This is the sixth part of the series, more parts are coming soon stay tuned!
- The smoking machine (part 1)
- The smoking machine (part 2)
- The smoking machine (part 3)
- The smoking machine (part 4)
- The smoking machine (part 5)
Allisson stood up, still slightly nauseous, still strangely on edge, and walked downstairs without understanding that the first quiet thread of addiction had already begun to wrap around her.
The next few days blurred into a fog of irritation she could not explain. Every morning she woke with the same fuzzy head and that sour twist in her stomach. Her hands shook when she brushed her teeth. She felt restless, like her skin was too tight. She snapped at Leslie for leaving the machine humming too loud. She snapped at her mother for the overflowing ashtrays. She even snapped at Daniel when he offered her breakfast with a gentle smile. “I’m fine,” she kept saying, but she wasn’t. The tension built like a knot in her chest that pulled tighter every hour.
Emma and Leslie kept the plan going. Every night after Allisson fell into a deep, exhausted sleep, they slipped into the bedroom. The spare mask went over her face with practiced care. The machine hummed on its highest setting, pumping steady, warm smoke into her lungs while she dreamed. Leslie would sometimes stay a few extra minutes, watching her sister’s chest rise and fall, a small satisfied smile on her lips. Emma felt the familiar mix of guilt and dark thrill, but the guilt grew quieter each night. “She needs this,” she would rasp to Leslie as they left the room. “She just doesn’t know it yet.”
By the fourth morning Allisson was exploding over nothing. She came downstairs to find Leslie already on the couch, mask sealed tight, a Marlboro Menthol 100 burning between her fingers while she scrolled her phone. The haze in the living room was thicker than usual. Allisson’s voice cracked with anger. “Can you at least open a window? Some of us are trying to breathe in this house!”
Leslie lifted the mask just enough to take a long drag, then blew the smoke toward her sister. “Breathe this instead. Might actually help you chill out.”
Allisson slammed her backpack on the table. “I said no! I’m not like you. I’m never going to be like you.” She stormed back upstairs, heart pounding, that strange edgy feeling worse than ever. She did not know why her hands would not stop shaking or why her stomach kept rolling like she needed something she could not name.
The nightly mask sessions continued. Allisson slept through them, but her body did not. The low-dose nicotine seeped in night after night, building slowly, quietly. Her temper grew shorter. She argued with Leslie over who left the fan on. She snapped at Emma when her mother asked, in that rough, loving voice, if she wanted to try just one little puff to calm down. “Stop pushing me!” Allisson yelled one evening, voice cracking. “I’m not weak like you two!”
Emma only watched her with sad, understanding eyes and took another drag on her own Marlboro Menthol 100. “You’re not weak, baby. You’re fighting something you don’t have to fight.”
By the end of the second week the explosions happened every day. Allisson would come home from school already tense, walk into the permanent haze, and lose it. Leslie would be lounging with her machine running and three cigarettes going at once, yellow fingers tapping ash. “You look like you’re about to explode again,” Leslie would say with a smirk. Allisson would scream back that the house was disgusting, that she could not study, that she could not even think straight anymore. Then she would storm off to her room, slam the door, and lie on her bed with her fists clenched, that restless, nauseous feeling gnawing at her harder than ever. She still had no idea the mask had been on her face every single night.
One afternoon it all broke.
Allisson came downstairs after another bad day at school. Her head throbbed. Her stomach churned. She felt desperate in a way she could not explain, like every nerve was screaming for relief she did not understand. Emma was in the kitchen, mask resting on her chest, a fresh Marlboro Menthol 100 burning between her yellow-stained fingers. Leslie sat at the table with her own machine humming, smoke pouring steadily into her lungs.
Emma looked at her daughter and spoke softly, voice raspy and kind. “You look like you’re about to snap, honey. Just try one cigarette. It will calm you down. I promise.”
Allisson’s face flushed hot with anger. “No! I told you a thousand times! I’m not doing this. I’m not becoming some addicted mess like you and Leslie!” Her voice rose, shaking. “You keep pushing and pushing and I—”
She stopped. The words caught in her throat. That desperate, edgy feeling surged stronger than ever. Her hands trembled visibly. Her mouth felt dry. Something inside her was screaming for the thing she had sworn she would never touch. She hated herself for it, but the need was suddenly louder than the anger.
Emma took a slow drag on her cigarette, then held it out toward Allisson’s lips. The glowing tip hovered just inches from her daughter’s mouth. “Just one drag, baby. No one has to know. It’s only us here.”
Allisson stared at the cigarette. Her heart hammered. She was reluctant, furious, ashamed. She felt forced, like her mother was taking the choice away from her. “Mom… don’t,” she whispered, but her body leaned forward anyway. Her lips parted. She closed them around the filter.
The first touch of the menthol filter against her tongue was strange and intimate. It tasted cool and chemical, nothing like she expected. She hesitated, eyes wide, then took a small, cautious drag. The smoke slid into her mouth, cool at first, then warmer as she inhaled. She pulled it down into her lungs.
The nicotine hit her like a sudden wave.
Her eyes fluttered. A rush flooded her bloodstream, sharp and sweet and impossibly good. The tension in her chest loosened instantly. The nausea faded. The edgy restlessness melted into warm relief. Without thinking she took another drag—this one deeper, longer. She pulled hard, cheeks hollowing, filling her lungs until they burned pleasantly. The smoke felt thick and perfect. She held it, then exhaled a thick plume through her nose, moaning softly without meaning to.
Emma’s raspy voice was gentle. “That’s it, baby. Take as much as you need.”
Allisson did. She started dragging faster, massive pulls that made the ember glow bright orange. She inhaled huge, greedy lungfuls, almost without breathing between them. The cigarette burned down quickly. She sucked on it like she had been starving for years, the filter growing hot against her lips. Thick clouds poured from her mouth and nose with every exhale. Her head swam with the head-rush. Her body sagged against the counter, knees weak with sudden pleasure. The guilt was there, sharp and burning, but the relief was stronger. She felt calm for the first time in weeks.
She smoked the entire cigarette in under two minutes, almost without pausing. When the filter burned down to her fingers she finally pulled it away, staring at the stub in disbelief. A long, shaky plume drifted from her lips.
Emma watched her with dark, loving eyes. “Feel better?”
Allisson’s voice came out hoarse. “I… I didn’t want to. You made me.” She coughed once, a small dry sound, but there was no real anger left in it. The nicotine still hummed in her blood, warm and soothing. She felt the truth rising in her throat and tried to push it down, clinging to the last scraps of her anti-smoking posture. “I don’t need it. I just… it helped a little. That’s all. Don’t think this means I’m going to start smoking like you two. I’m not.”
Leslie, still masked on the couch, laughed softly behind the silicone. “Sure, sis. Whatever you say.”
Emma reached out and brushed a strand of hair from Allisson’s face, her yellow fingers gentle. “You don’t have to admit everything at once, baby. But your body already knows.”
Allisson stood there, cheeks flushed, the taste of menthol and tobacco still thick on her tongue. The desperate edge was gone, replaced by a quiet, shameful craving she refused to name out loud. She turned away quickly, grabbed her backpack, and headed for the stairs, trying to hold onto the image of the perfect, healthy girl she had always been.
But the first cigarette had already changed everything.
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