Both Samantha and I had quite small flats so we decided to start looking for something suitable for the two of us, but we would wait until she felt better. After coughing and coughing for two days, her rattlings got back to her normal style but she got a bad, sharp sound from somewhere inside her chest. I sometimes embraced her from behind and pressed my ear to her back to listen to those sounds. Sometimes, I "helped" her massaging her chest to feel the vibrations.

For various reasons, it actually took more than a month before we slept together a whole night. It was at her place, she first placed me in the sofa in her TV room for the night, but when we were going to bed she wanted me to sleep with her in her bed. So far, I hadn't been into her bedroom. She looked at me for a few seconds before opening the door, it was like if she hesitated to let me in there.
- Sorry, I forgot, can I just clean things up a bit in here, she said and looked embarrassed. I had never seen her look embarrassed before.
- Of course, I said and went back to the TVV room. She closed the bedroom door behind her and I couldn't hear what she was doing, except for that she got a coughing fit. She came out after a short while, still coughing. She was now wearing a black sort of morning gown.
- I wanted to... well, clean up a bit as I said, but... well, I decided to leave it as it is, it would just take too much time, she said, still apparently embarrassed. She took my hand and we went into the bedroom.

The bed is a bit too narrow for two, she said. Well, I had imagined her sleeping in a wider sort of bed for some reason, but she of course understood the bed wasn't any bigger surprise compared to the rest. Balloons! Red and black balloons, most of them round, a few oval. Probably 10-15 of them.
- Aha, I said shortly, I didn't really knoww what to say. Then I saw another balloon moving under the bed, it was pink instead of red or black. The little "knob" on its end catched my eye. It was red instead of pink. Lipstick! Sam looked terrible embarrassed when she realized that this special one came out from its hiding place by itself. Like in panic, she fell on her knees to put it back but started to cough at the same time. She coughed intensively right out, which caused three pink balloons to be blown out from under the bed, on the other side. I took one them and looked at that red end.
- Lipstick, she said.
I just looked at her, then at the balloon again. My astonishment had calmed down a bit and I felt this was something really exciting. - Beautiful colour, I said and we both started to laugh. Samantha looked relieved and sat down on the bed, took my hand to make me sit down beside her. She sighed and cupped both her hands up over her nose and mouth and closed her eyes.
- OK..., she said and took her hands away, - Betty and I are NOT what you first thought. But, as she expressed it, we PLAY. She... she adores sucking on these skin-coloured balloons. It's she who has a good taste for lipsticks. Do you know that's a really expensive brand? I had to admit I knew nothing about lipstick brands.
- So she sucks on your balloons? And maybe.... you know... I opened her gown and caressed her on the lower part of her chest to explain but I meant. Samantha sighed again.
- OK, OK, OK. Let's take this from the begiinning. She and I knew each other before I got employed where I work now. It was actually Betty who recommended me. You see, I started studying first at the age of 32, and she directly after school. We did some computer labs together at the university and got along well together, well, we then became good friends. It's more than ten years between us, you know, but it doesn't matter at all. Anyway, a year ago, we met for a coffee at a cafe, it was then she told me that she felt so interested in me when I coughed. Of course, I had no idea what she meant, but I didn't feel annoyed or so, so I simply asked her to explain. But, she couldn't really find the words on what she felt, so I tried to help her. I tried to find the proper questions for her to answer to define what she felt, and after I while I asked her; "what would you like to do when I cough, then?" (Samantha coughed for about five seconds, turning her head)
She said, I would like you to cough in my hand and I want to... to touch your chest.
Samantha interrupted herself. - So it's bit more serious, or how should II put it, than we wanted to tell you that time when we were drinking wine with you in the smoker's room.
- And the balloons?, I asked.
- Well, she brought one and asked if she coould caress my chest with it, and she did. That was the first time I saw her... hmmm... well, reach her goal, if you know what I mean.
I nodded. - Then, when she was here for a glass of wine an evening, it was the day after her birthday, I had brought all these balloons as a birthday gift. I mean, you know, I was the gift really more than the balloons.
Samantha sighed and closed her eyes. - I must have a cigarette, she said and got up. We went back to the TV room and sat down.

- Well, what happened was that ... to just spit it out, it was my idea with the pink balloons. Her pants must have been wet all the way through from playing with me with the red and black balloons when I picked up two pinks and told her to put some lipstick on her lips. She soon... as I said, reached her goal, and even if it hadn't been a goal for me, I... I reached it too, Samantha said and looked down. She took a deep drag on her cigarette and for the first time I saw her nose exhale. Shen then looked me into my eyes.
- Am I crazy?
Since I didn't know what to say, I simply gave her a long, deep kiss instead. She tasted cigarette smoke like if she just had smoked five at a time, and I got really excited from feeling her exhale from her nose in my face while breathing heavily during the kiss.

Samantha finished her cigarette and we went back into the bedroom, down into the bed. She had taken her gown off and she turned out to the wear nothing under it. As soon as we've got there, she turned around and started to cough. She then turned back again and lie down on her back. I was about to kiss her when she again started to cough. She quickly put her long, elegant fingers over her mouth, and I got an idea and grabbed a balloon to massage her chest. I think she got a little of her smoky mucus coughed up, but just a bit, because her next inhale pulled it back again and she got a reflex to sit up in the bed. She coughed intensively in her hand and bent forward so I couldn't really move the balloon I had been rubbing on her chest. I could just rub it little to the left and to the right, over and over again, so her sweet breasts got a little massage by it.
- Please, stop it, stop it, she almost shouuted when she could talk again.
- Sorry, don't you like it? I felt surpriseed and almost a little confused.
I was about to take that balloon away, but I couldn't resist quickly rubbing her between her breasts first, and then she... as she used to express it, "reached her goal".
She got up from the bed, put her gown on and sat down in the sofa, in the TV room again to have another cigarette. She looked irritated.
- Come on, I said. Do you really think I woould believe that you were keeping all those balloons in your bedroom just because Betty used to like them? She closed her eyes and nose exhaled.
- Ahaaa, nose exhaling again, I smiled to mmake her think of anything else, but she didn't say a word.
- OK, you've revealed your little specialitty, even if I don't know whether you really wanted to or not, but I'll tell you about mine. I moved close to her and whispered in her ear.
- I ADORE your smoker's cough. I love the wwhole of you even without it, but everytime you cough, I feel like in heaven.
She seemed to calm down a bit. - You're right, she said. - I never nose exhale. Only if I'm upset or irritated, or maybe when I'm angry.
- Aha, I said, - and which are you know? I whispered, tease her a little.
- Shut up, she said, talking out some smokee. She then smiled, dragged on the cigarette and kissed me with the smoke in her lungs.