Joanne and her Cigars Pt. 03

It was not so long ago that the thought of everyone in the room looking at me would have given me an anxiety attack. Yet here I was, in front of family and friends, boldly smoking a big cigar, and I felt not nervousness, but something quite the opposite. In today's parlance, I felt "like a boss." Taking a really slow drag, I closed my eyes as the smoke filled my mouth and then slowly exhaled. And so my cigar adventure continued.

Fran and Mary, two of my sister's best girlfriends walked up to me with smiles on their faces. These girls were the epitome of coolness-chartered members of the "in-crowd." Usually they ignored me, or merely tolerated me because of my being Jenny's big sis. Now they absolutely wanted to bask in my presence.

"That smells pretty nice, Joanne." Mary was obviously intrigued by the cigar. "Do you mind if I try a puff?"

Both of the girls giggled as I handed over the cigar. Taking a tentative puff, Mary played with the smoke before blowing it out. She then took another drag and passed the cigar to Fran as she triumphantly exclaimed, "I didn't know what I was missing out on Joanne! I expected cigars to taste like shit, but that was way better than any cigarette. Even better than shisha."

Fran took her turn,having a couple of puffs before handing me back my cigar.

"Not bad, Joanne, but I think I'll stick with my Camels for now."

By now, many of the girls had surrounded me, most of them wanting to try my cigar. As I was more interested in smoking than sharing, I told them that there were around 15 more cigars in my pocketbook, and that anyone interested could try their own cigar-on the condition that, if they started one, they had to smoke at least half of the cigar. These weren't inexpensive, after all.

The cameras were having a field day as everyone seemed to be snapping pictures of the girls trying cigars. The ladies all seemed to have their own style, some trying to mimic the tough-guy stereotype of cigar smokers, others realizing what I knew in my bones, that cigar smoking can have a very seductive aspect. I took notice that none of the guys had picked up a cigar, but that they were all in thrall watching the girls smoke. And I could tell that most of them were very obviously turned on by all of these cigar smoking ladies.

There were, of course, some looks of disapproval from a few of the girls' mothers and, in particular, from my friend Susan's mom. I made it a point to walk over to her and offer her her own cigar.

"I would never . . . " she hissed.

"Don't knock it till you've tried it, Mrs. Barton." I blew a plume of smoke in her direction, feeling like I was in total control of the situation.

"From the look of things, your husband certainly wouldn't object. He can't take his eyes off of us."

Mrs. Barton bristled and walked away. "Fuck her if she doesn't like it," I thought. I determined then and there to make Susan my cigar buddy just to piss her mother off. "All women should have this feeling of empowerment," I said to myself, "We are boss bitches and we smoke our cigars wherever and whenever we please. And men will be putty in our hands." The thought made me wet.

"Joanne, these are fucking great. Really great!"

It was Jenny. She was a picture of hotness, the cigar dangling just-so-prettily from her red lips. "Fuck the cigarettes, these are my new addiction. Thanks, big sis."

I felt a hand on my shoulder and, turning, I saw my maternal grandmother looking at me with a huge smile. I hadn't really expected any of my relatives to be happy with my cigar smoking, but my grandmother always seemed like she was open-minded, and I could tell that she had been lots of fun when she was young.

"Hi Gram. What do you think?"

I dramatically took a big puff and blew out some pretty decent smoke rings into the air. Gram smiled as she took my arm and walked me behind one of the tables.

"I think it's wonderful that a young lady feels free to smoke a cigar nowadays. When I was young, it would have been scandalous to smoke them in public."

She then winked at me as I blew another smoke plume.

"I'll let you in on a little secret, dear. As you know, your grandfather smoked cigars his whole life. But what you didn't know was that I have a little experience with cigars too."

This was completely unexpected. The thought of my sweet grandmother smoking cigars in her youth cracked me up. I laughed and took another drag.

"Tell me more, mystery woman."

"Well, I actually would never have thought of smoking anything on my own. I was never even curious. But your grandfather wanted me to try smoking cigars. He was rather insistent, in fact."

"Wait a minute, Gram. Do you mean to tell me that you smoked cigars, that Grandpa even encouraged it, but that Mom never knew about it? Why . . ."

"Your mother never knew because I didn't do it in front of her. I could never have. In fact, I only smoked cigars with your grandfather in the privacy of our bedroom. He . . ."

My mind whirled. In a way, this was TMI, but in another way, it was interesting. Grandpa was turned on by Gram smoking cigars! Too much.

"Keep that to yourself dear. I think I might have said too much."

"Your secret is safe with me Gram. Now, how about a cigar? For my birthday."

"No dear, I'll pass for now."

Jenny returned to my side. I could tell that she was thoroughly enjoying this experience.

"Let's get some pictures of the two of us, Joanne. We'll put them on Instagram tomorrow."

The next thing I knew, Jenny and I, cigars dangling from our lips, were being photographed by half the people in the room. The other girls smoking cigars joined us for a few more pics, and we all had lots of fun vamping it up for the cameras.

"Let's have a family shot, you and your sister and your Mom."

It was Greg, my cousin Janie's boyfriend. He had been enthusiastically snapping pictures and he wanted some "special shots," as he put it.

My sister enthusiastically agreed and put her arm around my shoulder as she steadied the cigar in her mouth.

"Come on Mom, let's go," I said.

Mom came over and got between Jennie and me as we puffed our cigars. Mom, at first acting like she was swatting away the smoke, then said, "well my daughters, if you can't beat them, join them. Someone bring me a smoke."

Minutes later, Greg was snapping furiously away on his camera as my mother, my sister, and me puffed our cigars and dangled them, putting on quite the show. I loved the whole thing and was happy that this great moment in my life was actually happening. I said aloud, "I love cigars. Love, love, love them."

* * *

And that was the caption that appeared on Sunday morning below one of the pictures that appeared in our local newspaper. The accompanying article was titled "Local girls take up cigar smoking."

As Jenny and I perused the article, we smiled proudly. We simultaneously blew smoke rings in each other's direction.

"I love you Joanne. And I love smoking cigars. What a great thing this will be for us."

"Same here Jenny. We have discovered something very special that we need to share with all the girls we know. Real women smoke cigars. And if anybody doesn't like it, fuck 'em."