The Misadventures of Mrs. Taken Ch. 02

It's Monday. Winter is a pretty busy time for the shop. Most of the people in this town patch things together until they can't any longer. They will suffer through the summer without air conditioning, but when winter hits. The calls start coming in. The Sunday at two A.M. emergency calls are the worst. I hate charging double, but it's company policy. This morning I headed out to work at five to relight a pilot light in a furnace older than God. I didn't charge the family double. I was just glad they had the sense to call me instead of blowing themselves to kingdom come by trying to relight the pilot light.

Today, since I came in early, I'll get home before Claire and I have no doubt. Considering it's colder than a witch's tit in a brass bra outside. The house will smell like cigarette smoke. Oh, she'll try to cover the smell up with air freshener. It won't work. Being an ex-smoker, I've got a nose for such things.

I've been plotting for weeks. Trying to come up with plenty of fun activities to divert my wife while she suffers through that first horrible day of quitting smoking.

We like our sex like we like our steaks, hot, juicy, and with absolutely no frills. Nothing is better than a steak hot off the grill. Meat, just plain meat without all the crap people pile on to ruin a perfectly good cut of beef. I tried a twenty-dollar t-bone from a fancy restaurant once and ended up taking it home to feed the neighbor's dog. Blue cheese crumbles and sautéed onions and mushrooms, what a waste of my hard earned money that was. I prefer my Claire naked and having sex with her without the spice of all those bells and whistles.

I would never get jealous over a piece of latex and an AA battery. With that being said, my master plan for diversion isn't really going to go over well without a little help. There's only so much sex I can have with my wife before I'm down for the count. I know Claire's body, as well as I know my own. I know what it's like to quit smoking. And I know if I'm going to get her through those first twenty-four hours as an ex-smoker. I'm going to have to get pretty creative.

I'm going to tell her tonight over supper and let her decide where to take it. I hope she decides to quit smoking then and there. Sure, we have to work in the morning, but I don't mind losing a little sleep to see my wife happy, healthy, and very satisfied. I figure I'm good for about a week, maybe two, if she refuses to quit. The longest we've ever gone without sex in our entire marriage was three weeks. I certainly hope it doesn't take her that long to make up her mind to give up cigarettes for good.

Claire:

Finally, it's six o'clock and time to close the shop for the night. Today, I ended up with one customer, two bucks in the tip pocket of my smock, and a big fat zero on my commission sales. Not surprising for a Monday. Tuesday might faire better, but I doubt it.

I could get a better job, but I cringe at the idea of working in one of those quickie haircutting salons. Foster and I do ok. We're not rich, but we make a decent living. I took a couple of college classes in photography, but plans and life sometimes are what they are. I ended up going to beauty school instead of finishing college. Occasionally, I freelance photos for weddings and such. The truth is I make more money styling hair than snapping pretty pictures.

I wasted no time flipping the closed sign on the door and turning out the lights. Sometimes, I'll hang around for a five or ten minutes, just to make sure I don't get a last minute customer. But, not tonight, it's snowing and I want to get home. Nobody would brave the cold for a haircut in this kind of weather and the people who would are people I really don't want to be trapped in the shop with alone.

I've been craving a cigarette since lunch. I think it's because I'm so bored. But, hey, I got a lot of reading done today. I read romance novels with the voracity that my nieces and nephews gobble up candy. I have my own collection on the bookshelves at home. But in the winter with business being slower, to curb expenses, I pop by the library and pick up a stack now and then. I'm halfway though a well dog-eared novel by one of the Bronte sisters and, damn, do the classics get me turned on.

Monday nights aren't usually a night for love at home, but I think I can convince Foster to get in the mood. The car is freezing and while I wait for the windshield to defrost, I take advantage and light up. Today was the day I was going to quit smoking for good. Yeah, right. Once Foster was gone and I had the house to myself for a couple of hours I smoked two cigarettes in a row all nice and toasty warm in the comfort of my own kitchen just because I could.

No doubt, Foster will smell the cigarettes I smoked beneath the exhaust fan over the stove. The man has a nose like a bloodhound. He won't gripe at me about it. He never does. I sprayed some air freshener, but he says it never covers up the smell. I think it's just him. I never smell a thing, cigarettes or otherwise.

