This series will be divided into multiple parts, the next parts are coming soon, stay tuned and subscribed to get alerted when new stories are released.
- The insider (part 1)
- The insider (part 2)
- The insider (part 3)
- The insider (part 4)
- The insider (part 5)
- The insider (part 6)
Angela lay in Rachel’s arms late that night. She had never felt so happy. So alive.
Rachel stroked her hair, watching her with dark, possessive satisfaction. “You’re mine now,” she whispered, lighting another cigarette and passing it to Angela. “Completely.”
Angela took it without hesitation and inhaled deeply, the dual rush of nicotine and Rachel’s touch making her moan softly. The weekend had shattered every last barrier.
The next morning they stayed in bed for hours, smoking and planning.
They both knew the transformation of the National Lung Health Association would not happen overnight. It had to be slow, methodical, and utterly convincing. Over coffee and cigarettes at Rachel’s kitchen table, they laid out the strategy step by step.
“First, we soften the rhetoric,” Rachel said, exhaling a thick plume while Angela nodded, her own Vogue glowing between her lips. “We stop calling tobacco ‘poison’ in every press release. We talk about ‘harm reduction’ and ‘personal responsibility.’ We introduce ‘controversial’ studies — I have contacts who can supply papers questioning the exact long-term impact on moderate smokers. Nothing too extreme at first. Just enough to create doubt.”
Angela took a long, greedy drag, cheeks hollowing, and held the smoke deep before exhaling through her nose. The nicotine made her bold. “Then we shift the focus from eradication to prevention and education. We say we need to understand the addicted smoker’s reality instead of simply condemning them. That opens the door to the big program.”
They spent the entire morning refining the plan. Rachel would leak carefully chosen “scientific” articles to sympathetic board members. Angela would begin using softer language in public statements. They would plant the seed that true advocacy required empathy — and empathy required experience.
The first phase took three weeks.
Angela started small. In the next committee meeting she suggested they “explore a more nuanced approach to harm reduction” instead of outright bans. Rachel backed her with data on “real-world addiction patterns.” A few members looked surprised, but Angela’s reputation carried the room. No one dared openly challenge her.
During their secret alley breaks, Angela smoked with increasing abandon. She now went through ten or twelve cigarettes a day just at work, plus more at home when she could sneak them. Rachel encouraged every greedy inhale, every thick plume. They still kept time to share those long passionate smoky kisses. Angela’s yellow-stained fingers became a constant, secret reminder of how far she had fallen.
At home the fights with Mark became nightly occurrences.
He smelled the smoke on her clothes despite the perfume and gum. He found cigarette butts in the garage. One evening he caught her on the back porch with a lit Vogue and exploded.
“You’re doing this in front of the neighbors now?” he shouted. “The kids are asking questions. Sophie cried yesterday because her friends at school heard rumors that their mother — the anti-smoking president — is smoking. What the hell is happening to you, Angela?”
She took a deep drag, held it, and exhaled toward the sky. “I can’t stop, Mark. I’ve tried. The cravings are too strong. I’m sorry.”
The arguments escalated. Mark accused her of throwing away their life together. The twins withdrew, confused and hurt. Angela began sleeping in the guest room more often, then started driving to Rachel’s apartment after the worst fights. Rachel always welcomed her with open arms, two lit Vogues ready.
By the end of the fourth week they were ready for the big move.
They scheduled a special full-committee meeting on a Friday afternoon. Angela stood at the head of the table, poised and elegant in her navy suit, a fresh Vogue hidden in her handbag for the alley afterward. Rachel sat to her right, looking every bit the dedicated advocate.
“Today I want to propose something radical but necessary,” Angela began, voice steady. “We have spent years fighting tobacco with every tool at our disposal. But recent scientific papers — including one published last month in the Journal of Addiction Studies — suggest that our measures have not fully accounted for the lived reality of deeply addicted smokers. We condemn without truly understanding. To be more effective, we must experience what they experience.”
A ripple of confusion went through the room.
Rachel took over smoothly. “We have partnered with a reputable test brand developing lower-addiction formulations. They have agreed to supply us with a limited program. The idea is simple: every member of the association will receive a structured starter kit and a guided plan. One cigarette per day at first, increasing gradually by one each day. This is not about endorsing smoking. It is about empathy. About understanding the addiction we are fighting so we can fight it better.”
The room erupted in murmurs. Suspicion was immediate.
Dr. Patel leaned forward. “This is highly irregular. Are we seriously suggesting the Lung Association should encourage its own members to smoke?”
Angela smiled calmly. “We have already begun the program ourselves. Rachel and I have been participating for a full week. We wanted to test it personally before bringing it to the group. In addition, it’s been years we have been giving everything we have into the fight against smokers, with some successes but also many failures. I say it’s time we try something new. With Rachel we have not been feeling any effect of the addiction, and it has actually made us creative on how we can try new things to help smokers overcome this nasty habit. In fact, Rachel, let’s show everyone that we have been working on this seriously. ”
She reached into her handbag, produced two unlit Vogues, brought both into her mouth, carefully lit both and handed one to Rachel. In front of the entire stunned committee, both women took long, deliberate drags, cheeks hollowing, then exhaled elegant plumes toward the ceiling. Angela’s inhale was especially deep and sensual, her eyes half-closing for a brief moment in visible pleasure before she composed herself again.
The room fell silent.
Seeing their respected president — the iron fist in the velvet glove — smoking so openly and calmly reassured many. If Angela Harrington believed in the program, it must have merit. A few still protested, but the momentum had shifted. By the end of the meeting the majority agreed to a trial.
