Chapter One: The Idiot Revealed

"You are one lucky man," Vincent told himself as he swaggered into the Crossed Hands bar and spied Katherine waiting at a corner table for him.

At 26, the woman already had her Master's Degree in business, could win a game of poker against any card shark, spoke three languages, knew every Hank Williams tune by heart, played piano and was drop dead gorgeous.

He paused for a moment and drank in her beauty, from her long silky legs now stretched sideways beside her in casual abandon, to the sensuous curve of her bottom in her tight skirt, to her fine, firm breasts, to the sparkle of those baby blue eyes in a frame of long, golden hair.

And this was his girl. Faithful, forgiving. Under his thumb, like that old Rolling Stones song. He chuckled.

But the look she gave him as he sat down this time was different. Then she reached for the purse beside her and took out a long white Marlboro. He caught his breath, felt his anger surge.

"Dammit, I thought you quit."

She ignored him for a moment, busying herself with lighting her smoke and taking a long, long puff. She blew out a creamy white cloud. He waved it away angrily.

"I told you I hate smoking. You said you'd quit."

She looked at him.

"Where were you this weekend?"

"Out of town. On business. I told you I would be."

"You're lying," she said. "I had a nice discussion with your, shall we say, lady friend, this morning. She told me everything. And you know something? I don't care anymore. The hell with you. She's welcome to you. We're through."

Vincent sat there, stunned. How had she gotten Kimmie's number? He scrambled to think of some consoling lie, but his brain and tongue seemed to have shut down.

Katherine lifted her cigarette to her lips and let it rest there a moment. Then she closed her eyes and inhaled. She exhaled, a deep, gusty sigh of pleasure that spilled smoke all over Vincent's face. He coughed. She ignored him.

"You know, the strangest thing to me is how you could possibly have an affair with anyone. You are so uptight, so afraid you might catch a germ or something," she said, flicking an ash from her cigarette.

She was right. Vincent refused to use public bathrooms or open doors with anything but his elbow. With her, he refused to share a soda straw, a fork. Refused to go beyond the missionary position in bed, with as little kissing as possible. And he hated her smoking, hated the merest wisp of her secondhand smoke polluting his airspace.

"For two years, I put up with you. I even quit smoking just to please you. And Kimmie is the thanks I get," Katherine said. "Well, let me tell you something, Vincent. You're history. After Kimmie and I had our little discussion, I called a friend of my own. Real sweet guy. He's been a good friend a long time, but he'd never break up a living relationship, like I thought we had.

"Let me tell you what Steven is like. First date: He's on time. He has flowers. We talk. We eat, at Vincenzo's Italian Restaurant. He accepts a bite of shrimp. Off my fork. Shares a sip of wine. From my glass. Holds my hand. My germy hand. Kisses it. I'm in heaven. I'm feeling more love than I have in a damn long time.

"I'm wanting a cigarette, but don't dare say so. I know he doesn't smoke. I'm fidgeting. I excuse myself for some fresh air. He lets me go. Doesn't try to tell me where I can and can't go. Unlike you, for example.

"I smoke the cigarette outside the restaurant, hating that I have to hide this from him, but so afraid of losing him over it.

"I dab a little perfume on but he can smell the smoke on me when I come back in. Do you know what he says? 'Let's be honest with each other, Katherine,' that's what he says. 'I really enjoy your company. I want to get to know you better and spend lots of time with you. How can I if you disappear every 20 minutes for a cigarette?'

"So that's it, I'm thinking. End of relationship. Won't touch a smoker."

"Vincent, I was so incredibly wrong. He looked at me. He took my hand. He asked me one question:

'Do you enjoy smoking?'

"I thought about it. Thought about the thrill of my first cigarette, when I was 12, behind the gym. Thought about how smoking made this shy, skinny little girl feel cool, confident and so grown-up. Thought about how I went from a nobody at school to a girl people noticed.

"I thought about how I love my cigarette in the morning, when the world is still dark and quiet. How you robbed me of that. I thought about how I love the feel of a cigarette in my fingers and the taste of tobacco in my mouth and the warmth of a good inhale and the way I can play with the smoke, make rings, whatever."

"So I told him, yeah, I enjoy smoking. But I could quit if he wanted me to. I didn't want to lose him."

