Willis had been exploring the new, courtyard-style Oakwood Mall for a good hour or so, trying to pick out something to send his sister on her birthday.

He was ready to take a break and cast his eyes about for a vacant bench. There was one, a gaudy, wrought-iron thing next to the perfectly-trimmed grass square in the center courtyard. He sat down, sighed and stretched his tired legs. He closed his eyes, soothing the burning of the bright sun upon them.

He nodded off -- but only for a moment, as a noisy little boy ran screeching by, jolting him awake. He was about to close his eyes again when out of the corner of his eye, he saw Her. She had just sat down on the bench in front of him, smoothing down her flower print skirt the way polite women do.

Her golden hair curled and twisted and flowed to just above the curve of her magnificent breasts, which her silk blouse did nothing to hide.

She had eyes as green as those of his sister's cat and smooth, evenly-tanned skin. As she settled into place on her bench, her skirt slid aside just enough to show off her long, silky legs and perfect toes with nails painted rose petal red. She wore white sandals.

She caught him staring and smiled. He smiled back, then pretended to be absorbed in a crack on the pavement.

Now she dug in her purse and the sun sparkled off the foil wrapper of a piece of Juicy Fruit gum as she opened the morsel. His eyes were drawn to her slender fingers as they plucked the gum free -- and as they leisurely crumpled the wrapper and let it drop to the ground.

A puff of breeze kicked up and blew the litter his direction, along with the aroma of lavender -- her perfume. He breathed it in deeply.

People were passing by but he no longer saw them, had forgotten everything but this theophany he was having.

She chewed the gum for a moment, then reached in her purse again. This time, she took out a pretty little box -- Misty Lights, he could read through his half-closed eyes.

Cigarettes. Were they hers? In this day and age, he had almost forgotten that women still smoked.

She shook a cigarette free from the box, which was now apparently empty, for in a moment, she dropped that upon the ground, too, without batting an eye.

The cigarette was pure white and impossibly long, virginally beautiful, slender as the fingers which held it. He watched in adoration as she lifted it to her shapely, barely glossed lips and they parted to accept it. The red grains of tobacco at the tip, perfectly packed, now awaited the touch of flame that would awaken them.

With one sharp twist of her fingers, she struck an old-fashioned wooden match to life and lifted it towards the cigarette. Her lips tensed to hold the cigarette in position and she half-closed her eyes in concentration. One slight movement of her hand and the flame and cigarette met and the first twist of smoke danced from the tip.

Her cheeks collapsed, as her first drag shaped a glowing coal at the end of the cigarette and the smoke followed the pull of her lungs into her mouth.

He was close enough to see her larnyx shift as she swallowed the smoke, pulling it deep down inside of her body.

The cigarette trembled from her exertion as she continued to inhale -- evidently starved for nicotine to need such a deep first puff. How much smoke could one woman's lungs possible hold -- especially such a petite angel as this?

She absolutely did not look in any way how he would have expected a smoker to look.

She pulled the cigarette away from her lips and they closed, sealing in the last of her drag, except for one little ring of smoke that escaped.

She leaned back, arching her back like a cat. Her blouse pulled tight around her breasts, clearly defining their curving perfection and the points of her nipples.

Her lips parted and she didn't exhale so much as sigh the smoke out of her mouth, as if she were reluctant to let it escape.

It poured from her mouth, shaded her face in a thick cloud, expanded in the air before them like a living thing, like a smoky flower opening into bloom.

It drifted across his face, and he inhaled it and thought of long ago memories, of holding his high school girlfriend on summer nights. She had been a surreptious smoker -- perhaps only he had known back then -- and so he had learned to make their dates either out of town or in solitary places. The first time she exhaled in his face was an accident, the second time was a gift. He would never forget those big trusting brown eyes, luminous in the evening gloom, and the sight and scent and feel of that smoke spilling from her young lips, blown across his face like a smoky caress.

Those were the days.

Willis now opened his eyes fully and smiled again at the beauty before him, trying to reassure her that he didn't mind being in the path of her smoke.

Whether she got the message or, more likely, hadn't given it any thought in the first place, she exhaled again, this time tightening her lips to exhale the smoke in one long, sinuous stream that held together as it rode the air between them, then spread like a blanket over his face.

She snapped off a bit of ash from the tip and inhaled again. By now, nicotine was surely riding a pleasure wave through her veins and she was savoring the moment,sipping her smoke like fine wine.

She dragged deeply again on the fourth inhale, and he would soon see the reason why. She held the smoke inside of her, gathering it together, then pursed her lips and shaped a perfect ring, then a second, third and fourth, then spit the leftover smoke out in a burst.

The first ring wiggled towards him and playfully he reached up a finger and speared it. Feeling the mood, he leaned into the second one and tried to bounce it, like a seal, on his nose. The third one, he speared again. The fourth, he smacked between his hands like a fly.

She grinned, showing off beautiful white teeth in spite of her cigarette habit.

She took another drag from the disappearing cigarette, expelling a long jet of fragrant smoke between them. Then suddenly, she seemed to grow shy again, not meeting his stare, snapping off more ash on the ground.

Had he gone too far? Damn, damn, damn.

He tore his gaze away. He heard the bench creak as she arose. He looked up to see her stride past him.

Then, for just a moment, she paused. She dropped the cigarette to the ground. He watched it bounce then settle, spitting out an angry twirl of smoke.

She lifted her pretty white sandal above it and stepped down, grinding out the cherry with a deadly twist of her ankle, like a little girl crushing an ant.

The vanquished cigarette lay helpless upon the ground, one end a smear of black ash and unburned tobacco, the other bearing a pink ring of her lipstick and the dark circle of tar upon the filter.

She turned back towards Willis and this time, he shrank from her stare. Almost as if hypnotized, though, he felt his eyes being lifted up to her again.

And then she exhaled. The smoke which she had held in her lungs for at least six seconds, which had mixed and mingled with her own sweet breath but had remained imprisoned deep within her body,now rose to the light of her opened lips -- lips directly aimed at Willis like the barrel of a shotgun.

Hot, potent, saturated with all the dreadful poisons that keep the Surgeon General awake at night, it spun from her lips and struck his face, and kept coming,shrouding him in a fragrant fog, tickling his nostrils and burning his eyes.

She sighed like an exasperated child, sighing out every last molecule of smoke.

Then, she was gone.

And he sat there on his lonely bench in the last remnants of her cloud and stared at the sign on the bench her bottom had so recently vacated.

No smoking.