Smoking Will Kill You

SMOKING WILL KILL YOU He said “Smoking will kill you!” catching the faint smell, scanning for ash trays as he entered her apartment, ready to accept months of miscalculation of red lips and laughter, dark hair and desire, intellect and intrigue and a hint of tobacco smell that was surely the fine residue of her colleagues, family or friends “I do not smoke!” she said, mildly insulted “Yes, I have cigarettes and a lighter but I don’t take them to work! I don’t take them to the gym or on my early morning run, not to chorale practice or to visit with my friends, never to the market or to the plaza nearby, nor the home of my parents or to local restaurants! But every evening after dinner I have a single cigarette with a glass of good red wine!” “And what do you do after that?” he asked with simmering sarcasm, the rhythm of her high heels gliding across the kitchen to a samba he couldn’t hear “I read fascinating books and listen to my music!” she said, pouring two glasses of Chilean carmenere, fingering her lighter, reaching into her purse for that flat golden case “But I’ve decided that I want you, and for all the right reasons! So tonight, if you behave, I’ll put the reading aside”! “I am not one of your privileges” he softly suggested, his bushy black beard almost masking the smile on his mahogany face “And I am not a problem to be solved” she responded, handing him his wine, her playful green eyes shining in the flame of a small golden lighter and the soft glowing promise of a long life together!