Most folks would roll up their eyes and wrinkle their nose. I would too, if the smoker was an unshaven wino on a street corner. My baby, however, stepped out of heaven and her lips are sweet and soft and full enough to stretch out and go to sleep on. Well, maybe I exaggerate. But not much. And she smokes. Oh, does she ever smoke. I have never seen a woman make love to a cigarette like she does, caressing the thing in her fingers, wrapping her lips around it and squeezing, drawing in the smoke like she's trying to touch the inside of her toes with it.
I go absolutely insane watching her tongue lick around her lips when her mouth is full of smoke, as she savors the flavor like no one I've ever seen. Sometimes she seems like an island goddess, all fire and beauty, shrouded in smoke. And I find my way through it and kiss those lips and taste them. And you ask what it's like? It's bittersweet, it's intoxicating, it's utterly addicting.
When we first dated, I had the hardest time convincing her that I didn't mind her smoke, that I wanted to be bathed in her fine exhalations. She'd lean her head to the side and exhale, and I'd scoot around and catch the last wisps. We'd be in my car and she'd roll the window down and I'd hit the automatic button and roll it back up.
It took some time, but I finally managed to convince her that I adored her bad habit, that if she was going to blacken her lungs with cigarettes, I wanted to blacken mine right along with her, but preferably secondhand from her endless exhalations.
I'll never forget the first time she finally seemed to understand. I had lit her up at our favorite restaurant and as usual, she exhaled off into the distance. I leaned over trying to intercept the thick and fragrant stream boiling from her lips -- and fell out of my chair.
When she stopped laughing, she helped me up. I sat there in embarrassed silence. I watched as the long, white Virginia Slims rose in her fingers to her mouth. I watched as she kissed it lovingly, as she drew in that heavenly smoke. I watched as with silky smoothness it slipped down her throat and she smiled with the pleasure of warm tobacco filling her lungs. But I wasn't going to attempt any acrobatics again.
Then she looked me in the eye -- she has the eyes of an angel -- and I watched her lips part. And I felt more than saw what came next -- her full exhale, carefully angled to blow right into my face. She exhaled and exhaled and exhaled until I couldn't see anything but smoke around me -- and I inhaled and inhaled until my lungs burned and I knew I was dangerously close to passing out.
That was years ago. She still treats me to it, now and then, but I never know when. It keeps things spicy, not knowing, not expecting it. And as much as I enjoy her deep inhales, I still think my favorite moment is when I catch her offguard -- when I lean in as she's almost finished an exhale and capture the last of it as it rolls off her lips and then kiss those sweet lips until we are both on fire.
"Isn't it like kissing an ashtray?" some fool asked me once at a party, when he discovered that I am married to a smoker.
She happened to be there, on the other side of the room, surrounded by friends, radiant, sexy, laughing, smiling, turning every male and almost every female head, tossing her own head of gorgeous blonde curls.
"Does that look like an ashtray to you?" I asked. "And as for the kiss, don't knock it til you've tried it."