With the heaters finally blowing out something besides cold air, I smoke one more cigarette on the drive home and pop a breath mint before going into the house.

The house doesn't smell like cigarette smoke to me. I don't smell like cigarette smoke either, although as Foster dips down and plants a kiss on my cheek, he tells me that I do. Tonight is leftover spaghetti night. Tomorrow might be too, if we don't eat it all. He asks me how my day went and I tell him it was the same old same old, which it was. I ask him how his day was and he tells me the same.

Foster has something on his mind. I can see the wheels turning. Maybe, he is going to grouch at me for smoking in the house. But, hey, I pay half the bills. Doesn't that give me the right to smoke now and then in the comforts of my own home? "Honey," he says. He's giving me that look he gives me when I'm in trouble and I have no doubt that I am indeed in for something.

I sit there with a loaded forkful of spaghetti. Cold sauce is dripping off the soggy noodles as he lays it on me. He loves me. I know that. He wants me to quit smoking. I know that too. I tell him I'm trying to quit and he pins me with a look that says he knows better. He wants to help me quit. I'm good with that, anything to join the ranks of the smoke free. But, his plan for giving me the incentive I need to quit is absurd. No sex until I quit smoking? Well, we'll have to see about that. At this point it's a contest of wills. Which one of us will cave first?

Foster:

I watch Claire go out onto the back porch. She is smoking and I don't mean in a smoking hot kind of way. It's more like she's fuming in a fit of outrage and the cigarette smoke circling her head in a hazy halo is secondary to her fury. She is glaring at me through the backdoor glass. She's pissed and I don't care. Well, I do care. Tonight might be the first night in almost twenty years that I spend on the couch or in that big bed sleeping alone.

The expression on her face was priceless. No smoking equals sex, smoking equals no sex, and that was exactly how I phrased it to her. I could see the wheels turning. I had her cornered. Claire was so angry with me she didn't even bother with finishing her supper. I guess we're having leftover spaghetti tomorrow night too.

She claimed she wanted help quitting smoking. Well, that's what I'm doing, helping her. She puts out the cigarette in an old ashtray on the ledge of the windowsill and marches into the house like a woman with hell's fury on her heels. I duck her glare of absolute outrage and get busy clearing away the supper dishes. "Fine," she hisses in my general direction.

Claire pulls off her coat and drapes it over the back of a kitchen chair. Then she kicks off her shoes. She peels off her clothes in the middle of the kitchen and thrusts out her breasts, her big, beautiful breasts, to show off exactly what I won't be getting if I don't back down. It isn't going to work. I'm not going to give in. Apparently, she isn't going to either.

I hear the shower kick on and wonder how big of a mistake I've made in forcing her hand. Claire loves me and I'm certain I can get back in her good graces. Eventually. Just seeing her naked is enough to have my groin kicking into action. I'd love to pull back the glass shower door and do what we do best after a fight, but I don't think I'd be welcome. Right now, I'm pretty sure she'd rather take her tweezers to my pubic hair and pluck them out one by one than admit how right I am in demanding that she quit smoking.

I could have tried a softer approach, but I've already done that. I've dropped plenty of hints that fell on deaf ears. It was time to draw a line in the sand and choose a side. If Claire wouldn't willingly make the choice, I would do it for her. I would never leave my wife. Never. Not over one cigarette or a million of the damned cancer sticks. But, I how was I going to feel twenty years from now when her habit, the habit I had enabled and indulged in for so long myself, finally kills her?

I went back to doing the dishes and tried to put the upcoming trials of the next few weeks out of my head. One of two things was going to happen. Either Claire was going to quit smoking or we were both going to become very horny and desperate people. I had my limits to how much I was willing to put myself through. I would never cheat on Claire. Hell, I didn't even use my palm in the privacy of the shower. I saved every bit of my loving for her. But, the two of us had the makings of a long drawn out war and even though I hadn't visited Rosie Palmer and her five sisters in years. I just might have to start.

Claire:

I blinked back tears of hot rage. How could Foster do this to me? He had essentially backed me into a corner and forced my hand. It was fine to plan to quit smoking soon. But, my prolonged stay of grace had worn thin and Foster had pulled out all the stops in his desperation to get me to kick the habit. I wouldn't have thought he had it in him. Apparently, I was wrong. Wiggle his cock under my nose like a carrot? I think not. Foster knew me pretty well, but he didn't know everything about me. And I was almost certain he didn't remember the toy I had hidden in the very back corner of my sock drawer. He wanted to try to put sexual sanctions on me. Well, bring it on. I had the energizer bunny on my side.

