Light A Cigarette

The reporter grit her teeth. Naked, wet and dripping, in her apartment with an invisible assailant. She didn't know who they were or what their game was, but Lois Lane did know that last time she had seen a shape in the smoke...

But this is what she wants, Lois thought as she edged toward the pack of cigarettes and matches. There was an odd, queasy feeling in her stomach as she shook a long slim cigarette from the pack, opened the box to rattle out a match.

Half-formed plans went through the reporter's mind. If she could fill the room with smoke...but then she'd have to smoke the cigarette, which is what this person wanted her to do. Nasty habit, cigarettes Lois thought as she struck the match against the side of the box. The little yellow flame leaped up...she brought the tip of the cigarette down and inhaled gently, letting it catch.

Nicotine was a ****, like any other. Lois knew about that. What it did to your lungs, your voice and teeth. Some women liked it because it suppressed appetite; or at least they kept putting on weight when they quit, needing the mouth-feel. Her mother had been more explicit about it.

Good girls don't smoke, because smoking leads to sucking cock.

As a young woman, Lois had been mortified at her mother's words—and, maybe, a little excited. Her dreams still occasionally went back to cigarettes as phallic objects. Anything long and cylindrical you put in your mouth...Lex Luthor had offered her a cigar once, and Lois had turned him down. She had no doubt that smoking one pole would have led to smoking another.

The reporter coughed, unused to the smoke, waved her hands. There wasn't enough smoke in the room, not yet. It had been different in the bathroom, because it was smaller. Here, the smoke had so much more space to fill, and it stung her eyes.

Yet somehow Lois felt herself putting the cancer stick back between her lips.

"Careful Lois," the voice said, full of amusement. "Those can be habit forming."