The Jade Princess of Darkness

"The good ol' days," Herb said nostalgically. "Back when the money flowed freely...," he paused as he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a pack of Virginia Slims 120's Menthols, "and smoking was sexy." He looked at her with a wry smile as he offered her the pack.

"Smoking is still sexy," Suzi replied as she accepted the pack, pulled out a 120, and got the tip nice and hot with the flame from Herb's lighter. "It's just a helluva lot more expensive," she added with smoke punctuating each word. She took another puff, exuding sexuality, snapped back a thick white ball, and then slowly exhaled a long stream as she held the cigarette aloft while reaching for the martini. How she had missed a good martini with a menthol cigarette.

"You still got that magic, Suzi," Herb said with a gleam in his eye.

"No," Suzi said without any hesitation.

Herb was taken aback. "But you don't even know what I was going to say."

"Herb," she said with a gleam in her own eye, "you're not fooling me. No matter how many martinis or Virginia Slims you offer me, the answer is still no." She took a cheek hollowed puff, snapped it back, and held the smoke in her lungs before cocking her head upwards and letting loose a powerful exhale. "I gave up that life long ago."

"Yes," Herb interjected, "to raise a child. Despite all the money you were making, you gave it up to be with her as a single mother. I respect that. But while I'm no mathematician, she should be about 18 years old now, yes? I'm sure you've been a great mother. Isn't it time to live your own life again?"

"By being aporn star?" Suzi replied derisively. "Herb, I'm 44. Who's gonna pay to see a middle-aged Asian mom get fucked up the ass?"

"You'd be surprised," Herb said with a knowing smile as he reached into a satchel bag next to him and pulled out a handful of scripts. "Mom fucks son," he said as he tossed her the script. "Mom fucks son and daughter," he said with another toss. "Mom fucks son's best friend."

"Okay, okay," Suzi said with a chuckle, "I get the point."

"Babe, business is booming thanks to COVID. Millions of people got addicted to porn while they were home in lockdown with nothing to do but masturbate in front of their computer screens. I don't care if you're in your 40s; you are still stunningly beautiful and the sexiest Asian smoker I know." He picked up the scripts. "And yes, the roles will be mature ones, but I wouldn't be here if I didn't think I could make us money."

Suzi brought the cigarette horizontally to her lips, took a slow puff, and French inhaled the smoke. Herb never lost money. She could be sure that they wouldn't even be having this chat if he didn't think she was still marketable. And in all honesty, she missed that life. Dealing cards downtown was a respectable job with a decent salary; but it was boring as hell compared to the good times she had as the Jade Empress of the Las Vegas Valley before her daughter was born.

Suzi looked forward to being free of the daily responsibilities of being a mother. Herb was right that it was time for her to think about the next chapter in her life. But was going back to her old life the new path she wanted to take?

Herb could see that Suzi was mulling his offer over in her brain. The tell? French inhales, something she only used to do when she was lost in thought. He needed to lure her in.Start small, he thought to himself.We can build up to the porn later. She'll succumb. The woman was a fucking nymphomaniac when she was young. She would be again under the right conditions.

"How about," Herb offered gently, "we start off with a few smoking sessions? You know, still-photography that gets people's attention on the search engines. We'll follow up with some smoking videos; and then when you're ready, smoking story films. Mom teaches daughter to smoke...that sort of stuff."

Suzi remained non-committal.

"We'll work around your schedule at the Fremont."

Suzi performed another exquisite French inhale.

"Jesus, Suzi, what's it gonna take? I'm practically offering you free money here for an activity you clearly love doing anyway?"

Suzi turned her head towards Herb, smoke cascading down through her nostrils. "Okay," she said finally. "I'll do it."

Herb smiled and lifted his glass for a toast.

"But no porn," she said pointing her cigarette at him. Then she added with a small smile, "At least, not at first."

"DEAL," Herb responded with the clink of their martini glasses. He reached into his satchel and pulled out a carton of VS 120's Menthols. "These are for you."

PART 3 - REVELATIONS AND SURPRISES

Mia and Emiko finished their shifts at 7:30 pm. This didn't give them much time for homework, but neither were particularly studious. Both were average students at best destined for the local community college network until they could figure out what they wanted to do with their lives. Mia dreamed of traveling, and Ethan strongly (even rather obsessively, Mia thought) encouraged her to become a flight stewardess. Her passion, however, was writing, specifically screenwriting. Her imagination was fertile with ideas for stories. But how does one become a screenwriter? She hadn't the faintest idea.

