head she actively and purposedly worked on the size of her drags and depth of her inhales as Grant was right, it needed to look convincing. No more shallow puffs.

On the days when he was over, which grew from two to three evenings a week. Except when he was working, or she was out. At first, his visits were short. He popped in, merely focused on the smoking those two post dinner cigarettes, with a ten-minute break between them. His stays quickly became longer. He was no longer making excuses and disappearing immediately after the second cigarette had been stubbed out.

Their friendship started to develop and the nights when Grant was not there, Rachel smoked in front of the large mirror in the bedroom. She was not particularly happy to smoke in there as her bedclothes were starting to smell of cigarette smoke, and after two cigarettes, she got the feeling that not only herself, but the whole room stunk from stale smoke. She went around afterwards with Febreze spray. Trying to remove the lingering potent smell. It was if the smoke had hooks. It stuck to everything.

Standing in front of the mirror she reckoned that Grant was right. By standing in front of the mirror it was a very useful way for to watch back how she did things. She had Grant's voice in her head correct all the details that had already identified. It was easier than filming herself on her phone. She could watch herself live.

As instructed by Grant, she stood centrally in front of the mirror, she kept looking at her reflection. The smoke was twisting of the cigarette between her fingers. She raised her head and tried to channel confidence of the 1940's character as her hand with the cigarette reached her mouth, sealed her lips around the white filter and dragged for two full seconds while her cheeks caved a little inwards. It was hard to watch as the smoke drifted around in front of her. When she removed the cigarette, a small cloud of smoke escaped between the filter and her lips. She inhaled the remaining smoke confidently as she could and watched her breast raise to allow the nicotine-rich smoke to reach to the bottom of her lungs. That was another useful suggestion of Grant's to help her get accustomed to the smoke. She felt the now familiar fullness spread across her chest from within, but it wasn't hard or irritating anymore. Actually, it was quite easy. She counted to three as Grant had suggested, before starting to exhale through her delicately pursed lips, straight towards her reflection in the mirror.

'This is the fun part!' she thought. She liked the look of smoke flowing out of her lips. It was photogenic! In a way she understood why smoking was so popular in the old black and white movies. It created atmosphere and actors, and actresses could use both cigarettes and their smoke to either direct or focus the attention. Rachel found it almost exciting to play around in front of the mirror. At that point, she began to believe that the whole idea maybe wasn't so bad after all and seeing her good progress infused confidence in her chances and trust in her good friend's tips.

After three weeks of training, smoking four Marlboro Light 100s a day, she was now longer finding them dreadful anymore.

At the same time Grant was nervous, whilst ecstatic. He and Rachel were definitely getting closer. She seemed to work hard both in her job and at class and took relatively good care of the house. She was not hosting parties and only on few occasions he had seen her invite any friends over. It did look like a teenager lived there. There were clothes, and items left about and not put back. No proper cleaning had taken place. But it was not a disaster zone.

As Grant rather quickly got to know her better during their time together with the smoking training sessions. He had discovered that she was a mature and conscientious young woman. With a big dream Hollywood style dream. That she was fully aware of having minimal chances to fulfil. But as she said: "Only who doesn't try to pursue it, will be certain not to get it!" There was a passion inside her that inspired him, and he slowly but surely become a supportive fan of her project.

Then, of course, there was the smoking. Grant was so pleased about her smoking! In a few short weeks, he had helped her drop that nervous timid scared of the cigarette type style. She was now beginning to be confident with the hot cigarette between her fingers. It was starting to look part of her. He was now happy to see that she was genuinely beginning to look like a smoker. She had begun to accept that cigarette was burning between her fingers was part of her and did not look surprised or scared by it. She would naturally bring it back to her lips, rather than having to remind herself by double checking that it was there. Grant determined that she was now wanting the cigarette to be there.

Rachel had innocently called their evening sessions her "smoking training". It had been her idea, but Grant just loved the name! And, although oblivious to her, he took the job dead seriously. Well, almost.

One Tuesday evening Grant showed up to Rachel's front door dressed in a 1980's shiny multi-coloured tracksuit and his wife's old pink exercise sweat bands around his arms and one large one around his forehead grinning like a fool. He had even taped a A4 sheet with 'Smoke Trainer' printed on it and stuck to his back. As he bounced on the front doorstep, as he had the Rocky theme tune playing from his phone in pocket. That made Rachel laugh, and chuckle until she had tears. But that joke had served its purpose, it relaxed the situation to take the awkward edge from their sessions and to help relax the atmosphere.

As the evenings had passed Rachel was finally getting around to taking a pull of smoke from the cigarette worthy in the name of a drag. Her lungs now accepted the nicotine rich smoke in them, even if she was not aware of it. She was now happily inhaling without giving the impression that she was about to start coughing at any time, Grant was fully determined to motivate and lead her even further. Much further in fact.

