This is the seventh 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)
- The smoking machine (part 6)
Allisson lay in bed that night with the taste of menthol and tobacco still thick on her tongue. Shame burned in her chest like a fresh coal. She had let her mother hold the cigarette to her lips. She had closed her mouth around the filter. She had dragged on it—first small and reluctant, then huge and greedy, inhaling until her lungs felt full and heavy. The rush had been instant and perfect. For those few minutes every tight, nauseous, edgy feeling had simply vanished. The knot in her stomach had loosened. The restlessness in her hands had stopped. She had felt calm, warm, almost happy.
She hated herself for it.
“I fell right into their trap,” she whispered to the dark ceiling. “One cigarette and my body already wants more.” She rolled onto her side, fists clenched under the pillow. The memory of those massive drags kept replaying—how the smoke had slid deep, how the nicotine had flooded her blood, how she had moaned without meaning to. She admitted it to herself in the quiet: that single cigarette had turned off the intense cravings that had been building for weeks. But that only made her more determined. She was not going to become like them. She would fight this. She would never touch another cigarette again. She would stay the healthy one, the strong one, the girl who refused to let the house win.
Downstairs, Emma and Leslie sat together in the hazy living room, both with masks on, both smoking. Leslie pulled hers down just enough to speak and take a drag on her cigarette. “She took the whole thing in two minutes, Mom. You saw her. She needs it bad.”
Emma took a long drag on her Marlboro Menthol 100, exhaled slowly through her nose. “I know. But she’s still fighting. If we keep putting the mask on her at night she might figure it out and hate us for it. We stop tonight. No more secret sessions. Let her feel the full withdrawal. She’ll come to us when she can’t take it anymore.”
Leslie smiled behind her mask and nodded. “Good. She’ll break faster if she suffers for real.”
They left the spare machine in the drawer and went to bed.
The next day was hell for Allisson.
She woke up already tense, hands shaking again, stomach rolling with that same sour nausea. The house felt thicker, the smoke heavier. Leslie was on the couch with her machine running full blast, chain-smoking Marlboro Menthol 100s and blowing plumes toward the ceiling. Allisson snapped at her the second she saw it. “Do you have to do that right where I eat breakfast?” Leslie just laughed and took another drag. Allisson slammed her cereal bowl down and stormed out.
At school everything grated on her. Her hands would not stop trembling when she tried to write notes. Her head throbbed. She snapped at a teacher for no reason and got sent to the hallway. The restlessness grew worse with every hour. By the time she got home she was a live wire. Leslie had skipped school again and was sprawled on the couch, mask sealed tight, three cigarettes burning in the ashtray while the machine hummed. The smell hit Allisson like a wall. She exploded. “This house is disgusting! I can’t even breathe!” She yelled at her mother for leaving ashtrays everywhere, at her father for smiling like nothing was wrong, at Leslie for existing. Every small thing set her off. She felt like she was coming apart and she still did not understand why.
That night she went to bed early, exhausted and furious with herself. She lay there for over an hour, wide awake, body tense and wired. Every muscle felt tight. Her mind would not slow down. She kept seeing the glowing tip of her mother’s cigarette, kept remembering how good that first real inhale had felt. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to push the memory away. “I’m not weak,” she whispered. “I’m not.” Finally, sometime after midnight, sheer exhaustion pulled her under.
Sleep was broken and ugly. Nightmares flashed through her head—smoke filling her lungs, her mother holding cigarettes to her mouth, Leslie laughing while she coughed and coughed. She woke up every thirty minutes, sweating, heart racing, that same restless feeling worse than ever. At 3 a.m. she sat up in bed, chest tight, hands shaking so badly she could barely grip the sheets. Her whole body hurt. Her stomach churned. Her head pounded. The cravings she had tried to ignore all day were now screaming at her. All she could think about were those huge drags she had taken on her mom’s cigarette—the way the smoke had poured in, the instant relief, the warm rush that had made everything quiet.
She fought it for a full hour. She paced the room. She drank water. She told herself over and over that she was stronger than this. But her brain finally switched off. The need took over.
Allisson walked out of the bedroom in her pajamas, bare feet silent on the carpet. The living room was dark except for the faint glow of the streetlight through the curtains. The permanent haze still hung in the air. She moved like someone in a trance, eyes scanning the coffee table, the side tables, the kitchen counter. Open packs of Marlboro Menthol 100s lay everywhere—Leslie and her mother never put them away. She grabbed one. Her fingers trembled as she shook out a cigarette. She found a lighter beside an overflowing ashtray.
She lit it.
The flame caught the tip and the first long drag was enormous. She pulled hard, cheeks hollowing, filling her lungs until they burned. The menthol hit cool and sharp, then the nicotine rush slammed into her blood like a wave. Her eyes fluttered shut. A soft, needy moan escaped her lips. The tension in her chest broke instantly. The nausea vanished. The edgy restlessness melted into pure, warm relief. She held the smoke deep, then exhaled a thick plume through her nose, the same way she had seen her mother and sister do a thousand times.
She took another drag right away—deeper, greedier. The ember glowed bright orange. She inhaled huge lungfuls, almost without breathing between them, sucking the smoke down like she had been starving for it. The cigarette burned down fast. She destroyed it in under two minutes, filter hot against her fingers. Without thinking she reached for another.
She chain-smoked five more, one after another, lighting each from the glowing end of the last. Each drag was massive, desperate, perfect. Thick clouds poured from her mouth and nose with every exhale. Her head swam with pleasure. Her body sagged against the couch, knees weak. The relief was so complete it felt almost erotic—every nerve singing, every tight muscle loosening. She moaned softly between drags, eyes half-closed, lost in the ritual she had sworn she would never do. The shame was still there, but it was drowned under wave after wave of nicotine bliss.
When the sixth cigarette burned down she finally sat back, chest rising and falling. She felt calm. She felt whole. She had given in completely.
Allisson stood up, cigarette still burning between her fingers, and walked down the hallway. She stopped at her mother’s bedroom door and knocked softly.
Emma’s raspy voice came through the door, sleepy but warm. “Baby? What’s wrong?”
Allisson opened the door. She stood there in the doorway, smoking openly, the cigarette glowing in the dark. Smoke drifted from her lips as she spoke, voice small and hoarse.
“Mom… I can’t sleep. My body won’t let me. Can you… can you give me one of the spare machines? Please. I just need to fall back to sleep.”
Emma sat up slowly, her own mask resting on the nightstand, Daniel stirring beside her. She looked at her daughter—standing there with a Marlboro Menthol 100 burning between her fingers, cheeks still flushed from the chain-smoking, eyes full of shame and relief at the same time—and felt a deep, dark satisfaction settle in her chest.
She smiled gently, voice rough with years of smoke.
“Of course, baby. Come here. Let’s get you set up.”
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