cigarette daydreams

"I feel like I'm corrupting my younger sister" he leans against the brick gas station, one jeaned leg and conversed foot propped against it, a cowboy pose if she'd ever seen one.

"Ugh, don't fucking say that -- gross" She leans forward, plucking the offering of the cigarette out of his long pale fingers. Her eyes meeting his as she does so. Sticking the fits into her slightly parted mouth, raising her dark eyebrows slightly. He leans forward, remaining in his pose, and cups his hand around the edge and lights its. 1, 2, 3 clicks before the slightly sweet and sour smell of nicotine starts to burn. She takes a deep inhale and blows out through her nose, he mirrors her, their smoke twirling and dancing together around their a heads, a waltz that's reminiscent of another life.

"So you wanna sleep with your sister?" Her eyes blaze under dark lashes, her cigarette filled lips turning slightly as his furrowed brows shoot up. Those wide eyes alight with shock.

"God no, why do you have to be so crude?"

He takes another drag, eyeing her as he waits for her witty response. She's all soft lines and curves, agile femininity about her that at times, she tries to hide. Her dark hair pulled messily at the base of her neck, her black zip up falling off her to reveal tanned shoulders, her jeans dark and fitted. She's leaning against the wall next to him, taking puff after puff, after puff of her cigarette, her lip gloss staining the edge.

"Comparing me to your sister was crude" She scoffs,, turning her head to look at him. All angles and marble harsh lines, one of those people and faces that look antique, as if you could put them in any time and they would fit right in. She watched as his cheshire mouth curved up.

"It wasn't as much as a comparison as I was stating, I feel like I'm corrupting you" He gestured to his cigarette lazily placed in his mouth and her dangling in the "v" of her fingers.

"You don't have the power to corrupt me, just the power to break my heart, how cliché" she took a long drag, winked and let out a small laugh.

To the outside bystander it would like like two people. A girl and a boy, sharing a pack of cigarettes. To the gods watching and an empath who was really looking, they would realize it wasn't just a pack of cigarettes they were sharing. It was secrets, stolen glances, quips and turns of phrases, memories and hopes for the future. Long nights and early mornings, arguments that ended and started as quick as they came. Sharp words and soft letters. A crafting of a day dream of a life lost in time. As the evening turns to dusk, as the lights of the gas station flicker on and the sounds of a Friday night start to commence, becoming the soundtrack to their scene, they smoke their way through the pack. The smoke above their heads, moving and flirting, interlocking and softly spelling out "in another life".

***

author's note:

I was down bad for a nicotine hit for a while so there seems to be a lot of cigarette's lately. Though the metaphor of a cigarette, of all it can or cannot be, is appealing to me. The intimacy of smoking with someone, the conversations that can happen, and the scenes that play out are always so intriguing. Cigarettes are a motif in my stories, marked by my childhood and the smells that come with them. It's something I don't even realize is creeping it's way into my writing until I realize they are all tobacco colored. Another short and sweet scene where we know a little but not too much, causing the reader to speculate a lot of the two characters relationship, leaving much of it to interpretation, which dare I say, the characters are doing themselves.