ADDICTION: PIXIE DUST - GATHERING THE ACOLYTES
By uciboy
(2024)
PART ONE
Friday Evening
Victoria Gong lit a Virginia Slims 120 freehanded as she drove through the posh suburb towards the homes of her daughter's friends, Chris Forrest and Katie Vu. She removed the cigarette with her fingers and snapped the white ball in her mouth deep into her lungs. Within seconds, two creamy streams cascaded downwards through her nostrils.
Adjacent to her own middle class neighborhood, this particular community of Richmond, Virginia exuded the stench of new money. Not that she held any ill-will towards the inhabitants of these McMansions. As a child, Victoria loved riding her bike through these streets, dreaming of how she and her mother would one day move on up into the upper-class "white" neighborhood. Alas, that never happened. After Victoria's mother died, she inherited the single-family home and decided to remain where she was. After all, for a college student and a single mother just starting out in her twenties, it was a blessing to have a house that was already paid off. Not only that, the upper-class school district overlapping her street was top notch, nurturing the academic brilliance of her daughter, JoAnn, and paving the girl's way for her to be admitted into a private high school with a scholarship.
That high school, Robert E. Lee Academy, would now become the focal point to the plans about to unfold -- plans that, Victoria was certain, would change the world. After this mother had breathed in a handful of Pixie Dust while going undercover at the Phillip Morris Black Ops lab to cover a story for the online news magazine,
The Advocate,
she became a willing acolyte to the smoking cause. Indeed, by now everyone in her newsroom would be conceptualizing stories to promote the joy of smoking after she paid an earlier visit to her editor, Ron Barker, and handed him a large bag full of Pixie Dust balls to distribute to the staff and their families.
But there was still much to do. When Victoria agreed to assist the lab in converting the student body of her daughter's school into smokers, she understood that this would be more than just a controlled study of how teens would react to exposure of the Pixie Dust. Robert E. Lee Academy is an exclusive high school, admitting only 125 applicants per year out of the thousands who apply. The upper echelon of Richmond society sent their children there. What better way to bring about a smoking revolution than to start at the top of the social hierarchy? If Richmond was to become ground zero for this revolution, Robert E. Lee Academy would be its initial headquarters.
She and Kyle Bach, the Director of the Black Ops lab, had discussed how to bring those plans to fruition come Monday. But first there were some loose ends to tie up. Both Chris and Katie were back at her house, wrapped in the rapturous arms of nicotine addiction after JoAnn had exposed them both. Now their families would need to be brought into the fold. Chris' mother, an Assistant Director at the US State Department, and Katie's mother and uncle, both owners of a popular Karaoke club, would be useful in different ways. In the immediate future, however, their help would be needed the following Monday at Robert E. Lee Academy.
When Victoria had reached her destination, she paused in the middle of the street for a moment to ponder which of the two homes standing side by side to enter first. Katie's mom, she knew, was already a smoker. The real fun, therefore, lay in converting Chris' sister, Bella, who at 15 had not yet taken up the addiction herself. Victoria took a puff and then looked at her watch, letting the smoke waft out of her mouth before taking a sharp inhale. Bella's mother, Linda Forrest, always came home late from the 2 hour drive from DC. The teenager would therefore be alone. Victoria took another puff and smiled, drawing the smoke upwards into her nostrils in wave after wave from a devilish grin. With her decision made, she parked the car in Chris' driveway.
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"Aiee," a blond haired, thin teenager said upon opening the front door, using the Chinese honorific of "auntie" she had learned from her brother's girlfriend. "Chris isn't here. In fact, I think he's with JoAnn."
"Yes, Bella, I know," Victoria said as she walked through the door. She knew she didn't need to be asked in as she was close with the Forrest family. "In fact, he's at my home right now." Then she turned and added with a wink, "I'm actually here to see you."
"Me?" Bella asked in surprise as she closed the door.
Victoria walked towards the kitchen down a hallway, again needing no invitation to do so as she had been in this home many times to socialize with Chris' mother. "Is your Mom home?"
"No, not yet," the girl responded, following this houseguest down the hall.
When Victoria entered the kitchen and saw a clean ashtray sitting on top of a four seated round table, she smiled. "Let's have a chat, shall we?" she said, and proceeded to pull out her pack of Virginia Slims 120's and sat down on one of the chairs. Immediately she lit a long cigarette freehanded, illuminating the tip a fiery orange.
"Aiee, I didn't know you smoked!" the teenager exclaimed.
Bella was tall at 5'9" for her age. She had piercing blue eyes well framed with bangs over her forehead and straight blond hair which reached down to the nape of her neck in the back. She had the look of a European teenager straight out of a 1970s ABBA music video. Victoria didn't know what the ethnic origin of the surname Forrest was, but she always wondered if this family had Nordic blood flowing through their veins. Chris' mother, Linda, was a very sophisticated smoker when she held a Virginia Slims aloft, no doubt picked up from her years as an embassy employee who loved the café scene of Europe. Only now after her own joyful reconversion into a smoker did Victoria wonder why this beautiful teenager had not yet taken up the habit since Bella's svelte body and slender fingers were absolutely perfect for a 120.
"The question, Bella..." Victoria paused, tilted her head slightly upwards, and turned the 120's tip a bright orange with a cheek-hollowed puff which she inhaled deeply before exhaling a bubbly cone above the teenager's head, "...is why you haven't started?" She laid the pack and lighter on the table within easy reach of Bella's hand.
Bella appreciated the fact that Victoria had always treated her as an adult. She was like family. The fact that Bella was close to her, even calling her auntie in Chinese, was a contrast with how her brother kept some distance, even referring to her always as "Mrs. Gong."
Maybe he has a crush on her,
the teen often thought to herself.
She's certainly as beautiful as her daughter, JoAnn; and Chris always does act a bit nervous around her.
Yet despite the close relationship she had with this woman, Bella was still taken aback by the question of why she had not yet started smoking. "You know I'm only 15, right?"
Victoria grinned as she held the long cigarette just beyond her lips. "The perfect age to start." She brought the 120 to her mouth and slowly puffed, breathing in the smoke through her nose as she did so and then exhaling through her nostrils as she took a double pump. She was determined to make smoking look as beautiful and exciting as possible to entice this girl sitting next to her. "Haven't you ever wondered what it feels like?"
"Actually, Aiee," Bella said, "I have been thinking
a lot
about it." She then added in a whisper, "I'm not supposed to tell anyone this, but I think it's okay to share it with you seeing that you're a smoker now," she said with a glance at the cigarette between Victoria's fingers. "I was really surprised when Chris started smoking two years ago...."
"Wait," Victoria replied dumbstruck as she sat up straight in her chair, "Chris smokes?"