He said: 'If you ever decide to quit, because you want to quit, no one in the world will support you more. I'll walk to Canada to get you bootleg Zyban or something. But so long as you enjoy smoking, I'll love the cigarettes for giving you pleasure.

"'Never,' he said, 'let me ever stand in the way of you doing anything you want to.'

"I thought about you, Vincent. I ruined the moment thinking about you, how you'd hide my cigarettes. How you'd lace them with Cayenne pepper. How you refused to ever pick up a pack for me on your way home. how you wrinkled your nose and gagged if you even smelled smoke on me.

"You were a bastard, Vincent."

Chapter Two: A Real Man.

"Well, I tested him, Vincent. I took out a cigarette right then and there. Only one problem. We weren't in the smoking section. He teasingly reminded me of that. So we moved. Right in the middle of dinner.

"At our new table, he lit me up like a perfect gentleman. I teased him with a little smoke in the face. He coughed a little. So I turned my head away for the next exhale.

'Please don't. How am I ever going to get used to your smoke if you do that?' he asked.

"So I took another drag, a deep one, felt the burning all the way to my lungs. Held it in, then slowly exhaled in the longest, thickest stream my lips could shape, right in his face. He didn't blink, didn't budge, just keep chewing his pasta Alfredo.

"I smoked that whole cigarette down, right in the poor guy's face. I'm sure all that nicotine was making him woozy, but he didn't protest, not at all. Lit me up another one fifteen minutes later. Bought me a whole carton of my favorite smokes, Misty Lights, and a new lighter, a silver beauty, after we left the restaurant.

"We went to a movie. A stupid movie. We were the only ones in the theatre, except for two teen girls.

"Do you think anyone will care if I smoke?" I asked him.

"Do you mind if my friend smokes a cigarette?" he asked those girls. "They looked at each other and giggled. Then said, 'Hell, no. Can we bum a cig off you?'

"He gave each girl two packs of Misty Lights and a website where they could order cigarettes online. You should have seen their eyes go wide, Vincent.

"So he lit them up and they exhaled their little amateur smoke clouds. Then he lit me up and we watched that stupid movie in a delicious haze of smoke. How we didn't set off the smoke detector, I still don't know.

"Before the movie was over, I taught those girls to French inhale, the real way to blow smoke rings, and how to double pump. They were pretty quick learners. I was having so much fun, felt like I was back in high school again. Vincent sat there with us all, dusted in our cigarette ashes, red-eyed from all our smoke. But if he was miserable, he sure didn't look that way.

"He really loves people, Vincent. Doesn't fear them, like you. He chatted with those teens about school, about boys, about what they wanted to do when they finished high school. One, Tina was her name, said she wanted to be a micro-biologist but she didn't think a girl could do that.

'Like hell you can't,' he said. 'Your life is your own and you can do whatever you want with it. There is nothing uncool about a woman pursuing a career in science. And real men like smart women, not dummies. '

"The other, Krissie, thought she had a weight problem. That was why she'd started smoking. They had a long talk about that. How men really see women, how they actually prefer a lady with flesh on her bones, not a waif. How she was a perfectly normal size. She was still worried. Next thing I knew, he'd given her the business card of his personal fitness trainer and arranged for her to go to sessions with the woman free of charge, for as long as she wanted to."

"Those girls left that theatre walking tall, confident, looking like women now, not mere girls. He'd changed their lives, I really believe it.

"I gave them my carton of Misties before they left and you'd a-thought it was gold bullion. I told them that if they ever had trouble buying cigarettes, to drop by my office in the afternoon, and I'd take care of it.

Chapter Three: Vincent Decisively Replaced

"He took me home. I smoked another cigarette in his car, feeling delirious, feeling totally in love. If he had asked me to run naked in the street and sing " O Solo Mio," I think I would have, at that moment.

"He could have taken advantage of me. Could have pressed to come in. Not a chance. We kissed goodnight at the door. Then he left.

"I was the one who couldn't stand it. I wanted him so bad. I would have called him, but he only had my number.

"He called me, first thing the next morning. Asked me how I was doing. I had a headache from all my smoking last night. He was over there in ten minutes with an aspirin and kind words. We talked for at least an hour in my living room while he massaged my neck and temples like a pro. Headache didn't stand a chance.

"By this time, I was insanely in love. But he hadn't said the words yet.

"I'm tired of these four walls," I said. "Let's go out."

He looked at me. I was in my bathrobe.

