It was dark and quiet, post-coitally still. Street light
and moonlight fell through the bedroom window, and he
closed his eyes. That’s when he heard it. That scratching
sound seemed suspiciously familiar. He opened his eyes and
rolled to the left to see her turned on her side, an orange
glow shining against her slightly raised hand. A long, slender
cigarette hung from her mouth. Now, with her long, slender
fingers, she was touching the match to the tip of her cigarette.
He watched. She shook out the match, took a long drag, and
slowly sighed out a billow of smoke.
She said nothing. He was silent. What was this? She
was smoking. In bed. She was lying in his bed smoking a
cigarette. It wasn’t exactly registering, shouldn’t quite have to
click, simply because it was so ludicrous. His stinking bed. The
audacity – he was too awed to speak. What was she thinking?
How could she simply invite herself to light up, right there
next to him? There must be some explanation. He waited for
one in silence.
He watched. She continued. Drag. Exhale. Drag.
Exhale. Her smoke ringlets showed pale gray in the half-light.
He mastered her rhythm, holding his breath when she inhaled
and glowering in noiseless resentment when she puffed out.
She couldn’t see him, of course, the way he was looking at
her. He could see her. Why must she be so public about it? If
she must do it, why couldn’t she keep it to herself?
He watched. He felt dirty already. He was going to
catch it. He just knew it. Zuh most beautiful creatures of zuh
sea aihr also zee deadliest, a man once said. He was going
to catch smoke. Just what he needed. Smoke. He felt a rash
coming on. The first step, probably. He wondered how long it
would take to go away. Could he just wash or would he have
to see a specialist? Smoke.
He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling.
That was that. He wasn’t going to think about it. He pushed
his mind to different things. All right. He was in bed with a
beautiful woman. That’s something to think about. She was
beautiful and in bed with him. She glowed in the moonlight,
smooth-skinned and soft and graceful and smoking.
Damn it! All right. Something else. He would go to
work the next morning as usual. Same dull routine, huddled
before an electronic screen in a cubicle. Place was probably
a health hazard, all cramped like that. Come to think of it,
someone from the state health board was supposed to drop
in at some point during the afternoon. Annual inspection for
hazardous fumes. A puff of smoke wafted over his head. Oh,
hell.
Smoking. A little bonfire in bed. He knew what was
going to happen. His bed was going to catch on fire. That
would be embarrassing. Imagine. The smoke would conspire
against him, would carry the flame down to the sheets,
giggle diabolically as it scattered minuscule blazes all over
his sheets. He would sleep on. The smoke would win the war.
The next morning he would wake up in a pile of charred ashes
and steaming rubble. A firefighter would rush over to him.
“What happened?” the firefighter would ask. She would bat
her lovely eyelids and shrug innocently as she wrapped her
nude body in the blackened remnant of his bathrobe. “Sorry,”
she would say. A cloud of smoke would naturally be emitted
when she spoke.
He turned to look at her again. She was still sucking on
that stick. At least it was dark and she couldn’t see the look on
his face, which he imagined must be somewhere in between
peturbation and illness. He looked down at the sheets. The
smoke was creeping into them, he imagined, percolating
between the threads, latching ahold, unpacking and moving
in. He would rip the sheets off his bed in the morning, carry
them at arms’ length to the washing machine, and hope to
jar the smoke out. But the smoke would be determined to
stay in its cozy new home. It would never leave.
She turned to him and he felt a pair of soft lips
lightly touch his ear. He grimaced. “You were wonderful,” she
whispered.
“Mmph,” he said. The sheets were going to smell like
smoke.
|