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 Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, Part 7

   I had to catch my breath for a few minutes while Moira stared at me,
sucking absentmindedly on yet another cigarette.  I couldn't help counting
the butts in the ashtray.  She had just lit her fifth cigarette in little
more than an hour.  I felt like banging my head against the wall.  Right
over there sat the sexiest woman on earth and a smoker beyond my dreams,
questioning me on my fetish!

   "Err, well, I did ask for it, I guess." She replied.  "OK, I had enough
of this.  Poor hubby.  I suppose it was never easy for you.  I don't know
right now what to think.  I mean, all I've ever been taught would make me
run away screaming.  Still, you are a potz for never telling me.  We
could've split before getting really involved, nobody hurt, or we could've
worked it out somehow.  I would have smoked for you, if that's what you've
missed.  "

   "But don't you see?  I fell in love with you that very night we met. 
And I don't mean because you have the most fantastic boobs anybody could
dream of, or legs to kill for, let alone a face so beautiful I can't even
find words for it.  And, sh, don't say anything, I'm not paying you empty
compliments, I DO mean every word.  But there was much more to it.  When we
first touched, it felt like water sizzling on a hot stone, literally, or
like you were charged with static electricity.  When I heard your voice, I
was done, enchanted, bewitched, done in.  Don't you remember how we talked
till dawn?  How could I even think of asking you to do something so
unhealthy and hazardous, just for the benefit of my twisted sexuality? 
Besides, hadn't it been for that damn trip to China, I know we could've
made it.  We had just started to finally have better and hotter sex.  I
admit, I hadn't been very good at it in the beginning, not because you
weren't smoking, but because I was so afraid I wasn't up the task to
satisfy a sex goddess like you.  I was all but virgin when I met you. 
Well, obviously I was right to be afraid and I haven't been able to give
you what you needed.  If only I had had more time!"

   "Oh my God, oh my GOD," she started shouting.  "Do you potz really
believe all that shit?  Do you think I went slutty because you couldn't
`give it to me properly?  How little you know about women!  I was perfectly
content with our sex life and if I do indeed think differently about that
now, it's because somebody kidnapped you and sent me back a wild stud
instead.  I admit that after yesterday I wouldn't really settle for your
old self any more, even if I had to smoke foot long stinky cigars to get
you going.  I went wild because I was so mad at you for letting me alone
over Christmas.  It was revenge and not a quest for sexual satisfaction.

   Well, that's how it started anyway.  Once it happened, it just didn't
seem worth it any more.  I had crossed the line, whether once or a dozen
times really didn't seem to matter that much.  Whether I screwed that guy
just once, drunken to the point I hardly knew what was happening, or more
often, didn't seem to make that much of a difference any more.  Besides, I
know how stupid it sounds, but I agreed to meet him again, because I wanted
to get something out of it too.  And then, well it got somehow out of hand.
Whenever I went for a drink with the girls I ended up smoking too much,
drinking even more, up to the point I felt so, I dunno, slutty, it just
seemed I had to punish myself by letting the next guy jump me.  Can you
believe it?  I don't even remember most of the times I've been fucked.  I
don't think I would recognize any of the guys if I saw one on the street,
which I probably did anyway.  Only Friday, when you came home, that was
different.  I wanted just for once to do it without being drunk, to
humiliate myself in a way.  I have no idea what might have happened if you
hadn't turned up, but I believe I couldn't have slept with you for shame. I
would've told you anyway and got kicked out of your life."

   I stood there petrified.  She had volunteered all I didn't want to know.
Without looking at her I asked.

   "So now I know it's been even worse than I thought.  Just one thing.  Do
I know that guy at the Christmas party?"

   I knew a few coworkers of Moira and a horrible thought crossed my mind.
What if?  Her answer confirmed my worst fear and brought back my worst
nightmare

   "It was Karl." She whispered.

   She did know that this made her misconduct worse, but how hard the blow
was she couldn't possibly guess, unless Karl himself had boasted about it.
But that wasn't very probable.

   "Oh, fuck.  Of all the people in the world...." I replied, not much
louder than she had.

   She was crying now, though she was yet to learn that it wasn't just
about having screwed a friend.  Friend indeed!  I was so crushed, I felt my
own eyes water.

   "You don't know what you did!  But then, well, you couldn't know." I
said sternly, as if suddenly drained of all emotions.  "But I'll tell you,
so you can see what you did to me."

   I shifted to a more comfortable position on the couch and once again
staring at the ceiling, I told her.

   "Karl and I go back a long time.  We know each other since junior high
school.  We've always been friends and went through a lot together, though
later, toward the end of high school and during college, when shared a room
for a while, Karl had his own problems, girls mostly.  Also he had started
smoking early, while I remained a slob, a geeky, lanky beanpole.  He always
had the looks and ever since we turned sixteen, he always had a girl or two
on his hands, literally.  He claimed he got laid for the first time when he
was thirteen, but even if he lied about that, I saw him with my own eyes at
sixteen with a waitress of a diner, in a dark parking lot.  I admired and
envied him.  He was straight, he was good lucking and he had lots of sex. I
had nothing."

   I shifted again, feeling the tension rise in me, as always when I
thought of those days.

