Susie knew hell. It was her last job. Rude people, rotten boss and a killer pace.

Susie didn’t mind working hard. She’d grown up in a blue collar family, living in Brooklyn , and she’d been working at one job or another since she was old enough to spit straight, it seemed.

What she minded was working with stupid people.

So this new job of hers came as a sweet, wonderful surprise.

It was nothing fancy, a sort of hodgepodge of taking calls and filing like any secretary, but also handling I.T. and other tasks.

She worked with four guys, two that handled loading and delivery, one who handled orders and her boss.

Seemed like a recipe for disaster, a sexual harassment scenario out of some filmstrip – but it wasn’t. Susie was a guarded but friendly person and she soon realized these four guys just had no intentions of annoying her at all. Within days, it felt just like a family.

Four times a day, Susie left her cubicle and stepped outside to enjoy a cigarette. She was a Winston smoker – she loved the extra-strong, rich flavor. Many a hellish day back in school and then in the work world had been soothed the minute she felt that familiar cylinder bump against her lips from a tipped-up pack.

Lighting it and sucking in that wonderful warm smoke, spicy and heady, a burn at the back of her throat, was just icing on the cake. How on earth, she wondered, could anybody NOT smoke?

Susie devoured her cigarettes, not wanting to waste a grain of the unfortunately expensive tobacco – frugality no doubt springing not just from her love of smoking but also from her upbringing.

All too soon, the corktip would be dangerously close to burning her fingers and she knew it was time to put it out for another two hours. Very much a woman of habit, in more ways than one, she always dropped her cigarette directly in front of her right foot, then smothered it with the edge of her shoe – one heavy press without any twisting.

She was a petite woman but rarely did her procedure ever leave the cigarette still burning.

Since coming to work at this new place, she found herself smoking not so much to relieve stress as simply for the familiar pleasure of the habit. She began again to play out some of the old things she’d done when she first began to smoke as a teen: nasal exhales, French inhales even smoke rings.

Their office stayed open until 7 at night, which meant that, this being November, it was often dark by then. The first few days on the job, she simply resisted the urge for a last cigarette at the end of the workday, smoking inside being clearly forbidden by decree of an old plastic sign on the wall. But finally, one night, the nicotine call couldn’t be ignored. She scooped up her pack and her lighter and headed for the door. She was a Brooklyn girl. She could handle the dark outside and whatever was in it, hopefully.

She saw her boss look up from his desk. Sprague was a hard man if you crossed him and he knew how to squeeze every drop of possible profit from his small business – but his workers loved him, because he looked out for them.

He called in Whitley and whispered something into the man’s ear. Whitley nodded and trotted towards her.

“Sprague says I look tired and the night air might be good for me,” Whitley said.

Susie smiled. Sprague wasn’t going to let her be at risk out there.

They sat on the old bench outside the door, watching the traffic flow past. Susie put her Winston to her lips and dropped her lighter into Whitley’s outstretched hand. He lit her up expertly and she inhaled the rich smoke deeply into her eager lungs, holding it there until she felt the nicotine rush hit her system. It was a warmth, a tingling, a flow of calming all at once.

She exhaled and a burst of November breeze blew her smoke across Whitley’s face. He made a mock gesture of coughing but she could tell he wasn’t really bothered at all.

“Damn, girl, why can’t you smoke a woman’s cigarette like Mistys or something?” was all he said.

In reply, she sucked in another deep breath of smoke and playfully blew it directly into his face.

He waved his hand – but made no attempt to evade her.

Susie laughed. She couldn’t believe she was here, in this place, that paid better than any other job she’d ever had, with guys who were more like friends than co-workers. She held her cigarette in front of her face like a tiny flashlight and flicked off a bit of ash.

Whitley was talking now and she listened to his babbling patiently. He was a nice guy, good-looking, pretty ripped from his work-outs, though God only knew how he found the time to do it. She imagined his strong arms holding her and his lips pressed against hers.

Stop it, Susie, she said to herself. Keep your daydreams in check.

She drew in another deep drag, hollowing her cheeks to pull in as much of the smoke as she could and savoring it in her mouth before she swallowed it down into her lungs.

The cigarette was almost burnt down now. Maybe she should take up something longer and more ladylike, if for no other reason than to be able to enjoy it for an extra minute or two.

