Liz met me at my secont floor apartment which is down near the river. When I answered the door she was, of course, just stubbing out a cigarette and breathing a bit hard. After greeting me, she dropped heavily into the first chair she saw.
"What did I tell you about me and stairs?" she said jokingly. I apologized for not warning her and escorted her out onto the deck, as I saw her reach into her bag for her lighter (unfortunately I live in a non-smoking apartment and I lose part of my deposit if it smells like an ashtray when I move out). We made small talk out on the deck, while I watched her smoke. Now, I've heard a lot of terminology on these boards that I'm not familiar with--double pump, snap drag--come to mind and not being a smoker I don't know what those terms mean, but I can tell you what I saw. She seemed HUNGRY for that cigarette. Every time she would take a deep drag, her eyes would narrow and seem to go a bit unfocused. Usually she would hold the smoke in for about five seconds, but every now and then she would sort of cough the smoke out.
As time went by I noticed that she always seemed to be breathing a little hard and fast, probably because her lungs are coated with a lot of tar and she's destroyed a lot of the air sacs in her lungs. It just makes it more difficult to proccess the oxygen, even when you are sitting around. I think thats what emphasyma is like--you've trashed your lungs so badly, that you're winded just sitting around.
We hopped in my truck and went to grab my waverunner. I store it at a friend's house, because there is no place for it at my apartment complex. I drive a fairly nice rig and I'm meticulous about maintaining it. I think she sensed this and didn't ask to light up in my Tundra. It's about a 20 minute drive to my friend's house, and by the time we got there, she was nervously fingering her pack. As soon as we got out of the truck, she lit up and practicly attacked the unfortunate cigarette that had been at the top of her pack. While I hooked up the trailer and loaded the gear (gas, life jackets, ect), she sat on the tailgate and smoked. She offered to help, but she looked so friggin' hot just sitting there, that I declined. A lot of that gear is either heavy or cumbersome, so I couldn't imagine her being a lot of help. We were only there for about 10 minutes, but I think she went through three smokes! That's what had gotten my attention at the bar: how fast she went through them! I've dated girls that smoked before, but it seemed to be that they would "nurse" the cigarette along for a while. What's average? Six minutes? Eight? I think she killed these things in about three minutes apiece. I made some comment later in the relationship about it and her response was "Well, if the cigarette is just sitting there burning, it's not doing me any good is it?"
When she and I started dating she smoked about 2 1/2 packs a day (more on weekends) which I guess is fairly heavy. I've known other people who smoked around two packs a day and although they certainly weren't athletes, they didn't seem to be as bad off as Liz. The constant heavy labored breathing, the wheeze that became apparent after even the slightest exertion--stuff that you wouldn't even think about (carrying a bag of groceries out to the car, missionary style sex--hell it's not like she's doing much of the work there!), the constant cough, and almost pathalogical aversion to anything that involved moving under her own power. She admitted to me much later that at one point she had even counted the number of steps she had to take in a routine day and then tried to think of ways to shave the number down, but that's a different story.
Anyway, the point I was trying to make here is that I think that because she drags so aggressively on the cigarettes that she does smoke, its almost like she smokes a lot more. Each cigarette does a lot more damage simply because a larger percentage of the smoke winds up in her lungs. Does anyone know if this is true? Post a reply to this message, I would really like to know. Pete? NSF? If you guys have an answer I'd be grateful.

I digress, back to the date. We hopped back into the truck and drove to the boat launch. Once again while I readied the Ski for launch, she lit up and sucked greedily at her marlboro. I warned her not to get to close to the gas cans. Once I had the trailer pulled out and the truck parked we were off! My apartment is right on the river, but the boat launch is probably 4 miles away by water. I generally load all of the gear into the footwells and drive relatively slowly to the beach next to my place, where I began to unload and set up camp. Liz seemed to enjoy the ride, but as soon as we got there, she lit up again! The beach is fairly small, but there is a steep rocky outcrop that seperates it from the walkway in front of my complex. The outcrop is designed to block the walkway from wakes and high water levels. It is also built to be scaleable from the beach. It's maybe 10 feet of elevation at a 40 degree grade. The footing is a bit uneven and awkward because it is made of big chunks of granite cemented together. Liz needed to use the bathroom and so I gave her the key to my place and directed her to the easiest part of the wall. I went about setting up the beach chairs and pulling the extra gear off the Jetski (its a big one, a 3 seater with a 1200cc engine--not that it matters, but its very fast and very fun, I highly reccomend it as a toy everyone should have).
Liz managed to pick her way to the top of the wall after a few minutes, but by the time she got to the top she was pretty well winded...and there was another problem.
"Damn," she called down to me "I left my (huff) smokes in my purse (puff)down by you. Can you bring (cough) them up to me?"
"Why don't you just come down and get them?" I jokingly replied.
She was not amused.
"Well, you don't (huff) have to bring them up, (huff) but would you at least (huff)throw them up here?" She replied, a bit peevishly, I thought. "I'm not going to (puff) smoke in your place, I just thought (cough) that I'd have one while I was (cough) walking up."
I told her that I wasn't worried about that and I bounded up the slope with her smokes in hand. She greatfully accepted them and once again lit up, even though she was still panting from here short climb up the wall. I was entranced and she caught me staring, but misinterpreted my look.
