It was Kitty's first week of two as a school trainee at Harry's, the downtown big lunch restaurant. All school pupils did two weeks at a working place to learn a bit of working life. Some of her 14-15 year old class mates were in shops, some in offices, some like her in restaurants and so on.
The waitresses hesitated in the beginning about offering her a light during the quick smoke breaks, but they soon, smiling, reminded each other that they had started at Kitty's age or even earlier.
All of the waitresses smoked like chimneys, and Kitty felt inspired by their technique. She tried to watch without them noticing. She studied their nostril exhales, their triple pumps, everything. And she studied Martha's smoker's cough. She was a quiet, a bit shy, older waitress, probably around 50 years. She wasn't really over-weight, she was just big without being fat. First, Kitty thought she was boring and arrogant, before she realized she simply wasn't the kind that talked a lot and made jokes. She was just herself. But she had a smoker's cough. She often raised her left hand, cupped it slightly, let it cover her mouth and let a wheezing, heavy double-hack hit the palm and the inside of the fingers. Just one such double and maybe once per 7 minutes, Kitty estimated. She couldn't figure out why she was noticing such details as the frequency and exactly how Martha used her hand.
She tried to get to learn Martha - took all opportunities to talk to her. She wished she had the guts to tell Martha that she would like her to teach her all she knew about smoking - brands, style, everything. But it was an impossible matter to bring up even with someone she knew or with someone who was easy to talk to. Martha wasn't. The best Martha did when Kitty tried to chat was producing a slight, kind, short smile, but usually the woman would just reply shortly without changing her face.
After Martha had been on a short sick leave, she returned with a chesty cough. She often stepped outside the dining room and coughed. It was like her usual smoker's cough - that double-hack - but she made a sequence of such doubles of between 10 and 25 each time she got a coughing fit, Kitty noticed when watching from behind a big plant, a half-closed door or through a narrow door opening.
Because she couldn't keep herself from studying. She had an eye on Martha all the time. Every time Martha made her famous double, Kitty's heart started to beat. If she just made one or two, it was just something for the moment, and she could keep on working. But if there was a third, the woman would stiffen with her hand over her mouth, look forward out in the air while trying to take control over her own chest, cough again, walk outside or downstairs where the stores were, and remain there until the coughing fit was over. She would then return, often with a red face though not always.
The third day, Kitty walked downstairs to follow Martha. It was like if a magnet pulled her downstairs. She saw the woman start to cough. One double. After 30 seconds, a new double. Martha stopped her work and she stood there, still. A new double. Martha started to walk towards the stairs with her left hand cupped over her mouth. A new double while walking downstairs. She reached the basement floor. A double, followed by a second. Kitty was half downstairs.
Martha made double hacks, one after another. Kitty walked over to her, or rather was pulled there by an invisible force. She put her hand on Martha's back. Martha glanced at her and went on coughing. Kitty realized she had to say something. "Are you OK, Martha?", she said. The woman shook her head and made more doubles. The last one sounded like she was turning inside out and her face turned red.
"Is that... a smoker's cough, Martha?" Kitty asked.
She know the question was ingenious and something she
just said to say anything.
"I have a smoker's cough, always", Martha rasped
and cleared her throat, "but I've had a cold".
"What's your smoker's cough like, then", Kitty
asked, again knowing it was a somewhat silly question.
"I cough a lot every morning, and quite a bit in
the evenings, too", Martha replied.
Her coughing fit was over and she was about to return to work upstairs. Kitty was eager to stop her. She took her pack of cigarettes and offered Martha one. Martha made one of her light, quick smiles and said no thanks, but to Kitty's relief took her own pack, picked a cigarette, offered Kitty light after lighting for herself.
Kitty was sure she was turning crazy. The invisible power
that had brought her down after Martha just to get close to
the woman's coughing fit now controlled her voice also.
"I would so much love to get some smoke from your
lungs, Martha. Have you ever tried it?"
"Tried what?" Martha just sounded uninterested, not
surprised. "You inhale lots of smoke down to the bottom
of your big, black lungs, enjoy it for a while, then
you blow the smoke into my mouth while I suck it down."
"Never heard of it?", she added like if it was something
girls at her own age did every day. "Never", Martha said
shortly. She just took another drag, made it a double and
even triple drag and Kitty felt both disappointed and
stupid. She was looking away, thinking of anything else
to talk about when Martha tapped her on the shoulder.
The woman was leaning forward with her mouth closed and
Kitty almost didn't understand her dream was coming true.
Martha blow a tight lip stream - she never did that other times, she usually nose exhaled or mix exhaled, simply just breathed the smoke out - and Kitty inhaled and inhaled. She had never felt such a lovely smoke in her mouth and inside her chest as this smoke that Martha's 50 year old lungs first had filtered.
Martha turned away and did a suppressed double hack with her mouth closed. Her nostrils pumped some smoke out. Kitty lost control completely and put her cupped hand over Martha's mouth. Martha understood the girl had some unusual habits but didn't seem to bother at all. She coughed two doubles in Kitty's hand. Kitty took her hand back and put it over her nose to smell Martha's smoky cough.