She dropped her cigarette reluctantly on the ground and squashed it beneath her toes, holding her last drag in her lungs the whole time. Whitley smiled at her and stood up. She sighed out her last exhale, wishing she could hold it inside her until work was over. Poor Whitley seemed to be in the line of fire again as it spilled from her lips – was he doing it on purpose?

“Stop stealing my smoke,” she said, giving him a bit of a push.

“I’m sorry,” he teased back. “I thought you were done with it.”

They left the cold night air behind them and stepped back into the office.

For two more nights, Sprague sent his guys out to be with her on her smoke break. Though their company was pleasant, the air was getting colder and the weather worse and she wondered how long they would brave the elements to be out with her.

On Thursday night, it began to sleet and only her need for nicotine drove Susie out into the weather. Sprague himself came along this time, firmly rebuffing her protests. She dropped her cigarette after two puffs – but he gruffly told her to light a new one and to enjoy it all the way and not worry the hell about him like some little fruity boy.

Then he took off his big, warm coat and wrapped it around her shoulders – again furrowing his brows against her protests.

So she smoked her cigarette down to a nub, savoring as always the raw pleasure of smoking, while Sprague pretended to be warm.

He growled about the cost of production these days and other miscellany, then looked her in the eye.

“I wasn’t quite sure about hiring you, Susy. You’ve had a lotta jobs around the city in the last few years. But it was the best damn thing I ever did. You’re smart and you’re tough and you work hard as hell. Oh, and that red hair of yours is hot as hell, too – but you didn’t hear me say that, and I’m a married man and I ain’t gonna hit on you no more than that so please don’t sue.”

Susie took a deep puff of her cigarette, feeling warm all over, maybe from the smoke, maybe from his coat, maybe from feeling like she really fit in somewhere for the first time in her life. She stepped on her cigarette butt, leaning hard to crush the cherry out beneath her toes, and they walked back inside.

“Nice coat, Susy,” Wilbur teased. “I’ll trade ya.”

Susy slept like a baby that night, better than she had in years. She dreamed that she was walking down 5th Avenue and shopping in all the stores, her cigarette held proudly in her hand.

She awoke without the alarm, took an extra five minutes in her shower and dared to look at herself afterwards in her mirror. True, she was over the edge of 30 but she still looked good, she thought. Firm bottom, flat stomach, breasts still riding high. And Sprague liked her hair. And Whitley liked her smoke.

She sauntered to work like a runway model, enjoying out of the corner of her eye all the heads that turned. Confidence – that made the difference, she realized. She was pretty and she was confident and she was irresistible.

Her colleagues were gathered around her desk as she arrived. For a split second, they looked grave and she felt her heart sink – had she misread everything, blown this gig to hell?

Then she realized a banner was hung behind them: Congrats, Susie, on your first raise!

Good old Sprague stepped in front. “Susie, you saved the Wilson account yesterday with your speed and your smarts. That was a lifesaver for this company.”

She couldn’t help it. As they cheered her, the tears started to burn in her eyes.

“I believe in rewarding my employees,” he said. “You’ve got a ten percent raise, starting this pay period. And, I’ve got a little something else for you.”

She unwrapped the heavy box with shaking hands. It was a crystal ashtray – sparkling like a diamond.

“That’s for your desk,” he said. “You about killed this old man last night out there. Figured I’d be better off breathing your cigarettes in here than out in that damn winter storm.”

Wilbur handed her a gift of his own – a sleek, classy, ultra expensive lighter. Todd had a glamorous, French cigarette case for her. And Whitley’s long, box-shaped gift? It was a full carton of Misty Lights, another of Capris, and one of Virginia Slims.

“We all agreed that you can smoke in this office as much as you want, on one condition: No more Winstons,” he said.

“Well, I only had one pack left. Guess I can donate it to the Salvation Army,” Susie said. She opened the Mistys and set the snow-white filter of one upon her lips. Wilbur palmed the lighter that he had given her and flicked it to life as if he had been practicing for a month.

Susie took a deep drag of the sweetly pleasant cigarette, held it in her lungs and then tipped her head back and exhaled the smoky cloud towards the ceiling, to their cheers and applause.

“Now, all of you, get the hell back to work before I fire your %$#,” Sprague growled. Susie sank happily into her chair, cradling her fresh, all-white cigarette in the warmth of the little office and wondering if she had died in the night and gone to heaven, Brooklyn-girl style.