I don't know why I was fighting this. Quitting smoking, it had to happen. I wanted it to happen. And if I was honest with myself, it wasn't the idea of dropping the habit for good that had me foaming at the mouth. It was more to the point that Foster had wounded my pride. I felt like that bumbling, awkward teenager falling on her ass in front of the entire town all over again. I understood what he was trying to do, but I didn't necessarily agree with my husband's tactics.

Sex or cigarettes? Was there really any contest? I loved making love to Foster. He was fun, gentle, and caring in bed. Toys were ok, but there was nothing like the warm sensation of my husband inside of me. No sex toy was ever going to compare. I needed to get over myself and go apologize, but I wasn't the only one who owed an apology. Stubbornly, I cranked on the hot water and climbed under the scalding spray.

So, when was I going to quit? Soon. I figured I could hold out for a little while. Right now, I was mad at Foster so the idea of never welcoming him into my bed again sounded pretty good. In the long run though, I'd never make it. The longest dry spell we had ever endured in our almost twenty years of marital bliss lasted three long and terrible weeks.

We made time for each other and a romp in the sheets at least once a week. We weren't the stuff of porno movies. Our sex was pretty straightforward sex...good, but hardly entertaining from an outsider's point of view, I was certain. We weren't into the whips and handcuffs or the lotions, potions, and gadgets. We didn't need any fancy parlor tricks to get where we needed to go. We were already there and still hot for each other after all these years.

How was I going to get Foster to drop this sudden sexual deep freeze? The most obvious answer was to quit smoking. There were patches in the medicine chest and an assortment of gums and lozenges. I could charge up my e-cigarette and he'd never know I was still indulging in the habit. A part of me resented that Foster had put me in this awful position. He loved me. I got that. But, he wasn't my dad and I sure as hell didn't need him pushing me into making any decisions about what I was going to do with my life. The sad truth of it was though. Whatever decisions I made directly affected him. He had every right to demand me to quit smoking because in the end it wouldn't be only me that suffered.

I scrubbed my body from head to toe. I stayed in the shower letting the deep conditioning treatment on my hair soak into my scalp. When the water started to cool, I rinsed and climbed out of the shower. My skin was glowing bright red from the heat of the spray. I brushed my teeth like I was minus five minutes from going to the dentist for a checkup and even toyed with the floss. Flinging open the medicine chest and glaring at the patches, I made me decision. I could do this. I loved my husband and his hot, well, hot for a middle-aged man, body.

The patches itched, which was the main reason I didn't have any luck with them. I hadn't managed to keep one on for more than ten minutes before my skin was crawling. The gum and lozenges tasted terrible and they burned the inside of my cheek. Maybe, I was a weak woman, but I didn't think I could quit smoking without a little help. I could go cold turkey. Foster had. Yeah, that was what I was going to do. Show him what I was made of and do it the hard way. I was putting the cigarettes down and never picking them up again.

Determined to show him his little plan worked, I emerged from the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel. "I'm not smoking," I said. "I just gave it up." I still had the aftereffects from reading the novel running through my head. Foster was exactly what I needed. I just had to convince him to follow me into the bedroom. I cracked the edge of the towel open and let him take a peek. "Do you want to play?"

Foster:

I glanced up from the TV screen. The little vixen was giving me a good show of what she had underneath that teeny tiny towel. My wife's figure had changed a bit throughout the years. She was just as curvy and that butt, still a thing of beauty. I loved every damn inch of her and the thought of denying her so much as five minutes worth of pleasure had me grinding my molars in frustration.

She wasn't one of those women plagued by 'headaches' to get out of loving her man. Sometimes, it took a little coaxing to get her in the mood, but I had always, well, almost always, managed to make a very convincing argument. Most of the time, she didn't even have to bother with any amount of seduction to get me hopping onto my feet and into the sack. I could be a corpse and I'd still rise to the occasion for my pretty little Claire.

