PHOTO SERIES NUMBER ONE STORY BY FUMEFRIEND PHOTO BY ROOTDOG

"I am so sick of stirring stew, I could just hurl. When do we get to go have any fun?" Lisa moaned, staring out of the Burlington County Volunteer Firefighter's Booth at the crowds surging past on their way to the Midway.

"Smoke break time," declared her friend, Jenny, with a jerk of her head towards the outside world. "Let's blow."

"We can't go! Our shift's not over!" Lisa said.

"Chill, baby. It's not like they can fire a volunteer," Jenny said. She walked over to Larry Simpson, their "boss," and treated him to her prettiest smile. "Hey, big boy, we girls need a break. Can you handle things for a minute?"

"Yeah, g'wan," he growled. A smile, however, was spreading across his leathery face. "Just get on back soon. We've never sold this much stew till you hot mamas showed up to help."

"You're a peach, Larry," Jenny said. "I'd kiss you but you smell too much like stew."

"It's my cologne. Eau de scalded squirrel. Beat it, chick, before I reconsider," Larry said.

"C'mon, Lissie-poo," Jenny said, grabbing her friend's arm and half-dragging her out of the booth. Lisa looked at her friend, who had once again managed to surprise her with her audacity. Lord, if only she could have such confidence!

They found a spot out of sight by the side of the booth and Jenny shook a cigarette from her pack, lighting it with a quick flourish and squeezing off a powerful drag before handing it to her friend.

Lisa took the cigarette as Jenny lit another for herself. She didn't mind following after her friend. Her feelings for this brash and pretty creature were as close to love as she dared admit to herself. It was Jenny, herself the new girl in school, who had rescued her from the depths of unpopularity last year -- who had taken down that popular girl, Tiff who had been using Lisa for the butt of her jokes all year. It was Jenny who had dragged her in to the eye-doc for contacts and then ceremoniously crushed Lisa's ugly old glasses underfoot. It was Jenny who'd helped her kick bulimia. And it was Jenny who had taught her to smoke.

Whoever invented smoking should have been banished to hell. Or maybe heaven. She couldn't decide. It was a pain to sit in class all day wanting nothing more than to go have a cig. But when she finally could...it was always worth it.

Lisa wrapped her lips around the filter, tasting the faint strawberry gloss that Jenny had left there. She clamped down hard and inhaled like a kid sucking the last drops of a milkshake. Warm smoke rushed into her mouth and she swallowed it down into her lungs and held it there until she felt the sweet, strong relief of nicotine flood her body.

She exhaled with a sigh of pleasure.

"Hey," said Jenny, through a mouthful of smoke. "Check it out. At four o clock. To your right, silly. Ain't that Marcus Wilson?"

"Oh m'gosh it is," Lisa gasped. "He can't see us here!"

"Why the hell not?" Jenny said.

"Because I have wanted to go out with that god of a man since I was out of diapers, that's why," Lisa said.

"So go out with him," Jenny said.

"He can't see me smoking!" Lisa said.

Jenny came around and stood in front of her friend. She touched her cheek. "Girlfriend, have I ever been wrong?"

"Not that I can remember," Lisa admitted.

Jenny took a deep drag from her cigarette. Never ducking her eyes, she exhaled in Lisa's face, a long, fragrant stream. Lisa eagerly inhaled the smoke, craving those sweet fumes that had so intimately caressed her friend's own lungs.

"Now, I want you to do just that when Marcus comes by here. To him. Not me," Jenny said.

"I can't, oh I can't I can't!" Lisa wailed.

Jenny smiled. She gave Lisa a peck on the cheek. Just a friendly thing, her eyes said.

"Just do it for me, girlfriend."

Marcus was now a big, gorgeous, fast approaching hunk of man. Lisa felt her knees quivering.

"He's going right past the cheerleaders' booth," she said, excitedly.

"Of course. What have they got on us? They don't smoke. At least in public," Jenny said.

"But guys hate smoking chicks," Lisa said.

"B.S. Real men dig a nicotine goddess," Jenny said. "You just do what I told you."

Marcus was now just a few feet away. Jenny took a deep, deep, lung-busting drag on her cigarette and puffed out three perfect smoke rings, aimed in Marcus' general direction.

"Damn, I wish I could do that," Lisa hissed.

"Just do what I tell you," Jenny hissed back.

Marcus stopped in front of them. He flashed a beautiful, pearly smile.

"Hiya, ladies. Don't we go to school together?"

"Could be," said Jenny, never losing her composure.

"I didn't know you smoked," Marcus said.

"It beats doin' nothin,' " Jenny said, shrugging. Then she stepped hard on Lisa's toe and Lisa remembered what she was supposed to do. She inhaled as hard as she could, feeling her lungs burn from the strain, and then, desperately praying that she wouldn't cough, she looked Marcus in the eye and aimed her stream of exhaled smoke in his face.

He stood there shocked as she emptied her lungs majestically into his face. Her heart was thumping a thousand beats a second, it seemed. Was he gonna deck her, now?

He just stood there. Coughed weakly -- a play cough, she realized. Then she had a revelation. He was totally at a loss for words! He had no idea what to do. The king of the school, the basketball god, the gorgeous guy who made girls pee their pants with one wink of his brown eyes, he was completely caught off guard by two average girls with cigarettes!

Now Jenny was in the game, softly spreading a blanket of sweet smoke across his bewildered face.

"Hey, Marcus, why don't you win us girls one of those teddy bears on the Midway?" she said, talking through the last wisps of her smoke.

Marcus was struggling to bring himself back to earth, and he just nodded.

"One arm for me and one arm for you," said Jenny to Lisa, and the three of them set out. As they passed the cheerleader's booth, they caught sight of Tiff inside, who gave them a stunned look.

Jenny raised her free hand, holding her smoked-down cigarette, and gave the butt a swift, sharp flick. With incredible aim, it arched through the air and landed directly in Tiff's cup of Dr. Pepper.

"I should go out for basketball," she said.

That Jenny. Lisa was in love.