The more he spent time with her, watching her calmly smoke, responding her questions, on time, angle, getting the repetitive flicking of the ash into the ashtray perfect. They actually spent two days of one week just focusing on different techniques on ash removal. The flick, the tap, and the roll amongst many. Rachel was surprized. But all the time she kept pulling smoke into lungs as to keep practicing.

One evening they stood in the tiled area of the kitchen and pretended that they were outside so Rachel to practice just tapping the cigarette with her finger to drop the ash on the floor, just as if she was outside without a nearby ashtray. Rachel did not question where this would be in the scene and went along with it. When finished Grand directed that she then stubbed in out on the floor with her shoe squishing it out on the tiles. Grant had dutifully and quickly got down on his hands and knees with the dustpan and brush to clean up her mess as she guzzled her wine to clean her smoke-lined throat. She had enjoyed doing that so much, they repeated the exercise ten minutes later.

Grant was not hundred percent sure if she just enjoyed watching him on his hands and knees cleaning up her mess as she looked down at him as flicked the ash towards him, and he just hurriedly cleaned it up.

As the days went past the more, he dreamt about leading her to become a proper smoker. It was devious, but he couldn't help himself. It was so exciting and enthralling that he often had a hard time falling asleep after their sessions as firstly he was extremely turned on, the second because there were so many thoughts tumbling around in his head.

After a couple of occasions, after returning home from Rachel's, he poured a glass of his favourite scotch and sat down, after digging out the photo album, at the kitchen table to look at old pictures of his wife Penny, especially the couple he had of her smoking. God, she was so beautiful, and emotions ran high looking at the pictures.

The next time Rachel and Grant met up was on a Sunday night. They also moved the location of the training. Rather than hanging out in the kitchen Rachel preferred the living room where they could be more comfortable sitting across the glass coffee table that separated the large white leather couch from the expensive designer armchair that Paul had bought for himself as 60^th birthday present. Grant didn't mind, both because he could watch Rachel training to smoke in different settings and postures, and because now that his visits were longer, the living room was undoubtedly far more comfortable.

Slightly more than four weeks had passed since Rachel had asked for his help with her smoking and he observed that she was close to finishing her fifth pack of cigarettes. So far, she had been only smoking Marlboro Light 100s. She got into a routine of picking up a new pack at the end of the week as she bought her dinner. Grant had an idea to eventually change what she smoked, for something a little stronger.

"I must say Rachel, that in these few short weeks you've done a great job. You must be proud!" He commented while gladly watching her lazily exhaling a tight cone across the room. It was a sight he couldn't grow tired of!

"Yeah, I guess so. But you really deserve some credit too." Rachel replied.

"It doesn't look like you're struggling anymore, you are coping, am I right?"

Rachel did not reply but brought her hand to her mouth, and with the cigarette between her lips dragged and inhaled deeply just as her instructor demanded. "Yes, it is much easier now." She said with a smile momentarily holding the smoke in her lungs before finally exhaling.

Grant beamed, "Great, that is what I am seeing!" he grinned.

Rachel looked back equally smiling.

Grant continued "Rach, as such I did some thinking. I spent some time doing some homework for my role as your trainer."

"Oh?" Rachel looked on almost chuckling flicking her cigarette on the ashtray briefly watching the ash cartwheel into the pile below.

"Yes, so last night, on the laptop I went on the internet and watched some..." he paused and looked up at her and with an eyebrow raised shook his head "...no, not what you are thinking, but some YouTube clips of classic movies this week and noted a couple of things that I think it is about time we address."

Rachel sighed loudly "What is it now? Am I doing something wrong?" Rachel sat up straight immediately looking concerned again and highlighting her ever inbuilt insecurity.

Grant chuckled and reached across and patted her leg "No! Don't worry. You're doing nothing wrong!" Grant hoped he had placated her.

"But?"

Grant took a deep breath "Well, as you can expect, I think that there are still important aspects of the art of smoking that you should take into account in preparation for the audition."

Rachel looked across the sofa at Grant, her face showed that she was not convinced "Go on?" she then instinctively took a deeper than usual drag while she waited for Grant to explain.

"The issue, I think, is purely visual. Yes, a lot of it is lighting, the movie magic, and with the smoking scenes they make the smoke is clearly visible. When I watch you smoke in this room with the slightly dimmed lighting, your exhales are often barely visible. In the kitchen it's better, thanks to the stronger light source behind you which backlights the smoke. I can assure you that the visual difference is huge!"

"...and you think this is important?" Rachel asked somehow concerned by the intuition that more work was about to come her way.

"Yes, it is. You're making a great effort to make a perfect smoking performance to add to your interpretation of Marie. I think it will go much to waist if the smoking act itself wouldn't be properly displayed. Don't you think?"