Everyone had the weekend to digest what had just happened. On the next Monday, the experiment began. Cartons were distributed. Each member received a starter pack of the “test brand” (in reality Rachel’s high-nicotine Vogue variant) along with a detailed schedule: start with one cigarette per day, and everyday smoke one cigarette more than the previous day, no more, no less.
Angela led the first collective smoking session in the large conference room that afternoon. Twenty members gathered, nervous but curious. Angela stood at the front, elegant and confident, and lit her own Vogue with a steady hand.
“Like this,” she said, demonstrating. She took a long, luxurious drag, held the smoke deep, then exhaled a thick, graceful plume. “Deep into the lungs. Feel the relief. This is what we are fighting — but now we understand it from the inside.”
One by one the members lit up. The room filled with smoke. Angela walked among them, offering quiet encouragement, lighting cigarettes for those who fumbled. Rachel watched from the side, eyes gleaming with dark pleasure as the once fiercely anti-smoking organization took its first collective drag.
What happened next was a mix of many different reactions. For many it was the first time they ever had a cigarette in their mouth. Naturally for them the experience was harsh and they cough hard. Angela reassured them “The first drags might be a bit hard at first, Rachel and I struggled on our first cigarettes. But soon you will get used to it, and you might even start to enjoy it and get a better understanding of why smokers continue to smoke despite the risks. It’s important that you inhale as it is what makes real smokers addicted when they smoke the real cigarettes”.
There were however a few members who, like Angela, were past smokers. Most of them were very reluctant at first to try this cigarette, as they were afraid of the past memories it could bring back. They knew how much they had struggled to quit and were afraid it might lead to relapse. Angela’s insistance was convincing enough, and for the first time in years, former smokers inhaled smoke back in their lungs, feeling a pleasure not completely forgotten.
Angela stood at the head of the long conference table, the faint haze of collective smoke still drifting lazily toward the ceiling. Twenty members of the National Lung Health Association — doctors, researchers, educators, and policy experts — sat in various states of shock, curiosity, and reluctant acceptance. Each of them now held a lit Vogue. The room, once a temple of clean air and uncompromising anti-tobacco rhetoric, had become something entirely different in the space of fifteen minutes.
Angela took a long, elegant drag on her own cigarette, cheeks hollowing gracefully, then exhaled a thick, controlled plume toward the ceiling. “This is what understanding looks like,” she said, voice calm and authoritative. “We are not endorsing smoking. We are experiencing the reality we have spent years fighting. Only then can we truly help those trapped in addiction.”
Rachel, seated to her right, mirrored the action — a deep, sensual inhale followed by a slow, luxurious exhale through her nose. Her honey eyes gleamed with quiet triumph as she watched the room.
The distribution had gone better than either woman had dared hope.
That evening Angela drove home with a fresh carton beside her. The fights with Mark had become unbearable. He refused to accept her new reality. The twins avoided her. After one particularly vicious argument on the back porch — Mark shouting, Angela chain-smoking through it — she packed an overnight bag.
“I’m staying at a friend’s house tonight, I don’t know when I will come back” she told him coldly. “I need space from this constant rejection.”
Without waiting for an answer from Mark, she drove straight to Rachel’s apartment.
As soon as Angela arrived at Rachel’s place, Rachel pulled Angela close and kissed her deeply, the taste of fresh smoke still strong on both their tongues.
“They actually did it,” Rachel whispered against her lips, voice husky. “Twenty cartons handed out. Twenty people who looked up to you as the ultimate anti-smoking icon just lit their first cigarettes because you told them to.”
Angela’s hands trembled as she accepted the fresh Vogue Rachel offered. She lit it from the glowing tip of Rachel’s own and took an enormous drag, holding the smoke deep while her eyes fluttered shut in pleasure. When she finally exhaled, the plume was thick and luxurious.
“I can’t believe how easily they followed,” she said, voice already rougher from the day’s smoking. “Dr. Patel looked so hesitant at first, but the moment he saw me inhale… he did it without another word. Susan from education actually smiled after her second drag. They trust us that much.”
Rachel lit another for herself and passed it to Angela so they each had one in each hand — four cigarettes burning at once between them. “This is only the beginning. Tomorrow we follow up individually. Gentle check-ins. Ask how the first cigarette felt, if they experienced any relief, if they’re curious about the next step in the schedule. We plant the idea that this is scientific empathy, not endorsement. By next week half of them will be looking forward to their next cigarettes.”
Angela took two rapid, greedy drags on one cigarette, then switched to the other, moaning softly. The nicotine rush made her bold. “I want to smoke openly at the office soon. I need it during the day. But we have to be careful. The plan has to stay gradual.”
They spent the next hour refining the strategy, smoking continuously. They would circulate the recent “controversial” paper Rachel had fabricated through back channels, emphasizing that anti-tobacco policies had ignored the lived experience of addicts. They would slowly shift public messaging from “eradication” to “harm reduction and understanding.”
They moved to the bedroom soon after. The night became a long, passionate celebration of their success and their shared addiction. They made love slowly at first, bodies pressed together while cigarettes burned in ashtrays on both nightstands. Angela smoked almost constantly, lighting one from the end of the last, moaning with every deep inhale as Rachel kissed her neck, her breasts, the sensitive skin between her thighs. They shared smoky kisses for hours — deep, open-mouthed, the taste of menthol and nicotine passing between them while their hands explored.
Rachel praised her endlessly. “You were magnificent today,” she whispered between drags, exhaling into Angela’s mouth. “Watching you teach them how to smoke properly… I’ve never been more turned on.”
Angela felt more desired, more alive, more completely herself than she ever had in her old life. They slept in short, exhausted bursts, waking to make love again or simply to smoke side by side, bodies slick with sweat, ashtrays overflowing.
The corruption of the National Lung Health Association — and of Angela Harrington herself — was well underway.
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