"Would you like me to come back?" he asked.

"You can stay right here," said I, feeling deliciously flirty. "Or you can wait in my bedroom."

"Well, he wasn't going to fight me over it. I took him on a tour of my little pink paradise room. Then he sat quietly on my bed. I took off my robe, had just my bra and panties on. He caught his breath.

"You are one beautiful woman," he said. Couldn't take his eyes off me. Now I was the one who suddenly felt shy. I undressed the rest of the way in my bathroom and took a nice, bubbly bath.

"Did I dare to emerge in the pink? I did. It was too much for both of us. We had the most incredible passion right there on the bed you and I used to share. He loved me, kissed me all over. All over. Every square inch of me. Like he wanted to just eat me up, from my toes to my derriere to the lobes of my ears. It was so different from your chicken-loving, Vincent. Maybe someday I'll write you a letter with all the details, just to remind you of what you've lost.

"That was Sunday. That night, Vincent, you were history.

"But I'm not done with you yet. You tortured me too long to get away this easily. I ordered a little something off the Internet and put it in the drink you're sipping, the one I ordered for you before you got here. It's called senkero. A little drug from Africa. Makes you shrink down to the size of a very small man. Or perhaps, that's all in your mind. We'll see.

"You might also like to know that before I spiked your drink, I tasted from your glass. I didn't like it, that cheap wine you drink. So after I had swirled it around a little bit in my mouth just to be sure, I spit it back. Imagine that, Vincent. My girl cooties, by the millions, in your tender tummy.

Chapter Four: Let The Shrinking Begin

It was all a dream. A horrible dream. Of that Vincent was sure. Problem was, he couldn't seem to wake up. And now he could definitely see the bar around him growing in size. Or rather, he was shrinking.

At cockroach size, Katherine scooped him up and held him in her hand. At this size, normal fragrances suddenly seemed overwhelming to him. He could smell the strawberry lotion on her hands, the polish on her nails. As she held him before her face, he could sense, with each word she spoke, the wine she'd sipped, the buttery pasta she'd been munching on, even the faint, bitter edge of the tobacco she'd been smoking.

"I should step on you," she said. "Like I used to step on earthworms on the sidewalk after it rained, when I was a girl, just because I could, because I was a girl and they were gross and I hated them and I liked how they squished and died under my feet. I used to pretend they were boys I hated. One time, when I was seven, I crushed twenty worms in five minutes under the heels of my new Mary Janes. It was a glorious rampage. I called them all Billy that day. He was a guy like you.

"Yeah, I should step on you. Like I would crush a spider. But that would be too easy. Maybe I'll save it for later.

"No, I think I'll start with a cigarette. And you shall help me smoke it. It's time you learned to do that for a lady."

Vincent was continuing to shrink, now becoming the size of a flea. Katherine held him imprisoned between her thumb and forefinger. The bitter nicotine residue on her skin was making him dizzy; he squirmed, but her grip only got tighter.

Now she adjusted her fingers so that he could see out from where he was trapped. The giant white cylinder of a cigarette loomed in front of him, balanced in the giant red, shapely pillows of her lips. The smell of the fresh tobacco was overwhelming.

"Stop squirming,"she ordered, squeezing him so hard he lost his breath.

Then she shoved him into the end of the cigarette, packing him in with the tobacco grains.

Now all he saw was the golden flame of her lighter, burning brilliant like the sun as it aimed for the cigarette -- and him. Simultaneously, he felt a pulling of air from behind, like a hurricane tugging at him. She was inhaling!

The flame touched the tobacco and surrounded him. As it consumed his tiny body, in a paroxysm of agony, he felt himself changing into smoke, mingling with the tobacco smoke forming in the cigarette and being drawn by her breath through the length of the cigarette. He struggled, but it was like the spinning of a leaf caught in the backdraft of a passing car. Soon, he would be drawn inside her mouth. What a terrible way to die!

Vincent, flailing in desperation, caught hold of a tobacco grain halfway down the cigarette tube, gripping the curl of dried leaf like a monkey grabbing for a jungle vine.

Still, the smoke tore past him, around him, like the pulling of a smoky tidal wave.Just as he felt he could hold on no longer and was ready to black out, her eternal inhale ceased and he felt the cigarette drop like an elevator.

Three taps shook his tubular prison like an earthquake. Ash-tapping. Could mean only one thing.