"Well, when you put it like that, it actually makes sense...but what can I do?" Rachel wondered.

Grant rubbed his chin as he contemplated his answer, before smiling. "As simple as it may sound, to address this issue, the smoke needs to be thicker to make it more visible. And to achieve this, we need to do two things." Grant loved the idea of using the plural "we", as if he also did some work. Whereas in reality it was all Rachel. She was putting in the hard graft. He had to just watch her develop. He felt a tingling exciting sensation for what he was about to suggest. "First, we need to make sure that you increase even more the size of your drags, so that you pull more smoke from the cigarette. Second, we should change brand. The Marlboro Lights you've been smoking this far have been great to help you get accustomed to the basic technique, but now we should switch to a stronger brand."

"Hang on are you sure Grant? I, pardon the term, I almost have got used to, and scarily could say I even say I like these ones; do you really think it's necessary to change?"

He paused biting his bottom lip for a second to gauge where this was going before continuing. "Rachel, I am glad that you now like those ones!" He attempted to reassure the concerned women opposite him. "But just think about how much you have accomplished so far. It's all a matter of keep on rehearsing and perfecting?"

"But Grant." She whined, "I can remember how hard, and Grant, to be brutally honest how degusting it was to smoke the Benson and Hedges cigarettes from the pack I found here....

"I do understand." Grant nodded focusing on listening to her concerns.

"I know those B&Hs were so much stronger. I, well, just didn't get on with them, that was reason why I chose the lights, because I knew them, they were the cigarettes I had learned to smoke with Imogen." She nervously smiled, unsure of where the conversation was going.

Grant nodded taking in what she was saying. There was no getting around that this was a potential problem. "Yes, sure, but since then you've made huge progress with the Lights. You're getting better at smoking? It's become more natural to have smoke around you?"

"Yeah?" Rachel looked on quizzically through the twisting lingering haze of her recent exhale. "True, look, I'm not waving it away from my face anymore!" She chuckled as she then literally waved her hand in front of her face and cleared some of the smoke away. "Okay, not quite as much!" she laughed.

"So yes, as you know it may be a little tougher to smoke stronger cigarettes at first, but with practice, I'm sure you'll adjust in no time, as with all these things, as with your acting rehearsals its practice and repetition that makes it perfect!"

Rachel nodded as the growing foreboding grew. She remained silent on the sofa, her hands wedged hard between her knees, as a methodology to actively stop herself reaching for the open pack of cigarettes on the coffee table in front of her. Rachel's brain was whirring fast trying to decide what she thought about Grant's idea. The idea of smoking stronger cigarettes again seemed frightening. She was coping with the lights. But Grant was determined not to give her too much time to think of any arguments against his plan.

"Okay, sticking with the current cigarettes, why don't you try working on the first step?"

"As in?"

"I've noticed that right now you take about a one to two-second drag depending on what you are doing..."

"Yeah and?"

Grant tried to hide his evil grin with his hand. Before putting his hand back on his thigh. "Well...I am thinking that you could try pushing it, and yourself by counting to and extra second."

"What?" Rachel looked bamboozled. "

"You are almost doing two second drags so well, let's see if we can get all the way to three when you drag." Grant confidently encouraged her. As she released her hands from being wedged between her thighs and grabbed her pack.

"Are you sure?" She asked holding the pack in her hands.

"What I am thinking, the repetition will ensure after a while it will become routine, and after a while you won't need to count time anymore. You need to see what the character Marie does." Grant knew very well that Rachel had already smoked the two cigarettes for the night, but another part of his plan that he hadn't disclosed was to make Rachel was to slowly and hopefully unnoticeably increase the number of cigarettes she smoked.

"Rachel, go ahead! I'm certain that you won't have any difficulties!" he grinned confidently.

Rachel rocked forward on the sofa as she took a deep breath and sighed loudly. She had never been very good at withstanding people putting pressure on her, so although rather begrudgingly, she flipped open the pack and stared at the fresh filters, and then slowly nodding to herself and with a quiet but reluctant sigh, she extracted her fifth cigarette of the day.

Grant watched on and appreciated how she cutely and almost in slow motion ran her tongue on her lips before clamping the white filter between them. Gallantly, with a beaming grin Grant picked up the lighter that had skid slightly beyond her reach and offered her a light. Rachel leaned forward and touched the flame with the tip of her cigarette and began counting in her mind to three as her mouth filled with smoke. Never had three seconds felt so long to her, and the full smoke feeling on her tongue from the larger mouthful made her worry about having to inhale it all. After removing the newly lit cigarette, she hesitated for a brief moment before opening her lips and pulling the smoke into her lungs with a whoosh. Rachel felt the smoke invade her chest. She had never had the confidence or the need to take that much smoke in before, and the size of the inhale accentuated everything she usually felt.