"We must do some work now", Martha said shortly, crushed the cigarette in an ashtray in walked upstairs. It was like if nothing had happened. Kitty stared after her. Had she made a friend? Had Martha understood Kitty's strange desires and would support them for the remainder of this trainee weeks? Would she tell everyone? Would her school know? Why didn't Martha react? Was she used to strange, maybe even perverse things? Did she whip her husband, if she had any? Did she dress in rubber? Kitty's head was spinning.
The next day, Martha went on coughing. She got longer fits and returned with a red face everytime. From her hiding places, Kitty saw and heard her ending her fits by sounding like if she was getting a lung up. She didn't have the guts to follow after Martha so far this day, for some reason, but she noticed that Martha was shortly looking at her after having returned from each fit.
The owner, mr Boosman, a 35 year old, well-dressed man asked Martha to follow him down to check out the room at the store floor, downstairs, where all the empty bottles were kept. Kitty recalled that he often did that, actually every time he turned up which seemed to be twice or three times per week. She thought it was strange for the owner to care so much about empty bottles. Maybe he was collecting them to get money for them, she joked, when talking to another waitress about it. "Maybe, yes", the woman laughed. "Or someone else is getting money", she added. "How do you mean?", Kitty asked. "Nothing. Just kidding. I guess. I'm just glad that the boss isn't after younger women, not even those around his own age." She left.
Kitty added one to one and quickly went downstairs, silently. She went into the store next to the room where the bottles were kept. She'd noticed it was easy to hear what was going on in one store room from the next. She now noticed it was easy to watch it too - the thin, wooden walls had a few holes. She put an eye to one of the holes in the wall between this room and the bottle room and wondered if the people in there hadn't noticed the holes.
If they had, they couldn't ever be doing what they were doing. Martha's white waitress shirt was on a box of bottles, and her skirt and underpants were down around her feet while Mr Boosman was scr*wing her. His hands were under her bra. Martha's face was as uninterested as always, it was like if she was doing a boring work and nothing more. She coughed, looked uninterested, coughed, coughed again, looked uninterested and the man didn't notice. He was in another heaven. He fired his gun finally, got out from her, removed his protection kit, hid it in a small plastic bag, put it in his pocket, took his pants up from his feet, zipped, got some money out from his wallet, put them on Martha's shirt on that box, left without a word.
Martha coughed, right out. During the act, she'd been using her left hand as usual, and one time when it got really bad, both hands up over her nose and mouth. She coughed again. And again. Kitty had noticed how the boss hadn't even noticed that the woman had been almost coughing her lungs out over the floor while he was satisfying himself.
Martha pulled her underpants up and put them on. She coughed. Coughed again. And again. She pulled her skirt up over her knees. Coughed. Coughed again. And again. And again. Put the skirt on, put the money in the right pocket. She coughed again. Took a pack of cigarettes from the left pocket. Lit a cigarette, dragged with her eyes closed. She looked like if she was going to cry. She put the cigarette carefully on the top of a bottle and put her shirt on. She coughed. Coughed again. She buttoned the shirt. She sat down on a box. Smoked and coughed.
She didn't even look at Kitty as the girl opened the door, shut it behind her, sat down on another box after moving it up to Martha's, put an arm around her carefully. Martha turned her head away, coughed. Kitty pattered her on the back.
"You're a nice girl", Martha suddenly said quietly. She sounded like if she was going to cry. "I'm a poor woman and I need his bucks", she added. Kitty pretended like if she hadn't been watching. "What money?", she asked innocently. Martha coughed. Coughed again. Coughed again. Coughed again, leaning forward and Kitty almost thought she would through up, this last coughing was from so deep down.
"The whole restaurant probably knows it. You must know it too." "I know", Kitty admitted. "I was watching you through a hole in the wall." Martha looked up, astonished, looked at the wall and suddenly understood. "Oh my God", she gasped. "They've been watching us. Seen me almost naked."
"It's a nice sight", Kitty tried and used two double coughings from Martha as an excuse for placing her hand inside her shirt. "Martha... I want to be close to your cough and your smoky lungs, but I don't know why", Kitty whispered with her eyes closed. It almost hurt to get the message out.
"How much does he pay you for using you just as a ... tool?", Kitty asked. - "20 bucks each time, and it's twice a week in average I'd guess", Martha sighed and crushed her cigarette.
"At least 40 each week", Kitty replied. "I wish I could pay you so much. I'll work in the summers from next year and I've got some savings. I could at least get you 20 per week", she went on.
"For what?", Martha said and put her pack of cigarettes back in her pocket. "That would actually do", she added. "For just some smoking and coughing games", Kitty explained with her voice shivering. "Like yesterday. We could develop it further. I want you to cough over the whole of me. I want to touch you while you're coughing and I want to have my hands over your mouth sometimes."
"As long as you're not gonna scr*w me, I'd accept it. But I might lose my job if I say no to that bastard." "My Dad's the owner of Victoria", Kitty said shortly. "The pub?", Martha asked silently. "That's the one", Kitty said. "And I'm sure he won't scr*w you.", Kitty said.
The rest is history. Kitty felt like if she was owning a part of Martha's big, smoky lungs after the first six months of exchanging smoke, getting smoke breathed out over her face, receiving the woman's warm, wet cough over her face, in her hands, everything. And Martha loved their games too. She just dreamed about finding a man who'd like this too. She'd heard there might be one in Northern Europe, in Sweden she thought it was, but it would be too big a project to travel all the way. Or would it...?