Monday, March 5, 2007

Another admission




As I was driving to work this morning, I thought about Kim.

It seemed possible that I had only imagined her, so long ago did I meet her.

But upon reaching a computer and the Internet, I found her to have been no mere figment of my fantasy.

There really was a Kim, a slender, sexy beauty, though she seems to have faded away over the years.

Kim was a cigarette. A stylish, feminine brand of cigarette. Like Misty, Capri, Satin, Virginia Slims and More. And for me, those names might as well be porn starlets.

You see, nearly a century ago, brilliant PR people for the cigarette companies realized they weren't reachng 50 percent of their possible customer base, i.e., women. And so began the campaign to put a cigarette in every woman's lips, a pack in every purse.

Simultaneously was created the capnolagiac -- the man who found a woman's smoking to be incredibly, intensely erotic.

I can tell you the exact brand -- Tarreytons -- that a neighbor was carrying around one night nearly thirty years ago, when I was just a bitty kid, as she was saying farewell to friends before a move -- and that I followed her around like a puppy hoping she would light up.

I can tell you the exact brand -- Winstons -- that a woman was smoking in front of us on the grass at some horse race thing I went to with my family, when I was almost that same age.

I was seven when I watched Olivia Newton John (in Grease) grind out her cigarette under red heels and then shove those heels into a woozy John Travolta -- and the sight electrified me.

Later, when my family would go shopping at the mall, I would beg to be let go on my own -- and then dart for the smoking bench in hopes of being doused with secondhand smoke from some lovely and thoughtless lady.

As I have grown, the passion has certainly not subsided. A pretty hand extended from a car window in front of me, tapping out cigarette ashes? She might as well be doing a naked lap dance.

The fragrance of smoke on the air as I round a corner somewhere? Everything in me begs for a woman to be holding that cigarette when I espy it.

Just the way I am.

3 comments:

Lance Abel said...

Ahh well, seems you didn't need encouragement (I hadn't refreshed my browser, and I had just given you an encouraging comment on your last post). Good for you!

I read something about this in Sydney Morning Herald's Spectrum newspaper. Australian newspapers tend to steal articles from overseas, so it has probably been written about before. I've heard of trampling - although this involves women standing on and crushing men, not cigarettes.

As a journalist, you could even coin a new word for it (which might make other people with this fetish more comfortable), and you could write it such that you wouldn't have to admit that it is your own fetish to anybody if you're not comfortable with that.

Eastcoastdweller said...

I've called its proponents "smoke lovers" from time to time. Much less technical-sounding than that capno word; and without the connotations of "fetish," which makes me think of weird guys in spandex and blindfolds being whipped by scary-looking women.

To people like me, it's all about knowing that the lady is satisfying an urge and enjoying an intense and slightly rebellious pleasure -- and one that, in sight and aroma, I can enjoy along with her.

And it's about the beauty of a long, clean, white cigarette and the mesmerizing power of a flame. And the smoke dancing in and around her lips and tongue and down inside. And then her exhale --as personal as her handwriting style. And the captivating mark of her lipstick left behind - a crimson kiss, unmistakably feminine and lovely.

If you think about it, a good cigarette break involves aspects and pleasures of almost her entire body -- fingers and lips,respiration and sensation -- even her feet and legs, if she crushes her cigarette out beneath them when she is done.

And it says to the world that she is going to do her own thing and enjoy herself, puritans and health fanatics be damned.

And she is going to savor her moment of pleasure and then grind out the cigarette tip and leave it behind on the ground for some poor do-gooder to pick up with his pointed pole, used up and no longer of interest to her.

Eastcoastdweller said...

Adena, thanks for the comment. I worried about even going as far as to post what I did on this blog, but it's comforting knowing that not everyone who checks this blog out now thinks of me as some crazy freak.

You love smoking and that is fine. Millions of other people enjoy smoking, too, for all its many pleasures. And a distinct group of people like me enjoy that you are enjoying it and would consider it a distinct pleasure to be in the presence of your exhalations. And neither of us is a threat to society.

And probably a lot of other people do secretly believe that smoking does have its glamour -- but they don't dare to admit it these days.