"Don't glare at me like that! I made it perfectly clear when we started going out that I smoke and I don't want to hear about it!" I told her that I was just admiring her in her bikini, which seemed to mollify her. I wasn't even lying: I was admiring her, just for more reasons than I let on.
A few minutes later she returned, smoking another cigarette and picked her way back down the slope. Now we were ready to ride! She grabbed onto me and we took off out accross the water. Like I said before, there is nothing that is more fun than blasting around the river on one of these things. You can carve, spin in circles, jump off of the wakes of other boats, or you can just blast along in a straight line and hope that you don't hit a ripple that sends you into the stratosphere! Just make sure you hold on tight! I could ride that thing all day...Liz unfortunately wasn't quite as enamored with it as I was. She enjoyed the ride at first, but soon began to suggest that I drop her at the shore line and ride by myself because she wasn't used to it. She wasn't exactly winded, but having to clutch onto me tightly (although I was enjoying it!) and more importantly not being able to smoke was getting to her after about twenty minutes.
I dropped her off and rode hard for a while longer, buzzing around and trying to spin myself off the ski and into the river--I have to admit that I crave that adrenaline rush the same way that my Liz craves her nicotine. Hell, smoking is probably safer than some of the stuff I do...my stuff is just instant death instead of a slow decline.
She rode with me a few more times, but for the most part just lay on the beach, smoked, and soaked up the rays. It was one of the first really nice days in early April and I had enjoyed myself immensly. Everything was right: sunshine, water, the Yamaha had just been tuned and practicly ripped my arms off every time I twisted the throttle, and on the beach I had an attracive girl who's addiction fit perfectly with my odd fetish.
She had showed up at my house at around noon, we were out on the water by one thirty. At around five thirty, after one of our rides, she asked how long much longer we were going to be out for. I thought that she was getting tired--not that she'd moved around all that much, or maybe bored, but she actually confessed to running low on cigarettes. Aparently the "waterproof" storage compartment in my Ski is only "water resistant" because a small amount of water had gotten in and ruined what she called her "spare pack". The pack was open and had been about half full. Apparently she sometimes opens another pack if the one she's started isn't immediately available: if its in another room (especially if its upstairs!)or out in her car. She had opened her other pack when we were out on my deck which meant that she'd polished off a pack in about four and a half hours.
She seemed a bit on edge and I asked her what was wrong.
"Well, the rest of my cigarettes are ruined and even if we left now it would still take us an hour to get somewhere where I could buy another pack! I just can't go that long without smoking anymore, I just can't!"
Fortunately there is a deli that is at the end of my complex that sells cigarettes. I told her that and her face brightened. I was ready to go ride while she went to buy her cigarettes, but as I gave her directions, her face fell. My apartment complex is really big, about 300 units. Its more than a quarter mile long, because half the units face the beach, so its only 2 deep. The beach is almost at one end, and the deli is at the other end.
"That sounds so far! Your place is only in the middle and I can't believe how long it took me to walk there. I'm so tired! I haven't done anything like this in years!"
She looked fairly vexed to I offered to go grab the cigarettes for her. She immediately brightened and eagerly thrust money from her purse at me. I trotted up to the store and went inside.
Now, I've had this fetish for quite sometime, but I didn't know a lot about cigarettes at the time (she educated me a bit, because I made a terrible mistake here). I knew she smoked marlboros, and asked the clerk for a pack.
"What kind?" asked the clerk.
"Marlboros!" I replied, thinking about the deficient brain power of most minimum wage earners.
"No, what kind of Marlboros?" replied the clerk, thinking about the deficient brain power of musclebound beach bums.
"Eh?" I replied, witty as always. At this point the clerk listed off six or seven types of Marlboro's, of which none of the terminology meant anything to me.
"I don't know, man. Just give me whatever it is that girls smoke."
So it was with this naive assumption that I returned to the beach armed proudly with a pack of Marlboro Ultra Lights. Something about the pack looked a little different to me but, I wasn't really paying attention. As I approached the beach, I could look down and see Liz futiley flicking her lighter at one of her sodden smokes. As soon as she saw me she dropped the smoke and started trudging up the beach towards me. I knew that she must've really wanted a cigarette because earlier she had been complaining about how sore her legs and ass were from walking around and straddling the jetski. She was blowing pretty good by the time I met up with her, but she reached for the pack eagerly.
When she saw it the look of shock and disappointment was clear as day.
"What are these?" she asked accusingly as she pulled off the cellophane. "Are you trying to get me to quit?" I was confused until she explained the differences in cigarettes to me. "Marlboro reds! Marlboro reds! That's what I smoke. These things," she waved one at me as she lit it, "are like diet pop or near beer! There's not much to them and..." she paused to take what I have heard described on this site as a cheek-hollowing drag "you have to...(draaaag) work too hard to get anything out of them."
She plopped down on the beach blanket and proceeded to go through three of the lights one after another. She was really dragging hard too, and it looked like she was working for every breath. Later in the relationship the confessed that she was really embarrassed about the whole thing...she gets bitchy when something gets in the way of her smoking. She also confessed that she just didn't have the lung power to get everything she needed out of those lights. At that point we decided to put the ski away and go to her place for dinner.