The hurricane began to roar again -- another furious, hungry inhale. How could her lungs withstand this onslaught, puff after puff, day after day, cigarette after cigarette? How could she sit there, enjoying it so much? He well remembered her, naked in the morning and so damn gorgeous, holding smoke in her lungs almost without seeming to notice it, walking so deliciously nude across the room, her bare rump shifting so fetchingly, smoke finally being allowed to escape from her lips as she headed into the bathroom to pee, the cigarette left to die in its tray on her dresser.

The bit of leaf he was holding snapped off in his hand and he was tumbling again, a speck of life in a swirl of virgin smoke rushing towards the filter tip of the cigarette.

He grabbed at something, anything, and his tiny hands found a fistful of filter and held tight.

Again the cigarette shook with the earthquake of her ash flicking. His mind raced. How to escape? Back where he'd been was fire -- certain incineration. Forward -- he shuddered -- death in her pretty mouth, unless he acted quickly.

He scrambled through the filter and jumped through its last tarry brown strands, jumping into daylight as she pulled the cigarette away from her lips again.

Down he fell, angling for the table far below, but a sudden draft caught him, sent him spinning, landing face first on the vast pillow of her lips.

She'd always loved lipstick. He remembered that now, too late. Now he was standing in Avon Tickled Pink, up to his tiny ankles. He shuddered in disgust, trying to scrape it off.

Suddenly something crashed into him, shoved him down into the surface of her lips. Her cigarette had returned and he was trapped between it and her lips as she took a ferocious drag, clamping her lips so tightly around the filter tip that he was unable to move. He was drowning in her sticky wet lipstick, choking on it -- sweet, waxy, cloying, mingled with her saliva.

The pressure lifted. Gingerly, he stood up. He could see the wet pink carpet of her tongue and the cavern of her throat and the glistening pearls of her perfect teeth.

Suddenly his heart seemed to stop. A freight train, a tidal wave approached, swelling up from deep within her lungs, and he had the misfortune of just then having freed his face from the mask of her lipstick, his lungs now being starved for air.

But he would get no air -- only thick, thick, burning hot smoke spilling up with hurricane force from deep down her throat. His lungs refused to listen to his brain's warning -- they had to breathe -- and so as his body floundered in a smoky hell, his lungs filled to bursting with her fresh secondhand smoke and nothing but smoke in all its tarry, nicotiney, acrid intensity, tempered only by its time in her lungs.

Before he could cough it out, her cigarette was knocking him down again, face first into her lipstick again and his screaming lungs, still filled with her smoke, could not empty, were forced to hold it in until his body -- rendered temporarily and agonizingly indestructable by that potion in his drink -- had no other choice but to absorb it.

She lifted away her cigarette again, and he struggled to his feet again -- only to be blasted by another wave of smoke, crushed down again, forced to absorb it again.

But now her cigarette was nearly spent. She paused a moment, looked at it in disappointment. He seized his chance and jumped free of her lips, falling to the table, feeling himself growing larger again.

At bug size, the growing stopped again and he heard her laughing.

"Tough luck, Vincent. You're stuck that size for a while. And I'm tired of you. Be gone."

And she leaned down and with her last breath of exhaled smoke, blew him away from her table. He spun through the air and landed on the floor, near a bunch of school girls.

He heard a scream.

"It's a bug!"

Then a chorus of young girl voices chanting, "Step on it! Step on it! Smoosh it!" And suddenly it seemed that a dozen Mary Janes and pink sneakers and white sandals were slamming at him like giant pistons, trying furiously to flatten him -- the just-missing-him concussions exploding around him like cannon fire.

A spray of sticky wetness suddenly misted his face. They were spitting at him now! His germ phobic sensibilities recoiled at each salivary cloudburst as he ducked and dodged.

The last thing he ever saw was a little brunette, grinning in triumph as her spit-bullet, fired with deadly aim from her lips, struck him head on, immobilizing him in a puddle reeking of the watermelon gum she'd been chewing -- and her sandaled foot now shadowing him for the kill.

She had a daisy design imprinted upon her sole. How bitter the irony. In a moment he'd be pushing up daisies; right now daisies were pushing down him.

Her shoe smothered him in an explosion of pain, twisting fiercely to grind him to pulp.

"Look, guys," she said. "I'm smooshing him like a cigarette."

Oh, the savage irony.