The stranger turned around and Johnny realized it was a woman. She climbed in before he could say a word. He cranked up the heater, for she was shivering.
"Where ya headed?" Johnny asked, scooping up a blanket from the back of the cab to toss over her shoulders.
"Barstow," she said. "My car broke down a mile or so back."
Odd. Johnny had seen no car, and he was the kind who watched the road carefully. But that was her story, her business. She was probably a runaway, though she didn't look to be a teenager.
"Kind of chancy, takin' a ride, ain't it?" he asked. "It's all right though. I ain't that kind of guy."
She looked at him, straight into his eyes. "You aren't gonna hurt me."
It was a statement, not a question.
Hurt her? Johnny would rather die than even scare a girl. Somehow, she seemed to know that.
She was a right pretty little thing. Caramel complexion, dark eyes, dark, wavy hair , a nice, slender figure. Maybe she was from Egypt or something. But here in the middle of nowhere, on a rare, wet, California night?
The girl reached into her purse. She took out a pack of cigarettes. "Mind if I smoke?"
Johnny almost steered off the road. You see, he had a secret desire, a smoking fetish, something he kept very carefully to himself. And it had been ages since he'd even seen a woman smoke.
"Go right ahead," he said, trying to keep his voice steady. He saw her out of the corner of his eye as she plucked a Camel from her pack and tucked it against the pillow of her pretty lips. He felt a quiver go through him as she sparked a lighter flame in the gloom of the night, casting a glow around her face.
She inhaled, hungrily, sucking the smoke deeply into her body, turning the fresh cigarette cherry a fierce red with her nicotine need. A curl of smoke seemed poised to escape from the edge of her mouth, then vanished down her throat, chasing her earlier inhale.
She exhaled, a huge breath of smoke that spread slowly across the whole cab of the truck. He drank it in, thrilling to taste it secondhand, knowing that the fragrant fumes were fresh from her womanly lungs, that this sweet smoke had mingled with her own breath and lingered long within her body, that it had pleasured her like a lover before she finally released it. He tried to stay in control, tried to remember that he was driving, not dreaming.
But he was getting dizzy, too dizzy to drive.
"I gotta stop for a sec," he gasped, hating the weakness that was ruining this incredible moment. "I'm sorry. It must have been that diner I stopped at back-a-ways."
Lie. Lie. Damn lie. But could he dare tell her the truth?
"'Sfine," she said, taking another deep, deep drag on her cigarette, tipping it up slightly with the pressure of her lips against the filter, closing her eyes completely in ecstasy. She pursed her lips and shaped three smoke rings before blowing out the rest of the exhale, audibly, noisily, like a kid puffing out the flame on a birthday candle.
Pfffth.
"You have no idea how good warm cigarette smoke feels in my lungs on a night like this," she said, licking her lips and flicking a bit of ash onto the floor. "Warm and spicy and rich, and nicotine buzzing my brain like a lover's touch."
He swerved the truck onto the sandy shoulder and turned off the ignition. She exhaled again, unconcerned, a sweet, sweet stream of scented smoke that twisted and rolled and diffused softly through the already foggy cab. It burned in his throat -- how could she, such a delicate looking creature, take it in so easily, drink it in like water, suck in the fumes like she was born smoking?
She crushed out her cigarette in the dashboard ashtray. He felt a sting of disappointment, but relief, too. She couldn't know that her smoking, for him, might as well have been a naked lap dance.
He took a few deep breaths and then revved up the truck again. Be a man, he told himself. Control yourself. Drive.
A highway sign advised five miles to Barstow. Five miles that went too fast, too darn fast.
She directed him to some grocery store on the edge of town.
"Here's fine," she said. "I work here. Thanks for the ride. How much do I owe you?"
"Just a pretty smile," he said.
"I'll do better," she said. "Here's a little brass lamp I brought from my home country. It will look nice on your shelf. No, please, take it. I want you to have it. There aren't a lot of men who would have treated me right tonight, like you did."
She pressed the tiny lamp into his hands. Then she leaned in and before he could react, she kissed him. Sweet and soft on the mouth. He sat stunned, half slumped against the steering wheel, as she bounced away into the store.
He had tasted sweet spices in that kiss and the unmistakable fresh fragrance of her cigarette. Lordie, how long it had been since a woman had kissed him and never like that!
Slowly, Johnny eased out of the parking lot, when a glance in his rearview shocked him to the core. There was nothing behind him but blackness -- the empty desert. No Barstow, no grocery store. What the hell was going on? What had she been smoking in that cigarette, strong enough to be giving HIM hallucinations? Maybe that buzzy moment in his truck hadn't been just his fetish at work after all.
He rolled the truck around, thinking the rearview was fooling him. But no, there was nothing out there. This was freaking him out. Had he imagined this whole episode? Nope, the pale cylinder of her cigarette butt, kissed with her lipstick, still rested in the ashtray. The truck was still smoky. And the brass lamp was still on his lap.
He stopped the truck. He couldn't drive on until he sorted this mess out.
Now he thought he heard something. Girlish laughter. Oh Lord, he was going insane.
"It's okay," a familiar voice whispered, her voice. "Relax, Johnny, I'm a genie. Your genie now. A special kind of genie, who knows exactly what you want and who gave you a test tonight, which you passed beautifully.
"I can't give you gold or world power, but I can offer you something better. You see, I come from Turkey, the land of fine tobacco. I am a spirit of smoke, created many years ago by a man in my country, a smoke-lover like you, who knew of spells and sorcery and who loved to watch his bride enjoy puffs of forbidden tobacco, in their home where no other eyes could see her. He doted on her, he bought the finest tobacco to please her, and when she died in a tragic accident, he finally found solace in me. And yet, though he gave me life, it is a prisoner's life -- but that is no concern of yours.
"I can give you three wishes, but they must all have to do with smoking. Rub the lamp, Johnny, rub the lamp."
Johnny rubbed the lamp, and his hitchhiking passenger appeared beside him again in the truck, first like smoke, then wonderfully solid. She touched his arm and smiled.
"Are you ready for your wishes?" she asked.
"I am,"said Johnny, trying to remember to breathe.
"I wish that smoking cigarettes brought women twice the pleasure that it does now, but none of the harm," he said.
"I wish that every government in the world would decree that cigarettes were to be free of charge for women.
"And I wish ..."
He looked at the beauty beside him. His heart was pounding.
"I wish that ..."
He knew he had to work cigarettes into this request, but how?
"I wish that the next cigarette you smoke, genie, would transform you into a real human woman, with all the chances for life and joy that a woman should have," he said.
She was still and quiet for a moment. Then she spoke:
"Johnny, you didn't choose any wishes to benefit yourself. You could have asked to float like a feather in a cloud of secondhand smoke, or to become an invisible visitor to the smoking room of some females-only college somewhere."
Was she angry at him?
Then Johnny saw a tear running down her cheek.
Then she leaned close to him, the warmth of her body burning against him.
"Johnny, light me a cigarette."
****************
Epilogue: The marriage of Johnny Hugart and Jeannie Turkoman took place recently in a lovely desert setting near Barstow, California. The couple took their vows, then paused for Johnny to light his bride's cigarette, an archaic and rather politically incorrect gesture that raised a few eyebrows. She then eschewed the cake-feeding ritual for a puff of her smoke in his face instead, raising even more eyebrows.
The couple plans to honeymoon in Istanbul. Johnny sold his truck to pay
for
the trip. Johnny's friends said they had never seen him so deliriously
happy. But then, they said, Johnny was a decent guy. He deserved it.
