"Click" went the lighter, cradled in her slender fingers, fingers tipped with just the slightest hint of pretty polish.

And a jet of flame burst from its nozzle and scorched the end of the cigarette that she held tightly in her lips.

She had not asked permission to smoke. He had made no attempt to prevent her.

She half-closed her eyes, like a sleepy kitten. Long lashes quivered. She inhaled sharply, parting her lips to expose the cigarette smoke in her mouth, before swallowing it down. A sparkly crescent of lip gloss appeared on the white Misty Light tip.

She exhaled. Smoke poured like a foaming fountain from her lips, in a stream, in staccatto puffs, in a messy tangle of twists and curls, trickling around her teeth. Rapidly it diffused in the confined space of the car. He breathed, tasting the flavor of her spit-out smoke in his mouth, rich ahd fragrant and fresh.

His head felt light from her leftover nicotine and the strong scent of her perfume. His heart pounded against his ribs.

No one had ever smoked in this car before -- purchased just last weekend, brand new. In the chill of the morning, the windows were closed except for the tiny gap she'd opened in hers, to allow some of her smoke to escape and to push her empty cigarette pack out into the street. He left his window completely shut, tightly shut.

She leaned back in her seat and stretched, with the cigarette gripped "hands-free" in her mouth. Her breasts pushed forward fetchingly. She inhaled again and exhaled without lowering the cigarette from her lips. She tossed her hair -- golden as summer sunshine, falling to her fine shoulders.

They rode along quietly, she taking puff after puff, fortifying her body with nicotine for the long day ahead; he concentrating on the road before him,which the growing haze in the car tended to obscure. In the corner of his eye, he could see her, tapping one hand on the side of the car, holding her cigarette with the other, raising and lowering it now, the cherry glowing fiercely with each drag, her lips expertly opening just enough to grasp it.

She crushed out her first cigarette, smoked almost to the filter, and immediately lit a second. He listened to the "pop" of her lips letting go of the fresh filter and trapping the smoke in her mouth. He listened to the sweet sigh as she exhaled a new cloud of smoke -- from her cute little nostrils this time, twin smoky streams of a delectable dragon.

How he wanted to lean over and kiss those smoke-spewing caverns and drop down to her soft lips and taste the recent tobacco presence upon them, and then run his fingers through her hair, and ---

But he had certain reasons not to.

He pulled the car to a stop.

"Damn," she said, softly but sincerely. She crushed out her third and final cigarette in the ashtray, pressing down hard with her fingers but still failing to extinguish completely its smoldering cherry.

She turned to face him as she got out.

"Thanks for the ride, Mr. B!"

Those words were said while a full drag still lingered deep within her lungs, and now it spilled forth, riding the shape of her last three words, then sprayed warm and strong into his face. Accidently or on purpose he could not tell but he hoped for the latter.

And she bounced off into the school. And he continued on down the road to his office.