   "When I finally found out that given the right attitude I wasn't an
entirely hopeless case, I started dating too.  That was in our first year
in college.  After a few disappointing attempts, I met Janice.  She was a
petite blonde and quite buxom, a bit like you, but smaller, sort of a
miniature edition of you.  Janice seemed genuinely interested in me and of
course she was a smoker.  Not a very heavy one, but she did smoke often
when we where together after I managed to convince her I really didn't
mind. She smoked Mores, those long brown ones, looking a bit like thin
cigars, though they were just filter cigarettes.  It was fun to watch her
and though I didn't really dare to try kinky things like kissing her while
she smoked, it was nice.  Our relationship took a while to develop, mainly
because I was too shy at first to do anything but hold her hand during the
first few dates.  Only later I dared kiss her and even though she seemed to
respond with equal passion, I didn't go beyond that for some time.  We have
gotten as far to touch each other's bare skin, but clothes on, more or
less, and I had still to move my hands lower than her navel.  And than it
all exploded into my face."

   I had to catch my breath for a while and glanced at Moira.  She sat
upright in her chair, frozen, oblivious of the cigarette between her
fingers that had burned down to filter, a long string of ashes threatening
to fall down.  However, I hardly registered all that and turned my eyes
back to the ceiling.

   "On Wednesdays I usually had courses till eight in the evening, but on
that particular day they had been cancelled, so I returned to our dorm
early in the afternoon.  My first thought when I heard those unmistakable
noises through the door, was that Karl had one of his broads with him.  But
you can't imagine how I felt when I opened the door.  There was Janice,
riding Karl, while she clenched a big cigar between her teeth, thick smoke
pouring from her nostrils.  I'll never forget that sight and how it felt,
for as long as I live.  They ignored me for a while, but then Janice must
have finally noticed me.  She looked up and her jaw fell, the cigar
dropping on Karl's chest and burning him.  You must have seen the scar on
his chest."

   Again I stopped, the pain popping up once again, as it always did,
whenever something reminded me of that day.  Janice later on had actually
married Karl and as he had hired with the same company Moira was with, he
and Janice lived not so far away.  I had seen her once in a while at the
mall or up town, but we never met.  I just noticed that she had gained some
weight over the years since college, not to her disadvantage though.  She
wasn't anywhere as regal as my Moira, but in her own petite way, still very
sexy.  I still thought with regret that it wouldn't have been the worst
thing to have a wife like her.  Before I went to China, Moira wasn't
smoking.  Janice on the other hand hadn't quit and I had seen her smoking
outside the mall.

   "Anyway, it was on of those moments when the sky drops on your head.  I
hope you have never been through anything like that." I went on with my
story.  "One might think my mind would have gone blank with shock, but
instead the wheels in my head started spinning.  Before either of them
moved, I had already added two and two.

   I remembered that our room had always reeked of cigar smoke on Wednesday
nights, at least since a few weeks ago.  When I had pestered Karl about
that, he had been unusually evasive and had mumbled something about a poker
round.  It had struck me as odd that this supposed poker round had always
been over when I got home around eight thirty.  On top of it, though Karl
was quite messy and never bothered much to clean the room, I never saw a
card deck, no stray chairs or overflowing ashtrays nor any other hint to
this strange poker round.

   Now it all made sense.  The cigar smoker had been nobody else but
Janice, fucking Karl.  Funny enough, I wasn't really mad at Janice, by far
not as much as I now hated Karl for screwing my girlfriend and for doing
things with her I had dreamt of, craved for, but had never dared ask.  It
may have been my own fault.  If I had been more daring with Janice, who
knows?  So maybe I deserved no better.  To my eyes it had been mainly Karl
who had ruined our friendship, it was HIS treason that hurt the most."

   I heard Moira gasp with revelation and she whispered:

   "And now it's been a deja vue.  God, how could I be so stupid!" Moira
shouted out.

   I fell silent for a while.  Then something occurred to me, in itself of
little importance, hadn't it been for my little peculiarity.

   "Did he..." I almost couldn't spill it out, but I braced myself.  How
could it possible get worse?  "Did you, I mean, did he ask you to smoke a
cigar too?"

   "Could that make it worse?" she asked rhetorically.  "But, well, yes he
did and no I didn't do it."

   That came as relief somehow, though I couldn't be one hundred percent
sure.  Maybe she lied, to spare my feelings.

   "Thank You." I replied.

   That made her give a bitter laugh.

   "What for?  It's bad enough as it is."

   "True." I said sternly and asked: "Now what?  More confessions?"

   "Do you have more in store for me?  A little Chinese intermezzo?  I
couldn't possibly be cross at you for that anyway, so you can as well spill
it out."

   "Don't you know me better than that?" I asked back.

   "Sorry, you're right, you're the, err, saint, in the family, I forgot.
OK, I need a break, maybe some fresh air.  I told you all there is anyway."

   "Do you want me to join you outside?  We can take a walk together if you
want." I asked.

   "Would you be mad at me if told you I want to be alone for a while?"

   "No, suit yourself.  It doesn't matter anyway.  I'm going to sleep."

   I hated the thought of her wandering around alone, as I had always loved
our long walks together, but I realized it would be stupid to press myself
upon her.  I was so spent anyway, I'd probably collapsed before I'd have
reached the nearest corner.