As they walked out of Starbucks, Emiko immediately pulled out her pack of VS 120's. "Want one?" she always asked Mia as part of their daily ritual.

"No thanks," Mia responded, adding, "Pasta night. Gotta get home."

Mia was certainly old enough that she could take care of dinner on her own, but she appreciated the fact that her mother still wanted to cook for her. Meal times had always been special times for her. She never knew her Dad, and her Mom never talked about him; but there is a special family bond between a daughter and a single mom. And while both respected the other's privacy, both also knew that they could turn to the other whenever they needed to.

And so it was that Mia sensed something was troubling her Mom the moment she walked into their two bedroom apartment. Rather than the smell of pasta, she smelled second-hand smoke.Mom should have finished up that Marlboro Lights pack by now, Mia thought to herself, so she knew that the smoke could only be from a new pack. Sitting at the dining table was her Mom, a freshly lit long cigarette sticking straight up from her fingers as her hand rested on the table top. Mia immediately recognized the green and white packaging: VS120's.

Suzi looked at her daughter with a smile. "Hey," she said. "How was school?" She brought the cigarette up to the center of her mouth, took a puff, and popped a white ball into the back of her throat.

"School was fine," Mia replied as she slipped her shoes off after closing the front door. "It's not like you to be smoking this time of the day," she said as she walked over to the table and picked up the pack of Virginia Slims. "And it's been years since you've smoked these."

"I'm surprised you remember," Suzi said with a tap of the 120 over an ashtray. "It's been at least ten years or more."

This was followed by an uncomfortable silence as Mia sat down. She felt her mother wanted to tell her something. She would just wait until she decided to do so. After at least a minute, Suzi began speaking.

"I've been sitting her for at least an hour trying to figure out how to say what it is I want to say." She brushed aside a strand of hair from her cheek, then took a puff on her cigarette and French inhaled it. "I saw an old friend today," she continued after exhaling, "someone I used to work for a long time ago. And he offered me a job."

This was new information to Mia. As long as she could remember, her mother had always been a Black Jack dealer at the Fremont. She assumed that's what she had always done after turning 21. Suzi could see the expression of confusion on her daughter's face.

"There's a lot you don't know about my past," Suzi said, choosing her words carefully. "I didn't grow up in Vegas, you know. I came out here from the Bay Area when I was 18." Suzi tapped the cigarette again over the ashtray. "God, I couldn't wait to leave home. My parents were so overbearing. Meeting their Asian expectations were impossible. I didn't want to go to college. I just wanted to enjoy life. So I took off."

"You ran away from home?" Mia asked.

"No, no," Suzi said after inhaling another puff, "I told them I was leaving for Vegas the minute I turned 18. I didn't even finish high school. They didn't care. I think they were glad to be rid of me. I was, after all, the black sheep in the Nakamura family."

"You go, girl," Mia said with an encouraging smile. She always admired her mother's strength and independence. "So what did you do before working as a dealer?"

Suzi blushed. There was no way to sugarcoat the answer to that question; and her daughter had a right to know if her mother was going to return to that life. Her reply was short and to the point. "Porn."

Mia shook her head in a double-take. "I'm sorry?"

"I was a porn star. Specifically, Asian smoking fetish, but porn is porn when you come right down to it."

Mia looked at her mother with a blank face as she asked, "Are you serious?"

"Surprise!" Suzi responded with a smile that crinkled her nose.

"You were a porn star."

"Yep," Suzi replied. She took a long puff.

"A smoking fetish porn star."

"Um-hmm," Suzi hummed as she exhaled the first puff through her nose while at the same time taking a double pump on that shrinking 120.

"I don't even know what a smoking fetish is," Mia said in shock.

"Well," Suzi said as she stubbed out her cigarette and reached for her pack, "some people get sexually turned on by watching other people smoke."

Mia was thunderstruck by what her mother had just said.Is my desire to see Ethan smoke a fetish?

"Some men and women," Suzi continued after lighting another 120, "will even pay money just to watch a pretty woman or handsome man smoke." Suzi took a puff and blew a few smoke rings. "And if they can watch a woman or man smoke while having sex," she added with a wink, "they'll paya lot of money."