She was not a reformed smoker. She was a smoker on a temporary hiatus. Claire hadn't even made it an hour yet and I doubted in her current frame of mind she'd last till morning without a drag or two off a cigarette. I didn't see a patch on her arm or shoulder. I could tell she wasn't sucking on a lozenge or chewing the nicotine gum. She probably just wasn't feeling the effects of doing without yet. I wasn't going to fall for it no matter how much I wanted to drag my wife into the bedroom. Was. Not. Happening. "Maybe, tomorrow morning, Claire."

"Tomorrow morning?" she asked.

As determined as I was not to look at Eve standing in front of me holding the apple in her palm. I flicked my stare away from her and back to the TV. "It's only been forty minutes, Claire."

She huffed, grumbling something about how it felt like forever. I heard the slamming of a dresser drawer, the rustle of the covers, and the groan of the springs as she climbed into bed. I ambled into the bedroom to kiss her goodnight. That was, if she allowed me to. She cocked her head and offered me her cheek. I considered the act as progress. Claire wasn't as mad at me as she pretended to be and my place on the right side of the bed was secure, for now. That might change in a couple of days. One thing was for certain though. It was going to be a long time before my wife thanked me for what I was trying to do for her. I pecked her on the cheek and chucked her under the chin with a forefinger, forcing her face up to meet my eyes. "I love you, Claire."

Her eyes softened and her mouth curved up in a vague smile in the corners. "I love you too, babe," she said as she had said every night since we stared this ritual twenty years ago. But, I knew just as I had known on that first night and every night thereafter. She meant it.

Claire

I tossed and turned in the bed. I really wasn't tired and had a hard time settling down to go to sleep. I usually slipped out onto the back porch to smoke a cigarette before turning in for the night. It seemed that without a goodnight cigarette my body had missed some critical signal that it was time to call it a night. I was still sore at Foster. It wasn't that I didn't appreciate what he was trying to do. Yes, I needed to quit smoking and I had every plan to do so. He had simply pushed the illusive quit date I couldn't quite manage to determine up a bit.

Foster had my best interests at heart. I know he did. But, I couldn't figure out why after him being an ex-smoker for a year and still tolerating my smoking all the while. He had decided to press the issue now.

I had complied with not smoking in the house, for the most part. I actually enjoyed the fact that my house didn't smell like cigarettes. When he had repainted the ceilings and walls, I had been appreciative of his hard work. We hadn't painted since the Nineties and the mauve and country blue color scheme had grown a bit old. In the spring and fall I didn't mind my little smoking nook on our enclosed back porch at all. I enjoyed snuggling up in the old papasan chair we had rescued from the basement and reading a book while the world passed me by. In the summer, when it was hot and humid, or worse, in the winter, when I was freezing my ass off to support my habit, I resented the smoker's exile I had set up on the back porch.

So, why was I fighting this? Foster was trying to make sure I lived to a ripe old age. I couldn't be angry with him for that. I should be more pissed off at myself for resisting his efforts. Maybe, in a way, I was. More often than not, I wished I had never lit that first cigarette.

My parents, smokers themselves, were so disappointed in me. But, I had a companion in my little teenage rebellion. Foster. It was just the two of us against the world back then. Sneaking around stealing kisses and lighting up. Thinking we were just so damn cool and untouchable. Things were different now. Foster was an ex-smoker and he was being the heavy to garner my compliance. And it didn't help at all that he was using the one thing I enjoyed more than a cigarette against me. Sex.

I'd like to say the first time Foster and I had sex it was one of those magical experiences of moonlight and violins. It wasn't. I had just turned eighteen and was embroiled in the freedom of my sudden release into the adult world. Foster was twenty and he had waited so long for me to catch up. By that time we had been dating for two years and there had been a lot of heavy petting and heated make out sessions in the backseat of his car. We had done everything, well, almost everything except for consummate our undying love for each other.

I was pretty sure he was the one. Plenty of other boys had asked me to go out, but I always turned them down flat. Foster was the only boy I ever had eyes for. The head trumpet player could probably do amazing things with his lips, but he didn't hold a candle to Foster. Nobody did. Foster had already tossed out the M word here and there. To me having sex with Foster and getting married to him was something inevitable. I was young and in love and when he slipped the promise ring he had scrimped and saved forever to buy onto my finger. That night, on a blanket in the middle of a cornfield with the crickets chirping instead of violins playing, we did the deed and set the date.