Mia felt lightheaded. She could hear the words her Mother was saying but was not fully understanding them. Her mother was a porn star.A porn star. She fucked men on film for money while smoking. Without even thinking, Mia reached for the pack of Virginia Slims, pulled out a l20, and immediately lit it freehanded.

"You smoke?" her Mother asked in shock.

Mia looked into her mother's eyes as smoke poured out of her mouth. "Surprise!" she said.

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Lighting that cigarette opened a new door in her relationship with her Mom. While the two had always been close, it would be an exaggeration to say that they were good friends. It wasn't until now, after all, that Mia had learned about her mother's past life (or her mother about her daughter's smoking habit). And as the two women shared a pack of Virginia Slims, more secrets poured out of them both.

"Well, I'd be surprised if you were still a virgin," Suzi said after her daughter revealed that she and Ethan were sexually active. "I mean, I know contraception when I see it. Those pills next to your night stand obviously aren't vitamins."

Now it was Mia's turn to blush. "Oh, God, how embarrassing." She pulled out another 120 and lit it. "I think subconsciously I wanted you to see them so that I wouldn't have to tell you out loud."

"And the smoking," Suzi said as she held the long cigarette perpendicular to her face. "When did this start?"

"Junior year," Mia replied with a puff and a quick exhale, "when I started at Starbucks."

"It was Emiko, wasn't it?" Suzi said with a mischievous smile. "Her mother is old country. Osaka region, I think. She doesn't give a fuck what people think about her smoking. I bet she even buys Emiko her cigarettes?"

Mia nodded her head as she turned the tip of the long cigarette a bright orange. "She's my supplier," she admitted in a smoky exhale. "But I only smoke 5 per week," she added proudly.

"Well," Suzi said with some concern in her voice, "I may be a bad influence on you. If I'm going back to porn, I'm going to be smoking a lot more now."

"I don't mind," Mia replied with a wicked smile, "as long as you keep smoking these."

"There is something magical about a 120, isn't there?" Suzi asked rhetorically as she looked longingly at the cigarette between her fingers.

"You know it," Mia whispered as she brought her own Virginia Slims up to her lips for a slow burning puff.

There was a moment of silence as both women slowly exhaled streams of smoke up towards the ceiling. And then Mia asked the question that was foremost on her mind.

"Mom, who was my father?"

The mood suddenly turned serious.

"Was he a John?"

Suzi looked at her daughter sharply. "I was a porn star, Mia, not a hooker." She turned her head away from her daughter and took such a powerful puff on her 120 that Mia thought it might burst into flames.

"I'm sorry, Mom, I didn't mean to imply...."

"It's okay, honey," Suzi said, ashamed that she had snapped at her daughter. "I should have told you long ago about him. I just didn't want to believe it was important. It obviously is...but talking about it is still painful." Suzi took a deep breath. "Let's just say that he was a man connected through my former employment. I decided to carry you to term because at 25, I was worried that if I didn't have a baby then, I might never decide to." She looked at her daughter and gripped her hand. "And Idid want to be a mother."

"Can I at least ask why he didn't stick around?"

Suzi took a puff and French inhaled it. She was not ready to reveal all of her past secrets to her daughter. Maybe someday when the shame didn't burn her insides the way it did now, she could; but not yet. "No," she said softly. "You and I were all alone," she added. Suzi turned her eyes down towards the table. She was too ashamed to look at her daughter in the face. But then a memory occurred that made her smile. "Well, not completely alone. You'd be amazed at the motherly instinct that can kick in among porn actresses. My workmates thought you were adorable and competed with each other over babysitter duties. I continued to work after you were born, once I lost the pregnancy weight, of course; but a life in the porn industry no longer had the same thrill for me. Maybe it was just post-natal depression and the worry of being a single mom without health insurance for her kid. But I got some counseling; obtained my GED and then went to a dealer school in North Las Vegas; and luckily got a job at the Fremont."

Mia set her cigarette in the ashtray and got up from her chair to hug her mom. "And they lived happily ever after," she whispered earnestly into her ear.

Suzi wrapped her arms around her daughter. "Yes, they did," she said trying to stifle some sniffles.

Mia sat back down and picked up her cigarette. "So the question remains;" she began, "why now?"

"Well," her mother said as she sat back in her chair and brought the 120 just to the side of her mouth, "the extra money would be nice. I'd love to retire one day in a place I own. But the truth is...." she paused in hesitation. Did her daughter really want to hear this? "The truth is, I miss it. It may be uncomfortable for you hearing your mother say this, but I absolutely loved having sex." She took a long puff, cracked her lips into a wicked smile, and snapped the smoke back. "I won't be wearing any school girl uniforms this time around, but there are still plenty of fun roles to experience." Suzi leaned forward as if to stress a really important point. "You see, porn wasn't just a job. It was a way for me live out mydark sexual fantasies." She sat back in her chair, looked up at the ceiling as she took a slow puff which she then French inhaled. "Turning middle-age doesn't mean that those dark fantasies stop." She looked at Mia and said with a smile, "They just mature. I'm looking forward to playing them out."

Suzi moved her eyes towards the clock on the wall in the kitchenette which said 11:45 pm. "Good Lord," she gasped, "have we been sitting her for 4 hours? You didn't even get any dinner."

"That's okay," Mia said as she stubbed out her sixth cigarette of the evening. "I'm feeling a little queasy anyway after smoking so much."

"Well," Suzy said as she stubbed out her own cigarette, "I'll make some breakfast tomorrow before heading downtown. You eat it when you get up."

As Mia scooted back her chair to get up, her Mom reached over and gently touched her hand. "Thanks for being such a good listener," Suzi said softly, "and a wonderful daughter."

"You bet," Mia replied before heading towards her bedroom while her Mom dumped the contents of the ashtray into the trash can. The 18 year old then stopped and turned back towards her Mom. She had a mischievous grin on her face as she said, "You mentioned earlier that your friend today gave you a carton of Virginia Slims. Would you mind if I..." She was embarrassed by asking and hoped that she didn't have to finish the sentence, but her Mom understood.

Suzi walked over to the kitchen cabinet where the carton was now placed. "One great thing about working for Herb," she said as she pulled out a pack and tossed it to Mia, "is that he keeps his smoking actresses well supplied."

"Thanks, Mom," Mia said. She then grabbed the clean ash tray off of the dining table. "I'll take this, too...just in case, you know, if I need it...which I probably won't!"

"Five cigarettes per week," Suzi said with a smile and a nod.

"Right! Self-restraint is the key!"

"Goodnight," Suzi finally said, shooing her daughter away with her hands.

PART 4 - PICKING UP OLD (AND NEW) HABITS

Mia got ready for bed, putting on a one piece nighty, but she wasn't tired in the least. She sat at her desk with her laptop and began typing, eager to look up the name Suzi Nakamura on some porn web sites. Having no luck, she finally gave up when she realized that her mother must have used a stage name. She wasn't entirely disappointed at her lack of success in finding anything. Thinking about her mother having sex was unnerving enough. Actually seeing her in action might make her vomit.

Her next search was for information on the smoking fetish. She knew that the Internet was a medium that catered to many bizarre interests, but watching women smoke was not one she ever imagined. She unwrapped the cellophane from the beautiful Virginia Slims pack and pulled out a 120 cigarette. She gazed at it longingly. Did she have the fetish? Is that why she wanted so desperately to see Ethan smoke a cigarette?

She pulled the cigarette under her nose to smell the Menthol. She had been smoking VS120s for nearly two years now, thanks to Emiko. She had always been able to control that desire to just one cigarette per day, five days a week. So why did she suddenly feel not just a lack of willpower, but an uncontrollable desire to keep going? Tonight was a new record with six cigarettes at the table with her Mom. How many more could she smoke?Only one way to find out.

She placed the 120 between her lips, letting it dangle as she flicked her lighter and brought the flame to the cigarette's tip. She took a cheek hollowed puff as she brought her fingers up to its base, opened her mouth after removing the VS120 to let the smoke hover for a second over her tongue, and then snapped the cotton ball back expertly. The pleasurable tingling sensation she felt throughout her body as her lungs were bathed in smoke was confirmation for her that she had made the right decision to come out of the closet. When her Mom told her about her past, it was as if something snapped in Mia's brain. She realized that Emiko was right. It wasn't self-restraint that she was practicing with just one cigarette a day; it was self-denial. She slowly exhaled a creamy white stream reflected in the light from her laptop.